December 3, 2005

Big Money

Wow.

The FBI busted a few people in West Virginia for buying votes - $2,000 worth! I feel better knowing our electoral system has been safeguarded against this sort of major voter fraud.

They allege Esposito gave $2,000 in government-supplied money to a resident who had offered to bribe voters on his behalf.

They also credit the undercover sting operation for last year's guilty pleas by the sheriff of Logan County and the police chief in the coal-mining city of Logan, who both admitted to election violations.

The chief judge of West Virginia's southern federal court district condoned the tactic Thursday in an election fraud case against Perry French Harvey Jr., the man who allegedly accepted the $2,000.

Judge David Faber rejected arguments from Harvey's lawyer that the government had acted improperly by putting up a sham candidate.
Of course, the FBI will no doubt be turning it's powerful crime fighting abilities to the massive voter fraud and campaign finance abuses taking place at the national level, right? I mean, they are the Federal Bureau of Investigation...

Full AP story.

November 25, 2005

Now playing on dust radio...


Chris Whitley has passed away. My world is a lesser place without him in it.

Read his obituary. Then go buy some good music, cause life is really fucking short.


September 8, 2005

To Sum Up

In better words than mine:

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he was being prevented from acting by bureaucracy and the sheer magnitude of the situation. Where are the stories of how he was in his office freaking the fuck out because there were tens of thousands of Americans trapped without food and water? Where's the story of how he ripped a strip off of somebody, demanding to know what the holy hell the holdup is getting water and food to those people?

Read all of it succinctly put, here:

http://www.thisisnotover.com/archives/2005/09/heres_what_gets.html

August 31, 2005

Wading through The Inevitable

Statistically, this had to happen. Now, levees are failing and the city of New Orleans is vanishing under the rising waters. It is difficult to get the mind around the sheer scale of the destruction. I've seen some less than thinking people compare this to September 11. September 11 was two buildings, and part of another. This is thousands and thousands of buildings, perhaps, when all is said and done, an entire major American city. Sure you can compare death tols, but it is absurd.

At any rate, I suppose such comparisons are a feeble attempt to put this into some sort of perspective.

I can't really get my mind around it.

One thing, amidst the sensational media coverage that comes to mind: Why so much focus on looting? People are dead, more will die, and many remain to be rescued. Businesses are insured, or ought to be. They can write off their entire inventories as a loss and be reimbursed. Cops are wasting their time chasing people stealing armfuls of Pampers, snack foods, and drinks. Why, oh why is anyone trying to stop them, and why is the media beating the drum of "widespread looting?" It's inane, and irrelevant.

August 20, 2005

The Politics Of Stupidity

I'm glad I don't have kids, who will enter a public school system being taken over by zealous, anti-science, anti-thinking religious barbarians, to be taught the bible in science class. In school boards and state legislatures across the country proponents of the redressed Creationist "philosophy" (now slickly termed Intelligent Design) are framing the debate as a need to teach the "controversy" surrounding the theory of evolution and natural selection. That controversy is wholly contrived by those who wish to teach it. Imagine for a moment that science classes started teaching that homosexuality is genetically driven behavior. These same nuts who want to subvert rational thinking would throw themselves beneath the wheels of school buses the world over.

Which proves my point...

Full article

August 11, 2005

Bone Dry

In April 2001 I wrote an article about the dwindling supply of water in the Great American Desert. The focus of the article was the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, a desert fantasy oasis of bright lights, limitless possibilities, and an abundance of water. Vegas is truly in the middle of the desert. Drive a few miles beyond the edges of it's sprawl and the air suddenly goes skin-wrinkling dry, no longer sprinkled with the water of a thousand fountains. Drive a few more miles and you come upon Hoover Dam, which stands astride the Colorado River.

The Colorado is the primary source of water for Las Vegas, and the city has now reached the limits of Nevada's allotment. Officials at the city and state level have known for years this day would come, and they have been preparing. All of the outdoor fountains in Las Vegas have been turned off, and the rest of the city is under strict rationing.

Just kidding.

Las Vegas, instead of generating and enforcing strict regulations on the use of precious water, has gone hunting for more to satisfy it's insatiable demand. It proposes to pump water out of the ground in Nevada and western Utah and transport it via pipeline more than 500 miles to Las Vegas. The local people living above that water, which nurtures their crops and keeps their patch of desert from completely blowing away, are protesting.

It will do no good. There is too much money at stake, too much political pressure being applied to stop this. The Bureau Of Land Management and US Geological Survey will likely confirm Vegas' contention that there is more than enough water for the city to suck 25,000 acre-feet (enough water to cover that acreage to a depth of one foot) per year out of the ground. And in a few years, when Vegas continues to expand and it's appetite for water grows sharper, it will reach out further, deeper, to slake it's thirst. Eventually, it will suck all the remaining water out of the western United States, dry up, wither and blow away.

And there will be no water left, not a drop.


August 2, 2005

Presidentus Ignoramus

If ignorance is bliss, we should all be the Shrub. From an interview with some Texas print reporters:

On Intelligent Design

Ron Hutcheson writes for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "President Bush waded into the debate over evolution and 'intelligent design' Monday, saying schools should teach both theories on the creation and complexity of life. . .

"Scientists concede that evolution doesn't answer every question about the creation of life, but most consider intelligent design an attempt to inject religion into science courses.

"Bush compared the current debate to earlier disputes over 'creationism,' a related view that adheres more closely to biblical explanations. As governor of Texas, Bush said students should be exposed to both creationism and evolution.

"On Monday the president said he favors the same approach for intelligent design 'so people can understand what the debate is about.' "

Hutcheson writes that Bush "didn't seem eager to talk about the topic."

Here, in fact, is the entire exchange, prompted by Hutcheson's question:

"Q I wanted to ask you about the -- what seems to be a growing debate over evolution versus intelligent design. What are your personal views on that, and do you think both should be taught in public schools?

"THE PRESIDENT: I think -- as I said, harking back to my days as my governor . . . Then, I said that, first of all, that decision should be made to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.

"Q Both sides should be properly taught?

"THE PRESIDENT: Yes, people -- so people can understand what the debate is about.

"Q So the answer accepts the validity of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution?

"THE PRESIDENT: I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and I'm not suggesting -- you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."

July 28, 2005

Widget Me

Widgets are damn cool. Little desk top apps that do one or a few very narrow things, in a manner pleasing to the eye and convenient to use. Yahoo recently bought Pixoria, who created Konfabulator, the program that actually runs and controls these widgets.

I'm still giving it a whirl but I have to say it is pretty cool, works well, and with the acquisition, I expect the number, type and variation of available widgets to grow rapidly.

Test it out for yourself.

July 20, 2005

hot blue day


hot blue day
Originally uploaded by fallsroad.

It's turning into one of those really damn hot stretches here. 99 today, hotter than that tomorrow and on through the weekend. I know, it's worse elsewhere, but I'm *here*, aren't I?

Getting pumped

Well, not really.

I'm currently going off my feed of bad CableSpews programming, so I've been unable to work myself into a righteous lather about the Shrub's appointment to the Supreme Court.

*Snore*.

Another right wing, pro-business, anti-regulation lawyer - sounds like most of the administration and its lackey army. Perhaps the 99 degree heat here on the Southern Plains has me in a profound malaise, but I really don't care who this man is. I already know what I need to know of him - the finer points of his particular stripe of neo conservatism doesn't interest me.

I also don't care about the upcoming nomination "fight" because a fight it will not be. The alleged "party of opposition" relinquished it's remaining shred of dignity when it chose to compromise with the majority party over judicial nominees, all of whom were more objectionable than the current one. This means the dog and pony show will be short, full of hype, and end in a near unanimous vote in favor.

Like I said, I cannot care about this. Those fucks running the show are already quite capable of fucking all of us in our nether holes - one more shitbag can hardly foul the waters any further.


July 16, 2005

What's in a name?

Though I spent much of my first 20 years of life outside the US, my family always returned to the Washington, D.C. area. I grew up a football fan, specifically a fan of the Washington Redskins. The games at old RFK stadium were magical for a kid - totally sold out, raucous fans, marching band, players like giants smashing into one another, and the fight song, played and sung each time the home team managed to score.

"Hail To The Redskins", borrowing the tune from the Notre Dame fight song.

Indian themes are what this team's image was built on many decades ago, and it's logo is instantly recognizable. I had pennants and posters, trading cards and jerseys, all with that famous face, famous stylized letter R, and the name.

Time to change it.

A court case challenging the Washington trademarks stalled two years ago, but was revived yesterday on procedural grounds.

Redskins Name Can Be Challenged
Appeals Court Ruling Keeps Trademark Battle Alive

By Karlyn Barker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 16, 2005; B01

Native American groups won another chance yesterday to challenge trademarks covering the name and logo of the Washington Redskins, which the groups say disparage millions of people.

The football franchise had appeared to prevail in the longstanding trademark fight when a federal judge ruled in its favor nearly two years ago. But yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals said the case deserves another look because one of the plaintiffs might have been unfairly denied the right to pursue it.

"This keeps the case alive," said John Dossett, general counsel for the National Congress of American Indians, which represents 250 tribes.

The dispute involves six trademarks owned by Pro-Football Inc., the corporate owner of the team. The oldest is "The Redskins," written in a stylized script in 1967. Other trademarks were registered in 1974, 1978 and 1990, including one for the word "Redskinettes." The Native Americans said the trademarks should be taken away because they insult them and hold them up to ridicule.

The appellate ruling hinged on the question of whether the Native Americans waited too long to file their challenge. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled in October 2003 that the seven plaintiffs had no standing to complain because they did not formally object until 25 years had elapsed since the date of the first trademark.

But the appellate judges found that one plaintiff still could have standing because he was only 1 year old in 1967. They sent the case back to Kollar-Kotelly for review.

The outcome ultimately could affect millions of dollars in sales of Redskins paraphernalia. With a federal registration for trademarks, team owner Daniel M. Snyder holds exclusive rights to use the team name and logo on T-shirts, caps and other items, worth an estimated $5 million a year.


Teams want to have an image fans can understand and get enthusiastic about. It's a method of team identity, and a great tool for marketing. But there is no reason on earth that a team name, images, and theme need be denigrating to Native Americans. Try supplanting "Redskins" with "Jews" or "Micks" or "Spics" and so on. It just doesn't play.

I propose Washington change the name to Warriors, a more generic term for a fighting force, one that does not rely on specific racial typing and cannot possibly be offensive in the manner Redskins is now. The team symbol could be revamped into a fierce visage designed to strike fear into opposing teams, or at least sell jerseys and tickets. This isn't rocket science, and nothing says a team's name is set in stone.

Years ago Abe Pollen, owner of the then named Washington Bullets NBA franchise decided to change the team name. At the time the city was in the top ten for murder rates in the entire US. Pollen felt it was not appropriate for a basketball team to carry the name of a bit of metal designed to kill people. The team held a contest and the winning name was Wizards. Goofy, as is the new logo, but it's only a basketball team.

He set the right example. The Washington NFL team should follow it.


July 14, 2005

The wider lie

The wider lies the Bush administration crafted and repeated to take us into an illegal war are being buried beneath the "Rove scandal." I believe Rove did not commit an actual crime, but engaged in a very nasty sort of political smear campaign outing Valerie Plame.

Richard Cohen tells us why:

The truth about that truth was contained in a Post story about the leaks. It quoted "a senior administration official" who said that the outing of Plame was "meant purely and simply for revenge." It also said that two -- not one -- "top White House officials" had called "at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife." This response might be reprehensible, but it was routine for the town and, particularly, the vindictive Bush White House. What it was not, though, was a crime. The law prohibiting the outing of a CIA agent is so restrictive that it has been applied only once and does not seem to fit this case. I find it hard to believe that Rove or anyone at the White House specifically intended to blow the cover of a CIA agent. Rove is a political opportunist, not a traitor.

Washington loves farce the way Vienna loves the waltz. It once extravagantly inflated a sex act into the impeachment of a president, and it has now reduced the momentous debacle of the Iraq war into a question of what Rove or someone else said to a reporter on the phone. Soon, the question will turn on whether Rove or others actually cited Plame by name and whether the president's oath to fire anyone who identified Plame as a CIA operative applies to someone who just mentioned her job title. It will all depend on what "is" is or, to put it another way, whether Bush will concede that he inhaled.


In that second paragraph lies the nut of Rove's defense - he didn't specifically name names - and it will work.

July 6, 2005

no words need be spoken


no words need be spoken
Originally uploaded by fallsroad.

Good things are happening. Click on the photo and read all about it.

May 6, 2005

The Forces Of Ignorance

The forces of ignorance are poised to win a small, but crucial skirmish in the battle between reason and delusion. The Kansas Board of Education is holding hearings to alter textbooks in such a manner as to cast unfounded doubt on Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection.

This is being pushed by members of the Christian right and proponents of Intelligent Design, a movement that sprang up when Creationism was seen for what it is, a matter of faith, not science. While heaps of evidence in support of evolution exists, there is none whatsoever to bolster this intelligent design "theory". Instead, science is being asked to prove a negative, that God does not in fact, exist. Evolution, while flying in the face of the strict chronologies interpreted from the bible, does not anywhere rule out the existence of God. Intelligent Design activists insist evolution could not account for the variance of species living and extinct, that a creator of some sort (but not Christian, oh no, not that)
must have been the genesis (no pun intended) of it all.

What this really means is that textbooks will be altered to satisfy a political agenda driven by narrow religious goals. The result will be the willful spread of ignorance.

In Kansas, Darwinism Goes on Trial Once More

TOPEKA, Kan., May 5 - Six years after Kansas ignited a national debate over the teaching of evolution, the state is poised to push through new science standards this summer requiring that Darwin's theory be challenged in the classroom.

In the first of three daylong hearings being referred to here as a direct descendant of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, a parade of Ph.D.'s testified Thursday about the flaws they saw in mainstream science's explanation of the origins of life. It was one part biology lesson, one part political theater, and the biggest stage yet for the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator.

Darwin's defenders are refusing to testify at the hearings, which were called by the State Board of Education's conservative majority. But their lawyer forcefully cross-examined the other side's experts, pushing them to acknowledge that nothing in the current standards prevented discussion of challenges to evolution, and peppering them with queries both profound and personal.

"Do the standards state anywhere that science, evolution, is in any way in conflict with belief in God?" the lawyer, Pedro Irigonegaray, asked William S. Harris, a chemist who helped write the proposed changes.

When a later witness, Jonathan Wells, said he enjoyed being in the minority on such a controversial topic, Mr. Irigonegaray retorted, "More than being right?"

If the board adopts the new standards, as expected, in June, Kansas would join Ohio, which took a similar step in 2002, in mandating students be taught that there is controversy over evolution. Legislators in Alabama and Georgia have introduced bills this season to allow teachers to challenge Darwin in class, and the battle over evolution is simmering on the local level in 20 states.

While the proposed standards for Kansas do not specifically mention intelligent design - and many of its supporters prefer to avoid any discussion of it - critics contend they would open the door not just for those teachings, but to creationism, which holds to the Genesis account of God as the architect of the universe.

For Kansas, the debate is déjà vu: the last time the state standards were under review, in 1999, conservatives on the school board ignored their expert panel and deleted virtually any reference to evolution, only to be ousted in the next election.

But over the next few years anti-evolution forces regained the seats. And now, the board's 6-to-4 anti-evolution majority plans to embrace 20 suggestions promoted by advocates of intelligent design and are using this week's showcase to help persuade the public. "I was hoping these hearings would help me have some good hard evidence that I could repeat," Connie Morris, an anti-evolution board member, said in thanking one witness.

Sighing was Cheryl Shepherd-Adams, a physics teacher who took an unpaid day off from Hays High School to attend the hearings. "Kansas has been through this before," she said. "I'm really tired of going to conferences and being laughed at because I'm from Kansas."

The proposed changes to the state's science standards would edit everything from the introduction to notes advising teachers on specific benchmarks for individual grades. Perhaps the most significant shift would be in the very definition of science - instead of "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us," the new standards would describe it as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."

Local school districts devise curriculums in Kansas, as in most other states, but the standards provide a template by outlining what will be covered on the statewide science tests, given every other year in grades 4, 7 and 10.

Even as they described their own questioning of evolution as triggered by religious conversion, the experts testifying Thursday avoided mention of a divine creator, instead painting their position as simply one of open-mindedness, arguing that Darwinism had become a dangerous dogma.

"There is no science without criticism," said Charles Thaxton, a chemist and co-author of the 1984 book "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories."

"Any science that weathers the criticism and survives is a better theory for it," Mr. Thaxton said.

But the debate was as much about religion and politics as science and education, with Mr. Irigonegaray pressing witnesses to find mentions of the theories they were denouncing, like humanism and naturalism, in the standards, and asking whether they believed all scientists were atheists. He largely ignored their detailed briefings to ask each man if he believed Homo sapiens descended from pre-hominids (most said no) and how old he thought earth was (most agreed on 4.5 billion years.)

"These people are going to obfuscate about these definitions," complained Jack Krebs, vice president of the pro-evolution Kansas Citizens for Science, whose members filled many of the 180 auditorium seats not taken by journalists, who came from as far away as France. "They have created a straw man. They are trying to make science stand for atheism, so they can fight atheism."

Convened 80 years, to the day, after John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory to his Dayton, Tenn., high school class, the hearings were cut back from six days when the evolutionists decided not to present witnesses.

Beaming from a laptop to a wide screen, the scientists showed textbook pictures of chicken, turtle and human embryos to try to undermine the notion that all species had a common ancestry. Diagrams of complex RNA molecules were offered as evidence of a designed universe. Dr. Harris displayed a brochure for his Intelligent Design Network, which is based in Kansas, depicting a legal scale with "design" and "evolution" on each side and the words "religion" and "naturalism" crossed out in favor of "Scientific Method."

"You can infer design just by examining something, without knowing anything about where it came from," Dr. Harris said, offering as an example "The Gods Must be Crazy," a film in which Africans marvel at a Coke bottle that turns up in the desert. "I don't know who did it, I don't know how it was done, I don't know why it was done, I don't have to know any of that to know that it was designed."

Across the street, where the evolutionists tried to entice reporters with sandwiches and snacks, Bob Bowden, an agricultural researcher at Kansas State University, denounced the hearings as a "kangaroo court."

"When the power shifted on that board, we knew on that day that we lost," said Dr. Bowden, who has children in the 7th and 12th grades. "It's bogus."

But Linda Holloway, a member of the 1999 state board that dumped evolution, said the mainstream scientists' failure to participate in the hearings signaled that "they're afraid to be cross-examined, they're afraid to defend their theory."

Erika Heikl, 16, one of 14 students from Bishop Seabury Academy, a Christian school in Lawrence, Kan., who attended the hearings, said she believed in evolution - and that the standards should be changed to include its detractors.

"Your views won't change just from being taught that," Erika said. "You'll understand it more."

April 24, 2005

Beat Them Back

From the New York Times comes and article about new rule changes concerning Medicare claims and patient's ability to request and gain a review.

Medicare Change Will Limit Access to Claim Hearing

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, April 23 - A new federal policy will make it significantly more difficult for Medicare beneficiaries to obtain hearings in person before a judge when the government denies their claims for home care, nursing home services, prescription drugs and other treatments.

For years, hearings have been held at more than 140 Social Security offices around the country. In July, the Department of Health and Human Services will take over the responsibility, and department officials said all judges would then be located at just four sites - in Cleveland; Miami; Irvine, Calif.; and Arlington, Va.

Under the new policy, Medicare officials said, most hearings will be held with videoconference equipment or by telephone. A beneficiary who wants to appear in person before a judge must show that "special or extraordinary circumstances exist," the rules say.

But a beneficiary who insists on a face-to-face hearing will lose the right to receive a decision within 90 days, the deadline set by statute.

The policy change comes as Bush administration officials are predicting an increase in the volume of cases, with the creation of a Medicare drug benefit expected to generate large numbers of claims and appeals. But in a recent study, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, questioned the heavy reliance on videoconferences, saying that "beneficiaries are often uncomfortable using videoconference facilities and prefer to have their cases heard face to face."

All beneficiaries are 65 or older or disabled. About 5 million of the 41 million beneficiaries are 85 or older, and some are so sick they die while pursuing appeals.

When claims are denied, beneficiaries and their health care providers can challenge the decisions in an appeals process that has several levels of review. Their best chance to win coverage comes when they appear before impartial, independent adjudicators known as administrative law judges.

Over the last five years, beneficiaries and providers prevailed in two-thirds of the 283,000 cases decided by these judges.

The Department of Health and Human Services defended its new policy, saying the use of videoconference equipment would enable judges to "complete more cases" within the 90-day deadline, because they would not have to spend time traveling to remote sites. In a summary of its plans, the department said it was "not economically or administratively feasible" to station judges around the country.

"Having fewer offices is more cost-effective in terms of management, technology and training," the department said in a letter answering questions from Congress.

Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said, "Access to hearings for Medicare beneficiaries will be as good as or better than" what is now available. For some beneficiaries, he said, video hearings could be more convenient.

"Video teleconferences will allow hearings to be provided more timely, with vastly more access points than Social Security currently provides through its offices," Mr. Leavitt said.

But lawmakers, judges, consumer groups and lawyers for beneficiaries expressed concern.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Finance Committee, and Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the senior Democrat on the panel, said four hearing offices were not enough.

Mr. Grassley and Mr. Baucus were among the principal authors of the 2003 Medicare law. The law, they noted, says Medicare judges are to be distributed "throughout the United States."

Under the new arrangement, hearings for Medicare beneficiaries in New York, New Jersey and all of New England will normally be held by judges in Cleveland. Hearings for people in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska will be held by judges in Southern California.

Judith A. Stein, director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, which has represented thousands of people in hearings since 1986, said: "The videoconferences are one of many changes that will reduce the beneficiaries' ability to get fair, favorable decisions. Sick, old and disabled people can be much more effective in person because the judge can see their illnesses and infirmities - how they walk, how they get up from a chair, how their hands shake with tremors."

Nancy M. Coleman, director of the Commission on Law and Aging, a policy and research arm of the American Bar Association, said, "It's a travesty, what's happening to the appeal rights of Medicare beneficiaries."

Videoconference equipment transmits a picture and sound so that a Medicare beneficiary, a judge and witnesses in different parts of the country can see and hear one another over secure networks. Signals will be encrypted to protect the privacy of medical information. The judge will have the file, but a beneficiary can send and receive additional documents using a fax machine.

Ronald G. Bernoski, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, said face-to-face hearings were valuable for judges and beneficiaries alike.

"Video teleconferences will undermine the judges' ability to assess the credibility and demeanor of witnesses," said Mr. Bernoski, a judge based in Milwaukee. "And it could reduce the beneficiaries' confidence in the proceedings. The intrinsic value of a Medicare hearing is that citizens have an opportunity to sit down in front of a high-ranking official and tell their story to someone who listens carefully and makes a reasoned decision."

One person who benefited from a Medicare hearing is Ethel L. Swarm, 76, of Bethel, Conn. She said she had excruciating pain in her left leg, was unable to walk and spent four days at Danbury Hospital. But Medicare refused to cover her stay, saying it was not medically necessary. Medicare also refused to pay for a subsequent 37-day stay in a nursing home.

After reviewing the medical evidence, administrative law judges ruled in favor of Mrs. Swarm. She won $7,437 for her hospital care and $9,250 for the nursing home stay, which helped her walk again.

The 2003 law shifted the responsibility for hearing Medicare appeals from Social Security to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is in the process of hiring 50 judges.

The government is still working out details and lining up sites with the necessary videoconference links. Nancy A. Thompson, director of the transition team at the department, refused to answer questions about the new hearing and appeal procedures or the logistical arrangements.

Ronald T. Osborn of Charlotte, N.C., who has been an administrative law judge since 1974 and has specialized in Medicare cases since 1996, said he had no interest in moving to the Department of Health and Human Services.

"Under the department's procedural rules," Mr. Osborn said, "judges will have less freedom to handle individual cases as they see fit."

Ms. Stein said that under the rules "it will be easier for Medicare officials to participate in hearings and to influence decisions, often to the detriment of beneficiaries."

Bill Hall, a spokesman for the department, said such concerns were unfounded because the judges would report to the health secretary, not the Medicare program chief.

Medicare and Social Security officials have long contended that some administrative law judges were improperly favoring beneficiaries. For their part, the judges have periodically complained that officials put pressure on them to approve fewer claims. In the early 1980's, the tension became so acute that the judges filed suit against the secretary of health and human services to preserve their independence.

Under the new rules, issued in March by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, administrative law judges must follow the Medicare law and regulations and must "give substantial deference" to manuals and guidelines issued by Medicare officials. In a particular case, a judge can decline to follow a Medicare policy but must explain why.

March 21, 2005

tigers under glass


tigers under glass
Originally uploaded by fallsroad.

on the lam from siegfried and roy, i found them lounging in the front display window of the local Salvation Army store. big place full of everyone else's stuff, an amazing array of castoffs and oddities.

these were the best thing they had going, and the only thing behind the glass tagged "Display Only."

i so wanted them for the living room.


March 15, 2005

More fiction

Another, more pointed look at the fake news story.

Remember those fake video news reports the Bush administration has been distributing to local television stations? Back in February, the Government Accountability Office warned federal agencies to stop pushing the phony news reports on the grounds that continuing to do so would amount to the distribution of domestic propaganda in violation of federal law.

That might have been the end of the matter, but the Bush administration has other ideas. Last week, budget director Josh Bolten and a Justice Department lawyer named Steven Bradbury issued their own opinion about the fake news stories. Their conclusion: The GAO is wrong, and the fake news reports are perfectly legal. Moreover, as the Washington Post reports today, Bolten and Bradbury said that legal advice for the executive branch is supposed to come not from the Government Accountability Office but from the Justice's Office of Legal Counsel.

That would be the same Office of Legal Counsel that issued a legal memorandum in August 2002 defining torture out of existence and opining that the president's commander-in-chief power gives him authority to defy federal law in the name of national security -- and the same Office of Legal Counsel that retracted that memo in December 2004, just in time for Alberto Gonzales' confirmation hearings.

Full story.

Fiction triumphs over reality

If there was any doubt remaining that the Shrubites create their own reality, put it to rest. Today administation officials announced they are disregarding a ruling by the GAO that the fake video news packages constructed by PR firms on behalf of Shrub and foisted on local news broadcasts as "news" are at best unethical.

Instead, the Shrubiies intend to continue with the practice, in which these pro-administration policy ads are aired without any disclosure about their origin or purpose.

Then at the mid-day briefing, Press Secretary Scott McClellan officially confirmed that the White House is blowing off the Government Accountability Office's finding that prepackaged administration video news releases constitute illegal covert propaganda.


See Dan Froomkin's story here.

March 14, 2005

keys to your kingdom


keys to your kingdom
Originally uploaded by fallsroad.

car keys.

the ultimate expression of personal freedom in America, the symbol of mobility, ability; an extension of the individual. with a car many things are possible - travel, shopping, hauling, visiting or just plain driving for the pleasure of it. we take cars for granted - if you don't have one you are somehow deficient - and we've largely forgotten how powerful they are.

my wife has a car, a modest vehicle that gets her where she needs to go - work, school, errands, visits with friends and family. it's utility is undeniable. there is a faux-sportiness about it, and the color - blackberry - is quite pleasing to the eye. i know that car backwards and forwards with only one minor detail - i haven't a clue what it is like to drive it.

i have what is termed these days a "seizure disorder", known more widely as "epilepsy", once known as "having fits". my brain does not function correctly, prone to electro-chemical misfiring that renders it chaotic, unusable, dysfunctional. during these neurological meltdowns i may fall to the ground and shake violently, sit in a chair and stare off into space, drooling, or wander panicked around the house sniffing the air for a scent that exists only in my inside-out mind.

the aftermath of these seizures covers a range. at the minimum i am exhausted and confused when i come to or am forced to wake up. my muscles will be sore, my head in the thrall of a serious pounder, speech heavily slurred, thought largely impossible. if i'm really lucky i'll still have the smell of burning wire or insulation in my nose, and the taste of hot metal in my mouth, both by-products of the seizures involving that nonexistent smell. a long period of sleep is required for me to function at even the most rudimentary level.

the permanent effects become more pronounced as the seizures continue. my short term memory is a mess, i'm very forgetful, and while speaking or writing i'll lose words, and i mean lose them so completely i'll have to find another way to speak/write my thought. i'm prone to sudden exhaustion, sleep poorly, and my temper has become short, too short, which is hard on rachel. coupled with my instant forgetfulness, i've started quite a few needless arguments based on the fruits of a faulty memory.

my first seizure occurred when i was 20 years old - not exactly rare, but not that common. as far as i know it was not the direct result of a brain injury, though my left frontal lobe does show two very small areas of scarring. it is not known whether or not this has any relation to the seizures, though the only one caught during eeg monitoring originated from that same lobe. i have been medicated on and off for the last twenty years with no real success. presently, i am at the end of the medication road, taking my current prescription as much to satisfy my neurologist (an excellent doctor - high praise from someone like me) as to control seizures. my longest period without seizures was eighteen months, during which time i was not taking any meds at all. the pace, variety, and severity of the seizures has increased over the years.

the treatments left to me are all invasive, requiring surgical testing to determine my fitness for the procedures themselves. "it's only brain surgery" my doctor cracks in his deadpan way. for the time being i'm unprepared to risk the possible loss of function, which varies wildly depending upon which parts of the brain must be removed. perhaps walking won't be possible, or speech, there may be memory loss, and so forth.

so for the indeterminate future i have to find a way to get along with a brain and body prepared to betray me without a seconds warning. i cannot leave the house by myself. fear of having seizures in public or finding myself appearing stupid because my memory has chosen an inopportune moment to abandon me keeps me at home. so does the sheer danger of walking around by myself and the potentially fatal possibilities of having a seizure while crossing the road or using the stairs, or any of a dozen other scenarios. rachel works and goes to school, so i'm pretty much on my own, essentially house bound.

the immobility may be somewhat alleviated in months to come. i am applying to an organization called Paws With A Cause, a non profit that raises and trains working dogs to aid the disabled and chronically ill. for epileptics there are seizure response dogs which can be trained to respond in a variety of ways depending upon the nature of the seizures the person experiences. this can include staying with me, trying to awaken me, bringing the phone so i can call for help, and monitoring me as i move about the house, or go outside. in the outside world the dog can help me get around, blocking me before i walk into objects, go down stairs, cross the street. once given a command (something i would not be able to do during a seizure) the dog would allow me to proceed. it would also be able to alert strangers to my status, and carry a cell phone pre-programmed with my wife's phone number as well as my meds.

the application process has only begun, and i don't know if i will be approved nor how long it will all take, but this could be my set of keys to the kingdom.

of course, even with the dog at my side, i still won't be able to drive. :)

March 11, 2005

Bread & Cake

In short, they are stealing bread from the mouths of the poor and stuffing cake into the maws of the wealthy.


Joe Conason has them dead to rights.

March 5, 2005

False complexities

Talking Points Memo has a succinct way of describing the Social Security debate:

But the terms of this debate are actually pretty straightforward. The president and his supporters want to get the government out of the Social Security business by ending guaranteed benefits. It's really as simple as that. Not complicated. They'll put in its place some system of private accounts where you can save money on your own. And if it works out, great. If it doesn't, it's your problem.

Social Security is about spreading out the risk and the security by having near-universal participation in one program. That's what it is. You pay in through the course of your working years and after you retire you receive your guaranteed benefit every month for the rest of your life. It is that issue of guarantee -- which, in its nature, only a program like Social Security can provide -- which the president and his supporters are trying to do away with, either all at once or in stages.


Full post.

February 26, 2005

All those lies


The Rovians in the Shubministration are hard at work again ,spending your tax dollars on advertising campaigns to convince you that Social Security is in a crisis, and will be bankrupt by next Tuesday. The SSA itself is entering into PR contracts with private firms for the express purpose of creating ads and campaigns to fan the flames and jam privatization down our collective throats.

What those ads will fail to tell you is that privatization amounts to nothing more than a massive transfer of public wealth into private hands - but not your hands. It's another sick installment in the never ending saga to kill the one program that actually works as it's intended to.

Joe Conason talks about it.

Gee, what a suprise.


This is the sort of thing we reap from the seeds of religious privatization.


Panelists in FDA drug vote tied to makers

---------

Feb. 25, 2005 | Washington -- Ten members of the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel who voted that a group of powerful pain killers should continue to be sold had ties to the drug makers, an advocacy group says. A study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest indicates that 10 of the 32 panel members had ties to either Pfizer Inc. or Merck & Co., ranging from consulting fees and speaking honoraria to research support.

The FDA issued a statement saying it screened members of the panel for conflicts of interest. "This transparent process requires the agency to carefully weigh any potential financial interest with the need for essential scientific expertise in order to protect and advance the public health," the agency said.

After three days of hearings on the drugs, known as Cox-2 inhibitors, the panel voted 31-1 to keep Pfizer's Celebrex on the market, 17-13 with 2 abstentions in favor of Pfizer's Bextra and 17-15 that Merck's Vioxx should be allowed back on sale.

Merck pulled Vioxx from the market Sept. 30 after heart problems were reported in some users. Similar questions were later raised about the other two drugs, prompting the FDA to call the advisory panel to look into the matter.

Since drug companies fund many studies it is not unusual for researchers to have ties to manufacturers, though some have questioned the practice.

The transcript, including the votes by the individual members of the panel, has not yet been posted by the FDA. However, a copy obtained by The Associated Press indicated that the 10 panel members in question voted 10-0 in favor of keeping Celebrex and Bextra available and 9-1 in favor of allowing Vioxx to be brought back onto the market.

Without those ballots the vote would have been 13-7 in favor of withdrawing Bextra and 14-8 to keep Vioxx off sale.

The industry ties of the panel members were first reported Friday by The New York Times.

Courtesy Salon.com

February 7, 2005

The quick and the dead


In their zeal to stomp on file trading, a deceased woman who never owned a computer in her life was sued for file sharing by the RIAA. This tops the suing of a 12 year old girl last year.

Long live rock and roll!



Round Two


David Kay, weapons inspector extraordinaire, has penned an op-ed column in today's Washington Post drawing parallels between the incubation period prior to the Iraq invasion, and the noises the Shrubites are making about Iran.

There is an eerie similarity to the events preceding the Iraq war. The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that while Iran now admits having concealed for 18 years nuclear activities that should have been reported to the IAEA, it is has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. Iran says it is now cooperating fully with international inspections, and it denies having anything but a peaceful nuclear energy program.

Vice President Cheney is giving interviews and speeches that paint a stark picture of a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran and declaring that this is something the Bush administration will not tolerate. Iranian exiles are providing the press and governments with a steady stream of new "evidence" concerning Iran's nuclear weapons activities. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned that Iran will not be allowed to use the cover of civilian nuclear power to acquire nuclear weapons, but says an attack on Iran is "not on the agenda at this point." U.S. allies, while saying they share the concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions, remain determined to pursue diplomacy and say they cannot conceive of any circumstance that would lead them to use military force. And the press is beginning to uncover U.S. moves that seem designed to lay the basis for military action against Iran.

Full article

January 27, 2005

Cockfighting With Boxing Gloves.


Oklahoma voted to ban cockfighting in 2002, a rare display of political and social wisdom in this state. Now a state senator is making a mockery of the ban, while trying to find a way to reverse or amend it.


OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) -- An Oklahoma senator hopes to revive cockfighting in the state by putting tiny boxing gloves on the roosters instead of razors.


Story at CNN.

AP News

January 21, 2005

Where Old Computers Go To Die


Computers are great - I have two that currently function. My main rig, about a year and a half old and sporting a number of pieces of added hardware, and my old rig, a Gateway Pentium II 233, purchased in 1997. It is about to assume new duties as my wife's graduate studies computer. I'm happy to be able to get more life out of it, and honestly a little surprised it still turns on.

Lurking in the corners of my office are less fortunate machines, computers given to me when they no longer functioned as their masters demanded of them. These I took in with a clear eye to salvaging what I could and making at least one working box out of the mess. After much puzzling over the cause of their distress, I concluded they were not worth the cost to buy the parts to repair. So, now what?

Computers are disgusting when it comes to the materials that make up their electronic and mechanical parts. In that box on your desk, behind the glowing screen of your monitor, lurks a hazardous waste problem most of us never even think about.

Well, I have to now. Out in my den is a box that has the skeletal remains of two computers, packed up tight and ready to go. Dell offers a program that costs a small fee ($5.00 - $15.00) for pick up and recycling of properly packaged computers. HP and IBM also do this sort of thing, and there are organizations springing up to try and deal with the growing stream of not only unwanted computers, but old electronics generally, as Americans rush to purchase the latest and greatest computer, stereo, TV, cell phone, PDA, etc.

Now all I have to do is pry that nominal fee from my tightly clenched fist and get the process started. :)



January 20, 2005

Picasa 2


Google purchased Picasa and has now released version 2 of the free photo editing and organizing software. I've been scanning a ton of pictures lately and adding new ones off a new digital camera, so Picasa 2 came along at just the right moment for me.

First, the editing. Picasa isn't Photoshop, and thank God for that. Instead, it houses a number of powerful filters and effects behind a deceptively friendly interface. Controls are clearly labeled and their functionality readily apparent. Go ahead and try them out - Picasa allows each added edit to be removed in a stepped regression. The original is never over written by the program - you can only make the effects permanent by saving the edited picture as a copy, exporting it to a new folder, or sending it via email to someone.

Using both scanned prints and digital pics, I was able to give Picasa a healthy workout. In all but a few cases, flaws in exposure or color balance could be corrected without giving the photo an unnaturally altered appearance. Those that vexed the program wound up in Corel, where the results were only marginally better after much tinkering.

Organization. Here Picasa really shines. Files can be organized into folders which can be grouped into collections. Individual pictures can be labeled (a la Gmail) and captioned, moved and copied between folders and collections. Picasa will scan all folders on your computer that you specify for picture files and create a database, and will do so in real time if you want. Individual folders and entire directories can be easily excluded. Collections can also be locked by passwords.

I found that using Picasa helped me find a bunch of image files I had forgotten about, most of them crap ready to be deleted, but a few were worth keeping. Bear in mind that Google now owns this company and software, for everything is searchable by a variety of keywords - very damn handy as your picture collection grows. Pictures can be emailed via your favorite email program or Gmail, and uploaded to your blog as well, if you have one.

There are many other features in the program, some of which took me some time to find. I've used dozens of freeware image programs, like Irfanview, XnView, and Poweralbums, but none of those are as flexible and integrated as Picasa. Using it in conjunction with Flickr, I can only say that there is a certain compatibility between the two. Perhaps Google is in the market for another acquisition? :)




January 16, 2005