Yet Another Post on Why Millennials Are Unhappy

A certain blogger has suggested that they are privy to some great insight onto why apparently people born from 1977 to 1995 or so are unhappy with life, and for reasons that I do not fully understand, it seems to be being accepted across the internet as some sort of profound truth. Despite the lack of any real evidence backing up their thesis, people seem to trust Microsoft Paint drawings of stick figures to explain large sociological phenomena, so I am gonna take a shot at it.  And as a bonus, I am going to throw in graphs, because that's kind of my thing.  So without further ado: here is why us Gen Y kids just hate life

This is Sam. He or she is a Gen Y kid/adult. And he/she is unhappy.  Why? Well turns out in a market economy, you kind of need money to survive and do anything. So Sam is gonna get a job now:

Turns out job market isn't great, and for whatever reason (lack of cash inflow into companies, ability to hire cheaper labor because other people are just more desperate, or the fact that the modern internship system is a huge catch-22 based on the idea that you need to waste a year of your life working so you are given the opportunity to apply to paid positions) Sam can't get a paying job.  Well, Sam still needs money and decides based on the 1950s explanation of US capitalism to start his or her own business.  Because venture capitalism, start-ups, Steve Jobs, and the American Dream. Still you need some initial capital, because the whole not eating thing is detrimental to the entrepreneurial spirit.  So Sam goes to a bank for a loan/asks investors for money:

Yeah, it turns out, unless you know people who are willing to spring you some cash or who can recommend you to other people to spring you some cash, you probably aren't going to get any money to do start-up things. Because in the real world, banks and investors don't throw cash at random college grads.  So Sam is pretty hungry at this point so decides to do what he or she is biologically programmed to do: go ask his or her parents for food and board until one of those magical job trees grow next door.

All the while, Sam feels guilty because now his/her parents retirement money is being dwindled away, Sam is not living the independent lifestyle he or she had hoped for/been promised, and some asshole on a website is telling him/her that it is his/her own fault for not being a hard enough worker that all this is happening.

So to recap:

Also, in case other people didn't realize, generational name calling is some really vile bullshit, but it is also incredibly unoriginal.  Let's look at how the "Greatest Generation" felt about the baby-boomers:

 So around 1970, the older people began complaining of a "generational gap" which was a nice way of saying how the 60s kids were all lazy bums who were horrible amoral idiots ruining America.  In the 1990s, the media was much more blunt about how it felt regarding Generation X:

Around 1995, suddenly the kids who had gone through college in the 80s were terrible wastes of space who were just stealing our precious oxygen and water while not contributing to society enough.  A "Slacker Generation" if you will.

Why does this keep happening? Well a quick look at the unemployment rate for 20-25 year olds over the past few decades gives a good clue:

Yeah it turns out during the formative young adult years of those generations, there were economic issues and many of them (greater than 10%) could not find jobs.  Granted usually the reason they could not find jobs were due to the fact major economic shifts were occurring during those time periods, but hey structural economic shifts are hard to explain to the public and no one wants to read that unless you are writing for... The Economist or Financial Times.  So, what does a lazy journalist or editor do for social commentary regarding the mass unemployment of those years? Blame the stupid kids for being lazy. 

 

The Wonders of a Suburban Milwaukee Grocery Store

Lay's Chicken & Waffles: The much acclaimed chip-styled oddity is back, and those of us who did not get it the first time should be grateful, because odds are that this is the closest to the Second Coming we will see in our lifetime.

Kombucha Soda (LIVE Soda): Supposedly this is a cola. Really it is Kombucha with the aftertaste of a cola. And that is scientific progress that should be lauded.

FiberONE Chocolate Fudge Brownies: I strongly suspect that premise this is healthy is bullshit, but it is like having a Little Debbie Fudge Brownie with the added effect of your daily dosage of fiber. So that's a plus.

Combine all three: A perfectly good excuse for me to make a post on this blog. I don't actually recommend eating them together, unless you are not scared for an odd yet satisfying battle across your taste buds.

But yes people, the Arugula Eater is rambling once again.  Serious things, silly things, stupid things, and somethings, the Arugula Eater will incoherently, coherently ramble about them, ideally in some manner that involves alliteration.   

The Jesters Playing King or The Iowa Republican Debate

"This is Bret Baier, and I enjoy listening to bullshit."

Thursday night I had the horrible misfortune of watching Fox News for the first time in a while. What made it particularly painful was instead of hearing one idiot prattle about debt reduction or the heinous crime of abortion, I had to hear a whole stage full of them. For those of you skipped out but want your daily fill of idiocy, gather around.

I should start off by saying I came in a bit late during the debate. The first event I witnessed is something I will call the Paul-Santorum rally on Iran. This was one of Ron Paul's rare moments of reason, where he argued that the best policy to deal with Iran is free trade and a dropping of the long standing sanctions. Naturally, he took a lot of flak for suggesting such an idea. Even most members of America's Left would take issue with it. (Personally, I am almost certain he is right; Iran has the region's most modernized and pro-America populace aside of Israel, and allowing US companies to spread their products to Iran would greatly de-legitimize the regime's ability to blame America and the West for its own economic failings). Rick Santorum (and probably 95% of the Fox viewership) could not comprehend what the congressman was arguing and instantly went on a crazy tirade that claimed Iran has killed more US serviceman in Iraq and Afghanistan than Iraqis and Afghans (even though Iran actually offered to aid in the capture of Taliban who were escaping Afghanistan in 2001 and has been at war with both the Baathist regime of Iraq and the Taliban). Paul countered on how the US had caused the hostilities with Iran originally in 1953 with the reinstatement of the Shah and the 1979 revolution was only a reaction to that, but was quickly decried by Santorum as apologizing for US policy which only protects liberty and freedom. Yes, because putting one of the most despotic dynasties in Persian history after creating the region's first truly free and independent republic is the standard for defending liberty. Oh did I mention that this was done twice? However, I digress. Cain and Bachmann fortunately came to Santorum's aid, because attacking Iran when talking about foreign policy is such a risky move in US politics. The whole thing reeked of 2004 when the Bush administration tried to brainwash the country into thinking the world was safer without Saddam Hussein and those who would question that fact are apologists for the terrorists.

So what came next? Oh yes, questions on social policy. This is such a joke it almost isn't worth talking about. But let's go through the basic review. Mitt Romney talked about the necessity of a national marriage amendment, because marriage should be consistently defined in the nation in order to prevent issues in divorce law, tax benefits, and children rights. All of which is a hilarious argument, because every state acknowledges heterosexual marriage so the only effect of such an amendment would be to permanently disenfranchise gay couples. Good job, Mitt, use the argument that actually is the primary justification to your opposition in order to promote your side. While we are on the subject of homosexuality, Santorum was quick to condemn Iran's oppression of gays regarding foreign policy, but I did not see him running to their defense during the social policy round.

Bachmann got a positively bizarre question regarding whether or not she would “submit” to the will of her husband. The context, which only barely matters, was that her submission to the will of her husband, as is ordained in the Bible, was why she entered tax law in the first place. Her response was actually not terrible, but the fact that this question was even allowed to be asked shows the insanity of the Right. That question was sexism disguised under the guise of religion and has no place whatsoever in our political forum, but then again I am neither a Republican nor a Christian so what do I know about right or wrong?

Oh and then came abortion. Abortion is always something fun to talk about, especially if you are Jon Huntsman. Then you can give your cute little anecdotes of a Supreme Court case where a rapist could not be put to death but the child could be. Well that's one way of putting it. Here's another that I just made up on the spot, “The man accused of being a rapist could not have the death penalty invoked against him, but the victim has the right to choose to abort the embryo conceived from the rape.” But I'll let you decide which wins over pro-life supporters. Huntsman condemned the courts for allowing what he called two crimes against the unborn child. You know, I wouldn't mind pro-lifers if they all didn't happen to be the exact same people who constantly invoke the “welfare queen” story when asked about their stance on Medicaid, food stamps, and federally funded school lunch programs. Even Ron Paul, the paladin of libertarians, said doctors who perform “illegal” abortions should have civil or maybe even criminal suits filed against them. You got to love the fact that a man whose whole premise is that government has expanded its mandate too far, is just fine with extending its jurisdiction into a woman's vagina.

And finally came the economy. Let's listen to the brilliance of the vanguards of the Jobs Creators ©. Good old Job Creator © Mitt was questioned as how he would go about making jobs, to which he replied that in order to make jobs one needs to have had a job. Yes, because serving on the faculty of one of the most esteemed universities in the nation is the same as being unemployed. Even the crowd booed at this comment, probably because the best that the “presidential” heavyweight could do is make non-witty quips about the president. He should leave such bad comedy to Leno.

Fortunately Job Creator © Jon Huntsman had Real Solutions ^TM. Yes, Huntsman has a serious history of job creation and wants to make America the great country it was... by encouraging manufacturing. And does he have a plan to bring back slave lab- I mean manufacturing, back to the US; he wants to end the oppressive tyranny of the EPA. You heard it here first folks, the Environmental Protection Agency is why all of the US companies moved manufacturing to LDCs. The fact we have a minimum wage and a maximum work week of 40 hours has absolutely nothing to do with it. Nor does the fact that corporations exploit tax loopholes by moving operations out of the control to pay literally no taxes. Instead it is the fact that companies cannot blow sulfur into our air and pour heavy metals into our rivers. I am not saying safety concerns do not contribute to increased costs for the bottom line, but it is not even comparable to the fact that laborers in Cambodia and Pakistan get paid $1 a day for 60 hour work weeks, as opposed to the $8/hr plus health benefits, vacation time and what not for 40 hour work weeks the equivalent American would make. Nor am I saying it is a bad thing we mandate having such a higher standard of living; we should instead encourage other nations to not be subjugated to such hellish work. Could it be that Huntsman has ulterior motives for wanting the EPA to be disbanded? Well he only worked for a chemical engineering firm, so fortunately that is not an issue.

Now some of you may be wondering, “Oh Arugula Eater, what about the spending crisis and debt ceiling idiocy that had been going on for the past month? Did none of the candidates spout bullshit about how we should not have raised the debt ceiling?” Of course they did, silly! That's what this paragraph is about! Naturally Bachmann was quick to call the Most Holy Bargain a terrible mistake and pointed to the S&P downgrade as proof. Yes the very credit downgrade which identified the Republican inability to compromise on revenue sources and taxation as one of its reasons, is the justification the congresswoman uses to show her extremism and hostage taking of the US debt as valid. You really cannot make this shit up. Furthermore, she claimed in the process President Obama got a $2.4 Trillion blank check. I really want to know if she is reading the same bill as me, because when I read it the president only got a chance to make a mockery out of the progressive values which inspired the Left to vote for him. Job Creator© Herman Cain proudly touted his anti-debt ceiling stance. Fighting words for a man whose only constituency is people who enjoy crappy pizza.

But let's not forget Prospector Paul and his mad gold rush. Indeed, the congressman took great pride in the fact that he helped lead the new generation of Andrew Jackson worshipers and restated his opposition to the growing national debt. He claimed that the proper steps would be for the Fed to have simply destroyed over $1T in the bond markets to put off the ceiling vote. Yes, because raising the interest rates is exactly what you want to do in a recession where there is low demand. Fortunately, Jon Huntsman rode in with some distant cousin of logic and attacked the other candidates for their lack of pragmatism and vowing to never let the United States to default. All very valid, until he then praised Speaker Boehner for his bravery. Of course all of this was undone by the end of the debate, when Huntsman identified the national debt as the biggest threat to America, once again demonstrating the fact that these people are fixated with Hooverism.

Once the debate was all said and done, nothing had really changed. America's economy still in the gutter. The partisanship in Congress is worse than the Bush era, even though now there is a president who wishes to end it to the point that he uses his own party as the sacrificial lamb. And the Republican candidates are all brim full of shit. Based on the foxnews.com audience ratings, Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain appeared to have won the debate, keeping us on track for the Mayan apocalypse. I for one welcome the Bachmann/Cain 2012 ticket. Then Obama would only have to campaign on “I can look at the camera straight,” to win.

It's like she is looking at you but she isn't at the same time.

Oh right, I almost forgot Tim Pawlenty was also at the debate. He said things. I usually went to the bathroom or got something to drink during that. Don't worry, I am sure it wasn't as hilariously crazy as the things other people said, but I am sure that he was just as stupid as the rest of them.

   

My Father Would Also Be Disappointed

So, I evidently guessed wrong on the jobs report, but to be fair the report was only slightly above stagnation. In fact it hardly changed the course of the markets on Friday.  There was a minor blip, but until the ECB's announcement regarding buying Italian bonds, it appeared as if we were going to stay downhill for the day.  Thankfully, the European crisis might be starting to get resolved so at least the market won't need to worry about what is happening on the other side of the pond.

Of course, really what does that matter when:

Image Credit: Personal Friend

Yes, Standard and Poors, after messing up their initial calculations by $2 Trillion, has decided to downgrade the United States from its long standing AAA to AA+.  Indeed, that glorious bargain once again has turned out to be a dud.  I could spend a post on mentioning how S&P is full of shit, but there are others who have that covered.  So instead let's focus on what this means. It means higher interest rates all across the board which basically undoes everything Bernanke and the Fed attempted with QE1 and QE2. And since we (and by we I mean both parties in Congress, the President, and the media) decided that fiscal recovery was not important, loose monetary policy was all we had left. (Let's just pretend we weren't in a liquidity trap for a second)  So now we have nothing.  The only solace we can take in this is the fact it was announced afterhours on a Friday, so perhaps the market will calm down by Monday.

Dow Jones From Aug 4 to Aug 5, Net Loss of 451.83 pts, 3.8%

Then again when was the last time Wall Street was known for being calm?

Down Came the Rain and Washed the Market Out

Dow Jones fell 512.76 points.  Really there isn't much else to say. Oh except that I hear that the ECB is a bucketload of idiots. Idiots.

Oh and I forgot that every other market also followed suit.  Nasdaq, FTSE, S&P, even Nikkei caught up once it opened there. Thank god we at least have gold. Wait, oh shit.

So yeah, apparently Wall Street doesn't care much about Washington bipartisanship and instead looks at monetary policy and growth rates. Good thing we have a jobs report coming out tomorrow and fortunately we saved the Job Creators from Job Killing Taxes with our Very Serious Deal.  I mean imagine if there was no growth in the last month or two; that would be embarrassing, and we might even lose another 500 points.   

Ann Coulter's Egypt or How Republicans Deliberately Misrepresent Reality

I apparently missed this last week, but Ann Coulter takes it upon herself to present herself as either an idiot or a liar on Real Time with Bill Maher and successful does both. Check the clip here.

Most notably is Coulter's attempt to make it appear as though the Egyptian revolution happened through US military action and regime change.

Here is some of the dialogue (around 2:50):

COULTER: What do you think about Libya and Egypt, as long as I have you here?
MAHER: What about them?
COULTER: Are in favor with us intervening in these two countries that didn't hit us on 9/11 solely for purposes of regime change?
MAHER: First of all I didn't think we were intervening in Egypt? Are we?
COULTER: We did.
MAHER: What we do? What we do in Egypt?
OTHERS: No we didn't.
HAYES: Intervene or military? There's a difference.
FOREMAN: I mean we talked about it.
COULTER: Yeah.
MAHER: We talked about it. We can talk.
HAYES: Well we talked we didn't send any troops or anything.
COULTER: Well ok we are flying bombs or something.
[Shock by Hayes and all other correspondents say no]
COULTER: We were threatening to [sic] why Mubarak left.
MAHER: No, no we never threatened. No, no.
COULTER: No I think we did.

Notice how her story keeps changing as reality keeps proving her false. Later in the clip (8:00):

COULTER: Well he called for Mubarak to leave.
HAYES: That's not the same as bombing!
COULTER: It's threatening to bomb!
HAYES: That's completely different things!
COULTER: Is Mubarak gone? Did [Obama] take action for regime change?
[...]
COULTER: Manifestly it was being backed up by the threat to bomb.

Watch how the reality (Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama asking for the leave of Mubarak and the end of violence in Egypt) was translated to a disturbing fantasy (full scale military intervention in Egypt equal to Libya). The fact is that the Right has no qualms of spreading such myths and at times even appears to actually believe them. Our only hope is for people like Bill Maher and Christopher Hayes to nip these lies in the bud, lest they blossom to full newscycles, like say the Austerity-Economic Growth fallacy.

[HBO via Medialite]

The Biases of an Arugula Eater or Why Not To So Indiscriminately Cut Spending

While I usually focus on international political issues, this recent newscycle and national joke of a discussion has me particularly worried. Not a day passes when I open my Google Reader and then do not wish to throw my laptop out the window, because of some pundit who argues that national debt is somehow the cause of our unemployment problem.

Now why in particular does this offend me so much, besides its laughable premise? (I will show you how dumb this is in a second) Because the implications of an aggressive contractionary fiscal policy has clear negative effects on my personal life. This is a bias that I find only fair my readers should know. I am a college student from a middle class family. The repealing the Bush era tax cuts for the exceptionally wealthy has no negative effects for me, so I have no qualms with such a decision in budget balancing. However I, along with many others at my juncture in life, have much to lose by a hack and slash approach to budget reduction.

Right now I am working as a research assistant in a medical lab. My mentor got the money to hire me through a National Science Foundation grant. The grant to start our next major project is currently under review by the National Institutes of Health. I can afford my college education only through financial aid and relying on federal subsidized student loans, because Congress already removed the Pell Grants that used to help me. I can only afford graduate education through scholarships financed by the NIH and NSF. So yes, my future is entirely at the mercy of the hands of the Boehner/Cantor/Ryan House.

And there are millions upon millions of others who need vital government services in order to survive. Medicaid had 62 million enrollees in 2008 according to the Congressional Budget Office (you know, that infamous liberal nonpartisan accounting agency put under Nixon). That number has only increased with the continuing Great Recession. Similarly, there are 45 million in Medicare and the baby boomers are just beginning to retire. I am not suggesting that we should not reform these agencies. We should, eventually and not through gutting the entirety of the Great Society.

The worst part of this debate is that it is being played at the basest of human emotions. From Ryan's voucher for Medicare proposal, to Cantor's we must defend the rich's right to tax cuts, and Coburn's vitriol for the sciences, we are engaging in a nonsensical dialogue with a blatant disregard towards history. To take the cake is the fact that both sides, the President and the GOP House, have agreed that this discussion should be framed that National Debt ruins confidence. The academics sit in shock at the inanity and FDR and Keynes roll in their graves as Hoover slowly rises from the grave.

From our esteemed President on October 22, 1928,

"The Democratic administration cooperated with the Republican Party to demobilize many of her activities and the Republican Party from the beginning of its period of power resolutely turned its face away from these ideas and these war practices, back to our fundamental conception of the state and the rights and responsibilities of the individual. Thereby it restored confidence and hope in the American people, it freed and stimulated enterprise, it restored the Government to its position as an umpire instead of a player in the economic game. For these reasons the American people have gone forward in progress while the rest of the world is halting and some countries have even gone backwards. If anyone will study the causes which retarded recuperation of Europe, he will find much of it due to the stifling of private initiative on one hand, and overloading of the Government with business on the other."

Almost exactly a year later on Black Thursday the world saw the greatest economic catastrophe in history. And the sacred confidence of industry and enterprise was not restored by the government trying to keep the international house in fiscal order. It was not until 4 years later with a new administration that our nation would recover.

And so my friends who are still here, let me reward you with a picture of what the aftermath of the New Deal was:

(Click to Enlarge)

I feel almost dirty presenting this as evidence in the confidence fairy (credit to Krugman) discussion. Because, it shows two relatively independent variables in economics vary independently. The orange is percent unemployment from 1950-1999. The blue is the national debt in 2011 dollars using the Consumer Price Index to account for inflation. As for Tea Partiers, please note your Messiah Reagan was the first to break $3 trillion... and $4 trillion.... and $5 trillion. In fact from 1950-1980 we hardly changed our debt and by the end our unemployment skyrocketed. Once Reagan finally started heavy spending, unemployment began to drop. Just in time for his 1984 re-election. Seeing Keynesian Economics worked out from 1982-84, he continued it till the end of his term and unemployment almost dropped down to 5%.

Sadly, this kind of analysis and reasoning has no place in our discussion. Since I can't speak the doublespeak that our politicians use I fear this graph means nothing to the 24/7 media monstrosities. But for those of you who can read graphs and understand numbers, let this be something to think about. I'll let you decide what the urgency of debt reduction is in our economy.

Note: Here is a link to the Excel sheet that has all this data. The CPI data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Calculator, the National Debt data comes from the Treasury, and the Unemployment Data is from the Misery Index which aggregates data from the Bureau of Labor.

Spinach Isn't Bad Either

As a child I never understood people's abject hatred towards spinach. It was a lovely green vegetable filled with a plethora of health properties and a distinctive taste. This most likely stemmed from my Iranian upbringing; spinach is oddly enough a staple of Persian cuisine where it in a combination stew of meat, herbs, and legumes as a common meal. Fast forward a decade and a half and imagine my happy surprise when I learned of a certain eatery named Subway offering it upon their sandwiches. I was delighted. And that brings us to earlier today, as I sat at work, eating a tuna sub with spinach amongst other things on it.

It was then, after much debate and deliberation, that I came to the conclusion that this blog should not die. Let's back up for a second. This blog effectively died upon my entrance into college after being born for mere months. And as every terrible father should, I was ashamed about it. I also realized that I did wish to continue writing. For a short period of time, I wrote for a tech blog but to call what I did as publishing “articles” or even “posts” is a horrible lie. Instead the editor had me write 150 word blurbs on the specs of every mediocre notebook and netbook that had a press release. Writing on other matters was discouraged, because apparently discussing the Great Firewall of China does not earn as much ad money as listing permutations in processor speeds of the new 13” and 15” MSI Wind laptops.

So what is a bored college student to do? I suppose go on Facebook and stalk his friends or look up funny pictures on Reddit and 9Gag. I resist falling so low, so instead I wondered about starting a new writing venture. I looked at Wordpress and Tumblr, both enticing options, but in the end I felt dirty making what would actually have been the fourth blog I have helped author. (Don't bother looking for the first, it has long been banished to the deep recesses of Blogger's abyss) Also, after the Red Rebellion of 2010 (I find it ironic that the Tea Partiers are the same color as those Bolsheviks that they constantly fear), I realized that the world needs an Arugula Eater more than ever. And after speaking to my compatriots in cyberspace, I have decided to take up the mantle once again.

Fear not my fellow brethren of the Interwebs. I shall descend into the Chasm of Crazy and enter their Fortress of Silliness. Trolls in the form of the press, pundit, and politician should best fact check their statements, because such foolish foolishness shall not be tolerated by me. I am the one, the only, the true Arugula Eater. And I have returned.

A Still More Glorious Dawn

Well it has been some time since I have lasted pulled out my metaphorical pen and pad and exposed myself to you, my modest audience.  And by modest, I am trying to put the fact my audience consists of an amount of people no more than the maximum I could count on my digits (that’s fingers, toes, and thumbs) in a positive light.  It’s not working so well.

But, I digress, which so happens to be the point of this post.  It is a digression from the norm matter and style my entries follow.  For you die-hard Arugula Eater fans, do not fear, I plan on reverting back with another of my quality musings some time this week.  However, I would like to draw the crowd’s attention to a more pressing matter that has appeared:

What is this you ask? This might be the single finest use of auto-tune known to man. It also is one of the most inspiring videos I have seen in a long time. Yes, friends, that was me being sincere.

Before you are paralyzed and in shock that this writer has sensitive emotions, let me elaborate.  Sadly, Carl Sagan was before my time, but I do vaguely remember some of his videos. They were riveting.  His spirit, however, is timeless.  It is the same as the desire of those who quest for truth absolute and the willingness to go to any lengths explore it fully; he emanates the fundamental energy that has driven humankind to the point it is.  As flawed as we are, it has been a marvelous 25,000 years and a glorious past century. And there will be still more glorious dawns to come as he tells us.

What does his message fundamentally mean to us, motes of dust on this blessed rock?  It means that despite the need for cynicism and criticism, optimism for us as a species should be kept.  We have made mistakes but that should not stop us from learning from and fixing them.  Let us then move forward then at this crux between progress and penitence, and fulfill our duty to understand these cosmos we so humbly inhabit 

Thanks to John Boswell and ColorpulseMusic.com for arranging that.  And naturally thank you Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, for your voices and your progress.

Cringely vs. Competition vs. Common Sense

So, it’s been a while since I have posted. I was kind of shaken up by everything in Iran, and since things are still volatile and the Huffington Post was doing an excellent job covering, I am going to discuss tonight a less serious issue.  The issue of idiot technology journalists and how they are drinking the Apple Kool-Aid like none other still.

First, let’s look at why I am pissed off, besides the iPhone 3GS commercials (Oh look Ma, the new fangled iTelephoney has got some cut and glue feature and you can record them moving pictures! Dang, Pa lets waste another $200 on features that have existed for almost a decade!). New York Times got the bonehead idea of getting Robert X. Cringely to write an Op-Ed piece about how Google and Microsoft’s new endeavors into each of the opposing fields apparently is bad for consumers. Read it in full here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/opinion/13cringely.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bing%20v%20chrome&st=cse.

It starts off by saying that the idea behind ChromeOS and Bing is synonymous with MAD theory in the Cold War.  As he puts it, “It’s just noise — a form of mutually assured destruction intended to keep each company in check.” Because Microsoft and Google can so easily kill each other by pressing a big red button.  While I agree it is obvious that they want to frighten each other, suggesting that they can spontaneously do the internet/computer equivalent of thermonuclear warfare is utterly ridiculous.  Oversimplify more please.

Oh wait, I really shouldn’t have asked that because the following paragraph is so pathetic:

“Microsoft makes most of its money from two products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Nearly everything else it makes loses money, sometimes deliberately. Google makes most of its money from selling Internet ads next to search results. Nearly everything else it does loses money, too.”

I am going to have to guess he stopped following Google in 1999 and probably Microsoft in 1994, because that is about the last time when his statements are even relevant. 

Everything else Microsoft makes loses money? You are telling me it loses money on the Xbox 360, Microsoft Game Studios, and Xbox LIVE, the most successful online gaming subscription in history?  You think it loses money on Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, the industry standard for programming IDEs, and MSDN, which is probably the largest commercial programming peer group?  

And all Google does is Search and AdSense?  Have you watched a TV News program in the last three years?  They all use Google Earth for their zoom-in to location of correspondent thingy, and I am going to bet that it is the commercial subscription.  Oh and you know they bought YouTube for only a paltry $1.65 billion.  But, the world’s largest video website couldn’t possibly have profit involved. Did I mention they control the very website I am posting on right now?

Not to mention, you know, Gmail.  Combined Yahoo!/Live Mail (partially owned by OS-only maker Microsoft) they control the vast majority of the personal email market. And Yahoo!/Live Messenger have the honor of being the number one IM client in the world.  But who would make money off of that?

The funny thing is, this article’s premise just gets sadder and sadder.  Apparently Google’s biggest fear is “one day … the Google search engine suddenly doesn’t work on any Windows computers … an act of deliberate sabotage on Microsoft’s part and blatantly illegal … and take days, weeks or months to reverse the effect”. This is really funny. It’s funnier than moon landing conspiracy theorists who don’t understand the basic physics on the moon.

There are two “realistic” scenarios Cringely could be talking about here:

1. Denial of Service Attack against Google by Microsoft (Technically is possible and practical when you ignore legality)
2. Windows is hardwired to ban Google (About as practical as my school district’s attempt to ban Google for a week, cute idea though)

In the first scenario is something that has been done before, like what apparently North Korea staged against the US and South Korea earlier this month.  So yes, it can be done, except not against Google. Don’t get me wrong, aside from the CIA, Microsoft is probably the only other institution that could possibly bring down Google with a DDOS attack. But it still is not likely. And it would not be hard to remedy.  Hours at most.  Oh and that it is a federal crime.  And there is no way Microsoft would be able to claim innocence, the proof would be in the IPs.

The second idea really doesn’t even merit a rebuttal. Any teenager (like me in high school) who comes from a dictatorship (so like Iran, China, and my high school’s school district) can avoid a Google ban. Whether from going to Google.ca or going to some proxy, it’s really easy. Oh and the AdSense revenue would keep coming in from non-Google sites.

I know what you are thinking, “But wait our arugula-eating blogger! What about the situation where Microsoft is in Google’s base, pwning their noobs, and setting them up a bomb?!” Yeah well, when we become an Engrish video game, I’ll get back to you.

By the way, if you thought my red button reference was a joke, “So Google Chrome and Chrome OS and Android are all intended to keep Microsoft on the defensive and less likely to push its own Big Red Button.” Cringely is a genius obviously.  And he proves it by blowing out Apple fan-boy rhetoric:

“And don’t forget Apple, which with the iPod and iPhone has shown an ability to revolutionize markets other companies saw as mature. Microsoft and Google have yet to do something like that.”

As I told my friend an hour earlier, the last thing that Apple has ever done is revolutionize markets or technology.  Quick list of The Fruit’s innovations with Steve Jobs commentary provided by me:

1. iPod – “Oh there is this cool thing called the Creative Zen, but I don’t like the button placement. Let’s put them in a circle so it looks more like one of those phones where you spin the numbers!”
2. iPhone – “Hey let’s not introduce features on introductory phones like Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Voice Recognition, and Video Recording until the 3rd generation! Oh and we might as well toss in this crazy new idea called Cut and Paste.  It seems to be all the rage!”
3. Mac OSX –“So I was using FreeBSD, but the theme is ugly. Otherwise its a pretty cool OS. But the programmers left all the source code out for the public to use and change as they wish! Haha, suckers!”
4. Apple II – “Hey Woz, want to just steal Xerox’s OS and steal Orwell’s plot from 1984 for our ad campaign?”
5. One button mice – I can’t possibly fathom what imbecilic idea decided that the upgrade to two buttons was a bad idea. In fact, the only revolutionary thing about this was the fact Apple was refusing to steal other people’s new ideas and claim them as their own.

Meanwhile, the Big Two, which apparently don’t have the balls of Steve “I’m too afraid to let third parties make hardware” Jobs, have apparently not revolutionized the field in years.  He further claims this prevents the consumers from any real progress. 

Let me rebut this with a single word: False.  Thanks to the Google vs Microsoft war we will hopefully soon have quality cloud office software for free. If Google had not put out Google Docs, Microsoft definitely would not have planned to put out the most likely superior Online Office for free.  Instead we would have gotten a $99 fee, sort of like iLife from the leaders of consumer progress.  We have gotten quality map software that integrates with cellphones for free.  Google backing up Firefox caused most users to finally get an upgrade for the security hole ridden crap called IE6 with tabbed browsing in IE7 and security in IE8.  This forced Chrome to start adding significant features with Web Apps and now we finally have the world’s first major HTML 5 browser with Firefox 3.5. 

Cringley makes a note in his article about how Microsoft and Google stifle innovation within their own company.  I suggest he go and check Google Labs and follow Microsoft’s PRs, because they have done far from that.  And most importantly he should realize that with services like Google Code and MSDN have created thousands if not millions of developers for a multitude of platforms, something that the likes of Apple and other gimick heavy companies can never hope to do.

Microsoft is by no means angelic in business or morality and Google should probably heed its “Don’t Be Evil” motto more religiously.  However, only an idiot would believe that their competition has not aided us with new products and services for the mainstream.  Let’s not forget that we all probably go to Google on our Windows PC and I cannot forget I am using Microsoft-owned Windows Live Writer to write a Google-owned Blogger post.  And if some idiot tech writer, who mind you claimed to have a fake PhD and professorship from Stanford, wants to write otherwise, let him feel the flames of truth. 

Live Blog Post, 9:00: Election Updates pt. 4

And it looks like its winding down.
18,302,924 Ahmadinijad
570,174 Rezaee
248,431 Karroubi
8,929,232 Mousavi

Ahmadinijad very well might be about to break the 50% margin if he hasn't already. In one hour it will basically be completely safe to say from a statistical basis who has won. Mousavi apparently has begun to complain about the way precincts were reported. As if the Guardian Council will care.

Live Blog Post, 8:00: Election Updates pt. 4

New numbers:
16,974,382 Ahmadinijad
8,124,690 Mousavi
508,796 Rezaee
228,431 Karroubi

CNN has called it for Ahmadinijad. But really, they are calling it as a landslide? Honestly, even a schoolchild can see that the precinct reporting so far is biased. I still am not officially calling it for Ahmadinijad, but I won't lie, the prospects are grim for Mousavi.

Live Blog Post, 7:00: Iranian Demographics and Updates, pt. 2

However, what I described in my previous post amounts to 33% of the populace. And the vast majority of Iran's 51% Persians don't live in the provinces. They live in cities.

Crude breakdown again, list of cities:

• Tehran, Metro: 14,000,000-18,000,000 This is one of the most disputed statistics probably in the population of a major world city, I have seen official numbers go up to 21 million for Tehran Metro, but I would say the 14 mil mark is probably more accurate.
  
• Tehran needs to be broken up into two major precincts however, North Tehran and South Tehran. North along with most of Central, East, and West Tehran is primarily populated by the liberal to the the moderates. Typical Reformist rank and file and strong Mousavi
• South Tehran is a poor district however, filled with parents whose children died in the Iran-Iraq war and has been bribed by Ahmadinijad also. Strongly religious and anti-West, the hardliners have controlled this area since the Revolution. This is the face of Iran the US has seen most often.
  
• Tehran probably will boil down to 67% Mousavi, 33% Ahmadinijad assuming no fraud
• Isfahan, Metro: 3,430,353. Another divided city, Isfahan is the home to religious pragmatists. Conservatives in values, they are more driven by practicality and thus strongly backed Ahmadinijad's original campaign 4 years ago. Now that support has diminished with the lack of legitimate results for the economy.
• Isfahan is also a North/South division except the inverse of Tehran. Early polling put the two candidates neck and neck so honestly 50%-50% is the fairest projection.
• Mashad, Metro: 2,868,350. The site of a major Shi'a pilgrimage site Mashad is actually surprising not a hardliner stronghold. 65%-35% in favor of Mousavi.
• Tabriz, Metro: 1,597,319. The provincial capital of East Azerbaijan, this is reformist territory naturally. Also, I recommend their rugs. High quality stuff. 70%-30% in favor of Mousavi.
• Shiraz: 1,204,882. A short drive from the 2500 year old capital, Persepolis, Shiraz has tended to be an intellectual town. As for their politics, its not clear cut like with Isfahan. It is fair to say however that Ahmadinijad does not have a majority for sure. 60%-40% in favor of Mousavi.
• Karaj: 1,377,450. This city is practically Tehran Metro. I mean its closer than Tehran's airport and you can take a subway line to it from the center of Tehran. Guess what I am guessing this will be: 70%-30% Mousavi.
• Qom: 951,918. This city is more important for its history and its purpose than for population. It is the one city in Iran that is a total Ahmadinijad shoo-in. It contains the largest religious seminaries (yes, thats multiple) in Iran and was the favorite town of Khomeini. 80%-20% Ahmadinijad. And I am probably being too nice to Mousavi with that result.
• The other cities will probably lean towards Mousavi. ~55% support overall in the cities.

You use this as data at your own risk. Its mostly crude guesses because Iran lacks a lot of hard numbers.

Most recent numbers:
15,913,256 Ahmadinijad, 7,526,117 Mousavi, 470,549 Rezaee, 212,855 Karroubi
Official new turnout: ~37 Million (80%) Edit: ~38 Million
Insiders in Mousavi's campaign are saying that precinct reporting is being manipulated to make Ahmadinijad appear much higher than he is and that non of the pro-Mousavi precincts have reported.

Live Blog Post, 5:45: Iranian Demographics and Updates, pt. 1

Now up to this point, it appears that the majority of the votes are provincial votes. The provinces in Iran refers mainly to the countryside and rural areas (yes cities are obviously in provinces too, but thats what we call our favorite villagers). Reformists rarely gain inroads here and while it is hard for me to actually find numbers to back up most of the following, understand that demographics in Iran is basically guestimation for election results.

Some key facts about Iran (Primarily from the CIA world fact book):

• Iran is arguably the most highly diverse country in its region. Non-Arab, it is commonly viewed as Persian. However, this is not truly fair either. Only 51% of Iran is Persian (Persian/Median descent). The rest is composed of 24% Azeris (same ethnicity as the Azeri turks in Azerbaijan), 8% Gilaki and Mazandaranis (our lovely Caspian tribes that give us our summer cabins), 7% Kurds (same people in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, relatively less oppression one could say), 3% Arabs (south by Iraq mainly), 2% Balouch, 2% Lurs, 2% Turkmen, and 1% other.
• Religion wise, its pretty not diverse. 90% Shi'a Muslim, 8% Sunni Muslim (the southeast and Kurdistan), 2% Non-Muslim (Notably, Zoroastrian, Jew, Christian, and Baha'i although Baha'i is illegal)
• 67% of the population is urbanized

So now for a very crude break down of the provincial votes:

• Ahmadinijad completely dominates this portion of the country, with bribes and oil money gifts keeping villagers loyal to them
• Insulting as this may sound, the villagers never have been much for critically looking at the benefits they got from the Islamic republic. Instead they were praised under Khomeini's time as the model for the future of Iran. Ahmadinijad with his populism and religious values basically locked down these regions.
• Ethnicity wise, Ahmadinijad controls the Persian villagers and probably most of the Arabs, Balouchi, and Lurs (the southern portion of the provinces)
  
• Mousavi has support most likely with the Kurds, Azeris, Mazandaranis, Gilekis and some elements of the Persian villagers hurt worst by terrible inflation. His leads however are not nearly as high here and support is only for economic reasons
  
• Winner of the provinces therefore falls to Ahmadinijad, which was the majority of the votes announced in my previous post.

New election data:

• Ahmadinijad (Hard-liner, incumbent): 14,011,664/66.19%
• Mousavi (Reformist, primary challenger): 6,575,844/31.06%
• Rezaee (Hard-liner): 397,177/1.88%
• Karroubi (Reformist): 185,578/0.88%
  
  Total counted votes: Disputed. (I can't find a single figure that seems to be accurate on the total number so we are just going to have to wait it out for now)
  

Live Blog Post, 5:30: Green Revolution 2009 (Iran's Election)

So, I haven't posted much in a while, because I have yet to find anything worth posting after that first humorous rant. However this time, the subject matter as you probably have surmised is much more serious. Iran's elections ended approximately 3 hours ago, and there is still no real decisive result as far as I am concerned unless the idiotic projections that are being stated now magically become final results. Because Iran's elections are possibly the most important elections this year for US foreign policy over the next half-decade and because of my own Iranian descent the next few posts will be a summary of the election results and important details to know.

What we know as of now:

• Official reports have announced Iran's incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinijad as victor with a ridiculous 15 million to 5 million margin of the 47.3% total votes. (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009612195749149733.html)
• Both Ahmadinijad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi have declared victory around midnight in Tehran time, with Mousavi originally boasting 65% of the vote. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8098305.stm)
  
• Mousavi has since brought up allegations of election fraud, saying his pollwatchers were banned from entering certain polling places, crowds were turned away in North Tehran, paper ran out for the ballots, etc. (BBC World Service Radio)
  
• There was an estimated 70-80% turnout (32 million I am being told), the largest turnout ever in Iranian history (Various sources)
• The IRNA (Iranian News Agency) has insisted on already calling the election for Ahmadinijad, even when only 35% of the polls were counted.

Now what I intend to do is to break down Iranian politics piece by piece as the polls update and see if there is any hope left for the reformist factions. Oh, and in the interest of transparency, in case it wasn't already obvious, I am a proud supporter of the reformists and Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

EDIT: Oh and I thank a good friend for keeping me up to date for stats. Crazy election following buddy.

Arugula

“Eruca sativa (syn. E. vesicaria subsp. sativa (Miller) Thell., Brassica eruca L.), also known as rocket or arugula, is an edible plant.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arugula) Verbatim from none other than trusty Wikipedia.  Now that the obvious has been taken care of, most of you are probably wondering, “What the hell is wrong with this guy? Is he some crazy organic chef or does he just have a fetish for his healthy greens?”  Perfectly reasonable questions.  I would probably make the same wise-crack smart-ass remarks myself, if I were not me.

Fortunately, I am me so I can let you in on the secret.  Let me preface that, however, by congratulating those who already do know what edible leaves have to do with anything.  And let me warn anyone who was seriously thinking, “Arugula?! Is this guy some sort of socialist? Real Americans eat iceberg lettuce!” to please leave this blog and never return.  You’ll be happy for taking me up on that advise, and we all will be happy when you shut Rush Limbaugh off your car radio and stop blasting it to all the vehicles around you.  For those of you only sarcastically challenging my patriotism, I tip my imaginary hat to you.

Indeed, I based the name of this post and blog on a vegetable that has turned into an insult comparable to being called communist in the 1950s.  I suppose we can also add to the blog’s name: latte sipping (true), sushi dining (true), Volvo driving (true for my dad, oddly enough I drive an Oldsmobile), gay loving (well, if by loving we mean I want them to get equal rights as human beings then true), atheist (…actually pantheist, but what’s the difference with believing in a universal deity and not believing in any supernatural power?).  Oh and as to being an arugula-eater, that’s false. I actually get romaine, but I despise iceberg lettuce.  Seriously, where is the flavor in that stuff?

However, I digress.  (If you are any kind of grammar/organization nazi, you probably will hate my sentence variety for my transitions)  The point is now you probably have figured out most of my political affiliations and views, so that is no longer a question of debate amongst my near non-existent readers.  Since you are here, you might as well sit back and buckle up for this ride.  I don’t want to get a ticket because you are some sort of loser who thinks he or she is too badass for safety devices.  We’ll see where this blog goes.  But now you know about arugula at least.