I’m so proud of the American mainstream media, they paid attention to the election results for 4 WHOLE days before turning to something truly important and meaningful – a sex scandal! Jackpot. Please, media, more details, keep ‘em coming. Preferably with pictures. Don’t stop getting to the bottom of this super important story. And don’t even start on the all important question “why did it happen?” I couldn’t possibly imagine how or why it happened. Will need video.  

What I think is known about the universe, and stuff

Who isn't interested in cosmology? If people say they aren't, they probably confuse it with cosmetics. But even then, who doesn't like cosmetics? Seriously though, cosmology studies the origin, workings and ultimate fate of the universe. If someone's not curious and inspired by that, well then they're definitely not invited to poker night. Royal flush? Eh, boring.

So the universe is expanding. And it's expanding at a faster and faster rate. Based on the amount of mass in the universe, this should not be the case. The gravitational pull of all matter should be slowing the expansion of the outer frontier. Like holding up a sheet flat and setting some ping pong balls on the outside, then dropping a baseball or similar object in the middle of the sheet, it's weight will pull the ping pong balls closer to the middle. So Stephen Hawking says at least. So to account for this unpredicted fact, that the universe keeps expanding faster and faster, physicists add a fudge factor, known as dark energy. I don't know what's so "dark" about it, it's just the energy that must be contained in open space, that is counteracting the gravitational pull. The system clearly has some mysterious source of energy, so I guess if it's mysterious, it can be dark too. This seems a common route physics takes: the backwards route. Higgs-Bossom was inferred long before it was proven to exist. Dark energy doesn't exist in any tangible way, but it's inferred, because otherwise things just wouldn't make sense.

So can the universe expand forever then? If it really did expand forever, into infinite space, the distribution of matter and energy would be infinitely sparse. There would be a density of zero. This would spell the end of the universe as we know it, a cold, lifeless tundra where space consistently has nothing in it. And dead space is a dead universe. But this apparently won't happen, because before it can, the stars of the galaxies will consume all their energy and become black holes, swallowing up their solar systems and everything in their reach. In 100 billion years or so it's expected the whole universe will be one giant collection of black holes from stars that have fissioned their way to oblivion. So this means the universe is actually quite young in its current state. The big bang was some 15 billion years ago at current estimate, so we're a teenager who can expect to make it well into old age. That's good, I guess. I guess because I'll be dead and gone in a mere nanosecond by comparison, but it's reassuring to know that this grand operation, whatever it is, will continue for millions of my meager lifetimes. There's something beautiful in that, a sense of inherent modesty is imposed by the sheer grandeur and unimaginability of the scale that all of existence and matter operates on. So, ours is a universe with much longer to live.

But after these 100 billion or so years, apparently the models predict that, because of quantum movements (which still operate just fine in black holes) the black holes that fill the universe will eventually become unstable. These black holes are obviously really dense and energy rich, and the fluctuations in their quantum energy will eventually lead them to explode and separate. This explosion and separation will then, get this, lead to a period where the universe consists of their debris and leftovers for about 1 trillion years! For 1 trillion years, all of space will be a chaotic mess, a random distribution of all matter and energy (except maybe dark energy) spread all across the universe. Mind boggling.

How long is a trillion years? Well it's so long that the amount of crazy combinations that can occur over that period of time will lead to the end of this period. A trillion years is the predicted limit for the timeframe over which basically the universe can become one clump of matter. In a trillion years it's predicted that the universe will basically order itself into non-existence. If there's enough random movement, enough experiments of different ways that things can organize themselves, eventually really cooky things will happen. Like if you could live a million years and stay in your house that whole time, eventually the air in the room would organize itself, randomly, in such a way that all the air is a more or less perfectly organized lattice above your head, and it's weight would crush you to death. Crazy, unlikely things like this creep into the picture over seriously long timeframes. The events that are 20 standard deviations from the norm, happen.

So after a trillion years, the universe will basically do what the room does. It will form a lattice of energy and matter that is highly organized and dense. Everything will basically clump up really tight. I think this comes from entropy. That more chaotic systems will lose energy and come undone, while more organized ones will become more energetic and more organized, in a feedback loop. But who knows. And what's really, really, really, and I mean, really, interesting about this is that this structure is very similar to what the universe is thought to have been like in the instant before the big bang. Very smooth. Very dense. All of existence and matter in the space of a thimble. And then it exploded to be what it is now. So then after this trillion years of basically random experiments of organization, that leads to a very tightly packed concentration of all material, what happens? Does it explode into another big bang? Does it create another universe, out of the same energy and material of the one before, but a different permutation? And if so, how many times has this happened? How many universes have their been? And how many are there? Maybe it's not a universe we live in, but a multiverse.

As a caveat, I don't really know what the fuck I'm talking about, at all, I pieced this together from watching and reading stuff online. But then again, who really does know? That's the fun, beauty and awe of it, for me. The universe I believe will remain well outside out comprehension until, when, well, who even knows that.

The main reason people hate Government when they hate Government

A few times a month I see a neighbor walk out of my apartment complex and get in his car. I keep walking towards the metro stop while he drives off to work. A very typical boring morning in the land of Wages. The one catch is that the car is an official government vehicle emblazoned with the metro logo. He often parks the car within 15 feet of a metro bus stop that goes directly downtown towards his office. And the metro rail station is 3 blocks away. But he drives towards downtown everyday, rejecting his own system.

"As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax, I think they should also help themselves collectively by all paying their tax. Yeah." This is a quote from the Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde. And I think she’s totally right. Greece’s fiscal situation is not an acute ailment, but a chronic illness that has been growing for decades. They are unwilling to pay for the government they want, or cut the government to the level they are willing to pay for. And cooking the books worked only so long before the EU demanded to take a peek. Her point is right on. Except that Ms. Lagarde makes $467,000 per year in public monies, and pays exactly $0 per year in taxes. “All those people…” includes herself.

 From: Bryant Hall
 To: Billy Tauzin, Neal Comstock, Mimi Simoneaux Kneuer, Ken Johnson 


Here's the stuff. Background is that Pres's words are harmless. He knows personally about our deal and is pushing no agenda. 

We got Orszag to back off of the Part D rebate—and Nancy-Ann and Jim Messina beat the hell out of them. . . .

This is part of an email from the lead negotiator for the Pharmaceutical lobby to Pfizer executives, summarizing the state of negotiations with the White House during the 2009 drafting of the Affordable Care Act. Pharma was very concerned about a few options the White House was throwing around, including: rebating back some of the government’s costs under Medicate Part-D, opening up the prescription drug market to global markets and permitting cheaper imports into the U.S., or allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices in Medicare and Medicaid charges. All of these would of course have numerous effects, among them reducing costs for both patients and taxpayers, advancing free-market principles in the healthcare sector (after all, making it illegal to discuss drug prices is sort of not so free market), and opening up choice and competition for consumers. It would also so threaten Pharma’s profit margins that they relentlessly beat down Administration proponents. And put up $80 billion in cost-sharing for Part-D. A onetime band aid that will be burned through quickly in the giant healthcare business. A far cry from the systemic changes they defeated. Changes that would be just as effective, if not more so, in 30 years as they are now. That $80 billion will be ancient history in 30 years.

 Three vignettes on why people are frustrated with government.

 It’s common lingo in the public sector to speak of the government in a corporate sense. “We strive to provide great customer service.” “We need to take a corporate view and identify efficiencies and cost savings.” “I really appreciate his focus on the customer.” These are common refrains within government. In these little bureaucratic aphorisms one senses not just a little envy. Profit envy yes. And also presumably about how much more free corporations can be compared to government, in the sense that their every reason for existence isn’t dictated and limited by a statute like in a government agency. But in fact, governments share very little in common with corporations, other than the fact of being a large body of people all working towards the same general mission (at least some of the time). Governments don’t sell anything. They don’t make profits. They don’t pay taxes. They don’t have a corporate board or charter, they don’t even have a product. And they certainly don’t have customers. They don’t have cash flow. Or a real balance sheet (real in the sense that there are returns to capital that accrue as profit, or losses). They don’t have shareholders or people with actual equity in the operation. They also don’t have unyielding, absolute guiding principles like corporations and private actors, as these three examples illustrate.

Government don’t have to use their "product". But Coke executives don’t drink Pepsi. Yet metro takes a Chevy to work. They don’t have to do as they say. They can write laws that exempt them from their own standards. Members of Congress don’t have to adhere to insider trading laws and IMF leaders don’t have to pay taxes. Apple and Dell and Exxon do. And the “profits” government protects for its “customers”- which I suppose, forcing this corporate paradigm, would be something like how much of a paycheck is left at the end of a month for a family on Medicaid- aren’t ever realized by the primary actors like in corporations. The difference in the healthcare negotiation is that one side had a ton of money that would go to their bank, or not, based on the deal- the other didn’t stand to win or lose anything itself. Its “customers” are always somewhere else. And so the private actor focuses like a laser on its interest while the government has no clear overarching interest to protect. It’s a political octopus. Which side wins?

 This isn’t a defense of corporations or government. It’s a tiny look I think at why people fundamentally can’t ever totally believe in government.

In today's Supreme Court argument about the required coverage provision in the healthcare act, Justice Kennedy asked, "Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” and Chief Justice Roberts Jr. asked if the government could compel the purchase of cell phones.

As typical of the court, these questions get at the heart of the matter, here whether the mandate is an allowable authority of Congress under the interstate commerce clause: "[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes"

The literal answer to Kennedy's question is no, but the question infers a flawed assumption. The Constitution does not grant Congress authority to create commerce, as is apparent in a plain reading of the clause. But Kennedy's question presumes there is no existing commerce being regulated by the "mandate". But there obviously is. (It's not really a mandate, no more than a speeding sign is a mandate. People can freely not be covered, just as they can freely speed- they just may have to pay a modest penalty for choosing so.) Every human being needs and receives healthcare. And this healthcare is conducted by professionals, who are engaged in commerce via the healthcare market/industry. The healthcare market is the largest market by far in the United States. At over $2 trillion a year, it is larger than the oil industry, or tech, or food or anything else. It is hard to argue there is then no existing commerce going on.

Every human who is born, who gets sick, who cuts themselves, who gets a shot, get their teeth or eyes checked, or dies receives healthcare. Kids cannot attend public school without receiving a basic set of healthcare. Even more fundamentally, humans cannot be born without getting a set of basic health services- health services that in the United States are virtually all monetized and thus commerce. Sure, rarely someone is born for "free" in a car, but also occasionally people are friends with their auto mechanics and get "free" tire rotations. This does not mean the automotive industry is suddenly not engaging in commerce because occasionally someone gets "free" service, just as it does not mean that hospitals and health care providers are not part of commerce. (In mainstream economics, there is no such thing as "free" but it is meant in a colloquial sense here).

Only people who never interact with the world, mortality, or bacteria never engage in healthcare. And of course these people are of the fictitious kind. The fact is that every human being engages in healthcare commerce. Whether Kennedy purposefully omitted this aspect from the supposition contained in his question is unknowable now. My guess is he is just playing with the issue, and the question cannot be taken at face value.

If it is to be taken at face value, and he truly believes the mandate is creating commerce where there is none, then the law is in serious jeopardy. I would recommend Justice Kennedy visit any emergency room across America and see that everyone is in fact engaged in healthcare commerce. They may not pay for it themselves, but society is. Commerce is not payer discriminant; it depends only on the exchange of goods or services. And when someone goes to the ER to get a service and public monies reimburse the provider of those services- that is commerce. The individual is engaged in commerce, just not of a responsible or sustainable variety.

Healthcare is unique in this regard, namely that the universal mandate applies to a service that is already universally required. The same is not true of virtually anything else. Not everyone has a cell phone, and no one "needs them". People did live in the 1950s, and there were no cell phones. But there was healthcare. Just like there was in the 1850s, and 1750s, and 1650s ad infinitum. So Roberts' question is also on its face a very naive one, in that cell phones and health care are fundamentally different types of services, one is a commodity purchased at an individuals' discretion. The other non-voluntary service needed for life to exist and continuing to exist. Surely, Roberts knows his comparison is apples to oranges; the question really is what was the motivation in asking the question? Was it to show this difference, or test the government's attorney? I think it was the latter, in which case the Solicitor General totally botched the answer, and as an aside I think he botched the whole thing today. He was stilted and uptight, probably from over-preparation- something the government bureaucracy specializes in.

Justice Kennedy will almost certainly cast the swing vote. So are Kennedy and Roberts smart like a fox with their questions, or smart like a book worm?

Is there nothing that David Brooks is not an expert on?? And why does he see EVERYTHING as a fucking problem??

A month ago David Brooks had no idea who Jeremy Lin was, and now he's found the bandwagon and firmly planted his ass on it. Having apparently Googled a couple 2010 Jeremy Lin interviews, he has become an expert on yet another topic, ready to be printed for his discerning pan-intellectual Times' readers. From neuroscience to Newt Gingrich, from gerrymandering to Jeremy Lin, from best practices in parenting to Pontius Pilate, David Brooks wants to make it clear: he is an EXPERT. Where you see a pastime, he sees....let me guess? Mmm. Religion. Biology. Group-dynamics. Tension. And my God, look at that dunk- full of such complications and problems galore. If he makes a 6 game winning streak in basketball this complicated, God help us on weightier issues- like boxers or briefs, or Palestinian statehood. If one had the chore of negotiating peace with David Brooks, it would be hard to agree on a place to meet, we would get hung up on the religious-cultural morasse that is the Holiday Inn Convention Center versus the airport Sheraton.

It's not a little ironic that he writes an article contrasting the (as he apparently sees it) supposed tension between sport and the Christian teachings of humility, when David Brooks shows as much humility in journalism as Lebron James does in a contract negotiation. He is a lecturer on, well, every subject. He should point his great new insight on sports and religion out stat to the the numerous athletically dominant religious schools, like Texas Christian or Notre Dame, not to mention the many religious owners of pro sports' teams, League Commissioners, and the majority of coaches, who apparently have never thought to reconcile their beliefs with the sports they love. David must point it out to them so they know!

But yet he just can't resist the attention that is out there for him to grab. Jeremy Lin is capturing the headlines, so David Brooks had to run it down- ambulance chasing applied to the editorial page. The fact that he sees Jeremy Lin, an incredible, if not uplifting, sports story as a "problem" shows how totally removed he is from the topic he's forced himself upon- bringing that patented New York Times intellectual constipation to the topic of a streaky NBA player*. Face it David, you would sooner refer to your pants as Knickerbockers than catch their game on a Friday night. When everyone else is getting a refill of popcorn and enjoying the show, Brooks has locked himself in a stall under the bleachers shitting mental bricks. If there is such a thing as a "Jeremy Lin Problem" then there is also the "problem of the sunny day" and the "problem of sexual orgasm". Oh what a difficult world this must be to inhabit! David: it's not some intellectual riddle, and it has nothing to do with the Middle East- it's a game kids play in Kindergarten and millions of people crack open a six pack and relax to at the end of a long day. That's what the NBA is designed for dude: entertainment. Turn your fixation on pseudo-philosophical frameworks, and compulsive need to be an armchair scholar, towards a topic where it would actually matter. David Brooks, Bringing ESPN issues to the PBS crowd.

This isn't about sports or religion, or the two blended together in some weird mental smoothie, it's about David Brooks having to inject himself into everything. And this is more than just annoying, it's a growing problem in reporting and modern media. I don't want the same fucking person putting the current election in context and writing on western democracy, also covering the local ceramics beat and sports franchise. This is dangerous because the person who does this is by definition a dilettante, dabbling in a bit of whatever stokes their ego for the week. And weighty topics like democracy or war and peace or community or religion, are far too important to be given the half-time efforts of a journalist who plays mix and match, ironically as if he were some sort of journalistic God.



*Note: I am a NYT reader and fan, but let's face it, they sometimes overextend.

Dark Allies - Light Asylum from Grant Worth on Vimeo.

My brother's debut CD on sale now! Only $5

TotallyZorbatron.bandcamp.com and his new site TotallyZorbatron.com