Unused and Ignored

One friend of mine is pretty adamant that women do not commit violence or prey on men and boys, at least not with any significantly measurable frequency. I’ve countered her anecdotallly by noting that on more than one occasion I’ve been on the receiving end of violent attacks, and so have a significant number of my male friends. That’s not statistical proof, of course, but violence against men is very rarely looked for or measured. I strongly suspect that women bear the majority of violent and sexual attacks, not the other way around. But the chances of men experiencing violence are high enough that the phenomenon shouldn’t be ignored.

Anyhow, this came to mind again because incidents like the following seem to be a daily occurrence. The response from many on the net, including me at times, is to see what the perpetrator looks like. As if the harm to a boy from having a pretty older woman abscond with him is somehow dependent on whether she’s attractive or not. Boys want to make it with hot women, so it can’t be harmful to them, right?

Frankly, I have no idea what the answer to that question is. What percentage are truly traumatized for life? What percent get messed up but no worse than normal teenage trauma that passes? What portion of boys that this happens to really feel fine with the experience? And is it really dependent on the looks of the woman? And can we draw any lessons from this to the wider phenomenon of girls being preyed on? I’m not saying by any stretch that girls just need to get over being victims. I just wonder if there are any parallels. Or is there any difference in how boys handle predatory behavior from men compared to that from women. In other words, is it really any less harmful to have a female teacher molest a boy than a male priest?

As I wrote, I think too often we dismiss the problem as insignificant. Then again, maybe it really is.

School fires teacher accused of ‘inappropriate’ relationship with pupil

The South Buffalo Charter School teacher whose disappearance led to a police investigation into her relationship with an eighth-grade student has been fired, two sources familiar with the case said today.

Cara Dickey, 29, was given her termination papers Wednesday, the day after she was found sleeping in her vehicle in Springville, the sources said.

Dickey was suspended with pay on Monday, and school officials escorted her off school grounds that afternoon. She then went missing until State Police found her sleeping in her vehicle late Tuesday morning.

This spring, I ran out of time before the Washington State Presidential caucuses before I could compare and post on Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton. I don’t intend to let that happen with the general election. I have five months to compare and contrast John McCain and Barack Obama. It’s slightly different in this case, in that I already know which one of them I prefer. However, it’s still useful to go through the exercise. So starting soon watch for posts on the issues.

But one last comment on the primary campaign. I’ve seen a lot of hate for Hillary Clinton that just doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen one or two people who have legitimate, if not well-thought-out, beefs with her. But mostly it’s people looking for reasons to hate her. The hopefully last one was the brouhaha over whether she should have conceded on Tuesday night immediately after the last two primaries.

My commentary is the same as Bob Somerby’s at The Haily Howler:

Some people wanted a concession on Tuesday. That’s fine, but historically, people don’t do that. By the way: It would be weird to spend all day Tuesday asking people to vote for you—then to show up at 8:30 PM and say, “I’m out of here—please vote for the other guy.” Whatever you think of Clinton’s speech, it would be somewhat odd to endorse on the night you ran in two primaries, trying to win. Historically, people don’t do that.

So I repeat, a lot of the anti-Hillary Clinton invective is really just that much bullshit.

Okay, so one of my pet peeves is people repeating stuff that just isn’t true. I don’t mean rumors that I’m sleeping with Jason’s ex-girlfriends. Hell, that sort of thing is perfectly okay. Tell all sorts of rumors, true or not, about me that you want. No, I mean things like you can’t get ticketed for driving too fast in Montana. Stuff that just isn’t true.

One of the ones that I heard last week was that Social Security will be bankrupt before we retire.

Under reasonable assumptions, it’s just not true. What do I mean by reasonable assumptions? Like we leave the laws around it alone. We could always make Social Security into a dishwasher funding law, but I’m assuming we won’t.

Right now, under the Social Security Trustees projections, Social Security is fully funded through 2041. Under the Congressional Budget Office projections, it’s fully funded through 2046. What does that mean? It means that all planned benefits can be fully paid. Benefits go up faster than inflation, actually. That’s important for what happens after 2041 (or 2046, under slightly more optimistic projections). At that point, benefits can be paid out at 75% of what’s currently planned for those years. 75% of plan at that point is better than if current benefits were indexed to inflation. In other words, retirees after 2041 will be collecting more money, adjusted for inflation, than current beneficiaries.

That’s with no changes whatsoever.

Let’s also point out how far out that actually is. 2041. I will turn 65 in 2035. I will be 71 when Social Security goes bankrupt. 33 years from now. Social Security was in worse shape in 1986 than it will be in 2041, and with a decent change was fixed. 22 years ago. It’s had a surplus since then and we won’t even be dipping into the surplus for another 20 years or so.

This point is so far in the future that if we make really minor changes to the funding (I know, my assumption was no changes, we’re moving on to another part of the argument), like lifting the cap on wage income that is subject to the tax, it will be fully funded forever. Right now if I made 150,000 a year, only the first 90,000 or so would be subject to F.I.C.A. (the tax used to fund Social Security). Poor people pay a higher percentage of income for F.I.C.A. than rich people do.

However, if the economy does as well as it did in the 1970s and 1980s, no changes will be needed. We don’t even need to assume that the economy will be as good as the Clinton years. The economic assumptions in the Social Security Trustees projections assume we won’t do as well as the 1970s. They are extremely conservative (not in the political party sense) assumptions.

To sum up: don’t panic.

Danny Westneat at the Seattle Times writes that plastic bags are a tiny fraction of sea trash.

Although the mayor’s press release on the proposed plastic bag fees notes that plastic bags are particularly harmful to marine life as compared with paper bags, the big push is because the bags take up 4% of our landfill.

In other words, Westneat is building up a nice straw man and then knocking it down. It seems like the Seattle Times really doesn’t like the proposed fees. They’ve charged the fees will hurt the poor, and now this. It won’t hurt the poor. The city will be giving out free re-usable bags. The charge will get people to change their behavior. Because of that, they will not be paying this fee enough to hurt them. People respond to economic incentives. This is a conservative way to address a problem. It uses the market and the laws of supply and demand to achieve a needed end.

So get smarter, Seattle Times.

Quite frequently I catch Daniel Schorr’s commentaries on N.P.R. when I am driving in the afternoon. I’m not a huge fan of All Things Considered, but it’s better than any other news on the radio so I listen. But invariably turn off the radio midway through Daniel Schorr’s commentary. It’s not that he pisses me off. It’s that his commentaries are so bland and devoid of opinion. What’s the point of having an editorial commentary if the opinion espoused is that N.A.T.O. struggles with finding a purpose since the fall of the Soviet Union? Duh.

I’ve never really been a fan of the way security is conducted in American airports.

One of the ways news organizations thread the needle on libel laws is to report what other people say. For instance, Richard Jewell had a horrible time winning in court against newspapers because they reported that police suspected him in the Olympic park bombing in 1996. Which was true. Police did suspect him.

Just recently, the New York Time has done something similar to John McCain, a politician I don’t really like. The Times wrote that McCain campaign staffers in 2000 suspected an affair with a lobbyist. Which is probably true.

But in both thee cases, the intent of the reporting is not to report that there are rumors. The intent is that just maybe possibly the rumors are true. And there’s little a target can do about it, particularly if they are a public figure like courts ruled Jewell was (I disagree) and McCain obviously is.

I think it sucks that news organizations can avoid liability for the harm this causes to the targets. They get to say we didn’t report that this happened. we reported that there’s a rumor. It particularly sucks when the news uses anonymous sources. don’t sue us, sue the people who actually aid it. That is nearly impossible when the sources are anonymous. The mainstream media clams up and says we can’t tell you who it is to sue though we were integral in spreading the libel.

There’s something to be said for protecting the media from suit. We want a free media. However, I think we need a way to keep such libels in check. Perhaps open them up to lawsuit with a safe harbor if they report every investigative step they took to verify the truth of the allegations. I.e., if they actually include something like we did X, Y, and Z, and after all that we found no evidence to back up the rumor. Current law allows them only to be sued for failure to check the truth only on first level facts. That needs to be expanded to facts reported by reference for want of a better term.

Or perhaps there’s another way. But it’s clear to me that the current limitations allow much more smearing than is healthy.

When the war in Iraq started, I wasn’t particularly for it or against it. I questioned the need to rush into it, but I do believe that some credible threat would have been needed to force Saddam Husein from power. Eventually. But I do think that the Bush administration rushed into it, and botched the war badly. I’ve read of proposals by Hussein to step down which were discarded. Paul Bremer’s initial management of Iraq pretty much blew it and put us behind the 8-ball for the rest of our engagement.

Obama opposed the war from the start. Clinton voted to authorize it, but wasn’t exactly for it. My views at the time match more closely with Clinton’s, though it’s a stretch to say we agreed. I would not have voted to authorize were I a senator. But I wasn’t exactly against the war either. In retrospect though, despite not agreeing with Obama’s position that we should never go there, his position would have kept us out of this mess.

Both Clinton and Obama want to remove our troops quickly, and in a staged fashion. Obama would keep forces nearby for counter-terrorism. Clinton has said forces might be left in the country for counter-terrorism.

On how to resolve the crisis there, Clinton would convene a group of our allies to propose a solution. Obama would call a convention involving the United Nations to work out a political solution to things like an oil law. Clinton’s plan seems a bit fuzzier on it’s goals, and a little too expansive on its participation.

Overall, the nod on Iraq goes to Obama for me.

This one should be interesting. I’m not nearly so liberal on the topic as I am in other areas.

Pointing liberal, I am for sanctuary cities, providing services irrespective of immigration status (mostly, see next paragraph) such as fire departments, courts, child health care, schools, etc., and giving driver’s licenses to everyone who passes the tests. I am against English-only laws. In other words, I am liberal on the aspects of immigration that concern human rights.

Pointing conservative, I am against amnesty, against guest-worker programs, and for reducing H1-B visas. In addition, I am philosophically against “green cards” or permanent resident alien status. If folks are coming here to live permanently, they should be here on a citizenship track. Illegal immigrants should not receive welfare or unemployment benefits. In short, I am generally conservative with regard to the economic issues of immigration.

Pointing neither way, I am ambivalent on a border wall/fence. And I am for measured immigration as well as additional funding for the INS (or whatever it’s called today) for processing and handling immigration applications.

On human rights issues of immigration, Obama supports drivers licenses for immigrants, is against English-only and has a muddled position on sanctuary cities. Clinton is against rivers licenses, but matches up with Obama in other respects.

On to economic aspects of immigration. Both are for increasing H1-B visas. Both are for a guest worker program. Both are for crackdowns on employers (not the immigrants themselves) who exploit undocumented workers, though I’m not sure where that leaves them on employers who don’t exploit.

Overall, mostly a wash, with a slight nod to Obama.

Sources for this are: Barack Obama on Immigration, Hillary Clinton on Immigration, Barack Obama’s web site on immigration, and Hilary Clinton’s web site on immigration.

Both Clinton and Obama are proposing making changes in how we pay for health care. I’d love to see single-payer, but we aren’t going to get that.

The best piece of information I know of regarding their two plans is a blog entry by Paul Krugman. Both candidates propose subsidizing health insurance. Clinton would force people to sign up for insurance, though how people would be forced is not clear. Obama would not. While it is bad for freedom to force people to get health insurance, economically speaking there’s a free rider problem if you don’t. Only sick people would get insurance. Insurance costs would be way up there. Basically, mandated insurance is a tax. Without the tax, it falls apart.

One other big health care issue that I care about is stem cell research. My mother has fairly advanced ALS. She will likely die before stem cells cures could do anything for her. She also is probably against opening up funding for stem cells, as many stem cell lines are the results of abortions. I, however, am strongly in support of opening up stem cell research. I’d hate for anyone to go through my mother’s illness unnecessarily.

Both Clinton and Obama are strongly for opening up stem cell research beyond the limits imposed by the Bush administration.

One thing that has driven up health care costs is the high prices of drugs, imposed through patent monopolies. Dean Baker has proposed that we fund drug innovation differently, rather than through monopolies. I don’t know if that would work well or not, but no candidate will get on board that right now. However, we could import drugs from Canada. We could also allow medicare to negotiate drug prices, which they are currently forbidden from doing.

Both Obama and Clinton have supported these ideas.

Advantage: Clinton.