Pangloss

Absolutely. That's politics for you.

Possibly a legendary, historic television interview took place last night on The Daily Show, when Jon Stewart took on CNBC's Jim Cramer. It was one of the best interview take-downs I've ever seen, and Cramer's excellent defense only heightened the sense of drama and the amazing depth to which the issue was explored. In a nutshell, Stewart was taking Cramer and CNBC to task for participating in the problem -- for accentuating it, misleading people and knowing full well that it was an untenable problem, due for collapse. For his part, Cramer defended the financial networks, saying they do expose problems and admitting that they could do a better job of it. I had two problems with Stewart's side of it: 1, that it's a bit hypocritical and hubristic on Stewart's part (like he doesn't do exactly the same thing when it comes to bad politics), and 2, that he waxed just a wee bit socialistic towards the end of Part 2 (we are WORKERS? we can only earn money on the backs of our labor? come on -- even Stewart admits knowing guys who work on Wall Street!). But that aside he really nailed this issue and it was stunning to see it done so well on a commercial television program, of all places. Part 1: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220536&title=Jim-Cramer-Pt.-1 Part 2: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220538&title=jim-cramer-pt.-2 Part 3: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220539&title=jim-cramer-pt.-3 My personal opinion is that both sides have valid points, and the financial networks were definitely part of the problem. I think this is just part and parcel with the larger problem of the influence of media on society (in which Stewart himself is a willing participant, misleading people nightly about politics for entertainment purposes). What do you all think?

Lol! I declare NRMIMBY! No Radioactive Monsters In My Back Yard!

Hey, I'm not the one who answered a question about VB with "use a different language cuz VB sucks". I'm just pointing out that there seem to be a lot of misconceptions about VB, how it works, and what it's capable of -- it's a perfectly valid language that's every bit as capable as any other modern OOP language. Misconceptions get straightened out here; it's what we do.

Not at all, I made a perfectly logical extrapolation and landed an opinion on top of it. Indeed there are two issues here, but in American politics it's not unusual at all for political activity in one area to suggest a change in direction in another area -- that's not foolish, in fact it's graduate-level political analysis. As such I have stated my opinion on that subject. If you don't like that I really am very sorry, but that is my right.

Some waves are being made today by pollster Scott Rasmussen, whose new polling data suggests that Obama's approval rating is lower than Gallup says it is. Rasmussen defends his poll in a Wall Street Journal op/ed piece today, and there will no doubt be a lot of talk about it hither and yon amongst the bloggers and pundits. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690358175013837.html It's an interesting piece and worth checking out, but what I thought was most interesting about his analysis about the underlying concerns that Americans have right now. These numbers are pretty staggering, and it's not hard to see the truth in them, either. Americans also don't believe that we're doing the right thing in spending our way out of this slump. (Notice Rasmussen is talking about GALLUP poll numbers here!) Rasmussen's overall point is that Americans aren't as behind Obama's economic plan as the media makes them out to be, and I think that's a fair point. However I think these polls indicate fear and uncertainty, as well as distrust of government in general, rather than an overall disapproval of Obama (a point to which Rasmussen might agree, since his poll suggests the same, with an Obama approval rating only 4 pts below Gallup's). What do you all think?

You guys are such language snobs, picking on VB. Oh no, it doesn't do multi-line comments! Heaven forfend! I doubt most people even know what partial interfaces or iterators are, much less have ever used them in code, but those are just about the ONLY differences between VB and C#. Both languages compile to the same Intermediary Language, then JIT-compile again at execution time, so all your high-fallutin' C# code looks *exactly* like that low-brow VB code after you smack the Build command. Posers.

Well it's a tradeoff -- you get massively boosted productivity and true RAD in exchange for dependence on a specific vendor. On the other hand, look how they compete with one another on feature sets and even training methods. That may not lead us to platform independence, but it may not have to if everything about each "propriety" process is completely homogenous and predictable. So all we have to do is teach kids what Polymorphism means. Then THEY can apply that knowledge to whatever platform they want to learn... and rinse and repeat as often as they want. Of course there is a risk that they won't understand the meaning behind the intellisense popups, but at least they'll know what to do with it, regardless of what "language" they're "learning". It's a pretty slick place for the industry to have reached, you have to admit. Regarding garbage collection not taking place on the iPhone, I believe that's one of the development choices I mentioned earlier that was consciously made in order to optimize the platform for mobile use. My dim recollection is it was sacrificed in order to minimize background task activity. Which means all iPhones inherently "leak" unless you remember to clean up your own resources. And if you run out of memory, well, the Home screen will be there for you shortly. (grin) By the way, have you read the iPhone Application Programming Guide? It's available at Apple's developer center, and it's a pretty fascinating read, academically speaking. It's a radically different choice of direction and I one I don't think the HCI world has quite recognized yet. That's why, for example, no application allows "save" documents, and why they all seem to remember where they left off when you return to them. All that stuff's part of the design philosophy. I'm probably just a bit too gaga over it, but having lived with a Windows SmartPhone for a year, I think I earned it. (shudder)

SNL had a couple of great political sketches this past week that I thought worth mentioning. This first one features Treasury Secretary Geithner setting aside $420 billion for... anyone who might know the answer to the economic crisis! The real fun begins when he starts taking calls, so wait for that. http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/geithner-cold-open/1056121/ This second one shows what happens when you make Barack Obama angry. He becomes... TheRock Obama! http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/the-rock-obama/1056126/

I'm not going to argue about all the NSF funding spent on the Internet. I'm simply going to point out that you're being disingenuous with your argument. You're not arguing for "fiscal responsibility", you're arguing for no government spending on mass transit even in places where it makes good financial sense to do so (because of the deficit). That's not a "fiscal responsibility" argument, it's a do-not-spend-my-money-under-any-circumstances argument. I wonder sometimes if these conversations would be more productive if we simply removed extreme libertarian arguments and placed them over in Pseudoscience and Speculations with the other wacky conspiracy theories.

Say what you want, iNow, but this is a line in the sand for me. If I don't see one helluva lot of nuclear power plants on the board in 2012, and the reason is lack of initiative from the administration or just plain caving to the whacko tree-huggers, then I will be declaring Obama to be breaking his promise to govern with science instead of ideology, and voting for someone else.

How much did they pay you to say that? HOW MUCH?!

Get off the Internet, then. Obviously you're using it hypocritically.

You're making a big assumption there, but even if it's true, why is that insane? Implicit with the phrase "who watches the watchers" is the very logical follow-up question, "who is qualified to watch them?"

It does look that way and I think there's a definite circus-like atmosphere in many of the videos I've watched. But I think there's also an air of candor and directness that's interestingly lacking from our public debates. With American debate it's almost as if they politicians are so hesitent to avoid descent into "flame wars" that they stop short of anything even remotely direct in their criticisms. And to be sure, I don't think I (personally) would do very well in a situation like this one: xmHt5UEL9sI That sort of thing irks me enough when we see it HERE, and I definitely don't want to see it happening in public debate between government officials. Still, it seems to me that the benefits outweigh this minor disadvantage. I've seen much worse from some of the Asian parliaments, where physical confrontations are not unheard of.

On a related note, GM canceled its request for an additional $2 billion in emergency loans, sending its stock value up over 17%. They still believe they'll need money in April, and as much as $16 billion between now and the end of the year, but their cost-cutting has been more effective than previously believed. This sounds suspiciously like progress to me. http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200903121419DOWJONESDJONLINE000968_FORTUNE5.htm

The tax cuts and stimulus job creation benefits have not been implemented yet. I believe the tax cuts are due to begin hitting paychecks in June.

Keep the word, define it, give it to everyone, and move on to more important matters.

Every Wednesday CSPAN runs a little 30-minute program that most Americans have never even heard of. Even when they do hear about it, it doesn't sound like a big deal. But to British citizens it's actually quite a large deal. Since roughly WW2, a new constitutional practice has been adopted (now used in most parliamentary systems) in which the opposition party gets 30 minutes to ask the Prime Minister any question it wants. By law he HAS to answer, standing at the Dispatch Box on the floor, as if called to task, but in fact it's considered an honor and a responsibility to answer these questions. An important democratic process. Having the Prime Minister on record on an issue not only clarifies national policy, it also gives the opposition a chance to raise its objections directly with him in person, and not have to work through the proxy of the media interface or public opinion polls. The sessions can be rowdy and even beligerant, and sometimes degenerate into cheap laughs and innuendo. In the video below, current PM Gordon Brown can be heard making quite a verbal gaff, suggesting that his bailing out of British banks "saved the world" (not a good place to stop a sentence), sending the opposition into absolute paroxisms of laughter. But after the laughter fades he does go on to make a very good point, much to the chagrin of his opponents, and the overall result seems very positive. Check it out. ngMs_4I1__o In 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain suggested that something similar could be done in the US. His opponent agreed wholeheartedly, and earlier this year President Obama actually held something along similar lines -- the first presidential "press" conference (open to the media) in which the opposition party was allowed to ask the questions. John McCain asked the first question. I haven't seen too many clips of it, though it did briefly make the news, but I think the press didn't quite know what to think of the whole affair. I wondered at the time if Republicans felt it a "step down" in that they were having to look up to the presidential podium -- the imagery was a bit off, compared with what happens at the PMQ. But I think the idea is a good one in general, and they should explore it further. President Obama has promised to hold press conferences on a regular basis, possibly as often as once a month. This should be part of that process, occurring at least that often. Why not? What do you all think?

Three of the best/funniest posts of the month. Awesome, guys. Made my whole night!

Republicans blocking all initiatives is almost as intelligent as spotting Republican political trends by watching Rachel Madoff.

Good one.

Where that fits into the American scheme of things: Sorry, couldn't resist.

It's Fox News, but is it really that hard to believe that 51% of Democrats "wanted Bush to fail"? I don't think it is at all. Seems like fair play, following the chastisement of Rush Limbaugh for wanting Obama to fail. And now I have to shower. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/09/flashback-poll-showed-democrats-wanted-bush-fail/

I guess the concern is that people will clone themselves and sell the embryos to science. Which is kinda amusing considering how much a cloning process probably costs, but even if it were cheap you can always just pass a law -- "no selly yo embryo". The problem with not being out in front on a technology is that you get no say in the development of ethical standards that become its guiding principles. This was the main argument used in favor of us removing the ban on cloning earlier, unfortunately it doesn't sound like Obama's familiar with the argument (yet).