The Lion of the Senate
Rest in Peace, Ted Kennedy. Read the President's statement here.

Health Reform Updates
Some recommended links:
Jon Gabel of the National Opinion Research Center writes an op-ed in the NYTimes questioning the ability of the CBO to accurately predict savings in reform:

As health care reform makes its way through Congress, the budget office’s assessment of how much various elements might cost may determine the details of legislation, and whether it ultimately passes. But when it comes to forecasting the costs of reform, the budget office’s record is suspect. In each of the past three decades, when assessing major changes in Medicare, it has substantially underestimated the savings the changes would bring.

At TPM, Josh posts the concerns of a doctor has an idea why fellow professionals aren't more engaged in the reform effort:

Remember our daily lives: every insurance company requires that we are certified with them, every company has a different form to use, every company says no to our initial request. Hospitals rarely collect more than 40 cents on the dollar billed. THEY DRIVE US CRAZY. So, why not enlist us in the cause?

There are many examples of low-hanging fruit: a universal billing form, available for electronic submission to cut down on paper work and administration costs; a penalty for a claim incorrectly rejected...He needs to show us why reform will improve our working lives as well as our patients lives. If he did that, there would be no louder advocates.

Steven Pearlstein rips Michael Steele.

David Leonhardt explains the benefits of an approach like Wyden-Bennett, which Nashville Congressman *sigh* Jim Cooper supports, but hardly anyone else.

In the simplest version, families would receive a voucher worth as much as their employer spends on their health insurance. They would then buy an insurance plan on an “exchange” where insurers would compete for their business. The government would regulate this exchange. Insurers would be required to offer basic benefits, and insurers that attracted a sicker group of patients would be subsidized by those that attracted a healthier group.

The immediate advantage would be that people could choose a plan that fit their own preferences, rather than having to accept a plan chosen by human resources....

The longer-term advantage would be that health insurance would become fully subject to the brutal and wonderful forces of the market. Insurers that offered better plans — plans that drew on places like the Mayo Clinic to offer good, lower-cost care — would win more customers.

Don't Try This at Home
Thanks to Mark for sending.

God Help Us
Wasn't Timothy McVeigh a right-wing terrorist? Also, just a year ago weren't we at war with terror? I guess it's ok if you're a Republican.

In Which I Sort of Agree with Douthat
It doesn't feel great to, but I basically agree with his column this morning, which ends this way:

If the Congressional Democrats can’t get a health care package through, it won’t prove that President Obama is a sellout or an incompetent. It will prove that Congress’s liberal leaders are lousy tacticians, and that its centrist deal-makers are deal-makers first, poll watchers second and loyal Democrats a distant third. And it will prove that the Democratic Party is institutionally incapable of delivering on its most significant promises.

You have to assume that on some level Congress understands this — which is why you also have to assume that some kind of legislation will eventually pass.

If it doesn’t, President Obama will have been defeated. But it’s the party, not the president, that will have failed.

Lunkheads of the Week
Michelle Bachmann and Jim Demint pull off a rare feat not credibly attempted by elected officials since the 1960s. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Full Crazy. Josh has more at TPM.

Capitalism: A Love Story
Honestly, the trailer doesn't look great to me, but Michael Moore's new movie will surely be fun to watch. He says "I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make." Out in October.

New Highs
New all-time highs are good news when it's the life expectancy of Americans, but bad news when it's ocean temperatures.

"It's Important That You Don't Only Use Marshmallows"
That was my favorite sentence from this researcher, explaining the findings and lessons from the Marshmallow Game (which I looked up thanks to a weekend conversation with Stevie T), a test done of children ages 4 and 5 that turns out to be strongly predictive of academic success and higher psychological functioning. Apparently, it features prominently in a newish book called "The Time Paradox".

Looking for Silver Lining
Even without a public option, health reform would - so far as I can tell - still include the following:

1. Individual mandate would require Americans to be insured, even young healthy people who think they don't need it.

2. New regulations would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to the sick, and from dropping people just for changing jobs or losing their job. Regulations would prohibit caps on coverage.

3. A health care exchange would operate as an entry point for those not covered through their employment - it would list a menu of private health coverage options from insurance providers, offering citizens the same options that federal employees have.

4. Government subsidies - calibrated to an average of the 3 lowest prices in the exchange - would help low-income and lowish-income Americans pay for health insurance. With the mandates and the subsidy, near-universal coverage would be achieved.

5. Companies (of a certain size) that refuse to offer medical coverage to their employees would be required to pay into the subsidy pool.

6. Small businesses would receive tax incentives for covering employees.

There are surely others, but those are the ones I've heard the most, and none of them depend on a public option added to the exchange (do they?). The public option would help keep coverage costs down, and keep insurance companies honest in other ways, and those things alone make it a badly needed element of reform, but does it really render the other accomplishments "not real reform" as so many (including Howard Dean, God love him) are saying? Are we over-reacting on the left? Am I just pissed about losing yet another political fight to Republicans and other government-haters and fear-mongerers? Or is this really worth a line in the sand? These are honest questions and I am educable here, so help me out.

I tend to believe reports that the White House was completely surprised by the public option becoming the lynch-pin of reform, and that President Obama really sees it as only one small piece of the broader reform effort - not one of the principles but only one of his preferences for achieving them. Tell me how my glass half-full thought here is off base - as I'm sure it is. Are we right policy-wise to make the public option the defining piece of real reform? Politically, are we right to do it, given that surely this is the frame most comfortable to Republicans?

Ruts Are Real
Apparently, stress brings on changes in the brain that compel us to seek routines and habits, even the ones that bring on stress in the first place.

...researchers have discovered that the sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence.
...
“Behaviors become habitual faster in stressed animals than in the controls, and worse, the stressed animals can’t shift back to goal-directed behaviors when that would be the better approach,” Dr. [Nuna] Sousa said....

Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist who studies stress at Stanford University School of Medicine, said, “This is a great model for understanding why we end up in a rut, and then dig ourselves deeper and deeper into that rut.”

There's a little bit of hope though. With the removal of the stressors, the effects on the brain are reversible. Good luck with that.

Damn You, Facebook!!
The girl I had a huge crush on in 12th Grade is a "fan" of Sarah Palin. Did I need to know that?

Dr. Dean in the House
I don't buy conspiracy theories that somehow Democrats and Obama have everyone right where they want them on health reform. (Not a member of an organized political party....)

Maybe strong reform is still salvageable, but seems like what's going on is just what it looks like: some bungling, some lowering the bar, and negotiating from weakness (for some reason). Hopefully a bill will still be standing at the end with some measure of reform still in it.

I tend to agree with Howard Fineman, who I just heard say that approaching universality of coverage was always the part Obama cared about, not publicly run competition, which has somehow become the litmus test. But for those of you that want to believe, Howard Dean says don't worry. It's all going to work out just fine, public option intact.

Insanity [UPDATED]
Will this phenomenon simply continue to escalate until finally something horrible happens? Hopefully I am underestimating the sanity of politically-charged gun owners.

[UPDATE: At TPM, Josh makes good sense on this issue, concluding: "...put me down as not believing we should allow the brandishing of firearms in proximity of the president as an acceptable way of expressing opposition to the president. Shouldn't this be obvious?"

But the next logical point has to be heard as well. The reason the White House will *never let the Secret Service* establish policies targeting that kind of behavior is a political one: Obama will not want to be seen as fulfilling the prophecy of the irrational right that said he will take away their guns. If one nutjob legally carrying a gun in a protest zone is detained or forcibly disarmed, firearms will be everywhere and we won't hear the end of it.

The good news is that this problem - political as it is - has a very reasonable and easy political solution: some Republican who is respected by gun nuts needs to be the one to come out against this kind of display and demand the Secret Service take additional protective measures by expanding the no-gun perimeter in public gathering places around the President at events. The bad news is, yeah I can't think of who would do it, either. But the fact that nobody on the other side is raising this issue as a matter of essential security - protecting our President, for goodness sake! - is a pretty good indicator of the current Republican commitment to disunity.

Say what you will about even the Clinton years. I don't remember armed protestors showing up with impunity. When did this become ok?]

Lunkhead of the Week
I've had my eye on the Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, for potentially award-winning lunkhead excellence, until I saw the letter sent out by Representative Paul Broun (Crazy-GA), warning of the President's health reform plan.

Obama and his advisors are modeling this rationing board after European systems that use age and life-expectancy as key factors in deciding the "cost efficiency" of a procedure.

In other words: When mama falls and breaks her hip, she'll just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient.

Broun wins. Can you believe it's come to nonsense like this? As low as my opinion of Republicans had already sunk, I have to say they've surprised even me in this debate.

Movie Notes
Believe it or not, I really liked the new movie Julie and Julia. I was pretty surprised myself. It's funny and sweet and understated in some truly nice moments. Kind of fluffy but without being too sappy or childish. Yeah a dumb moment here and there, but didn't detract from the overall fun of it. And, as much as I went to watch Streep's performance, I honestly forgot it was her after a while. It seems stupidly obvious to even say, but she really is pretty good. Lots of it is her voice here, but plenty of subtle physical things going on as well (not that I'm some acting expert).

I followed that up with Adoration last night. Not sure I could have picked a more completely different film. Atom Egoyan's movies are always a fascinating, gradual uncovering of truth, and Adoration is no different. This one is HEAVY though, all the way through. And some of the real head-scratching decisions you witness early on don't really hold up under the weight, even if they are to some degree explained by the time you get to the end. As much as I wanted to like it - and definitely was moved and surprised in a few very poignnant moments, the whole thing just comes off as too contrived to hold together.

Lastly, it's not out yet, but District 9 is getting great reviews, which I of course have not read because I don't like to do that sort of thing. Still, you can tell from the headlines they're very positive.

Ouch
A nasty takedown of Rick Santorum after news that the Republican former PA Senator is considering a 2012 run for President. Here's the thing: this slap was authored by prominent GOP strategist Mark McKinnon.

I’m a pretty tolerant guy, but beyond his ideology, some of Santorum’s behavior is just a little bizarre. For example, Santorum has six children. In 1996, he had son born prematurely who lived for only two hours. He and wife brought the child home and introduced the dead infant to the rest of their children as “your brother Gabriel” and slept with the body overnight.

Preemptive strike? We can only hope this is the tone of a long contentious struggle for the Republican nomination. Who's the biggest nutjob without being too unpalatable? Bring on the crazy!

Sleep Deprived
It's no secret anymore that sleep patterns are strongly tied to overall health and well-being - including childhood development. Our brains and bodies do lots of important stuff during that time, and can't do important stuff well during waking time if it hasn't had enough. It's also no secret that some people just need less than other people. But there are also those (I plead guilty) who, when confronted by this health requirement, like to offer the I-need-less-than-others excuse even though I don't really know if it's true, whether less sleep is really affecting my health and performance or not.

All of that to preface the discovery of a gene that really does allow some to thrive perfectly well on only 6 hours per night. Before you claim "Aha! I am one of those people!", you should know that no, you are not, and neither am I. At least, chances are very, very good that we aren't.

The gene is vanishingly rare in humans, occurring in less than 3% of people.

So almost everyone who claims they only need six hours' sleep is kidding themselves. And the consequences of chronic sleep deprivation are serious, says Clete Kushida, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and director of Stanford University's Sleep Medicine Center. Sleep deprivation has been linked to an increase in motor vehicle accidents, deficiencies in short-term memory, focus and attention as well as depressed mood and a decrease in the ability to control appetite.
...
Ying-Hui Fu, a professor of neurology at UCSF...cautions that most people who habitually get less than eight hours sleep a night are only building up a large, dangerous, sleep debt.

For-It-Before-He-Was-Against-It Award
Newt Gingrich, who used to be a big booster of end-of-life counseling programs, but is now just a big tool, playing to the crazies.

Meanwhile, one of the weirder stories I read this week touted the possibility of Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) as a potential presidential candidate, because Republicans are "in need of an 'adult' who can speak for the party without embarrassing it". Grassley himself demonstrates the argument today that while they may need it, he is not that man.

Euthanasia and the Conversations of Ethics Nerds
If you wonder where all the talk of euthanasia and "death panels" came from, a good piece in Salon ties it all together. The bogeyman - in case you hadn't heard - is Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the best known medical ethicists in the country, who just happens (the conspiracy theorists note) to be the brother of Rahm, the President's Chief of Staff.

If you've ever taken an Ethics 101 class, or engaged in any of that kind of discussion, you know that there's a certain kind of intractable intellectual problem that drives the uncovering of ethical philosophy. If you or I were to just happen to overhear one of these conversations about, say, how do we decide who to throw off the boat if one of us had to die so that all of us could live? we might be a bit appalled if we didn't know the context, that it was a hypothetical for the purpose of an academic discussion of principles.

That is essentially what happened to Dr. Emanuel, who, despite becoming the "death panel" poster boy for Palin et al, is as it turns out a staunch opponent of legal euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Read all about it.

Obama Town Hall
Must have had a no-crazies-allowed sign out front. There were some questions of dissent, but without the frothing at the mouth and ridiculous lies it's actually a decent conversation - a few legitimate disagreements laid out, and myths dispelled. Watch a replay if you get a chance. Or read it here, if you're into that.

Wishful Thinking
What if newspapers and news stations reported on what is actually in the various health insurance reform bills moving through Congress, instead of just reporting on what celebrity politicians, pundits and various crazy people believe, or want us to believe is in the bill - followed of course by "reporting" on the way the other side reacts to this "news".

Has anyone seen any actual in-depth coverage of the content of proposed health reform legislation? Beyond "public option" and "no more pre-existing conditions", it's pretty tough to piece any real specifics together. You would think, in a normal world, that would be a perfect job for, you know, journalists.

Steven Hawking is British
Investor's Business Daily apparently has the dumbest editorial board in the world. Maybe some reporter could ask Hawking if he would prefer to have America's health care system to the U.K.'s NHS.

Strenuous Exercise May Not Help You Lose Weight
Time Magazine Cover Story:

The basic problem is that while it's true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.
...
After we exercise, we often crave sugary calories like those in muffins or in "sports" drinks like Gatorade. A standard 20-oz. bottle of Gatorade contains 130 calories. If you're hot and thirsty after a 20-minute run in summer heat, it's easy to guzzle that bottle in 20 seconds, in which case the caloric expenditure and the caloric intake are probably a wash. From a weight-loss perspective, you would have been better off sitting on the sofa knitting.
...
Many obesity researchers now believe that very frequent, low-level physical activity — the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented — may actually work better for us than the occasional bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat. "You cannot sit still all day long and then have 30 minutes of exercise without producing stress on the muscles," says Hans-Rudolf Berthoud, a neurobiologist at LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center who has studied nutrition for 20 years. "The muscles will ache, and you may not want to move after. But to burn calories, the muscle movements don't have to be extreme. It would be better to distribute the movements throughout the day."

Discuss.

Enough is Enough
Will this new statement from Sarah Palin finally be enough irresponsible fear-mongering to warrant the President coming out swinging? From her recent Facebook post. Absolutely outrageous. How low can they go?

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Remember the fight over NAFTA? When Al Gore debated Ross Perot on Larry King and shredded his critiques? Can we not get someone to go toe-to-toe with Palin in a similar setting to do the same thing over health care? I'm surprised Dems have not generated a single forum to really explain the details - and stomp out the rumors - in a setting that will allow actual discussion. Can we not get an hour of time on the teevee to explain it?

Lunkhead of the Week
I could have chosen many of the usual suspects, from Rush to Lou Dobbs to Glenn Beck, for spreading fear and falsehood over the healthcare debate, calling it socialism and comparing Obama to Hitler. But you've heard of all those lunkheads. So my choice this week is the spokesman for Americans for Prosperity (via TPM), a group leading a tour of the country to rally rage against reform. Listen to the way he riles up this mostly senior crowd, scares the hell out of them with lies, and incites them into anti-government action.

Did President Bush Let Gog and Magog Dictate Foreign Policy
Here's a post I prepared for the church-state blog, but then thought better of actually hitting the publish button. Might as well put it somewhere.

You might want to go ahead and swallow whatever morning beverage you're drinking before you read this account of President Bush's efforts to rally support for the Iraq War, apparently confirmed in a new book by French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice. We can all at least hope that it's not true.

The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to [then-President Jacques Chirac], asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

Sadly, on the heels of news that Scripture and religious imagery adorned the Pentagon's Iraq War reports to the Bush White House, this very strange story can't simply be dismissed, can it? Perhaps a reporter could follow up with Mr. Chirac and Mr. Bush and determine if it's possible that recent U.S. foreign policy was indeed driven by a 5th-grade reading of Ezekiel.

[UPDATE: Nevermind, published it anyway.]

Must-Read
Stephen Pearlstein writes this in tomorrow's Washington Post:

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.

A New Approach
Maybe if Paula Abdul hadn't quit American Idol, this speech by John Brennan, formerly of the Bush Administration and now the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, might have gotten into the news. It's a long one, but worth the read.

First, and perhaps most significantly, the fight against terrorists and violent extremists has been returned to its right and proper place: no longer defining—indeed, distorting—our entire national security and foreign policy, but rather serving as a vital part of those larger policies. President Obama has made it clear that the United States will not be defined simply by what we are against, but by what we are for—the opportunity, liberties, prosperity, and common aspirations we share with the world.

Rather than looking at allies and other nations through the narrow prism of terrorism—whether they are with us or against us—the administration is now engaging other countries and peoples across a broader range of areas. Rather than treating so many of our foreign affairs programs—foreign assistance, development, democracy promotion—as simply extensions of the fight against terrorists, we will do these things—promote economic growth, good governance, transparency and accountability—because they serve our common interests and common security; not just in regions gripped by violent extremism, but around the world.
...
Indeed, it was telling that the President was actually criticized in certain quarters in this country for not using words like "terror," "terrorism" or "terrorist" in [his Cairo] speech. This goes to the heart of his new approach. Why should a great and powerful nation like the United States allow its relationship with more than a billion Muslims around the world be defined by the narrow hatred and nihilistic actions of an exceptionally small minority of Muslims? After all, this is precisely what Osama bin Laden intended with the Sept. 11 attacks: to use al Qaeda to foment a clash of civilizations in which the United States and Islam are seen as distinct identities that are in conflict. In his approach to the world and in his approach to safeguarding the American people, President Obama is determined not to validate al Qaeda’s twisted worldview.

Clunker Update
No link, but heard on NPR that a deal has been reached with the House. Senate will vote today to approve the House extension, with the understanding that when they come back in a month, the House will revise to take the $2 billion from new funding instead of from the stimulus bill's renewable energy loan program.

Crazies Out in Force
Democratic Rep "physically assaulted" at event. No details, so that could I guess mean most anything. Still, did anything like this happen even once during our march to war based on a lie? Taken from the Florida recount playbook, nobody expresses violent outrage like Republicans.

Caught!
I admit, I am not the legitimate author of Article 19. No sense lying anymore now that my authentic Kenyan birth certificate has been uncovered.
Make your own here.

Watching Other People Brown
I missed this, but over the weekend Michael Pollan had a feature in New York Times Magazine, his thoughts on our current relationship to cooking after watching the new Julia Child-related film starring Meryl Streep.

That learning to cook could lead an American woman to success of any kind would have seemed utterly implausible in 1949; that it is so thoroughly plausible 60 years later owes everything to Julia Child’s legacy. Julie Powell operates in a world that Julia Child helped to create, one where food is taken seriously, where chefs have been welcomed into the repertory company of American celebrity and where cooking has become a broadly appealing mise-en-scène in which success stories can plausibly be set and played out. How amazing is it that we live today in a culture that has not only something called the Food Network but now a hit show on that network called “The Next Food Network Star,” which thousands of 20- and 30-somethings compete eagerly to become? It would seem we have come a long way from Swanson TV dinners.
...
But here’s what I don’t get: How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves? For the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence — along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network star — has, paradoxically, coincided with the rise of fast food, home-meal replacements and the decline and fall of everyday home cooking.

Don't be fooled, by the way. He does get many of the reasons why we are keen to watch others cook but no so much into doing it ourselves. Much of the piece is spent delving into exactly those factors that explain perfectly well the reasons behind this loss, which he suggests may be far more damaging than even sympathetic readers would have thought. That the reasons for this cultural change may be perfectly understandable though, and the prospect of turning back essentially impossible, doesn't undo or lessen that damage.

You Be A Senator
Your "cash for clunkers" program has helped send car sales suddenly upward. Buyers are lining up for the $3500-4500 rebates, trading in gas guzzlers for more efficient vehicles (61% more efficient, according to the White House). But, they are doing it so much faster than you expected when you initially voted for the program, it's about to run out of money months ahead of schedule. You could have probably set more stringent mileage limits (currently, buyers get $3500 for improving mileage by 4-10 mpg, or $4500 for improving by more than 10) and paid out a little less tax money per rebate, and had an even better success. As it is, though, a win for the economy and a modest win for the environment, right?

So, here is your dilemma: the House has already passed an extension of $2 billion and gone on break for August. The rebate program is set to run out of money by Friday, and you're set to go on your own recess after that anyway. And oh yeah your staff just told you that the House bill secured the money for their extension by taking $2 billion from a renewable energy loan program that probably would have more environmental benefit. You're not really sure how the initial estimate - that this money would fund rebates through September - could have been so far off, and there's not enough time to figure that out before recess.

You never would have been for $3 billion in a clunkers program and $2 billion less in energy loans in the first place, but that's essentially what auto dealers across the state are ringing your phone off the hook demanding you support.

What do you do?

White House Video
I like this inside look - describing what happens to mail sent to the President.

Why Did We Wait So Long
To start calling it "health insurance reform"? Obama started last week, and I'm hearing Senators finally doing the same on my teevee today. It seems obvious and effective. Many many Americans are wary of reforming their health care, but wouldn't mind taking the scalpel to their health insurance. Couldn't they have thought of this during the transition, or the campaign?

Lunkheads of the Week [CORRECTED]
Southerners. Southern Whites.

Quote of the Day
Henry Louis Gates, on his meeting yesterday at the White House:

We hit it off right from the beginning. When he’s not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likable guy.

Only in the South
This excitement was in The Tennessean:

Available online earlier this month, and also at the Hams & Jams Market adjacent to the Café at 8400 Highway 100, Piggy Popcorn is already developing a strong following.
...
One customer was so taken with the snack she ordered 15 pounds for her son’s wedding.
...
Some who haven’t tried the snack, which is a special gourmet popcorn that is popped in bacon grease, coated with a caramel sauce and then sprinkled with lean bits of hickory-smoked country cured bacon, say they are unsure about the flavor.

"American People's Demands of Government Largely Irrational"
That should be the headline of whatever story accompanies this news. Seriously, could we finally get some coverage that forces this recognition?

More Lunkheads Can't Stand the Heat
Blue Dog Democrats have reached a deal with House leadership. Public option remains intact. According to Brian Beutler at TPM, what the conservative Dems got in return are these things:

1) No House vote until September. This part sucks because it gives Republicans an entire month to bash the plan. The good news is that the Waxman Committee will vote a bill out this week. So by the time recess is done, there should be a bill ready to vote on.

2) The version favored by House leadership exempted small businesses from penalties for not covering their employees if their total payroll was less than $250,000. The compromise with Blue Dogs doubles that amount to $500k, allowing many more businesses free to leave their employees uncovered and not having to pay into the public system.

3) Instead of tying payment rates to Medicare, the government's public option will negotiate pay schedules separately through the Secretary of HHS.

4) Individuals whose income falls between 300 and 400% of the poverty rate - hence eligible for government subsidy for health coverage under the House plan - will receive a slightly smaller subsidy, potentially saving taxpayers, Beutler reports, $100 billion according to Blue Dogs.

LOTW Update
I guess the withering shame of receiving Article 19's demoralizing Lunkhead of the Week award took its toll. Paul Stanley has resigned from the TN Senate.

Colbert Says Goodbye to Palin
Clip of her farewell address must be seen to be believed.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sarah Palin Will Be Missed
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

Stimulus Money in Tennessee
When I see that the NYTimes has written an article on Tennessee, I usually cringe as I click the link. Today's though - following the Tennessean's own series (1, 2) on the way the stimulus money is being used - paints our Governor as what he is at his best: forward-thinking and willing to act. Is his a good long-term strategy? Using welfare money to create immediate jobs in heavily depressed, rural areas? I haven't a clue. But it's nice to see positive, job-creating stories from the stimulus money.

Kind of makes me want to take a road trip to Perry County and buy one of those turnovers from the Armstrong Pie Company.

Dear Mitch Albom
Stick to sports and sap. (and maybe learn a little math)

No Guns, No Crying
One unfortunate result from last November's election is that Tennessee Democrats lost control of both the state House and Senate. All of the crazy Jesus and guns legislation that we've kept bottled up in committee for years has come rushing out. Included is one that's sure to do wonders for tourism, making it legal to carry concealed handguns into restaurants and bars. Now, any establishment that wants to limit its clientele to non-gun-carriers has to indicate that with a clear sign out front, a la no smoking. I noticed 3 Crow in East Nashville is trying the humorous route. Made me laugh, anyway.

See also Colbert's very funny/scary piece on this idiocy.

Lunkhead of the Week
Paul Stanley.

Deep Thought After Spending 1 Day on Facebook
Blogging is now long-form writing.

What the...
I turn around and the Red Sox go from 3 games up to 2 1/2 down in a week. Looks like the bats have gone cold all at once. How did that happen so quickly? They've dropped faster than Lance Armstrong this week.

Sell Sell Sell
Now that I've given in just today and activated an account on Facebook, it is a sure sign that the fad is over. No longer cool. Pass the word.

The Crazies
Jon Stewart last night took on the birther crowd.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Born Identity
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Honest Questions
This sounds great. Crush Netanyahu indeed. But how? With what leverage?

Shortz (Includes A19 Poll Question)
When I can't sleep, I like to work on the Sunday NYTimes crossword (it's reprinted the next Sunday in the local paper). I usually end up taking a stab at it every week though I almost never finish and rarely get beyond 75-80%. In a sign that declining standards and grade inflation is alive and well into middle age, I count 50% as the fault line of my failure/success. If you try it as well, you may enjoy this ongoing Q & A with puzzle editor Will Shortz. I knew that puzzles were sent in by others who are paid a small amount when they are selected, but I didn't know there were so many submissions (75-100 a week!) and I was shocked at the involved weekly process he describes for how a puzzle gets from submission to publication:

When I select a puzzle for publication, I factcheck it (of course) and edit the clues. On average about half the clues in a Times puzzle are my own. I edit first for accuracy, because it doesn't matter how clever or interesting a clue is if it's wrong. I also edit for the appropriate level of difficulty given the day of the week, as well as for freshness, playfulness, humor and overall balance of subjects.

After I edit and typeset the puzzles on my handy Mac, I send them to three test solvers, one of whom rechecks the accuracy of every clue and answer again. These testers are Frank Longo (a talented crossword constructor and editor himself), Nancy Schuster (a former crossword editor as well as a national champion solver), and Evie Eysenburg (my "everyman" solver). All three call me with their comments and corrections. I polish the puzzles and send completed electronic files, a week at a time, to The Times, where they are test-solved by a fourth person, Ellen Ripstein, who's also a former crossword champion. Ellen prepares the files for online publication and other formats, but also serves as another backup.

This used to be the entire process. Some years ago, though, I noticed a person on the Times's crossword forum, Martin Herbach, who wrote incredibly literate and knowledgable comments about little flaws in the published puzzles. And I thought, why should I wait until the puzzles are published before getting Martin's feedback? So after Ellen finishes her work on the files, she sends PDFs of all the puzzles to Martin. Our understanding is that if he sees a problem, he lets me know immediately, in time for me to make a change. And, if he doesn't, all is well.

The whole thing is pretty fascinating if you are into puzzles. Apparently, he enjoys every kind of puzzle. Here's the question for the day: do you puzzle? Which do you like/hate?

Palin's Resignation Speech
Edited by professionals.

People
What's wrong with them?

Qualms about President Obama's stewardship of the economy are growing, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, as Americans become more pessimistic about when they predict the recession will end.
...
By 50%-44%, they disapprove of how he is handling health care policy.

Who are the morons that approved before, when Obama was proposing his health care plan and challenging Congress to act quickly, and now disapprove, while Obama supports that same plan (basically) and is still challenging Congress to act? If public support dwindles, there is no shot at a public option. Too many very very fearful Congressmen and women. We'll get a bill that outlaws denial of coverage based on pre-existing condition, and a couple of cost-cutting measures and that's it.

Lunkheads of the Week
Nelson, Lieberman, Wyden, Landrieu. We were really making headway, lunkheads.

Franken Watch
It was nice to see Al loosen up a tiny bit today. On substance he was actually quite good as well - though he elicited nothing interesting from the Judge, he made some good points himself. Whether he was actually funny, or just seemed so against the comedy competition on the Senate Judiciary I don't know, but after watching hours of hearings he had me laughing. Didn't overdo it, just some light moments - see for yourself:

Health Care Bills
The good news is that, thanks to the Internet tubes, regular citizens like us can go ahead and read pending legislation like the health care reform bill (pdf) that is moving forward in the House. The bad news is that it's 1018 pages long. But there's good news again, which is that even though we could never read and digest the whole thing in time to be completely informed for the debates to come, we have a brilliant and committed news media who will capably and accurately describe the content. Ha!

If you are interested in reading *some* of it, the Committee's website also has it broken down into summary pages and by topic.

You can read the health care bill that came out of the Senate's HELP Committee - checking in at a slender 615 pages - here. The Senate Finance Committee has yet to get through the mark-up phase of their version of the bill. That is scheduled to start next week.

Verdict on Lindsay Graham
Condescending asshole.

Verdict on Sotomayor
She's smart. Avoids questions in a way that doesn't insult the listening audience as much as most nominees.

From the Church-State World
Ralph Reed is attempting a comeback.

Moment of the Day
Senator Al Franken speaks at Sotomayor's confirmation hearing as a member of the Judiciary Committee. No, he's not saying anything too interesting. But remembering his impression of Senator Paul Simon during SNL sendups of a confirmation hearing (I forget, was it Thomas?), seeing him up there for real is kinda funny.

Movie Recs
Last week, I caught Food, Inc. My earlier fear about being too grossed out to be effective did not bear out. Certainly there are unpleasant images, but nothing as graphic as I expected from the NYTimes review. In general, it's a good film - but not a great one. If you haven't read Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, and feel confident you never will, perhaps there will be more new perspective here for you than there was for me. If you have read it, some of the images and interviews will reinforce the book (including extensive screen time with Joel Salatin, who runs Polyface Farms, the focus of about 1/4 of the book). There were a few new and horrifying things - or at least I had forgotten them if they are in the book - emphasized here, especially discussion of Monsanto's vigorous - no, ruthless - enforcement of seed patents. For me, that was the emotional apex of the film.

Recommended. But it's not a great, great documentary like, perhaps, the material desperately needs. I have to say, too, that it's pretty depressing. As I've told others, I came out of it in many ways more hopeless than I did walking out of the Al Gore movie, which was pretty darned scary. I had a real sense of having nowhere to honorably turn, just competing bad options to varying degree.

Second, I saw "Moon", which was fascinating and well done as a sci-fi film on a budget. If you can get past a couple of front-end implausible things, it's a compelling story. If anything, I wished it was longer, to spend more time on some of the psychological issues raised which really should have been more intensely explored by the character(s?) in question. As it is, much of that is left to us.

Lunkhead(s) of the Week
Blue-Dog Democrats.

Bruno
The NYTimes' A.O. Scott says that, some laughs aside, Bruno will leave you with a bad taste.

On Returning
I assume nothing happened while I was away?

Thanks to Doug and Farge for livening up the place yesterday. Anyone with the keys should feel free to do that any time. I am, after all, only one man.

I did everything I could to avoid coverage of the Michael Jackson funeral yesterday. 2 media outlets got through my defenses though: ESPN somehow managed to put clips on Sports Center. Before I could get to my remote, Magic Johnson was telling me that his Lakers jersey, like Kobe's, would not have been in homes across America if it hadn't been for Michael being there first, opening up the African-American merchandising barrier... Hmmm. That's just not true, is it? Does anyone (Magic included) really believe that black basketball stars wouldn't be popular and accepted but for the success of Thriller? Does that even make any sense?

Then early this morning I had a dream that Michael Jackson was my older brother and that our dear father was the Reverend Al Sharpton. Waking up in a panic I realized that my radio alarm was dutifully playing NPR, and they were in the middle of a segment on yesterday's ceremony. Sharpton was speaking to the crowd and he was saying that contrary to public opinion there is nothing strange about the Jackson family, and specifically the Jackson father. They were simply coping, he said, with strange situations. That certainly cleared up for me the sleeping with young boys and the giraffes in the backyard.

Maybe the strangest Jackson-related story of the day though was this one.

Taking Matters into Our Own Hands
In the comments thread to Don's last post before giving it all up to become a beach bum, farge had this to say:

This freaky piece makes me wonder if someday I will be looking down from our moon colony at the Lost Red Planet (Earth).

At the Beach
Aren't you jealous? Will be back with posts next week.

Good News
For all their painful questioning at oral arguments, the Supreme Court has ruled the strip search of the 13-year-old was unconstitutional, 8-1 no less (Clarence Thomas of course...). Haven't read the details yet - looks like a couple of concurring-in-part, dissenting-in-part opinions as well, but there you go. Decision here (pdf).

Sanford
One truly messed up dude. I feel sorry for his family, and a little sorry for him - irrelevant personal dramas shouldn't have to be played out in public. Still, it's pretty stupid and inviting of scrutiny to abandon your job, with little warning, to address personal dramas.

No Public Option? No Money
This is good advice. I got that e-mail from McCaskill too.

Get 'Em While They're Hot
CafePress

Obama Press Conference
Read the transcript here. No time to excerpt so you have to find the good parts on your own. I'm off...er...hiking the Appalachian Trail or something.

Funny
John Hodgman - who plays PC in the commercials for Mac computers and also author of The Areas of My Expertise - perhaps going over even better to the C-Span crowd than to the gathering of radio and TV correspondents hearing him in person. Either way, the President seemed to like his nerd humor.

Reporting From Tehran
A new piece from the NYTimes' brave Roger Cohen begins this way:

The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. “I swear to God,” he shouted at the protesters facing him, “I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people. Please go home.”

A man at my side threw a rock at him. The commander, unflinching, continued to plead. There were chants of “Join us! Join us!”

Read the whole thing.

I don't know how effective these protests will be, whether they will - or even should be - continued (not anxious for another Tiananmen). But you have to be moved by the breath-taking, soul-stirring courage on display. They thought they were living under an Islamic Republic, but it has been shown to be a military dictatorship, a rule they are refusing to accept under pain of sticks and tear gas and bullets.

Here's hoping the sentiment of this commander is widespread and growing among police forces; that loyalty to conscience and to family convince them to turn their resentment away from the protesters refusing their demands, and onto those who order their beating.

Why Do I Do It?
Go see movies that I know are going to be bad, that is. Something about the summer makes me think a Hollywood action flick is just what the doctor ordered. Occasionally it works. It didn't tonight. Don't see The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. For the first hour or so there were actually a couple of interesting moments, maybe even poignant in a psychological drama kind of way, but only a couple. The last 30 minutes quickly descend - gratuitous violence, pointless car crashes, logic-defying stupidity.

And what can you say about James Gandolfini? The guy is without question an amazing actor. He made The Sopranos great, and showed sweeping emotional range in the process. I can see why he doesn't want to take parts as a mobster, but why does he keep taking these shitty one-dimensional roles?

Read Robert Reich
And hope the President reads it too.

Lunkhead(s) of the Week
Richard A. Collins (CEO of UnitedHealth's Golden Rule Insurance Co.), Don Hamm (CEO of Assurant Health) and Brian Sassi (president of consumer business for WellPoint Inc.)

During a House Committee hearing this week, panels of people told horror stories about losing health coverage after getting sick when their insurance companies searched and searched and finally found some trivial oversight in their application. These 3 health industry executives earn Lunkhead of the Week honors for their unanimous one-word answer to a pointed question about this method of denying coverage. From the LATimes (via Kevin Drum)

Committee members took turns, alternating Democrats and Republicans, condemning such practices.

"When times are good, the insurance company is happy to sign you up and take your money in the form of premiums," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). "But when times are bad . . . some insurance companies use a technicality to justify breaking its promise, at a time when most patients are too weak to fight back."

"I think a company does have a right to make sure there's no fraudulent information," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.). "But if a citizen acts in good faith, we should expect the insurance company that takes their money to act in good faith also."

Late in the hearing, Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud."

The answer from all three executives:

"No."

If You Want to Have a Decent Day
Don't read this. And especially don't read any of the reports on this page.

But Really
Having a gun in the house is a great idea.

Almost Forgot
Happy Bloomsday, for anyone who celebrates that.

Charter Schools
Kevin Drum has graphs showing exactly when to send your kids to charter schools, and when to remove them. I'm not sure I even understand the charter school phenomenon well enough to have much of an opinion. I'm glad though that locally we have very few, even if that seems about to change.

Oh Well
From the NYTimes

By now, it is a familiar litany. Study after study suggests that alcohol in moderation may promote heart health and even ward off diabetes and dementia. The evidence is so plentiful that some experts consider moderate drinking — about one drink a day for women, about two for men — a central component of a healthy lifestyle.

But what if it’s all a big mistake?

For some scientists, the question will not go away. No study, these critics say, has ever proved a causal relationship between moderate drinking and lower risk of death — only that the two often go together. It may be that moderate drinking is just something healthy people tend to do, not something that makes people healthy.

“The moderate drinkers tend to do everything right — they exercise, they don’t smoke, they eat right and they drink moderately,” said Kaye Middleton Fillmore, a retired sociologist from the University of California, San Francisco, who has criticized the research. “It’s very hard to disentangle all of that, and that’s a real problem.”

I always figured that by the time you found people who are disciplined enough to drink every day - but only ever 2 - you've got people disciplined enough to make lots of other healthy decision. But I never really thought through the ethical and practical problems in running a test thorough enough to settle the matter. The interesting bits of this article get into those difficulties.

Obama to Doctors on Health Reform
Read the speech here.

We know the moment is right for health care reform. We know this is an historic opportunity we've never seen before and may not see again. But we also know that there are those who will try and scuttle this opportunity no matter what – who will use the same scare tactics and fear-mongering that's worked in the past. They'll give dire warnings about socialized medicine and government takeovers; long lines and rationed care; decisions made by bureaucrats and not doctors. We've heard it all before – and because these fear tactics have worked, things have kept getting worse.
...
The other day, my friend, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, handed me a magazine with a special issue titled, "The Crisis in American Medicine." One article notes "soaring charges." Another warns about the "volume of utilization of services." And another asks if we can find a "better way [than fee-for-service] for paying for medical care." It speaks to many of the challenges we face today. The thing is, this special issue was published by Harper's Magazine in October of 1960.

Members of the American Medical Association – my fellow Americans – I am here today because I do not want our children and their children to still be speaking of a crisis in American medicine fifty years from now. I do not want them to still be suffering from spiraling costs we did not stem, or sicknesses we did not cure. I do not want them to be burdened with massive deficits we did not curb or a worsening economy we did not rebuild.

All Hell [UPDATED]
may be about to break loose in Iran, so says Steve Clemons in a very ominous warning. Everyone who cares about democracy and who is moved by the courage it takes to - like Mousavi - stand up for reform amid an oppressive hard-line regime should be watching closely and fearfully for the fate of the voices of change.

[UPDATE: Shots fired, one killed, at Mousavi rally.]

Lunkhead of the Week
Frank Gaffney, for his take on President Obama's trip to the Middle East.

The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.
...
With Mr. Obama's unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls "the Muslim world"...there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.

Limbaugh made a strong push around the back stretch with his attempts to paint right-wing murdering hate-monger James von Brunn as a liberal. But he faded down the stretch, perhaps worn down by the brief challenge from actor Jon Voight's lunkheadishness. This let Gaffney - whose smears of the President in the Washington Times also got a mention in Krugman's latest column about the "big hate" - cruise in by a length.

Health Care Deep Thought
We need more on the Democratic side making noise about a single-payer plan so that merely a government-run option can occupy the moderate, compromise position. As it stands, Republican obstructionists (which is just to say, Republicans) are painting a competitive government option as left-wing crazy talk. We need to remind moderate Americans that there is actually a considerably more "left-wing" way to go that is in fact supported by a great number of liberal Democrats. The Obama-Kennedy plan would be quite a welcome change but it would not dismantle the insurance-based health care system by any means.

I'm Sure They Will Get Vests Now
But why does it take tragedy to motivate action? The security guard's union had been requesting bullet-proof vests for a couple of years.

Sarah Palin Admits....
Her daughter "could be anyone's"? That's what I got out of her critique of Letterman anyway.

Home-Grown Terrorists
First Roeder, and now von Brunn. Just wondering, and obviously I don't have a bit of evidence here, but is there any doubt they both got their TV news from Fox?

Food, Inc

I've seen this trailer a couple times at the local art house, but did not have the sense that it would likely become a cultural docu-event a la Super Size Me. If this NYTimes article about Food, Inc is any indication, though, it just may. When Martha Stewart is pushing your movie, people could pay attention. And it sounds like what they see will be fairly... uncomfortable to watch.

Viewers who haven’t thought much about how all that food in the grocery store got to be there will likely find it hard to toss a few packages of pork chops and some Froot Loops in the cart and call it a day. Some viewers will undoubtedly look away during the meat cutting and processing scenes. For parents the eye-averting moment will come during repeated slow-motion scenes of a 2-year-old’s last vacation. His mother, now a food-safety advocate, explains in a tearful voice-over the gruesome details of his death after he ate hamburger tainted with E. coli.

I understand why they want to do that, but it would be nice if we could convey a positive message of healthy, organic, locally grown, humane... without having to send viewers through a horrifingly graphic, emotional wringer to get there. Sounds like the film approaches the food problem from many different angles, so hopefully that's just one small element. Speaking for myself though, jarring disgust is not an effective long-term strategy for changing my behavior.

In Which I Turn A New Chapter in Life
Yesterday, for the first time, I bought a CD at Starbucks. No, it does not feel good to have fallen from grace in this way. Please deride me - and the new stage of middle-aged, yuppified, cultural irrelevance this no doubt represents - in the comments.

Lunkhead of the Week
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK). Remember the good old days when questioning the foreign policy - and indeed the patriotism - of the Commander in Chief while he is out of the country on a diplomatic mission (and while we're at war!) was considered a no-no? Inhofe has upped the ante and earned the coveted LOTW award by 2 lengths.

You *Are* an Asparagus Lover
Pretty interesting

A team of researchers at U.C. Irvine studying implanted false memories asked 128 undergrads questions about how well they liked certain foods growing up. A week later, the students were called back and shown their results. But the researchers secretly changed the answers of one group of students to say that they loved asparagus the first time they tried it. When these students were later asked to order dishes on a hypothetical restaurant menu, those who had read falsified self-testimony about their childhood love of asparagus were significantly more likely to order it than they had been just a week earlier.

I suspect this tactic works better with a "team of researchers" than with a "team of parents", where you're maybe more likely to get an argument from your kids. But maybe not? Tell 'em they loved broccoli ever since they were born. You can read the study here.

Cairo Speech
Remarkable, I thought. But as you know I'm a sucker for such things. You can read it here. Or watch below.

Arresting the Crazies
One, anyway.

CSpan Sez
Obama's speech in Cairo will start at 6 AM Eastern time. Get up, or stay up, depending on your circumstances...

Al Gore is Wrong!!
The Atlantic's James Fallows has been on a mission the last 2+ years to correct the myth and castigate the myth-tellers when it comes to gradual temperature change. Thanks to Kevin Drum's post, I've just found his impressive work and am thoroughly convinced. See all of Fallows' related posts here.

Article 19 Summer Produce Buying Guide!
This is the time of year when we get delicious and plentiful red bell peppers. Here's a buying tip I, er, picked up today: Don't get one that has a hole - even a small one - and make sure you check! That brown goo that will undoubtedly be inside is probably not a tasty peanut sauce.

If You Didn't Already Know
Don't take Oprah too seriously.