Category Archives: Politics

Law and Order, Politics, Science and Edumacation

Wednesday Linkorama

Thanks to Twitter siphoning off my political rants, you’re getting more … non-political links:

  • Cracked debunks the Twitter revolution. I’m forced to mostly agree. Social networking may have played a minor role in the upheavals in the Middle East, at best. But real activism involves risking your life, not turning your Facebook profile green.
  • I really really like this idea of the Billion Price Index as a complement to traditional inflation metrics.
  • Do you know … do either of you have any idea of how fucking glad I am I don’t have a big ass commute anymore? I can’t imagine how I did it for so long.
  • I really hope the anti-homework agenda catches on. What’s being done to kids these days is absurd busy work bullshit.
  • So do you think studies like this will, in any way, slow down those who want to ban fatty foods?

    • Political links:

  • Experts are once again stunned that poverty does not cause crime. They seem to be stunned by this quite a lot.
  • Want to stimulate the economy? Wonder how America can lead the world in innovation again? Repeal SOX.
    • Politics

    Blocked?

    It would appear that I have been blocked on Twitter by Neal Boortz. Here are the two tweets I sent him:

    In response to Neal asking if there was anything more pathetic than Obama “progs” trying to claim credit for bin Laden’s killing, I said:

    @Talkmaster Sure: progs grasping at OBL’s death to justify Bush’s mistakes even more pathetic.

    And in response to his question if the birth certificate would shut up the birthers:

    @Talkmaster If only. Conspiracy theorists never let facts get in the way of their paranoia. The BC issue will stay with us. Sigh.

    The former is the one that seems to have triggered the block. A completely inoffensive reply but one that apparently, by criticizing Bush, went too far.

    'Culture', Humor, Politics

    Wednesday Linkorama

    Non-political links:

  • What does your brain do when you orgasm? A scientist finds out.
  • This imitation of video game voices cracked me up.
  • Wonderful color photos of the Great Depression.

    • Political links:

  • This sort of thing happens every day in our ridiculous War on Drugs.
  • I don’t know what depresses me more about this story: that New Jersey passed an ill-considered law mandating decals on cars drive by teenagers; or that people succumbed to a baseline Predator Panic as a result.
    • 'Culture', Humor, Politics

    Post-Submission Linkorama

    Non-political links:

  • Some round-up of May 21 humor. Best tweets, God’s computer, the weather forecast and, of course, the housing market.
  • France’s national disgrace.
  • Man, I do like me some Sir Charles.
  • It’s OK to be Takei. Brilliant. The best thing you can do with bigots is to make them look foolish.
  • Lenore Skenazy with two more stories to reminds us that we live in a sane society.

    • Political links:

  • This is why HUD should be cancelled. It’s not because building homes is a bad thing; it’s because our government can barely do anything competently.
  • I like Huntsman. I just don’t think this is his time.
    • Cool Stuff, Politics

    Weekend Linkorama

    Non-political links:

  • A truly fascinating demonstration of the shift in population.
  • And, slowly, we lose the last of the WW1 vets.
  • More of my love of time lapse video.
  • A lovely story about an e-mail scam.

    • Political links:

  • Yer government at work: literally crying overspilt milk.
  • I wonder how the people who hate the Oath Keepers will reconcile this.
  • Remember when the President said he would make decisions based on science? That’s OK, neither does he.
  • The Curse of the Libertarian: you’re always right but no one listens. We said homebuyer tax credits would hurt more than they would help. We were right.
  • For the six thousandth time — we did not profit on the bailout of the automotive industry. Quit claiming we did, media.
    • Politics

    More Healthcare Lies

    Sullivan has posted Medical Billing and Coding’s infographic on why our healthcare cost so much. I have rarely seen such a huge a stack of healthcare lies collected in one place.

  • They claim that America’s obesity rate is not driving our healthcare costs, only accounting for $25 billion in spending. If that’s the case, someone needs to tell the CDC, which has estimated obesity to be responsible or at least 10% of our healthcare spending and projects it to eventually cause 20% of our spending. Obesity is a primary risk factor for heart disease, something we spend a lot of money on. Lipitor alone is a $7 billion expense.
  • They claim malpractice isn’t driving healthcare costs, only being responsible for 2% of spending. This ignores defensive medicine. Now I’m aware that Haav-vud has estimated defensive medicine to be a tiny expense. But their lawyer-friendly study is far far too conservative. The Kessler study estimates 10% and I would even say that’s conservative. A huge amount of our healthcare spending is for end of life care and a huge driver of that is the fear of lawsuits. Many procedures and tests that are considered “routine” would not be without lawsuit threats. Additionally, the effect of malpractice is not linear. For hospitals, it’s a small part of the budget. For practicing physicians — especially OB/Gyn’s — it can cost more than the rent on their office.
  • They then say that providers charge more because they can — true enough — because the US government is not involved in price regulation. So Americans have “less power” over healthcare costs. I’m not going to re-open the price control debate again. It’s too complicated for a group this stupid. But I will note that there are other ways for consumers — not “the people” to have power over healthcare costs.
  • They complain that admin costs are 21% of our healthcare bill — twice what other countries spend and that 85% of this is due to private insurance. This tells me that they are buying the lie — and it is a lie — that Medicare’s costs are only a tiny fraction of the private sector. Keep in mind, this is the Medicare that is currently spending 20 cents on the dollar on fraud — a problem that they perversely try to blame on the private sector.
  • They complain that 41% of healthcare costs are for outpatient procedures. But outpatient procedure usually save money. They specifically site the example that 60% of UK hernias are treated inpatient, but only 11% of US hernias are treated inpatient. What?! Treating a hernia — usually not really an optional procedure — is MUCH cheaper done as an outpatient. Outpatient procedures save money. And lots of it.
  • Finally, they say are doctors are overpaid. I’ll leave that talking point for the class.

    • Sullivan should embarrassed to have posted this on his site. It’s quite clear that the people who put this together have an agenda and have resorted to distortions of fact that would make Michael Moore blush. This isn’t adding to the debate. It’s setting it back twenty years.

    'Culture', Politics, Religion, Science and Edumacation, War on Terror

    Weekend Linkorama

    Non-political links:

  • And now … low salt diets are bad for you.
  • I found this article, from Vanity Fair about the Playboy Clubs of the 60’s oddly fascinating, and not just because of my generalized interest in the opposite gender. Doubtless the clubs were bad bad things. They certainly wouldn’t function today — they’d get justifiably eaten by sexual harassment laws. But the 60’s and 70’s were interesting times in terms of sex. Mad Men, to my understanding, mines that particular retro-chic vein very well. The article also reminds me of the near-innocence in the early days of commercialized sex that has been lost as it has become ubiquitous. Hef, at least in the early days, was great at up-marketing porn. The magazine had legitimately great articles (for which they paid a fortune to writers). Early pictorials were far more tasteful and coy than today and the clubs, from the description, played to that aesthetic. Plus, how cool would it have been to see Aretha Franklin give only her second public performance?
  • On the flip side of that, Cracked dissects one of the most disturbing romance/sex writers out there. Egad.
  • And just to round out a gender-conscious linkorama: this comes from the Fanatics Come in All Faiths file. Hillary Clinton has been photoshopped out of a White House picture.

    • Political Links:

  • Egad. Sugar interests vs. corn interests. Who to cheer for?
  • Of the many things our government could be worrying about, why is raw milk even on the list?
  • A touching note on forgiving bin Laden from a 9/11 survivor.
  • Half of Detroit can’t read. The city is spending $13,000 per pupil on their schooling system. Can we maybe admit that money isn’t the limiting factor here?
    • Politics

    Mathematical Malpractice Watch: 10 Billion

    Seriously? You think we can project population growth a century in advance? Really? You have Nigeria quintupling in population over the next century. That’s predicting the reproductive habits of people who’s great-grandparents have yet to be born.

    What a load of crap.

    Social scientists simply never learn. Every single population projection we have seen for the last fifty years has been too high. Why should we trust them now?

    Politics

    Twitter FYI

    I do most of my political blogging at Right-Thinking, including a lot of stuff on the OBL killing this week. As part of a massive site overhaul, I’ve stared a twitter feed for even more political belchings.

    I don’t have a personal feed. Not sure what I’d do with one since facebook covers any non-political stuff.

    Moorewatch has closed, although the archive is still accessible. This wasn’t for financial reasons or anything. Moore has just become so irrelevant, we decided that maintaining an active site wasn’t worth it.

    Politics, Science and Edumacation

    Submission Linkorama

    Non-political links:

  • The caption on this says it all.
  • An interesting article on efforts to conserve water in Las Vegas.
  • One day, computers may make it completely unnecessary for me to speak. If one comes out that bring up relevant Simpsons quotes, I’m doomed.
  • Now playgrounds are being ruined by safety hysteria and the unaccountable CPSC.

    • Political Links:

  • It just goes to show you — if it exists, some political asshole will want to outlaw it.
    • Politics

    More On Trump

    Sorry, I can’t resist. It’s just so rare that I find a political figure with so few redeeming features. So a summary from this week:

  • He called for the accused in the Central Park Jogger case — now exonerated — to be executed.
  • He’s a litigation bully.
  • He supports eminent domain abuse.
  • He is anti-free trade and has supported “universal healthcare”.
  • He’s a birther fool with a dirty mouth. Hey, I can sound like a sailor when I want, but I’m not running for President.

    • The more that comes out, the more obvious it becomes that Donald Trump does not belong anywhere near the presidency.

    'Culture', Movies, Politics

    Weekend Linkorama

    Non-political links:

  • It seems to me that this should be bigger news. Law schools are openly lying about their graduate employment numbers.
  • This is ridiculous. Priceless jazz recordings will never be played because of rights concerns.
  • I don’t entirely agree that 3-D is a scam. But I mostly agree with it.
  • The latest baseless child-related freakout: iPads.

    • Political Links:

  • Oh, that liberal media! Right.
  • A very thoughtful piece on jury nullification.
  • Bolivia goes the stone age route on rights for nature. This is a perfect example of the terrible effects of good intentions. The primary result here will be to further empower the already oppressive Bolivian government.
    • Politics

    Trump Birtherism and 2012

    Now that Obama has released his long form birth certificate, will this silence the conspiracy theorists? Of course not. But it may turn the disturbing trend we’ve seen in recent polling data showing up to 47% of GOPers think Obama was not born in his country.

    The usual caveats to those polls apply. Most people are not political junkies and so haven’t followed the birther issue closely. Most Republicans don’t like Obama and so thinking he was born elsewhere is a good way of filing him into that “other” category. And many Democrats embraced the “Bush allowed 9/11” theory.

    But still, 47% is crazy. How did we get to that point?

    We got there because the mainstream GOP was playing footsie with the radical rump of the party. Everyone in the GOP power circles knew Obama was born in the US. But they were more than happy to let the issue fester — and occasionally poke it — because they knew it excited a small but motivated group of voters. They knew that stomping on the birther thing could split off some radicals. But most of all, it was a way to deligitimize Obama in the eyes of the voters. By not embracing but not rejecting birtherism — uttering such non-denials as “I take him at his word” — they kept the issue up, maintaining their ability to portray Obama as someone alien to America.

    And then it suddenly blew up in their faces. A shameless attention-whore reality-TV star came along and grabbed the issue with both hands. (Actually, now that I’m a fan of Maggie McNeil’s blog, I think it’s an insult to whores to compare Donald Trump to them.) Donald Trump didn’t embrace the birth certificate issue because he believed in it. He embraced it because it brought instant media attention. And suddenly the cancer of birtherism exploded all over the GOP. The environment became so toxic that no one who had political ambitions wanted to get in the pool.

    Don’t think so? Why are so many candidates reluctant to throw their hats into the 2012 ring? Even Palin is stalling and taking her time. Why is the presidential field so lackluster so far? Because none of the politicians wanted this on them. None of them wanted to run in a field where birtherism would be an issue and they’d end up at the head of a truly ugly campaign.

    The release of the birth certificate may turn the tide on this. Trump, of course, is claiming credit for the release of the BC and the vilest of the birthers are shouting, “why did it take so long” instead of “Boy, is our face red!” Trump is also moving on to more aggressively racist rhetoric such as telling Obama to stop playing basketball and implying he got into the Ivy League on affirmative action (because we all know how many AA guys become editors of the Law Review and graduate magna cum laude).

    But, personally, I don’t the GOP is going to get out of this that easily. They’ve been outfoxed, again, by the supposed amateur in the White House. They let the birther issue fester until Trump detonated it. And now that the birthers have been shown to be fools, the stink is going to cling to them for a long time.

    (Don’t think that I’m letting Obama off here. My understanding is that he could have done this at any time over the last two years. To drag it out this long hurt the country even though it hurt his opponents more. And, I’m sorry, when you apply for the job as President, you don’t get to hold back records like this.)

    Update: Thinking about this some more, the release of the BC is actually a huge political coup for Obama. The timing makes it seem (and it certainly being claimed) that Trump is the one who got this done. This cements Trump’s hold on the birther contingent and may even vault him — until the time comes to release his financial records — into front-runner status. And if THAT is the case, Obama just won the 2012 election. Because his opponent will either be Trump or a Republican maimed by Trump’s stupidity.

    Update: Several legal experts are pointing out that Obama could not release the certificate under Hawaiian law. While this is true, he clearly got an exemption now, according to the letter from his lawyer. That should not have taken two years.