The Daily Parker

The router at my remote office appears to have a cold, poor thing, which means only my phone and not my laptop can connect to the Intertubes right now. So after finishing this post (in Notepad), I'll go back to reading Joe McGinniss's The Rogue.

Now, I never thought Sarah Palin qualified for any office, let alone U.S. vice president, but even I'm stunned. So, I imagine, is John McCain, who has made unexpectedly reasoned and clear statements that make me think he was abducted by aliens from 2007 to 2009.

Confining myself only to the bits about her incompetence, and skipping all her other objectionable qualities (religious extremism, pettiness, meanness, and general display of narcissistic personality disorder), here's an excerpt from pages 129-130:

In April [2002] the city council had to approve a $14.7 million bond issue to pay for [the new sports complex]. Unfortunately, in her eagerness, Sarah [Palin] authorized construction of the facility on land the city did not own. ...

Her handpicked city attorney, Ken Jacobus, adviced the council to approve construction despite an ongoing court fight over title to the land. ... A parcel of land Wasilla could have bought for $125,000 eventually cost the city more than $1.5 million in judgments and legal fees. ...

Sarah took a city that had no debt and $4 million in cash reserves and in six years turned it into one that had piled up almost $20 million in long-term debt. During her tenure, the cost of debt service increased by 69 percent. She increased the sales tax from 2 to 2.5 percent to pay for the sports arena. While Wasilla's population grew by 37 percent during her tenure, total government expenditures rose by 63 percent, spending on salaries for city employees by 67 percent, money spent on office furniture and equipment by 117 percent, and administration spending on outside professional services by 932 percent.

I can't wait for the movie...

Via Krugman, economist Lawrence Mishel shows that businesses aren't concerned about uncertainty:

An examination of current economic trends, and especially what employers are doing in terms of hiring and investment, debunks this story about regulatory uncertainty as the cause of our dismal job growth. An examination of what employers and their economists are saying again and again in private surveys (cited later in this paper) makes it clear that what businesses actually identify as their challenges does not fit this story either. In other words, what the heavily politicized trade associations in Washington (like the [U.S.] Chamber [of Commerce]) are saying does not correspond to the real challenges facing both large and small businesses, even as they themselves perceive them.

Actually, it’s not really “uncertainty” about these potential rules and regulations that is the complaint: the regulatory process is moving along, and the rules are becoming final and therefore certain. But the House Republicans and various business groups are actually trying to delay the rules, prolonging the sense of uncertainty. The bottom line is an old conservative story: that regulation will raise costs and make future business opportunities to sell goods and services insufficiently profitable. The new twist is that these fears are suppressing current investments and hiring, and are thus a major cause of our unemployment problem.

Except it isn't true:

Instead of uncertainty about regulations, there is strong evidence that the absence of job creation reflects the continued unwinding of the financial collapse and the corresponding lack of demand. Firm investments and hiring are lower because they have ample capacity to produce the goods and services they are selling to a shrunken market, while firms are deleveraging at the same time.

Or, as Krugman says, "the willingness of so many people to completely abandon any intellectual principles here, so that they can play for Team Republican" has contributed to policies that actually hurt employment.

Via Sullivan, Sarah Palin threatened to sue Joe McGinniss over his recent book. (The UPS guy has my copy on his truck. I can't wait.)

Of course, if she sues him, he'll have a field day with her:

If a suit were filed by the Palins alleging slander or libel, the judge would require them to appear and give testimony. They would be REQUIRED to answer questions under oath. You might not have criminal exposure if you bring impermissible pressure on a state employee to fire another, but there are criminal sanctions for lying under oath. It is Joe McGinniss that has the real slander suit against the Palins for calling him a child molester.

Imagine for a minute one simple question: “Is Trig your natural-born son?” “Have you ever used cocaine?” “Did you ever have sex with Shailey Tripp?” “Did you ever give Shailey Tripp cash?” “Did you ever get a massage from Shailey Tripp?” “Did you represent in any written document to Shailey Tripp that you were not pregnant, when you have represented to the entire country that you were pregnant at that time?”

Thus a suit will never be filed. [Palin's lawyer] can threaten all he wants, but we know that Todd and Sarah will never allow themselves to be placed under oath and answer any questions.

So, yeah, I'd love to see the suit as much as the next Democrat, but it'll never happen.

Via TPM, a judge in Alabama plans to sentence non-violent offenders to go to church:

Non-violent offenders in Bay Minette now have a choice some would call simple: do time behind bars or work off the sentence in church.

Operation Restore Our Community or "ROC" begins next week. The city judge will either let misdemenor offenders work off their sentences in jail and pay a fine or go to church every Sunday for a year.

If offenders elect church, they're allowed to pick the place of worship, but must check in weekly with the pastor and the police department. If the one-year church attendance program is completed successfully, the offender's case will be dismissed.

A local Alabama blog, doing the reporting the local TV station skipped, talked with someone who has actually taken a constitutional law class:

"This policy is blatantly unconstitutional," said Olivia Turner, executive director for the ACLU of Alabama. "It violates one basic tenet of the Constitution, namely that government can’t force participation in religious activity."

But the local police chief who is heading up the program starting Tuesday called "Restore Our Community" says no one is being forced to participate. "Operation ROC resulted from meetings with church leaders," Bay Minette Police Chief Mike Rowland said. "It was agreed by all the pastors that at the core of the crime problem was the erosion of family values and morals. We have children raising children and parents not instilling values in young people."

Umm...jail is coercive. And churches don't create family values, as dozens of convicted televangelists demonstrate. And pastors don't set public policy in free societies.

Other than that, I can't see a thing wrong with the policy.

Krugman nails it:

Although you’d never know it listening to the ranters, the past year has actually been a pretty good test of the theory that slashing government spending actually creates jobs. The deficit obsession has blocked a much-needed second round of federal stimulus, and with stimulus spending, such as it was, fading out, we’re experiencing de facto fiscal austerity. State and local governments, in particular, faced with the loss of federal aid, have been sharply cutting many programs and have been laying off a lot of workers, mostly schoolteachers.

And somehow the private sector hasn’t responded to these layoffs by rejoicing at the sight of a shrinking government and embarking on a hiring spree.

I'm sorry I missed the column when it ran.

A few stories have gotten my attention in the past day. Each of them merits thought, but unfortunately I haven't got enough time to think today:

• Reuters reported on a new study that may have found a gene implicated in ALS. The study doesn't say whether this means ALS has a larger genetic component than previously thought. Current thinking puts inherited ALS at fewer than 10% of all cases. If it's more commonly inherited than that, I would very much like to know.
• Atlantic Cities has a history of American cul-de-sacs that will interest anyone concerned about the ways that American suburbs suck the souls from people seem less vibrant than large cities.
• Elizabeth Warren rocks. Since I can't vote for her, I will give her money instead. You should too.
• The rich are not oppressed.
• And counter my friend Celebitchy—well, her writer Kaiser, anyway—the Duchess of Cambridge is not stupid.

On this last point, apparently the future Queen Consort of the UK is getting tutored in statecraft to help her be queen someday. As I wrote to Celebitchy, "It’s not like she’s getting tutored in how many MPs there, who’s the head of the C of E, or how to pick Ed Milliband out of a crowd, which I’m pretty sure she knows already. (By the way, anyone criticizing her not knowing how English government works had better know those things cold.) Imagine if you were someday to become the symbol of the United States for all the world, wouldn’t you want to know the real ins and outs of US institutions? And if you had the opportunity to get private tutoring on those institutions from, say, Joe Biden, Ruth Ginsburg, Mitch McConnell, Hillary Clinton, Admiral Mullen, and a dozen others of their stature—don’t you think you’d take that opportunity?"

I'm not usually cock-a-whoop about royals, but in this case it seems the duchess is behaving like a conscientious adult, and wants to do her job competently, or even as well as her mother-in-law. She's not treating her marriage as a fairy tale; she's treating it as a responsibility. The future of British royalty is riding on her, after all. Another Diana and England could become a republic, and we can't have that, what what.

Via TPM, search-engine watcher Danny Sullivan says former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum hasn't been Googlebombed; he's simply lost the war:

In a classic Googlebombing — which Google did crack down on when it was used to tie searches for “miserable failure” to George W. Bush back during the Republicans administration — pranksters tricked Google’s algorithm into sending (for lack of a better term) the “wrong” results for a search. An example could be you entered “apple” in the Google bar and got back a page about bananas thanks to people purposefully tricking the algorithm.

This is not what happened to Santorum, Sullivan explained. [Columnist and LGBT advocate Dan] Savage literally created a new definition for the word “Santorum” and then made a website explaining it. That explanation has become accepted and — “in some quarters,” Sullivan said — a topic people actually go searching for when they enter santorum into Google.

And how did Santorum lose this battle? In a nutshell, committing homophobia while in national office. And what is the colloquial definition 'santorum?' You're on your own there...

The very first thing I heard today was the weather forecast, calling for 34°C temperatures this afternoon.

Then I heard an NPR story about Texas' war on women:

For hundreds of thousands of Texas women and teens between the ages of 13 and 50, the 71 family planning clinics in the state serve as their gateway to health care, and for many of those women, visiting the clinics is the only time they see a nurse practitioner or a doctor.

This year, the Republican-controlled Texas legislature and Gov. Rick Perry cut funding for family planning clinics by two-thirds. Dr. Celia Neavel runs the People's Clinic in East Austin and says it is a devastating blow.

"So that particular funding was used obviously for birth control, but also pap smears, breast cancer screening, for diabetes, thyroid disorders, anemia [and] high cholesterol," Neavel says.

But who wants low-income women to get horrible diseases? Surely this is an unintended side effect of state funding cuts. Oh, wait, this is Christianist country:

When The Texas Tribune asked state Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Nacogdoches), a supporter of the family planning cuts, if this was a war on birth control, he said "yes."

"Well of course this is a war on birth control and abortions and everything, that's what family planning is supposed to be about," Christian said.

The budget cuts to family planning clinics won't in the end save Texas money. The state estimates nearly 300,000 women will lose access to family planning services, resulting in roughly 20,000 additional unplanned births. Texas already spends $1.3 billion on teen pregnancies — more than any other state.

What's particularly galling to family planning advocates is that part of the money, $8.4 million, that was cut from family planning will now go to Crisis Pregnancy Centers around the state. Crisis Pregnancy Centers are part of the pro-life movement's answer to family planning clinics.

Yes, welcome to the land empiricism forgot, where preventing abortion has nothing to do with preventing unwanted pregnancy or preventing treatable diseases.

I did hear one bit of good news, a reminder that Don't Ask, Don't Tell ended today.

First, he highlights the fundamentals of the President's speech this morning:

The president's policy is simple, really. More stimulus now, more fiscal retrenchment later. And there is no way that we can - or should - balance the budget entirely on the backs of the poor and the middle class. There has to be some contribution from those most successful in an economy that continues to reward them more and more generously, even as the country's debt escalates.

In other words, as the President said, "This is not class warfare. This is math."

Also, Americans support the President's policies by overwhelming majorities.

Oh, and a quarter of the world away, our Conservative cousins in the UK have put marriage equality on the legislative agenda for next year, something the American radical right can't see how to do:

Addressing the opening day of her party's autumn conference in Birmingham, [UK Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone] spoke passionately about the need to reject prejudice and discrimination, and support the cause of women's equal rights and persecuted minorities across the world.

To rounds of applause, she said: "I am delighted to announce today that in March this Government will bring in a formal consultation on how to implement equal civil marriage for same-sex couples.

"And this would allow us to make any legislative changes necessary by the end of this Parliament."

So, by this time in 2012—in time for our election, wouldn't you know—the UK may have full marriage equality. Cool.

I'm David Braverman, this is my blog, and Parker is my 5-year-old mutt. I last updated this About... page in February, but some things have changed. In the interest of enlightened laziness I'm starting with the most powerful keystroke combination in the universe: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V.

Twice. Thus, the "point one" in the title.

The Daily Parker is about:

• Parker, my dog, whom I adopted on 1 September 2006.
• Politics. I'm a moderate-lefty by international standards, which makes me a radical left-winger in today's United States.
• Photography. I took tens of thousands of photos as a kid, then drifted away from making art until a few months ago when I got the first digital camera I've ever had that rivals a film camera. That got me reading more, practicing more, and throwing more photos on the blog. In my initial burst of enthusiasm I posted a photo every day. I've pulled back from that a bit—it takes about 30 minutes to prep and post one of those puppies—but I'm still shooting and still learning.
• The weather. I've operated a weather website for more than ten years. That site deals with raw data and objective observations. Many weather posts also touch politics, given the political implications of addressing climate change, though happily we no longer have to do so under a president beholden to the oil industry.
• Chicago, the greatest city in North America, and the other ones I visit whenever I can.

I've deprecated the Software category, but only because I don't post much about it here. That said, I write a lot of software. I work for 10th Magnitude, a startup software consultancy in Chicago, I've got about 20 years experience writing the stuff, and I continue to own a micro-sized software company. (I have an online resume, if you're curious.) I see a lot of code, and since I often get called in to projects in crisis, I see a lot of bad code, some of which may appear here.

I strive to write about these and other things with fluency and concision. "Fast, good, cheap: pick two" applies to writing as much as to any other creative process (cf: software). I hope to find an appropriate balance between the three, as streams of consciousness and literacy have always struggled against each other since the first blog twenty years ago.

If you like what you see here, you'll probably also like Andrew Sullivan, James Fallows, Josh Marshall, and Bruce Schneier. Even if you don't like my politics, you probably agree that everyone ought to read Strunk and White, and you probably have an opinion about the Oxford comma—punctuation de rigeur in my opinion.

Another, non-trivial point. Facebook reads the blog's RSS feed, so many people reading this may think I'm just posting notes on Facebook. Facebook's lawyers would like you to believe this, too. Now, I've reconnected with tons of old friends and classmates through Facebook, I play Scrabble on Facebook, and I eagerly read every advertisement that appears next to its relevant content. But Facebook's terms of use assert ownership of everything that appears on their site, regardless of prior claims, which contravenes four centuries of law.

Everything that shows up on my Facebook profile gets published on The Daily Paker first, and I own the copyrights to all of it (unless otherwise disclosed). I publish the blog's text under a Creative Commons attribution-nonderivative-noncommercial license; republication is usually OK for non-commercial purposes, as long as you don't change what I write and you attribute it to me. My photos, however, are published under strict copyright, with no republication license, even if I upload them to other public websites. If you want to republish one of my photos, just let me know and we'll work something out.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy The Daily Parker.