Best Group Blog

I was over at Wampum checking out the voting for best Group Blog and I just wanted to say thanks to Jim H. for his words of encouragement and his vote:

"Running Scared" gets my vote as an interesting and informative blog that deals with logic, reality and level-headed writing. I wish that the authors of some of Running Scared's posts could take the time to teach some of our so-called journalists a few lessons about humanity."

Thanks Jim
The rest of you don't have to feed our egos but a simple vote would be nice if you like some of the stuff you see here. Thanks to all who have voted.

Spot of Poetry

Scale

If I could only see the scale,
I'm sure that it would state
That I've lost ounces ... maybe pounds
Or even tons of weight.
"You'd better eat some pancakes--
You're skinny as a rail."
I'm sure that's what the scale would say...
If I could see the scale.

-Shel Silverstein, "Falling Up."

Mike's Response to "Mission Statement"

Another way that one could approach Jazz's question is what the Democrats' "elevator pitch" is, a topic recently discussed both at the American Prospect and on Kos' website.

I've followed those threads with particular interest because of my aforementioned interest in framing. (An example of framing would be Reid framing our massive deficit as a "birth tax" of $35,000.) For comparison, the Republican elevator pitch, according to the Prospect is:

We believe in freedom and liberty, and we're for low taxes, less government, traditional values, and a strong national defense.

Obviously, they've betrayed that pitch in any one of a half-dozen ways -- but that's the way they're marketing themselves, and obviously, Ma & Pa America fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

The reason I made this reply a blog entry and not a comment is that there's just been so many good entries between the two entries. My favorites, however, come from the Spectator's webpage:

We believe in balancing competition with cooperation, balancing strength with wisdom, balancing personal responsibility with responsibility towards others, balancing individuality with community, and that we are stronger united than divided. — C.U.

We stand for a moral society, a sound government, cost-effective national defense, compassionate taxes for the poor and the middle class and liberty unfettered by government intrusions. — Anonymous

Liberals believe that every American deserves a fighting chance, and a fair chance. We passionately believe that America's strength flows from excellent education, strong businesses, quality healthcare, and justice. — K.W., Bellevue, WA

I think the best, though, was:

Liberals believe our common humanity endows each of us, individually, with the right to freedom, self-government, and opportunity; and binds all of us, together, in responsibility for securing those rights. — T.W., Brookline, MA

That last one is definitely what I think the Democratic Party's "mission statement" should be.

R.I.P., Arthur Miller

Playwright Arthur Miller passed away last night at 89.

It's funny. Upon hearing this news, The Crucible and Death of a Salesman immediately come to mind as containing lessons this Administration desparately needs to learn.

Iran, driving the reformers into the arms of the hardliners.

Juan Cole has a short but very important closing paragraph this morning.

In other news, Iranian president Muhammad Khatami threatened that Iran would turn into "a scorching hell" to fight off any intervention by Americans. Khatami began in 1997 by being a liberal who called for a "diaologue of civilizations". Many observers were taken aback by the vehemence of the moderate's language. The Bush administration may well be driving the reformers into the arms of the hardliners.

As it eyes Iran the Bush administration is oblivious to the cultural and nationalistic factors in play. This is one of the "good" guys not an Ayatollah telling us to keep out.

Senator Al Franken?

Sen. Al Franken? Hey, I like Jon Stewart a lot. But I don't think a President Stewart would be a good idea. Same deal here.

I can just picture the Senate now:

"Mr. Cheney, I believe this legislation needs to be presented to the Senate as a whole."

"Why, Mr. Franken? It's not even gone to commitee yet."

"Because, sir, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."

Seriously ... he'd be as good for the Democrats as Rush Limbaugh would be for the Republicans. He belongs as a polemic, not as a legislator.

Two sets of books, two assumptions

I think most of us realize now that Bush's private accounts plan is nothing but a ponzi scheme to destroy Social Security, divert money to Wall Street and avoid paying off the treasury bonds held by the Social Security Trust Fund. Jonathan Weisman and Ben White of the Washington Post explain that Bush is using different economic assumptions when talking about the bankruptcy of Social Security and the returns one could expect from private accounts. This should come as no surprise since we have seen that lies and deception are the major tools the Bush administration has used to sell it's policies.

If economic growth is slow enough that we've got a problem with Social Security, then we are also going to have problems with the stock market. It's as simple as that," said Douglas Fore, director of investment analytics for TIAA-CREF Investment Management Group. A spokeswoman said the company has not taken a position on the Social Security debate.

So, if economic growth is slow enough to cause a Social Security shortfall the stockmarket will also perform badly. Some predict that if money that now goes into the Social Security trust fund is invested in securities the demand will result in an increase in equity value. There is one problem with that, if stock prices go up without earnings and actual value increasing we have a bubble. As we learned in the 90's bubbles always burst.

It's a different economy

White House officials think the decision is easy. Social Security's chief actuary assumes that an account invested half in stocks and half in corporate and Treasury bonds would yield a 4.6 percent return above inflation, enough for a comfortable profit over the traditional benefit. An index of stocks alone would return 6.5 percent over inflation, based on historical performances.

But some economists are not so sure. Richard Berner, senior U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley and an opponent of diverting Social Security taxes into private accounts, said strong stock market returns of the past 20 years were an anomaly driven by a confluence of low inflation and low interest rates that is not likely to repeat. "The administration's assumptions, especially for a balanced portfolio, sound pretty high," he said.

We know that the Iraq war was not about WMD so we should not be surprised the "private accounts" aren't about you have more money when you retire. Just like the WMD in Iraq you have additional money when you retire is a myth and a lie.

Pass the Spinach on the Lefthand Side ...

You know, with all this discussion about Spongebob Squarepants, no one's been wondering about Popeye and what he's smoking in that pipe of his. (The funny thing is that they make a very convincing case!)

You can't make stuff like this up ...

MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.

THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?

MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

Sometimes, he just does my job for me.

Neal Stephenson on "Power Disorders" in Government

I'm running across a lot of gems today. There may even be a few more to come.

Neal Stephenson has always been a favorite author of mine. He wrote the seminal science fiction novel Snow Crash -- and if you consider yourself even slightly libertarian (or even if you don't), you really might want to enjoy this novel -- and has some absolutely amazing insights into society.

I found this remark of his in a recent interview with Reason magazine really quite insightful:

It's clear that the body politic is subject to power disorders. By this I mean events where some person or group suddenly concentrates a lot of power and abuses it. Power disorders frequently come as a surprise, and cause a lot of damage. This has been true since the beginning of human history. Exactly how and why power disorders occur is poorly understood.

We are in a position akin to that of early physicians who could see that people were getting sick but couldn't do anything about it, because they didn't understand the underlying causes. They knew of a few tricks that seemed to work. For example, nailing up plague houses tended to limit the spread of plague. But even the smart doctors tended to fall under the sway of pet theories that were wrong, such as the idea that diseases were caused by imbalanced humors or bad air. Once that happened, they ignored evidence that contradicted their theory. They became so invested in that theory that they treated any new ideas as threats. But from time to time you'd see someone like John Snow, who would point out, "Look, everyone who draws water from Well X is getting cholera." Then he went and removed the pump handle from Well X and people stopped getting cholera. They still didn't understand germ theory, but they were getting closer.

We can make a loose analogy to the way that people have addressed the problem of power disorders. We don't really understand them. We know that there are a couple of tricks that seem to help, such as the rule of law and separation of powers. Beyond that, people tend to fall under the sway of this or that pet theory. And so you'll get perfectly intelligent people saying, "All of our problems would be solved if only the workers controlled the means of production," or what have you. Once they've settled on a totalizing political theory, they see everything through that lens and are hostile to other notions.

And, by the way, I'm not somehow thinking that Democrats are excluded from this "power disorder" concept. It's most obvious among the neocons at the moment, but it's been a longstanding problem with most government, it seems.

To Silence Everybody & Anybody Who Dares to Question Any Part of the Agenda ...

Wow! I just read Sen. Durbin — one of my Senators — yelling at the Republicans on Monday over the RNC's Reid character assassination campaign — and, man, does he get some choice ones in there:

This is not a discussion they're planning. This is an effort to try to intimidate political opponents into silence — and it is shameful.

Why is the RNC doing this now? Because they do not want to debate their radical proposals on the merits. They don't want to talk about the details of Social Security privatization, which is becoming increasingly unpopular in America. They don't want to talk about the budget they released today, which will make deep cuts in health care, veterans care, and education. They want to silence everybody and anybody who dares to question any part of the agenda.

That is not what America is about. It is not the way this Senate is supposed to work.

I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is there one amongst us who could withstand this type of withering scrutiny and criticism? I think, frankly, my friends should stop and realize we have 2 years ahead of us in this session. We need to work with one another. We have and we will. Starting with this approach is bad.

Here's another great bit:

There is another element here, too. I have some rules in my life that are hard and fast when it comes to politics, and one rule is that I never attack my opponent's family. Never. There have been ample opportunities when some relative of my opponent did something very embarrassing or I could have issued a press release and taken advantage of it. I never did it because I never want people attacking my family.

The Republican National Committee starts off their campaign by attacking Senator Reid's family. I think the hottest ring in hell is reserved for politicians who attack their opponents' families, and I hope Senator Frist believes that, too.

Another gem I would have missed if not for GovTrack.Us.

Are you feeling safer?

Are we safer now than before 9-11? Thanks to the regime of King George the answer is a resounding NO. Most of those who are still capable of independent thought realize that the invasion of Iraq has inflamed the Islamic world and made us less safe. In order to invade Iraq we had to leave Afghanistan before the job was finished making us less safe. Now Nicholas Kristof explains how Bush has totally screwed up the North Korea nukes situation making us, you guessed it, less safe.

[T]here are two words the Bush administration doesn't want you to think about: North Korea.

That's because the most dangerous failure of U.S. policy these days is in North Korea. President Bush has been startlingly passive as North Korea has begun churning out nuclear weapons like hot cakes.

The famous "Axis of Evil" speech may have done more to contribute to nuclear proliferation than anything else.

North Korea is particularly awkward for Mr. Bush to discuss publicly because, as best we know, it didn't make a single nuclear weapon during Bill Clinton's eight years in office (although it did begin a separate, and secret, track to produce uranium weapons; it hasn't produced any yet but may eventually). In contrast, the administration now acknowledges that North Korea extracted enough plutonium in the last two years for about half a dozen nuclear weapons.

So, do you feel safer?

But U.S. policy on North Korea for the last four years has only strengthened Mr. Kim and allowed him to expand his nuclear arsenal severalfold.

The risk is that Mr. Bush will respond to the failure of his first term's policy by adopting an even harder line in the coming months, seeking Security Council sanctions (he won't get them) and ultimately imposing some kind of naval quarantine. That would only strengthen Mr. Kim's grip on power, as well as risk a war on the Korean peninsula. A Pentagon study in the 1990's predicted that such a war could kill one million people.

In short, our mishandling of North Korea has been appalling - and it may soon get worse.

The "rapture" may be closer than we think.

Undifferentiated Opposition

Being a legal secretary can be tough work at times, but it does have its occasional collateral benefits, such as when you return from your Christmas vacation to find that every vendor in the darn free world has decided to try to bribe you with Christmas trinkets. Very often, they're absolutely useless (oooh, a cheapo pen that flickers red and green), but one vendor actually gave out some sort of brief discounted magazine subscription to the mag of your choice. Since I wasn't really up for a fly fishing magazine or Cosmo, I ended up subscribing to Time, and accordingly, I've lately been finding myself drawn to Joe Klein's "In the Arena" columns each week.

This week's column is called "The Incredible Shrinking Democrats" — which is unusual for Klein, given that, unless I am wildly off on this, he usually seems to write from a liberal perspective. But in it, he makes an incredibly good point that hits directly right to we "opposition forces" of the blogosphere, too:

The current Democrats resemble nothing so much as the Republicans during the 25 years after Roosevelt's death — negative, defensive, intellectually feeble, a permanent minority. There are reasons to oppose this President — arrogance abroad, crony capitalism at home — but undifferentiated opposition is obtuse and most likely counterproductive.

(Emphasis added.) That one line hit home hard for me, especially the concept of undifferentiated opposition. Why? I — like many, many, many of my brethren — have been so overwhelmed by the onslaught of idiocies coming from the Bush Administration that, indeed, no one in the Bush Administration can possibly do any good, in my eyes. I have definitely grown accustomed to undifferentiated opposition — as did mainstream liberals and Democrats, as shown by Kerry's campaign, which failed, I believe, because it did not take a clear stand on and for progressive values, but based the bulwark of its campaigning on anti-Bush rhetoric. Not that Dubya didn't deserve it, but mainstream America responded more to Republicans' smooth, insincere come-on lines about 'values' than to the important criticism of Bush's horrible first term.

I suppose that's why I've been reaching out for Dean (and Lakoff) — to me, they represents much more of a "we stand for this" platform than a "can you believe the shit this guy is pulling?!?!?" platform. Instead of saying "this is fucked up" to everything Bush says, we need to clash with his crap by saying, "This is wrong, because [conflict with Democrats' positive platform plank]. And what we have in mind is better, because of .

"Undifferentiated opposition." That's the Democrats' biggest P.R. problem summed up in two words.

Quote of the Day

Shirley Chisholm, first black Congresswoman, when reflecting on her failed 1972 campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, as quoted in CNN:

"The term democracy ... sounds wonderful, sounds beautiful, but it's not carried out in the real sense of the word when you realize what goes on behind the scenes. When you realize how people bargain for votes, how people deal to get three more delegates to a convention. That's not democracy. What a cost."

An unfortunate truth.

My further opinions on Israel and Palestine

For those of you who remain interested in my opinions on the "Road Map to Peace", I've posted a fairly long piece over on Tami, the One True.
Pop on over if that's the sort of thing you want to read.

Brrrr ... tough time sleeping tonight ...

Ever wonder about the full details of the presidential line of succession?

I have something to give you the heebie-jeebies ...

This country is four deaths away from President Condoleezza Rice.

(Note to NSA/FBI/CIA/KGB/Men in Black: Not advocating those four deaths.)

Another reality check from Krugman

The George W. Bush Social Security "reform" plan is just one part of an attempt of the administration to undo the "New Deal" and give feudalism an encore in the United States. Today Paul Krugman explains how Social Security privatization is nothing more than a Grover Norquistian attempt to Spear the Beast.

[P]resident Bush isn't trying to reform Social Security. He isn't even trying to "partially privatize" it. His plan is, in essence, to dismantle the program, replacing it with a system that may be social but doesn't provide security. And the goal, as with his tax cuts, is to undermine the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt.
Why do I say that the Bush plan would dismantle Social Security? Because for Americans who entered the work force after the plan went into effect and who chose to open private accounts, guaranteed benefits - income you receive after retirement even if everything else goes wrong - would be nearly eliminated.

Taking the Security out of Social Security.

Here's how it would work. First, workers with private accounts would be subject to a "clawback": in effect, they would have to mortgage their future benefits in order to put money into their accounts.

This will not only not "fix" Social Security it will actually make the problem worse.

Second, since private accounts would do nothing to improve Social Security's finances - something the administration has finally admitted - there would be large benefit cuts in addition to the clawback.

It's all about ideology, Social Darwinism where the "haves" get more and "have nots" have even less, that is eliminating the "New Deal" and that evil dragon "The Welfare State.

Why expose workers to that much risk? Ideology. "Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state," declares Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth and the Cato Institute. "If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state."

By the welfare state, Mr. Moore means Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - social insurance programs whose purpose, above all, is to protect Americans against the extreme economic insecurity that prevailed before the New Deal. The hard right has never forgiven F.D.R. (and later L.B.J.) for his efforts to reduce that insecurity, and now that the right is running Washington, it's trying to turn the clock back to 1932.

Medicaid is also in the cross hairs. And if Mr. Bush can take down Social Security, Medicare will be next.

The attempt to "jab a spear" through Social Security complements the strategy of "starve the beast," long advocated by right-wing intellectuals: cut taxes, then use the resulting deficits as an excuse for cuts in social spending. The spearing doesn't seem to be going too well at the moment, but the starving was on full display in the budget released yesterday.

No compromise, take no prisoners:

Any deficit reduction will come from spending cuts. Many of those cuts won't make it through Congress, but Mr. Bush may well succeed in imposing cuts in child care assistance and food stamps for low-income workers. He may also succeed in severely squeezing Medicaid - the only one of the three great social insurance programs specifically intended for the poor and near-poor, and therefore the most politically vulnerable.

All of this explains why it's foolish to imagine some sort of widely acceptable compromise with Mr. Bush about Social Security. Moderates and liberals want to preserve the America F.D.R. built. Mr. Bush and the ideological movement he leads, although they may use F.D.R.'s image in ads, want to destroy it.

Social Security reform is part of the plan to return the United States to the economics of the 16th century. Works very nicely with the 16th century "moral values" they are pushing.

Give Peace a Chance

Palestinians, Israel announce cease-fire

Well! A cease-fire! Bless my buttons! That's amazingly good! And yes, my tongue is in my cheek, but only a little tiny bit.

I've mentioned in the past, and my mind hasn't been changed, that no one is really in charge of the people who call themselves Palestinians. There are a million groups, and none of the really violent fringe ones have ever seemed willing to honor any kind of cease-fire agreed to in the past. But wait -

Rice also announced Monday that U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William Ward will act as a security coordinator and will visit the region in the next few weeks. Ward also will work on Mideast security issues with Egypt and Jordan, she said.

"Gen. Ward's mandate is on security, which after all, really has to get established and has to be moving forward in order for us to make progress," Rice said.

Ward's responsibilities will include helping the Palestinians train and equip their security forces. Among his duties, Rice said, would be monitoring compliance with Israeli and Palestinian security agreements.

"We are very clear that the parties need to live up to their obligations," she said. "We won't hesitate to say to the parties when those obligations aren't being met."

Palestinian security forces? Could this possibly mean what I think it does? That Palestinians are willing to admit that they have some responsibility to police their own people, and to try and prevent terrorist forces within their midst? Because that's the only way that peace in this region can ever work. Simply decrying terrorism in public forums is not enough, Palestinians must actually work to stop terrorists in their own ranks. Do they really want to?

Now, the next problem is, of course, getting the Israelis to stop the violence, too. How do you convince a group of soldiers who've lived their whole lives looking over their shoulders every minute to stop shooting at the suspicious? Reactions like that have kept them alive up until now, for more often than not, people were trying to kill them. Go ahead, call me paranoid, but I spent 7 months of my life in Israel, just being a student, and I got to see 2 real bombs left in the street and I once moved carefully in the opposite direction of a grenade attack one night in town. Sure, I got held up by bomb threats dozens of times and only 2 were real, and I was in town every night for 5 months, more or less, with only one grenade attack... I think you can see what I'm saying. It's been a violent place, people aren't used to the idea of not shooting.

I once again bring up the issue of feelings and desire. These people have been raised to hate each other. Hate. Not the namby-pamby idea of hate that we here in the U.S. use to express strong dislike, but the kind of hate that inspires you to try and end others' lives. We can say that there's a cease fire, but do the people want it? Is the desire for peace just something that is given lip service, because its real meaning has been lost amongst ancient feuding that outsiders can't understand? I kind of think so, and that's what makes me so pessimistic about this "road map". I'd like to see peace, but I haven't lived with the anger all my life.

(cross-posted at Tami, the One True)

Howard Dean, DNC Chair

Howard Dean's last remaining opponent for the DNC chairmanship, Tim Roermer, just bowed out.

Ladies and gentlemen, the new chair of the Democratic National Committee ... Howard Dean.

Thank frickin' God.

Now let's see where he goes from here. *keeps fingers crossed*

Beer is no longer "cool" even in Germany

Germany and beer have long been synonymous. But that is changing. With Monday's closing of two large breweries, the crisis facing the industry appears to be deepening. An aging population is partly to blame. But beer, as it turns out, just isn't cool anymore.

I lived in Germany for two and half years the late 60's and early 70's. One of the joys of living in Munich was beer, lots of beer. I got over the initial shock of people have beer for breakfast and some of my best memories are sitting in a beer garden on a warm summer night. Well Der Speigel reports that With Brewery Closures, Germany Faces Brauereisterben(brewery purchases).

The threatening new word made its appearance on the German media stage in the mid-1990s. Brauereisterben. Dubbed after the term for Germany's dying forests, the word predicted the decline of the nation's breweries. The frothy favorite of thirsty Germans, the beer brewing industry started warning 10 years ago, was heading for a crisis. More and more beer-swilling Teutons seemed to be turning away from hops and malt and towards a healthier lifestyle of designer water and juice. To traditionalists in Germany and abroad, for whom the words "Germany" and "beer" belong together like sauerkraut and bratwurst, it's a horror come true.

It's a sad day indeed. Germany without beer is like Hungry without paprika.

Deep Throat to Soon Be Unmasked?

Former White House counsel John Dean advises us through the Los Angeles Times that Deep Throat is about to be unmasked:

Bob Woodward, a reporter on the team that covered the Watergate story, has advised his executive editor at the Washington Post that Throat is ill. And Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Post and one of the few people to whom Woodward confided his source's identity, has publicly acknowledged that he has written Throat's obituary.

According to this Wikipedia article, people widely considered to be potentially be Deep Throat (and who are still alive) are Charles W. Bates, Stephen Bull, Pat Buchanan, W. Mark Felt, Fred F. Fielding, L. Patrick Gray, Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, Robert Kunkel, Raymond Price, and Ben Stein.

Not to be ghoulish, but anyone know if any of them are sick?

(And yes, that's Ben Stein the actor. Used to be a Nixon speechwriter, evidently!)

I have to admit, though, I am wondering if it's one other person who had often been considered, the United Nations Ambassador at the time ... a rather unknown gentleman by the name of George H.W. Bush.

This would make special sense if you consider Woodward's comment on Larry King Live last August:

We will tell that story, and it's a — it's kind of one of the last missing pieces of the puzzle. And I think once people see who it is and exactly what happened, will understand why the super secrecy and the confidentiality, and why it was not revealed for such a long time.

Should be interesting, whenever it develops.

New Motto for Orwell's Party: "Honor is Disdain."

Dubya, 11/9/04 (DC): "Americans live in freedom because of our veterans' courage, dedication to duty, and love of country. On Veterans Day, we honor these brave men and women who have served in our Armed Forces and defended our Nation."

Dubya, 12/8/04 (CA): "I urge every American to find some way to thank our military."

NYT, 02/7/05 (DC): "President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.

Orwell, 1949 (UK): "He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions -- 'the Party says the earth is flat', 'the party says that ice is heavier than water' -- and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy. It needed great powers of reasoning and improvisation."

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Just when you think the world can't get any more insane, you hear about crap like this. And damn it, <TongueInCheek>I can't even blame this one on Bush ...</TongueInCheek>:

Two teenage girls who surprised their neighbors with homemade cookies late one night were ordered to pay nearly $900 in medical bills for a woman who says she was so startled that she had to go to the hospital.

[...]

The teenagers' families offered to pay Young's medical bills, but she declined and sued, saying their apologies were not sincere and were not offered in person.

[...]

[The neighbor] said, "[...] I just hope the girls learned a lesson."

Evidently that's not enough for her husband, though, according to the Durango Times:

Richard Ostergaard [the father of one of the teens] obtained a temporary restraining order against Young's husband, Herb, on Friday to stop what he said were harassing telephone calls.

About WHAT? "Dude, those cookies sucked." Five minutes later. "They couldn't have put some frosting on them?" Twenty minutes later. "Man, dem girls of yours *crunch* better not *crunch crunch* bother my wife no more."

What I really fail to understand, though, is what the f—k the La Plata County, Colorado government was doing here.

Three La Plata County sheriff's deputies who arrived about 11 p.m. in response to Young's call discovered the cookies and note. The deputies suggested she spend the night away from the house.

For the record, the note can be described as follows:

They made packages with a half-dozen cookies each and added large red or pink construction-paper hearts that carried the message, "Have a great night." The notes were signed with their first initials: "Love, The T and L Club."

Wanita's reaction?

[S]he vomited and felt pressure in her chest that to her suggested a heart attack. The next day, Young went to the emergency room at Mercy Medical Center, where doctors determined that she had suffered an anxiety attack. Medical bills ran her more than $1,400.

Not only does it sound as if the neighbor, Wanita Renea Young, has a verifiable mental condition (she even sought punitive damages, for Christ's sake), I have to wonder exactly how moronic La Plata County Small Claims Court judge Doug Walker had to be in order to hand down any sort of ruling against the girls.

He should have said, "Lady, I'm sorry you have an anxiety disorder. But that is not the fault of these girls, who did a kind gesture for you with absolutely no malice aforethought. Your reaction to it is not their fault and in no way could be predicted by them or any right-thinking individual. If you want, the court can assist you in finding free counseling for your condition."

Let's be clear about something: I have sympathy for anyone who is so mentally screwed up that someone knocking on a door and dropping off a plate of cookies comes across to them as a malicious act, and I hope that Young gets the help she needs.

What I can't get over is how the county bureaucracy there endorsed, sanctioned, and sided with her paranoia.

When the shoe is on the other foot.

Although I don't agree with all he has to say Bull Moose makes an excellent point; the progressives/left have made use of the courts over the years to further their agenda and with the make up of the courts is becoming increasingly neo-conservative it may be the tables are about to turn. And it's not just the courts. Although I have supported most of the progressive causes I have to admit that many of them have become law through a very questionable use of Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the US constitution, also known as the Commerce Clause.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution empowers the United States Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes".

The commerce clause was in fact used to justify the legality of the Civil Rights Act. Like other progressives, I believe the progressive cause is right and just but it was "Blue State" morality forced on the "Red States". The legislative branch and the courts are now swinging rapidly to the right. What the blue states may be about to see is "Red State" morality forced on them. The Religious Right believes in their cause just as much as we progressives believe in ours and in fact are more willing to fight for it. Prepare for the tools we progressives used so effectively to be turned against us. Get ready for a step back in time, the 16th century is about to do an encore.
EDIT
I changed the "conservative" in the first paragraph to neo-conservative in deference to the "old" conservatives who are just as unhappy about the current state of affairs as I am.