Desiring Machine

Bill Clinton is really great in this recent speech at Georgetown. I really like what he says about philosophy vs. ideology. The idea that you are committed to a position but you are engaged in a manner that compells you to seek out evidence and argument. The idea that you are open to learning and your position can become informed with new evidence as it emerges. This attitude is marked by a kind of intellectual curiosity about the world. I really identify with this notion and think that the flexibility it generates is really important for actually creating positive change in the world. Clinton really is great. Despite all his personal flaws I think intellectually he is right on the button. He made a great president and I think his wife will make a great president as well.

Well it seems Google is becoming a victim of their own success.

And that is the problem with becoming a cultural phenomenon. The law ceases to protect you. What is happening to Google is what Gilles Deleuze would call a deterritorialization or line of flight.

“Multiplicities are defined by the outside: by the abstract line, the line of flight or deterritorialization according to which they change in nature and connect with other multiplicities. The plane of consistency (grid) is the outside of all multiplicities. The line of flight marks: the reality of a finite number of dimensions that the multiplicity effectively fills; the impossibility of a supplementary dimension, unless the multiplicity is transformed by the line of flight; the possibility and necessity of flattening all of the multiplicities on a single plane of consistency or exteriority, regardless of their number of dimensions.”

~ Gilles Deleuze Thousand Plateaus

The semantic disruption of Google is possible because of its multiplicitous nature. Googling is a nomadic experience. A process by which one moves adrift through the chance encounters of reality and linguistic relationships that bind them together. The network that Google corporation glues together traces out the very grid that we live within. In a word Google has become ours because it has weaved together through its tapestry of search algorithms, technologies, and interstitial existences the very fabric of our being. When you become that co-aligned with the grid you no longer continue operating as a separate autonomous unit of being. Your identity is lost, you become nomad.

It is remarkable the rhetoric and logic of ownership, trademark, and corporatism. To presume that things are fundamentally discrete and can be owned, or even that language can be owned and controlled because it is part of a brand. Rarely is it mentioned that Google is the product of us. What is compelling about Google is that it weaves together the products of our being, whether they be blogs, news, video clips, webpages, text, audio, utterances and disclosures. That is the soup of life and tapestry of our weaved web. Google owns it no more than you or I own it. It is a territory that defies territorialization. And Google, being successful in providing the services that effectively allow us to traverse this web, finds that their brand has become something that they no longer really have any control over. And so goes the logic of control when confronted with the force of deterritorialization. Google is a line of flight that traces, it is no longer a stable place, entity, or idea.

Hey Google, I got your google right here!

This pretty much says it all.

Google Bomb

A Google bomb or Googlewash is Internet slang for a certain kind of attempt to influence the ranking (called PageRank) of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine, often with humorous or political intentions. Because of the way that Google’s algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page use consistent anchor text. A Google bomb is created if a large number of sites link to the page in this manner.

Information on congressional candidates. Pass it on.

–AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

–AZ-01: Rick Renzi

–AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

–CA-04: John Doolittle

–CA-11: Richard Pombo

–CA-50: Brian Bilbray

–CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

–CO-05: Doug Lamborn

–CO-07: Rick O’Donnell

–CT-04: Christopher Shays

–FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

–FL-16: Joe Negron
–FL-22: Clay Shaw
–ID-01: Bill Sali

–IL-06: Peter Roskam

–IL-10: Mark Kirk

–IL-14: Dennis Hastert

–IN-02: Chris Chocola

–IN-08: John Hostettler

–IA-01: Mike Whalen

–KS-02: Jim Ryun
–KY-03: Anne Northup

–KY-04: Geoff Davis

–MD-Sen: Michael Steele

–MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

–MN-06: Michele Bachmann

–MO-Sen: Jim Talent

–MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

–NV-03: Jon Porter

–NH-02: Charlie Bass

–NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

–NM-01: Heather Wilson

–NY-03: Peter King

–NY-20: John Sweeney

–NY-26: Tom Reynolds

–NY-29: Randy Kuhl

–NC-08: Robin Hayes

–NC-11: Charles Taylor

–OH-01: Steve Chabot

–OH-02: Jean Schmidt

–OH-15: Deborah Pryce

–OH-18: Joy Padgett

–PA-04: Melissa Hart

–PA-07: Curt Weldon

–PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

–PA-10: Don Sherwood

–RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
–TN-Sen: Bob Corker

–VA-Sen: George Allen

–VA-10: Frank Wolf

–WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
–WA-08: Dave Reichert

This is a chilling news story about how Iraqi barbers face brutal intimidation by radical fundamentalists because they believe the barbers shouldn’t be shaving beards. The thuggery amazes me. And I am under no illusion of the grave threat these wackos present to society. It is because of this absurdist religious nonsense that the founding fathers so strongly believed in separation of church and state. Jefferson and his contemporaries understood quite clearly why it is important to not let this radical religious thinking take a foothold in society. This is why we on the left worry about the radical christian fundamentalist strains in our own society.

But after reading this news, the islamofascist nutjobs killing barbers seems to take the cake. And when they talk about car bombs I have more than a vague sense of the danger. Several years ago I missed a car bombing in Cape Town, South Africa by a few hours when I walked through a mall parking lot there. The bombing was reportedly attributed to radical islamic extremists who went on to do a series of other bombings in Cape Town while I was there. I will never forget the feeling of recognizing that had I simply been in the same place just a few hours later I might not be alive. This is one of the personal experiences that does tend to color one’s thinking. So I am under no delusions about islamic extremists, or IRA extremists, or anti-abortion extremists, or even your garden variety lone wolf nutjob.

The fight against these fundamentalists is not an easy one. And I deeply sympathize with the barbers. It must totally suck to live under that kind of daily threat and intimidation because some nutjobs have decided that they must take an absolutist stand on facial hair. Perhaps, and I don’t mean this flippantly, we should air drop gillette razors across the country to send these radicals a clear message that they cannot win.

But there needs to be an outcry and real action from the muslim community. They will need to take an aggressive stand against the intolerant elements of their religion. The Saudis should start right away in the dismantling of the wahabi sects and schools in their society. The Iranians should curtail the hate filled mullahs. The jews and Israelis should curb the militaristic elements of their society. And we could do well to brush back the fringe Christians in our society. People of good faith everywhere need to take a stand.

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”

Who said these infamous, and vicious words? Why none other than Mr. “Straight Talk Express” himself John McCain.

For a long time I have been a little star struck by McCain. I was captivated by the story of how he was viciously sandbagged in South Carolina by team Rove, and the way Bush snarled at him in the 2000 debates after being called out on the Thomas Birch nonsense, had garnered my sympathy for McCain.

But this comment really does reveal something about McCain’s instincts and sense of taste. And I think poor taste is really a sign of poor judgement.

But this is the difference between the right and the left. The folks on the right don’t see anything wrong with making a little jab here or there attacking those they deem “beneath them”. Look at the way republican senate hopeful Mike McGavick goes after welfare recipients more or less assuming they are mostly drug addicts. His proposal to screen people for drugs may make sense in some policy context, but it is another kind of vicious and cynical politician to make it a major campaign pillar. And much of the world is well informed of the absurd racist speech of 2008 hopeful George Allen. And then there is the infamous and dismissive comments that Barbara Bush made about Katrina survivors. And there are countless other examples out there of prominent Republicans making downright vicious statements.

But you don’t find this kind of speech on the left among prominent democratic politicians. I am sure many vicious things have been said and alluded about the Bush daughters in the more fringe blogs and by hack comedians. And these comments are certainly as despicable as McCain’s comments about Chelsea Clinton. But the difference is that you would be hard pressed to find a democratic politician, much less a presidential hopeful make these kinds of comments.

The off handed slurs that easily seem to fall from the lips of too many Republicans really betray who they are at heart, a bunch of woman hating, gay bashing, blame the victim, piss on the poor, racist thugs. Strictly speaking this is not all Republicans. There are decent minded members of the party. But too many prominent leaders either let slip their true thinking or others through their complicit silence allow for the thuggery that affronts our nation today. Now that may seem harsh but I do believe in holding up public officials to a high moral standard. They may not be perfect individuals but whenever I see someone make a comment in really poor taste I immediately understand that ultimately it is a sign of poor judgement. It is not merely a matter of character but more importantly an indication of the inability to understand the point of view of others.

For the record McCain quickly apologized about his joke, and the press graciously covered it up for him. But his apology would never had been necessary if he had had the good sense to understand that the joke was inappropriate in the first place.

And it is so easy for people to bash the Clintons. But it is always refreshing to see the big dog defend his record on things that actually matter:

I have really been digging that recent Depeche Mode song John The Revelator lately. It is perhaps their best song since Personal Jesus. And Personal Jesus was totallly redefined by Johnny Cash ’s cover of it

And there is a most excellent video floating out there on the internet. Most memorable moments for me are the illustration of 7×7x7 as a cube and Tony Blair the lap dog.
Watch:

Saw this clip of Stephen Colbert with Gloria Steinam and Jane Fonda baking apple pie. This is so totally beyond awesome, that words fail me in describing its awesomeness.

Especially the part where Fonda kisses Colbert the first time.

Enjoy.

This is an interesting scenario, Trent Lott who lost his Mississippi home in Katrina is having a difficult time with State Farm. And so he is taking up a very public fight in the Senate against the insurance industry.

Obviously, insurance has been a states issue, but it is interesting to see Lott on the attack here. I am a little torn on this specific issue but I think I am eager to see Lott take this all the way, and what role ultimately the federal government will have to play here.

Insurance companies are not necessarily evil, but there is an interesting tension with respect to public policy and urban planning. The one analysis I have heard that seems to make sense is that along the Gulf Coast insurance rates were too low. The consequence to this has been that it has not led to responsible development practices. Much of the wetlands and natural buffers that mediate storm surges have been over developed. This is in no small part due to the fact that insurance premiums have not provided the proper disincentives for reckless sprawl and development. Bailouts and taxpayer mediation of insurance company risk have created some of the conditions that allow too much development in relatively high risk zones. An interesting consequence of Lott’s push might be that it puts sufficient pressure on insurance companies to raise premiums enough to dramatically alter developmental practices along the gulf coast. Regardless of Trent Lott, I suspect insurance companies are already moving this direction in hurricane zones. Ultimately, this could prove to be a boon to the environmental wetlands in the region. This is likely to serve a two fold benefit. More native species habitat, and better long term protection against hurricanes that are virtually guaranteed with the trends in global warming.

In the Northwest we have to be wary of the Lahar threat posed by our volcanic mountains. Avoiding gratuitous development in these Lahar zones will be a crucial component for avoiding catastrophe. And this is why Ron Sims’ proposals for the Orting Bridge makes a lot of sense. However, I would also suggest that the state insurance commission should be on the lookout against insurance premiums that might make for gratuitous development patterns in Lahar zones.

And I suppose this is another argument for opposing the I-933 inititiave on the Washington State ballot that is being fronted by property rights zealots who have no tolerance for growth management policies.

It is predictable that the theocons are out in full force blaming Clinton for North Korea. However, It is beyond shameful to see John McCain doing the same thing to score points with his offbase base. With this single act McCain has abolished any respect I had for him. It demonstrates that McCain is not committed to getting results in North Korea. The buck certainly doesn’t stop at any of the stations the “straight talk express” rolls into.

Ok I will admit that mixed metaphor was a touch tortured, no pun intended.

But as I see it, the current administration needs to get out more and read their bible for some sage advice. Particularly this:

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

~Proverbs 16:18

It is the opinion of this lowly blogger, not following the above advice is the source of our problems with North Korea today. Clinton had more humility in his approach towards foreign relations. He understood that getting people to the table and talking is what is most important. Even James Baker, with his snake oil salesman charm, admits as much. And it is with sublime irony that Bush in 2000 pretended to profess as much when he said the following in the 2000 debates:

If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. And it’s — our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that’s why we have to be humble.

But the reality is that the current administration only seems to respect power and have portrayed a prideful arrogance towards other nations, especially North Korea.

The argument the right seems to make is that Clinton’s policy towards North Korea is the only reason we are in the mess we are in today. Somehow, getting the North Koreans to the table and having weapons inspectors in the nation were harmful. The fallacious notion in all this is that the Clinton policy of engaged negotiations would be indefinite. It is certainly true that North Korea has failed to keep up their end of the bargin. But it is wishful thinking and distraction for the right to suggest that the Clinton/Gore team would have continued these policies in the face of egregious bad faith on the part of North Koreans. All options are always on the table, including military ones, even if we say they are not. At the very least under Clinton we had a policy where we were able to gain visibility into the affairs of North Korea. Now we are having to second guess on how many nuclear weapons and how successful their tests are.

The problem here is a prideful arrogance. The current administration seems to be “guided by the beauty of our weapons”. Apologies to Mr. Cohen. The internal logic of the theocons is that they seem to believe that they can actually win a nuclear war. So it really doesn’t matter much if North Korea develops weapons because we will rain fire down on them if they use them. And if that doesn’t work out. Oh well we are doing the work of Jesus for him by casting the earth in fire before the scheduled apocalypse.

This seems to be the only explanation I can find that explains the lack of urgency with respect to North Korea that the current administration holds compared to the Clinton administration. All there seems to be is finger pointing and not results.

Of course, lest I be thought of as a partisan hack, I must mention that it was under Clinton’s watch that Pakistan proliferated and successfuly detonated a nuclear weapon. This was and remains unacceptable.

The main problem is that weapons are big business and all other considerations seem to fall by the wayside in light of this fact. As Dr. Helen Caldicott points out in her book The New Nuclear Danger:

America is a nation that spends only six cents out of every dollar on educating its children and four cents on health care for every fifty cents it spends on the military-industrial complex. Overall, the Pentagon’s 310 billion dollars per year dwarfs the 44.5 billion dollars for the education department and 20.3 billion dollars for the National Institutes of Health.

Globally the annual military expenditure stands at 780 billion dollars. The total amount required to provide global health care, eliminate starvation and malnutrition, provide clean water and shelter for all, remove land mines, eliminate nuclear weapons, stop deforestation, prevent global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain, retire the paralyzing debt of developing nations, prevent soil erosion, produce safe, clean energy, stop overpopulation, and eliminate illiteracy is only one third that amount — 237.5 billion dollars.

And it is not even a funny irony that the current administration swept into power running a campaign on extensive education reforms, and we find ourself facing huge deficits, endless war, and spiraling out of control nuclear proliferation with Iran and North Korea.

The time is now for results.