Plan for Social Security relies on an immediate, familiar Bush strategy: "The run-up to President Bush's plan to deal with Social Security is looking a lot like the run-up to his plan to deal with Saddam Hussein."
And we all know how well that turned out...
Of course, just for the record this scribe wasn't fooled the first time. I just hope that the rest of the folks in Jesusland are starting to slowly, painfully wake up...
Social Security Slam-Dunk (washingtonpost.com): "Why do I think that the Social Security crisis -- 'the crisis is now,' President Bush said recently -- is the domestic version of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Could it be that I am hearing the same sense of false urgency? Could it be that the predicted insolvency of the Social Security system is something other than -- yes -- 'a slam-dunk'? I wonder.
My cynicism -- like yours -- has been earned the hard way. George Bush has a charming tendency to make up his mind first and then seek the evidence for his decision. This is how he went about deciding to go to war in Iraq -- telling Don Rumsfeld to produce a war plan in the days right after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, even though there was no evidence Iraq was responsible. It did not matter. Bush wanted war with Iraq, Bush got it -- and now we're stuck with it."
You see where this is going. I'm waiting for someone to make the same connection in front of a video camera, preferably directly to W so that we can watch him squirm.
Here's an interesting idea-- a search engine for TV. One question, though-- the page says that they're going to use "advanced phonetic matching speech recognition technology" to index the content...why can't they just use the closed-captioning?
So the Nazi thing might be a little over the top...
Yahoo! News - Cuba Erects Sign Linking U.S. and Nazis Cuba retaliated for the U.S. diplomatic mission's Christmas display supporting Cuban dissidents by putting up a billboard Friday emblazoned with photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners and a huge swastika overlaid with a 'Made in the U.S.A' stamp.
So not only will Bush's plan to "save" Social Security not work, it's also very likely to make the problem worse.
Josh Marshall has been all over the Kerik details, but I think the whole story's summed up nicely by Rude Pundit:
And Kerik claimed a "nanny" problem? Man, that's like a syphilitic hooker with crabs and genital warts telling you she can't fuck you because she has a cracked fingernail.
I just wish people would start to make the connection between the process that led to Kerik's nomination and the other people Bush has picked. They may not be quite as slimy as this guy, but the criteria of loyalty first, qualifications second is one that applies all 'round.
I'll admit that my eyes glazed over half-way through, but this seems to be as short and concise a summary as we're likely to get on why Social Security privatization will (would) fail.
Received a link from Mom today to a site that summarizes a bunch of data on red/blue states. Much of it is a rehash of stuff I had seen elsewhere, but the chlamydia data was new.
What struck me, however, was the preface to the email:
Have a look. But as a teacher I repeat that it is our fault--that the American people can't recognize a shell game when they see one.
My first thought was, "Well that's noble, but teachers can't really take all the blame." After all, the media isn't doing us any favors, and Bush/Cheney/Rove seem possessed of a particularly virulent strain of evil. Upon further reflection, I am beginning to wonder just what role teachers, or more broadly the educational system in general, has played in the current debacle. The problem, I think, is that public education has to balance two different things. First, education has to give everyone the tools for critical thought so that they can recognize a shell game when it occurs. Second, there is a process of enculturation and socialization that occurs in schools. This second process is in some ways opposed to the first.
Think back to when you were in school and you learned about the presidents. If you were like me, you learned about Washington and Lincoln, and then you probably talked about whoever was president at the time. For me it was mostly Carter and Reagan. There were other presidents that got mentioned, but not in any real detail. We certainly never discussed the screwups like Nixon in any depth. As a result, to some extent all presidents get raised up to the same level as Washington and Lincoln, some sort of mythic status just short of deification. You learn to trust the president, because the president is the president. Even if you disagree with his ideas, there's an ingrained thought that says, "I may disagree with what President X says, but I know he has the best interests of the country at heart."
Now what happens when there is evidence that the president does not have the best interests of the country at heart? As rational thinkers, we hope that everyone can see through the facade. Unfortunately, there is a barrier that's been erected that gets in the way of seeing the truth. There are certain questions that don't get asked because to ask them would violate the social norms we've been brought up to believe.
It's at this point that I have to say that teachers/education emphatically do not need to take the blame. Because even if we assume that it is difficult for Americans to ask the right questions some times, it is not impossible. However, before they can ask these questions they have to have the right information. This is where the media's failures jump to front and center. I won't go into detail here, since other do it better, but suffice to say that it is extraordinarily difficult to get a full picture of what's going on in the world without concerted effort. Because of media consolidation (think Viacom, Sinclair Broadcasting, AOL/Time/Warner), deliberate distortion (think FOX, Sinclair again), misplaced priorities (Scott Peterson, sports, weather), and economics/laziness (how much of your news comes from wire services or network feeds?), most Americans only have the vaguest clue what's going on. Without good information, no one can ask the right questions.
The big question is, what can we do about it?
This has been officially announced on the transparent media site, so I guess I might as well say something about it here. I've been working on a couple short pieces of animation. The first of which should be completed by spring. Called "A Civil Discussion," it features these two characters debating on a talk show. You'll be able to get a better view of them in the animation itself. Right now I just have the first 25 seconds done, and I've got another two and a half minutes (give or take) left to go. Like I said, "short."
I'm not going to say any more about the second project except that it exists, since it's in the early writing phase and could easily crap out at this point without going anywhere substantial.
Anyway, the process so far has been fun, if more drawn out than I had initially expected. Hazard of working mostly alone, navigating Maya's learning curve (a never ending process), and only squeezing in work on it when I feel like doing it. I'm at the point now where I'm trying to get the audio track done and timed right so that I can animate to it. Then the fun really begins as I wrestle with the inevitable flailing arms and wandering heads that are bound to crop up once I start animating. Stay tuned...
Ok, so actually only in a couple of countries. Hopefully Kevin will work on something more comprehensive. If these examples are typical then we've got some real evidence that this whole notion of privatization is Yet Another Bad Idea Shoved Down Our Throats By People Who Don't Love People.
The Washington Monthly: "Airy fairy theorizing is one thing, but how about some concrete data in the great Social Security privatization debate. In particular, how has Social Security privatization fared in other countries that have tried it?"
Word is that the Dubya's second inauguration is going to cost somewhere around a gazillion dollars, and Bush is asking for substantial donations. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world we have soldiers digging through garbage to try and improve the armor on their vehicles and maybe get home alive. From the Bull Moose:
Returning to the Moose's original point about sacrifice during wartime - a constructive suggestion. One of the most popular event's at the Bush Inauguration is the Texas State Society's 'Black Tie and Boots Ball'. As you can well imagine, this is a very patriotic crowd. So, to support our troops, why doesn't the Texas State Society hold their Ball this year at a landfill in Landover, Maryland and rummage for scrap metal to send to the troops in Iraq to protect their vehicles.
I've just added a new site to my list of RSS feeds, and thought it was too funny to not share. The site is called Query Letters I Love, and the tagline reads "Actual, honest to god query letters I've received in Hollywood. Updated frequently. And hey, if one of these is your query, have a sense of humor, will ya? You're gonna need it in this town."
(Via Cinema Minima.)
Juan Cole on Rumsfeld's statements to the troops:
Rumsfeld's dictum that 'you go to war with the army you have' begs so many questions it would take days to list them all. But just for starters, let's point out that the officer corps wanted to send more like 300,000 troops to Iraq in March of 2003, not the 100,000 that Rumsfeld insisted on. Rumsfeld's mania for turning the entire US military into special operations forces ignores the need to keep order in the aftermath of a war. Paul Bremer admitted that 'we never had enough troops on the ground' and that the lack led to the orgy of looting, which the US was not in a position to stop and which there was not even much will to stop. The looting in turn paid for the incipient guerrilla war (and a good deal of the looting was from weapons depots like al-Qaqaa, despite the Bush administration's denials).
So Rumsfeld didn't go to war with the army he had. He went to war with a much reduced military force, to make some sort of weird point.
There's lots more, some a retread of things we've heard before, some new. What I can't get around re: "go to war with the army you have" is that it's only true when war is forced upon you. When you choose to go to war the way the Bush administration did, then you have the luxury of planning and having the best military force for the job. For these jackoffs, "plan" is a four-letter word.
Maybe we should be inserting armor plating into the chocolates we send the troops? You know, so that they don't have to go dumpster diving for it.
After seeing so many different stories about what soldiers in Iraq need sent from home, I thought this message from a cousin of mine was kind of weird:
We get a lot of candy people send us. The only problem is its all hard candy. I guess people are told not to send chocolates. We need chocolate. What would be real nice are those bags of small candy bars like you buy for Halloween. Snickers Butterfingers small Hershey bars ect.. . I work at the passenger service tent. We keep a box of candy on our counter for the army personnel to have as they come through. I think they would be very pleased to have chocolate. I am watching a soldier digging through the box as I write. No chocolate. Mail is taking about 9 days. We get about 500 soldiers through here a day. Often they are in our terminal for over 24 hrs with nothing to eat but MRE's "Meals Ready to Eat". Some double stuff Oreo's would be great.
Of all the things I would have thought someone stationed in Iraq would need, I think chocolate would have to be at the bottom, somewhere near fuzzy slippers or rubber duckies.
Before you go to the following link, you need to raise your hand in front of your face, palm pointing toward you. Trust me. As soon as you see this you're going to want to smack your forehead. Ok, you ready? Go for it.
UPDATE: I just saw the additional information on Boing Boing, and it still doesn't make any sense to me. If they're trying to reach Afghans, why would they use a language that most of them can't read? The whole thing smacks of a company sucking up to the local puppeteers who've installed Kharzai, rather than an honest message to the Afghan people.
Ok, Finland rah rah-- get that part out of the way. What I want to know about is the photo caption, which reads "Finnish pupils spend the shortest amount of time in lessons." Perhaps they're referring to a separate article, which contains this information:
While pupils in the UK enter formal schooling at five, in Finland children enter school at seven - and then only for half days. They also have longer holidays than in the UK, including a 10-week break in the summer.
Also very different from what happens in this country, which seems to push for earlier and earlier education, more hours, less vacation, etc. to the exclusion of everything else except maybe football.
Kos only has excerpts, but I expect the whole thing is probably a good read. That is, if you don't mind reading bad news and seeing further confirmation that going into Iraq is possibly the Biggest Fuck-up of Our Time.
Well whaddaya know...apparently Bush thinks we'll be in Iraq for a hundred years. Goody.
Yes, I know that's not exactly what he said, but then he's never really given an honest indication of how long the whole misbegotten adventure is supposed to take, so a hundred years seems like as good an estimate as any, doesn't it?
They've announced the movies for Robert Osborne's Classic Film Festival. Looks like a good line-up.
Of course, the real question is, what would Skeletor look like?
(Via Boing Boing.)
Uh...shouldn't this be "Kids NoNoNo"?
Kids GoGoGo X 8.8 - Prohibit access...: "Kids GoGoGo X 8.8 - Prohibit access to adult/violent/hate web content."