Two Books: Great Generals Series (LeMay) and Tear Down That Myth (by Will Bunch)

Great Generals Series: LeMay by Barrett Tillman (forward by Wesley Clark)

General LeMay was known for many things:

1. He was a young general, being promoted to Brigadier General at 37 years of age (15 years of service) and General (4 stars) at 45 years of age (23 years of service.)

2. He headed the famous Berlin Airlift.

3. He turned the Strategic Air Command (SAC) into an effective deterrent force.

4. In wartime he
a. developed the “LeMay Combat Box” which enabled the B-17 bombers to fly in a manner that allowed for them to bomb effectively and concentrate their defensive fire power against enemy fighters.
b. came up with the strategy of doing low level incendiary bombing over Japan.

5. He was also quick to call for the use of total force when a conflict broke out (e. g., he wanted to attack Korean and Vietnamese cities; he also wanted air strikes during the Cuban Missile Crisis)

Of course, one didn’t need to read Tillman’s book to find out any of the above. What the book did bring out was the following:

a. LeMay was a life long tinkerer; for example he was a ham radio operator and he also built his own color television. He had even greater hands on knowledge of the machines that his crews were flying; he knew the ins and outs of what his crews were to do. For example, when crews reported that certain “sighting blisters” iced over in the B-29 bomber, he knew which windows should be opened to take care of the problem.

b. He also was able to do very cold blooded logical analysis of the problems he encountered. Examples; when he took over a bomber wing in Europe, it was “conventional wisdom” that a plane that flew in a straight path for more than a few seconds was doomed to get shot down. LeMay reacted to that by getting out Army field manuals on the accuracy of artillery; he calculated what the odds really were and based his flying strategy on that. As a result: his flights caused more bombing damage and suffered fewer losses than others; hence his tactics became standard.

Also as far as the bombing runs in Japan: he figured out that the jet stream winds at high altitude over Japan made accurate high level bombing all but impossible, but also figured out that by flying lower, planes would use less fuel; hence they could carry heavier bomb loads. He also discovered that Japanese cities didn’t have “light flak” that was necessary to shoot down low flying planes.
Hence the switch to low level attacks with heavy incendiary loads.

c. LeMay, while having high standards and being ruthless in enforcing them, did not micromanage his subordinates. If they performed well, he left them alone. Also, he wasn’t impressed with “chicken-shit”. I have to admit that I cheered when I read the story of one of his “surprise inspections”: the colonel who was the head of the base got wind of a proposed inspection and therefore made an extra effort to get his base extra clean for the General’s visit. He also had his airmen taking time off of their jobs to clean, sweep, etc.

The General noticed that the flightline was a bit “too clean” and observed radio techs with brooms. He told the Colonel: “if your men have nothing better to do than this I don’t need you” and fired him on the spot.

General LeMay expected much from his crews; he expected them to willingly risk their lives and he set the example by risking his own (until ordered not to after he received the briefing on the atomic bombs). He was certainly a “set the example” type.

In short, General LeMay was intelligent, logical, calculating, and had a cold blooded focus (though he did care about rewarding his crews). You’d want him on your side during a war, though you wouldn’t want him as a political leader (yes, he was Wallace’s running mate in 1968 and he was part of the last “independent ticket” to win a state’s electoral votes in a general election).

Book Two:

Tear Down This Myth by Will Bunch

Remember this from the 2008 election?

Well, President Ronald Reagan has been brought up a great deal even by those who opposed his actual policies. Hence the book by Will Bunch.

Bunch basically argues this:

1. There is a big difference between what Reagan said in speeches and what he actually did as President.
2. The right wing has made President Reagan into a bit of an icon based on his speeches and sometime popularity.
3. In terms of policy: the times when President Reagan was the least successful is when he more closely followed his own rhetoric. The times he was the most successful is when he acted in a way that the current Republicans wouldn’t approve of!
4. He was NOT the “amicable dunce” that liberals made him out to be (“ketchup is a vegetable”, “trees cause air pollution” not withstanding)

Some facts: President Reagan grew government (added to the payroll, added an agency, raised taxes several times).

Inflation did go down under Reagan, but mostly due to the then-unpopular policies of Paul Volker, who was appointed by President Carter.

President Reagan indeed did a “cut and run” after Hezbolla killed the Marines in Lebanon (and did the right thing, IMHO).

He also thought that it was terrorism to kill innocent civilians in retaliation for a terrorist act! He had no desire for the US to be seen as an international bully. Of course, he did fund bloody right wing regimes in Latin America.

As far as the gas lines and energy: OPEC had to reduce its demands due, in part, to the success of our using less energy (a Carter program); Reagan promptly rolled back these programs.

His presidency was NOT one of the best of all times; neither was it the worst. His policies weren’t all that popular and people had enough of them eventually; President Bill Clinton ended up much of the mess that President Reagan and President H. W. Bush left behind.

In short, current Republicans have created a myth to sustain themselves and the myth doesn’t have that much in common with his actual presidency.

11 August 09 pm

Workout notes AM: 4 mile walk (50′ish or about 12:30 mpm)
PM: public track meet; 2 mile warm up,
800 meters in 3:18 (1:36, 1:42). I had to force myself to try to speed up on lap 2.
some stuff to keep lose
5000 meters: 26:30 (8:07, 8:31, 8:43, 1:07).
I didn’t have a lot left but I should have finished stronger than I did.

It was somewhat warm (81 F, 54 percent humidity) and the track made it feel a bit warmer, but mostly it was the 800 that took it out of me. Three ladies got away from me; the one in shiny black spandex was doing a perfect pace (8 minutes) but I couldn’t stay with her and the other lady who I got away from a bit early got me in the last 100 m. One just stayed out of reach the entire time.

Mathematics notes My progress on the paper write up continues. I found that I was a bit too terse in one of my “bounded below” arguments though I was correct.

Town Halls
Yes, I wish that single payer were on the table but it isn’t. But watch Senator McCaskill handle hecklers:

More Republican stupidity
Have you heard about “union thugs” who got into a health care event ahead of Republican protesters? It is partially true; the SEIU sponsored an event and reserved seats for some of the members and those members were let in. Yes, that is what the Republicans were complaining about.

Elections: an essay which basically argues that President Obama won mostly because it was a Democratic year; outside of the heavily Appalachian states he outperformed Kerry by about 5 points across the board.

Science/Nature: yes, a new species of frog: the flying frog was discovered.

President Obama’s Town Hall

I’ll put up the video when it is available. A “live blog and thread” can be found here.

1. I am proud that this guy is our President.
2. I am astonished at the patience that he is showing with some of the morons. I’d have lost my temper a long time ago.

He is doing a great job, though there is one question left.

Of course, the Republicans will claim that this was staged, etc.

Last question; he just owned the person making the dumb accusation. He shot down this idiotic “Obama is making an enemies list” accusation.

Update Here is a video of the last question (the so-called enemies list)

Note; I’ve been on the MSNBC, NPR and Alan Colmes threads on facebook. The level of stupidity, ignorance and plain illiteracy is appalling.

No, I am not talking about someone who thinks that “this estimate is too rosy” or “this won’t control costs” or other issues like those. I am talking about people who make outright false claims.

Then again, I am meeting worthwhile people too.

A Modest Proposal for Health Care Town Halls

How about this: make people get tickets for these in advance (free of charge, of course). But give each person a reading comprehension test (and even better, a basic facts test).

Those who score well get to go to the “civil” town hall where there can be explanation and honest debate; if the smart Republicans want to talk about controlling costs, great!

Those who don’t score well can go to another town hall. There they can shout, scream, hold their breath and even throw themselves on the ground if they see fit.

That way: those who want an informed debate can get it and those who just want to throw a tantrum can do that too.

Ok, if that sounds too “elitist” one can still have two town halls; one in which people agree (in writing) to a strict code of conduct (listening, waiting one’s turn) and are expelled if they violate it, and the other can be the “free for all”.

11 August 09 (am)

Workout notes
4 mile walk (48-50 minutes) on the flat West Peoria course focusing on technique.
Later: public track meet in the evening. I will probably embarrass myself in the 800 and look for a time of, say, 3:20?
I know, I know, I used to do 6-8 of them at that pace. Sigh…

Ultra notes: yes, that ultra I did (photos here) really was an ultra; the “6.2 mile laps” turned out to be 7.33 miles long. The race director e-mailed us to tell us that.

Another health care reform lie spread by the right wing:

more about "Club for Growth spreads “deather” con…", posted with vodpod

Rachel Maddow exposes “60plus”, a right wing group posing as a non-partisan advocacy group:

The face of the “deathers/teabaggers” (from here)

You see? This person thinks that he has the right to force himself to the front and yell. He clearly doesn’t know what he is talking about (there is no “death” provision in the current bills) and yes, one of the bills is about giving the public the same option that Congress has! (the proposed Coburn amendment was about forcing Congress to take the public option of that bill, should it pass).

In short, the Republican leadership lies and their dimwitted, gullible followers fall for it hook, line and sinker.

Of course, if someone bothered this person at their home, they were completely wrong to do so, and any applicable laws against harassment ought to be enforced.

You also see the health care programs of other countries being dragged into the debate. Yes, there is a difference between having a national health insurance plan (as Canada does) and socialized medicine (as the United Kingdom does). In the latter, the doctors work for the government. Then there is France which has a mix.

Here is Nate Silver’s short article which contrasts Canada (single payer model) with the United Kingdom (socialized medicine). The difference is not subtle, but evidently some are still confused.

Here a Mano Singham article about the Canadian plan.

Yes, things have gotten nasty; a member of the House of Representatives had his house defaced by a swastika.

On a completely different note: this article about self-enforcing protocols is just plain fun to read. Read it even if you don’t know what the title means. I’ll throw out an analogy to explain the meaning: suppose you want to divide up a pie between two people. If you bring in an arbitrator to do so, you’ve introduced a 3rd party. That is no longer self-enforcement. On the other hand, if you argee that the first person makes the cut in the pie and the second person gets to pick which piece, that is self-enforcement.

10 August 09 (pm)

Workout notes: 2000 yards of swimming; 5 x 100 on the 2, 10 x 25 drill, 25 swim (12 minutes), 10 x (25 fist, 25 free) on the 1 (:51 each), 6 x (25 fly, 25 free), cool down. It went fine; though it will be a while until I get the hang of it.

Silly note: wildcelticrose.net has a photo spread of one lady’s triathlon experience, including an “obligatory butt shot“.

Commentary: ladies, more of this please. Think of it as a way to encourage guys to get in shape enough to do these.

Update The triathlete whose blog I linked to sent me a link to the original “butt shot” that she was poking fun of with the photo that I alluded to.

Health care
The New York Times has a handy primer (and yes, it gives the Republicans a fair shake). Mano Singham has a nice post about the Canadian system and many oft-stated misconceptions about it. Of special interest is this one:

But what about not so well-to-do people from Canada also coming here for treatment? Rhonda Hackett, a Canadian clinical psychologist who has lived in the US for 17 years explains that phenomenon in the June 7, 2009 Denver Post:

Most patients who come from Canada to the U.S. for health care are those whose costs are covered by the Canadian governments. If a Canadian goes outside of the country to get services that are deemed medically necessary, not experimental, and are not available at home for whatever reason (e.g., shortage or absence of high tech medical equipment; a longer wait for service than is medically prudent; or lack of physician expertise), the provincial government where you live fully funds your care. Those patients who do come to the U.S. for care and pay out of pocket are those who perceive their care to be more urgent than it likely is.

Can you imagine any US private profit-seeking health insurance company agreeing to pay to send someone to another country for treatment?

Speaking of claims made about other country’s health care, this one is beyond absurd:

Or maybe a better title for this diary would be “Ouch, teh Stupid…it Hurts!”

I think this may be a key point in Sarah Palin’s ‘research’

From an Investor’s Business Daily editorial 10 days ago:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Uh, Stephen Hawking is a British subject and have lived in the U. K. almost all of his life and has received his treatment there. FAIL.

Commentary: Much of the screaming and crying done by the wingnuts at the townhalls doesn’t make a lot of sense; for example there is the confused elderly person who wants “government hands off of their medicare”. And some of the screamers just seem to be plain, well, “angry”…check out the crying woman about 1 minute into it:

Well, we HAVE seen this type of protest before…

That’s right: we remember the integration related riots.

So I think that Cenk Uygur hits it right on the head:

And who is stoking these fires? Encouraging and egging on these screams, this anger, this fear? Conservative talk hosts all across the country (and, of course, special interest groups funded by the health care industry who are relishing using these poor schleps as fodder for their effort to kill health care reform). They’re telling them the proper response is anger. Don’t wait your turn. Don’t listen to the congressman. Shout. Be heard. Be angry. Obama is taking this country away from you.

The woman who now famously stood up in a Delaware town hall and demanded that her congressman recognize the illegitimacy of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, said something telling in her rant. She said, “I want my country back!”

Indeed. Where did it go? Of course, the country is still right here. It’s the “my” part that’s missing. She doesn’t want this country back. She wants her country back. [...]

It’s a self-justifying anger. The angrier they get the more they feel the imperative to get angry. What is it? What’s really eating away at them? I don’t think it’s a conscious racial thing for them. It’s more a feeling of their way of life slipping away from them.

Think about it. If you worked at the local shop and in the old days you could get your son hired there, things were pretty good. Now, they tell you that they have to give the job to someone else’s son. Someone that doesn’t look like you, someone that you’ve never met or ever talked to. There’s been a lot of generations of that now.

You think those guys are going to inquire into the history of racial prejudice in this country and why it might make sense to increase diversity in a workplace when some groups have been excluded entirely? No, all they know is that their son couldn’t get the same job that their dads got for them. They want their country back.

Of course, this has been building up for quite awhile. But now they have lost their political power. Now the epitome of what they were fighting against is their new leader. His first hire for the Supreme Court is a Hispanic woman, who they hear is racist against white men and was only picked because of her race and gender.

In short, in “their” opinion, America now has too many people who look like me.

Oh sure, people like me are ok so long as we know our place and go along with the crowd, so to speak. But when “we” start saying things like “you know, people in other countries might have a reason to hate us if we go around killing their innocents”, well, that is enough to make a jingoist mad! (never mind that the conservative icon, Ronald Reagan, thought pretty much the same thing; on page 88 of Tear Down This Myth by Will Bunch President Reagan is quoted by Pat Buchanan as saying that retaliation in which innocent civilians are killed is “itself a terrorist act”)

Oh well; I am certainly not tarring ALL conservatives but I think that anyone who isn’t aware of the xenophobic element in some of the expressed “tea bagger” anger is kidding themselves.

My Heath Care Letter to Aaron Schock

To: The Honorable Mr. Aaron Schock
From: Ollie Nanyes
Re: Health Care Reform.
Dear Mr. Schock,
I respectfully request that you work toward finding common ground with President Obama on health care reform.

As you probably know, the current health care system is fatal to many of our fellow citizens; your colleague Lloyd Doggett of Texas has claimed that 22,000 Americans die prematurely due to a lack of health insurance.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/2009/07/29/0729doggett_edit.html

Though I prefer a plan with a strong public option, I would be satisfied with a plan that
1. Provides affordable health insurance for all, including those who are poor, between jobs, or those who have jobs with no health benefits. Premiums and co-pays should be reasonable.
2. Removes preexisting condition exclusions, eliminates the practice of rescission (except in cases of intentional fraud) and
3. Provides subsidies to those who can’t afford insurance plans.
4. Provides coverage for “well check-ups” and physical examinations.

I am willing to pay higher taxes to see the above happen.

I admit to being skeptical of any approach that is purely “free market” based as the blunt truth is that, on purely economic grounds, it isn’t profitable to insure some people; any system that is morally just will not be purely “bottom line” focused.

Regards
Ollie Nanyes

10 August 09 (am)

Workout notes The plan is to swim over lunch. I’ll report how it goes.

Personal-social issues: one nerd talks about why he isn’t interested in going to his high school reunion. Me: I got bullied a bit as a freshman (on the sports teams) but that eventually ended; I grew up and learned to stick up for myself. I was ok for the last three years though I was socially inept.

I didn’t fit in at college but that was partly a combination of where I went (a right wing Ronald Reagan loving school) and partly due to my lack of people skills and partly due to a lack of maturity.

But truth be told; I don’t look backwards all that much but rather focus on my current interests (some math, politics and endurance sports).

President Obama and progressives
It is no secret that many on the left don’t like at least some of what they are seeing; many (including Robert Reich) are annoyed at the deal that the Obama administration cut with the pharmaceutical industry:

Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That’s basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it’s proven a bonanza for the drug industry. A continuation will be an even larger bonanza, given all the Boomers who will be enrolling in Medicare over the next decade. And it will be a gold mine if the deal extends to Medicaid, which will be expanded under most versions of the healthcare bills now emerging from Congress, and to any public option that might be included. (We don’t know how far the deal extends beyond Medicare because its details haven’t been made public.)

Let me remind you: Any bonanza for the drug industry means higher health-care costs for the rest of us, which is one reason why critics of the emerging healthcare plans, including the Congressional Budget Office, are so worried about their failure to adequately stem future healthcare costs. To be sure, as part of its deal with the White House, Big Pharma apparently has promised to cut future drug costs by $80 billion. But neither the industry nor the White House nor any congressional committee has announced exactly where the $80 billion in savings will show up nor how this portion of the deal will be enforced. In any event, you can bet that the bonanza Big Pharma will reap far exceeds $80 billion. Otherwise, why would it have agreed?

Of course, this goes against what he said while campaigning.

Others have more general worries all the while acknowledging that there is still stuff to like. Ok, there is a lot to like; I point to the appointments of Hillary Clinton, Stephen Chu and Justice Sotomayor.

The bottom line: the idea that somehow the left is a bunch of blind kool-ade drinking supporters is simply not true.

9 August 09

Workout notes I started my 16 mile walk at 8:30 am; I wanted some heat conditioning. I got it; it was 80 F with 76 percent humidity at the start and 87 F with 67 percent humidity at the end; my course (the East Peoria Trail) had one nice one mile stretch that was shaded. I walked to the 5 mile turn around on the first out and back and to the 3 mile turn around on the second; I was 2:21 at mile 10 and 3:51 at the finish.

I find that I get grumpier as I go along; unless I know the person I encounter on the trail I usually say nothing and, toward the end of the walk when I am in the “tunnel of pain”, I actually get annoyed when I am greeted! If I see the person in time I usually wave or grunt.

My technique usually falls apart when I get tired; I need to work on keeping the hip motion and “push-off”.

As far as others on the trail: mostly it was 10-12 mph cyclists on hybrids though I did see one facebook friend with her friends; they were out walking.

Issues of the day
Academia: there is no secret to this; some of my grad school buddies went on to achieve big things in the world of mathematics; I did not. This issue is discussed here:

Don’t get me wrong. I made a move this past year here to Soda-Pop College, and I’m glad I did. I’ve had a blast meeting and getting to know my new colleagues, and I definitely will be working on some classes and projects that are a step up from where I was.

But I also had one of those dreaded birthdays, you know, the ones that end in zeroes. And, shit, so it’s a career, and I’m happy to have it. And I do a great job at it. But if my buddy Stewie Standout is at MIT and I’m not (and he is!), well who cares?

It used to bug the shit out of me. And Stewie was just one of my grad school pals who went HIGHER and FURTHER than me. It used to eat at me. I had such terrible envy that I skipped a little get-together the rest of them had one year. (What a pissy little toad I was.)

But now I’ve got this little place near the beach. My college is NOT MIT or anything like it, but who gives a shit? I met some students in a summer colloquium. They’re great kids. They probably score 500 or so on the Math portion of the SAT (if the school’s stats are right), but I’m going to teach them like a mofu this coming term, and they’re going to make progress like you can’t believe.

I think that this is the right attitude; hey most of us math professors are NOT MIT material. But we can publish stuff (I am almost through with another paper and hope to send two of these out before the end of the month) and we can help the students who want to be helped; and yes I have a few of these every semester.

But of course there are professors at small places who have crappy attitudes; some just give up and some pretend, well, that there is no difference between them and the big guns at the MITs of the world (yeah, right).

And this is how someone responded to Mid Career Mike:

Oh, I see. Mike’s a LOSER. Mike didn’t succeed like his buddies, so now he’s changed the whole game. He didn’t just move his cheese, he gave cheese up and is eating cardboard instead.

I don’t buy for one moment that Mike is content at Soda Flop College, just like he wasn’t satisfied at Rural Raccoon. But for whatever reason he’s given up any real academic ambition because he’s not made the grade. I see this in so many of my older colleagues. I tell them about my recent publication and they tell me about their family or their golf game. As if it’s the same thing.

I’m not saying that Mike isn’t worthwhile. Perhaps he’s a fine teacher. But teaching is so low on my list of priorities, and was instilled upon me by my mentors all through grad school. (Yes, an Ivy.)

Perhaps I don’t even mean Mike’s a loser. He’s just not playing the same game as his friend from MIT is. He certainly isn’t playing the game – at the level- that I am either. His decision to accept his limitations, fall out of the game his buddies play, and call his mediocrity a success, is just a shell game.

I don’t think that Mike is playing a shell game or calling “his mediocrity a success” as he is being optimal and doing what he can do. Just because I put work into my research papers and are happy with them doesn’t mean that I don’t know that the big guns are doing stuff that is out of my league! Hey, some people are destined to train full time to run a 2:10 marathon and others are destined to train in their spare time to run a 2:30 while coaching the track team full time.

National Issues
It is way too early to say how President Obama’s plans on the economy will work out; they might be a success or they might be a flop. But there is an encouraging sign on the job front: the rate of job loss has changed concavity, so to speak. Of course, that doesn’t imply a turn around but there is a hint of promise.

Health Care

From here. I should point out is that one issue with this group is the inequities physician compensation.

A local medical doctor (facebook friend) points out that we already have rationing of care going on. Basically this is a link to a story about someone having payment for their children’s treatment denied by insurance companies. They fought the denial (with assistance from the doctors), over turned it but then had their company’s insurance premiums go up by 30 percent.

So, something needs to be done. I am going to visit Representative Aaron Schock’s office at 9 am tomorrow as part of Organizing For America. My visit will be brief; I’ll ask the staff to relay the message that I want Mr. Schock to work with the President on this issue and I’ll hand him a note with my concerns on it.

My concerns:

1. Coverage for the poor.
2. Coverage for those who have lost jobs, are between jobs, or whose jobs don’t offer benefits.
3. Coverage for those who have preexisting conditions and limiting rescission to cases of intentional fraud.
4. Keeping premiums affordable for everyone and having subsidies for those who need it.

Though I favor single payer, I am not wedded to one philosophy or another.

This is NOT a “town hall”; here is a report on one of these.

Other comments
This wonderful essay points out that the Constitution HAS to be interpreted; it makes no sense otherwise:

Here’s the third place we can agree: If the Constitution says Barack Obama is ineligible to be president, he’s ineligible to be president.

The Constitution is always right because the Framers were infallible, even about slavery and not letting women and Indians vote. The Constitution means what it says and says what it means, not unlike Horton Hatches an Egg, if it had been written 230 years ago by 55 guys.

The Constitution says:

“No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

About President Obama Some wish that he had a bit of Sarah Palin in him (to make his message more accessible to the masses). Others feel that his pragmatism is hurting him.

I disagree on the first count and on the second: I am not sure; the jury is still out.

It is true that we have a lot of stupidity in this country (hence the need for simple explanations?) but I wonder if surveys such as those that provided data for Maher’s post really include those who are more politically active? I am not sure; one of my previous encounters with a local Republican was a disaster (her “knowledge” was mostly Rush Limbaugh stuff) but some that I encounter on the internet appear to be well informed (if misguided )

More about Obama
I sometimes get needled when President Obama’s policies appear to be similar to those of President Bush:

(click to enlarge).

I think this way: “if a car is driven into a ditch, there are only so many ways to pull it out.” That is, given where we are now, there might not be many viable options. But I worked to elect President Obama to keep us from getting into some of these binds to begin with. Note: Obama said something to this effect in a debate for his 2004 Senate race against Alan Keyes.

Other stuff: I am getting annoyed that the terms “Nazi” and “fascist” are getting tossed about so loosely. Yes, some on our side did that too when President Bush was in office. But those terms really don’t apply.

Health Care Reform is not Nazi. A discussion of the issues isn’t nazi-like. This is nazi.

This is one reason I don’t worry about vigorous debates with conservatives; I know several and NONE of them are even remotely nazi.

Climate Change Denialist Crock

8 August 09 (PM)

Athletics: From last weekend’s 12 hour ultra (which might explain this week’s poor performances):

All of these were taken on the first loop.

Maybe I am just not wearing the right stuff?

Comments:
Doug J at Balloon Juice

When someone talks back to a cop in his own house, that’s disorderly conduct.

When people make death threats and start fights in public, that’s exercising their First Amendment rights.

For those who didn’t catch the references: the first one alludes to the Gates arrest. The second one refers to the screamers who are showing up at town halls. Again: people have the right to speak their minds; they don’t have the right to shout down and attempt to intimidate others.

Yes, the tea-baggers and noisy and annoying and even rude. But in the grand scheme of things, they are losing:

Voters under 30 voted for Barack Obama by a 66-32 margin, while voters over 40 voted for John McCain by a 52-48 margin. Barack Obama is President of the United States today because of a generational shift in American politics, brought on by social change, economic change, and a general frustration with a political system where two factions have yelled at each other for 40 years. [...]

Now we’re seeing a full-fledged temper-tantrum on the right. Groups that were once able to control what happens by shouting are finding that it isn’t working, so they shout louder because they only know how to shout. Industry groups who found that the same old television ads featuring scare tactics weren’t effective turned to the shouters in a last-ditched effort to stop health care reform. And it is turning into a massive failure. The result is that the shouters are left bewildered by the change. In one of the many videos of the protests, a woman in her 50s got up and said something to the effect of,

“I can’t believe this would happen in my America. I want my America back.”

While the undertones of what she was saying were noxious, she has a point. The younger generation has had enough of the shouting. They took the keys away from a generation which spent 40 years screaming at each other and gave it to a man who promised to tone down the political debate in America. We, and she, have nothing to fear. We are at the dawn of a new progressive era where the debate will become civilized, and where people will disagree without being disagreeable. It is a time for hope.

Screaming and “acting out” is all they have got left. We are winning overall, even if we suffer some “local” setbacks.