Social Security as a Statement of Values

I posted this at the bottom of a longer message, but it deserves it’s own post.

Let’s view Social Security as question of our society’s and our individual values. According to Rev. Michael J. Kavanaugh,

In the last election, there was a great deal of discussion about values. That’s a good thing, except those values related to only two areas — sexual areas including gay marriage and abortion. The value of caring for the common good is a Judeo-Christian value, and an American value that goes back beyond our founding.

The responsibility that we have to maintain Social Security — not private or personal security, but Social Security — are values we must hold on to.

More Slime on the Subject of Social Security

From Daily Kos, verbatim:

Krugman in the New York Times:

The slime campaign has begun against AARP, which opposes Social Security privatization. There's no hard evidence that the people involved - some of them also responsible for the "Swift Boat" election smear - are taking orders from the White House. So you're free to believe that this is an independent venture. You're also free to believe in the tooth fairy. (emphasis mine)

These people are pure slime, we need to take this as far as it goes, and we need your help with the Open Source Research.

To recap, USA Next smeared the AARP, and bloggers hit back. USA Next retreated and pulled the ad, the bloggers kept advancing. And kept pushing and researching and breaking news. We can't repeat the same mistake by not taking the swift boaters seriously, we need some serious sunshine and we need it now.

To catapult the Open Source Opposition Research, your friendly, blogosphere Political Action Committee has released our first Intelligence Briefing:

Overview

BlogPAC Intelligence Report: USA Next (pdf)

Obviously, the people who want to get rid of Social Security will do anything — lie, distort, use tricky wording, and any other dirty trick they can so that they can achieve their goal, which is not, and has never been, strengthening Social Security. They want Social Insecurity.

Finally, let’s view Social Security as question of our society’s and our individual values. According to Rev. Michael J. Kavanaugh,

In the last election, there was a great deal of discussion about values. That’s a good thing, except those values related to only two areas — sexual areas including gay marriage and abortion. The value of caring for the common good is a Judeo-Christian value, and an American value that goes back beyond our founding.

The responsibility that we have to maintain Social Security — not private or personal security, but Social Security — are values we must hold on to.

I’m afraid further privatization, whether it’s by choice or enforcement, reduces our understanding of our responsibility for our common good.

Is This The Iceberg That Struck Titanic?

Stephan Rehorek was a sailor on a German steamer and took pictures of icebergs on April 20, 1912, six days after Titanic struck an iceberg, as horrified sailors saw about 100 bodies floating in the North Atlantic. Titanic expert Henning Pfeifer is convinced that this picture is the iceberg that collided with Titanic. Mr. Pfeifer said: “I remembered reading evidence from the inquiry after the disaster when one survivor had described the iceberg as looking like the Rock of Gibraltar but a mirrored version. This iceberg was just like it but it had a fresh break on one side.”

that little dot over the i ...

... is called a tittle. Now you know!

(Not to be confused with Yelberton Abraham, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame)

Amelia Earhart’s Shoes

The updated version of Amelia Earhart’s Shoes gets a favorable review from K. Kris Hirst. He says:

The 2004 updated edition of the original 2001 book by Thomas F. King, Randall S. Jacobson, Karen Ramey Burns, and Kenton Spading is a terrific addition to ongoing research on Earhart and [navigator Fred] Noonan’s mysterious disappearance. Research by members of TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) sifts through much of the available evidence, including six seasons of fieldwork on Nikumaroro and McKean Islands in the Phoenix Island Group, Republic of Kiribati, to suggest — but not prove — that Earhart and Noonan survived their plane crash only to die castaways on an uninhabited island.
…
The epilogue to the 2004 updated edition of Amelia Earhart’s Shoes describes the results of the 2001–2002 investigations on Nikumaroro Island, including excavations on Niku, study of post-loss radio communications (some of which were from Earhart and Noonan), and the input of new Earhart mystery devotees, people who stumbled on the TIGHAR website, became enchanted and could not let go. I can well understand their obsession.

The mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan is a maddening one, because, like most archaeological questions, the truth is just outside our reach, available only by time travel but hinted, if we’re lucky, by the clink of a trowel.

If you’re an archaeologist or a fan of archaeology, if you love a good mystery, if you want to know what historic archaeological research is really like, or if you’re a secret fan of Amelia Earhart, get your hands on this book. You will surely not be disappointed.

Beware of Scam!

Web-surfers, beware! One of my favorite websites, RailPictures.net, greeted me with a nasty pop-up window today. You can see the window below (click on it to see the an image of the pop-up window full-size), it warns you that you many have critical errors on your computer, and that you should click to have your computer scanned.

However, note the link location at the bottom of the full-size window. It points to Casalemedia.com, an advertising company. They want your information. If you give them permission to scan your computer, you may also be giving away your privacy (and although I didn’t get this far, it may also try to install spy-ware). Their website doesn’t mention anything about software to correct “critical errors”, but does boast of their huge database of information. This pop-up window is disgusting in its dishonesty.

I have written an e-mail to the owner of RailPictures.net, asking him why the pop-up is there, and telling him that if it is not removed, I shall consider him to be intentionally disregarding his user’s privacy, and I will no longer use his website. I shall let you know his reply, if any.

Update (2/26/05): if you type Casalemedia into Google, you will find that there are many discussions of the spyware that is installed by Casalemedia, and also some discussions about how to remove it.

Slime!

The folks over at There Is No Crisis have been busy. “We have commissioned a research report on the funders of the Social Security privatization scheme. Our researcher went through the public tax records of every group involved in this right-wing scheme, and is writing a report on who’s doing this and who’s funding it.” It’s really, really nasty.

GOP Caught on Tape

Check out the flip-flopping of your favorite Republican congressperson on the subject of Social Security!

Purple Reign, Part 2

For the second year in a row, the purple clad (now black with a little bit of purple) Greece Odyssey girls basketball team has captured the Section V (New York) Class CCC Championship. Congratulations, ladies!

The game shaped up as a real nail-biter, with Odyssey trailing by 1 point at the end of three periods against number 1 ranked Avon. Odyssey hadn’t been able to play their game, mixing outside shooting with penetrating drives and cuts to the basket. Avon had effectively shut down Odyssey’s outside shooting and its penetration. But during the fourth quarter, Odyssey began to consistently get into the paint and short range shots. One crucial basket was scored by little-used Carolynn Dunne, who was also fouled and made the free throw. After that, almost every Odyssey possession led to a shot in the paint, or an open three-pointer. And Odyssey pulled away in the fourth quarter, ending up with a 47–40 win. Senior guard Rachel Pagano-Fuller was the tournament MVP, while twin sisters Hannah and Libby Meier were also selected to the all-tournament team.

Some other moments I will remember: as the game was winding down, guard Melissa Schneider motioned to the crowd to make some more noise. At the end of the game, coach Dale Meier inserted four girls who had played JV most of the year into the game, a glimpse of the future of Odyssey basketball. And after all the awards were done, the team was holding its trophy for the photographers, and then the team turned to the fans, called out to them, and held up the tropy for the fans to see as well.

Jack The Ripper — Buried in Rochester?

One suspect in the Jack The Ripper murders in Whitechapel, London, in 1888 was a certain Francis Tumblety. And it turns out that Tumblety is now considered to be one of the leading suspects by many Ripperologists, thanks to a letter uncovered in 1993, but written in 1913, in which Chief Inspector John Littlechild, who knew the Ripper murders in great detail, pointed the finger of suspicion at Tumblety.

A recent book by Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey consider Tumblety to be the most likely suspect. Here are some of the 15 reasons they cite:

• Tumblety fits many requirements of what we now know as the ‘serial killer profile.’ He had a supposed hatred of women and prostitutes (the abortion with the prostitute Dumas, his alleged failed marriage to an ex-prostitute, his collection of uteri, etc.)
• Tumblety was in London at the time and may indeed have been the infamous ‘Batty Street Lodger’ — he therefore may have had fair knowledge of the East End environs.
• Tumblety may have had some anatomical knowledge, as inferred by his collection of wombs, his ‘medical’ practice, and his short-term work with Dr. Lispenard in Rochester.
• There were no more murders after he fleed England on the 24th November, if one counts only the canonical five murders.

Tumblety (also spelled Tumuelty) is buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester, NY.

CTRL-SHIFT-Z

By now, you’re using Firefox regularly, you love the tabbed browsing feature, but every now and then a ... um ... user error occurs and you close a tab you didn’t want to close. Don’t jump out that window! Instead try CTRL-SHIFT-Z! If you have the excellent Tabbrowser Extension installed, this keystroke combination re-opens the tab you accidentally closed!

There Is No Crisis

An article at The Stakeholder discusses three Texas counties that voluntarily withdrew from Social Security in 1981 and replaced it with private investment accounts. How did the private investment accounts do? Read it for yourself.

Although There Is No Crisis, even if there was, private investment accounts would not be the way to fix it.

Soccer Says Farewell to a Star

Pierluigi Collina is one of the most recognizable faces in all of soccer. He has been chosen as the world’s best soccer referee in six of the last seven years. But soon he will be hanging up his whistle, because of international soccer’s mandatory retirement age for referees, 45. Farewell, Pierluigi, and well done!

Huge “star-quake” rocks Milky Way

From the BBC, via Brad DeLong:

Astronomers say they have been stunned by the amount of energy released in a star explosion on the far side of our galaxy, 50,000 light-years away.

The flash of radiation on 27 December was so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth's atmosphere.

… If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have suffered a mass extinction, it is said.

“We figure that it’s probably the biggest explosion observed by humans within our galaxy since Johannes Kepler saw his supernova in 1604,” Dr Rob Fender, of Southampton University, UK, told the BBC News website.

One calculation has the giant flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashing about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. We have observed an object only 20km across, on the other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a 10th of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years,” said Dr. Fender.

Skeptic’s Circle, Part II

Orac hosts the second Skeptic’s Circle with a plethora of fine articles (in fact, too many for me to read). Go check it out.

I particularly enjoyed Radagast’s debunking of a recently reported study that fruit juice will make your children fat.

The Story of Three Chairs

I have been having serious problems with my back at home. The chair I had used to sit at my home computer was clearly a cause. So, what to do? In a flash of brilliance, I decided to buy a new chair!

So off to Staples I go, sit in a dozen chairs, make my decision and purchase a chair. I get it home, and my back is no better. So back it goes. Over to Office Max, whereupon I choose another chair. This one is better, except now instead of back problems, my shoulder is killing me. Seems that the arm rests are too high for me and can’t be adjusted. So back to Office Max, where I choose a chair that has no arm rests. This is so far the best of the three, but not great. My back problems are less severe with this chair, but they haven’t disappeared. And, this chair is too high! The cushioning on the seat is so high that I can barely fit my legs under the keyboard holder. So I think I’ll have to get a keyboard holder that has an adjustable height.

Argggh!

Condi

I am shocked, I tell you! To think that on such a subject as important as being prepared for a terrorist attack, new Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s statements don’t exactly match with the truth.

Sadly, not only did the Bush administration do nothing in the face of numerous warnings about a terrorist attack, but so far no one has been penalized or prosecuted for this dereliction of duty.

Iron Chef America, the disappointment

A while back I praised Iron Chef America’s first episode. The second episode was just as good ... but this week, they are already showing a re-run. No, not a re-run of one of the first two episodes, but a re-run of an episode from an earlier series with a similar name: Iron Chef America Battle of the Masters. Sadly, the commercials don’t tell you its a re-run. Mark me down as disappointed.

Date From Hell

Suppose you are on a date from hell. What to do? Well, thanks to this new service (if you are Australian, anyway), you can now discretely call a three-digit number, and within a minute someone will call you back with an excuse for you to leave. That sure would have been handy for me a few months ago!

Another Social Security For Dummies

First, we noted a website and pamphlet using the name “Social Security for Dummies”. Now Publius at Legal Fiction has a post with the same title. He writes there are pretty much three things you need to understand about Social Security today.

Point 1 — seniors today get their money from cash that workers today pay into the system, not from money that the seniors themselves paid into the system.

Point 2 — diverting money into private accounts, if it were to happen today, would cause a shortfall in the money needed for Point 1.

Point 3 — thus if private accounts were to be put into place, the government has to get money from somewhere else. That somewhere else could be: 1) government borrows; 2) reduce the benefits; or 3) some combination of above.

And that’s pretty much all you need to know. With private accounts, the government has to borrow massively while at the same time reducing benefits. How does that sound to you?

Not So Long Ago ...

We interrupt our usual Social Security debate and psychic-bashing party to present a beautiful relic from the past. This morning, during a little hike in the woods (with permission of the landowners), I came upon this lovely trestle over Spring Creek near Lima, NY. It belonged to the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and this particular trestle was in use until sometime in the late 60s or early 70s.

Circles and Carnivals

The first ever Skeptic’s Circle is now available. It contains links to 15 different skeptical posts from around the blogosphere. Further, the second Carnival of the Godless, a collection of 23 links to posts around the blogosphere on topics ranging from anti-theism to deism, is now available for you to read.

Best Wishes to Brother Wease

Brother Wease has been one of the most popular morning DJs for a long time now. I have listened to him almost every weekday morning for the last 18 years while I make my breakfast and drive to work. That almost makes him a member of my family. Yesterday, he announced he had Naso Pharyngeal Carcinoma, a very rare form of cancer.

Listeners, such as myself, were shocked. Some called in crying, some called in with advice or with stories of how they had survived cancer. Wease himself said he decided to talk about his own cancer on the air, so that there might be others who could learn and benefit. Already, one caller said that he was going to get checked since he had similar symptoms.

I can recall many mornings listening the Radio Free Wease, laughing so hard that I could barely drive. Other mornings I was fascinated by Wease, his sidekicks and his guests, and at least once I actually stopped what I was doing and turned to look at the radio, because what was happening was so riveting — specifically, the day Doug Flutie was let go by the Buffalo Bills, and Flutie called Wease to talk about it on the air. Other times I was frustrated by Wease, or turned it off when he started arguing about something. But I always went back. And on September 11, 2001, we were told we could go home from work early because of the days horrific events, and there was Brother Wease on the radio, long after his morning show should have ended, discussing the events, calming callers down and generally providing intelligent commentary at a time when everyone else was going nuts. I wrote him an e-mail saying I was very comforted by hearing him on the radio that afternoon.

Wease’s cancer has been caught in the early stages, and hopefully he will emerge victorious in his battle against cancer. We wish him the best of luck.

Chronicling The Lies

Here (and keep scrolling down) is a quick summary of all the lies and half-truths in President Bush’s State Of The Union speech. Just one example:

President Bush said: “Tonight I propose a three-year initiative to help organizations keep young people out of gangs.”

FACT: President Bush has proposed a 40 percent cut in federal juvenile crime prevention funds, which would effectively “pull the plug” on good local programs that reduce gang and youth violence.

FACT: President Bush has sponsored a 44 percent overall reduction in delinquency-fighting and anti-gang funds since 2002.

There Is No Crisis

How much was wrong with President Bush’s plan to destroy fix Social Security? Let’s see:

• Bush Failed to Address Benefit Cuts
• Bush Failed to Address Increases in Debt
• Bush Failed to Address Social Security's Long-Term Solvency

Bush also used the word “bankrupt” and “bankruptcy” in his State Of The Union speech, referring to Social Security. This of course is a total mis-use of the word (lie?), in which Bush gives it new meaning that it never had before. Yes, it is true that in about 2042, the Social Security administration will not be able to pay full benefits anymore. It will be able to pay approximately 75% of the benefits. Of course, that’s not bankrupt by any stretch of the word. No lawyer or economist would use it to describe such a situation. How would Bush’s plan do? Here’s a chart from the Congressional Budget Office (and here’s a table) — note how the President’s plan (denoted as CSSS Plan 2 or the Graham Plan) provides less benefits than the current plan.

Yes, there’s plenty to dislike with the President’s plan. And not much benefit to be seen.