30 Kasım 2012 Cuma

In U.S., Majority Now Against Gov't Healthcare Guarantee

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Well, the public is turning around, unexpectedly!

At Gallup:

ObamaCare Taxes
PRINCETON, NJ -- For the first time in Gallup trends since 2000, a majority of Americans say it is not the federal government's responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to 2009, a majority always felt the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all, though Americans' views have become more divided in recent years.

The current results are based on Gallup's annual Health and Healthcare poll, conducted Nov. 15-18 this year.

The shift away from the view that the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all began shortly after President Barack Obama's election and has continued the past several years during the discussions and ultimate passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010. Americans are divided on that legislation today -- 48% approve and 45% disapprove -- as they have been over the last several years.

Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents, are mostly responsible for the drop since 2007 in Americans' support for government ensuring universal health coverage. In 2007, 38% of Republicans thought the government should do so; now, 12% do. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners there has been a much smaller drop, from 81% saying the government should make sure all Americans are covered in 2007 to 71% now.

One thing that has not changed is that Americans still widely prefer a system based on private insurance to one run by the government. Currently, 57% prefer a private system and 36% a government-run system, essentially the same as in 2010 and 2011. Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the percentage of Americans in favor of a government-run system ranged from 32% to 41%.
The report also highlights some of the rosier findings, but as the ObamaCare horror stories continue to pile up like corpses at the morgue, expect support for this socialist monstrosity to continue its free fall.

Image Credit: Michelle Malkin, "Death, taxes & Obamacare: Poster contest, Round Two."

Warning Signs: The Susan Rice Troubles Beyond Benghazi

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Yeah, come to think of it, the ambassador's Benghazi lies are just the start of our worries.

From Anne Bayefsky and Michael Mukasey, at WSJ, "The Trouble With Susan Rice":
Several Republican senators continue to oppose the possible nomination of Susan Rice, currently the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to be secretary of state in President Obama's second term. Their opposition stems largely from Ms. Rice's repeated insistence, five days after terrorists murdered four Americans at a U.S. facility in Libya, that the slaughter stemmed from spontaneous Muslim rage over an amateur video. Sen. John McCain at one point called Ms. Rice "unfit" for the job.

To assess fitness, one might look at those who served previously as secretary of state. More than one has said or done foolish things, or served without notable distinction.

In 1929, Henry Stimson dismantled the nation's only cryptographic facility, located in the State Department, with the airy observation that gentlemen don't read one another's mail. (He sobered up by World War II, when as secretary of war he oversaw a robust code-breaking effort.) More recently, Clinton administration Secretary of State Warren Christopher diminished the office by making several futile pilgrimages to Syria, where he once waited on his airplane for over half an hour in Damascus before being told that Syrian dictator Hafez Assad was too busy to see him. Assad calculated correctly that the slap would be cost-free.

By this modest standard, some might find that Susan Rice is fit. But moral fitness is also relevant, and it is in that category that the Benghazi episode is relevant.

The president has said that Ms. Rice should not be criticized because she "had nothing to do with Benghazi" and so couldn't have known better when she gave her false account. According to Mr. Obama (and to her), she simply repeated talking points provided by an amorphous and anonymous "intelligence community."

But Ms. Rice did know at least a couple of things. She knew that she had nothing to do with Benghazi. She knew that after the attack the president insisted that U.S. leaders not "shoot first and aim later" but rather "make sure that the statements that you make are backed up by the facts." She knew that the video story line was questionable, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) and administration officials had already suggested publicly that the attack was al Qaeda-related. And she knew that the president had a political interest in asserting that al Qaeda wasn't successfully attacking senior American officials but was instead "on the run," as he maintained on the campaign trail.

Senators might therefore ask Ms. Rice why she was put forward to speak about Benghazi, and what part her personal ambition might have played in her willingness to assume the role known during the Cold War as "useful idiot."

Ms. Rice might also be asked what she knew about al Qaeda's operations in Libya. As a member of the U.N. Security Council and its "Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee," she is privy, for example, to information about the al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which is under sanctions and, according to the council, "maintain[s] a presence in eastern Libya."

Senators might also explore Ms. Rice's broader record at the U.N. Why, for example, did she think it was appropriate to absent herself from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's September speech to the General Assembly, the purpose of which was to offer the global community a painstaking explanation of why Iran must be stopped before it can weaponize its growing stock of enriched uranium.

Then there is the matter of U.S. participation for the past three years in the U.N. Human Rights Council, alongside such paragons as China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia (soon to be replaced by Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Ivory Coast and Venezuela)...
Still more at that top link.

'Part of Obama's transformation of America is wiping out the Republican Party...'

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From Rush Limbaugh, "Just Walk Away, Republicans":
The Republicans lost.  Now, they still control the House of Representatives. Boehner still runs the show there.  But the only leverage that I can see that they've got is to back out of this and make sure that whatever happens, they don't have any fingerprints on it.  I know what you're saying, and you'd be right.  You're saying, "But, Rush, but, Rush, no matter what the Republicans do, they're gonna get blamed for it."  Yes, totally true.  No matter what happens. If there is a reported recession, in fact, it will be said to be the Republicans in the House fault. No matter what happens, that's going to be said, and no matter what happens, as we sit here now, the American people, the majority of whom, are gonna believe that.

So back out of this and make sure you don't have any fingerprints on this at all.  "But, Rush, but, Rush, aren't your fingerprints going to be on it if you back out?  Couldn't the case be made that Republicans backing out and letting Obama have his way is, in effect, allowing this transformation to happen, can't you say there would be fingerprints there?"  Yes.  But I'm telling you there's another aspect to this that Obama is attempting to pull off here, and if the Republicans aren't careful, it's going to happen.  Not only is he not worried about a recession in the second term, 'cause even if there is one, it will not be reported as such.

Part of Obama's transformation of America is wiping out the Republican Party.  And anyone who fails to understand that that is also part of Obama's agenda at this moment, anybody who fails to understand that is really not paying attention and is too caught up in traditional conventional wisdom about, "Well, it was just another election. Well, yes, Obama won. Yes, we marshaled our forces, but we need to stand for pro-growth policies and all that rotgut."  Yes, we do.  There's no way we're ever gonna be tied to pro-growth policies if our fingerprints are on this coming disaster.
Plus, Gateway Pundit has video, via Memeorandum.

Jessica Simpson Wants to Get Married Before Second Baby is Born

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For some reason I thought she got married already, but I guess not. And a second baby's on the way, which was apparently, a little unexpected. She lost a lot of weight since the first one was born, as part of her Weight Watchers gig, but she'll balloon right back up for #2.

At London's Daily Mail, "'Pregnant' Jessica Simpson hides under oversized shirt… as it is revealed she 'plans to marry before baby's birth'."

Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website

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In a stunning embrace of political terminology normally associated with political polarization and vile anti-Americanism, top Democrat Party activists, led by long time progressive leader Robert Borosage, have launched an initiative to push economic warfare against conservatives and Republicans. Aaron Klein reports, at WND, "Democrat Operatives Launch Class-Warfare Website":

Robert Borosage
A George Soros-funded radical think tank with close ties to the Democratic Party has launched a new website urging politicians and activists to wage class warfare while hailing what it calls a new era in politics – the use of class warfare to win elections.

WageClassWar.org was launched last week by the Campaign for America’s Future, or CAF.

CAF’s co-director, Robert Borosage, explained the need for such a website.

“America’s growing diversity and its increasingly socially liberal attitudes played a big role in this election. But looking back, we are likely to see this as the first of the class warfare elections of our new Gilded Age of extreme inequality,” he wrote in a statement.

“More and more of our elections going forward will feature class warfare – only this time with the middle class fighting back. And candidates are going to have to be clear about which side they are on,” he wrote.

Continued Borosage: “In 2012, candidates who supported the economic interests of the many over the few won their elections. Populism was the voice, but economic opportunity was the message. The pundits may wring their hands, but in the future it won’t be values voters, angry white men or soccer moms that win elections. It will be class war.”

The website does not feature a mission statement and is unclear about exactly how the group will go about attempting to wage class warfare.

The site explains how Obama’s 2012 campaign utilized class warfare and set the stage for the deployment of such tactics in future elections.
Continue reading Klein's report here.

But readers can go right to the website, which features Borosage's introductory exhortation for the progressive class-warfare agenda, "Waging Class War":
Needless to say, Obama is neither by temperament nor predilection a populist class warrior. But faced with potential defeat, he turned to what works. The depths of the Obama presidency came in the summer of 2011 after the debt ceiling debacle, in which the president was roughed up by Tea Party zealots, and emerged looking weak and ineffective.

Obama came back by deciding to stop seeking back-room compromises with people intent on destroying him and to start making his case. In the fall, he put out the American Jobs Act and stumped across the country demanding that Republicans vote on it. His standing in the polls began to rise. Then Occupy Wall Street exploded, driving America’s extreme inequality and rigged system into the debate. In December, the president embraced the frame: He traveled to Osawatomie, Kansas, revisiting a campaign stop Teddy Roosevelt had made in the first Gilded Age. He indicted the “you’re on your own” economics of Republicans while arguing that “this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class.”

In the run-up to the election, the president’s campaign employed two basic strategies. First, the president consolidated his own coalition. He defended contraception and pay equity while his campaign attacked the Republican “war on women.” He reached out to Hispanics by ending the threat of deportation for the Dream kids. He not only ended “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but also moved to embrace gay marriage. Widely described as socially liberal measures, these were also profoundly bread-and-butter concerns. Could women choose when to have children? Could Hispanic children be free to pursue the American dream? Could gay people gain the economic benefits of marriage?

At the same time, the president’s campaign made a risky but remarkably successful decision. Their opinion research showed that painting Romney as a flip-flopper had little traction, but the attacks on vulture capitalism hit home. They decided to spend big money early in such key states as Ohio on a negative ad barrage defining Romney as the heartless vulture capitalist from Bain. Both campaigns believe that Romney never recovered.
And the conclusion to Borosage's declaration of war:
More and more of our elections going forward will feature class warfare — only this time with the middle class fighting back. And candidates are going to have to be clear about which side they are on. Politicians in both parties are now hearing CEOs telling them that it is time for a deal that cuts Medicare and Social Security benefits in exchange for tax reform that lowers rates and closes loopholes. Before they take that advice, they might just want to look over their shoulders at what will be coming at them.
This is very useful, for it puts the lie to the left's own words that this president was going to heal the country's divisions and govern as a post-partisan leader amid the emergence of transcendent progressive benevolence. There have been so many lies over the last few years, but this is one of the biggest, now actually embraced by top Democrats as a badge of honor and a program to destroy the enemy.

This is also useful as a reminder of just how far left the mainstream of the Democrat Party has moved. Here's the Borosage entry at Discover the Networks:
A former New Left radical and onetime Director of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Robert Borosage co-founded (with Roger Hickey) both the Campaign for America’s Future and the Institute for America’s Future. He also founded and currently chairs the Progressive Majority Political Action Committee, the activist arm of a political networking organization whose aim is to help elect as many leftist political leaders as possible. In addition, he is a contributing editor at The Nation magazine and a regular contributor to The American Prospect.

Borosage attended Yale Law School and earned a graduate degree in International Affairs from George Washington University. In 1974 he established the Center for National Security Studies, a civil rights / civil liberties organization that regularly accuses the CIA and the FBI of rampant abuses.

From 1979 to 1988 Borosage was Director of the Institute for Policy Studies. In 1988 he left IPS to work on Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, for which he served as a speechwriter and an assistant in framing responses to policy issues.

Borosage also has worked for such political figures as Senators Paul Wellstone, Barbara Boxer, and Carol Moseley-Braun.

In 1989 Borosage founded the Campaign for New Priorities, which called for decreased federal spending on the military and greater allocations for social welfare programs.

In 1996 Borosage and Roger Hickey co-founded the Campaign for America's Future (CAF), and three years later they established a sister organization, the Institute for America's Future (IAF).

Each year, CAF holds a “Take Back America” conference which the organization describes as “a catalyst for building the infrastructure to ensure that the voice of the progressive majority is heard.” Speaking at one such event in Los Angeles in June 2001, Borosage characterized President George W. Bush’s policies as a mélange of “tax cuts for the wealthy,” “arsenic in the water,” and “salmonella in the food”....

In a November 2002 L.A. Weekly article, The Nation editor David Corn quoted what Borosage had said backstage during a recent anti-war rally sponsored by International A.N.S.W.E.R. According to Corn, Borosage stated: "This [rally] is easy to dismiss as the radical fringe, but it holds the potential for a larger movement down the road…. History shows that protests are organized first by militant, radical fringe parties and then get taken over by more centrist voices as the movement grows. They provide a vessel for people who want to protest."
Backstage at an A.N.S.W.E.R. rally? International ANSWER is the residual protest arm of the Stalinist World Workers Party. It's been on the leading edge of the most radical left wing agitation since the early George W. Bush administration. There are all kinds of interlocking ties between groups like this and the mainstream of the Democrat Party, although President Obama and institutional Democrats have long attempted to mainstream their activities and distance themselves from the revolutionary shock troops.

Here's more background, on the founding contingents of the Campaign for America's Future:
Approximately 130 people played a role in co-founding the Campaign for America's Future (CAF) in 1996. Among these individuals were: Mary Frances Berry, Julian Bond, Heather Booth, Robert Borosage (co-founder), John Cavanagh, Richard Cloward, Jeff Cohen, Ken Cook, Peter Dreier, Barbara Ehrenreich, Betty Friedan, Todd Gitlin, Heidi Hartmann, Tom Hayden, Denis Hayes, Roger Hickey (co-founder), Patricia Ireland, Jesse Jackson, Joseph Lowery, Steve Max, Gerald McEntee, Harold Meyerson, Frances Fox Piven, Robert Reich, Mark Ritchie, Arlie Schardt, Susan Shaer, Andrew Stern, John Sweeney, and Richard Trumka. To view the full list of co-founders, click here.
It's also useful to troll around over at the CAF website, where one finds Borosage agitating on the current fiscal cliff negotiations, "The Grand Betrayal":
The battle lines are being drawn. The AFL-CIO, SEIU and AFSCME have announced labor’s opposition to cuts in entitlement programs and to continued tax cuts for the rich. Groups representing the base of the Democratic Party—from African-Americans to Latinos, women and the young—are lining up around a four-point program calling for jobs first; protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; letting the top-end Bush tax cuts expire; and protecting programs for the vulnerable.

Reaching no deal is preferable to a bad one that cuts entitlements. Going over the so-called fiscal cliff is perilous, but probably preferable to a bargain under the terms currently in play. With no agreement, the Bush tax cuts would expire. In January the Senate would immediately push to revive the lower rates for everyone but the top 2 percent. Republicans could vote for tax cuts, but rates at the top would rise. The automatic spending cuts would not kick in immediately (although the stock market might feel the hit quickly). But the thing to remember about failure to reach a deal before January is that Medicare, Social Security and many programs for the most vulnerable are shielded from the cuts. And the new Congress would likely act rapidly to reverse the cuts to military and domestic spending. The already faltering recovery would surely weaken, threatening the loss of more jobs. But that might force Congress to address the real crisis—jobs and growth—rather than court a ruinous austerity.

Whatever the outcome, the battle is likely to be only the first skirmish of a defining struggle over the future of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement. We’ve just had what might be called the first of a new era of class-warfare elections. The plutocracy ran one of their own, on their agenda and with their money. The American people’s rejection of Mitt Romney, despite the lousy economy, demonstrated the declining appeal of the conservative, trickle-down agenda. The budget debate will draw battle lines within the Democratic Party, between the Wall Street–dominated New Democratic wing and the progressive wing fighting for the change this country desperately needs.

We are headed into a new era of upheaval. Our money-soaked politics may suffocate growing demands for change. But if Democratic legislators join the president in a grand betrayal, they may witness a powerful Tea Party movement from the left, as Republican legislators have from the right.
Well, the battle lines are being drawn alright.

But remember, as Rush Limbaugh warned, the politics of the fiscal cliff aren't really about fiscal policy. They're about destroying the Republican Party. This Wage Class War initiative just comes right out in the open with it, which is good. Let's not pretend that Americans are one country with a few minor differences on the margins. We're indeed in a political war for the survival of the America that we grew up with, one, in my lifetime, marked by decency in overcoming oppression, and in expanding political and economic opportunity to growing numbers. But don't care about any of that. They have been taken over by the most radical elements of the '60s counter-culture and New Left revolutionary cadres. These are Marxist-Leninists in suits. Their man is now in office for a second term after having bludgeoned the so-called political embodiment of corporate power, GOP nominee Mitt Romney --- a man who was wholly unprepared for the onslaught of progressive blood libel and demonization that was thrown down throughout the campaign.

So conservatives can just suck it up and man the ramparts for the battles that are coming. The left's isn't even pretending to hide its program of fundamental transformation of the country, enunciated so well and violently by top Democrat Party hack Robert Borosage and his fellow subversives of the progressive movement.

29 Kasım 2012 Perşembe

Gilda's Club

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News broke yesterday that several local chapters of Gilda's Club will be changing their name.  For those of you who don't know, Gilda's Club was founded by Gene Wilder in memory of his beloved wife Gilda Radner who succumbed to cancer.  It's a support center for family and friends of those living with cancer.
"For those of you who don't know" is the key phrase there.  The local chapters who are changing the name are doing it because they fear people don't know who Gilda Radner is anymore, and is therefore losing meaning to the younger generations who need the help.  They want to call it the "Cancer Support Center."
A noble quest, for sure ... and I am also sure that these are the best intentioned people in the world.  But I just gotta say that it doesn't make any sense to me.  From a marketing perspective.
If you want to keep up with the younger generations and stay relevant ... look to the principles of good brand management and marketing.  Washington DC isn't changing the name of the monuments because the tourists are too young to remember Thomas Jefferson.  They continue to promote them and add new ones.
Brands keep evolving by weaving in the younger generations, not taking away what made them what they are.  Bring in some other new names, broaden the perspective, embrace the younger folks who are now going through the same struggles that Gilda and Gene did by growing, not shrinking.
IMHO, the Cancer Support Center is generic an unmotivating.  Honoring those who have struggled before you is quite inspirational.  Brands are built on emotions and built on adding value to people's lives.  Gilda's Club has both.
The irony is that by changing the name, the "brand" is doing exactly what I would bet most of their audience doesn't want to have happen ... with cancer, after awhile, you are gone and forgotten.  I doubt that's the "brand equity" that the organization would want.  It's an awful feeling and the wrong emotion.
Now I'm looking at this from a marketing perspective, and to me it's an intellectual discussion and very simple.  But I've also had a lot of very personal experience as well.  And from that perspective it's very emotional and sad.
What's your experience?  Jim.
Jim JosephPresident, Cohn & Wolfe NAAuthor, The Experience Effect seriesMarketing Professor, NYU

TSA 'Business As Usual," Defending the Indefensible. Again

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I bend over backwards at times giving the TSA the benefit of the doubt, including in its remarkably timid responses to the guns that more people are trying to bring through checkpoints because those people think they have a God-given "right to carry" their firearms anywhere they choose, including onto an airplane.

TSA=We're vigilant about old ladies in wheelchairs, but we're terrified about upsetting the gun lobby.

Now here, as if to prove that the TSA just doesn't make sense many times, is the agency's intrepid mouthpiece, "Blogger Bob" Burns, defending the indefensible -- that is, he airily waves off protests about TSA agents waylaying passengers as they queue to board airplanes, and "testing" whatever beverages they have in hand.

Now, it's a given that if you have a soda or a bottle of water in hand at the gate, you have purchased or obtained that drink within the secure area of the airport, because they wouldn't have let you carry it through the checkpoint in the first place. The TSA says, as a matter of optics and a tactic of preemptively covering its butt, that of course nothing is "100 percent secure," yada-yada. Yes, that is correct. Except when the TSA has some asinine gate-theater to defend, and then it's "CSI Airport."

"Blogger Bob" is correct in saying that this is nothing new, despite the current outpouring of online protest about the agency testing drinks at the gate. And, let note here the absolutely predictable response from the Brigade of Official Reassurance on public radio that there's nothing to see here, folks. Why, silly, the government told us so!

Yes, they have had this ludicrous procedure in place for a while -- but my guess is that they've stepped up the performances lately of this particular comic act on the security-vaudeville playbill.

Agents waylaying passengers at the gate may be designed to present "another layer of security," as "Blogger Bob" says, but in fact what we, the public, see is another ridiculous manifestation of make-work for a vastly bloated federal jobs program, the TSA -- which is without doubt the most hated agency of the federal government. The most hated, yes. The possibly also the least trusted. And lack of trust in your security is a basic security flaw, as any expert in the field will tell you.

Here's "Blogger Bob" on the TSA blog today, pooh-poohing objections to this nonsense by insisting that this all is "business as usual." Business of security theater as usual, I would add.

Emphasis is mine:

"While browsing the web this morning, I saw that the topic de jour was that TSA was now screening liquids at the gate. We've talked about random gate screening here before, and if you travel frequently, you've likely experienced a gate screening. Not a big deal really... Heck, even I have been pulled aside for random gate screening.
So, the most popular question that comes up with this topic is: "Isn't this redundant?" On the surface, it does seem that way, and it's the first logical thought that many have. However, any security expert will tell you that nothing is ever 100% secure. So, gate screening is kind of like our safety net to keep up with anybody who might be trying to get things past conventional screening.
We stay away from static security tactics. Layered security is common practice, providing the necessary unpredictable measure that makes it more difficult to do malice to the transportation infrastructure. If everything we did was always the same, it would provide a checklist for people to know exactly what to expect. While this would be extremely helpful for passengers, it would also be useful to those wishing to do us harm. ...

As far as the testing of liquids at the gate, this is just one of the many options we have to choose from when deciding what additional tactics to use each day. We started using test strips back in the summer of 2007 and continue to do so. The test involves a test strip and a dropper containing a nontoxic solution. In case you're wondering, our officers don't place the test strips in your beverages/liquids. They simply have the passenger remove the cap/lid and they hold the strip over the opening of the container. Procedures call for moving the test strip to the side and applying the solution from the dropper to test the strip. If the test results are positive TSA will conduct additional testing to make a final assessment.
In a nutshell, liquid screening at gates is random and it isn't happening at every airport every day. So other than possibly taking a few moments of your time before boarding your flight, it's business as usual."

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Border Patrol Nabs Castro Sneaking Dirty Bomb Into U.S. ... Oops! Make That Ex-Arizona Gov. Castro, 96, and He'd Just Had Radiation Treatment

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[Photo: Mr. Castro, the suspect in suspected nuclear-bomb plot that was thwarted by vigilant U.S. Border Patrol agents]

The former governor of Arizona, 96-year-old Raul Castro, of Nogales, Ariz., was waylaid recently by intrepid agents of the U.S. Border Patrol in southern Arizona, where they don't have as much to do these days because fewer Mexicans are risking death illegally trudging 100 miles through the brutal heat of the Sonoran Desert.

A radiation detector, it seems, signaled some radiation on the elderly gentleman's person during one of those pesky stops by the Border Patrol agents who are all over the region.
Governor Castro, it seems, was emitting traces of radiation from a medical procedure. So he was detained and humiliated in the 100-degree heat because he could have posed a "nuclear threat" to the Homeland.

This occurred a good ways from the border itself on Interstate 19 north of Tubac, Ariz. (Border Patrol claims to have martial-law authority in a zone within 100 miles of the border, which includes the city of Tucson.)

You think I'm kidding? Read this.

Mr. Castro was elected in 1974 as the first (and only) Mexican-American governor of Arizona. He is also a former U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Bolivia and El Salvador.

This appalling incident has been well-known in the area since it occurred three weeks ago, and I've been amazed that the national media ignored it for so long, till it got picked up out of a local Nogales publication. (The Phoenix and Tuscon media are too lazy and too craven to rouse themselves much and report this out. They're afraid some right-wing screwball might write them a stern letter of complaint, after all.)

Finally, Salon has got on the case. Here.

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Thank You from American Airlines: Those Old Miles That Were Never Supposed to Expire? They're Expiring! !

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I will never, ever understand the propensity of airlines for clumsily insulting the intelligence of their customers. The tin-ear syndrome is always on full display.

Here's a beauty that one Suzanne L. Rubin, who runs the AAdvantage loyalty program, sent out in e mails to customers, thanking them for their loyalty while advising them that those "miles with no expiration" will now expire. It's a "streamline," she says!

***

"For more than 30 years the American Airlines AAdvantage program has been making travel special. Thank you for your loyalty for so many years as an AAdvantage member.

In order to streamline our program, we are announcing a change to AAdvantage miles earned before July 1, 1989, also called Miles With No Expiration.

Starting November 1, 2012, these miles will automatically be converted to Miles Subject to Expiration, and because of your tenured loyalty, you will earn a 25% mileage bonus on every unredeemed mile earned prior to July 1, 1989. To have your Miles With No Expiration converted and to earn the mileage bonus, you do not need to take any action. For more information about this change, please visit AA.com/MileConversion.

Once your miles have been converted, as long as you earn or redeem AAdvantage miles at least once every 18 months, your miles will not expire. This is our normal mileage policy and more information can be found at AA.com/AAdvantageTerms.

It is easy to keep your account active! In addition to earning AAdvantage miles for travel, you can earn miles for making everyday purchases such as dining out, shopping and paying your electricity bill. Plus, you can redeem miles for hotel stays, rental cars, flight awards, and more! Find out more ways to earn and redeem miles by visiting AA.com/AAdvantage.


...Thank you for your continued loyalty!

Sincerely,

Suzanne L. Rubin
President
AAdvantage® Loyalty Program"

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Border Patrol's Deadly Response to Rock-Throwing from Mexican Side

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The Los Angeles Times, unlike the timid local daily papers in Arizona, is following up on the disturbing story of Border Patrol agents riddling a teenager's body with bullets, when that teenager was in a group of rock-tossing Mexicans on the other side of the international border at Nogales.

From today's Los Angeles Times report (Emphasis mine): "Under agency guidelines, repelling rock attacks with bullets can be regarded as a justifiable use of force in part because rocks have inflicted serious injuries on agents. But critics have grown increasingly vocal at the frequency of such incidents and what they call a lack of transparency in follow-up investigations. Wednesday's confrontation was the third incident since September; at least 15 civilians have died in agent-involved confrontations since 2010."

Not addressed yet, and it won't be addressed cogently unless the national media pay attention to this dismaying story that the local daily media are evidently afraid to touch: Why couldn't Border Patrol agents simply have retreated to a spot where the rocks could not reach them, given that the assailants were unable to advance (being on the Mexico side of the border)?

--Also, how many shots did the Border Patrol fire? The dead youth's body was hit with eight gunshots, Mexican authorities said, while at least a dozen more bullets hit a medical building nearby on the Mexican side.

--Also, what was the specific threat that the Border Patrol agents say they responded to? Again, throwing rocks at someone is a crime -- a local crime. Firing wildly across an international border is an international incident, whatever the other questions of manslaughter and inadequate training.

--Also, see the Los Angeles Tiomes story linked to above, which refers to the dead 16-year-old as the "suspected smuggler." There is no attribution for that, and no indication from the reporting that the dead youth was in fact a "suspected smuggler" (though he may have been, of course). In which casse, the crime location was on the Mexican side of the border, Mexican law enforcement was the legal authority, and the question still remains about the use of deadly force, which seems to have included a hail of bullets.  However, from the facts as they have currently been presented, it appears that the 16-year-old was part of a small group of people who tossed rocks at the agents across the border fence. -- in response to what would have been the Border Patrol agents' legitimate attempts to capture on this side, or repel, the actual smugglers who tossed a bundle of what seems to have been marijuana across the fence.

Again, why couldn't the agents have simply retreated from the rocks? Who gave the order to fire?

Less sloppy reporting is required here, on a sensitive topic.

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28 Kasım 2012 Çarşamba

A Search I Couldn't Find

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I'm certain it happens to all of us.  We just can't find something we're looking for. We run out of options and/or energy and have to give up (for now or for good). It's one reason why I consider information research mastery on the Internet to be somewhere around 80%.

This happened to me recently while looking online for information about a musical score. A member of my church (where I'm the music director) recommended an arrangement of a hymn she heard while on vacation. Here's an excerpt from her email:
"I was in Albuquerque in May for my granddaughter's high school graduation; she played a recital on violin accompanied on piano. There was a beautiful arrangement of "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, arranged by Paul Bailey and Charles Romer.  It would be a beautiful piece to play on a Sunday morning if you know of a violinist."
Normally, this would be plenty of information to track the piece down to a source.  I was hoping to find a copy to download (for free or a license), but would have settled to find the publisher and order a copy.

A sensible query would be:  come thou font of every blessing paul bailey charles romer.  It's pretty long, but to find the song title and the arrangers, this seems like the best path.  But it doesn't work. In Google, you get about six relevant entries matching the title and arrangers before Charles Dickens references start popping up--apparently the most popular match for Charles. None of the results is a musical score or a path to a score.

Putting quotes around the title is risky. Am I sure the title is spelled correctly or includes only these words?  There is another spelling for fount (font). Putting quotes around the arrangers names may also eliminate all the instances where a middle initial is used. But it's worth a try. Quotes around the title returns 2 results, neither of which is relevant. Quotes around the arrangers names (separately) returns about 6 results, none of which is a musical score. The results are mainly bulletins that shows the song was performed in a service.

Hmm.

I thought I would try a Deep Web search by going to a database of scores and publishers. The biggies in this field (e.g., www.sheetmusicplus.com, jwpepper.com, etc.) don't list the song with these arrangers. There are plenty of arrangements of the song, but by different arrangers. This is starting to feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. But which Deep Web haystack?

Advanced search filters didn't help, limiting results to violin and title or arrangers produced no relevant results that lined up all the information.


I did find the music online and downloaded it. But the granddaughter first had to share a link with me. Sometimes the quickest way is still to ask someone who knows.

There are other clues such as the publisher of the music that may be found just with good searching.  I found that before I gave up. I'll leave that as the challenge. Who published the music? And if you're up for a tough challenge, where can you download a copy?

Democrats Used to Love the Filibuster

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Behold yet more epic hypocrisy from the Douchebag Party.

At Washington Examiner, "‘Those who would attack and destroy the institution of the filibuster…’."


More at Memeorandum, especially the idiots at Talking Points Memo, "Dems Defend Filibuster Reform Effort: ‘McConnell Has Broken The Social Contract’."

Anything to justify power for these people, the scummy disgusting Democrat douchebags.

Young People Getting Even More Screwed Under ObamaCare

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This is freakin' mind-boggling. The news on the ObamaCare monstrosity gets worse by the day.

At Forbes, "Young People under Obamacare: Cash Cow for Older Workers":
It’s official: the health care law will unduly stick it to young Americans by making them pay far higher premiums starting January 1, 2014. New rules announced this month are even worse than expected when it comes to shoveling an unfair burden onto our nation’s youth. Moreover, they also perversely increase the incentives of young people to remain uninsured.

The newly announced rules limit insurers to charge their oldest customers no more than three times as much as younger ones. As shown in the following chart based on estimates by international management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, the rule will force insurers to hike rates for 18- to 24-year-olds by 45 percent even as rates for those 60 and older drop by 13 percent in most states. That means a 22-year-old waitress paying $2,068 for her health insurance will have to fork over $3,000 when Obamacare takes effect.[3] And these figures even underestimate the actual impact....

The real-world consequence of this regulatory misjudgment is that young people will have an even greater economic incentive to simply pay the $695 annual penalty for not having coverage and wait until they are sick before they purchase it. [4] In short, it is now even more likely that Obamacare will amplify the perverse incentives for “free-riding” that it was intended to counter.

Clearly, until we observe actual behavior next January, we won’t know precisely how large an adverse selection problem has been unnecessarily created by these new rules. But what we can say for certain is that for young adults who elect to have health coverage, it will be way more expensive next year than it is today.

Is this fair? Ask the typical 20-24 year-old—whose median weekly earnings are $461—whether it’s fair to be asked to pay 50 percent higher premiums so that workers age 55-64—whose median weekly earnings are $887—can pay lower premiums. Think about that. The median earnings for older workers are $420 a week more than those of younger workers, or roughly $20,000 more a year. How is mandating a price break on health insurance for this far higher income group at the expense of the lower income group possibly fair?
It's not fair.

Seriously. "Fair" isn't even the word for this. Shoot, is it legal? Young Americans are practically being raped by ObamaCare. The effective violations of liberty with this law are so freakin' astounding, people should be screaming violently in rage. And the thing is, young people don't even know what's about to hit them. I know this for a fact. I've been discussing the consequences of the election for the preservation liberty in my classes. Students were literally shocked when I told them they were going to be taxed under the individual mandate if they were uninsured beginning in 2014. Students will be even more glum when we open debate on current events for the remainder of the week.

Ignorance is very costly, and it's sad too since so many young people practically worship this president.

Sucking at the Teat of the Progressive Welfare State

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Well, I thought this was pretty good, at Maggie's Farm, "Normalizing and universalizing welfare: You pitiful masses still have unmet needs."

Sucking at the Teat of the Progressive Welfare State
Welfare includes crony capitalism, tax breaks for businesses, mortgage deductions, bailouts, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid right down to disability and the now ubiquitous EBT cards.

Naturally, we Conservatives think it best to eliminate all forms of welfare and charity from government control except for the most desperate or hopeless of individual cases. Remove welfare from the middle classes and provide a safety net for the desperate: Restoring a True Safety Net.

The Left, on the other hand, aspires to normalize and universalize welfare programs. Hayek's serfdom under a benevolent, altruistic, and all-powerful state. With Obomacare on track to fail resulting in a total government take-over, Liberals are beginning to comtemplate their next project: The Great Society's Next Frontier - Now that Obamacare—the largest expansion of the social-safety net in the last 60 years—is safe, what's next for the liberal economic project?
It's true, you know?

Here's just one example, at the Democrat-socialist Daily Kos, "Let's Defend Social Security and Other Entitlements With the Second Bill of Rights."

Hope and Exchange

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At the Wall Street Journal, "The feds blame the states for refusing to become ObamaCare subsidiaries":
ObamaCare is due to land in a mere 10 months—about 300 days—and the Administration is not even close to ready, so naturally the political and media classes are attacking the Governors and state legislators who decline to help out. Mostly Republicans, they’re facing a torrent of abuse in Washington and pressure from health lobbies at home.

But the real story is that Democrats are reaping the GOP buy-in they earned. Liberals wanted government to re-engineer the entire health-care system and rammed the Affordable Care Act through on a party-line vote, not stopping to wonder whether it would work. Now that implementation is proving to be harder than advertised, they’re blaming the states for not making their jobs easier.

The current rumpus is over ObamaCare’s “exchanges,” the bureaucracies that will regulate the design and sale of insurance and where 30 million people (and likely far more) will sign up for subsidized coverage. States were supposed to tell the Health and Human Services Department if they were going to set up and run an exchange by October, but HHS delayed the deadline to November, and then again at the 11th hour to December.

Sixteen states have already said they won’t participate. Another 11 are undecided, while only 17 have committed to doing the work on their own. Six have opted for a “hybrid” federal-state model. That means HHS will probably be responsible for fallback federal exchanges in full or in part in as many as 25 or 30 states.
Continue reading.

It sucks. It's bad law. It'll be interesting to see how the massive resistance of the states plays out.

More at National Review, "States Should Absolutely Refuse to Set Up Obamacare Exchanges."

27 Kasım 2012 Salı

Path Clearing for Susan Rice Nomination as Secretary of State

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I do think a Rice nomination will prove how arrogant this president is, but some reports indicate the way is clearing for Rice's promotion to Foggy Bottom. At USA Today, "Prospects brighten for Rice to succeed Clinton":

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's top U.N. diplomat appears to have a clearer path to succeeding retiring Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton after two top Republican critics moderated their accusations that Ambassador Susan Rice was part of a government cover-up of what happened in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

Rice has emerged as a clear front-runner to replace Clinton during Obama's second four-year term. If she is nominated for the position, it may signal greater U.S. willingness to intervene in world crises during Obama's second term.

The political furor over the Benghazi assault that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans exploded before the Nov. 6 presidential election and continued for weeks afterward, with Rice becoming the focus of Republican attacks.

Now, while refusing to back away from charges of a cover-up, Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have toned down their complaints, suggesting Republicans may not block Rice's appointment if Obama chooses to nominate her.
We'll see. I'm not pleased that McCain and Co. is caving to the administration's deceit, although we still have the prospect of prolonged investigations in the House. More at Memeorandum.

Republicans and the Tax Pledge

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At the Wall Street Journal, "Grover Norquist is not the problem in Washington":
One of the more amazing post-election spectacles is the media celebration of Republicans who say they're willing to repudiate their pledge against raising taxes. So the same folks who like to denounce politicians because they can't be trusted are now praising politicians who openly admit they can't be trusted.

The spectacle is part of what is becoming a tripartisan—Democrats, media, some Republicans—attempt to stigmatize Grover Norquist as the source of all Beltway fiscal woes and gridlock. Mr. Norquist, who runs an outfit called Americans for Tax Reform, is the fellow who came up with the no-new-taxes pledge some 20 years ago. He tries to get politicians to sign it, and hundreds of Republicans have done so. He does not hold a gun to their heads.

Grover's—everyone calls him Grover—apparent crime against Washington is that he now actually wants to hold politicians to what they willingly signed. If enough Republicans will disavow their tax pledge, then the capital crowd can go about agreeing to a grand fiscal bargain that raises taxes, pretends to cut spending and avoids the January 1 fiscal crack-up that the politicians have set us up for. Voters are supposed to believe that only Grover stands in the way of this happy ever-after.

Thus we have the sight of powerful Senators like Saxby Chambliss and Lindsey Graham and New York Congressman Peter King patting themselves on the back for having the courage to stand up to a guy who has never held public office. On Monday no less than billionaire Warren Buffett, who can get the President on the phone at will, attacked Mr. Norquist. Who knew one unelected fellow had so much power?
RTWT.

I've got more on Norquist scheduled for today, but don't miss R.S. McCain's essay on this, which I think is rock solid.

"When people criticizing Republicans need to start their argument by announcing that they are 'reality-based,' you know an epistemic closure argument cannot be far behind...'

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I'm going to start this by linking to William Jacobson's entry, "The Epistemic Closure of the Epistemic Closure Pundits." And here's the quote I've used for the title:
The dead give-away was the title of his article, “Revenge of the Reality-Based Community.” When people criticizing Republicans need to start their argument by announcing that they are “reality-based,” you know an epistemic closure argument cannot be far behind...
When I read Bartlett yesterday I was practically rolling on the floor. Anyone who has to publish virtually their entire professional resume going back to their college thesis must be really expecting some pushback. Yeah, Bartlett's got credentials. Unfortunately all the paperwork still doesn't inoculate the dude from making himself look like a damned laughingstock. You have to read it to believe it: "My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong."

What a poor, pathetic little man (with little signifying stature rather than physical heft, of which Bartlett is hardly "little"). Seriously. For a second I thought that was a unicorn at the accompanying graphic, the dweeb. #Fail.

How 'Life of Julia' Prevailed

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From William McGurn, at the Wall Street Journal, "How Obama's 'Life of Julia' Prevailed":

Julia
The name of the program now escapes me. Several months ago, while flipping channels with the remote, I stopped on an MTV show about a working mom whose whole life was upended when her partner announced that he was splitting. It caught my attention because this mother lived in a nice apartment that looked like one in my suburban New Jersey town, and she was applying for food stamps.

This wasn't your caricature "taker"—the woman had a real job. With her partner leaving, however, she could no longer afford the rent, and she would have trouble providing for her two young boys alone. As she walked up to an office to sign up for food stamps, she said something like, "I can't believe I am applying for public assistance."

Her situation provoked two questions. First, how could her boyfriend just abandon his sons without having to pay child support? Second, what is the conservative response to a woman who finds herself in this situation?

The show comes back to me in wake of the thumping Mitt Romney took in the presidential election among the demographic this mom represents: unmarried women. During the 2012 campaign, we conservatives had great sport at the expense of the Obama administration's "Life of Julia"—a cartoon explaining the cradle-to-grave government programs that provided for Julia's happy and successful life.

The president, alas, had the last laugh. For the voting blocs that went so disproportionately for the president's re-election—notably, Latinos and single women—the Julia view of government clearly resonates. To put it another way, maybe Americans who have reason to feel insecure about their futures don't find a government that promises to be there for them when they need it all that menacing.

The dominant media conclusion from this is that the Republican Party is cooked unless it surrenders its principles. I'm not so sure. To the contrary, it strikes me that now is a pretty good time to get back to principles—and to do more to show people who gave President Obama his victory why their dreams and families would be better served by a philosophy of free markets and limited government.
RTWT.

Well, I couldn't agree more, but it's going to be a long tutorial with the lunkhead progressives. These people are diehard Democrat dependency freaks. I think the trick is actually to get people before they start going Democrat, since weaning people from progressive entitlements will be even harder than encouraging a natural scavenger to hunt for itself.

PREVIOUSLY: "Meet Julia: The Big-Government Dependency Robot and Dream Woman of Leftist Ideology."

RELATED: Recall this piece, "Health-Care Law Spurs a Shift to Part-Time Workers"? (Excerpted here.) I mentioned it in one of my American government classes. Boy were there some glum faces when students realized that the negative externalities of the law might make their lives more difficult and less prosperous. So yes, explaining how ever-increasing government reduces opportunity and increases dependency can have an impact. The lessons may stick, even though the hurdles remain extremely high in the current environment.


The Debate About Tax Rates

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I've been reading the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs, and Grover Norquist's got an essay therein, which is timely, considering how much he's in the news. See, "Are Taxes Too Damn High?":
Andrea Campbell tips her hand partway through her essay “America the Undertaxed” (September/October 2012) when she writes that “the central debate in U.S. politics is whether to keep taxes, particularly federal taxes, at their current levels in the long term or emulate other advanced nations and raise them.”

So the choice facing Americans is between maintaining the size of the government under President Barack Obama and expanding it further? Who knew? In framing things this way, Campbell posits a Brezhnev Doctrine for U.S. government spending and taxation: what the government takes and spends today is forever ceded by Americans to the state, and that portion of their income not yet taken by the government is negotiable. Such ideological blinders limit the author’s ability to understand or explain how the United States arrived at its present level of historically high spending and taxation -- and what the American people would like its government to do and how much it would like it to cost in the future.

The U.S. government was created to maximize liberty. Unlike the European nations Campbell offers as models for how much Americans should be taxed, the United States was not organized around defending or promoting historical land claims or one religion, tribe, or ethnicity. Americans are a people of the book: the Constitution. According to the founders, government should play a limited role in the lives of Americans, by providing for a common defense, the rule of law, property rights, and a justice system that protects them.

Despite these strict limits, the U.S. federal government has grown enormously in size, cost, and power over the last two centuries, mostly as a result of the country’s engagement in successive wars. With each conflict, Washington increased its spending and powers of taxation under the false flag of temporary necessity and appeals to patriotism. After each war, the government refused to return to its previous size and level of power.

This growth can be seen in the numbers. The federal government consumed less than four percent of GDP in 1930, 9.8 percent in 1940, and 16.2 percent in 1948. By 1965, the number had climbed to 25 percent of GDP, and it hit 30 percent in 2000 (compared with the average among members of the Organization for Cooperation and Development of 37 percent). Today, Campbell claims, raising taxes still higher, “perhaps by a few percentage points of GDP,” would “provide the government with much-needed revenue. And it might not have a detrimental impact on the U.S. economy, perhaps even spurring it.” But the economic crisis in Europe, where taxes and spending are already higher, makes that argument a little difficult to swallow.

The United States’ major political parties are now diametrically opposed on the question of the size of government. Gone are the days when Nixon Republicans and Kennedy Democrats argued about whether the government should get bigger or much bigger, and how quickly. No Republican House member voted for the 2009 stimulus package, and only one Republican member of Congress voted for Obamacare’s 20 tax hikes and massive spending increases (and he is no longer in Congress). Meanwhile, the modern Democratic Party has shifted from one that cast 56 Senate votes for the 1964 Kennedy-Johnson tax cut and 33 Senate votes for the 1986 Reagan tax reform into a high-tax ideological party that cast no votes for the 2001 income tax cut, under President George W. Bush, and only one vote for the capital gains and dividends tax cut of 2003 (and that voter is set to retire this year).

The budget that Obama released in February 2012 shows annual federal spending increasing by $1.5 trillion over the next ten years, producing $11 trillion in additional federal debt. Paying for all that spending will require dramatic hikes in taxes. Obama promised in the 2008 presidential campaign that under his plan, “no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.” On August 8, 2012, however, Obama changed his pledge, saying, “If your family makes under $250,000 . . . , you will not see your income taxes increase by a single dime next year.” The promise to oppose all tax increases on incomes less than $250,000 was replaced by a promise to prevent only income tax hikes -- and only for 12 months. Obama’s new language opened the door to a value-added tax (VAT) at any time and to income tax hikes starting in January 1, 2014.
Obama’s shift is important, for as Campbell points out, the difference between U.S. and European levels of taxation is mainly due to the prevalence of VATs in Europe. The United Kingdom has a VAT of 20 percent, France one of 19.6 percent, and Sweden one of 25 percent.

Advocates of higher taxes in the United States know that only a VAT or steep taxes on energy can cover the higher levels of spending in Obama’s budget projections. Higher income tax rates do not raise useful amounts of money. The “Buffett rule,” which would raise rates on earnings of more than $1 million a year would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, take in only $47 billion over a decade, less than one-half of one percent of the $11 trillion in debt that Obama’s planned spending would produce.
Continue reading.

The Campbell essay is here: "America the Undertaxed."

And for the debate on Norquist and congressional Republicans, see Robert Stacy McCain, "Retire #Taxby Chambliss."

BONUS: At NewsBusters, "Grover Norquist: 'Warren Buffett Should Write a Check and Shut Up'." And also, "Greg Mankiw, "A Master of Tax Avoidance."


26 Kasım 2012 Pazartesi

A Black Friday Lesson

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My daughter learned an important lesson this weekend. On Thanksgiving night, she went with three friends to a nearby mall to experience Black Friday madness at midnight. It's the sort of thing you do when you're 18 and willing to try all sorts of new things.

When I saw her the next day, she reported that, although they walked around for 4 hours, she hadn't bought anything, was annoyed by the crowds of people, and would never do it again.

In other words, she's my daughter.

TSA 'Business As Usual," Defending the Indefensible. Again

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I bend over backwards at times giving the TSA the benefit of the doubt, including in its remarkably timid responses to the guns that more people are trying to bring through checkpoints because those people think they have a God-given "right to carry" their firearms anywhere they choose, including onto an airplane.

TSA=We're vigilant about old ladies in wheelchairs, but we're terrified about upsetting the gun lobby.

Now here, as if to prove that the TSA just doesn't make sense many times, is the agency's intrepid mouthpiece, "Blogger Bob" Burns, defending the indefensible -- that is, he airily waves off protests about TSA agents waylaying passengers as they queue to board airplanes, and "testing" whatever beverages they have in hand.

Now, it's a given that if you have a soda or a bottle of water in hand at the gate, you have purchased or obtained that drink within the secure area of the airport, because they wouldn't have let you carry it through the checkpoint in the first place. The TSA says, as a matter of optics and a tactic of preemptively covering its butt, that of course nothing is "100 percent secure," yada-yada. Yes, that is correct. Except when the TSA has some asinine gate-theater to defend, and then it's "CSI Airport."

"Blogger Bob" is correct in saying that this is nothing new, despite the current outpouring of online protest about the agency testing drinks at the gate. And, let note here the absolutely predictable response from the Brigade of Official Reassurance on public radio that there's nothing to see here, folks. Why, silly, the government told us so!

Yes, they have had this ludicrous procedure in place for a while -- but my guess is that they've stepped up the performances lately of this particular comic act on the security-vaudeville playbill.

Agents waylaying passengers at the gate may be designed to present "another layer of security," as "Blogger Bob" says, but in fact what we, the public, see is another ridiculous manifestation of make-work for a vastly bloated federal jobs program, the TSA -- which is without doubt the most hated agency of the federal government. The most hated, yes. The possibly also the least trusted. And lack of trust in your security is a basic security flaw, as any expert in the field will tell you.

Here's "Blogger Bob" on the TSA blog today, pooh-poohing objections to this nonsense by insisting that this all is "business as usual." Business of security theater as usual, I would add.

Emphasis is mine:

"While browsing the web this morning, I saw that the topic de jour was that TSA was now screening liquids at the gate. We've talked about random gate screening here before, and if you travel frequently, you've likely experienced a gate screening. Not a big deal really... Heck, even I have been pulled aside for random gate screening.
So, the most popular question that comes up with this topic is: "Isn't this redundant?" On the surface, it does seem that way, and it's the first logical thought that many have. However, any security expert will tell you that nothing is ever 100% secure. So, gate screening is kind of like our safety net to keep up with anybody who might be trying to get things past conventional screening.
We stay away from static security tactics. Layered security is common practice, providing the necessary unpredictable measure that makes it more difficult to do malice to the transportation infrastructure. If everything we did was always the same, it would provide a checklist for people to know exactly what to expect. While this would be extremely helpful for passengers, it would also be useful to those wishing to do us harm. ...

As far as the testing of liquids at the gate, this is just one of the many options we have to choose from when deciding what additional tactics to use each day. We started using test strips back in the summer of 2007 and continue to do so. The test involves a test strip and a dropper containing a nontoxic solution. In case you're wondering, our officers don't place the test strips in your beverages/liquids. They simply have the passenger remove the cap/lid and they hold the strip over the opening of the container. Procedures call for moving the test strip to the side and applying the solution from the dropper to test the strip. If the test results are positive TSA will conduct additional testing to make a final assessment.
In a nutshell, liquid screening at gates is random and it isn't happening at every airport every day. So other than possibly taking a few moments of your time before boarding your flight, it's business as usual."

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Border Patrol Nabs Castro Sneaking Dirty Bomb Into U.S. ... Oops! Make That Ex-Arizona Gov. Castro, 96, and He'd Just Had Radiation Treatment

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[Photo: Mr. Castro, the suspect in suspected nuclear-bomb plot that was thwarted by vigilant U.S. Border Patrol agents]

The former governor of Arizona, 96-year-old Raul Castro, of Nogales, Ariz., was waylaid recently by intrepid agents of the U.S. Border Patrol in southern Arizona, where they don't have as much to do these days because fewer Mexicans are risking death illegally trudging 100 miles through the brutal heat of the Sonoran Desert.

A radiation detector, it seems, signaled some radiation on the elderly gentleman's person during one of those pesky stops by the Border Patrol agents who are all over the region.
Governor Castro, it seems, was emitting traces of radiation from a medical procedure. So he was detained and humiliated in the 100-degree heat because he could have posed a "nuclear threat" to the Homeland.

This occurred a good ways from the border itself on Interstate 19 north of Tubac, Ariz. (Border Patrol claims to have martial-law authority in a zone within 100 miles of the border, which includes the city of Tucson.)

You think I'm kidding? Read this.

Mr. Castro was elected in 1974 as the first (and only) Mexican-American governor of Arizona. He is also a former U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Bolivia and El Salvador.

This appalling incident has been well-known in the area since it occurred three weeks ago, and I've been amazed that the national media ignored it for so long, till it got picked up out of a local Nogales publication. (The Phoenix and Tuscon media are too lazy and too craven to rouse themselves much and report this out. They're afraid some right-wing screwball might write them a stern letter of complaint, after all.)

Finally, Salon has got on the case. Here.

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