Not sure exactly when I said it, but I did predict that Greece would exit the Euro. I also said that it should leave the Euro sooner, rather than later and do so on its own terms. Now elite opinion has decided it's okay for Greece to exit. Mostly because the neoliberals have already raped the economy there. You heard it here first.

I still think Matt Taibbi's takedown was the best on Friedman, but this is still pretty damned hilarious:

So, I bid you all adieu. If you're so inclined I can be found here opining on things not political. And you can always find me updating my photos from some other strange out of the way place on the globe, or even just around Texas, at Flickr.

Until next we meet, with hope, as we trudge the road of happy destiny.

It would not be right to leave The Agonist without changing my mind on one last issue.

For a long time I believed that nuclear power generation was an energy source for the post-climate change world we're encountering. After Fukushima I had to really rethink the issue and began slowly moving towards the idea that maybe I might believe wrongly. After listening to this podcast from the always excellent George Kenney at Electric Politics I suppose my about face is now complete. It's not a matter of personal feelings that led me to change my mind, but an assessment of the risks. If you do the math, even assuming a 99.99% record of total safety, the amount of nuclear reactors it would take to power the United States in a post-climate change world, the risk of a Fukushima, or Chernobyl, is still too great. George, thank's for educating me on such a critical issue.

. . . this morning with a middle school Latin instructor. I asked him what textbook he used to teach Latin. "Oxford," he said.

"Why not Wheelock's?" I asked. I was taught Latin using Wheelock's and the methodology Wheelock uses in his book, in my opinion is the standard of excellence for teaching foreign languages.

"Can't use it any more. It was written at a time when students were expected to know grammar," he replied.

"Wait, what? They don't teach grammar in school any more?"

"Nope, it's too patriarchal," he said.

Western civilization is doomed.

. . . they tell.

"Six million people are imprisoned in the U.S.—more than were in Stalin’s gulags."

This weekend I pretty much devoured the two most recent issues of the New York Review of Books. (Parenthetical notes: upon my 'retirement' Wednesday I'm looking forward to not obsessing and reading about the news every day and keeping it to long form only.) One article that stood out was this: "What Future for Occupy Wall Street?" by Michael Greenberg. In the essay Greenberg documents some of the challenges the group faces as spring gets closer:

In October, a “Demands Group” did spring up among the protesters. When members of the group went public with a few suggestions, the General Assembly attempted to vote them out of existence and by some accounts succeeded. Today, a version of the group exists with 410 members who, according to the movement’s website, are “developing the concept of demands” (italics mine). Instead of debating actual demands, they are asking how a group “can create a process where their wants & needs can be communicated.”

Actually, we're number 47 now, somewhere between Comoros and Taiwan, in the same grouping as Romania and Argentina when it comes to press freedom.

How's that hopey-mcchange working out for you?

. . . working out?

I'll be on The Young Turks tonight with Cenk Uygur between 7-8 Eastern time. If you are around, tune in. Topic: Iran and other stuff.

This graf from a Taibbi blog post reminds me of something. First the graf:

The potential liability each of the banks faces from foreclosure litigation is vastly greater than $25 billion, and uncertainty surrounding that litigation is holding the stock prices of all of the major companies (in particular struggling ones like Bank of America) down.

A settlement would release those firms from that potential liability and likely bring massive surges in stock-market investment. It would therefore have a profound strengthening effect on the Too-Big-To-Fail banks.

Now, if you see a big multi-day run up in bank stocks you know what's going on: the fix is in and a settlement has been made in principle. That's how we'll know: word will leak out to the main players and insiders before the news is announced.

So, buy the rumor and sell the news.

Apparently Skynet is here:

The Navy's new drone being tested near Chesapeake Bay stretches the boundaries of technology: It's designed to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier, one of aviation's most difficult maneuvers.

What's even more remarkable is that it will do that not only without a pilot in the cockpit, but without a pilot at all.

The idea of remotely piloted war machines is one thing: but autonomous ones?

. . . like no other.

If anything this story (h/t Bruce Schneier) is indicative of very rapidly changing ideas of privacy:

Young couples have long signaled their devotion to each other by various means — the gift of a letterman jacket, or an exchange of class rings or ID bracelets. Best friends share locker combinations.

The digital era has given rise to a more intimate custom. It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts. Boyfriends and girlfriends sometimes even create identical passwords, and let each other read their private e-mails and texts.

I think some adults understand this, but not all. Has anyone ever swiped your journal and read it and taken something you wrote completely out of context? Imagine emails and teen boys full of testosterone and aggression? Not a good combination, that. The digital age presents an altogether different set of risks, up to an including emails and photos finding their way on to the internet. Once there they are impossible to delete. Impossible.

It's one thing to share a locker combination, but sharing digital data? While I am really trying hard not to be an old-fogey about this, from my experience with tweens and teenagers: it is impossible to explain to them the risks. And the adults in charge really are falling down on the job.

And all three are inter-related:

Whether or not the U.S. is declining is the wrong question

Has Petroleum Production Peaked, Ending the Era of Easy Oil?

The Coming U.S.-India Train Wreck

Connections!

. . . my Texas only bird count for 2012 is now up to 57!

No, she won't.

. . . feelgood kinda stuff here. But this is just awesome. Love is goddamned awesome, you know?

We want the rich taxed more, up to 66% more in some cases^*.

^* My methodology for coming up with that number is this: the average American, as quoted in the story below, believes that the rich should be taxed at a 24% effective rate. That's 10% points higher than it is now. Ten divided by fifteen is 66. That's a sixty-six percent increase in the effective tax rate.

. . . standardized tests at the college level are not going to teach people critical thinking skills. From the story:

After four years of college, more than a third of them showed no significant improvement on a test of critical thinking and reasoning.

It's the sort of thing employers have been complaining about for years.

First, I know for a fact that most employers do not want people with critical thinking skills. They want drones who will work themselves to death or yes men and women.

Second, the idea that standardized testing will somehow magical teach people critical thinking skills is laughable. Here's what will: compel students to take a full year of logic, a full year of Algebra, a full year of physics and two years of reading books from the canon^*, after they have take the math and logic.

Look, I hated algebra and higher math as much as anyone. (Logic was different: it was fun, but that was also due to the professor I had.) But I noticed a very real, perceptible leap in my critical thinking faculties after I finished college algebra--my GPA leaped upwards and my facility at dissecting historical and literary texts exegetically and critically grew.

And screw statistics: statistics is bullshit the way it is currently taught. All it teaches people to do, as currently taught, is manipulate and spin data.

^* And yes, the Western canon is critical to the way Westerners think and how our societies have evolved. There is a place for other great books not in the Western canon and they should be learned, but Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Cernvantes and Homer and Virgil are a fundamental starting point.

. . . hippies have been proved right, but we will still get more austerity.