If by “there” you mean … the “F” word, well, we’re probably closer than we’d like to be, aren’t we? Thoughtful and unsettling take on Fascism in America by Sara Robinson, dead ahead…

Results: As we continue our search for the greatest band of all time, a moral is emerging: don’t erode your own legacy. The Fillmore region’s #11 seed follows underperforming Aerosmith and Van Halen out the door, as the once-great Sir Elton John is upset by Joan Jett. The numbers: Joan Jett/Blackhearts 51%; Elton John 36%; Lush 4%; Concrete Blonde 4%; White Zombie/Rob Zombie 3%; Duran Duran 1%. Jett advances to the Great 48.

For our next match we move to the Budokan region, where one of the most popular and influential figures in music defends against another tough, diverse set of challengers. Full story »

This explains a lot.

Full story »

I start from diminished expectations.

My first experience with the UK was registering my company and opening business bank accounts. In South Africa, as a local, it takes two months to register the company and another three months to then open the bank accounts.

In the UK, it took 24 hours. And I walked away with a personal credit card, despite having no credit history. This, by the way, after the collapse of the credit industry. Not that I’m complaining.

This vote of confidence allowed me to rent a small apartment just outside the centre of Oxford. I was told that, living alone, I could apply for reduced rates. I’m used to dealing with municipalities. So, I fortified myself with a jug of coffee and a book, and phoned. Full story »

• ACCCE hired Bonner, but didn’t notify Congress of forgeries when they were discovered
• Cash for Clunkers doesn’t do much for climate
• National Academy of Sciences: we need independent GHG emission confirmation
• Climate disruption may, or may not, make disease worse

Before the House voted on the American Climate and Energy Security Act (ACES) earlier this year, someone hired Bonner & Associates (hereafter Bonner) to manufacture some grassroots opposition against ACES. At least one employee did so by forging letters from non-existent people to Representative Tom Perriello of Virginia. These letters were discovered, Bonner claims to have fired the employee, and a partner at Bonner apologized to the two minority groups from which the letters were supposedly sent. The apologies were, it’s fair to say, emphatically not accepted.

Since the Bonner story broke last Friday, there have been a lot of new information about who hired them, whether there were other Congresspeople who received forged letters, the legality or lack thereof, and an official response from a House committee with subpoena powers. Full story »

Any ideas?

In January of 2009, it snowed in Oxford. Deep drifts covered the meadow outside my study window. I watched as a fox, stark red against the pillow-white, tensed-and-leapt tensed-and-leapt through the fluffy deeps. It landed easily on a tree trunk, recently fallen across the river at the bottom of my tiny garden, and then ran along the informal bridge to my side before disappearing into a hedge.

I have seen snow before, but never lived in a place where snow thrusts itself into your daily life. The familiar landscape of fields, farmlands and wilderness was utterly transformed. I could see just how much wildlife lived around me. Bunnies hopped. Deer loped. Birds scratched.

I took a morning off, just to go see what the massive Port Meadow would look like. I got only a few yards on my bicycle before becoming glued in the snow. So I walked. It was magnificent. Full story »

Results: In the Hollywood Bowl region, Blues Traveler jumped out to an early lead. However, The Ramones maintained a steady pace and pulled away to win easily. The numbers: #5 The Ramones 46%: Blues Traveler 32%; Aerosmith 8%; Skinny Puppy 7%; Heart 6%. The Ramones advance to the Great 48.

Next we shift to the Fillmore bracket where #11 seed Sir Elton John takes on what may be the toughest lineup we’ve seen yet. Full story »

 First, I need to define a term: fishing buddy. If you fish, you need a fishing buddy. Now, a fishing buddy isn’t necessarily a friend. He might mutate into a friend if he eats enough catfish or lives near a nuclear power plant, but he doesn’t have to. If you want a friend, buy a truck or open your own restaurant and wait for the phone calls. Friendship isn’t the point. A fishing buddy exists to make you a better fisherman. Full story »

Part 2 of a series; Previously: What Bell Labs and French Intellectuals Can Tell Us About Cronkite and Couric

The Signal-to-Noise Journey of American Media

The 20th Century represented a Golden Age of Institutional Journalism. The Yellow Journalism wars of the late 19th Century gave way to a more responsible mode of reporting built on ethical and professional codes that encouraged fairness and “objectivity.” (Granted, these concepts, like their bastard cousin “balance,” are not wholly unproblematic. Still, they represented a far better way of conducting journalism than we had seen before.) It’s probably not idealizing too much to assert that reporting in the Cronkite Era, for instance, was characterized by a commitment to rise above partisanship and manipulation. The journalist was expected to hold him/herself to a higher standard and to serve the public interest. These professionals – and I have met a few who are more than worthy of the title – believed they had a duty to search for the facts and to present them in a fashion that was as free of bias as possible.

In other words, their careers, like that of Claude Shannon, were devoted to maximizing the signal in the system – the system here being the “marketplace of ideas.” Full story »

This makes no damned sense at all Full story »

Part one of a two-part series.

From Cronkite to Couric: the Kingdom of Signal is swallowed by the Empire of Noise

The recent death of Walter Cronkite spurred the predictable outpouring of tributes, each reverencing in its own way a man who was the face and voice of journalism in America for a generation or more. The irony of all these accolades is that we live in an age where “broadcast journalist” is such a cruel oxymoron, and we seem to speeding headlong into an era where the word “journalist” itself threatens to become a freestanding joke. Why, against this backdrop, would so many people who are so involved in the daily repudiation of everything that Cronkite stood for make such a show memorializing the standard by which they so abjectly fail?

As I read what people had to say about Cronkite, I realized that something I studied and wrote about over a decade ago helps explain why our contemporary media has gone so deeply, tragically wrong. Full story »

In early 2008, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) published their Petition Project, a list of names from people who all claimed to be scientists and who rejected the science behind the theory of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming (AGW). This was an attempt to by the OISM to claim that there were far more scientists opposing AGW theory than there are supporting it. This so-called petition took on special importance coming after the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, and specifically the Working Group 1 (WG1) report on the science and attribution of climate change to human civilization.

The WG1 report was authored and reviewed by approximately 2000 scientists with varying expertise in climate and related fields, and so having a list of over 30,000 scientists that rejected the WG1′s conclusions was a powerful meme that AGW skeptics and deniers could use to cast doubt on the IPCC’s conclusions and, indirectly, on the entire theory of climate disruption. And in fact, this meme has become widespread in both legacy and new media today.

It is also false. Full story »

Went to Lucille’s this morning for brunch. (Best biscuits and gravy in .. the … world, by the way.) And guess who was sitting at the next table? Full story »

Conventional wisdom holds that fear of death is epidemic in the Western world. Whatever the truth of that, cultural commentators are all too willing to chalk it up to everything from our materialistic society to our isolation from one another.

What’s missing though is an honest acknowledgment that fear of death can be a rational response. If you break the fear down to its components parts, it suddenly starts to make sense. Prominent among our fears are eternal punishment and non-existence, not to mention the pain of the dying process. A fourth fear — that of the unknown — essentially incorporates the other three. Full story »

Results: It was neck and neck between Cream and John Mellencamp as late as 5pm yesterday, but between then and closing time Mellencougar poured it on and pulled away for a comfortable win. The final numbers: John Mellencamp 60%; Cream 30%; Sarah McLachlan 4%; My Bloody Valentine 4%; Mott the Hoople 2%. Mellencamp moves on to the Great 48.

Our search for the greatest band of all time continues. The next match takes place in the Hollywood Bowl region, as #5 seeds The Ramones host yet another diverse roster of challengers.

Full story »