#Cosmos and the commercialism of #NDGT

I blogged earlier this week about how I stacked up Neil deGrasse Tyson's remake of Cosmos on Fox vs. Neil Shubin's documentary version of Your Inner Fish on PBS, both on production quality and, related to a specific issue, how much each show actually challenged creationists and creationism.

Now, I'm jumping head-on into controversy, per the photo at right of a Cosmos-themed telescope with a ripoff price, along with other similar items offered for outrageous overcharges at Space.com.

I said then that, assuming he's getting a cut, this makes it look like Tyson has entered the world of Brian Dunning marketing. And now, I'm going to head into that in more detail.

For professional or semi-professional "scientific skeptics," or "movement skeptics," or whatever handle we and they use, Shubin isn't one of "us/them" (I'm not an "us" myself) in the same way Tyson is. Such tribalism can lead such folks to hype Tyson. And, to crack open their wallets to pay overcharges for stuff like this. And, yes, overcharges indeed.

I mean, somebody affiliated with the new Cosmos is getting a cut of the sales money, right? That's official trademark and branding on all of this swag.

Yours for just $15!

Some movement skeptics, many of them with a bit of upset, or more, reacted negatively when I first blogged about that Brian Dunning marketing as part of saying that it wasn't a sad day to me. So, some of the Tyson tribalists know how I feel about Dunning.

That would include how I feel about Dunning selling that swag, like what's pictured!

At highly inflated prices, like $27.95 for a T-shirt. Sounds like a guru selling to his cultic followers. Or $15 for the aptly titled rubber stamp; more on it below.

The principle of a man with a sharp eye for a sharp product, whether through "raking" with groupies on his own stuff or defrauding other affiliates with eBay, still stands.

I think that's part of why Tyson went Fox rather than PBS. Oh, a year from now, I may be able, with suitable donation, to get the set of Fish DVDs from PBS. However, it won't be an arm and a leg for overpriced stuff. Crap like a telescope with WiFi only increases my already high level of disdain for Space.com, too. Also, I can get another Celestron 90mm telescope on Amazon for almost $200 bucks less, even after Space.com's discount. I can buy 8x25 binoculars for less than half of Space.com's price even after its fire sale discount. (And, those discounts make me wonder if tribalism has not only failed to translate in ratings as well as Fox hoped, but has been a disappointment in swag, contra Space.com — and Tyson? — hopes.) Note: None of this is even close to an endorsement of Amazon.

Anyway, methinks that such branding opportunities would be better with the hope of additional eyeballs watching on a commercial network than on PBS.

Now, I don't think Tyson is Brian Dunning, as in, he's not stuffing cookies on people's computers in an Internet-era version of wire fraud. But, he's certainly eyeballing the main chance on money, isn't he?

For that matter, since production is by the studio of Ann Druyan, the widow of original Cosmos creator Carl Sagan there may be other people with their eyeballs on cash. And, it's moving elsewhere. A humanists/skeptics convention in Omaha is charging $45/per person general admission for people to hear Tyson in September. For just a cool $1,000, you can get into a VIP dinner with him. No, really.

Grantland touches further on the degree of Druyan's involvement, as well as that of both Tyson and co-executive producer Seth MacFarlane. As for who's making how much, teh Google still doesn't have a direct answer for me.

Dan Patrick, ladder-puller

There's plenty of Republicans who, uncannily, have pulled the ladder up after themselves after getting some sort of government-related assistance.

At the national level, there's of course Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas benefiting from affirmative action then wanting to end most of it. There's several GOP congressmen going to college on Social Security survivor benefits when a parent died, then wanting to privatize Social Security.

At the state level, there's attorney general and gubernatorial nominee Greg Abbott, getting a massive lawsuit settlement over the falling tree that paralyzed him, then preaching the gospel of tort reform.

And, there's Dan Patrick, filing for bankruptcy with his radio station years ago, wanting bankruptcy's "protection." A protection he surely won't extend to most people today.

As the Dallas Morning News reports, that's just part of Patrick's past business and business ethics problems. That's bad enough, but par for the course on modern Republicanism, as noted above.

It also appears that, based on the people who gave him money for the radio station takeover, that he engaged in at least the moral equivalent of money laundering.

Don't you love GOP politicians who talk about bringing a business mentality to government You know, like George W. Bush wrecking half a dozen companies before getting elected as governor then "MBA president." 

Anyway, that's secondary to reading about Patrick's financial shenanigans. The News has a good, thorough piece, serious enough it put two reporters on it. Serious enough that Patrick would respond only by written statement. And, that's probably a good reason not to believe anything he says beyond the narrowly tailored confines of his written statement.

Unfortunately, none of this is likely to make a difference in either the primary or general elections. Which will give us top GOP leadership even more heartless than Rick Perry and David Dewhurst. And the problem lies with the average GOP voter continuing to vote for people who act like their "betters," who perpetuate the idea of being a distinct social class even while claiming America is a classless society.

The jobless recovery is now a job-loser

Of course, Team Obama is touting the plus side of today's news, that the unemployment rate is down to 6.3 percent. The down side, of course, he'll ignore.

And, that's that 800,000 new people who left the work force. Per this NYT blog, as far as people in the workforce, we as a country have given up all the labor participation gains made since the start of this year.

Well, maybe that's not the down side.

Maybe it's that wages stayed flat, even with declining unemployment AND fewer workers in the job force.

Or maybe it's that wages stayed flat and people left the economy even as Wall Street set new records.

Much more than than the relatively mild Poppy Bush recession or the moderate Shrub Bush recession, even more than the Carter-Reagan double dip recession, the Great Recession's recovery is hollow indeed.

Now, monthly unemployment numbers are always subject to revision. But these are serious issues that "revision" won't totally cover up.

Add to that the fact that unemployment filings also jumped, and the drop in unemployment rate is obviously camouflaging a lot of ongoing weakness.

And, just figuring out "why" is only one step. Related to that, Gallup says this is part of a larger mixed bag, albeit with generally slightly declining trends.

Whether Dear Leader actually gets his hands dirty on trying to change that "why" is another. Ditto on the Federal Reserve doing anything besides further phasing back on its "quantitative easing."

Is #ERCOT run by climate change denialists?

ERCOT, for those who don't know, is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ultimately responsible for making sure the state doesn't have blackouts in summer (or occasionally during a hard cold snap in winter).

Well, the good folks at ERCOT, who have already said "don't worry" about possible fallout from the EFH/Luminant bankruptcy, now say, don't worry about this summer, saying the overseers expect about average temperatures.

Really? I've emailed asking whose forecasts they're using, because, per the nice big one at left from our friendly National Weather Service, ERCOT is full of shite.

Here's ERCOT:

New power plants coming online by August and a milder summer forecast for parts of Texas has officials at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas predicting that the state’s electricity reserves will be adequate for the hot months ahead. ...

“The outlook improves significantly by August, when we typically experience the highest system peaks of the year,” said Warren Lasher, ERCOT’s director of System Planning. “We may need to ask consumers to reduce electric use if we experience extremely hot weather or widespread unit outages during the early summer months.”

The top map is for June-August. As you can see, there's a 40-percent chance of above normal temperatures.

The map immediately at left is for August-October. It still has the populous portion of the state with a 33 percent chance of above-normal temperature, enough to still fall into an official shaded area. Maybe it improves moderately, but not significantly. (That said, the May-July one is worse than the June-August one, even.)

So, are you going to believe an oversight agency that's been wrong in the past, wrong enough that in early 2011, Texas had to import power from Mexico in winter, or are you going to believe the National Weather Service?

ERCOT asks us to believe it, and an in-house meteorologist instead. No thanks. Especially not since the NWS forecast maps were available two weeks ago. Besides, are we talking about today's normal, or what was normal/average 70 years ago, pre-climate change, and with less measurement history?

That also ignores other issues. With no more than average rain expected, plus a good chance of above-average temperatures, Texas drought is going to continue. That means more water usage for other things — water that's usually pumped from one place to another by electricity.

Things may not be disastrous, but I'd be less sanguine than ERCOT, were I ERCOT.

If not run by climate change denialists, at least, it appears to be run by PR doctors.

And, if ERCOT isn't run by denialists, TCEQ sure is, as Jim Mitchell notes.

Minimum wage, $10.10, $15, homelessness and other issues

As the Senate, just in time for May Day, gave President Obama a rejection on bumping the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, and Seattle activists continue to push for $15 an hour there, there are several other related issues.

First, a brief look at both measures.

The federal bill was decent overall. Beyond the actual rise, the 30-month phase in was long enough. And, hiking restaurant servers' minimum, at tipping restaurants, to 70 percent of the regular minimum, is good too. The biggest weakness is not indexing the minimum wage.

The Seattle bill? Socialist activist Kshama Sawant seems to be overreaching. Yes, Seattle is more expensive than the Midwest, but it's not that expensive. And, not including tips as part of that, so there's no separate minimum for servers? Yes, it probably would hurt a fair amount of restaurants. Fake protests aside, there's real concerns too.

And, not every other claim by the pro-$15 side in Seattle totally rings true, either. The biggest is linking the minimum wage hike with homelessness.

Well, social services type folks have generally split the homeless into three groups, with two of them often having some degree of overlap.

The first is those who have some sort of financial mishap. Would a higher minimum wage help them? Maybe, maybe not. Personal bankruptcies leading to homelessness are caused by medical cost burdens more than any other single cause. A higher minimum wage, at the Seattle level, is very likely going to lead to cuts in health care. Workers would have to pay a lot more out of pocket for private plans or else lose private coverage entirely. Beyond medical debt, a number of other financial issues can drive people into either short-term or long-term homelessness.  Right now, housing foreclosure is probably No. 2, especially for older people not working full-time. A higher minimum wage might help that, or it might lead to such people having their hours cut, if the hike is too high. Anyway, it's simplistic at best to connect a higher minimum wage to helping this roughly one-third of the homeless.

Yes, remember, I mentioned that homeless can be divided into three groups. While exact numbers fluctuate, they're roughly equal.

The second third? The mentally ill on our streets. A higher minimum wage won't help them. 

Better insurance may, in some cases. In many cases, though? Only a partial reversal of late-1960s libertarianism on de-institutionalizing some mentally ill may reach them. Short of that, there's not much you, I or society can do for schizophrenics who forget to, or simply refuse to, regularly take their medications. A higher minimum wage has nothing to do with that.

The third group, which overlaps somewhat with the second? Addicts and alcoholics. Again, a higher minimum wage will do nothing to help them.

Homelessness? Would be nice if the solution were so easy.

And, I think at least a few people in Sawant's camp know it's not so simple. Call me back in five years to see how well Obamacare has addressed the insurance-related issue, and also to see if Seattle, or San Francisco, or similar cities, or various states, have addressed how to get the mentally ill on the streets to be medication-compliant and, if necessary, in shelters focused on the mentally ill. Ditto for harm reduction measures for addicts/alcoholics, short of "open use" shelters. I'm divided on the issue of letting addicts or alcoholics have anything on site in a shelter. If they are allowed that, IMO, it should only be under supervision, with supplies kept by the manager. Open, individualized addictive drug or alcohol use shouldn't be allowed in shelters, though. And, without wanting to sound too much like a 12-Stepper talking about people "hitting bottom," however you phrase it, many of the non-mentally ill addicts and alcoholics, even if homeless, aren't (yet?) ready to quit.

And, with their mild climates and drug-friendly stereotypes, Seattle and San Francisco probably attract a fair number of out-of-area addicts/alcoholics. I'll bet Vancouver, B.C., does too.

Homelessness is also affected by housing costs, which in turn are affected by other issues. The same moderate climate that may draw homeless people, when mixed with scenic views, draws people to move there in general and raises housing costs. Is rent control part of the solution? Public housing which targets a wider income range than current, usually stereotyped, public housing? 

So, minimum wage advocates? I agree with the goal, in broad outlines. But, stick to the minimum wage.

That said, I suspect this is advice for deaf ears in Seattle. Seattle, home of the "black bloc" in the 1998 WTO meetings protests. Seattle, just across the border from Vancouver, home to Adbusters, friendly to such ideas. I'm not saying Sawant and the people in her corner are that confrontationalist; however, some degree of "overlap" wouldn't surprise me at all.

My ideal? $10.10, with no subminimum for restaurant servers. Restaurants can then decide whether to keep tipping as a policy or not. Oh, and index the minimum to inflation, please? Seattle's mayor's plan, to hit $15, but with a seven-year phase-in, isn't quite as bad as Sawant's. Still a bit stiff. If Seattle wants to stay ahead of the nation, maybe $12/hour with a six-year roll-in?

#Creationists, critters and #Cosmos — Fox vs. PBS

Not that I'm bothering to track down links to individual stories, but, per a number of online friends of mine, creationists, especially young-earth creationists  have been all atwitter about Neil deGrasse Tyson's remake of Cosmos on Fox. (Yes, there are old-earth creationists, too, who don't take Genesis 1-2 literally, but who don't generally accept the neo-Darwinian synthesis; one is named Pat Robertson.)

Well, Fox the broadcast network, as opposed to Faux News the stream of blather doesn't necessarily track conservative. Wouldn't shows like "The Simpsons" and "Married with Children" have gotten more wingnut blather, otherwise.

It's interesting, though, that PBS' recent three-part presentation of a film version of Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish" has apparently gotten less atwitterness.

There's a couple of possible reasons, I guess.

One is that PBS doesn't have Fox-like marketing department money, so this didn't hit the YEC world's collective dashboard, outside of professional agitators such as Discovery Institute.

Another is that, for professional or semi-professional "scientific skeptics," or "movement skeptics," or whatever handle we and they use, Shubin isn't one of "us/them" (I'm not an "us" myself) in the same way Tyson is. In short, tribalism has led such folks to notice YEC umbrage at Cosmos more than at Fish. And, to shove it back in YECers' collective faces.

In reality?

Given that OECers as well as YECers are hung up on evolution by natural selection, Fish was/is a much bigger time bomb.

It was also much better produced.

Take Cosmos week before this. The first half of the episode was pretty good, about trying to date earth and rock formations by geologic strata. Then, when it was realized that wasn't perfect, on we moved to uranium-lead radioactive dating.

However, Tyson then threw a curveball. Just before one of the many usual, long commercial breaks, he said that U-Pb chemist Clair Cameron Patterson wanted to tell his mom about his discovery and nailing down of this method before anybody else, but that he was about to land in big trouble.

I figured, after the break, that we learn his mom is a YEC who disowns him.

Not even close.

Tyson moves on to tetraethyl lead in gasoline. "Nice," but not much more. The issue of lead poisoning from our pre-1980s gasoline has been thoroughly covered in the past few years. Waste of half an hour for Tyson to do this.

Instead, he should have first given a hat tip to Marie Curie's work on radioactivity. He then could have gone to C14 dating for earlier events in our history, while noting its limitations. From there, he could have gone to strata, then uranium-lead dating, and briefly touched on other radiometric systems like potassium-argon that are used on certain rocks, and why other radiometric dating systems are used in certain cases. He could have wrapped up with an overview of how star and galaxy types, and finally, cosmic background radiation, are used to date the universe.

It would put his whole "calendar" schtick into one program and given a lead-in to this week's episode about stellar evolution and star types.

But, he didn't. That's how poorly produced Cosmos is. Not to mention cheesily produced.

Fish? Well done. One episode each on our inner fish, our inner reptile and our inner primate. Animation, when used, was of better quality and uniform design.

And, as far as something that should have both YEC and OEC folks gagging? It's Fish, more than Cosmos. With the three episodes, Shubin simple nailed how our evolutionary history, hundreds of millions of years of it, is present in our current human bodies.

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Coming soon: Cosmos and commercialism.