Election Day in Iraq

YAY! We have succeeded in bringing American-style democracy to Iraq: low voter turnout.

Photo credit: Michael Kamber for The New York Times

Bring the troops home.

A Billion Per Thousand

This little snippet below, highlighted in red, caught my notice this morning in the New York Times.

Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is chairman of the House appropriations defense subcommittee, cited $40 billion last week as a hypothetical amount for the supplemental financing request. The number represented a standard calculation of $1 billion for every 1,000 troops deployed.

And people say a health care public option is too expensive? Sweet Jesus.

Let's put this in perspective. My hometown in Arkansas needs some help. Seriously. With around 4,000 residents, a Pentagon war budget would get them about $4 billion.

They could build a subway line through town out to the Wal-Mart. And riding it could be free. With what was leftover, they could build everyone in town a new house and provide free medical care and free groceries from the Socialist Supermarket. And I think there would still be enough to provide everyone a car, with a complimentary tank of gas every month, not that they'd need THAT much help, with the subway and all.

But the important thing to remember is that situations in the US are fine and dandy. No one really needs any help. We have no infrastructure needs, everyone has access to transportation to get where they need to go, health care costs are completely reasonable, and no one goes hungry.

Bits & Pieces, Odds & Ends

Distracted Driving, Part 2

In a nice follow-up to the article which prompted me to write this post about texting while driving, the New York Times ran another stunner today. Apparently saving lives on the highways takes a backseat to... not "angering Congress."

I shit you not.

In 2003, researchers at a federal agency proposed a long-term study of 10,000 drivers to assess the safety risk posed by cellphone use behind the wheel.

They sought the study based on evidence that such multitasking was a serious and growing threat on America’s roadways.

But such an ambitious study never happened. And the researchers’ agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, decided not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the use of phones by drivers — in part, officials say, because of concerns about angering Congress.

[...]

The former head of the highway safety agency said he was urged to withhold the research to avoid antagonizing members of Congress who had warned the agency to stick to its mission of gathering safety data but not to lobby states.

Critics say that rationale and the failure of the Transportation Department, which oversees the highway agency, to more vigorously pursue distracted driving has cost lives and allowed to blossom a culture of behind-the-wheel multitasking.

“We’re looking at a problem that could be as bad as drunk driving, and the government has covered it up,” said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety.

[...]

State Senator Joe Simitian of California, who tried from 2001 to 2005 to pass a hands-free cellphone law over objections of the cellphone industry, said the unpublished research would have helped him convince his colleagues that cellphones cause serious — deadly — distraction.

“Years went by when lives could have been saved,” said Mr. Simitian, who in 2006 finally pushed through a hands-free law that took effect last year.

What a big ol' giant bucket of fetid fail.

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The Senate Shoots Down Fighter Jets

At least the Senate rightfully heeded my request to stop the F-22 now! Ahh, the power and influence of konagod!

By a vote of 58 to 40, the Senate voted to put this absurdity down.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), shortly before the vote, noted that national guard members from his state are not asking for more F-22s but for more body armor and boots. Continuing the program "defies common sense," he said, while health care requirements and other economic needs are more imminent.

[...]

F-22 supporters included lawmakers from many of the other states where the plane's components are manufactured, such as California, Texas, and Georgia. Senators Patty Murray (Wash.) and Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) and other Democrats argued that killing the program would undermine the nation's defense by idling highly trained engineers and mechanics.

It might idle some Lockheed Martin lobbyists. But spending billions for fighter jets we don't need, and the Pentagon doesn't want, seems like a pretty warped approach to our national security.

| | |

Blog Sagas Won't Die

Lastly, it was noted this morning at Shakesville that His Royal Petulance has resigned as a contributor to that blog... yes, that femnist blog!

He needed a break from all the hiatusing he's been doing over there. Homo slacker! And gee, the timing of this sure puts me in an awkward position.

I would hate to think that my coincidental slipped Disqus glitch brought down his desire to continue with a pretty decent gig over there. Oh well, his world of followers will probably not be impacted by this.. all one of us.

OK, I'm done poking at things with my stick for the day. :-)

Stop the F-22 Now!

My three-dimensional political spectrum just got a little more bent this morning after reading about the F-22 fighter jets. President Obama has rightfully said he won't sign the military spending bill unless the $1.75 billion program to buy seven jets is removed from the bill.

Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry support the purchase. Senators Carl Levin and John McCain oppose it. Supporters want the program because of the high-paying jobs which will be retained. That sounds reasonable on the surface except for one small detail: The Pentagon doesn't really need these jets.

The Pentagon would rather buy unmanned aircraft to gather intelligence in Afghanistan and accelerate the testing for the F-35, a new plane designed to attack ground targets. Pentagon officials say the F-22 is hard to maintain and costs $44,000 to operate for an hour, compared with $30,000 for older planes.

But many Republicans in Congress say more F-22s, which were designed for aerial combat, are needed as a hedge against countries like China.

Holy shit! Let's break this down into bite-sized pieces. In an era when we desperately need to be spending money on things like infrastructure, education, reducing poverty, combating homelessness, health care, gaining energy independence and developing renewable energy sources to name but a few, we have senators pushing for a military expenditure which is unnecessary, simply to keep workers employed. (And keeping executives and stockholders of Lockheed Martin happy.)

It is this kind of disconnect which has me wondering how we'll ever get out of this hole. (We won't, but that's another issue.)

And that argument that the F-22s are a hedge against China? Please. If China wanted to bring us down, they already are well-positioned to cripple us via the economic system. However, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee, believes China will potentially be a threat at some point, "particularly as it will compete directly with the United States for energy supplies."

All the more reason we should be addressing our energy needs now, not when we're over a barrel. No pun intended.

Consider as well, the costs to operate each of the F-22s: $44,000 is one American worker's annual salary for every hour the jets are in use. And that's on top of the $1.75 billion price tag which is another 38,636 such annual salaries.

While that may amount to a minuscule fraction of the jobs we've lost in the current recession, to squander that money unnecessarily is wrong-headed, misguided, and totally void of reasonable logic.

Let's jump back to the China statement for a moment, and John Murtha. And Japan's desire to buy F-22 fighter jets. But there's a slight problem: there's an export ban on the jets.

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee, said Wednesday that he intends to meet in the coming days with Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and Rep. Bill Young (Fla.), Murtha’s GOP counterpart on the Defense subcommittee, to discuss lifting the export ban on the F-22.

The key player in that briefing will be Obey, who in 1998 wrote the legislation that bans the exports of the F-22 mainly to keep secret the aircraft’s radar-evading stealth technology. Obey has not budged since, and it’s unclear whether he is willing to relent.

On the surface, it sounds like a pretty good idea if we want to keep these jobs. Allow Japan to buy the jets instead of us building them for ourselves unnecessarily. A win-win situation, right? Ummm, not so fast. In the world of politics, military, and money, things are never simple.

Murtha, who is willing to work with Inouye on facilitating the sale of the F-22 to the Japanese, admitted it is an expensive proposition that also depends on whether Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., production line will stay open for several more years. That production line in turn depends on U.S. domestic orders for the plane. The Obama administration did not ask for money for the production of the fighter jet in fiscal 2010 and is adamant about halting production after the 187th airplane is delivered to the Air Force.

Murtha said that he would like to be able to purchase another 20 aircraft in 2010, but that he is uncertain whether that would be possible, considering the total price tag for those planes is $3.2 billion. Murtha also said that he is concerned about the high cost of operating and maintaining the existing planes.

Ahh, catch-22 with the F-22! We need to keep paying to keep the plant operational (i.e. churning out unneeded and expensive jets) until we can work out the details of an export to Japan, which might ultimately help with that Big Red Scare from China when they need more energy.

There are not even any guarantees at this point that this plan will even come to fruition.

For the F-22 to end up in Japan, Lockheed Martin would have to spend a considerable amount of time — several years — demilitarizing the plane. That essentially means stripping the jet of sensitive technologies employed by the U.S. military. That could be costly. By Murtha’s calculations the research and development to remove those capabilities would cost at least $1 billion and could go much higher, and it is unclear whether the Japanese would be able to pay such a steep price.

There's a lot more going on here than just "saving American jobs." I smell a big ol' stinking dead rat.

Losing My Hope

I've been in the doldrums all week and can't seem to snap out of it. The heat might be getting to me. We've already had 15 days of temperatures at 100° or over, and 8 of those days were 105° or more. Today is likely to be the 9th day of such extreme heat. Incidentally, that is my threshold for meeting the definition "hot as fuck." Between 99.5° and 104.4° is just "damned hot." Unless there is an afternoon cloud providing some shade, I am now limiting my walking regimen to mornings until this heat subsides. But I digress.

I am also being weighed down by some very unpleasant political realities which, unlike the heat, will not fade away by mid-September. It's giving me a restless anxiety.

The fact that I built up a set of completely unrealistic expectations for change in the Obama administration is chewing the hell out of my raw nerves. And now that Barack Obama's approval rating is dropping, speculation is being fueled as to whether he will be a one-term president, and whether the Democrats will start losing seats in the 2010 mid-terms if the economy hasn't improved substantially by this time next year. In the meantime, everyone is scrambling to figure out what to do.

The looming political battle is about how to respond, and three camps are forming. The first includes the White House and most Democratic leaders in Congress, who champion a wait-and-see approach until more of the stimulus money hits the streets.

White House officials estimate that the government has committed $158 billion for spending around the country, but only about one-third of that has been spent. Temporary tax cuts have totaled about $43 billion thus far, according to White House estimates.

A second camp, consisting of nervous Democrats and some economists, argues that the government must spur the economy with another round of spending, tax cuts or a mixture of both.

The third camp is led by Republicans, many of whom argue that the spending program was wrong from the start and that the government should focus on tax cuts.

Ahh, yes, the same old tired song and dance routine. Maybe we need a fourth camp.

I keep asking myself, "why are our choices limited to center-right Democrats or far-right Republicans?" The progressive left really isn't getting much of a shot at fixing the problems if we keep becoming disillusioned with a lack of progress among the current crop and then swing wildly back to the right in 2010 and/or 2012.

Then I realize that is the only scenario because this country will probably require another century or two for us to get our shit together. Because the substantive change I am seeking is not going to be brought about by Congressional coddling, reaching across the aisle, and compromising on critically important matters.

To use a beer analogy, when I voted for change, it was not to replace Bud Light with Miller Lite, or even Heineken. I want to be knocked off my feet by a rich, dark, smoky unpasteurized brew on tap, with a thick frothy head, served in a pint glass instead of an aluminum can.

Unfortunately, that's not the American way. And this reluctance to not only embrace change, but failing to aggressively pursue it, could well be our downfall.

The level of corruption in politics is astounding, and our political system itself seems to be choking our hope, or mine at least. Here is one example which brilliantly illustrates the gross inefficiency of our federal and state governments.

According to an analysis by The New York Times of 5,274 transportation projects approved so far — the most complete look yet at how states plan to spend their stimulus money — the 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest pot of transportation stimulus money. In many cases, they have lost a tug of war with state lawmakers that urban advocates say could hurt the nation’s economic engines.

The stimulus law provided $26.6 billion for highways, bridges and other transportation projects, but left the decision on how to spend most of it to the states, which have a long history of giving short shrift to major metropolitan areas when it comes to dividing federal transportation money. Now that all 50 states have beat a June 30 deadline by winning approval for projects that will use more than half of that transportation money, worth $16.4 billion, it is clear that the stimulus program will continue that pattern of spending disproportionately on rural areas.

“If we’re trying to recover the nation’s economy, we should be focusing where the economy is, which is in these large areas,” said Robert Puentes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, which advocates more targeted spending. “But states take this peanut-butter approach, taking the dollars and spreading them around very thinly, rather than taking the dollars and concentrating them where the most complex transportation problems are.”

[...]

Seattle found itself shut out when lawmakers in the State of Washington divided the first pot of stimulus money. Missouri has directed nearly half its money to 89 small counties which, together, make up only a quarter of the state’s population. The United States Conference of Mayors, which did its own analysis of different data last month, concluded that the nation’s metropolitan areas were being “shortchanged.”

Basically, the stimulus money, or the transportation segment of it at least, is simply being squandered with no rhyme, reason or logic.

Oh, there's a reason all right (emphasis mine):

“We have a long history of shortchanging cities and metropolitan areas and allocating transportation money to places where few people live,” said Owen D. Gutfreund, an assistant professor of urban planning at the City University of New York who wrote “20th Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape” (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Professor Gutfreund said that in some states the distribution was driven by statehouse politics, with money spread to the districts of as many lawmakers as possible, or given out as political favors. In others, he said, the money is distributed by formulas that favor rural areas or that give priority to state-owned roads, often found far outside of urban areas.

Here we are facing the most dire economic situation since the Great Depression and it's still all about selfish personal greed in political circles. Have no fear, this is all part of the Obama administration's master plan:

Obama administration officials, who have called for ending sprawl and making sure that federal transportation spending is cost-effective, say they are looking at how states are spending the money from the stimulus law, officially called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the current system.

“The transparency that comes with Recovery Act funds is letting us see what’s happening in real time, and that’s a good thing,” said Roy Kienitz, an under secretary of transportation for policy. “Understanding where recovery dollars go and why will help us determine how to shape long-term transportation policies with the goal of getting the most benefit for every dollar.”

Bull-fucking-shit! Come on! This behavior is nothing new; this has been going on in some form or another through the centuries.

It is clear that states and politicians cannot be trusted to spend the stimulus money wisely, and as it was intended. Hooray for transparency so we can all be annoyed. Well, except for the millions of Americans who aren't paying attention. I know, I know, I'm being too harsh. Let them get through their Michael Jackson grief and then I'm sure they'll come around.

Aside from the economy and the recovery efforts, there's tremendous pressure to overhaul health care which, if the transportation stimulus spending provides any clues, we are likely to get screwed in the ass on that front as well. There isn't a perfect health care scenario, but you can bet we could do a whole lot better than what we'll end up with once Obama and Congress are done compromising and kissing ass with Big Pharma.

The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.

[...]

The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. And even in a city where lobbying is a part of life, the scale of the effort has drawn attention. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million.

The push has reunited many who worked together in government on health-care reform, but are now employed as advocates for pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

It is ironic that the entire health care reform movement is one giant spreading cancer. But that's politics and the American way again. Expect real substantive change and progress and ye shall be disappointed.

Outside the unpleasant realm of health care and the economy, things aren't any better on the civil rights front. We continue having to fight like hell over no-brainer issues like DADT (although hope is brewing), which makes a repeal of DOMA and full nationwide marriage equality seem hopelessly distant. At least one state has the cajones to go to battle for justice.

Even this initial breath of fresh air is already stagnated a few miles up the coast.
Barely two months after Maine became the fifth state to allow gay marriage, 55,087 assholes have now signed a petition to put that up for a public vote. Thank the Catholic Diocese of Portland and others for that effort. And people wonder why I have such issues with organized religion.

We'll now have that homophobic gem in our faces, along with a big infusion of cash from out-of-state interests to push infuriatingly obnoxious bullshit advertising for weeks leading up to the election day showdown.

Whoever first uttered the words "life is just not fair" deserves a gold brick award for overachieving in understatements.

For the record, in a battle between red and blue, this is not how a progressive country should look.

But once the summer heat subsides, I'm sure I'll calm down and realize just how irrational I'm feeling at the moment.

A Post-Bailout Revamped GM

Yesterday I got a credit card statement with a few extra fliers in it, one of which was this little piece from GM promoting their all new fuel-efficient green technological marvel .... Hummer!

I mean, seriously, what the flying fuck? I don't know how else to respond.

Because the vast majority of Americans need this vehicle since we are constantly like, you know, driving in the woods and over huge boulders and shit.

Kill the F-22

Why is this a quandary?

Two of President-elect Barack Obama’s stated goals — cutting wasteful spending and saving or creating millions of jobs — are on a collision course in a looming decision over whether to keep building the F-22 fighter jet.

Air Force officials have told Congress that they are hoping to win a $9 billion commitment to produce at least 60 F-22s over a three-year period, which would expand the fleet to 243.

But the F-22, a stealthy, supersonic fighter that was designed during the cold war and has never been used in combat, has many critics, and they include Robert M. Gates, who will remain Defense secretary in the Obama administration.

So why would we consider spending another $9 billion on this albatross? Ummm, jobs, of course.

Meanwhile, supporters of the F-22 program — which has cost more than $65 billion so far — argue that Mr. Obama should extend its production, at least temporarily, to preserve thousands of jobs related to building the jets, which cost $143 million each.

Pardon me. I feel bad for the workers who would lose their jobs but let's get real.

The logic in supporting this program is like me making the case for charging up $100,000 on my American Express card for things I'll never really use because I want the frequent flyer miles for a first-class flight to Europe.

My 100-Cents Worth

The US Mint is working on another design in a series of the dollar coins which most people have never seen unless the have used a vending machine at the post office which dispensed an amount of change greater than a dollar.

Austin has been selected as one of the cities where the dollar coins are being aggressively marketed. I've heard a number of promotional ads on the radio for the coins. And all this strikes me as odd. The United States Mint has faced a steep uphill acceptance battle ever since is released a redesign of the $2 bill back in the 1970s.

The government is spending money to persuade people how cool it is to use the new dollar coins, and expecting them to go the extra mile to visit a bank and request them and spend them, only to have them tossed in the back of the till by merchants and ultimately returned to the banks where the process theoretically renews itself.

This is a foolish waste of money and it won't work. Furthermore there is an easy solution to this problem which would require far less marketing and would save us $318 million annually. Maybe.

The obvious logical solution is to phase out the paper dollar entirely which would result in dollar coins being put to use immediately. The paper dollars have a very limited lifespan of just a few months whereas the coins last many years thus offsetting their higher production cost.

Of course, konagod always like to stir the pot even more. I would utilize the $2 bills to replace the dollar bills. There are millions of them printed already, sitting in vaults. What a waste. And what's the point? Sometimes I think we like to print currency and mint coins just for the hell of it.

If a dollar coin and a $2 bill still don't provide you with enough spending variables, well, there's always the half-dollar which weighs probably twice as much as the dollar coins, and for some odd reason is still being minted.

Corn, beans and squash — the “three sisters” of Native American agricultural tradition — will appear on the nation’s one-dollar coins next year, in a design to be announced Friday by the United States Mint.

By the dictates of an act that Congress passed last year, the reverse side of the gold-colored Sacagawea dollars will bear a new design each year starting in 2009, as part of a thematic series showing Native American contributions to the history and development of the United States.

Another day, another dollar.

A Catastrophe at the Texas Governor's Mansion

Governor Rick (Good Hair) Perry is a catastrophe all right but he's not the subject of this post.

Arson is suspected in the fire that struck the historic Texas Governor's Mansion early Sunday, causing damage that state officials described as ''bordering on catastrophic,'' the state fire marshal said.

The mansion is a national historic landmark. Built in 1856, it is the oldest continually used executive residence west of the Mississippi, according to the group Friends of the Governor's Mansion, which works to preserve and show the public the historic building.

It makes me sad to see historic structures destoryed. Even if they are inhabited by one or more pricks.

I guess us taxpayers here in the Lone Star State are now stuck for awhile longer paying for Perry's $9,900 a month rental home. A free triple-wide is probably out of the question. We do things "a little differently" here in Texas.

Crossposted at Big Brass Blog

Nuclear Waste On Many Fronts

While I am on the subject of clean energy, I must share this from today's NYT. I've heard from many people that nuclear is getting better, safer and cleaner -- no wet clean-up on aisle 6 just yet. (Oops!)

And since the Europeans are embracing it, and are having few, if any, problems, why shouldn't we?

Unfortunately, the United States is not dealing with this very efficiently.

Forgotten but not gone, the waste from more than 100 nuclear reactors that the federal government was supposed to start accepting for burial 10 years ago is still at the reactor sites, at least 20 years behind schedule. But it is making itself felt in the federal budget.

Right off the bat, I have an issue. "Forgotten?" Who forgot about it? Not me, I've been ranting about this for longer than I've had a blog. I must be alone. But let's continue; it gets better. And prepare yourself; this next excerpt contains a word which may offend. That "b" word.

With court orders and settlements, the federal government has already paid the utilities $342 million, but is virtually certain to pay a total of at least $7 billion in the next few years and probably over $11 billion, government officials said. The industry said the total could reach $35 billion.

The payments come from an obscure and poorly understood government account that requires no new Congressional appropriations, and will balloon in size, experts said.

Granted, $35 billion isn't a huge sum in the grand scheme of things, since we're about to hand ourselves $152 billion to help stimulate Wal-Mart the economy and bail us out of a recession. Seriously, how many other instances are there in which a few billion here and a few billion there are tossed out like candy at a parade? It adds up.

At some point, the escalating costs slow down, because some of the expenses for dry storage are incurred only once, like the engineering work, or installation of a crane to get the cask in and out of the spent fuel pool, officials said. But costs rise again at the point where the reactor that generated the fuel becomes too old to run, and is torn down; at that point, the entire expense of the guard force and the maintenance workers are attributable to the waste.

That has already happened in California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Michigan.

Let's ditch the idea once and for all that nuclear energy is the long-term solution to our problem, and that it is clean. It is not. We may indeed need to rely on nuclear energy for a long while because we've dragged our ass on so many other fronts, but I sincerely hope we can avoid a proliferation of these beasts and begin to phase them out, and soon.

Each reactor typically creates about 20 tons of waste a year, which is approximately two new casks, at roughly $1 million each. If a repository or interim site opened, clearing the backlog would take decades, experts say. At present, waste is in temporary storage at 122 sites in 39 states.

The Energy Department has launched an initiative to gather the waste and run it through a factory to recover re-usable components, which would allow centralized storage, but that program’s prospects are highly uncertain.

The government has spent $11 billion on Yucca Mountain, Mr. Sproat said. The project has dragged on so long that some of the research data is stored on obsolete computers that must be replaced, program officials said.

Clean, cheap and efficient. Right. But a ton of lawyers must LOVE it.

Yea! Free Money!

All this hoopla over the bipartisan stimulus package is almost comical were it not so sad.

President Bush hailed "the kind of cooperation that some predicted was not possible here in Washington." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) used the words "bipartisan" and "bipartisanship" 10 times in a brief appearance. "Many Americans believe that Washington is broken," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). "But I think this agreement, and I hope that this agreement, will show the American people that we can fix it."

Print that $150 billion quickly because I can hardly wait to get my hands on my $600. Certainly, this will help millions of people temporarily who have been struggling to make ends meet day in and day out for years. For those in or near poverty, and others living paycheck to paycheck, this money is guaranteed to be spent, and hopefully spent wisely. Because it is a one shot deal.

And while the politicians are all gloating and patting each other on the back for their bipartisan success, I sincerely hope they are planning ahead for the day when the honeymoon is over. Once the money is spent, and the lucky retailers on the receiving end of this windfall have tallied up their profits, I have a fear we'll quickly return to face the music of a dismal economy.

Few economists thought the stimulus plan alone would be adequate to keep the economy clear of a recession. Yet many portrayed the package as a significant psychological boost for anxious markets around the world, a sign that the Washington overseers of the American economy are seriously engaged in finding a fix.

“It is a much needed and very constructive step,” said Lawrence H. Summers, the Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration who has recently called for specific and temporary tax cuts. “It will provide some confidence. But policy-making will need to be on standby, because more may be needed.”

Indeed, this is nothing more than a "psychological boost" and more is definitely needed. And what is most irksome is how the Democrats caved in to the misguided notions of the Bush Administration yet again, and minority groups are most likely to be battered hardest should the recession intensify.

Democrats had sought the extension of unemployment benefits and an increase in food stamps. Research shows these measures deliver the largest increases in spending, because poor people are prone to buy what they need when given the chance. Wealthy people, by contrast, tend to save more when taxes are cut.

The Bush administration insisted on rebates alone, and House Democrats relented in exchange for adding payments to people who do not pay income taxes.

“They gave up pieces of the package that were more effective,” said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington, who blamed the Bush administration for blocking the expansion of benefits. “It’s a political choice, and a bad one. It’s an ideology that says, ‘I can get a lot more credit for tax cuts than I can for expanding unemployment insurance.’ ”

Unemployment among blacks and Hispanics has been rising at triple the rate for whites, while the time it takes for people to find new jobs has been lengthening, according to government data. Some experts argue that by failing to expand unemployment benefits, the plan leaves minority groups most vulnerable to a recession.

Paul Krugman's op-ed piece in the New York Times today echoes these concerns.

Specifically, the Democrats appear to have buckled in the face of the Bush administration’s ideological rigidity, dropping demands for provisions that would have helped those most in need. And those happen to be the same provisions that might actually have made the stimulus plan effective.

[...]

That’s why many of the stimulus proposals we were hearing just a few days ago focused in the first place on expanding programs that specifically help people who have fallen on hard times, especially unemployment insurance and food stamps. And these were the stimulus ideas that received the highest grades in a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

There was also some talk among Democrats about providing temporary aid to state and local governments, whose finances are being pummeled by the weakening economy. Like help for the unemployed, this would have done double duty, averting hardship and heading off spending cuts that could worsen the downturn.

But the Bush administration has apparently succeeded in killing all of these ideas, in favor of a plan that mainly gives money to those least likely to spend it.

In any event, let's not get too excited. It appears unlikely these funds will be in the hands of consumers before June due to the IRS being unable to begin processing these payments until the bulk of tax filings for 2007 have been completed -- usually at the end of May.

Speaking only for myself, I'm not sure what I will do with my $600 but the odds are it will not be spent at Wal-Mart, Target or Circuit City, nor is it likely to be spent at my local supermarket unless my current unemployment status is extended into the summer. Although I am jobless, I am still among the lucky ones whose receipt of these funds is unlikely to stimulate the economy. In fact, I think I might simply tack it on to that month's mortgage payment. A step closer to having a mortgage-free life is my own personal definition of security.

One Nation Under Madness

I'm not sure what happened on 9/11/01 but it was far more than an attack from terrorists. As we approach the 6th anniversary of this horrific nightmare, I've watched America further deteriorate into something I barely recognize.

We seem to have lost any ability to get along with others, celebrate diversity, or even to tolerate diversity. We seem to crave an enemy, a threat, in order to preserve our perception of the American way of life.

There is a evil undercurrent fast at work driving wedges between groups and pitting neighbor against neighbor, and it's ugly. This vile force has large numbers of Americans wrongly believing that our culture faces extinction, that God has somehow been expelled from our nation by liberals (oh, if only we had that kind of power), that the English language is in danger, and of course, that gays, lesbians, and especially the transgendered threaten the very foundation of our society.

What the fuck is wrong with us?

The Republicans debated in Des Moines this weekend. You know something good is coming out of that.

Say It, Even If It Ain't So
Because we're so dumb we'll probably believe it if we hear it repeated enough.

As in past encounters, the Republicans largely agreed on the need to continue the Iraq war, saying that leaving the country too quickly would disrupt the fight against terrorism.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), whose front-runner status has slipped away in a wave of fundraising and staff woes, stuck to his guns on the war, saying there will be catastrophic consequences if America abandons Iraq.

"We are winning. We must win. And we will not set a date for surrender, as the Democrats want us to do," McCain said.

Define "winning."

And while we're on this road, define incompetence.
How the hell can we win a war if we can't even keep track of our own weapons?

"They really have no idea where they are," said Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information who has studied small-arms trade and received Pentagon briefings on the issue. "It likely means that the United States is unintentionally providing weapons to bad actors."

Meanwhile, have a look at success:

Jihad Wali, 35, victim of a roadside bomb that killed nine civilians and wounded eight.

How many hundreds of thousands of times has this scene played out in Iraq?

Bush is a great multitasker. While wreaking havoc overseas, he can simultaneously do it at home.

"We must remember that our work is not done," Bush said upon signing the [eavesdropping] bill...

Most Americans will pay little or no attention to this because we're all a little too concerned about another dangerous threat: illegal immigrants seeking hard work and a better life for them and their families. God knows, I sure can't sleep at night with so many brown-skinned people coming here to work, sleep, pay rent, eat strange food and speak some inferior language which I can't understand.

Spurred by rising resentment in the country over illegal immigration and by the collapse of a broad immigration bill in the Senate in June, state legislators nationwide adopted measures to curb employment of unauthorized immigrants and to make it more difficult for them to obtain state identification documents like driver’s licenses.

[...]

State lawmakers have introduced about two and half times more immigration bills this year than in 2006, and the number that have become law is more than double the 84 bills enacted last year, according to the conference, a nonpartisan organization that includes all the state legislatures.

Big Brother is on the march in Louisiana:

The toughest law was adopted in Louisiana, which now requires applicants’ names to be checked against a federal immigration database as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s terrorism watch list.

And it's not just the dirty Mexicans getting our white wrath.
Indian immigrants are getting the cracking whip.

ISELIN, N.J., Aug. 3 — With the workweek behind him, Deepu Dass focused on a pesky bald spot in his front lawn here. As he sprayed the patch with water, urging the grass toward the perfection achieved by several neighbors, he said confidently: “I planted seeds.”

I'm happy I don't live in a neighborhood where the neighbors complain about something like a patch of imperfect grass.

There have been up to six men sharing the house, whose owners include Suresh Kumar, president of NexAge Technologies USA, a nearby software company where the tenants work. But the unusual arrangement — and the unsightly lawn — caught the attention of local housing inspectors, and in May Woodbridge Township cited Mr. Kumar for several violations, including an unauthorized boarding house and an illegal multifamily dwelling. He has until Aug. 16 to resolve the situation, which may mean kicking his workers out.

Hey, I'm all for cleaning up hazardous living conditions such as the 10 people living in a basement, and the unlicensed day care center which was set up in another house, but to clamp down on otherwise hard-working middle-class people because their culture encourages extended families living together, or because someone wants to help out co-workers by allowing five others to live with him in his home, is unnecessarily aggressive.

Sharmila Rudrappa, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of “Ethnic Routes to Becoming American: Indian Immigrants and the Cultures of Citizenship,” said it was common for Indian families to live in joint households both in their homeland and in the United States.

“My father’s brother is married to my mother’s sister,” she said. “The two families had five kids between them. We lived together for a few years, and it was kind of a wonderful way to grow up.”

The joint family arrangements have become harder to maintain in crowded Indian cities, but in American homes the practice is alive and well.

“It’s a way to ease immigration,” Professor Rudrappa said. “You help family out. Family members coming from India might not know how to drive, and grocery stores can be unnerving.”

American attitudes can be unnerving as well. I like this man's rationale:

Rakesh Patel, 34, a technology worker at a New York investment bank, said he had his three-bedroom, two-story house built here seven years ago “for family and friends.” He and his wife, two children and his parents moved from a cramped apartment in Edison. Mr. Patel’s cousin’s sister has joined the household, and Mr. Patel’s sister and three family members may soon come to stay for a while. Other relatives often visit for months at a time.

“Why not?” asked Mr. Patel, noting that he also stayed with his uncle when he first came to the United States from India in 1996. “I pay $9,000 a year in taxes.”

It's Monday. Welcome to another day in the "greatest nation on earth."


Crossposted at B3

Technology is a shitload like management

And I constantly struggle with both.

And it's not new.

Petrol Price Check

QotD: How much is premium where you are? I don't give a damn about regular since I can't use it. Just a few weeks ago it was about $2.35 here in Austin. Then I noticed it going up several cents a day and suddenly it was $2.59. I tend to notice such things while sitting on the bus staring out the window. I think I may have filled up both cars around that time. Then it kept going... $2.65, $2.75... and now premium is up to about $2.93.

Summer is quite a ways off. Apparently we're going to be seeing $3.00+ long before Memorial Day and frankly, I don't give a shit. My apologies to those of you who must drive places, but I'm glad I'll continue to take the bus to work except on days when I can't for whatever reason. High gas prices will do wonders for the alternative energy brainstorming. Not to mention the fact that I absolutely love to call someone an asshole who is speeding down the road in a Hummer, only to slam on the breaks at the red light which they could clearly have seen for half a mile before they decided to break. Have fun filling that fucker up.

Some people are stupid. Do I need to create a new label for this post? It already overlaps several. Of course if I did add a new label, I'd have to go back and apply it to the post I did this morning. But I'm not lazy. OK, "fuel" it is.

Hold On! Hold On!

If you are having to gamble to pay for education.

Aren't you just fucking yourselves?

NJ Gives a $400 Million Helping Hand to the Needy: Casinos

This is obscene.

Seven years after New Jersey legalized gambling in 1977, state lawmakers created an agency called the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to redirect some casino revenue to blighted areas in Atlantic City and across the state.

But the agency, contending that the gambling industry’s success is a critical component of the state’s economic health, has handed about $400 million back to the casinos themselves, a sum that accounts for more than 20 percent of the money it has committed since its inception.

Pardon me while I reach for some tissues to wipe the tears from my eyes. Pity the poor stuggling casinos.

The authority has subsidized construction of 13,000 hotel rooms in the city, 800 of them planned for a tower under construction at the Trump Taj Mahal. The agency spent $3.7 million for an IMAX theater to be built at the Tropicana Casino and Resort, where its grants also helped finance three floors of elegant stores, restaurants and a spa. An additional $26 million went to help build the House of Blues and to spruce up the facade at Showboat.

If you think that's the best part, just wait. I've got a better one:

The agency has also pitched in for “parking lot beautification” at Showboat and road signs for Resorts and the Taj Mahal.

Screw the poor; Showboat needs a new parking lot. I do hope to see some genuine outrage in the Garden State.

David Sciarra, who helped to write the legislation that created the reinvestment authority while working as a deputy public advocate, said that giving the money to the casinos “really goes against the very purpose of C.R.D.A.”

“It was not set up to finance industry-related projects because the industry clearly has the resources to do that on its own,” said Mr. Sciarra, who now runs a nonprofit group in Newark to help disadvantaged students. “This is a betrayal of the very promise that was made to the citizens: That the casinos would have a social responsibility to invest a small percentage of their revenue through the C.R.D.A. to help make sure residents, especially the poor, had better housing and neighborhoods.”

[...]

...despite the authority’s disbursements, Atlantic City continues to grapple with blocks of dilapidated buildings and seamy motels that draw drug dealers and prostitutes, all within the shadows of towering, brightly lighted casinos.

I must stop blogging now until my dizziness and nausea fades.

What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy

That is the title of an article in today's New York Times by David Leonhardt and it's quite interesting.

I recently suggested that for a fraction of the Iraq war cost, America could eliminate the problem of homelessness considering the cost of the war represents over $500,000 for each homeless person in the country.

This was perhaps the most interesting fact from the article, just in case some of you forgot:

In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.

[...]

“This war has skewed our thinking about resources,” said Mr. Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group. “In the context of the war, $20 billion is nothing.”

So very true and what a shame.

Tsunami Survivers Continue to Face Challenges

That shouldn't come as a surprise given the problems we've seen with Katrina relief right here in our own country.

Two years after the devastating tsunami, life in Banda Aceh is far from normal.

All across the ravaged cityscape, scraped bare by the waves, thousands of tiny, toy-box houses have sprung up in recent months as a program of rebuilding gains momentum. But many of the new houses are empty because they lack water, sanitation and electricity and because there are no schools, clinics or commercial activity nearby.

Billions of dollars in aid were pledged. I recall making a contribution myself. Now I seriously wonder just how much of my $125 donation actually helped those in need as opposed to those handling the money bags.

But by some estimates only one-third of the promised aid has been distributed to affected countries, and much of that has been lost to corruption, mismanagement, political squabbles and bureaucratic dead ends.

Hundreds of thousands of people still have no permanent homes or jobs, and it seems that many will live out their lives as refugees of the tsunami.

In India, the British aid group Oxfam estimates that 70 percent of affected people still live in temporary shelters. In Sri Lanka the revival of a civil war has made life even more precarious for survivors.

I cannot even begin to fathom the logistics of an international relief effort of this magnitude. But am I wrong for expecting those who are involved, and their governments, to think this through to a logical conclusion? What a waste and a missed opportunity for creating new jobs and training for those people.

“We are constantly overwhelmed by the massive task confronting us,” said the director of the Indonesian government’s reconstruction agency, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, at a conference of donors in New York in November.

One of the poorest provinces in Indonesia, Aceh cannot easily absorb the $7.1 billion in international aid that has been pledged, Mr. Kuntoro said, and does not have the capacity to carry out the quantity of rebuilding that is needed. Some projects have been put off, he told reporters here, because the province has only nine asphalt plants and cannot meet the demand.

Major Overhaul of US Currency Overdue

One thing I recall from overseas travel was how easily one could distinguish the various denominations of currency. In England for instance, a £50 note was larger in size than a £5 note. At the time I was there, £1 notes were in circulation but I believe those were replaced by coins -- a smart move and one we should have replicated here in the US years ago. I don't even have impaired vision but it made it very easy for me to know how much cash I had in my hand by the size of the banknotes.

The $1 note is not cost-effective to produce given it's lifespan relative to the larger notes. Furthermore, the US Treasury has issued $2 notes that have never been used in widespread circulation. Ditto for the $1 coins which should have replaced the $1 notes.

It is doubtful that very many people in the US have ever contemplated the challenges faced by the blind and vision-impaired when it comes to handling currency. Unfortunately, seeing eye dogs have not advanced that far. Things may soon change:

U.S. District Judge James Robertson on Tuesday ordered the Treasury Department to start working on the problem, leaving it up to government officials to determine the best solution. Possible changes include making bills of differing sizes or adding embossed dots or raised ink.

The government has 10 days to decide whether to appeal the ruling. The Treasury Department had no immediate comment.

The possibility of an appeal makes my blood boil. There is no logic in appealing.

Electronic devices are available to help blind people differentiate between bills, but many complain that they are slow, expensive and unreliable. Visually impaired shoppers frequently rely on store clerks to help them.

''It's just frankly unfair that blind people should have to rely on the good faith of people they have never met in knowing whether they've been given the correct change,'' said Jeffrey A. Lovitky, attorney for the blind plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

[...]

''Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations,'' Robertson wrote. ''More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired.''

In court documents, government attorneys said changing the way money feels would be expensive. Cost estimates ranged from $75 million in equipment upgrades and $9 million annual expenses for punching holes in bills to $178 million in one-time charges and $50 million annual expenses for printing bills of varying sizes.

Boo hoo. Pity the poor government. Why do we continue to mint pennies when the cost to stamp them out is more than they are worth?

The US mint produces about 7 billion pennies every year (roughly half of all coins made each year), at a cost of $100 million dollars. About one-third of this money is used to pay for the zinc that pennies are made out of, which is why the zinc industry is lobbying to keep the penny in production.

When I see wasteful spending it's usually not hard to find a lobbyist culprit just below the surface.

In addition to ceasing production of the penny, we need to stop printing one-dollar bills. We already have the dollar coins which are not being used, and will not be used, as long as $1 notes are still thrust on us.

Retailers wouldn't even need to redesign their tills. Elimination of the penny would make room for the dollar coins and elimination of the $1 note would allow the $2 note to replace it.



The dollar coins coupled with the $2 bill would be a wise first step for the government to take as we begin the process of making our currency more easily recognizable to all citizens.


Let's stop wasting money; call off the lawyers, forget the appeals, and move forward with a currency plan that makes sense... for once.

Crossposted at B3