Troubling Revelations on the Velociraptor's Hunting Skills

It turns out the raptor wasn't as deadly as Sam Neil led us to believe in Jurassic Park. From the Raptor Fact of the Day:

So you know those large sickle-shaped claws Velociraptors have on their hindfeet? Of course, everyone does. Well, once upon a time paleontologists thought the claws were used to disembowel the raptors' prey—certainly that was the working theory in Jurassic Park. But now a new study by Phil Manning of the University of Manchester has found that, sadly, no, the Velociraptor's claws simply weren't sharp enough to tear rip open dinosaur flesh. Instead, biomechanical analysis suggests the raptors used the claws to scale trees, from which they'd pounce down on other dinosaurs and cling tight with their sickle claws, biting and killing all the while.

Trading a Missile Shield for Sanctions

Obama launched an eager push at the United Nations and at the G-20 gathering in Pittsburgh to foster international resolve on punishing Iran for its nuclear energy and purported nuclear weapon program. Even though US intelligence failed to locate any evidence of a weapons program, the disclosure of a new uranium enrichment facility in Qom scares the bejesus out of the Americans, British, French, and Israelis. As Juan Cole points out, however, the Qom installation is suspicious but should not be regarded as a sure sign of a nuclear weapons program. Nor should it it swell the drum beats for war. At Foreign Policy, Marc Lynch believes that the Obama administration engineered a successful first diplomatic strike at the UN and in Pittsburgh that will fast-track sanctions or other international efforts to dismantle Iran's quickening pace. A WINEP fellow and FP Shadow Government contributor, Michael Singh, offers guarded praise for the initial efforts. Despite some sun, he forecasts red skies at morning if Obama and the US' allies cannot rein in Iran over the course of the next few months.

If Obama can draw Russia into agreement on imposing new sanctions, then he plucked a thorn from the bear's paw and demonstrated why an effective diplomatic agenda requires compromise over issues that threaten your dancing partner. (As an aside, my friend Nate Matlock commented that I could have been more explicit in the thorn post. Poland and the Czech Republic are NATO member countries and thus are shielded by a collective security agreement and have little to fear from a direct Russian attack. Thanks, Nate.) The question centers on China's support or rejection of the American, British, French, and Israeli movement. After the tire tariff, the US and China are in a minor spat with President Hu Jintao voicing his displeasure with the US trade decision. The Daily Beast's Mark McKinnon--a self-avowed free market and radical free trader--is fretting over the Obama administration's precedent and worries that an impending trade war will result from Obama's bows to scary big labor. Oh, you innocent free traders. Similar to those who apotheosize neoliberal free trade, McKinnon attacks organized labor (how can we shackle the free market? do you hate freedom?) and neglects to shed light on Chinese policies that might disagree with his unblemished ideals of free and fair competition. I've stated my opinions on these utopian flights of fancy, so I won't beat a dead horse.

The Obama administration will need to organize an effective diplomatic coalition in the P5 if they don't want the Chinese to veto sanctions. The Chinese are unlikely to jump on board without some inducement or pressure. Gal Luft, writing for the Harvard Middle East Strategy blog, suggests that the Chinese won't be plied away easily as they stand to gain from a proposed natural gas pipeline named Nabucco. Even though I'm not wild on his political views, Luft's writing on energy are fantastic. The Chinese have demonstrated their keen aptitude in natural resource diplomacy and leveraging their resources. (McKinnon and his orthodox pals don't seem to register any indignation with Chinese actions in such cases, apparently. But that Employee Free Choice Act, it's a sure sign of economic ruin.) Luft's cautionary rhetoric aside, he delineates the steps the US should take to prevent the pipeline from crossing Pakistan into India and through to China. It's worth questioning if the US has the power to accomplish that goal as its position in Afghanistan grows more precarious by the day, and it's worth wondering if the US can convince the Pakistanis--and by extension India and China--that it's not in their vested interest to push for the pipeline. (Luft says no in an August FP piece on the foolishness of gas sanctions for Iran.) We're entering a new, exciting period of resource diplomacy, and energy concerns will assume a center spot in any discussion on sanctions over Iran's nuclear program and if President Obama can swing President Hu onto the bandwagon.

Tire Tariff and Free Trade, Neoliberal Economics

The steelworkers union scored a coup recently with the tariff on Chinese tires, and the United Steelworkers have a large appetite for leveling imbalances in the facade of free trade. Pointing out that Chinese companies receive lucrative subsidies and a host of state support, the steelworkers convinced the commerce department and the executive branch to place a thirty-five percent tax on Chinese tires. Obama recognizes that, in some ways, he owes his victory to unions and if he wants to win in Ohio and Pennsylvania, he will back their requests. As United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard pointed out, Chinese companies benefit from state intervention and support. To further illustrate this point, the final installment in the NYT's series Uneasy Engagement--which reports on the "stresses and strains of China’s emergence as a global power"--found that state companies and corporations headed by influential politicians or their relatives were linked to corrupt business tactics in Africa. Far from relying on fair strategies, the Chinese government and its businesses (the same as the Americans and most world powers) utilizes its leverage and financial resources to enrich itself and state companies regardless of the cost. It's silly to believe that they play the game with any other intention.

As one could guess, economists are decrying the tariff and warning of protectionism battles that threaten the inviolable doctrine of free trade. It's all well and good if you're preaching free trade in an economics classroom or from an executive's chair in a conference room, but the utopia of neoliberal free trade doesn't pay off for millions of Americans and hundreds of millions more across the world. My complaint about macroeconomics is that they fail to address the social cost and how free trade can eviscerate the working-class. Recently, in Paul Krugman's piece in the NYT Magazine, How did Economists Get it So Wrong, he blasted macro econ profs for, ultimately, their ignorance and reliance upon faulty quantitative models that distanced economists in academia, government, and the private sector from reality. While it won't surprise anyone, he lumps the majority of blame on neoclassical economists from the University of Chicago school ("freshwater economists") who dismissed Keynesian economics roundly. (As an aside, in a blog entry on Conscience of a Liberal, Krugman shares that Chicago economists did not enjoy his jeremiad. In typical fashion, Krugman doesn't give a rat's ass.)

Krugman credits the saltwater economists--the camp which he falls in as well as Brad DeLong--for keeping the Keynesian flame alive, and he advocates for dropping byzantine Planglossian modeling and a shift toward behavioral economics to grasp how and why economists function. Behavioral economics might offer a path to reduce volatility and put a necessary end to dreamy concepts such as credit derivative swaps.

I'm not an economist and I don't play one on TV or popular press outlets. I agree with Krugman and I think he's correct for pointing out that the profession as a whole requires an intellectual overhaul. However, his article never mentions how people encounter the Great Recession and similar horrific contractions. People appear as abstract, generalized concepts rather than individuals who suffer, lose, or marginally benefit. Economists are divorced from social consequences, which is why I'm pleased that the Obama administration acted in concert with the Steelworkers' requests. The obvious rejoinder is that macro economic methodology doesn't permit for such a narrow focus, which is the preserve of micro economics or social scientists. Fine, but it fails to explain why America's leading economists advance theory and policy that benefit a small section of a population and neglects to help the majority of people and often hurts them in pursuit of lofty ideas of streamlined free trade and GDP increases.

The question returns to a simple inquiry: who benefits and at what cost?

Labor and Changing of the Guard

John Sweeney retired from his post as the head of the AFL-CIO, and former AFL-CIO Rick Trumka will steer the nation's most prominent labor organization. As Harold Myerson writes in the WaPo, Sweeney presided over a period where labor faced setbacks and declining numbers, some of which produced SEIU and other unions to split and from the AFL-CIO. Sweeney, as Myerson points out, deserves credit for repositioning labor as a central player in the Democratic Party and a liberal coalition as well as the initial gains on EFCA. If EFCA passes--and it has a better shot of doing so now that card check is gone--Trumka's priority must be to be swing the AFL-CIO's field operations into action and commence one of the largest organizing movements in recent history.

If EFCA makes it through Congress and to the president, it will come at a crucial moment. As I commented in conservative opposition to teabag central, the working-class' income shrank during the Bush years and unions represent a powerful way to restore the flagging earning potential of those in many industries which are now working-class that exist outside the traditional conception of the industrial blue collar man. In a piece blasting the Tea Party and its appeal to the working-class, Timothy Egan asks why none of the self-proclaimed patriots opposed the Bush tax cuts, corporate greed and perfidy, the Bush decision to save finance capitalism, or why the majority of Americans failed to benefit after eight years. In essence, Egan ponders why the working-class votes against its interests and empowers politicians and trashy talk show hosts who advocate a system that advances an economic system that limits their ability to prosper. It's a fair question and one that defies an easy answer when anti-government drums are beaten and laced with populist resentment for ratings.

Crappy Taxidermy

Once again, internet, you never fail to amaze with gems such as Crappy Taxidermy.

CHUPACABRA!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE

Pulling the Thorn from the Bear's Paw: Terminating the Eastern Europe Missile Shield

The Obama administration announced today that it is formally ending the Eastern Europe anti-ballistic missile shield with planned installations in the Czech Republic and Poland to intercept potential Iranian missiles. According to the NYT, the administration will base missiles in Turkey and in seaborne craft after recent intelligence indicated that the Iranian government chose to develop short-range and intermediate missiles rather than long-range missiles.

This story first appeared a couple of weeks ago, so it's not terribly surprising. Even though this policy correction will please Putin and Medvedev, it sends a clear signal to Ukraine, Georgia, the Czech Republic, and Poland that the US is placing it's national security priorities higher than the fears of a new iron curtain, even in the wake of last year's Georgian/South Ossetia conflict. However, it's doubtful that the Obama administration is leaving these states high and dry without any arms or potential security commitments.

Nordin Top Dead?

Another report from Indonesia that police killed Nordin M. Top last night. The national police chief referred to his death as a Ramadan blessing. It's a relief for the US after the raid in Somalia that resulted in the death of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.

He'll never allow her to forgot this moment.

Roger Federer Makes Impossible Shot

He could work for a carnival if this whole tennis thing doesn't work out.

Conservative Opposition to Teabag Central

(Admittedly, the cartoon doesn't relate solely to this post.) Somewhat to my surprise, a faction inside the GOP are voicing their rejection of the anti-Obama and anti-government fervor. Peter Wallsten in the LAT reports that a smattering of Republicans view the fringe elements as irresponsible. Then again, there are those who draw the wrong conclusions, such as one of McCain's former spokesman during the campaign, Michael Goldfarb. Drawing parallels to 2006 and 2008, Goldfarb asks "'do we look crackpot? Yes' and he misses the point by alleging "but that's how the left looked to me in 2004, and in 2006 they took back Congress. Then they started marginalizing the lunatics." The leftest wing of the Democratic party didn't mobilize the voting populous. It was Bush's failed foreign policy and his economic policies. A story in the Atlantic plumbs the census records from the Bush administration and finds:

"While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially."

Goldfarb is walking away with the wrong lesson and seems oblivious to the nature of the teabag protests. That's not to say that some of the issues raised aren't troubling to Democratic hopefuls in 2010, but waves of people aren't going to switch their voting habits due to fears of czars, racist claims, Nazi detention camps, a wildly hysterical birth certificate pursuit, and other crazy ideas promulgated in the bowels of Glenn Beck's ratings-driven crusade. As the Daily Beast's John Avalon discovered this weekend after inquiring why a woman carried a Confederate flag:

"I asked her why she was carrying the Stars and Bars to the rally. 'Because I’m from the South…It has nothing to do with slavery. People think it means slavery. That’s not what it stood for. It stood for the Union.' Somewhere, Lincoln just threw up."

If that isn't scary and something to walk away from, I don't know what is. McCain showed some responsibility last year by denying a woman's claim that Obama was an Arab, which drew boos from an audience along a campaign stop. It's time for the GOP to do the same thing. It's doubtful that it will occur as they tend to view this through Goldfarb's prism of short-term political gain rather than a cancerous lesion.

Look at the Happy Teabaggers

An article in today's NYT covers the protests held yesterday in DC to oppose the Obama administration and government at large. Jeff Zeleny's piece, Thousands Attend Broad Protest of Government, wavers between exposing the disgusting aspects of the protests and calmly disarming the teabaggers with pats on the head: "While there was no shortage of vitriol among protesters, there was also an air of festivity"; "...still many demonstrators expressed their views without a hint of rage." The paragraph following the latter quote starts with a benign, blithe quote that illustrates the protesters' passivity, "'I want Congress to be afraid.'" Another example in the same story told of costumed teabaggers that donned Revolutionary era garb "calling for revolution." Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Glenn Beck's 912 Project publicized the gathering and trumped the number of people that came out to listen to speakers and blast the president with cries of "liar, liar, liar"--voicing the refrain made popular after Joe Wilson's insulting heckle to President Obama during the health care speech.

I find the comparisons and likenesses of Obama and Hitler particularly odious. However, folks on the left weren't above trotting out the same analogy with Bush, so I am reluctant to categorically admonish the teabaggers as aberrants that crossed an uncrossable line. However, to treat the demonstrators as happy-go-lucky folks who dispense homespun, folksy wisdom in a peaceful fashion waters down their negative potential. A wealth of evidence from gun-toting protesters, racist signs, and those advocating bloody revolution doesn't paint a sunny picture. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols--my neighbor to the south at the Supermax in Florence--demonstrated how a small cell of radicals can perpetrate a massive crime that murders innocents in the name of freedom and fear of the government.

Nothing will, hopefully, come of this outburst of hysteria and this trend will fizzle as the economy rebounds and people (in and out of government) accept Obama's presidency. Wilson's scream prompted Maureen Dowd to acknowledge the root cause and settle on a disappointing truth: "some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it." Although Dowd targets the fine track record of South Carolinians of late, her comments extend to cover some of those in the teabagger movement and the GOP who seem content to fan the flames for political gain.


In case you want more photos to sate your desires, here's a flickr page that features a hall of shame and several other appropriately named galleries. You won't be disappointed with gems such as these:

The Passion of the '97

From 8/6/97 Riverport Amphitheater, St. Louis. This is the second clip of that night's You Enjoy Myself. This version wasn't the best of the tour or hardly the year. It reminded me, however, of what I saw in the band that night and how I left the show inspired and craving more, more, more. Even though the video isn't the best quality, the audio doesn't disappoint.

Meet at the Union Hall: Labor Day 2009 & EFCAs Chances

In the wake of Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and Chicago's 1886 Haymarket Affair, labor affairs in the United States encountered fierce opposition courtesy of federal, state, municipal, and corporate forces that linked the working-class to radicalism. Turn of the century labor unrest initiated waves of anti-radicalism and fears of communist/socialist encroachments in the working-class that fueled suppression by national guards, police forces, and corporate hired thugs. So in 1894 when President Grover Cleveland and Congress enshrined a holiday for the working-class, they did not select the day recognized by workers around the world (May 1, to commemorate Haymarket). Instead, he opted for the first Monday in September, which was also proposed by several labor unions. Cleveland's and Congress' decision is one part in the long history of anti-radicalism in the United States.

Since, the plight of the American working-class and organized labor reached dizzying yet fleeting heights and, largely, pits of suppression. Neoliberalism, recessions in the 1970s and early 1980s, and President Ronald Reagan's PATCO firing eviscerated the working-class and its traditional support of organized labor. Corporations and politicians stripped the working-class of any political power with a skillful propaganda campaign that altered the debate by sullying the idea of a working-class (instead we have an amorphous "middle class" that consists of the working-class) and sharpening the tools of union busting. The result? The top 20% of Americans own 80% of the wealth in this country and the bottom 80's wages have moved negligibly from the 1970s. With wealth comes political power, as William Domhoff argues.

SEIU, AFL-CIO, and a host of labor allies recognized the singular opportunity they face with a Democratic Congress and an ally in the White House--the latter of which raked money in from SEIU. So this coalition pushed Congress to reckon with the Employees' Free Choice Act (EFCA) and card check. Card check is dead and won't return. A friend and I discussed card check and he voiced the fear of an anti-democratic procedure foisted on workers, which is a legitimate concern. However, as he and most others don't know, employers are the ones who undertake a deliberately un-democratic tack. They receive fines for obstructing union drives and have the clear upper hand to use pressure in the work place through firing, suspension, forced attendance at anti-union classes, and intimidation, unlike organized labor. By all accounts the future of EFCA will alter the speed at which elections are held and unions' rights to meet with workers, as well monitoring of employers' tactics to prevent a unionization drive.

However, after a bloody August for the administration and Democrats, what is EFCA's fate? As Gallup found in a recent poll, support for organized labor took a substantial dive in the past year.

• In 2008, Gallup reported a 59% positive view of unions. Their recent poll found that level at 48%.
  
• The poll found that 46% of Americans view unions as mostly hurting companies, and 45% believe they mostly help.
• Even worse, 51% of respondents said that unions hurt the economy, and merely 39% said they helped. For comparative purposes, the totals were flipped in 2006.
  

These figures are troubling for unions and their democratic allies as they prepare for the 2010 mid-term elections and the possibility of passing EFCA. Health care will pass--even if it's denuded of actual reform. EFCA is questionable in these economic times with horrible employment figures projected for the future and as pundits such as Charlie Cook portend doom for the Democratic Party next year. As I've said on here in the past, this is the working-class' opportunity. Neither Presidents Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton stood up for labor and, if history is a guide, it's doubtful in times of prosperity that labor reform will pass.

And if you need a refresher on why conservatives despise unions and the working-class, read Jerry Agar's column on Townhall: Labor Day - I'm not Celebrating.

One last addition: President Obama delivered a Labor Day speech at the AFL-CIO picnic in Cincinnati. He comments on EFCA at the very end with five sentences voicing his support of EFCA, which is less than he spoke on Lilly Ledbetter.

If You Believe that it's Somehow Unhealthy for the President to Say Work Hard and Stay in School, You're Stupid.

I don't know if I have anything to add.

Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, 2009.

The University of Chicago tradition of training scholars is alive and well, as Matthew Crawford's book demonstrates as he bends and dips between an esoteric philosophical exegesis on labor and his gear head biography. I doubt he would react in anger with the latter description of his book. Indeed, one of the goals of this little book (clocking in at 210 pages on such a nuanced topic) is advocating for the restoration of trade-based education, even if the skill does not determine a person's occupation.

Crawford borrows on Martin Heidegger and a slew of other philosophers to examine what "work" or "labor" consists of today as well as in the past. Stepping back to the scientific management of Frederick Winslow Taylor, in short order he traces the contours of American labor history before slicing apart contemporary jobs that departed from a skill-based profession. Knowing a skill or trade is not only lucrative, it restores agency and infuses our lives with meaning. Unlike his deadening job as an abstract writer or the head of a DC think tank, repairing motorcycles infused his life with purpose in the recognizable way that he hears in the motorcycles he fixed or the jocular rapport of a work shop. A culture that glorifies report card As and the knowledge worker is one of his principle enemies, and he persuasively explains why they've generated nothing more than people who fashion hollow products such as a grade or a promotion.

I'm stuck wondering if this work is dialectical or a simple exploration of a dichotomy. He achieves his goal of explaining why we should restore shop class to the nation's education portfolio. In doing so, he rescues mechanics and the working-class from an economy and learning environment that privileges the knowledge worker as the highest plain of professions. He picks that argument apart and reveals its bankruptcy, partially with his own story of being employed as a knowledge worker. He doesn't romanticize working, rather he celebrates the opportunities it brings to learn about yourself and the way of the world.

Now on to the problems. I find myself agreeing with Crawford rather than disagreeing, so my complaints don't target his argument. In fact, I know plenty of people who would agree with this book if he stated his thesis simply. This isn't a simple book. It's a philosophical treatment of labor and the value it instills. The prose is chalky at points and he veers a bit before arriving at a conclusion. It wasn't an easy read, despite the limited page count, so I think it bears questioning who is the audience? If he is reaching out to middle-class parents who want nothing more than their children to succeed and have fewer professional options than to send their kids off to college, then his approach is troubled.

Finally, for all the negative comments on academia and knowledge workers, Crawford is a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. I believe he still runs his motorcycle shop, and everyone needs to find gainful employment to survive so I don't think this smacks of hypocrisy. Nevertheless, he's gone back to the warm waters of academia that tend to shelter rather than an expose one to the unpredictable employment winds of working-class life.

My criticisms aside, his general elevation of trade based learning and professions is well argued, even if I question its accessibility. It certainly isn't for light reading and shouldn't be a vacation book.

Tomato Line Up

Here are photos of all of our tomatoes except the Black From Tula, which we ate earlier and are back in green.

Left to Right: Green Zebra, Brandywine (x2), Cherokee Purple (x3)

Green Zebra: with few seeds and robust meat, they are packed with flavor and it's fun to eat a ripe green fruit. This is the second Zebra that was snipped from the vine and the jury's still out with ten to fifteen on the vine.

Brandywine: these are the first two, and the right one will reach its peak on the window sill. We've been battling bug and slugs and I chose to pull it rather than risk losing one of our only two Brandywines.

Cherokee Purple: our favorite. Bursting with tomato goodness, the Purples reach decent- to large-size with purple hues and dark reds. Their fragrant smell is everything you want from a ripe tomato that defines how a tomato should taste, feel, and smell. In other words, it's a sensual experience. And, admittedly, one that I'm romanticizing, but with good reason.

Sugar Cookies

Max and Benny's in Northbrook is baking cookies with famous faces from Chicago and nationally that taste quite good. My mom sent us to these but she reported that Sarah Palin, Ozzie Guillen, and a few Bears personalities grace the popular cookies. If I'm choosing cookies, sugar is one of the last options I select unless they're fresh. Haunting memories of dry, insipid Jewel sugar cookies with disgusting frosting still linger as I age. Fresh sugar cookies are a delight, but hard to come by unless you're present at the creation. The Obama and Lou Piniella were phenomenal and survived the thousand mile trip in immaculate shape and retained their flavor. I don't know if this is some form of a product endorsement--since no one I know will drive to Northbrook for cookies unless you're already there--but I felt like sharing since I can't scare up other ideas to keep the Raptor Space from devolving into the internet representation of a super-market sugar cookie.