Stochastic Eclectica

2011-07-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

What's Your Favorite Flavor?

Some big food science news this week: Human Derived Gelatin.

You have to wonder what possesses someone to start working on a project like this. Admittedly it's recombinant - from human genes inserted into yeast, rather than made by the, um, more direct approach, but really. Really. Is this what the world needs now? Leaving aside for a moment the wisdom of creating transgenic chimeric organisms, here are a few thoughts on the matter.

1) New flavor - Soylent Green

2) Ewww

3) Would they sell it in a Donner Party-Pack?

4) Hey girls! I've got your human-derived gelatin right here

2011-05-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead*!

So we can all go home now, right?

No, I didn't think so.

*Trust us. Why would we lie about something like this?

2011-04-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

The Temptation To Protect

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about our latest military escapade in Libya. I've struggled with the dilemma between allowing atrocities to occur on one hand, and on the other hand stopping them but setting the stage for worse. Initially, I tentatively supported an intervention. It looked like Qadaffi was going to go in to Benghazi and other rebellious eastern cities and commit horrific atrocities (are there any other kind?) against civilians who dared stand against him. Forgive me; I couldn't help but see ourselves a few years hence in them. And so, even though the motivations of our elite were less than pure (Can you say "oil", or "resource competition with China"?), one outcome of the attack would be to, at least for the moment, spare thousands or even tens of thousands of innocent lives. This line of thinking falls in with the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect: essentially since we have the power to stop an event, we bear some responsibility if we choose not to stop it. Certainly this doctrine has moral force on an individual and intranational level, else why are we outraged when onlookers watch a murder and do nothing, or when a nation leaves those stricken by a natural disaster to starve and die with callous indifference? Yet the doctrine also has limits and boundaries on those same levels: there are some events too large or too dangerous for any ordinary individual to affect directly, and there are interventions worse than the crimes that they seek to stop or prevent. The second point is the most relevant for the discussion of the responsibility to protect on an international scale.

Lord Acton famously said: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This I think is the maxim that must guide our thinking when we are tempted to intervene with force for humanitarian reasons. We feel responsible because we have the military power to stop it; in fact with a military force more powerful in relative terms than any since ancient Rome, we have close to absolute physical power. And it has absolutely corrupted and nearly destroyed us. In this realization though, is the answer to the dilemma: give up the power, remove the ability to intervene, and eliminate the temptation to protect.

Giving up the power to protect on an international scale by demilitarizing our society does not relieve us of the responsibility to protect, it only limits our ability to do so violently. As part of rebuilding our own civil society and shattered moral authority, we must create and support institutions that promote human rights, expose abuses of human rights, and prosecute crimes against humanity wherever they may occur. These actions, implemented with vigor and transparency, will prevent the need for many interventions. Future miscreants may self-limit their crimes when they know they will be pursued to the ends of the Earth in the name of justice. Here is another relevant Acton quote in closing: "Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity."

"When donkeys fly", you say. Well yes, for now, until they do.

2011-03-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

Might I Interest You In A Tulip, Sir

Last night I was reading through this week's issue (March 5th 2011) of the Economist. In a special section on real estate was an article (Own Goal) discussing the benefits of renting vs. buying. At the end of the article is a little color commentary from hedge-fund manager John Paulson who is exhorting potential buyers to get back into the market. He says,

"If you don't own a home, buy one. If you own one home, buy another one, and if you own two homes, buy a third and lend your relatives the money to buy a home."

I did a double-take. Was this the same John Paulson that (allegedly) conspired with Goldman Sachs to produce a mortgage-backed security that was designed to fail, and then shorted that same security while GS flogged it to unwitting investors? The article does note that he "made billions betting against the housing market". Furthermore, Wikipedia and a brief web search shows only one "John Paulson" managing hedge funds, so I must tentatively conclude that this is in fact the same person.

Now, why would any rational person take advice on the housing market from an amoral grifter who has already (allegedly) perpetrated one multibillion-dollar fraud on that same market, particularly when it seems that he's made another large bet? If, however, you are one of those people, could I interest you in some Enron stock? It's coming back...really!*

Also, tulips.

*snark, really!

2010-12-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

Once Again We Speak Truth To Power And Are Ignored (Because Our Name Is Not Julian Assange)

Sorry there's not too much linky goodness in this - it was a letter originally. Definitely head over to Bill Mitchell's place though if you're interested in the economic theory.

Dear Senator Hagan,

I am writing to you in regard to the controversy surrounding the impending end of the Bush tax cuts. As I write this, it appears that President Obama has capitulated to the Republicans in agreeing to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy in exchange for an extension of unemployment benefits. The extension of unemployment benefits is certainly necessary, but it is at best a small bandage that will not be effective at healing the economic equivalent of stage-four cancer that is our unemployment-manufacturing-and-trade crisis. This kind of wound requires major surgery to repair not only the surface damage, but also the damage to internal systems.

The financial fraud that caused the banking collapse and real estate crash of 2008-09 may have precipitated this modern depression, but it did not cause it: the economy had already been hollowed out by the loss of jobs and manufacturing capacity to foreign countries. The slow and systematic destruction of our economy leading up to the collapse did not happen by accident; it was the natural outcome of certain policies that have been put into place over the past several decades. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but the gradual decrease in the top marginal income-tax rate, the sequestration of capital gains from normal income, the lack of even moderate import tariffs, the merging of deposit and investment banking, and the enshrinement of corporate personhood in law all have contributed to the fear and malaise spreading across the America outside the Beltway and outside the boardroom. These changes have enabled the growth of an aristocratic class that has been able to amass enough wealth to parasitize the state and cause it to act to their benefit and not to the benefit of the majority of citizens. Consider: a billionaire is able to structure her estate such that most of his taxes are at the long-term capital gains rate or are deferred, and his payroll tax is either insignificant or nonexistent, while the typical middle- or working-class person pays the regular (higher) income-tax rate as well as payroll tax on her entire paycheck. The billionaire then invests the money he saves, often in corporations, and demands high returns. The corporations take advantage of the low import barriers to move production overseas, save money by treating their foreign workers like serfs, and increase the value of the billionaire's stock. The process then repeats with American jobs and capacity being lost at each step as the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

This is why attempting to stimulate the economy with money on the upper end of the spectrum is absolutely certain to fail; money given to the wealthy through tax cuts, or to corporations and banks through quantitative easing and similar programs is invested, not spent locally, and that investment largely goes to expand overseas production. If you really want to help the economy grow in a manner that benefits the ninety-nine-point-something percent of us that are not multimillionaires, then you can start by letting the Bush tax cuts expire (and blame the Republicans for not wanting the wealthy to pay their fair share). Then continue by putting up sensible import duties, and establishing a job guarantee. Certainly there is work to be done: we have crumbling roads and bridges, a decrepit electrical grid, a laughable broadband communications network, and a terrifying dependence on a dangerous and disappearing natural resource - oil. These are long-term projects and a private sector addicted to short-term gains will not take them on until it's far too late, so the government must - otherwise what use are you? Then bring back a strongly progressive income-tax system in which nearly all unearned income is treated the same as earned income (I'd recommend keeping the exemption for the sale of one's primary residence, but that's about it); the top rate should be at least 50%. Also put into place a robust estate tax. The goal of these measures would be to allow a person that does something truly exceptional to become modestly wealthy, but to prevent the establishment of hereditary privilege and to maintain a relatively low level of inequality in society. Break up the megabanks into smaller entities that separate the functions of investment banking from that of deposit-taking and lending: too big to fail is too big to be allowed to exist.

Fixing the economy will cost money, and the deficit scolds will tell you that you can't spend that money without causing inflation or borrowing from China. There's a word to describe that point of view; the same word is also used to describe that which falls from the backside of a male bovine. Inflation happens when too much money (demand) is chasing insufficient supply. Given our present degree of unemployment and underemployment, this economy has a huge capacity to increase supply to keep pace with demand; as such we should not see significant domestic inflation until we are near full employment. As for borrowing from external sources, we don't have to - we're not on the gold standard anymore; we have a fiat currency and we can make as many dollars as we want. This will most likely result in the weakening of the dollar, and imports will become more expensive. In the short term, a weaker dollar will cause some pain, but as it will act as a de facto tariff, it will spur the redevelopment of the domestic economy.

I'm sorry that this became a rather long letter, but as you can see, our current problems have their roots in the deepest structures of our economy. Changing these structures is the only way to improve our situation in the long term. This job will not be easy and it will not be fast, but when people see progress, they will support it.

2010-04-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

From Little Acorns Grow Mighty Oaks

A newly released Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” video has made international headlines showing a July 2007 shooting incident outside of Baghdad in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees. Two soldiers from Bravo Company 2-16, the company depicted in the video, have written an open letter of apology to the Iraqis who were injured or lost loved ones during the attack that, these former soldiers say, is a regular occurrence in this war. You can view the Wikileaks video here: http://wikileaks.org/

Sign your name to their letter here http://www.lettertoiraq.com

It's a powerful and moving letter that could be the seed of a popular movement not only to end the war(s), but to deliver justice to those to whom it has been denied and to those to whom it has been subjugated. I signed it today.

2010-04-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

Guernica Again

So is this what it felt like to be a German in 1937?

2010-03-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

If You Think The Rahming Is Bad, Just Wait For What's Next

It seems that Eric Holder still has a tiny flickering flame of professionalism and respect for due process of law that has not yet been extinguished by the Rahming he's gotten to date. I wrote this letter to President Obama via the White House contact web page earlier in the week to encourage the President to protect and fuel that flame rather than allow it to be snuffed out. I think I was pretty restrained in my comments.

Dear President Obama,

I am writing to you in support of your Attorney-General's original decision to hold the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian Federal court. There are several good reasons that trials of terrorism suspects should be held in civilian courts, please allow me to outline them here. First, Federal courts already have a record (an excellent one) of trying and convicting terrorists - even ones that murdered or attempted to murder large numbers of people. Consider the cases of Sheikh Omar (1993 WTC bombing), Mir Aimal Kansi (1993 CIA shooting), and Timothy McVeigh (OKC bombing) as examples of our Federal law enforcement and court systems working to successfully capture and convict terrorist suspects. Furthermore, the Federal courts have a long history of and established rules for dealing with classified information, which is an inevitable concern when intelligence sources and methods are involved. Military tribunals are largely untested organizations with none of the aforementioned track record or infrastructure. Lastly, there are the positive messages that a civilian trial sends to American citizens, to our friends, and to our enemies: Trying terrorist suspects in civilian courts portrays them as what they are - criminals. It does not glorify them as soldiers or warriors. It says to the world that we are strong and confident in our institutions, and that we respect the rights of all persons in a way that authoritarian societies do not. It says to citizens that our rights are meaningful, valuable, universal, and worth fighting for.

Why then, would one want to pursue trials in untested military courts of dubious legality when it makes the statement that we are weak and fearful of the enemy warriors (combatants)? I suspect that I know, and I am certain that you know the answer to that question. Crimes, high and low, have been ordered and committed by powerful individuals who are able to bend the government to their will to avoid accountability; these would inevitably be exposed in any fair and open trial. Is this to be your legacy? Do you really want to be remembered as the protector of wealth and power? It doesn't have to be this way - Mr. President, open the windows, let the sunlight in, affirm the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and let the chips fall where they may. Then and only then will it be time to look forward instead of back.

Sincerely,

I'm not very hopeful at this point; a year is long enough to start demonstrating some change we can believe in rather than just talking about it. It's time to take the Obama sticker off my car. I don't expect my letter to accomplish anything; if the purpose of a system is what it does, then it is becoming clear that the purpose of the Obama administration is to ease the passage of the body politic down the gullet of the corporate serpent. We've got a healthcare bill that is essentially a bit of populist icing on a cake of rich, sweet, corporate welfare straight to the bloated guts of the health insurers (devil's food - don't-cha know). We've still got hundreds of thousands of combat troops in the Middle East: War enthusiast General Ray Odierno insinuates that we may need to keep up to 50,000 "advisors", and who knows how many contractors in Iraq indefinitely. Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the only Afghan force that can be said to be "standing up" is the Taliban. Israel has gotten so cocky they've publicly "kicked [Joe Biden] in the balls". I expect them to start a war with Iran any month now, forcing us to come to the aid of poor little victimized Israel. If enough people actually became fed up with all of this and began to protest effectively, the means for their kinder and gentler pacification is at hand without any of the blood and riots of past outrage at illegal government actions. And soon, oh so very soon, the means to detect and prosecute thoughtcrimes will be at hand. All of this coupled with the zeitgeist of extremist right-wing populism in our political discourse suggests to me that from here, our choices will determine not our destination (hell on earth), but only how fast we get there. Vigorous and effective protest would be met with state violence, accelerating the growth of the police state, and hastening our arrival at the fascist endpoint. Alternatively, taking no provocative actions will slow the journey somewhat; we will have arrived when we reach the point where calm speech and ordinary actions are criminalized, though we will have got there without mass turmoil. The express elevator or the stairs? Is there another way? Is there a way to get somewhere else than our current destination from here?

Yes there is, but this is not necessarily a cause for hope. Corporations are not human; they neither love nor hate, they feel neither happiness nor sorrow. They are more like some lower form of life, symbionts become parasites; they care only about acquiring and consuming resources, and growing in size and power. Anything that does not stand in the way of those goals is an irrelevant distraction. The corporate state is likely to be indifferent to individuals unless those individuals possess desired resources or stand in the way of the acquisition of resources. In order to create this dystopia, the corporations have called upon the dark forces of right-wing extremism. Unbeknownst to most of the tea-partiers, the economic and cultural malaise that has fired them up into a boiling rage is not the responsibility of "the liberal media", Al Gore, "the gay", teachers' unions, islamosocialnazicommievegans, or n***ers, but is the responsibility of their corporate sponsors and the investor class that owns them.

H.P. Lovecraft wisely reminds us to "do not call up that which ye cannot put down"; and this may be the downfall of the corporations. Hate and fear are the fuel of right-wing extremism; these are volatile emotions in an individual, but a crowd full of hate and fear becomes a mob. Corporate indifference to the objects of the extremists' hate and fear could trigger mass right-wing riots, which would be harder for the police state to repress. Liberals are too nice; when your goal is a harmonious society, it's tough to get excited about the thought of blood in the streets. Right-wing extremists are unlikely to be inhibited by their seething reptilian brains, are already armed to the teeth, and would thus be likely to fight back effectively. Some of them are even eagerly anticipating this possibility. The military would probably split with some following their orders and some their ideology (any remaining liberals in the military would just leave). The corps would respond with ultra-violence, and the second Civil War would begin. This one would likely feature all the best innovations in internecine slaughter since our last go-round, like ethnic cleansing, mass punishment, mass rape, chemical and biological warfare to name just a few... So here's hoping for a slow and uneventful slide into fascism - the alternative is worse. /primal-scream

2009-12-16T10:13:00.000-08:00

Damaged Almost Beyond Repair

After Joe "Short Ride" Lieberman's latest shenanigans obstructing meaningful health care reform, I decided that it was time again to write my Senator (the one with whom I might have an iota of influence). This is how it went.

Dear Senator Hagan,

I write to you today on the topic of the ongoing health care reform debacle in the Senate. Now that the public option has been stripped out, and the Medicare buy-in provision was bargained away, the bill that remains is far too industry-friendly. They may be forced to cover more people, but without competition, there is nothing to stop them from continuing to raise rates. With the subsidies remaining in the bill, they will not only be bankrupting families, but now also the US Treasury. This cannot be allowed. If the mandates and subsidies can be removed from the legislation, then the remainder can be passed as an insurance regulation bill; it would not be the fundamental reform that we need, but it would make the system a little fairer and more humane. If the mandates and subsidies are allowed to remain in the bill, then the bill should die.

Somehow, a Republican minority has maneuvered a Democratic majority into what is nearly a lose-lose situation - pass the existing bill and the insurance companies bloat up unaccountably at taxpayers' expense, or kill it and you will have "failed" at your reform mission. The only way out politically is to pass a purely regulatory bill, by reconciliation if necessary, and call it reform.

I hope you take my thoughts and those of other progressives into account when you make your admittedly difficult decision on this important legislation.

Happy Holidays.

2009-07-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hermetically Sealed

Mercury is an element with interesting physical properties, but unpleasant toxicology. It is the only metal that is a liquid throughout the room temperature range (it melts at -39 C). It is somewhat volatile, and while its metallic form is mostly insoluble in water, but is readily converted to the highly soluble organometallic compound methylmercury through biological action. Methylmercury accumulates in tissues, thus its concentration increases as one moves up the food chain: the mercury concentration in algae is likely to be close to the background concentration in the water (controlled by diffusion), while the concentration will be higher in the fish that eat the algae, and even higher in the predatory fish that eat those fish, and so on all the way to your dinner table. Mercury in either its elemental or alkylated forms is a neurotoxin and nephrotoxin - that is it can cause permanent brain and kidney damage. The description of symptoms of acute poisoning suggests that it may damage other organs as well, as if the first two weren't bad enough.

Why the science lesson? Mercury is slowly being phased out of many industrial processes. Another significant use is in lighting technology. Fluorescent lamps including CFLs, as well as the ubiquitous bluish-white mercury-vapor streetlights use mercury as both a conductor and an emission medium; in the near future though, these will be phased out as mercury-free LED lighting becomes more prevalent. This is good news - less mercury scattered around the country and the world means fewer releases and less exposure (yes I know about coal and I'll mention that later). However, the unintended consequences of these trends is that there is a large quantity of elemental mercury with few uses currently controlled by the Federal government. They plan to store it semi-permanently either against the possibility that it might be needed at some time in the future as a "strategic material", or that they have no other available option. The problem is that they seem to be planning to store it in liquid form. It does not take the imagination of a Charles Dodgson or a Neil Gaiman to consider the possibility that the containment system for a hazardous substance might be imperfect.

So what do we do? Are we stuck with 4400-plus tons of toxic waste? Remember that mercury is an element, that means that in the absence of nuclear reactions or other high-energy physics (which I am not suggesting as a course of action) it is eternal. Fortunately, there is no solution. (That was a chemistry joke). How is it that mercury exists naturally without saturating the ecosphere? It is tied up in insoluble minerals, primarily mercuric sulfide (HgS), also known as cinnabar or vermillion. (Pedantically, the mineral is cinnabar, and when it is synthesized or ground and then used as a pigment it is called vermillion.) Knowledge of the synthesis of vermillion from mercury and sulfur is over a thousand years old. Why then, do we not convert most or all of this stored mercury into this stable and much less hazardous form? While cinnabar is still toxic, the mineral does not flow, it does not release mercury vapor (below 580 C), and it has limited solubility in water (0.0125 mg/liter). Granular cinnabar could be safely stored indefinitely in drums in a concrete structure (no fires) on inland high ground (no floods) with a very low risk of a release that would endanger any living thing. I admit that it is not a perfect solution, and that there is still some small risk, but I believe that mineralizing the stored mercury would yield the greatest reduction in risk of any proven available technology.

After reaching this conclusion, one then has to ask: why aren't we doing this? It seems to me to be related to which parts of the government are responsible for this policy. EPA clearly indicates that immobilization technology exists; I suspect that if they were in charge, they would follow a course of action similar to the one that I have suggested. The problem is that the mercury is in the custody of DOD and DOE. As of 2003, DOD claimed that "bulk treatment and disposal of elemental mercury is not viable at this time". A possible translation of this statement is that "there is no operating facility to which we can ship this and forget about it", which to my knowledge is true - the facility to mineralize the mercury would have to be built, and there might need to be some development work to scale up the process. But is it not a better use of our money to not only render the mercury as safe as possible, but also to build the infrastructure for doing so in the future should the need arise again, than to sit on it until people downstream of the facility start getting sick and then run around saying that no-one could have predicted this tragedy? I'm predicting it...here and now. Let's get it done right from the beginning.

PS
This alas, does not solve the problem of environmental mercury. Even if we eliminated all industrial and commercial uses of mercury, a very large quantity (150 tons/yr from all sources) of mercury is added to the environment through the burning of coal: the coal contains small amounts of mercury-containing minerals which are broken down by the heat of combustion, releasing the mercury as a vapor.

PPS
This was initially brought to my attention in a news report from the-news-agency-that-shall-not-be-named-or-cited, fortunately I was able to find plenty of uncontaminated sources.

2009-07-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

The (Old) Lady and the Tiger

This week's issue of The Economist (6/27/09) contains a special report (entitled A Slow-Burning Fuse) on the aging of the world's population, and particularly the population of the developed countries. That this will occur if current trends of increasing lifespan and decreasing family size continue is indisputable. The emphasis of the report is of course on the budgetary havoc that these changes are predicted to cause and the horrible sacrifices that *must* be made to avoid certain doom. Not unexpectedly, these sacrifices read like the wish-list of a small-government conservative: cut pensions (Social Security), cut government healthcare spending (Medicare), increase private investment in high-yielding securities (equities, bonds, real estate, perhaps hedged with derivatives for safety (snark intended)), and my favorite - forcing the middle and lower classes to work until they die. The authors claim that if we do not do these things Life As We Know It will end: we will all eke out a living on potatoes and the occasional rat, that is if the plagues of locusts don't get the potatoes first. The fallacy in this argument, as I see it, is the unstated assumption that the current economic system of barely-regulated rigged-market capitalism continues unchanged in its current form. The world economy presently depends on growth fueled by unsustainable consumption: borrowing from the future to enrich the present. However, the future has no voice or power to change the terms of the loan. Fossil fuels are an excellent example of this trend; the loan of energy is being repaid with pollution and climate change. Your employer may want more “productivity” from you; typically this means borrowing time from your hobbies and your family, stealing away your mental and physical health, and even your children's future capability. With fewer workers and more dependents, this trend would indeed become unsustainable.

There is more than one possible outcome to our dilemma. Behind door number one is an egalitarian social-democratic economy. Economic growth will still occur – technological and cultural innovation will not stop – but the benefits will accrue more to society at large than to a small cadre of elite financiers. I believe this is the best possible outcome; the problems that we as individuals, nations, and indeed a species face require coordinated collective action. Our species' record on these matters on topics such as human rights, conflict, and climate change is one of reaching high and falling short, (and this). Given the record, I'm not optimistic that we can create a society that embodies our ideals more than our inner demons without violent confrontation with those that profit from the current state of affairs.

The social-democratic outcome requires a change in the socioeconomic status quo, but still makes certain assumptions about humanity and the world. If we question those assumptions too, then the range of possible futures expands. There are numerous potential dystopic outcomes, some anthropogenic , others biological , astronomical, or extraterrestrial. (I admit that last one is pretty unlikely.) More intriguingly, is the path towards what has been called “The Singularity”; a future in which the distinction between what is human and what is technology is blurred to indistinguishability. This last possible future could be either utopic or dystopic: we don't know enough at this point to decide.

The common thread in all these scenarios is that the “problem” of an aging society is revealed as nothing more than sleazy concern trolling by an exploitive oligarchy of elites desperate to retain their wealth and power. We will adapt to changed demographics. Life will go on, unless it doesn't, and in which case it will have nothing to do with an excess of elderly folks.

Crossposted at Oxdown Gazette

2009-01-17T11:21:00.000-08:00

Why We Cannot Have The Future We Want Until We Deal With The Past We Have

Dear President (Elect) Obama,

I am writing to you regarding the importance of investigating, exposing, and likely prosecuting former officials of the Bush administration at all levels. You have stated that you want to look forward to the future and create a new, open, and accountable government rather than dwelling on the darkness of the past. My point is that in order to create that bright hopeful future and make it last, we have to act decisively now to prevent the past from repeating itself in the future, which it is wont to do if we refuse to learn its lessons.

Nearly forty years ago, President Richard Nixon was brought down by the Watergate scandal. The picture that emerged from this and subsequent investigations was of an administration that believed and acted as if it was above the law. Nixon authorized illegal wars (Cambodia, Laos), and authorized massive domestic spying operations (COINTELPRO for example). Yet while he was removed from power, he and most of his cohort never faced legal consequences for their actions. About twenty years ago, high officials in the administration of Ronald Reagan, including George H. W. Bush, covertly subverted the expressed will of Congress by supporting murderous terror squads in Central America and supplying weapons to an enemy of the United States (Iran). And for these treasonous acts, a few wrists were slapped, and the remainder of the perpetrators were allowed to scuttle away to the shadows only to return in 2001 with fewer scruples and inhibitions than before. Nixon is gone, Bush 41 is playing golf, and Bush 43 is desperately trying to polish the turd that is his legacy, but the pattern of the past is clear: sunlight will scatter the cockroaches momentarily, but unless they are stamped out and utterly eradicated, they will come back when darkness falls again. Each Republican administration since Nixon's has been an amplified echo of the previous one. Not only do the roaches come back, they come back smarter, stronger, and more insidious than before.

The lesson that the conservative movement learned from Watergate was that the President really was above the law, and the bigger the crimes, the more traumatic any legal action would be, and the less likely for it to occur. Sadly, they were good students. If we do not teach them a different lesson now, they will be back sooner or later. Our democracy barely survived eight years of George W. Bush, it will not survive the next echo.

In order to accomplish the investigations, indictments, and prosecutions of Bush administration officials, it must be made clear to the American public, and indeed the world, that this is not about politics, but about crime. This is a serious law enforcement matter and should be treated as such. Additionally, using the law-enforcement meme should help you with your "look to the future" message as well: law enforcement is necessarily about the past, as one cannot prosecute crimes until they have been committed. Now that we know they have been committed (both Bush and Cheney have admitted on television that they approved "harsh interrogation techniques" that all civilized societies, including this one (formerly), consider torture), justice demands that they are prosecuted. Please direct your attorney-general to set up an independent counsel with broad, enforceable subpoena power to investigate and and prosecute the terrible crimes of the Bush administration. I and many Americans that feel as I do will thank you, the Constitution (if it could talk) would thank you, and many generations of Americans not yet born will have the opportunity that you and I have had to be born into a society where all are equal under the law.

Crossposted to Change.gov

2009-01-07T18:50:00.000-08:00

Ad Astra Per Aspera

While the Bush administration fiddles, many economists and those familiar with the events of the 1930's recommend that massive federal spending is necessary to restart the economy. Clearly we are not going to be able to tax-cut our way out of this: If I'm unemployed, I really don't care that the rate that I'm paying on my lack of income has decreased. Furthermore, tax cuts are largely a transfer of wealth to the already wealthy, and while they may buy more with their larger pool of disposable income, there are only so many of them – not enough to support the entire economy.

from Contrary Investor

But as the Fed and the administration really stepped on the gas in early '03 in terms of flooding the system with liquidity and bending over backwards to accommodate, Nordstrom stock price took off like a rocket relative to Wal-Mart. Clearly, we do not mean to be wealth discriminatory or elitist in any sense of the word, but we are looking at two retailers whose clientele are derived from two very differing wealth demographics. What this chart tells is us is that the lower wealth and income strata in the US have not benefited from historic Fed and Administration accommodation efforts as has the upper income strata. And quite naturally, the lower wealth strata own less "capital" (stocks, houses, bonds) than does the upper wealth demographic. So, in essence, the Fed is "stimulating" the capital owners that are Nordie's customers, but they aren't doing a whole lot for the weak or non-capital owners that are Wal-Mart's clientele. Hence the dichotomy of revenue growth results.

In order to be effective, the stimulus must spend in areas of the economy that will provide jobs and incomes to the vast majority of citizens that have been poorly served by the bubble economy. It would be even better if in addition to jobs, the spending left us with something tangible other than debt. There has been much talk of infrastructure projects, retooling the auto industry, “green-collar jobs and even direct transfers to states (which plan and execute many of the large infrastructure projects in this country). These are good ideas, and I am in favor of them, but let me add one of my own.

The root cause of the current crisis is that the jet-fueled geniuses on Wall Street decided some decades ago that organic growth of manufacturing companies, yielding on average several percent growth annually was not enough for them. With one notable exception, our manufacturing sector has been merged, acquired, downsized, loaded with debt, sold (often several more times), and then finally parted out and sold overseas. Each transaction generated huge fees for the aforementioned geniuses. After several decades of this, some of them may have actually believed that they could make money simply by moving it around faster and faster. Sadly for the rest of us, it turns out that the whole “making money” endeavor really does work better when something of value is produced as a result of one's exertions. This leads us to our notable exception; What cutting-edge technology do we produce in large volumes? Weapons. Yes, the military-industrial complex exists and demands yearly tribute. The estimated 2008 budget of the US DOD contains line items of $101B in procurement, $75B in R&D, and $141B in Emergency funding for the Global War on Terra. Discussion of the politics and geostrategic implications of this budget is well beyond the scope of this humble post, but in light of the two decades of high military spending since the fall of the USSR, I think we must ask the question: Is this spending making us safer, or could it be more wisely spent in some other way?

For the sake of discussion, let's assume that we reduce our military strength to a level that is more than sufficient to deter an attack on US soil, and make that their primary mission. This new, smaller, repurposed military would cost less, but what of the weaponeers? We faced this same problem in the early 90's when we were concerned that unscrupulous and unemployed Soviet scientists and engineers would sell their services to the highest bidder. The “green jobs” proposals for carbon-free power generation and high-capacity energy storage to free us from our dependence on oil and coal will certaily absorb some of these workers. These jobs may also produce products and technologies of value that can provide lasting support for our economy. I worry that for some, a better battery may not be sexy enough, or more worrying, that HR departments may not hire laid-off defense workers because their education and skills do not fit some narrow vision of what the job requires. My proposed solution is that we enlarge and fully fund our space program on which we budgeted a mere $17B this year.

A large unclassified space program would have short-term benefits, but the real payoff would come decades down the road. In the short term this would be a way for us to maintain our national skill base in aerospace technology while at the same time shrinking the military-industrial complex, and keeping large numbers of people with potentially dangerous knowledge gainfully employed. In the medium-term of five to twenty years, we could expect to see new technology making its way into the marketplace. The unclassified nature of the program is vital to achieve these gains. Science and engineering work best when knowledge is shared; one person's null result is another's illumination, and when knowledge is classified and compartmentalized, the light bulb stays dark. We would also be treated to the spectacle of the space missions themselves as well as the knowledge they generate. This is very much an intangible benefit, but no less real. There is a reason why even today, space events are still front-page news – they're exciting, dramatic, sometimes even awe-inspring. It's OK to feel proud about a successful space mission, it shows humanity at our best in a way that a military mission does not, no matter how brave or daring the soldiers. The long-term benefits are incalculable, they could even make the difference between survival and extinction. Even if we become near-perfect stewards of our planetary environment, which we will have to do to continue supporting the Earth's present population, it is statistically certain that the planet will be subject to numerous astronomical catastrophes over the remaining five billion years of the Sun's life. We will be hit by asteroids and comets. A massive object could make a close approach to the solar system, destabilizing the Earth's orbit. The earth could be flooded with radiation from a nearby supernova or distant gamma-ray burst. And at the end, the Earth will be baked and possibly vaporized by the expanding Sun. A robust presence in interplanetary space would give us the means and opportunity to both detect and deflect approaching planetoids. While we're out there, we can retrieve valuable minerals from asteroids in a manner that does not despoil the environment here on the planetary surface. The larger catastrophes would require interstellar capability to escape, and while that is certainly next century's project, we can start building the precursors of that technology now.

In short, we can take a fraction of our military budget, and invest it in people and firms and technology that will strengthen our economy, inspire us with justifiable pride, and possibly insure the survival of the human race. I call that a bargain.

2008-12-11T09:42:00.000-08:00

Harry Reid and the Chamber of Asshats

Well, the race between those that would save the US economy and those that would loot the US economy seems to be coming down to the wire. Last night, the House passed a bailout/bridge loan bill for the Big 3 auto companies. While it's not a great bill, it should at least keep them afloat until the grownups can take over on January 20th. That is, of course if it passes the Senate. The Republican contingent in the the Senate is a grab-bag of troglodytes, flat-earthers, Grand Wizards, and fascists, and for a variety of predictably bad reasons, they're willing to sacrifice the economy on the altar of ideology.

I can't say that I am utterly thrilled at the prospect of bailing out the auto companies - most of their problems are of their own making, but there are important tactical and strategic reasons for doing it, and so we must. Tactically, if the automakers go, so do hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of jobs. This would happen in the next few months, in the depths of a deep recession, quite possibly tipping the economy into a depression. Once in a depression, the efficiency gains of the automakers after bankruptcy and involuntary reorganization would be irrelevant, because without jobs, nobody would be able to buy their products. Strategically, it is necessary for several reasons: It is important that the country have a manufacturing base. Transitioning away from imported oil will require new transportation technology, and the domestic development and implementation of that technology would be a double boost for the economy- more jobs here and less money sent to unfriendly states to finance our oil addiction.

Since I would prefer not to live in a Stone Age economy, which is where we're headed if the economy truly tanks, I've done my teeny-tiny-wee-little-nano-small part by writing (I think) a succinct and respectful letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid regarding our current predicament. (It's respectful because I didn't use the word "asshat" even though I dearly wanted to.) The text follows below.

Dear Senate Majority Leader Reid,

I am writing to you today regarding the upcoming vote(s) on the bailout for the Big 3 US automakers. I know that you are on the record as favoring government-backed loans with conditions to keep the automakers afloat until they can restructure their finances, operations, and product lines in order to become profitable again. I, too understand that the American economy is teetering on the edge of an abyss, and that drastic measures such as this are necessary to prevent it.

There appears to be a group of Senators from the other party, who for a variety of short-sighted, ill-informed, misguided, or even malicious reasons, oppose any aid to the US auto industry, and are preparing to attempt to block its passage. As I understand the rules of the Senate, it is within your power to make this process more or less difficult for them. In the past, many "filibusters" have in fact been settled by a single cloture vote, and if the sixty votes were not available, then the measure in question was blocked. As a working American who wants not only to keep his job, but wants to live in a country with a functioning economy with opportunity for all to make a decent living, I ask you to make it clear to the American people who is blocking the legislation, and the potential effect of their actions on the economy. I believe the best way to accomplish this is to force them to make an old-school filibuster; make them stand there and talk from now until January 20th if necessary, while you hold press conferences and turn the American people against them. If the people of Alabama, South Carolina, and Louisiana (among others) realize that their representatives are willing to destroy the country (and their livelihoods) in order to score ideological points, enough of them will turn against their Senators to make a difference.

This bridge loan program may be what it takes to enable the economy to hold on until President-Elect Obama takes office. It is almost a certainty though, that if the loan program and then the car companies fail, then the economy will too. And that must be avoided at all costs.

I hope that you will seriously consider what I've said here.

Thank you for your time.

2008-10-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's a Bright Bright Sunshiny Day... And That Means Sunburn and Heat Exhaustion

Am I right to be concerned about the conservatives publicly coming out in support of Barack Obama? Should I be thankful for support from any quarter? So far, Christopher Buckley, Colin Powell, Ken Adelmann, Doug Kmiec, Peggy Noonan, and Francis "End of History" Fukayama just to name a few have endorsed Obama. I accept that some of them may have genuine misgivings about the terror and destruction wrought by the fruition of their erstwhile ideology. Regardless, I still don't trust them. This is the group that took lying to the level of high art. They believed, and in astounding arrogance publicly stated that they "created their own reality" when they spoke; it's their world, we just live in it, and if we're lucky they'll allow us to take out their garbage and maybe keep a little of it too. I reject that reality, and I deeply and profoundly hope that America also rejects it come next Tuesday. Given the conservative movement's rather flexible views on concepts like "truth", "honor", and "consistency", is it not possible that some of these supporters are actually infiltrators? From inside the Obama coalition, their goal would be to derail the nascent broad-based progressive movement and shift popular support from programs that benefit the majority of citizens (universal healthcare, taxation of great hereditary wealth, universal access to high-quality education, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, promoting small entrepreneurial companies with new solutions to old problems, and untangling the unholy mess that lies at the intersection of dependence on fossil fuels, climate change, global instability, and the military-industrial complex) to programs that benefit large corporations and extreme wealth. If experience is any guide, they will fall back on what they know best, which is hate, fear, and division.

So Senator Obama, if you're reading this, may I humbly suggest that you don't need these people. Just smile politely, then kick their asses out the door; they've had their chance to run things and by their mismanagement produced the greatest clusterfuck since Napoleon invaded Russia. Perhaps there is a deep cave or an isolated Arctic outpost in which you can find some conservatives untainted by preventative war, torture, disdain for law and civil liberties, and all things Rove, Cheney, and Bush to include in your cabinet or circle of advisors, but I doubt it. There are plenty of smart, motivated, and ethical progressives that would jump at the chance to work for you. If you ask, they will come.

BTW If you look in enough caves, you may find something else.

2008-09-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

A Helpful Reminder

Note to Sarah Palin: Land of the Lost was not a documentary.

2008-09-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

Never Again Is What You Swore The Time Before

Last week's Friday afternoon news dump included this little gem - "Text of Draft Proposal for Bailout Plan". Thankfully I'm in decent physical condition because this is truly lexicographic cholesterol.

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.
The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time
...
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

There is of course more where that came from. This week they've tried to tack on allowing payments to foreign holders of illiquid mortgage-backed securities, abandoning even the pretense that this plan is somehow good for the country. Bush has also come out strongly against cutting the pay of executives. But, but, then they couldn't afford their penthouse on Central Park West, and the summer house in the Hamptons, and they might have to trade in the Lamborghini for a Lexus... how proletarian!

I was most indignant and perturbed upon learning of this development, so last Saturday evening, I wrote an email to the Senate Banking Committee. The text of that message follows:

Dear Honorable Senators,

I have read the bailout proposal that was posted on Friday the 19th, and I find it extremely disturbing. It essentially gives the secretary of the Treasury sole authority to spend seven hundred billion dollars of taxpayer money on pretty much anything he wants, and to do with it as he wishes. The oversight provisions are laughable too: he must report to Congress twice a year. There is no accountability whatsoever in this proposed legislation. Knowing how the Bush Administration operates, there will be precious little transparency as well. Lack of transparency and accountability is what got the financial markets into this dire situation in the first place; I hardly think that more of the same will get us out.

This bailout plan is deeply flawed in another way as well: it punishes the taxpayers, does nothing for distressed homeowners, and rewards the financial elites whose sociopathic greed and cosmic hubris led them to gamble trillions of dollars of other people's money on the belief that *this* time was different - that the value of real estate would go up and up for ever. This is a fundamentally immoral plan as currently presented.

I freely admit that I do not have the answer. I do, however, have some principles that I believe any acceptable plan should follow.

1) What is being done with the taxpayers' money should be absolutely transparent to all of us. That means constant disclosure: daily, not every six months.

2) The money should not be under the control of an appointed ideologue. Congress should create an organization under its control analogous to the RTC that mopped up the S&L crisis.

3) The bailout organization will be held accountable by not giving them all the money at once. If they want more, they need to come before Congress and explain in public hearings why they need it and how they spent the last batch.

4) The erstwhile "Masters of the Universe" that absolutely did know better - did know what the eventual consequences of their actions would be and didn't care should also be held accountable. At the very least, they should forfeit most of their pay and bonuses from the past five years. The people on top should become acquainted with the inside of a prison cell.

5) The bailout organization should be charged by Congress to put the sanctity of the taxpayers' money as its highest priority. The taxpayers would be the investors in this organization, and it should make acquisitions and sales to benefit them, not the corporations being bought and sold.

I hope very much that you take the time to debate this very serious situation, and not be bullied or pressured into approving a dangerously flawed piece of legislation.

Sincerely,

...

Since I wrote that, there has been some good pushback from the Democrats, and it seems that even some Republicans are realizing that this is not in their best interests. Their reasons may be a little different than mine, but I think there's a good chance that we can beat this back and maybe even put forth a progressive alternative...

Senator Obama, are you listening?

2008-09-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

Give Me The Standard...No, Wait! Make That A Double.

Two individuals accused mishandling of sensitive information. Two very different outcomes. You spot the hypocrisy.

Tuesday, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine released a report detailing the mishandling of classified documents. These were not your garden-variety classified documents like blurry photos of Area 51 or Jenna Bush’s phone number; these were the crown jewels, the ne plus ultra of classified documents. Apparently they described the Bush Administration’s plans for its national Panopticon, and its torture procedures. These documents were left in unsecured safes, and even went home with Abu G in his briefcase. The situation at the Justice department could be described as semi-controlled, but who knows what sort of shady characters hang out at Casa Gonzalez. So, how many black-clad, heavily armed stormtroopers were sent to take him down? When’s the trial, you ask? How about none and never. It seems that federal prosecutors declined to file charges. Perhaps they were too busy with Professor J. Reece Roth formerly of the University of Tennessee. As described in the AP report, it seems that some foreign grad students saw some details of an as-yet nonfunctional “plasma guidance system” that they shouldn’t have. Also, he had a report emailed to him in China. This technology concept was so valuable that the government was willing to pay him the princely sum of $6000 to work on it. Since it didn’t work, he didn’t believe that he was breaking the law. So for this poor judgement he should perhaps face a fine, or loss of contracts? How about a $1.5 million fine and 160 years in prison. Lead Prosecutor Assistant US Attorney William Mackie said about the sentence, “This is not so much a matter of punishment as it is about holding him accountable for his actions”.

Accountability. What a novel idea! WTF?! Do these people know that they sound like East German PR flacks?

What will this really accomplish? From the Department of Unintended Consequences comes this prediction. US universities will stop accepting foreign graduate students in the hard sciences and engineering fields because frightened professors will not hire them. Over a hundred thousand extremely intelligent people every year will go to schools in other countries instead of the US. Some of those people will stay in those other countries and invent new, world-changing technologies outside the reach of the US government, and possibly under the control of governments or entities hostile to the US and its citizens.

Do you feel safer yet?

2008-08-19T04:28:00.000-07:00

I Take (Some of It) Back

OK, I admit that the Bastille Day reference was a little over the top. In my defense, I was pissed off and on a roll. Also, it's a really good song.

The concept of tearing down authoritarian power structures is one I support, but preferably not by violence. The fall of the Bastille followed by a leadership vacuum led inexorably to the Reign of Terror and then to Napoleonic imperialism. Chaos and civil war are undesirable outcomes. Marsupial jurisprudence is an affront to civilization whether in eighteenth century France or twenty-first century America.

There is an authoritarian power structure here that needs to be torn down. Police powers to detain and surveil should be brought back into line with the Constitution. Abuses of power should be exposed to the cleansing fire of sunlight. These abuses have been most egregious under the present cabal of usurpers, but they are sadly not unique in this regard. Those responsible (all of them, from any political faction) should be publicly charged and tried with the full force and due process of the law.

I admit that "Day-Glo Jumpsuit Day" doesn't quite have the same esprit as "Bastille Day", but I'll take it.

2008-08-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Shock Doctrine in action:

The Economist print edition July 12^th 2008, pg 85: “How to deal with a glut of empty homes”

The facts as most of us know are this: over the decade from 1995 to 2005, house prices soared, increasing at a rate far greater than any measure of inflation, official or otherwise. This bubble was explicitly supported and encouraged by the Fed policy of lowering interest rates to stave off recession after the dotcom bubble burst in 2000. While house prices were high, builders cashed in, constructing homes as fast as they could build. Like all Ponzi schemes, this one collapsed when no more suckers could be found that could afford to get in at the bottom. Adding to the catastrophe, our country's belligerent foreign policy has finally produced the desired (by the oil companies) rise in fuel prices; this combined with the not-unrelated (corn-to-ethanol & transportation) rise in food prices produced inflation that could not be disguised by manipulation of the statistics. The Fed had to raise rates. So, not only was a starter home priced like a mansion of a decade ago, but financing was more expensive. To make matters worse, to just get in to these starter homes, many people took out extremely risky loans – with minimal or no down payment, floating interest rates, and sometimes no repayment of the principal for an extended period of time. One can argue about whether they should have known better, but the lending institutions certainly put no barriers in their way.

Here we are now. House prices are tumbling. Many homes are vacant (2.9% or 18 million units according to the Economist). In economic terms, the supply of houses is greater than the demand, so the prices would be expected to continue to fall until they are commensurate with the demand. In plain English that means that prices will fall until enough people can afford them. This seems to be a textbook capitalist scenario: banks, construction companies, and their backers made poor choices, failing to see that the supply was becoming too great, or that no-one could afford to buy these houses that they were building, or that they were handing out money with little or no regard for the borrowers' ability to pay it back. When these houses are sold off at huge discounts, they'll lose money on their investment. Ah yes, there's the fly in the ointment – an outcome that involves wealthy, well connected people and institutions actually losing money (rather than appearing to lose money) – WE CAN'T HAVE THAT! Never fear, Ben Bernanke is here; he praised “programmes that seek to demolish the most ramshackle units in order to “mitigate safety hazards and reduce supply”” Of course we have only to look at the Kelo decision and post-Katrina New Orleans to understand that “ramshackle” means “in the way of high-end condos or shopping”. As an added bonus, by reducing supply, they prevent prices from falling to their natural lows so the builders and banks can make money on the remaining stock. This is classic Shock Doctrine behavior: create a crisis, then use the resulting confusion and dislocation to implement policies that no sane person would support if they were given good information and time to consider it. Better yet (for the wealthy elites), they get to make money on both ends, first from creating the crisis (growth in value of housing-related stock and mortgage-backed securities to name two ways) and then from the policies pushed through to resolve it.

And so this passes, buried on page 85, until the next outrage, and the next, and the next. I'm no longer surprised by anything we do. I find myself believing things that just a few years ago I would have considered to be in tinfoil-hat territory. What are we going to do? Is it Bastille Day yet? Will it ever be?

2008-07-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

Why Is Congress Helping To Start A War With Iran?

Another letter to my Congressman. He's usually on the progressive side of the issues, but I discovered that he had signed on as a co-sponsor of House Continuing Resolution 362:

"Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the United States by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony, and for other purposes"

Sounds harmless, right? Well, here's what I had to say. (I wrote this over lunch at work, so the arguments aren't as well supported as I'd like due to time limitations, but I think it still gets the point across.)

Dear Congressman _____,

Today I am writing to you regarding my concerns about H.Con.Res. 362, a resolution that would declare that Congress considers Iran a serious threat to international peace and stability. My concern is that passing this resolution that ostensibly seeks to contain a potential threat would, ironically, be likely to make that threat a reality. Recall the Bush administration's (and particularly Vice-President Cheney's) selective memory of facts and utter disregard for truth. This document would most likely be "misconstrued" as a declaration of war on Iran.

I am not naive; I know that Iran does represent a threat. I am also not blinded by ideology or greed; I believe that Iran represents a great opportunity as well. Iran is now a country of young people who are not well-represented by their current government. Even within that government, there are differences of opinion: there are those who seek to confront us, and those who truly have their country's best interests in mind. Belligerence on our part only strengthens our enemies, as it makes their dire warnings to their countrymen seem all the more believable. Belligerence is not strength: it only seems that way to the fearful and ignorant. Diplomacy is strength: it is hard to listen to those that we fear and mistrust, but only through a frank dialogue and exchange of security concerns followed by concrete actions can that fear and mistrust be mitigated. A very real possible outcome to negotiations would be that Iran accepts thorough and ongoing inspections of their nuclear power program to insure that it stays that way, and they come clean about any past nuclear shenanigans. In return, we establish formal diplomatic relations with them, and pledge to at least try to live up to our obligations under the NPT to reduce the size of our nuclear arsenal.

Allowing the Bush administration any opportunity to escalate the war of words with Iran into something far more deadly will be a mistake with consequences that make those of the AUMF of 2002 look like an overdue library book. Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether war with Iran is justifiable or desirable; with what forces exactly will we prosecute this war? The ones in Iraq? The naval fleet that is vulnerable to a swarm of supersonic anti-ship missiles possessed by Iran? Nukes? Can you in all honesty imagine that any of those options will have even modestly pleasant consequences for this country? War with Iran is neither justifiable nor desirable. H.Con.Res. 362 is a bad piece of legislation that will increase the probability of a catastrophe that could plunge this country into terminal decline. I am not pleased that you have added your name as a co-sponsor of this bill.

Sincerely,

Stochastic Eclectica

The Democrats are really starting to piss me off. They made the gains they did in 2006 because folks like myself wanted something done about the corruption, criminality, and incompetence of the Bush administration, but instead they continue to appease and enable.

BTW - I think some other people are pissed too. I actually saw a small spontaneous demonstration on a street corner last week here in a medium-sized Southern city. There were a whole range of statements being made: vote Obama and no offshore drilling are the two that stick in my mind. I should carry a sign in my car so I can join them if it happens again.

2008-07-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

FISA Fight - Take Three (or is it Four?)

I just signed DFA's petition to the Senate opposing immunity for the telecom companies that aided and abetted George and Dick's Ye Olde Warranteless Wiretapping Programme. I thought I'd repost the comment that I added.

I think "We the People" have been quite clear on this for some time now. Stop spying on us!

Realistically, any official eavesdropping should at the least be subject to these conditions:

Independent oversight to prevent most instances of unjustified intrusion.
Robust minimization (and oversight of same) to prevent most instances of harm resulting from unjustified intrusion.
Notification and legal recourse for those that are harmed by unjustified intrusions are critical in insuring that illegal behavior carries consequences.

Even with these provisions, the system could still be corrupted, but it's a hell of a lot better that the intentionally corrupted system that we have now. It could at least be the opening point for a renewal of the national conversation on the appropriate balance between government power and individual privacy.

2008-03-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a while - work and family has kept me busy. I wrote this essay the other day on progressivism for beginners for a little (emphasis on little) political gathering that we had at home. I was a little rushed, so it's not perfect, but I think it's worth sharing.

BTW - how about Obama's speech on race? Wow. And I only read it.

____________________________________

¹pro·gres·sive (\prə-gre-siv\)

adjective

:of, relating to, or characterized by progress b: making use of or interested in new ideas, findings, or opportunities

noun

:one that is progressive b: one believing in moderate political change and especially social improvement by governmental action

What is Progressive Politics?

If you’ve been paying attention to politics recently, and particularly if you’ve been reading online blogs, you have probably heard the term “progressive”; perhaps you’ve wondered what, exactly, it means. If so, this essay is for you: it is a very short, and probably very biased, introduction to 21^st century American political progressivism.

At first glance, the word “progressive” is a drop-in replacement for “liberal”. Liberal, as we all should know, is a code word that activates buried programming in the minds of right-wingers, causing them to erupt in violent raging paroxysms, usually accompanied by much semicoherent babbling about communists, the UN, and how Jesus hates f*gs. While this can be quite entertaining (safety first! – keep your distance), it is not conducive to any sort of dialogue or useful collaboration, thus the need for a replacement word. Progressivism is more complex than renamed liberalism though. The definition from above is clear, though I think incomplete: “one believing in moderate political change and especially social improvement by governmental action” I would add that “Civil liberties and freedom from authoritarianism are core values and must be taken into account when considering any political changes or social improvements”. Progressives may share many of the goals of traditional liberalism, but the progressive will be much more reluctant to use the coercive power of the state (or that of any other group) even in the service of a “good” cause. Lest I be accused of liberal-bashing, let me say that modern conservatives are positively addicted to coercive power in the law enforcement and security arenas, attempt to turn social improvement programs into profit centers for cronies, and lately, have shown nothing but contempt for civil liberties; as such, they are anti-progressive.

Having only anti-authoritarianism as an ideology gives progressives broad scope for contemplating and implementing change. The antidotes for authoritarianism are transparency and accountability; a progressive policy is one that does not allow those in power to hide their actions, and one that provides consequences for those that abuse their power. These principles can be widely applied. Let’s look at our healthcare system as an example. Any move to expand coverage or lower costs to consumers via collective action has conservatives screaming about “socialized medicine”. If there were any actual left-wingers in this country, they would be screaming about “corporate blood money”. Meanwhile, everyone else is just screaming because they can’t get the care they need. To a progressive, neither capitalism nor socialism is an ideology; each is merely a different way of allocating resources, each with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. In pursuit of a goal, a progressive may propose a hybrid system that would satisfy neither of the traditional ideologies: for example a publicly audited single-payer healthcare system combined with with private medical practices. A system such as this captures the economies of scale and documentation simplification of having one (government) insurer, and provides the social good of universal coverage, yet by preserving private practices, it also makes use of the capitalist virtues of competition and avoids the inefficiency of micromanaging resources by central planning. Public auditing of the system limits the scope for fiscal and performance-related monkey business; those that abuse the system are exposed and penalized.

So the essential question is: why should you vote progressive? Our country has a challenging decade (or more) ahead. Some problems we have in common with the rest of the world: climate change, peak oil, human trafficking, and the proliferation of destructive weapons and those who would use them without restraint. Other problems are solely ours: unaccountable executive power (“I am the Decider” = “l’etat c’est moi”), ubiquitous surveillance of civilians, an archipelago of secret torture prisons around the world, a healthcare system on life support, and an economy that rewards those that have far more than those that do. If you’d like your children or grandchildren to have a quality of life as good or better than you have, then these problems are in urgent need of solutions, and the traditional ideologies have at best not delivered, and have indeed created some of the problems. We need a rebalancing of power between citizens, the government, and corporations; ultimately, the government is supposed to be accountable to us, not to big donors or favor-seeking corporations. We can rebuild a country where everyone has an opportunity to succeed, a country that is respected around the world, a country that at least tries to live up to its ideals. This will not happen all at once, and in true progressive fashion, it should happen from the bottom up. This means that all the political races matter – local government, state government, and national government. Let’s support the implementation of sane policies at all levels of government – cost-effective policies that benefit the most citizens possible, while preserving our freedoms.

2007-07-10T11:10:00.000-07:00

I Like Mike

I gave $50 to Mike Gravel last week, and it felt good.

Admittedly he has only a slightly better chance of winning than I do myself, but someone needs to be there to speak truth to power, and he has a history of doing just that. Also, possibly related to the whole truth-speaking thing, the man seems to be very much grounded in the reality-based community. He has some refreshingly rational ideas (in addition to getting out of Iraq). Check him out if you haven't done so already.

Later dudes.

2007-07-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

A Letter to Some Senators (that ostensibly represent me)
apres le commutation

Dear Senators,

With the commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence, Bush and his administration have again graphically demonstrated their contempt for the Constitution, and for the rest of us that are held accountable to the law.

I know that you must feel some loyalty to him as the nominal leader of your party, but your ultimate loyalty should be to the people that you were elected to serve. When leaders such as the President and Vice President callously disregard their solemn oaths and duties to instead enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of the taxpayers, of the lives of thousands of soldiers and Marines, and of international goodwill built up over generations, you have the power and responsibility to stop them.

If I cannot sway you in the name of loyalty to your constituents, then let me appeal to your loyalty to yourselves and your party. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knows that this administration is dragging the country down a dark and treacherous path. Anyone that does not speak out, that does not bar the way, is guilty by association. This does not bode well for the electoral future of Republicans that do not have the conscience or strength of character to end the ongoing atrocity in the White House.

2007-06-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

Beware the Ides of October:

The October Surprise is an honored if somewhat disreputable tradition in American politics in which some negative information comes to light just weeks before the election in November. The affected candidate does not have time to properly investigate and/or rebut the information, and is severely affected at the polls. The current gang of criminals occupying our government has shown themselves to be very adept at the use of political dirty tricks having stolen one election and lied their way to victory in the next. The ’06 midterms and the Libby verdict have raised the (faint) specter of accountability. Deep in the recesses of their primitive reptilian brains, a red light (incandescent) blinks: “Danger, Danger. Accountability Warning.” the alarm shrieks. Heaving their pustulent mounds of putrescent blubber up from the wounded body of a once-proud nation (guess which one), they prepare to meet the threat.

I’m still not sure how the American people cannot see what’s happening: these people (Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzo, et. al.) seem to work off of a predictable script, just changing the details to fit the situation. Compare the run-up to the war in Iraq with the current drum-beating in the direction of Iran; does anyone doubt where they are going with this? When threatened in elections before now, they have simply put out a story, which is repeated loudly and ad nauseam by the right-wing media, and usually sets the tone of coverage by the MSM. This tactic has usually proved to create an insurmountable barrier of negativity for the opposing candidate. The tactic failed in 2006. Enough people were angry, and wanted change to make it through Rove’s rhetorical shitstorm. It is clear that the Administration cares not for real democracy, for ordinary citizens, for real economic progress, for anything except power and money. They will not go quietly. If lies and propaganda don’t work, then expect them to try something different to achieve the same goal: the slow bleeding of our economy to enrich themselves and their cronies, all the while controlling the population through fear (perhaps they’ll “thwart” an anus-bomber and we’ll all have to undergo body cavity searches if we absolutely must fly...that’ll show us who’s in charge...and we’ll thank the bastards for “keeping us safe”. Aargh.).

Institutionalized rape however, is not the surprise; that is merely a taste (mmm nutty) of what awaits us after the unveiling of our shiny new police state. Several years ago, when I did not understand the true extent of the Administration’s depravity, I still expected a surprise: the capture and/or killing of Osama bin Laden. If they’ve managed to invade Iran by then, providing a new and improved enemy for us to fear, then disposing of the old enemy might yet be useful: an electoral boost plus ensuring that he never talks. For a long time I have been dismissive of the 9/11 conspiracy theories, and while I don’t buy it being a complete inside job, it would not shock me to find out that certain highly-placed, pale, bloated, bespectacled members of the government with severe anger management problems who may or may not be part of the executive branch knew about it and allowed it to happen. If this is the case, then the surprise could be much, much worse (a nuclear anus-bomber).

There’s not much time, but there is a way out: Impeachment. Now. Or better yet: Yesterday. Open, public, maximally transparent hearings (and hopefully trials) of all the kingpins of this criminal gang, if done soon, could preempt whatever hellish surprise they have planned for us and start the country back on the path to recovery.

I hope I’m wrong about the October Surprise, but even so, there is ample cause for impeachment. I don’t believe that any administration in US history has so richly deserved it (and besides, I think they’d all look lovely in orange jumpsuits).

2006-10-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

The New Space Race ?

Star Wars part deux / See Nothing, Hear Nothing, Know Nothing

The Bush administration is overseeing a massive shift in the NASA budget away from science missions and into manned spaceflight programs. In several cases, they are canceling missions that are nearing completion, and require little further funding. (Terrestrial Planet Finder, DAWN, Mission to Europa) Why? As always, the question that one must always ask of this administration is: who does this benefit? At least two groups benefit from this: the military-industrial complex and their old-school conservative backers (Cheney, et. al.), and conservative religious groups.

The motivations of the first group, representing the secular big-business wing of the Republican party, are clear. They desire to maintain US global hegemony and funnel tax money to well-connected corporations. Building up US military power is their preferred method of accomplishing both goals. The military is concerned about China's space program, and has developed an elaborate (and likely expensive) plan to counter it over the next two decades. Science missions tend to be built by universities and small contractors on tight budgets. The new manned space initiative will shift additional billions of dollars to a handful of major aerospace companies (LockheedMartin, Boeing, Northrop, United Technologies). The administration has even begun to publicly acknowledge the reorientation of the space program around defense.

The reader may ask "what does religious extremism have to do with the space program?" The reply in two words is "Cognitive Dissonance". The human ability to simultaneously hold mutually incompatible beliefs is expansive, but not infinite. One of NASA's major science goals has been to look for signs of extraterrestrial life. If fossilized terrestrial organisms are disturbing to the fundamentalist worldview, imagine what the discovery of an environment in which life had evolved differently from anything ever known on our planet would do. Their poor little heads would explode and the red states would be cleaning up (sadly unused) gray matter for weeks. The Bush plan saves a large portion of his constituency from a gooey ending, and as a bonus, lets them send their kids off to fight the "godless communists" (remember them?).

So, what is a rational person to make of this? Chinese military expansionism in space is worrying, but is a new arms race the right response to the threat? As a start, we could apply some of the principles that have been shown to work in economics, and in other political crises, namely transparency and the rule of law. China, like most authoritarian societies, prefers to work in secret, except for well-crafted public relations spectacles. They hate public criticism of their activities. Publicizing their activities would force them at the very least to acknowledge their existence. It could also swing world opinion against them, and this could provide support for a legal framework that would seek to prevent space conflict by extending the rule of law off the Earth's surface. A rudimentary framework exists already: the Outer Space Treaty (OST). The US is one of the original signers, and China signed in 1983. The treaty forbids

"any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install[ing] such weapons on celestial bodies, or station[ing] such weapons in outer space in any other manner...the establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies".

As a sidebar, it seems that ASAT and other pop-up weapons lie in a gray area of the treaty. This treaty is well-intentioned, but flawed. Demanding that China and the US (since Bush & Co. are wont to ignore inconvenient treaties) adhere to their treaty obligations may deflate the ballooning risk of a space arms race in the short term.

The major flaw in the treaty is that it refers only to states. I suspect that in 1967 the possibility of extraterrestrial private property was a remote enough concern to be ignored for the sake of simplicity; it's not so remote any more. Why is private property relevant to this issue? A robust civilian presence in space could completely change the nature of any confrontation. At present, space is resource rich and uninhabited - think Spratly Islands. Conflicts can occur in semi-secrecy, and the only casualties are military. A civilian presence raises the stakes such that even unaccountable authoritarian regimes think twice before taking military action; despite the stated desire to do so, North Korea has not invaded the South, and China has not invaded Taiwan. The current US administration, alas, did not even think once, and history will not be kind to us for our invasion of Iraq. In order for there to be a robust civilian presence in space, the rule of law must be extended to them. There must be mechanisms for resolution of disputes, liability, and property ownership or leasing, for starters. Essentially, we need a local government structure in space. Who is going to provide this? Not the UN. I don't dislike the organization, but we can only rarely enforce its rulings on Earth, so how well can we expect to do on some remote comet.

I think the solution to the problem of local government in space is ... local government in space. The alternatives are state/military control, or corporate "company towns" in space. This will not be an easy transition, and realistically, it will probably go through state and/or corporate control before a transition to local sovereignty. The high ground of deep space is largely illusory in that it cannot be controlled in the long term by a ground-based power. Once a sufficient civilian population is present, and new generations are born out there, they will stop seeing themselves as Americans or Chinese, or Russians, but as Martians or Belters, or dare I say, Lunatics. These citizens of the solar system will show as much respect for the OST and its strictures on non-ownership of celestial bodies as the Founding Fathers did for King George's claims on North American land and resources.

And the fundamentalists? They can stay right where they are and pretend it's flat for all I care. I'll be moving to Mars.

2006-07-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

The Myth of Free Markets (or Why Capitalism Gets a Bad Rap)

Free markets are a tool for efficient distribution of resources. In many circumstances they supply the most goods at the lowest price. Think of the profusion of goods on offer at the local supermarket, the hundreds of models of automobile on the roads, even the colleges and universities scattered around the country. In each case, the prospective consumer assesses the desirability, the quality, and the price of the item, usually from several sources. The consumer finds what is best for him or her at that time. Sure, we'd all like to shop at Whole Foods, drive a Porsche, and have a degree from MIT, but is life so bad shopping at Food Lion, driving a Toyota, and holding a degree from a major state university? No, it's not so bad at all, and free markets that deliver products at a range of prices are why this is so.

Like any tool, there is an appropriate time and place for its use. Choice and transparency are the key conditions that need to be evaluated to determine the suitability of a free market. Choice can take several forms: choice of provider, choice of quality/price tradeoff, or availability of a functionally similar alternative. Transparency means that the consumer has to know what they're getting and how much they are going to be paying for it. Goods like automobiles and computers clearly meet these tests. The markets in food, gasoline and universities are less free than they appear; while to call healthcare a "market" is almost laughable. A free market is marked by a convergence of interests among all participating parties. An unfree market is marked by conflicts of interest.

When I purchase an computer, I research the available technology. I decide what processor and video card I want. I figure out how much RAM and hard drive space I want. I decide what sort of case to put it in- neon lights or beige box? Then I find out who can build that machine or something close and for what price. The machine that I eventually buy is the result of a voluntary transaction on my part and on the builder's part. I get what I expected and the builder (and the builder's shareholders) get paid. There is full choice and transparency.

When I go to the grocery store, I pay too much for some items and perhaps too little for others. In addition, I am also invisibly paying for food that I don't eat.* How is paying too little a problem? Some products such as corn and rice are supported by direct subsidies, allowing domestic producers to sell for less than their cost of production. The price I pay for these subsidized goods at the store is lower than it should be, but it's not a deal. I'm paying the difference plus the administrative costs in my taxes. Other goods such as sugar and milk are indirectly subsidized by price supports and import tariffs. Don't even get me started on the subject of gasoline. If the cost of subsidies, oil-related military actions, environmental, and social costs are added up and applied to the price at the pump, gas could cost up to $15 per gallon. Admittedly, the valuation and selection of the various costs is somewhat subjective, but the point is that there are large hidden costs that we pay in taxes, time, or health. So you ask why are subsidies bad? I don't want to pay six hundred dollars to fill up my Suburban (40 gallons x $15/gallon = squeeeal like a pig). The reason is that subsidies encourage the misallocation of resources. If the price of gas had been much freer over the past 60 years or so, we would have made different choices. We would have less sprawl. We would not have ripped up the streetcar tracks in LA and other cities. We would still have automobiles (they're much too useful), but most families wouldn't need more than one, and they probably wouldn't use internal-combustion engines. Our long-term subsidies have taken us far, far down the wrong path; getting back is going to be politically and economically painful. Fortunately the situation on food subsidies is not nearly so dire. They could be phased out in fairly short order, as tobacco subsidies have been. The largest disruption would be to a small number of farmers and a handful of large agribusinesses.

Now we come to the commodities in which the market exists in name only. The worst example of market failure that I can think of is healthcare/health insurance. First of all, pricing is opaque. The only posted medical prices that I have seen are for elective procedures not usually covered by insurance: breast enlargement, hair removal, LASIK, and the like. Why? Because the nature of healthcare is that there is no meaningful choice. If I am in horrific pain, I want it taken care of. Now. I don't have time to shop around, and it may not be in my best interest to do so; faster diagnosis and treatment typically has a better outcome than delayed treatment. So we buy insurance. But how much should we buy? Most of us don't know. Unless you are sure that you're a genetic time-bomb, you can only estimate a probable future healthcare need. You may buy too much, and waste resources, or too little and be a burden to other productive people. Furthermore, there is a huge conflict of interest built in to the structure of the industry. An insurance company makes more money the less it pays out. One way to minimize payout is to aggressively fight claims. Therefore, you can never be sure that you are truly covered since you cannot predict whether your claim will be paid. I think that this is one area in which free markets do not serve us well, at least not at the consumer level. I do not think that doctors and nurses should be government employees as in the British NHS, but I do think that a government-backed health insurance "corporation" should provide medical coverage for all US residents. There would be other less tangible benefits to this policy as well. People would be able to change jobs more freely since they are not tied to a benefits package. Corporations' labor costs would decrease, and they would be tied more closely to wages rather than to medical costs; as a result, either the cost of hiring a new worker goes down, leading to more employment, or workers can be paid more at the same or lower cost. The accounting becomes simpler as well: the cost of healthcare could be measured in a line in the Federal budget.

So, we have defined three categories of markets: free, protected/subsidized, and unfree. What is and what should be the role of government in these market classes? A light touch for the free markets: consistent, rational regulation with maximum transparency - set the rules and don't change them without thought and discussion. It should enforce contracts, provide the means for resolving disputes, and provide or enable the market's infrastructure (banking, communications, transport, etc). Most of the markets in the second category should be free markets, but they have been captured by various political interests, usually for the enrichment of a small group of favored individuals or corporations. Political will, a commodity in vanishingly short supply, is necessary to remove the parasites from these markets. The third category contains markets for commodities that may be best handled collectively (healthcare, defense, pure research). Pseudomarkets have developed in some of these areas to the detriment of the great majority of us (those of us that do not own an insurance company, a "battlefield services contractor", or a patent troll). Political will again is needed to stand up and say that these are collective costs with collective benefits, and then to design and implement a system that incorporates this concept without falling into the trap of bloated government bureaucracy (I recommend maximally transparent auditing coupled with well-designed performance incentives within the organization (free markets do have a place here too)).

Capitalism gets a bad rap for the most part because many markets touted as being free are not. When these distorted markets do not deliver the performance that people want, free markets are blamed, ironically. In addition, there are a few highly visible unfree markets in which the market concept is misapplied. Again blame is misplaced: one does not get angry with a screwdriver for doing a poor job digging a hole, it is simply the wrong tool for the job.

*At least $30 billion in ag payola on the books in '05
http://www.usda.gov/agency/obpa/Budget-Summary/2005/FYbudsum.pdf
$22 bn commodity programs
$3.8 bn loans & grants
$4.5 bn export subsidies

2006-06-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

You Gotta Know When to Fold 'Em
It's Time to Leave Iraq

One evening in the last summer of the Clinton Administration (2000), Mrs. Eclectica and I were having a political conversation over a bottle of a nice Santa Barbara County Cabernet Franc. The world seemed to have the potential to be a more friendly place than it had been in the past. The Cold War was over. Communism was pretty thoroughly discredited. There was a peace agreement in Northern Ireland. We had (very slowly) intervened to stop an incipient genocide in Kosovo, though we'd failed to stop one in Rwanda. We'd experienced WTC1, Waco, OK City, Kenya, and the USS Cole. The question put to me was: what threats and challenges would we be facing in the next decade or two?

Iraq was one topic: Saddam was ruthless, violent, and paranoid, but less crazy than Kim Jong Il. I believed that he had nerve gas and maybe nukes. Nevertheless, at that time, Saddam was contained. I believed that even if he aided a terrorist group in an attack against us, we would be able to link him to it and act accordingly, and that he knew that we would do this. I considered him to be rational enough to be deterrable by the threat of total destruction. We had invaded his country once, and threatened his total destruction after uncovering the plot to assassinate Bush Sr. After that, he was basically rattling the bars of his cell.

There was a humanitarian argument for removing him militarily, but the cost would be high (if he used his (now known to have been nonexistent) WMD). Additionally, any humanitarian intervention would have to have broad international support, preferably UN, at least NATO. With France, Germany, Russia, and China opposed to even the existing containment regime, there was virtually no chance of this happening.

Now, in the summer of 2006, after three years of fighting in Iraq, where do we stand? I won't go over the lies, the arrogance, the incompetence, or the military decisions made for political reasons. That horse is skeletal by now. The questions we need to think about are: will it be better for us (the US) if we stay or if we go? Will it be better for the Iraqis? I have just about finished reading Cobra II , which paints a detailed and disturbing look at the run-up to, and prosecution of the war, and its immediate aftermath. One thing stands out: however duplicitous the Administration may have been in starting the war, we might be in a better position had they listened to the opinions of military and diplomatic profesionals about how the postwar Iraq should be administered. It is likely that even if enough troops had been sent to pacify the country and the Iraqi army was co-opted instead of disbanded, the Bushies would have screwed things up by trying to install Chalabi or some other puppet. After all, the only good democracy is one that elects people slavishly favorable to us, right?

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, didn't. We are now in the middle of an accelerating civil war. Our troops, who are trained to do one thing, kill, are doing exactly that. Is it that surprising that exhausted, anxious teenagers with automatic weapons might take out their frustrations on their surroundings? Since their training explicitly dehumanizes the enemy, those surroundings include the hapless Iraqi civilians that find themselves in Abu Ghraib or near an IED attack. The status quo is bad for everyone except the extremists. The Sunnis (Wahhabists and Baathists) massacre the Shias either for apostasy or fear of their rising political power. The Shias use their government positions to organize death squads to retaliate for the Sunni attacks; this activity is probably egged on by Iran. Al Qaeda and the Sunnis attack Americans. And Bush claims we're "taking the fight to the terrorists". More like bringing the targets to the terrorists.

The victims here are first and foremost the ordinary Iraqis. They're getting it from all sides. The extremists in their midst kill them for their beliefs, for their lack of beliefs, for their association with Americans, or merely because they are in the way of some other target. We kill them for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for being in the way, and it seems just to blow off steam. Next, ordinary Americans who are now paying and will be paying for this fiasco in so many ways are victims. There is a huge financial cost, both overtly in the sense of what we are paying now, and in terms of opportunity cost: what else could we have done with the $300 billion (so far by one estimate). There is a more subtle and less quantifiable, but no less real cost as well, the loss of our international prestige and influence. Does anyone believe that the present Administration stands for anything or cares for anything other than power and money? It will take decades of changed behavior on our part to change attitudes around the world. Our troops, on an individual basis, are victims as well. I doubt most of them joined the military thinking that "stone cold killer" would look good on their resume. They joined to protect the country, their friends, and loved ones, against real threats. Instead they found themselves in an endless war of aggression for strategic position and resources.

Iraq is well and truly screwed. The wounds inflicted by one side on the other are too severe for them to come together in any strong government. The likely outcome is that the country will disintegrate into a semi-functioning state (Kurdistan), a lawless, failed rogue state (Sunnis), and an Iranian puppet state (Shias). I don't think we could prevent this even with more troops; Humpty Dumpty has fallen. We should get out now and let it happen faster rather than slower. The outcome will be the same, it will just cost us less in dollars and lives. Is there any way to save the Iraqi people that are going to suffer and die in this process? I don't see any good answers.

2006-05-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

News Flash: Chaise Lounge Adjusted
Latest Bush Cabinet Shuffle

In a fine display of attempted misdirection and blatant political quid pro quo, the president has replaced one lapdog with another. John Snow, described as "Loyal but uninspired" is being replaced by multi-multi millionaire Henry Paulson, member of the Pioneers, a group composed of six-figure donors to the Bush campaign.

Now, being a multi-millionaire doesn't necessarily bother me. Large donations are more problematic. If as Sen. McConnell says "money is speech", then is it fair that his speech can drown out the speech of hundreds of three-figure contributors? I'll probably delve into that at a later date.

More significantly at the moment, does anyone really believe that this- or any of the recent Cabinet shuffling will make the slightest bit of difference in the Administration's performance? The Administration's problem is not in the Treasury department; it's in the Oval Office. Bush has declared himself to be the "Decider", conveniently if inadvertently taking responsibility for the actions of his administration.

The Administration's problems are legion, starting with a lack of credibility and progressing through corruption to treason. Credibility was dubious from the beginning, "winning" the 2000 election on a party-line vote in the Supreme Court while blocking a recount of citizen's votes after having run on a platform promising bipartisan cooperation. Subsequent events confirm the trend of complete disregard for the law and for those of us without six figures to speak for us.

Politics is supposed to be the art of compromise. Historically, if a President felt that a particular legislative compromise was inappropriate, he would veto the bill. If it was popular enough, Congress could override the veto, limiting the President's power over legislation. Bush doesn't veto anything, he merely crosses his fingers while signing, and proceeds to ignore legislation that he doesn't like. This is prima facie illegal and in violation of the oath he swore to uphold the Constitution.

We are in the midst of a serious Constitutional crisis. Someone needs to turn this ship of state around and fix the damage before all the controls are sabotaged and a collision becomes inevitable.

Is that Celine Dion I hear?

2006-05-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

A Few Thoughts on Some Things That Matter

Welcome to my blog Stochastic Eclectica. As I'm about the 32,000,000th person to start a blog, I am a bit late to the party. I hope I can make up for that with quality. Like most people, I have a philosophy of life, and opinions about the world around me. Also like most people, I am neither a billionaire nor a political insider; my ability to influence the larger world is limited. I believe that I have reached the same conclusion as many others that the greatest power that I have is the power of ideas. In order for an idea to have power it must be communicated. That is why I am here now.

In this first post I'm going to talk a little about what I hope to do with this blog. As the title suggests, I'm going to talk about many things, but some topics are more probable than others.

Let's start with ideology. This word and its personified form, ideologue, have gotten a lot of bad press lately. We use it to describe people or groups that aren't like us, and that obstruct what we see as the path forward. While this description does accurately describe some groups and individuals, these are only a subset of ideologies. Ideology is in a sense the social "operating system" that a person uses to function. All of us, even sociopaths, have an ideology. Sociopaths are pure utilitarians: each social encounter is to be manipulated to maximize the personal benefit. If it's to their benefit to help you, then you'll be showered with assistance, if not then it's to the wolverine pit with you. "Nice doggie...Aargh! My leg! My leg! Give it back!"

Certain ideologies are conducive to the smooth operation of a modern society, and others are not. In fact there's significant disagreement among ideologies over what that modern society should look like. I can only speak for myself and my own vision. Starting at the beginning:

I believe in physical reality.
I do not believe in the existence of a creating and/or guiding intelligence.
Consciousness is special.

These three statements are postulates. I can't prove that we aren't organic batteries in the Matrix. I can't prove the non-existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I can't prove that I'm not just programmed to spout out conscious-sounding phrases; "What? I don't understand? Where's the tea?" If any of these postulates were false, then life would not have the same meaning; I would be at best a character in someone else's story. While I cannot prove these statements to be true, I cannot disprove them either, so I choose to believe them and in doing so live my life as a unique individual with (some) control and influence over myself and my surroundings.

The next few statements follow at least in part from the three postulates. This list, like our understanding of the world, is incomplete, and I will probably be adding to it from time to time.

Moral codes are purely the product of human thought.
Science is a method not a static body of knowledge.
Our understanding of the world and the cosmos is incomplete.
I will change my mind when presented with good data supporting a contrary position. (nod to Emerson*)

*A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. -- `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' -- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. -R.W.E.

A society that respects its members and treats them with dignity will be more successful in the long term than one that does not.
Too many rules and too few rules can produce different, but equally unpleasant experiences.

When I write on other topics, particularly ones of political and social relevance, I will try to draw on these precepts in formulating my statement.

ideology