The Best Nativity Tradition Ever

Catalan-style!

Google's Ngram is cool

It searches pretty much every book ever written for the word or words you request:

Twas the night before Christmas

Oddly similar to my own writing process and outcomes...

“Within and throughout the lines and text of the poem, ‘The Road Not Taken,’ by Robert Frost, which is a kind of writing a lot different than books and magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Mick Beth the poet uses imagery and iambic footings to convey his meaning and thoughts on life and living in this life in which we live to his audience or you and I the readers of his poem, ‘The Road Not Taken.’.”.

Important Question about Wikileaks

Basically, change the country targeted by Wikileaks. Would the US cave (as many other nations and companies have) to Chinese pressure if an anti-Chinese website operating in the U.S. were publishing Chinese state secrets and breaking Chinese law?

Via League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

America's Two Literary Cultures

A good article over at Slate argues that America has two literary cultures. The first is stuck in the universities in the form of MFA programs. The second is a product of the New York publishing industrial complex. Here's a few choice quotes:

"On the flip side (as McGurl can't quite know, because he attended "real" grad school), MFA programs themselves are so lax and laissez-faire as to have a shockingly small impact on students' work—especially shocking if you're the student and paying $80,000 for the privilege. Staffed by writer-professors preoccupied with their own work or their failure to produce any; freed from pedagogical urgency by the tenuousness of the link between fiction writing and employment; and populated by ever younger, often immediately postcollegiate students, MFA programs today serve less as hotbeds of fierce stylistic inculcation, or finishing schools for almost-ready writers (in the way of, say, Iowa in the '70s), and more as an ingenious partial solution to an eminent American problem: how to extend our already protracted adolescence past 22 and toward 30, in order to cope with an oversupplied labor market."


"New York can't be excelled at two things: superstardom and forgetfulness. And so the New York "canon," at any given moment, tends to consist of a few perennial superstars—Roth, DeLillo, Pynchon, Auster—whose reputations, paradoxically, are secure at least until they die, and beneath whom circulate an ever changing group of acclaimed young novelists—Joshua Ferris, Nicole Krauss, Rivka Galchen, Jonathan Safran Foer—and a host of midcareer writers whose names are magnified when they put out a book and shrink in between. Except at the very top, reputation in this world depends directly on the market and the publishing cycle, the reviews and the prizes, and so all except those at the very top have little reason to hope for a durable readership. The contemporary New York canon tends to be more contemporary than canon—it consists of popular new novels, and previous books by the authors of same."

 

A pressing question for our generation:

Who said it, Kanye West or Tracy Jordan?
Linkity Link.

Zadie Smith Reviews "The Social Network"

but ends up thinking a lot about our generation and what it means to live online. It is a great critique of the film and a good model for non-ivory tower (dare I say popular?) film/lit/art criticism.

Wiki Leaks Iraq war dump.

Its not pretty. America has perpetrated some of the most disgusting acts imaginable. Abu Ghraib looks like par for the course. Here's the NY Times and the Guardian:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/22/world/middleeast/detainees.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks

Foreclosure Fraud Link-fest

Links with some money quotes:

The Foreclosure Mess - TBP:

"You can endorse the note as many times as you please—but you have to have a clear chain of title right on the actual note: I sold the note to Moe, who sold it to Larry, who sold it to Curly, and all our notarized signatures are actually, physically, on the note, one after the other.If for whatever reason any of these signatures is skipped, then the chain of title is said to be broken. Therefore, legally, the mortgage note is no longer valid. That is, the person who took out the mortgage loan to pay for the house no longer owes the loan, because he no longer knows whom to pay.
To repeat: if the chain of title of the note is broken, then the borrower no longer owes any money on the loan.
Read that last sentence again, please. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
You read it again? Good: Now you see the can of worms that’s opening up."

For Foreclosure Processors Hired by Mortgage Lenders, Speed Equaled Money - Washington Post:

"The law firm of David J. Stern in Plantation, Fla., for instance, assigned a team of 12 to handle 12,000 foreclosure files at once for big financial companies such as Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac and Citigroup, according to court documents. Each time a case was processed without a challenge from the homeowner, the firm was paid $1,300. It was an unusual arrangement in a legal profession that normally charges by the hour.The office was so overwhelmed with work that managers kept notary stamps lying around for anyone to use. Bosses would often scream at each other in daily meetings for "files not moving fast enough," Tammie Lou Kapusta, the senior paralegal in charge of the operation, said in a deposition Sept. 22 for state law enforcement officials who are conducting a fraud investigation into the firm. In 2009 alone, Stern's law firm handled over 70,000 foreclosures."

MSM Distancing Itself From Bank Party Line on Foreclosure Crisis - Naked Capitalism:


"Now of course, the Journal is not yet ready to point out what ought to be the logical conclusion: if you compromise legal processes to bail out a miscreant industry, you’ve made a bargain with the Devil. Who will ever trust contracts in the US if a powerful enough party can violate them in a wanton, widespread manner, and not be held to account?"


Lender Processing Services Mortgage Document Fabrication Price Sheet - Naked Capitalism:


"Not only are there prices up for creating, which means fabricating documents out of whole cloth, and look at the extent of the offerings. The collateral file is ALL the documents the trustee (or the custodian as an agent of the trustee) needs to have pursuant to its obligations under the pooling and servicing agreement on behalf of the mortgage backed security holder. This means most importantly the original of the note (the borrower IOU), copies of the mortgage (the lien on the property), the securitization agreement, and title insurance."

One Nation Under Fraud: The Daily Caller OpEd:


"Tomorrow, a bank—not your bank, but any bank—could evict you from your home. Even if you didn’t know the bank was foreclosing. Even if your mortgage is paid off. Even if you never had a mortgage to begin with. Even if the bank doesn’t hold a single piece of paper that you signed. And major banks not only know this fact, but have spent millions of dollars to defend it in court. Why? The answer starts with a Jacksonville homeowner named Patrick Jeffs."


The Mortgage Morass - Paul Krugman:


"The accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom dispelled the myth of effective corporate governance. These days, the idea that our banks were well capitalized and supervised sounds like a sick joke. And now the mortgage mess is making nonsense of claims that we have effective contract enforcement — in fact, the question is whether our economy is governed by any kind of rule of law."

Why Foreclosure Fraud Is So Dangerous to Property Rights

Farming this one out to The Big Picture. This is a big f'ing deal. Heard a lawyer on Bloomberg say that the fallout from this will make the billion dollar tobacco penalties look like proceeds for a lemonade stand.

There seems to be a misunderstanding as to why the rampant and systemic foreclosure fraud is so dangerous to American system of property rights and contract law. Some of this is being done by people who are naked corporatists (i.e., the WSJ Editorial Board) excusing horrific conduct by the banks. Others are excusing endemic property right destruction out of genuine ignorance.

This morning, I want to explain exactly why this RE fraud is so dangerous, and explain the significance of the rights that are currently being trampled. I also want to demonstrate that the only way the nation could have the quantity and magnitude of errors we see is by willful, systemic fraud.

Perhaps this commentary will allow for a more intelligent debate of this issue, and focus on what can be done to fix the problems, rather than the blind parroting of talking points.

~~~

The process of purchasing a home in America culminates with an event called “the Closing.” It is an hour plus long contract signing that ensures the buyer is legitimately taking title, possession and legal ownership of a unique parcel of land and any structures upon it. The process gives any buyer specific rights to that property that cannot be abrogated under the laws of the United States.

At the closing, buyers sign and initial numerous documents. The goal is to accomplish the following:

1) Papers are signed that will be filed with the County Clerk (or appropriate officer) along with recording fees, for the official transfer of title from the prior owner to the new owner. The enabling purchase loan (i.e., mortgage note) is also filed with the Clerk.

2) The buyer receives title (ownership) of the land;

3) The mortgage lender establishes a new interest in that property contingent upon their mortgage note;

4) All other claims, liens, tax obligations and prior mortgages, home equity lines or second notes are satisfied and extinguished before title passes to the new owner.

5) Third party claims of any interest in that property superior to the buyer are eliminated;

6) Title Insurance is purchased and issued so the buyer has a recourse in case of defects in ownership occurs.

Every step of the process is designed to protect the property rights of all parties. The result is more than a mere transaction selling property from one party to another; rather, this has created a system where ownership interests are clearly defined; where title history can be reviewed going back decades and centuries. There is a certainty to the purchasers of this property against all future claims.

Everything about this process has been created to make sure the transfer goes off perfectly. In a nation of laws, contract and property rights, there is no room for errors. Indeed, even small technical flaws can be repaired via a process called “perfecting title.”

As we noted previously, esteemed economists such as Hernando de Soto have identified that the respect for title, proper documentation, contract law and private property rights are the underlying reason capitalism works in Western nations, but seems to flounder elsewhere.

We cannot have free market capitalism without this process. So what does it mean if banks have been systemically, fraudulently and illegally undermining this process?

~~~

The closing process described above took place with all parties participating voluntarily. The buyer wants the house, the seller wants the transaction, the financing bank wants to make the mortgage loan.

What happens during a proper foreclosure? The prior closing is essentially reversed, only its done involuntarily. The process requires another RE closing, only this time, the Note holder is exercising their right to repossess the house if the borrower has failed to uphold the terms of the mortgage note. It typically states that if a borrower fails to make the requisite payments, they become delinquent. After an extended period of delinquency, they go into default. That allows the note holder to exercise their rights to foreclose on the property, and take title and possession.

The same care and attention to detail that occurred during the initial closing must also occur in the foreclosure process. All of the steps noted in our initial closing must occur here also. But since it is an involuntary process for the (soon-to-be former) property owner, extra care must be taken to make sure that property rights are being maintained and respected. The entire process is, if anything, is even more rigorous.

The law does not tolerate any errors in this process. What does the foreclosure process legally require? It varies by state and mortgage note, but the following is a good outline:

1) Notice of Delinquency is sent to a borrower who has fallen behind his payment schedule;

2) Notice of Default is sent to a delinquent borrower who has missed the requisite number of mortgage payments;

3) Notice of Foreclosure is sent to the defaulted borrower, and the process begins;

4) Affadavit by the bank’s representative are signed attesting to: Ownership of the note, who the borrower is, the property in question, the date of last mortgage payment, amount of delinquency, tax escrow owed, other payments (such as homeowners insurance);

5) Notarized documents: A Notary Public affirms that the affidavit was actually signed by the signatory, and this allows it to be entered into the court as documentary evidence;

6A) Notice of Pendency (Lis Pendens) is filed with the County Clerk putting the world on notice as to the foreclosure action;

6B) Summons and Complaint are prepared by bank attorneys, who further verify the specific information attested to by the bank executives. The attorneys then file the Complaint, commencing the Foreclosure Action;.

7) Service of Process is filed, either hand delivered to the home owner, or nailed to the door of the home;

8) Referee is Appointed to review and process the case; calculate the amount owed, and report back to the Court; The Referees report is also notarized;

9) Judgment of Foreclosure is moved for by Note holder;

10) Court orders the property auctioned. The court specifies a notice of the auction, publicizing the property auction;

11) Bidders must Close on the auctioned house in 30-90 days; In the event of no sale, the bank takes possession (REO);

The fraud that has come to light are primarily occurring in steps 4, 5, 6 and 7. The verification of the specific data that is mandated legally is not taking place by bank executives. Reviewing a file can take anywhere from, 20 minutes to well over an hour. Yet some bank employees are testifying that they have signed off on as many as 150 per day (Wells Fargo) or 400 per day (Chase).

It is impossible to perform that many foreclosure reviews and data verifications in a single day. The only way this could happen is via a systemic banking fraud that orders its employees to violate the law. Hence, how we end up with the wrong house being foreclosed upon, the wrong person being sued for a mortgage note, a bank without an interest in a mortgage note suing for foreclosure, and cases where more than one note holders are suing on the same property that is being foreclosed.

This is more than mere accident or error, it is willful recklessness. When that recklessness is part of a company’s processes and procedures, it amounts to systemic fraud. (THIS IS CRIMINAL AND SHOULD BE PROSECUTED).

The next step in our cavalcade of illegality is the Notary. Their signature and stamp allows these fraudulent documents to be entered into court as actual evidence (no live witness required). Hence, we have no only fraud, but contempt of court on top of it (BOTH OF WHICH REQUIRE PROSECUTION).

Law firms preparing the legal documents are not doing their job of further verifying the information. And, it seems certain states such as Florida have foreclosure mills who were set up from the outset as fraudulent enterprises. (EVEN MORE PROSECUTION NEEDED).

Lastly, some service processors are not bothering to do their job. This is the last step in the foreclosure proceedings that would put a person on notice of the errors (YET MORE FRAUD).

There are multiple failsafes and checkpoints along the way to insure that this system has zero errors. Indeed, one can argue that the entire system of property rights and contract law has been established over the past two centuries to ensure that this process is error free. There are multiple checks, fail-safes, rechecks, verifications, affirmations, reviews, and attestations that make sure the process does not fail.

It is a legal impossibility for someone without a mortgage to be foreclosed upon. It is a legal impossibility for the wrong house to be foreclosed upon, It is a legal impossibility for the wrong bank to sue for foreclosure.

And yet, all of those things have occurred. The only way these errors could have occurred is if several people involved in the process committed criminal fraud. This is not a case of “Well, something slipped through the cracks.” In order for the process to fail, many people along the chain must commit fraud.

That it is being done for expediency and to save a few dollars on the process is why the full criminal prosecution must occur.

~~~

The approach of most Western nations to property is an important legacy. In the United States, it has been enshrined in the Constitution. Even the rare exercise by the State to take private property during Eminent Domain requires an extensive and proper process. The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees that no “private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The Supreme Court has detailed the process required for the State to seize any citizen’s private property without the owner’s consent.

There is simply no reason we should tolerate unlawful property seizure merely when it is done by banks. They are not the State, not the King, and not above the law.

THE .DOC FILE OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK

http://copperbadge.livejournal.com/3102544.html

Sample (yes the entire poem was adapted/corrupted):

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a laptop, put in sleep mode on a table
Let us go through certain half-deserted streets
The blinking-light retreats
Of restless nights in free-wifi cafes
And public libraries with internet
Streets that follow like messageboard argument
of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming blog post
Oh, do not ask, "What, yaoi?"
Let us go and post an entry.

What does the Pope stand to gain by comparing Atheists to Nazis?

Aside from the irony of the Pope's statement, I think the Church has bigger things to be doing than calling Atheists names.

context

Is Higher Education a Bubble?

As if by magic, another of my favorite bloggers looks into the Student Loan Debt issue. Here's an interesting fact, Student loan debt in America is larger than our credit Card Debt. I still think this is less of a big deal because the Government holds most of those loans whereas banks own the credit card debt. Still, if people start defaulting on student loans in record numbers, who is left holding the hot-potato?
Link
Graphic-porn:

Is Higher Education a Bubble?

Or to put it more accurately, is the cost of Higher Education a bubble?

Article 1 compares higher Ed. to the Housing market in terms of consumer sentiment:

"It's a story of an industry that may sound familiar.

The buyers think what they're buying will appreciate in value, making them rich in the future. The product grows more and more elaborate, and more and more expensive, but the expense is offset by cheap credit provided by sellers eager to encourage buyers to buy.

Buyers see that everyone else is taking on mounds of debt, and so are more comfortable when they do so themselves; besides, for a generation, the value of what they're buying has gone up steadily. What could go wrong? Everything continues smoothly until, at some point, it doesn't."

 Article 2 displays the information graphically:






The graph, however, undermines the point that higher ed. is a bubble - it doesn't display the bubble shape of the housing market. Perhaps it would look like a bubble if we expanded the graph and looked toward future projections?

Houses and degrees are not really comparable anyway. You pay for a degree once and it can't be resold, for example.

Despite the obvious differences, I still think I agree with the argument. Higher Education is in many ways overpriced. And, like with housing, the pricing problems are not at the top of the market but in the middle and at the bottom. Nobody really argues that elite universities aren't worth the price. Rather, the second (and third and fourth) tier schools may not be priced properly. When the cost of tuition at a school like Georgia Southern is mostly the same as a school like UGA, shouldn't we ask whether the degrees and education received are really equal? At the low end of the scale, for-profit schools like U of Phoenix charge extremely high rates for classes. Their students are not usually the best academic performers and are rarely middle class. Yet, the availability of government loans means they can get a degree too. So what is the value of that degree? Is it the $40,000 that they borrowed? I doubt it.

So we end up with a large number of people saddled with debt and who've earned degrees which may not provide them with any real benefit (of they graduate, most don't). To me that says the demand is too high and is being propped up by external forces (loans). As long as the money keeps flowing, the demand stays strong. Since the major lender in student loans is the government, I don't think the lending will decrease any time soon. The only thing decreasing is the utility of having a degree. The major benefit of a degree is either specialization (think Lawyer) or signaling (I'm competent my Liberal Arts degree says so). When the standards are lowered, the product's quality decreases. College is simply assumed to be a necessary stepping stone to a career but I'm starting to think that we've taken that belief too far. I know that when I'm in a classroom, I'll urge students to consider trade schools as a valuable alternative. (Side note: guidance councilors at the school I worked at weren't allowed to tell kids about trade schools. "All of you are college bound!"; there was no vocational tech. program either.)

As long as college = success in the public mind, loans will be easy to come by and degrees will continue to proliferate to their detriment.

The World Trade Center was influenced by Islamic architecture and design.

Who knew? Slate, 2001

That's pretty interesting to me. While the article takes the Mecca-esque design as another affront to Bin Laden, I think there is a good argument to be made that it is a fitting tribute to architectural innovations of Arab culture and the Islamic faith.

Don't tell the GOP. Their heads might explode.

Hemingway on American Fiction and writing

From Green Hills of Africa:

     "We do not have great writers [in America]," I said. "Something happens to our good writers at a certain age. I can explain but it is quite long and may bore you."
     "Please explain," he said. "This is what I enjoy. This is the best part of life. The life of the mind. This is not killing kudu."
     "You haven't heard it yet," I said.
     "Ah, but I can see it coming. You must take more beer and loosen your tongue."
     "It's loose," I tole him. "It's always too bloody loose. But you don't drink anything."
     "No, I never drink. It's not good for the mind. It is unnecessary. But tell me. Please tell me."
     "Well," I said, "we have had, in America, skillful writers. Poe is a skillful writer. It is skillful, marvelously constructed, and it is dead. We have had writers of rhetoric who had the good fortune to find a little, in a chronicle of another man and from voyaging, of how things, actual things, can be, wales for instance, and this knowledge is wrapped in the rhetoric like plums in a pudding. Occasionally it is there, alone, unwrapped in pudding, and it is good. This is Melville. But the people who praise it, praise it for the rhetoric which is not important. They put a mystery in which is not there."
     "Yes," he said. "I see. But it is the mind working, its ability to work, which makes the rhetoric. Rhetoric is the blue sparks from the dynamo."
     "Sometimes. And sometimes it is only the blue sparks and what is the dynamo driving?"
     "So. Go on."
     "I've forgotten"
     "No. Go on. Do not pretend to be stupid."
     "Did you ever get up before daylight --"
     "Every morning," he said. "Go on."
     "All right. There were others who wrote like exiled English colonials from an England of which they were never a part to a newer England that they were making. Very good men with small, dried, and excellent wisdom of Unitarians; men of letters; Quakers with a sense of humor."
     "Who were these?"
     "Emerson, Hawthorne, Whittier, and Company. All our early classics who did not know that a new classic does not bear any resemblance to the classics that have preceded it. I can steal from anything that it is better than, anything that is not a classic, all classics do that. Some writers are born only to help another writer to write one sentence. But is cannot derive from or resemble a previous classic. Also, all these men were gentlemen, or wished to be. They were all very respectable. They did not use the words that people always have used in speech, the words that survive in language. Nor would you gather that they had bodies. They had minds, yes. Nice, dry, clean minds. This is all very dull, I would not state it except that you asked for it."
     "Go on."
     "There is one at that time that is supposed to be really good, Thoreau. I cannot tell you about it because I have not yet been able to read it. But that means nothing because I cannot read other naturalists unless that are being extremely accurate and not literary. Naturalists should all work alone and some one else should correlate their findings for them. Writers should work alone. They should see each other only after their work is done, and not too often then. Otherwise they become like writers in New York. All angleworms in a bottle, trying to derive knowledge and nourishment from their own contact and from the bottle. Sometimes the bottle is shaped art, sometimes economics, sometimes economic-religion. But one they are in the bottle they stay there. They are lonesome outside of the bottle. They do not want to be lonesome. They are afraid to be alone in their beliefs and no woman would love any of them enough so that they could kill their lonesomeness in that woman, or pool it with hers, of make something with her that makes the rest unimportant."
     "But what about Thoreau?"
     "You'll have to read him. Maybe I'll be able to later. I can do nearly everything later."
     "Better have some more beer, Papa."
     "What about the good writers?"
     "The good writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain. That's not the order they're good in. There is no order for good writers."
     "Mark Twain is a humorist. The others I do not know."
     "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing good since."
     "What about the others?"
     "Crane wrote two fine stories. The Open Boat and The Blue Hotel. The last one is the best."
     "And what happened to him?"
     "He died. That simple. He was dying from the start."
     "But the other two?"
     "They both lived to be old men but they did not get any wiser as they got older. I don't know what they really wanted. You see we make our writers into something very strange."
     "I do not understand"."
     "We destroy them in many ways. First, economically. They make money. It is only by hazard that a writer makes money although good books always make money eventually. Then our writers when they have made some money increase their standard of living and they are caught. They have to write to keep up their establishments, their wives, and so on, and they write slop. It is slop not on purpose but because it is hurried. Because they write when there is nothing to say or no water in the well. Because they are ambitious. Then, once they have betrayed themselves, they justify it and you get more slop. Or else they read the critics. If they believe the critics when they say they are great then they must believe them what they say they are rotten and they lose confidence. At present [ca 1930s] we have two good writers who cannot write because they have lost confidence through reading critics. If they wrote, sometimes it would be good and sometimes not so good and sometimes it would be quite bad, but the good would get out. But they have read the critics and they must write masterpieces. The masterpieces the critics said they wrote. They weren't masterpieces, of course. They were just quite good books. So now they cannot write at all. The critics have made them impotent."
     "Who are these writers?"
     "Their names would mean nothing to you and by now they may have written, become frightened, and be impotent again."
[...]
     "Do you think writing is worth doing -- as an end in itself?"
     "Oh, yes."
     "Are you sure?"
     "Very sure."
     "That must be very pleasant."
     "It is," I said. "It is the one altogether pleasant thing about it."
     "This is getting awfully serious," my wife said.
     "It's a damned serious subject."
     "You see, he is really serious about something," Kandisky said. "I knew he must be serious on something besides kudu."
     "The reason every one now tries to avoid it, to deny that it is important, to make it seem vain to try to do it, is because it is so difficult. Too many factors must combine to make it possible."
     "What is this now?"
     "The kind of writing that can be done. How far prose can be carried if any one is serious enough and has luck. There is a fourth and fifth dimension that can be gotten."
     "You believe it?"
     "I know it."
     "And if a writer can get this?"
     "Then nothing else matters. It is more important than anything he can do. The chances are, of course, that he will fail. But there is a chance that he succeeds."
     "But that is poetry you are talking about."
     "No. It is much more difficult than poetry. It is a prose that has never been written. But is can be written, without tricks and without cheating. With nothing that will go bad afterwards."
     "And why has it not been written?"
     "Because there are too many factors. First, there must be talent, much talent. Talent such as Kipling had. Then there must be discipline. The discipline of Flaubert. Then there must be the conception of what it can be and an absolute conscience as unchanging as the standard meter in Paris, to prevent faking. Then the writer must be intelligent and disinterested and above all he must survive. Try and get all these in one person and have him come through all the influences that press on a writer. The hardest thing, because time is so short, is for him to survive and get his work done. But I would like us to have such a writer and to read what he would write. What do you say? Should we talk about something else?"
     "It is interesting what you say. Naturally I do not agree with everything."
     "Naturally."
     "What about a gimlet?" Pop asked. "Don't you think a gimlet might help?"
     "Tell me first what are the things, the actual, concrete things that harm a writer?"
I was tired of the conversation which was becoming an interview. So I would make it an interview and finish it. The necessity to put a thousand intangibles int a sentence, now, before lunch, as too bloody.
     "Politics, women, drink, money, ambition. And the lack of politics, women, drink, money, ambition," I said profoundly.

Christopher Hitchens on Anderson Cooper 360

I never read any of his books about Atheism but he was one of the modern movement's big names. He was instrumental in my understanding of the Iraq War and one of the voices that made me hawkish toward our Mesopotamian adventures. He seems pretty far along into chemo-therapy and the physical effects are disturbing.

Here's an article he wrote for Vanity Fair about his cancer.  Insightful as always. I find that reading about people's perception of themselves is often more rewarding then their writing about politics/religion/culture/etc.

Unemployment Map

Here's the bigger version.

Pastors who are not believers.

Clearly, I must be avoiding some kind of work or I would not be posting so much. This is an academic journal article published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology. It looks at 5 pastors who do not believe in God, or at least not in the same way that their parishioners believe they do.

Wikileaks Strikes again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26warlogs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

They've released thousands of classified reports from Afghanistan dating back to 2004. Much like the McCrystal article, they paint a terrible picture of war gone wrong. For Example:

"MARCH 5, 2007 | GHAZNI PROVINCE
Incident Report: Checkpoint Danger

Afghan police officers shot a local driver who tried to speed through their checkpoint on a country road in Ghazni Province south of Kabul. The police had set up a temporary checkpoint on the highway just outside the main town in the district of Ab Band.

“A car approached the check point at a high rate of speed,” the report said. All the police officers fled the checkpoint except one. As the car passed the checkpoint it knocked down the lone policeman. He fired at the vehicle, apparently thinking that it was a suicide car bomber.

“The driver of the vehicle was killed,” the report said. “No IED [improved explosive device] was found and vehicle was destroyed.”

The police officer was detained in the provincial capital, Ghazni, and questioned. He was then released. The American mentoring the police concluded in his assessment that the policeman’s use of force was appropriate. Rather than acknowledging the public hostility such episodes often engender, the report found a benefit: it suggested that the shooting would make Afghans take greater care at checkpoints in the future.

“Effects on the populace clearly identify the importance of stopping at checkpoints,” the report concluded."

Here's the document.


Our wars look more like a Joseph Conrad novel every day.

Good synopsis of Sarah Palin's life till now.

There's a big brouhaha going on right now.

Some background: remember the recent NAACP vs Tea Party spat last week. Monday, Andrew Breitbart released video (can't find the original anymore so an article will have to suffice) of a black USDA employee, Shirley Sherrod, USDA Rural Development Georgia State Director, who admitted to racist feelings against a white farmer.

It ends up all over Fox News, Drudge, the bologsphere and conservative talk radio run with it. By the end of day, Shirley is fired from her job at the request of the White House.

Later it comes out that the video was edited. She was actually telling a story about how she felt guilty for having racist inclinations and wend above and beyond her duties to help a white farmer keep his home. Following the experience she realized her duty was to help the less fortunate and to move beyond race.

I have two things to say about this.
1. Total proof of the TDS right-wing media feedback cycle. Right wing commentator, blogger, publisher says something radical > news reports that "some say" or "new information shows" > pundits now cover the controversy over the issue > cycles back into the news reports. This all happened in less than 12 hours. We went from video posted on right-wing news site to the ordered firing of an employee in less then 12 hours.

2. This knee-jerk reaction by the White House in response to what was a radical right claim is disconcerting. It shows us that the administration is deeply afraid of the Fox News right. They folded like a deck chair. This kind of defensive, near paranoid attitude reminds me of the Bush administration: reactive rather than proactive; ultimately at the mercy of their own desire to appear flawless and in control. The administration is too tightly wound and it shows. This time it was one woman's job but what comes next?

UPDATE: Here's Breitbart on CNN with some world class wargarbl. He claims that CNN didn't do enough to prove that the farmer they had on was the same farmer Shirley Sherrod helped all those years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfPqG_kjBoY&feature=player_embedded

Random Thought/Question

Would paying out Reparations for Slavery constitute an effective economic stimulus?

More stuff about college educations.

A few weeks back, I posted about the benefit I may have received from attending a big state school rather than an elite university. I've been thinking about it since then. Ultimately, I think that I do value the freedom I had in both high school and college to choose my own path. Since I didn't see myself as a student on the elite path, I didn't feel like I had to follow it. I think ignorance had a lot to do with it too. I really had no idea what college was going to be like or why it was valuable. I didn't have perspective on what a "better school" would get me. It didn't bother me that I was going to UGA and once I arrived, I found I was outclassed by most of the freshmen on my hall. After meeting the 15th person with enough AP hours to make him a sophomore, I decided that I was lucky to be there. I felt like I had been given a chance that I didn't necessarily deserve. Later, that same though process played into my switch from business to English. If I was getting a lucky break, I wanted to study something that I believed was valuable and enjoyable. Same thing with deciding to teach.

I found two more articles. The first is just a run-of-the-mill piece about the employment difficulties facing new grads. The other, is written by a Yale professor and meshes pretty closely with what I wrote about last time. The article is so similar I actually think I may have read it a year or two ago and forgotten about it.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs-educate-20100612,0,1944150.story?track=rss

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/ 

Artificial Life

The Cover of The Economist this issue:

Here is the lead story.

Here is the more in depth article.

However, I think our required reading is actually an article from April 2000. Its an infamous article by Bill Joy (founder of Sun Microsystems and all around smart guy) titled "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us" and it is your required reading this week. Yes, I said it twice. Yes, its that important. Its long so give yourself some time for reading.

I haven't reread all of it, but I seem to recall that Bill is going to take a decidedly negative view of technological convergence. We're playing with powers we don't understand or have full control over. So long as human beings are making decisions, we'll be okay. Once we turn over decision making capabilities to the very entities we create, things get ugly. It is a very compelling, if negative, view of our future.

New favorite website

This goes in the category of People of Walmart and WTFDYHAK?

I give you Redneck Win!

 NSFW
A sample:

From the newest SCOTUS nominee

Elena Kagan's Undergraduate Thesis.

The Logical successor to Zeitgeist

You might remember the Zeitgeist films that went around the Internet a few years back. I hated them because they seriously misrepresented how the US money supply works and argued for a conspiracy theory about how George Bush or some similar person/cabal was moving toward a 1 world currency and global domination and the only way out is SCIENCE!

Anyway. A new viral is making its way around and arguing that the global monetary system is headed toward hyperinflation. It features a lot of the gold-standard talk and Ron Paul and guys with bow ties telling us that printing money is bad. So here you go, watch away.

Two questions I'm trying to figure out right now.

1. Is the economic trouble in Europe the result of their large social states? Their debt to GDP ratios are pretty big and, if you look at the private sector, the market cap of their banks (even in Germany) are larger than the GDP of the whole country. So, part of the reason these countries run high deficits are the social programs, national healthcare, and state funded pension systems. But how much of these deficits are related to those expenditures? Can we trace the rise in public debt to the rapidly aging demographics? Was this possibly a ticking time bomb independent of the larger financial crisis? Lastly, are these troubles a good reason not to develop along socialist lines (whereas the American collapse was a reason not to become too deregulated)?

2. Did I benefit more, as a human being or whatever, because I did not go to an elite college? I've noticed that colleges and universities talk about producing leaders. Indeed, that's pretty much the only thing that they seem interested in creating. But a leader, seems to be the opposite of what a university ought to produce (and I'll argue that they certainly don't receive many leaders). Shouldn't our best schools produce great thinkers? Or maybe a better way to put it (because they certainly do produce great thinkers too) is: shouldn't our best schools place value in creating great thinkers AND great leaders?
     This has been a recurring theme in my life for some time. As Lisa well knows, I often think about the "what if's" of my life. One big "what if" I return to is, what if I had done more in high school? My parents urger me to apply to all the best schools in the country, the top 10 + Jesuit schools like Georgetown + UGA as a safety school (My mom said I was not allowed to go there because it was 13th grade). UGA was the only school I was accepted to. I did not get in, clearly, because I was a "b" student, I pretty much failed at the SAT (1300) and I never took honors or AP classes (except once, by accident or something). Indeed, all I really cared about was Debate Team. My friend Justin and I did pretty well with debate team. We went undefeated in Georgia our senior year - pretty much nobody does that, I mean everybody looses a round here and there but we didn't. I poured my time and effort into debate because I loved that it required me to be able to think critically about the world around me - especially at a time in my life when everyone else wanted me to "get in line" and follow directions. But (a big but, I can not lie, all you other brother can't deny) if I look around at where those kids who did follow directions went, then I start to feel inadequate. I know I'm just as smart as they are (with only a few exceptions) but I did not achieve what they did because I didn't "get in line".
     Here's another example. Lisa (if you don't mind me using you as an example) has always wanted to be a doctor. However, when she went to college, she picked a very difficult major, Biochemistry. She did this because she wanted to have a challenging and ultimately rewarding undergraduate career. Biochemistry requires a much harder course load than the far more popular Biology degree does, and Lisa's grades reflected the more rigorous track. Similarly, she chose to pursue experiences which would enrich her life, but might not pad her resume - being an RA, Mission Trips, Alternative Spring Break etc. All these served to make her the well rounded, intelligent, and strong person I love today. They did not help her when it came time to get into Medical School. Why? She did not spend a summer shadowing a doctor - which we all know means doing administrative tasks. She did not take the several thousand dollar MCAT prep course - so her MCAT reflects her natural abilities as opposed to Kaplan's ability. She spend several years working at the CDC instead of adding classes to her transcript. She did not "get in line". (I do want to point out that she was accepted to Medical school but it was a struggle.)
     It seems like (given my admittedly small sample of friends and loved ones) that the people who go on to the best schools and the top professions are the exact opposite of leaders - they follow a very carefully outlined regimen. Take the best APs, Take the best Prep classes, Have a major that gets you the best GPA not the best education, Take more Prep classes, go to the best schools/professions/socially respected and valued status. Because let's face it, if you aren't a Doctor, Lawyer of CEO, America thinks you're a waste of space (Apologies to Lisa, Laura, and Ryan).
     No, wait, I don't apologize. You guys have followed a very alternative track to get to the schools you are currently (or will soon be) attending. Ryan spent a year in China and studied Philosophy and Religion. By god he should be wallowing in a pool of his own filth under a bridge, not attending Law School at BC. So I have a question for you folks going off to the elite careers (and perhaps an elite school or two): What do you think of the people around you? Are they leaders or thinkers or followers on a carefully prescribed path? Do you think you benefited from your time at the very non-elite UGA or would you rather have gone to a better school?
     Alex, I shouldn't leave you out of this You've been able to see what its like in both worlds. I've noticed some self importance coming from Tech folks I meet, but that could be the UGA v Tech rivalry more then anything else. What do you think of your peers? You are going on to a potentially successful life but your path was a very alternative one. Did you benefit from your experiences outside the trend?

Are economic globalization, political democracy, and the nation-state mutually exclusive?

Here's the article.
A few choice quotes:
"Deep down, the crisis is yet another manifestation of what I call “the political trilemma of the world economy”: economic globalization, political democracy, and the nation-state are mutually irreconcilable. We can have at most two at one time. Democracy is compatible with national sovereignty only if we restrict globalization. If we push for globalization while retaining the nation-state, we must jettison democracy. And if we want democracy along with globalization, we must shove the nation-state aside and strive for greater international governance."

"The United States, for example, created a unified national market once its federal government wrested sufficient political control from individual states. This was far from a smooth process, as the American Civil War amply demonstrates.

The EU’s difficulties stem from the fact that the global financial crisis caught Europe midway through a similar process. European leaders always understood that economic union needs to have a political leg to stand on. Even though some, such as the British, wished to give the Union as little power as possible, the force of the argument was with those who pressed for political integration alongside economic integration. Still, the European political project fell far short of the economic one."

It is kind of like a big game of rock paper scissors. Only two can exist at any given time, the third upsets the balance.

The EU gets its bailout on.

To the tune of 500 billion Euros. Here's the best stuff I've read. If they screw this up, its not going to be pretty. Let's just be happy that they don't have standing armies this time around.

Is Jon Stewart the answer to all the world's problems?

MediaMatters says yes.

Adam Smith, Socialist.

When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor of the masters.
-The Wealth of Nations: Book I, Chapter x

Thoughts

Video is through the link. http://www.collateralmurder.com/
I think it is hard to justify the latter half of the video, where they shoot up the van evacuating wounded. However, I do feel like the arrows identifying the two journalists are more of a play on emotion than reliable identification - especially after the shooting starts.

How about the role of Wikileaks in this whole thing? They somehow obtained the video, used supercomputers in Iceland to unencrypt the whole thing. Meanwhile, various governments were shadowing them and allegedly threatening them.

Lastly, this kind of gun-camera footage, the advent of drone aircraft, remote control war. What are the effects of the (for lack of a better term) video-game-ization of warfare?

Is liberty an inherently social concept?

So I've been enjoying the Cato Unbound blog lately. It's basically just a forum for debate between conservatives but they really hash out issues I care about. There's been a good one on Ayn Rand recently (here) and a neat one on whether or not college is worth it (here).

Today, I've been reading the current issue for debate, the nature of Freedom/Liberty. I particularly like a sub-debate going on about whether or not Liberty is a social construct. I.E. you don't have liberty if you live alone because liberty depends on your relationship to other people. (Ok, I'm kind of taking my own interpretation of it - call it a straw man if you want).

I'd argue that you have absolute liberty in that situation, but that it is largely meaningless as a value without a society present. Lots of things would be meaningless on an isolated desert island - gold bars, i-pad, lifetime supply of toner. The hypothetical doesn't really help us figure out the concept much.

If you're up for some good old intellectual procrastination, give it a read.

So, Healthcare

Alright, I've not seen enough of the bill to really grasp everything its doing, but, it looks rather moderate. Here's a summary from CBS, its way too basic for a 1k+ page document but I think thats all we are going to see for a little while. The details will come out as parts of the plans are implemented. However, I think I'd rather talk about the political implications of the bill than the bill itself.

First and foremost, and I cannot overstate the importance of this point, Congress has now created a precedent. The United States Government is now responsible for providing health care to its citizens. Regardless of the degree of coverage, commitment, cost etc., Congress has made general health care the Government's business from here on out. The only wild card is a potential unconstitutional ruling by SCOTUS but I hear that's a long shot.

Second, and what I really want to talk about, is the Republicans. (As usual. They're kind of a Miltonic Satan figure in my mind - so damned interesting and quite enticing.) Although they are loathe to admit it, the GOP operated under an obstructionist mentality. Their goal was to prevent the passage of the bill. while they certainly made it hard for the Democrats, ultimately they failed. So what now? Many Republicans are already moving toward a policy of Repeal. They want to overturn the bill should they win majorities in Congress. But what are their chances of winning? Ask Republican sources and they say strong - Americans hate the bill, it was passed undemocratically, they will vote enough Dems out to regain control in a second Conservative revolution. Two points: 1. was the public really that mad about the bill? 2. could anger about the bill be maintained until November? I think the answer to both questions is 'no'. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a platform based around repealing legislation is going to alienate the party further from the middle. (Perhaps that's the goal. I am not entirely unconvinced that most republicans just want to cement their own political office and never leave DC. The way to do that is to capture all the most right-wing seats and play on their constituents fears and paranoia. Moderates be damned.[They won't vote GOP anyway{double parentheses? really?}]) The other reason the GOP is not likely to sweep this November is a wonderfully powerful new argument the Democrats get to make now: Republicans want to kill you, your family, and your friends. That's right, any opposition to a Democrat means taking away health care, which is a substantially different position than opposition to giving health care. And, its only going to get harder to oppose as the new services start going into effect. Taking away something people expect to have will piss them off. Good luck running against health care post 2014.

So, what a smart Republican party would do is drop this whole mess right now. Find ways to support health care in a critical way. Argue for improvements and market oriented reforms. Either way, the populace will not be keen on a Repeal or obstructionist platform much longer. Its time to adapt to a changed situation or die out as the older, more partisan electorate that put you in office dies out. Survival means cooperation right now. Win local races on local issues, rebuild your base by being good at what the Democrats are bad at - efficiency, supporting business, free trade, national security. And for the love of Pete, move a little left on issues you previously championed (some call this bill Romneycare afterall). If there's one thing the Democrats know how to do its f-up. Hell, this bill took long enough as it was and they had a supermajority. They do not step in line, they do not support party measures. That's a strength but also a weakness. They'll screw something up, but you have to be there in a form capable of stepping into the gap they leave. If the GOP is so far right and so far gone that even a scandal will not convince voters to vote for you, well its your own damned fault.
 

More on China's approach to things

A good post countering the opinion that China presents some kind of intrinsic challenge to the US. It also hold to my view that China is merely acting to improve its global economic standing - not to create some evil empire.

The so called "Hardest Logic Puzzle of all Time"

Two guardians watch over a fork in the road. One path leads to safety, the other to a grisly death. One of the guardian is a knight, meaning that he always tells the truth. The other is a knave, meaning that he always lies, answering “yes” to questions whose correct answer is “no”, and vice versa. You do not know which guardian is a knight and which is a knave. With a single question, how will you find the safe path?

Texas messes with textbooks

So the Texas BOE has adopted a new series of social studies standards that give a really "Glenn Beck" version of history and society. Here's a few awesome quotes from an AP article:

"As part of the new curriculum, the elected board — made up of lawyers, a dentist and a weekly newspaper publisher among others — rejected an attempt to ensure that children learn why the U.S. was founded on the principle of religious freedom.

But, it agreed to strengthen nods to Christianity by adding references to "laws of nature and nature's God" to a section in U.S. history that requires students to explain major political ideas.

They also agreed to strike the word "democratic" in references to the form of U.S. government, opting instead to call it a "constitutional republic."

In addition to learning the Bill of Rights, the board specified a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class and agreed to require economics students to "analyze the decline of the U.S. dollar including abandonment of the gold standard."


However the really scary part is this: "Decisions by the board — long led by the social conservatives who have advocated ideas such as teaching more about the weaknesses of evolutionary theory — affects textbook content nationwide because Texas is one of publishers' biggest clients."

Marc Thiessen on with John Stewart

For about the first 6-7 minutes I think this is one of the better interview/guest segments TDS has had in a little while. After that, he moves into argument mode and it becomes kinda one sided. I feel like Stewart does his best when he sticks to questions and well planned lines of thought - when he lets his guests have enough rope to hang themselves with. Part 1.

Elizabeth Warren on Charlie Rose

Elizabeth Warren on Charlie Rose. For me the money quote comes when she is talking about the Financial Regulation Reform Bill in Congress right now:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10895#frame_top

"CHARLIE ROSE: And so do you think Senator Dodd and Senator Corker are
serving the interest of the bank lobby?

ELIZABETH WARREN: We’ll know when this bill comes out of Congress.

CHARLIE ROSE: The financial reform bill.

ELIZABETH WARREN: That’s right.

CHARLIE ROSE: Let me just stay with it for a second in a sense that
if you look at it as a part of the overall financial regulation reform,
where do you put its significance?

ELIZABETH WARREN: The tip of the spear.

CHARLIE ROSE: Tip of the spear?

ELIZABETH WARREN: Yes. And it’s the tip of the spear in two senses
of that word. It’s the tip of the spear in the sense this is where our
financial crises started, one lousy mortgage at a time, one family who got
fooled, tricked, cheated at a time.

Then those risks were aggregated, sliced and diced, put into all kinds
of fancy financial instruments, ultimately traded, made billions for the
Wall Street banks. And then brought the whole system -- so tip of the
spear in terms of where it’s starting.

But also tip of the spear in whether or not our political system
works. You know, if you can’t make this work for American families, then
what hope is there for the pieces that are complicated and in which people
with lots of money and lots of power are in --

CHARLIE ROSE: So you’re saying unless this is an independent agency
outside which they bring all the powers that are existing everywhere
together and give it jurisdiction, give it power, give it budget, give it -
- that everything else is at risk."

The Romney Doctrine and the end of influence

I believe that I mentioned a book about what happens when Los Estados Unidos no longer has hegemony. well, here's one of the authors in an interview titled "What happens when other countries have the money". It's worth the watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7hB6LEyW68

For comparison, I have an article about 2012 GOP presidential front runner Mitt Romney's foreign policy views as espoused in his new "Lookit! I'ma run for president" book.

http://washingtonindependent.com/78105/romneys-no-apology-outlines-foreign-policy-for-fantasy-world


Blog notes. I'm just going to post interesting things - I've been told that less commentary seeking behavior on my part will entice y'all to post.

Ok, well, then its is official...

see more Epic Fails

Should we take this party back to facebook?

I was out with Houston and Laura last night (happy b-day!) and i asked whether or not they thought the blog was a good idea, and if they thought I should continue it. Both (I may be recalling this incorrectly, curse you Bitter&Twisted) said they did not like the idea of having their opinions and ideas out for all the world to see and certainly not in any form that will come back and haunt them years from now when they are running for political office/department chair/have children/seek Papal appointments/etc.

And since I was the one doing most of the posting anyway:

Should we return to Facebook and begin a new thread including Mr. Murphy?
Are there good reasons beyond those already mentioned to quit the blog format?
Or do we permute and do both? I can post to the blog from time to time, but Facebook is the primary site?
What say you? Leave feedback on this in comments or on other posts.

Paul Volker is a BAMF

"Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.) accused the White House of trying to add the Volcker Rule onto an already confusing proposal.

Mr. Volcker’s response:

“I tell you sure as I am sitting here, that if banking institutions are protected by the taxpayer and they are given free reign to speculate, I may not live long enough to see the crisis, but my soul is going to come back and haunt you.”  "

Link

Healthcare Reform Response

First, thanks for having me aboard. For those of you who don't know me, I went to UGA with James and Channing, studied philosophy and religion, taught English in China, and now I'm at Boston University School of Law.

Martha Coakley is a grad of BU Law. My school has a big health law and policy program. We're in Massachusetts, state healthcare capital of the country. In the wake of Coakley's defeat, my classmates were aghast. Clearly this program is in the interest of the American people, so why are they not getting behind it? Our system is broken. We pay the most for healthcare yet have terrible mortality rates. Millions of Americans can't even get healthcare.

I think all the factors Alex identified are the most important in the public's response to this legislation, but I'd like to add that the timing and order of taking on this part of the administration's agenda played a large part in its failure. Obama followed a huge deficit-spending programs in the stimulus, TARP, and cash-for-clunkers with something that could be labeled another big-government spending program. Had Obama devised a plan for balancing the budget in the medium-term, realigned the incentives that lead to systemic risk in the financial markets, and then addressed this pet project, things likely would have gone better.

The Obama supporters I talk to account for this decision making by arguing that he wanted to tackle this while he had the political capital. This was a big part of his platform for the left, healthcare needed to be addressed, and this was his best chance to do it. That may be true, but these arguments are based on political realities and ignore the realities outside of Washington and dissonance of such policies with the experience of Americans in the recession. In other words, [insert generic statement about how Washington is detached from Main St.].

First, the economy and financial reform are the far more pressing issues, both immediately and long-term. With the dotcom and subprime busts, Americans have been subjected to upheaval in their daily lives twice in the last decade for which they bear no personal responsibility. Surely there was the political will to regulate finance in a way that affords the benefits of finance without harming borrowers or economic stability. Now, I doubt the idea of strengthening or creating new regulatory bodies will have much appeal; it will just be another example of Democrats and big-government spending, taking away economic freedoms, and suffocating growth. Healthcare has been this way for while and could wait while we attached some meaningful conditions to the government guarantee of the financial system. I'm afraid that we will be left with an explicit guarantee and the same business models that do not contribute to substantive economic growth, reward high-risk profits made in the short term, lead to market volatility, and unscrupulously extract billions of dollars from consumers of financial products.

Second, Americans that are largely tightening their belts see this program as the exact opposite of what they are trying to do in light of the crisis. While people are trying to save and cut spending, the government is paying for a new healthcare system. Some people are making decisions on whether they really need to spend any money to see a doctor, so healthcare seems to be less of a necessity right now. The trade offs that individuals are making exposes the flawed premise in the Democrats' rhetoric, that healthcare is right and not a luxury.

The best argument that I've heard on healthcare not being a right is that healthcare is service and a good created with someone else's labor, and in a system of private property, no one has the right to someone's labor or property. I think its a pretty strong argument against positive rights in a capitalist system, but the core problem is that positive rights can't be a right in any universal sense when there is scarcity. Once you declare something a positive right, be it food, water, housing, clothing, or healthcare, the realization of that right comes at the expense of realizing another right. Maybe what is meant in calling healthcare a right is that things aren't so scarce that this need should never go unmet, but if that is the case, then the debate needs to be in these terms. The Democrats should do away with this rhetoric of rights and address the issue on purely economic/utilitarian terms. At heart, I don't think the two parties are far apart ideologically, and the Democrats could beat the Republicans on their rhetorical terms.

On a personal level, the process of healthcare reform reinforces my misgivings about the Obama administration. Despite the high-minded principles of his campaign, Obama has been a cripplingly pragmatic politician. The mammogram hoopla embodies these failures. The decision to raise the age of exams to 50 was a reasoned, utilitarian policy, but after getting pushed by the public and biotech manufacturers, that policy is gone in the final bill. The bill got through on back room deals with the healthcare industry. I'm disappointed in myself for drinking the Obama kool-aid and thinking he was above the political fray. The Republicans were right to condemn the Democrats for shutting them out of the debate and cutting deals (even though its how they make a living) because the political system needs to change its method of discourse and governing processes.

This bill is done. Scott Brown ran his campaign explicitly on voting against healthcare, and there is no way the moderate Democrats and those up for reelection stay on board. The administration will likely try to compromise and water the bill down to save face, but the chance for meaningful reform is over. I think this really was Obama's Waterloo.

Clark Howard has some interesting nuggets of thought on healthcare reform and the Massachusetts plan from a consumer prospective. http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/category/9/67/

Why is the Health Care Bill so toxic?

Just noticed this: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/01/18/new-poll-lows-for-nelson-after-health-care-vote/

Combine this with Coakley's dead heat senate run in the very blue state of Massachusetts and it seems that support for the current health care reform is toxic to approval ratings. But why? Reform, especially from the Senate, is taking a decidedly moderate flavor. The bill reduces the deficit, bans widely unpopular insurance company policies and offers boat loads of new subsidies for those that can't afford health insurance. Why does the American public dislike these bills so much?

A couple possibilities:
1) The Republican/Fox News PR machine is much better than the White House/Congressional Dem PR machine and the public has been convinced that this bill will somehow screw them over/deprive them of some freedom.
2) A significant number of Americans are mostly happy with their personal health insurance and are afraid of any kind of change, regardless if it could help other Americans.
3) The partisan nature of the Bills turns turns people off, so disapproval of the Bills is perhaps more so a disapproval of a partisan Congress than the policies the Bills contain.

I think 1) from above is probably the most significant explanation, but it's almost certainly a combination of all three possibilities as well as other things I haven't even considered. Will this disapproval prevent Obama from being able to sign health care legislation into law? And if he does will approval ratings of the legislation improve over time as people come to understand its effects better? What are your thoughts?

Was watching the news. This came to mind.

John Stewart, John Yoo and the implications of duty.

As long as we're on the subject of John Stewart, he had John Yoo (the Bush admin, lawyer who defined torture/waterboarding and what not) on the program. Here's the question:

Assuming he believes that Yoo's action lead to torture, does John Stewart have a duty (in the ethical sense) to confront Yoo?

Or is he just a comedian?

And what are your thoughts on the interview?
Part 1

Praise for Jon Stewart

So we've heard the argument against Jon Stewart previously in our discourse. He is clearly polemical and at times partisan but he flies the banner of comedian, so granting himself impunity. I think it was Matthew who raised this point, and it was well taken. By this view Stewart seems disingenuous and even cowardly; anyone who crusades around the political arena exposing scandals and righting wrongs should settle into the broad tapestry of media pundits, not snipe at people from the arena's edges where there is no accountability.

But what about the benefits of Stewart's role? Are there any to be found? I just came across this article in NPR that makes such a case:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122375199

What will the Midterm elections look like?

We've had a lot of news recently about folks not seeking reelection this year. I want to know what you guys think about it all.
What are the decisive issues going to be?
Can the GOP gain seats, or is it still stuck out in the woods?
Can we consider this election a referendum on Obama, or is it a referendum on the Democratic congress?
What role will the health care bill, the economy and the recent row over national security play in the coming months?