Send some wampum to Orcinus...
Dave Neiwert has always been a strong ally of Indians, but is too low-key a fundraiser. Toss some coin in their coffee can. They deserve it.
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January 31, 2008
Nudes as Politics
There are so many photos like this. Capa's Spanish Civil War negatives just definitively surfaced in Mexico, having been lost in Paris when the German Army entered the city. Goya worked this in paint. The mass graves of the two great wars, 1914-1918 and 1940-1945. The Indo-China Wars. Rawanda. Bosnia.
Lifted from Juan Cole:
A new professional poll carried out by a British firm in Iraq concludes that excess deaths from violence since March 19, 2003 through summer 2007 came to just over 1 million. Note that excess deaths from violence do not necessarily imply that they are directly war-related. Thus, murders of a criminal sort, tribal feuding, and so forth would be included. Since Bush interfered with the establishment of a strong new government after his invasion, he promoted the sort of insecurity that permitted high rates of violence, whether political, criminal or war-related. This poll tracks with the findings of the studies of Gilbert Burnham and Les Roberts, published in the Lancet and disputes lower numbers found by a recent WHO study (which, however, only ran through June 2006 and was limited solely to civilians--this British study goes to 2007 and seems to include everyone.)
The British findings are also consistent with estimates of between 1 million and 2 million widows in Iraq. These widows, many of them young, face extreme poverty without a breadwinner. As the Iraqi street has been captured by religious parties and militias, gender segregation and female seclusion have increased, which prevents single young women from going out to work in mixed-gender settings like stores and workshops. In short, Iraq is being Talibanized by Bush's war.
Reuters points out that almost none of the widows are getting any welfare payments from the Iraqi government. It adds: "A report by aid groups found that 43 percent of Iraqis lived in "absolute poverty". Four million people needed food assistance and only one in three children under five had access to safe drinking water."
Its about fur. It could just as well be about Iraq, where O(106) human beings have died since March, 2003. Except that the image control (in the American media market) has been more selective than in those earlier celebrations of mass casualty ritualisms.
A Rule
IF mail from congressional candidate contains alignment reference to {Clinton | Obama} THEN exercise the unsubscribe {embedded link | mailbot address}.
Several yesterday. Probably more today.
Woke up thinking if Edwards had to drop out within four weeks of the first Party caucus to extract a promise from the Hero Twins, who claim they alone can make the trip to Xibalba and defeat the Lords of Death, to protect the hopeless, the downtrodden, the poor and the working poor, what did the Hero Twins promise to inflict upon the hopeless, the downtrodden, the poor and the working poor, if he stayed in a fifth week or a sixth week or longer?
Something worth reading is this.
January 30, 2008
China Snow
A little over a week ago a friend of mine flew into Guangzhou, found his uncomfortably upscale hotel, and went over to the adjacent Starbucks to Skype me. We compared notes, his surroundings in Guangzhou (aka "Canton"), and mine seven years ago in Beijing, and used Google Earth to find the two train stations in Guangzhou and orient both of us. He caught a flight the next day to Hainan Island for the meetings that were the purpose of his trip. Two days ago he returned from Hainan to Guangzhou, and then returned to Europe.
Today a fifth of a million people are stuck at the train station less than a kilometer from where my friend was sitting nine days ago, due to snow. Another half of a million people are stuck elsewhere in Guangzhou. Snow in the south of China. The worst since the KMT was forced to flee to Formosa.
Read Xinhua and be amazed. Utterly amazed.
Cobell Press Release
Statement by Elouise Cobell, Lead Plaintiff, Cobell vs. Kempthorne
BROWNING, MONT., Jan. 30 -- Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit over the federal government's mismanagement of the individual Indian Trust, expressed delight with today's ruling by U.S. District Judge James Robertson in the 11-year-old litigation.
"This is a great day in Indian Country," she said after the judge's ruling was released in Washington. "We've argued for over ten years that the government is unable to fulfill its duty to render an adequate historical accounting, much less redress the historical wrongs heaped upon the individual Indian trust beneficiaries. Instead of truthfully seeking to remedy the government's admitted historical mismanagement, the government elected to fight plaintiffs every step of the way.
Judge Robertson has settled the debate in favor of plaintiffs and found that an adequate historical accounting is, in fact, impossible. "Plaintiffs look forward to Judge Robertson's scheduling of a hearing 'determining an appropriate remedy' in light of their [government's] failure to render the court-ordered accounting."
In his ruling, Judge Robertson declared: "My conclusion that Interior is unable to perform an adequate accounting of the IIM [Individual Indian Money] Trust does not mean that a just resolution of this dispute is hopeless. It does mean that a remedy must be found for the Department's unrepaired, and irreparable, breach of its fiduciary duty over the last century. And it does mean that the time has come to bring this suit to a close."
For additional information:
Bill McAllister
703-385-6996 (media only)
Cobell is OUT!
Judge Robertson writes:
These findings and conclusions, derived not only from the trial, but also from the extensive record that preceded it, support and explain my decision (i) that, although the defendants have attempted and continue to attempt to cure the breach of their fiduciary duty that was found in Cobell V and affirmed by Cobell VI, they have not succeeded in doing so; (ii) that the historical statements of account contemplated by defendants' latest accounting plan will not satisfy defendants' duties "rooted in and outlined by the relevant statutes and treaties . . . [and] defined in traditional equitable terms," Cobell VI, 240 F.3d at 1099; and (iii) that the defendants have unreasonably delayed the completion of the required accounting. Indeed, it is now clear that completion of the required accounting is an impossible task.
I'll have so much more to say, but wanted to get this up right away!
Thanks to Acee at Indianz.com for the email!
In the meantime, read Indianz write up.
Here's the decision.
Update1: An interesting footnote from Robertson:
"I do not reach the conclusion urged by plaintiffs: that an adequate accounting is impossible because of the problem of missing records. The record before me is inconclusive on that point. The record is not inconclusive, however, on the tension between the expense of an adequate accounting and congressional unwillingness to fund such an enterprise."
Robertson is referring to the actions of a Republican Congress, some of which I discussed here on Wampum two years ago. Essentially, Tom Delay rammed through legislation defunding the accounting. Why? My theory was then, and now remains, that BigEnergy fears an accurate accounting, as it will begin to uncover their many misdeeds regarding royalty underpayments, possibly on the scale of tens (hundreds?) of billions. Robertson is laying the blame at the feet of Delay et al. Note that he does not commit to whether an accounting is achievable in relation to documents - to say as much would close the door on one huge source of documentation of trust accounts - the books of BigEnergy!
It's the unemployment, stupid...
I just finished reading, What We're In For: Projected Economic Impact of the Next Recession by John Schmitt and Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). The final conclusion:
Labor-market recessions last far longer than the technical recessions declared by the NBER. Long after financial markets and employers have begun to recover from an economic downturn, workers continue to suffer from high levels of unemployment, depressed levels of employment, falling incomes, loss of health insurance, and outright poverty. Even a mild-to-moderate recession along the lines of the recessions of the early 1990s and the early 2000s would likely see the unemployment rate rise above 6.5 percent, with 3.2 million more unemployed workers, 4.2 million fewer jobs, a $2,000 per year drop in inflation-adjusted incomes for the typical family, 4.2 million more people without health-insurance coverage of any form, and 4.7 million men, women, and children thrown into poverty. Minority workers would suffer disproportionately, with the black unemployment rate rising to 11.3 percent, and the rate for black teens increasing to over 37 percent. If historical precedent holds, these effects would not bottom out until sometime in 2010.A severe recession, along the lines of the early 1980s, would have far worse effects. The unemployment rate would likely increase to 8.4 percent, increasing the pool of unemployed by over 5.8 million workers. The economy would lose a total of 4.6 million jobs. The inflation-adjusted income of the typical family would fall almost $3,750 per year, and the number of Americans living in poverty would rise by 10.4 million. Again, racial minorities would bear a disproportionate share of the economic hardships. Blacks, for example, would account for 1.3 million of the total 5.8 million worker increase in unemployment. If the historical pattern repeats itself, the labor market would not likely begin to recover until 2011.
Here are a couple of their scarier tables:
I'm not an economist...
But I did stay in a Holiday Inn last night. Well, not really, but that doesn't prevent me from expounding on the current economic situation. Take today's Q4 GDP release:
U.S. Growth Slowed Drastically in 4th Quarter
By PETER S. GOODMAN Published: January 31, 2008The United States economy expanded by a disappointingly weak 0.6 percent during the last three months of 2007, the government reported Wednesday, offering the latest indication that the United States is already suffering a substantial slowdown, and perhaps a recession.
The growth from October to December came in at half the rate forecast by most economists, and it was down strikingly from the 4.9 percent clip registered last fall. Over all, the economy expanded by 2.2 percent in inflation-adjusted terms for all of 2007, the slowest rate of growth in five years.
Over on The Big Picture, a discussion erupted in comments regarding the disconnect between the falling GDP and stagnant unemployment claims; the assumption being that if the economy is slowing, more workers should be filing claims.
In a typical recessionary business cycle, that assumption would probably play out. However, this slow-down was precipitated by the pop of the housing bubble, particularly in areas such as California and Florida, an the industry on the front line, construction, has changed dramatically over the past few decades. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the construction industry is the largest employer of undocumented workers in the US, with an estimated 1.4 million workers in some form of construction, accounting for 12% of the industry’s work force. That's a nationwide number, and is much, much higher in specific regions, namely the West and Southwest. In addition, thousands more construction workers are "day laborers", usually paid in cash and thus not eligible for unemployment benefits.
Officially, unemployment in construction in the US jumped from 6.9% to 9.4% from December 2006 to December 2007, or with 243,000 workers filing unemployment new claims during that period. What's missing, of course, are the numbers of undocumented workers who also lost their jobs, thus removing millions, even billions, of dollars from the US economy. The impact on the economies of our southern neighbors should be clearer in the next few months as well.
Who are you, and what have you done with the right-wing loon?
I can't believe I'm actually linking to Michelle Malkin, and not in an I'm-ripping-out-my-eyes way. On the proposed "solutions" to the current mortgage crisis, she sounds downright sensible:
I certainly have sympathy for borrowers who may have been misled. But for every "predatory lender" out there, you can find a predatory borrower. For every fraud-minded loan officer or mortgage broker, you can find a homeowner who secured financing and bought a home he knew he couldn't afford with little money down and bogus or no income verification. Washington is silent about this reckless behavior, which it is encouraging both tacitly and explicitly.Now comes word from California that some of these homeowners Washington is rushing to rescue are simply walking away - abandoning their mortgage commitments and contractual obligations. Poof: "Foreclose me. ... I'll live in the house for free for 12 months, and I'll save my money and I'll move on," one homeowner blithely told the Los Angeles Times this week.
...
The true victims in this "crisis" are those who paid for homes within their means and those who waited to enter the housing market. A reader in New York City wrote me last week:
"My husband and I patiently sat back and watched while our friends made a killing in real estate over the past six years. ... Now, after several years, we are ready to move to the ‘burbs, and we feel it is responsible people like us who are going to get hurt by this mortgage mess. We're the ones who have to sit back and wait for housing prices to fall, while our government, looking to protect only the homeowners, keeps prices artificially high with bailout programs and artificially low interest rates.
Frankly, I don't give a hoot for the "I still can't afford my McMansion" crowd, but the fact is that this behavior harms us in the unwashed masses who either cut our losses early, or didn't participate in the bubble-frenzy at all. Prices may have fallen in California, but they are still way beyond the means of most average worker bees. So not only are the foreclosed now moving into rental housing, pushing up demand, and thus prices, but thousands of foreclosed homes are sitting vacant, priced too high for anyone but "knife catchers". The proposed "fixes", freezing interest rates and foreclosures, will only prolong this pain. Face it, the we're in the middle of measles, and there's nothing left to do but wait for the fever to break. There are ways to mitigate the pain - build more affordable rental housing, provide moving assistance, implement real transportation options, increase food stamps benefits - all of which would help those who would never could have afforded that 3br/4bath track house in Chula Vista without the "creative financing" efforts of Ameriquest and Countrywide.
You don't have to be a ranting, uncaring wingnut like Malkin to believe that the most compassionate, and pragmatic, policy is to "let the markets" prevail. With a safety net, of course.
Return of the Guard
Bob Kinzel's coverage Group of lawmakers calling on Douglas to end deployment of Guard troops in Iraq on VPR.
Terri Hallenbeck's coverage Lawmakers call for governor to pull back Guard from Iraq in the Burlington Free Press.
The AP's coverage Lawmakers Call For Withdrawal Of Vt. Guard From Iraq.
Chris Miller ran on his energy ideas, which were prescient of $100 bbl crude, and Elizabeth Trice was the only Green I've met who, like Chris, connected the dots between energy cost, housing construction, transit, and overt and covert poverty and near poverty. As a courtesy to me he also ran on the idea that the Governor of Maine should, and could, challenge the claim of the current Federal Executive to use the Maine Guard to engage in a war of aggression, or simply to garrison the largest US operated concentration camp in Iraq -- the Abu Ghraib prison.
I've got calls to make tomorrow. To Burlington. There may be stuff I can learn.
Three years from now, in the next mid-term, we may still be trying to get done what we could have gotten done in '06, in the last mid-term. Looking for a candidate, or incumbent, governor, with a profound interest in the Constitution, in particular, Art. 1, Sec. 8, cl. 15 and 16, and not knocked breathless by the National Defense Act of 1916, or any such subsequent, and interested in how the current USSC read historic, and contemporanious, wartime Congressional "Amendments" to the Constitution.
January 29, 2008
Risking Communications Security: Potential Hazards of the Protect America Act
Steve Bellovan, Matt Blaze, Whitfield Diffie, Susan Landau, Peter Neuman and Jennifer Rexford have a 10 page paper in the IEEE journal Security and Privacy entitled Risking Communications Security: Potential Hazards of the Protect America Act.
I've put a copy up here. Its 10pages.
You all have 15 days to read this and get it onto the A list blogs, which may pick it up on their own anyway. Its a page a day. You can fax a page a day to your choice of Senators.
I'm going to send a copy to Tom Allen, who could beat Susan Collins this fall.
I remember Nixon, and Haldeman, and Erlichman
via Indianz.com, this gem -- "If he wins the November election, Obama plans to appoint an Indian policy advisor at the White House".
So, he's going to rise to the level of Nixon, Haldeman and Erlichman, which is actually the gold standard, the high-water mark for the Federal-Tribal relationship, but he's too inexperienced to actually know what he's doing, and in all liklihood, he'll just promote Ross Swimmer. That plus an annual "Summit", which either means a do-nothing 400-and-some-plus-ONE media circus, or a USET+NCAI+IGA+ONE clubman's foursome that excludes Hawai'i, Alaska, and all the fucked-over-by-the-BIA, the fucked-over-by-corrupt-Chairs, the fucked-over-by-Abramoff, and all of the Urbans.
Edwards actually worked the Lumbee issue, which counts far more than the promise of symbolism and circuses. Edwards could cut to the chase and just say "I will invite Ms. Eloise Cobell to join my Administration as Secretary of the Interior. He could run that into the seam of dirt MB's mined since we set our sights on Saint John McCain, hitting Haliburton and the Petro-Oligarchy as casually as children chase crows out of the garden corn.
Cobell v Babbit began under Clinton, and the MMS mess wasn't invented by the RNC, they just improved on a pre-existing condition.
Didn't tune in
There really are better comedy acts. We watched West Wing VI instead.
This morning there was additional clutter in the inbox -- Obama's I-am-the-change "reaction" to the final SOTU from the putchist. Yawn2. Deleted.
The Indian Health Act
The NY Times discovers Indians. It's only been an issue for a few years now. And one reason the bill was delayed? St. John McCain.
Jonah is a savant...
Comes as a shock.
January 28, 2008
And things continue to get worse...
This should make the markets happy this morning:
New Home Sales Fall More Than Expected
By REUTERS Filed at 10:24 a.m. ETWASHINGTON (Reuters) - New single-family U.S. home sales fell 4.7 percent in December to the lowest rate in nearly 13 years while the median sales price dropped sharply according to a government report on Monday that delivered more grim news for the housing sector.
New home sales fell to an annual rate of 604,000 from a downwardly revised rate of 634,000 in November, the Commerce Department said.
Economists polled by Reuters were expecting December sales to fall to an annual rate of 640,000 from the November previously reported rate of 647,000.
Expect that number to be revised downward next month. Remember that this time last month, the Commerce Department reported 14,000 homes were sold than actually were, and the month before, 17,000. It's important to note that the October release claimed that new home sales were up (!!!), when, in fact, they were not. But it did give the market a happy bump that day.
Calculated Risk has lots of pretty graphs.
Count to Five
In Mossel today a vehicle was engaged with a mine. Five US KIA.
January 27, 2008
Military Space Operations
The launch we observed from our secret hideout a few miles down range from Delta Space Launch Complex (SLC-2), aka "Slick 2" is in the news.
Update: at GS.O, via Le Monde of all places.
The launch report is here. What is missing is (a) the eventual inclination of the package, (b) the dry weight of the package, [note: these are related -- a launcher capable of boosting 32,000 pounds of payload out of Vandenberg into polar orbit is cabable of boosting 40,000 pounds of payload into a geosynchronous orbit.], (c) the fuel weight remaining, O(104 lbs), and (d) the number of minutes after launch when control of the package was lost.
So for those who love minutea ... The launch vehicle was a Delta 7920, the perigee: 354 km (219 mi), the apogee: 376 km (233 mi), the inclination: 58.50 deg, and the period: 91.83 min. The COSPAR ident is 2006-057A. The USAF Sat Cat entry is 29651.
The ground track repeats nearly every 2 days (30.92 revs), enabling frequent revisit of targets of interest. The first four Lacrosse / Onyx behaved similarly (28.9 revs in 2 days). and Lacrosse 5 made 43.05 revs in 3 days. KH-11 (Keyhole) ground tracks repeat nearly every 4 days. Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) also have 4 day ground track repeat cycles.
Therefore it was LACROSS-6 / ONYX, on a Delta, rather than a Titan, a first for the SAR (imaging radar) series, and the mission cost was a billion dollars and change, or about two weeks of the cost of running the Iraq War.
Here's the pre-launch audio, an mp3 format recording.
Its not every day one sees 1bn in "national technical means", and the best in orbital look-down SAR technology, go kersplat. Naturally, the shoot-down was the work of Al-Qaeda-in-Low-Orbit-i-stan, using bottle rockets and fly paper, or Saddam's dastardly covert space weapons program, which fried Intelsat 804 and Intelsat Americas-7, using a directed energy weapon located somewhere in Iraq and dischared directly through the earth's core, previously disclosed by Judy Miller and Dick Cheney.
Hat tips: SatTrackCam Station Leiden, operated by Dr Marco Langbroek (NL), Astronautix, operated by Mark Wade (AT), Global Security operated by our friend John Pike in (occupied) WDC, Space Report, by Jonathan McDowell of Sommerville, plus some non-classified leakage from a variety of USAF and NRO websites.
Also posting on this is Dr Jeffrey Lewis (and friends) at Arms Control Wonk.
Do food stamps cause obesity? Does reading Jane Galt cause brain rot?
I can't even bring myself to link to Ayn Rand roadie (and formerly known as Jane Galt) Megan McArdle's latest eat-the-poor rants on food stamps = obesity in the poor, but I will recommend this response from Andrew Leonard in Salon:
Would increasing food stamp benefits worsen American obesity? The claim that this is so has been a hobby horse of the right in recent years, most often associated with the writings of Douglas J. Besharov, the director of the Social and Individual Responsibility Project at the American Enterprise Institute, a hard-right think tank. But there are plenty of academics who argue otherwise. One economist at Sonoma State University declared in 2003 "that the data does not indicate any relationship between obesity and food stamps." That same year, a paper titled "Food Programs and Obesity in U.S. Children" by two University of Maryland Family Studies professors found no evidence that food stamps were correlated with childhood obesity in the United States. A study published in the Journal of Nutrition (also in 2003) by a City University of New York researcher did find that food stamp participation was "positively related to obesity in low income women" but a commentary in the same issue by a Cornell University nutritional scientist cautioned against making too much of the findings.Low incomes in the United States are correlated with obesity, a stunning turnaround from the pre-World War II era. Low incomes are also correlated with food stamp program participation, so it makes sense that there would be some relationship between obesity and food stamps. But obesity is also correlated with disproportionate patronization of fast food outlets -- a practice that food stamp benefits don't cover. Which at least raises the possibility that strapped families would use a food stamp increase to buy more groceries instead of eating out at McDonald's, and thus potentially reduce obesity among the poor.
I lost a whole day of blogging on Friday, reading and commenting on McArdle's drivel. Apparently I wasn't alone. Feministe commenter Kali brilliantly opined:
It's Friday night, and also I think my brain might have melted at some point while reading her post, so I'm not sure I've got her meaning correct here: but I really think she is seriously saying that fat people are poor because they're fat, not vice versa. My head hurts now, because I find myself wanting to simultaneously argue with this ridiculous proposition, question whether she could actually have really meant this, wonder what her proposed mechanism for fatness causing mass poverty is (like, is it supposed to be a signal to employers that you're lazy and have no self discipline?)...and, gah.Derren Brown talks about how if you're being threatened or in danger a good strategy is to say something totally surreal, because it will throw the person threatening you off balance mentally, and give you a chance to take control. I think it would probably work for criminals as well as victims. You could have burgled my house while I was reading that trainwreck. You could have driven a truck right up to the door and got a bunch of guys in black balaclavas to start carrying away my furniture and I would still have been frozen in disbelief, staring slack jawed at the screen with that blog on it. It's a weird talent, to be able to have that effect on a person. Maybe that's how she gets people to take her seriously - being so blithely and two dimensionally stupid that your brain rejects what it's seeing and starts an argument with itself, and then people mistake this mental mugging for being intellectually stimulated.
January 26, 2008
Worse than a Crime
An analysis of the Israeli blockade of Gaza by Uri Avnery -- Worse than a Crime.
The essense of his article is that the blockade was a blunder just as the 2006 war was a blunder.
You may want to reflect on Uri's position on the secular, unitary nature of the Palestinian state, and Dr. George Habash's, and on their positions on the religious, mutually-exclusive nature of the Zionist and Islamist armed political organizations and their territorial pretentions. Then there's the conservative or monarchist Arab states and the Right of Return of all Palestinian refugees to their homes in pre-1948 Palestine.
Today's NPR coverage of Habash and the PFLP was entirely operational. Apparently NPR is unaware that Habash and the PFLP had a political program. When they do Avnery's they'll probably miss the aims of Gush-Shalom as well.
Transitions :: Dr. George Habash, PFLP
Dr. George Habash, a Palestinian Christian, from Lydda, and founder of the PFLP. He died today in Amman, Jordan, where he has lived since 2001. He was 81.
If you think the solution to the problem is "two states", where one or both have a religious character, or you think that the conservative or monarchist Arab states like Morocco and Jordan are good governments, or you reject the Right of Return of all Palestinian refugees to their homes in pre-1948 Palestine, then you may have a fairly negative view of Dr. Habash.
Triangular Bandages
The costs of MB's several hospitalizations at MaineMed for hyperemesis and preterm labor, as well as Kezzie's birth at the same facility was covered by MaineCare. After the boys' diagnosis, their medical costs were all picked up by Medicare, which is MaineCare. Under Maine's wicked enlightened policy, the work of Michael Brennan, Chellie Pingree, and Mark Lawrence, the siblings of children with profound disabilities were also covered.
Further, the parents of children with profound disabilities, who's lives are defined by non-normal pediatric schedules, intensive interventions in hospital, speech therapy sessions, occupational therapy sessions, clinical schools, repeated for each sibling with a disability, plus the normal round of pre-schools and play dates and schools and normal pediatric schedules for siblings without disabilities, "work" and commute time and cost, are not, under MaineCare, courtesy of Brennan, Pingree, Lawrence, not required for the health care coverage of adults who's children are covered by MaineCare.
The costs of Sam's birth, our first of three at MaineMed, were covered by not just one, but two private, employer-provided, insurance scams -- Etna and United Health Care. Nine years later and there is still an O(104) bill from MaineMed marked "unpaid" on our credit report, as Etna and UHC echo "declined, covered by other" to MaineMed's accounts payable, and will probably do so for as long as MaineMed tries to get paid by either of those two criminal enterprises.
Anyway, here are the money quotes from Ethan's second-hand message-as-endorsement:
Sure, there are programs designed to help people without private insurance from an employer -- MaineCare for example -- however, so much time is lost waiting for these programs to kick in that progress toward wellness is lost and suffering is inevitable -- let alone the red tape and confusion when people are trying to navigate these programs. There has got to be another way.I do not know the ultimate answer to this dilemma, but I do know where the system fails us, and there must be ways that we can work to patch the system -- until we come up with a better solution. (That is why I am leaning towards Hillary for '08. She has some solutions that are implementable, not just ideals that are too good to be true).
I have to say I don't recall "time lost waiting" for MaineCare, but the allusion to "why Canada sucks" is unimportant. There are Dems in the primary voting demographic, which has an average age of 60, who will buy Ethan's substance-free message. Ethan came to Maine triangulating his way towards the Hill, and he didn't waste his time at Augusta doing useful work to make health care a human right. Nope. He was working a TABOR "compromise" with the Republicans.
Now that I'm working again, Sam and Jonah are no longer eligible for MaineCare, so I have to explore the wornderland of Ethan's preference -- private insurance, with realistic fixes, for children with a pre-existing condition -- autism. Its funny, like being offered a non-filtered cigarette "for health reasons" by the leader of the firing squad, or a low-carb last meal before leaving Death Row.
"a double-edged sword of epistemological futility"
The quote is from a comment on Josh Landis' Syria Comment.
The team that carried out the December 27th assassination of Benazir Bhutto is now believed to have comprised no fewer than six persons. See Dawn for details.
Two texts
This one from AFP, taken from yesterday's Daily Star of Lebanon, where the lead story is the bombing of a convoy, targeting Wissam Eid, a communications and computer engineer who lead the technical office at the Internal Security Force's Intelligence Bureau. Eid worked on the technical aspects of all cases involving bombings in Lebanon -- the (former Prime Minister Rafik) Hariri investigation, investigations involving the Fatah al-Islam armed organization that fought the Lebanese Army in the northern Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, and (via Al-Safir via T_DESCO via Landis), "the investigation of the al-Qa'ida-linked "cell of 13" headed by Hassan Nabaa/Khaled Taha and to which Ahmed Abu Adass was connected, possibly linking the Hariri case to the Fatah al-Islam/al-Qa'ida/Dinniyeh group investigations."
Compare the treatment of the prior bombing, where the apparent target was a US diplomatic asset with Hugh Macleod's piece below, which he describes as "I wrote an analysis for San Fran Chron on the attack on the US embassy vehicle and how there appears to be a new strand of political violence emerging in Lebanon, that seems more the work of Al-Qaeda style fundies than hit squads taking out anti-Syrian figures . . "
Here's the Daily Star of Lebanon's "news" copy:
...
Ten days ago a US embassy vehicle was targeted in a car bomb attack. No one in the US car was killed in that attack but three other people who were driving in the area died.That bombing was the first such attack against US interests in Lebanon since the mid-1980s and came during a visit to the Middle East by US President George W. Bush.
Lebanon is grappling with its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
The country has been without a president since pro-Syrian head of state Emile Lahoud stepped down on November 23 with no elected successor because of a standoff between the Western-backed government and the opposition.
Here's the SF Chronicle's "analysis" copy:
The attack on a U.S. embassy vehicle that killed four people last week represents a dangerous widening of political violence that includes international targets, and shows how al Qaeda-inspired extremists are attempting to push the politically deadlocked country toward civil war, some analysts say."Al Qaeda is now unleashed in Lebanon and they are here to stay," said Ahmad Moussali, professor of political science and Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut. "Al Qaeda thrives in civil war and chaos. International players should be very careful in Lebanon."
...
A stand-off munition on a transport axis regularly used by a target really isn't a lot to go on to infer organizational ability, and origin, but in Nancy Pelosi's district, the narrator jumped straight to the desired outcome, and only several paragraphs later mentioned Lebanon's politics, and no where the fact that Bush was in the region when a US asset was targeted.
Like the hanging chad of the Winograd report on Olmert's 33 Day War, due any day now, Serge Brammertz, the UN chief investigator, is due to submit a report to the UN security council updating his findings into the death of al-Hariri in 9 days.
No group has acknowledged carrying out the attack. My guess however is that Hugh MacLeod's "analysis" that the "new strand of political violence emerging in Lebanon, that seems more the work of Al-Qaeda style fundies than hit squads taking out anti-Syrian figures . . " will not be supported by the respective investigations.
I'll make it simple. There was a fire last night at a casino in Las Vegas. It may not have been the work of Al-Qaeda-in-Gamble-stan, but the Homeland Insecurity clowns could spin it that way too by the end of the day.
January 25, 2008
I can't tell time
I missed my chance to phone back to South Carolina, 6pm plus a few PST is after 9:05 pm EST, when the calling window for voter ID and persuasion ends. The volunteer who called to vet me after registering at the website was smart and when she was walking me through the call and script and I mentioned I'd done GOTV, she switched to operative-speak, which made it a lot easier for me.
Pull back on food stamps and unemployment...
I saw this piece this morning, but we had to move the trailer to a new site, and so Suzie (brilliant wench she is) got it up first. But I still call dibs.
By the numbers...
In 2006, 134,372,678 US taxpayers filed returns with the IRS on income received in 2005. Of those returns, 43,779,597, or 32.5%, did not pay any federal income tax due to exemptions and credits. Of the 90,593,081 returns which reported taxable income, 40,081,459 were from married filing jointly, 2,004,781 married filing separately, 6,572,893 head of household, 33,793 surviving spouse and 41,900,155 filed as individuals. 81,170,334 exemptions were filed for dependent children, including children over 18 in college or disabled. 30% of US taxpayers have dependent children, with over 2/3rds living in married households.
3,949,703 (8.1%) of single taxpayers reported adjusted gross incomes over $75,000. For married couples, 3,045,750 (7.2%) filed tax returns with more than $200,000 in adjusted gross income. The IRS report for 2005 did not break down income for married filers between $100,000 and $200,000.
From these numbers, we can get a bit of an idea of where the "stimulus" checks will go.
55% of non-taxpayers filed as individuals, 45% as married. Thus we can extrapolate 24,078,778 individuals and 39,401,638 married taxpayers from the 43,779,597 mentioned above. However, approximately 3,000,000 households (single and family) have annual incomes below $3,000 cut off, so we after reducing and rounding, we get to around 62 million non-taxpayers receiving checks of $300 each for $18.6 billion.
84 million married and 48.5 million individual (totaling 132.5 million), each getting $600 for $79.5 billion.
Approximately $20 billion for dependents at $300 apiece, two-thirds going to 20% of taxpayers (married), with another third to the 10% of individual taxpayers with children.
I wanted to get these numbers up asap (since I've been working on them since 3am PST), but will update with more stats and some pie charts later today.
Update: Made a stupid addition error, now fixed.
Wolfowitz moves from the AEI to State
He's to chair the State Department's International Security Advisory Board, formerly the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board.
I expect he'll find WMDs somewhere.
CBPP's Greenstein speaks out on "stimulus"...
If you don't regularly check out the material on Center for Budget and Policy Priorities website, you should. Today, ED Robert Greenstein had this to say about the Pelosi/Boehner stimulus plan:
STATEMENT BY ROBERT GREENSTEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTORREPORTED STIMULUS PACKAGE WOULD PROVIDE LITTLE IMMEDIATE BOOST DUE TO REMOVAL OF MOST EFFECTIVE PROVISIONS
Changes reportedly made last night in the stimulus package would reduce its effectiveness as stimulus. Although the package includes a reasonably designed tax rebate, the two most targeted and economically effective measures under consideration - a temporary extension of unemployment benefits and a temporary boost in food stamp benefits - were zeroed out, apparently at the insistence of House Republican leaders.
The two respected institutions that have rated stimulus options in recent days - the Congressional Budget Office and Moody's Economy.com - both give their two highest ratings for effectiveness as stimulus to the two measures that were dropped.
* Of all tax and spending stimulus options that CBO examined, the only two that it found would have a large "bang-for-the-buck" as effective stimulus and act fast to boost the economy are the unemployment insurance and food stamp provisions. Both could start injecting more consumer purchasing power into the economy within one to two months. The planned tax rebate checks, in contrast, are not likely to be sent out until June.
* Economy.com found that for each dollar spent on extended UI benefits, $1.64 in increased economic activity would be generated. For each dollar in increased food stamp benefits, $1.73 in new economic activity would be generated. No other options rated as high.
* In contrast, Economy.com found that for each dollar in "accelerated depreciation" - the main business tax cut in the package - only 27 cents of increased economic activity would be generated. CBO and a Federal Reserve study in 2006 found that the business tax cuts adopted in the last recession, which closely resemble those in the current package, had only modest stimulative effects. Despite this evidence, the package apparently contains at least $50 billion in business tax cuts while excluding unemployment insurance - the single measure most focused on the people hardest hit by the downturn - and food stamps.
* The business tax cuts also would cause states to lose at least $4 billion in state revenue, due to linkages between federal and state tax codes. The package contains no fiscal relief for states, not even to offset this loss. As a result, many states will have to enact deeper and more painful budget cuts, likely hitting areas from health care and education to aid to local governments. Those state budget cuts will also act as a drag on the economy.
The unemployment insurance and food stamp provisions apparently were rejected by House Republican leaders, who reportedly said that the inclusion of spending measures would be unacceptable to the House Republican Caucus and would derail the package. Such a stance reflects the elevation of ideology over sound economic reasoning. As Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and now-CBO director Peter Orszag wrote in late 2001, "Basic economic analysis indicates that increased government expenditures can indeed be stimulative, and, in fact, are often more effective as stimulus measures than tax cuts."[1] This is because a significant portion of most tax cuts is saved rather than spent.
There's more at this link.
Flashing the flashback...
I thought I'd put up the original Flashback Friday post from this week in January, 2003. I haven't actually re-read it, just pulled it from the old Wampum site at blogspot, so it'll be interesting to see if time is again repeating itself.
So what's remarkable about these headlines?WHEREFORE ART THOU, RECOVERY?
Published on December 5: Charlie Stein, Boston Globe StaffThe latest statistics out of Washington confirm what most people already suspected: The sluggish recovery is threatening to stall altogether.
The economy grew at an annual rate of 1.7 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported yesterday, down from a previous estimate of 2.5 percent. The revision showed that inventories were higher and sales weaker than originally thought, a pattern that does not bode well for the fourth quarter...
INDEX SHOWS ECONOMY STAGNANT BUSH SAYS, 'WE CAN'T SIT BACK AND HOPE FOR THE BEST'
Published on December 4: John D. McClain, Associated PressWASHINGTON -- The government's chief measure of future economic health edged up an anemic 0.1 percent in October, casting new doubts on the economic recovery.
"It tells me that whatever recovery we had is gone," said economist Paul Getman of Regional Financial Associates in West Chester, Pa. "The economy is in imminent danger of slipping back into recession."
In Bradenton, Fla., President Bush said he understands the plight of Americans who have lost jobs and...
ECONOMISTS TAKE DIM VIEW OF USING TAX CUTS TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY
Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writer
December 18; Page a18It's two and a half times the food stamp program. It's roughly the size of the entire budget of the Transportation Department. It's nearly as big as the contributions the Persian Gulf countries made to cover the cost of Operation Desert Storm. It may be dubbed the Great Tax Giveaway, and it's one of the latest ideas underconsideration by the Bush administration and other Republican leaders. It would give $200 to $300 to every American taxpayer, or a total of $300...
U.S. FACTORY PRODUCTION FELL 0.4% IN NOVEMBER
Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writer
December 17; Page c1The nation's industrial production fell 0.4 percent last month, the government said yesterday. It was the biggest decline in eight months and a sign that the economy might shrink during the final quarter of the year, analysts said. The drop in output at the nation's factories, mines and utilities was twice as severe as most economists had been expecting and heightened expectations that the Federal Reserve would decide to cut interest rates when its policy-making open market ...
ADMINISTRATION RETRACTS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CURBS MOVE FAILS TO MOLLIFY CRITICS
Published on November 22, Author(s): Michael K. Frisby, Boston Globe StaffWASHINGTON -- The White House retreated yesterday from a proposed directive that would have eliminated federal affirmative action programs and crippled private-sector ones. But the action did not quiet a storm of protest over the changes circulated by his legal counsel.
AMERICANS GRADE THEIR HEALTH CARE
Richard Morin, Don Colburn, Washington Post Staff Writers
December 31; Page z6Most Americans are satisfied with the quality and availability of their health care, but anxieties about cost prompt an overwhelming majority to favor key changes in the health insurance system, a nationwide Washington Post-ABC News poll shows three out of four of those surveyed favor efforts to expand health insurance either by requiring businesses to provide coverage to all employees or by a national health care plan run by the government and financed by taxpayers...
Dream of Striking It Rich Fading in Silicon Valley Technology: Severe business restructuring and recession alter face-and attitude-of electronics Mecca.
The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Sep 9; JONATHAN WEBER;No one believes that Silicon Valley is withering away as a center of innovation. Indeed, it is likely to remain a premier technology hub and a powerful economic driver for the state and nation. But many in the high-tech community agree that when it emerges from the recession, Silicon Valley probably will look more like any other vibrant industrial region rather than ...
State's Long-Term Jobless Corps Grows 50% in Year Recession: Thousands have exhausted their unemployment benefits and are still without a job.
The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Sep 8; JESUS SANCHEZ;Diane Dixon is one of a fast growing number of Californians who have exhausted their unemployment benefits before finding work in a recession-battered job market. The state's corps of long-term unemployed jumped 50% over year-before levels to about 36,000 in July, the latest month for which figures are available from the state Employment Development Department.
TWO VISIONS OF US ENERGY FUTURE
Published on November 4: Ross Gelbspan, Globe StaffThe US Senate's vote Friday to derail action on the Bush administration's massive energy bill provided a vivid reminder of the nation's profound division over how best to provide for its energy needs in the 21st century.
The president's bill foundered primarily on opposition to oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but underlying that issue is a far broader disagreement over priorities...
RECORD NUMBER OF JOBLESS LEFT WITHOUT BENEFITS
Chicago Tribune; Chicago, Ill.; Stephen FranklinThe number of workers in the U.S. who have exhausted their jobless benefits and are ineligible for further assistance hit a record high in July, according to a Washington-based research group.
Officials with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said that 318,000 workers nationwide, and 17,293 in Illinois, used up their unemployment benefits in July. The nationwide figure is the highest since monthly ...
US EXPECTED TO RESTRICT USE OF RACE-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS
Published on December 4: Anthony Flint, Boston Globe StaffIn a move that is sure to revive a thorny civil rights issue for President Bush, [the] Education Secretary is expected to propose a rule today prohibiting colleges from restricting scholarships to individual racial groups, although race can be a factor in awarding aid.
Under the proposed regulation, scholarships must be open to "all comers," whether white or black or from other groups, a Department of Education official said yesterday...
ADMINISTRATION RETRACTS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CURBS HINTS OF WHITE HOUSE ADRIFT
Published on November 22: John W. Mashek, Boston Globe StaffWASHINGTON -- A White House lawyer's attempt to reverse two decades of affirmative action on the eve of a presidential ceremony to sign a new civil rights bill was the most serious of several recent blunders and miscalculations by President Bush and his aides.
The episode, despite Bush's hasty and clumsy attempt to undo the damage, left the president embarrassed and gave the appearance of a White House careening out of control...
PRESCRIPTIONS FOR AN AILING ECONOMY
December 22; Page h1. Washington Post StaffWhat is to be done about the economy? Focus on long-terminvestment? Extend jobless benefits? Jump-start housing and construction through federal spending? Cut interest rates even more? As President Bush huddles with his advisers in search of a new strategy, a cross-section of experts offered their advice about the best path to follow...
BUSH APPROVAL RATING SLIPS TO 47%
POLL RESULTS, REFLECTING ECONOMIC FEARS, ARE WORST OF HIS PRESIDENCYDan BalzWashington Post Staff Writers
December 17; Page a1Fed by surging doubts about his handling of the economy, President Bush's popularity has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, with fewer than half of those questioned in the latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll saying they approve of the way he is doing his job. Bush's approval rating has dropped to 47 percent, marking the first time it has slipped below 50 percent in Post-ABC News surveys. Only about six weeks ago, 59 percent of the public approved of the way he was...
Figured it out yet?They're all from 1991.
Flashback Friday...redux
Just to give any of our long-term readers a taste of the old days...
Renewed Republican Call For Tax Cut Is Led by Bush
By ADAM CLYMER,
Published: October 18, 1991President Bush and Republican Congressional leaders argued today that the way to reduce unemployment was through a capital gains tax cut that would create more jobs, while Democrats renewed their effort to pass legislation extending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.
Politics dominated both arguments in the aftermath of Wednesday's Senate vote to sustain Mr. Bush's veto of a $6.5 billion Democratic bill to provide up to 20 weeks of additional benefits for people out of work for at least half a year.
Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the Republican whip in the House, said Republicans "would go to the country very hard this fall and refuse to adjourn" until Congress acted on proposals for economic growth.
Mr. Gingrich said those proposals, which would go beyond the capital gains cut and include a smaller unemployment plan than the Democrats want, would be outlined next week and produced in legislative form as early as next week.
But House Speaker Thomas S. Foley, renewing the assertion that Democrats have consistently made since July, complained that Mr. Bush supported deficit spending to help foreigners but not jobless Americans. He called the Administration's jobless proposal "totally inadequate."
Mr. Bush renewed his calls for a capital gains tax cut in a televised address to the Associated Press Managing Editors' Association, which was meeting in Detroit. He said that "a capital gains tax cut will set off an explosion of small business formation" and "give our economy a much needed boost."
"It would raise real estate prices and cut the overall cost of the savings and loan cleanup," he said. "It would help people of imagination and drive."
January 24, 2008
Send food stamps to Pelosi...
I want to start a campaign to send replica food stamps to Pelosi, both via email, regular mail and in person. But I need some technical help. Anyone know how to create generated email with food stamps graphics included? I can come up with a printable food stamp to be mailed or dropped.
Let the food stamp revolt begin!
email: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov San Francisco: (415) 556-4862 Washington, DC: (202) 225-4965
Eat the Poor
Speaker Pelosi caved, again, to Republicans, and sold out our most vulnerable citizens.
Tentative Deal Is Reached on Stimulus Plan
January 24, 20
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:53 a.m. ETWASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic and Republican congressional leaders reached a tentative deal Thursday on tax rebates of $300 to $1,200 per household and business tax cuts to jolt the slumping economy.
Congressional officials close to the negotiations said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio reached agreement in principle in a telephone call Thursday morning.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two wanted key members of their parties to sign off on the accord before any announcement.
The development came as the Bush administration, which also has been pushing for a deal, said agreement seemed imminent. ''Our understanding is there is no final deal yet but they are making progress,'' presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said early Thursday.
Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed to drop increases in food stamp and unemployment benefits during a Wednesday meeting in exchange for gaining rebates of at least $300 for almost everyone earning a paycheck, including low-income earners who make too little to pay income taxes.
As I indicated in yesterday's post on food stamps and food prices, FS benefits have not kept pace with recent upsurges in food prices, so that $1.50 per meal benefit buys even less. And just who are the people Pelosi has agreed to shaft? From USDA's website:
Based on a study of data gathered in Fiscal Year 2005:
* 50 percent of all participants are children (18 or younger), and 65 percent of them live in single-parent households.
* 54 percent of food stamp households include children.
* 8 percent of all participants are elderly (age 60 or over).
* 77 percent of all benefits go to households with children, 16 percent go to households with disabled persons, and 9 percent go to households with elderly persons.
* 34 percent of households with children were headed by a single parent, the overwhelming majority of whom were women.
* The average household size is 2.3 persons.
* The average gross monthly income per food stamp household is $648.
* 46 percent of participants are white; 31 percent are African-American, non-Hispanic; 13 percent are Hispanic; 2 percent are Asian, 1 percent are Native American, and 7 percent are of unknown race or ethnicity.
(source: McClatchy)
Update1: I've been doing some research and here is the USDA's latest report on Food Stamp Participation in the US. According to the report, 37.7 million Americans (approx. 13% of all citizen) are eligible to received food stamp benefits, though participation rates in the program hover around 65% (varies by state.)
Unemployment numbers are also readily available from the BLS. The current number of unemployed is officially 7,655,000, but that does not include 4,697,000 individuals who are listed as "currently not in the labor force" but "who currently want a job." Of those 4.7 million, 1,338,000 have been unemployed for 26 weeks or more, meaning their unemployment insurance has already run out. Another 1,182,000 have been unemployed for more than 15 weeks (but less than 26). Over the past year, the average length of unemployment has increased from 15.9 to 17.2 weeks, so over a million more former workers are counting the days until their benefits run out.
Are we there yet?
Not even close. And the news only gets worse. From Bloomberg this morning:
U.S. Existing Home Sales Fell More Than Forecast (Update1)
By Courtney SchlissermanJan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of existing homes in the U.S. fell more than forecast in December, capping the biggest yearly slump in more than a generation.
Purchases fell 2.2 percent to an annual rate of 4.89 million, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. For all of last year, sales of single-family homes declined 13 percent, the most since 1982, and prices dropped for the first time in at least four decades.
Falling property values and tougher borrowing rules may lead to more foreclosures and depress housing for most of this year. The worsening real-estate recession is at the core of the economic slowdown and will probably prompt the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates next week and in future meetings, economists said.
``We are not at the bottom in the housing market,'' said Nigel Gault, director of U.S. research at Global Insight Inc., a Lexington, Massachusetts, forecasting firm. ``The Fed is trying to battle against the fundamentals which say housing is not going to recover until we have a substantial decline in prices.''
Home inventories are climbing and housing starts are way down. So what does the stock market do?