The day when I'm proud to be a redneck

So, much of my residency decisions have centered around not only geography, but that personal conception of self. Am I a fly-over country kind of guy, could I fit into the Smooth of the west coast, could I become snotty enough to make it in the Northeast? Those sort of existential questions.

Thankfully, the folks at Slate clarify this for me, with their highly enlightening segment, Can You Eat Squirrels?, in response to Mike Huckabee's claim that rural Americans will relate to him because he cooked squirrel in a popcorn popper while in college.

In point of disclosure, I do not support the eating of any animals, especially not ones that require such a large shotgun blast to hunt. But I'd like to have a better Explainer video: are there really people in this country so ignorant of Upland South culture that they don't know that people eat squirrels?

Seriously, watch these squirmy New Yorkers jaw-drop as they learn about burgoo, about using non-certified appliances for frying food, and the idea, that, oh my god, people eat meat that runs around in a forest when shotgun shells are cheaper than McDonald's. The latter is a little less relevant nowadays, but, yes, I had family that hunted squirrels because it was more accessible than McDonald's.

I've never been hunting in my life, but I had a hard time explaining the significance of Dick Cheney shooting that guy in the face with a 20-gauge while quail, realizing that my coastal city-folk friends couldn't even conceptualize the process of quail hunting, and how Cheney's inability to follow the most basic of safety precautions on a bird hunt was quite the microcosm for the administration's approach to the Iraq war.

But I digress.

If you don't know that people hunt squirrels, or if you couldn't select an appropriate firearm for doing so, then you have as much to learn about America as I do.

Restore the Draft? What a Bad Idea

Steve Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, hits one out of the park:

If the problem is that not enough young people are volunteering to fight in Iraq, there are two reasonable solutions: 1) take the troops out of Iraq; or 2) compensate soldiers well enough that they are willing to enlist.

The idea that a draft presents a reasonable solution is completely backwards. First, it puts the “wrong” people in the military — people who are either uninterested in a military life, not well equipped for one, or who put a very high value on doing something else. From an economic perspective, those are all decent reasons for not wanting to be in the military. (I understand that there are other perspectives — for example, a sense of debt or duty to one’s country — but if a person feels that way, it will be factored into his or her interest in military life.)

One thing markets are good at is allocating people to tasks. They accomplish this through wages. As such, we should pay U.S. soldiers a fair wage to compensate them for the risks they take! A draft is essentially a large, very concentrated tax on those who are drafted. Economic theory tells us that is an extremely inefficient way to accomplish our goal.

Critics might argue that sending less economically-advantaged kids to die in Iraq is inherently unfair. While I wouldn’t disagree that it’s unfair that some people are born rich and others poor, given that income disparity exists in this country, you’d have to possess a low opinion of the decision-making ability of military enlistees to say that a draft makes more sense than a volunteer army. Given the options they face, the men and women joining the military are choosing that option over the others available to them. A draft may make sense as an attempt to reduce inequality; but in a world filled with inequality, letting people choose their own paths is better than dictating one for them.

Is there something the matter with me

since I'm more comfortable with John Roberts now that he carries a diagnosis of epilepsy? Am I becoming a psychiatrist because I'm somehow naturally more comfortable with folks who have Tegretol or Lamictal in their blood stream?

Stranger things have happened.

Fables of the Reconstruction of the...

All-white church may hire black pastor

ASHLAND — First Baptist Church in Ashland may soon lay claim to a first: The all-white church is on track to hire a black minister full time.

The Good: My hometown has just modernized itself out of the 19th century!

The Bad: The newspaper has to run an article with such a headline. Why would the race of the pastoral candidate be worth more than a passing mention if the expectation wasn't that such outdated racism still would figure prominently in the church's decision making.

Towler said race wasn’t an issue in the church’s relationship with Moore, either in a positive or a negative way.

“It wasn’t an issue at all,” he said. “Although we don’t have black members now, we have had black members in the past. ...I can honestly tell you (race) was never an issue in any form or fashion. We think Harold is filled with the spirit and preaches the Bible and that’s what we’re looking for.”

Note to all: the church representative just used the "I'm not racist, I have black friends" argument.

The Ugly: The article ends on an uncomfortable Uncle Tom note:

“We’re just lifting up Jesus,” he said. “We’re not looking for current events, we’re just spreading the gospel.”

Be clear, I'm not criticizing Moore's statement or sentiment. Moore is saying a noble thing, that the Gospel should be studied apolitically. I'm criticizing the article's positioning and use of the quote, as if to say, "Don't worry, Mas'r! Uncle Tom be good, and won't go stirrin' up no troubles for da white folk." You can't end an article whose theme is institutional racism with a statement of submission without making folks like me shake our heads at how far race relations still have to go in the South.

Political quizzes usually tend to fail me (everybody?) miserably, but I found taking both the "How to Win a Fight with a Conservative" and the "How to Win a Fight with a Liberal" quizzes in combination actually meant something to me.

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.fightconservatives.com

My Conservative Identity:

You are a Free Marketeer, also known as a fiscal conservative. You believe in free-market capitalism, tax cuts, and protecting your hard-earned cash from pick-pocketing liberal socialists.

Take the quiz at www.fightliberals.com

This is a big improvement over other quizzes I've taken which always label me a socialist. Come on, just because Courtney and I really want to get two twin German dogs (debating between giant schnauzers and standard poodles) some day and name them Marx and Engels doesn't mean I don't like the free market.

NPR on James Holsinger

James Holsinger, University of Kentucky cardiologist and public health professor recently nominated for the Surgeon General position, gets some positive treatment from NPR. He has his conservative credentials: a theology degree from the conservative (but not really in that nasty Falwell/Dobson sort of way) Asbury Theological Seminary, and a history of serving on the judicial council of the United Methodist Church which supported a ban on homosexual clergy (at least according to a questionable reference on his Wikipedia site).

Buzzflash, which I'm not familiar with, but looks like a potentially very fringy far-left sort of source, has an article expressing its mass unhappiness with Holsinger's nomination. I don't necessarily trust the claims of malfeasance and malpractice, but it's always interesting to see what sort of dirt is being thrown at someone from either side of the wingnutsphere.

For example, while I find it personally unacceptable that homosexuals be excluded from clergy positions, I also don't think that someone who disagrees with that position would necessarily discriminate against homosexual persons in health policy. The latter is the question to be asked, not the former. He's being nominated for Surgeon General, not National Chaplain. If that's the most damning criticism a far-left source can expose towards a public health official's treatment towards the LGBT community, then concern over his policy positions towards the LGBT community may be a general non-starter.

Here's hoping that Holsinger at least represents the best of what we could expect from the Bush administration. I wouldn't anticipate a nominee wholesale interested in the best available evidence outside the realm of a conservative, fundamentalist world-view. So if Holsinger is a nominee who stands on the side of medical evidence, we may have a much better nominee than we ever would have anticipated.

Maybe Boehner should just write for SNL

From Political Wire:

Quote of the Day

"I promised the President today that I wouldn't say anything bad about... this piece of shit bill."

-- House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), quoted by The Hotline, on the immigration bill.

I generally stay out of immigration debates, as I really just don't know what to say about them. I have no idea what actually does the most good for the least harm in these cases. Some of the reason for that is Eric Schlosser's excellent chapter in Reefer Madness that details illegal immigrant labor in California strawberry fields. Schlosser, who you probably remember better from Fast Food Nation, adequately dissects similar policy propositions as what are being debated now, and they all come up pretty sour. I don't even know what extremists on either side would really propose, short of "close the borders and shoot all the Mexicans" and "open up the borders and let everybody in."

The Farm Bill as Government Subsidized Obesity

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, writes in the New York Times Magazine:

A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called “an epidemic” of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation’s agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives.

Read the rest: "You Are What You Grow" (h/t: Will Samson)

What do 5 members of the SCOTUS and near-sighted gynecologists have in common?

They all have wet noses! (Apologies to the 98% of you that don't get the reference)*

I held off posting on the Supreme Court's decision to be supremely retarded, figuring someone else would write something more measured and that would hit all the points I wanted to hit. Lynn Harris at Salon did a pretty good job.

In general, critics of "partial-birth abortion" bans -- which are also on the books in 26 states (though enjoined in 18) -- have long argued that not only is there no such medical term as "partial-birth abortion," but that such laws define it so as to appear to also include a variation of dilation and evacuation (D&E), by far the most common -- and safest -- method of second-trimester abortion (which is relatively rare itself; at least 85 percent of abortions take place in the first trimester). In other words, the ban could be interpreted to outlaw abortion procedures used very early in the second trimester (not to mention those used for women who have learned via amniocentesis, as late as 20 weeks or more, that they're carrying a fatally abnormal fetus).

And even better:

Make no mistake: "This ban is not just about later-term abortion," says Janet Crepps of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who argued Gonzales v. Carhart. "The options for all women -- particularly women facing serious medical conditions -- have been dramatically reduced. No longer can women and their physicians decide what's in their best interest. Now there's the added concern about whether what's in their best interest will be in violation of federal criminal statutes." Among opponents of the ban, gallows humor was the order of the day. As in: "I'd like to give you the best possible care," your doctor might say, "but first let me check with my lawyer."

*The UMMS 2007 Smoker included the joke "What does my dog Winston have in common with a near-sighted gynecologist? They both have wet noses!"

NB: My dog is not named Winston.

Tax Returns Rise for Immigrants in U.S. Illegally

Thought this was an interesting article in the NY Times about an increase in the number of undocumented aliens paying income taxes. A lot of Americans assume that these people don't pay any taxes and just sponge off of society, but they forget that they all pay sales tax, and with the use of individual taxpayer numbers they can pay income taxes. People also forget that many of the services these populations utilize are for health care and schooling, which (in my eyes) takes a pretty big asshole to deny someone. Apparently, some link the rise to possible amnesty and other roads to citizenship that will require payment of taxes and back taxes. It's nice that when people see a road to citizenship they are encouraged to participate in the larger society.

In 2005 alone, more than $5 billion in tax liability — the total owed, including money withheld from paychecks during the year — was reported in the 2.9 million returns that listed at least one person with an ITIN, she said. And between 1996 and 2003, such filers reported nearly $50 billion of tax liability.

UofMichigan Sit-In for sweatshop labor

Back in my freshman year of college at the University of Kentucky, friends of mine holed themselves up in the administration building to protest the use of sweatshop labor by university vendors.

Now, there are kids at UofM doing the same thing.

I'm no economist (even if I sometimes play one in my fantasy life), and I'm ambivalent at best nowadays about globalization (which is a dramatic shift from my extreme anti-globalization views held as recently as just the past few years). The globalization debate is a fertile one, and one in which both sides can make extremely compelling arguments that their policy preferences best serve the interests of the citizens of the world, rich and poor, at least in a long haul. So, I guess I'm not de facto supporting the fact that these motivated kids are anti-globalization, but I will support their willingness to stick out their necks because they think the world can be a better and more equal place. Their message is that, in the globalization debate, we do have to consider the holistic impact of economic policy on both human dignity and the environment. Compelling arguments, albeit slightly counterintuitive ones, assure that both human dignity and the environment will eventually benefit from globalization, even if some short term lapses appear to occur. Those arguments might also be effective only in a theoretical universe, and may fall apart when weasel corporations are involved. Lots of mights and maybes, and I'm just not able to commit to any of them.

But, props to the kids at the UofM Sit-In. They're not doing anything wrong, and they just might be doing something right.

UPDATE: Surprise! They got arrested, as seems to happen at these things. At least they didn't get manhandled, or at least it wasn't reported as such.

Gore's next greatest invention? Flame retardant babies!

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, well I read a science fiction novel that tells me it’s not a problem. If the crib’s on fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame-retardant. You take action. The planet has a fever.”

For some reason, I do expect that, in most pediatricians' careers, they'll have at least one parent argue with them over something they read in a science fiction novel. Maybe once every few months might be a better estimate, depending on the population.

Who's the candidate for LGBT voters?

There has been a lot of talk in the past few days about what the candidates think about homosexuality and morality. Most disconcerting is the way Obama and Clinton sidestepped the question and waited for their campaigns to issue statements later clarifying their positions. Does this mean that the most LGBT-friendly candidate in the pack is a Republican (Guliani)? If so, what's happening to the Democratic party?

Sparky Update: ThinkProgress has statements from both Clinton and Obama retracting their non-answers. It's sorta sad that left-leaning candidates have to be so careful to not piss off the fundies that they can't even allow themselves to be on film saying that homosexuality might not be the greatest plague ever.

God save the Veterans

Anyone who hasn't had their head in the sand over the last week has heard about how veterans discharged from a major VA hospital have been forced to live in substandard housing, fill out mountains of paperwork to get follow up medical care that may never arrive. The situation is so bad that politicians and military officials are tripping over themselves to apologize to everyone and fire anyone involved. And while I have a great deal of respect for our veterans, I'm getting pretty annoyed with the implicit implication. Much of the US lives in substandard housing and many more individuals with mental and other health issues are forced to wade through a public health nightmare of limited resources, bureaucratic hoops, and substandard care. But we don't seem to care about these people, because they're NOT veterans (nor children, nor pregnant mothers). It would seem that this country values health care as a basic right (why else would ED's be required to evaluate and stabilize EVERYONE who walks in the door), but when it comes down to the details (those details numbering in the millions of uninsured) we just don't seem to give a damn. Gee, if only all the uninsured were veterans, then we would actually care about their health care.

Obama Up in Smoke Update

Said Obama: "I've got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I don't succumb. I've been chewing Nicorette strenuously."

When do we get a "Here's what Obama could be doing to stop smoking" article, sponsored by Zyban?

Youth suicides rise as antidepressant use diminishes

A disturbing, new study... shows a sharp jump in the number of young Americans committing suicide. Almost 2,000 young people age 19 and under killed themselves in 2004. That's an increase of more than 18 percent in the rate of teen suicide from the year before. . . The alarming, new suicide figures have some child psychiatrists worried that these black box warning labels on antidepressants may be keeping them from getting to the children that need them the most. After a decade of steady decline, teen suicides spiked sharply in 2004 -- the very same year that the FDA man mandated that the antidepressants come with warning labels, about a possible link to suicidal thoughts in adolescents and children. The warnings led to a 20-percent drop in antidepressant prescriptions for those under 18.

It's only one point of data with circumstantial association but it does seem to make sense and a lot of psychiatrists have been worried about this exact scenario. The question now becomes, will wacky parents swing the other way and demand antidepressants for their slightly mopey kids? If only the public could understand a message slightly more complicated than "pill = bad" or "pill = good".

No more domestic partnership benefits?

The MI court of appeals today overtunred a trial court's opinion, now stating that state universities are NOT able to provide same-sex domestic partner benefits to their employees. This mean that numerous LGBT faculty and staff at all Michigan state universities will no longer be able to cover their same-sex partners with health insurance (among other things).

The university is actively appealing to the state supreme court... I sure the heck hope they've got some sense in them. It would be disasterous to consider the consequences for many of us who may be directly effected by such a narrow sighted and discriminatory policy.

Mary Cheney: My baby 'is not a prop'

Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy. Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."

In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line. "He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.

Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.

She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment."

Note to Mary Cheney: it's not unreasonable that folks who think that lesbians actually should have all the rights of, say, other human beings should want your father, who supports a regime that obviously doesn't think that lesbians deserve the same rights as other human beings, to justify his support for folks who think your decision to be who you are (instead of who James Dobson would like you to be) is abominable.

Mary Cheney's baby is not a prop. But Mary Cheney is certainly becoming one herself if she refuses to even acknowledge the hypocrisy of the current administration and her father's tacit role in propagating anti-LGBT hatethink.

Well, Barry-O IS articulate

And Joe Biden is a moron. At least when he opens his mouth. But of course, it's absolutely out of fashion to say that Barry-O is articulate because of the implication that he shouldn't be because he's black. Or that he's articulate considering he's a black dude (implying that if he were a white dude, his current level of articulateness wouldn't be remarkable). Or something like that.

Now, I say Barry-O is articulate not because he's a black dude, but because we've got a guy in the White House who couldn't form a complete sentence in front of a microphone without a teleprompter for the first three years of his presidency, and our last democratic presidential candidate couldn't tell you his favorite color without using a semicolon.

So let's claim the word back, and let's call Barry-O what he is. Articulate. He's a damn good orator. Cicero style. Ghandi style. Kennedy style. Lincoln style. AND MLK style. Hell, maybe even Jim Webb style. But absolutely NOT Joe Biden style.

So Barack isn't articulate because he's a black dude that talks good. He's articulate because he was the damn editor of Harvard Law Review, and he's articulate because he wrote a book ten years ago that actually had something to say. And he's articulate because you can listen to a speech of his and, even though he doesn't say any more or any less than anybody else does, you get that special feeling, that feeling you haven't had since fifth grade history class when the frigging War of 1812 made you proud of your country.

It's nice to feel good about your country, even if the guy is laying on the same bullshit that other politicians try to use less effectively. Barry Obama can make you feel good about your country, and I'm pretty sure he'd be able to do that even if he were a purple transsexual instead of a black dude.

I'm not saying his rhetorical excellence would make him a good president. But Dreams from my Father at least shows that this is a guy with a lot of smart things to say. He's openly thoughtful in his writing, and that's not something we can say all that often about politicians writing books.

But we're not talking about what he has to say right now. We're talking about how he's damn good at saying them. He could tell you how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and it might make you cry.

Now, if he just stopped smoking...

UPDATE: Political Wire compiles the media reactions:

Washington Post: "Biden Stumbles at the Starting Gate"
New York Times: "Biden Unwraps His Bid for '08 With an Oops!"
Chicago Tribune: "Hat in Ring, Foot in Mouth"
New York Post: "Biden Blows It"
New York Daily News: "Senator Stupid!"

UPDATE2: Biden explains himself on the Daily Show, doesn't refer to Jon Stewart as a 'clean Hebrew-American.'

Even the NAACP can be stupid sometimes

An NAACP official blames U.S. government policy for alleged disparity in treating African-Americans with heart failure.

Juan M. Cofield, president of the NAACP's New England council in Boston, strongly criticized Medicare for what he called lack of promotion for insurance coverage of BiDil, a cardiac medication for blacks, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Medicare's stance "is so contrary to evidence-based medicine and so extraordinary that it arouses suspicions of institutional racism," said the sharply worded letter.

The missive highlighted tension between the Boston regional office of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the local civil rights group over BiDil, the only drug approved for use by one race.

I've got a better line: Medicare's stance is so consistent with evidence-based medicine and completely predictable by those who understand that health policy is supposed to actually, say, promote the well-being of those underserved by the health care system rather than just give in to the joke science that a quick-buck-seeking drug company threw together to market two generic drugs in a combination pill in an insulting play on the legitimate insecurities of the African-American community.

Now, Cofield is probably a smart dude with his heart in the right place. African-American community leaders are clearly warranted in taking their suspicions of the medical community to near conspiracy-theory levels (because the AA community actually had a conspiracy pulled on them in recent memory and all). But he's also obviously underequipped to evaluate medical evidence or health policy.

You might ask, what's the white dude got to say about this? Well, this white dude has received all of his policy education on BiDil from evidence-based material presented by black dudes, and those black dudes, who are, ya know, faculty in health sciences, seemed to have their ducks in a row. Mr Cofield doesn't.

BiDil isn't a medication for blacks. It's a medication that is marketed to blacks in hopes that doctors A) won't know how to evaluate evidence, or B) will give in to political pressure from a community that's been hoodwinked before. BiDil is an insult to the African American community, inflicted by a company that believes that, instead of advancing science, it can simply manipulate science with hazy politics and make lots of money.