How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! (Mark Twain)
This, from Jim Maceda of NBC news:
However, this release is striking in its broader, more neutral approach, without the trenchant ideology or politics associated with previous data sets.
Translation: It’s about one of our official enemies, and not about the United States government or its corporations. That makes it “neutral” and free of “ideology.”
Continue reading “Coffee-spitting American journalism”
The interview is about eleven minutes long, and I don’t know how to embed it (somebody help please!). What struck me about it were three lines by Rooney, to wit:
You’re not a grassy knoller, are you?
Would they have gotten those questions answered?
We let that go too early as journalists.”
Each of the three statements above appear to be mental stops, where her inner parent tells her curious child “This far, no further!
Continue reading “PBS: Where incuriosity is an asset”
Other than offering up so few worthy candidates, the American voting system is hamstrung by another major defect – electronic voting machines. These Rube Goldberg devices cannot be made more secure than those who program them or have access to them. Consequently, when used, elections are not secure.
They were pushed on us after Florida 2000 due to the hanging chad fiasco. The first suspected theft of elections by their use happened shortly thereafter in Georgia and Alabama in 2002. (Don Siegelman, who likely won the Alabama election, is a political prisoner at this time.) Exit polling was widely variant of vote results in 2004, likely giving George W. Bush his second stolen election.
Continue reading “Scrap metal for sale”
The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy. (Alex Carey, Australian writer and social psychologist)
It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century. (same guy)
I won’t belabor this point, as I know it is bad form. But I am the only person I know who predicted that the Final Nine would uphold the individual mandate. (Side note: I also predicted that Obama would extend the Bush tax cuts. He’ll be reelected and will again extend those tax cuts next year.) I also said in some blog somewhere that the only parts of the law in danger were those of actual benefit to us, such as Medicaid expansion.
More predictions, if my reader thinks I have any credibility at all:
1. Medical costs will continue to go up at alarming rates. Those who see this and support ACA will say “Yeah, but they’d be going up faster if we didn’t have this law.” The non-falsifiable hypothesis is very useful in the art of sophistry.
Continue reading “Onward!”
Thomas Ferguson has developed an interesting take on American politics. In this short clip (audio is poor, so turn your sound up) he briefly explains the difference between the two parties. Contrary to my contention, he says there really is more than a dime’s worth of difference between them: Each party is backed by different investors.
I have seen evidence to undermine this theory – the switching back and forth that Wall Street investment houses do. They ride the tide, going with whichever party is likely to win, or both in uncertainty.
Nonetheless, his theory is well-developed and goes back many decades in time. It is explained more fully in this clip.
Q: Democrats are pretty excited about the Supreme Court ruling upholding ACA. Why so?
A: It’s mostly because Obama is president, and he’s a Democrat. It’s victory for their party. They get to chicken dance a little.
Q: That’s it? Party politics?
A: That’s not all of it, of course. But that is most of it. After all, the bill that they got is not at all like what they talked about when Obama was running in 2008.
Q: Isn’t that the hard reality of politics – that you never get all of what you want?
A: They didn’t fight for anything we wanted. This bill is not a result of compromise. I wish that it was.
Q: But there are some good things in it, right? You didn’t lose everything.
A: They have their bullet points. I’ve read them recently.
Q: Such as?
A: Children can stay on parents’ insurance until age 26 now.
Q: Not a good thing?
A: Not a matter of great concern for insurers. One, kids that age are low-risk clients. And two, anyway, they just build the risk into the rate structure. It’s not like they gave something away.
Q: Other bullet points?
Continue reading “An ACA Primer”
Banning commenters is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the blogger.
No one is banned here. No one. I just cleared out the list.
The bill is a huge loss of personal freedom. It is a cost sinkhole. It will not improve health care delivery, reduce costs, or improve the quality of care. It will pad the bottom lines of insurance companies, delivering by force 33 million new customers. For those who cannot afford to pay tribute, the government will do so on their behalf. It is a massive subsidy to our least deserving sector.
Continue reading “Sad day indeed”
Oh, I know – we’re in laugh-about-it-shout-about-it election time, and people are going to select from limited pre approved choices. That is the extent of representative rule, but man it does suck up the oxygen! I think that is the only real purpose of national elections – to give us the illusion of self-rule.
Continue reading “Waiting on the mullahs”
Colorado is enduring the worst fires in state history. Colorado Springs proper is threatened, and 32,000 people have been evacuated.
If there were any humor in this situation, and I emphasize that there is not, it is this: A local nickname given Colorado Springs is “Aynrandistan.” More than any other large city in the state, the Springs drank the free market Kool Aid. Even as they depend on government spending more than most communities, they imagine that government is a problem.
They need a few things now – help from their fellow citizens, help from government to house and protect them and put out the fire. There isn’t much help on the way from their vaunted private sector.
What is government? It is us. When is government a problem? When it is captured by concentrated wealth. Indeed, government is often a problem these days in BushObamastan, as the executive branch and regulatory agencies, the Senate and most state governments have been captured by private wealth.
The budget for fighting fires was cut in Colorado last year. Too much government. Colorado Springs is in deep, deep trouble. Maybe they can use Kool Aid to put out the fire.
Piece of Mindful 