Killer sea slugs would be a great name for a rock band

New Zealand held a non-binding referendum on whether it was ok for parents to hit their children (“good parental correction” and “a smack” is how it was termed in the referendum). 87% or so voted in favor of child-beating, which NZ outlawed two years ago, the first country to do so.

In other New Zealanderish news today, “Killer Sea Slugs Empty NZ Beaches.” Coincidence? You be the judge.

Why didn’t we think of this when I was in college?

WaPo headline: “U.S Officials Say Colleges Should Suspend Classes if Swine Flu Spreads.” The Centers for Disease Control are “urging schools to suspend any rules -- such as penalties for late papers or missed classes, or a required doctor’s note -- that might prompt ill people to venture out.” I foresee wacky hijinks.

“Health officials said students can do their part by washing their hands and covering coughs and also by wiping down keyboards, doorknobs, remote-control devices and other oft-touched items.” I’m not touching that straight line until it’s been thoroughly wiped down.

Is there are any tragedy that insurance companies and the US can’t find a way to make worse?

LAT: “Armenian Americans descended from victims of the 1915-18 massacre by Ottoman Turks can’t sue foreign insurance companies for unpaid claims because the U.S. government doesn’t legally recognize that an Armenian genocide occurred, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.” German insurance companies, just to add that touch of irony that was required.

Bush’s HHS sec wanted to pull the plug on granny

Something I’d forgotten: in May 2005, Health & Human Services Sec. Mike Leavitt suggested that Medicare costs could be reduced by encouraging seniors to prepare advance directives. Where Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley falsely claimed that the current provision was about reducing costs by killing granny, Leavitt’s proposal actually was, explicitly, but somehow I don’t remember anyone screaming “Death panels! Death panels! Death panels!” at him.

Poll: America’s Second Smuggest Person

Smug: irritatingly pleased with oneself; self-righteously complacent.

As the nominations show, the US is not short of the smug. And we haven’t really plumbed the smug depths of the literati, the art world, organized religion or academia. Or medicine, now that I come to think of it: there was a doctor I saw once, when my regular doctor was out of town, who achieved a Buckleyesque level of smug.

The specific quality we are judging here is smugness, not general assholery. Read all the entries, which are alphabetical, before voting. Remember, whoever wins this vote will take over as the Smuggest American of All should George Bush die or develop self-awareness.

War of necessity in an inessential country

If “co-ops” were a viable model for the provision of health care, we’d already have them.

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Obama’s speech to the VFW yesterday was more interesting for what it didn’t say than what it did say. It did contain some rather strong language (does he believe a word of it?) about Afghanistan being a “war of necessity” which is “fundamental to the defense of our people”.

But he didn’t say a whole lot about the Afghan people – who he seems to think of at best as a problem to be solved; he’s not really interested in the Afghan people qua people. Nothing about Afghan women. Only a single mention of the elections (“our troops are helping to secure polling places for this week’s election so that Afghans can choose the future that they want”), and none of Karzai, who is masterfully putting together a coalition of warlords and rapists alike (and if that isn’t a majority, I don’t know what is).

“Actually” innocent

The Supreme Court sent the capital murder conviction of Troy Anthony Davis back to federal court to hear his claim of having been innocent (he was convicted solely on the testimony of witnesses most of whom have since recanted). Naturally, Fat Tony Scalia (joined by Thomas), objects, in a dissent which scoffs at the very idea that “capital convictions... are always subject to being set aside by federal courts for the reason of ‘actual innocence’”. “This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

That may be the douchiest use of quotation marks ever.

P.S. I have added Scalia to the list of nominees for Second Smuggest American.

Quotas

Under a policy just changed, ICE agents had quotas for the number of illegal immigrants they were supposed to catch. 1,000 per year per team (the LAT fails to say how many agents on a team). Oh yeah, no way that could lead to abuses.

Also, why did we not know of this policy before?

Mad Men question

Was “my air conditioner is broken” code?

But is it kosher?

From Ha’aretz: “The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement that the Dimona facility ‘has the safety and health of its workers as its highest priority.’” And the uranium it made plant workers... wait for it... drink wasn’t really that much.

Why we fight

Breaking his previous promises, Karzai has quietly slipped into law that bill letting Shiite men starve their wives if they don’t put out, legalizing child marriage and rape if blood money is paid, requiring wives to get their husbands’ permission to work, etc etc (details still unclear because it’s a secret law; I have no idea how a secret law works).

In addition many women won’t be voting Thursday because polling places are segregated by sex and the government failed to recruit enough female officials to run the ones for women, so there won’t be many of them open (also, men are being allowed to vote, illegally, on behalf of their female relatives).

Freedom, ain’t it grand.

Who is the Second Smuggest American of all?

The Independent (UK) is running a poll, Who is Britain’s smuggest person? (Tony Blair, obvs)

I’m going to make a wild guess that if I ran any such poll here, George Bush would win. In fact, I’m going to take it as read and hereby request nominations for the title of America’s Second Smuggest Person, with the voting to take place in a week or so. To get you started: Cheney, Palin, Rumsfeld, Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Boehner, Giuliani, Gingrich, Joe Lieberman, Donald Trump, Angelina Jolie, Pat Robertson, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Markos Moulitsas, Ed Begley, Jr., Glenn Beck.

Rules: Multiple entries are fine. Living Americans only. You may nominate yourself. You may not nominate me. Void where prohibited.

(Update: the nominations are now closed. The poll is here.)

Not the essential element

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNN today that a public option is not “the essential element” of Obama’s health insurance plan. Indeed: there are no elements Obama considers essential enough not to compromise away.

She said that Obama will be satisfied if there is “choice and competition,” and on CBS Robert Gibbs used the same, no doubt focus-grouped, phrase, designed to mean pretty much nothing.

On the front end

Come back, British imperialists, all is forgiven.

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Barack Obama, in a NYT op-ed piece: “There’s no reason that we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and prostate cancer on the front end.”

Another fine mess

Another Saturday, another Jerusalem parking lot protest. Here, a border cop carries away ultra-Orthodox Laurel while ultra-Orthodox Hardy strolls by.

Who will save grandpa from the Death Panels of Doom?

It’s always “Obama lies, grandma dies,” never “Obama lies, grandpa dies.” Do deathers not care about their grandfathers?

The tree of crazy must be refreshed from time to time by the Kool-Aid of birthers and deathers

As much as I admired Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland and his book on Goldwater, his Sunday WaPo article on how “the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy” makes me hope his next book will be on that very subject, taking a longer chronological view than the earlier books. 1917 to present?

You were expecting Sally Field, maybe?

Monday, a group of rabbis and Kabbalahists flew over Israel – in a plane, in a plane – praying, blowing horns, and complaining that they ordered the kosher meal, in order to stop the spread of swine flu.


I’d have mentioned this earlier, had I but known that there was YouTube footage.

I don’t know why no one ever thought of this before

The Senate Finance Committee has stripped the death panels (aka, advance-care consultations) from the health insurance bill. Without death panels, no American will ever have to die. Yay!

Name of the Day

Former Florida Supreme Court Justice Wade Hopping, who has gone to that big death panel in the sky. Wade hopping sounds like a really lame Olympic event.

(I’ve been eagerly trying to fit the phrase “gone to that big death panel in the sky” in somewhere for two or three days now.)