hugo isn't a good name for a villain

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/11/30/venezuela.protest/index.html

I like how there's already a plan to deal with the imminent voter fraud. Well, we'll just cut off the oil. That amuses me. Why do we have to put up with that, oh that's right. .because we're still dependent on oil. Why is this? Because 1) we're not drilling off our own coast and instead letting China do that. And 2) because we haven't set up anything approaching an energy policy to overhaul or convert over to more renewable resources.

tv ads begin, one year early

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_po/campaign_negative_ads

I'm confused. Why don't more campaigns use the internet? I'd think it'd have to be cheaper and much easier to design items without as much constraint (30 seconds for example is a pretty short time frame). I'll buy that TV is a non-participatory arrangement that people more or less sit and be brainwashed by. That certainly lends some credibility for using TV spots. But the fact that the critical undecided/swing vote portion of the country doesn't generally watch commercials, or have tivo type devices that skip them anyway, probably means that TV isn't going to necessarily decide this election.

I do find the conservative frenzy over CNN stacking the youtube 'debate' amusing. For one thing, democrats are going to pose silly questions and accusations anyway. For another, I was under the mistaken impression that having a public forum for debate would mean that an actual question would be asked. That hope was dashed. Here's what I want to see in any debate: a debate. That's it. Is that too much to ask for? Too much to ask people with deliberate positions on leading the country (potentially) to argue over those positions rather than their childhood experiences and whether or not they inhaled?

I suppose we could resolve things the way Algerian (Muslim) immigrants do in France and start shooting at policemen.. for.. I don't know why. Just because. I suppose if one of the candidates passes out from all the running and screaming, I'd have something to hang my hat on. But it still wouldn't add much intellectually to this problem.

ouch

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/recap?gid=2007112902

Ouch. I almost don't care KG only played 20 minutes. New York has not had a good year in sports. Boston, on the other hand. .is getting out of hand.

haircut boy hates wal-mart and free will

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/11/edwards-weighs.html

In case anyone else needs further proof that Edwards is an idiot.

Some thoughts.
One: Obama has a plan that 'doesn't cover everyone'. Who doesn't it cover? Rich people? Middle class working kids? If we must attack it, the idea that it 'doesn't cover everyone' isn't a selling point by itself that makes me nervous. In fact it's likelier to make me agreeable with it, depending on who 'isn't covered'.

Hillary has a mandate. What a shock, given the details of hillarycare v1.0. But it can't be enforced. Also, not much of a surprise. Anyone care to guess what the non-compliance rate with car insurance is even when it's mandated by law. Any idea how to enforce it? I'll give a hint. There isn't a way to do it in the American governance system. We could do it, but it would be a bit fascist and people who actually comply with the law and have insurance would get annoyed at having to demonstrate this fact all the time.

Which means Edwards idea is rather silly on its face. We would be required to purchase health care insurance. Oh, okay. So maybe that's fine, but then how do some people pay for it. You know, poor people. And second, we are required to purchase it.. .but from where.. ? The government? Anyone checked a line at the DMV lately? How about looked at how Medicare or SS are doing fiscally over the next decade? What about public schools? No? Again a hint, the government is not very good at running things. In fact it's actually quite bad at it. Are we to expect that a government which cannot educate children at anything approaching world standards, can't provide a reliable pension from money we and our employers gave them to provide us in retirement (how that got messed up is a long story, suffices to say, they stole it), and can't even competently take our photos and issue us a tag for our cars in a reasonable amount of time is going to run an effective health care service? I don't think so.

It's the last line of the article that really gets under my skin. "You don't have that choice". Really? We're that unevolved that we don't get options anymore. Great idea.

The proposal at the bottom which appeared to be from a user was somewhat more palettable. Though I'm still holding out for someone who wants to gut the current free market insurance companies in general rather than replace them with a government payment system. I don't see how we should need a middleman to pay for our health care. The only advantage of insurance is that group rates allow for a discount in the event of actual needs for care. Largely this is because most people do not need care, or at least not in the large amounts that insurance is providing for. We should not be concerned about the visit to the doctor in a yearly or semi-annual checkup as a major spending decision. What is a good idea is something like a hospital price list. To give people an idea of the rates and charges so they can decide what they (and their insurance co) can afford. Two other issues. One, people should be able to purchase from any state or even another country for cheaper, more competitive rates on insurance (in general the reason the cost is so high is supply is constricted and demand is ridiculous, but if the supply is loosened up, this will help). And two, insurance should be flexible and simple enough to administer (ie, fewer and simpler forms for both patients and doctor's offices) so that HMOs go away. I don't see how in a digital era that forms can't be standardized and simplified by some regulatory body, even one within the insurance industry itself.

lott gone

Good bye Sen Lott. We are most pleased to see you go. I'm personally quite tired of bigoted free spenders hiding as conservatives. Along with Hastert quitting, it looks like someone decided to usher out the GOP leadership that brought itself down. It might have helped if these people had some inkling as to limited government, the limitations extending to things like drug controls and sexual reproductive rights. But then, who am I to argue with it.

black friday or are we insane

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/23/news/economy/black_friday/index.htm?cnn=yes

Funny how there was already a story analyzing the chaos. Know why? Because the chaos started on Thanksgiving night or, for some people, the afternoon of as they camped out. I was not one of those. I do enjoy some bargains, but I possess enough sanity not to place myself in the frigid snowstorm all night.

Instead waiting about a half hour to get into a store after it has already opened and get a few items and get out, while never going anywhere near a Walmart, is a bit smarter, if only slightly crazy. I shall call during this time the Vortex of Hel (yes, I'll go Norse on you) the store formerly known as the Mart of Wals. I don't believe in a fiery maw, or an icy shelf, but I do believe that legions of frenzied Christmas shoppers with no remaining shreds of human decency, bumping and clawing over meaningless products are undoubtedly a form of unmitigated human suffering, in this case, self-imposed. And for Jesus, no less. Ironic. So I will go nowhere near a Vortex and stick to groceries and online vendors for the next month now.

huck you

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/20/huckabee.iowa/index.html

It may be true that he's gaining ground. But he was flying on an airplane over the weekend and nobody seemed to know who he was. He's not recognizable. I'm not a fan of his stated positions on so-called moral issues (being a fairtax supporter cuts some of the edge off, only some though). But I can imagine his standing on these matters reverberating with some evangelicals during the elections. That thought is somewhat troubling to me. One thing I'm noticing with most of the GOP 08 candidates is that they suffer from a distressing set of inconsistencies. They seem to operate on the assumption of a common value set that is decreed rather than arrived at in the majority of the American population. That value set is beset with any number of logical inconsistencies and even morally slippery reasoning. The number of questions on torture and overly fascist illegal immigration stances during GOP debates for example seem a bit off kilter.

In reading some politics, one thing that stands out is that very few of these candidates seem able to offer anything other than "I'm not going to be Hillary" (this is true even among Democrats, including Hillary herself), which is precisely the thinking that delivered us a Democratic congress that hasn't done anything. It hasn't done anything because it's only agenda was "we're not Bush". I'm not sure that Americans are totally stupid (although I could be wrong), but I don't see them falling for the same trick within the same generational cycle.

In any case, Huckabee is somehow still around even after the infamous 'Do you believe in the theory of evolution" question early on. I think that speaks volumes for the viability of religion and politics and the need to somehow distinguish between the two.

supremes

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/20/scotus.handguns/index.html

I'm not in the NRA. I don't own a gun. And if I had one, I'd probably have to figure out how to use it before I could kill someone with it. Without indiscriminate random firing into a crowded street anyway. But there's some strange logic here. The idea of handguns being banned and illegal is somehow going to deter criminals from owning one? Criminals. Aren't they the same people who already violate laws? So they're going to automatically observe this one as well? It's a strange logic. I agree in some principle that reducing the number of guns available does reduce violent crime, if only by extension increasing the cost of purchasing illegal weapons for example. That makes some fundamental sense. There are two things that make more sense than an outright ban. First remove the common conditions which inspire criminals to violent activity with weapons to achieve their aims. Easier said then done, but it's considerably cheaper in the long run to offer hope, empowerment, and some changes that inspire prosperity than to continue to suffer the imposed prison sentence of a ghetto lifestyle. Second, provide some deterrence by harshly penalizing people who use guns, and people who provide tolerance for their use (the don't snitch crowd). This works on a few people, smarter crooks figure out ways to make ends meet without packing a piece unless it's really needed. Violence isn't needed in a world with volume internet scams.

To actual gun control advocates, I can and do appreciate the arguments. Hand guns and automatic assault rifles were not around in the late 18th century. Even had they been, the population density was such that they would make little profitable use except in defense of frontier establishments (thus why the Colt revolver did so well in the mid 19th century). But the trouble is that such weapons were designed with a military purpose, that is, solely to kill other human beings. With ruthless mechanized precision in some cases. With our society grown into much more of a mechanized, urbanized system, some levels of restriction on the types of weapons available to the common person seem inevitable. We do not, for example, commonly see someone strolling around with an RPG or a .50 cal heavy machine gun. Hand guns it can be argued provide some levels of basic personal defense, and certainly the perception that a community is armed and willing to defend its place of residence against such trivial attacks as vandalism or theft is likely to have some positive benefits in reducing crime as well. But even so, it's possible that people could simply have shotguns.

But on what grounds is someone claiming a need to defend themselves against the government when there are peaceful means to resist the will of said agency? I don't quite see that argument. I'm not in favor of unlimited gun control and aside from some basic regulations that restrict purchasing access for ex-cons or psych ward types, I'm not sure we need a major push to remove guns from our society. I think we need a major push to remove the desire to use violent measures to exact benefit or other criminal advantages. Without guns, the desire to do murderous things is simply limited to other weapons, or at least guns with a stated and mundane hunting purpose rather than human killing machines. But without some cogent argument in favor of anti-regulation and supporting 2nd amendment rights, the central argument of gun control is steadily going to gain ground and it will not remove the principle issues with their employment.

So to attempt to provide one. There are two elements to it. One is that the defence of one's property and livelihood against physical assault is ultimately up to the individual. The chief ability of police is not to prevent crime but to deter it by detaining and prosecuting those responsible for it. Individuals are already in a fortress mentality in America, but yet curiously seem willing to allow police or other agencies to come to their rescue during times of difficulty. Certainly a fire department is better equipped to put out a fire. A doctor is better equipped to treat a wound or illness. But to prevent careless injuries, most accidental fires, etc, that's a personal stake. It's not the states business to walk into our homes and point out to us every fire hazard or potential death trap. It's our own. The same is true for the deterrence and ultimate prevention of crime. To do this there are a variety of methods, security alarms, cameras, fences, locks, dogs, and if all else fails guns. If a criminal enters a property with the reasonable expectation that he/she may be killed as a result of their acts, they're likelier than not to find somewhere else to go. To me this is really the only reason not to impose a massive sweeping ban on weapons. Some of them the public can do without. But in the environment we've created, sometimes a loaded weapon may be the only thing making someone think about what they're about to do.

The second is more simple, but as the Constitution is the highest law, it does indicate a need for well-regulated militia. The implication, viewed in the historical terms of the day, is in part that the general population would be able to readily use weapons in defence of their homes and be able to do stand to in a collective way if need be. It's hard to see a need for militia what with a massive professional standing army (something not in the Constitution, but sometimes useful in statecraft). This I suppose is the most basic question up for consideration in the court. Does the 2nd amendment mean: regulated guns or regulated militias. It's hard to see the founding fathers arguing that people needed guns to stand up against their own government, as some 'militias' at the present argue. But with the Revolutionary War not far in their history, there was undoubtedly some thought to that problem. In any case, it's easy enough to point to the language of the text and make something approaching a cogent argument that government may be able to regulate and restrict access to purely 'offensive' lethal weapons, but they shouldn't be banning them.

In the aftermath of decisions like Kelo, I'm not encouraged that the Supreme court has taken up cases like these. But if the chief argument against such controls is as sensible as this, I can't say there was no attempt to defend the 2nd amendment.

mile high grounded

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/11492296.html

Perhaps fooling around on the plane isn't always a good idea. Especially in the present climate on airplanes. Kicking off women with short skirts and now this. Inconveniencing the whole plane because of some concerns over sex.

poverty breeds

"The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has come to the conclusion that poor people have more overweight kids. The health officials are attributing this to the fact that affluent communities have more public parks. Yes. That's right. There are more public parks in wealthier communities around Los Angeles and THIS is why their children are not obese."

As with most things in social order, there are a number of factors. The fact that poor people live in run-down neighborhoods and either have no access to parks or otherwise do not feel a safe inclination towards public exercise (can't imagine why that would be, potholed sidewalks and gunshots maybe?) is undoubtedly one of them. But it's hardly the only one. Public planning commissions don't really put parks in places without money for any number of reasons but one of them being that it costs more to maintain in an crummy neighborhood. Both higher maintenance and frequent patrolling is apt to be more extensive and required. I don't necessarily think this is a bad decision on their part, but I do understand the issue of cheap access to exercise as a problem.

The real issues with poverty and health as a linked concern are much more extensive. Diet is different, almost criminally deficient. Interest in 'dangerous' behaviors such as drinking, smoking, and other intoxications is higher. Teen pregnancy rates are generally higher along with the spread of infectious diseases (like STDs). Garbage or other waste is frequently on lawns or other public displays. Some of these have to do with general ignorance. Most of these issues have to do with the state of mind created by the conditions of having to live in squalor and thus not seeing any reason to give a damn. What we find is that yes, the society around poor people is an influential problem. But the people themselves often then self-destruct.