Need more white babies, so no abortions, no contraception, and an inhalant that makes women horny.

I need to tell you, the 21st century is not shaping up to be a good place for white women.

Quote of note:

The whole Prisoner of the Census web site. Also the whole Prison Policy Institute web site.

Prison-Based Gerrymandering

Prison inmates are barred from voting in 48 states. Even so, state legislatures typically count the inmates as "residents" to pad state legislative districts that sometimes contain too few residents to be legal under federal voting rights law. This unsavory practice exaggerates the political power of the largely rural districts where prisons are built and diminishes the power of the mainly urban districts where inmates come from and where they inevitably return.

Eugene Volokh starts a discussion those Danish cartoons that offended so many Arab adherants of Islam thus.

"Racist" Cartoons:

A commenter questioned my questioning Art Spiegelman's statement that this cartoon is racist — not just critical of Islam, or at least of some strands of Islam, but racist (or perhaps more precisely "ethnically bigoted," though for our purposes we can view the two as roughly interchangeable):

Tagging any exaggerated features as an expression of bigotry would destroy the editorial cartoon industry. And yes, the way the features are exaggerated will be totally driven by the artist's personal political positions or biases. Given that the whole point of the endeavor is to set forth the cartoonist's personal political positions or biases, this is more than appropriate.

We also appreciate the professor's recognition that "ethnically bigoted" rather than "racist" is the correct term. However, we do not appreciate his conflating the terms anyway.

The living wage movement now has the best damn tagline in politics:

A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.

Tie it to immigration you you have the possibility of landslide-level support.

The Moral Minimum
Holly Sklar and Rev. Paul Sherry
May 19, 2006

Rev. Paul Sherry is the coordinator of the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign and Holly Sklar is on the steering committee. They are co-authors of A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future. Sherry is also the coordinator of the Anti-Poverty Program of the National Council of Churches. Sklar's books include Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work For All Of Us. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].

Justice Department accuses Abbott of fraudulent drug-pricing scheme

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is accusing Abbott Laboratories of vastly inflating prices of its drugs as part of a fraudulent billing scheme alleged to have cost government health programs more than $175 million over 10 years.

Abbott bumped up the reported price of the intravenous antibiotic vancomycin as much as 18 times what it charged health care providers, knowing that the Medicare and Medicaid programs would reimburse the providers based on the manufacturer's price, according to a whistle-blower lawsuit unsealed Thursday.

Abbott, based in North Chicago, Ill., participated in such a billing scheme because hospitals, pharmacies and other providers would get to pocket the difference and would be more likely to prescribe the company's products again, the Justice Department contended.

Sidney Poitier honored by France

France gave Sidney Poitier its highest arts honor Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, where the culture minister praised the Oscar winner for tearing down barriers for black actors in Hollywood, The Associated Press reports.

Poitier, 79, was named a commander in France's order of arts and letters. In 1964, he became the first black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award, for Lilies of the Field.

''You are the champion of equality between men,'' Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said.

Poitier thanked his parents, who were field workers in the Bahamas, for giving him a sense of honesty, integrity and compassion.

Quote of note:

Treasury Secretary John Snow conceded Tuesday that the much-touted tax cuts for capital gains and dividend income don't drive today's strong economy.

Asked by Knight Ridder if the tax reductions paid for themselves, Snow acknowledged that they don't.

...A Harvard University paper last December concluded that up to 50 percent of a cut in capital-gains taxes would flow back to the Treasury in new revenues.

"The feedback is surprisingly large," concluded N. Gregory Mankiw, the study's co-author. He headed Bush's Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005.

Mankiw's study also concluded that the Treasury payback would be 17 percent of the tax-cut's cost if the reduction were on wages instead of capital.

That's in line with a December study by the CBO. It looked at a hypothetical 10 percent cut in income-tax rates. It concluded that up to 22 percent of the lost revenue could be regained over five years, and up to 32 percent over five more years.

But paybacks of 50, 17, 22 or 32 percent still mean a net revenue loss for the Treasury.

Tax cuts lose more money than they generate, studies conclude
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers

The other day I linked to an op-ed by Leonard Pitts Jr. I called my post My hero for a day, and this was the "Quote of note."

It is telling how mutely we absorb that fact, which gives tacit approval to this means of controlling a population whose mere existence we have historically found threatening and inconvenient.

...it's no accident African-American children are always so well represented in those lousy places.

So our concern for them now feels--well, let's call it belated. And self-deluding.

Those children were right where we wanted them to be. 

I checked Google and I see that one is just making the rounds in newspapers. I'm wondering if this editorial will also make the rounds because he discusses his email, wherein folks prove the "Quote of note" above was absolutely correct, if overgenerous with pronoun selection.

Quote of note:

...Documents show that the government paid Blackwater $950 a day for each of its guards in the area. Interviewed by The Nation last September, several of the company's guards stationed in New Orleans said they were being paid $350 a day. That would have left Blackwater with $600 per man, per day to cover lodging, ammo, other overhead--and profits.

... According to Blackwater's government contracts, obtained by The Nation, from September 8 to September 30, 2005, Blackwater was paid $409,000 for providing fourteen guards and four vehicles to "protect the temporary morgue in Baton Rouge, LA." That contract kicked off a hurricane boon for Blackwater. From September to the end of December 2005, the government paid Blackwater at least $33.3 million--well surpassing the amount of Blackwater's contract to guard Ambassador Paul Bremer when he was head of the US occupation of Iraq. And the company has likely raked in much more in the hurricane zone. Exactly how much is unclear, as attempts to get information on Blackwater's current contracts in New Orleans have been unsuccessful.

In the Black(water)
by JEREMY SCAHILL
[from the June 5, 2006 issue]

Tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims remain without homes. The environment is devastated. People are disenfranchised. Financial resources, desperate residents are told, are scarce. But at least New Orleans has a Wal-Mart parking lot serving as a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center with perhaps the tightest security of any parking lot in the world. That's thanks to the more than $30 million Washington has shelled out to the Blackwater USA security firm since its men deployed after Katrina hit. Under contract with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Protective Service, Blackwater's men are ostensibly protecting federal reconstruction projects for FEMA. Documents show that the government paid Blackwater $950 a day for each of its guards in the area. Interviewed by The Nation last September, several of the company's guards stationed in New Orleans said they were being paid $350 a day. That would have left Blackwater with $600 per man, per day to cover lodging, ammo, other overhead--and profits.

Quote of note:

That has followed in the Bush years is even worse than the abuses of the Clinton years: nothing. Congress has brushed off the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. In the rubberstamp House of Representatives, the abuses at Abu Ghraib have merited a total of a dozen hours of sworn testimony. The use of propaganda by government agencies? A collective yawn from the GOP. The housing and urban development secretary's boast of denying federal grants to contractors who dislike Bush? Silence.

...The ultimate irony is that, after congressional Republicans have defended and protected the administration through all of its mistakes, voters may now take out their anger not on the president, but on his House and Senate enablers. If that happens, we say: Let the hearings begin.

Hear Me Now
by the Editors
Post date: 05.19.06
Issue date: 05.29.06

Apes Able to Think Ahead

Humans show remarkable foresight. From storing food to carrying tools, we can imagine, prepare for and, ultimately, steer the course of the future. Although many animals hoard food or build shelters, there is scant evidence that they ponder the long-term ramifications of their actions or the future more generally. But new research hints that our ape brethren may share our ability to think ahead.

Nicholas Mulcahy and Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig tested whether our closest great ape relative--the bonobo--and our most distant--the orangutan--share our ability to plan for the future. The researchers first trained five bonobos and five orangutans to use a tool to get a fruit treat from a mechanical apparatus. They then blocked access to the treat but allowed the apes to handle suitable and unsuitable tools for the task before ushering them into a waiting room for an hour. After that hour, they were brought back into the first room and, if they had brought the right tool, they could use it to get the treat.

They want vouchers specifically to support Catholic schools in NYC.

Catholic schools produce results far better than their public counterparts for a fraction of the cost. On last year's New York State reading and math tests, fourth and eighth graders in Catholic schools scored 7% to 10% higher than public-school students. The public per-pupil cost in New York is about $15,000 annually; Catholic school tuition is about $3,000.

The public per-pupil cost includes capital expense like building maintenance. Catholic school tuition does not. The comparison is meaningless.

If people felt more secure about their future, do you think anyone would give half a damn about what language someone else was speaking?

Quote of note: 

Most frightening, many middle-class Iraqis say, was how little the government did to stop the violence. That failure boded ominously for the future, leaving them feeling that the government was incapable of protecting them and more darkly, that perhaps it helped in the killing. Shiite-dominated government forces have been accused of carrying out sectarian killings.

"Now I am isolated," said Monkath Abdul Razzaq, a middle-class Sunni Arab, who decided to leave after the bombing. "I have no government. I have no protection from the government. Anyone can come to my house, take me, kill me and throw me in the trash."

As Death Stalks Iraq, Middle-Class Exodus Begins
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

The big problem is the lack of any verification protocols. Oh, and since existing stockpiles of nuclear materials are outside the framework of the treaty, you not only let India off the hook as intended, you also let Pakistan and North Korea off the hook.

Just picture the USofA making an accusation that someone is getting out of pocket. The natural response is, "Prove it," and with Iraq as an example, no one has any reason to accept our conclusions.

Oh. You don't have to picture that...you just have to check the news.

U.S. Proposes New Nuclear Pact
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

GENEVA, May 18 (AP) — The United States on Thursday proposed a treaty that it said would curb proliferation of nuclear weapons and improve the world's leverage against "hard cases" like Iran and North Korea by banning production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.

Notice this item is NOT tagged as health-related.

US urged to allow wider emergency contraception
Thu May 18, 2006 07:03 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading international medical journal has called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to dismiss political pressure and allow emergency contraception to be sold without a prescription.

The Lancet, in its upcoming May 20 edition, said acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach must make an independent decision on Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc's bid to sell its Plan B drug -- also known as a "morning after pill" -- over-the-counter, especially if he is to lead the agency on a permanent basis.

CO2: We Call it Life

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has produced two 60-second television spots focusing on the alleged global warming crisis and the calls by some environmental groups and politicians for reduced energy use. The ads are airing in 14 U.S. cities from May 18 to May 28, 2006. "Energy" Windows Media: Hi - Low Quicktime: Hi - Low "Glaciers" Windows Media: Hi - Low

Scott will write a post that says Prometheus 6 and LaShawn In Agreement On Something when he gets a chance. I think I've seen like three of them. However, he's never written one called LaShawn and Prometheus 6 In Agreement on Impeaching Bush, or Prometheus 6 Kicks LaShawn's Pretensions To Da Curb.

I wonder why... 

I recently updated the site, and you found what I think is the last flaw...my contact form was not set up correctly for unregistered readers. If you try it one more time I'll actually get your email address this time.

Protests to greet Condoleezza Rice at Boston school
Thu May 18, 2006 04:07 PM ET
By Monica M. Clark

BOSTON (Reuters) - Plans by a prominent Boston Jesuit school to award U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice an honorary degree are stirring protests by some students and faculty who say her support for the Iraq war contradicts Catholic teaching.

Boston College theology professor David Hollenbach and Kenneth Himes, the department's chair, issued a petition to the school's president objecting to a planned commencement address by Rice on Monday when she will receive the honorary degree -- a custom for commencement speakers.

Quote of note:

In an ideal or even rational world, this would not even be a fight. An old-fashioned notion of common good would guide reform, and we would all accept the importance of investing in those who may not look like us — because, in the end, we all inhabit the same space.

But such an appeal makes taxpayers and pundits uncomfortable because it comes too close to invoking racial equality. For many, racial justice is a bugaboo of the '60s, something we were supposed to have laid to rest long ago, especially when education's concerned. Reviving it feels retro at best, an admission of failure at worst. So it is that the debate about education reform tends to be an abstract and relatively polite debate over ideology, theory, funding — anything but the students themselves and their demographics.

A New Election Lawsuit in Florida
The League of Women Voters claims a new state law will unlawfully depress voter registration
By SIOBHAN MORRISEY/MIAMI

As the lawsuit puts it, "the challenged law imposes civil fines of $250 for each voter registration application submitted more than 10 days after it is collected, $500 for each application submitted after any voter registration deadline, and $5,000 for each application [that for whatever reason doesn't end up being] submitted. Plaintiffs are strictly liable for these fines, even if their inability to meet the statutory deadlines results from events beyond their control, such as the destruction of applications in a hurricane."

Identity politics? From The American Prospect? ...gasp...

By the way...telling them Latinos assimilate successfully just makes the problem worse from the perspective of Samuelson's audience.

LATINO ASSIMILATION FACTS. Along with the fake issue of immigration and national security is the fake concern that Hispanic immigrants don't assimilate. For example, Robert Samuelson earns his bones today as one of those white pundits, employed by white editors, writing for an audience of white people, who has the courage to speak uncomfortable "truths" about how non-white people are bad:

How fast can they assimilate? We cannot know, but we can consult history. It is sobering. In 1972 Hispanics were 5 percent of the U.S. population and their median household income was 74 percent of that of non-Hispanic white households. In 2004 Hispanics were 14 percent of the population, and their median household income was 70 percent of the level of non-Hispanic whites. These numbers suggest that rapid immigration of low-skilled workers and rapid assimilation are at odds.

That's some seriously messed up math. If you want to judge how rapidly people are assimilating, you need to first look at a group of people in some year -- 1972, say -- and then look at how those people and their descendants are doing in 2004. Samuelson is comparing the Hispanic population in 1972 to an entirely different population which, obviously, proves nothing. Via Tyler Cowen, here's some proper longitudinal data. We learn that "In a 2003 study by the RAND Corporation, economist James P. Smith finds that successive generations of Latino men have experienced significant improvements in wages and education relative to native Anglos." As Smith puts it, "Each new Latino generation not only has had higher incomes than their forefathers, but their economic status converged toward the white men with whom they competed."

It's also clear from polls that lots of people are upset that Hispanics in the United States "refuse to learn English," which would be a legitimate concern except that it's not true: "Spanish is the primary language among 72% of first-generation Latinos, but this figure falls to 7% among second-generation Latinos and zero among Latinos who are third generation and higher." The whole idea that this could possibly be a problem is just absurdly ignorant anyway. If you leave the United States, you'll be struck by the fact that huge numbers of people everywhere learn at least some English and would like to learn more. The reason, of course, is that knowing English is a very useful skill. It's even more useful if you actually live in the United States and, what's more, it's obviously much easier for an American-born child of immigrants to learn English than it is for someone growing up in Bangalore or wherever.

--Matthew Yglesias

Nevaeh is Heaven spelled backward.

The name has hit a cultural nerve with its religious overtones, creative twist and fashionable final "ah" sound. It has risen most quickly among blacks but is also popular with evangelical Christians, who have helped propel other religious names like Grace (ranked 14th) up the charts, experts say. By contrast, the name Heaven is ranked 245th.

This is deep because names are free and speak to a parent's aspirations for what a child will become. Yet if you believe in words that deeply isn't the reversal of the spelling of serious symbolic significance?

And if It's a Boy, Will It Be Lleh?
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

Man, when they switch to epic mythology mode, you know they're desperate.

[TS] Sir Galahad of the G.O.P.

By DAVID BROOKS

The elevator guy is cheerful and the subway operators are polite, but there is something about the subterranean trip from the Capitol back to your Senate office building that gets you down. The dinginess. The barren walls. And you don't need that right now. You're a Republican senator supporting the immigration compromise.

You should know now our hero's lot doesn't improve by the end of the op-ed. No...

What bothers you about the restrictionists is not that they are primitives or racists. They're not.

I find reading acknowledgements of American Idol contestants into the Congressional record to be as great a sign of decadence as any hip-hop lyrics you'd like to cite.

Trader Mike thinks the importance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average is overstated, as do I, though for different reasons.

It'd be interesting to see what a market-cap or equal weighted Dow chart would look like. Given the performance of Microsoft (MSFT), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT), GE, and Pfizer Inc. (PFE) -- 4 of the 6 largest -- I doubt that chart would be pretty.

You know, you get a whole different set of concepts working when you consider, say, the DJIA from an investor perspective as Mike does than when you consider it as an indicator for policy decisions (Mike's link, by the way...).

He didn't say Bush wouldn't get impeached. Didn't say he doesn't want Bush impeached. He said there's be no rush because a proper accounting of events is necessary to see if it can be done at all. And to those who are bothered by the prospect, all I can say is, if he hasn't done anything wrong, he has nothing to fear, right?

Right? 

No Rush to Impeachment
By John Conyers Jr.
Thursday, May 18, 2006; A23

 

As Republicans have become increasingly nervous about whether they will be able to maintain control of the House in the midterm elections, they have resorted to the straw-man strategy of identifying a parade of horrors to come if Democrats gain the majority. Among these is the assertion that I, as the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, would immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

And there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Who Isn't A 'Values Voter'?
By George F. Will
Thursday, May 18, 2006; A23

An aggressively annoying new phrase in America's political lexicon is "values voters." It is used proudly by social conservatives, and carelessly by the media to denote such conservatives.

This phrase diminishes our understanding of politics. It also is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values and everyone else votes to . . . well, it is unclear what they supposedly think they are doing with their ballots.

Correction

Thursday, May 18, 2006; A23

 

As a result of an editing error, Robert J. Samuelson's May 17 column incorrectly referred to penalizing employers who hire legal immigrants, rather than illegal immigrants.