195.6 - RIP: Minnie Minoso

RIP: Minnie Minoso

We have an RIP this week. In fact, it's a belated RIP because I wanted to do this last week but time simply did not permit.

Minnie Minoso died of natural causes on March 1. He was 90 - or maybe 92, there was some question about his age.

I expect there are at least a few people saying "Who the heck was Minnie Minoso?" and a few others going "Oh, yeah, I remember him."

Minnie Minoso

Minnie Minoso was a baseball player. He was the ninth black and the first Cuban player in the major leagues, where his speed - he lead the American league in triples and steals three times each - earned him the nickname "The Cuban Comet."

In his 17 years in the big leagues, most of them with the Chicago White Sox, he had a .298 batting average, with 186 homers and 1,023 RBIs. He was a seven-time All-Star. What's more, he was a three-time Gold Glove winner, despite the fact that the award didn’t exist for the first eight years of his career.

I grew up in New Jersey, so I didn't get to see a Chicago White Sox player play much. But I did follow a lot of baseball, and I always thought that Minnie Minoso was a cool player and from what I knew of him, a cool guy. And I remember him.

So RIP, Minnie Minoso.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/03/01/chicagos-1st-black-major-league-baseball-player-minoso-dies/24218219/
http://minoso.com/
http://time.com/3727958/major-league-baseballs-first-black-latino-star-minoso-dies/
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-minnie-minoso-20150302-story.html

195.5 - The 47 Senators who signed the letter to Iran are tying to provoke a war

The 47 Senators who signed the letter to Iran are tying to provoke a war

Okay, I have to address The Letter. You know the one I mean, the one signed by 47 wackos in the Senate and directed to "the leaders" of Iran. Not anyone in particular, no names were included, just "the leaders."

Positively dripping with condescension, it opens with "you may not fully understand our constitutional system" and proceeds through several paragraphs that boil down to "there is no point in your reaching an agreement with the US and other nations on nuclear issues" with the clearly implied tagline "so why bother?"

A Farsi version sent to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “in case you need a translation.” Just how deep is the wackos' grasp of the facts of the situation can be seen in the fact that Zarif moved to the US at age 17, has a Masters degree from San Francisco State University, and has a second Masters and a PhD from the University of Denver.

It's also safe to say that the Iranian leadership has a pretty good grasp of the US system, since Iran's current presidential cabinet has more members with doctorates from US universities than Obama's does.

Javad Zarif

Which is probably why Zarif felt no need to spare the sarcasm in his reply, in which he pointedly noted that, contrary to the wackos' letter, were a future president simply to ignore an international agreement reached at the executive level, even if it's not a treaty, it would be a violation of international law. Besides, he went on, the wackos' own argument would in fact render the great many of what the letter called  "mere executive agreements" into which the US has entered as meaningless and brand the US as untrustworthy.

But here's the point: None of that matters. None of it. The people responsible for this letter, the people who signed this letter, the people who say they support this letter even if they didn't sign it, they don't care. They don't care that they got the facts about executive agreements wrong. They don't care that they even got the Constitutional details of treaties wrong. They don't care because this has nothing to do with any of that.

Tom Cotton

The purpose of the letter is to discourage the Iranian government from agreeing to a deal, or, alternately, to push the White House into giving Congress the power to veto any deal - both of which would have the same result: destroying any hope of an agreement.

The people who signed this letter do not want an agreement. They want negotiations to fail. They want diplomacy to fail. They want this to fall apart. These people want a war. The closer it comes to where there may actually be a deal, the more rabid they become, the more obvious their desire, their intent, becomes, the more transparent their bloodlust becomes

You think that's overstating it? In January, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who organized the letter, told a conference hosted by the right-wing group Heritage Action for America that the whole purpose of Congressional action was to make negotiations fail. That the collapse of negotiations, quoting him,

isn't an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence. A feature, not a bug.

He compared the international negotiations with Iran to the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s (Godwin's law strikes again) and said the goal should be "regime change" in Iran - because, after all, that worked out so well in Iraq.

I mean, they're not even pretending any more. They will not be satisfied until the blood flows freely in the Middle East. Their bloodlust is palpable and I have to say that I think that at least for some of them it's because they think such a war will bring on the apocalypse and thus the second coming of Jesus, that they really do think these are the End Times. (And, of course, that they are among the saved.)

Even if I'm wrong about that, maybe I am, hopefully I am, it doesn't change anything about the rest. The people who signed this letter are bloodthirsty warmongers who will not be happy until the piles of burnt bodies and shredded limbs are too high to see over and the wails of the wounded drown out the drones. They are despicable.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/03/09/gop-senators-warning-over-us-iran-nuclear-negotiations/21151149/
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/03/10/Iran-Pushes-Back-Against-Senate-GOP-Letter
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/09/senate-iran-deal_n_6832706.html
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/03/backstabbing-republicans-publish-open
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/09/tom-cotton-iran_n_6831328.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_time

195.4 - Update: Parents accused of "unsubstantiated child neglect" for letting their children walk home from a park

Update: Parents accused of "unsubstantiated child neglect" for letting their children walk home from a park

Last month, I bestowed the Clown Award on a Texas school that suspended a 9-year-old boy for having made what the school called a "terroristic threat," the "threat" consisting of telling another boy that he could make that other boy invisible with a blue plastic ring he had, one he said was the "one true ring" from the Hobbit movie. Even the school admitted the "threat" was "imaginary," but suspended him anyway.

I discussing that, I asked just when it was that we became such a terrified people. "When did 'Be afraid, be very afraid' become our new national motto," I asked. As part of that, I mentioned several cases where parents were being treated almost as or even as criminals for, in effect, not maintaining 24/7 surveillance of their children, for not living in constant terror that their children will be kidnapped or assaulted or murdered if they - the parents - look away for more than a second.

I have an update on one of those cases which illustrates the kind of thing too many parents are being put through.

The case is that of Danielle and Alexander Meitiv of Silver Spring, Maryland, who had gradually been letting their children, Rafi, who is 10, and Dvorah, who is 6, to have a little more freedom, take a little more responsibility. As a result, they would up being investigated by child services, with the risk of having their children taken from them, for alleged "child neglect" for letting the children walk on their own the one mile from a local park to their home, something they had decided the children were able to handle.

Well, child services has now told them of the outcome of their investigation. They were found responsible for “unsubstantiated child neglect." And if you have no idea what that means, neither do I and neither do the parents and frankly I expect neither does child services.

Because it essentially says "You are guilty of child neglect even though we don't have any evidence the children were neglected and we can't say you're guilty because we don't have any evidence so we say you're 'responsible' even though that is pretty much the same thing so it's your fault the children were neglected even though it's unsubstantiated and we don't have any evidence they actually were. See?"

Danielle Meitiv and Rafi

What it means in actual practice is that local CPS will keep a file on the family for at least five years and leaves the parents in limbo, with no idea of what would happen if their children are again reported for walking without adult supervision.

The implied threat to take their children from them if they don't join in the generalized constant fear that has become the expected norm for parenting today is very real: When this all started in December, when police picked up the kids halfway between the park and home, six cops and five patrol cars showed up at the Meitiv's home, demanded identification from the father, and entered the house without a warrant.

When Child Protective Services showed up a few hours later, Alexander Meitiv was forced to sign a promise to never leave the children unsupervised until CPS completed its investigation under the threat of having the children seized “right now” and without allowing any opportunity for him to get legal advice.

CPS workers questioned the children at school without the parents' knowledge or permission, during which the social worker told the 10-year-old that he should tell his parents that he doesn’t want to go off on his own anymore because it’s dangerous and that there are “bad guys waiting to grab you.”

Which means, if it means anything, that it is the considered position of local CPS that, even though crime is at its lowest level in at least 40 years, and even though the real incidence of child kidnapping was always very small and many of those cases actually involved custody battles, despite all that, parents and, it would appear, their children, should regard the world as drenched  in constant peril like some gory computer shoot-em-up game, with a murderer on every block and a violent pedophile at every intersection.

If this was an isolated case, it would be merely bizarre. But it's not. And it leads me to ask again: When did we become such a frightened people?

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/02/1919-clown-award-kermit-elementary.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/03/02/meitiv_decision_cps_finds_free_range_parents_responsible_for_unsubstantiated.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/decision-in-free-range-case-does-not-end-debate-about-parenting-and-safety/2015/03/02/5a919454-c04d-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/raising-children-on-fear/2015/02/13/9d9db67e-b2e7-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/02/just-wondering.html

195.3 - Not Good News: Amtrak again starved of funds to invest in improvements

Not Good News: Amtrak again starved of funds to invest in improvements

Okay, now for the Not Good News part of this.

Right at the top, the funding levels for Amtrak in this bill are just that: level. As happens time and again, Amtrak gets enough to survive, but not enough to truly invest in improvements. And that level funding, when you allow for inflation, means a cut in actual ability to invest, improve, and maintain. For one specific example, it is going to make it difficult for Amtrak to update its aging rolling stock. Which is likely to hurt ridership in the longer run - after all, who wants to ride in an old, worn-out train - which I expect will be used as ammunition by the train-haters in the next assault on passenger rail.

Another and perhaps more important issue is that the bill achieves a long term goal of the train-haters, who have been angling for this since sometime during the Bush years: It separates Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service, which runs between Boston and Washington, from its long-distance routes around the rest of the country.

Why is that important? Because the Northeast Corridor is the only Amtrak line that makes a profit - which is unusual in itself because very few passenger rail lines anywhere in the world make a profit even when you limit the calculation to "above the rails," that is, to operating costs and don't include infrastructure costs such as for maintaining the rails and railbed and so on.

In the past, Amtrak has used the profits from the Northeast Corridor to subsidize some of the other lines. But the new bill blocks that: Any profits from the Northeast Corridor must be spent on improving service in the Northeast Corridor, starving every other line of needed support, the results of which will I guarantee will be used to fill another ammo box for the train-haters, whose entire attitude comes down to "well, I don't ride the train, so screw 'em."

By the way, would it surprise you to know that the Northeast Corridor is also the Amtrak route most often used by corporate executives and members of Congress, particularly between DC and New York? Probably not.

Making a virtue of necessity, the Midwest High Speed Rail Network said the clause about the Northeast Corridor could actually help in the longer term by boosting pressure to increase spending nationally.

I sincerely doubt that will happen but here's hoping that on this, their instincts are better than mine.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/fido-and-fluffy-may-be-your-amtrak-seatmates-under-house-measure
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/house-passes-amtrak-bill-boost-northeast-service-29393649
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150305/BLOGS02/150309888/all-aboard-house-votes-to-continue-funding-amtrak

195.2 - Good News: Amtrak is funded

Good News: Amtrak is funded

So now we have one of those Good News-Bad News deals. We'll do the good news first.

In a rare bipartisan vote, last week the House voted to approve continued funding for Amtrak. The bill authorized $7.2 billion in support for passenger rail service over the next four years, of which some $5.6 billion, about $1.4 billion per year, would go to Amtrak.

The vote was 316 to 101, with all Dimcrats and a majority of GOPpers voting yes. Passage came after a attempt to strip all funding for Amtrak, a measure that would have killed national passenger rail service, was soundly defeated, 147 to 272.

Once again, the attempts to kill Amtrak - which by the way, was never supposed to survive; it was supposed to fail and has been systematically starved of investment from the get go - but the attempts to kill it have failed because even conservative GOPpers from  some of the reddest of states know that Amtrak is their only reasonable means of long-distance transportation and their constituents know it.

Amtrak survives. That's Good News. So let's get on board.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150305/BLOGS02/150309888/all-aboard-house-votes-to-continue-funding-amtrak
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/fido-and-fluffy-may-be-your-amtrak-seatmates-under-house-measure
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/05/1368719/-Yesterday-House-Democrats-saved-Amtrak-proving-again-that-they-re-the-only-ones-governing
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/03/it-doesnt-take-much.html

195.1 - Good News: national museum in Baghdad reopens

Good News: national museum in Baghdad reopens

Just one little bit of Good News to get things started.

The national museum in Baghdad, Iraq, has reopened.

One of the tragedies that occurred in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the looting of the national museum. Museum officials said that almost 15,000 pieces were stolen, most of them probably to be sold on the black market in antiquities. It was a crashing blow to Iraq's physical cultural heritage, one we could, to get sense of it, compare to the looting of the Smithsonian Institution or the National Archives - or both.

Now, 12 years after it was ransacked, with 4,300 of the most important works recovered, the museum has reopened while the search for the remaining antiquities goes on.

The dark side of this is that the re-opening was moved up in response to new destruction of antiquities in Mosul by Daesh - that is, ISIS - which destruction seems to me, frankly, to be a case of bilious spite, of "we'll do as much damage as we can before we get kicked out of the city."

But just for the moment, let's focus on the culture, the history, that has been saved. The re-opening of the national museum in Baghdad is Good News.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/iraq-museum#.tqzODdY4O

Left Side of the Aisle #195

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of March 13-19, 2015

Good News: national museum in Baghdad reopens
http://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/iraq-museum#.tqzODdY4O

Good News: Amtrak is funded
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150305/BLOGS02/150309888/all-aboard-house-votes-to-continue-funding-amtrak
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/fido-and-fluffy-may-be-your-amtrak-seatmates-under-house-measure
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/05/1368719/-Yesterday-House-Democrats-saved-Amtrak-proving-again-that-they-re-the-only-ones-governing
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/03/it-doesnt-take-much.html

Not Good News: Amtrak again starved of funds to invest in improvements
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/fido-and-fluffy-may-be-your-amtrak-seatmates-under-house-measure
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/house-passes-amtrak-bill-boost-northeast-service-29393649
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150305/BLOGS02/150309888/all-aboard-house-votes-to-continue-funding-amtrak

Update: Child Protective Services accuses parents of "unsubstantiated child neglect" for letting their children walk home from a local park
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/02/1919-clown-award-kermit-elementary.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/03/02/meitiv_decision_cps_finds_free_range_parents_responsible_for_unsubstantiated.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/decision-in-free-range-case-does-not-end-debate-about-parenting-and-safety/2015/03/02/5a919454-c04d-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/raising-children-on-fear/2015/02/13/9d9db67e-b2e7-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/02/just-wondering.html

The 47 Senators who signed the letter to Iran are tying to provoke a war
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/03/09/gop-senators-warning-over-us-iran-nuclear-negotiations/21151149/
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/03/10/Iran-Pushes-Back-Against-Senate-GOP-Letter
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/09/senate-iran-deal_n_6832706.html
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/03/backstabbing-republicans-publish-open
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/09/tom-cotton-iran_n_6831328.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_time

RIP: Minnie Minoso
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/03/01/chicagos-1st-black-major-league-baseball-player-minoso-dies/24218219/
http://minoso.com/
http://time.com/3727958/major-league-baseballs-first-black-latino-star-minoso-dies/
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-minnie-minoso-20150302-story.html

Obama's lovely little war: US to allow export of armed drones
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/232045-republican-pushes-drones-for-jordan
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/233003-us-okays-sale-of-armed-drones

And Another Thing: researchers find fish living beneath 740 meters of ice
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/510126/Ross-Ice-Shelf
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/discovery-fish-live-beneath-antarctica/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthly-extremophiles-prompt-speculation-about-alien-life/?WT.mc_id=SA_SPC_20150205

And Another Thing: researchers make quantum photograph of light as wave and particles simultaneously
http://news.discovery.com/tech/photo-first-lights-captured-as-both-particle-and-wave-150302.htm

194.7 - How to fight Daesh without war

How to fight Daesh without war

Last week I urged the defeat of Barack Obama's request for a new Authority to Use Military Force and for the revocation of the one which he has relied on thus far for his lovely little war.

I also said there are better ways to struggle against the fanaticism of Daesh - that is, ISIS - and I would lay out some.

Put in simplest terms, the key to fighting Daesh is not to try to destroy it but to isolate it and let it shrivel for lack of life support.

To do that, we have to start by realizing what Daesh wants, how it sees itself.

In the minds of the core of Daesh, they are the true revival of the early Islamic caliphate, destined not only to maintain but to expand their theocratic state. That's somewhat oversimplified for the sake of brevity, but not by much.

That extreme view of themselves and their destiny is not only their greatest strength because of the commitment and dedication it can engender, it is also their greatest weakness. For one thing, it makes it impossible for Daesh to find and keep allies, because all must offer total and absolute adherence to its extremist interpretation of Islamic law. And in their view, nobody, not even al-Qaeda, is pure enough.

It also means that once they declared the caliphate and announced that all Muslims around the world owed fealty to that state, their legitimacy came to depend on the continuing viability of their self-declared state. But states, unlike insurgencies, have borders to defend and, more importantly, they have for lack of a better term a sustainable business model to maintain. That is, they must have a functioning internal economy. And there are already signs that the supposed caliphate's "business model" is already starting to fail.

For example, it is already facing a potential food shortage because local farmers did not plant their normal amount of seed, either because they could not access their land, they did not have the proper fertilizers or adequate fuel, or they didn't expect the Islamic State would buy their crops as Baghdad had been doing.

Meanwhile, to sustain itself to this point Daesh has relief mostly on theft, but by now it has pretty much seized what there is to seize while making enemies of states in the region that might have been persuaded to offer support from the outside.

And, perhaps most importantly, building a sustainable economy within this so-called caliphate would require gaining support from within - hearts and minds and all that. But that would require Daesh to loosen its authoritarian rule while courting regional allies by limiting its expansionism, toning down its rhetoric, and reframing its core mission - none of which Daesh is ideologically or theocratically capable of doing without ceasing to be what it is.

Finally, and I have to say I've been saying this almost from the beginning, since last June, we need to realize that most of Deash's support in Iraq comes from disaffected Sunnis who have been first abandoned and then oppressed by the increasingly dictatorial rule of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

With all that in mind, what's the better way? First, realize that bombing Daesh only makes them look like victims in the eyes of too many,  including Sunnis of western Iraq. So stop it.

Next, go after the money supply. Hit Daesh economically. Daesh has been largely self-funded so far, again largely by just taking what it wants, but that can't continue and is already changing.

Third, crack down on the weapons supply, not only by cooperation with regional governments but by ending the flow of US arms to the region.

Fourth, address the political grievances of local populations, particularly the Sunnis. Tell Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that all future US assistance to Iraq in all forms is dependent on a true rapprochement with the Sunnis and mean it.

Finally, provide humanitarian assistance to all who need it, regardless of political affiliation.

That is how you deal with fanaticism: not by destroying it but by dissolving it, not by killing the fanatics but by - if you will - killing the reasons other people would have for joining them.

As the great A. J. Muste said, "There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Exactly the same can be said for justice.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8085197/is-isis-losing
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/02/20/the-cracks-in-islamic-states-business-plan-are-starting-to-show/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/20/us-mideast-crisis-planting-specialreport-idUSKBN0KT0W420150120
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2014/06/1645-iraq-some-comments.html
http://www.ajmuste.org/

194.6 - Clown Award: James Inhofe

Clown Award: James Inhofe

Now for our other regular feature, the Clown Award, given in recognition of meritorious stupidity.

This week, the Big Red Nose goes to a man whose actual middle name, Mountain, is appropriate because he has rocks in his head, a man who is definitely from the wrong state because he surely is not OK, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe.

Last week he came on to the Senate floor and proceeded to take a snowball out of a plastic bag and declare that because he was able to gather that snowball outside the Capitol, because it was unseasonably cold in DC, that meant that global warming was a hoax.

He went on to cite National Weather Service records showing 67 new record lows in the two days preceding in the eastern US, where overnight lows have indeed been 30-40 degrees below normal in a number of places from Indiana to New England. Inhofe declared this means that "the script has flipped" on global warming.

James Inhofe

What kind of abominable ignorance, what kind of willful numbskullery does it take for Inhofe, the chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, what kind of inanity does it take for someone in that position to still not get the difference between weather and climate?

Weather is short-term and local; climate is neither. But even just considering weather, Inhofe is a dolt. At the same time that a bunch of places in the eastern US were setting record lows, and even greater number of places in the western US were setting record highs. The National Climatic Data Center reported that for the period of December 2014 to January 2015, the average temperature for the US as a whole was nearly 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly two degrees Celsius, above normal.

But I will emphasize again, that is just two months worth of data. That's weather. The point here is, even arguing on his terms, Inhofe is a twit.

Sheldon Whitehouse

Honor for the best slapdown of Senator RocksInHisHead, though, goes to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who said - at considerably greater length and with much more detail, but in sum, he said among other examples that we can believe NASA, the US Navy, which regards global warming as its greatest security challenge, a long string of major corporations, which consider it a serious economic threat, every single major US scientific society, or, as he riffed after each example in just these words, "or we can believe the senator with the snowball."

At a time when the evidence not just of climate change but of actual, current, destructive effects of climate change, including one report that suggests that the California drought is due to climate change and another that says the four-year long drought in Syria that sparked the civil war that has killed thousands was also the result of climate change, fables and fantasies like Inhofe's are literally dangerous to human survival and are literally costing thousands of people their lives.

James Inhofe is a waste of space, a jackass, an embarrassment to the nation, and possibly the world's biggest clown.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/26/jim-inhofe-climate-snow_n_6763868.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/24/bitter-cold-morning-breaks-long-standing-records-across-northeast/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/19/cold-weather-winter_n_6713104.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3koOUFp4crU
http://theweek.com/speedreads/542109/study-says-global-warming-caused-by-humans-behind-california-drought
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/03/02/study_climate_change_helped_spark_syrian_civil_war.html

194.5 - RIP: Leonard Nimoy

RIP: Leonard Nimoy

We've got another RIP this week. I came into work the other day and the first thing my boss said to me was "Did you hear the terrible horrible news?" As there always seems to be a plethora of such, I asked "Which terrible horrible news?"

That's how I heard that Leonard Nimoy had died. He was 83 and death was from end-stage COPD.

Leonard Nimoy, of course, was best known as Mr. Spock in the Star Trek universe - starting with what later became known as ST:TOS, for Star Trek: The Original Series and continuing through movies and into The Next Generation.

Leonard Nimoy

Lots of people, famous and not, remembered him in tweets. My favorite of the ones I saw was from actress Mindy Kaling, which consisted of three quotes: "This is the Mugar Omni Theater." "...because he grew up six blocks from here." "Who put the bomp?" I loved it because I instantly understood what she meant.

In the years after the original series ended, he chafed at being so totally identified with a singlle role, so much so that he wrote an autobiography in 1975 titled I Am Not Spock. Twenty years later, have come to terms with and even embraced the connection, he wrote a second volume called I Am Spock.

So yeah, he was Spock, but he was more. He had an acting career quite apart from Star Trek plus being a director, author, poet, photographer, and art collector.

But at the end of it all, he was Spock. So it's fitting that he came to sign off his tweets with LLAP - which, in case you are a recent arrival from a different space-time dimension, I will say stands for Live Long And Prosper.

RIP, Leonard Nimoy.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/leonard-nimoy-famous-for-his-role-as-mr-spock-dies#.bcjq1E2wq
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jaimieetkin/celebrities-scientists-and-more-remember-leonard-nimoy#.ndn593mq5
http://hyperallergic.com/186688/the-many-lives-of-leonard-nimoy-artist-collector-vulcan/

194.4 - Netanyahu shrieks to Congress

Netanyahu shrieks to Congress

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu

So Bibi Netanyahu gave his speech to Congress, decrying any deal with Iran and predicting the looming apocalypse of an Iranian nuclear weapon, much to the delight of various right-wing twits (which includes some Dimcrats) who have been dreaming of seeing blood on the sands of Iran for quite some time now.

Columnist David Ignatius in the Washington Post called it "a well-crafted speech." It damn well better be by now, since Netanyahu has been giving essentially the same speech for over 20 years now, predicting Iran is a couple of years away from or just one year away from, or on the verge of, developing nuclear weapons.

Also in the Post, rather to my surprise Dana Milbank, who I sometime back dubbed "Our Lord of Perpetual Smirk" for his habit of looking down on almost everyone he wrote about, actually made an insightful observation. NetanYahoo's purpose was to get Congress to kill the negotiations by putting on them conditions everyone would know Iran would never agree to, leaving military action as the only option - military action that the US, of course, would have to undertake.

Put another way, Bibi NetanYahoo doesn't want an agreement, he doesn't want a settlement, he doesn't want peace. He wants to get the US Congress to declare war on Iran for him. And too many in Congress seem ready to join him in his paranoia and do it, to join in the cause of war on Iran - even though, and this can't be said often enough, there is no hard evidence that Iran actually is trying or would try or wants to try to build nuclear weapons.

And maybe that's why NetanYahoo doesn't want an agreement: It might prove that "the Iranian bomb," whether or not it was real at some point in the past, is now a fantasy he is pursuing for his own political gain.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/netanyahus-dangerous-zero-sum-game/2015/03/03/50a35580-c1de-11e4-9271-610273846239_story.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/02/goody-goody.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/netanyahu-tries-to-drag-the-us-to-war-with-iran/2015/03/03/8b424ffe-c1e1-11e4-9271-610273846239_story.html

194.3 - Footnote: Cleveland's bogus "apology"

Footnote: Cleveland's bogus "apology"

I have to add a quick footnote: Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson offered an apology for the "insensitive" language used in the city's brief and said the city would file an amended brief in a few days.

However, Dan Ball, speaking on behalf of the city, said the city will change the language in its answer but "they intend to preserve all of their defenses." In other words, they are still going to blame Tamir Rice for his own killing at the hands of a trigger-happy cop, they're just going to find nicer-sounding words to do it.

I really don't understand why that's supposed to make it better.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.cleveland.com/cityhall/index.ssf/2015/03/cleveland_mayor_frank_jackson_50.html
http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2015/03/citys_disrespectful_response_t.html

194.2 - Outrage of the Week: Cleveland's response to the Tamir Rice suit

Outrage of the Week: Cleveland's response to the Tamir Rice suit

Now for one of our regular features, the Outrage of the Week, one in this case that leaves me seething with fury at the inhumanly cold response to a tragedy we are seeing from the city of Cleveland, Ohio.

It has to do with the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by Cleveland cops on November 22, 2014, another in a string of incidents of police shooting unarmed African-Americans.

To understand my outrage, you have to understand some background so forgive me for going over ground you may know.

First, in the wake of the killing, Cleveland police put out their version of events, one which was riddled with demonstrable lies - because, unfortunately for them, they didn't know there was a surveillance video.

The cops claimed Tamir Rice was seated at a table with other people. The video clearly shows that he was alone.

They said that as they pulled up, they saw him grab the gun and put it in his waistband. The video shows that he was standing as they pulled up and there was nowhere he could have "grabbed the gun" from.

They said they got out of the car and told him three times to put his hands up but he refused. The video of the killing with a stopwatch added proved that Tamir was shot literally less than 0.8 seconds after the cops pulled up. Claiming the cops had time to tell him anything three times is lunacy.

They also said that the boy then reached into his waistband and pulled out the gun, forcing cop Timothy Loehmann to kill him. The video proves that he did not pull out any gun.

The "gun," by the way, was a toy air pistol. The police made much of the fact that the bright orange tip intented to identify it as a toy had been removed - but since the cops never saw the tip until after Tamir Rice lay on the ground dying because he never pulled it out, that is an utter irrelevancy intended to distract from the hard facts: The cops drove up, hopped out, and shot Tamir Rice down without hesitation or giving him any chance at all to comply with demands. They then failed to offer him any first aid but did tackle and handcuff his sister when she came screaming, trying to reach her little brother who was bleeding to death.

One other by the way, apparently failing to find anything about Tamir Rice the cops could use for the typical after-the-fact trashing of the victim's reputation, Cleveland authorities resorted to trying to trash the reputation of his parents, who each had had some legal issues.

Okay, that's the background, one marked by lies, misdirection, shifting stories, and character assassination. All of which is not surprising in a police department recently found by the DOJ to be "reckless" and to use use guns, Tasers, pepper spray and their fists excessively, unnecessarily or in retaliation at a "significant rate" to the point where a federal court will now keep tabs on the department.

Which in turn brings us to the current outrage.

We're going to skip the latest brain-dead racist frothings of Cleveland Police Patrolman’s Association president Steve Loomis, who recently described Tamir Rice as a boy "in an adult body" and called him "menacing. ... 5-feet-7, 191 pounds" and one of "those people," apparently because anyone 5-7 is "menacing" even though that's below average height for an adult male - or more exactly, they are "menacing" if they are African-American.

But leave him aside so he can go wash his white hood before the next meeting. What I wanted more to address is that on December 5, Tamir Rice's family filed a wrongful death against Loehmann, his partner Frank Garmback, and the city of Cleveland.

The city of Cleveland has now filed its response to the family's suit. As I'm sure you would expect, it denies as many points as it can and declares it doesn't know enough to answer one way or another on a lot of others. But in the course of its response, a certain bit of wording comes up repeatedly. The city said that, quoting,

in light of the fact that the circumstances of this incident will not be known until the completion of the investigation by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office, this Defendant is without knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief

regarding a particular assertion in the family's suit. That wording was used 111 times and yes I counted, 111 times in the course of this brief. "There's an investigation going on. We don't know yet what happened. We'll have to wait to see what that says."

After all that, in asserting it's own "affirmative defenses," the city says that, quoting,

Plaintiffs’ decedent’s injuries, losses, and damages complained of, were directly and proximately caused by the failure of Plaintiffs’ decedent to exercise due care to avoid injury [and]

Plaintiffs’ decedent’s injuries, losses, and damages complained of, were directly and proximately caused by the acts of Plaintiffs’ decedent, not this Defendant.

Translated from the legalese, the city of Cleveland is saying it was Tamir Rice's own fault that a trigger-happy cop shot him down and left him on the ground bleeding to death. It was his own fault that he's dead. Nothing to do with us, no siree.

I know all about using boilerplate language and all about how you want to assert every defense at the start because if you don't you may not be able to bring one of them up later.

Last photo of Tamir Rice

But to assert 111 times that what happened won't be known until the investigation is complete and then to immediately say you do know what happened and it was all the victim's fault, proves that the city has one and only one concern and it's not justice or fairness or even simple decency or even the desire or intention to try to prevent such a thing from happening again, but the one solitary concern is getting off the hook. Having no responsibility. Being able to look at the mother of a dead 12-year-old that one of your employees killed and go "hey, whatever."

I don't even know how to express the depth of  the outrage involved. According to Tamir's mother, the city has never even told her through any official that they're sorry it happened. And how can you do that? How could an administration be that cold? It's an outrage.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/02/1348833/-Tamir-Rice-The-story-behind-the-execution-character-assassination-coverup-of-a-senseless-murder
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tamir-rices-mother-yet-recieve-apology-city-police-sons-death-n316561
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/04/1349386/-New-lie-in-the-shooting-death-of-Tamir-Rice-discovered-Police-never-saw-the-tip-of-the-gun-at-all
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2854617/Cops-shot-12-year-old-Tamir-Rice-dead-holding-BB-gun-did-not-aid-watched-lie-agony-died-just-hours-later.html
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/04/us/cleveland-justice-department-police-excessive-force/index.html
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/tamir-rice-cleveland-police-115401_Page2.html#.VPYZDfnF-m6
http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2015/02/city_of_cleveland_responds_to.html
http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2015/03/citys_disrespectful_response_t.html

194.1 - Good News: FCC acts on net neutrality

Good News: FCC acts on net neutrality

Starting with some Good News, as I try always to do, the FCC has voted to make net neutrality a legal as well as a philosophical reality. On Thurs, Feb 26, the agency voted to reclassify broadband as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

So, no fast lanes and slow lanes on the Internet. No favoritism for websites that forked over extra bucks to the telecomms. No throttling - that is, no deliberately slowing transmission - of data. All information, all data, is to be treated equally. In other words, net neutrality. The same open, you could call it small-d democratic, nature under which the Internet has grown and flourished to the point of being a routine part of many of our lives.

And of course the telecomms such as Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast, which had been drooling over the prospect of the profits to be had from squeezing websites for fees for increased speeds over competing websites, hated the idea and still do.

In a truly lame attempt at mockery, Verizon issued its response to the FCC's move in Morse code then offered a "translation" that looked like it had been done on a 1980s IBM manual typewriter using worn carbon paper. The statement itself was just another rehash of corporate PR bs, with the same moldy claims that the regulation will stifle innovation, harm consumers, and generally bring utter ruin and devastation to the technological world as we know it - without actually being able to specify a reason why.

Which is perhaps not surprising when you consider that Sprint and Cablevision have publicly acknowledged that the reclassification will not harm their investment in their networks, and when pressed, other top telecomm executives have denied they will stop investing in their networks even as their PR departments and their lobbyists screech that such investment will come to a crashing halt.

By the way and as a quick aside, these claims about some impact on investment become downright offensive in light of the fact that we in the US don't have much to celebrate on that front.

Each of the last three years, the Open Technology Institute has issued a report called "The Cost of Connectivity" and in each of those years has found that

the majority of US cities surveyed lag behind their international peers, paying more money for slower Internet access.

But for the moment, just be glad that if you want to read an online magazine or listen to some music or download that vacation picture Aunt Gracie sent you that your speed will not drop to dial-up levels because some other magazine or music site or email account ponied up extra bucks that your choices wouldn't or couldn't pay.

Be aware, though, that the fight is not over. Outfits like Verizon and the rest have really, really deep pockets. And they are already cranking up the deception machine with its loudspeakers aimed directly at the public as they try to pressure Congress to overturn the rule.

For one example, Michael Powell just wrote a piece for the online tech magazine c|net. Who is Michael Powell? He is the former chair of the FCC who was known to be almost embarrassingly pro-business and who, when he left the agency, became president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the telecomms' trade association. In other words, he's a shill for the industry he used to supposedly but actually didn't regulate.

In this bit of baloney, Powell repeated all the claims of all the dire consequences of not letting the telecomms do pretty much what they want with, again, no real reasons given, just claims.

But here's the thing I wanted to bring out: In this ad-accountant-approved advertorial, Powell starts by saying "I support Net neutrality" and then says "there is little disagreement over the substance of open Internet principles." He then adds this, quoting:

The cable industry has lived by the Four Freedoms that I laid out as FCC chairman roughly a decade ago - freedom to access content, to run applications, to attach devices and to obtain service plan information.

Leave aside the utter absurdity of the list - oh wow, you have the "freedom" to know how much your cable company will charge you - to consider something else. Listen to his list of "open Internet principles" again: freedom to access content, freedom to run applications, freedom to attach devices, freedom to obtain service plan information.

Do you notice anything missing?

How about the freedom to access sites on an equal basis? How about the freedom to have your data treated equally with all other data? How about the "freedom" that is the central focus of the entire issue of net neutrality? That freedom does not exist in Powell's carefully-crafted pro-corporate list.

When the telecomms and their paid-off stooges in an out of Congress tell you they support net neutrality, they are lying to you. Don't you ever forget it.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2889656/fcc-passes-net-neutrality-rules-reclassifies-broadband-as-utility.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2890097/the-fccs-net-neutrality-ruling-5-things-you-need-to-know.html
http://publicpolicy.verizon.com/blog/entry/fccs-throwback-thursday-move-imposes-1930s-rules-on-the-internet
http://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-fcc-is-right-to-act-on-net-neutrality/
http://www.newamerica.org/oti/
http://www.newamerica.org/oti/the-cost-of-connectivity-2014/
http://www.cnet.com/news/i-support-net-neutrality-that-is-not-what-the-fcc-just-did/

Left Side of the Aisle #194

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of March 5-11, 2015

This week:

Good News: FCC acts on net neutrality
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2889656/fcc-passes-net-neutrality-rules-reclassifies-broadband-as-utility.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2890097/the-fccs-net-neutrality-ruling-5-things-you-need-to-know.html
http://publicpolicy.verizon.com/blog/entry/fccs-throwback-thursday-move-imposes-1930s-rules-on-the-internet
http://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-fcc-is-right-to-act-on-net-neutrality/
http://www.newamerica.org/oti/
http://www.newamerica.org/oti/the-cost-of-connectivity-2014/
http://www.cnet.com/news/i-support-net-neutrality-that-is-not-what-the-fcc-just-did/

Outrage of the Week: Cleveland's response to the Tamir Rice suit
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/02/1348833/-Tamir-Rice-The-story-behind-the-execution-character-assassination-coverup-of-a-senseless-murder
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tamir-rices-mother-yet-recieve-apology-city-police-sons-death-n316561
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/04/1349386/-New-lie-in-the-shooting-death-of-Tamir-Rice-discovered-Police-never-saw-the-tip-of-the-gun-at-all
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2854617/Cops-shot-12-year-old-Tamir-Rice-dead-holding-BB-gun-did-not-aid-watched-lie-agony-died-just-hours-later.html
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/04/us/cleveland-justice-department-police-excessive-force/index.html
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/tamir-rice-cleveland-police-115401_Page2.html#.VPYZDfnF-m6
http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2015/02/city_of_cleveland_responds_to.html
http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2015/03/citys_disrespectful_response_t.html

Footnote: Cleveland's bogus "apology"
http://www.cleveland.com/cityhall/index.ssf/2015/03/cleveland_mayor_frank_jackson_50.html
http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2015/03/citys_disrespectful_response_t.html

Netanyahu shrieks to Congress
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/netanyahus-dangerous-zero-sum-game/2015/03/03/50a35580-c1de-11e4-9271-610273846239_story.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/02/goody-goody.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/netanyahu-tries-to-drag-the-us-to-war-with-iran/2015/03/03/8b424ffe-c1e1-11e4-9271-610273846239_story.html

RIP: Leonard Nimoy
http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/leonard-nimoy-famous-for-his-role-as-mr-spock-dies#.bcjq1E2wq
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jaimieetkin/celebrities-scientists-and-more-remember-leonard-nimoy#.ndn593mq5
http://hyperallergic.com/186688/the-many-lives-of-leonard-nimoy-artist-collector-vulcan/

Clown Award: James Inhofe
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/26/jim-inhofe-climate-snow_n_6763868.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/24/bitter-cold-morning-breaks-long-standing-records-across-northeast/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/19/cold-weather-winter_n_6713104.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3koOUFp4crU
http://theweek.com/speedreads/542109/study-says-global-warming-caused-by-humans-behind-california-drought
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/03/02/study_climate_change_helped_spark_syrian_civil_war.html

How to fight Daesh without war
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8085197/is-isis-losing
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/02/20/the-cracks-in-islamic-states-business-plan-are-starting-to-show/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/20/us-mideast-crisis-planting-specialreport-idUSKBN0KT0W420150120
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2014/06/1645-iraq-some-comments.html
http://www.ajmuste.org/

193.10 - Obama's war

Obama's war

We'll finish up today with a little more talk about Mr. Obama and his lovely little war.

US officials are openly talking about a plan for an attack by Iraqi military forces to take back the city of Mosul from Daesh. The attack, supposedly to involve as 20,000 Iraqi military and Kurdish forces, could come as soon as April. Mosul is Iraq's second-largest city and the biggest get by Daesh.

Daesh is another name for ISIS, based on an acronym from its Arabic name. Daesh also sounds similar to the Arabic words "daes" - which means someone who crushes something underfoot - and also "dahes" - which is someone who sows discord. I understand ISIS hates the name Daesh, which for me is more than enough reason to use it.

The attack on Mosul would be backed by US airstrikes and possibly American ground troops, according to those same officials. Those ground forces would, obviously, be involved with O's approval, but would - we're told - be for special operations and forward air controllers but of course not for "enduring offensive operations."

Because we won't use ground troops in combat, oh no perish the thought! We just engage in special operations, forward air control, intelligence sharing, and rescue operations - none of which, somehow, don't involve shooting at anything or getting shot at or anything else that would define "combat."

Oh wait, I'm sorry, it's not supposed to be an "enduring operation" so all that shooting doesn't count.

Now, let's not forget that we've been told again and again that grounds troops may be "necessary." We were told that as far back as September, when Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress exactly that.

But don't worry. This won't be that start of us getting dragged into another "enduring" ground war, even if, I fear, we may discover that "enduring" turns out to mean "longer than we've been doing it, however long that has been." Because, after all, remember that our president won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, it's worthy of note that his request for a new Authorization to Use Military Force is meeting notable opposition in Congress. Several members of the House and 12 Senators, 10 Democrats and two independents, have expressed concerns or opposition.

Last for this week: What do I think should be done about the new AUMF? I think it should be defeated. And the 2002 AUMF, which was the basis for the Iraq war, should be repealed. And the 2001 AUMF, passed in the stampede following 9/11, which Obama has been using to date as his authorization for his war, should be repealed.

But wait - wouldn't that leave Obama without any authority to continue his war?

Yes.

Which is precisely the intention. Because there are better ways to deal with Daesh. Better ways than war. And I promise to talk more about that next week.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/u-s-official-american-forces-may-help-iraq-retake-mosul-n309241
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/daesh-adopted-as-new-name-for-isis-by-u-s-france-1.2861108
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/obama-ground-forces-iraq_n_5829744.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/26/241245/us-combat-role-in-iraq-not-off.html#emlnl=Afternoon_Newsletter

193.9 - Outrage of the Week: drug testing the poor

Outrage of the Week: drug testing the poor

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walkalloveryou wants Wisconsin to institute drug testing for applicants for public assistance.

He is far from the first. Over the past few years, a good number of states have introduced programs to require applicants for public assistance, particularly applicants for TANF or what used to be called welfare, to be "screened" for drug use with the supposed, the claimed, idea of fighting drug abuse and encouraging them to get back into the workforce.

Florida tried it, requiring all applicants be tested. It not only was a flop, it lost money and was tossed out by a federal court as an unconsitutional violation of the right to privacy - and that came after it had turned up a drug use rate of just 2 percent among public assistance users, a quarter of the rate for the total population, according to federal estimates.

After that, states started using various screening procedures to decide who would be tested, thereby getting around the constitutional violations. It didn't really help. Minnesota tried a drug testing program; it was another flop: Only 0.4 percent of participants in the state’s main cash welfare program had the felony drug convictions the program focused on, as opposed to 1.2 percent of the state’s adult population as a whole.

Utah tried it, using a screening test to see who would have to be tested. A year later, exactly 12 people had tested positive. That's a positive rate of drug use of 0.2 percent of total benefits recipients, compared to 6 percent of all state residents.

Tennessee just tried it, and in the first six months of its program found 37 people testing positive out of 16,000 applicants for assistance, a rate of less than a quarter of a percent in a state where the overall level of drug use is estimated at 8 percent.

We have seen this over and over and over again in state after state after state: Applicants for public assistance have lower rates of drug use than the population as a whole. Even in states like Utah and Tennessee, which only tested those deemed "at risk" of being drug users, even if in such cases you were to assume that 90% of drug users either beat the test or were never tested, so the actual rate of drug use is 10 times what was found, the rate of drug use among applicants for public assistance would still be a third, a quarter, of that among the whole population.

But still this determination to test, this regime of regulations, persists, failure after failure. Twelve states have enacted such laws and according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, bills to do the same have been introduced in at least 10 other states so far this year, states from Maine to Texas to Montana.

Why? What is the point? What is the reason? An unintentionally revealing answer was given by Tennessee state Rep. Glen Casada, in referring to the 37 people in Tennessee who were denied benefits due to a positive drug test:

That's 37 people who should not be receiving taxpayer subsidies, because they are not behaving as they are supposed to. If the taxpayers are going to support you there are certain criteria you need to adhere to.

Other supporters elsewhere say even though the tests have found very low levels of drug use, they're still good because they have, they say, a deterrent effect - encouraging people prone to drug use to avoid it and thereby remain better prepared for employment.

Precisely. Because you are poor, they are saying, because you are in need of help, because you are struggling, therefore you are no longer a full human being, therefore you are morally inferior, therefore we have the right and the power to judge you, to look down on you, therefore we have the right and the power to shape you, to correct your (to we superior sorts) obvious failings, to demand that you behave as we tell you to, we have the right and the power to humiliate you, to demean you, and you will kowtow and tug at your forelock and kiss our ring or you can just damn well go hungry and cold.

None of these programs are about combating drug use of getting people into treatment programs or even about "good use of taxpayer money." They are about our contempt for the poor, our classist assumptions that those who are poor are simply inferior in some way, morally, ethically, or both, and somehow deserve their condition.

It is cruel, it is bigoted, it is an outrage.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/11/welfare-drug-testing_n_6655712.html
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/10/3621267/tennessee-drug-tests-after-six-months/
http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/235888681.html
http://www.wbir.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/08/drug-testing-of-welfare-applicants-yields-few-positives/23086333/
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/12/16/few-welfare-applicants-caught-in-drug-screening-net-so-far/

193.8 - BP and Deepwater Horizon: still weaseling

BP and Deepwater Horizon: still weaseling

Speaking of oldies, here's a blast from the past: Who remembers the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill?

It happened almost 5 years ago now, on April 20, 2010, when a rig blew out on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform about 50 miles southeast of the Mississippi River delta. Eleven workers died in the explosion and fire.

It was the largest oil spill in history as oil gushed from the broken wellhead into the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn't until July 15, 86 days later and after a series of failures, that the well was successfully capped.

Oil giant BP was the principal developer of the oil field where the blowout occurred and had overall responsibility for the project.

In the months after the blowout, BP first tried to pawn off blame onto two other companies: TransOcean, which operated the platform, and Halliburton. When that didn't fly, BP began arguing, stalling, appealing, and nitpicking about just how much oil was spilled, just how bad the damage was, and anything else they could think of.

Now, nearly five years later, BP is still trying to weasel out of as much responsibility as possible.

On Monday, February 23, the transnational corporation filed an appeal against a federal judge’s finding about the size of the spill, because of course the smaller the spill, the smaller the fine that could be levied under the federal Clean Water Act. In addition, the fine is calculated on so many dollars per barrel and the company is contesting that figure, as well.

In January, US District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans had ruled that, based on best judgment, 3.19 million barrels of oil had spilled into the Gulf as a result of the disaster. BP insists the figure is only - and I use the word "only" solely in the sense of "by comparison, less" - 2.45 million barrels. By way of contrast, the federal government asserted that 4.19 million barrels were spewed into the waters of the Gulf.

If Judge Berbier's rulings are upheld, BP would be facing a fine of $13.7 billion. That's on top of the $42 billion BP has already laid out as a result of the blowout, including for cleanup, fines, and compensation for victims.

But I wouldn't weep for BP: It's gross profit in 2013, the last year for which I could find an annual total, was over $53 billion on total revenue of nearly $380B.

And if you still feel somehow sorry for BP, consider that about 810,000 barrels of oil were collected during the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon blowout. That's over 2-1/2 times the total amount spilled in what had been the worst-ever spill in US waters and over 3 times the total amount spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989.

And even by BP's own self-serving calculations, that 810,000 barrels recovered means that over 1.6 million barrels of oil were spewed into the Gulf of Mexico and not recovered with long-term environmental and health effects that are still being discovered.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/161185/
http://marcellus.com/news/id/119211/bp-appeals-u-s-judges-ruling-on-size-of-gulf-oil-spill/
http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2015/02/bp_oil_spill_size_ruling_appea.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=BP&annual
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/11/health-impacts-unclear-bp-oil-spill_n_5130545.html

193.7 - RIP: Leslie Gore

RIP: Leslie Gore

Well, another small part of my youth has dropped away. It's getting to the point where there are as many gaps as solid places.

Lesley Gore has died of lung cancer at the age of 68.

Although she had a string of hits in the mid-1960s, she is likely best known for her very first hit, "It's My Party" and one that became a sort of defiant feminist anthem, "You Don't Own Me."

Her star faded in the late '60s as hard rock, acid rock, and psychedalia supplanted girl-group and boy-group ballads. But she continued to perform and started writing her own songs, including one that was in the movie "Fame" and was nominated for an Oscar.

She leaves being her brother, her mother, and her partner of 33 years, Lois Sasson.

RIP, Leslie Gore.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.tmz.com/2015/02/16/lesley-gore-dead-its-my-party-dies-cancer/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/arts/music/lesley-gore-teenage-voice-of-heartbreak-dies-at-68.html

193.6 - Hero Award: Ron Smith, president of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild

Hero Award: Ron Smith, president of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild

Which actually brings us to an occasion of the Hero Award. To get a Hero Award, you don't have to be an all-around great person. You just have to at some point, on some matter big or small, do the right thing. Here's a good example.

In this case, the Hero Award goes to Ron Smith, the president of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild, the local police union. In 2011, the DOJ found that Seattle police department had “engaged in a pattern of excessive force that violates the constitution and federal law” and which also “raised serious concerns” that the force had been engaged in “discriminatory policing.”

The city agreed to remedial actions but nonetheless, in the time since Smith has has been critical of those efforts and defended some Seattle cops accused of unnecessary force and abuse of authority.

Ron Smith

On February 18, however, in an interview with the Seattle newspaper The Stranger, Smith said he is telling new cops:

You have to treat people all the same. ... They hired you because they thought you were going to be able to work in a diverse community. And if you can't, well then, I guess there are still places across the country that aren't diverse, so go work there. But those won't last forever.

In other words, get with the program, cut the crap, be prepared to work in a diverse community and treat everyone equally, or get out of the Seattle PD.

It would have been even better if he had said that if you can't work without bias in a diverse community you can't be a cop, but this is a good start. And for that good start, Ron Smith is a hero.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/02/18/21739167/seattle-police-union-president-to-cops-get-with-the-times-or-get-out-of-this-city