Politics: An Open Letter to Conservatives

I hated to post such a one-sided article as this, but it is such an extensive, substantiated list of complaints about Republican leaders' recent behavior that I had to. At least I can dream they'll return to reality (if I ignore Follow the Voters?).

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

See An open letter to conservatives by Russell King, March 22, 2010.

Politics: Follow the Voters?

Plenty of things are hurting American democracy -- gridlock, negative campaigning, special interests -- but one factor lies at the root of all the others, and nobody dares to discuss it. American voters, who are hiring the people who'll run a superpower democracy, are grossly ignorant.

... by every measure social scientists have devised, voters are spectacularly uninformed. They don't follow politics, and they don't know how their government works. According to an August 2006 Zogby poll, only two in five Americans know that we have three branches of government and can name them. A 2006 National Geographic poll showed that six in 10 young people (ages 18 to 24) could not find Iraq on the map.

Just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, after months of unsubtle hinting from Bush administration officials, some 60 percent of Americans had come to believe that Iraq was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, despite the absence of evidence for the claim, according to a series of surveys taken by the PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll. A year later, after the bipartisan, independent 9/11 Commission reported that Saddam Hussein had had nothing to do with al-Qaida's assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 50 percent of Americans still insisted that he did. In other words, the public was bluntly given the data by a group of officials generally believed to be credible -- and it still didn't absorb the most basic facts about the most important event of their time.

See 5 myths about American voters by Rick Shenkman, October 1, 2008.

Healthcare: How the Bill Affects Various People

A good summary describing the healtcare bill's effect on various types of people is at Health care: How will you be affected by reform changes? by Kathy Brister, March 28, 2010

Science: Dark Flow -- What's Beyond the Edge of the Known Universe?

First came dark matter, the gravitational source from within our galaxy that astronomers couldn't see. Then came dark energy, the undetectable force pushing the expansion of the universe. Now, NASA scientists believe they have confirmed a new player, dubbed "dark flow," that is dragging hundreds of galaxies along the same path. Even stranger, the researchers believe that dark flow is actually the gravitational pull from matter beyond the edge of the known universe.

See New Evidence that Mysterious Dark Force From Outside Tugs at Our Universe by Stuart Fox, March 25, 2010, and New Proof Unknown "Structures" Tug at Our Universe by John Roach, March 22, 2010.

Politics: Glenn Beck Tells The Administration Not to Kill Him

For those of you in the administration who are coming after me on this one ... thou shalt not kill at 0:50 in ...

See Beck Implies Obama to Kill Him by Ed Brayton, March 25, 2010.

Politics: Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism

From the Southern Poverty Law Center ...

The anger seething across the American political landscape — over racial changes in the population, soaring public debt and the terrible economy, the bailouts of bankers and other elites, and an array of initiatives by the relatively liberal Obama Administration that are seen as "socialist" or even "fascist" — goes beyond the radical right. The "tea parties" and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.

As the movement has exploded, so has the reach of its ideas, aided and abetted by commentators and politicians in the ostensible mainstream. While in the 1990s, the movement got good reviews from a few lawmakers and talk-radio hosts, some of its central ideas today are being plugged by people with far larger audiences like FOX News’ Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn). Beck, for instance, re-popularized a key Patriot conspiracy theory — the charge that FEMA is secretly running concentration camps — before finally “debunking” it.

See Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism by Mark Potok, Intelligence Report, Spring 2010.

Economics: Learning That People Are Not Automatons

Act I in this history [of economics] would be set in the era of economic scientism: the period when economists based their work on a crude vision of human nature (the perfectly rational, utility-maximizing autonomous individual) and then built elaborate models based on that creature.

...

In Act IV ... economists are taking baby steps into the world of emotion, social relationships, imagination, love and virtue.

See The Return of History by David Brooks, March 25, 2010.

Politics: Republicans Really, Really, Really Don't Like Obama

Majorities of Republicans believe that President Obama:

• Is a socialist (67%)
• Wants to take away Americans' right to own guns (61%)
• Is a Muslim (57%)
• Wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one world government (51%); and
• Has done many things that are unconstitutional (55%).

Also large numbers of Republicans also believe that President Obama:

• Resents America's heritage (47%)
• Does what Wall Street and the bankers tell him to do (40%)
• Was not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president (45%)
• Is the "domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitution speaks of" (45%)
• Is a racist (42%)
• Want to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers (41%)
• Is doing many of the things that Hitler did (38%).

Even more remarkable perhaps, fully 24% of Republicans believe that "he may be the Anti-Christ" and 22% believe "he wants the terrorists to win."

Note these results may be less accurate than other polls due to it's semi-self-selected nature.

See "Wingnuts" and President Obama by Harris Interactive, March 24, 2010.

Science: A Star-Birthing Region

See Bending Gravity, Researchers Capture Star-Birthing Region 10 Billion Light Years Away by Clay Dillow, March 24, 2010.

Science: Nanotech Robots Deploy Cancer-Fighting RNA

Specially constructed molecules could potentially block the expression of genes critical to the reproduction of viruses and the spread of cancer. But until now, doctors had been unable to direct those molecules to the right cellular nuclei. Scientists from the California Institute of Technology solved this problem by placing the RNA molecules in a specialized polymer robot with a chemical sensor. When the environment of a cancerous cell triggered the chemical sensor, the robot releases the RNA.

See In First Successful Human Trial, Nanotech Robots Deploy Cancer-Fighting RNA by Stuart Fox, March 23, 2010.

Security: Russia and U.S. Report Breakthrough on Arms

The new 10-year pact would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991, or Start, which expired in December, and further extend cuts negotiated in 2002 by Mr. Bush in the Treaty of Moscow. Under the new pact, according to people briefed on it in Washington and Moscow, within seven years each side would have to cut its deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 from the 2,200 now allowed. Each side would cut the total number of launchers to 800 from 1,600 now permitted. The number of nuclear-armed missiles and heavy bombers would be capped at 700 each.

The breakthrough ended nearly a year of tumultuous negotiations that dragged on far longer than anticipated. The two sides quarreled over verifying compliance, sharing telemetry and limiting missile defense programs. Mr. Obama restructured Mr. Bush’s plans for an antimissile shield in Europe, but Moscow objected to the new version as well and wanted restrictions. Mr. Obama refused. The two presidents cut through disagreements during a telephone call on March 13.

See Russia and U.S. Report Breakthrough on Arms by Peter Baker and Ellen Barry, March 24, 2010

Politics: After Health Vote, Threats on Democrats

Democratic lawmakers have received death threats and been the victims of vandalism because of their votes in favor of the health care bill, lawmakers and law enforcement officials said Wednesday, as the Congressional debate over the issue headed toward a bitter and divisive conclusion.

Senate Democrats accused Republicans of delay tactics and of forcing the cancellation of unrelated committee sessions over anger about the health measure.

Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Claire McCaskill of Missouri were furious that Republican objections prevented hearings Wednesday on the Pentagon budget and the training of Afghan police officers.

See After Health Vote, Threats on Democrats by Carl Hulse, March 24, 2010.

Mind: Why women now prefer Johnny Depp to Sean Connery

Historically women chose manly men because features such as a square jaw, low brow and thin lips were linked to superior genes which would produce stronger and healthier offspring.

But the choice came at a cost — as the more masculine the man, the less likely he was to help out nurturing his child.

"The results suggests that as health care improves, more masculine men fall out of favour," said the lead author and psychologist Dr Lisa DeBruine.

See Why women now prefer Johnny Depp to Sean Connery by The Telegraph, March 23, 2010.

Climate: Utility Giant, Texas Oil Companies Fight Back With California Voter Initiatives

Money counts:

An anti-tax group and a coalition of businesses quietly led by Texas oil companies have launched a signature drive for a November ballot initiative that would suspend California's pioneering law to combat global warming.

See Utility Giant, Texas Oil Companies Fight Back With California Voter Initiatives by Matt Coker, March 19, 2010.

Government: A Tea Party Without Nuts

The radical center is “radical” in its desire for a radical departure from politics as usual. It advocates: raising taxes to close our budgetary shortfalls, but doing so with a spirit of equity and social justice; guaranteeing that every American is covered by health insurance, but with market reforms to really bring down costs; legally expanding immigration to attract more job-creators to America’s shores; increasing corporate tax credits for research and lowering corporate taxes if companies will move more manufacturing jobs back onshore; investing more in our public schools, while insisting on rising national education standards and greater accountability for teachers, principals and parents; massively investing in clean energy, including nuclear, while allowing more offshore drilling in the transition.

See A Tea Party Without Nuts by Thomas L. Friedman, March 23, 2010.

Politics: Republican Healthcare Waterloo

But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or -- more exactly -- with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

See Waterloo by David Frum, March 21st, 2010.

Healthcare: Health Care Overhaul: What Happens When

A good summary of what's coming, including ...

In 2010:

• Provides tax credits to small employers with no more than 25 workers and average annual wages of less than $50,000 if they purchase health insurance for employees.

• Establishes a temporary national high-risk pool to provide health coverage to individuals with preexisting medical conditions. Effective within 90 days of enactment.

• Requires that all individual and group policies offer dependent coverage for children up to age 26.

See Health Care Overhaul: What Happens When by Martha Lynn Craver, March 24, 2010.

Mind: Everybody Have Fun

It’s not just hitting the jackpot that fails to lift spirits; a whole range of activities that people tend to think will make them happy—getting a raise, moving to California, having kids—do not, it turns out, have that effect. (Studies have shown that women find caring for their children less pleasurable than napping or jogging and only slightly more satisfying than doing the dishes.) As the happiness researchers Tim Wilson and Daniel Gilbert have put it, “People routinely mispredict how much pleasure or displeasure future events will bring.”

Over the past three and a half decades, real per-capita income in the United States has risen from just over seventeen thousand dollars to almost twenty-seven thousand dollars. During that same period, the average new home in the U.S. grew in size by almost fifty per cent; the number of cars in the country increased by more than a hundred and twenty million; the proportion of families owning personal computers rose from zero to seventy per cent; and so on. Yet, since the early seventies, the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as either “very happy” or “pretty happy” has remained virtually unchanged.

If “rising incomes have failed to make Americans happier over the last fifty years,” he writes, “what is the point of working such long hours and risking environmental disaster in order to keep on doubling and redoubling our Gross Domestic Product?”

After scratching growth and income redistribution off his list, Bok goes on to discuss measures that, the evidence suggests, would increase aggregate happiness [job loss, chronic pain, depression, ...].

Two years ago, the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, appointed a commission to look into ways to improve the measurement of government performance. When the commission, headed by Amartya Sen and another Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, issued its final report, last fall, it was critical of the current reliance on G.D.P., which, it argued, is a poor proxy for social progress: “For example, traffic jams may increase G.D.P. as a result of the increased use of gasoline, but obviously not the quality of life.”

See Everybody Have Fun by Elizabeth Kolbert, March 22, 2010.

Politics: The endangered RINO

For the first time in many years, there are appearances that California Republicans may actually be more concerned about that -- winning -- that [sic] insisting on ideological purity among their candidates. There doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for decrying either Whitman or Campbell as "RINOs" -- Republicans in name only.

See The endangered RINO by Ventura County Star, March 13, 2010.

Healthcare: The health-care bill: A glorious mess

Obama's much-criticized strategy of pushing forward on health care despite the economic crisis had been rewarded with a historic victory. His tactic of letting Congress shape the legislation had been vindicated. His promise of change had been given new substance.

Even when the "fixes" that have to be approved by the Senate are made, the health-care bill will still be something of a mess. But it's a glorious mess, because it enshrines the principle that all Americans have the right to health care -- an extraordinary achievement that will make this a better nation.

It may take years to get the details right. The newly minted reforms are going to need to be reformed or at least fine-tuned, and those will not be easy battles.

See The health-care bill: A glorious mess by Eugene Robinson, March 23, 2010.