Correlate This

So I listen to Glenn Beck for about 10 minutes once a week. That's the one day a week I drive to work and the drive takes five minutes. So actually I listen to about three minutes because that's how much actual content there is between the commercials. And that three minutes is puh-lenty for me!

The three minutes I caught today had him citing Super Freakonomics. Of couse it was taken completely out of context to support some other point that had nothing to do with the point that Levitt and Dubner were making in the book, but that's Beck and I expect nothing less. And when I write I don't care much to focus on Glenn Beck. Beck can be handled with a simple Media Matters or Jon Stewart link on Facebook. What I'd rather talk about is Levitt and Dubner and what they're actually trying to accomplish with Freakonomics, Super Freakonomics, and their ongoing blog. Because that's actually intelligent.

If you haven't read them yet, run—do not walk—to your nearest bookstore or type—fast as you can with expedited shipping—on Amazon or other to order both of these books.

This is not about liberal vs. conservative, right vs. left, or politics at all. These books are about thinking. How to stretch your brain to think about every day topics such as crime, the environment, abortion, terrorism, names, and on and on and on in a way where the data is actually applied to prove causation, not just correlation. Religious and social conservatives might be outraged by the data showing legalized abortion reduced crime (Freakonomics). And liberal environmentalists go insane at the environmental proposals raised in Super Freakonomics. Which should prove that data is not, and can never be, political at its heart.

Now, one of the points in Super Freakonomics is that we are not entirely rational beings. We all know this. But that doesn't mean we can't, particularly when we go crazy on emotion, ground ourselves in realizing that the data exists. The biggest issue in this context that we have to remember is that correlation does not equal causation. We may not like what causation actually means, but Know Thyself also means Know Thy Data and analyze it according to causation. Correlation can be meaningful in pointing the way, but it still does not equal CAUSATION.

Read the books. Learn to think in a new and mind-stretching way. It won't fit into easily digestible bits, but it really is interesting and a hell of a lot more interesting conversation at cocktail parties.

If you really support the Constitution clap your hands!

I think I don't write as much of late because while I like to write about politics, I don't like the way politics are talked about these days. And by these days I mean since about 1994. Yeah, that includes even when I do it.

But I'll continue to give it a go:

If you are fit to be tied over 9/11 terrorists being tried in our civil courts, imagine how fit to be tied we all would be if or when those military tribunals were proven to be unconstitutional. Listen, we have a complicated system. Sometimes it doesn't all fit within a 30-second sound bite, 5-minute segment of puerile punditry, or even an hour program. And we all know that anything longer than an hour is far too much a strain on the public's attention span, so all news/information/opinion/infotainment must be chopped into bite-sized pieces of meat and fed very carefully to people since no one knows the mental equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver.

From the above-linked op-ed:

The casual use of the word "war" has lead to a mentality among the public and even in the government that the rules of war could apply to those held at Guantanamo. But the rules of war apply only to those involved in a lawfully declared war, and not to something that the government merely calls a war. Only Congress can declare war — and thus trigger the panoply of the government's military powers that come with that declaration. Among those powers is the ability to use military tribunals to try those who have caused us harm by violating the rules of war.

Now, the question that I haven't seen answered by supporters, critics, commentators, or government officials, is why some in federal courts and not others? It appears that the ones to be tried in military tribunals are ones who attacked military targets (USS Cole) while the ones attacking civilian or non-military government targets get the federal trial. That seems like a fair divide to me, as long as it holds up under Constitutional scrutiny. The author of the op-ed disagrees, but I disagree. Point by point (my comments in brackets) from his paragraph detailing this:

That the target of the Cole attackers was military property manned by the Navy offers no constitutional reason for a military trial. [I don't know about this, is there precedent either way?] In the 1960s, when Army draft offices and college ROTC facilities were attacked and bombed, those charged were quite properly tried in federal courts. [Those charged were also American citizens, were they not? There is no legal precedent to deny an American citizen their rights under the Constitution regardless of their crime. And if you bring up Lincoln's repeal of habeas corpus during the Civil War, please go back to history class. That was eventually ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court] And when Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal courthouse in Oklahoma City [also an American citizen]; and Omar Abdel Rahman attempted in 1993 to blow up the World Trade Center, which housed many federal offices [not a military target]; and when Zacarias Moussaoui was accused in the 9/11 attacks, [also an American citizen] all were tried in federal courts. The "American Taliban," John Walker Lindh, [also an American citizen] and the notorious would-be shoe bomber, Richard Reid, [also an American citizen] were tried in federal courts. Even the "Ft. Dix Six," five of whom were convicted in a plot to invade a U.S. Army post in New Jersey, were tried in federal court [at least one of these men was an American citizen and the charges were conspiring and plotting. Might be difficult to retain the American citizen's rights while dealing with a military tribunal]. And the sun still rose on the mornings after their convictions. 

And the sun will still rise after the terrorist suspects are tried in federal courts.

So in short, it looks like it breaks down this way, for as long as we are not officially at Constitutionally defined war:

• Foreigners attacking non-military targets will get federal trials
  
• American citizens get American citizen trials no matter what
  
• Foreigners attacking military targets will get military trials
  

I think that's pretty fair way to break it down, get the bad guys, and make sure it all stands up to Constitutional scrutiny.

We cannot risk having a trial of these people be ruled unconstitutional. We have enough constitutional problems already with how they are going to be tried after being tortured. These trials will be kangaroo courts anyway, completely rigged to ensure convictions. We wouldn't be bringing them to trial if they weren't. But as long as they are rigged in a fashion that upholds the Constitution, I'm kind of fine with that.

We do not need military tribunals to be kangaroo courts. We might need them again if we have to officially declare war again. We don't need them tainted by the perception that they are nothing more than an end run around the Constitution when we don't feel like following our own laws and precedents. We can't shout from the roof tops that we are a nation of laws, rights, and freedoms, and then discard them when we don't like it.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics (healthcare)

First check out this claim that Medicare denies more claims than any other insurance company. When you're done playing in your spreadsheet (those of you who are data geeks) figuring out why these numbers don't add up to any sort of reality and why the chart means absolutely nothing, then check out this story about the insurance company that appears--on the chart--to have the lowest denial rate.

Hmmm, paying $1.35 on a $208 claim adds up to effectively denying the claim. And that's just the most minor of United Healthcare's sins in this instance.

Six? Seriously? Six?

No wonder I'm disdainful of the general population if the average person has only read six of these books:

Where do you fall in the list? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here.
Copy this into your NOTES. Look at the list and put an X after those you have read. Tag other book nerds including myself.

X 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
X 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
X 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
X 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
X 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
X 6 The Bible
X 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
X 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
X 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Total: 9

X 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
X 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
X 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Not all of them)
X 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
X 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
X 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
X 19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eli

Total: 7
Total so far: 16

X 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
X 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
X 25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
X 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
X 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
X 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
X 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Total: 7
Total so far: 21

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
X 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
X 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
X 34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
X 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
X 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
X 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

Total: 6
Total so far: 27

X 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
X 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
X 44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
X 48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
X 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
X 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

Total: 6
Total so far: 33

X 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
X 52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
X 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
X 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
X 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
X 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Total: 6
Total so far: 39

X 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
X 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
X 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
X 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
X 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
X 68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Total: 6
Total so Far: 45

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
X 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
X 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
X 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
X 76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
X 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

Total: 5
Total so far: 50

X 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
X 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistr
X 87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
X 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

Total: 4
Total so far: 54

X 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
X 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
X 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
X 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
X 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
X 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
X 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
X 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Total: 8
Grand Total: 62

The STFU Entry

In between getting and adapting to the radical change from mostly solitary lady o' leisure to cube monkey cat herder, I haven't written much. But I'm in a STFU mood about the Republicans so figured I'd at least get something out there.

For six years the Republicans were in total control of the government. During that time they did absolutely nothing to reform healthcare. As a result, private insurance companies rationed health care. People at insurance companies decided who should live and who should die. The latter were most likely the elderly and poor children. During these six years (and all while Republicans were in control of Congress since '94) Republicans couldn't have given two shiny shits about people dying. Now they accuse Obama of death panels that will kill the elderly and Sarah Palin's baby boy? Under their control of government, they already were. So STFU.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Leaving health insurance to the private insurers as we have for so long is insanity. But then again, we always knew they were nuts. That's why we call them right wingnuts. So STFU about private enterprise solving every problem. We know it doesn't, 'cause we're not insane. We see and learn and change.

Oh, and STFU about comparing Obama to Hitler for trying to solve the healthcare problem and STFU about what Rahm Emanual said about not letting a crisis go to waste. He was only borrowing from the Republican playbook about not letting 9/11 go to waste and trying to implement a really totalitarian regime in this country (you know, where presidential power includes stripping citizens of habeas corpus, holding citizens indefinitely, and spying on citizens without a warrant). Particularly STFU when we got the word of what we've known all along, now from the former head of Homeland Security that Bush used terror alerts for political gain.

An Elitist, a Pragmatist, and an Ideologue Walk Into a Bar …

The seismic shifts in our society have rendered right vs. left thinking as archaic as a flat earth map. It's time for those in the media using it to navigate this revolutionary era to catch up with the public -- and the new realities.

From Arianna's keyboard to Rupert Murdoch's ears, though I doubt that's going to happen.

When are we going to realize that complex societies cannot be reduced to simply two extreme ideologies? Maybe that sells on drive time radio shows (and obviously it does, for now), but it's not how people live their lives. The majority of people have a contradictory, complex set of beliefs and ideas that rarely fit into a 30-second sound bite.

Of late, on errand days, I've been listening to right wing radio. I'm done with that. It's so idiotic in how the hosts control the argument so completely to package an outrageous viewpoint to enrage their audiences. I realized I was completely done when I heard one of them (Hannity or Ingram, can't recall) criticizing Obama because he didn't take ketchup on his burger. Seriously? Really? This is worthy of conversation?

He was called an elitist and once again, I ask, what is wrong with that? What is wrong with enjoying the finer things in life when you can? The finer things don't always mean more expensive. Anyone who has had spectacular Southern greens can attest to that. But to like wine, better condiments, tastier natural foods, and actual literature and art is to be a more evolved human being. That doesn't mean you have to live in New York or Paris, it just means that Wonder Bread sucks.

And you know what else sucks? A man getting assassinated for performing a legal service and a bunch of people not caring because of their ideology. What else sucks is a group of people who said absolutely nothing against the economic policies of the last eight years and offering absolutely nothing realistic about fixing it now that they're out of power. What else sucks is that the profits of McDonalds and Wal Mart are up because of this recession and its effect on the rise of the organic food movement that was finally getting traction.

What doesn't suck is that despite the recession, something like Pet Airways is launching. Call us crazy cat ladies, I don't care, but it just isn't cool to not treat your pets well anymore. I am absolutely elated that despite hard economic times, something like this can launch. It also doesn't suck that our own Emperor Palpatine is advocating for gay marriage. I also firmly believe that everything that has happened with same sex marriage in the last ten years has been to angle it to the Supreme Court to be struck down as separate but equal is unconstituational.

Which begs the question, why is it so horrible when the Supreme Court does its job? Its job is to be an independent body ruling on the constitutionality of legislations. The Supreme Court is designed to be independent of the will of the people. Because the will of the people isn't always constitutional, even when it's popular. Separate but equal was highly popular in its day, but it wasn't constitutional. Wanting to legislate how two adults have sex may have been the will of the people in Texas, but that doesn't make it constitutional.

That doesn't mean I like Sotomoyer. I don't, for two reasons. One is that she ruled against a family member in an appeal. Bitch ;-). The other is that I don't want another Catholic on the bench. There are too many. But she'll get confirmed and maybe she should. That's the prerogative of the president as long as the Senate doesn't find something to block confirmation. God knows after Scalia my bar for opposing justices is pretty damn low.

All in all, I believe in pragmatism not ideology when it comes to governing. I as an individual can afford to have an ideology. But I'm not trying to govern 50 states and 300 million people. Someone in that position—particularly with the economy tanking all around us and two wars to fight and quite potentially who knows what else coming with Iran, North Korea, and Israel/Palestine—cannot afford to be tied to a pure ideology no matter how much money can be made trying to sell one.