Having a look at the person the Tea Party chose to do their rebuttal, because I don't have the capacity for long-form thought right now.
They're selling a scriptural version of the founding of this country, promising we can get there again. It's like heaven! It's all bullshit, but Bachman probably doesn't know that. She's honestly crazy. Sal Russo, however, knows it. He just wants tax cuts and libertarian ponies.
Anyway, good TV from Matthews and Joan Walsh.
Showing posts with label SRSLY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SRSLY. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
"Accounting is important."
So sayeth Eugene Robinson, noting that accounting's great, but it doesn't "win hearts and minds." Which may be true, but accounting is preferable to fantasies about libertarian sparkle ponies. Which are probably all we're going to get.
Math is hard, ok. But I think grown ups should be able to handle it.
Math is hard, ok. But I think grown ups should be able to handle it.
To remove barriers to growth and investment
he should provide psychiatric care and Pell grants to the house republicans.
Jobs, jobs, jobs
Our president is inspiring and good, and all of that, but: I'm looking at the 55 year-old woman who's going for a degree in biotech, and I'm thinking, great! Too bad no company in this country will be hiring a 55 year old woman to do anything earning a decent living, at least not any time soon.
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.
We are so fucked if the Hill doesn't start taking this seriously.
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.
We are so fucked if the Hill doesn't start taking this seriously.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Of Green Screens and Middle Schools
Aside from the fact that putting McCain in front of a massive, unidentified lawn brought the Green Screen speech to mind, the question arises: What is that picture? Why is it there?
Talking Points Memo, with help from readers, found that it is a picture of Walter Reed Middle School, North Hollywood.
In a speech that was not focused on education, in a week where the coastal "elite" has been demonized repeatedly, why a Southern California school? Especially on with the word "Hollywood" right there in its address?
Talking Points Memo, with help from readers, found that it is a picture of Walter Reed Middle School, North Hollywood.
In a speech that was not focused on education, in a week where the coastal "elite" has been demonized repeatedly, why a Southern California school? Especially on with the word "Hollywood" right there in its address?
I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous.Maybe ridiculous, but what possible context could this picture provide?
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Sarah!
The writers devised some good, witty lines, and Palin, for her part, delivered them well. Much of the red-meat portion was lies and misrepresentations, of course, but it's a political speech, made at a rather desperate time.
The thing that nearly drove me over the edge was the cheering and screaming over her standard issue economic lines. Dems will tax you, Dems will make you lose your jobs, Dems will spend all kinds of crazy money.... and people eat that shit up.
I realize we are looking at THE Base here, the 27-30% of Americans who still think Bush is a GREAT president.
But my God, it is so obviously demonstrably patently WRONG to suggest that this country's economy is in better hands under Republicans.
Pop quiz: which two modern presidents have busted the biggest budgets and left office with the biggest deficits?
GWB and RONALD REAGAN
And under whose administrations does the middle class stand a chance at growth, while income inequality shrinks?
DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATIONS.
I mean jesus, you fools: it's numbers. Why are they so hard to understand?
Update: It is true that when I graded her delivery, I didn't consider presidential points. I do think that anyone who came away thinking she sounded in the least bit Presidential really needs to examine some deeply personal issues.
Brokaw is, mercifully, reminding us that Republicans have held the power of the government for the past 8 years, with Dems holding a meager obstruction advantage for the past 2, so it's a bit cheeky for McCain and Co to run on any kind of reform agenda.
And I can't resist this, from the site of the Great Orange Satan:
The thing that nearly drove me over the edge was the cheering and screaming over her standard issue economic lines. Dems will tax you, Dems will make you lose your jobs, Dems will spend all kinds of crazy money.... and people eat that shit up.
I realize we are looking at THE Base here, the 27-30% of Americans who still think Bush is a GREAT president.
But my God, it is so obviously demonstrably patently WRONG to suggest that this country's economy is in better hands under Republicans.
Pop quiz: which two modern presidents have busted the biggest budgets and left office with the biggest deficits?
GWB and RONALD REAGAN
And under whose administrations does the middle class stand a chance at growth, while income inequality shrinks?
DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATIONS.
I mean jesus, you fools: it's numbers. Why are they so hard to understand?
Update: It is true that when I graded her delivery, I didn't consider presidential points. I do think that anyone who came away thinking she sounded in the least bit Presidential really needs to examine some deeply personal issues.
Brokaw is, mercifully, reminding us that Republicans have held the power of the government for the past 8 years, with Dems holding a meager obstruction advantage for the past 2, so it's a bit cheeky for McCain and Co to run on any kind of reform agenda.
And I can't resist this, from the site of the Great Orange Satan:
From emailed comments
The best way to save the Republican Party now is to destroy it. In the marketplace of ideas, social conservatism is a viral infection contaminating the GOP. It represents an evolutionary dead-end whose logical conclusion is fascism if not outright totalitarianism.
Is it not obvious that the imposition of the evangelical ideology--any fundamentalist ideology for that matter--lies in direct opposition to a free people in a democratic land? Our Constitution, specifically the separation of church and state, no longer serves as a bulwark against the morality police, who seek to impose faith-based notions such as creationism upon those of us with rational minds.
Social conservatives aim to constrain freedom of thought, freedom of choice, freedom to pursue happiness. These freedoms live at the heart of an entrepreneurial and economically strong America.
No doubt, the diktat the social conservative movement wishes to impose upon ALL us Americans is antithetical to a free market system, and therefore exists as hypocrisy within the Republican platform. Privatize profits, socialize losses, and make religion the opiate of the masses.
Indeed, this has been a dark eight years of Orwellian doubletalk. Enough! I’m voting for Libertarian Bob Barr.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I want my habeas back
The AG thinks the FBI needs broader surveillance powers, and he's fixin' to do something about it. From NYT:
On Tuesday, I listened to a really great Fresh Air with Terry Gross segment with Michael Beschoss, on his book Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964.
A couple of bits of the original tapes from October 1964 are fascinating and have topical relevance. LBJ is on the eve of a reelection campaign, and his private conversations with a couple of key figures kept me in my car. Listen to his conversation with Billy Graham (about 9 minutes in at the link above) if you think that using evangelical leaders to cover one's political ass was invented in 1980.
The segment that I'm thinking about this morning, though, was a conversation toward the end of October with J. Edgar Hoover.
LBJ is worried, because there are rumors of a pending "October Surprise" planned by the Goldwater camp. Specifically, he's worried that Goldwater's team may have found and will name secret homosexuals within the administration, or photos of Johnson himself with a woman of ill repute. A Republican operator has scored a point earlier in the month, discovering that close Johnson aide Walter Jenkins was arrested at a DC YMCA having sex with a man. The press was tipped off, and Johnson suddenly feels vulnerable on the "morality" issue.
On the one hand, this tape has a comic edge: Johnson is aware of the rumors about Hoover's sexuality, so he is probably taking some real pleasure in pressing him about how one might know that someone was "queer". It's amusing if disgusting as they discuss the ways men part their hair, "walking funny", mannerisms, and the like.
But this conversation is only one part of a broader narrative. Johnson was on the phone with The director of the FBI a lot during these weeks, for one reason and one reason only: to put a stop to any opposition research hitting the press in the run up to the election.
Beschloss makes the point that this was in no way atypical presidential behavior. That the FBI should be used to silence potential scandal doesn't appear to have been questioned. We talk about the "hands off" approach that the press took with FDR's disabilities or JFK's private life, but I wonder how much of that had to do with the presidential ability to call out the goons when needed to squelch gossip or unflattering information.
The Nixon administration's grasping paranoia brought an end, for a time, to the use of the FBI as a private security force and the DOJ as a political shield. But since 9/11/01, new fears and paranoia have given strength to the expansion of executive power and the lessening of restrictions or oversight with regard to the practices of the military, the FBI, the NSA, and the DOJ. The agencies and institutions which could wreak the most damage to a constitutional republic have been steadily freed from restrictions designed to protect the country and its citizens from constitutional abuse, while the institutions whose role it is to provide oversight and correction have seen their influence steadily usurped (congress) or undermined through political maneuvering and deck-stacking (the courts, the free press). All under the undying zombie meme that they need all these "tools" to prevent another major terrorist attack.
But. It has been extensively documented that the failures of the FBI and intelligence agencies prior to 9/11/01 were due not to a lack of information, but a lack of action. The FBI had plenty of dots to connect, plenty of actionable intelligence. The lack was in leadership. Anti-terrorist investigation was not given priority, and key information was not shared up the chain of command.
The idea that 9/11/01 would have been prevented if only the agencies had better tools is false. But it's prevalent, and it has lead to the destruction of law and order, and of constitutional protections. While I'm sure that Bush and Mukasey really just want to keep everybody safe, they are creating tools which can -and will, given our history- be used as political bludgeons, and undermine the integrity of our criminal justice system.
Quite a legacy.
Mukasey, for his part, says that the new guidelines are intended merely to assist poor, confused agents, who cannot seem to figure out the rules as they are (this is the same reason Mukasey gives for the politicization of Justice under AG Gonzalez). He has agreed not to sign the new guidelines until after a congressional hearing on 9/17.
Let's hope the congress shows some spine. That would be a nice change.
WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.
The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.
On Tuesday, I listened to a really great Fresh Air with Terry Gross segment with Michael Beschoss, on his book Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964.
A couple of bits of the original tapes from October 1964 are fascinating and have topical relevance. LBJ is on the eve of a reelection campaign, and his private conversations with a couple of key figures kept me in my car. Listen to his conversation with Billy Graham (about 9 minutes in at the link above) if you think that using evangelical leaders to cover one's political ass was invented in 1980.
The segment that I'm thinking about this morning, though, was a conversation toward the end of October with J. Edgar Hoover.
LBJ is worried, because there are rumors of a pending "October Surprise" planned by the Goldwater camp. Specifically, he's worried that Goldwater's team may have found and will name secret homosexuals within the administration, or photos of Johnson himself with a woman of ill repute. A Republican operator has scored a point earlier in the month, discovering that close Johnson aide Walter Jenkins was arrested at a DC YMCA having sex with a man. The press was tipped off, and Johnson suddenly feels vulnerable on the "morality" issue.
On the one hand, this tape has a comic edge: Johnson is aware of the rumors about Hoover's sexuality, so he is probably taking some real pleasure in pressing him about how one might know that someone was "queer". It's amusing if disgusting as they discuss the ways men part their hair, "walking funny", mannerisms, and the like.
But this conversation is only one part of a broader narrative. Johnson was on the phone with The director of the FBI a lot during these weeks, for one reason and one reason only: to put a stop to any opposition research hitting the press in the run up to the election.
Beschloss makes the point that this was in no way atypical presidential behavior. That the FBI should be used to silence potential scandal doesn't appear to have been questioned. We talk about the "hands off" approach that the press took with FDR's disabilities or JFK's private life, but I wonder how much of that had to do with the presidential ability to call out the goons when needed to squelch gossip or unflattering information.
The Nixon administration's grasping paranoia brought an end, for a time, to the use of the FBI as a private security force and the DOJ as a political shield. But since 9/11/01, new fears and paranoia have given strength to the expansion of executive power and the lessening of restrictions or oversight with regard to the practices of the military, the FBI, the NSA, and the DOJ. The agencies and institutions which could wreak the most damage to a constitutional republic have been steadily freed from restrictions designed to protect the country and its citizens from constitutional abuse, while the institutions whose role it is to provide oversight and correction have seen their influence steadily usurped (congress) or undermined through political maneuvering and deck-stacking (the courts, the free press). All under the undying zombie meme that they need all these "tools" to prevent another major terrorist attack.
But. It has been extensively documented that the failures of the FBI and intelligence agencies prior to 9/11/01 were due not to a lack of information, but a lack of action. The FBI had plenty of dots to connect, plenty of actionable intelligence. The lack was in leadership. Anti-terrorist investigation was not given priority, and key information was not shared up the chain of command.
The idea that 9/11/01 would have been prevented if only the agencies had better tools is false. But it's prevalent, and it has lead to the destruction of law and order, and of constitutional protections. While I'm sure that Bush and Mukasey really just want to keep everybody safe, they are creating tools which can -and will, given our history- be used as political bludgeons, and undermine the integrity of our criminal justice system.
Quite a legacy.
Mukasey, for his part, says that the new guidelines are intended merely to assist poor, confused agents, who cannot seem to figure out the rules as they are (this is the same reason Mukasey gives for the politicization of Justice under AG Gonzalez). He has agreed not to sign the new guidelines until after a congressional hearing on 9/17.
Let's hope the congress shows some spine. That would be a nice change.
Friday, July 25, 2008
An open letter from The World
Via Berube
Read the rest.
EARTH, July 25, 2008 -- The entire world drafted an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) today, asking him to drop out of the U.S. presidential race and concede the presidency to Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois).
"Ordinarily we do not interfere in America's internal affairs," said a spokesman for the rest of the planet, "even when it has become clear, as in recent years, that American voters are about to elect ignorant, incoherent buffoons who will add immeasurably to our immiseration. But this time is different. We didn't think it was worth our while to step up for your Carter or Mondale or Dukakis or Gore or Kerry -- besides, we'd only be bombed or invaded for our trouble. But this time, I mean, come on -- you've got to be kidding me, right? Please tell me you're kidding."
Read the rest.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Weirdness
I had an interesting experience Friday night, which I've been meaning to write about since. My brain is such a jumble these days, I hope I can do justice to the experience and my perceptions of it.
Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist held a public discussion forum on "Evolution, Creation, and Intelligent Design". The speaker was John Suarez, who has for many years been active in church/state issues. On the side of separation, I mean.
Suarez started out with a simple question for the audience. What, he asked, are the differences between the scientific terms hypothesis, theory, and law?
Hands shot up all over the room. Most people suggested that the difference between theory and law was one of degree; law presumably having been more thoroughly tested, and even absolute. No, Suarez explained, law and theory are really the same thing. We shouldn't even have two words, actually.
Hands shot up again. "What does Webster's say?" "I don't have Webster's here." he replied. A man with a determined look on his face insisted that law referred to an absolute, observable thing, like gravity. To demonstrate, he held his pen up so we could all see it, and dropped it.
No, Suarez explained: gravity isn't absolute, as you'd realize if you were on an airplane that suddenly lost altitude. And the Theory of Relativity disproves more than one element of Newton's Laws. So law is neither absolute nor consistently observable.
Arguing ensues. From various corners of the room, disagreement with Suarez's first assertion. Look, he says, all I'm saying is that there is no practical scientific difference between the two terms. You can toss one of them, pick whichever one you like.
He goes on, giving us a political history of the debate, beginning in the 1920s. He covers the Scopes trial, and some other state-by-state attempts to insert young-earth creationism into the classroom, one by one defeated. Eventually a few creationists with big degrees after their names came up with ID. Through the Discovery Institute's Center For Science and Culture, they have steadily organized a debate (see
The Wedge Strategy) intended to confuse, using negative arguments in place of positive theory. And, sadly, it works a lot of the time. And I experienced it in spades on Friday night.
Hands shoot up, again, from various corners. Lots of pseudo-scientific posturing. Evolution can't be proven. Look at the beaks on the Galapagos birds. Changes in petri dish cells aren't adaptations, they're deficiencies. The Cambrian Explosion doesn't explain enough, the pocket-watch argument, irreducible complexity, you name it, they trotted it out.
There were, of course, plenty of hands shooting up to answer these debunked ID arguments. Some of the people answering were scientists, some were not. I think I can say that all were surprised that what we thought would be a casual discussion turned out to be nothing of the sort. One woman said, "I am a microbiologist, and I wish I had all of the answers to what you've said in the front of my mind, but I don't right now. But there are answers. What you are saying is wrong."
See that was the problem: we didn't know we were supposed to have done homework before coming to the forum.
I have kept up with the ID movement's claims, court cases, etc over the years. But I don't keep all that data in the forefront of my skull. All of the minutiae, every debunked claim- it's not my job.
Here's what I do- what most of us do, I'll wager. A controversy arises. ID proponents make their arguments. I think, hm. Wonder what the scientific community says. I look it up. Science answers. Science has made a much better argument. I get a beer and watch another episode of
Deadliest Catch.
Here's what they do. A group of them get in a van. They drive to an event. They get out of the van and pray together. The enter the event separately, and take seats around the room. They have spent (according to one of them) two years memorizing CSC talking points. The forum begins, and they fire out talking points like shotgun pellets, fast, fast, fast, and if you aren't prepared, you haven't a chance at answering them fully.
I made a direct response to one of them, who'd asserted that there was no scientific consensus on evolution and many scientists support the theory of ID, blah blah blah. I'm not a scientist, I said, but I do know that for a concept to qualify as a scientific theory, it must be tested. The work must be peer-reviewed. I know that there are smart men with impressive sounding science credentials who are trying to advance ID as a theory, but it is not testable, none of them has ever produced a piece of data for peer-review, and ID is not science.
Another of them responded to me with the
Richard Steinberg BS that Ben Stein pushed in his (thoroughly debunked) movie. No, I said, I'm sorry. It never happened.
Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist held a public discussion forum on "Evolution, Creation, and Intelligent Design". The speaker was John Suarez, who has for many years been active in church/state issues. On the side of separation, I mean.
Suarez started out with a simple question for the audience. What, he asked, are the differences between the scientific terms hypothesis, theory, and law?
Hands shot up all over the room. Most people suggested that the difference between theory and law was one of degree; law presumably having been more thoroughly tested, and even absolute. No, Suarez explained, law and theory are really the same thing. We shouldn't even have two words, actually.
Hands shot up again. "What does Webster's say?" "I don't have Webster's here." he replied. A man with a determined look on his face insisted that law referred to an absolute, observable thing, like gravity. To demonstrate, he held his pen up so we could all see it, and dropped it.
No, Suarez explained: gravity isn't absolute, as you'd realize if you were on an airplane that suddenly lost altitude. And the Theory of Relativity disproves more than one element of Newton's Laws. So law is neither absolute nor consistently observable.
Arguing ensues. From various corners of the room, disagreement with Suarez's first assertion. Look, he says, all I'm saying is that there is no practical scientific difference between the two terms. You can toss one of them, pick whichever one you like.
He goes on, giving us a political history of the debate, beginning in the 1920s. He covers the Scopes trial, and some other state-by-state attempts to insert young-earth creationism into the classroom, one by one defeated. Eventually a few creationists with big degrees after their names came up with ID. Through the Discovery Institute's Center For Science and Culture, they have steadily organized a debate (see
The Wedge Strategy) intended to confuse, using negative arguments in place of positive theory. And, sadly, it works a lot of the time. And I experienced it in spades on Friday night.
Hands shoot up, again, from various corners. Lots of pseudo-scientific posturing. Evolution can't be proven. Look at the beaks on the Galapagos birds. Changes in petri dish cells aren't adaptations, they're deficiencies. The Cambrian Explosion doesn't explain enough, the pocket-watch argument, irreducible complexity, you name it, they trotted it out.
There were, of course, plenty of hands shooting up to answer these debunked ID arguments. Some of the people answering were scientists, some were not. I think I can say that all were surprised that what we thought would be a casual discussion turned out to be nothing of the sort. One woman said, "I am a microbiologist, and I wish I had all of the answers to what you've said in the front of my mind, but I don't right now. But there are answers. What you are saying is wrong."
See that was the problem: we didn't know we were supposed to have done homework before coming to the forum.
I have kept up with the ID movement's claims, court cases, etc over the years. But I don't keep all that data in the forefront of my skull. All of the minutiae, every debunked claim- it's not my job.
Here's what I do- what most of us do, I'll wager. A controversy arises. ID proponents make their arguments. I think, hm. Wonder what the scientific community says. I look it up. Science answers. Science has made a much better argument. I get a beer and watch another episode of
Deadliest Catch.
Here's what they do. A group of them get in a van. They drive to an event. They get out of the van and pray together. The enter the event separately, and take seats around the room. They have spent (according to one of them) two years memorizing CSC talking points. The forum begins, and they fire out talking points like shotgun pellets, fast, fast, fast, and if you aren't prepared, you haven't a chance at answering them fully.
I made a direct response to one of them, who'd asserted that there was no scientific consensus on evolution and many scientists support the theory of ID, blah blah blah. I'm not a scientist, I said, but I do know that for a concept to qualify as a scientific theory, it must be tested. The work must be peer-reviewed. I know that there are smart men with impressive sounding science credentials who are trying to advance ID as a theory, but it is not testable, none of them has ever produced a piece of data for peer-review, and ID is not science.
Another of them responded to me with the
Richard Steinberg BS that Ben Stein pushed in his (thoroughly debunked) movie. No, I said, I'm sorry. It never happened.
I mean- ok, something happened. What did not happen was a guy getting fired for trying to get ID scientific paper peer-reviewed. (Follow the link above to the full story)
I got up to go outside for a bit. I wanted to smoke, and get my thoughts together. I couldn't recall the particulars of the Steinberg affair, for instance, and I wanted to try and remember details. One of them followed me out. He wanted to discuss science in the Bible (which most people don't know, he said, even ministers). I refused to discuss the Bible with him. We had, I suppose a cheerful conversation, but a frustrating one. "How many mammals are in the fossil record?" he demanded. I don't know, I said. I am not a scientist, I don't keep that data in the front of my head. And you are not a scientist, either.
Eventually I got away from him and back to my friends. The event was over, and we all mingled a bit. A friend said to me, "You'll never get through to those people."
No, I said, you won't. But one of them had a teenage girl with him, maybe 17 or 19 years old. I can see her face clearly right now. And what you hope, as you engage their talking points, is that she will hear you, and get a good education, and eventually reject doctrine in favor of science.
That's what you hope. And you keep hoping, every time you have the opportunity to have another frustrating discussion with another regiment of culture warriors.
Next month the forum will be lead by an economist, topic is the mortgage crisis. I'm looking forward to October, when the issue will be same gender marriage.
Just to be on the safe side, I'll do some homework before I go.
Eventually I got away from him and back to my friends. The event was over, and we all mingled a bit. A friend said to me, "You'll never get through to those people."
No, I said, you won't. But one of them had a teenage girl with him, maybe 17 or 19 years old. I can see her face clearly right now. And what you hope, as you engage their talking points, is that she will hear you, and get a good education, and eventually reject doctrine in favor of science.
That's what you hope. And you keep hoping, every time you have the opportunity to have another frustrating discussion with another regiment of culture warriors.
Next month the forum will be lead by an economist, topic is the mortgage crisis. I'm looking forward to October, when the issue will be same gender marriage.
Just to be on the safe side, I'll do some homework before I go.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Wisdom?
McCain cancels his only press availability for this week.
Which, given the number of completely bone-headed things he's said over the past week, probably shows a decent amount of wisdom.
Which, given the number of completely bone-headed things he's said over the past week, probably shows a decent amount of wisdom.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Stuff that's so funny I lack the imagination to have made it up
Via:
Senators Craig and Vitter are cosponsoring SJ res 43, a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Not clear: whether adults wearing diapers or trolling for sex in restroom stalls are specifically included in the classes "man" or "woman".
Senators Craig and Vitter are cosponsoring SJ res 43, a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Not clear: whether adults wearing diapers or trolling for sex in restroom stalls are specifically included in the classes "man" or "woman".
Monday, May 26, 2008
I'm no expert
But it seems to me that looking for IEDs in Massechusetts could be considered a futile expense.
Ok, so for better or worse, we have a gigantic agency called the DHS. It controls, among other things, FEMA, and counter-terrorism budgets for cities and states.
I'm thinking that if I were setting departmental goals, they'd look relatively simple:
- Cities have a clear reporting structure which is comminicated to all first responder agencies and employees: police, fire, hospitals and medical providers, water and power employees, and of course city and county government employees.
- Cities have communications systems for first responder teams which are demonstrated to be effective, and which will work in the event a disaster.
- Cities have evacuation plans for either natural disaster or attack, including alternate routes and means.
- Cities have rescue and recovery plans for situations not addressed by evacuation plans.
- City medical facilities have plans in place for receiving patients, triage, power interruptions, that they are fully linked to first responder communications.
I recently put together OSHA compliant programs for two divisions at my company, one in California and one in Florida. The OSHA and CALOSHA websites provided me with very clear guidelines and requirements, and lots of training tools. And an 800 number one could call if they wanted an OSHA rep to come review the program for compliance. Which I didn't need to use.
It was really pretty simple to decide a few things: who in each office is responsible for various record keeping duties, who does an employee report an injury or a hazard to? Put together the important training materials and give managers a schedule for training their teams. Post info and evacuation maps, and train people on how to use fire extinguishers.
Beyond that, each dept is responsible for having working safety equipment and tools, if required, and for not huffing dangerous chemicals, etc.
It seems to me that this is what local DHS efforts should map out like, on a larger and more complex scale. The DHS should have clear guidelines as to what teams need to know and what sort of plans need to be in place to comply. Like the list I posted above.
Yes, law enforcement needs to understand what an improvised explosive device might look like, but I'll warrant that's not a huge step for them as it is. They do need to have direct lines to the appropriate federal agencies, and FBI needs to be working with everyone and demonstrate the cobwebbed maze where information went to die before 9/11.
And this was a ridiculously long post where all I really wanted to say was that I'm not a small-government reactionary type, but if we're going to invest the money in a broad-based federal agency which often manages life and death in a very immediate sense, well then I would like it to be a smart agency.
Ok, so for better or worse, we have a gigantic agency called the DHS. It controls, among other things, FEMA, and counter-terrorism budgets for cities and states.
I'm thinking that if I were setting departmental goals, they'd look relatively simple:
- Cities have a clear reporting structure which is comminicated to all first responder agencies and employees: police, fire, hospitals and medical providers, water and power employees, and of course city and county government employees.
- Cities have communications systems for first responder teams which are demonstrated to be effective, and which will work in the event a disaster.
- Cities have evacuation plans for either natural disaster or attack, including alternate routes and means.
- Cities have rescue and recovery plans for situations not addressed by evacuation plans.
- City medical facilities have plans in place for receiving patients, triage, power interruptions, that they are fully linked to first responder communications.
I recently put together OSHA compliant programs for two divisions at my company, one in California and one in Florida. The OSHA and CALOSHA websites provided me with very clear guidelines and requirements, and lots of training tools. And an 800 number one could call if they wanted an OSHA rep to come review the program for compliance. Which I didn't need to use.
It was really pretty simple to decide a few things: who in each office is responsible for various record keeping duties, who does an employee report an injury or a hazard to? Put together the important training materials and give managers a schedule for training their teams. Post info and evacuation maps, and train people on how to use fire extinguishers.
Beyond that, each dept is responsible for having working safety equipment and tools, if required, and for not huffing dangerous chemicals, etc.
It seems to me that this is what local DHS efforts should map out like, on a larger and more complex scale. The DHS should have clear guidelines as to what teams need to know and what sort of plans need to be in place to comply. Like the list I posted above.
Yes, law enforcement needs to understand what an improvised explosive device might look like, but I'll warrant that's not a huge step for them as it is. They do need to have direct lines to the appropriate federal agencies, and FBI needs to be working with everyone and demonstrate the cobwebbed maze where information went to die before 9/11.
And this was a ridiculously long post where all I really wanted to say was that I'm not a small-government reactionary type, but if we're going to invest the money in a broad-based federal agency which often manages life and death in a very immediate sense, well then I would like it to be a smart agency.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
It's the failure of republican economic theory, stupid
With bond insurers bailing, and implosions at the major ivestment firms (now aren't you glad you didn't let Merril Lynch take over your Social Security funds?), US companies begging for cash from foreign governments, international markets plunging on every word from Wall Street or our illustrious Decider-Man, with all of this, can we finally admit that Republicans don't know or don't really care how to properly manage an economy?
Here's the deal, kids: since the 1980s we've been betting the farm- literally- that investment is the answer. We've tried over and over again to create a bullet-proof US econmon using three tools: optimism (or magical thinking, have it your way), debt, and speculation.
Optimism fuels the speculation: the dream that we can all get rich together when we throw money at the right things, and the government will reward us by lowering taxes on the returns. The '80s were the decade of Wall Street schemes and junk bonds and deregulation. Debt soared, publicly and personally, and enough people made impressive enough sums that it looked like maybe it was working if you didn't look too closely.
We defunded infrastructure and poor people. We watched homelessness become a fact of life. We lived through the collapse of Savings and Loans- which we're still paying for. Eventually, we had to take a tax incerase, and then a recession hit us. Economists say that it wasn't a serious recession, but I remember it, and it was very hard on a lot of middle class people.
The '90s gave us free trade agreements and the dot com boom. Free trade which failed to hold manufacturers outside of the US to any standards in human rights, safety, or environmental responsibility meant that jobs began to migrate. And not just menial jobs. We all know educated specialists who had to train their overseas replacements.
The saving grace of the '90s boom was, of course, that we also had instituted some responsible fiscal policy in the federal government. We had balanced budgets and reasonable taxation and in the end, a good sized surplus. This meant that government actually had some cash to respond when the dot coms burst and the economy took a short dip. And the fact that much of the rampant speculation was targeted at dot coms specifically meant that the bust directly affected a relatively small set of people. While I did see a friend lose a very lucrative job and change careers, my household wasn't really affected. A couple of friends anxiously sweated the NASDAQ, but my job not only stayed secure, my income continued to rise.
Tis term has brought more debt that we could have imagined, zero responsible thinking in government, and a return to the fantasy of instant riches for all. Unfortunately, the specualtion was based mostly in the houseing sector, which affects a much broader section of the population than Sillicon Valley ever did. From the first time home buyer- now deeply in debt from the purchase of an over-valued home, to everyone in the mortgage industry, home insurers, the trades in the field, the suppliers, the purchasing people and all of the office staff- hundreds of thousands of people are watching their ncomes either steeply decline, or disappear completely.
And this time, the government has no money.
Bush and the congress appear to be working out an agreement, but I fear it will be a stupid, expensive one. Tax rabtes? Big deal. I'll probably pay off some debt. More corporate tax breaks- for "investment"? Who cares? At my company, we won't be putting anything into "investment" until we can start operating in the black again, and that's going to depend on a whole lot of middle class people with a lot more than $800 to live on.
Extending unemployment is a good idea, but there'smuch more that needs to be done. I don't think anything will change until next year, with a Democrat in the White House. And then, that Democrat will need to make structural changes that the Republicans will go crazy about.
But it's time. And can we all be honest about that?
Here's the deal, kids: since the 1980s we've been betting the farm- literally- that investment is the answer. We've tried over and over again to create a bullet-proof US econmon using three tools: optimism (or magical thinking, have it your way), debt, and speculation.
Optimism fuels the speculation: the dream that we can all get rich together when we throw money at the right things, and the government will reward us by lowering taxes on the returns. The '80s were the decade of Wall Street schemes and junk bonds and deregulation. Debt soared, publicly and personally, and enough people made impressive enough sums that it looked like maybe it was working if you didn't look too closely.
We defunded infrastructure and poor people. We watched homelessness become a fact of life. We lived through the collapse of Savings and Loans- which we're still paying for. Eventually, we had to take a tax incerase, and then a recession hit us. Economists say that it wasn't a serious recession, but I remember it, and it was very hard on a lot of middle class people.
The '90s gave us free trade agreements and the dot com boom. Free trade which failed to hold manufacturers outside of the US to any standards in human rights, safety, or environmental responsibility meant that jobs began to migrate. And not just menial jobs. We all know educated specialists who had to train their overseas replacements.
The saving grace of the '90s boom was, of course, that we also had instituted some responsible fiscal policy in the federal government. We had balanced budgets and reasonable taxation and in the end, a good sized surplus. This meant that government actually had some cash to respond when the dot coms burst and the economy took a short dip. And the fact that much of the rampant speculation was targeted at dot coms specifically meant that the bust directly affected a relatively small set of people. While I did see a friend lose a very lucrative job and change careers, my household wasn't really affected. A couple of friends anxiously sweated the NASDAQ, but my job not only stayed secure, my income continued to rise.
Tis term has brought more debt that we could have imagined, zero responsible thinking in government, and a return to the fantasy of instant riches for all. Unfortunately, the specualtion was based mostly in the houseing sector, which affects a much broader section of the population than Sillicon Valley ever did. From the first time home buyer- now deeply in debt from the purchase of an over-valued home, to everyone in the mortgage industry, home insurers, the trades in the field, the suppliers, the purchasing people and all of the office staff- hundreds of thousands of people are watching their ncomes either steeply decline, or disappear completely.
And this time, the government has no money.
Bush and the congress appear to be working out an agreement, but I fear it will be a stupid, expensive one. Tax rabtes? Big deal. I'll probably pay off some debt. More corporate tax breaks- for "investment"? Who cares? At my company, we won't be putting anything into "investment" until we can start operating in the black again, and that's going to depend on a whole lot of middle class people with a lot more than $800 to live on.
Extending unemployment is a good idea, but there'smuch more that needs to be done. I don't think anything will change until next year, with a Democrat in the White House. And then, that Democrat will need to make structural changes that the Republicans will go crazy about.
But it's time. And can we all be honest about that?
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
More about Huck
Over the weekend I had "primary vote" with a bunch of teenagers. First, we listed the top 4 candidates for each party. Then we asked them what they knew about the candidates. One of the more politically aware ones said Huckabee was a religious psycho.
Mindful of the young minds (and aware of my duty not to train them into my liberal fascist kooky camp), I said, well, hang on a minute. Huck was a Southern Baptist minister, yes. But he also says that his religion compells him to be pro-life even after birth, to care for the poor, etc. So, I said, you'll have to come up with something more damning if you want to use the word "psycho".
So while I will not go reporting this back to the kids, I will state firmly that anyone who says the Constitution should be changed to be more in line with the Bible (and which set of laws would we choose? And where would one stop?) is, for practical political purposes, psycho.
Mindful of the young minds (and aware of my duty not to train them into my liberal fascist kooky camp), I said, well, hang on a minute. Huck was a Southern Baptist minister, yes. But he also says that his religion compells him to be pro-life even after birth, to care for the poor, etc. So, I said, you'll have to come up with something more damning if you want to use the word "psycho".
So while I will not go reporting this back to the kids, I will state firmly that anyone who says the Constitution should be changed to be more in line with the Bible (and which set of laws would we choose? And where would one stop?) is, for practical political purposes, psycho.
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