Well, today we have a fire on a platform in the Gulf. And a tanker carrying 2.4 million gallons of oil ran aground in northern Canada today. And we just had a little issue that lasted a whole summer with another platform.  You may have heard of it.


We are officially out of Iraq, though our advisory role will last potentially years. (Iraq has a smidgen of oil, btw). Neighboring Iran just created their own drone to counter ours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, demand for oil is going down faster than OPEC can deal with it as our economy bounces around. The Middle East has a plethora of petrodictatorships that we rely on to be friendly. And also, Israel has recently discovered that it has so much oil off shore that it may reach financial and energy independence--which plays into its current dealings with neighbors no doubt.

Read more »

During the run-up to HCR, a lot of us were discussing how America doesn't really do preventative care. Well, to clarify, we do preventative care, but we tend to focus on treatment and not prevention. This is a major reason why Cuba, which spends so little per person, can have such high life expectancy rates. Many, including me, think that the passed Health Care Reform could have done so much more for disease prevention. One thing that I overlooked is the elimination of most copays for preventative care.

Someone at the American Cancer Society (ACS) told me yesterday about a recent mobile mammography experience; ACS drives to rural areas to offer free or near-free mammagrapy to those (for lack of time, money, or just convenience) who don't drive hundreds of miles for nominal preventative care. If you have insurance, then there's a small charge and if you don't the mammography is free. One person was interested in getting a mammogram as it had been years since her last mammogram, but because she had insurance, there would have been a $10 copay. Therefore the person opted out. Because of $10, this person managed both to avoid preventative lifesaving care and to exasperate the ACS worker:

                                   It's just $10!

Granted, $10 is not a lot of money. But to many, copayments are a disincentive to make their way into the doctor's office for needed preventative care. I mean, 90% of the time, you come out OK, right? The Wall Street Journal notes that

Often because of cost, Americans use preventive services at about half the recommended rate, according to research cited by the White House. Chronic diseases, which are often preventable, are responsible for 7 of 10 deaths among Americans each year and account for 75 percent of the nation's health spending..

Read more »

Brazil is ranked #1; North Korea is #105. So it was supposed to be the most lopsided game of the Cup. Heck, I was joking that it would be 5-0. But North Korea played with poise. Both teams played hard and showed sportsmanship. And the Brazilians gained respect for their opponents. A Brazillian player went down and a N. Korean helped him up. A Brazilian returned the favor. Both sides strove, many shots and saves were made, and the half arrived with the score 0-0.


Brazil did eventually get its legs and beat N. Korea 2-1. But the amazing thing was the 1 goal that the North Koreans gained. After a game where the N. Koreans gained the respect of the fans, when they finally scored against the giant (Brazil), the place I was in erupted in cheers.

Why wouldn't they? The North Koreans had earned it.

Read more »

Mother teaching a young one how to use a stone to crack open a palm nut. Meanwhile baby just plays with nuts.

 What does it mean to be human? Jane Goodall back in the 1960s discovered that chimpanzees use tools, just like humans do. Before that, only humans used tools. We've learned that many animals communicate verbally, and use what can only be called language. But that was something only humans could do. We know elephants can look in a mirror and recognize the splotch of paint that the the 'crazy human' put on their face, touch it with their trunk, and try to wipe it off. But only humans are self-aware, right?

Read more »

Students Strongly Urged to Avoid Traveling in or around Juarez Area

Because of the ongoing violence and the deaths of two UTEP students in Juárez, Mexico, over the weekend, UNM Deputy Provost, Richard Holder is strongly urging students to avoid travel in around the Juarez area, specifically south of the city.
According to an article in the El Paso Times:

"The Chihuahua state prosecutor's office said the two men were traveling in a gray Jeep Cherokee when they were chased down and shot Sunday evening on the highway linking Juárez and the town of Villa Ahumada. The shooter was armed with an AK-47 rifle.
Investigators found Gonzalez dead in the front seat and Ruiz laying on the asphalt next to the vehicle. Both men had multiple gunshot wounds. Six bullet casings were located at the scene. The case is under investigation.
The murders of college students and professors in Juárez has become more frequent as the violence in the city has raged for more than two years.

During the weekend, homicides in Juárez surpassed 1,000 for the year. State police reported 16 murders Saturday and 11 murders Sunday."

It's easy to make fun of Arizona's draconian new laws. But even in more moderate New Mexico, there is a real problem at our border, and there is pressure to do something. New Mexico's governor race is becoming a testing ground for how the state may deal with the issue. The above email is one that I got yesterday from the University of New Mexico--sent to all people affiliated with the university. 1000 murders in one city in one year. And it isn't even June yet. Two University of Texas El Paso affiliates dead over the weekend. And what about the people who live and deal with this in Juarez? And those in El Paso, a city that for all intents and purposes is the same metropolitan area

Read more »

There's been a lot of blame being passed around for Deepwater Horizon disaster.  We know that oil, much more than was let on, is gushing from the twisted pipes under the ocean.  We know that both public and private entities are trying to scoop up, neutralize, or block oil from reaching environmentally sensitive areas. We surmise that chemicals being sprayed on the ocean are killing dolphins, turtles, and other animals: These are the chemicals that were supposed to protect them from oil. We have a pro-oil Republican governor scooping up oil in a net and trying to act the environmentalist. We have people trying to collect oil that is washing up on beaches. We have people saving oil-covered birds.

But these are all treating the symptoms of the ongoing spill. This isn't a tanker that leaks oil once--which is a spill. This is a continuing, ongoing gusher. BP was claiming that 5000 barrels of oil a day was leaking, but now we know that their little siphon tube is 'producing' that amount to the boat overhead. And far more oil continues to gush. (~100,000 barrels a day? Who knows?)

As we watch each of BP's futile attempts to slow or stop the oil from coming out, we realize how little we actually know about stopping these kinds of spills. And we realize that we were morons for letting a company drill where response options for a blowout were so limited. There are more than 3,000 wells in the Gulf--which to me seems to say that (1) the oil companies felt pretty good about their record, and (2) when you have been lucky enough times then you start discounting existing risks.

Read more »

We often delude ourselves--or at least some of us do--that America is post-race. But as with everything, we need to take a look at the stark realities of real people. The politicization of the illegal immigrant situation aside, how do real people of color fare in the U.S.?

Is it true that groups like La Raza and the NAACP aren't advocating for a disadvantaged people, but are actually discriminating? That has been an argument that I've heard recently from different sources. In fact, one of the two new controversial Arizona laws has this idea built right in.

But here are some views of the true situation:

For Latino and African American Seniors:

The SFSI (Senior Financial Stability Index) finds that 91 percent of both African-American and Latino seniors face financial vulnerability. Thus, nine out of 10 senior households of color do not have sufficient economic security to sustain themselves through their projected lives. Among Latino single seniors, only four percent are financially secure.

Read more »

As much as I'd love TPM to have a built-in chat and be kind of a social network of its own, I absolutely don't want comments here and arguments here brought into my Facebook world. This is being discussed on CVille Dem's blog, and I commented on what I believe the remedy is, but I'd like to re-post it here in case people missed it:

To keep Facebook out of TPM (and a myriad of other sites), just do this from any Facebook page if you are logged in:

Account-->privacy-->websites and applications-->instant personalization-->un-check box

Facebook has played fast-and-loose with privacy issues in the past, and they keep making changes opt-out instead of opt-in. But opting-out of instant personalization in this case, I believe, does the trick.

Besides, having to keep telling TPM "NO, I don't want my comment on my Facebook wall"

gets.

old.

fast.

In Science magazine there is an open letter from 255 National Academy of Science members addressing recent climate change controversies and the politicization of science. The letter is in Science Magazine, which is subscription-based, so I'm just re-posting it in full below. I'm sure that they'll be fine with that ;)  .

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial--scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That's what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of "well-established theories" and are often spoken of as "facts."

Read more »

Between the oil spill and inept attack, there's another disaster that everyone's overlooking.

Nashville is in trouble. Opryland is flooded. The Country Music Hall of Fame is closed. Water flows amongst the skyscrapers. Thousands of families (no exageration) homeless. Many millions of dollars in damage. Cars stacked 3 high by water poring down what were streets.

Something got lost between the inept attack and the tide of floating crud in the Gulf: one of our great cities is hurting.

Much of the local news is devoted to the flood: http://www.tennessean.com/

--------------------------------------------
Update: You can text "Red Cross" to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross to help.

If global warming and energy security weren't reasons to consume less gas, the nebulous blob encroaching upon the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coastlines is. We sometimes get used to problems, learn to live with them in our minds, and put them aside for "more important" things like arguing over what Charlie Crist's fate is. How we use energy is vital to our security and to the environment (which sounds like a strange pairing, doesn't it?)

Reducing fuel use on the surface seems easy; one thing that is hammered over and over are short-term solutions. Bundle errands in one trip. Simply drive less. Weatherproof your home. Given the peak oil hypothesis, part of the choice in energy use will be decided in the long term by rising prices. Travel prices may rise disproportionately to income and so people slowly migrate bit by bit closer to their workplaces or to areas with good mass transit. Laws, guilt, government renewable cheerleading, and incentives to conserve do help a little--but to the average Joe, it'll be the price that decides it for them.

One harbinger of possible future trends is that there seem to be more foreclosures in the spread-out suburbs than in town.   Since the out of town areas are cheaper, new home owners are concentrated in the urban fringe. Rate hikes, higher gas prices causing increased money lost to commuting, and the fact that people who buy away from the city in the cheaper housing generally are younger, and newer to home buying, have little equity, and generally make less money than those closer in all factor into the decline of the exurb.  Many exurbs are becoming hubs for rental properties, and:

Some observers believe the growth of rental property is the first in a series of steps that will transform today's exurbs into tomorrow's low-income housing. These communities have a low tax base made up mostly of property and sales taxes, both of which are in decline. Lawrence Summers, economic adviser to President Barack Obama, has often explained it this way: "No one in the history of the world ever washed a rented car."

Read more »

For far too long, we've watched the tea party movement. Yeah, they seemed crazy. Yeah, it seemed strange that a "populist" movement supported institutions that were anti populist.

But they are a constant force. They haven't gone away. They keep getting in the news. They keep protesting. They keep getting heard.

Liberals and Centrists haven't done anything but complain about the "tea baggers". Where were the equally-spirited responses? Where were the people demanding rationality and not stupidity?

Well, I guess many of us were dispirited. Our every dream and whim, which we all don't agree on anyway, did not instantly appear last January when Obama was sworn in. Ten thousand perceived slights caused us to sit and moan, wait for something better while not working for that thing.

But that's changed this week hasn't it? Centrists and Liberals suddenly have a voice and it turns out to be strong. I'm not trying to write a pep talk--I'm just observing. It isn't just about Arizona's divisive law. This protest and activity can be a force for change. Unlike the Tea Party, decency and progressiveness is the majority. But until now these people have been The Lethargic.

I'm not the Summers fan, but just thought those words bear repeating (from NYT).

HCR. Today's Supreme Court Decision. Surging Independent registration.

Are Americans satisfied with their leaders? Why is there so little difference between the actions (maybe not ideology) of the 2 parties?

Our Reps have more fund-raising skills than governance. Corporations have hurt (maybe killed) HCR. Hell, if you think about it, they are the single most impediment to real change in anything reform-related.

If the Supreme Court says that limiting corporations is unconstitutional; if they say that money, constitutionally, is Free Speech; then maybe it's time to change our freaking Constitution.

As Barefooted said, Enough.
===========================

Update: I should mention, as some do below, that the chances of this happening are very slim. This post is solely a work of anger at government's apparent futility.

In lieu of talking about current events, let's think of something that may or may not have anything to do with what some would call "serious ramifications" or "outcomes" or "consequences" or "game changer" or "wake the fuck up" or anything actually important. If that's what you are looking for, then I suggest you try the TPM main page or most of the Café (if you ignore quinn).

Nope, here I'd like to dredge up a couple of trite expressions and ask you to add your own. Not really a reason to do it, except why not do it?

He's either brave or stupid.

Read more »