Tune in tonight for an attempted double live blog of the veep debate. The Mahablog technical assistance and design team (my daughter, Erin) will be updating one post, and I’ll be updating another. Thrills and chills! Maybe spills!
Category Archives: blogging
Let’s Target “Stupid”
Captain Ed says the rate of abortion in the U.S. has dropped again, according to the Los Angeles Times, citing an Alan Guttmacher report. However, the decline has been most dramatic among white women. The rate of abortion among African American women is 5 times that of whites, and among Latinas is 3 times that of whites.
Why? Some experts point to poverty and life stresses in general. Nah, says Captain Ed. These minorities are targeted for abortion services. By way of documentation, he quotes another guy who claims minorities are being targeted for abortion services. Well, that proves it then.
However, everyone’s a bit vague on exactly how minorities are being “targeted.” Are abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods handing out free toasters?
For perspective, see this Alan Guttmacher report of October 2007: “Abortion Declines Worldwide, Falls Most Where Abortion Is Broadly Legal.”
I’d like to repeat that last part — abortion rates fell most where abortion is broadly legal.
For every 1,000 women of childbearing age (15–44) worldwide, 29 were estimated to have had an induced abortion in 2003, compared with 35 in 1995. The decline was most substantial in Europe, where the rate fell from 48 to 28 abortions per 1,000 women, largely because of dramatic declines in Eastern Europe. On the whole, the abortion rate decreased more in developed countries, where abortion is generally safe and legal on broad grounds (from 39 to 26), than in developing countries, where the procedure is largely illegal and unsafe (from 34 to 29). Significantly, the abortion rate for 2003 was roughly equal in developed and developing regions—26 and 29, respectively—despite abortion being largely illegal in developing regions. Health consequences, however, vary greatly between the two regions, since abortion is generally safe where it is broadly legal and mostly unsafe where restricted. …
… The lowest abortion rate in the world in 2003 was for Western Europe (12 per 1,000 women aged 15–44), where contraceptive services and use are widespread and safe abortion is easily accessible and legal under broad grounds. The rate was 17 for Northern Europe and 21 for the Northern America region (Canada and the United States). Africa, Asia and Latin America had the highest regional abortion rates, even though abortion is generally legally restricted and often unsafe in those regions. Abortion rates in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean have declined since 1995, but the estimated number of abortions has increased in Africa because of the increasing number of women of reproductive age and a possible underestimate of abortions in 1995. Because the world’s population is concentrated in Asia, most abortions occurred there—about 26 million yearly; China alone accounted for nine million procedures.
To drive the point home, The uber-liberal, anything-goes Netherlands in 2007 had an abortion rate among residents of 8.6. The most recent data says the abortion rate for the U.S. is 20. It’s higher than that in most nations where abortion is illegal.
I remember reading a report that said abortion rates tend to be higher in cultures that are conservative and authoritarian and lower in cultures that are liberal and egalitarian. I can’t put my hands on that report now, but the stats do tend to bear that out. See also “Abortion in the Netherlands and the United States: Worlds Apart.”
Let’s go back to Captain Ed:
The most interesting aspect of this will be the effect it has on politicians who pay lip service to seeing fewer abortions while blocking any and all attempts to limit them. Will they cheer this drop in abortions, or will they claim that it proves that more intervention is needed to ensure “access�
We can’t tell from the numbers if the fall in abortion rates in the U.S. is from anything the so-called “Right to Life” movement is doing or if it’s just part of the worldwide trend of falling abortion rates. However, what we see over and over again is that “blocking access” to abortion doesn’t stop abortion. If Captain Ed is serious about lowering abortion rates even further, he should help promote a more liberal culture that openly promotes contraceptive use and makes contraceptives easily obtainable by anyone who is sexually active.
On the other hand, if he wants to increase abortion rates, the way to go is to criminalize abortion to drive it underground, support “abstinence-only” sex ed in public schools, discourage contraceptive use and, even better, make contraceptives difficult for teenagers to obtain without parental permission or a court order. That should do it.
Finally, remember that the report says African American and Latina women have higher abortion rates than whites? I give you this Hot Air commenter: “Crime rate will greatly increase in about 15 yrs.”
In some quarters the stupid rate is already through the roof.
Is Anyone FOR the Bleeping Bailout?
There seems to be nearly unanimous disapproval of Paulson’s $700 billion bailout, henceforth called “Plan B.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that “Liberal advocacy groups have mobilized to stop the financial bailout package, just as Bush administration officials are urging lawmakers to act quickly and decisively.” At Salon, Glenn Greenwald documents “Growing right-wing opposition to the Paulson plan.”
Righties opposed to Paulson include Little Lulu, who calls Paulson a “wrong-headed, ChiCom-promoting, liberal Democrat-installing, Gore global warming alarmist” (in keeping with Lulu’s understanding of political science — if she doesn’t like it, it must be liberal) and who wants a return to conservatives principles. Yes, I see the oxymoron, too.
One of Little Lulu’s readers responded to the question, “Will the real fiscal conservatives please stand up?” with “There aren’t any. Phil Gramm retired long ago.” They’re still willfully refusing to see that Phil Gramm and “conservative principles” caused the bloody mess to begin with. Oh, and a lot of Lulu’s readers seem to think illegal aliens are behind this, somehow.
But the point is that, wonder of wonders, the Right and the Left halves of the blogosphere are moving toward the same opinion, which is that Paulson’s plan must be stopped.
I’ve been surfing around for a respectable economist, i.e. one not on the Bush Administration’s or Republican Party’s payroll, who supports the plan. The only favorable comments I find are from last week, before details were announced. Now there is near unanimity among economists and finance experts that Plan B is a bad plan.
So, who’s for Plan B? Via Josh Marshall, the Wall Street Journal (behind firewall) says,
House Republican staffers met with roughly 15 lobbyists Friday afternoon, whose message to lawmakers was clear: Don’t load the legislation up with provisions not directly related to the crisis, or regulatory measures the industry has long opposed.
“We’re opposed to adding provisions that will affect [or] undermine the deal substantively,” said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable, whose members include the nation’s largest banks, securities firms and insurers.
A deal killer for the group: a proposal that would grant bankruptcy judges new powers to lower the principal, interest rate or both on a mortgage as part of a bankruptcy proceeding.
So, says Josh, “finance industry lobbyists are already giving orders to Republican hill staffers not to allow any meaningful reforms or protections for taxpayers. So, just the money. No strings attached.”
(Don’t tell Lulu about not lowering principal or interest rates on mortgages in bankruptcy, or she might change her mind about the evilness of the Plan. Sticking it to the poor and distressed is what righties live for. It makes them feel superior.)
President Bush this morning warned lawmakers against trying to make too many changes to the proposed financial bailout legislation, but Senate Democrats announced that they would add provisions to the plan that could spur opposition from the administration or congressional Republicans and bog down the measure.
In Bush World, Congress is redundant.
Does President Bush’s support for a radical financial bailout represent a reversal in his political ideology? Not likely.
For one, it seems to be less a reversal than a recusal. Bush appears ideologically spent, rather than transformed. He has for all intents and purposes become the bystander-in-chief, letting others in his administration do the heavy lifting.
Furthermore, the plan concocted by two Bush appointees features some distinctive characteristics of major Bush initiatives past: It would be spectacularly expensive, primarily benefit the very rich, and grant the executive branch unlimited power with no transparency or accountability.
Explained that way, one would think righties would like it. They supported just about every other plan like that that the Bushies have come up with.
See also Sean-Paul Kelley.
Beyond Meltdown
Paul Krugman’s column explains Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system. The title of the column provides a hint of Krugman’s opinion — “Cash for Trash.”
Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now.
Once again, the Bush Administration and right-wingers in Congress are using a crisis to shift more wealth to the extremely wealthy. “Plan B” will reward the people who got us into this mess with a penalty-free bailout. Taxpayers and America in general will be the poorer for it.
Is there any reason outside avarice and corruption that the feds are pursuing this course? A conservative blogger (whose analysis of the crisis is reasonably sane) says,
Of course the almost hysterical urgency is partially because the locks on the coffers change in January. If Obama wins, so will the tax code. The administration’s preferred version of the bailout would be one last Wall Street giveaway before higher taxes and a tougher regulatory environment.
In other words, if Obama wins they’ll no longer be guarding the henhouse, so they’re making off with as many chickens as they can carry while they still can.
Dems in Congress are making noises about help for homeowners and caps on top executive compensation. Will they once again get railroaded into doing what the administration wants? Sean-Paul Kelley says there is room for hope. Very little room, I say. I don’t see what the Dems could lose by sticking to principles, and there is much they could gain, but we’ve been here too many times before, haven’t we?
Elsewhere: You know we’re approaching the End of Days when Sam Donaldson, George Will and Cokie Roberts trash a Republican and praise a Democrat. WTF? you say. My guess is that this trio lost a whole lot of money this week and realized that if they don’t want to be wiped out entirely they do not want to put John McCain in charge of the economy. “John McCain showed his personality this week,” Will said, “and made some of us fearful.” I know the feeling.
Meanwhile, most of the Right Blogosphere remains oblivious to the details of the financial crisis and the atrocity the feds are about to commit to “fix” it. Rather than concern themselves with understanding the issues, they’ve gone into hyper-blame mode. Clif give us his version of the shorter Right Blogosphere: “[T]he reason for the current financial crisis is that the Community Reinvestment Act passed by the Democrats forced banks to lend money to a bunch of shiftless darkies who couldn’t repay their loans.”
My version of the shorter Right Blogosphere: “The elitist Left is behind this. We hates them. We hates them, precious.”
Nothing much else to do but laugh.
Teh Stupid, It Runs Our Country
In “Making America Stupid,” Tom Friedman writes of the GOP’s “Drill Baby Drill” mantra:
Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology — fossil fuels — rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology — renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution — on the eve of PCs and the Internet — is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. “Typewriters, baby, typewriters.â€
He goes on to say that McCain is running on nothing but cultural wedge issues to hide the fact that he has no more clue what to do about the economy than George W. Bush did.
Steve Benen says Friedman’s new membership in the “enough” club is significant, because Friedman is a major conventional-wisdom shaper.
And if you want to read a defense of McCain that’s bleeping hilarious, go here. Begin with the sentence. “Let us look at what oil is. It replaced whaling in provided fuel for lamps. This saved the whale,” and keep reading. If this guy were a satirist he’d be brilliant. Unfortunately, he isn’t.
Kevin Drum asks why McCain is running such a sleazy campaign.
So why is McCain doing this? Obvious answer #1: he’s just running a standard Republican campaign. Nobody should really be surprised by this. Obvious answer #2: This is hardly the first time McCain has sold his soul. He’ll regret it later, of course, but this is just who he is, despite the layers of maverickiness he’s managed to cover himself in over the years.
Kevin also suggests McCain genuinely believes Obama would be a bad president, and thus McCain feels morally justified in doing whatever it takes to stop him. I can think of one other possibility, which is that McCain is too mentally impaired to make his own decisions, and Karl Rove or a clone therof is actually running the campaign behind the scenes.
I don’t know what went down on the Sunday bobblehead shows, but some parts of America’s news media seem to be doing some real journalism for a change. This is the kind of reporting they should have done when Bush was running in 2000, and didn’t.
New York Times: “Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes”
Washington Post: “As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood”
MSNBC: “Palin’s ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ Line Returns”
Boston Globe: “As governor and mayor, Palin hired friends for public posts”
San Francisco Chronicle: “Campaign check: Lies and half-truths outed.” This article analyzes six campaign commercials and finds them deceptive. Five of the six are McCain’s ads. It also found three statements made by McCain and Palin in speeches or interviews that were, um, wrong. One other item it found deceptive was an anti-Palin email, but there’s no evidence it originated with the Obama campaign. So — 8 McCain deceptions, 1 Obama deception, 1 source unknown deception.
Now, on to serious issues — a number of rightie bloggers are complaining that a “lib” photographer deliberately made McCain look sinister for a photo used on the cover of The Atlantic. Except I’ve got the bleeping issue of the Atlanic right in front of me, and there’s nothing the least bit sinister about the photo. If anything, McCain looks slightly noble and wise, if way wrinkled, in the photo. Apparently the photographer had some fun with “outtakes” — not the photo actually used — and bragged about it on a personal blog. Some rightie bloggers have twisted this into a claim that The Atlantic used one of the “sinister” photos on the cover, which one look at the cover reveals is not true.
This is not a press bias issue; it’s a personal expression issue. Once again, we see that righties hate freedom of expression, and if they had their way they’d ban any speech with which they don’t agree. And they’d do it in the name of “liberty.”
I’m So Effing Tired of This
If anyone wants to explain to these, um, persons that a politician’s capacity to wreak vengeance on one’s ideological opposites is not a compelling reason to vote for that candidate, have at it.
Conspiracies
Maybe you can help me with this. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (to which I do not link) believes he has discovered a plot by the Obama campaign to smear Sarah Palin with this web site.
You can read about why LGF suspected the Obama campaign was behind the site at Gateway Pundit. As I understand it, the Sarah Palin smear site is traced to the IP address 74.208.74.232. This same IP address also hosts other anti-McCain sites, plus a site that redirects to Obama’s “Fight the Smears” site. “Fight the Smears” itself has a different IP address.
If you do a Whois for the IP address, it takes you to a company called 1&1 Internet Inc., of Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania. It’s a web hosting service. A cheap one, with disgruntled former customers who have set up complaint sites, presumably with another web host. This doesn’t tell us who actually created the sites.
The only connection to the Obama campaign is the site Obamadefense.com, hosted at 1&1 Internet, that redirects to the “Fight the Smears” site. I did a Whois for Obamadefense.com and didn’t find anything that told me anything more.
Is there a there, there? I don’t understand how any of this proves a connection to the Obama campaign.
More Self-Parody
Why is it righties are funny only when they’re not trying to be funny?
Memo to Brother and Sister Bloggers
Rules for Playing the Race Card
Apparently, the rules are that Bob Herbert may not point to more than one incident of racist political tactics within a given decade.