Month: August 2010

by Chris Bodenner

Santorum spreads the ugly rhetoric.

by Chris Bodenner

Ryan Grim has a fantastic post on Facebook's decision to ban ads promoting pot legalization in California. The site originally agreed to run the ads but reversed itself because the image of a marijuana leaf runs counter to its policy:

Facebook's ad rules, however, only ban promotion of "[t]obacco products," not smoking in general. Since the 1970s, shops selling marijuana paraphernalia have sought ways around the law by disingenuously claiming their products are "for tobacco use only." The Just Say Now campaign is arguing the exact opposite: No, really, it's for marijuana, not tobacco. 

The censorship is a blow to the campaign, which is gathering signatures on college campuses calling for legalization and registering young people to vote. "It's like running a campaign and saying you can't show the candidate's face," said Michael Whitney of Firedoglake.com, a blog that is part of the Just Say Now coalition.

Conservative college students condemned the site's restrictions. "Our generation made Facebook successful because it was a community where we could be free and discuss issues like sensible drug policy. If Facebook censorship policies continue to reflect those of our government by suppressing freedom of speech then they won't have to wait until Election Day to be voted obsolete," Jordan Marks, the head of Young Americans for Freedom, told HuffPost in an email.

On the other hand, the controversial cocaine scene in the Facebook movie "The Social Network" won't be censored after all.

(Image via Design Milk)

by Conor Friedersdorf

Long haul trucker Dave Carter remarks on it:

A few years back, I got caught in a nasty snow storm on I-84 in New York. A traffic accident, induced by icy roads shut down the west bound side of the interstate for several hours, leaving us all to sit there in the snow. Several of us truckers volunteered to let folks in passenger vehicles spend some time in our cabs and stay warm while we idled our engines so they wouldn’t have to decide between burning all the gas in their cars or freezing. For about five hours, we all made the best of it. But imagine a traffic jam that lasts weeks!!

My daughter alerted me to this story today on the phone, and our Diane Ellis sent the story to me this afternoon. What is currently a 60-mile backup near the Chinese capital of Beijing, stands every chance of lasting until mid-September. The reason? Road construction. Sound familiar? People caught in this colossal case of government subsidized constipation are moving along at, …get this… approximately one third of a mile per day. They should rip out their speedometers and replace them with calendars!

by Patrick Appel

Howard Gleckman Gene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane make an essential distinction:

Social Security reform, almost no matter how designed, is likely to provide higher levels of lifetime benefits for future cohorts of retirees compared to today’s retirees—just not as much as is scheduled under today’s unsustainable system.

by Patrick Appel

Scott Adams muses:

I recently wrote about my new watch that has GPS for tracking my running. It has so many features that I fail 50% of the time in getting it to do anything at all. I literally don't know what sequence of tapping, holding, and humming gets me to the right mode. When it works, I start yelling "What did I just do?! What did I just do?!" I would pay 50% more for a watch that only tells me the current time and my running distance.

Apple often gets the less features thing right. The iPad didn't add a fast boot-up speed, it subtracted a hard disk. It didn't add a touch screen, it subtracted a keyboard. You want to print? Forget it. The iPad is awesome precisely because it has fewer options. If I want more complexity I can purchase apps.

by Chris Bodenner

Greenwald "love[s] this Onion piece on Time Magazine so much that it actually hurts."

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

As a gay man with HIV/AIDS living with the virus, medications, doctors, hospitalizations for 20+ years, HIV is in and of itself a depression.

In 2005, my partner passed away and his father sued for possession of our house.  The court granted the father a lis pendens, which made the property unsellable.  I became ill again in 2006 and was placed on state disability.  Unable to work and unable to continue the court costs, the house was foreclosed upon.  My partner's name was not on the title of the house, but the courts allowed this to stand.  (Gay marriage was not an option.)

I moved to another state to help take care of my elder parents in 2007.  I applied for SSDI and SSI in 2007 and have had one denial, a hearing, a second denial and am awaiting an appeal.  Two doctors have signed paperwork stating that I am disabled according to their examinations in accordance with Social Security Disability criteria.  In three years, nothing has happened for certain. 

I travel 130 miles each way to the doctor.  The state I live in is very large, with a small population, and there are only two cities in the state that specialize in HIV treatment.  If I use the vehicle that I own, a van, it costs 90+ dollars to go round trip to the doctor.  I am not allowed to earn income as I am under consideration for SSDI.

I have been subsisting on funds provided by the Ryan White Act, which helps pay for my rent, subsidizes my medications and medical treatments.  With no income, I qualify for LIEAP Energy assistance program, which covers most of the utilities, IF I keep the house at 65 degrees or less in the winter time. I was just diagnosed with type II diabetes and possibly early stage HIV dementia.  Having been admitted to the hospital with a blood sugar level of 800+, I should have been in a coma.  Surprisingly, I'm still alert, sort of, and functioning, sort of.

I asked my parents for and received money for gas to drive to appointments.  My siblings have decided that using my parents money to go to doctor appointments in a form of elder abuse, so I'm not receiving assistance from them any further.  I'd like to move to the town where I see my doctor, but the Housing Assistance Fund (from Ryan White funding) allows $549 a month for a 1 bedroom rental that includes utilities.  Even in a smaller town in this state, one cannot find a rental for that amount that includes utilities.  Plus I have a dog, which makes it more difficult.

I really don't see how to ever get out of this depression, and suicide is a constant glance over my shoulder.  It's not totally hopeless, but the depression keeps getting deeper and deeper and I have neither the skill, the funds, nor the stamina to climb.

by Patrick Appel

Ahmed Rashid checks in on Pakistani politics:

It is now a cliché to describe how a worsening economy and the lack of education and job opportunities have helped spawn Islamic extremism in Pakistan and elsewhere. Yet it is a trope worth repeating.

Pakistan's geopolitical assertiveness in the midst of all this chaos is a result of the military’s overwhelming power. It may be losing its hold on vast amounts of territory to the extremists, but it is taking control of Pakistan’s national security and foreign policy away from the government. As the country is now led by weak and widely considered to be incompetent and corrupt civilian rule with President Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of slain leader Benazir Bhutto, at the helm, the armed forces have found it relatively easy to carry out their own programs.

by Patrick Appel

Building off some analysis by Fidelity, Daniel Indiviglio is blown away by the cost of college:

These estimated [monthly] payments would run from a child's birth through his or her third year of undergraduate education — about 21 years. The chart assumes a family's income will grow by 1.5% per year. It also already takes into account a healthy amount of financial aid through grants, scholarships, and family gifts

Today on the Dish, Mosque detractors papered the streets of New York; readers reminded us of past and present real estate and Mosque clashes; and Budiansky railed against excessive memorials. We assessed the odds of Obama being a Muslim vs ghosts existing; Weigel compared slurs; and the New York Post costs less than Skittles. Mormons reacted to the Mosque on religious freedom; and there are round-ups of the rest of the debate here and here.

We analyzed our two unfinished wars; the WikiLeaks rape case didn't help cases of real sexual assault, and Conor parsed whether the military should have cooperated with WikiLeaks, with Conn Carroll on Bloggingheads. Fallows reminded us about how declarations of war have to work; and Lynch argued Goldberg's article makes an attack less likely.

We found some hipster church rockers that passed the sniff test; tracked the housing market crash; and kept tabs on Obama's record on gay marriage. We dished on for-profit prisons, anchor embryos, the success of the stimulus, and more on dropout factories. Conor leveled Levin on statism; Wilkinson weighed in; and readers responded to elitism in America.

We baited Sullivan on the natural law of beards; bedbugs are worse in recessions because of our moods; and the Fox News farce reached all new heights. Readers berated the extravagant burial process; while Conor mocked email footer madness, and others ranted on cursive, curse words, and going topless. Balloons should cost more; and your long form fix for today is here. Creepy ad watch here; MHB here; island VFYW here; FOTD here. VFYW contest #12 winner here; and this reader of the day living vicariously and happily through better traveled Dish fans here.

–Z.P.