Four Questions for Voters

This deserves wide distribution. From Jed Lewison at Daily Kos.

Questions:

1. What was the average monthly private sector job growth in 2008, the final year of the Bush presidency, and what has it been so far in 2010?

2. What was the Federal deficit for the last fiscal year of the Bush presidency, and what was it for the first full fiscal year of the Obama presidency?

3. What was the stock market at on the last day of the Bush presidency? What is it at today?

4. Which party's candidate for speaker will campaign this weekend with a Nazi reenactor who dressed up in a SS uniform?

Answers:

1. In 2008, we lost an average of 317,250 private sector jobs per month. In 2010, we have gained an average of 95,888 private sector jobs per month. (Source) That's a difference of nearly five million jobs between Bush's last year in office and President Obama's second year.

2. In FY2009, which began on September 1, 2008 and represents the Bush Administration's final budget, the budget deficit was $1.416 trillion. In FY2010, the first budget of the Obama Administration, the budget deficit was $1.291 trillion, a decline of $125 billion. (Source) Yes, that means President Obama has cut the deficit -- there's a long way to go, but we're in better shape now than we were under Bush and the GOP.

3. On Bush's final day in office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P; 500 closed at 7,949, 1,440, and 805, respectively. Today, as of 10:15AM Pacific, they are at 11,108, 2,512, and 1,183. That means since President Obama took office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P; 500 have increased 40%, 74%, and 47%, respectively.

4. The Republican Party, whose candidate for speaker, John Boehner, will campaign with Nazi re-enactor Rich Iott this weekend. If you need an explanation why this is offensive, you are a lost cause.

Bits and Pieces - October 29, 2010

How the elephant got his trunk: photos(!) and Just-So Story by Rudyard Kipling with line drawing.

The contorted mess of India's decision on liability for nuclear plant construction.

Complex behaviors are not the result of a single gene, sorry.

There was a bit of a flurry today about cargo planes carrying ink-jet cartridges made into bombs, or something that looked like bombs, or white powder, or something. It would help us all to know who identified the whatsits, why they were identified as bombs, and why the concern spread so quickly, before apparent confirmation. Of course, we will hear none of this, which might make us better-informed citizens, because it might give the terrorists some insight on something. Update: Now they're saying that the devices actually contained explosives, something that was denied earlier. We can all look forward to even more layers of screening at the airport.

Legislative Ethics and Other Permeable Frontiers

Some totally unsurprising news -- especially if you happen to be a longtime reader of Phronesisaical -- from NPR today. Unsurprising as it may be, however, the story is profoundly important, and NPR is the only agency with the courage to touch it; many thanks to Laura Sullivan and the team who researched this:

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.

Yeah. And,

[Corrections Corporation of America] declined requests for an interview. In a statement, a spokesman said the Corrections Corporation of America, "unequivocally has not at any time lobbied — nor have we had any outside consultants lobby – on immigration law."

At the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear.

Read the whole thing and think, again, about how money is speech.

Respect

Gregory Isaacs, 1951-2010

(Undomundo has a few tunes posted)

Weekend in DC

I thought that Jon Stewart's and Steven Colbert's rallies (now rally) were such a good idea that I was willing to pay money, brave the TSA, and get on a plane to DC, where I would stay with friends. But by the time I checked, the fares were above my budget.

Darn.

It sounds like it will be fun, the weather looks like it's going to be good, and the Mall is a cool place to be.

Meanwhile, the commentary seems to be, in large part, clueless.

You can take Stewart's demonstration at face value: encouraging sanity just now seems like a very good idea indeed. I am developing a headache, so I think I'll leave all the reasons to your imagination. Earlier, I linked to a couple out of thousands of possible links in this category.

Colbert's demonstration, of course, is of a piece with his on-show persona and a perfect match to Stewart's. I understand there are people who believe that Colbert really is the character he presents on his show.

You can also take Stewart's demonstration ironically, in several directions. As a response to Glenn Beck. As a reminder of political action to those who are soo cool that they can't be bothered to vote. As a riposte to those liberals who feel that Obama has been captured by the Republican Party. As the antithesis of a political demonstration.

And I see that all those ironical meanings also have face value. Nice interweavings of levels of ontology there. I hope Helmut will correct me if I've used that word wrong.

But the commentators. Carlos Lozada made a plea (ironically?) that Stewart not do it, that he remain an uninvolved comedian. Except, since Stewart's material is the news and he does seem to have a political viewpoint (to say nothing of Colbert), he's hardly been uninvolved. And the weekend before Election Day? Oh yeah, that was just a coincidence, just like with Glenn Beck's choice of date. (See ironical meaning above.)

Jesse Singal says flatly it won't work, addressing only one of the face-value meanings. No humor there, perhaps proving Singal's point.

Alessandra Staley earnestly reviews the show, noticing that Stewart was somewhat deferential to the President. I suspect it's hard not to notice that, even if you're Jon Stewart. And hard to be harsh on someone as good-natured as his guest.

Adam Serwer gets a lot right. The Daily Show is not The Nightly News.

And I can't help but chuckle at the timing. Three days before the election. And the President on one of the run-up shows. When wingnuts are imploding and the polls for many Democratic candidates are improving.

Well done, guys.

Bits and Pieces - October 28, 2010

Following violent eviction in China on Google.

Pondering how tough to get with Iran. Marc Lynch says no war talk, please.

The sore winners.

BA getting tired of US airport security theater. Now that they're rolling out the get nekkid machines, I'm wondering what they will do when the next bomb attempt involves something hidden in a body orifice.

Liberal and Conservative Journalism

Balloon Juice continues the discussion.

Call It Patriotism

A bag of fish I bought this morning has a largeish American flag picture on it, and the words "The Great American Import Company."

A Couple of Political Observations

Headline in Los Angeles Times: For women, ideology trumps the gender card

Ah yes! Poor women, stuck with reflexive gender identity rather than thinking out hard stuff like ideology. And I recognize that there are kinder ways to interpret that headline. But let's look a little further. Is it possible that it is men, in this case, who are more influenced by, er, a candidate's boobs? Just asking.

And a couple more Times articles:

NPR should be defunded, not because it's liberal but because it's wrong for the federal government to be in the news business or to subsidize one set of views over another.

And It's diverse if you're liberal. The first is Jonah Goldberg predictably joining the Republican uproar about Juan Williams. The second refers to college campuses. Both share the assumption that there is something equal about today's liberalism and conservatism. But, sadly, there isn't.

NPR is a responsible news-gathering organization. Colleges and universities take their mission as the search for truth, or at least verifiable reality.

The conservative/Republican universe today is defined by the fantasies and propaganda of Fox News. There's no equality there, and therefore no reason why NPR and higher education should give that universe equal time.

Ugly, regressive, spiteful, stupid . . .

Or: political discourse in Kentucky.

Deals

I've been wanting to "bundle" my internet, telephone, and television services and have been (sort of) looking for a deal from one of the local services that keep sending me letters.

Going through my junk mail today, I realized why I haven't found that deal. The price would have to be less than I am currently paying for the individual services, of course. And the prices in the come-ons frequently are unclearly defined and always for a limited time. They don't say (unless it's in the fine print) what it will be after that time.

And I'm not so driven to change what I've got that I want to do the research it will take to uncover that eventual price, which, from the come-ons, looks like it will probably be at least what I'm paying now.

Monstera

Photo: Mmmavocado, Flickr

Iraq

But it was systematic sectarian cleansing that drove the killing to its most frenzied point, making December 2006 the worst month of the war, according to the reports, with about 3,800 civilians killed, roughly equal to the past seven years of murders in New York City. A total of about 1,300 police officers, insurgents and coalition soldiers were also killed in that month.

The documents also reveal many previously unreported instances in which American soldiers killed civilians — at checkpoints, from helicopters, in operations. Such killings are a central reason Iraqis turned against the American presence in their country, a situation that is now being repeated in Afghanistan...

The archive tells thousands of individual stories of loss whose consequences are still being felt in Iraqi families today. (NYT)

I just don't know what else to say at this point. Bogus invasion genocidal catalyzing civil war; 100,000+ civilian deaths; over 4000 US deaths; massive infrastructural destruction; a cost estimated to be in the range of $2.4-3 trillion+ to the US alone; and Iran ends up gifted a victory by the US in the end, if "victory" even makes any sense....

And note this lovely item at the end of the linked article:

Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Smart bombs and counterinsurgency, my ass. I'd stress that these people are incompetent if it were possible to look past the basic evil of such a drastic rise in the deaths of non-combatants.

Bits and Pieces - October 22, 2010

A message for Ginni Thomas's answering machine.

Can John Roberts rise above party affiliation?

98% of the money donated to Bibi Netanyahu for his 2007 Likud primary campaign came from abroad, mostly the US.

A story about one of my favorite people, Bob Bussard. Bob hired me when I was persona non grata with much of the Los Alamos management. "I'd rather have someone like you working for me rather than against me," he said.

The airborne laser still doesn't work.

Privatizing the National Parks

Laura Huggins of the Hoover Institution proposes that more privatization will help the national parks. She's not proposing full-up privatization, just a few market-based ideas:

expanding the Fee Demonstration Program, which ensures that revenue generated by fees at certain parks be kept in those parks rather than sent back to the federal Treasury; contracting out more concession services (which has a proven track record in some of California's state parks); and engaging in benefits-sharing agreements, in which national parks reap some of the profits from businesses that do research in the parks with an eye on commercial opportunities.

Her presentation seems almost diffident; perhaps she is aware of a larger initiative to privatize a national park that is failing.

When the Baca Ranch, which comprised a great deal of the Valles Caldera in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, came up for sale in 2000, the US government bought it, but declined to place it in the National Park system. Rather, a special trust was formed to manage the property, to become profitable in 2015, as a good capitalist privatized government investment should.

It's becoming clear that that isn't going to happen, and the management of the property has been contentious from the start. Access to the public has been extremely limited, and none of the accouterments that the public has become accustomed to in national parks are present, like a Visitors Center.

So this year, both of New Mexico's senators introduced legislation to transfer the Valles Caldera Preserve to the National Park Service. The legislation seems to have joined so much other legislation in the Senatorial limbo, probably because both New Mexico senators are Democrats, so there must be something Fascist-Socialist about this plot.

Perhaps Huggins's more modest suggestions would have some effect. The privately-operated Valles Grande website is much more informative about the area than the website of the (sort of) privately-run trust. Although I doubt that either comes up to the gold standard of making money. So this part of my evidence is not definitive.

Or perhaps we could see the national parks as a good for the nation: the protection of a part of the continent as it once was, the maintenance of ecosystems, the availability of outdoor recreation for those who use it and those who may use it in the future. Sounds like one of those collective goods that taxes support.

It Gets Better

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have now contributed videos to Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" campaign.

Good going, Dan! They're up to ten million video views now. We won't ever know the number of lives saved, but I'm betting it's a significant number.

Just Wondering

Kevin Drum is wondering why the media pays so much attention to Christine O'Donnell.

Could it be that they can't find anything better to do, as usual?

And could it be that it's because she's kind of cute and it gives them an excuse to look at her boobs?

A scientific answer to that second question would require counting how many of the stories are by men. Or, I guess, lesbians.

Bits and Pieces - October 19, 2010

Roger Cohen gets it right: The Return of ‘Los 33’

The real Chilean “miracle” was man-made. It lay in the redemptive solidarity displayed — below ground, by rescuers at the site and on a global level — at a time of shrieking polarization in the United States, rampant self-obsession and persistent division.

I thought about writing a post along those lines. Cohen gets a bit woo-woo in the beginning of the op-ed, but his finish is just right. The miners and the rescuers were able to focus on the immense problem facing them and worked singlemindedly toward a solution. We've got enough problems just now that one might think our country could do the same.

The biggest US nuclear weapons have been taken out of the stockpile and are being dismantled.

The Iran Primer. In keeping with this week's overwork, I haven't read any of this yet, but the author list is impressive. Looks like a good reference.

Russia and the United States present a resolution supporting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to the United Nations. Let's see if we can do better than India.

Breaking: Republican tells the truth!

India Makes Nice Before Obama's Visit

The German foreign minister thinks that India is showing signs of being willing to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. Well, good luck with that. India frequently makes nice noises on such issues, or individuals within the government politely allow the rest of the world to believe such things, but then the Indian Parliament actually votes, and the result is something else.

Dan Yurman gives a good summary of India's other recent nuclear activities. Thanks, Dan, my busy week continues.

Notes Toward a Post To Be Written

One of the things I'd like to write about is our changing concepts of secrecy. Here's today's post that reminded me of that. It's only one.

There's much wringing of hands about what we're giving away at FaceBook, and what Mark Zukerberg would like to do with it. The latest flap seems to be that playing Farmville and Mafia Wars open you up to having your personal information sold. Well, duh! I've clicked on any number of things that friends posted that looked like fun, and the first thing I've hit is a box that says something like "You must agree to make all your information available to anyone we choose." So I've missed all those surveys.

And I have removed all notifications about Farmville and Mafia Wars from my news stream. I do get the occasional chuckle from rants like "I have killed all your animals and burnt all your crops." Shades of the Mongol invasions of Europe.

But the real questions about secrecy go much deeper. The Bob Woodward syndrome, which Emptywheel cites in that post I've linked, is a start. Those in power can leak what they want, but others in government can't. We're moving toward a more egalitarian society, and some of the younger people coming into government are going to see this as inappropriate. Heck, I see it as inappropriate. There are (or, perhaps, were) good reasons for keeping some things secret. Then bureaucrats and politicians alike started using classification more and more to hide their mistakes or to put barriers in the way of their rivals. All of which degrades motivation to keep things secret and, more fundamentally, muddies up thinking on what really, truly needs to be secret.

And the younger generation just sees a lot of this differently. A younger relative tweeted me an apology for not linking to a post recently, for everyone to see. Probably fewer photos of drunken parties are being posted lately, but even the prohibition against such things is going to weaken, just as the prohibition against politicians' marijuana use has weakened, as more of those realistic young people come into public life.

So what does that mean for the "real" secrets? And they do exist. Detailed instructions for building nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. Bits and pieces are on the internet, but I doubt that it's all there. Maybe that is just a matter of time. Diplomatic negotiations and war plans. Both subject to time constraints, so perhaps their secrecy can last long enough for them to be effective. Less important to a broad public are industrial secrets - how to make various things work, the formula for Coca-Cola, stuff like that. And on down the hierarchy is personal stuff. People are still going to be doing things that they don't want others to know about.

I'm mostly interested in the strategic things. I'm convinced that we could use more transparency than we've got now, but there are some things I'd really rather not see on the internet.

This is just a preliminary set of thoughts. It's an awfully busy week this week, but I've been thinking about this for a long time.