The Cost of Being Fat

I got an email from some guy I didn't know some months ago.  Somehow he'd found my post about an OSU study on obesity. It was kind of odd to get a "cold call", but it was definitely personal and not spam.  So I checked it out, and it's an interesting video that gives a good visualization of some of the changes in our food supply recently.  Check it out:

http://academicearth.org/electives/the-economic-cost-of-obesity/

FBI and Bombs

It was just May Day, and five guys were arrested by the FBI for attempting to blow up a bridge in Ohio.

The first thing that occurred to me was that they weren't charged with terrorism - whereas the guy in Oregon who tried to detonate a bomb at a Christmas celebration (same thing, no?) was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.  What's the difference in these cases???  My bet is white guys versus non-white.

The other thought I had was that this is yet another case where the FBI works for months to set up a string to get people to try to blow up bombs.  It just seems that they're putting a lot of effort into convince people to buy bombs and then (attempt to) blow them up, as opposed to actually catching people who are making/detonating bombs on their own.  The FBI claims it's preventing countless terrorist attacks ... but it just seems like entrapment for the sake of good publicity.  Let's see them actually catch someone who has a bomb that they didn't get from the FBI in the first place.  That would be saving us from terrorist attacks.

Politics, March 2012

I just posted my BranBrain Dump, and realized I had neglected my political thoughts.

First, the GOP candidates for president are just nuts (Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul).  You've got Romney, a fairly "centrist" republican who is trying to appear as "conservative" as he can be and failing - he's the candidate the GOP doesn't want.  You've got Santorum, a hard-core social conservative who basically thinks women belong in the kitchen making sandwiches.  Gingrich is obviously old school, cheated on both his wives, and says he's not a part of the establishment, even though he actually created the current back-stabbing conditions in American politics (and who was ousted from power by his own party b/c of corruption).  And then there's Ron Paul, the isolationist - who has more views I agree with than any of the GOP candidates - and more than I agree with Obama.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of any of them.  I'm actually going to write in Scott Adams (yes, of Dilbert fame).

We're still at war in Afghanistan, and bombing several other countries via unmanned drone.  We're still imprisoning hundreds of "terrorists" (without enough evidence to even have a trial to see if they're worth holding).  We've killed an American via a targeted drone strike, and Obama's justice department justifies it by saying that "due process doesn't mean judicial process." Nobody from the Bush administration has been prosecuted for war crimes/torture, nobody from Wall Street has been charged with anything due to the financial collapse, no real reform has been made in either situation - in fact Obama has gone after whistle blowers more vigorously than all other administrations beforehand, he's expanded executive power more then W did, etc. etc. etc.

Needless to say I'm not happy.

I am happy I've found this comic strip, here's an example of their work.  It's spot-on and absolutely hilarious.

You've got the media talking about nothing but the political races, and completely ignoring actual policy debates.

For example, Iran.  Everyone from Obama to the GOP candidates are trying to sound tough on Iran, completely and whole-heartedly supporting Israel's desire to bomb Iran.  Yet when actually pressed (though nobody ever does), people in the know agree that there is no evidence that Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons.  Nobody talks about the fact that Iran actually had signed an agreement to give up the enrichment program - and the US decided to just go ahead with sanctions instead.

And the media just goes along with the party line - both parties in fact, and repeats the same B.S. - which is what led us into Iraq.

It's disgusting.

If Only "The Onion" Reported Real News...

I didn't read/follow much of the 9/11 navel-gazing that happened, but I saw that The Onion wrote a piece and thought I'd check it out. It's worth a read (it's really more sad/ironic than funny).

U.S. Commemorates 9/11 By Toasting Stable Afghan Government From Top Of Freedom Tower | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

NEW YORK—In a moving and beautiful ceremony held atop Lower Manhattan's gleaming, 120-story-tall Freedom Tower, the nation commemorated the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by raising a glass to the stable democracy of Afghanistan and to a decade of unprecedented peace and prosperity across the globe.

A sobering/depressing read

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult:

"If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power."

He heaps a lot of blame on the Republicans and (more or less) discounts the Democrats as incompetent. I think I'd disagree with that statement about the Democrats - I think they're basically in cahoots with the Republicans. This isn't Gilligan's Island, the Dems are professional politicians - they know what they're doing, they know who butters their bread - it's the same as who butters the GOP's bread - large corporate interests...

I do have half a mind to take Mary up on her occasional, "we should move to another country..." thought.

Wouldn't that shock people.

For Fox Sake

I've been debating with a guy about a variety of things, he's arguing from the standard GOP talking points.

I've come to the conclusion (broad generalization coming) people like him live in a constant state of fear: fear of Marxists/communists trying to subvert the government, and fear of the global Muslim jihad. It's not a grip of fear that controls every aspect of life, but a constant fear nonetheless.

Another theme also seems to be that the liberal media is just not giving their viewpoint the time it deserves. If the rest of us (non-Republicans) just knew what they (Republicans) know...

While I don't think Comedy Central is necessarily the place to look for objective reporting. I do think this recent Daily Show segment sums up how I felt during the debate very nicely:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Oh, for Fox Sake
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Plus, there's the classic Stephen Colbert quote, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Arguing...

So, I've been debating/arguing with a guy on facebook. He's someone I knew at Intel, and also works at Mentor too.

He initially commented on my status about Osama Bin Laden:

Note: Obama said "justice has been done" - and that pretty much sums it up. U.S.A. where we either hold you indefinitely without charge, ore we kill you without trial. You're either with us, or you're against us. And you'd better hope you fall on the right side of that line b/c there's no recourse if you don't.

And we began a discussion. It turns out he's more of a GOP/Tea Party/Fox News kind of guy, and I'm obviously not.

I've been hoping to learn something about the way folks with his view point think. I figured, he's a highly paid engineer, he must have somewhat an analytical mind, maybe he can shed some light on the views I clearly don't understand.

Clearly I was wrong. It's almost as though we were speaking two different languages. I'm certain he's making absolutely no credible arguments, and he's probably thinking the same of me. At one point I mentioned that he was throwing around wild accusations without any proof, kind of like Glenn Beck. And this guy said that he loves Glenn Beck.

I've found some value in the discussion - I've certainly looked into some of the things I believe in a little closer, and found them to hold up pretty well. I've also read most of the links he's sent my way, and I feel comfortable saying that (for the most part), they are a series of diatribes about people with barely any connection to reality.

One of the threads is about George Soros - it started with a post of his pointing to an article showing how Soros has given a bunch of money to journalist schools and organizations. I had heard the name Soros a couple times but didn't know anything about him. I posted that the Koch brothers spend lots of money and asked what the difference was. Turns out, Soros is evidently a Marxist (whatever he wants that to mean), along with Obama, and he's undermining the country. It took an untold number of posts for him to actually point out something that Soros has done that could be interpreted as undermining the country. And, of course, the two things that were "undermining" seemed either very loosely connected (friend of a friend kind of relationship), or weren't very malevolent.

Long story short, my foray into arguing with someone from the right hasn't given me much of a basis to understand their side. So far, it just seems to be a bunch of fear mongering, vague accusations w/little to no evidence, conspiracy theories and name calling.

Oooh, some more responses. Back to the battle.

Gee... thanks Senate

If you read the headlines, "Senators Grill Phone Execs On Mobile Privacy", you might think they care about the privacy of the citizens.

Yet my first thought is, where were the investigations into AT&T's illegal behavior of handing over personal data to the NSA? (phone calls, emails, web browsing, etc.) Oh, right, all the companies involved in tapping our phones were granted immunity.

Way to look out for the citizenry.

OBL is dead...

So we killed Osama Bin Laden over two weeks ago, and I thought I'd write down some thoughts. I recall exactly my position about invading Iraq (against), but don't remember where I stood with Afghanistan (would like to think I was against, but that could just be wishful thinking).

I saw the news that OBL was dead when I came out of Simone's bedroom. The images were on the TV and the closed caption said he'd been killed. My first feeling was a little stronger than "meh", but not a lot - it was probably a combination of "meh" and relief.

I did see that President Obama said that "justice has been done". That struck me as odd. I would have expected that "justice" would have meant bringing him back to the U.S. and trying him for crimes, or heck, trying him for crimes in any of a dozen countries where he was wanted on terrorism. Instead, our form of justice was to just out-and-out kill him, old west style.

I'm not sorry he's dead, I'll certainly lose no sleep over it. My problem with what Obama said was that it continues the "us versus them" and the "you're with us or you're against us" mentality that the U.S. has in its foreign policy.

Since 9/11/2001 we have invaded 2 Muslim countries and bombed another 3 (Pakistan, Libya, Yemen), and that just seems wrong.

We continue to pursue an aggressive military "solution" to the "war on terror" when both DARPA and the former head of the CIA's task force to find Osama Bin Laden (Michael Scheuer) agree that:

1. "The threat to the U.S. arises from Muslims plausible perception that the things they most love andvalue - God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands - are beign attacked by America." (Michael Scheuer)

2. "policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa'ida. And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase 'war on terrorism' since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa'ida." How Terrorist Groups End

So, the Department of Defence and the CIA both recognize that our current approach is the wrong one, yet we continue ahead full-steam.

I'm frustrated at the Obama administration for not closing Gitmo (where only 40 of the original 700+ people have enough evidence against them to even go to court), I'm frustrated at our abandonment of the Nuremberg Principles (starting with W), Obama doing a 180 on signing statements/declaring war, militarizing the CIA, attacking government whistle blowers more fervently than W, and attempting to assassinate a U.S. citizen! I'm frustrated.

The latest "battles" between Democrats and Republicans have all gone to the Republicans. Take the latest budget battle, which had Republicans starting with "$35 Billion" in cuts, Dems with "$10 Billion" in cuts, and the final budget being $38 Billion. eh? Ok, that's off topic. OBL...

But it's related, because what used to be GOP talking points have been completely adopted by the Democrats.

Gah!!!!!

And the "liberal media" just continues to repeat, without any hesitation, the talking points of the GOP and the government. I mean, we send in Seal Team 6 to get Osama, they kill him. Why did the White House have to lie? They changed their story 4 times in 4 days, OBL was using his wife as a human shield, there was a firefight, he was fighting back, he drew his weapon. Lies, all of them. Very few in the U.S. would raise much of a stink if we killed him in "cold blood", yet the government put forward this story of how he resisted. The Seals would have taken Osama alive had that been their task, they're the best in the world - and especially if OBL wasn't armed, it would have been a piece of cake. Now the government is leaking photos of OBL watching himself on TV, of his stash of porn. And the media is continuing to just regurgitate it. I don't know if it was true. I don't much care.

One post I read basically points out the the U.S. isn't ready to face the truth. With the lies and the retractions, we, as a people, can console ourselves over questioning what the facts are and completely avoid what the facts show about us as a country. I think they show that our government is continuing to pursue an aggressive, military occupation of most of the world, we care naught for human rights if they're not in our "best interests", the government represents and defends corporate interests over personal interests, and our population (for the most part) is happy to sit back, watch Glee, and remain ignorant about what our government does.

One piece, Obama's "bad negotiating" is actually shrewd negotiating, did shine a light on Obama's positions that changed my perception of his stance. The main point is that Obama hasn't "failed" at pushing the "liberal" agenda, he's been very calculated and chosen to side with GOP ideals because it's all about getting re-elected. It's worth a read.

Yay, The U.S. Bombs Yet Another Islamic Country! (Libya)

Not only are we not out of Iraq or Afghanistan yet, we're now bombing Libya. Sure, it's "sanctioned" by the U.N. Security Council, but since when have we let the U.N. say when we can (or cannot) use our military? I thought acts of war (i.e. bombing another country) needed to be approved by Congress.

Oh, no, that's not the case says the Obama administration. From NPR's story, Libya Overshadows Obama's Latin America Trip:

Now, over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the administration would certainly welcome a congressional seal of approval for this action but that the president is acting within his existing authority.

In his letter, Mr. Obama pointed to the Security Council resolution and his authority to conduct foreign relations and as commander in chief.

Glad to hear it.

Two more eloquent analyses of the attacks on Libya, one by Scott Adams, and one by Glenn Greenwald.

And it should be remembered, the two wars (now 3, including Libya) is completely ignoring the unmanned drones bombing Pakistan (and the incursions across the border from Afghanistan), but who's counting.

Oh, NPR today did have a story that makes a little more sense: If This Is Not 'War' Against Libya, What Is It? That's more like it NPR.

A Time To Break Silence

An excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr's speech, "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time To Break Silence". The entire speech is as relevant today as it was then:

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

Obama and Democrats - Not Good At Politics

I believe I've said it before, but Democrats seem to be horrible at politics (I can't find any blog posts on it, but a search through my chat records show I say it all the time). It just boggles the mind they can be so incompetent.

Dems won a majority in House and Senate and took the Whitehouse on a campaign for change. What do we have?

• Guantanamo still open.
• Gays still not allowed in the military
• We're still in Iraq (the current plan leaves <50,000 in Iraq)
• Health care reform dead (60% people have said for years they want universal health care)
• Biggest financial crisis since 1928 and no reform for Wall Street (maybe a tax on bonuses, BFD)

Paul Krugman reacts to Obama's state of the union speech, specifically regarding Obama said he'll freeze government spending. Krugman writes:

[I]t’s a spectacular demonstration of Obama’s failure to change the narrative. Not only is he accepting the general Republican world view, he’s parroting their dumb attacks on his own policies.

So true. One thing goes wrong and Democrats all over are embracing Republican policies. Eh? This is crazy talk.

And I thought Jon Stewart's analysis of Democrat's reaction to losing the Senate race in Massachusetts was spot on. The Democrats are acting like the Republicans have the majority with 41 seats, and are acting like they need Republican permission to do anything. Jon nails it when he says to Democrats, "No matter what you do, the Republicans are never going to let you into the station wagon. They're never going to let you in!" (at 3:00 in the video).

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Blues Clueless
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Heck, Jon couldn't be more right on his January 18th show (@10:00) when he ranted about how poorly the Democrats are playing politics:

This isn't about Republicans playing checkers while Democrats play chess. This is Republicans playing chess while Democrats are in the nurses office because, once again, they've glued their balls to their thighs.

And, lastly, I wholeheartedly with David Brin's post on the difference between the Democrat and Republican parties. My summary would be that Republicans stick together and Democrats can't unify on anything.

It's a sad state of affairs, and it's looking to get a whole lot worse...

Health Care

My ignorance on health care is pretty vast. It's an incredibly complex issue, but one thing just stands out above all others: that US spends way more than other countries (by pretty much any measure), and we're way behind everyone in terms of quality of life. Check this quote from wikipedia:

Currently the U.S. has a higher infant mortality rate than most of the world's industrialized nations.^{[nb 1][11]} The USA's life expectancy lags 42nd in the world, after most rich nations, lagging last of the G5 (Japan, France, Germany, UK, USA) and just after Chile (35th) and Cuba (37th).^[12][13][14] The USA's life expectancy is ranked 50th in the world after the European Union (40th).^[15][16] The World Health Organization (WHO), in 2000, ranked the U.S. health care system as the highest in cost, first in responsiveness, 37th in overall performance, and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study).^[17][18] A 2008 report by the Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States last in the quality of health care among the 19 compared countries.^[19]

Downright embarrassing.

Pretty much whomever you talk to thinks they have a good idea as to why the costs are so out of control. It's the doctors, or it's the insurance industry, or it's the greedy/lazy americans, it's the inefficiency of the system, etc. etc. etc.

Recently I listened to two This American Life stories on healthcare: "More Is Less" and "Someone Else's Money". Give them a listen, they're well worth it. The first episode covers reasons why each of the standard reasons for cost increases is true, and the second goes over the history of how we got to where we are today. Plus, the second one covers pet health insurance, and looks at it as a model that we might follow for people health insurance.

That last bit on the pet health insurance really convinced me. Now I believe the problem is the entire system. It has removed the consumers (people) from the actual cost of the health care, and that's just a recipe for disaster in a capitalist environment. That and the drug companies are to blame.

This Makes Me Feel All Warm And Fuzzy Inside

Did you hear about the musicians that are suing the RIAA for being pirates?

I sure hope they get the same justice they found for folks who "pirated" their music. Remember the $675,000 fine for sharing 30 songs? And $1.92 MILLION fine for a woman who shared 24 songs?

The CRIA (Canadian version of RIAA, whose members include Soni, EMI, Universal Music, and Warner Music) is being sued for distributing more then 300,000 songs. Boo-yah!

Luckily the case is in Canada, where (hopefully) the courts won't be as friendly to businesses as they are here.

The potential damages could be $6 BILLION.

I Don't Know What To Say

From the LA Times:

Churches outnumber schools, clinics and banks put together. Many promise to solve parishioner's material worries as well as spiritual ones — eight out of ten Nigerians struggle by on less than $2 a day.
...
It's hard for churches to carve out a congregation with so much competition. So some pastors establish their credentials by accusing children of witchcraft.
...
There's a scar above Jane's shy smile: her mother tried to saw off the top of her skull after a pastor denounced her and repeated exorcisms costing a total of $60 didn't cure her of witchcraft.

We just got the book "Tear Soup", and it's what I read to Simone in bed tonight. I couldn't help but think about how much soup must be made in Nigeria right now.

Dunce Upon A Time's article: Why George Bush Makes me Proud to be an American

BC Woods is a brilliant writer. I've been reading some of his stuff on and off, but I only found him recently. A friend clued me into this amazing article. It was written in June 2008, but resonates just as strongly today.

Here's the intro to get you started, click through to read the entire thing:

Almost eight years ago, George Walker Bush took office, and the world has never been the same. Since then, he has redefined what it means to be an American, has never cracked under the scrutiny of his peers, and has remade the entire world according to his sincere beliefs. Considering all this, it is safe to say that George Bush is far and away the greatest president who has ever lived. His courageousness, imagination, and perseverance, are an example to all Americans.

Cash For Clunkers

Unbelievable, I read the story in the paper today. Congress will pay folks $3500-$4500 for upgrading their auto from a gas guzzling SUV/truck getting 16mpg to a mean green machine that gets 18mpg... wait, what?

Yup, you'll get paid $3500 to buy a 18mpg gas guzzler, even $4500 for a 23mpg guzzler.

What a moronic idea.

For a real breakdown devoid of the anger and frustration I harbor, read: The Oil Drum | The 2012 Oil Crunch vs. Cash for Clunkers

Torture

I'm tired of the torture debate.

I'm especially tired of the media and how it presents the debate. Almost always the story is set up as "human rights" versus "freedom to be safe", i.e. either torture the guy or the ticking time-bomb goes off. Almost never does anyone bring up the fact that torture doesn't work, let alone the fact that not torturing people but instead earning their respect and trust is what works.

Even my favorite, John Stewart, fails to bring up those points and falls into the debate of the ticking time bomb.

The more nuanced, pro-torture, debater brings up the argument that the anti-torturing side thinks that the idea of anything but the most benign interrogation techniques is not allowed. Again, this is a straw man, don't accept the argument, for once you do, you end up debating where to draw the line for torture.

The bottom line is:

• torture doesn't work, you get bad intelligence
• not torturing does work, it has worked, and it will continue to work
• water boarding is torture
• there's never been a ticking time bomb situation - stop watching 24
  

It's Made It To The Comics

I knew that our "harsh interrogation techniques" were borrowed from the military's program where soldiers are subjected to ... torture. What I didn't know was that those programs were specifically introduced to give our soldiers an idea of what the communist countries were doing to our soldiers during the cold war specifically to extract false confessions to be used against us. I'm still having trouble choking down the irony.

Now that information has bubbled up to our comic strips:



"We have seen the enemy and it is us." - Walt Kelly

A Study: "The Irony of Satire"

Amazing, check out the abstract for this study, "The Irony of Satire":

This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.

I wonder what Colbert thinks about the study.

Also, I wonder what conservatives thought of Colbert's speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. You should seriously watch it. It's painfully funny, made even funnier by the fact the butt of the jokes (W and many of the people in the room) don't find it funny. The Wikipedia article has a nice summary if you don't want to watch the whole video.