POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

NPR, Belatedly, Acquires a Clue

As part of their policy of occasionally acquiring one after having their federal funding threatened. Memories, like the corners of my mind:

But it's just not the same. Now and then, small pockets of protesters still band together. On March 19, for instance, about 100 demonstrators — anti-war protesters marking the eighth anniversary of U.S. military involvement in Iraq — were arrested outside the White House.

"It's a far cry from the Bush years, when hundreds of thousands or millions marched against the war," David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, writes on the Britannica website. He asks the same question: Whatever happened to the anti-war movement?

In the post, he points out that American protests against wars seemed to stop the moment Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. "Maybe anti-war organizers assumed that they had elected the man who would stop the war," he observes.

But the wars have continued. More than two-thirds of Americans have opposed military intervention in Libya, Boaz reports, and nearly two-thirds of Americans — a number that is up dramatically since early 2010 — believe the war in Afghanistan hasn't been worth fighting. "Where are their leaders?" Boaz wants to know. "Where are the senators pushing for withdrawal? Where are the organizations?"

He concludes that the anti-war activity in the United States — and around the world — a few years ago "was driven as much by antipathy to George W. Bush as by actual opposition to war and intervention."

To buttress his assertions, Boaz cites a recently published study of anti-war protesters. The research was conducted by Michael Heaney of the University of Michigan and Fabio Rojas of Indiana University. It concludes that the anti-war movement in America evaporated because Democrats — inspired to protest by their anti-Republican feelings — stopped protesting once the Democratic Party achieved success in Congress in 2006 and then in the White House in 2008.

"As president, Obama has maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan," Heaney, an assistant professor of organizational studies and political science, said in a news release. "The anti-war movement should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity."

Instead, Heaney continued, "attendance at anti-war rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement have dissipated. The election of Obama appeared to be a demobilizing force on the anti-war movement, even in the face of his pro-war decisions."

But it's the outrage I will remember . . . whenever I remember . . . the way . . . we . . . were.

Bryan Preston offers a few more clues:

In the candid remarks, Mr. Obama complains of Republican attempts to attach measures to the budget bill which would have effectively killed parts of his hard-won health care reform program.

“I said, ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?’” recalled the president of his closed-door negotiations on the bill to fund the federal government until September. …

Speaking into a microphone which he may not have realized was still relaying his remarks to the White House press room — where Knoller had been listening to earlier remarks that were open to the press — Mr. Obama bemoaned GOP leaders’ attempts to attach a measure to the budget bill which would have cut funding for Planned Parenthood.

I doubt the GOP thinks the president is stupid, but evidently the president does think America is stupid. Remember, we had to pass ObamaCare before we could even find out what’s in it. During the budget debate, this president and his party put controversial funding — for Planned Parenthood — ahead of funding the troops fighting our wars, including the war Obama evidently lied his way into without consulting Congress. This infantile, devious and rank partisan president then has the gall to say Republicans are politicizing the budget?

After these remarks, and after that disgracefully partisan speech on Wednesday, it’s time to shut this president down. Get the troops funded, and then shut this president down and make him put his name on the line defending every cent of the political spending he has packed into the stimulus, ObamaCare (a Democrat dream for decades, though universal health care has never been a priority with the voters), Planned Parenthood — all of it. Don’t shrink from the debate. Make him defend it all.

A clue. Obama's mystery suture may very well have been designed for inserting one, but evidently, it's never been used.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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But Stillbirths Are a Problem

Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger:

And so, in the June 1935 edition of her flagship publication, Birth Control Review, in an article titled, "Birth Control in Russia," Sanger concluded:

Theoretically, there are no obstacles to birth control in Russia. It is accepted … on the grounds of health and human right…. [W]e could well take example from Russia, where there are no legal restrictions, no religious condemnation, and where birth control instruction is part of the regular welfare service of the government.

I could quote more, including this jaw-dropping prediction: "All the officials with whom I discussed the matter stated that as soon as the economic and social plans of Soviet Russia are realized, neither abortions nor contraception will be necessary or desired. A functioning Communistic society will assure the happiness of every child, and will assume the full responsibility for its welfare and education."

Now there, ladies and gentleman, is progressive utopianism, an absolute faith in central planners. Contrary to the Planned Parenthood founder's optimism, abortions skyrocketed to seven million annually in the USSR.

Contrast this with ABC's report on WHO on stillbirths:

At 4½ months pregnant, Heather Rotondi's baby bump barely shows through her black wrap dress. It's hard to imagine the outgoing 37-year-old New Jersey mom being anything but happy and calm, let alone depressed. But after her first pregnancy, she was depressed for months.

Dominic Francis Rotondi was delivered Feb. 28, 2006, a couple of weeks shy of his due date, a day Heather and Robert Rotondi now call his "angelversary." While other mothers left the hospital with balloons and babies, Rotondi, who'd had a perfectly normal pregnancy, had only a death certificate.

"I had a son, I am a mother, and I had nothing to show for it," says Rotondi.

Dominic's story is just one of 2.6 million, according to a special series published in the Lancet on Wednesday.

According to the series, which offers the first comprehensive look at the heavy global burden of stillbirths around the world, more than 7,300 stillbirths occur every day. The World Health Organization defines "stillbirth" as fetal death after 28 weeks of pregnancy. Ninety eight percent of stillbirths happen in low- and middle-income countries, and nearly half of them occur during childbirth, particularly among women who do not have access to basic medical services. But even in wealthy countries, one in 200 pregnancies results in a stillbirth.

Look, I'm upset whenever a child dies, and especially when the mother is so deeply emotionally distressed over the loss. But the duplicity of WHO apparently knows no bounds, because although the US complies with its standards for defining live births, WHO lets countries that do not self-report, and nowhere attempts to clarify the disparity in data collection.

Those who argue that the U.S. lags behind some other countries in infant mortality fail to take into account national differences in definitions of live birth. The U.S. complies with the World Health Organization standard, which requires registration of a live birth whenever an infant shows any sign of life outside the womb, regardless of birth weight, size or duration of gestation. Many countries restrict registration to cases in which these measures exceed certain limits, such as a birth weight of 500 to 1,000 grams, a crown-to-heel length of 25 to 35 centimeters, 22 to 28 weeks of gestation, or survival for a minimum amount of time. Since small and pre-term babies are more likely to die, standards that exclude these cases artificially decrease a country's infant mortality rate, making its health-care system seem better than it really is. Yet U.S. infant mortality rates are competitive, despite a much more broad definition of live birth.

Despite the whinging from the left, such as Ezra Klein's, studies commissioned to demonstrate the superiority of national health systems inevitably discover that national health systems are superior.

Ezra claims that a study from the Commonwealth Foundation concludes that of the seven countries under consideration, the US has the worst health care at the highest cost:

Years ago, the World Health Organization came out with a ranking of health systems that placed the US 37th. Over time, there's been a fair amount of controversy over the WHO's methodology, and so the Commonwealth Foundation began a new project to assemble a comparative international picture: They chose seven countries and conducted deep, ongoing polls of both patients and health-care providers. The surveys test experiences with the system, cost questions, efficiency, convenience, health outcomes and much more. The result is a comparison based not on an outsider’s methodology but on the experiences of patients and providers.

Here, too, the U.S. underperforms.

There is, in fact, a Commonwealth Foundation, but this is from the Commonwealth Fund, and though The Week corrects the source, they still use Ezra's piece to promote their view that the United States might have the very worst health care system in the whole wide world:

And while there's been much controversy over that ranking, it's pointless to refute the Commonwealth Fund's findings. This isn't a broadside from some outsider — the ratings come from our own patients and doctors.

Would the Commonwealth Fund shape its questions in such a manner as to ensure that the US gets the worst ranking of the seven countries under consideration? Here's the mission statement:

The Commonwealth Fund, among the first private foundations started by a woman philanthropist—Anna M. Harkness—was established in 1918 with the broad charge to enhance the common good.

The mission of The Commonwealth Fund is to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.

The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.

Not included among the most vulnerable are the not yet born.

I'm certain that the Board of the Fund truly believe in what they're doing, but if you read the history of the institution, founded with money derived from early investments in Standard Oil, you'll see that over time its mandate has drifted inexorably left; so much so, that I doubt Ms. Harkness would recognize what it's become.

You can get a look at their blog, here.

Despite the stormy politics of health reform, in its first year the initial set of consumer protections and coverage expansions in the Affordable Care Act was welcomed by many American families. These newly enacted reforms include allowing children under age 26 to stay on or join their parents’ health insurance plans, the establishment of state-based insurance plans for people with preexisting conditions, and the availability of tax credits for small businesses that provide coverage to their employees.

In year two, which starts today, the groundwork for further coverage expansions, as well as important quality improvement and cost-control measures, will ramp up. The results of The Commonwealth Fund’s Biennial Health Insurance Survey, released last week, show that the recession has made the need for such reforms even more urgent. Nine million working-age adults became uninsured in the last two years because of the loss of a job, two of five adults had problems with medical bills, and two of five did not get needed health care because it was too expensive, according to the survey.

I'm sure that's true, too, but tellingly, there's no mention made about the general public's unhappiness with HCR as it stands, and no mention made either of the CBO manipulation that created phantom savings in the system. It's all lollipop-eyed hooey, sprinkled with absurd qualifications, such as "If skillfully implemented."

Lady, nothing this administration does is skillfully implemented. Do you think that perhaps its policies have something to do with the persistence of the recession?

Meanwhile, on his own initiative, the Judge in the Kermit Gosnell trial has issued a gag order. He has also reduced the amount of Mrs. Gosnell's bond from $1 million to $50k, and deplored the seizure of letters between the prisoner and his spouse.

In case you missed it, Stacy slapped around a tenured Trigger, and misogynist Keith Olbermann made of himself an even bigger ass than usual.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Milwaukee Elections Commission Tried Preventing Police from Securing Ballots

At least, that's the thrust of Badger Blogger Patrick Dorwin's post, here.

Sheriff David Clarke secured them anyway, over their objections, and now they're trying to prevent the one Republican on the Commission, Robert Spindell, from talking about it to the media.

Professor Hasen of the Election Law Blog is certain that the idea that there's widespread cheating in Wisconsin elections has been absolutely demolished, despite there having been 5000 more votes cast during the 2004 General Election in Milwaukee County than there were registered voters, and other such inconveniences, including the numerous ACORN-related voter fraud convictions outlined in this 5-month-old article.

Because the City of Brookfield ballots were left out of the unofficial tabulations, JoAnne Kloppenburg believed she had won the Supreme Court election by 240 votes, promptly declaring victory and expressing her confidence the minuscule lead would hold. Once Prosser took a 7300-vote lead, she determined that this needed to go to a recount.

Blaska's Blog at the Isthmus was on a roll, a couple days ago.

The do-over vote gets done in

So yes, I told Joy this morning, I understand that our progressive-liberal acquaintances (for they ARE our acquaintances) feel like they got the rug pulled out from under them. (Thereby using up my limited store of empathy.) The Left had turned the supreme court race into a referendum on Gov. Walker's collective bargaining bill and thought they had a do-over of the November election. Dancing like little sugar plums were visions of litigating every scrap of paper that came out of "FitzWalkerstan" -- all to be undone by a narrowly won 4-3 liberal majority on the court.

"Kloppenburg wins more than an election," Comrade Nichols pronounced the day after the election when a 204-vote margin -- 0.019% of the total vote -- was enough for the liberal lawyer to declare victory. "Wisconsin voters have spoken," she said.

But Prosser, a brass-knuckles pol, is unlikely to accept the gratitude and exit gracefully. He can be counted on to demand a recount. [TCT: Kloppenburg wins more than an election]

Oops! Turns out that the brass-knuckles Democrats and their unionistas are the ones who refuse to exit gracefully. Turns out they can be counted on to demand a recount. Oh, well.

Who is using "brass knuckles?"

Besieging the Capitol night and day

Threatening death to Republican lawmakers

Stealing away across the border to bring the legislative process to a halt

Litigating a bill in the courts before it even becomes law (unprecedented in Wisconsin history)

Closing down schools

Boycotting businesses that backed the wrong candidate or wouldn't post union signs in their windows

Telling targets that the police can't protect them

Defacing the Capitol and the City-County building with political signs

Committing acts of petty vandalism.

Yes, "this is what democracy looks like" to our prog-lib acquaintances (for they ARE ...)

And so Kloppenburg's backers tried to tar a sitting supreme court justice as the pederast's best friend, refusing to back down even when the victim of the abuse called the ads misleading and asked that they be taken off the air.

Those brass knuckles?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Miss Attila’s Jugs: Twin Eco-Menaces?

She raises the question.

It appears that Marks & Spencer has decided to put the imprimatur of some eco-weirdos on some of their bras:

But now Marks & Spencer has made ‘going green’ even easier as it today launched the high street’s first ever carbon neutral bra.

Part of the new Autograph Leaves lingerie collection, the retail chain has calculated the footprint of the entire range, which includes four styles of bra, three knickers and a set of suspenders.

The figure, calculated by The Carbon Trust Footprinting Certification Company, takes into account each item’s complete life cycle - from component manufacture to transportation and even the energy customers use washing and drying their underwear.

Mind you, I've argued that the eco-ratings of autos ought to be based on showroom to recycling calculations, so I do appreciate their apparent thoroughness in the matter.

My view is that what women choose to swaddle their tits in, should they choose to swaddle their tits, is no business of eco-bluenoses. If some women want to pay for the privilege of being patronised, that's entirely their business of course. There have been on occasions brassieres that probably represent a substantial environmental impact, but I don't believe that you are likely to find them at M&S.

I am afraid, though, that from the eco-warrior perspective, Miss Attila's breasts must be accounted menacing. Why? The answer will be plain once I've outlined it.

Here at the McCain-Collins Institute for Therapeutic Breast Staring, we have acquired incontrovertible evidence that visualization of breasts is good for men's health. The debate is over. The science is settled. Men who enjoy good health live longer, and therefore consume more of nature's precious resources than they would otherwise.

I'm afraid it gets worse, though. Children who are breast fed in their infancy may also acquire lifelong benefits that make them likelier to live longer, whether they're male or female. Furthermore, men (we have noticed) often find breasts so attractive that they are more desirous of copulating with women who have them, thus increasing the numbers of the virulent human virus.

Furthermore, the desire to copulate with women who have breasts causes men to do other things that consume natural resources, such as take them to dinner at a seafood restaurant, or ply them with the fruit of intensive viniculture, or to purchase muscle cars to impress them. Women, for their part, find these attentions flattering enough that they often purchase more shoes, just to mention one example, than they absolutely need (or let us just say that the concept of need is somewhat elastic here).

I have to say, it's very terrible, practically inexcusable, really, that I admire Miss Attila's boobs, but there you have it. I was poorly raised.

Three Beers Later titillates with an Eva Longoria wardrobe malfunction malfunction.

Of course, you could purchase some guilt offsets by buying a Chevy Volt. Fortunately, it's only $20k or so to replace the batteries after 5 or 6 years.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Unexpectedly 4-14-11

MSNBC:

New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, bouncing back above the key 400,000 level, while core producer prices clumbed [obs. rare variant] faster than expected in March, government reports showed on Thursday.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 412,000, the Labor Department said.

This follows the pattern observed by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge that we wrote about here.

More from the same article:

U.S. core producer prices rose slightly faster than expected in March and the increase from a year ago was the largest since August 2009, pointing to a broadening in pipeline inflation pressures.

The Labor Department said on Thursday its seasonally adjusted index for prices paid at the farm and factory gate - excluding volatile food and energy costs—rose 0.3 percent after gaining 0.2 percent in February.

Economists had expected core PPI to rise 0.2 percent in March.

[emphasis mine]

Via Coalition of the Swilling:

La Malkin has related thoughts about (that meep commentary favorite) the retirement age.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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16 Tamaulipas, Mexico Police Arrested for Aiding Zetas Narco-Syndicate Mass Murder

Via Borderland Beat:

The bodies of victims abducted at false "narco" checkpoints from buses traveling through the town of San Fernando, Tamaulipas and murdered at the hands of Los Zetas continue to be uncovered. The body count as of Wednesday stood at 126 with the location of another 10 bodies. Mexican media reports speculate that as many as 300 victims may have been murdered and disposed of in the latest abductions.

It is feared that hundreds more, if not thousands, may be buried in "narco fosas" throughout this area of Tamaulipas, a land where in the words of Ricardo Aleman of El Excelsior, "The criminal bands make a living out of 'The Industry of Death'."

An unnamed witness, a bus driver, states in the “El Universal” video posted below that bus drivers whose passengers were taken in “narco” checkpoints were fearful of filing police reports because they were aware of police complicity in the abductions.

The witness added that the abductions of victims travelling by bus had been occurring for the past 6 to 8 weeks.

According to the witness, women of all ages were also taken off buses, undressed and raped and then abducted.

Read the whole thing, but don't bother Janet "Dirt" Napolitano.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Those Texas Wildfires

Aren't being given much coverage in the MSM. Most of what I've seen has been in Texas papers and financial papers.

Forecasters expect the wildfire potential across the western half of Texas to expand and become more explosive Thursday.

The area of significant fire potential, which had been confined mostly to West Texas and the Texas Panhandle this week, will expand to include North, Central and South Texas on Thursday, according to a Texas Forest Service statement. The expanded high-risk area will be generally west of a line extended from just west of Dallas-Fort Worth to Fredericksburg and Del Rio, according to the agency.

A persistent drought combined with an overabundance of tinder-dry vegetation made for a catastrophic combination this week. The Forest Service has responded to 81 fires in the past seven days that have charred almost 700 square miles. More than 900 firefighters from across the state and 33 other states have been called in to battle the fires.

"The last week has been bad, but now even more people will be at risk. The wildfires could reach down into more densely populated areas," said Tom Spencer, head of predictive services at the Forest Service.

Fortunately, Obama has moved swiftly to declare Hawaii a major disaster area to deal with the horrifying effects of the Japanese tsunami there.

Honestly, though, what can we expect? Haven't the seas stopped rising under Obama's presidency?

There's more bad news for Texas (especially the western part) and the Southwest generally in NOAA's extended forecast for this summer, which sees higher temps and lower precipitation there.

Oh, well. Up here in Vermont, they're predicting slightly higher than average temps and rainfall, which means good mushrooming.

Also in the financial news, how's that BP thing coming along?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Keeps him searching for a cache of gold . . .

I hope Neil Young will remember . . . hey, what's he doing in the UK?

At the HuffPo, a poll finds that 54% of Americans think the taxes they pay are fair. Naturally, the poll only includes Americans who actually pay federal taxes, right? Right?

Related would be Jimmie's round-up of commentary on the President's speech regarding the fiscal crisis what crisis? Dan Riehl has related thoughts, and Professor Jacobson's brought out the hickory.

At LMA's, Stacy's thoughts on the HuffPo guide to blogging.

Big, awesome overnight open thread by Maetenloch at Ace's yesterday.

Wild-eyed radical Claire Berlinski.

Remember that color-coded map of Wisconsin that I wanted, breaking down the shift from Walker/Barrett in November to Prosser/Kloppenburg in April? Fairly Conservative already has it. As of yesterday, Milwaukee still hadn't reported their canvass, but Prosser was still leading by over 7000. Worth reading the comments, too.

"If a conservative or religious group were as reckless as GLSEN in exposing impressionable children to hard-core perversion and pornography, needless to say they'd be out of business and drummed out of the pro-family movement," LaBarbera told WND.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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