You Know, This Is A Pretty Classy Apology

     Nothing like what that primitive Addison "Joe" Wilson (R-SC) provided.  In fact, his outburst was really only, at best, a half-truth.  Anti-immigrant words were in the bill, but there wasn't anything new in the way of enforcement.  It's a flat out lie to say that there would be no enforcement, since there are many, many Federal agents charged with handling fraud by illegal immigrants.  To prove Joe Wilson to be the gibbering idiot that he is, the Democrats changed the bill to add enforcement.  What sort of lesson did we learn?  Obama should have just shut that stupid mother fucker down the second he opened his fat, ignorant mouth.

Researcher and Video Artist Suggestion: More Appropriate Times for Joe Wilson to Yell "You Lie!"

     I'm sorry I'm so incompetent and ill-prepared for this, I'll practice some tonight, the idea is to put Joe Wilson yelling "You Lie!" after each of the following lies, of which the embedded video is just a reasonable, but not entirely exceptional example.  If anyone submits audio of lies I'll post them on my website, a page especially dedicated to the unedited audio and video of George Walker Bush administration lies to get Americans to go to war.

My #1 Issue I Have Comes To A Head:

"The opposition, led by Tzipi Livni, accused Netanyahu of trying to perform some sort of conjuring trick, trying to have a freeze and construction at the same time." -- Al-Jazeera

"The settlers of Judea and Samaria should ask themselves why the settlements are not being taken off the agenda. It's hard to find an issue that unites the entire world more than opposition to the settlements." -- Ha'Aretz

"Israel's decision to approve the construction of over 450 new settlement units nullifies any effect that a settlement freeze, when and if announced, will have," -- Saab Erekat, Chief Palestinian Negotiator

     George Mitchell, Obama's envoy to the Middle East, will be back in Israel in a week.  Netanyahu plans to time his pseudo-freeze with the meeting of the UN General Assembly later this month. Mahmoud Abbas has said, as a result of the settlement announcement, he will not meet with Netanyahu on the side at the UN meeting.


     So, will Obama cut off the billions of aid America sends to Israel each year?  Will he cut off at least the billion dollars of the three billion that is military aid?  Only if he is better than all the U.S. Presidents before him since Lyndon Baines Johnson, all of whom did nothing.

How To Profit From A Random Stranger's Death

     If you were rich and powerful, and you stood to profit if lots of people died suddenly, what sort of decisions do you think you'd make about things like toxic waste dumps and war?  Wall St. wheeler/dealers have cooked up just such a scheme, I guess they want to find out, too.

     What Could Go Wrong?

The NY Times, Pollyannas to the end, it seems, don't even consider that it might be a bad idea to have the rich and powerful have a stake in the making sure poorer people die quickly.  Not even a flit on their fucking radar.

     Eliot Spitzer, like he was with sub-prime mortgages, was out ahead of this issue in 2006, since it turns out part of the business of convincing seniors to sell their life insurance policies has tons of opportunity for predatory behavior.

Socialist vs Socialism, There Is A Difference!

     In that, according to graphs I generated at Capitol Words, the word socialist has been bandied about with fairly constant frequency by politicians over the last seven years, while the word "socialism" is at its period peak:

Really?

     Really?  In 1909 Hitler played Lenin at chess?  Hitler's art teacher drew the event?  Both men who would become dictators signed the back?  It's coming up for auction?  Yes to all:




(h/t A Blog About History)

Josh's Life Advice for Young Adults: Learn a Foreign Language

     You basically cannot learn a foreign language after 16 as you can before.

     Which one should you learn?  Arabic or Farsi will help the most with world peace, which all of us are going to have to appreciate, at least a little.  French and Italian are the prettiest.  Spanish is the #2 language in America (where I suspect most of my readers reside).  Chinese is the most widely spoken language on Earth.  Latin and Greek both have special places in academia.  Sanskrit, if you consider Panini, is undeniably special.  Most of the Slavic languages are inter-intelligible, so if you learn Russian, you cover a lot of the world.  Or, you might consider learning German, just to read Hegel and Goethe in the original.

Josh's Diet Advice #1: Your Sense of Thirst

     I am lucky in that I work with some very smart people.  Scuttlebutt around the office is that the human sense of thirst is particularly indistinct, or poor.  What they say is that sometimes you feel hungry, you are actually thirsty, your body just isn't good at distinguishing it.

     So, each time you are hungry, drink a glass of water (6 ounces should do) and wait 15 minutes.  If you are still hungry, then eat.

Reporting a Rumor: Israeli Settlements

     By repeating this rumor, I'm helping fan the flames of aides to Bibi Netanyahu who are spreading the rumor that Netanyahu is going to approve more settlements.  According to the rumor, Netanyahu pretends he is open to a settlement freeze for six to nine months after he approves more settlements.  If true, and I have no insight, either way, this is the worst short term news for the prospect of peace on Earth I can imagine.

I suppose this is pretty cute, if simplistic (UPDATE 1)

UPDATE 1: Add second paragraph

     Are fire insurance and health insurance really that close?  Actually, if your house burns down, and you are a neighbor, it is a risk to my house, so my life, too.  Still, it is not a bad video

     Much better is this, longish interview about Japan's healthcare system

Leaving the Bar: The Draft

     Last evening, I had picked myself up around sunset, placed my glass on the bar, and headed out of the very crowded place.  Someone else was leaving right ahead of me, and so made a path which I could follow.  The only words I picked up amidst all the murmur was "What I hear is All That's Important Is the Draft."

The Morale of the CIA Interrogators

     Many people, but especially the violent extremist Richard Cheney, unindicted Iraq War co-conspirator and former Vice President of the United States, have said that the morale of the CIA could be threatened by investigations of allegations of torture and abuse of people in their custody, and in the custory of the military of the United States.

     I say these people have got it completely backwards.

     Now, to be fair, if you are a criminal, and you are investigated, your morale is going to suffer, but I'm not terribly concerned about that lot, are you?  And, regrettably, since investigations have certainly gone wrong in the past, there will probably people who are innocent, but who have powerful bosses, or scumbag coworkers that will finger them to shift the blame.  Well, these people who were close to all the action, their morale will suffer, too, and, as I said, this is regrettable.  So, yes, the morale of the criminals and the people near them will suffer.

     But I'd like you to put yourselves in the suit of a good CIA interrogator, a decent person, a decent human being.  I'd like you to imagine that you never threatened to have someone's mother raped, that you never attached electrodes to a detainee's gonads, and that you didn't force them to sit in their own shit for 72 hours, or even one day.  If you can't do this, if you can't imagine being a human being, then you'd might as well stop reading this, since the rest of this won't make any sense to you at all.

     Now, from what I've heard, and this is based on the most recent information, there is no evidence whatsoever that serial fabulator Richard Cheney was correct when he said torture led to a stopped terrorist attack.  None, zippo, nada.

     So, you were the good interrogator, the human being, and you got your intelligence according to the rules, and some other interrogator broke the rules, and enjoyed beating people when no one was looking, and torturing people just because they were the enemy, not because there was any good intelligence to be had, and they are getting off scot free. 

     Well, I ask you, what's that going to do to your morale? 

     Hey, the guy who just beat you in the 50 meter dash is doping, but we are letting him off the hook, because we don't want to look backwards.  Hey, the cop who just arrested you planted evidence, but we wouldn't want to investigate because it might demoralize the police.  Hey, that politician just took Florida knowing full well the intent of 3,000 voters in Palm Beach County was to vote for Gore.  Look forward, not backwards, my son.

     In fact, it doesn't take a supra-genius to see that almost all criminal investigations are an exercise in looking backwards, mostly because we rarely ever prosecute people for murder unless someone has actually, and in the past, been wrongfully deceased.

     But to hear Dick Cheney, a man wanted by some in the NSA for his crimes, you'd think investigating crimes is un-American.

     It's easy to write off Cheney as "evil" or "batshit loony" but there might be a more reasonable explanation. My guess is that he feels very conflicted over his desires to rape people he keeps chained in his backyard.  My guess is that he believes that it is OK when we do it, because we are the good guys, and we'll always be the good guys, even if we have to keep you chained in the backyard and rape you to prove it.

Middle East Peace Beginnings: Still Up In The Air

     Long story short, Miami Casino billionaire Irving Moskowitz's second attempt to move right-wing, ultra-nationalist Israelis into Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem has an administrative decision "pending."  Last time it was 20 units, and apparently sanity won and the permits were denied.  This time it is 200 units.

     Obama administration, do not let brainwashed, Miami casino owners stop your as yet, completely successful attempts to make space for a new Middle East peace by preventing any new settlements.

Who's Not Embarrassed for Washington Week in Review?

     What's the first question on PBS's "Washington Week in Review" concerning health care reform?  "Will we see Michelle Obama get involved in the push for health care?"

Schadenfreude: Glenn Beck Shown To Be Biting Self, Via Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Glenn Beck's Operation
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Charter Schools Help Divide America

President Obama's Education Secretary is a Charter Schools booster.  Sigh.

The NY Times Gets One Right

     I've been the NY Times website homepage only a few times in the last few years but I went yesterday, and what did I find, on the front page, top left, but this piece calling the stories about "death panels" "false rumors."  Sarah Palin wrote that the currently proposed legislation includes provisions for a government panel that decides whether people live or die.  They might even have killed her own son, Trig, for his abnormalities, she wrote!

     It's bullshit, but that hasn't stopped quite a few people from repeating the claim, or just using the term "death panel" without defining it.  The inestimable Bob Somerby covers the NY Times piece.  He even embarrasses me, though not by name, because I must have some power, and I feel like I've done precious little to stop the degradation of the public debate.  So, with that in mind, I'll comment on an ancillary piece of garbage that Bob brings up, Charles Lane's op-ed Undue Influence: The House Bill Skews End-of-Life Counsel, which, it turns out, Bob had suggested people wrestle with the day it was written.

     I don't have much patience for garbage, and I didn't even finish the article before I saw what Lane had done.  We are talking about catastrophe care.  Do you want doctors to leap tall buildings to save you if you will never recover, say, brain function?  If you've already been hit by a bus and are lying in a coma, it is too late to ask, so, of late, people have been encouraged to put their will down on paper.  This is often called an "advance directive."

     Section 1233 of H.R. 3200 is, I must say, quite explicit about what should be discussed when a doctor and patient have a discussion about, while being vague about such things as key questions (highlighted in orange) that a doctor must ask a patient to consider.  Lane is being fair when he points that out.  Lane makes a couple small boob moves, along with his amazing absurdity, and when he says that a doctor might think to offer the Roman Catholic Church or Dr. Jack Kevorkian as a "resources" to help with end-of-life planning.  Does your local Archdiocese provide such information?  They might.  If they did, would you want this information hidden from you?  Probably not.  Would a doctor be obeying this law if they provided a list that only included a local Church?  Definitely not, since the bill explicitly mandates the minimum list the doctor might provide (highlighted with blue in three places).

     One other lame move of Chuck's is his link to the full 1000 page PDF version of the bill, instead of something handy, like I provided above and again here.  And yet another is when he writes this piece of innuendo "If Section 1233 is innocuous, why would 'strategists' want to tip-toe around the subject?"  Strategists, a word which does not require quotes, have strategies, and if they told you what they were, they wouldn't be very good at being strategists.  Guess all you want, but if a strategist says they are doing something, that's probably part of the strategy, too.

     The real inexcusable insult to my intelligence in Chuck's logic comes when he tries to explain how a provision to fund consultations on advance directives might result in people signing away health care when they didn't want to, pressured by doctors to do so.  Section 1233 is "not totally innocuous" he writes.  He says that now doctors have an financial incentive to initiate conversations with patients concerning end-of-life care.  As closely as I can read the text of the legislation, I can't find anything that resembles a change in in the law concerning who might initiate a consultation, which makes me think Chuck is just making shit up, but I can pretend that I am reading the magic version of the bill that Chuck is, in order that I may shove this little tidbit down his reality-pipe.  If a doctor starts encouraging people to sign up for consultations, paid for by government, in order to make a buck, why on Earth would that same doctor recommend that the patient refuse catastrophe care?  There is no money to be made in letting a brain-dead, accident victim die.  A doctor only makes money keeping people alive.  Doctors have a financial incentive, except when it comes to making money, according to the Chuck Lane.  Does this guy have an editor?  If not, why not?

     This absurdity let's Chuck mock Representatives Blumenauer and Levin.  He doesn't forward any arguments by the Representatives, or anyone else, that 1233 doesn't do what he says it does, he just quotes people contradicting him and says they aren't being "realistic."

     Yes, please, fire, or at least demote, Chuck Lane, thank you.

The Pashtun

     Since I am always pointing people to these two articles, I should make them easier to find!

• The beginnings of the Taliban.  This was written by an ex-Soviet Central Asia/Caucasus specialst in 2001.  Turkmenistan never gets mentioned anymore, but they were there are the beginning.
  
• The Taliban == The Pashtun.  I think it is important to point out that the "Taliban" are a co-extensive with the Pashtun language community.  It makes strategizing much easier, once you know it.

Honest and Forthright, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

     Lots of Federal Reserve bank conspiracy theory nuts out there, but that's not me.  I was wondering who sits on the boards of the regional banks, and the first regional bank that popped up was my own local Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  Follow that link and you'll see there are three classes of boardmembers, and three in each class.  The first class is those voted in by the member banks to represent the member banks, the second class are voted in by the member banks to represent the public, and the third group is voted in by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. 
     Right now, there are two board seats vacant, both of those appointed by member banks to represent the public.  They do have one seated, though, and that is Jeffrey R. Immelt, the Chairman and CEO of General Electric.  Does anyone else think he's a real public advocate?  If so, could you show me any evidence of this?  Isn't it GE which refuses to clean up the mess they made in the Hudson River?  Update! It looks like, after thirty years, GE has decided to clean up the Hudson, at least partially.  Don't you worry, even if this guy oversees a company which refuses to clean up millions of pounds of cancer-causing chemicals from our Rivers, he is looking out for the public.

America is Right of Center, More Conservative than Europe

     I'm sure you've all heard that and, whatever the reason, for good or ill, it is true. 
     Well, if not Europe, what countries are about as conservative as America, and who is more conservative than us? 
     Let's use one metric, "religious/traditional" versus "rational/secular."  According to one of the largest surveys in the world, America is about as traditional as India, Poland, Vietnam and Northern Ireland.  We come out a bit more rational/secular than Turkey, Portugal, Indonesia, Chile or Argentina, and a bit more traditional/religious than Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Croatia, Spain and Australia.  The most traditional?  El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Tanzania and Morocco.  The most secular/rational?  Japan, Sweden, Norway, E. and W. Germany (these polls started when they were two countries) and the Czech Republic. 
(link)