All the ladies at the salon can’t stop chittering and chattering about the latest piece of gossip. You can catch up on all the latest buzz here :

In case you hadn’t heard, Jeff Gannon was a man-whore. If you listen carefully through the screams of “HYPOCRITES!!!!” you might be able to hear my voice saying “Big @%$#@ deal”. On a personal level, my response to this situation (gay or straight) would be “Ewww…”, but I don’t know the guy and I really don’t see what the hell this has to do with him being a White House propagandist who might have facilitated the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity. That’s a big deal….being slutty is his business.

And I’m really tired of seeing my fellow liberals gleefully outing conservatives while hiding behind the motive of exposing “hypocrisy”¹. The link above is just as tawdry as anything the in Starr Report and has as little to do with Gannon’s role as a White House shill as the Clinton impeachment had to do with perjury. The obvious goal of these outing campaigns isn’t about ensuring the ideological purity of the right, but using their perceived homophobia against them. But if you really feel (like I do) that homosexuality isn’t a big deal, why work overtime to portray it as something that should bring shame?

Another reason why this whole “hypocrisy” line stinks is that it’s so often untrue. Now I haven’t followed this story as closely as many, but has Gannon been quoted saying something virulently homophobic? If so, I’ll concede that this is a genuine case of a hypocrite being exposed. On the surface, however, this seems to be yet another case in which a closeted gay man’s tangential relationship to homophobes (in this case, being members of the same party) is construed to mean that he’s an “Uncle Tom” (a phrase I’d love to see die, BTW). For all I know, Gannon agrees with every tenet of the GOP agenda except homosexuality. Does that mean he’s a “hypocrite” for not putting his sexual issues above every other aspect of his political life?

Our side likes to pat ourselves on the back for being more open-minded than conservatives, but isn’t the ultimate test of that boast whether or not you’re willing to tolerate those who disagree with you? I’m willing to accept that not all gay people are going to feel strongly enough about gay issues to leave the Republican party. Lack of concern for the issues important to the GLBT community doesn’t make anyone less gay than opposition to affirmative action by African-Americans automatically lightens their skin.

Here’s the thing that has me worried about this whole story. What happens if the GOP and the public just doesn’t give a shit about the revelations? Where does that leave us? On one side we’ll have the shrill Democrats trashing a guy for being gay and on the other side we’ll have a Republican party who, despite their anti-gay rhetoric, has a big enough tent to accept anyone. From then on, any further discussion about White House propaganda is tinted with the aura of sexual hysteria.

Like Kevin Drum said yesterday “The politics of personal destruction…is tremendously helpful to [Conservatives’] cause…Liberalism simply doesn’t thrive in this kind of atmosphere.” The prurient aspects of this saga can easily overtake this story’s importance and make everyone on the left look like a bunch…get ready for this, “hypocrites” who only care about gay people as long as they’re on our side.

That said, it’s out there now. My hope is that the trashy revelations provide the level of sleaze necessary to get people to pay attention to the real story here. The important thing now is to make sure any discussion of Gannon’s prostitution is accompanied by questions about his access to the President, his role in the Plame outing, and the connections between Talon News, GOPUSA, and the White House.

^{1: Not that there aren’t exceptions to this rule. Religious broadcaster Paul Crouch, who has spent years decrying the “homosexual agenda” with his fellow televangelists at the Trinity Broadcasting Network, was recently revealed to have paid hush money to a former lover. Couch’s central role in one of our country’s predominant purveyors of Puritanical propaganda makes the revelations about his affairs (and the ensuing coverup) fair game in my eyes.}

Any Democrat that votes for this shit without demanding an exit strategy (and I mean “strategy” not “timetable”) and greater oversight into the awarding of contracts is a wimp. It’s not enough to throw the “oil revenues will pay for the war” line back in their faces, if the Bush administration needs more money again, then make them pay for it by forcing them to grow up a little. Or if any of them are good with the parliamentary magic tricks, they should try sneak a provision into the bill requiring any supplemental military spending to be paid for by rollbacks in the Bush tax cuts.

It’s official. Howard Dean is the new chairman of the Democratic party. I’ve already written about why I think Dean is the perfect person for the job, so I won’t bore you with gushing praise about the grassroots and such. Now that Dean’s in charge, he’s ready to hit the ground running. Here’s his answer to the question of “What now?” :

Chairman Howard Dean’s DNC Plan

1. Show up! Democrats should never concede a single state, a single district, or a single voter to the Republicans. We must be active and compete in all 50 states and work with the state parties to build a true national party.

2. The success of the national party depends directly on the success of the state parties — we must better integrate our operations by:

Having the DNC pay the salary of each state party executive director to help ensure that the state parties have adequate funds.

Collectively building and sharing supporter lists between the national and state parties.

Recruiting, training, and encouraging candidates to run for office at every level — building tomorrow’s farm team from the ground up.

Actively grow local senate committees and communities by working with neighborhood activists who can reach out in their communities and enable the grassroots to support state and local candidates.

Maintaining a permanent campaign in every state. We need to establish an ongoing, active presence, which does not have to be recreated every four years for four months.

3. Set core principles that define the Democratic party and what we stand for and take a bottom-up approach to the development of the Party’s message;

4. Use cutting-edge Internet and other technologies to fundraise, organize, and communicate with our supporters;

5. Strengthen our political institutions and leadership institutes to promote our leaders and our ideas — these organizations must work together in a coordinated and integrated fashion to elect Democrats at every level, so that we can take this country back.

If you agree that this is the right direction to take the party, I hope that you’ll join me and the rest of the liberal blogosphere in making a donation. Before I give you that link, however, let me just mention one more thing…

This news is going to make the wingnuts go crazy. We’ll be hearing that goddamned scream ad infinitum and countless pundits will try to plant the meme that the Democrats are getting “too liberal”. The conservatives are gonna get cocky again in their insistence that Dean is “unstable”. We’ll see shit like this again:

..and in the end, the GOP will do everything in their power to make people think that the lunatics have taken over the asylum. Well…that’s one way to put it, but I prefer to say that the grassroots have taken over the establishment. And it all starts today.

As a symbol of solidarity with the new direction that the Democratic party is taking, a fundraising link has been set up to be shared by the left-wing blogosphere. If you’d like to donate, click here or use the form below :

Contribution amount: $

If you’ve got your own blog, you can get the code to add this form to your site at DailyKos.

Over at The Washington Monthly, Amy Sullivan links approvingly to an open letter to the pro-lifers from Pro-Choice America :

We will never resolve our differences on this basic question. But we should agree on an equally fundamental point: America would be a better country if no woman ever faced the difficult choices posed by an unintended pregnancy. What better way to end the debate over abortion rights than by eliminating the reasons women seek abortion?

The time has come to join together in a new campaign to reduce the number of abortions.

senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ? who disagrees with us on the issue of abortion ? has offered a commonsense bill called the Prevention First Act which would help reduce unintended pregnancies through better access to birth control. This landmark legislation represents a serious first step in addressing the problem, and I hope you?ll join pro‐choice Americans and me in offering your support.

There’s lots to love about this.from the act’s title to the strategy of calling pro-lifer’s bluff when it comes to their lack of dedication to actually reducing the number of abortions performed.

As for what’s in the act itself? Well, you can read it for yourself here. Since the bill’s seven “titles” look like a reworking of a bill from last year, I’m combining the headings of the current bill with the language from this summary the previous one. Here’s the gist of the Prevention First Act :

TITLE X OF PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE ACT - Increases the authorization for the national family planning program to $643 million in FY2005, which is the level at which it would be funded if its funding had kept up with inflation since 1980.For most women who live in poverty, Title X clinics and their services provide the only health care they will ever receive. Title X clinics not only empower women to control if and under what circumstances they become pregnant, but also provide other vital health services including screening for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), high blood pressure, anemia, and breast cancer. Title X clinics are forbidden by law to use program funds to pay for abortions.

FAMILY PLANNING STATE EMPOWERMENT - Gives all states the option to expand Medicaid family planning services to women with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, without having to apply for a federal waiver. There are currently 18 states that receive waivers for Medicaid expansion to cover family planning services. These states have demonstrated success in using Medicaid funds to prevent unintended pregnancies. It is a proven way to save taxpayer dollars ? for every dollar spent on family planning, three dollars are saved for Medicaid in pregnancy-related and newborn-care costs.

EQUITY IN PRESCRIPTION INSURANCE AND CONTRACEPTIVE COVERAGE - Requires private health plans to cover FDA-approved prescription contraceptives and related medical services to the same extent that they cover other outpatient medical services and prescription drugs. This title seeks to establish fairness and parity for prescription contraception within the context of coverage already provided by health insurers. This legislation would facilitate access to contraception in a simple, cost-effective way to lower the rate of unintended pregnancies.

EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION EDUCATION AND INFORMATION - The Secretary of Health and Human Services is required to implement public education initiatives about the efficacy and safety of emergency contraception (EC). Also known as ?the morning after pill,? EC is an FDA-approved drug that, when taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or contraceptive failure, prevents implantation of a fertilized egg ? thus preventing pregnancy. While EC has been available for several years, many women are unaware of what EC is and how it works. It cannot terminate a pregnancy and does not cause abortions.

COMPASSIONATE ASSISTANCE FOR RAPE EMERGENCIES - Requires all hospitals receiving federal funds to offer victims of sexual assault medically accurate information about emergency contraception (EC), and to provide EC when it is requested. For the thousands of women who are tragically raped each year, EC may be the only contraceptive option. Nearly 25,000 rape victims become pregnant in the U.S. each year, making them victims not just once, but twice.

TEENAGE PREGNANCY PREVENTION - Provides funding for grants to public and private entities to establish or expand teen pregnancy prevention programs. Almost 900,000 teenagers become pregnant each year, and three million teenagers contract a sexually-transmitted disease each year. It is a dangerous mistake to assume that withholding important information from teenagers will encourage them to make responsible sexual choices.

ACCURACY OF CONTRACEPTIVE INFORMATION - Any information concerning the use of a contraceptive provided through any federally funded sex education, family life education, abstinence education, comprehensive health education, or character education program shall be medically accurate and shall include health benefits and failure rates relating to the use of such contraceptive.

These seven steps fit in nicely with this oddly controversial speech by Hillary Clinton a few weeks ago :

This decision, which is one of the most fundamental, difficult and soul searching decisions a woman and a family can make, is also one in which the government should have no role. I believe we can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women. Often, it’s a failure of our system of education, health care, and preventive services. It’s often a result of family dynamics. This decision is a profound and complicated one; a difficult one, often the most difficult that a woman will ever make. The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

While Sen. Clinton may have generated headlines for “playing to the right”, she was 100% correct. It shouldn’t be considered liberal heresy to point out the obvious fact that abortions are horrible. If anything, acknowledging this smashes holes in the pro-life stereotype that liberals are bloodthirsty baby-killers and puts us on common ground with the rest of the country.

The whole point of the mantra “Safe, Legal, and Rare” is that our efforts should be aimed at reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies, not feel good attempts to chip away at women’s legal rights while ignoring the conditions that cause so many unwanted pregnancies in the first place. The Prevention First Act is a giant leap forward in this regard that should appeal to people on both sides of the aisle. The only question now is whether the pro-lifers true motivation is to reduce the number of abortions performed.

I dunno about you, but I’ve been playing with Google maps ever since I saw it. The infinite scrolling trick alone is so impressive, it’s hard to believe that it was all done without the use of flash. For you geeks out there, here’s a bit from the explanation of how it works.

For those to whom the implementation is less than obvious, here’s a quick breakdown. The top and side bars are (more or less) simply HTML. The center pane with the map, however, is a different beast. First, let’s address the map itself. It is broken up into a grid of 128×128 images (basically like an old tile-based scrolling console game). The dragging code is nothing new, but the cool trick here is that each of these images is absolutely positioned — and the ‘infinite’ scrolling effect is achieved by picking up tiles that are off-screen on one end and placing them down on the other end. The effect is kind of like laying track for a train by picking up track from behind it.
[. . .]
It turns out that getting map images is remarkably easy — all you have to do is set an image tile’s URL. Because the coordinate system is known and fixed (each tile represents a known area specified in longitude and latitude, at a given zoom level), the client has all the information it needs to set tile URLs. Each tile URL is of the following form:

http://mt.google.com/mt?v=.1&x={x tile index}&{y tile index}=2&zoom={zoom level}

So using that, you can hack into the code and find the tiles for…say, the Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, and Graceland.

What’s notable is that the X and Y tile values are measured in their distance from a center point. For example, the values for the Mt. Rushmore tile above are x=-16, y=-18, & zoom=8. In this case, starting at the center point on zoom level 8, Mt. Rushmore is 16 tiles to the left and 18 tiles up. If we simply change the zoom level from 8 to 9, the further zoom makes a tile at the same coordinates jump from South Dakota to Montana. Additionally, if we change the zoom level to 14, you’ll get an error message. This is because zoom level 14 (which is the zoomed out completely) doesn’t even contain 16 tiles in any direction.

Because of this, we can presume that the center of the country (for Google’s purposes anyways) falls at x=0 and y=0. Here’s a grid that shows the center of the country at zoom=14 :

Wanna know what’s in the exact center of the country? Check out the extended entry for the answer…
(more…)

Time for another news grudge match. You know the drill. Two stories are vying for supremacy in a world in which the press can only pay attention to one thing at a time. Ready….fight!

SUMMARY :

Story One : “North Korea announced for the first time Thursday it has nuclear weapons, and it rejected moves to restart disarmament talks anytime soon, saying the bombs are protection against an increasingly hostile United States.”

Story Two : “Prince Charles said Thursday he will marry his divorced lover Camilla Parker Bowles in April, putting an official seal on a long romance that Princess Diana blamed for the breakdown of her tempestuous marriage to the heir to the throne.”

Advantage : Prince Charles. Yeah, the prospect of dying in a nuclear inferno is terrifying, but it’s sooooo 1945. Been there, done that. Royal weddings, on the other hand, are even more romantic than that movie about Richard Gere falling in love with a prostitute.

QUESTIONS :

Story One : Do they really have a missile that can hit the west coast? If their hostilities are aimed at the United States, shouldn’t we be concentrating on bilateral negotiations rather than relying on the six nation talks?

Story Two : Ohmigod! Does this mean she might be queen?? What do the boys think???

Advantage : Bi-what-eral? Does that have something to do with math?

WORST CASE SCENARIO :

Story One : North Korea preemptively strikes the west coast of the United States. Anticipating reprisals from his immediate neighbors, Kim Jong-Il orders additional attacks on Tokyo and Beijing. The United States retaliates with enough nuclear firepower to kill everyone in North Korea. Hundreds of millions of people die through the attacks and subsequent chaos.

Story Two : Would Charles have to give up his claim to the throne?

Advantage : North Korea by a hair.

Overall : Let’s just put it this way : Larry King isn’t going to devote a whole hour to something as boring as nuclear aggression. Besides, they’re too busy trying to see if that “Crossing Over” guy can score them an exclusive interview with Princess Diana from beyond the grave. Getting nuked is scary and all, but look at how quickly we disarmed Saddam Hussein. Kimmy-Kim doesn’t even wanna know what happens when we let the eagle soar. Bring. It. On.

Last night I saw a commercial for some fitness program that was unmemorable except for this classic line :

“You don’t see the guys in sandwich commercials with their shirts off.”

In other words, “Jared has man-titties”. Ouch.

We may be winning the Social Security battle right now, but the President and his supporters have done a great job of trashing the idea that the trust fund needs to be paid back. In fact, the lie has even made it into Newsweek :

You see that Social Security is now taking in more cash than it spends. The accumulated surplus is approaching $2 trillion. But there’s a big problem here, fans. The money isn’t being saved. Instead, one part of the government, the Treasury, is writing IOUs to another part, Social Security. The Treasury borrows Social Security’s surplus cash and gives it IOUs in return. It pays interest on the trust fund’s IOUs with additional IOUs rather than cash. So you’ve got a big pile of government promises to itself. Nothing’s been saved. It’s as if you wrote IOUs to yourself, stuck them in a coffee can and called them savings. When you needed cash, you’d reach into the can, but all you’d find are IOUs. You’d have to bring in more money or spend less or borrow?just as if there were nothing in the can but coffee.

But, as Kevin Drum explains, it’s something a bit more substantial than slips of paper in a coffee can :

The trust fund consists of U.S. treasury bonds. These bonds have been purchased with excess payroll taxes collected since 1983.

Fine. But what is a treasury bond? Easy: it’s a call on the future general fund revenue of the United States. People who buy bonds are receiving a promise that they will be repaid (with interest) by U.S. taxpayers in the future.

Who then are the purchasers of the bonds in the trust fund? Answer: the people who paid payroll taxes between 1983-2018.

And who is required to pay them back? Answer: the bonds will be redeemed by the general fund between 2019-2042 (on current estimates, anyway). Since the general fund is financed mostly by personal and corporate income taxes, that means that the people required to pay back the bonds are income tax payers between 2019-2042.
[. . .]
What this means is that the United States really does have a moral obligation to pay back those bonds. Bonds are always paid back by future taxpayers, not all of whom had any say in selling the bonds in the first place. The fact that it’s a burden on these future taxpayers is not reason enough to pretend the bonds don’t need to be repaid ? or don’t exist at all.

And make no mistake: redeeming the trust fund will be a burden on future taxpayers ? in the same way that paying excess payroll taxes is a burden on current workers. There’s no free lunch.

And this isn’t just a moral obligation, but a constitutional obligation as well :

What the president said today¹ almost certainly violates his oath of office in which he swears to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

That would be the Constitution which reads (Am.XIV, Section 4): “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

For anyone, much less the President, to suggest that the Social Security trust fund can’t or doesn’t need to be paid back is infuriating. We’ve been overpaying our taxes for more than twenty years on the promise that the excess money would go toward our future Social Security benefits². If ever there was a case that merited the argument that “tax dollars are our money”, this is it.

To put it another way, the Social Security trust fund is our shared private account. For more than 20 years, we’ve been adding to it and watching it grow. Now that the prospect of paying it is on the horizon, the President is trying to pretend that all the extra work we’ve done to pay for our increased taxes is all for naught. In short, the President is trying to steal our nest egg.

^{1: “Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund — in other words, there’s a pile of money being accumulated. That’s just simply not true. The money — payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They’re spent on benefits and they’re spent on government programs. There is no trust. We’re on the ultimate pay-as-you-go system — what goes in comes out. And so, starting in 2018, what’s going in — what’s coming out is greater than what’s going in. It says we’ve got a problem. And we’d better start dealing with it now. The longer we wait, the harder it is to fix the problem.” - President Bush (via Josh Marshall)}

2: …and by “we” I mean the lower and middle classes. Since the payroll tax only applies to the first $90,000 of income, what’s painful to you and me barely makes a dent in the wallets of Bush’s self-described “base”.

While President Bush’s budget is expected to contain significant cuts for some federal programs, the Pentagon’s budget is expected to increase — by about 20 billion dollars. That figure is deceptive, though. The 20 billion dollar increase applies only to the base line budget — the programs and expenses that would still exist if there were no war on terror. Costs associated with the war, with continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, are contained in a separate, supplemental budget request. Those costs are expected to total about 80 billion dollars.

- Associated Press, February 7, 2005

The White House released budget figures yesterday indicating that the new Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost more than $1.2 trillion in the coming decade, a much higher price tag than President Bush suggested when he narrowly won passage of the law in late 2003.
[. . .]
Beginning with his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush pledged to keep the total cost of the drug benefit to $400 billion over 10 years. An estimate by the Congressional Budget Office was close to Bush’s figure.

But shortly after Bush signed the program into law in December 2003, the White House revised its projection to $534 billion, but it never offered a detailed breakdown of that estimate.

- Washington Post, February 9, 2005

As part of his ambitious second-term agenda, President Bush renewed the drive Monday to make his first-term tax cuts permanent and add some hefty new tax breaks ? an effort that experts said would cost the government at least $1.4 trillion in revenue over the next decade, possibly much more.

- Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2005

Vice President Cheney acknowledged yesterday that the federal government would need to borrow trillions of dollars over the next few decades to cover the cost of the personal retirement accounts at the heart of President Bush’s plan to restructure Social Security.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Cheney said the government would have to borrow $754 billion over the next 10 years, and conceded that the price tag would involve borrowing trillions of dollars more in subsequent decades.

“That’s right. Trillions more after that,” Cheney said in response to a question.

- Washington Post, February 7, 2005

“They’ve been — the people in Congress on both sides of the aisle have said, let’s worry about the deficit. I said, okay, we’ll worry about it again.”

- George W. Bush, February 4, 2005

We must have different definitions for the word “fantastic” :

MS. MORNIN: That’s good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.

THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?

MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

Now to Ms. Mornin’s credit, her response to the President’s callous “joke” was very polite :

THE PRESIDENT: Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

MS. MORNIN: Not much. Not much.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, hopefully, this will help you get you sleep to know that when we talk about Social Security, nothing changes.

My response would have been a little more…blunt.

THE PRESIDENT: Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

ME: Not much. You know what else I don’t have time to do? See my kids!! Because I have three fucking jobs. I keep my fingers crossed that one of them doesn’t end up doing drugs or turning to crime, not that I’d ever find out in the 15 minutes per day I get to see them.

I also hope that none of us ever comes down with a serious illness, since none of my three shitty jobs offers the health benefits that come with one good job. The debt from one serious illness would be enough to have us eating dog food from the back seat of our car until the kids are old enough for college. Did I say “college”? That was just a joke. I meant “prison”.

Anyways, enough about me. I wanna hear more about that baseball team you used to own.

Only a fool would still believe that George Bush understands anything about the lives of working-class people.

UPDATE : Ezra’s got a great point here :

He calls that uniquely American? Bullshit. I live in California and can assure you it’s at least partially Mexican.