Biden may be the one. Awesome.

Well I hope this story turns out to be true.

I love Biden. He's mouthy, but he can back it up.

He's highly experienced in foreign affairs.

He knows the Senate inside and out.

He can play the compromise game well. It's what the American system was built on.

This should be fun.

McCain nothing but an old fart whose stories are tiring and threadbare.

Two comments:

1) Saddleback Church Forum: I thought it a worthwhile endeavor as it allowed the public to see that Obama (despite the bullshit being spread by racist bigots) is not really a Muslim.

I thought McCain appeared stiff. McCain certainly lacked nuance and depth.

Overall, despite what David Gergen said about McCain on Real Clear Politics, I don't think McCain looked good comparatively speaking.

2) The McCain "house" issue.

McCain stepped in a pile of poo with his response to the number of houses question.

In fact, here it is. McCain loses track of number of house he owns.

Here's what I don't get: How can Obama be an elitist when McCain is the one who married a $100 million dollar heiress? Please.

McCain relies on his worn out Vietnam stories because he has nothing else to rely on.

My dad was in Vietnam and he made a point of trying to forget about it. I think my dad has the right idea because we LOST in Vietnam.

McCain is out of touch. And for him to try to be the "common man" candidate blows my mind.

Pretty women need not apply.

This mayor may have stuck his foot in his mouth.

Unfortunately, he may only be telling the truth, no matter how "ugly" that truth may be.

Medical tourism creates competition for U.S. health care providers--It's a good thing

The Economist tells a story of globalization and market forces that should serve as a wake up call to the U.S. health care system.

When you view the chart of costs that U.S. patients pay compared to patients in other countries, then you may have difficulty justifying the usual refrain of "we have better care here, despite the costs."

Cost creates competition between U.S. health care and foreign systems.

It's about time.

It will take U.S. health care providers screaming about their lost profits before they get on board with socialized insurance. There's only so much fear-mongering about foreign health care people will stand. Once enough people receive quality treatment overseas, a tipping point will occur where it becomes standard for the middle class and the poor (the ones who support the health care system now) to leave the country for treatment.

Socialized insurance creates a dis-incentive for people to go elsewhere since they can be assured of treatment at home.

Privacy takes another hit to help out law enforcement.

I hope I'm not the only one ticked off at the prospect of this serious loss in privacy.

I'll take a bold stand on this: If it comes down to some criminals getting away OR a serious loss of our privacy rights, then I'm on the side of privacy.

Screw law enforcement if they can't do their jobs without demanding that the rest of us sacrifice our right to be left alone.

The police need to get their crap together instead of expecting us to be okay with the steady encroachment on our rights.

The line is clearly being moved.

Taxes are only for the "little people"

This story goes to show that taxes are really "just for the little people."

And we wonder why our deficit has mushroomed.

Not only do we have runaway spending, but we also have a significant number of corporate tax cheats.

I wish I could get away without paying taxes for 7 years with the excuse that it's just too tough.

Here's why corporations get away with it: Individual taxpayers can be jailed for non-payment of taxes. How do you jail a corporation? You can't.

So, where's the incentive to pay taxes if the consequences are only financial?

Russian plan for Georgia made clear in March: "Divide & Destroy"

Here's a story back in March about the Kremlin's attitude toward Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO.

This provides some background as to the how and why of Russia's attack on Georgia.

A quote from a Kremlin guy lays out the Russian plan:

Gleb Pavlovsky warned on the program that Ukraine shall be “destroyed, divided” if it pursues a MAP leading to NATO membership. To deter Kyiv from pursuing a MAP, Pavlovsky recommended that Russia should raise the full range of complaints regarding the Russian language and rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine and present Ukraine with a “yes-or-no choice.”

Russia is carrying out their stated plan, but instead of Ukraine, they're picking on a smaller country to check the commitment of NATO. Putin's plan is to show the Georgians that NATO is all talk. That way, the Georgians will grow angry with the West for failing to help them.

Putin is a genius and we're on the receiving end.

We've seriously dropped the ball and now we cannot effectively deal with this.

Putin is a danger to the world--Bush could have warned us after he looked into his soul.

Robert Kagan provides a glimpse into the purpose and intentions behind Russia's attack on Georgia.

I think this has been a long time coming.

Putin has managed to jail, kill, or exile all the Energy barons of Russia, nationalizing its vast energy resources for himself.

Putin is consolidating his power with oil and natural gas because the West is too dependent, so we will tow Putin's line.

The West has stepped into a pile of Russian intrigue.

We cannot afford to sit back and let Putin and his mobster-like crew put us in an energy strangle-hold. Alternative energy is one step.

Next, we must act fast to counter Putin's shenanigans. This may raise the specter of open hostilities, but I suspect China and India would get on board. China won't like a jingoistic and imperialistic Russia knocking around. India likes its prosperity too much to sacrifice it now.

I don't like war, but we must address it now.

Unfortunately, we are weakened by our preemptive war in Iraq. We have a weakened economy from the war and bad economic policy here.

We also have no discernible energy policy aside from one that subjects us to Russia's growing energy hegemony.

McCain spreading B.S. about Obama to scare people--Again.

As is typical of the Republican machine, John McCain is spreading lies about Obama to discourage voters. This comes from a non-partisan source too, so Fox News can't do its usual claim of bias against the source.

Republicans have successfully thrown this stinkbomb for years and it is typically nothing but a pack of lies.

Too bad U.S. voters, as a whole, do little in the way of background checking before they buy into this sort of campaign garbage.

Socialized Health Insurance is a wildly popular idea that could be doomed by inertia

Here's an article by Paul Krugman laying out the issues related to universal health care.

I think Paul is on target. I agree with what he says.

He makes the point that Republicans have for too long bristled at the notion of universal health care as "socialized medicine." This is true. He doesn't make the same distinction between socialized medicine and socialized insurance that I do, but he does allude to it.

Here's my previous posting about it.

Ideology favored by the uninformed.

Finally, scientific evidence supporting what I've argued for years.

Specifically, under-informed U.S. voters favor ideological purity from their politicians.

The downside: Ideology is no better than a mere coin toss when making a decision, yet still it hangs on like a bad cold.

This study supports my view on ideology and its insidious effects.

How?

I argue that Ideology fills in the conceptual blindspots for those who shun critical thinking. When an ideology invades someone's mind, much like a virus, it infects all their thought processes and slowly informs their worldview.

Ultimately, the ideology contorts its victim's thinking to further the ideology, even at the expense of critical thought.

Ideology behaves like a meme. Reason and critical thought are immaterial to an ideology. Ideology behaves more like a disease of thought bent on virulence and its own survival.

Once ideology gains a foothold dislodging it becomes almost impossible. It sinks deep tendrils by offering pseudo-certainty and faux order to a world where neither certainty nor order exist.

Those with a high certainty orientation, like those with little perceived control over their lives, are particularly susceptible to ideology. It offers an attractive mental sanctuary staving off a chaotic world.

Ideology gives answers where no answers may lie. Yet, these answers may be incorrect and may actually defy reason.

So where does this leave us?

Certainty or truth. Sometimes the choice is stark.

Job losses are behind retail profit fall

Retail sales were down for the last quarter. This reflects downturns in the labor market.

What many in the pro-business camp fail to realize about business, is that labor is the true fundamental for improved business.

Here's why: You can have all the capital in the world, but if you don't have labor and qualified labor to process that capital into products for the economy, then that capital is worthless.

There's been a false dichotomy for years in our political discourse. Your either pro-business OR pro-labor.

You cannot have business without labor. It's that simple.

Labor may need management, but it still remains the raw material upon which business much work.

I've said all that, to say this: Unless a concerted effort to buttress jobs (viz., Labor) occurs, business will continue to decline.

Police kill Mayor's dogs, but refuse to admit mistake

Here's a sad story about a Mayor and his family in Maryland.

The police burst in without announcing themselves, shot his two dogs, handcuffed him, arrested him and his wife.

It turns out they made a mistake.

The mistake is obvious, but the police are admitting no wrongdoing.

I find it hard to listen to the police complain about how hard they have it, when they literally "screw up" this badly and then deny their mistake.

Someone needs to lose their job over this. Unless public servants begin to suffer personally for such disasters in judgment, then there will be little incentive to improve their performance.

CDC reports that ER waits growing longer--We need to change the incentives

Here's yet another statistic that points to a broken health care system.

The free market approach to saving lives currently used is failing miserably.

Furthermore, it's immoral to place people's lives at risk for the sake of profit. Why is that ignored in the calculus?

We need socialized health insurance.

We could even throw some incentives in, like capping malpractice claims for doctors who treat those for covered medical procedures and expenses. Such a plan would incentive-ize doctors and hospitals to provide as many covered services as possible to get the liability shield.

Madeleine McCan possibly taken by a pedophile ring.

This stuff makes my blood boil.

These perverts had better not get caught. I suspect that their lives would be forfeit to an angry mob if they do get caught. Rightly so.

How anyone could justify their own selfish urges at the expense of a child sickens me.

If I every caught someone doing this sort of thing, they had better have the police to protect them.

Mental health system rewards wrong things and undermines best patient interest

This article from Live Science points to the impact of economic incentives on mental health treatment.

Psychiatrists are trained to treat people with drugs, but also with therapy.

The shrinks make more money by seeing more patients. Psychotherapy takes time and thus reduces the actual number of patients seen.

Insurance companies make matters worse for patients (and provide further disincentives to shrinks) by refusing to pay for "talk therapy".

There are talk therapies that are 90% effective at treating some disorders, but those are disfavored because talk therapy "takes too long."

See my point about our health care system incentive-izing the wrong things?

This is yet another example of how our health care system is broken and rewards the wrong things.

Iraq can pay for reconstruction, but our government prefers that the U.S. taxpayers foot the bill

Here's a serious problem.

One of the selling points of the Iraq War was that oil revenues would be used to rebuild the country from the damage.

Apparently, that isn't happening. Instead, the American Taxpayer is footing the bill.

I have to ask: if Republicans are so opposed to taxes, why are they so damn earnest at putting the U.S. so far in the red that our dollar is worth squat and that taxes will be necessary to get us out?

This is wrong and it's time the Iraqis start paying the tab.

Movement conservatives are being shown the door by America

Leave it to a Progressive to hit the nail on the head when it comes to the conservative movement.

Regardless of whether you agree with him or not, the problems facing the Reaganites will not go away just by wishing. You can't stand on a train track, back to an oncoming train and believe yourself out of getting hit by the train.

Ideology does much in the way of fueling a movement, but it sacrifices pragmatism when it goes too far...like the neoconservatives and Reaganites.

Valid points.

David Zucker has traded one ideology for another in an intellectually dishonest move.

Here's an interesting article about a Hollywood big wig that's changed his ideological stripe from liberal to conservative.

David Zucker brought us some classic comedy movies, cf, Airplane, Naked Gun, etc.

Now, it seems that Zucker now believes Democrats are a scourge. Especially after 9/11. This sounds strangely similar to Ron Silver's conversion to right-wing politics after New York was hit on 9/11. (You rememeber Ron Silver, the liberal actor that conservatives hated until he spoke at the 2004 Republican convention?)

Zucker struck up a friendship with Dennis Prager, a conservative talk radio dude.

Here's what I see.

Zucker is not unlike those 60's liberals who think they MUST have an ideology in order to be political.

That's a mistake. Here's why.

Ideology carries with it certain blindspots to the actual reality. This applies to both liberal and conservative ideologies alike.

For example: How can conservatives supporting Bush blame liberals for all the shenanigans of the Bush administration? They can't, but rather than acknowledge it, they stick their heads in the sand and give Bush a pass, since he represents the conservative ideology in the political sphere.

I agree with Zucker's irritation with Democrats after 9/11. But, my irritation with Democrats doesn't mean I should jump in bed with the other side. To do so shows a dearth of intellectual depth and a susceptibility to ideology.

My issues with the Democrats remain (spineless more often than not), but if the alternative it to support the Republicans (feckless more often than not), as the Dennis Pragers of the world would have us, then that's not much of a choice--in fact it's a Hobson's Choice, meaning that it's no real choice at all.

This is the problem with ideology and the simplistic thinking from the 60's--Everything is black or white, everything is either up or down, and liberal or conservative. That ignores the complexity inherent in modern political life.

Here's what I say to that: I actually use my brain and can see that the world has degrees and shades of gray.

Ideology works best for those without much of a brain or for those who are too blind to their own limitations. This applies Zucker (and Ron Silver...) if he cannot see the real complexity in the world.

PETA and newly-converted vegetarians.

While I'm on the pet peeve path, I might as well get another one off my chest.

PETA and all recent converts to vegetarianism.

Some background: I've been a vegetarian since the age of 18. That's 21 years and counting. I've finally reached that point where the thought of eating meat grosses me out. I'll probably be a vegetarian for the rest of my life.

I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons. Namely, I don't think I should eat something that I won't kill and clean myself. I don't kill animals because I don't have the ability to create another living creature, so I better not be messing something up that I can't fix.

Being a vegetarian has brought on a lot of grief. Early on, I was an asshole about my lifestyle choices, expecting everyone to cater to my particular worldview.

I'm more tolerant now. I don't want others dictating my life, so I don't think it correct for me to dictate to them on their choices, poor though they may be.

Here's my beef with PETA: PETA is to vegetarianism as the NRA is to guns. Both may have valid points, but both organizations are whack jobs.

I'm a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment and I exercise my rights. As for PETA, their antics serve to alienate the shit out of people--vegetarians included.

PETA takes the extreme position that everyone should bend to their worldview. I beg to differ. I'm perfectly capable of finding the truth on my own and don't need some ideological nimrods whose agenda excises any sense they may have had, telling me right from wrong.

Making matters worse is that by being a vegetarian, I get lumped in with the likes of PETA when non-vegetarians find out. The inevitable questions as to the why's and wherefore's of my lifestyle choices come flying.

PETA, by their actions, does not want to change people's minds. They want to piss people off so they can start a fight that they can't win. How moronic is that?

On to my next gripe: A couple of years ago I went to the home of a recently converted vegetarian. The point of my visit was to help set up her grill and to enjoy some company. Well, when I broke out my vegetarian hot dogs, I got an earful on how it was wrong to eat something that looked like meat and probably tasted like meat, even though it wasn't meat.

I was dumbstruck. What the hell? Here I was, a 20 year vegetarian being lectured by a woman who was a newly-minted vegetarian on my choice to eat a tofu pup? Give me a break.

What reeked of irony was the fact that I cooked them on her grill that I just assembled. It's not okay to eat soysage, but it's okay to have a grill whose main purpose is to cook raw meat?

Somehow, the whole PETA agenda has moved into fake meat products. How is that harmful to animals? The argument goes: By eating fake meat, I've not really given up meat and my love for it. Huh?

Ideologues are morons.