The Plateau of Fat

Analysis…

The good news: A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that Americans have stopped getting fatter.

The bad news: 34 percent of adults and 17 percent of children are obese.

The study shows that obesity rates have remained constant for the last five years yet have more than doubled in the past decade in adults, and tripled in percentage of children.  A decade ago, federal health officials had set a goal that no more than 15 percent of people would be obese in 2010.  Today, nearly 68 percent of adults are considered at least over-weight. “Until we see rates improving, not just staying the same, we can’t have any confidence that our lifestyle has improved,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

So what does the public think of this study?  Here are few opinions from the crowd:

Ezra Klein |  Obesity rates have held steady for five years among men and a solid 10 years among women, which is good news. So what’s the cause here? Better eating habits? Exercise? Or can we just not get any fatter?

Dr. Ludwig said the plateau might just suggest that “we’ve reached a biological limit” to how obese people could get. When people eat more, he said, at first they gain weight; then a growing share of the calories go “into maintaining and moving around that excess tissue,” he continued, so that “a population doesn’t keep getting heavier and heavier indefinitely.”

Furthermore, Dr. Ludwig said, “it could be that most of the people who are genetically susceptible, or susceptible for psychological or behavioral reasons, have already become obese.”

That leaves us with a third of American adults who are obese, and 17 percent of children. So it’s good news in the sense of less bad news. It’s a bit like unemployment, actually: Stopping the upward trend is good, but what we really need to do is bring those numbers down. And that would be real good news: The easiest way to control costs in the health-care system would be for people to need less health care. And the easiest way for that to happen would be for people to lower their risk of chronic diseases.

Megan McArdle @The Atlantic |  We may have hit the biological limit on how fat we can get:  virtually everyone who is going to be obese, already is.  Obviously, this is not terrific news, especially in a country as opposed to body fat as ours.  But it suggests that, as usual, panicking over mindless trend extrapolations might be a little premature.
This suggests a few things.  One, that the rest of the world will eventually catch up to us (aside from small populations that are thought to have selected for thrifty genotypes during a fairly recent population botleneck, which will surpass us–and a few populations that may lean the other way.)
Two,  that we’ll at least be able to see now whether our interventions are working; if the rate of obesity actually goes down, it works.
Three, if we can’t make any measurable change, perhaps we can finally switch towards encouraging healthy lifestyles rather than making unrealistic promises about making people thinner.

Hit & Run |  In other words, WALL-E was not a documentary. But that does not mean we should succumb to complacency, which would threaten public health, the CDC’s budget, and obesity research grants:

“Experts like Steven Gortmaker, a Harvard public health professor, said obesity would decline only with new policies, like penalties and incentives to promote healthier foods and exercise.”

“If you look at the reversal of the smoking epidemic,” Dr. Gortmaker said, “substantial change didn’t really happen until there were bans on advertising and limits on consumption through things like taxation. We have to make some substantial changes.”

I’m not sure what sort of “penalties and incentives” Gortmaker has in mind to get us to eat our vegetables, turn off the TV, and go for a jog. But it’s not true that the decline in smoking occurred after tobacco advertising was banned and hefty taxes were levied on cigarettes. Per capita cigarette consumption began to fall after the January 1964 surgeon general’s report linking smoking to lung cancer. It rose a bit in 1965 and 1966, dropped for four consecutive years, and rebounded slightly in the early 1970s. But it never returned to its 1963 peak, and in 1974 it began a steady decline that continued for two decades. The ban on TV and radio commercial for cigarettes took effect in 1971 and was actually followed by an increase in cigarette consumption. Other substantial restrictions on advertising (such as the billboard ban included in the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement) were not imposed until relatively recently, and the same is true of big tax hikes aimed at discouraging consumption. Leaving aside the morality of paternalism, the experience with smoking does not suggest that coercive measures are necessary to move people toward healthier lifestyles.

Outside the Beltway |  Despite the enormous attention we’ve paid to the issue in recent decades, we’re at our infancy in understanding the physiology of fat.  While there’s no doubt that the combination of plentiful, cheap food; processed foods; and a sedentary lifestyle are the chief contributing factors to America’s obesity epidemic, there are all manner of physiological ones that we’re only beginning to understand.
At a little over 6?1? and 220 pounds, I’m right at the borderline between overweight and obese.  Then again, I’m middle aged and out of shape.  But it’s a good thing the current BMI charts weren’t around when I was a 185 pound ROTC cadet running 5 miles a day and in the best shape of my life — I’d have been on the border of normal and overweight.
Many of us could stand to eat better and exercise more.  And too many among us are morbidly obese, carrying around so much extra fat that their health is in jeopardy.  But we’re also wildly overstating the “epidemic” with bogus statistical measures.

News…

Learning from the foreshocks of the Haiti disaster  |  Foreign Policy

The disaster in Haiti did not occur yesterday.
While the nation’s latest tragedy was triggered by yesterday’s 7.0 magnitude earthquake, its real roots were not 10 kilometers beneath the earth’s surface as seismologists concluded. Rather, they were in two centuries of misfortune that have plagued the country and most heart-breakingly in the particular failures of the international community and the country’s leaders to help the country during the most recent decade and half — a period when real hope backed with real money seemed to bloom and then, just as quickly, fade.
It was the crushing poverty in the hemisphere’s poorest nation that resulted in Port-au-Prince being a city of ramshackle homes of unreinforced concrete or worse, shanties assembled of odd-shaped bits of rusty, corrugated metal, scrap wood, cardboard and old packing crates. It was decades of neglect that made rebar an unaffordable luxury for virtually all on the island or that left communications, power and water systems so underdeveloped that even prior to the earthquake they were operating at what even other poor nations would consider crisis levels.

Alzheimer’s disease ‘could be detected by eye test’  |  BBC

A simple eye test might be able to detect Alzheimer’s and other diseases before symptoms develop, according to UK scientists.
The technique uses fluorescent markers which attach to dying cells which can be seen in the retina and give an early indication of brain cell death.
The research has been carried out on mice, but human trials are planned.
Scientists from University College London hope this could lead to a high street opticians test for the disease.
The research, which is published in the journal, Cell Death and Disease, could enable scientists to overcome the difficulty of investigating what is happening inside the brains of those with Alzheimer’s.

More Misery Ahead For Haitians  |  NPR

First there was the violent seismic spasm, and then a continuing series of random temblors that keeps the survivors on edge.
But other dangers are beginning to emerge and multiply, say public health experts.
“I think there’s going to be a series of health aftershocks,” says Dr. Dan Fitzgerald of Weill-Cornell Medical College, who knows Haiti well.
He says for the next few days many more people will die from their untreated injuries, owing to infections as well as kidney failure that happens when protein from injured muscle spills into the bloodstream.
“That’s sort of the first wave,” Fitzgerald says. “The second wave will be a lack of clean water, housing and sanitation. So people are going to start suffering from diarrheal diseases [and] respiratory tract infections.”
The third phase arrives when what little food there is runs out.
“Haiti’s already one of the most food-insecure countries in the world,” Fitzgerald says. “So people are going to start starving over the next week.”
Fitzgerald predicts increasing social chaos.
“When you have 3 million people who are traumatized, have no clean water, no housing, no food — unfortunately, security is going to become a big issue,” he says. “People are going to be fighting to survive.”

Divorce and Proposition 8

Analysis…

Advocates of Proposition 8 may now use new findings to support their case:  Research shows that states that have enacted a same sex marriage ban carry statistically higher divorce rates.  Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight writes:

Overall, the states which had enacted a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage as of 1/1/08 saw their divorce rates rise by 0.9 percent over the five-year interval. States which had not adopted a constitutional ban, on the other hand, experienced an 8.0 percent decline, on average, in their divorce rates. Eleven of the 24 states (46 percent) to have altered their constitutions by 1/1/08 to ban gay marriage experienced an overall decline in their divorce rates, but 13 of the 19 which hadn’t did (68 percent).

Silver’s research has prompted dialogue across the blogoshpere.  Here are some of the opinions regarding Proposition 8 that are floating about the web:

The Mahablog |  As you can see, states that have gone to the trouble of banning same-sex marriage, and in particular when it’s banned by constitutional amendment rather than merely by statute, tend to have higher divorce rates.
And the state with the highest divorce rate, Alaska, also was the first to add a same-sex marriage ban to its constitution, in 1998.
Maybe the secret to a happy marriage is to marry a gay Buddhist.

Matthew Yglesias |  The theory that allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry will somehow “undermine” heterosexual couples’ marriages is almost too silly to investigate. But for the record, Nate Silver determines that banning gay marriage is statistically associated with elevated divorce rate.
One seriously doubts that this sort of research would be persuasive to anyone. Certainly if the sign on the coefficient of correlation had gone the other way, I wouldn’t suddenly become an opponent of marriage equality.
Taylor Marsh |  Ted Olson states, “First – Marriage is vitally important in American society.
Second – By denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry, Proposition 8 works a grievous harm on the plaintiffs and other gay men and lesbians throughout California, and adds yet another chapter to the long history of discrimination they have suffered.
Third – Proposition 8 perpetrates this irreparable, immeasurable, discriminatory harm for no good reason.”
Nothing is more basic than being able to commit to your partner. It doesn’t matter the gender or sexual persuasion. It’s fundamental to our very soul nature to reach out and have the choice of this emotional, physical and spiritual realization. It’s flatly un-American to deny it to anyone.

News…

Unemployment: The 2010 Time Bomb  | Alternet

New figures show jobs were lost in December at ten times the expected rate.
American employers eliminated 4.2 million jobs in 2009 and sent unemployment soaring into double digits for the first time in more than a quarter century.
Since the fall of last year, the official jobless rate has been over ten percent, while the unofficial rate (taking in the severely underemployed and those who have given up looking) has been over 17 percent.
And, despite the ridiculous “green-shoots” speculation of the Obama administration and overblown “recovery” fantasies of the financial media that has blown every major economic story of recent years, the situation is getting worse.

A Risky Proposal  |  The New Yorker

On January 11th, a remarkable legal case opens in a San Francisco courtroom—on its way, it seems almost certain, to the Supreme Court. Perry v. Schwarzenegger challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the California referendum that, in November, 2008, overturned a state Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex couples to marry.
The Olson-Boies team hopes for a ruling that will transform the legal and social landscape nationwide, something on the order of Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954, or Loving v. Virginia, the landmark 1967 Supreme Court ruling that invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

New Jersey Assembly Approves Medical Marijuana  |  Truthout

New Jersey would become the 14th state in the nation to allow medical marijuana, under a bill that received final approval from the Assembly today and is expected to be posted for a vote in the Senate later today.
Gov. Corzine is expected to sign the bill within the next several days, during his last week as governor, if it receives final approval in the Senate. The law would go into effect six months after it is enacted.
Advocates have worked for years to legalize the medical use of marijuana in New Jersey.

The Cadillac Tax

Analysis…

The health care bill continues to be carved and sculpted in the White House; the Washington Post noted Monday, As we prepare for the final round of debate over health reform, perhaps the most contentious issue will be financing. And so it is, and the “Cadillac Tax” has come to be an topic of debate due to its ability to affect the majority of middle class Americans.  Below, several bloggers discuss the tax, including what it really means but most importantly, how it will affect you and I.

Shakesville |  The tax is being introduced as a tax on high-end, or “Cadillac,” plans, as defined by how many dollars of healthcare are covered by the plan. But, as the cost of healthcare rises, basic plans that cover a percentage of care will necessarily qualify as “Cadillac” plans. More people will be forced to pay a 40% excise tax, or lower the quality of their healthcare plans. Most people (and/or their employers) will opt for the latter, and the first thing to go will be preventable care, which is the exact thing that’s gotten us into this situation in the first place, because our insurance companies currently pay out enormous amounts to pay for treatments of advanced disease for which people with bad or no healthcare didn’t get treated earlier (and thus more cheaply).

The Mahablog |  In yesterday’s Washington Post, an MIT economics professor named Jonathan Gruber presented an enthusiastic endorsement of the excise tax on “Cadillac’ health insurance policies. Gruber calls it “an innovative way of financing the health reform we so desperately need.” On the other hand, in today’s New York Times, Bob Herbert says the tax “will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care.”
So who’s right? Hell if I know. Maybe they both are — the excise tax is a means of financing health reform that will impact many middle-class policyholders. Or not. Hard to say.
Ultimately, the success or failure of the entire health reform process depends on getting costs under control. Various provisions in the bills — such as the dreaded mandates — are there to reduce cost, and if they work the “Cadillac” plan provision possibly won’t be that big a deal to that many people. If they don’t, then yeah, I can see how the excise tax could result in a bite.
For that reason, it seems to me to be a bit deceptive to take one part of the reform plan and examine it outside the context of the rest of the plan.

Daily Kos |  What’s the logic for the Cadillac tax?  The idea is to pay for health care within the health care system itself, rather than going outside the system (the House does this by taxing wealthy individuals.) Some Dem Senators (Landreau, Lincoln and Nelson come to mind) have threatened passage over this if it’s removed. In return, the Senate taxes health care industry components much higher than the House version.
Play with the Health Reform Subsidy Calculator and see where you are at. And look to the House version as a better model for the middle class. It sounds like it’ll take WH intervention to convince the Senate to lower or eliminate the high-premium plan tax. And whatever the final bill looks like, it has to be affordable to those making 90K or less (400% of Federal poverty levels  – all individuals and families with incomes at or below 133% of the federal poverty level will be eligible for Medicaid and between 133 and 400%, there are subsidies.)
In the final analysis, remember we are comparing this to not having insurance at all – unless your current plan gets hit with a hidden tax, in which case you’re going to be looking to retire a few Senators.

Bob Herbert @NYTimes |  There is a middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version of President Obama’s effort to reform health care.
The bill that passed the Senate with such fanfare on Christmas Eve would impose a confiscatory 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, which are popularly viewed as over-the-top plans held only by the very wealthy. In fact, it’s a tax that in a few years will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care.
We all remember learning in school about the suspension of disbelief. This part of the Senate’s health benefits taxation scheme requires a monumental suspension of disbelief. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, less than 18 percent of the revenue will come from the tax itself. The rest of the $150 billion, more than 82 percent of it, will come from the income taxes paid by workers who have been given pay raises by employers who will have voluntarily handed over the money they saved by offering their employees less valuable health insurance plans.
Can you believe it?

News…

What Was Really Decided in Copenhagen?  |  Truthout

# First, the 2-1/2 pages of diplomatic blather that the participating countries ultimately consented to “take note” of are completely self-contradictory and commit no one to any specific actions to address the global climate crisis. There isn’t even a plan for moving UN-level negotiations forward. Friends of the Earth correctly described it as a “sham agreement,” British columnist George Monbiot called it an exercise in “saving face,” and former neoliberal shock doctor-turned-environmentalist Jeffrey Sachs termed it a farce. Long-time UN observer Martin Khor has pointed out that for a UN body to “take note” of a document means that not only was it not formally adopted, but it was not even “welcomed,” a common UN practice.
# Second, the global divide between rich and poor has never been clearer, and those countries where people are already experiencing droughts, floods and the melting of glaciers that provide a vital source of freshwater expect to find themselves in increasingly desperate straits as the full effects of climate disruptions begin to emerge. Not to mention the small island nations that face near-certain annihilation as melting ice sheets bring rising seas, along with infiltrations of seawater into their scarce fresh water supplies. Especially despicable was the changing role of the governments of the rapidly developing “BASIC” countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), who claim to speak for the poor – in their own countries and around the world – when it is convenient, but mainly seek to protect the expanding riches of their own well-entrenched elites.

Who is Farouk Abdulmutallab  |  The New Yorker

Even by the standards of the blogosophere, there is not much clarity available about the Nigerian man who allegedly attempted to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight as it landed in Detroit on Christmas Day. The Nigerian newspaper This Day offers this biographical sketch, apparently drawn in part from interviews with at least one family member:

THISDAY checks reveal that the suspect, Abdulfarouk Umar Mutallab [sic] who studied engineering at the University College, London between September 2005 and 2008 had been noted for his extreme views on religion since his secondary school days at the British International School, Lome, Togo.
At the secondary school, he was known for preaching about Islam to his school mates and he was popularly called “Alfa”, a local coinage for Islamic scholar. After his secondary school, the suspect went to University College London to study mechanical engineering and later relocated to Egypt, and then Dubai. While in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, he declared to his family members that he did not want to have anything to do with any of them again.
He attempted to return to Britain for a six months course in May this year but was refused by officials from the UK border agency because his reason for coming to the country was not genuine.

Iran Steps Up Crackdown On Opposition  |  Talking Points Memo

Iran’s conservative parliament called for maximum punishment of opposition demonstrators Tuesday as the regime stepped up its crackdown on dissent.
Iran arrested the sister of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi as well as journalists and activists, reports said, after eight people were killed in protests on Sunday during Shiite rituals for Ashura.

Mr. Inhofe goes to Wash…er Copenhagen

Analysis…

Senator James Inhofe traveled across the vast Atlantic Ocean this week to make an appearance at the climate change summit in Copenhagen. “I figure you are going to hear from the other side,” Inhofe said, “so I wanted you to hear” this side. For those familiar with Inhofe’s stance against global warming, his speech at the conference was nothing new.  Yet, as he travels across the world to represent our great state of Oklahoma, in attempt to dissuade the public against the notion of  man-made global warming, you wonder what the rest of the country thinks of our Senator…

Grist |  The great leader of the Copen-deniers, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R), showed up on the Danish island of Copenhagen for a fly-by press event [Thursday] at the international climate treaty.
If the lack of significant media coverage is any indication, it was a waste of time for the lonely fringe senator from Oklahoma.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the press conference, as it was organized very last minute. But if I had, these are the questions I would have asked:
1. Given that you are one of the largest recipients of funding from the oil and gas industry in the Senate, I am interested in knowing who paid for your flights over to Copenhagen?

2. Is your former assistant Marc Morano and/or CFACT providing support for your trip here?

3. What do you think of your top climate science adviser, Christopher Monckton, calling young Americans “Nazis” and“Hitler youth”?

4. Why did you not bring any of your Republican Senate colleagues? Your colleagues on Capitol Hill and the media have repeatedly stated that you’re all alone in your stance on climate change. What makes you think you’re in a position to say a US clean energy and climate bill will never happen?

5. Is it just a coincidence that you get so much money from the oil and coal industry and believe that climate change is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?

Talking Points Memo DC |  Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) also made the trip despite a busy senate schedule that could have prevented his plan to, as he puts it, debunk global warming as an issue.
President Obama leaves [Thursday] tonight and plans to speak tomorrow, but [Thursday] morning Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dominated the news in Copenhagen by pledging the U.S. would support a $100 billion climate fund. But China is saying a global pact is unlikely.

The Washington Independent |  Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) made a quick stop in Copenhagen [Thursday] to deliver the message to international climate negotiators that he’s been telling the American public for months: there’s “zero” chance that the Senate will pass comprehensive climate legislation.
Inhofe’s drive-by press conference — he spent just two hours in Denmark — was intended to undercut the efforts of American negotiators, including President Obama, who are expected to commit to carbon emissions cuts in the range of 17 percent by 2020.
“I figure you are going to hear from the other side,” Inhofe said, and so he wanted to provide his perspective. Indeed, senators in favor of climate action got the first word: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) highlighted American action on climate change in a Senate floor address Monday, and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), speaking yesterday at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, promised that the United States would pass a climate bill.

The Green Blog |  The parade of US politicians to the climate change talks continued this [Thursday] morning when Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma arrived for a two-hour visit to the Danish capital. His message for negotiators was that Congress will never pass a cap-and-trade bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and he reiterated his stance that man-made global warming is not occurring.
Inhofe, who held an impromptu press conference in the Bella Center, said the chances of passage of pending climate and energy legislation were “zero” and would remain so if such a bill was financially harmful to Americans in any way.
Inhofe has been one of the most ardent detractors of man-made climate change, and this morning was no exception. He said the recent hacking, and publishing, of e-mails from a prominent climate change research group at East Anglia University in England showed that “the science has been debunked.”

News…

Scientists crack ‘entire genetic code’ of cancer  |  BBC

Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers – skin and lung – a move they say could revolutionize cancer care.
Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumors far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Welcome Trust team.
Scientists around the globe are now working to catalogue all the genes that go wrong in many types of human cancer.

Oklahoma Abortion Law ‘Invasive,’ Critics Say  |  NPR

In Oklahoma, a new law requires any woman seeking an abortion to first answer dozens of personal questions, including why she wants the procedure. That information, names omitted, would eventually be posted on a state Web site.
Those who support the measure say it will help them better understand why women are seeking abortions. Abortion rights advocates call the law intimidating and invasive, and this week, they are challenging it in court. Legal experts say the law is another test of how far states can go to regulate abortion.

Lieberman’s Debacle

Analysis…

On Monday, the White House told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to compromise the Medicare expansion portion in the health reform bill and make a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman.  Lieberman, who requested the elimination, has lit a fire within the hearts of Democrats who believe the Medicare expansion portion is a key element of health reform.  Many critics are accusing Lieberman of being flaky and changing his position within the health care debate.  Blog headlines claim, “No Health Care Reform for Old Men” and “Lieberman’s Principles, or Lack Thereof.” While the issue lies within the health care debate, the focus has now rested on Lieberman.

Ezra Klein |  At some point, of course, journalists have to do their best with the evidence before them. I cannot peer deep into Lieberman’s heart. In fairness to him, I’ve attempted the next best thing: Over the past year, I’ve called Lieberman’s office repeatedly searching for clarification, explanation, or interviews, both on and off the record. No dice. I’m still willing to hear them out, and to offer space on this blog if they feel misrepresented. But for now, I can only go off of Lieberman’s public statements and past positions, and they do not tell the story of principled opposition.
If you had attempted to forecast Lieberman’s behavior based on his past positions, you would have failed. His support for Medicare buy-in, and for various other health-care bills, would quickly have misled you. If you had attempted to forecast his behavior based on the attitudes of his constituents, you would also have failed. They support the public option and oppose health-care reform, while Lieberman professes to believe the opposite. But if you had attempted to forecast Lieberman’s positions based on his ongoing grudge match with the liberals who defeated him in the 2006 primary, you’d have nailed it perfectly. He has, at every point, taken aim at the policies that liberals support, even when they are policies that Lieberman himself has supported.

Daily Kos |  …it would be insane for anyone, including the big brains in the White House, to trust Lieberman now to agree to just cutting out Medicare buy-in (and the public option, because Joe wouldn’t strike a deal with that). He’s only going to ratchet up his demands. Yesterday he expanded it to include the CLASS Act. Tomorrow it’s going to be Medicaid expansion. Lieberman’s demands can’t reasonably be met because he’ll just keep moving the goalposts.

The Daily Beast |  “Senator Lieberman has long been concerned about making health care more affordable, especially for those over the age of 55 and not yet eligible for Medicare. One idea that has been discussed for years is expanding Medicare to people younger than 65,” Masonhall explained to The Daily Beast via e-mail. “Senator Lieberman’s comment reported by the Connecticut Post in September was made before the Finance Committee reported out the Baucus bill, which contained extensive health insurance reforms, including a more narrow age rating for pricing health insurance premiums and extensive affordability credits that would benefit this specific group of individuals. These health insurance reforms and affordability credits have been strengthened in Senator Reid’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and will provide even greater relief for those 55-65 years old. Any inclusion of a Medicare buy-in for that same age group would be duplicative of what is already in the bill, would put the government on the hook for billions of additional dollars, and would potentially threaten the solvency of Medicare, which is already in a perilous state. The senator also has concerns that this provision would result in cost-shifting that would drive up premiums for others, including those with employer-based coverage.”

The Huffington Post |  What I can’t respect—and find increasingly intransigent—is the posturing we’ve had to endure from Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.). He has once again forced his way into headlines with his loud-mouthed blanket opposition to anything resembling a public option. No triggers, no opt-outs, no opt-ins. If anything Lieberman knows how to stand athwart the news cycle yelling “Stop! Look at me! I have important objections!” What you haven’t seen, or read or heard is anything related to Lieberman’s actual position on health care. We see only process piece after process piece, and in this one you can see that Lieberman concedes that a public option saves money. No matter.
It’s been postulated that Lieberman is still upset over the embarrassment of 2000 and the need to run as Independent after his Democratic primary defeat in his 2006 reelection campaign, that he is a consummate opportunist (at least, more so than the rest of the Senate). Regardless of his motives, he has disparaged the back and forth such massive reform requires, drawn a line in the sand over a public option that a vast majority of Americans support—evidence of his bald manipulation of the political system to further his narrow, self-fulfilling motives.

Wonkette |  Here is an actual newspaper excerpt from September 8, 2009, based on an interview with Lieberman. (Ace catch, TPM!):

As to how 47 million uninsured will afford coverage, Lieberman said only 12 million don’t have insurance because they cannot afford it.

By allowing citizens who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid to buy in for a rate below the private market, the government can extend coverage to more of those who are currently uninsured, he said.

To arrive at his position, Lieberman said he reached out to “every conceivable group” in the state, including residents, providers, doctors and hospitals.

Boom. Just… boom. This is a “Joe Lieberman Boom Sandwich of Lies.” It tastes like blood and lava.
So, how will a FURIOUS Harry Reid and the White House respond to this fellow? Will they maybe try to exert some leverage, by threatening to take away his chairmanships or kidnap his pet gargoyle, Booger-eyes?

News…

Obama tells US banks to lend more and not oppose reform  |  BBC

US President Barack Obama has told bankers to increase loans to small and medium-size businesses.
President Obama said US banks had received extraordinary assistance and demanded they show extraordinary commitment to rebuild the US economy.
He also warned their lobbyists not to block moves for regulatory reform.

Viruses That Leave Victims Red in the Facebook  |  NYTimes

It used to be that computer viruses attacked only your hard drive. Now they attack your dignity.
Malicious programs are rampaging through Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, spreading themselves by taking over people’s accounts and sending out messages to all of their friends and followers. The result is that people are inadvertently telling their co-workers and loved ones how to raise their I.Q.’s or make money instantly, or urging them to watch an awesome new video in which they star.

Law and Disorder in New Orleans  |  ProPublica

During the turbulent days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, New Orleans police shot 10 civilians, at least four of whom died, according to interviews and internal police documents.
Some incidents involving police were widely publicized and have prompted a U.S. Justice Department inquiry into the conduct of the New Orleans Police Department that has brought dozens of officers before federal grand juries to testify.
But a fresh examination of the post-storm period — a joint effort by ProPublica, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, and PBS “Frontline” — raises additional questions about the actions of police who shot civilians. It also reveals deep flaws in the department’s efforts to investigate its officers’ use of deadly force in the chaos after the storm.

(Serious) Man Made Dangers

Analysis…

The Obama administration declared Monday that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to the public’s well being.  Science overwhelmingly shows greenhouse gas concentrations at unprecedented levels due to human activity

The news comes to us during the beginning of a week of climate change discussions in Copenhagen.  As a result of these recent findings, the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to restrict business’s carbon dioxide emissions.  These restrictions may be costly, and big business is preparing to fight back against restrictions that, they believe, would hurt the economy.  However, others believe critical action is needed to overcome the difficult environmental hurdles our world may face in the future.

Matthew Yglesias |  The idea that the EPA is going to transform the United States into a command-and-control economy is overblown. But it’s quite true that EPA efforts will be both less effective at combating climate change and also more expensive per unit of pollution-reduction than would be some alternative schemes. For example, the ACES bill steered through the House by Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, and Ed Markey would be better on both fronts. But you don’t see the Chamber of Commerce or the NAM backing ACES. Even better than ACES from an economic point of view would be a bill with fewer side-deals, more auctioning of permits, and more rebates of the funds to the population. But you don’t see the Chamber or the NAM backing that, either. They just want to somehow sweep the whole problem under the rug and leave it up to their grandkids to suffer the consequences. There are a wide range of policy approaches that are consistent with the goal of averting catastrophic climate change, but this do nothing stance is not acceptable.

The Mahablog |  As I see it, the alternatives are (1) doing nothing, or (2) what Paul Bledsoe of the National Commission on Energy Policy calls “command and control through the existing Clean Air Act,” which in the current political climate is about as likely to happen as Holsteins climbing trees. In fact, some on the Left are opposed to cap and trade because it is too business friendly. They charge that it will turn into another way for the financial sector to make a lot of money while screwing the rest of us.
But our captains of industry prefer Option 1, not doing anything. I suspect they plan to pull an Auto Industry — keep on as if there’s no problem and hope the crash doesn’t come until they’ve retired. And then government can bail out whatever poor sucker is running the company when that happens.

The Huffington Post |  In anticipation of Copenhagen’s climate summit, many journalists have been rightfully stressing the urgency for dramatic emissions reform, and are also calling for immediate action by the world’s leaders. These journalists say that it’s time to stop arguing with lunatics in the hopes of forming some pragmatic bipartisan legislation. There are the facts and then there are the lies. There is the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the more respected summary of the science affecting the Arctic. Real-life scientists — not the idiots over at Red State — report there is more carbon stored in the Arctic’s methane hydrates than in every lump of coal and barrel of oil in the world. When the arctic melts (and it is melting,) that’s a big problem.

Paul Krugman @NewYorkTimes |  Maybe I’m naïve, but I’m feeling optimistic about the climate talks starting in Copenhagen on Monday. President Obama now plans to address the conference on its last day, which suggests that the White House expects real progress. It’s also encouraging to see developing countries — including China, the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide — agreeing, at least in principle, that they need to be part of the solution…
The truth, however, is that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is affordable as well as essential. Serious studies say that we can achieve sharp reductions in emissions with only a small impact on the economy’s growth. And the depressed economy is no reason to wait — on the contrary, an agreement in Copenhagen would probably help the economy recover…
Action on climate, if it happens, will take the form of “cap and trade”: businesses won’t be told what to produce or how, but they will have to buy permits to cover their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. So they’ll be able to increase their profits if they can burn less carbon — and there’s every reason to believe that they’ll be clever and creative about finding ways to do just that.

News…

The Reason for 15 Million Unemployed: Poor Thinking at the Top  |  Truthout

The United States has more than 15 million people unemployed. This is not their fault. It is the fault of really bad policy decisions by people who get paid more than almost all of the unemployed ever did or ever will. The failure of economic policymakers to recognize and attack an $8 trillion housing bubble led to the downturn. The continuing failure of economic policymakers to think creatively is why 15 million people remain unemployed.

Millions in U.S. Drinking Dirty Water, Records Show  |  New York Times

More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.
That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.

The Science of Success  |  The Atlantic

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people.

What to do about the Nation’s job crisis…

Analysis…

On Thursday, President Obama held a job summit with 130 corporate executives, economists, small-business owners and union leaders in attempt to resolve the current job crisis. However, Obama has limited power to spur job growth, with interest rates already at rock bottom and federal deficits soaring. Several proposed reforms are under debate, with more predicted to pop up in the coming days.

The Wonk Room |  Today [Thursday], the White House is hosting a jobs forum, “to sound out ideas for accelerating job growth during the worst labor market in a generation,” as Democrats in both houses of Congress are attempting to craft jobs legislation. Yesterday, the administration for the first time expressed support for new legislation, so long as it has a “relatively small deficit impact.”
This effort comes in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report showing that the economic stimulus package is having its intended effect — creating or saving 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs — albeit in a weaker than anticipated economy.
Republicans, though, have said that additional jobs legislation “would meet resistance.” They’re justifying this position — aided by the conservative media — by claiming that the “failed economic stimulus” has not created jobs, despite the CBO reporting otherwise.

Politico |  The White House Thursday is having a job summit with leaders of American corporations to discuss how to lessen unemployment numbers. But the burden for creating jobs falls partially on Congress, who can fund major projects as part of spending legislation.
The rising unemployment rate despite the stimulus spending so far has been a major talking point for Republicans as Democrats have worked toward passing a sweeping health-care overhaul.

Top of the Ticket |   [Thursday]: It’s a day of dueling summits.
This afternoon President Obama hosts a jobs summit at the White House, where executives from business giants like Google, Xerox, Boeing and General Electric will meet with union leaders, economists, small-business owners and policy wonks to talk about how to stimulate creation of new jobs. With 17 million Americans out of work, with unemployment in Michigan topping 15% and in California above 12%, the White House wants to show sensitivity to the pain many families are enduring.
Not to be outdone, House Republicans led by Minority Leader John Boehner held their own jobs round-table this morning. Predictably, it blamed lagging jobs creation on the Obama administration’s climate change legislation, financial regulation and healthcare reform.
“The single best jobs action that President Obama could take would be to reverse course on a dangerous agenda of debt-financed spending, crippling regulation, expensive mandates and intrusive government expansion,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office aide.
Republicans also criticized the White House for failing to invite two mega-business groups that have opposed much of the administration’s agenda: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

The Hill |  Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members on Wednesday criticized the Obama administration for not doing enough to help African-Americans through the bleak economy.
Soon after withholding their votes on a wide-ranging financial services bill, 10 CBC members said they are pressuring the White House to do more.
The Black Caucus is also working on a proposal to create jobs that it hopes will become part of an effort under discussion among House leaders to bolster the economy.
The CBC efforts underscore the deep anxiety lawmakers have as they face an economy witnessing the highest national unemployment rate in a generation. The unemployment rate for African-Americans is 15.7 percent, compared to the national rate of 10.2 percent.

Capitol Briefing |  Labor unions and liberal think tanks like the Economic Policy Institute have released ambitious proposals to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on job creation programs. The Congressional Black Caucus, increasingly vocal with its own concerns about the administration’s priorities, has promised to release legislative proposals of its own. But the details of a consensus plan, and the timing of its passage, remain elusive.

News…

The Recession Is Taking a Bite Out of Meat Consumption  |  AlterNet

The recession is having one positive effect. The national cholesterol is going down.
More than half of Americans have cut back on meat, many becoming “recession-bred flexitarians,” says Gourmet magazine–people who use meat as a condiment not as a meal anchor.
Even the doyenne of taste and nutrition, Martha Stewart, broadcast a vegetarian Thanksgiving show last week.
A small drop in meat exerts big consequences on your health says Katherine Tallmadge of the American Dietetic Association because red meat is the “primary source of saturated fat, which can boost levels of bad LDL cholesterol and inflammation.”

US approves 13 embryonic stem cell lines for research  |  BBC

US regulators have approved 13 new lines of human embryonic stem cells for use in scientific research.
They are the first batches of embryonic stem cells – the building blocks of the body – that have been made available to US researchers in almost a decade.
The move comes after President Barack Obama eased restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research.

Fire It Up: Abortion Laws v. Health Care

Analysis…

The Stupak-Pitts amendment on abortion is causing a stir among pro-choice advocates.  By its definition, abortion coverage would become null through the passage of the health reform bill.  It has been noted that the underprivileged would be most affected by this clause; thus, activists believe women’s human rights are being attacked.  For some, this concept is outrageous, yet others believe our energy should be spent elsewhere.

Economix |  If a Stupak-Pitts type restriction is put in place, a significant number of low-income women would be required to pay for abortions out-of-pocket or to continue an unwanted pregnancy. The cumulative effects — compounded by the spillovers on private insurance practices — would be large. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that at current rates, about a third of women will have had an abortion by age 45.
With sex (as with food and exercise) Americans don’t seem, on average, to be very good at planning. Almost one-half of all pregnancies — and about one-third of births — are described as “unintended.”
We need insurance for a reason.

Megan McArdle @TheAtlantic |  You could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that women’s health care is important, that this has a hugely disparate impact on women, that it will result in more women carrying unplanned pregnancies to term, etc . . . and that still wouldn’t make a majority of the country want to pay for other peoples’ abortions out of their tax dollars.
The women who genuinely can’t afford $500 bucks for an abortion are the women closest to the poverty line.  Those women will be covered by Medicare, and they won’t get abortion coverage anyway in most states.  The women who will be buying insurance on the exchanges presumably mostly do not have health insurance now, and thus are losing nothing if their new insurance doesn’t cover abortions.

Taylor Marsh |   You hear a lot about freedom from the right, people like Rush, Sean, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. But they need to explain to me if a woman doesn’t have 100% control over her body what freedom actually exists for her.
We’ve got a serious problem that has wormed it’s way into the debate, because Democrats have abandoned the fight for women’s civil rights, which includes access and means to exercise our rights as provided by the law.
As the health care debate heats up, this is the bottom line question: Is freedom only for men?

News…

An open letter to President Obama from Michael Moore  |  MichaelMoore.com

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians are alike. I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn’t so.

Obama Lost, Obama Found  |  New York Magazine

The Thursday before last, President Barack Obama came home from his eight-day trip to Asia and received a welcome even frostier than the subfreezing temperatures that had greeted him in Beijing. In the House of Representatives, the populist Democrat Peter DeFazio of Oregon was calling for the heads of Tim Geithner and Larry Summers on a pair of pikes. The Congressional Black Caucus was thwarting the progress of Obama’s financial-reform agenda, on the grounds that the economic policies of the first African-American president were callous toward African-Americans. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, furious about provisions regarding illegal immigrants in the Senate health-care bill, was casting blame on the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. The next morning, the front page of the Washington Post featured a story with the blaring headline “Angry Congress Lashes Out at Obama,” but which might as well have been titled “What a Difference a Year Makes.”
It hasn’t actually been quite that long, of course, but the memory of Obama’s joyous inauguration seems distant indeed—as the lofty image of a candidate with such potential that he seemed to walk on air has given way to the reality of a president neck-deep in a pile of epochal problems. “Think about what we were handed,” says White House senior adviser and First Friend Valerie Jarrett. “Two wars. A global economic meltdown. The largest deficit in the nation’s history. A health-care crisis. A public-education crisis. An energy crisis. And a crisis in how we’ve been perceived around the world.” Jarrett sighs. “It is what it is.”

Animal Prosthetics  |  WebEcoist

Whether getting attacked by a larger predator, being harmed by man, suffering from disease or simply being injured on accident, there are many different ways in which animals can get hurt in the wild. While many animals are resilient following injury, the odds of survival certainly improve when researchers are able to help out. Take animal prosthetics and artificial limbs as an example. From artificial turtle flippers to new beaks for bald eagles to replacement dolphin tails, the development of animal prosthetics has come a long way in recent years, with the noble goals of determining the best ways to save injured animals and allowing them to regain as much functionality as possible.

Recently in Japan, a 20-year-old loggerhead turtle named Yu Chan was discovered entangled in fishing nets, with several of her limbs apparently bitten off by a shark. Rather than releasing the turtle into the wild, researchers have been working to attach artificial flippers made of soft plastic (polypropylene) and stainless steel supports to replace the missing limbs. At this point, figuring out how to construct durable turtle flippers has been the biggest obstacle, with one of the replacements falling off the turtle several times. Still, the ultimate goal is to move from these trials in the next couple of years with a proven, artificial flipper design that can be attached via surgery on Yu Chan and other injured turtles in the future.

It’s tough out there

Analysis…

Critiquing the president has become a must in the media/entertainment world.  Whether Obama’s approval ratings are being compared to Sarah Palin’s or he is viewed similarly to former President Carter on The Chris Matthews Show, President Obama faces a tough crowd of critics in the U.S.  Most recently, his trip to China has been scrutinized by bloggers and the opinionated; here are a few opinions from both sides of the issue.

The Mahablog |  Conventional wisdom is saying that Obama is a sock who doesn’t now how to behave around those tough Chinese.
However, people who actually know something about China, especially those living there or who have lived there, are saying just the opposite.
Richard at Peking Duck writes, “The townhall was a triumph, and it is beyond comprehension why the media is determined to brand it – and all other aspects of the trip – a failure.” Well, it’s because that’s what our media does — somebody feeds them a narrative, and they write their news stories around the narrative. And the narrative they settled into is “the China trip failed.” What actually happened is irrelevant.
The townhall event was a live broadcast that went to 100 million Chinese. This is remarkable, because the Chinese government really doesn’t like live broadcasts. But they caved in. Obama spoke to an audience of young people — Communist Party youth, yes.

Spiegel Online |  When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it’s not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.
There were only a few hours left before Air Force One was scheduled to depart for the flight home. US President Barack Obama trip through Asia had already seen him travel 24,000 kilometers, sit through a dozen state banquets, climb the Great Wall of China and shake hands with Korean children. It was high time to take stock of the trip.
Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama’s currency isn’t as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington’s new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.

The Daily Beast |  President Obama’s nine-day trip to Asia is worth a look back to fix two potent problems, past and future. First, the trip’s limited value per day of presidential effort suggests a disturbing amateurishness in managing America’s power. On top of the inexcusably clumsy review of Afghan policy and the fumbling of Mideast negotiations, the message for Mr. Obama should be clear: He should stare hard at the skills of his foreign-policy team and, more so, at his own dominant role in decision-making. Something is awry somewhere, and he’s got to fix it.
Secondly, the Asia trip presented an important opportunity to carve out a new American leadership role in the world’s most dynamic economic region, and Mr. Obama missed it. He only scratched the surface in his calls for multilateralism and mutual understanding. He needs to paint pictures of how Washington will help solve regional security and trade problems. Otherwise, most Asian nations will continue their unwanted drift toward China and away from the United States.

James Fallows | Part of the importance: there is no country with whom America’s interactions are more consequential, or perpetually more complicated, than China. Another part of the importance: how the American public understands these interactions makes a big difference, in recognizing the points of disagreement and the areas of possible cooperation. [Monday,] one more installment from the US government official who participated in important meetings and whom I have quoted twice before. For now:
[Sunday] morning on the Chris Matthews show I mentioned earlier, a White House reporter for the Washington Post said that the Shanghai town meeting was another item on the disappointment/failure docket for America. Her argument was essentially: the Chinese outsmarted the Obama team and kept their countrymen from seeing it. I don’t remember whether she said it was not broadcast at all or only on one “local” network; as mentioned yesterday, that one network reaches 100 million households.
So to a member of the traveling press pool, viewing the session mainly as a campaign stop whose advance work went either well or poorly, this looked like a bust.

News…

Why Sarah Palin is unlikely to be the future of the Republican Party  |  Slate

The future of the Republican Party will be shaped by a governor—but it’s not likely to be Sarah Palin. The twin poles of the Republican Party were on display this week. One was at a Republican Governors Association meeting in Texas. The other was on the airwaves across the country as Palin methodically went rogue.
Palin was certainly the bigger sensation. News about the meeting of Republican governors was lucky to make it to Page A13 (or, alternatively, sites like this). But the less-flashy bunch has more of what the party needs if it wants to remake its national image. At the RGA they were stressing their pragmatic, results-oriented approach to governing and ducking the chance to beat up on the president.
These are the qualities required of a majority party trying to attract suburban women, young voters, and independents.

Zombie politics and other late modern monstrosities in the Age of Disposability  |  Truthout

At present, Americans are fascinated by a particular kind of monstrosity, by vampires and zombies condemned to live an eternity by feeding off the souls of the living. The preoccupation with such parasitic relations speaks uncannily to the threat most Americans perceive from the shameless blood lust of contemporary captains of industry, which Matt Taibbi, a writer for Rolling Stone, has aptly described as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Media culture, as the enormous popularity of the Twilight franchise and HBO’s True Blood reveal, is nonetheless enchanted by this seductive force of such omnipotent beings. More frightening, however, than the danger posed by these creatures is the coming revolution enacted by the hordes of the unthinking, caught in the spell of voodoo economics and compelled to acts of obscene violence and mayhem. They are the living dead, whose contagion threatens the very life force of the nation.

College graduates struggle to repay loans  |  NPR

November brings a nerve-racking deadline for May’s college graduates: It’s time to make the first payment on their student loans.
With this year’s tough job market, many graduates don’t know how they’ll come up with the money. Many are asking for deferments, and some may have to default.
But a new federal law designed to ease the pain of repayment may help some make it through this tough time.

In pictures: Monsters of the Deep  |  BBC

The International Census of Marine Life has catalogued more than 17,500 creatures that live in the dark depths of the world’s oceans – much more than scientists had expected.

More on the Health Bill

Analysis…

The health reform bill has dominated discussion for months and has recently made headway in terms of its final outlines.  The bill, which will affect all Americans, passed its way through the Senate this week, defining its priorities in ways both similar and different than that of the House.

The New York Times summarizes its differences as thus:

House version

• Includes mandate.
• Penalty: Tax equal to 2.5 percent of adjusted gross income over certain thresholds ($9,350 for individuals, $18,700 for couples).
• Exemptions: American Indians, people with religious objections and people who can show financial hardship.

Senate version

• Includes mandate.
• Penalty: Starts at $95 a year per person in 2014 and rises to $350 in 2015 and $750 in 2016, with a maximum of $2,250 for a family. No penalty if the cost of cheapest available plan exceeds 8 percent of household income.
• Exemptions: American Indians, people with religious objections and people who can show financial hardship.

The financial differences between the two bills allow voters to remain staunchly opinionated. Yet, there are several aspects of the bill that need definition through more than numbers and figures.  Here are some more pieces of the Senate’s health bill that will affect American citizens:

FDL |  It is encouraging that Senator Reid respected the will of the American people and included a public option in the merged Senate bill. However, the addition of a state opt-out provision threatens to leave millions of Americans at the mercy of private insurance monopolies, with the federal government acting as enforcers for a product with no competition to keep prices down.

Talk Left |  If you can get a public option passed without an opt out, then let’s do it. But if we can not, then I believe an opt out that requires enactment of a state law through regular procedure is acceptable. My view remains that the only real reform in this bill is the public option. Indeed, if given a choice I would rather have an opt out Medicare +5 public option available to more persons with an opt out than a level playing field national public option without an opt out. Neither seems politically possible at this time, even through reconciliation.

The Huffington Post |  The health care reform package unveiled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Wednesday night bars the use of federal funds for abortion services, but does not go as far as the House bill — which prevents women in many cases from buying insurance with their own money that covers abortion.
The Senate version would require at least one plan within the health insurance exchange that the bill sets up to offer a plan that covers abortion and one that doesn’t. It would also authorize the Health and Human Services Secretary to audit plans to make certain that abortion isn’t being paid for with federal dollars.

Feministe |  The good news out of the Senate bill is that it ditches the Stupak amendment language and goes back to a compromise based on the Hyde amendment. Of course, women’s rights advocates can only be so happy with Hyde-based language, since Hyde is a horrible amendment, but the chances of overturning it within the context of health care reform are slim to none; the best we can do is maintain the status quo, get health care reform passed, and then dig in on Hyde
Harry Reid’s health care bill goes back to the Capps compromise in the House — it basically says that federal dollars won’t be spent on abortion, but at least one plan within the federal health insurance exchange has to cover it. In other words, it keeps the current law.
This is crucial if pro-choicers want to see any sort of victory in the final bill. Assuming this version of the bill passes — and that’s a big assumption with anti-choice democrats in the Senate — the abortion language will have to be hashed out in conference committee. That’s the only way that the Stupak amendment is going to be removed. If anti-choice Dems push for similar language in the Senate bill, we’re pretty much sunk.

Politico |  The Senate bill pushes back implementation of major parts of the reform to 2014 — a change from 2013 under the Finance Committee bill.
This is bad news for lawmakers who will need to explain to constituents why the elements that have attracted the most attention — the public plan, the Medicaid expansion and the insurance exchanges — won’t be available for four years.

News…

The Afghan speech Obama should give (but won’t)  |  Alternet

Sure, the quote in the over-title is only my fantasy. No one in Washington — no less President Obama — ever said, “This administration ended, rather than extended, two wars,” and right now, it looks as if no one in an official capacity is likely to do so any time soon. It’s common knowledge that a president — but above all a Democratic president — who tried to de-escalate a war like the one now expanding in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, and withdraw American troops, would be so much domestic political dead meat.
This everyday bit of engrained Washington wisdom is, in fact, based on not a shred of evidence in the historical record. We do, however, know something about what could happen to a president who escalated a counterinsurgency war: Lyndon Johnson comes to mind for expanding his inherited war in Vietnam out of fear that he would be labeled the president who “lost” that country to the communists (as Harry Truman had supposedly “lost” China). And then there was Vice President Hubert Humphrey who — incapable of rejecting Johnson’s war policy — lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon, a candidate pushing a fraudulent “peace with honor” formula for downsizing the war.

NIAAA official says alcoholism ‘Isn’t usually’ a ‘chronic, relapsing disease’  |  Hit & Run

The Los Angeles Times notices that people can overcome drinking problems without abstaining from alcohol for the rest of their lives. More important, the Times quotes Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, who admits that the one-size-fits-all, abstinence-only approach preached by Alcoholics Anonymous is inconsistent with the evidence on drinking patterns (emphasis added):

“We’re on the cusp of some major advances in how we conceptualize alcoholism. The focus now is on the large group of people who are not yet dependent. But they are at risk for developing dependence….[Alcoholism] can be a chronic, relapsing disease. But it isn’t usually that.”

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