Devil's Aggregate

Scare tactics regarding healthcare costs

2009-12-23T12:21:23-06:00

They say insurance premiums will keep rising, like it's some monster that's going to eat our entire economy. But won't there be a natural limit? After health care expenditures become around 20% of our GDP, won't people just stop getting health services? Won't people start to think, "okay, this budgetary item is too expensive, so I'm going to stop buying health insurance." Or they'll think, "there's got to be a cheaper insurance provider." For all the complaining about health insurance, I rarely hear people exchange information about which insurance providers are a better deal. It's almost like people haven't yet become smart consumers about their health care.

The government has a budget for Medicare too. And it doesn't have unlimited money. And eventually they'll just have to cut services.

Health care is such a high percentage of our GDP because Americans green light every expense request. You want a helicopter-ambulance? Sure. You want a CT scan? Let's do it! You need drugs? Excellent, here's a whole buffet of them.

Our ad hoc freedom to consume is now the most cherished American freedom.

Or simply, our appetite for health care consumption has been much higher than the industry's capability to satiate it.

Another take on Obama's Nobelity

2009-10-10T02:14:14-06:00

Obama did promise to raise the profile of the United States in the international community. Isn't the Nobel Peace Prize a recognition that he's accomplished that? So many countries which depend so much on the United States look toward us with hope, not cynicism, thanks to President Obama.

Don't Hate the Hater

2009-10-09T10:57:12-06:00

I believe there is a big difference between the following:

(a) committing a violent crime that just so happens to intimidate a protected class
(b) committing a violent crime because you really hate a protected class
(c) committing a violent crime in order to set an example to a protected class

(b)(c) were given extra sentencing in 1994 at a federal level. However, because of the weakness of the language, effectively (a) also qualifies for extra sentencing.

There is new pending legislation that removes the restriction that it has to occur at a federal level. It also includes gays in the protected class definition.

They also attempt to say that evidence must show that your hatred is connected to the crime.

But the language is so weak that most likely (a)(b)(c) will still qualify for extra sentencing.

I believe that only (d) should carry extra sentencing, which is:

(d) committing a crime in order to set an example to 1 or more other people

This could be a mafia boss ordering a hit on a grocery store owner for not paying up in order to set an example to other transgressors in the community. This could be someone targetting a prominent women's right activist for rape in order to scare the women's rights community.

And I believe that it's not necessarily hard to legislate against just that. Our law already includes many provisions about motive and intent. And perhaps (I'm not a legal expert) it already carries extra sentencing for intended community intimidation factor. In which case, hate crimes laws are not necessary.

Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

2009-10-04T03:09:03-06:00

Freedom is the latest rage these days.

Here's two conversation-ending retorts to all this hyperbole about freedom:

For all this talk about freedom of speech, what about quality of speech?
Our biggest assault on freedom is our excessive confinement of our population (we have 5% of the world's population, yet 25% of its prison population)

If Obama said we're going to scrap health care reform, energy reform, etc. and focus our attention on prison reform, I'd be 100% in support of that.

It's not because he's black

2009-09-16T18:13:36-06:00

Jimmy Carter came out today saying that the backlash against Obama is largely because of anti-black sentiment among whites.

But when it comes to interpreting all racial events, you have to simulate the events with the races switched.

So if we had a white Democratic president, like Hilary Clinton, and given our economic situation, and the probable policies (bailouts etc.), the protests would be much worse! Well, the thing is Hillary wouldn't be pushing healthcare reform, but assuming she was, she would face worse.

Now, what if it wasn't Hilary though. What if it was John Edwards pushing healthcare reform in an economic downturn, he'd probably face protests, but not as hard as Hilary. But I attribute that to the already pre-existing hatred toward Hilary. Maybe it's because she's a woman?

You know what I think it is, I think because she's a woman and because Obama's black, many Americans (both left and right) have started out skeptical of them, and some of those people, through a confirmation bias and because they only listen to conservative talk radio, have increased their intensity of hatred and haven't revised their opinions.

So, I believe that Obama being black and Clinton being a woman probably just increases the polarity of the divisiveness, but I don't think people who dislike Obama or Hilary would dislike Edwards any less. Rather, they just have more force, along the lines of, "see, I told you we shouldn't have elected a black (or female) president."

But then, you have to consider what if John Edwards' infidelities surfaced after the election. Would he get Bill Clintonized? Probably, and he'd get railroaded as much as Obama is getting now.

So, in summary, I wouldn't think it fair to say that people hate Obama because he's black. And you'd want to be especially careful saying something like that because the portion of white conservatives who are honest-to-god non-racists take major offense to that accusation. So, I'd agree with Michael Savage, that Carter's statements incite more racial enmity.

If you're in love with health care reform, this will moderate it

2009-09-14T03:06:33-06:00

MSNBC has a very interesting fact-or-fiction quiz: "Dose of reality: Your guide to health care reform." I got most of my responses wrong, and I admit, I can sympathize with the Right for being so uneasy about health care reform. Your health care will change. Government will have a bigger hand.

While it's so across the board that government intervention goes hand-in-hand with better health care, that doesn't imply that just throwing more government intervention in the mix is an automatic upgrade. If you hate government interference in general, then you'll assume Obamacare will make things worse.

Do not rebuke Joe Wilson

2009-09-13T13:55:56-06:00

The House is considering a rebuke of Joe "You Lie" Wilson. Here's my arguments against it:

It will only make him stronger. My liberal friends seem to think Joe Wilson really harmed himself with his remarks. This shows just how far away the left is in understanding the mind of the right. On conservative talk radio, Joe Wilson's a hero, much like the guy that threw a shoe at Bush is among liberals. Joe also raised a lot of money from it.
Rebuking is petty.
There was some raucous heckling already swelling up a few seconds before his outburst. It mostly seems like he just had poor timing, perhaps being like the person who claps thinking he'll start an applause.
We don't want to seem like we're trying to discourage or oppress free speech. Imagine if the GOP tried to rebuke a Democrat for an outburst at Bush, that would just further add to the idea that government wants to muzzle criticism.

There are two kinds of ethnic pride in America

2009-08-26T12:24:01-06:00

Here's what's going on with white pride vs. black pride. I spoke with my friend who is just as meticulous with this stuff as you are.

There's two kinds of ethnic pride in America. There's immigrant ethnic pride, and non-immigrant ethnic pride. Immigrant ethnic pride usually falls on first-generation immigrants and maybe one or two generations of their descendants. Usually immigrant pride starts out with two parents of the same region of the same country coming to America. They feel very proud of their region, whether it's Cebu in Philippines or Karnataka in India. Their children may or may not adopt their parents' particular regional pride, or they will adopt the pride of their parents' modern national identity, for example representing themselves as Indian. Look at, for example, how there's these generic Asian clubs in universities when their parents would be shocked to see Vietnamese lump themselves together with Cambodians or Koreans. And then what happens is Asian men and women mate and don't preserve the regional differences. So a descendant of Chinese-Americans from Western China will marry someone from Taiwan, or a North Indian descendant will marry a South Indian one, and perhaps a Hindu will marry a Muslim.

And as the mixing goes further down, so does the immigrant ethnic pride.

The second kind of ethnic pride is based on some socially invented ethnicity, such as African-American or White. Most African-Americans, when expressing African pride, do so very generically toward all of Africa. Rather, it seems like they're just celebrating being black, and fashioning a sense of rootedness. White pride, as well, is expressed ethnically in terms of being European. But if Europeans came to the US and saw white supremacists celebrating "being European" they would laugh because Europeans have so much regional distinction among themselves.

I see where you made a mistake. You got excited learning about the Celtic League, but Celtic pride doesn't really pass as White Pride. It's too specific. There's very few purebred Celts in the US. Most whites in America are of mixed ethnicity. And so are most blacks.

Perhaps when each of the waves of Europeans came to the US, they had very specific regional pride, as you could see in Gangs of New York. But once Irish-Americans start marrying English-Americans it all just becomes one big melange.

See how making a point about white pride gets liberals all worked up?

2009-08-26T02:06:07-06:00

You accused conservatives earlier of being party to a slippery slope fallacy. But aren't liberals also party to that too. Just because I'm making a point about white people having ethnic pride, doesn't mean I'm all of a sudden a culture warrior like Bill O'Reilly. I know the War on Christmas is a made-up war and the fear of gay marriage stuff has spun out of control.

STFU Culture Warrior

2009-08-26T01:58:32-06:00

Frankly, who cares? So our society has a bias toward giving minority ethnicities a little bit of extra spotlight. Getting mad at society for its political correctness becomes such a dumb excuse for bad policy. "The War on Christmas" becomes a rallying cry for all these stupid Christian identity issues, like the real war on gay marriage.

Like Clint Eastwood makes such a big deal about how we can't make racial jokes anymore. Look, the ban on racial jokes only applies to polite society. You can make as many racial jokes to your friends as you want. Just because polite society leans one way or another doesn't make you oppressed. Nobody is infringing on your free speech.

Go to a Celtic antiques shop. Wear Celtic regalia. Just because people may look at you funny and think, "hey, look at this white person trying to be all ethnic," doesn't mean you're being discriminated against! Taxi drivers aren't passing by you. Cops aren't stopping you randomly.

As Jon Stewart mentioned, the culture war is a false war. Winning points in the culture war is totally Pyrrhic and does more harm than good.

White Pride

2009-08-26T01:34:43-06:00

White pride needs a second look.

Here's the antecedents to this:

My Indian friend went on a huge rant about how India is an idea of convenience used to gain independence from the British. He said that calling a Punjabi a Gujurati would be like calling a Chinese person Filipino.
I have two white friends, one conservative, the other liberal, who both have this suppressed racial pride. They both claim Native American ancestry mixed with European and yearn to be viewed as such.
I spent some time plumbing this Alternate History Map of Europe and was just flooded by the sense of how much various Europeans separate themselves from one another. For example, I learned how Spain isn't really a country, but rather a decentralized state of autonomous regions that correspond to former kingdoms. Or that many countries in Europe have native speakers of minority languages. To Americans, most Europeans are just "white."

I believe that Europeans visiting the United States would be surprised by white Americans' lack of ethnic identity. The truth is, white Americans and black Americans are the same in that some black Americans are really into their African-American roots, just as some white Americans get really into their particular roots (whether they be Dauphiné French, Celtic, or Anglo-Saxon). However, African-Americans are afforded a publicly acceptable avenue for expression of their ethnic identity, while as white Americans usually aren't.

I think white pride is a misnomer, more of a phantom ethnic identity created out of Americans' unwillingness to see white people as having ethnic differences. Celtic-American pride should be a legitimate thing. Unfortunately, this is nobody's fault. I don't know who's fault it is. Maybe the media? I'm not really interested in pinning blame or anything. Historically, though, during the various waves of European immigration, each ethnic group became this minority other that needed ethnic pride to boost them up. While as the so-called entrenched ethnicities had to tone down their ethnic pride. It's the same thing as how Jews have become so entrenched American culture they're just "white" now.

If Reagan wasn't an awesome president, then neither was Clinton

2009-08-17T18:40:54-06:00

Someone said this on reddit:

Let me get this straight, Reagan was the greatest modern president, he turned the US into a debtor nation, cut social programs, supported Sadam, sold Iran thousands of missiles, armed and trained those who became the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and married religion with conservatism. There anything else?

The immediate response from some was, "Who won the Cold War?" Which was rebutted with:

Reagan was the beneficiary of defunct and bankrupt society that was on its way to folding regardless of who was in power. Reagan had no hand in the collapse of the USSR except to be someone who's ass was in the Presidential Chair at the time.

Sure, I'll accept that Reagan didn't have much to do about the Cold War if you accept the premise that Clinton didn't have much to do with the boom and prosperity of the 1990s. I've read reasonable articles both overstating and understating both Clinton and Reagan's impact. I think the answer on both these questions is probably, "we don't know."

All bills should have a 2-paragraph form!

2009-08-17T12:32:41-06:00

Health care reform in 2 paragraphs? Nice! Let's run with that idea. Why doesn't Congress make a bill that says "all bills must be less than 100 pages" long. Call it the simplicity bill. And just so we don't all of a sudden get bills with tiny fonts, specify how many characters of text can be used to describe the bill.

If you can't state it in 100 pages or less, it's beyond the ken of ordinary citizens, and therefore undemocratic.

And/or mandate that a 10-page version of each bill is created and posted for public consumption at least 48 hours before the bill is voted on.

Health care reform in two paragraphs

2009-08-17T12:30:37-06:00

Here's a snapshot you can easily refer to in case anybody wants to know what health care reform means now:

Most kinds of insurance you can just go and buy for yourself. But health insurance doesn't work like that because nobody wants to sell an insurance policy to anyone who would want to buy one. The fear is that you'd let yourself go uninsured until you find our you're going to need medical care, and then go buy some insurance. This problem of so-called "adverse selection" means health insurance can only work when an employer can bundle together a big group of people, leaving the self-employed, the unemployed, and those working for small firms at a huge disadvantage. All versions of health insurance reform before Congress would offer a three-fold fix to this. First, force insurers to offer a defined set of benefits to all comers at a fixed price--no discrimination based on gender, health status, whatever. Second, fix the adverse-selection problem this causes by mandating that everyone get themselves some health insurance. Third, to fix the economic hardship this might apply to some families, offer generous subsidies to ensure affordability for all.
This would, if done correctly, more-or-less solve the problem of the uninsured. And those of us who do have insurance would be spared the insurance-related anxiety that's endemic in contemporary American life. No longer would the state of your health care need to be a dominant decision in making career choices, and no longer would the risk of job loss also be the risk of preventable death or medical bankruptcy.

(source)

There's not going to be a bread line for healthcare. Nobody's going to "ration" healthcare

2009-08-17T12:18:08-06:00

This "rationing" meme is really annoying. Nobody is going to ration health care. They'll ration healthcare just like ration the fire department. The fire department, may, at times, have more than one fire to respond to, but we set it up with enough to handle 99.9% of all urgent cases. The way we ration is by not responding to every trivial case, like every cat up in a tree.

All the money that America spends extra doesn't buy us better healthcare. It buys us urgent access to non-urgent care. Everywhere else in the industrialized world everybody gets their urgent care when they need it.

Blame Obama

2009-08-16T18:00:16-06:00

On a lateral topic, is Obama helping healthcare reform? I think there's two points to make that he's not.

For one, I think he's deflating the liberals. I see a lot of articles pop up on my radar that mention this or that extreme case of insurance malpractice (new expression I coined), but I don't see the attendant grass roots campaign for the victims. There was Sicko that came out in 2007, but where's the equivalent angry mob supporting health care reform?

It seems like there was more liberal activism against Proposition 8 than there is supporting health care reform. Honestly most liberals don't understand health care reform (most conservatives don't either). Obama's leading the way, and so the supporters are just passively hoping The Professor knows what's best. If the Anointed One wasn't running the show, maybe we could see a regular grass roots street fight for health care reform.

Another point is that conservatives are conflating these healthcare reform protests with their lingering bitterness that Obama won the election. How can Obama become the bipartisan president if he doesn't have bipartisan appeal? I know he did well among some independents in some states, but damn if the conservatives don't hate this guy. They hate him more than they hated Clinton.

This is why some black Americans didn't want a black president, because they didn't want, as The Onion put it, to have a "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job."

Anyway, I'll keep re-iterating this point: Healthcare reform should have happened in small, tangible chunks that just appeal to the common sense of both sides.

Wait, yes, the government will do a better job

2009-08-16T17:52:27-06:00

Some people ask this question like it's rhetorical, "Do you really think the government can run healthcare better than private enterprise?"

Absolutely. Why? Because every singe other industrialized nation is running health care cheaper than us and with quality parity (Oh, and their citizens are happier with the healthcare too). If government-run health care is bad, it's certainly a very hard case to make, and most likely it requires the use of appealing to burned-in ideologies.

Wait, but a public option is not really forced charity

2009-08-16T17:29:05-06:00

The people were more in favor of universal health care until this anti-reform blitz starting happening. Check this out: British women tricked into appearing in anti-reform ad.

Plus, the resistance to European health care for America is mostly because people don't know anything about it or because they know only distortions about it. People who are making an intelligent opposition to healthcare reform are probably out-numbered by those making an intelligent proposition for healthcare reform 10-to-1.

Somehow it seems like Americans don't want socialized medicine, but I believe that it's simply the way the media amplifies ignorant people who shout the loudest (or bring loaded guns to town hall meetings).

If socialized healthcare existed in the US for 5 years or more, what percentage of people would want to get rid of it and revert back? I bet that number would be about 20%.

Most of what passes for conservatism these days is simply an unwillingness to change. Oh, and also a support for entrenched power and interests. Sounds like a match made in heaven, between the rigid masses and the corporate oligarchy.

Removing the government option

2009-08-16T16:14:57-06:00

Ideologically, the Right has a problem with the idea of "forced charity." The Left, on the other hand, has statements like, "We're the richest nation in the world, how can we not [fill in the blank]," where you sub in either "feed the poor" or "provide health insurance to everybody."

If anything about the independence and freedom side of the Right appeals to me, it's the "don't force me to do things" kind of freedom. I'm not sure whether the actual size of the government is a concern, but rather the quantity and quality of the force that it's applying on its citizens. Isn't that the real concern with socialism. It's not socialism itself that's a problem, but rather the understood totalitarianism that has to come with it.

Removing the public option, therefore, seems ok. This is what the Obama Administration is now prepared to do. If Americans want to provide insurance to the poor, they can do so through charities. The new co-op idea should have bipartisan appeal because this is simply taking a core cost-saving aspect of the European healthcare systems and bringing it here.

Some European systems, like UK's NHS, provide universal health care which in turn provides them cost-savings by having a single-payer. But maybe the net effect is that universal coverage is more charity than cost-savings (the jury is still out on that).

So there is some aspect of the European way that is just patently unappealing to the Right, and that's the forced charity part. But there is a major aspect that should be appealing to both sides, and that's how they're able to spend one-third less of their GDP than we do on health care (our 15% vs. their 10%).

I think a reasonable compromise in all these "Big Government vs. free markets" debates is that we should use the government to put its finger on the scale, and only so. Use the government to tweak the markets and influence the market so that it maximizes positive outcomes most of the time. A totally free-wheeling market is anarchic and causes violent economic upswings.

If you don't want a death panel or rationing, don't get health insurance!

2009-08-13T17:00:44-06:00

If you don't want anybody to try to influence or wish for you to use less resources toward the end of your life, put your money into a savings account and use it when you need it. Don't get insurance period. Don't get government insurance. Don't get Humana. Don't get Cigna. Don't get nothing. Be totally free and independent.

Hopefully all this stuff will backfire against the GOP who are starting to look more and more like mindless kooks. The kooks, when they lack facts, do eventually tire. Maybe this will be the blessing in disguise for the August recess.

Both sides sound the same. Look, we're not Nazis AND there are no death panels!

2009-08-12T15:10:22-06:00

To the Left:
We're not Brownshirts. We're not Nazis. These are town halls that you are setting up. It's not like we're invading private sessions where people are organizing to think about healthcare. We're doing plain ol' vanilla protesting. Remember your "Code Pink" buddies? At worst we're as bad as them.

To the Right:
There's no damn death panels! Cut it out already. I tuned into conservative radio today and I couldn't find a pundit not talking about how the government is going to kill you in your old age. Even a GOP Senator Takes On Palin, saying "Don't 'Gin Up Fear' With Death Panel Lies."

Now, having said both of these things, this is what you get when you have a braniac president. He thinks he's so smart that he whips up this big ol' complex bill that both the Left and the Right don't understand—hell even The Professor may not understand—and as a result, both sides have to resort to hyperbolic fear tactics to get their way. He should've done healthcare piecemeal with a series of paired proposals.

He should've looked at this list...

... and then made one bill for each of the top four items. Then for each bill, include something compassionate, like extending coverage, or protecting consumers against rescission. Done! I should be a political strategist!

Don't cite FOXNews, ever

2009-08-12T11:33:28-06:00

I get a link in my RSS Feed almost everyday from Media Matters about distortions and flat-out misinformation in FOXNews. And that's just from Media Matters' Healthcare watch page.

When it comes to thinking about which ideology to support (because we all have a default ideology whether we want to or not), I always return back to the idea that conservatives are the ones always lacking in facts. If the right-wing was so spot-on, how come there aren't a handful of media watchdog organizations dismantling the supposed vast, left-wing conspiracy of the media.

I did a quick Googling to double-check I wasn't making this up. And the two big ones are Media Matters and FAIR, both of which counter conservative misinformation. The conservative response to this is Accuracy in Media which I never hear about, and if you visit, on the home page, has some dumbass "feature" about Bill Ayers. Not one thing about healthcare!

It's like not only is all news liberal, but the conservative news is muddied by these fact-checkers. Fortunately for the conservatives, Limbag and the other right-wing pundits have succeeded in taking America's trust of the news from 85% to 55%. Even if that means we will distrust news from conservative sources, the net effect is positive for the conservatives, because now they can just put out the opinion spinners, the pundits, to counter the media and their annoying little "facts."

The Anti-Bush protests were worse

2009-08-12T11:31:13-06:00

When Bush visited Portland, Ore., for a fundraiser, protesters stalked his motorcade, assailed his limousine and stoned a car containing his advisers. Chanting "Bush is a terrorist!", the demonstrators bullied passers-by, including gay softball players and a wheelchair-bound grandfather with multiple sclerosis.
One protester even brandished a sign that seemed to advocate Bush's assassination. The man held a large photo of Bush that had been doctored to show a gun barrel pressed against his temple.

(from FOXNews)

The violent anger of the right-wing

2009-08-12T11:28:17-06:00

There's this article by the AP that Officials See a Rise in Militia Groups Across the US. The cause:

The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says.

The thing is, though, that putatively these groups are organizing militarily because they love America. Both the radical left- and right-wing believe you have to destroy America in order to rebuild it. But one loves the country while as the other one hates it.

What's ironic about all of this is that Jefferson would (at least in some abstract historical projection) support the militia-organizing of Americans. There's a million quotes and variations on what Jefferson said, but it's along the lines of, "What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." Rather, I think it was more along the lines of, "The best defense against tyranny is the perpetual threat of revolution."

Muzzle Pelosi

2009-08-11T01:26:54-06:00

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, insisting at the start of a long and politically heated summer congressional recess that healthcare reform can be achieved this fall, today are calling the disruption of town-hall meetings by vocal protesters "simply un-American."

Why Nancy? Why? We cringed under this same tactic by the Bush Administration.

We've now fallen for their trap. They've made us just like they were. Liberals are now the bullies, the conservatives are the underdogs, and Limbaugh's ratings are partying like it's the Republican Revolution again. We are now sowing the seeds of the Democrat's destruction.

Some arguments against affirmative action can be construed to support it

2009-08-05T15:41:54-06:00

One argument against affirmative action is that it denigrates the accomplishments of underrepresented minorities. For example a Black freshman may wonder if his classmates resent the leg-up he got.

But what about the flipside? Do whites out of the umbrella of affirmative action feel self-conscious that their minority classmates resent the privilege that has given whites a leg-up for centuries?

The more you think through this the more twisted it seems. Or the laws are just written poorly.

Affirmative action has support because some whites see it as harmless

2009-08-05T00:30:12-06:00

Part of the support for affirmative action is that many whites don't see it as harmful to them. Affirmative action kept in check the rising enrollment of Asians in the University of California system while as amplifying the enrollment of Blacks, American Indians, and Latinos. In doing my research, those last three races were called "underrepresented minorities" while as Asians weren't similarly called "overrepresented minorities."

Non-Hispanic whites make up 43% of California's population, and their admission to UC is about 35-40%. Asians represent 12% of California's population, but their admission is 36%. However Latinos, Blacks, and American Indians are underrepresented. So, a white freshman would likely have a neutral attitude toward affirmative action since they're proportionally represented.

White liberals who think they're being enlightened by supporting affirmative action need to consider what races are being curtailed to balance the ones being amplified.

If the problem now is not enough Blacks, Latinos and American Indians, at one point it was too many Jews:

As the sociologist Jerome Karabel writes in "The Chosen" (Houghton Mifflin; $28), his remarkable history of the admissions process at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, that meritocratic spirit soon led to a crisis. The enrollment of Jews began to rise dramatically. By 1922, they made up more than a fifth of Harvard's freshman class. The administration and alumni were up in arms. Jews were thought to be sickly and grasping, grade-grubbing and insular. They displaced the sons of wealthy Wasp alumni, which did not bode well for fund-raising. A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard's president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school: "The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate . . . because they drive away the Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also."

(Malcom Gladwell's "Getting In")

New Surgeon General's thoughts on marijuana

2009-08-04T01:30:14-06:00

Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the first African-American woman surgeon general: "To me, (cannabis) is not nearly as toxic for our bodies as tobacco or alcohol. It should be legalized."

Doesn't this make reliable Red State Kansas Un-American?

2009-08-03T15:34:24-06:00

Loudly, some Kansans reject Guantanamo detainees

The facts on Gates-gate keep breaking in Sgt. Crowley's favor

2009-08-03T12:15:10-06:00

I saw this write-up by Abraham Cooper from the Simon Wisenthal Center:

Enter Sgt. Crowley, who in 2007 was sent by his department to the Museum of Tolerance to become a trainer on the issue of racial profiling. Crowley was an outstanding student, and he was invited back last year for an advanced course. "He stands out to me. He was one of those people who really engaged in sessions, who really showed a high level of understanding of the issue," said Sunny Lee, director of Tools for Tolerance® for Law Enforcement.

Sgt. Crowley reminds me of those people who are trying to do the righteous thing beyond a reasonable doubt. I heard he did most of the talking at the Beer Summit, which indicates to me, that he spent the time re-tracings his steps through the events and his career to assure mainly himself that what he did wasn't racist. Obliquely, it probably served as a form of penance, or at least defensive penance should he have actually done something wrong.

My guess, despite what Sgt. Crowley says, is that he does regret what he did, but he's just flabbergasted that his rare slip-up is nullifying all of the hard work he's done to not be a stereotypical bigoted cop.