Treating "Suicide Headaches"

I spent an amazing three days at the Drug Policy Alliance conference in Los Angeles this month, absorbing a wealth of information about the damage our draconian "War on Drugs" is causing society. The video below was aired during one of the panel discussions, and I thought it was especially effective at personalizing the social costs of these misguided policies.

It's a video of someone experiencing a cluster headache attack, also known as a "suicide headaches". It's a sharp, penetrating, unilateral pain that starts behind the eye and can radiate to the temple, jaw, neck, and shoulders. Attacks can happen more than 10 times a day, and can last anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours at a time.

Imagine watching a loved one suffer through this. Imagine having to care for them, regularly, as they suffer through this:



The suicide rate amongst people afflicted with this condition is 200% higher than normal. The cause of this condition is unknown, and the medicines & treatments that are normally prescribed to treat the disorder tend to only reduce the length of the attacks. A lifetime of use of these medicines come with debilitating side-effects.

There are, however, substances that have been found to greatly reduce the frequency of these attacks: LSD and Psilocybin

Despite this, and mounting evidence that they're also effective in treating of PTSD and other psychological disorders, (see this article to learn about ongoing research at Harvard and elsewhere), they're both listed as Schedule I in the United States. That means they're illegal to manufacture, buy, possess, process, or distribute without a DEA license. Because of this classification, funding for medical research about these drugs has been stifled, and there's now a misguided and distorted view of psychedelics among the medical community and the general public.

Why? Because people have chosen to use the drug recreationally, (people like the late Steve Jobs) the government has decided we need to be "protected" from these substances. Our government has decided we can't be trusted to make informed, personal decisions about these substances, and need to be threatened with imprisonment and severe social consequences for deciding to try these substances. Under this policy of drug-prohibition, cluster-headache suffers, contemplating suicide, are considered criminals for trying a substance that may very well save their lives.

Does this sound like a reasonable way to deal with drug use?

(More information about the use of psychedelics to treat cluster headaches can be found here: Clusterbusters.)

Why can't Dr. Laura say the "n-word"?

Last August, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, responding to a black caller whose white husband's friends were passive-aggressively mocking her race, said the word "nigger" 11 times. Here's the full audio:





Unsurprisingly, it caused an uproar, prompting her to apologize before announcing the end of her decades-running radio program. She insists that she was only trying to make a "philosophical point" about black people's use of the word "nigger". When the caller asked if it's OK to say that word, Schlessinger responded:

SCHLESSINGER: Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger, nigger, nigger... I don't get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing; but when black people say it, it's affectionate. It's very confusing.

After the commercial break, the conversation continued:

CALLER: So it's OK to say "nigger"?... It's OK to say that word?
SCHLESSINGER: It depends how it's said.
CALLER: Is it OK to say that word? Is it ever OK to say that word?
SCHLESSINGER: It's -- it depends how it's said. Black guys talking to each other seem to think it's OK.
CALLER: But you're not black. They're not black. My husband is white.
SCHLESSINGER: Oh, I see. So, a word is restricted to race. Got it.

She seems to be arguing that it's hypocritical of society to criticize white people for saying it, while allowing black people to say it. Is that the case? Is there really no difference between a black person saying it, vs a white person?

There's a pretty insightful interview with 50 cent, on the Howard Stern show, that addresses the issue. A caller asks, "is it alright for white people to use nigga?"

Caller: Is it alright for white people to use nigga?

50 cent: It depends who they with or what's going on.... Put it like this, Eminem has never used the word nigger or nigga around me. He's conscious of it. But you gotta think, he's hip hop all day listening to references where we say this so much, that if he said it, it would roll off like he didn't say [anything offensive]...

Stern: Should Eminem be allowed to use the word 'nigga' in his music?

50 cent: Around me, he can say whatever he wants. But I'm just saying to you he doesn't do it, he's conscious of it, he doesn't say it.

Stern: I don't think it comes off well when a white guy goes up to a black guy, even in the best of terms, and goes "hey my nigga"

50 cent: Listen... there's white guys that were born in my neighborhood. And they say "what's up nigga? Whatchya doin?"

Stern: They do? Do you shoot 'em?...

50 cent: No.. Because he's from the same space... you grew up with him.... When they from it, they [aren't subjected] to the same thing because they're actually from the same [environment].

...

Robin: There's context, is what he's saying. If you are a part of a group, then you might be able to use it.

50 cent: They gonna know if you're using it in a derogatory sense.

That's the crux of the issue: knowing whether or not the term is being used in a derogatory sense. When a black person says "nigga", it's probably safe to assume there's no bigotry behind its use, because he probably isn't bigoted against his own race. You can't make that same assumption about a random white person using the term. While Eminem can call 50 cent "nigga" without causing offense, he still avoids the word in his music. Even with his immersion in the world of hip-hop, the general public doesn't know him personally, so they can't assume he doesn't harbor any racism.

(Case in point: In the song "Nigga", featuring Eminem, 50 cent, and Notorious B.I.G, the word "nigga" is used over 20 times. The lyrics can be found here: Nigga lyrics. Count how many times Eminem says it.)



There's another, related, double standard here. If you dig through the comment section of that Howard Stern YouTube clip, above, you'll find this interesting point:

a white person call a black person nigger is racist but if a black person call a white person cracker that isnt racist what the fuck is that?

It's not the case that referring to a white person as "cracker" isn't racist. It's just society doesn't consider that word to be anywhere near as inflammatory as "nigger". Why not? Slavery, segregation, disfranchisement... black people, as a group, have been persecuted for the entire history of this country. And while the most obvious forms of institutionalized racism have been eliminated, it's still the case that large groups of black people, even with Ivy League educations, can be suspected of being "gangbangers" for no reason other than the color of their skin. (It happened just last year: What Do You Call a Black Man With a J.D.?)

The fact that black people are more often the targets of racism is the reason you see a double standard here. As a society, we want to avoid doing anything that might exacerbate what is already a significant problem. In general, societal taboos should being weighted in favor of victimized classes of people. That doesn't make it OK to call anyone a "cracker", and it doesn't mean people shouldn't be offended by that term. But if you're wondering why most people don't take as much offense, this is why.

So why can't Dr. Laura use the word "nigger"? Maybe it's because she accused her caller of being "hyper-sensitive" for being hurt by some, pretty obvious, passive-aggressive racial mockery. Maybe it's because she then went on a, completely off-topic, rant about how black people voted for Obama just because he was black, how his election meant white people should no longer be "demonized" for hating black people, and how it's "hilarious" that people are still "complaining about racism" (as if having a black President proves racism is no longer a problem).

Somehow, I don't think it's quite safe to assume that she doesn't harbor any bigotry against black people.

How LEAP got me out of jury duty.

.
Today was the first time I've been screened as a juror. There was only one case being tried at this court today; someone facing several drug related charges. I was the very first juror to be screened, and the prosecutor began the screening. He asked asked me several questions to determine whether or not I'd be able to judge the case, impartially, and eventually asked me if I knew any police officers.

I told him that I did know a few retired officers. I proceeded to tell him that I volunteer for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of former police officers, prosecutors, prison wardens, judges, and others in the criminal justice community who have spent their careers waging the war on drugs, and now believe it's a public policy disaster. I told him they advocate legalizing all drugs, and believe they should be regulated in a manner similar to how dangerous pharmaceuticals are currently regulated. (I book speaking engagements for one of their speakers).

He paused. He said I probably know the state's drug laws better than most, and asked if I understood that possession of marijuana is currently illegal. (He emphasized "currently"). I said "yes". He asked me if I thought I could judge the case impartially. I said "yes". He looked a bit frustrated, his face turned a bit red, and he allowed the defense attorney his turn. The defense attorney asked me a few hypotheticals to see if I understood what circumstantial evidence was, and other questions along those lines. After he was through, I was asked to leave the room while they deliberated.

Less than 30 seconds later, I was called back in; I was excused. So ended my day at court :)


A few thoughts on the experience:

- I learned today that, in CT, employers are only obligated to pay for the first 5 days of jury duty. After that, the judicial branch pays jurors $50 a day, max. Assuming an 8 hour day, that's less than CT's current minimum wage. That doesn't seem right.

- I was being honest when I told the prosecutor that I could judge the case impartially, and really didn't want to be on the jury because of that. I don't know any details about the charges, but if the defendent was a non-violent offender, I would have felt horrible sending him to an environment where he could be brutalized, raped, and left with few career options after serving time.

- I'm guessing the prosecutor was frustrated because he probably had to use one of his few "premptory challenges" to dismiss me without giving a reason. Since I was the very first juror to be screened, using one on me left him at a disadvantage, as he had to be a lot more careful about how to use remaining challenge(s). It occured to me that, as public opinion turns increasingly against the war on drugs, it's going to be harder for prosecutors to find jurors that are sympathetic to their case. That's a nice little bonus we can appreciate as we slowly move towards legalization.

MoveOn vs the Progressives?

I just received this e-mail from MoveOn:

I wonder if they are going to target Dennis Kucinich...

Dear MoveOn member,
We won a big victory on health care on Saturday when the House of Representatives passed a bill that includes a public health insurance option.

But dozens of conservative Democrats sided with Big Insurance to vote against it.

We've got to show that voters will make them pay a political price for standing in the way of health care reform—and send a message to any Democrats in the Senate who are considering doing the same.

So we're rushing to launch a major new TV ad campaign in the home districts of the Democrats who voted against the bill—spending more than ever before on ads to hold Democrats accountable.

We've got to start airing these ads before the Senate takes up health care, and that means we need [donations] today. Can you chip in $200?

This is a defining moment for the Obama era, because fence-sitting Democrats in Congress are watching carefully to see what happens to those who oppose real change.
If they see that there are no negative consequences for those who voted "no" in the House, it'll become much harder to win a final victory on health care—or on any of the other issues we care so much about.

So we've got to act quickly and forcefully to demonstrate that any politician who sides with corporate special interests will suffer for it back home.

And the best way to do that is to go up on the air immediately with this new ad campaign targeting House Democrats who voted against the health care bill. Can you chip in $200?

The bill that passed in the House was far from perfect, and we'll keep fighting together to fix it.

But after fighting for decades, we're finally on the path to winning meaningful health care reform. And those in Washington who are standing with Big Insurance to oppose it have to be held accountable.

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Kat, Ilyse, Peter, and the rest of the team

I wonder, 'cause Kucinich voted no:

Why I Voted NO
by Dennis Kucinich

Facebook, Google, and the Police State

When it was introduced, Facebook's newsfeed caused an uproar over privacy concerns. Users were initially unable to control what appeared on the newsfeed, and cried foul. A few, though, defended Facebook, claiming the anger overblown because there was no change in information privacy, just a change in information publicity.

How people could believe a thing could be made more public without being any less private was beyond me, but I didn't much care; the issue didn't seem all that important. But when a Wisconsin appeals court used the same argument to justify Government tracking of every citizen's vehicle, via GPS, without warrants, it no longer seemed so trivial.


The arguments defending the newsfeed went along these lines:

In Defense of Facebook Feeds - Jared W. Smith

It’s not an invasion of privacy if the information is already public knowledge to your networks. A privacy invasion would be Facebook broadcasting transactions that the privacy settings specifically mask, and that’s not happening.

In defense of Facebook's facelift - Eric Hansen

The good news is that this does nothing to actually reduce the privacy of your Facebook information, only the publicity.

These arguments assume that if someone can potentially obtain a piece of information then, for all intents and purposes, they already have it. But that's not the case. It's the effort needed to acquire information that largely determines how private it is. The harder it is to get at a piece of information, the fewer there will be that actually end up with it. By reducing the effort required to access information (i.e. making it more accessible), you ensure that more interested parties will acquire it.


To clarify the point, let's examine some of the controversy surrounding Google Maps' "Street View" feature. Google Maps' Street View provides users a 360 degree street-level view of any location that one of Google's camera vans have driven through. Since Google's vans are only supposed to traverse (and photograph) public roads, all images available on Street view are images that anyone could have, potentially, captured. Nevertheless, like Facebook's newsfeed, Google Maps' Street View has been accused of privacy infringement.

For example, last year, one of Google's camera vans obtained permission to drive through and photograph the Ft. Sam Houston Army base in San Antonio, Tex. When the Pentagon got wind of this, they issued a directive banning Google teams from documenting street-level views of U.S. Military Bases.

Michael Kucharek, spokesman for U.S. Northern Command, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the decision was made after crews were allowed access to at least one base. He said military officials were concerned that allowing the 360-degree, street-level video could provide sensitive information to potential adversaries and endanger base personnel.

The street view images of the base were promptly removed. But what was the big deal? Patrick Lyons on the New York Times blog points out,

Not that very much about the lay of the land at Ft. Sam Houston is secret; the base is cheek by jowl with a large city, it gets many civilian visitors, its web site includes a map as detailed as your average college-campus plan, and the Pentagon doesn’t mind that the whole place is clearly shown in the satellite photos that are a few clicks away on Google Maps and elsewhere.

but concludes,

Still, you can learn a lot about a building from panoramic street-level images that just doesn’t show in satellite photos, so it’s not too hard to understand the sensitivity in the Pentagon.

This notion that "street-level views" can constitute a security threat is the same reason why Google has voluntarily removed photos of women's shelters from street view.

Google removed photos of women's shelters before launching the feature, said Cindy Southworth, director of technology at the Washington, D.C.-based National Network to End Domestic Violence, which is the umbrella group for state shelters.

"We don't want to call attention to the shelters," Southworth said. "We would rather it look like a choppy horizon line as you pan by. Our hope is that other companies will do a similar thing and reach out to us in advance."

Removing the shelters from the map greatly diminishes the privacy threat to battered women, said Ashley Tan, volunteer coordinator at Woman Inc., a San Francisco-based 24-hour domestic violence crisis line.

Anyone can look up and photograph locations of women's shelters. And it wouldn't be all that more difficult to photograph locations within Ft. Sam Houston, given all the civilian traffic that passes through. But the effort required to fully document these locations is significantly higher if they are not already documented in a publicly accessible database like Google Maps. Tools like Google Maps make this information much more accessible (i.e. more public). By definition, if a piece of information is made "more public", it must also then be "less private".


As I wrote above, all this seemed of little consequence, as Google and Facebook have both added features to help maintain some of the privacy that their tools encroach upon. But then I read this:

Wisconsin police can attach GPS to cars to secretly track anybody’s movements without obtaining search warrants, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

...

As the law currently stands, the court said police can mount GPS on cars to track people without violating their constitutional rights – even if the drivers aren’t suspects.

Officers do not need to get warrants beforehand because GPS tracking does not involve a search or a seizure, Judge Paul Lundsten wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel based in Madison.

That means “police are seemingly free to secretly track anyone’s public movements with a GPS device,” he wrote.

Creepy. This was the result of a 2003 case involving Michael Sveum, who was under investigation for stalking. Police obtained a warrant to secretly attach a GPS device onto his car so as to track his whereabouts. The information from the device led to his arrest and conviction. Sveum challenged the conviction, arguing the tracking violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure because the device followed him into areas out of public view, such as his garage.

The court disagreed,

The tracking did not violate constitutional protections because the device only gave police information that could have been obtained through visual surveillance, Lundsten wrote.

...

“We discern no privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment that is invaded when police attach a device to the outside of a vehicle, as long as the information obtained is the same as could be gained by the use of other techniques that do not require a warrant,” he wrote.

Although police obtained a warrant in this case, it wasn’t needed, he added.

That last line is a jaw dropper. It would have been perfectly reasonable for the appeals court to uphold the warrant obtained to track Sveum, based on the case's merits. But to further conclude that a warrant wasn't needed because there was no breech in privacy is outrageous. As reported, this implies the Government can legally attach GPS devices to the vehicles of every citizen without a warrant.

Their reasoning is no less flawed than Smith's and Hansen's. There may be no change in who could potentially access user information on Facebook, street level photographs around the country, or the public whereabouts of Wisconsin citizens, but by expanding the accessibility of this information, they are making it more public and less private..


All this, just to conclude that "warrantless surveillance of citizens" infringes on their privacy. I used to believe that was common sense...

A primer on the Federal Reserve

As much as Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve have been mentioned in the news as of late, most people still don't have the slightest idea of how the Fed conducts it's monetary policy. I figured it'd be useful to write up a primer on the topic, so here it is.

Nearly all of this information in the rest of this post comes straight from the Federal Reserve's educational website:

Fed101

There are some interactive tutorials there worth checking out.

-----------------------


The Federal Reserve is wholly responsible for controlling the nation's money supply, and manipulates it in an attempt to achieve whatever economic goals they have are currently pursuing. According to them:

The goals of monetary policy include the promotion of sustainable economic growth, full employment, and stable prices. Through monetary policy, the Fed is most able to maintain stable prices, thereby promoting economic growth and maximum employment.

A simplified explanation of the dollar expansion/contraction process:

The Fed manages the banking system and controls the expansion and contraction of the money supply through the banking system.

When dollars are added to the money supply, they are deposited at member banks. When dollars removed from the money supply, they are removed from member banks.

These dollars, added and removed, count toward the member banks' reserves. Reserves are primarily made up of demand deposits (checking accounts that citizens and businesses hold at banks). These reserves are the money that a bank uses to make loans.

(Aside: "Demand deposits" are deposits in which bank customers, at anytime, may choose to withdraw. Because banks use the dollars from these deposits to make loans, they never have, in reserve, all of the dollars that they have guaranteed their customers access to. They only hold a fraction of what they owe to their customers. This is why this system of banking is called "fractional-reserve banking". They can get away with this because, at any given moment, their customers will only withdraw a portion of what is supposed to be in the banks' reserves. If every customer at a given bank chose to withdraw their money at once, the bank would not be able to honor all of these requests, and would be bankrupt. This situation of everyone trying to withdraw at once is called a "bank run".)

The Fed involves banks in the dollar creation process as well. The Fed mandates a "reserve requirement" for banks, which is usually 10% of the dollar amount in loans issued by a given bank. So if a bank has loaned out $100,000, it must hold $10,000 in its reserves. If a bank drops below this reserve minimum, it's bankrupt.

(Aside: In practice, dollars are not the only thing banks can count towards their reserves. Certain assets/investments can count towards their reserve requirement. The rise and fall in value of these assets affect what the bank can say it has in reserve. The housing crisis turned into a banking crisis in large part because banks were counting mortgage-backed securities as part of their reserves. When they were suddenly forced to value these assets as worthless, all of a sudden they were at great risk of dropping under their reserve minimum and, consequently, going bankrupt)

So the dollar creation process as we now understand it is:

- The Fed decides to expand the money supply. It deposits $10,000 into a member bank's reserves. Having $10,000 extra in reserves, this bank is now allowed to loan an extra $100,000 to the public. Hence, $100,000 has just been created.

- The Fed decides to contract the money supply. It withdraws $10,000 from a member bank's reserves. Losing that $10,000, that bank must reduce the amount of money it has lent out by $100,000. Hence, $100,000 has been eliminated from the money supply.


The dollar expansion/contraction process in more detail:

Member banks all hold most of their reserves in accounts at the Federal Reserve. (They keep a portion of their reserves with them for day to day customer transactions such as: withdrawals from tellers, ATMs, etc.) When the Fed wants to expand or contract the money supply, it doesn't actually deposit or withdraw directly from the reserve accounts of member banks. Instead, it acts through financial institutions designated as primary dealers.

Say, as in the above example, the Fed wants to expand the money supply by $100,000. It informs all of its primary dealers that it wishes to purchase a financial instrument of some sort (usually securities issued by the U.S. Treasury, Federal agencies and government-sponsored ). After a bidding process, the Fed then purchases a security from a primary dealer, using a check for $10,000 redeemable only at the Fed. The primary dealer deposits this check at its bank, which in turn deposits this check into its reserve account at the Fed. The Fed takes this check and credits that bank's reserve account with $10,000. Assuming a reserve requirement of 10%, this bank can now lend out up to $100,000. The money supply has increased by $100,000.

If the Fed wishes to contract the money supply by $100,000, it alerts its primary dealers that it wishes to sell a financial instrument. After a bidding process, the Fed sells a security to a primary dealer for $10,000. The primary dealer withdraws $10,000 from its demand deposit at a given bank; this bank loses $10,000 from its reserves and must reduce the amount of money it has lent out by $100,000. The money supply has decreased by $100,000.

Transactions between the Federal Reserve and its primary dealers are called open market operations.

Here's the current list of Primary Dealers.


The effect of reserves on interest rates

Supplying a bank with more money in its reserves doesn't just increase the amount of money it can lend out, it also affects the interest rate it charges when it lends out money. Under normal circumstances, when banks have more money to lend, they will lower interest rates to attract more borrowers. When banks have less money to lend, they will raise interest rates to take advantage of the decrease in loan supply.

The Federal Reserve is acutely aware of this issue, as interest rates affect the amount of loans issued and the resulting level of economic activity. Low interest rates, they believe, result in more loans, more economic activity, and ultimately more growth.


Inter-bank loans, and the Federal Funds Rate

The money supply is not distributed amongst the banks equally. At any given moment, one bank may be low on reserves (which implies it is uncomfortably close to its reserve minimum ) while another may have an excess of reserves (it has more reserves than it requires for the loans it has issued). In these cases, banks may lend to each other using money from their reserve accounts.

This inter-bank interest rate is called the effective Federal Funds Rate. This is the interest rate that the Federal Reserve primarily concerns itself with and attempts to manipulate. It tries to control the economy through this interest rate. It does so by setting a nominal Federal Funds Rate, which is a target (usually a range) that the Fed wants the effective Federal Funds Rate to reach. When you hear on the news that the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates, they are referring to the nominal Federal Funds rate. It manipulates the rate through the process described above: buying or selling assets from primary dealers to affect the amount of dollars in bank reserves and, consequently, the interest rates that these banks charge each other for loans.

(Aside: Under normal circumstances, interest rates respond to changes in reserves as I described above. We are currently not in a situation that can be considered remotely normal. The Federal Reserve has pumped an unprecedented amount of money into bank reserves over the past year, but still can't get the banks to lend to each other at any rate, let alone the target rate. The banks are terrified at the prospect of loaning to a bank that will go bankrupt before the loan is paid off)


The discount window

This is the last of the Federal Reserves traditional tools to manipulate the money supply. Instead of borrowing from each other, banks have the option of borrowing money directly from the Federal Reserve. Since it is the entity actually issuing the loan, the Fed directly controls the interest rate charged for these loans. Setting a very low interest rate will encourage lending and expand the money supply, as banks will borrow from the Fed and loan the borrowed money to the public at a higher interest rate. (Note: the borrowed money goes straight to their reserve account, so they can loan out 10x more than they borrowed from the discount window, assuming a 10% reserve requirement.) Setting a very high interest rate positions the Fed as the lender of last resort, as banks will not resort borrowing at this rate unless they are desperate to replenish their reserves.

Which money is new money

Just to review:

- When the Fed buys an asset from a primary dealer, the dollars used in that purchase are newly created

- When the Fed sells an asset to a primary dealer, the dollars used in that sale cease to exist.

- When the Fed issues a loan through the Discount Window, the dollars loaned are newly created

- When a loan issued through the Discount Window is repaid, those dollars cease to exist. I believe the dollars paid in interest to the Fed also ceases to exist, but I'm not sure.

- When a bank lends dollars in excess of the reserves it holds, those dollars are newly created

- When a loan is repaid to a bank, those dollars cease to exist. The interest the bank received on the loan is deposited into its reserve account at the Fed.

Do you want to understand our current economic crisis?

This episode of "This American Life" is a co-production between Chicago Public Radio and NPR news; it goes over the details of just how the housing crisis came to pass in a very straightforward and accessible manner. This is tailor-made for those that have absolutely no background in finance or economics.

It's about an hour long, but it's absolutely worth your time. Download it to your iPod and listen to it during your commute:

355: The Giant Pool of Money


This episode proved to be so popular that they made a follow up episode that explains how the housing crisis spilled over into the rest of the economy to create the mess we're in today. Also well worth your time:

365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy


One critique: they don't discuss the root causes of this crisis...

Jon Stewart skewers a neo-con with the tip of their propaganda-iceberg

Here's yet another amazing, must-see interview from the Daily Show's Jon Stewart



Part 1

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Douglas Feith Uncut Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Part 2

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Douglas Feith Uncut Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

The above is Stewart interviewing Douglas Feith (Former Bush Administration Under Secretary of Defense). What's supposed to be a 10 minute interview about Feith's new book turns into an 18 minute rhetorical beat-down that leaves Feith stuttering. The point of contention: whether or not the Bush administration intentionally deceived the public into supporting the war.

What amazes me about Stewart's interviews isn't the content so much as how he delivers it. It's a testament to his comedic-genius that he can maintain a sense of levity amidst a serious discussion involving the A.Q. Khan network, Syrian Nuclear Facilities, Cheney's 1994 argument against invading Iraq, etc.

This was a great exchange:

Douglas Feith: "there was a moment when the President wanted to focus on diplomacy..."

Jon Stewart: *laughter* "I remember that moment!"

I remember that moment too.

Stewart corners Feith simply by arguing that the act of withholding information from the public was deceptive, in and of itself. It's worth mentioning that this is a gross understatement of the lengths to which the Bush administration went to dupe the public into supporting the war.

For starters, the organization within the Pentagon that Feith managed, The Office of Special Affairs, was criticized by the Pentagon's Inspector General for promoting suspect & outright false intelligence regarding Iraq. Feith calls it an honest mistake, but whistle-blowers such as Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski offer offer a wildly different interpretation of events. Describing the Office Of Special Plans (OSP), Kwiatkowski writes, "Instead of developing defense policy alternatives and advice, OSP was used to manufacture propaganda for internal and external use, and pseudo war planning."

One could easily question the validity of any personal account; you never know what motives may lie behind accusations such as these. But in light of the bombshell the New York Times published this past April, we have every reason to believe Kwiatkowski's story. Said article, Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand, is the result of 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records which the New York Times successfully sued the Defense Department for. It describes an unmistakably Orwellian program designed to control the public's perception of the war. Specifically, the Pentagon recruited military "analysts" to disseminate pre-approved, pro-war talking points to the the news outlets they frequented. From the article:

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions...”

...In the fall and winter leading up to the invasion, the Pentagon armed its analysts with talking points portraying Iraq as an urgent threat. The basic case became a familiar mantra: Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, was developing nuclear weapons, and might one day slip some to Al Qaeda; an invasion would be a relatively quick and inexpensive “war of liberation.”

This propaganda campaign was, in fact, so ridiculously successful that the Bush administration felt emboldened to use similar tactics (fake news reports & bribing columnists) to promote its domestic policies.

You wonder at the gross incompetence demonstrated by these news organizations. How could a company of journalists be manipulated so? Recent admissions by well known correspondents such as Katie Couric offer some insight. It appears that it wasn't incompetence, it was cooperation...

I'm guessing Stewart didn't mention much of this because it was too much to cover in such a short interview. That and he probably and wanted nail Feith with an argument that he couldn't equivocate his way around. In any case, Stewart once again proves himself to be a more capable and honest (and entertaining!) interviewer than anyone in the MSM.

I <3 the Daily Show :)

War or Abortion - What's your issue?

Ron Paul is pro-life. While he is against a Federal ban on abortion, he wants to overturn Roe vs Wade and let each state decide whether or not it should be legal. I'm pro-choice and don't believe any state should have the right to outlaw the procedure. Yet I still support Dr. Paul. I do so for practical reasons as well as on principal.


Practical:

Roe vs Wade isn't going to be overturned. The abortion issue is brought up during election season solely to polarize the electorate; to rally the parties' bases; to get them to vote against "the monsters" across the aisle. No one ever really expects change. For one thing, the Supreme Court is extremely hesitant to overturn prior decisions. Attempts to attack it through the legislative branch have fallen flat as well. If Bush couldn't eliminate it with his rubber-stamp congress and Supreme Court appointments, how could Paul?


Principal:

Recently, our foreign policy caused:

- our economy to teeter on the brink of recession
- an increase in terrorism
- illegal wiretapping
- rendition
- the loss of habeas corpus
- the deaths of thousands of American soldiers
- life debilitating injuries of tens of thousands of American soldiers
- a spike in the suicide rate of soldiers
- the deaths of at least eighty thousand Iraqi civilians
- life debilitating injuries of uncounted hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians
- etc...


If the cost of seeing all of this come to an end is watching the only abortion clinic in Mississippi shut down... I'm ok with that.

The problem of abortion being outlawed in some red-states is much more tractable at the grassroots level than that of stopping the military-industrial complex. We can organize to help incest victims get an abortion outside their red-state, but no amount of money we raise will ever allow us to resurrect "collateral damage". The foreign policy issue dwarfs the abortion issue in importance and, as such, he has my vote.

VOTE (correctly) OR DIE!!!

Alonzo doesn't vote.
He had better watch out. Diddy's about.
"Vote or Die!" Diddy cries,
"Vote, or you'll be seein' my .45!"

So Alonzo reads,
and he inquires.
The boy's inspired!
He runs off! Votes Green!

Diddy CAPS his ass....




...shrugs Diddy, "He wasted his vote."


----------

Why do you bother voting? Because an election is supposed to reflect the will of the people?

Why do you vote, when your one vote won't swing an election? Is it because you've realized the aggregate of votes that do swing elections is the sum of hundreds, thousands or millions of individual decisions to cast one vote?

Too often, I've heard someone express support for Ron Paul's platform declare, "but he has no chance". I like to respond, "If so, that's your fault". For the sake of maintaining electability, the front runners in both parties stood idly by as our civil liberties were eviscerated, hell was unleashed Iraq, and our economy slipped closer and closer to recession. Why reinforce this notion of electability? If your vote reflects your will, why vote for someone who's betrayed your principals over someone who's resolutely defended them? Why not join the aggregate of individual voters that demand principled politics? Voting for "the lesser of two evils" does not improve matters, it simply slows down the rate at which they get worse.

Ron Paul's supporters understand this. Dr. Paul has gone from being an obscure congressman from Texas to raising more money in one day than anyone else has in the history of American politics. Literally thousands of people have traveled across the country to attend his rallies, and his support base springs from all over the political spectrum. They're voting on principal, they're voting for real change. And in a couple months, they may well have redefined what it means to be "electable".

Pro-socialized health care, Pro-Ron Paul?

Mike Mejia argues that despite Ron Paul's opposition to socialized health care, voting for him would best improve the chances of seeing that goal realized.

Ron Paul: The Pragmatic Choice


:-)

The latest from the police state: Privacy Shmrivacy!

Headline!
Definition Changing for People's Privacy

The government is literally spying on us:

The central witness in a California lawsuit against AT&T says the government is vacuuming up billions of e-mails and phone calls as they pass through an AT&T switching station in San Francisco. Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.

The government's response?

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

They are not even lying about it anymore. Why bother? Hardly anyone is paying attention. Britney Spears' train-wreck of a life is more important.The World Series is more important. Halo 3 is more important. Oh! The Superbowl's coming up too!


...so went my thoughts, when I ran across this amazing bit of standup: Comedian Bill Hicks on the JFK Assassination.





His closing is downright poetic, and echoes my sentiments exactly.

Jewish Republicans against Ron Paul?

A few weeks ago, the Republican Jewish Coalition refused to allow Ron Paul speak at their "Victory 2008 Republican Jewish Coalition Candidates Forum". The reason: He opposes aid to Israel.

Does this amount to being anti-Israel? Seeing as how this "U.S. aid" is really just a subsidy for its own defense industry, not at all. So says Israeli libertarian Boris Karpa. Check it out.

Beating the drums for Gulf War 3

Democrats worry Bush's setting up a war with Iran. And for good reason; this administration has tried to use "diplomacy" to trigger a war at least once before.

No joke. In Fall of 2002, Bush made an appearance at the U.N. demanding Iraq be pressured to shutdown its (non-existent) WMD program.

U.N. Resolution 1441 was passed to give Saddam Hussein's Iraq one last chance to comply with its "disarmament obligations", set by previous resolutions. To the neocon's dismay, Hussein obliged and completely cooperated with the inspection process, as stated in these U.N. press releases:

IRAQ COOPERATING WITH DISARMAMENT PROCEDURES, BUT MANY BANNED WEAPONS REMAIN UNACCOUNTED FOR, INSPECTORS TELL SECURITY COUNCIL

Quote from the release:

Since the Commission's arrival in Iraq, it had conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites, he continued, including industrial sites, ammunition depots, research centres, universities, presidential sites, mobile laboratories, private houses, missile production facilities, military camps and agricultural sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case had he seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.

UN INSPECTORS FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF PROHIBITED WEAPONS PROGRAMMES AS OF 18 MARCH WITHDRAWAL, HANS BLIX TELLS SECURITY COUNCIL

Quote from the release:

Given the media attention to mobile facilities, he said that even before UNMOVIC began its inspections in November 2002, the Commission had received information about such facilities and the inspectors were looking for sites where such mobile units could be hooked up for support services. Upon his request, the Iraqi side had presented some information about mobile systems they possessed. As evident in his report, neither the information presented nor pictures given to the inspectors by the Iraqi side matched the description that had recently been made available to them, as well as to the media, by the United States. At UNMOVIC, he could not, of course, make a proper evaluation of the depicted vehicles on the basis of published material alone.

When the U.N. inspectors failed to find a single non-existent weapon of mass destruction, Bush decided to invade and ordered the inspectors out. Repeat:

- He gave Saddam Hussein one last chance to comply
- Saddam complied
- Bush invaded anyway.

So much for diplomacy!

I wrote "to the neocon's dismay" above because the Bush administration never intended to deal with Iraq peacefully. They intended 1441 to be the trigger that would justify their invasion. i.e. They fully expected Saddam to violate 1441 by rebuffing the U.N. inspectors, thus justifying the invasion.



So I'm a bit wary when this administration calls the sanctions against Iran a "pathway of diplomacy". This exchange between a reporter and the State Department's spokesman isn't encouraging either:

QUESTION: So in other words, this is a way to avert war, the way you look at it?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I'm not going to -- it is a way to prevent Iran from obtaining the technologies that would allow it to build a nuclear weapon.

QUESTION: And a way to prevent the U.S. from launching military action, which would be unpopular.

MR. MCCORMACK: It is exactly as I said.
(source)

"It is exactly as I said": Translation: "No, we are not trying to avert war..."

Ron Paul raises more than $5 million in third quarter

Ron Paul has raised $5,080,000 dollars this quarter, which is already earning him a LOT of media attention. Highlights:


From Reason Magazine:

So he's raised about $8.2 million and spent $2.9 million, a burn rate of around 35 percent. That's a little lower than the burn rate for the frontrunning candidates


From the NY Times' The Caucus:

On Tuesday, The Hotline, a political newsletter, speculated, “If Paul outraises Huckabee, won’t we need a new evaluation of ‘dark horse?’ ”

With Mike Huckabee expected to report receipts of about $1 million, Mr. Benton thinks a re-evaluation is in order.

In terms of money in the bank, Mr. Benton said, “we are going to be amongst the very top. I would argue that we’ve stepped into the first tier.”


From Reuters:

Democratic candidates generally have been raising more than their Republican counterparts, but Paul's performance puts him in the same financial territory as two prominent Democrats -- the $5.2 million raised by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and $7 million raised by former Sen. John Edwards.


And check out this amusing bit in Lew Rockwell's blog.


Amazing!

Update: There really aren't any gays in Iran...

...at least not from their point of view, Justin Raimondo points out.

The last three links in his post are 3 parts of a documentary about "the most vulnerable civil rights movement in the world": The Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization. Check it out.

Ahmadinejad of Kazakhstan

I usually find bigotry funny. Absurdity is at the root of all humor, and a ranting bigot is nothing if not absurd.

Case in point: Here's an excerpt from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial talk at Columbia University:

In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country.

Really!??

I read that quote, looked at a picture of the guy, and realized he reminded me of another famous anti-semitic homophob.

Then I giggled.

Democrats are useless

Back in 2006, after details of Bush's illegal wiretapping program were leaked, there wasn't any hope of stopping the President from playing dictator. The Republicans controlled Congress and had no problem watching Bush hack away at our rights. Nevertheless, Russ Feingold (one of the only Democrats with backbone) decided to at least attempt to hold the President accountable. He introduced a resolution to censure the President for authorizing the program (i.e. a formal declaration that the Senate disapproves of the President's actions). His fellow Democrats immediately shied away from the resolution, decrying it a waste of time.

Flashforward to today. The Democrats now control Congress, voted into power by a country tired of the war and sick of being lied to. So what have they delivered to their constituents after nearly a year in power? A measure condemning (censuring) MoveOn.org for an ad that exposes the latest lies about the war. Instead of getting us out of Iraq and putting an end to the false propaganda, they've decided to spend their time tacitly endorse both. Pathetic.

Assuagement for Haggard Savants

I'm still friends with undergrads who are in need of stress relief! Bored old people are welcome to participate as well :-)

Copter

SpearToss

Mini-Golf

Snow Trooper

Curveball

Tennis Challenge

Maze Game

Ski (no score)

OJ hypothetically'll kill me for posting this

A quote from this article:

We live in a country where thousands of people boycott television networks if they allow a bare breast or question religion. Yet scores of those same people will be eating out of Fox's hand those two nights, when it allows a (alleged) murdering scumbag to promote a book describing how he would've killed the mother of his children. You know, if he really did it. Which he didn't. Just ask him.

to introduce this article:

O.J. isn't the problem anymore ... we are