bummer: no LOST for me

We missed the last 3 episodes of LOST before we moved, figuring we could just watch them online when we get here. But ABC.com doesn't let you watch them from Canada, so now we're like 5 episodes behind. I'll have to find some way to download them or something. In the meantime, nobody tell me anything important about it.

Move recap

Kira has the story.

bullshit

I noticed this article in hwong14's shared items and the headline caught my attention: "Does Power Corrupt? Absolutely Not." So I read the article and was a bit confused because the headline has basically nothing to do with the article. So then I went and read the paper featured in the article.

The experiments in the paper manipulate people's feelings of power, inducing them to feel temporarily powerful or powerless, and then gives them tasks. It generally found that people who feel powerful perform better than those who feel powerless. Read the paper for the details. One of the paper's authors, Adam Galinsky, has done other work on power, for example finding that feeling powerful is associated with reduced tendency to understand how other people think. I can see how that would bear on the corruption issue. But I don't see any way the featured research justifies a headline like that. It has nothing at all to do with corruption, though Galinsky does say it has "direct implications" on power and corruption. Aside from the headline, the lede sentence, and that quote, no other mention of corruption is made.

Coincidentally, the article was published in Time Magazine, a powerful and corrupt publication.

miscellaneous blogging from Canada

I've been in Canada for a few days now, and life here is good. The only slight negative is that we're not going to get cable TV so I can't watch the NBA playoffs. I guess I could go to a sports bar, but I don't want to sit there for 2 hours and pay $6 for mediocre beer. All food and beverage is pretty expensive here actually. I'm going to my advisers' house for dinner tonight; every free meal is going to be quite helpful.

Speaking of good life, Man Beard Blog seems to have lurched back to life, at least for a day. This must be very exciting for someone.

Speaking of lurching around like a worthless jackass, this seems to be a perfect summary of what the Democratic Party is all about. The key passage:

I think its very mendacity is the secret of its success. Crucially, it claims to offer an alternative -- however half-hearted and feeble -- to the utter, absolute, complete and comprehensive lordship of plutocracy. As crucially, it actually does nothing of the kind.

It's fundamentally just a matter of algebra. This is a country designed -- very ably and successfully designed -- to be ruled by an oligarchy of wealth. Yet public consent to this arrangement requires representing it as a democracy. The gap between representation and reality requires some term to fill it up and make the equation come out right.

That's the structural need the Democratic Party fills, and that, I think, is the explanation for its longevity. We've always needed something like like that -- some democratic cloak for our oligarchic nakedness -- and presumably we always will, at least until something changes in a big way. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Some institution must be built, and staffed with people who either don't mind the dirt, or can convince themselves it's not dirt at all.

He also comments of where Saint Obama and the Clintons fit into that scheme.

I'm starting basically a full time job this week doing some kind of research (details TBD) in the lab, so I'm not really sure what my blogging output will be. Also I'm using stolen wireless internet right now, so I don't know what my access will be at home until our own connection is installed (hopefully tomorrow).

Horus is cracking!

I just scratched the side and top of his head for about 20 seconds before he got scared and ran away.

schedule

The move is approaching quickly. Saturday we pick up the truck and start loading, and Tuesday morning we hit the road. I won't miss Ohio, though tomorrow night we're seeing Flight of the Conchords in Columbus.



It will be awesome.

Why I Won't Vote: Endless Slaughter Everywhere

McCain, Clinton, Obama, they all support this. And I'm supposed to concern myself about the lesser evil? Read all the gory details: the gang rapes of young women, the mutilation of children, the crushed testicles of men, and then realize that this is a course of action that all three of those monsters agree on. How hopelessly wrong is it that we obsess over the tiny differences between them while this is what is going on in the world? Fuck the media, fuck the candidates, fuck all of their wars, and fuck their worthless ballots.

Glory to the killers

Most of these "heroes," however, are dupes. They think they are fighting for our freedoms when instead they are helping to destroy our freedoms. They think they are retaliating for 9/11 when instead they are paving the way for another terrorist attack. They think they are preventing terrorism when instead they are making terrorists. They think they went to Iraq to fight al-Qaeda when instead al-Qaeda came to Iraq because of them. They think they are protecting Israel when instead they are contributing to increased hatred of Israel. They think that our cause is just when instead it violates every just war principle ever formulated. They think they are fighting injustice when instead they are committing a crime against the Iraqi people. They think they are defending the United States when instead they are helping to destroy it.

I don't quite agree with all of that, but its basic thrust is a point that needs to be made. US soldiers aren't heroes. They are murderers with uniforms and medals.

catch up blogging: NPR, Jeremiah Wright, Iran, voting

• I listened to about half an hour of NPR while I was home and was disgusted. 20 minutes of it was spent analyzing exactly how black Obama is, and how that mattered for his electability. The "issues" were mentioned once, as something that Obama would like to run on, but there was concern that "the media" wouldn't let him. Gee, NPR, I wonder how that would happen?
• The other 10 minutes were spent on how crazy and polarizing Jeremiah Wright is and what damage he is doing to the Obama campaign. No examination of what he says, of course. (Not that I care if Obama gets elected. His denunciations of Wright, with various lies packaged in, are pathetic and reveal him for what he really is, not that it wasn't already obvious.) I had a recent conversation about Wright with one of my more open-minded family members, who lamented how "divisive" he is, and yet seemed quite unaware of what the man has actually said. Gee, NPR, I wonder how that would happen?
• For typically excellent writing about Wright/Obama check out Floyd and Silber.
• I might comment more on this in a "why I won't vote" post, but check out the conversation here and at the post it links to. Is this the best the opposition has to offer?
• War with Iran seems inevitable, as I've said for a while now. I really feel like I want to be out of here before it happens. I don't exactly know why. My moving date is in 11 days, so... hooray I'll be in complete comfort in a slightly different wealthy nation before thousands of people are senselessly slaughtered! That's the boundless narcissism this blog was built upon.
  

I am back

I've just returned from a trip home to the Maryland area. I have a lot of blog reading to catch up on. Regular bloggage will resume here at some point. In the meantime, read about me here or here.