Politics

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/politics/20budget.html?_r=2 Is this a partisan move, or one towards better transparency? Personally I opt for the latter, and am glad to see these sorts of things exposed.

Pelosi and Reid are up to it again. Apparently they're going to get revenge on Republicans for the amendment proposal on gay marriage by proposing a constitutional amendment to repeal the 22nd amendment, which limits presidents to two terms in office. Very unfortunate. Story here.

This seems a little silly even by California standards. Apparently the state is considering a ban on black-painted automobiles because they allegedly produce higher CO2 emissions. You know, I realize the EPA doesn't test A/C output impact on fuel efficiency, but if they're right then how come I've never seen or heard anything about this? Sure it's a logical enough guess, but it does seem to be predicated on some assumptions, and California isn't exactly Florida or Nevada. Not only that, but the suggestion of the board that's making this recommendation is that other dark colors be made available as alternatives. I mean, if you're going to make a law for what…

I was hesitant about posting anything on this, as I wasn't sure how national this story has become. Locally, they're making a stink about it. The MIAC (Missouri Information Analysis Center) is a fusion center, according to Wikipedia, that merges information from Homeland security and I guess a host of various agencies, including the Missouri Highway Patrol, for fighting the war on terror. Well they released a report, The Modern Militia Movement which supposedly dishonored Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin by mentioning that militia members often sported their names on bumper stickers and the like, and supposedly suggested these symbols as a "mark" for militi…

There's a lot of talk on the news about tuition fees in Britain. The majority of university Vice-Chancellors want to raise the cap on fees to nearly double the current amount, while some want the fees to be limitless. How do you think this will impact the science sector in the UK? From my own perspective, I probably wouldn't have entered science if my total debt from university would be in the region of £60k. With some universities pushing for up to £20k a year, will this be reasonable for students from low-income backgrounds? I can't imagine that a prospective student from a low-income background would want to apply for a science degree if this happens. Imagine f…

For ages, both government and religion have had their fingers all over marriage. In the US, we are supposed to have freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Accordingly, the state has its own marriage "ceremony" related to the signing of papers, lawyers, judges, and whatnot, and there is a completely separate marriage ceremony that is generally done in some church or other religious setting. But these are two separate things, the legal portion of marriage and the religious portion. And they are independent of each other -- the religious ceremony is not legally binding, nor does the legal ceremony have religious significance. This immediately suggests that …

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032003089.html Seriously, do these people just want us to hate them? Okay, so not only are they so incompetent that their company imploded, but they paid the wrong amount in taxes, and now they want that money back, after they've already been bailed out with government money. I think it's time for AIG to die.

A pilot was sentenced to 10 years in prison by an Italian court. What did he do? He let the plane crash. More specifically, he prayed instead of taking any emergency actions to save the lives of the 16 people he let die. Is 10 years a bit harsh considering that he may have actually believed that praying would help? Is it just right? Is it not enough considering he did nothing to try to make the situation better?

I'm pretty sure that most everybody in this forum is too conservative to even give this idea a second thought. However, the truth is that most everywhere you go, medical prices are inflated due to inefficency, 20-30% unpaid medical bills (in public hospitals), and who knows what else. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070901/hl_afp/uspoliticshealth_070901162222 Apparently, Arnold has embarked on his own campaign to do universal health coverage, giving the rest of the world another reason to move to California besides the year-round 70 degree weather. Apparently, Massachusetts has already established it. Might be something to study up on. I wonder if Hillary will t…

I'm a mortgagor. On a near daily basis I receive a stream of offers to refinance. Many of them take the form of: A lender pretending to be my current mortgage lender A lender pretending to be a government agency A lender pretending to be a credit monitoring agency, noting I should refinance to keep my credit score up I really have to wonder why, after this giant debacle, lenders are still allowed to get away with this crap. I open every single one of these offers because I'm worried they might contain important information from my mortgage lender or the government agency that manages my loan. I think it'd make an awful lot of sense to require that sol…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29913195/ I support this. "Freedom Tower" seems like a Bush era doublethink sort of name. One World Trade Center does a much better version of communicating the whole "rise above" mentality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/us/politics/17obama.html Overall I must say I'm quite happy with the damage control Obama is providing for the bailout. Clearly there were a multitude of issues with it when it was passed. In my opinion Obama is doing a great job trying to address them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/25/AR2009032502311.html Geithner and Bernanke's plan for expanding oversight of the US financial system was made available today: The main changes appear to be seeking authority to seize other financial institutions which aren't banks... namely any institution trading in financial derivatives, hedge funds, and major insurers. They also seek to impose uniform standards on all of these institutions, including banks. This seems like exactly what's needed per Greenspan's post mortem of his bad decision making: Clearly Geithner and Bernanke have a substantially different view (now) of how t…

This is a few months old at this point, but I'm not sure how I missed it: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/judge-sufficien.html The saga of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Bush continues. Basically, two guys working for an Islamic charity were accidentally sent a top secret document which shows they were being spied on by Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. They sued. Previously a federal judge ruled Bush was guilty, but the case was appealed and has now reached the district court level (i.e. one level below the Supreme Court) A US district court judge has ruled sufficient evidence exists for the case to continue. I wonder if it will reach…

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-bush-memos4-2009mar04,0,643986.story Here's some background: The recently released memos and their dense legalese are still being deciphered by lawyers. They appear to lay out a rationale for massively expanding executive power, which is, well, what we saw with the Bush administration. They don't exactly appear to be in line with the Constitution. I certainly hope these serve to aid whatever legal action is going on against Bush. The memos are available online, although they're unreadable by humans, only lawyers can understand them: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/02/secret-bush-me…

The president had a briefing for the press a short while ago, and I rolled back the Tivo to watch it. I thought it was pretty interesting. CNN already has a story up about it (though it doesn't yet include most of what I'm talking about below): http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/21/obama.business/index.html He's laid down some new rules regarding transparency, but what's interesting about it is that he's changed the basis for information-handling from a presumption of secrecy to a presumption of public exposure. That's very different from previous administrations. Obviously he can't reveal private information (no more Valery Plames, one would hope), or inform…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090323/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street It would seem that "the markets" got the news they wanted to hear today: Well, today they got the specifics, and apparently they liked what they heard. Also, housing sales (while still down) were surprisingly positive: This certainly puts all the Dow knows all arguments to bed.

Just ran across this article, and I didn't realize it was this black and white: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20090322/LOCAL/303229940/-1/LOCAL11 Getting a traffic ticket, and no charges yet you can have cash seized because the officer decides you don't have a good enough reason to explain that much cash? I knew if you had even a small amount of drugs a vehicle they can seize any money and the vehicle, but I had no idea they could just take your money and run. What are everyone's thoughts - is this constitutional?

I've been thinking about this recently, especially with all the Wall Street stuff on the news, and I was wondering if there's any studies on what determines pay. I know, I know, "Supply and Demand", but that doesn't seem to be the only factor. For instance, look at any engineering company - the managers get paid more than the engineers, even though you need fewer of them and there's far, far more to hire. It seems ubiquitous - those who are 'in charge' are paid more, regardless of their relative position on the supply vs. demand curve, probably as a result of basic instinctual programming from our days as troop primates. For another issue, consider pro athletes…

Scientists in Nebraska have successully grafted a pig's heart to a sheep by manipulating the immune systems of both animals. To accomplish this feat, researches first took bone marrow cells from a sheep and transferred them to a fetal pig. After the pig was born, they transferred white blood cells from the pig back to the sheep so that the cells would contain genetic material for both animals. Of 13 pigs with new hearts, only 1 rejected the heart. In the control group, who did not receive bone marrow and white blood cell transplants, 12 sheep rejected the heart. The article is available from yahoo.com here.

Unsurprisingly, only covered by Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/18/pelosi-tells-illegal-immigrants-work-site-raids-american/ This is a bunch of rabble-rousing, demagoguery, and it should stop. Illegal is illegal, and there is no difference between explicitly allowing people to enter the country illegally and imprisoning American citizens without due process or spying on their telephone conversations. The law is the law, and the law must be enforced, or it should be changed. Period. What do you all think?

Apparently Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods have banded together to suggest an alternative to the Employee Free Choice Act, presently heading towards signage under the Democratically-controlled Congress and Obama Administration. One of the biggest complaints about the EFCA is that it isn't "free choice" -- it's actually carte blanche for the unions to intimidate and coerce uncooperative employees into signing on (the somewhat infamous "card check" process). This alternative basically takes the "free choice" concept and shoves it right back in the faces of unions, saying "you want free choice? fine, let's make it REALLY free". Instead of Card Check, employees will…

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081215-good-news-for-wind-bad-for-ethanol-in-major-energy-study.html A comprehensive study of various modes of power generation has concluded that wind, solar, and geothermal are the cleanest technologies, whereas nuclear, clean coal, and ethanol are the least. The study analyzed the entire lifecycle of the power generation process. Nuclear, for example, lost out due to the CO2 emissions involved in construction and decommissioning of plants along with the costs of procuring, transporting, and refining uranium ore, along with shipment of nuclear waste. Now I'm starting to wonder if Democratic opposition to nuclear power …

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/17/obama.veterans/ This seems to me to fall under the category of "rookie mistakes". Basically the White House tried to push a plan to have soldier's private health insurance policies pay for their combat injuries. It was a real facepalm moment and VA groups quickly met with the White House and Obama quashed the plan, which was DOA with Congress anyway. Probably what happened is that somebody at the White House tried to push a little harder on the issue of getting these companies to pay for non-service-related injuries, which is a notorious problem -- they tend to try (often successfully) to dodge those costs and get the VA …

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE52J0S220090320 I think this is an interesting approach. I think his direct appeal to the American people has been largely successful so far, and a marked change versus the traditional presidential approach of working through the mainstream media. It's useful because it really brings out all the subtle nuances of his message -- he can say EXACTLY what he wants to say and not have to worry about how the media filter might change the message. I don't know that this will do a lot of good, but it is interesting and could be just what we need. What do you all think?