Dyslexia is a serious issue. It's hard to recognize at first, and makes for lots of frustration and family tensions, keeps some kids at the margins, and it's very hard to help. It happens to different degrees, and unfortunately looks just like simple indiscipline. If you have it, it makes everything look like a word scramble and you can't turn it into information.
That's what the present administration is trying to do to us. Many of our federal agencies are still there, but they aren't producing their work the way we would expect. Check out the Non-Informist Lexicon of 'information' produced by our 'President' and his 'administration':
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004766.php
I call it the Dyslexicon.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Let them beat each other up
The most worn page of the Party Playbook is the one with instructions on handling opposition jockeying: Let them kill each other. They're self-destructing. Watch:
So now, the Senators vying for the Democratic nomination are feeding the opposition. Clinton and Obama both belong in the Senate, but their prominence within the activist communities made their banks fat and they've been elevated to Personalities. I like their political ambition, but I think the government is a train wreck and we won't know just how bad for years. These liberals are the wrong kind: Optimistic.
Job 1 for the next President is going to be cleaning the mold out of the basement, trimming the fat, tightening the belt. Only by doing that can our government be used to effect deliberate changes society can tolerate.
So now, the Senators vying for the Democratic nomination are feeding the opposition. Clinton and Obama both belong in the Senate, but their prominence within the activist communities made their banks fat and they've been elevated to Personalities. I like their political ambition, but I think the government is a train wreck and we won't know just how bad for years. These liberals are the wrong kind: Optimistic.
Job 1 for the next President is going to be cleaning the mold out of the basement, trimming the fat, tightening the belt. Only by doing that can our government be used to effect deliberate changes society can tolerate.
Inquirer Letters Section
The letters section of the Philadelphia Inquirer are usually good substrates for discussion. Usually, they include one Republican hack, a self-defense note, something blue and national, and something relevant to Philadelphia-area readers.
This week, we start with a discussion of the Turnpike Privatization Scam. These are our roads. We paid for them already, and continue to pay as we use them. That's perfect, right? Bonds, real estate favors, tax money went to putting them there. It's not complicated, it's a flattened section of earth between two points, sometimes through mountains and over rivers. There are cash registers every so often to collect tolls, but mostly it's the flattened earth doing the work. So we need cashiers in the booths, and we need road crews. The PA Department of Transportation has those. And they know how to hire surveyers to check how flat the earth is, and they can commission work to go make it flatter as needed. Leasing it to a private company and then taxing the toll revenue will almost eliminate either toll revenue or flatness. Eliminate appointees, and as Barrish suggests we'll see a different budget environment over there.
Amtrak came up again. So many of us drive along railroad tracks an hour to work, and so few wish to travel with others that we are guaranteeing the retardation of public transportation. I favor not using gasoline whenever possible. Feet were made for walking. It's impossible to replicate the rail system of Europe or Japan here, we simply weren't intended to be a fiefdom, where the patron could wave his wand and squeeze juice from the serfs and make it happen. I favor a strong network of rails to ensure the safe and subsidized traffic in goods. And it seems obvious to me that if 20 people are going to Pittsburgh, they should split the gas and tolls by riding in a train. I'm a rugged individual, but like universal health coverage, transpo is something we all need, all benefit from.
This week's Republican sniper complains about socialism as the Senate runs a skeleton crew to prevent Bush's despotic recess appointments.
This week, we start with a discussion of the Turnpike Privatization Scam. These are our roads. We paid for them already, and continue to pay as we use them. That's perfect, right? Bonds, real estate favors, tax money went to putting them there. It's not complicated, it's a flattened section of earth between two points, sometimes through mountains and over rivers. There are cash registers every so often to collect tolls, but mostly it's the flattened earth doing the work. So we need cashiers in the booths, and we need road crews. The PA Department of Transportation has those. And they know how to hire surveyers to check how flat the earth is, and they can commission work to go make it flatter as needed. Leasing it to a private company and then taxing the toll revenue will almost eliminate either toll revenue or flatness. Eliminate appointees, and as Barrish suggests we'll see a different budget environment over there.
Amtrak came up again. So many of us drive along railroad tracks an hour to work, and so few wish to travel with others that we are guaranteeing the retardation of public transportation. I favor not using gasoline whenever possible. Feet were made for walking. It's impossible to replicate the rail system of Europe or Japan here, we simply weren't intended to be a fiefdom, where the patron could wave his wand and squeeze juice from the serfs and make it happen. I favor a strong network of rails to ensure the safe and subsidized traffic in goods. And it seems obvious to me that if 20 people are going to Pittsburgh, they should split the gas and tolls by riding in a train. I'm a rugged individual, but like universal health coverage, transpo is something we all need, all benefit from.
This week's Republican sniper complains about socialism as the Senate runs a skeleton crew to prevent Bush's despotic recess appointments.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
I want to work for Progressive Politics
I want to do that. Work for Progressive politics. I don't really want to attach myself to a politician, although issues and I are already pretty tangled up together.
SOS! I'm crushed in the middle class!
It's very hard to be en enlightened, open and generous member of our society. My trouble stems from my education and upbringing, but the leanings I have now were probably already there. Before the adults got to me.
I went to college and studied a whole lot of stuff without intending to use it to derive my living. But I studied a whole lot of stuff before that. I have a passport. I've studied world religion, world history, the various competing world philosophies toward economy, art, justice. And I've studied chemistry, biology, molecular genetics, language, you name it, I've tried to learn at least as much as I think people ought to know about each of these disciplines.
We all know there are more than one side to every story. But we also know those sides are 'colored' by our interest in the outcome, the verdict of history or even the immediate rendition of justice. At some point in the distance, these rays of hope converge on their source, likely a single point-event with a specific set of true characteristics.
In general, it's the testimony of the completely disinterested materially likely to bear the closest resemblance to the truth. And the truth as I see it puts industries on their own path, looking for self-preservation at any cost. Part of the cost is social stability. 'Elections' as we understand them involve the pushback by and against interests competing for their independence and self-preservation. And right now, the acutely felt push is being made on behalf of those larger industrial interests against the wishes and dreams of the humans living among them.
The ignorant undertow of the 'conservative' faction in the west has at its heart something honorable: Protecting the legacy handed us by our parents and theirs. But it elevates the conflict far beyond the reasonable. Change happens. It has happened, and denying it doesn't do anything to bring about its reversal. Just requires more things to be changed to suit that world view.
Consider that work was once sacred. It was considered a man's right to earn a living at his trade. But it interfered with capital. Capital's interest in earning and not paying trumps your right to be considered a professional. It also upends the playing field by taking the rules as they apply to doing business in one place, and simply ignoring them because you're doing that business somewhere else. This completely destroys the value of the individual lying between the priestly and political classes and the absolute bottom. If you can't find a patron, then you'd better find something meaningless and unproductive to do that will please the Capital class.
A small business in a labor town is strangled now by the avaiability of cheap labor. The same factors formerly commanding premium earnings are the ones a small business has to combat to stay open. Wages. Benefits. Environmental and OSHA rules. Payroll taxes. How can you employ Union carpenters and continue to win bids? You can't. Imagine trying to compete globally as a manufacturer, buying steel and fuel on the world market.
I went to college and studied a whole lot of stuff without intending to use it to derive my living. But I studied a whole lot of stuff before that. I have a passport. I've studied world religion, world history, the various competing world philosophies toward economy, art, justice. And I've studied chemistry, biology, molecular genetics, language, you name it, I've tried to learn at least as much as I think people ought to know about each of these disciplines.
We all know there are more than one side to every story. But we also know those sides are 'colored' by our interest in the outcome, the verdict of history or even the immediate rendition of justice. At some point in the distance, these rays of hope converge on their source, likely a single point-event with a specific set of true characteristics.
In general, it's the testimony of the completely disinterested materially likely to bear the closest resemblance to the truth. And the truth as I see it puts industries on their own path, looking for self-preservation at any cost. Part of the cost is social stability. 'Elections' as we understand them involve the pushback by and against interests competing for their independence and self-preservation. And right now, the acutely felt push is being made on behalf of those larger industrial interests against the wishes and dreams of the humans living among them.
The ignorant undertow of the 'conservative' faction in the west has at its heart something honorable: Protecting the legacy handed us by our parents and theirs. But it elevates the conflict far beyond the reasonable. Change happens. It has happened, and denying it doesn't do anything to bring about its reversal. Just requires more things to be changed to suit that world view.
Consider that work was once sacred. It was considered a man's right to earn a living at his trade. But it interfered with capital. Capital's interest in earning and not paying trumps your right to be considered a professional. It also upends the playing field by taking the rules as they apply to doing business in one place, and simply ignoring them because you're doing that business somewhere else. This completely destroys the value of the individual lying between the priestly and political classes and the absolute bottom. If you can't find a patron, then you'd better find something meaningless and unproductive to do that will please the Capital class.
A small business in a labor town is strangled now by the avaiability of cheap labor. The same factors formerly commanding premium earnings are the ones a small business has to combat to stay open. Wages. Benefits. Environmental and OSHA rules. Payroll taxes. How can you employ Union carpenters and continue to win bids? You can't. Imagine trying to compete globally as a manufacturer, buying steel and fuel on the world market.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Friggin' Specter again
Senator Arlen Specter, arguably the elder statesman and cooler head on the Republican side, is doing it again. He has a special problem with nominations during the Bush administration, holding his nose to approve the nominations of several anti-New Deal, anti-worker, anti-Me judges.
Now he's making a terrible and gratuitous concession to the dark side. Torture is illegal in the US, meaning the US government and our citizens are not allowed to do it. Waterboarding is torture. By refusing to accede that point, Mukasey paints himself as a politician. If he says it's not torture he won't be nominated. If he says it is torture he may be nominated to preside at Justice while war crimes prosecutions are assembled.
I'm okay with no head at Justice. We Americans have local judges and police, mayors, parents, all kinds of people in positions of authority who belong in our lives. Bush's AG has traditionally been the enabler for the decider, and not the advocate of public safety and order. The war on drugs, for example, doesn't need Mukasey, who would be more likely recruited to the cause of insider trading and corporate immunity.
Specter acknowledges he's voting aye on Mukasey despite the terrible position he's been placed in, but the important issue is simple rule of law. Bush routinely issues those infamous signing statements, written into the record as pro-forma absolution as he refuses to abide by the bill as he signs it into law. Allowing that wiggle room for this horrible sham of a 'President' is unacceptable. Mukasey's limp position here means Bush won't be prosecuted even though the technique is illegal because torture is illegal and waterboarding is torture.
Once again, this should invite another investigation. We were promised investigations by Fox, by the Republicans losing their seats, by the Democrats coming into power. Now they're in, and I'm glad they're strategizing for '08 and beyond. But we need to declaw these bastards and the front burner right now is assigning a lawyer to Justice who would hold the line and bring the administration back into the light.
Now he's making a terrible and gratuitous concession to the dark side. Torture is illegal in the US, meaning the US government and our citizens are not allowed to do it. Waterboarding is torture. By refusing to accede that point, Mukasey paints himself as a politician. If he says it's not torture he won't be nominated. If he says it is torture he may be nominated to preside at Justice while war crimes prosecutions are assembled.
I'm okay with no head at Justice. We Americans have local judges and police, mayors, parents, all kinds of people in positions of authority who belong in our lives. Bush's AG has traditionally been the enabler for the decider, and not the advocate of public safety and order. The war on drugs, for example, doesn't need Mukasey, who would be more likely recruited to the cause of insider trading and corporate immunity.
Specter acknowledges he's voting aye on Mukasey despite the terrible position he's been placed in, but the important issue is simple rule of law. Bush routinely issues those infamous signing statements, written into the record as pro-forma absolution as he refuses to abide by the bill as he signs it into law. Allowing that wiggle room for this horrible sham of a 'President' is unacceptable. Mukasey's limp position here means Bush won't be prosecuted even though the technique is illegal because torture is illegal and waterboarding is torture.
Once again, this should invite another investigation. We were promised investigations by Fox, by the Republicans losing their seats, by the Democrats coming into power. Now they're in, and I'm glad they're strategizing for '08 and beyond. But we need to declaw these bastards and the front burner right now is assigning a lawyer to Justice who would hold the line and bring the administration back into the light.
Friday, November 02, 2007
PA Troopers in Casinos???
No. This is stupid. We've made room for casinos to rapidly export the disposable income of Pennsylvania residents to other states and balance sheets, and we're paying for their security?
If they want to open their little casinos, let them fund an agency for security and self-regulation.
I was against 'gaming' in PA from the start, having actually been in Atlantic City, but now I'm angry about underwriting it.
If they want to open their little casinos, let them fund an agency for security and self-regulation.
I was against 'gaming' in PA from the start, having actually been in Atlantic City, but now I'm angry about underwriting it.
SCHIP, Poverty and the Wastrel
Bush doesn't know a lot of words, and having never been poor, challenged, or even held to account despite decades of poor performance and bad behavior he can't be expected to understand poverty, which has generally been hidden from television viewers. He's a protected, greedy and jealous snot, working for the first time in his entire boomer life to keep you from getting anything out of your tax payments.
I'm sure he doesn't get or care about the irony in his opposition to the present state of SCHIP legislation. He's been sheltered his whole life by the federal government, and is now protecting us from being protected by it. His parents were career government workers, and their extraction industry benefactors have also benefited non-stop from the largesse of the US Taxpayer.
In just the past few years though, gasoline has tripled in price. Milk is up to almost 2X. Everything has ballooned in price, although some markets are lagging. Per-capita income has dropped, if you excuse the financial services and energy swindle industries. So even if you weren't poor in the last days of Clinton, keeping your 4% annual salary raise wasn't enough and now you live per paycheck.
So that $60,000 per year anywhere near the formerly industrial northeast or midwest is peanuts. A family of four earning $60K is strapped. Mr. Bush takes home a salary nearly double that of his predecessor (properly aligning this executive salary with the insane disproportion of his corporate peers despite leaving the for-profit sector to go into Presidentin'), and he still sits on his blueblood cushion.
SCHIP gives Americans too much of what they want: something.
I'm sure he doesn't get or care about the irony in his opposition to the present state of SCHIP legislation. He's been sheltered his whole life by the federal government, and is now protecting us from being protected by it. His parents were career government workers, and their extraction industry benefactors have also benefited non-stop from the largesse of the US Taxpayer.
In just the past few years though, gasoline has tripled in price. Milk is up to almost 2X. Everything has ballooned in price, although some markets are lagging. Per-capita income has dropped, if you excuse the financial services and energy swindle industries. So even if you weren't poor in the last days of Clinton, keeping your 4% annual salary raise wasn't enough and now you live per paycheck.
So that $60,000 per year anywhere near the formerly industrial northeast or midwest is peanuts. A family of four earning $60K is strapped. Mr. Bush takes home a salary nearly double that of his predecessor (properly aligning this executive salary with the insane disproportion of his corporate peers despite leaving the for-profit sector to go into Presidentin'), and he still sits on his blueblood cushion.
SCHIP gives Americans too much of what they want: something.
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