FDA Proposes New Cigarette Warning Labels

This is a bit much in my opinion:

Federal drug regulators on Wednesday unveiled 36 proposed warning labels for cigarette packages, including one showing a toe tag on a corpse and another in which a mother blows smoke on her baby.

Designed to cover half the surface area of a pack or carton of cigarettes, and a fifth of any advertisements for them, the labels are intended to spur smokers to quit by providing graphic reminders of tobacco’s dangers. The labels are required under a law passed last year that gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate, but not ban, tobacco products for the first time.

Public health officials hope that the new labels will re-energize the nation’s antismoking efforts, which have stalled in recent years. About 20.6 percent of the nation’s adults, or 46.6 million people, and about 19.5 percent of high school students, or 3.4 million teenagers, are smokers.

And yes, that's actually one of the proposed images above; you can see more here. Because just giving people the facts about cigarettes isn't enough, the government has decided that it's also necessary to appeal to one's emotions and fear of death and disease in order to control individual behaviour. My conservative counterpart Donald Douglas of American Clown Shoes accurately intuits my stand on this issue:

I don't know. Maybe some folks are so stupid they actually need these warnings. Besides, what would folks like egghead JBW do without some Nanny Statism to gripe about? Get rid of warning labels and marijuana laws in one fell swoop!! Then everyone would have equal opportunity to death!

Now I'm not a Republican so I don't consider the moniker "egghead" to be the epithet that Don does but I will admit that I do agree with him on this, at least partially: I'm absolutely convinced that some (hell, many) folks are so stupid that they actually need these warnings, there's no maybe about it. Even after several decades of government health reports stating definitively that cigarettes cause cancer and thus death, even after several multi-billion dollar lawsuits against tobacco companies for making false claims about the safety of their products all these years and even though cigarettes have had health warnings on them since the mid sixties people still smoke them! Why do they do this despite all of the warnings and evidence about how dangerous it is? Well, even though I'm an egghead (which is defined as being "elitist" and "out of touch") I understand a truth about myself and my fellow humans that Don does not: human beings have a fundamental need to alter their brain chemistry.

Ever wonder why the War on Drugs has been such an abject failure? Or why people smoke or chew tobacco, drink too much alcohol and eat too much fat, salt and sugar? Of course you don't because you know why people do these things: because it makes them feel good, and no amount of warning labels and government babysitting is going to make them stop doing so. Now this isn't to say that I think cigarettes shouldn't have warnings on their packages. I have no problem with the small amount of government intervention that is required to force companies to provide adequate information to the public about their products but these pictures of diseased lungs and choking children seem to me political correctness run amok.

Now I have no doubt that they'll have the desired effect of convincing a certain number of people not to smoke who weren't deterred by a mere written warning but how far should we as a society be willing to take this? Should the winery that produces my Pinot Noir be forced to place a picture of a hardened liver on every bottle? How about forcing fast food companies to print pictures of a guy having a coronary or having his leg amputated due to diabetes on their cheeseburger wrappers? Or we could even up the ante to things that still hold an element of danger yet don't even alter brain chemistry or directly affect our health, like forcing car companies to place pictures of bloodied corpses on their windshields or forcing the airlines to print pictures of a crashed burning fuselage on every ticket. Hell, we could force companies to put a graphic warning about the worst consequences of every product and activity under the sun on their respective packaging and advertising, then nobody would ever do anything stupid and we'd all be safe from ourselves, right?

Wrong. We could do all of that and more and people would still do stupid things that are dangerous to their health but we've decided as a society that we're OK with that because it's the price of personal freedom in this country. Full disclosure: I don't smoke, in fact I hate cigarettes. One of my great laments is that almost every cute girl I know in California is a smoker but I still defend the rights of smokers to do so because I believe in the principle of individual liberty. Being a hypocrite Don is comfortable letting his government dictate ever more restrictive advertising codes for tobacco and positively draconian anti-drug laws because he doesn't smoke or use illicit drugs, hence he could care less about the individual freedoms of people who do. I would imagine that he's quite all right with the recent San Francisco ban on toys in Happy Meals (gotta protect the kids, you know) and the massive sin tax that California has placed on alcohol and tobacco products (I missed that part last time I was reading the bible), all while he squeals incessantly about big government running wild and Obama ramming his health care reform down our throats.

What this ultimately boils down to is personal responsibility and the philosophy that adults, even stupid adults, should be able to decide for themselves whether or not to engage in behaviour that is dangerous to themselves and their health. Children are obviously different and because their reasoning skills are not yet mature they require additional governmental protection but even then I doubt Don and the rest of his tea partying ilk would want the government telling them how to raise their children in most respects. But telling an adult like him that he can and cannot ingest certain substances and chemicals because in the eyes of the government he's essentially too stupid to decide these things for himself? Well, maybe he needs these warning labels to protect him. Perhaps then despite varying levels of individual stupidity our societal "opportunity to death" might not be equal, but at least we'll all be safe from our own behaviour.

Well what do you know, I wrote this entire post without invoking the phrase "nanny state" even once. You're welcome, Don. Now go do what your government tells you like a good little drone.

The Worthlessness Of Pennies

I've written before that I think pennies are an anachronism and should be phased out of our society but this guy makes a much more compelling argument:


I had no idea that nickles were also so useless. Societal stupidity like this really annoys me.

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The New World Trade Center

I've lamented the fact that the area around Ground Zero in New York City is still basicly a big ugly hole several times in the past but this animation of what the new towers and memorial will eventually look like makes me feel a lot better about what we're doing there. Let's get this built already:


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American Power And Rhetorical Cowardice

Regular readers may remember my recent post lamenting my conservative counterpart Donald Douglas of American Power's failure, both intellectual and testicular, to even minimally address my arguments in favor of the decriminalization of illicit narcotics, cannabis in particular. I think "loser" and "pile of shit" adequately sum up his entire rebuttal on that count, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that he has once again avoided making any type of intellectual argument in favor of his position in lieu of rhetorical avoidance and tired hyperbole in his post, "Legalizing Cocaine?":

JBW's jonesin' for some kind of debate --- any debate, I guess --- but frankly it seems useless trying to respond to some effete leftist "libertarian" who at most can string together "NANNY STATE", "NANNY STATE", NANNY STATE" until you've had just about enough of that faux intellectualism to last a lifetime. Not only that, JBW's calling for the decriminalization of cocaine, which I can't see how that's going to improve society much. But hey, JBW thinks he knows everything, and apparently that includes all the things I've seen and experienced in my few decades on this Great Green Earth.

That said, just read Sandy Banks' essay at LAT, "The crack epidemic's toxic legacy." Perhaps reducing some of the harsher criminal sentencing guidelines will ease historical racial disparities (putting aside the causes), but Banks isn't going in for full-blown decriminalization, not by a long shot:

[I've decided not to include the rather long LA Times article Don pastes into his post. It mostly consists of anecdotal stories of drug abuse and addiction and the crime and violence that follow from such behaviour and our government's current drug policy. You can read the whole article at this link.]

Be sure to check the Times' skid row series as well.

No doubt Mr. "Libertarian" JBW's down with that kind extreme pain, dislocation, and hopelessness as well.

First of all, when have I advocated for the specific legalization of cocaine during our current back and forth about drug legalization? Not in the post Don links to above in which I call him an intellectual coward, nor in the post before that in which I respond to his whining about factory farming of medical cannabis in Oakland, nor even in the year old post in which I refute Don's specific and personal assertion that cannabis is inherently evil and thus destroys every life it touches. Now it is true that I do advocate for a policy of blanket (or nearly so, obviously depending on certain outside societal factors and conditions) drug legalization in the United States but to bring that particular point up now in the face of several posts specifically advocating for the legalization of cannabis smacks of desperation and avoidance.

Also, (and I don't think I need to explain this point to most people reading this but Don might be as well so here it is) calling assertions about an encroaching nanny state philosophy of government "faux intellectualism" without supporting that supposition with any kind of cogent argumentation is the height of literal irony. True, if one were to view the world through the narrow lens of black or white thinking (such as a five-year-old does, for instance) then I can see how Don might think that legalizing cocaine would be bad for society but one would also have to completely ignore all of the negative consequences of our federal government's current war on drugs and the net effect this has on society as well, which Don is of course all too happy to do.

But my favorite part of this post is Don's continued insistence, albeit indirectly this time, that I should somehow embrace him as some type of mentor based on his 13-14 years seniority of me. I hate to disappoint the guy but I've tried this particular song and dance in the patriarchal sense twice in my life and the results were less than stellar both times: my father ignored me until he was on his death bed and my step-father was a serial dick throughout my childhood, so I'm sure I can be excused for not embracing the intellectual arguments of someone who consistently calls me a loser or worse. Plus, when it comes to the topic at hand I usually adhere to the sage advice of comedian and admitted drug user Doug Stanhope:

There's only two types of people who are against drugs: the people who have never done drugs and the people who really sucked at doing drugs.

Based on what I've seen of Don he himself falls squarely within the former category while his arguments against legalization seem to fall squarely within the latter, which means that to my mind all the things he's supposedly seen and experienced in his few decades on this Great Green Earth amount to exactly jack shit when it comes to this particular issue. I'm sorry but merely stating that "drugs are bad" is hardly an intellectual argument, no matter how many idiots you've known who've abused said drugs and ruined their lives in the process and further saying that I'm "down with that kind extreme pain, dislocation, and hopelessness" is just another straw man argument that ignores the mountain of evidence of extreme pain, dislocation and hopelessness that similarly results from our country's continued failed war on drugs.

One of these policy positions on drug legalization advocates for personal freedom and individual responsibility for one's own actions; the other advocates for an oppressive nanny state government that would deny those same freedoms and responsibilities in favor of laws that intrude upon people's personal lives and punish adults for indulging in sometimes personally destructive behaviour in the guise of protecting them and the rest of society from themselves. Guess which type of world view Don endorses. I'll say it again: intellectual coward, and much more, conservative: my white ass.

Advertisement Of The Day

This is a symptom of the "nanny state" mentality, on the political left and right, that I'm constantly decrying:

The forthcoming Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg flick The Other Guys may yet be riddled with pot shots from film critics. Poor Ferrell and Wahlberg -- on Muni, they can't shoot back.

While the official poster for the film features a maniacal Ferrell and the menacing Wahlberg sailing through the air, guns drawn, the version in Muni stations features Ferrell brandishing a vial of pepper spray and Wahlberg relying upon his bare fists. This is not a coincidence.

"Well, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency does have an advertising policy that states ads should not appear to promote the use of firearms or advocate any violent action," explains spokesman Paul Rose. You can read the stipulations against promoting "the use of firearms" and "imminent lawlessness or violent actions" right here.

Do we as Americans really need the agency in San Francisco that makes the trains and buses run on time deciding for us what exposure we should have to depictions of firearm use and violence? I love living in Northern California and The City's great but it does wear on my nerves at times. Be it instances like this or prohibition of illicit drugs or prostitution or gambling or even unpopular/offensive speech it all amounts to one thing: PC bullshit espoused by those who would tell you how to live your life because they supposedly know better than you what's good for you. Well, they don't (and this movie actually looks like it isn't half bad).

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TDS: I Give Up - 9/11 Responders Bill

What he said:

Debunking The Jones Act Talking Points

Some journalists still know how to do that job well:


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Something Someone Else Said

"Of all the lessons we can learn from the BP fiasco, the simplest, and the first we should apply to offshore-drilling laws, is this: Don't open any holes you can't close. If the well site is too deep for humans to reach, drill a simultaneous relief well so you can plug a blowout promptly. If a relief well is too expensive, don't drill at all. Or you can keep robots on hand to shut down leaks. But they'll have to be better robots than the ones we're now watching.

Today's laws don't come anywhere near this standard." -William Saletan, Slate.com.

Amen. Now if someone could just tell me how we get laws passed that adequately regulate the multi-billion dollar industries that are legally allowed to contribute virtually unlimited amounts of money to the campaign coffers of the greedy, power-hungry politicians who would ostensibly be passing those improved future laws, I'm all ears. Giving money to a politician isn't always a form of free speech; sometimes it's just a bribe.

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Something Someone Else Said

"BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake BP account that is mocking the oil company. In response, Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that’s ruining the ocean." -Jimmy Fallon, Late Night.

I find the recent Republican attempts to label the Gulf oil spill "Obama's Katrina" to be both desperate and laughable. The Bush administration had an entire agency in place expressly charged with responding to Katrina-like disasters but because they decided that FEMA wasn't very important that response came all too late and was far too incompetent. That same administration decided that government regulation of private industry wasn't very important either, thus allowing companies like BP to take the risks and cut the corners that have led to this current disaster.

As far as I can tell President Obama has done everything he could have done to remedy this situation thus far, which unfortunately is realistically very little. I find it a bit ironic that the same critics who decried his partial takeover of the banking and auto industries as "socialism" are now screaming for him to take over BP, as if that company doesn't have ample incentive to fix the leak as quickly as possible themselves. One of the differences between this situation and Katrina is that the government is neither equipped to nor capable of stopping this disaster and no amount of management or "owning the spill" on Obama's part could have changed that. The federal government is not in the business of drilling for oil a mile beneath the ocean's surface or fixing any leaks caused by that drilling, and nor should it be. What it should be in the business of doing is regulating the private companies that are and that is where it failed.

The oil spill in the Gulf is BP's mess: they own it and they are going to have to clean it up. Enabling the spill should have been the Bush administration's mess but now, as with so many others, they've left it for Obama to clean up instead. I would imagine that he's getting pretty tired of this shit by now; I know I am.

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How Would You Stabilize The National Debt?

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has put together a fairly realistic and comprehensive budget simulator with the goal of stabilizing the debt at 60 percent of GDP by 2018. My own budgetary decisions are reflected below:
I started with a budget path of reducing our troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible, letting the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts on upper-level earners expire and reducing lower-rate cuts by half while tying regular discretionary spending growth directly to inflation. From there I cut all unnecessary defense and foreign aid spending while maintaining veterans benefits and increasing spending on homeland security. The only domestic cuts I made were to reduce food stamp benefits to 2008 levels and I did pay to institute a new jobs bill.

For social security I raised the normal retirement age and required all new state and local workers to pay in while protecting all low and medium earner benefits. For health care I expanded coverage to 5 million additional people, reduced spending, enacted medical malpractice reform and replaced traditional Medicare with insurance vouchers. I cut all other spending except for NASA's Moon and Mars landing projects (I should probably have cut those too but they're relatively cheap and personally dear to me).

For taxes I enacted Cap and Trade, increased the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon, reformed the tax code and instituted a two percent surtax on earnings above the Social Security payroll tax cap. Then I converted the mortgage interest deduction to a 20% credit, limited itemized deductions for high earners and biofuel subsidies, made R&D tax credits for private businesses permanent, extended college tax credits and began the excise tax on high cost employer sponsored health insurance plans in 2013 instead of 2018 as it now stands.

I have to admit that this was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It's easy for people in both political parties to condemn Washington for profligate spending but making the tough choices to rein in our debt really makes you agonize over your priorities (I went back through my budget three times to be able to keep those NASA programs without unfairly overtaxing high earners or cutting benefits for children, the poor, the unemployed and education and even then I still had to reduce food stamp spending). I encourage everyone to try it out here: the simulator keeps track of your budget in real time as you check boxes in eight categories to increase or decrease spending. You might be surprised to learn how you would go about doing things if you were actually the President of the United States. This simulation made me glad that I'm not.

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Something Someone Else Said

"From all I can see, the Tea Party movement is not simply about the size and scope of government. If it were, it could be a useful force in our politics, if it only spelled out honestly how to balance the budget without raising taxes. (Even Rand Paul won't be drawn on specifics.) It is a movement about identity politics, in which the US Constitution is an emblem of a certain demographic, and that demographic is as much about the Christianist right as it is about fiscal responsibility. Gingrich hit the two pillars of what they hate: "secularism" and "socialism."

Secularism isn't atheism; it is the principle that religious disputes and political disputes should be regarded in separate categories, for fear of unresolvable sectarian conflict (i.e. culture war). Anti-"socialism" means ... well I'm not sure what exactly. Abolition of social security? Medicare? More tax cuts? I wish I knew.

I don't think it has any real traction or coherence apart from a cultural revulsion against modernity, a majority-minority country, separation of church and state, and an abstract loathing and suspicion of anything to do with government. When they offer us some concrete proposals or policy options, I guess we can make a judgment as to the impact on the GOP. But right now, it feels like a primal. and somewhet elderly, scream." -Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish.

This Is Why I'm Not A Democrat...

Because the level of pussification of that party in standing up to Republican obstructionism, even in the face of actual real-world threats to this country's safety, is unacceptable to me:

Imagine that after 9/11, a liberal Senate Democrat had quietly placed a hold on George W. Bush's nominee to lead the Transportation Security Agency. The problem in this case wasn't qualifications. The nominee was a former airport security chief, FBI officer and university professor. The problem was that the airport security chief wouldn't say that he wanted the Transportation Security Agency employees to unionize.

Then an Islamic radical tried to blow up a plane.

The Democrats would have been hammered for holding up the TSA chief's nomination. Bush would have made a recess appointment. Republicans would have gleefully campaigned against the liberals who would have left our air travelers defenseless.

That same story just played out, but the parties were reversed. It was Barack Obama who nominated Erroll Southers, the former airport security chief and FBI officer, to lead the TSA. And it was South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint who blocked his nomination over unionization. Did DeMint back down after an al-Qaeda-linked radical attempted to detonate a plane? Nope. Did Obama step up and make a recess appointment? Nope. Did Democrats make a major issue out of it? Of course not.

Instead, Erroll Southers formally withdrew his nomination today. Score one for DeMint, and another against the Democrats.

At this point I really do feel like a man without a country. Democrats have all of the power in our government yet they won't use it to protect this nation while the Republicans could care less because their tactic of chipping away at that power garners them some semblance of electoral strength and both parties just watch as we become more vulnerable to our enemies without. This last week has been extremely depressing politically and maybe I'm a bit too drunk as I write this (I am) but I'll admit that I've seriously considered just stopping caring about both parties and their never ending machinations and callous posturing at the expense of the American people. This system is completely broken and I don't see it being fixed anytime soon by anyone of conscience or consequence. I now understand why so many people in this country don't give a shit about politics and I'm seriously considering joining them in not doing so. I'm simply tired of it all.

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Malkin On Transparency And Show Trials

For those not in the know, Michelle Malkin is a fairly important right-wing political blogger and a contributor to the FOX News channel. She's also an extremely shrill and unpleasant woman whom I find just as annoying as I find her physically attractive (yeah, I said it; I dig Asian chicks, sue me). And I think she has a (somewhat) valid point about the Democrats' decision not to allow C-SPAN to televise the final deliberations to reconcile the two houses of congress' versions of the health care reform legislation:

In addition to pointing out how Barack Obama used C-SPAN as a political football during the presidential campaign and how the White House has only allowed one hour of dog-and-pony coverage of health care debate on the public affairs channel, [C-SPAN CEO Brian] Lamb sums up the simple, non-partisan principle behind the push for open, televised coverage of the backroom wheeling and dealing:

“If we pay for something and it’s the public’s business, we ought to be able to see how it’s done.”

No wonder the Vampire Congress and the Prince of Darkness in the White House have responded to a simple request for transparency with near-violent apoplexy...

Her hyperbolic insults aside, I'll have more to say on that point in a minute but first I wanted to compare her principled, unwavering and totally non-partisan commitment to governmental transparency (which I actually don't seem to recall hearing much about during the Bush administration but maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention to her back then) in the above case to her reaction to a federal judge's ruling that next week’s trial in San Francisco of a lawsuit challenging the initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California won’t be televised live but will be videotaped for delayed Internet release on YouTube:

Judicial activism + far Left radical activism = Courtroom intimidation.

Yesterday, liberal California Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued an unprecedented ruling that will put the trial involving a challenge to the Prop. 8 same-sex marriage ban on YouTube...

I generally support more sunshine in all government proceedings. But the judge’s unusual method of securing video coverage is extremely troubling. This isn’t a sincere educational effort to provide transparency to the public. It’s a flagrant attempt at making Prop. 8 a show trial — and intimidating Prop. 8 backers who will be called to testify.

The article she cites goes on to state that most of the witnesses will be campaign officials or academic experts accustomed to speaking in public and that the judge will have the power to order that individual witnesses’ faces be concealed or their voices muted on the YouTube uploads if he deems it necessary, thus all but negating her argument that this will be an intimidation tactic employed by the gay mafia or whatever. Regardless, we can glean two things from this little tirade of hers: 1) Malkin is an unprincipled, partisan hack who hypocritically calls for transparency in government only when it suits her and her agenda, and 2) Malkin has no idea what the term "show trial" actually means.

Of course, the former point should not come as a shock to anyone who has heard this woman speak before and it is hardly revelatory but the latter point is rather important. Wikipedia defines the term "show trial" as follows:

The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial. The term was first recorded in the 1930s.^[1] There is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant and that the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than correctional justice.

Such trials can exhibit scant regard for the niceties of jurisprudence and even for the letter of the law. Defendants have little real opportunity to justify themselves: they have often signed statements under duress and/or suffered torture prior to appearing in the court-room.

Now, Malkin can hardly be blamed for her apparent ignorance on this count. In fact, if you've been paying attention to the right-wing noise machine lately the term "show trial" has been bandied about as much as the term "death panels" was last fall and if you know anything about said noise machine, you'll know that they beat memes and talking points into the ground with a coordinated effort that would impress Joseph Goebbels (of course I'm not comparing them to Nazis or anything, I'm just saying that Goebbels was a hell of a propagandist and he was really good at staying on message with the whole "Jews are evil" bit; it's actually a compliment, of sorts).

Malkin even said the same thing when President Obama announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators were going to be tried in a New York City civil court. And that's what I don't quite get: Malkin and other right-wingers believe that KSM and many of the other terror suspects the United States has in custody are pieces of garbage who deserve to be put on trial and punished with a death sentence for their crimes against innocent Americans (something we agree on) and that they are less than human and should be tortured to within an inch of their lives as part of that punishment (something we do not agree on). In fact, I would think she'd be cheering the use of coerced confessions and retributive trials against these people, per the definition of what a show trial actually is.

But that's the thing: in their ignorance, Malkin and her ilk seem to define "show trials" as any trial they disagree with that will be shown to anyone outside of the courtroom. To the political right in this country, the American ideal of public trials has seemingly now morphed into the shadowy practice of show trials (there's that government transparency she likes/dislikes so much again) and letting anyone they don't like have their day in an open and unbiased court of law is tantamount to the deceitful tactics employed by the former Soviet Union (although they seem to be disturbingly comfortable with the idea of torturing these individuals first, also a favorite tactic of the former Soviet Republic). I myself have a relatively good deal of faith in the American judicial system and I'm fairly confident that it will render a fair verdict in each of these respective cases but I'm obviously a dirty liberal who hates this country and all that it stands for (just ask Michelle), so what do I know?

Now, as to the Obama administration's aforementioned promise during the last presidential election to broadcast all of the health care reform legislation negotiations on C-SPAN:


Yeah, he promised to do that and yeah, it looks like he's going to break that promise. I said many times during that election that the man's neither an angel nor a saint, he's a politician and we shouldn't be surprised when he acts like one but I'll be completely honest here and say that I was still disappointed when I heard about this. But then I heard another argument that gave me pause: broadcasting these negotiations will only delay the process even further and that's why the right is so adamant about holding his feet to the fire on this count (aside from it being just one more reason to trash the man and his administration, of course).

Let me explain: just as Obama is a politician, congress is full of politicians, politicians I trust to do the right thing a lot less than I do Obama (and I'm only talking about the Democrats right now). The sad truth is that to merge the legislation of the two bills congress has before them that body is going to have to engage in some of the ugliest bureaucratic sausage-making that you and I have (n)ever witnessed and they're sure to do it in one of two ways: 1) with the cameras off, they'll buckle down, twist some arms, grease some palms, make some deals and finally hammer out a health care reform bill that will admittedly be imperfect but will also be a sizable improvement over the current system, or 2) with the cameras trained on them, they'll spend a great deal of time making a series of carefully prepared grandiose speeches whilst preening and posturing for the cameras while they do all of that bureaucratic sausage-making I just described anyway, except that they'll do it all secretly behind closed doors.

I'm not saying that it's a great system and I'm not saying that I like it (or even that it's endemic to either party), just that it's the system we have and we must be realistic about that. And not to be too partisan on this point but can you really blame them? Think about this: despite what seemed to me to be a genuinely sincere effort by President Obama to reach across the aisle the Republican party has roundly rejected bipartisanship at every turn since the first day this legislation was introduced. In fact, they publicly announced from the outset that they were going to do everything within their power to delay and derail health care reform and they've held pretty much true to their word on that count. No compromises, no alternate plans, just delays and obstructionism.

I expected Obama to have given up trying to work with these people long ago but as always he's proven himself to be a far more patient and pragmatic man than I could ever hope to be, but he's also not a sucka. He and the Dems have realized that in order to achieve any real results on this front they're going to have to finally get their hands dirty and do some actual work whether the Republicans want to participate or not. Again, I'm far less than crazy about the process and I would love to see a lot more governmental transparency going forward but I'm also convinced that if this legislation doesn't get passed now the odds of it getting a second chance will be almost nil and after thirty years of failures I don't think that the American people can afford that any longer. The resultant bill will be ugly and it will be imperfect but it will also be a starting point that we can build upon later and that's better than what we have now. I'm tired of watching this sausage being made; I'm ready to see how it tastes. Here's hoping that the country gets that chance, and right soon.

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If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care

As I've said before I'm fortunate that I've never had any major health issues or injuries that have forced me to deal with the health care industry at any great length but I do fly at least a few times a year and if this video is any indication of what it can be like (and from the dozens of horror stories I've heard, I'm assuming that it is) I'm actually starting to feel a little better about the health care reform bill currently wending its way through congress. A little better... Best health care system in the world, yo!


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Picture Of The Day

The first four floors of the Freedom Tower finally start to emerge from the former location of the World Trade Center destroyed on September 11th, 2001. Four floors, in eight years. At this rate the entire 94 story structure should be completed by 2189. It amazes me how easily showing the terrorists who attacked us and the world at large how strong and resilient we Americans are as a people inevitably takes a back seat to political posturing and bureaucratic wrangling. The terrorists chose their target well.

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Superbad As A Cartoon

Because you know you've always wondered what it would be like:


If you've never seen this flick you'll of course be lost here but let's face it: If you've never seen Superbad, you're lost already. Sorry.

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Urine Tests To Receive Welfare Checks

Last month I got an email that's been widely circulated around the web from a friend that I had to disagree with. In lieu of original thoughts during my current domestic transition I reproduce that email for you here:

Now here's an idea that just seems too simple........

THE JOB - URINE TEST
(Whoever wrote this one deserves a HUGE pat on the back!)

Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job. I work, they pay me...
I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit.
In order to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test
with which I have no problem. What I do have a problem with is the
distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.
So here is my question. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a
welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them?
Understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their
feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone
sitting on their rump doing drugs, while I work.Can you imagine how much
money the state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a
public assistance check?
I guess we could title that program, 'Urine or You're Out'.

Pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don't. Hope you all
will pass it along, though. Some thing has to change in this country --
and soon!!!!!!!

And now my response (and no, I didn't simply delete when I disagreed):

I realize that you didn't write this yourself Tami but the reason this seems too simple is because it is. All requiring urine tests for receiving a welfare check would do is punish poor people for personal behavior that shouldn't be any of the government's business in the first place, not to mention punishing any children whose parents didn't pass the tests. Also, the vast majority of welfare recipients must meet certain work requirements in order to be eligible for aid. While the popular perception of the average welfare recipient is that of a terminally lazy drug addict the reality is that most recipients (not including the elderly, children and the handicapped) are employed at least part time and leave the welfare rolls within twelve months of joining. If the use of illegal substances and being gainfully employed were each mutually exclusive situations as this person seems to be saying then over 40% of Americans would now be jobless.

Welfare recipients and other poor people are obvious targets when people start talking about social engineering through the distribution of government funds (this post about illegal immigration similarly addresses this type of populist demonology) but the truth is that most middle and upper-class Americans also receive "welfare" in the form of tax deductions for home mortgages, corporate and farm subsidies, capital gains tax limits, Social Security, Medicare, and a multitude of other tax benefits. Should we require everyone who receives any of these government benefits to be similarly tested as well? We're trying to save money by denying it to those who use illegal drugs and those tax dollars are worth the same no matter who receives them. And do we really want to give the government that kind of power over our bodies and personal/private recreations?

If this person really wanted to save tax dollars we should have urine tested the CEOs and boards of directors of every investment company and automobile manufacturer that has received any amount of bailout funding and subsequently withheld said funding from any company that didn't pass (do you doubt that these millionaires might have a few illicit substances in their own systems?). While we were at it we could have done the same for every private contractor doing business in Iraq. The government spends $324 billion a year on all welfare and unemployment. The banking industry alone received over twice that much in bailout money while the total cost of the Iraq war is estimated to be seven times that.

I suspect that the person who wrote this is not so much concerned with saving the government money as they are with trying to control the behaviors of others that they disagree with by picking on a group of people who are easy targets and can not easily defend themselves. And incidentally, this person doesn't have to pass a urine test in order to earn a paycheck that will be taxed by the same government that distributes welfare benefits. They've chosen to work for a private company that has this policy, which of course is that company's right. But as I said, giving that power to a government that is the only source of welfare (at whatever level it's being distributed) would be oppressive and dangerous as to our individual liberties and privacy rights. This person may not have any qualms about government intrusion into their own life but I for one do not want to have to piss in a cup to receive my tax return or get a student loan, which is the path down which this course of logic would invariably lead.

Whether you agree or disagree with my take on this, I of course welcome all comments.

Van Jones' Resignation

I was on vacation camping when this story first broke so please excuse me for my Johnny-come-latelyness:

White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned late Saturday after a simmering controversy over his past statements and activism erupted into calls for his ouster from Republican leaders on Friday.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Sunday explained the resignation on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," saying, "Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual." The president does not endorse Jones's past statements and actions, "but he thanks him for his service," Gibbs said.

A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter, said Jones's past was not studied as intensively as other advisers because of his relatively low rank.

Jones's position did not require Senate confirmation, so he avoided the kind of vetting Cabinet officials were subjected to. In addition, as an adviser to the Council on Environmental Quality, rather than to Obama directly, his past was not reviewed to the same degree as the more senior "assistants to the president" and other top advisers inside the West Wing.

As far as I've been able to tell, Jones was a pretty innocuous figure within the Obama administration. He was fairly well known and popular within the environmentalist and activist communities but aside from Glenn Beck's hysterical rantings performed as payback for a boycott of his show that Jones had nothing to do with he hasn't had a very high profile but why would we expect that from a Green Jobs/environmental advisor anyway?

And while enemies of this White House like Beck will claim that their opposition to Jones comes from his "radical, socialist" political views (his admission at one point to using communist protest tactics being the most egregious for the wingnuts) it seems to me that the main reason he had to leave the Obama administration is his having signed a 911Truth.org petition in 2004 questioning whether Bush administration officials had prior knowledge of those attacks and chose to allow them for military/political reasons.

Now I don't know if I've ever addressed this theory about the 9/11 attacks here so let me just say this about that: As with everything else in this universe, I can't say for sure that the Bush administration didn't have prior knowledge of this horrific event. The 9/11 Truth Commission's report was woefully inadequate and full of holes and unanswered questions. Having said that however I've always believed in a universe of infinite possibilities, but I also try to make most decisions in my life according to the science of probability and I'd have to say that the probability of this whole conspiracy being true is really pretty damn small:


So yes, the Bush administration could have known about and/or had something to do with the 9/11 attacks although I highly doubt it for a myriad of reasons I won't enumerate here but the larger point as far as Jones is concerned is this: Even if you do believe this to a much greater extent than I ever could you should never, ever state so publicly and still expect to have a career in politics afterwards. The Truther movement is just too damn crazy in their convictions and if you throw in with them you'll appear a disreputable fool by association and other things you say and do will be discredited.

And that's what happened: Jones, while a fairly intelligent and capable fellow, made several mistakes in his past but it was his association with the Truthers that the mainstream media and thus the American public just couldn't get past. It's also too bad because I think that he could have done some good things for this country as an environmental advisor to the White House. So expect the usual round of right-wing crowing about "One down, ____ to go!" and the like until they latch on to the next outrage du jour. And they soon will, of course.

[Update: The piece "Who is Van Jones?" at Gawker lays out the exact timeline and tactics the right followed to destroy Jones' career at the White House. Here's a taste:

So here we have a radical youth turned respectable liberal. Respectable enough to be on Time magazine listicles and win World Economic Forum prizes and everything. Respectable enough for Tom Friedman to profile him. And The New Yorker. Respectable enough for Meg Whitman, as in former eBay CEO and wealthy Republican California gubernatorial candidate and John McCain advisor Meg Whitman, to proclaim herself "a huge fan of Van Jones."

And for both his activism and his charm he was rewarded with a White House job with the Council on Environmental Quality. He was tasked with making sure stimulus money for green jobs actually went to green jobs. And he's a great person to have in this administration—he is a genuine environmentalist and the only special interest he's beholden to is poor people. He is the sort of person we were all praying Obama would bring with him to DC, instead of Larry Summers.

And that is one of the reasons he is now being ritually and savagely demonized.

If you want a better understanding of this story beyond my own commentary I highly encourage you to read the rest of the piece. It disturbs me that the political right is able to influence White House hiring policies just by having the loudest and angriest voice but here's proof of it. I really hope that Obama starts hammering back at these guys soon but at this point I'm not holding my breath.]

FOX News Discovers Obama's "Death Book"

OK, it's actually Bush's "death book" and it's actually not even a "death book" but rather one of several end-of-life planning books referred to and distributed by the Department of Veterans Affairs:


First "death tax", then "death panels" and now "death book". Those Republicans are marketing geniuses, I tell ya.

(via)

Should The Ends Justify The Means?

Per my post yesterday about the lies of Sarah Palin and others concerning so-called "death panels" essentially killing the end-of-life provision in President Obama's health care reform legislation regular reader Truth101 left the following comment:

I've been a low level hack since I was 13 JBW. One recurring theme to winning elections in my view is that lies and distortion win more than they lose.

I can't go into it here but the ones I worked on that lost, most of them we ran positive campaigns.

I wouldn't lose any sleep if the DNC or Move On or something else decided to make the scumbags that lie about health care pay. Fighting the good fight isn't doing any good against these assholes. Losing this with dignity is not going to insure 47 million people without and the millions more that will be added as business decides it can't afford the expense.

I don't know how much experience you or your readers have with politicing and working elections. But this my friend is "nut cutting time."

I regret if I your opinion of me has been diminished.

First and foremost, let me say that I've known Truth101 online for some time now and despite his occasional lapses of decorum (you know of which I speak, amigo) I can say unequivocally that he's a real stand up guy. And I recognize the compulsion to fight dirty when dirty is the only way the other side will fight. Regardless, I have to say that this line of reasoning takes me down a road that I am somewhat loath to travel upon.

To address T101's query about my own political experience, I only made phone calls to voters in other states from my home on behalf of Barack Obama last year (in Northern California it seemed like it would do more good than walking precincts) but two years before that I was a paid staffer on a federal congressional campaign. The reason I bring it up now is because at one point the campaign manager (also a stand up guy, as far as I knew him personally) wanted to engage in some rather nefarious tactics against the Republican incumbent and trust me: This guy deserved it and much more. But my boss (we referred to him as a "boy scout" because he was so straight-laced) wouldn't have it. He felt that we should be able to win the fight based on the issues and their merits, and we ultimately did. I'm very proud to say that he's now my congressman, having been reelected last year and I couldn't wish for a better or more honest human being to be working within the House of Representatives on my behalf.

So I understand T101's compulsion to fight fire with fire, or dirt with dirt if you will. And I'm not so naive to think that the ends do not justify the means in certain cases. My real concerns arise when that philosophy becomes the working strategy for the majority of situations. Now, do I think that Obama and his Democratic cohorts should take the figurative gloves off and start ramming health care reform legislation through the House and Senate, regardless of Republican obstructionism? Absogoddamnlutely. This man was elected with what can only be described as a real mandate for change and if the opposition party can't accept that then I say steamroll over them and count the flattened corpses at your leisure. That's fucking democracy. We put up with it for eight long and agonizing years. It's time for the righteous side to chalk a few up in the win column.

But having said all that, do I think that we should use lies and deception to insure our side wins the debate, in essence scaring the American public into endorsing our vision? No, we don't need to and we should not. We've won two consecutive national elections, both rather decisively. We don't need to lie or obfuscate the truth to ram our legislation home, we just need to flex the legislative muscle we've built up over the last four years while also disregarding the whining and dithering of the political pussies we've picked up along the way. And yes, I said pussies. Every hemming and hawing Democrat, every Johnny-come-lately fiscally conservative Blue Dog, every spineless poll-following career politician on our side of the aisle needs to either throw down with the good of the American people or decide that they want to go it alone because there shouldn't be a third political option for these weasels.

Now I don't know if President Obama will follow the strategy I've just laid out. Aside from the fact that he rarely calls me for my advice, he seems like he genuinely cares about this whole "bipartisan" thing although I hope the last couple of months of rabid Republican obstructionism has at least somewhat cured him of that apparent weakness. It has also become glaringly obvious at this point that the political right in this country is not at all interested in any type of compromise whatsoever, and I am now of the opinion that we should no longer even give them the time of day as far as that's concerned. They've had ample chance to work things out in a civilized manner and the time for engaging in that course of action has long since passed.

I only hope that at the end of these proceedings we can still in some way come together as a unified and civil society. I've been on the losing end of the political policy debate before and I can say unequivocally that it definitely sucks mucho ass on a personal level, but that's the system we have and I still think that in the end it's a pretty damn good one. If the other side continues to fail to recognize this then I honestly don't know how we should proceed from this point but if selling our souls for a victory is the only way to ever win I have to say that I'm not sure how much longer I can continue to play this game. I'm all for the good of the American people but if this is how we're going to win the fight from now on I fear that the majority of good men will henceforth opt out of the political process altogether. It's sad but it's also unfortunately the truth.