YouTube Removes Viral Video on Palins Churches
For Inappropriate Content

post from Crooks and Liars on 15 September 2008 06:00:56 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo.Talk To Action: Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God and attended the church for over two and a half decades, and she has been publicly blessed by a number of pastors and religious leaders employed by and associated with that church.Last Sunday [...]

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This is Weird

post from Open Left - Front Page on 15 September 2008 05:56:37 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

That's Mitt Romney calling McCain out on lying, following on Karl Rove's assertions that McCain has[...]

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McCain packs them in in Florida

post from DemConWatch on 15 September 2008 05:53:00 PM. © DemConWatch

- Huff Post

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McCain and Palin, in their own words, about
putting women's bodies under governmental control

post from media girl - progressive, feminist, empowered on 15 September 2008 05:52:34 PM. © media girl - progressive, feminist, empowered

video details and more

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NC-Pres: Despite Palin-fueled GOP surge, Dems
still winning voter registration battle

post from Daily Kos on 15 September 2008 05:50:10 PM. © Daily Kos

Voter registration numbers in the past couple of months.

Let's start on August 2, 2008, with the following numbers:

Democrats: 2,669,616
Republican: 1,937,735

And then the week by week additions:

Week Democratic Republican

08/09 3,833 709 08/16 4,354 531 08/23 2,188 275 08/30 3,410 688 09/06 4,851 1,309 09/13 7,307 2,942

Palin will have more of an effect on already-registered evangelical voters, no doubt. But when it comes to this measure of voter intensity -- it's obvious that Democratic energy still outweighs whatever new excitement Palin brought to the table.

Going back to the first week of 2008, the two main parties have added the following number of voters:

Democrats +184,113
Republicans +24,614

Kerry lost North Carolina by 435,000 votes in 2004. Assuming everyone who registered this year votes (for both parties), those new voters can close nearly 37 percent of that deficit. And even with their Palin-fueled surge, Democrats are still far outpacing GOP voter registration efforts.

(Voter registration numbers courtesy of my brother, who brought them to my attention.)

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Palin installed a $400 tanning bed at the
governor's mansion

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 15 September 2008 05:50:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

I understand these sell well on eBay. Ben Smith and Al Giordano have more. Oh, and remember, the media had no problem making fun of John Edwards' $400 haircut...

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Palin cut funding for Alaska Special Olympics.

post from Think Progress on 15 September 2008 05:29:00 PM. © Think Progress

Campaigning in Colorado today, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) promised renewed attention to kids with special needs. She declared, “Ever since I took the chief executive’s job up North I pushed for more funding for students with special needs,” and cited her own family’s experience with the issue. Watch it:

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It’s a stretch to say she “pushed” for any policy improvements. Though Palin did sign a law increasing special education funding in Alaska, “she had no role whatsoever” in its development, according to the bill’s author, Rep. Mike Hawker (R). Moreover, as governor, Palin vetoed $275,000 in Special Olympics Alaska funds (Page 100, SB 221 with vetoes), slashing the organization’s operating budget in half.

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Tracking The Tracking Polls: Have McCain/Palin
Peaked

post from MyDD on 15 September 2008 05:27:51 PM. © MyDD

Here are the trackers with their 3-day rolling averages and the trends from the prior 3 days: Rasmussen Reports (w/leaners) 9/12-14 McCain/Palin 49 (50, 49, 49...) Obama/Biden 47 (47, 46, 46...) Gallup 9/12-14 McCain/Palin 47 (47, 47, 48...) [...]

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Re-Examine Economics, a Failed Profession

Now is a time for economic populist specifics -- let's see if we hear any of that from Obama -- but, even more so, 'radical' economic thinking. One thing that needs to take place is a re-examination of the basic thrust of an at-present failed profession, economics ('the pro-deregulation ideology'), and its result, present-day economic policy. Here's some, from a couple of discussions last year at tpmcafe (and no, imho, the upside-down and 'one-side of a phone conversation' aspects don't compromise the understandability):

Neo-classical engineering would believe that the perfect bridge is one built under gravity-free conditions. Engineers would strive, always and foremost, to persuade policymakers to move the real world closer to that perfect, gravity-free world.
And what's wrong with that?! (snark)
Posted at June 1, 2007 10:07 AM in response to The Methodology or The People

Or we need to accept -- based on the overwhelming predominance of an oligopolistic economic real world -- that everyone will not play fair, and then regulate the resultant oligopolies intelligently.
To "make sure everyone plays fair" should not be the purpose of government. Instead, governments should regulate the economy in order to produce the best economic outcomes based on the values expressed by the people who elect those governments.
For example, economic security is often associated with economies that are predominantly oligopolies/oligopsonies well-regulated to ameliorate some of the counter-productive features of such economic arrangements. If economic security is a high priority for the citizenry, and I think it is, then economic policy should favor less competitively 'cut-throat' economic arrangements in favor of smartly regulated oligopolies/oligopsonies.
Posted at June 1, 2007 9:59 AM in response to The Methodology or The People

... economic theory works well when choices are available to the participants in the marketplace, and breaks down or at least becomes chaotic in either monopolistic or monopsonic conditions.
(By economic theory, I'll assume you mean neo-classical economic theory.) Monopoly and monopsony (and oligopoly and oligopsony) have long been well-studied 'breakdowns' of the simplistic neo-classical system. Since these phenomena are the norm in nearly all markets, any sincere Econ 1A class would make mono/oli 'breakdowns' a major feature of a slightly less-than-basic economic model. This was in fact the case back in the good ol' days of the 1970s.
You know, funny thing about the real world: when we had the ATT monopoly many hundreds of thousands of communications workers had a strong union, job security, good wages and good pensions. That is no longer the case for most similar workers today. Perhaps we need to re-evaluate monopolies and oligopolies, and how they may be good for the economy if they are properly regulated, compared to the entirely predictable alternatives. And perhaps we should admit that real world motivations will naturally and inevitably create oligopolistic and monopolistic industrial arrangements, and that real world economic policy should think about making the best of such arrangements instead of fighting them and doing great economic damage.
Posted at June 1, 2007 9:47 AM in response to The Methodology or The People

I think you missed my point. The perfectly competitive economic model is absurd, and I think we agree it has very little to do with the real world. So it's frustrating to see you arguing with it, even now. I hate to see your fine mind wasted debating with schizophrenics in an insane asylum, but that is apparently what 'mainstream' neoclassical economics forces people in the field to do, endlessly and without making any headway. It will not advance economic thinking for the real world in order to 'argue' with the crazy idea of perfectly competitive markets.
(About 'efficient': one person's efficiency is another person's inefficiency. Perhaps you meant 'economic efficiency'.)
I hope you can see in the crazy but very important context of currently dominant economic thinking how the reality of economic history can be helpful. Of course history is not a research laboratory or a mathematical equation, but it is quite clear on the relative prosperity of the pre-and-post Friedman-ite economics eras. I'll take that, and if I were a policymaker or politician I'd favor the policies that 'seemed' to be working during that prosperous era. (These included, importantly, 'infant industries' strategies, 'incomes' policies, and restricting the export of domestic capital).
As you know, the deregulatory argument when Friedman's economic thinking came to dominate policy has been that deregulation makes the economy more competitive, pushes it toward that 'perfect' econ 1A model. Of course this was not true, deregulation often makes the economy less competitive, and frequently such policies advance and entrench 'natural' monopoly and oligopoly. But it is utterly counterproductive to answer that argument with a search for alternative ways to advance us toward the perfect competition model. I think that is where you may be stuck.
Instead of still attempting unrealistically to advance reality toward a simplistic model of unknown real world effects, why not simply advocate economic policy that has seemed -- using real economic measures of real economies -- to work in the past? And if construction of models and theories is your orientation, then form theory around the facts of post-war history rather than the baby talk of Econ 1A.
Posted at June 1, 2007 9:08 AM in response to It's Different for Lefties and Righties

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That's Using Your Head...Not!

This story in today?s New York Times tells us about a court ruling in India, in which a woman was sentenced to life in prison under the following circumstances?

The woman, Aditi Sharma, was accused of killing her former fiancé, Udit Bharati. They were living in Pune when Ms. Sharma met another man and eloped with him to Delhi. Later Ms. Sharma returned to Pune and, according to prosecutors, asked Mr. (Udit) Bharati to meet her at a McDonald?s. She was accused of poisoning him with arsenic-laced food.

Ms. Sharma, 24, agreed to take a Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature (BEOS) test in Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra. (Suspects may be tested only with their consent, but forensic investigators say many agree because they assume it will spare them an aggressive police interrogation.)

After placing 32 electrodes on Ms. Sharma?s head, investigators said, they read aloud their version of events, speaking in the first person (?I bought arsenic?; ?I met Udit at McDonald?s?), along with neutral statements like ?The sky is blue,? which help the software distinguish memories from normal cognition.

For an hour, Ms. Sharma said nothing. But the relevant nooks of her brain where memories are thought to be stored buzzed when the crime was recounted, according to (Sunny) Joseph, the state investigator. The judge endorsed Mr. Joseph?s assertion that the scans were proof of ?experiential knowledge? of having committed the murder, rather than just having heard about it.

And by the way, Ms. Sharma insists that she?s innocent.

And in case you were wondering about whether or not Bushco is ?on board? with this (I'm sure you already know the answer, though)?

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has plowed money into brain-based lie detection in the hope of producing more fruitful counterterrorism investigations.

?

?I find this both interesting and disturbing,? Henry T. Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford Law School, said of the Indian verdict. ?We keep looking for a magic, technological solution to lie detection. Maybe we?ll have it someday, but we need to demand the highest standards of proof before we ruin people?s lives based on its application.?

?

If brain scans are widely adopted, (Mr. Greely and his colleague Judy Illes) said, ?the legal issues alone are enormous, implicating at least the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.?

This tells us about brain-based lie detector test conducted by No Lie MRI (clever) in Philadelphia in July or August 2006; no further word on that. Also, this tells us of further funded research into this experimental science in '07, and this tells us that?

Police may soon be able to monitor suspicious brain activity (not only by people watched by hidden surveillance cameras, but) from a distance as well. New neurotechnology soon may be able to detect a person who is particularly nervous, in possession of guilty knowledge or, in the more distant future, to detect a person thinking, "Only one hour until the bomb explodes." Today, the science of detecting and decoding brain activity is in its infancy. But various government agencies are funding the development of technology to detect brain activity remotely and are hoping to eventually decode what someone is thinking. Scientists, however, wildly disagree about the accuracy of brain imaging technology, what brain activity may mean and especially whether brain activity can be detected from afar.

Yet as the experts argue about the scientific limitations of remote brain detection, this chilling science fiction may already be a reality. In 2002, the Electronic Privacy Information Center reported that NASA was developing brain monitoring devices for airports and was seeking to use noninvasive sensors in passenger gates to collect the electronic signals emitted by passengers' brains. Scientists scoffed at the reports, arguing that to do what NASA was proposing required that an electroencephalogram (EEG) be physically attached to the scalp.

But that same year, scientists at the University of Sussex in England adapted the same technology they had been using to detect heart rates at distances of up to 1 meter, or a little more than three feet, to remotely detect changes in the brain. And while scientific limitations to remote EEG detection still exist, clearly the question is when, not if, these issues will be resolved.

And if all of this isn?t scary enough, it looks like this guy would be making his ?expertise? available on this stuff given what he said here to the late Tim Russert (snark).

(By the way, Blogger seems to be cooperating for now, but they?d better get rid of this goddamn word verification for my posts or else I?ll post at Wordpress exclusively from now on; this is definitely not a ?spam blog? ? please take a look at this on ?Governor Hottie,? if you would.)

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