Daily Goods

• Pandagon — point out the inherent illogic of human interaction

• Hullabaloo on sacrifices & trying to make sense of what Dubyah's saying
• Kevin Drum on the VA system as a model to be emulated or sabotaged
• Angry Bear about transfer pricing & Ireland

New "feature"

Starting today, I'm going to be doing daily posts when appropriate merely consisting of links to comments I've made on other blogs, and perhaps sometimes even to posts on other blogs where I haven't commented on. The main reason for this is to show a bit more of my thinking than my somewhat sporadic posting here reveals, and incidentally to give myself a handy reference wherein I can find those comments I've left elsewhere but forgotten just where. Secondarily, it's a way to indicate others' posts that I find interesting enough to comment on (although often, that interest is merely that it conjures up a "witty" joke that I just can't pass up, so quality is not assured).

In doing this, I'll be modifying my general rule of never editing a post without noting it (usually with "Update:", "Added:", or "Edit:"). These I'll be adding to over the day (or however long) as I make comments, or find interesting articles. This way, I won't fall into the Eschaton trap of posting a dozen or two one-sentence links to articles in one day. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's just not my style.

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I'll start off with a few comments from the recent past, both for their own sake, and as example of the fairly standardized format I'll be using.

• Pharyngula — me being a smart aleck about PZ's apparent 70s/80s/90s confusion
• Pharyngula — me being a smart aleck about language evolution
• Pharyngula — a warning of the dangers of watching Darwin's Deadly Legacy
• Pharyngula — Finally getting away from the smart–aleckness, I suggest a blog meme I'd like to see start making the rounds; with followups here and here.
• Jon Swift — a little snark about the fellow who claims that "science is dead."
• Pandagon — I point out the word Amanda was looking for.
• Pandagon — I point out the word Brooklyn Girl might have been looking for.
• Pandagon — Trying to make sense of the new FDA Plan B rules
• Pandagon — acknowledge the Dickensian qualities of Blackwell's health care proposal for Ohio, and then ask a little about Marx

A little bonus for today (I might make this semi-regular as well), my self-quoting of the day:

At least it isn't unrequited hatred. I hate that, even if it doesn't hate me back.

Added: Another note on my editing existing posts is that most browsers probably won't retrieve the updates when you first visit, until there's a new post. You may have to refresh after loading for newest content (like this very paragraph).

Overextended metaphor

Rush Limbaugh yesterday:

We didn’t teach them how to fish. We gave them the fish. We didn’t teach them how to slaughter the cow to get the butter. We gave them the butter. The real bloat here as we know is in government.

OK, aside from the obvious mangling of cliche in the third sentence, even the sentiment of the first sentence is overlooking the reality of it. Perhaps we are giving "'em" fish, but it seems to me nobody's willing to give them a fishing pole or bait, either. So teaching them to fish is pretty pointless.

Updated: Put in the exact transcript version of what was said, now that it's available.
Added: For that matter, he probably thinks it would be a bull you'd slaughter for butter, a la the Bushs' stallion-milking joke.

Some moron wrote:

What always puzzles me about Paul Krugman and his claims about inequality is why he doesn't seem to realize how silly he sounds when he refuses to acknowledge, and take some pride in the fact, that he is part of that top 1 percent. I find it hard to imagine that Paul Krugman's income in 2004 wasn't above $277,000, between his income from his university, his speaking engagements, his books, his columns, and his investments.

Now, does Paul Krugman think that he was just a tool of the "New Gilded Age" politicos? Does he owe his income gains to the people he despises, those nasty Republicans and that ridiculously centrist Clinton? I'd like to know. I suspect that if you asked him why his income grew to the point where he's in the top 1 percent, he would give some long answer, the shorter version of which is that he's "highly educated" and he's not lazy.

And the salient fact about this explanation is that it is accurate. Krugman's about as highly educated as you can get. He's got plenty of skills and occasionally (though not here) a good argument. People like what he does and he gets paid for it. Good for him. But good for Secretary Paulson as well, since Paul Krugman's own experience supports both parts of Paulson's assertion.

OK, then, what if you want to hear from someone well out of the top percentile? Here you go (let's say these happen to exactly match my own thoughts):

But he [Treasury Secretary Paulson] quickly reverted to form, falsely implying that rising inequality is mainly a story about rising wages for the highly educated. And he argued that nothing can be done about this trend, that “it is simply an economic reality, and it is neither fair nor useful to blame any political party.”

History suggests otherwise.

I’ve been studying the long-term history of inequality in the United States. And it’s hard to avoid the sense that it matters a lot which political party, or more accurately, which political ideology rules Washington.

Since the 1920’s there have been four eras of American inequality:

• The Great Compression, 1929-1947: The birth of middle-class America. The real wages of production workers in manufacturing rose 67 percent, while the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans actually fell 17 percent.
• The Postwar Boom, 1947-1973: An era of widely shared growth. Real wages rose 81 percent, and the income of the richest 1 percent rose 38 percent.
• Stagflation, 1973-1980: Everyone lost ground. Real wages fell 3 percent, and the income of the richest 1 percent fell 4 percent.
• The New Gilded Age, 1980-?: Big gains at the very top, stagnation below. Between 1980 and 2004, real wages in manufacturing fell 1 percent, while the real income of the richest 1 percent — people with incomes of more than $277,000 in 2004 — rose 135 percent.

What’s noticeable is that except during stagflation, when virtually all Americans were hurt by a tenfold increase in oil prices, what happened in each era was what the dominant political tendency of that era wanted to happen.

 

So what the hell is your argument against that now? And if you actually have an argument against me saying that, why didn't you bring that to the gunfight along with your lame-ass ad hominem butter knife?

Say what?!?

OK, today's big news, the judge in Michigan ruled that the NSA's warrantless wiretapping is illegal. But one particular line jumped out at me here (emphasis added):

All of the above Congressional concessions to Executive need and to the exegencies of our present situation as a people, however, have been futile. The wiretapping program here in litigation has undisputedly been continued for at least five years, it has undisputedly been implemented without regard to FISA and of course the more stringent standards of Title III, and obviously in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Has this administration been using warrantless wiretaps before 9/11 even happened? If so, then two questions come immediately to mind: What was the justification for it at the time, and how useful do they seem to be if they couldn't stop any hypothetical people "determined to strike U.S." with the warrantless wiretaps?

Q: What does Bush call violating the privacy of 26 million Americans?

A: A start.

Pet Peeve Day at Liberal Hyperbole

Just wanted to note a little something that's always bugged me since that second third dark day in 2001: people referring to "the Patriot Act." It's an acronym, which stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"; in full form, the acronym is "USA PATRIOT Act." It has no relationship with the common nouns "patriot" or "patriotism," nor the adjective "patriotic," unless it's that of antonymism.

So, please, stop calling it what it isn't. Or Rep. Sensenbrenner might be angry with you for abusing his oh-so-clever acronymic title.

Logic says they don't get the contract.

Dallas Business Journal:

After discussing the huge strides the agency has made in doing business with minority-owned companies, [HUD Secretary Alphonso] Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

"He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," Jackson said of the prospective contractor. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something ... he said, 'I have a problem with your president.'

"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

There's been something about him claiming it was just a joke, and it never really happened, but I don't care whether it's just a joke. (Although I do care about whether it happened.) Regardless, it conveyed the message to his audience that they'd better go along with the Administration if they want in on those juicy contracts. And that's bad enough by itself to call for his head, whether or not he ever actually turned a contractor down for saying such a thing.

[The Real Estate Executive Council] attendee Junior Glymph, a defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys, said he could see Jackson's point.

"Everyone is entitled to their opinion," he said. "But in politics, you have to watch what you say."

But this wasn't supposed to be politics—this was supposed to be about government. You know, actually running the country, not running for the office.

Just a thought...

Perhaps Porter Goss should have released his medical records to the public, much like some expected John Kerry to do when running for President.

Who knows what kinds of fun and exciting diseases he might have been treated for in the past decade or two?

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Added: More seriously, I wonder if there might be a connection in the timing, besides the obvious Hookergate possibilities, to the Mary McCarthy business a couple of weeks ago?

They're doing it again (or still?)

From a Wall Street Journal editorial defending & supporting Donald Rumsfeld today (via CNN, since WSJ is subscriber-only):

"It unfortunately appears that two of the retired generals (Messrs. Zinni and Newbold) do not understand the true nature of this radical ideology, Islamic extremism, and why we fight in Iraq. We suggest they listen to the tapes of United 93."

9/11!! Iraq!! Saddam!! WMDs!! Mushroom cloud!! We're all going to DIE!!!

Unless you appropriately support our SecDef, and our Preznit!

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Added: By the way, I fully expect all those who condemned the general officers critical of Rumsfeld's performance for speaking out about political matters to be tripping over themselves to condemn Gens. Crosby, McInerney, Moore, & Vallely. I'm starting to hold my breath, right now....

Blaming the messenger

The United States has criticized an Australian television network's release of grisly images that show apparent detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq....

American officials have said the pictures should not have been released, with Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman telling The Associated Press their airing "could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world."

Seems to me they/we ought to maybe be more concerned that detainee abuse "could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world."

Too busy?

So, Cheney's handlers say that they didn't immediately notify the press that the Vice-President had shot a man while hunting because they were too busy seeing to his care:

The White House is defending its delay in disclosing Vice President Dick Cheney's weekend hunting accident, telling reporters Monday the focus was on making sure the man Cheney shot got medical attention.

Cheney was hunting quail at a friend's South Texas ranch when he shot and wounded Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old attorney from Austin and Bush-Cheney campaign contributor, about 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Whittington, who was hit with birdshot in the face, neck and upper torso, was being moved out of intensive care Monday at a hospital in Corpus Christi, officials at the facility said.

President Bush was told Saturday night that Cheney had been involved in a hunting accident, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. But Cheney's office did not acknowledge the shooting to the public until Sunday afternoon, after the family that owns the ranch told a Corpus Christi newspaper about it.

"It's important, always, to work to make sure you get information out like this as quickly as possible," McClellan said. "But it's also important to make sure that the first priority is focused where it should be, and that is making sure that Mr. Whittington has the care that he needs."

So, Scotty, are you saying that seeing to one man's medical needs is all your administration can handle? Why should we trust you with a drug plan then, much less something like the War on Terror/Iraq?

Remember when Bush was so stridently insistent that his administration could "do more than one thing at a time"?

Saying the war in Iraq was "taking up all the energy" of President Bush's foreign policy team, [Madeleine Albright] asked Mr. Bush whether he had let nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea spin out of control, and Latin America and China policy suffer by benign neglect.

"I can't let this comment stand," Mr. Bush shot back, telling Ms. Albright and the rare assembly of her colleagues, who reached back to the Kennedy White House, that his administration "can do more than one thing at a time."

And similarly on the Lehrer NewsHour?

JIM LEHRER: No, I was just going to say in that respect directly, do you have any second thoughts now about not having first eliminated Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida before taking on Saddam Hussein and Iraq?

PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I really don't because-- and I know we can do more than one thing at a time. We have got special operators and capable intelligence folks on the hunt all the time, and we've done a very good job of dismantling al-Qaida's operating structure, at least the operating structure that was in tact before September 11th, like Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, and mainly Osama bin Laden himself has not yet been brought to justice. But we dismantled al-Qaida, and they're constantly trying to reconstitute themselves and we're constantly on the hunt which is what America is going to have to do for quite a period of time.

("On the hunt," great choice of words.) So the administration can absolutely be trusted to handle these many facets of foreign policy at once, to the point that Bush "can't let this comment stand," and has to interrupt himself to say that "we can do more than one thing at a time" about intelligence operations. But expecting them to keep an eye on one man's medical condition and communicate with the press about it — what, do they look like some kind of miracle workers?

The Torture Matrix

It might be for the best to read my "Inconceivable!" post from the relatively recent past before reading the rest of this post.

Again, I was randomly thinking of sci-fi stuff, and The Matrix somehow crossed my mind. (I'm not a big fan, especially given its massive reality holes, but it's got a few points.) I got to thinking of the scene from the first movie (I try not to remember that there were others after that) where Agent Smith is trying to find out from Morpheus the passwords for or location of Zion, or something like that. And I started thinking, if these Agents et al. are totally in control of the Matrix in this hypothetical world, why does it seem that they're giving Morpheus some kind of truth serum, when they're in total control of his world? I mean, compared to what they should be capable of imposing on him, the Bush regime's waterboarding & wiring up etc. would be pretty tame.

And then, something popped into my head in connection with this, which I've sort of known for a while now, but which hadn't made quite such an immediate connection as of yet: I've expected for a short while now, that fairly soon, we'll be technically capable of tapping in to the neural inputs of the brain, to some degree. And I would think that one of the very simplest things to do, along these lines, would be the simulation of pure, raw pain. (If I had to guess, given the current state of the art (i.e., monkeys being able to control arms and such), I'd expect this in between five and twenty years, a rather broad span.)

And this lead, inevitably, to the thought: If we did gain the technical capability to simulate such complete and thorough pain, where would that leave our current policies on torture? I divvied it up into a few different possibilities: Does "organ failure" mean a level of pain similar to organ failure, or the actual threat of organ failure? If the former, then pain stimulation can totally bypass any such rule. Similar questions surround the matter of whether "cruel and unusual punishment" describes any hypothetical torture technique that might cause incredible psychic damage, but leave no physical scars at all. (In case it isn't obvious, I think it would be "cruel and unusual", but I can see where other might argue otherwise once it were possible.) And for further specifics, is risk of death a significant factor in torture? If one can somehow simulate, e.g., waterboarding to one's heart's content, day in and day out, without risk of actually causing death at all, does that make it all peachy kean, and hunky dory? What about the chances of actual physical damage to get the answers one wants (regardless of the matter of whether the answers the torturer wants are actually informative)? Again, if you can simulate any level of pain desired (on the part of the torturer), what's the point of that jibber-jabber about "major organ damage"?

Now yes, you can say that, for the moment, this is all sci-fi kind of consideration, and nothing about which to get your panties in a bunch. But, much like my fears of airplanes used as weapons, it could easily become reality rather too soon. And I can't help thinking about how the recent discussions comparing levels of torture to "major organ damage" could too easily facilitate the kind of torture that could leave permanent psychic damage, even leave one psychologically completely crippled for the rest of one's life, as long as it didn't actually cause any physical damage to biological organs, per se.

And if that door were opened, I fear for us all, because the Eighth Amendment could be interpreted to be practically meaningless, as far as the "cruelty" part is concerned. After a Supreme Court ruling that might approve of such methods in extreme circumstances, the "cruelty" clause of the 8th would become virtually meaningless, given any kind of capacity for neural simulation of pain (probably one of the very simplest methods of neural stimulation). After that, torture techniques could pretty much completely ignore all the damage done to the psyche of the subject, and any rehabilitation or therapy they might require to return them to society (granted, assuming they were a member of society in the first place, but a big part of the context of the Constitution & Bill of Rights is that we can't trust government entirely to judge such things right off the bat) would just be so much water under the bridge; not the government's responsibility at all, and so what if they might be incapable of relating to other humans thereafter, or even have been turned from a well-balanced, peaceful person into a sociopath by the pain to which they've been subjected.

While this all probably seems pretty out-there at the current time (even to myself), it's almost inevitable that, sooner or later (maybe even later than the twenty years I mention as a likely max), it will come to pass. And when that time comes, we will either find ourselves having to figure out the morality of such techniques from scratch, or we will have the precedent already laid out for us, in precedents that were adjudicated in cases having nothing to do with such possibilities. And if those judgments rely on such simplistic definitions as "major organ damage," we could be in for a world of hurt. So to speak.

Blog Against Racism Day

While I'm not exactly a terribly frequent or regular blogger yet, I thought I'd just drop a little heads-up that I will be posting for Blog Against Racism Day, December 1st, and would suggest that any other bloggers out there might do the same that day.

Sweet Irony

About 3/4 of the way down in this CNN interview transcript:

RUMSFELD: Indeed. But it doesn't take a genius to go kill people.

His words, not mine!

Update: Bonus irony!

"Some of the most irresponsible comments have come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein," Mr. Cheney said.

Amen!

Operation WHAT?!?

Dozens of insurgents were killed Saturday on the first day of Operation Steel Curtain, a U.S.-Iraqi military offensive near the Syrian border, military officials said.

Fer crissakes, how badly do these fools want to emulate their Soviet idols? Steel Curtain???

Update: Newer story URL