Tag: President Obama

Talking out both sides of their mouths.

The White House says they have a plan to end NSA collection of data, by which they mean they are going to make phone companies keep the data and see to it that the courts issue subpoenas when anybody with a badge asks have overview. Snowden says well hey, that’s better than nothing!

And of course, the new proposal only covers American’s phone records, and doesn’t even address the internet, so the rest of the world had better be careful what they say (or follow Mr. Carter’s lead and use good old fashioned snail mail).

Meanwhile, most of the Congress-critters critical of the NSA are quietly being removed from places where they might cause trouble.

Yeah, that sounds like tossing some glitter on “business as usual” and calling it “new and improved” to me.

In Closing: minimum wage; tuberculosis and diabetes.

More thoughts on Minimum Wage

Many arguments against raising the minimum wage — and indeed, against helping those in low wage jobs — does boil down to victim blaming. That is, “it is the fault of the person making low wages that they make low wages and it is on them to do something about it.” Never mind the fact that as long as we want to be able to buy a fast food lunch, some adult has to make it and sell it to us (oh look, another reason that “minimum wage is not just for kids”, kids should be in school at lunchtime) and that adult deserves to be able to pay his/her bills.

Even the President is calling for a hike in the minimum wage and a “better tax deal for working families” (of course he’s talking out both sides of his mouth). All those petition sites might just be getting some traction.

Nah, that would imply that we live in a democracy where elected officials actually care about voter opinion.

Look, there’s no way around the fact that posting is going to be light this week due to an unusually large number of exams. In return, please accept some amusing comics and other imagery.

In Closing: A few diet links; Elvis House.

NSA: Going Away or Here to Stay?

Ok, so the President made his big presentation on NSA reforms today. For your convenience, here’s the actual transcript of what he said. If that’s too wordy for you, here’s a summary with commentary, and the EFF kindly provides a short version. Today I have just a little round-up of what people are saying. And what better way to start a round-up than with another round-up?

Seriously though, from where I sit, it looks like “Meh, better than nothing but it’s still a fig leaf.”

Just a reminder, many of our “elected” officials don’t think we need any reform at all.

In the meantime, more and more information about what the NSA is really up to continues to dribble out. Here we have an official who concedes that they haven’t caught any terrorists, but they might someday so we need to spy on everybody. I am unsure how they plan to catch terrorists if they are too busy learning about Comrade Misfit’s lunch plans and the fact that I’m cooking meatloaf for dinner. You can’t find a needle in a haystack by building bigger haystacks. Although I am told that part of learning to search for something specific involves sifting a lot of data to see what it looks like, that phase should be temporary and shouldn’t involve storing the data forever.

Oh, and I wouldn’t dream of leaving out the thoughts of security guru Bruce Schneier, who thinks that encryption is the key to keeping data private.

It’s time to fight back.

In Closing: maybe real school reform starts with the schedule; black widow; not better off; the last Imperial soldier; pens; even skywriters doodle when they are bored; don’t forget to remind your Congressmice that TPP is a bad idea; make then talk; and no, “fit but fat” isn’t a thing.

Syriana

Today is all Syria and nothing but Syria.

Obama managed to surprise his own advisors on Syria. What’s the rush? Why did John Kerry have to stick his neck out and fluff up the “evidence” with decade old pictures? The phone is ringing, Secretary. It’s Colin Powell asking if you’ve lost your mind.

And Ok. So we have “evidence” — if it can be trusted — saying that chemical weapons were used, and saying where they were used. Nobody has offered anybody to the actual attack or orders to make the actual attack. The “proof” boils down to “The body was found in a locked room that the defendant had a key to open.” Unless there’s a whole lot more “classified” info, it’s barely enough to get a search warrant on a crime drama. Do you think that the Bad Guys in that part of the world are above framing another party with circumstantial evidence?

Here’s a little history lesson for you on the War on Terror and Syria in particular. In case you’re having a hard time keeping track of the players, here’s a chart of who stands where. The Guardian is willing to go so far as to say “it’s about the oil, stupid.”

In an environment where we are arguing about the upcoming debt ceiling problem and some Republicans are threatening to let the nation default on it’s bonds unless Social Security is gutted, it’s worth noting that the Pentagon can’t afford to go to war in Syria and will need a supplemental spending bill to make it happen. But Republicans never met a war they didn’t like (unless a Democrat thinks it’s a good idea); so much for “this nation must learn to live within it’s means.

There’s also a lot of people who point out that we cannot be the Policeman for the World.

The media is on board — a nice war makes it obvious what to cover. For a change, support and opposition is not following party lines in Congress. It’s a good thing they aren’t back until the 9th. It will take that long to force encourage enough Congressmen and Senators to support the new war. Getting the military to support “becoming Al Qaeda’s air force” is another battle altogether.

The Pope is calling for peace in Syria. As the first Pope I’ve respected during my lifetime, I think he’s on to something there.

And you know who else thinks going to war in Syria is a bad idea? Sarah Palin, whose Facebook page says “So we’re bombing Syria because Syria is bombing Syria? And I’m the idiot?” When Sarah Palin is the voice of reason, you’ve got a big problem.

A choice selection of NSA and spying on citizens links

So much for “We’re only using it to track bad guys overseas. Ok, well maybe Americans but only if they’re terrorists.” Turns out the DEA, CIA, FBI, and IRS got a piece of that action too. And then they tried to cover it up. Here’s a hint folks, government officials don’t try to cover up good and perfectly legal things.

Oh, and it turns out that they are only willing to go on the record about 13 “contributions” to an arrest. How much is this program costing taxpayers — in an environment where at least one party is constantly screaming about the national debt — per arrest? Any sensible CEO would have pulled the plug.

When CNN notices that 1984 is uncomfortably close to what we are experiencing, you have to wonder.

Cloud computing is now dead. After all, if you can’t trust that the government doesn’t have your data, how can you possibly trust that your competitors, enemy, or ex-wife doesn’t have it?

They know when you are sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know when you’re downloading porn so be good for goodness sake! No, actually they just know the IP (internet protocol) address of every site you visit.

And they’ve hacked a major internet anonymizer to keep track of you when you don’t want it. Wikipedia is trying to lock them out. Good luck with that, seriously.

The frosting on this rotten cake? They won’t even tell Congress what they are up to.

Over 100 organizations think this is a bad thing that needs to stop now.

“A matter of national security — The age old cry of the oppressor.” — Jean Luc Picard.

Follow Up: Americans cars are getting older.

In closing: to do list; on pregnancy; lefties against Obama.

Prep Your Guest Room

Because if Mr. Obama gets his way, your parents will eventually have no choice but to move in with you.

CNN/Money describes Chained CPI as “The Geeky Debt Fix That Might Work.” It will do no such thing. The assumption is that “CPI overmeasures inflation” when in fact, inflation has been systematically undermeasured for many years. So the answer — according to people who don’t have to balance their own checkbooks — is to adjust inflation yet again so we don’t have to pay more going forward.

That means lower cost of living raises for Congressmen, sure. It also means lower raises for mail carriers, IRS auditors, soldiers and sailors (support our troops, right), and everybody on Social Security. So relative to real inflation, all their paychecks will feel smaller and buy less. In general, wages in this nation haven’t kept up with inflation for most of the last 50 years, so that’s going to hurt even more.

And it’s not going to cut deficits. Even if it works as planned, it will only reduce the rate at which the deficit gets bigger. That’s like going on a weight loss plan and bragging that you’re only gaining 2 pounds a month instead of 5.

Never mind that Social Security does not contribute to the national deficit in any way. Never mind that if the eggheads in Washington were really worried about the idea that at some hazy date in the future, Social Security will pay out more than it pays in, they would suggest raising the maximum contribution.

So go ahead and write or call your Representative and Senators. Send email to the White House too. Ask them point blank:

If Chained CPI is enacted, can my mom come live with you? Because I don’t think I can afford it.

Maybe if they get enough calls, they will notice that this is a bad idea.

In Closing: If this were a math test, they’d fail; Judge cuts political gordian knot; Too Big To Fail is Too Big To Exist; his little outburst earned him a $75k fine and a $100k bonus (explain again how sports makes money for colleges??); Kim, even Castro thinks you’re going too far; and huffing bears.

Follow Up: The Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners at Walgreens are a poor substitute for a Doctor. Some are so dangerous, they don’t even know what they don’t know.

Gridlock and Opportunity

The next session of Congress is either going to be complete gridlock, or an era of great bi-partisanship. I say this based on this chart from Nate Silver. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s Nate “the man who got all the numbers right when everybody else got them horribly wrong” Silver:

 

Let me point out the obvious. It takes 218 votes to get most things done in the House of Representatives. Neither the mainstream Republicans nor the Democrats (with or without the Blue Dog crowd) have those votes. The Tea Party has become a de-facto third party. To get anything done, there will have to be a coalition and/or a compromise: either between the two parties, or with the Tea Partiers. This should be obvious to both Mr. Boehner and Ms. Pelosi. The President already said it out loud. As Mr. Silver points out, on this and pretty much every bill in the next session, Mr. Boehner “will need to win the support of at least some liberal Democrats. And a bill that wins the support of some liberal Democrats will be an even harder sell to Mr. Boehner’s Republicans. For each vote that he picks up from the left, he could risk losing another from his right flank.”

Nobody knows if the glass is half-empty or half-full. Was Mr. Boehner’s ill-named “Plan B” a symptom of his increasing irrelevance, or an attempt to enter a Post- Norquist political world? Will the 113th Congress be a more sane and bi-partisan body, or a place where the right hand and the left hand quite literally don’t know what the other is doing? Let’s hope for sanity.

In Closing: military research saving lives on battlefields and eventually on American streets; why re-invent public education with things we aren’t even sure work when we can just crib off Massachusetts?; yeah, it turns out there were good guys with guns at Columbine and it didn’t help (at least the good guys didn’t injure more students); and maybe this deserves more thought.

ShortWoman.com Supports the International T-Pain Autotune Treaty

Be it resolved that henceforth, only T-Pain will be allowed to use autotune in recorded music. Other uses shall be considered a crime against humanity.

It is further resolved that quotations of Rapper’s Delight may only be made with the express consent and permission of the United Nations Security Council.*

Please, join me in support of this desperately needed performing arts issue. If I had a little more HTML talent, I’d put together a little ad for the sidebar.

In Closing: Mongols; he’s got a point; Rolling Jubilee; delayed; I guess it’s hard to win elections when you piss off 50% of the population; but they’re already part of the United States!; we’re all suspicious; belly buttons; new health plan?; politics and religion; filibuster all you like, but you gotta talk!; and oops! Somebody was very sure he’d win.

* Yeah, I’m talking to you too, Pitbull.

Beneath the Shorties

LOL: Enjoy this meme while you can, I figure it’s dead in 3 weeks.

They just keep coming: Remember, the plot to kill Big Bird is still in play. There’s a Million Muppet March planned.

Twelve! Meeeeelion! Jobs!!!: Yeah, so?

Get it off me! Get it get it get it….: Is it just me, or does Mr. Romney look uncomfortable in this picture? You don’t suppose it could be that he’s being touched by a black man, do you?

Beating the dead dressage horse: What Romney’s tax “plan” could do to housing.

If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it: Scientists found a planet twice the size of Earth, largely made of diamond. Good thing it’s far enough away that DeBeers can’t get hold of it!

Like you needed an economist to tell you that: Your paycheck is being outstripped by inflation. So if low interest rates are supposedly the cure for inflation, what the heck is the Fed going to do now??

But apparently some people do need an economist to tell you this: Here’s why cutting taxes never has and never will create jobs.

Gee, maybe saying “no” wasn’t such a good strategy: Failing to pass a Big Agriculture Giveaway  Farm Bill before leaving Washington gave some Democrats an upper hand.

Judges judge things: An Appeals Court has ruled part of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

Unexpected Excitement: Passengers on a Canadian airliner helped save a boater’s life. That beats most in-flight movies.

Wheat Ain’t What It Was: On modern wheat.

Not sure how to get out of this mess: Two out of three new college grads has college loan debt, and the average amount is $26,600. The scary part is that many of them won’t be getting jobs anytime soon. Just a reminder, it would take 3668 hours at minimum wage to pay that off. That’s 152 days of nonstop 24/7 labor. And it won’t be wiped out by bankruptcy.

Newsweek: will stop printing a paper edition.

But what about the economy?: Here’s an outline of the risks.

“The other 1%”: 2/3 of the bottom 1% of Americans are in prison.

Turns out it won’t turn good girls into sluts: Girls who get the HPV vaccine are not more likely to have sex.

Carbs: “People 70 and older who eat food high in carbohydrates have nearly four times the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, and the danger also rises with a diet heavy in sugar, Mayo Clinic researchers have found. Those who consume a lot of protein and fat relative to carbohydrates are less likely to become cognitively impaired, the study found.”

And it turns out that Doing Good might Make More Money: At least that’s Coca-Cola’s theory.

Let the Spin Begin

Ok, the good news first. Poverty is down ever so slightly. The number of people without health insurance is down, despite the fact that health insurance premiums went up 4% (far exceeding the official inflation rate).  The bad news is that  typical American income is down for the 4th year in a row. Adjusted for inflation, we’re back to the Clinton Administration.

Sit back and watch the two parties fight about what this means and who is to blame.

In Closing: converted RINO; crass; type 3 diabetes; turns out that training makes for better employees, who knew?!?!?; apples and oranges; voter suppression works too well; and the rules.