04/07/2011 archive

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 40 Top Stories.

1 Japan disaster zone hit by new powerful quake

by Hiroshi Hiyama, AFP

2 hrs 47 mins ago

This is an Open Thread

Essays Featured Thursday the 7^th of April:

Late Night Karaoke takes us Higher & Higher, mishima DJs

Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! on Six Different Topics!!!

                Six Days a Week!!!    at Six in the Morning!!!!

mplo ponders Fiction and/or real life in books and movies in Thursday Open Thoughts

Cornucopia Thursday, a weekly feature from Ed Tracey brings a delightful collection of items and ….well, just plain whimsy…..

fake consultant has a fascinating hypothesis On Reincarnation, Or, Was Glenn Beck Just Promoted?

Cactus Syrup & Sheriff Sam from Wendys Wink, republished by RiaD

from Timbuk3: The 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time!

Tonight #87  

join the conversation! come firefly-dreaming with me….

I can’t emphasize enough how fundamentally stupid, greedy, and vain our Versailles Aristocrats are.

Blame Mayor Bloomberg for Cathie Black Fiasco

Dan Collins, Huffington Post

Posted: 04/ 7/11 12:18 PM ET

Cathie Black was Mayor Bloomberg’s disaster – one of a long line he’s perpetrated since being elected to a third term. The fact that the mayor picked someone to run the schools who had no experience in education or, perhaps more critically, New York politics, was astonishing. The mayor is genuinely devoted to the public schools. He built his political career around improving them.

And then, out of some whim we may never really understand, he plopped them in the lap of a publishing executive who was looking for a way to re-start a shaky career, whose only real qualification was that she hung around in the same crowd as the mayor.

I think ‘ordinary people’ understand this kind of narcissistic nepotism quite well.  What qualifications does Luke Russert have?  How about Brian Deschane?

Gov. Walker’s Free Market Approach to Governing

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Unfortunately, many working people (or, as we like to call them, “limited cost resources”) are jealous of your $81.5K salary. They’re complaining that you’re not up to the job. Citing your youth, your lack of a college education and any real-world work experience, as well as your aptitude for drunk driving, they’re suggesting that you don’t have the needed experience to serve as one of the state’s chief regulators.

Of course, they ignore your most important qualification: your father’s ability to donate to Gov. Walker’s campaigns. Given your other qualifications, that’s the best $121.7K your dad ever spent. But more important than that, its an example of how free market principles can be applied to government to make your life better–you’re living the new American dream, my friend.

That’s not to say that your other major qualification won’t serve you well. The ability to pass out, face down, on various lawns and bushes should give you an edge as an environmental regulator.

I doubt EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has ever regained consciousness with a hunk of grass stuck to her eye, a centipede crawling up her nose, and the words “pig fucker” emblazoned across her forehead in indelible ink, nor has she exterminated an invasive beetle species using a 60% alcohol solution suspended in vomit. You certainly have the edge there.

It’s not like Paul Krugman has been silent about Paul Ryan’s glitter and unicorns magical thinking budget, but it’s been spread across several blog posts and kind of hard to integrate.

Fortunately Scarecrow over at Firedog Lake has done the heavy lifting for me-

Krugman Exposes GOP Ryan’s Unicorn Budget, Catches Heritage Burying Number

By: Scarecrow, Wednesday April 6, 2011 8:26 pm

Paul Krugman spent Wednesday combing through the details of Tea-GOP genius Paul Ryan’s budget and in a series of blog posts utterly destroyed the Ryan budget’s phony math, implausible assumptions and unicorn forecasts. Kudos to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for picking this up.

Krugman once called Ryan a “flim flam” man, a virtual con artist, and yesterday, he proved it. Let us count the ways.

Here’s the Maddow clip-

Scarecrow summarizes 8 recent posts by Krugman who is back at it again today-

• Even More Ryan Ridiculousness
  
  Paul Krugman, The New York Times
  
  April 7, 2011, 11:13 am

Pointing out that this is a return to Coolidge era spending.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the racist secessionist traitors of the Republican Party are unhappy with the results of The War of Rebellion and wish to revisit it.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

E. J. Dionee, Jr.: For moderates, no more fence-straddling on the budget

Political moderates and on-the-fencers have had it easy up to now on budget issues. They could condemn “both sides” and insist on the need for “courage” in tackling the deficit.

Thanks to Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget and the Republicans’ maximalist stance in negotiations to avert a government shutdown, the days of straddling are over.

Ryan’s truly outrageous proposal, built on heaping sacrifice onto the poor, slashing scholarship aid to college students and bestowing benefits on the rich, ought to force middle-of-the-roaders to take sides. No one who is even remotely moderate can possibly support what Ryan has in mind.

Greg Mitchell: Dan Ellsberg and ‘Saving Private Manning’

After many months in the shadows, Pvt. Bradley Manning, who sits in the brig at the Quantico base in Virginia in near-solitary confinement, has recently drawn some high-level defenders, from Hillary Clinton’s former chief spokesman at the State Department to editors at The New York Times and The Guardian.   But none of them stand by Manning for his alleged crimes – he’s accused of leaking a massive number of classified documents to WikiLeaks — but instead  protest the conditions of his harsh confinement.

One person, however, has spoken up for Manning for his actual (alleged) actions as a whistleblower ever since his arrest last May. That would be Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked The Pentagon Papers four decades ago. He was even arrested twice in two days last month as part of his pro-Manning activism.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

April 7 is the 97th day of the year (98th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 268 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1948, The World Health Organization is founded. WHO is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on April 7, 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health Organization, which was an agency of the League of Nations.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is one of the original agencies of the United Nations, its constitution formally coming into force on the first World Health Day, (April 7, 1948), when it was ratified by the 26th member state. Jawaharlal Nehru, a major freedom fighter of India had given an opinion to start WHO. Prior to this its operations, as well as the remaining activities of the League of Nations Health Organization, were under the control of an Interim Commission following an International Health Conference in the summer of 1946. The transfer was authorized by a Resolution of the General Assembly. The epidemiological service of the French Office International d’Hygiène Publique was incorporated into the Interim Commission of the World Health Organization on January 1, 1947.

Activities

Apart from coordinating international efforts to control outbreaks of infectious disease, such as SARS, malaria, tuberculosis, influenza, and HIV/AIDS, the WHO also sponsors programmes to prevent and treat such diseases. The WHO supports the development and distribution of safe and effective vaccines, pharmaceutical diagnostics, and drugs. After over two decades of fighting smallpox, the WHO declared in 1980, that the disease had been eradicated – the first disease in history to be eliminated by human effort. The WHO aims to eradicate polio within the next few years.

The organization develops and promotes the use of evidence-based tools, norms and standards to support Member States to inform health policy options. It regularly publishes a World Health Report including an expert assessment of a specific global health topic. The organization has published tools for monitoring the capacity of national health systems and health workforces to meet population health needs, and endorsed the world’s first official HIV/AIDS Toolkit for Zimbabwe (from 3 October 2006), making it an international standard.

In addition, the WHO carries out various health-related campaigns – for example, to boost the consumption of fruits and vegetables worldwide and to discourage tobacco use. The organization relies on the expertise and experience of many world-renowned scientists and professionals to inform its work. Experts met at the WHO headquarters in Geneva in February, 2007, and reported that their work on pandemic influenza vaccine development had achieved encouraging progress. More than 40 clinical trials have been completed or are ongoing. Most have focused on healthy adults. Some companies, after completing safety analysis in adults, have initiated clinical trials in the elderly and in children. All vacciness so far appear to be safe and well-tolerated in all age groups tested.

The WHO also promotes the development of capacities in Member States to use and produce research that addresses national needs, by bolstering national health research systems and promoting knowledge translation platforms such as the Evidence Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet). WHO and its regional offices are working to develop regional policies on research for health – the first one being the Pan American Health Organization/Regional Office for the Americas (PAHO/AMRO) that had its Policy on Research for Health approved in September 2009 by its 49th Directing Council Document CD 49.10.

WHO also conducts health research in communicable diseases, non-communicable conditions and injuries; for example, longitudinal studies on ageing to determine if the additional years we live are in good or poor health, and, whether the electromagnetic field surrounding cell phones has an impact on health. Some of this work can be controversial, as illustrated by the April, 2003, joint WHO/FAO report, which recommended that sugar should form no more than 10% of a healthy diet. This report led to lobbying by the sugar industry against the recommendation, to which the WHO/FAO responded by including in the report the statement “The Consultation recognized that a population goal for free sugars of less than 10% of total energy is controversial”, but also stood by its recommendation based upon its own analysis of scientific studies.

The World Health Organization’s suite of health studies is working to provide the needed health and well-being evidence through a variety of data collection platforms, including the World Health Survey covering 308,000 respondents aged 18+ years and 81,000 aged 50+ years from 70 countries and the Study on Global Aging and Adult Health (SAGE) covering over 50,000 persons aged 50+ across almost 23 countries. The World Mental Health Surveys, WHO Quality of Life Instrument, WHO Disability Assessment Scales provide guidance for data collection in other health and health-related areas. Collaborative efforts between WHO and other agencies, such as the Health Metrics Network and the International Household Surveys Network, serve the normative functions of setting high research standards.

WHO has also worked on global initiatives in surgery such as the Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care and the Guidelines for Essential Trauma Care focussed on access and quality. Safe Surgery Saves Lives addresses the safety of surgical care. The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist is in current use worldwide in the effort to improve safety in surgical patients.

As Mexicans protest, a new mass grave is found

‘It seems that we are like animals that can be murdered with impunity,’ says poet whose son was killed

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

MEXICO CITY – Fifty-nine bodies were found buried Wednesday in a series of pits in the northern Mexico state of Tamaulipas, as people marched in protest against on going drug cartel violence.

The bodies were discovered near the site where suspected drug gang members massacred 72 migrants last summer, officials said.

Security forces stumbled on the site as they were investigating reports that passengers had been pulled off several buses by gunmen

in the area in what may have been an attempt at forced recruitment by a drug gang.

The Federal Government is being held hostage by a few radical right corporate puppets that want to destroy this country’s social safety net and further shift the wealth from majority to the wealthy with more tax cuts for corporations, millionaires and estates and destroy Medicare and Mediciad for the elderly and neediest Americans. The assault is now be led by the pretty boy, Paul Ryan (R-WI), who defeated Russ Feingold in November (a lot of buyer’s remorse in that state). Last night President Obama had a late night meeting with Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid and Speaker of the House John Boehner with no success at a compromise to avoid a shut down of the federal government this weekend. For what’s at stake here, Mike Lux hits it on the head, “All the hue and cry about this year’s budget fight – whether or not we’ll have a government shutdown; whether we’ll cut $33 billion or $40 billion out of the remainder of this year’s budget – is a minor sideshow compared to the implications of the Ryan budget.”

Mike explains just what those some of those implications are for senior citizens:

With his proposal, Ryan will radically cut and privatize Medicare, ending the guarantee of health care to our senior citizens; radically cut Medicaid and throw it into a block-grant program that will end any guarantee of coverage for the poor, people with disabilities, and many, many children; deliver breathtakingly large tax cuts to the wealthy while raising taxes for the middle class. As far as I can tell, more than 90 percent of his cuts impact either low-income people or senior citizens who are currently middle class but might no longer be if these Social Security and Medicare cuts go through. As to who benefits, while some things remain vague (like which middle-class taxes will have to go up to cut down the revenue losses because of lower taxes in the high-end brackets), it is likely that more than 90 percent of the benefits go to the very wealthy, who not only get to keep their Bush tax cuts but get some big and lucrative new tax cuts besides. As Citizens for Tax Justice (pdf) notes, under Ryan’s proposal, the federal government would collect $2 trillion less over the next decade, yet require the bottom 90 percent to actually pay higher taxes. Ryan leaves a lot details out, but if you read in between the lines, it is clear that the reason certain details are missing is because of how awful they are.

snip

Without Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, retirees would live in poverty, and family incomes would be wiped out trying to take care of parents, grandparents, and disabled family members. Without unions, wages and benefits would be ever more stagnant, or would decline in many sectors. Without student loans, fewer young and poor people would make it onto the first rungs of the ladder into the middle class. Without rebuilding our infrastructure and investing in our schools, fewer American businesses would be able to compete in the world economy. Without research and other government investments, the technological breakthroughs that have helped fuel our economic growth over the last 70 years would stop happening. And without some restraint on the power of multinational companies, our economy would be rocked by more financial collapses, and our pluralistic democracy will get more and more dysfunctional.

And this is what the callously, heartless, self centered, Tea Partier, Republican Eric Cantor said the other day:

So 50 percent of beneficiaries under the Social Security program use those moneys as their sole source of income. So we’ve got to protect today’s seniors. But for the rest of us? Listen, we’re going to grips with the fact that these programs cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be.”

According to the Congressional Budget Office‘s (CBO) analysis of Ryan’s plan:

1. SENIORS WOULD PAY MORE FOR HEALTH CARE

2. ELDERLY AND DISABLED WOULD LOSE MEDICAID COVERAGE

3. THIRTY-TWO MILLION AMERICANS WOULD LOSE HEALTH COVERAGE (pdf)

4. SHORT TERM DEBT INCREASES RELATIVE TO CURRENT LAW

5. NO CONFIRMATION ON TAX REVENUES (pdf)

The rest of it is even worse and pure fantasy that included “wildly optimistic revenue assumptions that dramatically changed the effect the plan would have on the federal debt.”

OK, Barack, it’s time for you to not cross that line you drew and stand up for the people.

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Muse in the Morning by Robyn

Featured Essays for April 6, 2011-

• Health and Fitness News by TheMomCat
• Quaker Schools: The Testimony of Cognitive Dissonance by cabaretic
• You’re Surprised, Really! by Xanthe
• I come to bury Caesar… by Edger
• Cartnoon by ek hornbeck
• RIP American Dream by Edger
• Sand Trap by ek hornbeck
• More on The Town (movie)–Claire is her own worst enemy: by mplo

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