From an otherwise okay article on Reuters today:

“If (this jet-stream shift) is going to stop and it just ends up being 70 miles, that’s not a big deal,” he said. “But if it were to continue at the same rate over the next century, then that would amount to a couple of hundred miles (kilometers) and that would start to have significant effects.”

sigh

I try to avoid posting links that are making the rounds, because I don’t like being redundant. I doubly try to avoid posting political links that are making the rounds, because the word ‘politics’ is already big and honking and red up there in the righthand corner. But I feel that this story is of particular note, and an important watershed that I want to emphasize.

Have you been hearing the stories about the Iranian government preparing a law to require Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to wear specially-colored clothing? Maybe heard it picked up in one or two “news” outfits? I did. And it really struck me as odd. I am very much not a fan of fundamentalist religious governments, especially explicit autocracies such as Iran. But this sort of action was so blatant, so obviously … impolitic that I felt it kind of hard to swallow. Only the need to maintain an air of ‘not paranoid-delusional’ kept me from flat-out denying it instantly.

Well, turns out the story is demonstrably false. It is, in fact, so easily verified as false - one search in Google news would have debunked the story - that any reporting organization that has chosen to make news of it is instantly of suspect motivation.

Or, at least, methods. I’m reminded of this article from the March 2006 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review:

[The Pentagon Information Operations Roadmap, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, stated that] “psyop messages . . . will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public.” The Smith-Mundt Act, signed into law in 1948, was designed to prevent the American people from being targeted with propaganda meant for foreign audiences (specifically, it prohibited the broadcast of the Voice of America within the U.S.). But technology has rendered it effectively moot.

I know this is probably, uh, old news by now. But more than the executive branch playing the same old game of abusing source confidentiality to plant political cover stories or even fake journalists who suspiciously receive coveted White House access, the idea that our military is knowingly planting overtly fake news with the understanding that they will sway political opinion inside the United States disturbs me to the very core. Combine this admission of complicity with an environment in which it’s clear that the incentives to produce verifiably accurate journalism are greatly diminished, both for resource and legal concerns, and we have a complete evaporation of the news media’s privilege as the (delegated) ‘fourth estate.’ I’d say that now, as much as any time before, in any country on earth, the onus is on each and every citizen to not only question, but to use the unprecedented tools at our disposal to actively verify everything we hear, see, or read. And then, if we find something that doesn’t jibe with the official story, it is our responsibility to ensure the counter-meme rises to as great or greater prominence as the fake story itself, lest the vague impression of past lies be used as cover for another military misadventure.

• Lousiana congressman William Jefferson (D-New Orleans) is the subject of a recently released FBI affadavit detailing evidence of extensive corruption, allegedly receiving millions of dollars in bribes to help promote or accelerate the regulatory approval of a variety of business dealings. He is said to have stored nearly $100,000 in cash in his freezer. [Link]

• Finnish cartoon death metal band, a parody of itself that has become an extremely divisive issue in their native country, won the European music competition known as ‘Eurovision Song Contest,’ beating out competitors from dozens of genres representing countries across Europe. When they entered, a Finnish member of the European Parliament was quoted as saying that “Lordi could embarass Finland when it takes the EU presidency in July 2006.” About their win, the lead singer says: “It just goes to show that Europe is not such a bad place.” [Link]

• The New York Stock Exchange, itself a recent entry into the realm of the publicly traded, has made what is now the frontrunning offer for the European exchange ‘EuroNext.’ In doing so it has leapfrogged several suitors, including the German Deutsche Börse, and looks poised to take control of the largest platform for exchange of European corporate equities. [Link]

• Financial speaker Larry Williams, who claims to be “the only futures trader in the world to repeatedly trade $1 million of his own money live at seminars around the globe” was arrested in Australia on charges of evading the taxes due on proceeds from his ten books - “nine on futures and stock trading and one on the true whereabouts of Mount Sinai.” [Link]

New survey data and poll results have been combined to create a much much more blue map of the US:

This is hilarious. Apparently the BBC anchorwoman was supposed to be interviewing a computer expert named Guy Kewney. However, another man named Guy (a perpesctive employee arriving for an interview [thanks lukas]), was ushered into the building and onto the set. Someone goofed and mistakenly thought the perspective employee Guy was the computer expert Guy.

Watch the wrong Guy’s bewildered expression as he hears the anchorwoman say Guy Kewney’s name. Amazingly, he sticks with it and gives his opinion of music downloads. Bravo Guy. Bravo.

AT&T’s and Verizon have been arguing that they should be allowed to charge differential rates for differential network performance. This is the most cogent refutation of their arguments I’ve read thus far, and a clever reframing of the debate:

Nothing stops AT&T and Verizon proceeding with their non-neutral networks.They just can’t label their offers Internet access. We call non-neutralnetworks - private networks. There already exists a market for privateconnectivity serving needs not addressed by the public Internet. AT&T andVerizon can pitch their various ideas about quality of service to theproviders of commercial Internet content like Google as well as theirrespective end user customers. AT&T and Verizon already have a portfolio ofprivate network offers only the attempt to frame them as some sort of”enhanced” Internet access is new.

Here’s the whole piece.

Each year an MIT dorm called Bexley unintentionally(?) finds new and innovative ways to get in trouble with some element of ‘the Administration.’ These transgressions are inevitably followed by some ludicrous threat, such as removing all prospective freshmen from the dorm or forcing some subset of the dorm’s residents to relocate. This year, though, seems to have taken the cake - because of an unbounded and frankly poorly thought-out fine schedule, they were hit with a penalty of “$1.4e19″ or 14 Quintillion dollars. That’s the highest dollar figure I’ve ever seen someone write and expect to be taken seriously - outside of Dopewars, of course.

Text of the indictment below:

On April 25th, the ASA executive board sent an official warning that
massive postering violations for Beast Roast had occurred. Due to the
excessiveness of the violation, we required the offending posters to be removed by the next day. The next morning, board members noted that a few violations remained, but since there was a good faith effort to follow the rules, we decided not to fine the dorm at that point. However, a day later, we were dismayed to find rampant violations again and to receive emails from several groups as to Bexley’s illegal postering, including concerns that Bexley poster-ers may have pulled down other groups’ posters in order to poster so thoroughly. … According to our poster violation fine schedule, which is posted at http://web.mit.edu/asa/www/public-postering.shtml and was also emailed to you, the cost of 59 posters all in violation of postering guidelines is $1.4e19. If we instead count only each board as a violation, there would be 10 separate violations for a total fine of X value that I don’t remember, as the fine doubles for every additional violation. Even if the fine only increments $25 for each additional set of violations, the total fine would be $44,250. …

Funny enough, when I received this email, I happened to be in the middle of an article on arithmetic overflows.

Americans United for Change has just released a new video spot featuring George the first and George Jr. The clips show each of them saying that leaks of classified information are “bad things” (George Jr’s words) and that those leaking the information are “the most insidious of traitors” (George the first’s words).The twist, of course, being that Libby’s testimony suggests that the President himself approved the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity.

Worth a watch.

This USA Today article showcases democracy at its finest. Gay and Lesbian candidates, fed up with state-sponsored discrimination against them, seek to insert themselves into Bushco state legislatures across the country including Alabama, Arkasas, and Oklahoma this Fall. Incumbents in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Utah will attempt to defend their respective state legislature posts.

I’m really happy to see that the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund is shelling out millions to help these candidates. It’s absolutely necessary for activism to spearhead the frontlines of the gay marriage battle in homo-friendly states. But, it’s also imperative that gays shore up the attack from the rear — that gay and lesbian citizens take active roles in the more homphobic (Bushco) states where they can prevent state-sponsored discrimination from within the system. Utah state senator Scott McCoy did just this, by blocking a bill that would have denied gay partner benefits.

One should not love another for their faults, but for their virtues. One should not befriend another because the other needs a friend, but because the other, by virtue of his character, has something to offer. Just as with material objects, one should not devote time and effort and emotional investment into another person unless that person has some kind of value with which to repay. One should only trade value for value.

The mesolimbic system is activated both by monetary reward and donations. OFC-limbic networks, which play key roles in social attachment and aversion in several animal species, enable humans to link values to abstract social causes. Phylogenetically recent sectors of the anterior prefrontal cortex are further recruited by evaluation of protracted goals and social outcomes when decisions involve sacrifice of immediate material interests.

Greedy monkeys… your time has passed.