Starling Hunter, over at The Business of America is Business is hosting this week’s Bonfire of the Vanities, in which he asks, “Why is this the worst post of the week?” Hey, he said my post was thoughtful… I’m just glad he didn’t notice it was rambling too.
Just one more small step in my master plan to take over the moon (“It’s a lunatic plan.”)
Update: Oh, so that’s my problem….
… or is it this?
Note: This article has been updated multiple times, because I made a total hash out of posting it early. This is now the finalized version. Apologies to all both my readers.
Recently, the SEIU ran a highly touted (by them, anyway) nationwide contest, soliciting great new ideas to work towards. They even set up a website for it.
Since Sliced Bread seeks ideas that are original and creative, have the best chance of practical success and would most effectively:
- Grow the economy
- Create good-paying jobs that allow people to raise a family, afford health insurance, pay for their children’s college education, get additional training and save for retirement
- Encourage existing companies to expand and entrepreneurs to start new ones.
Finally, keep in mind who should benefit from the ideas — whom this contest is about.
Since Sliced Bread is also changing the way Washington works. It’s an unprecedented effort to give ordinary Americans — people who are rarely asked for ideas on how to fix the economy — the chance to offer theirs. We’re serious about wanting to change the way policy ideas emerge.
Since Sliced Bread is so serious about finding and rewarding good ideas that a panel of respected thinkers and community leaders will choose 21 finalists and public voting will determine the top three ideas.
Update: all of them are now up, with comments.
The SEIU solicited the ideas late last year, spent a month parsing 22,000 of t them down to the 21 “best” to be voted on during Round One, and posted them on the 9th of this month. The response was overwhelming — overwhelmingly negative, that is. Over three hundred comments proceeded to rip, shred, tear, and even fold, spindle, and mutilate the selections. The SEIU was stunned, and Andy Stern, SEIU bigwig wrote:
I confess — I’m a bit surprised at the hostility meeting the 21 ideas announced yesterday morning. Let’s take a minute to appreciate the work of the 21 people who are finalists – they are amazing ideas that deserve discussion and consideration. Please take time to cast your vote – and encourage other people to vote, too.
In a contest like this, you have to make some hard choices. Every single idea was reviewed at least twice – even the thousands of ideas submitted in the final hours of the contest. Not everyone can be a winner in a contest like this. There are so many good ideas, we’d like to figure out how to recognize and encourage more of them. I’ve asked the folks at SinceSlicedBread.com to put together an online chat to get your feedback about how to recognize some of the innovative ideas that did not make it to the final round. Stay tuned for details….
And the response to that hasn’t exactly been positive either. Comments below the fold:
So far, I have seen only the first ten episodes, on 2 DVD’s. The menus are good – a bit slow to get to the point, because of animation, but it’s good stuff, and very clear. Music is a plus; the opener and closer are both catchy romantic tunes, and the soundtrack during action shots obviously makes use of a “bass choir” (if there’s a technical term for it, I don’t know what it is) overlaying a good electronic score. The animation is good; underwater landscapes are detailed, and interiors have an authentic worn and rusty look to them. You can look at areas in Adena and know the place is run down and economically blighted.
Voice acting in the Japanese version is outstanding, but avoid the English dub like the plague. They made a horrible, horrible choice for Lt. Vestemona, and she’s the major female lead. Her seiyu comes across as a whiney, bitchy, little twit. I’ve heard more lethargic delivery, but never more revolting. It took all of five lines spoken by her before I cried “Uncle!!!” and switched to the Japanese voice track. It was bad enough to make me cheer her rival Enora on.
Character design is good, with the possible exception (again, unfortunately) of Lt. Vestemona; I am bad about face recognition, and her changes in hair color and styling from on duty to off gave me problems. For some reason, when she’s off duty and lets her hair down, the animators tend to color it more brown, especially in dim light, and that threw me. It wouldn’t have if I’d paid more attention to the opening credits. There’s a beautiful fade there, that highlights her inner conflict over being back on Mars, let alone the other little problem she discovers there.
Gram is fairly typical, just a good-looking hero, but the designers avoided the easy trap of making Captain Elizibeth look too sexy to be the leader or Enora vampish enough to ring false. Bon, Gram’s young friend, is missing a tooth, which helps drive home that these people are poor; neither we nor they can take their health or dental hygine for granted. Life’s hard. Talking cats and robots with an attitude? Done to death. But a talking porpoise that walks around in a robot suit? A bit different.
And that really summarizes Mars Daybreak. There’s not a lot that’s original; it’s one clichè after another. (Edit: it is based on a computer game, after all!) Take a “true prince” story. Hide it under a science-fiction sea pirate adventure. Tuck in political intrigue, revolutionary movements, and a love triangle involving the true prince and two strong-willed women who shouldn’t have anything to do with him, but instead have everything to do with him. Don’t forget to make the pirates be Robin Hood-like heroes, then add a few plucky kids, mecha combat, psychic girls, touchy robots, ancient mysteries, a treasure waiting to be found, a revolutionary leader, double agents, “sea-witches,” talking animals, mercenary bad-guys, manipulative politicians, and a few crackpots. Stir vigorously.
Edit: grrr, sorry about the lack of pictures for the first three hours. Stupid thing will show them in my preview, but not after posting, unless I put a fully qualified URL in the link. Anyway, it’s fixed now. Click on the pics for the full size.
Winds of Change has the news–several high ranking Iranian army officers, including the leader of the Revolutionary Guard (just appointed 3 months ago), have died in an odd crash. Odd in that the plane had to make an emergency landing — and then the landing gear wouldn’t work.
Tigerhawk and his commenters have some interesting points, especially the Debka report.
Hat tip to PajamasMedia.
Over at BlogHouston, Kevin has noted the Chronicle is up to its usual standards of reporting: If you can’t attack the death penalty, attack the people who are responsible for prosecuting the crimes. I’m not about to excuse the HPD lab, but where exactly in this reportdid they find the part about investigators being concerned that the DA’s office might be colluding with the lab to supress evidence in favor of the defendant?
That behavior raised suspicion among investigators of collusion between technicians and law enforcement in manipulating case evidence. A new report Bromwich issued cites “a disturbing and pervasive pattern” in which analysts failed to report findings that would have helped defendants, including several now facing execution.
This may be an editorial, but it doesn’t excuse making something up. Me? Well, certainly I am concerned about it, and I’m sure the editorialist is concerned. In fact, I don’t doubt that the investigators are concerned that it’s possible — only a lunatic statist wouldn’t be. But only a newspaper that has had a major breakdown in it’s vaunted system of checks and balances — or is fundamentally dishonest — can put words in the mouths of the investigators, or add to the report words that aren’t there.
San Diego city pension fund in trouble, indictments handed down.
A federal grand jury indicted the former top executive of the San Diego pension system, its lawyer and three former trustees on conspiracy and fraud charges yesterday in the opening salvo in the federal government’s latest corruption probe at City Hall.
Law enforcement sources said the indictments are the first part of a far-reaching criminal investigation that could stretch into the highest levels of a city government already reeling from multiple scandals.
This is not something to make city employees feel really confident in the integrity of their own system, especially given that it’s likely to become a key battleground again in the future.
h/t to RedState.
Last week, the SEIU claimed victory in its organizing drive, saying that it now has obtained a majority of the city employees’ signatures and is ready to begin representing them through the collective bargaining process. This is only possible because, prior to the last legislature changing the law, city employee unions (other than police and fire) were not allowed to represent the employees collectively. They could assist with individual cases, such as appeals and legal challenges, but AFSCME (the long-time employee union) couldn’t bargain collectively, no matter how many employees joined it. And needless to say, they didn’t, since it was useless.
Two things changed that: the legislature, and the SEIU breaking with the AFL-CIO over its lack of organizing activity. AFSCME found itself being displaced before they could do more than think about challenging the status quo. Now the SEIU claims it has met the threshhold (a majority of employees) and is ready to represent them at the bargaining table. “Not so fast,” say several other parties. First, AFSCME contends that the SEIU doesn’t qualify to represent anyone yet, because they only have signatures. The law requires that they actually have the employees as dues-paying members; said dues being paid through payroll deductions coming out of the employee’s paychecks. And that cannot happen until after there is a citywide election in which the employees vote whether or not they want to be represented by the SEIU.
Representative Kevin Bailey, D-Houston, long a good friend of the AFL-CIO, agrees that was the intent of the legislature. I find that logical (and unsurprising, considering the link), but I find it odd that the law does not make it clear. The city claims it is neutral in this legal dispute. And I have this bridge for sale.
Apparently the Chronicle’s Washington bureau ran out of bad things to say about Tom DeLay, so today’s not-news comes from Janet Elliott of the Austin bureau. Since the Justice Department hasn’t yet produced a smoking gun (or even a smoking cigarette) to link Tommy-boy to some dirty cash, she gets tapped to inform us of Ronnie Earle’s latest fishing expedition: some of Abramoff’s clients donated money to groups linked to DeLay, so by golly, he supoenaed the records!
The group raised $2.5 million from three Abramoff clients, including $1 million from Russian businessmen, the Post reported. Abramoff worked with Buckham to organize a 1997 trip to Moscow by DeLay.
Neither Buckham nor Geeslin could be reached for comment.
Buckham’s lobbying firm, the Alexander Strategy Group, employed DeLay’s wife, Christine, paying her $115,00 during three years. DeLay’s lawyers have said she was paid to determine the favorite charities of members of Congress.
While I’m not defending this sort of thing, I am puzzled as to why it’s only news when Republicans do it. Where do you think all those “Institutes for The Liberal Cause of the Moment” come from, anyway? And where do their “fellows” and “directors” go during Democratic administrations?
(Personal note: I hope Ronnie doesn’t subpoena me for any records of “in-kind” donations to the 1980 Reagan campaign, where I worked as an unpaid volunteer. I totally forgot to get a receipt. I mean, Reagan is sure to have known some people who know some businessmen who gave to Tom DeLay. . . .)
But I’m really posting to draw your attention to Nick Danger’s post over on RedState.com There he reaches back to a 2001 post from the incredible and sexy (drool!) Michelle Malkin, to shed some light on just what Abramoff might have been doing when he disbursed all that money from the Indian tribes –it may not have been theirs to start with:
Over at Blog Houston, there was a brief discussion (about the press responbility for the “Dewey Defeats Truman” fiasco in West Virginia the other day) that got kind of lively when a Chronicle reporter dropped in to mildly complain that we of the blogsphere weren’t being fair. At least that’s how I interpret her comment.
Needless to say, she didn’t get much sympathy, but reading the replies has prompted me to return to the subject to make a point that it seems everyone is missing here. Let me say in advance that I am not apologizing for the press or defending them when I say this, but it truly appears that the whole thing had its roots in poor procedures followed by the mining company. Party A didn’t communicate the situation clearly; party B heard party A over a speakerphone and called Party C who was at the church with the relatives of the lost miners; the press got hold of the rumor, and it snowballed from there.
I’d like take this opportunity to point out that what this means is that the press has become it’s own worst enemy. Broadcast media in particular, must fill the airwaves with something. They’ll use fancy graphics, stock footage, whatever “expert” they can stick in front of a camera, and when all else fails, the anchors and reporters will gab, gab, gab to each other. In fact, the on-scene reporters do so much of that, I question if they have time to do any actual, you know, investigative reporting. So if any rumor comes their way, no matter how outlandish or unsubstantiated, they’ll report it as news, just to fill the time. Nielson forbid that the viewer get bored and leave!
Steven Den Beste has a different sort of blond joke here.
If you’re looking for a more run-of-the-mill joke, the Chronicle published a newspaper again today. . . . and Bennet Roth now informs us that anonymous aides to equally anonymous Republican ‘House Leaders’ think that putting DeLay back in as Majority Leader might not be a good idea, what with the ‘Black Jack’ scandals being sure to make him look bad. (How it isn’t going to make other Republican — and Democrat — leaders look just as bad is a mystery he doesn’t explain.)
Well, thanks Chronicle. Seeing as most political pundits I pay attention to were of the opinion that DeLay wasn’t getting his job back before the news broke, truly, this was front page news again. On the bright side, considering the quality sourcing (almost as good as your average CIA leak), the Chronicle is being nothing if not consistant with today’s press standards. Or as Instapundit put it the other day:
If bloggers had made these kinds of mistakes, Big-Media folks would be pointing them out as evidence that the blogosphere can’t be trusted. But where were all those editors, filters, and fact-checkers?
Personally, I think they were out having lunch with Cindy Sheehan and Ronnie Earle.
The Houston Chronicle… all the rumors fit to print.
Too. Damn. Funny. Niven was wrong, there is justice in the world.
After having their daughter give her life in a misguided attempt to assist Palestinians in keeping their weapon-transit tunnels open, Rachel Corrie’s parents might have labored under a perception that the Palestinians might have some gratitude for their sacrifice … or at least prove themselves worthy of her death on their behalf. Instead, to show just how civilized they can act when they have their own territory, members of the ruling Fatah faction tried to kidnap the Corries as they also blew up part of the Gaza-Sinai border, killing two guards:
I dunno, Steven… what do you do when someone you hate screws over someone you hate just as much?
Yes, this is still Houblog. I’ve been experimenting with the appearance of the blog — it’s needed spiffing up for some time. The default appearance was, um… very default. Anyway, I hope you like it! I will still be playing with it from time to time, and may rotate the picture at the top. And there just might be a few more changes around the corner, who knows?
Well, the report is out, and “isn’t pretty” is rather accurate. I only caught parts of the noon news brief, but here’s the quick and dirty:
Over 1,000 cases reviewed.
20% of serology tests had problems. Serology is an older technology that was replaced by DNA testing.
40% of DNA tests had problems. Three are death penalty cases.
There was some mention of the Ballistics lab but I didn’t catch if it was positive or negative.
Now, “problems” doesn’t mean the test was wrong, but it does mean it very well could be. The odds are that at least one of those cases has an error that brings the evidence into question. We are not being served well by a bureacracy that impeaches the very system of justice we depend on in this country. This isn’t a CSI drama, it’s a comedy of errors. I’m a big fan of the death penalty, but not if the evidence used to convict cannot be depended on. And I have to say, if I were on a DP case right now, I’d not support that for a penalty.
Update: Chronicle article here.
In unrelated news, the Danger Train scores again. This time it got a bicyclist. No word on whether it was due to an illegal left turn or not.
Update: According to this report, it wasn’t a bicyclist (there goes KHOU again, getting it wrong….) It was a blind man. Laurence has details on the METRO plan to prevent such accidents in the future.
Well, the big stink in the press today is ‘how did the media start circulating reports that the 12 miners had survived and one died, when actually, the opposite was true?‘ I have one of those “happy newsâ€? Chronicles, but for once I won’t blame them for getting it wrong; every news organization in the nation had it wrong. Steven Den Beste says that it’s a reporter who misheard it and spread the bad info, but he doesn’t source that. On the other hand, the Chronicle says, per the W.Va. governor CEO of the mining company:
Hatfield said the erroneous information spread rapidly when people overheard cell phone calls between rescuers and the rescue command center. In reality, rescuers had confirmed finding 12 miners and were checking their vital signs, he said.
When you find someone dead, how do you confirm they’re dead? I mean aside from Mystery Men “I don’t think he’s going to pull through!â€? level of trauma. You check their vitals. So, someone overheard the rescuers following procedure by checking vital signs, and jumped to a conclusion: “Oh, they must be alive, if they’re checking vitals!â€? Which anyone might do, but obviously someone was in a bit of a hurry to spread the news. But I can’t just fault the press for this one. Part of the company disaster plan should be to designate one person as the official spokesman, and make it clear to the family and press that all news comes from this person, and only this person. The families have to be told, “Don’t listen to the press. It’s not real unless this person says it.”
Updated after the fold:
Continue reading
Steven Den Beste slips up again and for the second time in a month, posts a semi-serious subject on Chizumatic. (Blogging is an addiction, isn’t it? Looks like someone’s slipping off the wagon.) Although this post is scientific, rather than political, it’s still an interesting look at why flywheels aren’t so great for energy storage after all.
Even though he said not to nitpick with “it would work if we tried. . .” suggestions, I just can’t resist. You see, I think it just might work– really! We simply need to use scrith for the bearings and flywheel. Nothing like a material that’s more frictionless than teflon and stronger than carbon nanotubes.
(Not to mention entirely fictional. So — in case you’re too humor-impaired to notice, this post is very much tongue-in-cheek.)