Eye on Oregon

Protect the free market! Block AT&T!

2012-01-19T18:23:00.000-08:00

The government is soon going to authorize the sale of some more of our mobile phone spectrum.

Should the goal of the auction be:

(1) Get as much as possible from that auction, regardless of who buys the spectrum?
(2) Manage the sale for the long term good of consumers?
(3) Get government off the back of god-fearing, job-creating businessmen?

Okay, okay, you're right. It was a trick question.

Next month, bills will be introduced in Congress that may include language that allows the FCC to structure who can bid on the spectrum. The "Government is bad! Always bad!" crowd will of course scream "Freedom! Let capitalism work!"

Except we know that market capitalism can harm market capitalism. Where limited resources are concerned, like oil or railroads or tobacco in the 19th century when the Sherman Anti-trust act was enforced, sometimes the government has to protect market capitalism from itself.

In the 1890s, the Rockefellers crushed many companies and put many people out of work with their money. The same threat exists today. We need competition in the mobile phone industry and there is national interest in seeing that competition can flourish.

Fighting monopoly is fighting for free market. Fighting concentration of power is fighting for small businesses and is pro-business.

This is even more true of the mobile industry than it was with oil. This is our spectrum. And if We, The People decide to foster competition and protect free markets by selling that spectrum to competitors of AT&T and Verizon, that is advocating for the free market, it is not "socialism," despite what the fear mongers on the right, the pro-monopolists and their lackeys like Rep. Greg Walden, would have you believe.

Promoting free enterprise in this case means potentially limiting who can bid on the spectrum and potentially taking a loss in the short run so that competition can, in the long run, keep prices competitive.

(By the way, I almost included the Boston Tea Party as an example. I'll submit, just for the joy of it, that the East India Company was in collusion with the British Crown. It was their tea! That's the history of influence of business on government. If the "Tea Party" wanted to be true to its namesake, it would join the Occupy Wall Street folks and demand that corporate scofflaws go to jail.

Big pharma, Goldman Sachs, the insurers, those are the East India Company of today. Don't tread on me!

At some point, some smart grad student at Berkeley or Stanford or the University of Chicago or Wharton will do a study on the minimum number of competitors required for a market to remain healthy, and how barriers to entry into that market affect that number.

My theory is that markets with higher barriers to entry require more existing competitors to be healthy, because companies outside a market that see the attractive profits will find it more difficult get in.

I will join the right wing in saying the Supreme Court has failed America. The overturning of campaign finance laws was to allow the East India Company to marry into the royal family. Talk about protecting an institution from incest! )

The Conservative within

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

The schizoid ideology of the left and right leave me confused. The right believes in individual responsibility, but wants keys to my bedroom door. The left believes in personal freedom but wants to mitigate consequences for every bad decision I make.

Unfortunately for the left, without consequences there are no rational incentives. Even worse for the left, they will have to watch as a few generations are wasted, because it takes that long for consequences to take root and modify behavior.

Unfortunately for the right, bad things happen to good people. Even worse for the right, there is benefit for the entire society if together we provide opportunity for individuals, and not doing so guarantees decline for the very society that provides for their wealth.

I ran across three articles in rapid succession today in the New York Times. The first was a mild little piece on free will. The second was a Krugman opinion on opportunity. The third was about what the right gets right ("That ought to be a short one," snort my snotty leftist friends).

That they snort is part of the problem. Because the right snorts back, the argument becomes one of finger pointing and probing for vulnerability. If neither side is willing to listen, we have a shout down, no progress and everybody goes to bed angry.

One place where idealogues might find common ground, albeit a long way from where each sits, is around the concept of opportunity: America has some, used to have more, and needs as much as she can get.

Opportunity is the life force, opportunity is the dream that creates the energy, opportunity is the engine that pulls the train to a higher standard of living.

I believe the left and the right have a vested interest in creating opportunity. This starts with education in America, which has fallen to an abysmal state. The right blames the left for polluting the classroom with polemic and letting it become a sinecure for mediocrity. The left blames the right, for shunting education onto a side street in pursuit of the perfect consumer.

To fix this, the left has to quit trying to be everything for everybody and accept that there are consequences, often nasty ones, for certain behaviors, including failure by students as well as teachers in the classroom.

The right has to give up the idea that they have no stake in what happens to others, accept that a world of gated communities of the spirit will ruin the environment for everybody. We have to fund more than just police and fire departments.

I don't want to talk about income inequality in and of itself. I don't find inequality by itself to be a sin, nor do I hate other people's money as so many on the left seem to do. But if inequality perpetuates itself through an inheritocracy, it damages opportunity. We need to do what we need to do so that a farm boy in Idaho can share the same dream as a street kid in Buffalo. Then we might see a reversal of America's decline.

We spend more per capita on education than any other nation and we do so poorly. We spend more than any nation on health care and it is pretty lousy. So money, by itself, is not the answer here, and everyone has to accept there are limits to what we can spend.

But it is unAmerican to accept that this is the best we can do, and accept the status quo. If we continue this path, and if "We the People" do not believe there is opportunity, if not for themselves but for their children, they will get angry and will want to take it back, by ballot or by bullet.

Graceless in Oregon City's cemetery

2012-01-14T20:17:00.000-08:00

Last month, I was with a remarkable family as they said goodbye to their cherished mother and grandmother, a woman who had given and received great love. Church services were thoughtful and warm, the motorcade from Sellwood to Oregon City ushered smoothly by police.

Before the casket was lowered into the ground at Mt. View Cemetery, it was odd how the funeral director went to great pains to state, more than once, that services were over. That his responsibility was over. Family may stay, but he would not. He had nothing to do with anything that came next.

It didn't take long to figure it out.

Apparently concrete vaults are now required now to hold a coffin before it goes in the ground. These vaults are heavy. This vault was suspended by rods that extended from one side of the burial pit to the other. After the funeral director left, an Oregon City crew standing 40 yards away with a back hoe came forward without much organization.

With the casket in the vault, there was only one winch strap to lower the vault into the ground. Which meant rather than lower the vault evenly, they had to drop one end in first. As the first end went to the bottom of the hole, gallons of water gushed out of the vault into the grave. It had been raining and the vault had accumulated water. Then we heard everything inside the vault slide to one end as the box poked out of the ground at an angle.

The workers struggled to move the strap from one end of the vault to the other. The unfamiliar winch jammed. Putting the lid on the vault was nearly as awkward, the chain holding the lid too short to allow adequate movement.

As they struggled, workers walked on top of grave stones with absolutely no thought that this showed disrespect and with total disregard for the damage mud encrusted boots might do to the marble. It was if the crew was laying water pipe.

There were still more than 30 people present. The man on the back hoe offered us the opportunity to use the shovel stuck in a pile of dirt to put our symbolic closure to the grave, which a number of us were waiting to do. After that, we filed back to our vehicles and departed, leaving them to their work of filling the grave.

While it is tempting to blame workers for this farce, it is not their fault. These men were working within the expectations of those who employ them and the limitations of their equipment. But not only was the burial insensitive, it put civil incompetence on display for all to see. Workers were willing, but their work was poorly guided and unpracticed.

This desecration belongs to the cemetery manager of Oregon City, who has either never been to one of these services or has no concept of how internment should be handled. Depending on the job description and expectations of the city council, that individual should be fired, transferred to another department, at the very least relieved of all duties relating to burials.

Here's a short list of recommendations.

There needs to be an immediate upgrade to training and adequate equipment on site and used at every burial. There should be a plan in place prior to the actual burial of who will be where and doing what, and some practice for those involved.

If possible, vaults should be in the ground before the casket and mourners arrive on site. Vaults should be covered with a tarp prior to use, water not allowed to accumulate. A lowering device should be available to allow pall bearers or trained personnel to lower the casket into the vault.

At a minimum, the vault should be gently and evenly lowered into the ground. The lid, closure if you will, should be placed smoothly. It should be anticipated that mourners will want to place dirt.

Employees should be instructed to walk around, not on grave stones.

If Oregon City cannot afford to show some decency at this moment, they should develop standards and put the work out to bid.

It's not a "free market"

2012-01-12T20:16:00.000-08:00

It is stunning how many Republicans claim to defend "free markets," without seeming to know what they are talking about.

To begin with, there is no such thing as a "free market" in America, unless you are talking about selling used furniture on Craigs List. Maybe.

Effective markets require rules. Here's an obvious one: you have to own what you sell. Selling something you know to be stolen is a crime.

There are others. We don't want someone selling slug bait as cat food. We want to know what's in our hamburger (actually no, we don't). We don't want wheels to fall off our cars. We don't want a 50/50 chance that the light bulb we put in the socket is going to electrocute our children or burn the house down.

Each of these is a restriction on the "free market." So please, Republicans, stop asserting that any restriction at all on any business is unAmerican.

Secondly, money begets power begets money begets power. The very MARKETS that the Republicans claim to be defending REQUIRE PROTECTION from government.

Profits are good. And the left needs to lose the attitude that everybody else's money is tainted. The first responsibility of a business is to make money for owners. It has been shown that, in a "competitive environment," the best way of making money for owners is taking care of customers.

But without someone to enforce rules, the big dogs eat everyone else, grow into monopolists and soon customers are forced to transfer income in excess of "reasonable" profit, taking money from other sectors of the economy if the need is critical. We pay $200 for a loaf of bread, $50 for a gallon of milk, 5$ for a gallon of gas. Ooops.

What's reasonable? Dunno. Let's let a competitive market decide that. A market where there is real and vigorous competition, the lowest possible barriers to entry to encourage new players, and a fair and level playing field. I have no interest in assigning a percentage.

And that's the rub. In the effort to make money, it is obvious that every business wants to reduce competition, so it has to spend fewer resources "taking care" of customers and can make more money for owners. That is why government is necessary to protect the markets. to ensure competition.

I don't care if Romney fired people while at Bain. I do care if ATT gobbles up T-Mobile.

And bankers who broke the law need to go to jail, along with any other CEO or VP who lies under oath or engages in activity which is a crime. Letting a company settle for a pittance and letting perps collect a bonus is to guarantee a repeat of behavior that has a high reward to risk ratio.

That is what Occupy Wall street was really about, and the fact that those same CEO's who broke the back of our economy for the last five years are putting people in Congress to reduce competition turn the rest of us into serfs living on the edge of their wealth.

End corporate welfare. End corporate control of our government, and the resulting abuse of our economy. Recognize that corporate tyranny enslaves as wrongly as any government tyrant.

Bad movie, great film, Ricks the fascists.

2012-01-07T22:56:00.000-08:00

It's been a week up here on Raptor Ridge, what with trying to train the magpies, watching movies in town and being frightened by the news.

The problem is, magpies are so damn smart. The other day there was an article about pigeons doing higher math. If pigeons do math, magpies do quantum mechanics. Magpies make pigeons look like bird brains. These clever feathered foragers in their bold black and white communicate complicated ideas verbally to each other and I think they've got a side deal going with the crows, too.

Last night I went to see "Real Steel." If I had paid more than $3 I would have walked out. Maybe I should have walked out because I only paid $3. Great price, horrible film. Formulaic, derivative, manipulative.

Oh, wait. Here is where I have to give a moment's consideration to those who question my audacity in judging a movie...

There. That ought to do it.

"Real Steel" featured Hugh Jackman's biceps, Evangeline Lilly's weepy smile, and Dakota Goyo's ability to show 'tude. There was no acting. For storyline I think the writers got loaded and slurred out "Rocky meets Iron Man!" In spots you can overhear the director demand of the key grip, "get camera on tears of joy, here, now."

Though I did really like their truck.

But tonight, the hangover from that awful movie was washed away by "The Wall." This film was written by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, and with no dialogue is a tale of abandonment, self absorption, loss... the seeds of fascism ... yeah, ambitious. But the movie has held up rather well over the decades.

And I didn't even get a flashback from the music.

Oh. Speaking of fascism: The Ricks.

Rick Perry wants to attack Iraq again, and take their oil. I know. It must be something in the water down there in Texas. Bush was dumb enough, but Perry is just stupid. We just go the troops home after spending a hair less than a trillion dollars on George W's war in Iraq. I don't know how much we spent on George H.W.'s war in Iraq, but wars haven't been cheap in quite some time.

Now Perry wants to go back and fight both Iraq and Iran!

Somebody please tell him to shut up and go back to giving great health care to the children of Texas.

It is not a good sign for America that manufactured political packages like Perry or Bush (and yes, it started with movie actor Reagan) can be created and presented as if they were real people with real ideas. Manchurian candidates, Chauncey Gardiner, I don't know, my mind must be on movies.

And that brings this bramble ramble to the other Rick, Santorum. He is more dangerous than Perry, because he is twice as smart. Where the men coincide is that each is a zealot. Perry is a zealot for cowboyism, which is opposed to communism and capitalism, but we won't go into that here.

Santorum is a religious zealot, and as we see with extremist Muslims, that is the most worrisome kind, because they believe God blesses all that they do. It isn't just their opinion, it is God's, and whatever they do is justified, by definition.

Which gives Santorum the right to say gay people are godless. To say gay people should not love children, or can't, I am not sure, but in any case, if gay then remain marriageless, childless. To equate being gay to bigamy, as if it were all about sex.

It is interesting that in speaking of marriage, Santorum does not speak of love. But, maybe that's because love transcends the laws of man. Or sex is to be only in the service of God, as his church maintains.

I accept that Santorum and his wife slept with a dead fetus and then took it home so their other children would welcome it into their family. That would not have been my choice on many levels, I accept that it was theirs. But Santorum, like other religious zealots, thinks his values should be mine, and I don't want to live his life.

And unless the government is giving handouts to health industry corporations that paid Santorum millions of dollar to lobby for them, he's not much for public healthcare, either. Your church will provide, your neighbors, and that will be good for America. So his zealotry is mixed with hypocrisy, too, and maybe with a bit of bigotry thrown in.

Santorum wants to bring Catholic extremism to America. Like Sharia law in Saudi Arabia, and maybe soon in a few other places we wish were a little more ... secular.

Yes, there is a boiling and often irrational (on both sides) disagreement in America over individual freedoms, individual responsibilities and the role of government in society. But this needs to remain a philosophical and political discussion, not a moral or religious one. Or we are in trouble, because religious wars are always bitter and never settled.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..."

In one of the last scenes in "The Wall," jack-booted soldiers use their moral certitude to condemn, pillage and destroy. We fight that when it is Muslim extremism (and not in our self interest, when we tolerate it). But we need to be vigilant, here, too.

The Ricks are bad men. They do not care about the lives of others. The American People have embraced zealotry before, but rejected it when our common good was in danger. That time is now. We don't have the luxury of giving the Ricks more stage.

Please pass the popcorn.

Verizon, on the other hand...

2011-12-14T21:24:00.000-08:00

... just bought about $4 billion worth of spectrum from Comcast.

Why do I like this deal, after showering AT&T's takeover over of T-Mobile with so much bile?

Because Verizon's deal brings new, unused spectrum to the market, actually doing what AT&T falsely claimed their deal with T-Mobile would accomplish. Because the Verizon deal still leaves the competitors on the field, especially the scrappy one (T-Mob) known for good prices and good deals. Because, in the final look, Verizon isn't AT&T.

Did you note last week that Verizon was the one major cell phone provider that did not use the sneaky software from Carrier IQ that knows more (a lot more) about you than your mother?

There is an obvious difference between Verizon and AT&T. One is good, the other is ... well, not so good. The corporate cultures seem vastly different. It's like going into a restaurant where staff is smiling and professional and eager, versus going into one where the first words you hear are "We close in fifteen minutes." Don't you just wonder what they're doing to your burger back there in the kitchen?

AT&T just seems to be in it for themselves, ya know?

We post this to let our conservative friends understand that we are not anti-business. We like business, and we like functioning markets, where they exist. Which does not include the U.S. pharmaceutical industry or anything that travels in the same wheel rut as AT&T.

That is not to say Verizon only wears a white hat. They were astoundingly silent about the AT&T and T-Mobile deal. Verizon's execs knew even if AT&T succeeded in swallowing T-Mobile and moving past Verizon to become the largest cell provider, even being second largest would increase Verizon's bottom line in a less competitive market. That's how oligopolies work.

But being silent is not the same as openly trying to undermine market competition. Verizon bought $4 billion of spectrum and will bring it online, while AT&T was taking a $4 billion charge for likely blowing a deal with T-Mobile that was a blatant attempt to subvert market dynamics so beloved of the right wing if in name only.

AT&T is anti-business, except their own. Rep. Greg Walden is anti-business,too, except for AT&T's business which Walden conducts quite well as a mole for AT&T at the government level. He is not working for small Oregon companies that need a functioning market in which to buy phone service. But then, we don't give Rep. Walden nearly as much money as he gets from AT&T.

Verizon is the nation's leader in customer service, the leader in basic service, the leader in high speed service, and it appears that lead will continue with this recent purchase of spectrum and marketing deals with cable companies.

Blessing in the loss

2011-12-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

Her mother hovers near death, so light now she floats six inches above the bed while nestled small and frail so deeply in the sheets.

I am blessed, asked to sit in this room, asked to bring strong arms from which grief can be released. Blessed, trying to anticipate small needs, driving small errands, a presence to offer balance, solid with no weight.

Blessed, in this watching, to see here great beauty.

Two weeks since she fell and shattered bones in hip and neck, a week since she lost consciousness. Four adult children attend with children of their own, a great grandchild due in a month visits via the womb.

"Perhaps mom hangs on to meet her great granddaughter," someone says.

"I think it would be better if mom meets her before she is born," says daughter-soon-to-be-grandmother with a smile but not joking, the quickness of her response and the love in this room offers another chance to laugh.

With laughter and warmth they share stories of childhoods where Gaga played her important role, memories brought out and burnished like holiday silver.

So many meals for so many as her own children searched for channels into adulthood, moved back home sometimes with their own kids until fully fledged and swimming on their own. There are many stories.

Running through it all is the common theme: "She made each of us feel like her favorite."

A grandson reads a book, his grandmother had read it to him, he cannot continue for tears that flow from love and loss. His father sits at mother's bedside, head resting on one arm, his eyes to the floor while she looks to other vistas.

He caresses his mother's brow for a long, long time. There is is no measurement for this waiting. He cries, one of his sisters puts her hand on the back of his neck.

The mourning is as natural and accepted the laughter, as the need to go out and get fresh air, to go home for a shower. We attend in shifts. Tears, laughter, errands, waiting, nurses come in every two hours with an opiate to ease her pain.

Until the end each dose eased her breathing for a while, but then seemed to have little effect at all.

A grandson in the Air Force flew home from Arizona, he and his brother stand at her bedside, eyes bright to her. They just stand, holding her hand, no tears, no drama, peace emanates from them. In another world they wore robes and traveled by horse or mule, they are timeless.

Rebel son of rebel dad, long hair creeping from under cap, but pride earned and voice direct to her even as she cannot hear, the love she poured into him pours back to her, from pitcher to cup to pitcher.

The words "I love you" bring from her a smile. They are the words spoken in this room most often.

An Army Sergeant brings his family home from Texas to be here for the services, and uses his leave to be part of this, to help as he can. Soldiers, aviators abound in this family, tough men who do not flinch from their own weeping.

They attend, ageless youth. Baby blankets she made for them, satin edging worn away by their tiny fingers, return to the foot of her bed, warming her now and them now again.

"What will I do, her love was so important to me," asks a granddaughter, a professional pilot, overwhelmed in this moment by her helplessness.

"I just don't want to let go of her hand," responds her mother, who for years absorbed the pain of her mother's uncertain shuffle to flowers in the garden, worn by years of a long transition.

Daughters together here and now, their tears flow to her in one stream through it all.

Then, a smile, another story, one stands to go to her bed, to hold her cool hands, to feel her feet to be sure they are warm enough as circulation slows.

Over the last days and nights her breath slows, becomes uneven, long pauses cause everyone to stop, to listen, then she gasps as the body's need of oxygen overwhelms her soul's desire to flee, the breathing is ragged in her throat, softened only by sponged drops of water.

"There is a door," she said when she still had a few words left to share, "but I don't know how to go through it."

"Daddy waits and will show you the way, your papa waits and will guide you," her children reply to her stillness. "All those who have passed through will be there."

Finally, early in the morning her breathing slows even more and grows even more shallow, then just stops. This struggle is over, surrounded by loved ones through it all, not one moment of this departure did she spend alone in this room.

Such a blessing to be here.

More falsehoods from AT&T

2011-12-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

AT&T does not like the report from the Federal Communications Commission on its takeover of T-Mobile. They don't like that the report was released. Surprise.

So they trot out a smart man to try to cast doubt. Let's look at what he had to say.

"The document is so obviously one-sided that any fair-minded person reading it is left with the clear impression that it is an advocacy piece, and not a considered analysis," Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior vice president of external and legislative affairs, wrote in a blog post.

Actually, no. The report simply states reasons why FCC staff do not support the merger. The "analysis" is elsewhere. For nine months AT&T filled the atmosphere with falsehoods about how "what's good for AT&T is good for America." FCC disagreed, and said why. That's all.

AT&T claimed acquiring T-Mobile would help the rollout of its 4G LTE network. The FCC agreed with AT&T rivals who argued that AT&T is going to build out its 4G network with or without T-Mobile because of competition. Cicconi denied that, pointing to "sworn declarations" about its 4G LTE plans.

Oh, please. "Sworn declarations?" And we should wait for AT&T to say "Oh, that sworn declaration? Yeah, about that, well, our plans have changed." That's what always happens when the consequences for lying are less than the benefits. Guess we'll see if AT&T will let Verizon be the only company with a nationwide 4G network.

"The report apparently assumes a high enough level of competition exists in rural areas to compel billions of dollars in investment," Cicconi wrote. "Yet the report elsewhere argues that the level of wireless competition in more populated areas of America is so fragile that the merger must be disallowed. At the very least, these conclusions show a logical inconsistency."

Mr. Cicconi is a smart man. So he must be a lawyer to use the word "competition," which means different things in different situations, and claim it only means one thing and the FCC is being inconsistent.

There is nothing inconsistent in saying AT&T will roll out 4G in rural areas with or without T-Mobile, and loss of competition in 99 out of 100 urban markets (where the money is) would be bad for consumers. This is just a tricky trap of language, common to a certain political class.

The FCC says the deal will kill jobs, Cicconi says AT&T has "promised" to create jobs. No. AT&T was going to recoup the $39 billion it was willing to spend on T-Mobile instead of spending $4 billion to build out its own LTE by cutting jobs and raising prices, which it will be able to do in a duopoly with Verizon across most of America. Somewhere there is a document that shows that, an email, meeting notes. Let's find it and send perjurers to jail.

Cicconi says the FCC is hypocritical in saying there is a national spectrum shortage but saying two national companies face "no such constraints." He thinks we're stupid.

Yes, more spectrum is needed for new phone technology for the public good. But the public, as a whole, does not benefit from one company gobbling the spectrum of another. If you agree with his argument, walk into the coffee shop with a dollar in in your right pocket, move it to your left, tell the server you have a dollar in each pocket for a $1.50 cup of coffee, and, of course, you plan to leave a 50¢ tip.

Cicconi says the report lacks credibility, and distorts the facts. We think the report was a good summation of reasons why the merger should not go through, and Cicconi's response validates that conclusion.

AT&T Randall Stephenson to jail?

2011-12-01T09:15:00.000-08:00

It's one thing to lie in advertising. We all expect that.

It's another thing to lie in newspaper stories. Most of us expect that.

It's another thing to lie in applications to the Federal Communications Commission. That becomes a little more troubling.

But it's another thing altogether to lie to Congress. That's against the law. And there is some indication that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson did exactly that. If so, and if it can be proven he did so knowingly, he should go to jail.

By the way? THAT'S what the Occupy Wall Street protests were about.

AT&T's lies for all to see

2011-12-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

How wonderful this last week to see the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission protecting markets, small businesses and consumers from a rapaciously hungry corporate monster.

Even "The Economist" magazine, hardly a liberal rag, opposed the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile.

AT&T's discomfort at the release of the FCC staff report on the merger is understandable, and wrong. That is OUR government staff, that is OUR report, transparency is GOOD, the people have A RIGHT TO KNOW. The company wasn't opposed to putting its falsehoods out there during the process. It's blatant hypocrisy to affect outrage when the government releases its findings.

In fact, ALL the documents of the proposed merger should be released. They were filed with a public body to get something from the public. We should be able to see them. Distortions and other bad things, like AT&T, grow in the mouldering dark.

Anyone who watched the AT&T CEO in action before Congress, read the canned pro-merger crap AT&T regional presidents planted in newspapers around the nation (it all reads the same!), watched the callously manipulated spectacle of gay and lesbian organizations, Latino advocacy groups, Black community leaders giving pay back by advocating outside their interest, watched AT&T lawyers preen with false outrage, read anything about this corporation or even just dealt with an indifferent AT&T representative after the company attempted to rip them off, knows that AT&T is a company without a soul.

Yeah, yeah, we get there are people working for AT&T who have souls. So far. Leave it alone.

AT&T will eat whatever it can until gorged and then eat some more, the only thing stopping it something larger.

Which is why we have laws against monopolies, why AT&T had to be broken up once before, and why this last couple weeks of courage on the part of the justice department and FCC is only the beginning. AT&T has already said, somewhat ominously, they will pursue "alternate means" to get what they want.

One day, see the ancient James Coburn movie, "The President's Analyst."

At&T's representative from Oregon, Greg Walden, a man corrupted by campaign contributions and who knows what other spores AT&T may have planted in his brain, must be sweating bullets. He will now have to work harder for his host, and risks even greater exposure.

Cell phone

2011-11-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Time for a new cell phone.

Two reasons: First, I am really, really tired of T-Mobile's poor coverage where I live in the mountains of Central Oregon.

Second, my Samsung Nexus S phone is busted up, the display cracked in many places. A friend loaned me a phone just in case this one fails before I find a new one.

I would prefer a GSM phone because it is a world standard and has simultaneous data and voice on the older networks that serve my area. Still, I haven't been out of the country in a couple of years and am not that good at multitasking.

And since I am giving up on T-Mobile and won't do ATT, that eliminates GSM. Sprint made me angry by charging me an extra $10 for data priviledges they did not provide on my HTC Evo last year. That leaves Verizon.

Verizon has the best coverage by far in rural Oregon, in the mountains or at the beach. A friend on Verizon can talk for 10 miles past the Cascade crest on our way to Portland, while my T-Mob phone has been dead for a half hour.

Two phones are coming to Verizon that interest me: the new Nexus, and the Moto Razr. I love pure Android, and I hate the crapware that most phones are loaded with, and their "skins." HTC Sense wasn't too bad, but pure Android is cleaner. I used to like my whiskey straight up as well.

But I can't say I have been happy with my Samsung phone. Some of the breaks are absolutely my fault. Dropping the phone onto my concrete floor without a case. What did I expect? Other cracks ... perhaps they were the result of the curved display being cracked once, but I don't think they should have happened.

So, I will probably get the Razr and give up pure Android until the boys and girls at XDA figure out how to snooker the locked bootloader and I can run the newest Android Ice Cream Sandwich. I love the look of the phone, the clipped edges and thin profile. I wish the display were a little higher resolution but it is good enough for now.
It is the right size, the iPhone is too small and the 4.5 inchers just don't fit my hand.

I wish Google would get rid of the three or four buttons across the bottom and allow the phone makers to get rid of as much of the bezel as possible. Integrate a home button into all apps. No, I don't want an iPhone.

That would be ideal: A beautifully designed, indestructible handset I could run on any network for which I had an account, a phone that was all display and no bezel, thin, that would function as a high speed modem for my laptop or tablet when I needed more visual real estate, completely flexible to load or download MP3s or anything else from anywhere. A communicator that would only open to my voice or thumbprint but would do so instantly.

Obama has a tin ear

2011-10-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

Unions first? Really?

About a year and a half ago, in this very forum, I suggested that jobs, jobs jobs should be the president's priority. Inexplicably, he ignored me.

More recently, I told him to put some bankers in jail. He seems to be ignoring that, too. Amazing, huh?

So now I will tell him that to focus on funding jobs for teachers, firefighters and cops is a really, really stupid fumble, one that gives Republicans a fact they can use as proof that Obama is just a special interest president.

And this on the eve of great success in Libya. Good Lord, hire a conservative to serve pragmatism with breakfast. Are you reading The Economist as often as you should, sir?

Mr. President, most of us out here without jobs do not have union representation. Teachers and firefighters and cops are very hard to fire, already have organizations fighting for them, and have pretty nice advantages. They are not the most in need, individually or as a "class," and buying them off does not quickly create the most jobs.

Sheesh, we should not have to say this. Giving unions our money is great politics when times are good, but now you have to do something bold to take care of the rest of us who also voted for you, who also worked for you, so we can make money, so we can buy things, so we can pay taxes and so those taxes can then be used to hire more teachers, firefighters and cops.

Horse, then cart. Horse pulls cart. It's that simple.

That's how you best leverage dollars, economically and politically. Build some damn roads and bridges, retirement homes for now broke baby-boomers, build schools where they are falling apart, add research facilities onto colleges to study why adding fly ash makes concrete into nearly indestructible pavement. Then put that pavement under trucks delivering stuff to build more stuff.

Pour money into small banks in stressed communities -- I mean pour it in, and pay them 4% to loan it at 2 % for twenty years to any business that wants to grow, and certainly any business that can return jobs to America or creates jobs that can not be exported. Let the money multiply as it moves through the economy and lifts us out of some pretty dire straights (cue the music).

Don't just give it to the unions, sir. It makes you look like a chump and a shallow pol. It is beneath the stature of a president who who saved the U.S. auto industry, got Bin Laden and put fear into terrorists, passed what may someday be viewed as the beginning of health care reform and whose new direction of foreign policy has aided democracy around the world and just deposed a vile dictator who murdered with impunity for 40 years.

I think Right Wing pundits should eat a bag of bugs for every self-righteous, mocking use of "Lead from Behind." I want to see Rush do it.

C'mon. There is still time to fix this. Have faith in America, not just the ideologues. For you to meet the opposition in the middle, you have to come farther than half way. Don't waste this crisis.

Jail the Bankers

2011-10-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

Look, take exception to the source, if you want. But read it. Then this.

Then download the report itself. Just Google: Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse. It was written by a bipartisan Senate committee.

Okay, you don't have to read all 650 pages of that. But download it anyway, so that when someone spouts off that it's just Rolling Stone or The New York Times, you can prove it is far more than that.

Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks and David Viniar and Thomas Montag should be given their day in court. If 12 of their peers determine they should go free, that's fine, then free they should be. But America needs them to stand trial.

Do this despite your temptation to give in to causistry, your desire to bury outrage by pretending 'it's impossible to know" and "in whose opinion?" Or worse, "It's just too hard."

C'mon, get off your ass and be an informed citizen, just like Thomas Jefferson said. That does not mean Fox News. There is such a thing as truth. Do what you need to do to learn what that is in the "market place of ideas." It's your job as a citizen, and you have been underemployed for too long.

Read it, do a little more digging, and form your own opinion. Then do something. But don't ignore it. You have ignored it for too damn long, and look where we are today because of that.

Matt Miller for President

2011-10-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here is the platform:

A Third Party Stump Speech.

Eat your spinach. No whining.

The Oligarchs

2011-10-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

And what manner of government do you term oligarchy?

A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.

... The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law?

... And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.

... And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.

... And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured.

... And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected.

... And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man.

... They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work.

... And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established.

Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking?

First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot?

You mean that they would shipwreck?

Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything? ... This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy?

... And here is another defect which is quite as bad.

... The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another.

... Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes.

How discreditable!

And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have too many callings—they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well?

Anything but well.

There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable.

What evil?

A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature.

Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State.

The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty.

True.

But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift?

As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift.

May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive?

Just so, Socrates.

And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed.

Most true, he said.

Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves, and cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors.

Clearly.

Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers?

Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler.

And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force?

Certainly, we may be so bold.

The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State?

True.

Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may be many other evils.

Very likely.

Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed ...Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State

... And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it.

Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one.

And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth?

Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came.

... He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents?

He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State.

... Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries? ... You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan.

... It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions.

... The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones.

... For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him.

... And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money.

... Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to the oligarchical State?

There can be no doubt.

Plato, "The Republic"
380 B.C. or so.

(apologies to the author for extracting 'relevant' text)

From a "mobster" in Oregon

2011-10-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

The other day Eric Cantor, Republican Majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, accused me and many others of being part of a "mob."

“I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country,” Cantor said. (Read it here).

The same day Cantor was saying that, I was on Wall Street in the middle of a noisy, orderly demonstration. The people around me were claiming to be part of the 99%, that the top 1% should pay more taxes. I was talking with an out-of-work logger and a member of the Tea Party. It was surprising how much we had in common.

Oh, did I mention "my" protest happened on Wall Street in Bend, Oregon?

In Washington, Rep. Cantor, in an effort to pit Americans against Americans, said "Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”

What a perfect example of double speak. Wall Street (New York) banks pillaged retirement accounts and burned the jobs of those of us on Main Street through reckless and illegal acts; politicians bought-and-paid-for by those banks and others cut taxes for the rich and made profiteering easy for giant corporations through special interest legislation. Cantor should not be talking about "pitting Americans against Americans." He's been there and done that.

Just the opposite is true among the "mobs" toward which he would whip up a fear response. Americans are coming together in recognition that business as usual is a power grab, and men like Cantor are the grasping fingers.

The top brass of Goldman Sachs should be sent to prison. There should be true competition in the market place for pharmaceuticals. There needs to be true campaign finance reform that can't be overturned by three conservatives and two weasels on the Supreme Court. To say this is not divisive. To do so is to be an American.

That is what was amazing about the "mob" gathered in Bend, Oregon on the first Friday of October. The logger, the Tea Party activist and the Liberal all agreed on many of these things. Americans are being united, not divided, by being part of this "mob."

Heads up, Mr. Cantor.

A note to The Left

2011-10-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

Yeah, can't you just feel it, doesn't it tingle in your shorts, this slow build to a new "movement?" Does it energize you who remember the 60s, and delight those sorry to have missed it?

Don't indulge yourselves. This is too important.

If you want to capture this opportunity, you will need to focus. This is not about sustainability or mass transit, Portlanders; stop calling every employer a "fat cat," AFL-CIO, that's just not true; it is not about gay marriage, carbon caps, dams and salmon.

If you dilute this by pulling every cause onto your wagon, you will have only the same old gang on board. And that is not enough. Haven't you learned anything from the last 20 years?

This is about power. This is about money. This is about a system systematically abused by powerful people who own our politics. Keep it focused, keep it tight, and do NOT give it up when they throw scraps from their table to the floor where you sit.

Corporations are not "We the people" written of in our Constitution. They should not have the "rights" of individuals. One man, one vote, how about one donation of one amount? Should the Koch brothers be able to buy $50 million of influence while the rest of us are stuck writing emails to our congressmen? Where is the "democracy" in that?

We need to fix it.

Goldman Sachs rules the world, along with 146 other entities that own 40% of the world's wealth. No, it was not illegal, but we can make it illegal, or at least the tactics they use to hold on to power. If those 147 control our governments, who controls the 147? A function of government is to protect the system of commerce. It can't do that if it is owned by commercial interests.

"Too big to fail" should become a footnote in history. Instead, a couple of short years after tax dollars flowed from Main Street to Wall Street, big banks are jacking us around and saying they will levy a surcharge for letting us use our own money (Bank of America: $5? Really?) while paying their CEOs millions.

Big banks need to be broken up so any of them can fail without taking down the system. That is a key element of "market" economics." There has to be a price for failure. At least, that seems to be the medecine the right is prescribing for the rest of us. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the Koch brothers.

Goldman Sachs? Whatever it takes to make that blood sucker less powerful should be done, now. The revolving door by which Goldman employees enter government and vice-versa is a door to corruption that needs to be slammed shut. The same rules apply to all such leviathans.

Including labor, by the way, OEA, AFL, etc. etc. etc.

Consolidation of economic power should be resisted, laws against monopolies and oligopolies rigorously enforced. No, that's not "anti-business." It is pro-business, because it establishes a fair and level playing field on which business can be openly conducted, especially small businesses on which most of our economy still depends.

And that brings the final point: transparency.

Oregon was once a leader of transparent government. Nothing is more critical today. If we don't know what's going on, if we don't know who the players are, we can't make informed opinions. That was one of the promises of the current administration. It has not been fulfilled.

Make a contribution, your name goes on it. If you want to buy an ad, fine, but let the rest of us know who foots the bill. An informed populace is a key requirement of democracy, according to Jefferson, ballots are only secret when they go in the box.

To the media: good reporting is not weighing words pro and con in mythical scales of "fairness" and distributing them evenly on page or screen. There is such a thing as truth. Deal with that, take the consequences of doing your best.

If this be a call to class warfare, the lower class did not start the fight. It started when the bankers blew up the economy after telling us to borrow as much as we could, lowering the standards and hiding the consequences. When pharmaceutical companies wrote the Bush prescription act. When Enron had the key to Dick Cheney's office. When Haliburton got the no-bid contract to run the war in Iraq.

But I don't think it is so much "class warfare" as it is "Main Street versus Wall Street." They have taken enough from us, and now it is time to take to our streets, since every other avenue has been closed to us.

The left needs to avoid being shunted downs its favorite side streets, too. There will be time for all that, if we ever get to our destination. That destination, after these several centuries, remains an allegence to "Liberty and Justice for All." We just need to keep focused.

How will Oregon play the revolution?

2011-10-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

Herman Cain says it's my fault that I don't have a job.

I hope he becomes the Republican candidate for President of the United States. I think it would be wonderful for America to be choosing between two Blacks of high intellect for the highest office in the land. It would prove, in many ways, that Herman Cain is right.

Except that he is not. I don't have a job because two industries in which I was employed have effectively been wiped out. No one wants to hire someone my age, and I look. Goldman Sachs destroyed the value of what were considerable investments and was then bailed out with my tax dollars. My insurance went away with my employment.

So I hang on, underwater, hoping that I can hold my breath for as long as it takes to pop to the surface. If not, I drown, and it was my fault, according to Herman Cain.

Opportunity is such a tricky concept. On the one hand, we all know personal effort is necessary for success. On the other, we also know that luck of birth and circumstance plays a major role.

That is why our founding father's sought to secure the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and why this country's system of public education, especially by including returning soldiers after WWII, figured so prominently in American economic dominance of the second half of the last century. It was a time when personal effort and public support and a sense of "justice for all"-- and a bit of geopolitical luck -- came together to create wealth beyond imagination.

But that was then. This is now. And to those, like Herman Cain, who want to roll back the clock and say we all just need to roll up our sleeves, I say they need a reality check. It's now, not then, and we have to fix what's wrong now, not protect a system that evolved in a different environment and that has become corrupt because that is the nature of power -- it always corrupts, and the corruption is becoming concentrated.

Our schools are broken by having become a safe haven for mediocrity and by a lack of realism on the part of students, parents and society. Opportunity starts with high expectations at home, but is nurtured by demands in the classroom. We lack both. Our schools are pretty good at turning out lawyers and bankers, neither offering a lot of societal value-add.

Our political system is broken. Pharmaceutical companies, telecoms, insurance companies, energy companies -- they own our representatives (political system). And they are focused on the short term, so next year's profits (elections) take precedence over long-term public good (wider distribution of income). They (corporations, politicians) do whatever they can to make the system less transparent, so we can't follow what's going on.

Not that we have the schooling to do so. Or a media with the teeth to do the job entrusted to them by Jefferson and the first amendment.

If they can charge me $214 today for a generic drug I bought last month for $40 (yes, really!), so much the better, according to Mr. Cain. It is not immoral, it is the natural outcome of a system where power is purchased. That is the message of the right these days, under the cover of false "market economics," and the left whimpers about it not being fair and takes a fall in the ring.

If you don't have a job, blame yourself. If you don't have schools, blame yourself. If you don't have healthcare, blame yourself. If you don't have power to make a change, blame yourself.

Okay, I accept his challenge. I assert my right for change, and if that means protesting on Wall Street against the kleptocracy, then I protest. If I insist that elected officials represent me and my neighbors and not giant corporations (Greg Walden), I shout and protest and work for the other guy. If I want better schools, I will ask teachers and administrators to deal with the incompetent.

Once, a long time ago, Oregon's first Governor Kitzhaber proposed a revolutionary approach to healthcare. Why so silent now? When I was in school, Oregon had one of the finest systems of public education in the nation. Where is that vision and courage today? Oregon once sent statesmen to Washington D.C. who were effective, outspoken and moral. Those we send now croak about compromise.

That is not to say that the left has all, or even any, of the answers. Many on the left simply advocate for a bigger share of an ever smaller pie. And they get so distracted by red herrings of "social injustice," real and imagined. We have some actual economic injustice going on, the other can wait. Yes, it can. It must.

No, Herman Cain and Barrack Obama would not have the opportunity to face off against each other were it not for the civil rights movement. But that was then, this is now, and the problems are not the same. Opportunity requires that the pie become larger, so everybody can have at least a small slice.

Which is why we need a revolution. Why we will have a revolution. Because the opportunity for a better life through hard work has been lost to special interests. They not only play the game against us, but they own the refs, they slope the field and choose who gets which end, they draw the lines. The game is rigged, and if you and your children or grandchildren aren't on the inside, you will lose. It's a sucker's game. It's time to change the rules.

Only a revolution can upset a status quo that has evolved to protect the powerful. According to a recent well-respected study, 147 organizations control 40% of the world's wealth. What do you suppose they talk about when they get together? We'll guess: more for themselves of what they already have.

They won't do anything else, unless they have to, unless driven by economic collapse or an "American Spring." It should should start now. It should start here.

Steve Jobs changed our world.

2011-10-05T18:22:00.001-07:00

Steve Jobs died today.

Steve Jobs changed our world with his designs. He did not create computers, he revolutionized them. He did not create music distribution, he revolutionized it. He did not create cell phones, he revolutionized what they are, what they do and how we use them.

He has altered the lives of all of us in significant ways. It is as if we lived during the time of Edison.

Read here a few of his words from six years ago. It's worth it. May his vision inspire others.

Greg Walden for Sale

2011-09-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

Rep. Greg Walden is a representative for ATT. The telephone companies have bought themselves a congressman from Oregon.

Walden, Republican Representative for Oregon's second district, signed a letter designed to fire a shot across the bow of the United States Department of Justice for suing to block ATTs purchase of T-Mobile. Read more here.

The DOJ fears ATT's acquisition of T-Mobile would harm competition.

Walden isn't willing to let the DOJ lawsuit play out in courts. He wants to haul the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission before congressional staffers to explain “the extent to which each agency has been considering the impact on jobs and economic growth.”

How absurd. Should the DOJ also justify the extent to which they considered the impact on plate tectonics, or global warming? The issue is competition and the long term harm to the markets and consumers if ATT gobbles up the only other national GSM wireless provider.

Walden is the top recipient of cash from the telecom services and equipment companies AND telephone utilities. Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, ATT, they LOVE Greg Walden. Read more about that here. They give him a lot of money, so he does them favors. It is that simple.

Walden's letter is just a ploy to threaten the DOJ and FCC, force them to face more work, more explanations. He wants to let them know that he might look hard at their funding if they don't buckle under. Because he wants to protect the source of his income.

Oregon, one of our congressmen is back in Washington, threatening the justice department for trying to protect the market from a duopoly (Verizon and ATT are the remnants of old Ma Bell), because he is in their pocket and owes them big.

Would you like to give him a call?

Rep Greg Walden
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Main: 202-225-6730
Fax: 202-225-5774

Central Oregon office:
1051 NW Bond St., Suite 400
Bend, OR 97701
Main: 541-389-4408
Fax: 541-389-4452

Southern Oregon Office:
14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112
Medford, OR 97501
Main: 541-776-4646
Fax: 541-779-0204
Toll free: 800-533-3303

Eastern Oregon office:
1211 Washington Avenue
La Grande, OR 97850
Main: 541-624-2400
Fax: 541-624-2402

Google + Motorola + T-Mobile = ?

2011-09-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

I can't be the only one thinking this.

Smart or stupid or ridiculous or common sense, someone with a lot more horsepower than me has thought of this. So why haven't I read anything about it?

Now that ATT's bid to stifle competition -- with Verizon's tacit if silent support -- has hit rough water, why doesn't Google tender a bid for T-Mobile? Say $25 billion or so? Google can afford it, and if my recently demised (not Google's fault, I dropped it corner-first to my concrete floor) Nexus S is any indication, the "pure Google" experience would draw many fans.

What a wonderfully disruptive party that could start.

I think a Google purchase of T-Mob should pass anti-trust concerns. It could increase competition in the market rather than diminish it, with Google cash shoring up T-mob's weak position. With software/hardware/network integration, it would possibly speed up the rate of innovation and lower prices across the market.

Why not? We could anticipate ATT, Verizon and Sprint would pretty much stop selling Android phones immediately. Since Google's business model has a primary strategy of market penetration, that would be a problem.

But the same argument could be made that Samsung and HTC would stop making Android phones after Google's purchase of Motorola's phone business. While that hasn't happened yet, it's still early. We also don't know what Google execs told the manufacturers to allay their concerns.

Still, it makes one smile to think of buying an Google Android phone made by Google Motorola to run on a Google T-Mobile.

I wouldn't be able to have one, though. T-Mobile reception sucks where I live in the mountains, even worse than ATT. And since I can't even have a land line ... where's my Bionic or Nexus Prime, Verizon?

Of course, now that I think about it, another contender for T-Mobile might be... oh no, it can't be ... might be ... I can't stand it ... he owns my music, his computers fill my house, he wants my TV ... oh, Mr. Jobs, please let go of my future ...

Obama: America's greatest president since Lincoln

2011-08-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

When he took office, Barrack Obama inherited two wars, banks suffering a near fatal hangover from a binge on power and greed, a meltdown in the financial system via a faltering economy and unrealistic expectations, unions that still fight for responsibility without accountability, a political system that trades integrity for mediocrity by promoting ignorance, and a population that believes each of us and all of us are entitled without consequence as the common good is trampled by shouts of "where's mine?!?"

And now, from left and the right, come accusations of him of not doing anything.

Health reform. Major economic calamities probably averted. Wars winding down. A shift in responsibility back to where the founding fathers intended it to be, to the Congress. Which just now is blaming Obama for not preventing them from spending too much money.

And he got Bin Laden. For a great account of that, read this story in The New Yorker.

Obama was coolly giving no hint of pressure that weekend as he participated in a black tie dinner and checked in on the operation. Our president has more cool than any 20 of the whiny pundits who are now throwing rotten tomatoes. And he ended the operation by thanking the men involved and without putting up a "Mission Accomplished" banner in a photo stunt on an aircraft carrier. Imagine that. The man also has class.

Oh. What? You weren't paying attention? You all need all those stunts to know what to think?

Obama has always held that Congress has a job to do and should do it. The left says this is lack of leadership, and the right says he is failing the country. In fact, his methods have accomplished much that is visible, and prevented some disasters that, because they were not experienced, tend to be discounted.

More importantly, he has forced some accountability back to the institution where laws are made and votes are taken. Just the way Jefferson and Adams and the others intended it to be. "Lead from behind" has become a way of mocking this president. It also may be his way of forcing others in this country and around the world, those acting like privileged adolescents, to step up and do what they need to do.

I believe Obama may go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln, and I say this on another day of a severe stock market dive (long overdue, by the way, and reflecting many things, few of them overtly political.) Some medicine does not taste good, and it is time we stopped blaming the doctor.

Maybe not. Maybe all of you are right, that Obama can't lead, that we are doomed, and that it's always the other guy's fault. But I don't think so.

Time will tell. Not the headlines of this week or this year, but of several years, and decades. Because that is how long it takes to see the impact of actions on a country as vast and complicated as ours.

Class warfare

2011-07-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

In the Wall Street Journal last week, a writer whined that Republicans, at least, had not resorted to "class warfare" in the debt ceiling/budget debate. More of this sentiment can be had from Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

Mr. Heninger is not opposed to class warfare, mind you: very recently, he blamed the working class' faltering morality for their lower-drifting standard of living. But Mr. Henninger is a hypocrite and a mouth piece, and what can one expect of an employee of a (formerly great) paper now owned by that ultimate advocate of class warfare , Rupert Murdoch?

Yes, teachers unions have harmed education. We all get that, Mr. Henninger. That does not mean that banks and insurance companies and big pharma have not abused the power of their purchasing power in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to declare war on their customers.

The fact is, there IS a class war going on, and banks that pushed "liar's loans" are no less at war with the general public than tobacco companies that used cartoons to sell cigarettes to poor children and lied under oath about the results of their own research into cancer, all the while shifting the health cost of the addiction onto the taxpayer.

You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.

Or Golden Sacks, which managed to get taxpayers to bail them out (directly, and through AIG) into a year of great profits, while our local banks had to stop making car, house and business loans. Golden and others tranched their way into unforgivable risk with our money. Lost it. Then got us to pay them back. Some of them should be in jail, and that they are not is because they have wealth and power.

You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.

That the wealthy class cries out that their victims should not indulge in "class warfare" is an old tactic, often employed: "Thou shalt not speak any truth that I label the speaking of which as immoral." This gives the wealthy ownership of the playing field, and the rules, while they rip us off and try to get us to stop talking about how they have rigged the system.

It is sophistry, casuistry and it should be confronted as such.

We call foul. Corporate kleptomaniacs are hurting America. It was George Bush and his gang, not Barrack Obama, who put this country into this great financial peril. It is the bitterness of the right wing, exposed too often as amoral extortionists (Enron was NOT the exception), that we hear now in these laments about class warfare.

Yes, we need education reform. We also need bank reform. We need campaign finance reform. We need Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. And we need real journalism in America.

I want a dumb pipe

2011-05-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

I don't want to be a captive of AT&T or Verizon. I want them to serve me.

In Europe, the owner of T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, prohibits its subscribers from using Skype in its terms and conditions. AT&T and Verizon would love to be able to impose the same terms and conditions here.

What's it going to be, Congress? Oregon representatives DeFazio, Wu, Walden, Blumenauer and Schrader need to stand up and protect the market from the power of the duopoly. You too, Wyden and Merkley. Be heard on this.

I love the iPhone, and I love my Evo 4G and my Nexus S. I think it is wonderful to be able to buy these phones with all the features preloaded and have a two-year contract and a high value added by Sprint or AT&T or Verizon. They should be able to sell that.

But I want more choice. I want to be able to use the phone I want in the way I want and pay a fair price for access that I control.

I don 't want AT&T or Verizon to dumb down my phone so I can't use it on my home's wifi network the way they do now. I want to use my home's broadband conveniently to make a call and not be forced to kludge a solution.

I don't want AT&T or Verizon to cut sweetheart deals with Samsung or HTC or Motorola so that I can't get the phone I want to work on the technology I want, the way they do now.

I want to pay for megabytes I choose to download and upload, and not be forced to pay for data sent by automatic programs that AT&T or Apple or Google have loaded on my phone that suck up my personal data and sneak it to their servers without my knowledge.

I don't want NFL or NASCAR or anybody else's bloatware on my phone, or at least be able to get rid of it, which I can't do now. At what point does "protect network security" become an excuse for "keep competition out?"

And by the way, I want to pay for my call minutes in tenths: a call that lasts two minutes and six seconds should be billed at 2.1 minutes, not three, which is nothing but a 30% theft by the phone company.

If the telecom's don't want to become "dumb pipes," then I want our government to ensure, through the mechanism of the free market, that I have the right to choose a "dumb pipe" for my mobile phone and data services.

In fact, I need to be able to choose between two dumb pipes, either GSM or CDMA technology. I want to be able to use any phone I want on whichever pipe that I choose. I want to own the phone, and be able to customize it in any way that I want, use it in any legal way that I want.

The current system is being abused, protections for the consumer are few, because the market has failed to be transparent enough to drive the abuses out through the mechanism of consumer choice.

That will get worse if the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is approved.

We need competition in the market place and a government that has reduced barriers to entry into the market of access to airwaves, "spectrum," that is owned and licensed by "We the People."

Our founding fathers would have been as outraged by the threat of corporate power as they were of royal power had such a thing existed in their day. It is up to us to stand up and demand our rights in a this new world. We do this by protecting the free market, doing what we need to foster competition and freedom of choice.

It is time our representatives in government took the threat to the future of communications seriously. We cannot let the consolidation continue by those who seek a monopoly. It is bad for markets, bad for America.

Hooray for Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) who earlier this week held a news conference urging regulators to block the deal, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). Thank you for your free market stance that helps small business and consumers.

Power corrupts, even the economic power of private enterprise. The best antidote for that corruption is competition, functioning markets, and effective oversight.

Wake up.

Verizon is complicit

2011-05-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

In a story (read it here) on May 24, 2011 in the Wall Street Journal, under the headline "These Companies Hate the AT&T/T-Mobile Merger," it was noted by reporter Shira Ovide that Verizon, which would drop from largest to second largest wireless company after AT&T swallows T-Mobile, has not come out against the proposed merger.

Duh.

Ovide notes the Verizon CEO is saying only “We’re not going to get distracted by this.”

Ovide refers to analysts who opine that the reason for Verizon's calm reaction is that "Verizon Wireless ... could get a lift if AT&T strips low-cost rival T-Mobile from the market. At the same time, AT&T could be distracted for a year or more securing all the necessary government clearances for the deal, and then integrating T-Mobile into the fold. The lull might help Verizon poach subscribers from its biggest competitor."

Sometimes it is hard to believe what passes for journalism. Distracted? Please.

One would think that a reporter from the Wall Street Journal would understand the value of a duopoly (like a monopoly, but with two) to one of the duopolists. In other words, if AT&T becomes the only GSM wireless company, and is able to hammer suppliers and gouge consumers, then Verizon, as by far the largest of the CDMA wireless group, would also benefit. Even without direct collusion.

Markets require competition to work effectively. AT&T and Verizon are doing everything they can in the media, in Texas, and before the U.S. Senate to cloud the issues.

"We don't know if the market is best served by three or four carriers," burbles one wireless exec. "If we don't have more spectrum, ambulances will be unreachable," growls another from AT&T.

Nonsense. This merger is about AT&T sucking up spectrum now, dollars and dollars later, from a distortion of a market that rides on licenses to use airways owned … by… us.

We need more choices of which carrier to use, not fewer choices. We need three or four GSM carriers, and three or four CDMA carriers, for there to be a truly competitive "free" market. There is less competition if there are only three, if Sprint hobbles along as a distant 3rd, or two if Verizon sucks up Sprint.

Verizon is sanguine about the AT&T and T-Mobile merger because Verizon executives know that even as number two, they will still get a larger slice of porker pie than they do now, even if it is not the largest one on the table.

The U.S. government should protect consumers and small business and refuse to go along with this merger. Communication is the economy's lifeblood now more than ever. Republicans should live up to their ideals of doing what is good for business, and that does not mean just doing good for one of their largest political donors. Where the hell is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?

AT&T was broken up once before. We should look at this power grab as a reason to consider doing it again.

Republicans are anti-business

2011-05-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

The right wing is still pushing the message, "government is bad, people are good." Less government, lower taxes, more freedom, let free markets work.

The message "government is bad" resonates because, since WWII, our government and wealth have often been directed toward doing things government does not do well. There has also been a successful effort on the part of unions to protect government jobs and paychecks while reducing accountability, which has not been good PR.

But the pointed message "government is bad" has been co-opted as propaganda by radical right wing think tanks that have an entirely different agenda which is being fed to the American people by political puppets. Simply stated, their goal is to reintroduce hardship as a means to improve productivity, and encourage corporate culture to become America's culture.

Which is not bad in and of itself, as long as we are able to have a discussion about what is involved. But we are lazy and we are easily misled and the issues take work and they are hard.

Before we throw out rules and regulations and limit government, we need a real conversation about what will take its place. What will limit the power of those who can and will take advantage of other people's weakness?

"Free markets" without rules that keep as many players as possible in the game aren't free at all. Markets are not "moral." They can't be nor should they be. At best, we hope they are efficient at providing the products and services we want at the lowest possible cost through the mechanism of competition.

Without enough players, and that number varies by industry, markets become captive to the most powerful. Then the powerful take advantage of the rest of us.

In some "markets," such as health care, even the lowest possible cost is probably still more than we can afford when we attempt to postpone death as long as possible. Everyone is being false when we debate only cost and affordability without acknowledging the spiritual issue that Death is inevitable and hard. Horrific manipulation from the right (death panels!) only served to hide the fact that the Republican agenda is a fast track to the same destination. Again, not to disagree with the direction, but the dishonestly is breathtaking.

Or the "markets" in communication. There has been more than one revolution in the telecommunications industry since AT&T, then called "Ma Bell," was broken up (by government regulation). These revolutions would have been far different, and less likely, had Ma Bell's monopoly continued.

Now we have different technologies, and different requirements. But monopolies, or duopolies, or oligopolies still seek power and profit and the power that profit provides. As they should. The corporation has a duty only to itself.

The entity that stands between abuse of corporate power is government. Our system of laws is the "playing field" on which we play the economic game. It doesn't work if one player is able to walk up to any other player at any time and say, "give me all your money."

Which is what AT&T and Exxon and UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs and Pfeizer and Monsanto are trying to achieve.

They don't want "free" markets, they want your money. Truly efficient markets would mean competition, which would keep costs down and limit how much they could take. So they attempt to reduce the government that could keep markets healthy.

So the Republicans who do their bidding (Bohner, Bachmann, etc.) don't like "free markets" either. They undermine government's role, or work to prohibit government from regulating industries that seek to monopolize our life blood services such as fuel, communication, health care, money and food.

Yes, price controls and direct government interference can do more harm than good. And government screws it up often enough. But let's not forget that government is not the only power, and that many laws are designed first and foremost to protect the public from robbery, either by a thug in a hoody or a Harvard grad in an expensive suit.

Successful efforts (by conservatives and liberals) to repeal banking laws that were enacted after the Great Depression, along with a failure to regulate new financial instruments, and a cultural change ("Borrow money against your house to buy ... toys! You deserve it!") promoted by banks led to the deep recession we have not yet survived.

Look at how much is spent on lobbying, by whom, and how the supreme court (why hasn't Clarence Thomas been impeached?) allowed corporations to hide their influence and spend as much as they like to upend "democracy."

There is an incoherence among a population that wants less government but more services. That incoherence is being manipulated by some very smart and greedy people who know that government is the last warden protecting the average American from a corporatist culture that views our nest egg as food.

And they are being aided unintentionally by a Left Wing that hates other people's money and thinks that good intentions are more powerful than the laws of economics.

Monopolists harm America

2011-05-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

A number of politicians (mostly Republican) have come out in support of the AT&T / T-Mobile merger. But their arguments do not make sense. Primarily, they cite benefits to America of competition in wireless before the merger. These very benefits would decrease if the merger goes through, despite false promises by AT&T.

These politicians are not in favor of the "free market." They are advocating a consolidation that would be bad for the market, and bad for America, while benefiting a monopolist in an industry where freedom is vital for economic security.

America has had to act against monopolists and oligopolies in the past. It needs to be vigilant again, and do what it must to preserve competition in the market place. Like railroads and the oil companies two centuries ago and AT&T itself in the last century, a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile would result in less innovation, higher prices, and less freedom of information. This process is common when new technologies foster a consolidation of power.

In fact, we need more communication companies in America, not fewer. We need more competition, not less. Much of the innovation in America's communications industry came after AT&T was broken up last time.

AT&T and T-Mobile both run on the GSM technology, most common in much of the world. The other two major carriers, Sprint and Verizon, run via CDMA. By allowing only one major player on the GSM side, there will be no one to challenge AT&T if a technological innovation comes to GSM.

AT&T would be the sole buyer of GSM technology in the U.S., giving it monopolist power over cell phone makers and software providers, to the detriment of consumers.

It is extremely expensive to build out a new cell network, acquire customers and put in place a cell phone company, and nearly impossible to acquire radio spectrum on which cell phones communicate.

In economics speak, the "barriers to entry" into the market are extremely high, and would be more so if dominated by a company is as well-heeled and politically powerful as AT&T.

Communications and information flow are the life blood of our nation, and becoming more critical every day. Control should not be allowed to slide toward fewer and fewer companies, especially when vertical integration may allow them to control what we see, how we see it, what we can buy and how easy it might be to find it.

It is naive to think that AT&T in that position would not use its power to fill its coffers at the expense of anyone and everyone. It would be its duty, in fact. We expect companies to make the highest profit allowable under the law.

For these reasons, government must preserve the free market in any way it can, and right now, the best way to do so is to deny the AT&T and T-mobile merger. The alternative, over the long run, is some form of regulation, which would have fewer benefits and higher cost.

If T-Mobile is to be sold, it should go to another company -- Google or Apple come to mind, though there may be issues there. Berkshire-Hathaway, perhaps. But its independence should be preserved.

In a market as difficult to foster competition as mobile communications, a market as critical to our future, America can not afford to allow monopolists to gain control.

The Snide

2011-05-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

We have now seen how much arrogance money can buy. And it's not a pretty sight.

Donald Trump, will you please sit down and quit disturbing the other children?

Donald Trump is a racist. He is a bully. He is a joke of his own making. He is not very bright, and has that irritating middle school narcissism shared by other half-bright wing dings like Sarah Palin.

In fact, there is something just so middle school about that whole clique of Palin and Trump and Bachmann and to a lesser extent, Boehner. Something about the way they back bite, curl their lip at the rest of us, say stupid things and accuse people who point out the stupidity of "hating" or being envious or something else unrelated, like, or, or, or like, you know, they have a bad complexion and their mom, you know, drives an old Ford.

As if they get to say what they want and not be challenged because of who they are.

They get their slavish friends to nominate them for class president because, like, you know, they will put on just the most fabulous dance and play their favorite music, you know, and like if those other people don't like it they just should have been elected and maybe not come and they are just such a drag anyway ...

It's not that they are on the right: There are many, many wonderfully astute thinkers on the right, men and women with good ideas and the ability to articulate them. And it's not that the left doesn't have its own heaping helping of hubris.

But instead of a debate about ideas, we have these plastic Barbie and Ken dolls with their plastic smiles and plastic hair saying stupid things about ... birth certificates? Whether kids who knew him in elementary school remembered the president?

Oh, just shut up. You are tiresome and annoying and if you didn't have money or self generated momentum, no one would bother with you. Very few of those paying attention are friends. They don't really like you, either.

Can anyone, anyone? really compare Sarah Palin and Donald Trump to Obama? To Bill Clinton? To George H.W. Bush? To Eisenhower? FDR? Lincoln? Jefferson, etc?

Ever since the simulacrum Ronald Reagan, senile for a good portion of his presidency, was in office and the right realized it was only necessary to have an image of a president to be the face of policy, an actor instead of an actual person, we have suffered this train of Presidential presenters from the right.

Somewhat like news presenters, standing in front of a camera wearing a slicker in a hurricane, posing as journalists. Speaking of which, to the so-called journalists of America: WTF?

Needed now more than ever, you have ceded your responsibilities to Fox and the Huffington Post? Why are Al Jazeera and Jon Stewart the most reasonable representatives of the Fourth Estate? Where are you? Where have you gone?

Rep. Boehner to sell highways

2011-03-03T09:04:00.000-08:00

House Speaker John A. Boehner wants to sell key U.S. highways to private interests that contributed to his reelection campaign.

Interstate 5 from Mexico to Canada would be cut into four sections and "privatized." The first section would run from Mexico through Los Angeles; the second from Los Angeles to Redding, Californa; the third from Redding to Portland, Oregon, and the last from Portland to the Canadian border.

"The sale of this underutilized asset will help with the deficit," Boehner said. "Private enterprise will do a better job."

"Transportation is under attack from both state and federal governments," Boehner said. "These bureaucrats have never set foot in a car factory, and many of them don't even like to drive."

Boehner also says the new owners of the blacktop should be able to set separate speed limits for individual vehicles. The proposal would allow Transport Inc. to "sell" higher speeds to the drivers of BMWs and Mercedes, while limiting the speeds of vehicles from other manufacturers. The same would be true of larger vehicles, such as trucks.

Some independent truckers have worried that the owners of Transport Inc., which has put in a bid for the Oregon section of the interstate, also own trucking companies. They say that Transport Inc. could set higher speed limits for their own trucks, or even limit the number of competing trucks from smaller companies.

"There are other highways if they choose to use them," Boehner said of those concerns.

He also said these complaints actually come from regulators in Washington who oppose the free market. “We see this threat in how the (govt.) is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the highway system,” Mr. Boehner said.

The idea that competition might actually be reduced by monopoly ownership of I5, constructed largely with federal highway dollars, did not concern the Republican.

“The last thing we need, in my view, is the US Department of Transportation serving as traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over trucking companies who have been serving their communities with transportation for decades,” he said to loud applause.

For more on Boehner's remarks, see this.

Boehner's calculating ignorance

2011-02-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

If one needs more proof that the Republican Party capitalizes on the venality of its more vulnerable members (yeah, I know, given Sarah Palin that's hard to believe), Republican leader John Boehner provided it this week.

This Sunday on "Meet the Press," host David Gregory asked Boehner if he thought Obama was a Christian and a citizen. Boehner said he did. But about the conspiracy nut jobs who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya, Boehner said "... it's not my job to tell the American people what to think ... The American people have the right to think what they want to think."

What a facile, manipulative thing to say. Of course people have the right to think stupid things, and not just Americans. The question was whether Boehner has a responsibility to "inform their ignorance," in the words of Thomas Jefferson.

Of course he does. He is not a national leader if he does not. Facts are not matters of opinion or preference. If we can not agree on simple facts, we do not have "One Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all" (the original wording of the pledge).

But Boehner is not a national leader, he is a right wing flack who would rather use ignorance to further a shallow political agenda. "Informing their ignorance" is politically inconvenient; correcting that ignorance might allow people to think more calmly about more important issues.

"... he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong," said Jefferson. In saying it is not his job to speak truth to his troops, by hiding behind a shallow rhetorical gimmick, Boehner shows the world what he is, and what the Republican Party has become.

In this, Boehner has more in common with those who spread lies and hate about America than he does with the founding fathers of this great nation.

Bank reform and Golden Sacks of crap

2010-04-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

Too big to fail is just what it means: any financial reform that leaves standing commercial institutions that are "too big to fail" is doomed.

Any reform that fails to bring these monsters down to a size where they can be controlled, instead of them controlling us, fails to protect the American wage earner.

And just to be clear, breaking up the giant oligopoly banks is about as "free market" a policy as we can envision. Government is not the enemy of business, but it is a referee and protector of the market. When one player, like Goldman Sachs, becomes so powerful that it can successfully manipulate the economy in which it plays, the market is broken and needs reform.

Large investment banks command an horrific percentage of corporate profit in the U.S. (as opposed to our beleaguered and important community banks, the ones that would provide loans to you and me if Chase and company had not sucked up all the dollars). Read more here.

They buy and sell politicians of each major party with a stroke of a pen. They send their minions to work for the regulators. They profit from our hardship.

It is time to recognize that, like the oil and rail monopolies of the past, large investment banks need to be brought down to a size that would allow for greater competition, more transparency, and to allow the market to punish any them, even with failure, for bad decisions. They need to be broken up and a stable, competitive market restored.

The current proposed legislation does not go nearly far enough.

Thank you, Mr. President.

2010-03-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, the heavy lifting of health care reform had to be tackled first. Not cap and trade, not financial reform. Thank you for the vision, the effort, and the guts. Only a few of us believed.

But now, there is some business that HAS to be next. Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.

We need oxygen out here. Our local employers who have not already fallen are hanging on by their fingertips. Capital needs to flow again, regardless of it's source, be it relaxed requirements, government spending at a community level, housing subsidies. As quickly as possible, and don't worry about nuance or endless debates about what is "fair."

While you and congress try to figure out how to staunch the wounds caused by the behemoth banks, our local banks are being buried by the weight of Washington's indifference. It's a crisis, even if you don't hear much about it back there where you are all employed.

This needs to be tackled NOW, for the health of our communities, our economy, and frankly, for the Democratic Party.

"Faggot, nigger, baby killer"

2010-03-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

These are the words thrown at Congressmen of the United States by Tea Party activists on the day of the health care vote. This is what was encouraged by Republicans from the balconies of the Capitol with hand lettered signs, words actually spoken in the chamber.

Republicans could have helped craft a bill that included their principles, brought more accountability, insisted on limitations to malpractice, increased competition, provided rationale instead of irrationality. Instead, they decided to vilify and destroy.

This is the new language of the Republican party.

Right wing gasbag

2010-03-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

Paul Broun is a despicable political hack.

After the health care vote, Broun said to Democrats: “Are you so arrogant that you know what’s best for the American people? ... Are you so ignorant to be oblivious to the wishes of the American people?”

According to Broun, only HE knows what's best for the American people.
Broun, listen up: You LOST the last election. Obama WON the last election. So did the democrats. THAT is the will of the people. Not you, and your posturing morality.

Broun tried to prevent soldiers over seas from buying Playboy. In a stunning display of ignorance, he said that wages paid to soldiers still belonged to the government which should have a say in how those soldiers spend their money. This man is not qualified to be in government at ANY level.

Paul Broun is a gas bag. That he has stolen a coat of red, white and blue just makes him a gas bag and a thief.

Drop abortion insurance.

2010-03-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

The abortion issue in the health care debate is divisive, unnecessary and wrong. It is time to drop it and move on to getting health care for more Americans.

Including abortion as a health care entitlement in this country at this time is simply a mistake. It was always an over reaching, an example of the hubris of the left, a bit of Bush-like "we won, get over it." They thought they had the votes to ram it through. Then they didn't.

Aside from the vitriol it was bound to inflame, we can not afford to be a nanny state, taking care of every misstep any individual is likely to make. It is time the left recognized that consequences are as important in reforming the health care system as universal coverage.

That is another use of the word "choice." Enabling every individual we want to insure to avoid any consequences of choices they make is to guarantee a system we can't afford.

It would be nice to increase premiums on people who have too many Big Macs and Big Gulps as well. If they choose to skate the thin ice of obesity, heart disease and diabetes, they and not we should pay the higher price. No, I don't know how to separate life style choices from inherited traits.

But those issue are not hot button issues like abortion. On that we also have to recognize we live in a pluralistic society, and there are some things we just can't ask our neighbors to pay for.

Otherwise they won't pay for anything at all.

The lies of Fox "News."

2010-03-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

They lie with numbers. They lie with "facts." Sometimes, they just lie.

Fox News is right wing propaganda. Watch this video.

Free markets and health insurance

2010-02-24T06:51:00.000-08:00

I've written before on why the "market model" fails when talking about health care. Read that here.

But an even more interesting sidelight on the debate is that Republicans favor a "market defeating" exemption for insurance companies.

According to a story last October on NPR, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse has "noted that in 39 states, two health insurers control at least half the market, while in nine states, one insurer controls at least three-quarters of the market."

What is the inevitable result of these monopolies? Higher prices, and a system designed to benefit the insurance companies.

According to the NPR story, it was in 1945 that lawmakers "passed the McCarran-Ferguson Act; the law has ever since shielded insurance firms from federal prosecution for price fixing, bid rigging and carving out protected markets."

Let the "free market" Republicans stand up now and vote to repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act and return their beloved competition to the insurance market.

Yes, while we are at it, we need to let insurers offer insurance across state lines. Democrats should embrace tort reform, and put limits on outrageous awards. Medicine in difficult and complicated and outcomes are not guaranteed.

Small steps, indeed, but necessary nonetheless.

Republicans hijack America

2010-02-23T08:48:00.000-08:00

Republican Mitch McConnell can't say a thing without claiming to speak for "American people."

To begin with, there is not one "American people." There are many people of many different views out there. Some them actually read.

Secondly, Mitch McConnell doesn't speak for the "American people." He speaks for special interests, and the Republican party. If he claims polls prove he speaks for a majority, he is lying with a truth: yes, Americans have been scared by his lies into thinking health care and banking reform is bad for them.

But that doesn't mean he is right, nor that an informed public has made a thoughtful decision. It just means that they have been lied to and are scared.

By claiming to represent "The American People," he has hijacked my voice. I want it back. He doesn't speak for me.

McConnell, and other right wing nuts like the snide Sarah Palin ("How is that hopey, changey thing working out for you?") are going to destroy the economy by advocating for greed, and the day has already come when the real voters are about to cast their ballot.

No, not voters in Florida or Pennsylvania or Massachusetts or Oregon. Voters in Beijing and Abu Dubai and Germany. Those who vote with their money. They can see clearly that the United States is riven by special interests and has entered a state of paralysis, unable to face problems honestly and undertake the voluntary hardship of fixing them. They will move their money elsewhere.

The result will be ugly for a nation addicted to debt and easy solutions. And it will hurt all of us not insulated by a life in Washington or on Wall Street. When we need statesmen and women of courage, we get hacks like McConnell, Pelosi, Palin, and others. Panderers, pundits and populists.

It is probably because the system itself is broken, that corruption always wins because special interests always triumph over public good. Doesn't matter whether it is Rome or the British Empire or America. A society becomes decrepit, lazy, content with a strong self image rather than building actual strength, or even maintaining it.

The big lie has succeeded. The goal in bringing to a halt reform that might benefit the other party because it could benefit America has probably won the day.

Despite clear warnings from the business community, victory by the right in blocking reform, and by a left that is arrogant and disconnected, the farce continues. We are now probably out of new acts to play.

We have run through most of our inherited wealth. We don't make anything. We are not at the cutting edge of new technology. And soon, people will stop lending us money.

The Chinese middle class is now larger than the entire population of the United States. They are now the largest market for cars. Brazil makes airplanes. Taiwan makes computers. India writes software. They really don't needs us much anymore, and are probably a better place for future investment.

In the mean time, the right wing tells us that everything will be just fine if we go back to what it was like four years ago when they were in charge. And most of you believe them. They have hijacked America and they will fly it into the ground.

It's good news

2009-11-18T08:03:00.000-08:00

For 20 years I anticipated that the nature of reading, and newspapers, would change. My argument was that the laws of economics would not tolerate printing ink and postage if a cheaper method of transmitting information was available.

I was wrong, sort of. Then, not now. The day may actually be close at hand. Literally.

Two weeks ago I finally got tired of waiting for AT&T to bring the iPhone to Central Oregon and I bought an Android smart phone. One of it's features is a browser. Doesn't cost me any more to use than my old plan.

The screen is bright and sharp. And interestingly, it is about the width of a column of type in a newspaper. I can read The Nugget Newspaper of Sisters Oregon, or the New York Times. I can make the type larger or smaller. It is convenient to read at the coffee shop, or the doctor's office, in my car waiting for my daughters after school.

This may be it, the end of newsPAPERS as we know them. I may have been early, but others have written about the convenience of the small screen (read it here).

That does not mean it is the end of "news." Yes, newspapers are falling on hard times with competition from Google and Craig's list. Yes, the financial model of news organizations will have to change.

But as the efficiency of electronic transmission of information hammers traditional papers, there is still money to be made from content. There will be a transition, but at some point, good writers and good editors will prevail, as much because of the glut of information as despite it. We will turn to sources we can trust over time.

Readers will find quality because it has value.

Even as we assimilate it from our phones.

The "death panel" lies

2009-11-16T18:52:00.000-08:00

For the real history of how the more corrupt right wing of the Republican Party tried to hijack the health care debate, read this account by Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer (Read it here).

I have disagreed with the Congressman in the past, but in this account, he dissects the process of how the right wing warped and twisted part of the debate. He was there. He is the authority.

From this viewpoint, one of Blumenauer's most significant charges is aimed at the U.S. news media. They have abdicated their responsibility. Fair presentation of the news is not measured by weighing ink, counting words, and presenting "each side."

Responsible media (not entertainment networks like "Fox") have an obligation to establish context and present the "truth." Yes, some ideas are more true than others. By failing to work harder, think deeper, and take risk, those news organizations which treat all ideas equally are aiding and abetting the liars.

The first amendment exists because truth matters.

Fox vs. America

2009-10-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

It's about time someone -- anyone -- had the guts to say what needs to be said about Fox "news." (read it here).

Fox has long been a propaganda arm of the right wing fringe. Good entertainment, but no one should mistake it for news, let alone fair and objective.

Mainstream television analysts should have pointed this out, but they lost their balls years ago, and have become entertainment outlets as well. "Saucer boy" was at most a local news event, maybe something that deserved 60 seconds. But wow, were those shots of the saucer flying over Colorado great to capture eyeballs.

Turns out it was a publicity stunt. It worked, too, showing that the nation's media has become so craven that it can be manipulated by a simple wannabe actor looking for a "reality show."

But back to Fox: Aside from Jon Stewart, who is giving Fox the incredulity and scorn it has earned? Even the print media has mostly (read it here) failed to point out the obvious:

Fox is not much more than a smear machine.

And now, like every bully, Fox "news" has become a whiner.

"Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars," Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente said in a statement.

How absurd. Declare "war?" Please, Mr. Clemente, don't flatter yourself. It doesn't take that much effort to point out that Fox is a propaganda organ. Plenty of time left in the day to improve the plight of mankind.

See the innuendo in Clemente's statement? That is a Fox technique. Because it is easy, because it can trick simple minds. Make a statement by asking a question. Never miss an opportunity to show disrespect for the other guy.

Like the venal utterance from Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) who thought it "interesting" that swine flu epidemics broke out during Democratic administrations. Like nearly everything out of the weaselly mouth of dim-witted Sarah Palin.

The Fox mission is to scream instead of question, to ask loaded questions, to play games with language and not engage in thoughtful discourse.

Fox is the channel of fear mongers and is used for hate speak. It is more Archie Bunker than Walter Cronkite. Mistaking Fox for news ruins the dialogue in this country over important issues. The Obama administration is right to give it the attention it deserves.

Net neutrality and Republican pandering

2009-09-22T06:15:00.000-07:00

It appears that Republican knee-jerk support of giant corporations over the rights of ordinary people remains intact.

In an article from BBC News (read it here), it was noted that six Republican senators have introduced legislation to punish the Federal Communications Commission for keeping oligopolies from choking off access to the Internet.

Oh, they dress it up. They say there is no apparent problem.

Yeah, there is no apparent problem when the door is open and the horses are still in the barn. There is no apparent problem because the handful of companies which own mobile access to the Internet haven't yet figured out how to turn their oligopoly into a powerful force.

It is as if three or four companies owned all the interstate highways in America. They get to decide who gets on, how fast everyone should go, and perhaps they charge their friends less than they charge the average driver. Which enriches their friends, who kick back money to the highway owner, who then buys himself a politician, who resists any attempt to make sure everyone can drive on the roads.

Folks, regulation is not by itself a bad thing. Monopolistic oil companies had to be broken up. AT&T had to be broken up. Once you could only buy a telephone from AT&T. A good argument can be made that much of the innovation we saw in communication was due to the competition caused by the break up of AT&T.

Don't equate corporate pandering by the Republican Party with being pro business. Regulation can assist business when it fosters competition by preventing a concentration of power in the hands of a few.

Greed and power will always exist, and one role of government is to make sure that consumers and businesses get a level playing field.

Christians with no faith

2009-08-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

It was hard to figure out why the far right mob was engorging themselves on the fiction of "death panels" dispensing medical care. It took a while, then there was the flash: Despite calling themselves Christian, they have no faith.

Well, not exactly right. They are actually "totemic" Christians. They have faith in their totems. "The Bible" is one of their totems. "Free markets" are another. "Family" is another.

When there needs to be a rational dialogue, they reach into their bag of superstitions and wave around a totem, as if to ward off the evil spirits of "socialism" or "homosexuality" or "lack of values."

Their shamans, Rush, Palin, O'Reilly, and the others, actually know this is a game. They just want to win, and capture the fame, power and money that comes from selling fear, like their forebears, Jimmy Swagggert, Jim Baker, and the others. These use the totems to communicate in code, to prod their flock into panic, to create the frenzy we see building around us.

But others with more character are faced with the knowledge that the issues we face will not bow to superstitions. That the shoddy system of health care we have eats 16% of our budget and will not run from a totem. That it needs to be fixed by rational effort.

Bank reform, credit card reform, education reform, political reform will not be solved with magical potions. These are issues that need to be looked at squarely, and hard decisions need to be made. Imbalances corrected. Power may shift.

Oh yes, the left has its totems as well. In many ways they mirror that of the right, and usually start with a hatred of other people's money. The difference is that the left doesn't hide behind Christianity, though interestingly, probably has more claim to it.

But why are those on the right so eager to believe the false prophets? Is it they don't really believe that their Reward is Coming? Is that why they are so focused on the lies and politics of the material world?

Or it may be that there is need, now, to stretch our idea of community to include others not like us. They want to exclude more than embrace, and hypocrisy always hides behind anger and fear.

It doesn't matter. There is work to be done. We need to get to it.

It's about power, stupid

2009-08-19T07:28:00.000-07:00

The truly strange thing about the war over the "public option" is that it is probably the most market oriented facet of the whole health care reform package. The wrong guys support it, the wrong guys are opposed.

Normally, the left would simply resort to regulation: "Though shalt not charge more than..." and screw up the economics of health care more than they are screwed up.

"At a minimum, there should be very strict regulation of all insurers, on and off the exchange, to promote competition and fair prices and substantial subsidies to help low-income people buy insurance..." editorializes the New York Times, again illustrating how the left doesn't "get" economics. To promote competition you don't regulate insurers, you guard the markets, reduce "barriers to entry," etc.

There are many market forces in place that drive up the cost of health care "as a system." Doctor owned diagnostic centers, for example; lack of competition in any one geographical market; insurance oligopolies; no standardized charting.

The antidote is to introduce forces that can systemically drive down prices, and that is best achieved through competition. That competition is best enhanced with public options, consumer choice, consumer consequences, all of which are lacking in the current environment.

And maybe for that reason alone, the brains of the Republican right are so opposed. The public option might actually work, because it really is a market-based tool. A tool they should favor.

On the other hand, if they can kill the public option and force the left into its comfortable role of law-based decision making, they will be able to point out that the left does want to deny choice, favors government over the individual. It is a long term strategy to get back into power.

The administration needs to grab this process. It can not be left to the right, nor the blue dogs, nor the far left. This administration is in a unique position to take all the good ideas and rework the health care landscape, with or without "compromise." Their plan could be the compromise.

There are many good ideas out there. Public option. Co-operatives. Tort reform. Transportability. Elimination of rules that limit plans to "in-state." Standardized, transferable electronic records. Perhaps they all need to be given a chance.

It is time to get to work.

How they fool the people

2009-08-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/17/potter.health.insurance/index.html

The public option

2009-08-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Sarah Palin joined Republicans nationwide in opposition to public libraries.

Funded by major publishing companies, book store chains and a large seller of books over the Internet, the right wing has declared libraries to be "socialist, communist, and not the American Way."

Libraries, they say, threaten the ability of Americans to buy books, and could lead to government control over what is read, by whom and where.

"If government buys books, government will decide what books to buy. It is clear that this is a threat to democracy," said (former) prescription drug addict Rick Limberger on his radio show.

Will O'Kelly, on his television program and between ads for exotic Swedish sponges, said that people who go to libraries may be affiliated with Al Queda, he didn't know that and wasn't saying that, but librarians should be investigated, and those who publicly deny the fact should be required to prove it isn't true.

Shamus Hennesy said that it is clear that library books are a vehicle for disease, and only pristine, white pages with virginal paper unsullied by unknown hands of other possible color were good enough for his daughters. He compared libraries to crack houses and the sharing of library books to the sharing of needles.

"Tea Baggers," the unfortunately named movement of people afraid of an educated populace, have protested at town hall meetings nationwide. Funded by the book sellers, mobilized by radio entertainers, they shout into microphones provided by the government that people being able to read books purchased by government represents an infringement on their rights.

But it is the darling brunette of the far right who has captured the essence of the debate. Not that her looks matter. If she was a moose with dewlaps and dimples, she would still command attention for the power of her ideas.

"We don't want to pay taxes so other people can read," said Palin, who also said that she would definitely take up arms against public education when she might run for president in 2012, though she said she isn't saying that, nor what she was saying, but said that too with her famous coy smile.

"Government is bad. Taxes are bad. Tax supported 'public' schools are bad. 'Public' libraries are bad. Anything with the word 'public' is bad, because it has most of the same letters as pubic, and will give our young people ideas and lead them down a path of moral decay," Palin said with a wink that instantly drew millions of conservative men down that very same path.

"If I can't afford to pay for my child's education, I should not have an educated child," she added, pointing again with pride to her own family. "Besides, I don't read that much."

Others have not been so direct.

"Libraries threaten the profits of national book store chains. Without profits, they will fail, throwing thousands of sales clerks out of work at a time when the economy can ill afford additional unemployment," said Pewt Heinrichs, former Republican strategist.

Those in favor of libraries have remained for the most part silent. "We just think people should have access to books, even if they can't afford to buy them," said one quietly, asking to remain anonymous, afraid his neighbors would show up to burn down his home.

Insurance companies need competition

2009-08-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

There have been several health care commentaries from the right with important ideas for the debate on health care. John Mackey of Whole Foods has been unfairly beat up for his ideas (read it here). There have been others.

But they often contain one important flaw. They seem to assume that if something goes wrong, it is the fault of the patient. He or she eats too much or smokes too much or drinks too much.

But not all health events are a matter of choice. Everything that happens to us is not the result of bad habits.

I appear to be healthy, I exercise, I am not overweight. I don't smoke and haven't had a drink in decades. I don't do soft drinks.

But I was refused health insurance because I have high cholesterol. Not heart disease, mind you, but high cholesterol, a condition that could cause heart disease. About the time I decided to address this issue with drugs, unsuccessful with diet, I had to change doctors because of a dispute between the insurance company and my doctor's company over how much money insurance would pay for my visits.

My new doctor ordered a battery of tests. Tests that insurance companies don't like to pay for, because they don't really affect treatment. If you have high cholesterol, the treatment is to take statins, it doesn't really matter why you have high cholesterol. They claim the doctors order the test to make more money.

But my doc wanted to know, because it might dictate how to attack my high cholesterol. It turns out I have a genetically-caused situation. I don't know how to describe it, other than remembering that I had something like three markers for the genetic issue, and if I had the fourth marker, chances are I would already be dead, or face dementia because of plaques in the brain, or worse.

The point is that I have a genetic condition, not modifiable by diet, that could affect my health. And for that reason, I was denied health insurance by private companies. I had to scramble to find a "public option" that would take me.

I am not alone. Many have conditions that allow the insurance industry to decide, after being paid many tens of thousands of dollars, as I paid them, that a patient isn't worth the risk. Heart disease. Broken bones. Family history of cancer. Diabetes. Go away.

The game is rigged in their favor. I know this as a citizen, and having watched them from a chair on the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners. The market mechanism does not work very well when talking about health care, nor insurance.

Our system is broken. We can get great care in America, and I know that, too. I have had exemplary doctors, and I am a demanding patient. But the "system of health care" is broken. There is too much paper work. Doctors face unnecessary lawsuits. Insurance codes are designed to deny payment and coverage, not make it better.

It's time for a change.

I want "public option" for health insurance

2009-08-13T22:26:00.000-07:00

When I changed employment a couple of years ago, I turned a company over to some very deserving people. We had just a couple employees when we started, about 10 when I left 25 years later. But one of the hallmarks of this small business over those years was that we provided health insurance.

I never wanted to face a situation where one of "my" people got sick and could not afford a doctor.

Leaving the company meant leaving the company health plan. Which also meant, in Oregon, that private insurance was perfectly free to deny me coverage if they didn't want me. And that is what PacificSource said.

Since I had high cholesterol, they didn't want me.

Which meant that I could not get "private insurance." I enrolled instead in the Oregon Medical Insurance Plan, the plan of last resort for people denied coverage for health or financial reasons.

Fortunately I can afford the $500 per month I pay to get the medical care I need. That's before I go to the doctor, by the way. Last year I doubled my cost, and paid more than $12,000, because I had a kidney stone difficult to diagnose.

Now, what is the difference between OMIP, the Veterans Administration, Medicare and Medicaid, and the so-called and much hated "public option" that the Republicans are frothing at the mouth about?

Not that much. Except that it might be able to offer some lower costs, because it would insure more people, not just the sick and older and poorer.

It might actually be an "insurance," which by spreading risk among a general population instead of cherry picking the healthy people to insure, could provide lower cost care to many more people.

I did not like being told that since I might get sick in the future, that I was uninsurable. I don't think it is right. But you know, I am glad Oregon had a "public option" for people the insurance companies don't want to take a risk on.

But I don't want my neighbors or their children to have to either suffer without a doctor's care, I don't want them to have to decide whether to buy milk or pay rent or go to the doctor. This is a natiional issue and it is time for a national solution. We are wasting billions of dollars under the lack of system we have now, under the illusion of free choice and "market" economics. That is just a canard.

This is a great country and we have a great many very smart people. We also have a Republican Party that is trying to scare people on behalf of drug companies and insurance companies that make billions of dollars at the public trough, all the while they gouge the people at the margins.

We need health care reform. We need it now.

Republican lies about health care

2009-08-12T22:29:00.000-07:00

It gets more bizarre by the day. Now the Republicans are telling ugly lies to scare people:

Seniors and the disabled "will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care." -- Sarah Palin, Friday, August 7th, 2009.

There is no such language anywhere in any health care proposal. Republicans are making this stuff up. It is ugly, and the minds that create this crap, especially that of the narcissistic Sarah Palin, are ugly.

We need to make health care better in America. We need to expand insurance coverage to friends and neighbors who have lost their jobs, or can't get insurance because one of their parents had diabetes. We need to create a system that will take care of our children.

It is time Republicans stopped lying about the "public option," which is just another optional insurance program like Medicare, more "private" than V.A. hospitals. It is time Republicans stopped lying about "death panels." It is time Republicans stopped denying that it is immoral to let millions of Americans go without seeing a doctor when they are sick.

We have a problem with health care in America. It is time to find a solution.

The health care onion

2009-08-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

First, there is the debate about fixing this nation's health care. Inside that, there is the debate about the health care debate, whether it is being rigged. Inside that, there is the possibility that Republicans don't care so much about health care, but want to hand Obama a loss. Any loss.

Where to begin?

First off, the lie that we have the best health care system in the world needs to be dismissed. We do not have the best health care system in the world. Look up the statistics on your own. Infant mortality? We rank ninth in the industrial world. Efficiency? Thirty percent of our health care dollars go into the paper work war between doctors and insurers. Etc.

Add to that the power of corporate oligopolies; the drug companies, insurance companies, the physician-owned hospitals and groups of prescribing docs who own radiology centers, etc. We have a recipe for profit, not efficiency nor patient care.

It is important to realize that there is a difference in our "health care system" or lack of it, and the quality of care one might receive from an excellent doctor. That may indeed be world class.

But that is not what we are talking about.

One of the really wrong ideas in this debate is that "the market" will provide health care. It won't. Markets need a tight relationship between money spent and service received. You don' t have a rational market where the payer for service (insurance companies) is not the recipient (patient) of service. Patients want the best care available. Insureres want the lowest cost.

And yet, one of the closest ideas we have to bringing "market" dynamics to the table is being thrown away. Having a "public option" would fit quite well with market economics. If the public option is no good, it will fail. If it is good, it will help bring down costs, while still allowing people to choose.

And we already have "public options." Medicare. Medicaid. Most of the noise about the "pubic option" is based on fear that the gravy train won't stand up to real competition.

Even sending our poor to hospital emergency rooms is a form of "public option." An insanely inefficient option. It slows down "emergency" rooms. It is expensive. It shifts costs, so that those of us with insurance fund the system by paying $6 for a single aspirin. That is a "public option" of irrationality.

It is amazing that Republicans are again able to convince people to scream against their own interests. The men and women working at the gas station and the sporting goods store and driving truck, the retired, and certainly those who have been fired from jobs where they had insurance, should support health care reform. But misinformation, fear mongering and the politics of hate (look at those screaming faces) remain effective weapons.

We can't afford to spend more of our income on health care. It is breaking our finances, draining our future. We can't leave our neighbors without health care: That is immoral.

The time has come to look at alternatives.

Krugman is wrong

2009-06-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman is a brilliant man, he has a Nobel Prize in economics. I am not and I don't.

But Krugman is wrong on a very important point regarding the financial crisis. He thinks government should regulate bankers' pay (read it here).

He says the current method of compensation created an "incentive" for the abuses that brought the world's financial system nearly to its knees. Perhaps. It was certainly a factor. But there were many interacting factors, and we have to be careful about which we choose to "fix," and potential unintended consequences.

Compensation, or paychecks, is a perfect place to encourage the power of the market place, and absolutely the wrong place for government intervention.

What needs to be done is to foster consequences in the system, where firms that fail, and by definition those who lead them, are punished by the market, without threatening the entire system.

Generally this will mean making sure that bad decisions by one firm, say an AIG, don't threaten everyone's welfare. This can include limits on market share, capitalization requirements, reducing barriers to entry into a market so that competitors can flourish, etc. And, more than anything else, transparency.

It does not mean meddling directly in compensation issues. That is a guarantee of inefficiency, mediocre leadership, a lack of creativity and it crosses a line of how we want our financial system to function. Capitalism versus something else.

We don't want our government to govern companies directly, except to create a system that preserves itself and its function to society while allowing those companies to bring efficiencies, offer new products, and to fail when their decisions are faulty.

A fine distinction, perhaps, but an important one.

Deceptive right wing

2009-06-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

Now we have Republican Sen. Bruce Starr saying that we need to change Oregon law in the aftermath of the horrible and bizarre killing of a young pregnant mother, Heather Snively.

This is a clear and blatant attempt to redefine what is a person.

"I hope to never see another case like we've seen," Starr said. "But in the event that we do, where you have an unbelievably barbaric crime and clearly two victims, both victims will receive proper justice."

Victims of murder don't receive justice, Mr. Starr. They are dead. A corpse. There is no person to receive that justice. There is no justice for the dead, only for their families and for society.

Starr's lack of thinking on this issue is typical. It is also disgustingly calculating. But what is most disturbing about this cold manipulation of grief is that it is deceitful and opportunistic. Adding to the charges faced by the abomination who carried out this crime would not have prevented Heather's murder.

To think otherwise is absurd. The woman who killed this young mother and cut the fetus from her womb is a monster. Probably insane. And very unlikely to have been deterred by the risk of a second murder charge.

Defining the fetus as a victim is a way of saying the fetus is a person. Calling it murder is a backhanded way of conferring status as a person. We haven't done that yet in Oregon, and we have to do that first if we want to be rational in expanding the homicide stature in this way.

The last time the Religious Right tried to do this in Oregon was in the aftermath of the Laci Peterson murder. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.

Starr is callously taking advantage of this tragedy to promote a political agenda. That is wrong. He is slimy for doing so.

Oh, please

2009-03-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Must we? Must we spend a precious week and precious energy debating whether President Obama dissed those with special needs on Jay Leno this week?

Get over it, Politically Correct Police. Obama was laughing at himself, his lack of skills at bowling. He used an accurate image, if not a particularly sensitive one. He was obviously not laughing at the disabled. Intent is everything.

Watch the interview here. It was smart, it was entertaining, it was informative.

There is no issue. The terminally serious, who believe all things human must be greeted with deep, long looks of uplifted anguish, are bores. Those who are working up their outrage are using the disabled to fulfill needs we can only guess at. That includes you, Palin.

We can laugh at ourselves and at each other and still love. We don't need "moralist gotcha guys" sifting every phrase for possible liabilities, when what we need is real work in this real life solving real problems.

Get over it.

A deal is a deal

2009-03-17T05:10:00.000-07:00

Look, can we get over all this gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair about the bonuses at AIG? It is not productive and threatens our economic recovery.

Yes, it stinks that AIG is paying out $165 million in bonuses to the boys (and girls?) whose activities brought their company not only to its knees, but into government ownership (80 percent). Barney Frank screams his outrage. President Obama says it is about values.

Okay. But a key value in business is keeping your word. An important business activity is signing contracts, and then honoring them. A deal is a deal.

Or nobody will do business with you.

There may be a whole slew of good reasons why those bonuses should be paid. There are many reasons why it may hurt to do so. Read the letter from AIG CEO Edward M. Liddy to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner (read it here). He didn't like it either.

But the bottom line is that contracts need to be honored.

Now that the government owns most of AIG, the last thing it should do is destroy the company. But that will be the result if government runs the business like government, instead of like a business.

Thank god for Brooks

2009-03-03T08:16:00.001-08:00

A voice of reason, more conservative than liberal, more rational than either.

David Brooks has hit it just right. Read it here.

Central Oregon's pride

2009-03-03T05:53:00.000-08:00

"LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Oregon congressman has pleaded not guilty in Los Angeles to money laundering and tax charges relating to an investment scheme that allegedly cost investors more than $10 million.

Wes Cooley, who represented Oregon's 2nd Congressional District for one term in the 1990s, entered his plea Monday in federal court. (Cooley, a Reagan Republican, lied about his service in Vietnam.)

An indictment filed in January alleges the 76-year-old Cooley and two other men lured victims into purchasing unregistered stock in Bidbay.com Inc. by telling them the company would be acquired by eBay for $20 per share.

In 2002 alone, Cooley allegedly took more than $1.1 million in investor cash and laundered it to conceal the fraud scheme.

Richard A. Moss, Cooley's attorney, declined to comment on the charges."

Limbaugh the fascist

2009-03-01T18:48:00.000-08:00

Destroyer.
Divider.
Fascist.

Rush Limbaugh is vile, a lying, bigoted pompous ass of a man who would destroy hope for political gain.

Listening to him is reminiscent of public speeches of Brown Shirts in Germany after WW I. Look it up.

He is also the current leader of the Republican Party.

In a speech given this last Saturday, February 28, 2009, to the Conservative Political Action Conference, he spewed his peculiar form of right wing bile sweetened with false patriotism and misinformation (transcript here). It is the same brew first concocted by Gingrich and Rove and fed to conservative talk show hosts via a long handled spoon and web blogs.

Individuals will thrive, said Limbaugh, "if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government." That is exactly what happened, Rush, you broke government oversight and now we have a mortgage crisis, a banking crisis, the highest unemployment in a generation, because guys like you (how is your drug problem coming along, by the way?) succeeded in that little superstition.

Rush says conservatives believe in "...Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault."

Right again, they have been under assault for 30 years, but by conservatives like Limbaugh who believe in spying on civilians, government intervention on the deathbed and any other bed occupied by people they don't like, and welfare for Big Corporate donors.

As for happiness, most of the country understands they aren't happier than they were 8 years ago, and they know who is responsible.

"..the bigotry that we're all charged with, just so you across the United States of America know, and you'll see demonstrated here as the afternoon goes on, doesn't exist on our side," said Limbaugh.

Strange he should bring this up. Actually, Limbaugh is quite the bigot, which is why he probably doesn't recognize it. Which is why he featured "Barak the Magic Negro," on his radio show. (See more here). It was spread most ominously by a candidate for Republican national Chairman Chip Saltsman.

"... take a look at all the constituency groups that for 50 years have been depending on the Democrat Party to improve their lives. And you tell me if you find any. They're still complaining, still griping about the same problems. Their problems don't get fixed by government. And those lives have been poisoned," says Limbaugh.

Um, Rush? Have you checked in with who is sitting in the Oval Office? Ya think that would have happened 50 years ago? What a stupid, stupid thing to say. Only such a bloated, self important fool could so blindly make a statement like that.

Then Limbaugh displays a stunningly ignorant profile of history when he asks, "How did the United States of America become the world's lone super power, the world's economic engine, the most prosperous opportunity for an advanced lifestyle that humanity has ever known? How did this happen?"

I don't know Rush, it has been a long 240 plus years. Probably quite a few "hows" in that time. Some good, some bad, some great, some accidental. Rather than ask, why don't you answer the question?

And then, with a false flourish, he accuses with a question: "And why pray tell does the President of the United States want to destroy it?" And the evidence? None. He makes a statement without saying it, the cowardly technique of O'Reilly, Hannity and the rest of the angry hate mongers of the right.

Rush, it was you and Cheney and that little guy from Texas who damn near succeeded in destroying this nation. The mess our President is trying to fix was the result of your policies, not his.

Now we learn that suspension of the First Amendment, bombing of apartment houses right here in the U.S., spying on civilians were all considered. They entertained the most flagrant abuses of power ever conceived in this nation, violations against what it means to be America. That is the legacy of Rush, Cheney and Rove.

There is more. The gasbag goes on and on and on, and the right wingers applaud, even when he makes jokes that God wants to be Rush Limbaugh. What a sick, sorry sight, what a terrible thing to have happened to real conservatives. Real conservatives need to speak up, and throw these idiots to the wolves.

Beware the knives

2009-03-01T09:03:00.000-08:00

Liberals have their knives out for fat cat bankers. They should put them away and take a deep breath.

The fact is, there are very few people capable of running banks, large or small, and most of them already are. There is no benefit to turning banks over to bureaucrats, or destroying them and the value of stock often owned by pensions, state retirement accounts, and people who worked hard their whole life.

There are many causes to the credit crisis, and banks are certainly at the center of the storm. That does not mean that individual bankers or banks are villains. Much of the blame goes to Phil Graham and a lot of misguided Democrats who changed the rules and allowed banks to invest in riskier enterprises and give loans to people who did not deserve them.

A whole generation forgot the lesson of the Great Depression and lived beyond their means. We are all at fault, and it doesn't help to point fingers at who might be more at fault than others.

So what to do now? Hidden beneath the headlines is the fact that many "risky" banks are actually making money. They look bad on paper because the value of the assets they hold is unknown. Since the markets have frozen up, it is hard to value property, but the regulators are forcing a "mark to market" strategy that is forcing banks to revalue property at low, low levels.

Because of this, banks are flirting with capitalization ratios that make it appear they are in worse shape than they are, if the same assets were valued over a longer term.

The banks need time, and we all need some sort of confidence in our real estate markets, which requires banks to be able to lend.

First, according to many, we need to pull our banks back from the brink. The best way to do this is to follow the advice of commentator Jim Cramer and implement the same kind of program of "forbearance" that saved the S&L situation of the 1980s. Once there is a market for real estate, the banks can mark the value of their assets in prudent ways, or dispose of them. Until then, the exercise is not only futile, but damaging.

Secondly, the government needs to provide guaranteed home refinancing for everybody at 4%. This will start the process of reducing inventory overhang, and doesn't punish those who bought wisely.

But the current mob mentality of the left, to cut off the heads of bankers and destroy the banks they lead, is horrifically irresponsible. It is the banking system that government should reform, not banks. That is done with laws, not seizure. Once prudent rules are back in place, and the market stabilizes, we want bankers running our banks, and we need our banks to succeed.

Or else the crisis is just beginning, and will be made worse by the Left's lack of understanding and disdain for money.

Republicans out to destroy hope

2009-02-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

It is outrageous that Republicans are willing to harm the country for political gain.

"Republican aides said they would seize on every instance of potential abuse as a way of stirring public doubt about the bill." (Read full story here).

One of the major challenges facing the country is a loss of confidence. It deeply affects markets, and behavior of our citizens, of consumers. And yet, Republicans are willing to do whatever they can to further destroy confidence in efforts to jump start the economy.

"Fearing fear itself." We have a two party system. Challenges to the status quo are good, debate is good.

But voters repudiated cheap shots designed only to destroy, rejected right wing return to the politics of fear. Republicans now praying that the country and its citizens become worse off so they can claim "I told you so," and do better in the next election should think about the risks more clearly.

It is possible that every one of those who tried to destroy, instead of come together and build, will lose their pulpit. Let's start with Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, and Michael Steele, the Republican national chairman. These gentlemen deserve some close attention.

The left doesn't get it

2009-02-07T07:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, it is not like we have to "prove" the left doesn't like money and doesn't understand it. By now that should be common knowledge. But egregious examples still need to be highlighted.

Today's New York Times (read it here) calls for adding money to the stimulus bill to build 1.5 million units of affordable housing. This will house poor people and create jobs, according to the Times.

Ladies and gentlemen: is there anybody out there who doesn't know this crisis was sparked by overbuilding? That the markets are flooded with housing? That there are empty houses and apartments and condos all over this nation? That building more units makes the problem worse, not better?

The same issue of the Times has a couple of good articles on the stimulus plan and the politics. But today's editorial makes it so blindingly obvious that the left will never cease doing the wrong things for all the right reasons.

Democrats and economic ignorance

2009-02-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

It is time to clamber through the charred landscape left us after the presidency of Dick Cheney and George Bush. The republic survived, though in far worse shape than when those ignorant ideologues seized power. Long live the republic.

But the dangers are ever present and never past, and now they come in the form of tired liberals of shallow knowledge of economics like Nancy Pelosi, or Ted Kulongoski. They come in the form of pay back schemes from left-leaning power centers like the unions, who believe that since they put Obama in power, they should now get theirs.

These need to be resisted. And there is hope. See this column by conservative writer David Brooks of the New York Times.

People, you have to know how good it feels to be in the center, shooting at both left and right. Of course, both sides are firing back, so being in the middle means you have to dodge twice as fast. But it's good to swing the gun around in a new direction.

Back to the topic: The Democrats under Pelosi played politics with the stimulus bill, in exactly the same way that Cheney/Bush played politics with legislation following 9/11. They loaded it with ideological non-sequiters. Paybacks and pay-offs. They took advantage of their position and the situation.

Cheney / Bush did it under the guise of external threat and patriotism. Pelosi and ilk are doing it under the cover of economic crisis. It is the same thing, from a different direction. It is politics as usual.

And it is no more honest, and no more fair or right or proper or effective, pick an adjective. A stimulus plan is needed. More than a half million people lost their jobs last month. Unemployment is over 7 percent. It hits 10 percent and we have social unrest.

And those people without jobs need health insurance. They need extended unemployment benefits. They do not need family planning advice. They do not need more grass seed on the National Mall. We do not need to spend the $100 million (over 10 years) on 150 new state troopers (absolutely no value added to Oregon) that Kulongoski ramrodded a couple of years ago.

Instead, how about widening the bridge over Squaw Creek (sorry) in Sisters, Oregon? How about a power generation plant near Madras, Oregon using wind, solar, and natural gas? How about every Oregonian come up with a project that (1) would put men and women to work and (2) would be a long term investment in Oregon.

Pork is not investment. Protectionism is a failed economic strategy. Stronger unions can destroy the productivity needed for us to work our way out of this economic crevasse that we all slid into together thinking that we could borrow money to buy things we didn't need and couldn't afford.

The illusion that government can fix this without our paying the bill is false. The bill on the government bailout will still need be paid.

Unfortunately, it will be paid by our children, my twin girls, and your children, by a reduction in their standard of living. Added to that bill will be our medicare and our social security and the war in Iraq.

It is a crushing burden, actually, and I am a little ashamed about it. We could have done so much better for them. We should have done so much better. But what is done is done, and the goal now is to start the process of recovery and not make it worse.

Ignorance of economics in hard times

2008-12-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

The AP posted a story today that Oregon auto dealers wanted the state to prohibit car sales on Sunday. Huh?

The story (read it here) never really analyzed how this would help dealers. AP is not known for getting too far below the surface. But one may assume that the argument is that unless car dealers can cut costs, more of them will go out of business.

This is not economics, it is ignorance. Like the French imposing a 35 hour work week years ago to boost employment. It only seems like a good idea for about 10 minutes.

Basically the dealerships are saying that they want to cut labor costs. Which means that sales and service people will have less income, and therefore less money to spend. Which may do an individual dealership some good, but does nothing for the general population, which would have fewer options when to buy a car.

It is not the job of the state to introduce inefficiencies into the marketplace to support less productive dealers. If there are too many dealers to support the current level of sales, then the less efficient dealerships should close.

In the long run, this will lead to higher wages, more options for the buying public and a stronger industry.

There will be many such "emergency" measures proposed by various interest groups during these hard times. Most should be ignored. The state needs to provide a safety net so that the most disadvantaged can find new opportunities. But proping up failed business models is the wrong solution for the wrong problem.

America works

2008-11-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

It's a wonderful thing.

We Americans have voted for a black man, repudiated the divisive fear used by the right-wing (read it here) to seize and maintain power for the last decade, and shown the world that revolution can be made in peace.

Sarah Palin and the ignorance she represents is still a threat to our children. The left, with its hubris that the laws of economics can be suspended for all the right reasons, is still a threat to our children.

But for now the right wing of Bill O'Reilly and Rush and Lars and the xenophobes and jingoists and the hatemongers are banished, after damaging our economy and the country and destroying many lives. In its greed it finally ate its own heart. It will be back, because anger never dies, and it will exploit, because the thirst for power is never sated.

But for now, the greatness that is America has again confounded the world. The "market place of ideas" that Jefferson championed has triumphed. Change has come.

There will be mistakes and missteps and false starts. But for those of us who felt that America had misplaced its values, this is a great day.

Sarah spreads her ignorance

2008-10-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

On October 24th, Sarah Palin gave a speech at a Special Needs conference. In her speech, she mocked "fruit fly research." She was apparently referring to a recent study of Drosophila fruit flies revealing that a protein called neurexin is essential for proper neurological function -- a discovery with clear implications for autism research.

Imagine -- mocking scientific research at a conference on problems understanding of which that very research has has proven to be essential!

It’s unclear if Palin is unaware of the central role that fruit fly research plays in modern genetics, or if she was pandering to her fans at Fox News. Suffice to say that “fruit fly research” has enabled us to discover much of what we know about ... congenital disorders.

Every high school biology student knows that identifying genetic patterns in fruit flies has led to genetic discoveries in humans.

Again, it’s not clear if Palin is unaware of the significance of those discoveries ... Palin has a Down’s Syndrome son, and our knowledge of how that syndrome works (as well as its eventual treatment and prevention), comes from fruit fly research. The next round of significant Down’s Syndrome discoveries will not be called significant, until they are first tested on fruit flies.

There is nothing contestable about the above facts. Like Mendel’s discovery of gene pairing rules, they’re just basic science. But regardless of Palin’s motivation for spreading her ignorance, you should watch the clip noted below, especially the moment where Palin utters the term “fruit fly research.” Her contempt and disdain for even these fundamentals of science – is unmistakable. (And juvenile. Her inner Jr. High princess coming out again)

... As if fundamental science can be shouted down by the indignation of a thousand screaming Joes.

Visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXqKEs68Xk and

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/24/palin-fruit-flies/ and

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WSS-4PKGJV3-C&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=fce005ed770e9f7a99f2d55716dbeea7

John McCain's war policies will cost America nearly $1 trillion and with far fewer results than genetic research, including that on, yes, fruit flies.

God bless America and may the power of democracy protect us. We need to fix our economy. We need to fix our roads. We need bridges. We need jobs. We need schools where kids are taught the principles of science if we are to compete with China and India and Russia to raise our standard of living. We deserve to be a country where poor kids like Obama can become president, and not just rich kids like Bush and McCain.

(Most of the above was sent to us as an email. It appears to be valid, but most is not original with EyeonOregon).

Al Qaeda endorses McCain

2008-10-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

An excerpt of why Al Qaeda wants John McCain as president (read it here):

"...Yet the endorsement of Mr. McCain by a Qaeda-affiliated Web site isn’t a surprise to security specialists. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have both suggested that Al Qaeda prefers Mr. McCain and might even try to use terror attacks in the coming days to tip the election to him.

“From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting,” said Professor Nye, adding that Mr. McCain is far more likely to continue those policies.

"An American president who keeps troops in Iraq indefinitely, fulminates about Islamic terrorism, inclines toward military solutions and antagonizes other nations is an excellent recruiting tool. In contrast, an African-American (Christian) president with a Muslim grandfather and a penchant for building bridges rather than blowing them up would give Al Qaeda recruiters fits."

Oregon: Turn in your ballots

2008-10-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

Oregon, it is time to vote for Obama. Enough of this:

$150,000 for Palin's wardrobe, make-up

2008-10-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

Hey, Joe Sixpack! Your Snow Job Barbie just spent $150,000 on a new wardrobe, hair and makeup. No wonder she looks so good!

"Spending records filed with the Federal Election Commission and obtained by Politico show the RNC paid for "campaign accessories" from upscale department stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, where nearly $50,000 was spent, Neiman Marcus, $75,000, and $4,700 for hair and makeup." (Read it here)

Ah, the common touch. Of course she's one of us.

By the way, the lies she's spreading about "socialism" are silly, though she may not have the horsepower to understand the issue. Obama is trying to give the middle class a tax break. From income taxes, payroll taxes, etc. Bush gave tax breaks to the rich. Obama wants to roll those back a bit, and give a tax break to the rest of us.

That's all. She is utterly unqualified to be president, and if McCain is elected, there is a one-in-five chance she will be, since he is old and has had cancer.

"Joe the Plumber" already owes taxes

2008-10-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

Too bad John McCain -- again -- didn't do his homework before the last debate.

(1) "Joe the Plumber" is not a licensed plumber (read it here)

(2) "Joe the Plumber" owes unpaid taxes (read it here).

(3) "Joe the Plumber" even if he was a plumber, and bought the business, probably would not pay any more taxes under Obama's tax plan, and might even have his taxes reduced. (read it here).

McCain has a history of launching off on a half-backed course of action based on shoddy investigation (see Palin, Sarah; Keeting, Charles; Deregulation of banks). This is another example. Or it's another example of McCain campaign fiction, like the Ayer's flap.

Obama's tax plan would give most of us tax breaks paid for by simply rolling back the tax breaks George Bush and John McCain gave to the super rich six years ago (breaks to John McCain by the way, which is why they are hiding Cindy's tax returns). McCain has transferred wealth from the working man to the corporate elite.

It's time for a president who will make America strong, not simply bleed the middle class while denying the rest of us opportunity. We need Obama.

Sarah's rapture

2008-10-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

There have been a few -- too few -- opportunities to see Sarah Palin in her natural habitat. A couple were presented last week by Jon Stewart, possibly lifted from UTube, but I can't find them, now.

One that disturbs most profoundly was captured when Palin answered a question about whether she had seen the second debate between Obama and McCain. She wrinkled her nose in what would otherwise be an expression of pain, tossed back her head with her eyes closed and said McCain "did awsome."

This mannerism, "rapture rhetoric," is not uncommon among elements of the right. It is a form of communication not unlike "gangsta speak" of ghetto Blacks. The painful expression indicates total emotional capitulation. It communicates a context more revealing than the words themselves.

We have seen this in a few of Palin's other displays. When she prepares a "gotcha," she tips her head to one side and wrinkles her nose and pretends with a look of disgust to ask a question. She is really making a "holier-than-thou" accusation. She looks and sounds like the middle school girl too popular to ever be wrong.

This is what her handlers (seasoned Bush professionals) are hiding. And for good reason. They know if the world were to see this woman as she is, there would be great dismay about the judgement of John McCain, an old man who has had cancer, for his choice of who to put next in line as president.

Is Palin a bigot ?

2008-10-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin quoted an anti-semite, Westbrook Pegler, in her speech at the Republican convention.

Her speech referred to "a writer," when she spoke of small towns. The writer was Pegler, who talked hopefully of the assassination of Franklin Roosevelt, and of Bobby Kennedy. Pegler, who loved small towns where there were no Jews, few Blacks.

This puts her recent comments about Barrak Obama in a different perspective. It puts her linking Obama (when he was 8 years old) to a Viet Nam "terrorist" (an old hippie now a prof at the University of Illinois active in education) in a different perspective. She is fanning the flames of extremism not just for political gain, but because she quotes anti-semites and says of Obama "This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America," (them's who's different than us) should not lead this country.

Is Sarah Palin a bigot with a pretty smile? We don't need that nastiness with a one-in-five chance at being president (McCain is old, he has had cancer, and Republicans are hiding his health records). We have problems to solve.

We need Obama to give tax breaks to the middle class, not just the rich who own seven hosues like McCain. We need Obama to craft a health care policy that is fair to all Americans, not just those who have jobs with the decreasing number of employers providing insurance. We need Obama to lead America back to its feet economically, an America ready to become again the powerful nation that reflects the American people.

Reagan Palled Around with Terrorists, Too

2008-10-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

(Update: Apparently Hekmatyar refused Reagan's invitation.) It was back in 1985 that (Reagan) invited Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, then a key Mujahadin leader (and major Islamo-fascist, as some might call him), at the White House. (Read it here).

"Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer."

McCain = Bush,
Palin = Cheney.

Enough = enough.

McPalin make-believe

2008-10-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

“I think there have been quite a few reporters recently,” said Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, Mark Salter, “who have sort of implied, or made more than implications, that somehow we’re responsible for the occasional nut who shows up and yells something about Barack Obama.” (Read it here)

After weeks of lies that Obama is "pallin' around with terrorists," after weeks of McPalin saying "it's time Obama told the truth about his relationship with terrorists" (Obama was 8 years old at the time), Salter is now saying McPalin aren't responsible for the hatred they have encouraged? That it's the fault of "reporters?"

What amazing dishonesty. It's on tape, Mr. Salter. Like Palin herself saying yesterday that the Alaska inquiry found she had done nothing illegal or unethical in firing a department head who wouldn't fire her ex-brother-in-law. True, there was nothing illegal. Governors have the right to fire people for any reason they like.

The inquiry did find the ethics questionable. Palin wouldn't recognize that, though, because she has no ethical compass to go by. Taking a man's job because he wouldn't carry out a personal vendetta is unethical in our book, an abuse of power and trust, but she plays by different rules, and always has.

McPalin has no substance at their core. They are mean, angry people. They do mean and angry things. They do little else, and it doesn't matter if they do it with a pretty smile (her) or a weird one (him). Where is their plan? Not their slogans, (it is laughable for McPalin to claim they are the ticket of change) which are lies, but their plan?

They don't have a plan, they have only a strategy, and that is to ask over and over again questions that have already been answered. That is not "Country First." That is "Win no matter what damage we do."

Americans are going to be able to work ourselves out of this crisis if we have the leadership of Obama in the White House. Americans are going to reassert our values if we can restrain the greed that McCain advocated in his Senate career. America will be strong when we are again building our own economy instead of Iraq's, our own roads and our own schools and alternative energy and efficient cars.

We are a great country and Obama will help us remember how to achieve our best.

Fascism, hatred, McPalin

2008-10-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

There is something very, very, ugly about the McCain/Palin campaign, now.

They are fanning hatred, bitterness. They are saying things they know are harmful and untrue, whipping crowds into a frenzy, lighting fires in dry grass. Their rallies are taking on a strange angry intensity, almost like those of Nazi Germany, as the natural fear of the American people in these uncertain times is misdirected and focused at the opponent. Right out of the Goebbels playbook.

It is irresponsible and unconscionable to be directing this fear at Obama. It is ugly to imply that there is any real link between Obama and terrorism, or radical Islam. "He should explain," McPalin says, even though the explanation has been given hundreds of times. Everything has been explained. Everything is known.

But McPalin are letting the wounds of the economy fester, and they direct the puss of hatred against their opponent in a crass attempt to score political points.

"Country First?" Nah, that's not what McPalin are about. They are about using an infection of ignorance, fear, hatred, and perhaps inciting violence, to win, "win at all cost."

This is ugly. It is shameful. It is dangerous.

The truth about Sarah

2008-10-07T17:36:00.000-07:00

This letter about Sarah Palin from Anne Kilkenny needs to be read by every Republican.

Sarah put Wasilla in debt. Sarah likes big government projects. Sarah raised taxes on the middle class. Sarah doesn't "get" budgets. She is not conservative: The defining characteristics of Sarah Palin are ambition and political opportunism.

Here we present excerpts. The whole is worth reading (The original is here).

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.

.... Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support...

... As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

... McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it...

...WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable....

Anne Kilkenny

Sarah's shame

2008-10-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

How does a woman who prides herself on "values" tell such a lie in a grab for power? Does it mean her values are a lie? Or that she doesn't have any values, besides raw ambition? What will Sarah Palin tell that grandchild in 20 years, when her lies are dissected in a classroom?

"Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colo. A deliberate attempt to smear Obama, McCain's ticket-mate echoed the line at three separate events Saturday. (Read it here)

The problems is, this is not true. It is a lie. Obama is not "palling around" with terrorists. He never "palled around," any more than Palin is "palling around" with white supremacists. Certainly not as true as Palin's "palling around" with Alaskan separatists.

America doesn't need Sarah Palin lies. America needs health care. America needs jobs. America needs clean energy. America needs Obama.

The Real McCain

2008-10-03T07:43:00.001-07:00

Obama and Biden the true working class heroes

2008-10-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

It is so odd the way the Republicans have resorted to class warfare in this election, and claim populist ground they don't deserve.

John McCain, a son of an admiral, privileged his whole life except for that time as a POW, married rich. He can't count his houses. Sarah Palin never really wanted for much, she's ambitious, yes, but ambitious like that popular high school girl who wanted to get on student body council.

Obama was raised poor and worked hard and studied and managed to get into and graduate from Harvard. His story is the American dream. Joe Biden was from tough mill Pennsylvania. Worked hard, went to Congress young, still doesn't have much money but has passion for our country.

The working class have so much more in common with Obama/Biden than with the Republicans. These are men who will fight for the values of the working class, not simply use their fear and bigotry against them.

May the genius of our democracy lead us from the dark illusions of right wing power mongers.

Joe Sixpack for president?

2008-10-02T06:14:00.000-07:00

It just keeps coming:

" It’s time that a normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency..." said Sarah Palin of herself this week.

We agree that she represents Joe Sixpack. We disagree that qualifies her in any way to be a heart beat away from leading the free world. It's too complicated for that, now. Joe Sixpack can't understand a financial crisis and credit markets. We need someone who does.

Can it be true? Can it really be true that we have gone from Washington and Jefferson, John Adams and Ben Franklin, to a self-proclaimed "Joe Sixpack?"

Maverick or just unstable?

2008-09-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

McCain suspends his campaign. Then unsuspends it. He won't debate. Then he will.

McCain insists on being part of a meeting on the financial crisis at the White House, and then says very little, because he really doesn't understand what's going on, and to him it is not as important as his campaign. Later he admits he knew before hand the meeting was doomed.

He picks Snow Job Barbie to be his running mate, whose greatest qualification is that she can see Russia from her home town in Alaska. Three times now, with Charlie Gibson, Sean Hannity, and with Katy Couric, Sarah Palin has looked and acted like someone uninformed and not overly interested in complicated matters.

Kinda like McCain.

McCain was part of deregulating the banking industry, now grumps that without rules, they tried to make more money! He wants to deregulate insurance and health care in the same way. Still.

McCain said and did things this last week that seems to make it more obvious that he is being run by Bush people and lobbyists for the finance industry that McCain was once supposed to oversee.

McCain is also gambling. Making ill-thought out and sudden moves, hoping, like any obsessive gambler, that there will be a sudden turn of luck if he does something impulsive.

McCain would be dangerous as president.

Republicans play politics with economy

2008-09-26T06:55:00.000-07:00

The photo op for John McCain at the White House took us closer to financial meltdown yesterday.

The Republicans blew up negotiations over the bailout. But they got a photo of McCain sitting at the table. Reports say he was silent for much of it. Perhaps he wanted a nap. Perhaps he didn't have any good ideas. Afterword, he said he knew walking in there was no deal.

McCain did much to remove oversight from the banks and Freddie and Fannie that led to the crisis. His top staff member, Rick Davis, was paid $15,000 a month by Freddie so they could influence McCain. Much of McCain's team came from Bush.

So he was part of the problems, and yesterday he took part in a game to seem like they were doing something, to get his photo taken pretending to do something.

It's 7 a.m. on the West Coast as I write this. By noon today we will know a lot more about just how serious this all is, and we will know a lot more about how McCain would rather play politics than find solutions.

More proof that McCain is Bush

2008-09-24T07:57:00.000-07:00

Most of the people running the campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin are from the Bush team. It is unlikely that they will govern any differently if elected. (Read it here.)

Rick Davis was paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac until a month ago, now Freddie has been taken over by the Federal government. His job was to tell McCain what to think about regulation. We know how that turned out.

Bushies Mark Wallace, Tucker Eskew, Greg Jenkins, Steve Schmidt all are handing McCain or Palin. McCain advisers were saying we were just a bunch of whiners last month. How would they know what the pain feels like? McCain has seven houses and not likely to lose even one. They want another term running the government.

Folks, we can't afford more years of Bush Cheney, even if it is dressed up in the sheep's clothing of Maverick and May Belle. They broke our country. We need to take it back.

McCain fingered in financial meltdown

2008-09-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

John McCain and the people around him in part caused the financial crisis tearing into America.

His campaign manager, Rick Davis, who advises McCain on many topics and presumably would have a role in a McCain administration, was receiving $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until August. Freddie Mac was using Davis to influence McCain, the result of which was fewer regulations and led to the recent take over by the federal government.

It doesn't stop there. Here’s a quote from John McCain’s article, "Better Health Care at Lower Cost for Every American," in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries: “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

It wasn't greater competition. It was taking away oversight and protection.

McCain needs to take responsibility for his actions and honestly admit that what he did to America turned out so badly.

The problem of course, is now he is pretending that he wasn't part of the problem, that he is an outsider. He is not. Nor is his team, which came right from Bush.

McCain is so rich he can't count his houses. He was part of the group that let greed send our jobs away, that spent a $trillion dollars on Iraq, that let the bankers run amok and rip off homeowners and led to a world-wide crisis.

McCain was part of the Bush program. It is time for a change.

The real John McCain

2008-09-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

“John MCain has become shameless and dishonorable,” spokesman Brian Rogers said. “John McCain and I have brought the sleazy gutter politics of Karl Rove back to our national stage, exposing the call for "change" as a lie and embarrassing even our own party with the low road campaign we are running.”

No, McCain spokesman Rogers didn't say this about McCain. But this is the type of thing he is saying over and over. See how empty it is? It has no content, can be used to attack anyone, there is no way to respond.

We need to put Americans back to work rebuilding America. We need health care. We need to fix our financial system. We need to build bridges and roads.

And all John McCain's people do is crawl in the mud. That won't change things. That is the same old thing, just like John McCain.

McCain's biggest lie

2008-09-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

"Country first."

That's why McCain picked "Snow Job Barbie" to be his vice president. Because of her obvious qualifications. Not because winning is more important than competence. Country First? That is why McCain has fallen so deep into the muck of half-truths and outright lies. Because only if he wins is the country saved. Country First? That is why he has hermetically sealed off the "Straight Talk Express" with a small army of "handlers," and answers every question with a canned piece of his stump speech.

"Country First" is a political phrase and lie that John McCain tells every day. He wants the brass ring so bad he will do whatever it takes to grab it, he will say anything, he will make this election about Obama's name and not about jobs, he will make it about celebrity (that McCain found in Palin) and not about health care, McCain will change his positions daily and lie about what he said yesterday with that scary smile of his.

"Country First?" Those are the words on his lips. But McCain is saying "Country be damned" with his actions.

Country First is electing a president who will put Americans back to work building energy sources for tomorrow, not fattening the oil companies. That's Obama.

Country First is protecting Americans with a health care system that provides affordable care, not sending profits to drug companies. That is Obama.

Country First is protecting the environment, so Americans can eat fish without mercury, so they can have air they can breathe. That is Obama.

Country First indeed. McCain is George Bush. It's time for a change.

What is happening to the markets

2008-09-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

The post below is not easy reading. But it captures what has really happened to our economy, without a lot of numbers.

Fisher's Debt-Deflation Theory

Essentially, for too many individuals and society as a whole, "capital has been betrayed into unproductive works."

"Had Fisher observed the Greenspan/Bernanke Fed in action, he might have updated his theory with a revision. At some point, capital betrayed into unproductive works has to either be repaid or written off. If either is inhibited by reflation or regulatory forbearance, then a cost is imposed on productive works, whether through inflation, higher interest, diversion of consumption, or taxation to socialise losses. Over time that cost ultimately hollows out the real productive economy leaving only bubble assets standing. Without a productive foundation, as reflation and forbearance reach their limits, those bubble assets must deflate." -- London Banker

We threw too much of our wealth away on things we didn't need. We borrowed to buy things we couldn't afford. When it came time to pay the bills, there wasn't any money.

Palin is more Bush than Bush

2008-09-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

So it comes out now that Gov. Sarah Palin will not cooperate with a probe into her ethics in Alaska.

Why not? If she has nothing to hide, why not lay it all out there?

Last night, her representative said Palin would not be available for media questions until there was a guarantee that she be treated with "... deference."

What, like a queen? If she knows what she is talking about, why not let her answer questions, express her views? I thought she actually did a pretty good job with Charlie Gibson from ABC, though he was so smarmy he made me squirm.

The fact is, Palin is hiding her actions in Alaska because they were unethical. The campaign is hiding her from reporters because she doesn't know anything and hasn't had time to learn as McCain's cram squad has tried to give her a crash course in everything.

The Republicans are trying to hide the fact that McCain made a terrible mistake in cravenly choosing the pretty and very right wing and completely unqualified Palin to be the second in command.

Now their only choice is to hide the past, hide Palin and hide the truth.

Just like Dick Cheney hiding that Enron wrote his energy plan. Like Bush hiding from investigations into why government lawyers were fired for not being loyal enough, or hiding torture at Guantanomo.

Hiding, lying, taking the country to war, throwing away our money.

McCain/Palin is looking more like Bush/Cheney every day. C'mon. Enough was enough.

McCain/Palin = Bush/Cheney

2008-09-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

It is becoming a horribly weird instant replay, different and yet the same. A secretive and ambitious vice-president, the darling of conservatives, paired with an ideologue president who doesn't speak particularly well but surrounds himself with viciously protective handlers.

Yes, McCain/Palin is Bush/Cheney all over again. My god, maybe even worse. At least Cheney was calculating and crude when he needed to be. Palin seems to exhale meanness with every sweet sanctimonious breath, calling anyone who disagrees with her a "hater" and firing qualified professionals to put childhood friends on the government payroll.

No one really thinks John McCain understands the economy, or jobs, right? Even he admits he doesn't. With his seven houses bought by his rich wife, an admiral father who John followed through the Navy, the man has never had to work a day in his life. (Okay, he was a hero for five years as a POW. That doesn't qualify him for anything.)

McCain's financial advisor said we were a nation of whiners. I wonder if the collapse of three major banks last week and the government takeover of the two largest mortgage underwriters qualifies as whining?

Palin? No one really thinks she understands the economy, or world affairs, right? Less than two years from being mayor of Wissilla, she has barely been out of Alaska, a lovely and quaint corner of America. She was brought on the ticket for political reasons, to get the vote of the Christian right and white women.

That is a terrible reason to pick a vice president when the nation needs real leadership.

McCain/Palin is the another version of Bush/Cheney, the team that brought us the war in Iraq, the economic meltdown, and unemployment posing as deregulation. They even betrayed conservative values. These guys are clueless. They made this mess. Why in the world would we hire them back?

No more of that. It's time for change. Obama in '08.

The secretive Sarah

2008-09-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

One of the cornerstones of good government is transparency. That is what separates governing from politics.

The Bush cabal went farther than any recent administration at keeping public business a secret. Secret meetings, secret emails, destroyed emails, lies spread about opponents.

Sarah Palin would be worse.

Secrecy and vendettas, and jobs for her friends, the firing of those who disagree with her has characterized her political life from the beginning. Baby sitters and classmates put on government payrolls. Enemies black listed. Directions to staff to conduct state business with personal email that hides what is being done and how it is done from voters and taxpayers.

Good government does not work in the dark. That is why we have the first amendment. Voters and taxpayers have the right to know what government is doing, how they are spending our money.

It is almost like Sarah Palin learned how to govern from Karl Rove. She could be very dangerous to this country. She is not qualified to be vice president. She does not know the difference between right and wrong, public and personal.

John McCain asked Palin to be his vice president for political reasons. He made a terrible mistake.

Sarah Palin lies

2008-09-12T07:34:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin did not say "no" to the Alaskan "bridge to nowhere." In fact, she took the money and spent it on something else in Alaska.

Sarah Palin did not "control" the oil of Alaska. She was governor of the state from where the oil was pumped from federal lands.

Sarah Palin knows nothing of Russia, except she could nearly see it from her back door. Yet she threatens to go to war. She says that ignorance is a blessing, that the less she knows, the better she is.

That's what George Bush said. He damaged our country. She is just as reckless, maybe more so. Her church believes the world will end in a war with Russia. The sooner the world ends, the sooner they get to heaven.

Sarah Palin tried to get her brother-in-law fired from his job as a cop when her sister's marriage broke up. She fired former staff who did not agree with her when she was mayor. She billed the state of Alaska to stay in her own home. She puts her personal agenda over the welfare of her citizens.

In other words, Sarah Palin may be corrupt. She certainly should not be vice president.

The Bush/McCain style is back and is worse than ever. Lie to the voters, scare the voters, get the voters to forget that they are losing their jobs, their schools, their ability to afford health care. That is the Bush/McCain legacy. They should be thrown out of office.

But instead, they have found a pretty face and pretend they are starting a revolution in Washington.

They are lying. Just like they have always lied. They are wasting our tax dollars. They are trashing our schools. They are sending Medicare dollars to giant corporations instead of lowering health care costs for the average citizen. Our roads and bridges are crumbling.

They sent our children to a war without purpose. Without armor.

They gloat over $4.50 a gallon gasoline, (the Bush cabinet is FULL of people with ties to the oil industry) and then say the cure is to let the oil companies take MORE oil from federal land and sell us fuel at maybe $4.25 a gallon. While those responsible for overseeing the oil industry are doing drugs and sleeping with oil company people.

We need roads and bridges schools and health care that doesn't cost 25% of our monthly paycheck. We don't need nasty lies from pretty women who pretend they are something they are not.

We need Obama.

About the issues

2008-09-05T08:01:00.000-07:00

The other day I got into a discussion about Obama. My friend thought Obama was a lightweight, but he couldn't stomach the idea yet of voting for McCain.

After not knowing the facts about Obama's voting record in the Senate as well as my friend, I did something strange. I started talking about the issues. Which I had mistakenly thought this election was about.

You want the country to invest in universal health care, vote Obama, or else you want more Bush/McCain give-away to giant drug companies. You want cheaper gas? Vote Obama for alternative energy, or vote Bush/McCain for more give-away to Exxon and giant oil companies. You want more opportunity for your kids? Vote Obama, or vote Bush/McCain so Republican elites can send their kids to private schools while your schools remain crappy.

On the issues, the choice is very clear. Obama represents the interests of most Americans. Under Republicans, wages have fallen, the income gap between the rich and middle class has grown, the country has suffered.

Bush is giving $1 billion to Georgia (the country). How about $1 billion to fix some bridges here in Oregon?

The Republicans brag that they can take this election by making it about personality instead of the issues. They call for ordinary Americans to take sides with the party that truly hurts them by saying that Democrats don't respect them. They want to use resentment to steal from the middle class and give to the rich. That is their record, that is what they do.

And we should not let them. It is not what this election should be about. It's got to be about about jobs, health care, energy, schools, the future. These are things that matter, and on these things, the Obama ticket has said all the right things.

The Republicans have said nearly nothing at all, but their record while controlling Congress and the White House speaks for itself.

Why Obama makes economic sense

2008-08-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

For too long Republican's have shoveled a load of misunderstandings about education, energy, and health care into the public area. Most of it was put forth by their corporate owners: right wing fringe groups, oil companies and insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

They are wrong. Here's why:

While we pay taxes to fund public education, the money spent is also a national investment. Many of the greatest victories of the United States since W.W.II have resulted from education. We buried the Soviet Union because of our wealth, and our wealth came from a strong, educated productive work force. We put a man on the moon. We developed the computer industry.

From the G.I. Bill to strong state colleges to quality high schools and the elementary and middle schools that feed them, good education builds a strong economy, and a strong economy builds a strong country.

The same is true of energy. The result of our addiction to oil is plain to see: Years of war in Iraq, fuel approaching $5 a gallon and soon inflation because of the cost of trucking food to our tables and shipping T-shirts from China.

Drilling for the few barrels left near our own shores does not break the addiction. We need more electricity and we need it now and it has to come from wind and solar. Instead of giving tax breaks to promising innovation, the nation is giving billions to the wealthiest corporations on the planet, the oil companies. We feed the addiction that way, when we need to break the habit.

Health care is broken in the U.S. It is soaking up too much of our income. Sending the sick to emergency rooms loads up that system, and it is a terribly expensive way to provide health care. We need to focus on keeping people healthy, not making them sicker before we let them get better.

We need change in this country not only from the last eight years. We need a change of thinking about how we invest in America. The sacrifice won’t be easy, and the payoff a generation away, but this is what we need to do for our children.

McCain is the new Bush

2008-08-25T05:04:00.001-07:00

John McCain is too old. He can't use email. And he is not very smart. He can't say hello to a crowd without 3 x 5 cards.

Aside from being shot down as a Navy pilot, and surviving, and marrying rich after cheating on his first wife, he has not done much. He wears that Navy hat everywhere, it goes on just after he brushes his teeth in the morning, just to remind you that decades ago he was a prisoner of war.

Was being captured really that heroic? John Kerry was four times the hero John McCain ever was.

The hat should also remind you his father was an admiral in charge of the Pacific at the time and that may have been part of the reason McCain got into Annapolis and why the North Vietnamese didn't just kill him.

McCain has spent a large portion of his life trying to be as good as his father. Just like Bush. And we know where that got us. He can't be as good because he doesn't deserve it. Never did and never will. But he will always try to seem tough. If he was really tough he would have become a Marine. Trying to seem tough is why Bush got us into Iraq.

John McCain doesn't know what it is like to buy a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread. He is so rich he doesn't know how many houses he has. You think he can relate to you guys working in the auto parts store, managing the Safeway, driving truck? He doesn't really even like you. He just wants you to be afraid so he can use you to seize power. He is a tool of the Bush Cheney machine. He wants to make a tool out of you.

McCain believes in tax cuts for the rich because he is rich. He believes in drilling for oil off the U.S. coast because he is supported by companies that want to maintain our addiction to oil. They are giving your money to oil companies and big insurance companies and drug companies, some of which aren't even American, in exchange for campaign contributions and Republican trips to Scotland.

The Bush administration did not create jobs. McCain is just like them. The Bush administration saw wages fall. McCain is just like them. The Bush administration allowed lead-tainted toys to poison our children, allowed credit card companies to charge 25% interest, and allowed handsomely paid bankers to create havoc in our economy. McCain is just like them. Under the Republicans, not only did government not protects us, it turned against us.

Are you better off now than when Bush took office? Blame Bush/Cheney. John McCain is just like them.

Father’s Day letters

2008-06-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

On Father’s Day I decided to send a couple of letters to each of my daughters. They will be dated on the twins 15th birthday, 2008.

They are to be opened in 2018, and 2028. I don’t know yet how to hold and send, but there is time to figure that out.

I want the girls to remember, then, the details of today that will otherwise fade. Through their father’s eyes, his joy and worry winding like rivulets down through time, contained within the banks of their lives.

A recall of their wonder and laughter at the smooth-skinned tiny rubber boa snake that was wrapped around a stick, thinking it was hidden because it had stuck its head in a crack. My hope that there was a life lesson there. When I showed them that he thought he was safe in a cave, with most of him outside, they laughed out loud.

When the girls open those letters decades from now, I want to give them a fresher memory about who they were. Hopefully this will give them a better understanding of who they have become.

Will they remember the effort to carry a mattress from one room to the other when their best friend came for a sleep-over? That effort may be important in a future when they think they are too tired to get off the couch.

If we are all at any moment the summation of who we have been, today is a too thin slice of time. We stack these slices, our fears and our joys, days and nights banding like alternating colors, and after a while the pile becomes so high that we can’t go back and see with clarity this day, a day that was unremarkable except for the fact that it was the present then, with fewer bumps and scars and tools and certificates pasted to the outside.

At some point in their future I want the past to come alive. I want to count the number of holes we put in the wall playing darts when we missed the whole board. I want them to remember that some dart holes in the wall were absolutely fine at one point in their lives, that fear of consequence was not the only principal of living.

I imagine them opening the envelopes like they were letters from a friend. But instead of some far away place, the letters were posted from a far away hour, not distant in miles or memory but enveloping them now, whenever that is, tying us together in the timelessness of love.

Seduction of life without consequences

2008-06-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

A while back we noted that the current financial and economic upheaval might have long term impact on how we live. Eye wrote about it in August of 2007, and referred to it again in March of this year, and again in May.

David Brooks has just done a far better job than Eye in an outstanding piece on why and how the current downturn affects us socially. (Read it here.) Brooks calls the current situation "The Great Seduction" and notes how our country's prosperity was built on "hard work, temperance and frugality."

Because he is an honest writer, Brooks offers a few solutions, then concludes:

"There are dozens of things that could be done. But the most important is to shift values. Franklin made it prestigious to embrace certain bourgeois virtues. Now it’s socially acceptable to undermine those virtues. It’s considered normal to play the debt game and imagine that decisions made today will have no consequences for the future."

Brooks misses one very important point. It may be necessary to allow greater hardship i.e., consequences, as a result of profligacy. This is the only way to modify behavior. The extent to which society, or government, mitigates consequences is the extent to which the problem will persist.

This is not just human nature, it is biology at its most basic. Why would we not do what we evolved to do, if there is no reason not to do it? That is why Franklin's message was so well regarded. He was offering a suggestion on how to improve life when the consequences of not doing so were dire.

The unpleasant side of this today is that there will be suffering that we are not used to seeing in America for the last couple of generations. And we will want to prevent the worst of this. But to be effective, we need to realize that every effort to reduce hardship above a "hit bottom" level will prolong it, or postpone it and make it worse when eventually the bills have to be paid.

Clintons lie and show disrespect

2008-06-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

Bill and Hillary Clinton’s desperation has become repulsive. Their dishonesty shameful. They are now the source of bright light on why the nation needs Obama.

No Bill jokes, here. We all know his history. But the Clintons have now increased the shrillness of their spin, their slant, their denials and their lies. They do it as they breathe. It is time to push back.

As the Clinton machine squabbles and threatens over the votes of Michigan and Florida, more of us need to talk about the fact that last year Clinton, along with other candidates, agreed that disputed delegates should not have full representation if they violated party rules. Obama even took his name off the Michigan ballot. Clinton did not. Maybe because she didn’t mean it.

Now that they are losing, the Clintons want to “move the goal posts,” change the rules in the middle of the game, pretend that it is about the integrity of the process instead of about winning. The lousiest of Kindergarten behavior.

But this is quite typical of Bill and Hillary. Again we are confronted with the incredible arrogance that drove the right wing nearly insane in the late 1990s: It is not just the lies, but the clear belief that lies don’t matter, that the truth does not matter.

They will fan class warfare to get to the White House, by portraying Obama as the elite. By saying critics of Hillary are the elite, saying economists who dismiss her stupid plan to eliminate gas taxes as “elite opinion,” when it becomes clear her policies would make the nation worse off (read it here).

What unmitigated horse crap. What amazing cynicism. The bold, calculating manipulating arrogance of it is simply breathtaking. They are willing to damage the country to get to the White House.

Bill Clinton says those urging his wife to get out of the race don’t worry about jobs or health insurance. (Read it here). Hillary claims she ducked under sniper fire, then says she misspoke when video showed otherwise. Bill pretends to champion the poor while lying to the poor, misleading while pretending to be a friend, having made $100 million since leaving the White House.

At this point it is obvious they would offer help to a blind man to get proper change, then slip a $1 bill in place of the $5. Anything goes if it is for a good cause, and they get to decide what that might be.

They use the uneducated because the educated favor Obama. Does education matter? Yes, it does. It does not make one right, but it matters. The Clintons say the opposite, that education somehow makes one’s opinion less meaningful. This is an odd stance for a Rhodes Scholar married to a Yale Law graduate. But the Clintons will say anything, use anybody.

Clinton is of the old order: Lie when you have to, change the rules when you can, do whatever it takes, dirty politics. Nobody really wants that. A woman in the White House? Sure. That woman? No.

We don’t want people who will do anything to get power to have power. It really is that simple.

It is time for change. Obama in ‘08.

Excessive Force

2008-05-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

Portland cops are up in arms over a new "use of force rule." (Read it here.)

The policy is for supervisors to meet with those officers who have used force more frequently than most to determine if there are "... training gaps...issues... or other concerns..."

The policy hit police officers "like a ton of bricks," and caused them to be "upset, distraught and discouraged, to say the least."

Are we sure we want to put such delicate sensibilities on the street, carrying guns?

Aside from standard union posturing, ratcheting up rhetoric and portraying cops as victims, there is little news here, and little will happen.

Here's a study we would like to see: Every cop on the city's payroll should take a blood test once a year on a random basis for steroids. Any "use of force incident" should result in a blood test. If steroids are present, or any psychoactive drug, the cop looks for another job. Period. Zero tolerance. No disability pay, either.

Steroid use is well known in the macho culture of weight rooms, and "Roid rage" is well documented. Many reported "use of force" incidents by cops in Portland simply beg for a blood test for steroids.

It won't happen, of course. The unions are too powerful, the citizens too weak. They have the guns and poorly worded laws on their side, we have a free press and damn little else. We have made a trade-off, whether we like it or not.

Saving money by the gallon

2008-05-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

If I am gentle with the throttle and shift into neutral on the way down long hills I can get more than 25 miles a gallon from my car. It is a "sports" car, capable of extreme performance, but mileage is not its strong point. It’s far better than my truck, though, and with gas close to $4 a gallon and diesel at $4.50, I think about it.

One friend, a teacher, has a large V-twin motorcycle. He loves it and rides nearly every day. Another, a professional pilot, rides his BMW motorcycle to work. He gets 50 miles per gallon. But his job is about 50 miles away, he has always ridden motorcycles, and he enjoys it, too.

I asked each of them a lot of questions. Then I sat down and thought about whether I should get a motorcycle.

One day, on his way home from work at more than 60 miles per hour, the pilot hit a deer. He was OK after tumbling and skidding down the highway because he always, always wears the full suit that kept him alive, at least not abraded to the bone, leaving flesh on the pavement, seriously and permanently disabled.

He got another bike and still rides. In truth, that deer could have killed him if he was driving his Honda sedan. But he does not ride at night. Period. Can't ride in winter when there is ice and snow on the road. The suit can be hot, or cold, and things get a little dicey, and miserable, in the rain.

But he gets about double the mileage as I do in my car.

Let's see. Ten miles to town and back for the mail. That is actually about a "20 miles-per-gallon" trip because of the stops and starts. So let's say I'd use half a gallon. A couple of bucks. And to be lazy with the math, let's say it is a buck in gas for the motorcycle.

If someone stood in my garage with a crisp dollar bill as I headed for my car and said, "... give you a buck if you take another five minutes to put on your gear, ride extra carefully a half mile down your gravel driveway, into town to the post office, take off your helmet but leave on the rest of your hot Kevlar suit, get the mail, put on your helmet, go to the store, take off your helmet, buy a dozen eggs to fit into the saddle packs, come home, up that gravel drive and take off all your gear."

My answer would be, um, no. Not that much fun.

And one reason I gave up motorcycles years ago is that I nearly killed myself three times on bikes in the 70s. Even if bikes are faster and better now, I am not.

So I have come to the conclusion that for me, at least, a motorcycle is not the answer to $4 per gallon gas. Not even $10 per gallon. Too much hassle, I don't love it enough, and I won't take my daughters on a bike.

As it is, driving less has cut my consumption way down, and kept my fuel cost to about what it was before the recent run up in prices. I make far fewer spontaneous 40 mile round trips to Bend, planning a little better. I don't make unnecessary "boredom runs" into Sisters for a newspaper or a chat with the local editor. And that leads to my reading more books and to less air pollution.

By 2010 I want a small, enclosed cockpit vehicle that will give me 100 miles per tank of compressed air that I can fill with the compressor in my garage or one under the seat. Three wheels would be fine if two are in front, but full crash cage is required, because I don't want to hassle with a suit or helmet, and I want it to seat three, though two of those can be cramped.

The day has arrived in America when our addiction to oil has driven us to choose between fuel or health care, fuel or food, or roads, or schools. But one of the strengths of this nation has been its ability to innovate our way out of crisis and into the future. It was only 20 years ago we gave the world the personal computer.

It will be interesting to see if we have the will and the brains to do something like that again.

Past her shelf life

2008-05-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday while one of the twins was at violin lesson I ran into the county clerk's office to vote. Moving to the hilltop meant I had to change the address on my registration.

There is something about Hillary at this point that is just a little rancid. Maybe it's the lies (sniper fire), maybe the pandering (gas tax), maybe the do-whatever-it-takes-to-win (the racist card).

But it is hard to look at her now and not have the same sensation that one has in sniffing the carton of milk of expired date in the fridge. You know it's not fresh, you can't tell if it's sour, and wonder if a taste will ruin your day. Or the off-color burger. It doesn't seem too bad, but you know it isn't good.

It's one thing when it is the only food in the house, the temptation to hold your nose and cook it up and serve it up and deal with it. Kinda like the last few presidential elections, in fact. Politics as usual.

But now there is someone fresh, a natural leader, a very smart man who, though beat up a little by the process, doesn't seem tainted. With that available, why would we vote for Clinton?

Obama '08.

Perfect storms

2008-05-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my twin middle school daughters were astounded at the nightly news as the three of us ate dinner. Earthquakes in China, cyclones in Burma, fires in Florida, tornadoes in Oklahoma. "It feels like the world is falling apart," said one.

When all these things threaten us at once, we want to see a larger hand at work, that global warming is ruining our world for human habitation. And it may be.

Or it may just be that many things happen at the same time. Always. Even items that are intertwined can have separate causes, and different solutions.

In a month we have had the home mortgage mess, a banking crisis, recession howling on the horizon, oil price inflation, and the threat of currency collapse.

Bernake said today that the banking system credit crunch, while far from over, may be easing. He may have saved the day, though longer term fixes probably need to be developed that will improve transparency and moderate leverage.

The mortgage mess, while related, is separate in the way it impacts individuals, a resolution may also be working its way through the system. That starts with, "Don't borrow more than you can pay back."

Be wary of quick fixes here from politicians that would reduce the ability of people to aspire to home ownership.

Yes, there is the recession. It is here, and it will be long lasting. The entire baby boom generation has been living beyond their means. The bills will be paid.

But there are many assets lying around, and it is not a bad thing for this group, especially, to learn to live with less. There is a certain joy in finding economies.

And it may be that it is in crisis that empathies sprout, perhaps, for those whose lives have been ravaged by storms beyond their control, those impacted by tectonic shifts in the gloabal economy, those treading water whose standard of living sinks as the price of everything climbs.

Shut up, Peter

2008-05-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

Oregon's Peter DeFazio has always been a loose canon, to be sure, and often off target. But he threatens the interests of those who agree with him when he gets it as wrong as he did yesterday.

Introducing Barak Obama, Defazio said of John McCain: "He says we need less regulation," said DeFazio in his introduction of Obama. "Hello! Wall Street mortgage meltdown, Bear Stearns taxpayer bailout, Enron, but, you know, I guess maybe for a guy who was up to his neck in the Keating Five and savings and loan scandal less regulation is better."

Defazio's ignorance of economics is striking. Especially for a member of congress who was in office during each of these issues, even if in the minority party.

Let's deal with Bear Stearns. The Fed did not "bail out" Bear Stearns, which was sold to another company for what, $10 per share and ceased to exist. Investors and employees of Bear Stearns got creamed. That's not a bail out.

By facilitating the sale for pennies on the dollar, the fed did make sure that those who had dealt with Bear Stearns were able to have contracts honored. This in turn helped others know that contracts would be honored. This probably kept the entire banking system from freezing up at a time when there were some serious concerns.

That's the problem with liberals Like DeFazio who are ignorant of economics: They are willing to destroy a system and ruin lives for the sake of their ideology.

Enron? A company run amuck. But as any cop or District Attorney will tell you, sometimes you can't prevent crime, you have to punish it. Especially true when the laws are gray, the economy is changing. There will always be bad guys willing to scam the system.

The American people voted in a president and especially a vice president willing to collude with Enron. Enron too, blew up, evaporated, died. The company got caught, ceased to exist (corporate capial punishment?) accounting standards improved, federal laws were passed.

Pre-regulation may have helped, but it may also have come at a cost even greater than that finally paid. It would have been even worse if great minds in economics like Peter Defazio were in charge.

The mortgage mess? Mr. Defazio, we need transcripts of all the speeches you made identifying the problems with mortgage backed securities and other derivatives when the asset bubble began in real estate. Thank you.

In the mean time, others will be analyzing the actual issues and crafting the minimum laws, probably reserve requirements for investment banks and greater disclosure, needed to deal with it.

Defazio helps no one when he shoots off his mouth, and his tendency toward self-righteousness makes him one of the less effective members of Congress. But right now, it could hurt the best candidate for president the left has had in a generation.

Shut up, Peter.

Obama in '08.