Virtual, but permanent.
Missives from the most primitive place on earth.
BBC SPORT | Football | Europe | Beckham reluctant to return to US
It’s hard to blam Beckham. For all of its glitz and glamor, LA (Beverly Hills, especially) is a shitty place to live. It’s hard to trade Milan and Italian sophistication for LA’s gridlock and Angeleno status consciousness. Countless others have abandoned LA for places far less glamorous as Milan, this writer included.
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On an October day when fires were raging all over Southern California, readers who wanted to be awed by the events were greeted with a very awkwardly placed Macy’s ad on the Los Angeles Times web site. Right next to the photo gallery that showed the awesome destruction that the Marek fire was causing Simi and San Fernando valleys was this strangely cheerful Macy’s ad for a Columbus Day Sale.Â
Yes, the internet is taking over everything, but there clearly remain many, many kinks to work out. It’s highly unlikely that Macy’s wanted this event advertised on this particular page.
Then again, maybe the average Angeleno responds to disasters by shopping at Macy’s.
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CNN’s Citizen Journalism Goes `Awry’ With False Report on Jobs | Bloomberg.com: U.S.
CNN describes iReport as a place for “unedited, unfiltered news” and said it “makes no guarantee about the content or coverage.” The site was started in August 2006 as part of CNN.com and became a standalone Web site in February. As such, CNN’s iReport is probably the dumbest ratings stunt in the history of broadcast news. And, it is surprising to see that CNN proudly boasts about the collective stupidity of its employees in this graphic from the iReport web site.
One really wonders how a “reporter” who is not subjected to fact checking, to proper editorial oversight and strict ethical conduct could be considered a reporter. Anyone with a sense of what journalism means knows that CNN abandoned all ethics and morals years ago when it decided to pursue ratings rather than stories.Â
It comes as an insult, nevertheless, that the network manages to pass off rumor, innuendo and outright prevarication as “news” reported by its “citizen journalists”, who are nothing but anonymous cowards, as the above cited link regarding the Steve Jobs rumor amply demonstrates.
Perhaps CNN management should extend this ploy to other avenues of their lives. They ought to seek auto repair from “citizen mechanics”, legal advice from “the citizen judiciary” and medical advice from “citizen physicians”. Evolution thus implemented may well provide the citizenry with better journalism.
It certainly seems as if they are getting their editorial advice from “citizen editors”. And, while they are getting advice apparently from “citizen lawyers”, I shall endeavor to start a class action suit against them for negatively affecting Apple shareholders, a group to which I belong.
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Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune | Bits | Technology | New York Times Blog
As if Microsoft had not provided its users sufficient reasons to abandon the Windows platform, it has now provided the ultimate reason. Microsoft is contemplating building a digital rights management scheme that will disable or erase content whose provenance it cannot verify. In other words, if your Zune player or Microsoft Windoze Vista cannot verify that you obtained your music or movie “legally”, it will prevent you from playing this content. Of course, “legally” in this context means through Microsoft’s proprietary means of ascribing legality: whether you bought it through Microsoft or not.
This report is very much on the rumor mill level of things, but it is entirely credible because it is not such a drastic departure from the existing Microsoft DRM schme. if it proves true, then every Microsoft user will have to register every CD she or he owns with Microsoft so that she or he can play it on the computers that she or he has authorized. Indeed, every Microsoft user will have to ask Microsoft for permission to play anything on her or his computer or Zune player.
“Thank you, sir. May I have another?” is the phrase that may be relevant to Microsoft users at this juncture. And, apparently, they do want to have another, and Microsoft is all too happy to deliver the blows.
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Noted outside a fancy resaurant and nightclub at the corner of Broadway and Ocean in Santa Monica. Apparently, the subject of the times when dinner is to be served was a matter of dispute.
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The evil liberal media dominators at the New York Times report on a Bush initiative that has had an apparently remarkable impact on the chronically homeless in the United States. What is especially surprising is that all sides of the issue seem to be in agreement that the data are reliable. If such consensus is born of truth, then it is true that the chronically homeless population has declined by nearly 30% in the United States over the past four years.
Coupled to this report on PBS’s The News Hour about how resoundingly successful the President’s AIDS relief program in Africa has been, this astonishing development compels one to think of all the remarkable good that could have been achieved with the trillions of dollars (projected costs including interest) currently being squandered in Iraq. After all, the total cost of these programs ($15 billion for AIDS relief as cited by The News Hour report, and ostensibly no more than a few billions of dollars for the “housing first” program; I can’t presently find a citation) absolutely pales when compared with the $752 billion cited by the CBO for the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan thus far. Had such resources been allocated to AIDS relief and homelessness, the earth may well have been purged of both scourges.
Could the President be asking himself if the pursuit of the war in Iraq was a gross misappropriation of resources? After all, the three-quarters of a trillion dollars thus far spent in Iraq has had the sole effect of bringing the American economic engine to a halt by sending the price of crude oil into the stratosphere. Thus, the military operation in Iraq has, in effect, quashed all effective programs undertaken by the government in two ways. First, it has absorbed moneys that would otherwise have been dedicated to such effective programs like AIDS relief and housing first. Second, it has reduced the capability of the American economy to provide for any government program by reducing economic output.
Thus, the reasons why the neoconservatives keep insisting on the validity of the military operations in Iraq are almost understood. Any admission that moneys spent elsewhere would be more effective than the moneys squandered in Iraq would reveal these war mongers to be the frauds and the hucksters that they are. It is, therefore, nothing but an article of fear that compels the cowards who wage war to deny their misdeeds.
And, that is why their cowardice is almost understood. Those occupying positions of power must have the courage to make such admissions. It is their duty. It is, in fact, their legal obligation to confess to their mistakes so that these mistakes can be rectified or remedied before they erode the public’s trust and destroy the institutions that guarantee accountability and efficacy in governance. This very fact that persons vested with authority must carry a higher responsibility is the reason why such childish denials of fault in government are labeled high  crimes and misdemeanors, while those of the child who had broken a vase are labeled mere fibs.
If the constitutional mandate that punishments fit crimes were observed, then such high crimes and misdemeanors would merit harsher punishments than those meted out by parents for their children’s fibs. As it is, however, children are being held accountable for breaking vases, but politicians are exonerated for their squandering of the common wealth and the nation’s prestige. Who is measuring the merits of spending a pittance for the sake of the welfare of humanity against the spending of fortunes to increase the misery of mankind and opting for the latter?
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BBC NEWS | Business | US economy at a glance
Perhaps the only thing gloomier than this picture is the fact that no American news source can be bothered by the simple process of consulting publicly available data from the government. The Brits seem to have grasped the utility of the internet browser better than American journalists. Perhaps that’s because it was a Brit who invented the world wide web and the browser.
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The only thing more puzzling about the rapid decline of Los Angeles as a functional, livable city is the bold transparency with which the destruction of the city is undertaken by its elected officials and the contractors who have successfully corrupted them. The above link cites but the most recent instance of the grotesque cronyism and lack of accountability that has 
made Los Angeles the most unlivable and unmanageable city in the United States. Even though Los Angeles has the most unsafe airport in the country and the worst traffic in the country, no leader in this city can sustain moral fortitude long enough to address problems that imiserate millions of people daily.
One would surmise that after hosting the most embarrassing public works project in human history (one in which the Federal Government calls the Los Angeles Government corrupt!), the processes of improving the city’s infrastructure would improve. As the above articles shows, quite the contrary is true. The city’s airports, roads and public transit system are destined to wither and perish under unrelenting corruption before the eyes of a citizenry apparently too sleepy to care for its own well being.
As nature has demonstrated time and again, evolution is more likely to eliminate the weak than to promote the strong. Evolutionary data from the primordial soup that is Los Angeles strongly suggest that evolution on occasion favors the stupid and the weak over the judicious and prudent. Whatever organism emerges from the primordial soup, I am ecstatic that, for now, I have managed to extricate myself from the unbearably ugly evolutionary process that is shaping the primordial soup.
You should be too, if you don’t live in Los Angeles.
Photo by VirtualErn.
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One of the blogs that I maintain has been inundated with Spam from the site above. According to the site, this woman is a “Palestinian model” and television presenter. I have no idea what either means. I am struck with a tinge of pity, however, that there are models who feel as if they need to resort to spamming in order to achieve the sort of groundswell from the internet underground that lifted Cindy Margolis and several other models whose names are not worth seeking or remembering.Â
Alas, even the title of the site is misleading. She’s not nude. Was this out of respect to her Muslim heritage? Is she a traditional Palestinian Christian? Would she reject an Israeli agent or photographer?
Ah, useless questions that hound us in the primordial soup.Â
For inexplicable reasons, I did more research. Her Wikipedia entry and her official site (Italian) imply that she is Jewish of Moroccon descent. Her portfolio includes little work that would be recognized in the US. So, these damned spam bots are working overtime on any site that happens to mention Italy.
Is this fortunate or unfortunate for her? Â
The American obsession with rankings and the “competition” that rankings are believed to spur is so fervent, so strong and so overwhelming that any ranking–no matter how unscientific, how thoroughly biased or how flawed–is bound to get press. The college football and basketball rankings, the US News & World Report’s annual college rankings, hospital rankings, etc., etc., etc. So many rankings exist that they have obscured the more important question of whether all universities, hospitals or whatever are competent at all. After all, overall competence and excellence is the goal of standards, not individual competence or excellence. Who cares if you have 50 good universities (or even 200), if 1000 universities are lousy? A thousand competent hospitals do much more for public health than five stellar ones.
The 14th annual  City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America published by Congressional Quarterly threatens to be the most irresponsible of such rankings primarily because it is published by a trusted source. When a report on crime is anticipated by such criticism from the highest sources on criminology, the reasons why anyone gives it press become baffling. The criticism included in the above article include:
The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Society of Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statement attacking it as “an irresponsible misuse” of crime data. Â
…
Critics also complain that numbers don’t tell the whole story because of differences among cities.
“You’re not comparing apples and oranges; you’re comparing watermelons and grapes,” said Rob Casey, who heads the FBI section that puts out the Uniform Crime Report that provides the data for the Quitno report.The FBI posted a statement on its Web site criticizing such use of its statistics.”These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region,” the FBI said. “Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents.”
But, most appalling is the CQ Press’s own insistence and admission that the study is worthless:
 CQ Press spokesman Ben Krasney said details of the weighting system were proprietary.   Â
Thus, the publisher asserts that it is propounding a hypothesis–their statistical model–that they refuse to have tested independently. This runs contrary to all scientific principles of inquiry. In all sciences–including social sciences like sociology–openness is the most essential ingredient. Without it, hypotheses cannot be tested independently in order to be verified. Without independent verification, there is no truth. By making the hypothesis proprietary, CQ Press is disallowing scrutiny and forbidding independent verification. Thus, CQ Press propagates an untested notion, a falsehood. In effect, it is acting as a propagandist.Â
Hopefully other silly rankings will soon be discredited by similar confession of inadequacy by their publishers.Â