Misinformation

I'm convinced: I don't want Obama beans up my nose!

Testing 1/6 G

Here's a cool Mythbusters segment, where they test NASA video of astronauts' movement on the moon:

On critical thinking

Oh, for Goodness Sake showed me Anderson Cooper's wonderful interview of Arizona State Representative Cecil Ash. Ash is one of the proponents of the birther bill, which states that the Federal Elections Commission has no authority over a federal election in Arizona and presidential candidates need to present their birth certificates to the Arizona Secretary of State for approval.

Ash insists this is necessary, because there are all these rumors, don'cha know, and they have to be taken seriously. And every time Cooper* prods him with evidence that the rumors are unfounded, he responds with, "I don't know about that; you can't believe everything on the internet." A tour-de-force of the Will to Ignorance.




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* Kudos to Cooper, btw, for responding to a moron as he deserves. Very rare in the media today.

Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein!

Get this: obscure film gets vaulted to international fame by knock-off parodies; distributer sues to stop it. Everyone who thinks that's a dumb move will leave the room now.


A cynic* might note that Constantin Film waited until they had already gained the benefit of thousands of hours of free advertising, but it's still a bad move. Even Star Wars can be forgotten if no one's reminded of it.


[Update: Constantin Film's decision is being mocked. Guess how?]
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* Not me, of course; I'm just pointing out what a cynic might say.

Herding cats

Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution is True links to one of my favorite commercials on all time:

Wide World of Sports remembered

I'm watching the Olympics right now on NBC. The biathlon is on, a very different type of biathlon than the one I've competed in. In half an hour, women's ice hockey will come on over on the USA network, featuring the USA v. Finland. Later, Finland will play Russia on CNBC.

Or I could watch the Daytona 500 on Fox. In college basketball, I currently have four games to choose from; if I want to be entirely bored, I could check out the Golf Channel. Hooray for cable!

It's probably the ski jumping that put me in mind of ABC's Wide World of Sports - the image of Ukrainian Vinko Bogataj crashing off the ramp will, for sports fans of a certain age, forever represent the "agony of defeat." Back in the day, there were only three networks and sports programming was limited. No Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, or ESPN, yet; no FoxSports, no TNT, no ESPN2 searching for late night material, let alone ESPN8. No Golf Channel or Speed Network. But every Saturday afternoon, Wide World of Sports was there, "spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport." The show was as global as it was various, featuring auto racing, ice skating, soccer, gymnastics, curling, rodeo - almost anything might show up, and it was on WWS that I first marveled at the words "live via satellite" on my tv screen.

Somewhere in those many years that I didn't have television, Wide World of Sports went off the air, undoubtedly because of the rise of cable sports programming, almost a form of patricide. But it was always a Saturday staple in our house and I still get a thrill at the opening theme. So for those, like me, who grew up on Wide World of Sports, here's a delicious bit of nostalgia:

The good ol' days

The 1960's were truly a golden age in the United States. Summers lasted forever, the weather was perfect every day, and I had the run of the block. At Vick's dime store, penny candy still cost a penny and a Snickers bar would set me back a nickel (a hefty 33% of my weekly allowance, but a worthy splurge on occasion).

Of course, I didn't know that I was born just after my Dad had suffered two years of unemployment, or that my comfortable little block was the last white bastion in an increasingly black neighborhood. I had heard mention of some unpronounceable substance that could make people do crazy things like walk out into the street and try to stop traffic, but I never saw any drugs. I never heard a word about the RFK and MLK assassinations in 1968; I was six.

John Oliver nails the wingnuts on their incessant lament on the loss of the America the once knew. When was this golden age? Over and over again, "When I was a kid ...."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Even Better Than the Real Thing
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Yeah. This ain't gonna work.

Lawmaker convicted of rape claims name copyright

A former South Dakota lawmaker serving a prison sentence for raping two foster daughters has sent a copyright notice to news organizations that seeks to prevent the use of his name without his consent.

Sorry, you can't copyright your name, no matter how badly you want it out of the news. For one thing, you can only claim copyright for an intellectual product that you have authored, so your name doesn't qualify. You also can't copyright factual information - such as your name.

I'm not sure, but I think you have an automatic trademark in your name, which allows you to retain the right to be accurately and uniquely identified. In Mr. Klaudt's case, of course, that's exactly the problem ....

The well-engaged couch potato

An interesting article by Kent Anderson at The Scholarly Kitchen argues that DVR's allow viewers to pay more attention to their tv-watching - including the ads.
The main point: DVR's give people control over their viewing, so they're more active about what they watch. Passive viewing generally means paying less attention to what's on the screen.

To escape ads before, people would use the time to use the bathroom, make a sandwich, make a phone call, or check email (more recently). In fact, there was once an urban legend about plumbing problems being cause during commercial breaks during the Super Bowl. Running at normal speed, commercials allowed for 2-3 minutes of activity away from the television. Sped up using a DVR, people don’t leave the room.

Viewers have to watch the ads to use a DVR effectively. You have to know when the ads stop and the show resumes, which means watching the ads as they go by. Even at a high speed, the ads register. And people do watch carefully. As Hammock puts it so nicely, “Often, the person with the control is being judged by a second party for their finesse in stopping the fast-forwarding at the precise time it needs to stop, so, therefore a second party is also engaged in looking at the sped up commercials.”

Anderson is certainly right that few people were really watching all those ads anyway. Most of us are multitasking like mad when the tv's on. It's a rare program that has my undivided attention.

As an aside, I don't have a DVR, but I have found that I pay far more attention to a Netflix program streaming to my computer than I do to a DVD playing on the television. This seems to have more to do with the size of the screen than to any other factor. To watch on the computer, I pretty much have to keep the laptop on the lap, and I can't really surf the net or browse a book at the same time. I do like being able to carry it into the bathroom with me, though.

Stewart skewers Beck

John Stewart fears for Glenn Beck's internal organs:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The 11/3 Project
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Brilliant.

Cafferty on Canadians

Jack Cafferty points to* this article in the Detroit Free Press which describes how some Detroit hospitals have made deals with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to provide certain medical procedures that are hard to come by in Canada. He implies that this is a failure of the Canadian health care system.

My pithy reply was: "The Canadian citizen is guaranteed to get treatment, and his government is taking steps to provide it at the lowest cost. The problem here is … what?" Many commenters, I was happy to see, agreed. The point is that the ministry finds an efficient way to meet their citizens' needs and they meet those needs. It sounds like a good thing.

So what does it mean that some Canadians come to the US? Mainly, it means that Canadian hospitals aren't filled to the brim with every medical technology there is in the world. It also stems from the fact that Canada suffers a shortage of specialists; while there is easy access to general practitioners, when you're referred to a specialist there may be more of a delay (not because of any particular bureaucratic inefficiency, but just because those doctors already have full schedules and non-emergency patients get shunted to the back of the queue). Canada could certainly invest more money in its own hospitals**, but with most Canadians living within easy proximity to the US, it's arguably a wise saving of taxpayer money to make use of Detroit hospitals as they do.

The fact that hospitals are jumping on these contracts also indicates that there is an overcapacity in US medical facilities. Apparently we have more doctors and more hospital machines than we can keep busy with the number of patients who have the a) need and the b) means to pay for treatment. One suspects that (b) is no trivial factor.

Some of the commenters want to believe that the Canadian government is failing to provide doctors. This is a confusion that I see popping up all the time: mixing up health care delivery with health care payment. The Canadian government doesn't actually run health care; the hospitals are private and Canadians can still purchase private health insurance. Any hospital can purchase the equipment for these procedures if they have the financial incentive to do so and obviously Ontario is willing to make it worth someone's while to do it. So it's hard - or ought to be hard - to read this article and conclude that government has screwed up medical care.

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* Actually, he mentions it, but doesn't provide a link. C'mon, CNN, you can do better than that!

** It's worth pointing out that there's a limited and specific list of tests and procedures that Ontario is contracting for; it's not like they have 19th Century hospitals.

Can't argue with this

Is the internet a right, pt. II? In France - yes

A couple months ago I mentioned the efforts in France to pass laws that would allow illegal file sharers to be barred from internet service. At that time, the law had been defeated, but was since brought up again and passed.

Now it's been struck down again by the French Constitutional Council. You can read their decision here, if your French is any good. Mine isn't, but the accounts are saying that the Council ignored the practical considerations - do you punish a whole household for one person's misdeeds? wouldn't you just end up nabbing the less savvy and less harmful thieves? - and went straight for the big issue.* Invoking the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man, which are enforceable under the French constitution, the Council wrote:

But the Council found the law violated both the constitutional right to freedom of expression and the right to presumption of innocence.

“It follows,” wrote the Court, “that in principle the legislature does not establish a presumption of guilt in criminal matters”. The Court also said exercising freedom of expression and communication, including that performed over the internet, is a prerequisite for democracy.

“Attacks on the exercise of this freedom must be necessary, appropriate and proportionate to the aim pursued,” it said.

In particular, the Council strongly disapproved that a legal punishment would be determined by a political agency rather than a court of law.

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* In marked contrast with US Supreme Court tendencies, which Ed Brayton critiques here.

Facebook ads

Now, given the way the words create a visual grouping, is it entirely my fault that I first read this as "Meet Easy Christian Women"?

PZ Myers responds to Charlotte Allen

Even if you don't much care about the religion - "New Atheists" debate, you ought to read this editorial by PZ Myers, written in response to this silly whine at the LA Times by one Charlotte Allen a few days ago.

One of the reasons - no, two of the reasons - I so admire Myers is that, while he can eviscerate an argument with a merciless, contemptuous wit, he can also respond with an indulgent good humor when the occasion calls for it. This was such an occasion and Myers showed perfect restraint, making his case in a manner both pointed and patient.

Life is unfair

So here's my little blog that almost no one reads, full of earnest pontifications for which I receive (almost certainly deservedly) not a penny.

Then here's George Will,
who gets paid megabucks for complaining that blue jeans epitomize the essential immaturity of the American public.

I guess it makes George feel all grown up, in a mother-of-teenagers sort of way, to complain about what other people are wearing.

Strange thoughts

The chiropractic office down the street from one of my workplaces has some strange ideas. Last week it was "Today's crazy idea is tomorrow's accepted truth," to which I reply, Only very rarely. The week before that it was "Don't let the media crush your dreams." Okay, I shouldn't let my dreams be crushed but -- the media? Why the media, unless the writer is some kind of wing nut who thinks everyone else is the extremist?

If you're a chiropractor trying to fight the stereotype of your profession as pseudoscience and quackery, is this the way to present yourself to the world?

I believe these folks are goofy and I must be right.

Copyright and citizen journalism

Via Stinky Journalism and the Archives Listserv,

MSNBC Misattributes Photo: Wrongly Claimed Twitter User's Photo as its Own



The photo was originally posted on Twitter and apparently many media outlets did a good job of contacting the photographer to request permission before republishing it. MSNBC (through carelessness rather than policy, let us hope) got caught tagging it as their own.

Sensationalist headline writers

I'm watching for news on the recent earthquake swarm at Yellowstone, so this headline caught my eye:

Scientists: Yellowstone Park volcanic eruption probable

Whoa, I thought, better check that out. Which I did, wondering if there was some one geologist who was going around making such predictions. And it turns out that ... no, no one is predicting anything of the sort. The person writing the article isn't claiming that anyone said anything of the sort. And it appears that some editor isn't paying attention to how much the headline writers are embellishing stories, in this case to the point of actual falsehood.

Here are the relevant quotes:

Scientists studying this most recent movement wonder if last month's swarm of tremors, the most numerous and intense in the area in many years, might be a harbinger of a larger event.

Experts claim a supervolcano eruption in the future is inevitable with 100 percent probability. Eight supervolcano eruptions are known from the geologic record, and there could be even more.

*snip*

Although nothing, including the recent earthquake swarm, points conclusively to an imminent eruption, the researchers note that Yellowstone erupts about every 600,000 years.

I suppose not everyone knows that when a geologist tells you something is going to be happening, he doesn't necessarily mean in the next 500,000 years.

Media and politics

Michael Tomasky writes in the New York Review of Books:

One of the most fascinating things about the current election is that Barack Obama's campaign is less concerned about coverage by blogs and television than any other presidential campaign in the short history of this media age, and that John McCain's operation seems utterly consumed by it. And it's not merely that this is fascinating: each side's attitude toward its media coverage may well determine who wins the election.

*snip*

The McCain campaign is organized entirely around daily news cycles—the belief that winning the media war will win the election. The two defining decisions of his campaign make this obvious. First, Sarah Palin was selected as his running mate to shake up the conversation on cable television and in the blogs. The selection was announced the Friday after the Democratic convention to deny Obama a prominent place during the next two or three days of news cycles.

Second, McCain's cynical decision to "suspend" his campaign (which he did not in fact do) and return to Washington for the bailout negotiations was solely about his recognition that he was losing attention in the news cycles and he had to do something to staunch the bleeding. Virtually every major move McCain has made has been about trying to win that day's headlines.

Obama has tripped him up, and no doubt confounded him and his handlers, by not playing the game. Even in Obama's post–Labor Day nadir, when he slipped in the polls and liberals everywhere were panicked, Obama didn't resort to stunts or grandstanding hyperbole.

From a culture & media perspective, I'm not sure what to make of this. Perhaps chaotic times make sobriety more appealing. We've had self-described men of action* in office for eight years and some of their decisions can be legitimately second-guessed. I, for one, am finding the criticism of McCain as "erratic" rather convincing. If anything, this other fellow who keeps an even keel and doesn't bow to the news cycle appears to be his own man, more so than the "maverick" who's manically flipping through every page in Karl Rove's playbook.



* I believe "forward leaning" was the expression of choice. Still sounds off-balance to me.