It's time to chill out.

Here's an absurd news flash: school nurses are unprepared for a terrorist attack.

Choose your own punchline:
A) What happened to the federal kung-fu training grant they were given?
B) Terrorist attack? I couldn't even get a box of tissues from them when I was in school.
C) The Pentagon is offering training but it's part of Rumsfeld's covert ops, so we don't know what they'll teach.
D) Shh! Don't let the terrorists know our weakness!
E) Yeah, we can't monitor everything that comes through our ports, either. But you don't see anyone freaking out about that, do you?

Sex ed does not mean nailing your teacher

Dear Mr. Bass,

I was interested to read your perspective on the “REAL Act” in a column last week that appeared on WorldNetDaily. But I’m afraid I didn’t quite appreciate your sarcasm as intended. You sneered, “Apparently, offering children ‘the full picture’ involves showcasing abortion, contraceptives, risky behavior and deviant sexual lifestyles as healthy and ideal alternatives to abstinence and chastity. Similarly, cheating children with "half the story" means providing programs that encourage children to exhibit self-restraint by instructing them in the physical and emotional benefits of abstaining from sexual activity until marriage.”

First, I wonder if you were consciously overstating the proposed legislation or simply made an error. While I haven’t read the document, I doubt that even such evil people as liberals would suggest that “deviant” lifestyles or abortions are “healthy and ideal.”

Second, to willfully withhold information that could save lives is worse than “cheating” them -- it’s reckless. While no one disputes it is in many ways wise and safest to abstain until marriage, even the best-educated youths sometimes give in to their physical urges. Similarly, while we may hope that abortions are reduced or eliminated, they continue to exist.

I don’t believe that countries ought to be dominated by totalitarian Islamic fundamentalist regimes, though I sure hope they’re teaching kids about them in history class. And you and I may not believe in the same role of government, but I hope both points of view are being presented in government and civics classes. And they may not use aluminum bats in major league baseball, but maybe it’s OK if they talk about that during gym.
I’ve never been a proponent of ignorance as a tool for social control but I can see how it is useful when one’s goal is an agenda rather than the health of children. However, government actively underwrites education in America and thus public health must trump indoctrination of any kind. I hope that teachers warn against premarital sex and speak to the benefits of waiting, but I hope they place that information in a greater context of safety. Meanwhile, the appropriate place for highlighting the moral aspects of this issue remains the home.

Condoms won’t cease to exist by not talking about them in classrooms. This isn’t about some “miry morality,” it is about education based on facts, and it could not be more important than for topics of immediate and pressing impact on the lives of students. We ought to be incredulous that faced with a paucity of evidence indicating the effectiveness of abstinence-only education (e.g., this), an administration focused on cutting programs that can’t prove results is increasing funding for curricula with factual misrepresentations, such as those Rep. Waxman pointed out. You brushed aside Waxman’s “so-called” points (documented well here), chastising him for not bringing up some unspecified problems with comprehensive sexual education programs (I couldn’t even find a mention of anything like this using Google) – but perhaps worse still, for not mentioning the spending gap.

We should encourage those who are potentially sexually active to abstain for moral and health reasons, but the lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of abstinence-only education means we should not stop there. We cannot strive for improvement by ignoring reality. Please try to put aside the bitter partisan enmity when considering programs for which there is disputative scientific evidence and concentrate on ways that science, logic, and policy can combine to protect ourselves.

Weiners

OK, I admit, I just am not clever enough today to think up a remotely appropriate title for this post. So it's called weiners. Deal with it.

Will Saletan proposes raising the retirement age. To which even this ultra-liberal blogger responds, WELL DUH...

I mean, let's face it. When I die, my tombstone might read, "Husband, father, tax, and spend." I think that if you want government to do more stuff (and Americans clearly do) and you can't run deficits like we've been forever (for fearing of destroying the national economy) then in general it means people are going to have to pay more. And I respect politicians who tell it like it is.

Regardless, the idea that people are living healthier lives for longer, and are capable of working more years of their life, ought to be kept in mind. The system is meant to assure that the basic needs aging and incapacitated Americans should not have to worry about eating cat food for dinner. You don't have to cut benefits, institute private accounts, juggle numbers, recalculate based on inflation, borrow from Chinese banks, or even raise taxes. All you have to do is preserve the original intent in which FDR instituted the New Deal -- help the people who need it the most.

Some perspective: My grandpa would go on in-town car trips and wind up on the other side of the state a full day later. His wife was medicated almost to a point where she couldn't function. My other grandmother had a boyfriend and it was practically scandalous. And this was only 15-20 years ago.

My parents are fast approaching 65 and there's little resemblence to their parents at the same stage. (Except for their garage. Don't ask.) My dad spends half his day driving around around the state for work. My mother teaches and complains more about increasing bureaucracy than aches and pains. They're both heavy and have smoked most of their lives. I'd love for them to be able to retire at 65 -- but I bet they could both make it to 70 if they had to.

I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs. I eat OK, sleep enough, and exercise. I might gripe along the way, but I'll probably work productively until 75.

What's really amazing about all this is that if you follow Bush's thinking you get to some striking fiscally anti-conservative conclusions. If I walked into a room full of conservatives two years ago and suggested either raising taxes or borrowing heavily so that government could design investment plans, I'd be beaten with only my Big Brother to protect me. But if I warned them that I could opt out but then much of the money would go straight to paying social security benefits of other people, and the system would be sutatined by heavy borrowing from Chinese banks, I'd be skinned alive.

My only saving grace would be if I swore off the whole idea and suggested reducing benefits to freeloaders who don't need it.

If conservatives are so bent on adding a government-run investment component to retirement, why not create something that wouldn't hint at tax hikes down the line? The cynical answer is that the entire plan is a scheme to weaken social security. To Bush, investing -- even where the government picks the investments -- is better than a system of government-guaranteed benefits. If liberals are smart about this, we could push a few provisions to make Bush's system tenable:
-socially-conscious investing: the investing would only be done in firms that promote American values like respect for labor and the environment
-separate the investing and Social Security: set up a progressive benefits system where those who make enough on their state-sponsored investments are not eligible for social security payouts, but all retirees of a certain age are guaranteed a minimum they can exist on.

Who's got more ideas?

Wha? Democrats bow?

Ralph Nader doesn't seem like the "I-told-you-so" type -- er, not always, at least. So I'll say it for him.

As the last election heated up, some fiercely anti-Nader Democrats dusted off a line they comforted themselves with in 2000: "To vote for Nader is to vote against the very things Nader stands for." (A variation described how Nader himself "single-handedly" wore away the issues he's championed for generations.) Well, here's the latest in a long line of refutations of that point.

Today, President Bush signed tort reform legislation that effectively weakens the legal recourses available to those trying to sue large corporations, one of the few recourses left for the little guy to fight corporations.

Here's an article from last week -- the title, "Senate Blocks Democratic Change to Class-Action Bill", is a misnomer as you'll see starting a few paragraph in:

The Senate voted 60-39, with five Democrats joining Republicans, to block an
amendment by Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor to exempt from the bill lawsuits
brought by state attorneys general on behalf of consumers in their states.
(emphasis added)

More:

Ten Democrats support the bill to move the biggest class- action claims against
defective products, consumer fraud or other alleged wrongs to federal courts.
Under an agreement between congressional leaders, the House would take up the
Senate bill if it isn't amended.

What would convince somce Democrats who opposed the legislation on ideological grounds to change their minds?

"Those who are skeptical of this bill would be better off in my judgment with
this compromise version,'' said Assistant Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
Amending the Senate bill would defeat the compromise and mean "the House would
probably pass a bill much different than this.''

This, despite the fact that the House has passed legislation four times that stalled in the Senate. Why should this intimidate Democrats who objected previously? Just the fear of getting their hands dirty, it would seem:

Democrats, who blocked Senate action on the bill the last two years, have no
plans to use the same procedural tactics to prevent its passage, said Assistant
Democratic Leader Dick Durbin. Instead, they are proposing a series of
amendments, which, if adopted, might have the same effect. ... Texas Republican
John Cornyn predicted that all the amendments would be defeated.

Cornyn was right. For sure, though, some Democrats stood firm. "The bill 'is a solution in search of a problem,'' said Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, another Democratic opponent." I do so hope he at least runs for the party presidential nomination in 2008.

Still, plenty of Democrats, including Durbin and minority leader Harry Reid, fell down in their first real test. Republican leaders send they would kill the bill of amendments got stuck on. Either the Democrats had no prescience about getting enough votes to attach riders to the bill, or knew exactly what they were doing and caved when it counted.

So let's see if we can find a way to blame this on Nader. He stole votes from Kerry, who said he opposed the legislation and maybe he would have vetoed this bill with bipartisan support three months into office. Hmm, no, that's not it. Ummm... by encouraging people to fight back against abusive corporate powers, he angered the gods and they struck back by lining political pockets (a good article on this: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20050307&s=zegart). How dare he!

No, it just seems like things happened exactly the way Nader's describing -- and those of you progressive Democrats with short memories, jot this on a calendar somewhere so you remember. Maybe create a special symbol, like maybe a little exposed butt, for each time the Democrats sell you out over the next four years and then, collectively, tell you voting for a guy who won't win but stands up for you amounts to abandoning your principles. But voting for someone who abandons your principals but is perceived to have a shot, that's the guy who has earned your vote.

If I may digress for a moment, I was setting up some automated payments through my bank account earlier this week. It got me to thinking: maybe, since money and politics are converging so much anyway, we should develop a system of voting that's similar. Like, maybe we could call up Diebold and ask them to create a machine that let's you set the party line vote the next time you go in. That way, you can sit on your ass at home when the next election comes around, still have your vote tallied for whomever the Democrats toss up there, and never give it a second thought. Maybe you could save votes for when you really meant it... like, if I skip voting in the next two presidential elections, can I send three votes for a progressive candidate in 2016?

Running scared

This is the latest in a series of attacks on Howard Dean coming from the Republican Party. Now, I know that Dean is perceived by many as an outsider and a liberal and that this is most dangerous to conservative and centrist Democrats who are afraid that having the entire party tagged "liberal" will be their downfall. Thus, I would expect such reactions from them (and they're out there).

But so far it mostly seems to be conservatives lashing out. Here, Newt Gingrich says, "I think if (Democrats) have a true death wish, he'd be the perfect guy to go with." Here's a story from Newsmax (via The Conservative Voice) that talks about a Democratic "Civil War" brewing between Clintonite moderates and Kennedy/Deaniac freaks. (Ironically, I suspect I could find stories denouncing "Hillarycare" as socialism on those sites if I tried.) Here's a story about conservative students at Dartmouth mourning the death of the Democrats after they selected Dean.

What's that I smell? Is it... could it be... fear? After the vitriol from many considerably conservative politicians and pundits following this past election, it seemed they felt their marginal gains (albeit on every level of the federal government) was some sort of tectonic shift in the course of the country, a slap on the back for them to keep doing what they're doing and as much of it as they can. They seemed to forget that the politicians with the most widespread appeal -- Schwartzenegger, Giuliani, and McCain for example -- are moderate on a lot of issues. (Hell, McCain's so liberal on campaign finance he puts most Democrats to shame.)

Though I believe otherwise, it could turn out to be true that backing a perceived liberal -- and a guy so passionate about politics that he once *gasp!* yelled with joy in public -- will somehow drive the Democrats into obscurity. It might just be that this country is becoming more conservative, though I doubt it, and that liberal Democrats are making a last stand of sorts.

If so, then why isn't the conservative nation just smiling while the watch the left burn itself alive? Certainly there's an air of smugness in their comments, but more telling is their volume. It strikes me that underneath the facade of "concern" over the fate of the opposition party lies a concern about their own. Nobody knows how a guy who enthusiastically disagreed over starting the Iraq war would have fared head-to-head with Bush compared to the relatively moderate guy who got tagged a liberal anyway, and a flip-flopper, and still almost won the presidency.

But if I were a Democrat -- and I may be again someday -- and I were thinking purely in terms of strategy, I'd be curious to try regrasping the party's liberal roots was the way to regain power now. Democrats are still faring well on the local level. The most vocal Democratic antiwar legislators -- Kucinich and Feingold come to mind -- won in states that went for Bush by large margins. Starting with the 1998 Congressional elections, Republican victories have been populist in appeal, attaching their message to a common American morality predating (but picking up speed with) the Clinton impeachment. The Democratic response has by and large been capitulation. In recent years, the overwhelming war resolution support, overwhelming Patriot Act (and its Clinton precursor) support, watering down of Medicare prescription benefits, and overwhelming support of Bush judicial nominations lead one to believe that Democrats are not digging in on very important national issues.

So what's left? Moving to the center isn't working. Staying put isn't working. Is it time yet to try moving a tad to the left on a couple of issues? I have no great love for Dean, but he's probably the smart move for Democrats and more to the point, he probably better represents their moral compass right now than either Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and any other so-called leaders the Democrats selected based on what they guessed the rest of the country would accept.