bmagnus

Well, the Post Office has been stimulated

Soon after the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 was passed, I received a notice in the mail from the IRS to let me know this had happened and was great news and I was likely to get a check.

Today I received a notice in the mail from the IRS to let me know that under the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, I was entitled to a check, and it should arrive next week.

Next week — according to this notice in the mail from the IRS — I should receive a check in the mail from the IRS under the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008.

I am unsure how much this check will “stimulate” my personal economic outlook, but the money spent on paper, printing, and postage will probably have a greater effect on the economy than whatever I should do with the expected check. The check that the IRS will send me in the mail. Under the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008.

In closing: the real unemployment rate; how is it we can convict 297 illegal immigrants who worked at one plant and not come up with a single charge against the employer?; the Secret History of Star Wars; the real roots of the food crisis; Good Post on Bad Money; and finally students so busy the school has to add a 20 minute “lunch period”? How about telling these kids that no, you can’t have 6 academic classes, you have to take a lunch period! Attention Administrators: YOU are the GROWN-UPS. Act like it!

Sometimes I feel like the only sane person in the world.

Lawn Hors D’Oeuvres, or 2 Thoughts on 4 Shows

Thought One: Not Exactly Kitchen Stadium

I watch both Top Chef and Hell’s Kitchen. I’m new to Hell’s Kitchen this year, although I have watched Top Chef for several seasons now (and hello? was there some concerted effort to not have anybody from Las Vegas this season?). In case you are unfamiliar with the concept, these are cooking game shows. The prize in one is a position as Executive Chef at a Gordon Ramsay owned restaurant. The prize in the other is everything you need in an industrial kitchen, and a bunch of good press to get your new restaurant off the ground.

Now then, when you start with 14 contestants and end up with one winner, it is obvious that everyone else will not win. This part, everyone gets. The part that seems to elude some is that the losers will be looking for a job at the end of the season. Most of the Top Chef crew gets this. Only a couple contenders over at Hell’s Kitchen — including the one I expect to win handily — have the faintest clue.

This is not rocket science. Someday, a prospective employer will have watched this show, and in all likelihood will have already decided whether or not to hire these chefs. That decision will have a little to do with their kitchen performance, and a lot to do with the way they handled themselves on-camera but out of the kitchen. These shows are a multi-week job interview, but some people aren’t treating it that way.

Thought Two: Got Dead Body?

If I am ever so unfortunate as to be closely enough associated with a high-profile criminal case such that the Hollywood types think it’s a good idea to make an episode of a TV show about it, I sincerely hope that it’s CSI instead of Law and Order. Law and Order tends way too much towards “Internet Bad! Doctors Greedy! Non-Missionary Position Sex Bad!”

I also hope they can get Amy Poehler to play me.

She’s 5’2″, so she would have to wear flats.

In closing: here’s what John Edwards has been doing; Fafblog! is back, and with great stuff like this “interview” with Senator Clinton; What’s good for the gosling is good for the goose, so why aren’t faculty members lining up to pee in the cup?; Expert Ezra on Tom Daschle; Maybe Jim Crow oughta watch his back; look over there! it’s a gay, married red herring!; and sorry I’m not touching the “appeasers!” scandal, because Jill said what needed saying (and don’t forget Chris Mathews asking if his guest even knows what “appeasement” is).

Have a great weekend!

Death By Pregnancy

Welcome to my entry in the Mothers Day Blogswarm for Maternal Death. This event is a counter-protest against those who feel that abortion is nothing more than killing babies. The sad fact of the matter is that sometimes and in some parts of the world women die because they cannot get a pregnancy terminated.

And that brings me to my own chosen niche in this vast realm. I will be discussing ectopic pregnancy. Those of you in the audience who are medical professionals may protest that terminating an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion (for reasons I will discuss below), but the fact is that in some nations, it is considered an abortion — an illegal abortion.

An ectopic pregnancy occurs when the fertilized egg does not make it all the way to the uterus — which is designed to accommodate a rapidly growing embryo as it turns ino a fetus and finally a baby. Instead, it implants elsewhere, usually in the Fallopian tubes. This structure is not designed to stretch and carry a pregnancy. This results in symptoms such as sharp, stabbing pain and vaginal bleeding. If left untreated, the Fallopian tube will eventually rupture, causing massive internal bleeding.

This always results in the death of the fetus, and can often cause the death of the mother as well. “Before the 19th century, the mortality rate (the death rate) from ectopic pregnancies exceeded 50%. By the end of the 19th century, the mortality rate dropped to five percent because of surgical intervention. With current advances in early detection, the mortality rate has improved to less than five in 10,000.” Here in the United States, where we have state-of-the-art medical treatment and emergency rooms that treat everyone who comes in the door regardless of their ability to pay, ectopic pregnancy kills roughly 40-50 women each year and is a leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

The bottom line is that in the 1 in 40-100 pregnancies that this occurs, “Ectopic pregnancies cannot continue to birth (term). The developing cells must be removed to save the mother’s life.” Nevertheless, should you be unfortunate enough to experience an ectopic pregnancy in places like El Salvadore, Nicaragua, or other nations with very strict prohibitions on abortion, you are likely to die. There are frankly no assurances from the so-called Pro-Life movement that their goals do not include such draconian laws. Frankly these are people who can rationalize that a fertilized ovum that has not yet implanted is somehow a baby.

Now then, to the “It’s a baby!” crowd, it is not. It will not become a baby. Before it can possibly do so, its growth will destroy the very structure which attaches it to its mother. In this process, it will die. There is no way to move it, to attach it elsewhere, no way for it to survive long enough to be viable. It has absolutely zero chance of becoming living, breathing human being.

There is another element of the so-called Pro-Life movement who will shrug and say “Well, she knew that sex had consequences” — that’s a soft version of “Let the slut die.” The problem is that this doesn’t just happen to “sluts”: this also happens to devoted wives, and to moms who have born, living children at home that they love very much. So much for being actually for living beings.

I leave you this morning with abortion laws in all 50 states, BitchPhD’s Mother’s Day Round-Up, a classic post from Maya’s Granny, and a couple more stops on the Blogswarm with The Crone Speaks and The 3 Rs.

Happy Mothers Day. Go hug a mom; she can always use another hug.

Pre-Parade Entertainment

Remember, the Mothers Day Blogswarm for Maternal Death is this Sunday. We’ve gotten some coverage in places like BlogHer, TMV, and Healthy Concerns, and we expect a good turnout.

As some food for thought before the event itself, please consider some of these stories:

First stop is Kansas, where prosecutors are going on a fishing expedition through confidential patient records to see if — if — a crime has even been committed. More to the point, they are trying to harass a doctor out of doing a procedure that is regrettably sometimes necessary. Oh, and a judge has called them on it.

In Missouri, lawmakers want women to submit to extensive *ahem* informational counseling and questioning before allowing an abortion. The question of whether a woman psychologically unfit to have an abortion should really be raising a child is left to your imagination. Thanks to Bitch PhD for this tidbit. Who the heck are these women who are allegedly being “forced” to have abortions against their wills? Are we talking about minors whose parents have made a valid medical decision on the behalf of their child?

A law currently on the Governor’s desk in Oklahoma would force women to have an ultrasound before getting an abortion. I bet the patient has to pay for this procedure too, raising the cost substantially. No word on whether this requirement could or would be waived in a medical emergency.

Don’t forget South Dakota.

Some within the so-called Pro-Life community — and I will continue to say so-called until they denounce the internal faction that believes it is acceptable to enforce their opinions with violence, vandalism, and murder — even want to limit access to birth control, falsely claiming it can “cause” an abortion. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the term “pregnancy” and shows their true colors as not pro-babies, but anti-sex.

Here’s a summary of abortion laws around the world.

Wikipedia’s article on Abortion in the United States points out that 2.8% are due to risks to maternal health, and another 3.3% are due to risks to fetal health. Also, 59.3% of abortions are in the first 8 weeks of pregnancy.

And then there are our sisters in Africa. Rape is a weapon of war there and elsewhere.

Speaking of war, there are our sisters in uniform, one in three of whom will be raped by fellow soldiers while serving our country. Sometimes the *ahem* alleged rapist even allegedly murders their pregnant victim rather than let her testify.

And then we have teenage girls that are pregnant and deathly afraid of what will happen when their parents find out. Sometimes it turns out ok. Sometimes it does not. Seven out of ten are already being abused by their boyfriends. Of those, some of them were deliberately impregnated as a form of control. What a lovely way to bring new life into the world.

And I haven’t even mentioned what I will be writing about.

As much as I hate to agree with Hillary Clinton on anything, in an ideal world abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. You prevent abortions not by making it hard to get one, but by preventing the unwanted pregnancy in the first place.

In closing: Ezra on retirement; an interesting observation about Guantánamo Bay; Hillary is 404; follow-up on Kelo; and the finalists for Bruce Schneier’s annual movie plot threat contest.

One Missed Shorties

The Smartest Thing You’ll Read on Illegal Employment and Immigration All Day: Alternet tells us the truth — with supporting statistics — that it isn’t “jobs Americans don’t want,” but “exploitable employees that unscrupulous employers do want”.

Speaking of Statistics: Here’s a guy who understands the employment and inflation stats and how they are manipulated. In short? the recession is here now.

Bill Moyers has the last word: At least, when it comes to Rev. Wright. Here’s the video, here’s the text.

Burma, shaved: A couple items on the aftermath of a huge cyclone in Myanmar Burma. The death toll is estimated at well over 20,000, getting supplies to survivors is difficult, and our own First Lady accuses the government of not warning people and leaving them to die (oh, the irony).

Obligatory crap about the primaries and related Democratic detritus: IHT cleverly tells us one of three things could happen today; a sad but true prediction; Hillary’s nuclear option, if it in fact exists, could nuke her; does she honestly think the 3.5 million newly registered voters want politics as usual?; if we can’t win we’ll change the rules; lessons learned; and the Edwardses are classy people.

Cinco de Mayo gave me gas: OPEC; Harry Reid; and stolen grease.

To get your war money, you have to give money to unemployed people: well, I guess if we have to take the combo meal, we may as well supersize it.

The Duhpartment of Research: the race gap in drug arrests (uh, sure, white people never do drugs, riiiiight); and a researcher finding more antibiotic resistant bacteria calls the trend “very worrisome.”

The One-Minute Manager has met his match: Ten Tips from Florinda.

And now for your dose of Shorties Japan-Filter: Giant Kites; it’s easier than working; nothing to crow about; and The Prince meets A Dog [Hisohito-sama wa ookite shiroi inu wo mimashita. Kirei-na inu deshita, ne.].

In Florida, they consider him a “wizard,” but in Vegas we would consider him a barely passable illusionist: Teacher fired for making a toothpick vanish up his sleeve.

You knew I would slip health care in someplace: Granny Bashers.

A Dyre Situation: Blogger food drive.

And finally: Goodbye to the Spindle.

A Message from a Voter

This is the first ever guest voice on ShortWoman. It is a letter which will be going out both to the Clinton campaign and to the Democratic Party. I will let the author introduce himself. Please enjoy.

Dear Senator Clinton:

I have been a lifelong Democrat. I spent my first Presidential election as a voter phoning polling turnout reports back to Dukakis campaign headquarters in Fort Worth, TX, so that we could maximize Democratic turnout in key precincts. I have donated and put my time in for all of my adult life. I have always voted a strict party line and, frankly, watching the lemming-like behavior of the Republicans with regard to the impeachment of President Clinton can say with certainty that I will never vote for a Republican for any office.

Those things said, I cannot and will not vote for Hillary Clinton for the Presidency of the United States. As a child I was promised that anyone could grow up to be President. For the last 20 years only 2 families have controlled the White House and your election would extend that to 24 or 28 years. That is the death of the ultimate promise of American opportunity.

I have been disenfranchised by national politics much of my adult life. I have watched as my party has become preoccupied with rancor and political expediency instead of real, meaningful service to the electorate. Your campaign this year has demonstrated that your concern is limited to only those states that serve your political expediency and have little regard for the electorate as whole. This is a failed strategy. And while it served to elect William Jefferson Clinton, it was unable to deliver despite the fitness of Al Gore or John Kerry for service.

I am a physician. I have watched as my own profession has failed to listen to my needs politically or even serve its own end. I have watched as my professional organizations have failed to lobby for meaningful things like Medicare funding caring instead to focus on distractions like tort reform. The answer, and you know this, is not some slipshod universal healthcare plan that involves mandates of private insurance. The answer here is one of real vision, a vision that you have had almost two decades to formulate and have failed to do so.

I have watched you pander to insurance companies, to big oil interests, to the political right, and to religious groups. In short, everyone except actual people who could actually vote for you.

Enough is enough, Senator Clinton. You refuse to endorse a 50 state strategy for your campaign and I refuse to support your campaign under any circumstances. If by some slim chance you become the nominee, I will not vote for you. I will not vote for your opponent either. Whether I withhold my vote or represent some small number of votes for a third party, I cannot say.

Senator, you have failed me as a Democrat and I will not allow you to continue to do so.

Thank you for your time,

Warren Magnus, DO

Hillary’s Fail Moment

I honestly thought I’d spend today talking about the McCain health plan. But frankly, lots of people have already said deeper things about it than I would have. Hey, it might have worked 5 or 10 years ago.

Instead, I offer two observations. First, breastfeeding of infants is at a multi-decade high. That’s a good thing! But is it because today’s savvy moms are trying to do the healthiest thing for their babies, or is it because it’s cheaper than formula?

Second, Hillary Clinton has had her supermarket-scanner tank-riding moment. Many thanks to State of the Day and AmericaBlog for pointing us to this hilarious (Hillarious?) video of our former First Lady, who went to a gas station for the first time in 2 decades, trying to get a cup of coffee. Bonus points? When she stops near the end to read the instructions printed prominently on the machine itself.

Thinking About This

Let’s imagine a nice little community of 400 homes. It’s a perfectly average American community, and it could be anywhere: in town, in the ‘burbs, in the countryside.

Thanks to the often-cited statistic that 68% of Americans own their homes, we can deduce that perhaps as many as 32% are rental homes, or 128. However, we are going to assume there is an apartment complex down the road, and that only a third of that number are in fact rental homes. We’ll round down to 42.

Because it is a perfectly average community, roughly 5% are currently available. Most of them are for sale or lease. A few have sales/leases pending — the sign is still up, but only because the deal hasn’t actually closed yet. Another few are being prepped for sale/lease, but frankly if you made the owner an offer out of the blue he or she would likely take it.. That’s 20 homes. A lot of these homes are currently not occupied.

Right now, 2 of them are in foreclosure, like one out of every 194 homes nationwide — more than double last year’s figure. Once the bank takes them back, they will be added to the list of homes currently available.

In addition, since 6.8% of American homes are currently financed at least in part with a ARM sub-prime mortgage, there’s 27 homeowners that don’t know what their payment will be next year. Since there are 75.1 million home owning Americans and “over 7.5 million first-lien subprime mortgages outstanding”, you can see that one out of every 10 homes in this average community are involved in the subprime mess in one way or another. That’s 40 homes. There is reason to suspect that a disproportionate number of these homes are currently rented, because a lot of investors had to resort to subprime lending. Suddenly, Hope Now’s efforts seem quixotic.

So let’s take a look at how this could play out in the next few months. Those two foreclosures alone will drive our available homes figure to 22, an increase of 10%. This doesn’t seem like a big deal in one community of 400 homes, but multiplied out across a metropolitan area, it can be huge. The bank does not particularly want to own this property, and in many cases is willing to sell at a loss. This drives down prices across our community: why would buyers pay more to a private owner, when they can get a comparable bank-owned home for less?

This in turn creates another problem for our homeowners with subprime and ARM mortgages. Some of those people would like to refinance, but can’t. Some now owe more than the current market price; that combined with whatever personal financial issues resulted in them having this mortgage in the first place prevent them from getting affordable refinancing. Some of these people are going to have to sell their homes, if not simply walk away. If as few as 2 of them do so, we have raised available housing by a total of 20% across the community.

We haven’t even discussed the impact of a major lender going out of business. While the mortgages owned by such a lender would be sold off — they are assets, after all — that would reduce the pool of available lenders, and available funds with which to make mortgages for honest, bill-paying homeowners. It obviously also reduces the money available to people trying to refinance. In a nutshell, that is why the government has to “bail out” some lenders: not because we are rewarding their bad behavior, but because of the impact on the public.

Most of the currently discussed legislative solutions focus on owner-occupied homes. The reasoning is that investors should have known better and it’s only fair that they sleep in the bed they made. This reasoning fails to account for the decent, rent-paying residents of our community. If these homes are foreclosed upon, the leases are generally terminated, leaving the resident to scramble for a new home through no fault of his or her own. Does that seem fair to you? Furthermore, by leaving these homes out of the “solution”, we have the potential of adding dozens of homes to a real estate market that normally only has 20 available units. The law of supply and demand suggests that is a recipe for plunging prices, a problem which already exists.

Problem exacerbated by the solution.

But what if our community isn’t perfectly average? According to the latest foreclosure data:

In the first quarter, 1 of every 54 homes in Nevada received some type of foreclosure filing – more than any other state. Its largest city, Las Vegas, had 1 out of every 44 homes go into foreclosure.

Stockton, Calif., had the highest foreclosure rate out of any U.S. metro area, with 1 out of every 30 homes receiving a notice – nearly seven times higher than the national average. The Riverside/San Bernardino region had the second highest rate in the quarter, with one of every 38 homes in default.

Only two metro areas in the ranks of the 20 hardest hit were outside the Sunbelt – Detroit, which ranked sixth in the nation with 1 in every 68 households in default, and Cleveland which saw 1 in every 105 homes go into foreclosure.

That means that if our typical community is in Nevada, there’s 7 homes in foreclosure; if it’s in Las Vegas, there’s 9; Stockton, there’s 13; Detroit, there’s 5 or 6; Cleveland, there’s 3 or 4. Multiply all the problems above accordingly. And keep in mind that these problems are currently impacting the economy in a negative way.

Any real legislative solution to these issues must take into account all parts of the problem: lenders, homeowners, real estate investors, renters, even home builders and investors who purchased mortgage backed securities. To implement half a solution is worse than no solution at all.

Cross-posted on The Moderate Voice and Bridget Magnus.

The Truth About Evolution

It happens.

It’s why there’s a different flu vaccine each year.

It’s how corn came to exist.

It’s why antibiotic resistant bacteria exist.

It’s how these little lizards came to be quite different little lizards in roughly 35 years.

It’s why syphilis no longer has symptoms including “Boils that stood out like Acorns, from whence issued such filthy stinking Matter, that whosoever came within the Scent, believed himself infected. The Colour of these was of a dark Green and the very Aspect as shocking as the pain itself, which yet was as if the Sick had laid upon a fire.” I think the author of the news item put it well: “First, it contrasts markedly with modern experiences with the disease…. Second, it is reasonable to suppose that a sufferer of [these] symptoms… would be unlikely to get a lot of dates.”

How and why evolution happens? Yes that’s a theory. But to ignore evolution altogether is to ignore a law of nature.

In closing: dying for lack of insurance; the recession diet as endorsed by TheStreet.com (way to get to that hard hitting economics and market news there, Jim Cramer must be sooooo proud); OPEC tells the truth, that high oil prices are at least partly because of the weak dollar (which is in turn because of certain Bush Administration policies); young voters more likely to be Democrats; it turns out that of the 53 teenage girls taken from the FDLS compound, 31 were moms or moms-to-be (I think that’s grounds enough to keep the 53 girls away from that place permanently); it turns out that all that hands-on math teaching with “manipulatives” and lots of word problems may be making it harder to learn math; “fat but fit” turns out to be largely untrue after all; and renovated robot rides again.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Shorties

Taser Follow Up and Then Some: True stories and film compiled by an Earth-Bound Misfit.

Taking Stuff Away: We aren’t even secure from the people who are supposed to be insuring our transportation Security.

So much for the Republicans being the party of fiscal restraint: Deficit at record levels. At least “tax and spend liberals” have the money before they go spending it.

Maybe striking the head of the snake is a bad strategy: Chicago braces for “a long, bloody summer” after “a deadly breakdown in discipline among gang members after a crackdown over the past few years put many of their leaders behind bars.” With no leaders, rank and file are left to their own deadly devices. Ultimately, disorganized crime is proving more dangerous than organized crime. Of course, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with an influx of inexperienced gang members as legit jobs become more scarce, could it?

“It is never a good thing if many of your customers can no longer afford what you are selling.”: The topic is Health Insurance. More about that topic here and here.

Wow, who spiked his Kool-Aid with Rational Juice?: Defense Secretary William Gates says we should try to avoid getting into another Middle East war, that we should think and use “loyal dissent when the situation calls for it,” and that he feels personally responsible for all those young men and women at West Point.

Someone’s in the kitchen with Tama, Someone’s in the kitchen I know….: Sumimasen, eki-chou wa neko desu! [Excuse me sir, the station master is a cat!] Why are you surprised? Cats end up in all sorts of professions these days.

Speaking of the Japanese: A robot built by Honda will conduct the Detroit Symphony.

Judge finally decides that subpoenas are a good thing: What part of “The Fourth Amendment says you need a search warrant and FISA says you can even get the damn thing 3 days after the fact” was it that was giving you trouble?

Burma hasn’t gone away: The Junta is still in charge.

Slow Motion Business Implosion: Sure, you can buy a gizmo that makes an annoying sound only teenagers can hear, and it will keep them away from your place of business. And you know what? They will remember that 10 or 20 years from now when they are your target demographic. For that matter, are the prevented fights worth the prevented sales from keeping them away from the mall?

Middle Path: Ok, marrying off and/or impregnating girls as young as 12 is a bad idea. But is there a shred of evidence that any boys or any kids younger than puberty have been abused in any way? Save yourself and Child Protective Services a big headache, Your Honor, and once the DNA tests are done send everyone under the age of 10 home.

An interesting program [probably not] coming to a community college near you: Pre-Ninja Studies.

Great timing there, Senator: John McCain picks a heckuva time, Brownie, to condemn the government handling of Hurricane Katrina. Somehow I think that is not what he was thinking in this picture.

It took a man to reclaim feminism: Shaun Mullen on why Hillary is not a feminist.

The Shoes! We may no longer be able to control shoe costs by just shipping production to a cheaper country.

Insert appropriate Homer Simpson noise here: Beer prices on the rise, just like everything else.

Become part of the regulatory process: Start Here.

And that’s it for this, the anniversary of the Trojan Horse. Peace, Out!