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Blogs Eric Reads
Archive for March, 2008
Divisive Democratic Primary Helps McCain
According to a new Gallup poll, the probable winner of the Democratic presidential primary is John McCain.
A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination. This is particularly true for Hillary Clinton supporters, more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.
This doesn’t bode well for the presidential race or for the down-ticket candidates who might be seen as tied to the “wrong” Democratic nominee.
The upshot of all of this is that some of these people might realize how full of shit they are by the time November rolls around:
It is unknown how many Democrats would actually carry through and vote for a Republican next fall if their preferred candidate does not become the Democratic nominee. The Democratic campaign is in the heat of battle at the moment, but by November, there will have been several months of attempts to build party unity around the eventual nominee — and a focus on reasons why the Republican nominee needs to be defeated.
Additionally, some threat of deserting the party always takes place as party nomination battles are waged, and this threat can dissipate. For example, in answer to a recent Gallup question, 11% of Republicans said they would vote for the Democratic candidate or a third-party candidate next fall if McCain does not choose a vice president who is considerably more conservative than he is. (And another 9% said they just wouldn’t vote.) These results suggest that it may be normal for some voters to claim early on in the process — perhaps out of frustration — that they will desert their party if certain things do not happen to their liking. And it may be equally likely that they fall back into line by the time of the general election. It is worth noting that in Gallup’s historical final pre-election polls from 1992 to 2004, 10% or less of Republicans and Democrats typically vote for the other party’s presidential candidate.
I hope so. It would be really, really terrible for this country if John “100 Years of Glorious War” McCain wins in 2008 because we can’t get over our stupid internal squabbling.
Cheney on 4,000 Dead Americans: “They Volunteered”
To honor the memory of the now-over four thousand Americans who have been killed in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney reminded us that the person who has suffered the most because of the Iraq War is George W. Bush.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked what effect the grim milestone of at least 4,000 U.S. deaths in the five-year Iraq war might have on the nation.
Noting the burden placed on military families, the vice president said the biggest burden is carried by President George W. Bush, who made the decision to commit US troops to war, and reminded the public that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty.
…
“The president carries the biggest burden, obviously,” Cheney said. “He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm’s way for the rest of us.”
Despicable. In honor of our soldiers, the Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney compiled this mosaic of the man who “carries the biggest burden” for the Iraq War and the man who wants to bear that burden for him.
Government Loses NIH Patient Data
Last week, government contractors broke into the presidential candidates’ passport records. Before that, Social Security numbers of visitors to federal nuclear weapons labs were stolen. A year and a half ago, the VA lost insurance data on millions of veterans and active service members. You would think that after so many incidents, the government would get better at securing personal information, right?
Wrong. They did it again.
A government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen in February, potentially exposing seven years’ worth of clinical trial data, including names, medical diagnoses and details of the patients’ heart scans. The information was not encrypted, in violation of the government’s data-security policy.
NIH officials made no public comment about the theft and did not send letters notifying the affected patients of the breach until last Thursday — almost a month later. They said they hesitated because of concerns that they would provoke undue alarm.
…
“The shocking part here is we now have personally identifiable information — name and age — linked to clinical data,” said Leslie Harris, executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology. “If somebody does not want to share the fact that they’re in a clinical trial or the fact they’ve got a heart disease, this is very, very serious. The risk of identity theft and of revealing highly personal information about your health are closely linked here.”
The laptop contained patients’ names, dates of birth, and medical records, so nobody thought the situation warranted an immediate response:
According to a chronology provided by Dambrauskas, three offices that focus on information security within NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services were contacted within three days of the theft.
But officials did not report it to the NHLBI Institutional Review Board — whose job is to protect the well-being of patients in research — until Feb. 29, six days after the theft. That put the matter on the board’s agenda for its next meeting, on March 4, according to the board’s chairman, Alison Wichman.
“We didn’t feel that subjects were at immediate risk,” she said. “We felt that we had some time to be thorough in our evaluation. In the end, that may or may not have been appropriate.”
NIH spokesman John T. Burklow said that during the meeting, the board had “long and intense” discussions about what to do, as “there were concerns about not causing patients undue alarm.” The board nonetheless voted unanimously to ask Arai to draft a notification letter, Wichman said.
At its next meeting, on March 18, the board reviewed the letter. Two days later, it gave final approval.
Glad to see that the internal bureaucracy of NIH wasn’t disrupted by this breach of patient privacy. The one good thing that’s coming about as a result of this theft is that NIH is going to start implementing data security measures… that were issued by OMB in 2006 (PDF). Better late than never, I suppose. I wonder how many other federal agencies are noncompliant?
Idaho Politician Changes Name to “Pro-Life”
When Marvin P. Richardson ran for governor of Idaho in 2006, he was told that he could not have his middle name–”Pro-Life”–on the ballot because the state prohibits putting slogans on ballots. For his upcoming run for retiring Sn. Larry Craig’s seat, Richardson “solved” his ballot problem by legally changing his name to Pro-Life Richardson. Now, Idaho has no choice but to put “Pro-Life” on the ballot because there’s nothing else to call him! I’m sure he’ll also make quite a splash the next time he wears a name tag, too.
Ironically, the only person to publicly express his displeasure at Pro-Life’s new name is David Ripley, executive director of Idaho Chooses Life. Why is Ripley annoyed? Because he’s concerned that his fellow anti-choicers are stupid:
David Ripley, executive director of Idaho Chooses Life, says he knows and respects Pro-Life but fears some voters may think Pro-Life is a position rather than a candidate and mistakenly mark their ballots both for him and for another anti-abortion candidate for the Senate, thus nullifying their choices.
“I’m pretty concerned about it,” Ripley said. “I think that could cause a lot of confusion out there … (Its) more likely to undermine the pro-life movement by having a lot of pro-life votes discounted.”
Current Idaho polling doesn’t look too great for lone Democratic challenger Larry LaRocco (although they didn’t poll him against Pro-Life Richardson). Could ballot confusion and mistaken votes swing a few percentage points his way?
4,000
A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000.
The grim milestone came on the same day that rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence.
USAF Pushes for Liquid Coal
The U.S. Air Force is redefining alternative energy. In an attempt to wean itself off of foreign oil, the Air Force wants the next generation of jets to run off of synthetic fuel derived from liquid coal.
The Air Force wants to build at its Malmstrom base in central Montana the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities that would convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning synthetic fuel.
Air Force officials said the plants could help neutralize a national security threat by tapping into the country’s abundant coal reserves. And by offering itself as a partner in the Malmstrom plant, the Air Force hopes to prod Wall Street investors - nervous over coal’s role in climate change - to sink money into similar plants nationwide.
“We’re going to be burning fossil fuels for a long time, and there’s three times as much coal in the ground as there are oil reserves,” said Air Force Assistant Secretary William Anderson. “Guess what? We’re going to burn coal.”
The real winner in all this is Big Coal, which suffered a huge setback after the Senate stripped liquid coal measures from the 2007 energy bill. Unfortunately for all of us, the loser here is our planet.
1) Liquid Coal is Not the Answer to Lower Emissions: Coal-based fuel would nearly double global warming pollution per gallon as compared with the petroleum-based fuels we use today. For example, using coal-based fuel in a Honda Civic would double that vehicle’s carbon dioxide emissions, making it equivalent to a Hummer H3 running on conventional gasoline.
2) Liquid Coal Production Could Destroy Ecosystems and Communities: Substituting 10 percent of our current oil use with liquid coal would mean 40 percent more coal mining. We already know the destructive effects of surface coal strip mining, include polluted air and water, as well ravaged landscapes. The most damaging is mountaintop removal coal mining that has already resulted in the destruction of hundreds of mountains and buried or polluted thousands of streams in Appalachia. Additionally, just producing liquid coal requires an inordinate amount of water — a resource especially scarce in the Western part of the country.
3) Liquid Coal is a Poor Investment: Just one liquid coal plant costs $7 billion dollars to build — and the American people could foot most the bill! Moreover, every public or private dollar invested in liquid coal is one less dollar available for investment in efficient vehicles, improved transportation systems, smart growth, and sustainably-made renewable fuels.
Compared to other proposed alternative energy sources, liquid coal just doesn’t stack up:
“We need to wean ourselves off oil, but we should replace it with the cleanest alternatives possible,” said Patrician Monahan, author of the report and deputy director of UCS’s Clean Vehicles Program. “Let’s not trade one bad habit for another.”
Liquid coal, for example, can release 80 percent more global warming pollution than gasoline, the report found. Corn ethanol, conversely, could be either more polluting or less than gasoline, depending on how the corn is grown and the ethanol is produced. On average, corn ethanol can reduce emissions about 20 percent, though there is uncertainty due to differing land use practices. The cleanest alternative, cellulosic ethanol from grasses or wood chips, could reduce emissions by more than 85 percent.
“Biofuels have a Jekyll and Hyde reputation depending on what study you read and what assumptions you make,” Monahan said. “But liquid coal is a loser no matter how you look at it. We need to set standards so farmers know the right way to produce cleaner fuels.”
For the more visual thinkers among us, this chart makes the case against liquid coal:
The Air Force’s official press release on liquid coal is here. You can leave a comment encouraging the Air Force to support environmentally safe energy here or send an email to the Air Force’s Energy, Environment, Safety and Occupational Health division.
Criminal Sentenced to Church
Separation of church and state? What’s that?
[Pachino] Hill, 29, of Davenport was sentenced Wednesday by Scott County Associate Judge Christine Dalton to a counseling program offered by Third Missionary Baptist Church. She also ordered him to attend church there eight consecutive Sundays, to pay a fine and be on probation for one year.
…
Prosecutor Marc Gellerman did not object to the counseling program [suggested by Hill's attorney] but did request that Hill attend church services.“I would think that listening to Rev. Kirk every Sunday would be very beneficial for Mr. Hill,” Gellerman said, adding that Hill reaching out to Kirk “says a lot.”
If Hill skips out on one of Rev. Kirk’s court-ordered sermon, he’ll end up in jail for two years.
I don’t understand how any lawyer, especially a judge, can think that this punishment is even constitutional, let alone appropriate. Is Hill even a Christian? Has he ever been to church in his life? Did Judge Dalton ask any of these questions or take any of this into account before making her ruling?
This is not a Christian nation, folks, which means that no government official should be permitted to force anyone, for any reason, into any house of worship.
(h/t TRex)
Disgrace with Dignity
Shortly after being sworn in as Governor of New York, David Paterson, with his wife at his side, admitted that he had had multiple affairs. Yeah, that’s the new New York Governor who slept around on his wife.
In today’s NYT, Gail Collins offered three rules for future disgraced politicians:
1) No wife at the humiliating press conference.
2) No blaming the affairs on wife, especially if she’s standing beside you in total contradiction of Rule No. 1.
3) All former mistresses deserve advance notice, especially if they are soon going to be asked to explain their qualifications for the $150,000 job.
Regarding rule 3, that mistress is apparently doing a great job. Still, probably better to be safe than sorry.
Update: But wait, there’s more. Via C&L:
And We’re Back!
It looks like everything survived the previously-mentioned downtime. Gimme a shout if anything’s broken.
The Real Deal on Passport Records
What do Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain have in common, other than that they’re all running for president? All three have had unauthorized breaches by State Department contractors in their personal passport files.
What’s in a “passport record,” you ask? It’s just a record of where that person traveled, right? Apparently not.
What exactly is a passport record? A passport record typically consists of applications made by a person for a U.S. passport, together with supporting evidence of U.S. citizenship. The records include details such as date and place of birth, naturalization details, family status, occupation and physical characteristics. Passport records do not include evidence of travel, such as exit and entrance stamps, visas or residence permits. Passport records are protected by the Privacy Act of 1974.
…
In addition to passport applications and the related material, the system stores investigative reports that might have been compiled in connection with granting or denying a passport, or in connection with any violation of passport criminal statutes. It also stores court documents and administrative determinations related to passports and citizenship, as well as copies of birth and baptismal certificates, medical, personal and financial reports and details on arrest warrants of the person applying for, extending or renewing a passport and a person’s Social Security number.
…
Apart from helping to determine citizenship and eligibility for a passport, the information can be used for employment applications and estate settlements, and to determine Social Security benefits. It can also be used for federal and state law enforcement investigations. Records are retrieved using an individual’s name or passport number.
This is more than just “imprudent curiosity.” This is a serious breach of all three candidates’ personal privacy. Secretary Rice has already apologized to Sen. Obama (and I’m sure apologies to Clinton and McCain are forthcoming), but that isn’t enough. This is hardly the first time that the Bush Administration has lost private personal data. All three candidates should be calling for full-scale investigations.