Month: December 2010

Nicholas Jackson attends a talk by data analyst Hans Rosling:

Two billion of the world's seven billion people live on less than $2 a day, below the poverty line, Rosling said. And only one billion live above the "Air line," the term Rosling uses for those who spend more than $80 a day and whose lives are filled with gadgets, including airplanes. But how many live above the "Wash line?" Rosling asked. How many of the world's seven billion have access to a washing machine? Only two billion. These people live on $40 a day or more. Everyone else — about five billion people around the world — still washes their clothes by hand.

Of course, women are often the ones who are doing the washing of clothes. And they spend hours every week performing this grueling task that we often take for granted. Hours that could be better spent elsewhere.

Students demonstrate through Birmingham City centre against government education tuition fee plans on December 8, 2010 in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Students and supporters demonstrated in the city ahead of the parliamentary vote on tuition fees tomorrow. Thousands of students are planning to protest in London tomorrow as the government votes on a plan to raise tuition fees in England. By Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.

A reader writes:

I’m sure Nate Silver is right that that “See, this is proof that lower taxes work” may be the Republican line, but consider this: the only significant change to current tax policy is the proposed payroll tax cut—and that only applies to only the first $107,000 of income. So if the argument is that this deal was the right stimulus, it is an argument for cutting middle and working class taxes, not those of the top 2%.

Of course, for that to mean anything would require that rational argument mean something in American politics. And Obama effectively conceded yesterday that it does not. He won this argument on the merits, and lost it on the politics. That’s why I suspect his confidence in winning the politics in two years is misplaced—he’ll win on the merits again, and lose on the politics again.

I'm not so cynical about the intelligence of the American voter.

E.D. Kain does it with pointed questions:

If the publisher of a small website dedicated to the dissemination of the state-secrets of the Chinese government were operating their publishing outfit out of the United States and published a bunch of leaked Chinese state secrets (both on their website and through various larger media organizations) and the Chinese government declared that a violation of Chinese law, should the US government arrest and detain and possibly extradite that person to China?

Let’s assume for a moment that this person is a United States citizen. Is he guilty of treason against China? Let’s assume he is Canadian. Would it be reasonable to say this person was violating Chinese law and should be tried and possibly executed in China? Does Chinese law trump civil rights and civil liberties for non-Chinese citizens? Do China’s legitimate security concerns outweigh the civil liberties of non-Chinese citizens? Of American citizens?

Marty Beckerman reviews an innovative new undergarment:

The sacfree press release promised:

"The world-wide first testicle-free men's underwear — a fantastic, comfortable, free feeling and a new sexy look. … And so it works: sacfree® protects and supports the penis in a bag-like pouch. Till here sacfree® feels like a classic slip. For the testicle sacfree® offers pure space. Through an opening the sac can hangs out completely free. … With its open kind sacfree® makes for a fresh breeze. A comfortable and manly healthy characteristic… [A]bove all, people who works vocationally much in sitting will appreciate the new sacfree® freedom." …

So back in our bedroom after dinner, I removed my shirt. "Oooooooh," she cooed. I unfastened my belt. "Mmmmmmm," she purred. I  dropped my drawers.

"Your … your balls …?" she gawked at my crotchless boxers with a combination of bafflement and horror.

"Yes," I nodded confidently. "My balls."

She reached for the TV remote instead of my (semi-concealed, semi-showcased) male anatomy. "Put your pants back on," she instructed. "Those look ridiculous."

Steve Chapman recounts his personal journey from homophobe to gay rights advocate:

It's easy to be homophobic if you don't know anyone who is openly gay. But that's true of fewer and fewer people. As gays have become forthright about their sexual orientation, the rest of us have had to assess them not as gays, but as whole human beings… In 1985, only 22 percent of us said they had a friend who was gay. By 2008, 66 percent did. And attitudes have followed. In 1982, only 34 percent of Americans regarded "homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle." Today, it's 57 percent.

Familiarity, in this case, doesn't breed contempt. It breeds acceptance. Heterosexuals have always lived and worked with gays, but without knowing it. Once they find out, most learn they have more similarities than differences. If the military's ban on open gays is repealed, a lot of people in uniform will soon come to the same realization. Many already have.

 

Some like the winter weather more than others:

Larison sees potential:

[Gary Johnson] isn’t just badly positioned [to run for the GOP's presidential nomination]–he’s horribly positioned, but there’s a chance that he might run anyway and have a salutary effect on the primary contest. His candidacy would force debates on civil liberties, foreign policy, and the drug war, which are all subjects where most of the other likely candidates hold misguided and sometimes appalling views. The rest of the field will all be officially pro-life*, but perfectly content with the idea of starting wars, detaining suspects indefinitely, and perhaps even torturing detainees when “necessary.” The contrast would be useful and instructive, and it might even lead some pro-life voters to insist that their leaders show more consistent respect for human life. All right, that last part is pretty unlikely, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

Larison throws in that asterisk on "pro-life" because Johnson is pro-choice but advocates overturning Roe v. Wade because he thinks abortion should be a state issue.

Clive Thompson explains the hot new app, and why he's addicted to it:

…it's a brilliantly simple concept: You snap pictures on your phone, apply one of a dozen filters that work various forms of retro-izing algorithmic hoodoo — remaking them Lomo style, for example — after which you upload the pictures to your stream. Then it's off to the social-media races! You subscribe to other folks' photo streams, comment or "like" other photos, check out the trending "popular" photos, etcetera etcetera. I was instantly, and horribly, hooked. Sure, I have lots of apps on my phone, and I check some of them very, very often. But my Instagram behavior verges into the realm of what one could more properly call tweaking. Apparently I'm not alone; after only one month in business, Instagram has already amassed well over 500,000 users. But why? What's the allure?

As many have noted, some of Instagram's appeal is that it's so perfectly simple, with none of crufty bells and whistles that plague, say, Facebook. Instagram is simpler even than Flickr: As Faruk Ates pointed out, you're not trying to collect and curate photos. You just see something and — boom — in about 15 seconds you've shared it with everyone in your network. And while, sure, there are photos on Facebook and Twitter, it turns out there's something weirdly hypnotic about following the lives of your friends through nothing but images. Given that Instagram's user base is very international (for now, anyway), the most-popular page of photos is like a constellation of slices-'o-life from around the globe. About half the people I'm following are total strangers in Russia, Korea and Argentina who take strikingly cool pictures.

Leonhardt gives three possibilities:

1. Mr. Obama and his Republican opponent in 2012 both campaign on the issue, but nothing happens before the election. One party wins a resounding enough victory that it gets its way after the election.

2. Nothing happens before the 2012 election. Mr. Obama wins re-election, but Republicans retain the House and maybe even take the Senate. The two parties then engage in the showdown many liberals wanted this time around, in which Mr. Obama refuses to sign any extension that includes the high-end tax cuts. Everyone’s taxes rise in 2013. They remain higher — helping reduce the deficit — or one party eventually stands down.

3. Congress and the White House manage to agree on an overhaul of the whole tax code before 2013, as various deficit panels have urged. Rates fall for all taxpayers, while various deductions are eliminated. The Bush tax cuts become an anachronism.

I’m guessing that Option 3 is the least likely.