You wouldn't hit a guy surrounded by kids, would you?

This made me laugh.

In the fine tradition of George W. Bush standing under the "Mission Accomplished" sign, or any one of the Katrina backdrops (where no expense was spared to bring power to an area for a photo op, and then just as quickly cut off), we now have the head of the NRCC, Tom Reynolds, using small prop children as set decoration in a press conference devoted to the topic of…yes, predatory online sexual solicitation of minors.

Ironically (but predictably), the kids became something of a problem:

Reporter: Congressman, do you mind asking the children to leave the room so we can have a frank discussion of this, because it's an adult topic. It just doesn't seem appropriate to me.

Reynolds: I'll take your questions, but I'm not going to ask any of my supporters to leave.

Why yes, let's discuss a Congressman having sex with teenage boys in the presence of 30 small children. I wonder what sort of family values that'll teach....

Idiot.

scandal, Foley, Reynolds, politics, midtopia

Bring it on, NK!

And I don't mean that in a bellicose way.

North Korea is claiming it will test a nuke. Sometime.

North Korea triggered global alarm on Tuesday by saying it will conduct a nuclear test, a key step in the manufacture of atomic bombs that it views as a deterrent against any U.S. attack. But the North also said it was committed to nuclear disarmament, suggesting a willingness to negotiate.

I'm not sure why this should alarm anyone, considering we've assumed they have nukes for years. We should welcome it as a sort of "put up or shut up" test. If they do it, it confirms they have nukes. Sure it will give them data that will be helpful in building better bombs, but all in all I'd prefer to know exactly what we're dealing with -- although I wouldn't put it past them to simply fill a hole in the ground with 13,000 tons of TNT and detonate it to simulate a small nuclear blast.

And think how satisfying the diplomatic exchange would be:

NK: "We're going to test a nuke!!"

U.S. NEGOTIATOR: "Okay. Say, did you happen to see the lunch menu? I'm really hoping they have some of those little cucumber sandwiches. I love those."

Such a collective yawn might get them to cease such attention-getting tantrums. Probably not -- it doesn't work that well on my 3-year-old, either -- but it's better than rewarding the behavior. Ignore it and concentrate on adult negotiations.

nuclear, North Korea, politics, midtopia

3-1, baby!

A crucial game this week. Division rivalry, yes. But also my brother. And he's a Packers fan to boot. I didn't want to win; I had to win.

He had Larry Johnson and the Falcons defense, which helped hammer me in the early going. Heading into the Monday night game, I was up by six points -- but I had only one player left, and he had three.

Luckily, my one player was Donovan McNabb. He faced down Brett Favre, Greg Jennings and David Akers and let me pull out the victory.

fantasy football, midtopia

Republican corruption, continued

In a follow up of sorts to yesterday's post, Republican Rep. Mark Foley, R.-Fla., resigned abruptly today after questions were raised about e-mails he sent to a former page.

The resignation leaves no Republican on the ballot just six weeks before the election, meaning a seat that was considered safe for the GOP may now end up Democratic by default.

Tempting as that might be for Democrats, in the interest of giving voters a choice the Republicans should be allowed to choose and field a candidate.

corruption, Foley, politics, midtopia

This is freedom?

The Iraqis are free to pass any laws they want, of course. But is this what we envisioned when we invaded?

Under a broad new set of laws criminalizing speech that ridicules the government or its officials, some resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein’s penal code, roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year.

Currently, three journalists for a small newspaper in southeastern Iraq are being tried here for articles last year that accused a provincial governor, local judges and police officials of corruption. The journalists are accused of violating Paragraph 226 of the penal code, which makes anyone who “publicly insults” the government or public officials subject to up to seven years in prison.

Okay, let's cut the Iraqi government some slack for being weak and under siege. But besides being ineffective, it's also corrupt, riddled with militias and death squads and increasingly autocratic.

Not a good omen for the future of the country.

civil liberties, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

U.S. becoming a rogue state?

I've got my own takes on the detainee bill and the warrantless wiretapping bill. But Matthew Yglesias at the American Prospect asks an interesting question: Has the U.S. become a rogue state?

A sample:

Other countries, of course, practice torture in violation of international law. As has now been clear for a while, we have been in their company for some years. The latest twist, however, is that we now won't show any shame about it. Rather than simply violating the laws to which we have agreed to adhere, we're repudiating them, simply denying that the standard by which civilized nations operate apply to us....

Consequently, the United States now presents itself as what amounts to the globe's largest and most powerful rogue state — a nuclear-armed superpower capable of projecting military force to the furthest corners of the earth, acting utterly without legal or moral constraint whenever the president proclaims it necessary. The idea that striking such a posture on the world stage will serve our long-term interests is daft. American power has, for decades, rested crucially on the sense that the United States can be trusted and relied upon, on the belief that we use our power primarily to defend the community of liberal states and the liberal rules by which they conduct themselves rather than to undermine them.

Agree or not, it's a thought-provoking read.

civil liberties, torture, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Republican corruption

I don't think Democrats are inherently more virtuous than Republicans. But it's clear the Republicans shouldn't be trying to claim the moral values high ground anytime soon.

First, a just-released House report documents 485 contacts between the lobbying firm of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the White House, including 82 meetings in the office of Karl Rove -- with Rove himself present at 10 of those.

All in all, that would seem to belie White House claims that they did not have a close relationship with Abramoff.

Meanwhile, an internal HUD investigation found that Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson told his aides to steer contracts to Bush supporters, and avoid awarding them to Democratic donors.

And let's not forget Bob Ney and the near-criminal incompetence and cronyism that went into awarding contracts in Iraq.

Quite a record, really, when you put it all together. But it doesn't appear to be one that Republicans want to run on.

Update:Another Republican Congressman, Mark Foley, has abruptly resigned.

Alphonso Jackson, Iraq, corruption, politics, midtopia

Rights? What rights?

In one of its final moves before recessing tomorrow, the House passed a bill essentially legalizing President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

The vote was 232-191. The text of the bill is here.

It's little more than a rewrite of the FISA law to make the NSA program explicitly legal.

Under the measure, the president would be authorized to conduct such wiretaps if he:

• Notifies the House and Senate intelligence committees and congressional leaders.

• Believes an attack is imminent and later explains the reason and names the individuals and groups involved.

• Renews his certification every 90 days.

The Senate could vote on a similar bill tomorrow.

The good news is that this bill at least requires Bush to say an attack is imminent.

The even better news is that it's unlikely the House and Senate could work out their differences before the elections, probably rendering the bills moot for the time being.

But there's still no excuse for not requiring a warrant within a few days. It's just not that hard a rule to follow.

Republicans accused Democrats of coddling terrorists, which just shows what a brain-dead bunch they are. The Democrats have the balance right on this one:

Democrats shot back that the war on terrorism shouldn't be fought at the expense of civil and human rights. The bill approved by the House, they argued, gives the president too much power and leaves the law vulnerable to being overturned by a court.

Exactly.

NSA, civil liberties, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Congress approves detainee bill

It took 10 hours of debate, but the Senate finally joined the House in passing the detainee-treatment bill, by a vote of 65-34. Olympia Snowe didn't vote.

Yesterday's House vote was 253-168.

Here's the text of the Senate version, while this is the text of the House version.

The bill is a compromise of sorts, rather than a simple rubber-stamping of Bush's plans, but Congress gave the most ground. It still has plenty of odious provisions, notably the denial of habeus corpus rights to detainees -- a provision that could cause serious trouble down the road.

Senator Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, argued that the habeas corpus provision “is as legally abusive of the rights guaranteed in the Constitution as the actions at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and secret prisons were physically abusive of detainees.”

And even some Republicans who voted for the bill said they expected the Supreme Court to strike down the legislation because of the habeas corpus provision, ultimately sending the legislation right back to Congress.

“We should have done it right, because we’re going to have to do it again,” said Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican from Oregon, who had voted to strike the habeas corpus provision, yet supported the bill.

Another problematic piece is that while the Senate version pretty carefully defines everything in the bill as only applying to noncitizens, the House version makes no such distinction when defining unlawful combatants. Thus the House version appears to legalize an "enemy combatant" designation for citizens, with criteria to be defined by the administration. If the government designates you an enemy combatant, you have no more legal rights than an alien sent before the military tribunals.

That sound you hear is the Constitution being smudged in some of its more inconvenient places.

The bill dispenses entirely with the need for a search warrant, and allows hearsay evidence. The latter is indefensible, and the former, while making sense under limited circumstances (seizure during combat, for instance), is unnecessarily broad and sweeping.

It bars evidence obtained from "cruel and inhumane treatment", although rather hypocritically it allows such evidence if it was obtained in 2005 or earlier, at the discretion of the tribunal judge.

It has what sounds like a reasonable method for dealing with classified evidence, including providing an unclassified summary of such evidence, or simply admitting facts that would tend to be proved by such evidence. We'll see how that plays out in reality, but at least it addresses the problem.

The only real limit on detainee treatment in the bill is a section defining "grave breaches" of the Geneva Convention, including rape, torture and murder. But the definition of torture and other mistreatment is vague, referring only to "serious" physical or mental pain or suffering. That's better than the administration's preferred wording -- "severe" -- but we'll see how it plays out in practice. Given the administration's history, they will probably define "serious" using the same definition they would have given "severe."

On the plus side, the bill requires the administration to publish its interpretations of such things, so we'll be able to see where they land. And it gives Congress and the judiciary the right to review those interpretations, a clear limiting of Bush's claims of "inherent authority."

And since detainees don't have access to the regular courts, it's unclear how they would seek redress for any violation.

The bill isn't a total disaster. Most of it deals with the structure and conduct of the tribunals, and they're largely based on the UCMJ. And we can hope the "enemy combatant" detail dies in the process of reconciling the House and Senate versions. If that happens, we'll be left with no habeus corpus, no search warrants and hearsay evidence. Plus a "wait and see" on the torture provisions.

That's bad enough, but it could have been worse.

civil liberties, tribunals, detainees, terrorism, politics, midtopia

The Republicans are coming!

It's official: the Twin Cities are getting the 2008 Republican Convention!

Seriously, this is cool. Not so seriously, some random thoughts:

* I imagine the police are already counting the overtime

* I'm glad I no longer live in Minneapolis. Conventions are supposed to boost the local economy, but the costs will fall most heavily on Minneapolis residents, and I don't think they're going to get their money back.

* Traffic is going to suck; St. Paul streets are a nightmare even without tens of thousands of out-of-towners, and without a light-rail link from the airport all those visitors are going to be driving, busing or taxiing into St. Paul. At least those of us who work in downtown Minneapolis will only get the peripheral effects.

* This should kill our chances of getting the Democratic convention. The two are scheduled to be held on consecutive weekends, and there's no way our humble metropolis could handle both.

* I wonder how hard it will be to get press credentials to blog from the convention center?

Republicans, convention, 2008, politics, midtopia

NIE summary released

The Bush administration has declassified and released (pdf) the summary of the National Intelligence Estimate that was partially leaked last week.

I'm not sure why Bush thinks this validates his strategy, or demonstrates that the leak was misleadingly narrow.

Here's the summary of the summary.

Good news
1. We've seriously damaged the leadership of Al-Qaeda.

2. The ultimate political aim of jihadists -- conservative Sharia government -- is opposed by the vast majority of Muslims.

3. Prominent Muslim clerics have begun condemning Islamic violence with increasing punch and frequency.

Bad news
1. Al-Qaeda remains a serious threat to the U.S. homeland and has grown less centralized, making it harder to penetrate.

2. The number of jihadists is growing, both in numbers and geographic reach.

3. Expect more attacks in Europe, often from home-grown radicals.

4. Iraq is proving a great training and breeding ground for terrorist leaders, breeding a "deep resentment" of the United States and increasing support for jihadist movements.

5. The factors fueling terrorism currently outweigh the factors restraining it, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future.

6. Sunni extremist organizations other than Al-Qaeda are likely to expand their reach unless countered, perhaps obtaining the ability for large-scale terror attacks. However, they pose little threat to the U.S. homeland itself.

Predictions and suggestions
1. Addressing the underlying factors that produce terrorism -- autocratic governments that are corrupt and unjust, fear of Western domination, Iraq, lack of social and economic reforms and pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment -- will help fight it. But the instability inherent in such transitions will provide jihadists with short-term advantages.

2. If jihadists feel they have lost in Iraq, it will dampen their fervor and hinder recruitment.

That's it. Anything strike you about that list? Like, you already knew everything on it? Maybe it's because all the really good stuff remains classified, but there's really nothing new in it; it's all stuff we've known about for a very long time -- including the leaked bit about Iraq helping to breed terrorists. I'm not a CIA analyst, but I've been making much the same points -- including the need to address the factors that breed terrorism -- for years.

That aside, however, what does it mean?

I'm sure war supporters will latch on to the first item under "Good news" and the last item under "Predictions" to say "We're beating Al-Qaeda, and Iraq is where we'll break the back of terrorism."

But that's misreading the document. We've done great harm to Al-Qaeda, true -- and good for us. But that has almost nothing to do with Iraq. And the gist of the NIE is that Al-Qaeda is resilient and still our biggest threat.

As for Iraq, let me break the report down for you.

The NIE first states what is: Iraq is a breeding and training ground for terrorists, and inspiring growth in jihadi ranks worldwide. This is likely to continue for the forseeable future, and the report lists "Iraq" as one of the four underlying factors fueling militant Islam.

It then adds a truism: That if we somehow manage to "win" in Iraq -- whatever that means -- it will be a blow to the jihadists.

Well, no kidding. Besides being blatantly obvious, it is an assessment of what could be -- not what is, not even what is likely to be. In fact, the NIE points out that the situation favors continued growth in the jihadist movement for the forseeable future.

So this is a bit like General Paulus at Stalingrad musing, "Yes, the Russian encirclement is getting stronger every day. But if we could somehow break out, we'd be fine."

Given that it is becoming increasingly obvious that we are not even remotely serious about winning in Iraq, I think it's unlikely we will "win" in the sense suggested by the NIE. But that's beside the point. The point is that war supporters will try to counter the NIE's "what is" assessment with the NIE's "what could be" truism. That's comparing apples to oranges to try to put a brave face on what is a pretty pessimistic NIE.

Bush, NIE, Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

DVS bureaucracy

I usually don't hate my encounters with Minnesota government. They may not be the most flexible organizations, but state agencies are usually staffed by nice people who know their job, and the government tries to give you multiple options for getting things done.

For instance, my car's registration renewal form arrived in the mail today. And I had three options for renewing it:

1. Go to a service center and pay in person;

2. Take the pre-printed form and envelope and mail it to them along with a check;

3. Go online, fill out the information at the DVS web site, and pay with a credit card, incurring a $1.25 "convenience fee."

So let's see. Go online, mess around with the Web forms and credit card numbers, and be charged $1.25 for that "convenience." Or write a check, stick it in the envelope with a 39-cent stamp, and drop it in the mailbox.

Kind of a no-brainer for me: mail them a check.

But it seems kind of silly from their end. I'd be willing to bet money that it costs them less to process an electronic payment than it does to process a paper payment. That's why most companies, after initially trying to charge consumers for electronic payments, gave up the ghost and now provide electronic payment options for free; it saves them money.

The State of Minnesota appears to have missed that memo. Their pricing structure encourages people to pay using the method that costs the state the most to handle. That's pennywise and pound foolish.

A note to DVS employees: If I'm wrong and electronic payments actually do cost more, drop me an e-mail or a comment explaining that and I will apologize for impugning the efficiency of state government.

bureaucracy, politics, midtopia

Demand paper ballots

I have no fundamental problem with electronic voting. It would be quicker, cheaper and more user-friendly than the current paper system.

But any voting system that doesn't include a tamper-proof paper record that can be verified by each voter and used to backstop the electronic system should be laughed out of the room.

It has been demonstrated again and again that the most popular system, Diebold's AccuVote, is laughably vulnerable to tampering. Never mind the controversy over Diebold executives' support for Bush.

And now we have a real-life example of problems caused by pure electronic voting. Much of it is traceable to poor performance by poll workers, but the lack of a paper trail makes fixing or even assessing the damage nearly impossible.

Which is why I don't understand why this is still even under debate.

Board members agreed to hold the hearings, probably in December after the fall elections and runoffs.

Secretary of State Cathy Cox, who chairs the election board, has been dismissive of most of the criticisms of the state's voting machines, saying Wednesday that "so-called experts" have not taken into account a comprehensive series of independent security measures put into place in Georgia.

Perhaps those security measures are enough. But why are we holding the hearings after the elections? Isn't this important enough to put on the front burner?

To quote Reagan, "Trust but verify." Insist on a paper backup; problem solved. Otherwise, expect a blizzard of justified lawsuits from voters and candidates after the fall elections.

voting, Diebold, elections, politics, midtopia

The blindingly obvious

In the "what took them so long" department, the CIA has finally recognized that the invasion of Iraq has increased terrorism rather than hindered it.

This has been blindingly obvious for years. As has the solution.

But the Bush administration has never let facts get in the way of policy. Not even when the facts threaten to undermine that policy. For instance, even as the Army is extending more tours in Iraq, the administration has been trying to cut the Army's budget. The Army, in an unprecedented move, has protested the cuts as not only unwise, but as making it impossible to meet current commitments.

This pennywise, pound-foolish approach to security isn't an isolated instance. For instance, the U.S., while calling for U.N. intervention in Lebanon and Darfur, has been concerned about the growing cost of such peacekeeping missions. So in order to keep costs down, they pressured the U.N. to withdraw peacekeepers from East Timor in 2005. That worked so well that Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal had to send troops to restore order in May, and the UN will reintroduce about 1,600 police.

Meanwhile, a group of retired officers who had made stinging criticisms of Donald Rumsfeld individually earlier this year are appearing before a Senate committee today, where they are expected to repeat those blunt assessments. A taste:

"I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said in remarks prepared for a hearing by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

A second witness, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, is expected to assess Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ...."

"Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making," said his testimony prepared for the hearing, to be held six weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections in which the war is a central issue.

At long last, the national consensus is arriving at the conclusion that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake that has hurt our efforts to combat terror. Too bad it took three years, 2,800 American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, tens of thousands of wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars. What's worse is that, even having reached that conclusion, we cannot simply end the war because of a moral obligation to see the Iraqi people through to some sort of conclusion.

Given all of the above, however, it seems unlikely that the current administration will be able to deliver such a conclusion. In which case, pulling out immediately is the only rational choice. If we're not going to do what we need to do to fix the mess we created, then we should leave before we do any more harm to ourselves and Iraq.

security, Rumsfeld, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

What unity government?

Looks like the Palestinians need to get their house in order before they can conduct meaningful negotiations with Israel.

After Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said a Palestinian unity government would recognize Israel, Hamas flatly contradicted him. Now the unity talks have been postponed.

Abbas wants a political platform honouring interim peace deals with the Jewish state, which he hopes will satisfy the West. Hamas has sought vague wording that would not contradict the group's charter calling for Israel's destruction.

The president has accused Hamas of reneging on an agreement reached earlier this month on the political programme for the unity government. Hamas has denied the allegation.

This situation needs more than "vague wording." It needs a clear committment to peace talks from the Palestinians. And Abbas should hold Hamas' feet to the fire until they agree. Until then, Hamas cannot be taken seriously in diplomatic efforts.

Maybe Abbas will renew his pledge to call a referendum on recognizing Israel. That would be a gutsy move that would bring this crisis to a head.

Palestine, Israel, Abbas, Hamas, politics, midtopia

Abbas: Unity government will recognize Israel

If he's right, and he pulls it off, this is huge.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly Thursday that the planned national unity government will recognize
Israel....

Abbas told the assembly's annual ministerial meeting that he has recently sought to establish a government of national unity "that is consistent with international and Arab legitimacy and that responds to the demands of the key parties promoting Mideast peace — recognition, ending violence and honoring past agreements.

"I would like to reaffirm that any future Palestinian government will commit to all the agreements that the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Authority have committed to," he said.

So far it's just talk. And there are hotheads on both sides that would like to derail this. And we'll have to see how grudgingly Hamas plays along. Cross your fingers.

Abbas, Hamas, Israel, politics, midtopia

U.S. health care gets a 'D'

Despite paying half again as much for health care as our nearest competitor (Switzerland), a study released this week gives the United States a 66 percent score in health care outcomes, quality, access and efficiency compared to other industrialized nations.

How seriously should we take this? Well, it depends.

The U.S. ranks 15th out of 19 countries in terms of the number of deaths that could have been prevented. The study estimates that each year 115 out of 100,000 U.S. deaths could have been avoided with timely and appropriate medical attention. Only Ireland, Britain, and Portugal scored worse in this category, while France scored the best, with 75 preventable deaths per 100,000.

Here's an example. We rank 15th... but we still only have 115 preventable deaths per 100,000. That's an error rate of about 0.1%. We could do better, but we're still doing pretty darn well.

The U.S. ranks at the bottom among industrialized countries for life expectancy both at birth and at age 60. It is also last on infant mortality, with 7 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with 2.7 in the top three countries. There are dramatic gaps within the U.S. as well, according to the study. The average disability rate for all Americans is 25% worse than the rate for the best five states alone, as is the rate of children missing 11 or more days of school.

These are more serious numbers, because life expectancy and infant mortality are basic measures of a society's health. But again, though we lag the competition, we're better off than much of the world; an infant mortality rate of only 0.7 percent isn't too shabby.

What those overall numbers, miss, though, is the unevenness of health care quality in the country. The report notes major gaps in quality and access across the country, with poorer areas, unsuprisingly, having worse outcomes.

So the problem isn't that our health care stinks overall; it's that access to it is uneven, and that we're paying far too much for the results we get.

Further, more and more of that cost is being shifted to workers. Salaries that were negotiated when employers picked up much of the health-insurance premium are now having to absorb a larger share of that premium. The result is that workers are spending a growing share of their income on health care.

Since benefits are part of worker compensation, it's not a particularly big deal if the budget line that pays for health care changes from the benefits side to the salary side -- as long as overall compensation remains stable. But what's happening is that employers are shifting the costs to workers without raising their pay to compensate, meaning a net loss of income to workers. It's a stealth pay cut.

It makes lots of sense to make people pay for their health care directly. Our current system arranges things so that people pay the same for health care whether they use it a lot or a little. This is good because it spreads the financial risk, a prime purpose of insurance. But it also raises some big moral hazards, because consumers have no incentive to limit their use of health-care resources. Giving them incentives to spend their money wisely will encourage more efficient use of those resources and keep overall costs down while possibly improving care -- because people are only going to pay for the care they want, from doctors who provide it efficiently and courteously.

But if workers are expected to pay their own health care costs, their salaries should be bumped up in the interim to compensate and then allowed to adjust to the market from that new base. Anything else is a betrayal of the social contract that has underpinned our health-care system for decades.

medicine, insurance, health care, politics, midtopia

Back in the saddle

It's been crazy busy the last few days, both at work and at home, where we're adjusting to my wife going back to work and having two kids in school. I've barely had time to read the papers, much less post.

Luckily, I make time for the important things. My fantasy football team is now 2-0, having nearly doubled my opponent's score. We now hit bye-week hell. I have to do without Antonio Gates and two of my RBs this weekend, going up against a pretty good team whose only hole is at kicker. I'm pulling out all the superstitious rituals I can to ensure both I and the Vikings go 3-0.

Substantive posts to follow.

fantasy football, midtopia

Ney pleads guilty

After months of denial, Rep. Robert Ney has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

This isn't a wrist slap, either.

The maximum sentence for the two counts is 10 years, but the Justice Department and Ney's lawyers agreed on a sentencing recommendation of 27 months in prison, provided Ney continues to provide truthful information. The final sentence will be determined by a federal judge.

Ney could also be fined up to $500,000, according to the agreement.

Ney had already abandoned his re-election bid. I presume he'll have to resign his Congressional seat.

Time to update the Hall of Shame.

corruption, Ney, Abramoff, politics, midtopia

Reading... who needs it?

In case any of you despair about the workers who will be supporting you in retirement:

Educational doomsayers are again up in arms at a new adult literacy study showing that less than 5 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it.

The obsessive measurement of long-form literacy is once more being used to flail an education trend that is in fact going in just the right direction. Today’s young people are not able to read and understand long stretches of text simply because in most cases they won’t ever need to do so.

It’s time to acknowledge that in a truly multimedia environment of 2025, most Americans don’t need to understand more than a hundred or so words at a time, and certainly will never read anything approaching the length of an old-fashioned book. We need a frank reassessment of where long-form literacy itself lies in the spectrum of skills that a modern nation requires of its workers.

Yes, clearly the world will be a better place when nobody is able to process ideas too complicated to be expressed in 100 words or less....


literacy, politics, midtopia