Turns out it gets worse than a 13-year-old father

A 9-year Brazilian girl aborted twins this month after being raped by her stepfather. Then she, her mother, and the doctor were excommunicated from the Catholic Church, a decision supported by the Vatican.

The worst part of the article? “The law of God is above any human law,” said José Cardoso Sobrinho, the archbishop, who argued that while rape was bad, abortion was even worse.

This kind of thinking makes me unbelievably angry.

cocaine has medicinal uses?

Interesting HuffPo post about the politics and science of Plan B and marijuana laws (explains my subject line, too). The author suggests that pot be moved to a Schedule II drug, and makes a pretty convincing case for it. Not totally sure this will solve the problems (victimless criminals, a money sinkhole, etc.) related to marijuana illegality as well as fully legalizing it would, but maybe it's more realistic. I'd be interested to hear what you guys think.

Your *Mom* Goes to College ...

Woot! Off

Keep a tab open and set up Refresh Every, because today is a Woot! off!

Arrogant, Incompetent, and Greedy? I thought Obama was only one of those things ...

(and I mean that in the best way ...)

Just picture someone saying "It's the principle of the thing!" and you've probably got in mind someone who is at least 80 years old, and one way or another could be described by the word "crusty."

Well that's just what's going on with AIG. $165M is a lot of money, but the undeserved portion of that (due to arrogance, incompetence, or greed) is a far smaller number. Generously calling it half, I'll say this $80M is not that much to get worried about, and it's certainly not anything worth upending the structure of our legal system for.

That said, "someone" secretly removed a provision from the stimulus bill that would deal with this issue of AIG bonuses. And no matter which side of the argument you are on, you can bet that when there's a sixth of a billion dollars on the table, Principle can't afford a ticket to the show.

So who might have been a little more than friends with the folks at AIG? Let's check out the top ten list from OpenSecrets.org and see who's been getting the most contributions from AIG in the past 20 years:

	Dodd, Chris (D)	$281,038
	Bush, George W (R)	$200,560
	Schumer, Charles (D)	$111,875
	Obama, Barack (D)	$110,332
	McCain, John (R)	$99,249
	Baucus, Max (D)	$90,000
	Kerry, John (D)	$85,000
	Johnson, Nancy L (R)	$75,400
	Sununu, John E (R)	$69,049
	Clinton, Hillary (D)	$61,515

An interesting list, to be sure, but still not the way I like it. Let's find out how much AIG has been shelling out to these guys on an annual basis:

	Federal Candidate	Total	Yrs	Annual
	Obama, Barack (D)	$110,332	4	$27,583
	Bush, George W (R)	$200,560	8	$25,070
	Dodd, Chris (D)	$281,038	20	$14,052
	Clinton, Hillary (D)	$61,515	8	$7,689
	Sununu, John E (R)	$69,049	12	$5,754
	Schumer, Charles (D)	$111,875	20	$5,594
	McCain, John (R)	$99,249	20	$4,962
	Baucus, Max (D)	$90,000	20	$4,500
	Kerry, John (D)	$85,000	20	$4,250
	Johnson, Nancy (R)	$75,400	18	$4,189

Now look, I'm not out-and-out accusing Barack Obama of being corrupt on this one, though I wouldn't be surprised either. But if you're mad about AIG, it's hard not to take a look at this list and think things through.

And honestly, if you really want to know who I think is behind this "secret revision" in the stimulus bill, my money's on Chris Dodd. That's one corrupt (looking!) dude right there. (Side note) And increasingly, the rumor is that his Senate seat might be in jeopardy, something unheard of for a 34-year, extremely powerful Democratic Congressman from a very blue state.

Happy Birthday Bart!

You're 23 now! And old!

Baracketology

UPDATED:
Chris's 2009 NCAA Bracket
Obama's 2009 NCAA Bracket


I just love that the bracket has its own presidential seal.

(And let me add, by the way, that he has Syracuse beating Temple, whereas I have both teams losing before that game even gets played - we'll see who wins this epic showdown of knowhow (of which the president apparently has quite a bit) vs. basic mathematics!)

How do you heal an amputated limb?

I don't want to give too much away, but possibly the most interesting NPR segment I've ever heard aired this morning, about a guy who had his left arm amputated, only to start feeling intense pain in his phantom limb later on. He wasn't crazy - he knew he had no limb, but his brain was sending him signals to the contrary ("my whole arm clenched up really tight and my nails dug into my palm"). I'm not going to say anything else, so go listen here.

(By the way, I re-listened to this at work, and I laughed out loud both times the exchange ending with the doctor saying "how would you do that indeed?" came up at about 3:20)

Well played, Missouri

You can argue back and forth about the legitimacy of their actual stances, but I just wanted to shed some light on what appeared to me to be votes that were slightly above-average in principle from Missouri's two senators.

Claire McCaskill has a much easier case to make. She was one of three Democratic senators who voted against Obama's spending bill, along with Evan Bayh and Russ Feingold. She stands out because she and Feingold were the only two Democratic senators not to insert any earmarks into the bill, and both Bayh and Feingold are up for re-election in 2010, while she is not.

Chris Bond - well, I'm doing my best for a Republican ... He's actually in favor of earmarks, but at least he still had the guts to vote for the bill.

This was all part of an article that's generally unrelated, about popular presidents who struggled with issues of unity in their own party.

Roundup of Stewart/Cramer reactions

Yes, the whole thing has been overblown. No, it doesn't really matter. Yes, Jon took some cheap shots, easy to do on his home turf. But to be honest, I agree with everything he's ever said about the news media, both the other night with Jim Cramer (the extended version online is worth watching, btw) and a few years ago on Crossfire. The reaction has been great for both pure entertainment purposes and serious analysis of Jon's role in this crazy world.

Highlights:

Andrew Sullivan @ The Atlantic ("what Stewart has done is rip off that little band-aid of faux solidarity for a modicum of ethical and moral accountability")

"Tim F." @ some blog called Balloon Juice ("For a reason that escapes me, people who are paid to understand politics all seem to think that “access” to people with a PR staff will get them some special insight when the only difference between speaking to them anonymously and asking their spokesperson is that the person can lie and most people will never know. Naturally the public would know if you called him on it, but then he wouldn’t take your calls. Catch 22!")

Bruce Watson @ Daily Finance ("[Stewart] is, effectively, America's fool. In the classic context, a fool was the only one in a king's court who could speak the truth because he was also the only one capable of making it palatable")

Megan McArdle, also @ The Atlantic (she has the problem that many do with Stewart - that he can basically say whatever he wants and then retreat to "don't take it seriously; it's a comedy show." I have no problem with this - people should be able to distinguish news from entertainment, even when they begin to resemble each other - but I'd be interested in what you guys think)


Yes yes I want to sleep to Jon Stewart. Whatever, I have no responsibility to be objective here. I will, however, quit plugging Comedy Central for a while.

A question for the floor.

Is there any information yet on Obama's effect on US popularity abroad, especially in the Middle East?

Shameless plug for my favorite entertainer

NASA is holding a contest to name their newest "orbiting laboratory." Stephen Colbert has launched on effort to have it named after him. His name currently leads the write-in votes, but he has to beat the number of votes for NASA-picked names to win. So go to here, click "suggest your own," and write in "Colbert."

Because an orbiting laboratory sounds awesome. And forcing Fox and other news networks to report that "Colbert is launching into space" would be even awesomer.

Planet, Public Information in Peril

I am in the early stages of trying to restart the green initiative in my office. That the public, even the intelligent and well-educated, is poorly informed on global warming is not surprising to me. Friday night, however, I found myself at a trivia event organized by one of my coworkers and attended by many. When fewer than one-in-five was able to identify "The three Rs of recycling" (reduce, reuse, recycle) I realized the problem was much more grave than I thought.

I'm going to put together a presentation, and I know I'll be facing an audience that is, generally, skeptical. If you have information that might be helpful, I'd love to have it. I'm thinking of things like Wikipedia saying that there is no longer any scientific body that disputes global warming (although I find their citation of this statement insufficient) or like a report I saw that said something along the lines of "The 2007 IPCC report's claims were so extreme they were considered ignorable; however, all data thus far on the effects of global warming has exceeded the report's projections." Basically - evidence that might not be the most persuasive, but at the very least is nearly indisputable.

I put this post together in many pieces so it might be incoherent but should still be understandable. I know this is a chore but any help you can give is appreciated, and keep in mind that I'll have an audience of about 50, at most 10 of whom go about their lives any differently than they would were global warming not an issue, so in terms of impact, your efforts might be getting more bang for their buck than almost anything else you do.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - the impetus for this post coming right now was this article, which claims that even under best case scenarios, we're down to a coin flip at saving the planet.

Doom and Gloom

I always just skip past the big headline on Drudge, so imagine how depressing it was as a read all the headlines I could see below and then, already depressed, scrolled up to see the headline and image ...

'Three Blind Mice'

...Jindal, Steele, and Limbaugh, of course.

Prescience bites us in the ass yet again.

"There is nothing I dread so much as a division of the Republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader and converting measures in opposition to each other."
-John Adams (1790)

In other news, I highly recommend the book John Adams by David McCullough.

Advice

On a lighter note, I like thinking about what cabinet meetings are like for Hillary Clinton after this:

Variations on the theme "Limbaugh Hurts the Nation"

I haven't been posting so much so here's one in the old vain.

To say that what Rush Limbaugh has been doing recently is hurting the country is a rather timeless statement. You could have said it in the early 90's (when Limbaugh was still on the junk and in his prime!), or yesterday, or any time in between.

But now it's a little different. As you probably know, Rush and RNC Chair Michael Steele have had a bit of a skirmish (I love that word) in the media recently, and as a result, Steele is just the latest on a long list of Republicans who have had to apologize to Rush (as Jon Stewart put it, the apology is for "determining that Rush's language is incindiary and ugly," also known as "being familiar with Rush's show").

But this isn't good for anyone. It's certainly not good for Republicans. Cliché as it may be, the Republicans as a party are suffering an identity crisis. They clearly need to move to the center, but most of their centrist Congressman were unseated in November. Add Rush to the mix, and you see the party is clearly on track to lose even more seats in 2010 (you might be able to argue that it's too late to turn this fate around) and is severly hurting their chances for a comeback in 2012, with the White House virtually guaranteed for Obama.**

(Update: I want to clarify: if they keep doing what they're doing, they virtually guarantee the White House for Obama. I am making no prediction about the 2012 presidential race.)

None of this should be particularly suprising, but I would like to argue that this is bad for the nation. The reason is that Democrats are already riding a pretty powerful wave of power that, as I said, will probably only strengthen through 2010. So with our foreign affairs in crisis mode and our economy an order of magnitude worse than that, we've already basically guaranteed that Democrats will retain the White House and both house of Congress through the 2012 elections, meaning Republicans won't have a chance until 2014.

And look: if you have any doubts about how much power the Democrats have right now, just imagine what you'd think and how you'd feel if a newly elected Republican Congress was passing legislation of John McCain's that was of the same magnitude - but a very different direction - than what Obama and the Democrats are doing. And then it becomes clear that, in times like these, weakening the standing of the opposition party is just bad for America.

But then again, Rush has been a specialist in "Bad for America" for quite some time.

Bush Supporters Now Wrong About Everything

I don't use large type, save for special occasions.

"First Amendment
speech and press rights
may also be subordinated
to the overriding need
to wage war successfully."

-Office of Legal Counsel, October 23, 2001

Maybe I'm the only fan of both Conan O'Brien and Hunter S. Thompson...

...they're a pretty odd pair. Which is what makes this video, of Conan's visit to Thompson's "compound" (really) to "drink and shoot things," so funny.

For the record, I think the writing on Conan's show - like most late-night shows - was pretty corny and awful, and probably will continue to be. But Conan himself has a really funny personality, which is why his "in the field" segments are his best material. I also really like:

Conan in Finland,

Conan in Ireland, part 1 and part 2,

and Conan plays old-timey baseball