PLEASE NOTE: Once you’ve erased APE tags, there’s no way to get them back except for adding them to your files again one at a time. Although the apetag package used in this guide is able to add and modify APE metadata, I cannot support this process. So use with caution!

1. Download the “apetag” Package

Download apetag from here. Don’t worry about the “i386″ part; if you’re on a 64-bit system, we’ll take care of that shortly.

2. Fulfill Dependencies

You may need to install libstdc++5 as a dependency. To check if you already have it installed, type this in the terminal:

dpkg -s libstdc++5

If you see “Package `libstdc++5′ is not installed”, then run:

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

If instead you see a bunch of information, then the libstdc++5 package is already installed.

3. Install apetag

If you’re on a 32-bit system, simply double-click the .deb file to install apetag.

However, if you are running on a 64-bit computer, you’ll need to force apetag to install itself even though you have the “wrong” architecture. Do that by opening a terminal in the directory where you saved your apetag .deb file and running this command:

sudo dpkg –force-architecture -i apetag_*_i386.deb

Apetag will install itself and be fully functional. Now we can get to removing those pesky tags.

4. Remove APE tags from MP3’s

To remove APE tags from a single file, run this in terminal:

apetag -i musicfile.mp3 -m overwrite

You’ll have to replace the red “musicfile” text with the name of your MP3, obviously. Don’t forget to enclose the filename in quotes if it contains spaces or other funny characters.

To remove APE tags from all of your MP3’s at once, replace the red “music-directory” text with the name of your own music folder, then run this:

find music-directory/ -iname “*.mp3″ -exec apetag -i {} -m overwrite ;

This could take a few minutes depending on the size of your MP3 collection, but once it’s done, your MP3’s will be free of APE metadata. Huzzah!

[This guide has been cross-posted on Ubuntu Forums.]

In fifty-two living rooms, puzzled men and women stared at the board, trying to understand the patterns of light. And patterns there were: around 5:00pm, a great number of lights flashed on, so too around 9:00 am. During business hours there was mostly blackness on the board. Late in the night, clusters shone, and in the pre-dawn hours, there were always one or two. Slowly fifty-two souls began to realize that the tiny lights must ignite when other users turned their systems on, that each LED was another person who had seen the St. Paul ad, so was staring intently at the board, who was alone, who was like them.

Also highly recommended is “Killswitch“.

These opposing forces have led to a large trade dispute between the US and the EU concerning hormone-treated beef. The EU insists that beef produced with these hormones is unsafe, and refuses to license it for sale in member nations. On the other hand, the US maintains that such beef is perfectly harmless and demands that the EU lower its existing trade barriers. Worse still, the debate seems unlikely to be solved in the foreseeable future, due in large part to a culturally-driven European distrust in scientific institutions. Combined with other factors, such as the fragmented nature of European food safety laws and the lack of a WTO mechanism for handling consumer-based protectionism, this phenomenon has perhaps immutably steeled Europe against US beef.

Interestingly enough, the US has not been without its own hormone scare, which actually preceded the current trade dispute by several decades. This particular hormone, diethylstilbestrol (DES), was discovered to be a carcinogen in the 1950’s. Its use in any part of the food supply was banned in the 1958 Food Additives Amendment. Three years later, however, the DES Proviso was passed, which essentially stated that DES use could continue if no hormonal residue was found in the cattle. Since the technology available at the time could not reliably detect this residue though, use of DES to make beef production more efficient continued unchecked. At one point, as many as 95% of US cattle producers used the hormone.

However, the increasing evidence that DES was a cancer-causing agent fueled further attempts to ban it until the hormone was finally pulled from the market in 1979. Although DES had been outlawed, other growth-promoting hormones eventually took its place. These newer hormones had been approved as safe for use by the FDA, with the backing of multiple scientific studies. Thus, by the time the current beef hormone dispute emerged, the large industrial farms prevalent in the US were already using hormones to make most of their beef. And Americans, trusting in the FDA to regulate their agricultural production methods, were well accustomed to eating it.

Putting the DES scare aside, the roots of the current hormone debate lie in the differences in agricultural policy between the European Union and the United States. Although the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) focused strongly on growing the world economy, agriculture was an exception to this rule for various reasons. First, developed countries often tend to romanticize the idea of farming because it was formerly a crucial part of that nation’s history. Hence, large subsidies are paid to “family farms” that have now been driven almost into extinction by larger, industrial farms. Second, the cost of subsidizing the agricultural sector goes up in correlation with increased agricultural trade and the accompanying competition. Lastly, many nations see preserving their own farming industry as vital to their national security; they would not like to be at the mercy of world agricultural markets when a war breaks out, for example.

These factors led to Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which attempted to support agricultural prices and incomes. The US also passed similar legislation to support its own agricultural industry. However, because the United States’ industrialized farms could produce more cattle, there were increasing pressures to lower foreign trade barriers, which in turn would allow for more exports. It was at this point that the beef hormone dispute erupted onto the international scene.

In 1977, 83 boys (ages 3 to 13) that were attending the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus School in Milan suddenly developed breasts. A large number of girls at the school also reported breast enlargement. Although no evidence of exposure to a hormone was found in the ensuing investigation, The Lancet speculated that unmetabolized estrogen may have been ingested if a farmer had improperly inserted a hormonal implant into a steer. Soon after this, an Italian consumer rights group reported its discovery of 30,000 jars of French veal baby food that was laced with DES. This led to widespread public criticism of the industry, which included one German magazine cover featuring the face of a little girl superimposed onto the body of a grown woman.

This growing consumer movement first made itself evident in France, where the Union of French Consumers called for a boycott of veal. Sales of veal in France and Italy subsequently declined by more than 50%, with similar declines following soon after in Britain and Belgium. The uproar culminated when the Bureau of European Consumers Unions (BEUC) lobbied for a broader boycott, as well as a Europe-wide blanket ban on all hormones. In short, the consumer movement (which would later become a panic) was already afoot.

On September 20, 1980, a scant two weeks after BEUC’s call for a blanket ban, the European Community’s Council of Agricultural Ministers declared that one of the hormones used for promoting growth in livestock should be outlawed. It also called for “greater harmonization of legislation on veterinary medicines”. This was hailed as a major victory for consumers across the continent. BEUC spokesman Yves Domzalski stated that it was “the greatest success [the BEUC has] ever had. [...] We have 260 million potential supporters out there, so EEC ministers had better watch out”. Even at this early stage therefore, the European consumer movement knew exactly what kind of power they held over their officials.

In October of that year, that influence was made manifest when the European Commission adopted even more rigorous legislation which banned all hormones in meat products, except those used for zootechnical or therapeutic purposes, such as managing livestock pregnancies. It was after this that some beef-producing nations first began to raise concerns about their exports to Europe, including the United States. The next summer, the European Council passed its first directive on hormone-treated beef, which banned only stilbenes (the hormone involved in the baby food incident) but allowed use of other hormones to continue pending further scientific study by the European Commission.

The EC set up a committee, known as the Lamming Group (after its chair, Professor G.E. Lamming) to investigate the remaining hormones and their effects on human health. In September 1982, the group found that the three natural hormones (oestradiol-17ß, testosterone, and progesterone) “would not present any harmful effects to the health of the consumer when used under the appropriate conditions as growth promoters in farm animals”. Professor Lamming himself stated in The Washington Post that “the residue levels were low and insignificant and presented no danger to the consuming public”.

However, the group also reported that the two synthetic hormones, trenbolone and zeranol, needed additional research before a conclusion could be reached about their safety. In the meantime, the United States had established a panel, based out of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, to meet with EC officials concerning the hormones. The group was not very effective however, as the members were mostly specialists with little experience in handling foreign affairs.

Despite the findings of the Lamming Group, public opinion was still strongly supportive of an outright ban on all hormones, fearing that their consumption could even result in changes to sexual characteristic. Efforts to diminish the tensions were nevertheless underway at the European Commission when, in June 1984, it proposed a new directive allowing for use of the three natural hormones and continuing scientific study of the two artificial ones. This proposal was shot down by a massive public outcry, voiced through the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, which instead passed a resolution supporting a ban on all hormones. The resolution said that, concerning the hormones, “considerable doubt [...] exists about the desirability of their use and of their effect on human health”.

A year later, the Lamming Group was disbanded by the EEC agricultural head, Frans Andriessen, who implied that public opinion could hardly be swayed by scientific studies and that such science is “not decisive”. Thus, on the last day of the year in 1985, the Council of Agricultural Ministers voted to adopt a ban on any and all hormones used for growth-promotion in livestock. Despite warnings from Professor Lamming that a “dangerous precedent” was being set by ignoring the scientific facts, the ban, scheduled to go into effect in January of 1988, was extremely popular with the frightened European public.

The US then appealed to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a panel created jointly by the World Health Organization and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. The goal of Codex was to protect consumer health, ensure fair practices in food trade, and harmonize food standards throughout trading nations. By establishing the Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Food (CCRVDF) to deal with the situation, it was hoped that Codex could provide some international guidance. This committee subsequently recommended to the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) that hormones used in beef production be examined.

In 1987, JECFA began examining the hormones in question. When the committee finished their studies, the report stated that hormone residues did not create a significant health danger to humans. In fact, JECFA said that the amount of natural hormones in the body was vastly larger than any amount that could plausibly be ingested. The recommended standards were sent to the CCRVDF, and then to the GATT, but ultimately the studies accomplished little, as the EU argued that past food safety errors shed doubt on the current findings and that there was no legal requirement for them to follow Codex’s proposals.

As the January 1988 deadline neared, last minute efforts to resolve the situation were made. In November of 1987, the EU agricultural officials agreed to delay the ban for 12 months after some members made their support for an extension known. In short, the ban on using hormones went into effect as scheduled, but the ban on trading meat already containing such hormones was delayed until January 1, 1989. The US, which had been planning to retaliate against the EU by imposing punitive tariffs on certain goods, agreed to delay their sanctions for a year as well in hopes that an amiable solution could be reached.

During the year though, European journalists discovered an underground black market for the hormones based out of the Netherlands and Belgium. This negative publicity severely limited the flexibility of the EU to compromise with the United States, as European fears surrounding the hormones were reinvigorated. Tensions rose even higher when the US proposed $125 million in retaliatory tariffs on European products. Although the EU attempted to make small concessions, the US remained upset that they would not lift the entire ban, stating that the EU could not “present any evidence that [...] the growth-promoting hormones in question [pose] any threat to human health”. As last-ditch negotiations failed, the impending ban loomed even larger.

On January 1, 1989, Europe’s hormone-treated beef ban went into effect, only to be greeted by an American blockage of $100 million in European exports. Since the United States had not received GATT approval to retaliate, the EU filed a complaint, but it was quickly shot down despite public criticism of the US on the part of GATT Director-General Arthur Dunkel. The press, sensing the danger of an imminent trade war, criticized both the ban and the US retaliation as “a failure of common sense”. Nevertheless, a mid-February truce between the US and the EU afforded both parties time to survey the problem once more.

In February, a special US-EU Hormone Task Force was created to try and resolve the dispute. The European delegation to the group proposed that the US begin producing hormone-free beef, which could then be sold in Europe without a problem. Although the federal government and large meat producers refused to back down, several small companies were willing to adopt this plan. They faced enormous pressure from the hormone manufacturers however, who did not want the issue of hormone-free beef to become even more popular than it already was.

Eventually, the US agreed to allow small quantities of hormone-free beef to be sold in Europe, but even this compromise was ended when the EU banned all US beef imports over concerns about the cleanliness of slaughterhouses. Thus, the US and the EU appeared to be at a stalemate. Europe was not overly stressed by the retaliatory tariffs it faced, and the US was not confronting any counter-retaliatory measures. Soon though, a turning point would come for the United States in the form of increased standardization of international food safety laws.

To help strengthen its position in the international trade arena, the US attempted to establish methods through which health-related trade barriers might be resolved. This task was assigned to the USDA’s head meat inspection official Lester Crawford and his staff. They wrote a paper, called The Sanitary and Phytosanitary Dispute Settlement Paper (SPS), which laid out a set of proposed standards for health-related trade measures. The proposed standards fortunately avoided much of the gridlock that agricultural negotiations can be prone to, although this may be due to the fact that, since the SPS was a trade matter, it was outside the jurisdiction of the European Parliament. The SPS agreement proposed that the Codex food standards be adopted as the official standards for international trade. It also stated that nations could still act to protect their citizens from a health danger, but such protection must be non-discriminatory and science-based.

It finally seemed like the Codex rules would play an official role, if only the United States could get the standards adopted. In an open vote, the Codex delegates decided, 27 votes to 12, against adopting the SPS standards. Two years later, at the next Codex meeting, the process was again delayed when the committee decided to review the hormones once more. Then, at the 1995 meeting, Codex voted by secret ballot and decided 33 votes to 29, to adopt the JECFA standards on growth-promoting hormones. Although the result was not without an amount of controversy, mostly related to the role of the meat industry in lobbying for adoption of the standards, it was nevertheless a huge victory for the United States.

When the WTO opened in 1995, the US found itself in a position to take its case to a more credible and authoritative international body than the GATT. Early that year, the US had given Europe an ultimatum: either resolve the hormone issue by the end of the year, or the US would file a complaint with the WTO. In an act of defiance, the EU instead declared that they would continue to strongly oppose imports of hormone-treated beef. Accordingly, the US filed a formal complaint with the WTO, the first under the new SPS agreements, in April 1996. In their arguments before the dispute resolution panel, US representatives claimed that the European ban on beef hormones was in violation of a number of international agreements, while representatives from Europe replied that the ban in fact satisfied all the requirements of the new SPS accord. The Europeans also requested that the legitimacy of the US retaliatory tariffs be reviewed by the WTO, but this move was rendered moot when the US ceased to levy those tariffs in July 1996.

The WTO published its interim report on May 7, 1997, ruling that Europe had indeed broken with agreed-upon international standards (as negotiated in the SPS agreements) by implementing the ban on hormone-treated beef. It reasoned that the EU could not impose rules stricter than those laid out by Codex without additional scientific evidence. The EU quickly filed an appeal, responding that the WTO ruling undermined its right to determine exactly how much protection was needed for European consumers. Although the appellate decision did reverse some of the finer points of the original judgment, it nevertheless affirmed that the EU beef ban was in violation of the SPS standards.

After the WTO’s ruling, the EU had only 15 months to implement it, with the final deadline being May 13, 1999. Europe quickly established two groups of scientists to do several risk-assessment studies of the hormones. In the meantime, the EU offered a compromise to the US: if the US would label their beef to distinguish it from European beef, then they would allow it to be sold in European markets. The US, though, did not want to cast doubt on the safety of hormone-treated beef, and thus refused the deal. After chances of reaching such a compromise diminished, the US announced that it intended to levy 100% import duties on 81 European products.

In return, the EU threatened to retaliate by banning all beef imports from the US unless the meat was absolutely guaranteed to be free of hormones. (The EU had previously claimed that 12% of “hormone-free” beef imported from the US actually contained hormones.) In support of their position, the EU also released a scientific report which concluded that one of the controversial hormones, oestradiol-17ß, could cause cancer. The USTR was dismissive though, pointing to a brand new JECFA report which, after reinspecting the hormones, had again found them to be perfectly safe. EC officials however, remained unmoved and continued to state that their scientific studies would not conclude until after the May 13th deadline. Thus, on May 17th, the United States applied for authorization with the WTO to impose retaliatory tariffs on imports from European Union members.

The United States estimated its total loss due to the beef ban at $202 million. The EU countered by requesting WTO arbitration, stating that the $202 million figure was “grossly excessive”. In mid-July, WTO officials judged that the total loss to the US due to the beef ban was approximately $116.8 million, which enabled the US to enact tariffs on European goods to recoup that loss. The list of goods to be taxed was designed to maximize the damage to the European economy while minimizing the damage to the US economy. Ham, pork, mustard, some cheeses, truffles, and canned tomatoes were just a few of the items levied with new tariffs.

This obviously did not go over well with the EU, especially French farmers who were particularly hurt by the retaliatory measures. A small social uprising, which targeted local McDonald’s restaurants as a symbol of American decadence, began to emerge in some regions. Angry farmers dumped large piles of manure outside of McDonald’s stores and even went so far as to sabotage a construction site where another McDonald’s was being built. Other iconic US companies also became targets for European frustration, including several incidents where the price of Coca-Cola was raised to over $100. Clearly, these activities indicate a level of consumer hysteria that would hardly be ended by any sort of empirical evidence. Worse still, it seemed like the US was not achieving was it set out to do: force European compliance with the WTO ruling. As such, there was increasing pressure on the government, mostly from the beef industry, to take additional measures against Europe.

The US government’s answer to this increased pressure was a mechanism called “carousel retaliation.” Using this strategy, the government would regularly rotate the types of goods imported from Europe that would be subject to the retaliatory tariffs. It was theorized that, if levying tariffs on a certain set of goods did not lead to Europe repealing its beef ban, then another combination of goods would be used, until finally the outcry from producers of all these goods overwhelmed the EU. However, support was far from unanimous: officials from the EU, the Treasury and Commerce Departments, and even the USTR voiced concerns that carousel retaliation would only harm overall US-EU relation.

Support for carousel won out though, when Congress passed it as part of the Trade and Development Act of 2000. The new law called for rotation of the product list every 180 days so as to inflict maximum damage to the non-complying nations. Although the first rotation deadline came and went, President Clinton simply did nothing. Furthermore, when the obligation to rotate the tariffs fell to President Bush, he too refused to do so, stating that it might hurt US-EU negotiations on other trade topics.

In yet another effort to legitimize the beef ban, Europe passed a law in 2003 that changed the ban to a “provisional” one pending further scientific research. The provisional status of the ban, they argued, granted it legitimacy under the SPS and WTO rules. The United States replied that calling a ban “provisional” while keeping it in place indefinitely did not constitute compliance with the WTO ruling, and that such a ban was “still unsupported by any scientific rationale”. Nevertheless, in November 2004, Europe filed an additional case with the WTO, complaining that the extra tariffs that the US continued to impose were unjustified since the EU had come into compliance. The complaint also stated that the US had not sought confirmation from the WTO that the EU’s legislation was indeed faulty before continuing to tax goods imported from Europe.

Despite taking measures to open up the dispute resolution system to the public, the panel still took almost two years to issue even the interim report. When it finally published it in late July 2007, it was a mixed result for all parties. On one hand, the panel faulted the EU for again failing to come into compliance with the original WTO ruling. The panel noted that none of the scientific evidence the EU had provided showed a link between consuming residue from growth-promoting hormones and an increased risk for cancer. On the other hand, the panel also demanded that the US remove their retaliatory measures. Since the US had not obtained confirmation to continue the measures, the panel said, the retaliatory tariffs should be eliminated. This resulted in a rather contradictory and confusing ruling, in which both the EU’s ban and the US’s retaliatory measures were said to be unsupported.

In what was turning out to be an endless cycle of complaints, rulings, and appeals, both the US and the EU appealed this new ruling. When the appellate body issued its interim report in mid-October of 2008, it overruled both verdicts handed down in the original decision. Namely, the appellate report stated that the US could continue its retaliatory measures, while the EU could also continue its ban on hormone-treated beef.

However, it did not say that Europe could continue the ban because it had the backing of solid science. Rather, it said that because the appellate panel itself was not in a position to accurately judge the scientific evidence vis-à-vis the WTO/SPS requirements, both parties should seek to file a completely new case with the WTO to rule on the hormone ban. However, this may leave both parties in somewhat of a stalemate, for they each fear being saddled with the burden of proof should they choose to initiate a WTO hearing. This stalemate is exactly where the matter stands as of today.

In sum, Europe has banned hormone-treated beef, is at least somewhat able to tolerate US retaliatory tariffs, and does not seem likely to eliminate the ban anytime soon. Interestingly enough, both the US and the EU have had a fair amount of food safety crises, but only in Europe have these had fundamental and long-lasting effects on consumers. One of the reasons for this may lie in a deeper European attitude which encompasses a certain lack of trust in science itself, as a 2006 survey by the National Science Foundation reveals.

When asked if the benefits of science outweigh the harmful effects, over 80% of Americans answered in the affirmative, while hardly 50% of Europeans did so. In the same survey, when asked if science made life change too fast, a large majority of Americans disagreed, while a majority of Europeans agreed. Thus, while Americans give science and those who practice it a high amount of prestige and confidence, Europeans are more reluctant to follow suit. This stark cultural divide may be helpful in understanding European cultural repulsion to hormone-treated beef and the ensuing ban of such products.

Another factor that may be contributing to the continuance of the beef ban is the dramatic difference in trust that European consumers have in their fragmented food safety and regulatory bodies compared to US citizens:

“Despite the recent establishment of the European Food Safety Authority and a more generic system for food safety in recent years, the present system remains a patchwork of different food safety and quality policies across Europe. In this system, member states have relatively large leeway to use food safety regulation as a competitive tool for domestic markets. [...] It is made up of national markets in which member countries and domestic producers have incentives to draw product distinctions between country or region of origin to capture reputational [gains].”

As a result of this disparate oversight, European consumers now look to consumer-oriented NGO’s rather than governmental regulatory agencies for accurate information on food. Such failures by European national governments to protect their citizens from food crises now burdens the EU with the task of regaining consumer trust, which it is most able to do through precautionary tactics, ergo the total ban on hormone-treated beef.

Finally, the last justification one might offer for the continued existence of the ban is that the WTO has not adequately handled the problem of consumer-driven protectionism. In the standard economic model of trade, the consumer is expected to always benefit (through lower prices) from trade liberalization, and thus never demand protectionist practices. However, this is not the case in the hormone-treated beef dispute, where European consumers, although perhaps acting against their best economic interests, favor a ban.

As such, the EU enacted the legislation in defiance of international opinion, indicating that “they would rather be unpopular abroad than out of power at home”. This being a relatively unexpected phenomenon, the WTO seems rather ill-equipped to handle instances of protectionism supported by consumers, and has yet to comment on the legitimacy of such protections as compared to more “traditional” producer-driven protectionism.

So on one hand, one might argue that European refusal to eat hormone-treated beef is simply a cultural difference that must be tolerated by beef-exporting countries. After all, the US has never criticized Israel for its lack of pork imports. In this argument, the origin of the cultural phenomenon is irrelevant, as it has existed for 30 years and seems unlikely to disappear anyway.

On the other hand though, one correctly could state that this consumer fear of hormone-treated beef is entirely unsupported by empirical evidence, despite EU claims to the contrary. Repeated analyses, by various organizations (even the EU’s own groups!), have shown hormones to be perfectly safe when used within the well-established guidelines. Therefore, consumer panic and refusal to eat such products ultimately amounts to nothing more than a massively irrational public reaction to the advances of science.

Either way one wants to argue, it seems improbable that this particular dispute will be resolved with a new case at the WTO, as efforts to do so up to the present time have served only to further entrench both parties.

TED

Short for “Technology, Entertainment, Design”, TED is an annual conference that brings together the worlds best thinkers to give 20-minutes talks on science, the arts, politics, culture, business, global issues, technology, and entertainment. They’ve had people like Al Gore, James Watson, and Jonathan Haidt come and talk, and they release a new video every week. TED is definitely the granddaddy of them all, so be sure to bookmark this website.

ScienceBlogs

As an invitation-only blog network and virtual community, ScienceBlogs is dedicated to enhancing the public understanding of science. As of March 2008, ScienceBlogs hosted around 70 blogs dedicated to various fields of research. Each blog has its own theme, specialty, and authors, and is not subject to editorial control. Authors are almost always scientists in industry, college professors, professional writers, graduate students, and post-docs.

BigThink

Billing itself as a public forum designed for interaction between users and scholars, BigThink has recorded thousands of hours of footage from interviews of numerous experts. This allows users to see what today’s leaders feel about broader issues, such as global warming and the two-party system. Users can respond to these ideas by posting their own videos or questions to experts, creating a conversation in the public sphere. It’s like YouTube for intellectuals.

Frontline

Originally an award-winning documentary program on public television, Frontline has expanded to include a deeply detailed website for each of its broadcasts. It publishes the full video of the show, extended interview transcripts, in-depth chronologies, original essays, sidebar stories, related links and readings, and source documents, including photographs and background research. Most videos are about an hour long, but some can be even lengthier. [previously]

The Long Now

Established in 1996, The Long Now Foundation is a private organization that seeks to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today’s “faster/cheaper” mindset by promoting “slower/better” thinking. To emphasize this, the group writes years using five digits instead of four: 02008 instead of 2008. Their seminars are available for free on their website or via podcast.

Obama’s proposed tax plan uses the progressive income tax, which basically means that the more you earn, the more you are taxed. This has been standard practice in the United States since 1913, and it is something that even Adam Smith, the godfather of the free-market economy, argued for. Obama will use it to give the middle class (those earning under $250k per year) a tax cut, while at the same time allowing the tax cut that President Bush gave the very wealthy to expire. So is that socialism? No.

Socialists believe that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of the population, creating huge inequalities. Thus, they advocate the establishment of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly. To do this, socialists argue for abolishing the free market and replacing it with state ownership and administration of the means of production.

It could be reasonably argued that Obama’s new tax proposal may “level the playing field” somewhat between the very rich and the poor, but that is not anywhere even close to the degree of equalization called for by actual socialists. And it’s not like the taxes paid by the rich will be funneled directly to the poor anyway. The increased tax revenue will go to fund things that everyone uses: schools, parks, hospitals, roads, and so on.

Obama will not set up a government agency to plan the economy. He will not nationalize industries or turn them over to the control of the workers. He will not require businesses to meet production targets. He will not outlaw profit. Obama only wants to regulate the market, not get rid of it. This is nothing more than regular Democratic liberalism, not socialism.

Don’t get me wrong, though; Obama’s policies will be far from perfect. But that being said, calling him a socialist does nothing more than display one’s breathtaking ignorance of simple definitions and pathetic susceptibility to fear-mongering catchphrases. So whether you agree with his plan or not, can we please move beyond childish name-calling?

Thank you.

Solved Mysteries

The Tail Section, Locke’s Legs, and The Smugglers

My theory that the tail section people were alive and on the island was correct. I was also close to the truth when I said that the island may have special healing powers, and that’s what made Locke able to walk again. I had no theory about the smugglers and their plane, but the explanation turned out to be rather mundane anyway.

New Mysteries

The Others

They obviously are not who they are pretending to be. Their costumes, the medical station, and Walt’s warning to Michael all seem to indicate a hidden level of sophistication. My first guess is that they have actually been on the island for a while and are connected with DHARMA in some fashion. Perhaps they are former employees? They could also be former experiment subjects who discovered their situation and rebelled.

Desmond and Penelope

When the listening station detected a “magnetic anomaly,” it was implied that Desmond caused it by blowing up the hatch with the fail-safe key. The dudes then called Penelope. I have no idea what this means, but it might get really interesting. After all, Penelope did say something like: “With enough money and determination, you can find anyone.” Maybe Desmond gets rescued somehow?

DHARMA

What exactly is the DHARMA Initiative? Are they trying to create some sort of engineered Utopian society on the island, or are they simply experimenting with the island’s powers? And who is Alvar Hanso, their mysterious founder?

“Good” People

“Henry” seems to know who is and who isn’t good, but what does “good” mean? Good enough to have a role in DHARMA’s utopia? My guess is that this has something to do with DHARMA and whatever they were trying to accomplish on the island.

The Four-Toed Statue

I saved this one for last because I am, as one of my friends likes to say, “knowledgeable”. I believe the statue is a reference to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias”. The essential theme of the poem is the fleeting nature of power and civilization, and how humanity and our arrogant institutions cannot withstand the passing of time. As such, I cannot help but hypothesize that a form of “civilization” was once attempted on the island, no doubt by DHARMA, but it ultimately failed in some sort of dramatic and/or violent way. So now the question becomes: were the Others on the island before DHARMA, or maybe some DHARMA people “defected” and became the Others?

Motifs

Rebirth / Reincarnation

Locke is the most obvious example of this. He has been “born again” with the use of his legs, and is no longer a slave to his bottled-up emotions like he used to be. Instead, he has now assumed a leadership role and is instrumental in the continued survival of the group. Shannon was also a good example. At first, she didn’t care about anything or anyone, but as time went by, she was “reborn” as an important member of the survivors. She helped Sayid translate Rousseau’s maps and even tried to chase Walt (or her hallucination of Walt) through the jungle.

Economic Systems

Jack often allocates scarce resources with a small group of leaders (the “A-team”). This exemplifies the economic philosophy of socialism. In such an economy, the state decides (for the benefit of the whole society) who gets what and when. That is, resources are doled out according to Jack, the leader, whose judgement is largely trusted by the survivors. Even his last name, “Shephard”, testifies to his leadership role. On the other hand, Sawyer represents a free-market capitalist. In his case, goods such as guns and medicine are privately owned and can be exchanged for a profit. Thus, he hoards and collects anything that could potentially be of a marginal value in some exchange. The problem with this approach is that, without a form of currency, the survivors are stuck with bartering, which has many problems.

But it finally happened, I succumbed. I started watching from the first episode, the pilot, about a week ago. I have since watched all of the first season. With that in mind, I think I might as well have some fun and put my theories, meek and uninformed though they may be, out there for the public record in case I’m right (or horribly, horribly wrong) later on. Of course, I could be cheating and looking all of this up online, but that wouldn’t be quite as fun, so you’ll just have to trust me.

Big Mysteries

The Island

It’s obvious that the island is “special” somehow, and that it isn’t just a regular island. Locke seems to understand this, and so he tends to personify the island a lot. On numerous occasions, he says that the island tells him things and gives him signs. Also, Locke explains Boone’s death as “a sacrifice the island demanded.” This is too weird to be unimportant, which leads me to think there’s something very odd about the island itself, and not just what happens on or around it.

The Black Rock

Apparently, TBR was a slave ship from Africa that was headed for a mining colony somewhere. But the survivors actually find it miles inland. I don’t buy Arzt’s “tidal wave” explanation, because he explodes himself right after he suggests it. In my mind, the wave would’ve demolished the ship anyhow. So maybe the ship actually did shipwreck on the island a long time ago, and volcanic activity had simply extended the shoreline. But that seems too simple. Maybe the ship was put there? I don’t know.

The Whispers

I’m not sure if the whispers and “the others” are a single phenomenon or not. I don’t think so, because Rousseau talks about “the others” as if they are people, but the whispers have an obvious supernatural quality to them. My best guess is that they’re a part of the security system, like the monster, but that’s just a guess. I could probably find clips of the whispers on YouTube and try to figure out what it is that they’re saying, but I’m not that into it.

Christian Shepard’s Body

What the hell happened to it?! And why is he appearing to Jack as a living person?! We’re made to think he is dead, but after all, Locke’s legs were healed. So somehow I think it will turn out that he is actually alive. The show hasn’t really referenced this a lot, so I don’t have very much to go on as of now.

The Monster

This is the weirdest thing about the show so far. It tears up trees and kills people, but we haven’t seen it yet, unless the black smoke thing that Jack and Kate saw was it, or at least a part of it. Rousseau said it was a security system that’s protecting something, and it makes mechanical noises too, which is just crazy. But even more of a mind-blower is Rose’s comment: “There was something familiar about it.” Whatever it is, it appears that the survivors can at least surprise it or hurt it with the dynamite.

The Numbers

They’re probably cursed or something, as Hurley seems to think. I don’t know what the deal is here, so anything I say is just a stab in the dark, but they could be some sort of code. That seems a bit too cliché though, so maybe they make up some sort of pattern that is about to become important?

The Tail Section

This is just obvious, so I’m gonna go ahead and call it right now: they are alive and on the island. After all, why would the show introduce us to Ana Lucia if she (and others?) were not going to be brought up later? Could these be the people that Rousseau calls “the others”? Also, when Boone tried to send out a distress call, someone replied and said that they were the survivors of Oceanic 815. That would dovetail with my hunch that some survivors from the back of the plane are on the island too.

Lesser Mysteries

Locke’s Legs

We still do not have an answer for why Locke is suddenly able to walk. Maybe the island has some sort of magical healing voodoo stuff going on, or maybe “a miracle happened”, as Locke seems to believe.

Adam and Eve

Who are they? People from TBR? People from a totally separate group that I don’t know about yet? They haven’t been referenced a lot except for the one episode where the survivors find the caves.

The Smugglers

I don’t know what the deal is here. They have heroin and a gun, so they’re smugglers, but why smuggle stuff to this island in the first place? Maybe they went off course too? As Sayid pointed out to Jack, the electromagnetic force on the island is all screwed up, so they could have crash landed.

Polar Bears

Why are polar bears on a tropical island? Was the island some sort of biological experiment by whoever made the hatch? Maybe Rousseau’s science team brought them, but I doubt that.

Walt

Brian said: “There’s something about him. Sometimes, when he’s around, things happen. He’s different somehow.” Also, it appears Walt could read Locke’s mind when Locke touched him, because Walt told him not to open the hatch despite the fact that he had no way of knowing about it. So we know that he’s “special” somehow, and that he is the one who “the others” were trying to kidnap all along, not Aaron. The significance of this is yet to be revealed.

The Cable

What kind of cable is this? Power? Communications of some sort? Where does in come from, some sort of underwater power station, or the mainland? And more importantly, where does it lead?

The Radio Tower

Rousseau mentioned that a radio tower was previously broadcasting the numbers, but she changed it to a distress call. Where is the tower and can they use it to be rescued?

The Psychic Dude

He told Claire that “danger surrounds” Aaron and gave her tickets to take Oceanic 815. Why? To sort of quarantine the baby on the island, far away from anyone? To kill Claire and the baby?

Motifs

Rebellion

Walt rebels against Michael, Kate rebels against the law, Jack rebels against his father, and so on and so forth. Rebellion against authority of all sorts seems play a large role in Lost. I’ll have to see where this goes in the upcoming seasons.

Duality

Locke teaches Walt about backgammon and makes a point of showing him that the pieces are white and black. Later, Jack finds two white and black rocks on the bodies of “Adam and Eve” in the cave. Also, the weather oscillates sharply from sunshine to rain at certain times. More noticeably, Locke’s philosophy about destiny and fate repeatedly clashes against Jack’s more scientific approach to situations. All of these incidents establish a subtext of duality that is hard not to notice.

The Request

The wording of the two requests was nearly identical. On Reddit though, you can only submit links and their anchor text. With no place for a broader description of my request, I followed the common Reddit convention of posting a comment on the link as soon as I submitted it, so users who saw the story could also see and read my comment. On AskMeFi, however, they provide a longer description section, so I posted almost the exact same text there:

First off, I’m not looking to be a complete d*ck and waste my potential question scolding him for his disgusting politics. I want to ask a legitimate, coherent question, because whether I like it or not he is an important political figure. Ideally, I’m looking for a simple query that will simultaneously be good enough that the Republicans in the crowd don’t immediately demand that I be tased, but also pointed enough to reveal his underhanded tactics, numerous scandals, etc.

Once the comments and suggestions started to roll in, it quickly became apparent which site was giving me a higher signal-to-noise ratio. (In online discussion forums, off-topic posts and spam are regarded as “noise” that interferes with the “signal” of appropriate discussion.)

The Results

On Reddit, I received several helpful suggestions, but a large majority of the comments (including the one with the most upvotes) were pathetically irrelevant. Out of the 93 comments my submission has now, the final score comes to 58 unhelpful comments and 14 helpful ones, with the remainder being essentially neutral. Of course, what constitutes a helpful comment and an unhelpful comment in this context is entirely subjective, but I think I’ve provided a reasonably accurate count.

Over on AskMeFi, however, I got exactly one unhelpful comment, with the remaining 24 comments being pertinent to the discussion in some way. In fact, I actually received quite a few suggestions that were very well thought-out and constructive.

The Analysis

The question now becomes: why did I get awesome results on one site, and pathetic results on the other? I believe the answer is that MetaFilter charges a one-time fee of $5 to actively participate on it’s website. Now, this idea isn’t exactly original, but I believe in can simplify Mr. Kelly’s theory a little.

He states that the main reason MetaFilter is devoid of spammers is that most such people are younger, and without access to PayPal and debit/credit cards. While this may be true, I think the real reason is much simpler: nobody wants to bother with a registration process that takes more than a minute or so.

On Reddit, anybody can create an account in less than 10 seconds. All you need to do is choose a name, a password, solve a CAPTCHA, and you’re done. You don’t even need an email address. And once you’re registered, you can submit links and comments immediately. Thus, there are effectively no real barriers keeping spammers and immature trolls out of the community.

MetaFilter, however, has a lengthier sign-up process. Indeed, you have to wait some time before you’re able to post to the front page or ask a question on AskMeFi. Of course, the nominal membership fee also helps weed out the unwanted trolls and idiots.

In sum, while sites like Digg and Reddit are probably more popular, they simply do not match MetaFilter in the amount of quality content and discussion produced per day. If you’re at all interested in joining a first-class Internet community, I would consider signing up for a MeFi account. It’s completely worth it.

Almost No Bias

BBC News
Large U.S. news networks, and I say this in all honesty, are sensationalist, distort facts, and in the words of a famous man, are hurting America. The BBC, on the other hand, is legally required to present neutral, balanced coverage, and gets into trouble with the U.K. government if it doesn’t.

C-SPAN
This is probably one of the better sources out there, as there is little time devoted to news analysis, and as such little opportunity for political slanting to sneak in. Their TV channel always has live coverage of important events and speeches, which they also upload to their YouTube account.

NPR
With a multitude of radio shows focused on currents events and issues, NPR is the perfect source for campaign coverage, even after you go blind from eyestrain! All of their programs are available in podcast form as well. You can find your closest NPR member station here.

Slightly Biased

The New York Times
Although some people see a slight liberal bias in the Times, it still makes for an amazing news source, simply because the amount of talent it has on staff is unparalleled. And since they stopped charging for online access last year, you can now read anything you want all the way back to 1987.

The Wall Street Journal
Primarily covering business and financial news, the Journal is traditionally seen as conservative, and states it is in favor of “free markets and free people.” Having been acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp last year, some anticipate it slanting more toward the right in the future.

Others

FactCheck.org
A nonprofit, nonpartisan website that monitors political ads, debates, speeches, etc. for false or misleading information, and then rebuts it with the truth. Their stated goal is to “reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics,” and they’re doing an awesome job.

Memeorandum
A political blog aggregation website that auto-generates a news summary every 5 minutes. It draws on a wide variety of sources, from media professionals to amateur bloggers, so be on the lookout for spin once you click off the site. Also features a “news river” for up-to-the-minute information.

Eat your hearts out, news junkies!