Political Bloviation

Andy Borowitz: Liberal Bloggers Accuse Obama of Trying to Win Election - Politics on The Huffington Post
The liberal blogosphere was aflame today with new accusations that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) is trying to win the 2008 presidential election.

Suspicions about Sen. Obama’s true motives have been building over the past few weeks, but not until today have the bloggers called him out for betraying the Democratic Party’s losing tradition.

The New York Times reveals that the US “borrowed” techniques from a report on how the Chinese coerced false confessions from American POWs during the Korean War.

An Expert Reveals Chinese Origins of Interrogation Techniques at Guantánamo - NYTimes.com

Let’s highlight that one more time, they borrowed techniques previously used to force false confessions.  How does this aid intelligence collection? Wrong information simply wastes valuable intelligence resources used trying to find non-existent plots. It sacrifices  our moral standing. It endangers our military personnel.  It aids terrorist recruitment. It is morally and legally wrong. It damages our standing in the world and hampers our ability fight terrorism.

White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail - NYTimes.com

Other suggested tactics:

1. Sticking fingers in the ears and screaming LALALALALALALALA
2. Holding your breath until blue
3. Refusing to go to bed
4. Replying “I know you are, but what am I?” to everything
5. Rolling on the floor while kicking and screaming

George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian - Obituary Obit - NYTimes.com

The world is a bit dimmer and a lot less funny today.

We were one vote away from destroying the most basic of rights and underpinnings of our constitution:

Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts - NYTimes.com
Foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention there in United States courts, the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, on Thursday in a historic decision on the balance between personal liberties and national security.

“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court.

Scalia was predictably petulant and pissed off.

History has become the last refuge of the incompetent:

Citing History, Bush Suggests His Policies Will One Day Be Vindicated - washingtonpost.com
White House aides say Bush, who majored in history at Yale, likes to emphasize historical comparisons because they are easy for the public to understand and illustrate in dramatic fashion how differently future generations may come to view him.

Unfortunately for the president, many historians have already reached a conclusion. In an informal survey of scholars this spring, just two out of 109 historians said Bush would be judged a success; a majority deemed him the “worst president ever.”

“It’s all he has left,” said Millsaps College history professor Robert S. McElvaine, who conducted the survey for the History News Network of George Mason University. “When your approval ratings are down around 20 to 28 percent and the candidate of your own party is trying to hide from being seen with you, history is your only hope.”

McCain: I want to save Everglades - 06/06/2008 - MiamiHerald.com

But not that much since he voted down the funding bill for it.

So I’m getting ready for work and CNN is playing in the background. There’s this commuter reaction interview about Obama winning the nomination. This stupid fucking idiot of a woman says she supports Clinton, but because America is not ready for a black President she will vote for McCain.

To anyone who might consider doing something so monumentally stupid, stop and think. If you vote McCain you WILL help cause the death of more young American soldiers and Iraqis. Before you vote in a fit of what can only be described as crypto-racism, consider that you will help kill people. Some people are to stupid to vote.

The nomination battle is over. It is time to unite behind the nominee and stop whining. I’m looking at you, Hillary supporters.

Oh, thank God!

US Elections: Hillary Clinton to be offered dignified exit - Telegraph

CNN just broke in to report that Clinton will admit that Obama has the delegates to win tomorrow night.

Update:

CNN updates the story, Terry McAuliffe denies that Hillary will “concede defeat”. Although that’s not what was asked.

I’ve neglected the blog of late. I’ve been busier at work than ever before. There were some staffing cuts and well, I guess economists would call this a productivity gain. I don’t feel more productive, just harassed. Maybe after I get used to the increased work load I get post a bit more.

Then you’ve truly lost. The American conservative movement is in big trouble:

The Political Scene: The Fall of Conservatism: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
Pat Buchanan was less polite, paraphrasing the social critic Eric Hoffer: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

Tortures Blowback - washingtonpost.com
THE GHOSTS of interrogations past have come back to haunt the Bush administration. This week, the legal officer supervising the military trials at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dismissed capital charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, who allegedly would have been the 20th hijacker during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had he not been prevented from entering the country. The decision has been widely reported as a serious setback for the administrations quest to bring terrorists to justice. It is much more and much worse than that: It is a palpable reminder of the inhumane acts committed by U.S. personnel and sanctioned by top officials in the name of protecting Americans from extremists.

Jean Merola, the infamous french fry Grandma has turned down an offer to pay $88 fine and admit guilt. Her court date is set for July 10th. If your not familiar with the back story here’s a quick summary from January arrest story:

Jean Merola said McDonald’s staff told her to park to wait for her food while she was at the restaurant last week. A Clearwater police officer asked her to move because he couldn’t get around her.

The 75-year-old was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail after the officer said she blocked his cruiser for 20 minutes and was rude and insulting to him.

She says the officer’s version of event is false and he’s making things up. It does seem like an overreaction to arrest a 75 year old for being in his way when she was parked where she was told. Maybe his lunch break was over and he was in a hurry. Or maybe he wanted make Granny “respect his authoritah”.

A crime against humanity is underway:

Burma’s Blockade - washingtonpost.com
[T]he generals are blocking the rescue of their own people. While about two dozen planes from Asian countries and the United Nations have been allowed to land in the capital, Rangoon, during the past few days, the junta has denied visas to relief workers. Insisting that it will distribute all the aid itself, it has impounded much of the supplies at the airport. The United States has been granted permission to land a single planeload of supplies — and that only next Monday, 10 days after the cyclone struck.

This criminal delay and denial of humanitarian aid is likely to cause the death of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, more people. Experts say epidemics of such diseases as cholera are likely to break out because of the absence of clean water, and starvation is another danger. U.N. officials have been issuing increasingly dire warnings. Yet Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has literally not been able to get the top general, Than Shwe, on the telephone; for two days his calls have been unreturned.

The last week of the Democratic Primary in a netshell

Some Guy With a Website by August J. Pollak - 5/5/2008 - You’re all idiots

Why this is a bad idea:

Gas tax follies - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog
Why doesn’t cutting the gas tax this summer make sense? It’s Econ 101 tax incidence theory: if the supply of a good is more or less unresponsive to the price, the price to consumers will always rise until the quantity demanded falls to match the quantity supplied. Cut taxes, and all that happens is that the pretax price rises by the same amount. The McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers.

Hillary proposes funding her version of the gas tax holiday with an additional tax on oil company profits, which makes it pointless instead of evil.

The last thing most people want to do is end up in a hospital while on vacation. I began running a fever up near 103° while we were in the mountains visiting Baguio. Funny thing about that, when a 40+ year old adult gets a fever that high you begin having weird fever dreams that are hard to separate from reality. By the time we got back to Manila I was feeling horrible, dizzy with chills and intermittent shivering.

After objecting to going to the hospital I was finally brow beaten into going by my wife, my mom (via Skype), my nursing student brother in-law and my mother in-law. First ER visit I got blood work that showed a high white cell count, fever, elevated pulse and uncharacteristically low blood pressure. I’m normally moderately hypertensive. The ER doctor prescribed oral antibiotics. I went home and promptly puked up about $40 of medication.

I again tried to delay going back because I was pretty sure I’d get admitted and it was after 2AM. You don’t get good care on third shift. That’s where they put new inexperienced staff and those who have no people skills. The chills began in earnest and I began wondering if I would ever get better. Brow beating round 2 commenced and eventually I was taken to the hospital with the same lack of enthusiasm as my +100 lb. Lab-Rottweiler shows for going to the vet. If there was a choke chain dog collar available I think they would have used it on me.

Second ER visit I was admitted and got IV ciprofloxacin and IV paracetmol (Tylenol like fever reducer). I got better by the second dose of antibiotics and was back at the in-laws house the next day. Here’s the interesting part, the entire hospital bill including lab tests (CBC, urine and stool), pharmacy, IVs, private room with A/C (no, that’s not a given) was about $210. There was no doctor’s bill because the internist I saw was a family friend and Ninong (Filipino wedding sponsor or godfather). He cheerfully waived his fee. I didn’t bother to try to file it with my insurance. My copay for out of network hospitalization is $550.

With the exception of a cranky night nurse who liked pushing IV meds too fast, I feel like I got excellent care. ( My wife went off on him like a momma tiger.) The price that was probably less than a tenth of what it would have cost in the US. Americans mistaken think we have the best medical care in the world. We perhaps have the best medical technology and we definitely have the most expensive care, but that’s not the same as the best medical care.

Other than the increased greenhouse gas emissions and food security issues involved with turning grain into fuel, there’s another problem. E-10 blend fuel just don’t have as much energy as all petroleum fuels. The more I know about it the less sense it makes.

www.kansascity.com | 04/26/2008 | Loss of fuel economy from ethanol-blended gasoline hits motorists in the wallet
Charles Kigar doesn’t think twice when he has a choice of buying a gallon of conventional gasoline or a gallon of gas that contains ethanol at the same price.

He buys the gas without ethanol.

The reason is a simple matter of science. Conventional gas delivers more energy than a gallon that contains ethanol.

If it’s a gallon of E-10, which is a blend of 10 percent ethanol and conventional gas now widely available in the Kansas City area, there’s an energy difference of about 3.4 percent.

Now that may not seem like much when you’re topping off the tank this week. But over the course of a year of normal driving, it would take an additional 40 gallons of E-10 to go the same distance as conventional gas. If they were both priced the same, it would mean an extra $120.

It’s based on lying to the public about the true costs by ignoring the mendacity of the way Bush sold them in the first place.

Bush Made Permanent - New York Times
But here’s the thing: the reason the Bush tax cuts are set to expire is that the Bush administration engaged in a game of deception. It put an expiration date on the tax cuts, which it never intended to honor, as a way to hide those tax cuts’ true cost.

The McCain campaign wants us to accept the success of that deception as a fact of life. Mr. Holtz-Eakin is saying, in effect, “We’re not engaged in any new irresponsibility — we’re just perpetuating the Bush administration’s irresponsibility. That doesn’t count.”

It’s the sort of fiscal double-talk that has been a Bush administration hallmark. In any case, it offers no answer to the principal point raised by the Tax Policy Center analysis, which has nothing to do with scoring: the McCain tax plan would leave the federal government with far too little revenue to cover its expenses, leading to huge budget deficits unless there were deep cuts in spending.