deadissue.com

Ok, I will admit without any available facts I am pretty much just taking a page out of the FOX playbook, but…

Update: I guess I should admit this looks like it was probably gang related violence, but I would be willing to bet all the perpretraters were probably Christians.

Looks like Nissan is going to build an electric car for the masses.. The Nissan Leaf will have a range of 100 miles on a charge, which seems ample for most commutes. I wonder how many people will try to plug-in at work and pass all their commuting expenses on to their employer.

From Matt Yglesias:

This is how the political right operates—there’s a lot of rhetoric about free markets, and a lot of institutions that are staffed by people who very sincerely believe in free markets, but no real organized political movement on behalf of free markets except insofar as market-talk bolsters Republican Party electoral fortunes or rich people’s desire to pay lower taxes.

I think most fifteen-year-olds who read Ayn Rand really believe in the market based economy, they also think they are going to be the next John Galt, but for most everyone else it is just an excuse not to pay taxes.

Ok, not really but at least she is sort of using her celebrity for something worth while:

Can you say “strange bedfellows”? Octuplets mother Nadya Suleman, whose financial troubles have been well-documented, has accepted an offer from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: $5,000 and a month’s supply of vegan hot dogs and hamburger patties for her family of 15 in exchange for allowing the animal-rights group to place an ad on her lawn.

The ad — which, in light of Suleman’s status as a paparazzi magnet, is likely to attract a lot of eyeballs — makes light of the mother of 14′s “Octomom” nickname. “Don’t let your dog or cat become an ‘octomom’,” it reads, “Always spay or neuter. PETA.” Pictured beside the text is a mother cat nursing a litter of young kittens.

If I had any money I might try to get her to put up a sign regarding vasectomy’s.

The Hutaree militia was hoping to kill police officers in preparation for the end of days:

Conventional militia organizations are racing to distance themselves from the Hutaree — the Christian-based militia whose members were charged yesterday with conspiring to kill law enforcement as part of their preparation for the coming battle with the Anti-Christ. But that may be a tall order.

Appearing on CNN this morning, Michael Lackomar, a member of the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, called the Hutaree — also primarily based in Michigan — “really a fringe group outside of anything we do.”

“They’re more of a private army or a terrorist organization or really just a criminal organization,’ said Lackomar. He added that some of the Hutaree had sought refuge over the weekend with members of his group, who advised the Hutaree to turn themselves in.

But Mark Potok, the executive director of the Southern Poverty law Center, which tracks extremist groups, told TPMmuckraker that the Hutaree fit comfortably within the broader militia movement.

“The Hutaree were apparently ensconced right smack in the middle of the militia movement,” said Potok.

Potok explained that the more secular militia groups foresee an impending catastrophe in the form of the federal government confiscating weapons, imposing martial law, and herding those who resist into concentration camps. Ultimately, he said, they fear that the U.S. will be subsumed into a socialistic “One World Order,” under supra-national bodies like the U.N. or the EU.

Most militia members seem to have a foundation in Christian mythology which they then translate in violence against society, I think that trying to believe in things that are demonstratably false must lead people to violence.

Is their anything farmers don’t whine about?

And, most Tea partiers are unemployed so at least they have lots of free time to be idiots. Essentially the tea partiers are mad that government isn’t helping them, of course they bitch about it everytime anyone tries to do something that might help them out, because the government program might also help brown people.

Some smart people are not impressed with the bill passed last night:

So Healthcare reform has passed, a month or two ago it looked dead, but Obama and Co brought it back. I think later people will understand that obama’s best attribute is his persistance and steadyness. The White house lost the news cycle many days in a row, but in the end we have healthcare reform.

This sort of reminds me of the election where McCain spent all his time trying to win the newscycle and eventually lost the election because he seemed like a contestant on a reality show. The Republicans would probably win on survivor or dancng with the stars, but fortunately they lost at thier job, and as a result the rest of us won.

Update: What others are saying about Healthcare passage:

Now that it’s done, Barack Obama will go down in history as one of America’s finest presidents. It’s always possible of course that, like LBJ, he’ll get involved in some unrelated fiasco that mars his reputation. But fundamentally, he’s reshaped the policy landscape in a way that no progressive politician has done in decades.

Under the circumstances, it’s in some ways crazy to realize the scope of things still on the congress’ plate. The House has already passed major legislation dealing with climate change and financial regulation, and the president is also committed to significant reform of K-12 education and the immigration system.

Anyone out there watching Caprica? When Zoe shot the dog I. Thought I was going to have to stop watching the show, but I guess all is well.
Anytime you worship one all knowing being things are bound to go badly.

One person tries to stop popular legislation and he can’t figure out why people are mad at him. I might have to scrounge up a few bucks to send to Bart Stupak’s primary challenger.

I know someone is probably going to argue that Stupak was just sticking to his principles, whatever those are, but if he really is pro-life as he claims, denying health-care to millions is not partof his principles. My guess is that he thought it would fun to be the center of attention, and bashing women and poor people is generally a no-lose situation for a politician; here is hoping it becomes a loser move for Mr Stupak.

I enjoy watching self righteous pricks get their comeuppance as much as anyone but this did happen twenty-five years ago, maybe he deserves a break.

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn announced Saturday he was resigning from the Utah Legislature, two days after revelations of a nude hot-tubbing incident with a minor 25 years ago and a payment to keep it quiet.

“After discussing this matter with my family, I have decided that it is in the best interests of them, my colleagues and the people of Utah,” Garn said in his letter of resignation, submitted to House Speaker David Clark, R-Santa Clara, Saturday morning.

Cheryl Maher, who was the teen in the hot tub with Garn in 1985, said she has felt “a lot of peace” since coming forward with her story.

“I hope Kevin knows I never meant to hurt anyone, but the truth had to come out,” she said Saturday morning in a phone interview from her New Hampshire home. By working with women in crisis or the mentally ill “he can turn this thing around to something positive. … He could really help a lot of people,” she said.

Looks like someone else picked up on the prostate overtreatment issue:

A kind of odd piece of conventional wisdom has hardened that it’s dishonest of Barack Obama or Matt Yglesias or anyone else to suggest that there are some free lunches to be had in the realm of health reform. I think it’s clear that you can’t do public policy on a major issue entirely with free lunches, but realistically the policy realm is full of low-hanging fruit and free lunches. The only reason to think it wouldn’t be would be an odd assumption that we reached near-optimal policy on all topics sometime around 2007.

In the health care domain, in particular, a mix of weak science, bad economic incentives, and poor mathematical understanding leads to a fair amount of over-treatment. And over-treatment for cancer isn’t just an issue of spending money that didn’t need to be spent—treatment for prostate cancer normally has very unpleasant side effects and it’s really cruel to inflict it on men who don’t actually need the treatment. And as far as cancers go, that’s totally typical. Reducing over-screening and over-treatment would probably save money (though it’s always hard to know what the long-term impact will be since everyone eventually gets sick and dies) and will definitely spare patients a lot of pain and suffering. (bolding mine)

What is really difficult to deal with is the anger one faces when they suggest that a procedure may be too much, or that the science behind a procedure is not completely sound.

The free lunch crowd seems to have decided that medical procedures don’t have trade-offs both in terms of costs and health outcomes so any suggestion that a procedure is not needed will usually be met with anger. Think back to when a few groups were suggesting that people could skip a few mammograms. As long as we continue to view health care as a commodity that should be consumed like any other commodity, that is to consume as much as possible, the U.S will have problems with our health-care system.

I would love to talk more about this but this weekend is shaping up to be awfully busy but if you are a guy reading this might save you years of incontinence and impotence.

EACH year some 30 million American men undergo testing for prostate-specific antigen, an enzyme made by the prostate. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1994, the P.S.A. test is the most commonly used tool for detecting prostate cancer.

The test’s popularity has led to a hugely expensive public health disaster. It’s an issue I am painfully familiar with — I discovered P.S.A. in 1970. As Congress searches for ways to cut costs in our health care system, a significant savings could come from changing the way the antigen is used to screen for prostate cancer.

This op-ed has a little more credibility than some given the author helped think up this test he has no incentive to lie about it.

Prostate cancer may get a lot of press, but consider the numbers: American men have a 16 percent lifetime chance of receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer, but only a 3 percent chance of dying from it. That’s because the majority of prostate cancers grow slowly. In other words, men lucky enough to reach old age are much more likely to die with prostate cancer than to die of it.

Even then, the test is hardly more effective than a coin toss. As I’ve been trying to make clear for many years now, P.S.A. testing can’t detect prostate cancer and, more important, it can’t distinguish between the two types of prostate cancer — the one that will kill you and the one that won’t.

The entire op-ed is worth reading just for the way it outlines how hard it is to stop doctors from prescribing a medical procedure even when it is shown to be innefective and in some cases dangerous.

From Oprah.com:

You don’t need NFL training to hurl a pizza across a New York City apartment. I found this out as I ducked to avoid my husband’s dinner (he didn’t fling it at me, he claims). “They folded the slices,” he bellowed. “Ruined.” I bit my tongue hard — but not, unfortunately, before “Did you lose your nappies?” slipped out (nappies being what they call diapers in England, which is where he’s from and where, at this point, I was wishing he had stayed). Big mistake. He went off like a car alarm, the honk-honk-beeeep-honk of his tirade so familiar, I’d long since learned to tune it out by doing guided imagery

What is guided imagery?

Freedom beckons intoxicatingly, but then I wonder if my expectations aren’t unrealistic — whether I’ve got the makings of a good marriage but am foolishly holding out for perfect. Paul Amato, Ph.D., professor of sociology, demography, and family studies at Penn State, conducted a 20-year study on 2,000 subjects who started off married, and says 55 to 60 percent of divorcing couples discard unions with real potential.

At the point when someone is throwing a pizza around the house, possibly at you, I think you can safely say the marriage is broken. One of the many issues that got lost in the Tiger Woods saga was the domestic violence, if you have ever been with someone that would come after you with a golf-club(which I have) the the temptation to cheat just to be around someody normal is pretty high; and normal can just mean somebody who isn’t violent.
The obsession with staying in bad marriages seems to be an outgrowth of our child worshipping culture where couples think they should stay together for the children. I doubt keeping children in a situation where they get to observe adults acting in a violent or childish manner all their lives is good for them, and it certainly isn’t good for the adults in the family either.

Republicans are trying to goad Democrats into making a big mistake and really that has been the Republican strategy from the beginning, keep Democrats from enacting a very popular peice of legislationa and then run on the idea that Democrats can’t get anything done.

The only drama left in the health-care debate is whether or not Democrats will fall for it or not.

The New York Times profiles one of the tea bag leaders and she seems a little unsure of what needs to be done.

Ms. Carender is less certain when it comes to explaining, for instance, how to cut the deficit without cutting Medicaid and Medicare.

“Well,” she said, thinking for a long time and then sighing. “Let’s see. Some days I’m very Randian. I feel like there shouldn’t be any of those programs, that it should all be charitable organizations. Sometimes I think, well, maybe it really should be just state, and there should be no federal part in it at all. I bounce around in my solutions to the problem.”

The tea bag movement seems to be filled with people that don’t want to pay taxes but they don’t want to cut services either; in their most ignorant form the tea baggers believe that if we just give enough to the mighty corporations they will take care of the people.
Given that the movement is based on fictional books it is not surprising that they are incredibly unrealistic and really don’t have anything to offer to the discussion but a few racist rants and threats of terrorism.

HAT TIP pandagon