Death Penalty

I don't really have a hard and fast position on the death penalty.  I think I have to lean more to the Anti side because we seem to have such a hard time getting it right; ie: there's a heavy probability that hundreds of not-really-guilty people have been killed by state governments over the last 20 or so years.

That said, I still think there're people in this world we can do without:  Charles Manson, Tim McVeigh, Celine Dion.  Anyway, I think what has to happen is that we need to raise the standard of proof a bit if we want the jury to convict for a capital offense.

We can argue about "cruel and unusual" or the over-representation of minorities on death row, or the silliness of continuing to apply 8000-year-old philosophies to modern age problems; but the main reason we need to change the way we approach capital punishment is that we have to keep assholes like GW Bush from killing innocent people in order to score  political points.

Read this. 

Push Back

It's at least doubtful that confrontation will change anybody's mind, but it's always a good thing to stand up to bullying.

One of the protesters makes mention of a newish slant on the anti-choice side of the debate - suicide risk among women who've had abortions. So of course I had to do a little research on that one, and guess what? They made it up. There is no credible clinical authority that recognizes any causal link between abortion and suicide. It's just another in a long line of bullshit arguments manufactured by smug self-righteous Right Radicals.

(tip o' the hat to Nick and friends for posting this on FB)

Today's T-shirt

Projection

Hearing about Sarah Palin's little word spasm at a school in Pennsylvania allowed me to take a small step closer to what I think is a bigger truth.

Palin characterized attempts to teach kids and parents about healthy diets as some kind of dictate from big government.

I think this is revealing - I don't think it's a big stretch to say Palin thinks education is all about indoctrination.  And I think it illustrates the main difference between these Right Radicals and the so-called Lefties.

"Liberals" wanna teach kids how to think; "conservatives" wanna tell kids what to think.

The Next War Between The States

I re-watched Jon Stewart's interview with RIck Perry from last night a coupla times, and something popped into my brain.

1) the attack on Federal Power continues unabated - the approach being to starve the beast.  Extending the Bush tax cuts is being sold to us as "economic stimulus", but the point is to cut off the funding for all federal programs except Defense, Law Enforcement, and just enough social services to keep people from getting too riled up.
    
2) the attacks are aimed at having that power devolve to the states where the Repubs have majorities in 26 state legislatures, which gives them a big advantage because they get to redraw the voting districts, which gives them more power and control right down to the local jurisdictions.

3) the competition between states for companies and their jobs has kicked in to a higher gear.

We've entered an era of economic disruption that is manifesting itself in what looks like a race for the bottom.  Perry said over 100 businesses have left California and relocated to Texas because Texas has a more business-friendly environment (Regulation, Tax, Lawsuit, etc).  To me this means we can look forward to a rash of companies outsourcing jobs from a "labor-friendly" state to one that has stripped away requirements aimed at wages, safety net, work place standards, environment & consumer protection - you name it.  Other states will think they have little choice but to respond in kind because there's no shortage of phony populists who'll gladly lead that charge.

Can you say "Feedback Loop"?  It gets worse before it gets better - if it gets better.

The Genius Of Balloon Juice

The whole post and nuthin' but the post From DougJ:

There’s a new study on how high-profile academic financial economists are paid to do the bidding of our Galtian overlords:

In this study, we showed that the great majority of two groups of prominent academic financial economists did not disclose their private financial affiliation even when writing pieces on financial reform. This presents a potential conflict of interest. If this pattern prevailed among academic financial economists more broadly this, in our view, would represent an even greater social problem. Academic economists serve as experts in the media, molding public opinion. They are also important players in government policy. If those that are creating the culture around financial regulation as well as influencing policy at the government level for financial reform also have a significant, if hidden, conflict of interest, our public is not likely to be well-served.

Felix Salmon makes the obvious point...with a telling anecdote:

It seems obvious that when you’re regularly making significantly more than the median national annual personal income from giving a single speech, you’re prone to being captured by the people paying you all that money. And the secrecy makes things much worse. I once mentioned in passing on my blog a consultancy gig which I happened to know about and didn’t think was particularly secret. The consultant in question phoned me up extremely distraught, fearful that the employer, a hedge fund, would read my post and react to it with a whole parade of nasty possible actions. There’s no good reason for such secrecy on either the employer or the employee side — unless, of course, there’s something ethically suspect about the arrangement in the first place.

Maybe I’m wrong to fixate on this so much, but I see this kind of thing as the central problem facing contemporary democracies: it’s too easy for monied interests to control the flow of information. You want a very serious economist to endorse whatever scam you’re running? Give him a few hundred thousand for speaking fees, consulting fees, whatever the term is that they’re using these days. That’s chump change, but it’s a lot to him or her, and you can probably find a respectable person who’s enough of a whore to do it, if you look around.

There’s a crazy asymmetry at work when things that are worth a lot can be bought for so little, and this is just one example. People make a big deal out $4 billion spent on an election. That’s not a lot of money to buy off the people who run a $3 trillion budget. At least there used to be transparency about that particular form of bribery, but not anymore.

Careful With This One

You could break your brain.

Why Don't They Listen?

I found it!  The so-called conservatives have long been among the most vocal deniers of Climate Change, and I think I know why now.

Watch this one and pay particular attention to what Kent Butts has to say (at about the 1:50 mark).
"...an ice-free arctic, where 25% of the world's resources of oil and natural gas according to USGS may be found."



They don't want us to do anything about Climate Change because they need the ice in the Arctic Sea to go away.

BTW: I think it won't be a lot longer before a large bi-partisan group of politicians can stop pretending and acknowledge the simple fact that they're actually working for Big Oil.

Climate Change

Not that it'll make much difference now that the Right Radicals have taken us around the bend, but hey - fut the whuck, y'know?

We Are So Fucked

Bill Moyers addressing a crowd at Boston Univ a couple of weeks ago.

This is your homework for the week. You must listen to the whole thing if you expect full credit for this course.