Thick as a Brick. Methinks Ian Anderson'll kick all their asses. [Eschaton]

Time to buy Anderson's new CD. Ain't it great when a rock station wants to boycott a British artist because he makes a remark about the flag. Used to be it was the conservative side of the aisle that led this charge. Rock is dead if that is what it supports now.

Actually, I don't think rock is dead but the corporate radio stations that spew this stuff out (especially the golden oldies) are not part of any vibrant music culture. They are replaying the songs of the past instead of tapping into the culture of today. While I like to listen to classic rock, I do it to connect with the past, not to hold onto it and bring it forward to today. The original lsiteners of Jethro Tull, circa 1972, would not have responded to his comment by boycotting his music. So, to my mind, anyone who likes his music but buys into the boycott is simply a poseur, with little real understanding of what music means, especially rock, hip-hop, punk or grunge. It is the music of rebellion against the very types who relish classic rock as a business model.  3:45:03 PM    

Overnight Open Thread.

New and improved Victory Days start in less than a week -- have you signed up to host a letter-writing event?

It snowed a bit today in Burlington, a sudden reminder of how soon Governor Dean and thousands of volunteers will be trudging through the white stuff on the ground in Iowa and New Hampshire. Your letters from Victory Days are one part of that effort that you can do from afar, and will have a huge impact on the big day.

The ambitious (and warmly-dressed) can even sign up to travel to Iowa or New Hampshire in January for the experience of a lifetime.

This is your thread -- what's on your mind tonight?

[Blog for America]

Keeping an eye on Dean's Blog For America because i beleive that this is how many future campaigns will be organized. Victory Days is a letter writing exercise, where Dean supporters in Meetups across the country send personal letters to voters in specific primary states. Not machine printed, generic letters but ones written by people. this can only be done by using the new technologies.

But the very interesting aspect of this is that this is an Open Thread, where anyone can add comments on almost any topic. Go read them. As a way for the campaign to hear directly from its supporters, to gather new ideas or get an inkling of how they are feeling, this is extremely powerful. It is like watching a brainstorming session, with good and nad ideas being thrown out and every so often one really takes off.

Read some of the comments, coming from people across the country, all acting to support a candidate but without requiring the candidate to create a specific state organization to produce this support. Dean and Triippi have hit on a way to increase their support without having to spend a lot of money, all by using some useful social software. He may not win, but this campaign and all future ones will be altered because of this.  9:46:00 AM    

To The Editors of the New York Times

Your recent editorial on the Apo-A1 Milano therapy for atherosclerosis is strong stuff. For example, you say that ". . .infusing H.D.L. cholesterol directly into the body, was shown effective in animals more than a decade ago, but the industry never really pursued it. One reason was that companies saw little economic incentive in using a normal body protein for therapeutic purposes, since it would be hard to gain patent protection. A medicine that could be made and sold by anybody had little potential for profit."

There's a lot to argue with here. A "medicine that could be made and sold by anybody" is a good definition of a generic drug, for example, and generic drug companies can actually make plenty of profit. Of course, that only happens after the major R&D costs were incurred by someone else. You came very close to realizing this useful point, but pulled up at the last moment - did you realize that you were about to make an argument for recouping research costs through patent rights?...

[Corante: In the pipeline]

Read the entire letter. It is another example of how poorly the editorial page does with real facts in the matter. Almost all appeals are purely emotional, even if that results in conflicting information. To claim that no one can make any money from something like natural Apo-A1 is asinine. You can tell just how valid most arguments are by seeing what sorts of logical approaches they take in the argument. If you have facts, argue the facts. But is you do not, use emotion or unsubstantiated statements to sway the audience. Catering to the worst in humans is a sure sign that the argument is a bust. Playing on emotions by using keywords with lots of power but little real meaning are used when there is no real foundation for a position. Nice to see that our supposedly best apers resort to these weak approaches all too often.  9:10:53 AM    

The Washington Post defends No Child Left Behind. Jay Matthews in the Washington Post tries to defend the No Child Left Behind Act from what Matthews calls "a host of myths and misinterpretations" by examining "10 statements about the law that experts say are heard often but are... [Mark A. R. Kleiman]

The editorial section of most large papers is becoming more and more removed from any sort of rational discussion. The sure sign of a disintegrating argument is more and more explosive rhetoric, on both sides. It is really a problem when an editorial board for a paper does not reveal possible conflicts of interest, such as when its parent company also owns a company that makes money doing what the editorial describes. But then, the editorial pages never have to worry about facts.  8:28:48 AM