Dirac Angestun Gesept

Another $12 million for ceiling repairs? Hey, it’s only money.

“A spokesman for Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff said the company stands behind its work.”

Of course they do! They just don’t want to stand under it.

In an ABC news commentary, he points out something that is easily mathematically demonstrable[1], but isn’t necessarily noticed by the general public: the difference between the mean and the median.

The Republican spin machine has been carefully misusing the mean to say that the economy is improving, because (using 2004’s numbers) mean income is up; however, the median is down. The increase in incomes at the high end brought the mean up, but that’s only because the richest 1% had their incomes grow by almost 17%.

Even within that small group, there’s a lot of inequality. Half of the increase in income going to the top 1% of households went to the top 0.1%….

This is why the Republicans will only raise the minimum wage if they can cut the estate tax.

[1] You live in a town of 10 people. Last year: eight of you had incomes of $20K, one made $10K, and the tenth person wound up with $90K. The mean income was $26K, but the median was $20K.

This year: the $10K person lost his job and made $5K at a part-time job, six of the eight lost hours at their jobs and made $15K each, two folks managed to keep their salaries where they were at $20K, and Thurston Gateston IV over there made $150K. Mean (per capita) income? $28.5K! Hey, that’s a huge increase, over 42% higher than last year! Ignore the fact that the median dropped from $20K to $15K, and the economy looks great. (If you’re Thurston, it is; his income increased by 67%.)

Senator Mike Enzi, R-WY, in 2000:

Among the handful of principles that are fundamental to any true protection for health care consumers, probably the most important is allowing states to continue in their role as the primary regulator of health insurance. This is a principle which has been recognized–and respected–for more than 50 years. In 1945, Congress passed the McCarran-Ferguson Act, a clear acknowledgment by the federal government that states are indeed the most appropriate regulators of health insurance. It was acknowledged that states are better able to understand their consumers’ needs and concerns. It was determined that states are more responsive, more effective enforcers of consumer protections. […] Wyoming has its own unique set of health care needs and concerns. Every state does. For example, despite our elevation, we don’t need the mandate regarding skin cancer that Florida has on the books. My favorite illustration of just how crazy a nationalized system of health care mandates would be comes from my own time in the Wyoming legislature.

Senator Mike Enzi, R-WY, in 2006, pushing a bill that would pre-empt state regulations on health insurance:

the hodgepodge of varying state mandates makes it difficult for a carrier or trade association to offer coverage on a multi-state basis

What’s the difference? Well, in 2000, he was against Federal regulation by way of a Patient Bill of Rights; in 2006, he’s against state regulations that might require insurers to cover people, or conditions, they’d rather not. (Like, say, mammograms; don’t worry, guys, your “magic” pills will still be covered, I’m sure.)

Philosophical consistency? Well, yes, it’s philosophically consistent. It’s just that the philosophy isn’t “state’s rights”, but rather “loosen regulation on my big campaign contributors.” (2006 election cycle? $113K+ from the insurance industry.)

(Original pointer to S.1955 via Universal Hub; Enzi’s 2000 statement found with a quick Google search.)

Michael Jay Tucker:

Is it just me, or . . . Does it seem like the Administration is more interested in protecting the President from having to talk to one, middle-aged, middle class, unarmed woman who happens to be the mother of a dead boy . . . than in protecting American boys and girls from snipers, chemical weapons, and roadside bombs?

(via)

Remember the “Harry and Louise” ads that helped kill health-care reform?

Why not bring the actors back for some more ads? They must be getting near retirement age, so a series of ads about how the Republicans want to gut Social Security and hand the money to their business cronies to manage would be perfect!

Michael Tomasky had a similar idea but I think bringing the original actors back is more likely to have the needed impact.

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt……If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

– Thomas Jefferson, from a letter he sent in 1798 after the passage of the Sedition Act

(via BarlowFriendz)

EDIT: full letter here. Other useful quotes:

This is not new. It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order, and those who have once got an ascendency and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantages. But our present situation is not a natural one.

Does this sound familiar?

Be this as it may, in every free & deliberating society there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties & violent dissensions & discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. Perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch & delate to the people the proceedings of the other. But if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no federal government can ever exist.

What he said.

(Ironically, he was complaining about “the present rule of Massachusets & Connecticut” [sic].)

Went to the polling place over lunch. No line, though it wasn’t empty either.

The scantron count was up to 465.

No bake sales, only one campaign sign holder, and I didn’t even get a sticker. Very low key.

In a story on the whole “T shirts at the opponent’s rallies” issue, ABC News leads with the misleading

Behind the scenes of one of the most contentious presidential races in recent memory, both Democrats and Republicans have organized what can only be called the T-shirt defense squads.

It is an all-out effort to spot T-shirts supporting the other candidate and block them from view, or in some cases to actually have the T-shirt-wearing offenders ejected or arrested.

The misleading part? Only one campaign tried to eject or arrest anyone, and it wasn’t Kerry’s.

And as they approached the gates of the stadium, Lance “Chip” Borman, a Bush campaign worker and attorney who worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, directed them toward the Brevard County sheriff’s deputies waiting at the exit.

“Hey folks, it’s a private event,” he said. “Can you find your way to the nearest exit? Maybe some law enforcement can help?”

Another team got in before showing the shirts, but Borman ordered them out as well.

He said the rally of some 18,000 people was a “private event,” and it made no difference that producers Christine Romo and Jessica Wang had tickets and remained silent and respectful.

The Kerry team’s response was a bit different:

A Kerry staffer at an Oct. 24 Kerry rally in Boca Raton, Fla., told Bush-Cheney T-shirt wearers that the campaign held a permit to rent the site and could remove anyone who made a disturbance.

“We hold the right to remove you, but other than that, enjoy and hopefully at the end of the event you’ll want to wear a Kerry T-shirt,” he said.

I have a simple question for Bush: how can you claim to be the only one who will stand up to terrorists, when you can’t even stand up to opposing views on T shirts?

Enjoy The Draft goes for a Daily Show-esque “truth through humor” take on the possibility of a resumption of the draft. Funny and sobering at the same time.

Peter Canellos compares Bush’s re-election campaign to Truman’s in today’s Boston Globe.

He leaves out the biggest difference between the two men, though; Truman is famous for “The Buck Stops Here“.