Define your terms:

We're on this particular subject, because all too often we've heard the term "Socialist" misused by conservatives. Bill O'Reilly, in particular, calls various support programs socialism. But that's incorrect. We currently have a Capitalist-Welfare state - like it or not. The primary definition of Socialism, according to the dictionary, is:

any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

Which nobody in the United States is supporting - pace O'Reilly.

Anyway, we thought it might be interesting to see if we could come up with a little table to get a better sense of what the different political systems were all about, and how they stood in relation to each other. This required gross simplification, and therefore the result is likely to disappoint or outrage some folks. But it's a first cut, and we expect to refine it later. That said, here is the table:

		government owns/controls
					little or nothing
					capitalism
					welfare - capitalism provides support to:			no welfare
		personal life		personal life	people		people
		business	business		business	business
political system	democratic	Calvinism	Socialism	Poindexterism	Liberalism	Bushism	Green	Libertarianism
	authoritarian	Communism	Mobutuism	Monarcy	Bismarkism	Fascism	Theocracy	Tribalism

CYA NOTE:

• Monarchy is that which was practiced a thousand years ago, when the king/emperor/sultan owned everything (and there was no commerce - or at least it was practiced outside the purview of the monarch).
• Theocracy refers to a system where Faith Based Organizations service the poor (which is quasi-governmental). Also, it's not particularly enamored by business (for moral reasons: encourages hedonism, may foster selfish attitudes, promotes "modernism", ...).
• Instead of Bismarkism, we were tempted to say National Socialism, but that term carries way too much baggage.
• We weren't happy to put Greens in the category of welfare-for-people-only, but it seemed like the best term to use for that case.
• Poindexterism refers to the control that Admiral John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness could lead to. Control of personal behavior, with minimal business oversight, in a democracy.
• Calvinism refers to the society in Switzerland at the time in history of maximum control (1600?). Everybody's life was regimented within a somewhat democratic framework. We are unaware of any modern-day, democratic, totalitarian system.

posted by Quiddity at 11/26/2002 05:09:00 PM

Insurance for me, but not for thee:

Sometime ago, we noted the Bush administration's cavalier attitude towards extending unemployment insurance for about 800,000 people. They took a hands-off approach. We read:

Congress adjourned its 107th session Friday, sending President Bush a homeland security bill but faltering in a last-ditch effort to help recession victims whose unemployment insurance is about to run out.

... House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota asked President Bush to weigh in and press House Republicans to approve the Senate proposal. The White House insisted that Congress work it out.

And the Bush administration has also promoted "privatization" or "partial privatization" of the Social Security Insurance program. But let's make this point clear: You cannot "privatize" insurance. It's a contradiction in terms. If you privatize insurance, you're really dismantling it.

So, it looks as if the administration disdains insurance. It's everybody for himself. Sink or swim. No collective action to hedge against misfortune - right?

Not so fast!

Bush is in favor of insurance for businesses. That's why he pushed for the just-signed Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. Not only does it make terrorism available, it makes it mandatory that it be available: (from the NYTimes)

The legislation, which Mr. Bush had made a top priority, requires all commercial insurers to begin immediately offering terrorism coverage.

But there's more. The government is a partner with this program:

The bill also shields the insurance companies from the kind of astronomical losses that another attack like that of Sept. 11 could bring.

Under the bill, formally known as the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, the government will pay 90 percent of the cost of a terrorist attack after losses are greater than $10 billion. For lesser damages during the first year of the program, the insurance companies will pay up to the equivalent of 7 percent of their premiums toward damages with the government picking up the rest of the costs. In the third year, the insurers will be required to pay up to 15 percent of their premiums with the 90 percent share for the government kicking in at $15 billion in losses.

There is no mention of a Terrorism Insurance Trust Fund, so we presume such a thing won't exist. That means if there's a big attack, some of the compensation will be paid out of general funds - i.e. by all of us. It's quite a contrast: No interest in paying unemployment insurance out of a trust fund that has $25 billion in it, yet enthusiasm for an unfunded terrorism insurance program for businesses.

Let us say at this point that we think insurance is rational and worthwhile. It is, historically speaking, an idea that's been useful to society for about 400 years. However, for reasons unknown, some on the right howl that insurance for people (unemployment, retirement) is a variant of socialism (which it isn't). Yet they cheer insurance for businesses.

posted by Quiddity at 11/26/2002 01:49:00 PM

Spell check:

This is off-topic (i.e. not current affaris), but we couldn't resist. Sometimes when writing entries, we make common spelling mistakes. In particular, we forget to remember the "i before e except after c" rule. So as a public service, we offer this handy reminder:

In our experience, an atheist will eventually abandon science, and yield to a belief in a higher being - a deity.

For more on this, go here.

posted by Quiddity at 11/25/2002 12:04:00 PM

Rittenhouse surveys the pundit world:

In a thought-provoking, 3,700 word entry (surely a record for a blog), we get a view of the hierarchies and social dynamics manifested by the species we like to call homo punditus. It's not pretty. But then, much of Nature is disturbing (always fighting, red in tooth and claw). In any event, it's a good read. We particularly liked this excerpt: (speaking about 2^nd tier personalities)

It is not without reason that Andrew Sullivan, himself one of the media’s most brazen self-propelled climbers and perhaps the industry’s most desperately scheming and self-promoting parvenu, maintains a “suck-up watch” for his would-be colleagues. Nor is it a coincidence that Sullivan in his insecurity casts “suck-up” aspersions on journalists far more talented than he.

Bravo!


posted by Quiddity at 11/25/2002 11:52:00 AM

What?

We took a look at Andrew Sullivan's website today, and this entry caught our eye:

KILLING FORTUYN: We now know the motive. It wasn't animal rights. It was opposition to Pim Fortuyn's criticism of unassimilated Islamic immigrants. It was an assassination made possible by the fusion of the multi-culti left and the medieval religious right - a fusion that threatens the very future of a free and democratic Europe.

So we read the story Sullivan linked to. The only information about motive was this:

Suspect Volkert van der Graaf said he killed the controversial right-wing leader because he considered him a danger to society.

The prosecutor's statement said Van der Graaf had said "he saw in Fortuyn an increasing danger to, in particular, vulnerable sections of society."

That's it. "A danger to society, a danger to vulnerable sections of society."

Yet Sullivan presents it as evidence that:

• Fortuyn was killed because of his criticism of unassimilated Islamic immigrants.
  
  
• The assassination was made possible by "the fusion of the multi-culti left and the medieval religious right."

Maybe there's more information out there about the assassin's motives, but from the evidence produced by Sullivan, his conclusions do not follow. Andrew is trying too hard. He should give it a rest. (Although, to be fair to Sullivan, he did manage to take a swipe at the "left", which is usually his objective - facts be damned.)


posted by Quiddity at 11/25/2002 11:00:00 AM

Picture this:

There have recently been a bunch of stories about a financial connection between high-ranking Saudis and the 9-11 hijackers. They include:

• 9-11 Hijackers: A Saudi Money Trail? (Newsweek)
• Saudis Decry Idea Princess Supported Terror (Los Angeles Times)
• The Saudi Money Trail (Newsweek)

We were confused because of the unfamiliar names and other details. Why not create a diagram to clarify the situation? So we did.



We don't think there's a smoking gun in this case. It looks like typical Saudis-helping-Saudis, but who knows for sure? One thing seems obvious: There are enough rabidly anti-American Saudis out there to make it likely that any charitable activity will en up helping a terrorist. That's the nature of their society right now - and is partly the result of the promotion of Wahhabism. Given that reality, the Saudi Princess should at least have been more circumspect about who she was sending money to.

At any rate, this flap should spur a proper investigation about Saudi connections to al Qaeda.

UPDATE: Conservative Mark Steyn thinks something going on (Pro al Qaeda embassy staffers? Strangers meeting at Los Angeles airport?). Check it out here.

posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2002 05:00:00 PM

Regulations? We don't need no stinkin' regulations!

There has been quite a fuss following the recent news about Bush's decision to relax pollution standards. From an article in the New York Times:

The Bush administration today announced the most sweeping move in a decade to loosen industrial air pollution rules. The administration said the changes would encourage plant improvements that would clean the air.

But nobody should be surprised by the action. Consider this statement made by Bush while he was campaigning for president:

The best way to achieve clean air and water was "to not try to sue our way or regulate our way to clean air and clean water."  Nov 1999

Which is exactly what law-breakers (or potential law-breakers) would advocate. Perhaps the same "don't sue and don't regulate" approach could be applied to fraudulent Wall Street analysts, manufacturers of unsafe consumer goods, purveyors of bacteria-laden food, and peddlers of insufficiently tested medicines.

posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2002 07:38:00 AM

This guy doesn't care about anything.  It's all a big joke:

We've just read Howard Kurtz' Washington Post Op-Ed which recapitulates the Daschle/Limbaugh flap.

It's awful.

He's saying that you can be very aggressive on talk radio - up to a certain point that he doesn't identify - and that Limbaugh is safely away from that threshold. That Limbaugh is not extreme, the proof being that Rush managed to land some face-time with Tom Brokaw on election night.

That's his opinion, which he's free to support - although it makes you wonder what a "media critic" with that attitude is doing anywhere.

We find this line by Kurtz particularly illuminating:

What may really rankle Daschle is that Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North and a slew of like-minded local hosts have honed radio into a scathingly effective message-delivery system.

Which, as we read it, comes off like:

What may really rankle Daschle is that a whole bunch of lying, mud-slinging, character assassins and a slew of like-minded local hosts have honed radio into a scathingly effective message-delivery system.

Kurtz ends with this: (our emphasis)

Over the years talk radio has democratized the airwaves, but occasionally also served as a conduit for hate-mongering and unsubstantiated slurs. Daschle is right in saying that words have consequences. High-decibel talkers like Limbaugh ought to be held accountable in the political arena. But those who find him insufferable should get into the ring and slug it out rather than accuse him of urging the crowd to throw sharp objects.

Two observations:

• Hasn't Limbaugh, in fact, been "hate-mongering" and peddling "unsubstantiated slurs"?  If these comments by Limbaugh about Daschle:

  • "You, sir, are a disgrace. You are a disgrace to patriotism, you are a disgrace to this country, you are a disgrace to the Senate ..."
    
    
  • "What more do you want to do to destroy this country than what you've already tried?"
    
    
  • [Daschle's speech is] nothing more than an attempt to sabotage the war on terrorism for your own personal and your party's political gain."
    
    
  • "Daschle's allies in this situation include the barbarians who run North Korea, the Islamic extremists who run Iran and the mass murderer Saddam Hussein who controls Iraq. That's the company Tom Daschle has joined."
    
    
  • "Now he's decided to roll the dice and align himself with Iran, North Korea and Hussein, In essence, Daschle has chosen to align himself with the axis of evil."

  aren't slurs, what is?   (Source: Spinsanity 1 & 2)
  
  
• And what's this about Limbaugh being held accountable in - presumably only in - the "political arena"? That means that by Kurtz' light, Limbaugh is innocent of any non-political character assassination. And even on that score, Kurtz fails to do his job. Want to talk politics? How about the issue of Global Warming? Limbaugh has suggested to listeners that it might be due to the sun getting hotter (something he says he remembers from his school days). It's true that astrophysicists expect the sun to become a red giant in a billion years (or 5), and that there might be an extremely gradual increase in output during the current "normal" phase. But that has absolutely nothing to do with multi-degree changes in less than 100 years. But you'd never know it from Kurtz.

UPDATE: On CNN's Reliable Sources, host Howard Kurtz opened the show with these words:

Tom Daschle rails against Rush Limbaugh. Is the senator demonizing the talk show host?

After all that Limbaugh has said about Daschle, Kurts wonders if "the senator [is] demonizing the talk show host". Amazing.


posted by Quiddity at 11/23/2002 06:05:00 PM

This Modern World: (apologies to Tom Tomorrow)

Rioting in Nigeria by offended Muslims leaves 100 dead. Now that the Miss World Pageant is moving to London, there will no longer be a reason for Nigeria to work hard to stop the stoning-death of women convicted of adultery under Sharia Law. That's sad.

While reading the stories (1, 2) about the rioting, this caught our eye:

... many people in Kaduna [said] that their attention was drawn to the offending article in the paper, through text messages on their mobile phones.

and

People armed with sticks, daggers and knives set fire to vehicles and attacked anyone they suspected of being Christian.

Cellphones and wooden sticks! Good grief.

posted by Quiddity at 11/23/2002 12:43:00 PM

It's official:

We can now confidently report that Howard Kurtz is a complete disgrace to his profession (whatever that happens to be). He makes light of Daschle's recent complaints that Rush Limbaugh -and others - encourage hostility towards politicians which sometimes leads to threats. Kurtz notes, among other things, that Limbaugh was on NBC with Brokaw and Russert - thus confirming that Rush is no crazy right-winger and is, in fact, pretty mainstream.

Kurts asks: Has the senator listened to Rush lately?

We ask: Has Kurtz listened to Rush lately?

Kurtz also says: Sure, he aggressively pokes fun at Democrats and lionizes Republicans, but mainly about policy.

Just a reminder, Rush once made sport of Daschle's small stature - with a focus on his small feet (Hint for morons like Kurtz: that's a code for a small penis.) And then referred to Nancy Pelosi as The Hummer (2^nd hint for morons like Kurtz: that's a code for fellatio where the person strongly stimulates the man's penis).

Hey Howie! Why don't you write about that in your column?

Kurtz has the street smarts of a six year old.

If you have the stomach for it, read his column here.

UPDATE:

We checked this New York Times article about Daschle/Limbaugh, and read the following quote by Rush on the flap: (our emphasis)

"It's not just against me, but it's against you folks, the entire audience. You all now are being characterized as unsophisticated barbarians. You don't know the difference between politics and entertainment."

Which we think speaks for itself.

posted by Quiddity at 11/21/2002 10:45:00 AM

Yikes!

Senate OKs Controversial Bush Appeals Court Nominee Shedd

From Independent Judiciary (.com):

• Judge Shedd has published approximately sixty opinions in his twelve years on the federal bench. It is estimated that he has hundreds and possibly thousands of unpublished opinions and dispositive rulings. The Senate Judiciary Committee has asked Judge Shedd for those, but some of his most controversial decisions, discussed below, that were reported in newspapers have not been turned over.
  
  
• Judge Shedd authored the original district court decision in Condon v. Reno, striking down the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, based on his belief that the federal government did not have the power to force states to guarantee the privacy of state drivers license information. 6 The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act was passed, in part, because anti-abortion extremists had used accessible driver’s license information to obtain the addresses of employees and patients of clinics that performed abortions and then posted those addresses on the Internet. Although the Fourth Circuit affirmed Judge Shedd’s decision, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the holding in an opinion written by Chief Justice Rehnquist.
  
  
• In another particularly troubling case, Judge Shedd made several insensitive comments as he dismissed a lawsuit aimed at removing the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina statehouse’s dome. According to press accounts, Judge Shedd suggested that South Carolinians “don’t care if that flag flies or not.” He also questioned the plaintiff’s assertion that the flag was controversial, asserting that “controversial is what anyone defines as controversial,” and he compared the Confederate flag, to many a symbol of this country’s history of slavery and discrimination, to the Palmetto tree, which is on the state flag: “What about the Palmetto tree? What if that reminds me Palmetto trees were cut down to make Fort Moultrie and that offends me?”
  
  
• In a 2-1 decision in Jones v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., Judge Shedd, sitting by designation on the Fourth Circuit, overturned a jury’s award in favor of the plaintiff against an asbestos manufacturer for causing his asbestosis and lung cancer. 10 Judge Shedd ruled that the manufacturer had the right to claim that the plaintiffs’ negligence in smoking should bar his entire claim against the company, despite the fact that the jury had found that the defendant’s product caused the plaintiffs’ illnesses.
  
  Judge Wilkinson, a conservative Reagan-appointee to the Fourth Circuit, dissented, writing that “[t]he jury has found that prolonged exposure to defendant’s product [asbestos] was a substantial contributing cause of plaintiff’s lung condition, and I do not think that the company may assert a defense of contributory negligence to escape all liability.” Nevertheless, Judge Shedd decided that North Carolina law allowed the defendant to rely on this contributory negligence defense.

Want more? Go here.

Shedd must be one of those "good conservative judges" Bush kept talking about prior to the 2002 elections.




posted by Quiddity at 11/20/2002 04:02:00 PM

Oil and water:

We read this story, and couldn't believe our eyes:

Two women's groups and a media watchdog organization asked the CBS television network not to air the Victoria's Secret fashion show, calling it a "soft-core porn infomercial."

...

Concerned Women for America, the National Organization for Women and the Parents Television Council were among several groups protesting the televised fashion show, which was taped in New York City last week.

...

Along with the airing of near-nudity, the groups said the show degrades women. "What purpose does the special serve except to overly sexualize women and use this to bolster the networks' demographics for young men?" they asked in a joint letter Tuesday to CBS President Leslie Moonves.

If you go to their websites, you will find that the CWFA and NOW strongly disagree on every other subject in the universe (especially abortion). We don't like NOW's position in this matter, but if they have to register a complaint, couldn't they at least have done it on their own?

Anything that makes the Concerned Women for America seem less ultra-far-right (such as pairing up with NOW on an issue) simply gives the CWFA more political clout.

Not smart.

posted by Quiddity at 11/20/2002 03:13:00 PM

Finally!

Croooow Blog brings our attention to Kausfiles - which we do check once in a while. (But thanks! We overlooked it.) The Mickster has gotten around to adressing Ann Coulter's "bomb the New York Times" remark. Only three months late! It all started around August 22, and here at uggabugga we bashed Kaus for not speaking up. As far as we can tell, this is the first time since then that he's made any comments about her. Interestingly, he makes his observation in a post that is Coulter-friendly. Here's what he said: (emphasis in original)

Ann Coulter has five suggestions for reviving the Democrats in a sarcastic swipe that is clarifyingly vicious (e.g. "[T]here is still plenty of room to curry more favor with the teachers' unions"). The Democrats may actually take her up on point #4. ... While I can almost never agree completely with a Coulter column -- she's not really trying to convince anyone -- there is also some truth in the following:

Of the three Democrats arguably responsible for the election fiasco – Terry McAuliffe, Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt – surely the least culpable was Gephardt, the original phony "NASCAR Democrat." But picking up on the Clinton strategy of blame the innocent and promote the guilty, only Gephardt resigned.

Necessary disclaimer: I don't think she should have made that joke about Timothy McVeigh and the New York Times. [Still, canny of you to wait until Media Whores Online had closed down before posting this item-ed] 10:57 P.M.

So, Kaus likes to read commentary that is "clarifyingly vicious". Here is a selection of Coulter's sparkling wit that presumably amuses Kaus:

• First, the Democratic Party needs to have a lot more anti-war rallies in which Jesse Jackson embraces Ramsey Clark and liberals go around calling one another "comrade." The public cries out for the opinions of doddering old Stalinists in berets.
• Democrats need to start demanding one teacher, one teacher's assistant, one backup teacher's assistant and one auxiliary backup teacher's assistant for every student. Instead of a ratio of 20 students to 1 teacher, they should insist on .03 students for every teacher.
• Everyone knows Democrats haven't the first idea how a squirt gun operates, much less complicated missile technology.

Impressive! That certainly would have wowed them at the Algonquin roundtable. Step aside, Oscar Wilde! Pack you bags, Noel Coward. There's a new wag in town.

OBSERVATION: Kaus posted his remarks about Coulter in an entry dated Friday, November 15, 10:57PM. For the subsequent 72 hours we can't find any comments in the Fray section about Coulter or Kaus-on-Coulter. Perhaps nobody cares anymore about what Mickey has to say.

That sounds right.

posted by Quiddity at 11/19/2002 10:45:00 PM

Homeland Security Bill:

Passed in the Senate on Tuesday, November 19.

One issue that temporarily caused problems was the inclusion of several provisions by the House which were deemed favors for special interests. One of them is mentioned in this Reuters story:

Vaccine makers will gain stronger protection against liability for possible side effects from their products under legislation that passed the Senate on Tuesday.

...

Democrats failed in an effort to strip the vaccine provision and other sections in a homeland security bill they viewed as a pay-off to special interests supportive of Republicans.    ...    Republicans said that would close a loophole trial lawyers have exploited by filing lawsuits alleging that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that was used in vaccines, is linked to autism.

...

Companies that have been sued over thimerosal include Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Eli Lilly and Co.. No scientific studies have shown a link between thimerosal and autism. Edward Sagebiel, an Eli Lilly spokesman, said the company supported the vaccine provision in the bill. "We believe the legislation as passed would help protect manufacturers from lawsuits that are without merit or scientific evidence," he said.

The legislation covering vaccines was a contentious issue, and will be revisited early next year. Even Trent Lott made this concession:

Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., phoned House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill ... and won his pledge that next year Congress would reconsider the three provisions the moderates opposed, senators said. The agreement secured support by Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both R-Maine, Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb. One provision would legally shield drug companies already sued over ingredients used in vaccines, which Democrats said included claims that mercury-based preservatives have caused autism in children.

We were curious how the story would be reported on the national network broadcasts. So we checked a couple:

CBS Evening News:

Mentioned the House provision about vaccines, and the politics surrounding it.

ABC World News Tonight:

Reported that the Homeland Security bill was passed in the Senate. Did not mention the issue of vaccines or any other aspect of the House-added special-interest provisions.

However....

Peter Jennings had the time to report this critical issue:

There was actually big news in poetry today. It had to do with money, which is rare in poetry. The heir to the Eli Lilly pharmacutical fortune - Ruth Lilly - has given $100 million dollars to Poetry magazine, even though for years the magazine rejected Ms. Lilly's poems. Growing up in a very sheltered environment, she did, like other children, discover the world through poets - and the magazine was apparently kind with its rejection letters to her.

Can you believe it?


posted by Quiddity at 11/19/2002 09:35:00 PM

Ugh!

Spinsanity brings to our attention various attacks on the new Democratic House Majority Leader - Nancy Pelosi.

We consider ourselves unshockable, but this item raised our eyebrows:

... the harshest attack came from radio host Rush Limbaugh, who yesterday compared Pelosi to Republican majority leader Tom DeLay, noting that they were both their party’s whip in the last Congress. After observing that DeLay’s nickname is "the hammer" for his ability to round up votes, he said, "They never called her the hammer. She had the same job DeLay did. She’s the hummer. Whatever she is. Now she’s the top dog. No, I can’t say that."

Remember that the next time someone from Bush's "change the tone" administration chats it up with Limbaugh.

posted by Quiddity at 11/19/2002 07:38:00 PM

Can you believe it?

On the PBS NewsHour, there was a segment devoted to the judicial nomination process and the politics surrounding it. After the setup piece, it went in-studio:

MARGARET WARNER: Joining us now to discuss what the elections will mean for all the presidents' judicial nominees are Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, and Michael Schwartz, a vice president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative advocacy group of women and men. Welcome, gentlemen.

Who is Michael Schwartz and what kind of guy is he?

We went to the CWA website, and found this item about the recent bankruptcy bill:

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Concerned Women for America joined with pro-life allies today in claiming a huge victory as Congress voted down last night a bankruptcy protection bill that contained pro-abortion language. The language had been inserted by liberal Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a conference committee compromise but was soundly rejected in the House of Representatives by a vote of 243-172.

“This is the result of prayer,” said Michael Schwartz, vice president for government relations at CWA.

CWA is a wildly religious-first organization (which is their prerogative) but you wouldn't know it from what their spokesman said that evening.

There you have it. PBS is reduced to bringing on a weirdo to debate serious issues like judicial nominations.

posted by Quiddity at 11/18/2002 08:20:00 PM

David Frum tries to fool you:

Background: Al Gore comes out in favor of Canadian-style single-payer healthcare.

David Frum (former speechwriter for G.W.Bush) writes an essay in the National Review Online where he complained about the Canadian healthcare system.

Response: Several commentators disagreed with his conclusions, including the The New Republic's &c. - which wrote:

[Frum's] entire argument is that the Canadian system is inferior to ours because Canadians are forced to wait for health care. And he provides statistic after statistic to prove it. But with all due respect to Frum's authority on the matter, there are two massive flaws in his analysis. First, Canada only devotes about 9 percent of its GDP to health care, while the United States spends 14 percent (and rising fast). If the United States imposed a single-payer system that cost 14 percent of its GDP, it would no doubt be vastly superior to Canada's.

Frum's rejoinder:

This line of defense is often heard in Canada itself. I sometimes think that the words, “We need more government funding,” should appear on Canada’s coins in the spot where the words “E Pluribus Unum” appear on America’s. Here’s the answer.

a) The gap between America’s spending on patient treatment and Canada’s is not as big as the raw percentages might suggest. For example, America’s 14% figure includes the cost of the vast American medical research program. The budget of the National Institutes of Health alone - $27 billion in fiscal 2003 – is larger than the total healthcare expenditures of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec combined. (The provinces are the main funders of Canadian healthcare; Ontario and Quebec are the two biggest provinces, home between them to more than half of Canada’s population.) Canada does little medical research. In healthcare as in defense, Canada piggybacks for free on America’s costly efforts.

[Frum follows with three additional explanations.]

Our analysis:

Frum tries with his first point (a) to get the reader to believe that differences in spending is substantially due to funding for medical research. He cites the figure of $27 billion, which sounds like a lot. To the uninitiated, it might seem to be responsible for the difference in healthcare spending: 5% of GDP (14% - 9%). But what is $27 billion in a $10 trillion economy?

That's right, a whopping 0.27% - nowhere remotely near the 5% differential. (It's 1/18^th of 5%)

What other arguments by Frum should we look forward to? Domestic spending on toothbrushes by Hispanics north of the Mason-Dixon line compared to retail sales of dental floss in Saskatchewan for indigent Fortran programmers?

Hey, whatever works. Right Dave?

This example is instructive of the "honesty" that people like Frum peddle.

We are sorely tempted to give Frum the nickname of "Mr. Eighteen", because when he tosses out a number to make a point, you should bear in mind that it's probably off by a factor of 18.

posted by Quiddity at 11/18/2002 10:57:00 AM

Gadfly:*

Back in September, Republican (!) congressman Ron Paul assembled a list of 35 questions about Iraq, the war on terrorism, and other related subjects. Of interest are the following:

15. Are you aware of a Pentagon report studying charges that thousands of Kurds in one village were gassed by the Iraqis, which found no conclusive evidence that Iraq was responsible, that Iran occupied the very city involved, and that evidence indicated the type of gas used was more likely controlled by Iran not Iraq?

21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval from the United Nations?

31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?

* Merriam-Webster: a person who stimulates or annoys especially by persistent criticism

UPDATE: On November 19, Slate's Explainer discussed the issue of the no-fly zones. Bottom line is that Iraqi attacks on American and British warplanes in the "no-fly zone" are not a breach of the United Nations Security Council resolutions.

posted by Quiddity at 11/18/2002 07:50:00 AM

SULLILLOGICAL: In Sullivan's most recent posting*, Andrew writes:

SAN FRANCISCO DEMOCRAT: ... I find "San Francisco Democrats" as a phrase truly horrifying ...

In my mind, the phrase conjures up all the illiberalism ... that has made San Francisco unlivable for many people. ...

Plenty of gay residents of San Francisco feel the same way about their hyper-liberal metropolis.

*warning: he sometimes changes these things

posted by Quiddity at 11/18/2002 07:10:00 AM

Burying your lede(s):

This morning, Harry Shearer brings to our attention a New York Times story for this Sunday. Headline: Agencies Monitor Iraqis in the U.S. for Terror Threat Total words: 1333 Paragraphs: 28 Tenth/Eleventh paragraph: [There is] a focused effort to assess whether the regime of Saddam Hussein has engaged in any actions, through alliances with Middle Eastern terrorist organizations or efforts to obtain weapons, that could threaten American interests in this country or abroad. ... The officials said the monitoring had not detected any specific threats in the United States or against American interests overseas. Last paragraph: The Bush administration has said it has evidence of contacts over the years between Iraqi intelligence and Qaeda operatives, and there have been reports that some Qaeda operatives moved into Iraq after fleeing Afghanistan. But American intelligence officials say there is no evidence that Iraq has become involved in Qaeda terrorist operations, and the Bush administration has never found hard evidence that Iraq played any role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Yet Bush claimed it 11 times during the 2002 election campaign.

posted by Quiddity at 11/17/2002 10:18:00 AM