To Serve and Be Protected

February 21, 2010 at 8:02 pm · Filed under Policy ·Tagged , , ,

Courtesy of Slate I’ve found another example of what I first wrote about in No Soldier Shall Be Quartered.

Dahlia Lithwick briefly chronicles some of the travails faced by returning veterans that try to rejoin civilian society, including the quite high crime rate among this group with the “Department of Veterans Affairs estima[ting] that veterans account for 10 percent of the people with criminal records.”

Now, other groups that exhibit high crime rates seem to be treated with a lock them up and throw away the key mentality but in 2008 a Judge started a program trying to help former U.S. soldiers who had run afoul of the law through a veterans’ court that used targeted interventions that that took into account some of the challenges these veterans faced, such as addiction, homelessness and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is at least some evidence that these interventions are both more effective and more humane than a traditional approach would have achieved with these offenders. This model has been adopted by some cities and counties and Senators Kerry and Murkowski have proposed legislation to expand these programs further. These veterans’ courts follow other targeted intervention models like drug courts that have also demonstrated some success. However, successful or not, these programs strike me as unfairly elevating some Americans above others.

This is just another example of how veterans are given rights above and beyond what we have. I don’t want this to come of ungrateful to the heroic service these men and women have given us. I would happily increase the services offered to returning troops. Lithwick cites a Department of Veterans Affairs number estimating that there are 131,000 homeless vets. That is unacceptable and I feel every veteran should have guaranteed housing if he or she is not able to provide housing on his or her own. Similarly, we should be spending a lot more to aggressively provide treatment for PTSD. High quality treatment has a remarkable capacity to fix broken lives and reduce the great pain that veterans and their families suffer from that and other physical and mental injuries brought back from the battlefield. We have not been willing to make the financial sacrifices to ensure that those who risked life and limb for us are treated right when they get back home.

However, I am bothered that a veteran offender with PTSD might get special consideration and treatment while an individual with PTSD from a traumatic event from his or her civilian life would not. Just as I approve of many of the financial fraud protections that veterans get and I don’t, I do think that we should be trying to re-shape our criminal justice system to have better outcomes for offenders-helping them put their lives together and reducing recidivism. When necessary and appropriate, courts should be using drug treatment and mental health treatment to help ensure that offenders are no longer pushed into further crimes by their various demons. Those who didn’t have the skills to navigate society in a healthy and legal manner before should be given those skills during their incarceration. And those on probation and parole should be given the appropriate incentives and guidance to succeed, such as with Hawaii’s pilot HOPE program.

These things are all good things and I suppose it is better that veterans get those things rather than no body getting those things. And maybe we can give extra protections to veterans as a stepping stone to giving them to all Americans. If these extra rights are good enough for veterans-protecting them from real dangers and injustices-then maybe they are good enough for all of us. After all, it is liberty and justice for all, not liberty and justice for a few targeted groups.

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Is Harry Reid the Next Joe Biden?

January 12, 2010 at 6:29 am · Filed under Journalism, Politics ·Tagged , ,

Does everyone need to muck up their political careers by talking carelessly about how Obama speaks?

Now, the new Heilemann/Halperin book seems to have really gone full-court press at digging up unpleasant dirt. The part on the Edwardses is nasty and the use of an anonymous account of a dead dude’s comment to smear Clinton seems par for the course as well. Of course Halperin, who critiqued Obama’s lack of party going recently, seems to embrace the Washingtonian society mentality and seems to consider recording the gripes of jilted staffers anonymously trashing their foes to be high journalism.

Of course, Reid seems to be his trophy buck. Reid seems to have told Halperin on background, who promptly reported it on foreground, that Obama could have been the first black president due to his lighter skin tone and his ability to forgo a manner of speaking that would be racially coded as black. Except Reid used a less politically correct way of saying it, saying that Obama could “speak with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Now obviously Reid was stupid to have used that word since when the adjective embattled has already been added to your name as an additional title you probably want to avoid having the phrase “race controversy” as the object of any sentence in which you are a subject. And while plenty are defending him or attacking him, I’d add two separate points.
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I Am Iron Man

January 6, 2010 at 6:04 am · Filed under Interesting Links ·Tagged ,

So having seen Avatar (great spectacle, silly-ass story), I decided to peruse this short blurb on James Cameron’s next project and this blew my mind.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived TWO atomic bombs.
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A Post in Which I Reconsider Certain Harsh Words

December 16, 2009 at 1:55 pm · Filed under Society ·Tagged ,

Loyal readers may recall that I have complained vociferously about some of the IPhone’s limitations. It is an awesome tool, with lots of well designed features, but it has network problems. Dropped calls, lack of data services and failing apps. And who is the network? AT&T. If I had a penny for every mean thing I said about AT&T, I could pay my phone bill and have enough leftover for a beer.

However, this article in the New York Times suggests I may have been too hasty with my words. Mainly they posit that the AT&T network is actually great and actually the IPhone itself is poorly made, but because people ❤ the Macs, everyone blames AT&T anyhow. Of course network service, like politics, is all local and maybe AT&T has a terrible DC network. But I will take this opportunity to apologize to AT&T for my rash judgments and hurtful statements. This incident also shows how hard it is to make good consumer decisions – it isn't just that it is hard for me to personally find out which phone and which network is better, it is that it is seemingly hard for anyone to get the necessary information.

Which is why I will keep you posted on my IPhone adventures, in an endeavor to make my loyal readers the best informed readers possible.

Love,
Drizzle

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Woot

December 9, 2009 at 5:53 am · Filed under Society ·Tagged ,

Old news but apropos of my prior post – this is awesome.

I love meat and to ask me to give up a steak is like asking the bird not to fly or the piranha not to swim to a cow and eat it. So I’m quite happy that we’ve taken some initial steps into developing meat that is cruelty-free and less harmful to the environment.

Huzzah science, you’ve done it again.

Love,
Drizzle

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Meat on Earth

November 13, 2009 at 2:19 pm · Filed under Policy ·Tagged , ,

I don’t want to talk about health care, I find it depressing. Thanks to Stupak and the No-Girls Allowed club, we’re at the point where the debate is whether or not the bill is better than nothing. That’s not where you really want to be.

So I’m going to talk about meat. Meat is delicious as evidenced here and here. However, I eat too much of it. Mainly, I’m aware that meat is sooooo bad for the environment, the carbon emissions per calorie basically means a nice steak is a kick to the face for the planet (by the way, I can’t really find good and consistent numbers on carbon emissions per calorie, if a loyal reader can point me in the right direction I would appreciate it).

The problem with my meat eating ways and the environment is that I’m lazy. It is hard to change one’s ways, especially when that change involves fewer burgers in my life. What would make it easier would be if someone could somehow build in the environmental impact into something I already consider when making life decisions, something like price perhaps. And bam!, we could have a carbon tax and I would reapportion my consumption to reflect the new pricing structure and then I could be green and smug about it and get to eat a substantial but not unreasonable amount of meat.

Now, we won’t see a carbon tax in our political future. When the dude or dudette who invented it decided the second word should be tax, he or she basically guaranteed that it is politically dead. That’s sad, not only for me but even for conservative economists like Greg Mankiw, who see a carbon tax as a great way to raise needed revenue in a way that reduces economic distortion (the bane of economists). But we do have Waxman-Markey, (Kerry-Boxer in the Senate), a delicious little cap and trade bill that will hopefully also get me to eating my greens.

The downside of cap and trade is that it is complex to run, what with all the capping and the trading. Carbon tax would ideally be simple, like the sales tax. However, a cap and trade approach actually lets you ensure you get the amount of emissions you want. If you have a carbon tax and set it too low, you’ll discover that a bunch of people really really like driving their hummers to the grocery store to buy delicious meat to burn on their charcoal grill while having a million lights on. That means too much carbon in the atmosphere and we’ll all get to experience what a post-apocalyptic setting looks like (I predict biker leather). Of course, cap and trade is basically great stimulus for lobbyists, they are going to have a great time meeting over steaks to figure out whose caps are set where. Still, the eventual winners will still be those who don’t want Ohio to be beach front property (I could do more research to give a more realistic outcome of what would happen in a catastrophic global warming scenario but every time I read climate change research I end up scared and depressed). And, while I may have to buy less meat, I still won’t actually have to think about the environmental consequences of my actions. Everybody wins. Hope that clarifies a bit why I’m excited about the prospects of climate change legislation. I’m sure some jackass centrist will muck it up (I’m looking at you Ben Nelson, this is your time to shine) but in the meantime we can let some glimmer of hope shine down, like a ray of Earth heating sunlight through our carbon filled skies.

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Hey, New Jersey, I’m talking to youse

November 3, 2009 at 2:52 am · Filed under Politics ·Tagged , , ,

Seriously peeps, let’s keep New Jerusalem sweet and vote Corzine tomorrow. I’m no longer a Jersey voter so I can’t do my part but I’d like to hear about a good turnout for the good guys. Corzine is the first governor that I’ve seen as a Jersey resident who has put any serious effort into solving any of the state’s problems. He’s put more into the woefully underfunded pension system, invested in Jersey’s schools and infrastructure and tried to fight against the state’s structural deficits. Now, all of these issues remain problems, big challenges take time to fix. And Jersey politics don’t make it easy – Corzine did have to fight his own party to get anything done (he was also out of commission for a while due to a lack of love for the seatbelt but that’s better than riding the wrong way down a one way street and hitting a motorcyclist).

But the point is that Corzine has sought solutions. And I’ve seen no evidence that Christie has at all. Yes, he proposes tax cuts and eliminating waste but the revenue that would be lost if the Christie tax cuts were enacted are more than the combined payroll of all state workers. If you really can’t vote for Corzine, at least consider Dagget, that man is at least willing to put forward a semi-coherent platform, unlike Christie. But I think you should go for the man who has been honest with New Jersey and been willing to make the tough choices, even if they weren’t the most politically expedient. A vote against Corzine is a vote for budgetary tricks, short-term thinking and letting New Jersey’s problems fester in the hope that magically they will get better. If you want New Jersey to be a Dirty Jerz you can be proud of, get your ass out and vote Corzine tomorrow.

Love,
Drizzle

Recommended reading for those still not convinced: State of Distress by Matt Bai

P.S. Full disclosure, I worked for the Corzine campaign in a quite small and poorly paid role in 2005. I thought he was right for New Jersey then and I still do.

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The Little Phone that iCan’t

October 21, 2009 at 4:20 am · Filed under Critiques ·Tagged , ,

Well this is my first so called product review. Let me first proclaim that I’ve gotten nothing free from any party. In fact, I’ve been charged a bunch by one specific party.

I’m going to say it now: the iPhone will fail you.
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Spiteful Politics

October 20, 2009 at 6:24 am · Filed under Politics ·Tagged , , ,

Hat tip to Paul Krugman for the title that I more or less stole but at least the subject will be different.

Things are looking pretty good for health care reform with a public option. Not the kind of public option that would really get progressives in a full-on hard-on joyfest but a public option of sorts. But which kind? Well, there is the level playing field public option, which would great a relatively weak public option that might be able to compete with insurance companies’ current prices but probably wouldn’t be strong enough to really drive down costs among the existing insurance companies. The level playing field would be offer some of the benefits of a robust public option and it wouldn’t threaten existing health care relations (i.e. insurance company profits) to the same degree as a robust public option. In other words, it is a compromise.

Another compromise being tossed around and floated in a trial balloon fashion is the Federalist public option. This would offer a robust public option but only to states that want it. I think this has a lot of promise. It seems to have votes in the Senate according to the vote counters, it has some intuitive appeal and if Big Tent Democrat and Ezra Klein agree on an approach to health care reform, there has gotta be something to it. To see Big Tent Democrat call Ezra Klein an accomodationist, go here.
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One of These Things is Not Like the Others

October 9, 2009 at 5:25 am · Filed under Politics ·Tagged , ,

Read these three postings on the same attack ad that Democratic Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine ran against his opponent, Republican Chris Christie.

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/10/david_kessler_corzines_campaig.php
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/10/corzine-attempting-juvenile-schoolyard-taunts-strategy.php
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/corzine-bigot

Did you notice which one was different than the others and why?

First off, the different response was Matt Yglesias’. The reason I note it as different is that he is the only one who seemingly WATCHED THE DAMN VIDEO HE IS DISCUSSING! Look at this quote from Jason Zengerle: “Is Corzine a bigot? After reading this NYT article on the Corzine campaign’s attempts to make an issue out of Chris Christie’s weight, I think I’d have to answer yes.” Note he says after reading the NYT article, not after watching the actual ad. I’ll grant you it is a whole thirty seconds long, so maybe he doesn’t have time. Also, it is on Youtube, so that is a pretty difficult place to locate videos.

So, for all you readers out there, here is the actual video. Watch it and judge for yourselves. Like Matt Yglesias, I feel the video focuses on whether Chris Christie got special treatment and not whether he has thunder thighs but your response may differ. The important thing is that your response is based on the actual source material and not a hack news piece by a hack reporter. If we actually take the time to critique the evidence when it is available, we will have a better national debate than the nonsense we’re stuck with now.

And, while we’re on the subject, I might as well also add that I agree with Big Tent Democrat. Politics are a contact sport and when your team tosses around the phrase death panels and imply that Obamarama is planning to kill old people for their meat, maybe you shouldn’t whine even if your political opponents make you look yucky in a campaign ad.

Anyhow, watch the ad and decide for yourself. Thanks for reading and avoid any death panels.

Love,
Drizzle

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