On Geoengineering

Cartoonist Stephanie McMillian of the strip Code Green has a criticism of the effort that I and others have put into geoengineering the earth:
Well, I highly doubt that I'd see millions for geoengineering, or for that matter, turn a profit at all. As for mastery over the earth, I'd argue that we've had that since we managed to figure out fire. I do agree that reducing emissions in the first place is the most ideal solution, but there's a catch.
Specifically, reducing emissions would require an unprecedented amount of cooperation, which is unlikely to be forthcoming, given what people believe. I live in a region not only riddled with global warming denial, but the belief in abiotic oil -- the belief that oil doesn't come from the fossilized remains of things dead for eons, but instead is generated in the mantle and bubbles up, due to handwave handwave god handwave handwave.
Since these people do not believe that global warming is even happening, they are unwilling to make any changes to their lifestyle, energy use, or anything else, in order to resolve what they regard as a non-issue. I have tried to convince them, but they have largely been unwilling to listen. Psychology studies suggest that they are basically un-convincable as they have made this a tribalist issue, in which they have largely defined themselves as not the kind of person who believes. And as for the facts, the facts be damned. If chemistry and physics shows that this is happening, then by jingo, chemistry and physics must clearly be socialist plots.
Since they can't be convinced, the next step would be to try and organize to defeat them politically, which would also be insanely difficult, as they are a very entrenched interest group with the backing of at least 40% of the electorate. We couldn't force it without effectively having a brutal second American civil war, likely to pull in and destabilize other countries as well.
Video blogger Hank Green once lamented that the copyright solution that Youtube, the company that he must work with on a daily basis, does not use the best possible solution for the conflict between people wanting to upload videos that may contain additional copyrighted work (such as someone else's music in the soundtrack), but instead the most possible solution. Similarly, I think that geoengineering is, at this point, the most possible solution, as I do not require universal cooperation to make it happen. It does not challenge the deniers, who are unlikely to even notice.
However, one thing that emission efficiency that she advocates would give us is that it would enable us to geoengineer less. The more carbon we have to yank out of the atmosphere, the more extreme the measures that we will have to resort to in order to actually make it happen. The more trees you can plant, the less I have to feed the ocean. The more you can reduce your use of gas-burning cars, coal-derived electricity, and cement, the less I have to dim the atmosphere to protect against the most catastrophic effects. The more you can use organically farmed produce instead of factory farmed meat, the fewer artificial trees I will have to plant in the desert.
Ultimately, I'm interested in geoengineering to give us a better world than the one nature gave us. A world that has space for both the cities that help us get what we want and need, and the nature that we admire so much. And with practice, I'd like to use what we learn from doing this to turn Mars from a frozen dried rock into a lush world with many human cities, and Venus from a scorching hellish world into a new paradise. And someday when the sun dies, I'd like us to be able to move out into the universe, carrying with us the gifts of the earth, who will continue to live on in a new world, perhaps one not yet born.

CEOs and Free Speech

And lo, suddenly politics hijacks everything.

A major story brewing in the US news is about the Mozilla foundation, who just hired a new CEO. They then had a massive shitstorm over that CEO's political activities, which included large donations to California's Proposition 8, a political measure to ban gay marriage that ultimately was found to be against the state constitution and thus discarded.

Most of the stink came from the Mozilla employees, who are quite diverse, and some of them are, yes, gay. The project exists in Silicon Valley, a very competitive environment where recruiting talent is bitterly contested, and companies need every advantage they get to keep employees, as well as not piss them off too badly. Once this became public, though, various business libertarians, gay rights activists, gay rights opponents, and a million other interest groups weighed in.

I'm of two minds. On one hand, I thought that Proposition 8 was an abomination, brought forth and paid for by hostile interests outside the state, (especially from Utah) that it was a step backwards for society, back to when people wanted to pretend that gay people didn't exist, and that any sexuality other than married sex for the explicit purpose of creating children was unacceptable. It also drew questions about the fairness of a person who supported that, though to his credit the CEO has stated that he does intend to treat his gay employees just like his straight employees.

On the other, it irks me the way that businesses are treated as personal fiefdoms with wanky personal interests enforcing orthodoxies. I know I would be personally outraged to be discriminated against, passed up for promotion, or fired, merely because of a private opinion. Is someone's politics truly relevant to the running of a company, and is even asking a step back to the bad old days of nepotism?

Another issue is that the position of CEO is largely seen as the public face of the company. Unlike most positions, the work doesn't stop when you go home for the day. Even after your time in the offices, you're writing press releases, you're doing charitable works, you're doing everything in your power to make everyone like you, and to be seen as someone who can be trusted. It's a deficiency of freedom that most of us would find completely unacceptable, but that's why you make the big bucks. I will never be a CEO, because aside from my general odd-ness, my lack of Christianity makes me unacceptable to the American public.

Your thoughts would be appreciated, though this is a sensitive topic, and a large amount of tact will be required.

EDIT: Somewhat after this occurred, the CEO resigned from his position.

Delaware Race

At the time that I wrote this, two people were vying to become Delaware's 2nd senator. The Democratic party were running Christopher Coons, the Republican party were running Christine O'Donnell. The previous holder of the position, Ted Kaufman, is not seeking another term.
In the debates, both were quite disappointing. Both candidates showed a remarkable ignorance towards the first amendment. Ms. O'Donnell asserted, as many fundamentalists believe, that the separation of church and state was externally imposed by court decision, and challenged anyone to show her that this principle is in fact in the constitution. Mr. Coons challenged her on this, but was then unable to mention any of the other protections of the first amendment. (Right to free speech, right to free press, right to redress the government, right to peaceable assembly.) Both have shown a shocking ignorance of the nation that they hope to regulate.
As for Ms. O'Donnell's assertion, she will be quite pleased to hear that the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear literally in the constitution as such. However, the concept exists from the first amendment's statement that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that amendment, later wrote a letter describing his intention to have a "wall of separation between church and state," using those exact words.
Further connecting this, after the Barbary Wars, fought by the generation of Americans who founded the country, we signed the Treaty of Tripoli with the Barbary States. The treaty had 12 components, and in number 11, we assured them that we would not attack them for being Muslims:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

"Mussulmen" and "Mahometan" being the 18th century way of describing Muslims. Essentially, we assert to being a secular nation that has no beef with Islam. I would further remind Ms. O'Donnell that treaties bear the same weight legally as the constitution itself.
The founders did seek to prevent what they saw as the abuse of religion at the time, in which the Church of England was quite embedded in the English government, and enforced its decrees with the force of the nation. They also felt that this diminished the honor of religion, especially when it became involved with the usual petty disputes that nations have to deal with. (Who owns the house on 1329 Main Street?) Someone always went away mad. To give the church government powers, in their minds, suggested that it was so weak that it would not survive on its own merits.
Since I wrote this, Delaware elected Coons instead of O'Donnell, by about a 16% margin.

Chinese Democracy

A leutenant general in the Chinese army has an argument that democracy will come to China inevitably. It can be delayed for a limited amount of time before heads roll, but it will come, sooner or later, and the later, the messier the transition. The president also seems to believe that democracy is inevitable.
I can think of a few ways it could happen. It could spread from an already democratic section, like Hong Kong, or Taiwan. It could be a populist revolt. Or, it could be granted by the existing Chinese government, which would work wonders on its retention of power. Let me assume that, and discuss the existence of a democratic China, one year after the transition.

Taiwan's last objections to rejoining the mainland are gone, and the Pan-Blue movement of Taiwan overwhelms their Pan-Green opponents to vote to rejoin the mainland. And there was much rejoicing, although not in the Pan Green parties.
The Chinese nation now has 1,361,732,740 people, living on 9,677,012 km2 of land. These people are immediately massively shifting about. The eastern seaboard is being rapidly depopulated, and the empty west is somewhat less rapidly being filled. (Part of the reason that China's western regions are so depopulated is that they're very hard to live in. Deserts in the north, and really high mountains in the south.) GDP rises by 40% annually for quite a few years as the Hukou system is dismantled from a regional-transition barrier, to being a mere family record kept for personal genealogical purposes. The now mobile people find economic opportunities, starting with arbitrage, but quickly moving into regional factories and business opportunities.
On election day, the Chinese voter has some 14 political parties to chose from. I predict a tight race primarily between the CCP (having gained popularity from allowing democracy) and KMT, with a very marginal victory by the CCP, which must then establish a coalition to govern effectively. The results will largely depend on how the system is structured, with some systems working better than others. I think a European parliamentary system could work, or the Israeli system, but the US style "winner take all" would not work. (China's political opinions are diverse enough that a "winner take all" system would self destruct within 3 elections.)
Internationally, I predict that absorbing Taiwan would mellow China towards Japan slightly, but not by much. It would still treat Japan as an arch-rival, and glare at it suspiciously with every chance it could get. I predict it would dump North Korea like a hot coal, and enjoy warm friendship with South Korea. A cool, mild like of America would also ensue.
I also anticipate that the Chinese guy will, at his convenience, point out numerous things that I turn out to be wrong about.

Bread and Circuses

In the later part of the Roman Empire, the roman government spent fortunes providing bread and entertainment to the masses. This was not out of the goodness of their hearts. One enraged person can be ignored, but riotous masses have a way of ruining everything when they get past a certain amount of frustrated. Namely, they tend to take what they need to survive by force. And then set things on fire just to show how truly pissed off they are.
In fact, in the countries where communist revolutions succeeded, I've noticed three common factors:
1. A useless and insufferable aristocratic class
2. A large body of intellectuals
3. Starving and enraged peasant masses
The local communist party recruits its main body from the intellectuals, and makes promises to the peasants along the lines of bread, circuses, and employment, and blames everything on the aristocrats. Which they then have killed as a way of solving those problems. Allthough Karl Marx was still thousands of years in the future, as was his idea of communism, Rome was trying to prevent this sort of thinking, which wouldn't have ended well for the aristocrats. And worse for the emperor himself, who was usually at the forefront of helping out.
A good economist can draw a modern lesson from this, I'm sure. And probably something lest costly than free bread and stab shows.

Watching the Watchers

The Roman poet Juvenal once asked "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", Latin for "Who will guard the guards themselves?" Referring to the ever-recursive problem of corrupt police and other officials. The police are expected to protect you against crime, but if the police themselves are corrupt, then society is just sort of out of luck on that aspect. Worrisome, as there are two kinds of people who want to be police officers. One type wants to be helpful and bring peace to the community, and should be encouraged, but the other loves power, and to boss people around, and should be discouraged. (The second kind is also deeply corruptible, further harming everything around them.)
In most modern police forms, this is answered with a police-of-police department, called Internal Affairs. Their job is to investigate complaints against police officers, and arrest those who engage in illegal acts. The Internal Affairs department is unpopular with the police for the same reason that police are unpopular with the general public: they're the ones telling you that no, you can't, and the rules apply every time with no chance of exceptions. No you can't plant evidence on a guy you don't like. No, you can't beat up people who pester you. No, you can't except bribes. Not even this one time. (Just as the regular police tell you that no, you cannot have a loud party at 3am. Not even just this once.)
The other day I was thinking about this, and jury duty, which is expected of the American population, and this gave me an idea. What if, in communities with low trust for the police, we call in random people for police-oversight duty? When called, you become an internal affairs officer for the day, investigating and rooting out corruption. Random people will gain insight into police activity, why they do as they do, and police officers will have every incentive to do their jobs properly and professionally. The watchers will be watched themselves...by everyone.
Probably excessive, as I hear that Internal Affairs does a good enough job as it is.

The Hero of Money

I think the IRS should look up who paid the most taxes in 2010, and give them a medal in a big ceremony. We'll call this person the "Hero of Money," since they made the most and were taxed the most, and give them a gold-leaf plated dollar sign, with moon rocks and all the other crazy things the government can gather. We'll publish their name in the paper, with much innuendo about their skill at making money. (Maybe illegal profits in greater quantities exist elsewhere, but this person was honest enough to obey proper procedure and pay taxes.)
Hopefully, this will make everyone else jealous and work harder next year. People will still whine about taxes, though, even if they do strive to be the person who earns the medal for 2011.

Why One World Government Will Never Happen

One item I've been repeatedly told by various conspiracy theorists is that there's a big conspiracy to combine all countries into one very large one that covers all territory on earth. This nation would unify the legal codes and currencies, and resistance would be futile. Mostly because it would be impossible to move away from it.
It's...not going to happen. For a number of reasons.
For one, governments literally can't just impose whatever dictate they feel like. And I can't think of an issue that this government could take a position on without driving some part of the world into riotous anger, with pitchforks and foaming mouthes and looting and burning. Economics? The kind that would please, say, India, would send the US's central regions into a fit. And vice versa. Religion? Everyone wants theirs to be the official one, and all the others banned. And no, no one cares about the massive contradiction this would involve. A few tolerant people are willing to live side by side, but there's not nearly enough of them.
Even currency will involve massive conflicts. Countries mostly choose strong currency or weak currency strategies based on what kind of industries they have. If we have only one country on Earth, we clearly can only chose one. Regions that have the "wrong" suiting on this will be infuriated.
But the biggest reason that this would fail is that we have no commonalities. Most countries have a shared identity, be it ethnic or ideological. And we humans can only, at the neurological level, comprehend the existence of about 150 people. Attempting the circumvent this leads to stereotyping, racism, and other means of "lumping" people you have little to do with into one person. So to try to "lump" 6, almost 7, billion people together, when they have nothing in common and will spend the entire time stereotyping each other, and all hell would break loose.
Lastly, the benefits to this are questionable. A unified government might have slightly increased trade, maybe, if it somehow managed to retain order, which it probably wouldn't. Mostly, it'd be like the current German - Greek crisis, to the billionth power, and with way more guns and pitchforks. And every country on Earth is, to a degree, in debt. A one world government would assume every last one of those.
So for pathetic benefits and massive drawbacks, this is worth basically no one's while, so it'll never happen.

Trolling Big Brother

Though the totalitarian states of George Orwell's writings have diminished to just two, minor acts of big brotherish douchebaggery spread around the world, deeply annoying people. Various acts of activism are proposed to deal with it, none as effective as the planners hoped.
So what to do about it? How about trolling the authorities? Wait, no that won't work. They have absolute power over you. How can you annoy someone who's thousands of times more powerful than you? In Max's Stubfield's hillarious parody, he does it by being insufferably ignorant and trival, being too compliant to actually punish, but still grotesquely irritating and impossible to deal with. He gets privacy by being too boring and annoying to actually watch.
Which is what he wanted in the first place. Muahahahahaha!

Cyber-Warfare

For the second time in 2 years, Estonia just handed my country a soft beatdown. My nation, America, is very concerned, both politically and militarily, about cyber-attacks, in which computers are subverted against their owner's intentions, and it turns out that Estonia has the world's greatest defences against such a thing. To top this off, the Estonian people use computers far more than Americans do, and so could easily develop offensive capabilities as well. I have a feeling that the American military will be paying Estonians for this, and paying them handsomely, at a time when they're almost paid off with their national debt, and ours is the largest in the world.
Discovery news is reporting about how Estonia achieved dominance in the field. Apparently, Estonia first got very into IT in all varieties when it regained independence from the Soviet Union's collapse. Estonians appreciated the automation, convinience, and control that IT promised, and quickly pushed it to its limits. A team of Estonians invented Skype, an innovative VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) program, and have the world's best online banking, digital signature, and cell phone integration systems in the world.
Meanwhile, the American military is increasingly dependent on IT, and much of it are simple, poorly secured, out of the box Windows systems. The military is increasingly aware that the security is less than ideal, but is unsure of how to improve this. The local IT industry is growing increasingly schizophrenic, with more and more workers literally unable to do their jobs, and still winding up hired because the hiring criteria had more to do with their charisma than ability.

Failure of the Soda Tax

Slate has an interesting article about why a plan to reduce the dangers of excess soda consumption with a tax will be a miserable failure: Because Americans tend to be defiant trolls who resist any claims made by an authority, just for the sake of resisting.
The article begins by pointing out previous cases of pointless defiance. In Miami, a law to discourage phosphorus use in detergents, on the grounds that it encourages harmful algae blooms, was resisted by consumers who wildly stocked up on phosphorous based detergents, even resorting to the black market to do so. These detergents did not cost any less, and did not clean any better, but the thought of giving the government the finger proved irresistable.
Or a later study in which people were left in a room that had a marker and a sign urging them "Do not write on the wall." Huge numbers of people who would not have normally written on the wall now did so, often defiantly daring the authorities to punish them for it. Some people even stole the sign, not because it had any monitary value, but as another contemptuous gesture towards those in charge.
Apparently part of the reason is related to choice. Americans, and possibly other people too, resent having an option removed from them. Any removal of an option sets off immediate thoughts of tyranny, and poking fingers in the eyes of authority for the sheer sake of annoying them.
The article does point out that people are less likely to defy things presented in a different, choice granting, right, like the light of education. Taxing soda to discourage people from drinking it brings out the rebellion. Taxing soda to pay for an inititative to pay for education, which will teach that drinking soda is bad, results in a compliant shrug. People might drink slightly less soda, and don't get upset about paying more because, hey, when was more education ever a bad thing? You still have the choice to drink the soda, it's not positioned as something you "can't" do.
Maybe politicians need to pay more attention to this. Sometimes even having a justification makes an order go down easier. If cameras are forbidden just because, expect tantrums. If cameras are forbidden because the flash would damage the equipment, people keep their camera stowed.

Israel Peace Options

Israel's in the news again. I see three options for peace in the middle east, all of which has both positives and negatives. Which one of these are positive and which are negative depends on who you are. My policy is "fuck the militants" because they're the ones who see all compromise as bad and demand unworkable positions.
As a background: The region is under war between two groups. The Hebrew tribes controlled the region from 3560 BC until 70 AD. Then conflict with the Romans kicked them out. Another group, primarily Arab, moved in. They were conquered a few times, by various powers, ending with the Ottoman Empire. None of these powers evicted the Arab tribes.
When England defeated the Ottoman Empire, they inherited control of the region in the form of the "Mandate of Palestine." They gave the half on the east side of the Jordan river to the Heshemites, forming the Kingdom of Jordan. They had claimants of both the decedents of the Hebrew tribes, the Jewish people, and decedents of the Arab tribes, the Palestinians, and took matters to the UN for adjudication.
The UN suggested dividing the remaining territory. The Arab tribes opposed this and rioted. This spiraled into a war which the Arab tribes lost. Egypt and Jordan (and Syria and Lebanon) joined the war on the Arab side, Egypt grabbing what is now known as the Gaza Strip, and Jordan grabbing what is now known as the West Bank. Neither one assimilated the region into their own country, but allowed displaced Arab tribes to live there. This was 1948. The victorious Jewish groups declared the state of Israel in their territory.
A second war emerged in 1967, in which Israel conquered the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Egypt and Jordan were again belligerents, which worked out poorly for them. Israel did not incorporate the people living in those regions as citizens, leaving them in a stateless limbo.
Both sides have militants who claim that God himself granted them the right to the entire thing (and most or all of Jordan as well), and rabidly oppose any claims to the contrary.
Accordingly, I now see three possible solution, which I have produced little maps. By taking a tourism map and doodling on top of it.

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Option one: Two State Solution

In the two state solution, Israel gives up Gaza and the West Bank (the regions marked in green on the map)to a new nation, Palestine, which will have a "right of return" for the Arab tribes. Presumably there will be a large shuffling in which people move to their preferred side of the border. The two would recognize each other's right to exist.
This solution is preferable to those who want cultural purity, as both sides will now have room for their culture to dominate their particular region. Both sides will retain basic identity, pleasing the nationalists.
Militants would probably remain angry over artifacts on the other side of the border, many of which are claimed by both sides. (Commonly, the site of one religious artifact would have another built on top of it, such as the remains of the temple destroyed by the Romans having a mosque built on top of it.) Militants would also be upset at not receiving the entire region, but it's at best irrational of them to expect this, and at worst, totally stupid.
The new Palestine should work on establishing alliances, and should avoid declaring war on anybody until it's developed considerable economic and military power. (Especially no wars with Israel, who could conquer it in about 3 hours.)
Also, would likely change into the three state solution, because Gaza is almost pure Hamas and the West Bank is almost pure Fatah, creating a Pakistan-Bangladesh-type situation.
EDIT: An anonymous reader proposes an interesting variant in which the west bank is divided into interlocking spirals, and both sides get all their population centers, most of their holy sites, continuous territory, and the advantage of surrounding the other side. Mutually. Sweet plan, anonymous reader.

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Option two: One State Solution

Israel would assimilate the stateless people in the West Bank and Gaza, granting them all rights, privileges, and duties of citizenship. Represented in this picture by replacing the white section of the Israeli flag with Arab-style green.
Both sides could now legitimately claim to control the entire territory, as they would now be the same nation. This country would be immensely powerful, have an increased economic base, and be at peace. Naming and control issues would be decided democratically.
Cultural groups would be irritated at the influence the two cultures would inevitably have upon each other from constant contact. Also, the resulting country could no longer claim to be exclusively Jewish, as it would be about 49.5% Arab. Arabic would need to be added to the list of official languages for the sake of govern-ability.
This is the preferred solution of Liberal groups worldwide, and hopefully it would improve relations around the Arab world. (Though I imagine groups would find other grievances to whine about.)
Militants would whine about the presence of the other group in their country, but would sound like Nazis for doing so, so to hell with them.

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Option Three: Evil

Israel's military power exceeds Palestine's enough to blow them away. Genocide like this tends to piss off everyone on Earth, and Israel would be from that day forward a pariah state. Arab states would almost certainly declare war. Only Christian or Jewish fundamentalists would want to help Israel, and they are not a majority in any country. Other powers might or might not declare war. Israel almost certainly wouldn't survive, and if it somehow did, it would be greatly diminished and despised for centuries.
It would make every insult ever lobbed in Israel's direction true.
Thankfully, very few people in Israel are anything but opposed to this, so I'm sure it won't happen.

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In order of viability, I see it like this: Two state, One State, Status Quo, Evil.

Anarchy is Bad for the Environment

The New York Times is reporting that in Madagascar, the lack of government authority is leading to devistation of the forests.
See, the rare woods that grow in the rural regions have significant economic value, and the people of Madagascar don't earn very much doing regular work, when it's available. So running off to the forest, and cutting down a few hundred trees is a real serious temptation. When lots of people do this, the forest has difficulty recovering. They wouldn't dare steal, but they don't see the forest as belonging to anybody. Short sighted, maybe, but when you're really hungry, trading your future for a banquet now seems like such a good deal.
A stronger government could send out patrols, ban the trade of the wood, or some other measure, or even assert ownership. But government authority is mostly lost due to a series of coups. The money to do anything significant doesn't exist, and worse for the local government, it's unsure of how long it can survive in its current form.
Madagascar has an interesting history. It went unnoticed for centuries, as the local African powers didn't have enough naval power to go find it, and by the time they were aware that it even existed, Africa was crawling with colonial European powers. Madagascar was mostly colonized by Muslim traders from northern Africa, who used it as a trading post. Eventually the French came rolling in, and there was a lot of exchange between their various colonies until independence came in 1960.

Denied by history

There are a lot of things that cannot be done anymore because of the negative weight in history. Ideas so abused that we dare not try them ever again.
Like Literacy testing for voting. Good idea to prove that the electorate can read and write, so that they have a good understanding of what the hey they're voting for in the first place, yes? Unfortunately, we've had a history of it being applied in a racist fashion. A white would-be voter would be given an extremely easy question, a black would be voter would be asked a question with no real answer. (Like "How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?") Any answer he gave would result in him being told that he was illiterate, and he would be rather impolitely told to leave. Usually with a racial slur thrown in. So, it is now illegal to have literacy tests for voting, because we can't trust some people not to pull that shit again.
Same deal with poll taxes. Elections do cost some money. Have to print up the forms, collect the results, pay someone to count it, (and count it fairly dammit), booths, workers to explain instructions and make sure no one votes twice, and so on. So the idea being that paying to vote would recoup the expenses, as well as strongly discouraging double-vote cheating. Except that again black people were charged and turned away if unable to pay, but white people always got it mysteriously "waived." So, several court decisions later, it's not legal to do that. (And besides, it's kind of unfair to the very poor.)
There's a lot of ideas out there that might have worked out very well, but for historical reasons, are untenable today. We just can't trust people not to screw them up somehow.
So when people tell me about this law in Arizona, the one that where any "reasonably suspicious" person can be subject to arbitrary deportation, same sort of problem emerges. The technical language of the law may be reasonably neutral, but it's fairly obvious at this point that it will be enforced with "Latino-looking" substituted for "reasonably suspicious." Which kind of torpedoes the entire thing. Already 20 people with US citizenship have been deported. Without a chance to gather the paperwork that would allow them to, you know, return.
Mexico's not pleased about suddenly having a bunch of American refugees when they're already suffering a whole host of other problems.

Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality is a political Internet structuring idea that requires Internet service providers to handle all bandwidth equally. Internet service would be a dumb pipe, like your water main. (Not quite like the telephone. Your telephone company knows what numbers you've been calling and how long you've talked. They are, however, prohibited from listening in. That's typically done by the government, with a court order.)
The ISPs generally dislike this, as they want to promote some traffic over others. They'd rather favor email and WWW over, say, Bittorrent. They complain that Bittorrent sucks up all their bandwidth, costing them money. (When the bandwidth runs out, you need to buy more capacity, or it'll slow down for everyone and your customers complain.)
Internet companies, like this blog's host, Google, fear that a lack of Net Neutrality will mean that they will be extorted by every ISP in the land. That every month a representative will come by and demand money, and if not granted it, will throttle all traffic to unacceptably slow speeds without quite cutting it off (because cutting it off entirely will be seen by the customer as censorship of the company, while slow access will suggest problems on their end.)
The ultimate in neutrality would be my earlier proposed grid Internet in which there is a massive array of underground routing boxes, all connected to their immediate neighbors. One could, for very little money, have a choice of connecting to one of four boxes, and connecting to several would make your own connection more robust. When connected to several, your connection would go through whichever was most available and least congested. ISPs would pretty much be obsolete. The main reason that this plan isn't being done is that it would require many many ditches dug, and land-management authority that only the government has. Also, the need for more and more routers would quickly rack up a budget in the high millions nationally. (I think connecting the entire world this way would cost in the trillions). The main advantage to it is a communication infrastructure that is for all intents and purposes indestructible.
Main arguments for opposing neutrality are to point to the Pareto principle, an economic principle that points out that many things are divided 80/20 instead of the 50/50 one would normally expect. 80% of the money is earned by the top 20 richest people. 80% of the sales are made by the top 20% of salespeople. 80% of the spending is done by 20% of the people. And so too, with bandwidth, which costs money, 80% of it is used by the top 20%. Since ISPs price their services per account rather than per gigabyte of traffic, ISPs would like to throttle down those top 20%. Or, alternatively, they could price by usage, but that doesn't sell very well.

In which I predict the 2012 Election

I'm no professional analyst, and predicting the future exactly is almost a manifestly impossible task, but I'm going to take a stab at it.
I'm predicting a 1996-style election with a spoiler, with the results coming up as follows:
Democrats, Barack Obama: 270 electoral votes
Republicans, Michael Huckabee, 140 electoral votes
Tea Party, Sarah Palin, 118 electoral votes

A prediction site, 270 to win helped me draw up a nice map of this.


A number of things would upset this model. The tea party cooperating with the Republicans, for instance, would combine their votes. A few other states flipping to their favor might tip the election to them. Most notably California, which is deeply divided between its large, mostly liberal cities and it's periphery, mostly conservative.
As for worldwide opinion, some Icelandic fans put up If the World could Vote for the 2008 election, gathering worldwide opinion on the subject. In 2008, the world was mostly pro-Obama, with a handful of McCain-favoring countries, primarily Macedonia, Albania, and the island nation of Nuie. The poll did not ask for reasons or arguments for their votes, so I can't be sure why people favored one over the other. The biggest change in 2012 is likely Israel now preferring the Republicans, having elected a conservative government themselves and being angry with Obama and his running mate Biden. As of this writing, they only cover 2008.

Fake Democracy and You

This post is dedicated to Neda of Iran.

Many dictatorships around the world like to claim to be democracies. It looks good. It makes your government at least appear less like a sackful of corruption and stupid. And if you can legitimately say you were elected, it deflects much of the criticism of that kind of regime.
Of course, as a dictatorship, such a government does not want to give people any real power, because they'd likely throw you out on your totalitarian ass. So what to do?
Let's say you're the dictator, and let's call your movement the "status quo party", because it's in power. First, announce an election. Then eviscerate all parties other than yours that stand any sort of chance whatsoever. You can do this by outright banning them (they're "cheating," "collaborating with foreign powers," "anti-<your-nation>" or what have you), or killing off their leadership, "disappearing" them, or whatever dirty trick. Then convince all the really pathetic parties to run.
When election day comes, voters have the following ballot:
* Status Quo party
* Incompetence party
* Utterly brain dead party
* Grotesque and evil party
* Obvious Joke party
* Loser party
* Suicide party
* Mandatory Perversion party
Act surprised when they choose your own "Status Quo Party." Likely by a margin exceeding 90%. (Sure, one COULD vote for the Incompetence party to protest, but they're obviously so much worse than the dictator. After all, have you seen how incompetent they are?) The USSR pulled this for years, with the Communist party winning 99.999% of the vote in a completely meaningless election (Since the only other parties allowed to run were the idiot party and the chronic failure party, and no one wanted to vote for that crap.)
Or, you could do like other dictators do and have an election with real political parties, but cheat really severely to make your party win, up to and including voter intimidation, "losing" the ballots from high-your-opponent areas, deliberate miscounts, "disappearing" inconvenient people, and disbanding the entire thing if it doesn't go your way. (Sound familiar?)
This might seem like a lot of work to no useful end, but it's all political theater so that you can cry "But I'm not a dictator, I was fairly elected." when people call you out on being a totalitarian scumbag.

Alternate Government Finance

I hear a lot of people complaining about taxes. Taxes are levied so that the government can pay for things, and people are charged in a way that they find "fair." But what system could we use instead, if people hate the current one so much? Here's 12 13 ideas.

1. Inflationary Tax
When the government needs to spend money, it prints some. Hyperinflation usually results because the government goes through a lot of money. This hyperinflation decreases the value of money until one needs a wheelbarrow full of it to buy even a small thing like a loaf of bread. Let's not do this one on the grounds that it is ruinous and stupid.

2. Government Owned Corporation
The government would own a corporation, which would make money, some of which would be kicked back. To a degree this would work -- the US post office operates under this kind of arrangement. Would you accept a doubling of all postage fees?

3. Radical Spending Cut
If we spend much less, we could do with lower taxes. This will be very unpopular. Along with everyone's favorite program being cut, we'll also have to take a pacifist stance in worldwide goings on and fire 80% of our military. Your favorite program could be NASA, farm subsidies, art funding, science discovery, foreign aid, doesn't matter. It will be cut, and you will hate it.

4. Internet Tax
Stop reading this website right now, and go get a job. Otherwise, it's $10 per day, payable to the treasury. The funny sound you hear is the federal reserves laughing as millions of addicts whip out their checkbooks for fear of losing Myspace for the day.

5. Obnoxious Behavior Tax
Taxes on things that are voted to be annoying. Probably alcohol, tobacco, having a party at 3am, and novelty car horns, things of that nature. Maybe you'll pay us, maybe you'll stop doing it. Either way, we win.

6. Sell Gold
The government currently owns a large stash of gold in Fort Knox. Gold is currently at record high price. We could sell it now and buy it back later when it's cheaper, but maybe a gold speculation financed government isn't the best idea.

7. Sponsorship
This congressional meeting is brought to you by Coke, Taco Bell, Southwest, Safeway, and Mad Engineering. Please note the labels that we have pasted into all kinds of things that will be noticed during the meeting. Washington spins in his grave, powering a generator, the power which from we will use to pay off the remainder of the balance. Next up, the state of the union address, brought to you by McDonalds, Winchester, Macy's, and Crazy Bob's Toy Factory. Crazy Bob's, we probably have something your kids want to play with.

8. Sell Land
Russia wants Alaska back. They would be willing to pay a large amount of money to make this happen. This would inconvenience the Americans that live there now, but we can probably find some good land in Montana, Idaho, and North Dakota for them to live in. And when we spend the money, (and we will), then what?

9. Fees
Today you found a man forcing his way through your window, so you called the police. They showed up, promptly arrested the burgler, and charged you $1500 for their services. Then you pay $200 to testify against him when his court case came around. You pay $500 to visit a national park, $10 to drive on a public road, and since your town remains free of military occupation by a foreign power, a $5000 military fee. You'll pay $10,000 per year tuition to keep your kids in school, and $300 to complain about all these stupid bullshit fees.

10. Stupid Comment Tax
Like the internet tax listed above, but charged when one makes a stupid comment to a forum, blog, youtube video, or email. While this could be done by moderator, it's probably better to do it by a computer program like the Stupid Filter, as computer programs will give a better appearance of objectivity, even when it isn't. Youtube video comments alone would probably pay the balance.

11. Suicide
The US government announces that it ceases to exist. Depending on where in the country you live, you are now a citizen of Russia, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, or Japan. See, these countries rushed in to fill the power vacuum, and they will charge you, yes, income taxes, according to their own laws.

12. Income taxes
When you earn money, you are charged a percentage of each bracket. The first bracket is charged nothing, the second one 10%, and so on up to a maximum of 39% for the top bracket. You can definitely pay this, because it's less than the amount of money you have, and the first bracket being free means it won't make you go hungry. Oh wait, this is the system we have now that people were complaining about.

13. Tariffs
Under this system, all products imported into the country must, at time of purchase, pay a fee, to be tacked on to the purchase price. This was the first finance of the US government, and part of its early bitter politics. The Northern US preferred higher tariffs to encourage growth of domestic industry, the southern US preferred lower tariffs because they liked to buy their things from England and France, and the tax made the things more expensive. We literally could not do this today -- there are multiple trade treaties that forbid it, and if we did do it, we could expect a ruinous counter-tariff imposed by the other country. For a nation like us that loves to import and export, this would be a rolling disaster.

Farm Bill

We Americans tend to be kind of fat. A lot of this has to do with the the way we eat. Money also has a lot to do with this -- cheap food tends to be full of fat and devoid of nutrition, making us want more and more before we feel satisfied.
The actions of the government have a lot to do with the cost of food. Every year, a farm bill is written by congress, determining which foods are subsidized, making them cheap, and which foods are taxed, making them more expensive. Current farm bills have favored corn. Our representatives seem to prefer the idea of producing vast amounts of biofuel to reduce the current dependency on oil, and corn oil is one of the easier ways to do that.
It's time now for the 2009 bill. I think we should ask for subsidies on the following:

* Broccoli
* Lettuce
* Asparagus
* Carrots
* Squash
* Pumpkin
* Tomatoes
* Brussel Sprouts
* Blueberries

These foods are all low-calorie, nutrition dense fruits and vegetables. Post-subsidy, they will be plentiful and cheap. In addition, the sheer variety will make it hard for pests to establish, the way it has with corn mono-cultures.

If there are any foods that are inherently unhealthy, we can tax them. I can't think of any offhand. Sure, an excess of corn has lead to high fructose corn syrup, but corn by itself isn't inherently unhealthy.

We should definitely tax tobacco, however. It doesn't make sense that we're paying people to grow it, and then turn around and encourage people not to use it.

Mad Geopolitics

He who knows pain is dangerous, as he burns within for revenge.
-- Till Lindemann

In the beginning of the 20th century, there was Europe, the Americas, and other countries which belonged to one of the first two. In Europe, an elaborate system of alliances was established, on the grounds that this would prevent the horrific wars of the previous age, the Napoleonic.
But in the massive Austrian empire, numerous groups yearned for freedom. Sure, Austria shared its crown with Hungary, but it also contained the various groups of the Balklands, who had no representation in this government. And one of them made a point of shooting the heir to the throne as a big middle finger to the monarchy.
Austria blamed tiny Albania for this, and war was mutually declared. In the modern world, this would probably been the end of it, but each side pulled in their alliances. Which pulled in their alliances. And the next thing anyone knew, pretty much the entire world had been sucked into it. This was World War I.
World War I proved so horrific that everyone assumed that it was the last war to ever happen in history. It ended with victory for the Entante of the UK, France, Russia, and the United States. The Central Powers of Austria, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire were totally destroyed, with Austria split up into its component nations, Germany losing large amounts of land to its neighbors, and the formation of Poland out of its borders. The Ottoman Empire was completely destroyed, shattering into some hundred minor countries. The Entante suffered quite a bit as well. Germany had snuck deported radicals back into Russia, leading to the collapse of its government, and the establishment of the Soviet Union in its place.
Between losing the war, losing international prestige, losing loads of land, and being fined obscene sums of money, Germany and Austria seethed inside for revenge, which pretty much lead directly to World War II on the European side.
So when the Allies won World War II, they learned from this lesson of history. The defeated Germany and Japan were not punished or fined in any way, over Dutch objection. The US passed the Martial Plan to rebuild the ruined Europe, fearing the influence of both internal radicalism and hostile foreign powers like the Soviet Union.
In the modern day, the US is in two wars. One with Afghanistan, one in Iraq. The old governments are mostly defeated now, but the rebuilding proves difficult. Both countries have resistance movements bent on sabotaging the whole thing. In Iraq, there is both the remnants of the old government, and an "Al-Quida in Iraq" that sympathizes with the (dying off) terrorism movement. Both are practicing asymmetrical guerrilla warfare, which is a very very difficult tactic to counteract. The "guilty" blend in with the "innocent." Any attempts at purges generally only strengthen the resistance movement by encouraging recruiting. In Afghanistan, various warlords jockey for position, some are in favor of the US plan, but others sympathize with the old government, or see themselves as a potential great king of Afghanistan, and want to defeat us to make their goals happen.
While it is possible to defeat an asymmetrical opponent, it is a massively frustrating process, and none of the traditional markers of warfare apply. One must be more police officer than warrior, more social worker than bomb thrower. One must work with propaganda, not only to look good, but to have as much as possible have it backed by fact.
And ultimately, wars must end. War makes military recruitment more difficult, costs boatloads of cash, makes people die, and generally drains national resources.
I'd say that the two wars are 95% done, and we should avoid starting another one. We can join another one if alliances demand, but ultimately this should be the time to withdraw, retool, and rebuild.
Also, the war has made a number of interesting effects. The US is badly in debt, but the Iraqi government is riddled in money. Perhaps they could buy US bonds? It would be a good reason to end the war, especially if more "kickbacks" can be had in the future.