Senator Boxer Must Have Failed Analogies

Senator Boxer Must Have Failed Analogies

From the December 8, 2009 San Jose Mercury-News:

WASHINGTON — As abortion took center stage in the Senate's historic debate over health care reform, Sen. Barbara Boxer was right in the middle of the fight, comparing an effort to limit women's access to abortion to restricting men's access to Viagra.

Her combative stance on the issue was a familiar one for the third-term Democrat, whose support of abortion rights has been central to her political career.
"Why are women being singled out here? It's so unfair," Boxer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "We don't tell men that if they want to ... buy insurance coverage through their pharmaceutical plan for Viagra that they can't do it."

If the government decided that Viagra wasn't necessary (which strictly speaking, it isn't), and decided that it shouldn't be covered, you would not get any argument from me. But the bigger issue here is Boxer's misunderstanding of how analogies work. Boxer clearly doesn't understand that the moral discomfort that most Americans have with abortion isn't about sex; it's about killing what is going to be, in a very short time, a human being. And this is analogous to Viagra in what way?

Viagra helps men (and presumably their wives) achieve sexual satisfaction. This is not truly necessary from a health standpoint, but has no other morally worrisome aspects to it. Is Boxer arguing that abortion is some sort of sexual satisfaction procedure?

Just A Coincidence, I'm Sure

Just A Coincidence, I'm Sure

From the December 9, 2009 The Hill:

Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008.
Federal records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.

Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was issued to Penn’s polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, according to federal records.
Federal records also show that a former adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received nearly $70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach communities that their televisions would soon no longer receive broadcast signals.

The adviser, Alfredo J. Balsera, who heads a public-affairs firm based in Coral Gables, Fla., helped craft Obama’s Hispanic advertising message.

Handing these contracts to these firms might have been perfectly legitimate, but imagine if the Bush Administration had done stuff like this. It would be clear evidence of conflict of interest, corruption, etc. And I would agree: it would look really corrupt. Just like this.

Notice also how the government spent almost six million dollars to save three jobs. At almost two million dollars a job, I think the money could have been better spent. What if Congress had cut taxes by two million dollars? Do you think it would have created more than three jobs?

I Think We're Supposed To Be Upset About This

I Think We're Supposed To Be Upset About This

But it isn't working. From the December 10, 2009 New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called “snatch and grab” operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.

I kept reading the article, waiting for the horrible, disgusting, criminal actions that are supposed to make me jump with horror about this. But the worst that they can come up with is the 2007 incident in which Blackwater guards in a firefight killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Tragic? Yes. Avoidable? I've read differing accounts and explanations of what went wrong. But I'm hard pressed to see how that incident is an argument against CIA contracting out services to Blackwater.

The U.S. Constitution grants Congress authority to grant letters of marque and reprisal--which is way more open-ended and Wild West than what is being alleged in this New York Times article. Please, explain to me what the problem is, besides the ever-present conspiracy theory by which Blackwater really pulls all the strings, starts wars, etc. to get rich.

CFLs Again

CFLs Again

I've heard from a lot of readers with their disappointments about CFLs. One reader had two CFLs explode in indoor settings--which is really quite scary, when think about the fact that they contain mercury vapor. Several readers have indicated that when used in frequent on and off settings, the lifetime is quite disappointing--no better than the dramatically cheaper incandescent bulbs that they replaced. In short, if you are environmentally responsible, turning off lights when not in use--you will pay a pretty penny for doing so.

Another reader tells me that his Home Depot accepts dead CFLs for recycling. I should hope so! I'll find out if that is true here as well.

Finally, one reader mentioned this tragedy going on in China:

But while the environmental and economic advantages of using fluorescent bulbs are paramount, there are also some costs. Fluorescent bulbs work by using electricity to excite mercury vapor, and mercury can be a dangerous, toxic pollutant, perhaps most readily vilified due to its prevalence in the ocean food chain. Thus, proper disposal and care of fluorescent lightbulbs need to come hand in hand with their wide use, otherwise they bring the risk of increased mercury contamination in the environment.

The problem is confounded in the manufacturing process if that mercury is not safely contained and controlled. And that’s precisely the concern in China, where most of the world’s fluorescent lightbulbs are produced, and where factory conditions are poorly regulated and environmentally porous.

In fact, in many cases the factory conditions are downright deplorable, and aside from the long term environmental damage that comes from mercury contamination, hundreds of Chinese workers are exposed to mercury poisoning on a daily basis. These problems have recently escalated due to a rapid increase in foreign demand, particularly because of the European Union’s directive making fluorescent bulbs compulsory by 2012.

And all so that we can prevent global warming that may or may not be happening, and may or may not be partially man's doing! At least partly this push towards CFLs is because the Chinese government seems to own the Democratic Party. I suspect that they pushed for the CFL requirement in the EU through their puppets there as well.

The Virtual Senator?

The Virtual Senator?

I'm more amused at the prospect than think it is really what is going on, but this piece at Hillbuzz raises an intriguing question:

Can someone research the question of what happens when the public suspects a sitting US Senator is not able to make informed decisions and is instead being kept in hiding while agents of his party make all decisions for him?
This is, obviously, in regards to Robert Byrd, whose recent statements in support of not only Reconciliation but Cap & Trade are so polar opposite to the positions he’s maintained for the hundred years he’s been in the Senate that we do not believe he’s writing them.
Or even dictating them.
Or aware they are being written.
Or, quite possibly, even still alive.
When’s the last time anyone saw Robert Byrd?

I Couldn't Make This Up

I Couldn't Make This Up

You wouldn't believe it. And it is in the April 12, 2010 New York Times!

It is often said that the new health care law will affect almost every American in some way. And, perhaps fittingly if unintentionally, no one may be more affected than members of Congress themselves.

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the “personal health insurance coverage” of senators, representatives and their staff members. 

For example, it says, the law may “remove members of Congress and Congressional staff” from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available.

It appears that Congress not only did not understand what they were doing to the rest of us--they did not understand what they doing to their own health insurance.  Hoist by their own petard!

Like A Saturday Night Live Skit

You want to laugh, but you also want to cry.  From the June 18, 2010 The Blotter:

Police have issued an arrest warrant for a man accused of injuring a gas station clerk while attempting to rob him — with a caulk gun.

The suspect fled the scene in the company of a transgender prostitute he’d picked up earlier in the evening, according to an affidavit issued by the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.

More proof that crack doesn't just kill--it makes you incredibly stupid, too.