Republican death trip

August 14, 2009

Senate Finance Committee members said yesterday they would strip out of the health care discussion any mention of helping older Americans or others with terminal diseases make adequate plans with, for example, durable powers of attorney and living wills.

Newt Gingrich and others on the wackaloon right have made the topic toxic, despite it’s having been urged by Republicans, to ensure privacy and individual rights near the end of death.

And so, also, we bid farewell to morality, reason and backbone among Republicans nationally.

Two pieces you should read:

  1. “Republican Death Trip,” Paul Krugman’s column today in the the New York Times
  2. “Sarah Palin’s death panels,” at former Labor Sec. Robert Reich’s blog

Republicans screw up again: “Death panels” amendment was a Republican’s doing — and there’s a logical explanation

August 13, 2009

Protesters like to complain that advocates don’t know what is in the health care bill, but day by day it becomes more and more obvious that it is the critics who don’t know what the bill proposes, or why.

Washington Post policy blogger Ezra Klein tracked down who put the “death panels” clause into health care reform bills being debated by the U.S. Senate.  (Yes, this demonstrates the value of the daily press, how they more thoroughly and accurately get the story than most bloggers do, or can. )

Turns out that it was a very conservative, Republican legislator from Georgia who put the amendment in the bill, for good and noble purposes.

So, all the sturm und drang about “death panels?”  It demonstrates that opponents of the bill don’t care what it actually does, or how beneficial it may be.  Like Napoleon at Waterloo, they think that they must win this fight at all costs, even if it brings down the nation.

Klein’s interview with Isaakson is below, in its entirety.

Is the Government Going to Euthanize your Grandmother? An Interview With Sen. Johnny Isakson.

I’ve seen the pain and suffering in families with a loved one with a traumatic brain injury or a crippling degenerative disease become incapacitated and be kept alive under very difficult circumstances when if they’d have had the chance to make the decision themself they’d have given another directive and I’ve seen the damage financially that’s been done to families and if there’s a way to prevent that by you giving advance directives it’s both for the sanity of the family and what savings the family has it’s the right decision, certainly more than turning it to the government or a trial lawyer.

isaksonofficialphoto.JPG

U.S. Sen. Johnny Isaakson, R-Georgia - photo from Isaakson's office

Sarah Palin’s belief that the House health-care reform bill would create “death panels” might be particularly extreme, but she’s hardly the only person to wildly misunderstand the section of the bill ordering Medicare to cover voluntary end-of-life counseling sessions between doctors and their patients.

One of the foremost advocates of expanding Medicare end-of-life planning coverage is Johnny Isakson, a Republican Senator from Georgia. He co-sponsored 2007’s Medicare End-of-Life Planning Act and proposed an amendment similar to the House bill’s Section 1233 during the Senate HELP Committee’s mark-up of its health care bill. I reached Sen. Isakson at his office this afternoon. He was befuddled that this had become a question of euthanasia, termed Palin’s interpretation “nuts,” and emphasized that all 50 states currently have some legislation allowing end-of-life directives. A transcript of our conversation follows.

Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?

In the health-care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that’s because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia “durable power of attorney,” you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you’re unable to make those decisions.

This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it’s to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It’s just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.

How did this become a question of euthanasia?

I have no idea. I understand — and you have to check this out — I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up.

You’re saying that this is not a question of government. It’s for individuals.

It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.

The policy here as I understand it is that Medicare would cover a counseling session with your doctor on end-of-life options.

Correct. And it’s a voluntary deal.

It seems to me we’re having trouble conducting an adult conversation about death. We pay a lot of money not to face these questions. We prefer to experience the health-care system as something that just saves you, and if it doesn’t, something has gone wrong.

Over the last three-and-a-half decades, this legislation has been passed state-by-state, in part because of the tort issue and in part because of many other things. It’s important for an individual to make those determinations while they’re of sound mind and body rather than no one making those decisions at all. But this discussion has been going on for three decades.

And the only change we’d see is that individuals would have a counseling session with their doctor?

Uh-huh. When they become eligible for Medicare.

Are there other costs? Parts of it I’m missing?

No. The problem you got is that there’s so much swirling around about health care and people are taking bits and pieces out of this. This was thoroughly debated in the Senate committee. It’s voluntary. Every state in America has an end of life directive or durable power of attorney provision. For the peace of mind of your children and your spouse as well as the comfort of knowing the government won’t make these decisions, it’s a very popular thing. Just not everybody’s aware of it.

What got you interested in this subject?

I’ve seen the pain and suffering in families with a loved one with a traumatic brain injury or a crippling degenerative disease become incapacitated and be kept alive under very difficult circumstances when if they’d have had the chance to make the decision themself they’d have given another directive and I’ve seen the damage financially that’s been done to families and if there’s a way to prevent that by you giving advance directives it’s both for the sanity of the family and what savings the family has it’s the right decision, certainly more than turning it to the government or a trial lawyer.

Update, August 14: Time’s Swampland blog notes that the the Republicans passed exactly the same language in a bill signed into law by George W. Bush in 2003, the Medicare prescription drug bill — except that bill limited application only to the terminally ill.  That provision worked well in protecting the rights of patients in end-of-life scenarios, so it was determined to expand the plan.  42 Republican Senators voted for it then.

I’m sorry, did you say something?  I’m having difficulty hearing you with all these hypocrickets chirping away.

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MoveOn.org: Top 5 health care reform lies

August 11, 2009

I get e-mail from all sides — this one reflects a lot of my thinking, and came suitably footnoted:

Dear MoveOn member,

The health care fight has turned ugly, fast. Right-wing mobs are crashing congressional town halls,1 lies are spreading via anonymous email chains,2 and Sarah Palin bizarrely said that President Obama was going to set up a “death panel,” whatever that is.3

Many of these claims are just incredible—but if we don’t fight back with the truth, the right will continue to poison the health care debate. So as part of our Real Voices for Change campaign this August, we’re working to set the record straight.

Check out the list below: “Top Five Health Care Lies—and How to Fight Back.” Can you spread the word by passing this email along to 10 of your friends today?

Also, if you’re on Facebook, please post the list today by clicking here: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51746. If you’re on Twitter, retweet: @MoveOn Check out the Top 5 Health Care Lies—and How to Fight Back. http://bit.ly/Bncs5

Top Five Health Care Reform Lies—and How to Fight Back

Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!

The truth: These accusations—of “death panels” and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: “No ‘death panel’ in health care bill.”4 What’s the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.5

Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!

The truth: With reform, choices will increase, not decrease. Obama’s reform plans will create a health insurance exchange, a one-stop shopping marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options.6 Included in the exchange is the public health insurance option—a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers—that will operate alongside private insurance companies, injecting competition into the market to drive quality up and costs down.7

If you’re happy with your coverage and doctors, you can keep them.8 But the new public plan will expand choices to millions of businesses or individuals who choose to opt into it, including many who simply can’t afford health care now.

Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!

The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.

Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage.9 And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyone into a rationed situation. 

Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens’ Medicare benefits!!!

The truth: Health care reform planswill not reduce Medicare benefits.10 Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.11

Lie #5: Obama’s health care plan will bankrupt America!!!

The truth: We need health care reform now in order to preventbankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy.

Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care.12 The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade13—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.14 Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama’s reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.15

We’re closer to real health care reform than we’ve ever been—and the next few weeks will decide whether it happens. We need to make sure the truth about health care reform is spread far and wide to combat right wing lies.

Can you forward this email to your friends today? And remember, also post it on Facebook by clicking here: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51746. And on Twitter, by retweeting: @MoveOn Check out the Top 5 Health Care Lies—and How to Fight Back. http://bit.ly/Bncs5

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Kat, Ilya, Michael and the rest of the team

P.S. Want more? Check out this great new White House “Reality Check” website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/ or this excellent piece from Health Care for America Now on some of the most outrageous lies: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51729&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=1

Sources:

1. “More ‘Town Halls Gone Wild’: Angry Far Right Protesters Disrupt Events With ‘Incomprehensible’ Yelling,” Think Progress, August 4, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51733&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=2

2. “Fight the smears,” Health Care for America NOW, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51729&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=3

3. “Palin Paints Picture of ‘Obama Death Panel’ Giving Thumbs Down to Trig,” ABC News, August 7, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51728&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=4

4. “No ‘death panel’ in health care bill,” The Associated Press, August 10, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51747&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=5

5. “Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care,” The Huffington Post, July 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51730&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=6

6. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#i1

7. “Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan,” The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51737&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=7

8. “Obama: ‘If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,'” The Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51736&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=8

9. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#r1

10. “Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform,” CNN, July 28, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51748&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=9

11. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#s1

12. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1

13. “Premiums Run Amok,” Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51667&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=10

14. “Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies,” CNN, June 5, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51735&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=11

15. “Reality Check FAQs,” WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#c1

Sources for the Five Lies:

#1: “A euthanasia mandate,” The Washington Times, July 29, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51732&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=12

#2: “It’s Not An Option,” Investor’s Business Daily, July 15, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51743&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=13

#3: “Rationing Health Care,” The Washington Times, April 21, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51742&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=14

#4: “60 Plus Ad Is Chock Full Of Misinformation,” Media Matters for America, August 8, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51734&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=15

#5: “Obama’s ‘Public’ Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation,” The National Review, May 13, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51744&id=16778-5763840-nJFS5Ux&t=16

Want to support our work? We’re entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

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Climate change denialism in bloom

July 28, 2009

It was a minor note, really — USGS released a series of satellite photos of ice in the Arctic Ocean.  The photos were taken with U.S. defense satellites (“spy” satellites, most likely) under an interesting agreement between the Department of Defense and science agencies to look at ice, essentially to look at the cold, not come in from it.

Part of that agreement is that the photos don’t get released until Defense says there is no reason to hold them secred anymore.  For some reason — skullduggery?  bureaucracy? — the photos weren’t released during the Bush years.  The Obama administration hustled out a series of photos for scientists to study.

Very few news outlets picked up on the release of the photos.  The Guardian ran the most provocative, prepared-for-public-consumption set of two photos of the sea just off of Barrow, Alaska, which showed a dramatic contrast between 2006 and 2007.  The icy seas of July 2006 were replaced with miles of clear ocean in July 2007.

The Bathtub ran that poster.  And yesterday there was a surge of hits on the article, most going to other posts claiming the photos had been photoshopped.  A commenter here said the same.  Viewers find it odd that there is a stark contrast between land and sea inthe arctic.  Really.  No, really.

So, they said, those photos must be Photoshopped.  At least one radical right blog claimed the Guardian published a fake photo.

Now, I had expected someone to defend Bush, to say that the Bush administration hadn’t really suppressed the photos, just didn’t release them.

But photo fraud?

Denialists resorted to that solution first.

Here are reasons mitigating against fraud.

  1. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released the poster with the photos.  USGS has a long, long history of accurate science, outside political interference.   On a few occasions, USGS reports have been delayed by political appointees — but the instances where one can say the data were corrupted on purpose are very few (if any — I can’t think of one off-hand).  USGS would be unlikely as a source of doctored photos.
  2. It is a crime to jigger the scientific results under U.S. law.   A few scientists have been caught, tried and jailed.  The reality is that most scientist strive to be well on the ethical side of the line of research laws — but it’s a federal crime for government or government-funded scientists to fake results.  I’ll wager every scientist at USGS knows that.
  3. USGS released four posters total, and a couple dozen other photos.  For Barrow, there were 18 photos from 2005 and 2006, and another 8 photos from 2007-2008.    While only four sites were chosen for poster, there are six sites with photos available for study.  Were anyone to jigger one photo, others would need to be jiggered to make them match.  Since Defense still has the originals, a fraud would probably be discovered.
  4. Government scientists have been champing at the bit for eight years to get rid of the fetters of bureaucrats interfering with their research; they wouldn’t risk a fraud just six months in to the new administration, nor would they be likely to risk a fraud at any time, since they think that the truth is of very high value.

MacsMind jumped on the photos:  “Almost so bad it’s laughable”. The blog offers no evidence of fraud, just the spiteful belief of the author.  Well, he does offer photos of a January 2006 ice surge, as if to suggest that the ice from January of 2006 should have stayed hugging the coast near Barrow even through 2007, so any photo that shows clear sea must be false.  Denialists will abandon all types of measure, even calendars and clocks, in their mad rush to cloak the science.  MacsMind even goes so far as to invent a story that the photo was taken at night, and since it shows no lights of ships at sea, they must have been cut out (photos of ice cover generally don’t work well at night — where did he get that?).

Critics of climate change and plans to do something to slow climate change reveal themselves here as not basing their views on the science — here they don’t need the science to “know that it’s wrong.”

Sometimes I wonder if we could cure global warming simply by getting the critics to shut up.

Oh, let’s make them crazy.  Here’s the poster showing the contrast in sea ice in the Beaufort Sea; the caption:

This site is near the edge of the ice pack. In summer, as shown here, ponds of meltwater form on the surface. These dark pools absorb more of summertime’s solar radiation than does the surrounding ice, enhancing melting. Observations of sea ice conditions reveal considerable year to year variability. These images, displaying the variability with regard to the amount of melting, are an example of the long term sequential record needed to support understanding and analysis of this dynamic system. Pond coverage monitored over time contributes to estimates of surface reflectivity that are needed to understand and model the dynamics of sea ice mass balance and temperature.

Beaufort Sea, showing ice in 2006 and in 200

Beaufort Sea, showing ice in 2001 and in 2007

More information:

Radar images of sea ice around Barrow, Alaska

Radar images of sea ice around Barrow, Alaska -"The animation below is from the radar record of the last three days. The images used to produce this animation are from the 10 kW X-band marine radar mounted atop the 4-story ASRC building in downtown Barrow, Alaska, pointed north."

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Birthers: “We choose to wallow in the gutter”

July 25, 2009

It’s a stark contrast to the matter-of-fact, good-for-America views of John Kennedy.

One of the Birth-Certificate-Obsessed (BCO), blogging at I Took the Red Pill, lays out the hoax-induced hysteria in a comment at his blog; I’ll take a few minutes and explain the problems.  Maybe one or more of the BCOs will come to their senses.  [This guy at least allows contrary views on his blog; he’s a regular at Texas Darlin’, which means his views are certifiably nuts on issues he posts about at Texas Darlin’.  But I digress.]

Heh.  Maybe pigs will fly to the Moon.

I Took the Red Pill (Pill) said:

This issue will not go away.

Only because of defects in the actions of BCOs.  As Woody Allen’s script once noted, nothing wrong here that couldn’t be cured with Prozac and a polo mallet.

This issue is pathological in every regard.

Quite to the contrary, every day more and more people are realizing that the document produced at the Obama Camapaign Headquarters in Chicago is merely a hardcopy of the photoshopped forgery that first appeared on Daily KOS.

Wow.  Where to begin, when the force of denial is so strong in the BCOs?

You can view the document’s images here, and here.  It is a certified document from the State of Hawaii.  It bears the Seal of the State of Hawaii as authentic.  No one has produced any scintilla of evidence to suggest that the document is false. or not exactly what Hawaii swears it is with the attachment of the State Seal.

That’s a powerful attestation from the State of Hawaii — as the law sees it.  If a certified document under seal is not acceptable to the BCOs, one wonders what sort of documentation would be — there isn’t anything more trustworthy under the law.

Check the Federal Rules of Evidence, for example:

Rule 902. Self-authentication

Extrinsic evidence of authenticity as a condition precedent to admissibility is not required with respect to the following:

(1) Domestic public documents under seal. A document bearing a seal purporting to be that of the United States, or of any State, district, Commonwealth, territory, or insular possession thereof, or the Panama Canal Zone, or the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, or of a political subdivision, department, officer, or agency thereof, and a signature purporting to be an attestation or execution.

. . . (4) Certified copies of public records. A copy of an official record or report or entry therein, or of a document authorized by law to be recorded or filed and actually recorded or filed in a public office, including data compilations in any form, certified as correct by the custodian or other person authorized to make the certification, by certificate complying with paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of this rule or complying with any Act of Congress or rule prescribed by the Supreme Court pursuant to statutory authority.[courtesy of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University’s Library]

Got that?  Under federal evidence rules, that document is self-proving, self-authenticating.  What evidence have the BCOs to contradict it?  Absolutely nothing.

The State of Hawaii has never verified that authenticity of that forgery.

The governor and the head of vital records said it’s NOT a forgery, if that’s what you mean.  In other words, they said the document is accurate in what it says:  Barack Obama, Jr., was born in Honolulu in 1961.

The State of Hawaii has never released any documentation of Obama’s birth.

Well, yeah, they did.  They sent to Barack Obama the certified document you claim is a forgery.

Moreover, in 1961, when Barack Obama was just a few days old and, we might assume, both physically and mentally unable to start a conspiracy to cover up the facts of his birth, the State of Hawaii released to the Hawaiian newspapers the records of births in Hawaii, including Obama’s — and those records were published in the newspaper.  Such documentation, contemporary with the events and extremely unlikely to be falsified, are valid in court.

Oh, and remember those Federal Rules of Evidence?  Look at what they say about such newspaper records:

Rule 902. Self-authentication

Extrinsic evidence of authenticity as a condition precedent to admissibility is not required with respect to the following:

. . . (6) Newspapers and periodicals. Printed materials purporting to be newspapers or periodicals.

So we have two releases of documentation from the State of Hawaii, vouched for by the Republican governor. What gives you the right that every state of the union is denied, to claim this documentation doesn’t exist?  These are legal documents that make legal statements.  You can’t just handwave them away.  Pixie dust can’t cover them up, and the pixie dust of the BCOs isn’t all that powerful anyway.  The courts cannot wave away this sort of evidence, nor can the BCOs.

The mere existence of the newspaper account is legal evidence vouching for Obama’s claim. BCOs must produce extraordinary evidence of fraud or mistake in order to overcome the legal presumption that newspaper account provides.  BCOs have no extraordinary evidence to counter the documents.  BCOs have no evidence at all.

The State of Hawaii has never claimed that Obama was “born in Honolulu”, even though the Associated Press and Fact Check.org lied and claimed that Dr. Fukino had said that.

The State of Hawaii put its seal on such a statement, and it states Obama was born in Honolulu (see “place of birth”).  BCOs’ completely unevidenced and off-the-wall claim that the document was forged is evidence of BCO insanity, not Hawaii’s failure to act.

A newspaper announcement is circumstantial evidence that is not admissible as “proof” of his birth in Hawaii. Can you imagine a new employee trying to use a newspaper clipping as proof of their U.S. citizenship? It’s laughable. If that won’t work to get you a job at McDonalds, it’s certainly not acceptable for the highest office in this country.

It’s a business record, actually.  When you get to your law school class on evidence, you’ll learn that contemporary accounts from unbiased sources which are difficult to fake and easy to corroborate are, indeed, acceptable in a court of law.  In this case, the published account of the vital records entries corroborates exactly the information provided by the State of Hawaii under seal.

And, as I noted above, it’s a self-authenticating piece of evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Pill is simply dead wrong on the acceptability of newspaper accounts.

So we have a document certified as authentic and accurate by the State of Hawaii, so solid that the state backs it with their seal, the most sacred authenticating device in a state’s arsenal of authenticating devices, supported by a valid contemporary business record published in a general circulation newspaper where the record cannot be tampered with and which U.S. courts and agencies accept as valid.

But BCOs dismiss all the official, legal evidence, and BCOs claim, without any evidence or corroboration, without ever having looked at the documents, that the official documents are forgeries.

Liar, pants, fire.

Every Member of Congress swore an Oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States”. The Constitution explicitly requires that a President be a Natural Born Citizen. It is the responsibility of Congress to honor their oath and verify the eligibility of the man who would be President.

I’ve sworn that oath myself, four times.  I regard it as a sacred trust.  One is never relieved of that oath, by the way.  That oath requires that we follow the law, the Constitutional law, the Constitution.  Barack Obama has presented clear  and convincing evidence of his eligibility by right of birth on U.S. soil.  The evidence is absolutely uncontradicted, plus it is corroborated by all legally-acceptable accounts.

Every member of Congress has a duty to stand up and tell the BCOs to take a chill pill and shut up. The courts have reviewed these bogus claims from BCOs more than a dozen times.  Not once has any BCO offered any evidence to contradict the legal records.  Not once.

Be careful what you wish for, Pill.  If Congress takes their oath seriously, BCOs are in for a lot of woe.

Every member of Congress failed to uphold their oath of office. They “outsourced” their Constitutional responsibility to an unaccountable, unelected, untrustworthy third party who demonstrably lied.

I’m convinced Pill wouldn’t know a lie if it bit him on the nose.  Here he’s peddling such a lie, instead of standing up for the truth.

Go to the link Pill provides, and you’ll see he claims that the certified, under seal document from the State of Hawaii should be disregarded because all it does is state what the official record is — he wants a hand-written document, as if hand-written provides some legal magic that the State Seal of the Great State of Hawaii cannot.

Look, if he won’t take the word of a self-proving document issued under seal, he’s not going to believe any document at any time.

Hawaii didn’t claim they put the State Seal on the original autograph copy; the State of Hawaii looked at the autograph and swore that the information they provided, all that is required, is accurate, is the same information that is on the original autograph.

For all legal purposes possible for Obama, the document whose image he released is THE document.  The document itself, under seal, swears that the information it presents is accurate:  Obama was born in Honolulu.  That’s it.  The end.

Two things are required to put this to rest:

1) A Supreme Court ruling on the definition of “Natural Born Citizen”. Can someone who was born with citizenship of another country (as Obama admits that he was) be considered a “Natural Born Citizen” of the United States?

The Supreme Court has spoken on this issue.  A baby born on U.S. soil is a citizen with full rights of citizens, period.  A baby born on U.S. soil is a natural-born citizen of the U.S.  Plus, a baby born to a U.S. citizen (as was Obama’s mother), is a natural-born citizen regardless of place of birth.  Obama qualifies on two separate counts.  There is not an iota of evidence from the BCOs nor any other source to contradict either of those valid claims on eligibility.

But here we see the weasel ways of the BCOs:  ” . . . born with citizenship of another country (as Obama admits he was) . . .”

Obama didn’t say he was a citizen of another country.  He said his father was a citizen of the British Commonwealth, and under British law, he could have claimed dual-citizenship.  Under U.S. law, dual citizenship would not invalidate U.S. citizenship.

In order for this to have been a problem for Obama’s eligibility, Obama would have had to have claimed exclusive British citizenship at some point — which he never did.

So this is not a new question.  There is no new issue here that the courts and the Supreme Court have not looked at in the past.  There is no legal argument, no case in controversy on the issue of Obama’s citizenship.

There is nothing for any court to decide.  And that’s why the challenges to Obama’s eligibility have all failed.

2) If the Supreme Court finds that persons born with foreign citizenship can still be considered a “Natural Born Citizen” of the United States, then Congress needs to inspect an officially certified birth certificate for Barack Obama, delivered under seal from the State of Hawaii, just as they did with their inspection of the Certificate from the Hawaiian Secretary of State for the certification of the Electoral College vote.

That document, “delivered under seal form the State of Hawaii,” has been provided.  BCOs claim, without any documentation, it’s a forgery.  BCOs need to get their eyes examined.

And, if they are found to be not blind, they need to get their heads examined.

Please share this post if you find the information valuable.

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News flash: Texas has a second natural lake!

July 20, 2009

Years ago, in Virginia, I had learned that Virginia had only one natural lake, the Great Dismal Swamp.  Accompanying that chunk of information in that lecture was that Texas had only two natural lakes.

But upon arriving in Texas, I could find reference to only one natural lake, Caddo, and it had ceased being fully natural when its maintenance fell to a dam.

What happened to Texas’s second natural lake?

A Google search right now on “Texas +’natural lake'” produces ten listings on the first page, all of them pointing to the fact that Texas has just one natural lake.  Here are the first five:

I have found a second natural lake in Texas. It’s not a new discovery at all — it’s just a case of people not having the facts, and overlooking how to find the truth.  It’s especially difficult when the lake hides itself.

Our testing coordinator at Molina High School, Brad Wachsmann, spins yarns that belie his youth.  In the middle of one yarn last year, corroborated by other yarns, he mentioned that he has family in Big Lake, Texas; and he described visiting and having relatives urge people to run out and see the lake since it’s rebirth in torrential rains.

“A second natural lake in Texas?” I asked.  Wachsmann knew the drill.  Yes, Big Lake is a natural lake in Texas, and yes, people forget about it.

Texas teachers, listen to your testing coordinators, okay?

All of this came to mind reading the Austin American-Statesman, still a bastion of great journalism despite problems in the newspaper industry.  On Monday, July 7, the paper ran a story and an editorial about the clean up of the oil industry refuse that killed the shoreline of part of the lake; the springs that once fed the lake have mostly gone dry, but that’s likely due to agricultural water mining.

It’s a story of boom and bust, environmental degradation for profit, and eventual recovery we hope.

Looking at the landscape that surrounds the Reagan County seat, you wonder whether the name Big Lake was somebody’s idea of joke. It’s dry and dusty, where the flora sprouts reluctantly and lives precariously.

Yet, the West Texas town of Big Lake got its name from a natural lake that was fed by springs that have long since gone dry. While the area may not fit everyone’s definition of photogenic, it has its own brand of charm – charm that could be enhanced if the damage done to the fragile ecosystem by salt spills were reversed or even minimized.

As the American-Statesman’s Ralph K.M. Haurwitz reported in Monday’s editions, the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems have benefited from the $4.4 billion in royalty payments and mineral income produced by its West Texas acreage since Santa Rita No. 1 well came in on May 28, 1923.

The salt water byproduct of oil and natural gas production, however, contaminated 11 square miles near Big Lake, killing most everything that grows. The lack of vegetation allows wind and water erosion.

Hey, it gets better.  This is real Texas history, real American history — you can’t make this stuff up.  Haurwitz’s article talks about the heritage of Texas education.   Remember that old story about setting aside certain sections of townships to help fund education in lands on the American frontier?  Texas wasn’t a public lands state as farther west, but it still reserved sections of land for the benefit of education.

Rose petals blessed by a priest?  I’ll wager the priest didn’t make the trip to the top of the derrick.  Haurwitz wrote:

BIG LAKE — Investors appealed to the patron saint of impossible causes when oil drilling began on University of Texas System land in 1921. It didn’t hurt.

Santa Rita No. 1 blew in on May 28, 1923, after rose petals blessed by a priest were scattered from the top of the derrick at the behest of some Catholic women in New York who had purchased shares in the Texon Oil and Land Co., which drilled that first well.

Since then, the UT System’s 2.1 million acres in West Texas have produced $4.4 billion in royalty payments and other mineral income for the Permanent University Fund, an endowment that supports the UT and Texas A&M University systems.

But this long-running bonanza for higher education exacted a price from the remote, semiarid landscape where it all began. Millions of barrels of salt water, a byproduct of oil and natural gas production, contaminated 11 square miles, or more than 7,000 acres, killing virtually all vegetation and leaving the land vulnerable to wind and water erosion. Hundreds of mesquite stumps with three feet of exposed roots testify to the dramatic loss of topsoil.

Texas, and Big Lake - from BigLakeTx.com

Where in Texas is Big Lake?

The town of Big Lake is just north of the lake itself, on State Highway 137 running north and south, and U.S. Highway 67 running east and west, approximately 65 miles west of San Angelo.   Big Lake sits about 10 miles north of Interstate 10, and about 75 miles south of Interstate 20.  Big Lake calls itself “the gateway to the Permian Basin.”

Big Lake is the home of Reagan County High School.  Jim Morris was baseball coach for the Reagan High Owls when his team persuaded him to try out for a major league baseball team.  His story was chronicled, with some artistic license, in the Disney movie “Rookie.”

Land managers are working to stop erosion on the often-dry shores of Big Lake using any trick they can find.  One trick:  Plant salt grass.

Salt grass?  Along Texas’s Gulf Coast, there are a few species of grass that, while not halophytes, are at least salt tolerant.  Salt grass.  This grass made it profitable to graze cattle on what would otherwise have been unproductive land in the Texas cattle boom.  This role in Texas history is memorialized in the Salt Grass Steakhouse chain, now found in five states.

And if planting salt grass works to control erosion, it will help clean up a large part of Texas other natural lake, Big Lake.

Big Lake’s being wet or dry is a whim of local climate.  You could say that half of all of Texas’s natural lakes are now dry as a result of continued warming; you could say that two good gully-washers or toad-stranglers could restore water to half of Texas’s natural lakes.

Big Lake Playa, from NightOwl Bakery and Roastery in Big Lake, Texas

Field crew meeting at the outset of the 1992 excavations at the Big Lake Bison Kill site. The dry bed of Big Lake stretches for miles in the background. Big Lake is an intermittent saline lake or playa, an uncommon landform on the Edwards Plateau. Photo by Larry Riemenschneider, Concho Valley Archeological Society.

More details about Big Lake and prehistory, below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »


Star-spangled voodoo history

July 16, 2009

Star-spangled Banner and the War of 1812 - The original Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song that would become our national anthem, is among the most treasured artifacts in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Star-spangled Banner and the War of 1812 – The original Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song that would become our national anthem, is among the most treasured artifacts in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

(Hey, Dear Reader; this post got an update many months later — you may want to check it out for better links and more information.)

Every school kid learns the story of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” or should.

During the War of 1812, Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key, stood aboard a British ship in Baltimore Harbor to negotiate the release of his friend, Dr. William Beanes, who had been taken prisoner while the British stormed through Bladensburg, Maryland, after burning Washington, D.C.  Key witnessed the British shelling of Fort McHenry, the guardian of Baltimore’s harbor.  Inspired when he saw the U.S. flag still waving at dawn after a night of constant shelling, Key wrote a poem.

Key published the poem, suggested it might be put to the tune of “Anachreon in Heaven” (a tavern tune popular at the time) — and the popularity of the song grew until Congress designated it the national anthem in 1931.  In telling the story of the latest restoration of that garrison flag now housed at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Smithsonian Magazine repeated the story in the July 2000 issue:  “Our Flag Was Still There.”

It’s a wonderful history with lots of splendid, interesting details (Dolley Madison fleeing the Executive Mansion clutching the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, the guy who had introduced Dolley to James Madison and then snubbed them after they were married; the British troops eating the White House dinner the Madisons left in their haste; the gigantic, 42 by 30 foot flag sewn by Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore widow trying to support her family; the rag-tag Baltimore militia stopping cold “Wellington’s Invicibles;” the British massing of 50 boats and gunships; and much more).

It’s a grand and glorious history that stirs the patriotic embers of the most cynical Americans.

And it’s all true.

So it doesn’t deserve the voodoo history version, the bogus history created by some person preaching in a church (I gather from the “amens”) that is making the rounds of the internet, stripped of attribution so we cannot hunt down the fool who is at fault.

We got this in an e-mail yesterday; patriots save us, there must be a hundred repetitions that turn up on Google, not one correcting this horrible distortion of American history.

Horrible distortion of American history

(The full version is a mind-numbing 11 minutes plus.  Some people have put it on other sites.)

Why do I complain?

  1. It was the War of 1812, not the Revolutionary War — there were 15 states, not 13 colonies.
  2. There was no ultimatum to to Baltimore, nor to the U.S., as this fellow describes it.
  3. Key negotiated for the release of one man, Dr. Beanes.  There was no brig full of U.S. prisoners.
  4. It’s Fort McHenry, not “Henry.”  The fort was named after James McHenry, a physician who was one of the foreign-born signers of the Constitution, who had assisted Generals Washington and Lafayette during the American Revolution, and who had served as Secretary of War to Presidents Washington and Adams.
  5. Fort McHenry was a military institution, a fort defending Baltimore Harbor.  It was not a refuge for women and children.
  6. The nation would not have reverted to British rule had Fort McHenry fallen.
  7. There were 50 ships, not hundreds.  Most of them were rafts with guns on them.  Baltimore Harbor is an arm of Chesapeake Bay; Fort McHenry is not on the ocean.
  8. The battle started in daylight.
  9. Bogus quote:  George Washington never said “What sets the American Christian apart from all other people in this world is he will die on his feet before he will live on his knees.”  Tough words.  Spanish Civil War.  Not George Washington.  I particularly hate it when people make up stuff to put in the mouths of great men.  Washington left his diaries and considerably more — we don’t have to make up inspiring stuff, and when we do, we get it wrong.
  10. The battle was not over the flag; the British were trying to take Baltimore, one of America’s great ports.  At this point, they rather needed to since the Baltimore militia had stunned and stopped the ground troops east of the city.  There’s enough American bravery and pluck in this part of the story to merit no exaggerations.
  11. To the best of our knowledge, the British did not specifically target the flag.
  12. There were about 25 American casualties.  Bodies of the dead were not used to hold up the flag pole — a 42 by 30 foot flag has to be on a well-anchored pole, not held up by a few dead bodies stacked around it.

You can probably find even more inaccuracies (please note them in comments if you do).

The entire enterprise is voodoo history.  The name of Key is right; the flag is right; almost everything else is wrong.

Please help:  Can you find who wrote this piece of crap?  Can you learn who the narrator is, and where it was recorded?

I keep finding troubling notes with this on the internet: ‘My school kids are going to see this to get the real story.’  ‘Why are the libs suppressing the truth?’  ‘I didn’t know this true story before, and now I wonder why my teachers wouldn’t tell it.’

It’s voodoo history, folks.  It’s a hoax.  The real story is much better.

If Peter Marshall and David Barton gave a gosh darn about American history, they would muster their mighty “ministries” to correct the inaccuracies in this piece.  But they are silent.

Clearly, it’s not the glorious history of this nation they love.

More:

Please share that voodoo, as you do so well:

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#1 hoax site on the web

July 5, 2009

This may be the #1 hoax site on the web:  Martinlutherking.org. Certainly it is a site dangerous for children, because it cleverly purports to be an accurate history site, while selling voodoo history and racism.

A racist group bought the domain name (note the “.org” suffix), and they’ve managed to keep it.  The site features a drawing of Martin Luther King, Jr., on the first page.  The racist elements are subtle enough that unwary students and teachers may not recognize it for the hoax site it is.

It is both racist and hoax:  Note the link to a racist argument on “Why the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday should be repealed;”  note the link to a hoax page, “Black invention myths.”

Students, nothing on that site should be trusted. Teachers, warn students away from the site.  You may want to use that site as a model of what a bad site looks like, and the importance of weighing the credibility of any site found on the web.

Why do I even mention the racist, hoax site? Because it comes upi #3 on Google searches for “Martin Luther King.”  Clearly a lot of people are being hoodwinked into going to that site.  I’ve seen papers by high school students citing the site, with teachers unaware of the site’s ignoble provenance.

Update: The site is owned by Stormfront, a white supremicist organization.

Here are a few good sites on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; you can help things by clicking on each one of these sites, and by copying this list with links and posting it on your blog:

More resources:


For science, Bing loses badly to Google; not safe for school kids?

June 24, 2009

Have you tried Bing yet?

Nice pictures — the wallpaper is cooler than Google’s rather sterile white background.  I’m not much fond of the way Bing shows images, with some down the side when you check out another, but without any identifying data to help you figure out which ones to check out.

But I stumbled into a major problem:  At least on DDT, Bing favors the Tinfoil Hat Brigades™, featuring crank science almost exclusively on the first page in my early searches, compared to Google’s pointing first to the hard science.

Importantly, this tells me that Bing is not safe to assign to students doing research.

Bing will bear watching all summer.  Can they get it up to speed by the opening of schools in the fall?

Here’s the Google web search for “ddt”:

  1. DDT – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    – 2 visits – May 27

    DDT (from its trivial name, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is one of the most well-known synthetic pesticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique,
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDTCachedSimilar

  2. DDT, What is DDT? About its Science, Chemistry and Structure

    Find out about the science and chemistry of DDT (Banned Insecticide), see colourful images of DDT and explore interactive 3D molecules of DDT.
    http://www.3dchem.com/molecules.asp?ID=90CachedSimilar

  3. DDT Ban Takes Effect | EPA History | US EPA

    – Jun 17

    The general use of the pesticide DDT will no longer be legal in the United States after today, ending nearly three decades of application during which time
    http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/ddt/01.htm – CachedSimilar

  4. DDT |Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) Chemical Program

    Prior to 1972 when its use was banned, DDT was a commonly used pesticide. Although it is no longer used or produced in the United States, we continue to
    http://www.epa.gov/pbt/pubs/ddt.htm – CachedSimilar
    More results from www.epa.gov »

  5. News results for ddt


    The Associated Press
    EPA plans hearings on DDT deposit off SoCal coast‎ – 1 day ago

    “We have the worst DDT hotspot in the entire US,” he said. “That we’re still stuck with this horrible legacy decades later is awful.” From 1947 to 1971,

    The Associated Press231 related articles »

  6. What’s This?

    ATSDR – ToxFAQs™: DDT, DDE, and DDD

    – 2 visits – 10/28/07

    Sep 11, 2007 Exposure to DDT, DDE, and DDD occurs mostly from eating foods containing small amounts of these compounds, particularly meat,
    http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts35.htmlCachedSimilar

  7. EPA plan targets vast DDT deposit off Calif. coast – Yahoo! News

    A plan to cap a vast, long-neglected deposit of the pesticide DDT on the ocean floor off Southern California got its first public airing Tuesday — nearly
    news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090623/ap_on_re_us/us_ocean_ddtSimilar

  8. Silent spring – Google Books Result

    by Rachel Carson, Edward O. Wilson – 2002 – Nature – 378 pages
    Even if she had not inspired a generation of activists, Carson would prevail as one of the greatest nature writers in American letters” (Peter Matthiessen,…
    books.google.com/books?isbn=0618249060

  9. What’s This?

    Junkscience.com — 100 things you should know about DDT

    – 7 visits – 6/15/08

    Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a
    http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html – CachedSimilar

  10. DDT : An Introduction

    Not many of us, though, are aware of what DDT is and how it works. This module is here to hopefully give you some insight into the science behind this
    http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/pest/pest1.htmlCachedSimilar

No crank science until #9 in the search. Compare it to Bing:

  • · Cached page
  • The third entry goes to a wrestling maneuver, the fifth entry is the biggest crank science site.  The ninth entry plunges back into crank science at its worst.   This is much improved since I tried it last night and got nothing but crank science (Bing is improving quickly).

    Note: Vaibhav has a post comparing Bing to Google, as he notes in comments.  You may want to check that out, too.  He’s sticking with Bing as default, though he finds Google serves his needs better.  Go figure.


    Making a false case against Gardasil

    May 2, 2009

    Especially after working for so many years alongside the big drug companies working health legislation in the Senate, and after later policy work for private companies that made the point again that Big Pharma doesn’t always act scrupulously (remember Oraflex?), I’m no particular fan of the big companies.

    But I am a big fan of getting the facts before making claims against them.  I also stand in awe of the accomplishments of medicine, including Big Pharma, in so many areas.  My oldest brother had polio as a kid, and it haunted him to his death.  Polio vaccine was a great advance.  I survived a bout of scarlet fever as an infant, but as a result I am particularly vulnerable to certain infections now; I stand in awe of a $10 prescription that literally saves my life.

    Get the facts.  We’re talking saving lives here — be sure you’re accurate.

    There is a nasty campaign against modern medicine claiming that vaccines and other injectable preventives do not work, or do much greater harm than is revealed.

    One victim of this unholy smear campaign is the Merck Drug company, and its anti-cancer vaccine Gardasil.  This vaccine has been the topic of much controversy here in Texas.  I’ve written about it before.

    So I was shocked once again browsing Neil Simpson’s blog (looking for a post that disappeared, it now seems), to discover this statement of concern from Mr. Simpson:

    Gardasil Moms: If one of those 32 dead girls or women was your daughter. . . – I wouldn’t rush out and get the vaccine for your girls just yet.

    32 dead girls from the vaccine?  Mr. Simpson fails to tell the whole story.  Here’s what CDC actually said:

    As of December 31, 2008, there have been 32 U.S. reports of death among females who have received the vaccine. There was no common pattern to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine. [emphasis added]

    This isn’t the first time opponents of Gardasil have failed to report accurately the deaths accounted for in the trials and use of the drug.  In previous outings, critics of the drug have done such bizarre things as counting deaths of people who never took the drug, as deaths perhaps caused by the drug.

    For example, from the numbers available when I wrote about this in May 2007:

    • Of the 17 deaths reported in the clinical trials,  7 of them came from the placebo group.  That’s right:  Only 59% of the reported deaths were in the group that got Gardasil.  41% of the reported deaths came from people who had received no Gardasil vaccine.
    • 7 of the deaths were from auto accidents, 4 in the Gardasil group, 3 in the placebo group.
    • Most of the deaths were from causes generally thought to be unrelated to to Gardasil, including suicide and cancer.

    Don’t you think that, in blaming deaths on a dosage of a vaccine, one should not count deaths to people who did not get the vaccine? So, can we trust numbers from a slander campaign that keeps repeating falsehoods for two years, though the data are freely available?

    If you check the Gardasil site now, you’ll find more deaths have been added.  Merck follows up reports of problems, and they update the information when they can, as required by law.

    There are now 24 deaths reported in Merck’s literature, 16 in the Gardasil group, and 9 in the control group; the Gardasil deaths have risen to 64% of total deaths; some new causes are added in.  But there is no glaring indictment of Gardasil, and it still seems to me to be rather unethical to claim, as Simpson’s source does, that deaths by auto accident can be attributable to Gardasil, especially when an almost equal number of auto accident deaths occurred in the control group.

    Here is what the CDC says, unedited:

    Reports to VAERS Following HPV Vaccination

    As of December 31, 2008, more than 23 million doses of Gardasil were distributed in the United States.

    As of December 31, 2008, there were 11,916 VAERS reports of adverse events following Gardasil vaccination in the United States. Of these reports, 94% were reports of events considered to be non-serious, and 6% were reports of events considered to be serious.

    Based on all of the information we have today, CDC continues to recommend Gardasil vaccination for the prevention of 4 types of HPV. As with all approved vaccines, CDC and FDA will continue to closely monitor the safety of Gardasil.  Any problems detected with this vaccine will be reported to health officials, healthcare providers, and the public, and needed action will be taken to ensure the public’s health and safety.

    23 million doses of the vaccine, high efficacy in preventing cancer and genital warts, only 6% serious events reported, no deaths that doctors can connect to the vaccine.

    In the time Simpson writes about, several thousand women died of cervical cancer; he’s posing 32 deaths unrelated to the vaccine and saying it’s dangerous, when the facts show exactly the opposite.  Is that ethical?

    It’s creationism syndrome:  Religionists decide on their conclusions, sometimes supported by scripture, but sometimes also supported by misreadings of scripture; then they set off in search of evidence to support their pre-conceived conclusion, and they step over real data and alter evidence to make sure their pre-conceived conclusions get the support.

    In other words, they use doctored data.  Neil Simpson’s sources are using doctored data again.  Shame on them.  I’m sure he’ll correct it in his blog.

    ______________

    Update, May 3: Simpson has not corrected his blog yet.  As an indicator of the issues at stake, you may want to look at CDC figures on cervical cancers, many of which are prevented completely by Gardasil.  Actually trends on the disease are encouraging:

    Cervical cancer used to be the leading cause of cancer death for women in the United States. However, in the past 40 years, the number of cases of cervical cancer and the number of deaths from cervical cancer have decreased significantly. This decline largely is the result of many women getting regular Pap tests, which can find cervical precancer before it turns into cancer.1

    According to the U.S. Cancer Statistics: 2005 Incidence and Mortality Web site, 11,999 women in the U.S. were told that they had cervical cancer in 2005,* and 3,924 women died from the disease.2 It is estimated that more than $2 billion is spent on the treatment of cervical cancer per year in the U.S.3

    Cervical cancer strikes disproportionately at minority women:

    Even though these trends suggest that cervical cancer incidence and mortality continue to decrease significantly overall, and for women in some racial and ethnic populations, the rates are considerably higher among Hispanic and African-American women. Find more information about cervical cancer rates by race and ethnicity.

    More information:


    Campolo: Still wrong on evolution

    March 18, 2009

    I’ve been itching to get at Tony Campolo’s republication of his errors on evolution and intelligent design.  There’s a lot on my “to do” list.

    Mike at Tangled Up In Blue Guy has beat me to it, and probably done it better than I could have.  Go read, “Is, and ought, and Darwinism.”  I agree.

    Related material at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:


    Quote mining Harry Truman, on confusing people

    February 3, 2009

    I think it was Mark Twain who said a lie can get around the world twice before the truth has got its boots on (feel free to correct me on that if you have a good source).

    Whoever said it, it was right.

    Now, we see that a mined quote can do the same thing as a whole lie.

    Harry Truman is the victim this time.

    Google turns up more than 27,000 sites with this quote, attributed to Harry Truman:

    If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

    Now I ask you, Dear Reader, does that sound like old Give-’em-hell Harry, the original straight talker?  Did Harry Truman really urge the use of confusion, when persuasion fails?

    If you’re careful and persistent, you can turn up four Google hits for the accurate version, from his dramatic and historic campaign for election in 1948:

    I don’t think you are going to be the victims this time of the old Republican doctrine:  “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”

    There you have it.  Harry Truman was not urging the use of confusion.  He was campaigning against it.

    Last page of a comic book biography of Harry Truman for the 1948 campaign - Truman Library

    Last page of a comic book biography of Harry Truman for the 1948 campaign - Truman Library


    Misquoting Jefferson?

    February 1, 2009

    Statue of Thomas Jefferson in the Jefferson Memorial - Mr. Lant's HIstory page

    Statue of Thomas Jefferson in the Jefferson Memorial, Rudulph Evans, sculptor – Library of Congress photo by Carol Highsmith, who graciously puts her photos in the public domain

    A commentary from Cal Thomas caught my eye — little more than a few quotes from Thomas Jefferson strung together.  Jefferson seems oddly prescient in these quotes, and, also oddly, rather endorsing the views of the right wing.

    From the way the text is laid out, and the brevity of the piece, I’m guessing it’s a radio commentary.

    I read Jefferson often.  I’ve read Jefferson a lot.  I don’t recognize any of the quotes.

    So I plugged them into the Jefferson collection at Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty, which has a lot of Jefferson ready for full-text searching.

    Oops.  None of the quotes scored a hit.

    Couldn’t find them in the Library of Congress’s on-line list of quotes, either.

    It looks as though Jefferson didn’t say these things that are being attributed to him.

    Cal, is that you?

    Cal, can you give us citations on these quotes?

    How about you, Dear Reader?  Can you save Cal Thomas’s bacon by providing a citation for any of the quotes below, alleged to be from Thomas Jefferson?

    AS WE LISTEN TO TALK OF BAILOUTS AND ENDLESS DEBT, THINK ON THESE THOUGHTS FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON:

    “THE DEMOCRACY WILL CEASE TO EXIST WHEN YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO WORK AND GIVE TO THOSE WHO WOULD NOT.”

    HERE’S ANOTHER: “IT IS INCUMBENT ON EVERY GENERATION TO PAY ITS OWN DEBTS AS IT GOES. A PRINCIPLE WHICH IF ACTED ON WOULD SAVE ONE-HALF THE WARS OF THE WORLD.”

    AND ANOTHER: “I PREDICT FUTURE HAPPINESS FOR AMERICANS IF THEY CAN PREVENT THE GOVERNMENT FROM WASTING THE LABORS OF THE PEOPLE UNDER THE PRETENSE OF TAKING CARE OF THEM.”

    AND ONE MORE:  “MY READING OF HISTORY CONVINCES ME THAT MOST BAD GOVERNMENT RESULTS FROM TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT.”

    There you have ’em, Dear Readers.  Did somebody hoodwink Cal Thomas into thinking these are Jefferson’s bon mots, when they are not?

    Shake of the wet scrub brush to Truthseeker.

    Below the fold, the complete Cal Thomas commentary.
    Read the rest of this entry »

    Irony meter alert: Powerline slings mud at science

    January 24, 2009

    You may have to read this one a couple of times to see what’s going on.  It’s subtle.

    Our farrightwingordie buddies at Powerline headlined the post, “Science dragged through the mud.”

    Of course, the Powerline post itself slings mud at science and scientists, doing all the mud dragging itself. The post accuses climate scientists of dishonesty, conspiracy, incompetence, political bias and general un-apple-pie-ness.

    Happer said he is dismayed by the politicization of the issue and believes the community of climate change scientists has become a veritable “religious cult,” noting that nobody understands or questions any of the science.

    He noted in an interview that in the past decade, despite what he called “alarmist” claims, there has not only not been warming, there has in fact been global cooling. He added that climate change scientists are unable to use models to either predict the future or accurately model past events.

    Do rightwingers even know how to operate an irony meter?


    Hoaxes on hoaxes: Bathtub hoax debunkers start a new hoax?

    January 4, 2009

    [If you’re interested in the hoax aspect, see this update post.]

    Is this just an error, or a new hoax on the way to debunking an old one?  This is a story of an insider’s hoax, or an interesting error.

    It’s from the Museum of Hoaxes.  Surely they would be careful about such matters, no?

    The Museum of Hoaxes’ History of the Bathtub is largely a history of H. L. Mencken’s famous 1917 hoax history of the bathtub, in which he claimed Millard Fillmore had bravely led America to indoor bathing by installing a bathtub in the White House in 1853.

    Readers of this blog well know this story.  Fillmore wasn’t the first to put a bathtub in the White House.  He wasn’t the first to put plumbing in the White House.  He wasn’t the first to put a plumbed bathtub in the White House, nor the first to run hot water to it. Anything in Mencken’s column that squares with history did so accidentally.  Mencken was making a big joke.

    And one of the little delights of reading history is finding people who should know better, who have been suckered in by Mencken’s hoax.

    So of course I read the piece at the Hoax Museum.

    What ho!  Here is a section that discusses how the hoax refuses to die:

    Curtis MacDougall, writing in 1958, reported finding fifty-five different instances since 1926 of Mencken’s bathtub history being presented to audiences as fact. Some of the examples that MacDougall collected follow:

    October, 1926: Scribner’s included an article, “Bathtubs, Early Americans,“ by Fairfax Downey, based almost entirely on Mencken’s story.

    March 16, 1929: In “Baltimore Day by Day,“ by Carroll Dulaney, in Mencken’s own newspaper, the Baltimore Evening Sun, the story is told under the heading, “Painting the Lily.“

    September 26, 1929: The Paris, France, edition of the New York Herald rewrites an article by Ruth Wakeman in the New York Sun entitled, “Americans Once Frowned on Bathtubs, Condemning Them for Fancied Hazards.“

    December 1, 1931: The Tucson, Arizona, Daily Star interviews C.R. King, manager of the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company branch in Tucson, on the imminent birthday of the bathtub. Mr. King, who according to the Star “had apparently studied the matter considerably,“ hands out the same old facts, which are printed under a two-column head, “Bathtub Will Have Birthday in America During December.“

    April 27, 1933: A United Features Syndicate feature, “How It Began,“ by Russ Murphy and Ray Nenuskay includes an illustration of Adam Thompson in his first bathtub.

    1935: Dr. Hans Zinsser, professor in the Medical School of Harvard University, says on page 285 of his best-selling Rats, Lice and History: “The first bathtub didn’t reach America, we believe, until about 1840.”

    November 15, 1935: R.J. Scott’s “Scott’s Scrapbook,“ syndicated by the Central Press Asociation, includes a sketch of a policeman chasing a bather away from his bath, together with the caption: As late as 1842 some American cities prohibited the use of bathtubs.”

    May 27, 1936: Dr. Shirley W. Wynne, former commissioner of health for New York City, uses the “facts” in a radio address, “What Is Public Health?“ over WEAF.

    February, 1937: The United Press Red Letter includes a story from Cambridge, Massachusetts, that Dr. Cecil K. Drinker, dean and professor of physiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, has discovered that his great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Drinker of Philadelphia, had a bathtub in her home as early as 1803, thus disputing Cincinnati’s claim to fame for having the first American bathtub. (The Chicago Daily News used the story March 27, 1937.)

    September 28, 1938: Hearst’s American Weekly includes an article, “There’s a Lot of History Behind Your Bathtub,“ by Virginia S. Eiffert, research expert and contributor to Natural History, official magazine of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, and other publications. Miss Eiffert’s research has uncovered the old stand-by.

    Sept. 20, 1942: Julia Spiegelman retold the entire Adam Thompson tale as fact in an article, “Bathtub’s United States Centennial” in the Baltimore Sun, Mencken’s own newspaper.

    April 28, 1951: In this day’s issue of The New Yorker John Hersey revealed, in a profile on Harry S. Truman, that “the president seemed reluctant to let go of his belief” in the fact that Millard Fillmore introduced the first bathtub into the White House in 1850. President Truman was known to include the spurious facts in the “lecture” he gave visitors to the renovated executive mansion.

    Sept. 16, 1952: In a speech in Philadelphia, President Truman told the story to illustrate what great progress has occurred in public health.

    I noted the Tucson Daily Star mention — I spent a year in Tucson at the University of Arizona, and on a couple of projects spent hours poring through old copies of the Star and it’s competitor, The Tucson Daily Citizen, but never getting close to any story on Fillmore, bathtubs, or Mencken.  Interesting.

    And did you see?  There’s a reference to Zinsser’s great book, Rats, Lice and History.   One of my favorite books of all time. Other suggested it should be included in the small, essential library of any historian or teacher of history, when I was working on assembling a list of necessary books (a project I really should get back to one day).

    Zinsser was the guy who isolated the pathogen that causes typhus, and developed a vaccine against the disease.  More importantly, he was a bit of a rake and an excellent, and funny, writer.  The book is a breezy read,  packed with enlightening discussions of history, wars, economic booms and busts, sieges of great cities, and how disease stalks the pages of history much more than merely during the outbreaks of the plague in the middle of the second millennium.

    I read the book the year I graduated from high school, though now I don’t remember whether it was during the school year or after.  It was recommended to me by a college English professor, Kirk Rasmussen (the Utah guy), whose wife was my last high school debate coach.  Kirk laughed all the way through the book.  I borrowed his paperback copy and finished it off in a week or two.

    You can learn a lot about ecology studying how a disease is spread.  A disease like typhus, which involves insect, louse, rodent and human carriers, exposes the links that, however improbable or preposterous, are necessary to keep a pathogen going.  Zinsser gives a great rundown of the history of rats, the history of fleas, the history of lice (which are not insects, if you wish to be carefully accurate, which you do, of course).

    So his book is useful in literature classes.  It’s a good source of history.  Plus, it’s a good meta source for biologists and medical researchers.

    In fact I have a copy here on this desk — I was trying to find a short excerpt that I could use in my world history classes, something to intrigue students and give them fodder for an exercise or project.

    So, I looked at that listing, and thought I should check it out:

    1935: Dr. Hans Zinsser, professor in the Medical School of Harvard University, says on page 285 of his best-selling Rats, Lice and History: “The first bathtub didn’t reach America, we believe, until about 1840.”

    You can see this one coming, can’t you?

    Rats, Lice and History has only 228 pages, in all three editions I have here at the house.

    So of course I checked pages 185, 85, and 28.  Nothing.

    Then I looked at the table of contents (there is no index), to see in what chapter such a comment might find a home.  Zinsser wrote in the U.S., was born in the U.S., so it wouldn’t be wholly out of his character to note some little item of public health at the White House.  But I’ll be doggoned if I can figure out where such a comment would fit in the book.

    Is this just a miscitation by Museum of Hoaxes?  Or is it a new hoax altogether?  Is it a hoax the Museum of Hoaxes has fallen victim to, or is it of their invention?

    Now I wonder about all the other mentions there.  Are they accurate?  Are they whole cloth fiction, voodoo history?  Did the Tucson Daily Star even exist in 1931?

    We never solve one mystery that we don’t open up a dozen more.

    Readers, can you shed light?

    I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation.