Reaganite conservatism axiomatically disdains government, and that creates a perverse incentive for conservative politicians to run government badly (or at least not to run it well), since the failure of government confirms conservative prejudices and (in theory) provides the movement with additional evidence in favor of its ideology. We just saw a particularly vivid example of this pathologically self-destructive dynamic at work in Bobby Jindal’s otherwise inexplicable attempt to turn the Bush administration’s utter ineptitude after Hurricane Katrina into a GOP talking point.

But as the CPAC farce this weekend has definitively demonstrated, the problem isn’t limited to Jindal. It runs to the core of the ideology that every Republican is now expected to endorse and espouse under threat of excommunication. That’s why the party’s embrace of the insufferable Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher is such a perfect expression of what the anti-government impulse that led to Reagan’s victory in 1980 has become after 28 years in power. Having badly bungled a war, shown gross incompetence in responding to a natural disaster, and presided over the near-total collapse of the nation’s (and the world’s) financial system, the leadership of the Republican Party thinks it’s a good idea to follow the advice (or rather, to pretend to follow the advice) of some guy who (to put it delicately) has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. I’m not sure I’d go so far as David Brooks in describing this ideology as “nihilism,” but whatever it is, it has no business getting within a stone’s throw of the White House any time soon.

Amusingly, I didn’t get a chance to see the movie over the weekend, and found out today that it had been changed. Then again, I had crazy-low expectations.

Obama’s predecessor secretly invoked the power to suspend the First and Fourth Amendments for seven years, authorized the seizure and torture of American citizens, launched two decade-long wars of attrition, doubled the national debt, presided over the worst financial bubble since the 1930s, provided the weakest level of economic growth in decades, and left the US in the grip of the steepest depression since the 1930s. But after five weeks, it’s Obama who should be impeached? Ooookaaaay.

In related news, I have zero interest in the whole Rush/CPAC debate other than to say that his speech was impressive in its delivery and positioning. I still have no idea how conservatives square Limbaugh’s “I want President Obama to fail” charade with their (and possibly his) position of two years ago: “Criticizing the President during wartime is unpatriotic.”

I guess we’re only patriotic when our guy is in charge? Daily Kos responds, Yes, We Can.

Half-truths, obfuscations and apparent deceit — these are the wages of a world in which newspapers, their staffs eviscerated, no longer battle at the frontiers of public information. And in a city where officials routinely plead with citizens to trust the police, where witnesses have for years been vulnerable to retaliatory violence, we now have a once-proud department’s officers hiding behind anonymity that is not only arguably illegal under existing public information laws, but hypocritical as well.

Moving on.

I awoke at 4 a.m. today thinking that there was a fire above me on Stringer’s Ridge. Once I gained my bearings, I realized that there was no fire. Everything was ok, and it was all in my head. I’ve been hard at work on Chattarati the last 2 weeks, and I had a series of ideas I wanted to get down before lying back down for a few more hours of shuteye.

That’s been my motus operandi as of late — having nightmares that the neighborhood is burning down, or waking up in desperate need of a shovel.

Chattarati has been on a role. I called it a 3-week ass kicking spree, a while back. Hawbaker and I feasted on coffee, beer, and Niedlov’s in order to get the Cash Maps database updated in time. (BTW, financial disclosure forms really should be made public a lot sooner than one day before the election).

We have a slew of new writers that we’re meeting with tomorrow. Traffic doubled the last 2 months due in part to the municipal election today, but also because we’ve been working hard to keep the site updated. We have a laundry list of new database projects we’re considering for the near future. Finally, the word ‘redesign’ has started to float around as we look to the future.

Without trying to give too much away, here, I want to close with an amusing anecdote about Shepard Fairey, courtesy of Jack Cheng:

A decade or so ago, Fairey had just emerged from the skate-culture scene and was gaining notoriety for putting up stickers depicting a posterized image of wrestler/actor Andre the Giant and the line “Andre the Giant has a posse.” These stickers were the predecessors to Fairey’s eventual Obey Giant Empire.

In those early days, my friend Chris was in middle school. Chris would see Fairey in the neighborhood all the time, placing the stickers on signs, lampposts and the sides of garbage cans near the school. Curious about the man’s motivations, Chris walked up to him one day and asked bluntly, “dude, what the hell are you doing?”

Shepard Fairey looked back and replied, “you’ll see.”

Well played, sir.

While the convergence of news, blogging, and historical perspective may be a relatively new phenomenon, the result is a natural culmination of three traditional spheres moving closer together: the town crier, the town square, and the town expert. (Follow the link for a pretty stellar Venn diagram.)

Steve Yelvington believes that local news sites tend to invest too many resources into the town crier model, neglecting the other two fields:

Journalists tend to gravitate to only one of these roles: the town crier, the quaint colonial-era village character who walks around ringing a bell telling you what’s happening. It comes naturally. This is why 24×7 coverage teams and the “continuous news desk” concept take root so quickly when newsrooms suddenly awaken to the urgency of taking the Internet seriously.

But the other roles aren’t secondary. They’re coequal, and they’re grossly neglected by most local news websites.

As far as Chattanooga is concerned, the town expert model is desperately needed. Finding information outside of “most recent events” requires a trip to the library when it should just be a Google search away. Incidentally, revamping the library has been a big project during the last 2 years, but accessibility has taken a backseat to marketing.

HT: John Hawbaker

As is his prerogative, Michael Lewis takes a lengthy look at the Houston Rockets’ Shane Battier, his team-oriented approach to the game, and why he’s one of the best-kept secrets in the superstar-driven NBA:

Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly ­reduces their shooting percentages.

I wonder how Grizzlies fans will feel about Lewis’s conclusions on Battier?

Julien’s Auctions will hold an auction in April to sell off some of the King of Pop’s belongings. Given the range of ridiculously expensive, narcissistic paraphernalia, it’s no wonder MJ’s facing bankruptcy:

• King Michael in Gold Frame
• Electric Cart with MJ as Peter Pan
• Robotic MJ Head

When reached for comment, Paul McCartney exclaimed, “I can’t believe that jerk blew the royalties from ‘Hey Jude’ on such a retarded painting.”

This is not a business model that makes sense. Perhaps it appeared to when Web advertising was booming and every half-sentient publisher could pretend to be among the clan who “got it” by chanting the mantra that the ad-supported Web was “the future.” But when Web advertising declined in the fourth quarter of 2008, free felt like the future of journalism only in the sense that a steep cliff is the future for a herd of lemmings.

Newspapers and magazines traditionally have had three revenue sources: newsstand sales, subscriptions and advertising. The new business model relies only on the last of these. That makes for a wobbly stool even when the one leg is strong. When it weakens — as countless publishers have seen happen as a result of the recession — the stool can’t possibly stand.

Incidentally, Mark Cuban’s announcement of an Open Source Stimulus specifically states that he won’t invest in a business that “generates any revenue from advertising.” Why? Because it’s a lost cause. Ad revenue might bring in a sustainable living for a few bloggers working out of their homes. But for large and (sometimes) inflated organizations like NYT and WSJ, that model just isn’t good enough. The other two legs of the stool are missing. And both investors and media-types are beginning to understand this new reality.

There’s a finer point here that while the free market is currently speaking loudly about these 2 organizations, their content remains relatively free and undervalued as far as the end-user is concerned. They are operating in unchartered territory in which there is not a stable model to go by. There is currently no “market” in this free market equation.

…I still regularly hear designers and consultants stereotyping their clients as if it were still 1999, as if they were still dealing with people who had never bought a book online and don’t know how search engines work, much less joined a social network or had their own blog. This is just wrong. This kind of attitude doesn’t help you as a consultant, nor does it help designers and consultancies as a whole. If this sounds like you, I suggest you drop it. You’re making your clients mad and probably coming across as more than a little condescending.

I’m not pointing any fingers, here, but idle chatter in Chattanooga occasionally lends itself to that kind of stereotyping. Granted, many area clients are still behind the curve, but their lack of knowing is more naivete than ignorance. How you differentiate between the two is important in the long run. Word gets around in a small city.

Billionaire Mark Cuban is putting his money where his mouth is, and opening up his capital to start-ups in order to stimulate the economy. All you have to do is post your business plan on his website for he and others to review. If he deems the plan worth his while, he will provide some kind of assistance. If not, then he won’t.

There are of course, a host of rules and stipulations involved which you can review on his blog, but it’s pretty incredible that he’s looking at the current economy as an opportunity rather than a liability, and acting accordingly.

The past few days, I’ve spent some time learning about the 3 candidates for District 1, and plan to cast a vote for incumbent councilwoman, Linda Bennett, in the March 3rd municipal election. While I think that North Chattanooga still faces many challenges in the next 4 years, I believe on balance that Ms. Bennett has served the area well. In addition to her commitment to my neighborhood, she has worked hard to tackle some of the challenges facing Mountain Creek and Lookout Valley as well. Since I am happy with the direction that North Chattanooga has taken during the last four years, I plan to cast a vote for four more. I encourage my friends and neighbors to follow suit.

In the near future, I plan to play a more active role in my community, and I look forward to working with Ms. Bennett and District 2 councilwoman, Sally Robinson, to continue to make North Chattanooga and the City of Chattanooga an excellent place to live and work.

As for the mayor’s race between Ron Littlefield and Rob Healy, I have no preference, and in all likelihood, will vote for neither. And you can read my editorial on the state of the current, mayoral race at Chattarati.

A statesman is an easy man,
He tells his lies by rote;
A journalist makes up his lies
And takes you by the throat;
So stay at home’ and drink your beer
And let the neighbours’ vote

The Republican party has been the party of cultural populism and economic elitism, and the Democrats have been the party of cultural elitism and economic populism. Republicans tend to identify with the traditional values, unabashedly patriotic, anti-cosmopolitan, non-nuanced Joe Sixpack, even as they pursue an economic policy that aims at elite investor-driven growth. Democrats identify with the mistreated, underpaid, overworked, crushed-by-the-corporation “people against the powerful,” but tend to look down on those people’s religion, education, and way of life.

[Palin's] appearance on the scene unleashed populist energies that McCain had not tapped, and she both fed them and fed off them. She spent the bulk of her time at Republican rallies assailing the cultural radicalism of Barack Obama and his latte-sipping followers, who, she occasionally suggested, were not part of the “the real America” she saw in the adoring throngs standing before her.

Conor Friedersdorf has a great reaction to the article.

Check out the list for The Sounds of Science:

• “Don’t Sniff Coke” by Pato Banton
• “Walk from Regio’s” by Isaac Hayes
• “My Philosophy” by Boogie Down Productions
• “Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved” by James Brown
• “Back in the USSR”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”, “The End”, & “When I’m Sixty-Four” by The Beatles

And that’s just one song on an album composed (almost) entirely of samples.

Yes, there’s a case to be made for Girl Talk, but for some reason, Greg Gillis “has never been threatened with legal action,” probably due to the fact that he’s operating in the margins, and not making much money from his albums.

Moonwalk. No, not the Michael Jackson kind. Anyone can learn to do the dance sensation that swept the entertainment world of the 1980’s. I’m talking about the Neil Armstrong, ‘holy shit, I’m walking on the moon’ variety. I might as well add ’spacewalk’ to this list, because I don’t think I’m cut out to be an astronaut. For starters, NASA probably wouldn’t accept me into their program. And even if I did miraculously get in, it’s highly unlikely that I would be one of the lucky few chosen for a hypothetical mission to the moon. Virgin Galactic might be my one last hope on this front, but I’m not holding my breath.

Become President of the United States. If Barack Obama proved one thing in the last election, it’s that anyone can become President…sorta. His story is very unlikely and fraught with all kinds of political missteps (admitting his youthful indiscretions in Dreams of My Father for instance), but he’s also an incredibly gifted orator and thinker — two qualities I definitely lack. I didn’t attend an Ivy League school and never will. And it takes a certain kind of audacity to think one could ever become President (or should) that I will never have.

Host The Daily Show. The Daily Show is probably my favorite television show that I watch on a regular basis. While taking a well-deserved stab at cable news coverage, it can also be quite poignant in its political and social commentary. Jon Stewart has an uncanny knack for getting to the heart of issues during interviews without being condescending (most of the time) or overly flattering. Stewart’s successor will have some very big shoes to fill, someday. My proverbial feet are too small for that kind of role. And given my lack of experience in show business — you really have to cut your teeth at an early age for gigs like that — I doubt my audition tape would pass muster.

I’m sure I could think of more if I tried (like curing cancer for instance). But this brief list serves as a reminder that there are limitations in life, and while acknowledging those limitations can be a little on the cathartic side, it’s also a good way to take stock of what I can do.

It was Plouffe (rhymes with bluff) who gathered the president’s unprecedented thirteen-million-name contact list, which has grown into a fulsome pulsing beast, and it is Plouffe who now owns it and keeps it under lock and key. Plouffe sent those thirteen million people an e-mail in mid-November and they replied, Yes, I still want to be involved, and yes, David Plouffe, I’ll have house parties when you tell me to. Here is who I am socioeconomically and socially. I am boxers; my next-door neighbor is briefs. Now the president has instructed him to make that list a new lever of government.

#TCOT aficionado’s take note. The email address still lies at the core of a user’s online identity. And control of such a massive email list allows the organizer to work across multiple platforms with continuity — even if those tools haven’t been developed, yet.