Month: February 2011

Last night Blake Eskin watched Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, "the two most successful human 'Jeopardy'” champions" battle Watson, IBM's Jeopardy playing machine:

If Watson does not eclipse the best human players by Wednesday, one assumes it is only a matter of months before it would blow them away. Watson has many potential applications in medicine, law, science, and other fields, but its prospects for a career in television are no better than Brad Rutter’s. Who would want to watch a computer win seventy-four nights in a row?

Michelle Legro live-blogged the blow by blow.

PM Carpenter was impressed. Money quote:

The essence of President Obama's press conference this morning was the same, imperturbable essence as always: the long game. He emphasized again and again, in differing words, that his goal as president "is to actually solve the problem," to "be practical," to defer the "good headline," and to pursue a "serious conversation" with opponents within "a spirit of cooperation."

Actually solving the problem, in Obama's judgment, means not addessing it in his, you know, budget. Well, let's give him time and hold him accountable if this really is his strategy. He's fooled me before.

David Kiefaber winces:

New Zealand police came up with a ghastly recruitment slogan, "We've got a lot in common with cougars. We like 'em young too," referring to the recruits, and then got all upset when the ads were banned. "Police had failed to see how the ad could be negatively perceived," according to a local report. So, they didn't think it made them sound like child molesters? And what is it with provocative ad campaigns and cougars, anyway? It's like everyone over 40 only just now figured out what that term means, so they want to apply it to everything, context be damned.

Greg Sargent notices something interesting in the PPP poll showing how unhinged GOP primary voters are on the question of Obama's very legitimacy as president: among non-Birthers, Sarah Palin has a favorable/unfavorable rating of 41 – 52. Among Birthers, it's a whoppingly favorable 83 – 12, far higher than anyone else. Here's Greg's interpretation:

It seems fair to speculate that the success of Palin's approach — her grievance-mongering, her strident attacks on Obama, her virtuosity in crafting the most lurid formulations to paint Obama as an alternately weak and tyrannical figure — is rooted in her unique ability to speak directly to the far right wing base's seething underbelly of anti-Obama hatred.

She is the base's base, and her appeal, in my view, is all about identity politics.

She represents no real coherent set of ideas; merely what she would call the "real America", i.e. white and rural. I also think race is at play here. I think many people under-estimated the willingness of Americans to vote for a black president before his election, but equally under-estimated the impact of an actual black president after his Inaugural actually doing things and exercizing authority. I see Palin as a kind of cultural antibody to the future America Obama represents. And if the next election focuses on culture and not economics – or culture because of economic stagnation – I would not count her out.

More and more sane conservatives are beginning to see what Mitch Daniels, David Frum, Conor Friedersdorf and Heather Mac Donald are on about. But this time, it's a popular talk show host, Michael Medved in the WSJ. Money quote:

On his radio show last July 2, the most influential conservative commentator of them all reaffirmed his frequent charge that the president seeks economic suffering "on purpose." Rush Limbaugh explained: "I think we face something we've never faced before in the country—and that is, we're now governed by people who do not like the country." In his view, this hostility to the United States relates to a grudge connected to Mr. Obama's black identity. "There's no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily."

Regardless of the questionable pop psychology of this analysis, as a political strategy it qualifies as almost perfectly imbecilic. Republicans already face a formidable challenge in convincing a closely divided electorate that the president pursues wrong-headed policies. They will never succeed in arguing that those initiatives have been cunningly and purposefully designed to wound the republic. In Mr. Obama's case, it's particularly unhelpful to focus on alleged bad intentions and rotten character when every survey shows more favorable views of his personality than his policies.

Though they're late in coming, the whispers of complaint against Limbaugh and his ilk are getting louder on the right. Movement writers remain unwilling to condemn him. But the days when his superiors in respectability at places like The Claremont Institute were willing to honor him are far behind. These days, even the number of National Review writers willing to speak in his defense are dwindling, although one doubts that K-Lo will dismantle her shrine any time soon.

Wendell Steavenson reports on the mood in Cairo:

The army remains on the streets in some numbers. It has dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution, and every day the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces issues communiques assuring its commitment to democracy and the legitimacy of the people, without putting a time frame on a transition or including any civilians in their interim administration. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking, but most Egyptians do not seem overly worried. For now, the tenet of the revolution—that the army and the people were one hand—is holding.

Yesterday, I sat with an old friend of mine, a doctor, in his apartment overlooking the Nile, and he couldn’t stop smiling. “It feels different,” he kept saying. “We are full of relief and disbelief.”

(Photo: An Egyptian couple looks at the remains of the ruling National Democratic Party headquarters that was burnt during the popular revolt that drove veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak from power after 30 years. By Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images)

This explains why GOP leaders refuse to give an honest answer about Obama's birthplace:

Birthers make a majority among those voters who say they're likely to participate in a Republican primary next year. 51% say they don't think Barack Obama was born in the United States to just 28% who firmly believe that he was and 21% who are unsure.

The GOP birther majority is a new development. The last time PPP tested this question nationally, in August of 2009, only 44% of Republicans said they thought Obama was born outside the country while 36% said that he definitely was born in the United States. If anything birtherism is on the rise.

Weigel thinks the poll "suggests that birtherism has become another screen for extreme partisanship." Bernstein wants a more detailed analysis of those who believe the birther myth.

It's part of the denialism on the right that is now excoriating Obama for not interjecting himself into the Egyptian Revolution immediately. His Cairo speech – yes, Cairo – contained the following passage:

Let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

Sure, Obama did not produce the hyper-utopian rhetoric of Bush's second Inaugural and the solipsistic surrealism behind it. Nor did he over-reach in the early days of the Egyptian revolution. But that was the point – and consistent with his Cairo speech and careful distance from the Green Revolution. Because American public support only helps dictators claim – as Khamenei and Mubarak did – that domestic revolutions are foreign plots.

But it seems to me that on the current right, Obama cannot win. As staunch conservative Heather Mac Donald points out:

If Obama had given [that] speech, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and the rest of the knee-jerk venom squad who are petulantly faulting the Obama Administration’s cautious response to the Egyptian revolution would have frothed at the presumption of such grandiose rhetoric.

It isn't news that Hannity, Limbaugh and Levin are petulant partisan hypocrites. Nor has Mac Donald ever bought into their brand of "conservatism". But her commentary is yet another sign that prominent voices on the right (thanks, Mitch) are rebelling against these entertainers who do so much damage to the country and to sane conservatism.

Who's next?

Another way to have fun in a Vegas hotel room:

Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.

Vlad Savov is a fan:

Ever wanted to see flowing water slowed down to the point of transforming into a series of airborne droplets? This video has that. And more. A chap by the name of Tom Guilmette got to work with a Vision Research Phantom Flex camera recently, and, being the true geek that he is, he put together a video composition of staggering slow-motion footage. When pushed to its limit, the Phantom is capable of filling every second of 1080p recording with 2,800 frames, though Tom mercifully ran it at a lower 2,564fps speed. That's still sufficient temporal resolution to let you track the wave of an impact's vibration as it travels up a BlackBerry's body — oh yeah, it's as awesome as it sounds.

Omid Memarian reflects on yesterday's protests:

“American-backed autocracies, like Mubarak’s Egypt, are more vulnerable than anti-American dictatorships like Iran, for they are subject to the scrutiny of American politics and public opinion,” said [Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment]. “Iran can slaughter its people without worrying that China or Russia is going to hold it accountable or withhold aid money.”

An Iranian reader writes:

Two protesters were killed yesterday. One was a Kurdish Sunni student of arts. The regime shamelessly decided he was actually Basiji and killed by Greens.

The head of Tehran's police went before cameras and claimed so. All because they found a Basiji membership card in his university file. Turns not only was he not Basiji but also  an activist in the Green movement and visited Ayatolah Montazeri last year before he passed. This report on BBC Persian sums it all up. Even if one doesn't speak Persian, the pictures tell the story.

And this handsome young man, Mohamad Mokhatri. He was also shot at and reportedly died in the hospital. His pic is attached.

Our reader follows up:

Mokhatri's last status update on Facebook before going out to the streets yesterday was: 

????? ??????? ???? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?? ????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ??
[Dear God, Help me stand like a man as I am tired of sitting down and done living a life without dignity]

And then he writes in English:

Happy Valentine's Day

Hours later he was shot.