Healthcare Fix

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has come up with a rather interesting healthcare proposal. It's not Hillarycare, but it's not quite Health Savings Accounts either. Here's a passage that caught my attention:

Under Wyden's plan, employers would no longer provide health coverage, as they have since World War II. Instead, they'd convert the current cost of coverage into additional salary for employees. Individuals would use this money to buy insurance, which they would be required to have. Private insurance plans would compete on features and price but would have to offer benefits at least equivalent to the Blue Cross "standard" option. Signing up for insurance would be as easy as ticking off a box on your tax return. In most cases, insurance premiums would be withheld from paychecks, as they are now.

Eliminating employers as an additional payer would encourage consumers to use health care more efficiently. Getting rid of the employer tax deduction, which costs a whopping $200 billion a year, would free up funds to subsidize insurance up to 400 percent of the poverty line, which is $82,000 for a family of four. The Lewin Group, an independent consulting firm, has estimated that Wyden's plan would reduce overall national spending on health care by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years and that it would save the government money through great administrative efficiency and competition.

This seems to make far more sense than our current model, where the employee is essentially a serf to his boss when it comes to purchasing insurance. Not only is this grossly inefficient, it's not even classical capitalism! This plan promises to cut government expenditures, give us more choice in selecting insurance plans, and would free up investment dollars for more productive endeavors (like, dare I say, trains!). Where's the catch?

Bones

Could these be the bones of Jesus and Mary Magdalene? And what ramifications would it have if they were?

Does Welfare Create Secularism?

Recently, we've been talking about God. In a similar vein, I direct you to this interesting study. It posits a strong link between increased public welfare spending and decreased religiosity. Here's the hypothesis, verbatim:

...we assert that cross-national variation in religious participation is a function of government welfare spending and provide a theory that links macro-sociological outcomes with individual rationality... as goverments assume many of those welfare functions, individuals with elastic preferences for spiritual goods will reduce their level of participation since the desired welfare goods can be obtained from secular sources.

Read it and let me know what you think.

Your Train Update

Things are not looking good for passenger trains in Vermont, as this article shows. Here are two glaring particulars:

• RIDERSHIP: The number of passengers on the Vermonter route declined from 72,235 in fiscal 2001 to 52,490 in the last budget year.
• STATE SUBSIDY: Amtrak has required Vermont to pay increasing shares of the cost of the train routes in the state. The subsidy went from $1.58 million in fiscal 2001 to $3.3 million this year.

From a financial perspective, these numbers are enough to doom passenger rail in the Green Mountain State. Over a five-year period, passenger total decreased by roughly 25 percent, while the amount the state government had to pay increased by more than 100 percent. This is exactly the sort of glaring inefficiency that taxpayers rightly condemn.

At the same time, as this article notes, rail does hold out the long-term promise of more energy-efficient transportation. In an age of oil shortages, this is absolutely necessary. So I put it to the group: how do we promote rural rail in a cost-effective manner? Can we?

Free State Update

I like local government. I agree with the idea that, on most issues, towns and cities are best left to work out their own solutions. Likewise, the farther a branch of government is from direct citizen oversight, the weaker the hold it ought to have on individual behavior.

I think smaller states are more likely to have freer and more effective government for this very reason. It's one of the many things I like about New Hampshire. I am not the only one to think so. There's a group, dubbed "The Free State Project," which recently chose the Granite State as its resettlement destination. The goal is to get 20,000 people to move to the state and preserve (or enhance) the state's decentralized politics.

Here's an update:

To date, several hundred people have moved to the Granite State from other places and 7,500 people have signed up to participate in the project. "We realize to get to 20,000 is years away," Swearingen said.

But already some of the members who have moved to New Hampshire have been successful, he said.

One member successfully sponsored legislation passed last year ending the requirement for state approval of home school curricula, Swearingen said.

And he noted last year's defeat of the proposed smoking ban in restaurants and the state's push for real ID or a national identification card.

Libertarians are an interesting bunch. Since they are (admirably) consistent, most people agree with them only half the time. For example, when the government is going to regulate something you like, you agree with the libertarian stand. When the government is going to regulate something you dislike, you disagree with the libertarian stand.

What better argument for libertarianism could there be than that?

The Third Man

In the fuss over Obama and Clinton, we're likely to forget about this man. We shouldn't.

Why I Adore My Conservative Friends

I recently returned from Chicago for my mandated Northwestern Law interview. In the all-too-short time we had for the meeting, I took my chance to ask how ideologically divided the student body was. I has said nothing at this point to give away my true leanings, and left my question as neutral as I could. Not knowing the answer I was looking for, she eventually told me that both ends of the spectrum were quite well represented, and that the Constitutionalist/Federalist Society debates were a staple of the extracurricular life.

This was, of course, the answer I wanted to hear. Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows how liberal my views are, and I don't need to repeat it. What I need to say is how much I love passionate, intellectually engaged conservatives. Great debate is how we shape not only the ideas of our opponents, but our own ideas as well, and smart people who disagree are the greatest asset one can have to one's own continued thought.

...which is why this pisses me off so much. Conservapedia, started by Andrew Schlafly, is another example of a certain subset of Conservatives who, rather than enter the debate, claim a right to their own facts, and then when others don't accept their "facts" as true, declare that they're simply picking up their ball and going home. Schlafly's issue is, of course, with Wikipedia, which he claims sports a liberal and anti-Christian bias. Seemingly missing from this rant is the fact that Wikipedia is, for all it's faults, edited by the public, and as such is as egalitarian as it possibly can be. Also, he takes offense to the BCE/CE dating procedure,
which I didn't even realize was uniform in Wikipedia.

From the FoxNews entry:

Fox News was started in 1996 in response to the other cable news channels which all had obvious liberal biases. Because of this, Rupert Murdoch decided to start a real new channel which would tell the truth. The success of Fox news over every other news channel is because it is fair and balanced. It has many people on it who work to spread truth such as Sean Hannity who is a great American. Fox News is best because instead of just telling you what to think, they only report the news unbiased and then allow the viewer to decide.

In 2005 the White House selected Tony Snow from Fox News to be the new White House press secretary which was a great honor for Fox because it showed how well it was presenting the real truth instead of the fake liberal version.

Of course, Schlafly has every right to do this, but what does it say about a group of people so afraid of differing opinions that they would feel the need to be protected from them? I know that there are subsets of liberals that do the same, so I'm not claiming that this is entirely a right-wing phenomenon. But if your beliefs are so central to your life that you can't bear to read facts, let alone opinions, that might subvert them, shouldn't those belifes also be strong enough to handle it?

Post 500: Beards

Yes, this post marks our 500 on the Optimates site. And I'm using it to promote something near and dear to my own, er, face: BEARDS. All you men who hate the vile razor, and ladies who love those men, embrace the wonder of the beard!

Website Update

I've added the God post to the "Hot Threads" menu on the left-hand side of the page. This will enable easy access to the discussion - still ongoing! - when the post itself rides off into the sunset of the archives. Keep the comments coming!

Sex Crisis?

Well, we're tackling the issue of God (here and here). Let's return to another old favorite: sex.

In a recent book entitled Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both, author Laura Sessions Strepp discusses the "hookup culture" on college campuses and its effects on young women. The Slate review, which may be more interesting than the book, says the real problem isn't the dissociation of sex and love, but rather the linking of sex, status, and work. Money quote:

The hookup culture is part of a wider ethos of status-seeking achievement. As one girl puts it: "Dating is a drain on energy and intellect, and we are overwhelmed, overprogrammed and overcommitted just trying to get into grad school." So they throw themselves into erotic liaisons with the same competitive zeal they bring to résumé-building... they frame their seemingly explorative sex lives in rigid, instrumental terms, believing that vulnerability of any sort signals a confusing dependence.

I'd love to know what everyone thinks of this. So many of our readers are recent college graduates or current graduate students, so doubtless we're informed enough about what's really going on. What's your take on it?

Want a Strong Economy? Vote... Democratic?

That may be the case, says "Angry Bear."

Happy Presidents' Day

Please remember that we used to have good ones. Who's your favorite?

Madonna's Big Bang

Ah, the joys of a relaxing morning catching up on the news spread across the internet!

I stumbled up this gem (also here, but free registration may be required) outlining how a the Anti-Defamation League is demanding an apology from Georgia State Rep. Ben Bridges (R, Cleveland) because of a memo Bridges circulated " that says the teaching of evolution should be banned because it is a myth propagated by an ancient Jewish sect." Apparently the Big Bang Theory is a tall-tale passed down in Kabbalah. Bridges is also the sponsor of legislation to require Georgia schools teach only "scientific fact" in the classroom.

Fortunately for those of us bored on a lazy weekend, there's more. Bridges' campaign manager runs the website www.fixedearth.com. Here you can learn about how the Earth is not rotating or moving at all and how Copernicanism paved the way for evolutionism. There are several links to various topics, but my personal favorite is the page outlining 14 "What if?" questions that Creationists should ask themselves regarding the myth of heliocentricity.

Money question:

WHAT IF - mathematics has long since been an art form capable of depicting anything the "artist" wants? (And what if the ultimate "artist" behind heliocentric (moving earth) mathematics is not men but You-Know-Who?!)

Clearly I have been misled in my intellectual pursuits. Forget everything I said in my God comment. Here I thought I was working with the purest forms of truths, working up slowly from an axiomatic foundation, in a subject that did not carry the same ideological emotions as the other hard sciences. Apparently not. Obviously, my first mistake was leaving the home, since as a married woman, my sole obligation is tending to my husband's needs and bearing him glorious heirs, instead of investigating various geometric embeddings of complete graphs on orientable and nonorientable surfaces.

As you get bored this week, or if you have President's Day Off, please poke around Fixed Earth. My challenge for you is to find the most outrageous quote. We'll make it a contest of sorts, with the prize being the peace of mind you have at night knowing you are a logical human being.

Good Luck!

Keifer Sutherland = Dick Cheney?

Is the Fox show 24 promoting torture? Will we soon have soldiers in the middle east trying to imitate the velvety Sutherland voice while breaking the kneecaps of potential suspects?

This New Yorker article seems to think so. They make a good case. Personally, I stopped watching the show around season 3 when the stories started getting repetitive, but it's still a great premise.

Pity

That's the emotion I feel toward the newly-bald Britney.

Trade

Free trade. What do you think about it?

Sullivan Comes Around

Andrew Sullivan has finally joined the Optimate position on the Middle East. After a slow to shaky start, he's come around to the distinction between Iran's Islamic Republic and Persian civilization. Money quote:

I don't think we can learn enough right now about the tensions between and within Shia and Sunni Islam. Shiite Islam, filtered through Persian civilization, may be a far more pliable force than the worst excesses of Sunni fanaticism.

This is not the end of knowledge on the subject, but it is a suitable beginning. Persia, so conceived, existed well before the arrival of Islam in the 7th century A.D. After the Arab conquest, its civilization was influenced by Islam (and influenced it in turn) as well as Arab language and culture. But Persia's conversion to Shi'a Islam in the 16th century was not solely a religious epiphany within an Arab context. It was the restoration of Persian identity. Iran, therefore, has a much longer tradition of nationhood than, well, almost every other country in the world. They're not a faceless Shi'a mass, to whom appeals can be made only on a religious basis. They are a proud nation.

So why has the Islamic Republic sustained itself for nearly 30 years? The regime's beginning gives us the biggest clue. At the outset, it was attacked by Iraq (with our tacit permission), allowing the mullahs to conflate Islamic identity with Persia-against-the-Arabs identity. With this element of power solidified, inertia alone could keep it power for some time. But there wasn't only inertia, was there? There were oil revenues in the billions! Dispensed through a suitable system of patronage, any regime could keep itself afloat on petrodollars.

Yet in recent years two things have happened: the regime's hold on both aspects of Persian identity faltered, and the world began to enter into Peak Oil times. Both props to the Islamic Republic are shaky. In that light, their recent behavior becomes far more predictable. As for our long term strategy toward them, I think Sullivan has it right again:

Our long-term strategy has to be: detach Persia from its fanatical religious leadership; wean ourselves off oil as much as possible; then reach out to Persia and Turkey as the two great Islamic civilizations that can control the unruly expanse between them.

Now how do we do that?

Digging Out

The total snowfall at the apartment was, by our best guess, between 30 and 36 inches. The 24-hour snowfall record for the Burlington area was approached by this last storm, and according to the various services, there has not been a single February storm this powerful since the 1880s.

This morning I dug us out as far as the main walkway - a distance of about 10 feet from the apartment - and created enormous snowbanks. We still haven't made it to our cars yet, but most everything is cancelled or postponed, so there's no hurry. We hope to give you pictures of the aftermath throughout the day.

It's actually quite nice to get outside first thing, before breakfast, and attack the snow. There's nothing to get the blood pumping like dense snow. And I think we're the first apartment to have created a path to the walkway! While I was doing this, Boudicca was making a fine country-style breakfast: bacon, homefries, and she even boiled up some hot chocolate. What a fine day off!

Valentine's Day Blizzard

Hello everybody! As you've doubtless guessed from my comments throughout the day, I did indeed have a snow day. As a matter of fact, the school has already called me and notified me I get tomorrow off, too.

The total snowfall is expected to vary throughout the region, but our area will probably end up with about three feet of fresh new powder. Posted to the right is a picture of downtown Burlington early this afternoon.

Snow! (Hey Oh)

If all goes well, tomorrow could be my first Snow Day as a teacher rather than a student. What should I do? My first priority will be sleep until a decent hour. From there, who knows?

Away from Reagan?

George Will challenges conservatives to move beyond the legacy of Reagan and return to a more realistic - some would say gloomier - conception of humanity and politics. Money quote:

"An unmentionable irony," writes Diggins, is that big-government conservatism is an inevitable result of Reaganism. "Under Reagan, Americans could live off government and hate it at the same time. Americans blamed government for their dependence upon it." Unless people have a bad conscience about demanding big government -- a dispenser of unending entitlements -- they will get ever larger government. But how can people have a bad conscience after being told (in Reagan's First Inaugural) that they are all heroes? And after being assured that all their desires, which inevitably include desires for government-supplied entitlements, are good?

I've always appreciated George Will's sensibility. In the past few years, he has become an invaluable voice for reasonable conservatism, unmixed with the wild-eyed fantasies of the neo-con or theo-con contingents. Too bad he's in the minority.

Yay!

Finally, cutting-edge provocateur Tony Bennett is accepted by the mainstream!

I'm scared

Here's why.

Some Casus for your Belli

Is Iran arming Shi'a militias? The U.S. Military says they are. Great.

Unfunded Mandates, AGAIN

President Bush - who has "worst president ever" in his sights and may shoot for "most incompetent elected official ever" if he has time - has come out with yet another bad idea. Following hard on his post-election conversion to balanced budgets, Bush has proposed to make cuts in Medicaid and Medicare.

I know you're asking why I would be against this. I've made it pretty clear I think out-of-control entitlement spending is one of the country's largest fiscal problems, and these proposals would reduce some of that spending. Have six years of conservatism betrayed given me a pathological and irrational hatred of Bush?

No. What's actually going on here, as you may have guessed, is window dressing. First of all, the cuts total a mere $23 billion over the next five years, a drop in the multi-trillion-dollar bucket of entitlement spending. Nothing proposed here reforms the overall product or the health-care industry.

Secondly, some of the proposals - if passed - will make it even harder to educate America's schoolchildren:

School districts get reimbursed for arranging speech and physical therapy for Medicaid-eligible students. For example, when a student with autism gets speech therapy, the school can seek reimbursement for scheduling the therapy, confirming it gets done and transporting the student to the therapist, said Mary Kusler of the American Association of School Administrators.

The president's regulatory proposal would eliminate Medicaid reimbursement for those services, she said. The administration estimates the savings at $3.6 billion over five years.

Kusler said students would still get the therapy needed to help them learn — schools have no choice in the matter. However, they may have to cut back other programs to offset the loss of federal funding.

"This would transfer the burden onto local school districts and local taxpayers," Kusler said.

This is what is known as an "unfunded mandate," whereby the federal (or a state) government mandates something but refuses to pay for it. Sadly, this is no rare thing in the case of education: the feds passed expansive Special Education laws decades ago, but even now don't fund more than 15-20 percent of the total cost. Since the local districts will still have to pay for these special services, they will be faced with two choices: cut other programs that are not mandated, or increase the local tax burden just to keep the same level of education. Wonderful.

Don't Date This Girl

I can't tell if this is a parody or real, but either way, it's sad:

I don't see how people who don't agree politically can date. This became clear last summer when Israel killed 16 children in Qana, the U.S. refused to call for a cease-fire, and the boyfriend acted as if these were war games where Israel had a right to defend itself. So every time Israel did something abominable I'd increasingly begin to hold him personally responsible.

It must have been difficult to date me. My apologies. But whatever. Politics take precedence over penis. (Know this, future ex-boyfriends of mine.)

Dating me, and all of the ideology that comes with the territory, was supposed to enlighten him, but I think it might have had the opposite effect. At times I thought he was coming around, but he'd go do stuff like hang the Israeli flag - and over his bed of all places.

Oh, and it gets better:

Still, until that day, I wave the Palestinian flag in solidarity. And will even let it fly over my bed. Know this, future ex-boyfriends of mine.

Hillary and War

Her vote for it wasn't actually a vote for it. Great.

A Comparison of 3 Deaths

Molly Ivins. Pinochet. Anna Nicole Smith.

Three very different people, all recently deceased. I mention them to raise the question, Why and how do we view and mourn different people in different ways? I link the names to the appropriate MeFi threads to give a comparison.

I'm about as anti-death-penalty as you can get, but I didn't give a damn about Pinochet's death. In fact, I toasted to it. Molly Ivins was extremely influential to me since about age twelve, and just today I received a package from my mother of the Houston Chronicle's obituary of her. I never cared about Anna Nicole one way or another, aside from seeing her as a self-indulgent walking punchline, but I still feel a sense of loss at her passing. And now I'm curious as to why, exactly.

Is human respect something we earn? Is it something we're born with intrinsically, but lose if we've done enough to lose it? Do some people simply fall into the public consciousness as being undeserving of life? Do we instinctively mourn the passing of those we feel are "too young"? Or do we pass judgment on "celebrities" post-mortem?

I want your opinions.

Peak Oil

... has come to Mexico.

Congress and War

Let's play name that quote! Who said the following and when:

Dates certain, Mr. President, are not the criteria here. What is the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal from [name of country]. And if we do not do that and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured because we stay too long--longer than necessary--then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home quickly and safely as possible. . . . [emphasis mine]

I'll give you a hint. This and many other fascinating views on the power of the Executive Branch in wartime can be found here. Have fun!

God

I'm completely enthralled by the Harris-Sullivan theological debate. What do you think about it? More interestingly, what do you think about God? I want to hear from atheists and true believers, and I want people to defend their positions. Let's talk big!

Super Bowl XLI

Before we start, I'd like to be on the record as picking the Chicago Bears. That is all.

Update: What a sloppy game that was! And now we get to hear about Peyton Manning's divine qualities until the next Manning brother wins the Big One. Yippee.

While I've got you here, what did everyone think of the game? Of the ads? Any standouts on either count?

New Hampshire and Civil Unions

New Hampshire - however coincidentally - is following my lead.

If you recall, nearly a year ago, I offered the following measure for debate:

The state should have nothing to do with marriage whatsoever beyond the simple recognition of the creation of a partnership. The actual ceremony and 'significance' of the marriage to the individuals are private matters, really; all the government cares about is whether they're getting joint or separate tax returns and how much of the estate they get. On that basis, same-sex marriage between consenting adults (at whatever age the state defines that) is as equally valid as marriage between two heterosexual consenting adults.

Imagine my pleasure when I saw this article in the Union Leader today! State Senator Bob Clegg (R-Hudson), former Senate Majority Leader and strong conservative, has proposed legislation that would, among other things, do the following:

Under his bill, two adults could go to a Justice of the Peace and affirm their decision to enter into a contract. The contract would be filed with the Secretary of State as are marriage licenses. Dissolving the unions would be similar to a divorce with the parties responsible financially for dependent children.

At first glance, this bill seems to be precisely what I've been advocating for, doesn't it? Let's hope it's the real deal and let's hope it passes. What makes me even more optimistic about the bill's chances are these three crucial facts:

1. The bill was offered by a conservative Republican. There will be no talk - hopefully - of how this is a Loony-Left conspiracy to overthrow heterosexuality.
   
2. The bill was not forced upon us by an overly assertive judiciary. This has served as the death knell for similiar proposals in many states.
   
3. This is New Hampshire! Live Free or Die!

For those of you who live, work, and vote in New Hampshire, I urge you to read over the proposed legislation, and - if it does indeed hold water - offer it your support. Let's show the country that New Hampshire, of our own free will and without judicial mandates, knows how to do the right thing.

Update: Welcome to all our new readers linked by Andrew Sullivan! Please feel free to explore our site (for those of you linked to this post specifically, our home page is here) and join in our discussions. If you like what you see, help us grow by spreading the word about us. Thanks!

Encouraging

I'm encouraged that people are starting to find the time to post and comment again! Please, if you want to keep the blog alive, tell your friends about it. Get them to put up comments. Let's get some momentum.

The Commons

I found an interesting new blog the other day - we're always looking for those, aren't we? - in the form of On The Commons. Its main focus is, you guessed it, preserving and enhancing the public aspect of our lives.

For an introductory post, I direct you to this one, about how reinvigorating the public sphere need not be a strictly 'liberal' or 'conservative' goal. Money quote:

For the past decade, it has been a truism in Washington, D.C., that Congress is so ideologically divided that little of any significance can be accomplished. Yet there are new and encouraging signs that the idea of the commons, at least in terms of its expression in the community wealth/asset building field, can win bipartisan political support and help build a new community stability coalition across the ideological spectrum.

The article also mentions public transit, so you know I'm hooked. Read it all.

RE: The Innocents Shall Suffer...BIG TIME!

I'm sure most of us have heard by now that the city of Boston is well protected from the Quad-Laser of Ignignokt and Err. For those who enjoy keeping their brain cells unscrambled, Ignignokt and Err are two recurring characters on the cult cartoon series Aqua Teen Hunger Force airing on Cartoon Network, a show, which if watched for more than a hour straight, can literally kill you by reverting your brain to such a state of pre-conscious associative fugue that your autnomonic body functions shut themselves down one by one. For those interested in seeing what these objects actually look like, click here for an unlit example and here for a lit example . Needless to say, the best part about reading some of these articles, especially the ones posted in the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, etc, is reading how journalists are trying to describe a TV show that stars a giant milkshake, carton of freedom fries, and a wad of inedible meat that loves dancing.

In any event, Boston transportation was shut down for an hour yesterday starting at 8am, as these displays were discovered attached to the bottom of bridges, suspended from lightpoles, and several other hard to reach places. The Bomb Squad was dispatched to remove these objects, and in one instance, blow the living shit out of it. Many Bostonites are understandably pissed. Their mayor and governor are especially pissed because apparently it cost the taxpayers about USD500,000.00 to remove these objects alone, and they are threatening to fine Turner Broadcasting Network, the owner of Cartoon Network, for carrying out an "irresponsible" and "ill-conceived" stunt with these "hoax devices". On the other hand, similiar devices have been found in 9 other cities such as Chicago and New York, and there was nary a peep from the other Police Departments of those other cities. Furthermore, these devices were put up nearly two weeks ago, and they were documented on Cartoon Network's own site, and videos of their construction and placement were posted on YouTube.

So, my question to you is: has this been a colossal over-reaction by the Boston PD? Or is TBS/Cartoon Network and their guerilla marketing firm to blame for the fiasco, since they should know better than to stick undisclosed packages to public infrastructure? Or, is no one really to blame for this, since this was just a serendipitous intersection of lack of fore-thought plus trigger finger happy response? What's scarier, that Boston called down the thunder to deal with these lite-bright displays, albeit 2 weeks late, or that none of the other cities were even aware that these things existed attached to their own bridges and tunnels?

Royalism

An excellent reason to vote against Hillary.