Nick Oliva

The Times is reporting that the rumors of armed and dangerous gangs running New Orleans after the deluge appear now to be greatly exaggerated.

There was also a wonderful article in Harpers or the New Yorker…can’t remember which… where a rich Republican (rich - certainly; Republican - I’m guessing) guards his house and proclaims everyone passing by to be looters. As one person passes by with a large container he tells the reporter, "there’s the ringleader." The ringleader comes back a while later asking, "You guys need bread? I got bread."

Well, I don’t know the Bible so well… I get my anecdotes here and there through the usual means… blues songs, milk cartons… so you’ll excuse me if my analogy is not up to snuff. Here’s my question: How do all of these people that proclaim to be religious form their views along the lines of Pontius Pilot instead of the Good Samaritan? Shouldn’t you relinquish your religious claims once you focus your vitriol on the looters rather than presuming people to be just doing whatever is necessary to save themselves… or others?

Got bread?

whereIstand Tags

• Open Thread

Tags: Environment by nick
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The conservatives with whom I argue tend to place great blame on the failure of the poor to contribute to society for many of the problems we face. However, as Mark Twain said, "one mustn’t criticize other people on grounds where he can’t stand perpendicular himself."

A poor person could cheat the government of enough to get by, and there are certainly more poor people than rich people. After Bush and the Republican Congress, there will be an ever greater ratio of poor to rich.

But a rich person can cheat the government of far more. Corporations use every trick in the book to keep from paying their fair share as well. So I’d like to see numbers quantifying estimates (from reliable sources) of whether tax evasion is a bigger problem than illegally obtained entitlements. I’m going to presume tax evasion is the bigger evil until I’m persuaded otherwise.

Does anyone have info on this to save me the research?

whereIstand Tags

• What has a bigger negative impact on the U.S. Treasury?

Tags: Politics by nick
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A schoolyard bully beats up repeatedly on a smaller kid. The smaller kid’s big brothers show up and the bully looks around himself and eloquently pleads, "Hasn’t there been enough fighting? Isn’t it time we deal with our differences in a more constructive manner?"

David Brooks has written how many articles blaming Democrats for not being able to do this or not being able to do that or guilty of this or guilty of that? Today we learn from him [subscription to TimesSelect required] that the Republicans were being unfair under Tom DeLay. We also get a little pre-emptive shot:

The Democrats have drawn the 10-years-out-of-date conclusion that in order to win, they need to be just like Tom DeLay. They need to rigidly hew to orthodoxy. They need Deaniac hyperpartisanship. They need to organize their hatreds around Bush the way the Republicans did around Clinton.

Them Christians sure do go for that redemption thing when the shit starts hitting the fan.

Of course, he’s right. Democrats now have an opportunity to change the tone. They can keep from exploiting the weakening Republicans for partisan benefit. That would happen under Bush’s watch and so he’d finally get credit for "changing the tone in Washington".

It’s a shame that Brooks is just figuring out that he craves civility as the wagons circle around his boys.

whereIstand Tags

• Will the Left and Right ever find a way to live with each other in a civilized manner?

Tags: Politics by nick
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I added in a new feature just now. It’s the first pass and quite rough. I just needed to get the structure in place and I’ll tweak the details later.

The concept is a continuation of the "where I stand" metaphor. When you and another person have the same "position" on an issue, you can be said to be "standing on common ground". I’m not claiming to have made this up, I’m just being brutally obvious about the terminology.

Right now this is only implemented on your own blog…at the top and within a topic. When you look at your blogroll, you’ll see the scale icon with a percentage that represents "common ground". It’s a positive measure, so if you didn’t take a position on an issue, you are not on common ground.

[This will eventually be implemented throughout the site. When there are a lot of users, it will be particularly interesting (to me anyway) to see whether people blogroll people they disagree with. It's all part of the dynamics of being able to find someone that may be more "well positioned" than you are of persuading someone you want to be persuaded on a certain issue.]

When you compare to another blogger, you’ll see what common ground you have on each topic. When you compare on a topic, you’ll see how much on each issue.

Like I said, it’s rough… for example, "open threads" are being counted as "disagree" and they ought not to be. Also, "sub-issues" are being ignored, but they will serve to reduce your common ground when you agree on an issue but disagree on a sub-issue. I’ve worked this out in designs and have the algorithms all set up… I just wanted to do it in stages.

Feedback, as always, is appreciated.

whereIstand Tags

• The designs and presentation of whereIstand

Tags: Technology by nick
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Donovan’s last entry references other entries but the trackbacks aren’t showing up in those other entries.

There’s a bug where subsequent revisions to the original post aren’t hooking up the trackbacks. I’ll fix it tomorrow… today is too nice a day and my wife and I heading to Central Park and then Coney Island.

Yes, Coney Island.

Update: When I fix this, I’ll apply the fix retroactively so that any trackbacks that are already missing will get hooked up as well.

whereIstand Tags

• Amir
• Donovan
• Bugs and Design Flaws [Open Thread]
• Prior to Katrina, did the local and federal authorities know the breaching of the levees was possible?
• Open Thread

Tags: Technology by nick
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Public servants are accountable to the people they serve. Donovan is a bit too cynical on this, and a bit too ready for self-flagellation.

Vandoon, you’re not responsible for Katrina, OK? The jury may still be out on whether you’re responsible for Rita, Susan, Tabitha, Uma, Vivian, Wendy…Xavier??? Damn, Global Warming is going to screw with the whole storm naming system!

…but we can rule out your responsibility for Katrina.

Accountability can turn the "hearts and minds" against you. If you are able to deflect it you can get away with murder… hence Bush is a two-term President. What accountability can do is to make sure he leaves office with a carefully established and referenced record of all of the destruction he caused to the country and its people.

I read somewhere the other day a comment regarding Vietnam. It was from a conservative saying that the Democrats were essentially right about Vietnam… and what they got from it was a loss of credibility on the issue of security that lasted for decades.

This is the worst of all scenarios! Heads of great companies are able to bring about the company’s ruin when they smoke the directors and shareholders… "boy, it’s a good thing our charismatic Kenny Boy is at the helm of Enron… just imagine where we might be with some boring pencil pusher!"

All we can do is gather and present proofs of incompetence and sit and wait for "the people" to figure it out… and hope they "get it" in time. I propose we sit and wait beneath a tree near the Great Lawn in Central Park.

And if they don’t figure it out until it’s too late, we all get up and sing the "I Told You So" Opera complete with a French overture (now that’s a nice touch, huh?), full symphony orchestra, and Pavarotti dying in the final scene in yet another lead role for yet another "final performance."

(My wife and I saw his last "final performance", in Tosca, at the Met. What was it like? Have you ever seen an old dog slop himself down and roll around adjusting things until he’s well settled in and comfy? That’s exactly how Pavarotti pulled off the death of Mario Cavaradossi !)

whereIstand Tags

• Amir
• Donovan
• Prior to Katrina, did the local and federal authorities know the breaching of the levees was possible?

Tags: Environment by nick
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I’ve mentioned the idea on the site is that everyone contributing is a blogger too, right?

Well, there are three parts to the wherIstand experience (if I may refer to it as such…):

1. The site - this is the "content" part that isn’t rooted in any one blogger. It’s based on the "best of" concept that is inherent in the "top blogs"…the front page, etc.

2. Your blog - you post entries, you discuss with others (coming back soon) an people’s responses show up as trackbacks. This is the relevant piece that is the "that for the sake of which" this post exists… I’ve just added another "new indicator" that tells you how many new trackbacks you have not seen in your posts. This will show up on topics, issues, and entries… I think it makes sense, but fill me in if it doesn’t.

When you look at your entries, the trackbacks are displayed at the bottom…the act of displaying at bottom is what will mark them "seen", and you can verify this by refreshing the page (remember you can always refresh every page on this site with getting any errors or notices about posted content).

I’ll eventually add where you can look at all of the new ones across posts together so you don’t have to go clicking on each. I preset the existing trackbacks to be new only if the other person’s entry is marked "new" for you… for other bloggers’ entries you have already seen, the trackbacks referring to you will already be marked as not being new.

3. Someone else’s blog - meaning specifically on whereIstand… the "new trackbacks" that I mentioned above are right now only referring to entries that originated in whereIstand. Soon, I will set up the trackbacks so that people writing on other blogs can have their entries show up as trackbacks on whereIstand as well. More relevant to the "new indicators" is that the same entry that shows up as a new trackback on your blog, also shows up as a new entry in the other person’s blog. If you went through your blog first, when you clicked on the trackback, both the trackback and the entry would no longer be marked new. However, if you go through the other person’s blog first, your trackback is still marked new.

Wait until this has been in play for some time before complaining about the design. There are reasons why I’m doing it as such… of course, there may be better ways….

The idea for this is that when you are signed in and on your blog, you should see a "dashboard" telling you all of the existing outstanding stuff. That way, when you come back you know if there is anything new without having to click around.

whereIstand Tags

• The designs and presentation of whereIstand

Tags: Technology by nick
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It took a little while for me to come back to this issue. JoeC is right about my position and my post being contradictory… up to a point.

The trick is…and it took me a minute to think it over when I re-read this… that I think the right should be limited to the people who have exhibited the specific circumstance of repeatedly and invariably wanting to end their lives over a definite period of time.

Sorry, JoeC….

whereIstand Tags

• JoeC
• Should the right to death be limited to those with terminal illness, chronic pain, or other specific circumstances?
• Should a person have a basic right to death?

Tags: Health by nick
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As Dan Akroyd once said in the guise of Freud talking to his daughter in a Saturday Night Live skit, "Sometimes a banana is just a banana."

Why that comes to mind right now… I’m now exactly sure. But it has something to do with something that’s making its way into federal law. It goes like a little like this:

OK, so we have government funds for use in religious preschools… and that was approved so long as you couldn’t discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion, but hey, you don’t want us to lose our identities, do youiop[]\789+

… sorry, I’m back now. My keyboard tilted to the right and my finger slid down the slippery slope and off my desk.

If there was ever any doubt about the intentions…well, let me just say that it’s probably OK for Donovan and Lar and JoeC to go ahead and switch over to the, "we really should accept Christianity as a state-sponsored religion" campaign. The "we just want not to be discriminated against" routine has had it’s day.

Let’s move on and just call it what it is, OK?

whereIstand Tags

• Should government funds be used for religious purposes?

Tags: Law by nick
2 Comments »

A day or two ago, President Bush said the following in reference to Iraq,

"The only way the terrorists can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon the mission. For the security of the American people, that’s not going to happen on my watch."

A few days ago I had written to my brother, the political moron, that everything bad happens "on Bush’s watch" and instead of people blaming him, they defend him with the "boy, things would have been far worse if great leader Bush hadn’t been on top of things" ruse.

Donovan writes that there’s no doubting that the potential for the breaching of the levees was known.  Amir (who has not taken a position on the issue) ponders the question of Bush’s sincerity in taking "full responsibility". But the appropriate response to this line of thinking is rightly, "so what? … he’s not running for office again." Then, again citing Donovan, forget about these couple of things anyway and just keep repeating the approved sound-bite, "$200 billion!".

What gets me is the eerie reminder of that other ruse… nobody could have known they would use planes as missiles. This is nothing more than incompetence in the highest office. The captain of a ship is always responsible for what happens on his watch whether he "takes full responsibility" for it or not.

Again the problem is a simple lack of accountability. No, it’s worse than that… it’s a denial of accountability. If you agree with this statement, just go lie down in the park or something. Find a tree with real nice shade under it, lie down beneath it and get comfortable… i.e., "so what?"

The only point of taking a position on this issue is to establish the fact. There are rumblings that all of the career people at Treasury have already left and only the cronies, sycophants, and faith-based-tugboats are "left behind". The next financial crisis may or may not hit on Bush’s watch. If it were to coincide with Bush (and give me credit here for having chosen not to use the more accountable, "were to be precipitated by Bush"), what do you think would be the actual event that nobody could possibly have known would happen?

I’d like to see this site capture opinions on the state of the various responsibilities of the federal government… the premise being that people will happily pin themselves down on something when it’s not relevant. The wholesale destruction of the government that has taken place under Bush will bring about other crises because government isn’t just about ideology, it’s about performance.

There are things that just won’t get done, things that will be done wrong, and things that will be undermined for decades…when you place your friends’ college roommates in important positions.

whereIstand Tags

• Donovan
• Amir
• Prior to Katrina, did the local and federal authorities know the breaching of the levees was possible?

Tags: Environment by nick
2 Comments »