Fiat Lux

You know, I really wasn't sure how to vote on California's Proposition 72, but a NY Times article today really helped clarify my thinking on the process.

Here's a key point:

[Wal-Mart] says it spent about $1.3 billion of its $256 billion in revenue last year on employee health care to insure about 537,000 people, or about 45 percent of its work force. Wal-Mart says that 23 percent of its employees are not eligible for coverage, but that it covers 58 percent of those who are.

That compares with an insured rate of 96 percent of eligible full-time or part-time employees of Costco Wholesale, the discount retailer that is Wal-Mart's closest competitor nationwide. Costco employees - most of whom are not represented by a union - become eligible for health insurance after three months working full time, or six months part time.

I have my concerns about the possible negative imact on employers of forcing them to either offer health insurance tor pay into a state pool. The job market out here is still pretty tight and I would hate to see it get tighter. But if Costco can do it and still be profitable, then Wal-Mart's claims are obviously wrong. My "screw you, Wal-Mart" drive starts to kick in.

I'm going from being on the fence to voting "Yes" on 72.

Side note - I should get off my butt and shop at Costco more.

Woke up with Les Miserables - One Day More running through my head. I'm nervous but cautiously hopeful. I refuse to let the various reports of vote disruption and tinfoil hattery to get to me. I can't wait until tomorrow.

Digby has a good summation of where things stand - worth a read.

A point espeically worth noting:

I also heard Tucker Carlson on the Chris Matthews week-end show say that he thought Kerry would win because people don't stand in line for hours in the Florida sun to vote because they like a politician. People are willing to stand in line for hours because they are angry.

I read yesterday that an estimated 30% of the Florida vote has been cast in early voting. If true, it only goes to support Digby's point -- people are angry as hell about what was done to us in 2000 and we are not going to let it happen a second time.

I finally got Scott to watch the DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. I found it extremely depressing; in fact, I cried more waching it this time than I did when I first saw it. Scott, on the other hand, got angry.

Here's hoping we're both a lot happier 48 hours from now.

UPDATE: Found the link for the 30% info above. Here's the full newsbyte:

In Florida, 30% of registered voters said they already had cast their ballots, using early voting sites and absentee ballots. They supported Kerry 51%-43%.

Source: USA Today. Hardy a left-wing rag.

First thing this AM, coffee and a TiVo of the Kerry rally in OH that I missed last night. Then out to vote. The SF ballot is six pages long. Something really needs to be done about the proliferation of propositions out here -- isn't this sort of thing what we have a legislature for?

And of course Kerry-Edwards was the first thing I marked on the ballot.

We're going to watch the returns with some friends in Palo Alto. I have some concerns about the wisdom of driving 50 minutes to watch them, but I'm cautiously hopeful and feeling like company.

Apparently there are voter challengers going on in polling places across the country and I am a little concerned about it, but so far things seem to be under control.

The Swing State Project has a page with direct links to various swing states' official result websites. A useful link to have.

As much as it pains me to say it, it looks like Karl Rove was right with the rumored 4,000,000 right wing voters who sat on their hands last time, because as of this writing Bush has turned around a a 500,000 popular vote loss in 2000 to a 3,000,000 popular vote win in 2004.

How it happened despite all the dissatisfaction with the war, the economy, etc, I really don't know. I'm sure the soul searching will being in earnest once the hangovers wear off. Perosnally, I'm too depressed to drink.

All I know is, it's going to be a long 4 years.

So another four years of Smirky McChimp. This time there weren't many reports of voter disenfranchisement. And unless it's discovered that Diebold went and converted hundreds of thousands of votes from Democrat to Republican in the battleground states, then Bush had a leading margin and actually did win.

Rachel tells me that Karl Rove's plan of getting the evangelical Christians out to vote this time was what turned the trick, by putting a ban on gay marriages on the ballot in all of the major battleground states. "Oh, hey, while I'm here to vote against those sinners from being happy, I might as well vote for W." Why is it that people who vote for things like bans on gay marriage are not happy unless they're making everyone else miserable? Banning gay marriage isn't going to make them stop having gay sex, morons. When are these puritanical zealots going to let people live their own lives? Probably never.

Based on voter turnout, and the difference of the popular vote in the millions, I have come to the conclusion that the majority of Americans are fucking morons. Fat, lazy, stupid and willfully ignorant. What the hell happened to the concerned youth voter turnout? You kids really screwed up this time. I hope you like getting drafted for a war you don’t believe in, you apathetic little shits. And don’t even get me started on the fucked up mess called Gen-X, who apparently stayed away in droves this time around. Makes me sick to even be part of the same generation as you.

All you have to do is look at the voting map. Is it any wonder that with the exceptions of Texas and Florida (and they have always been anomalies) the most populous states vote Democrat? What is it about living in densely populated areas that make people choose Democrat over Republican? Better education, access to arts and sciences, more cosmopolitan interaction with people from outside their own closed, sheltered communities. It’s that closed mindset and introverted aspect of America’s heartland that breeds ignorance of the wide world outside their own borders. It’s why a guy from a rich New England town pretending to be a shitkicker good ole boy from Texas can become President.

But you know what? Bush isn’t the real problem. It’s the people with him that are the really dangerous ones. Because Bush on his own gets flustered and unintelligible when he’s not being prompted and coached. No, the real problem lies with people like Cheney, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld. Cheney is the modern day soulless war profiteer. Rumsfeld is the holdover from the old Republican guard who used to be friends with the people that are now supposed to be our enemies. He’s more dangerous than someone with evil intent – he’s completely incompetent. And Ashcroft is a true fascist. He hates the constitution and your civil rights. Just watch what happens now that the GOP took more seats in the house and senate. Watch Patriot Act II get pushed through, and then many more people can find out firsthand what it was like for the Jews in Europe being pushed onto cattle cars. And then there’s the ringleader – Karl Rove, behind the scenes, pulling all the strings. There’s only one positive thing I can say about Rove, which is that he is brilliant at what he does. Unfortunately, the things he does are pure evil.

Now I’m going to invoke Godwin’s law, and make some comparisons:

Karl Rove – Joseph Goebbels
Donald Rumsfeld – Hermann Goering
John Ashcroft – Heinrich Himmler

Dick Cheney could be squeezed into Hermann Goering, since Goering spent the entire war raping Europe of its priceless artwork and treasures. Bush doesn’t resemble anyone in the Nazi high command, because quite frankly he’s too inept to have been any of them, and Hitler was obviously more than a figurehead.

If you think I’m nuts making these comparisons, I suggest doing some research first. This current administration is doing everything in its power – along with a Republican majority in the house, senate and supreme court – to remove your rights and freedoms. And you know what? The majority of Americans are actually buying it, thinking it’s necessary to make us safer. Well guess what? You’re not safer. With the agenda of this administration, more and more people around the world with terrorist leanings now want us all dead. And by continuing down this path, they will keep trying to achieve that goal.

One of the most brilliant statesmen this country has ever seen had this to say about safety:

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin

Congratulations, America. You got what you wanted. Now I’m probably going to get a visit from the gestapo just for airing my opinions. I hope you idiots are happy.

I'd like to thank Orcinus for his excellent series of articles on fascism in the current administration. I used to think that this sort of thing couldn't happen again after Huey Long in Louisiana in the 1930s, and especially after WWII. Apparently I was wrong.

The news from abroad is a little scary today. Christopher Allbritton reports:

Before, there was a distinction drawn between the American government and the American people. A few nights ago, one cabbie told me that he thinks American people are very nice, but the American government is “very bad.” Now, as one of my friends said, “The American people are the problem.”

This will translate into increased hostility against Americans, especially in the Middle East. (I'm in Beirut at the moment.) The American government is seen as hopelessly biased against Arabs and Palestinians, but now the American people are culpable as well.

And over a a blog I just came across, chez Nadezhda, these nervewracking observations:

Osama Bin Laden has garnered an enormous propaganda coup in the reelection of George Bush as president of the United States.

Why, you ask?

Because now he will make the argument that it is Islamically permissible to kill American civilians because, in his view, they are morally culpable for the actions of their government abroad. They have ratified George Bush and his policy, in Bin Laden's view, of killing Muslims and invading their lands.

It's disheartening.

I also got a rant from a die-hard Democrat pal who lives in DC.

What the hell, they have a governing majority, let's go. Bring it on. I want to see a 19% flat tax. My wife and I make good salaries and own a pile of high-value real estate. Screw the poor. My retirement's secure, let's eliminate Social Security. I've got a generous health plan from my employer, let's throw everyone who's not working either into the street or into the poor-clinics. I want to see Scalia as Chief Justice of a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe and I want a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. I want laws barring gay marriage, and if John "Der Fuhrer" Ashcroft wants to reinstate anti-sodomy laws and start wiretapping and arresting people in their bedrooms, Amen I say. Round up everyone who doesn't look like a "true American". I'm white, male and married, what do I care, I've got nothing to lose.

Bring It The **** On. I want to see the most intolerant, reactionary, knuckle-scraping, neanderthal social and economic policy these gun-totin', bible-thumpin' bigots can devise.

Cause when we do, I'm gonna sit back in my chair with a glass of wine and a wheel of brie and enjoy the revolution that will ensue.

"It has to get worse before it can get better" is a meme I've heard a few times since the election and I think it's got some validity. I'm just really scared how bad it has to get and how many people will die before it does get better.

Clever site I ran across today, and a good way to work out those lingering bad feelings from Tuesday:

Sorry Everybody

I sent a picture of the kitties in, in lieu of normal Friday cat blogging.

Michael Kinsley gets it mostly - but not completely - right today (by way of Washington Monthly, since I don't have a login at the LA Times):

It's true that people on my side of the divide want to live in a society where women are free to choose and where gay relationships have civil equality with straight ones. And you want to live in a society where the opposite is true. These are some of those conflicting values everyone is talking about. But at least my values...don't involve any direct imposition on you. We don't want to force you to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex, whereas you do want to close out those possibilities for us. Which is more arrogant?

We on my side of the great divide don't, for the most part, believe that our values are direct orders from God. We don't claim that they are immutable and beyond argument. We are, if anything, crippled by reason and open-mindedness, by a desire to persuade rather than insist. Which philosophy is more elitist? Which is more contemptuous of people who disagree?

I find the first paragraph much more persuasive than the second. A quick look around the left-leaning side of the web this last week shows an awful lot of contempt and close-minded prejudice to people on that side of the divide, at least in some circles. Some of it was just post-election angst venting, but some is more deep-seated than that.

And when it comes to science, it's harder to say that folks on this side of the divide don't want to impose. We may feel that evolution, for example, is an obvious choice for what to teach in schools, but if your view is belief-based then I can see that mandating the teaching of evolution is a forcible imposition. Some of us may like to think that the Scopes trial settled this issue decades ago, but events in Kansas in 1999 and Wisconsin today are showing that this issue is by no means dead.

Ugh. So many issues, so may ways to alienate people. I just hope we can all find some sanity at the end of it.

UPDATE: Digby got in touch with his funny side today & came out with a good post on this issue as well.

Update #2 (6/29/06): Welcome, Volokh readers.....

Atrios is back after a few days R&R and he's on fire about the upcoming proposed changes to Social Security and the tax code. All the pieces are good, but this is a point I particularly like:

As I've written before, my opposition to a forced savings plan [note to Democrats: "forced savings" has a nice ring to it, and is in fact what such a plan would be.] is largely due to the fact that it opens the door for Fund firms, one way or another, to loot the US Treasury and to loot these mandatory accounts. Conservative trolls like to write "Oh, but if you lose all your money it's all your fault!" which, after I get a good laugh at how stupid they are, depresses the hell out of me. First, investments are not deterministic. They are risky. People who do well in the market like to believe they're "smart investors." Maybe they are. But, most of them just got lucky. Being a "smart investor" means that you know more than the market does, something which can't exist if we believe the markets are efficient, as our conservative trolls usually do.

Emphasis added. And this is where the rubber meets the road:

Someone earning $40,000 per year is going to be putting just $800 per year into one of these accounts.

Mutual fund companies hate low-dollar accounts like this -- they do not make money for the company. And thus, they are going to try to find ways of making these accounts more profitable, to the detriment of the account holders. Tacking on lots of fees is a possibility, although I suspect that the eventual legislation will cover that obvious loophole. A more likely one is a tactic the industry has already been indulging in -- one much easier to abuse:

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating about a dozen brokerage firms - including Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Ameritrade, Charles Schwab and E*Trade Financial - on suspicion that they failed to secure the best available price for stocks they were trading for their customers, according to people who have been briefed on the inquiry.

At issue is the way the companies executed trades of Nasdaq-listed securities when the markets opened in the morning, a period of intense trading activity resulting from the backlog of orders since the market's close the previous day.

After examining trading data from the last four years, the investigation found evidence that trades were often processed in ways that favored the firms over their clients, these people said.

Securing the best price is one of the industry's critical obligations to investors. If the investigators' suspicions are confirmed, these practices are not likely to add up to significant costs for individual investors - the difference would be pennies a share traded - but in total they could represent substantial amounts of money for the brokers.

Frankly, I find the whole thing somewhat academic, because I'm one of those who thinks that the odds are good the entire Social Security system will not exist when it comes time for me to retire. That said, this all sounds to me like a good way to hasten the liklihood of it happening.

A friend of mine recently pointed out that abortion is all-but unavailable already in large portions of America; not due to anti-abortion laws, but because nobody is choosing to provice that service. Is birth control next?

It's a long article and one that does not lend itself to easy pulling of quotes. Here's the gist, though:

Some pharmacists, however, disagree and refuse on moral grounds to fill prescriptions for contraceptives. And states from Rhode Island to Washington have proposed laws that would protect such decisions.

Mississippi enacted a sweeping statute that went into effect in July that allows health care providers, including pharmacists, to not participate in procedures that go against their conscience. South Dakota and Arkansas already had laws that protect a pharmacist's right to refuse to dispense medicines. Ten other states considered similar bills this year.

The American Pharmacists Association, with 50,000 members, has a policy that says druggists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they object on moral grounds, but they must make arrangements so a patient can still get the pills. Yet some pharmacists have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill.

No need to change any laws - just get enough phramacists to refuse to fill perscirtions, and poof! Away goes the ability of women to get access to one of the easiest and most effective methods of birth control.

I'm over the initial wave of reaction from Election Day, but this is the kind of news that makes me think the apocalyptic fears of those first 48 hours are not, in fact, so far off base. It's bad enough that Roe v Wade is under attack, but if we have to fight for Griswold too, it's really, really bad.

Sorry for the longer than usual quote, but Josh Marshall has the beginning of a highly interesting take on the red state / blue state issue that's worth a notice:

The oddity of this Red State moralism argument emerges most clearly when you look at statistics for virtually every form of quantifiable social dysfunction. Divorce, out-of-wedlock birth, poverty, murder, incidence of preventable disease --- go down the list and you’ll see that they are all highest in the reddest states and lowest in the bluest.

There are exceptions certainly --- the Prairie states being the key examples. But the pattern is striking and consistent.

The issue that interested me most were the statistics on murder, in part because they seemed to have the most interesting historical roots. Murder rates are also least affected by cultural bias. For instance, non-reporting of rape varies widely from country to country and region to region. The same can be true of assault. Murder, on the other hand, tends to get reported, regardless of the cultural context.

Thankfully, murder rates in the United States have dropped rapidly over the last decade. But the regional patterns remain. Broadly speaking, New England and the parts of the country originally settled by New Englanders have low murder rates --- some only a fraction of the national averages. The South on the other hand, and the parts of the country originally settled by Southerners, have higher murder rates. (The highest homicide rates are in the Old Southwest --- Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.)

The regional patterns get even more interesting when you drill down deeper into them.

Commonsense would probably tell most of us that big cities have higher murder rates than suburbs and small towns. And that’s true. But not everywhere. In the North and in much of Blue State America, for instance, big cities have higher rates of homicide. But in the South the pattern is turned on its head. The murder rate is highest in the small towns and rural areas.

Digging deeper still we find another difference --- though here the evidence becomes a bit murkier and less definitive. In the North, where murder rates are higher in urban centers, they tend to track with the commission of felonies.

In other words, people get killed by people who are in the process of committing felonies --- whether those be drug sales, muggings, robberies gone bad, organized crime, or something else. But in the Southern states, where murder rates are higher in small towns and rural areas, this isn’t the case. Rather than happening in the process of committing other crimes, these murders tend to be rooted in what are best described as violations of honor, personal slights that escalate into violence or in the simplest sense, rage.

Apropos of yesterday's post on access to birth control pills, Atrios chimes in with some very good points about why the Democratic party should have no problem finding common ground with many anti-abortion folks:

Look, if you have a problem with abortion and want to find ways to reduce them rather than outlaw them, come on board. I for one don't much care about reducing abortions as a policy goal in and of itself, but I do care about reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies. And, as long as the pro-life right is also battling contraceptive availability, fighting against OTC access to the "morning after" pill, which really isn't an abortaficient (or, to the extent than it is, should be much less offensive than the consequences of IVF procedures), fighting for laws allowing pharmacists to refuse to prescribe the pill (which is also prescribed for legitimate medical reasons other than to stop pregnancy), destroying sex education, and supporting economic policies which increase poverty, then it seems like supporting Democrats are the way to go.

If your pro-lifeness is wrapped up in a general anti-sex religious agenda, then stick with the Republicans.

The problem, of course, is that this is way too common-sense an approach and thus will get totally overlooked.

So Arafat is really dead this time.

At one point I might have been sad to see the man go, but taking his legacy all in all, he could not bring himself the be the man who made a real peace with Israel. And all I can say is, good riddance.

What will happen next, we don't know. Depending on the outcome of the political infighting, it could be good or bad. But at least there's a chance to get some new cards on the table now.

The Rude Pundit says it well about our new AG, Alberto Gonzales:

We get to be happy that the guy who feared marble breasts is gone and that the guy who thinks torture's okay is in as Attorney General.

Click through for the rest, but if you're reading this from work, remember that he's not called the Rude Pundit for nothing.

Balkinization give more in-depth reasons why this is not a good thing:

he has done something that is, in my mind, inexcusable. He commissioned and put his name on a series of despicable legal memos that justified torture and prisoner abuse and that tried to avoid America's obligations under international law

To be fair, though, the Washington Post points out some potential positives about his track record. However, given his longtime history as a loyal friend of President Bush, I seriously doubt we'll see any deviation from the administration party line on Gonzales' watch.

Digby delivers a big fat kick in the pants this morning and he's got a hugely valid point, which is: all the trumpeting about how 'moral' the Red States are is plain old hypocracy. We should not pander to it.

the fact is that somebody in the red states is watching Will and Grace and somebody is watching Girls Gone Wild and a whole bunch of somebodies are downloading pornography. I'm sure they tut-tut those terrible liberals while they pass the popcorn and laugh over The Bachelor's latest catfight.The biggest hit of the TV season is the sexually adventurous Desperate Housewives and it ain't just because people in New York and LA are watching it. The National Enquirer and the Globe are hugely popular in Middle America with their fascination with Hollywood dirt.

This is mass consumer culture and it plays very successfully all across that great swathe of red. Somebody's watching all this stuff and buying all this stuff and consuming all this stuff.

I could quote the whole thing becasue it's all good, but that's the gist. Enjoy.

Ran across a blogad for something truly different this morning and I had to give them some props. An extremely smart musician in Chicago has come up with the idea of remaking classic Xmas carols as Klezmer tunes. The result is hysterical:

Oy To The World.

Go listen to a few of their samples or download the free complete version of "Oy To The World". You'll either kvetch or kvell.

From Newsday:

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

4 more cabinet members resigned today, Colin Powell among them.

I used to respect the man; perhaps I will again some day. But I thought he had more integrity than to be a party to the tissue of lies that Iraq has turned out to be.

The Bull Moose gets an award for "most unintentionally funny" nomination for his successor. Lieberman? Not in a thousand years.

I started a new job yesterday. A p/t gig. And remembered again how stressful that can be. I hate watching everyone around you merrily doing their thing, while you feel like a jerk because you can't even find a piece of paper without having to ask for help.

I know the only cure is to buchke down, learn what I need to learn, and soon enough i'll be merrily doing my thing too, but it's still no fun.

The training it pretty in-depth though. More on that later, as I have to get ready for Day 2.

My first thought was, Aren't they still bankrupt?" Obviously not.

Not that usually I shop in either store (although our dishwasher did come from Sears). But as a longtime fan of Land's End, which Sears bought last year, I do keep an eye on these things.

It will definitely cost some people their jobs. Layoffs as the back offices are consolidated is a must in situations like these. Probably some store closings as well.

Ah well.

I started reading another excellent Digby post on the Bill of Rights but before I could finish it I got so pissed off I had to stop and say something. I've seen this meme (that Roe v Wade getting overturned would somehow be a good thing) a few times on blogs and have even heard it from friends whose opinion I respect, but the more I see it the more I think we need to smack some sense into the people saying it.

If Roe v Wade goes down it is not in any way, shape, or form a good thing. Yes, I am aware of the arguments that it is bad law. Well, I am not a lawyer, so I don't care. It's what we've got and given the tenor of the times right now it is all we're likely to get for quite some time.

The general argument for Roe v Wade to go down, is:

You and I realize that it just hurts the masses to not have access [to abortion], but the masses apparently don't appreciate this. So jolt them out of their apathy! I'M not going to die in a back alley abortion. But maybe if the daughters of some of these self-righteous bastards who want to impose their morality on the rest of the work DIE in back alley abortions, they'll change their tunes! Because if they criminalize them, women will die.

But here's the thing -- abortion is already virtually unavailable through large stretches of red America, and even in the more rural sections of Blue states. (87% of counties in America do not have even one abortion provider.) So for us to sit here in the 'safe' zones and talk as if abortion rights will suddenly be taken away is just short-sighted. Abortion is virtually gone in much of America unless you're geographically lucky or have the cash to travel. The overturn of Roe v Wade will not significantly affect large chunks of America's access to abortion. We already lost that battle. What it will do is open the door for other, more insidious, types of legislation.

I've talked previously about issues like pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills because they believe they can be abortifacents. If Roe v Wade goes down, what is there to stop legislation from criminalizing birth control pills in some states, or god forbid, even Federal legislation?

In short, how far into the pit do we need to go before it starts to really hurt privileged liberal self-interest?

Oh, and by the way, lack of access to abortion and birth control is a much bigger issue than "just" the rights of women (seeing as snot-nosed kids like Matt Yglesias seem to think it's OK to let those slide). If you're young and pregnant and can't get an abortion, the chance you have of getting ahead and finding well-paid work is pretty much shot to hell. It's possible to get the education and skills necessary for well-paying jobs when you're raising one or more kids on little money and probably without a spouse. But the vast majority of people in that situation are going to be so busy, tired, strapped for cash, and stressed that they will not get out of the low income trap they are stuck in. Ever.

That doesn't bode well for either their future, or for America's.

So please, stop thinking that Roe v Wade is something we can afford to give up in our fight to "reclaim" America. It isn't.

Tommy, dreaming of brighter days.....

Or maybe just looking for a nice plump pidgeon.

By way of Atrios, some nasty gay-bashing (targetted at the black community) in the Washington Post.

I'd excerpt it but I don't have the stomach for it. AmericaBLOG has a PDF of the whole nasty thing if you're really interested.

Bleh. Bigoted crap coming to your home, by way of the paper that brought down Richard Nixon. How times have changed.

"Nobody ever knows who built open-source software."

-- Steve Ballmer.

DH in MI, one of the Kos bloggers, has an interesting piece on another of the many disconnects between Republicans, Democrats, and the public. Worth a read.

In short, a lot of Democrats are great at creating good policies, but too few of them are good at creating appealing atmospheres. The former is essential to being a good legislator or executive, but you need to latter to get elected.

And yet again, Digby goes and posts something that makes me wonder why I even bother blogging. This time it is a long, excellent look at the rural/urban psychosocial divide in America. He's covering ground another of my favorite bloggers, Orcinus, covers, and it also ties in with what I taked about in my last post.

Here's a sample:

We cannot make a populist case to rural America as long as rural America continues to believe, as it has for centuries, that the government only takes their money and gives it to people they don't like. This belief is why people who should naturally support our programs instead vote for tax cuts. In the past, populists often shrewdly coupled their argument with nativist causes and were able to scapegoat either immigrants or blacks as part of their argument, thus partially nullifying this cultural resistence. Even FDR agreed to set aside the issue of civil rights for the duration. Needless to say, we aren't going to go down that path.

So, Democrats are left with a difficult problem of how to deal with a region that is in economic distress but whose culture traditionally believes that government only helps people unlike themselves.

[snip]

Yes, if people were rational about these things you could sit down and have a nice discussion with spreadsheets and diagrams showing that the rural red states benefit far more from federal redistributon of wealth than the metropolitan blue states. You could explain that many of the social changes that have happened have benefitted them in their own lives while acknowledging that there has been a cost and that changes of this magnitude can be frightening and destabilizing. You could show that the massive New Deal programs and the post war expansion benefitted primarily the middle class, not the poor. You could rally the people to the side of their own class instead of the corporations who benefit from the policies currently in place.

But, as we've seen, people are not rational.

Go read the rest. If Digby's not in your bookmark list yet, he should be.

Scott and I are flying to NYC today to spend a week eating, cooking, and spending time with family and friends. I'll have net access but posting will undoubtedly be light until we return.

Have a happy holiday, all!

Having a lovely time in cool, rainy NY. This triggered my pissed-off meter though:

Vietnam Vet, 53, Called for Duty in Iraq

A 53-year-old Vietnam veteran from western Pennsylvania has been called up for active service with the U.S. military in the Iraq war, The Tribune Review of Greensburg, Pennsylvania reported on Wednesday.

Paul Dunlap, a sergeant in the Army National Guard, will join an armored division next month as a telecommunications specialist in Kuwait, and expects to be there for at least a year.

They must be getting damn close to the bottom of the barrel. This guy has not been in combat since serving as a 19-year-old Marine in Vietnam. WTF is the DOD doing him calling him to go to Iraq?

I read things like this and it reminds me that one of the many things I am thankful for this Thnksgiving is that our friend the ex-Marine has not gotten a similar call. Yet. I fear that day.

We're back home after a nice trip to see friends and family. I'm trying to fight off a cold but have been unsuccessful for the last few days, hence the dearth of posting.

I've been following the events in Ukraine with some interest, but the US press has generally been more interested in reporting on the holiday sales figures instead. One of the Kos diarists has posted an excellent primer on the situation here.

It's a rare day that I am in agreement with anything the Bush administration says or does, but this time they do seem to be siding with the right guy.

Stopped by the Metreon today between work & school, and noticed that they're now offering free WiFi service.

If I had a laptop, this would be really good news.

I'm glad I don't live there!

PROVO, Utah Nov 30, 2004 — The truth about cats and dogs in this city is that they aren't allowed to live in the same house. But that's about to change.

Current city law allows residents to own up to two dogs or two cats at the same time but not a dog and a cat together.

Came across a blogger who's been giving a first-person account of the goings-on over in the Ukraine. Check her out.

And a hat tip to new Kos guestblogger David for the link.