Here we are again on that dipthong of days, March 16 & 17, so sacred to us Finno-Irish Americans everywhere, when the saint day of beloved Urhu elides into that of Patrick, to whom those of us still standing will raise a pint tomorrow.
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Congratulations to this stellar leader!

I had been rooting for Huckabee, but hey, the people have spoken and who am I to gainsay them?

Tom Athanasiou and his good colleagues at EcoEquity attended the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (“The Bali Conference”) & got a chance to share the ideas behind their framework for Development Rights in a Carbon-Constrained World. ( I earlier promised that I was going to give an in depth analysis of their argument, but I've changed my mind. They summarize it and present it better than I can, so what's the point?)

Tom has a few follow-up articles about the Bali Conference and what comes next. In Grist, Environmental News and Commentary, Tom has a kind of Bali Conference trip report. In Foreign Policy in Focus, Tom has a short but important essay, “Towards a Defensible Climate Realism”.


These articles somewhat wonkish in nature, but hey, difficult problems require a little bit of thought, and what policy problem is more difficult or important than climate change? Besides, if you're reading Wetmachine you probably have a fair amount of wonk in you, or at least geek, which is close enough. For some real insight into what really needs to be done about climate change at the policy level, rather than at the switch-to-energy-efficient-lightbulbs-and-hope-for-the-best level, you need to get acquainted with EcoEquity.

Check 'em out. Better still, subscribe to the EcoEquity newsletter, then you'll be as in-the-know as I am!

Everyone loves history, especially their own. It is perhaps therefore not surprising to see a spate of Democratic/Liberal columnists fret about the possible similarities between the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver and the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. There, the Democratic Party — caught between an entrenched old guard and a vocal youth vote, between supporters of the Vietnam War v. opponents, civil rights activists in varying degrees, and supporters of Robert Kennedy adrift after his assassination — engaged in brutal internecine warfare that split the party and gave Richard Nixon the victory.

But is it the right analogy? I would suggest, as I know others have as well, that the correct analogy lies not with 1968 but 1932. That story ended happily for the Democrats, and it is worth considering why and whether that success can be repeated — if we do not try to shove our differences under the rug and “play nice.”

More below . . . . [Read More!]

In my little screed yesterday about how the Republican values of fake piety, cheating, and worship of authority pervade the discussion of sports on Boston's WEEI radio station, I mentioned the reputation of Bobby Knight, the winningest coach in the history of college basketball, for not cheating. By all accounts these were the priorities that guided his entire forty-year carreer:

1. Ensure an education (both academically and in life) for student-athletes.
2. Follow the NCAA rules.
3. Win.

Bob Knight retired yesterday, “effective immediately”.

I was among the many many people who thought that Indiana University did the right thing in firing Coach Knight. He never learned to control his temper, and could be an outrageous bully. He forced the situation at Indiana, essentially telling the regents of the school, “me or the president of the University: one of us has to go.” So, appropriately, he was told to go, leaving a school where he had coached for 29 years and won three national championships. He spent the twilight of his career putting little-known Texas Tech on the basketball map.

Knight's nickname was “the General” or “the little General”, and Texas Tech was a kind of exile, his own little Elba Island. But if he thought it was an ignominious come-down, he never let on. To me, an occasional watcher of college basketball games on TV, Knight seemed as happy there as he did anywhere else. Which is not very happy at all.

Today I tip my cap to the man. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports has written a great appreciation of Knight's integrity here.

UPDATE

In the comments, Armands makes a good point:


That's twice now you've used the word “homoeroticism” without any context or explanation, and with an obvious disapproval. Very disheartened. Be more careful which words you treat as slurs, and how you throw them around.


SECOND UPDATE

In order to prevent any confusion about my intent, I've removed the word from the opening sentence.

Please see below for a clarification. [Read More!]

The still unfinished masterpiece, The Pains, is already having a n impact on our culture, as evinced by this John Galliano fashion show, complete with models wearing nooses. Nooses! What could be more trendy? OK, maybe the knitted penis-gourds that they mentioned, but that's probably just the thought of having a nice toasty penis-gourd on a cold and frosty New England morning.

Read The Pains now, and it'll make you far more fashionable!

Andrew Olmsted's final post.

Andrew Olmsted, Major, United States Army, killed in action, near Sadiyah, Iraq, January 4, 2008.

Ars Technica has a report about a Microsoft patent application that is supposed to detect user frustration. The patent wording (as with most patents) is obscure and difficult to decipher. They've probably spent a huge chunk of money on the research... but I could have given them an exceedingly simple algorithm to detect user frustration:

Allow me to demonstrate in pseudo-code:

if (program.author == “Microsoft”) Then {

user.isFrustrated = true;

}

A more serious discussion, after the break. [Read More!]

This won't matter to most of you, but a former colleague of mine from Covington and Burling got attacked on the front page of the Washington Post today and I feel an urge to respond.

More below . . . . [Read More!]

Harold's been wonkifying up Wetmachine lately, almost to the point of upsetting the delicate bullshit/wonkosity ratio that I, as Wetmachine circusmaster, have so studiously sought to maintain down the cascade of years. Time for some drastic action to keep our ph right.

Over on another group blog (which shall remain nameless) on which I hang out from time time time, a recent confessional thread has prompted people to fess up to embarrassing things from their adolescence, such as the fact that the first album they ever purchased was Michael Jackson's “Thriller” or the Bee Gee's “Saturday Night Fever”. That discussion inspired me to relate the tale of a post-adolescent piccadillo of my own which appears below the fold. To borrow a sentiment, if not the precise line, from Charles Dickens' alter ego David Copperfield, whether this tale will make me an Internet hero worthy of your esteem and cross-linking, or whether it will make me more deserving of your open scorn or silent pity, these paragraphs must show.

One night, nearly thirty years ago, while drunk, I wrote a letter to the writers of Howard the Duck, a quasi-popular, quasi-cult Marvel comic book about a cynical, wise-cracking, cigar-smoking guy from a universe where everybody is a duck, who was stranded here in our universe one day when “the cosmic axis shifted”. The writers' response, two months later, has immortalized me in bathrooms all over North America (and for all I know, all over the world). [Read More!]