NYT: CA Awaits Prop 8 Ruling

Today at 10am Pacific, the California Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality and implementation of Proposition 8 which narrowly passed in November 2008. Why does the CA Supreme Court need to get involved again? Well, it's complicated. From the NYT:

Previously, in May 2008, the court legalized same-sex marriage, and since the election, several groups have sued, saying the proposition’s revocation of that right was unconstitutional.
In addition to answering that legal question, however, the seven-member court is expected to address the legal status of some 18,000 same-sex couples who were married in California between June — when the legalization took effect — and Election Day in November.
The state’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, said last year that he believed those same-sex marriages would be legal regardless of Proposition 8. But opponents of same-sex marriage argue that it is illogical to continue to recognize marriages that can no longer be legally performed here.

Want to know where same-sex couples stand legally now?

Since the passage of Proposition 8, several states have legalized same-sex marriage, including Iowa, Maine and Vermont. Connecticut, where a court decision legalized same-sex marriage shortly before Election Day, began performing ceremonies shortly after California banned them. At the moment, married same-sex couples in California have the same rights as straight, married couples under California law, though same-sex couples have no federal recognition.
Like several other states, California allows members of the same sex to enter into domestic partnerships, which afford many of the same rights as marriage. But Kate Kendell, the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, says domestic partnerships are not equivalent to marriage.
“It is more than symbolism to say that an entire category of recognition is off limits to one class of people,” Ms. Kendell said. “And the category that is off limits is the one that is most culturally desirable.”

Confusing, huh? Maybe it should just be absolutely equal for all. You know, for simplicity's sake.

My Question to the President for the C-SPAN Interview

Recently, C-SPAN interviewed President Obama about an array of topics. They also asked the viewers to submit our questions to the president for the interview. Since question was not included in the interview, I'm just going to post it here. Maybe it might still find its way to him somehow...hope springs eternal.

Mr. President,
My question is in regards to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law. I understand that there is a lot happening in the world and the country today that requires your immediate and continued attention. National security and commander-in-chief of the military is a major part of your duties as president. Both of these issues are directly affected by the DADT policy. Committed soldiers, marines, sailors and pilots are still being discharged by this policy under your administration. Furthermore, gay and lesbian military personnel who have not been discharged are being forced to break their oath to be honest and ethical because they have to lie to help protect this great nation. This is especially disheartening because you have stated that you do not agree with the policy. So my question is this: why have you not, at the very least, stopped the discharges from continuing while you wait for whatever you are waiting for to have the law changed?
I look forward to your answer and leadership on this issue and I thank you for listening.

Star Trek: Where JJ Abrams Should Never Go Again

First off, let me say this post will contain spoilers, but as another dissappointed Trek Master said " the whole movie is spoiled" so what's the difference. JJ Abrams just proved to me why he was so successful with a show about a bunch of people not knowing what the hell is going. He just looked in the mirror and divided by 9. Not to copy Keith Olbermann, but WTF?! I don't even know where to begin. First off, the technical. The ship in that movie was NOT, repeat NOT, the original Enterprise. The original ship had a satellite dish atop its deflector array( that's in front of the bottom section to you non-nerds.) The ship in this movie was the NCC-1701-A, which was not created until Kirk was already an Admiral in his late 40's. Two, Uhura and Spock? Just, NO! Three, and most important, the timeline. If you make a movie about Colonial America, and then have everyone loving ol' King George and flying Jetsonmobiles, than at least have the common decency not to call it "Colonial America." Call it " This Ain't Real But It's Got Really Cool Special FX So Shut Up And Suck It!" At least then the people know what they're walking into. However, if you name a movie Star Trek, then you have to have everything happen within the already agreed upon timeline. You can't have Kirk becoming Captain of the Enterprise right out of the Academy. Hello, you missed a little thing like, oh, I don't know, HIS CAREER! Also, after 3 seasons of the original, 7 seasons of Next Generation, 7 seasons of DS9, 7 seasons of Voyager, 4 seasons of Enterprise, and 10 movies before this one, I think we would have heard about Vulcan being obliterated. I think it would have come up, maybe, over some Earl Grey or something. And what's worse, JJ knew that everything I just wrote was going to be said by a plethora of Trekkies. So what does he do? He slips in that because the timeline was altered, everything we're watching is actually an alternate reality. That way he's free to completely mess up the Star Trek universe, since technically, it's not the one we all know and love, but some weird alternate one, like that one burnt Cheez-It that comes in every box. Only there's a question that immediately pops into my head due to this approach: what do you do for an encore? Do you continue on in this alternate reality that bears no resemblance to the true Trek universe? Or do you admit you were wrong in to do this in the first place and come back to your senses? I'm hoping it's the latter. One heaping pile is already one too many, no need to duplicate.

For all you non-Trek fans out there, this movie is what you want to see. It's full of beautiful people doing cool stuff amid explosions and phaser fire. However, if you're a true Trekkie like me and many others, either forget everything you've ever seen with the title Star Trek attached, or, before you go see this movie, make an appointment with your eye doctor, because as many times as your going to roll them, your going to want to get them checked out as soon as possible.

Pres. Obama and the DADT

The Daily Beast has a post by Matthew Yglesias titled "Obama's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Hypocrisy". It is a short post but here is my favorite part:


The game being played here is easy enough to understand. Obama's decision on a variety of fronts has been guided by a clear desire to avoid some of the early missteps made by Bill Clinton. And conventional accounts of Clinton’s early presidency put the way he got into an early dispute with the military brass over treatment of gay and lesbian servicemembers high on the list of missteps to be avoided.
But while the political logic behind the administration's thinking is understandable enough, the moral logic is contemptible. The dismissal of gay and lesbian soldiers was unjust when undertaken by administrations that believed in the policy. But disagreement about policy is inevitable in a democracy and sometimes injustice reigns. What we have today, however, is an absurdity—an administration that clearly does not believe in the policy, that is on record as opposing the policy, that campaigned explicitly on changing the policy, and that nevertheless declines to change the policy.
Tsao and Choi are being dismissed, in other words, not because the president of the United States feels they should be discriminated against, which would be bad enough. Instead, they're being dismissed because the president doesn't feel like doing anything about it.

Read the whole piece here.

NYT: Going Dutch

I read this fantastic New York Times article on my lunch break yesterday. It is about the Dutch economic and financial system, written by an American living in the Netherlands. After reading this article, my brother's words seem more potent: If everyone truly understood real socialism, nearly everyone in America would be all for it.

For the first few months I was haunted by a number: 52. It reverberated in my head; I felt myself a prisoner trying to escape its bars. For it represents the rate at which the income I earn, as a writer and as the director of an institute, is to be taxed. To be plain: more than half of my modest haul, I learned on arrival, was to be swallowed by the Dutch welfare state. Nothing in my time here has made me feel so much like an American as my reaction to this number.
[snip]
And yet as the months rolled along, I found the defiant anger softening by intervals, thanks to a succession of little events and awarenesses. One came not long ago. Logging into my bank account, I noted with fleeting but pleasant confusion the arrival of two mysterious payments of 316 euros (about $410) each. The remarks line said “accommodation schoolbooks.” My confusion was not total. On looking at the payor — the Sociale Verzekeringsbank, or Social Insurance Bank — I nodded with sage if partial understanding. Our paths had crossed several times before. I have two daughters, you see. Every quarter, the SVB quietly drops $665 into my account with the one-word explanation kinderbijslag, or child benefit. As the SVB’s Web site cheerily informed me when I went there in bewilderment after the first deposit: “Babies are expensive. Nappies, clothes, the pram . . . all these things cost money. The Dutch government provides for child benefit to help you with the costs of bringing up your child.” Any parents living in the country receive quarterly payments until their children turn 18. And thanks to a recently passed law, the state now gives parents a hand in paying for school materials.
Payments arrive from other sources too. Friends who have small children report that the government can reimburse as much as 70 percent of the cost of day care, which totals around $14,000 per child per year. In late May of last year an unexpected $4,265 arrived in my account: vakantiegeld. Vacation money. This money materializes in the bank accounts of virtually everyone in the country just before the summer holidays; you get from your employer an amount totaling 8 percent of your annual salary, which is meant to cover plane tickets, surfing lessons, tapas: vacations. And we aren’t talking about a mere “paid vacation” — this is on top of the salary you continue to receive during the weeks you’re off skydiving or snorkeling. And by law every employer is required to give a minimum of four weeks’ vacation. For that matter, even if you are unemployed you still receive a base amount of vakantiegeld from the government, the reasoning being that if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job.
Such things are easy for an American to ridicule; you don’t have to be a Fox News commentator to sneer at what, in the midst of a global financial crisis, seems like Socialism Gone Wild. And stating it as I’ve done above — we’ll consume half your salary and every once in a while toss you a few euros in return — it seems like a pretty raw deal.
But there’s more to it. First, as in the United States, income tax in the Netherlands is a bendy concept: with a good accountant, you can rack up deductions and exploit loopholes. And while the top income-tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, the numbers are a bit misleading. “People coming from the U.S. to the Netherlands focus on that difference, and on that 52 percent,” said Constanze Woelfle, an American accountant based in the Netherlands whose clients are mostly American expats. “But consider that the Dutch rate includes social security, which in the U.S. is an additional 6.2 percent. Then in the U.S. you have state and local taxes, and much higher real estate taxes. If you were to add all those up, you would get close to the 52 percent.”

House Passes Credit Cardholders' Bill Of Rights

The Huffington Post has a great piece by Caleb Gibson on the details of the bill and why even more is needed:

Pushback against egregiously unfair lending practices in the credit card market is mounting. And it looks like Washington is finally getting the message. On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights by a landslide vote of 357-70. The bill, championed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), would enact basic standards that eliminate some of the most exploitative practices in the business. Card companies will no longer be able to retroactively raise the interest rate on existing balances--except under limited circumstances, such as a 30-day delinquency. (This will put an end to "any time, any reason" rate increases) When the credit card companies do increase an interest rate, they will be required to give customers 45 days' notice. In addition, interest may only be tallied on balances in the current billing cycle, statements will be mailed earlier in the billing cycle, payments will always be allocated to the portion of the balance with the highest interest rate, and hefty fees for over-limit transactions will be banned unless cardholders explicitly permit it ahead of time.
[snip]
Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, there is a 12-month lag between enactment and implementation. Congress is essentially outlawing these practices as harmful to consumers and then allowing them to continue for a year. Indebted Americans cannot wait a year for fair treatment when every day brings more bad news for the family bottom line.

Gibson works for the excellent advocacy organization Demos.

Kindle 2 Is Cheaper Than You Think

Apparently, Kindle 2 owners are paying double the cost:

ISuppli estimated that the cost of parts to build the Kindle 2 totals $176.83, with $60 going toward an E-Ink Corp. display and $39.50 toward a module from Novatel Wireless Inc. to permit wireless downloads over Sprint Nextel Corp.'s EV-DO data network.
ISuppli believes that, when including manufacturing and battery costs, the device costs $185.49 to build.

Maybe it can be justified as a convenience fee?

Builders As Lenders

This is an interesting editorial in the New York Times about an unmentioned cause of the housing crisis in California: home builders doubling as lenders.

The industry promotes the practice as a one-stop-shopping convenience that saves time and money. Too many homeowners found it did neither. They were pressured into buying overpriced homes with interest-only loans that they didn’t understand and couldn’t handle. When the bubble burst in Southern California, that was it for their dreams and homes.

Homeowner advocates say that the system is rigged against the consumer, riddled with inherent conflicts of interest. What in-house appraiser is going to scrupulously and honestly assess a home’s value, especially if the market begins to tank? If a lender is connected to a home builder, it is going to try to find any way possible to make that loan, since making that loan means selling that house.

Progressive Quiz

The Center for American Progress has an interesting quiz to determine how progressive you may be. There are 40 questions and you answer them by responding on a scale of 1 to 10. Only takes about 10 minutes so give it a try. My score: 339.

Sac Bee:Citizenship Of Undocumented Immigrants To Be Challenged At The Polls

The Sacramento Bee is reporting that a conservative group wants to vote to make it harder for a child born in the United States to undocumented parents to have citizenship.

The initiative, which proponents tout as the California Taxpayer Protection Act, is aimed for the June 2010 statewide ballot.
For undocumented parents to obtain the new "Certificate of Live Birth with Foreign Parent," they would have to be photographed, fingerprinted and pay an additional $75 fee.
Beyond the birth certificates, the measure also would limit welfare payments for the children of undocumented immigrants, as well as require that any application for public benefits submitted by illegal immigrants be handed over to federal authorities.
[snip]
The initiative, according to the proponents' Web site, appears to be the first step to try to end citizenship rights for children of illegal immigrants.
That would bump up against the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that every child born in the United States is a U.S. citizen.
"Our citizen's movement will launch the national debate we need to bring an END to 'birth tourism' and AUTOMATIC CITIZENSHIP in the United States of America," the site reads.
The initiative itself "does not say that," noted Dolz, who said that "personally we might feel one way or another."

I'm not sure how this is possible considering what the 14th Amendment states:

Amendment XIV: Civil rights
The Fourteenth Amendment was proposed on June 13, 1866 and ratified on July 9, 1868.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Seems clear cut to me. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Easy Home Gardening

Tina McCarthy at ecosalon.com lists the ten easiest vegetables to grow at home. She offers a lot of information regarding optimal pH levels, depth of seeds and watering tips.

Do The "Teabaggers" Know What Teabagging Means?

Republican citizens across the nation are forming "Tea Parties" in opposition to the Democratic budget. I guess they think this is a clever reference to the Boston Tea Party during the American Revolution. The major problem with this is that the Boston Tea Party was based on the idea of taxation without representation. The budget proposed by the Democratic majority has middle-class tax cuts and only raises taxes on the top 3% of the population to Clinton-era levels. Also, Republican citizens have representation - it's called Congress. Yeah, there are fewer Republicans but that is due to the voting decisions by citizens during the 2008 election. We, as a nation, voted for more Democrats to represent us.
So, what does the Republican minority do? Nothing. Well, I shouldn't say nothing. They voted against the stimulus. They voted against the budget. They came up with an alternative budget that offers tax cuts to the rich. They support "tea parties". People are sending teabags to D.C. and Fox News is promoting "teabagging". This is a joke. Or, more sadly, it is not a joke. It is the Republican opposition's grand idea to have people get together and complain about taxing the rich. The bright idea is "teabagging".
Look up the definition of teabagging here. Then watch the video below of Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie Cox trying desperately to take this seriously. An "A" for effort, for sure.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Transcript

MADDOW: The Republican Party controls no real levers of power in Washington. They have yet to settle on any national leadership at all. They did come up with a Republican budget proposal in the House of Representatives, and 38 House Republicans even voted against that.
The GOP, in other words, is clearly in exile. But the conservative movement has found a reason to live. They have found something about which they feel very positive, something which they are ready to rally around. I speak of course of teabagging.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST, “ON THE RECORD”: Angry taxpayers, or at least some of them, are taking to the streets in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party.
BRET BAIER, HOST, “SPECIAL REPORT”: More than 250 locations in all 50 states will hold rallies April 15th.
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST, “YOUR WORLD”: Americans sick of government ballots and wasteful spending, taking their message to the street and it‘s spreading fast. We‘re all over it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They‘re going to try and send teabags to D.C.
D.C. - teabag the White House.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Teabag the fools in D.C.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Teabagging. After spending weeks mailing teabags to members of Congress, conservative activists next week say they plan to hold tea parties to proverbially teabag the White House. And they don‘t want to teabag alone, if that‘s even possible. They want you to start teabagging, too.
They want you to teabag Obama on Twitter. They want you to, quote, “send your teabag and teabag Obama on Facebook.” They want you to teabag liberal dems before they teabag you. And all this nonconsensual conservative teabagging is just the start.
All across America on Tax Day, Republican members of Congress are lining up to speak at teabag tea party events. Even Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina is getting in on the hot teabagging action.
Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, previously most famous for his self-admitted very serious sin with prostitution services - he wants to give teabagging the Senate seal of approval. He has asked the Senate to commemorate the day of anti-Obama protests in law.
In terms of - now, no laughing offset or I will lose it. I‘m only barely making it through this as it is. All right. Ready? In terms of media, our colleagues at Fox News are not just reporting on teabagging, they are officially promoting it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GLENN BECK, HOST, “GLENN BECK”: Celebrate with Fox News. This is what we‘re doing next Wednesday. We want to be with you and your tea party, if you have a tea party any where that we‘re not covering one of those, E-mail me at glennbeck@foxnews.com. We may cover your tea party live on April 15th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Fox News Channel has described the Tax Day events on screen as FNC Tax Day tea parties. And they are dispatching some of their hosts to take part of in the teabagging. But amid the celebration of inchoate right-wing bad feelings and the denunciation of taxes, spare a thought for the man who you‘d think might have the most to gain from harnessing the power of mass-organized public teabagging.
That of course would be Republican Party chairman Michael Steele. Mr. Steele apparently asked to address a teabag tea party event in Chicago next week. But organizers turned him down, saying he is welcome to show up at the event but not welcome to speak. The organizers said they did think the event would be, quote, “a fantastic time for Chairman Steele to listen to what we have to say.” Though, presumably, if he is being teabagged while doing so, the message will be a bit muffled.
Joining us now, Air America‘s national correspondent and “Daily Beast” contributor, Ana Marie Cox. Ana Marie, thank you for being here.
ANA MARIE COX, AIR AMERICA NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT/”DAILY BEAST”
CONTRIBUTOR: Good to be here, Rachel.
MADDOW: The Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation, right? The protests planned for Tax Day are about the plan to go back to the Clinton-era tax rates for rich people. Is that the purpose of these and is this a parallel they‘re trying to draw?
COX: Well, it‘s the parallel they‘re trying to draw, Rachel. But you know, it is true that teabaggers are grossly unrepresented in Congress. I‘m trying to work on that personally. But one can only do so much. I think David Vitter really is the right spokesperson for the movement, though.
MADDOW: Well, that‘s a point well-taken and which I was afraid to allude to. And that‘s why you‘re here because you‘re braver than I am. So many Republicans are addressing the Tax Day teabag parties. Michael Steele has been rejected. Is he not considered a true teabagger by the movement?
COX: Well, you know, he said in that “GQ” interview that he thought teabagging wasn‘t a choice, that you couldn‘t change whether or not you would be a teabagger. I think the teabaggers now really believe that it‘s something they‘ve chosen to do, that they could change if they wanted to. But they won‘t.
MADDOW: Well, in terms of what‘s going to happen on Tax Day and what‘s been happening with the teabagging of Congress, which has been happening through the mail, which I didn‘t even know was possible, I sort of never believed you can be held responsible for the people who say they agree with you.
So we had this enthusiasm expressed for the teabagging events by white power groups like storm front and by the secessionists and by the armed militias. And I don‘t think you can really hold the teabaggers responsible for that. But is there a radical message here? I mean, the whole idea here is about revolution, sort of, right?
COX: Well, yes. I mean, I think that the people - the teabaggers would like it to be more radical than it is. But the fact is people have been teabagging for a long time and they probably will continue to do so.
MADDOW: Fair enough. Most of the energy of these events seems anti-Obama. You saw all, you know, the Facebook and Twitter things, “Teabag Obama. Teabag Obama.” But then, there‘s the rejection of Michael Steele and I wonder if there‘s also a chance that this sort of gets channeled into being teabag Arlen Specter, teabag John McCain, against Republicans who voted for any of the bailouts.
COX: Well, who wouldn‘t want to teabag John McCain - that‘s all I have to say. But I really think actually it‘s probably going to be more directed at Obama. And this is actually very much a part of, I think, the midterm strategy. You know, it‘s going to be teabagging like 24/7 when it comes to midterms.
MADDOW: Well, is there an effort to divide the conservative movement from the Republican Party once again, though? Because there is something about the origin of the current Republican Party that owes very much to the conservative movement which was not organized within the party. It was sort of organized without and took it over.
I wonder if they‘ve trying to cleave themselves again and say, “No, we‘re teabaggers, and you‘re not. And we‘re, therefore, the future of the right wing”?
COX: You could say there‘s a big split between the teabags. I think that you‘re right. I think the social teabaggers and sort of the fiscal teabaggers are really starting to move apart from each other.
MADDOW: Actually I just heard from standards we‘re not allowed to talk about fiscal teabags. But thank you for bringing it up. Ana Marie Cox of Air America Radio and “The Daily Beast,” it is always wonderful to have you on the show, particularly more tonight than ever. Thanks.
COX: All right. Thanks, Rachel.

Making Work Pay

Have you noticed the extra money in your paycheck yet?

Since the enactment of the Recovery Act, American workers have seen increases in their paychecks reflecting the new credit and the Administration’s commitment to the middle class. IRS guidance asks that, by April 1, employers must have instituted the lower withholdings for their employees.

The Making Work Pay tax credit is the tax reduction centerpiece of The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (The Recovery Act) of 2009. The credit provides the most households ever with a tax cut—over 110 million or about 95 percent of working families.

[snip]

For 2009 and 2010, the “Making Work Pay” tax credit provides a refundable tax credit of 6.2 percent of earned income up to $400 for working individuals and $800 for married taxpayers.
Families should see at least a $65 dollar per month increase in their take home pay.
The credit will phase out for taxpayers with adjusted gross income in excess of $150,000 for married couples filing jointly and $75,000 for other workers, and thus is fully phased out for taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income in excess of $190,000 for married workers and $95,000 for other workers.

Our President wants to help those of us who are not rich. This will take time to get used to.

FT:Is There A Bit Of OCD In Us All?

The Financial Times has an interesting piece about obsessive compulsive disorder. Richard Thomkins goes into depth about the history of the condition, celebrities with OCD, and the different stories of people who are dealing with it.

But even those statistics could be only part of the picture. According to a paper appearing in last month’s American Journal of Psychiatry, an estimated 21-25 per cent of individuals could be said to have borderline OCD, meaning they have obsessions or compulsions that meet at least some of the diagnostic criteria. Admittedly, more than one-third of these people are also suffering from another anxiety disorder or depression – but according to the paper, that still leaves an estimated 13-17 per cent of otherwise “normal” people – about one in 15 of us – suffering from at least some symptoms of OCD.
So, what is this disorder? And could someone you know be at least partly afflicted?
The term “OCD” has recently displaced “anal” in contemporary slang as a way of describing people who are more than usually meticulous, pernickety or pedantic – the sort of people who are never satisfied unless things are just right. If this reflected a greater understanding of obsessive compulsive disorder, it might be no bad thing. In fact, it has simply increased the degree of misunderstanding by confusing two different conditions with almost the same name. “Anal” people do not usually have OCD at all; they simply have an obsessive compulsive personality type, meaning they’re a bit fussy. People with OCD, in contrast, are suffering from a serious anxiety disorder that greatly impinges on their lives.
While being “anal” can be an asset in some circumstances, as in a job that requires attention to detail, there are no advantages in having OCD at any level. All it does is cause distress by introducing obsessive, irrational anxieties into the sufferer’s mind, typically involving perceived dangers or appalling images of one sort or another. A defining characteristic of OCD is that sufferers believe just thinking about bad things will make them happen unless they act to prevent it; so they feel compelled to carry out little rituals which to other people look odd and unnecessary but which to them have the magical power to counteract the perceived threat. Typically, the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviour reinforce one another in a vicious circle, causing the condition to become ever worse until it starts to interfere seriously with the sufferer’s life.
Although there are many possible obsessions, the most common of them fall into a surprisingly small number of categories. The best known is Howard Hughes syndrome – the fear of dirt and germs, commonly linked with compulsive handwashing and cleaning. Another common one is the fear of harming others or coming to harm oneself, often accompanied by compulsive safety checking – repeatedly making sure the door is locked, the cooker is turned off and the iron is unplugged. Many sufferers are obsessed with a need for symmetry, which results in compulsive rearranging of things. Others are tormented by thoughts that they will carry out some horrifying act of a violent, sexual or blasphemous nature, and often try to block out or neutralise these thoughts with mental rituals such as counting or the repetition of certain words or phrases.

[snip]

Obsessed, obsessive and obsession are over-used words. People talk about someone being obsessed with recycling or being an obsessive gambler; there is even a perfume called Obsession. But it is not enough to be preoccupied or infatuated with something to qualify as an OCD sufferer. With OCD, the obsessions have to be unwanted, unwelcome and anxiety-provoking – they can never bring satisfaction or pleasure. They also have to cause a repetitive behaviour or ritual aimed at preventing some dreaded event or situation, and this behaviour must be irrational or excessive. On top of that, the obsessions and compulsions have to interfere significantly with the sufferer’s life and/or take up at least one hour a day.
These criteria are laid down in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published in the US and used to a varying extent around the world. But as Mataix-Cols points out, “The definition’s entirely arbitrary. It’s just some blokes getting together in America and saying that if you spend more than one hour a day doing rituals, and if those rituals are distressing and interfere with your everyday life, then you’ve got it. If not, you don’t. But what we’ve found is that there’s a very large prevalence of OCD symptoms in people who don’t fit this definition.”

The personal stories in this piece are extraordinary. I was unaware of the true intensity of the disease for some people. The entire article is worth checking out.

Where's The Beef?! GOP Budget Plan Lacks Details

So, the Republicans were called out by the President on Tuesday for criticizing his budget plan without having an alternative. Today, House Minority Leader John Boehner tried to announce their budget plan. According to The Huffington Post, Rep. Boehner had a hard time backing up the 19-page proposal:

Reporters -- mainstream, liberal and conservative -- greeted the Republican document with a collective scoff.
"Are you going to have any further details on this today?" the first asked.
"On what?" asked Boehner.
"There's no detail in here," noted the reporter.
Answered Boehner: "This is a blueprint for where we're going. Are you asking about some other document?"
A second reporter followed up: "What about some numbers? What about the out-year deficit? What about balancing the budget? How are you going to do it?"
"We'll have the alternative budget details next week," promised Boehner. Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had wisely departed the room after offering his opening remarks. ("Today's Republican road-to-recovery is the latest in a series of GOP initiatives, solutions and plans," he had offered.)
A third reporter asked Boehner about the Republican goal for deficit reduction, noting President Obama aimed to cut it in half in five years. "What's your goal?"
"To do better," said Boehner.
"How? How much?"
"You'll see next week."
"Wait. Why not today? Because he asked you to present a budget."
"Now, hold on," said Boehner. "The president came to Capitol Hill and laid out his blueprint for his budget during the State of the Union. He didn't offer his details until days later."
"In general, where do you see cuts coming?" the Huffington Post asked.
"We'll wait and see next week," he said.
Another reporter reminded Boehner that he has "criticized Democrats for throwing together a stimulus quickly and nobody knew what they were voting on. Are you saying that your budget will be unveiled on the same day that the House is expected to vote on it?"
"No, I expect it'll be out next week," he said, though the House is expected to vote on the budget next week. "But understand that a budget really is a one-page document. It's just a bunch of numbers."
Though not today, of course.

This is our fault, of course. We, the non-politicians, think that a budget plan should have budget details. You know, numbers and dates and whatnot. Silly us. What the republicans did was offer a plan to eventually show us a budget. That was the idea all along, I'm sure. It's nice that they have the time for wordplay. So cute.

Turley Talks To Maddow About War Crimes

Jonathan Turley talks to Rachel Maddow about President Obama's resistance to war crime prosecutions of the Bush Administration.

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Here is the transcript of the conversation:

Joining us now is Jonathan Turley, professor of Constitutional Law at George Washington University Law School. Professor Turley, thanks so much for coming on the show tonight.

JONATHAN TURLEY, PROFESSOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, GEORGE WASHINGTON

UNIVERSITY: Hi, Rachel.

MADDOW: So President Obama says all the right things to “60 Minutes” about the Bush administration‘s torture policy. And the Obama administration is planning on releasing these torture memos, repudiating the policies, promising to work to change them going forward.

In terms of lining themselves up with the Constitution, how substantive are these moves? Where would you put the Obama administration‘s policies on these issues as we speak tonight?

TURLEY: Quite frankly, I have to put it very, very low. Yes, the fact that he is having a dialogue with Dick Cheney that he finds irritating is understandable. I mean, Vice President Cheney comes off as sort of the cranky uncle you can‘t get rid of at Thanksgiving dinner.

But there is more to it than that. And the reason Obama seems very irritated by it is that he is responsible for the conversation. Because he‘s the one that is blocking a criminal investigation of Vice President Cheney and President Bush and other Bush officials. It is like a bank robber calling up and asking him to debate bank robbery.

President Obama would say, “Listen, fellow. That is a crime.”

But of course, he hasn‘t said that with Dick Cheney. He can‘t say that.

Instead, he says, “How long will it take for us to reconcile our values?”

These are not just our values. They are the law.

He should be saying what you are describing is a crime. And if he would allow an investigation to well-defined war crimes, Dick Cheney would not be making public statements. He would be surrounded by criminal defense counsel.

And yet the president refuses to allow the investigation of war crimes. And we just found out the international Red Cross, also the definitive body on torture, found that this was a real torture program. And yet, the president is having a debate with the guy over whether it was good policy.

MADDOW: In this case, we keep running up against politics versus law, politics versus law. For the legal case here, is all the president needs to do - the only thing he needs to do is get out of the way of prosecutors who would take this as a matter of law regardless of the politics here?

TURLEY: Rachel, let‘s be honest here. It is just as bad to prevent the investigation and prosecution of a war crime as its commission because you become part of it. There‘s no question about a war crime here. There is no need for a truth commission.

You know, some people say, what do you need, a film? We actually had films of us torturing people. So this would be the shortest investigation in history. You have Bush officials who have said that we tortured people. We have interrogators who have said we tortured people. The Red Cross has said it. A host of international organizations have said it.

What is President Obama waiting for? And I‘m afraid the answer is a convenient moment. The fact is he has been told by his adviser that it would be grossly unpopular to investigate and prosecute Bush officials. Well, that is a perfectly horrible reason not to follow principle.

When we talk about values, the most important one is that the president has to enforce the laws. He can‘t pick and choose who would be popular to prosecute.

Should he be appointing a special prosecutor? What should he be doing?

TURLEY: He should be appointing a special prosecutor. There is no question about that. This is the most well-defined and publicly known crime I have seen in my lifetime. There is no debate about it. There is no ambiguity. It is well known.

You‘ve got people involved who have basically admitted the elements of a war crime that we are committed to prosecuting. We don‘t need a truth and reconciliation commission because we are already reconciled to the rule of law. There is nothing to reconcile to.

What the people have to reconcile are the people who broke the law. They need to reconcile with the law. And he happens to be having a debate with one of those people as if they are talking about some quaint notion of policy.

MADDOW: I wonder, ultimately, if the fact that Dick Cheney continues to talk about this issue and continues to promote it as if it is a solution and something the Obama administration ought to feel ashamed for not having continued will ultimately be the thing that creates the political room the Obama administration feels that they need in order to proceed legally. They may just need to get that mad.

TURLEY: Rachel, I wish that were true. But you know, it is sort of like every great villain in every bad movie, dialoguing to prevent something happening. You know, Cheney is dialoguing. He‘s trying - the more he talks in public, the more he makes this look like a policy and not a legal issue which is exactly what he wants.

And the reason that the Obama administration is now pulling back on the truth commission is because they have finally realized that if the truth commission actually investigates, it will be the shortest investigation in history. There is no question there is a war crime.

And at the end, people are going to wonder how and why did you block this? It is like a live torpedo in the water and it is going to come back and hit him. And that is why President Obama is beginning to pull back.

The easiest thing to do is get out of the way, say, “You know what, this is not about values. This is about the law. I took an oath to God to enforce the law. And you know what, fellow? You are going to be a target of an investigation. And maybe you are not guilty. Maybe you are. But it is not for me to decide it. It‘s for a special prosecutor.”

MADDOW: Jonathan Turley, professor of Constitutional Law at George Washington Law School, thank you for joining us tonight.

TURLEY: Thank you, Rachel.

HuffPo: NY AG Cuomo Details AIG Bonuses

This made me angry all over again:

• The top recipient received more than $6.4 million;
• The top seven bonus recipients received more than $4 million each;
• The top ten bonus recipients received a combined $42 million;
• 22 individuals received bonuses of $2 million or more, and combined they received more than $72 million;
• 73 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more; and
• Eleven of the individuals who received "retention" bonuses of $1 million or more are no longer working at AIG, including one who received $4.6 million;
Again, these payments were all made to individuals in the subsidiary whose performance led to crushing losses and the near failure of AIG. Thus, last week, AIG made more than 73 millionaires in the unit which lost so much money that it brought the firm to its knees, forcing taxpayer bailout. Something is deeply wrong with this outcome. I hope the Committee will address it head on.
We have also now obtained the contracts under which AIG decided to make these payments. The contracts shockingly contain a provision that required most individuals' bonuses to be 100% of their 2007 bonuses. Thus, in the Spring of last year, AIG chose to lock in bonuses for 2008 at 2007 levels despite obvious signs that 2008 performance would be disastrous in comparison to the year before. My Office has thus begun to closely examine the circumstances under which the plan was created.

My first job was in 1991. I worked in an office with my mom. Since then I have been without work for a combined total of about 2 years off and on in my life. My point? I still have not made $1 million. Also, any pay raises I receive are based off of a job well done - not profit-losing idiocy and greed. Furthermore, I have friends who have taken lieu days and pay decreases despite how hard they work everyday. But AIG executives - working or not - get bonuses for bringing down the financial system. Disgusting.

2008 Chargers Season Inspires Possible Rule Changes

Do you remember the call by Ed Hochuli during the Chargers/Broncos game last season that caused alot of uproar? It turns out, the NFL might change the rules to make sure that never happens again. (H/T)

During Week 2 of the 2008 season, referee Ed Hochuli admittedly made a bad call that cost the Chargers a win, ruling that Denver Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler threw an incomplete pass on a play that should have been called a fumble.
Under current instant-replay rules, Hochuli's call was not reviewable because of a line of thinking that players stop playing when a play is whistled dead, which makes it difficult to tell which team would have recovered the ball.
The Broncos went on to win that game, nearly costing the Chargers their AFC West crown. The league's competition committee will consider the change ---- allowing instant replay to determine whether a quarterback fumbles or throws an incomplete pass ---- among other proposals and league matters at the NFL annual meetings beginning Sunday in Dana Point. The meetings conclude Wednesday.

As a Charger fan, that call was devastating. I remember feeling angry when Hochuli announced that the Broncos could keep the ball. Then nauseous when they scored the touchdown. Hochuli apologized profusely and even answered angry emails personally, but the situation was horrible.

Another proposed change involves the draft:

The Chargers, who won their division with an 8-8 record and advanced to the AFC divisional round by beating Indianapolis, will draft well ahead of the Colts based on their regular-season record. The Chargers own the No. 16 slot in the draft, while the Colts, who finished 12-4, will pick 27th.
That circumstance won't happen beginning in 2010 if the proposed draft bylaw is passed. The new proposal, which will not affect this year's draft, states that the top 20 slots of non-playoff teams will be determined by regular-season record. Playoff teams, however, will be reseeded in slots No. 21-32 based on postseason performance.

Seems fair. However, I am glad it will not affect the upcoming draft. Selfish? Yes. Biased? Absolutely. Go Chargers!

Reich: Real Scandal of AIG

Robert Reich explains on his blog the true reason so many of us feel angry and betrayed about the AIG bonuses.

The real scandal of AIG isn't just that American taxpayers have so far committed $170 billion to the giant insurer because it is thought to be too big to fail -- the most money ever funneled to a single company by a government since the dawn of capitalism -- nor even that AIG's notoriously failing executives, at the very unit responsible for the catastrophic credit-default swaps at the very center of the debacle, are planning to give themselves over $100 million in bonuses. The scandal is that even at this late date, even in a new administration dedicated to doing it all differently, Americans still have so little say over what is happening with our money.
The administration is said to have been outraged when it heard of the bonus plan last week. Apparently Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner told AIG's chairman, Edward Liddy (who was installed at the insistence of the Treasury, in the first place) that the bonuses should not be paid. But it turns out that most will be paid anyway, because, according to AIG, the firm is legally obligated to pay them. The bonuses are part of employee contracts negotiated before the bailouts. And, in any event, Liddy explained, AIG needs to be able to retain talent.
AIG's arguments are absurd on their face. Had AIG gone into chapter 11 bankruptcy or been liquidated, as it would have without government aid, no bonuses would ever be paid (they would have had a lower priority under bankruptcy law that AIG's debts to other creditors); indeed, AIG's executives would have long ago been on the street. And any mention of the word "talent" in the same sentence as "AIG" or "credit default swaps" would be laughable if laughing weren't already so expensive.
This sordid story of government helplessness in the face of massive taxpayer commitments illustrates better than anything to date why the government should take over any institution that's "too big to fail" and which has cost taxpayers dearly. Such institutions are no longer within the capitalist system because they are no longer accountable to the market. To whom should they be accountable? As long as taxpayers effectively own a large portion of them, they should be accountable to the government.
But if our very own Secretary of the Treasury doesn't even learn of the bonuses until months after AIG has decided to pay them, and cannot make stick his decision that they should not be paid, AIG is not even accountable to the government. That means AIG's executives -- using $170 billion of our money, so far -- are accountable to no one.

Happy Pi Day!

Rachel Maddow shows her awesome geekness.

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