Stevie Guide

Repeat After Me: There is NO Social Security Crisis

2011-03-19T08:08:00.000-07:00

As Dave Johnson explains at OurFuture.org, Social Security is a) not in crisis, b) not part of the deficit and c) solvent to 2037 and easy to tweak after that.

What happened was, everyone made fun of Al Gore when he suggested that the government should not be allowed to borrow SS money for other purposes. They reduced his well-thought-out arguments to derisively repeating the word "lockbox" to the tune of "nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa" as though that made him wrong. And then proceeded to borrow the hell out of SS to fund wars and tax cuts for the wealthy.

Now, when the US Govt borrows, it's not like your cousin Ernie. There's collateral, in the form of US Treasury Bonds. Not IOUs. These are interest bearing financial instruments, the kind we all used to buy for our kids to help build a college funds. And yet morons like Tom Coburn are spouting nonsense like this:

“

“We have stolen $2.6 trillion from it. We put paper money in there...[snip] ...There's no question that there's an IOU in there,” Coburn said. “But our country’s borrowing $4 billion a day. There’s no question, if we had the money, we could wait 10 or 15 or 20 years to fix Social Security.

It's like this: suppose you put a bunch of cash in your checking account. The bank uses that money to buy bonds. Then when you go to pay the mortgage, they say "sorry, we stole your money, all that's left is an IOU." Then they foreclose your house.

That's essentially what they're trying to get away with.

No, No, No; It Is Just Not True

2011-03-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

Time to debunk another lie about public unions: It simply isn't true that if a union has bargaining power then they are not answerable to the taxpayers and can just raise their salary any time they want. It is a lie.

See, it's called bargaining power because they have to .... wait for it ....... BARGAIN. As in negotiate. And with whom do they negotiate? Why, with elected officials. Taxpayers' representatives. And since public unions are almost always prohibited from going on strike, guess where the upper hand often sits at that table?

OK, so they don't have to ask each and every taxpayer for a raise. Their salaries aren't put up for a vote every two years. What kind of quality employees would you end up with if that were the case? Who would want a job with pay and benefits changing from year to year depending on how generous taxpayers felt at the lever?

But they DO answer to taxpayers through elections.

It is similar to the way that every other government contract is negotiated. You may vote for someone who does or does not support a bill to build an off-ramp from the interstate in your neighborhood. But once that service is decided on, taxpayers really don't get much say in how much it's going to cost. That's why it's called representative government.

So don't let anyone tell you that the unions are running roughshod and are all powerful with no recourse to the voter. It just isn't true.

Grain of truth

2011-03-12T17:58:00.000-08:00

Criticizing those in power is one of our most precious freedoms.

Criticizing those in our own party is one of our greatest responsibilities.

Why Obama Should Change His Shoes

2011-03-12T12:41:00.000-08:00

The reasons that President Obama should stay away from Wisconsin are as simple as they are irrelevant. Obviously, he can't DO anything about the law stripping public unions of bargaining power. And of course the Fox Newswits will go nuts gleefully calling him a socialist and blathering about States rights. But these things don't matter. No one really wants the federal government overthrowing local laws (unless of course they are determined unconstitutional.) And the pundits will be calling Obama a socialist no matter what he does.

On the other hand, there are some good reasons that it would be the smart thing for him to do. Even if he only showed up for an hour and left Biden behind to carry a sign.

The first and somewhat obvious reason is that he said he would do so. Now, I'm not suggesting for a minute that every hyperbolic or allegorical promise a politician makes in a stump speech has to be followed literally. Obama could support the unions from the Oval Office and not be tarred as a flip-flopper or traitor. But Obama needs a grand gesture. He rode into office on a powerful wave of popularity and hope, and failed to keep that wave rolling. The Tea Party wasn't victorious in 2010 because the whole country suddenly changed their minds and decided they didn't want progressive reform after all. They won because Obama was so busy trying to accomplish things that he forgot the importance of exciting people. He admitted as much himself when brooding that income taxes actually went down for Middle Class America, but no one knew about it. Getting out on the street in Madison and showing his comfortable shoes to the camera would go a long way toward helping congressional races in 2012.

The second reason is to help the recall movement, and flip another state to a Democratic governor. While the president can't (and shouldn't) call on a state's residents to kick out their governor, he CAN and SHOULD encourage them to stand up for their rights. He needn't ever mention a recall, or even bring up Walker's name. It looks more and more like Wisconsinites are already supporting a recall - assuming the sentiment not only holds but builds. And Obama can be an incredibly motivational speaker when he sets his mind to it. Imagine Obama quoting the same letter that the right wing has misappropriated to claim that FDR was against public unions. You know, this one, congratulating and agreeing with the national federal workers union in which FDR says

The desire of Government employees for fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions, development of opportunities for advancement, facilities for fair and impartial consideration and review of grievances, and other objectives of a proper employee relations policy, is basically no different from that of employees in private industry.

Which brings me to the third reason Obama should literally stand with the workers. It would be a video op that the media could not pass up. I'm not talking about Fox or CNN or even msnbc. I'm talking national broadcast news and talk. You know, the big audiences. What better platform to debunk the lies being spread by the right?And who better to debunk them? He's done it before. He's smart - almost as smart as I, and far more personable. The nice thing is, the lies are so stupid and easy to counter. Someone just needs to get the nation's attention and do so.

Finally, it's an excellent opportunity for Obama to begin securing his place in history. It's not enough to be the first African American president. That's an interesting statistic for the record books, but it isn't the way to be remembered. FDR isn't remembered for being the first disabled president - he's remembered for the things he did. If Obama wants to be great, he'd better get moving before he misses his chance.

Death of a Thousand Cuts

2011-03-12T05:48:00.000-08:00

It seems overwhelming. They own the banks. They own the media. They own the government. Soon they'll own the internet. We're not even sure who "they" are. We watch in horror as one state passes a law allowing their governor to dissolve local government and hand towns over to corporate ownership - conspiracy theories are so quaint compared to actual law. We're nauseated when the man we elected with the hope he'd change everything attacks civilians with unmanned killer drones, declares his right to assassinate citizens on his command and indefinitely detain suspects without trial. What can we do?

National Boycotts? Take a look at Koch Industries product list. There's hundreds of them, and no big banner on the packaging saying "Koch - The Fascist Brand." Every napkin you get at a fast food restaurant may be putting pennies in their pockets. How do you keep people motivated dor something like that?

Stay at Home Day? Great, emulate a three day weekend. Withhold votes from Blue Dogs? Wonderful, get Rand "The Toilet" Paul elected. Vote straight party line? Take a look at 2009. Besides, it's not really elected officials that are the root problem - it's the money underground that's fertilizing this crop of noxious weeds.

A real General Strike? Are we really ready for all out war in the streets against such gargantuan opponents?

But maybe there is a way. The dust-up between Madison firefighters and M&I bank gives me hope, and an idea. To hit them where it hurts, and maybe get some attention and engender some fear without being mown down in the streets.

A Thousand Cuts. Flash mobs that don't go away. Pinpricks to deflate the zeppelins. Pebbles to start an avalanche.

Here's the deal: firefighters charged that M&I helped finance Walker and thus the overthrow of public union bargaining. So they started an action to withdraw $600k in savings from one branch. After $192k was withdrawn, the branch closed to avoid a run, and M&I came out with a statement that the bank itself doesn't engage in politics and its employees are free to contribute to whomever they want. My point is, so what? M&I is probably no worse than Bank of America or Chase or any other bank. But we can't bring down the whole industry at once (we need it in some form.) Maybe we can't even bring down a whole bank. But we can close one branch. And that hurts. A little. Especially if it never comes back.

So my advice to the firefighters is to stay at the one highly visible branch. If it tries to open, go back in and withdraw those funds. From that branch. Don't go into other branches at all - for any kind of business. But keep the focus on one point. And when that branch closes permanently, pick another. Don't even ask for concessions to stop it - who cares if they fire their chairman, the next guy in line is exactly the same. Public apologies or admissions are not enough. Keep it up until real change starts to happen.

Now, let's expand on that. It's really hard to boycott Koch. Because it's hard, less people manage it. So the boycott is ineffective. So less people stay with it. But what if we picked one product, until it disappeared from the shelves forever? Let's say Brawny paper towels. It' easy - plenty of alternatives out there, whether its a competing brand or just using washcloths. The effect will be obvious immediately - imagine every supermarket carrying a glut, slashing prices to dump the stuff, warehouses in Georgia filled with excess capacity. A measurable reduction in inventory. People urging their local grocers to take it off the shelves and replace it with something customers want.

And then, when it's gone from the shelves, pick another one. It' good to target companies that have been most egregious, but it doesn't even matter. They are so interconnected, almost any product from any company will do. It's partially the uncertainty that might just get some of the crime bosses to lean on the one that went too far.

Turn off Fox News? Nah, they just turn it on in every hotel lobby and sport bar. Better, pick ONE upcoming movie from Fox Searchlight or 20th Century and don't see it. Don't go to the theaters, don't buy the DVD. It doesn't matter which movie or what it's about. As long as the one picked has already been made (and therefore paid for.) Sure, it's a sacrifice, but we can handle it - we'll get to see Paul Rudd in his next movie, they're all the same anyway.

Pick a stock. Any stock (ok, probably not an oil company, but any other stock.) Dump it. For whatever we can get. Let the wealthy pass it back and forth amongst themselves and a far lower value. Kill a company - if it was doing anything worthwhile, someone else will step in and recreate the jobs, eventually. This one will hurt a little more, but we can stand it. Suck it up.

It can be done. The hardest thing will be finding a central place to announce the actions and some mechanism of picking the next target. But if we could pull it off, and if we don't give up, we might actually be able to apply pressure to the right points and be rewarded with some movement.

Because if we don't, we're headed towards a massive breakdown of everything.

Hating The Audience - A How To Guide (part 1)

2010-08-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

I often proclaim that I hate the audience. Don't worry, I don't mean you. I love when you come to my shows. Especially when you buy tickets. No, it's the construct of the audience that I hate. Switching around my favorite Peanuts quote, "I love people, it's Mankind I can't stand."

Other theater people (and probably authors) balk at the idea of hating their audience. They are missing out, and I blame myself. I haven't really explained how and why to hate the group of people for whom our performances are, well, performed. This then is a rectification of that omission, and this sentence is an example of how it's done. It hurt, didn't it?

The first step in successfully despising your audience is to realize that the paragraph above includes a big lie. Art is not for the consumer. It is for the artist. Doug Wright's Marquis has it right: art is a collaborative affair. All that I, the artist, can control is the art itself; the audiences' reaction is not my responsibility. As an artist, I have something to show or say or protest or praise. Communicating whatever that is is a big enough task. I can't also be burdened with the audience's job, which is to decide how to react. They may agree or not; love it, hate out, be amused our touched or disgusted or frightened or bored. Not my problem. My only obligation is to impress the work upon them.

Unfortunately, an audience is lazy, selfish and needy. It sits there expecting us to hand it the junk food of a cheap laugh, an easy tear, a cathartic climactic happy ending. If we chew it up for them first, all the better. You can't blame the members - that's what they are being sold. Empty entertainment calories, greasy and tasty and totally empty.

And that is what I hate about the audience. Whether the demand is coming from it or from a producer or editor or director or actor - this idea that art must be tempered to the audience's taste is despicable to me.

When Van Gogh painted sunflowers, I doubt he was thinking, "I hope my painting makes someone happy enough to buy it." I like to hope that his intent was more along the lines of "when I look at these flowers this is what I see - Look at them! See it! SEE IT!"

Now of course I realize that this isn't always the case. Commercial artists, political theaterists, greeting card writers - all are tasked with evoking a specific response. Birthday clowns are paid to make people by god laugh and if they want another gig when little Eustace's baby sister turns three they had best deliver. But that's not the point. Van Gogh died in poverty and totally unappreciated by his audience. He must have hated them.

So that is why you should hate the audience. Because they are a force to dilute and pervert what you need to say.

But it is tricky. Tricky because it depends so much on what the piece is meant to say, and to whom it is being said.

Let's start with the second part of that first, because it is simpler. Whom should you hate?

The greatest and perhaps only failure an artist can suffer is the failure to communicate. That must always be the driving force, to take whatever it is that is burning in your mind and heart soul and share it. To express your joy or misery or ennui. Otherwise it might just as well stay in your head. Now, Vincent had a leg up on those of us in live theater, because he could put his work out there until an audience evolved enough to appreciate it. And study it. And decipher it. And perhaps, in some small way, to understand what he felt when he gazed at those stars.

We don't have that luxury. The actor, the director, the costumer, the set designer - we have to speak the language of the audience that's in the house tonight. No one will see this performance in thirty years and credit us posthumously for being ahead of our time.

I once took exception to a costume that was totally wrong for a scene. It was a appropriate for the period, and it was a period play; but the character was supposed to be irresistibly sexy and seductive and moreover in a fantasy dream scene. I argued that the shapeless white cotton sack worn as underclothes in 1840 could never portray that. The director argued, saying that was what was worn and in any case I didn't care about the audience so it shouldn't matter what they thought.

That man was a moron, and not only because of this incident. Don't make the same mistake - just because you hate the audience, it doesn't follow that you don't care about them. Of course you do. You desperately want them to feel what you are saying. If they don't, you might as well talk to yourself.

Here's the thing: you can't go to Manila and stand on a street corner reciting poetry in Farsi. Unless you are saying something about the beauty of the poetry beyond the meaning of the words. You can't represent purity with a red leather split-crotch micro bikini, or sluttishness with a floor-length white gown, unless you are making a very deliberate and ironic statement. You have to speak in a language that the audience understands. If you create indecipherable art, you must be saying that it is indecipherable.

But you can say "fuck you" to a septuagenarian audience in Forsythe county, Georgia. They'll understand. They may not like it, but they will understand. Of course the same word carelessly placed will mean something completely different in Jersey City.

So whom you hate is important. You can't hold back on what you say because of how they might react, but you have to say it on such a way that they can react. And if they don't like it, screw them.

Unless, of course, what you are trying to say is "love me!"

Part two of this screed will address how to hate the audience, and then look at all the benefits to the artist and, perhaps surprisingly, to the object of my derision: the audience itself. I'll give examples from real life - or, at least, from my life which is as close to reality as I am likely to come.

Georgia Primary Results

2010-07-20T20:11:00.001-07:00

Governor Roy Barnes easily wins the Democratic primary. The Republicans will apparently have a run-off b/t Karen "I did NOT say gays are human" Handel and Nathan "I don't care about liberals, I care about you" Deal.

Georgia Politics - Good News

2010-06-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

This year's gubernatorial race is going to be a good one. That is to say, no matter what happens Georgia will be miles better than it has been under Sonny 'The Chicken' Perdue.

First, the Republican. Don't get me wrong, I won't be voting for John Oxendine. A pro-life, pro-gun, Reagan Republican platform that under ordinary circumstances would make me want to puke. BUT - Oxendine has been a very good Insurance commissioner. Implemented some real reforms, worked harder for the people than the inscos (as far as I could see) and despite his conservative creds has been just what one wanted in the position - a public servant. Works hard, gets things done. Of course there's a down side to that - some of the things that he wants to get done are school vouchers, more abortion restrictions, and similar nonsense. But he also opposed state "high risk" health insurance pools because that's something the federal government should do, so there is hope. At least he doesn't want all the gays to go to hell and the Confederate Flag flying over the capitol (at least not publically) and wouldn't make Gerogia a laughingstock by praying for rain on the capitol steps. Plus, RedState says he must be defeated. So there must be something good about him.

But even better, on the Democratic side we have former governor Roy Barnes back in the race. Arguably the best governor Georgia has had in ... well, ever. He's no Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich, but after all this is the Deep South. Roy is strong on education, pretty strong on women's issues, strong on public transport and fair on healthcare. His platform is jobs jobs jobs (plus education reform) done right. He's smart, capable, and doesn't back down.

It's going to be a close race, both men are popular and go straight to the issues. If Oxendine stays clear of the 'social' issues, we could have here what America has been missing: an actual race decided by policy positions. I'm pulling as hard as I can for Barnes, but either way Georgia wins.

(cross posted at not Eschaton)

Grain Of Truth

2010-05-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

For every winner, there is a loser. But not necessarily the other way round.

Memorial Day on the VW Bus

2010-05-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

Not having much to say on this day, we refer you to Ms F and Bluesman.

Life On The Bus: Memorial Day

Updates to FortyToo

2010-04-30T01:12:00.000-07:00

Almost there. Version 3.2 is finished, including admin capabilities. With that, FortyToo is complete and ready to roll out.

So what's next? Building a marketing site, self-registration, and the revenue model. Oh, and some self-installing widgets for Blogger and Wordpress. For now, I can set anyone up pretty quickly that wants it but once it gets rolling I won't want to do each site by hand.

One of the cool new capabilities is picking a skin for the program - I'm still using the default skin here, but you can check out the others with these links:

JP - Forest Green

Satan - Orange

Simplicity - no side toolbar!

The structural changes I've been making to the program make it very easy to create new skins - so if someone wants a custom layout they can have one - for a small fee. And I'll be adding more stock skins. Each site gets to pick one skin, but can change it at any time. Of course, I built a back door into the demo site so I can show any one of them by using different links.

I'll also be adding a demo Admin account so you can check out how easy it is - for now, only registered users can see the admin pages ('coz I don't want you messing with my settings).

If you are already using FortyToo as your Blogger or WordPress comment system (or really, anywhere else) it's easy to update: edit your template and replace bensonmum.com with fortytoocomments.com - or just wait a couple of days, I'll be updating the scripts to point to the new site. Be aware that when you do switch over, all saved preferences, nuke lists, nyms, emails, etc. will be lost. It's a Flash security thing, I can't help it. But they aren't hard to reset.

Come on Jon... You Know Why

2010-04-05T20:52:00.001-07:00

Jon Stewart expressed - in his unique style - anger and dismay at the insurance industry tonight. It seems that although the new Health Insurance Reform bill prohibits refusing coverage to children, inscos have already found a loophole.

Jon was shocked. Shocked! Not that there was a loophole, but that the inscos went looking for it. Are they just pure evil? Do they want to be sure to catch the Haydes Express?

No, Jon. It's far simpler than that. And less sinister.

What they are is businessmen. And corporations. And shareholders. They do not exist to help poor sick children. They exist to make money. That is the nature of the free market and for-profit service industry.

Which is of course the whole problem.

Three undeniable truths about the free market: You get what you pay for,
not everyone can afford everything, and profits come from charging more than cost.

As long as we have for-profit health insurance, we don't have univeral health care. By definition.

Three Days in Spring

2010-04-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

My regular readers (both of you) are aware that I am not particularly religious, in much the same way that Jupiter is not a particularly hospitable planet. This is not because I'm not familiar with the scripture - if anything, because I am. Which is why I can appreciate the cunning of setting the resurrection myth at the beginning of Spring. As though life from death were a good thing. Or rather, that our ability to perceive this great joke were. Intelligent Design indeed.

I've spent two days in the garden now, and tomorrow will be the third. Killing weeds. Tearing up unwanted wild raspberries. Hacking the limbs off perfectly healthy but overgrown bushes. The great destroyer, armed with clippers and rakes and hedgers and a chain saw. All to make room for new life. And if some of the bushes don't survive the onslaught no worries - they can be replaced with fresh ones. They won't be missed.

Or will they? There's the rub.

New life is a wonderful thing, no doubt. But it can never replace the old lives extinguished, the old loves lost, the flowers that never bloom again. And we alone perhaps in the universe get to understand that in time these too will fade, and new weeds will always return. The circle of life is necessarily a circle of death.

Which is why the resurrection myth is so appealing. This one time, and one time only, the same life comes back. The concept is wonderful to imagine.

I just would have chosen someone else to be that one.

Donnie Darko

2010-04-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

As I watched Donnie Darko on DVR tonight, it occured to me that someone wrote that movie. Someone thought of it, wrote it, and turned it into a movie.

And it made me realize again how little I want to go back to sitting in an office creating software to make someone else rich helping other rich people sell things.

Creating art is more than a desire. It is a physical necessity. Air and water. Life. And for as long as I am compelled to hang on to this rock, however tenuously, I am determined to live. Because survival just doesn't seem that important to me.

Asstounding

2010-03-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

I had a lot of fun going through the Teabonics flikr group (h/t Bo). The misspelled signs are often ironic ("English is our lanaguage, learn it!") and sometimes just amusing. I know, I know. Cheap shots. I'm not such a great speller myself, and there is no spell check on a piece of posterboard.

But before I start feeling guilty about making fun of the educationally challenged, allow me to share this one:

It's not just a problem with the language. It's a problem with the whole concept of America.

Depression

2010-03-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

Once I wrote a program
made it run
billed the client for time.
Once I built a network
now it's done.
Brother can you
spare a dime?

SNL - A swing and a miss

2010-03-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

Political humor works best when it hits issues people care about. SNL stepped up to the plate last night with an opening bit with Obama, flanked by Pelosi and Reid, promising to pass the Health bill despite it being "terribly unpopular."

The wind-up, the pitch; and it's a slow sinking curve. Pelosi, Obama tells us, is safe at home in San Fran, but Reid could be out thanks to the very, very unpopular bill. Steeeeee-rike!

No one cares whether Harry comes or goes. He's a non-issue compared to the one standing there with a bat: why is the Health Insurance Reform bill, the Democrat's comprehensive legislation on the issue that swept them into the White House and solid majorities in the House and Senate, so deeply, deeply unpopular? it's funny when you think about it.

You can blame the Republican parlimentary procedures, or the Fox news misinformation campaign, or the ranting fringe teabaggers or the effect of insurance lobby money. As though it were a great bill that people would get behind if they only understood what it was about.

That's the pitch they should have swung at. Maybe they would have even hit upon the real reason: voters don't want everyone to have access to health insurance.

We want everyone to have access to health care. Health insurance is the thing preventing that.

Not Careful

2010-03-05T05:13:00.001-08:00

Everyone from Sean Hannity to Jon Stewart was talking about Obama's big presser yesterday. They all got it wrong. They all said it was about Health Care Reform; except for Obama himself of course - he was very careful to call it what it is: Health Insurance Reform.

And therein lies the problem. Or rather, the wrong problem. So please be careful.

When two companies love each other very much

2010-03-01T08:16:00.001-08:00

America: the nation where corporations can marry, but gay citizens cannot.

Open House

2010-02-24T07:25:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone - thanks for attending FortyToo's Open House - and thanks JP, Curly and Larry Elvis for hosting it. Coming out parties are always so exciting!

I've got to work today, so I can't give detailed answers to every question, suggestion or complaint. I don't really even have time to bask in the praise! But I'll address a couple of things quickly, and add the rest as FortyToo comments here tomorrow.

First, the "crash:" this is, as someone pointed out, the reason we have Beta versions. There was not a server problem. There was not a volume problem. As with all systems, there is an upper limit, but 288 comments isn't it. I've tested over 900, which with the Alpha version started showing some slowdown, mostly due to the Gravatar connection - Beta doesn't slow down there, but it can take a while for all the "hides" to work through. In either case, once the initial thread is loaded, it speeds right back up. And the text version is totally immune to volume, unless you use "0" as your page size. Which is one reason why it is paged.

No, the problem was isolated to one post and simply stopped everything after that from displaying. I know what the problem with the post was and fixed it, but still have to work out how it got in there in the first place.

There were some very good suggestions I'll be implementing, some that we've already discussed and planned, and some that sound good but would actually be very annoying.

For example, the reason that refresh doesn't take you to the next new post (it only moves the scroll bar and shows how many comments that try retrieved) is that it can happen automatically. If you were in the middle of reading a previous comment and suddenly the window scrolled to the bottom, you would be mightily and rightly well pissed. However, I might be able to have it jump there only if manually refreshed.

And it isn't really "refresh" - that's the difference. I shouldn't label it that way. It's really "Get New."

There are plans to give more control to the auto-rate, but it's a performance thing. It's really not there for active conversation (click the NOW counter button whenever you want) but for when comments are trickling in and you just want to see them come while you're working on another window. If every lurker on every blog that was using FortyToo hit the server every five seconds (even when no new comments were available) it would eventually slow things down.

So what I'm planning is a "smart" timer, that adjusts itself to how fast comments are arriving. That will be a while coming.

What else? Let's see ... Preview is indeed broken. I must have done something on the last update that upset it. And when you go to Text mode there are no scrollbars - that's a side-effect of opening the initial Flash window with no bars, they can't be turned on once the window is open. But I do have a way around it, I'll implement it tomorrow. Copy/Paste will come eventually, but it's kind of a big deal with the Flash Text/Graphics Engine. Some of you may remember that when PDF first came out, you couldn't copy/paste with Acrobat Reader either. It's a similar issue. The question is, will I get around to doing the complex code involved before Adobe updates the platform to make it easier? Probably. I'm faster than they are.

Thanks again everyone, hope you enjoyed your night out from the Trolls and we'll all talk again soon.

--dirk gently, sociopathetic

FortyToo, Also - vers 2.0 BETA

2010-02-20T20:27:00.000-08:00

Things are trucking right along with FortyToo - the only commenting system to use Bensonmum Troll-b-gone technology. Version 2.0 is up, it looks a bit cleaner, it's easier to work with and it has the NUCLEAR OPTION.

Check it out by commenting here, or over at JP's site. Or check out the newest feature description at http://bensonmum.com/comments.

Forty, Too!

2010-02-07T11:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I've done it. I've switched over to the Best Comment System In The World, AKA Forty Too. OK, it's not even in Beta yet and can only be accessed with Flash so far, but that will be changing very soon. No one really comments here anyway, I just wanted to make it work with Blogger. So, yeah, I've got to do an auto-install widget someday. But for now, it's only a three line change in the template and if anyone wants to use it you can email me your Blogger template and I'll switch it for you. Or just tell you the lines. Of course, this implies you know my email address and I know you. It's not for the unwashed masses yet.

When I finish the non-flash version I'll set up some Terms Of Service and start assigning site names (you'll need me to get Admin capabilities anyway) but for now knock yourselves out. I'm also working on a comment importer - I'll at least do one for Blogger, maybe for JSKit. We'll see.

Stevie's Guide to Fixing Everything

2009-12-02T07:38:00.000-08:00

1. Fixing Healthcare: Provide government run single payer care to everyone. Wrap up Medicare, Medicaid, VA, every other current program into it. Pay for the rest with graduated taxes based on real income/worth, not just payroll - the people who have the most get the most benefit from living in this society, let them kick in more.

2. Fixing the economy: Do #1. Then build some shit.

3. Fixing Afghanistan: We can't. Never gonna happen. Grow the fuck up and get out of there.

Bensonmum

2009-11-30T22:08:00.000-08:00

So there was a lot of anguish over at Eschaton. The trolls were out of control. There was talk of a registration system, banning, or just giving up. It wasn't just stupid or disagreeable remarks - everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if it is a dumb one. But there seemed to be a campaign to force one regular off the blog by filling up every comment thread with vile attacks on him, then urging everyone else to blame him for bringing those attacks. It got so bad we couldn't have a conversation.

It pissed me off.

Then JP asked why we couldn't block everyone with gravatars.

And so Bensonmum was born. Named after the blind butler in Murder By Death, bensonmum brings the hot chocolate. All it needs is Firefox and Greasemonkey and off you go. It gives total user control. Initially, all comments without gravatars are hidden exept for the poster's name and a view link. Mouse over and see the comment if you want. Click on the link to whitelist the poster - from then on, his comments will be visible even if he doesn't have a gravatar. And if a troll gets a gravatar, just click the "hide" link to blacklist him. Easily reversibly, totally in your control.

I've hardly gotten to use it, because pretty much as soon as it became available all the trolls went away. Ahhh! Fresh air.

Grain Of Truth

2009-11-29T11:34:00.000-08:00

If you are someone who really needs a $400 tax rebate, $400 is not gong to solve your problems.

Drowning in the Big Pool

2009-09-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

President Obama, as many people know, was on Letterman last night. Now, I know - it's a comedy oriented talk show, it wasn't a policy visit, it was a "I'm a good guy, like me" appearance. And he did pretty well, I think. Except for one big mistake that he has repeated over and over about mandatory private health insurance.

Obama says that all the self employed and otherwise uninsurable people seeking private insurance will form a big pool that will be able to get the same kind of rates as big employer groups. Well, they could have done that all along. What was stopping them? The same thing that will be stopping them when coverage is mandatory.

In order for a group to negotiate rates, there has to be a NEGOTIATOR (a person who does the bargaining) and they have to make a decision to go with the best deal. AT&T doesn't just say "look, insurance industry, we have hundreds of thousands of employees, if you want a taste of them you've got to give each one a good deal." No, they have som HR person who uses the VOLUME of the group as leverage to get ONE vendor.

The idea that since all of us as individuals must be insured and can pick any policy we want, insurance companies will somehow be pressured to lower their rates to get our business is ludicrous. I wish our otherwise very intelligent president would realize this.

So Let Me Get This Straight...

2009-09-09T10:17:00.000-07:00

So here I am, a middle-class, middle-aged, reliably democratic voter who can't get health insurance because I am self employed and saddled with pre-exisiting conditions. And I'm still probably better off than most of the 47-50 million other uninsured Americans. However you look at it, there is a real healthcare crisis in this country and something has to be done. In the free-market Republican philosophy, as long as the insurance companies continue to thrive and be profitable, all is well - the market will take care of the rest. It will take care of me as soon as I have the heart attack that my pre-existing conditions predict isn't far off, after which I'll no longer be a drain on the system. And while that may be good for a capitalist society as a whole, it isn't the preferred result for me personally. Which is a big reason that I pushed so hard for the Democrats in 2008.

So how is the Democratic head of the Democratically controlled Senate with a Democratic majority in both houses and a Democratic administration going to help me?

By mandating that I buy private insurance from a for-profit insurance company that currently won't even sell me a policy, or face what I gather is about a $4,000 fine. And whether I pay that fine or not, if I get sick or injured I'll still be without healthcare. Oh, wait, there's some wording in Baucus's bill to the effect that the cost of my policy can't be "exorbitant." Look it up, it's an interesting word.

I feel so much better now.

2nd Amendment Terrorists

2009-08-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

I recently learned of a GAO report stating that over 1,000 people on the Terrorist Watch List have attempted to buy guns or explosives over the past 5 years, with a 90% success rate. Yes, being on the list will stop you from being able to board a plane or get a visa, but it won't keep you from buying a gun.

This is an appalling policy and it must be ended.

Don't get ahead of me here - it's not what you might think. True, I am generally anti-gun - or at least, pro-sane gun control. Generally. But my problem here isn't that people on the TWL can buy guns.

It is that the TWL exists at all. To refresh your memory, this is a secret list compiled by some secretive organization in our government that denies certain basic liberties to citizens who are suspected of having some relationship with terrorists. That the list is not well compiled is well known - the most publicized example was when Senator Ted Kennedy was not allowed to board a commercial airline because he was mistakenly on the list. There have been many other examples of "innocent" people who happened to have similar names to "suspected terrorists" or who had some tenuous relationship to such people.

But even if the list were perfect - even if it adhered to whatever standard it supposedly meets, even if every name on the list was someone who was suspected of engaging in terrorist activities, the whole concept of such a list is abhorrent in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. It is also, I am almost certain, unconstitutional.

If a citizen of the United States is suspected of a crime, evidence should be gathered and he should be charged and tried. If he is suspected of planning a crime, the FBI or CIA or other appropriate agencies should watch him, monitor him, do what is necessary within the limits placed on them by the constitution to respect his rights. But under no circumstances should a completely unaccountable government agency be allowed to decide that a free citizen is a "suspect" and preemptively limit his civil rights to travel - or for that matter, to legally purchase a firearm. The right to be treated as innocent til proven guilty, to face ones accusers openly, to be secure in ones privacy, to be free of government interference in normal daily life - these rights are ultimately more important than the threat of some rogue terrorist. For if we lose them, we've already lost what we are supposed to be defending. Not cars or McMansions or planes or even individual lives.

When the principles and ideals on which this once great nation were founded - even if they were imperfectly followed - are tossed aside out of fear and cowardice and lust for power, we have failed. We should instead be striving to build on the strength of the idealistic foundation that has carried us so far.

Musical Talent

2009-08-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

It runs in the family, but away from me. Here my 1-yo grandson demonstrates how it is done.

Faux News Special Report

2009-08-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

Transcript:

Ladies and gentlemen, today is the day that every newsman looks forward to with a chill in his bowels. Two score and twice two years ago, our nation defeated both fascism and an evil imperial empire with the most devastatingly awesome weapon ever created. Over the next decades, as two opposing ideologies built great stores of these terrible weapons, giants among men - men like Murrow, Reasoner, Cronkite, Doocey - lived with the fear and pride of knowing that the solemn duty might fall someday to them: to announce the end of civilization as we know it.

And then, having emerged unscathed from that dark and cold war, we found ourselves confonted with an even more profound threat; and now it falls to me, Stephen B Hamilton, a man whose giant shoes no clown could fill, to make the terrible pronouncement to all Americans that have basic cable:

Healthcare Reform has passed.
America, I urge you to remain calm. Panic will only result in higher blood pressure and occasional bumps and bruises, leading to the possibility of dreaded waiting rooms.

All over this once great nation, people from all walks of life - but mostly the poor, the suffering, the unemployed - previously free from the o'erhanging threat of socialized - or any other - medical care, are phoning doctors for appointments, and in some cases being told that they might have to wait days - even weeks - for the privilege of being stripped, weighed, measured, tested, questioned about their most private bodily functions. Some will be poked with needles, others connected to machines; many will be drugged. Ampecillan, Ativan, Levatol, Lipator, the list goes on and on. Sources say that children - CHILDREN - sick, weak, coughing children will be forced to the front of the lines and ... taken first. Oh the humanity.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This is very unprofessional.

Even now, the Death Panels are being formed. Teams of jackbooted psychologists, social workers, clergy, medical and legal experts, and family counselors; just waiting to dole out free advice and explain the options to any American who choses to take advantage of the program. If that isn't fascism, well I don't know what is.

All over this great land, insurance company executives are being forced to list their private jets on EBay; and we know how effective that is. Shoe prices are poised to sore as excessive street dancing tears apart our very soles. And our beloved congressmen and women, those selfless men and women whom we always return to Washington because although everyone else's representatives are greedy theiving weasels our own are actually pretty good and funnel a lot of federal dollars our way, these poor abused creatures are now forced to deal with the same medical services which they have imposed upon the rest of us.

It is a sad day for America. And yet, this dark cloud has a silver lining. For you have been blessed with me, Stephen B Hamilton, to deliver the horrible news.

This has been Stephen B Hamilton, good night and stay well.

Dawning Realization

2009-08-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

Another voice has joined in proclaiming the inevitable and only possible solution to the health care crisis. No public option, no compromise, no finagling trying to get opposition who are going to oppose anything to agree to a watered-down half-assed compromise to which they will never agree anyway.

HR-676, aka Medicare For All, is the closest thing to a real bill there is out there right now. Instead of begging to be allowed to compete with the private insurance companies, instead of hoping that "affordable" means that we'll be able to afford it, instead of being happy with the tablescraps of almost universal coverage, this is what we should all be pushing for. Let it come to an up and down vote. A recorded vote. So we know who needs to be out on their ass next term.

So Welcome Aboard, Libby. who writes this at The Impolitic:

Screw working for the politically possible. Screw the watered down public option. I'm sick of the noise in the health care debate. I'm sick of the disinfo. I'm sick of pushing back against the crazytrain. Sick of exposing astroturfers. Sick of the sellouts on all sides. It's all a distraction.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Why Do You Hate America?

2009-08-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

I personally am sick and tired of the Blame America First crowd who think that the greatest government in the world is totally incompetent and unable to run something as complex as a National Healthcare system better than a board of directors picked from a pool of ... well, the kind of people who become directors. Why do you hate America? What do you think makes it different from every other country on earth? It is that we ARE the government. If it doesn't work, it is our own fault. Personally, I would rather trust my health to an organization that only exists BY the people, FOR the people and OF the people, and in which I have SOME form of redress, than an insurance company that exists to make money from me, makes more by NOT providing care, and which only answers to its board members. Which, BTW, is why I prefer the Marines to Blackwater and the Army Corps of Engineers to Halliburton.

Sure, you can take the view that you personally have the greatest healthcare in the world, that you EARNED it and DESERVE it and those great unwashed masses ought to find their own way and keep their grubby little hands off of your stuff. But that is not only amoral and selfish, it is stupid and will ultimately lead to your downfall. They won't eat cake. Ask Marie. But if you have any semblence of humanity and agree that NO ONE in the richest nation in the history of the world should die because their parents couldn't afford an MRI, what POSSIBLE organization has more resources, ability, power and accountability than the United States Government?

Public Funds, Private Concerns

2009-07-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

One of the arguments I've heard against tax-supported single-payer healthcare is "I don't want my taxes used to pay for abortions." Republicans - and some Blue Dog Democrats - on the Hill make the same noise.

I think they are exactly right. The government has no business taking our money and sinfully using it in violation of our deeply held religious beliefs. Isn't that what Freedom of Religion is all about? So let's see no more public funding of anything that is morally and spiritually repugnant.

From now on, in deference to Orthodox Jews, the Interstates should be shut down on the Sabbath. In fact, ALL government services should be shut down on the Sabbath. It must be kept holy. The Quakers would like to stop spending all that money on warfare while we are at it. "Normal" Christians might ask for the same thing if they read their Bibles a little more closely, but we'll let that go for now.

And, since we started out with healthcare, let's finish there as well. We can save a ton of money for everyone by nationalizing the whole thing, and then honoring the deeply held convictions of the Christian Scientists. After all, why should they have to pay for antibiotics for your kids?

Problems solved.

Cooperation

2009-07-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

So the latest "alternative" to public healthcare is based on a Co-op model in Seattle; run as a non-profit with a board elected by the insured. That way, the desire for votes keeps the board focused on the patient's well-being. Doctors, working at clinics owned by the Co-op, are paid a salary rather than per-procedure with bonuses based on quality care. According to the NYT,

Patients are assigned a team of primary care practitioners who are responsible for their well-being. Medical practices, and insurance coverage decisions, are driven by the company’s own research into which drugs and procedures are most effective.

[snip]

A number of company officials acknowledged that it is Group Health’s ability to directly manage its doctors that really drives innovation. The cooperative structure’s primary contribution, they said, is to create a consumerist ethos that keeps the company focused on patient care.

“There’s a kind of accountability to the patients in our system,” said Scott Armstrong, president of Group Health. “And when you bring the principles of a cooperative to bear, patients feel responsibility for holding the system together and for their own health.”

Of course, to set this up on a national scale with universal coverage, we'd need an organization large enough to collect votes from every citizen, and for the resulting "board" to oversee career administrators to actually run the behemoth. About $7.5 million has been raised by the Seattle clinic, one would suppose that extrapolating that nationally would cost upwards of a trillion dollars. Who in the world could raise that kind of money?

If only there already existed an entity that could answer to the patients (that is, the American citizens) that was large enough and already experienced in being run by elected officials, and had some kind of research capabilities in medicine and drugs. Huh. Maybe we could create one. Now, I now what you are thinking - why not just use the Federal Government? But then, you see, patients might have primary care physicians assigned, and doctors would be directly managed by the very group paying their salaries. And they'd make decisions on procedures and coverage based on their own research. Plus, in order to get that accountability to patients, the government would have ultimately answer to the people, and the people would have to bear the responsibility of holding the system together. And we know that's never going to work. What kind of government would that be?

World Challenge

2009-06-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

Today is D-Day. The world remembers and reflects. Another anniversary.

Here's the challenge: starting tomorrow, world, go for a week without thinking about war. Just one week. I don't believe it has ever been done before.

Another Year

2009-06-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I want everyone else to feel bad, too. At the same time, I wouldn't want anyone else to feel like this. Reminders aren't helpful, but you can't stop the calendar from coming around again. I'm glad no one reads this blog. There's nothing to say, anyway.

http://stevebanks.com/olivia

Secular Humanist Thought of the Day

2009-05-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

When Jesus passed out the loaves and fishes, he didn't worry about whether the recipients had cable TV or were just too lazy to work.

Tom Price Stands With Father Rapers

2009-05-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

Tom Price is chilled. What he heard was that Obama stands with some Americans, but not all Americans. Unlike the GOP. Obama will stand with ethical and competent businessmen, but not with those who drive the economy into the ground and then demand a taxpayer funded bailout. Why oh why will Obama not stand with American crooks and liars and swindlers and cheats, with mother rapers and father killers and father rapers; they are all sitting there on the group W bench, just waiting for this president to join with Tom Price and the Republican Study Committee in standing behind them. As long as they aren't gay.

Single Payer Health Care Considered

2009-05-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) finally put Single Payer Healthcare into the hearings today. We were worried the subject would be ignored - but no. Baucus today said:

Some people want a single payer solution. That won't work.

See? Simple as that. Anyone who wants congress to even discuss the possibility has been politely dismissed. Issue closed.

We should all write to Sen Baucus and thank him for saving time and money by putting this to bed so succinctly.

Huzzah! Healthcare Reform!

2009-05-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

From The Hill:

President Obama will announce an initiative Monday that the administration says will reduce national healthcare spending by $2 trillion over 10 years.

A coalition of six interest groups representing healthcare companies and a labor union are behind the plan. Their chief executives will meet with the president Monday to present him with a written commitment to cut the rate of growth in healthcare spending by 1.5 percentage points each year for 10 years.

We won! Well, in that an industry group is proposing voluntary measures to reduce their costs (oh, sorry, to cut the rate of growth) by increasing efficiency in the belief that will somehow translate to lower fees somewhere down the line.

The White House provided few details about how the savings will be achieved and acknowledged that, as a voluntary effort by private sector entities, there is no formal means of enforcing their pledge.

No worries, though. Surely Congress will step up and make new laws to regulate the health care industry, especially when they have a blueprint written by ... well, the health care industry.

Many of the policies the interest groups will endorse Monday require legislation to put into practice, a senior administration official noted. “This is really dependent on getting reform done,” the official said.

Now one might be thinking, why wouldn't insurance companies and health care providers have already tried to cut administrative costs? Doesn't that just make good business sense? Wouldn't the Invisible Hand of the Market and the self-sustaining miracle of free market capitalism naturally move in that direction? Well, perhaps. But these proposals are revolutionary, ground-breaking, brilliant.

The specific means the interest groups intend to employ were not explained Sunday. The administration did offer some examples, however, that closely match elements of what Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is expected to include in his legislation, such as reducing insurance company paperwork, “bundling” a single payment to hospitals and other providers that collaborate on a treatment and adding Medicare payment incentives to encourage providers to coordinate the care they provide patients with chronic conditions.

Wow. Just wow. The first part is sort of like legislating that a server can't create separate checks. Get it? Instead of making the Insurance Company write individual checks to the hospital, the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the referring physician and so on, the insco will send just ONE check - presumably to the hospital. Who will then have the added administrative burden of splitting that check up and paying each of the individual providers. Brilliant! No mention of how or when this will actually reduce the patients' financial burden of course - perhaps if the inscos save enough money, they will be kind enough to trickle some of it down.

The second example is even better: because it is more effective and cost efficient for providers to coordinate care (that is, coordination should provide better care at a lower price), the only way to get for-profit free-market health care providers to do so is by paying them additional government funded incentives to do so!

I'm sure the full proposal, once released, will be full of such gems. I wonder if the patients' bills will even be mentioned in any of them?

Anyway, we can all relax. We are on the path to a uniquely American health care solution, one written by the big money interests to encourage themselves to reduce operating expenses, while providing legislated financial "bonuses" to do so. Now that the Health Care system is fixed, we can move on to something more important.

The Answer

2009-05-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Well, that didn't take long. Karl Rove answers the question I asked last time.

Advise and Consent

2009-05-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

Advise and Consent, with emphasis on Consent. That's what we were told the role of the Senate was when right wing ideologue Chief Justice Roberts was appointed. I wonder what Senate Republicans will say about President Obama's appointment when Souter retires in June?

Legal Opinions

2009-04-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Breaking: the Office of Legal Council (OLC) has offered it's judgement that it would be perfectly legal to shoot Dick Cheney in the face. A senior aid to President Obama has ordered a marine to do so.

The marine cannot be prosecuted, since he was just following orders. The OLC cannot be prosecuted for offering "bad" legal advice. The aid to the president cannot be prosecuted as he was acting on the best legal advice available.

Obama cannot be connected to the chain of events, due to executive privilege.

The crowd cheers.

[note to the NSA: I am in no way advocating violence against the former VP.]

Fred Thompson?

2009-04-29T07:36:00.000-07:00

Why anyone should care what Fred Thompson thinks about President Obama's first hundred days (hint: he isn't pleased) is beyond me, but this is the kind of Quality Programming brought to us by the good folks at CNN. Fred thinks that the president is wrong to be pushed toward considering investigation and possible prosecution of those who tortured, ordered torture, authorized torture, or advised that torture was a pretty darn good idea. See, they were only trying to protect the country.

Thompson said that prosecuting members of a prior administration would make us like "third world countries."

I wonder, which countries does he mean? Iraq? What does Thompson think of Saddam Hussein's trial?

Let's be clear: what Obama may finally (and correctly) consider, and what "the left" is clamoring for, is not kangaroo trials and executions of prior officials for differences in political philosophies. This isn't a question of whether a Democratic administration would have made other decisions. This is a case of Rule of Law. We have laws in this country, and people are expected to obey them or face the consequences. And when those people are operating in the public trust, that is even more important.

We have a new administration. We don't have a new government, much less system of government. Obama did not come to power in a third world coup. And his job as chief executive is to enforce the law. Because if he doesn't, if individuals in our government can trample the law and the rights of citizens and ignore our international agreements and commitments, then what are we? Not a nation of laws. We are series of eight year dictatorships, each immune to accountability to the next. Each will start out knowing they can get away with anything. All they have to do is cover up and hold out until the next dictator takes over. All they have to do is not prosecute themselves.

Tortured Logic

2009-04-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

Sen John McCain (R-HasBeen) was on Face The Nation this morning, making the case that not only those who actually tortured people should not be held accountable (they were only following orders), but that neither should those who authorized it. His three main points seemed to be

We've got to move on, put this behind us
Authorization to torture was just "bad advice"
If people are prosecuted, how will you get other people to serve?

These are three very silly arguments. Why do we need to move on? Where are we moving on to? If we just leave this behind us, it will bite us in the collective ass. I wonder if McCain would give the same advice to rape victims - move on, prosecution of the rapist will be hard and painful; better to forget about it and let the healing begin. And if one of the victim's family members insisted, would McCain brush that off by accusing him of having a personal score to settle?

So was it simply "bad advice" or was it criminal? It seems to me that the courtroom is the best place to determine this. That's what prosecution is for. McCain wants to dispense with that part, and find everyone innocent. Which is odd, considering the way he went on and on about how the torture violated the Geneva Convention and U.S. Law - he himself helped pass the Detainee Treatment Act.

Personally, I'm not so worried about how we get people into public service - I worry more about how to keep the kind of people who would authorize torture OUT of public service. If there is no accountability, what is stopping them? McCain says that he believes that no other administration will ever do this again. I wonder if he would have believed in 2000 that the last administration would do so in the first place? I wonder what he thinks is going to keep them from doing it again? Was he opposed to prosecuting Madoff on the grounds that it would keep other people from offering financial advice?

The people who did the torture were just following orders. The people who gave the orders were following the advice they were given. And the people who gave the advice - well, they were just lawyers giving bad opinions. So no one was at fault.

McCain says and apparently believes that the Geneva Convention is very important to follow. That our enemies will follow the convention rules if they "know there will be retribution." And yet, there should be no retribution to our own people for breaking those rules. Did Saddam ask his advisers if torture was OK? Did they give him advice? Did he them order his evil Republican Guard to carry out that advice?

I wonder under what scenario McCain would ever approve of punishment of the punishers? Perhaps if they had a big black "D" after their names.

As much as I despise Dick Cheney, at least he is sticking to his horribly flawed view of the world. In his mind, the torture was a fun way to ensure a needed result, and therefore justified. But McCain is just a weak-kneed weasel. I can only hope that the good people of Arizona watched his pitiful performance and will do the right thing next time they have the chance.

Easter Egg Hunt

2009-04-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

The grandchildren, celebrating a missing corpse by collecting dyed, cooked chicken ovums ostensibly hidden by a giant rabbit. Life doesn't get any better than this.

Tag - I'm It

2009-04-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

I foolishly thought that by turning off my FaceBook profile I would avoid all this tagging business. Sigh. But since this came from Ina, I am going to break my own rule and respond. But just this once. And I'm going to cheat.

Q: What is your current obsession?
A: What , only one? I suppose it's Chaos Theories - I need to finish it, I'm writing it in my head constantly (mostly in the wee hours) and can't seem to make time to type it up.

Q: Which item from your closet are you wearing most lately?
A: A bowler hat. To be fair, I don't keep much in the closet.

Q: What’s for dinner?
A: Pasta, I'll bet.

Q: What was the last thing you bought?
A: Advil

Q: Say something to the person who tagged you:
A: I'll be in Cambridge at least once this year. You'd better make plans to come see me when I'm there.

Q: Favorite vacation spot?
A: So far, the Outer Banks. But I hope someday it will be somewhere in Europe. As long as it is on the ocean.

Q: What are you reading right now?
A: All's Well That Ends Well. Still memorizing. And Funny Times.

Q: What is your most important goal in the next 12 months?
A: This is the question I changed. I'm going to produce and star in a show that will make Atlanta sit up and take notice. In a good way, I hope.

Q: What is your current guilty pleasure?
A: Watching The Sopranos in the morning when I should be working.

Q: What will be the first spring thing you do?
A: Already done it - took the grandkids in the hot tub.

Q: Where are you planning to travel next?
A: Florida to visit Dad.

Q: What's on your coffee or bedside table?
A: Several scripts, a bag of Hershey's minis, a bag of Milano cookies, and a nearly empty bottle of Bushmills. On my headboard, I don't have a bedside table and the dogs or kids keep us from putting anything on a coffee table.

Q: What flower are you most anxious to see bloom this spring?
A: The dogwoods are blooming already. But I'm waiting for my summer hibiscus.

Q: What fresh vegetable are you most looking forward to this growing season?
A: I already changed a question! I'm only growing one edible thing on purpose: figs. Because I don't have to do a thing.

Q: What is the last live music show you attended?
A: Does Spam-a-lot count?

Q: If you weren't doing what you are doing right now (not counting this question) what would you be doing?
A. Cleaning out the garage so I'd have somewhere to park the car.

Rules of the meme: Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your own blog; replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention; add one more question of your own. Tag eight other un-tagged people.

Remember that I said I was going to cheat? If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged. Ha.

Recess!

2009-03-15T18:19:00.001-07:00

No political blogging today, even though I am very annoyed with people on both sides. Instead, a picture of my grandsons in the hot tub for the first time. Those are my hands holding the little one up. Notice how curly the older one becomes in the steam.

Dueling Headlines - Moscow Edition

2009-03-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

Today's NYT headline:

Obama Offered Deal To Russia in Secret Letter

CNN:

Obama Reaches Out To Russia Over Nuclear Iran

So which one is truthier? Well, the story is that Obama sent a letter to Medvedev suggesting that we wouldn't need to go ahead with the Bush era plan for a European Missle Defense system if Iran stopped persuing nuclear weapons. The body of the NYT article quotes both sides to disprove its own headline, which suggests pretty strongly that Obama unilaterally offered a specific deal to Russia without anyone else knowing about it. Red meat for Rush.

From the NYT story:

While [U.S. Officials] said it did not offer a direct quid pro quo, the letter was intended to give Moscow an incentive to join the United States in a common front against Iran.
[snip]
a press secretary for Dmitri A. Medvedev told the Interfax news agency that the letter did not contain any “specific proposals or mutually binding initiatives.”
Natalya Timakova said the letter was a reply to one sent by Mr. Medvedev shortly after Mr. Obama was elected.

So the real story seems to be that Medvedev worte to Obama re: relations in general and missle defense in particular, and Obama wrote back that if Russia helped stop Iran from developing weapons, the defense system (which Obama isn't too hot on anyway) might be unnecessary. No secret deal.

There are quite a few other headlines on this one, of course, but I'm only reporting on the ones I see on my iGoogle front page. Yahoo News went with Obama Hints Missle Shield Flexibility To Moscow and the story actually supports the headline. Free Republic, of course, ran with the NYT headline, which shows you something about our So Called Liberal Media. The Freeper comments are hilarious in their cowardice and paranoia, but I can't bring myself to link to that site here.

The verdict: There's a big difference between "suggesting" and "offering a deal." The NYT loses this one. Better luck next time.

Brainlesser

2009-02-27T12:18:00.000-08:00

More on Jindal - or rather, Jindal apologists. Zachary Roth posted a piece questioning the story Bobby Jindal told to illustrate conservative discomfort with the idea that the government could indeed be competent and should work for the public good. Roth's suggestion that something about the story smelled was based on news reports and, largely LACK of news reports on Nexis that would have placed Jindal in NOLA at the time. Zach writes:

But there are several pieces of evidence that suggest this just didn't happen. Nothing, to be sure, that definitively proves the story was made up. But more than enough to declare it highly suspicious. [emphasis mine]

He then comments on Jindal's schedule and the fact that "Jindal listed several anecdotes to illustrate the problem, including one that involved a sheriff, and another about a boat evacuation. But nothing that resembled the Lee story he told Tuesday. " As an example, Roth quotes Jindal saying:

There are thousands of these stories. I talked to a sheriff in an area where they had people with boats that were ready to go in the water and rescue people and they were turned away because they didn't have proof of registration and insurance, they didn't bring the right paperwork. The bureaucracy was just awful.

Josh Marshall reports that Erick Erickson posted an article at RedState refuting Zachary's points. He gets it wrong from the get-go, of course.

Based overwhelmingly on two things - the musings of a Daily Kos diarist and a few Nexis searches that didn’t turn up results (as we all remember, the media got more stories wrong than right when reporting in the heat of the moment in the midst of Katrina) - TPMMuckraker and The Washington Monthly conclude that Governor Bobby Jindal is a liar.

There are two problems immediately apparent: one is that TPM concluded no such thing. Read the TPM quote above. It's very clear - the only "conclusion" was that the story was suspicious. The second problem, as we now know, is that Jindal is, indeed, a liar.

I wonder when Erick Erickson will post a retraction?

Now, here comes the funny part: One of RedState's commenters (the aptly named "falsehood"),disputes Zachary Roth's claim that Jindal had never never told the Lee story before by quoting essentially the same Jindal anecdote that Roth quoted - except from an interview Jindal gave to Rush Limbaugh:

“Contrast that with the bureaucracy. I witnessed the frustration of the local law enforcement officials. At one point, volunteers were rushing in boats, to come and pick up people out of the water. Some bureaucrat decided that they couldn’t go in the water — turned away even sheriff’s deputies because he said they didn’t have the right paper- work. He said if you don’t bring proof of insurance and registration, you can’t go in the water to rescue.”

I'm really at a loss to explain such stupidity.

Brainless

2009-02-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

Here's how Jack Coleman compares Rachel Maddow and Booby Jindal:

Both are wonkish former Rhodes scholars in their mid-30s, bright and personable. Each could be perceived as a political outsider, Maddow for being openly gay, Jindal by dint of skin hue and ethnicity

Most of the rest of his article is an attack on Maddow's response to the Response; Coleman's dishonest and asinine recasting of what Jindal meant when he evoked government's failure during Katrina to suggest that government could not help the economic crisis (and decrying that Rachel didn't play the now-known-to-be-false story about Jindal and Sheriff Harry Lee), and then he ends with this:

Indeed, so-called progressives want ever more "dialogue" on Katrina, race, gender, etc. -- the more "candid" the better -- followed by liberals condemning conservatives who follow suit as racist, insensitive, pathological, etc. See how it works?

Yes, I see how it works. Jack opens his remarks with racist, sexist, homophobic remarks and then is surprised that liberals don't welcome his "dialogue." Maybe Republicans consider those who are gay or have "skin hue and ethnicity" to be "outsiders," but we don't.

By the way, Jack, if you happen to read this - do you have any further comment on the Harry Lee story?

Today's Dueling Headlines

2009-02-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

Back when I wrote "Albatross" I had a regular feature called "Today On Washington Journal" in which I discussed comments by callers to that show. People seemed to like it. And by people, I mean me.

I haven't hit on a regular feature here yet, and am hoping this will do. See. I have an old technology (pre-iPhone) cell, but I can view iGoogle. No audio or video, but headlines and stories. My home page has top stories from BBC, NYT, and CNN (plus weather, the Onion and the always lame Joke of the Day). I started noticing that even without Fax News, headlines about the same stories had decidedly different slants even though the stories beneath them were the same. Often exactly the same, having been supplied by AP or some other source. So far, CNN seems to have the slantiest, but that's just an impression. A few of these posts should prove whether there is a pattern. So here's how they will go - I'll post the headlines (sometimes only 2/3 of the sources have the story in the top 3), then a piece of the story, and then pass judgement. Decisions of the judge are final, but feel free to shout your comments into the wind.

Today's post was going to contrast the NYT headline "Iraq Combat to End By August 2010" with CNN's headline proclaiming that U.S. Troops would remain in Iraq indefinitetly after "withdrawl." However, CNN screwed me up by changing their headline to match the Times. I guess CNN got wind that I was going to blow this story wide open. Or, perhaps they read the story. But that's ok - I'll try again tomorrow.

Eleven Simple Words

2009-02-25T08:23:00.000-08:00

Louisiana Governor "Bobby" Jindal's response to President Obama's address to congress had me musing once more over how completely the Republican Party has abandoned the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. They either don't or won't remember or understand the phrase that Lincoln is most remembered for uttering. Well, alright, the second most remembered phrase; but "four score and seven years ago" is just a fancy way of saying "87 years ago" and was out of date within a year. This one is timeless, and in eleven simple words defines exactly what makes the USofA the great nation that it is - or at least, that it should be. Allow me to type it out in big, bold, red letters to remind everyone what it is:

Government OF the People, BY the People and FOR the People.

This is important. The US Government is by design not composed of royals or strongmen or high priests or corporations. It is made up of the People. That's us. American citizens. And who performs the daily tasks of governing the richest, most powerful, most loved and feared nation on earth? Why, those duties are handled by the People. All that wealth and power and freedom and every other benefit realized from those activities are not intended for Halliburton or the Church or the Military Industrial Complex - they are for the People. And every time you see the phrase "the people" remember that the word "all" is implied just ahead of it.

This phrase goes to eleven.

Contrast this vision of America to Jindal's philosophy, summed up in the lesson he learned when two government officials - a Sheriff and a Congressman - stood up to a Republican administration that forgot that government was for the people and took it upon themselves to do the job that should have been being done by all of the people.

"There's a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and the enterprising spirit of our citizens."

Really? But if we live in a representative democracy that is made up of the people, by the people and for the people (repetition assists in memory), then shouldn't that government be a concentrated, distributed, efficient implementation of our national compassionate and understanding spirit? What is Bobby saying here? That it is better that enterprising citizens in the free market decide to rescue people if and when it profits the entrepreneurs? Or that nearby compassionate but likely ill-equipped, under-resourced citizens should take on all the risk and effort of rescuing their neighbors? Citizens who are themselves in the middle of a disaster area?

OK, in a crisis it's all hands on deck and heroes are made from volunteers who leap into the brink; but forgive me for believing that it would be far better for all of the people to be prepared ahead of time and provide a quick, efficient, well equipped, co-ordinated and safe response. Without a profit motive. Without random hope that someone somewhere will "do something." Without all the risk and loss going to the very someone who does do something. Without the chaos of every well-intentioned do-gooder loading up his pickup truck with whatever he imagines might be needed, a gun or two to protect what he considers the good people from the bad people, and towing a leaky boat that he found somewhere but doesn't really know how to operate because by god someone has to do something so the hell with safety regulations and if nothing else he can at least jump in and need just as much rescue as the guy on the roof. Remember the scene in Jaws where all the landlubbers jumped into anything that would float to go hunt the shark? Is that the response Bobby wanted to Katrina? This is one of the times when I regret the decision to avoid obscene expletives in this blog - I guess I'll have to substitute a pithy explanation:

The problem with Katrina was not that the government should not have been doing the rescues. The problem was that the government SHOULD have been.

Jindal also said this:

This is the nation that cast off the scourge of slavery, overcame the Great Depression, prevailed in two World Wars, won the struggle for civil rights, defeated the Soviet menace, and responded with determined courage to the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The American spirit has triumphed over almost every
form of adversity known to man, and the American spirit will triumph again.

Yes. The nation cast off slavery. That is to say, the Federal Government (made up of whom? that's right) cast off slavery. You can read why and how in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

It's true FDR did not overcome the Great Depression - the People did, by understanding that it was a huge problem that could only be solved by all the People (working together through what overall organization? good, you've got it!). Of course, part of the way the People overcame the Depression was by electing FDR (four times) and supporting/shaping/contributing to the solutions he implemented on their behalf.

Civil Rights are now enshrined in laws passed and enforced by the government, even to the extent that the Feds compel individual states to follow those laws (and this is done for the P....; I don't even have to finish, do I?)

Government is not the problem, except to the extent that We The People are the problem. And as bad as it sometimes gets, it is at least ours. Sorry, make that "at least it is us." Consider the alternative.

It's (Not) A Miracle!

2009-02-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

You know what was the best part of Captain Chesley Sullenberger's landing of the flight 1549 in the Hudson River? OK - right. Everyone survived. How about the second best part?

It was that neither Sully nor his wife nor co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles nor, as far as I know, any of the crew praised Jesus for rescuing them. Or Yahweh. Or Allah, for that matter. No, Sully has been a true professional: humble, forthright, dedicated to the passengers and crew for whom he was responsible. If he is a religious man, he has wisely kept it to himself. He did the job for which he had been trained - did it very well, without a doubt - as a human being committed to the task before him. Of course, he saved his own skin as well but that seems secondary. In every interview I've heard him give, he has been nothing but factual, discussing the conditions and his actions as purely natural phenomena (as opposed to super-natural intervention.) Although some of his questioners and, if I recall correctly even the co-pilot, mentioned "luck", Sully didn't even go that far.

So my least favorite interview question came from Katie Kouric, who asked whether he had prayed. And my favorite interview answer was Sully's to that question, which is that he had been pretty busy flying the plane. He didn't dismiss the question (he even said that perhaps someone in the back had done it for him) but he gave it no gravity whatsoever. Kudos, Captain. Kudos.

Meanwhile, in preparation for this post I Googled "Sullenberger Jesus Pray." There is a Yahoo Answers question on "The Miracle on The Hudson" with comments that mostly echo the sentiments here. But one comment stood out to me:

I believe it was a miracle like they are saying. Praise God!! And I believe anyone who was on that plane and they were not "saved"; they will seriously begin to think about eternal, spiritual things and salvation. I was actually wondering what an atheist would do in this situation. And for anyone not to see that this is a miracle... well I think they seriously have to be jaded.

What would an atheist do in this situation? Just ditch the plane into a city neighborhood because, what the hell, existence is meaningless without God anyway? Or maybe she meant an atheist passenger, which is an easier question to answer: He or she would have stayed in his or her seat and followed instructions, just like everyone else.

And anyway, how do we know whether Sully is an atheist or not? *Gasp!* For anyone not to see that a human being can be outstanding in his work and a selfless hero without the threat of hell or promise of a golden harp, well, I think they seriously have to be jaded.

If I am ever in such a situation, I will pray that the pilot is an atheist. Then I will be sure he is relying on his skill and knowledge and experience to do everything in his power to get that plane down safely. The last thing I want is for the pilot to have his head bowed, eyes closed and hands folded as he asks a mythical being to interrupt the laws of physics for the sake of what are doubtless a mixed collection of sinners and souls ready to go home to their heavenly father.

So thank God there has been no religious fervor over this extremely laudable and exceedingly human effort.

Oh, except for this one:

Passenger Jeff Kolodjay said he saw the engine blow up. “We thought we were going to circle around, but we didn’t have time,” he told the Newsday newspaper.He heard Sullenberger tell passengers to brace for impact and then said a Hail Mary.
[snip]
And most of all, we can assume from the above that Sullenberger is a true devotee of Virgin Mary, as he cried for her intercession in this toughest time of his life.
Come on friends, don’t be surprised at the intercession power
of our Holy Mother.

First of all, Sullenberger did not cry for anyone's intercession. Kolodjay said a "Hail Mary." Kolodjay's account was pretty clear, unlike this sloppy uncredited blog post. Secondly, crediting the captain and crew's competence and heroism to divine intervention does them a disservice and is, quite frankly, insulting. Insulting to Sully, his crew, his company, his employer. Insulting to every religion that doesn't consider Mary to be "Holy" and able to intercede in earthly tragedies. And insulting to Mary, who apparently would have let a planeload of (nominally) innocent people perish had someone not cried out a Hail to her.

So Hail Sully, and may other people in the public eye learn from his example.

Friends

2009-01-24T13:51:00.000-08:00

It's easy to forget that Facebook "Friends" aren't necessarily really "friends." Oh, they may be people with whom one is "friendly" but they are often just acquaintances, folks who have shared a common experience or passed through the same school or job; been in the same show, commented on the same blog or shared the same bloodline somewhere along the way. Some are even one friend removed, a casual friend of a casual friend.

Now, I have nothing against frivolous social networking. I've certainly posted my fair share of pictures and comments and badgered "friends" to join causes, buy tickets for plays, read this blog. And I've enjoyed other people's similar self expression. But "friend" can be a dangerous term if one starts to believe it.

Textual conversation always runs a risk of being misunderstood. Especially electronic text, which can be sent more quickly than one can consider how the reader might interpret it. Emoticons not withstanding, it is difficult to express sarcasm, or self deprecation, or a friendly wink and a smile in a two line post. In the early days of the Internet, I used to teach night courses in which I cautioned students to be careful what they put in emails - it is so easy to be taken literally, or be misunderstood, or worse to be understood perfectly in a message for which one wishes the "send" button had never been clicked.

But with friends, chatting real time or in wall-to-wall posting, this wouldn't be such a big deal. Because friends know each other. They have a history together, know what kind of person each other is, know the kind of things one would never say, or at least never mean. And, with that comfort, say things to each other in ways that they would never say to strangers. Or casual acquaintances. As simple as pet names, as complex as monotonic satire.

And when real friends hurt or shock or disappoint each other, they can talk about it.

But without that history, without that understanding of who the other party is at heart, hurt and shock and disappointment are all too easy to ignite. To be clear, I'm not personally worried about being on the receiving end. I'm both so easy going and so thoroughly calloused that it is hard to hurt or shock me. And since I tend to have no expectations and give the benefit of the doubt to people until I learn otherwise, disappointment is a rare feeling.

I am sure, however, that I've been on the delivery side of all three. My friends know that I can have a caustic wit, and have a hard time resisting a funny line even if it is a sharp one. My friends know that I don't mean a harsh thing against any one of them, that I am even more likely to direct quips towards myself than anyone. My friends know what kind of person I am, what I believe, what sides I take and so know when I am being straightforward and when I am using hyperbole or sarcasm to make the opposite point. My friends put up with it, or appreciate it, or like it and join in. If they don't, they probably aren't going to stay friends long.

I use myself as an example, but I'm fairly certain we all do it. We develop lines of communication with our friends, sometimes over our whole lives, where things can go without saying. Because they've already been said. And to folks who haven't heard all of those things that are too long to use as preface to every single two line comment on their posts simply have to take things at face value, tinted by their own feelings that the commenter probably does not anticipate.

I'm not going to apologize for not delivering my whole life story as background color every time I talk to a friend. After a while, the aggregate of items posted by an individual on a semi-public forum will tell what kind of person that individual is. And some time along the way, others on the network will have to decide whether it is the type of person they want for a friend. And if it isn't, what the person says really shouldn't matter that much.

Now Is Not The Time

2009-01-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

It's almost over - more or less. In less than 24 hours, the Bush Cabal will for the most part be flushed out of the White House and down the sewer of history. Barak Obama, the first African-American President, will take his turn at the oval office. Yay, I think.

I have plenty of reservations. I could even list some of them here and now, without going into details yet. But it can wait. Now is not the time.

So lift you champagne classes, cheer the end of one dark era and the beginning of a fresh new one. Hang with friends, smile and hug and get a little teary-eyed with hope. Because no matter what happens, we now at last have a chance again: a chance to make Democracy work. A chance to return to a government for, by and of the people.

That, to me, is the most exciting and hopeful part of this historic event. It is also the most daunting. On Wednesday, Jan 21, 2009, we can get to work again. But now is not the time to think about that.

Now is the time to celebrate.

Stevie's Restaurant Guide

2009-01-13T07:03:00.000-08:00

Regular readers (yes, both of you) have probably figured out that I am a complainer. A ranter. A whiner. But it isn't my fault - so many people, events, politicians, religions and businesses just plain suck. I'll tell you about my experiences with Chase Bank another time to show you just how much.

But, to be fair, that's only "most." Once in a while I'll stumble on someplace that doesn't suck. In fact, sometimes that place is quite good. Even excellent. And when that happens, I suppose I should put aside the curmudgeon and let you all know.

So we went to Eros World Tapas Bar last night. The event was my youngest daughter's 21st birthday. It was critical that she find just the perfect place to celebrate. She is, like her mother and all of her siblings, vegetarian. We wanted to go someplace new where the food was a little special, they would have plenty to choose from, and she could have her first chocolate martini. Add to that the facts that we live in Atlanta, which is not exactly the cultural center of the world whatever locals may believe, and it was a daunting task. Tapas seemed like a good choice, but where? After poring over a multitude of websites, the birthday girl picked out Eros.

The restaurant is located on Monroe Drive near Piedmont under I85. It's an area of the city I've never really been to before. I found out why as we approached - the neighboring businesses all seem to be strip clubs, adult bookstores and peep shows. Even Mrs. Winners' billboard is advertising legs and thighs. The building looks like a spaceport from the first season of Star Trek - it's easy to imagine Captain Kirk and Spock walking up the pathway to meet with the Tirolian Warlord Council inside. Actually, I think it was once a bank that was trying to be far too hip and collapsed in on itself. Being Monday night, it was fairly deserted. We wondered whether we'd made the right choice.

It was a little chilly inside. There was only one other group of diners. We were greeted and seated quickly - too quickly to change our minds and go someplace safe and familiar - maybe Applebees in Roswell, or O'Charlies in Sandy Plains. Here we were, Inside the Perimeter, the suburban mom and dad and their little girl (and her boyfriend) at a place called "Eros" in the heart of the stripper district. The BF noticed that the large greyscale prints decorating the interior were closeup sections of a naked woman's body (though tastefully done, like an Oil of Olay ad campaign.) Were we out of our league?

No, we were not. We were home.

Our server was a pleasant, cheerful, friendly, efficient young woman. The birthday martini was not chocolate, but I understand that it was delicious. Our server made a big hit (and earned a big tip) by bringing a lit birthday candle out with the drink and holding it for the b-day girl to make a wish. My two dirty martinis were excellent - also, quite generous and powerful. Three would have been too many. And then there was the food.

The problem with being vegetarian in Atlanta is that it usually means ordering a bean burger or a pasta primevera. There are exceptions of course - Waffle House will hold the bacon, and if one doesn't mind paying a premium for rice wrapped in a little kelp there are a few sushi places. But Atlanta, and the south in general, are not Meccas to non-carnivores.

At least half of the menu items at Eros seemed to be vegetarian. And interesting. And (I can say this because we ordered most of them) delicious. The spicy potatoes were exceptionally good. The Green Bean Tempura was a favorite. Then of course there were the non-veg plates. I would have been happy eating nothing but the prawns - perfectly spiced, tender and lovely with crunchy little legs (sorry, veggers - but they are.) But then I would have missed the Calamari. Have you ever ordered calamari and ended up with a pile of deep fried rubber gaskets? I have. Not this time. It fairly melted in ones mouth. And finally (Molly Ivors and Thers, this is for you) the Chorizo Lollipops = chorizo, blue cheese stuffed figs, wrapped in bacon on a stick. If it had stopped my heart, it would have been worth it.

These were real tapas, not a bunch of appetizers disguised as tapas. Everything was fresh and tasty. Our orders came promptly and correctly. And as many dishes as we ordered and passed around, there are plenty more we didn't get to for next time.

So yeah, the world generally sucks. But once in a great while, with the right occasion, the right companions, the right place, and a couple of very strong martinis, it can be not too bad after all.

Shakespeare's Geopolitical Works

2009-01-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

From The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged). More or less.

"Because Shakespeare's geopolitical works are some of my favorite stuff. Really. I mean, it's like the stuff he wrote about four hundred years ago is still relevent today. Like that scene he put in Hamlet where Polonius and Ophelia discuss the failed U.S. banking and mortgage systems under the Bush Administration."

Starting Over

2009-01-04T07:11:00.000-08:00

So here I am having my first cup of coffee in the first new week of 2009. Here I am. Surveying the same old world in a brand new year. Oh, sure, we're going to have some milestones. Make some history. But we do that every year, one way or another, and it never really seems to make a significant difference. All those historic changes and achievements and advances seem, in spite of the intense and concerted efforts of those who bring them about, to be in the end random, ineffective flashes of light that never really illuminate a path forward. Too like the lightning which ceases to be ere one can say it lightens, as a famous Elizabethan blogger once posted.

And thus, Stevie Guide. I see now that this is my sacred obligation - to shine like a shaft of golden light while all around is darkness. Or at least to keep enough fairy dust in the air to cast some lasting shadows.

The question you are probably asking yourself is "why me?" Fair enough. But what you should really be asking is "why you?" Think about that for a moment while I formulate the answer. Why should I (by whom I mean you) listen to you (that is to say, me?)

Why? Because I am not an expert. Allow me to explain. And then to sum up. A few days ago, I was involved in a silly debate in the comments section of another blog which shall rename nameless because I am here to promote my own blog, not Eschaton. Besides, Duncan is an expert and so I can't recommend paying him any mind. The point is, one of the regulars (not even a troll) claimed that circumcision would be an effective means to battle AIDS in a high risk population (which I took to mean "Africa.") There is, of course, no definition of the word "effective" that would make this hypothesis even remotely true, but the commenter (who shall remain nameless here because I ridiculed him enough at the nameless blog) linked to some statistics^* from the CDC and NIH indicating a reduced probability of transmission of STDs in circumcised men and then asked a very reasonable question: Whom should he believe, scientific experts at two of the most respected health organizations in the world, or some guy commenting anonymously on a blog under the name "dirk gently" (that is to say, once again, me.)

The answer is obvious.

No? Well, think about this. About six years ago, the experts told us all that the nation of Iraq had to be stopped. Iraq had a highly trained standing army of Republican Guard as vicious and powerful as the Sarduakar (another fictional army , coincidentally commanded by the emporer Shaddam), unmanned aerial drones capable of spying on American soil, biological and chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction, and a nuclear program on the verge of turning the western hemisphere into a single boiling mushroom cloud. Not to mention, Saddam Hussein was secretly training his sworn enemies, the Al Queda terrorists, and had been personally involved in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

These experts included the United States Secretary of Defence, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, Vice President, President, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and of course Bill Krystol. Experts and organizations that had unprecedented and unsurpassed access to information, facts, statistics and analysis with which to prove their points and justify their actions. On the other hand were mopes like me who insisted that none of the experts' assumptions or conclusions made the slightest bit of sense. Mopes who looked at the vial of talcum powder presented by the United States Freaking Secretary Of State as evidence of Iraq's anthrax program and said "Hey, it's just talcum powder!" Anonymous amateur analysts armed only with logic and a lack of personal agenda.

Whom should one believe?

Anyway, the point of all this ramble is that had Stevie Guide been available six years ago, hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved. Hundreds of billions of dollars. So I apologize. And I'll try to do better from here on in. Now, I can't promise that every post will potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, or civilization as we know it. But I will make the same promise that Senator Al Franken makes - everything will be the truth, except for the jokes. In fact, I'll do Al one better: some of the jokes will be true, too.

-----------------------------------------

* I can post links, too. Click the circumcision picture.

California, Hang Your Head In Shame

2008-11-05T07:33:00.001-08:00

Fear, hatred, ignorance. I wonder if there was exit polling to show which of these three was issue number one to the supporters of Proposition 8?

Fear - the fear that somehow, allowing homosexuals the same rights and privileges and benefits of marriage will destroy your own holy unions. Fear of the unknown, since no one - NO ONE - has been able to explain how this would occur. This in a land where television game shows entertain us with contests to select a bride from a pool of competing bimbos. This in a state where celebrities marry and divorce and remarry and cheat and join in consenting multiple relationships for amusement or enjoyment or advancement or just because they are bored. Yet somehow, if the two people involved happen to have the same type of genitalia, civilization as we know it is at the brink of collapse. Better to prohibit these freaks from the rights of every other resident than to risk that.

What are you afraid of? Is your own sexuality that fragile that allowing Adam and Steve to have a marriage license tempts you to fellate the first man who will let you unzip his pants? Are your own bonds so weak that the lure of the lesbians will steal your wife away? Are your children so poorly raised and so confused that the mere idea of illicit bathroom sex will rob them of the Ozzie and Harriet life you have planned for them? Here's a clue for you: there IS no homosexual agenda. Gays want to connect and marry (or not) with others of their own gender because that is to whom they are attracted. Period. It is no more complicated or sinister than that. Your straight son is more likely to be seduced into a life of depravity by a female scoundrel than a male. Your straight daughter is no less likely to find her soul mate in another woman than a gay woman is to find hers in a man. Get over it. There is nothing to be worried about. Except, perhaps, your secretly gay child suffering in a life of self-loathing and misery at being the unknown target of your hate.

Hatred - yes, admit it. When you see the footage of two men at the alter, gazing into each others' teary eyes, kissing, exchanging vows of love and fidelity, your stomach turns. They are different. They are doing something that you would never, ever do - or if you did, you would hate yourself for it. The same feeling that members of the KKK feel when seeing a black man looking at - or God forbid, touching - a white woman. The same feeling that the Nazis felt when they saw a young man in a yarmulke walking free on the streets. Their mere existence makes you angry, uncomfortable, enraged. It isn't what they do, which has no actual effect on you at all. It is simply that they are. You may deny it, but you know it to be true. Go look at a gay couple somewhere. Notice the pit of your stomach when they hold hands. That feeling is hatred. Enjoy it.

Ignorance - gullible people filled with fear and hate who want to be fooled into justification. Lazy, uncaring people too wrapped up in themselves to question the pap being fed to them. Do you honestly believe it possible to be "separate but equal?" Did you believe the lie that California's civil unions and protected rights are "just as good?" Or perhaps you believed that they are "good enough" for those people.

It simply isn't true. Arkansas has just passed a ban on unmarried couples adopting, the purpose of which bill they gleefully bragged was to keep homos from getting their hands on children. It says nothing about couples with civil unions. And people move. We are a mobile society. And while state benefits may be protected, federal benefits are denied. Separate is not equal.

Listen: even if the exact same water comes from both fountains, having both and replacing the "Whites Only" and "Coloreds Only" signs with "Straights Only" and "Queers Only" is offensive and discriminatory.

Once you have categorized a group by law to be somehow different, you have instantly made them less. Less than Americans, less than Humans. This may be exactly what the fundamentalist theocratic whack-jobs want, but I shudder to think that it is truly a majority view. And even if it is, one of the central tenants of American Democracy is the protection of the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. In the end, each one of us is a minority of one. Abandon that ideal, and we are all at risk.

Like every other heterosexual person in America, my own marriage and my own children are completely unaffected by the marital status of homosexual couples. And yet, the prohibition against gay marriage diminishes us all. In addition to creating a subclass of Americans with a lower legal standing than "real" Americans, this ban represents the death of Freedom of Religion in America.

Face it: the only reason - the ONLY justification - for creating this class of disenfranchised individuals is that God has labeled them unnatural, abominable sinners. Or rather, some believers in a particular manifestation of God have thus labeled them. Others may believe in a God who celebrates all loving relationships. Others don't believe in God at all, and wish that we weren't forced to obey the doctrines of those who do. But now, in California, all are compelled by law to follow a single dogma.

While believers in the gay-hating God may think they have gained a victory, they have lost as much as anyone. Because the separation of Church and State was never meant to inhibit religion - it was and is meant to protect it. For all of us.

So hang your heads, Californians. You have enshrined bigotry and intolerance into law, the first amendment ever to deny rights to a group of Americans and dictate religious persecution. You've accomplished with the ballot what terrorists with bombs and box-cutters could not. Your underlying weapons, though, were the same - fear, hatred, and ignorance. No doubt the Taliban is cheering your alignment with their fundamental fanaticism. On the day that America made a historic step forward, California has taken a shameful step back.

Grain Of Truth

2008-10-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

The probability of anything happening increases dramatically once it has.

I Gotta Gotta Lazy-Boy I'm Afraid

2008-10-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

Birthday Greetings from Joe Cocker - watch more funny videos

Make sure you watch straight through.

Let's Be Honest

2008-10-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

Last night, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin had the opportunity to answer questions and advance the policies and principle by which they would govern the country. All well and good. But whichever side of an issue you take, the point of the debate is lost if we aren't honest about what the answers were.

Here's what Reuters said:

Palin, Biden agree on gay rights at debate
ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Equal rights for gay couples, a divisive issue in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, produced a rare moment of agreement in Thursday's vice presidential debate between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Sarah Palin.

Except, of course, that they did not.

Here's what they actually said:

IFILL: Let's try to avoid nuance, Senator. Do you support gay marriage?

BIDEN: No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.

The bottom line though is, and I'm glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that's the case, we really don't have a difference.

IFILL: Is that what your said?

PALIN: Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.

Governor Palin very carefully, deliberately divided Senator Biden's answer into two parts, and agreed only with the first part. In doing so, she made it very clear that she does not agree with the second. There can be no doubt of her meaning. So let's be honest about it. The governor has very strong beliefs on the subject - she believes that homosexuality is a choice, that she herself is tolerant and non-judgemental of that choice, but that the choice is intrinsically wrong. This belief drives her public policy on the issue - she would not, perhaps, actively persecute gay citizens, but at the same time she sees no reason to extend civil rights to people who "choose" to put themselves at odds with those rights.

Palin says that a McCain/Palin administration would not "do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties." Except that those prohibitions already exist, when compared to the automatic allowance to heterosexual couples.

This statement is a far cry from Biden's statement that "in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple."

Now, I'm not going to tell you which position is closer to the correct one - at least, not in this post. And I spent a little extra time dissecting Palin's remarks because she was, in my opinion, deliberately misleading in order to avoid frightening away voters who might disagree with her. The important point here is that there is a clear difference between the candidates and between the platforms, and we need to be honest about it.

If you agree with McCain/Palin that homosexuality is the result of a wrong choice that is ultimately harmful to society, and that gay Americans are therefore unworthy of the rights granted to heterosexual Americans - that if a gay man wants the protections of marriage all he has to do is marry a woman - then you can feel happy supporting the ticket on this issue. If you agree with Obama/Biden that the constitution guarantees the same rights and privileges to all couples regardless of their inherent sexual orientations - and that those rights in no way diminish those of others - then they are your choice; at least with regards to this particular issue.

It's really important to get honest answers, and to understand those answers. Not just on this issue - on every issue. The differences between the two tickets are stark and clear, and you want to be sure that you vote for the team with whom you agree. So let's insist that the candidates promote their positions honestly, and may the best team win.

Sing, Sing A Song

2008-10-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Once I built a fortune
To the sun
On mortgage and equity lines.
Once I built a fortune,
Now it's gone.
Brother, could you spare
Seven trillion dimes?

Grain Of Truth

2008-09-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

All economic policy is redistribution of wealth.

What Senator Obama Doesn't Understand

2008-09-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

During the first Presidential Debate in Oxford Mississippi, Senator John McCain's catch-phrase was "What Obama doesn't understand." By the third time he repeated it, I was shouting replies to the television, much to the annoyance of my wife who was trying to hear it. Obama never challenged the phrase. Today, he gave it a try in an interview with Bob Schieffer. He swung and missed with "What I don't understand is why Senator McCain wants to continue the Bush policies." Senator, you should not admit that you don't understand anything.

Allow me to provide the proper response. Senator, if you read this, you are welcome to use it at no charge.

Senator McCain says that I don't understand. But I understand perfectly well. I have watched these policies fail for the past seven years, and I understand that they do not work. What Senator McCain doesn't seem to understand is that there are alternatives. Senator McCain doesn't seem to understand that we don't have to continue following the failed foreign policies of the Bush administration - they have not worked, and it is time for a change.

That is a statement everyone can understand. And Senator McCain would never be able to claim that you don't understand again.

You're welcome.