tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83859805659049047632024-02-19T18:51:03.750-05:00The BellTheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.comBlogger237125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-7187266144454161572014-05-09T11:53:00.000-04:002014-05-09T11:53:18.986-04:00Weaponizing Women<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s Much Worse than
Any War on Women</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Baseball and English language-mangling legend Yogi Berra
was once asked why he no longer patronized Ruggeri’s, a well-known St. Louis
restaurant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yogi replied, “The place is
so crowded that nobody goes there anymore.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After reading the second dozen set of
columns/articles bewailing why nobody is writing about the <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/07/nigeria-kidnapped-girls/8801487/" target="_blank">kidnapped Nigerianschoolgirls</a>, I think I better understand what he meant.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The girls in question are from northern Nigeria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were abducted from a government run
school featuring Western-style education by a group called Boko Haram.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The group’s name translates as "Western
education is forbidden."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
particularly hostile to the education of women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It has threatened to sell the girls or have them married to its members
before allowing them to be retrieved.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9vHl55hy9nWwRe4-Zam17X0vvgFapGFvnxrscCKoDItGKpgU4DbCsWxAc5yMiClVNw4lnqVRzAhPePzC8FsC84OEpJKZG4Q0rFWROklqTJAqhbIu6uDUKmFm_22M8jpiWQUG144eWl8D4/s1600/Weaponizing+Women.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9vHl55hy9nWwRe4-Zam17X0vvgFapGFvnxrscCKoDItGKpgU4DbCsWxAc5yMiClVNw4lnqVRzAhPePzC8FsC84OEpJKZG4Q0rFWROklqTJAqhbIu6uDUKmFm_22M8jpiWQUG144eWl8D4/s1600/Weaponizing+Women.bmp" height="134" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Muslim woman endures
caning as <br />
punishment under sharia law.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In light of the growing outrage, Nigerian President
Goodluck Johnson defended his government’s efforts to date and vowed to do more
to find the girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For his part, President
Obama called the abductions "outrageous" and "heartbreaking''
and sent experts and other assistance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Boko Haram has a <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/05/06/310100085/boko-harams-local-fight-suddenly-gets-international-scrutiny" target="_blank">long history</a> of violence, particularly
since 2009, when an attempted government crackdown resulted in the arrest and
subsequent execution of the group’s founder, Muslim cleric Mohammed Yusuf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The group’s actual name for itself is Jama'atu
Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, which is Arabic for "People Committed
to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has killed thousands of Christians and
Muslims in an attempt to bring strict Islamic law to all of Nigeria.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The usual caveat by authorities is that Boko Haram is an
extremist group whose views do not reflect mainstream Islam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is even some hesitancy to label them a
terrorist organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, Fellow of the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303701304579549603782621352?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303701304579549603782621352.html" target="_blank">writes</a> in today’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall Street
Journal</i>, “Boko Haram in its goals and methods is in fact all too
representative.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She goes on to condemn “Baffled
Westerners, who these days seem more eager to smear the critics of jihadism as ‘Islamophobes’
than to stand up for women's most basic rights.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.realislam.com/muslim_women.htm" target="_blank">Proponents of Islam</a> like to point out the rights granted
to women in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Qur'an</i> and by the
prophet Muhammad were a vast improvement in comparison to the situation of
women in Arabia prior to the advent of Islam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most historians agree this is true but some <a href="http://islam.uga.edu/Islamwomen.html" target="_blank">note</a>, “After the Prophet's
death the condition of women in Islam began to decline and revert back to
pre-Islamic norms.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is no question that women often suffer
disproportionally in contemporary Islamic communities under traditional sharia
law, even those lacking extremist groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Recently, a twenty-five year old widow in Banda Aceh, Indonesia was
invaded in her home and gang raped by a group of five men because she allegedly
was having an affair with a married man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jakarta Globe</i> <a href="http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/aceh-rape-victim-caned-shariah-official-insists/" target="_blank">reports</a> the
rapists then dragged the woman to the Wilayatul Hisbah or sharia police.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Most of us would view this woman as a victim and survivor
requiring healing and compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, Ibrahim Latif, a regional sharia official, insists the woman
and her lover should both be publicly beaten nine strokes with a cane for the
crime of adultery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did not see the
woman’s brutal rape as extenuating circumstances but he did concede the rapists
also warranted nine strokes with a cane for their actions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sydney Morning
Herald</i> <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/aceh-woman-gangraped-by-vigilantes-for-alleged-adultery-now-to-be-flogged-20140507-zr5x3.html" target="_blank">reports</a> other cases from the region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 2010, three sharia policemen raped a twenty-year-old university
student after they found her riding a motorcycle with her boyfriend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2012, a sixteen-year-old girl hanged
herself after sharia police published her full name in local media and scolded
her for acting “like a prostitute” with friends at a concert.<br /><br />This week, Malala Yousafzai <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-nigeria-schoolgirls/malala-says-kidnapped-nigerian-schoolgirls-are-her-sisters-n99701" target="_blank">announced her solidarity</a> with
the abducted Nigerian girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yousafzai
is the Pakistani teenager who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban,
also for attending a Western school for girls.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The problem is that an attack on Islam will do nothing to
help the girls and simply enflame passions against the West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More to the point, Islam is not the only –
or even the primary – institution that should be targeted for action in
countries like Nigeria and Indonesia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead, it is the secular governments of these countries that need to
be held more accountable.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">To be clear, these governments are not in league with
extremists but they have been notoriously passive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Nigeria, the BBC <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13809501" target="_blank">reports</a> long-standing
tensions between the Muslim-dominated north and Christian-centric south.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Many Muslim families still refuse to send their
children to government-run ‘Western schools,’ a problem compounded by the
ruling elite which does not see education as a priority.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Indonesia, Ismail Hasani, a scholar at Syarif
Hidayatullah State Islamic University explains, “When we talk about law [here],
we talk about three different systems that are not clearly delineated – common
law, sharia law and national law. There is no boundary.” </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Lauren Wolfe, Director of Women Under Siege project in
New York, recently penned an <a href="http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/when-women-become--tools-of-war-258240021.html" target="_blank">op/ed piece</a> in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Winnipeg Free Press</i> in which she argues, “Crimes against women and
girls are not only commonplace, but they go ignored, unprosecuted and
unreported by the international media every single day, especially when they
occur in the global south . . . Boko Haram is sneering at a world that has
shown time and again that girls are expendable and easily weaponized. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is targeting society's most defenseless and
fetishized.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hires Ali makes the same
point in her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Journal</i> piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Where governments are weak, corrupt or
nonexistent, the message of Boko Haram and its counterparts is especially
compelling.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Attacks against women serve an even more sinister end. Rape and other crimes against women are often devastating not only to the victims but to the other members, male and female, within their families and communities. Muslim extremists are not merely waging literal war on women but using women as weapons against any who will not accept their version of "pure" Islam. </span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">While boundaries between different religions, cultures,
and nationalities are worthy of respect, there are certain concepts of basic
dignity that are universal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fair
treatment of women, especially the most young and vulnerable, is one of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Governments everywhere must take a
stand to protect their citizens rather than protecting themselves from
political displeasure by groups within that citizenry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Currently, we paradoxically state, much like
Yogi Berra, the problem is so important that nobody does anything about
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Outrage we got.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What we need is action.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-33903712727494768622014-05-05T11:53:00.000-04:002014-05-05T11:53:09.245-04:00How Many Racists Do You See?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You Might Want to
Count Again</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and Los Angeles Clippers
owner Donald Sterling were recently in the news for making what were widely
viewed as racist statements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now that
the dust has settled a little on both of them, I wanted to take a look at each
one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people tend to see them as
equivalent and label both racists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others
argue that label is misapplied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
both may indeed be racists, there are enough differences and similarities
between them to make any judgment about them a little more complicated than a
simple thumbs down.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Cliven Bundy took to musing about “the Negro” at a press
conference following a stand-down between the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
and his followers over Bundy’s right to graze his cattle on federal lands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As first <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/us/politics/rancher-proudly-breaks-the-law-becoming-a-hero-in-the-west.html?hp&_r=1" target="_blank">reported</a> by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i>, Bundy lamented poor blacks on government support
for lacking cultural and moral values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They
abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they
never learned how to pick cotton. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a
family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They didn’t get no more freedom. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They got less freedom.”</span></div>
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</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBMBB0TMQrj8FBOKOPNT-GxQ0NwwkRZN5n43aY1h01xLEmmVO8fNYnGVrPRbTCe6oR4C1fDEKlVe-AIejRf0FX2f9dI0WtpqyC4vT5n0ipBQH5Ny7gDLS5k2y9UKzA3BFEDdCrXGalArN/s1600/HowManyRacists.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBMBB0TMQrj8FBOKOPNT-GxQ0NwwkRZN5n43aY1h01xLEmmVO8fNYnGVrPRbTCe6oR4C1fDEKlVe-AIejRf0FX2f9dI0WtpqyC4vT5n0ipBQH5Ny7gDLS5k2y9UKzA3BFEDdCrXGalArN/s1600/HowManyRacists.bmp" height="147" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Embattled Nevada
rancher Cliven<br />
</i><i>Bundy </i>(left)<i> and<span> </span>Los Angeles<br />Clippers owner Donald Sterling </i>(right)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Donald Sterling berated his girlfriend, who describes
herself as a mixture of black and Mexican, for publicly associating with black professional
basketball players.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As first <a href="http://www.tmz.com/2014/04/26/donald-sterling-clippers-owner-black-people-racist-audio-magic-johnson/" target="_blank">reported</a> by
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">TMZ Sports</i>, Sterling criticizes the young
woman for lack of pride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It bothers me
a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people . .
. You can sleep with [black people]. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
can bring them in, you can do whatever you want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The little I ask you is not to promote it . .
. and not to bring them to my games.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is no doubt Bundy and Sterling have certain things
in common.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both are self-promoters who
like to hear themselves talk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both are
less than sterling characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bundy has
a long history of legal run-ins with the government over his refusal to pay for
grazing rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He categorically denies
the legitimacy of the federal government and U.S. Constitution, even when his
supporters were pushing him as a champion of the First and Second
Amendments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sterling has a string of
past lawsuits in which he is accused of being a slumlord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has carried on an extramarital affair for
years while separated from his wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Both men are blunt-spoken and cantankerous.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yet there are differences between their cases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bundy meant for his comments to be placed in
the public domain, while Sterling intended his rant to be private.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both men expressed traditional views of
racism – things were better in the old days when blacks and whites were more
segregated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet Sterling’s desire for
separation is obviously deliberate while Bundy’s skirts the line of the
subconscious.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Although Bundy is the one who mention the relative “benefits”
of slavery, it is really Sterling who exhibits a classic plantation mentality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bundy wants to see African Americans as
self-reliant as he imagines himself to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sterling congratulates himself on his largess toward his black players
and denigrates what he perceives as their lack of gratitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bundy takes a factual observation – that social
welfare program have not broken the cycle of poverty experienced by many
minorities – and conflates that with the “values” instilled by slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sterling stresses the importance of showing a
politically correct face in public by lying.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Columnist Chris Jepson of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seminole Voice</i> <a href="http://www.seminolevoice.com/news/2014/apr/30/chris-jepson-big-dumb-white-boys-and-other-advocat/" target="_blank">candidly differentiates</a> the two men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He argues that Bundy is “unbelievably
ignorant,” while Sterling is “the height of hypocrisy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He feels Sterling’s Jewish ancestry particularly
places him in a position of knowing better “that one’s ethnicity, race or
religion is no justification for bigotry.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Complicating all this is the ever-evolving idea of a “post-racial
America,” a meme that has gained credence in conservative circles since the
election of a black President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Republicans and others needed to be able to criticize Barack Obama without
immediately opening themselves up to charges of racism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It began the day after Obama’s election in
2008, when conservative black columnist Shelby Steele wrote an <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oe-steele5-2008nov05,0,6049031.story#axzz30qKPcHLR" target="_blank">op-ed piece</a> in
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Los Angeles Times</i> that asked, “Doesn't
a black in the White House put the lie to both black inferiority and white
racism? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doesn't it imply a ‘post-racial’
America?”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Conservatives have since taken this meme beyond the
defensive and gone on the offensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
used to be that a racist was someone who hated another person simply because of
their race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That idea has been twisted
to redefine a racist as anyone who first introduces a racial aspect into another’s
hate speech or action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Race, ethnicity,
and religion might cause people to form different ideologies and philosophies
but the disagreements are now between “the content of our characters” rather
than “the color of our skins.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this
post-racial America, all hatred is reduced to legitimate differences of
opinion.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There has been some pushback on this from the left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>African-American columnist Mary Curtis <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/04/30/good-news-in-sterling-bundy-racial-rants-could-be/" target="_blank">writes</a>
in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington Post</i>, “Whenever the
weary chide me at a mere mention of the lingering legacy of racism, I tell them
the truth – I never think about race unless I’m reminded of it . . . and I’m
reminded of it all the time.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/04/chief-justice-roberts-meet-bundy-and-sterling.html" target="_blank">Ditto</a> for liberal
columnist Jeffrey Toobin in<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The New
Yorker</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Bundy and Sterling
represent an ugly corner of contemporary American life, but it is one that is
entirely invisible in recent Supreme Court rulings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Roberts Court, there are no Bundys and
Sterlings; the real targets of the conservative majority are those who've spent
their lives fighting the Bundys and Sterlings of the world.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">However, their counter-attack is <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/04/29/sterling-blowback-proves-sotomayor-wrong/" target="_blank">counter-counter-attacked</a>
by Toobin’s almost namesake, Jonathan Tobin in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Commentary</i> magazine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Surely
even Toobin has noticed . . . Sterling and Bundy have showed that anyone who
dares to speak in this manner is not only scolded but also effectively shunned
in a manner more reminiscent of closed religious societies dealing with public
sinners than someone expressing an outlier view.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Finally, Andrew Napolitano, a former judge and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">FOX News</i> analyst, notes in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington Times</i> <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/30/napolitano-the-liberty-to-speak-badly-about-race/" target="_blank">op/ed piece</a> that, despicable
as they may be, Bundy’s and Sterling’s words never translated into
actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bundy is not donning a white
hood and riding with the Ku Klux Klan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is nothing to indicate Sterling pays talented black players any
less than he does white players.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Racially
hateful speech is protected from government interference by the First Amendment.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this sense, labeling
Bundy and Sterling as racists may well be accurate but less than significant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is little doubt that ignorance is
entirely capable of making the jump to hatred and racism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, some seem too quick to make that
link while others refuse to concede such a link can exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many racists we see when we look at
figures like Bundy and Sterling probably says more about each of our places in
a supposed “post-racial America” than anything else. </span></div>
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TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-62917932554231256712014-04-28T09:39:00.005-04:002023-08-07T15:08:44.058-04:00Ministry of Truthiness<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span face="Verdana,sans-serif"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Supreme Court (Likely)
Announces Diversity is Bad, Lying is Good</b> </span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">Two Supreme Court cases were in the news last week that
interested me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One was about Affirmative
Action in Michigan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back in 2003, the
Court <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-516.ZO.html" target="_blank">ruled </a>6-3 in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gratz v. Bollinger</i>
that the University of Michigan’s undergraduate policy, in which a point system
gave specific "weight" to minority applicants, was reverse
discrimination and shot it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, it simultaneously <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-241.ZO.html" target="_blank">ruled</a> 5-4 in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grutter v. Bollinger</i> that the university’s Law School policy was
acceptable because it simply set a goal of diversity as a means to “enrich
every [student’s] education.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the
time, I applauded diversity as a more reasonable and sustainable civil rights strategy
than reparations-based approaches.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">Alas, critics of the decision got an <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/%28S%280okv1uuy3fgvuq253scb4355%29%29/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=mcl-Article-I-26" target="_blank">initiative</a> on the
ballot in 2006 amending the state constitution, such that any Michigan
university was prohibited to “discriminate against, or grant preferential
treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color,
ethnicity, or national origin.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
measure was approved and became state law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This brought a set of challenges, which the Supreme Court heard in
codified form and ruled on last Tuesday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The legal technicalities of the suit rested on whether the defendants
had a right to bring suit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, no
court seemed to be able to get past the question of whether Affirmative Action
is Constitutional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither it seemed
could the plaintiffs, since the case was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schuette
v. Coalition To Defend Affirmative Action</i>.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5EZOhM-B3QfliA6Ej3cWq042lf4uooYgphr-xlqyUyLRSlDN10qc2hYe06pR-n_GDbU4URfdczhz0Tm9jJx9ZMOqfK8yPlBaCutRkoxmi4snBulIHH1ebVUz-iupIah9dhvrKvSRortc/s1600/Ministry+of+Truthiness.bmp" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5EZOhM-B3QfliA6Ej3cWq042lf4uooYgphr-xlqyUyLRSlDN10qc2hYe06pR-n_GDbU4URfdczhz0Tm9jJx9ZMOqfK8yPlBaCutRkoxmi4snBulIHH1ebVUz-iupIah9dhvrKvSRortc/s1600/Ministry+of+Truthiness.bmp" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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this the new emblem of the</span></i><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> Ministry of Truth?</span></i></div>
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<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">A federal district judge <a href="https://www.aclu.org/files/images/asset_upload_file957_34592.pdf" target="_blank">ruled</a> “there are no material
fact issues” that justified a suit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
also stated the state law was Constitutional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in my hometown of Cincinnati
Ohio, <a href="http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/COALITION_TO_DEFEND_AFFIRMATIVE_ACTION_v_REGENTS_OF_THE_UNIVERSIT" target="_blank">reversed</a> that decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It argued
that while students wishing other types of changes to university admission
policies had many options to pursue remedy, students seeking racial preferences
could only do so by amending the state constitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Sixth Circuit concluded, “The existence
of such a comparative structural burden undermines the Equal Protection Clause.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It found the suit meritorious and the state
law Unconstitutional.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">The Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit by a vote of
6-2 (Justice Kagan recused herself).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
his <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_j4ek.pdf" target="_blank">majority opinion</a>, Justice Kennedy explained that the Court was not
addressing the Constitutionality of Affirmative Action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather it endorsed the ability of individual
states to decide the matter for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was enough to bring along normally liberal Justice Breyer into the
conservative fold, although Justice Sotomayor wrote a long and impassioned
dissent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For their part, Justices Scalia
and Thomas wrote concurring opinions that they believed the Court should have
struck down all Affirmative Action solutions as inherently
Unconstitutional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The goal of diversity
was not addressed by the majority.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">The second case in the news this week was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus</i>,
regarding political free speech in Ohio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The state of Ohio passed a law making it a crime to utter “a knowingly
or recklessly false” statement in political speech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ohio Election Commission was established
as the adjudicator of all claims and the burden of proof was set lower than
that for slander or libel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The purpose
of the law was to take some of the invective out of political campaigns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ohio is one of fifteen states with such laws
on the books.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">Steve Driehaus was elected as a U.S. Representative for
Ohio District 1 in 2008.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During his 2010
campaign for re-election, Susan B. Anthony list – a staunch anti-abortion group
– decided to place billboards that accused, “Shame on Steve Driehaus! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Driehaus voted <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for</i></b> taxpayer-funded
abortion.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The group based this claim on
Driehaus’s vote for the Affordable Care Act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Driehaus countered this was untrue as President Obama had an executive
order in place prohibiting the law’s funds being used in this manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His lawyers convinced the billboard owners
not to display the ad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then Driehaus
filed a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hearing was held in which the commission
found 2-1 that a falsehood had likely been committed.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">By this time, the election was over and Driehaus
lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He dropped his complaint with the
commission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not satisfied, SBA List brought
suit, saying their First Amendment rights had been intimidated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Driehaus quickly countersued for
defamation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A federal district judge
<a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8484954780230842714&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr" target="_blank">ruled</a> against SBA List, saying no harm had come to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he also ruled against Driehaus, citing
the First Amendment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“As a matter of
law, associating a political candidate with a mainstream political position,
even if false, cannot constitute defamation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/Susan_B_Anthony_List_v_Driehaus_525_Fed_Appx_415_6th_Cir_2013_Cou" target="_blank">upheld</a> his ruling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“On these facts, there is no hardship where
the evidence suggests SBA List is not deterred from engaging in the very
conduct that it claims is encumbered."</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">The Supreme Court heard <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/13-193_n6o1.pdf" target="_blank">oral arguments</a> in the case last
week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schuette</i>, the narrow legal technicality at issue is whether the
plaintiff is allowed to bring suit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also,
as with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schuette</i>, the Justices cannot
seem to get past the larger issue involved – in this case, Free Speech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">Virtually every amicus brief filed with the Court favors
SBA List.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mike DeWine, Ohio’s Republican
Attorney General, filed two competing briefs – one in which he argues against
SBA List in his official capacity and another personal one in which he
questions the Constitutionality of the Ohio law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the <a href="http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v3/13-193_pet_amcu_cato-pjo.authcheckdam.pdf" target="_blank">most notable brief</a> is filed by
the Cato Institute, which chose not a legal scholar but humorist P.J. O’Rourke
as its author.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The campaign promise
(and its subsequent violation), as well as disparaging statements about one’s
opponent (whether true, mostly true, mostly not true, or entirely fantastic),
are cornerstones of American democracy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>O’Rourke also brings up the concept of “truthiness” – the gut feeling
something is true without any actual facts to back it up.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">This is all great as satire but what nags at me is the
way SBA List and its defenders seem to be making this satirical argument with
utter sincerity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opening sentence of
their <a href="http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/SBADriehaus13TermCERT.pdf" target="_blank">petition</a> to the Court is literally dripping with incredulity as they
wail, “Believe it or not, it is a criminal offense in Ohio to make a knowingly
or recklessly ‘false’ statement about a political candidate or ballot initiative.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, is prohibiting lying really such a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bad</i></b>
thing?</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">The Supreme Court seem to think so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Justice Scalia is soon parroting the
plaintiff’s lawyers by referring to the Ohio Elections Commission as the
“Ministry of Truth” from George Orwell’s dystopian novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1984</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If I say [political
things], and there’s a serious risk that I will be had up before a commission
and could be fined . . . <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what’s the
harm?” asked Justice Breyer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I can’t
speak; that’s the harm,” he immediately answers himself.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">The lawyers for SBA List, Michael Carvin and Yaakov Roth,
wrote an <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303663604579502101469980002?mg=reno64-wsj" target="_blank">article</a> for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall Street
Journal</i> in which they explain their client’s position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fully appreciate their point that this is
not about a Constitutional “right to lie” but “Whether the state may force
citizens to defend the ‘truth’ of their political critiques before bureaucrats
who may well have been appointed by the politicians being criticized.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This tautological approach to government is
clearly undesirable.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">I also appreciate their point that “People often disagree
about what is the ‘truth,’ particularly in the political context.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, as a practical matter, this
objection would make all law impossible to define and practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also considerable disagreement about
what constitutes “insanity,” or when causing another’s death is “self-defense,”
or where to draw the line between “premeditated” and “act of passion.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Society needs to establish standards for such
things and government is a logical and probably preferable agent to set and
administer them.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">Even so, I remain troubled by this case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most court watchers are predicting it will be
a slam dunk for SBA List, with the real possibility of an oh-so-rare unanimous
decision.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">In <i>1984</i>, the Ministry of Truth was famous for such
paradoxical gems as “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is
Strength.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Supreme Court just
endorsed the government of Michigan criminalizing what constitutes acceptable
university admission policies as an example of grass roots democracy in
action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the same week, they heard a
case in which they strongly appear to feel the government of Ohio criminalizing
what constitutes acceptable political speech is an example of big government
run amuck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And based on these seemingly contradictory
reactions, they are likely to be announcing, “Diversity is Bad, Lying is
Good.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe they are the real Ministry
of Truth . . . or perhaps Ministry of Truthiness would be better.</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">Ironically, the expected decision in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Driehaus</i> may provide the loophole for Affirmative Action the majority
thought they had sewn up in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schuette</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While it will still be Unconstitutional to
allow racial preferences in university admissions in Michigan, it will not be
Unconstitutional to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lie</i></b> about doing so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
a Michigan school would have to do is claim the reason it turned away any
applicant is because they believed that individual secretly rooted for the Ohio
State Buckeyes football team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
not a court in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas that would convict.</span></div>
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span face="Verdana,sans-serif">
</span>
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-47399072897876919512014-04-24T10:11:00.000-04:002014-04-24T10:11:10.420-04:00Science and the Tinkerbell Effect<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Americans Doubting
the Big Bang Is a Healthy Thing</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A new Associated Press-GfK <a href="http://ap-gfkpoll.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/AP-GfK-March-2014-Poll-Topline-Final_SCIENCE.pdf" target="_blank">poll</a> asked approximately one
thousand U.S. adults to rate their confidence in science and medicine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The results showed surprising skepticism in various
scientific concepts that many/most scientists consider established fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People were most likely to accept practical
matters, such as smoking causing cancer or antibiotics causing more resistant
bacteria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More theoretical concepts,
such as global warming, dating the age of the Earth, or the Big Bang creation
of the universe met with greater suspicion.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Some scientists greeted the survey’s findings with
<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-big-bang-evolution-ap-poll/" target="_blank">dismay</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It is enormously distressing
that science, which is our most powerful means for gaining insight into the
world, insight into truth, is so mistrusted by so many people,” Brian Greene, Professor
of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University, told <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CBS News</i>.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS7OntO1ITMYoiCno0xGbDV4HMQBx8nr0Pf1Qg_dNKYzzSqbFiAJ2QYXKqTlfRScbIVUwEMTsldZr_-4l1GTtrdciFTozZtkq64JnaVqILcgGis8yhhxVeJ1K6HXobc-Otrq-babQZ7wgY/s1600/Science+and+the+Tinkerbell+Effect.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS7OntO1ITMYoiCno0xGbDV4HMQBx8nr0Pf1Qg_dNKYzzSqbFiAJ2QYXKqTlfRScbIVUwEMTsldZr_-4l1GTtrdciFTozZtkq64JnaVqILcgGis8yhhxVeJ1K6HXobc-Otrq-babQZ7wgY/s1600/Science+and+the+Tinkerbell+Effect.bmp" height="200" width="152" /></a></td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Some
good advice from Tink.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Others looked for explanations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People find it easier to believe what they
have personally experienced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of us
have known a heavy smoker who died of cancer but no one can look into the night
sky and see visible evidence of the Big Bang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most of the readily accepted concepts have little to do with religion
but carbon dating and the Big Bang appear to contradict/invalidate the Bible
and other religious teachings. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Distrust of science does not equate to an embrace of
traditional faith by Americans; quite the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Harris <a href="http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/survey-results-religious-beliefs/" target="_blank">poll</a> taken in November 2013 found an
eight percent decline since 2009 in the number of Americans who believe in God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same poll found those describing
themselves as “not at all” religious has nearly doubled since 2007.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A May 2013 Gallup <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/162803/americans-say-religion-losing-influence.aspx" target="_blank">poll</a> found seventy-seven
percent of American say religion is losing its influence on American life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twenty-one percent of respondents in a March
2014 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NBC News</i>/<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall Street Journal</i> <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/losing-faith-21-percent-say-religion-not-important-n51256" target="_blank">poll</a> said that religion is “not that important”
to their lives.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">More to the point, the fact that people are as skeptical
toward science as they are religion is no sign that science is overstepping its
limits or doing something wrong.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is a documented phenomenon in science that is known
as the <a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/fdurgin1/publications/JoCS_Durgin2002.pdf" target="_blank">Tinkerbell Effect</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Simply stated,
it says that our beliefs, biases, and assumptions can literally impact our
physical observation and analysis of factual data.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The name derives from the fairy character
Tinkerbell in the J.M. Barrie novel<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Peter
Pan</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Barrie asserted that fairies
require human belief in order to exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the play adapted from the novel, Peter urges the audience to applaud
for Tinkerbell after Captain Hook poisons and imprisons her, in order to save
her life.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Religious adherents voice a faith in God that often
borders on certainty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, none of
them would argue that God requires their faith in order to exist – to do so
would be to reduce the Lord of all Creation to a children’s fairy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same is true for global warming or the
Big Bang – even a majority of disbelief by Americans does not mean they are bad
science.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Scientific
theories are formed as attempts to explain why/how things happen that align
with empirical data.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is impossible to
know anything with absolute certainty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes new evidence emerges that requires theories to be
adjusted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, science remains a
rational and honest attempt to make sense of our existence.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Even the most brilliant and dedicated scientists are
subject to the Tinkerbell Effect and sometimes will engage in bad science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Religious leaders and philosophers are also
vulnerable in their respective fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So are all of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will be more
inclined to question scientific findings we find threatening or difficult to
grasp as bad science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet just because
something is distantly divorced from our everyday experience does not mean it
is not true or as real as us.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I sympathize with scientists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They face public skepticism over string
theory, even among their own ranks, because (current) tools exclude factual
observation of the possible tiny one-dimensional objects and because eleven
dimensions are really, really hard to imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet forty-two percent of that same public readily accepts the existence
of ghosts and fifty-eight percent believes in Satan and hell.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Still, even if some of their preferences side toward metaphysics,
their methods are purely scientific.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Skepticism is at the heart of scientific pursuit, whereas many modern
religions are bogged down in dogmatic absolutism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For thousands of years, human society
dutifully accepted whatever the institutions of power (i.e. church and state)
told them was true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only a few
iconoclast thinkers challenged the norm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Today, we live in a society where everyone maintains a healthy doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Science has done more to change us for the
better than even it may realize.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span>
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-8230687163355534212014-04-21T10:07:00.002-04:002014-04-21T15:04:49.294-04:00A Little List<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What’s the
Difference between the Mentally Ill and Veterans in Hate Groups?</b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As some day it may
happen that a victim must be found<br />I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list.<br />Of social offenders who might well be under ground<br />And who never would be missed, who never would be missed.</i><br />W.S. Gilbert,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The Mikado</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The comic aria above from 1885 is sung by Ko-Ko, The Lord
High Executioner of the town of Titipu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Under danger of execution himself, Ko-Ko produces a list of people who
could serve as ready scapegoats, due to their annoying personalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It all sounds silly and satirical but some of
the misbegotten are on the list simply for being children, blacks, transvestites,
and women intellectuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, how art
sometimes forecasts, rather than reflects, life.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Frazier Glenn Miller (a.k.a. Frazier Glenn Cross ) shot
and killed three people in Overland Park, Kansas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although none of his victims turned out to be
Jewish, Miller apparently targeted them because they were in the parking lots
of two different Jewish buildings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was enough for federal authorities to charge him with hate crimes.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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Glenn Miller was</span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
known to engage in hate</span></i><br />
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speech and own guns for</span></i><br />
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many years</span></i></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Miller is no stranger to hate groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He founded a Klan-affiliated organization in
North Carolina in 1980 that eventually became the White Patriot Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had multiple run-ins with the law for
operating a paramilitary organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He was ultimately arrested with a “small arsenal” of stolen military
weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once in prison, he began
cooperating with prosecutors, testifying against other white supremacists in
exchange for a reduced sentence.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Before any of that, Miller served in the U.S. army for
twenty years, including two tours in Vietnam and service as a Green Beret,
before he was discharged for distributing racist literature.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Last week, Kathleen Belew, a postdoctoral fellow in
history at Northwestern University, wrote an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/opinion/veterans-and-white-supremacy.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0" target="_blank">op/ed piece</a> in the <i>New York Times</i>
that stated Miller was not a unique case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She pointed to research showing a high correlation for violence by
former veterans that are members of far-right extremist hate groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She noted this correlation receives little
attention from authorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Would he
have received greater scrutiny had he been a Muslim, a foreigner, not white,
not a veteran?” she wondered.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/article/20140416/NEWS06/304160063/Veterans-slam-New-York-Times-piece-linking-vets-hate-groups" target="_blank">response</a> from veterans groups was swift and
condemning.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yet the Department of Homeland Security issued a
nine-page <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/resource/DOJ_rwextremism2009.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> in 2009 detailing the same potential threat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Military veterans facing significant
challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential
emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists carrying out violent
attacks.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A 2008 F.B.I. <a href="http://cryptome.org/spy-whites.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> reached
similar conclusions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Military
experience is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement . . .
[These groups] have attempted to increase their recruitment of current and former
U.S. military personnel.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The threat of violence from such groups is
significant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://natsec.newamerica.net/extremists/analysis" target="_blank">According to</a> the New
America Foundation, a non-partisan public policy institute, thirty-four people have
been killed by right-wing extremists in the United States since the September
11, 2001 Islamic terror attacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islamic
jihadists killed twenty-three people over the same period.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In spite of this, some veterans, like many Americans,
have been quick to call for solutions including national/state lists and closer
tracking when gunmen have turned out to be mentally ill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2013/03/guns-and-mentally-ill" target="_blank">this article</a> from the May 2013 issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Economist</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We don’t go around shooting people, the sick
people do. They need to be fixed." <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So said the gun-owning pensioner in the Korean
War veteran's hat, demonstrating outside Connecticut's state capitol on March
11th. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was holding a sign reading, 'Stop
the Crazies—Step Up Enforcement of Current Laws'.”<br /><br />Before denouncing all such lists as government conspiracy
to take away Second Amendment rights, the NRA briefly supported this idea with mentally
ill shooters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We have a mental health
system in this country that has completely and totally collapsed,” spokesman Wayne
LaPierre <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50283245/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/#.U1AjyleGecV" target="_blank">told</a> NBC’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meet the Press</i> in
December 2012.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We have no national
database of these lunatics . . . We have a completely cracked mentally ill
system that's got these monsters walking the streets.”<br /><br />Speaker of the House John Boehner is <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/202573-boehner-no-question-mentally-ill-shouldnt-have-guns" target="_blank">on record</a> in favor
of confiscating guns owned by the mentally ill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“There’s no question that those with mental health issues should be
prevented from owning weapons or being able to purchase weapons . . . [we need
to] find a way to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina has introduced bipartisan legislation in the Senate to <a href="http://www.abcnews4.com/story/21534747/graham-criminally-mentally-ill-should-not-be-able-to-buy-guns" target="_blank">get the mentally ill on a list</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There are over fourteen
thousand people in South Carolina who've been adjudicated a danger to
themselves and others by a court, not in the system. That's what [we need] to
fix.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The problem is the lists and databases that exist
today are notoriously difficult to update and maintain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The F.B.I.’s National Instant Criminal
Background Check System (NICS) has proven an <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/21/nation/la-na-shooting-background-checks-20130921" target="_blank">arbitrary way</a> of identifying who
might be too dangerous to own a gun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>State databases, such as California’s Armed and Prohibited Persons
System (APPS) <a href="http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/23/gun-seizures-will-taking-guns-from-the-mentally-ill-prevent-more-violent-crime/" target="_blank">suffer the same shortcomings</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Earlier this month, Doctor Elspeth Cameron Ritchie,
retired Army colonel and psychiatrist who served in the Office of the Army
Surgeon General, penned an <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/opinion/ritchie-guns-mental-illness/" target="_blank">op/ed piece</a> on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CNN</i> website, in which she advised caution and nuance before taking
away the right to carry a weapon from soldiers suffering from “more common,
milder form of mental illness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
she adds this important caveat – “If [a soldier] had been determined to have
been suffering from a severe enough form of mental illness to have posed a
threat to himself or others – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or had a history of violence</i></b> – he
should never have been allowed to remain in the Army in the first place, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">much
less allowed to own a gun</i></b>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[my
emphasis]</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“The fact of the matter is that little attention is paid
by federal law enforcement to white supremacism as a trigger for domestic
terrorism,” Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project for the
Southern Poverty Law Center, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/04/frazier_glenn_miller_s_history_of_hate_could_the_kansas_city_jcc_shooting.html" target="_blank">told</a> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Slate</i>
magazine.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am against profiling veterans
as potential right-wing hate crime perpetrators (I do <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i></b> agree the op/ed piece
by Bellew did so). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am also against
such profiling of the mentally ill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
most recent shooting by Miller, and the outrage it has generated against maintaining
lists of veterans for tracking purposes, provides a caution in our zeal to do
so for other groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of them contain human beings, some of whom will be undeserving of their placement, will be missed, and deserve better. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span>
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-46724540496506799482014-04-16T13:47:00.000-04:002014-04-16T13:47:44.062-04:00Benghazi There, Done That<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Nonetheless
Republicans Are Not Finished</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">At least five groups have now investigated the attacks
against two U.S. compounds in Benghazi Libya, during which Ambassador J.
Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One was a Special Commission, appointed by
the Secretary of State and the Director for National Intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other four were separate House committees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All agreed the Obama Administration,
particularly the State Department, as well as the U.S. military and intelligence
services did a poor job identifying, preparing for, and responding to an
obviously dangerous situation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">President Obama, former Secretary of State Clinton,
former Secretary of Defense Panetta, the Pentagon, and various intelligence
chiefs have chosen to accept the findings and responsibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, many Congressional Democrats are
calling for an end to the matter.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnmKVScNAFk0sC7KM7_U-PkOK-7Fn4V3fmhfuFWuUjYxvfCMnSGwgcBflGLVKpuEHkVQiQw9VKD_6HxYLZRy0_yLW4KMKrB4ZV1dU5D24OPDCMZ8ryssz92LtZ6swmBrH5JKiC2PAPZwIb/s1600/Benghazi+There+Done+That.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnmKVScNAFk0sC7KM7_U-PkOK-7Fn4V3fmhfuFWuUjYxvfCMnSGwgcBflGLVKpuEHkVQiQw9VKD_6HxYLZRy0_yLW4KMKrB4ZV1dU5D24OPDCMZ8ryssz92LtZ6swmBrH5JKiC2PAPZwIb/s1600/Benghazi+There+Done+That.bmp" /></a></td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Charles
Krauthammer </span></i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">(left)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> fears the</i></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
long Benghazi nightmare is over.</i></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
Rep. Darrell Issa </i>(right)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> believes
the</i></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span></div>
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dream will never die.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Republicans are only getting started, however.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over one hundred and ninety Republican House
members have called for the formation of a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/04/08/3424161/boehner-still-ignoring-gop-benghazi/" target="_blank">new Select Committee</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speaker of the House John Boehner has so far
resisted their demands but contends the probes are far from over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For their part, Republican Senators Lindsey
Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona, and Kelly Ayotte of New
Hampshire are loudly pushing for a <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/graham-mccain-ayotte-special-committee-benghazi" target="_blank">Joint Select Committee</a>.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Republican ire persists because conservatives view
Benghazi as not only a tragedy but a scandal and cover-up as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At a minimum, they insist the Obama
Administration knowingly misrepresented the attacks as the result of
spontaneous demonstrations rather than terrorism, in order to make Obama look more
effective against terrorists during the 2012 Presidential campaign. However, an extensive <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=0" target="_blank">investigative report</a> by the <i>New York Times</i> earlier this year confirmed a video as cause of demonstrations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Worse, Republicans contend both Obama and Clinton
purposefully removed protection for the compounds before the attacks and refused
help during the attacks for the same reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They point to Clinton’s <a href="https://www.ijreview.com/2013/01/32060-hillary-clintons-benghazi-meltdown-what-difference-does-it-make/" target="_blank">infamous response</a>, “What difference does it
make?” before a Senate hearing in January 2013 as proof of the Administration’s
apathy over lives lost.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The problem with these accusations, as <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/23/hillary-on-the-hill.html?source=socialflow&account=thedailybeast&medium=twitter" target="_blank">countless supporters</a> have pointed out, is Clinton was not indifferent to the loss of life
or even why it occurred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, she was
annoyed and frustrated with Republican obsession over why the Obama
Administration did not seem to know the reason <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">immediately</i></b> after the
attacks occurred.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is symptomatic of a larger problem for Republicans
on Benghazi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How you choose to view the
known facts determines whether you see what unfolded there as misfortune or
conspiratorial criminality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And those
facts simply do not contain the smoking gun evidence Republicans insist must be
there to convince all beyond a reasonable doubt of the Obama Administration’s culpability.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">No one in Congress has been more strident in attempting
to “get to the truth” about Benghazi than Republican Representative Darrell
Issa of California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Chairman of the
House Oversight Committee, Issa has made a career of investigating alleged
Obama scandals, including “Fast and Furious” and IRS audits, in addition to
Benghazi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately for the GOP, no
one in Congress has been caught lying more by fact check organizations on the matter.</span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Issa received <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/issas-absurd-claim-that-clintons-signature-means-she-personally-approved-it/2013/04/25/58c2f5b4-adf8-11e2-a986-eec837b1888b_blog.html" target="_blank">four Pinocchios</a> from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington Post</i> last April for accusing
Clinton of personally authorizing security reductions in Libya.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Post</i>
awarded him <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/02/21/issas-suspicions-that-hillary-clinton-told-panetta-to-stand-down-on-benghazi/" target="_blank">another four Pinocchios</a> this year when he blamed an order from
Clinton to “stand down” during the military response to Benghazi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finding V of the House Armed Services
Committee’s <a href="http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=A4AE38EF-0A61-48B1-B08A-48C5D6C2F0CC" target="_blank">report</a> on Benghazi had already explicitly stated, “There was no ‘stand
down’ order issued to U.S. military personnel in Tripoli who sought to join the
fight in Benghazi.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This confirmed
findings in the Special Commission’s <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The Board members believe every possible effort was made to rescue and
recover Ambassador Stevens and [others] . . . but there simply was not enough
time for Armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">All this is causing some leading conservative voices to
throw in the towel on Benghazi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last
week, Republican House Armed Services Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon of
California went <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/04/10/gop-chairman-satisfied-with-military-response-to-benghazi-attack/" target="_blank">on record</a> that he was satisfied with U.S. military response to
the attack. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I think I’ve pretty well
been satisfied that given where the troops were, how quickly the thing all
happened and how quickly it dissipated, we probably couldn’t have done more
than we did.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason for McKeon’s
willingness to defy Republican orthodoxy on Benghazi may be due to his <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/16/nation/la-na-buck-mckeon-retire-20140116" target="_blank">pending retirement</a>.</span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer also said he
believes it is <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/04/10/3425148/krauthammer-benghazi/" target="_blank">time for Republicans to give up on Benghazi</a> while appearing on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fox News</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Politically speaking the Administration has
won,” Krauthammer said. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They ran out
the clock . . . I’m as outraged as everybody about this. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just think that as a political issue the
country is now tired of it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Krauthammer
suggests Republican investigators blew it due to inadequate preparations and insufficiently
aggressive questioning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seems to
suggest Republican ineptitude allowed Democrats to get away with (criminal) ineptitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not a very pretty outcome but
Krauthammer apparently believes it spins better than conceding there was never
anything to find in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-33414290032372298492014-04-08T15:35:00.006-04:002014-04-08T16:34:10.489-04:00Crude Example<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A Local Near-Miss
Demonstrates the Potential Hazards of Oil Pipelines</b> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">On March 18, an oil pipeline located about twenty miles
away from my house developed a leak in the Oak Glen Nature Preserve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/2014/03/18/crews-investigate-colerain-gas-leak/6554741/" target="_blank">initial estimate</a> was that about 10,000
gallons of crude were released into a marsh area, adjacent stream, and
pond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thankfully, the spill was
contained from the Great Miami River, located just five hundred feet away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The leak was revised a week later to 17,000
gallons spilled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Authorities said the
pipeline had developed a five-inch crack but were still unsure exactly why.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The pipeline was laid in the 1950s, decade before Oak
Glen was designated as a protected wildlife area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is owned by Sunoco Logistics and operated
by Mid-Valley Pipeline Company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
total, the pipeline stretches over 1,100 mils from Texas to Michigan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the third time in the last decade
that oil has leaked in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area from the
pipe and the fortieth incident since 2006 for the pipeline as a whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The owners and operators have been fined
multiple times for infractions and failure to take corrective actions.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Workers attempt to
clean up oil spilled <br />into a pond from a
pipeline running <br />through the Oak Glen Nature Preserve<br />near Cincinnati, OH</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Nearby residents reported smelling a fuel-like odor for
several days but none of them contacted authorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ron Worsley,
who owns a farm near the nature preserve, was <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/03/18/0318-Oil-leak-found-in-southwest-Ohio-nature-preserve.html" target="_blank">quoted</a> in the <i>Columbus Dispatch</i>
as generally unworried about the leak or its odor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When I am around the stuff, I am less
sensitive to it,” Worsley said. “I wouldn’t want to be swimming in it, but
these things happen.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Initial reporting tended to downplay the incident, noting
the local water supply and air quality remained safe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The impact on local wildlife was also
minimized, with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall Street Journal </i><a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303287804579447824060207940" target="_blank">reporting</a>,
“Aside from one dead crawfish, [authorities] said no wildlife appeared to have
been impacted.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A week later the story was <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/2/animals-contaminated-by-ohio-oil-spill-are-moved/" target="_blank">revised</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to the <i>Washington Times</i>, “About sixty
salamanders, frogs and crayfish have been collected” for cleaning, according to
Hamilton County Parks officials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
addition, “So far, twenty-eight small animals have been found dead in the
preserve or died soon after being taken in.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The area has proven tricky and expensive to clean up for
a relatively small, contained spill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cincinnati Enquirer</i> <a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/colerain/2014/03/23/colerain-oil-spill/6799695/" target="_blank">explained</a> how work
crews will need to “build a road” to get heavy machinery into the spill area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crews must vacuum up the oil and dig up
contaminated soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A pond near the spill
site required oil sheen removed from its surface. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The pond's shoreline is also showing staining
akin to a ‘bathtub ring’ formed as a result of the oil's presence. Authorities
will use thermal heat to remove the ring. The process could cause some smoke in
the area.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Alan Sanders is a chief strategist for the conservation
group Earth Alert. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lives in the
nearby community of Loveland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Enquirer</i> <a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/2014/03/26/column-lack-effective-deterrent-dooms-environment/6647859/" target="_blank">op-ed piece</a>, he notes, “The
spill could hardly have come at a worse time for supporters of the proposed
Keystone Pipeline. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That pipeline would
cross the Ogallala aquifer, one of the world’s most important aquifers.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The proponents of that pipeline may call this essay a
crude attempt to conflate an accident on an old pipeline with a new
state-of-the-art one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet Keystone, if
built, will also begin to age from the day it is put into operation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, there are many lucky factors that
made this spill far smaller and less dangerous than future possible Keystone
spills.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">First, the cold weather Cincinnati was experiencing at
the time kept many small animals in hibernation and minimized larger game
passing through the area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ground was
also partially hard and frozen, thus able to absorb less oil.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Second, the Cincinnati pipeline ranges from eight to
twenty-two inches in diameter along its run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Keystone pipeline is generally a uniform thirty-six inches
throughout its proposed run.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Third, the oil that leaked was Texas sweet crude, noted
for low sulfur content and lack of other impurities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keystone will carry crude from the Alberta
tar sand fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is often called “unconventional
crude.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its natural state is thick,
sludgy bismuth that requires mixture with other hydrocarbons to allow it to
flow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It requires multiple per-treatments
before it can undergo traditional refining.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>According to a July 2010 <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/37/16178.full" target="_blank">article</a> in the Proceeding of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, tar sand crude contains, “Heavy
metals such as vanadium, nickel, lead, cobalt, mercury, chromium, cadmium,
arsenic, selenium, copper, manganese, iron and zinc are naturally present in
oil sands and may be concentrated by the extraction process.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Almost exactly one year ago, a major leak occurred in Exxon-Mobil’s
Pegasus pipeline near the town of Mayflower, Arkansas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington Post</i> published an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lessons-from-the-arkansas-pipeline-leak/2013/04/04/b61ce71a-9bdd-11e2-9bda-edd1a7fb557d_story.html" target="_blank">editorial</a> that rings sensible and
true, both then and now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The country
should [not] simply accept such events as inevitable . . . One reason to allow
extraction and transportation of fossil fuel on American soil is that, if the
U.S. government doesn’t, high demand means all of that will happen elsewhere,
often in places that care much less about the environment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For that logic to work, U.S. standards must be
high.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My example of pipeline dangers may indeed be crude but
one of the definitions of “crude” is “unprepared.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The incident near my hometown fortunately had
a relatively happy ending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than
using that as comforting reassurance, we would do well to consider it a
harbinger for the potential calamities of future incidents.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span>
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-36325477607674331132014-04-04T15:01:00.002-04:002014-04-04T15:01:34.165-04:00Not Instantly<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Chickens Are
Coming Home to Roost on High-Frequency Stock Trading</b>
</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sometimes I hear two seemingly unrelated news stories
reported back-to-back in which the latter seems to answer the questions raised
by the former.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That happened just the
other night while listening to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All Things
Considered</i> on NPR.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/04/02/298370558/traders-defend-high-speed-systems-against-charges-of-rigging" target="_blank">first story</a> was about high-frequency stock
trading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393244660/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=36275563240&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1655714520414467778&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_2o3rttog2z_e" target="_blank">book</a> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flash Boys</i>, by Michael Lewis, attempts
to show how high-speed trading on many exchanges are allowing a few large banks
and investment firms to gain a legal but unscrupulous advantage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It chronicles the story of Brad Katsuyama, a
trader at the Royal Bank of Canada, who first noticed and then began to wonder
why his stock trades were always completed for a price higher than the one just
quoted.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4bvrNcmJaojdmaM2Lwp279M9hfDnTABDkYsDGxquXqEXxZBbK2e4NQRZtO5r_TmGlWmnrLifXg3avDfT4d4xd3vWscKsTXMZWobdGHtmMWABvc7ukT2MQ6XsNavaj7qHQfVgrjYtFdb-F/s1600/Not+Instantly.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4bvrNcmJaojdmaM2Lwp279M9hfDnTABDkYsDGxquXqEXxZBbK2e4NQRZtO5r_TmGlWmnrLifXg3avDfT4d4xd3vWscKsTXMZWobdGHtmMWABvc7ukT2MQ6XsNavaj7qHQfVgrjYtFdb-F/s1600/Not+Instantly.bmp" height="207" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Stealing is stealing.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It turns out that certain big high-frequency trading
firms were using their ultra-fast servers – often with special access to the
exchanges – to probe for information about who was trading what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Identifying a sale about to happen, the
high-speed traders swoop in, buy the stock in question, and then immediately sell
it back to the original buyer for a slightly higher price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each sale only brought pennies in profits but
volume turned that into hundreds of millions of dollars (or more) in a year.
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Wall Street is divided in its reactions to the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304432604579473281278352644?mg=reno64-wsj" target="_blank">Defenders</a> of high-speed trading concede that
Lewis exposes genuine shortcomings but insist he hyperbolizes both the extent
of questionable practices and their impact on markets.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Katsuyama and a team of technicians he organized have
figured out a way to neutralize the advantage of high-frequency stock traders opened
a new exchange of their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As NPR
reports, investment firms like T. Rowe Price and Goldman Sachs are now routing
some of their stock trades through this new exchange.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So are “famously smart investors like David
Einhorn and William Ackman.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“The stock market is rigged,” Lewis accuses. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It's rigged for the benefit of a handful of
insiders.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That characterization was
aggressively disputed by <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-01/-shame-on-you-is-exchange-executive-s-rebuttal-of-michael-lewis.html" target="_blank">Bill O’Brien</a>, the President of rival exchange operator
Bats Global Markets Inc. when he appeared on a CNBC interview with Katsuyama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others think Lewis is right on the money.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Investment giant Charles Swab just issued a <a href="http://www.aboutschwab.com/press/issues/" target="_blank">press announcement</a> denouncing high-frequency traders for “gaming the system.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Schwab called the practice “a growing cancer”
that needs addressing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a Financial
Times profile, a Sachs Goldman insider was quoted as saying, “At some point in
time the chickens are going to come home to roost on the HFT game.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This story was immediately followed on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All Things Considered</i> by a <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/02/297347789/stop-thief-when-colleagues-steal-from-the-office-fridge" target="_blank">story</a> about
former wedding planner turned etiquette consultant, Jeanne Hamilton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has created a website, entitled <a href="http://www.etiquettehell.com/" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Etiquette Hell</i></a>, for people whose bad
behavior runs beyond the pale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hamilton
says the number one etiquette violation reported by office workers is fridge
theft – people have food they have prepared and left clearly marked in the
communal refrigerator stolen from them constantly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The problem is compounded when the thief is not a peer
but a superior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hamilton relates one
story told to her in which the thief was a company’s CEO.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This person not only stole food but was
brazen about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one case, the CEO
reached down and sampled the lunch off a subordinate’s desk as he stood talking
to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In another, his food sampling
passed along a virus to others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When asked why some business people would act so
unethically, Hamilton speculates confusion over communal fridges with communal
food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also considers misplaced good
intentions, in which the theft takes food planning only to borrow it but then
never pays it back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end, “she
speculates the real issue is that some people have an incredible sense of
entitlement.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This may well be the answer behind high-frequency trading
abuses too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its proponents insist that
most high-speed traders “are ethical and following the rules and doing the
right thing.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They cite numerous
benefits that high-speed trading brings to markets, including price liquidity
and efficiency, that overall mean lower prices for (small) investors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Philip Delves Broughton, author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Art of the Sale – Learning From the
Masters About the Business of Life</i>, points out in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/opinion/flash-boys-for-the-people.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0" target="_blank">op-ed piece</a>, “It makes sense to monitor it, as one
should any innovation. But it would be a shame to silence it.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It may be that fees as well as other penalties and
restrictions can gain some control the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the inhabitants of the comic
strip <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dibert</i> know that stealing is
stealing, even if it takes place in the shadow of high tech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why I agree with Charles Schwab’s
pronouncement, “But if the practice is simply a scam, as we believe it is, an
even better solution is to simply make it illegal.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am no technophobe and computers have helped organize
the hectic world of stock markets as they have almost all other aspects of
modern life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet in this case, the argument
seems to be we will achieve better control by speeding things up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All sorts of crazy phenomenon happen when you
approach the speed of light – as we are rapidly doing in computer hardware –
and these make it all too easy to hide skullduggery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stock trading needs to be conducted fairly,
not instantly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I mean, if we know some CEOs literally are willing to steal
food out of our mouths, it begs the question as to what else they are
capable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now we know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks Michael Lewis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span>TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-50313028980284644472014-04-02T11:34:00.000-04:002014-04-02T16:59:04.904-04:00How We Met Our Healthcare<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
On March 31, two finales occurred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CBS sitcom <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How I Met Your Mother</i> wrapped up production after nine years on the
air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first year deadline to sign up for
mandatory healthcare also arrived six years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
became law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both events left respective
fans with emotions ranging from confusion to betrayal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And both events really were less endings than
the end of the beginning.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The presumed point of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How I
Met Your Mother</i> has always been protagonist Ted telling his children the
convoluted story of how he met their Mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At the series debut, Ted was a romantic, determined to find “the One”
with whom he could grow old blissfully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
two-hundred plus episodes, Ted endures a long string of unsuccessful
relationships, including infatuation with gal pal Robin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the final episode, he finally meets and
marries his perfect woman, Tracy, only to have her die after a few years of
marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the final scene, at the
urging of his kids, Ted is back at Robin’s door for one more try at
happiness, not with “the One” but with the one who is left at the end.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisCbqNjJSGCvQpUznKjN8Qukk-kapFKbMprFmZdx4kIK04Hpw0PEdNk2252Oo8qMF8OrQsqHBcAMs6y2n-Fqhmi2Pl10g8oZFv8NfOz1KogkpU40qY312ocs__CLkfQ4rW0lUAtWbtfMk-/s1600/How+We+Met+Our+Healthcare.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisCbqNjJSGCvQpUznKjN8Qukk-kapFKbMprFmZdx4kIK04Hpw0PEdNk2252Oo8qMF8OrQsqHBcAMs6y2n-Fqhmi2Pl10g8oZFv8NfOz1KogkpU40qY312ocs__CLkfQ4rW0lUAtWbtfMk-/s1600/How+We+Met+Our+Healthcare.bmp" height="110" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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getting what you<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">want does not guarantee a<br />lifetime of bliss</span></i></div>
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This finale left many viewers highly dissatisfied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington
Post</i>, critic <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/03/31/how-the-how-i-met-your-mother-finale-betrayed-the-series-ideals/?tid=pm_opinions_pop" target="_blank">Alyssa Rosenberg</a> called it, “The shallowest, if not easiest,
answer to Ted’s lifelong quest for love that [the show] possibly could have
arrived at.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was vexed that the e<span class="body">ponymous Mother character was not really the point of the show after
all but merely a MacGuffin – slang for a plot device, representing an object pursued by
the protagonist, often with little explanation, which turns out be largely
unimportant to the overall plot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
For its part, the ACA is the signature legislative
accomplishment of President Obama, a candidate who debuted as “the One” for his
admirers and to the derision of his critics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The bill’s passage into law was a long, convoluted process that only
continued as Republicans and other objectors attacked it with Constitutional
challenges, implementation roadblocks, and negative ads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The program has lived up to some of the fears
they sowed and destroyed credibility with voters for Obama and Congressional
Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What we got, supporters and critics
rue alike, is not what we aspired to achieve.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Both the sitcom and the ACA still have their
defenders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/03/31/how_i_met_your_mother_finale_ted_and_robin_and_the_himym_ending_we_ve_wanted.html" target="_blank">Miriam Krule</a> of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Slate</i> magazine notes, “Contrary to what
some disappointed critics are writing tonight, if Ted hadn’t ended up with Robin,
that would have been an enormous disappointment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way Ted ended up with Robin . . . was far
more interesting and romantic than anything the show could have told us about
the mother in forty-five minutes or less . . . [and] whose name we just learned
tonight.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Tracy was also unsatisfying precisely because she was so
perfect for Ted, so much the ideal he had long sought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ted’s other pals, Marshall and Lily, were
undoubtedly inspiration for his unyielding romanticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The couple met and fell in love on the first
day of college and were still together at the series conclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet as the unhappy Rosenberg concedes, their
trials and tribulations throughout the series also provided a mix of realism to
Ted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were forced on numerous
occasions to balance their personal dreams against their marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Their relationship stood as testament to the
idea that marriage is work . . . [but] that marriage is a place from which that
work can happen from a place of strength.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Yesterday, President Obama held a triumphal press
conference to announce that the various online exchanges had exceeded
expectations by signing up 7.1 million individuals for health insurance (never
mind this was the original goal until it was downgraded after the exchanges’
disastrous rollout).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NBC News First Read</i> <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/first-thoughts-obamacare-here-stay-n67726" target="_blank">adds</a>, “When you add
the folks who’ve gotten insurance via expanded Medicaid and those under twenty-six
who are on their parents’ insurance, the overall total could be as high as 15
million.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Opponents immediately charged the <a href="http://news.msn.com/us/ap-sources-health-law-sign-ups-on-track-to-hit-7m" target="_blank">numbers were worthless</a>,
since the federal government could/would not report how many sign-ups had paid their
first month's premiums, how how many were previously uninsured, how many lost
existing coverage thanks to the ACA, and how many were in the all-important “young
and healthy” category essential to the law’s economic viability.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Yet in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York
Times</i> article far from friendly to the ACA, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/us/politics/deadline-near-health-signups-show-disparity.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Sheryl Gay Stolberg and RobertPear</a> also believe national numbers are largely irrelevant, although for very
different reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“[Today,] the program
widely known as Obamacare looks less like a sweeping federal overhaul than a
collection of individual ventures playing out unevenly, state to state, in the
laboratories of democracy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They report
that insurance companies are only starting to get a handle on the nature of
sign-ups and quote one insurance executive, “This is really a two- to
three-year process for the dust to settle.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Just as Ted looked to Marshall and Lily as an example to
handle his own romantic disappointment, so states with successful exchanges,
such as Connecticut, may provide examples to states with disastrous exchanges,
such as Oregon and Maryland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Democratic candidates
are talking about “fixes” to the system and Republicans are retreating from “repeal”
to “replacement.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some sacrifice and
compromise may prove them closer together than they currently would care to
admit.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As for voters and the newly insured, we may need to face
the fact that our disappointment with the ACA is partly a product of our own overblown
expectations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We yearned for Tracy only
to find ourselves ending up with Robin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rosenberg grouses this character was always “someone who ducked out of
emotionally difficult situations, that she could be blunt and not particularly
considerate, that she preferred her own convenience to other characters’
comfort and emotional needs.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just
maybe the healthcare we are getting is the healthcare we deserve.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Whether the ACA remains a MacGuffin – a distraction and
deceit – or evolves into a mensch on whom we can all rely is clearly still in
doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is what we are left to deal
with for the rest of our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How we
deal with it is a function of our own attitudes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Selflessness, sacrifice, and compromise have
not been on display much by either side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is time for all of us to
decide what this story is really all about.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-79626207753376547102014-03-31T14:45:00.000-04:002014-03-31T14:45:21.305-04:00Destroying the Peg<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Expanding or
Limiting the Definition of Autism Could Be Harmful to Children</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
announced last week that the rate of U.S. cases of autism had risen again to
about one in every eighty-eight children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This represents a doubling of the figure in just five years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CDC credited wider screening and better
diagnosis for the rise.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Conventional wisdom runs that most of the new diagnoses
come from the milder end of the autism spectrum – kids who, in the past, would
have been assigned learning disabilities or written off as anti-social nerds
and geeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others, such as Columbia University
Sociology Professor Gil Eyal, believe a significant number of new diagnoses
come from the more extreme end of the spectrum as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
2009 <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/record/08/09/autismsurge.html" target="_blank">research</a> found the rise in autism cases coincided with a drop in the
number of diagnosed cases of mental retardation.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Up to now, the diagnosis
of autism</i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has been blurry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That may be about</i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to change.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A more inclusive definition of autism confirms some
trends and defies others when <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/46892046#.UzW96VeGecU" target="_blank">crunching numbers</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Autism remains five times as likely in boys
as girls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, an increasingly large
proportion of children with autism have IQs of 85 or higher, contradicting a
past assumption that most autistic kids have IQs of 70 or lower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A <a href="http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1487030" target="_blank">study</a> by the State University of New York
Upstate Medical University, entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Macroeconomic
Environment During Infancy as a Possible Risk Factor for Adolescent Behavioral
Problems</i>, found that mothers of autistic children are fifty-six percent
more likely to be under the poverty line.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yet the widespread acceptance of autism as a spectrum
disorder may be the biggest breakthrough of all. Some applaud the new inclusivity for allowing earlier
diagnosis that has led an explosion in treatments and services for at-risk children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others criticize including milder forms of
disorders, such as Asperger’s’ Syndrome, in the spectrum, arguing this tends to
trivialize very serious conditions suffered by other children.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Diagnosis of autism has long been controversial because,
up until now, it was simply a subjective evaluation, based on observation of social
awkwardness, fixated interests, and/or repetitive behaviors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no specific test for autism because
its physical causes (if any) are unknown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That may be about to change.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A <a href="http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/mar/26/autism-courchesne-stoner-lein-ucsd/" target="_blank">study</a> just published in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New England Journal of Medicine</i> by researchers at the University of
California, San Diego finds autism begins during pregnancy with subtle
disruption of the brain's frontal and temporal cortex. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It identifies a mechanism of abnormal gene
activity causing overgrowth in the brains of autistic children that disappears
by adulthood but leaves lingering effects.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The study builds on the findings of <a href="http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/7439" target="_blank">other research</a>
published by UCSD just last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That research
found twenty-three percent of autism cases are linked to a specific combination
of antibodies in the mother's blood. Women with the antibodies are ninety-nine
percent likely to give birth to a child with autism.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Other experts may be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/health/research/new-autism-definition-would-exclude-many-study-suggests.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" target="_blank">busy</a> attempting to limit the new
inclusivity in autism diagnosis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
January 2012, Dr. Fred Volkmar, Director of the Yale Child Study Center, told
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times </i>a new definitions
of autism <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was about to come from the
American Psychiatric Association that would nip the recent autism surge “in the
bud.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Such pruning would be just fine with Sociologist Frank Furedi,
formerly a professor at the University of Kent in Canterbury and the author of
many books, including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wasted – Why
Education Isn't Educating</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furedi
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9160322/Number-of-children-with-autism-soars-by-more-than-50-per-cent-in-five-years.html" target="_blank">contends</a> in <i>The Telegraph</i> that many parents – sometime subconsciously and sometimes deliberately
– are using autism as dispensation for poor performance from their children as
a result of normal hardships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He largely
dismisses the autism surge as an invention of convenience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It is unlikely to be a genuine unprecedented
increase in autism, rather an institutional use of this condition to allow
people to get easier access to resources.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It is easy to demonize Furedi as callous but he may be
making a useful point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Temple Grandin, possibly this country’s most
high-profile autistic person following a widely-viewed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">HBO</i> biography, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/04/24/grandin_on_the_autism_surge/" target="_blank">notes</a> that while an autism diagnosis might help the
parents of at-risk children feel more supported and less alone, the children themselves
are not necessarily helped by the new emphasis so many are placing on autism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She frets in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Salon</i> magazine, “Now kids are getting fixated on their autism
instead of [other interests]. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d rather
get them to fixate on that something that could give them a career.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Grandin contends that many of history’s most famous
thinkers and doers probably fall somewhere on the autism spectrum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She once mischievously described society
without autistics as “A bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and
socializing and not getting anything done.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Fellow autistic, writer Paul Collins, author of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46839.Not_Even_Wrong" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not Even Wrong – Adventures in Autism</i></a>, sums
up what is at stake even more cogently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Autistics
are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a
round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's that you're destroying the peg.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Right now, a lot of very smarts people are hammering away at the autism spectrum. Some are trying to smash it flat, elongating it to the greatest extent possible. Others are banging at the ends, trying to compress it back into a more manageable length. What all those bright minds are missing are the people in the middle, also with some bright minds of their own. Less important than their numbers or the degree of their differences is that fact that they are simply different from the rest of us and not deficient.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-27943796104900161942014-03-24T10:34:00.000-04:002014-03-24T10:45:53.035-04:00The Rest Is Silence<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Legacy of the
Reverend Fred Phelps</b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">O, I die, Horatio;</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The potent poison
quite o'er-crows my spirit:</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I cannot live to
hear the news . . .</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But I do prophesy .
. .</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The rest is
silence.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~
Shakespeare, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hamlet</i>, Act V, Scene 2</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Reverend Fred Phelps, pastor of Westboro Baptist
Church, died last Wednesday at the age of eighty-four.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the most hated men in America, Phelps
and his congregation – mostly consisting of his extended family – pushed free
speech boundaries by protesting at the funerals of U.S. soldiers and others to
promote their message that God has abandoned the United States over our
tolerance towards homosexuals.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Phelps was admittedly an extraordinary individual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was an Eagle Scout and graduated high
school at age sixteen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was ordained a
Baptist minister in 1947 and earned a law degree from Washburn University in 1964.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Phelps specialized in civil rights issues,
including free speech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He used his legal
knowledge to leverage his right to deliver religious messages so cruel and
hurtful that many felt he crossed the boundaries of decency.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcGlBvgR8LxvWIMSNSGTQm6cdkKKUUGOqB9LuEGYaccjEDXsY6AggXv3D5FqCgvPbe_V7GN74BLEWoSjcfsm6cvP0_qXRl68BAVsIURkDdcDX9L8WgAK5KX4CnqYYfybZ5zx8kemz8YiXb/s1600/The+Rest+Is+Silence.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcGlBvgR8LxvWIMSNSGTQm6cdkKKUUGOqB9LuEGYaccjEDXsY6AggXv3D5FqCgvPbe_V7GN74BLEWoSjcfsm6cvP0_qXRl68BAVsIURkDdcDX9L8WgAK5KX4CnqYYfybZ5zx8kemz8YiXb/s1600/The+Rest+Is+Silence.bmp" height="145" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Some
of those Fred Phelps</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">chose as his enemies</span></i></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yet Phelps was not only unrepentant but disdainful of
critics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was sure he was a superior
person and correct in his views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was certain
the obscene quality of his protests paled in comparison to the moral judgment
faced by most Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was positive
he was one of a few elect, prophesying to the damned.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Richard Kim wrote a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/178941/fred-phelps-death-bigot" target="_blank">scathing eulogy</a> about Phelps in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Nation</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What distinguishes him from any other raving
street-corner prophet is the simple-mindedness of his message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the place of the modern religious emphasis
on God’s love, Phelps ranted on about God’s hate . . . It was a juvenile
substitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And to discuss Phelps as
if he were a morally vexing and profound evil is to dignify him with a
complexity he lacked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His hatred was
banal . . . In the end, he was only sound and fury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On his own merits, he accomplished
nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a nobody.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Phelp’s estranged son Nathan, although he mourns his
father’s passing, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/atheist-nate-phelps-on-his-father-i-mourn-the-man-he-could-have-been/2014/03/21/647e9156-b121-11e3-b8b3-44b1d1cd4c1f_story.html" target="_blank">warns</a> of him as something still dangerous after death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“"Unfortunately, Fred’s ideas have not
died with him, but live on . . . among the many communities and small minds
that refuse to recognize the equality and humanity of our brothers and sisters
on this small planet we share.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">While this is doubtless true, I am more inclined to side
with those like Kim who view Phelps as more an aberrant than a threat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we seek ways to weigh a human life, we
sometimes ask who that individual viewed as his or her enemies (i.e. what
values did they oppose)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his endless
hatred of homosexuality, Phelps chose as enemies the men and women willing to
die to protect his freedoms, including free speech.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Another method of judging an individual life’s worth is
their words – both what they had to say as well as how likely those words may
outlive them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compare a few of Phelp’s
words, found in (surprisingly few) places such as <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps" target="_blank">this one</a>, against others who
served the same God he professed to serve.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“By refusing to heed Westboro Baptist Church, that God
hates fags, and by continuing to persecute Westboro Baptist Church, America is
pouring gasoline on the raging fires of God's wrath. America may expect many
more dead and maimed bodies from Iraq, many more Katrinas and other natural
disasters, and many more Virginia Tech massacres. Westboro Baptist Church
rejoices, not grieves, when we see God's vengeance.”<br />~ Phelps<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But I say unto you,
That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if any
man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak
also.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For if ye
love only them which love you, what reward have ye?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do not even the publicans the same? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>~ Matthew 5</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Thank God for 9/11. Thank God that, five years ago, the
wrath of God was poured out upon this evil nation. America, land of the
sodomite damned. We thank thee, Lord God Almighty, for answering the prayers of
those that are under the altar.”<br />~
Phelps<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Therefore if thou
bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath ought
against thee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leave there thy gift
before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then
come and offer thy gift.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">~ Matthew 5</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"God hates fags! God hates America! Thank God for
dead soldiers! You're going to hell!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>~ Phelps<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thou therefore
endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No soldier entangles himself with the affairs
of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>~ II Timothy 2</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Those earlier words have persisted for two millennia now
and may well continue for many more because they speak to something uplifting
in the human spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast, Phelp’s
words are harsh rants of pride, fear, and anger. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps Phelps gave his message a certain
power while he lived through the fury and certainty that burned within
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet they seem hopelessly trite without
his passion.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If there is an afterlife, Phelps is most certainly
suffering in hell, if only through his own discontent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a lifetime of booming prophecy, he has
ended in silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is all his
life’s work will ever be for the rest of eternity.</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div>
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-64021712352264177892014-03-21T09:15:00.000-04:002014-03-21T09:15:45.770-04:00¡Viva Crimea!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When Honduras Met Sevastopol</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is a classic scene in the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When Harry Met Sally</i> in which Sally loudly demonstrates a fake
orgasm for Harry in a crowded restaurant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Following its conclusion, a woman at another table, unaware of what was
happening, puts down her menu and tells the waiter, “I’ll have what she’s
[Sally] having.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will always wonder
exactly what that waiter brought her but I am pretty sure she ended up
disappointed.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Maybe countries are like that too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>History has a funny way of repeating
itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider the case of Crimea,
formerly an autonomous republic associated with Ukraine that is about to be
annexed by Russia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its population is
apparently thrilled by the prospect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let’s ask them again how they feel in three to five years.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgye7le9g1JEM8JYW36zoVz7n90LnMzx_d2J8f8HBZR5LPJx87kTtpg_2sSvkIgw_dKKLCXu8kJMm3cSoHKyN1znDiRcqxApbBN6VSaSF09kLXeEahCo9sbCVz74UNWrrIlFXzw3FinM-X3/s1600/Viva+Crimea.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgye7le9g1JEM8JYW36zoVz7n90LnMzx_d2J8f8HBZR5LPJx87kTtpg_2sSvkIgw_dKKLCXu8kJMm3cSoHKyN1znDiRcqxApbBN6VSaSF09kLXeEahCo9sbCVz74UNWrrIlFXzw3FinM-X3/s1600/Viva+Crimea.bmp" height="104" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Here’s the story – Ukraine had a long-term relationship
with Russia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That changed with the
election of President Viktor Yanukovych in 2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He began flirting with the European
Union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alas, Yanukovych proved abusive
at home, then seemed about to go back to his old lover [Russia].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A series of populist protests in Kiev caused
him to flee the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was
subsequently divorced as President by the new Ukraine legislature.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In the midst of this turbulence, Russian President
Vladimir Putin removed his shirt and dispatched troops to Crimea, ostensibly to
protect the large former Russian population living there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A week later, Crimea held a populist
referendum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The vote to succeed from
Ukraine and join Russia was almost orgasmic in scope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Obama immediately condemned the affair
as unlawful.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The situation was reminiscent of the ouster of Honduran
President Maunel Zelaya back in June 2009.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Zelaya also abused power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The final
straw came when he announced a populist referendum to amend the constitution allowing
him to run for President again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was
forcibly exiled by the Honduran military and removed from office by its
legislature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obama also protested these
actions as unlawful.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For his part, Putin argues President Yanukovych was
ousted in an illegal coup, thereby ending the Ukrainian government’s legitimacy
and its authority over Crimea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Putin
also contends the right of Crimeans to decide how they want to be governed, citing
Article 1 of the United Nations Charter regarding the principle of
self-determination.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This does seem to place Obama in a hypocritical light
over his past condemnation of Honduras for the removal of its President in
similar circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the usurpers
were the bad guys in Central America, why are they now the victims in Eastern
Europe?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">However, Russia’s government also had problems at the
time with the legitimacy of Honduran actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Former news agency <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">RIA Novosti</i>
reported a <a href="http://en.ria.ru/world/20090629/155385697.html" target="_blank">Foreign Ministry spokesman’s</a> condemnation of the coup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Specifically, “All actions by political
players in the country must lie within the bounds of the law and the
constitution."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That Russian government
was led by a Prime Minister also called Putin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Hint – He was <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i></b> current President Putin’s
father).</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So it was the Honduran constitution, not a U.N. resolution,
which was supreme according to Putin in 2009.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://www.president.gov.ua/en/content/chapter03.html" target="_blank">Title III, Article 73</a> of the Ukraine constitution clearly states, “Alterations
to the territory of Ukraine shall be resolved exclusively by the All-Ukrainian
referendum”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, the Crimean
referendum was too limited and unconstitutional.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Moreover, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2014/03/vladimir_putin_s_ukraine_invasion_how_to_stop_the_russian_president_through.html" target="_blank">Fred Kaplan</a> points out in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Slate</i> magazine that the annexation of Crimea violates other
international law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The 1994 Budapest
Memorandum, signed by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom – while
it didn’t have the binding effect of the North Atlantic Treaty that established
NATO – did offer Ukraine security assurances in exchange for giving up the 2,000
nuclear weapons left in its territory as a remnant of Soviet days.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The presence of Russian military in Crimea impacted
Ukraine’s ability to maintain control over the region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crimea’s Russian-speaking population was
likely emboldened to attempt succession by that presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, an <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2014/03/crimea-votes-secede" target="_blank">editorial</a> in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Economist</i> notes, Crimean fervor to succeed was stoked by “rabid
anti-Ukrainian propaganda which portrayed the government in Kiev . . . as a
bunch of crazed fascists hell-bent on exterminating the Russian-speaking population
of Crimea”.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Some Americans were sympathetic to Honduran President Zelaya’s
ouster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This often had less to do with
the coup’s legality than Zelaya’s cozy relationship with Venezuelan leader Hugo
Chavez.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Preventing South America from
being swallowed up by socialism apparently was viewed as more important than
honoring the integrity of foreign consitutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A populist referendum was democracy in
action at the most basic level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A motto
became popular that ran <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">¡Viva Honduras!</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Out of the ashes of that motto rises a new one – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">¡Viva Crimea!</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What right has the U.S. to complain about
what the people of Crimea clearly want, ask critics?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the Crimeans might want to remember that a big part of Zelaya’s
unpopularity resulted from his defiance toward the corporate oligarchies that
were (and remain) the traditional power in Honduras.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such oligarchies also exist and hold the real
power in Russia, as Alexey A. Navalny, a Russian lawyer, anti-corruption
activist and opposition politician, points out in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/opinion/how-to-punish-putin.html?ref=opinion&_r=0" target="_blank">op-ed piece</a>.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/john-perry/honduras-three-years-after-coup" target="_blank">John Perry</a>, writing at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">openDemocracy.net </i>in 2012, profiled conditions in Honduras three
years after that nation rejected its President and the rule of law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Its murder rate is four times that of Mexico
and it has become the world’s most dangerous country for journalists, with 23
having been assassinated over the last three years. “<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zelaya’s eventual successor came to power
through “highly questionable elections.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If I were Crimea and choosing from a menu of possible futures, I would <i><b>not</b></i> tell the waiter, "I'll have what she's [Honduras] having." It would be a shame if Sevastopol ended up another small, failed republic. Even bare-chested, Vladimir Putin is no fiery Latin lover of her dreams.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-200765190588608052014-03-19T09:53:00.000-04:002014-03-19T09:53:20.446-04:00Rope-A-Dope<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">How Obama Can Exploit
His Own Weakness for a Long-Term Victory</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Former boxing legend Muhammad Ali was a phenomenal
combination of speed, power, and endurance in his youth – he could out-box,
out-punch, and out-last any opponent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His rise to the top was swift and unstoppable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alas, age takes its toll on even the greatest
and eventually Ali began to lose aptitude in each category.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To stretch out his years as champion, Ali
needed a new trick or technique to allow him to outlast younger opponents with
less talent but more stamina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, the
rope-a-dope became the trademark of Ali’s later career.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Ali would assume a protected stance, lying against the
ropes, and allow opponents to pummel him, fighting back just enough to avoid
the referee taking points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ropes’ elasticity
absorbed most of the force of opponents’ blows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Eventually, opponents would “punch themselves out.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then the rested Ali would suddenly explode,
quickly hurting or finishing off the now tired and mistake-prone contenders.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8jVrkKyBerWTAUg1M8k5UPNhVYUS_NVDFb0dQwR31mEjRQ8OwJP9qOk0lfznZBKndmt6V4qSA6ABShUrWRkiSrcB90LhJgRL6_xR-gq9olRI0rY2UIrJj0uGY3TNfT4fnvAnE58MBjpfb/s1600/Rope-A-Dope.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8jVrkKyBerWTAUg1M8k5UPNhVYUS_NVDFb0dQwR31mEjRQ8OwJP9qOk0lfznZBKndmt6V4qSA6ABShUrWRkiSrcB90LhJgRL6_xR-gq9olRI0rY2UIrJj0uGY3TNfT4fnvAnE58MBjpfb/s1600/Rope-A-Dope.bmp" height="151" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is a political
version of rope-a-dope<br />
Obama’s best bet to deal with<br />Republicans on the ACA?</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The technique was risky but brilliant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ali purposely put himself in what appeared to
be a losing position with the aim of becoming the eventual victor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It almost always worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although Ali made the technique famous he was
not the only, or even the first, boxer to employ it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A fighter needs intelligence and patience to
make the rope-a-dope work to his advantage.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If President Obama has anything in common with Ali, it is
surely his rapid rise in national politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Also like Ali, Obama has been feared down for the count in his
Presidency, only to rebound in popularity and influence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, he has repeatedly demonstrated
endurance and imperturbability when dealing with opponents.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now he finds himself on the ropes yet again over problems
with the rollout of his signature legislative accomplishment – the Affordable
Care Act (ACA).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Republicans just won a
special House election in Florida using repeal of the law as their sole issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Democratic challenger embraced rather
than ran away from the ACA.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A recent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall
Street Journal</i> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304185104579435193509318018" target="_blank">editorial</a> exults, “The mend-it-don't-end-it strategy now looks more perilous.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I agree with this assessment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Friends and advisors are warning the
President that Democrats may lose control of the Senate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also agree this is very possible.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Obama and the Democrats will spend between now and
November trying to punch their way out of trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But supposing the unthinkable occurs and
Obama faces the prospect of a Republican Congressional majority in his last two
years, already lame duck territory for any sitting two-term President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does he come through these final rounds
without looking completely bruised and defeated?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The answer may be a political form of the rope-a-dope.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Obama has some reason to believe he can play immovable
object to the GOP’s irresistible force of repeal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, he believes the ACA has already
received enough enrollments to achieve a kind of critical mass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Writing in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forbes</i> magazine, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2014/03/15/benefit-experts-agree-with-obama-that-aca-has-enough-enrolled/" target="_blank">Bruce Japsen</a> thinks he might be correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Some experts seem to agree with Obama that enough have enrolled<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. . . even though there could be up to two
million fewer Americans covered than the White House had hoped . . . health
insurance companies have said the enrollment is trending younger and there have
been few surprises that would require them to pull out of the program.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Moreover, Obama will retain veto power over any repeal
votes and it is unlikely that even generous gains will give Congressional
Republicans the ability to override him in both houses.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The unspoken question about the rope-a-dope strategy is
why any opponent would possibly be willing to play along?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the case of Ali, the chance to flatten the
champ when he seemed weakest proved irresistible to challenger after
challenger, even as they realized they were being played.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given their acrimonious relationship over the
past six years, Republicans in Congress seem equally unable to restrain
themselves from attempting to land a fatal blow to Obama.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In many ways, they have been playing rope-a-dope themselves
where health-care reform is concerned, allowing Obama and Democrats to own the
issue entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Discipline was
relatively easy to maintain when any sign of compromise or cooperation with the
President was seen as weakness by the conservative base.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Republicans have played a waiting game; sure
that public discontent would eventually sweep them back into power.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now that they sense a return to power is imminent, many
on the right are suddenly arguing not for repeal but for gradual, modest reform
that attempts to fix problems the ACA’s rollout has exposed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of these are changes that Obama –
although not necessarily Congressional Democrats – could probably live
with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Republican leaders feel safe to
trot them out because they no longer look like compromise but rather mandates forced
upon a weak President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A smart and
patient Obama might do well simply to lean against the ropes and take them,
along with the commensurate GOP gloating.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">With every body blow they (fail to) land, Republicans
will be increasing their ownership in the ACA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Simply by postponing repeal for two years, Obama’s rope-a-dope might be
sufficient to entrench the new law as a permanent part of the social safety
net, along with Medicaid and Social Security.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Obviously, Obama would probably prefer to fight from a position of strength. Yet he has been trying that for six years now without showing the will or the power to land the final blow. Republicans have generally erred in the past by underestimating Obama when he appears weakest. Once they have him on the ropes, they may find they have the President exactly where he wants them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span>TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-89004678267800411022014-03-17T12:33:00.000-04:002014-03-17T12:33:03.020-04:00White Lie versus Whitewash<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Magnitude of
Democratic Spin over Florida 13 </b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now that the dust has settled on the Florida 13 special
election, let me offer a few thoughts on the deceptive spins placed on the
results by each Party.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I will start with the Republicans because there is far
less to criticize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many on the right
have been crowing that a GOP victory came despite the fact that Democratic
challenger Alex Sink outraised/outspent the eventual Republican victor David
Jolly by a 4:1 margin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They argue this demonstrates
the extreme toxicity of Obamacare against Democratic candidates.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHboaA0Bq_7gxqeACQznnTvH7jgs5BZNlL0KqjeyZ3IwuiWxN1cWZDSwVTbaNTsuabMg-0ijNXxVOZUvbPCbqelEnlH7SZegI-mQdwizt3S4LGF6j08CzdmBVB7gd7YXm2DGo2di5vv0Ga/s1600/White+Lie+versus+Whitewash.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHboaA0Bq_7gxqeACQznnTvH7jgs5BZNlL0KqjeyZ3IwuiWxN1cWZDSwVTbaNTsuabMg-0ijNXxVOZUvbPCbqelEnlH7SZegI-mQdwizt3S4LGF6j08CzdmBVB7gd7YXm2DGo2di5vv0Ga/s1600/White+Lie+versus+Whitewash.bmp" height="146" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Republican victor
David Jolly </i>(left)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Democratic
challenger Alex Sink </i>(right)</div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It is true that Sink outraised Jolly by the substantial
margin cited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, money raised is
not equivalent to money spent and the 4:1 ratio ignores the obscene gobs of
outside money poured into this election by PACs and other special interest
groups, both left and right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is disingenuous
to pretend the campaign ads paid for by this money were any less effective
influencing voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Outside Republican interests slightly outspent their
Democratic counterparts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tampa Bay Times</i>, the final count
was approximately $4.65 million by Democrats over $3.57 million by
Republicans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is still a hefty advantage
but translates to a ratio of more like 1.3 to 1 – a far less overwhelming deficit
to have overcome than advertised.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">However, this little white lie pales in comparison to the
fog of obfuscation generated by Democrats over the (non-)role played by
Obamacare in the race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, they
concede, it was disappointing to lose a House race in a district that has been
friendly toward President Obama in the last two Presidential elections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, yes, Republicans used the Affordable
Care Act (ACA) as a single overriding issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, turnout was light and the margin relatively close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than an indictment of Obamacare, it
was a failure to turn out the Democratic base in a non-national election year.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sink did not run away from health-care reform.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, she embraced it as a good idea that
needed changes to work better rather than a disaster necessitating repeal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Democrats can cite numerous polls to suggest
this is a solid strategy heading into November.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A recent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CNN</i>
poll found only thirty-nine percent of Americans favor the ACA law, while fifty-seven
percent oppose it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet only thirty-nine
percent oppose the law because it’s “too liberal,” while twelve percent say it “isn’t
liberal enough.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This translates to an
advantage of fifty-one percent among those who wish to keep the law, with
varying types/degrees of tweaks, as opposed to forty-five percent favoring
outright repeal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CBS News</i> poll from January confirms those numbers, with fifty-six
percent supporting the law with changes versus thirty-four percent calling for
complete repeal.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It all sounds warm and comforting until we consider that
the November midterms were always going to be harsher ground for Democrats than
Florida 13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Simply through random issues
of timing, a majority of the House races and virtually all of the Senate races this
year are in districts where Obama is highly unpopular – before, during, and
after the botched rollouts of the ACA website and exchanges.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It does not matter if Obamacare is less toxic than
Republicans hoped it might be nationally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It well may be toxic enough in the places where it counts to sweep away
reasonable Democratic arguments with right-wing partisan fervor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are polls with ominous warnings for
Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A March <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bloomberg</i>
poll shows seventy-three percent of those favoring repeal say a candidate’s
position on Obamacare will be a “major” decider of their vote, compared with only
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>forty-five percent of those who support
modifications and thirty-three percent of those who back the law as is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, a new <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall Street Journal</i>/<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NBC News</i>
poll shows that forty-seven percent of voters say they would be more likely to
vote for a candidate who supports repeal compared to thirty-two percent who say
they are less likely. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contract,
voters are about evenly split over candidates who support keeping and fixing
the health-care law.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Suddenly the turnout problem becomes more knotty for
Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They must maximize enthusiasm
for the law where little exists and where enthusiasm for repeal is already
maximized/maximizing.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is evidence for growing acceptance of the ACA among
all facets of the electorate, even as approval for it remains stagnant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Democrats
had been hoping against hope this acceptance could be parlayed into a midterm
elections strategy that might not only hold their Senate advantage but gain
them seats in the House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Florida 13
race suggests this strategy is not practicable. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The most likely outcome for Democrats this November is
losses in both houses of Congress, including a real possibility for losing
control of the Senate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although hatred
of the ACA is overstated by Republicans, there is genuine dissatisfaction with
the way President Obama and his Administration are currently handling it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will be extremely difficult for
Democrats to overcome in the next eight months, especially given new discipline
by the GOP has shown in avoiding embarrassing far-right candidates.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">True,
a big victory this year might cause Republicans to overestimate the mandate
they have been given as regards ACA repeal.<span>
</span>This, is turn, could result in a backlash that will benefit Democrats in
the 2016 Presidential election.<span> </span>However,
this year looks very bleak for Democrats and all the whitewash in the world
will not make it brighter.<span> </span>If Democrats
don’t see that and start preparing for it, then they are telling the most toxic
lie possible politically – they are lying to themselves.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-66899981771986482082014-03-12T11:32:00.002-04:002014-03-12T11:32:39.228-04:00Hath Not a Jew . . . a State?<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Israel’s
Insistence on Palestinian Recognition May</b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Hurt It in the Long Run</b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
In Shakespeare’s play, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Merchant of Venice</i>, the title character, Shylock, ends up
getting into trouble by using a combination of desperation and contract law for
leverage against his enemies, with the aim of gratuitous revenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was essentially too clever for his own
good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Kerry probably knows exactly
how he felt.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
Kerry joins a long line of U.S. Secretaries of State who
have charged into Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations with high hopes and
aggressive timelines only to see both dashed against the hard reality of
intransigence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kerry has been forced to
drop his self-imposed deadline to unveil not a peace agreement in favor of a
more nebulous “framework for peace.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, even that already may be dead on arrival over its expected
insistence that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. <br />
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsl2GXmFtLYb15K8kCq20Dk0wdMFV2JREOyMgFkt77zPvDXGxOvvqDs3uEnB5dGN7PWK2LxgU0TdU7LBCq5W2QzTovItiybocl2IzZdZUNZw3bUa6uqjk2cdGKj8HC9cpGAyLn4dm46fwh/s1600/Hath+Not+a+Jew+a+State.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsl2GXmFtLYb15K8kCq20Dk0wdMFV2JREOyMgFkt77zPvDXGxOvvqDs3uEnB5dGN7PWK2LxgU0TdU7LBCq5W2QzTovItiybocl2IzZdZUNZw3bUa6uqjk2cdGKj8HC9cpGAyLn4dm46fwh/s1600/Hath+Not+a+Jew+a+State.bmp" height="127" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already publicly
rejected the idea as unnecessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Why?”
he asks Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“To make peace? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You made peace with Egypt and you didn't ask
them to recognize you. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You made peace
with Jordan and you didn't ask them.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
For many people, the idea that Israel is a Jewish state –
indeed, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i></b> Jewish state – is obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Its population is seventy-five percent Jewish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The U.N. resolution that formed Israel in
1947 explicitly mentions the concept of a Jewish State.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
Not all Palestinians are as hostile to the idea as their
government leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Khazan Dhar, a West
Bank resident told <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NPR</i> that while she
is reluctant to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, she admits she would accept
that if it meant peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If we can live
peacefully in our state and they live peacefully in their state, then why not?”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
Yet there is an interesting and long-standing argument
that Israel need not make such demands of Palestinians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It maintains that such recognition is not
only unnecessary but actually insulting to Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As far back as 1977, a democratic head of
state proclaimed, “[Israel’s] right to exist – have you ever heard of such a
thing? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would it enter the mind of any
Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian or
American, to request for people’s recognition of its right to exist?”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
That head of state was not U.S. President Jimmy Carter
but rather Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a speech before the Israeli
Knesset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israeli Finance Minister Yair
Lapid told the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> in
August 2013, ”The fact that we demand from Palestinians a declaration that they
recognize Israel as a Jewish state, I just think this is rubbish.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
Others wonder what such a declaration by Palestinians or
others would mean for the twenty-five percent of Israeli citizens who are
non-Jewish, twenty percent of whom are Arab.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Would this relegate them to second-class citizenship?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
There is no question that Israel is surrounded by hostile
neighbors, many of whom would like nothing better for the nation to
disappear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, it is apparent that
these neighbors are both Arab and Muslim majority countries and these are
leading reasons for their animus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I
would argue this may well be the best argument for Israel to back off its
insistence on being recognized as Jewish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Its chances of survival may be increased by maintaining a lower, less
flagrant profile in the region.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
Part of the problem is that the term “Jewish” can be
thought of as a national and/or ethnic identify as easily as it can a religious
identify.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israeli Economic Minister Naftali
Bennett, a proponent of recognition, recently made this argument with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CNN</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Because I'm talking about the Jewish nation, not the Jewish religion .
. . [For example,] France is for the French.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>France views itself as a French state.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
Unfortunately, that argument comes across as more legal
cuteness than smart, given the long-standing tensions in the region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people would probably be skeptical of a country
that insisted on being recognized as a Muslim state while simultaneously
denying any influence by Sharia law in its governance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end, Israel is a secular democracy
with a traditional Jewish majority, such as the United States is a secular
democracy with a traditional Christian majority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those traditions, while important, are not
the critical factors behind who we are.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
Israeli writer Ari Shavit argues that even if Israel was
founded as a Jewish state over sixty year ago in the aftermath of the
Holocaust’s horrors, “We evolved and now we define ourselves, rightly so, as a
Jewish democratic state. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's not
perfect . . . But if you look at the Middle East this is the lesser evil of all
options.”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
I strongly endorse the requirement for Palestinians to
acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, just as Israel must acknowledge the
right of a Palestinian nation to exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, forced recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, while something
that Palestinians might ultimately endure, is a pound of flesh that Israel
cannot afford to accept within the larger, hostile existence they occupy.</div>
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-56870646179026871892012-08-31T13:11:00.001-04:002012-08-31T13:11:09.679-04:00We Own(ed) This Country<br>
<strong>Republican National Convention – Night Three</strong><br />
<br />
Last night, Mitt Romney did not need to deliver the greatest speech in the history of American politics nor suddenly display telegenic charisma. He simply needed to come across as competent, decent, and memorable. He passed the first two tests adeptly enough. Not so much the final hurdle. Nobody this morning is marveling, “That Romney is a lot better than I thought.” Instead, they are all wondering aloud, “What the hell was wrong with Clint Eastwood?”<br />
<br />
Eastwood was unquestionably entertaining to the crowd in the hall and he scored some genuine political shots against President Obama. Yet once he completed his rambling, off-script diatribe I suspect the Republican National Committee was wishing their big “mystery guest” had been a little less entertaining and a little more mysterious – certainly a little more brief, anyway.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyFXxzxxy7BaMB8qsodx_wDfwh6QUtiAagv3hoeEagkkIiZAR7XBFzFcYuagt1AhACysaMAH402mVcvWDkd1hpojMjfgukKiYg6nNTANybHQaxVsDWv-6zCZH7f8mcza37AUrH2baSRPV/s1600/WeOwnedThisCountry.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" fea="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyFXxzxxy7BaMB8qsodx_wDfwh6QUtiAagv3hoeEagkkIiZAR7XBFzFcYuagt1AhACysaMAH402mVcvWDkd1hpojMjfgukKiYg6nNTANybHQaxVsDWv-6zCZH7f8mcza37AUrH2baSRPV/s200/WeOwnedThisCountry.bmp" width="145" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Clint Eastwood debates a<br />chair </em>(top)<em>, Mitt Romney<br />accepts the Republican<br />Party's nomination </em>(bottom)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Florida Senator Marco Rubio gave the formal introduction of the nominee. His speech did not contain a single memorable line or new insight, in my opinion. However, it was delivered well and did a good job summarizing and reviewing most of the themes touched upon throughout the convention. Perhaps the most charming moment was at the very start, when Rubio gushed like a star-stuck fan at having sipped water from the same bottle previously used by Eastwood.<br />
<br />
Romney’s speech seemed a microcosm of everything good and bad about the candidate himself – it was entirely competent but a little underwhelming.<br />
<br />
I felt that Romney would be most successful at humanizing himself not through contrived personal glimpses but by addressing, head-on, the criticisms most commonly leveled against him by Democrats. To this end, the topics I felt he most needed to speak about – in order of importance – were Romneycare, Bain Capital, his personal/family wealth, and his Mormon religion. I felt he touched on all of these issues effectively, albeit briefly, with the exception of the first and most important one.<br />
<br />
His style was not political or oratorical so much as a quiet, serious conversation with his audience. He was successful at laying out the case for President Obama’s economic and foreign policy shortfalls/failures as well as presenting himself as an experienced and proficient businessperson who could correct them.<br />
<br />
For me, the most effective line of the speech was “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise . . . is to help you and your family.” It nicely fit the theme that America needed less messiahs and more mechanics in its government leaders.<br />
<br />
Romney also laid out his vision and mandate – create twelve million new jobs during his four-year term – and laid out five high-level steps to realize it.<br />
<br />
Yet for all this there was a valium-like quality to Romney’s words. When he stepped up to the podium, the noise and excitement levels within the convention hall were as high as I had observed them during the week. By the time he finished, the crowd had quieted down and mellowed out considerably. I felt they must have strolled out the doors rather than charging through them to take up the fight for their candidate. They came expecting a fire-breathing rally and got a PowerPoint executive presentation in its stead.<br />
<br />
<em>Washington Post</em> conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin loved Romney’s self-introduction, saying he showed “a side of him that was compelling and heartbreaking.” Her peers were less impressed. Matt Miller conceded it was a “successful, energetic acceptance speech” but found it weak on policy ideas. Jonathan Bernstein dismissed it as, “A generic Republican speech [from a] generic Republican candidate.” Harold Meyerson thought it rose to the ridiculous. “There is, we now know, such a thing as too much humanization . . . Romney gave a pretty fair impression of Mr. Rogers with state power . . . It’s one thing to say you’re not Ebenezer Scrooge but there were moments when Romney seemed to be auditioning for the role of Tiny Tim.”<br />
<br />
Romney’s continuing disconnect with his base remains the biggest millstone around his candidacy. Much like John McCain four years ago, he needed to assure his immediate hard-right Republican audience, “I’m one of you” while sending a reassuring message to Independents and moderates that “I’m not one of them.” Small wonder so many across the political spectrum find him unknowable and inauthentic.<br />
<br />
Romney entered the hall below the podium. He walked down the aisles toward it, shaking hands with member of the crowd as he proceeded, much like a President during a State of the Union Address. He smiled, laughed, talked and joked with each person he passed. He looked confident, handsome, and strong. Yet he moved strangely – not clumsy but stiff and mechanical. He looked like a man trying to walk inside a heavy suit of armor. Then it struck me that it must be grueling trying to move, let alone run for President of the United States, when your Party will not let you feel comfortable inside your own skin.<br />
<br />
To that end, it may have been pointless for Romney to try and show us his true face when it was not him but possibly Eastwood that was the true face of the contemporary Republican Party – not a millionaire businessman but a crotchety old man, disillusioned by changes he sees as lessening the America he remembers and determined to restore it to idealized glory; a face of the Party that deals with President Obama not as an opponent or even a person but as an imagined, invisible caricature – an empty suit in an empty chair.<br />
<br />
The official theme for the convention’s final night was “We Believe in America.” A more appropriate slogan was provided by Eastwood. In the middle of his make-believe conversation with the President, the actor suddenly turned to the crowd. “I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we . . . we own this country.”<br />
<br />
He meant, of course, that government should serve the People and not vice versa. However, for those who view the Tea Party as more pathetic than patriotic, it carried a sense of regret over lost power and influence – a fear real that it has become more accurate for them to sigh, “We <strong><em>owned</em></strong> this country.”<br />
<br />
The Republicans in Tampa put out a compelling enough narrative for change (or perhaps more accurately for undoing change) but an insufficiently honest one to guarantee survival after refutation by Obama and the Democrats. Even more than Obama in 2008, they will need a continued insipid economic recovery to finish the job for them. They may ultimately defeat the President but they will not be able to say they built it themselves.<br />
<br />
<br />
Grades – <br />
Eastwood – Absent<br />
Rubio – B<br />
Romney – B-<br />
RNC Night Three – B-<br />
<br />
RNC Overall – B <br />
<br />
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-56717711125268600012012-08-30T11:45:00.000-04:002012-08-30T11:46:12.451-04:00Today's Wind<br>
<strong>Republican National Convention – Night Two</strong><br />
<br />
During his speech last night, Republican Vice-President nominee Paul Ryan bemoaned President Obama and his Administration as out of ideas to fix America’s problems, comparing them to “a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind.” Whether you love or hate him and his policies, Ryan did an effective job not only in taking the wind out of Obama’s sails but also putting forth himself – and, oh yeah, Mitt Romney – as today’s wind.<br />
<br />
Many speakers last night took shots at Obama that should have resonated with the Republican core. Yet the crowd in the hall remained curiously subdued. Mike Huckabee stirred a little genuine enthusiasm out of them but the tide really turned and a wave began building with Condoleezza Rice that finally came crashing into shore with Ryan deftly surfing it. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Vice-President nominee Paul Ryan<br />addresses the Republican convention</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Rice’s speech was much praised by commentators from both sides of the aisle because its tone was statesmanlike rather than crassly political – Rice never mentioned Obama by name once. Yet it was hyper-partisan and a tribute to the neoconservative principles of the George W. Bush Administration in which Rice served as National Security Advisor and, later, Secretary of State.<br />
<br />
As such, Rice initially focused on foreign policy, a topic largely absent from speeches to that point. She began by asking, “Where does America stand?” Unsurprisingly, she advocated strong support for democracy and freedom abroad, including the need for future nation building activities. She tacitly acknowledged voters weariness with oversea wars and crises but avowed, “We cannot be reluctant to lead – and one cannot lead from behind.”<br />
<br />
Then she stealthily but systematically practiced the Bush Administration trick of incorporating various domestic policy matters as important components of national security. These included promotion of the global economy and free trade, energy independence, and even education reform. In the most moving segment of her speech, she related her own story, growing up in the segregated South, to the convention’s larger meme about the American Dream. “That is the true basis of ‘American Exceptionalism’ . . . That it doesn’t matter where you came from but where you are going.”<br />
<br />
Most importantly, she introduced the primary theme that Ryan would hammer away at repeatedly in his speech – the danger of America settling for what she perceived as failed policies. “To do anything less is to tear apart the fabric of who we are and cement a turn toward grievance and entitlement . . . The most compassionate and freest country on the face of the earth [must] continue to be the most powerful!”<br />
<br />
Liberal columnist E.J. Dionne of the <em>Washington Post</em> was genuinely impressed by Rice, viewing her speech as “more serious and, yes, more Presidential than any other speech on Wednesday night. She outshined Paul Ryan.”<br />
<br />
Sandwiched between Rice and Ryan, New Mexico Governor Susanna Martinez was presumably chosen to appeal to both women and Hispanic voters. Regardless of whether she succeeded in these objectives, she established herself as an unexpected rising star in conservative politics. Her speech had three lines that drew ovations from the hall.<br />
<br />
In the first, she described how her parents decided to start a security guard business, in which she patroled parking lots during Catholic Church bingos at the tender age of eighteen. “Now my dad made sure I could take care of myself. I carried a Smith and Wesson 357 magnum.” The resulting roar of approval demonstrates that Second Amendment concerns carry far more widely and deeply among conservatives than the NRA. <br />
<br />
In the second, she described losing her job as a young prosecutor after she decided to testify against her boss. “So, I took him on, ran against him for District Attorney, and beat him by a landslide.” The crowd loved it again. Beyond celebrating her own spunkiness, Martinez was illustrating a much-cherished conservative apologue that hard-working, ambitious people will ultimately always come out ahead when faced with adversity.<br />
<br />
But her most appreciated line was when Martinez explained her conversion to conservatism. A lifelong Democrat, she was invited to lunch by two GOP officials. She and her husband attended only out of politeness. However, the issues talked about by the officials resonated with Martinez so deeply that “when we left that lunch, we got in the car and I looked over at [my husband] and said, ‘I'll be damned, we're Republicans’.” It appealed to the crowd’s smug assurance that all Americans are really conservatives at heart.<br />
<br />
Finally, it was Ryan’s turn. Many political observers had celebrated his selection for the ticket by Romney, arguing it would turn the election into one about ideas rather than partisan attacks and fear mongering. That was certainly not the Ryan on stage last night. Ryan built his reputation as the fiscal guru of the GOP. He brought the knives he previously used to trim budgets and used them with surgical precision last night on President Obama.<br />
<br />
He accepted his Party’s nomination for Vice President not as the usual honor but as a “duty to help lead our nation out of a jobs crisis and back to prosperity.” He made it abundantly clear that he felt following current Obama policies for the next four year would guarantee a permanent end to prosperity, opportunity, and individual liberty. He showed a definite flair for rhetoric.<br />
<br />
“After four years of getting the run-around, America needs a turnaround,” “a Presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed,” “[Obama] assumed office almost four years ago – isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?”<br />
<br />
Perhaps his most damning assault was a true anecdote about a 2008 visit from candidate Obama to a GM auto plant in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville Wisconsin. Obama assured the crowd that government and industry, working together, could keep the plant open “another 100 years.” In reality, Ryan continued, the plant closed shortly thereafter and remains empty today.<br />
<br />
Ryan knows the ideas he brings to the campaign are unpopular with many voters, so he simply ignored them, instead concentrating on painting Obama and his Administration as so failed and out of solutions that any change would be preferable. In this he was spectacularly successful. Near the end of his speech, he boiled down the “who owns the bad economy?” debate in terms Democrats will have a tough time dismissing. “The issue is not the economy as Barack Obama inherited it, not the economy as he envisions it, but this economy as we are living it.”<br />
<br />
It is true, as many pundits have frothed at the mouth this morning, that Ryan often told only half the story. However, this really was not his job last night the onus is on the Democratic National Convention to counter and refute his charges next week. The story Ryan did tell, he told well.<br />
<br />
As Michael Gerson of the <em>Washington Post</em> observed, “It featured not only good lines but good lines of argument . . . [Ryan] managed to make the Obama appeal — so fresh and vivid four years ago — seem used and tattered.” Dorothy Rabinowitz at the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> agrees. “Paul Ryan's gift is his capacity to communicate emotional force on issues that don't normally lend themselves to such things . . . Ryan's capacity to deliver the heartfelt logic that makes such [issues] strike home is remarkable.”<br />
<br />
After the speech concluded, Rabinowitz’s <em>Journal</em> colleague, Daniel Henninger, enthused, “Ryan hit a 450-foot shot into the upper deck. Gives Mitt the lead and now he has to hold it.”<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, Romney has a history of having trouble holding on. Another thing that Ryan made little effort to do was humanizing his running mate. This will leave Romney with the task of introducing himself to voters on his own as well as laying out any specific vision/policies he intends to pursue. And he must do all this with a crowd that has never warmed to him throughout the campaign. Indeed, Ryan’s very success may have more than one Republican wondering, for at least the next twenty-four hours, whether the Party has once again put the wrong name at the top of the ticket.<br />
<br />
The challenge for Romney tonight is to avoid letting an easy grounder roll through his legs, like the error committed by Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series. If he commits a boner play, Romney could once again deny a Massachusetts team victory and glory. Will Romney ride the wind or break wind?<br />
<br />
<br />
Grades – <br />
Rice – A+<br />
Martinez – A<br />
Ryan – A+ <br />
Night Two Overall – A<br />
<br />
TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-17888200420555425092012-08-29T11:35:00.000-04:002012-08-29T12:52:50.784-04:00Holding Hands with the American Dream<br>
<b>Republican National Convention – Night One</b><br />
<br />
An unquestioned goal of this Republican National Convention is to “sell” its nominee, Mitt Romney, both to the members of the Party base within the hall as well as still undecided American voters. Even with a scheduled compressed by bad weather, I still assumed that tonight might focus on attacking President Obama, thereby building an argument as to why change in leadership is needed. The theme “We Built This” for the first night – a direct refute of an Obama quote that success is never the product of a single individual’s efforts – seemed to reinforce that idea.<br />
<br />
While there was plenty of Obama criticism, the blitzkrieg I expected did not happen. Yet neither did speakers extoll Romney’s virtues beyond the usual boilerplate endorsements, usually toward the end of their speeches. Instead, of begging voters to love their nominee, Republicans seemed more comfortable asking voters to love their Party. Because, make no mistake, the GOP repeatedly avowed its love for America and the American Dream.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Ann Romney basks in the love.</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The three speeches that most interested me were those by former Pennsylvania Senator and Presidential aspirant Rick Santorum, current New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Ann Romney, wife of the nominee. I thought all of them were generally good speeches, with moments of obvious sincerity and passion for their topics at hand. Love was the common theme shared by them.<br />
<br />
Santorum spoke first and was discernibly the voice of social conservatism for the evening. He spoke of the importance of marriage, strong family values, and a good education in building strong societies and decried their perceived lack in contemporary America.<br />
<br />
He was most moving when speaking about his youngest daughter, Bella, who was born with Trisomy 18, a rare genetic disorder. Ninety percent of children diagnosed with the condition do not survive their first year of life. Those who do survive suffer significant health complications. Santorum related how doctors explained this to his wife and him, suggesting Bella “would not have a life worth living” and urging them to “prepare to let go.”<br />
<br />
“We didn't let go,” Santorum then thundered, “and today Bella is full of life and she has made our lives and countless others much more worth living.” He then parlayed the palpable good feelings generated by his story into a plug for the Party’s pro-life platform plank. “ I thank God that America still has one Party that reaches out their hands in love to lift up all of God's children . . . to live the American Dream.”<br />
<br />
I celebrate Bella’s short, beautiful life but wonder if it occurred to Santorum that it was made possible only through the freedom of his family to <b><i>choose</i></b> it for her, even in defiance of what might seem ethical, medically advisable, or economically prudent to others. Moreover, Bella is a miracle but even she did not build her existence by herself.<br />
<br />
Santorum repeatedly exhorted the American Dream, lionizing his grandfather, who brought his family to America from Wales. “My grandfather, like millions of other immigrants, didn't come here for some government guarantee of income equality or government benefits to take care of his family. In 1923 there were no government benefits for immigrants except one – Freedom!” Apparently, opportunity allows no room for compassion. Santorum also noted, with apparent pride, that his grandfather “mined coal 'til he was seventy-two years old.” Opportunity allows no room for Social Security or Medicare either.<br />
<br />
Christie’s speech was much anticipated and he did not disappoint. His address held a curious duality to my ears. While it was a paean to conservative principles, it also stressed many concepts that rose beyond partisanship – such as shared sacrifice, compromise, and truthfulness. It often seemed as much a lecture at Mitt Romney as an endorsement of him.<br />
<br />
Nowhere was this more evident than when Christie proclaimed, to huge applause, “Real leaders do not follow polls. Real leaders change polls.” This seemed at odds with Romney’s tendency over his political career to morph chameleon-like into whatever icon the situation and his would-be followers demand.<br />
<br />
However, Christie had an answer to the problem that Republicans just cannot seem to bring themselves to love their nominee. “Tonight, we are going to choose respect over love,” he reassured the crowd. It was just part of being responsible. He remembered his mother had taught him that “respect could grow into real and lasting love.” Christie gave a credible show of respect for Romney. His love was reserved for the American Dream.<br />
<br />
Yet his love was filled with anxiousness that aligned with the Tea Party’s deepest fears. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my children and grandchildren to have to read in a history book what it was like to live in an American Century . . . I want them to live in a second American Century.”<br />
<br />
Although Christie repeatedly avowed his belief and optimism in the American Dream, it took Santorum to state an unequivocal certainty in it. “America is still the greatest country in the world – and with God's help and good leadership we can restore the American Dream. [While campaigning,] I held its hand. I shook the hand of the American Dream.”<br />
<br />
For all its forcefulness and positive reception, Christie’s speech was not universally acknowledged as brilliant. Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist for the <i>Washington Post</i> labeled Christie “a force of nature,” who “repeatedly had the crowd on its feet, making a virtue of unpopular, tough-minded politics. On a scale of 1 to 10, his [speech] was an 11.”<br />
<br />
Yet her colleague Jonathan Bernstein dismissed the speech as “empty platitude after empty platitude.” Another fellow columnist, Matt Miller, took issue with Christie as a self-described truth-teller. “For Republicans, that means acknowledging the truth that taxes must rise above their historic levels as the boomers age and we double the number of people on Social Security and Medicare. You cannot qualify as a truth-teller without speaking this truth. Christie fails this test . . . So does the rest of the GOP.”<br />
<br />
Moreover, Christie’s speech did not contain the single largest applause line of the evening. That distinction went to Ann Romney.<br />
<br />
Her speech also held a dual quality for me. It was as though it were in two parts. The first one, which she was presumably ordered to write by the Party leadership, was meant as an attempt to offer a glimpse of the real Mitt Romney and humanize him to a suspicious base as well as voters in general. She was largely unsuccessful in this attempt. Cute stories about how they ate off an ironing board during their first year of marriage did not convince that the Romneys share/understand the problems of many middle class and impoverished families.<br />
<br />
However, the speech had a second half that seemed to come more from the heart and it was highly effective, in my opinion. It was not an insight into her husband but a testimonial to him. She defended his success and wealth and praised his generosity and work ethic. “This is the man who will work harder than anyone so that we can work a little less hard. I can't tell you what will happen over the next four years. But I can only stand here tonight, as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, an American, and make you this solemn commitment . . .”<br />
<br />
Mrs. Romney paused, locked her eyes on the television cameras, and then delivered the line that brought the house down.<br />
<br />
“This man will not fail.”<br />
<br />
The ovation that followed seemed to flow out of a sense of relief as much as anything else. It had taken most of the evening and the guy’s own wife to do it, but here was at least one Republican ready to declare, with absolute certainty, that the rest of them had not made a mistake in picking their standard bearer for November.<br />
<br />
Ross Douthat of the <i>New York Times</i> posits this part of the speech “portrayed the Republican nominee for President as a man <b><i>for</i></b> rather than <b><i>of</i></b> the people.” I am dubious Romney can be sold as the conservative equivalent of a Roosevelt reformer – in the spirit of Teddy and FDR – but it is a starting point to finally begin defining him for voters.<br />
<br />
After Christie’s speech, syndicated columnist and PBS commentator Mark Shields noted that, in thirty minutes, the keynote speaker had told him everything Shields needed to know about who Christie was as a person and what principles drove him. In comparison, continued Shields, Christie had told him nothing of the sort about Mitt Romney. Paul Ryan is up Wednesday night. Perhaps he can do the job.<br />
<br />
Grades –<br />
Santorum – A<br />
Ann Romney – B<br />
Christie – B+<br />
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</div>
First Night Overall – B+ TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-82474551154933631072012-02-16T10:01:00.002-05:002012-02-16T10:04:43.046-05:00In Civil Loneliness<br><br />
<strong>Religion and the U.S. Government Have Long Coexisted But Not Always Harmoniously</strong><br />
<br />
A recent decision by the Obama Administration to include religious healthcare providers in an existing Department of Health and Human Services mandate has resulted in a firestorm of protest. The mandate states employers must provide women employees with health insurance that covers contraceptives at no cost.<br />
<br />
The American Catholic Bishops, social conservatives, and most of the Republican Presidential candidates have all accused the President of declaring “war on religion.” They call the mandate illegal and Unconstitutional, claiming it violates religious freedom as guaranteed by the First Amendment. They say the issue is not about contraception but the intrusion of federal government into freedom of religious expression.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6RGCFolSVne5wtyKNXv5SnX1fwTfg5Su82RYINyOrstYHiMqNFjnxcjxorSz2hgbIydqK7E0L9dNVit3hOlgZ44OquwYSM_kxduMU_gt6pIGfktZPr2faaLkBlanpzZTxER54WGuJ3loC/s1600/InCivilLoneliness.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6RGCFolSVne5wtyKNXv5SnX1fwTfg5Su82RYINyOrstYHiMqNFjnxcjxorSz2hgbIydqK7E0L9dNVit3hOlgZ44OquwYSM_kxduMU_gt6pIGfktZPr2faaLkBlanpzZTxER54WGuJ3loC/s200/InCivilLoneliness.bmp" width="200" yda="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Religion and the U.S. government have</em><br />
<em>long coexisted but not always harmoniously</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
A review of history suggests Obama’s mandate is both legal and Constitutional. It may well be a war on a religious principle/practice but history also vindicates this so long as it is not a war against a <strong><em>specific</em></strong> religion(s) in order to promote other religion(s).<br />
<br />
The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Its literal interpretation prohibits the establishment of a national religion by Congress. A more general interpretation prohibits preference for one religion over another by the U.S. government. However, the Supreme Court has never interpreted it to prohibit civil authorities from exercising control over practices effecting society just because some people see those behaviors as part of their religious beliefs.<br />
<br />
Anyone who thinks U.S. history is free from government intrusions into religious freedom is unfamiliar with the story of Utah’s admission to Statehood. This example seems particularly germane since Mitt Romney, a practicing Mormon, is one of the Obama Administration’s critics on the matter of contraception. <br />
<br />
Utah was designated an official U.S. territory in 1850, with Mormon leader Brigham Young appointed its first territorial governor. A few years later, the Church’s position on “plural marriage” (i.e. polygamy) became widely known. Public reaction was strongly negative.<br />
<br />
Aversion to polygamy had some roots in lurid stories regarding women coerced or tricked into plural marriage, the marriage of girls as young as ten to much older men, and even incestuous marriages. Some documentation suggests instances of these charges actually occurred. Other documentation reflects a carefully regulated system overall.<br />
<br />
However, the bulk of objections centered on such marriages as disrespectful and even abusive to many of the women who participated in them, even if they did so for reasons of duty. They were compelled to submit to religious law even though it violated their personal principles/feelings. The Mormon historian Todd Compton documents the sufferings of these women in his book <em>In Sacred Loneliness</em>.<br />
<br />
Another objection arose because the Mormon men most likely to practice polygamy were older, wealthier, and often in high Church positions. Their tendency to marry younger women reduced the number of eligible females and left more young Mormon men bachelors. This underscores the fundamental importance of marriage to society as a means of creating stable families over that of procreation.<br />
<br />
By 1856, President James Buchannan replaced Young with a<br />
non-Mormon governor and dispatched twenty-five hundred federal troops to Utah to ensure his authority. Mormons resisted this fiercely, resulting into the so-called Utah War.<br />
<br />
In 1862, Congress passed the <em>Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act</em>, which forbade plural marriage in all U.S. territories. President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law but told the Mormons he did not intend to enforce it. Tensions slumbered for many years until 1879, when the Supreme Court upheld the <em>Morrill</em> law in the case of <em>Reynolds v. United States</em>. Then, in 1882, a Mormon Church leader was denied a seat in the House of Representatives as Utah’s territorial representative because he was an active polygamist.<br />
<br />
Congress responded to outrage by Mormons over this slight with the <em>Edmunds Act</em>. This draconian law raised polygamy to a felony, punishable by a $500 fine and five years in prison. Mormon polygamists earned a status similar to modern day enemy non-combatants. The law forbade them to vote or hold office. It provided for punishment without due process – forcing wives to testify against husbands and witnesses to appear in court without subpoenas. The law revoked rights not only for practicing polygamy but also for failure to swear an oath renouncing it.<br />
<br />
When even this failed to budge Church leaders, Congress responded with the 1887 <em>Edmunds-Tucker Act</em>. This law dis-incorporated the Mormon Church, confiscated its properties, and even threatened seizure of its temples. This caused a variety of Mormon elders – including one George Romney, a distant relative of Mitt – to sue the federal government for overstepping its bounds and impinging on their religious expression.<br />
<br />
In 1890, the Supreme Court ruled in <em>LDS Church v. United States</em> to affirm <em>Edmunds-Tucker</em> by a six-to-three majority. Even the dissenters, led by Chief Justice Melville Fuller, agreed that declaring polygamy illegal was Constitutional. As regards the First Amendment, Justice Joseph Bradley had this to say about the rights of the government to act over religious objections in his blistering majority opinion – <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><em>One pretense for the [Mormon Church’s] obstinate course is that their belief in the practice of polygamy, or in the right to indulge in it, is a religious belief, and therefore under the protection of the Constitutional guaranty of religious freedom. This is altogether a sophistical plea.</em></div><em><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></em><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>No doubt, the Thugs of India imagined that their belief in the right of assassination was a religious belief but their thinking so did not make it so. The practice of suttee by the Hindu widows may have sprung from a supposed religious conviction. The offering of human sacrifices by our own ancestors in Britain was no doubt sanctioned by an equally conscientious impulse. But no one, on that account, would hesitate to brand these practices, now, as crimes against society, and obnoxious to condemnation and punishment by the civil authority.</em></div><em><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></em><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>The state has a perfect right to prohibit polygamy, and all other open offenses against the enlightened sentiment of Mankind, notwithstanding the pretense of religious conviction by which they may be advocated and practiced.</em></div><br />
Later that year, Mormon Church president Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto banning plural marriage. The Church insisted the ban resulted from divine revelation in a dream on Woodruff’s part. However, it seems clear the U.S. government saw an objectionable practice occurring in one of its territories and used ever harsher and more intrusive means to force its abolishment, despite its religious nature.<br />
<br />
Nineteenth Century Mormon policies regarding polygamy have obvious similarities with present-day Catholic polices regarding contraception. In both cases, they were/are intensely unpopular with many Americans outside their respective faiths. In both cases, a majority of these religions’ actual adherents did/do not follow the official policy – best estimates are that no more than twenty-five percent of Mormons engaged in plural marriage and most modern U.S. Catholic women say they have used/use contraceptives.<br />
<br />
There is one big difference, however. Traditional Christianity, the majority religion in this nation, did not approve of polygamy. It was in rapport with the U.S. government on abolishing the practice. In the case of contraception, it is a traditional Christian sect’s principles that are discordant with civil authorities.<br />
<br />
As Sarah Jaffe notes at <em>AlterNet</em>, “When white evangelicals and Catholics claim that Obama’s declaring a war on religion, they mean on their religion.” Apparently, this is less about religious freedom and more about contraception than those objecting to the mandate care to admit, perhaps even to themselves. Yet the legal principle remains the same and is perfectly Constitutional. As Justice Bradley voiced so long ago, a law that is objectionable to a religion is permissible so long as its primary intent is not attacking that specific religion but promoting the common welfare.<br />
<br />
The Supreme Court has reinforced this doctrine as recently as 1990. In <em>Oregon v. Smith</em>, Justice Scalia, a Catholic, states in his majority opinion, “The right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).” <br />
<br />
In the case of polygamy, the common welfare was the decent treatment of women within the institution of marriage. When announcing the earlier mandate for employer-provided contraception, DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained, “Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families, is documented to significantly reduce health costs, and is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women. This rule will provide women with greater access to contraception by requiring coverage.”<br />
<br />
Religion and the U.S. government have long coexisted along lines of mutual respect. However, that coexistence has not always been harmonious and while the government has deferred to religious liberty in many situations, there are others when it has used the full force of its authority to oblige compliance.<br />
<br />
Critics of the new mandate certainly may continue to argue that contraception is immoral. However, this is not the current law of the land nor perceived as benefiting the common welfare. In a twist on the Mormon women of polygamous unions, this law's critics are doomed to suffer in civil loneliness until they can change perceptions. Their legal argument that the First Amendment protects them from complying with any laws they deem immoral has no practical, historical basis.TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-52791167963769824442012-02-01T10:59:00.000-05:002012-02-01T10:59:38.945-05:00Insanely Great<br><br />
<strong>It Is “Equal Opportunity” These Days Because Almost No One Has Any</strong><br />
<br />
Despite his deserved reputation for moderation, <em>New York Times</em> columnist David Brooks is still a conservative at heart. As a result, he has despaired lately of President Obama’s move toward populism as well as the lack of traditional values and work ethic in American society. However, his fairness also causes him to do some serious self-contemplation from time to time. The story of Madelyn “Maddie” Parlier, featured in an article written by Adam Davidson, co-host of NPR’s <em>Planet Money</em>, in the current issue of <em>The Atlantic</em>, moved Brooks to just such introspection.<br />
<br />
Parlier is a twenty-two year old woman who labors as an unskilled worker in the “clean room” of Standard Motor Products’ fuel-injector assembly line in Greenville South Carolina. Parlier grew up in the area. Her father abandoned their family when she was young, ultimately dying drunk in a car wreck that he caused.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>Madelyn “Maddie” Parlier in the</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><em>“clean room” at Standard Motor Products</em></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Parlier grew up poor but principled. She was a good student and a regular churchgoer who did not drink, do drugs, or have run-ins with the law. By her senior year in high school, she already was taking a few classes at a nearby technical college, with plans to earn a four-year college degree after graduation. Unfortunately, she also met a boy her senior year and got pregnant.<br />
<br />
Parlier kept her baby and graduated from high school with honors but the father of her child soon left her. As a single mother, she could not afford daycare while she attended classes and her remaining family members were all too old, sick, busy, and/or poor to give her much help. She got a temp job at Standard Motor Products washing walls. Her work ethic so impressed plant supervisors that the company offered her a job.<br />
<br />
Parlier makes about $13 per hour in a non-union shop. She works hard and does a good job. She would love to advance to a skilled position, which would enable her to earn enough money to own her own home, travel somewhere nice on vacation, and save for her child to go to college. Sadly, the knowledge gap between unskilled and skilled workers is so great that Parlier needs schooling or training to bridge it. Standard cannot cost-justify extensive training for someone who might not succeed and school is already inaccessible to Parlier for reasons already mentioned.<br />
<br />
Parlier does not have a bad attitude and is not looking for a handout. She freely admits her own bad choices as a teen helped place her where she is today. She does not whine about bad breaks that were beyond her control, such as the loss of her father. In spite of this, she is unable to realize her American Dream and break out of the working poor into middle class affluence.<br />
<br />
As Davidson concludes, “Maddie represents a large population – people who, for whatever reason, are not going to be able to leave the workforce long enough to get the skills they need.” Brooks concurs, “A good attitude and hustle have taken Parlier as far as they can.”<br />
<br />
Even worse, Parlier’s situation demonstrates how disadvantaged households tend to pass on a negative legacy to future generations. Brooks writes, “Across America, millions of mothers can’t rise because they don’t have adequate support systems as they try to improve their skills. Tens of millions of children have poor life chances because they grow up in disorganized environments that make it hard to acquire the social, organizational and educational skills they will need to become productive workers.”<br />
<br />
Brooks goes on to rue that neither Republicans nor Democrats have policies to help Parlier. He condemns liberal populism for “having shifted [Democratic] emphasis from lifting up the poor to pounding down the rich.” But he also finds fault with conservative populists as Pollyannaish. “Most of the Republican candidates talk as if all that is needed is more capitalism. But lighter regulation and lower taxes won’t, on their own, help the Maddie Parliers of the world get the skills they need to compete.”<br />
<br />
In fact, some conservatives seem ready to argue that Parlier does not have a problem so much as she is part of the problem, as her wages are ten times those of unskilled workers in China. However, in the same issue of <em>The Atlantic</em>, financial editor Jordan Weissmann debunks low wages as the sole or even primary reason for China’s competitiveness. “China's labor advantage goes well beyond the low-skill workers . . . The country also excels at educating middle-skill ‘industrial engineers’.”<br />
<br />
Chinese universities graduate roughly six hundred thousand engineers a year, versus only seventy thousand in the United States. Yet as Weissmann points out, their education is akin to a two year degree from a community college. This gives them exactly the skills necessary to work in high-tech production lines.<br />
<br />
Brooks posits that “successful training programs like Job Corps” will be required in order for the U.S. to achieve something similar and regain our global competitiveness. Alas, many on the far right condemn such government intervention as socialism, not to mention also unaffordable at a time of massive deficits. Moreover, Davidson shrewdly observes that such programs “suffer from all the ills in our education system; opportunities go disproportionately to those who already have initiative, intelligence, and – not least – family support.”<br />
<br />
Tweaking educational/training policies as well as how to pay for them may be necessary but at least these are attempts at real solutions to a complicated problem. It may feel comforting to say that anyone can do anything in this land of plenty if they just try hard enough but bootstraps only pull up so far. I agree that America should not guarantee equal outcomes for all but we must face the fact our country is increasingly unable to provide equal opportunity either. What is more, the average to which most can aspire is slipping into the less-than-rosy standards of bygone days.<br />
<br />
A retreat into the past is exactly what some think is the solution. This makes Brooks sigh in another recent column, “I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.” I find his self-honesty interesting because I once issued a <a href="http://blog-thebell.blogspot.com/2010/09/beck-to-past.html" target="_blank">similar diagnosis</a> about the Tea Party, although, in my case, I saw age rather than race as the key demographic (i.e. substitute “an older America” for “white America”).<br />
<br />
Fear that America’s best days may be (nearly) past was a potent and prominent theme from Republican Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana when he delivered the Republican response to the President’s State of the Union address last week. “When President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true . . . In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe.” Daniels warns America is ready to “drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt.”<br />
<br />
Daniels also evoked the late Steve Jobs of Apple as a capitalist hero, proclaiming he had “created more [jobs] than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew.” I <a href="http://blog-thebell.blogspot.com/2012/01/tea-and-biscuits.html" target="_blank">wrote last time</a> how Jobs once blew off an Obama query on how to bring back Apple factory jobs from oversea. Yet he also made it clear at that time he did not share Daniels’s doom and gloom outlook. “I'm not worried about the country's long-term future. This country is insanely great. What I'm worried about is that we don't talk enough about solutions.” <br />
<br />
Part of the reason we do not talk enough about solutions is that we too often ignore problems standing right in front of us, like Maddie Parlier, preferring to look at them though the rose colored glasses of our personal wishes and political ideologies. To continue doing so by the justification that America is “still the greatest country on Earth” ignores that we are increasingly becoming a kind of insanely great and not in the good way meant by Jobs.TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-28333498131049617022012-01-26T12:59:00.001-05:002012-01-26T13:02:04.265-05:00Tea and Biscuits<br><br />
<strong>Our Outrage Over America’s Inability to Compete with Cheap Foreign Labor Is Misplaced</strong><br />
<br />
The <em>New York Times</em> recently ran a story about globalization that focused on the use of factories in China by Apple Corporation. Today, the <em>Times</em> followed up with a story about unsafe working conditions in those factories. As recently as ten years ago, Apple based most of its manufacturing in the U.S. Today, most of its manufacturing takes place overseas. For example, Apple does not produce a single iPhone domestically. At a business summit last year, President Obama asked the late Steve Jobs, “What would it take to make iPhones in the United States?” Jobs’s reply was candid to the point of brusque – “Those jobs aren't coming back.”<br />
<br />
Many conservative economists and politicians blame two factors for the permanent exodus of manufacturing jobs. First is the high wages paid to U.S. workers, as demanded by labor unions. Second is the excessive regulation of industry by the federal government. These twin pressures drive Apple’s costs too high, forcing them to seek relief elsewhere. There is truth to these charges but they oversimplify why Chinese factories meet Apple’s needs so much better than American ones.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em>Rural workers rescued from an unsafe</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><em><span style="font-size: small;">factory </span><span style="font-size: small;">in the <place><placetype>village</placetype> of <placename>Linfen</placename></place> </span><span style="font-size: small;">in N.E.</span></em></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><em><span style="font-size: small;"><country-region><place>China</place></country-region>. They might have gotten </span><span style="font-size: small;">tea</span></em></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em>and </em></span><span style="font-size: small;"><em>bisuits </em>(insert)<em> at an Apple factory.</em></span></div></td></tr>
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While wages for Chinese factory workers are only ten percent of their U.S. counterparts, Jordan Weissmann, financial editor for <em>The Atlantic</em>, points out that direct labor costs represent only ten percent of the full retail price for the cheapest iPhone 4S. He quotes a former high-ranking Apple executive that factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what's in the U.S.” It is as much about flexibility as it is cheapness. And the chief product savings come from removing all those pesky worker benefits and protections.<br />
<br />
In an example that Apple executives love to cite, the company made a sudden, last minute iPhone design change. Their Chinese factory received the new plans in the middle of the night. It immediately roused more than eight thousand workers from their dormitories, giving each worker a cup of tea and a biscuit, and set them to work retooling to meet the new specs. Within four days, the factory was producing over ten thousand iPhones per day.<br />
<br />
Tea and biscuits? Dormitories? Yes, dormitories.<br />
<br />
China builds multiple factories, each complementing the other, to create large industrial complexes that become cities unto themselves. Rather than have homes, workers are housed in dormitories. The factory provides food, shelter, and medical attention for workers. The Chinese government underwrites the construction of these factory cities.<br />
<br />
We celebrate the rise of free market capitalism in China. Yet if the U.S. did what China has done in order to compete, most Americans – and certainly most conservatives – would revile the practice as socialism and the intrusion of big government into private enterprise. The idea of workers as citizens within their company/factory has a creepy Orwelian quality to it.<br />
<br />
The federal regulations cited as excessive in this country are largely missing with the Chinese government. However, keep in mind the intent behind most U.S. regulations is ensuring worker safety and generally providing a decent, dignified working environment that is often lacking in Chinese factories.<br />
<br />
When confronted with conditions at Apple’s Chinese factories in 2010, Jobs feigned bewildered innocence. “It’s a factory, but, my gosh, I mean, they’ve got restaurants and movie theaters and hospitals and swimming pools, and I mean, for a factory, it’s a pretty nice factory.” In spite of this, “Most people would still be really disturbed if they saw where their iPhone comes from,” contends one former one former Apple executive.<br />
<br />
Chinese workers who will talk to reporters say they routinely work under harsh conditions, including excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week. Their jobs require them to stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers are common. All activity takes place under wall banners that warn, “Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow.” Oh, and factory dormitories sometimes contain as many as twenty people stuffed into a three-room apartment.<br />
<br />
Worse still, Chinese factories display systematic disregard for workers’ health. Improper disposal of hazardous waste and falsified records have resulted in serious injuries and death from poisoning and fires/explosions. Apple insists that it conducts audits and requires corrections when it finds problems. However, a consultant at Business for Social Responsibility, which Apple has retained twice for advice on labor issues, finds that claim disingenuous. “They don’t want to pre-empt problems, they just want to avoid embarrassments.” <br />
<br />
That may be too harsh. Some former Apple executives insist management would genuinely like to improve conditions within oversea factories but faces constant push back for fast delivery of new products and maximizing profits. Then again, Apple just reported one of the most lucrative quarters of any corporation in history, with over $13 billion in profits. It could have made even more, executives said, if its overseas factories had been able to produce more. Could Apple not use a little more of it to ensure livable working conditions for Chinese laborers?<br />
<br />
The amoral nature of capitalism and free markets is exactly what makes them so efficient at producing the highest quality products at the lowest cost. It also has caused many to realize that government regulation of them is necessary and just. Sometimes consumers are the ones demanding improvements, as they did against Nike and The Gap, when western media exposed appalling conditions at those companies’ Chinese factories.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, American appetite for evermore innovative and cheap shiny electronic gadgets has not placed the same pressure on Apple or other high tech companies employing overseas workers, such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, and Toshiba.<br />
<br />
As one Apple executive cynically summed up, “You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards. And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.”<br />
<br />
The twin forces for globalizations and technological advancement demand changes to the U.S. model if we are to regain competitiveness. Nevertheless, the Chinese model is no basis for a return to American exceptionalism. Rather it represents a descent to an infamous era that authors like Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser once chronicled.<br />
<br />
“If Apple was warned [about Chinese factory conditions], and didn’t act, that’s reprehensible,” fumes Nicholas Ashford, a former chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health. I agree. For all his innovative brilliance, I <a href="http://blog-thebell.blogspot.com/2011/10/tyrants-of-goodness.html" target="_blank">once noted</a> that Steve Jobs was also noteworthy for being something of an asshole.<br />
<br />
Many wish the U.S. would do more to condemn the Chinese government for its human rights abuses. It seems quite a few U.S. companies deserve the same scorn for their business practices. Instead, we condemn U.S. workers as too fat, lazy, and pampered as well as unions and government for acting as their advocates. If we follow the Chinese model, our grandchildren may have jobs but ones without dignity, decent working conditions, or healthcare. On the other hand, there will be no shortage of iPhones . . . or tea and biscuits.TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-12959760681504352692012-01-13T11:15:00.003-05:002012-01-17T13:04:47.127-05:00Vultures In Quiet Rooms<br><br />
<strong>Romney Won’t Convince Voters He Isn’t One by Refusing to Talk About It</strong><br />
<br />
Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney scored a striking precedent by co-winning the Iowa Caucuses and then winning the New Hampshire Primary by a substantial margin. Romney’s fellow candidates continue looking for barbs to jab at him and the somewhat hapless Rick Perry seems to have found one that sticks. It has to do with Romney’s tenure as CEO at the venture capital firm Bain Capital.<br />
<br />
“I understand the difference between venture capitalism and vulture capitalism,” Perry told a crowd in South Carolina. “I happen to think companies like Bain Capital could have come in and helped these companies if they were truly venture capitalists, but they're not. They're vulture capitalists . . . They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick, and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton.”<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7vxbFeyw9FYwFwK-dOwwtvG-GFjhgFCarcsxRl97rxl-RSs4cs_UMk_pXZjT1j-Zn_mN9mC0X_M41zBA3x3WP7sS6ckz003P3vNiFbLlgAe_acM6CiZoe9Tg7Mva-98zA0rINcfZxUDV/s1600/VulturesInQuietRooms.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7vxbFeyw9FYwFwK-dOwwtvG-GFjhgFCarcsxRl97rxl-RSs4cs_UMk_pXZjT1j-Zn_mN9mC0X_M41zBA3x3WP7sS6ckz003P3vNiFbLlgAe_acM6CiZoe9Tg7Mva-98zA0rINcfZxUDV/s1600/VulturesInQuietRooms.bmp" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vulture Capitalists <em>– watercolor</em><br />
<em>by Canadian-born artist and</em><br />
<em>illustrator Anita Kunz, 2001</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Newt Gingrich, still holding a vendetta against Romney attack ads that sank his chances in Iowa, was quick to agree. “I think there’s a real difference between people who believed in the free market and people who go around, take financial advantage, loot companies, leave behind broken families, broken towns, people on unemployment.” A super PAC backing Gingrich plans to spend $3.4 million in South Carolina airing a documentary that rips Romney as “more ruthless than Wall Street.”<br />
<br />
Romney’s initial reaction to such criticisms has been to condemn them as unfair to him personally but also for placing “free enterprise on trial.” Other conservatives are equally uncomfortable with the larger implications behind this line of attack against Romney and jumped to his defense. “It is bad enough for Barack Obama to blame folks in business for causing problems in this country,” bemoaned Rick Santorum. “It’s one other thing for Republicans to join him.”<br />
<br />
“That is the miracle of free-market capitalism,” explains <em>Washington Post</em> conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin. “The pursuit of profits – by creating real value – benefits the rest of society through better products and services . . . and jobs and higher incomes.” Her colleague Kathleen Parker asks, “Since when in a free, capitalist nation is it a sin to buy a company and turn a profit?”<br />
<br />
It is true that some of the criticisms against Romney on this score have been over-the-top and even dishonest. In particular, the much cited Romney quote, “I like being able to fire people” was taken completely out of context. The candidate was clearly not expressing his economic/business preferences but rather advocating choice in selecting healthcare providers. The Obama campaign will come to rue any attempts to make mileage out of this quote in the general election.<br />
<br />
However, Romney has also been over-the-top at times about his business acumen, particularly as a job creator. During his 2008 candidacy, Romney tended to focus on his tenure as Governor of Massachusetts. However, that period of Romney’s career is verboten in 2012 because it invites unwanted comparisons between Obamacare and Romneycare. Therefore, Romney has chosen to stress his private sector experience, including his time at Bain, this time around.<br />
<br />
By doing so, Romney “invited voters to look at what he did there and determine if they believe it was both (a) admirable and (b) germane to the Presidency,” as Jonathan Last points out in the <em>Weekly Standard</em>. <br />
<br />
The presumption that experience as a CEO translates to Presidential competency is questionable. Robert Samuelson of the <em>Washington Post</em> believes “Romney better understands – and identifies with – business” than President Obama.” However, he concedes, “Whether this becomes a political advantage is unclear.” <em>New York Times</em> columnist David Brooks concurs. “If you look back over history . . . there’s little correlation between business success and political success.” <br />
<br />
Brooks’s colleague, Paul Krugman, attempts to define the crucial difference. “Even giant corporations sell the great bulk of what they produce to other people, not to their own employees – whereas even small countries sell most of what they produce to themselves.”<br />
<br />
While Romney misleads by portraying himself at Bain as some superhuman job creator, his critics equally overstep categorizing him as a job-killing vulture. “Private equity doesn’t consciously strive to create jobs,” admits Samuelson. “But it’s also true that employment practices at companies backed by private equity don’t differ dramatically from other similar non-private-equity-owned companies.”<br />
<br />
The intensity of the pushback against criticisms of Romney’s time at Bain derives from recognition by Republicans that this charge could come to haunt their likely nominee. Conservative blogger Erick Erickson at <em>RedState</em> acknowledges far-left liberals are not the only ones who view venture capitalism as a colossus of greed “There are, frankly, a lot of Republican primary voters who view it that way too.” The <em>Wall Street Journal’</em>s Fred Barnes calls the attacks “an explosive issue . . . the greatest threat to [Romney’s] quest for the Presidency.”<br />
<br />
Free markets are, by their nature, messy things. There will always be room in their margins for venture capital firms, like Bain, to perform necessary and useful cleanup. The key term here is “margins.” In the recent past, such firms have moved out of the margins to become center stage players. They generate vast amounts of wealth not by creating products (and value) but often by gaming around the rules under which markets operate – rules often put in place by the federal government they claim to want to shrink and whose regulations they wish to curtail. <br />
<br />
As E.J. Dionne observes in the <em>Washington Post</em>, “Capitalists of Romney’s sort never want to acknowledge how much their ability to make money depends on what government does.”<br />
<br />
In many ways, Romney is lucky to have this issue raised now and by his fellow conservatives. It should blunt the force of the charge when Democrats raise it again in the general election. However, this assumes he uses the opportunity to develop a politically viable defense. His initial efforts at condemning critics as anti-capitalist are unimpressive.<br />
<br />
During an interview on NBC’s <em>Today Show</em>, host Matt Lauer challenged Romney whether he genuinely felt any questioning of Wall Street and financial institutions, as well as the growing U.S. wealth gap, were out of bound. What about basic fairness?, Lauer questioned. Romney refused to budge. “You know, I think it is about envy. I think it’s about class warfare,” he replied. “I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and tax policy and the like. But the President made it part of his campaign rally.”<br />
<br />
Quiet rooms?<br />
<br />
During the height of the Iraq War and its counter-protests, many argued that dissenters should get off the streets and into quiet rooms. They insisted that criticizing the war was tantamount to a lack of patriotism, dishonoring the troops, and providing aid and comfort to terrorists. The latest mantra from conservatives seems to be that calling bad capitalist practices into question is synonymous to questioning capitalism. It is the politics of fear and jingoism all over again. Personally, I do not think Romney is a vulture. Romney’s practices at Bain bother me far less than his current contention that they are not legitimate topics for discussion and raising them is essentially un-American in nature. <br />
<br />
Perry has backed off the term “vulture.” However, he refuses to concede the matter as a non-topic. He told <em>FOX News</em>, “This process is about winnowing out individuals and testing whether or not they're a flawed candidate or not. And I will tell you when people can point to where you made a quick profit and kicked people out of their jobs, that is an issue that has got to be addressed.” Gingrich adds, “Criticizing specific actions in specific places is not being anti-free-enterprise. And raising questions about that is not wrong.”<br />
<br />
As Romney’s defenders point out, capitalism is not a pretty thing sometime. Neither is democracy, for that matter. So what is the harm in discussing them frankly? American exceptionalism holds little value if gained by sweeping its limitations and weaknesses under a rug or by hiding its vultures in quiet rooms.TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-44525763050310503892012-01-05T10:22:00.006-05:002012-01-05T10:28:32.065-05:00The Candidate Who's Near<br><br />
<strong>Mitt Romney Can Win Iowa But Not Republican Hearts</strong><br />
<br />
<em>My heart's in a pickle,</em><br />
<em>It's constantly fickle</em><br />
<em>And not too partickle, I fear.</em><br />
<em>When I'm not near the girl I love,</em><br />
<em>I love the girl I'm near.</em><br />
<br />
One of the characters in the whimsical Broadway musical <em>Finian’s Rainbow</em> is a leprechaun named Og, whose pot of gold is stolen by the show’s title character. Og is anxious to get his gold back because its absence is transformational, literally changing him from magical creature to mortal being. He fears losing his powers and identity. Unfortunately for Og, his burgeoning humanity stirs romantic impulses and he falls hopelessly in love with Finian’s vivacious daughter, Sharon.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FUudp82wLTU/TwW_t0OcEGI/AAAAAAAAAg4/7wUuG9fjnB4/s1600/TheCandidateThey%2527reNear.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" rea="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FUudp82wLTU/TwW_t0OcEGI/AAAAAAAAAg4/7wUuG9fjnB4/s1600/TheCandidateThey%2527reNear.bmp" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>At least somebody loves him –</em><br />
<em>GOP Presidential candidate Mitt</em><br />
<em>Romney is hugged by his wife</em><br />
<em>after co-winning the Iowa Caucuses</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Yet by the end of the story, Og has settled down with Susan, a mute girl so reserved and bland she was largely unnoticed by all. The reason for the switch is that Sharon does not reciprocate Og’s feelings. Caught up in her own problems, she pays him little heed. That leaves no eligible girl around but “Susan the Silent.” Therefore, in a combination of pragmatism and desperation, Og forsakes the girl he loves in order to love the girl who is available and marriageable. He explains his predicament and adopted solution in the song, <em>When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love</em>.<br />
<br />
Og seems a fine metaphor for Republican voters. They want to regain the White House after losing it in 2008. They see this as a transformational moment, with America’s descent from a world power into socialism hanging in the balance. In order to do so, they must commit to a GOP candidate as their nominee. Much like Og, they keep falling in love only to find rejection.<br />
<br />
Republicans have just completed the Iowa Caucuses, the first formal step in their 2012 Presidential Primary season. The result was a virtual tie between erstwhile frontrunner Mitt Romney and a surging Rick Santorum, with a surging Ron Paul a close second. Actually, Santorum and Paul are but the latest is a long line of GOP surgers.<br />
<br />
The first sweetheart was Michele Bachmann, who GOP voters hoped could work a little Sarah Palin north woods magic again. Alas, she was all nowhere and no bridge. Then voters swooned over Rick Perry’s executive experience, Christian values, and big hair. Sadly, he proved unable to defend his own positions among his peers and had too many “senior moments” for a man of only sixty-one years.<br />
<br />
Next, voters flirted with Herman Cain, drawn to his bad-boy outsider status and CEO experience. They left in droves when he proved better cast in Felini’s <em>8½</em> than his own 9-9-9. He just wasn’t the kind of candidate you brought home to meet mother . . . unless you wanted him to date her. Finally, voters returned to an old flame in Newt Gingrich. He was a legitimate GOP elephant, rather than a RINO, but he had too much trunk (i.e. baggage).<br />
<br />
Given all this, one might think Santorum and/or Paul are the “candidate who’s near” – a fickle Republican electorate’s latest passion. However, the key is the key here is that Santorum and Paul, like the others before them, inspire actual passion in voters’ breasts. It is actually the lackluster but omnipresent Romney cast in this role. Voters like him, they just don’t <strong><em>“like”</em></strong> like him. Even his Mormonism is un-exotic – he is Donny Osmond with less charisma (if that is imaginable).<br />
<br />
Voter polling by <em>NBC News</em> and other groups confirms this phenomenon. Romney did best among affluent non-Evangelical moderates over forty-five years old, especially senior citizens. In short, he appealed to the same traditional Republican establishment that long has been his base. He did not make necessary in-roads among other Republicans. Santorum took the far right and social conservatives. Paul won young Republicans, poor Republicans, and libertarians.<br />
<br />
<em>Washington Post</em> columnist Ruth Marcus got similar results when informally talking with voters in Johnston Iowa. Those backing Santorum, Paul, and Gingrich used words like “prefer,” “heart,” “excitement,” and “change” when describing reasons for backing their candidates. Romney supporters were more likely to mention “most electable” and “most likely to win” for their reasons.<br />
<br />
There is some good news for Romney out of Iowa. In 2008, he invested huge amounts of time and money in the state, only to finish a disappointing second that virtually knocked him out of the race. In 2012, he gave it far less attention and drew the same percentage of the vote for a first place tie. This suggests he has created a well-established brand among voters if not necessarily a growing one. <br />
<br />
The other good news for Romney is that if he prevails in the primaries, he will face a candidate in the general election who is far less beloved by his Democratic base than in 2008. Obama is also the “candidate who’s near” for many liberals. This is even truer for Independent voters, likely to play a key role once again in choosing a Presidential victor.<br />
<br />
However, this is where Iowa has bad news for Romney again. Paul was the big winner among self-described Independents and first-time voters (including Democrats participating in Republican caucuses), garnering forty-three percent of this group. Romney is never going to win the Republican nomination and the Presidency by being a consensus candidate about whom everybody is apathetic.<br />
<br />
Romney picked up an endorsement yesterday from 2008 Republican candidate Senator John McCain of Arizona. This seems a mixed blessing at best. For many archconservatives, McCain is the poster boy for what can go wrong when they place electability above purity and principles. In today’s <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, columnist Daniel Henninger declares, “The Republican divider is the Party's frontrunner, Mitt Romney.” It cannot be a pleasant position for Romney and it cannot be a pleasant situation for Republican voters either. <br />
<br />
Og the leprechaun ultimately gave up attempting to retrieve his gold, deciding that being human is not so bad after all. Of course, that is because he was willing to settle. Republicans seem poised to settle too. They just do not seem to be especially willing. And Romney waits quietly in the wings as the candidate who's near.<br />
<br />
<em>For Sharon I'm carin', </em><br />
<em>But Susan I'm choosin' </em><br />
<em>I'm faithful to whos'n is here.</em><br />
<em>When I'm not near the girl I love,</em><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><em>I love the girl I'm near.</em>TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-37208772059011165062011-12-14T12:21:00.001-05:002011-12-15T13:39:17.110-05:00Class War Ahead<br><br />
<strong>It Just Might Work This Time</strong><br />
<br />
A study of real income growth over time recently appeared in the prestigious <em>Journal of Economic Literature</em>. It found that the richest Americans, the “one percent” so frequently criticized by Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors, garnered an impressive fifty-eight percent of all income growth experienced over the past thirty-five years. During the Clinton Administration years, noted for an economic boom as well as attempts at federal government fiscal discipline, the top earners only captured forty-five percent of income growth. During the years of the George W. Bush Administration, their share skyrocketed to sixty-five percent of all growth.<br />
<br />
This study is rather like the climate change studies I wrote about last time. It documents a trend with factual certainty. Exactly what the numbers indicate/portend and what to do in response is a little less clear.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlxJgDNn1w4nqBQpZJxP4JQgQo2vns2aT6qr85Y-H4l_2GCKBMC431nlr3K5x2EO5EJYHa2-oKpeAGqGwULyfyksJsqEx8YUadTy9iLycpj7YhY-pt5oVUxzPgTjDXayjDjQeo2vxDXkB_/s1600/ClassWarAhead.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="165" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlxJgDNn1w4nqBQpZJxP4JQgQo2vns2aT6qr85Y-H4l_2GCKBMC431nlr3K5x2EO5EJYHa2-oKpeAGqGwULyfyksJsqEx8YUadTy9iLycpj7YhY-pt5oVUxzPgTjDXayjDjQeo2vxDXkB_/s200/ClassWarAhead.bmp" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>A sign left behind by Occupy</em><br />
<em>Wall Street protestors in New</em><br />
<em>York City's Zuccotti Park</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
President Obama traveled to Osawatomie Kansas where he gave a major policy address that even his own supporters concede was also a major partisan political speech in his re-election campaign. In it, Obama laid heavy responsibility for the nation’s current economic distress, as well as our seeming inability to recover from it, on the wealthy, both individuals and businesses, for failing to play by the rules and pay a larger share as justified by their larger rewards.<br />
<br />
Obama maintained, “This is not class warfare. It’s math . . . I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans. And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare . . . We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable.”<br />
<br />
The Republican response was swift and unanimous – the President was indeed waging class warfare in an irresponsible, dangerous manner. Conservative pundits joined the chorus. “This is populism so crude that it channels not Teddy Roosevelt so much as Hugo Chavez,” sniped <em>Washington Post</em> columnist Charles Krauthammer in a savage deconstruction of Obama’s speech. “According to Obama, anyone who opposes his common sense solution for banks is just evil,” fumed Dan Gainor, Boone Pickens Fellow, on <em>FOX News</em>.<br />
<br />
Their response was unsurprising. Thomas Frank, author of <em>What’s The Matter With Kansas</em>, expounds on the ability of conservatives to counter complaints against Wall Street and big business by branding critics as elitists, out of touch with the traditional values of mainstream Americans. It is an argument that “resonated powerfully among white swing voters crucial to the ascendance of the Republican Party over the last four decades,” adds Thomas Edsall in the <em>New York Times</em>.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately for them, this argument has lost appeal in recent years, contends Michael Kinsley, writing at <em>Bloomberg View</em>. “Because of the financial crisis of 2008, the scandals that went with it, and growing income inequality, financial class war arguments are gaining more traction and the cultural class war has almost disappeared.” Likewise, exhortations by Republican GOP hopefuls that Americans just need an opportunity to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps fall flat because they “fail to address the anxiety and anger of those millions of Americans who suddenly find themselves with no job, no health insurance and no money to pay the mortgage,” Edsall rues.<br />
<br />
No matter how you may feel about the practice, poll after poll suggests that the rhetoric labeled “class warfare” by conservatives is finally shifting political fortunes back toward Obama and the Democrats. It comes after a long drought of good news following the 2010 midterm elections. A November <em>Wall Street Journal</em>/NBC poll found respondents favored Democratic policies (i.e. elimination of tax breaks for the wealthy and tougher regulation of banks and corporations) over Republican policies (i.e. spending cuts, minimize regulations, and reject all tax increases) by a two to one margin.<br />
<br />
An ABC/<em>Washington Post</em> poll found more than three fifths of respondents said the wealth gap had grown larger. Respondents favored the federal government “pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less well-off Americans,” again by a two to one margin.<br />
<br />
An October CBS/<em>New York Times</em> poll found only twelve percent of respondents believed Obama Administration policies favor the rich, while sixty-nine percent believed Republican policies did. A more recent Washington Post poll found forty-seven percent of respondents agreed the GOP represents the interests of the nation’s rich – lower but still larger than those who said the same about Democrats.<br />
<br />
A recent Gallup Poll found sixty-six percent of respondents favor increasing taxes on individuals earning over $200,000 per year. Seventy percent want to end corporate tax deductions to pay for Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act.<br />
<br />
Perhaps most disturbing for conservatives, apparently Obama achieved this increase in populist sentiment without voters viewing him as a divisive figure. A <em>FOX News</em> poll found fifty-six percent of respondents believed Obama was pursuing his campaign strategy to bring Americans together. This included fifty-three percent of Independents and sixty-eight percent of moderates. It also included fifty-eight percent of individuals who earn over $50,000 annually.<br />
<br />
Republican pollster Frank Luntz recently addressed the Republican Governor’s Association, where he told them he is “scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death.” He warned the group that OWS and other populist movements are “having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.” He suggested conservatives carefully spin their arguments, taking care to avoid certain buzzwords that are currently harmful to them (i.e. “pay for performance” versus “bonus”).<br />
<br />
However, some of Luntz’s suggestions hold chilling reminders for conservatives as to how badly the tone of the debate has shifted against them. He recommended using the phrase “taking from the rich” over “taxing the rich” because “Americans actually do want to tax the rich.” He also recommended they assert their desire to defend “hardworking taxpayers” rather than “the middle class” because “Americans don’t trust Republicans to defend [the middle class].”<br />
<br />
Luntz even recommended avoiding the term “capitalism” because “The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism but they think capitalism is immoral.” It comes back to an <a href="http://blog-thebell.blogspot.com/2010/06/eleemosynary-capitalism.html" target="_blank">admonition I offered</a> anti-government conservatives in June 2010. Even if they realized complete success in the mid-term elections, I warned, they were “in for a shock by how little confidence this same public has in their own panacea to all problems – free market capitalism,” whose “luster has dimmed considerably for most Americans in recent years.”<br />
<br />
Conservatives have long claimed that private enterprise, even at its worst, is always more effective and efficient at running anything than government is. It became almost cliché because people accepted it as obvious. Nowadays, such claims carry far less credibility. I believe this is the principal reason why Obama is having such success without the usual elitist backlash often suffered by Democrats.<br />
<br />
During his Osawatomie speech, Obama assured, “Now, unless you’re a financial institution whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating consumers, or making risky bets that could damage the entire economy, you have nothing to fear from these new rules.” Conservatives counter this does not mean the President is against banks that do not play by the rules; they assure it means Obama and Democrats are against all banks and capitalism. This has been effective strategy for them in the past. So far this campaign, not so much.<br />
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As the OWS camps are slowly giving way to local ordinances and winter cold, both supporters and critics have been asking, “Now what?” of a movement whose goals were never especially clear. At least one Republican pollster seems to think they have already exerted political impact. Personally, I doubt they were the catalyst for Obama’s new boldness but it is likely they provide supporting comfort for him in its execution. The signs of things to come are there to read in the detritus left behind from their occupation stage – Class War Ahead.TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385980565904904763.post-71100491881444397372011-12-07T15:40:00.001-05:002011-12-07T15:41:06.432-05:00Climate Of Skepticism<br><br />
<strong>Both Sides in the Global Warming Debate Need to Back Down from Claims of Absolute Certainty</strong><br />
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<em>Reuters</em>, the <em>BBC</em>, and other news organizations have run stories lately about a “drought” in snowfall at several prominent Swiss ski resorts. There has been no heavy snowfall since October, forcing several resorts to push back the start of the season. The stories include grim photos of snow-free slopes. Doctor David Stephenson, head of climate research at England’s Reading University, warns that in fifteen years time many Swiss resorts at lower elevations could have no snow at all. If snow-free Swiss Alps are not proof that something is amiss, what will serve to convince climate change doubters?<br />
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Unfortunately, global warming supporters pushing such stories are part of the problem. Doubters point to unrealized dire predictions as justifying their views. Much like the doubters, the supporters in this case falls into the trap of mistaking weather, the day-to-day meteorological conditions affecting a specific place, with climate, the long-term prevalent meteorological conditions of a region or larger area. Even extreme changes in weather ultimately have low impact because they are short lived. Conversely, even minute changes in climate have substantial impact because they persist.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN3D1Xb9slASn-ANv-LXXruprqHDa5LR52kTQZFNL2H3vQdpH_DwMVnjq-NVVYF3emjwCBsqG-tjWeYmjbwc5P1gIZqvnefKHoXh2UGP5m7T7EQTKc9kTZc32e4SySpRR9BpU5N7NU2vpA/s1600/ClimateOfSkepticism.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" mda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN3D1Xb9slASn-ANv-LXXruprqHDa5LR52kTQZFNL2H3vQdpH_DwMVnjq-NVVYF3emjwCBsqG-tjWeYmjbwc5P1gIZqvnefKHoXh2UGP5m7T7EQTKc9kTZc32e4SySpRR9BpU5N7NU2vpA/s200/ClimateOfSkepticism.bmp" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Skiers overlook snow-free slopes at</em><br />
<em>the </em><em>Swiss ski resort of Verbier</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
For the record, I am a supporter of global warming/ climate change and I also feel it is likely that human activities play some role in the observable trend. However, supporters must adhere to the same standards must as doubters. If a cool summer in a warm climate somewhere does not disprove global warming, a snow-free autumn in Switzerland equally fails to prove it. Meteorologists are already predicting December snows will break the drought. <br />
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A more relevant recent story is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2011 Arctic Report Card, which states “a new normal” for the Arctic, consisting of “less ice, thinner ice, younger ice.” The report has mentioned similar conditions in the past but this is the first time it declares them as enduring rather than transitory.<br />
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Even more germane are the recent findings release by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study. The project was established by University of California physics professor Richard Muller, an ardent doubter prior to his role in the study. Muller openly expressed suspicions that past studies, including those by NASA, the Hadley Center, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had “concealed discordant data.” Among his funding source were the Koch brothers, who have donated large sums to organizations lobbying against human-caused global warming.<br />
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BEST reviewed and assessed the accuracy of existing land temperature data from fifteen previous studies, amounting to some 1.6 billion records dating back to the year 1800. The warming of the Earth about one degree Celsius since the 1950s, their primary finding, almost exactly matched the findings of the earlier studies. BEST verified that global warming was real and disproved claims that climate scientists proposing it were engaged in an elaborate hoax/fraud.<br />
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However, this is far from definitive proof by supporters. First, while BEST’s results are the biggest, most comprehensive, and impartial study to date, their results are only as good as their data. Muller has said, “The [land based] temperature station quality is largely awful.” At least seventy percent of the stations have the potential for error between two to five degrees. “The margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming,” Muller concludes.<br />
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Libertarian scholar, Peter Ferrara, writing in <em>Forbes</em>, takes exception with almost everything about the study. While BEST attempted to debunk criticisms of “urban heat island effect,” Ferrara points out the data still comes “from temperature stations on land, which covers less than thirty percent of the earth’s surface.” However, he is only warming up to his topic.<br />
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Ferrara notes that weather satellites show no warming in the upper atmosphere since their record began in 1979. Weather balloons independently confirm their results. The UN’s climate models project human-made global warming would result in a “hotspot” in the troposphere, about six miles above the Earth’s surface, in tropical areas. However, weather balloons and satellites actually show a slight cooling there.<br />
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Ferrara also holds the UN model’s assumptions up to doubt. Atmospheric temperature data from NASA’s Terra satellite demonstrates much more heat escapes back out to space than is assumed captured in the atmosphere by greenhouse effects under the UN’s climate models. A major experiment by the European Organization for Nuclear Research suggests the sun’s cosmic rays, resulting from sunspots, have a much greater effect on Earth’s temperatures than assumed by the UN’s model.<br />
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Mueller admits BEST’s warming trend is not uniformly constant but a majority decision, with fully one-third of all land-based stations reporting global cooling. Moreover, Ferrara argues their records do not show persistent warming following persistent growth of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Rather, it shows an up and down pattern of temperatures, more consistent with natural causes.<br />
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Ferrara’s questioning, while providing healthy skepticism to the debate, comes not from a dispassionate skeptic but a lifelong global warming denier. He engages in elaborate spinning of data to reinforce predetermined bias. Because error could exist, it must exist. If there is any room for doubt, dismiss the concept as worthless. There are a lot of babies lying next to bathwater on the ground at the bottom of Ferrara’s ivory tower. He accuses climate change supporters of “religious orthodoxy” and a “fading catechism” but smugly concludes that global warming is not merely over-hyped but entirely imaginary.<br />
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Daniel Botkin, president of the Center for the Study of the Environment and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, deplores the absolutism this topic inspires in the scientific community. “Not only is it poor science to claim absolute truth but it also leads to the kind of destructive and distrustful debate we've had in last decade about global warming,” he writes in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>.<br />
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Botkin has been warning about the possibility of human-induced global warming since the 1970s. However, he raised hackles with colleagues in 2007, when concerns over global warming were at their height of popularity, by insisting, “Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life – ours and that of all living things on Earth. And . . . the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.”<br />
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I differ with Botkin, finding the impact more noticeable than him. However, I concede his take is more reality-based than frantic warnings issued by some ardent supporters. Despite disturbing trends, the polar ice caps have not melted, polar bears are not extinct, and New York City is not sitting under ten feet of water. <br />
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A new study funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation stresses global warming is real and will have multiple serious impacts. However, it also warns that severe estimates, such as those put forth by a 2007 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are unlikely. For example, the UN IPCC report estimated that Earth surface temperatures could rise from four and a half to eleven and a half degrees Fahrenheit. The new study suggests four degrees is actually the upper limit of the potential rise.<br />
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If climate change supporters want to build credibility with doubters, we need to be our own best skeptics and critics. Dire predictions are causing us to lose credibility and shore up the scoffing of global warming deniers. We need to end cherry picking data to find egregious but isolated examples of unseasonal warming. Likewise, no more doomsday prophesizing geared more toward eliciting donations than knowledge. On the other hand, doubters need to end cherry picking data to find examples at odds with models and stressing them exclusively as disproving the model.<br />
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What is needed is a climate of true skepticism, in which data trends are recognized as valid but not definitive. Science works best when all attempt unbiased analysis of an issue from the same vantage point, instead of taking sides around it. Unfortunately, there is as little of that in the air right now for climate change as there is snow in Switzerland. What is more, given this topic’s controversial and often combative past, the chance of any developing sometime soon has about the same chance as a snowball in hell.TheBellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09253000097214821634noreply@blogger.com3