Nate Silver on Fox News

His comment was specifically about the show Fox and Friends: "Wow. I've never met people more terrified of what might happen if they actually tried to engage in a rational discussion." The substance of his post on fivethirtyeight.com had very little to do with Fox at all (it was about the insignificance of Obama's favorability ratings being above or below 50%). His statement was pretty much just a throwaway comment at the end. Nonetheless, he's a very impressive and rational blogger and that's a pretty strong statement.

Logo history

I forget where I found this surprisingly interesting article from Fortune about "new" (a very relative term in this case) logos. Consumers found Tropicana's new logo revolutionary? Who woulda thunk it?

Why Neoconservative Pundits Love Jon Stewart

One of my friends on Facebook posted a link to this article from New York magazine. No wonder I like Jon Stewart so much!

Back in April, when the debate over torture was roaring, Jon Stewart invited Cliff May, a national-security hawk and former spokesman for the Republican Party, to come on The Daily Show and defend waterboarding. May was hesitant. He thought Stewart would paint him as a crazy extremist. The audience would jeer. It would be a disaster.... "

But May had a change of heart after soliciting advice from his friend Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. "Kristol told me: 'You'll be pleasantly surprised. He doesn't take cheap shots. Jon is smart. You'll do just fine.'" Kristol proved to be right. Stewart's interview of May — a crackling, lengthy debate about where to draw the line between freedom and security — produced one of the most clarifying discussions about torture on television. "Literally, this is the best conversation I've had on this subject anywhere," May told Stewart.

Franco Harris for U.S. Senate?

This speculation comes from today's fivethirtyeight.com (in the last paragraph of the post), and yes, this is the same African-American-Italian who was a key player in the Pittsburgh Steelers' "Immaculate Reception" in the 1972 NFL play-offs!

Two cyclones feeding on each other

Today's very cool Earth Observatory Daily Image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.

Cyclonic Clouds over the South Atlantic Ocean

World's largest garbage dump?

As reported on in an article in today's Times (of London): "[T]wice the size of Texas and created from six million tonnes of discarded plastic."

The toxic soup of refuse was discovered in 1997 when Charles Moore, an oceanographer, decided to travel through the centre of the North Pacific gyre (a vortex or circular ocean current). Navigators usually avoid oceanic gyres because persistent high-pressure systems — also known as the doldrums — lack the winds and currents to benefit sailors.

Mr Moore found bottle caps, plastic bags and polystyrene floating with tiny plastic chips. Worn down by sunlight and waves, discarded plastic disintegrates into smaller pieces. Suspended under the surface, these tiny fragments are invisible to ships and satellites trying to map the plastic continent, but in subsequent trawls Mr Moore discovered that the chips outnumbered plankton by six to one.

The damage caused by these tiny fragments is more insidious than strangulation, entrapment and choking by larger plastic refuse. The fragments act as sponges for heavy metals and pollutants until mistaken for food by small fish. The toxins then become more concentrated as they move up the food chain through larger fish, birds and marine mammals.

“You can buy certified organic farm produce, but no fishmonger on earth can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish. This is our legacy,” said Mr Moore.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Mapped

[Via today's Daily Beast Cheat Sheet.]

Gitmo detainees to be tried by military tribunals?

Thursday, the New York Times reported that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates suggested that "[a]s many as 100 detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, could end up held without trial on American soil." The article went on to note:

The Obama administration is debating how to establish a legal basis for incarcerating detainees deemed too dangerous to be released but not appropriate to be tried because of potential problems posed by their harsh interrogations, the evidence against them or other issues.

Then yesterday, the New York Times reported that "The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself." This article went on to say:

Continuing the military commissions in any form would probably prompt sharp criticism from human rights groups as well as some of Mr. Obama’s political allies because the troubled system became an emblem of the effort to use Guantánamo to avoid the American legal system.

Officials who work on the Guantánamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies.

Obama administration officials — and Mr. Obama himself — have said in the past that they were not ruling out prosecutions in the military commission system. But senior officials have emphasized that they prefer to prosecute terrorism suspects in existing American courts. When President Obama suspended Guantánamo cases after his inauguration on Jan. 20, many participants said the military commission system appeared dead.

But in recent days a variety of officials involved in the deliberations say that after administration lawyers examined many of the cases, the mood shifted toward using military commissions to prosecute some detainees, perhaps including those charged with coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks.

“The more they look at it,” said one official, “the more commissions don’t look as bad as they did on Jan. 20.”

I find this worrisome [via yesterday's and today's Daily Beast Cheat Sheet respectively].

Last night's Presidential news conference

I had two strong reactions.

First, with regard to torture, President Obama said:

What I've said—and I will repeat—is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.

I am absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do—not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways—in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are [emphasis added].

I generally liked this repudiation of torture. But I was disappointed in the rationale he used (the italicized bit). I wish he had said instead that we do not torture because it is morally wrong. That's why it's illegal. At first I was thinking that he had missed an opportunity to make the moral case, but then I realized I was presuming that he really agreed with me. Maybe he doesn't.

Second, I was surprised that President Obama seemed to tip the government's hand on their approach to the danger of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. His initial response to the relevant question was:

I'm confident that we can make sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure. Primarily, initially, because the Pakistani army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands. We've got strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation....

We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.

The first half of his response to the follow-up—that he was not going to engage in hypotheticals—was what I expected. The second half, giving reassurance as to what was not going to happen, only seemed to emphasize the existence of contingency plans.

Q: But in a worst-case scenario...

OBAMA: I'm not going to engage in...

Q: (OFF-MIKE) military could secure this nuclear...

OBAMA: I'm not going to engage in—in hypotheticals of that sort. I feel confident that that nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands.

I have no doubt that such contingency plans exist. I am not surprised that they do. I am surprised that the President was willing to talk about them.

Order return rip-off, not!

Last month I posted about my expectation of being ripped off by TigerDirect for the cost of shipping me the wrong product, which I returned to them. While it was true that they only credited me with the cost of the part—$14.99—rather than that plus the shipping and handling—an additional $6.99—I'm happy to report that after I wrote them a letter of complaint they credited my account for the additional $6.99 and sent me a letter:

Thank you for contacting us regard your concerns. We apologize for any inconvenience you experienced. Please be advised that as of 04/01/09 a refund in the amount of $6.99 has been processed for your original shipping charges...

TigerDirect.com has a longstanding service commitment to our customers and their satisfaction is very important to us.

Once again we apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

When does GM count its cars as being "sold"?

In recent discussions of General Motors' plan to shut down factories for up to nine weeks this summer, I heard that GM recognizes revenue when vehicles are manufactured, not when they're sold. If I heard correctly, this practice is in accord with reporting standards set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), who proclaim—apparently on every page of their website—that they are "serving the investing public through transparent information resulting from high-quality financial reporting standards, developed in an independent, private-sector, open due process."

I just have a couple of questions. The ability to report revenue in this way serves the investing public how? Do we need any more evidence that big business is vastly under-regulated?