GOP hanging Paul Ryan out to dry

by folkbum



The Republicans in the House of Representatives have made a pretty crucial error: They appointed a true believer to write their budget--Paul Ryan.

Okay, maybe Ryan's not a capital-T True capital-B Believer, in the true neo-Tea Party sense if the phrase. In fact, Ryan came in for some significant criticism from the true True Believers in the last few years for bailing out corporations like banks and auto companies. Maybe True Corporatist then is the better word, especially given that Ryan pretty regularly comes in for criticism from the likes of me and my ilk for supporting the interests of other corporations, like insurance companies, over the interests of the flesh-and-blood citizens of his own district.

But his "shadow budget"--or, rather the Road Map to Etc. he's been pimping around for a few years now that by his own admission won't even balance the budget until long after he and I are probably dead--is just the right kind of document to be taken up as a banner by the true True Believers. People like Sarah Palin, who probably didn't read past the headline, and others who are more than happy to try to balance the budget on the backs of their worsers.

The problem for the GOP, then, is that exposing the real agenda of the corporatist wing of the party (bounty for bankers and insurers, nuts to anyone with a real job) is not such good politics. When voters hear about plans to add a new 8.5% consumption tax and dump people from Social Security and Medicare while trimming the taxes of the already well off, they tend to start complaining. Hence, fewer co-sponsors for Ryan's budget than Ryan has fingers.

In the olden days, when Ryan didn't have the big-boy chair and Democrats were generally spineless, it wouldn't have mattered. But Ryan now writes the GOP budget officially and Democrats are smart enough to bring up the thing for a vote.

And the Republicans are already choosing door number two: Pretend Paul Ryan doesn't exist. You got Representatives on TV last weekend bragging all about the GOP's 2009 budget. Hell, even Paul Ryan is now saying he doesn't exist.

So, really, how narrow is the ledge Ryan's party is making him walk here? And why, if he's so goldanged smart, is did he even crawl out there?

Unless, maybe, the golden boy isn't so golden any more--and he's not really as smart as his boosters want us to believe.

Curing Health Care with Tort Reform

By Keith R. Schmitz

Some in the heath care reform debate offer up two supercures to our dysfunctional system -- (1) allowing health insurance companies to sell their products across state lines and (2) tort reform. And so, presto chango, problem solved. We are not outspending our international competitors and life is grand.

Let's talk about the latter.

Never mind that malpractice costs represent a small portion of our overall $2.3 trillion pile of costs.

Here's what I'm wondering about.

Is what we are saying here is that all malpractice suits would be eliminated? Of course not. It is certain that a number of members of the GOP have in fact sued for damages relating to medical care.

So if we don't eliminate all malpractice suits, what's an acceptable number? 25%? 50%?

It has been argued that malpractice suits weed out bad doctors, but a CBO study found that is fact individual doctors are insulated from the effects of their ineptitude.

In fact the study also found that limiting suits would have a negligible affect on health care costs.

So when the GOP comes to discuss health care with the President later on in the month, if they have the guts, one could hope they are packing reality and not slogans.

Talk From the Hand

by folkbum

To me, the saddest thing about Sarah Palin's having written some cheat-sheet notes on her hand (video of her checking those notes here) is not that she did it at all, but, rather, that in doing so she screwed up her own already oversimplified message:

(originally, AP, blow-up via HP)
Her hand reads, "Energy/ Budget Tax Cuts/ Lift American Spirits." She couldn't even remember, in the moment pre-speech with Bic in hand, that the important cuts are tax cuts, not budget cuts.

You'd think for $100,000, the tea-partiers could have gotten someone who has their message memorized.

Quiet Americans in Haiti

by bert
It just so happens that I was reading the Graham Greene novel The Quiet American this past week when the news broke about this case of well-meaning Americans wreaking havoc in the Third World with the best of intentions.

Ten members of a Boise-area Baptist church led by a self-described missionary Laura Silsby were arrested trying to cross from Haiti into the Dominican Republic with 33 children. The group members say they were attempting to rescue children victimized by the earthquake last month and bring them to a Dominican orphanage. However, they admit they did not have any proper documentation to do so, and it is a fact that some children still had living parents in Haiti.

Freaky that I was just then reading Greene's 1955 novel about an idealistic but naive American agent in French Indochina. (Also a movie with Brendan Fraser as Pyle).

With simplistic and earnest ideas about how to fix things, the agent Alden Pyle victimizes Vietnamese and makes a mess that others have to clean up. Greene describes Pyle at one point in the midst of the mess as "impregnably armoured by his good intentions and his ignorance." Elsewhere the narrator, a wizened British reporter, said of Pyle "I never knew a man who had better motives for all of the trouble he caused."

Who knows the true level of ignorance or criminal intent on the part of these folks from Idaho. One emerging possibility is that the leader Silsby instigated a rash act for which the rest will have to pay.

But the novel about Indochina says best what is wrong with this picture in Haiti, and its verisimilitude (I've been itching to use that word for a week now) furthers the case that the late Greene kicked a#% as a writer.

We've Got Your Bipartisanship Right Here

By Keith R. Schmitz

In an interview on Fox and Friends, the defacto leader of the Republican Rush Limbaugh declared, “I thank God every day that it is going down the tubes.”

Number 1, try and defend this. Ddoesn't having an African-American president just bring out the best in some people?

Number 2, imagine it is October 2001 and the screaming that we would hear from the right if some liberal made such a statement.

But we write it off in recognizing that in his own little way Limbaugh has always promoted the downfall of this country. He has now just taken the courtesy of being explicit about it.

Open Thread

by folkbum

Suggested topic: Paul Ryan is peaking too soon.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

By Keith R. Schmitz

Reported by the Los Angles Times, health care spending grew to a record 17.3% of the U.S. economy last year, marking the largest one-year jump in its share of the economy since the government started keeping such records half a century ago.

Obviously the cost of making us well is making the economy sick, and if we do nothing health care will eat us alive.

Sorry, the answer here is not tax cuts. Nor is it high deductible insurance plans, which are driving people into debt. What we need is thinking along the lines of sending a man to the moon, but thanks to our campaign financing system and rigid ideologues, the chances are slim.

FriTunes

by folkbum

Call To Action - Make The Call Today!!

by capper

Fellow Supporters of Milwaukee County-

Things are really starting to move in regarding the much needed dedicated funding for our transit system and our parks system.

The state legislature is poised to consider two very important bills.

One is SB-511, which is the bill that would allow Milwaukee County to pass the half-cent sales tax for the transit system as the prelude to the RTA.

On January 19, Governor Doyle was joined by many of the area’s business leaders, each of whom pointed out that a sustainable, and even extended transit system would be good for not only their businesses, but for the entire regional economy. Without a doubt, the fact that our transit system, which has been cut by some 20% over the last few years, has contributed to the fact that the Milwaukee area lost nearly 50,000 jobs in the last year, as well as why we are lagging in our economic recovery.

No less important, even though it is receiving less attention, is AB-504, which would provide the vehicle for getting dedicated funding for our parks system. And as has been proven in New York City, parks are also vital for a thriving economy:

Such cuts could turn out to actually cost the city money. Fine parks contribute to the economy by increasing property values and, as a result, real estate tax receipts. A 2008 analysis found that the completion of the Greenwich Village section of the Hudson River Park raised real estate prices in the adjacent two blocks by 20 percent.

[...]

Parks also attract tourists and residents who come to events and activities or who just want to enjoy the surroundings, generating economic activity inside and near the park. Central Park attracts more than 25 million visitors a year, about one fifth of whom come from outside the city, according to “The Central Park Effect,” which was prepared by the economic analysis firm Appleseed for the Central Park Conservancy. The study determined that in 2007, spending by visitors and enterprises in the city’s most famous park directly and indirectly accounted for $395 million in economic activity. This activity, as well as increases in property values near the park, generated $656 million in revenues for the city in 2007.

“Measuring the Economic Value of a City Park System,” released in April by the Center for City Park Excellence at The Trust for Public Land, analyzed seven ways that city parks provide economic benefits: property values, tourism, direct use, health, community cohesion, clean water and clean air. Starting with conservative assumptions of park use and other variables, researchers calculated dollar values for each of these benefits in a different city.

Even though supporters of Milwaukee County like yourself, as well as the other like minded groups, such as the Park People and the Coalition for the Advancement of Transit, have made many calls and sent many emails in support of these two bills, I have learned that there are some legislators that state they have hardly heard a peep in support of these two vital bills. This is especially true for the leggies that represent the suburban areas.

Please take a few minutes now to call and/or email your state representative and state senator and call on them to support this bill. Everyone needs to do this, but especially those that live in the suburbs.

If you don’t know who your representative or senator is, you can find out by clicking on this link.

We thank you in advance for supporting our community by making these important calls.

Cross posted at Milwaukee County First and other places.

Scott Walker's Paradise

by folkbum

If there's anywhere that the modern conservative model of governance has been carried out to its logical conclusion, it's Colorado Springs, CO. The effects--somewhat ameliorated recently by Democrats--of a statewide "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights" combined with government elected from literally the home of a significant chunk of movement Christianist conservatism has left Colorado Springs weak enough that it has just about drowned in Grover Norquist's bathtub:

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that. [. . .]

"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."

The author of Colorado's TABOR and other recent anti-tax measures is a resident of Colorado Springs; one has to wonder whether he'll be out at his local park with the weed whacker this summer, or if he'll be here in Wisconsin campaigning for his brother-in-ideology Scott Walker.

It's Been a Bad Week For Paul Ryan

by Bert

With all the grace of a power-drunk pachyderm, the Republicans are attempting this weekend to execute a hockey-stop now that the country finally sees them with total clarity as a no, nothing party. The turning point was maybe the session that President Obama presided over with retreating Republicans in Maryland on Saturday.

Congressman Paul Ryan is also trying to switch directions.

As recently as Friday, Ryan instinctively dismissed and mocked the Obama visit when “interviewed” by right-wing radio host Charlie Sykes. Sykes asked Ryan if this visit to the GOP retreat wasn’t just Obama paying lip service to the idea of bipartisanship.

“Well it’s a ten-minute speech with a bunch of tv cameras filming it and then he takes off,” Ryan replied. “So I’m not sure what we’re going to get out of that.” Ryan wrapped up with condescending insincerity: “I’m glad he’s coming. Always it’s a delight to hear from the president.”

Well, it turns out the session in Baltimore lasted 90 minutes and, rather than empty photo op, was “riveting political theater”

And, since Obama insincerely praised an insincere counter-proposal by Ryan at the session, now Ryan is suddenly willing to highlight the meeting for his own publicity purposes. Pundit Nation also noted that this is quite a shift in tone for Ryan.

Ryan, in his press release after the meeting with Obama, in effect acknowledges that the “Party of No” label is sticking to the GOP. Reminds me of the Hamlet line: “My lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

I applaud the President for rejecting his Democratic colleagues’ false ‘Party of No’ attacks. Tackling our economic and fiscal challenges require real solutions and serious dialogue. I look forward to working with the President on rising above the partisan attacks – and tackling our generation’s greatest challenges.”

Sorry Charlie, but who is it again that is paying lip service to bipartisanship?

If you want to know why I haven't been blogging much

by folkbum

Jon Stewart lays it out pretty well here.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Blues Clueless
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

It's just really, really hard to watch my people shoot themselves in the foot, over and over and over.

FriTunes

by folkbum

A preview of tonight's entertainment:

Bring It Back

By Keith R. Schmitz

A recent article from the strategy+business web site points out that thanks to rising fuel costs and other factors manufacturers are starting to bring back some production to the US.

Though it is possible to see the case for fair trade, our companies have been giving away far too many American jobs -- you know, the one's that should have the same rihts as US citizens -- and maybe it is wake-up time.

The most exciting thing to happen to me this month

by folkbum

This morning, the desktop in my classroom got upgraded to Windows XP.

It's Been a Bad Week for the Right Wing

by Bert
My, my, my. This past week has been a very bad one for right-wing conservatives, hasn’t it? I mean, youch.

There was the exuberant gloating about the election of Republican Scott “Mr. 41” Brown in Massachusetts, unequivocal cheers for the Supreme Court ruling for corporate cash in elections, clucking indignation at the president’s call for bank regulation.

Most of the time the right is disciplined in their dissembling. But they couldn’t contain themselves last week. For once they let loose with what they really stand for.

It is obvious now to everyone that the right wants no change in a problem-riddled health care system, that their only role is to obstruct and destroy any government initiative. When Rush said his only goal is failure for America he was speaking not just for himself, but for an entire party. The GOP is the no, nothing party.

And if conservatives have any core beliefs at all besides political power, it is that they want to deliver for their real constituency: the wealthy and powerful. This past week showed the right adores banks and corporations more than anything else, and certainly more than democracy.

That makes last week ultimately bad news for the right. Because Americans will begin now to see through the tawdry garments they use to festoon savage capitalism and oligarchy.

The fact they have shed any last pretense and now openly support the tyranny of privilege makes the last week the beginning of the end for the right. The fact they have danced on graves rather than strive along some path toward the horizon proves they have no vision. They are classic vandals.

In a manner that annoys the merde out of worldly-wise Europeans, Americans are genetically idealistic and optimistic. You can implant a nameless, unreasonable, and unjustified fear in some of us in dark times like the present. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. And nobody likes a whiner.

Meet the new boss

by folkbum

No word yet on whether he's the same as the old boss. Apparently he's at least a little more "checkered."

And This Is Bad Because?

By Keith R. Schmitz

Actually had the pleasure of introducing Paul Ryan at one of these Economic Trends breakfast, and had a very nice conversation with him during the breakfast.

In this video Cong. Ryan accuses Democrats in Congress of trying to create a "socialist welfare state."

As if.

Shameless Plug

By Keith R. Schmitz

And looking forward to it as well.

Jay will grace the Open Book Cafe tomorrow night with his original music. None of it will be posts set to music, but it will be a great way to kick off your Saturday night.

Here at the details. Drop on by!

FriTunes: Good Old Days edition

by folkbum



Ah, this takes me back to the good ol' days when Democrats had a majority in the Senate and President Bayh wasn't setting the direction of the country ... If you've missed me, it's because I'm busy incorporating myself, seeing as how that's probably the best way now to both avoid taxes and exercise my first amendment rights now.

Brother Teabag

By 3rd Way

There are a handful of things the Democratic party hopefully learned last night; don't go on vacation during a drastically abbreviated campaign, don't field a candidate opposed to campaigning in the cold in a January election, make sure the candidate learns who the most famous stars are on the most popular local sports teams, make sure the people campaigning with the candidate know what the candidate's name is and don't offend a huge population of a certain religious denomination by telling them they shouldn't work in emergency rooms.

But the main thing that should stick in their minds is that the American people were serious last November when they voted for change. If the Democrats can't bring change, free themselves from special interests and get something done they will be beaten by opposing politicians that claim they can bring change. The populace wants a change in the status quo, and in extreme times people will side with anyone promising it. Just like Brother Malcolm articulated long ago:

“You’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built and the only way it’s going to be built is with extreme methods. And I for one will join in with anyone, I don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth. Thank you.”

–Malcolm X

With that said, anyone expecting meaningful, people-empowering change from the contemporary incarnation of the GOP should prepare to be bamboozled.

Weighing In

by folkbum

Well, people are probably expecting me to comment about it, so I guess I should

Let me say this, first, though: I wasn't really following the run-up, and I certainly don't have any kind of strong attachment to either of the people involved in what went down. But since it is THE story of the last few weeks, it's hard not to hear about it and the pressure, as a member of the commentariat, to opine is pretty strong, especially now that the outcome is clear. So here it is:

I'm with Conan.

MLK Dream

By 3rd Way

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Amen.

UPDATE:

Autotune makes anything hipper.

Thumbs Down

By Keith R. Schmitz

Movie critic Roger Ebert gives the Nazi Gasbag Rush Limbaugh both well deserved barrels over typical El Rotundo's psychopathic remarks about channeling aid to Haiti on the White House site:

You should be horse-whipped for the insult you have paid to the highest office of our nation.

Having followed President Obama's suggestion and donated money to the Red Cross for relief in Haiti, I was offended to hear you suggest the President might be a thief capable of stealing money intended for the earthquake victims.

Ebert goes on:

I went to Obama's web site, and discovered the link there leads directly to the Red Cross. I can think of a reason why anyone might want to go via the White House. That way they can be absolutely sure they're clicking on the Red Cross and not a fake site set up to exploit the tragedy.

But once again, Limbaugh proves he is dumb as a bag of rocks with his comment about Obama's speed in responding the Haiti crisis as a play to African-American voters. Aside from the 5% outliers, doesn't Obama pretty much have that segment wrapped up already?

Divisive is one thing. Stupid is another.

IOKYAR*

by folkbum

Remember when Barack Obama--he who is reportedly going to create** a "civilian military arm that could be used to subdue Americans in a police state scenario"--went out and told a bunch of middle schoolers, "Be my little army. Be my young army of young people"? Yeah, I don't, either.

* It's OK if you're a Republican
** That post has the highest paranoia-to-words ratio I've seen in a long time. Scary, scary stuff.

FriTunes

by folkbum

Far-ahead preview edition:



You may have noticed that the sidebar over there (->) and down a little has been updated with some dates of shows I'll be playing in the coming months, including next Saturday, 1/23, at Open Book, starting at 6 PM. (The dates are also available at my sparse music site here.) But the schedule also has me listed as doing one of the monthly food-pantry benefit shows at the Coffee House. I'll be playing there Friday, April 9, and the theme of the night is Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt. The song above is one I'll be doing. Hope to see you at some show somewhere soon!

Need something to do? Help Haiti

by folkbum

Via digby and others, ways to help out:

• The Red Cross: You can give $10 to the Red Cross’s International Response Fund by texting HAITI to 90999. 100 percent of your donation benefits the Red Cross, and you can print a receipt through mGive, a foundation that helps non-profits take advantage of mobile technology.

• UNICEF, the United Nations Fund focusing on children, has worked on the ground in Haiti since 1949, so has the expertise to make a difference. You can donate here.

• Doctors Without Borders is also present in-country. One senior staff member reports, “The situation is chaotic. I visited five medical centers, including a major hospital, and most of them were not functioning.” Donate to support public health efforts here.

• MADRE, the international women’s rights NGO, partners with the Zanmi Lasante Clinic on the ground in Haiti. “The most urgent needs right now are bandages, broad-spectrum antibiotics and other medical supplies, as well as water tablets to prevent cholera outbreaks,” MADRE reports. Donate here.

• Action Against Hunger has had a team in Haiti since 1985, and is ready to fly planeloads of emergency supplies from Paris to Port-au-Prince. Food is one necessity, but so is sanitation; in some Haitian towns, 70 percent of homes do not have plumbing. Donate here.

• Mercy Corps has a history of deploying aid to regions affected by catastrophic earthquakes, such as Peru in 2007, China and Pakistan in 2008, and Indonesia last year. They are deploying a team to Haiti, and you can support their efforts here.

• Partners in Health is the NGO founded in Haiti in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer, the celebrated physician and anthropologist who focuses on international social justice. The group’s emergency response focuses on delivering medical supplies and staff. Louise Ivers, PIH’s clinical director in the country, sent the message, “Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS.” Donate here.

Also, the Clinton Foundation has set up a way to help via text message: Text "HAITI" to 20222 to donate $10 to U.N. relief efforts.

Jobs -- Bad But Getting Better

By Keith R. Schmitz

As the phrase goes a down turn that is a recession for you is a depression for someone out of a job, and many people are. But for those who will suggest next week at the one year anniversary of the Obama inauguration that nothing is being done about jobs, here is a chart showing the job loss trends:

Note that the job loss went up during the last year of the Bush administration. Something must have happened in the years leading up to it.

Note that for the past year job loss has been ebbing. Yeah Obama cannot claim complete credit but the economic and political climate can impact the mentalities that lead to changes and this provides evidence that the stimulus bill contributed to the upturn.

Don't know about you, but I'd rather have the 2009 numbers versus the 2008 members. But of course for those with a vested interest in the failure of America this is bad news. Good news for the rest of us.

Tragedies small and large

by folkbum

Horrible news out of Haiti, which just does not need more of this sort of thing. Context:

Haiti, by far the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, has been beset by natural disasters for most of its recent history. The island is struck by an annual series of hurricanes and is particularly vulnerable to storm-related disasters because much of its forests have been chopped down and used for fuel, leaving the country with very little tree cover. In one of its hardest hit years, 2004, Haiti was rocked by powerful Hurricane Jeanne, which caused untold destruction and killed 3,000 people.

Since 2008, the island has been struck by at least three severe hurricanes — Gustav, Hanna and Ike — that have wrought nearly a billion dollars worth of damage and killed 800 people. All of this has taken place against the backdrop of food riots, health crises and near constant government instability and upheavals.

And, because I have a google news alert for my name, I have learned that an Atlanta-area man who shares my name lost his son this past weekend, when he fell through thin ice during the South's recent freakish cold weather.

McIlheran Watch: Actually half-right on Harry Reid

by folkbum

Credit where credit is due: Patrick McIlheran demonstrates some solid reading comprehension today and notes what Harry Reid actually said, as opposed to what a lot of Republicans and the local rightblogerati wish Harry Reid had said. Whereas the afore-mentioned are somehow insisting that Reid is racist*, despite a long history of supporting civil rights and no history of making racist remarks, McIlheran explains that Reid was, in fact, noting the the US has a history of racism:

No, consider what Reid was saying: That because Obama’s skin wasn’t so dark and because of how he spoke, he’d go far for the party. He’d be marketable. He’d go over well with the American voter. In short, Reid was presuming that the electorate consists of bigots who’d be put off by a darker skin or a stronger accent.

There is, of course, nothing inaccurate about that. Quiz: Before Barack Obama, how many black presidents have we had? Speakers of the House? Majority Leaders in the Senate? All zero.

Black governors? Okay, a little better: David Patterson, currently governor of New York--for about thirteen more seconds--is the fourth African American to rise to that title in this nation's history. Deval Patrick, currently gov in Massachusetts, is the third. Only two of the four have been elected to the office--Patrick and Virginia's Doug Wilder. Think about that--in all this nation's history, only two black men (and no black women) have been elected to lead a state.

The US Senate's history is a little more colorful, sure; six African Americans have served in that body. The one currently serving black senator--Roland Burris, of Illinois--was appointed by a governor (it was a bleeping golden thing), and two were appointed by the Mississippi legislature during reconstruction. So in all of US history, only three African Americans have ever been elected by the people of a state to the Senate. (Interestingly: Six black senators out of--if teh Wiki is to be believed--1818 in US history is a total of 0.33%. That means there have been, proportionally, more black presidents--2.2%--than black senators. Hm.)

That sounds to me like we live in a country reticent to elect African Americans to state-wide or higher office, if only six have ever achieved it (counting Obama).

Now, McIlheran's problem with Reid--and the reason why he's only half-right here--is that McIlheran is offended that Reid noticed this country's history of racism. Now, if the global warming denial nonsense has taught us anything, it's that accurately describing the world around you is a cardinal sin for McIlheran and his ilk. It is no wonder, then, that Harry Reid comes in for criticism from those who may just be a little too accurately described in the remarks.

UPDATE: The Brawler documents my last sentence for me!

* Compare, of course, to Trent Lott, whose history of racial insensitivity and actual nostalgia for the days of segregationist candidates made his remarks about a brazillion times worser.

Maybe She Could Be the Next GOP VP Nominee?

By Keith R. Schmitz

Ailes Is Analyzed by Freud

By Keith R. Schmitz

Pull up a front row seat. This is good.

Trouble in the House of Murdoch.

It appears that the monster created by father Rupert -- Fox News -- has become an embarrassment to his kids. And it's not just financial.

Here's the story:

The first shot—really a nuclear device—was fired today on The New York Times’ Web site by British public-relations executive Matthew Freud, Murdoch’s son-in-law. Freud’s on-the-record quote, for a front-page profile of the 69-year-old Ailes, who launched and runs News Corp.’s most profitable division, is stunning in its condemnation—a frontal attack on Ailes and an apparent attempt to force News Corp.’s founder to choose between blood and money, between his progeny and his most-prized executive.

“I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’ horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to,” Freud told the Times. A News Corp. spokesperson fired back: “Matthew Freud's opinions are his own and in no way reflect the views of Rupert Murdoch, who is proud of Roger Ailes and Fox News.”

Wonder how they are grooving on Fox's latest addition to their staff?

Unemployment situation improves

by folkbum

At least for one formerly out-of-work Alaskan.

Vote Fraud!

by folkbum

I expect the local conservatives to be all abuzz about it!

FriTunes

by folkbum



And now, off to shovel ...

For everyone keeping score at home

by folkbum

Democratic House retirements so far this cycle: 10
Republican House retirements so far this cycle: 14

Democratic Senate retirements so far this cycle: 2
Republican Senate retirements so far this cycle: 6

Democratic Governor retirements so far this cycle: 3
Republican Governor retirements so far this cycle: 4*

* 5, if you count Palin.

MPS Mayoral Takeover Hearing Today

by folkbum

The State Senate Education Committee has commandeered the auditorium over at central office (5225 W. Vliet St.) to hold a hearing on the future of MPS. It starts at 10 AM today and will go for as long as there are public speakers to keep it up. If you want input into the process, whether you're for or against surrendering our right to Democratically elect the leaders of our local schools, you should show up and voice your opinion, if you can.

Your reading for this week

by folkbum

The New York Times Magazine has a long article out today on "Obama's War on Terrorism." It gets to the heart of the difference between the pre-1/20/09 mentality and the post-1/20/09 mentality:

Obama, then, found himself in a place where he seems most comfortable, splitting the difference on a tough issue and presenting it as the course of reasoned judgment rather than of dogmatic ideology. Where Bush saw black and white, Obama sees gray. Where Bush favored swagger, Obama is searching for a more supple blend of force and intellect. Where Bush saw Islamic extremism as an existential threat equivalent to Nazism or Communism, Obama contends that that view warps the situation out of proportion and plays into terrorists’ hands by elevating their stature and allowing them — even without attacking again — to alter the nature of American society. [. . .] Bush felt it in his gut. Obama thinks about it in his head.

Welcome back to reality after the holidays, eh?

Also, too: Set your DVRs

by folkbum

Once again, this Sunday morning Owen Robinson and I face off on UpFront with Mike Gousha featuring guest host Patrick Paolantonio. I'm the one rocking the tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches; Owen's the one with the tie that doesn't match.

We talked about the 2010 Wisconsin governor's race, FIFA World Cup Soccer, intricacies of the Large Hadron Collider, and the proper treatment of spider bites. They may have to edit that down to six minutes, though, so who knows how much of the conversation will actually make it to air.

FriTunes

by folkbum



I once saw Erica Wheeler in a cramped, badly-lit, unamplified upstairs from a coffehouse/ feminist bookstore in downtown Beloit, WI. True story.

Happy new year.

Fun with Headline Juxtapositions

by folkbum

Bonfires in 3 ... 2 ...

by folkbum

I imagine that Clear Channel DJs will be organizing boycotts and burnings of Ted Nugent's music now, right?

Does anyone still listen to Ted Nugent? At least the Dixie Chicks can still put out a hit record.

MJS Editorial Board happy to jump on take-her-out-of-context bandwagon

by folkbum

Here's the lede from this morning's top Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial:

Discussing the nation's air security system Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that "The system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days." Who is she trying to kid?

Flight attendants and passengers, not the security system, stopped an alleged terrorist's apparent attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day. It was their watchfulness and refusal to become victims that won out, not the security measures at the airport.

The problem here is not that I think there was no failure. By any measure, last week's terrorism-turned-crotchburning was a significant warning shot, at least letting us know that the government STILL hasn't figured out that they should flag people who buy one-way transatlantic tickets with cash and check no baggage. I mean, duh.

The problem is that Janet Napolitano never claimed that the "security system" worked. She wasn't trying to kid anyone. Jake Tapper, the ABC talking head who interviewed Napolitano Sunday morning, headlined his blog post about their conversation, "Napolitano: System Like 'Clockwork ' After Attack, Not So Sure About Before." The transcript also shows Napolitano clearly talking about the system of reactions:

Once this incident occurred, everything went according to clockwork, not only sharing throughout the air industry, but also sharing with state and local law enforcement. Products were going out on Christmas Day, they went out yesterday, and also to the [airline] industry to make sure that the traveling public remains safe. I would leave you with that message. The traveling public is safe. We have instituted some additional screening and security measures, in light of this incident, but, again, everyone reacted as they should. The system, once the incident occurred, the system worked.

I can understand the desire to point fingers here--it's easier to blame an individual than a system--but Napolitano is not at fault, and wasn't trying to pull one over on anyone.

At the very least, point fingers at the people who designed the post-9/11 databases that are so unwieldy that a phone call from a father is lost in the weeds because literally thousands of other data points are given equal weight in a given week. Or point fingers at Republican senators who refuse to allow a vote on a leader for the Transportation Security Administration, not because the nominee is a terrorist sympathizer or anything, but because they fear TSA employees may want to unionize. Or blame Republicans--that would be pretty much all of them, including MJS darling Paul Ryan--who voted against funding the TSA altogether a few weeks back.

Napolitano? She's a convenient scapegoat if you want to take her words out of context. But to do so not only is sickeningly dishonest for the editors of the state's largest daily paper, but also deflects criticism away from where the real problems lie.

Is this the fault of FOX News or something?

by folkbum

It may be because I get my news from a variety of non-TV and non-talk radio sources, but I find the untruths and misplaced righteous anger in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's letters sections lately to be just stunning. Take tomorrow's, for example. Here's part of the top one:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has taken us for fools. I take a great deal of offense. Regarding the failed terrorist attempt on Christmas Day, she said, "The system worked." [. . .] President Barack Obama has taken the approach of ignoring Muslim extremism, pretending it does not exist, while apologizing profusely for what the United States used to be before he came on the scene.

Where is this coming from? I mean, it would be one thing if there were truth to it, but there's not. Not at all. Consider, for example, that Napolitano did not say that "the system worked" before the attack; it's pretty clear, if you read the transcript or watch the video, that she's talking about the system of reactions and dealing with the incident's aftermath, making sure that travel was not disrupted on such a busy day and that subsequent travel was safe. This letter writer, like many in the news and righty blogs of late, is baldly taking her out of context.

And about Obama? Obama has not been silent about "Muslim extremism" at all. He talked about beating such extremists through the use of force in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, for Pete's sake. And as it turns out, we've been coordinating with the Yemeni government for the last month to attack extremists there--Yemen is where the plot was hatched. The difference is that Obama isn't on TV crowing about it. Yeesh.

Here's another letter from the paper tomorrow:

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) held a news conference and announced that 60 Democrats were leaders. The current health care debacle is a prime example of leadership gone wrong.

The bill was conceived behind closed doors, not to be seen by anyone until the time to vote. The vote was taken in darkness, at 1 a.m. The bill contains many hidden agendas, and the cost is unclear.

Again, I have no idea where this stuff originates before it finds its way into the minds, fingers, and keyboards of the ignorati. The Senate's bill was not "conceived" behind closed doors. The bulk of it is, in fact, the bill from the Senate Finance Committee, which did its work in the most widely watched CSPAN episodes of the year. The controversial parts of the compromise were aired in public, as Senators--notably, Joe Lieberman--bellyached about the bill's contents all over the TV even before the draft was final. Reid's version of the bill was available online for a number of days before the vote, and the vote--one vote, that is; the vote that approved the bill happened in daylight Christmas Eve morning--was at 1 AM because of the arcane rules of filibustering, filibustering done by the Republican opponents of reform. The costs are not unclear, as all versions of the bill have been scored by the CBO and countless independent agencies as well; neither, by the way, is the funding mechanism unclear, something that Republicans had no concern for when they passed bills like Medicare Part D ("It was standard practice not to pay for things," one Republican Senator said about that time).

In essence, you've got the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel printing letters from people who don't just hold opinions I disagree with. No, they're printing letters from people who base those opinions on outright falsehoods, whose conclusions are supported by fictional evidence. Where these falsehoods are coming from, how these lies and fictions are making their way into the wider gestalt, I have no idea. But it would be nice if the editors of the state's largest daily newspaper would at least refuse to print such untruths in their letters sections, or if they must, run notes that offer the truth to offset the fiction.

21 predictions for 2010

by folkbum

I'm not always good at these, though the last time I did it, I got a lot of them right. So here, in numerical order, I present 21 predictions for 2010. Come back in a year to see how I did.

1. Scott Walker will win the Republican nomination for governor and ...
2. ... he will be one of the very few Republican candidates nationwide next year for whom Sarah Palin is invited to and actively campaigns, which means ...
3. Tom Barrett will be Wisconsin's next governor ...
4. ... but he will face a legislature in which at least one of the houses is back to Republican control.
5. Democrats will not lose control of either the US House or the US Senate.
6. Barack Obama will sign a health care overhaul bill, and may even have that done by the State of the Union and ...
7. ... both Republicans and Democrats will campaign on the health care bill, Republicans claiming it will be a disaster and Democrats claiming it's historic while complaining that Republicans will be on the wrong side of history on this one.
8. My own personal non-campaign for governor will continue to gain steam over the course of the year, and I will not win any party's nomination, which is just how I want it.
9. Russ Feingold will be re-elected to the US Senate--if you'll allow me to go out on that limb.
10. Michael Moore's Capitalism will not win an Oscar ...
11. ... but Up in the Air will win several. (I saw it last weekend. It's good. Go see it.)
12. Unemployment will be slightly lower by the end of next year, but still over eight percent.
13. The Chevy Volt will be the new Prius. Which I suppose will make the Prius the new Geo Metro.
14. Zombies will not attack anyone. In real life, that is. I can't promise about any more Victorian novels.
15. They still won't get rid of the penny.
16. We will actually meet the mother on "How I Met Your Mother." Finally.
17. Furlough days for everyone!
18. Seth Zlotocha will start blogging again. (Okay, that's more of a wish than a prediction. But we need his voice for the 2010 campaign.)
19. At least one more local rightie blogger will pick up some of the Wingnut Welfare by joining the ranks of the McIver Institute (they seem to be adding one every six months or so). We liberals will continue to do this for free.
20. At least one Republican will announce both that he is running for president in 2012 and that he is dropping out of the race.
21. No more than 14 of these will turn out to be right.

What's next?

by folkbum

Seems like the terrorists' ultimate plan is to make sure every airline passenger in the future flies naked, stuffed into individual dog crates, and forced to watch their stupid movie.

Also, homegrown: We can't let art students learn about Andy Warhol anymore, because they might put one of his paintings on a ball, which is also a terrorist win, or something.

FriTunes: Have a Happy Holiday of Choice

by folkbum

But if today is your holiday of choice, here's one for you:


Antje is playing at the Wisconsin Singer Songwriter Series in a couple of months, if you're interested.

Charts of the Day

by folkbum

1. How the health care bill helps:



2. What consensus looks like (via):



3. Keep in mind tonight:

US Senate passes tri-partisan health care bill

by folkbum

Again, it's not the bill I would have written, but it makes general moves in the right general directions. And it's truly multi-partisan (despite what the pooh-poohers are saying), having gotten Aye votes from Democrats, a Socialist, and a guy from the Connecticut for Lieberman party.

Comments

by folkbum

Haloscan is being folded into a new thing, Echo, so the comments features here are changing. There's some good stuff--like threaded comment discussions now being possible. But things will be weird and might be changing as I get the hang of it.

Carry on.

Perhaps Inevitable

by folkbum

Fred Dooley--yes, that one--throws in his lot with the whites-only, Holocaust-denial crowd on climate change.

Update: Fred finally removed the post--and I removed the link, as it is now dead. Good for Fred.

One thing he (like many of his compatriots on the right) needs to learn is that the debate from the right has been hijacked by its most extreme elements, and anyone who wants to be taken seriously needs to start double- and triple-checking what they embrace and link to, since as we have seen with this climate stuff most recently that anyone with a keyboard and an agenda can peddle a pack of lies and get it spread the proverbial halfway around the world before the truth realizes it's not satire.

That the subhumanly vile (Holocaust denier Nick Griffin, in this instance), the unashamedly ignorant (Ste. Sarah de Wasilla, speaking about anything), and the freakishly paranoid (gold huckster Glenn Beck) are now indistinguishable from the vast majority of commentariat on the right is says something downright depressing about the state of the conservative movement in this country.

McIlheran Watch: The wronger he digs, the deeper he gets

by folkbum

I am not a scientist. Patrick McIlheran isn't, either. But I read and check my sources carefully. For example, today in a blog posting, McIlheran cites energy-industry spokesman climate scientist Patrick Michaels to try to claim that peer-review is a bit more like Heathers than like Real Genius. Michaels has an op-ed in the Murdoch Finance Daily Wall Street Journal. I'm quoting the op-ed; the part McIlheran also quotes is in bold:

Messrs. Mann and Wigley also didn't like a paper I published in Climate Research in 2002. It said human activity was warming surface temperatures, and that this was consistent with the mathematical form (but not the size) of projections from computer models. Why? The magnitude of the warming in CRU's own data was not as great as in the models, so therefore the models merely were a bit enthusiastic about the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Mr. [Michael] Mann called upon his colleagues to try and put Climate Research out of business. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," he wrote in one of the emails. "We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board."

After Messrs. Jones and Mann threatened a boycott of publications and reviews, half the editorial board of Climate Research resigned.

Michaels establishes a clear timeline: He published in Climate Reearch -> Mann raised a stink about his paper -> Mann organized a boycott of CR -> the editors quit because Mann intimidated them. It fits the "climategate" narrative neatly and thoroughly reinforces McIlheran's deny-a-riffic worldview. It is, however, wrong.

In January 2003, Climate Research published a literature review by Drs. Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas (working at the Harvard‑Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, not a climate-research outfit). Almost immediately, the people who wrote the literature reviewed by the Soon and Baliunas--and a host of others--started noticing things that weren't right, and writing to the journal. Other editors of the journal also complained (the duo submitted to the most overtly anti-global warming editor). In March 2003, Mann wrote the email in question; no boycott ensued, and, in fact, Mann also said, "the last thing we want to do is bring attention to this paper, which will be ignored by the
community on the whole." Sure, Mann's email also mentioned Michaels, but in passing--the conversation is clearly sparked by and about Soon and Baliunas. In May 2003, Cox newspapers--now McClatchy, one of the few purely journalistic endeavors left in publishing--dug deep to find that the paper had funding from the American Petroleum Institute and oil companies like Exxon, which raised more questions with the editors. This was followed in July by a statement from Mann and a dozen other scientists in another journal. Finally, at the end of July, a bunch of the editors resigned from CR because the publisher refused to let them respond without the consent of the one hinky editor, who of course refused.

Notice, none of the hubbub was instigated by anything from Patrick Michaels. The resignations and furor had nothing to do with any kind of bullying from Michael Mann, at least according to the contemporary accounts and the first-person accounts of the editors involved.

(Michals keeps writing, and McIlheran keeps quoting, to blame Mann and others for the resignation of a skeptical editor at Geophysical Research Letters, a resignation that had nothing to do with pressure from anyone: "I stepped down as GRL editor at the end of my three-year term," the guy wrote. "My departure had nothing to do with attempts by Wigley or anyone else to have me sacked.")

Now, I'm willing to cut McIlheran a little bit of slack, here, because one would like to think that Michaels knows his own biography well enough to, you know, write honestly about it. But here's Michaels, exaggerating his own role as Defender Of The True Discourse despite, of course, his own tainted past and his willingness now to play fast an loose with documented fact.

But that doesn't mean that McIlheran doesn't owe us another retraction and correction. Given that it took him two weeks, and an uncorrected-in-print-or-online op-ed in a Sunday paper, before he admitted he was wrong about one fundamental aspect of "climategate" (it was a "subtlety" that "slipped past" him), I expect this big fat error will go unmentioned, too.

Quote of the Day

by folkbum

The article [naming Dick Cheney "person of the year"] ran in print, which made it difficult for [John] Bolton to dot the i's with little hearts.

Thinly Veiled Sarcasm on Taxes (Hint -- the Right Won't Enjoy it)

By Keith R. Schmitz


The commies over at Fast Company have cranked out this chart showing how we take it easy on corporate income:

Of course we know what a hell hole Luxembourg is. But in fairness, the US is carrying the defense costs for many of those nations.

As they say at GEICO, "think of money you could be saving."

60 votes?

by folkbum

Sometimes it's nice to wake up to good news: Democrats seem to have 60 votes to break a filibuster, and certainly more than 50 to pass something. The House will go along, Obama will sign it, and the Dems will have a bill that seems to do this:

* Reduces Deficits -- estimated to save over $130 billion first ten and roughly $650 billion second ten
* Expands Coverage -- over 94 percent of Americans under 65 years of age, including over 31 million uninsured
* Reduces Costs -- most Americans will see their health care costs reduced relative to projected levels

Makes health care more affordable for Americans by expanding small business tax credits
* $12 billion increase
* Begins in 2010
* Expands wage thresholds for tax credits

Demands greater accountability from insurance companies/ creates more choice and competition
* Medical Loss Ratio 85/80 percent -- Insurance companies will be forced to spend more money on care and less money padding their bottom line.
* Starting immediately children cannot be denied health coverage due to pre-existing conditions
* Insurance companies who jack up their rates will be barred from competing in the exchange.
* Give patients the right to appeal to an independent board if an insurance company denies a coverage claim
* Health insurers will offer national plans to Americans under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management, the same entity that oversees health plans for Members of Congress.
* Provides significant resources for Community Health Centers

Again, not the bill I would have written, but as I argued earlier this week, there's a bit of a moral imperative here and a very, very small window to get this done. I am moderately hopeful, although Lierberman could still screw it up, I suppose. (For more on why this is a good idea, even as a relatively weak bill, see Kevin Drum and Ezra Klein.

FriTunes

by folkbum

A post-view of last night's entertainment.

From the Bob Donovan Files

by folkbum

In an op-ed complaining that the process of allowing a mayoral takeover of MPS is moving too slowly, Donovan writes,

Let’s face it, poor leadership in Milwaukee has left us behind so many other cities (Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, Des Moines, and Denver, to name just a few) when it comes to economic growth, jobs, transit/transportation, and education.

Note, please, that none of the cities listed have mayors running their city schools.

Wisconsin Takes a Tumble in Tax Rankings

By Keith R. Schmitz

From today's BizTimes newsletter:

Wisconsin continues to fall from the ranks of the highest-taxed states, according to the latest report from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.

Over the past 15 years, Wisconsin’s tax ranking among the 50 states fell from third in 1993 to 14th in 2007, according to a new report, "Long-Term Tax and Spending Ranks," that the Alliance released today.

The nonpartisan research organization also said that, with state and local government revenues growing less here than elsewhere, the Badger State’s 50-state spending rank dropped from 13th to 26th.

Reasons given by the Alliance for the drop in both the tax and spending ranks included state income tax cuts in 1999-2001 and limits on school, municipal and county revenues in recent years. The study was based on Census Bureau figures from 1993 to 2007, the most recent year for which data are available.

Wisconsin’s rank dropped in nearly all major revenue categories during the 1993-2007 period. Wisconsin’s individual income tax was among the seven highest from 1993 through 2000. However, income tax changes, including an indexing of tax brackets and the standard deduction and a lowering of tax rates, helped push Wisconsin out of the top 10 after 2004. In 2007, state income taxes were 14th-highest nationally and claimed 3.2 percent of personal income, vs. 3.5 percent in 1993.

Although no major changes were made to the state corporate income tax over the years studied, Wisconsin’s national rank fell from 15th to 25th.

According to WISTAX researchers, the state’s property tax was consistently among the top 10 from 1993 through 1996, claiming between 4.7 percent and 4.9 percent of income. However, a $1 billion buydown of school property taxes in 1996-97 dropped the state’s ranking to 11th (4.2 percent of income). Since then, the state has limited school levy increases through revenue limits, and more recently slowed the growth of municipal and county property taxes with levy limits. As a result, the state property tax ranking has fluctuated between ninth and 11th nationally.

That's a nice level. Any lower and we become Mississippi.

Is no bill better than a bad bill? Or is it the other way around?

by folkbum

I ask because those seem to be the choices related to health care in Congress, and Left Blogistan is split on the subject.

Here's my problem: I am not a big fan of the individual mandate in the bill, particularly one that is divorced from any purchase option other than from the Usual Suspects in the (mostly) for-profit insurance industry. If you're going to require that people buy insurance, then you should at least make sure that they have the widest possible array of options. The public option, or the FEHB-style plan that was being floated just last week, provides a bit of amelioration against the problems that could be created by the individual mandate.

On the other hand, I think I side with the always-practical Nate Silver, that This Is The Only Chance We Have. Seriously; it took a year to get to this point, the point of a really crappy bill and a thoroughly fragmented base and Congress. Starting over will not get a bill passed next year in the moments before mid-terms. And make no mistake: In the next Congress, Democrats will not have majorities of the size it does today, even factoring in Lieberman and Nelson. If we don't pass a bill now, it will be maybe another 15 years of spiraling costs and exploding numbers of uninsured, and that's just not conscionable to me.

So I think I come down on the side of a bad bill being a better than no bill at all. Pass this, work on making better as soon and as often as possible, and at least get the ball of reform moving a little bit.

Shallow Thought

by 3rd Way

If those that militantly strive to keep Christ in Christmas are as devoted to their cause as they claim to be they should leave the use of the bastardized word “Christmas” to us heathens and return to "Christ's Mass", the original Christian name for the celebration.

Let's try an open thread

by folkbum

Yes, it's slow here. But I'm buried, spent last weekend at home dealing with family stuff, am under deadline for the Compass, etc. Suggested topic: ACORN is planning to use Global Warming as an excuse to take away your guns and register the polar bears to vote.

Nailing It on Climate Change Denial

By Keith R. Schmitz

Hey climate deniers, we've got your answer to climate change ignorance right here:

So, climate change deniers, let me get this straight: The same scientific community that has made this country prosperous and strong with innovations like the microcircuitry and telecommunications that power your blogs, the aeronautical advancements that whisk you to tea party rallies and the medical technologies that prolong your life (assuming your insurer covers the procedure) is now scheming to perpetrate an enormous hoax to ruin the American economy?

Such a broad-based, coordinated deception would be unprecedented in science’s history — but is quite common outside of science. A perfect example is the propaganda machine that has convinced you that, in this one case, science is plotting against us while the oil, coal and other polluting industries have the nation’s long-term interests at heart.

Over the years, various industries have launched coordinated propaganda efforts to deny now accepted facts like the cancer-causing effects of tobacco or that seat belts save lives. In fact, scientific findings linking any commercial product to an injurious effect, or imposing costs on business, have almost always met a wall of rejection by the industry affected.

If, this time, industry truly is fighting for our best interests by denying the role of pollution in climate change, and if science truly is defrauding the public on such a grand scale, then each would be a shocking development in the histories of industry and science.

Paul Kotta
Livermore, Calif., Dec. 9, 2009

Couldn't say it any better.

FriTunes

by folkbum



The talent overcomes the horrible mistake of playing on an Ovation, I think.

Quote of the Day

by folkbum

Americans like [Andy] Schlafly think Jesus was the first coming of Milton Friedman.

Condoms & Kids

by folkbum

The news is out:

After an hour and a half of spirited public testimony late Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, a Milwaukee Board of School Directors committee voted in favor of a proposal that would allow for the limited distribution of male condoms in many of the city's public high schools.

The communicable disease prevention program--which passed the Committee on Innovation/School Reform in a 5-0 vote and now will go to the full board--was recommended by the admininstration to address the high rate of sexually transmitted infections among teenagers.

This is, of course, the age group that I deal with every day. I cannot speak to the prevalence of STDs among my students--I'll have to trust the research on that one that suggests they're widespread--but I can say this. Among the students I teach right now, I think I have more parents and parents-to-be than I have ever had before. Bot boys and girls talk freely about the children they have, and I have at least four pregnant girls right now. It certainly seems to me that somewhere these students are picking up on the notion that sex is okay and when they are doing it, they are doing it unprotected.

Which is not to say that MPS is encouraging the sex. Despite protestations and implications of the local righty commentariat (examples 1, 2), MPS does teach and reinforce the notion that abstinence at their age is the best and only reasonable course of action. In class yesterday, in fact, when students brought the matter up because they had heard the news, that was the first thing I added to the discussion--that none of them should be having sex anyway. Of course, they don't listen to me when I tell them that their essays must be written in multiple paragraphs, so I don't have a lot of faith that my insistence on their abstinence will have much of an effect, either.

But what I like in particular about this particular plan is that the condoms are not, in fact, freely distributed. There are plenty of places around town where the condoms are indeed just grab-and-go. However, should this plan go through, before any MPS student pick up a condom at school, they will have to talk to the school nurse about their intended behavior, its risks, and alternatives including not doing it. Ultimately, that may discourage some students from getting the condoms, sure; but I hope that the program will tie the acquisition of condoms to critical questions about why students want to engage in this behavior and whether it's the right thing to do. At least moreso than just having it lectured at them in health class every year.

McIlheran Watch: Behind and not quitting

by folkbum

Perhaps to avoid the buyout, Patrick McIlheran accepted a rewrite to his contract that requires him to dig deeper when he's wrong about something, as he keeps doing on the SwiftHack--"climategate," as the kids are calling it. (See 1, 2.)

Today he's at it again, talking up F. Jim (before he F's you!) Sensenbrenner and the Congressman's plan to swoop into Copenhagen and Save Humanity From The Scientists. F. Jim feels empowered to jet off (I wonder who's paying for it?) because someone's been feeding F. Jim the same lies about those stolen emails that McIlheran has been eating:

The e-mails, Sensenbrenner wrote, "demonstrate that a cabal of supposed 'cream-of-the-crop' climate scientists were indeed successful in getting editors of journals that had published contrarian views fired and that they conspired to boycott journals that did not bend to their wishes--therefore ensuring that such views would not be adequately represented in IPCC Assessment Reports."

McIlheran is quoting from a--wait for it--Fox News report about F. Jim's upped dander. Sadly, McIlheran, who claims to be a journalist and claims to have actual experience journalisming and indeed works at the largest purveyor of journalism in the state, fails again at Step One: Checking the Facts.

Start, for example, with the fact that none of the email writers successfully canned a single journal editor. There is the case of Hans von Storch, who resigned in protest from the journal Climate Research when ExxonMobile managed to plant a paper denying global warming, and von Storch was not allowed to write an editorial noting the errors in that paper. (An assistant editor went with him, too.) Sensenbrenner clearly is wrong, and McIlheran just lets it fly.

Move on, for another example, to the fact that the email writers did not keep anything out of the IPCC report. That's two in one sentence that McIlheran doesn't bother to check. Or maybe, as he tried to claim the other day, this is all just a "subtlety" that "slipped past" him.

The rest isn't any better; that McIlheran is offering the same lies under other people's names doesn't absolve him of the responsibility to get the basics right--especially when the facts are easy to find.

Disappointing

by folkbum

Where I am, at least, Stormageddon Oh-Nine failed to deliver. There's about a half inch of rained-upon snow out there on the walk. Will be a pain to clear. AND no snow day.

However, good luck to those under the blizzard out west and north of here.

Factless McIlheran update

by folkbum

That is, McIlheran's the factless one, as we saw this morning.

To bring you up to speed: Yesterday, weeks after the facts of the matter became widely available, McIlheran runs an op-ed that gets a bunch of stuff wrong related to what the kids these days are calling "climategate," including the falsehood that the original data that the Climatic Research Unit used was all gone. The topper, of course, was that McIlheran claimed that head of the CRU, Phil Jones, explained--or perhaps predicted--in 1999 how to explain the "decline" in temperatures observed between 1999 and 2009.

In a blog posting today, McIlheran retracts some of that. Well, he doesn't retract it. He doesn't even bother to note that he was, you know, wrong about it. He says his lie was a--cough--"subtlety" that "slipped past" him. Seriously! Here it is:

Marc Sheppard at American Thinker points out a subtlety (one that had slipped past me) about the “hide the decline” imperative that researchers, trying to salvage the idea of catastrophic man-made global warming were under:

It wasn’t the decline in global temperatures over the past 10 or so years that needed hiding, Sheppard points out. “The decline Jones so urgently sought to hide was not one of measured temperatures at all, but rather figures infinitely more important to climate alarmists--those determined by proxy reconstructions.”

The Sheppard piece linked to proceeds to post graph after graph, produced by the scientists in question that show the proxy data next to the recorded temperatures for all to see! I think we should all want to play hide and seek with these guys, they're so bad at hiding.

And McIlheran repeats the other claim, too, that there's no way to check the data. At least, I think that's what this sentence is supposed to say: "And, now, the Climategate scandal--in which scientists at the forefront of the supposed “consensus” precluding further debate turn out to have manipulated data, suppressed contrary findings and in general behaved like activists rather than scientists--suggests that their predictions now are uncheckable, unfalsifiable--in short, not science but faith." Help me out if you can suss some sense into that. "Hide the decline" in grammaticality, if you will. (I loves me some dashes, but my general rule is no more than a pair in any given sentence.)

Or maybe the grammar checker is just a "subtlety" that "slipped past."

Infamy

by folkbum

Take some time today to remember.

McIlheran Watch: Fact-checker needed, PLEASE!

by folkbum

Yesterday was Sunday, which means calumnist* Patrick McIlheran's op-ed tripe ran in the paper. As usual, it's cringe-worthy in its denial of reality and bending of facts.

McIlheran, like much of the wingnut contingent, is still going on about the thieved emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. To remind you all, the CRU is just one collection of scientists doing climate research, and even if everything they ever did turns out to have been cooked up in a late-night, pot-induced "wouldn't it be funny if ..." kind of scenario, there are still literally tens of thousands of other scientists doing independent research with their own observations and data in other parts of the world whose work still points in one, incontrovertible direction: Human activity affects the earth's climate.

But the emails are shiny and the new-scandal smell hasn't yet worn off, so McIlheran isn't ready to put them down. No matter that he seems to have absolutely no sense of what the science discussed in the emails means, he's willing to misread them and take phrases out of context to justify his pro-corporate, anti-Algore world view.

For example, he has repeatedly blogged in the last couple weeks about the jacked emails, and repeatedly gotten stuff wrong. He's written at least twice, for example, that "[t]he British center admitted it threw out its original data on which it pinned its predictions of disaster." Which is true--at some point in the 1980s the CRU moved from one office to another and opted not to haul its paper copies in the process. But McIlheran claims that means "other researchers, thus, cannot check the claims" of the CRU. Which is false, as the CRU does not do its own data collection, and all the paper it tossed 25 years ago was merely copies of data that exist other places and that, if you want, you can get for yourself.

McIlheran's falsity was corrected by commenters at his blog, but it doesn't seem to have helped, since he drops it into Sunday's column anyway: "Lest you think we can sort this out by re-running the numbers, it transpires that the center discarded its original data. Their predictions now are uncheckable, unfalsifiable--in short, not science but faith." Apparently it's McIlheran who's holding on to faith over fact--the faith that his preconceived prejudice against science outweighs the truth that the data are not missing at all.

And in Sunday's column he also includes this doozy:

The e-mails, leaked or hacked by unknown parties but acknowledged to be real, do not in themselves disprove man-made global warming. They do reveal these researchers, the experts who wrote the doom narrative, discussing among themselves how to manipulate data to make observations fit their predictions. One telling message from the unit's head is about how to "hide the decline" in observed temperatures, as global warming seems to have halted about a decade ago, something their models are unable to explain.

Leave aside for just a moment the fact that McIlheran doesn't know what "hide the decline" was actually referring to--or rather, he chooses to misrepresent what it means, because the accurate interpretation is not just all over the internet but also in the comments to his blog posts where he initially offered the bad reading of it.

Instead, consider that McIlheran chooses to apply "hide the decline" to the notion that, in his words, "global warming seems to have halted about a decade ago." I've included McIlheran's own links so that you can see for yourself just how baldly misleading McIlheran is being here. Really, there's no other way to describe it--McIlheran is blatantly lying to push his agenda (shocker!). How can you tell? The second of his two links notes that "the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008 [. . .]. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius--in other words, a standstill." So temperatures overall have flatlined since 1999 (in some places, temps are higher, of course, and in some places, they're lower, but we're talking global average.)

Now check McIlheran's first link, the one to the email from Phil Jones at the CRU. Note the date: "Tue, 16 Nov 1999." That's right, ladies and gentleman, Patrick McIlheran, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "Right Wing Guy," just accused Phil Jones of describing a method for "how to 'hide the decline' in observed temperatures" since 1999--in 1999. How does McIlheran explain this? Is Phil Jones a witch, maybe, and McIlheran would like to throw him in the lake to be sure? Or maybe Phil Jones got a fortune cookie in 1999 predicting flatlined temps. Magic eight ball? ESP? Time machine? What? I really want to know!

I realize that the Journal Sentinel is getting down to a bit of bare-bones staffing, but is there not one single person there responsible for checking facts? Surely someone clicked on the links McIlheran included in his own submitted op-ed and saw the absurdity of this. How does something that obvious get through?

* coined by iT

FriTunes

by folkbum



Billy Bragg.

I'm going to hear about this one, I bet

by folkbum

Good thing I don't listen to talk radio.