deadissue.com

This is one of those things that while I think it it is a good idea it is probably better not to leave it under the tree.

Indiana’s Planned Parenthood is offering a unique option this winter. $25-$100 gift certificates that can be used for anything at the clinics from contraception to abortions. The Chicago Tribune reports today on the effort which is available in 35 clinics throughout the state. The CEO of the state’s Planned Parenthood is quoted by the paper as saying the reception has been “pretty robust, and generally favorable” and that the vast majority of those visiting Planned Parenthood are coming for basic health issues, not an abortion.

If you are wondering why the republican party is in the crapper look no further than this

A state senator in Utah is drafting a resolution to encourage retailers to stop using nebulous phrases like “Happy holidays” and “Season’s greetings” and get back to what shops used to say in December: “Merry Christmas.”

Utah state Sen. Chris Buttars told Salt Lake City’s Deseret News that he’s drafting the non-binding resolution because several employees at a retailer told him they were instructed not to say “Merry Christmas” to customers.

“I’m sick of the Christmas wars,” Buttars told the Salt Lake Tribune. “We’re a Christian nation and ought to use the word.”

Politicians are paid to solve real problems and plan for real futures, not fight imaginary wars. The strangest part to me is that christmas as it is celebrated is more like a pagan tree festival than a celebration of god. As an atheist I find christmas kind of amusing in that the only way the christians can get people to celebrate the birth of the their savior is to give everybody presents and encourage them to get drunk.

This came via Mathew Ygliasias:

Yet all three of his choices — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the rival turned secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander, as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates, the current and future defense secretary — have embraced a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena.

The shift would create a greatly expanded corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the incoming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states. However, it is unclear whether the financing would be shifted from the Pentagon; Mr. Obama has also committed to increasing the number of American combat troops. Whether they can make the change — one that Mr. Obama started talking about in the summer of 2007, when his candidacy was a long shot at best — “will be the great foreign policy experiment of the Obama presidency,” one of his senior advisers said recently.

This sounds like a real commitment to national security rather than just using national security as an excuse to give a lt of money to defense contractors.

From Sex and war Via Andrew Sullivan

Can all conflict be reduced beyond even team aggression and resource competition, down to the single factor of population growth? It’s not quite that simple, but a deeper investigation of the role of population increase shows quite clearly that growth rate and population demographics function as significant triggers for raiding, wars, and even terrorism.

If we hope to reduce the number and severity of these violent incidents in our world, this is a relationship we need to understand. Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut and his Russian colleague Andrey Korotayev provide important quantitative insight into the dynamic connections between population growth and conflict. In a careful study of English, Chinese, and Roman history, they showed a statistical correlation between an increase in population density and warfare, although not surprisingly the impact of population growth was not immediate but took some time to develop. It is not the infant playing at the hearth but the hungry landless peasant twenty years later who causes the conflict. Adjusting for this and other variables (such as the fact that wars themselves tend to reduce population), and using robust data on population growth from church records in England along with historical data on conflict, Turchin and Korotayev found that intervals of relative peace and rapid population growth were followed by periods of conflict and slower population growth. Their study suggests that population growth accounts for a powerful 80–90 percent* of the variation between periods of war and peace. Even if the influence of population is substantially less than that, it remains outstandingly important. But here is the crucial point: Rapid population growth is not just an important cause of violent conflicts. In the contemporary world, population growth is a cause that can be contained by purely voluntary means.

Rather than exporting democracy we should be exporting birth control.

This piece nicely explains away the incompetence dodge:

Part of the effort to pull the wagon of conservatism out of the ditch into which Bush piloted the country is going to be an effort to deny that George W. Bush was a real conservative. In reality, Bushism should be understood as the highest form of conservatism. In particular, the High Bushist years of 2001-2006 represent the only time that the post-war conservative movement has had total control over the federal government. If the practical consequences of pre-Bush conservatism were less disastrous, that’s largely because conservative political power was more constrained in those earlier eras.

This post talks about how high-speed rail might make the midwest more economicaly viable.

This guy asks why do we care if the midwest is economicaly viable.

I find myself agreeing with both of them mostly because I would like to see Denver, where I live, connected by high-speed rail to San Diego, where I would love to go surfing. But from a practical standpoint wouldn’t it be better to let the non-viable cities in the center of the country cease to exist instead of trying to prop them up with subsidies.

Update:
As Rob AKA “this guy” points out he was not saying that the mid-west is not worth saving he was saying that high-speed rail might not be the answer to the economic problems in the mid-west. At least I hope that is what he was saying. That leaves me as the guy arguing that we should not subsidize cities as it just prolongs the agaony. With that said it seems like cities that are able to support high speed rail service would also probably be economicaly viable. This might be one of those chicken or the egg problems.

On last nights episode of the Terminater it was decided that the AI needs to learn the ten commandments. Does anyone else see where this is going?

I just saw this as a solution for the consumer credit crisis:

By putting that money in the hands of holders of consumer and mortgage loan securities, the government hopes more money will flow to consumers than has occured so far in previous bailout plans.

But the program to make $200 billion available for a range of consumer loans – including credit cards and car loans – likely won’t be up and running until February. Government officials briefing reporters couldn’t say how much additional credit the program might make available to consumers in time to feed purchases for the holiday shopping season.

That $200 billion aimed at spurring consumer borrowing will come from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which will lend that money to holders of securities backed by consumer debt, such as credit card debt.

Maybe I am missing something but isn’t a big part of the “credit crisis” the fact that credit has been too easy to get and many people have gotten in over their heads. How is giving them more credit so the can buy more stuff going to help that.

Republican self-diagnosis of their problems seems about as misguided as their economic and regulatory policies.

“The party has simply not understood the importance of having highly visible black Republican operatives, elected officials and political spokespersons working for it on an ongoing basis,” adds an African American who worked for the Republican National Committee during the administration of the first President Bush. “It’s not our message as much as it is our messengers that are killing us.”

This was the logic that led to Sarah Palin being picked as the running mate for John McCain, if someone is kind of cute and folksy they can say stupid crap and everyone will believe them. This formula sort of worked with Reagan, they had a nice grandfatherly type say and do some mean hateful things and everyone went along with it, as nobody wants to disagree with a cute old man, even when he is a senile old fool.

Republicans seem to think the only reason Obama won this past election was his skin color, not that he offered real solutions to real problems. Republicans have become so deeply mired in identity politics they seem to think everyone else is all about identity and not about issues. As the country grows more sophisticated the number of people who vote for a candidate because that candidate looks or acts like them will get smaller and smaller. At this rate I think the Republicans can look forward to many years of being the minority party. And I don’t mean the party of minorities just the party without much say in governing, which fits given Republicans and conservatives as a whole don’t believe in governance.

While some people might make fun of my tofurkey dinner, at least no one has urinated on it.

Palin is great…she’s got her blah blah blah going, while this guy kills turkeys right over her shoulder. The whole thing was about her pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving, and after doing that, she stands in this spot and…

You can your blogs address in to this and it will tell you what the author is like.

Here is what it said about the authors of Deadissue:

The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work int heir own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

I also took the liberty of plugging in Mr Bettors site and it had this to say about Mr Bettor:

The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it – often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be pshysically hesitant to try new things.

The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communcating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use conrete examples. Since they are extremly good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone.

This might be a little bit like the magic eight ball but I will go with it.

Some people are suggesting that Republicans need to get rid of the religous right. I disagree in that the religous right is not the only group republicans need to lose. They need to jettison the neo-cons the libertarians as well and the eighteen families that want the estate tax repealed.

The Republican coalition consists of groups that agree to vote for eachothers dad ideas and ultimately everything that comes out of the coalition is disasterous for the country and the other groups making up the coalition.

If the Republican party want to make a comeback they should try to find at least one idea that is not bad.

I don’t get why anybody would want to save Lieberman’s job. I can see letting him stay in the Democratic caucus, but he certainly should not have any kind of leadership position in the Senate.

I got this via Andrew Sullivan and I thnk inadvertentely cuts to the heart of the problem with conservatism.

The movement offers entire career tracks for aspiring conservatives. Moreover, the movement preaches hostility to non-movement institutions. From the moment a movement conservative starts his career at his college conservative paper, he learns to conceive of conservative organizations as the City of God and traditional establishment institutions as the City of Man. The two Cities, he believes, are antagonists. Hence, movement conservatives have not generally succeeded in reaching sympathetic outsiders – if anything, they have actively sought to alienate them.

The movement has failed to catch on with sympathetic outsiders because so much of conservative thought is obviously wrong. Anyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in making the conservative movement a success, i.e. employees of conservative think tanks and republican congressional candidates, can easily see that you can’t raise government revenue by reducing taxes. Just like it is pretty obvious that invading a country is not going to make them llike us. If you pay enough people to agree with you, yeah, they will probably find a way to pretend what you said makes sense, but for the rest of us it is pretty silly stuff.

As an additional note if anyone from the Heritage foundation would like to start paying me a six-figure salary I will be happy to pretend I agree with you.

I got this from an MSN article how older people can fit in at work when they have younger supervisors.
”

It’s hard on the ego for baby boomers to have a younger boss,” says Christine Hassler, a life coach, professional speaker and author. “Their parents taught them that seniority comes with age … having to answer to a younger boss goes against the model they subscribed to. Not only are boomers often embarrassed and angry that they are answering to someone their child’s age, they do not know how to relate to or connect with their boss and/or co-workers, which only makes them feel more separate.”

The part about senority seems to describe the presidential election perfectly. Older people thought that both McCain and Clinton deserved the presidency because they had been around so long. where people under fifty saw them as part of the problem and in my case, saw them as people trying to solve problems from fifty years ago.

Issues between the generations may be huge over the next twenty years. The world the baby-boomers entered is much different than the one they live in now. Some boomers seem to be set on returning the world to what it was like when they were born, even though the way they picture the world of the forties fifties and sixties are probably very different from how those days really were. In fact I would argue that the entire conservative movement is based on the idea that the U.S should return to those days. My guess is that as boomers die off so will that part of the conservative movement that longs for a return of the fifties.

According to an artcle in the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, some people around Obama may favor torture. I don’t kow if this is Murdoch’s way of forcing the new administration to embrace the illegal ways of the Bush administration, or just an attempt to erode the credibility of the new administration before it even takes control.

The right-wing is of-course buying into this but so are certain “progressive” blogs, who also seem to want the Obama presidency to fail. My guess is that over the next 4 years some people who called themselves progressives will align themselves with the right in hopes, of impeding an Obama presidency and showing that the Lieberman/Clinton wing of the Democratic party is the only way to govern.

I don’t understand these ‘progressives” other than maybe they would like to keep fighting the sixties culture wars for another fifty years. Sadly for the most part liberals won the culture wars of the sixtiesand at this point we can move-on to more important and pressing problems and opportunities. But for some people on the left and almost everyone on the right the sixties need to be refought everyday. Kind of like ground hog day in bell bottoms.

I am a little surprised by this. Howard Dean probably did more to get Democrats back in power than almsot anyone I can think of. I hope he gets a good position in the Obama administration he has certanly earned and will probably do a great job where ever he winds up.

This is proof that elections do matter. Fair and open trials are one of the things that America is supposed to stand for, and it looks like we have a president who respects the country enough to honor the ideals of the U.S.

Why is it you know the right wing will go nuts over the closing of Guantomo and giving the prisoners held their trials. I guess they know the war on terror is a load of crap.

Does anyone really think Marjuana should be illegal?

Not in Michigan:

Michigan became the 13th state to legalize marijuana, with 63 percent of voters supporting its use for medical purposes

The war on drugs might be a bigger waste of money than the Iraq war, although it would be close. Hopefully the next four and hopefully eight years will bring some sensible drug policies.

The passage of Amendment 8, which outlawed gay marriage in California, seems to have ignited a new culture war. With Obama in the the whitehouse abortion and reproductive rights should be safe for at least 20 years assuming he makes good choices for the supreme court. It looks like culture warriors are moving on to gay marriage.

Maybe it is that I have no interest in getting married but arguing about who can be a Bridezilla seems like a huge waste of time and resources that could be spent working on real problems. The solution may be for the states to get out of the business of approving marriage all together. I know certain other laws, like tax and inheritence apply to married people, but it would be easy to say that those laws apply to anyone who was married in any church. This lets marriage stay a religous thing while also letting gays and lesbians marry. At the same time the state is not in the middle of what should be a dispute between churches as to who they want to marry and who they don’t want to marry.

I doubt anyone involved will try to solve this skirmish in the culture war in a mutually beneficial manner. It seems like both sides in this dispute are trying to legislate acceptance of their view, which isn’t going to work for either side.

McCain seemed to really mean it when he urged his backers to support Obama. Now that Rove is not pulling the strings McCain seems like a good guy.

Hopefully this foreshadows many more conservatives turning their back on Rove(Karl Rove that is) and putting the country first rather than their re-election.

I am hoping Obama wins by a large enough margin that he can claim a mandate for what are some relatively moderate goals.

Opening up the federal health insurance system to everyone is hardly radical nor is taxing high income individuals at a higher rate than low wage earners.

Ending the Iraq war is also a no brainer for anyone who still has a brain.

My prediction is that the night ends early, when Florida gets called for Obama.

I am going to be delivering pizza to people waiting in line to vote tomorrow night, so if you are waiting in line to vote in Denver say “hi”

I recentely changed the gearing on my bike from the stock 32-16 to 36-16 and it makes a huge difference. The bike seems to climb as well and the rear wheel seems less prone to sliding on loose gravel, and now on flats and slight inclines I can usually keep up with people on geared bikes.
The slightly higher gearing has made the bike far more usable as a short commuter as well.

Looks like other people have also noticed. McCain’s entire campaign is based on Obama and Obama’s campaign is based on Obama as well. Conservatism has always been an antidote to liberalism the McCain campaign took it to an extreme when they offered no original ideas and just bashed the “evil liberals”.