With the public support of two prominent Republican senators (him and her) firmly in hand, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will coast to confirmation later this summer. She'll replace David Souter. She'll be the first Latina (I'd like to say first Latino, too, but she has no such secret) to serve on the Court. Probably not the last.
I'll cut to the chase. Is it important that the SCOTUS be diverse? Is it important that it feature a black dude and a Puerto Rican lady? Is it crucial that it be populated with jurists of different age groups, like a few 40-year-olds, a few boomers and a few geriatric cases? Is it important for the genders to be split 5-4? Should an atheist get nominated soon? A Muslim? A homosexual? (Let's not wait for a hypothetical Republican president to get started on the last three categories.)
Oh. I get the feeling you expect answers. I don't have a whole lot of them. The only "answer" I like is that the Court has been far too Protestant, far too white and far too male for far too long. A non-answer I like even better is that as long as the nominees are all competent, their background and/or their skin color and/or their gender and/or their sexual orientation matters not a whit. I don't like pigeonholing people based on one facet of their being.
(Besides, let's acknowledge that it's a certainty, probability-wise, that a gay man has served on the Supreme Court already. I won't bore you with all the math or the regression analysis involved, because my inferior explaining skills are... inferior.)
The most interesting suggestion I've heard recently on this topic is to expand the size of the Court itself. Jack it up to 15, 21 justices. Diversity will practically do itself without trying. It'll take itself out of the conversation after the third Latino, the second paraplegic and the first completely out-of-the-box nominee.
I mean, it makes sense. 220 years ago, the pool of SCOTUS candidates was shallow. Finding nine qualified white male Episcopalian or Methodist landowners with lots of free time can't have been easy every day of the week. Now, we've got a slightly deeper swath of hopefuls.
In a way, that mega-court idea fits with my earlier suggestion that we extend representatives' and senators' and presidents' terms. We need better representation across the board in American government, and that includes a bigger Congress that spends less of its time campaigning, plus a wider court that reflects America's diverse identity better, because on a superficial level, that's important. Plus, we won't have to have the tired, worn-out "Wow, look, that nominee's not an old bald white guy from Harvard" conversation as much any more.
And no, I don't think my man Barack should appoint another 12 justices to get us to the magic 21. You could do it gradually, like over the course of four more Democratic administrations.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Ichirobama / 7-16-09
Been on vacation for a while. I think I'll ease back into things with some fluff.Set aside the fact that this picture is just pretty cool. I mean, it's two men at the top of their game, professionally, having a chat. One of 'em, completely and totally out of character, has that giddy schoolgirl look. And then the non-baseball player of the two is signing a baseball for the other guy.
No, set that aside and ponder the common points of these two dudes' lives. Both lefthanders, they broke new ground in each of their fields. Ichiro was the first Japanese position player in the majors, owns an MVP award and two batting titles, and was the catalyst in driving the 2001 Mariners to win more games than any other team in history. He'll be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame someday. Meanwhile, you'll be no doubt shocked to discover that Obama was our first African-American President. I kid you not.
They each had to overcome mountains of prejudice. They've each had to have heard "No, you can't" more than their fair share. They each are tremendously poised, preternaturally calm, confident, cool cucumbers... despite the fact that they can't go anywhere in public without being mobbed.
Okay, okay, I'm going to try and put the man-crushes away for a couple of days at least and get to some serious work. But no guarantees.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Think again / 7-5-09
Steve McNair, renowned quarterback, died from a gunshot wound to the head this past weekend. And as the investigation into his death intensifies, it brought an oft-discussed issue to the forefront: why do guys from the NFL always seem to get into trouble?
And it happens everywhere. Locally, Seahawks star Lofa Tatupu was busted for a DUI last year, right about the time former Hawks star Koren Robinson had finished drinking and driving himself out of the league. Seahawks announcer and record-setting QB Warren Moon had already managed to get himself arrested on his own set of DUI charges near Christmas 2007. By the way, I'm going to leave out the rest of the Hawks' trouble, for space reasons. Away from Seattle, Hall of Famer Bruce Smith joined that same stupid club earlier this year. The capper: in March, Cleveland receiver Donte Stallworth killed a guy while driving drunk.
And then there's Michael Vick. Ugh... I don't even want to link to him anymore, I'd rather just forget he existed.
Wait... didn't O.J. play a down of football here or there?
So what kind of animal house is the NFL running anyway?
Not a very efficient one, I'd say, if the goal is to get guys into heaps of trouble. Pro football players are FAR LESS LIKELY to be arrested than the general population. No typo. Proof:
"We find two striking observations. First, we note that the NFL rates [of arrest] are less than half the general population rates for both whites and blacks. Second, we find that the NFL fraction is strikingly close for the two racial groups. Thus, even though our initial assessment was that the NFL rates looked very high, we find them well below the rates for the general population."
(Got that from a study published at Duke University in 2007. Done by scientist-type humans.)
LESS THAN HALF!
Well, that's just one study... except another one done by an intrepid reporter last year duplicated the results. 1 in 45 NFL players arrested in his research, compared with 1 of 23 of the rest of us.
So I'm hoping you'll forgive the caps, and twice at that, but I get really sick of people dumping on athletes who don't deserve it. Especially with the stickiness of racial stereotypes right beneath the surface of the conversation. (USA Today put 41 arrested NFL players on its covers throughout 2007. Care to guess how many were black? No, more. Higher. Almost there. Yep, bingo, 39.)
Can you be pissed at Tatupu for making an idiotic choice? Sure. Can you lament that McNair associated with the wrong people? Your call. Can you opine that oft-convicted cornerback Adam "Pac-Man" Jones is a complete waste of human cell tissue and all his talent should be transferred to someone who won't throw it away? Please do.
But cool the stereotypes, already.
(I'm really, really, really ready for some football.)
And it happens everywhere. Locally, Seahawks star Lofa Tatupu was busted for a DUI last year, right about the time former Hawks star Koren Robinson had finished drinking and driving himself out of the league. Seahawks announcer and record-setting QB Warren Moon had already managed to get himself arrested on his own set of DUI charges near Christmas 2007. By the way, I'm going to leave out the rest of the Hawks' trouble, for space reasons. Away from Seattle, Hall of Famer Bruce Smith joined that same stupid club earlier this year. The capper: in March, Cleveland receiver Donte Stallworth killed a guy while driving drunk.
And then there's Michael Vick. Ugh... I don't even want to link to him anymore, I'd rather just forget he existed.
Wait... didn't O.J. play a down of football here or there?
So what kind of animal house is the NFL running anyway?
Not a very efficient one, I'd say, if the goal is to get guys into heaps of trouble. Pro football players are FAR LESS LIKELY to be arrested than the general population. No typo. Proof:
"We find two striking observations. First, we note that the NFL rates [of arrest] are less than half the general population rates for both whites and blacks. Second, we find that the NFL fraction is strikingly close for the two racial groups. Thus, even though our initial assessment was that the NFL rates looked very high, we find them well below the rates for the general population."
(Got that from a study published at Duke University in 2007. Done by scientist-type humans.)
LESS THAN HALF!
Well, that's just one study... except another one done by an intrepid reporter last year duplicated the results. 1 in 45 NFL players arrested in his research, compared with 1 of 23 of the rest of us.
So I'm hoping you'll forgive the caps, and twice at that, but I get really sick of people dumping on athletes who don't deserve it. Especially with the stickiness of racial stereotypes right beneath the surface of the conversation. (USA Today put 41 arrested NFL players on its covers throughout 2007. Care to guess how many were black? No, more. Higher. Almost there. Yep, bingo, 39.)
Can you be pissed at Tatupu for making an idiotic choice? Sure. Can you lament that McNair associated with the wrong people? Your call. Can you opine that oft-convicted cornerback Adam "Pac-Man" Jones is a complete waste of human cell tissue and all his talent should be transferred to someone who won't throw it away? Please do.
But cool the stereotypes, already.
(I'm really, really, really ready for some football.)
Mariners 2009: Must-see TV? / 7-5-09
One word sums up the Mariners' 2008 season: Unwatchable.
With the bar set so low, the 2009 edition of the M's only had to be mediocre, and the year would be considered a success.
Well, these guys have leapfrogged mediocre and are threatening to become good. In the past ten days, they've won series at Los Angeles AND Boston... oh yeah, did I mention those are the two best teams in baseball. They beat C. C. Sabathia in New York. Felix Hernandez is the best starter in the American League, and currently (this won't last) David Aardsma is the best closer in the league. Ichiro is on track to score another batting title.
This surprising Seattle club is turning heads without:
*a catcher, third baseman or shortstop of note
*three of its starters from April
*anything substantial, offensively, from its DH and bench.
The M's will finish above .500 unless injuries ravage the team further. They may fall just short of a playoff spot, but the future is bright. Imagine if GM Jack Zduriencik can find a couple more decent players to plug in at the trouble spots... they'll move from watchable to ready for prime time.
With the bar set so low, the 2009 edition of the M's only had to be mediocre, and the year would be considered a success.
Well, these guys have leapfrogged mediocre and are threatening to become good. In the past ten days, they've won series at Los Angeles AND Boston... oh yeah, did I mention those are the two best teams in baseball. They beat C. C. Sabathia in New York. Felix Hernandez is the best starter in the American League, and currently (this won't last) David Aardsma is the best closer in the league. Ichiro is on track to score another batting title.
This surprising Seattle club is turning heads without:
*a catcher, third baseman or shortstop of note
*three of its starters from April
*anything substantial, offensively, from its DH and bench.
The M's will finish above .500 unless injuries ravage the team further. They may fall just short of a playoff spot, but the future is bright. Imagine if GM Jack Zduriencik can find a couple more decent players to plug in at the trouble spots... they'll move from watchable to ready for prime time.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
House of Palin / 7-4-09
Sometimes I feel like the last two years have been the golden age of U.S. politics.
We elected a black man president after he redefined campaign finance strategy. He defeated a woman for the nomination of his party, a party which was left for dead seven years ago but now trounces the opposition at every turn. Unthinkable deficits, brought on by the worst economic crash since the Great Depression, threaten the administration's overdue plans to reform health care and fix our broken energy policy. A Senate race that gives one party a filibuster-proof majority took eight months and several recounts to complete. As two wars rage on, you can look out and spot three bogeymen on the horizon: terrorism, climate change and Social Security.
And then there's Sarah Palin. In her persona, we have ourselves the most polarizing, unpredictable, riveting, intriguing, flabbergasting, compelling train wreck of a gifted politician since Ronald Reagan.
So when Palin, in her mavericky way, announced on Thursday her resignation from the governorship of Alaska, effective in three weeks, the Internet almost broke.
Theories explaining her stunning decision have cascaded online in waves of millions. There are a few that are gaining traction, best as I can tell. They are:
a) She thinks resigning is a good move politically; why waste time governing a piddly state when you can be a national figure at the time of your party's greatest need?
b) Criminal charges are coming. (Try this one or any of these on for size.)
c) She's got some personal troubles or family troubles to attend to, and she'd rather do so as a private citizen. (Substance abuse, even greater family dysfunction, blackmail, grave illness all spring to mind.)
These theories have merit. In fact, why not two or three at once? This is, after all, Sarah Palin we're talking about here. But, in boring fashion, I'm simply of the mind that she's like everyone else: she's cashing in while she still can.
Faced with a job with little security, intense public pressure and a looming mega-crisis (Alaska's future budget woes are said to be on par with California's), who wouldn't be looking for something cushier? And what if that cushier job paid in the millions of dollars annually? And involved soaking up gallons of love on a daily basis from adoring fans? And getting to say the mavericky things you always wanted to say but didn't, out of what little self-preservation you had?
Yep, Mrs. Palin is bound for a good old-fashioned ka-ching payday. Or five. Her book advance is -- cue the violins -- a paltry $7 million. Her potential radio audience should rival Rush's. She'll always automatically have a job with Fox News and a hundred speeches lined up on the lecture circuit at any given time.
But like I said, just because she's takin' it to the bank, that doesn't exclude a) or b) or c) from earlier on. I'd even expect one or more of those scenarios to play out. She probably would envision herself as a tested, wiser outsider in the 2016 presidential primaries. She probably has broken various laws as governor. She probably has plenty more personal drama up her sleeve.
I could write five hundred words on her incoherent, oddly puerile resignation letter, posted here. I could spend another five hundred discussing the political strategy and timing, or lack thereof, she exhibited this week. I could write five hundred more on how I personally feel about her. (Since she and I are such great friends, yeah ya betcha!)
But I'm not sure she's all that complicated, and I'm not sure it's really a hard choice for her to leave the difficult job with the decent paycheck for the undemanding job with the filthy salary. Would that very same choice be agonizing for any of us?
We elected a black man president after he redefined campaign finance strategy. He defeated a woman for the nomination of his party, a party which was left for dead seven years ago but now trounces the opposition at every turn. Unthinkable deficits, brought on by the worst economic crash since the Great Depression, threaten the administration's overdue plans to reform health care and fix our broken energy policy. A Senate race that gives one party a filibuster-proof majority took eight months and several recounts to complete. As two wars rage on, you can look out and spot three bogeymen on the horizon: terrorism, climate change and Social Security.
And then there's Sarah Palin. In her persona, we have ourselves the most polarizing, unpredictable, riveting, intriguing, flabbergasting, compelling train wreck of a gifted politician since Ronald Reagan.
So when Palin, in her mavericky way, announced on Thursday her resignation from the governorship of Alaska, effective in three weeks, the Internet almost broke.
Theories explaining her stunning decision have cascaded online in waves of millions. There are a few that are gaining traction, best as I can tell. They are:
a) She thinks resigning is a good move politically; why waste time governing a piddly state when you can be a national figure at the time of your party's greatest need?
b) Criminal charges are coming. (Try this one or any of these on for size.)
c) She's got some personal troubles or family troubles to attend to, and she'd rather do so as a private citizen. (Substance abuse, even greater family dysfunction, blackmail, grave illness all spring to mind.)
These theories have merit. In fact, why not two or three at once? This is, after all, Sarah Palin we're talking about here. But, in boring fashion, I'm simply of the mind that she's like everyone else: she's cashing in while she still can.
Faced with a job with little security, intense public pressure and a looming mega-crisis (Alaska's future budget woes are said to be on par with California's), who wouldn't be looking for something cushier? And what if that cushier job paid in the millions of dollars annually? And involved soaking up gallons of love on a daily basis from adoring fans? And getting to say the mavericky things you always wanted to say but didn't, out of what little self-preservation you had?
Yep, Mrs. Palin is bound for a good old-fashioned ka-ching payday. Or five. Her book advance is -- cue the violins -- a paltry $7 million. Her potential radio audience should rival Rush's. She'll always automatically have a job with Fox News and a hundred speeches lined up on the lecture circuit at any given time.
But like I said, just because she's takin' it to the bank, that doesn't exclude a) or b) or c) from earlier on. I'd even expect one or more of those scenarios to play out. She probably would envision herself as a tested, wiser outsider in the 2016 presidential primaries. She probably has broken various laws as governor. She probably has plenty more personal drama up her sleeve.
I could write five hundred words on her incoherent, oddly puerile resignation letter, posted here. I could spend another five hundred discussing the political strategy and timing, or lack thereof, she exhibited this week. I could write five hundred more on how I personally feel about her. (Since she and I are such great friends, yeah ya betcha!)
But I'm not sure she's all that complicated, and I'm not sure it's really a hard choice for her to leave the difficult job with the decent paycheck for the undemanding job with the filthy salary. Would that very same choice be agonizing for any of us?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Filibuster Parfait, Part 2 / 6-30-09
With Al Franken set to be sworn in to the U.S. Senate as early as next week, the D's will outnumber the R's 60-40 in that hallowed chamber. That's a filibuster-proof majority.
So, as every living human with cable news will know within two weeks' time, Franken's arrival gives the Democrats carte blanche to ramrod every existing piece of legislation they can dream of through Congress, sending bills authorizing the annihilation of America to the Oval Office, where President-Dictator Barack Karl Lenin Hussein Zedong Castro Kim-Jong-Obama will sign them gleefully before dancing naked atop a tattered, slightly singed, crumpled-up Old Glory. Do I smell weed?
The reality is somewhat different.
Some moderate Democrats are going to balk at bills that sway too far to the left. Some moderate Republicans -- there have to be a few left, the EPA probably has a list somewhere in its Endangered Species files -- will straddle the fence.
As Franken himself said today: "Sixty is a magic number, but it isn't, because we know that we have senators who -- Republicans who are going to vote with the Democrats, with a majority of Democrats on certain votes, and Democrats that are going to vote with majority Republicans on others. So it's not quite a magic number as some people may say. But I hope we do get President Obama's agenda through."
What WILL happen a lot is, Democrats will vote along party lines for the little stuff, the stuff that doesn't break through the force field of "Michael Jackson: Still Dead" 24-hour coverage or through continuous "Brett Favre: Still semi-almost-unretired! Or not! Haha!" loops on ESPN. The little stuff includes things like hundreds and thousands of confirmations of federal court judges and low-level administration appointees. You know, the stuff that needs to happen for the government to function, but is being presently blocked out of spite and childish game-playing.
"Oh, John, you're such a hater. Republicans aren't that petty. They save the filibuster for the big stuff, the controversial bills they need to stop for the good of they country." Except they don't. As the Democrats did from 2002 to 2006, the R's make the majority party fight for every last inch of territory, no matter how insignificant. For better or for worse, that's how the game is played nowadays. Only the GOP lost one of its game pieces. Oops.
Not only that, but as I mentioned in a post not too long ago, centrist Democrats are free to vote against bills that they dislike. But keeping the legislation from coming to the Senate floor at all is a different animal. You have to buck your party's leadership to do so; then you're risking even more than re-election. You're jeopardizing your committee chairmanship. Egads! Anyway, the safe political course, as a moderate, is to vote for cloture (meaning the end of debate) then vote against the bill you dislike... even as said bill passes by a 52-48 vote. Look for that outcome to happen plenty of times.
P.S.: Now that the 2008 election season has officially ended, that means 2010 has officially begun... and my money right now is on the D's INCREASING their Senate majority to 63 or 64. That would be true filibuster-proof material. But don't take my word for it -- go to Lord of the Poll Dance Nate Silver. Silver publishes, on his site fivethirtyeight.com, monthly rankings that show the most contested Senate races. And four of the top five races feature incumbent Republicans. Month after month after month. A new ranking comes out any day now. Cheers!
So, as every living human with cable news will know within two weeks' time, Franken's arrival gives the Democrats carte blanche to ramrod every existing piece of legislation they can dream of through Congress, sending bills authorizing the annihilation of America to the Oval Office, where President-Dictator Barack Karl Lenin Hussein Zedong Castro Kim-Jong-Obama will sign them gleefully before dancing naked atop a tattered, slightly singed, crumpled-up Old Glory. Do I smell weed?
The reality is somewhat different.
Some moderate Democrats are going to balk at bills that sway too far to the left. Some moderate Republicans -- there have to be a few left, the EPA probably has a list somewhere in its Endangered Species files -- will straddle the fence.
As Franken himself said today: "Sixty is a magic number, but it isn't, because we know that we have senators who -- Republicans who are going to vote with the Democrats, with a majority of Democrats on certain votes, and Democrats that are going to vote with majority Republicans on others. So it's not quite a magic number as some people may say. But I hope we do get President Obama's agenda through."
What WILL happen a lot is, Democrats will vote along party lines for the little stuff, the stuff that doesn't break through the force field of "Michael Jackson: Still Dead" 24-hour coverage or through continuous "Brett Favre: Still semi-almost-unretired! Or not! Haha!" loops on ESPN. The little stuff includes things like hundreds and thousands of confirmations of federal court judges and low-level administration appointees. You know, the stuff that needs to happen for the government to function, but is being presently blocked out of spite and childish game-playing.
"Oh, John, you're such a hater. Republicans aren't that petty. They save the filibuster for the big stuff, the controversial bills they need to stop for the good of they country." Except they don't. As the Democrats did from 2002 to 2006, the R's make the majority party fight for every last inch of territory, no matter how insignificant. For better or for worse, that's how the game is played nowadays. Only the GOP lost one of its game pieces. Oops.
Not only that, but as I mentioned in a post not too long ago, centrist Democrats are free to vote against bills that they dislike. But keeping the legislation from coming to the Senate floor at all is a different animal. You have to buck your party's leadership to do so; then you're risking even more than re-election. You're jeopardizing your committee chairmanship. Egads! Anyway, the safe political course, as a moderate, is to vote for cloture (meaning the end of debate) then vote against the bill you dislike... even as said bill passes by a 52-48 vote. Look for that outcome to happen plenty of times.
P.S.: Now that the 2008 election season has officially ended, that means 2010 has officially begun... and my money right now is on the D's INCREASING their Senate majority to 63 or 64. That would be true filibuster-proof material. But don't take my word for it -- go to Lord of the Poll Dance Nate Silver. Silver publishes, on his site fivethirtyeight.com, monthly rankings that show the most contested Senate races. And four of the top five races feature incumbent Republicans. Month after month after month. A new ranking comes out any day now. Cheers!
Filibuster Parfait, Part 1 / 6-30-09
A scant 34 weeks after Election Night, the 2008 election season has concluded.
Yes, you can close the books on Minnesota's epic Senate race; incumbent Norm Coleman conceded today. Yes, already. Why the hurry? Well, in the end, the bitter, bitter end, Coleman was deemed to have received fewer votes than challenger Al Franken. Yup, THAT Al Franken. (Oh yes, he is good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, just barely enough people like him.)
Granted, Coleman did own a 477-vote lead the morning after the election. That shrunk to 192 a month later after the hand recount. A phase of ballot-challenging ensued, which flipped the margin to Franken +251 and a final review of those ballot challenges settled on Franken owning a 312-vote advantage.
Messy? Uncertain? You bet. But that's why they have recounts. So you can re-count the votes, even more carefully than before, and guess what? The numbers change when you recount them.
Is the outcome "fair" to Coleman? Probably not... but a Franken victory is just as "fair." If you ran this whole convoluted scenario -- Election Night to tonight -- 101 times on a computer simulation, I get the impression that each candidate would win 50 times and one tie would occur. When the margin of error is in the triple digits in a 2.5-million basket of votes, some shrinkage and leakage and foul play is bound to occur. (I'm leaving out the fact that Coleman's legal team is generally agreed to have been incompetent. In my make-believe simulation, the interested parties hire legal teams of varying skill. It's a very fancy imaginary simulation. Obama still wins every time, though.)
Oh yeah, Coleman's the Republican. Franken's the Democrat. That gives the D's 60 Senators, theoretically enough to quash filibusters. With that in mind, let's hop over to part 2.
Yes, you can close the books on Minnesota's epic Senate race; incumbent Norm Coleman conceded today. Yes, already. Why the hurry? Well, in the end, the bitter, bitter end, Coleman was deemed to have received fewer votes than challenger Al Franken. Yup, THAT Al Franken. (Oh yes, he is good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, just barely enough people like him.)
Granted, Coleman did own a 477-vote lead the morning after the election. That shrunk to 192 a month later after the hand recount. A phase of ballot-challenging ensued, which flipped the margin to Franken +251 and a final review of those ballot challenges settled on Franken owning a 312-vote advantage.
Messy? Uncertain? You bet. But that's why they have recounts. So you can re-count the votes, even more carefully than before, and guess what? The numbers change when you recount them.
Is the outcome "fair" to Coleman? Probably not... but a Franken victory is just as "fair." If you ran this whole convoluted scenario -- Election Night to tonight -- 101 times on a computer simulation, I get the impression that each candidate would win 50 times and one tie would occur. When the margin of error is in the triple digits in a 2.5-million basket of votes, some shrinkage and leakage and foul play is bound to occur. (I'm leaving out the fact that Coleman's legal team is generally agreed to have been incompetent. In my make-believe simulation, the interested parties hire legal teams of varying skill. It's a very fancy imaginary simulation. Obama still wins every time, though.)
Oh yeah, Coleman's the Republican. Franken's the Democrat. That gives the D's 60 Senators, theoretically enough to quash filibusters. With that in mind, let's hop over to part 2.
Wal-Martal Kombat / 6-30-09
My personal boycott of Wal-Mart is in serious jeopardy.
Like any good bleeding-heart, latte-sipping, hybrid-driving, capitalism-hating, Mao-worshipping liberal, I've been properly appalled at the way Wal-Mart treats its workers and expands its empire. The anecdotal evidence is staggering: stories of crews being locked in the store all night with no exiting permitted, employees' hours being managed to prevent them from qualifying for health care benefits, oh so many harassment claims, driving locally owned mom-and-pops out of business while requesting special tax breaks from the municipality it infects... all that stuff is googlable. (New word? Someone before me has surely invented it. I should do a search...)
Well, my mortal enemy has struck back. Negotiations with the Obama White House on health care issues have led to this: The company just declared it FAVORS requiring employers to extend medical insurance to employees.
Yeah, yeah, you're probably thinking, "Wait now, aren't businesses of a certain size ALREADY required to do so?" They are not.
Well then, how do I know the mandate is a good idea? One very big clue, a quote I lifted from the Wall Street Journal:
"The National Retail Federation, the industry's main lobby, said it was 'flabbergasted' by Wal-Mart's move. 'We have been one of the foremost opponents to employer mandate,' said Neil Trautwein, vice president with the Washington-based trade group. 'We are surprised and disappointed by Wal-Mart's choice to embrace an employer mandate in exchange for a promise of cost savings.'
Mr. Trautwein said an employer mandate is 'the single most destructive thing you could do to the health-care system shy of a single-payer system.' "
If Mr. Trautwein says an employer mandate is a terrible, horrible, catastrophic idea, I am excited to see it come to fruition. The sooner, the better, I say.
More from the WSJ:
"As the White House and Congress began floating proposals, Wal-Mart felt it needed to shape the debate, said Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of corporate affairs and government relations.
'As a company, we believe the present health-care system is unsustainable and making the country's businesses less competitive in the global economy,' said Mr. Dach."
Translation: Wal-Mart recognized that it risked being shut out of negotiations and could be stuck with a system far scarier, to it, than a simple employer mandate. I'll stay tuned to the rest of this story. Maybe I'll even lose an enemy. Or Wal-Mart will try and game the system, and I can keep hatin' on 'em. Oooh, win-win for me!
Like any good bleeding-heart, latte-sipping, hybrid-driving, capitalism-hating, Mao-worshipping liberal, I've been properly appalled at the way Wal-Mart treats its workers and expands its empire. The anecdotal evidence is staggering: stories of crews being locked in the store all night with no exiting permitted, employees' hours being managed to prevent them from qualifying for health care benefits, oh so many harassment claims, driving locally owned mom-and-pops out of business while requesting special tax breaks from the municipality it infects... all that stuff is googlable. (New word? Someone before me has surely invented it. I should do a search...)
Well, my mortal enemy has struck back. Negotiations with the Obama White House on health care issues have led to this: The company just declared it FAVORS requiring employers to extend medical insurance to employees.
Yeah, yeah, you're probably thinking, "Wait now, aren't businesses of a certain size ALREADY required to do so?" They are not.
Well then, how do I know the mandate is a good idea? One very big clue, a quote I lifted from the Wall Street Journal:
"The National Retail Federation, the industry's main lobby, said it was 'flabbergasted' by Wal-Mart's move. 'We have been one of the foremost opponents to employer mandate,' said Neil Trautwein, vice president with the Washington-based trade group. 'We are surprised and disappointed by Wal-Mart's choice to embrace an employer mandate in exchange for a promise of cost savings.'
Mr. Trautwein said an employer mandate is 'the single most destructive thing you could do to the health-care system shy of a single-payer system.' "
If Mr. Trautwein says an employer mandate is a terrible, horrible, catastrophic idea, I am excited to see it come to fruition. The sooner, the better, I say.
More from the WSJ:
"As the White House and Congress began floating proposals, Wal-Mart felt it needed to shape the debate, said Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of corporate affairs and government relations.
'As a company, we believe the present health-care system is unsustainable and making the country's businesses less competitive in the global economy,' said Mr. Dach."
Translation: Wal-Mart recognized that it risked being shut out of negotiations and could be stuck with a system far scarier, to it, than a simple employer mandate. I'll stay tuned to the rest of this story. Maybe I'll even lose an enemy. Or Wal-Mart will try and game the system, and I can keep hatin' on 'em. Oooh, win-win for me!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Out / 6-27-09
Three disclaimers are in order here, before we get going.
1. This isn't going to happen in your mainstream Sunday morning worship service.
2. Exorcisms are documented in the Bible.
3. The teenager is said to have requested the "procedure."
With that out of the way...
"Rip it from his throat! Come on, you homosexual demon!" a woman yells. "You homosexual spirit, we call you out right now! Loose your grip, Lucifer!"
She's addressing the body of a 16-year-old boy.
"Come out of his belly," someone commands. "It's in the belly. Push."
The teenager submits. Several people are holding him immobile. He vomits.
"Get another bag," a voice calls out. "Make sure you have your gloves."
Those are the "highlights" from the casting out of a homosexual demon. It happened recently in a small Connecticut church. The video got posted on youtube but the church took it down soon thereafter. Not soon enough.
(For the video, by the way, click here, that should do it. I feel like I should include a warning, but I guess we're all big boys and girls here.)
So the church's pastor, later, offers this explanation, which I got from msnbc.com, so take it for what it's worth.
"He was out of control in the church," she said. "This young man came to us. We didn't go to him." She wasn't calling it an exorcism, choosing instead to term it a casting out of spirits. "He was dressing like a woman and everything. And he didn't want to be like that," she said.
It's easy to get mad at all kinds of people here. The pastor, the churchgoers, the larger Christian community, the kid himself. For my part, I wonder if the church routinely performs other exorcism-type services. Like for stealing. Or for pride, or maybe even for adulterous behavior. For lust? It sounds like I'm being flippant, but I'm not -- maybe they do. I can see that happening... some congregations are pretty immersed in the Angels vs. Demons business. So maybe during this particular "casting out" adventure, everyone got a little carried away because of the gayness factor? No... my gut tells me this is just another way for small minds to brand homosexuals as the scary subhuman other.
The video leaves me a little sad, plenty angry and more than a little ashamed, as a guy who still likes to call himself a Christian. But maybe the fact it got publicized nationally and then got mentioned on a few thousand blogs here and there will change something somewhere.
I'm left shaking my head. And thinking the same thing as this gay rights advocate, quoted in the same msnbc.com story: "What saddens me is the people that are doing this think they are doing something in the kid's best interests, when in fact they're murdering his spirit."
1. This isn't going to happen in your mainstream Sunday morning worship service.
2. Exorcisms are documented in the Bible.
3. The teenager is said to have requested the "procedure."
With that out of the way...
"Rip it from his throat! Come on, you homosexual demon!" a woman yells. "You homosexual spirit, we call you out right now! Loose your grip, Lucifer!"
She's addressing the body of a 16-year-old boy.
"Come out of his belly," someone commands. "It's in the belly. Push."
The teenager submits. Several people are holding him immobile. He vomits.
"Get another bag," a voice calls out. "Make sure you have your gloves."
Those are the "highlights" from the casting out of a homosexual demon. It happened recently in a small Connecticut church. The video got posted on youtube but the church took it down soon thereafter. Not soon enough.
(For the video, by the way, click here, that should do it. I feel like I should include a warning, but I guess we're all big boys and girls here.)
So the church's pastor, later, offers this explanation, which I got from msnbc.com, so take it for what it's worth.
"He was out of control in the church," she said. "This young man came to us. We didn't go to him." She wasn't calling it an exorcism, choosing instead to term it a casting out of spirits. "He was dressing like a woman and everything. And he didn't want to be like that," she said.
It's easy to get mad at all kinds of people here. The pastor, the churchgoers, the larger Christian community, the kid himself. For my part, I wonder if the church routinely performs other exorcism-type services. Like for stealing. Or for pride, or maybe even for adulterous behavior. For lust? It sounds like I'm being flippant, but I'm not -- maybe they do. I can see that happening... some congregations are pretty immersed in the Angels vs. Demons business. So maybe during this particular "casting out" adventure, everyone got a little carried away because of the gayness factor? No... my gut tells me this is just another way for small minds to brand homosexuals as the scary subhuman other.
The video leaves me a little sad, plenty angry and more than a little ashamed, as a guy who still likes to call himself a Christian. But maybe the fact it got publicized nationally and then got mentioned on a few thousand blogs here and there will change something somewhere.
I'm left shaking my head. And thinking the same thing as this gay rights advocate, quoted in the same msnbc.com story: "What saddens me is the people that are doing this think they are doing something in the kid's best interests, when in fact they're murdering his spirit."
Friday, June 26, 2009
What, did someone die? / 6-26-09
Big news this week. A major death, really.
When the House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill containing so-called "cap-and-trade," an ugly way of life died. A decades-long (centuries-long?) effort by major polluters to reap short-term profits at the expense of the environment began to be rolled back.
I will delve deeply into cap-and-trade at some point, maybe when it actually becomes the law of the land, after it clears the Senate in some mutilated form. (President Obama will sign the bill, which will turn out to be, in the long run, the most significant accomplishment of his eight years in office.) I'll get into the costs to individuals, to businesses and I'll balance those against the long-term benefits we will begin to reap. I'll mine the details for clues as to the winners and losers under the new system. But for now, this very concise explanation, lifted from the L.A. Times, will have to do:
"The bill would create a system for buying and selling emission permits that give the bearer the right to send carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Major sources of those gases, such as power plants and factories, would need to obtain enough permits to cover their emissions. Or they would need to cover their emissions with 'offsets,' such as planting trees, that scrub carbon dioxide from the sky."
Translation: major polluters will be allowed to proceed with business as usual, but the financial incentive to mend their ways will be too large to pass up. They will face a choice between throwing millions away each month, each WEEK, on permits... or innovating and investing in greener processes. They will choose option B, out of survival AND responsibility to their shareholders.
Ah, the free market. It's a beautiful thing when properly harnessed.
(Impact on small businesses: that's what I have to research. I'm looking forward to it. Early signs are good, as in "not-too-onerous" as of yet.)
So for the first time in a long time, the nation's most obscene polluters are not setting environmental policy. This means we can begin, with this bill, to reverse course from the wanton destruction -- for nothing more than money! -- of our country and of our planet.
That's cause for celebration.
Now, this from April 2009: "I am a supporter of a strong cap-and-trade system, but I will not and cannot align myself with a giant government slush fund that will further burden our businesses and consumers." That's Senator John McCain. Remember him? He's come out, in the past few years, all over the place on the concept of cap-and-trade. A Google search of his position yields plenty of contradictory articles. If he gets what he wants in the Senate version, it will pass and handily. If he doesn't, we're in for a doozy of a fight.
When the House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill containing so-called "cap-and-trade," an ugly way of life died. A decades-long (centuries-long?) effort by major polluters to reap short-term profits at the expense of the environment began to be rolled back.
I will delve deeply into cap-and-trade at some point, maybe when it actually becomes the law of the land, after it clears the Senate in some mutilated form. (President Obama will sign the bill, which will turn out to be, in the long run, the most significant accomplishment of his eight years in office.) I'll get into the costs to individuals, to businesses and I'll balance those against the long-term benefits we will begin to reap. I'll mine the details for clues as to the winners and losers under the new system. But for now, this very concise explanation, lifted from the L.A. Times, will have to do:
"The bill would create a system for buying and selling emission permits that give the bearer the right to send carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Major sources of those gases, such as power plants and factories, would need to obtain enough permits to cover their emissions. Or they would need to cover their emissions with 'offsets,' such as planting trees, that scrub carbon dioxide from the sky."
Translation: major polluters will be allowed to proceed with business as usual, but the financial incentive to mend their ways will be too large to pass up. They will face a choice between throwing millions away each month, each WEEK, on permits... or innovating and investing in greener processes. They will choose option B, out of survival AND responsibility to their shareholders.
Ah, the free market. It's a beautiful thing when properly harnessed.
(Impact on small businesses: that's what I have to research. I'm looking forward to it. Early signs are good, as in "not-too-onerous" as of yet.)
So for the first time in a long time, the nation's most obscene polluters are not setting environmental policy. This means we can begin, with this bill, to reverse course from the wanton destruction -- for nothing more than money! -- of our country and of our planet.
That's cause for celebration.
Now, this from April 2009: "I am a supporter of a strong cap-and-trade system, but I will not and cannot align myself with a giant government slush fund that will further burden our businesses and consumers." That's Senator John McCain. Remember him? He's come out, in the past few years, all over the place on the concept of cap-and-trade. A Google search of his position yields plenty of contradictory articles. If he gets what he wants in the Senate version, it will pass and handily. If he doesn't, we're in for a doozy of a fight.
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