Sunday Morning Reading Material First Sunday in September 2011- Mightily Anemic Labor Edition
Style and dance.
It’s Sunday Morning. Sundays are for laboring, that others might celebrate the decline of organized labor. Sunday is for introducing her to your family. Sunday is for enjoying a last few hours with a sister is who is off to visit Europe indefinitely. Sundays might perhaps be for unpacking, playing video games and having potential visit with your in-law’s apparent.
This week: The Libyan war continued. The US congress got into a pissing match with the US President. Also this week: Japan held elections and found itself a new Prime Minister. Also Also: The US asked Palestinians to delay a vote in the UN over Palestinian statehood- We’ll see how that goes next month.
Perhaps growing up watching Star Trek made me into a one-world guy at heart. One of the things I’ve never really understood is the right-wing fear of the United Nations. Their mission is nothing less than solving common human problems for the betterment of human society. Yes, it’s a flawed organization- we’re a flawed species. Perhaps it’s time the UN got some muscle.
What if you wanted to drink coffee, but absolutely could not stomach the sugar needed to make it palatable? What if you were a mad scientist? Fortunatly, that happened to Funranium, and we can all enjoy the flavor of his grind. For right now, there’s a coupon. Enjoy it!
I’ve written a bit before about Gramsci’s bi-level approach to propaganda. On one level, you need someone speaking to the masses. On the other level, you need the elite talking to themselves. When the elite start contradicting themselves, useful memes die a painful death. And so does America.
The point of science is to form a better picture of reality by creating testable predictions and discovering whether they’re falsifiable. This means that a good scientist will question everything. Sometimes, the pursuit of knowledge can be a bit undignified. Society ought not scoff at the people working diligently to figure out how dirty we can make water before the food supply dies. No matter how silly their testing methods might sound.
Consider this your weekly reminder that “race” is a social construction. At this point in human history, it is a dangerous one. Let’s work hard to get past it.
Back in 2009, Barack Obama took office, and had almost enough votes to get bills past the Senate. Unfortunately, the Senate isn’t a game of horseshoes, and so the stimulus bill that Democrats were able to pass wasn’t nearly big enough. It was, however, a smashing success. Now, however, it has run out. And the economy is beginning to falter.
Imagine you’re standing around, and you notice that someone has just had a heart attack. Fortunately, there’s a defibrillator nearby. Obviously you grab it, shout “clear!”, and use the thing on the person. If the first shock doesn’t do the trick, you use it again- perhaps upping the amperage. What you most certainly do not do is claim that pushing a pillow over his face is the key to reviving him. This, of course, is an analogy for the US economy. Republicans are holding the pillow. We voted them into office…
One upon a time, there was a bill that would force lenders to accept lowering of interest rates. This was deemed too friendly to citizens, not not friendly at all to banks. And so it was written that the legislation did not pass. And so citizens are still left holding the entire burden of paying off a debt they’re not wholly responsible for creating. And so demand ceases to exist until that debt is paid off. And so the economy lags. And lags. And lags.
In order to create demand, people need money to spend. In order for people to spend money, they need jobs. The US has plenty of stuff that absolutely needs doing. What we lack is a political class willing to contemplate paying for it. Lack of demand caused by will, rather than ability.
Court was actually ok with this proposal, once they realized the defendant didn’t say wombat.
A customer yesterday asked if our company was unionized. This literally startled a laugh out of me. Our severs make minimum wage, and I’ve seen many instances of employees being told to work off the clock. When I mention to my coworkers that management is making illegal demands on them, they look horrified “I’d rather work off the clock than get fired”. But remember: management and individual workers are co-equal negotiators in the labor market.
This is a great argument in favor of a new, higher, tax bracket and increased marginal tax rates on the [new] top tiers.
One of the things that seems to make VALVe a great company is that they seem to hire people who actively enjoy their work. There is a whole lot of low-level grunt work involved in making a complex computer program, and it doesn’t sound like they hire anyone specifically to do it. I don’t think this is the sort thing that could be implemented at every company, but it does explain why VALVe products are fairly uniformly top notch.
Unlike “race”, gender and orientation do seem to be inherent factors in humans. The Boy Scouts don’t seem to care. Perhaps that’s why they’re increasingly irrelevant.
This is Facebook in a nutshell. They roll out a new privacy policy, which offers the illusion of privacy. In reality, it seems to strip even more privacy from their users. Fantastic.
The America right wing genuinely, honestly, totally believes that when the non-rich vote in their own interests, it’s unamerican. But It’s Only Class Warfare When the Poor Fight Back.
Keeping the non-rich from voting isn’t merely a belief held by the right– it’s a Republican strategy. It took me several months on the ground in Ohio to convince folks that their votes would actually be counted in 2008. And it’s taken the Republican party months more to undo my work. I guess if they believed in democracy, they’d be Democrats.
How bad is the disaster? This is a testament to the strength of Waffle House’s supply chain.
At one point Marvel was so badly mismanaged that they couldn’t turn a huge lead in market share into a better deal on printing and ink. From a consumer point of view, this is wonderful. From a stockholder perspective, this would be infuriating. It should also be cause to doubt the theory that the mega rich are just smarter than the average person.
Starz had a deal with Sony to kill it’s deal with Netflix if streaming got too popular. This deal makes total sense for a company hell-bent on self destruction. Shrink the audience for your product so that you can collect less revenue. Perhaps they think they can offset the costs by firing accountants? Obviously the winners in this deal are the pirates– a few more people seeding stolen Sony movies on Bittorent will make their downloads even faster.
As a straight, cis, white, dude; I might choose to be ashamed of George W. Bush. The former President and current douchebag fits all of those same descriptors. And yet most people look at the former President and choose not to blame his orientation, gender, gender presentation, or ethnicity for his many failings as a human being and President. Generally speaking, straight people, cis people, white people, and male people are allowed to succeed and fail without anyone really noting these descriptors. Which is why we can look at this letter as an artifact of a sexist society. These ladies certainly have their hearts in the right place, and I don’t mean to seem like I’m calling them out. But it’s worth noting that they needn’t have taken the on burden of speaking for 51% of the human species.
It wouldn’t be Sunday sans Comic.
If you read just one link:
This week’s theme has been labor and it’s discontents. In the comments section, leave a note about when you first realized that something was happening, but you didn’t know what it was.
Nerd Alert!
