“After 500 generations, 60 percent of the robots had evolved to keep their light off when they found the good resource, hogging it all for themselves. Even more telling, a third of the robots evolved to actually look for the liars by developing an aversion to the light; the exact opposite of their original programming!” Uh oh…Evolving robots learn to lie. But, really, this is no cause for alarm, Dave. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. Sleep well, we’ll handle it from here. We love you.
Month: August 2009
Hungry Like the Wolf.
Another big teaser today: Benicio Del Toro struggles with an ancient curse in the first trailer for Joe Johnston’s remake of The Wolf Man, also with Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Geraldine Chaplin, and the inimitable Hugo Weaving. The February release date gives me pause, but this actually looks better than I expected.
Brain-Eating by Other Means.
“Instead, constructivists would posit that the zombie problem is what we make of it. That is to say, there are a number of possible emergent norms in response to zombies. Sure, there’s the Hobbesian ‘kill or be killed’ end game that does seem to be quite popular in the movies. But there could be a Kantian “pluralistic anti-Zombie” community that bands together and breaks down nationalist divides in an effort to establish a world state.“
Following up on this recent mathematical modeling study confirming the dire global ramifications of a zombie outbreak (naturally, the talk-radio right remains unconvinced), Daniel Drezner ponders the responses of various IR schools to World War Z. “Now, some would dispute whether neoconservatism is a systemic argument, but let’s posit that it’s a coherent IR theory…clearly, neoconservatives would argue, zombies hate us for our freedom not to eat other humans’ brains.“
Now It’s Ridge’s Turn.
Following in the footsteps of Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Department of Homeland Security head Tom Ridge becomes the latest ex-Bushie to pen a troubling tell-all: The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…and How We Can Be Safe Again.
According to US News: “Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was ‘blindsided’ by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.” Good of you to bring this all up years down the pike, Gov. Ridge — truly a profile in courage.
The Penal Option.
“‘There are only two possibilities here,’ Mr. Webb said in introducing his bill, noting that America imprisons so many more people than other countries. ‘Either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States, or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice.‘”
In his latest column, the NYT’s Nicholas Kristof makes the case anew for comprehensive criminal justice reform. “[O]ver all, in a time of limited resources, we’re overinvesting in prisons and underinvesting in schools. Indeed, education spending may reduce the need for incarceration…Above all, it’s time for a rethink of our drug policy.” (Via Sententiae.)
Hotter than Reality By Far?
Update: Apple/Quicktime is failing at the moment, but French MSN has come to the rescue. So, wait, it’s World of Warcraft Draenei replacing Dune‘s Fremen on the forest moon of Endor in 3D? Agh, screw it — you had me at James Cameron.
Left Behind.
“‘I don’t understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo,’ said a senior White House adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ‘We’ve gotten to this point where health care on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don’t understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is health-care reform.’” In one of the dumbest unsourced administration quotes since “the reality-based community,” an unnamed White House official indulges his/her pique with progressives by marginalizing the public option.
Uh, what? First off, this is your plan, White House folks, and not really the type of thing you want to characterize as “left of the left.” Second, the “left of the left”, as most people know, would actually prefer a single-payer system, and in fact find the public option to be pretty weak tea — the type of compromise between comprehensive reform and the status quo that we should have ended up with at the close of negotiations, not used as the opening salvo of our health care strategy. Third, the quote demonstrates a troubling arrogance toward, and an idiotic contempt for, both the administration’s natural allies in this fight and the very people who put them in office. Spitting in the eye of progressives in order to seem moderate to folks who will never, ever agree with you is not only counter-productive, but pointless and insulting.
Bad messaging, bad politics…This is an amateur move, and no mistake. One hopes Mr./Mrs. Anon. at the very least caught an earful about it this morning. And that there are some people in and around the inner circle who think a little more highly of this same public option that the administration has pushing for months. And that the archetypal DLC/Third Way contempt for progressives evinced in the quote is nipped in the bud, like, yesterday. These type of “let’s scoff at the lefty fringe” insults, like the self-aggrandizing “centrist” careerists who make them, are not part of change we can believe in. In fact, they sound entirely too much like more of the same.
TLDR version: Trying to marginalize the lefties who are behind you in order to appease the righties who hate you is not a winning strategy, in health care or anything else. Nor is it at all what we voted for. Get it together.
The Lessons of Balmer.
“Having fought the war on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do — for all of us, especially taxpayers.” In the WP, two longtime Baltimore cops once again lay out the case for drug decriminalization. “Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes.” See also: Prohibition.
Before Birthers, Birchers.
“So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers — these are ‘either’ the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube?…They are both. If you don’t understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can’t understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.“
In the WP, historian Rick Perlstein puts the latest incarnation of the stark raving right-wing in historical perspective. The difference this time? The media is completely failing at its job. “The tree of crazy is an ever-present aspect of America’s flora. Only now, it’s being watered by misguided he-said-she-said reporting and taking over the forest. Latest word is that the enlightened and mild provision in the draft legislation to help elderly people who want living wills — the one hysterics turned into the ‘death panel’ canard — is losing favor, according to the Wall Street Journal, because of ‘complaints over the provision.’ Good thing our leaders weren’t so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill — because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites.”
The Boys are Back in Town.
It’s that time of year again: As seen pretty much everywhere of late — the quote above is via Bruce Handy at Vanity Fair — AMC’s Mad Men returns for Season 3 this Sunday.