Dave Johnson makes a very smart case for taxing the rich. As he said, in the hey-day of steep taxes on the rich, America did a much better job of living up to its billing as a land of opportunity for all and everyone was better off then.
While [...]
China rising. Having China's economy grow should be good, yet, when it comes home, as Krugman says, there are some things to worry about.
So picture this: month after month of headlines juxtaposing soaring U.S. trade deficits and Chinese trade surpluses with the suffering of unemployed American workers. If [...]
... by Walter Brasch
NBC news correspondent Jenna Bush Hager had a news exclusive. And, like news exclusives in the Era of Infotainment TV, this one was broadcast by the entertainment division. Specifically, Jenna Bush interviewed her mother, Laura Bush, on 38th episode of "The Jay Leno Show."
It makes no difference [...]
In Portland Oregon, Habitat for Humanity homes are built to be Platium-LEED certified. So who says we can't make a difference on Global Warming because it will cost too much?
' [...]... by Walter Brasch
There's a cat fight going on in the Miss USA operation—and it isn't pretty.
It began when an openly gay judge asked Miss California, Carrie Prejean, what she thought about same sex marriage. Prejean, a student at San Diego Christian College, said that although she' [...]
Last night, NOW discussed Denmark and the culture of energy thrift that has transformed their country and economy. One way that Denmark is ahead of the curve is in acting on Shai Agassi's idea which makes electric cars a no-brainer.
In this TED video Agassi explains how he [...]
Via Paul Krugman comes this gem from Daniel Gross:
In evaluating the relative claims of the pessimists and the optimists, you also have to evaluate the messengers. And in this instance, the Fergusonians lack credibility. H.L. Mencken tagged the Puritans as people possessed of the "haunting fear that someone," [...]
... by Walter and Rosemary Brasch
One of the joys of Halloween is to dress in scary costumes and pretend to frighten others, who pretend to be frightened. But with less than two weeks until an evening of trick-or-treating, it's possible there won't be anything scarier than what's already happened in' [...]
Steve Benen points to the following.
"In a move expected to cause confusion within Anglican and Catholic parishes alike, the Vatican on Tuesday announced it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with the Church of England's acceptance of women priests and openly gay bishops to join the Catholic" [...]
Levitt and Dubner @ Superfreakonomics are abit taken aback at the reaction they've gotten with their new book. However, statements like this show that they certainly have no clue about the science or economics of energy.
p. 187: Claim that "coal is so cheap that trying to generate'" [...]
... by Walter Brasch
Ask Sherry Carpenter of Bloomsburg, Pa., anything about pets--any species, any breed--and she'll cheerfully give you the answer or find it for you. Just don't expect it to be a short conversation. She'll answer your question, then others you may not have asked, then others you didn't [...]
Making rapid progress in addressing the challenge from global climate change is difficult because so many people don't understand the problem and don't think it is necessary to change their lives to help solve the problem. Because the danger is so amorphous, people judge the problem based on the level [...]
... by Walter Brasch
The headlines, pictures, and most of the stories about the Philadelphia Eagles 34–14 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs focused upon backup quarterback Michael Vick.
The Eagles fans--desperate for a Super Bowl trophy and proclaiming that since Vick paid his time he should be forgiven--gave [...]
In almost all common discussion today, we are conflating health insurance with health care. This can only benefit the insurance companies if we describe what they provide as "care". It isn't. It is actually a limitation on the choices we can make. HMOs, of course, are the worst. They limit' [...]
Tonight Max Blumenthal spoke at Powell's in Portland, Oregon about his new book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. This is an important book covering the history of the political movement of the religious right, the major players in it and their culture [...]
... by Rosemary and Walter Brasch
Within two weeks in September, Americans were cluster-bombed by hate speech and a shock wave of incivility. From politics to music and sports, with the mass media more than willing to devote thousands of column inches and hours of air time to salacious reporting, those [...]
[Here is the case for universal health insurance which I wrote for the Commonweal Institute. A shorter version was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle.]
One hears: “Why should I have to pay for healthcare for people who don’t take care of themselves?” Many complaints about extending healthcare [...]
Kevin Drum summarizes Conservative plans for fixing healthcare by four conservatives written for the LA Times. Since Senator (Dr) Frist believes the problem can be solved by employers offering wellness programs, one wonders what he would do if he had to go back to the real world to make [...]
... by Rosemary and Walter Brasch
WNEP-TV, a large regional station in northeastern Pennsylvania, led its noon news, Friday, Sept. 11, with the announcement that there was finally a compromise on the state budget.
The legislators have been playing politics, stalling, and delaying for more than two months, leaving Pennsylvania the only [...]
The increased cost of your health insurance over the past decade if you live in Washington state.
Family health insurance premiums have more than doubled in Washington state over the past 10 years, rising five times faster than salaries, according to a study released Tuesday.
The average, annual job-based health insurance [...]
Living on Earth had a beautiful definition of the Commons by writer Donna Seaman:
SEAMAN: Commons. A common, or commons, is land that belongs to an entire community. More specifically, it is open land held in common by the people of a town for shared pasturage or the gathering of [...]
After the Soviets put their first Sputnik into orbit in 1957, the US media filled with stories about going to space. A good example of what TV viewers were seeing back is this Disneyland program from 1957. (There are six parts in all.)
It surprised me how entertaining [...]
Guess what? The financial industry that was so important in bringing us last fall's financial meltdown is back to the same old tricks, coming up with all sorts of risky financial products to take Texas-sized chances on. Only this time, the banks that were 'too big to fail' last year [...]
The latest leak regarding the 'compromise' reform plan being crafted by Montana senator Max Baucus reveals the main problem the US health care system:
Mr. BaucusÂ’s plan, expected to cost $850 billion to $900 billion over 10 years, would tax insurance companies on their most expensive health care policies. The [...]
Your kids' mail, that is. And their chats. And just about anything else that your kids do online. From this AP story.
Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are' [...]
A great Labor Day cartoon from Ampersand. Actually, it's a great cartoon for any day, unfortunately.
[...]... by Walter Brasch
It's Labor Day, and that means millions of Americans are celebrating. Most Americans have no idea what Labor Day is, other than self-serving political speeches, hot dogs, burgers, a pool party, and the last day of a three-day holiday. Few even know that Labor Day exists to [...]
... by Walter Brasch
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 27--The crowd at Lincoln Field gave superstar quarterback/convicted felon Michael Vick a standing ovation when he entered the game on the second play against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
On his first play for the Philadelphia Eagles, Vick tossed an easy shovel pass for a four yard gain. [...]
The huge wildfire burning northeast of Los Angeles is threatening the Mt Wilson Observatory (the place where Edwin Hubble made the observations that confirmed that the universe is expanding).
Aerial view of Mt Wilson Observatory.
[Image: [...]
GOP senate nutcase James Inhofe of Oklahoma continues to amaze with his great intellectual honesty:
At a town hall meeting Wednesday Sen. Jim Inhofe told Chickasha residents he does not need to read the 1,000 page health care reform bill, he will simply vote against it.
"I don't have to read'" [...]
Somehow I missed John Sherffius' cartoon about the report's release.
(click here to view)John Sherffius
Aug 25, 2009
EditorialCartoonists.com
A hell of a lot more to the point than most of the news reports I've read or seen.
[...]It turns out that over $21 billion of federal money aimed at preventing home mortgage foreclosures is going to the same lenders who fueled (and made big bucks as a result of) the subprime mortgage meltdown. Or, to put it another way, the very lenders who gave out mortgages that [...]
With the death of Ted Kennedy, there's no way the Democratic leadership can muster 60 votes to block a Republican filibuster of whatever health care bill comes to the Senate floor. The only way to pass a bill is through reconciliation—forgetting about getting GOP support and passing the bill with [...]
Senator Ted Kennedy's death is a tremendous loss to our country and the Senate. And while he was a passionate liberal fighter, he was also a kind, generous and gracious soul capable of forging bonds across ideological boundaries because he was so decent and always willing to see the [...]
Senator Edward Kennedy, dead tonight at age 77. Rest in peace.
[...]It appears that we may be giving the teabaggers too much credit for the craziness that's been taking place at town hall meetings about health care reform. While many of those disrupting the meetings have undoubtedly been mobilized by the GOP's anti-Obama operation, it turns out that the craziest of [...]
I don't need to know anything more about what the CIA was doing in our name under the Dubya administration than what's described in this part of the CIA Insptector General's report:
I don't want to see investigation and prosecution limited to just the CIA operatives and/or contractors who were [...]
A very young Johnny Cash does his best Elvis impersonation.
Yeah, the video quality sucks, but hey, it probably didn't look any better on a mid-1950's TV screen.
' [...]A very young Johnny Cash does his best Elvis impersonation.
Yeah, the video quality sucks, but hey, it probably didn't look any better on a mid-1950's TV screen.
' [...]... by Rita Inklovich
I am English (and a dual citizen of England and the United States) and I am increasingly frustrated with the misinformation reported regarding socialized medicine. Several opponents of health care reform--including major conservative radio and TV commentators and several republican politicians--claim that in England major surgery is [...]
The latest C Street expose comes from The World, a Christian Right magazine, with some strong questions for "the family" which believes that somehow God has a special message for the politically powerful elite concerning God's will while actually teaching "muddy theology" and where the word "Christian is taboo." [...]
I've been actively birding for almost 20 years, with most of that on the west coast. I've been fortunate to have observed almost all the shorebird species that frequent the Pacific coast. Yet one semi-common western shorebird eluded me.
For over 12 years, I've been searching for the Wandering Tattler.' [...]
... by Walter Brasch
More than 230,000 cases of the Swine Flu have been confirmed world wide. About 2,100 persons have died. As much as one-fourth of America's workforce may be infected by Swine Flu when it peaks in Winter, according to studies conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control [...]
Batacchio has put together a great field guide for the most famous birds that make up the political scene. Definitely a must read.
[...][Here is my argument which I wrote for the Commonweal Institute on why we must have health care insurance reform.]
Today, many of us know someone who has no health insurance and we worry about what would happen if they got seriously sick. Early last year a friend was diagnosed [...]
In Sunday's NY Times Paul Krugman notes that Rational Market theory was still being taught despite the recent lessons that show it has failed.
Fox points out that academic belief in the perfection of financial markets survived the 1987 stock market crash and the bursting of the Internet bubble.' [...]
When you see incitements to mob violence, how far are you from out-right fascism? Sara Robinson, using Paxton's authoritative studies that laid out the definition of fascism, says the signs of an aggrieved elite promoting thuggery at Congressional town halls puts the US mighty close to the edge. And [...]
... by Walter Brasch
It isn't unusual that the Republican party is anti-union.
It isn't even unusual that the Republican National Committee sent to its base a loaded questionnaire with blatantly leading and highly biased questions.
But it is unusual that the party that claims to ally [...]
A number of very smart people have pointed out that Ross Douhat is all wet when it comes to marshaling an argument that Conservative policies are better than Liberal policies by comparing the economic travails of California and Texas. Douhat's thesis was that California's propensity to [...]
A number of very smart people have pointed out that Ross Douthat is all wet when it comes to marshaling an argument that Conservative policies are better than Liberal policies by comparing the economic travails of California and Texas. Douthat's thesis was that California's propensity to [...]
The DHS decision to locate a lab for researching plant and animal pathogens in Kansas is encountering trouble -- at last! at last! Finally, the intelligence of locating such a facility in Tornado Alley -- and in the heart of US agricultural activity -- is being challenged. There will [...]
... by Walter Brasch
Marie Antoinette, contrary to popular opinion, never said a solution for the starving masses of revolutionary France in the late 18th century was, "Let them eat cake." But, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) apparently said something close to it.
At a public meeting, one of Grassley's constituents asked him, [...]
I'm glad that Digby weighed in on the Gates arrest for "disrespecting" a police officer. I had the same reaction that she did when she read the analysis by police officer who posted on this topic on Crooked Timber.
And I wondered what Dr. Joseph McNamara would' [...]
Newsweek has a piece about Joseph Stiglitz, one of the world's preeminent Nobel Prize economists who doesn't believe Obama has done enough. Stiglitz was one of the early critics that the size of the economic stimulus package was too small and now days it is apparent that he and' [...]
This weekend I am thrilled to ba a guest at Natasha and Chris's wedding. What a wonderful couple and it is so great to get to see Natasha so happy.
[...]NPR had a tremendously important program today about a major contributor to why California's budget problems are so dire.
It's not just Proposition 13. And it's not just the dysfunctional state government. One of the biggest problems in California is the overcrowded prisons that eat more than $10 billion each [...]
The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cPaul Krugmanwww.colbertnation.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorJeff Goldblum
[...]Well, it seems like Matt Taibbi's piece about Goldman Sachs is stirring up a *lot* of dust. (BTW: Full article is finally online here.)
Eliot Spitzer thought Taibbi's piece was quite good and raised the right questions about whether Goldman's good fortune means good news for the regular [...]
... by Walter Brasch
Sarah Palin said she had a "higher calling" that required her to resign 17 months before her term ended as governor of Alaska, and not to seek a second term.
I have no idea where this "higher calling" came from, but I suspect it could [...]
TPMMuckraker asks Was Bush Kept In The Dark On DOJ Concerns About Surveillance?
One passage on the IGs report on surveillance suggests something that perhaps shouldn't come as a surprise -- that President Bush was kept in the dark by members of the White House staff about about serious' [...]
So one thing I want to remind our on-the-fence Democratic Senators who are worried that their constituents would be unhappy if they vote for a workable healthcare plan this year: in 1994 Switzerland passed a healthcare referendum by a very narrow margin (less than 1%). By 2008, even those [...]
... by Walter Brasch
Some columns are easier to write than others.
This is one of them.
Providing all of my research were the "family values" Republicans.
This week, second term Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina disappeared for six days, leaving the state without [...]
Corporate Knights recently hosted Dr. James Lovelock speaking on his latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. Here's the first segment of that talk.
He says the IPPC document is by far the scariest document ever written because it isn't just what we are doing to the earth that [...]
... by Walter Brasch
The Schuylkill County, Pa., justice system managed to do something that insurance actuaries do with mixed results—it has determined not only the penalty for threats to a human life, but also the value of a human life.
Norman E. Nickle, 54, who lived in Pottsville, the county [...]
Will Hutton of The Guardian has an interesting interview with Dr. Krugman about the current state of the global economy and his fear that the world could face stagnation. One thing that comes back to me again and again when reading Krugman's analysis, is how we are truly in [...]
... by Walter Brasch
Within a month of 9/11, millions of Americans bought American flags. Small flags they flew from their cars, trucks, and bicycles. Medium-sized flags they planted in their front yards, put onto their home windows, and flew from recently-installed metal poles on doors and porches. Large flags they [...]
What's this story which Marcy writes about today have in common with this story which I wrote about in April? Funny how whenever Dead-eye Dick wants to make sure someone else take the fall for his torture policy, he seems to get his story out through [...]
Guantanamo has been the site of long running hunger strikes for many prisoners who think only death will provide them escape from the camp. Today, one of the hunger strikers found a way to leave the camp forever when he was found dead in his cell of an [...]
Tuesday at 8pm PDT, KQED will be broadcasting a fascinating discussion where Mark Danner interviews Elizabeth Farnsworth about her documentary, "The Judge and the General," which explores the investigation of Augusto Pinochet's torture state.
Mark Danner and Elizabeth Farnsworth -- In 1998, Judge Juan Guzman was [...]
Some of the more interesting thinkers are those who refuse to restrict their focus to narrow specializations and are able to synthesize widely disparate disciplines into a well-reasoned and credible analysis. A few of my favorite public intellectuals who display this trait in spades have recently been in the news: [...]
Expert interrogators know that torture is not an effective method to get reliable information. What does work? Here's how the pros handle getting reliable and actionable information.
Jack Cloonan was a special agent assigned to the FBI Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 2002. He was the fellow called' [...]
Marcy has a great takedown of the latest WaPo attempt to manufacture controversy by ignoring facts about what is actually known about the briefings. Reading it, I was struck by something else in this piece and what that says about an amnesiac and credulous press.
How should we take these [...]
Bucking the trend to ever larger houses, Dee Williams has built a house that has a very small footprint.
Via LivingOnEarth
[...]... by Walter Brasch
Dick Cheney has apparently been on a magical mystery media tour.
He has sought out and been interviewed by more TV journalists and talk show hosts during the past month than during the eight years he was vice president.
The topic is always the same. Torture was done during [...]
This week Bill Moyers talked with Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, about his new book, Ecological Intelligence.
Bill Moyers introduced the segment by describing the brilliant piece, The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard that describes the impact on the environment from the stuff we [...]
One of the Bush desaparecidos has been reportedly found dead of a suicide in a Libyan prison.
Awfully convenient that it was the one detainee that caused so much angst for the Bush administration that they effectively "disappeared" him even as they decided to [...]
... by Walter Brasch
From a pool of about seven billion, those hard-working geniuses at People magazine have managed to find the 100 most beautiful people in the whole wide world. And-get ready for the surprise-almost all of those beautiful people are rich American celebrities.
Since 1989, People's editors believed they were [...]
Sara Robinson has a couple of very interesting posts that delve into the major differences between conservative and liberal philosophies. The first post goes into how differently conservatives and liberals view discipline, accountability, responsibility and punishment.
Thirty years of conservative misrule have muddled Americans' understanding of words like responsibility,' [...]
... by Walter Brasch
The Americans are revolting!
All across the country—from Boston to Atlanta to San Antonio—thousands of Americans, inspired by Fox News and radio conservative talk show hosts, took to the streets to protest.
They protested a fascist government that has restricted their freedom of [...]
... by Walter Brasch
The fanatic right-wing, after taking a few days off to catch their breath, is back again with vengeance.
Name anything that President Obama is doing, and this broken wing will try to slap it down, unmindful that more than two-thirds of Americans support the President, with his popularity [...]
How do pesticides affect our lives? New studies show that exposure at conception and birth can not only cause diseases that show up in adults, but also can cause changes that affect subsequent generations even when there is no further exposure.
Amazing how many experiments our era has enacted [...]
Slate's Dahlia Lithwick asks whether just getting over it is the right answer when the subject is torture.
Indeed.
One article that was burned into my brain as the Bush administration was embedding torture as a matter of bureaucracy and routine was this one by Vladimir Bukovsky. As [...]
This is amazing.
[...]... by Rosemary and Walter Brasch
For some people, the first day of spring occurs when they see a crocus poking its purple head through the snow.
For others, it's seeing the first robin.
But these are unreliable signs, for nature is so unpredictable.
For us, the harbinger of spring is seeing that first [...]
