perfidy

In a belated ceremony, the October 2003 Perfidy Prize in Inadvertant or Vertant Asshattery goes to the clearly deserving Food and Drug Administration for this genius move:

FDA considers forcing restaurants to provide nutrition information.

The state's job is not to save people from themselves. And yet here we are discussing seriously whether every diner, sandwich cart, and restaurant in the country should tot up fat, calories, and vitamin content for their offerings. And how, exactly, will this work for places who change the menu every day? And what if a restaurant runs out of the salmon special mid-shift and has to toss together a substitute? Will they be fined for serving Undocumented Food?

How long until no small business can survive under the weight of the American Nanny-Regulatory State? "Welcome to America. Here's your helmet and leash. Would you like your nose wiped?"

Jesus Horatio Christ. I need a cookie.

Standard but faltering Republican rhetoric on the drug issue is twofold: First, safety is compromised by using those nasty Canadian pharmacies; everybody knows millions of people die every year in Canada from taking bad drugs (right). Second, it's really about the research dollars; the rest of the world is mooching off of the US.

I heard an interview this morning on NPR with the Republican governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty. His plan is a state-sponsored mail-order program that will import drugs from Canada. Citizens (I refuse to call them consumers) order their drugs from a web site maintained by the state, which selects the Canadian pharmacies that are eligible to participate. The state is then able to maintain a significant amount of control over the quality of the pipeline.

Much of the free-for-all that exists in the American drug distribution system simply does not exist in Canada. If you've been following the Washington Post article on the subject, you realize by now that the American drug system is full of tiny suppliers who keep medicines in the back of their Honda Civics, and sell them to whoever will ask. The "chain of custody" for medications is something that the pharmacy distribution system has been fighting for years. Why? They want to preserve their ability to get gray-market drugs, and enhance their bottom lines.

Tamoxifen is one of the most widely prescribe drugs for treating breast cancer. In Germany, in that country's national health care system, the drug costs around $60 US for a month's supply. In Canada, a month's supply costs about $50 US. Here in America, that exact same drug costs about $350 for a month's supply. How many thousands of women are dead because they could not get the medicine? A very large number. And as the number of uninsured increases, the number of deaths increases.

But why does this happen? How can the drug cost seven times as much here as it does elsewhere? The reason is that there is no global cost-benefit analysis within the American system.

If a drug, like Tamoxifen, is the best course of action for a given health situation, the doctor must prescribe it. The cost is simply not a part of the equation. If the doctor doesn't prescribe it, he/she will be sued. The insurance company must pay the bill; if they don't pay, there can be severe consequences. What we effectively do is prevent any form of cost-monitoring, in the system. The drug companies love this, and know this...and they know that they are able to raise their prices almost at will; insurance companies will be forced to pay, because doctors are forced to prescribe. Perhaps it is incorrect to say that doctors are forced to prescribe; they are prescribing what they believe to be the best available medication.

In Canada, Germany, and other National Health Care systems, the system works a little differently. In these systems there is global cost monitoring. What the system does, in effect, is examine the cost-benefit ratio of a medication like Tamoxifen. At $350 for a month's supply, there is a measurable benefit to the administration of the drug. The health care system is going to look at what else it could have done with that much money. If it can gain better care elsewhere (save more lives, increase quality of life) with the same money, that's what it's going to do. In effect, the health care system itself becomes the consumer, allocating scarce resources where it can find the most benefit.

The price of Tamoxifen in Canada is $50 because that is the benefit it provides to the health system. It is not about price controls; the Canadian health care system will not pay more than $50, because at that point, the money is better spent elsewhere. The German health care system has set this boundary at $60.

I submit that the American health care system needs this kind of global control; or, at least, it can become statistically aware of the efficacy of the drugs it uses, and construct an index of the cost-benefit of medications. The lack of caps on spiralling medical costs in the current American system is due to the lack of global cost-benefit analysis.

The President is attending a fundraising event for Haley Barbour, who's running in Mississippi. Barbour, you will recall, was recently photographed smiling and enjoying himself at a CCC event. CCC is one of the more openly racist/freako organizations out there today; any google search will bring you information leaning in that direction. You will also recall that not so very long ago our good friend, the former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, was thoroughly raked over the coals for his association with the group.

Bush is "accepting" Barbour's explanation that "he didn't know who the group was", when he attended the event.

Let's summarize: The Republican President is accepting as an explanation that the Republican National Chairman was not aware of the political firestorm that erupted around the Republican Senate Majority Leader on racism issues; that he (the RNC chairman) didn't keep track of the "details".

The President knows full well that Haley Barbour knew exactly who he was meeting with.

Earth To Barbour: "Hey, Haley, Trent Lott is taking heat for being associated with the Coalition of Concerned Citizens. They're freaky and racist."

Barbour: "I have no idea who that political action group in Mississippi is. OK, we'll deal with it."

Earth to Barbour: "Why are you hanging out with the CCC? Didn't we cover this already?"

Barbour: "Who? I have no idea who you're talking about. But I can assure you that my intentions are honorable."

Earth to Barbour: "Stop doing fundraising events with the CCC and pandering to them to get their votes. It looks really bad."

Barbour: "Who? I have this funny blank spot in my mind. There's something that I just can't quite remember."

Bush: "I am the goddamn President, and if Haley says he can't remember, then he can't remember, alright? Haley won't be doing anything with the CCC any more."

Barbour: "Who? Everybody keeps talking about this like I should know who this racist group of my old friends is."

Bush: "Shut up, Haley. Didn't I give you and Allbaugh a totally cushy way to make millions funneling Iraq contracts? Aren't you supposed to be quietly making a killing? Stop making me look bad with this CCC business."

Barbour: "Who?"

In the comments to a post by Ross below, I noted that the level of discourse around here is rising sharply with the addition of him and GeekLethal to our numbers. I am delighted that is the case.

On the topic of discourse, I came across a reminder by Daniel Drezner today of this oxblog post by Josh Chafetz about the verbal petards launched between left and right. Chafetz asks for a little civility, please, when talking across the aisle. His particular instance is taken from Matthew Yglesias' comments, in which his readers opine that there is no such thing as an intelligent conservative.

Oh, please. I know this kind of thing is common as dirt, and that it happens on both sides of the debate (Instapundit, Li'l Green Footballs, I'm talking to you), but just because everyone does it doesn't make it any less crass or lazy. Is it really such a stretch to assume that people who disagree with you have actually thought through what they believe? To assume otherwise is disingenous, yet it happens all the time, and it makes me sad and tired.

What brings this on? Yesterday, Instapundit linked to a techcentralstation column about the comic strip "Day by Day", noting that "it's starting to get the attention it deserves."

The main point of the TCS article is that Day by Day is an exemplar of the breakdown of the "political left's near monopoly on the dissemination of information." The strip features a 24-year-old black conservative who is "a one man wrecking crew when confronted with liberal shibboleths...[is] highly articulate, radiates droll coolness, but has thoroughly rejected hip-hop culture, and his usual foil, " Jan, who is Damon's age, but a young white leftist, believing every platitude generated by the DNC: that only the left can solve environmental issues; that the NAACP is the only solution to racial issues (in the strip's second comic, where Jan met Damon, she greeted him by saying "Power to the people!" Damon quipped that he thought she was discussing California utilities); that liberating Iraq was bad; capitalism is bad; meat is murder; free trade is bad, etc. Like much of the current far left, she's very much standing athwart history, yelling stop."

I read Day by Day from time to time, and agree it's pretty good. But part of author Chris Muir's stock-in-trade is pandering to its ostensibly conservative-leaning audience using by one of the favorite tropes of the new conservative movement: we're SMARTER than they are.

As I mentioned before, all sides in the debate engage in such ankelbitery. But really. Casting a 24-year-old "meat is murder" protectionist nonintrospective liberal as the foil is a pat and easy move for Muir to make. Wow! Watch the smart guy demolish the naive liberal! Bang! Smash! ZIng! Oooh, the DNC better watch their ass, cuz Muir's on a tear!

I realize I'm asking a lot of a comic strip to achieve a finely nuanced dialogue about politics, but this happens too often, and this time I have some free time to write about it.

Writers on the left, especially issue-driven radicals, tend to lean toward an earnest, sometimes smug, wild-eyed evangelism: "don't you get it? We're all doomed! Are you stupid, or just evil??" kind of thing. Lesser writers on the left, like Atrios' commentors, Maureen Dowd, and the folks at NPR do this all the time.

The right's preferred stance is the smug, weary, irritable condescention plied so well by Jonah Goldberg, the Instapundit, and in a debased form Billy O'Reilly: "Jesus, they're all beyond hope. Good thing we can count to twenty without using our feet." Each trope is totally unconstructive and incredibly wearying.

The problem is that the Left, such as it exists today, only gets big press when evil idiot fucks like ANSWER hold a rally calling for a US military defeat and nobody takes them to task for it. I mean, come on! I read a story last week about the most recent anti-war rally in DC, and most of the people there either didn't know or didn't care too much what ANSWER's platform was. In that regard, the left is guilty of a horrible lack of self-scrutiny, but the foolishness of picketers should not reflect poorly on the greater mass of left-leaning people.

(Naturally, others would counter that the press in general is too liberal, but I don't give a crap what others think about this. I see a lot of bias both ways.)

I'm very glad that my cobloggers are intelligent, reasonable people who realize that "reasonable people may differ." As the left/right political spectrum breaks down, leaving evil idiot fucks like A.N.S.W.E.R. in charge on the left and further enboldening the right to condemn all and sundry as Stalinist dupes, this becomes ever more important.

I don't blog about politics and war much anymore because keeping up with the stories makes me sad and tired, and I'm not in blogging to be sad and tired. Buckethead, Windy City Mike and I started this thing way back in March to give ourselves a sandbox to play in. Although I'm not taking my ball and going home-- oh, no, no!-- I do expect to not blog so much about the "partisan" side of "partisan" politics for a while. It's a clusterfark, and, Jesus, Jim! I'm a musician, not a pundit!

According to Bill Moyers, it may be at hand. I haven't seen much lately that leads me to believe otherwise. There are still a few signs of life out there, where ethics haven't been bent and folded enough times to disappear entirely...It's a sobering interview.

Everything involving television is for sale. I wonder how long even NPR can last; its ad content has slowly been creeping upwards too.

It occurs to me that I have heard entirely too many times that we "shouldn't be spending public money on NPR". Here's the thing, for those of you on the right. There are things that you think government should spend money, and there are things that I think government should spend money on. On your side, we've got big guns and a military, invasions of other countries, huge jails for mostly black people who can't afford Rush Limbaugh's lawyers, corporate welfare, tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, and government funding of religions. I think it's worth noting that we're actually spending money on all that stuff.

On my side there's an R+D budget, health care, serious funding for educational institutions, we keep our progressive taxation system progressive, taxes can certainly go higher, and we keep important programs like NPR and NASA and yes, even the NEA.

Here's the thing: The right's pet expenditures are an order of magnitude higher than the left's. The old canard about "free-spending liberals" just doesn't hold water any more. We all know exactly who the free spenders are now. So the next time you want to knock off the NEA, maybe I get to pick one out of your list.

You too can play amusing budget games! Try this budget simulator. I pretty much balanced the budget on the first try. It's not even hard to do. You just have to have your priorities straight...and get rid of the stupid tax cut that got us into this deficit mess in the first place. Plus nuke agricultural subsidies. I can't for the life of me figure out why a single mom struggling to make ends meet in the inner city should be forced to give part of her income to Archer Daniels Midland.

Old budget was $3274.734 billion
($2292.807 billion in spending, $981.927 billion in tax expenditures and cuts).

New budget is $2914.09 billion

($2253.16 billion in spending, $660.93 billion in tax expenditures and cuts).

You have cut the deficit by $360.64 billion.

Your new deficit is $-3.63 billion.

A little fodder:

• Private Health Care Through Your Employer.  There's nuthin' beddah.  God intended it to be this way.  Why, the personal care of unsurpassed excellence we all get is all that stands between us and hell.
• Guns are Great.  If I can't shoot it, I can't control it.
• American Democracy Is The Only Real Democracy.  You can just shut the hell up if you think anything else!
• The Founding Fathers BLAH BLah Blah blah blah.  They knew everything.  They even know about the magazines in the back of your closet, they invented light bulbs and boxed lunches, and they don't approve of what we're doing.  No sir they don't.  Follow the recipe.
• Rich People Are Because They Are Just Plain Better People.  Luck, hereditary factors, hundreds of years of bia and bullshit, have nothing to do with it.  Please ignore the current round of cheatin' and lyin' on Wall Street.  Nothing to see here.  These are not the crooks you are looking for.  Move along.
• Market Uber Alles!  All human function can be controlled by markets.  All human functions must be controlled by markets.  If all human bodily functions were controlled by markets, our toilets would be 3.7% more efficient.  This would lead to world peace. 

Ah.  I feel so much better!  Why do I still like it here so much?  I don't know!  Maybe it's the women.  Maybe it's the fact that with a little bending and twisting, this country could be so truly excellent.  I have a pipe wrench around here somewhere.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia has gigantic stones. Wheelbarrow-necessitating gonads. Much as I am diametrically his opposite on most matters, I have to admit a grudging respect for his decisions, at least until he starts talking out his ass and using the Constitution to legitimize his own hang-ups.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ridiculed his court's recent ruling legalizing gay sex, telling an audience of conservative activists Thursday that the ruling ignores the Constitution in favor of a modern, liberal sensibility.

The ruling, Scalia said, "held to be a constitutional right what had been a criminal offense at the time of the founding and for nearly 200 years thereafter."

Scalia adopted a mocking tone to read from the court's June ruling that struck down state antisodomy laws in Texas and elsewhere.

Also a criminal offense at the time of the founding, and for nearly 100 years thereafter: helping slaves to escape.

Where Scalia loses me is when he uses his strict-constructionist credentials to take stands on issues he finds personally morally objectionable. More than just intellectually dishonest, it's a cheap trick by a person in a position of great reponsibility.

Or maybe I'm just a godless liberal anti-American communist. Whatever.

"An unabashedly Christian message is not by definition anti-semitic"

Fucking A. I wish more people in public positions would take that, and related sentiments, to heart.

My own religious background was in dour Methodism, and it never really took. As a teen, I bounced around from Methodist to Episcopal to Lutheran to Congregational churches, and never really found much that resonated with me.

What I mainly took away from Christianity when I left (did I leave? I was confirmed a Methodist, but confirmation seemed to be just something you "do" rather than something that "changes you," which runs counter to the whole idea of confirmation in the first place. I mean, I got confirmed, but I never had that inner-light experience that Wesleyans seem to hold as the hallmark of the saved person. Saved? Maybe by a technicality, but don't ask me to accept Jesus as my saviour, because I tried that once and it felt like I was faking it. Better to be an honestly sinful person than a falsely pious one.)

Whew - digression. What I took away from Christianity when I walked away was this understanding of the basic lesson that Jesus taught: that it's good to be nice to people and let them live their lives and you yours. Even though the spiritual aspects of Christianity are lost on me, the ethical and moral lessons went deep. Which is why it burns me up when people use religion as a test or (loaded word) crusade. Since Christianity is inherently an evangelical religion, you’re bound to have some measure of urgent fervor for converting nonbelievers, since their eternal happiness in some measure your responsibility. But the flip side of that is the message of tolerance and goodwill that Jesus preached. 

This actually came up in a post on Blogmother Kathy Kinsley's site. Kathy excerpts an article from the Observer which compares the Pledge of Allegiance to a test oath, which, as the article observes, was one of the MacGuffins behind the founding of the USA in the first place.

Let me remind those who have forgotten: There is a "pro-God," pro-American argument against putting God in the Pledge, against the worship of a graven image (the flag) that the Pledge requires. If I'm going to pledge allegiance to anything - under God or Vishnu or Whomever - it would be to the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is more worthy of true Americans' allegiance than a piece of red, white and blue fabric.

Perhaps it's the sheer historical inattention - if not ignorance - of so many of the supporters of the Pledge, and the all-important "under God" insertion, that gets on my nerves. Could they be unaware of the unsavory history of the "test oath"? I'm sure I don't need to explain test oaths to Observer readers, but for those who skipped that day in class, test oaths were the essential reason that religious and other dissidents fled England to found America. Test oaths were the means by which the Established Church in England enforced its repressive regime: Those who refused to mouth oaths required by the Established Church were often imprisoned, tortured and executed, leading many religious dissidents to leave for America.

Test oaths were one key reason the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the making of laws respecting the establishment of religion. That's what they were talking about. An enforced Pledge of Allegiance - especially the Pledge of Allegiance with the "under God" clause - is nothing but a test oath. It is a violation of everything American democracy is about. If you want to be - was this Mencken's phrase? - a "God botherer," go ahead, wander the halls of the schools, the streets and sidewalks affirming that we are "one nation under God." Just don't force everyone to take a test oath and worship a graven image made out of cloth. Or you can go reside in a nation founded upon test oaths and the worship of graven images. Look them up under "theocracies." You'll be happier there.

This also pertains to my post earlier this week about General Boykin, the chap at the Pentagon who declared Muslims as idolaters. By the way, since when was God an idol? From a Christian perspective, Muslims may well be idolaters, but last time I checked all three People of the Book (Christian, Jew, Muslim) worshiped the same dude.

The Washington Post is running an op-ed piece today taking the President to task for quietly condemning the shit-headed remarks of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, but not doing the same for the equally shit-headed remarks uttered by one of his own generals.

Look. One of the things that makes this country great is that people of all stripes, creeds, beliefs, and systems can rise to positions of prominence. The degree of freedom any one person can enjoy, given a little luck and circumstance, is staggering. Members of the US military are allowed to have any inner belief they want. (Unless they're queers. Then they by God don't want 'em.) But there's a point when this system bites you in the ass, like last week when an undersecretary of Intelligence, William Boykin, declared that our God is bigger than their God, and framed the war on terror as a Christian crusade against the devil. (Previously, Boykin sponsored a huge revival at a military base using Federal funds, so this kind of thing is not really new to him.)

There's two layers on which to respond to the situation: the personal and professional. The first layer amounts to"whatever gets you through your day, dude." I happen to think that Gen. Boykin's comments are foolish, divisive, and profoundly un-Christian. But, they're his sincerely held beliefs and more power to'im for it.

But the professional level is the more important one here. The President has spent two years off-and-on trying to convince the Muslim world at large that the United States' campaign against terrorism, often meaning radical Islamic terrorism, is NOT a "crusade" against Islam in general. Any comment from American officials that could possibly be played for anti-Islamic gain is reproduced, amplified, and chewed over endlessly in the Islamic press around the world.

In light of this, it is in the interest of the Federal Government to make sure that everyone in a position of responsibility in the War on Terrorism-- including the For-God's-Sake-Undersecretaries of Intelligence-- is on board with the general message. It's incredibly important that the US win the Sysiphean hearts-and-minds campaign. In fact, it's the one thing that can help ensure the longevity of the US' hegemony, which kind of makes it the most important thing. (Reasonable minds may differ, and although I feel hearts-and-minds is the biggest of the long-term goals, others may be more important over finite periods. So put that flaming email down, Poindexter.)

I'm all in favor of giving shit-heads a chance to succeed. It's the American way! But the President really ought to think twice about letting this guy stay in his post. It hurts the home team as much as letting Pedro pitch the 8th.

[wik] I know I'm right, because Eugene Volokh agrees with me! He also analyzes the legal what-ifs involved in firing Boykin, if that were to happen.

[alsø wik] Boykin has issued a statement apologizing. But check out CNN's list of what the Pentagon had him take out! Again Boykin's beliefs are totally his own bidness, but as Eugene V observes, there is tension between his beliefs and the mission he is part of.

Further contributing to what is adding up to be a fascinating session, the Supreme Court will hear an appeal of the COPA ("Children's Online Protection Act"), which has twice been struck down by the Third Circuit Court as unnecessarily vague and "constitutionally infirm." The Feds argue that the law is an important tool in fighing the War On Terror Paw-naw-gra-phy.

The usual suspects team up in the honorable defense of horrible things, arguing that the law as written bars adults from engaging in Constitutionally protected activities. Won't somebody please think of the children??

I've always wanted to write that headline!

The Supreme Court has denied a US Government appeal of last year's ruling that the government may not revoke the licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana as medicine to patients. This clears the way toward state laws legalizing the perscription of medical marijuana.

Naturally, the government is horribly incensed: "Solicitor General Theodore Olson of the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court and said the decision impaired the government's power 'to enforce the law in an area vital to the public health and safety.' He said the appeals court decision imposed "sweeping and unprecedented restrictions on the government's ability even to investigate possible violations of the law."

Or, possibly, the Supreme Court returned some autonomy to the states.

This is especially interesting because it was only two weeks ago that the Attorney General called for more uniform sentencing guidelines. I'm unwilling to call a wink a blink-- I think this is merely evidence of contrary trends in government, but it's an entertaining dichotomy nevertheless.

[moreover] I see that the Supremes will hear the Pledge of Allegiance case. Ballsy! I wonder which way the Court will go on this one? On one hand, I don't see the need for "Under God" in the Pledge, especially since it's a Cold War relic and not exactly an Exalted Artifact of Time Immemorial. On the other hand, I don't think it's that huge a deal. On the gripping hand, it would be helpful for the Supremes to clarify exactly what they're thinking as regards the separation of Church and State, in several long, elegant, and detailed opinions. Pithiness will be a plus.

[moreover, once over] Allow me to oversimplify. When kids want drugs, it's eeevil and must be stopped. When old people want drugs, Congress can't do enough.

[moreover, overdone] I see from the Volokhs via Howard Bashman that Scalia has recused himself from the Pledge of Allegiance decision. See Bashman's post for discussion of exactly what the courts have and have not agreed to decide.

Over at Bill Whittle's place, there's a new, short post up on the aftermath of the CA Recall Election. I had thought some of this, though not quite so well, when I trolled through the Democratic Underground forum after it became clear that the Terminator would now be the Governator. The Democratic Underground is exactly what it would be if it were designed by an evil genius hired by Karl Rove to discredit the left. Of course, this is exactly what Sovietologist Robert Conquest's second law predicts: "The behavior of an organization can best be predicted by assuming it to be controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."

Amazingly, no one who posts on DU seems to be aware of this.

Anyway, the best bit from Whittle's post:

I just heard on the radio from a Democratic state senator who said that "the people were unable to figure out who they were really angry at," that this was really a vote against George W Bush, only the people weren't smart enough to figure out how to go about it and blamed it on poor old Gray Davis. Yes, in their righteous fury and anger at the Republican President, the People of California elected - a Republican governor! That'll show him! 

But as I just learned from California Democratic Party members, we were too stupid to figure out who to be angry with. Yes, by all means - please continue to tell us how stupid we are. We'll love you with all our hearts! 

... DemocraticUnderground.com is awash in conspiracy theories, and spins on how this is 1) The most flagrant voter fraud since - um - the last election, which was itself only overshadowed once in all of history, that being the time right before; and 2) Really the best thing that could possibly happen, since now the Democratic Sweep of 2004 is assured.

And still these people wonder why, after insulting and demeaning the electorate, their poll numbers continue to go down? Shwartz---sorry, Governor Schwarzenegger and McClintock - two Republicans that essentially split the party ticket - together took home around 60% of Califreakingfornia! And instead of doing the smart thing - let alone the honorable thing - they keep hanging blame wherever they think it will stick. They lost because the machines were rigged. They lost because you voters are so stupid. They lost because of a backroom conspiracy. They lost because you're all racists. Or sheep. Or blinded by cheap glitter.

What an uplifting, inspiring philosophy! How can a simple citizen like me become a part of this great vision of leadership and hope?

This is the real, and very serious problem with the left. The contempt and derision for the electorate, the conspiracy theories, the Bush=Hitler, and all the other wacky shit desperately need to go far, far away and not come back. I sincerely hope that at some point it recovers from this madness, and we can have the relatively sane and mildly acrimonious political arena we once had.

Looking over the election results from the recent unpleasantness in California, I was reminded of a comment thread we had here a while back. In that discussion, we pondered the utility and viability of the Libertarian party.

I think that this result supports my argument:

Kevin Drum asks questions about Valerie Plame's husband, such as "what's his deal?" "Was he always anti-war?" "Was he qualified to go to Niger?"

Read. Doesn't sound like much of an unqualified lib'rul antiwar dove to me. At least not when he was in Niger. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Hmm.

Robert Prather of Insults Unpunished has an excellent post up about Clinton-hating and Bush-hating.

Word.

I also see, via Macaronies, that 43.6 million Americans don't have health insurance-- an increase of 2.4 million over last year. Though this is short of the 1998 high, this kind of sucks. The main cause is that employers are finding new and exciting ways to deny their workers health care (extending the part-time designation, or just flat out not having a health plan), and the secondary cause is rising unemployment.

Some, like my esteemed coblogger, see this as inherent in the system. I see this as a problem that bears addressing. Basic health care is so simple, and so important, [update: and so expensive!!] that the Good Old Liberal Try seems attractive to me in this case. What do we do? What DO we do? 
 

Yesterday was a day of music blogging, but since today I'm feeling vituperative, I'd like to comment on this.

Senate Republicans, bowing to what appears to be a Senate majority, said Tuesday that they had begun exploring a compromise that would require Iraq to repay at least part of the $20.3 billion in reconstruction aid the Bush administration wants to spend.

So lemme get this straight. We go in and blow hell out of their country. We find that the previous head of household left it a shithole. Said shithole isn't producing revenue fast enough to offset the cost of helping the residents of said shithole survive past age 20. Consequently, we ask the people living in said shithole, who would very much like to ascend to "hovel" or even "happy dwelling" status sooner rather than later, and who have been on the whole most accommodating to our ass-kickery, to come up with the money themselves sometime soon. The money they don't have.

Well ain't that a kick in the fucking head. Maybe the Senate should look into the possibilities of extracting a pound of flesh from each Iraqi citizen instead. Or perhaps traffick in their children. Either way is equally insulting as the actual proposal.

Twenty fucking billion. What is that? The cost of a hammer? A drop in the ocean? Thanks, Senate Democrats, for finding a new low! Thanks, Republicans, for sharing in the discovery!
 

It seems that Joe Wilson has something of an agenda. Wilson said:

"Neo-conservatives and religious conservatives have hijacked this administration, and I consider myself on a personal mission to destroy both."

So why was this guy accepting a secret mission from the Bush administration to go to Nigeria in the first place? A lot of people who were aghast at the idea of independent counsels a half decade ago suddenly seem enamored of them now.

And Bob Novak has written another piece, here, that pokes some more holes in the scandal in waiting. But, go ahead, investigate, we need to be sure. But this looks less and less like a story with legs to me.

via Drudge, this quote from Bob Novak, author of the article back in July:

"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.

"Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else.

"According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives."

This, to me at least, sounds less like Machiavellian scheming than what many people are making of it.

[Update] Dan is pretty sure it wasn't Rove. "There's still a lot of smoke at this point -- but I don't see a fire just yet."

Instapundit has a roundup which links the Drezner post I mentioned above. Insty makes the comment that, "the excessive gleefulness and point-scoring of the anti-Bush bloggers in general on this topic, only serves to make this matter look more political, and less serious, than it perhaps is. More and more, these guys remind me of the anti-Clinton fanatics of the 1990s. Which doesn't necessarily make them wrong, any more than the anti-Clinton fanatics were always wrong. It just makes them a lot less persuasive."

Also, I heard on (I believe, I was channel surfing) CNN that the CIA request to the Justice Department is not exactly an uncommon thing. Fifty or so of those go to DOJ every month, to check out possible revelation of classified information. Apparently, it is a relatively pro-forma inquiry process.

[Moreover] This whole thing doesn't make sense. If, as he seems to be, Novak is telling us that he was just providing background for his story on Wilson's efforts in Africa, what is the deal with the supposed hit job? This is the most ridiculous political hit I've ever heard of. Revealing that Wilson's wife works at the CIA, and thus used her influence to get him appointed by a Republican administration for this job? The fact that his wife may or may not have been outed does nothing to damage Wilson's credibility, or his conlusions - which everyone except the Brits seem to agree with. I would think that if someone wanted to do real damage, they would have released, you know, damaging information. It seems more like Wilson's a bit paranoid, though he is apparently backing off his accusations against Rove.

I don't know, but it doesn't seem terribly likely to me. Read this for more skepticism. See Ross, I was just early with my skepticism. Now I have people at my back. Including the one you linked in your earlier comment. I may have been slow to judge harshly, but many have been altogether too quick to assume guilt.

We'll have to wait and see.

[Update Update] Apparently, the WaPo has altered the wording of its story, downgrading "Top White House Officials" to "White House Officials" and the like.

Or something. Drudge has linked to an article by Clifford May in the National review online, which suggests that the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was not exactly, well, secret. If this is the case, then there was no "outing" of a CIA agent, and therefore no treason and no reason for getting our collective panties in a bunch.

Remember that the primary focus of this is still the uraniumgate pseudo-scandal, and that the British still insist that their intelligence was correct, and that Saddam was trying to buy Uranium somewhere in Africa. Also, Wilson, by his own admission, spent several days drinking mint tea and talking to people, and on the basis of this thorough investigation concluded that Saddam wasn't trying to get the fissionable materials. It sounds as if Wilson, who was a vocal opponent of the administration before his mission, was doing a decent job of discrediting himself before any of this happened, which makes you wonder why someone like Karl Rove would go to this effort to do it himself. If Karl Rove is the satanically brilliant Machiavel with his hand working the strings controlling marionette Bush, why would he be so stupid as to commit an easily discovered treasonous act? We have a problem with conflicting conspiracy modes.

Unless I hear a lot more evidence, or at least a significant amount of convincing evidence, this goes into my unlikely at best folder. It tastes a lot like the BUSH LIED!!! story we've been hearing so much of lately.