Blaming the poor for the financial crisis

There's a good article in The American Prospect, "Did Liberals Cause the Sub-prime Crisis?" which takes on the falsehoods being peddled by the right-wing that we can basically blame poor people and minorities for the current crisis. Don't buy the lies.

The fact of the matter is that Fannie and Freddie have had the same standards of lending for poor people since 1977, when the Community Reinvestment Act was passed, but we obviously didn't see the housing bubble even begin forming until around 2001. How can you blame a 25-year old policy for something that just started? Scapegoating black people, of course!

The problem with this argument is that CRA didn't even apply to 50% of subprime lending, and applied very little to another 30%! That's because CRA still had regulatory structure and transparency in lending, while the mess we have now is due to lack of standards and the shadiness of transactions involving mortgage-backed securities. So long as banks were on the hook if a mortgage failed, they had a vested interest in abiding by the standards of CRA. It was only in finding a way to magically pass on risk to others that predatory lending took off and the bubble was born. How did this happen? Fancy shuffling on Wall Street.

The fundamental issue is this: in 2000, a de-regulation bill called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act passed by McCain's right-hand man, Phil Gramm allowed for new fancy ways for banks to get around risk containment with mortgages, best summarized by the image of a bunch of fat cats with chainsaws tearing up regulatory law. In 2004, Bush and the GOP Congress pulled even more lenders out from under the regulatory structure of the CRA! Thus Gramm's "credit default swaps" legislation fueled the bubble and led to the free-for-all on Wall Street that we're paying for now. Paul Krugman explains that financial institutions were allowed to gamble with trillions of dollars with little to no regulation, and when risk became "spread" through the ability to bundle and sell mortgage-backed securities and investment vehicles, people went a little beserk by ignoring the serious risk that still existed and pretended that house prices would soar indefinitely. Financial institutions were allowed to play like banks, without the regulation that banks must submit to, and now are being bailed out like banks.

As Nouriel Roubini says, this is GOP welfare: privatize profits and socialize losses.

Don't buy the spin that this is the fault of liberals who wanted poor people and minorities to have houses. There were still rigorous standards of who could be lent money and at what rates, and transparency as to the creditworthiness of mortgage-related securities at that time. It was in 2000 that this changed, and it was directly thereafter that Wall Street began its party.

Setting expectations

I'm going in the opposite direction of the Obama campaign: setting the bar high for McCain bothers me. After blinking in a game of chicken, tonight is supposed to be McCain's "home field advantage" as everyone in the media tells me that McCain's "strength" is his foreign policy expertise. Well, I find that troubling...for many reasons:

McCain has made some serious errors in judgment in foreign policy, as well as some relatively minor confusions on the facts. Why then should he get the label "expert" in foreign policy?

This is, after all, the guy who confused the basic facts about the "Surge Policy" that he has claimed so much credit for.

The guy who won't meet with our ally - Spain?

The guy who is confused about his own position on the Iraq War, and whether or not he opposed it, and when, and whether or not he thought it would be "an easy victory"?

The guy who was confused about the need to go into Iraq way back in Jan 2002?

There's more:

Let's also not lose sight of the broader pattern. McCain thinks the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia was "the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War." He thinks Iraq and Pakistan share a border. He believes Czechoslovakia is still a country. He's been confused about the difference between Sudan and Somalia. He's been confused about whether he wants more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, more NATO troops in Afghanistan, or both. He's been confused about how many U.S. troops are in Iraq. He's been confused about whether the U.S. can maintain a long-term presence in Iraq. He's been confused about Iran's relationship with al Qaeda. He's been confused about the difference between Sunni and Shi'ia. McCain, following a recent trip to Germany, even referred to "President Putin of Germany." All of this incoherence on his signature issue.

Indeed.

new baby!

Our baby was naturally born this Sunday morning at 4:58 am (9/21/08). [surprise!]

Our baby weighed 6 lbs, 12.4 oz, was 19.75 in from head to toe, and is in excellent health.

Mom and baby are doing great!

baby on the way

For those few of you who read my site, our baby will be born by c-section Monday morning around 7:30 am.

Our baby didn't turn until very late into the pregnancy (8 months) and still hasn't descended into the birth canal, despite the due date being 9/22/08. Thus, the doctor advised going now, rather than waiting until she starts labor on her own and having to do an emergency c-section.

It may be a long time...perhaps a very long time, before I'm regularly writing anything of note here on this site. I will be posting pics soon, of course.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for caring. Wish us luck!

Democrats v. Republicans on the economy

Americans will be hearing a lot from the media in the next few days about the underlying causes of the financials market freeze-up, but they won't be hearing the hard facts:

1. When Bush and the GOP Congress started out this decade, they projected a $5.6 trillion surplus from 2002-2011. Instead, we will have a $3.8 trillion deficit. Thanks, GOP, for pissing away $9.4 trillion.
2. The "credit swaps" legislation passed by McCain's economic adviser Phil "nation of whiners" Gramm directly contributed to the current crisis. Thanks, GOP.
   
3. We've enjoyed stronger "fundamentals" under Democratic presidents than Republicans (I mentioned one of these fundamentals a while back -- income inequality)
4. Republicans are all for "capitalism"...so long as that means letting really really wealthy people make billions, then bailing them out: privatized profits & socialized losses. When the really wealthy power brokers of the GOP are getting hurt, it's time to step in with nationalized finance...but not when people like you and I are.
5. McCain and the GOP have no clue on health care, the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, causing 1.9 M / yr.
6. McCain's strong de-regulation emphasis goes all the way back to the Keating 5 scandal, and he has been shown to have been a major player in the S&L crisis that resulted.
7. On that note, McCain is advised by a bunch of financial lobbyists, while Obama is endorsed by economists 2:1 over McCain.
   

Rothkopf and Krugman on regulating financials

In response to the laissez-faire-style GOP economics of the past two decades or so, I offer this:

“We are at the end of an era — the end of ‘leave it to the markets’ and of the great cop-out that less government is always better government,” argues David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration and author of a book about the world’s financial leaders who brought about this crisis: “Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making.” “I think, however, it is important to stress the difference between smart government and simply more government.

“We do not need a regulatory ‘surge’ on Wall Street,” he added. “We need a complete rethinking of how we make global financial markets more transparent and how we ensure that the risks within those markets — .many of which are new and many of which are not well understood even by the experts — are managed and monitored properly.”

As always, Paul Krugman (MIT-trained Princeton prof. of economics) is the go-to guy for concise explanations on how and why the financial crisis happened and what to do about it.

In this post from March 21, he explains what is happening:

Contrary to popular belief, the stock market crash of 1929 wasn’t the defining moment of the Great Depression. What turned an ordinary recession into a civilization-threatening slump was the wave of bank runs that swept across America in 1930 and 1931.

This banking crisis of the 1930s showed that unregulated, unsupervised financial markets can all too easily suffer catastrophic failure.

As the decades passed, however, that lesson was forgotten — and now we’re relearning it, the hard way.

To grasp the problem, you need to understand what banks do.

Banks exist because they help reconcile the conflicting desires of savers and borrowers. Savers want freedom — access to their money on short notice. Borrowers want commitment: they don’t want to risk facing sudden demands for repayment.

Normally, banks satisfy both desires: depositors have access to their funds whenever they want, yet most of the money placed in a bank’s care is used to make long-term loans. The reason this works is that withdrawals are usually more or less matched by new deposits, so that a bank only needs a modest cash reserve to make good on its promises.

But sometimes — often based on nothing more than a rumor — banks face runs, in which many people try to withdraw their money at the same time. And a bank that faces a run by depositors, lacking the cash to meet their demands, may go bust even if the rumor was false.

Worse yet, bank runs can be contagious. If depositors at one bank lose their money, depositors at other banks are likely to get nervous, too, setting off a chain reaction. And there can be wider economic effects: as the surviving banks try to raise cash by calling in loans, there can be a vicious circle in which bank runs cause a credit crunch, which leads to more business failures, which leads to more financial troubles at banks, and so on.

That, in brief, is what happened in 1930-1931, making the Great Depression the disaster it was. So Congress tried to make sure it would never happen again by creating a system of regulations and guarantees that provided a safety net for the financial system.

And we all lived happily for a while — but not for ever after.

Wall Street chafed at regulations that limited risk, but also limited potential profits. And little by little it wriggled free — partly by persuading politicians to relax the rules, but mainly by creating a “shadow banking system” that relied on complex financial arrangements to bypass regulations designed to ensure that banking was safe.

For example, in the old system, savers had federally insured deposits in tightly regulated savings banks, and banks used that money to make home loans. Over time, however, this was partly replaced by a system in which savers put their money in funds that bought asset-backed commercial paper from special investment vehicles that bought collateralized debt obligations created from securitized mortgages — with nary a regulator in sight.

As the years went by, the shadow banking system took over more and more of the banking business, because the unregulated players in this system seemed to offer better deals than conventional banks. Meanwhile, those who worried about the fact that this brave new world of finance lacked a safety net were dismissed as hopelessly old-fashioned.

In fact, however, we were partying like it was 1929 — and now it’s 1930.

The financial crisis currently under way is basically an updated version of the wave of bank runs that swept the nation three generations ago. People aren’t pulling cash out of banks to put it in their mattresses — but they’re doing the modern equivalent, pulling their money out of the shadow banking system and putting it into Treasury bills. And the result, now as then, is a vicious circle of financial contraction.

Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues at the Fed are doing all they can to end that vicious circle. We can only hope that they succeed. Otherwise, the next few years will be very unpleasant — not another Great Depression, hopefully, but surely the worst slump we’ve seen in decades.

Even if Mr. Bernanke pulls it off, however, this is no way to run an economy. It’s time to relearn the lessons of the 1930s, and get the financial system back under control.

So now the question is -- what lessons do we learn and what do we change?

In this post from March 24, Krugman makes the essential argument that must be made to prevent the toxic mixture of "hand-off" government and greedy banks from happening again:

America came out of the Great Depression with a pretty effective financial safety net, based on a fundamental quid pro quo: the government stood ready to rescue banks if they got in trouble, but only on the condition that those banks accept regulation of the risks they were allowed to take.

Over time, however, many of the roles traditionally filled by regulated banks were taken over by unregulated institutions — the “shadow banking system,” which relied on complex financial arrangements to bypass those safety regulations.

Now, the shadow banking system is facing the 21st-century equivalent of the wave of bank runs that swept America in the early 1930s. And the government is rushing in to help, with hundreds of billions from the Federal Reserve, and hundreds of billions more from government-sponsored institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

Given the risks to the economy if the financial system melts down, this rescue mission is justified. But you don’t have to be an economic radical, or even a vocal reformer like Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to see that what’s happening now is the quid without the quo.

Last week Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, declared that Mr. Frank is right about the need for expanded regulation. Mr. Rubin put it clearly: If Wall Street companies can count on being rescued like banks, then they need to be regulated like banks.

But will that logic prevail politically?

Well it certainly hasn't with the Bush Administration.

In this post, he argues that the Administration's response is not real regulation and change, but re-shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic:

To reverse course now, and seek expanded regulation, the administration would have to back down on its free-market ideology — and it would also have to face up to the fact that it was wrong. And this administration never, ever, admits that it made a mistake.

Thus, in a draft of a speech to be delivered on Monday, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, declares, “I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current turmoil.”

And sure enough, according to the executive summary of the new administration plan, regulation will be limited to institutions that receive explicit federal guarantees — that is, institutions that are already regulated, and have not been the source of today’s problems. As for the rest, it blithely declares that “market discipline is the most effective tool to limit systemic risk.”

The administration, then, has learned nothing from the current crisis. Yet it needs, as a political matter, to pretend to be doing something.

Way back in March, Obama offered six specific reforms (video, transcript) to an audience at Cooper Union aimed at regulating "shadow banks" like real banks and preventing a rerun of the ugly show we're watching today. Two days ago, McCain said that, "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," and has desperately backpedaled since, offering rhetoric about how what he really meant was the American worker is strong. And McCain has to pretend he hasn't been against regulation for 26 years. Are the American people listening?

Politics stuff

This is your GOP government in action:

Keep an eye on the TED spread to see how bad things will get. It is basically a quick snapshot of the liquidity crisis. It shot up to 2.01 within a few hours yesterday from near 1.0. That's a bad sign.


A few points:

• The collapse on Wall Street can be laid squarely at the feet of people like Phil Gramm, who inserted deregulation language covertly into finance bills:

  If McCain wants to hold someone accountable for the failure in transparency and accountability that led to the current calamity, he should turn to his good friend and adviser, Phil Gramm.
  
  As Mother Jones reported in June, eight years ago, Gramm, then a Republican senator chairing the Senate banking committee, slipped a 262-page bill into a gargantuan, must-pass spending measure. Gramm's legislation, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists, essentially removed newfangled financial products called swaps from any regulation. Credit default swaps are basically insurance policies that cover the losses on investments, and they have been at the heart of the subprime meltdown because they have enabled large financial institutions to turn risky loans into risky securities that could be packaged and sold to other institutions.
  
  Lehman's collapse threatens the financial markets because of swaps.

  Don't forget McCain's role in the Keating 5 scandal was basically to deregulate the market, which ended up costing taxpayers about $165 B total in the S&L scandals. And don't forget how people like McCain cheered as bankers took chainsaws to the regulation laws that King W and congressional Republicans did away with. Their libertarian philosophy tells them, "all regulation bad," but reality tells a different story, doesn't it?
  


• The DNC has a great "Count the Lies" site up documenting McCain's mendacity. As others have noted, he's basically trying to reinvent himself, going from "honorable man who happens to be a politician" to "sleazy dishonorable politician who will fulfill W's 3rd term"...


• Even David Brooks thinks Palin is not the woman for the job:

  Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.
  
  The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.

  Preach it brother.


• Bob Herbert's column on McCain's disastrous health care "plan" is worth reading in its entirety. Here's a snippet:

  Talk about a shock to the system. Has anyone bothered to notice the radical changes that John McCain and Sarah Palin are planning for the nation’s health insurance system?
  
  These are changes that will set in motion nothing less than the dismantling of the employer-based coverage that protects most American families.
  
  A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan.
  
  There is nothing secret about Senator McCain’s far-reaching proposals, but they haven’t gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense — lipstick, celebrities and “Drill, baby, drill!”
  
  For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on.
  
  “It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money,” said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
  
  Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs.
  
  According to the study: “The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system — the nongroup market — where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now.”
  
  The net effect of the plan, the study said, “almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care.”
  
  Under the McCain plan (now the McCain-Palin plan) employees who continue to receive employer-paid health benefits would look at their pay stubs each week or each month and find that additional money had been withheld to cover the taxes on the value of their benefits.
  
  While there might be less money in the paycheck, that would not be anything to worry about, according to Senator McCain. That’s because the government would be offering all taxpayers a refundable tax credit — $2,500 for a single worker and $5,000 per family — to be used “to help pay for your health care.”
  
  You may think this is a good move or a bad one — but it’s a monumental change in the way health coverage would be provided to scores of millions of Americans. Why not more attention?
  
  The whole idea of the McCain plan is to get families out of employer-paid health coverage and into the health insurance marketplace, where naked competition is supposed to take care of all ills. (We’re seeing in the Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch fiascos just how well the unfettered marketplace has been working.)
  
  Taxing employer-paid health benefits is the first step in this transition, the equivalent of injecting poison into the system. It’s the beginning of the end.
  
  When younger, healthier workers start seeing additional taxes taken out of their paychecks, some (perhaps many) will opt out of the employer-based plans — either to buy cheaper insurance on their own or to go without coverage.
  
  That will leave employers with a pool of older, less healthy workers to cover. That coverage will necessarily be more expensive, which will encourage more and more employers to give up on the idea of providing coverage at all.
  
  The upshot is that many more Americans — millions more — will find themselves on their own in the bewildering and often treacherous health insurance marketplace. As Senator McCain has said: “I believe the key to real reform is to restore control over our health care system to the patients themselves.”
  
  Yet another radical element of McCain’s plan is his proposal to undermine state health insurance regulations by allowing consumers to buy insurance from sellers anywhere in the country. So a requirement in one state that insurers cover, for example, vaccinations, or annual physicals, or breast examinations, would essentially be meaningless...

  How's this even a close race? Do people care about the issues? Sadly, I'm starting to conclude, "No."

The "Out Campaign" for freethinkers

Here's my proposal: give freethinkers an "out campaign" just like the atheists have.

(graphic source)

Palin is empty and McCain is a liar

Watching Sarah Palin's part two tonight was painful: an exercise in vague platitudes and duplicity.

Watching the erosion of McCain's character as he continues to tell lie after lie about Barack Obama is more painful. He lies about Barack's bill to protect kindergartners from sex predators and he lies about Barack's tax CUT for those making under $250K / yr and basically everything else:

It's time to vote for someone whose campaign doesn't point towards Bush III.

Palin's dangerous ignorance on foreign policy

Sitting at home watching this, I knew that Charlie referred to the justification given by Bush for pre-emption. Sarah Palin didn't. I know more about key foreign policy stances than her. Perhaps I should run for VP?

She doesn't know what pre-emption is and is willing to start World War 3 with Russia if they invade Georgia. How awesome! Let's put her in the WH!

New WaPo article on Cindy McCain's drug addiction

I am inclined to agree with Barack that:

“Let me be as clear as possible,” said Obama, “I think people’s families are off-limits and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics."

On the other hand, a case can be made that when a politician's policies collide with their actions and personal beliefs, there is a hypocrisy to talk about. Kind of like Palin's denial to women who are victims of rape or incest the right to choose while claiming, straight-faced, that her daughter had "made the choice" to keep her baby: a choice she wants to deny to other women. Kind of like McCain's accusations that Obama was a "celebrity" with his own dozens of cameos, the TV memoir "Faith of my Fathers" and TV appearances. And so a politician, by their duplicity and stupidity, can drag their family into the middle of a serious discussion on issues.

Frazer on "Christian Nation" nonsense

Arguments that purport to show that nearly all of the Founders of our nation were Evangelicals are based on bullsh*t. I've written before of the common rumors that float around in email chains (does everyone have a mother like mine, who forwards EVERY ridiculous email to you?). From a legal standpoint, it matters not one iota what the Founders believed, only what they wrote into the Constitution.

Anyway, Ed Brayton brings us a more accurate look at what the views of the Founders really were from Evangelical historian Greg Frazer: theistic rationalism.

Theistic rationalism was a hybrid belief system mixing elements of natural religion, Protestant Christianity, and rationalism – with rationalism as the decisive factor whenever conflict arose between the elements. Theistic rationalists believed that these three elements would generally be in accord and lead to the same end, but that reason was determinative on those relatively rare occasions in which there was disagreement. Rationalism as used here is the philosophical view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge. Educated in Enlightenment thought, theistic rationalists were at root rationalists, but their loosely Christian upbringing combined with reason to convince them that a creator God would not abandon his creation. Consequently, they rejected the absentee god of deism and embraced a theist God of, to a significant extent, their own construction. Hence the term theistic rationalism.

An emphasis on reason had long been accepted in the Christian community, but in Christian thought, reason was a supplement to revelation, which was supreme. Theistic rationalism turned this on its head and made revelation a supplement to reason. In fact, for theistic rationalists, reason determined what should be accepted as revelation from God. Unlike deists, theistic rationalists accepted the notion of revelation from God; unlike Christians, they felt free to pick apart the Bible and to consider only the parts which they determined to be rational to be legitimate divine revelation. They similarly felt free to define God according to the dictates of their own reason and to reject Christian doctrines which did not seem to them to be rational.

The God of the theistic rationalists was a unitary, personal God whose controlling attribute was benevolence. Theistic rationalists believed that God was present and active in the world and in the lives of men. Consequently, they believed in the efficacy of prayer – that someone was listening and might intervene on their behalf. Theistic rationalism was not a devotional or inward-looking belief system; it was centered on public morality. God was served by living and promoting a good, moral life. The primary value of religion was the promotion of morality, and the morality generated by religion was indispensable to a free society. Since all of the religions with which they were familiar promoted morality, they held that virtually all religions were more or less equally valid and led to the same God who is called by many names. Theistic rationalists generally disdained doctrines or dogmas. They found them to be divisive, speculative, and ultimately unimportant since many roads lead to God.

Interesting.

The impact of meat on global warming

Time magazine has a great article on how meat makes global warming worse:

In a 2006 report, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions — by comparison, all the world's cars, trains, planes and boats account for a combined 13% of greenhouse gas emissions.

I've written a few things on my experiment with complete meatlessness, and how one of my motivations is the environmental impact of raising cattle. As of a few months ago, I started eating white meat again. I never plan to eat pork or beef again regularly, although there will probably be times when I'm trapped somewhere and all they offer is BBQ or something. On the ethics, I suppose I just don't think that birds have the same sort of conscious awareness as mammals like pigs and cows do.

Orally v. Obama

Bill Orally [sic] had a great informational segment called "Dubious Associations" where basically he got to live out Sean Hannity's wet dreams and ask Barack Obama all about Wright, Ayers, Rezko, etc.:

Gotta love Faux News!

Genius and depression

I've been fascinated with prodigies since I was young. Perhaps it was watching Doogie Howser, Searching for Bobby Fischer and Little Man Tate growing up. Once in high school, after reading Asimov's On Numbers, I remember being frustrated that some of the things I felt (intuited) about mathematics had already been articulated by others, rendering my sense of genius and creativity null and void. In geometry class, I impressed my teacher (James DeBord) by multiplying 500 times any 2-4 digit number faster than he could punch it in on the calculator. Of course, cutting things in half is fairly easy by mental calculation standards. Later, I borrowed a book called, "The Great Mental Calculators" and it set me to rights on how un-prodigious I was with numbers.

Ripping John McCain a new one

Frank Rich is good today. He basically rips McCain a new one over the spin and lies and rashness known as Sarah Palin.

Jon Stewart was also good:

(or see this version)

Don't let them lie to you that she has more overall experience than Obama. He was in the Illinois legislature for 8 years and has been in the US Senate for almost 4 years. He went to Harvard Law and was the first black president of the prestigious (though under-read) Harvard Law Review.

From an interview on AC360:

“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,” Obama responded.

Actually, according to ADN, Wasilla's budget was only $6M / yr. The point of this being that her "executive experience" as mayor doesn't really even compare to the decisions and strategy Obama has had to form as a result of running the campaign.

She's been governor for 20 months of a state with 950,000 caribou and 670,000 people. She was a mayor for six years of a town of 5,000. She went to five different schools before finally graduating with a Journalism BA after six years from the U of Idaho.

[UPDATE: Check out the 63-page vetting report (PDF, 275KB) that was compiled on Palin when she ran for Governor of Alaska in November 2006.]

We report, you decide. (retch)

Cleaning things up some

After hearing about someone getting fired at Hammond School for what they had on their MySpace page, I decided to take privacy to the next level. I made my Blogger profiles private, am in the process of killing the links and references to them I had on my index pages, and have whittled down my list of "allowed readers" to 18. If you're reading this, I must think you're a genius.

Seriously, though, it's sad that someone can't have a private place to enjoy freedom of speech without worrying about losing their job, but there are consequences to actions, even when they're protected constitutionally. Right, Maurice's BBQ owner Maurice Bessinger? So I'm also googling my name and variants of it and my email addresses and trying to go through and do what I can to make finding material about me online as difficult as possible. One good thing: the revolutionary war hero by the same name makes it harder to search for me.

If in the future you find yourself unable to read the blog entirely, don't think it's personal. It's just me being a little overly cautious. Even people whom I trust cause me to worry because they may forget to log out of their computer somewhere and someone else, whom I don't trust, may see it or use it against me. I've whittled down my Facebook and MySpace friends list and changed the privacy settings there for the same reasons.

If you're bored enough to wonder how many times I've changed my mind about whether to make this blog private, public, or somewhere in between, read this or figure it out yourself from the various postings.

Happiness and life's value

Full disclosure: I'm about to link to an article from Oprah's magazine. OTOH, it is a decent article written by an academic neuroscientist about happiness. Here are the five main points:

1. Find what you enjoy and are good at and immerse yourself in it.
2. Set out to deliberately make yourself happy by prioritizing it over relationships and career.
3. Avoid living in the past.
4. Invest and spend heavily of your self on a few close friends.
5. Don't ever associate enjoyment with guilt.
   

The reason I'm linking to this is I've been thinking over the meaning of happiness the past few days after receiving an email from a friend of mine who brought up the subject. He brought it up because he's a Christian and he has a non-Christian friend who seemed to make intimations of suicidal thoughts. He wrote me for advice as to what to say to her, presumably because he felt that his lack of ability to invoke God made advising her difficult or impossible. I wrote him back with a strategy much like that outlined in the article below: practical, real-life advice about finding something you enjoy and basking in it. On a deeper note, I've said before that I think the fact-value distinction is very important in considering things like, "what's the meaning of life?" I really don't think that adding God to the equation helps clarify that question, as it only pushes it back to "why would God make anything at all?" and "why would God allow such evil and suffering in the world?" and makes it more confusing. But furthering that idea is for another day.

Five Things Happy People Do
By Gabrielle LeBlanc
http://www.oprah.com/article/spirit/emotionalhealth/omag_200803_happy

Sages going back to Socrates have offered advice on how to be happy, but only now are scientists beginning to address this question with systematic, controlled research. Although many of the new studies reaffirm time-honored wisdom ("Do what you love," "To thine own self be true"), they also add a number of fresh twists and insights. We canvassed the leading experts on what happy people have in common—and why it's worth trying to become one of them:

They find their most golden self. Picture happiness. What do you see? A peaceful soul sitting in a field of daisies appreciating the moment? That kind of passive, pleasure-oriented—hedonic—contentment is definitely a component of overall happiness. But researchers now believe that eudaimonic well-being may be more important. Cobbled from the Greek eu ("good") and daimon ("spirit" or "deity"), eudaimonia means striving toward excellence based on one's unique talents and potential—Aristotle considered it to be the noblest goal in life. In his time, the Greeks believed that each child was blessed at birth with a personal daimon embodying the highest possible expression of his or her nature. One way they envisioned the daimon was as a golden figurine that would be revealed by cracking away an outer layer of cheap pottery (the person's baser exterior). The effort to know and realize one's most golden self—"personal growth," in today's lingo—is now the central concept of eudaimonia, which has also come to include continually taking on new challenges and fulfilling one's sense of purpose in life.

"Eudaimonic well-being is much more robust and satisfying than hedonic happiness, and it engages different parts of the brain," says Richard J. Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The positive emotion accompanying thoughts that are directed toward meaningful goals is one of the most enduring components of well-being." Eudaimonia is also good for the body. Women who scored high on psychological tests for it (they were purposefully engaged in life, pursued self-development) weighed less, slept better, and had fewer stress hormones and markers for heart disease than others—including those reporting hedonic happiness—according to a study led by Carol Ryff, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

They design their lives to bring in joy. It may seem obvious, but "people don't devote enough time to thinking seriously about how they spend their life and how much of it they actually enjoy," says David Schkade, PhD, a psychologist and professor of management at the University of California San Diego. In a recent study, Schkade and colleagues asked more than 900 working women to write down everything they'd done the day before. Afterward, they reviewed their diaries and evaluated how they felt at each point. When the women saw how much time they spent on activities they didn't like, "some people had tears in their eyes," Schkade says. "They didn't realize their happiness was something they could design and have control over."

Analyzing one's life isn't necessarily easy and may require questioning long-held assumptions. A high-powered career might, in fact, turn out to be unfulfilling; a committed relationship once longed for could end up being irritating with all the compromising that comes with having a partner. Dreams can be hard to abandon, even when they've turned sour.

Fortunately, changes don't have to be big ones to tip the joy in your favor. Schkade says that if you transfer even an hour of your day from an activity you hate (commuting, scrubbing the bathroom) to one you like (reading, spending time with friends), you should see a significant improvement in your overall happiness. Taking action is key. Another recent study, at the University of Missouri, compared college students who made intentional changes (joining a club, upgrading their study habits) with others who passively experienced positive turns in their circumstances (receiving a scholarship, being relieved of a bad roommate). All the students were happier in the short term, but only the group who made deliberate changes stayed that way.

They avoid "if only" fantasies. If only I get a better job…find a man…lose the weight…life will be perfect. Happy people don't buy into this kind of thinking.

The latest research shows that we're surprisingly bad at predicting what will make us happy. People also tend to misjudge their contentment when zeroing in on a single aspect of their life—it's called the focusing illusion. In one study, single subjects were asked, "How happy are you with your life in general?" and "How many dates did you have last month?" When the dating question was asked first, their romantic life weighed more heavily into how they rated their overall happiness than when the questions were reversed.

The other argument against "if only" fantasies has to do with "hedonic adaptation"—the brain's natural dimming effect, which guarantees that a new house won't generate the same pleasure a year after its purchase and the thrill of having a boyfriend will ebb as you get used to being part of a couple. Happy people are wise to this, which is why they keep their lives full of novelty, even if it's just trying a new activity (diving, yoga) or putting a new spin on an old favorite (kundalini instead of vinyasa).

They put best friends first. It's no surprise that social engagement is one of the most important contributors to happiness. What's news is that the nature of the relationship counts. Compared with dashing around chatting with acquaintances, you get more joy from spending longer periods of time with a close friend, according to research by Meliksah Demir, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Northern Arizona University. And the best-friend benefit doesn't necessarily come from delving into heavy discussions. One of the most essential pleasures of close friendship, Demir found, is simple companionship, "just hanging out," as he says, hitting the mall or going to the movies together and eating popcorn in the dark.

They allow themselves to be happy. As much as we all think we want it, many of us are convinced, deep down, that it's wrong to be happy (or too happy). Whether the belief comes from religion, culture, or the family you were raised in, it usually leaves you feeling guilty if you're having fun.

"Some people would say you shouldn't strive for personal happiness until you've taken care of everyone in the world who is starving or doesn't have adequate medical care," says Howard Cutler, MD, coauthor with the Dalai Lama of The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World. "The Dalai Lama believes you should pursue both simultaneously. For one thing, there is clear research showing that happy people tend to be more open to helping others. They also make better spouses and parents." And in one famous study, nuns whose autobiographies expressed positive emotions (such as gratitude and optimism) lived seven to 10-and-a-half years longer than other nuns. So, for any die-hard pessimist who still needs persuading, just think of how much more you can help the world if you allow a little happiness into your life.

Gabrielle Leblanc is a writer and neuroscientist in Washington, D.C.

Good stuff.

This is "reform"?

The whole narrative that McCain's gimmick revolves around is that he chose Palin because she is a "reformer" and "maverick" and so is he. I thought mavericks bucked their party's orthodoxy, rather than representing an extreme version of them, but hey, what do I know?

The problem with that is these damned stubborn facts.

They're shutting down the investigation into how she used her office to punish subordinates in a way very reminiscent of King George's use of power in the Justice Dept. That's hardly the sort of transparency in government and ethics reform we'd expect from this supposed duo of do-goodism.

In addition, with the facts piling up about Palin's use of pork and advocacy of the "Bridge to Nowhere", opposing it only late in the game and keeping the money after the project itself was shut down, it is becoming a literal laughingstock to call this woman an agent of reform against earmarking. She lies.

Besides this, there's the fascist way she used her position as mayor and governor to try to censor the town's library and fire political opponents.

Like it or not, despite the cable news lovefest for her, the disaster that is Sarah Palin will continue to linger like a stench over this election.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

John Adams, 'Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,' December 1770 (source)

In the same way that the Right insisted on looking at Obama's record and proposals rather than his character, let's look at the facts surrounding Palin's "reformer" label rather than her biography.

Call me a bleeding heart liberal

Go ahead. Call me a bleeding heart liberal if you want to. But supporting this grotesque mockery of "sport" -- shooting wolves from airplanes -- is just abominable. And Palin supports it.

There's hunting for food then there's bloodsport. I'm all for the 2nd Am protecting gun rights and all, as well as reasonable hunting laws. However, these beautiful animals are viciously tortured, not cleanly and painlessly killed for any good purpose.

That's ignoring all the other reasons to vote against the McCain-Palin ticket.

Obama on unilateral action in Pakistan

Am I the only one who remembers when Obama said that if high value targets in Pakistan could not be acted on by the Pakistani forces, that he'd act with or without Pakistan's permission:

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Mr Obama said.

Okay, and after that he got hammered by others, including McCain, for being wrong about this? Yet, everyone in the crowd cheered when McCain famously claimed he'd chase Osama bin Laden to the "gates of hell". I guess as long as the gates of hell aren't inside Pakistan...

Last Thursday, Obama mentioned that McCain "wouldn't even follow OBL to the cave where he lives" in reference to this logical disparity. The US has conducted aerial assaults inside Pakistan for months, and as of reports yesterday, the US has now invaded there with ground forces to carry out a raid. So, it's now time for McCain to make clear his position: would he agree with Obama on this raid, or would he oppose his own President's call?

This has been the case on many things: Obama was right about getting out of Iraq and reinforcing our troops in Afghanistan, about talking with Iran without requiring that they stop what they're doing first (precondition), about talking with North Korea, and about basically every other foreign policy decision that McCain has gotten wrong. And that's why I'm voting for Obama-Biden this November.

Palin lied about Obama's record last night: he has passed many bills as a state and federal legislator, including many while working with Republicans. All personal and family issues aside, the arguments in favor of Palin have all turned out to be based on false premises. She is not a reformer. She is in the pocket of Big Oil. She is a creationist who is ultra-right (well to the right of McCain) on many environmental issues, including ANWR and protecting polar bears. She opposes abortion rights for women who have been raped or are the victims of incest. She has zero national security or foreign policy experience, and would be one sick old man's heartbeat away from the Presidency...on this line of reasoning, even Expelled star Ben Stein thinks very little of Palin...not that any of us think enough of him to care what he thinks...

The GOP philosophy of failing government

Krugman had a gem of philosophy inside his column:

Let’s start with that red folder. Assuming that the folder contained something other than scrap paper, is the planned response to a hurricane a state secret? Are we worried that tropical storm systems will discover our weak points? Are we fighting a Global War on Weather?

Actually, that’s not quite as funny as it sounds. Some observers have pointed out that daily briefings on preparations for Gustav, which should be coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency — which is, you know, supposed to manage emergencies — have been coming, instead, from the U.S. military’s Northern Command.

It’s not hard to see why. Top positions at FEMA are no longer held by obviously unqualified political hacks and cronies. But a recent report by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security said that the agency has made only “limited progress” in the area of “mission assignments” — that is, in its ability to coordinate the response to a crisis. So FEMA still isn’t up to carrying out its principal task.

That’s no accident. FEMA’s degradation, from one of the government’s most admired agencies to a laughingstock, wasn’t an isolated event; it was the result of the G.O.P.’s underlying philosophy. Simply put, when the government is run by a political party committed to the belief that government is always the problem, never the solution, that belief tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Key priorities are neglected; key functions are privatized; and key people, the competent public servants who make government work, either leave or are driven out.

This is something I was discussing with a friend on Friday. Why do we vote in a party who has the following talking points about running the very offices they campaign for:

Why are libertarian ideas important? Because of their influence on the Republican Party. They form the ideological basis for the Reagan/Gingrich/Bush revolution. The Republicans have taken the libertarian "Government is Bad" horse and ridden far with it:

* Reagan's "Government is the problem"
* Phil Gramm's contention that the country's "economic crisis" and "moral crisis" were due to "the explosion of government"
* Talk radio hosts' advocacy of armed resistance to "jack-booted government thugs"
* Dole's 1996 campaign, advancing the notion that taxes were "Your Money" being taken from you
* Gingrich's Contract with America (welfare cuts, tax cuts, limitations on corporations' responsibility and on the government's ability to regulate them)
* Dick Armey's comment that Medicare (medical aid for the elderly) is "a program I would have no part of in a free world"
* Bush's tax cuts, intended not only to reward the rich but to "starve the beast", in Grover Norquist's words: to create a permanent deficit as a dangerous ploy to reduce social spending
* Jeb Bush's hope that the Florida state government buildings would one day be empty
* Intellectual support for attacks on the quality of working life in this county and for undoing the New Deal

I guess they'd say that they are running to dismantle the government in order to save the country. Somehow, that just hasn't worked very well. The modern world demands that government provide quality services to citizens, and you can't defy the economic certainties involved here: cut a program's funding, and there are real losses of quality and scope.

Time mag. asks, and I answer: Palin = disaster

Barack says that Bristol Palin's teenage pregnancy is off-limits:

MONROE, Michigan (CNN) – Barack Obama told reporters firmly that families are off-limits in this campaign, reacting to news that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant.

“Let me be as clear as possible,” said Obama, “I think people’s families are off-limits and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.”

Obama said reporters should “back off these kinds of stories” and noted that he was born to an 18 year-old mother.

“How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off-limits.”

The Illinois senator became aggravated when asked about rumors on liberal blogs speculating that Palin’s fifth child - Trig - is actually her daughter Bristol’s. A Reuters report Monday quotes a senior McCain aide saying that Obama’s name is in some of posts, “in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their 'campaign of change,’”

“I am offended by that statement,” Obama shot back, not letting the reporter finish his question. “There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us.”

“We don’t go after people’s families,” Obama said. “We don’t get them involved in the politics. It’s not appropriate and it’s not relevant. Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be. And if I ever thought that there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired.”

Although McCain's campaign insists that they knew about this, I remain skeptical, not the least reason being that they're now sending an army of lawyers to Alaska to try to contain this...which is something they should've done beforehand. Time magazine asks whether McCain's pick was "bold or disastrous?" I think that answer is becoming more clear. Let's have a run-down of the woman's baggage:

1. Late addition: She was a member of a fringe Alaskan political group that seeks its independence from the US, and was involved in their 2008 conference
   
2. Late addition: It looks like independent voters are seeing through the nonsense
   
3. She had a shotgun wedding as she got pregnant with her first kid out of wedlock
4. Her husband was arrested on a DWI
5. She's a staunch "abstinence-only" advocate whose teenage daughter got pregnant, the political fallout from which is still to be determined
   
6. Troopergate: She used her authority as governor to try to have her sister's ex-husband fired, then fired his boss when the boss refused, then lied about it [apparently the ex-husband was a dickhead, but the last two points are more important here]
7. She claimed in her first public appearance as VP candidate that she opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" but this turns out to be a lie, and a bad one, at that
8. She claims to have opposed corruption in Alaska, but said that calling for Ted Stevens resignation would be "premature" after his arrest and received his endorsement, which she paid to run as an ad
9. She directed Ted Stevens' 527 group on his behalf and appeared with him in July after his indictment to appeal for him politically
10. A few months ago, she claims to have no idea what the VP does everyday
    
11. In a 2006 gubenatorial questionaire, she said that she opposed abortions for incest and rape, only giving an exception if it could be proven that the mother might die from childbirth. The Religious Right loves her. Re-read that.
12. From the same source, and many others, she claims that teaching creationism in science classes is the way to go, "teach both."
    
13. On the same anti-science note, she is a global warming denialist
14. She is to the right of McCain on drilling in ANWR, protecting polar bears and protecting the environment in general (yet another anti-science Republican)
15. On the same line of reasoning, she semi-opposed the surge in Iraq, hailed as one of the only things that McCain has not failed at in the past decade or so
16. There is zero national security experience involved in being governor, so quit repeating the "commander-in-chief of the national guard" line. Campbell Brown stumped Tucker Bounds today (H/T: Kos) who tried to equivocate on this -- she didn't command troops to go to Iraq. Not even close. I'm the "commander-in-chief" of my classroom, but that doesn't make me an education policy wonk.
    
17. She is clearly and unequivocally unqualified to be president should something happen to McCain, the oldest presidential candidate ever nominated for a first term whose four bouts with cancer should make everyone think twice

Go Obama-Biden '08! (pic source)

Barack's answers to the Science Debate 2008 questions

I think science is pretty important to the future and direction of our country. The GOP has been waging a war on science for decades, and McCain has continued in that direction with the selection of a creationist champion as VP in Palin.

I've been plugging the Science Debate 2008 for a while, and I noted that Clinton and Obama sent surrogates to the event in February to answer questions while McCain did not. Now Obama's campaign has sent his responses to major scientific issues facing our nation.

In the words of PZ, here are 14 more reasons to support Obama-Biden over McCain-Palin:

[questions in bold]

1. Innovation. Science and technology have been responsible for half of the growth of the American economy since WWII. But several recent reports question America’s continued leadership in these vital areas. What policies will you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation?

Ensuring that the U.S. continues to lead the world in science and technology will be a central priority for my administration. Our talent for innovation is still the envy of the world, but we face unprecedented challenges that demand new approaches. For example, the U.S. annually imports $53 billion more in advanced technology products than we export. China is now the world’s number one high technology exporter. This competitive situation may only worsen over time because the number of U.S. students pursuing technical careers is declining. The U.S. ranks 17th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving degrees in science or engineering; we were in third place thirty years ago.

My administration will increase funding for basic research in physical and life sciences, mathematics, and engineering at a rate that would double basic research budgets over the next decade. We will increase research grants for early-career researchers to keep young scientists entering these fields. We will increase support for high-risk, high-payoff research portfolios at our science agencies. And we will invest in the breakthrough research we need to meet our energy challenges and to transform our defense programs.

A vigorous research and development program depends on encouraging talented people to enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and giving them the support they need to reach their potential. My administration will work to guarantee to students access to strong science curriculum at all grade levels so they graduate knowing how science works – using hands-on, IT-enhanced education. As president, I will launch a Service Scholarship program that pays undergraduate or graduate teaching education costs for those who commit to teaching in a high-need school, and I will prioritize math and science teachers. Additionally, my proposal to create Teacher Residency Academies will also add 30,000 new teachers to high-need schools – training thousands of science and math teachers. I will also expand access to higher education, work to draw more of these students into science and engineering, and increase National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate fellowships. My proposals for providing broadband Internet connections for all Americans across the country will help ensure that more students are able to
bolster their STEM achievement.

Progress in science and technology must be backed with programs ensuring that U.S. businesses have strong incentives to convert advances quickly into new business opportunities and jobs. To do this, my administration will make the R&D tax credit permanent.

2. Climate Change. The Earth’s climate is changing and there is concern about the potentially adverse effects of these changes on life on the planet. What is your position on the following measures that have been proposed to address global climate change—a cap-and-trade system, a carbon tax, increased fuel-economy standards, or research? Are there other policies you would support?

There can no longer be any doubt that human activities are influencing the global climate and we must react quickly and effectively. First, the U.S. must get off the sidelines and take long-overdue action here at home to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions. We must also take a leadership role in designing technologies that allow us to enjoy a growing, prosperous economy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. With the right incentives, I'm convinced that American ingenuity can do this, and in the process make American businesses more productive, create jobs, and make America’s buildings and vehicles safer and more attractive. This is a global problem. U.S. leadership is essential but solutions will require contributions from all parts of the world—particularly the rest of the world’s major emitters: China, Europe, and India.

Specifically, I will implement a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. I will start reducing emissions immediately by establishing strong annual reduction targets with an intermediate goal of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. A cap- and-trade program draws on the power of the marketplace to reduce emissions in a cost- effective and flexible way. I will require all pollution credits to be auctioned.

I will restore U.S. leadership in strategies for combating climate change and work closely with the international community. We will re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the main international forum dedicated to addressing the climate change problem. In addition I will create a Global Energy Forum—based on the G8+5, which includes all G-8 members plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa—comprising the largest energy consuming nations from both the developed and developing world. This forum would focus exclusively on global energy and environmental issues. I will also create a Technology Transfer Program dedicated to exporting climate-friendly technologies, including green buildings, clean coal and advanced automobiles, to developing countries to help them combat climate change.

3. Energy. Many policymakers and scientists say energy security and sustainability are major problems facing the United States this century. What policies would you support to meet demand for energy while ensuring an economically and environmentally sustainable future?

America's challenges in providing secure, affordable energy while addressing climate change mean that we must make much more efficient use of energy and begin to rely on new energy sources that eliminate or greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. My programs focus both on a greatly expanded program of federally funded energy research and development and on policies designed to speed the adoption of innovative energy technologies and stimulate private innovation.

First, I have proposed programs that, taken together, will increase federal investment in the clean energy research, development, and deployment to $150 billion over ten years. This research will cover:

• Basic research to develop alternative fuels and chemicals;

• Equipment and designs that can greatly reduce energy use in residential and commercial buildings – both new and existing;

• New vehicle technologies capable of significantly reducing our oil consumption;

• Advanced energy storage and transmission that would greatly help the economics of new electric-generating technologies and plug-in hybrids;

• Technologies for capturing and sequestering greenhouse gases produced by coal plants; and

• A new generation of nuclear electric technologies that address cost, safety, waste disposal, and proliferation risks.

I will also work closely with utilities to introduce a digital smart grid that can optimize the overall efficiency of the nation's electric utility system, by managing demand and making effective use of renewable energy and energy storage.

Second, it is essential that we create a strong, predictable market for energy innovations with concrete goals that speed introduction of innovative products and provide a strong incentive for private R&D investment in energy technologies. These concrete goals include:

• Increasing new building efficiency by 50 percent and existing building efficiency by 25 percent over the next decade, and taking other steps that will reduce the energy intensity of our economy 50 percent by 2030;

• Increasing fuel economy standards 4 percent per year and providing loan guarantees for domestic auto plants and parts manufacturers to build new fuel- efficient cars domestically;

• Extending the Production Tax Credit for five years and creating a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard that will require that 10 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025; and

• Ensuring that regulations and incentives in all federal agencies support the national energy and environmental goals in ways that encourage innovation and ingenuity.

I will also encourage communities around the nation to design and build sustainable communities that cut energy use with walkable community designs and expanded investment in mass transit.

4. Education. A comparison of 15-year-olds in 30 wealthy nations found that average science scores among U.S. students ranked 17th, while average U.S. math scores ranked 24th. What role do you think the federal government should play in preparing K-12 students for the science and technology driven 21st Century?

All American citizens need high quality STEM education that inspires them to know more about the world around them, engages them in exploring challenging questions, and involves them in high quality intellectual work. STEM education is no longer only for those pursuing STEM careers; it should enable all citizens to solve problems, collaborate, weigh evidence, and communicate ideas. I will work to ensure that all Americans, including those in traditionally underrepresented groups, have the knowledge and skills they need to engage in society, innovate in our world, and compete in the global economy.

I will support research to understand the strategies and mechanisms that bring lasting improvements to STEM education and ensure that promising practices are widely shared. This includes encouraging the development of cutting edge STEM instructional materials and technologies, and working with educators to ensure that assessments measure the range of knowledge and skills needed for the 21st Century. I will bring coherency to STEM education by increasing coordination of federal STEM education programs and facilitating cooperation among state efforts. I recently introduced the "Enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education Act of 2008" that would establish a STEM Education Committee within the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to coordinate the efforts of federal agencies engaged in STEM education, consolidate the STEM education initiatives that exist within the Department of Education under the direction of an Office of STEM Education, and create a State Consortium for STEM Education. These reforms will strengthen interagency coordination at the federal level, encourage collaboration on common content standards and assessments for STEM education at the state and local levels, and provide a mechanism for sharing the latest innovations and practices in STEM education with educators. I also recently sponsored an amendment, which became law, to the America Competes Act that established a competitive state grant program to support summer learning opportunities with curricula that emphasize mathematics and problem solving.

My education plan is built on the recognition that teachers play a critical role in student learning and achievement. My administration will work closely with states and local communities to ensure that we recruit math and science graduates to the teaching profession. Through Teacher Service Scholarships, a Teacher Residency Program, and Career Ladders, I will transform the teaching profession from one that has too many underpaid and insufficiently qualified teachers to one that attracts the best STEM teaching talent for our schools.

We cannot strengthen STEM education without addressing the broader challenges of improving American education and other priority issues. In addition to a focus on high quality teachers, my comprehensive plan addresses the needs of our most at-risk children, focuses on strong school leaders, and enlists parent and community support. My proposals for a comprehensive “zero to five” program will ensure that children enter school ready to learn. And when they finish school, I will make sure that through the new $4,000 American Opportunity Tax Credit, they will have access to affordable higher education that will provide them with the science fluency they need to be leaders in STEM fields and across broad sectors of our society.

5. National Security. Science and technology are at the core of national security like never before. What is your view of how science and technology can best be used to ensure national security and where should we put our focus?

Technology leadership is key to our national security. It’s essential to create a coherent new defense technology strategy to meet the kinds of threats we may face—asymmetric conflicts, urban operations, peacekeeping missions, and cyber, bio, and proliferation threats, as well as new kinds of symmetric threats.

When Sputnik was launched in 1957, President Eisenhower used the event as a call to arms for Americans to help secure our country and to increase the number of students studying math and science via the National Defense Education Act. That educational base not only improved our national security and space programs but also led to our economic growth and innovation over the second half of the century. Our nation is again hearing a threatening “ping” in the distance, this time not from a single satellite in space but instead from threats that range from asymmetric conflicts to cyber attacks, biological terror and nuclear proliferation. I will lead the nation to be prepared to meet this 21st- century challenge by investing again in math and science education, which is vital to protecting our national security and our competitiveness.

As president I will also ensure that our defense, homeland security, and intelligence agencies have the strong research leadership needed to revitalize our defense research activities and achieve breakthrough science that can be quickly converted into new capabilities for our security.

This year, I was encouraged to see the Department of Defense (DoD) requested a sharp increase in the basic research budget for breakthrough technologies. More is needed. My administration will put basic defense research on a path to double and will assure strong funding for investments in DoD’s applied research programs. We will enhance the connections between defense researchers and their war-fighting counterparts. And, we will strengthen defense research management so that our most innovative minds are working on our most pressing defense problems. A strong research program can also lower procurement costs by reducing technical risks and increasing reliability and performance. Renewing DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) will be a key part of this strategy.

My administration will build a strong and more productive research program in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will include critical work on cyber and bio security. Because existing programs have been plagued by management problems, we will bring a renewal of talent, organization, and focus, seeking support from our universities, companies, and labs. Another critical role for R&D in national security is energy. Our petroleum dependence continually threatens our security, and my proposals for accelerating new alternative energy technologies will be an important part of my national security R&D agenda.

Finally, we will act to reverse the erosion of the U.S. manufacturing base - which could jeopardize our technical superiority. We need to continue to develop the finest defense systems in the world. But, we are losing domestic production capability for critical defense components and systems. I will implement the recommendations of the Defense Science Board on defense manufacturing, strengthen efforts at DoD’s Manufacturing Technology program, and invest in innovative manufacturing sciences and processes to cut manufacturing costs and increase efficiency.

6. Pandemics and Biosecurity. Some estimates suggest that if H5N1 Avian Flu becomes a pandemic it could kill more than 300 million people. In an era of constant and rapid international travel, what steps should the United States take to protect our population from global pandemics or deliberate biological attacks?

It’s time for a comprehensive effort to tackle bio-terror. We know that the successful deployment of a biological weapon—whether it is sprayed into our cities or spread through our food supply—could kill tens of thousands of Americans and deal a crushing blow to our economy.

Overseas, I will launch a Shared Security Partnership that invests $5 billion over 3 years to forge an international intelligence and law enforcement infrastructure to take down terrorist networks. I will also strengthen U.S. intelligence collection overseas to identify and interdict would-be bioterrorists before they strike and expand the U.S. government’s bioforensics program for tracking the source of any biological weapon. I will work with the international community to make any use of disease as a weapon declared a crime against humanity.

And to ensure our country is prepared should such an event occur, we must provide our public health system across the country with the surge capacity to confront a crisis and improve our ability to cope with infectious diseases. I will invest in new vaccines and technology to detect attacks and to trace them to their origin, so that we can react in a timely fashion. I have pledged to invest $10 billion per year over the next 5 years in electronic health information systems to not only improve routine health care, but also ensure that these systems will give health officials the crucial information they need to deploy resources and save lives in an emergency. I will help hospitals form collaborative networks to deal with sudden surges in patients and will ensure that the U.S. has adequate supplies of medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic tests and can get these vital products into the hands of those who need them.

We also have to expand local and state programs to ensure that they have the resources to respond to these disasters. I will work to strengthen the federal government’s partnership with local and state governments on these issues by improving the mechanisms for clear communication, eliminating redundant programs, and building on the key strengths possessed by each level of government. I introduced legislation which would have provided funding for programs in order to enhance emergency care systems throughout the country.

I will build on America’s unparalleled talent and advantage in STEM fields and the powerful insights into biological systems that are emerging to create new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tests and to manufacture these vital products much more quickly and efficiently than is now possible. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has failed to take full advantage of the Bioshield initiative. Because of the unpredictability of the mode of biological attack, I will stress the need for broad-gauged vaccines and drugs and for more agile and responsive drug development and production systems. This effort will strengthen the U.S. biotech and pharmaceutical industry and create high-wage jobs.

7. Genetics research. The field of genetics has the potential to improve human health and nutrition, but many people are concerned about the effects of genetic modification both in humans and in agriculture. What is the right policy balance between the benefits of genetic advances and their potential risks?

The progress that has occurred in genetics over the past half century has been remarkable—from the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure in 1953 to the recent deciphering of all three billion letters of the human genome. New knowledge about genes is already transforming medicine and agriculture and has the potential to change other fields, including energy and environmental sciences and information technology.

I also recognize that the power of modern genetics has raised important ethical, legal, and social issues that require careful study. For example, new developments in human genetics allow individuals to be informed about their risks of various diseases; such information can be useful for diagnosing and treating disease, but it can also be misused by employers or insurers to discriminate. For this reason, I have been a long-time supporter of the recently passed Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act. In addition, concerned about the premature introduction of genetic testing into the public domain without appropriate oversight, I introduced the Genomics and Personalized Medicine Act of 2007 aimed at ensuring the safety and accuracy of such testing.

Advances in the genetic engineering of plants have provided enormous benefits to American farmers. I believe that we can continue to modify plants safely with new genetic methods, abetted by stringent tests for environmental and health effects and by stronger regulatory oversight guided by the best available scientific advice.

Disease treatment and identification is likewise being transformed by modern genetics. Recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology has produced a number of products such as human growth hormone or insulin or other complicated proteins that are known to be involved in bone metabolism, immune response, and tissue repair. The promise of rDNA is its ability to sidestep potentially harmful intermediaries that could have a pathogenic effect. Some forms of gene therapy-replacing faulty genes with functional copies-in comparison have encountered safety issues that arise from how the functional gene is delivered. As a result, the NIH established the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, which now provides advice and guidance on human gene therapy as well as other ethical concerns or potential abuse of rDNA technology. Until we are equipped to ascertain the safety of such methods, I will continue to support the activities and recommendations of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee.


8. Stem cells. Stem cell research advocates say it may successfully lead to treatments for many chronic diseases and injuries, saving lives, but opponents argue that using embryos as a source for stem cells destroys human life. What is your position on government regulation and funding of stem cell research?

Stem cell research holds the promise of improving our lives in at least three ways—by substituting normal cells for damaged cells to treat diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, heart failure and other disorders; by providing scientists with safe and convenient models of disease for drug development; and by helping to understand fundamental aspects of normal development and cell dysfunction.

For these reasons, I strongly support expanding research on stem cells. I believe that the restrictions that President Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations. As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001 through executive order, and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight.

I recognize that some people object to government support of research that requires cells to be harvested from human embryos. However, hundreds of thousands of embryos stored in the U.S. in in-vitro fertilization clinics will not be used for reproductive purposes, and will eventually be destroyed. I believe that it is ethical to use these extra embryos for research that could save lives when they are freely donated for that express purpose.

I am also aware that there have been suggestions that human stem cells of various types, derived from sources other than embryos, make the use of embryonic stem cells unnecessary. I don’t agree. While adult stem cells, such as those harvested from blood or bone marrow, are already used for treatment of some diseases, they do not have the versatility of embryonic stem cells and cannot replace them. Recent discoveries indicate that adult skin cells can be reprogrammed to behave like stem cells; these are exciting findings that might in the future lead to an alternate source of highly versatile stem cells. However, embryonic stem cells remain the “gold standard,” and studies of all types of stem cells should continue in parallel for the foreseeable future.

Rather than restrict the funding of such research, I favor responsible oversight of it, in accord with recent reports from the National Research Council. Recommendations from the NRC reports are already being followed by institutions that conduct human embryonic stem cell research with funds from a variety of sources. An expanded, federally-supported stem cell research program will encourage talented U.S. scientists to engage in this important new field, will allow more effective oversight, and will signal to other countries our commitment to compete in this exciting area of medical research.

9. Ocean Health. Scientists estimate that some 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are in serious decline and habitats around the world like coral reefs are seriously threatened. What steps, if any, should the United States take during your presidency to protect ocean health?

Oceans are crucial to the earth's ecosystem and to all Americans because they drive global weather patterns, feed our people and are a major source of employment for fisheries and recreation. As president, I will commit my administration to develop the kind of strong, integrated, well-managed program of ocean stewardship that is essential to sustain a healthy marine environment.

Global climate change could have catastrophic effects on ocean ecologies. Protection of the oceans is one of the many reasons I have developed an ambitious plan to reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases 80 percent below 1990 by 2050. We need to enhance our understanding of the effect of climate change on oceans and the effect of acidification on marine life through expanded research programs at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). I will propel the U.S. into a leadership position in marine stewardship and climate change research. Stronger collaboration across U.S. scientific agencies and internationally is needed in basic research and for designing mitigation strategies to reverse or offset the damage being done to oceans and coastal areas.

The oceans are a global resource and a global responsibility for which the U.S. can and should take a more active role. I will work actively to ensure that the U.S. ratifies the Law of the Sea Convention – an agreement supported by more than 150 countries that will protect our economic and security interests while providing an important international collaboration to protect the oceans and its resources. My administration will also strengthen regional and bilateral research and oceans preservation efforts with other Gulf Coast nations.

Our coastal areas and beaches are American treasures and are among our favorite places to live and visit. I will work to reauthorize the Coastal Zone Management Act in ways that strengthen the collaboration between federal agencies and state and local organizations. The National Marine Sanctuaries and the Oceans and Human Health Acts provide essential protection for ocean resources and support the research needed to implement a comprehensive ocean policy. These programs will be strengthened and reauthorized.

10. Water. Thirty-nine states expect some level of water shortage over the next decade, and scientific studies suggest that a majority of our water resources are at risk. What policies would you support to meet demand for water resources?

Solutions to this critical problem will require close collaboration between federal, state, and local governments and the people and businesses affected. First, prices and policies must be set in a ways that give everyone a clear incentive to use water efficiently and avoid waste. Regulations affecting water use in appliances and incentives to shift from irrigated lawns to "water smart" landscapes are examples. Second, information, training, and, in some cases, economic assistance should be provided to farms and businesses that will need to shift to more efficient water practices. Many communities are offering kits to help businesses and homeowners audit their water use and find ways to reduce use. These should be evaluated, with the most successful programs expanded to other states and regions. I will establish a national plan to help high-growth regions with the challenges of managing their water supplies.

In addition, it is also critical that we undertake a concerted program of research, development, and testing of new technologies that can reduce water use.

11. Space. The study of Earth from space can yield important information about climate change; focus on the cosmos can advance our understanding of the universe; and manned space travel can help us inspire new generations of youth to go into science. Can we afford all of them? How would you prioritize space in your administration?

As president, I will establish a robust and balanced civilian space program. Under my administration, NASA not only will inspire the world with both human and robotic space exploration, but also will again lead in confronting the challenges we face here on Earth, including global climate change, energy independence, and aeronautics research. In achieving this vision, I will reach out to include international partners and to engage the private sector to amplify NASA’s reach. I believe that a revitalized NASA can help America maintain its innovation edge and contribute to American economic growth.

There is currently no organizational authority in the federal government with a sufficiently broad mandate to oversee a comprehensive and integrated strategy and policy dealing with all aspects of the government’s space-related programs, including those being managed by NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Transportation, and other federal agencies. This wasn’t always the case. Between 1958 and 1973, the National Aeronautics and Space Council oversaw the entire space arena for four presidents; the Council was briefly revived from 1989 to 1992. I will re-establish this Council reporting to the president. It will oversee and coordinate civilian, military, commercial, and national security space activities. It will solicit public participation, engage the international community, and work toward a 21st century vision of space that constantly pushes the envelope on new technologies as it pursues a balanced national portfolio that expands our reach into the heavens and improves life here on Earth.

12. Scientific Integrity. Many government scientists report political interference in their job. Is it acceptable for elected officials to hold back or alter scientific reports if they conflict with their own views, and how will you balance scientific information with politics and personal beliefs in your decision-making?

Scientific and technological information is of growing importance to a range of issues. I believe such information must be expert and uncolored by ideology.

I will restore the basic principle that government decisions should be based on the best- available, scientifically-valid evidence and not on the ideological predispositions of agency officials or political appointees. More broadly, I am committed to creating a transparent and connected democracy, using cutting-edge technologies to provide a new level of transparency, accountability, and participation for America’s citizens. Policies must be determined using a process that builds on the long tradition of open debate that has characterized progress in science, including review by individuals who might bring new information or contrasting views. I have already established an impressive team of science advisors, including several Nobel Laureates, who are helping me to shape a robust science agenda for my administration.

In addition I will:

• Appoint individuals with strong science and technology backgrounds and unquestioned reputations for integrity and objectivity to the growing number of senior management positions where decisions must incorporate science and technology advice. These positions will be filled promptly with ethical, highly qualified individuals on a non-partisan basis;

• Establish the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will lead an interagency effort on best-in-class technologies, sharing of best practices, and safeguarding of our networks;

• Strengthen the role of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) by appointing experts who are charged to provide independent advice on critical issues of science and technology. The PCAST will once again be advisory to the president; and

• Restore the science integrity of government and restore transparency of decision- making by issuing an Executive Order establishing clear guidelines for the review and release of government publications, guaranteeing that results are released in a timely manner and not distorted by the ideological biases of political appointees. I will strengthen protection for “whistle blowers” who report abuses of these processes.

13. Research. For many years, Congress has recognized the importance of science and engineering research to realizing our national goals. Given that the next Congress will likely face spending constraints, what priority would you give to investment in basic research in upcoming budgets?

Federally supported basic research, aimed at understanding many features of nature— from the size of the universe to subatomic particles, from the chemical reactions that support a living cell to interactions that sustain ecosystems—has been an essential feature of American life for over fifty years. While the outcomes of specific projects are never predictable, basic research has been a reliable source of new knowledge that has fueled important developments in fields ranging from telecommunications to medicine, yielding remarkable rates of economic return and ensuring American leadership in industry, military power, and higher education. I believe that continued investment in fundamental research is essential for ensuring healthier lives, better sources of energy, superior military capacity, and high-wage jobs for our nation’s future.

Yet, today, we are clearly under-investing in research across the spectrum of scientific and engineering disciplines. Federal support for the physical sciences and engineering has been declining as a fraction of GDP for decades, and, after a period of growth of the life sciences, the NIH budget has been steadily losing buying power for the past six years. As a result, our science agencies are often able to support no more than one in ten proposals that they receive, arresting the careers of our young scientists and blocking our ability to pursue many remarkable recent advances. Furthermore, in this environment, scientists are less likely to pursue the risky research that may lead to the most important breakthroughs. Finally, we are reducing support for science at a time when many other nations are increasing it, a situation that already threatens our leadership in many critical areas of science.

This situation is unacceptable. As president, I will increase funding for basic research in physical and life sciences, mathematics, and engineering at a rate that would double basic research budgets over the next decade.

Sustained and predictable increases in research funding will allow the United States to accomplish a great deal. First, we can expand the frontiers of human knowledge. Second, we can provide greater support for high-risk, high-return research and for young scientists at the beginning of their careers. Third, we can harness science and technology to address the “grand challenges” of the 21st century: energy, health, food and water, national security, information technology, and manufacturing capacity.

14. Health. Americans are increasingly concerned with the cost, quality and availability of health care. How do you see science, research and technology contributing to improved health and quality of life?

Americans have good reasons to be proud of the extraordinary role that medical science has had in combating disease, here and throughout the world, over the past century. Work sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), other government agencies, and our pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries has produced many vaccines, drugs, and hormones that have improved the quality of life, extended life expectancy, and reduced the dire consequences of many serious illnesses and disabilities. These advances include methods for preventing and treating coronary artery disease and stroke, which have reduced mortality rates by two-thirds; new drugs and antibodies that allow us to effectively treat certain cancers; anti-viral agents that allow most patients with AIDS to control their disease; drugs that often help make severe psychiatric illnesses manageable; and new vaccines that are reducing the incidence of virus-related cancers; and minimally invasive surgery techniques that reduce hospitalizations, complications, and costs. We can expect much more from the exciting biomedical research now underway. For example, we can foresee medical care that will allow physicians to tailor care to individual patients, matching therapies to those most likely to benefit.

However, today our citizens have understandable concerns about their ability to afford the care they need, especially when our underlying system of paying for health care is broken. We spend more on health care per capita than people of other countries, yet lower income groups continue to suffer significant disparities in both access to care and health outcomes. Without major changes, costs will continue to increase. Our population is aging, many cancers and chronic disorders remain difficult to treat, and there are continuing threats of new and re-emerging infectious diseases.

It's wrong that America's health care system works better for insurance and drug companies than it does for average Americans, who face skyrocketing health care costs. My plan makes health care more secure and affordable by strengthening employer-based coverage, protecting patients' ability to choose their own doctors, and saving families $2,500 dollars by requiring insurance companies to cover prevention and limiting excessive insurance company charges. My plan covers everybody by requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, providing tax credits to small businesses and working families, and covering all uninsured children.

These are difficult problems, and science and technology can solve only some of them. The effectiveness of medical care can be improved, and its costs can be reduced, by greater emphasis on best practices, electronic medical records, hospital safety, preventive strategies, and improved public health surveillance. The increased investments I support for medical research at the NIH may yield discoveries that reduce the cost of drug development, and we may produce new methods to prevent diseases that are costly to treat. But efforts to control costs also should make greater use of the tools for prevention and clinical management that already exist; enlist more effective participation of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as the NIH; and encourage investments in healthcare and health research by the private and not-for-profit sectors.

Overall, I am committed to three major tasks that will be necessary to confront widespread concerns about the nation’s health: provision of healthcare plans to all of our citizens; comprehensive efforts to make our health care system more cost-efficient; and continued biomedical research to understand diseases more thoroughly and find better ways to prevent and treat them.

I'll update when and if McCain's camp responds and try to analyze the differences.