Pascal's Wager and Climate Change -- Do We Feel Lucky?

By Keith Schmitz

One of my favorite professors when I was chasing an MA in History at the graduate school at UWM was David Hoeveler.

Though he is known as a conservative, he opened me up to a number of the great American philosophers.

One topic was tossed around during one of his excellent seminars was what is known as Pascal's wager.

Here is how it is defined in today's New York Times in a column about economics:

Blaise Pascal, a French mathematical genius in the 17th century who spelled out the laws of probability more clearly than anyone before him. This was a thunderclap of an insight that, for the first time, gave humanity a systematic way of thinking about the future.

Pascal was both a gambler and a religious zealot. One day he asked himself how he would handle a bet on whether “God is or God is not.” Reason could not answer. But, he said, we can choose between acting as though God is or acting as though God is not.

Suppose we bet that God is, and we lead a life of virtue and abstinence, and then the day of reckoning comes and we discover that there is no God. Well, life was still tolerable even if less fun than we might have liked. Here, the consequences of being wrong would be acceptable to most people.

Suppose, however, we bet that God is not, and lead a life of lust and sin, and then it turns out that God is. Now being wrong has put us into big trouble.

Let's apply this concept to what to do about climate change.

Supposed we bet that man-made climate change is a real threat. The economies of the world re-gear themselves to make needed corrections -- support for alternative energy policies, taxes on traditional energy consumption, promotion of alternative energy industries, etc. Some countries are already heading in that direction.

Suppose then that we are wrong about global climate change. In the process and in the case of our country we have weaned ourselves off of dealing with touchy third world countries that are our current sources for energy, we will be spending much less on a defense program that is designed to defend these sources of energy, we have created industries within our borders which led to the growth of a new economic sector that could lead to higher paying jobs for many Americans, revitilizing our economy.

On the other hand we can suppose that the crisis does not exist and we continue to behave accordingly, yet it turns out that assertion is wrong. Then our country, and our world, goes to hell.

Then again there is one big difference between Blaise's bet on the existence of God and our current energy situation. Many of us believe that there is this entity in charge of the universe, but no scientist can actually prove it. That is what we call faith and that is all we have to go on. Isn't life fun?

As for climate change, there are legions of scientists who are proving that it exists and something like 95% of them have lined up on that side. Oddly the critics like to label these perceptions based on research as a "cult" or a "religion." But here the big difference is that faith is not at work here, research dealing with physical realities is.

All the results, as has been said, are not in leaving some among the minority of climate experts to claim the man-made climate change has not been proven. But like the watchman in the crow's nest of the Titanic spotting the tip of the ice dead ahead, those in the majority of the scientific community have a pretty good idea of what lies beneath the surface.

So the question is, how do we want to bet on our future?

Wow, how did I miss this story?

by folkbum

Investigators say [the men] were stockpiling a cache of weapons with plans to target local government buildings.

The FBI, in raids over the weekend, confiscated hundreds of weapons--including everything from hunting rifles, homemade bombs, rudimentary rockets and cannons.

Sources tell [our station]'s Marty Griffin the suspects made threats to blow up government buildings and carry out other extreme acts of [...] terrorism.

So how do the captured men look in your mind? "Swarthy"? Middle Eastern? Names like Mohammed or Ali or bin-Something? Did you think these arrests were maybe in Dearborn, Michigan, or someplace else that Islam has a well-established presence?

Well, you'd be wrong. The men arrested were Marvin Hall, Perry Landis, and Morgan Jones--right-wing militiamen from near Pittsburgh.

These are not, of course, the first right-wing white militia members arrested since 9/11/01. But none of those other arrests made the news, either. No, instead what we hear about are the bumbling wannabes conned by the FBI into thinking they could blow up the Sears Tower. Or more bumbling wannabes conned by the FBI into thinking they could blow up fuel lines to JFK. We hear about them, bumbling and conned as they may be, because they are of Arabic descent or Muslim. The really dangerous groups--the ones with the actual weapons and operational plans for death and destruction--don't get any play because, well, we're not supposed to be scared of white Christians. Just Arabs. See something, say something, right? As long as what you see is "the other."

More at Orcinus, where Dave Neiwert predicts it will get worse.

Charlie Sykes, WPRI spread outright lies about Al Gore, tomatoes ...

by folkbum

You expect to see sloppy smear work from the amateurs, the local puffbags who throw literally everything on the wall because, since they have no real reputations to protect, they don't care about the mess as long as something eventually sticks.

Charlie Sykes and WPRI are usually better than that. Not much better, mind you, because their selective manipulation of fact blurs the line between it and fiction: Sykes and WPRI are kind of like Demi Moore and the ghost of Patrick Swayze: Yes, they way they slobber all over each other is disgusting, but at least they started with some real clay. When the Bradleys are signing the paychecks, you gotta try to have a better reputation.

But it's hard. The falsehoods, in part because the slime-slingers have catapulted the outright fictions into the arena of civilized debate, hang there like salmonella'd tomatoes ripe for the picking, eating, and, well, depositing all over the floor.

Exhibit A, from C. Sykes under the imprimatur of WPRI: "Some environmentalists are blaming the recent tomato salmonella scare on global climate change." When you see the word "some" in a context like this, it should set off more alarms than Iron Man trying to get through TSA. Charlie's some? One:

The reaction to the rotten tomato story suggests that climate change alarmism is quickly changing from great-moral challenge-of-our-time to punch line. When a blog for “Discover” magazine reported the link between the bad tomatoes and global warming, the site was inundated with hundreds of derisive comments along the line of: “Are [you] F***ing kidding me!?! This is pure tripe. If you tree huggers had any sense of reality you would have learned NOT to blame every issue on global warming.”

Lucky for me, I have access to teh google. I was at first going to write that I didn't know what humanity ever did without teh google, but then I realized, yes, I do know. The answer is that humanity could apparently lie with impunity. Because Charlie Sykes must think that no one has teh google to look up this nutjob wacko global-warming-spouting freak: "Thomas M. Kostigen is The New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time, and a veteran journalist." Oh noes! A hippie freak! Run away!

I was interviewing a board member of Food and Water Watch for a feature I am writing, and he positioned the scare as an eco outbreak because with less space to farm, more droughts, and higher costs, GMOs are the logical choice for farmers who want quick crops from less land.

For the record the source of the tomato infection hasn’t been determined. [. . . T]he source of the E. coli in spinach turned out to be feces on the hoofs of wild boars that traipsed through spinach plants.

The source of tomato infections may turn out to be something as naturally errant as that. But with less room and climate change affecting crops, another outbreak is sure to come. GMO strands can only serve to exacerbate the spread.

That does not read to me like "blaming the recent tomato salmonella scare on global climate change." In fact, it sounds an awful lot like the opposite--that this guy is being as clear as possible that no one knows what caused the salmonella outbreak, and he certainly doesn't say warm weather caused mutant tomatoes intent on killing humans. To the extent that global warming is even mentioned in the post, it's the inarguable phrase "climate change affecting crops." Inarguable because evidence of a changing climate's effects (and our hippie friend Kostigen didn't even blame humans for the changes) have been observed in everything from the mighty wine grape to the humble potato. (Further, more searching of teh google turned up absolutely nothing else that associated salmonella-laden tomatoes with global warming--but I did find a different "Discover" blogger blaming Purell.)

But facts are pesky things, and Charlie Sykes doesn't care about them, especially when those facts are about Al Gore. He continues:

A Tennessee think tank reported that Al Gore’s home energy use surged more than 10%and that the apostle of conservation “burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.”

The lie is not that the Tennessee "think" tank said that. He's quoting them accurately. Here's the lie: Last year the "think" tank in question (the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has a street address in Nashville, which makes one thing in their name true) also released a report on Al Gore. Let's compare.

2007: In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
2008: In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10% [. . .]. In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity.

Now, I'm not a mathematician, but even I can tell that 213,200 is not 10% more than 221,000. In fact, I would say that it is less. (For further response from the Gores themselves, including information on how Gore cut his natural gas use by 90%, see here.) You see a lot of fools who cannot be bothered to check their sources, but generally not at WPRI. This is just plain embarrassing.

But we're not done!

Four dollar a gallon gasoline changed all that. When John McCain and President Bush came out in favor of lifting the moratoriums on drilling for the nation’s untapped billions of barrels of oil this week, congressional Democrats pulled out their usual talking points… only to find that they were channeling Jimmy Carter.

“We can’t drill our way of this problem,” they explained, as if we could instead tax, litigation, regulate, or demagogue our way out of spiraling energy costs.

Wait? Who said that we couldn't drill our way out of the problem? That's right--it was John H. Freakin' McCain:

[W]hen McCain was asked about offshore drilling during a campaign stop in Wisconsin, the presumptive Republican nominee noted that such resources would take years to develop, and that the U.S. should instead focus on alternative energy sources.

I don't know how they do it. How they live with themselves, how they can cash the checks. How they can get the image of Swayze and Moore out of their heads (sorry about that).

Sorry, Charlie. Hate to see you reduced to the level of your average smear merchant.

Apparently, there's so much...

by folkbum


... it's showing up on the plates at Serb Hall.

By all means, drill

by folkbum

Here it is in a picture:

If you think this is a frickin' panacea, knock yourself out. I'll be busy supporting a candidate with a real energy policy.

(Via.)

Oh, and lots more here.

Contrarians

By 3rd Way

How would comments like these be labeled if they appeared in threads on the right side of the Cheddarsphere?

Commenter #1.

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology...

We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.

Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy, and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.

Commenter #2.

Suppose we do nothing, & we don't eliminate this $400 billion dependence we have on foreign oil. Some of that money goes to terrorist organizations & also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Then what kind of a world have we given our children? We Westerners care very much about our environment and we want to act. I have disagreed with the Bush administration in not being more active in addressing the issue of climate change, whether it be through cap-and-trade, through tax incentives for R&D for green technologies and many other measures that need to be taken. We are feeling here in California pollution from China. It is a global issue, and we have to address it globally.

Drilling Himself in the Foot -- Even Oiled up McCain Has No Where to Move

By Keith Schmitz

The president today is going to announce a push on Congress to open up off-shore locations for oil drilling. This is not smart on many levels -- it will take ten years to get black gold, the oil companies will only sell it overseas anyways, the price of oil will drop just pennies, conservation will do us better over the long term.

But unlike Kramer on Seinfeld Bush doesn't do levels.

He is also not doing John McCain any favors. Turns out Barack Obama has a post primary bounce, especially in Florida.

Turns out that bounce may go higher. There are some places where NIMBYism towards off-shore drilling won't play well. Florida is one of them.

Transit Fare Hike Rebate--In Pizza Form

by folkbum

This hit the inbox this morning:

Hi, everyone! I just wanted to invite you all to an event we're holding that I think you'll be really supportive of. The event is the Official kick-off of "Walker Rebate Wednesdays."

As you might deduct on your own from the title, we want to give a little something back to public transit riders. On Wednesdays at Transfer we will be starting a new special...20% discounts to any customer that arrives by bus (just show your bus transfer ticket or bus pass). We are also offering the discount to bike riders.

To get things started in grand fashion, we will have a bit of a celebration on Wednesday, June 25 at 7 pm...in addition to the discount, we hope to have some special guests, music entertainment and giveaways that night. We will be inviting groups that are "pro-public transit" and bike-friendly to visit or dine with us that opening night and are looking for a nice turnout. Please spread the word if you feel so inclined. Thank you!

- Penny Rossetto, owner
Transfer Pizzeria & cafe
101 W. Mitchell St.

I've only eaten at the Transfer once, but it was excellent pizza. They have a limited menu of non-pizza things should you be inclinced. But it's a really nice spot and easy to get to by bus from just about anywhere in the city.

Drinking Liberally Wednesday

by folkbum

We need to drink now, because John McCain will veto every beer.



As part of the drinking, though, I suppose we also could discuss how to elect Barack Obama, as Obama has pledged not to veto your beer.

When: Wednesday, June 18, 7 PM onwards
Where: Sugar Maple, 441 E. Lincoln Ave in Milwaukee's Bay View neighborhood. The Sugar Maple is just east of KK. They have 60 quality beers on tap, and it's smoke free.

Charge It Forward

By Keith Schmitz

Bruce Murphy on his news blog lays out the issue:

Here are the percentages by which UW-Milwaukee raised tuition over the last 10 years: 5.5, 6.8, 6.9, 15.8, 18.7, 8, 0, 6.9 and 4.9. Other UW system schools had similar increases. Small wonder that students are leaving with huge debts. This amounts to a massive tax shift to the next generation, yet no politician ever seems to oppose it.

One indeed wonders why.

Many families and young people are shouldering huge financial burdens to grab for the American dream. No wonder so many 20 year olds are getting politically active.

According to a recent poll, albeit by the University of Wisconsin political science department, 81% of respondents had a favorable regard of the UW system and 54% we strongly favorable. Ice cream isn't this popular. Most people recognize the worth of investing in the future.

Here is where our state politicians lack common sense and guts. Though our state legislature does have members with real or imaginary grudges against the UW system, it all comes down to allocation of money.

And Wisconsin seems to spend a lot of it on our corrections system, more per capita than many states.

Here's a fantasy. How about our lawmakers taking a good hard look at our prison system and finding ways we could use less of it. Other states such as Kansas are finding ways of keeping their residents out of the clink. Sure many of our lawmakers would come up against a lot of bone headed advertising about how they are soft on crime, but at some point incarcerations are cutting off our noses to spite our collective faces.

Sure we want to make sure crime doesn't pay, it doesn't have to translate into the same outcome for the rest of the population that wants to get a higher education.

Who Will Win This One? The Media or the Blogosphere?

By Keith Schmitz

As part of the struggles happening as changes in the new media rapidly move along, catch what the AP is looking to do regarding their stories (from the enewsletter The Daily Online Examiner):

Bloggers are trashing The Associated Press today for demanding that liberal site Drudge Retort remove seven posts with excerpts of wire service stories.
The AP sent the demands to Drudge Retort owner Roger Cadenhead last week. After news about the takedown notices spread, the news organization said it will develop its own policy about the acceptable use of its articles by Web publishers, according to today's New York Times.

But a copyright owner can't unilaterally define fair use -- a legal concept that varies from situation to situation. In fact, the very idea that the AP could set the parameters of fair use is preposterous: The fair use doctrine is itself an acknowledgement that people are legally entitled to use copyrighted content in ways owners don't like.

Yes, the AP is allowed to set its own policy about when to send takedown notices, but Web publishers are under no obligation to honor that policy.

Here, the original posts contained snippets ranging from 39 to 79 words. In some cases, the first sentence of the article was posted, but some posts cited other passages. All of the posts contained links back to AP versions of the stories.

As is their wont, bloggers have lost no time condemning the AP for its position. Media guru Jeff Jarvis called on bloggers to show solidarity with Cadenhead by reproducing AP stories "at length."

Techcrunch's Michael Arrington took the opposite approach: He announced a boycott of AP stories. "The A.P. doesn't get to make its own rules around how its content is used, if those rules are stricter than the law allows," he wrote.

So who prevails? The folks who buy ink by the barrel or the other side which literally pays for nothing but has use of the fastest means of communication ever?

This is a sticky situation. Even the top execs at Yahoo admit that without traditional print and broadcast media they will have no news content.

Somebody has to pay for the people who hit the streets but the question is how as evidenced by the bad times hitting the newspaper business. If there is no copyright protection when stuff hits the net, then were is this legality valid?

But regulations run opposite to the free wheeling nature of the internet. What makes posting an article on a blog any different than sending it around to your friends on your email list?

Without the old media -- as much as it may irritate us from time to time -- you have no democracy, and you have not as much new media.

folkbum v. Irony

by folkbum

As previously mentioned, I am pretty well-trained in irony, and Justice Scalia is really not the only person who's going to be dealing with a gigantic dose of it in the near future.

This week I go in for an exam of an even more invasive nature than our good friend Christian Schneider recently underwent. In order to have this procedure, I need to be, well, empty.

The name of the concoction that will create the emptiness? Golytely. I kid you not.

So, anyway, pretty slow blogging from me all week, for obvious reasons.

And who will treat our mothers as real human beings?

by folkbum

(Not to suggest that mothers don't care about tax policy, of course.)

This should be required reading for every woman--commenter Fair Play, for example, and Debra Bartoshevich, in particular--who would have voted for Hillary Clinton in November but now plans to vote for John McCain:

For anyone--male or female--who cares about reproductive rights, family planning, and women's health issues, the choice this fall is not even close.

And yet many voters have no idea how extreme McCain's position on these issues is. [. . .] Forty-nine percent of women in battleground states who currently favor McCain are pro-choice. Twenty-three percent of them believe McCain agrees with them on choice.

The good news is, 36 percent of pro-choice McCain supporters are less likely to vote for him after learning that McCain opposes Roe v. Wade and favors making most abortions illegal. That number hits 38 percent when those voters learn that McCain has also consistently voted against expanding access to programs that reduce pregnancy and the need for abortion, consistently voted in favor of abstinence-only programs, and against legislation requiring insurance companies to cover birth control. [. . .]

Since 1983, in votes in the House and the Senate (where he has served since 1987), McCain has cast 130 votes on abortion and other reproductive-rights issues. 125 of those votes were anti-choice. Among his voting lowlights:

He has repeatedly voted to deny low-income women access to abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life (although McCain is now wavering on trying to put these exceptions into the party platform).

He voted to shut down the Title X family-planning program, which provides millions of women with health care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screenings.

He voted against legislation that established criminal and civil penalties for those who use threats and violence to keep women from gaining access to reproductive health clinics.

He voted to uphold the policy that bans overseas health clinics from receiving aid from America if they use their own funds to provide legal abortion services or even adopt a pro-choice position.

Of his anti-choice voting record, McCain has said, "I have many, many votes and it's been consistent," proudly adding: "And I've got a consistent zero from NARAL" through the years. And last month he told Chris Matthews: "The rights of the unborn is one of my most important values."

I get the feeling, just having read about and things by some of "McCain Democrats," that a lot of McCain-leaning liberals have a vague sense that McCain is going to be somehow more reasonable or thoughtful, particularly on issues like reproductive rights, than his record suggests.

I remember listening to a Ben Merens show a few weeks ago, with a guest from, I think, The Atlantic or something like that, talking about McCain v. Obama. This was just after Clinton ended her run, and Merens was actively soliciting Clinton voters to call in and talk about what they would do now. One woman called in who described herself as a life-long Democrat, a liberal, and so on, but she would simply not vote for Obama. At some point the guest asked her about foreign policy: Did she think McCain would invade Iran? Of course not, she said. McCain's not crazy and the Democrats in Congress would never give him approval. The problem, as the guest pointed out, was that this woman's perception of McCain's sanity and his willingness to listen to Congress was totally at odds with reality and McCain's own rhetoric. How many millions more people out there have a similar warped perception of McCain?

I know that we're five months out from the election, and many "McCain Democrats" will probably come home. (Recent polling suggests that a bit of a "unity bounce" has already begun.) But to hear from Democrats now that somehow McCain will be better than Obama on our core issues is just insane. McCain is a conservative, he always has been. He's not going to magically become a pro-choice moderate with a sensible foreign policy. It will not happen. And the sooner these "McCain Democrats" stop lying to themselves and to everyone else, the better.

Who's going to cut your father's taxes?

by folkbum

There have been a number of analyses of John McCain's and Barack Obama's tax plans, both of which were out in the last week. I stole this graph from Kevin Drum, who stole it from the Tax Policy Center.



Looking at the graph, I'd suggest that an Obama presidency would benefit the vast majority of our fathers moreso than a McCain presidency. (I've seen other graphs like this, but didn't bookmark them, grumble, grumble, showing that, actually, Obama even offers a cut up to about 95%.)

My Brain, It Hurts

by folkbum

Let me get this straight: The guy who's made a significant name for himself defending the lone gunman theory against the paranoid and deluded has decided that the single best response to questions about his reading comprehension is to accuse Barack Obama of supporting terrorism--one of the most insidious and most common paranoid (Obamanoid?) delusions drifting through the conservosphere.

Well, whatever gets him through the night, I guess. (Hat tip, IT. My previous post on a similar topic debunking a different Obamanoid.)

Wars Mah Bukkit

by folkbum

More coming:


I've been singing this all week (yes, I know we don't live in Louisiana):



What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through cleard down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangelne

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tyrin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has done
To this poor crackers land."

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tyrin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

(Post title reference.)

There are days when I regret my lactose intolerance

by folkbum

Well, really, that's most days. But I would like this as my last meal, undoubtedly because it would probably kill me.

RIP, Tim Russert

by folkbum

Some of them you just don't expect.

Scalia: The New Joe McCarthy

via mal contends - The hysterical dissent by the always colorful Justice Scalia in Boumediene v. Bush/Al Odah v. United States offers a glimpse into the fearful mind of the rightwinger in which can be viewed watery reflections of Senator Joe McCarthy.

[Pictured above-left are Center for Constitutional Rights staff and Co-Counsel, dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.]

Scalia, scolding five of his breathen, offers his dissent from the majority’s decision, including his terrified opinion that, "It (the majority opinion) will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Wow. I never knew that habeas corpus, due process, the rule of law, and the separation of powers were such dangerous dynamics to have in a country.

Damn liberals. And that goes double for you, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton.

We ought to bring back loyalty oaths and raise Joe McCarthy from the dead to expose these Islamo-fascists sympathizers who are going to get us killed.

But today is a day for celebration for liberty as we smile at the fears of Scalia and his ilk who never could stomach the notion that "the Framers viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, (understanding) the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom," or that quaint idea, in Hamilton's formulation, that the "... practice of arbitrary imprisonments, in all ages, is the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." (Justice Kennedy)

As a commentator on this piece flushes out, those engaging in fearmongering combined with an implicit hostility to civil liberties tend to have as a goal the diminishment of said liberties.

Below-right is our famed Senator McCarthy pictured from the early 1950s, protecting America from the Communists and sympathizers among us (from McCarthyism, The Fight for America, 1952). You know, McCarthy even kind of looks like Scalia.

Scalia v. Irony

by folkbum

I'm not Constitutional scholar or lawyer, which means I don't have a lot to say about the decision in Boumediene v. Bush other than that it seems pretty consistent with the Court's previous rulings on detainees. It should not, then, have come as such a great surprise as it seems to have been for a lot of the right yesterday.

I am, however, well-trained in irony, which means I look very much forward to seeing whether Justice Scalia's "[i]t will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed" rationale will mean he upholds the DC gun ban. At the very least, I think Justice Breyer ought to throw that line into his opinion, just to rub it in Nino's face a bit.

Please make it stop

by folkbum

Again, a complete and utter lack of words

by folkbum

When last Dad29 rendered me speechless, he was busy blaming women soldiers for being sexually assaulted. Nowhere to go but up, right? Wrong:

We all know that the coathanger is THE symbol of "bad-old-days" abortions. It is iconic--desperate women had to do something--anything--to become un-pregnant.

But the coathanger bespeaks a syndrome which may not be directly abortion-related. [. . .] It's a grown-up version of the 2-year-old's temper tantrum

I elided material Dad29 quotes--if you read it, it may well turn your stomach, too--that suggests not simply that women who self-induced abortions pre-Roe were just certifiable rather than in desperate straits to end their pregnancy. No, the quoted material also suggests that self-induced abortions didn't really happen that often anyway.

This is, simply, a lie. See, for example, this paper (.pdf) from the Guttmacher institute:

In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women—nearly one-fifth (18%) of maternal deaths recorded in that year. The death toll had declined to just under 1,700 by 1940, and to just over 300 by 1950 (most likely because of the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, which permitted more effective treatment of the infections that frequently developed after illegal abortion). By 1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200, but illegal abortion still accounted for 17% of all deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth that year. And these are just the number that were officially reported; the actual number was likely much higher. [. . .]

Even in the early 1970s, when abortion was legal in some states, a legal abortion was simply out of reach for many. Minority women suffered the most: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that in 1972 alone, 130,000 women obtained illegal or self-induced procedures, 39 of whom died.

Even today in countries that ban abortion, women are self-inducing abortions. The coat hanger may not be the implement of choice (these days it sounds like ingesting herbs is it), but the history (and present) of self-induced abortion is real and dangerous.

I am reminded of this post I read just last week about exactly this issue, which links to an op-ed in the New York Times:

I am a retired gynecologist, in my mid-80s. My early formal training in my specialty was spent in New York City, from 1948 to 1953, in two of the city’s large municipal hospitals.

There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. [. . .]

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.

Well, I guess there were words, after all. And there are more I will not say out loud, since this is a family blog.

Morning update: See additional comments from Zach, capper, and Michael.

Wait. What?

by folkbum



If only I had a blog with a "fun with screencaps" category.

McIlheran Watch: "The left's trick has been to say that legal things are illegal."

by folkbum

Huh. And all this time I thought our best trick was to turn sure electoral victories into stunning defeats without either smoke or mirrors. But whatever.

The context: McIlheran quotes Thomas Lifson of the ironically named "American Thinker," who noticed that Barack Obama once said he would direct his justice department to prosecute criminals. First, of course, I have to question why the sudden turnaround on the whole "tough on crime" question--apparently it's a bonus when your preferred candidate is a Republican but it's a bit of a drag when the other side does it? I don't get it that, but expecting consistency among the right these days is a bit like waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

Anyway, here's Obama:

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment--I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General--having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now--are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies? And I think it's important--one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. [. . . I]f I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in cover-ups of those crimes with knowledge forefront [aforethought?], then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law--and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

From this, Lifson gets something that reads as the exact opposite: Lifson accuses Obama planning on "putting [his] predecessors on trial for their conduct of policy."

That's right: Despite Obama's clear statement that he will differentiate between bad policy and criminal activity, Lifson writes that Obama will prosecute policy. And McIlheran, who apparently didn't bother to check what Obama really said before approvingly quoting Lifson's misrepresentation, has to get defensive in the comments, putting words into the mouths of both Obama and Will Bunch, the blogger who asked Obama the question:

[C]alling the Bush administration a band of war criminals [is not] at all new to the sort of anti-war crowd that Obama has long considered his base--the phrase is used endlessly on Huffington, Crooks and Liars, so forth. [. . . T]he original PDN blogger set up the context exactly: Daily News writer Will Bunch, who did the interview, appears to feel Obama's statement is exactly about viewing waterboarding as a potential war crime.

Neither Obama nor Bunch used the phrase "war crime" or anything similar in that original posting--you can read it for yourself. That is an invention of Lifson's, borrowed by McIlheran, who sputters that the phrase shows up on HuffPo sometimes so it must be in Obama's platform.

But then McIlheran follows up with the line that serves as the title of this post: "The left's trick has been to say that legal things are illegal," he says. Like what? I asked him. (That comment's not out of moderation yet--he doesn't keep the insane morning hours that I do.) But he offers hints; he specifically mentions waterboarding and warrantless wiretaps, both of which I thought were already pretty clearly illegal--you don't need "the left" to read the plain language of the FISA statutes or the US history of prosecuting those who have waterboarded. But I suggest it could also have something to do with Obama's plan to review the Constitutionality of everything that the Bush administration has been up to.

Besides, haven't we been hearing all along from "the right" that if we've done nothing wrong, we have nothing to fear? So then what's McIlheran so afraid of?

Also see Tom Foley, Esq.

Remind Me Again. Exactly Why Do We Need CCW?

by capper

A friend once remarked:

Remember…my friend, it’s better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

I, and I believe a certain four year old girl, would respectfully disagree. From the AP link at JSOnline (emphasis mine):

A 4-year-old girl shot herself in the chest Monday after snatching her grandmother's handgun from the woman's purse while riding in a shopping cart at a Sam's Club store, authorities said.

A witness, Lueen Homewood, said store workers grabbed first-aid materials off store shelves to help the grandmother as she cradled the wounded child near the store's pharmacy, The (Columbia) State newspaper reported on its Web site.

The girl was rushed to a hospital in critical condition and was recovering Monday afternoon after surgery, said police department spokesman Brick Lewis. Hospital officials would not release her condition after the operation.

Lewis said the grandmother, Donna Hutto Williamson, has a permit to carry a concealed weapon and the purse containing the small-caliber handgun was in the cart near the child. The 47-year-old Williamson, of Salley, was not immediately charged with a crime.

Williamson, a South Carolina magistrate, was distraught after the shooting, her mother-in-law said.

How is this a good thing again? Who was protected?

Their Timing Is All Wet

by capper

Milwaukee County, like the rest of southern Wisconsin, has been going through an unforgiving deluge of rain over the last few days. Totals are nearly a foot of rain in Oak Creek. Many people are trying to pump out their basements, and salvage what they can. (I've also heard many stories today of insurance companies denying claims out of hand. Gee, why does that sound familiar?)

Then Milwaukee County, which established a hotline on Saturday, can't keep up with the flood of calls. They didn't plan on enough phone lines apparently.

Given those two facts, is today really the best day to be crowing about starting a new aquatic park?

"We don't have to have a solution for every aberration."

by folkbum

I saw the headline--"Welcome mat out for gender-neutral restrooms"--and thought to myself, Oh, geez, this one is going to bring out the perpetually offended to tell us that, well, they're offended.

I didn't even have to wait for the responses to start showing up on the blogs today, since the Journal Sentinel and reporter Scott Williams must have Julaine Appling, queen of the perpetually offended, on the speed dial for occasions such as this:

Organizers of the Web site www.safe2pee.org--designed to help transgender people find restrooms--say the number of gender-neutral facilities listed on the site has jumped from about 200 to more than 1,500 nationally in less than two years.

But moving away from traditional men's and women's restrooms has stirred opposition, too.

Julaine Appling, chief executive officer of the Wisconsin Family Council, said she was unaware so many places in Wisconsin had implemented the idea, including UW campuses that were the focus of a statewide effort by gay rights activists.

Appling said her organization believes gender-neutral bathrooms create an increased risk of sexual assaults by giving peeping toms and other predators easy access to potential victims.

While acknowledging that old-fashioned restrooms are inconvenient for transgender people, Appling said: "We don't have to have a solution for every aberration. To me, it is not worth the risk."

Oh for the love of dairy! How long before we see a ballot measure--or perhaps just legislation--catapulted along by Appling's organization to save the children and enfeebled from the "aberrations" lurking behind every stall door?

The safe2pee people list, by the way, exactly 15 such restrooms in Wisconsin, including one at that bastion of progressivity, a BP station. The horror.

Not a Prophet

by folkbum

Milwaukee talker James T. Harris, in his most recent blog posting, claims to be a prophet. The reason? He "predicted" some months ago that Hillary Clinton would not win the Democratic nomination for president. He celebrates: "I'm a Prophet! Hillary just dropped out of the race. Wow.... [. . .] I should listen to myself more often!"

Of course, it's easy enough to be a prophet on a yes-or-no question when you, at different times, predict both yes and no. For example, just a few days ago, Harris was adamant:

May I Have Your Attention Please?

Ahem. She didn't quit yet. She will never quit. You know that right? Never. Hillary Clinton is the political version of Fatal Attraction.

Look at her eyes.

She will never let you go. Barack, you know that right?

What a prophet! James, tell me something: Who's going to win the election in November? I'll give you two guesses.

Pop Quiz

by folkbum

Who wrote this?

It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn’t support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay. No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone.

Answer here. (Hat tip: digby.)

Flash Floods

by folkbum

If you live in the Deep Tunnels, I suggest you seek higher ground.

I hope everybody has survived the weather.

The Suicide Of Serb Hall

by capper

A few weeks after getting married in 1999, my wife, my father, my grandfather and I went out for a fish fry. We had had our reception at Clifford's Supper Club in Hales Corners, and the food was OK, and we had heard their fish fry was really good, so we decided to try it. When we got there, we realized it wasn't going to work, due to my grandfather's difficulty walking, and the layout of the tables. So we climbed back in the car in search of different fish fry.

We had heard that Serb Hall was good, and it was always in the polls as one of the top favorites, so we thought we'd try them. For the next nine years, we never went anywhere else. We would go at least once a month.

My grandfather, who grew up in Italy, and came back to America in time for the Great Depression, was highly appreciative of good food at a good price, and great service. He would always look forward to his fish fries. Without fail, about three weeks or so after the last time we went out for fish, we would come to visit him, and he would say, "You know, it's about time for a fish fry." That was all it took. We all loved him and enjoyed seeing him happy, and so we would immediately call my dad and tell him it's fish fry week, and we would all plan accordingly.

We became such regulars that we didn't even have to order. When the waitress saw us at her table, she started to fill our orders. It was like being with family.

Even after my grandfather died three years ago, we kept up the tradition. Not only did we get good food, and excellent service, it was a chance for my small family to stay bonded, talk of the week's events, and remember my mom and grandpa.

Sadly, those days ended tonight.

We had heard that Serb Hall had drastically changed things, and not for the better. They had been changing since a new manager took over a few months ago. He would cut a corner here, trim a corner there. We were getting increasingly concerned about the direction that the restaurant was headed.

Despite the fact that they had dropped the all you can eat, my wife and I decided to try it. My father chose not to go and see what it was like. It was worse than we imagined. On the door to the dining hall, they have a giant blow up of their menu, with all the prices raised. The real kicker was the explanation for the changes (reproduced as on their menu, errata intact):

Welcome To Serb Hall's New Fish Fry

In the last few months, we have all experienced record breaking price increases in petroleum, food, and other related products. In particular, the wholesale fish market has been very volatile and we currently find it impossible to continue to absorb price increases for many of our seafood offerings especially Icelandic Cod.

We know from your comments that our food quality is the most important element of our fish fry's success and accordingly we have not changed our legendary quality or reduced our portion sizes. We have also added additional fish offerings at lower price points where possible to give you more of a choice while still maintaining our highest quality standards.

It is my understanding that these changes came about from the new manager, John S. Cwiklik, Ph.D. I don't know what his doctorate is in, but it sure isn't restaurant management or customer relations.

When I asked him why the changes, he iterated the increasing costs. I asked why not just increase the price, he pointed out that he did for the buffet, and that was still all you can eat. I pointed out that it was higher because of all the other things, and we didn't want all the other things. He just shrugged and walked away. Nice job, John.

My wife wanted to see our favorite waitress one more time and I wanted to leave.

While we were being ushered to our table, we notice that there were only six other tables with people at them. One used to have to wait a half hour, minimum, to get a seat, when they had the full banquet hall. Now it was a fraction of the size, and that was barely populated.

We ordered the pollack. While we were waiting, we overheard a table with two couples telling one of the hosts that the food was terrible, the portions small, and that they weren't going to come back,. Already feeling perturbed, and knowing I wanted to write this, I went to talk to these people. They repeated their complaints. "The food wasn't warm." "The portions were much smaller." "The vegetables were terrible. And who serves vegetables with a fish fry, anyway?" They also repeated that they had been regular customers, but that they weren't coming back.

Then our food came. It was served with a cover that had an eerie, and rather nauseating yellow-colored lid, much akin to the kind they use in hospitals to keep the food warm while it comes up from the basement. We had to send the poor waitress back for more lemon wedges and more tartar sauce. Half the plate was taken up by mixed vegetables. The rest of the plate was taken up by a small pile of fries, five small pieces of fish, one tartar bucket, and a lemon end that was wrapped up like a wedding favor.

The other two couples had been correct. There was not enough fish or fries. In a feat of exceptional culinary ineptitude, they had managed to take what was obviously frozen vegetables, and overcook the green beans until they were soft and soggy, but undercook the carrot coins so that they were still hard and one was ice cold. They apparently never heard the phrase: Stir occasionally while cooking.

Meanwhile, unknownst to me, some of my coworkers had been on the buffet side. They saw us on the way out and told us that they were very disappointed with the quality of the food there. They have been there a handful of times before, and said that they could easily discern a distinct drop in the quality of the food. Unfortunately for Serb Hall, these people are also the ones that plan the Christmas party for work. They would traditionally have it at Serb Hall. They told me that this stops, as well.

While we were waiting for the bill, we heard two other tables of people complain to the host, and state that they weren't going to come back. One of the women told us that she drove down from Oshkosh, just for the fish, and said that she was not only going to ask for her money back, but ask for them to pay for the gas she wasted coming down. Another couple said that they had been coming to Serb Hall almost every week, for twenty years, and that this was their last time, unless they change the way they do business.

We even heard a waitress complain out loud to her boss, in the dining area, that she would only work banquets from now on. She said that she is tired of the complaints, and cannot afford to work when tips are so small.

In just one hour, I saw what was a crowded dining area shrunk down to a quarter of its former size, and only being a quarter full. I heard of 15 people, including ourselves, that won't be coming back unless they straighten out their business plans. And they lost at least one regular renter of their banquet services.

I can understand the need to raise the price, with everything else going up, including oil, food and whatnot. I would be willing to pay a higher price for it, if they had only kept up the same quality that they had before. But the new manager has really fouled the place up, and they are now driving away business in droves.

I am going to write a letter to the board of directors sharing my feelings. I hope others are doing so as well. I also hope that the board reconsiders the path that they are allowing Mr. Cwiklik take them down, before things go too far.

I know that there are hundreds of other fish fries in Milwaukee, and I am open to suggestions of a good place, preferably on the south or west side of the county. But what really makes me upset is that what was a cherished family tradition of sharing lives, remembering lost loved ones, and just enjoying each other's company may now be irretrievably lost, just to cut some corners, or simply due to slipshod management.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy FTL!

by folkbum

Why would we want to back a loser? We never supported a loser to begin with. We supported the only candidate that can win.

That's buried in the comments, but it's by the original poster--one of the Clinton hold-outs at the formerly respectable blog No Quarter. Larry Johnson, founder, was an invaluable ally during the Plame leak case.

Lately, though, it's Johnson who has been promoting a Republican-sourced rumor about video of Michelle Obama on a 30-minute rant against "whitey." Seriously. Johnson's story has more holes than a Louis Sachar novel, but some Clinton supporters are hanging on to it like crazy. Literally, crazy.

The post itself--leave alone the comments--is absurdly premised, as well. It's about polling (my italics):

Essentially the method is taking into account the median results of the polls a few weeks before an election. Using this method, Gott and Colley were able to pick the correct result in 49 of 50 states in 2004. [. . .] If the general election were held today, Mr. Obama would win 252 electoral votes as the Democratic nominee, while Mrs. Clinton would win 295. In other words, Barack Obama is losing to John McCain, and Hillary Clinton is beating him.

Now, if they could have presented me with some polling from October 2008, I might be convinced. But since they didn't, I stick with the regression model from 538 which shows Obama winning against McCain. If the election were held today.

(Also note: Both Jesse Taylor and John Cole think they know what videos Johnson might be talking about.)

President Obama will be awesome, part 2

by folkbum

From John Cole:

MSNBC is reporting that the Obama campaign packed his press contingent on the plane, took off, and the media looked around and noticed Obama is not on the jet. He is instead secretly meeting Hillary at her house.

John Gard, et al., don't get it (and they have their facts wrong)

by folkbum

In my Janesville post below, I never offered up drilling ANWR (or offshore, or oil shale, or whatever) as a way to solve GM's problems--nor did I offer up the environmentalists and others who have blocked ANWR exploration as potentially at fault. A couple of commenters noticed the oversight.

But I left it out for two main reasons: One, suggesting a supply-side fix for our inevitable fossil-fuel decline is classic denial. When you keep doing what you have always done you will always get the same results. Two, there's just not that much oil there:

Drilling for oil beneath the pristine tundra of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would do little to ease world oil prices, the federal government's energy forecasters said in a new report issued in a week that saw oil surpass $130 per barrel for the first time.

Congress has fought bitterly for years over whether to allow oil companies access to the Alaska refuge's 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, a habitat for seabirds, caribou, and polar bears. Oil company executives, called to Capitol Hill for a grilling over high oil prices, pointed to the untapped resources of ANWR and off the U.S. coastlines as evidence that Congress was as much to blame for the tight global supplies of crude as the petroleum industry.

But the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent statistical agency within the Department of Energy, concluded that new oil from ANWR would lower the world price of oil by no more than $1.44 per barrel—and possibly have as little effect as 41 cents per barrel—and would have its largest impact nearly 20 years from now if Congress voted to open the refuge today.

At $1.44 less per barrel, gas prices would fall seven cents a gallon.

John Gard, who is trying again to beat eighth-district Rep. Steve Kagen, showed he doesn't get it, either:

In remarks at a Green Bay news conference, Gard this afternoon cited "the United States Congress" as the main obstacle to lowering gas prices. [. . .]

Gard's plan calls for more drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, something Kagen has opposed, as well as more off-shore drilling and development of "shale oil sites" in western states. He also advocates cutting "red tape" on oil refineries.

The whole deal with oil shale is that it's only profitable when oil prices are high. And the refinery tale that he's spinning is a flat lie:

One reason for the drop in the number of U.S. refineries is that the petroleum industry began shutting down older, inefficient refineries and concentrating production in more efficient plants, which tended to be newer and larger.

Consolidation within the industry has also played a role in refinery operation. For example, the merger of Gulf Oil Corporation into Chevron Corporation in 1984 led to the closing of two large refineries, one in Bakersfield, California, and the other in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1998 Exxon merged with Mobil Oil and BP merged with Amoco. BP Amoco then bought Arco in April 2000 to create the world's largest non-OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil producer and the third-largest natural gas producer. In the May 2004 article "Effects of Mergers and Market Concentration in the U.S. Petroleum Industry," in GAO Highlights, the General Accounting Office noted that "over 2,600 mergers have occurred in the U.S. petroleum industry since the 1990s."

All that "red tape"? A lie:

From 1975 to 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received only one permit request for a new refinery. [. . .] A congressional investigation uncovered internal memos written by the major oil companies operating in the U.S. discussing their successful strategies to maximize profits by forcing independent refineries out of business, resulting in tighter refinery capacity.

The oil companies aren't falling over themselves to build new refineries because keeping tight reins on the supply is what keeps prices high. The blame for tight refinery capacity lies squarely at the feet of the oil companies themselves.

But the widespread use of these red herrings--ANWR, oil shale, refineries, ocean-killing coastal drilling--suggests, again, mass denial among conservatives from bloggers to candidates for Congress. The American experience of automobiles (and energy generally) is done. It must change. The Republicans are falling further and further into the past, further and further into irrelevancy. It's why Gard will lose again in November, why McCain will too: It's time to lead, which implies a certain amount of going forward, not backward. And it would help if they stopped lying.

Hip-Hop, Can't, Won't, Don't Stop

By 3rd Way

How absurd is it that some blame our city's problems on a music genre?

Take alcoholism, and other drug abuse, out of the equation and problems like what happened at a street festival this past weekend disappear. Just as it shouldn't be culturally acceptable to promote criminality on the radio it shouldn't be culturally acceptable for local radio stations encourage people to call into the station sponsored drunk dial line or have radio personalities ramble on about their weekend drunken escapades.

The fact that some drunken idiots with a proclivity towards violence also like a certain type of (usually bad) music is not evidence of a culture in decline. When the creative impulse that spawns innovative artistic expression disappears from our culture I will consider the culture in decline.

Hip hop is a uniquely American artform that has spread across the globe and brought together people from many different cultures and many different backgrounds. There are certainly loathsome aspects of hip hop culture that have been successfully exploited for commercial gain, but the pure artform of rhyming over a beat is not the problem. Focus on the real problems and leave an urban art form that reflects the problems of the urban condition out of the argument.


The attached photo is from a hip hop show earlier this year in Riverwest. The young people in the photo could represent a demographic cross section of Milwaukee. Only hip hop can bring together such a diverse group of young Milwaukeeans. In a society where divisive forces are constantly pulling us apart and pitting us against each other an art form capable of bringing people together should be celebrated, not derided.

President Obama is going to be awesome

by folkbum

Stealing wholesale from Josh Marshall, who stole slightly less wholesale from the subscription-only Roll Call:

[D]uring a Senate vote Wednesday, Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an intense, three-minute conversation.

While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.

Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.

Still, Obama and Lieberman seemed to be trying to keep the back-and-forth congenial as they both patted each other on the back during and after the exchange.

Afterwards, Obama smiled and pointed up at reporters peering over the edge of the press gallery for a better glimpse of their interaction.

Obama loyalists were quick to express their frustration with Lieberman's decision and warned that if he continues to take a lead role in attacking Obama it could complicate his professional relationship with the Caucus.

Obama/ ???-UPDATED with random speculation!

by folkbum

Share your veep thoughts. And let me just say: It's times like this that make me curse Jennifer Granholm's parents for being so ... Canadian. (No offense, Tom.)

Updated thoughts. Some people are suggesting Wes Clark or Bill Richardson. I like both of those guys in theory, but neither has proven to be good campaigners. Not just because they lost, but because both made some pretty inept mistakes in their runs for the White House.

And Colin Powell: Forever damaged with the stain of Bush. I mean, the jiu jitsu it would take from the GOP to show Powell at the U.N. with his vial of baking soda--the deal-breaker, if you asked me--would be massively entertaining to watch. But, no.

If I may suggest a dark horse? Tammy Baldwin. Discuss.

Look, Ma! No Guns!

by capper

The Journal Sentinel reports that Green Bay Packer Noah Herron drove off some home intruders, using a bed post.

No guns at all. Now the NRA groupies might say something like, "Well, yeah, he's a well-conditioned football player. He's in top shape. Of course he could fight off some kids. If he wasn't, and didn't have a gun, he'd be dead meat."

Then how would they explain this?

Man, 71, and friend in wheelchair subdue suspect

Tue Jun 3, 7:48 PM ET

KINGSTON, Pa. - The young woman probably thought the 71-year-old veteran, whose friend was in a wheelchair, would make an easy target. She was wrong. Harry Kopenis chased and tackled the 22-year-old woman he says robbed him at an ATM in northeastern Pennsylvania. Then, with help from his friend in a wheelchair, he held her until police arrived.

I'm sure it just boggles their minds.

Is Walker Planning On Budgeting For All The Lawsuits?

by capper

Yesterday, I spoke of Scott Walker's tough talk on the 2009 budget. He wants to cut back on just about everything. He probably needs to save up all that money to pay for the lawsuit settlements that he caused.

Way back in October 2007, I wrote about Freddie Dudley, who supposedly escaped from the Community Correctional Center. At that time, I questioned Walker's motives in moving so fast against the officers. I repeated these concerns in December, when a corrections manager fired by Walker, won her case against the firing. Then I raised more concerns just this past month, when it turned out Dudley wasn't the killer after all.

Today, JSOnline reports (emphasis mine):

Officers in 'escape' case to keep jobs

Three more Milwaukee County House of Correction officers blamed for an inmate escape that never happened had their proposed firings withdrawn today by the county.

The officers - Steven Stahl, 38; Raffael Nash, 40; and Allamont Perine, 38 - had each been accused of improperly counting inmates at the county work-release center and allowing an inmate to escape. Disciplinary charges against the three said they had counted inmate sign-in cards rather than the inmates themselves.

The county Personnel Review Board was told today the charges against Stahl, Nash and Perine were being withdrawn. No reason was given. The three will be reinstated with back pay. They have been suspended without pay since disciplinary charges were issued seven months ago.

The charges were issued two months after inmate Freddie Dudley confessed to a Sept. 20 homicide. Dudley initially told prosecutors he had a friend sign in under his name at the work-release center at 1004 N. 10th St. last Sept. 19 and that Dudley shot a man later that night on the city's west side. The center, a satellite of the House of Correction, is a non-secure facility in which inmates check themselves in and out for work and other appointments. They are required to spend nights there.

The killing prompted a public outcry, and County Executive Scott Walker said any officers to blame should be punished harshly.

Dudley recanted his confession and prosecutors dropped reckless homicide charge against him last month, saying Dudley copped to the killing "to gain sympathy from his wife." Two others have been charged in that killing.

Darlene Jones-Grams, the former manager of the work-release center, also was suspended without pay over the Dudley case. Her proposed firing was overturned by the personnel board in December.

I've worked with all of these officers. I know them all. I've also kept in touch with friends that still work at the House of Corrections. I've learned that one of the fired officers lost his home. He also lost the custody of his children, as he didn't have a home. He also had a hard time finding a job because of the bad rap he was given by Walker's bogus charges.

Oh, sure, these officers will get their jobs back, with back pay for the past seven months. But how does one get his house back? Get his family back? Walker won't have to pay for any of the punitive damages that might stem from the probable lawsuits that will follow. We, the taxpayers, will get to foot that bill.

But Walker could at least apologize to the officers. And to us. But I won't hold my breath. He's probably hoping people will forget this by 2010.

UPDATE: In the full article in Wednesday's paper, not only does Walker not apologize, he claims he's looking for other way's to punish the officers for doing their jobs the way they were trained to. What a clown!

(And I will accept mea culpas from those who doubted me.)

Who Killed Janesville?

by folkbum
Post title patterned after this film, which I have not seen, but have heard good things about. And it's narrated by President Bartlet.

I hope, of course, that Janesville recovers from the blow it received today. I spent five years in Rock County and I know how GM's plant there is the lynchpin to a whole lot of that economy. If another manufacturer doesn't come in and utilize that talent pool, well, I don't know what will happen. Let us all hope for the best.

But the question remains: What did in the Janesville GM plant? Seems to me there are, perhaps, a handful of reasonable suspects:

1. The oil companies. For many years, Big Oil and Big Auto have had a sick, almost incestuous relationship; cars would only run on gas and gas would stay cheap enough to keep people buying cars. The 1990s was perhaps the worst of it: Not only did GM sell key electric car technology to the oil industry (where it never saw the light of day again), gas prices in the U.S. stayed ridiculously cheap in the midst of a mondo economic growth spurt. Suddenly everyone had more money--or at least felt flush, since we were told the market was never going to go down again (Dow 36,000, anyone?). The answer: Bigger cars. For Janesville, a boon. For oil companies, a massive boon. But it was an illusion. And as soon as the SUV lost the consumer juice to the hybrid--and Big Auto started chasing that ball--Big Oil bailed. With profits like it's making now, the oil sector could easily roll back prices a little, even a moderate amount. But they won't--the market will bear $4.25 a gallon, and that's what they'll charge. (Which, ultimately, is why a gas-tax holiday is a dumb idea: You'll pay the same for a gallon of gas, but the part of the price that used to pay the bill to fix the roads will instead boost Exxon-Mobile's third-quarter profit.)
   
   
2. George W. Bush. Why not? There can be little doubt about two things: One, the war in Iraq has not done a thing to stabilize the world oil market. Sure, it didn't really fall apart as soon as the first tanks rolled into Baghdad, but you have to admit that the rise of Iran, the lack of the promised Iraqi oil, and the general antipathy with which the rest of the world now view us is not helpful in the least. Two, the present administration has done nothing to promote alternative source of fuel, alternative sources of transportation, or greater responsibility among automakers to provide higher efficiency vehicles.
   
   
3. Ronald Reagan. Yeah, I'll go there. When the CAFE standards were relaxed in 1985--and the tradition of halting increases was begun--the stage was set for the absurdly low-mpg SUVs that ruined Detroit. As long as I'm at it, I'll add in the Republicans and Michigan Democrats throughout the 1990s that refused to reclassify the SUV as anything other than a truck, which is what gave GM and Ford such license to make inefficient monsters for so long.
   
   
4. GM. GM was slow, slow, slow to catch on that efficiency was going to be the key to success in this century. GM has locked itself into old facilities (it cannot afford to build new ones), sometimes, as in Janesville, literally locked in because of the life that has grown up around the plant over 90 years. It is too big, with too many products (including legacies that should be put to pasture), and, like the Titanic, too big to dodge the iceberg.
   
   
5. Unions, NAFTA, and taxes. I put these together because they are weak candidates, and, even taken together, they cannot compete with the top four here. GM didn't close its Janesville plant because Wisconsin taxes are too high (I haven't even seen that suggested, though I thought it would be Talking Point A on every conservative blog today). NAFTA didn't save GM's plant in Toluca, did it? And the unions didn't crush GM either. It may well be that the typical American-made GM car has more labor costs in it that the typical American-made Toyota, but wait a few years until Toyota's employees start retiring and see what happens then. Besides, what's killing the SUV is not its sticker price, but rather the price at the pump.

Ultimately, I'm not sold on any one of those, or even all of those in combination, as what killed Janesville.

I think it's us. I think we did it, the zeitgeist, the ethic, the Culture of the Car that is so ingrained into us that "What do you drive?" is a fairly common getting-to-know-you question. It's the nagging suspicion that people who ride the bus are poor and will rob us if we get on there with them. It's our representatives who see only lanes, lanes, lanes, and not a track to be had. It's the rules that require big lots and far-away shopping, rules that we demand because, well, we have a car, so what's the harm? It's the belief that whatever happens everywhere else, America will be just fine. When you live by the car, you die by the car. God bless you, Dwight D. Eisenhower, indeed.

General Motors could never have been born in any other place, among any other people. In the end, we also killed it.

Obama

by folkbum

For more than a year, the sidebar has read, "folkbum's rambles and rants officially endorses the Democrat for president."

Tonight, we change that to read, "folkbum's rambles and rants officially endorses Barack Obama for president."

Feels good to have a nominee.

Walker Starts On Campaign Trail, Stumbles Immediately

by capper

I was going to leave this alone. Honestly. I really wasn't planning on touching it. But then Mike Mathias and James Rowen had to stir the embers, and so here we go.

Last Saturday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel printed a story of Walker's grandstanding on next year's budget. Walker probably figures he has to start early, since Governor Doyle just outdid the Republicans in the budget fix.

James Rowen points out that Walker is just trying to take advantage of the poor economy to advance his privatization schemes and set up his gubernatorial campaign. I particularly want to point out one of the comments on James' post, which reads:

Naomi Klein called privatization opportunities that take advantage of budget crises, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks the Shock Doctrine. It gave us such wonderful things as Enron, Bechtel (privatized water in Bolivia), the war profiteering of Halliburton and Blackwater, and boondoggles such as the Department of Homeland Security. Our "friend" Mr. Walker is simply looking to re-create this on a local basis; use disaster capitalism to provide less services for more money, redistributing wealth upwards.

Mike Mathias goes into greater detail, pointing out the shoddy reporting done by Steve Schultze.

There are two points I would add to the arguments of these two fine gentlemen.

One is the part of the article which reads (emphasis mine):

"Anywhere and everywhere, they should be considering contracting out" so services can be provided at less cost, Walker said in an interview. That's been his mantra since he took office, one that he re-emphasized during his successful re-election campaign this year.

This doesn't jive with what MJS reported back in 2002, after Walker won his first election:

Meanwhile, he has repeatedly said he will not look to turning large chunks of county government over to the private sector. Nevertheless, he can expect battles from the county's labor unions, most of which backed his opponents - first Milwaukee Ald. Tom Nardelli, then Ryan.

The other part from Schultze's article is this (again emphasis mine):

The airport deal won't be ready for the 2009 county budget, Walker said in an interview. The other ideas could come up for '09, along with contracting for fleet maintenance and economic support workers. He didn't provide details.

There are two problems with this. First, it is against state statutes for the intake part of economic support work to be done by any body but a government agency. Of course, stuff like that never slowed Walker down before.

The other issue is whether this would be a wise idea. We have seen all sorts of problems with W-2 and how it's been administered by private agencies. Or have people already forgotten about this.

Fortunately, as Mike points out, even some of his supporters on the County Board are starting to make noises that they're tired of Walker's stunts. I'm sure Walker would just call it bridge building, like he promised in his latest inaugural speech.

ADDENDUM: Even the Brawler has stirred himself from his hiatus to comment on the issue.

RIP, Bo Diddley

by folkbum



Billboard's obit.

Best Of Luck To Ted Kennedy

by capper

The AP is reporting that Senator Ted Kennedy is having brain surgery today. We wish him the best of luck.

The Irrational Rationale

by capper

Over the past couple of days, at Owen's blog, I've partaken in a little discussion about the recurring theme of gay marriage.

There were few proponents still standing up for the bigotry that was legalized in Wisconsin a couple years ago. And make no mistake about it. It is bigotry.

One of the proponents was, of course, Dad29 who gave the convincing argument that a challenger should shove it.

But the commenter that carried most of the argument in favor of the amendment was a person named "elovrich". This person was quite articulate, thought-provoking and challenging. This person's arguments were also extremely cold-blooded and irrational.

In a nutshell, "elovrich" felt that gays should not be afforded the same equalities regarding marriage, because they can't have children, and therefore are of no benefit to society. That is about the coldest thing I can think of anyone saying about another person or group of people.

"What about couples that could not or choose not to have children?" I asked him. He (or she) came back with this malarkey that the heterosexual couple can be reasonably be expected to produce offspring, and is OK with it if they don't. This is a complete contradiction in his reasoning, but he refused to acknowledge it.

This line of thought of "What's in it for us?" is also very scary in itself. First, it flies in the face of history. The Civil War was fought about slavery. The southern states saw no benefit, and a lot of harm, in ending slavery. They would lose out on a free, self-reproducing work force. They felt strongly enough that they seceded from the rest of the country to preserve that. The northern states fought them to stop slavery. There was nothing in it for them to stop slavery. They did it because it was the proper and humane thing to do.

Same thing with allowing women to vote. There were plenty of men that saw no benefit in allowing women to vote, and even felt threatened by it. But it still happened because it was the correct thing to do.

This was repeated throughout history, from Ancient Greece to the Magna Carta to racial equality movements forty years ago.

To deny the right of equality to gays, because one sees no benefit is cruel, harsh and, yes, bigoted.

The other scary aspect of this thought is the extrapolation of where such thinking could go. Conservatives often argue that gay marriage would lead to legalizing pedophilia, incest, polygamy and bestiality (although the State of Texas already seems to be OK with some of these).

Where would elovich's kind of thinking lead to? Should we stop providing services to the elderly, the disabled and the terminally ill, just because they cannot provide a benefit to society? Or why not sanction heterosexual couples who do not procreate for whatever reason? And it's the conservatives that accuse liberals of wanting to do social engineering. Come to think of it, there already are some conservatives that are advocating for their own brand of social engineering.

The only piece of hope is that, given the events of similar types of bigotry being overcome during the course of history, this type of bigotry will also give way in the interest of doing the proper thing, despite one's fears or one's personal interests in trying to prevent others from having equal rights.

Haloscan seems blinkered

by folkbum

If the site's loading slow for you and you can't make comments, well, neither can I. Just yell your comments at the computer screen until such a time as Haloscan is working properly again. Thank you.

McCain Double Standard Giving Me a Dean Campaign Flashback

by folkbum

Anyone besides me remember this?

MR. RUSSERT: But how many troops--how many men and women do we now have on active duty?

DR. DEAN: I can't tell you the answer to that either. It's...

MR. RUSSERT: But as commander in chief, you should now that. [. . .]

DR. DEAN: So your perception--your position is that I need to know exactly how many people are on duty today in the active military forces...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, have a sense...

DR. DEAN: ...six months away from the first primary?

MR. RUSSERT: If somebody wants to be president of the United States, have a sense of the military.

Does anyone else besides me remember all the crap that Howard Dean took after that, from the GOP, from the media, from conservative warbloggers? The critics were everywhere. I had just started blogging back then and I was neck-deep in the Dean campaign, and it all remains pretty vivid to me.

It's all I've been thinking about the last couple of days after John McCain said, while he was here in Wisconsin, "We have drawn down to presurge levels" in Iraq. We haven't--troop levels there are about 15% higher right now than they were before last summer's "surge."

Look, foreign policy is supposed to be McCain's area of expertise. It's supposed to be the one thing that he knows really, really well. The Iraq war, in particular, is supposed to be McCain's ace in the hole--if anyone can finally win this war, McCain would have us believe, it's him. Yet McCain consistently shows he has no idea what's going on in Iraq, from this latest blunder to having to be corrected by Joe Lieberman about who is funding which insurgents. I respect the fact that he served and that he was a POW in Vietnam. That takes a lot of character and I respect him for that. But he clearly doesn't know what's happening now, not a deep level nor even at the basic level of how many troops we have serving there.

And, as Tim Russert would say, as commander in chief, you should know that.

I just got a $640 raise

by folkbum

This fall I'll be driving about 140 fewer miles per week to work. The commute was not the only--or primary--reason for transferring to a new school; it is, however, a nice bonus.

In addition, it will be very, very good to have about an hour of my life back every day that I used to spend in the car.