Author Archives: olikellopas

16 New Year’s Predictions That Are Not For 2015

by olikellopas Posted on January 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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I’m up early (thanks, dexamethasone!) and there’s not really any news in the morning papers that I’m just bursting to respond to. So, since predictions are the thing to do when a new year dawns, here are some predictions. Not for 2015, mind you—I’m not an idiot—but for the medium-term future, which in my book extends over the next 30 years or so for reasons given in prediction #1. Here you go:

  1. AI and robotics will continue to improve rapidly. We’ll have useful AI by 2025 and full AI by 2045. This will either transform the world or destroy it. Flip a coin. However, regardless of how the end point turns out, the transition period is going to be pretty brutal for the 90 percent of the population that occupies the middle classes and below. Note that this prediction is #1 on my list for a reason. The rest are randomly placed.
  2. At some point, we will reach a tipping point and medicine will be revolutionized. I’m guessing it starts around 2025 and really takes off over the ensuing decade or two. By 2030 or so nanobots will be involved. I know this has been predicted for about as long as nuclear fusion reactors have been “twenty years away,” but honestly, that’s not a strike against this prediction. It just means that lots of influential people are habitually starry-eyed about technology, something that’s always been true for reasons of either personality or simple business self-interest. But the medical revolution will come regardless. It will just take longer than the congenital utopians thought. Speed bumps along the way aren’t reasons for cynicism, they’re the signposts of progress.
  3. Climate change is going to start to seriously bite by 2030. This will have increasingly catastrophic results in equatorial zones, which rich countries will decline to do much about despite many pious promises. We’ll be too busy adapting ourselves.
  4. However, the big wild card on climate change is geoengineering. I think there’s at least a 50 percent chance that we’ll undertake some kind of major geoengineering project by 2035, either unilaterally or as a global initiative. It will almost certainly be something of a clusterfuck, but we’ll get better with experience and the continued development of AI.
  5. On the bright side, solar panels will keep getting cheaper. By 2020 they’ll be competitive with coal in many parts of the world. As early as 2030, solar could be providing a very substantial part of our energy production if we have the brains to get serious about reducing greenhouse gases and allow government regulation to speed the process of the free market. Unfortunately, I don’t have much faith that we’ll do this. But if we do, it will allow us to start our geoengineering experiment with more modest projects, which will be a very good thing indeed. Nuclear fusion remains unlikely but not impossible.
  6. The rich world will continue to age. Old people will continue to vote in large numbers. This will reach a critical point around 2025 or so, but I don’t really know how it’s going to resolve itself. Maybe we’ll just muddle along. Maybe old people will increasingly—and successfully—demand policies that steadily kill economic growth. Maybe the young will revolt. I’m just not sure.
  7. The surveillance state will continue to grow. Partly this is because technology simply can’t be stopped, and partly because terrorism will continue to increase and we will willingly trade privacy for security. By 2030 personal privacy will be all but dead, and everyone under 40 will simply accept it. The rest of us will remain uncomfortable but won’t put up much of a fight.
  8. Social media as we know it will slowly die out. It will be replaced by (a) ubiquitous surveillance, (b) instant, ubiquitous wireless communication, and (c) immersive virtual reality. This will happen in the rich world by, say, 2030, and in the rest of the world a decade or two later.
  9. Online retail will continue to grow. Duh. Partly this will happen for the obvious reasons, partly because the experience of truly trying out a new product online before you buy will get better and better. The kindergarten version of this is reading a sample of a book for free before you buy. The grownup version will be virtual versions of tech gadgets that you can play with as if they were in your hands, along with highly accurate online avatars that will let you try on virtual clothing and truly see what it looks like and whether it fits. Here in Irvine, a nearby shopping center is slowly being shut down and transformed into a medical office complex. I take this as a sign of things to come.
  10. Personal 3D printing? I’m still not sure if and when that becomes more than a toy. At an industrial level it will certainly become a big thing, allowing us far more routine customization of consumer products that we buy online.
  11. Real, honest-to-god driverless cars that can navigate essentially anywhere and respond to sophisticated voice commands, will become reality by 2025 or 2030. See #1 for why. This will change society as profoundly as the invention of the mass-market car itself.
  12. Manned space exploration will go nowhere. We will not colonize the moon. At most, we will eventually launch a manned mission to Mars, but it will find nothing of interest beyond what unmanned probes have discovered. We gave up on manned missions to the moon after seven flights. We’ll give up on Mars after one or two. FTL travel will continue to be impossible. Thanks a lot, Einstein!
  13. We will all have plenty of body implants by and by. Bionic eyes are an obvious possibility. Bionic limbs are already good enough that their continued success barely counts as a prediction anymore. Cognitive enhancement will become mainstream, which is a good thing since we’ll need it to keep up with AI development.
  14. Russia will decline. China will keep growing and will certainly become a major world power, but growth will slow down due mostly to inexorable consequences of demographics and the decay of labor costs as a competitive advantage. Over the long term, the United States will continue to outperform them both, as well as the EU and (maybe) South America. I’m not really sure about India.
  15. Nuclear warfare? Beats me. I’d say a major exchange is unlikely, but a few minor exchanges are certainly possible. The most likely spot is the tinder keg stretching from Morocco to India, which already contains three nuclear powers and will likely contain at least two more (Iran and Saudi Arabia) within two decades.
  16. There will also be some terrorist biological attacks, but nothing catastrophic. Thanks to ubiquitous surveillance and superior technology, the good guys will develop defenses faster than the bad guys can develop truly killer bugs. Whether the same can be said for natural pandemics is less clear.

As you’ve noticed, I have no predictions for art or culture, which I know little about. In any case, these subjects are far too nonlinear to say anything useful about. Not too much about politics either, though the political implications of many of the predictions are fairly obvious. Economics will undergo a sea change for the same reason it’s gone through sea changes before: the underlying world of trade and money will fundamentally change. It’s not clear if the political class will pay much attention to this, but at some point I suppose they won’t have much choice.

The corporate world, despite the endless predictions of the techno-utopians and the equally endless kvetching about slacker Millennials, won’t really change much. There will be more telecommuting, more consolidation into gigantic multinationals, and ever more sophisticated marketing, but no revolutionary changes to the basic structure of business. (The marketing part of this prediction relies largely on the fact that although big data may look like crap right now, it won’t forever, and it will intersect with ubiquitous surveillance to become either revolutionary or sinister depending on your worldview.) Patent law will either be seriously reformed or will become perhaps the most dominant and most oppressive feature of corporate R&D. Not sure which.

Media will continue to be 95 percent entertainment subsidizing a small amount of serious news, just as it’s been for centuries. Only the tech will change. Books will continue to be books. English will continue to take over the world (see #14), though it’s possible the development of accurate, idiomatic, real-time translation AI will make this a moot point. The revolution of medical tech may or may not come soon enough to affect the treatment of multiple myeloma.

Obviously I’m missing lots of stuff. Some of it is due to ignorance, some is because I’m genuinely skeptical that certain much-hyped trends are likely to pan out. However, I’m not going to tell you which is which. This will allow me to plausibly deny ignorance for anything big that I’ve stupidly left off my list.

You should feel free to offer to bet me on any of these trends, but they’re all far enough out that you’ll likely have to badger my estate for payouts. Good luck with that. This is deliberate on my part, so let’s skip the whole betting thing, OK?

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16 New Year’s Predictions That Are Not For 2015

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Does America Need More Startups? Fine. How Do We Get Them?

by olikellopas Posted on December 26, 2014

Mother Jones

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Over at Foreign Affairs, Robert Litan has a piece lamenting the decline in entrepreneurship in America. I’m not entirely persuaded that this is a major problem—a fair amount of it is just the result of big national retailers replacing local diners and small shops, which are hardly big engines of economic growth—but I’m still willing to accept that some of it is probably real and deserves attention. The problem is what to do about it. James Pethokoukis, addressing skeptics like me, summarizes Litan’s suggestions:

Of course one can quibble with these numbers and what they mean….But here is the thing: Pretty much all the policy steps you might take to respond to this startup wind-down — and the decline in innovation and good jobs it implies — are pretty smart ideas in their own right. Among Litan’s suggestions:

  1. Attract more immigrant entrepreneurs and keep more foreign students who earn graduate degrees in the STEM fields.
  2. Make it easier to attract investment capital through crowdfunding platforms.
  3. Constantly evaluate regulations to see if they raise entry barriers to new firms or give an edge to incumbents.
  4. Don’t let future changes to Obamacare create a disincentive for workers to leave their firms.
  5. Reform k-12 education to better teach technological literacy — but also don’t skip humanities and the arts.

Well….OK. But how far would this get us? #1 is something we already do better than anyone in the world. I suppose we could improve even further, and I’d be in favor of immigration legislation that does just that. Still, I guess I’m dubious that lack of smart immigrants is really a huge headwind in the US. Ditto for #2. Is lack of access to venture capital really a serious problem in this country? #3 is fine. I don’t know for sure just how hard it really is to start a business in America, but the World Bank ranks us 46th in the world, and I imagine we could do better. #4 is odd: Litan himself says the news here is “mostly good.” Obamacare makes it easier to change your job or start up a new business, and that’s inherent in its very nature. It will stay that way unless it’s completely repealed. Finally, #5 suggests that we do a better job teaching science, humanities, and the arts. Since that’s pretty much everything K-12 education does, this is just a way of saying we should keep trying to improve primary education. I don’t think anyone argues with that.

I don’t mean to come off too cynical here. There are two good ideas here that we could plausibly do something about: Being friendlier to highly-educated immigrants and making it easier to start a business. (A third idea—improving our schools—is also good, but it’s basically like endorsing motherhood and apple pie.) And a good idea is a good idea. But if entrepreneurship really is in decline in America—and if it’s truly a far-reaching problem—I’d be interested in hearing more about root causes and what we might be able to do about them. It seems like it will take a lot more than this list to seriously address it.

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Does America Need More Startups? Fine. How Do We Get Them?

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Climate Change Is Kicking the Insurance Industry’s Butt

by olikellopas Posted on October 22, 2014

Mother Jones

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In the months after Hurricane Sandy, insurance companies spooked by rising seas dropped coastal policies in droves.

That could become an increasingly common story, according to the largest-ever survey of how insurance companies are dealing with climate change, released today. Global warming is increasing the risk of damage to lives and property from natural disasters beyond what many insurers are willing to shoulder. And most insurance companies aren’t taking adequate steps to change that trend, the survey found. That’s a problem even if you don’t live by the coast: When private insurers back out, the government is left to pick up much of the damage costs; already, the federal flood insurance program is one of the nation’s largest fiscal liabilities.

Ceres, an environmental nonprofit, evaluated the climate risk management policies of 330 large insurance companies operating in the United States. The results are worrying. Only nine companies, 3 percent of the total, earned the highest ranking.

The insurers that scored highly on the survey (including several of the world’s biggest, such as Munich Re, Swiss Re, and Prudential) were those that have adopted a broad range of climate-conscious products and services, such as rate pricing plans that account for potential climate impacts like storms and fires. Some insurers are also investing in high-end climate modeling software to better understand where their risks really are. Others offer environmentally friendly plans like mileage-based car insurance and encourage their customers to rebuild damaged homes using green technologies. And some insurance companies are making significant efforts to monitor and reduce their own carbon footprint.

However, the report finds that one major way insurance companies are adjusting to climate change is by not insuring properties that are threatened by it, said Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, a lead author of the report.

“As a regulator, it’s very bad to see markets being abandoned because of the threat that exists,” he said.

Certainly the threat is real. Globally, average annual weather-related losses have increased more than tenfold in the last several decades, from $10 billion per year in the period 1974-1983 to $131 billion in 2004-2013, according to the report. The insurance industry is not keeping pace: The proportion of those damages that are insured is steadily declining:

Tim McDonnell

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Climate Change Is Kicking the Insurance Industry’s Butt

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California Just Had Its Warmest Winter on Record

by olikellopas Posted on March 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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NOAA

This winter has been a tale of two Americas: The Midwest is just beginning to thaw out from a battery of epic cold snaps, while Californians might feel that they pretty much skipped winter altogether. In fact, new NOAA data reveal that California’s winter (December through February) was the warmest in the 119-year record, 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.

The map above ranks every state’s winter temperature average relative to its own historical record low (in other words, relative to itself and not to other states). Low numbers indicate that the state was unusually cold; higher numbers mean it was exceptionally warm. As you can see, the Midwest was much colder than average, while the West was hotter than average (despite a season-long kerfluffle about polar vortexes, the East Coast wasn’t exceptionally cold, after all).

As we’ve reported, there’s currently a scientific debate over whether climate change in the Arcitc is making the jet stream “drunk,” and thereby increasing the likelihood of extreme cold spells; the exact role of climate change in California’s record heat is still unclear.

As anyone working in California’s farming industry could confirm, the state also had an exceptionally dry winter, the third-lowest precipitation on record. Other interesting facts from the NOAA report:

At the beginning of March, 91 percent of the Great Lakes remained frozen, the second-largest ice cover since record keeping began in 1973.
With reservoirs in central and northern California at 36 to 74 percent of their historical average levels, these regions would need 18 inches of rain over the next three months to end the drought, much more than the state normally gets in that time period.
Alaska’s winter was the eighth-warmest on record, 6.2 degrees F over the 1971-2000 average.

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California Just Had Its Warmest Winter on Record

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Yet Another Partial Transcript From Darrell Issa

by olikellopas Posted on November 12, 2013

Mother Jones

I’m not feeling too well this morning, so I’m going to take a break. Maybe I’ll be back later depending on how things go.

In the meantime, since I don’t want to leave Richard Cohen at the top of the blog all day, check out Steve Benen here on yet another “partial transcript” from Darrell Issa, who apparently is desperate to drum up some kind of Obamacare scandal but can’t actually find one. So instead he leaked a few pages of testimony from HealthCare.gov’s chief project manager which, as you can guess, left out a few wee details. And which news organization fell for this transparent trick? Did you guess CBS? Congratulations!

Link to article – 

Yet Another Partial Transcript From Darrell Issa

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Those Darlins Get Witty and Confessional on “Blur the Line”

by olikellopas Posted on October 7, 2013

Mother Jones

Those Darlins
Blur the Line
Oh Dang Wow

Not to be confused with the video for Robin Thicke’s cheesy (if funky) hit “Blurred Lines,” Nashville’s Those Darlins pursue their own brand of sleazy provocation with the cover art for Blur the Line, but the similarities end there. Despite a lineup change that turned the quartet from a three-woman, one-man group into a half-and-half enterprise, the eclectic, women-centric approach that made their previous two outings so striking continues here.

Encompassing garage-rock, low-rent country, and girl-group pop, this bracing album can veer from snarky wit to awkward confessionals and back again at the drop of a hat. “What’s the fun in having fun/Unless your brain says no?” asks the languid “Can’t Think,” while “Oh God,” opens Blur the Line with the arresting confession, “I was a drunk girl in the shower/In yet another shit hotel,” proceeding to chronicle a memorably uncomfortable encounter. For all the psychodrama, however, Those Darlins’ fizzy twang ‘n’ crunch guarantees an exhilarating time throughout.

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Those Darlins Get Witty and Confessional on “Blur the Line”

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Obama Calls for Military Strike Against Syria—But Only if Congress Votes for It

by olikellopas Posted on August 31, 2013

Mother Jones

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In a tough-worded statement delivered in the Rose Garden this afternoon, President Barack Obama made a case for launching a limited military strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in retaliation for the chemical weapons attack mounted presumably by regime forces near Damascus earlier this month. “This menace must be confronted,” Obama declared. This was no surprise. The Obama administration has clearly been heading toward such a decision. But in an unexpected move, Obama said that it was not necessary to rush into such an attack—his military advisers had assured him that such an assault could be effective even if taken weeks from now—and that he would seek authorization from Congress before ordering an attack on the Syrian regime.

With these remarks—the president took no questions—Obama has put Congress on the hot seat. In the years since a Vietnam-shocked Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, members of Congress have often eagerly ducked taking a vote on military actions launched by a president. Routinely, congressional leaders have complained about a lack of consultation from the president without demanding a hard-and-fast chance to accept joint responsibility for a military action. (See Libya.) In recent days, while House and Senate leaders have called for consultation, none have said they must be allowed to vote on strike (while some back-benchers have indeed demanded a vote.)

So Obama is now saying, you want consultation, I’ll see you on that and raise you a full (and apparently binding) vote. Some folks—particularly hawks and neocons yearning for a strike—will, no doubt, blast the president for wimping out on executive privilege. Others will see this as a historic moment, when the president rejiggered the constitutional balance on power. But this quasi-decision certainly will lead to a robust debate on not only what to do in Syria but also the fundamental question of who is responsible for waging acts of war within a democracy.

(UPDATE) Here is the full transcript of Obama’s remarks:

Good afternoon, everybody. Ten days ago, the world watched in horror as men, women and children were massacred in Syria in the worst chemical weapons attack of the 21st century. Yesterday the United States presented a powerful case that the Syrian government was responsible for this attack on its own people.

Our intelligence shows the Assad regime and its forces preparing to use chemical weapons, launching rockets in the highly populated suburbs of Damascus, and acknowledging that a chemical weapons attack took place. And all of this corroborates what the world can plainly see — hospitals overflowing with victims; terrible images of the dead. All told, well over 1,000 people were murdered. Several hundred of them were children — young girls and boys gassed to death by their own government.

This attack is an assault on human dignity. It also presents a serious danger to our national security. It risks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. It endangers our friends and our partners along Syria’s borders, including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. It could lead to escalating use of chemical weapons, or their proliferation to terrorist groups who would do our people harm.

In a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted.

Now, after careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope. But I’m confident we can hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons, deter this kind of behavior, and degrade their capacity to carry it out.

Our military has positioned assets in the region. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has informed me that we are prepared to strike whenever we choose. Moreover, the Chairman has indicated to me that our capacity to execute this mission is not time-sensitive; it will be effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now. And I’m prepared to give that order.

But having made my decision as Commander-in-Chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I’m also mindful that I’m the President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. I’ve long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military might, but in our example as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And that’s why I’ve made a second decision: I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.

Over the last several days, we’ve heard from members of Congress who want their voices to be heard. I absolutely agree. So this morning, I spoke with all four congressional leaders, and they’ve agreed to schedule a debate and then a vote as soon as Congress comes back into session.

In the coming days, my administration stands ready to provide every member with the information they need to understand what happened in Syria and why it has such profound implications for America’s national security. And all of us should be accountable as we move forward, and that can only be accomplished with a vote.

I’m confident in the case our government has made without waiting for U.N. inspectors. I’m comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council that, so far, has been completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable. As a consequence, many people have advised against taking this decision to Congress, and undoubtedly, they were impacted by what we saw happen in the United Kingdom this week when the Parliament of our closest ally failed to pass a resolution with a similar goal, even as the Prime Minister supported taking action.

Yet, while I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization, I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course, and our actions will be even more effective. We should have this debate, because the issues are too big for business as usual. And this morning, John Boehner, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell agreed that this is the right thing to do for our democracy.

A country faces few decisions as grave as using military force, even when that force is limited. I respect the views of those who call for caution, particularly as our country emerges from a time of war that I was elected in part to end. But if we really do want to turn away from taking appropriate action in the face of such an unspeakable outrage, then we just acknowledge the costs of doing nothing.

Here’s my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? What’s the purpose of the international system that we’ve built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98 percent of the world’s people and approved overwhelmingly by the Congress of the United States is not enforced?

Make no mistake — this has implications beyond chemical warfare. If we won’t enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules? To governments who would choose to build nuclear arms? To terrorist who would spread biological weapons? To armies who carry out genocide?

We cannot raise our children in a world where we will not follow through on the things we say, the accords we sign, the values that define us.

So just as I will take this case to Congress, I will also deliver this message to the world. While the U.N. investigation has some time to report on its findings, we will insist that an atrocity committed with chemical weapons is not simply investigated, it must be confronted.

I don’t expect every nation to agree with the decision we have made. Privately we’ve heard many expressions of support from our friends. But I will ask those who care about the writ of the international community to stand publicly behind our action.

And finally, let me say this to the American people: I know well that we are weary of war. We’ve ended one war in Iraq. We’re ending another in Afghanistan. And the American people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in Syria with our military. In that part of the world, there are ancient sectarian differences, and the hopes of the Arab Spring have unleashed forces of change that are going to take many years to resolve. And that’s why we’re not contemplating putting our troops in the middle of someone else’s war.

Instead, we’ll continue to support the Syrian people through our pressure on the Assad regime, our commitment to the opposition, our care for the displaced, and our pursuit of a political resolution that achieves a government that respects the dignity of its people.

But we are the United States of America, and we cannot and must not turn a blind eye to what happened in Damascus. Out of the ashes of world war, we built an international order and enforced the rules that gave it meaning. And we did so because we believe that the rights of individuals to live in peace and dignity depends on the responsibilities of nations. We aren’t perfect, but this nation more than any other has been willing to meet those responsibilities.

So to all members of Congress of both parties, I ask you to take this vote for our national security. I am looking forward to the debate. And in doing so, I ask you, members of Congress, to consider that some things are more important than partisan differences or the politics of the moment.

Ultimately, this is not about who occupies this office at any given time; it’s about who we are as a country. I believe that the people’s representatives must be invested in what America does abroad, and now is the time to show the world that America keeps our commitments. We do what we say. And we lead with the belief that right makes might — not the other way around.

We all know there are no easy options. But I wasn’t elected to avoid hard decisions. And neither were the members of the House and the Senate. I’ve told you what I believe, that our security and our values demand that we cannot turn away from the massacre of countless civilians with chemical weapons. And our democracy is stronger when the President and the people’s representatives stand together.

I’m ready to act in the face of this outrage. Today I’m asking Congress to send a message to the world that we are ready to move forward together as one nation.

Thanks very much.

For more coverage on the developing situation in Syria, read Mother Jones’ explainer on whether chemical weapons are reason enough to go to war, how the neocons are pushing Obama to go beyond a punative strike, and Obama’s conundrum on Syria.

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Obama Calls for Military Strike Against Syria—But Only if Congress Votes for It

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No, the New York Times Didn’t Change Its "Fuck" Policy

by olikellopas Posted on August 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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On Monday, Salon’s Laura Miller reported on an almost mythical creature—an actual F-bomb in the pages of the New York Times. According to Miller, the use of the word “fuck,” in an excerpt from Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Dissident Gardens, constituted the paper of record’s “first ever use of the word.” As she put it, “With the discretion of a well-bred debutante, the Times has just lost its F-bomb virginity, so to speak.” Lethem, reached for comment, told Miller he was “delighted.”

But it’s not the first time the paper has used “fuck” or one of its variants. The Times‘ anti-profanity editorial policy is, as Salon has chronicled before, often absurd, leading to the awkward censorship of band names, book titles, and, at least once, the vice president of the United States. But it only applies to nonfiction. A quick search through the paper’s archives reveals dozens of instances of F-bombs casually inserted in fiction excerpts. Most of the time those are online-only features that supplement print reviews, but occasionally the word makes its way into the paper itself. And in some extenuating circumstances, such as the publication of the 1998 Starr Report, the paper’s news desk has consented to publish the F-word as it appears in quotes.

And there’s this, which was excerpted in the September 21, 2003, edition of the Times: “He might even be truly sick, fucked up, in pain, who knew? Your only option was to say dang, white boy, what’s your problem? I didn’t even touch you. And move on.” A few paragraphs later: “Play that fucking music, white boy! Stretching the last two words to a groaning, derisive, Bugs-Bunnyesque whyyyyyyyboy!”

The author? Jonathan Lethem.

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No, the New York Times Didn’t Change Its "Fuck" Policy

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Colorado Wildfires Are So Big They Can Be Seen From Space

by olikellopas Posted on June 28, 2013

Image Credit:ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 36 crew

The fires in Colorado continue to rage through dry forest timber, damaging both forests and towns. Coloradans have already endured the most destructive fire in state history, and while that one has abated, others have sprung up in different corners of the state. Hundreds of firefighters are currently battling the West Fork Complex and the East Peak Fire. The blazes are so large that they can be seen from space. Astronauts on the ISS took these dramatic images of the smoke plumes from the West Fork Complex and the Wild Rose Fire.

Image Credit: ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 36 crew.

The smoke from these fires reached European airspace on Monday.

Firefighters trying to contain the East Peak fire got some help from the weather last night, in the form of less than an inch of rain. It wasn’t much moisture, but it was enough. The fire is now 75 percent contained, but its scars remain on the landscape. Satellite images form NASA’s Earth observatory show what kind of impact the fire has already made in the forested area.

On June 22, 2013, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this false-color image of the East Peak fire burning in southern Colorado near Trinidad. Burned areas appear dark red, while actively burning areas look orange. Dark green areas are forests; light green areas are grasslands. Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Caption by Adam Voiland.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Here’s What $110 Million in Fire Damage Looks Like
Colorado Wildfire Forces Evacuations, Threatens World’s Highest Suspension Bridge
Fires Are Escaping Our Ability to Predict Their Behavior

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Colorado Wildfires Are So Big They Can Be Seen From Space

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Ex-IRS Director: Tea Party Groups Deserved Scrutiny, But IRS Bungled the Job

by olikellopas Posted on May 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Among those in attendance last Friday when IRS official Lois Lerner admitted that agency staffers had systematically singled out tea partiers and other conservative groups for special scrutiny was a lawyer named Marcus Owens. Lerner’s admission was shocking, and nobody realized that more than Owens. That’s because he served as director of the Exempt Organizations Division from 1990 to 2000, prior to Lerner holding the job.

More MoJo coverage of the IRS tea party scandal


The IRS Tea Party Scandal, Explained


IG Report Says IRS Has No Idea What Its Own Rules Mean


5 Things You Need to Know in the Inspector General’s IRS Tea Party Scandal Report


Did the Acting IRS Commissioner Mislead Congress?


Word of the Month for May: BOLO


Ex-IRS Director: Tea Party Groups Deserved Scrutiny, But IRS Bungled the Job

Owens, who has worked on tax law issues in private and public practice for almost 40 years, including 25 years at the IRS, says he has been getting a lot of calls about the scandal. The way he sees it, he told me in an interview on Tuesday, is that the IRS was right to take a close look at conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. Particularly in 2010, hundreds of new conservative groups were springing up across the country. “I think that it would be unreasonable to expect the IRS to ignore that, and to simply approve these 501(c)(4) applications from politically active organizations as if they were Scout troops or Little Leagues,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they should be denied exemption or that the evaluation should be overboard or overly intrusive, but there should be special evaluation.”

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Ex-IRS Director: Tea Party Groups Deserved Scrutiny, But IRS Bungled the Job

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