Going To Be A Hot Summer

People may be devoting effort to discuss the reasons behind the increase in anger in violence. There is a tendency to point to the other side and say "You are the violent ones."

The thing I am worried about is that usually civil unrest, and political violence increases because of economic distress. People without jobs, without hope, without a sense of control over their lives are angry and they are likely to express themselves violently especially when they are in large groups.

I do not know if there is a solution, but I don't think it serves either side to create violent upheaval. A year of economic recovery in a city or town can be destroyed with a single afternoons riots.

It is useful to realize that the undercurrent of political expression of violence is the direct cause of many of the programs in our society aimed at keeping the 'have-nots' from feeling entirely desperate. As people begin to forget the danger of the underclass they start to feel that they are empowered, but what they are is mollified. This is not a case of right or wrong. It is a case of Bread and Circuses.

Any political movement that seeks to ignore the ability for people to rise up violently is ignoring history. While its understandable that the politically neglected do not see it this way, the leadership of both parties, and local leaders alike, need to take a long hard look at the way they are fomenting this.
Congressmen standing cheering on angry mobs is either a naive populism or a very jaded manipulation designed to increase fear and anger and reduce the effectiveness of the American political system to retain enough civility to allow reasonable debate.

Calling out 'baby killer' is not reasoned debate. It shows a lack of compassion for a complex issue. It would be just as unconsidered to accuse Republicans of wanting to send off poor people to get killed to increase their wealth.

You can disagree. I do disagree with many thing. But Ad Hominem attacks (showing posters of Nancy Pelosi and slapping them from the Capital building) are intended as a way to get what you want, not what is best.

Smart or Dumb

This article specifically reinspired me to start working on my 'smart or dumb' blog rating system.

Its called IPad Pre-orders: For Idiots Only by Galen Grumman.

Certainly there are questions about why people pre-order a totally new product they have never touched. Any journalist could get some meat out of talking about personality types, early adopter enthusiasm, the value of this niche market as guinea pigs, the connections to other trend setters in fashion or other consumer behaviors. Gruman does not do any of that. He asks the question why, and then seems to say 'Well since I don't get it, they are just idiots.' That alone puts this in the category of anti-intellectual, uncontemplative, thoughtless, or for those challenged by big words, dumb.

However, my head exploded when I reached this part of the article:

One positive sign in all this iPad hoopla: One of my breathless local TV news stations had its tech reporter at an Apple Store Thursday night hoping to find people lined up to camp out so they could be first in line Friday morning (at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, 5:30 a.m. Pacific) to order an iPad -- the station was clearly hoping for the kind of lemming-like frenzy we saw for Windows 95 (remember that?), the first iPhone, and for fan-driven movies like the "Star Wars," "Star Trek," and "Harry Potter" franchises.

But guess what: There was no line. Sure, it looked like a few people were willing to go online first thing in the morning to order their iPads sight unseen, or even head to an Apple Store before work today to order one. But only a few. Maybe the infamous Jobs reality distortion field does have limits after all. (Yes, I know you can't pre-order an iPad at the Apple Store. Clearly the TV station's anchorwoman didn't know when she asked the on-the-scene reporter if people were lining up already. And I doubt she's alone in that misimpression.)

Yes. Thats right. Its a sign of hope that the enthusiasm for the iPad isn't beyond ridiculous in that no one lined up in Gruman's local Apple Store to buy a product that wasn't available either for preorder or purchase in said store. Yes there were only a few people who preordered. Estimates said it was selling at 20000 an hour for the first two hours, and that there was possibly 120000 sold. That doesn't really mean anything. Its all estimation based on order number sequences. As far as buying things that you can't even have for a month, I figure thats not such a low limit after all.

Still stupid or not, its on the internet, and therefore fodder for misuse. I am trying to think of a good way to begin rating blogs as smart or dumb. It would be entirely subjective. I would try to take advantage of the power of crowds to begin to build patterns. Maybe even have it so if people agree with you one thing is dumb then when a site was rated it would be based on your taste. Who knows.

To start I think maybe a simple plugin which lets you quickly hit smart or dumb on a page. Then I can let my system learn to analyze it. Who knows. There might be some universal truth available. Or maybe its just fun to be able to search for global climate change and see the top 5 dumbest articles on it.

Let me know if you want to beta.

Oh, and yes I am blogging this. Its mostly a test.