From former labor secretary Robert Reich's blog:

Hillary Clinton Doesn't Listen to Economists

When asked this morning by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists.”

I know several of the economists who have been advising Senator Clinton, so I phoned them right after I heard this. I reached two of them. One hadn’t heard her remark and said he couldn’t believe she’d say it. The other had heard it and shrugged it off as “politics as usual.”

That’s the problem: Politics as usual.

Depressing.

(Via Fred Clark)

Yesterday, I explained why I'm supporting Barack Obama for president. Well, Patrick Nielsen Hayden endorses Obama for the same reasons, but he expresses his thinking more eloquently and in more detail:

I’m for Obama knowing perfectly well that, as Bill Clinton suggested, it’s a “roll of the dice”. A roll of the dice for Democrats, for progressives, for those of us who’ve fought so hard against the right-wing frames that Obama sometimes (sometimes craftily, sometimes naively) deploys. Because I think a Hillary Clinton candidacy will be another game of inches, yielding—at best—another four or eight years of knifework in the dark. Because I think an Obama candidacy might actually shake up the whole gameboard, energize good people, create room and space for real change.

Because he seems to know something extraordinarily important, something so frequently missing from progressive politics in this country, in this time: how to hearten people. Because when I watch him speak, I see fearful people becoming brave.

That’s not enough. But it’s something. It’s a real something. It’s a start.

(Via John Scalzi)

This morning, I was reading a little blog post on fear, hope and love as the "three marketing levers". Nothing astounding in the post, but it got me thinking about the 2008 presidential campaign. Katie has decided to back Hillary Clinton, and I'm going for Obama (not that it really matters, since the matter will be settled before our state's primary).

Katie's reasons for supporting Hillary are fear-based: she wants someone who is tough and experienced who is able to stand up to the shitheads in Washington. (She also backs Hillary because she is a woman. Not sure where that falls into these three oversimplified categories. Brand [gender] loyalty, maybe, which falls into the love category)

I've decided to back Obama out of hope. I desperately want to see some fresh air in Washington. I have no idea whether Obama can deliver, or whether he'll just be trampled by the shitheads in Washington, but I'm hopeful.

(Note: each of us seems to be directly buying the primary marketing quality of the respective candidate)

Not much I can add here:

WASHINGTON - When a team of FBI agents lands in Baghdad this week to probe Blackwater security contractors for murder, it will be protected by bodyguards from the very same firm, the Daily News has learned.

Half a dozen FBI criminal investigators based in Washington are scheduled to travel to Iraq to gather evidence and interview witnesses about a Sept. 16 shooting spree that left at least 11 Iraqi civilians dead.

The agents plan to interview witnesses within the relative safety of the fortified Green Zone, but they will be transported outside the compound by Blackwater armored convoys, a source briefed on the FBI mission said.

"What happens when the FBI team decides to go visit the crime scene? Blackwater is going to have to take them there," the senior U.S. official told The News.

According to Reuters,

Iraq has emerged as the world's second most unstable country, behind Sudan, more than four years afterPresident George W. Bush ordered the U.S. invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, according to a survey released on Monday.

The 2007 Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, said Iraq suffered a third straight year of deterioration in 2006 with diminished results across a range of social, economic, political and military indicators. Iraq ranked fourth last year.

I'm a little late on posting this, but security expert Bruce Schneier tells it like it is:

Terrorism is a real threat, and one that needs to be addressed by appropriate means. But allowing ourselves to be terrorized by wannabe terrorists and unrealistic plots -- and worse, allowing our essential freedoms to be lost by using them as an excuse -- is wrong.

Remember, folks, terrorism is in the eye of the beholder. Don't be scared of something that, statistically speiaking, barely even makes the list of things likely to hurt or kill you.

This just makes my head hurt. Get the whole story from Pam's House Blend.

via Slacktivist

So, a Vietnam war veteran decides to give his Purple Heart to President Bush:

Thomas said he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chief has withstood during his time in office.

"We feel like emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds," Thomas said.

OK, it's a free country. Whatever. The surreal thing is that President Bush invited Mr. Thomas to the White House to present him the medal.

Mr. Thomas' remark after the ceremony: "He said he didn't feel like he had earned it."

Gee, ya think?

President Bush has nominated Sam Fox, who donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans in 2004, for an ambassador post, and of course, he has to be approved by the senate. John Kerry questions him about his donation. A summary:

Fox starts off by stating that 527 organizations are wrong:

[L]et me just say this: I'm against 527s, I've always been against 527s. I think, again, they're mean and destructive, I think they've hurt a lot of good, decent people.

He knows what's coming, because he immediately, and without specific prompting, tries to butter up Kerry:

And, Senator Kerry, I very much respect your dedicated service to this country. I know that you were not drafted -- you volunteered. You went to Vietnam. You were wounded. Highly decorated. Senator, you're a hero. And there isn’t anybody or anything that's going to take that away from you.

So, Kerry asks him why the hell he donated $50,000 to one of the meanest 527 organizations of the time. He expounds at length on two weasel reasons.

Excuse #1: He gives to so many organizations, he can't keep track of them all:

I do not know who asked me. If you were to take my 1,000 contributions and go right down the list, I bet you I couldn’t give you five percent of them… Of who asked me.

Senator, if I had reason to believe and if I were convinced that the money was going to be used to, in any untruthful or false way, knowingly, I would not give.

Excuse #2: This is my favorite. Since the other side was funding smear campaigns via 527s, his side could not afford not to:

All of the 527s were smearing lies...I think if one side is giving then the other side almost has to and I think that the real responsibility should rest with the Congress to either ban 527s or to certainly curtail and regulate them. That's the problem.

Kerry goes on to justifiably rip Fox a new one. Remember, someone with these kinds of morals is being appointed as representative of our country.

Now that we have a Democratic majority in Congress again, I'm glad to see that the issue of health care is back in the news. President Bush has decided to propose addressing the unequal health care in this country via the tax code: his proposal would provide a tax deduction for people who buy individual health insurance, and tax 'high end' corporate health coverage. It's that second part that is controversial.

I've long held that it would not be possible to bring everyone in the U.S. up to the high standard of health care that some enjoy thanks to generous corporate benefits. But nobody wants to reduce their current level of health care.

Though I'm not sure what I think about the means he's chosen, I do think Bush's intention with his tax on high end benefits is to help the recipients of those benefits realize how good they have it, and, in some small way, to get them to reduce their level of health care.

Or, it could just be an excuse for big companies to lower the amount they spend on employee health insurance.

Fred Clark's blog post A Surge of 'More' is, to my mind, a brilliant insight into the mind of people who still support President Bush and his actions with regard to Iraq. Go read it.

I live in suburban Austin, Texas--a long way from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the days and months after that date, it made me really angry whenever I heard someone state that "Everything is different now" or "Things will never be the same again." My anger was due to my belief that for pretty much everyone in America--save, perhaps, some in NYC or Washington--things were, in fact, very much the same. We'll be freaked out for a while, but then life will go on pretty much like it was before. And I felt that life should go on like before, as most Americans' chances of being directly affected by another possible attack were slim at best.

Fred Clark recently linked to a blog post by Athenae that offers an explanation for these declarations that irritated me so much. Athenae writes:

An awful lot of people, good people, nice people, people living what you'd call normal lives, are just sort of ambling around trying to figure out what the fuck they're doing here. They have jobs they hate and families that drive them nuts and leisure time that feels more like work than work does, what with travel indignities and the rush and bustle of theme parks. They're miserable in a low-level kind of way, quiet desperation and all, and church isn't doing it for them, and drugs are too destructive, and most of them aren't living the lives they wanted to live. Not at all.

...

And so, when George W. Bush came along and made a good speech, . . . they jumped on the bandwagon because really, any bandwagon would have done. It had nothing to do with George Bush and nothing really to do with Sept. 11. It had everything to do with a hunger in suburbia for the kind of purpose their parents had as young people in the 1960s, the kind of purpose America had when it was led by real men and not hucksters and thieves. The kind of purpose World War II necessitated . . . and the civil rights movement engendered, back when the people writing editorials today sincerely believed they could change the world.

I'd like to think that I'm just smarter than the masses, but if nothing else, I have a strong aversion to mindlessly pledging allegiance. It angered me that so many were declaring common cause where, to my mind, none existed.

Over at Making Light, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden has a long post about the Bush administration's poor showing in New Orleans a year after Katrina. This is my favorite part of this excellent post:

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "The president has set the federal government on the course to fulfill its obligations." You know the guy in the meeting who, when asked to report on the progress he's made on his part of the project, says "I've made some preliminary phone calls"? You know how that actually means he hasn't done a damned thing since the previous meeting? "Setting the federal government on the course to fulfill its obligations" is just like that.

I think this guy used to work with me! Ha!

I finally designed a replacement bumer sticker for my passé "Compassionate Liberal":

They are available for public purchase at Cafepress.com (and I didn't add any markup, so I don't make anything off of purchases).

From Kung Fu Monkey:

FDR: Oh, I'm sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we're coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How's that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We'll be in the pub, flipping you off. I'm slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I'm sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

US. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike ... NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!

According to the Wall Street Journal, some companies rushed to grant stock options to executives in the days after the September 11 attacks. The company's stock price had fallen after the attacks and the options were pegged to the current stock price. When the stocks recovered, the executives would profit. Just slimy.

Over at The American Prospect's blog, Ezra Klein takes a closer look at U.S. economy growth. In 2004, the economy grew by a respectable 2.4%, but real income growth was as follows:

• Richest 1%: 12.5%
• Everyone else: 1.5%

Klein observes:

In fact, it's no longer just the middle class and the poor who're falling behind. The distribution has grown so uneven that the 95th percentile is making meager headway -- even the merely rich are falling behind. It's the richest of the rich making headway. But they now account for so much wealth and holdings that their acceleration can effortlessly outweigh everyone else's deterioration. Add in that the reliable income growth conveyors of yesterday, like education and hours worked, no longer heavily correlate with income increases (earnings dropped for college graduates in 2004) and you've got a real problem on your hands...

Apparently, this list of reasons why America actually sucks is making the rounds on the internet. I'm the first to question unbridled 'America is Number One!' jingoism, but I'm highly suspicious of this list for several reasons:

1. It was created to prove a point, so the data is necessarily selective
2. The sort of short bullet points that the list employs is subject to gross oversimplification
3. Many of the points in the list are not given comparative to other countries (e.g., "Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training" So, how does that compare globally?)
4. I frankly question the veracity or quality of some of the data (e.g., "Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time." I recall seeing a chart of average work hours, and South Korea led every other country by several hundred hours. Apparently, the South Koreans have some really bizarre ideas about the average work week)

I would really like to see someone pick apart the list. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or inclination.

In a nice essay in Time Magazine, Andrew Sullivan argues that we should not let the politicized Christian right co-opt the term 'Christian,' as their belief in the intermingling of politics and religion reflects neither the true message of Christ nor the beliefs of most Christians. Instead, he coins a new term for them--'Christianist'--defined as follows:

Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

In a short report (audio only) this morning about the high cost of gasoline, the KUT reporter interviewed a UT economics professor who estimates that the instability and uncertainty caused by the war in Iraq accounts for about $7-10 of the rise in the cost of a barrel of oil.

So, the American taxpayers aren't the only ones paying for the war. Oil consumers the world over are paying the price as well.

As I've expressed before, I'm skeptical of the current craze for hybrid cars. As I understand it, they were initially developed for their low emissions; better gas mileage was a bonus. But now, a lot of people are buying them for their general 'green' fuzzy feelgood value.

This New York Times editorial confirms my suspicions regarding some people's relatively unconsidered reasons for buying hybrids:

Lately, people have been calling me and telling me they're thinking about buying the Lexus 400H, a new hybrid SUV. When I tell them that they'd get better mileage in some conventional SUVs, and even better mileage with a passenger car, they protest, "But it's a hybrid!" I remind them that the 21 miles per gallon I saw while driving the Lexus 400H is not particularly brilliant, efficiency-wise - hybrid or not. Because the Lexus is a relatively heavy car and because its electric motor is deployed to provide speed more than efficiency, it will never be a mileage champ.

The article also offers some useful advice on when a hybrid is and isn't a good choice. For example:

Indeed, [with highway driving] the [Prius'] gasoline engine worked so hard that we calculated we might have used less fuel on our journey if we had been driving Toyota's conventionally powered, similarly sized Corolla - which costs thousands less.

The article concludes with a warning about the government's current penchant for supporting hybrid purchases:

So the ideal hybrid car is one that is used in town and carefully disposed of at the end of its days. Hybrid taxis and buses make enormous sense. But the market knows no such distinctions. People think they want hybrids and they'll buy them, even if a conventional car would make more sense. The danger is that the automakers will co- opt the hybrids' green mantle and, with the help of a government looking to bail out its troubled friends in Detroit, misguidedly encourage the sale of hybrids without reference to their actual effect on oil consumption.

Pro-hybrid laws and incentives sound nice, but they might just end up subsidizing companies that have failed to develop truly fuel-efficient vehicles at the expense of those that have had the foresight to design their cars right in the first place. And they may actually punish citizens who save fuel the old- fashioned way - by using less of it, with smaller, lighter and more efficient cars. All the while, they'll make a mockery of a potentially useful technology.

So, I'm definitely going to hold onto my eight-year-old Corolla. She's homely but she gets the job done quite efficiently.

As a firm believer in progressive taxation, I find this article really disheartening. The heart of the matter:

A decade ago, when publishing magnate Steve Forbes ran for president, he vowed to deliver a new era of prosperity with just a simple change in the federal income tax: Instead of people with more money paying higher rates, all would pay the same "flat" tax rate -- unleashing "the fantastic growth waiting to burst forth in our economy."

Forbes' "flat tax" plan was dismissed as simplistic by many mainstream economists and viewed with horror by the legions of special interests that benefit from all the deductions and loopholes that flat tax advocates would eliminate.

But this weekend, as millions of Americans faced the perennial deadline for filing their federal tax returns, most of them were operating in something very close to the world Forbes and other flat-tax visionaries proposed. Without any fanfare or philosophical debate, millionaires and middle-class Americans now pay taxes at almost the same rates.*

In addition to outlining briefly the history of U.S. federal taxation and explaining how we've gone from sharply progressive taxation to the current situation, the article asks the most important question: What have we gained from this change?

Advocates of the flat tax have long argued that it would stimulate economic activity and thus ultimately benefit everyone. Bush shares that view, though he has not officially advocated a flat tax.

And in recent years lower tax rates do seem to have contributed to healthy economic growth. The economy has been producing goods and services at a rising pace since the end of the 2001 recession. Unemployment is a low 4.7 percent.

But the health of the economy as a whole has not translated into gains for most workers. Because of global competition, the decline of manufacturing, weaker labor unions, immigration and other factors, most workers have not been able to obtain higher pay.

Instead, "flatter" income tax rates have contributed to an economic landscape that David Kelly, economic adviser to Putnam Investments, likens to an hourglass. Some from the traditional middle class are rising into the top, while others are being squeezed out into the bottom.

Average family net worth has continued to grow, in large part because of rising home prices, but at a rate that sagged from 29 percent between 1998 and 2001 down to 6 percent between 2001 and 2004. And for most Americans, whatever nominal pay increases they got in the last three years were more than offset by higher costs of things such as health care.

Meantime, the disparity between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else has grown.

Okay, so that bit is not a direct cause and effect analysis, but the general gist is that this flattening of effective taxation rates has been one contributing factor to the trend of the rich getting richer of the last few years.

* The article mentions income tax, dividend taxation, and social security and medicare taxes, but it's a little too general on the details for me. I'd like to see a more detailed breakdown on the types of taxes paid by each income group.

These study results are really interesting:

In the 1960s Jack Block . . . began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality . . . A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

. . .

In a society that values self-confidence and out-goingness, it's a mostly flattering picture for liberals. It also runs contrary to the American stereotype of wimpy liberals and strong conservatives.

(via Follow Me Here)

I haven't followed the news too closely about the uproar regarding the sale of B&O to a Dubai-based company, but I think this Salon commentary is right on: this is a non-issue and it's embarrassing that the Democrats are trying to gain political mileage from it.

Garret Vreeland was contracted to photograph a speech and book signing by Paul Bremer. In his blog, Garret offers some thoughts about the experience: on politics, Mr. Bremer's public demeanor, etc. Nothing earth-shattering. Just a nice smattering of musings.

My hero Jimmy Carter took some swipes at President Bush at the funeral of Coretta Scott King:

In an apparent swipe at the domestic eavesdropping programme authorised by Mr Bush as part of the war against terror, Mr Carter recalled how Mrs King and her husband had been the targets of secret government wiretapping.

"It was difficult for them personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance," he said.

Mr Carter also referred to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as evidence that the struggle for civil rights was not complete. "We only have to recall the colour of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who are most devastated by Katrina to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans," he said.

There was some discussion over on MetaFilter about whether this was the appropriate forum for such criticisms, and I have to agree with those MeFites who think that these comments were not only appropriate but a tribute to what Mr. and Mrs. King stand for. For instance:

MLK and Coretta were all about telling the truth to power. MLK paid the ultimate price for doing so. I think Coretta would have been absolutely thrilled that Carter stood up and spoke strongly for civil rights at her funeral. Her entire life was devoted to criticizing the establishment and pushing it to do better. For this woman, in this time and place, what better possible way could there be to say goodbye?

Here's a great analogy from Fred Clark, a.k.a. Slacktivist:

I might be less skeptical of the Bush administration's claim to be planning to cut the federal deficit in half over the next five (now four) years if they produced even the hint of something resembling a plan or an explanation of how they intend to do this.

It doesn't help their credibility on this point that they're also playing "Mom, I'm pregnant" every year with their deficit projections.

My friend Michelle got a tattoo, a modest, but conspicuous little dolphin on her ankle. This was bound to freak out her mom. So before showing her mom the ink, she told her she was pregnant. After letting her really freak out over that for a bit, she said, "Relax, mom, I'm not pregnant. I just got a tattoo and I didn't want you to blow this out of proportion."

No offense to Michelle, but this is a pretty dishonest trick. In her defense, she only did it once. The Bush administration has done this same thing year after year.

They project record-shattering deficits of half a trillion dollars or so, so that later, when the merely record-breaking figure of around $400 billion comes out they can claim that they've actually reduced the deficit from their previous, Mom-I'm-pregnant projection.

So, everyone wants to know what Samuel Alito really thinks about issues like abortion. Gosh, how refreshing it would be for him (or any other SCOTUS nominee) just to say: "Well, personally, I have X option of Y subject, but my personal opinion has no bearing on my job as judge." Instead, we get this elaborate dance. Why can't people accept that an individual could have one personal opinion and a different professional opinion?

It looks like Karl Rove has started framing the discourse for the mid-term elections. Regarding the issue of the Iraq war, an AP article reported:

Without specifically mentioning Democrats, the president urged politicians to ''conduct this debate responsibly.''

He said he welcomed ''honest critics,'' but he termed irresponsible ''partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil or because of Israel or because we misled the American people,'' as well as ''defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.''

With that description, Bush lumped the many Democrats who have accused him of twisting prewar intelligence with the few people, mostly outside the mainstream, who have raised issues of oil and Israel.

Bush argued that irresponsible discussion harms the morale of troops overseas, emboldens insurgents and sets a bad example for Iraqis trying to establish democracy.

''In a free society, there's only one check on political speech and that's the judgment of the American people,'' the president said to applause from a gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. ''So I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account and demand a debate that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries.''

''Patriotic Americans will continue to ask the tough questions because our brave men and women in Iraq, their families and the American people deserve to know that their leaders are being held accountable,'' said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

So, if you question the president's handling of the war, you're dishonest, irresponsible, defeatist, partisan, treasonous and unpatriotic. Nice.

According to a new Harris poll:

Sizeable minorities of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein had "strong links to al Qaeda," a Harris Interactive poll shows, though the number has fallen substantially this year.

About 22% of U.S. adults believe Mr. Hussein helped plan 9/11, the poll shows, and 26% believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded. Another 24% believe several of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis, according to the online poll of 1,961 adults.

However, all of these beliefs have declined since February of this year, when 64% of those polled believed Mr. Hussein had strong links to al Qaeda and 46% said Mr. Hussein helped plan 9/11. At that time, more than a third said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and 44% said several of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis.

Currently, 56% of adults believe Iraqis are better off now than they were under Mr. Hussein, down from 76% in February. Nearly half of those polled say they believe Iraq, under Mr. Hussein, was a threat to U.S. security, down from 61% in February.

Can that many people really be that ignorant? At least the numbers are declining.

In light of the news that the administration has been spying on Americans, John Scalzi posts his thoughts on if and when a president should be impeached. As usual with John, it's a well written blog post (hell, it should be well written; he's a professional writer!).

But I take issue with John on a couple of points. He writes:

Now, let's posit that the president knew his actions were illegal, but didn't care. Would that merit impeachment? In my opinion, no -- if the president could prove that his actions saved Americans from imminent harm that following the law could not have prevented.

In reference to an even more extreme possible circumstance, John writes:

If we granted that the president both knew what he was doing was illegal and that it was determined that such evasion of law was entirely unnecessary, now are we talking impeachment? This is the point where I go "gaaaaaaaaah" and raise a point that will be entirely unpersuasive to many, which is that I genuinely believe that Bush wants to protect Americans, and that matters to a non-trivial extent. I'd be loathe to impeach a president for that, and I would find it difficult to support people who would. There, I've said it: I don't think you get impeached for trying to protect Americans.

That may work with captains of fictional star ships named Enterprise, but I don't buy it in real life. As some commenters to the post remark, this is the top of one long slippery slope. The law doesn't account for good intentions (ok, ill intent is a critical part of many laws, but generally, you're still breaking some law whether you do it with good or ill intent; it's just that ill intent gets you a harsher punishment).

I'm not sure this is completely relevant, but John's blog post reminded me of a common parenting situation:

• Child #1 is doing something stupid that could result in harm to child #2.
• Parent tells child #1 to stop because it could harm child #2.
• Child #1 ignores parent
• Child #1's action results in anticipated harm to child #2
• Parent turns his/her attention to child #1, and even before the parent can open his/her mouth, child #1 is screaming, "But I didn't mean to harm child #2
• Parent responds: "Well, I'm assuming you weren't doing this reckless action in order to harm child #2. But the fact remains that you ignored the possible consequences and an order to stop it lest you harm child #2. You're still just as guilty.

President Bush: go to your room without your dinner. No TV, no telephone!

From the American Civil Liberties Union web site:

When the angry phone calls and emails started arriving at the office, I knew the holiday season was upon us. A typical message shouted that we at the American Civil Liberties Union are "horrible" and "we should be ashamed of ourselves," and then concluded with an incongruous and agitated "Merry Christmas."

We get this type of correspondence a lot, mostly in reaction to a well-organized attempt by extremist groups to demonize the ACLU, crush religious diversity, and make a few bucks in the process. Sadly, this self-interested effort is being promoted in the guise of defending Christmas.

...

In truth, it is these website Christians who are taking the Christ out of the season. Nowhere in the Sermon on the Mount did Jesus Christ ask that we celebrate His birth with narrow-mindedness and intolerance, especially for those who are already marginalized and persecuted. Instead, the New Testament—like the Torah and the Koran and countless other sacred texts—commands us to love our neighbor, and to comfort the sick and the imprisoned.

That's what the ACLU does. We live in a country filled with people who are sick and disabled, people who are imprisoned, and people who hunger and thirst for justice. Those people come to our Indiana offices for help, at a rate of several hundred a week, usually because they have nowhere else to turn. The least of our brothers and sisters sure aren't getting any help from the Alliance Defense Fund or WorldNet Daily. So, as often as we can, ACLU secures justice for those folks who Jesus worried for the most.

As part of our justice mission, we work hard to protect the rights of free religious expression for all people, including Christians. For example, we recently defended the First Amendment rights of a Baptist minister to preach his message on public streets in southern Indiana. The ACLU intervened on behalf of a Christian valedictorian in a Michigan high school, which agreed to stop censoring religious yearbook entries, and supported the rights of Iowa students to distribute Christian literature at their school.

Happy Holidays to all!

A U.S. District Judge ruled today that the Dover, Pennsylvania school board can't force the teaching of intelligent design. That is welcome news in and of itself, but as an extra bonus, the judge's finding is very strongly worded (emphasis added):

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions. The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

You go, Judge Jones!

UPDATE: It appears that Judge Jones was appointed by George W. Bush. Clearly one of those pesky liberal activist judges. Awesome.

A law professor has evaluated the federal tax code on the basis of Judeo-Christian ethics, and found it immoral. The abstract of the paper:

This article severely criticizes the Bush Administration's tax policies under the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics. I first document that Judeo-Christian ethics is the most relevant moral analysis for tax policy because almost eighty percent of Americans and well over ninety percent of the Congress, including President Bush, claim to adhere to the Christian or Jewish faiths. I also show that evaluating federal tax policy under Judeo-Christian principles not only passes constitutional muster but is also appropriate under the norms of a democracy. I then provide a complete theological framework that can be applied to any tax policy structure. Using sources that include leading Evangelical and other Protestant scholars, Papal Encyclicals and Jewish scholars, I prove that tax policy structures meeting the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics must raise adequate revenues that not only cover the needs of the minimum state but also ensure that all citizens have a reasonable opportunity to reach their potential. Among other things, reasonable opportunity requires adequate education, healthcare, job training and housing. Using these theological sources, I also establish that flat and consumption tax regimes which shift a large part of the burden to the middle classes are immoral. Consequently, Judeo-Christian based tax policy requires the tax burden to be allocated under a moderately progressive regime. I discuss the difficulties of defining that precisely and also conclude that confiscatory tax policy approaching a socialistic framework is also immoral. I then apply this Judeo-Christian ethical analysis to the first term Bush Administration's tax cuts and find those policies to be morally problematic. Using a wealth of sources, I then establish that the moral values driving the Bush Administration's tax policy decisions reflect objectivist ethics, a form of atheism that exalts individual property rights over all other moral considerations. Given the overwhelming adherence to Christianity and Judaism, I conclude that President Bush, many members of Congress and many Americans are not meeting the moral obligations of their faiths, and, I argue that tax policy must start reflecting genuine Judeo-Christian values if the country is to survive in the long run.

Oopsie.

Yesterday, Texans approved Propsition 2. Unfortunately, that's no surprise to me. What troubles me, though, is the direct participation of Christian congregations and pastors in the political process: many congregations and pastors publicly endorsed prop 2, and the election-night gathering for supporters in the Austin area was held at Great Hills Baptist Church.

This direct endorsement of political candidates and initiatives contradicts my beliefs. I used to be a member of a United Methodist congregation that is widely recognized as one of the most liberal in Texas, with one of the most politically outspoken pastors. The pastor frequently spoke about issues that were hotly debated politically, but even in that environment it was taboo for the pastor to come out for or against candidates or specific political solutions. Instead, his task was to help his congregants decide what is right and just, but he left it up to them to decide how to act on those decisions in the realm of politics.

I prefer to think globally, but act locally. I'm always inspired by my Christian friend in Germany who was staunchly against abortion. I don't necessarily agree with her, but I'm inspired by her actions. She believed that the best way to avoid abortion is to avoid unwanted pregnancy, and that she could have a direct impact on this issue. Instead of getting involved in political debate about abortion (granted, the political situation is different in Germany than in the US), she would spend her Saturday afternoons handing out information on birth control in the main square. I remember with a chuckle her explanations of her and her husband trying out each new birth control method so that she would be able to offer experienced advice.

I hold the now somewhat old-fashioned belief that wealthier people should be subject to higher tax rates. It is nice to know that Warren Buffet agrees with me:

I wouldn’t support it. We have, in my view, a taxation system that’s much too flat already. If you look at the payroll tax—which is over 12% now, and that applies on the first $80,000 or $90,000 of income—Bill and I pay practically none of that in relation to our income. For the people that work for us, their tax rate in many cases is the same or even higher than my own, since the rate on capital gains and dividends was cut to 15%. What has gone on in this country in recent years is a huge benefit to the very rich and not that much relief to people down below. Frankly, I think that Bill and I should have a higher tax rate on the income we get. We pay less than half the rate that I was paying 25 years ago when I was making a lot less money. They have really taken care of the rich.

(Via Rafe Colburn)

Yesterday, Michael Behe admitted in court that the standard scientific definition of 'theory' was too narrow to include Intelligent Design. John Scalzi makes this awesome comment about this development:

The only value to this whole thing so far is that it got Behe to admit that in order to get ID to work, you have to cheat -- you have to make words mean different things than what they mean. You know, the science community already has a word for the new, more lax definition of "theory" Behe wishes to promote: it's called a hypothesis. Should Behe manage to get his way and change the definition of "theory," what becomes of the word "hypothesis"? Is it demoted? Discarded? Given a nice gold watch for its years of service to the scientific community and then taken behind the barn to be plugged with a shotgun? And if is merely demoted, then what will become of the phrase "drunken paranoid ramblings?" That phrase has nowhere else to go.

And you read this entry because you thought I was writing my own drunken paranoid ramblings, didn't you?

Jason Lefkowitz's take on President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers as Supreme Court justice:

[T]he nomination sends a message loud and clear to all the conservatives who have supported Bush through it all over the years:

You’ve been punk’d. Suckers.

This is the moment you’ve been waiting decades for. The moment when an opening on the Supreme Court could be filled by a real, rock-ribbed, hard core True Grit Winger. Someone who’d put the women back in the kitchen and God back in the classroom and courtroom where he belongs.

O the trials you have endured, waiting for this moment. You gave every spare penny you could find to the Bush campaigns. You wrote letter after letter after letter to the editor. You canvassed and lit-dropped till your feet bled.

You even turned your church over to the GOP — allowed the tawdry ambitions of man into the House of God — because you believed in George W. Bush. When he said he was born again, you nodded me, too. When he said he wanted a “culture of life”, you said preach it, brother!

And then, after all the years of waiting, the moment came. And George W. Bush looked back at you and said:

Fuck you.

Go read the entire post; it continues and gets even better.

Holy curmudgeon, batman! I can't believe it: I agree with Andy Rooney about something, specifically, the cost of the war in Iraq (though I still can't stand him).

I swiped this image from Eliot Gelwan's excellent blog, Follow Me Here:

My friend Susan's daughter Sophie was diagnosed with leukenia eight months ago. Susan and her husband Randall have been keeping a blog about Sophie's health. In yesterday's entry, Randall totalled up the insurance claims so far (not including co-pays and other expenses that they've borne themselves). He writes:

The grand total (and still counting) is $173, 670.35. Basically that amounts to over $700 a day. We are incredibly, incredibly thankful for the terrific insurance coverage that we have, but can you possibly imagine how families manage without the kind of coverage that we have, or, worse yet, without any coverage at all? Granted, you cannot put a price on having a healthy, thriving child, but I fear for those who have to make tough decisions that we have never had to make in this process. There is no wonder that an experience like this can devastate families financially for years and years and years.

From Maureen Dowd, regarding President Bush:

Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.

Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.

Making the rounds in the blog world today is an interesting Scientific American article about how and when young children learn to understand symbols.

Of course, the article got its own front-page post on MetaFilter, and the first commenter to that thread made a hilarious observation: "Even some older kids still miss the point"

In response to an astute observation by Fred Clark, I've created a new bumper sticker on CafeShops/CafePress:

It's for sale to the public (at no markup).

I heard on the local news this morning that Texas is running a pilot program to identify sex offenders with the "highest level of deviant arousal." The offender is connected to a bunch of physiological monitors, including one on the shaft of the penis, and his arousal level is measured as he is shown different types of images that might be sexually arousing.

The purpose:

The state says these new tests will help them weed out the low-risk sex offenders, like the 19-year-old who has sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend, from the pedophile who seeks sexual pleasure from children on the playground.

"The folks that show the highest level of deviant arousal are the ones we need to pay the most attention to and contribute the most resources to," said Siegel.

I'm already uncomfortable with the whole idea that sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated or that they cannot control their actions.

This test, should it be adopted, raises further questions. What about 'false positives': men who are incorrectly identified as being aroused by 'deviant' images? And to me, it seems there's a big difference between arousal and acting on that arousal.

We're letting these people back into society but we're trying to tell the public that they're likely to continue their violent behavior. I'm certainly not a fan of locking someone up and throwing away the key, but isn't one reason for incarceration to remove dangerous people from the general population? If we are so sure they're so dangerous, why are we letting them out of prison in the first place?

A friend from church forwarded to me this recent New York Times op-ed piece by former Senator, and now ordained Episcopal priest, John Danforth. He characterizes my view of religion and politics very well. One good snippet:

To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that only I know God's will, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility. By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth.

The National Council of Churches issues a call to pursue peace and justice in Iraq. Well put--both the political and social justice parts.

I saw this bumper sticker this morning on a passing car:

If guns are outlawed...Only outlaws will be able to shoot their children accidentally

I grew up in a family that had a lot of guns. I learned to shoot at a young age, had a BB gun, hunted as a teenager. And my dad was big on gun safety: I learned gun safety first thing.

Despite that, I can recall two accidental gun firings in my family: my dad once shot a hole through the garage wall while handling a loaded rifle. And my sister's first husband kept a loaded shotgun leaning agaist the corner in the closet (OK, that was not so safe). One day, it went off while he was taking something out of the closet. He came pretty close accidentally blowing his own brains out.

So, my point is, I guess, that the bumper sticker is closer to the truth than most people might realize.

In a recent article in the Austin Chronicle, Michael Ventura predicts the impact that rising oil prices will have on American society and America's relations with other countries. Ventura's predictions for changes in American society are as controversial as James Howard Kunstler's, but I think Ventura's view of how our international relations will change is right on target:

Gas prices can only go up. Oil production is at or near peak capacity. The U.S. must compete for oil with China, the fastest-growing colossus in history. But the U.S. also must borrow $2 billion a day to remain solvent, nearly half of that from China and her neighbors, while they supply most of our manufacturing ("Benson's Economic and Market Trends," quoted in Asia Times Online) � so we have no cards to play with China, even militarily. (You can't war with the bankers who finance your army and the factories that supply your stores.) China now determines oil demand, and the U.S. has no long-term way to influence prices.

...

There's only one section of our economy that has [the] kind of money [to invest heavily in mass transit and other infrastructure changes]: the military budget. The U.S. now spends more on its military than all other nations combined. A sane transit to a post-automobile America will require a massive shift from military to infrastructure spending. That shift would be supported by our bankers in China and Europe (that is, they would continue to finance our debt) because it's in their interests that we regain economic viability. What's not in their interests is that we remain a military superpower.

Ventura recognizes that China (and, to a lesser degree, Japan, South Korea and the larger European countries) hold our future in their hands. So far, it's been in their best interest to finance our over-extended lifestyle: we fuel their economic growth as the biggest market for their goods. But if something beyond the lenders' control affects America's ability to buy their goods--say a serious U.S. economic downturn caused by high oil prices--then at some point, it may no longer be worth their while to continue to finance our debt. At that point, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

I'm convinced that it will happen sometime. The current situation is just not sustainable indefinitely. It's just a matter of when, how quickly and how severely it reduces our American lifestyles.

The other day, Fred Clark wrote an insightful entry about religious persecution. The thesis of Fred's post was:

When protected, privileged and pampered American Christians claim to be facing persecution they spit on the wounds of their brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world and in history who have known firsthand what religious persecution really is. They mock not only their fellow Christians in this great cloud of witnesses, but also those of other faiths who have suffered or are, now, today, suffering genuine persecution.

I wanted to blog about Fred's post, but I really didn't have anything to add to it. But today, my cousin sent me the following email (redacted for length, emphasis added), and it immediately reminded me of Fred's post:

DID YOU KNOW? As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S. Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view: it is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments!

DID YOU KNOW? As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door.

DID YOU KNOW? As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten Commandments!

DID YOU KNOW? There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings and Monuments in Washington, D.C.

�

How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?

�

I was asked to send this on if I agreed or delete if I didn't. Now it is your turn... It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, it is very hard to understand why there is such a mess about having the Ten Commandments on display or "In God We Trust" on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the other 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!!

If you agree, pass this on.

Talk about tyranny of the persecuted (supposed) majority!

UPDATE: As usual, Snopes.com has a good debunking of the email that my cousin sent.

In this short New Yorker article, James Surowiecki explains why rising oil prices have not thrown the U.S. into recession, and more generally, why oil prices do not necessarily have as big an impact on the economy as people tend to think.

I can follow his reasoning, and on a macroeconomic level, I buy it. But then I look at the effect that rising oil prices has on an average family. In our two-car family, our monthly expenditure on gasoline has gone up by at least $50 in the recently, probably closer to $100. Our income hasn't risen, so that's $50-100 that we do not have to save or spend on other things. Considering that every family in the nation is experiencing the same thing, I can't help but think that this must have some sort of effect on the overall economy.

If it truly isn't having much of an effect, then it reveals what a load of bull is spewed about tax cuts. I remember when the federal government sent $400/child pre-emptive tax refund checks to families a couple of years ago. This mail-out was heralded as a big stimulant to the economy. If significantly increased gasoline prices doesn't have much of a negative effect on the economy, then this one-time payout can't have had much of a positive effect either.

This article in The Nation is pretty depressing:

As in other reconstruction sites, from Haiti to Iraq, tsunami relief has little to do with recovering what was lost. . . The coast is not being rebuilt as it was--dotted with fishing villages and beaches strewn with handmade nets. Instead, governments, corporations and foreign donors are teaming up to rebuild it as they would like it to be: the beaches as playgrounds for tourists, the oceans as watery mines for corporate fishing fleets, both serviced by privatized airports and highways built on borrowed money.

In January Condoleezza Rice sparked a small controversy by describing the tsunami as "a wonderful opportunity" that "has paid great dividends for us." Many were horrified at the idea of treating a massive human tragedy as a chance to seek advantage. But, if anything, Rice was understating the case. A group calling itself Thailand Tsunami Survivors and Supporters says that for "businessmen-politicians, the tsunami was the answer to their prayers, since it literally wiped these coastal areas clean of the communities which had previously stood in the way of their plans for resorts, hotels, casinos and shrimp farms. To them, all these coastal areas are now open land!"

(Via Approximately Perfect)

Yesterday, I wrote a long entry about health care in the US and an interesting article by Paul Krugman.

The thing is, the US offers the best and the worst health care in the industrialized world. If you have health insurance, you can get very good health care. If not, you probably can only afford very poor health care. The point of socialized health care is evening this out.

The probem is that we probably cannot afford to provide the quality of health care that some receive. We need to create either a system that allows those who can afford it to continue to receive top-notch health care, while raising the minimum quality for everyone else, or a system that evens out health care. But of course, those who already receive top-notch health care are scared to death of the second option, which leads us down the road of classic American individualism: why should I have to sacrifice my own health care for others? It's a difficult, and costly, dilemma.

In the early 1990s, my father-in-law was battling cancer. My father-in-law had been in business for himself, and had suffered from heart disease for many years. This combination of circumstances had the unfortunate result that he could not get health insurance--at any cost. Also, due to his health problems, he had lost most of his businesses and was not in very good financial shape. However, due to the generosity of the citizens of Bexar County, Texas, via a county health program, my father-in-law received treatment for his cancer, even though he could not pay for it all himself. The care he received wasn't top-notch, but he wasn't left to die, either.

At the same time my father was suffering from cancer, near the beginning of Bill Clinton's first term as president, his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton took on the task of health care reform. I vividly remember the huge battle over the issue and over the First Lady tackling such an important issue.

One tactic that the Clintons' opponents employed was to scream 'They want socialized health care! Look at what a disaster it is in Canada and England!" The claim was, of course, false--the Clintons were not trying to institute true socialized health care (where the government owns all health care facilities)--but it struck a nerve with a lot of people and ultimately contributed to the failure of Ms. Rodham Clinton's efforts.

At that time, I enjoyed pointing out to opponents that we already, in fact, had (and still have) socialized medicine on various levels in the US. In addition to the oodles of local programs, such as the county program serving my father-in-law, we also have several very large federal socialized health care programs, among them: Veteran's Administration, Medicare, Medicaid. In fact, the VA runs a 'real' socialized health care system, in that it owns its own hospitals and clinics, employs the doctors, etc. Medicare and Medicaid, on the other hand, are government-run systems for paying for mostly private health care.

My comments stopped more than a few opponents in their tracks.

In a new New York Times column, Paul Krugman gives us an update on this issue. First, he compares what we spend on health care:

In 2002, the latest year for which comparable data are available, the United States spent $5,267 on health care for each man, woman and child. Of this, $2,364, or 45 percent, was government spending, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid. Canada spent $2,931 per person, of which $2,048 came from the government. France spent $2,736 per person, of which $2,080 was government spending.

Amazing, isn't it? U.S. health care is so expensive that our government spends more than the governments of other advanced countries, even though the private sector pays a far higher share of the bills than anywhere else.

Then Krugman summarizes what we receive in each country, respectively, for that expenditure:

What do we get for all that money? Not much.

Most Americans probably do not know that we have substantially lower life-expectancy and higher infant-mortality figures than other advanced countries. It would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that this poor performance is entirely the result of a defective health care system; social factors, notably America's high poverty rate, surely play a role. Still, it seems puzzling that we spend so much, with so little return.

A 2003 study published in Health Affairs (one of whose authors is my Princeton colleague Uwe Reinhardt) tried to resolve that puzzle by comparing a number of measures of health services across the advanced world. What the authors found was that the United States scores high on high-tech services - we have lots of MRIs - but on more prosaic measures, like the number of doctors' visits and number of days spent in hospitals, America is only average, or even below average. There is also direct evidence that identical procedures cost far more in the United States than in other advanced countries.

The authors concluded that Americans spend far more on health care than their counterparts abroad - but they do not actually receive more care. The title of their article? "It's the Prices, Stupid."

When you compare the U.S. to these countries with 'socialized' health care, we don't stand up so well, do we?

While attending his county Democratic Party meeting, Rafe Colburn made an astute observation:

North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall was the other elected official who gave a speech, and hers was almost entirely a defense of federalism and the importance of state's rights. For my entire life, I thought that state's rights was a Republican issue, but now I see that it's a power issue. The party in power in Washington wants to exercise that power, and the opposition at the state level wants to prevent it. So now we're in a situation where Republicans want to expand the power of federal government, and Democrats at the state level want the federal government to butt out. I think this is the reason for the clash between Republicans in Congress and the federal judiciary. The conservatives in federal courts haven't gotten the memo that the Republican party no longer cares about federalism, and the Republican Congress will not accept checks or balances.

A lot of people are making doom and gloom predictions about what will happen in the next few years of decreasing availability of oil. On the other side are the optimists like John Scalzi:

As bad as it may get, I don't think it will get as bad as many people might fear -- or at the very least, won't be bad for long. To begin, America and Americans are happy to put off until tomorrow what ought to be done today, and this emphatically includes dealing with energy issues. However, when Americans are finally at a point where something has to be done, it gets done. . . And so with something like an oil peak; if America is looking down the barrel of ruin, it will suck it up and do what is necessary to persevere. It's done so before within the last 100 years with WWI, the Depression and WWII. We are admittedly out of practice (a happy side effect of having dealt with the issue so well before), but we can and will do it again.

I agree with Scalzi that the Great Depression and the two World Wars are good examples of Americans dealing with difficult situations, but if Scalzi is also suggesting that the effect of diminishing availability of oil will be 'no worse' than those times, I have to take issue with him.

The Great Depression had a severe impact on the lives of many Americans--including rampant hunger, homelessness, etc. I certainly would not want to live through a comparable economic downturn. Likewise, most Americans had to make great personal sacrifices in order to mobilize for the second world war: food and fuel rationing, being strongly urged to put their savings in government bonds, etc.

If the coming economic situation rivals the Depression or World War II, then I would consider it pretty severe.

There's been a lot of talk recently about whether we have hit peak oil production (this BoingBoing entry links to a lot of good articles). But I've come to the conclusion that many people are missing the point. Peak oil production is only half the equation. Demand for oil is the other half. Things start to get rough if oil production peaks, but it also gets bad when demand increases significantly compared to production. Taking demand into the equation, things are looking grim for the US, as several large countries--primarily China and India--have developed to the point that their demand for oil has increased significantly, competing with the US for a finite production.

Over the last couple of months, I've tried to make sense of the devaluing dollar, the fact that China a a few other nations buy so much of the bonds to cover our federal deficit and what it all means. I'm happy to report that my understanding was pretty much correct. This New Yorker article by James Surowiecki explains the situation pretty succinctly.

In short, Americans have been maintaining our standard of living on borrowed money, and the Chinese are our largest lender. Of course, it's been in their best interest to maintain our consumerist lifestyle, since the US is a big export customer for Chinese goods. But if the Chinese ever decide it's not in their best interest to continue buying (so much of) our debt, our fate is in their hands. It's all a vicious cycle, and it cannot continue forever. This concern keeps me awake nights.

For days, I have pondered whether to post something about the raging issue of what to do about Terri Schiavo, and if so, what to say. I think it's pretty much all been said elsewhere. Politics aside, this comment on Alas (a blog) states my feelings more elegantly than I could:

Hello, I�m a nurse anesthetists and work in Birmingham, Alabama. I live in the Bible belt, born and raised a Christian and I consider myself VERY conservative on politcal issues.

What Cerbrocrat has said, and what Jeremy has just said above me in a more technical sense, is right on point. This woman�s brain is SEVERLY damaged; the cerebral cortex is almost completely gone.

There is not a medication, therapy or experimental science that will ever change her condition. Like an arm or leg that has been amputated, the body can live without parts of the brain, but it will never regenerate. The only problem with my analogy is that although a person can actually function without an arm or leg, that�s not the case without a brain. There�s no such thing as a cortex prosthesis. She will be this way for the rest of her life.

I make my political and religious stance for a reason, that this is not a political issue; even if it has been made into one. This whole argument is about one single point, whether she would have wanted to live like this. Her husband (and some others) has said that she would not; her family says that she would. If all of you honestly were true to yourself, I would be willing to wager that at least 90% of you would say you wouldn�t want to live this way. Every person I have talked to, even the ones who have objected to letting Mrs. Schiavo die, have said they personally wouldn�t want to live like that. I know of dozens of family, friends, and co-workers who have just recently or are about to put this very thing into writing. Attorneys may end up the big winner when this is all said and done, but I digress.

The point here is that so many people would never want this for themselves, but somehow they want it for Terri and assume Terri would want to live like this. To me this is crueler than letting her die. I believe it is for the family�s own selfish reasons not to let her go, not the husband. If the husband wanted to be selfish, he would have been better suited to take the money and run 14 years ago, divorced her, walked away and just let here parents think he was an a$$. The money is all gone now, only about 50 grand remains, so what is his motivation at this point? To be the most hated person in America? It just doesn�t make sense unless he truly believes there is no hope for her and he knows she wouldn�t want to live this way.

I was asked today by a gentleman, �If it were your daughter, would you let her go.� I said yes and he responded with, �well, then you don�t love her.� I said, �Sir, it is because I do love her that I would want her to go home and be with the Lord, not suffer here on earth.�

As a parent it is only human nature to want your children to outlive you; I know I want mine to outlive me. But people have to put aside their own selfish wants to realize what is best for their child, and what that child would truly want in a situation like this.

So put aside all the conspiracy theories, the selfish motivations, the moral and emotional arguments and ask yourself, would you want to live like this?�and then ask yourself, do you honestly think Terri would?

The article that I mentioned in my previous post also contains the best description I've seen so far of G. W. Bush's 'ownership society' concept:

On the campaign trail this year, President Bush has made the case that people are better off relying on themselves, rather than on business or government, in case of trouble. Under the banner of the "Ownership Society," the president has proposed a series of new, tax-break-heavy accounts to let families pay for their own retirements, healthcare and job training. He also has called for partially replacing the biggest of the government's protective programs � Social Security � with privately held stock and bond accounts.

Such arrangements might help people build up their personal assets. But the approach also would expose them to even more economic risk than they've already taken on.

A recent Harris poll shows what American respondents believe about the following issues:

• 61% believe that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was a serious threat to U.S. security
• 64% believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links with Al Qaeda
• 47% believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
• 44% believe that Several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis

This article in The Nation offers a nice, succint summary of the religious beliefs of the 'Founding Fathers' of the United States. Suffice it to say that anyone who claims the U.S. was founded on Christian principles does not know or is ignoring historical fact.

This is something you have to actually hear to appreciate (I heard it on NPR yesterday): at a news conference at the European Union yesterday, President Bush was asked about the US's intentions in regard to Iran. Mr. Bush responded: "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table."

There was a very short pause, and then the press corps started laughing.

This short editorial in The Christian Century argues, with sound evidence, that the best way to reduce the incidence of abortion is to make it legal and safe:

The countries with the lowest abortion rates in the world are Belgium and the Netherlands, where abortion is legal and covered by national health insurance...

Judging by abortion rates, one would have to conclude that what Bush (following Pope John Paul II) calls a �culture of life� is actually flourishing more in Western Europe than in Latin America. And there are reasons for this. Belgian and Dutch women are well educated about contraceptives and have access to them...The Belgians and Dutch can also rely on generous government provisions for health care, child care and parental leave, which means raising a child is a more sustainable prospect...

Such evidence suggests that most people will choose against abortion if other ways of regulating family size are available. They will also choose against abortion if they have some confidence that the community around them will help them with medical care and child care.

William Saletan offers a well written recap of the president's State of the Union address:

Tonight's State of the Union Address demonstrated again that President Bush is a man of very clear principles. He's just flexible about when to apply them.

He's for historical reflection when a Democratic program has lost the context that initially justified it: "Social Security was created decades ago, for a very different era. In those days, people did not live as long. Benefits were much lower � Our society has changed in ways the founders of Social Security could not have foreseen."

He's against historical reflection when a Republican war has lost the context that initially justified it. All that matters is the new rationale: "The victory of freedom in Iraq will strengthen a new ally in the war on terror, inspire democratic reformers from Damascus to Tehran, bring more hope and progress to a troubled region �"

He's against scaring you if you're 55: "I have a message for every American who is 55 or older: Do not let anyone mislead you. For you, the Social Security system will not change."

In the next sentence, he's for scaring you if you're below 55: "For younger workers, the Social Security system has serious problems that will grow worse with time. � We must pass reforms that solve the financial problems."

Now that I've quoted half the article, you might as well go read the other half.

The Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch reports on the activities of the state legislature:

With only a week left to act on all legislation introduced by their respective members, the House and Senate yesterday argued over matters ranging from "traditional marriage" license plates to state budget procedures.

The House of Delegates squabbled before tentatively endorsing the special state plates that would include the capital-letter words "TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE," as well as a symbol, two interlocked golden wedding bands over a red heart.

Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William, who sponsored the legislation, said it would merely embrace 4,000 years of history on marriage and show children that "traditional marriage is fundamental."

I'm glad that the Virginia state legislature has state business so well in order that the legislators have the time to devote to such dire issues as this.

A recent study shows that abstincence-only sex ed did not reduce the incidence of teen sex. In fact, it seems to have increased it:

The study showed about 23 percent of ninth-grade girls, typically 13 to 14 years old, had sex before receiving abstinence education. After taking the course, 29 percent of the girls in the same group said they had had sex.

Boys in the tenth grade, about 14 to 15 years old, showed a more marked increase, from 24 percent to 39 percent, after receiving abstinence education.

Go, conservatives!

(Click for larger image)

From Ananova News Service: Police in Germany are hunting pranksters who have been sticking miniature US flags into piles of dog poo in public parks.

Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth, said: "This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be 2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that time."

The series of incidents was originally thought to be some sort of protest against the US-led invasion of Iraq.

And then when it continued it was thought to be a protest against President George W. Bush's campaign for re-election.

But it is still going on and the police say they are completely baffled as to who is to blame.

"We have sent out extra patrols to try to catch whoever is doing this in the act," said police spokesman Reiner Kuechler.

"But frankly, we don't know what we would do if we caught them red handed."

Legal experts say there is no law against using faeces as a flag stand and the federal constitution is vague on the issue.

A few days ago, I commented on Josh Marshall's theory that Bush's social security privatization effort was motivated by a desire to keep the federal government from having to pay back all the money that it has borrowed from the social security trust fund. I criticized Marshall for offering a theory, but no supporting evidence.

Well, now Bush is flat-out lying about the solvency of social security, saying that it will be 'insolvent' in 40 years or so.

It's projected that in forty years or so, Social Security will have start paying out more money than it receives in taxes, thereby drawing on the trust fund that it is currently accumulating.

If the federal government did not pay back the money that it has borrowed from the trust fund by that time, then the president's statements would be true. Maybe he's getting people used to the idea that social security will go bankrupt soon so that when he proposes not paying back the loans, many people won't question it. It's still just a theory with no concrete evidence, but I'm trying to make sense of the president's moves.

I've been pondering President Bush's possible motivations for his Social Security privatization push, and the only thing I can come up with is this: the private sector sees that massive pile of money sitting in the Social Security trust fund doing virtually nothing (well, except financing the federal deficit) and would really like to use it to capitalize commercial enterprises.

Joshua Marshall offers another, more nefarious, motivation: Social Security privatization is the first step in Bush's plan to keep the federal government from having to pay back the trillions of dollars it has borrowed from the trust fund--and to destroy Social Security in the process.

I'm just as willing as the next liberal to believe that Bush is capable of such a nefarious act, but as compelling as Marshall's idea sounds, he offers no explanation of exactly HOW privatization is the first step. When someone hypothesizes an entire chain of events that would tie the administration's current efforts to this dastardly goal, then I'll analyze it and see if it seems logical and fits the facts. Until then, I'm inclined to think it's just your run-of-the-mill Republican privatization effort--granted, on a scale that's unprecedented in American history.

One of my coworkers has decided to leave the company. His last day will be this week. Since his last day at our company would be just a few days before Christmas, I asked him if he would be able to take the holidays off and start his new job in January. Aside from needing the paycheck to support his family, he said, he needed to start his new job in December so that he would not have a month without health insurance.

In our industry, it's common practice for companies to continue a quitting employee's benefits through the end of the month and to start a new employee's health insurance benefits on the first of the month after the employee's start date. My coworker is using this system as designed to ensure he has continued health insurance through his transition.

After talking to my coworker about this, I realized that this same consideration has played a major role in two job changes for me as well. So much for 'fringe' benefits (I notice that in recent years, the 'fringe' has been dropped). If you think about it, it's a somewhat crazy system.

Of course, I try not to take for granted that I work in an industry where good health insurance that starts soon after employment is a pretty standard benefit.

Conservatives often claim that America is 'a Christian nation.' Although I can counter that claim generally, I've often wanted to be able to cite specific evidence. Ms Magazine has summarized that evidence. Nice.

I replaced my Kerry/Edwards bumer sticker with this one that I created via CafePress.com (you can buy one for yourself):

Matt Haughey summarizes Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? as follows:

Frank uncovers how the GOP became the voice of the everyman while pushing law and policy that generally benefit the upper class most of all. It's a vexing problem but I've always attributed it to language and the GOP controlling the debate. Frank goes a bit deeper and reveals a 30 year plan of campaigns that stress values, but that deliver economic law instead. So the game is to get people riled up over issues, but the GOP never actually does anything about the issues, instead concentrating on pushing laws that deregulate industries. He also goes into how the GOP exploits victimhood, since they never "win the culture war" and come off as the underdog, even though they control all three houses of the government.

Essentially, if the Republicans ever win any of the big social battles (abortion, gay marriage), that's one less issue to use to motivate the social conservative base.

The proposed federal amendment to ban gay marriage is the perfect weapon for the Republican party: it gets the social conservatives all riled up, but it has a slim chance of ever being passed (and even then, it would take many years). Therefore, it's a weapon that they can use to motivate their social conservative base for a long time to come, and as long as it never gets passed, they can continue to claim victim status in the culture war.

Which brings up the other big culture war issue: abortion. Getting a Supreme Court to overturn or limit Roe v. Wade is the Holy Grail, so to speak, for the social conservatives. There's a very good chance Bush will get to nominate one or more judges to the Supreme Court in his next term. And if past nomination battles are any indication, the nominee's (or nominees') views on abortion will be paramount. And with a strong Republican majority in the Senate, an anti-abortion nominee stands a good chance of getting the appointment.

That would put the Republicans in a tough spot, as they would actually make significant progress on one of their big issues that they use to motivate the social conservatives. I shudder to think what next big 'moral' issue Karl Rove has up his sleeve.

An article in the Village Voice challenges the common belief that people voting for 'moral values' are responsible for Bush's re-election win. Here are some relevant parts of the article:

The idea that last week's election results show that there is a great silent majority of Americans who vote first and foremost on their moral values, which means that they vote for the Republicans, has become gospel on our nation's airwaves by now. It is nonsense on stilts. Bush didn't win this election on "moral values." It turns out he didn't do any better among strong churchgoers, or rural voters, than he did in 2000. What was it that actually put him over the top? It's the wealth, stupid.

Among heavy churchgoers, Bush's performance last time was 25 percent (turnout, 42 percent; percentage of vote, 59 percent). This time out it was also 25 percent�no change...

Where did the lion's share of the extra votes come from that gave George Bush his mighty, mighty mandate of 51 percent? "Two of those points," Klinkner said when reached by phone, "came solely from people making over a 100 grand." The people who won the election for him�his only significant improvement over his performance four years ago�were rich people, voting for more right-wing class warfare.

Their portion of the electorate went from 15 percent in 2000 to 18 percent this year. Support for Bush among them went from 54 percent to 58 percent. "It made me think about that scene in Fahrenheit 9/11," says Klinkner, the one where Bush joked at a white-tie gala about the "haves" and the "have-mores": "Some people call you the elite," Bush said. "I call you my base."

So they proved to be. The two issues he mentioned in his post-election press conference had nothing to do with succoring God-fearing folk; instead he mentioned only "reforming" the tax code, and "strengthening" Social Security�issues of particular concern for the haves and the have-mores.

Opponents of gay marriage tend to take the moral/religious high road. But Fred Clark (a thoughtful, liberal evangelical Christian and darn good blogger) makes a persuasive case that opposing gay (civil) marriage is actually sinful.

Civil marriage is a legal contract between individuals that bestows certain legal privileges (and responsibilities?). Gay civil marriage is a civil rights issue, and as Fred concludes, "'Civil rights for me but not for thee,' is not a morally defensible position. And much of the language directed against homosexuals this past year has simply been morally odious and despicable -- i.e., sinful."

Throughout the 2004 presidential election campaign, I was frustrated with the mainstream media's reporting (including NPR, which is generally much better than any commercial media in my opinion). The daily reporting on the presidential campaign typically consisted of: Today President Bush was in [insert swing state here] and said this [play 10-second sound bite claim about his record or Senator Kerry]. Meanwhile, Kerry was campaigning in [insert swing state here] and said this [play 10-second sound bite claim about his plans or Bush's record]. End.

As a resident of a non-swing state, I couldn't have cared less about where each candidate was and what group he spoke to. What I wanted to know was the validity of the claims each candidate made. Many times (as a Kerry supporter, of course), I thought Bush's statements were pretty outlandish--both about his own record and about Kerry. But the mainstream news media hardly ever analyzed the claims themselves, thus allowing the candidates to say pretty much anything and get it broadcast as news. In fact, I had the impression that the more sensational a claim, the greater likelihood that claim would be the one featured in the news.

I found it a very frustrating situation, and it's not very conducive to producing an informed voting populace.

A recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review, Blinded By Science: How �Balanced� Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality, shows that even when journalists do the hard-hitting analysis, sometimes bad data is presented in the interest of 'balanced' reporting.

I a concern for 'balance' contributed to why the mainstream media did so little analysis of the presidential candidates' claims. The media felt the need to present each candidate's statements evenly. Analysis of one candidate's claims would have necessitated analysis of the other candidate's stance on the same issue. And even such 'fair' analysis probably would have resulted in claims of bias. And in the sound bite environment, I think it is easier just to report what each candidate says and not analyze it.

As I've noted before on this blog, I'm a big sucker for well supported challenges to conventional wisdom. This article from the Boston Globe certainly does not disappoint (copied here in its entirety in case it disappears):

PRESIDENT Bush and Vice President Cheney make reference to "Massachusetts liberals" as if they were referring to people with some kind of disease. I decided it was time to do some research on these people, and here is what I found.

The state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation is Massachusetts. At latest count it had a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 population, while the rate for Texas was 4.1.

But don't take the US government's word for it. Take a look at the findings from the George Barna Research Group. George Barna, a born-again Christian whose company is in Ventura, Calif., found that Massachusetts does indeed have the lowest divorce rate among all 50 states. More disturbing was the finding that born-again Christians have among the highest divorce rates.

The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that "the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people." The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

How to explain these differences? The following factors provide a partial answer:

• More couples in the South enter their first marriage at a younger age.
• Average household inc