Cognitive Dissonance

I don't like pulling for somebody to die; and yet I can't help but feel that, if Terri Schiavo would finally die, she and all the rest of us would be out of our misery.

I don't like giving money to a known supporter of the Church of Scientology, but Beck's new album actually sounds pretty good.

Springtime in New York

Nice.

When I lived down south, I used to hate springtime because it meant sweltering, face-melting heat was just around the corner. Now that I've been in New York for six years, I've learned to welcome spring like ... like ... somebody who really missed spring.

Yet, here it is, spring, and there's an inch-deep layer of Slurpee all over the sidewalks and icy wind peeling the flesh from my bones.

As the kids say, WTF?

Blogs You Should Read

Caryn at A Picture of Me directed me to this blog, overheardinnewyork.com, which is basically a list of stuff people overhear in New York City. Hours of entertainment here, folks. Some of my favorites, just from the past couple of days:

Conductor: The next stop will be...Hell, I don't even know what it is!

--B train

Guy: You know, when I was doing those breathing exercises, I realized: I don't think I've been able to breathe out of my left nostril since 1995.

--General Store, DUMBO

Customer: I'll have a slice of the eggplant.
Pizza guy: You know that's organic right?
Customer: That's fine. How long have you guys been organic?
Pizza guy: Oh, about 2 weeks now. The white girls are loving it.

--Delancey & Essex pizzeria

Terri Schiavo Will Never Recover

Sometimes it's easy to get confused in the shitstorm of spin and lazy reporting surrounding the nightmarish Terri Schiavo story. The fact of the matter is that she will never, ever recover, a medical fact not disputed by anybody but her parents, the charlatans who've surrounded them and the lawmakers using a brain-dead woman as a political football.

Though the spin and the reporting can create doubt about whether Terri Schiavo is going to return to something approaching normal cognitive function, it can be wiped away by one look at a CT scan of her brain, found here. Per the University of Miami, which provided the link, the large dark regions in the CT scan show "extensive cortical regions filled with spinal fluid." In other words, the regions of her brain containing her memories, emotions and other higher-brain functions have disappeared in the past 15 years and have been replaced with spinal fluid.

She will not recover. Should it be time for her parents to let her go? Like most of the country, I don't believe it's Congress's job to tell them that. In order to avoid being hypocritcal, I'm not going to tell them that, either. But a series of courts have been given that right, and they've told the Schiavos to let go, over and over and over again, based partly on the simple fact that Terri Schiavo will not recover.

The Plot to Keep You Poor and Hated

The Stupidest Man Alive

I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest lately, so I haven't had much time to post.

But because these topics are so dang important, I want to direct the attention of the two of you who occasionally stop by here accidentally after doing a Google search in France for "double-fisting" to these important items:

First, at TNR, Jonathan Chait explains in a succinct way (subscription may be required) the importance of the Social Security fight -- which I don't think is won yet, not by a long shot -- and the importance of not compromising and not creating private accounts of any kind:

"The consensus among the capital's chattering classes holds that the Social Security debate primarily concerns the program's solvency. Therefore, the questions center around political courage, and the greatest threat is that the parties will not agree on a solution. This consensus is wrong in every particular. In truth, the debate is fundamentally ideological. It does not lend itself to compromise. Despite conservatives' insistence that Social Security faces a "crisis," in reality, the fiscal threat is distant and manageable, while the political threat is immediate and dire. It follows from all this that those who believe in Social Security should make it their highest priority to drive a stake through privatization."

He explains -- and this has been explained before, but it can't be explained often enough -- that Social Security is not designed to give people a "good" rate of return. It's designed to spread risk throughout society, like an insurance policy. Today, we're exposed to risk in our 401(k) plans and outsource-able jobs. We've got plenty of freakin' risk already, making it all the more critical that we have a solid safety net -- security, if you will -- to protect us from utter ruin if the worst happens and our other investments fail.

Second, Digby ties together the threads of what's important about the astonishing nomination of Paul Freakin' Wolfowitz to head the World Bank.

I'll let you read it, but boiled down to its essence, the point is that there's a real danger that Wolfowitz is being brought in to undo some of the World Bank's recent efforts at acting like it gives a crap about the world's poor. Given his history, he's the perfect guy to restore the World Bank to the days when it would purposefully get poor nations into debt by forcing them to give enormous building projects to American conglomerates (Halliburton, Bechtel, etc.) and then use the massive debt as a stick to get them to do our bidding -- making these poor nations indentured servants, if you will. Sounds like a Project for a New American Century, doesn't it?

Weekend Horror Show

OK, thanks to Gawker, I have stumbled across a site almost as awful as Rotten.com (to which I will not provide a link and contribute to the permanent scarring of the two people who come by here every day).

The horrible site is Awful Plastic Surgery, and man is it awful. And kind of awesome. But mainly awful.

The horrifying freakish noses of Stephen Tyler, the Jacksons and Paris Hilton, the Crypt-Keeper cheekbones of Natalie Ambruglia, the sickening lips of Melanie Griffith, the bad face-lifts of Burt Reynolds, the all-around hideousness of Heidi Fleiss and, God help us all, Farrah Fawcett. ,

And ... heeeere's Mary!!!

Who's hungry?

Oh, and when you're ready for dessert, visit their nightmarish archives.

PopeJokeGate

Just last night, I read a column by Matt Taibbi from last week's New York Press about the Pope. Specifically, about the Pope dying. More specifically, making fun of the Pope dying. Being a secular humanist damned to h-e-double-hockey-sticks for all eternity, I found Taibbi's extended joke chuckle-worthy, if not exactly brilliant.

Here's just a sample of Taibbi's column, in which he listed the 52 funniest things about the Pope dying:

"51. After death, saggy, furry tits of dead Pope begin inexorable process of melting away into nothingness, like coldest of Sno-cones under faintest of suns."

"47. Upon death, Pope's face frozen in sickening smile, eyes wide open and teeth exposed, like a baboon."

"1. Throw a marble at the dead Pope's head. Bonk!"

You get the idea. This week, Taibbi explained his point, which was fairly obvious:

"'The 52 Funniest Things About the Death of the Pope'" was way over the top, but it was commensurate -— to the 197 consecutive fucking hours of Pope funeral coverage on cable we all know is coming very soon, with every politician on earth with a nose for Catholic votes lining up for a chance to blow into his hanky at the podium.

[...]

"This, incidentally, is what the alternative media is supposed to be for. While all across the major media landscape every public figure -— every politician and every NBA star and every superficially grief-stricken plastic anchorman—will be 'deeply saddened' and hanging his head during the obligatory moment of silence, there has to be someplace where the individual psychopath-loser, i.e. me, can say 'I don't care.' And not necessarily because it's right or wrong to think that way, but because a mandatory opinion held by everybody is no opinion at all. If we can't joke about the pope, then the pope, quite frankly, is not very serious."

This makes perfect sense to me. It made perfect sense to me when I read the article, which fit neatly into a long, long tradition of skewering sacred cows, from Jonathan Swift to National Lampoon. Sacred cows must be allowed to be skewered, or we are doomed as a society.

But, of course, our politicians would have none of that. The wailing and gnashing of teeth was loud and extended. New York Rep. Anthony Weiner called for New Yorkers to take copies of the New York Press, which is distributed for free, and dump them in the trash. That's illegal, of course. Other, more sensible politicians were more subdued. The execrable Chuck Schumer called it "the most disgusting thing I've seen in 30 years of public life" -- seriously? I mean, seriously? -- and Bloomberg, Hillary and a host of other suck-ups took their whacks to score some super-cheap political points. I mean, there's really no downside to bashing a Pope-basher, is there? After all, who doesn't love the Pope????!!!

Actually, I don't love the Pope. I don't give a rat's ass whether the Pope lives or dies. Whenever the Catholic Church is finally buried by its own irrelevance, it won't be soon enough to suit me.

What's more, I resent the interminable media jerk-off we'll be subjected to when he kicks the bucket. I'm sure it won't be as long-lasting or as distasteful as the necrophiliapalooza that followed Reagan's death last year, but it will still be one more thing to distract the mindless media from possibly stumbling across a real story.

But the most sickening aspect of this whole stupid "controversy" is what is says about our society. Right-wingers have for decades cried loud and long about "political correctness," whining that the coloreds and the queers and the womenfolk and the furriners should just suck it up and take a joke every now and then. But Christ on a Cross forbid you should ever so much as look crosseyed at one of their precious, precious religious figures. So it's now OK to make fun of minorities and helpless people, perpetuating damaging stereotypes -- witness the entire, sickening oeuvre of Ann Coulter, who is still allowed to pollute the airwaves of mainstream media -- even as we're well on the road to the day when our self-important religious leaders are issuing fatwahs over every minor slight. Happy day.

Your Tax Dollars at Work, or George W. Bush is a Rat Bastard

Rat Bastard

When you're filling out your form 1040 this tax season, keep this in mind:

"A new Social Security war room inside the Treasury Department is pumping out information to sell President Bush's plan, much like any political campaign might do. It's part of a coordinated effort by the Bush administration.

"The internal, taxpayer-funded campaigning is backed up by television advertisements, grass-roots organizing and lobbying from business and other groups that support the Bush plan."

After more than four years of these thugs running the country, my outrage meter is more worn-out and desensitized than Jenna Jameson's labia, but it spiked upon reading this.

I am paying my hard-earned tax dollars to help these criminals destroy my retirement security. Sickening.

Who are you, and what have you done with the usual Democratic leadership?

Harry Reid actually appears to have some chutzpah. In repsonse to Alan Greenspan's unmitigated horseshit about Social Security this week, Mr. Reid said: "I think he's one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington."

Well, slap my mammy!

Ezra Klein points out: "Reid has shattered the consensus that St. Alan is above reproach. "

Amen to that. Klein also goes on to suggest that reporters start treating Greenspan's blather as they treat those of any other party operative: by presenting opposing arguments in the interest of balance. I agree, but I doubt the media are bright enough to understand they're hearing from a political operative when this old geezer mumbles. Many of them still believe Bob Woodward's slack-jawed pronouncement that this glorified bureaucrat is "the Maestro."

I forgive America

OK, in my previous post, I said I hated America because of the hateful bankruptcy "reform" law slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.

I should correct myself: I hate Congress. America is forgiven, thanks to the results of a New York Times/CBS poll:

"Americans say President Bush does not share the priorities of most of the country on either domestic or foreign issues, are increasingly resistant to his proposal to revamp Social Security and say they are uneasy with Mr. Bush's ability to make the right decisions about the retirement program, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll."

I still think Bush could end up getting some kind of private account scheme in place, but these numbers are encouraging.

Eat the Poor

Let me get this straight: the new bankruptcy law will leave loopholes for rich people and corporations, but won't give special protection to the elderly or ill?

This country is despicable. Yes, I do hate America right now.

Time for the ice floe, Greenspan.

You kids get out of my yard!

Just a day after Republican leaders in Congress groaned that a vote on Social Security destruction would likely not come up in 2005, Alan Greenspan slithers up to the Hill and delivers this:

"Currently, 3-1/4 workers contribute to the Social Security system for each beneficiary. Under the intermediate assumptions of the program's trustees, the number of beneficiaries will have roughly doubled by 2030, and the ratio of covered workers to beneficiaries will be down to about 2."

Oh my God! Sounds like a crisis!!! Whatever shall we do, Uncle Alan?

"Raising national saving is an essential step if we are to build a capital stock that by, say, 2030 will be sufficiently large to produce goods and services adequate to meet the needs of retirees without unduly curbing the standard of living of our working-age population."

Wha? Since when did "raising national saving" become the key to fixing the Social Security crisis?

"Unfortunately, the current Social Security system has not proven a reliable vehicle for such saving. Indeed, although the trust funds have been running annual surpluses since the mid-1980s, one can credibly argue that they have served primarily to facilitate larger deficits in the rest of the budget and therefore have added little or nothing to national saving."

I see, so a huge Social Security surplus is a bad thing. By having money now, we are reducing our ability to have money in the future. Makes perfect sense to me. Just like having a federal budget surplus four years ago was an evil temptation that would sap our productivity and lower our standards of living. Perfectly reasonable.

So, what should we do about this awful problem of a trust-fund surplus?

"In my view, a retirement system with a significant personal accounts component would provide a more credible means of ensuring that the program actually adds to overall saving and, in turn, boosts the nation's capital stock. The reason is that money allocated to the personal accounts would no longer be available to fund other government activities and--barring an offsetting reduction in private saving outside the new accounts--would, in effect, be reserved for future consumption needs."

Ahh, yes: we must destroy the surplus in order to save it. I admire such simplicity. The solution four years ago -- kill the surplus! -- is still the solution today. We should get cracking on this right away. The ball's in your court, Joe Lieberman.

Why isn't this insane geezer on an ice floe?

No Retreat, Baby, No Surrender

Paul Krugman sounds the battle cry:

"The important thing to remember is why the right wants privatization. The drive to create private accounts isn't about finding a way to strengthen Social Security; it's about finding a way to phase out a system that conservatives have always regarded as illegitimate. And as long as that is what's at stake, there is no room for any genuine compromise. When it comes to privatization, just say no."

He makes a powerful case that has given me pause. I'd been wondering if maybe, just maybe, a reasonable approach might be to raise the payroll tax ceiling, raise the retirement age and then create add-on private accounts. The first two would close any possible financing gap in Social Security. The last would get conservatives to shut the fuck up, already, and act as a hedge against the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they're right that private accounts will bring better returns.

But Krugman argues that any private account, no matter how it's funded, will be a Trojan horse the conservatives will use to destroy Social Security later. That may be so; he assumes the worst of our enemies, and he's probably right to do so. He also points out that, once such a compromise bill got into committee -- a committee that would probably be made up of only GOP lawmakers, as has been the SOP lately -- it might be twisted into unrecognizable and toxic forms. This is a risk that makes me much more nervous than the Trojan-horse argument.

Finally, he also has a love note for Joe Lieberman:

"Why should any Democrat act as a spoiler when his party is doing well by doing good, gaining political ground by opposing a really bad idea? (Hello, Senator Lieberman.)"

No shit. As Steve Gilliard said this week: Joe Lieberman must be stopped.