It's all the old folks fault

David Brooks is well David Brooks once again today. Social Security and Medicare problems are all the fault of those greedy and well organized "old folks".

We may as well be blunt about the driving force behind all this. The living and well organized are taking money from the weak and the unborn. Over the past decades we have seen a gigantic transfer of wealth from struggling young families and the next generation to members of the AARP.

This is enough to make my blood boil but at least it's easy to shoot full of holes. When it comes to Social Security I have had FICIA taken out of my paycheck for over 40 years. Until the last few years it was taken out of all my wages. Since 1983 they have been taking additional money out and investing those in treasury bonds to pay for my benefits. I'm sorry ass hole, I'm not taking money from anyone. George W. Bush likes to say "it's your money", guess what that's my money. And as for "taking money from the weak and the unborn"; our corporate controlled medical system in the US is doing a lot better job of that than I ever could. The working stiffs in this country see there premiums rise or their insurance disappear altogether as costs and corporate profits rise. It's the large corporations that are "taking money from the weak and the unborn", not those of us who have worked all of our lives and paid into the system. The major problem with the Medicare drug benefit he rails about is that it amounts to a veritable cornucopia of profits for the drug industry. Sorry David, once again you have shown yourself to be a not too bright partisan hack. Well at least Mr Brooks you never disappoint me.

Alan Greenspan, just another partisan hack?

Paul Krugman takes on Alan Greenspan today calling Greenspan a Bush shill and another partisan hack. His double speak to congress on Social Security was a case of him trying to have his cake and eat it too. He said that Bush's privitazation plan was a good idea but not really. Alan Greenspan did a fairly good job when all he really had to do was tweak the interest rates to keep inflation under control. He preached that deficits were bad until Clinton managed a surplus which was bad. He warned of an economic bubble but did nothing to stop it's inflation and he had a number of tools he could have used to do so. He apparently didn't want to anger the booming investment community. As a disciple on Ayn Rand he has always despised everything about the New Deal, especially Social Security. George W. Bush put Mr Greenspan in a very bad position, he came up with a plan that would eventually destroy Social Security but is so ill conceived that the economist had to say take it slow while the Bush shill wanted to say full speed ahead. Ok, enough of my rantings, here is what Krugman had to say.

Four years ago, the Fed chairman lent crucial political support to the Bush tax cuts. He didn't specifically endorse the administration's plan, and if you read his testimony carefully, it contained caveats and cautions. But that didn't matter; the headlines trumpeted Mr. Greenspan's support, and legislation whose prospects had previously seemed dubious sailed through Congress.

On Wednesday Mr. Greenspan endorsed Social Security privatization. But there's a difference between 2001 and 2005. In 2001, Mr. Greenspan offered a convoluted, implausible justification for supporting everything the Bush administration wanted. This time, he offered no justification at all.

In 2001, some readers may recall, Mr. Greenspan argued that we needed to cut taxes to prevent the federal government from running excessively large surpluses. Even at the time it seemed obvious from his tortured logic that he was looking for some excuse, any excuse, to help out a Republican administration. His lack of sincerity was confirmed when projected surpluses turned into large deficits, and he nonetheless supported even more tax cuts.

This week, Mr. Greenspan offered no excuse for supporting privatization. In fact, he agreed with two of the main critiques of the administration's plan: that it would do nothing to improve the Social Security system's finances, and that it would lead to a dangerous increase in debt. Yet he still came out in favor of the idea.

So as we can see Greenspan is a man torn between being an economist and being an Ayn Rand Uber Libertarian and Bush shill. Yet while not fully endorsing the Bush plan on Social Security he was still able to play the shill.

Yet the chairman managed to avoid admitting the obvious - that borrowing on the scale the Bush plan requires would substantially increase the risk of a financial crisis. And the headlines didn't emphasize his concession that crucial critiques of the Bush plan are right. As he surely intended, the headlines emphasized his support for privatization.

And Krugman makes one final disturbing observation.

One last point: a disturbing thing about Wednesday's hearing was the deference with which Democratic senators treated Mr. Greenspan. They acted as if he were still playing his proper role, acting as a nonpartisan source of economic advice. After the hearing, rather than challenging Mr. Greenspan's testimony, they tried to spin it in their favor.

But Mr. Greenspan is no longer entitled to such deference. By repeatedly shilling for whatever the Bush administration wants, he has betrayed the trust placed in Fed chairmen, and deserves to be treated as just another partisan hack.

I think Krugman is not quite on target here. Greenspan is not just another partisan hack, he is a modern day true believer in feudalism, a true Social Darwinist.

People's Life-Altering Experiences

I have recently begun checking out MetaFilter to see what all the fuss is about. In the process, I came across, honestly, one of the most amazing reads I've had in my life. If you ever follow one of my links, follow this one. Wow. It's a long read, but it's worth every word.

Not My Cup of Tea

But that doesn't matter!

Justice Dept. Fights Ruling on Obscenity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - In a case representing a major test of the Bush administration's campaign against pornography, the Justice Department said Wednesday that it would appeal a recent decision by a federal judge that declared federal obscenity laws unconstitutional.

Seems that there was a criminal case against a California video distributor for violating federal obscenity laws. It's a company that does, indeed provide what some would label as "hard core". Personally, I'd label it, "offensive".
The examples given in the article are "scenes of simulated gang rapes and other attacks on women". I don't want to watch that. I certainly don't know if any of my friends want to watch that.

Louis Sirkin, a Cincinnati lawyer representing the pornography distributor, said he believed the judge's opinion would be upheld.

"You can't legislate morality," Mr. Sirkin said. "You have to let people make their own personal decisions, and that's the important principle at stake in this case."...

...Judge Lancaster interpreted that ruling to mean that "public morality is not a legitimate state interest sufficient to justify infringing on adult, private, consensual, sexual conduct even if that conduct is deemed offensive to the general public's sense of morality."

That's it, right there. No, I don't want to buy this stuff, but this is a free country, and sometimes freedom means that people are allowed to do things that others find repulsive. Buying filthy videos doesn't hurt anyone. If the people participating in them are all there willingly, and the filmmakers aren't misrepresenting themselves, then they should be allowed to conduct business. There's just a fundamental difference between disgusting and illegal, and we, as Americans, have to respect that. It's part of what makes us a great country, right?

I find myself defending the most outrageous, unusual cases I can find, all for the purpose of making sure that the small, everyday freedoms remain safe far, far inside the container.

Do you know where your towel is?

Amazon.com has a trailer of the new movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. While I fully expect it to be yet another variant of the story, this one seems to have the special effects well worth the effort, and I look forward to wasting my $5.

Not a Fan Letter

Dave Shuster is a fan of Condoleeza Rice. Still though, he has a few unhappy words to say about her dealings with the French public.

Apparently, she gave a speech at a school where she took questions. Spontaneous questions? No, no! Vetted, pre-approved questions, of course!

The controls clamped down on the Secretary of State's "interaction" with French students are even more embarrassing when you consider what Dr. Rice said in her speech. "History is made by men and women of conviction, of commitment and of courage, who will not let their dreams be denied." But there was Dr. Rice, denying a free exchange between the Bush administration and a bunch of French college students. What exactly is the administration afraid of? Men and women of conviction? That the French students will ask annoying questions? So what?

So, what, indeed.

And, of course, this shining example of liberty and freedom preceded her fabulous job talking about the current issues between Syria and Lebanon, and why we recalled our ambassador before a HUGE funeral of State.

I'm not a fan of Condoleeza Rice. I think she's a smart, talented woman who's wasting it all in order to be able to play the game.

Buttons Have Been Declared Enemies of the State

Jeremy Caplan writes in this week's Time Notebook column about the army's new uniforms

The new duds substitute Velcro and zippers for buttons, which used to snag on gear.

Okay, wait a minute. Let's think this out.

You're a soldier. You're trying to creep up on a sniper who's shooting people. As you approach him, you realize that you need to reload your gun, and your bullets are in your pocket. You cautiously reach towards your ammo pocket, and start to pull it open ...

RRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!

Unless they've invented silent Velcro, this doesn't exactly seem like a wise design choice to me.

(On another, entirely nonpolitical note, learned something a bit sad about Keanu Reeves yesterday, of all people.)

Those Who Do Not Learn From History ...

I was reading perhaps the umpteenth article or column on Dean ascending to the position of DNC chairman, and I realized that there was a very interesting analogy.

Those who opposed Dean and his philosophy mounted what most people have called an "Anybody But Dean" campaign, in which various contenders stood up. However, most of them were extremely unpalatable, and their own personal platforms were either quite unclear or were anathema to the Democratic party. None were as brash and outspoken about the beliefs of the Democratic Party as Dean.

The results, I think, could be directly compared to the results of the national election.

Kerry's campaign (as well as those various groups assisting Kerry, such as MoveOn.Org, etc.) was rather consistently predicated on an "Anybody But Bush" campaign. I remember that even during the debate, when asked about a particular stance, Kerry suggested viewers look at his campaign website for his full plan, rather than having developed plainspoken concepts (again, the need for Democrats to master framing reared its head) to express his plan.

To summarize ...

Bush won the election, I feel, because he was able to express^* the values^** of the Republican Party^*** in a way that spoke to the basic heart of Americans, while his opponent ran a campaign based not on his own values but on "Anybody But Bush."

Dean won the chairmanship, I feel, because he was able to express the values of the Democratic Party in a way that spoke to the basic heart of liberals, while his opponents ran campaigns based not on their own values but on "Anybody But Dean."

* — With the help of a mysterious bulge, of course.
** — Not that those values are actually honored in practice, mind you.
*** — Republican Party (Neocon Mutation).

New Mars Rocks

Thirteen months and still going. The Mars rover Spirit is still making new discoveries months after it was supposed to dead.

(Image: NASA/JPL/Cornell)

The Mars rover Spirit has found the most interesting and significant exposure of bedrock so far in its 13 months of Red Planet exploration. The outcrop - dubbed Peace - is in the Columbia Hills which rise above the ancient lakebed of Gusev Crater.

The exciting feature of Peace for scientists is that it contains higher levels of sulphur than anything yet examined by Spirit. Other rocks encountered to date had sulphur minerals forming a surface crust, but little in the interior.

In contrast, Peace contains high levels of sulphur deep inside, says Ralf Gellert of the Max Planck Institute in Mainz, Germany. Because it is highly correlated with magnesium in the rock, it suggests the presence of magnesium sulphate, he says.

"This is probably the most interesting and important rock Spirit has examined," says chief rover scientists, Steven Squyres at Cornell University, New York, US. "It gives us even more compelling evidence for water playing a major role in altering the rocks here."

More evidence of water on Mars in the past.

The science team concluded that the rock seems to consist of sand-sized grains of typical Martian volcanic rock - olivine, pyroxene and magnetite - cemented together in a matrix of magnesium-sulphate salt.

That suggests two possible formation mechanisms, says Squyres, with both mechanisms involving the action of water.

The first is that liquid water, laden with dissolved magnesium sulphate, percolated through the rock and then evaporated away leaving the salt behind. The second is that the rock was weathered over a long period by dilute sulphuric acid in the air, reacting with magnesium-rich minerals already in the rock. The team hopes to pin down which way the layered bedrock formed by studying more areas in the coming weeks.

The Spirit's partner, Opportunity....

...has also shattered all previous Mars travel records, covering 157 metres (514 feet) in one day - 30 January 2005. This speed is far faster that the average rate of about 6.4 metres (21.1 feet) per day that it achieved during its first year of operation.

Tax dollars well spent.

Speaking of classy (jokes) ...

A cardiologist died and was given an elaborate funeral. A huge seven-foot-wide heart, covered in flowers, stood behind the casket during the service. Following the eulogy, the heart opened and the casket rolled inside. The heart then closed, sealing the doctor in the beautiful heart forever.

At that point, one of the mourners burst into laughter. When all eyes stared at him, he said, with a wry grin, "I'm so sorry, but I was just thinking of my own funeral ... I'm a gynecologist."

That's when the proctologist fainted.

Inaugurations Classy and Corrupt

Yeah, I know, it's not exactly the meme of the moment anymore. But I was brought back to it today by:

"Instead of being the host of an expensive Inaugration celebration while members of the U.S. military are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush could have unified the country by putting the $40 million that the festivities cost into a trust fund. That money could have been paid to the families of our military dead and to the injured and battle-worn survivors of conflicts." — David M. Pepper, Malibu, CA

The above letter appeared in this week's TIME, and when I read it, it just floored me: why didn't Bush do that? It would have been an amazing bit of PR for him. Hell, I hate the guy, and even I would have begrudgingly given him major props for the gesture. I suppose the only reason my cynical (and still semi-bleary) head can come up with is that it would have appeared to have been a concession to the charges, and thus a weakness. He would have only gotten the credit if he had come up with the idea first, instead of having it be a reaction to the charges of overextravagance. Still, a man that would let his ego and reputation get in the way of making substantial assistance ... Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) noted at the time that $40 million could have bought 690 Humvees and a $290 bonus for each soldier serving in Iraq.

I have to respect FDR. In the middle of World War II, his inauguration "ball" was a short speech at the White House followed by a buffet luncheon featuring chicken salad and pound cake - and that was it. Class. The American public should expect no less of this moron. Unfortunately, they'll no doubt continue to let him get away with everything he wants, showing them to be braindead morons themselves. I hate to have such a low opinion of the American populace — it's not exactly useful, let alone nice — but why do they let him get away with so much sh—t?!

Maybe I'm Actually Paranoid

OK, maybe I'm a bit of a moonbat on this one, but...

Yesterday, I was watching the news, and I saw yet another story about Valentine's Day being outlawed in Saudi Arabia. Suddenly it occurred to me - this is anti-Saudi propaganda. Oh, god, are we going to war with them, too?

I'm hoping I'm just paranoid.

The Bush Administration is truly evil

This should be beyond belief but it's not. Steve Soto at The Left Coaster reports of this disturbing report in The Asia times, US fights back against 'rule by clerics'. Steve does a great job of discussing the story so I'm not going to do a lot of copy and paste here, just head over to the Steve's post. What it's all about is the Bush administration is arming Baathists in the Shia areas in the South to fight the Shiite majority.

In other words, for the sake of maintaining control of the oil, the United States is prepared to foment civil war between the emerging Shia powers, who assume that with the election they will finally see the benefits of "liberation", and the same Baathists who ran with Hussein all these years.
[.......]
So, what the PNAC cabal thought they could control politically by installing their guy as PM, only to see him lose out to the Shiite factions, they now will try to control through armed militias, with direct ties to the United States.

Obviously, the Bush Administration’s definition of liberation is different than the Iraqis’ definition of liberation.

I don't know what more to say.

Brainfry

I am exhausted this afternoon, and my brain resembles slightly rotten Swiss cheese. Therefore, I toss these links at you, and I will see which stick on the wall, and which will fall on the ground for the cat to eat and then upchuck.

Rick Klau celebrates Dean's ascension to the DNC chairmanship, aptly noting, "[W]hen people like James Carville claim to be embarrassed by the grass-roots energy behind the selection of Dean as the party’s chair, well, I think that tells you just about everything you need to know about the state of the party today."

Last Thursday, Disney head Michael Eisner described as "pretty pathetic" the computerized human characters created by Pixar. Pixar head Steve Jobs zinged back, "Our films don't stack up to 'Atlantis,' 'Emperor's New Groove' or 'Treasure Planet.'" Heh. Imagine Jon Stewart doing his "Oh, SNAP!" Daily Show bit right here.

Top 10 Signs the Apocolypse Is Nigh. "5. 'A new strain of the AIDS virus that swiftly causes disease and resists virtually all anti-HIV drugs has been detected in New York City.'"

A hilarious moment in Batman history. "So, they laugh at my boner, will they?!"

I have to call bullsh—t on this one.

Finally, actor and blogger Wil Wheaton has evidently finally landed a role ... on CSI, even. He'll be playing a homeless individual, although his make-up seems to make him look like a drummer for a '80s hair band. If you've never checked out Wil's blog, you've missed out on some incredibly, incredibly fine writing. Who woulda thunk that 'Wesley' could turn out to be one heck of a writer?

Winners and Losers

Yesterday over at Middle Earth Journal we discussed how the neocons and George W. Bush were the real losers in the Iraqi elections. In the Washington Post today Robin Wright elaborates and tells us Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision.

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.

But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.

While the Bush administration tries to spin this as a great victory it can only be seen as a loss as the US supported party came in a poor third. As Condi Rice takes her dog and pony show on the road and continues to threaten Iran the two parties than won over 70 percent of the vote have Iranian ties and are expected to have relatively good relations with Iran.

Thousands of members of the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite-dominated slate that won almost half of the 8.5 million votes and will name the prime minister, spent decades in exile in Iran. Most of the militia members in its largest faction were trained in Shiite-dominated Iran.

And the winning Kurdish alliance, whose co-leader Jalal Talabani is the top nominee for president, has roots in a province abutting Iran, which long served as its economic and political lifeline.

"This is a government that will have very good relations with Iran. The Kurdish victory reinforces this conclusion. Talabani is very close to Tehran," said Juan Cole, a University of Michigan expert on Iraq. "In terms of regional geopolitics, this is not the outcome that the United States was hoping for."

The bottom line is the Bush administration is so delusional and incompetent it can't even accomplish it's own nefarious goals.

Another Irrefutable Argument Against Privatizing Social Security

Michael Kinsley brings us The Meathead Proposition from one of the great economic minds of the time, actor and liberal activist Rob Reiner. There is nothing that Krugman and Kinsley himself haven't said already but it's written in a way that we of little knowledge can understand.

......even if these private investments do better than the government bonds in which the current Social Security surplus is invested, this won't change the total amount being invested in the private economy, or increase the economic growth that comes from private investment, because the government will just have to go out and borrow elsewhere to replace the dollars it isn't able to borrow from Social Security. And that means that every time someone puts a Social Security dollar into a private account, someone else must be persuaded to take a dollar currently invested in the private economy and put it in government bonds.

To get the scheme enacted, Bush must convince Americans of the exact opposite: that private-sector investment will make them better off than fuddy-duddy old government bonds. Basically, privatization schemes assume that the alleged inferiority of government bonds can be our little secret for the next few decades -- just us folks in the Social Security system. And so we can just unload a few trillion in government bonds on all those two or three Americans who aren't in Social Security, plus maybe some hapless foreigners.

So the pro privatization people have a big job. They have to convince some that Treasury Bonds are a bad deal while convincing others they are a good deal. Does that make sense to you? In effect, they are using two conflicting scenarios to sell one privitiztion package.

Privatization schemes assume that this will have no effect on how much interest the government will have to pay, or what kind of long-term return you can expect on investments in the private economy. For example the right-wing Heritage Foundation, a major thumper for privatization, assumes that private accounts can earn a long-term, risk-free return of 4.7 percent after inflation, which they say is based on history.

But if free markets work the way they are supposed to -- and I would like to hear the Heritage Foundation say that they do not -- the effect of the government's announcing that government bonds are a bad investment and officially pushing people to put their money elsewhere will be to make it more expensive for the government to borrow money. So even if private stocks and bonds are a better long-term investment than government bonds (after factoring in risk and so on), they won't stay that way for long. Meanwhile, in their latest report, the Social Security trustees assume that growth in the nation's gross domestic product will slow from 4.4 percent to 1.8 percent in 2015 and will stay there for the next six decades. They predict productivity growth of 1.6 percent and average unemployment of 5.5 percent. From this and other data, the trustees predict that the trust fund will earn 3 percent a year (5.8 percent interest minus 2.8 percent inflation). This is their "intermediate" assumption, from which Bush concludes that the shortfall will hit the fan in 2042.

These assumptions about the unknowable are not unreasonable. Nor are the assumptions of the Heritage Foundation. What is unreasonable is using both sets of assumptions at the same time. Can a conservative investment in stocks and bonds grow by 4.7 percent a year, for decades, while productivity is growing by 1.6 percent and the economy by 1.8 percent? Theoretically possible, perhaps. But likely? On average?

If you start by assuming that one investment pays better than another, it's not very surprising (or persuasive) if this is also your conclusion. A dollar a year invested for 37 years (now until 2042) at 3 percent interest produces $66. At 4.7 percent, it's $95.

What these all means is

If the Heritage Foundation is right, there is no crisis to fix. And if the Social Security trustees are right, the Heritage fix won't work.

Now we can see why the administration couldn't get a real economist to take John Snow's place and why no one but administration shills are pushing Bush's privitization plan.