Tuesday Reads

Posted: March 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, birth control, Mitt Romney, morning reads, New Orleans, Newt Gingrich, psychology, Reproductive Rights, Republican presidential politics, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, War on Women | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 46 Comments

Good Morning!!

Let’s get right to the news. I’m going to start with a couple of items that should particularly interest Dakinikat. First, Charlie Pierce wrote a post yesterday about Bobby Jindal’s campaign for VP.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal wants to be your vice-president. (He may also want to be your president, too, but being your vice-president first is an easy way to do that.) His first audition for the second slot was to become the prime surrogate for the relentless juggernaut that was the Rick Perry campaign.

(This was a juggernaut only in the sense that people watched Perry speak in the debates and asked each other, “Is he hitting the jug or not?” Thank you. I’ll be back for the late show.)

Once he rode that baby straight into the ground, Jindal decided to campaign for the job on his own, all the while hoping that nobody in the country remembers his memorable “reply” to the president’s State of the Union address back in 2009, during which Jindal looked like a 12-year old wearing his grandfather’s suit, the one in which Jindal scoffed at federal spending on “volcano monitoring” a little more than a year before a big hunk of Iceland blew up and nearly destroyed the airline industry in Europe.

Pierce is reacting to Jindal’s op-ed at the WSJ: Obama’s Politicized Energy Policy

With rising energy costs making it more expensive to drive our cars, heat our homes, and fuel our sputtering economy, many Republicans are criticizing the Obama administration for a failure to adopt a comprehensive energy policy. I believe that critique lets the president off too easily. His administration does have a national energy policy—it’s just a subservient by-product of his radical environmental policy.

This administration willfully ignores rational choices that would lower energy prices and reduce U.S. reliance on foreign energy sources.

Bla, bla, bla…”rational” advice from a guy who believes in exorcism.

We all lost an hour of our lives a couple of days ago when the government made us “spring forward” into daylight savings time (DST). I love it, because it means it stays light a little longer at the end of the day here in New England, but Dak hates what it does to her down in New Orleans. Of course up here in the north, I don’t have the problem of darkness in the early morning.

The Christian Science Monitor had an interesting article on DST yesterday. CSM reports on a psychological study that found that workers are sleepy the next day after the time change (duh!) and are more likely to waste time on the internet at work. “Global productivity losses from a spike in employee cyberloafing are potentially staggering,” the researchers conclude.

CSM says that the origins of DST go way back. It was “originally proposed by a 19th century butterfly collector who wanted more time at the end of the workday to scour fields for insects,” and was first implemented “during World War I (peacetime standardization came in 1966).”

The most recent real adjustment in the US came in 2007, when the change was moved up to the second Sunday in March from the first Sunday in April to lengthen “summertime” and gauge potential energy savings. Polls showed farmers, perennial DST opponents, grumbled, and sports retailers (who benefit from the extra hour of daylight for play time after work) rejoiced.

If you’re worried about lost sleep, you might want to read this article at Alternet: The 8-Hour Sleep Myth: How I Learned That Everything I Knew About Sleep Was Wrong. Apparently it’s not really natural for humans to sleep through the night. The author read about this in a BBC article. Here’s the gist from the Alternet piece:

Turns out that psychiatrist Thomas Wehr ran an experiment back in the ‘90s in which people were thrust into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month. When their sleep regulated, a strange pattern emerged. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before drifting off again into a second four-hour sleep.

Historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech would not have been surprised by this pattern. In 2001, he published a groundbreaking paper based on 16 years of research, which revealed something quite amazing: humans did not evolve to sleep through the night in one solid chunk. Until very recently, they slept in two stages. Shazam.

In his book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, Ekrich presents over 500 references to these two distinct sleep periods, known as the “first sleep” and the “second sleep,” culled from diaries, court records, medical manuals, anthropological studies, and literature, including The Odyssey. Like an astrolabe pointing to some forgotten star, these accounts referenced a first sleep that began two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep.

This waking period, known in some cultures as the “watch,” was filled with everything from bringing in the animals to prayer. Some folks visited neighbors. Others smoked a pipe or analyzed their dreams. Often they lounged in bed to read, chat with bedfellows, or have much more refreshing sex than we modern humans have at bedtime. A 16th-century doctor’s manual prescribed sex after the first sleep as the most enjoyable variety.

That makes me feel a lot better, since I’ve rarely ever been able to sleep through the night, and in my later years, I have a terrible time falling asleep in the first place.

In political news, President Obama’s approval rating has suddenly tanked, supposedly because of gas prices.

Despite improving job growth and an extended Republican primary fight dividing his would-be opponents, President Obama is heading into the general election season on treacherous political ground, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

At a time of rising gas prices, heightened talk of war with Iran and setbacks in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama’s approval rating dropped substantially in recent weeks, the poll found, with 41 percent of respondents expressing approval of the job he is doing and 47 percent saying they disapprove — a dangerous position for any incumbent seeking re-election.

Which is kind of scary because of the horrifying Republican presidential candidates. It’s still early, so I’m not panicking just yet. Speaking of the clown car crew, there are four primaries today–in Alabama, Mississippi, Hawaii, and American Samoa. I’m not sure if we’ll have a live blog, because the last one was a bit of dud. If you’d like to have one, please say so in the comments to this post. We’ll definitely post the results tonight though.

As of last night, Romney was in the running in both Alabama and Mississippi, where the polls show Romney Gingrich, and Santorum all running neck and neck. The worst news is that Romney is now leading Obama by 5 points nationally.

The next item drew a {heavy sigh} from me. A new PPP poll found that a whole lot of voters in Alabama and Mississippi think President Obama is a Muslim. {{Heavy sigh….}}

The poll of Mississippi Republicans found that 52% said they believed Obama is a Muslim, 36% weren’t sure and only 12% said they believed he is a Christian. He fared slightly better in Alabama, where 45% said he is a Muslim, 41% weren’t sure, and 14% said he is a Christian.

Some folks in these two deep South state don’t care for interracial marriages like the one that produced Barack Obama.

67% of Alabama Republicans saying they believe interracial marriage should be legal, though 21% said it still should be against the law. In Mississippi, 54% said it should be allowed, while 29% said it should remain illegal.

The preferred Republican candidate of those opposed to interracial marriage? Newt Gingrich. In Mississippi, Gingrich led Romney among that group 40% to 27%, and held a 38%-27% advantage in Alabama.

I am soooooo glad I don’t live in Alabama or Mississippi! Alexandra Petri of the WaPo calls it “the time traveler vote.” She says that voters must have just arrived from the 1920s.

I don’t know why it didn’t strike me sooner. So many of the issues at stake this year are Issues I Thought We Resolved Several Decades Ago. This is 2012, with lots of economic distress and voter unrest to go around. Why are we suddenly prioritizing Taking Back Control Of Women’s Bodies For The State?

But if you consider the Time Traveling Vote, it all makes sense.

I am not sure how big the vote is. But if the recent actions of many state legislatures are to be taken into account, it is surely substantial.

To visitors from the past, these issues are still pressing and vital. They don’t care about jobs! Once the election’s over, they’re headed back to 1926, where the economy is still roaring and everyone is flapping and doing the Charleston.

It certainly makes more sense than the assumption that they’ve simply been ignoring all the headlines, most of the textbooks, the entire women’s rights movement and the scientific consensus for decades.

Some love letters between the young Richard Nixon and his future wife Pat will be displayed at the Nixon Library. They are said to show Nixon’s “sensitive side.” A sample:

“Every day and every night I want to see you and be with you. Yet I have no feeling of selfish ownership or jealousy. In fact I should always want you to live just as you wanted – because if you didn’t then you would change and wouldn’t be you,” Nixon wrote in one of the letters, part of a rotating display at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

“Let’s go for a long ride Sundays; let’s go to the mountains weekends; let’s read books in front of fires; most of all let’s really grow together and find the happiness we know is ours,” he continued.

Whatever happened to that guy?

Finally, have you heard that Arlen Specter has a memoir coming out? Naturally, it’s full of complaints. Harry Reid stabbed him in the back after promising to give Specter seniority as a Democrat if he switched parties. Obama and Biden didn’t help him in his primary campaign against Joe Sestak. The most interesting revelation in the article in The Hill is that Bob Dole told Specter he (Dole) would have switched parties too.

“Dole told me I had done the right thing, that I had done a terrific job as a senator, been involved in a lot of projects, been very active, and hadn’t gotten credit for a lot of the stuff I had done,” he wrote.

“I said, ‘Bob, I think that it’s very meaningful when you say that I did the right thing, in the party change.’

“He said, ‘Well,’ and then paused and thought for a few seconds. Then he said, ‘I probably would have done the same thing.’ ”

Never mind all that. I want to read about Specter’s role in the Warren Commission and how he dreamed up the “single bullet theory.”

That’s all I’ve got for now. What are you reading and blogging about today?

Saturday Morning Reads: Our Future. Our Selves.

Posted: October 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: black women's reproductive health, children, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Feminists, Foreign Affairs, GLBT Rights, Hillary Clinton, morning reads, Planned Parenthood, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, religion, religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, right wing hate grouups | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Leymah Gbowee

Good Morning!

I admit to a growing fascination with Leymah Gbowee since hearing several interviews with her after the announcement that she is one of three women sharing the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.  She is just one of those take charge and get it done women if there ever was one!  I am now itching to see “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”.  This is a documentary by  filmmaker Abigail Disney.  Here is a link to a 2009 report from Bill Moyers Journal on the 2008 film.  Yes, Abigail Disney comes from THAT family but the movie is a long ways away from animated princesses and singing animals.  You can watch the Moyers piece here to get a feel for Gbowee’s commitment to social justice in Liberia.

Women’s News Network updated their recent interview with Gbowee on her work to secure reproductive and sexual rights of African women as well as her efforts to assure peace in Liberia.  She also addresses the needs of American women in the interview.  Yes.  We can learn many things from the struggles of women in developing nations for basic rights as we see the daily erosion of our own.  Did you ever believe you would live a country where the whims of a druggist can dictate your access to prescribed medicine?

In Gbowee’s estimation, American women also have challenges that need to be addressed. This topic came up in response to our conversation about CEDAW, and the inability for the agreement to get national traction. She referenced the disadvantages that come from not signing the international treaty. Totally frank in her assessment questioning America’s ability to provide cogent leadership on women’s issues, Gbowee pointed to matters that leaders “don’t want to tackle.”

She said, “If a President or Secretary of State is standing up and making statements about the rapes in Congo, and that same country has not signed a document that is so important to the lives of their women —what other name do you give it but hypocrisy?”

Part of our exchange included how important it was for those working to help women under siege, to truly engage in an equal dialogue. “There is a need to speak to the women of these countries,” Gbowee said. She told me a story about a trip she had taken to Congo where she had spoken with women on the ground, and learned that for them “rape was at the bottom of the list.”

At the top — was “political participation.” For those women, “rape is a symptom of an actual issue.” She continued, “We want to help. But we need to step out of our donor driven issues and step into what it is that these communities actually want.”

Yes. Gbowee’s  got me thinking on how United States women are losing ground daily. She is right.  Our country has not signed on to CEDAW.  What does this say about a President that MS magazine labelled a feminist?  This link takes you to the Text of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.   Why is our country not a signatory? Why are our rights not a priority?

The Convention defines discrimination against women as “…any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.”

By accepting the Convention, States commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms, including:

  • to incorporate the principle of equality of men and women in their legal system, abolish all discriminatory laws and adopt appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women;
  • to establish tribunals and other public institutions to ensure the effective protection of women against discrimination; and
  • to ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises.

 The Convention provides the basis for realizing equality between women and men through ensuring women’s equal access to, and equal opportunities in, political and public life — including the right to vote and to stand for election — as well as education, health and employment.  States parties agree to take all appropriate measures, including legislation and temporary special measures, so that women can enjoy all their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

It seems that a country as advanced as ours would consider the rights of half of its citizens to be extremely important, wouldn’t it?  However, that doesn’t appear to be the priority of many folks in government outside of the US State Department.  Here is a youtube of SOS Clinton saying that the treaty is a priority of the Obama administration.  Why haven’t we signed it?

American women are experiencing an incredible set back in rights.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius spoke at an  abortion rights  fundraiser on Wednesday where she issued a strong warning against moves by Republicans to roll back women’s health gains by 50 years.  Women are being sent back to chattel status in state after state.

“We’ve come a long way in women’s health over the last few decades, but we are in a war,” Sebelius said at a NARAL Pro-Choice America luncheon attended by about 300 people, who gave some of their loudest applause at her mention of the Obama administration’s support for requiring insurance plans to cover birth control without copays.

Sebelius said women have suffered discrimination by insurance companies that considered “Viagra an essential medication and birth control a lifestyle choice.”

Her message resonated with some at the event who acknowledged doubts about Obama’s leadership on a variety of liberal issues.

“I’m a little disappointed with his force, his forcefulness, pretty much across the board,” Chicagoan Bamboo Solzman said of Obama. Sebelius’ remarks at Wednesday’s event solidified Solzman’s support of Obama’s re-election, she said. “He was forward enough to choose her, so that does help,” Solzman said.

We are clearly losing ground.  While women in the administration are being sent out to do heartfelt speeches, nothing is being done to protect our rights.  Speeches do not protect women and children from the brutalities of fundamentalist religions and the economic realities of sex-based discrimination.  Neoconfederate Ron Paul is just one among many Republican presidential contenders that wants to eliminate access to something as simple as basic birth control.  The fight is not just for our right to abortion.  It is for our right to birth control and self determination.

“I am deeply troubled by the flippancy with which President Obama recently discussed regulations that are alarming and troublesome for many Americans,” Paul said. “Not all Americans are comfortable with the Obama administration’s decision to mandate coverage of birth control and morning-after pills, and the considerations of these people, many of them Christian conservatives, are worthy of careful consideration – not mockery.”

“Many, like me, view this rigid regulatory overstep from which there is inadequate opportunity to self-exempt as payback to Planned Parenthood and big pharmaceutical companies for their support of Obamacare,” Paul added. “Many others oppose it out of strict moral conviction and their voices should be heard at least to the extent that an authentic opportunity to exempt be provided. That is, until Obamacare is repealed in its entirety.”

“As this mandate violates the conscience of millions of pro-life Americans, I have introduced in Congress H.R. 1099, the Taxpayer Freedom of Conscience Act, which removes all federal funding for domestic and international family planning,” Paul continued. “As President, I plan to defund Obamacare and all federal programs that use tax money taken from the American people to promote abortion and provide abortion services domestically and globally. I pledge also to veto any bill with funding for Planned Parenthood or any other international family planning regimes.”

Any of us can have deeply felt beliefs against the death penalty, against invasions of nations, and against assassination without due process of American citizens, yet none of our concerns are met with similar angst and pearl clutching.  Only the fetus fetishists get to object to using their puny tax dollars for every one.  If they don’t want abortions or birth control, they just shouldn’t get them.  That should have nothing to do with our access  Their views preclude the findings of modern science and medicine and they are ruling the day.

Most Republican presidential wannabes spent their week pandering to so called “values voters” at a summit cum hatefest.   Clearly, this political movement is out to define every one’s personal choices to meet their maxims. They have declared an open war on women’s rights.  Rick Perry’s Endorser called Mitt Romney’s faith a “cult” and referred to Planned Parenthood as “a slaughterhouse for the unborn”.  This is nothing more than hate speech dressed up in a pastor’s robe.

It was no ordinary opener from the prominent Southern Baptist Convention leader, Pastor Robert Jeffress, who endorsed Perry on Friday. Jeffress praised Perry for defunding Planned Parenthood in Texas, calling the provider of women’s health and abortion services, “that slaughterhouse for the unborn.”

He also lauded Perry’s “strong commitment to biblical values.”

“Do we want a candidate who is skilled in rhetoric or one who is skilled in leadership? Do we want a candidate who is a conservative out of convenience or one who is a conservative out of deep conviction?” Jeffress said. “Do we want a candidate who is a good, moral person — or one who is a born-again follower of the lord Jesus Christ?”

Jeffress called Perry a “genuine follower of Jesus Christ.” The pastor did not mention Perry’s rival Mitt Romney by name, but he told reporters after his remarks on Friday that Mormonism was a “cult.”

Jeffress’ comments and his endorsement of Perry threatened to inject some tension into what has been a relatively quiet year for religion on the campaign trail and the Perry campaign sought to quiet the uproar.

The campaign’s official comment on Jeffress evolved quickly on Friday afternoon. When initially asked by ABC News whether Gov. Perry agreed that Mormonism is a cult, Perry spokesman Mark Miner said: “The governor doesn’t judge what is in the heart and soul of others. He leaves that to God.”

My horrible governor Bobby Jindal joked about pedophilia at this same hub of hatred.  What an inappropriate topic for jokes! Since so many folks were herded out of New Orleans and Southern Louisiana after Katrina, we can no longer even find a decent field of candidates to run against a man that’s trying to bring back the plantation system of government and economics.  He has spent tremendous amounts of money courting chicken evisceration plants to our state for a few horrible paying jobs while decimating our already fragile public health and education systems.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) knows just how to crack up the audience at the Values Voter Summit: just make a joke about former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) being a pedophile.

After a long winded speech about all his accomplishments protecting children from sex offenders, Jindal brought it home.

“What I can do as governor is this: I can make Louisiana the last place that anyone who wants to in any way harm a child by exposing children to inappropriate material,” Jindal said. “I can make Louisiana a dangerous place for Congressman Weiner to relocate to.”

Louisiana is a dangerous place for teachers, nurses, and public employees right now because of this man and that clearly makes it a dangerous place for children.  After all, this is the same governor that foisted a creationist law on them.   He clearly doesn’t value children enough to educate them in science, protect their health, and provide them decent teachers and classrooms.  Our children need protection from our Governor.

The scientific community has long advocated that allowing anything but science in the teaching of evolution will be intellectually harmful. In an e-mail sent to the Associated Press, Harold Kroto, a Nobel Prize winner for chemistry in 1996, said voting against the repeal creates a situation that “should be likened to requiring Louisiana school texts to include the claim that the Sun goes round the Earth.”

While evolutionary biology is based in the work of Charles Darwin, which shows how humans evolved through natural selection, creationism is rooted in a fundamental reading of Biblical texts that say mankind is the product of a divine maker.

With the law intact, Louisiana is the state that has gone the furthest in approving legislation that opens the door to allowing alternatives to science taught in its schools.

American women are also not making much headway to influence corporate culture and business decisions through board appointments.  America’s top business women attended Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, California.  Board positions are key to efforts to break the glass ceiling because boards approve CEO pay and appointments.  One of the questions raised at the meeting was dealing with requests to become a board’s token woman. The topic was raised by Anne Mulcahy–former Xerox CEO and board member–who questioned if it was worth the effort to become the lone female on what has been an all boy board.

At the same time, female representation on boards is still a major issue. The percentage of female directors, which hovers around 20 percent, has been at a standstill over the past decade—Spencer Stuart finds that there has been no increase in that ratio since 2000. The research firm Catalyst reports an even lower number, 16 percent, putting the United States behind Finland, Sweden and Norway, which actually has a law requiring 40 percent of all board members at Norwegian companies to be women. Those low percentages persist despite the fact that study after study has shown that more diverse boards are associated with greater company performance.

I get what Mulcahy is saying. Why should women in positions of power join a club, as she puts it, that they may not want to be a part of? At that level, most women have multiple commitments, and joining a board where they’re treated like tokens rather than assets may not be the best use of their time. In addition, they may be able to have more of an impact on a board that is already forward thinking and receptive to diversity.

So, at a time when we are celebrating the progress made by women who have reached presidencies in countries in South America, Africa, Australia, and the East, we are seeing tremendous setbacks in women’s rights here in the United States.  Who are the Leymah Gbowee’s of North America?    Let us do more than just pray a few of our own devils back to hell.  Let’s be in their faces and all in their business just like Ms. Gbowee! (See youtube below.) Let’s be an entire population of women that won’t shut up!!!

Sunday Reads

Posted: November 28, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Breaking News, Democratic Politics, Diplomacy Nightmares, Elections, Global Financial Crisis, Gulf Oil Spill, morning reads, The Great Recession, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Economy | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 59 Comments
good morning!!!

Here’s an interesting piece in the Christian Science Monitor about an attempt to knock Rahm Emanuel off the ballot for the Chicago Mayoral election.  Emanuel’s eligibility is in question because of his residency in the District as Obama’s Chief of Staff.  Does that duty deserve similar treatment to active duty soldiers?

Chicago area election lawyer Burt Odelson filed his challenge to the Chicago Board of Elections, saying that Emanuel does not meet a state law that requires all candidates to be residents of the municipality in which they seek office for at least one year. He filed on behalf of two Chicago residents; on Wednesday, five other challenges were filed separately. Tuesday is the last day objections can be filed to the election board.

Central to Mr. Odelson’s argument is that Emanuel was removed from voter rolls twice during his two-year tenure in Washington, when he served as White House chief of staff to President Obama. During that time, Emanuel rented out his home. His campaign says he maintained ties to the city by paying property taxes, maintaining a driver’s license, and voting in the February primary.

Economists Olivier Jeanne and Anton Korinek  at VOX are suggesting Pigou taxes  (i.e. sin taxes) on financial corporations that would vary with credit booms and busts.    Rules would change depending on the state of the economy.  Suggestions include requiring higher capital levels or placing some kind of penalty on an organization when they take on large amounts of credit during an asset price boom.  The purpose is to impose the social cost of bailing the organization out on them to prevent from doing so and causing havoc in the financial markets. The idea is that they’d be less able to profit from the leverage so they’d be less likely to  go for the risk.  Suggestions specifically target mortgages with balloons or “teaser rates” since they are more risky and more likely to blow up in the face of market troubles.  The tax would then be used to fund any required bailout.

The optimal tax should also be adapted to the maturity of debt. Long-term debt makes the economy less vulnerable to busts than short-term debt, because lenders cannot immediately recall their loans when the value of collateral assets declines. For example, 30-year mortgages make the economy less prone to busts than mortgages with teaser rates that are meant to be refinanced after a short period of time.

An important benefit of ex-ante prudential taxation during booms is that it avoids the moral hazard problems associated with bailouts. When borrowers expect to receive bailouts in the event of systemic crises, they have additional incentives to take on debt. If the financial regulators accumulate a bailout fund, borrowers may increase their indebtedness in equal measure, leading to a form of “bailout neutrality”

Real Time Economics over at the WSJ has some interesting numbers up on Mortgage defaults.  The ever increasing backlog of defaults is worrisome.

492: The number of days since the average borrower in foreclosure last made a mortgage payment.

Banks can’t foreclose fast enough to keep up with all the people defaulting on their mortgage loans. That’s a problem, because it could make stiffing the bank even more attractive to struggling borrowers.

In recent months, the number of borrowers entering severe delinquency — meaning they missed their third monthly mortgage payment — has been on the decline, falling to about 700,000 in October, according to mortgage-data provider LPS Applied Analytics. But it’s still more than double the number of foreclosure processes started.

I personally enjoyed reading this Michelle Goldberg take-down on the Daily Beast of certain right wing women politicians who are trying to campaign as the ‘real’ feminists while throwing out their rewrites of herstory.  The Right Wing always rewrites history with the worst revisions.  I’m calling what they adhere to feminotexactlyism.  Here’s a few tidbits.

The historical revisionism here recalls that of Christian conservatives who try to paint our deistic Founding Fathers as devout evangelicals. At one point, Palin refers to Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments,” which came out of the historic 1848 women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York. Stanton deliberately echoed the language of the Declaration of Independence, referring to the rights that women are entitled to “by the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” To Palin, this mention of God proves that Stanton shared her faith: “Can you imagine a contemporary feminist invoking ‘the laws of nature and of nature’s God?’ These courageous women spoke of our God-given rights because they believed they were given equally, by God, to men and women.”

Not really. Stanton was a famous freethinker, eventually shunned by more conservative elements of the women’s movement for her attacks on religion. In one 1885 speech, she declared, “You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded women.” Ten years later, she published the first volume of The Woman’s Bible, her mammoth dissection of biblical misogyny. Stanton was particularly scathing on the notion of the virgin birth: “Out of this doctrine, and that which is akin to it, have sprung all the monasteries and nunneries of the world, which have disgraced and distorted and demoralized manhood and womanhood for a thousand years.”

For more debunking, including that silly one about Susan B Anthony being some how against abortion, go read the article.  Facts are  such tractable things to Republicans that I wonder why any sane person would quote one without fact checking them first.  I just can’t take any more presidential candidates needing basic re-education; let alone presidents that require it.

Speaking of another one in that category, the national spotlight isn’t doing much good for my governor either.  I’ve got two sources I’ll quote here.  The first one is The American Thinker which you may recall is conservative.  They’ve even got his number.  It seems that just writing books about yourself is not going to be the path to Presidency any more.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is busy promoting his new tome Leadership and Crisis with book tour stops all over the country. This latest tour comes on top of his previous speaking tours to raise campaign cash for himself and various Republican candidates around the country. The only place Governor Jindal has trouble visiting is his home state of Louisiana. The joke in Louisiana is that Bobby is known as a governor in 49 states.


Louisiana blogger Lamar White, Jr. takes it even farther.  Yup, Jindal’s our ROAD Scholar. We can’t keep professors on university payrolls but we can sure pay for him to promote his self-serving book.

The oil spill was a huge scare, but instead of being honest about it, Jindal used it as an opportunity to advance his own political celebrity and perpetuate ridiculously disconcerting and almost masochistic myths about the effects of a deepwater drilling moratorium, none of which turned out to be true. He spent more time posing for the cameras and tagging along with CNN than practically anyone else, yet, in his “memoir,” it’s the Obama Administration who cared about media perception, not him. As an example, he cites a letter he delivered requesting an increase for federally-subsidized food stamps, suggesting that the Obama Administration delayed on their response. According to White House officials, Jindal’s formal request was delivered on the same day that Jindal called a press conference decrying the delays. Pure political theater.

But most importantly, when Jindal says Congressmen should spend more time at home, he should probably listen to his own advice. During the last couple of years, Jindal’s become more known for the things he has done outside of Louisiana than for anything he has done here in Louisiana. Before the November elections, he spent weeks touring the country to support fellow Republican candidates, and only two weeks after the election, he embarked on yet another nationwide tour, this time promoting his memoir.

I have to admit that this next Republican presidential primary is going to have me chewing my finger nails off.  If this is the best they have to offer, we are SO sunk.

Both the Koreas are upping the stakes in the Yellow Sea.  North Korea is sending veiled threats to the U.S about sending its air carrier–USS George Washington–into the area for joint ‘war games’.  SOS Clinton is in talks with the Chinese.  This is from The Guardian.

The world’s diplomatic corps is working feverishly to contain the crisis and make sure there is no further conflict. China, which is widely seen as having influence over the North, has held talks with the US between its foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, and the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. “The pressing task now is to put the situation under control,” the Chinese foreign ministry quoted Yang as telling Clinton.

Meanwhile the US stressed that its military operation with the South – which includes deployment of a nuclear-armed aircraft carrier – was not intended to provoke the North. Yet the North’s news agency addressed that issue: “If the US brings its carrier to the West Sea of Korea [Yellow Sea] at last, no one can predict the ensuing consequences.”

The the joint US-South Korea exercises started late last night.  Here’s the report on them from English Al Jazeera.

South Korea’s military later said that explosions – possibly the sound of artillery fire – were heard on Yeonpyeong Island.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that what is believed to have been a round of artillery was heard on Sunday from a North Korean military base north of the sea border dividing the two Koreas. It was not immediately clear where the round landed.

Residents of the island were ordered to take shelter in underground bunkers, but that order was later withdrawn, according to Yonhap.

Dozens of reporters, along with soldiers and police and a few residents, headed for the bunkers, where they remained for 40 minutes.

I’ve been watching the euro crisis again as the problems with Ireland seem to be creating problems with Spain now.  My print copy of The Economist didn’t come this morning so I’ve been having to read the cyber ink here.  My Saturday night soak in a hot bath was just not the same without it.  So,here’s my idea of a chiller thriller.

Europe’s rescue plan is based on the idea that Ireland and the rest just need to borrow a bit of cash to tide them over while they sort out their difficulties. But investors increasingly worry that such places cannot, in fact, afford to service their debts—each in a slightly different way. In Ireland the problem is dodgy banks and the government’s hasty decision in September 2008 to guarantee all their liabilities. Some investors think this may end up costing even more than the promised EU/IMF loans of some €85 billion ($115 billion)—especially if bank deposits continue to flee the country (see Buttonwood). Ireland’s failing government adds to the doubt, because it could find it hard to push through an austerity budget before a new election (see article). In Greece the fear is that the government cannot raise enough in taxes or grow fast enough to finance its vast borrowing. Likewise in Portugal, which though less severely troubled than Greece nevertheless seems likely to follow Ireland to the bail-out window.

If the panic were confined to these three, the euro zone could cope. But Europe’s bail-out fund is not big enough to handle the country next in line: Spain, the euro’s fourth-biggest economy, with a GDP bigger than Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined.

One has to ask how much the Germans are going to pony up the cross country fiscal policy this will take.   I’m still not ready to call the eminent demise of the EURO since every study that I’ve read–and I’ve read lots over the last three years–points to how much trade and foreign direct investment has come from integration.  This will test a lot of wills; good an otherwise. Meanwhile, the Irish are rebelling over their deal. They don’t want austerity measures any more than the Greeks do or we do for that matter.

The Economist also weighed in on  the “Republican Backlash” to the QE2 calling it perplexing which I believe is equal to me being baffled by the whole thing.  It’s still either they don’t know a damn thing (e.g. Republican presidential wannabe candidate number 1 on the link up top) or they just want the power so they don’t really care (e.g Republican presidential wannabe candidate number 2 on the link up top there).  Has to be.  What is still the weirdest thing to me is how many of them seem to hate Bernanke who is–afterall–a fellow Republican and a Dubya appointee.  What a strange, strange world this has turn out to be.  I mean Ron Paul is going to be in charge of the House subcommittee on Monetary Policy next year.  That’s like putting a representative of Astronauts for a flat earth society in charge of NASA.

Yet the fight is not ultimately over numbers, but ideology. To be sure, the Fed’s reputation has suffered among Americans of all political stripes over its failure to prevent the crisis and its bail-outs of banks. But the tea-party movement holds it in particularly low regard, seeing it as the monetary bedfellow of the hated stimulus and bail-outs. Some 60% of tea-party activists want the Fed abolished or overhauled, according to a Bloomberg poll. One of the movement’s heroes is Ron Paul, a congressman from Texas who wants to scrap the Fed outright and bring back the gold standard. His son Rand, newly elected as a senator from Kentucky, has also been stridently critical. QE can be made to seem sinister: an animated video on YouTube that portrays it as a conspiracy between Goldman Sachs and the Fed to fleece the taxpayer has been viewed over 2m times.

The ideological content of the backlash should not be overestimated. In 1892 William Jennings Bryan, later the Democratic presidential candidate, declared: “The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.” Liberals accuse the Republican leadership of likewise concocting an excuse to rally their base against Barack Obama. Indeed, the letter to Mr Bernanke criticises QE2 in much the same language used to oppose fiscal stimulus: as a dampener of business confidence and stability.

Well, I’ve just about had it with the print news today.  Do you suppose the Sunday News Programs will have anything on more meaningful?

Ah, probably not.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

The American Dream Perverted

Posted: August 4, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Voter Ignorance | Tags: , | Comments Off on The American Dream Perverted

I have been known to bitch and moan about the number of students that show up in my class that aren’t either ready, prepared or able to take a university class. (Most of this would be taken care of if they’d allow student loans to cover remedial courses, but they don’t. They force the unprepared into classes where they will most likely fail.) Yes, it would make my life easier and yes, it seems like it somewhat makes sense to spend precious resources on those with the greatest chance of actually benefiting from higher education. Still, there is something in me that is quite bothered by the recent move in Louisiana to solve its education problems with a samurai budget sword. I want to address the mess the Governor and the Legislature here in Louisiana is making of higher education due to budget cuts and ‘reorganization’. I think the budget is just the excuse just as Hurricane Katrina has been an excuse to remove some things from New Orleans. The result will be that fewer students will get into public universities, fewer programs will be offered to students, and all of this will boil down to fewer opportunities for the populace of Louisiana. I think, actually, this may be what they want to achieve. They want to ensure that the majority of our populace become deadenders in dead end jobs with no place else to go.

Anyway, I’m going to quote from the monthly Chancellor’s Letter to the students, faculty and staff at the University of New Orleans. I will mention that I like Dr. Ryan and that he’s had a tough job since Hurricane Katrina nearly brought UNO to it’s knees while the legislature kneecapped our funds at the same time. Oddly enough, he’s an economist by training and taught in the Econ/Finance program before moving from Dean of Business to Chancellor of the University. He knows some of these issues as well as any of us. However, he’s an administrator now and a bit of a politician so the hat change has led him to a different path. These are his words.

Under the Louisiana GRAD Act, which Governor Jindal signed into law this summer, the State has made it clear that raising the bar is the only acceptable course of action. In order for UNO to be eligible for incremental tuition increases, we have to achieve certain performance benchmarks. UNO will remain affordable, but this tuition authority is a necessary component to ensure that we are giving our students the best chance to succeed.

One of the ways we will address the budget shortfall is by eliminating or consolidating certain programs so that we may focus on the programs that have the most notoriety, student demand or economic impact in the community. Regardless of how acutely we are affected by future budget cuts, our vision remains unchanged. We are in the process of restructuring the University so that it is a leaner, more efficient, and more focused institution that maximizes its resources. We are committed to enrolling superb students and providing them the support they need to flourish.

We continue to see this shift in the approach to many public goods. We want them to run like for-profit businesses. But, frankly, public goods are for the public good and there is nothing public or good about for-profit businesses. They are for profit. Period. Good is–at best–a side consideration. So why is there this rush to force expensive and ineffective models on public goods? Public goods are peculiar things and the economic theories that rule them are quite different from those that define the private sector and free market. Mostly, there are several unique characteristics that make them public goods. (Follow the wiki link for a general discussion of that.) This makes them ill-suited for for-profit models.

People that hate government hate all government and seem to be ideologically blind to the economics of public goods. When they take a sword to the beast, they hit at the very heart of the characteristics that make a public good poorly suited to be privatized. Some really examples of bad things to privatize have been jails and many functions of the military. Privatization distorts incentives in already weird markets. By inserting profit motives into these goods, you actually motivate the society to incarcerate people and start wars. In situations like education you distort incentives also. But in this case, the distortion leads not to increased provision of undesirable things. It leads to decreased provision of desirable things with massive public benefits.

In both cases, we have examples of externalities. Externalities occur when the benefits of the good or the costs of the good cannot be limited to just the consumers or the producers. They spill over into society. Education has a positive externality and there fore tends to be under-provided by any one seeking profit. A business can’t turn the benefits into profits, so therefore the business won’t do it. Pollution has a negative externality and is overproduced by a profit seeking company because it doesn’t have to take on all the costs. It can pass it onto society and taxpayers. Since costs are underrepresented to the private provider, it will keep on overproducing and passing on those costs to some one else.

Well, one of the reasons here is that Governor Jindal is one of those horrid supply-siders who wants to kill the beast rather than make it more efficient and effective and let it serve the public. He worships at the alter of the perfect free markets because he believes it to be true. He has no interest in truth as founded in the scientific method, theory and data. He found God and the Free Market during his university days and never thought to question the dogma since. Our state has become a vast experiment for false economic theory. We’re turning our children’s futures over to false economic hypotheses. Jindal completely misunderstands the nature of public goods and private goods and the nature of externalities and he has no interest in hearing that he might be wrong. He’s a zealot on all accounts.

The GRAD Act of 2010 seeks to radically change access to higher education and its purpose as a public good. This so worries me. I don’t want it to become a holy grail of any other place and I’m afraid it will spread like the nature of all bad religions. It will move with a huge sword and a group of true believers.

The GRAD Act seems to be a step towards a more market-based pricing system, but it has limitations. In a market system, higher prices discourage marginal buyers. In the case of higher education, this would impact those who are less fully committed to pursuing higher education.

But our higher ed system features extensive federal intervention, which distorts the market. Higher tuition leads to more federal aid. Federal aid shifts the burden of education costs to taxpayers. The buyer is insulated from the higher cost of and the demand for education is artificially inflated.

In a true market economy, higher tuition costs will cause fewer people to apply to college. While we may initially view this as a problem, the Cato Institute argues that there are too many college students:

“While college attendance is up, overall adult literacy has barely budged. A federal assessment found that in 2003 only 13 percent of Americans 16 years old or older were ‘‘proficient’’ in reading prose, understanding written directions, or performing quantitative tasks. This dismal score was down from 1992, when 15 percent of Americans were proficient in prose and document literacy. To a significant extent, it seems a college degree may just be replacing a high school diploma as a sign of minimum competence.”

It appears that our current system of government subsidization has made education more affordable but less valuable. The GRAD Act can only have a limited impact on the market for higher education while government artificially inflates demand.

I hope you’re beginning to catch my drift here. The idea is to limit the demand for a university degree via tighter standards, higher tuition, and limited supply. That sort’ve sounds good. It sounds like we’re increasing efficiency. But that’s not what’s happening. Actually, some of the things that are going on is the elimination of successful programs at successful colleges. No one is closing down the administrative and cost-heavy smaller colleges for their inefficiencies because they’re in parts of the state that typically vote for the likes of Jindal. Rather than trying to focus on efficient delivery, this focuses on strangling public education. This includes the Med Centers and the Law school for the state also. It guarantees that a state education will be more available to the kids that don’t need a leg up and less available to the kids that don’t have much of chance of success or entrance to higher education anyway. We’re further disenfranchising the disenfranchised.

The business community loves Jindal’s plan. Jindal has made it pretty clear that he wants us to graduate less students from four year colleges. He prefers them to go to trade schools/community colleges where they can be slotted into working the state’s oil rigs among other things. This basically is announcing that you’d like to stop whatever upward mobility in the state there might be. You’re ensuring that certain industries can fill their employment rolls with people with no place else to go. We’re prioritizing the training of dead-enders under the guise of “centers of excellence” at state community colleges.

House Bill 1171, authored by House Speaker Jim Tucker, would give university boards the power to raise tuition and fees in 10 percent increments until the colleges reach the average of a peer group of institutions. Upon reaching the cap, increases would be limited to 5 percent.

The purse-string power would help colleges offset state funding cuts of nearly $300 million in the past two years. The coalition backing the bill is known as BILD, or Businesses for Improving Louisiana’s Development. The Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Greater New Orleans Inc. and the Greater Shreveport Chamber of Commerce are among more than 40 business groups backing the tuition measure and other bills that would grant the state Board of Regents the power to install funding formulas that reward colleges for performance and that would establish centers of excellence at state community colleges, among other things.

Jindal is radically restructuring access to higher education in the state in the guise of saving money and efficiency. Next year, I’m sure we will witness one of the biggest brain drains ever as university after university rids themselves of tenured faculty because of financial exigency. Many of these universities are already short on junior faculty. I can’t imagine how you’re going to attract any one to ever teach in a state that has already shown such contempt for tenure, traditional success in a program, and academic research. This situation preempts the tenure system. I’m sure that’s part of the plan because movement conservatives hate tenure as much as they hate teacher’s unions. It’s easier to get rid of people that disagree with you and won’t teach your failed economic theories.

The emphasis now is on the programs that have the most bang for the buck. In the business college, we will produce more MBAs with the professors that can teach a bunch of classes, not the professors that have distinguished themselves in their field through publication and turning out other scholars. Those professors and the PhD program will be eliminated as part of the financial exigency plan. This is just the example that I know of because it’s in the department that I know well.

I am reminded of my days as a consultant to manufacturing and my training with Dr W. Edwards Deming as I watch the weirdest metrics being used to assess what is useful in education and what is not. Dr. Deming used to tell us that the “most important numbers were unknown and unknowable.” To this day, I can hear his deep voice telling us that over and over. I also remember sharing my experience as consultant to an AT&T manufacturing plant that was engaged in metrics but not in the mentality it takes to do the job right. The late night shift was always going around changing the tags and the numbers on things so that there would be no blame on labor. The data was played because of the fear. Dr. Deming would use these examples of showing us how so many workers lived in fear of doing their jobs right.

This brings me to another reason that I do not think this will work. Even teachers will cheat if metrics are held over their heads and the heads of their students. If you build enough fear into people, they will make sure you get the results that you want, even if they have to fudge the numbers to get them.

More than 100 Atlanta educators may be sanctioned for suspiciously erasing wrong answers on elementary school students’ standardized tests and replacing them with correct responses, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

An official inquiry into the alleged cheating began last year following a six-month Atlanta-Journal Constitution investigation of possible cheating on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, the standardized test used to determine whether schools are meeting national and state education standards. According to the AJC’s analysis of sweeping test score gains between 2008 and 2009, which showed some of the lowest performers mysteriously become some of the highest, the odds of making leaps in proficiency like those seen at some Atlanta schools were less than one in a billion.

In a report released Monday, investigators wrote that widespread cheating seemed to be limited to 12 schools—far fewer than the nearly 50 initially flagged by state officials as suspicious. But more than a third of the educators deemed at fault are principals and other school administrators, indicating the possibility of inter-school collusion in the cheating scam.

This is what happens when you bring the corporate mentality into an institution that is built for the public good. This is what happens when cost cutting takes on a religious zeal. The results that you get are not the ones the public really wants or needs. At best, you’ll see schools do wrong by students just to meet the metrics and the rules of the game foisted upon them. I guarantee, eventually they all will cheat. They will cheat the students, the system, and the taxpayer. But by then Governor Jindal will undoubtedly be running for higher office on how he tamed the size of Lousiana’s government.

Do NOT Buy A Used Health Care Program from This Man!

Posted: July 22, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Health care reform, Main Stream Media, New Orleans | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

popejindal I’m going to bring out some information I put out on Bobby Jindal in December of last year so you’ll know exactly how little to pay attention to this man. Jindal is obviously positioning himself for a run at national office which doesn’t surprise me at all, because the guy’s been a bigger job hopper than our current POTUS. It’s evident that anything to be learned from any of those short-lived jobs is lost on him because he never puts facts, people, or effectiveness before ideology. He’s a faith-based ideologue. He’s totally convinced of the ‘rightness’ of his view regardless of what the facts are on the ground. Contrary to his insistence that Louisiana is improving when it isn’t, and contrary to his insistent that he’s cut state bureaucracy when the payrolls have gone up, he’s still just a man that never lets facts get in the way of a good dogmatic speech opportunity. I don’t think the man exactly lies, he just appears to be totally delusional.

I’ve written two things on him. One being his insistence that the state of Louisiana is all hunky dory just cause he’s in office. It’s not, our unemployment statistics are moving up now like the rest of the country because the FEMA and Federal Hurricane monies that were stimulating our economies are running out. We’re getting our dose of recession and it’s not going to improve for us any time soon. Of course, it goes against his ideology to suggest that government funding may have actually helped our state, so he just prefers to take all the credit himself.

He also has been insisting he’s passed these tough ethic laws, which is true, but he conveniently forgets to mention he’s exempted the governor’s office. Ask Jindal about those tickets to see Miley Cyrus at the SuperDome if you’re a reporter and you get a chance.

Governor Bobby Jindal, in the midst of Day 4 of a special session on ethics, is having to deal with a controversy surrounding Disney sensation, Hannah Montana. 9NEWS has learned that Governor Jindal’s chief of staff and several state legislators were able to get tickets for free. WAFB’s Jim Shannon has the story.

Much has been said down at the legislature about free tickets and lavish meals for lawmakers and appointed state employees. Granted, all of that talk is for future legislation. However, the governor’s office is not ignoring the perks that come with being governor. Governor Bobby Jindal’s special session on ethics is moving through the legislature on a fast pace. Amid cries of no more fat cat meals or tickets to sporting events and concerts, the governor is dealing with a ticket controversy within his own office.

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