2012 and Beyond: The End of the World as We Know It

We seem to think that mind and spirit are separate, that there is a spiritual realm and a practical realm and that they do not overlap at all - and that the one does not inform the other.

But cause and effect still rules and amoral actions in the here and now lead to direct consquences that are suffered by our children and grandchildren. Indeed.. unto the seventh generation.

Yet one more reason to love Canada.

Fuck off!

Glenn Beck, Goldline, Fools and their Money

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

The title is derived from lines from

two earlier films. In Poppy (1936),

he tells his daughter, "If we

should ever separate, my little plum,

I want to give you just one bit

of fatherly advice:

Never give a sucker an even break!"

In You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939),

 he tells a customer that his

grandfather's last words,

"just before they sprung the trap" were,

"You can't cheat an honest man;

never give a sucker an even break,

or smarten up a chump."

"Never give a sucker an even break." may well have been my father's motto, and it evidently is Glenn Beck's. It strikes me as odd how much the two of them resemble each other - and W.C. Fields.


The infographic below gives a simple and brutal explanation of how Beck's confidence game works. It's one of the oldest scams on the books, and I learned it at my father's knee.

• Convince the audience that there's an urgent need or crisis they were unaware of. 
• Assure them that only they are lucky or smart enough to hear of this dread condition, that is is being concealed, suppressed by means of conspiracy or ignored by "the ignorant and easily led."
• Produce some glossy hype that shows, beyond doubt, how this particular nostrum will grow your hair, clean your oven, boost your libido and attract a mate, all without needing to wear gloves! You don't even need to think about it, the benefits are so obvious!
• Convince the mark that the matter is so urgent and the need so great that they cannot afford to wait, they must call that number right now.
• Try to find an "intangible" value that a court can not convict you of misrepresenting. That is to say, it would be fraud to sell 100 dollars worth of gold for 300 dollars as a good investment. But "investment grade collector's coins" have an intangible value that is defined as what the buyer is willing to pay.

Infographic by The Big Picture

That's a point brutally made in the infographic - and it's a point authorities seem willing to debate in front of a judge.

"Goldline International is under investigation by the Santa Monica City Attorney’s office, jointly with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, as well as being the subject of a separate investigation by Congress into the possible criminal practices. The firm has been the subject of an ABC Nightline News Exposé, as well as an investigation by NY Congressman Weiner).

Goldline is not selling gold bullion. It's selling gold coins with some (debatable) collector's value, at a mark-up that would make an ordinary coin dealer gape in envy.

When the Zombie Apocalypse comes and you need to barter gold for food and shotgun shells - nobody will give a damn about the collector's value of your gold coins. They will want to know what it's purity is. And for that, dear people, you want to buy Canadian Maple Leaves or Credit Suisse bars at an reputable gold brokerage, assuming, of course, you credit the idea that an ounce of gold is likely to be worth as much as a case of whiskey or a box of shotgun shells.

Me, I'd hedge my investments with a solar power rig and a "ethanol fuel distillation apparatus," if you take my meaning. After the Zombie Apocalypse - well, the BATF will probably have it's hands full.

Mind you, I really have little sympathy for those making investment decisions on the advice of a known and famous liar.

W.C. Fields was right as far as he went, but my father was of the opinion that sheering such a flock was almost a civic duty; that it was the only way to "smarten up a chump."

But he married a chump, and she never did. She would just move on to the next confidence man, thinking each one in turn would have the Instant Answer To Everything. And were she alive today... she'd be telling me all about how I should be buying gold, to hedge against the inevitable decline of the communistic fools paradise I live in.

I think it wiser to vote for "someone smart."

Perps And Consequences

The war on drugs has to be one of the single stupidest policies ever devised.



Via: Medical Coding Certification


Even if every single thing D.A.R.E. and the various "drug warriors" said about slippery slopes and inappropriateness for medical use were factual (a matter of some considerable dispute between those who care more than I, one way or the other), the unregulated consequences predicted by the pearl-clutching nannies would still be less severe than the current state of affairs.


This is leaving aside the entire question as to whether people should be "permitted" to use drugs - since it's clearly failed to change drug usage in any detectable way, it's my presumption that the war is exactly what it seems to be - an ongoing war against people, and that the violence and repression is not a means to an end, it is the entire point. 


I refer to it as the "Bigger Hammer" theory of governance. If things don't go as you desire, if people don't behave as you think they should, pull out your biggest hammer and hit them as hard as you can. I'm quite certain I've referred to it as the Gallagher School of Public Policy. I had no actual idea at the time that it is also Gallagher's idea of Public Policy. Go figure. 


So like I said above, the whole point is to smash shit. That's the whole act. Smash shit, say something viciously stupid, and the audience laughs nervously. Confuse that with approval, and carry on.


Speaking of assholes who smash people when they don't behave as he thinks they should; Mel Gibson is selling his property and returning to Australia. It seems hardly worth commenting about - but that certainly didn't stop people. Eww. I do so enjoy seeing all the upstanding people crawl out from under their rocks to assure us all that it's all the victim's fault for making the perp angry enough to beat her up.

If I need to explain why this is so very wrong to you - well, I doubt I can. But you should probably seek help.

This cycle has both personal and political relevance - and I wryly observe that my advice to Democrats would be to take out a restraining order against the radical right, rather than to attempt to reason with their perps; advice that is even more relevant to the serial abuse victims of the Moderate Right.


Without in any way trying to discount the personal impact on people who are victimized personally by real abuse and sexual violence, it's worth observing that it is not a separate thing; moreover, it's most likely a public expression of much worse private behaviours. 


Not that it will stop the shouting of abusive, hateful perps that I'm an evil abusive perp. Here's the tactics directed at the NAACP with professional and amateur variations.








Um. There IS a racist element. I wouldn't say it's the only questionable thread, it's one of many sorts of grouchy, mean spirited, simple-minded and ugly messages to be found.



They should be condemned, if for no other reason than to keep the Tea Party on point. When you accuse critics of being racists for having noticed not even subtle racism, it makes people watching wonder if your stated politics is just another Jim Crow Shuck and Jive.

Rebuttal to Bill O'Reilly's Opposing Gay Marriage by Ishtarmuz shows the technique of fisking to good advantage. But to be quite fair, it was aiming plunging fire a great big fat soft target. 

Shame, blame and patronizing dismissals of the validity of the person and their plaints are, of course the very first response to anyone who dares to "whine" about ill treatment within such a dynamic, at least, before the tapes are released to the press.

For the coverage of this particular weeks events - hell, these cartoons tell you all you need to know. The difference between an ethicist, a comedian and a clown? Comedians are funny.  

That's because they tell the truth, regardless of consequences. Clowns, on the other hand... clowns exist to enforce social norms and, just for extra fun, scare the crap out of children. This usually happens because children have a far better grasp of the difference between "normal and to be expected" and "justice." 

There are lessons from history to be studied, lest we all find ourselves living in times even more interesting than our current state of disarray. This history of the troubles supported and encouraged in Argentina by Authoritarian Catholic Fanatics who failed to pacify Algeria and failed to assassinate France's Charles De Gaulle. More than 30,000 "disappeared". In the end, such a revulsion was bred toward the Catholic Church that one of their worst nightmares came true, aside from the consequential fact that barely a quarter of the population are practicing Catholic. It does not seem from this remove that the proponents are a much better class of leader - it was that such self-inflicted karmic wounds tend to attract predators. The issue of same-sex marriage was an opportunity to split an opposition coalition - and it seems to have worked quite well.

Examples of the obliviousness to the consequences of the authoritarian mindset abound. The ACLU, in speaking of Yet Another Ham-Fisted Backdoor Ban on Abortion, quotes the legal decision, and of course mentions the impact upon persons such a law would have.

The idea of providing patients with thousands of scientific studies dating back as much as 100 years would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous. A woman's health and well-being are best supported when she can trust that her doctor will provide medical information that is accurate and unbiased. Rather than ensuring that a woman's choice to end her pregnancy is meaningful and informed, this law forces her doctor to provide her false and misleading information, undermining the trust between a woman and her doctor.

Fortunately, Judge Laurie Smith Camp found that compliance with the law "would be impossible or nearly impossible," and would likely deter physicians from providing abortion care in the first place. Additionally, Judge Camp determined that "no such legislative concern for the health of women, or of men, has given rise to any remotely similar informed-consent statutes applicable to other medical procedure."

Both the court and the ACLU seem to have missed the larger point, save in the title itself. "Respecting Women's Decisions." 

Those who demand respect for their authority without respecting those they are given authority over deserve neither respect, nor deference, nor obedience, particularly when they abuse the law and society and the intelligence of critics and courts in so doing.

This is something that is intuitively understood by the least and youngest among us. Bullies may steal your lunch money but it's no great achievement; they deserve no respect, no allegiance, nothing but contempt.

When those in power conspire to use the law against the helpless, seemingly just because they can, and when the authoritarian fringes cry out in protest against entirely basic human rights being asserted in court, it's clearly time to sharply curb the presumptuous bumpkins and abusive toads who seem to think that power only exists to be flaunted and abused. A general disrepect for the values and visions of the Authoritarian of the Moment emerges. Resistance and evasion emerges quickly, more and sharper oppressions follow, derision and disrespect ensues, until you find yourself in something that might be called a "Cold Civil War."

Well, it's really no wonder there's such fear and loathing and suspicion of authorities, government, media and law enforcement. For, all too often, it's seen as a means to an end, which is quite at odds with any piously stated ideals. 

The way we avoid that is that we adhere to the ethical prime directive, which is to live your life while avoiding harm to others; a concept that scales perfectly well to churches, governments and corporations. Why? Well, because! 

Because when you don't - this is your legacy.

The Man

The Mess

Buy a Democrat, I mean, Invest in Democracy!

The Washington Post says that the US financial sector is divesting itself of investments in Democratic futures.

A revolt among big donors on Wall Street is hurting fundraising for the Democrats' two congressional campaign committees, with contributions from the world's financial capital down 65 percent from two years ago.

Donations to Democratic Candidates have fallen precipitously, making this a watershed moment for those with a venture capital approach to democracy.

The opportunity now exists for Centre-left coalitions to step in and replace this money. I'm talking to everyone here. This is a potential game-changer. Large chunks of reliable cash are vital to maintaining a Democratic majority, and in order to maintain that cash flow... well, there's an old saying I remember from way back when...

"When you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

Cash always comes with strings. Now, the banking industry mistook them for cables of infinite strength, tried to yank too hard and are now trying to buy a new set of loyal voting machines. 

If you don't pay attention, they will get it during this midterm election. The problem for the REST of the human race is what else they get with it - a narrow-minded, social-conservative, moderate to outright screaming racist US legislature absolutely committed to addressing every conceivable problem in the most expensive and most violent way possible. 

A legislature dedicated to a foreign policy centred around "American Exceptionalism," - which seems to be increasingly devolving into "Manifest Destiny."  Such folks will tell you with a straight face that the US's role in the world is to "Make the world safe for Democracy." Ghu knows, they aren't shy about sending money, guns and bombs to alter the natural course of human events in favour of keeping the price of oil, gas and fruit at "acceptable" levels. 

So how about it? What about "Making Democracy Safe for the Rest of the World?"  

When elected officials seriously and publicly toy with the idea of dealing with the US immigration crisis with land mines - they are seriously off their fucking nut and that's a climate in which both Prudent and Conservative to cut off their Viagra Prescriptions and send them all to an ignominious retirement in Arizona. For there is nothing conservative, fiscal or social, about "solutions" that will address threatening economic and social collapse by blowing up what civilization remains.  That is the situation currently in Arizona, and along the Southern US border. 

Now, it's all very well to jump up and down and shriek about such things - and that seems to be the entire contribution to the discussion from many on the so-called left. For some reason, there's a surplus of political and economic theorists, but when it comes down to actual practical every day ways of creating solutions that are economically, politically and socially viable - that takes a more Conservative mindset. Or it could be that after 40 years without any much power, they have no real idea what to do with it.

The trick with Conservatives is to get them to honestly acknowledge that that gawd-awful stinky orange recliner has got to freakin' go. Conservatives get attached to ideas, to the extent that is beyond irrational. Perhaps one of those ideas is how campaigns are financed. 

The question, of course, is how to do this legally. I suggest some form of crowd-sourcing, possibly with a stock brokerage analogue, feeding into a tightly regulated and properly constituted PAC. Rather than donating to a particular candidate, you buy shares in a particular issue, and money is donated to those in office who are committed to those issues in proportion to their performance. Yes, much like the National Rifle Association does - but on far more issues, in a far more dynamic way - and without regard to any particular political alignment. 

Say there's a candidate that will pledge to support this or that interest. Let us say they have a fondness for a particular nation, or are familiar with the concerns of a particular constituency, industry or group. Let's say they wish to advocate for hemp based and other renewable fuel feed-stocks. People in the industry, potential consumers, national security voters and hemp legalization activists could all agree that this was a general issue to support, even if they differed on sub-categories. 

Funds would be dispersed and volunteer activism directed in accordance to performance on issues, rather than party ideology. 

For my Conservative minded readers, relax. It's a "supply side" solution. 

It's said that the only honest politician is one who stays bought. Let me take that idea one step further. Is it any more absurd to have a senator for the financial services industry than a "Republican?" Is it any more corrupt for the Congressman from Boeing/Microsoft to sit in assembly than a vaguely Democratic candidate who relies absolutely on support from Boeing/Microsoft workers? I don't see how - and it appears the Supreme Court concurs. Indeed, there's nothing dishonest about it, so long as it's clear that's what's done and there's a mechanism for reporting and tracking. Nor should we limit this to citizens.

It's not at all unreasonable for non-citizens and foreign powers to attempt to peacefully influence the course of US economic and foreign policy, considering what the price of failure can be. And the broader the base of influence, the better - for large corporations and various governments may or may not share the interests of the people they theoretically represent. One could hardly suggest with a straight face that British Petroleum is a particularly good representative of the interests of the employees of BP, much less the consumers of BP products. 

It provokes as many covert smiles as suggesting that the Likud properly represents the interests of Israelis of Palestinian decent on the world stage. 

But to be entirely fair - I see no reason why it should be limited to investing in US political outcomes. We have our own scandal up here, regarding some politicians being "under the influence" of "foreign interests." 

Well, I'm appalled, of course! 

But then I think of it a little more deeply and wonder if I'm better served by an MLA quietly taking money from the timber industry, or influenced by a think-tank that's closely linked with US NeoConservatives than one who's being supported by, oh, let's say, our largest Pacific Rim trading partner, say in a riding that's heavily dependant upon international trade. 

On balance, I think I'd be best served by knowing who's buying, who's selling - and being able to buy futures in MY future. And I think that's a healthy investment in an increasingly global market of ideas.

Let us speak once more of our Family Values.

"Tell The Truth and Shame the Devil."

Having to conceal his relationship, Choi explained, contradicted his values, as well as the military values of integrity and honesty. He created a fake female name for his boyfriend in order to talk with other soldiers about his relationship, and he began to struggle to make up excuses about why the people he worked with couldn't meet his significant other. The delicate balancing act proved too much for Choi.

"It was really when I had to force my boyfriend into the closet -- that was when it got to be too much," Choi said. "That's when I saw it as lying and as absolutely immoral.

"I promised to live under an honor code at West Point that says, 'You will not lie, and you will not tolerate lying,' " Choi said. "It's simple. It doesn't say, 'Straight people cannot lie, but gay people are allowed to lie about their loved ones, so we'll make exceptions for gay people.' I found that to be antithetical to the values that our military was founded on."

Attack the idea, not the person

This week, Elliott Abrams, the former Bush official and noted neoconservative, wrote an essay in the Weekly Standard attacking the Obama administration for not more forcefully defending Israel during the flotilla crisis. Abrams said the White House had joined an anti-Israeli “lynch mob.” Over the course of the article, he used the metaphor six times.

It’s remarkable when you think about it. To Americans with even the slightest degree of racial awareness, “lynch mob” conjures something quite particular: African American men hanging from trees in the post-civil war South. To deploy the metaphor to describe a United Nations resolution that obliquely criticizes Israel is audacious. To deploy it to describe the support for that resolution by America’s first African-American president is downright astonishing. It’s a bit like calling Joe Lieberman’s opposition health-care reform a “pogrom.

Never let your morality ideology sponsorship get in the way of doing the right thing.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, went out on a limb today to do something maybe no other American would think to do: Heapologized to BP for having to put $20 billion into a fund for Gulf spill damages. Only Barton called it a "slush fund" and a "shakedown."

Barton's apology to BP led at first to a delicate dance, as some Republicans tried to move awayfrom the so obviously toxic statements without outright condemning Barton, and later a full court press as Republican leaders publicly calledBarton's comments "wrong."

The leaders reportedly gave him an ultimatum: "Apologize, immediately. Or you will lose your position, immediately."

Eventually, Barton, who would become the energy committee's chairman should the Republicans take the House this fall, said he was sorry. He first apologized if anyone had "misconstrued" his statement, and shortly after apologized for using the word "shakedown" and retracted his original apology (to BP, that is).

I try never to assume the motives of an individual - particularly a political individual - but here I'm forced to wonder aloud, which apology was sincere, and which was extracted under pressure? Having found that the question must be asked, the fact that it IS a good question is really all the answer I need.


A footnote to the above: The 7 Dumbest Things BP Has Said About The Spill -- So Far

Strategic Vision, LLC - False Front Fraud?

Science it works, Bitches by BoogieMonst
View other Science T-Shirts

Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com just dropped a grenade into the wonkosphere. If you aren't familiar with fivethirtyeight, it's where you go if you want to know how good polling numbers are and the best publicly available insight into what those numbers mean.

One of the things I learned while exploring the statistical proprieties of the Iranian election, the results of which were probably forged, is that human beings are really bad at randomization. Tell a human to come up with a set of random numbers, and they will be surprisingly inept at trying to do so. Most humans, for instance, when asked to flip an imaginary coin and record the results, will succumb to the Gambler's Fallacy and be more likely to record a toss of 'tails' if the last couple of tosses had been heads, or vice versa. This feels right to most of us -- but it isn't. We're actually introducing patterns into what is supposed to be random noise.

Sometimes, as is the case with certain applications of Benford's Law, this characteristic can be used as a fraud-detection mechanism. If, for example, one of your less-trustworthy employees is submitting a series of receipts, and an unusually high number end with the trailing digit '7' ($27, $107, $297, etc.), there is a decent chance that he is falsifying his expenses. The IRS uses techniques like this to detect tax fraud.

Yesterday, I posed several pointed questions to David E. Johnson, the founder of Strategic Vision, LLC, an Atlanta-based PR firm which also occasionally releases political polls. One of the questions, in light of Strategic Vision LLC's repeated failure to disclose even basic details about its polling methodology, is whether the firm is in fact conducting polling at all, or rather, is creating fake but plausible-looking results in order to increase traffic and attention to its core business as a PR and literary firm.

I posed that question largely as a hypothetical yesterday. But today, I pose it much more literally. Certain statistical properties of the results reported by Strategic Vision, LLC suggest, perhaps strongly, the possibility of fraud, although they certainly do not prove it and further investigation will be required.

The discussions on his threads tend to be both sprightly and incomprehensible - with perl code and statistical expressions used without regard to the safety of bystanders.

SCIENCE!

If you want to see what "getting your ass peer-reviewed all over the bar" looks like, go watch. Nate seems to be holding his own, but it's kinda like watching fencing without knowing the rules, which are statistics and math.

But there are a number of other questions regarding the credibility of Strategic Vision, LLC, (http://www.strategicvision.biz ) one of which being that it is NOT the polling firm, Strategic Vision, Inc, (http//www.strategicvision.com)

So, not only confusingly similar names, but similar domain names. Similar enough to be grounds for legal action, I would think.

I'd consider that, coupled by the low-rent, post-office-box "Offices" to be a classic indicator of a possibly questionable group, as is the immediate reaction of Strategic Vision, LLC to earlier, more basic questions by Nate. Parsing this requires no understanding of the math or the science. It just requires an appreciation of human nature.

...in regards to Nate Silver's statements, we categorically deny them and will refute them. We have a call into our attorney on this and fully intend to take action that will vindicate us. I wish Nate had contacted me directly yesterday when he began this tirade, I could have answered his questions fully to his satisfaction prior to damage being done to our reputation. Now that he has made these accusations and posted them online, I must and will defend our company's reputation through all legal avenues available. The reason that we are going the legal route is he has attempted to do severe damage to our reputation and what is he going to do when we disprove him just say I am sorry. That isn't enough at this point.

The issue that concerned Nate Silver was that SV(LLC) does not disclose their methodology - how they collect their data from whom they collect their data, by what means, and what do they do with the data once they get it in order to wring meaning from it. Actually, he was more blunt than that, asking the most fundamental questions that one should never HAVE to ask firms of this type:

1. Are you actually polling anyone at all? Or are you just throwing some numbers up on a webpage and hoping nobody calls you on it?

2. What is the location of your "offices" in Tallahassee, Madison and Dallas? Why is there no street address or phone number listed in association with them? How come none of the locations show up in a Yahoo! or Google search?

3. Why would you pick the name "Strategic Vision, LLC" for your company when the name "Strategic Vision, Inc." was already in use by an extremely well regarded, San Diego-based research firm that has been in business for more than 30 years? Are you deliberately trying to confuse your potential clients and leverage Strategic Vision, Inc.'s much stronger brand name?

"We have a call into our attorney " is really all the answer a conscious human being needs, as
a commenter on the tampabay.com story cited below points out.

Wow. This is a public relations firm we're talking about? That sort of response is what I expect from an engineer-turned-CEO or frat-boy-turned-CEO who will hire a PR professional in a few days to undo the damage they just did.

And their attorney is going to tell them that filing suit is pretty much the dumbest thing they could possibly do because it will give Nate Silver the opportunity to look at all of their data and question their employees and principals under oath, and then discuss his conclusions in a public forum where he can't be sued for what he says (litigation privilege).

As things stand, they can fall back on "well, Mr. Silver didn't have all of the data, and he made some minor errors, and it's all really just a big understanding" but that won't work if they've had to produce everything in discovery and the defense has had weeks or months to go over it with a fine-toothed comb. Litigation gives Nate Silver a bigger magnifying glass to search with and a bigger megaphone to announce his conclusions.

Posted by: blakdawg | September 25, 2009 at 09:56 PM

Which leaves everyone wondering - what value can be placed on the SV(LLC) polls, which tend to break in favor of Republicans when SV(LLC) polls people about politics. It should be observed that many polling firms DO have a "house effect" that breaks one way or another, and that their polls are nonetheless considered entirely respectable. These firms generally ARE transparent about their data collection and data analysis. But there's a difference between a "house effect" and "lying," and if the question can arise, it must be resolved, so that nobody gets confused as to the difference.

The question is fairly important to Nate, considering that's what he does - evaluate polls. It's also a matter of concern to the polling industry as a whole, and that's how this whole mess arose. Jim Galloway explains:

[T]he American Association for Public Opinion Research, a kind of brotherhood of pollsters, publicly censured Strategic Vision for its failure to cooperate in an investigation into voter surveys conducted during the 2008 presidential primaries.

New Hampshire was the main focus – you’ll remember that Democrat Hillary Clinton surprised everyone with her win there. Twenty-one organization were asked to provide their statistical internals in order to help figure out what went wrong.

A final report was published in April. One finding: Techniques for developing polling models – weighting and such – are becoming increasingly murky. Often they’re declared to be trade secrets, and protected as such. The AAPOR argues that transparency is the only way to maintain public confidence in polling.

Said the association today, in a statement posted on its Web site:

Strategic Vision LLC was the only polling firm that did not provide sufficient methodological information (as defined by the AAPOR Code) about its surveys and refused to provide that information in response to AAPOR’s repeated direct requests.

For more than one year, AAPOR was unable to obtain the following basic information about Strategic Vision LLC’s polling in New Hampshire and Wisconsin: who sponsored the survey; who conducted it; a description of the underlying sampling frame; an accounting of how “likely voters” were identified and selected; response rates; and a description of any weighting or estimating procedures used. AAPOR considers the release of this information for public polls to be a minimum requirement for professional behavior among those who conduct public opinion research.

The important part of the story for me, is this:

“What we are asking for is people in the profession to behave in a professional manner, and to release the methods through which they do their research – because these are crucial to understanding it,” Miller said. [Peter Miller, president of the AAPOR, is a professor associated with the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.] “That’s our whole interest. That’s all we care about. We’re not trying to make some claim about the quality of Johnson’s research or anybody else’s.”

Here’s the catch:

“We’re saying we can’t know anything about quality if we don’t know what you did,” Miller said.

The argument in the thread at fivethirtyeight has raised the question as to whether Nate's analysis of SV(LLC's) polls (he used data from over a hundred polls they had done) has succeeded in pointing out data manipulation, or if it has simply detected noise that would ordinarily result from their sampling and data analysis.

I have no idea. At this point, I doubt anyone else does.

But then - as the The American Association for Public Opinion Research pointed out - that's precisely the problem.

Dear Morans: What Would Edmund Burke Do (To You)?

Robert Creamer writes in Huffpo about a political backlash against the Republicans for the "Death Panels" lie intended to make people fearful of health care reform.

His last two paragraphs sum up the debt they incur by this starkly, and I'm sure he's correct about the political dimension.

In their attempt to enflame the powerful emotions surrounding the deaths of loved ones by spreading intentional lies, the Republicans have stooped to a new low. The Terry Schiavo case should have taught the Republicans that some emotions are too precious to be exploited for partisan political advantage. Apparently it did not.

But when Americans begin to discover just how far the Republicans have been willing to go to stop health insurance reform, they may receive a new lesson. Republicans will learn that combining those powerful emotions with deceit can create an explosive mixture that they will find impossible to forget.

Correct - but only superficially so. However shrewdly he sees this situation, he sees it through the lens of politics, purely as a political opportunity created by an "emotional reaction."

And for that (and only to the extent that it is true, of course,) he deserves reproof. For it should be clear that there is a larger, ethical dimension that is, or should be obvious to everyone.

We ignore those larger considerations at our peril, for that leads directly to evil flourishing due to the unwillingness of good men to do what they know to be right.


The reason that both the Terry Schaivo case backfired and the current Death Panels lie will have a shocking backlash is that they are evil deeds done by evil men for evil reasons and the political justifications made in favor of doing such things are simply more lies by evil, conscious and willful liars.

To quote my shirt which quotes Edmund Burke, "All that is required for evil to flourish is that good men (and women) do nothing."

It is no accident that I quote Burke, who is correctly credited and blamed for his part in founding a long and storied tradition of philosophical Conservatism amongst the English-Speaking peoples. And yet an overview of his words and his causes reveals complexity, intellectual rigor and above all, a deep and abiding regard for doing the Right thing.



Burke was observing the injustice of law being wielded by commercial interests against the interests of the common man, and he would say no less caustic things regarding corporate theft and the misuse of political office in defense of thieves.




Burke might well be alarmed at the idea of any sort of public health insurance scheme - but I doubt that he'd balk at the idea of some sharp regulatory checks on unrestrained greed, or the application of Justice to those to those who's criminality while in service to the state brought it's honor into disrepute.

As a Whig, he of course approached Right Action in the Whig way. But for the most part, it seems, he did not place the cart before the horse. It's a tribute to the lasting import and continuing influence of Edmund Burke that the Modern Whig Party has been established.

I absolutely endorse that effort, an effort among good men and women to do something. They have realized that the GOP has become a creature of evil, a thing to be discarded and supplanted by a party that does not merely stand against this or that, but which stands staunchly for the things that are worth conserving and are worth achieving.

It is as yet still possible to do something good by political means - and as Iraq Vets, many of the founders have a FAR clearer appreciation of "Politics By Other Means" then have slide-jacking funnymentalist eliminationist peckerheads that have made their exodus from the party a moral imperative.



When someone lies to my face for the third time, in order to induce me to go along with some transparently stupid or evil deed, I stop listening. Indeed, I have no trouble whatsoever using whatever reasonable and necessary force is required in order to remove them from my front porch.

Indeed, I see waiting for the third strike to be an exercise in most Christian charity. But "Three Times is Enemy Action" is a rule of thumb that has served me well. It requires a little forbearance, but with that comes a reasonable certainty of conviction.

But clearly, I'm in a distinct minority, even should I count the current members of the Modern Whigs, It saddens me that one explanation may be my lifelong unwillingness to "go along to get along."

Perhaps if more people were more concerned about right actions and right outcomes, and a little less tolerant of those who think that there is no social problem that cannot be solved by sticking someone else with the expense or the cleanup, a civilization might arise between the borders of Canada and Mexico.

I'm not sure if this sort of situation is what Menckin had in mind when he uttered his widely-cited observation, that "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the Jolly Roger, and start slitting throats."

What I am sure of is this; that when that temptation starts to become a creeping suspicion of an impending moral obligation... it's definitely time for good men and women to do something besides complain. Perhaps you should run for office.

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Bullshit Baffles Brains? Maybe not forever.

The bullshit is so deep out there that hip waders aren't enough. You need a dry suit and a self-contained air supply. Let's show what toxic waste is doing to people...





It's not often that you see Bill Moyers get upset. Heck, it's not often that you see Bill make an unconditional statement. Bill is just sick to death of the bullshit.




Canadians are getting fed up with their health care system being demonized. The bullshit fear-mongering annoys us. It makes us cranky enough to make definitive statements. This is how a Canadian says "You are so full of shit."

It's done politely - and it burns all the worse for that. But, sweet John A. McDonald, how attached to your ignorance must you be to believe so many stupid things simultaneously, oh Right Wing Umurikins?

And lest you state that it's none of our business - you morons are flushing the hemispheric economy down the toilet. Health Care Reform is critical to rebuilding a robust middle class with a flourishing diversity of small businesses, which, by the by, is one of the reasons Canada is not actually circling the drain right now. It's not the result of "socialism" - not alone. It's at least as much due to some hard nosed Conservatism, of the "grounded in fiscal reality" variety of conservatism and not of the "there's a homo nigger commie with a tube of flouride toothpaste under my bed" variety.

Hell, over at MSNBC, John Harwood just doesn't care any more. As far as he's concerned, there's just no word for stupid better than "stupid."


H/t The Joshuablog for all these videos. (Follow him on Twitter - he collects such nuggets quite reliably)

I really understand the impatience.

Is it too much to ask of you nutbars to come up with an INFORMED opinion?

Ron Paul has done so. William F. Buckley did. Pat Buchanan does. Whatever I or you may think of their opinions is immaterial - their positions are arguable, and each of them is well known and justly famed for being willing and able to assert them. Not one of them has to "cut the mike" of anyone in disagreement. They can mix it up. They can bring it.

They are based in reality, fact and reason; they don't resort to the argument from authority, they are - legitimate - authorities in their realms.

But your average wing-nut would be hard pressed to explain in their own words how and why Noam Chomsky and Ron Paul differ on, say, campaign finance reform, much less come to an informed decision as to which was the more persuasive argument.

And that makes said wing-nut's opinion bullshit. It's crap, and you should ignore it, for truly, they have pulled it out of their ass.

I treat that handful of bullshit in exactly the same way I would treat an offering of crap pulled out of a toddler's diaper, for the exact same reasons. It's unhealthy and the only sane response is to commit an act of sanitation upon them. I will certainly not celebrate it as an artistic expression. It's poo. And it doesn't belong on my walls.

When I see a public-policy debate - ANY public policy debate - and everyone on the one side is being fairly sensible, while everyone on the other side is flinging poo and flaming straw men, then the odds are very good that even if I can't follow the argument on it's merits, the sensible-sounding side is more likely correct than the one losing it's water into it's shoes.

Pick your social media outlet of choice, and you will see exactly that sort of consensus developing on a wide range of issues, from health care to drug policy to prison reform to foreign policy, all against the backdrop of shrill whining about how "unfair" it is to be "dug down" for calling Obama a "Socialistic Fascist."

You see, when you say that, you reveal a complete ignorance of socialism, fascism and Obama's on-record policy statements and legislative history. It's not that you are being dug down for criticizing Obama. You are being dugg down for being fucknuts. You are uttering nonsense with such total conviction that ignoring you is only sensible thing to do.

It's impossible to usefully argue with someone who believes that a provably false idea is just as good as a provably true idea if enough other stupid people agree. Wishful thinking - and that's the kindest way to put it - is no basis on which to run a country. Or deploy armies. Or make really important economic decisions.

It's really not that difficult to inform yourself, to develop an expertise about an issue that matters to you, and then develop an intelligent position from any reasonable political perspective. Therefore, an intolerance of stupidity and conspicuous impatience with aggressive, loutish behavior is - well, I'd commend it more were it not so long overdue.

For myself, here's a discussion over on digg that I think illustrates the point. It's about the "radical" proposition that we should just legalize all "illicit" drugs, and then regulate them, according to our models for alcohol and legal drugs.

Quickly skim and evaluate both sides. One side makes quite sound-seeming arguments that you can fact check - and the other side makes accusations, appeals to authority and moralistic predictions that, if they were actually true, would have come true with the repeal of Prohibition.

And, far more in line to the general thrust of what I write, these comments often reveal a chilling indifference to the impact of policy on individuals; they show a heartless, mean-spirited and cruel mindest. Truthout just ran a rather good piece on that very point.

A right-wing spin machine, influenced by haters like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Ann Coulter, endlessly spews out a toxic rhetoric in which: all Muslims are defined as jihadists; the homeless are not victims of misfortune but lazy; blacks are not terrorized by a racist criminal justice system, but the main architects of a culture of criminality; the epidemic of obesity has nothing to do with corporations, big agriculture and advertisers selling junk food, but rather the result of "big" government giving people food stamps; the public sphere is largely for white people, which is being threatened by immigrants and people of color, and so it goes. Glenn Beck, the alleged voice of the common man, appearing on the "Fox & Friends" morning show, calls President Obama a "racist" and then accuses him of "having a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." [2] Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh unapologetically states that James Early Ray, the confessed killer of Martin Luther King Jr., should be given a posthumous Medal of Honor, [3] while his counterpart in right-wing hate, talk radio host Michael Savage, states on his show, "You know, when I see a woman walking around with a burqa, I see a Nazi. That's what I see - how do you like that? - a hateful Nazi who would like to cut your throat and kill your children." [4] He also claims that Obama is "surrounded by terrorists" and is "raping America." This is a variation of a crude theme established by Ann Coulter, who refers to Bill Clinton as a "very good rapist." [5] Even worse, Obama is a "neo-Marxist fascist dictator in the making," who plans to "force children into a paramilitary domestic army." [6] And this is just a small sampling of the kind of hate talk that permeates right-wing media. This could be dismissed as loony right-wing political theater if it were not for the low levels of civic literacy displayed by so many Americans who choose to believe and invest in this type of hate talk. [7] On the contrary, while it may be idiocy, it reveals a powerful set of political, economic and educational forces at work in miseducating the American public while at the same time extending the culture of cruelty. One central task of any viable form of politics is to analyze the culture of cruelty and its overt and covert dimensions of violence, often parading as entertainment.
Underlying the culture of cruelty that reached its apogee during the Bush administration, was the legalization of state violence, such that human suffering was now sanctioned by the law, which no longer served as a summons to justice. But if a legal culture emerged that made violence and human suffering socially acceptable, popular culture rendered such violence pleasurable by commodifying, aestheticizing and spectacularizing it. Rather than being unspoken and unseen, violence in American life had become both visible in its pervasiveness and normalized as a central feature of dominant and popular culture. Americans had grown accustomed to luxuriating in a warm bath of cinematic blood, as young people and adults alike were seduced with commercial and military video games such as "Grand Theft Auto" and "America's Army," [8] the television series "24" and its ongoing Bacchanalian fête of torture, the crude violence on display in World Wrestling Entertainment and Ultimate Fighting Championship, and an endless series of vigilante films such as "The Brave One" (2007) and "Death Sentence" (2007), in which the rule of law is suspended by the viscerally satisfying images of men and women seeking revenge as laudable killing machines - a nod to the permanent state of emergency and war in the United States. Symptomatically, there is the mindless glorification and aestheticization of brutal violence in the most celebrated Hollywood films, including many of Quentin Tarantino's films, especially the recent "Death Proof" (2007), "Kill Bill" 1 & 2 (2003, 2004), and "Inglorious Bastards" (2009). With the release of Tarantino's 2009 bloody war film, in fact, the press reported that Dianne Kruger, the co-star of "Inglorious Bastards," claimed that she "loved being tortured by Brad Pitt [though] she was frustrated she didn't get an opportunity to get frisky with her co-star, but admits being beaten by Pitt was a satisfying experience." [9] This is more than the aestheticization of violence, it is the normalization and glorification of torture itself.

Personally, while I applaud Truthout's treatment of the issue, I don't see this as a new phenomenon. I see it as simply becoming more and more obvious. It used to be that the sadism was cloaked a bit more, a rationalization or two presented for the viewpoint - but the Authoritarian brutality celebrated in Hawaii 5-0, Kojack or the Dirty Harry movies was aimed for the very same, visceral target; the idea that all of the "moral failures" of society could be resolved with the right amount of pain applied to the right target.

The difference is that these days, the need to justify the urge seems to have worn threadbare. Hurting people and reveling in the suffering of others has become normalized, and not without a lot of help from supposed Christians who really ought to know better. In this transcript of an interview with Max Blumanthol, author of the newly-released Republican Gomorrah, lays much of our current sociopolitical problems with torture, violence and outright depravity at the feet of James Dobson, of Focus on the Family.

Where did Dobson’s fortune come from? How did he erect this empire? It came mainly from one book, which I quote from extensively in my book, Republican Gomorrah­Dare to Discipline, which is essentially a manual for corporal punishment, for beating your child. In this book, he says pain is a marvelous purifier that a child should be­that pain goes a long way with a child, that pain should be dispensed sufficiently enough to make a child cry, but then the child will crumple to your breast, and you should welcome the child with warm, open arms. This is a recipe for sadomasochism. And sadomasochism, as I discovered in­ [lost chunk in rush transcript]

JUAN GONZALEZ: And he saw himself originally as the antithesis to Benjamin­Dr. Benjamin Spock.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Dr. Benjamin Spock, who tells you to basically pick your child up and cradle it. And, you know, I mean, I was­you know, for whatever it’s worth, I was raised along those guidelines. When your child’s crying, you pick up the child.

By creating a belt-wielding army of millions, Dobson created the next generation of Republican shock troops, who are more radical than before. And sadomasochism­I know this sounds a little strange­is what defines the essential character, you know, that­this is what­at least what I’ve discovered­of the Republican follower of today. They’re sadistic in that they want to lash out at deviants, at people who are weaker than them, homosexuals, immigrants, foreigners, socialists. At the same time, they’re masochistic. They are followers of a higher cause, of a strong leader, a magic helper like Dobson or George W. Bush or the macho Jesus archetype that they worship. And this is what defines this movement.

So many of the people that Dobson has been able to get close to and work with in the Republican Congress and in American culture have been viciously abused as children. And he understood that by advocating violence against children, deliberate violence, he was creating this sensibility, which would produce a radical generation of political followers.

Tom DeLay, for example, who Dobson converted from Hot Tub Tommy, a dallying, philandering, no-name legislator in Texas, you know, who lived in a house that was nicknamed “Macho Manor,” Dobson converted him into this hardcore­you know, into “The Hammer,” the man who whipped the Republican Congress into shape and turned it into one of the most radical congresses in history.

Ted Bundy, who I write about extensively in my book, Republican Gomorrah, who is the most notorious serial killer in American history, Dobson helped convert Ted Bundy on death row into a born-again Christian and then got the final interview before Ted Bundy was executed and sold tapes of this interview to raise a million dollars for his political empire and to generate national renown.

Unrestrained sadomasochistic lust does not translate into sane public policy. It doesn't create a workable society. Those who take delight in the suffering of others and who see punishment of the weak this as part of the definition of a powerful State are made incapable of making rational, ethical decisions either on their own behalf or as rational participants in a democratic society, if for no other reason than this - in order to create the pain to revel in, you must become indifferent to the absolute cascade of bad outcomes that will surely pile up to the point where society shatters. For there is no earthly reason to expect that people will generally put up with such crap.

They WILL resist, they will retaliate, and there can no reasonable expectation that they will be as stupid about going about resisting authority as Conservatives have been in justifying it's cruel excesses.

The right wing answer to this, of course, is to call for a theocratic state. There are words for that sort of thing... but frankly, "Stupid" is more succinct.

The price of "abnormality."

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I am sometimes asked I've never sought any official MH diagnosis.

Whose Planet Is It Anyway?: All Your Brains Are Belong To Us

Applying medical labels to cognitive differences also results in forcible use of drugs in many cases; after all, our society considers anyone who does not want treatment for an "illness" to be dangerously irrational. Ginger just posted a blog entry describing the ordeal of Nate Tseglin, an autistic teenager in California who was taken from his parents because they were seen as neglectful for not giving him medications to prevent self-injury. Although the parents explained that he had a history of strong negative reactions to psychiatric drugs, the authorities ignored their concerns and placed their son in a group home where he was forcibly drugged, as described in the Orange County Register:


… the parents were cut out of any decision-making regarding their son. They were given only short visits with him. After he ran away from the group home, the government transferred Nate to a mental hospital. The Tseglins say the drugs the hospital gave Nate caused him to have a "grand mal" seizure, and his health has continued to deteriorate while he languishes in a government mental facility. When they visited him over the summer, they found his face swollen. He faded in and out of consciousness and was suffering from convulsions. They believe he has been beaten and are worried about sexual abuse, given that he is housed with the criminally insane.

The Tseglins claim Child Protective Services has told them they have the "wrong set of beliefs" and even threatened to force them to undergo court-ordered psychological evaluation. The agency at one point suspended the parents' visitations as a way "to assist them in coming to grips regarding their son." The Tseglins, as former citizens of the Soviet Union, have good reason to be fearful of the authorities. But they tell me that they experienced nothing of this sort in the former communist nation. If their descriptions are correct, then the Soviets weren't the only ones who know how to create a totalitarian bureaucracy.


Ginger is asking autism bloggers to write about this case in the hope of shaming the authorities into letting Nate go home. We need to be aware, however, that this is by no means an isolated incident. Children in the foster care system are routinely given strong psychiatric medications to keep them docile, and this has been going on for many years. I used to know a woman in California who was a licensed foster parent. When she got a new kid placed in her home, the first thing she did was throw away the kid's meds. That was her way of fighting back against a broken system that was destroying children's lives.

That was 25 years ago.

We now have a society that spends vast sums waging a largely ineffectual "war on drugs" while, at the same time, enforcing a psychiatric regime that routinely uses powerful drugs for the purpose of "combating" autism and other neurological variations. Millions of American citizens are stigmatized, coerced in various ways, and sometimes locked up because they are using illicit drugs to change the functioning of their brains. Millions more are stigmatized, coerced in other ways, and sometimes locked up because they have not altered their brains enough to meet with society's approval. And the ever-shrinking group of "normal" people in the middle has to live in fear of what might happen if, at some point, they or their family members were to be judged "abnormal."

It is but one small step from designating someone as being "different" to "potentially lacking in self control" to "to dangerous to allow in society" to "unworthy of life."

Many, besides me, have noted that Autism Speaks has studiously ignored any input from Autistics, offers publicity that tends to increase the fear of autistic births as being the ruin of entire families, while seeking a genetic test. And they are not even particularly subtle about their ultimate goals.

The ethics of this are, aside from obviously bad, should be obviously familiar. Read into the Eugenics movement. Don't stop when you trip over the Nazis - though you will. It originated in North America. It's our own old nightmare, come back to trouble us again.

But then again, we've never needed much excuse to take sides against one another.