Karimov is our next Saddam

Steve Clemons puts two and two together, calling Uzbekistan's dissenter-boiling leader Islam Karimov the next Saddam:

Karimov is the kind of character that Saddam Hussein was a couple of decades ago -- someone whom the U.S. knew was a criminal thug but helped build up anyway because it appeared to be in our short-term interests. Karimov could be a real problem for us down the road -- and we will find that we armed him and made his party bosses rich.

Folks like me have complained about Dubya's two-faced stance regarding Karimov and Saddam, but for some reason I haven't made the comparison. Read the rest of the link.

Distortion 101

Actually, since it is Luskin, the course is probably not up to the standards of a 100 level class, but this is an important example of the oh so many ways the right changes a few small words to make a few large changes in outcome.

Vietnam Elections

Some more similarities between Iraq and Vietnam?

The Taxicab of Love

This is pretty funny...

Dubya closer to Universal Health Care than he may think...

Check out this post by Jesse at Pandagon... in the middle of the post, Jesse notes that Bush would be pumping these HSA with tax dollars and refundable tax credits and says:

If the government is going to be paying for the health insurance and health savings of low income familes...why not just cut out the middleman? You can shell-game the government-drawn accounts all you want, but Bush is proposing a massive expansion of government health insurance/savings.

And just like we have seen with medicare and social security, the private sector doesn't necessarily do these things better than the government does... for example, overhead costs from private retirement funds like defined contribution pension plans are often several times that of public systems like Social Security (this is the case in other countries as well).

I don't agree with all of Jesse's points in this post, but this particular one is worth consideration.

Update: More on this from Max Sawicky...

Bayh comes out strong for Social Security

Evan Bayh has been acting like a presidential-candidate-in-training of late, and Josh Marshall has been tracking his words on Social Security quite closely. Bayh was recently on Stephanopoulos's show where he was asked directly about his stance... I think his reply is pretty damn good:

And, look, the president is probably going to talk a lot about ownership and individual choice. I think those are great concepts, and I can support those -- but in addition to the current Social Security system, not as a replacement for it.

Look, you may own your home; a lot of Americans do. I bet you have insurance. Ownership and insurance have to go hand in hand.

Social Security is the insurance. Senior citizens in our country can always rely on it to make sure they're not desperately poor in their old age.

Should we have ownership and choice in addition to that? Yes, we should. But we should never do anything to undermine that insurance. That is one of the bedrock principles of our country.

Just a wee bit disconcerting...

Go read this... (via Atrios)

Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

---

The results reflected indifference, with almost three in four students saying they took the First Amendment for granted or didn’t know how they felt about it. It was also clear that many students do not understand what is protected by the bedrock of the Bill of Rights.

Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It’s not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can’t.

Yikes... all this while Dubya is trying to impose democracy abroad.

American History X

During my recent perusal of right-wing radio, I've heard mention of the Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas Woods.

Based on what I heard I thought, "Well, at least this guy has right-wing radio and Fox News to influence sales a little, but this thing sounds too out there to go anywhere."

Somehow I always underestimate the power of the Noise Machine.

#8 on the NYT best-seller list?

Read here. (UNC law professor Eric L. Muller knocks it out of the park.)

DHP Comments: The book is published by Regnery... that says a lot about what it is. Really, go read Muller's post... the stuff about the League of the South is incredible.

One step towards success...

Wow... that went a lot better than I thought it would.

However, not that I am trying to rain on the parade, but as my title suggests this is only one step down the path towards success in Iraq (success is probably most reasonably defined as getting out within 3-5 years without leaving the country in civil war). It is important to see what the outcome is: Are the Sunnis going to be represented in an appropriate fashion? If not, is the US going to step in an add some as the hinted at a month or two ago? What sort of constitution will they write? Are the local governments going to be able to begin to take care of some of the problems in the neighborhoods (sewage, etc.)?

This event is certainly worth a "Whew!" but it is important to remember the questions above and the fact that they aren't going to get answered today.

Update: James Wolcott is a little less circumspect on the matter:

What I dread is how this day will be used by the new centurions. The Iranian blogger Hoder, with whom I had the pleasure to lunch when he visited New York (something I haven't mentioned previously, for worry it would ruin his rep and get him de-linked by certain sulky bloggers), sensibly, succinctly observes today, "On the one hand I'm really excited that Iraqi people have been able to start the path to a potentially democratic political system, on the other hand I'm really upset that this will embolden neoconservatives and will be seen as a confirmation of their dangerous plans for the world."

The Iraqization of Iraq, the democratization of Iran--it's all part of the same endless, widening bombing run.

Yeah, that's another way of looking it...

Update: The NY Times has a good editorial up...

Update: Bob Herbert says:

A real democracy requires an informed electorate. What we saw yesterday was an uncommonly brave electorate. But it was woefully uninformed.

Well, if we define a "real democracy" like the way it works here, then I think that Iraq has hit the mark.

One more hoop down...

Graduate School is much different than Medical School... the latter has a finite endpoint, whereas the former is a series of random hoops that you have to jump through, strung about a plane in which the time/space continuem constantly changes, and in an area littered with traps.

So I did my preproposal today (hair crisis notwithstanding)... not the most difficult of the hoops mind you, but it is important in that it is a step down the final (and most challenging) component of the course. Let's hope DHP doesn't lose his momentum.

Bonus Animal Blogging: a corgi friend helps represent my accomplishment here:

Not bad... that's pretty much skying for a corgi...

Friday Cat-Blogging

A cat's favorite invention: The Sunbeam

Minorities and Social Security

I was going to write something up about it, but Krugman did it for me.

Here are some more links on the subject if you are interested...

Rehashing old strategies

You can almost see Josh Marshall's head shake in his picture on his blog when you read this, but outside the incredulous nature of the statement, one of the things it reminded me of was another strategy this White House uses against their enemies: attack them on the same ground they are attacking, no matter how stupid it may seem to the informed person (a la Kerry's war record)

Wittman on the warpath

I wonder when Christie will get her complementary horse head in her bed... perhaps they will just recycle the one they used for Paul O'Neill

SCLM

Jeff Gannon (via tons of sources)

Dinner for two

I read the bit Media Matters put up about this, but the account from the guy in the middle of the mess is even better...

Dirty Journalists

I think this is only the beginning...

Responding to the latest revelation, Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, announced Thursday that HHS would institute a new policy that forbids the agency from hiring any outside expert or consultant who has any working affiliation with the media. "I needed to draw this bright line," Horn tells Salon. "The policy is being implemented and we're moving forward."

Riiiight...

On another note, why aren't more conservatives up in arms about this? They are always complaining about the "liberal media" and how reporters insert their bias, but how about a few words when someone is on the take?!?

Oh right... I forgot. It's different when he plays for your team.

Got mah fishin' po' back in tha limo...

Ok, I originally saw a headline on this on CNN but didn't click through on the link... I thoughtt "Oh, c'mon... how bad could it be? This is just pre-Oscar costume-critic practice."

Oooops... yeah, that's bad.

The author of the story thought he was headed to camp... I think he was going ice fishing or something right afterwards. What was he thinking?!?

Of course, this is the same guy who pushed for invasion and probably still believes we will find WMD's in Iraq, so I guess in some ways I should not be surprised...

Crisis

No, this is not about the administration's line on Social Security... it is actually quite personal.

Normally DHP has very short hair... multiple cowlicks and a double crown prevent most other haircuts. However, it was getting long and The Wife and I decided to grow it out and see what we could do with it.

Bad choice.

Earlier tonight I was shooting some movie clips of exercises for my preproposal presentation tomorrow morning, and at one point I bent down in front of the camera. After cropping the picture, this is what I saw:

To small for you to notice? Here's a zoomed shot for you:

Can't make it out? You must be blind... this is what I am taking about:

Now I knew I was starting to get a little thin back there, but when your hair is as short as mine was, it is very difficult to tell. But now... all I have to say is:

Ho-

Lee

Shit!

So if DHP seems a little off his game for the next few days, you can probably guess why... I will try to post more this weekend if I can stop madly Googling for information on hair regrowth and other relavent treatments.

More medical mishaps

This time a little closer to home... Oooops

Awesome

Go look (via TPM)

Feith is gone

That is music to my ears... (via TPM)

I know they won't appoint anyone, you know, competent or anything, but Feith was truly a horror. Tommie Franks even labeled him the dumbest man on the planet.

- $2,000,000,000,000

That's a lot of friggin' zeros... it is also what the cumulative budget deficit will be in just a few short years under multiple scenerios as provided by the non-partisan CBO. Take a look at the chart to see how it could be much worse than that. (The actual post is good as well)

Remember, this is an administration which has already increased our debt by about 33% over its first 4 years. By 2008, that is probably a lock to be about 60%.

That should be rather sobering to you if our current situation doesn't already do it for you...

Meta-blogging

Ahhh... my first meta-blogging post!

I think this guy kinda misses the point... sure, Paine, Orwell, and Luther were in some ways our antecedents, but that's not what most people in the blogosphere say (sorry bpi... I know you hate that term)

Rather, the central nut is here:

Today, software tools make it cheap and simple to post personal journals on the Web, so more people do. "I wouldn't underestimate how much of this is driven by the tools," says Jonathan Weber, the former editor of the defunct Industry Standard, now starting a blog-infused Web site about the Rocky Mountain region.

It is so easy to do, and you can potential find a nitch with readers and folks all across the country and the world. It is even cool in terms that fall well short of that... a big reason I do this is to share my thoughts and discoveries with my family and friends. If I get some other reader, then that's great too.

But there are site that do things like this:

But some blogs are having an impact not unlike C-Span or Common Sense. Bloggers pounced on CBS' flawed report about President Bush's National Guard duty, helping push Dan Rather out of his anchor chair earlier than planned. Bloggers in Southeast Asia gave the world firsthand accounts — and some of the most dramatic video — of December's tsunami, often ahead of major media outlets.

This would not be possible if not for the available tools... and because the average joe can potentially make a big impact and have a voice is the reason blogs are so cool.

Another one bites the dust

Jeez.

Well, this one got paid a lot less than Armstrong did. But I guess you get what you pay for. Look what she wrote:

"The Bush marriage initiative would emphasize the importance of marriage to poor couples" and "educate teens on the value of delaying childbearing until marriage"

Not only that...it would also end world hunger, give sight to the blind, and get rid of that annoying ring-around-the-collar.

...ahem, is this thing on?

[shouts] Hello out there!

[long echo followed by chirping crickets...]

The DHP was kind enough to let me fling out some of my own thoughts on Opprobrious. I don't think you'll find our opinions differ greatly on most issues. However, my general reaction to most of the noise out there is slightly less vitriolic than DHP's.

Maybe one day, when I'm a thoughtful, intelligent, and distinguished gentleman like DHP (who has a wonderful sister and fabulous parents), I'll get a little more fired up about this stuff. For now, I'll just stay vigilant and wait for the pendulum to finally swing back....about four years from now.

Mo' Money Mo' Money...

...Down the drain. A projected $368 b-b-b-billion dollars in the red for next year, and that is not counting the $80 billion or so we need for Iraq (nor other possible expenditures like social security privatization or another tax cut, etc. etc.)

Remember that surplus we had? Seems so long ago...

Update: And check out these 10-year projections courtesy of Kevin Drum...

Tarnish setting in on Arnold?

Folks in the media love Ah-nold (mostly since he lets them write easy columns and affords them the opportunity to make stupid Terminator jokes). As such they like to write stories about how moderate he is and how willing he is to buck the White House and national Republican line.

Some of that is true, particularly about his social stances, but Kevin Drum writes about some striking similarities... and really, this is the main issue as it is the one for which Grey Davis got canned and Arnie got elected. When will the CA voters shed their infatuation with Arnie and see the reality of their fiscal situation?

A New Addition

Hey Folks,

Just like Kevin Drum gets Glastris and Sullivan to post at Political Animal, and TPM gets folks like Spencer Ackerman, DHP is going to add a poster to its ranks... I will let him introduce himself when we figure out how to add him to the site.

Hacktacular!

You kids remember when George Will gushed about how well Reagan did after one of the presidential debates in 1980 without disclosing that he helped prep Reagan for said debate?

It seems that Kristol and Krauthammer were so impressed by the lack of journalistic ethics that they just had to get involved.

Weekly Standard editor William Kristol lauded President George W. Bush's inauguration speech as "powerful," "impressive," and "historic," both in an article for the January 31 print edition of The Weekly Standard and as a FOX News political contributor during FOX's live coverage of Inauguration Day. Washington Post columnist and FOX News contributor Charles Krauthammer, also during FOX News' live Inauguration Day coverage, called Bush's speech "revolutionary" and compared it to fomer President John F. Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address. But Kristol and Krauthammer were consultants for Bush's speech -- a fact that neither disclosed.

More on Rhetoric vs. Reality

Big Media Matt has the word.

Scandals

Salon counts 34 Republican scandals from Dubya’s first term… watch an ad to get a free day-pass into Salon and read through the list.

As is pointed out in the article, the nation was said to be suffering from “scandal fatigue” towards the end of the Clinton Administration (despite the fact that the “scandals” produced nothing at all)… the raw material to work with from Bush’s first term is of much higher scandal quality, but nary a peep from the media on most of them, and the others have been forgotten. See for yourself; I consider myself rather well-informed, but while reading the list I often said to myself “Damn, I forgot about that one!” Salon labels this media inattention “scandal exhaustion.”

Side note: Check out the author’s name: Peter Dizikes. With a name like that, I wonder how proud he is of his pizzle… think he has a framed copy in da hizzouse? I say fo’shizzle.

Numbers

Via Altercation:

By the Numbers: The U.S. After 4 Years of Bush

Poverty Rate
2000: 11.3% or 31.6 million Americans
2003: 12.5% or 35.9 million Americans

Stock market Dow Jones Industrial Average
1/19/01: 10,587.59
1/19/05: 10,539.97

NASDAQ
1/19/01: 2,770.38
1/19/05: 2,073.59

S&P 500
1/19/01: 1,342.54
1/19/05: 1,184.63

Value of the Dollar
1/19/01: 1 Dollar = 1.06 Euros
1/19/05: 1 Dollar = 0.77 Euros

Budget
2000 budget surplus $236.4 billion
2004 budget deficit $412.6 billion
(That's a shift of $649 billion and doesn't include the cost of the Iraq war.)

Cost of the war in Iraq$150.8 billion

American Casualties in Iraq
Deaths: 1,369
Wounded: 10,252

The Debt
End of 2000: $5.7 trillion
Today: $7.6 trillion
(That's a 4 year increase of 33%)

SCLM

Here.

Operating on the wrong limb

No, this is not a post about social security (thank you, I will be here all week... try the veal). Rather, it is the real deal:

Douglas Hall, 43, went to St. Vincent's Hospital in November 2001 for arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. Despite marking the right knee with an "X," Dr. Andrew Feldman operated on the left knee.

This happens from time to time, but what sort of retard misses his own "X?" I guess he didn't go the full nine yards... an orthopod I shadowed during my community weeks used the "X" method but also wrote a big "NO" on the other leg.

Where is Biden's piss and vinegar?

James Wolcott wonders where the troops that should be backing up Barbara Boxer are:

Why is Barbara Boxer out there all alone asking the tough questions about Condi Rice's snail trail of deceit and fearmongering? She has the audacity to act as if the Senate actually has some traditional advise-and-consent role to play and for her pains is caricatured as a shrieking harridan on Saturday Night Live and a witch on talk radio. Boxer was terrific today on CNN, refusing to back down and reiterating her questions and objections regarding Rice with emphatic clarity while Sen Lugar mumble-mumbled some pathetic excuse-making about how Rice didn't deliberately mislead the country re Iraq's WMDs, she just did the best she could under the circumstances. Look, Biden and the rest of you Democratic punk-asses--get behind Boxer or get lost. She shouldn't be up there on the parapet alone, not with this wrecking crew trying to gear us up for war on Iran.

Damn skippy. Remember Biden tearing into Ashcroft over Abu Ghraib? Where is that now? All he has done is suggest that Condi go and talk to the folks who are training the Iraqi troops in order to get a clearer picture of their numbers and training, but not before he rolls over on his back so she can scratch his tummy.

Kerry should get in there as well... I realize that he is concerned about sour grapes depictions and did in fact vote against her, but if he was willing to stand against them during the election, why not now?

C'mon folks... bring your balls to work next time.

More reasons to like Johnny

As if you needed more reasons... From James Wolcott:

In retirement, Carson became appalled by the degeneration of cable news coverage and political discourse post 9/11. I received a wonderful note from him a few years ago--a note from Johnny Carson! I've never opened an envelope more gingerly--in which he lamented the dying out of voices of reason such as astronomer Carl Sagan, a frequent guest on his show. An astronomy buff himself, Carson prized science and reason. In his latter years he must have felt even more estranged from a country embracing its own hysteria.

Voting in Mosul

Only a week to go and there are only 40 polling stations in a city of 2 million.

Freedom's on the march!

Memo to David Brooks: Get a clue

And soon:

When he goes to China, he will not be able to ignore the political prisoners there, because he called them the future leaders of their free nation. When he meets with dictators around the world, as in this flawed world he must, he will not be able to have warm relations with them, because he said no relations with tyrants can be successful.

His words will be thrown back at him and at future presidents. American diplomats have been sent a strong message. Political reform will always be on the table. Liberation and democratization will be the ghost present at every international meeting. Vladimir Putin will never again be the possessor of that fine soul; he will be the menace to democracy and rule of law.

Because of that speech, it will be harder for the U.S. government to do what we did to Latin Americans for so many decades - support strongmen to rule over them because they happened to be our strongmen. It will be harder to frustrate the dreams of a captive people, the way in the early 1990's we tried to frustrate the independence dreams of Ukraine.

It will be harder for future diplomats to sit on couches flattering dictators, the way we used to flatter Hafez al-Assad of Syria decade after decade. From now on, the borders established by any peace process will be less important than the character of the regimes in that process.

Nice idea, but he completely disconnects from reality and ignores who he is talking about... the words Bush said won't hold him accountable any more than his actions during and prior to uttering those words bring them credibility.

Snark

This take-down is good, and is made even better by this Atrios follow-up line:

It's so easy being a conservative. It's like it gives you a license to be wrong 150% of the time.

Dubya’s Freedom Rhetoric

Undoubtedly most of my readers have seen other source of commentary on the disconnect between Bush’s inaugural address and his actions, such as overtly snuggling up to Putin, Musharref, Bandar Bush, and others, while turning a blind eye to other countries (such as Uzbekistan).

But what does the money say? The case only gets strong… from the CfAP Progress Report:

The Bush administration has cut funds to the FREEDOM Support Act, the program designed to promote and ensure democracy. Overall, funding for FSA was sliced from $958 million to $548 million since 2002; funding for Russia specifically was cut from $162 million to $93 million (President Bush only requested $73 million for the program). At the same time, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin shut down the Russian press, jailed his political opposition and attempted to validate his hand-picked, fraudulently elected lapdog in Ukraine. Noting a "dangerous and disturbing drift toward authoritarianism in Russia," Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization that tracks the progress of political rights and civil liberties around the world, has shifted Russia from "partly free" status to "not free."

SOURCES: Cuts to FSA Putin crimes against democracy Freedom House ruling Not Free

And now it seems to Kevin Drum that everyone is saying "Heh... just kiddin'!", including 41.

I wonder what Safire thinks of the speech now that they have backed off it so quickly...

Question

Why exactly do the Europeans need a Plan B?

All that the Europeans care about is being able to say to George Bush, "We told you so." What happens the morning after "We told you so" ? Well, the Europeans don't have a Plan B either.

I can come up with a few reasons why, but none are even close to sufficient in order to get involved in the mess Dubya has made (and it's not like the administration has really been asking them or making it easy for them to help out anyway).

This is retarded as well:

Mr. Kouchner blames Paris for having been too quick to threaten a U.N. veto

Friedman says that as if it was a good thing. News Flash: THERE WERE NO WMD'S!

This is the same sort of shit that happened to guys like Scott Ritter... those who were dead on right prior to the war got marginalized in the aftermath while only those who pushed for war are seen as having some sort of measure of credibility.

The final strangeness is here:

...that they saw themselves as Muslims first and French citizens last...

Put aside the rest of the stuff in that paragraph for a second and ask this question: given the choice between being considered a Christian or an American first, which do you think most Christian Americans would pick? I certainly know what I would say...

Sigh... maybe I should just let Friedman go... he has certainly let himself go, that's for sure. I am certain that I could go to some place in the heartland and find some quotes from a couple weirdos in order to fit my pet theories. I am not saying there are not issues here; rather, I certainly am a big proponent of waging a culture war for change in the Islamic World (one that does not require military war). However, this is standard Friedman tripe... take a sample number of 2 and write like that's how everyone is everywhere.

New population study needed in Sioux Falls

I’m not talking about the pediatric study that was the result I was in town… I am talking about looking at the obesity rates in Sioux Falls and why they are not sky high.

Yours truly is trying to adhere to a traditional diet (the “shut-your-gob-and-get-off-your-ass diet), but I am pretty sure that I gained weight while in Sioux Falls even though I managed to exercise on most days. It is certainly hard to diet while traveling, but it is damn near impossible in Sioux Falls. Here are a few reasons why:

1) The only local restaurants are steakhouses or dives that cater to truckers. The rest are chains or fast food joints (and there are a *ton* of them), none of which seem to have a low-cal alternative menu to speak of.

2) Unlike most steakhouses and family-owned joints I have been to, their salad bars are nothing short of a disgrace. Old lettuce, sliced carrots, and maybe some radishes and onions are about all you can expect; everything else at the salad bar is some form of heavy, fatty, mayonnaise-based concoction (potato salad is the most innocuous example).

3) All the soups are either cream- or cheese-based artery enemies. Period. Vegetable soup in a chicken or beef broth does not exist.

4) The proportions are about double what I would expect from a restaurant around where I live in Durham. I once order some grilled chicken on a bed of rice pilaf and ended up getting 2 huge rubbery chicken breasts served on enough rice to feed a Catholic family.

5) Even the supposed healthy places are ridiculous. After complaining about my caloric plight, I was directed to a Wellness Center that was a part of a small medical facility for the elderly. Their eatery was the same as anyplace else… non-existent salad bar, heavy soup, bacon-laden sandwiches and burgers slathered in mayo, etc. The best thing I could get was a cordon bleu chicken sandwich... sure, it had some Swiss cheese, but no mayo and ham isn’t too bad. Instead, I could hardly see the chicken for all the cheese on it, and to top things off, the bread was essentially Texas toast (for the uninitiated, that means white bread soaked to the core in butter and then lightly toasted). Remember, this was all at a Wellness Center… at least they had the decency to serve light veggie chips instead of potato chips. Whoopee!

Enough bitching. One positive thing out of it is that I know what I could do if all else fails and I don’t finish school or something happens such that I can’t practice or whatever: go to Sioux Falls and open a healthy restaurant. It would have a nice, well-appropriated salad bar and a menu consisting of delicious yet lower calorie and smaller proportioned dishes. Despite the fact that most people there clearly love their steaks, there has got to be enough folks in that town to support something like that.

But until then, I think next time I am going to have to find the closest Subway for Jared-style subs, and hit the grocery store in order to stock my hotel room with fruit.

Update: I think… check that… I *know* I found more fresh fruit and healthy options in the first two food kiosks at O’Hare than I think I ever saw in Sioux Falls…

Update: I looked up South Dakota on HappyCow.net (which has veggie and health food listings throughout the world), and I found only 4 listings in the whole state... none in Sioux Falls.

Traveling in the Snowstorm

Well, I am done with my work in South Dakota for now (I will most likely return in the future for the “real” data collection as this was just pilot work). Unfortunately, my return has coincided with the snowstorm that is just pummeling the crap out of the Midwest and Northeast (I heard Boston could get as much as two feet of snow).

Sioux Falls was scheduled to get some bad freezing rain and sleet out of the deal which would have added to my problems greatly… heck, my original flight out was cancelled the day before in a pre-emptive strike. However, nothing really materialized, so I was a little optimist about getting home.

That optimism was squashed upon getting to the airport. My new Chicago flight was delayed by four hours due to high winds and snowfall in Chicago. As I write this (I am currently on said flight) I have no idea what is going to happen as far as connecting to Raleigh. My guess is that there have been a couple of RDU flights cancelled due to the limitations on the runways in Chicago, and the remaining flights have already been booked up full from the passengers on cancelled flights. In other words, I might be staying at a hotel in Chicago tonight. At least I should be able to find some healthy food (more on that in a little bit).

Anyways, I wanted to end with a note that the good people of Sioux Falls (both passengers and workers) have been able to retain a bit of humor about all this… I mean after all, what can anyone do about the weather? This good humor was embodied when the guy working the gate for United got on the PA system for what seemed like the 20th time and said:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some good new…

A pause followed as the passengers at the gate held their breath. He then continued:

I just saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico!

He then announced that we were in fact about to board, but everyone thought that was pretty funny (including me). Kudos to him for doing what he could in order to help make this messed-up day of travel a little more bearable.

Update: I am posting this from Holiday Inn in Chicago, so as you can see that my suspicions proved correct.

Friday Cat-Blogging

Where's Waldo? edition: Find Sammy if you can...

Republican Dictionary

This is pretty funny... I have yet to read them all, but that doesn't mean you all can't enjoy it!

He said/She said

Alterman has a new article that hits on the he said/she said style of reporting on social security that is bugging the shit out of me (and Paul Krugman)... go read.

Poetic Justice

Peter Beinert has a new article that examines some of the reasons why Dubya is having such a hard time with Social Security... the sentral thesis is that gerrymandering and other strategies used to push out moderate and vulnerable red state Democrats have come back to bite him in the ass.

Delicious.

Divided Nation

Head-shaking CNN headlines aside, here is something from the NY Times which to me is a good example of how divided this nation is. Bob Herbert writes:

In January 1945, with World War II still raging, Franklin Roosevelt insisted on a low-key inauguration. Already gravely ill, he began his address by saying, "Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice President, my friends, you will understand and, I believe, agree with my wish that the form of this inauguration be simple and its words brief."

Times have changed. President Bush and his equally tone-deaf supporters spent the past few days partying hard while Americans, Iraqis and others continued to suffer and die in the Iraq conflagration. Nothing was too good for the princes and princesses of the new American plutocracy. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on fireworks, cocktail receptions, gala dinners and sumptuous balls.

---

The disconnect between the over-the-top celebrations in Washington and the hideous reality of Iraq does not in any way surprise me. It's exactly what we should expect from the president and his supporters, who seem always to exist in a fantasy realm far removed from such ugly realities as war and suffering. In that realm you can start wars without having to deal with the consequences of them. You don't even have to pay for them. You can put them on a credit card.

This is right on... when the tsunami hit, a lot of folks made snarky remarks (and rightly so) about the piddling $15 million initial offering of aid and compared it to the obscene amounts of money being spent on his swearing-in ceremonies. However, I am surprised that many of those same people have been silent on the stark contrast between his state and perception of reality and the crisis in Iraq.

Furthermore, everyone prior to the ceremony and address was talking about how Bush would address the need for healing and reconciliation, with the only question being how he would follow through on it. But the message of the day was spreading freedom, and virtually nothing on bringing people together or true bipartisanship. Again, the crickets are chirping... nobody seems to be talking about this omission.

Of course, there are those who wouldn't catch such things even if it walked up and bit them on the ass... from the same pages as Herbert comes Senile Safire:

I rate it among the top 5 of the 20 second-inaugurals in our history.

Uh-huh... only the top 5? Gee, Bill... that must be disappointing for you to have to admit that.

It takes guts to take on that peace-freedom priority so starkly.

What? That's like saying today "I oppose slavery... now where is my medal for bravery?"

Safire aside, most commentators I have read (including some moderates from the right side of the aisle) seem to agree on two things:

1) Bush missed the mark

2) Nobody will remember what he said in his speech in a couple years

But the true Bushies put their blinders on to everything and anything, and simply clap louder in order to try and drown out the noise from car bomb explosions and the lamentations of the downtrodden.

Update: Here is an example of what I am talking about from the Bull Moose (no wimpy liberal he)

Update: Peggy Noonan (!) also slammed Dubya's address...

Another Powell gone?

Let's hope so... we also need to see where he ends up. I have no doubts the industry will reward him generously for his whoring. I unfortunately also have little doubt that whoever Bush choses to replace him will be just as bad (but I doubt you can get any worse).

The Real Meaning of "Ownership Society"

Here.

Hilarious

From Eric Alterman (although he doesn't know who created it):

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

Kevin Drum retches

And for good reason.

Just like Iraq...

The conservatives are bailing out on the "crisis" justification and are coming up with new ones.

Oh Boy...

Although I like Joe Mauer, I am not much of a fan of the Twins... but at least they aren't a bunch of terrorists like the Marlins.

Can we make a law that states that whoever uses "terrorism" or "terrorist" in this fashion gets a swift kick in the gonads by everyone within earshot?

SpongeDob Stickypants

James Wolcott is awesome... and Mullah SpongeDob Stickypants needs some medication.

Joe Mauer and Me

Sioux Falls doesn't have many exciting things happen to it... for example, people here are really worked up over the fact that some comedians who are frequently on "Bob and Tom in the Morning" will be performing here next weekend.

However, one cool thing did in fact happen today: some Minnesota Twins dropped by the Children's Care Center where I have been taking data for a project with which I am involved.

Now the first two guys out of the bus were Jesse Crain (some random reliever) and Terry Tiffel (an even more obscure and random infielder). However, the last guy was the motherlode (well, at least close to it since it wasn't Johan Santana):

Joe Mauer.

For those of my readers who don't know who this is, he is the former #1 pick of the 2001 draft (although he would have been #2 if Mark Prior had not threatened the Twins in order to fall to the Cubs at #2). He is a rising stud... even though injuries limited his play in his rookie season last year to 35 games, he still hit .308 and smacked 6 homers in 107 at bats. Not bad, especially for a catcher.

Anyway, I was able to snag Joe's autograph and get a picture with him:

Yeah, the dude is quite large... and very nice. I pixelated my face to preserve my semi-annonymous status (it wasn't a good picture of me anyways).

I can't resist...

Check this article out about obese dancers...

It was what I expected until I got to this bit:

Barbara Paula Valdes, 27, said she feels transformed after two years with Voluminous Dance.

"I changed how I walk, how I talk, the way I relate to people," said Valdes, who weighs 275 pounds. "I had an artist hidden inside me and didn't realize it."

Umm, Honey, that's because you ate the artist while you were busy inhaling food! 275 lbs? Eat a carrot or something!

MLK/REL Day

This... is... sorry, I'm at a loss for words.

I thought the fight to fly the stars and bars was not about rascism but rather southern heritage (whatever that means)... if so, why feel the need to do something like this?

Go read this headline...

No, they are apparently not joking...

Jury Pool from Hell

This is awesome...

Rocca is worth 20k a pop

Damn... that's ridiculous. It's not like he is Stephen Colbert (and even then it would be insane in my opinion...)

Memo to Ruth Bader Ginsberg:

Please don't die.

From the Mailbag

Hordes of loyal fans of this site (OK, just Branson) want to know why the hell I am in South Dakota on a data collection run when there are plenty of folks to get to jump around for me for one of my ACL studies at UNC.

Well, this data collection run has nothing to do with my main PhD research.

Born out of an attempt to secure some funding, I got involved in a project with Richard Henderson in Orthopedics (himself an MD/PhD). He is more of a physiologist by training and is concerned with pediatric populations.

As it happens, kids with developmental ailments such as CP get placed in standers for various intervals. This allows them to weight-bear (among other things), and the thought is that this promotes bone mineral deposition. However, nobody has actually proven this.

My end of the deal is to coordinate the construction of, implementation of, and subsequent data collection with foot plates which contain load cells that measure axial loading. These foot plates are placed in the standers and measure the force "seen" by the child over time... does it vary from start to finish? Do the kids favor one leg over another? Are they experiencing much force or are they at too great an angle and/or are they strapped in too tightly and/or are they leaning on the supports and straps too much?

Nobody really knows... other folks are handling other aspects (DEXA scans, etc.), but being the BME biomechanist that I am, I drew this duty. The reason I am in South Dakota is because there is a residential facility for these types of kids here that is very willing to work with us (and are a bunch of nice people to boot).

Unfortunately, the stipend support thing didn't work out, but at least I got a free flight, hotel, and a per diem. And it is still damn cold... it was -11 degrees fahrenheit Monday morning as I drove to the Children's Center. There's not much to do either, except dine at any one of the dozens of chain restaurants.

Well, at least I get the excitement of the fulfillment of a research design and data collection...

More schools opening!

From the Doonesbury Website:

"Our apologies for not mentioning the names of all the candidates. But the security situation is bad and we have to keep them alive."

-- United Iraqi Alliance campaign flyer

Did I write a Krugman column?

I think I did! Check out this post (which I wrote on Sunday and posted last night), then see his latest:

Everyone has noticed the use, once again, of crisis-mongering. Three years ago, the supposed threat from Saddam somehow became more important than catching the people who actually attacked America on 9/11. Today, the mild, possibly nonexistent long-run financial problems of Social Security have somehow become more important than dealing with the huge deficit we already have, which has nothing to do with Social Security.

But there's another parallel, which I haven't seen pointed out: the politicization of the agencies and the intimidation of the analysts. Bush loyalists begin frothing at the mouth when anyone points out that the White House pressured intelligence analysts to overstate the threat from Iraq, while neocons in the Pentagon pressured the military to understate the costs and risks of war. But that is what happened, and it's happening again.

---

Still, there are two reasons why the selling of Social Security privatization shouldn't be another slam dunk.

One is that we're not talking about secret intelligence; the media, if they do their job, can check out the numbers and see that they don't match what Mr. Bush is saying. (A good starting point is Roger Lowenstein's superb survey in The Times Magazine last Sunday.)

Damn! Some of the parallels are quite close... does Prof. Krugman read DHP?!? I did meet him once... I must have made an impression.

Archbishop captured in Iraq

Link here

Oh, yeah? Well, I'll bet you didn't hear about that school that opened in Basra, did you? DID YOU?!?!

Sigh...

The Ostrich President

Man, I knew that Bush was a guy who only wanted to hear stuff that agreed with him, and many folks have spoken about how he places himself in a little cocoon, but he is so bad about it that he is even suppressing the metrics by which we might be able to efficiently judge what is going on in Iraq. In other words, he essentially already knows that the outcomes of the metrics are going to be awful, so he will just stick with news of school openings, thank you very much.

Bush loves to compare himself favorably to past great world leaders, but perhaps no comparison works better for me in this case than that to Catherine the Great riding through villages set up by General Potemkin.

Call it what it is: Lying

There have been some comments made around the blogosphere (and in some parts of the media) regarding the administration’s approach to peddling their social security nonsense and how similar it is to their approach with Iraq: create an “imminent” problem, close ranks and stay on message, enlist media proxies, draft the involved agencies themselves to sell the message (despite their status as civilian non-appointees), use push polling, invoke faith, and skirt the borders of the truth without out-right stepping over the line.

Josh Marshall mentions this last aspect in a recent post:

So, just as he and his associates did during the build up to the Iraq war, he uses paraphrases, work-arounds and slippery repetitons to communicate the intended falsehood while still providing himself with sufficient wiggle room to evade being tagged as a liar.

I beg to differ… he isn’t just waltzing around the truth; he is outright lying this time. And why not? It’s not like the media called him on his presdigitations with the Iraq War. Kevin Drum thinks there are reasonable problems the media is encountering on this score:

So what's the right thing for the press to do? Obviously they have no control over what the president says. And like it or not, they really do have to report what he says. He's an important guy, after all. And if he says stuff like this over and over, the press is pretty much obliged to report it over and over.

And despite the sterling example of the liberal blogosphere, it's equally obvious that reporters can't preface every quote from the president with, "In yet another attempt to deceive the public, George Bush said today...."

In this particular case, the LA Times took the usual tack of quoting a couple of Democrats who "responded" to Bush's statement — in the 12th paragraph of the story. That's page A14 in the print edition, for readers keeping score at home. In other words, practically no one saw even that much of a response to Bush's plain misstatement.

So what's the answer?

I think it is actually quite clear. Unlike the build-up to the Iraq War, the facts are all available in black and white.

With Iraq, there were a lot of people who I talked to who were more than willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt despite all the three-card-monty show he made when making his case to the people. “He must have access to some classified intelligence that we don’t know about, blah blah blah.”

But all the data you really need to know is available… there are really no secrets here. So the media doesn’t have to play their “Republicans say this, but Democrats say that” game; they can simply cite the data itself. For instance :

"Young workers who elect personal accounts can expect to receive a far higher rate of return on their money than the current system could ever afford to pay them."

-Vice President Dick CheneyCatholic University of America
January 13th, 2005

"Calculations of the median voter’s return from “investing” in Social Security suggest that for a majority of voters the U.S. Social Security system provides higher ex-post, or actual, returns than alternative assets."

-Vincenzo GalassoSocial Security Bulletin(The quarterly research journalof
the Social Security Administration)
Vol. 64 • No. 2 • 2001/2002

No Democrats involved. Just the politicians spewing lies, and the nonpartisan civilian experts shooting it down. This is but one example… whenever Bush says to some kid that social security will be “flat broke” when he retires, all the media has to do is point to the (overly conservative) numbers from the CBO and SSA, get some balls, and say:

He’s lying. Again.

Another big catch for Hersh?

I really wouldn't have any particular reason to doubt this story if was written by my dog Dizzy, but the fact that Hersh is the guy doing the reporting really puts it in the bag. He's one of the greatest investigative journalists alive...

Sioux Falls

As you can see from the timestamp of the previous post, I made it to South Dakota and have internet access (although with one complaint: I have to pay for internet access at a friggin' Radisson... this after having to pay for it at a Hilton in DC. If I can get free internet at a La Quinta, I should be able to get it at a Radisson...)

Anyway, I am sorry to say that Sioux Falls is pretty damn depressing. And that is saying a lot, for I grew up near Rockford, IL which used to be one of the worst metropolitan areas in the country as ranked by Fortune. The main drags here are lined with fast food joints, dollar stores, old strip malls turned into used car lots, and dingy little casinos.

I dunno... maybe I will warm up to it after hitting the mall that is right by my hotel. I sure hope so; it is damn cold here (about -4 fahrenheit when I stepped off the plane).

Gonna be a long week...

Where is the outrage?

Sadly, the media and others have passed on so many cases that this kind of shit is tolerated as a matter of procedure.

Over the objections of many of its own employees, the Social Security Administration is gearing up for a major effort to publicize the financial problems of Social Security and to convince the public that private accounts are needed as part of any solution.

This is quite obviously illegal use of taxpayer dollars for political gain… it pisses me off even more that they’re using the program itself to essentially advocate for its own destruction. But like I said, it is tolerated as a matter of course; the article even lists a few instances:

The Bush administration ran afoul of a ban on "covert propaganda" when it used tax money to promote the new Medicare drug benefit and to publicize the dangers of drug abuse by young people. The administration acknowledged paying a conservative commentator, Armstrong Williams, to promote its No Child Left Behind education policy.

There are other cases besides these as well. But here is the key sentence:

But on Social Security, unlike those issues, the government has not concealed its role.

This works on two levels: not only is it just another case to blitz your sense of ethics, but in doing it out in the open, it is played like there is nothing really wrong with it… sort of like avoiding the whole “cover-up is worse than the crime” scenario. Note the hands-off he-said she-said reporting.

There is no shame… neither in this administration, nor in the neutered media.

Update: Now there is this:

"The Social Security Administration is an independent organization that has a duty to fulfill the obligations of making sure that checks go out, and the solvency of the actual system itself," said the official, Dan Bartlett, counselor to President Bush. "There's no expectation that career employees would be asked to advocate on behalf of any specific prescription for Social Security. But one thing they can do, and what anybody can do, is to look at the numbers, and they're undeniable."

I actually agree with him... the numbers are undeniable: the Bush Administration is full of shit on the social security "crisis."

Light posting...

I have some travel comin up this weekend (a data collection run to South Dakota), so blogging might be a little light for a day or two... provided I don't freeze my fingers off, I believe I will have internet access at the hotel and will try to squeeze off a few posts there.

Friday Cat-Blogging

Another guest-kitty today... one of my parents' cats: Fuzzbutt. Here's the reason why his name is what it is:

He truly is a sweet cat... very photogenic as you can see from this next picture (it's the kind you would find in a calendar of cats or something):

C'mon people...

...can't you read the news just a little? Link:

He also got high marks for his handling of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, with 75 percent of respondents saying they approved of the way he handling it.

Was that with or without the knowledge that he stayed on vacation for a couple days before finally getting out of bed and announcing that the US would give a piddling $15 million?

Flip-Flopper

It is not really new that the right abandons their principles as soon as it becomes inconvenient for them, but it is still good to point out egregious instances... the latest is Orrin Hatch on the judical confirmation process (this is really a flip-flop from a previous flip-flop, so Hatch gets double bonus points)

New application of the Pottery Barn Rule

Powell sez that we might be able to withdraw troops this year. Depends on the Iraqis. No real evidence that they are getting trained properly. Lots of evidence of insurgent infiltration. Lots of desertions and defections. Lots of credible folks saying we need more troops if we want to stabilize things.

Edging towards a cut and run?

Arianna Huffington had a great comment on Powell in one of her columns recently... while going through the things she would like to forget from 2004, she lists:

What Colin Powell did to his credibility. "You break it, you live with it for the rest of your life."

Ouch.

12% think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc

No, that's not meant as a joke...

WMD Hunt already done

Well, that ended with a bit of a whimper...

Rush dumped for Air America

Priceless. (Via TPM)

Ethics Offensive

Now turned into offensive ethics. Go read.

The Homeland Security slush fund...

This is incredible...

Program standards

Jesse is completely right:

Is there any program in the government that's held to the same standards as Social Security? By this standard, the entire government has been in crisis for three years, and looks to be in crisis for the foreseeable future. Somehow, totally unimportant.

Damn skippy.

BTW, don't read the article linked to at Jesse's post... it is so bad it will make your head explode, and then you will have to clean up the nice new LCD monitor you got for Christmas.

The hoi polloi gets something right for a change...

This is encouraging:

Most Americans want something to be done about the rising costs of health care and insurance before Congress takes on malpractice lawsuits.

Well, maybe not *that* encouraging:

Still, 60 percent of those questioned say the lawsuits were a very important factor in causing higher health care costs.

Wrong... thanks for playing. It probably accounts for about one or two percent of health care costs (at the most). But of course you won't hear many folks on the news actually say that... repeat it often enough and the masses will start parroting the malpractice reform line.

WaPo Clueless on Social Security

SCL WaPo had an editorial out recently that got rightly slammed (twice) by Josh Marshall (and Atrios, who chimed in).

Go read... you don't even really have to know much about Social Security to see the ridiculousness of parts of their arguments. It is amazing that this sort of thing comes from one of the country's leading media outlets.

Now I'm no economist...

...but I know this is retarded.

Why I don't attend mass

I doubt I will ever regularly attend Catholic mass (despite being baptized Catholic and having a Catholic wife) because of crap like this.

I mean, really... between, this, the perpetration and cover-ups of sexual acts on children, the church's virulent stance on sexual identity, their sexist hierarchy, their ridiculous policies on birth control, stem cells, abortion, and in-vitro fertilization, and their exclusive policy on communion (I was confirmed, but in a protestant church which apparently isn't good enough), I get quesy even setting foot in a Catholic church, let alone attending one regularly.

I don't care if it is Jesuit or whatever liberal diocese... I think that my tithe offering and I are better off elsewhere.

Men of Steel, er, Adipose

Here's a pretty interesting bit on the size of football players nowadays... some of this stuff is just amazing:

A typical Steelers guard in 1943 stood about 6'0" and weighed 219 pounds -- chunky, but not morbidly obese. A revolution in conditioning and nutritional supplements began to tip the scales in favor of plumper players in the 1990s. By 2003, a typical guard had grown 4 inches and packed on nearly 100 pounds.

Hell, I could have been your average lineman in 1943!

However, I do call "Bullshit" on this:

While the NFL prides itself on fit and trim athletes, all but three of the 53 Pittsburgh players are clinically overweight, according to widely accepted federal health guidelines.

That maybe so, but it is really a misleading statistic... do you think that there are players in the receivers corp who are truly overweight? How about corners and safeties? No, those guys have a high amount of muscle on smaller frames which makes their BMI somewhat meaningless. This sort of thing needs to be confined to a certain type of individual, or else you run into problems.

BTW, Kevin Guskiewicz, who is quoted in the article, is one of my bosses...

Start a restaurant instead

This is a short article on the problems in the airline industry... it is pretty non-descript but this caught my eye:

Aviation experts say that changes within the industry are nothing new. In 25 years, more than 100 airlines have gone out of business.

Damn... you might think that something with such high capital investment wouldn't have that many attempts to make it, let alone failures.

Historians on Bush

I was perusing through the historians’ views of the Bush presidency in TIME's Man of the Year issue, and while most were pretty ok (albeit with a lot of tergiversation about the impact of Iraq on his legacy), I took some serious issue with this bit by Joseph Ellis:

That said, Bush does accurately reflect the core beliefs of the majority of the public. Most Americans are socially conservative, and many oppose abortion and gun control in addition to gay marriage, and Bush's positions reflect that.

Now, his overall message in his opinion is one that I tend to agree with, but I can’t stand it when folks write a bunch of shit to fit their own narrative. In regards to his assertions:

Americans oppose gay marriage by almost 2-to-1, according to a recent AP-Ipsos poll. Other recent surveys have found that people are evenly divided on civil unions that provide many of the same legal benefits for gay couples. (Side note: our neighbors to the north now have a majority in favor of gay marriage)

Some 60 to 70% of Americans favor the extension of the assault weapons ban.

America leans slightly to the left on abortion (that poll is a little dated... there has been some drift to the right over the past decade, but more recent polls by pro-life organizations show a dead 50/50 split)

Now having read that, would you necessarily assert that an unspecified majority of Americans are socially conservative?

Social Security Framing

I have some overviews posts on social security coming up sometime in the (hopefully) near future, but I want to take the time out to take a note of the issue of the framing of this debate (“framing” being such a big buzzword after the election and all)

I’m not too sure about this… I understand the need for packaging the problem of social security, and in that sense this does pretty well in telling a simple story that runs counter to the conservatives’ line that the whole system is broken.

However, this sort of line seems to have one real flaw: the admission of a problem. And when you admit there is a problem, then you need to offer your own solution. Now, we have multiple easy ways to deal with this “problem” (like axing some of Bush’s tax cuts, for instance), but you don’t want this to turn into a choice between our plan and theirs. I think the real distinction should be whether or not there is an actual problem... and right now, there just isn’t. Sure, there might be one some 35-40 years in the distant future, but that keeps getting pushed back (and probably will be pushed back again this year) so why even entertain the issue when we have so many immediate issues facing us right now?

Dubya failing on promises, Part CXVIII

This time it is reducing the deficit by half by 2009…

However, one of the issues I have with documents like the one linked to is that they fail to take an important second step: remind people that the deficit was all his as well. Dubya isn’t combating bloated spending and waste from an adversarial congress or leftovers from another administration… this is all his, from the war to his tax cuts to his ridiculous economic policies.

It is important to realize he is failing to fix his own failures…