"Leonard Nimoy":

It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth?

The answer ... is No.

Charles P. Pierce:

Truth is what moves the needle. Fact is what sells.

Paul Krugman:

It's true that the PowerPoint contains nice-looking charts showing deficits falling and debt levels stabilizing. But it becomes clear, once you spend a little time trying to figure out what's going on, that the main driver of those pretty charts is the assumption that the rate of growth in health-care costs will slow dramatically. And how is this to be achieved? By "establishing a process to regularly evaluate cost growth" and taking "additional steps as needed." What does that mean? I have no idea.

Col. Lawrence Sellin:

I don't hate PowerPoint. In fact, I use it often. I do object to its use as a crutch or a replacement for serious thinking. Also, the overuse of PowerPoint can give the illusion of progress, when it is really only motion in the form of busy work. It can confuse the volume of information with the quality of information.

George Packer:

Last week, a local reporter asked the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey, why tax cuts should be expected to improve the economy when real incomes actually dropped after the original Bush tax cuts. According to the Times, Toomey "brushed aside" the question with the reply that he "did not believe the data." How convenient for him!

David Phillips:

Once you've told the big lie, you have to substantiate it with a sequence of lies that's repeated.

Peter Norvig:

Using PowerPoint is like having a loaded AK-47 on the table: You can do very bad things with it.

C. J. Chivers:

One day in spring 1968, after a skirmish in a gully near Khe Sanh, Gunnery Sergeant Elrod found an AK-47 beside a dead North Vietnamese soldier. He claimed it as his own. This was not a trophy. It was a tool.

A few weeks later, Gunnery Sergeant Elrod was walking across a forward operating base near Khe Sanh with his AK-47 slung across his back.

A lieutenant colonel stopped him.

"Gunny, why the hell are you carrying that?" he asked.

"Because it works," Elrod replied.

Slim Charles:

It's what war is, you know? Once you in it ... you in it. If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight!

The Main Driver

Barack Obama:

The question is -- can we afford to borrow $700 billion?

Frank Rich:

That's a good question, all right, but it's not the question. The bigger issue is whether the country can afford the systemic damage being done by the ever-growing income inequality between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else, whether poor, middle class or even rich.

You know things are grim when you start wishing that the president might summon his inner Linda McMahon.

Noteworthy:

If you think "Russia" when you hear "oligarchy", think again.

A banker:

Revolutionize your heart out. We'll still have this country by the balls.

Jules Dupuit:

Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous.

Nouriel Roubini:

Things are going to be awful for everyday people.

Etay Zwick:

During the last economic "expansion" (between 2002 and 2007), fully two-thirds of all income gains flowed to the wealthiest one percent of the population. In 2007, the top 50 hedge and private equity managers averaged $588 million in annual compensation. On the other hand, the median income of ordinary Americans has dropped an average of $2,197 per year since 2000.

Tony Judt:

Why is it that here in the United States we have such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society from the one whose dysfunctions and inequalities trouble us so?

We appear to have lost the capacity to question the present, much less offer alternatives to it.

The question is, What do we do now, in a world where, in the absence of liberal aristocracies, in the absence of social democratic elites whose authority people accept, you have people who genuinely believe, in the majority, that their interest consists of maximizing self-interest at someone else's expense? The answer is, Either you re-educate them in some form of public conversation or we will move toward what the ancient Greeks understood very well, which is that the closest system to democracy is popular authoritarianism. And that's the risk we run. Not a risk of a sort of ultra-individualism in a disaggregated society but of a kind of de facto authoritarianism.

What we need is a return to a belief not in liberty, because that is easily converted into something else, as we saw, but in equality. Equality, which is not the same as sameness. Equality of access to information, equality of access to knowledge, equality of access to education, equality of access to power and to politics.

Decius:

I said I'd do something about this, and I am.

The Capacity To Question

Dr. King, in 1963:

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Mark Ames:

A century-old ideological movement, Liberalism: once devoted to impossible causes like ending racism and inequality, empowering the powerless, fighting against militarism, and all that silly hippie shit -- now it's been reduced to besting the other side at one-liners ... Sure there are a lot of problems out there, a lot of pressing needs -- but the main thing is, the Liberals don't look nearly as stupid as the other guys do.

Louis Menand:

Other people's culture wars always look ridiculous.

Douglas Haddow:

We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us.

Ames:

That's it, that's all this is about: Not to protest wars or oligarchical theft or declining health care or crushing debt or a corrupt political system or imperial decay -- nope, the only thing that motivates Liberals to gather in their thousands is the chance to celebrate their own lack of stupidity! Woo-hoo!

Noteworthy:

If you think "Russia" when you hear "oligarchy", think again.

Mark Twain:

It is desire to be in the swim that makes political parties.

Ames:

Only now, when Liberal ideals have vanished into mythology and all they stand for is "not as crazy or stupid as Republicans" is it safe to camp out with the Democrats. They put nothing on the line ideologically, which perfectly jibes with this generation's highest value.

The Economist, after election night, 2008:

He has to start deciding whom to disappoint.

Decius:

I've come to the conclusion that you actually want shifty, dishonest politicians elected by an apathetic populace. This means that things are working.

Ames:

The Rally To Restore Vanity

Edward Brown:

As it is on the high seas, perched on a tower crane, wind is a constant. The entire crane actually sways to and fro. Winter or summer, the air is always chilled. Replacing the scent of salted sea air is the smell of the industrial lubricants used to maintain the crane's slewing unit.

At night, the crow's-nest view from the operator's cab is a treasure trove of glinting city lights. The daytime view is concrete, glass, sunlight, and blue horizons as far as the eye can see.

Considering the heights, the sky pirate carries as little as possible. Two cameras (one digital, the other a 35mm), a change of lens, a tripod, and not much else. Spending a maximum of thirty minutes atop a crane, he will periodically bring along a safety harness.

Decius:

I wish they had higher res versions.

LMGTFY :) The photographer is HI-LITE. You'll find additional photos by HI-LITE here. For example, this photo appeared here approximately a month ago, a few days after it appeared in the Flickr stream of Squirrel Brand, as part of the Cranes set. All of these are available in high resolution -- many of them at 15MP.

See also, from Annalee Newitz:

This video contains no special effects, and no fancy stunts. But it will scare the crap out of you. That's because you're watching from a head-mounted camera as an engineer scales an antenna tower over 1,700 feet high.

Created for The Online Engineer site, what this video captures isn't just a thrill ride -- though frankly it is that -- you also get to see the different parts of the giant antenna. And learn a little bit about OSHA rules, which apparently say that it's OK for people to free climb a tiny pole hundreds of feet in the air with a thunderstorm brewing in the distance. Seriously, when I realized the guy wasn't attached to this pole with anything other than his hands and feet, I almost had a heart attack.

According to OSHA:

Fall protection equipment is not required to be used by a qualified employee climbing or changing location on poles, towers, or similar structures, unless conditions, such as, but not limited to, ice, high winds, the design of the structure (for example, no provision for holding on with hands), or the presence of contaminants on the structure, could cause the employee to lose his or her grip or footing.

View From The Crow's Nest

Ben Goldacre:

When presented with unwelcome scientific evidence, it seems, in a desperate attempt to retain some consistency in their world view, people would rather conclude that science in general is broken.

This is an interesting finding.

But I'm not sure it makes me very happy.

An exchange:

Frink: "Now that I have your attention, we have some exciting new research from young Lisa Simpson. Let's bring her out and pay attention."

Scientist #1: "She's just a little girl!"

Scientist #2: "Let's not listen!"

Martin Schwartz:

Science makes me feel stupid too.

It's just that I've gotten used to it.

Geoffrey Munro:

The scientific impotence discounting hypothesis predicts that people resist belief-disconfirming scientific evidence by concluding that the topic of study is not amenable to scientific investigation.

Being presented with belief-disconfirming scientific evidence may lead to an erosion of belief in the efficacy of scientific methods.

The Economist's Washington correspondent:

I thought I was unlucky graduating into the tech bust.

I had no idea.

Emmeline Zhao:

Caitlin Johnson, 23 years old and a 2009 graduate of MIT with a BS in computer-science and engineering, said she was unable to land any of the 10 positions she applied for.

So she opted to stay at MIT for her master's in engineering. Having just finished her first year of the two-year program, Ms. Johnson said she might look for a job at the end of the summer to start after she completes the degree next year. But finding graduate school more appealing and facing a job market that remains weak, she said she would most likely go on to earn her Ph.D.

Should Ms. Johnson decide to opt for the job hunt instead of more schooling, she likely will face stiff competition. The number of 20- to 34-year-olds with master's degrees in the labor force in June was 12% higher than it was two years earlier. And first-time grad-school enrollment rose 4.5% in 2008 and 6% in 2009 across the country.

Marge Simpson:

Bart, don't make fun of grad students! They just made a terrible life choice.

Georgia Tech ranks #1 (percentage-wise) among US colleges and universities on Payscale's ROI survey (MIT is #1 in total lifetime return):

With the average cost for college rising, PayScale helps you figure out which school's tuition costs will return the biggest dividends for you after graduation.

A Desperate Attempt To Retain Some Consistency

Paul Krugman:

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression.

It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression.

But the cost -- to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs -- will nonetheless be immense.

The Economist's Washington correspondent:

I thought I was unlucky graduating into the tech bust.

I had no idea.

Barry Ritholtz:

This current generation is pretty much fucked.

Simon Johnson:

The conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump "cannot be as bad as the Great Depression."

This view is wrong.

Neil Howe:

If you think that things couldn't get any worse, wait till the 2020s.

Anatole Kaletsky:

The battle over bailouts in Europe is only a sideshow compared with the great social conflict that lies ahead all over the world in the next 20 years.

Decius:

Man, what a great time to be alive!

Dan Kildee:

Much of the land will be given back to nature.

People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow.

Decius:

Cutting production means layoffs which will reduce consumption which will reduce orders which means that production will need to be cut which will require more layoffs which will reduce consumption which will reduce orders which means that production will need to be cut which will require more layoffs which will reduce consumption which will reduce orders which means that production will need to be cut which will require more layoffs ...

John Lanchester:

It's becoming traditional at this point to argue that perhaps the financial crisis will be good for us, because it will cause people to rediscover other sources of value. I suspect this is wishful thinking, or thinking about something which is quite a long way away, because it doesn't consider just how angry people are going to get when they realize the extent of the costs we are going to carry for the next few decades.

Judith Warner:

We're all losers now. There's no pleasure to it.

The Onion:

After nearly four months of frank, honest, and open dialogue about the failing economy, a weary US populace announced this week that it is once again ready to be lied to about the current state of the financial system.

The Third Depression

NYT:

Surely the case of Maher Arar was a chance to show that those who countenanced torture must pay a price.

Malcolm Gladwell:

Free is just another price.

Bill Gurley:

Customers seem to really like free as a price point.

Martin Kaplan:

What we really need are leaders with more character, followers with more discrimination, deciders who hear as well as listen and media that know the difference between the public interest and what the public is interested in.

Merlin Mann:

I love when [...] people unfollow me. It delights me, because that is the sound of my audience getting better.

William Deresiewicz:

Excellence isn't usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering.

James Lileks:

The Apple tablet is the Barack Obama of technology. It's whatever you want it to be, until you actually get it.

Viktor Chernomyrdin:

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.

The Economist on Obama, from November 2008:

He has to start deciding whom to disappoint.

NYT:

There is no excuse for the Obama administration's conduct.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, in 2005:

If you [...] tell them the truth even when it threatens their beliefs, you run the risk of losing them. But if you peddle cleverly manipulated talking points to people who trust you not to lie, you won't merely lose them, you'll break their hearts.

Kathleen Parker:

Giving up being liked is the ultimate public sacrifice.

No Price to Pay

Caterina Fake:

It's an incredible amount of data.

Bruce Schneier:

More is coming.

Thomas Powers:

Is more what we really need?

Decius:

We need to balance privacy interests with the state's interest in monitoring suspected criminals.

Cory Doctorow:

I am enough of a techno-pessimist to believe that baking surveillance, control and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell:

The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure.

Ryan Singel:

Google unveiled a Government Requests Tool that shows the public how often individual governments around the world have asked for user information, and how often they've asked Google to remove content from their sites or search index, for reasons other than copyright violation.

The numbers reflect only criminal investigations, and do not include national security investigation powers such as National Security Lettters or FISA warrants, which companies are often not legally allowed to disclose.

Matt Higgins:

The nice thing is, it's not a free for all. We're taking care of the problem responsibly. We're targeting the troublemakers, and we're hoping the troublemakers will be gone someday.

Decius:

What you tell Google you've told the government.

Eric Schmidt:

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

David Lynch:

So many things these days are made to look at later. Why not just have the experience and remember it?

Ellis:

All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.

Libby Purves:

There is a thrill in switching off the mobile, taking the bus to somewhere without CCTV and paying cash for your tea. You and your innocence can spend an afternoon alone together, unseen by officialdom.

Maybe You And Your Innocence Shouldn't Be Doing It In The First Place

Steve Bellovin et al:

Architecture matters a lot, and in subtle ways.

Decius:

Internet protocols are complicated and sometimes they fail in subtle ways that defy naive assumptions.

Tom Cross:

These are harder problems that require more thought.

Thomas Powers:

Is more what we really need?

Tom Cross:

We need to balance privacy interests with the state's interest in monitoring suspected criminals.

Bruce Schneier:

Will not wearing a life recorder be used as evidence that someone is up to no good?

Noam Cohen's friend:

Privacy is serious. It is serious the moment the data gets collected, not the moment it is released.

Andy Greenberg:

And once data has been collected using the lawful intercept, it can be sent to any destination, not merely to an authorized user.

Jean-Luc Godard:

It's not where you take things from -- it's where you take them to.

Straw Man:

It's gonna be cool. Give me money. No consequences, no whammies, money.

Tom Cross:

It's not just the router vendor and the [Internet service provider] who have an interest in how this interface is built.

We all do.

Viktor Chernomyrdin:

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.

Tom Cross:

The situation is fairly bleak.

Decius:

The ship has already sailed on the question of whether or not it's reasonable for the government to collect evidence about everyone all the time so that it can be used against them in court if someone accuses them of a crime or civil tort. This is just another brick in the wall.

Decius:

What you tell Google you've told the government.

Andy Greenberg:

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical.

Wikileaks:

Several rumors from Google sources [allege] that China accessed Google's US Government [lawful] intercept system, which provides Gmail subjects/dates.

A.C. Grayling:

The Chinese government tried to hide the incident. It failed to; think how often it succeeds.

In And Out Through The Backdoor

Andy Carvin, last Thanksgiving:

Several weeks ago, the family of information studies professor Phil Agre reported him missing, saying that they had not heard from him in over a year.

Charlotte P. Lee, reflecting at the time:

All of us had lost touch with him over the years. How would you know if one of your friends not only lost touch with you, but had also lost touch with almost everyone they know? You wouldn't.

Yesterday, Andy Carvin:

Well, apparently the search is over. The UCLA police department has updated their missing persons bulletin for Agre with the following news: "Philip Agre was located by LA County Sheriff's Department on January 16, 2010 and is in good health and is self sufficient."

See also, at the end of the article:

Those of us guiding the search for Phil have more detailed information about the interaction between the officer and Phil that is not being made public. The information we did receive gave us no evidence that he is actually "safe". Therefore we are continuing to search for him.

Phil Agre, from 2001:

Increasingly freed from geographic constraints and equipped with powerful search tools, we will be able to pick out exactly the people we want to associate with, and we will be able to associate with them whenever we want.

The problem with feudalism, of course, is that most of the relationships aren't good ones, so that everyone is trapped in the relational world they were born with.

Missing Internet Pioneer Phil Agre Is Found Alive