New Church Jingle

I kid you not.  The 2nd Family Baptist Church here in the Glass City is using the Theme from Cheers in a local TV spot to help build the congregation: ♫ "You wanna go where everybody knows your name." ♪♪

I've mentioned before that the ratio of Churches to Bars in this town is out of whack. In fact a great deal of the churches look like they used to be bars, but this is just weird.

Imagine going to a new church for the very first time ... especially if you haven't been inside one for a bit. You start to look for a seat and everyone in the pews turns around and shouts, "Norm!"

Double the freak out if your name actually is Norm.

Despair Not!

I heard something rather profound the other day from Thom Hartmann on why he's not discouraged by the nearly impossible fight for progressive reform against the well funded opposition to just about everything, the impotence of the Democrats, the marginalization of any and all advocates for change and the glacial pace of legislation.

We're on the right side of history.

That's it.  It may not seem like much but it's more than enough to hang your hat on.  The big picture, throughout the overall "arch of history" we have made tremendous progress in creating a truly just and enlightened society, world-wide, in a relatively short period of time.

No, really.

I consider Thom THE most informed and intelligent radio talk show host out there.  His program is the equivalent of a graduate seminar in contemporary political thought.  He persuades us that while this is hardly, indeed never, the time for complacency.  If you look at the way civilization has been organized throughout history the changes we as a species have made in just a few centuries compared to the sheer barbarism of 7,000 years of recorded time is dramatic.

The technological advancements of the last few decades are profound, and it you are reading this online it's due to several of them.  However, so very many of our miraculous leaps towards a jet-pack in every garage are the direct result of one of man's most terrible past-times -- war.  The internet itself was created as a hardened defense against communication disruption due to nuclear attack. 

That fish-finder you're considering as a Christmas gift owes it's creation to submarine-hunting sonar technology.  The nifty GPS locator you want was designed to help missiles track to their targets.  Jets, rockets, even the first computer was developed to crack the German High Command's codes during WWII.

We as a people have hardly gotten rid of the scourge of war, however the reasons we make war has evolved from mere conquest and subjugation to struggles for "liberation" and "freedom."  Ideological conflicts over how we order society has replaced religious domination as a "legitimate" reason to take up arms.  It's not something I see as all that justified, but it sure beats the "my god is better than your god" stuff of superstitious lore, or the type of organized theft when one powerful nation beats up on its neighbor in the rape-and-pillage style common before such things as war-crimes tribunals.

We fought a war in this country largely to end the heinous practice of slavery.  What we now think of as an abhorrent abomination was an approved and institutionalized practice throughout the world, and US law, less than 150 years ago.  The Pyramids were build on the backs of slaves, warships were powered by shackled oarsmen, even the Code of Hammurabi, written about 3,800 years ago codified what was already ancient and accepted practice:

 If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death.

We still have the death penalty, but it's largely eliminated in much of the world and reserved here in parts of America for only the most egregious of crimes with exacting (albeit hardly fool-proof) standards of proof.  Four millennia ago, simple burglary and robbery were cause for the death of the transgressor.  In fact, you could lose your hand if you slapped your father or give a slave the wrong kind of haircut, let alone get caught stealing.  Most of the planet sees that as excessive, even in countries where the lash and mutilation are legitimate punishment.

Over two thousand years later, during the Roman Empire, the Code of Justinian showed little progress in the nature of "civilization."  Women and children were still property, wars of conquest were the norm, and slavery was just the way of the world.  Although the Corpus Juris Civilis recognized that, "According to Natural Law, all men were originally born free," the Law of Slavery in Rome was detailed and deeply ingrained in their entire system of jurisprudence.  However, this is one of the first instances of the state finding itself obligated to address what was and was not proper, humane treatment of people who were owned by other people.

With the Romans progress is reported in the history of slavery, a practice as old as beer.  You had to have a reason to kill your slave, one "recognized by law." The Emperor Antoninus Pius also decided that if "the severity of masters should appear excessive" they could be forced to sell their slave (victim?) "upon equitable terms."  Mind you, this was in no way a purely altruistic thought.  Having endured major slave uprisings (think Spartacus) the Empire learned that mistreated slaves and their sympathizers were a dangerous source of discontent.

It took another 1,200 years for the first European nation-state, Portugal, to abolish slavery in 1761 (although it allowed it to continue in Brazil and its African colonies.)  Not long after the British made slavery illegal in 1833, we fought our Civil war.  It took another 23 years after that for all Brazilians to be free.  China stopped the practice in 1906 and it still continued in much of the Middle East throughout the 1960's.  It took until as late as 1981 for Mauritania to decide slavery would no longer be a legal institution.

And you're ready to write off the fight for a better country because health care reform is stalled in the Senate?  You've decided to call it quits because Joe Lieberman is being a douche-bag ... as usual?

HA! 

Women, half the nation, couldn't vote in this country until 1920 -- and they had to fight like hell to get that privilege.  The usual suspects, the intellectual East Coast elites, did not lead the way for women's suffrage, but the people of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.  Men have been casting ballots since the Ancient Greeks. Mind you, we were living in cities thousands of years before the elders of Athens organized themselves around democratic principles for the first time, and that was 2,500 years ago. 

The arc of history is moving, has been moving, and is picking up tremendous speed.  No one can tell you what issue was first determined by a free election, but there are American women alive today that were born to a nation that refused to treat them as anything less than second-class citizens, chattel.

Are we perfect?  Oh hell no, not by a long shot.  I want wars eliminated, unnecessary, not just made more humane with less "collateral damage" and fought for more noble reasons than merely coveting another nation's resources.  I want universal, single-payer health-care for all, but I won't despair if all we get is a watered-down "public-option" with opt-in/out triggers as we tick off another check-mark on the progress report.  We just keep on fighting.

I don't want more of our men and women dying in the Middle East, and I certainly don't want to bear any more financial cost for the adventures; but if a slow but inevitable draw-down in Iraq is paired with finally having a tangible goal in Afghanistan along with an exit strategy is all we can responsibly expect under the circumstances, one cannot argue it sure beats the inanity that got us in there to begin with.

Today, when we talk about freedom, it isn't about freeing slaves.  Spreading freedom now is about the free exchange of ideas, even those dangerous to those in power and would rather censor such thought-crime.  It's about the right to vote and the free flow of goods and services, not eliminating forced labor.  We go on strikes for better wages, working conditions and benefits, not to fight dangerous sweat-shops populated by child-workers, not here, not anymore.

At the risk of being misquoted as unpatriotic, I don't want the United States to be considered exceptional in any way.  I want the whole world to adopt our most progressive values, as much as most of Europe has done and in many ways surpassed us, and I want us to continue to move that ball.

Don't despair.  History is moving in a liberal direction at a faster pace than any generation before us could imagine.  In the long ... long ... run, there's not a thing the naysayers and obstructionists, nor the professional media propagandists can do.  Neither the Becks nor Boehners, Limbaughs nor Liebermans, not even silly little Sarah Palin can do much to stop the historical march of progress.

Next: Balloon Boy Pilots Air Force One.

More brazen than Jeff/Jim Gannon/Gluckert on a day pass taking a nap in the Lincoln Bedroom.  Check out these fame whores. 

White House Party Crashers Are Awesome, Sad
from Gawker by Adrian Chen

Did you hear about this DC couple that crashed Obama's first state dinner last night? Michaele and Tareq Salahi—aspiring reality show stars, bedeviled vintners, polo enthusiasts and lawsuit magnets: You inspire and sadden us in almost equal measure.

No doubt in the coming weeks/months we'll know everything about these two from their stance on Afghanistan to Bailouts to Michele Obama's taste in clothes.  (Okay, Ms. Salahi's dress is fabulous, so maybe they've got some expertise there.) 

No doubt soon they'll join the reality-star galaxy of celebrity policy makers in the infotainment driven, government-as-a-sporting-event culture.  Let's just hope they've got more on the ball than Carrie Prejean, Joe The Plumber, and their fearless fame-whore leader, Sarah Palin.

GOP Thought Process

1. State support for opposite position of whatever the President/Pelosi/Ried/Democratic Party did today citing whatever possible excuse no matter how hackneyed, myopic, wrong-headed, nonsensical or illogical.
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!!

Honestly, I think there should be required reading before anyone is allowed to take the oath of office when elected to public service.  Getting To Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In should be at the top of the list.

There needs to be a lot more emphasis on problem solving and eliminate the nihlistic idea of "winning," at least when it's not an election year.

Oh, and a pony. I'm long past due for that pony.

There Is No Health Insurance Marketplace

Caught on Hannity while zooming through traffic before I could switch stations in disgust: a woman, self-professed god-fearing ordinary mom tells Sean how frightened she is if Health Insurance Reform goes through, citing random (obviously planted) statistics on how many jobs will be destroyed by Obama-care.

She's earnest, folksy, even compelling in her worry about pushing through this bill during these frightening economic times.  Of course since the thing doesn't even go into effect until 2013, if we aren't fully recovered from the recession by then we'll all be on welfare anyway the way I see things. 

Did I mention that this sweet worried lady was a health insurance broker?  She didn't either until Sean complimented her on her articulate statement of the industry talking points.  She embellished, noting that the job she was really worried about was her own, since blood-sucking leaches like her will have to find something actually productive to do.

You know, the free market is great, when actually free and fair.  Cartels like the health insurance companies who enjoy the same anti-trust exemption as Major League Baseball are not operating as market forces would dictate, or actually they are acting exactly how monopolies with no competition operate: destructively.

In the past 13 years, more than 400 corporate mergers have involved health insurers, and a small number of companies now dominate local markets but haven’t delivered on promises of increased efficiency. According to the American Medical Association, 94 percent of insurance markets in the United States are now highly concentrated, and insurers are thriving in the anti-competitive marketplace, raking in enormous profits and paying out huge CEO salaries. Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. In 2007 alone, the chief executive officers at these companies collected combined total compensation of $118.6 million—an average of $11.9 million each. That is 468 times more than the $25,434 an average American worker made that year. Moreover, the health insurance industry invests more in buying back its own stock and rewarding its shareholders than in improving system operations, reducing premiums, or in developing ways to pay doctors and hospitals fairly.

Health Insurance Broker?  What the hell is she brokering?  Where?  She's a damn sales person with a Chinese menu of choices: "one from column A(etna), two from column B(lue) and C(ross), oh, so sorry, we're out of column A, and B and C are pretty much the same." 

Japan Lost A Decade, But Wins Century

Maybe losing a decade won't be all that bad.

A decade in which the national GDP never declined below the value it held on the day the government stepped in.  A decade in which the maximum unemployment rate was 5.5%. A decade in which the government actually expanded its support of both business and individuals, a decade in which retirees gained new benefits, a decade in which the government did not coerce consumers to fuel the economy with reckless debt, a decade in which not one Japanese citizen lost his or her right to health care services provided by the government.

So just how lost was that decade again?

If only we can keep the conservative kleptocrats at bay for a bit.

Jesus Broder Is A Menace

How on earth is David Broder ever to be taken seriously when his dementia is put on full display with these kinds of pronouncements.

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision -- whether or not it is right.

Bob Cesca and DougJ at Balloon Juice have already deconstructed the above quote for its simplistic stupidity -- which should be readily apparent.  Broder and his Village idiots simply don't care if they're right or wrong. "How about the Washington corporate press stop hectoring and let the president make the right decision about, you know, war."

Against my better judgment I decided to read more of Broderella's waste of tree pulp and at the risk of Fisking the entire column, found something absurd in almost every paragraph.  Broder begins by telling us the internal debate is stretched to the "breaking point."  This is something he knows, somehow, via intuition or clairvoyance I presume.

The leaks?  The time? Feh. Leaks are the sauce of Washington intrigue, indicating someone is losing an argument, not that the argument itself is going on too long.

This is Broder of course, the man who professes to value comity and abhors discord above all.  Invoking Clark Clifford's defense of Harry Truman, Broder's latest excuse to badger President Obama is the voice of a half century ago telling us that being decisive is more important than being right -- advice from a man who later, advising LBJ flip-flopped like a slinky on a waxed stairwell when it came to Vietnam.  Escalate, don't escalate; end the bombing, don't stop bombing! Cease, cease the bombing!!!

Yeah, Clark Fucking Clifford.  A profile in wankerdom. 

A more apt Clifford analogy comes not from his reign as Truman's White House Counsel, but when he actually had a hand in decisions of war and peace advising Johnson.

Clifford took office committed to rethinking President Johnson's Vietnam policies, and Vietnam policy consumed most of his time. He had argued against escalation in 1965 in private counsel with the President, but then provided public support for the President's position once the decision was made. At his confirmation hearing, he told the Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate that the limited objective of the United States was to guarantee to the people of South Vietnam the right of self-determination. He opposed ending the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam at the time, but acknowledged that the situation could change. In fact, on March 31, 1968, just a month after Clifford arrived at the Pentagon, President Johnson, in an effort to get peace talks started, ordered the cessation of bombing north of the 20th parallel, an area comprising almost 80 percent of North Vietnam's land area and 90 percent of its population. In the same address, Johnson announced that he would not be a candidate for reelection in 1968, surprising everyone, Clifford included. Soon the North Vietnamese agreed to negotiations, which began in Paris in mid-May 1968. Later, on October 31, 1968, to encourage the success of these talks, the President, with Clifford's strong support, ordered an end to all bombing in North Vietnam.

He advised Johnson right out of office, leaving the mess to Teh Awsum Nixon - who doubled-down and bombed Cambodia.  That turned out so funking well, didn't it. 

Maybe if those geniuses were more concerned with getting that particular quagmire right instead of just pretending they knew WTF they were doing and trying to look good to the craptastic punditocracy, things would work out better.  Let's not even mention (okay, mention) Clifford's stint as one of the Masters of the Universe in the BCCI bank scandal.

Broder lives in the past, a past seen through his uniquely myopic rose-colored spectacles.  Consider the disconnect with reality the following passages represent.  The question NOW is not how we got into Afghanistan, but as Broder himself asks, "Why are we in Afghanistan?" Nowhere in his essay does he address the here and now, however. He answers his own question with a simplistically truncated version of recent history.  No justification for our continued presence whatsoever.  The question should be, Why are we in Afghanistan NOW?

In all this dithering, it's easy to forget a few fundamentals. Why are we in Afghanistan? Not because of its own claim on us but because the Taliban rulers welcomed the al-Qaeda plotters who hatched the destruction of Sept. 11, 2001. The Taliban also oppressed its own people, especially women, but we sent troops because Afghanistan was the hide-out for the terrorists who attacked our country.

We knew that governing Afghanistan would never be easy. It had resisted outside forces through the ages, and its geography, tribal structure, absence of a democratic tradition and poverty all argued that once we went in, it would be hard to get out.

But George W. Bush said -- and Obama seemed to agree -- that withdrawal was not an option.

That imperative is reinforced by the presence of Pakistan, a shaky nuclear-armed power across a porous mountain border. If the Taliban comes back in Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda cells already in Pakistan will operate even more freely -- and nuclear weapons could fall into the most dangerous hands.

Given all of this, I don't see how Obama can refuse to back up the commander he picked and the strategy he is recommending. It may not work if the country truly is ungovernable. But I think we have to gamble that security will bring political progress -- as it has done in Iraq.

David, David, David. Invoking mushroom clouds? Really?

Pakistan not merely a problem, it is where al-Qaeda IS.  They aren't IN Afghanistan anymore, not in numbers that pose a realistic threat to the United States, and the Taliban was disbursed years ago. Why are we there NOW?  That's what President Obama is trying to get his advisers and military personnel to focus on, that and when and how do we end it. 

Obama's well aware of what the problems are.  He's trying to solve them, not just look good.  He already looks good you dottering old fool.  The internal debate Broder concerns himself with is at a level well beyond his comprehension.  Do we really want to govern that god forsaken place indefinitely?  Would you really subject the innocent people of the most unconquerable country on the planet to the whims or our Congress?  Sadist.

If you have any constructive opinions regarding the Afghan end-strategy, by all means let's hear it.  Meanwhile, if you've nothing to do but kibitz, STFU*.

[*My daughter says I say fuck too much, F her]

Ohio's Official Rock Song

ViA TV Tropes
The 1985 resolution in the Ohio General Assembly that made "Hang On Sloopy" the state rock song (there's a reason why you hear it at every Ohio State football game) had lines such as:

WHEREAS, Adoption of "Hang On Sloopy" as the official rock song of Ohio is in no way intended to supplant "Beautiful Ohio" as the official state song, but would serve as a companion piece to that old chestnut

WHEREAS, If fans of jazz, country-and-western, classical, Hawaiian and polka music think those styles also should be recognized by the state, then by golly, they can push their own resolution just like we're doing

WHEREAS, "Hang On Sloopy" is of particular relevance to members of the Baby Boom Generation, who were once dismissed as a bunch of long-haired, crazy kids, but who now are old enough and vote in sufficient numbers to be taken quite seriously

WHEREAS, Adoption of this resolution will not take too long, cost the state anything, or affect the quality of life in this state to any appreciable degree, and if we in the legislature just go ahead and pass the darn thing, we can get on with more important stuff

WHEREAS, Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town, and everybody, yeah, tries to put my Sloopy down

• Of course, if you're not a big fan of the song, you might disagree with that "affect the quality of life in this state" thing.

Yeah!

Honor

AP


President Barack Obama, right, salutes as an Army carry team carries the transfer case containing the remains of Sgt. Dale R. Griffin of Terre Haute, Ind., during a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Just a Reminder

To every Bush supporting Neocon apologist still waving the bloody shirt of Teh Stoopid... You were wrong about Every. Fucking. Thing.

Wow, Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

I thought they'd wait at least a year or two for this:

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009 awarded to President Obama

The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2009 to US President Barak Obama.

The Nobel Peace Prize is an international prize which is awarded annually by the Norwegian Nobel Committee according to guidelines laid down in Alfred Nobel's will. The Peace Prize is one of five prizes that have been awarded annually since 1901 under the auspices of the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm for outstanding contributions in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. Starting in 1969, a Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has also been awarded.

Whereas the other prizes are awarded by specialist committees based in Sweden, the Peace Prize is awarded by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Storting. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize is to go to whoever "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". The prize includes a medal, a personal diploma, and a large sum of prize money (currently 10 million Swedish crowns).[about $1.4 Million ~Mark]

The Nobel Peace Prize has been called "the world's most prestigious prize". The Prize is awarded at a ceremony in the Oslo City Hall on December 10, the date on which Alfred Nobel died.

Bill Clinton better get his act together to join the other Democrats who "won" the most votes for US President.  Heck, Hillary will probably win one before Bill, what am I thinking?

Constitution Day! I Got Yer Constitution Right Here

http://twitpic.com/i1m02

No, really. You can get a FREE pocket sized copy of the US Constitution to carry around just like Dennis Kucinich for only $3.00 shipping. Right Here.

Today is Constitution Day: The day in 1787, after being sequestered for four months, 55 delegates from 13 independent States emerged with a unifying document that would serve as a blueprint for Chairman Max Baucus's Senate Finance Committee's exhaustive effort to similarly work behind closed doors for months on end, eventually coming up with a pig of a health care bill no one on either side of the aisle will vote for.  (The Constitutional Convention delegates took an August recess just like our current Congress, but only for 10 days - slackers.)

You might find it interesting that our founding liberal, church-hating, civil rights guaranteeing, African-American loving, philandering third President - Thomas Jefferson - the man who headed the longest-lived freely elected political party, the Democratic-Republicans (now the Democratic Party) was in FRANCE during the signing ceremony.  John Adams, the original Massachusetts Liberal and brother of the original Teabagger, Sam, was away in the UK at the time.

More fun facts surrounding the signing of the Constitution include which State was misspelled and the name of the Clerk responsible for the typo (pen-o?) and how much he was paid to insult those God and Gun Clinging folks where they wrote the damn thing.

Money fact:

The national government spent $4.3 million during the first session of Congress from 1789-1791. During the last year that George Washington was President of the United States (1796-1797), the entire cost of running the federal government was $5,727,000. [Thus the tradition of growing government was born, Washington increased the cost of Federal Government by 33% in eight years. That would be like George W. Bush going from the $1.9 Trillion 2001 budget to $2.6 Trillion in 2008 - instead of the $2.9 Trillion budget he actually submitted. Oops.]

Scary fact:

The word “democracy” does not appear once in the Constitution.

Beckians Fight Litter and Liberals

The National Mall as the 9/12 Tea Party winds down.

Gateway Pundit, is still pushing the absurd claim 2 millions Glenn Beck fans gathered in Washington DC during their union-created weekend, arriving on liberal funded public transportation to a publicly maintained park, to protest, uhh ... something ... taxes? Czars? Fixing health care? Commies, Fascists, Kenyan Presidents who look like Alfred E. Newman with a Hitler mustache? Democrats? I don't really know what they were protesting to be quite honest.  Fluoridated water maybe? Who knows. 

Whatever. Conservatives gathered in the only U.S. city with no Congressional representation for the movement's latest Tea Party, completely unaware (once again) of the ironic nature of the name they've adopted for these stunts. No doubt seeing signs in shop windows saying "No taxation without representation" lulled them into a sense of faux security.

G.P.'s photo essay uses the above picture to "prove" liberals are still the filthy hippies they hated at Woodstock, complete with post inauguration pictures of a mess left when the Mall was filled last January, and conservatives are clean.

See, a hitherto unknown tendency of Republicans is that they don't litter.  They are so connected with the environment, they'd do nothing to defile its beauty -- especially in a sacred spot like the seat of the Government they just cannot stand.

Now to my untrained eye, the scene shows a sparsely attended assembly that hardly trod on the grass, let alone anyone's liberty, putting the lie to claims that the crowd reached six figures, let alone seven.  But what does this dirty fucking hippy know anyway.

So, it's good to know that among it's many (so damn many) facets, the conservative movement is also reverent of Washington DC's pristine glory.  So rapt of the Capital's majesty they could not bear to trash the place, disposing of their empty bottles of water (and other precious bodily fluids) properly.

Obama As Popular As Ever

• 538.com: "most of the drop in Obama’s approval ratings has come from people who never voted for him"
  
• Ya got that? After a month of Stoopid, the President only lost people that DIDN'T VOTE 4 HIM ANYWAY.
  
• According to PPP Polls: He is not losing support, but Democrats are losing motivation- which is a problem for Obama's agenda but not (yet) his reelection.
• PPP also said they found the thought to be extinct liberal Republican in their national poll.  She says she doesn't like either party in Congress and is voting GOP next year. Her MOE is +/- 98%.

The Lion Sleeps

My Two Dollar Newspaper Sucks

I touched base with an old and dear friend recently, one who works in one of those editorial board rooms we all talk about but only really know from the movies.  We joked a bit about his dying industry -- he noted what a prick I was for getting all my news online for the last ten years and that as long as he didn't quit drinking beer the least I could do was buy a dead tree version of the paper once in a while.  I did today. I'm skeptical what value I got for my Two Dollar Sunday edition.

There was a bit of a disconnect on what's happening to the newspaper business and my friend's insight on what is happening to the business of news.  I mentioned that Murdoch was doing his best to kill the industry. From my view the FOXization of the media is destroying it's credibility and function as a true check on government power -- the role that earns the press the moniker Fourth Estate.  He ignored this observation and described what he called the "perfect storm" that now threatens the very existence of large and small papers world-wide. 

He predicts that our generation will be the last to remember actually holding something in our hands made of wood pulp and ink.  At a time when more and more people have moved to getting their news online for free, advertisers who have always been the backbone of press room revenue are drying up due to the economic purgatory we're now dealing with.  That's his two parts of the print media's deadly perfect storm, online flight coupled with recession, but there is a third systemic problem -- and it's the stuff right in his lap.

He described the elements of this perfect storm in a way that conveniently removed any responsibility on the reporting and editorial staff -- and thus any ability for improvement by the talent, the product the producers of news provide.  Excellence in journalism is not rewarded in his analysis, nor mediocrity discouraged.  I'm not saying that he is unaware or unappreciative of the content role in print's impending doom, just that it wasn't the first thing he points to as the cause.  He is a rather smart guy after all, so I'm sure he gets it.  He just wasn't bitching about it.

Enter journalism Professor Jay Rosen of NYU, Twitter Guru and one of the few old guys who gets new media.  He rails against press "curmudgeons" clinging to the old models every day.  Barbara at Mahablog noted his take on the inanity of typical "he said-she said" reporting, the kind of infotainment that led Jon Stewart to virtually destroy CNN's "Crossfire" program -- covering the controversy, the shouting match, instead of digging through the noise and exposing/explaining/truth-telling.  This was the subject of Neal Gabler's fine piece at the Los Angeles Times which sparked both Barbara and Jay to chime in.

To look at this in a larger context, journalists would no doubt say that it isn't really their job to ferret out the "truth." It is their job to report "facts." If Palin says that Obama intends to euthanize her child, they report it. If Limbaugh says that Obama's healthcare plan smacks of Nazism, they report it. And if riled citizens begin shouting down their representatives, they report it, and report it, and report it. The more noise and the bigger the controversy, the greater the coverage. This creates a situation in which not only is the truth subordinate to lies, but one in which shameless lies are actually privileged over reasoned debate.

Don't think the militants don't know this and take full advantage of it. They know that the media, especially the so-called liberal mainstream media -- which are hardly liberal if assessed honestly -- refrain from attempting to referee arguments for fear that they will be accused by the right of taking sides. So rather than be battered, the media -- and I am talking about the respectable media, not the carnival barkers on cable -- increasingly strive for the simplest sort of balance rather than real objectivity. They marshal facts, but they don't seek truth. They behave as if every argument must be heard and has equal merit, when some are simply specious. That is how global warming, WMD and "end of life" counseling have become part of silly reportorial ping-pong at best and badly misleading information at worst.

Face it.  Over the last decade or two, journalists and the politicians they cover have made lawyers look good.

Gabler's piece (which is excellent and if you follow one link from this post this is it) does proffer a prescription for this fact-reporting vs. truth-telling dilemma: "shoe leather."

It requires digging up facts that aren't being handed to you, talking to experts, thinking hard about what you find.

Of course there's even more to it.  Not just thinking "hard," but thinking "different."  Rosen touched on this in an earlier article this week before Gabler admonished his colleagues to "tell the truth not because anyone really wants them to but because it is the right thing to do -- the essential thing to do -- for the sake of our democracy."  Rosen talked about the difference between explanation leading to information and reporting raw information without explanation, leaving it to the reader to supply their own analysis, form their own opinion and divine for themselves the "truth" -- which more often than not allows the news consumer to cherry-pick that set of raw data they like and reinforces their strenuously held preconceptions and avoid critical thinking.

There's a backwards model that leads to enlightenment.  Take it away, Jay:

In the normal hierarchy of journalistic achievement the most “basic” acts are reporting today’s news and providing current information, as with prices, weather reports and ball scores. We think of “analysis,” “interpretation,” and also “explanation” as higher order acts. They come after the news has been reported, building upon a base of factual information laid down by prior reports.

In this model, I would receive news about something brewing in the mortgage banking arena, and make note it. (“”Subprime lenders in trouble: check.”) Then I would receive some more news and perhaps keep an even closer eye on the story. After absorbing additional reports of ongoing problems in the mortgage market (their frequency serving as a signal that something is truly up) I might then turn to an “analysis” piece for more on the possible consequences, or perhaps a roundtable with experts on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. I thus graduate from the simpler to the more sophisticated forms of news as I learn more about a potentially far-reaching development. That’s the way it works… right?

Wrong! For there are some stories—and the mortgage crisis is a great example—where until I grasp the whole I am unable to make sense of any part. Not only am I not a customer for news reports prior to that moment, but the very frequency of the updates alienates me from the providers of those updates because the news stream is adding daily to my feeling of being ill-informed, overwhelmed, out of the loop. I respond with indifference, even though I’ve picked up a blinking red light from the news system’s repeated placement of “subprime” items in front of me.

On top of that, if I decide to buckle down and really pay attention to “subprime lenders in crisis” news—including the analysis pieces and the economics columnist—I am likely to feel even more frustrated because the missing narrative prevents these good-faith efforts from making much of a difference. The columnist who says he is going to explain it to me typically assumes too much knowledge (“mortgage-backed securities?”) or has too little space, or is bored with the elementary task of explanation and prefers that more sophisticated work appear under his byline. Or maybe, as with this story, the very people paid to understand the story barely know how to explain it. That’s the opening theme of this column from The New York Times economics columnist David Leonhardt, “Can’t Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club.

I spent a good part of the last few days calling people on Wall Street and in the government to ask one question, “Can you try to explain this to me?” When they finished, I often had a highly sophisticated follow-up question: “Can you try again?”

I remember reading this column at the time and feeling grateful that someone at least tried. (He got about a third of the way there.) But Leonhardt’s column wasn’t displayed or classified in the right way. It should have been a tool in the sidebar of every news story the Times did about the mortgage mess. Instead it was added to the content flow, like this: news, news, news, “analysis,” news, news, news, “interpretation piece,” news, news, news, news, “Leonhardt: explain this to me,” news, news, news…

That’s messed up. That’s dysfunctional. We have to fix that.

Sorry to say, but noting the nature and space constraints of newsprint, and the passive nature of television news, online media is uniquely suited to presenting this kind of "scaffolding" upon which to present the news.  The interactive "sidebox" have few analogues in print, links to more in depth material or primers, graphics conveniently accessible at the touch of a mouse button, an expandable narrative that puts information in contextual relation with the "big picture."

Print can't compete with that, but it's failure to sharpen it's most potent weapon against the digital encroachment -- truth-telling as opposed to information spewing -- is ignored at it's peril.  Magazine formats seem better suited to this than daily papers, but unless reporters and editors are willing to admit they judge (and they do no matter how hard they avoid such appearances) and explain, they are doomed until they teach their customers how the facts they report fit into the larger scheme of things complete with reporting on what are fair yet contrary positions; yet unafraid of exposing mere obstructionists uninterested in solving problems while shouting down all who threaten the status quo that pays their rent.

This is something rarely seen in print, but more common there than cable news.  However online in depth presentation of the overall narrative is much, much more common.  Advertisers come and go with business cycles, but if print is to survive competition from the web just as it survived radio and TV, it's got to offer more than reporting that there is a controversy, buy why and which side is making sense and sincere in their arguments and which side is using the media to blow smoke.

For a recent example, it's fine that smug pundits now talk about revelations that the head of Homeland Security himself wondered about and eventually left the government because the color-coded terror alert system had been compromised by electoral politics, saying that everyone knew or at least suspected the Bush administration was abusing the system.  But where were the intrepid journalists at the time, when it mattered, when we were being callously manipulated just as we had been manipulated by a lazy media leading up to the war in Iraq.  It it was common knowledge, why did they let them get away with it?

These things matter, journalism matters, which is much more than reporting the "news."

What Rachel Said

This quote from Maddow (via, Rachel was on MTP) is not going to win her lots of allies at the White House:

But ultimately, if the president decides that he's going to go with a reform effort that doesn't include a public option, what he will have done is spent a ton of political capital, riled up an incredibly angry right wing base who's been told that this is a plot to kill grandma, grandma, and he will have achieved something that doesn't change health care very much and that doesn't save us very much money and won't do very much for the American people.  It's not a very good thing to spend a lot of political capital on.

Also, she pwnd Dick Armey.

When Armey said he took no responsibility "whatsoever" for the virulent protests against President Obama and compared it to MoveOn.org running an ad comparing President Bush to Hitler, Maddow pointed out that that never actually happened. Later she elaborated, pointing out that major conservative groups had speakers going around the country comparing Obama to Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin and asking supporters to put the fear of God in their congresspeople. When Armey said that he denounced violence, Maddow pointed out that his organization, FreedomWorks, was in a coalition whose website was promoting the violent fight at a Tampa town hall as a good thing.

Yeah, Army's still a worm.

Another Medicare Recipient Against Gov. Healthcare

This is just getting weird.

Roger Fakes, 70, said he sat quitely during most of the meeting, but Cohen’s insistence that citizens would be able to keep their private health care drove him to his feet.

He argued that changes to private insurance would force citizens into the government plan.

‘There are some of us old gray-haired folks that don’t want the government involved in any of our business,’ he said.

Oliver pointed out the interesting fact that the audience (one of whom was escorted out with a weapon) was mostly white conservatives -- in the only majority black district in the State of Tennessee, 59%, Harold Ford Jr.'s old district.

The right's version of community organizing is to infiltrate other people's communities.

There was a time when conservatives were against busing.

Coping With (The) Depression

Since Kevin felt obligated to explain his lack of blogging as of late, I figured I should post an update on why I've been a slacker blogger this summer.

My problem is exactly the opposite of Kevin's. I've been too busy, working too much to have time to blog as much as I'd like to. At least in long-form. I've been a Twittering fool, but short bursts and keeping up with blogtopia and the conservative circus act is about all I've been able to handle. (If your interested my snarky Tweets, follow @4dams.)

So hey, you think, you're working hard despite the recession, good on you Mark.  Wrong. Here's why. I'm busier than hell because business is so damn bad we can't afford to employ as many people as we used to.  In 2000, our little bar/restaurant had a staff of 12 -- one boss, seven full-time cook/server/bar-maids, two part-time weekend help, a karaoke MC and a janitor.  The karaoke fad died in these parts a few years ago and as of June we were down to a staff of seven when the janitor quit. 

Guess who's riding a mop when everyone else in the world is sleeping from 2am-5am?

Kevin documented how bad things are here in Toledo when he breezed through here, videoing an interview of me and our blog mate from Michigan.  I don't know if he ever posted those tapes.  Pretty interesting conversations as I recall.

When my wife and I moved to Toledo, I walked away from a solo private family law practice of 12 years to take over my retiring father-in-law's café. That was exactly 9 years ago this month.  He never did retire, can't afford to, and my wife puts in 50 to 60 hours a week there too.  Our son now works there as does my sister-in-law.

Dad can't do the job he once did, especially since his heart surgery about 5 years ago, so I've always had to spend a fair amount of time running and grunting and spending enough time there that restarting a law practice never really happened, not when my wife put me in charge of the house and kids and went to work running her dad's business.

See, one thing they tell you in law school but you never can appreciate it unless you try, you simply cannot be a "part-time" lawyer. "Either practice law ... or don't," they told me.  They were right.  The family as well as the family business needed me -- as did an ailing and eventually dying mother, and acquiring two new kids (my nieces) who ended up in our custody.  My ambition could take a breather, and at least our bills were getting paid.  I found time to blog, but I found I couldn't dedicate myself to my clients the way they deserved. C'est la vie.

Officially Toledo has a 14% unemployment rate and our place caters to working folks, factory workers who are closed down or only working one instead of three shifts, guys who work at Jeep which shut down for the summer, constructions workers who aren't building anything, and folks with enough disposable income to bar hop -- like anyone can afford that right now. 

You know the drill.  Add about 10% discouraged workers to the official numbers and you are closer to the real picture. THERE ARE NO JOBS HERE.  No  work, no people stopping at the local watering hole after no work.

And they banned smoking in bars.  That didn't help.  It'd be nice if we didn't have to compete with other bars who ignore the law.  I can't tell you how much business we've lost from the smoke-Nazi jihad.

Our sales are half of what they were, half of what they need to be.  We're pretty much cut to the bone and even started to close early, real early, on Sundays.  I'm working my ass off just so we can keep the doors open, not that I'm complaining since my wife (as always) works even harder.  Good thing she loves me.

One thing my predicament does have in common with Kevin is that I too broke a couple of teeth.  Since I don't live in Massachusetts and can't afford regular health insurance let alone dental, I found out just how brave you can be when you have a toothache and own your own pair of needle-nose pliers.  Don't know what I'm gonna do about this annoying hernia though.  Live with it I suppose.

Looking back, I don't think I ever would have left Cleveland if I knew how all this would have worked out, but hey, unlike some other places, we're still open.  I'm really not complaining.  I'm actually optimistic and truly believe and have said right along that if we can survive through this summer we'll have survived the worst they can throw at us.  Our place survived Prohibition, the Great Depression, it can make it through this. 

One more month and I think things will begin swinging the other direction.  I hope so since we can't survive too many days like yesterday.  $20/per hour is pretty good pay for one person.  That's all we averaged Wednesday, which is a disaster when you split that among the electric and gas companies, suppliers, Uncle Sam and the few employees we have left.

Never fear my friends.  I'm keeping my sunny (okay, snarky) disposition.  You'll know things took a turn for the worst if you hear me talking about going back to practicing law.  Gah! That would be an act of desperation in truly desperate times.  It would suck to have to go back to earning a dishonest living again.

My Friend, The Legend, Troy Hammond (Video)

No, Srsly!

Troy Hammond

Birth of a Zombie Lie

Ezra hardly challenges Bill Kristol admonishing his conservative cohorts that now is no time to rest on their laurels "[w]ith Obamacare on the ropes."  The Morning Joe crew at MSNBC (sans Joe) regurgitates this "conventional wisdom" in their continuing effort to shape rather than reflect or report on the state of public opinion.  Politico and the Washington Post also buy into this factless idea (link).

Now maybe this is all part of the grand scheme of 13th dimensional chess being played in D.C. to keep us, the pro-reform, single-payer/public option folks on their toes.  To be sure, complacency when we're "this" close to the end of a 30 year struggle to restructure and replace our profit-based health care system is something we cannot afford.  Maybe we're seeing the Obama Ropa-Dope at play one more time and Kristol & Co. are just playing along.

Maybe.  Or maybe the GOP is still as clueless as always.

Mind you, the media's infatuation with horse-race, right-vs-left coverage of politics at the expense of actual policy analysis plays a large part in this perception -- or rather attempt to frame this perception.  The Village seems to want a story-line to take them into August and beyond, filling the newsless void until Congress reconvenes in September with speculation on the success/failure of the Obama administration and the ramification of that expectation on the rest of his term, the 2010 Midterm elections, and prospects for Obama's reelection in 2012 based on his ability to get a health care bill before Congress splits.

Mind you, this whole "sky is falling" and the "future of everything is at stake" meme sits on the premise that in the first 7 months of this new president's term he can fight back the most well-funded lobbyists in Washington (who have killed every public health care plan since FDR), and rally a Democratic Party which has always been the very definition of fractiousness.

Now there are some who will try to run with the even more specious argument that the whole endeavor will be a failure -- thus again leading to ruin of all things Obama, his "Waterloo," if there isn't bi-partisan support for Obama's public plan.  As if he needs it.  As if he can get it.  As if ...

These myths won't disappear any more than the predictable over-the-top coverage of Justice Sotomayor's confirmation hearings delving into sturm und drang minutia despite her confirmation being all but assured the instant she was nominated.  The Village needs it's story.  They will milk this, even as they raise the bar for Sotomayor's confirmation on whether she gets more than 70 votes (which InTrade puts at a 90% probability), not just a seat on the court.

With a huge majority in the House, and 60 Democrats in the Senate, a popular Democratic President should be able to smite the earth and magically produce a Volvo in every garage.  But the Village needing a story will trump up controversy.  Coupe or Sedan? Why not a Mercedes option?  It's all the same with arbitrary pre-recess deadlines, bi-partisan support or 70 plus votes.  We get process and conflict instead of policy and results.

So, in case you're worried, especially in light of bogus numbers that Obama's popularity is plumeting even though he's done nothing unpopular, remember these few salient fact.

We do have a huge majority in the House.
We do have a filubuster-proof Senate.
We do have at least one GOP Senator willing to support a public plan, Olympia Snowe.

All the rest is posturing and dance routines played out for and by the Courtiers of Versailles on the Potomac.

Franken, Always Serious

MyDD's Jonathan Singer has the video of Al Franken during the racially charged confirmation hearing of a Supreme Court Justice.



And you can see his performance yesterday at the Sotomayor hearing at D-Kos.

IOKIYAR Part 4,792

Atrios is fond of saying that all news is good news if you're a Republican.  Shockingly today on Morning Joe, Time Magazine chief Mark Halprin notes that there is one thing out there that is bad news for the GOP -- Sarah Palin sucking up all the oxygen away from all the other conservatives.  I smell a rat, but that's another madeningly annoying issue.

Today we are informed that if you're a Republican, your political rivals are the ones who should be afraid if you are subject to a criminal investigation, at least if you're Dick Cheney and the current President wants to keep his ambitious agenda intact. 

I'm really not sure what they're trying to accoplish with this theme.  Do the conservatives want to scare the administration off, threatening health care reform if a special prosecutor is appointed to investigate Cheney?  Or are they daring the Attorney General to go after the previous administration, hoping that does indeed throttle Obama's plans? 

As usual, I'm getting a headache trying to apply logical analysis to Repubican antics.

There's a bit of Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch in their tone, but when three-forths of the country insist that something must be done about the Bush Administration's transgresions AND want public option for health care, President Obama carries a pretty powerful weed-whacker.

I'm also reasonably certain that the Wall St. Journal's is blowing smoke in its report that the program the CIA didn't tell Congress about (on Cheney's orders) was an assassination squad that never went beyond the planning stage.  Considering the source, the lack of anything extraordinary, that it wasn't supported by the President or Dick and the all too agreeable targets -- al Queda leaders -- I smell a cover story. 

Marcy Wheeler thinks there's another shoe waiting to drop here too -- and pieces together some interesting factoids to flesh out the situation.

We Got Links

It's back!

• SCIENCE!!! http://is.gd/1uWWu

Q: No word from the Cheney's since Dick got his book deal on 6/24. Was media blitz about cashing in? Current silence about lawyering up?

A: Yes.

• Dick Cheney Now Linked To C.I.A. Concealment, Is Officially The Shadiest Dick Ever http://gawker.com/5312633
  
• Yes, Ed Schultz tweets: @WeGotEd: NYT: Cheney linked to hiding of CIA project http://ow.ly/h3cB
  

Crunch Time, now or never on making the rich and powerful pay for my hemorrhoid treatments -- or I end up being a real pain in the ass.

• Want a Wall Street Bankster deciding whether it's in HIS interest whether a Dr. treats you? Do Nothing. http://is.gd/1vqNT
  
• Med Insurance Exec sees the light (& long lines of uninsured). Concludes "Sicko" was right. http://is.gd/1vr78
  

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Ethics, Morality And Palinaide

(Yes, "Palinaide." It's that tasty beverage best consumed ... luke-warm, like spit ... when you just can't get enough Palinfreude.)

Sweet Sarah, Patron Saint of the Dangling Participle has revealed her true self, at least according to Tbogg and the papers he reads. 

Most quotable take was Sully:

That's the dog-whistle behind "If I die, I die." It's a quote from the Biblical figure, Queen Esther, who rose from being a Beauty Queen to being the champion of the Jewish people in their battle for survival. Now imagine if McCain had won, had to resign because of illness, and we were facing an international crisis with Iran. Now take a Xanax.

Make mine a double.

She is a martyr, sacrificing herself on the alter of media stardom like the original beauty queen turned Empress and savior of a misfitted minority, Esther (which fittingly means "star" in Persian), who saved the Jews from genocide ordered because of their eccentric devotion to their deity.  Scorned, they just didn't fit into their world, just like the the 72% of the GOP who dig Sarah.

Of course if you do the math, since only 26.5% of adults identify as Republicans, that means 80% of the country have little or no use for the media whore from Alaska.

Sarah Palin, last seen wearing fisherman's waders (which are well known to be the Alaskan version of sack-cloth and ashes) is poised to become Empress of all Media after her sacrificial act of walking away from the glory that is the Governor's Crab Shack and General Store in Juneau.  Nears as anyone can tell it's so she can save the Fundamentalist Christian Conservative Whackadoodles from the modern-day equivalent of political genocide -- which according to the American Taliban means not getting their damn way on every fucking thing.

Her moral code drives her.  Unfortunately, few if any of us mere speakers of the English language can crack that code she speaks ... or rather, Tweets:

Talk in DC of a 2nd "Stimulus" Pkg: Impacts on AK? We'd be partaking in even more Big Govt largess & immoral natl debt accumulation when...
...NO ONE can measure DC's 1st attempt @ growing debt to "fix" prob. AK seeks development, industry, jobs for econ recovery vs growing govt

Her world view as it affects her governing style and decision-making process is revealed in between the word-salad.  She makes "moral" judgments regarding what is arguably a purely economic policy decision -- what to do to fix the broken economy.  Being a nation of laws, not men (or women); running a government according to a moral code is problematic at best and in extreme cases, like we see in Cleric-run Iran or Taliban controled Afghanistan, is nightmarish.

Morality and ethics are very different sides of the same coin.  Ethics can be codified without regard to any specific religious doctrine, which is likely as not to be in conflict with a competing sect's interpretation of scripture.  We know Sarah has a problem with ethics rules and was found to have "unlawfully abused her power as Governor."  However, this does not conflict with her notion of morality. 

Immoral behavior is subjective and can be rationalized by transgressors who invariably justify their actions as blessed by a higher authority or necessitated by a greater good.  Ethics laws are not so flexible or easily forgiven. 

Indeed, some of the most pious in our government profess a repulsively twisted morality which can justify all sorts of offensively craven behavior, twisting the Christian mandate of fighting poverty into a might-makes-right justification of protecting the wealthy and powerful from some of their most scandalous deeds -- so these "chosen ones" can bestow their blessed largess on the most well-connected no-bid contract recipient.  Sarah Palin fits right in with Washington's "Family," most recently seen smoothing the scandaled waters for Senator John Ensign and Mark Sanford when not fixing pancakes for presidents at their National Prayer Breakfasts.

The group’s approach to religion, Sharlet says, is based on “a sort of trickle-down fundamentalism,” which holds that the wealthy and powerful, if they “can get their hearts right with God … will dispense blessings to those underneath them.”

In practice, it's a glad-hand society who praise each other for how in-tune they are with God as they fuck each others' wives and steal each other's money -- and yours.  And yeah, this group formed initially as an anti-New Deal Christianist Cult has been Putsch-ing Palin from day one.

Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard magazine, and Michael Gerson, former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a Washington Post columnist, were among two groups of arch-conservatives who visited Gov. Palin in Alaska in the summer of 2007, bringing back to Washington, D.C. rave reviews of the then barely known governor as potential v-p material.

Both Barnes and Gerson are high-profile members of the so-called Falls Church Anglican, the name the defecting members gave themselves after voting to leave the Episcopal Church in December 2006.

In that congregation, they are closely aligned with a highly-secretive right-wing Christian fundamentalist political activist network known as "The Family," or "The Fellowship," many of whose leading members are active among the Falls Church Anglicans.

***

But the connection of the Palin selection as the GOP vice presidential candidate with Gerson, Barnes and the right-wing schismatic efforts within mainstream churches, generally, finds its broader expression in the mission of The Family, which has had as its objective since its founding as an anti-labor movement in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, to influence the political corridors of power in Washington, D.C. and globally.

Its core motive, as reflected in its activities over more than 70 years, is the intermingling of a shallow, unquestioning Christian fundamentalism with radical free trade, anti-New Deal, anti-trade unionist and anti-liberal passions. It has worked overseas to prop up dictators and mass murderers in support of big oil and other American multi-national corporate enterprises, as Sharlet documents in his book.

For all the world these folks look like the religious wing of the neo-con Project for the New American Century.  Small wonder Weekly Standard Founder and arch neo-con Bill Kristol has been her media Defender in Chief even before he pushed John McCain to foist this monster on us. 

She's less educated, less experienced, less comprehensible, yet more appealing than George W. Bush, in a: "politician I'd rather do beers/shoot moose with" sort of way.  A dangerous empty vessel they hope to again fill up with hallucinagenic policy theories and backwards talking points who is even less likely even than "W" to catch on to their nonesense ... like Bush seemed to after six long years of embarrassing cock-ups.

Palinfreude Overdose

My apologies to everyone for neglecting my blogging duties.  Now I realize, too late, that the seemingly endless source of pleasure derived from watching the GOP implode may disappear in one ginormous explosion of fireworks and Palinfreude (Yes, Skippy, I coined that word.)

Other than getting elected to the Senate, just what will comedians do with the Queen of Alaska getting out of politics? This is the first time I've seen only one story on Memeorandum.com.  From the moment we all heard her name for the first time, Sarah Palin has been one big bag of jaw-dropping whackadoodle.  Her exit from official duties (jury's out on continued meida abuse) was no different. Her resignation speech was as incoherent and void of logic or facts as anything she ever said on a national stage.

Naturally, this is good news for John McCain (who should be ashamed for letting this woman get anywhere near the White House). 

Rachel Sklar has a nice rundown of L'afarre Palin and her 10 months of WTF, as does just about everyone, everywhere.  My sense, however, is that now that she won't be distracted by the pesky duties of governing Alaska, she can now devote her time to what she and her family really believe is imporatant -- faux outrage and scathing screeds against trumped-up delusional crap, 24/7.

Role Models

Cleveland Cavaliers' newest cheerleader.

@persiankiwi has gone silent

UPDATE: Fantastic News Via Twitter Reports: Persiankiwi is okay & safe, away from computer.

One of our best Twitter sources for news from Iran has gone silent. Here are her ominous last messages:

1. Allah - you are the creator of all and all must return to you - Allah Akbar - #Iranelection Sea of Greenabout 10 hours ago from web
2. thank you ppls 4 supporting Sea of Green - pls remember always our martyrs - Allah Akbar - Allah Akbar - Allah Akbar #Iranelectionabout 11 hours ago from web
3. we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast - #Iranelectionabout 11 hours ago from web
4. Everybody is under arrest & cant move - Mousavi - Karroubi even rumour Khatami is in house guard - #Iranelection -about 11 hours ago from web
5. they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us - #Iranelectionabout 11 hours ago from web
6. Lalezar Sq is same as Baharestan - unbelevable - ppls murdered everywhere - #Iranelectionabout 11 hours ago from web
7. they catch ppl with mobile - so many killed today - so many injured - Allah Akbar - they take one of us - #Iranelectionabout 11 hours ago from web
8. in Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher - Allah Akbar - #Iranelection RT RT RTabout 11 hours ago from web
9. reports of street fighting in Vanak Sq, Tajrish sq, Azadi Sq - now - #Iranelection - Sea of Green - Allah Akbarabout 11 hours ago from web
10. rumour they are tracking high use of phone lines to find internet users - must move from here now - #Iranelectionabout 11 hours ago from web
11. phone line was cut and we lost internet - #Iranelection - getting more difficult to log into net - #Iranelectionabout 11 hours ago from web
12. all shops was closed - nowhere to go - they follow ppls with helicopters - smoke and fire is everywhere #Iranelectionabout 12 hours ago from web
13. ppl run into alleys and militia standing there waiting - from 2 sides they attack ppl in middle of alleys #Iranelectionabout 12 hours ago from web
14. so many ppl arrested - young & old - they take ppl away - #Iranelection - we lose our groupabout 12 hours ago from web
15. saw 7/8 militia beating one woman with baton on ground - she had no defense nothing - #Iranelection sure that she is deadabout 12 hours ago from web
16. they were waiting for us - they all have guns and riot uniforms - it was like a mouse trap - ppl being shot like animals #Iranelectionabout 12 hours ago from web
17. I see many ppl with broken arms/legs/heads - blood everywhere - pepper gas like war - #Iranelectionabout 13 hours ago from web
18. just in from Baharestan Sq - situation today is terrible - they beat the ppls like animals - #Iranelection RT RT RTabout 13 hours ago from web

Public Option Will Complement, Not Compete

Do we want insurance or medical treatment for what ails us?  Insurance is only a means to an end.  Health care is what we want.

As the debacle of AIG, the world's largest insurance company (until last fall), so graphically illustrated -- insurance companies are big evil blood-sucking vampires.

No, really. I'm sure I saw that somewhere. 

They place bets on the likelihood of us encountering misfortune and like any bookie takes it's cut whether we win or lose.  They've made so much money on our suffering, and often denying us the coverage we thought we paid for, they can afford to buy themselves a Congress.

Enough. 

The original idea of insurance was to spread the cost of tragedy over as many people as possible so whatever harm befalls one of us can be mitigated by spreading the hurt so far and wide that it's barely noticeable to society at large -- and society benefits by bringing an otherwise productive member who no longer can contribute back to wellness and helping us all move forward.

Our entire tort system is based in large part on this idea, spreading the cost associated with calamity, reducing the risk of doing business far and wide because we are more than the sum of our parts.  We're better together than apart.  Respondeat Superior, agency, vicarious liability, product liability, and the very concept of a corporation are all legal doctrines ingrained in our law that express this idea -- that we cannot as a society rely on the law of the jungle and be considered civilized.  Risk must be spread so no one person alone bears the full weight of failure and injury lest nothing be done for fear of unbearable consequences.

Specifically, when it comes to health care, it's bad enough that the cost of medicine and medical procedures have gone through the roof, but to tolerate the vampires who feed off the system and give nothing of value back is unacceptable.  Having a public option will do more to keep them honest than any regulation.  Those that can't compete were cheating anyway.  They were running a care denial company and not acting as a health care provider should.

Doctors should be paid, and paid well.  Nurses and technical staff too.  When looking at the system with an eye towards what benefits society, we all are better off if the best and the brightest find it financially and emotionally attractive to enter the medical field if so inclined.  I want the best people there and you get what you pay for.  I want state of the art advanced facilities and equipment which ought to cost a lot too.  And I want everyone to have access to all that.

So you spread the cost.  All of us spend some so that we can all enjoy the benefits of a wellness system of the highest caliber.  If your Congressional Representative balks at the very idea that a publicly funded health care provider is unacceptable for some sort of ideological reason, you have the right to wonder what is wrong with the government run health plan they use.

I have to admit, the long debate over what form our health system revolution should take over the last couple of years has dented my resolve that single payer is the only way to go and/or a public plan is at least a good start towards running the private insurance companies out of business if not a complete dismantling the for-profit model.

The best argument, to me, for resisting socialized medicine is in the area of research and developments.  Private enterprise simply is the fastest and often most effective route to innovation.  Pharmaceuticals especially illustrate the greed-is-good effect, Viagra being one of the most stunning examples.  Simultaneously it shows how market forces can advance discovery and success, and at the same time proves the market has whacked out priorities and is devoid of social conscience.  If there were a market for an AIDS cure as lucrative as that for male-pattern baldness, HIV would be a memory.

So there's good and bad in the market-based approach to medical R&D. The market indeed works, and works well.  Yet it doesn't necessarily work for the greatest good.  There is no "invisible hand" when it comes to our well being.

So, which way to go?  Should we scrap the whole for-profit system or at least pour our energies into creating a competing public system designed to eventually destroy private health insurance -- or accept at face value that a public system really is a benign competitor filling a societal need and not something more sinister.

We already have an example of a system that uses public institutions and private enterprises that both compete and complement each other in a uniquely American way.  Bumbling and stumbling but always chugging forward -- Education.  America higher education exploits both a  market-driven environment and public finance in the form of assistance to students in private and public institutions, as well as universities that are wholly manufactured creatures of government. 

Which would you get rid of?  Would you rather have only Harvards and Yales or do away with those hoity-toity schools in favor of funding Ohio State or Michigan University?  Of course we do neither and accept that the Ivy League Schools are the envy of the world -- but cannot boast anywhere near the volume of citizens who recieve excellent educations at State run universities throughout the land -- most of whom rooted for way better football teams than the Ivy League had in over a century. 

The Big Ten pretty much doomed decent football in the Ivy League (apologies to Doug Flutie and Fran Tarkenton), but these public universities, big as they are, in no way threatened to undermine the existence of the private colleges who still keep going despite costing double, triple or more than their public counterparts.

Don't knock the football factories, which not only pay for all the other athletic programs but earn a lot of their graduates millions as pros -- the only measure so many conservatives who deplore public anything recognize as the meaning of success.  Next time a Republican insists that anything the government runs turns to crap, ask him or her which NBA team drafted the starting point guard from Princeton. 

It is relevant if making cash is what counts.  If it's about educating as many people as possible to make the country more productive, where would we be if we relied solely on private colleges?  Not the leader of the free world, that's for certain, since the vast majority of our population would be embarrassingly undereducated.

We spread the benefits of a world class American education far and wide through both public and private systems which both fill complementary instead of competing market and social needs.  They work side by side and I wouldn't eliminate either.  Having both a public and private educational system spreads knowledge and wealth.  Now it's time to spread the health.