Will time make him bolder? And what will this mean for those who have built their lives around him?
I invite you to consider these important questions, and any others, in this open thread.
Read a fucking book.
mistermix has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2010.
Another Brick in the Wall
Of all the stupidities in the new Texas social studies curriculum, this is probably the most telling:
Rock ‘n’ roll and hip-hop: Students will have to study a list of influential musical and cultural movements in America that includes rock ‘n’ roll, Tin Pan Alley, country music and the Beat generation. Social conservatives beat back an effort to include hip-hop music after some members complained that its often-crude lyrics are inappropriate for students.
It’s one level of power to slant history towards conservative icons like Joe McCarthy. It’s quite another to remove a touchstone like this from a history textbook.
Any kid with a decent bullshit detector is going to be appropriately skeptical about, and ultimately alienated by, a book that doesn’t include a mention of the music he or she hears every day. Though I’m sure that alienating minorities wasn’t the main goal of the Texas State Board of Education, it’s certainly a welcome additional benefit.
Apple v Google
I’ll admit at the outset that I’m a GoogleBot. I use Chrome, carry around an Android phone, and have 4 different Google accounts (two business and two personal). If Google had a condom, I’d fuck with it on. With that in mind, I have a simple observation about the latest tech war, Apple versus Google.
Both of these companies are rapacious capitalists, and I’m not swayed by either Steve Job’s impeccable taste or Google’s “Don’t be Evil” slogan. The reason I’m on the Google side of the fence is because I think their business model is less intrusive and controlling.
Google is in business to sell advertising. Their goal is to serve me a relevant ad everywhere I am. To do that, they want to know a lot about me (where I am at the moment, and what I’m doing), so their software needs to run on every device I own. They also need continuously earn my trust, and the trust of every developer whose application serves me an ad. I need to trust that the ad is relevant and useful, and that Google won’t share too much of my personal information. Developers need to trust that the Google ad won’t be so intrusive that it will drive users away from their application or web page.
Apple is in business to sell hardware. They want me to buy one Apple device after another. To do so, they’re always trying to devise ways to lock me and developers to their device. They want to sell me music I can only hear on their devices or using their software, and now they are creating a bookstore that sells books I can only read on their devices or with their software. They want developers to write software that runs only on their devices, so Flash, for example, is forbidden on the iPhone and iPad. They need to earn my trust once, then they’ll lock me in with their Apple-only media and software.
Apple wants to be sure that it’s impossible for me to experience media on a non-Apple device. Google just wants me to experience it on a device where they can push an ad. Both are evil, Google is just the lesser.
Rand Paul and the Village Short Bus
Ezra Klein asks a few obvious questions, such as whether the junior Dr. Paul believes the government can set a minimum wage. Conor Friedersdorf retorts:
That this is the best Mr. Klein can do lays bear the absurdity of fretting about the prospect of Senator Paul. There is just no possible way that the federal minimum wage is going to be repealed, and even if it were, states are perfectly capable of setting their own minimum wage laws, as many do.
Is young Conor always this snotty when he’s being stupid? Because he would have to be very fucking stupid to accept that argument, which implies this one:
There is just no possible way that the Hyde Amendment is going to be repealed, and even if it were, states can control what their Medicaid programs pay for, so we needn’t worry about a Senator’s position on federal funding of abortions.
Unless the Kentucky Senate campaign is the Special Olympics of politics, Rand Paul, MD, FAAO should have to answer legitimate questions about the issues, no matter what wannabe Villagers like Mr. Friedersdorf think.
Republicans to Calderon: Callate, Pendejo
Here’s a little thought experiment: Imagine that Mexican Constitution made explosives legal, that Mexico had thousands of shops in border towns selling hand grenades, and that shit was blowing up everywhere here. Then imagine that Obama addressed the Mexican Congress and said the following:
And with all due respect, if you do not regulate the sale of these weapons in the right way, nothing guarantees that criminals here in the Mexico, with access to the same powerful weapons, will not decide to challenge Mexican authority and civilians.
My guess is that Cornyn and Kyl would be yelling treason, while McCain would be commandeering the Arizona National Guard as part of his invasion plan.
Those mild words (with references to the US, not Mexico) are what Felipe Calderon said yesterday in Congress. He’s concerned because the current violence in Mexico is armed in part from the 7,000 stores selling assault weapons on the US/Mexico border. Fewer than half of the Republicans in Congress bothered to show up, and here’s Cornyn:
“I have great respect for President Calderon, but he really shouldn’t turn this into an opportunity to tell us we should change our laws,” Cornyn said. He said that the Second Amendment, which gives Americans the right to bear arms, wasn’t a subject for diplomatic discussions.
I wonder what would happen if half of the Republicans missed one of Bibi Netanyahu’s joint addresses to Congress, and if the ones who did attend told him to STFU.
Republicans to Calderon: Callate, PendejoPost + Comments (49)
Speaking of Topsiders and Acid-Washed Jeans
Not to go all Rand all the time, but he’s a gift that just keeps on giving. His official statement about the civil rights issue, posted on his Obama-clone website, starts like this:
In response to liberal media attacks, Dr. Rand Paul today released the following statement:
Rand and Sarah Palin have at least one thing in common: a reporter asking a question that elicits a moronic response from either of them constitutes a “liberal media attack”.
Speaking of Topsiders and Acid-Washed JeansPost + Comments (22)
Facecrooks
Baby did a bad bad thing:
When Facebook’s users clicked on ads appearing on a profile page, the site would at times provide data such as the username behind the click, as well as the user whose profile page from which the click came. “If you are looking at your profile page and you click on an ad, you are telling that advertiser who you are,” Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman told the Journal.
And then there’s this:
May has been a bad month for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who just turned 26 last Friday but spent his birthday wrestling with an uproar over Facebook’s privacy practices. The latest unwelcome gift: accusations of securities fraud from former Harvard schoolmates who say he and other Facebook executives tricked them into a supposed $65 million settlement that was actually worth far less.
Though it’s pretty outrageous that Facebook is sharing that much data with advertisers, and that their privacy settings are so baroque, I do have to agree with the underlying point of this headine: “Facebook Users Outraged That Personal Information They Currently Share With Distant Acquaintances and Friends of Friends May Now Be Seen By Strangers”.