Later On

The GOP just hates social welfare programs, which is why the endless attack on Social Security, which works fine, thank you. Medicare has been a problem, but difficult to address: the problem is the cost of healthcare with private insurers as middlemen getting their cut and their diagnostic demands, with fees ever-increasing. So something has to be done, and the GOP is drooling with delight: they can cut the program and privatize what’s left: yes, save money by turning a non-profit operation to a company that will do the same work and also add in their profits. Great. (Cf. privatization of military, with KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater, etc.) The companies that will run Medicare will be the insurance companies.

Here’s the story.

The Eldest reports an interesting new development: UPS refusing to deliver a package unless someone over 21 is there to sign for it. They do give you an 8-hour window: “Be at home between 9:00 a.m. and 5 p.m. the next day”, but of course people have to work. And they offer the option of driving to their central office out in the country to pick it up, but… people have to work.

The odd thing is, when The Eldest called, is that that though Amazon required the signature (according to UPS), the item was just a small kitchen appliance. So she called Amazon to ask why they were requiring signature.

Interesting finding: They don’t. Amazon.com does not reuire the signature unless the item is over $700. UPS simply made up the requirement. Why?

A possible clue: UPS offered The Eldest the option of accepting delivery at work for a modest $6 charge.

Hmmm. It could be a rogue UPS office, or it could be a new UPS scam. Amazon did say that they have received multiple calls about this.

Beware.

Interesting column that traces using military tactics (beatings, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and the like) on non-violent protests—that is, the origin of the use of those tactics in the US. They are commonly used in other countries, in which case the US has been quick to condemn the attacks on peaceful protesters.

Many in the US seem offended by the lack of gratitude from those other countries whose children we kill at a great rate—the feeling (expressed by many) is indignation that “those people” would object to the US presence and routine killings of unarmed civilians. Somehow “those people” are supposed to accept their lot, which is to receive missiles, bombs, and bullets from US troops as we will.

Similarly, many in the US absolutely reject the idea that the 9/11 attacks and hostility towards the US in much of the world has anything at all to do with US actions. Instead, these believe, the hostility toward the US is because in the US we are “free” and that somehow annoys people.

At any rate, we’re still doing it. Taimoor Shah and Rod Nordlund report in the NY Times:

Six children were among seven civilians killed in a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Thursday.

The deaths occurred on Wednesday in Zhare District of Kandahar Province, an area described by coalition forces as largely pacified in recent months, and two insurgents were also killed, the Afghan officials said.

A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Master Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, said the authorities were aware of the episode and had sent a team to the district to investigate. He said ISAF had not previously issued a news release on the deaths.

Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar, said that a NATO reconnaissance aircraft spotted five militants planting mines in the village of Siacha, in Zhare District on Wednesday. The plane targeted the insurgents, killing two and wounding a third, and then pursued the other two suspects as they carried their injured comrade away.

“The plane chased them, the insurgents entered a street where children were playing and as a result of its shooting, seven people have been killed, including six children, and two girls also have been injured,” Mr. Ayoubi said. The victims were members of two families.

American troops have destroyed numerous dwellings in Zhare to deny insurgents hiding places, and they have also built new roads across farmland because existing ones were so heavily mined. Residents were quickly compensated by the military, however, and in recent months the area, one of several districts near Kandahar city that were once Taliban strongholds, has been relatively quiet.

In very few cases, so far as I can tell, are troops punished for civilian casualties. The atitude seems to be, “We can accept this—why can’t they?”

Maybe if we kill enough civilians, we won’t have to worry about terrorists anymore…

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has an excellent column on how journalists and pundits today support very bad behavior: they have become apparatchiks. From the column (but read the whole thing):

. . . (1) The overarching rule of “journalistic objectivity” is that a journalist must never resolve any part of a dispute between the Democratic and the Republican Parties, even when one side is blatantly lying. They must instead confine themselves only to mindlessly describing what each side claims and leave it at that. Their refusal to label Mitt Romney’s first campaign ad to be dishonest — even though it wildly misquoted Obama — is a perfect example; so, too, was their refusal to call torture “torture” on the ground that Bush officials called it something else. This is also what The Washington Post‘s Congress reporter Paul Kane meant in his widely disparaged attack this week on those who condemn the media’s “cult of balance”; when Kane defended the political media’s trite, reflexive both-parties-are-at-fault coverage of the Super Committee’s failure by saying “news coverage should always strive to present both sides of the story,” what he means is: whenever Democratic and GOP leaders say different things, it’s the job of opinion writers — but not us objective reporters — to say what the truth is; our job is simply to faithfully write down what each side says and go home.

To these types of journalists, “objectivity” compels that lies and truths be treated equally and never resolved — that is, when the dispute is between the two parties (they allow themselves exceptions to this mandate — their overt swooning for George Bush and contempt for Al Gore in 2000 was probably the most blatant example, and they also eagerly seize every opportunity presented by sex scandals to self-righteously rail against a political figure because sex is apolitical and thus entails no danger of being accused of political bias — but, in general, mindless neutrality in disputes among the two parties is the prime commandment of their objectivity religion).

(2) When it comes to views not shared by the leadership of the two parties, as in the above excerpt from the Paul interview, everything changes. Views that reside outside of the dogma of the leadership of either party are inherently illegitimate. Such views are generally ignored, but in those rare instances where they find their way into the discourse — such as this Paul interview — it is the duty of “objective” reporters like Schieffer to mock, scorn and attack them. Indeed, many journalists — such as Tim Russert and David Ignatius — excused their failures in the run-up to the Iraq War by pointing to the fact that the leadership of both parties were generally in favor of the war: in other words, since war opposition was rarely found among the parties’ leadership, it did not exist and/or was inherently illegitimate (in a March, 2003 interview, Schieffer explained what a great job the American media did in the run-up to the war). Relatedly, only members in good standing of the political establishment command deference; those who are situated outside that establishment — and only them — are to be treated with mockery and contempt (that is what explains the overt scorn by “objective journalists” toward, for instance, the Occupy movement).

I would have no problem with Schieffer’s adversarial behavior here if this were also how he treated claims made by David Petraeus, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton. But one would never, ever see that. Part of this is what Jay Rosen calls “the Church of the Savvy”: journalists revere power and political success and thus revere those who wield it in their world (Washington) while scorning those who do not (like Paul). But part of it is also that their function is to defend the political establishment of which they are a part and glorify its orthodoxies — defined as: the approved views of the leadership of the two parties, which in turn reflect the interests of the private factions that control both parties — and, conversely, to try to delegitimize any views and/or persons posing a challenge to it.

This is why one sees truly adversarial conduct from establishment journalists applied only to those who are relatively powerless and marginalized (i,e., OWS), or to those views that have no currency within the political establishment (Paul’s foreign policy/civil liberties arguments) . These journalists are, first and foremost, advocates, defenders, and spokespeople for prevailing establishment wisdom and institutions. They have every right to advocate for those views, but it is anything but “objective.” The problem with the Bob Schieffers of the world isn’t that they ooze political bias and subjectivity; most human beings do. The problem is that they’re fraudulently presented as journalists who don’t.

(3) There is another standard media bias at play in this Schieffer interview which . . .

Read it all.

Interesting post with lots of links for good reading on why the US has become unable to act legislatively.

Interesting article by Katharine Bagley in The Scientist:

Starving neurons of the hypothalamus appear to take a two-pronged approach to nutrient shortages: eat themselves in a process called autophagy as a short-term fix, and set off a cascade to make the organism crave more food, according to new research. The findings, published today (August 2) in Cell Metabolism, may explain why intense dieting can be so hard to stick with, and help scientists develop novel therapies to fight obesity, according to the study authors.

“The present study identifies the missing link [between the brain and weight control] as autophagy,” said Vojo Deretic, chair of the University of New Mexico’s department of molecular genetics and microbiology, who was not involved in the research. “It is definitely an interesting paper that may lead to bigger things in the future.”

Many people who try to diet simply can’t stick with the program, often driven by strong cravings for junk foods high in fat. Previous studies have demonstrated that increased levels of fatty acids floating extracellularly in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that monitors nutritional status, triggers cravings. But the mechanisms that controlled the levels of these fatty molecules inside brain cells were unknown.

Molecular biologist Susmita Kaushik and her colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, decided to investigate one variety of hypothalamic neuron, the . . .

Continue reading.

I decided to go for an extra-nice holiday shave. An interchange on Wicked_Edge reminded me that it’s been a while since I used a moist hot towel, so today, after my shower and washing my beard at the sink with MR GLO, I worked up a splendid lather (quite easy with Martin de Candre shaving soap, and the Frank Shaving brush is a little gem as well—thanks to psywiped at Wicked_Edge for pushing me to give those another go. A good layer of Creamy Lather, then a hand towel soaked under the hot-water faucet, wrong “dry” and applied atop the lather and held in place for 3 minutes while I thought about the day.

Remove towel, relather, and a superb three-pass shave with the iKon OSS holding a Shark Chrome blade. A splash of Saint Charles Shave Savory Rose, and I’m ready to get set for the holiday. I’m going to use this recipe for the duck breast (one each apiece, all round), more or less. No cayenne, though: The Wife is not tolerating capsaicin well recently. I’ll sauté some wild rice with garlic and onions, and cook a mess of red chard with diced lemon.