The Defense Industry attempts social media

Now that the Super-committee has failed, billions of automatic cuts to the federal budget will soon go into effect.

What does this mean for the world's most powerful military you ask? Well, if  Congress does nothing it means $450 billion in cuts...over 10 years. Yes, over 10 years. Most of the mainstream media coverage of this story leaves out that last little detail.

A $45 billion cut in what is estimated to be a total defense / homeland security / intelligence / veterans affairs budget of somewhere near $1.2 TRILLION a year (not the $750 billion official appropriation) is probably not that big of a deal. But the defense industry has put aside their parochial concerns for their own individual weapons systems and are working together to oppose these cuts.

"Astroturf" is the term for when a corporation needs to make it look like they have popular support, and boy is Second to none an AstroTurf operation if I have ever seen one. A dead giveaway is the full color glossy posters these defense industry workers are holding up:

To be honest though, I expected more from the combined resources of Boeing, BAE, Northup Grumman, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics to name just a few.

They don't even have a Facebook page, and only 373 people have "liked" the page, including me. Pretty pathetic.

They did however suggest that I use a specific hashtag when "supporting" their campaign: #secondtonone

But without anyway to engage with people, how do they expect these social media efforts to pay off?

Moreover, when the official figure for how much we collectively spend on drones, aircraft carriers, tanks, satellites and nuclear weapons dwarfs all the other major countries in the world combined, do we really have anything to worry about?

I do feel bad for these workers. I don't want anyone to have to lose their job. But if just some of the trillions of dollars we spend on the military could be used to ween the United States off oil we wouldn't need to maintain the global military force we have today.

The greatest irony of this AstroTurf campaign is that even if the budget was cut by almost $100 billion a year, the United States still wouldn't be second to anyone. Second to the rest of the world combined maybe, but I think that is probably good enough don't you think?

Social Media on Election Day

Washington is an all mail-in ballot state. This means that voters have a couple of weeks to sit around their kitchen tables and ponder their ballots. Now on the whole I favor this system because it pretty clearly drives up voter turnout by making the process so much easier.

However as a political news junkie, I am against it because it makes election night so much less fun. Instead of anxiously watching television news as they report precinct by precinct as the results come pouring in after the polls close we get to huddle around our laptops feverishly clicking refresh to see if the Secretary of State released the results.

LAME.

They don't even update that often, so at 8:15pm last night the fun was pretty much over.

But in the lead up to the release of the first round of ballots that came in, social media does still have a role to play. As you might expect, I follow a lot of organizations and people who posted to Facebook on election day. And as I have posted about before, I was anticipating seeing one giant chunk of truncated and summarized status updates like this:

But instead of seeing everyone who posted about "election day" clumped together, I was pleasantly surprised to see more of this:

The League of Education Voters is doing their homework when it comes to what works and what doesn't when it comes to using social media when you know there will be a lot of other people posting about the same thing. They used a photo and capitalized on Facebook's tendency to display photos very widely and thus expanded the reach of their post and connected with more of their fans, some of whom might have forgot about their ballot.

Posting information about ballot drop box locations can be one of the most helpful things you as a candidate can do, but that doesn't mean Facebook cares. It is still going to lump you in with everyone else who tried to do the voting public a service:

I really disagree with the Washington Policy Center on almost everything, but advertising your suggestions for how to vote on what is normally a bewildering number of initiatives is always a good idea:

King 5 also does a good job with their social media and asking Facebook questions is great way to drive engagement on your page and increase your fan base:

So overall election night is now a lot less fun. But on the bright side, the mail-in balloting system basically drags out election day over three weeks so we political nerds will just have to enjoy the suspense of election season over a few weeks instead of a few hours.

The political season in Seattle and those "I'm a Mormon" ads

Its election time in Washington State and that means a barrage of special interest campaign spending. Aside from Costco setting the new all time record on initiative spending to support their Liquor privatization measure I wanted to start off this post with what I think should be considered a violation of what is left of our campaign finance laws.

So Mitt Romney is a Mormon. I have no real problem with that. But to many conservative christian voters in this country Mormonism is a cult and they would never vote for one. I believe that the mainstream media has underestimated this element in the Republican primary debate. I had first hand experience with this reality when I was joined at the Fox Sport Grill (which was an awesome choice) by a self described Republican as my friends and I watched the most recent Republican debate. This Republican admitted to not paying attention to the race yet (as most normal Americans aren't) but was able to recognize Mitt Romney. This person then confirmed with us that he is a Mormon and then when on to declare that they wouldn't not vote for him because of that.

So here is where the campaign finance law violation comes in. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints also known as the LDS, understands that they have a public relations problem and that the best shot they have ever had at real political power in America might be derailed because a large number of Americans don't understand and some fear their religion. The mere fact that this campaign exists means they understand many Americans consider Mormonism "a little weird" at the least.

This campaign is clearly designed to humanize the public's perception of Mormons and help Mitt Romney secure the nomination by hopefully allaying some of the fears of those all important primary voters.

I assert that the spending done by the LDS on this conveniently timed public awareness campaign should be consider an in-kind contribution to the Mitt Romney and to a far lesser extent, Jon Huntsman campaigns. This is obviously illegal since religious organizations are banned from making such contributions.


But, back to the craziness that is Washington politics. With a system of unlimited special interest spending on endless citizen initiative votes, we Washingtonians never run out of stuff to vote on. As I mentioned earlier, Costco's second attempt to privatize liquor sales in 2 years has hit a record for all time spending on a initiative in Washington.

But what really strikes me about this campaign is the fact that very few of their ads actually talk about the merits of the issue. They focus instead on how their opposition is bad and that is why people should vote Yes.

As I mentioned in my previous post on I-1183, there are lots of reasons to vote against 1183 and it seems like the campaign is now just banking on dumping $22 million into the simple message of "yes."

I mean look at this yard sign, it doesn't even say what the initiative does!

The most fundamental reason why I think everyone should vote No on 1183 is summed up by this effective slippery slope argument from the no campaign:

Are we going to let decisions about public policy come down to how much is one special interest going to pump into getting the regulatory environment adjusted to their benefit?

Erik and Ty at the Dog Park or Will the dirth of poop bags wake people up?

I was lucky enough to escort the illustrious and popular Ty Guenther to the Magnuson Park off leash area last week. As you can tell we both had a blast:



While leaving the park I saw this sign:

Is this what it is going to take for people to realize the extent and severity of the budget cuts that been enacted at all levels of government? Most middle class tax payers have yet to feel the real impacts of state, local and federal budget cuts. In contrast poor and working class families already know the strains that budget cuts have put on their already struggling families. But when will the middle class wake up to the reality that we are selling Washington's future up the river?

I know this seems trivial compared to the cut backs in programs like The Basic Health Plan here in Washington, but not having poop bags at the dog park might finally wake some people up to the impacts of rejecting common sense tax measures like last year's I-1098 and I-1107.

If you owned a 164’ yacht, what flag would you fly?

That is the question I was faced when biking back from Golden Gardens Park past the Ballard locks last month. Now I fancy myself something of a flag aficionado but the flag this super yacht was flying was not familiar to me. It had the union jack and a red field. Okay so that narrows it down to somewhere in the former British Empire, not a lot of help there... (my best guesses are below)

This is the Wabi-Sabi, a 164’ charter yacht coming into Lake Union from Puget Sound using the Hiram H. Chittenden Locks: (I made a mistake with my captions in the video, its lake Union not Lake Washington)



As you can see, this massive yacht is registered out of the Cayman Islands despite the owner's attempt to be discreet and abbreviate Cayman Islands as C.I. For those of you who don’t know, the Cayman Islands is a notorious offshore tax haven.

Watching this behemoth transit the locks I couldn’t help thinking about the irony of such an extravagant yacht in the middle of the great recession. Do you think anyone is paying taxes on this yacht? If they are, I would bet it isn’t very much. Is it fair that this tax dodging super-yacht is able to take advantage of the public structures that our tax dollars pay for?

This story is a parallel of modern American politics. The super wealthy (who now encourage tea-party radicals to protest the very existence of government and taxes) have built their fortunes relying on the shared public structures we all support with our taxes. Government is not a vending machine, the whole of government spending is greater than the sum of its parts. Without it, the wealthy would be unable the amass their fortunes. Many of the super wealthy understand this and happily pay their taxes. But even if you are a super wealthy anti-tax yacht owner, the public structures we all pay for come in handy from time to time.

So really, what flag would you fly?

Bermuda?
 

Manitoba?

Ontario?

Its a tough call, but I am going to have to go with Bermuda, I hear its nice there.

Erik’s top 6 robotic space missions (ongoing and planned)

For those of you who haven’t heard, the space shuttle is retiring. The Museum of Flight is working to get one of them in Seattle by the way. NASA has no replacement plan after they scraped the Constellation program that would have developed a new manned space vehicle. NASA is basically privatizing manned space exploration and many of their engineers are moving into private sector jobs.

To be honest I am mixed on these developments. After reading Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars by Kim Stanely Robinson, I am wary of corporate control of space but it also seemed to produce results. Companies like SpaceX are planning impressive new vehicles and Richard Branson will sell you a ticket on Virgin Galaxy if you happen to have $200,000 lying around. One could make the argument that this will only further make space the exclusive domain of the rich and powerful, but lets face it, no matter what we do 99.99% of will be staying on Earth.

So think what you will about the future of manned space flight. In my opinion the whole enterprise is futile until we have the extra resources to start a self sustaining colony on Mars that volunteers take a one-way trip to reach.

But as with many things in the modern world, the answer to the space exploration question is to use Robots. NASA and its partners including the European Space Agency and JAXA are planning and have executed some awesome robotic missions to explore the solar system. Here is my top 6 in no particular order:

1. The Japanese mission to land on an asteroid and send back a sample.

This is super impressive. The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa took a seven year trip to gather a sample of an asteroid. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, the sample was successfully returned to earth in 2010 and is now being studied. Asteroid mining here we come!





2. Mars Spirit and Opportunity Rovers

This mission was supposed to last 90 days. Opportunity has been going for 8 years. That is good bang for your buck. Enough said.






3. Solar Sail

This one cracks me up. NASA thought that their design for a solar sail powered space craft had failed. It didn’t unfurl. Then after weeks of waiting, the sail spontaneously unfurled for reasons they don’t understand. Ever had a problem with an electronic device, try turning it off and leaving it alone for a while then it magically works again? I guess that happens to NASA too.


4. The planned mission to the Kraken Mare on Titan.

This is probably my favorite. So did you know that Saturn’s moon of Titan has a liquid hydrocarbon ocean? Yeah thats right, they call it the Kraken Mare. Awesome name. NASA is considering sending a mission to Titan that would land in that ocean and float around until it finds something. If complex life exists anywhere else in the solar system, there is a good chance it is on Titan.

Titan and the whole Saturnian system is incredibly fascinating. There is Enceladus, a frozen moon with a seismically active core that spews liquid water into space, Mimas that looks a lot like the Death Star and probably should have been destroyed by an impact large enough to create that crater, and Iapetus that has a massive equatorial ridge that we can’t explain either. So thanks to the Cassini Spacecraft for all the amazing work you have done teaching us about Saturn!

5. Missions to Phobos.

The Russians are currently planning to launch a sample return mission to Phobos, Mars’ largest moon. Both of Mars’ moons are kind of weird. They aren’t round and scientists can't decide if they are captured asteroids or chunks of Mars that got blown off by a huge impact. The really cool thing about this mission is that it will target the Phobos Monolith. There is a huge squarish looking rock that sticks off the side of this potato shaped moon 90 meters into space. No one is really sure what it is, but Buzz Aldrin thinks we really need to go check it out. The most radical theories about Phobos and Demos claim that they were used as space stations for a Martian civilization that moved them to their current orbits to save energy when going in and out of Mars’ gravity well. Obviously this is a little far fetched, but we don’t really know enough about the Red Planet to say for sure.

6. New Horizons mission to pluto.

This is first object humanity has ever built to be launched on a direct solar system escape trajectory. New Horizons will arrive at Pluto (not a planet) in 2015 and then begins investigating the Kuiper belt and leaves the solar system around 2029.




So, which is your favorite? Any awesome ones that I forgot or maybe haven’t heard about? Let me know!

Hank Scorpio as modern corporate titan or How The Simpsons predicted the next 15 years of American history in 1996.

“You Only Move Twice” is no less an excellent Bond parody as it is a prophetic vision of modern American life. The questions this episode raises force us to consider the direction or country is headed and the moral quandaries that today’s successful corporate employees face. Scorpio offers a seemingly perfect life for the Simpson family and all he asks in return is willful ignorance and moral complicity in his megalomaniacal schemes. Now I will admit to exaggerating my rhetoric slightly, but when examining the crimes of corporate criminals such as Ken Lay, Bernie Madoff and international criminals like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, the comparison with Hank Scorpio seems appropriate.

Lets break this episode down. I will examine why each member of the Simpson family at first embraces the neo-feudal kingdom of Hank Scorpio but then fails to adapt to Scorpio's bleak libertarian world where you moral compass is exchanged for perks and fancy houses.

The episode opens with Globex agents attempting hire Smithers to run their nuclear reactor. Notice the limousine has no license plate in another prediction of how some quasi-governmental organizations like BlackWater and Halliburton operate above the law.

But in probably their best prediction in this episode, the writers foresee America’s coming foreclosure crisis. The Simpson family chooses to abandon their home after a failed attempt to sell it for enough to cover what they owe on their mortgage. The similarities between the millions of homeowners who are stuck holding underwater mortgages today and the Simpsons' choice are obvious. Scorpio’s offer of employment includes a free house and a virtual free pass out of normal society and the obligations the Simpson family leaves behind (including stealing Ned's TV trays.)

Bart:

At first Bart is enthusiastic for the new adventure of living in Hank Scorpio’s town. He embraces the chance to start over and be the popular kid in a new school.

But Bart fails in Cypress Creek partly because of the inadequacy of Springfield’s public schools and partly out of his own willful rejection of learning. So I have little sympathy for Bart’s plight of being sent to the remedial class at Cypress Creek Elementary.

On a more psychological level Bart’s experience in the “Leg up” program is both a powerful critique of special education and a scathing indictment of behavior modification and modern psychology. The scene that struck me as the most depressing involves Bart playing musical chairs with many more chairs than people. Bart struggles unsuccessfully to convince his teacher (and embodiment of authority) that he doesn’t deserve to be treated as someone who is mentally disabled. Bart’s plight reminds me of a “This American Life” story that revolves around a man who fakes insanity to avoid punishment. Ira Glass’s investigation raises fundamental questions about modern psychology and focuses on the paradox of attempting to convince people who think you are crazy that you are in fact sane. Here is the link, it is totally worth a listen: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_full.php?play=385

Marge:

Marge’s new luxury home has all but eliminated the daily chores that kept her occupied in Springfield and has freed her to either have a career or embrace the lifestyle of the leisure class. Homer’s new Globex salary could easily let Marge live a very comfortable life, if that is really what she really wanted. But Marge chooses to leave the house with the “autovac set on dirt patrol” and return to her monotonous and seemingly unfulfilling life in Springfield. Marge is either a creature of habit who can’t appreciate "the good life" or she subconsciously rejects the idea that life should be as easy as Globex is making it.

Homer:

Homer is recruited to Globex based on his 10 years of experience at the Springfield Nuclear power plant. To anyone who has ever had a boss that you could tell didn't really understand your job, this plot line should resonate. Homer’s new job is to motivate a team of nuclear engineers and get a reactor online to power Scorpio’s death ray.

Homer succeeds while working for Scorpio and Globex, its the best job he has ever had. He gets the reactor online and allows Scorpio’s plan of seizing the East Coast to become reality. As a West Coaster this is also very satisfying and hints at how disconnected we really are from the power centers on the East Coast.

Homer’s success can be chalked up to either total ignorance or willing complicity. Obviously the episode is funnier when Homer displays the former but the moral questions remain. Homer willingly accepts Scorpio’s Faustian bargain and takes the big house, large salary and other corporate perks in exchange for his moral complicity in Scorpio’s crimes (not to mention Homer’s open complicity after he tackles James Bond.)

But in an even more impressive prediction of today’s political debate, the writers also made Homer actively agree with Hank Scorpio’s well spun explanation for the government troops storming his compound:

Homer: Say, what's going on?
Hank: I'm having a little trouble with the government.
Homer: Oh, those jerks always walking over the small businessman. Don't get me started about the government.

Homer accepts Scorpio’s morally scandalous argument that it is the government who acting immorally by trying to stop his plans to enrich and gain power for himself. Scorpio represents the philosophical culmination of extreme libertarian laissez faire economic theory. Scorpio is the perfect example of what the Koch Brothers and others want to be, above the law and able to amass personal power and wealth by any means necessary. Scorpio is so good at spin that he even convinces Homer, a civically illiterate working class guy to support his radical philosophy with what boils down to bribery and propaganda. Can anyone say Tea Party?

Robert Nozick would be proud of Hank Scorpio’s private town and corporation dedicated to world domination. According to Nozick’s interpretation of politics, since everyone entered into their contracts with Globex willingly, no one’s rights were violated and thus Globex is a morally sound venture. But does this really make it sense? Weren't things like government and regulations created because we feared that enterprises restrained by nothing but the will of their owners were very dangerous to society at large? Yes we did. And Nozick is wrong. We can’t achieve moral utopia under a libertarian framework of competing and unrestrained corporate entities.

When they created the Globex corporation, the Simpsons writers accurately predicted the accelerating collapse of the nation state and the increasing privatization of government services. With the blurring of the lines between corporate and national interests, the goals of the Globex corporation seem perfectly reasonable.

Lisa:

Lisa’s situation is the most troubling. Because it basically makes no sense.

Lisa should thrive in Cypress Creek. The town has excellent schools and all the opportunities Lisa could ever want. But her allergies stop her.

This seems like a pretty lame reason to leave Cypress Creek. Modern pharmaceuticals should be able to treat Lisa with no problem. So we must examine Lisa’s experience in Cypress Creek with a little more depth. I assert that Lisa should have been phenomenally successful in Cypress Creek and that the writers had to create a problem for Lisa so we wouldn’t think about what would more realistically happen. Lisa would likely embrace the opportunities for intellectual advancement that Cypress Creek offers. Because of her intellectual superiority (which is well established by the 8th season) Lisa should love the society that Scorpio has created, it rewards her talents and intelligence. 

So what is the final message of this episode? Is it that moral complicity should be traded if you get a good enough deal? Seemingly yes. At the end of the episode only Homer has gotten closer to his dream of owning the Dallas cowboys. Homer was succeeded because he is either too dumb to realize what is going on or because he is perfectly willing to exchange his moral culpability for corporate perks.

This is the same conundrum that many successful and talented Americans face today in their career choices. Many Americans are fine with trading their integrity for a large salary from Exxon-Mobil.  Because remember, the perks corporate America and Scorpio can offer are awesome as the song at the end of the episode suggests:

“Scorpio! He'll sting you with his dreams of power and wealth. Beware of Scorpio! His twisted twin obsessions are his plot to rule the world And his employees' health. He'll welcome you into his lair, Like the nobleman welcomes his guest. With free dental care and a stock plan that helps you invest! But beware of his generous pensions, Plus three weeks paid vacation each year, And on Fridays the lunchroom serves hot dogs and burgers and beer! He loves German beer!”

What is Foursquare good for anyway? or Hey, how did “they” get us to carry tracking devices with us anyway?

Huxley rolls in his grave

George Orwell would be proud of Foursquare. It makes being tracked and analyzed constantly by a faceless corporate bureaucracy fun and easy!

Well, to be true to established dystopian visions, Aldous Huxley would be proud. For anyone out there who hasn’t read Brave New World, stop reading my inane dribble and go read it... NOW!

Okay now that you are back, you can see how a world based around strict social classes, powerful drugs, ubiquitous sex and cheap consumer technology might look a little bit like modern America. Huxley and Orwell would probably be shocked at how little we learned from their novels and how we actually seemed to have emulated the societies that they created to serve as warnings for us.

Foursquare is clearly building up a massive profile of all their users with plans to monetize that information anyway they can. So maybe the goals of Foursquare and the Telescreen in 1984 aren’t exactly the same, but both the pursuit of totalitarian control and unadulterated corporate profits seem to be shaping similar passive and civically illiterate societies.

Foursquare sends you a window cling!

Despite my philosophical objections to this willing abdication of privacy, I do use Foursquare. I have heard stories from friends flying into cities where they thought they didn’t know anyone, only to look at their smartphone and see that someone they knew happened to be in the same city on business. Score one for Foursquare.

Another advantage of using Foursquare: Free drinks! If I become mayor of The Blue Star Cafe (across the street) I get a free drink. w00t.

Isn’t it hilarious that small and symbolic prizes we can brag to our friends about on the internet are now motivating us to go out and spend money when according to conventional economic theory, my desire for food and the money in my wallet should be the only factors I consider? Again, score one for Foursquare.

Who knows, maybe the next time you “check in” at the Magnuson home (yes I really did create a venue for our apartment) you might win a prize.

Not bloody likely.

The Northwest in the wake of the Japan quake or how megaquakes caused me to prepare for the Apocalypse.

The tragedy in Japan is heart breaking. If Japan, a country that prides itself on its earthquake preparedness suffered so much, what would happen here in the Northwest?

In the Northwest we are at similar risk for major quakes and many of us remember the 6.8 Nisqually quake in 2001.

Like Japan, we are at risk for what scientists call megathrust earthquakes, a phenomenon that occurs along subduction zones like our Juan De Fuca plate that is sliding underneath the North American plate. A megathrust quake caused the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. These events happen every several hundred years and scientists think the last one occurred in 1700 in the Northwest which means we are due.

What makes these quakes different is their intensity and duration. A 9.0 megathrust quake along the Cascadia subduction zone would likely cause massive tremors that would last for 3 to 5 minutes. The japan quake lasted about 6 minutes.

In response to this possibility I have created a disaster kit that goes beyond what the government suggests you have in case of emergency.

The only question now is whether to keep it in the car or in the apartment.

What do you think? Anything I forgot?