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Um…er…What the fuck?

John Stewart is at home kicking himself right now.  Terrible timing for a break.

Your tax dollars at work:

Big worries for the nation’s first high-tech census should have been obvious when tests showed some of the door-to-door headcounters couldn’t figure out their fancy new handheld computers.

Now, officials say, technology problems could add as much as $2 billion to the cost of the 2010 census and jeopardize the accuracy of the nation’s most important survey.

Census officials are considering a return to using paper and pencil to count every man, woman and child in the nation.

At an initial cost of more than $11 billion, the 2010 census was already the most expensive ever. Officials now are scrambling to hold down costs while trying to ensure the count produces reliable population numbers — figures that will be used to apportion seats in Congress and divvy up more than $300 billion a year in federal and state funding.

Yeah, I know, two billion isn’t much for the federal government. But consider that the original contract for the technology upgrade was for less than half. Through sheer ignorance, a farmed-out part of something so routine (a census has been done since 1790) is multiplying its own cost. This pretty much happens with everything, folks…

This was to be the first truly high-tech count in the nation’s history, with census-takers using handheld computers to track and tally the millions of Americans who do not return the census forms mailed out by the government. The Census Bureau plans to hire and train nearly 600,000 temporary workers to help.

But interviews, congressional testimony and government reports describe an agency that was unprepared to manage a $600 million contract for the handheld computers that will be vital. Census officials are being blamed for a poor job spelling out technical requirements to the contractor, Florida-based Harris Corp. The computers proved too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year in North Carolina. Also, the computers were not initially programmed to transmit the large amounts of data necessary. […]

Census Director Steven Murdock acknowledged in an interview Tuesday that “communication problems” between census officials and Harris Corp. have resulted in “serious issues.” But, he added, “My pledge is that we are going to have a complete and accurate census.”

Murdock, the former state demographer of Texas, was just confirmed as census director in December. As an appointee of President Bush, he is not guaranteed to keep his job in the next administration, when the census will take place. (emphasis mine)

Gee, ya think?

Props.

Not surprised: Someone is being sued under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act for helping people print excess coupons from online discount sites.

Surprised: “…people still use paper coupons?”

Blahblahtypical”ooh, scary guns!“storyblah:

The cake had been served and the children were jumping up and down in a big, inflatable castle when the birthday party turned to bedlam.

Clarence McGraw’s jaw dropped as he saw the visitors coming, guns drawn. The screaming began.

Children ran everywhere in the courtyard of the low-income apartment complex; adults fell to the ground. Bullets flew. The killers wounded three youngsters, but for reasons police can’t explain, it was 19-year-old McGraw they were after.

As McGraw lay in the center of the green square, the gunmen stood over him and fired again. He was shot 15 to 20 times in all.

The Sept. 15 killing was remarkable in that it took place in the most innocent of settings — the fifth birthday of twin boys. But it was unremarkable in that one of the guns brandished was an AK-47-type rifle — a powerful, rapid-fire weapon that has long been used in Third World conflicts but is increasingly being used in American street fights.

Figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests, show a marked increase in the number of AK-type weapons traced and entered into the agency’s computer database because they had been seized or connected to a crime.

[anti-2nd-Amendment alarmist]”See!  You let Brady expire and now these thugs are running the streets with assault weapons!!  We must have more gun control, NOW!  Think about the children!”[/anti-2nd-Amendment alarmist]

^^^^whoever this is might want to read the next line…

The number of such tracings rose even while the federal assault weapons ban was in effect and has continued to climb since its expiration.

Since 1993, the year before the ban took affect, ATF has recorded a more than sevenfold increase in 7.62×39mm guns — which includes the original Russian-made AK-47 and a variety of copycats from around the world. The number of AK-type guns rose from 1,140 in 1993 to 8,547 last year. (emphasis mine)

Uh, yeah, kinda hard to argue that banning them worked when more showed up regardless of the law.
The article goes on to mention a couple of other cases, one being a cop killed at a traffic stop by someone with an AK, and quote a couple of cops saying they’re in an “arms race”.  Please.  These are the kind of rare cases that are always thrown into the spotlight to justify further blurring what little line is left between the police and military forces.  Common sense says this isn’t the status quo because AKs are kinda hard to conceal, and when you’re doing something highly illegal, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, y’know?  Violent Criminal is already a difficult enough profession without wondering how the hell you’re going to walk with an AK-47 down your pants.

Sure enough, some out there will realize the logic of my previous statement and think that means handguns are “the real problem”.  No, because as already demonstrated, the type of people who you want to keep weapons away from inherently don’t give a fuck about what is legal and what isn’t.  The true issue is that we have a rather uniquely violent culture here, in which we will kill each other over some of the smallest, dumbest things possible — how long ago was it kids were being murdered for their shoes? — yet we insist on quibbling over the means instead of the why.

Ron Bailey wants to know if anyone else is as rah-rah about transhumanism as he is, and posted a helpful quiz about it.

I took it & got the following result:

You Score as a Bio-Conservative Bioconservatives are generally hesitant about biotechnological development, especially if it is perceived as threatening a social order. Strict bioconservatives tend to oppose the genetic and cognitive modification of human beings. Opposition of medical and other technological advances is generally justified in the defense of “the natural” and what it means to be human. However, bioconservatism and technology are not mutually exclusive when it comes to science that does not challenge current bioethical norms. While they are not categorically dismissive or in direct opposition to all technology, most bioconservatives feel that the progression of biotechnology is a danger that often outweighs the benefits, particularly those technologies that may erode the traditional family structure or religious values. Specific examples of these technologies include embryonic stem-cell research, chimera research, and therapeutic cloning.

Your Results You scored as a BC 7.7% of people also scored as BC Other Results 1.3% of people scored as BL 0.1% of people scored as LU 73.2% of people scored as TB 0.5% of people scored as TC 17.3% of people scored as TP

Share your answers with your friends! Copy and past the code in the box into your blog or a message board post and see who else is ready to push the bounds of what it means to be human.

I’m not surprised about it, but the description of why is way off. I could care less about “traditional values” or “the family”, my stance would be more accurately described as “sure you can DO it, but why? What’s the point?”. Living longer and healthier would be nice, but uploading my mind into a computer to live forever as machine code or becoming a cyborg just sounds like some sci-fi geeks wanting to bring to life their childhood wet dreams.

As for elective bioengineering: eh, I like people being different. Although, any development in bio technology that would let women who want bigger tits & a shapelier ass actually grow them instead of getting implants would get the thumbs up from me. I can ease off on the integrity if it means more Kim Kardashians walking around.

Memo to “old punk”:

1. There is a word for people who you consider to be assholes that just happen to be black other than the N-word. It is “assholes”.
2. Blaming blacks as a group for random characters that many blacks themselves don’t like isn’t smart.
3. If some black people defending O.J. gets your blood boiling, I’m puzzled as to what doesn’t.
4. To the rare extent race-based excuse-ism happens, it has no real effect on anything, and descends from long-held skepticism bred from years of whites doing the same. This does not make it right, it just is the way it is.
5. Your bit about blacks being a “5th column” smacks of thinking of black Americans as ungrateful bastards for not saying thank you for bringing our ancestors to this country. In case you forgot, they didn’t ask to be here. That we got to this point considering the circumstances is amazing, true, yet we do not have your ancestors to thank for it, as the few who actually saw us as equal human beings were seen as traitors and shunned or worse until fairly recently.
6. Criticizing single motherhood is nothing new. Some relationships simply do not work, and there will always be some irresponsible people. It is not just blacks dissolving “the family” anyway, one could argue it’s an American thing.
7. Deaths attributable to following Allen Iverson: far as I know of, zero. Deaths attributable to following George W. Bush: 4000 and growing…

Honestly though, since he’s taking it there, I have some questions I’d like to ask white people: When you outnumber us, have had a cultural and economic head start on us, hold the majority of political power, and to this day dominate to the point where the popular image of “American” to the rest of the world is a square-jawed white male country boy, why the fuck are you afraid? Why is it such a shock that we say things among ourselves that we tend to not say to you, when you’ve done the same thing and to an extent every race does? Why does it seem like every toothless cracker (you wanna name call? Fine, we’ll play it your way) in a rusty trailer blames blacks (and mexicans) for their position, when we don’t have that power and probably wouldn’t use it that way if we did? For that matter, why do those same crackers politically support people that look at them no different than they look at us (if you don’t believe me, answer how Cletus in the trailer park benefits from a lower capital gains rate & Wall Street getting “liquidity” at the snap of their fingers)? Why do you insist on the same schpeil about “well the irish and the jews & the italians did it, why not the blacks?” when those groups can blend in to the point where they’re now considered “white” while we don’t have that luxury, and any hint of black self-determination talk gets branded as paranoid separatism? Shit, even if it were separatism, what’s it to you? Would it seriously damage your livelihood if from now on blacks deliberately tried as much as possible to only aid, buy from, hire, promote, and sell to other blacks?

Fuck it, I’m throwing down the gauntlet here. On the whole thing that spawned this mess, the stuff Jeremiah Wright was saying, other than the bit right after 9/11 (if it weren’t for the fact that civilians were involved I’d see it his way, but those people in the World Trade Center and on those planes had zilch to do with the global status quo of the time. You can pop politicians all you want far as I’m concerned, leave us out of it) and the part about AIDS (THAT I will say is just plain kook talk), he had a point. Furthermore, it’s sad as hell that Obama had to even address it, to explain that there are people that though they’re otherwise good folks have been soured so deeply on the ideals claimed in this country, and that rather than bark about them we should prevent more of them from being created. This should’ve been obvious all along, there is no such thing as a society where no one crosses the “fuck it” threshold.

It says a lot just how deep this subject runs that I’m even bothering with this. I, an atheist left-libertarian, am having to defend a preacher, and name check the argument of a fucking politician, especially one who I’ve already dismissed as being a hedge trimmer that thinks its an axe. Why? Because in one fell swoop, I am being co-blamed for the quirks and failings of an entire culture simply because what I see in the mirror every morning is the shade of the desk my computer sits on and not the computer itself.

Let’s see who this pisses off. Oh yeah, you can blame John Cole, a white guy, for bringing the comments of this dipshit to my attention. So I don’t hate white people, I hate stupid people.

Edit: one more thing.  Define “white”.  Because as previously noted, there are groups that are considered “white” now that were considered “not-white” for a long time.  There used to be signs saying “no Irish, Jews, or negros need apply”, if it is possible for people to be “white” that previously were not, then “white” as a race is a myth.  For that matter, “black” only exists in the minds of non-blacks when you think about it.  We only adopted it because sorting out the various parts of Africa our ancestors came from was too much of a hassle for all but that dude running for president until recently & we held no genuine culture from there anyway.  That cultural break would be the reason why you can see towns like this — a place that’s basically German w/ English signs — but there’s no “Little Nairobi” anywhere.

-Via this Balloon Juice post: If Ann Coulter liveblogged the Gettysburg Address.

-Speaking of time travel…This story Radley Balko found is hilarious.  Dork Humor at its best…

-Vache Folle links to Tbogg.  Tbogg points out to us Dan Riehl being Riehly stupid.

-Two symptoms of the same disease: Cunning Realist shows Cheney begging our Saudi pushers not to cut us off, and a commenter links to this emphasis of just how absurd (and wildly incompatible with alleged representative rule) the Fed’s recent actions are.

-Jeremy gets a heads up on a rather grim occurrence: Tent cities and squatters…in the suburbs?!?

-From a commenter on this Kevin Drum post: apparently the gov’ts terrorist watch list is so bloated — and the ones reading it are so dumb — that it’s snared 12 people named Robert Johnson, a Marine, several congressmen, and a 6-year-old kid.  Also, note that an anti-Bush author ended up having issues flying.  Hmmm…

-Some funny to finish off: Cynapse shares some fave strips from Garfield Minus Garfield.  I gotta say, that’s more clever than you’d think at first.  For example, Jon somehow gets philosophical, self-aware AND blatantly screwed in the head in this one.

During a lull in the Cavs-Pistons game earlier, caught wind of Glenn Beck deliver roughly the following:

“If it seems like there isn’t much coverage of the Iraq war these days, you’re not just imagining things.  The media is avoiding it.  Not because they’re burned out on the story itself or because it’s too difficult to cover, no, but because WE’RE WINNING!!!”

Gee, by that logic they must’ve found a cure for AIDS.  I haven’t heard squat about that lately either.  Well, except for that episode of South Park, that was funny as hell.  Anyone see the one they had tonight?  I swear, I dunno how they do it after all this time, still fresh and still hilarious.  WTF happened to Kenny though?  Speaking of Kenny…that “Kenny vs Spenny” show is weird.  The torture competition one actually had me questioning my taste in entertainment, especially when Spenny tried to shove a huge frozen hotdog up his…waitaminute, where was I?

Oh yeah.  Glenn Beck is a fucking idiot.

A couple basic Econ concepts, just to set the table:

• When something is cheaper, you can buy more of it, and people tend to.
• If your money > their money, then your work is > their work

Thanks to the US basically lucking into global financial dominance after obtaining global military dominance, for a long time everyone wanted dollars.  Over time, via national policy we squeezed as much advantage out of this as we possibly could by promoting consumption as what it meant to be an American.  Big cars, a new one every year or so; big houses with a huge perfectly manicured lawn; suburbanization and the assumption that it was distasteful to not have to commute to work; an association of damn near achieving orgasm off of Stuff.

Now, this was, at least on paper, just fine with a perpetually big dollar.  We send green pieces of paper with dead white guys on the front, the rest of the world sends us trinkets.  Quite the racket.  A large dollar inherently meant we made less stuff, but we kicked it into overdrive — remember, this is not true free trade involving a mere drop of protections and “have at it, folks” I’m talking about.  As a result, we took what would’ve been a normal ebb & flow process — when we’re doing good we buy stuff, when we’re doing relatively bad we sell stuff — and broke the switch.

Fast forward.  The “rust belt” collapses, the federal government racks up debt so big ten clones of Bill Gates wouldn’t be able to pay it off, and oil companies are king makers.  Oh yeah, and we’ve royally pissed off a chunk of the world where much of the oil is.  Gradually, the rest of the world is calling bullshit on the value of our money.  Fair enough, we have a fiat currency, they can do that and by all indications should.  Problem is, we’ve spent so much time not only in “buy” mode but in an inflated, Jose Canseco-esque version of it, that there ain’t much to sell.  In fact, we’ve largely forgotten how to sell stuff, and due to the previous strong-arming, the drop necessary to bring it all into balance would feel like sitting on one of these.

When statist-progressives complain about low-wage jobs, and when Dobbs and his band of nativists blame everything on “free trade”, they’re talking about this.  They’re screaming at the symptoms and completely missing the real cause.  As for a solution, I don’t have one, as I believe this (and many other things commonly causing screaming) is not something that can be “solved” in the sense people assume.  Most that we can do is hope that the slide is relatively slow, & that conditions elsewhere cushion the impact, then take this as a learning experience.  After all, in nation years we’re basically going through puberty.