Border Incident

You may have heard about this by now. Biologist and science fiction writer Peter Watts was stopped on his way back into Canada by border guards. He'd been helping a friend in the United States move and he was returning. He was flagged to the side and the guards fell on his vehicle. He stepped out to ask what was going on, was told to get back in his vehicle, and when he asked again for the reason for the search, he was pepper sprayed, beaten, thrown in a lock-up overnight, and the next day sent into a winter storm on foot in shirtsleeves, all his personal property confiscated pending arraignment on charges of assaulting a federal officer. In his own words:

Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario’s first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.

In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face.

Here is a post on his behalf. A legal defense fund is being built by the writing community as you read this. The first thing, I admit, that occurred to me when I heard about it was a kind of reflexive "well, he must've said something," the kind of self apology for representatives of my government that springs automatically to mind. Because none of us want to believe that thugs and bullies work for us. I dismissed that idea. Watts is the least likely individual to provoke such a response. [more . . . ]

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So who wants to be a billionaire?

Clusterstock has detailed and easy-to-follow instructions to making ridiculous amounts of easy money. Start by forming a bank, hire all of your friends as bankers and raising some capital. After those preliminary steps, the hard part is done:

STEP 4: Borrow $9 billion from the Fed at an annual cost of 0.25%. STEP 5: Buy $10 billion of 30-year Treasuries paying 4.45% STEP 6: Sit back and watch the cash flow in. At this spread, you should be earning at least 4% per year on your $10 billion of capital, or $400 million. Sure, there's some risk that the Fed will grow a backbone and raise short rates, but there's not much risk. (They have an economy to fix and banks to secretly recapitalize). And in any event, if the Fed raises short rates, making your $1 billion will just take a bit longer. (And if they REALLY raise rates, causing you to actually lose money, it will be someone else's problem.)

Continue ReadingSo who wants to be a billionaire?

Aggressive journalists desperately needed.

Glenn Greenwald asks why there aren't more journalists willing to conduct hardball interviews of politically powerful guests. What he has in mind is the kind of interrogation Rachel Maddow expertly conducted with an anti-gay blowhard. Greenwald sets forth the particular strategies that made Maddow's interview effective. For example, where the guests opinions are not entitled to respect and deference, don't give any. Key quote:

Just imagine how much better things could be if our political leaders were routinely subjected to the kind of surgically probing, lie-exposing interrogation which Rachel imposed on her homosexual-converter guest. But the reasons they almost never are speak volumes about our media stars and their true function.

Continue ReadingAggressive journalists desperately needed.

It’s time to break the taboo and to talk frankly about human overpopulation

If you are feeling brave, take a look at the World Clock. You'll see that more than twice as many people are being born as are dying for any given interval (click the "Now" button to see the numbers spinning out from the present). world-clock Click the "Deaths" tab and note that for every 100 deaths, there are also more than 60 abortions, and yet the Earth's population still spirals out of control. Click around on the other tabs and you will probably find yourself transfixed by magnitude of these numbers. Notice the vast amount of forest being decimated by clicking on the "Environment" tab. Under the "Energy" tab, notice the incredibly disconcerting "Oil Depletion Timer," indicating that we have 40 years of oil left on the entire planet (you'll need to do the math, dividing the days left by 365--this estimate is based on the admittedly laughable assumption that it would be economically viable to scoop up every drop of oil). Notice the ghastly numbers of entire species being lost each week (almost 300 extinctions per week). Notice the many thousands of preventable deaths every week (under the Death tab), including ghastly numbers of children dying from preventable things like lack of nutrition. The World Clock sends me into an existential swirl. Watching these numbers accumulate fascinates me and, regarding some categories, horrifies me. Regarding the needless deaths, for example, it occurs to me that no human being has sufficient cognitive capacity or sufficient empathy to properly understand or react to numbers of this magnitude. It is impossible to feel sufficient empathy for the needless deaths of thousands people, week after week. Last year, I posted on an effort by Global Population Speak Out (GPSO) to discuss the need to discuss overpopulation. But many people are too horrified to even consider this topic. One such person repeatedly vilified me in the comments, arguing that I was an elitist (and worse) because I merely dared to raise this issue. But this issue of overpopulation is too important to ignore. [more . . . ]

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Local Economic Activism on the Rise

Last night someone let a breeze into my house. When we got home, the furnace was at redline as it vainly tried to keep the thermostat warm. The radiators were dangerously hot. And I was pretty sure that I didn't leave my cookbooks strewn across the pantry floor on a layer of shattered Victorian art glass. The responding officer mentioned that the holiday season is a hot time for those who use this method to encourage people to buy more stuff. Our neighborhood email newsgroup has had more buzz than usual about burglaries and car theft. One sign of a weak economy is a rise in material crimes. The poor become more desperate while the rich take shorter tropical vacations and drive last year's Lexus. These guys were in a studied hurry. They opened and dumped drawers, flipped mattresses, and opened every door. As near as I can tell, my super-zoom camera and new laptop computer were the only really significant items taken. Plus several hundred dollars, mostly in state quarters and other change. They found and collected the power supply and carry case for my laptop, each in a different location. I miss my vintage laptop bag more than the much pricier laptop. It was a classic Targus backpack that has been getting favorable comments for 14 years. I haven't seen another quite like it since the year I bought it. Fortunately, we were away with all our credit cards and my smaller (but now favored) camera. It appears that some jewelry of little economic value is also missing, and an older camera. And a set of house keys. Changing the locks is easy. But not having keys didn't seem to slow them last night.

Continue ReadingLocal Economic Activism on the Rise