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Maj. Hassan, Political Correctness, and Utter Insanity

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:30:00 +0000

“If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance,” [Senator] Lieberman said. “He should have been gone.”

First off, somebody get that man a puppy already. I'm tired of listening to his desperate pleas for attention.

Second - let's just look at the idiocy of his remark. I've yet to see an account of Maj. Hassan saying to people he had become an Islamist extremist. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate - but I'd guess when a person consciously decides to become an extremist, I think it's atypical for them to refer to themselves as an extremist. After all, they're not crazy - everybody who disagrees with them is.

Now, Maj. Hassan did give a truly odd presentation in June 2007 entitled The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military. Stranger yet, he did this when he was expected to speak on a medical topic. His presentation was 50 slides long. It begins with general facts and figures about Islam and ended with the recommendation that Muslims soldiers be allowed to become conscientious objectors to increase troop morale and "decrease adverse result." In between are the controversial slides depicting Koranic verse that suggests that unbelievers will taste punishment of blazing fire, "like boiling oil, it will boil in their bellies" and that "as often as their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for other skins that they may taste the punishment."

That ought to have earned him some unfriendly attention. I've yet to see anything that definitively establishes that his supervisors did anything or not. But the expectation that this speech alone could be turned into grounds for dismissal from the service....?

Think about what that would mean. About what kind of a message that sends to loyal Muslim soldiers - or to Muslim Americans in general. "Sure, we'll let you in the military, but as soon as you say your religion is better than ours we're kicking you out."

I've been in the company of plenty of servicemembers who thought their religion meant that all non-Christians were going to roast in hellfire. A standard that would retain their services yet discharge Muslims for similar views is about as transparently bigoted as you can get.

But the far right is ready for that argument - it responds that "Political Correctness" has made us less safe. That somehow equality and diversity in the ranks has eroded the military's ability to protect itself.

First off, the militant who is dismissed from the service is merely a pissed off militant in the civilian sector. If Maj. Hassan had become citizen Hassan and had walked into a shopping mall with his two pistols - what would have been achieved? And we'd have the cost to decent, law-abiding Muslims who would suddenly be second class citizens at the insistence of a frenzied majority.

Memo to the nut-bags on the right: the idea that Muslims be treated differently under the law than members of other faiths is un-American. More importantly, it is unconstitutional, and an assault on a founding principle of democracy: equality under the law.

If you're against that, you are against the constitution - and I cannot imagine how you can defend America by undermining the very document to which this nation owes its creation and identity.

Scratch four

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:16:00 +0000

In counter-insurgencies, you read a lot about how the bad guys attack and then fade away before the cavalry arrives.The IED-centric nature of the war in both Iraq and Afghanistan bears this out. You have troops stressing over getting killed by bombs placed by people they have never seen.

Well, Free Range International's babatim has a post that establishes that bad guys in A-stan are perfectly capable of doing something incredibly stupid.

While enjoying a morning cup of coffee and checking email up on the Baba Deck with a group of friends who are in from the States we saw what was clearly the signature of a tanker attack just up the road. That has never happened this close to Jalalabad before so we conducted a brief staff meeting which consisted of saying “let’s go” and headed up the road to see what was what.

What was what was a Taleban ambush of a fuel tanker convoy Jalalabad had just kicked off - and the bad guys had picked the wrong place and the wrong time.

Worth a read.

A way out of our national debt

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:13:00 +0000

(Via the Onion News Network)

U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt

Ok, I should not have laughed at this, but

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:26:00 +0000

(Via the Onion News Network)

(Oh, NSFW - Use headphones)

Victim In Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck

Stewart rips Glenn Beck a new one

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:35:00 +0000

(Via TPM)

Is there anything better than well aimed satire?

Mr. Beck? I believe you've been served.

Credit to the man from Minnesota

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:28:00 +0000

Apropos of nothing, I was looking up the process by which we passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That'd be the one that prohibited the government from regulating the Credit Default Swaps that encouraged big investors to take massive risks. These were the financial products that brought down A.I.G, and damn near everything else..

Anyway - Phil Gramm gets most of the blame for this little slice of legislation, but I remember reading how this was a bipartisan bill.

So, I'm looking it up and find the House Roll Call, noting that my very progressive representative voted for it, but the Senate passed it by unanimous consent - meaning that there was no recorded roll.

Huge spending bill, including provisions that would nearly destroy our economy - no record of who was for and against. Interestingly enough, the agreement to pass the bill by unanimous consent was constructed such that objections after the agreement did not invalidate unanimous consent.

Of the two senators who spoke up - one was the late Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone:

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President I want to voice my strong objection to 
the process by which this legislation is being passed by the Senate. 
The Omnibus Appropriations conference report--containing numerous other 
pieces of unrelated legislation--is being passed by the Senate tonight 
under a consent agreement that was entered suddenly by the Majority 
Leader without the normal notification process. We should have had a 
recorded vote. Since I first came to the Senate 9 years ago I have felt 
that it does the Senate no credit to pass such significant budgetary 
legislation--literally hundreds of billions of dollars--without a 
recorded vote. We cannot be held accountable as Senators to our 
constituents when such bills are passed in this manner. I want to make 
it clear; I oppose this legislation and I would like the Record to show 
that I would have voted no had there been a recorded vote.

Now, I won't presume that Sen. Wellstone foresaw any looming financial cataclysm, but his point here is well made. The Senate used procedure to obscure who supported a piece of legislation that they were passing. I'm sure this continues in many forms, but I think Sen. Wellstone's position is only amplified by that fact.

You pass a bill, your name should be recorded.

Goldmann + New Century = Evil

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:59:00 +0000

Ryan Chittum raves about another McClatchy piece documenting how hip deep Goldman Sachs was in the subprime mess. He does the blow by blow of Goldman's dealings with New Century, then follows up a nice summation of what passed for subprime underwriting according to Goldman Sachs:

Goldman Sachs Mortgage, however, published guidelines in early 2007 indicating that it would accept a "stated income, stated asset" loan for a person with a subpar credit score of 600 who was borrowing 90 percent of his or her home's value. The designation meant that although the borrower had poor credit, his or her claimed income and financial background would go unchecked.

He also links back to a lurid 2008 BusinessWeek article that sounds like it came from TV. Chittums pull quote is enough to get you to read it, but here's the one I'd have pulled:

"I didn't want to be a mortgage slut."

Death in perspective

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:21:00 +0000

Information is Beautiful has a new graphic depicting the causes of all recorded deaths in a 300 day period.

The graphic's creator, Michæl.Paukner, sources the data to a web app called the world clock, which is in turn sourced to the WHO data - which appears to be estimated.

However, the perspective is still useful.

Health Care: Us vs. Them

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:33:00 +0000

Ezra Klein had some eye-popping charts on the relative cost of health care in other countries.

Now, you know that we pay more, right? But check out the details on specific services.

Here's Ezra:

The health-care reform debate has done a good job avoiding the subject of prices. The argument over the Medicare-attached public plan was, in a way that most people didn't understand, an argument about prices, but it quickly became an argument about a public option without a pricing dimension, and never really looked back. The administration has been very interested in the finding that some states are better at providing cost-effective care than other states, but not in the finding that some countries are better at purchasing care than other countries. "A health-care debate in this country that isn't aware of the price differential is not an informed debate," says Halvorson. By that measure, we have not had a very informed debate.

It is interesting that those who denounce the cost of health care reform, spend precious little time discussing controlling the costs of procedures.

(H/t GOOD blog)

Hot and cold

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:33:00 +0000

WSJ reports that the dems have gotten a few things done, after all.

Less important to me than the individual pieces of legislation - is the fact that these rolled through without the sky falling across the aisle. Even as recently as a year ago, the idea that the FDA would be given regulatory authority over tobacco would have been thought impossible. And now it's here - and yet the seas do not foam with blood.

I'm sure the GOP isn't eager to announce its legislative losses - but its just remarkable to see how the hotbutton issue of yesterday is barely worth a mention today.

[Not] adjusted for inflation

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:05:00 +0000

Trudy Lieberman's eagle eye has caught a rather devilish detail in the health care bill concerning government subsidies of mandated health insurance premiums.

...the first year the legislation takes effect (2013, as of now), people getting subsidized coverage would have to pay between 2 and 12 percent of their incomes for the insurance, depending on how much they earn. The government, of course, would pay the rest of the cost—that’s the carrot to entice people to buy in the first place. Those with lower incomes would pay less; those with higher incomes more. Okay—seems reasonable.

But in the second year and afterward, Appleby reports that the subsidies will be “based on a percentage of the premium that was paid the first year, no matter how far premiums rise.” Because wages don’t go up as fast as premiums, families, particularly those at the lower end of the income ladder, could easily find themselves paying far more for coverage as a percentage of their income than they were led to believe they would pay. And with premiums going up and up, which is the likely scenario, they will struggle and perhaps forgo insurance altogether.

The mandate that Pres. Obama campaigned against and now champions - just keeps getting uglier.

Bank walkaways

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:31:00 +0000

(H/t E)

There was an awful lot of coverage when homeowners were reportedly bailing out on their mortgages - (a lot of it pushed by the lending industry).

Shoe's on the other foot these days.

Here's The Dayton Daily News:

The so-called “walkaways” can occur along several different paths, but the effect is the same — after threatening or getting foreclosure, the lender attempts to abandon the usually vacant property, leaving the original owner, the neighbors and the city to live with the damage.

Owners often accumulate taxes and zoning enforcement fines on property they believe they no longer own.

Neighbors watch their property values decline as the vacant property deteriorates and is often broken into and stripped.

Cities then have to bear the cost of boarding up a structure, maintaining the lawn and, eventually, demolishing it.

If you're like me - that second sentence got your attention.

"Owners often accumulate taxes and zoning enforcment fines on property they believe they no longer own"

How does that happen?

Like this:

The house at 24 Glencoe Ave. looks bad on the outside.

[it] was purchased in January 2003 by the current owner, Donald Hennessey of McMurray, Pa. By October 2004, a foreclosure case had been opened, and Homecomings Financial Network, Inc. — which is owned by GMAC — was granted a foreclosure in March 2005. The property was ordered for sale at sheriff’s auction the following month.

Everything appeared to be on track until the appraisal required for a sheriff’s auction came in at $30,000 — well under the $71,792 that was owed on the mortgage. The sheriff’s sale was canceled in May and a few days later the lender dismissed the foreclosure.

So even though Hennessey thought the house had gone back to the bank, he still owned the vacant and abandoned property — and was on the hook for the growing property taxes and zoning fines from the city.

...

“I said I was sorry to inform them that the bank stopped the foreclosure, discharged the loan and never took title to the property, so it’s still theirs,” [Dayton Housing Inspector John] Carter said.

It gets better. The owners are on the hook for the unpaid bills because they "own" the house. Of course, they only own it because the market is depressed and their lender doesn't want it right now.

As the GMAC spokesperson in the story points out "the investor may decide to halt the foreclosure sale but reserve the right to foreclose at a later date, maybe when the market recovers."

That’s exactly what happened at 24 Glencoe. Homecomings dismissed the foreclosure “without prejudice,” meaning it still holds a lien on the property and can come back to foreclose later.

So these people are allowed to own the accrued fines and taxes until such time as the bank chooses to step in and take the place.

A commenter called SquareState nailed it: "How is it that individuals can't walk away from property they own without consequences, but banks can?"

Damn good question.

McClatchy: We told you Goldman was evil

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:03:00 +0000

(via CJR)

Today’s McLatchy story—“Goldman takes on new role: taking away people’s homes,”—beautifully illustrates the intimate intertwining of Wall Street and the subprime business. Here, Goldman is shown coping with the consequences of having bought mortgages from Argent Mortgage Co., a unit of Ameriquest Morgage Co. Now, Goldman may feel it is being unfairly tarred for just doing what it is supposed to do—make money—but, sorry, this is a clear case of lying down with dogs and being surprised to wake up with fleas.

Read Dean Starkman's take first. Good snark.

Losing track

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:21:00 +0000

There's just too much going on these days.

Abdullah hands the Afghan presidency to Hamid Karzai. So, where does this leave US strategy?
I have no idea - here's the take of FRI's babatim:

Our Secretary of State says that means nothing. I agree but for different reasons; in the end it does not matter who is leading the country – the Afghan government will not be a proper [counterinsurgency] partner and will continue to be part of the problem regardless of how these elections turn out. Conducting a runoff will only give the bad guys more opportunity for mischief while accomplishing nothing.

Instead, babatim suggests we focus on making the Afghan military into something useful.

If we want to rapidly build the Afghan Security Forces the only way to do it is to live and work with them 24/7. We need to adopt them, feed them, pay them, and watch after them. What can a US officer really do when the Colonel he is mentoring cannot feed his own troops because the money to buy that chow is siphoned off by officers above him? If they make a stink about it the Afghan Colonel is sure to be relieved and thrown out on the streets. The current mentors have guys fighting daily while dealing with problems they would never encounter in the American system. They do the best they can to support the unit they are assigned to mentor, but they are not really embedded. They live of separate compounds inside the Afghan compounds completely separate from their charges. Mentoring means leading by example while living and fighting with your host country troops. It does not mean setting up a parallel [Tactical Operations Center], camp, cook house, offices, and coffee shop where the Afghans are not welcomed or allowed.

All that sounds good - but I still don't know what the US gets out of a strong Afghan military if the government remains a behive of corruption.

Then there's the NY 23rd congressional race. This race is so bizarre. You had the hard right sabotaging a GOP incumbent, against the wishes of the local party. And doing it with a candidate who apparently wasn't terribly plugged into local issues.

Sure, the quest for party purity is a cyclical thing, but the dems chewing on Lieberman never seemed so top-down. And you didn't have party big-wigs on both sides of that one.

There's been an awful lot of ink about how the GOP is going to fracture - but this is an undeniable attempt by the national GOP leadership to kick out a moderate. You have to wonder just how far the Club For Growth types are going to push the party before the see the edge of the cliff.

Oh, and our progressive president is reluctantly, mournfully, yet forcefully adopting the same position on state secrets as the Bush administration. Way to suck there, guys. I hope Judge Walker sticks it to you every bit as hard as you deserve.

SEC: the anti regulator

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:23:00 +0000

The NYT covers the massive document dump on the Madoff scandal.

Hundreds of exhibits supporting a scathing report on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s past investigations of Bernard L. Madoff were released on Friday by the author of the report, the agency’s inspector general, H. David Kotz.

...

The exhibits provide additional details about Mr. Madoff’s comments, including his observation that the agency’s investigators seemed to find it “inconceivable” that he was operating a massive fraud.

Indeed, he said he got the impression through all the examinations and investigations over the years that "it never entered the S.E.C.’s mind that it was a Ponzi scheme," according to a 12-page summary of the interview.

Mr. Madoff said he was "worried every time" examiners from the agency showed up. "It was nightmare for me," he said. adding "I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago."

Here was the paragraph I loved:

The report also documented that Mr. Madoff frequently cited the S.E.C.’s various investigations to reassure investors that he had passed muster with government regulators. The exhibits include numerous reports from investors that they had been lured into the Ponzi scheme by exactly those assurances.

Not exactly what we were shooting for in a regulator, guys.

Better luck next time.

Of Jedis, airmen, and incredibly stupid regulations

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:47:00 +0000

What the hell are these people doing?

It has to do with how much they hate wearing their reflective belts.

Ya gotta love how the internet has enabled the shaming of stupid things.

Epidemic of Fear

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:24:00 +0000

Wired's November issue has a great profile of Paul Offit, vaccination advocate and dedicated advocate of science-based medicine.

Which makes him a hated man. Why?

...what has this award-winning 58-year-old scientist done to elicit such venom? He boldly states — in speeches, in journal articles, and in his 2008 book Autism’s False Prophets — that vaccines do not cause autism or autoimmune disease or any of the other chronic conditions that have been blamed on them. He supports this assertion with meticulous evidence. And he calls to account those who promote bogus treatments for autism — treatments that he says not only don’t work but often cause harm.

As a result, Offit has become the main target of a grassroots movement that opposes the systematic vaccination of children and the laws that require it. McCarthy, an actress and a former Playboy centerfold whose son has been diagnosed with autism, is the best-known leader of the movement, but she is joined by legions of well-organized supporters and sympathizers.

This isn’t a religious dispute, like the debate over creationism and intelligent design. It’s a challenge to traditional science that crosses party, class, and religious lines. It is partly a reaction to Big Pharma’s blunders and PR missteps, from Vioxx to illegal marketing ploys, which have encouraged a distrust of experts. It is also, ironically, a product of the era of instant communication and easy access to information. The doubters and deniers are empowered by the Internet (online, nobody knows you’re not a doctor) and helped by the mainstream media, which has an interest in pumping up bad science to create a “debate” where there should be none.

Amy Wallace unabashedly uses this profile to (once again) recite the reasons why vaccination is a good thing. It's sad that she needs to do this -

-but she needs to.

...the number of people who choose not to vaccinate their children (so-called philosophical exemptions are available in about 20 states, including Pennsylvania, Texas, and much of the West) continues to rise. In states where such opting out is allowed, 2.6 percent of parents did so last year, up from 1 percent in 1991, according to the CDC. In some communities, like California’s affluent Marin County, just north of San Francisco, non-vaccination rates are approaching 6 percent (counterintuitively, higher rates of non-vaccination often correspond with higher levels of education and wealth).

That may not sound like much, but a recent study by the Los Angeles Times indicates that the impact can be devastating. The Times found that even though only about 2 percent of California’s kindergartners are unvaccinated (10,000 kids, or about twice the number as in 1997), they tend to be clustered, disproportionately increasing the risk of an outbreak of such largely eradicated diseases as measles, mumps, and pertussis (whooping cough). The clustering means almost 10 percent of elementary schools statewide may already be at risk.

Arnold speaks his mind

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:49:00 +0000

I still can't believe a sitting governor would do this - but I guess expecting more than juvenile level tactics is asking a bit too much these days.

"It's just a weird coincidence," Aaron McLear, the governor's spokesman, said Wednesday, doing his best to play it straight.

Yeah, sure pal.

(H/t E)

Steven Ratter spills his guts on the auto bailouts

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:39:00 +0000

Heard about this from NPR's piece. Steven Rattner, head of the auto task force assigned to restructure GM and Chrysler, gives a marvelous account of what went down.

The picture isn't pretty - but like a horrific car wreck, it uncomfortably fascinating.

Here's a great bit:

...under the previous administration's loan agreements, Treasury was to approve every GM transaction of more than $100 million that was outside of the normal course. From my first day at Treasury, PowerPoint decks would arrive from GM (we quickly concluded that no decision seemed to be made at GM without one) requesting approvals. We were appalled by the absence of sound analysis provided to justify these expenditures.

In other words - GM management was asking to blow $100 million on something and they hadn't bothered to justify it with research.

Every time somebody tells me that private organizations are so much more efficient than public one - I think of stuff like this. Or some of the insane waste I see at CorpWorld on a regular basis. Private institutions big accountability is that they can go under. They make bad decisions long enough, they go under. But that sidesteps the issue of exactly how much money can vanish into thin air while the company does just well enough not to go under.

And it ignores transparency issues.

Remember WorldCom loaning over $300 million dollars to Bernie Ebbers? Had the telecom boom continued, that loan would never have seen the light of day. WorldCom's bookkeeping would have kept shareholders in the dark - and shielded its board from the consequences of such an idiotic decision.

Which is not to suggest that gov't institutions don't have waste (good God, we know they do) but this fundamentalist view that private = efficient deserves a thourough and regular public beatdown.

Here's a nice segment on dealing with Chrysler's creditors:

The President's announcement that he was prepared for bankruptcy dramatically changed the nature of the discussions we were having with the stakeholders, none so much as those with Chrysler's 45 senior lenders.

Led by Jimmy Lee, J.P. Morgan's top banker and a long-standing business friend of mine, the banks had been insisting that, as secured lenders, they were entitled to repayment of their entire $6.9 billion. "And not a penny less," Jimmy said to me on more than one occasion.

From the outset that had struck us as ridiculous. The debt was trading at about 15¢ on the dollar, and according to Chrysler's analysis, the liquidation value of the company was around $1 billion. Clearly the banks didn't believe that the government would push back and let the lenders take over the company, if necessary. Until they heard the President speak on Monday morning. Almost immediately afterward, Jimmy called with a new message: "We need to talk."

Read the whole article. Great stuff.

100 cents on the dollar

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:27:00 +0000

(Via CJR)

That's what we paid the big banks on their swaps when AIG was bought up by the government. This was obscene and more than one commentator pointed it out at the time. So, to take one recipient at random, Goldman Sachs hedges to the tune of $12.9 billion dollars and gets paid $12.9 billion dollars by you and me.

That's just sick - but it gets worse when you read in Bloomberg that AIG had been trying to get Goldman to take haircuts on their swaps. i.e. AIG was driving a hard bargain with Goldman - but soon as the Feds took over, they meekly forked over the full amount.

Weak, weak, weak.

Rape is a pre-existing condition

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:36:00 +0000

You gotta be kidding me.

C'mon, we know you were on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:47:00 +0000

The airline pilots who overflew Minneapolis by 150 miles are now claiming that they were using their laptops and were not (as had been speculated) asleep.

According to the pilots, they were checking their schedules using their laptops.

Somehow, I don't see even the most riveting schedule could keep a pilot incommunicado for over an hour.

You have to wonder what they were really up to.

NYT calls him out

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:05:00 +0000

Mr. President, you had this coming:

The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration’s expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush’s cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama’s cover-up.

We have had recent reminders of this dismaying retreat from Mr. Obama’s passionate campaign promises to make a break with Mr. Bush’s abuses of power, a shift that denies justice to the victims of wayward government policies and shields officials from accountability...

...the Obama administration has repeated a disreputable Bush-era argument that the executive branch is entitled to have lawsuits shut down whenever it makes a blanket claim of national security. The ruling rejected that argument and noted that the government’s theory would “effectively cordon off all secret actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the C.I.A. and its partners from the demands and limits of the law.”

The Obama administration has aggressively pursued such immunity in numerous other cases beyond the ones involving Mr. Mohamed. We do not take seriously the government’s claim that it is trying to protect intelligence or avoid harm to national security.

The NYT does well to put this down in print - here's hoping this issue gets regular coverage until something is done.
This president should not be allowed to silently collect on the Bush administration bets. Nor should they be allowed to keep playing the same game.

I don't for a moment think this will be a turning point editorial, but the facts need to get a wider audience.

In defense of the post office

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:28:00 +0000

Tom Schaller has a great post on that perennial whipping boy, the US Postal Service.

The idea that a private company would both deliver mail to every office and home six days a week, and collect it from the same plus thousands of drop boxes scattered across the nation-- all the while maintaining walk-up offices in every town--and still be able to deliver a first-class envelope to any address for a mere 44 cents (an amount that hasn't changed in real terms after 30 years) is simply an absurd expectation.

I've always said the Post Office is a classic government role. Nobody wants to pay the freight to do door-to-door service to every address in America, or they'd be doing it. FexEx and UPS cherry pick the stuff they can make money on - and leave the rest to Uncle Sam.

Don't miss the comment from the Oklahoma postal worker in Tom's post - it's priceless.

So, next time you hear somebody say they don't want their health care run like the Post Office, you can ask them "You mean, you don't want it to be universally accessible and cheap?"

(and only because I cannot resist repeating this - you could also ask them if they would prefer to have a post office run like the insurance companies "We've decided not to mail your letter...because it's just too far).

I'm really starting to like this guy

noreply@blogger.com (murph) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:23:00 +0000

Rep. Grayson is every inch a drama queen - but as Glenn points out they guy knows how to beat on stupidity.