At Climate Progress, Joe Romm writes:

• • • • •

Green diary rescue appears Sundays and Thursdays in this time slot. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it. The rescue begins below and continues in the jump.

matching mole had a wonderful Wednesday, as recounted in 24 Hours of Wonder: Gulf Region Nature: "We had guests and we showed them a couple of the local natural wonders: St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and Wakulla Springs and river - both just to the south of Tallahassee in the Florida panhandle. We had an unusually fantastic time and I thought I would share some of what we saw."

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are ItsJessMe, rexymeteorite, dadanation, grog, claude, and srkp23 with vcmvo2 editing.

Tonight's rescued diaries are:

• With wonderful pictures and one map, ban nock explains what will happen if they dam the lower Mekong in Xaybouli province: Xayabouli Xanadu and the damned dams. (ItsJessMe)
• God-fearing christians getting ready to burn a ... Koran? Backgr0und N015e with a righteous rant and a haunting image. (claude)
• KAMuston tells a fascinating story of how the patriarchy in Connecticut was dealt a blow by two sinister sisters in TILL THE COWS COME HOME. (dadanation)
• Infrequent diarist Sourmash with an eyewitness Dispatch from Pakistan. (claude)
• EdwardW shares his political evolution and looks to the future in Like a Radical, Touched for the Very First Time. (srkp23)
• michelewln stumbled across some late 1800’s-early 1900’s pictures of her Mom’s family, which triggered musings on Time, and how our past shapes our present and our present shapes our future. (ItsJessMe)
• "I don't care, I have nothing to hide" because I'm Dull, Predictable & In Servitude, bemuses paradox. (claude)
• SulaymanF warns of increased bigotry against American Muslims celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr which may just fall on the 9th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in Eid Holiday and 9/11, a PR crisis? (rexymeteorite)
• FullChat serves up a succinct explanation of the economic benefits of government stimulus that could come in handy the next time someone you know claims that tax cuts on the wealthy are stimulative: On Tax Cuts and Stimulus. (srkp23)
• Deconstructing a recent op-ed, Christy1947 explains that an Overton Window comes to NYT on birthright citizenship. (ItsJessMe)

jotter has the week's Week's High Impact Diaries: August 7-13, 2010, as well as the day's High Impact Diaries: August 14, 2010.

Dragon5616 brings tonight's Top Comments: "I've been away" edition.

Enjoy and please feel free to rescue your own favorite diary from the past twenty-four hours in this Open Thread!

It was the fall of 2006. The setting was a bar in New York City. The "who's who" of the New York blogger scene was gathered together over drinks to fundraise for Brian Keeler's run for New York State Senate. I happened to be there, interviewing candidates for a documentary project that has yet to be released. One of my subjects was a blogger known pseudonymously as pontificator. And at the conclusion of the interview, he told me he had one more thing to say; it was very important. He proceeded to look into the camera and utter five immortal words:

Peter King is an a**hole.

Pontificator was referring to this Peter King--the Representative from New York's Third Congressional District. The more you learn about Peter King, the more you realize just how right pontificator is. But those with any remaining doubts need just examine this brief quote from a recent Politico story on the political consequences of Judge Walker's decision striking down Proposition 8:

King, the Long Island congressman, said that in terms of social issues, the raging controversy over the Arizona border laws is providing more than enough ammunition for Republicans in key districts.

“The Arizona immigration law is there, there’s no reason to be raising an issue of gay rights” as a wedge, he said.

Quotes like this ought only to be given by political hack strategists on condition of anonymity. It's the job of people like Karl Rove to determine exactly what issues to focus on to maximize the chances of electoral victory; it should be the job of Peter King to represent the people of his district, rather than simply figure out what inflammatory issue will make them more likely to vote him back for another two years in Washington. But for the sake of what follows, let's acknowledge that Republicans in Congress don't seem to have any sort of vested interest in hating on gay people or brown people, outside of using their base's stringent dislike of the same as a motivational tool to drive them to the polls on the first Tuesday of November in even-numbered years.

The era of conservatives trying to use same-sex marriage to drive moral majority voters to the polls is over and done with--at least for the time being. First, the conservative base that would be driven by the issue is already fired up and ready to go because televangelist Beck has already sent the message loud and clear that the theocracy envisioned by the Founding Fathers (in his fevered mind) must be protected from the Leninist ravages of Barack Obama. Second, protecting the sanctity of straight people simply isn't that inspiring to anyone else: The crowds that the National Organization for Marriage has been drawing to its rallies on its farce of a nationwide bus tour have been anemic. Lastly, opposing gay marriage is a losing issue for the future: in a significant majority of states--and almost every single state outside the South--a majority of people between ages 18 and 29 support marriage equality. Taking a position that runs contrary to the values of the voters that will decide the future of the country is generally a fruitless endeavor.

Hating on brown people, however, is equally as perilous, but potentially slightly more fruitful for Republican prospects in the short term as we approach November. To begin with, the economy is a key consideration for many voters today--and while bad economic times to tend to engender xenophobia, it is much more logical to push that xenophobia in the direction of immigrants than it is gay people. The narrative of someone with darker skin taking away a good job from an "American" is well known (Jesse Helms, anyone?), but no conservative man out of work ever said, "You know, I could have been a fashion designer, but my job went to a homosexual instead."

But if indeed the main focus of the Republican Party's renewed focus on immigration had to do with ensuring that the undocumented were not taking away jobs from "lawful Americans," one might have expected a focus on issues like tougher border security, or perhaps a crackdown on employers who hire illegal immigrants as opposed to those who are able to work legally in the country. As we approach the election, we might have expected a debate more along the lines of what Representative King was initially envisioning: SB1070, Arizona's draconian anti-melanin bill. But that's not what we're getting.

What we're being treated to instead is something else entirely: a debate over the 14th amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship to virtually everyone born in the United States. This would initially appear odd, because a belief that ending birthright citizenship as expressed in the constitution would be a workable solution to the current immigration debate would itself require two major underlying assumptions: 1) that the undocumented will stop migrating to the United States if their children are no longer eligible to be citizens by birth; and 2) that it would somehow be humane to deport children on account of the crimes committed by their parents.

Either would be a hard case to prove. And yet despite that, we are seeing a major number of prominent Republican Johns (Boehner, McCain and Kyl, for instance) endorsing the idea of modifying the 14th amendment. We are seeing Republican legislators taking the news cycle by storm with unfounded claims of "terror babies" that are forming their own birthright citizen sleeper cells. We're even seeing conservative judicial analysts eviscerating those same politicians for ignoring their oaths to the Constitution by attempting an "end run" around it.

These Republicans know that as of now, they stand no chance of repealing the 14th amendment anytime soon. They know that it takes a full two-thirds of both the House and the Senate, and then a full three-quarters of the legislatures of the states to modify the Constitution. They know that repeal of birthright citizenship isn't a short-term solution to the immigration issue in our country. But they're starting the push anyway, and with good reason. And it all comes down to demography.

In a post earlier this week, Markos made clear what's at stake for the Republican Party. With the exception of the Cuban-American community that still has some loyalty to the GOP, Latinos are a key Democratic constituency, whether by choice or by the simple default of voting for the one major party that does not seem to denigrate and oppress them at every turn. Combined with the preference of younger voters for the more progressive positions generally espoused by the Democratic Party, the GOP--barring any major philosophical shift or major realignment--is facing some serious long-term viability problems as a national party. And as we saw in the elections of 2000 and 2004--when Republicans are facing viability problems, their default solution is to prevent people from voting. As Harold Meyerson noted earlier this week in the Washington Post:

Sentient Republican strategists such as Karl Rove have long understood that unless their party could win more Latino votes, it would eventually go the way of the Whigs. That's the main reason George W. Bush tried to persuade congressional Republicans to support immigration reform. But most lawmakers, reflecting the nativism of the Republican base, would have none of it.

By pushing for repeal of the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, the GOP appears to have concluded: If you can't win them over -- indeed, if you're doing everything in your power to make their lives miserable -- revoke their citizenship.

GOP calls to modify the Constitution have nothing to do with solving immigration. Denying citizenship to extended generations of descendants of the undocumented would in fact create far more problems than it would solve. It would have nothing to do with stopping immigration, because the desperate people that come here would rather be able to feed their families, regardless of whether their children end up citizens. And it's not about public safety, because any infant citizens training as terror babies in a Pakistan madrassa are likely pretty few and far between.

What this conversation should really be about is what the GOP is willing to do for the sake of longer-term electoral strategy. Rather than accepting Latinos as a part of the American fabric, they are willing to create an underclass of non-citizens that spans across generations--as long as it means that they can maintain their nativist ways in a country that no longer resembles their ideal. And this conversation will not go away after November. This is not an election-year issue. This is a generational issue of the future viability of an entire political party.

The GOP was given a choice. Move forward into the future, or more back to the 1860s. Good going, pachyderms.

It would be foolish and naive to presume that all of even the best progressive members of Congress are above the temptations of corruption. Many a seeming political hero has proved flawed or worse. But it also would be foolish and naive to presume guilt when official charges of corruption are made. It also would be outside the spirit of our judicial system, which presumes innocence unless guilt is proven.

The political play of the ethics charges against Representatives Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel has been both obvious and not. The Republicans and the traditional media are promoting their usual false framing, but there's also something disturbing about the Democratic framing. Both of these need to be brought more to light.

The easiest and most simple-minded approach to the charges against Rangel and Waters is to suggest that they say something larger about the ethics of the Democratic Party. And never mind that neither Rangel nor Waters has been convicted of anything. But the right wing would like people to believe that these charges indicate that the Democratic Party is rife with corruption. And for those reporters who prefer to keep things simple and partisan, that's the angle to report.

David M. Herszenhorn and Carl Hulse of the New York Times:

By defiantly pushing for full-fledged ethics trials, Representatives Charles B. Rangel and Maxine Waters are raising the prospect of a spectacle focusing on Congressional corruption this fall, just as Democrats are fighting to hold on to their majority in an election already defined by distrust of Washington.

In some ways, that's as simple as it gets. Two powerful Democrats are accused of ethics violations, and that could taint the entire Democratic Party. But there's also something insidious, right in the lede. Defiantly pushing for full-fledged ethics trials? Wanting a chance to prove their innocence is defiant? Because they are accused, they should just go away?

The trials threaten to tarnish Democrats as they try to turn the midterm elections into a choice between keeping them in power or returning to Bush-era policies.

Even if Rangel and Waters are every bit as guilty as they are accused of being, how would that tarnish the Democrats, as a whole? Two Democrats out of more than 250? Two Democrats whose alleged violations aren't even related? Herszenhorn and Hulse seem to have a problem with credibility, but does that mean that the entire staff of the New York Times is tarnished? Eric Lipton and Eric Lichtblau might object to such a suggestion, because they also work for the Times but take a more thoughtful approach.

The charges reflect, in part, a heightened sensitivity in Washington to indiscretions by members of Congress. The House ethics committee, which has brought the charges, has come under fire for failing to hold lawmakers accountable in previous investigations.

In other words, these investigations might actually indicate something positive.

“This wave of activity will remind members and staff that this is an era of more vigilance and scrutiny and they need to be much more careful about what they do,” said Abbe D. Lowell, a Washington defense lawyer who has handled a number of ethics inquiries. “The public’s low esteem for Congress and the appearance of inappropriate conduct in general have to be confronted and dealt with.”

This sounds like a good thing, not a bad thing, which would seem to reflect well on the Democrats: they're actually pursuing ethics investigations.

Meanwhile, at NPR, Liz Halloran also suggests that these charges could taint the Democrats, but she also touches on a deeper issue.

Going into what had already been shaping up as a challenging mid-term election for Democrats, the party will now have two of its most prominent House members — both African-Americans — facing public ethics trials.

Why mention that both Rangel and Waters are African-American? Is there a significance?

Furious behind-the-scenes negotiations designed to encourage Rangel and Waters to settle their cases before public trials have not only met with vigorous resistance so far, but prompted whispers that race has played a role in the targeting of the two legislators.

Interesting that they're being pressured to settle without having the Congressional version of their days in court. Because some Democrats apparently also fear a displaced backlash against the party over possible violations made by less than one percent of its House membership. But those whispers also bear exploring.

And the Democratic House members most at risk of losing their seats in the fall? They are members of the party's Blue Dog coalition, a group of moderate-to-conservative House Democrats — many of whom come from swing or GOP districts, and have not backed the party's overall agenda, including legislation championed by the Congressional Black Caucus.

Curiouser and curiouser. These trials supposedly could hurt the conservative Blue Dogs, who already were at odds with their black colleagues, but rather than point out the absurdity of such, some members of the party think the accused should just go quietly. The black accused. To protect their conservative colleagues, with whom they have had substantive disagreements. And who supposedly could be tainted by these trials that have nothing at all to do with them. And who, perhaps coincidentally, just happen to be white. These arguments lack the key ingredient of logic.

To her credit, Halloran does mention that some other House members are having their own ethical issues, from two House members who already resigned, to Republican Senator John Ensign's steady unraveling. But Halloran again returns to the theme that Democrats could be hurt, particularly because Speaker Nancy Pelosi campaigned on a vow to crack down on corruption. She quotes Darrell West, of what she describes as the "liberal-leaning" Brookings Institute.

"This is lose-lose for Democrats," West says. "There is no way Democrats can spin this."

No way to spin this? How about just telling the truth? Here's a possible angle: Speaker Pelosi vowed to crack down on corruption, and pursuing ethics investigations of two prominent Democrats indicates that she meant it. Is that spin? Rather than covering up a possible scandal, which was how Republicans dealt with allegations of corruption when they were in the majority, full investigations are being pursued. Was that so difficult?

Another Times writer, Bernie Becker, actually decided to pursue that angle.

In an appearance on MSNBC, Representative Chris Van Hollen, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that the accusations against the two veteran Democrats illustrate that the party has strengthened the ethics process since taking control of the House.

“The reason people are hearing about the cases of Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters is because we put in place accountability measures to make sure that we have high standards and that people are held accountable to those standards,” the Maryland Democrat said.

Mr. Van Hollen also made the case that beefing up the ethics process did not mean individual members won’t trip up from time to time – echoing a thought that has also been voiced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top House Democrats.

And Joe Conason weighed in:

According to conventional media wisdom -- always heavily influenced by Republican noisemakers -- the Democrats should expect to suffer because two powerful committee chairs from their party are undergoing ethics investigations. But why should Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats take the blame when they brought reform that led to those investigations, regardless of the political consequences?

Yet, having thrown out the bums who tolerated corruption for so long under Republican leadership, the public is supposedly itching to throw out their replacements, who have reformed the House rules, created a new Office of Congressional Ethics, and handled every case impartially, as promised when the Democrats took over in January 2007. Voters have plenty of reasons to feel frustrated and angry this year, but ethics reform is not among them.

And it would be great if the story could end there. But it can't. While Democrats do deserve credit for taking ethics charges seriously, and while the Republican approach was to cover their tracks, it's also possible that the Democrats are trying too hard to prove their seriousness about pursuing ethics charges.

Back to Herszenhorn and Hulse:

The trials would also stand to remind voters that Democrats, who in recent years extended their reach into the traditionally Republican turf of the rural West and South, are still anchored by an urban, liberal base and led by entrenched veteran lawmakers from big cities.

Urban. Liberal. From big cities. What ever could they be implying?

And the cases could feed racial strains both inside the Democratic caucus, where black members are asking why so many investigations seem to be aimed at them, and out among voters, especially in rural and white districts where many conservative Democrats face tight races.

And perhaps the reporting could feed those racial strains, too. This is being framed as urban black liberal Democrats possibly hurting rural white conservative Democrats, which brings us to the worst part of the story.

As Deoliver47 pointed out, earlier this week, Rep. Waters was born far from privilege, and worked her way up to a long, distinguished career as a champion of causes that could be labeled as liberal, but just as accurately could be labeled as fundamentally protective of people. She's one of those Democrats that conservatives love to hate, and even the most generous rationale would be that it's because she works on behalf of the vulnerable and the dispossessed, and is courageously outspoken when others are silent. And as Earl Ofari Hutchinson and others have pointed out, there are serious questions about the charges against Waters, including the timing of their becoming a major news story.

Hutchinson:

It's no accident that Waters has been dumped on the political hot seat three months before the 2010 mid-term elections. House Democrats are scared stiff that the GOP will erase their majority. What better way to prove that they can police their own, and make good on Pelosi's oft quoted vow to cleanse the swamp in Congress than to make sacrificial lambs out of a handful of wayward Democrats. And chose those who are the most identifiable, outspoken, and vulnerable, and that's African-American Democrats. The choice of Waters and Rangel has little to do with the actual charges and their alleged transgressions, or even whether they have merit or not. It's politics, pure and simple.

The list of white Republicans and Democrats that engage in influence peddling, conflict of interest, bed ties with lobbyists, nepotism, commit campaign financial violations and improprieties, would fill up a small telephone directory. There are occasions when a few of them get hand slap punishments for their sins. Almost always when they are so over the top they can't be ignored. But black politicians that are accused of wrongdoing, or actually do wrong, are called on the carpet far out of proportion to their numbers.

Hutchinson provides numbers to back this claim, then concludes by returning to the political play of the Democrats: That they are, indeed, taking ethics seriously:

Pelosi and the Democrats should hold to that high standard. But they should hold to it with all Democrats.

And they should not be playing politics with people's reputations. They should not be playing into what some in the traditional media and many in the Republican Party would like to see as a developing schism between black urban and white rural Democrats. The Republicans and their media enablers are framing this as simplistically as possible: These accusations hint that the entire Democratic Party is corrupt. The Democrats are framing it as proof that they will crack down on corruption, even among their own. But lest innocents be framed, it would be best that no one rush to judgment. It would be best that Rangel and Waters not be pressured into falling on their swords.

If justice truly is to be served, Rangel and Waters should be encouraged to have their say, and have those Congressional versions of their days in court. Let them have their opportunities to prove that they are innocent. Let their accusers have their chance to prove the opposite. Perhaps they both really do have serious ethical problems. Perhaps one does and the other doesn't. Perhaps neither does. But let the process unfold, and let Democratic leaders be unafraid of the process and its consequences. Fair trials mean fair justice. And for fair justice Democrats should stand. Cracking down on corruption doesn't mean making examples of people, it means making an example of how the process should work.

I couldn't help but admire the beauty of Harry Reid's frontal assault on the Republican party over immigration:

"I don't know how anyone of Latino heritage could be a Republican, OK?" Reid said. "Do I need to say more?"

This blunt language encapsulated the basic argument the entire Democratic Party has to make to Latino people: hostility to minorities is held by the far right majority of the Republican Party. No matter the group, one can almost feel the seething disgust the GOP has for people they don't like. This is obvious to people who can see it and are honest about it, including plenty of people in the Republican Party who are genuinely disgusted by racism. But those folks are increasingly being forced out of the party as it turns its moral center away from big business and Christian evangelicals in favor of white supremacists and extremists.

Harry Reid may have been speaking something that usually lingers just below the surface of political debate in this country. Simply put, there is one party that welcomes people of all colors and faiths, and there is one that does not. Therefore, it is a rather curious thing to find people of color becoming leaders of a party that is openly hostile to people of color. Despite the hostility, the GOP does produce them. Michael Steele, Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio come to mind. There is a strand of the GOP that puts ideology before all, even if the results of that ideology have negative effects on minorities. Still, it isn't difficult to join Harry Reid in asking why anyone of color would want to join the Republican Party.

The majority of the GOP is openly hostile to Latinos. The Arizona racial profiling law they passed is good proof. The reason for this hostility has many different causes. But regardless of motive, it is clear that when Republicans talk about border fences, troops on the border, crime on the border, securing the border, you name it on the border...they mean Latinos. They mistakenly believe that a large number of Spanish-speaking people with higher birthrates poses a threat to white supremacy. This is root cause of the hostility from radical new majority of the Republican Party. It shouldn't be any surprise that large numbers of Latino voters are turning to the one party that is not openly hostile to them.

I don't know why anyone of color would become a Republican either, but I do know that Harry Reid came as close to saying what Black Americans have known to be true: the Republican Party is, increasingly, a party of bigots. There may have been a near time when the GOP consisted mainly of people extremely hostile to government taxation and spending on behalf of the poor. The fact that the poor happened to be for the most part minorities was coincidental. They were just as opposed to taxation and spending on behalf of poor whites. Those folks are now the few in the party. This new GOP is becoming little more than a hate group. Muslims, people of color, gays, liberals...basically anyone not like them is an existential threat to their supremacy. The fact that Harry Reid was open about bringing it up is new. We should applaud him for courageously bringing it to the surface.

Politically, Harry Reid's frontal assault on the GOP is brilliant. While it may strike those who follow the conventional wisdom as costing him a large chunk of the white vote, Reid's move struck exactly the right tone for the majority of white voters in Nevada. A Pew exit poll discovered that Latinos made up 15 percent of the vote in Nevada in 2008. They broke overwhelmingly for Obama: he carried 78 percent of the vote. Combine that with the 10 percent of the Nevada vote that is African-American, and Harry Reid only needs 45 percent of the white vote to win Nevada 55 to 43 just like Obama did. That's a huge landslide. Therefore, if Harry Reid can limit Angle's playing field towards a smaller and smaller group of exclusively white voters, she is going to have a hell of a time winning. She's going to have to carry a huge majority of the white vote in a state that has a slight Democratic registration advantage. The Latino vote in Nevada has become indispensable.

Beyond the obvious political benefit of Harry Reid's attack, however, is the nerve this topic touches among Republicans. Smart Republicans like Karl Rove see the writing on the wall: without a significant Latino vote, the Republican party will be a permanent minority party. New York and California are gone for good. Florida is in the process of folding. Texas isn't far off. But because of their bigoted base, the GOP is forced into talking about altering the Constitution just to keep Latinos out. Deep down, they know this is a battle they cannot win over the long haul. That is what made Reid's words penetrating, controversial, and brilliant. If Democrats want to make a real fight to lock in the Latino vote for a generation, following Reid's lead is the way to go.

This thread wanted to build a temple to the ThreadGod right by Ground Zero, but the American Family Association wouldn't have that either. It contemplated a lawsuit, but decided to bring you some links instead.

• A Balloon Juice commenter manages to sum up the Cordoba House debate in one simple image.
• It's the middle of August, and women finally got the right to vote 90 years ago this month--which makes this story about the passage of suffrage through the Tennessee Legislature quite a propos:

  Ninety years ago this month, all eyes turned to Tennessee, the only state yet to ratify with its Legislature still in session. The resolution sailed through the Tennessee Senate. As it moved on to the House, the most vigorous opposition came from the liquor industry, which was pretty sure that if women got the vote, they’d use it to pass Prohibition. Distillery lobbyists came to fight, bearing samples.

  "Both suffrage and anti-suffrage men were reeling through the hall in an advanced state of intoxication," Carrie Catt reported.

  The women and their allies knew they had a one-vote margin of support in the House. Then the speaker, whom they had counted on as a "yes," changed his mind.

  (I love this moment. Women’s suffrage is tied to the railroad track and the train is bearing down fast when suddenly. ...)

  Suddenly, Harry Burn, the youngest member of the House, a 24-year-old "no" vote from East Tennessee, got up and announced that he had received a letter from his mother telling him to "be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt."

  "I know that a mother’s advice is always the safest for a boy to follow," Burn said, switching sides.

  Mother definitely knew best in this case.

• Not a link, but just a thought. Isn't it getting mind-numbing how much the people who like to dress up as founding fathers and party like it's 1776 just hate the Constitution?
• More Cordoba House goodness, this time from Duke of Orange John Boehner:

  House Republican Leader John A. Boehner  of Ohio took issue with Obama's remarks. "The fact that someone has the right to do something doesn't necessarily make it the right thing to do," Boehner said in a statement. "That is the essence of tolerance, peace and understanding. This is not an issue of law, whether religious freedom or local zoning. This is a basic issue of respect for a tragic moment in our history."

  Yep. Tolerance isn't respecting the First Amendment rights of others. Tolerance is making sure you don't exercise them because some people might get offended. Because Norman Rockwell didn't paint this. What he actually meant was, "sit down and shut up."

• Pick the next DFA Grassroots All-Star. In my home state of California, there are so many good choices I can't vote for just one. What about your state?

This week, Paul Ryan wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled A road map to saving Medicare. A better title for the article would have been "A Radical Prescription For Changing Medicare As We Know It".

Ryan's thesis is basically that we need to rein in costs at all levels of government spending. Fair enough. What's arguable is that he does it by removing government spending. How? By turning risk over to individuals. His proposals (the "Roadmap") can be found here, with areas of concentration in health care, social security and tax policy.

One problem is in the numbers. Paul Krugman:

Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.

And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration’s plans. That is, Mr. Ryan may speak about the deficit in apocalyptic terms, but even if you believe that his proposed spending cuts are feasible — which you shouldn’t — the Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.

While there are more detailed rebuttals of Ryan's entire argument (this one by Paul Van de Water from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), his Medicare proposals deserve a closer look. Krugman, again:

After 2020, the main alleged saving would come from sharp cuts in Medicare, achieved by dismantling Medicare as we know it, and instead giving seniors vouchers and telling them to buy their own insurance. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the same plan Newt Gingrich tried to sell in 1995.

But let's hear it from Ryan:

Future Medicare beneficiaries would receive a payment to apply to a list of Medicare-certified coverage options. The Medicare payment would grow every year, with additional support for those who have low incomes and higher health costs, and less government support for high-income beneficiaries. The most vulnerable seniors would also receive supplemental Medicaid coverage and continue to be eligible for Medicaid's long-term care benefit.

In other words, vouchers. Give seniors a fixed amount of money, and if that doesn't cut it (and it won't), let them eat Medicaid. The irony of Ryan railing against Democrats for expanding Medicaid is not lost on me.

For a more detailed line by line fisking of Ryan's Medicare article, Dean Baker (The Center for Economic and Policy Research) has a very readable post here:

Of course Ryan's plan would end Medicare as we know it. It replaces a Medicare system that pays directly for health care with a voucher system. The voucher is explicitly designed not to keep pace with health care costs. Ryan describes the rate of increase in the size of the voucher as "a blended rate of the CPI and the medical care component of the CPI." In other words, something less than the rate of increase in health care costs. It is also means-tested, so that individuals with incomes above $80,000 would see their voucher cut in half (we might see a lot of people earning $79,999 under the Ryan plan) and those with incomes over $200,000 would not get the voucher...

Ryan then describes his Medicare voucher:

"The Medicare payment would grow every year, with additional support for those who have low incomes and higher health costs, and less government support for high-income beneficiaries."

Actually, the payment is explicitly designed to fall behind the rate of medical care cost inflation. Rather than those with lower incomes getting more, those with higher incomes (above $80,000 a year) would fall further behind inflation.

So, why don't we simply tell seniors that Ryan's plan eliminates Medicare as we know it now, reintroduce Gingrich's idea of vouchers for seniors, and leaves seniors with the risk should they not be able to find a commercial plan that covers them? Ah, Ryan has an answer for that:

The Democratic leadership will seek to brand every Republican running for office with my road map.

You betcha. Republicans are running from this plan as fast as they can, because Ryan's plan really is radical.

I asked CBPP's Van de Water for a comment about the overall plan:

The scariest thing about the Ryan plan is that it gets such respectful attention.  Ryan’s Roadmap provides huge tax cuts for the rich while it raises taxes on most everyone else, privatizes Social Security, eliminates guaranteed Medicare benefits, and fails to stem the rising tide of debt.    It’s an extremely radical proposal that shouldn’t be taken seriously and certainly doesn’t represent a reasonable starting point for a discussion of the federal budget.

That is scary. Ryan's numbers don't add up, as Krugman and others have noted, and Republicans want no part of it. But the media is not doing a great job of covering that. As far as the job they are doing, here's Brad DeLong:

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

There should be resignations from the Washington Post today in protest of their running their unfact-checked piece by Republican representative Paul Ryan. You'd think they'd be embarrassed to be complicit in yet more selling of deficit-exploding plans as deficit-reducing ones.

But, then, it is a freezing day in August when there shouldn't be resignations in protest from the Washington Post, isn't it.

There are other provisions in Ryan's proposal that also merit attention. Fromm Van de Water's post at CBPP:

The Ryan proposal would also replace the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance with a refundable tax credit for people to buy health coverage — the equivalent of a voucher. By eliminating the tax exclusion without providing incentives for employers to continue offering health coverage, the plan would likely cause a substantial decline in employer-based coverage.

One of the reasons Wyden-Bennett didn't go further in the Senate is because of the concerns about the effect on employer-based health insurance, generally not addressed by the press that prints his op-eds. And a big picture summary from van de Water:

The Roadmap would give the most affluent households a new round of very large, costly tax cuts by reducing income tax rates on high-income households; eliminating income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolishing the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the alternative minimum tax. At the same time, the Ryan plan would raise taxes for most middle-income families, privatize a substantial portion of Social Security, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, end traditional Medicare and most of Medicaid, and terminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

That's a lot of responsibility shifting (and we haven't even touched on Social Security.)

But rather than the pejoratives from Ryan (who went on Glenn Beck to decry progressive ideas as a "cancer"), let's lay out single payer, the current system and Ryan's Roadmap side by side and see what we get. Let's have a discussion about shifting responsibility from the Feds to individuals ill-prepared for what Ryan is suggesting, but let's do it honestly. If the Republicans really want to run on dismantling the government safety net in the middle of a recession, let's just lay it out on the table and have a vote.

Watching something you care deeply about working its way through Congress is utterly exhausting, and usually a little depressing. So it is with the US Space Program and me. There's a grudge match brewing, it's bizarro world with the usual partisan roles flipped in some cases, and like most pieces of legislation and especially those involving change, there's a lot of money and jobs riding on the outcome either way.

Ultra fast recap: The Shuttle Columbia disaster brought home in the most tragic way possible that America's shuttle fleet was aging and would soon have to be retired. There was no manned US rocket in development to replace it. In 2005 President Bush decided on a big government rocket program with the moon as a stepping stone to Mars called Constellation. For the first year or two Constellation didn't hog too many NASA resources, but over time it would eventually cost between 50 and 100 billion dollars by most estimates. That funding never came close to materializing. Without it, by 2008 the program was already falling way behind schedule, and like most red-blooded US politicians, George Bush kicked that can o'worms down the road to the incoming President.

Obama comes in, sets up a study of the issue usually referred to as the Augustine Commissions, which found as expected that Constellation was so underfunded and behind schedule that it was unrealistic. In the middle of the worst economy since 1930, a fully funded, twenty-year, $50 billion plus Mars rocket program didn't have much of a chance. So the WH proposed killing the two most expensive parts of Constellation before they gobbled up more billions, and investing a much smaller sum of money in emerging commercial space companies collectively referred to henceforth as Newspace. This was done in the belief Newspace would be able to provide NASA the basic services NASA was losing with the shuttle -- mainly human and human cargo transport to Low Earth Orbit and the ISS -- at a much lower cost and much faster than NASA acting alone. And an immediate mixed-up crazy-ass turf war broke out between everyone.

In this bizarre war, the GOP tended to oppose anything Obama did thus forcing them by default to reject good old capitalism and support Bush's Big Government high dollar Constellation. Dems and Repubs in districts in districts and states that would benefit the most from Constellation especially lined up against Obama and Newspace.

Two bills now sit in each house of congress. The Senate bill is the usual watered down pablum, but in another bizarro twist, it's actually better than the House version. The Senate bills tries to half ass Newspace, and ends Constellation after letting a few projects that will never serve any purpose -- other than making a company some money -- continue for a bit longer than they should. The House version starves Newspace to the point of death, thus cutting off any hope of a US rocket for years, and resurrects a token Constellation program. The freaking House bill does the exact opposite of properly fund Constellation -- which is what the Augustine Commission said had to happen in the first place for it to be realistic.

Which ever way it goes, some people will make money and get jobs while another group will lose both (I suppose that's kind of a wash as long as you're not one of them). After looking at it for going on three years, I come down on the side of Newspace for reasons I'll be writing about this month and next. So I like the Senate bill better, as written anyway, than the House bill, even though they both suck. And I'll be following this and writing about it through September, or as long as I can stand to anyway.

The pair of words at the top of the conserva-dictionary these days has to be those Bobbsey Twins of political attack: anti-American and un-American.  Michelle Bachman has called on the press to investigate "anti-American" members of Congress. Rand Paul called the president "un-American" for trying to hold BP accountable for the damage to the Gulf region. Oliver North says that President Obama has a "core-philosophy of being anti-American." The appropriately named Dick Morris says that Obama is the "first anti-American president."  

This isn't exactly a new coinage. The un and anti have been pulled out many times to fling against those who have in the past protested some aspect of national policy, especially those who've failed to cheer loudly enough for war.  But these days it's not so much generic hippy punching that brings out the twins. Instead they're generally fired over the bow of anyone the right sees as deviating from the one true path -- that of the unrestrained free market. President Obama is a frequent target because of his many real and imagined slights against the market. After all, while the current president didn't start the bank bailout (even if many Americans think he did), he did support at least mild regulation of Wall Street run wild, and he spent all that money on "shovel ready" infrastructure products even though it meant running up the debt, he did invest in the failing auto industry, and he... um, well, he's done lots of other socialist things too. They're sure of it. Barack Obama has even promoted the kind of America where children give away lemonade (really, that's what's wrong with America -- too much free lemonade).

Conservatives pull out the "anti-American" tag in going after every intrusion of the government into the economy. They leave little doubt that America and the "free market" are synonymous. But here't here's the thing: there is an American eonomic system, and while defining what it is takes a little time, defining what it's not is simple.  It's not the free market.

The American economic system -- the system defined by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton -- came directly out of the challenges faced by our nation. America, as a new country, was at a huge disadvantage to Europe when it came to the ability to produce manufactured goods. American-made goods at the time were often lesser quality, more expensive, or both when compared to products coming from European factories. Both men were well aware of free market principles (On the Wealth of Nations was published in 1776) and there were those among the founders that pushed Washington to run the country along a purely market-driven philosophy. An unregulated free market backed up by the gold standard was the basis of the "English System," and the British had enjoyed more than a little success.

Washington and Hamilton might have emulated the nation they had just defeated on the battlefield, but that wasn't the path they chose. Instead, steep tariffs were imposed on imported goods. These inflated the price of products from European factories and allowed American makers to both capture more of the market and turn a higher profit. With that money, American factories were enlarged and became more numerous.

There was another problem at the time -- states were nearly bankrupt. The cost of financing the War of Independence had emptied the coffers, and many states were having trouble paying off their loans. At the same time, hundreds of state and local banks were operating under different rules, different rates, even different currencies. The country was awash in speculators taking advantage of differences in exchange rates and shipping costs to rack up fortunes while farmers and craftsmen suffered. Think Wall Street was crazy in 2007? Imagine a country with dozens of different currencies and no one regulating the exchange rates. Now imagine how many people learned to game the system.

To address this, Hamilton proposed that the federal government bail-out the states and regulate the financial markets. There was only one problem with this idea -- the federal government was also in debt, and banks were unlikely to loan them money that would be used to regulate those same institutions. Hamilton had an answer for that. He proposed that the US government become the largest stockholder in a bank. Not an existing bank, a new bank. The government would create this bank as a private company, but the government would own the majority of stock. The government would also lay down the rules for the bank, including limits on who could buy stock and what type of investments the bank could make. From this new bank, the government would borrow the money to pay off the states and address federal needs.

The first and largest federal need? The $2 million it would take to buy stock in the new bank. The solution? The new bank loaned it to us. Got that? We made the bank, the bank then loaned us the money to buy the bank. Even paying back the loan was more than we could afford, so Hamilton made a proposal popular with politicians in any age, a "sin tax." In this case, it was a tax on imported and domestic spirits (to see how well that went, just look up the Whiskey Rebellion).

With the money from the new government-owned bank, the US could take care of its own debts and those of the states. The government could regulate currency and set rules on trading. It also started in on a series of large infrastructure projects -- roads, canals, and public buildings.

That, brothers and sisters, was the American economic system. Those who worry that we've wandered too far from the vision of the founding fathers might want to remember that in George Washington's first term, the government was involved in:

• selectively restricting imports
• bailing out debts of states
• being the majority owner of a private company
• clamping down on fiscal speculation
• executing a "stimulus plan" of infrastructure projects

The American school of economics was founded on these ideas: selective tariffs, government regulation of banks, and strong investment in infrastructure. Under later presidents a fourth plank was added to this platform -- investment in public education.

Within a space of decades, the American school of economics gave us... America. America the economic power that matched, then surpassed any of its European rivals. The success of American economics was so clear that Lincoln's economic advisor, could write these words...

Two systems are before the world;... One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it. One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace.

That other system, the sinking, pauper-ignorance-war making system? That was the English System, the system we now call "the free market."

Of course, the American school of economics was never followed by 100% of Americans. It's fortunes waxed and waned, taking huge hits at the start of the 20th century -- particularly under Woodrow Wilson. These days, we're taught to believe that protectionism was one of the causes of the 1929 stock market crash, but the truth is it was leaving the old system that caused a unsupportable increase in stock prices. Reduction of tariffs, easing of regulation, and the end of the National Bank system moved money away from internal investments and toward international trade and speculation.  The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was signed into being after the crash in an attempt to restore some fragment of the old system. It's not clear what, if any, effect these tariffs had, but under the New Deal funds were diverted from speculation back to infrastructure -- pulling America up from the depression.

These days we're also fed the idea that in this "flat" world, any attempt to return to the American system would be disastrous. We couldn't possibly impose tariffs as post-war Japan did until it was operating at a trade surplus. We couldn't possibly deal that way with our "partners" such as China -- where American automobiles face steep tariffs so steep that their products are uncompetitive unless they partner with Chinese-owned companies. The evidence of the last century is that nations practicing a "free trade" system, always export jobs to countries practicing the American system. But hey, America can't possibly use the American system. It would be... un-American.

The free market system was not the original economic system of America. It wasn't the system that brought us to international power, not the system that carried us through World War II, not written into our Constitution in any way. In fact, one of the primary powers granted federal authority is the regulation of the economy. It was clearly understood that economic anarchy was incompatible with democracy.

In saying that any move against an absolute free market is un-American, conservatives are declaring that Washington was un-American, Hamilton was un-American, Lincoln was un-American.

The truth is that the free market is opposed to the American economic system, but America the country has no predefined economic system. It's not hard-coded that we follow the American system, the free market system, or any other system. One of the goals of the constitution was to give us the flexibility to adapt economic policy to the times. Pretending that we must remain wedded to one system no matter what (even when that system has as long a record of failure as the so-called free market) -- that's really anti-American.

Sunday opinion.

Dan Balz:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine  has led a chorus of Democrats contending that Republicans have nominated a group of extremists whose views are far outside the mainstream of the country.

In some cases, that might be correct.

That "might be" is a journalistic substitute for "is". But it still might not be enough, despite it being a mitigating factor.

NY Times:

"Democrats don’t know how to celebrate," said Mr. Dodd, suggesting that his colleagues should be reveling in the achievements of what Democrats and Republicans agree is one of the most consequential Congressional sessions in decades. "In the face of unyielding opposition, this president and this Congress stepped up to pass historic legislation for the good of the country."

Frank Rich:

The Peabody women were among the countless players in these larger civil rights dramas. They are testimony to the courage, big-heartedness and sense of fundamental fairness that can flower in our country in the most unexpected quarters even as the angrier and more malign voices dominate the debate. And sometimes over the long term — an obscenely long term in the case of black civil rights — the good guys and women can win real victories. Make no mistake about it: The Proposition 8 trial, Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision and the subsequent reaction to it (as much a non-reaction as anything else) constitute a high point in America’s history-long struggle to live up to its democratic ideals.

CSM:

In Paris and London, opinion seems split between those who support and even admire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s acceptance of the Islamic center and those who say the 16-story center is inappropriate or a provocation Americans shouldn’t accept.

In France, stories on Mr. Bloomberg’s decision registered surprise that an America often seen here as narrow-minded and Arab-hating proved more open and tolerant in some ways than current French opinion.

"What we see [in New York] is a fair, balanced treatment of communities ....Let the Americans do it their way....most of their founders settled in the US in order to obtain absolute religious freedom, and this is what is being upheld by this [New York City] decision," comments one François Bogard, in a Le Monde forum.

Yet striking among pundits, websites, and bloggers is an often articulate though sometimes churlish depiction of Islam as a single monolithic form of faith, inherently violent and extreme, and of Muslims as incapable of being moderate.

Walter Russell Mead,  Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy, CFR :

I've just returned from a two-week lecture tour in Pakistan, a country where the United States and its president are not particularly popular. As I responded to the sometimes hostile and often searching questions from Pakistanis about U.S. attitudes toward Islam, it was very important to be able to point to the Ground Zero mosque as an example of American religious freedom and the rule of law at work.

Every now and then, a country must actually live up to its founding ideals. This is one of those times; American Muslims should have the same rights to build, to preach and to pray as all of their fellow citizens. President Barack Obama is doing what any American president should do in like case: he is standing by the Constitution of the United States.

NY Times:

Mr. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, also held annual Ramadan celebrations and frequently took pains to draw a distinction between Al Qaeda  and Islam, as Mr. Obama did Friday night. But Mr. Obama, unlike Mr. Bush, has been accused of being a closet Muslim (he is Christian) and faced attacks from the right that he is soft on terrorists.

"For people who already fear the worst from Obama, this only confirms their fears," said John Feehery, a Republican consultant who spent years as a top party aide on Capitol Hill. "This is not a unifying decision on his part; he chose a side. I understand why he did this, but politically I think it’s a blunder."

White House aides say Mr. Obama was well aware of the risks. "He understands the politics of it," David Axelrod, his senior adviser, said in an interview.

Few national Democrats rushed to Mr. Obama’s defense; party leaders, who would much prefer Mr. Obama to talk about jobs, were mostly silent. Two New York Democrats, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand and Representative Jerrold Nadler, however, did back Mr. Obama. But Alex Sink, the Democratic candidate for governor here, distanced herself, while Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-independent, defended the president.

"I think he’s right," Mr. Crist told reporters during an appearance with the president at a Coast Guard station here.

For people who already fear the worst from Obama, everything that happens anywhere confirms their fears. Take a tip from independent Charlie Crist. Get a backbone and defend your President, Democrats. He did the right thing. Now you do the right thing.

Julian Zelizer:

When conservatives brand President Obama a socialist or a foreigner, his aides laugh it off. When critics disparage him as arrogant or aloof, they roll their eyes. But if liberals dare compare Obama to his predecessor in the Oval Office, the gloves come off.

With the nation's unemployment rate stuck around 9.5%, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took to The Hill this week to unveil the Obama administration's latest job creation plan.

And while it's still early, I think I can say that it was a resounding success.

Within hours of the interview's publication, the ranks of the professional left had grown from a few highly-paid pundits to thousands of pajama-clad bloggers (most of them presumably on George Soros' payroll).

...

Note: Those of you looking to cash in on this golden opportunity should keep in mind that there may be drug testing, and act accordingly.

This evening's Rescue Rangers are Purple Priestess, HoosierDeb, shayera, grog, and claude with shayera editing.

• Free Chicken and Beer proposes an idea on what he'd like to do and asks us for our advice in A Pivotal Turning Point: Journalism, Activism, or Vagrancy?. (Purple Priestess)
• Ojibwa and his Dam Indians: The Columbia River. The latest in a superbly written ongoing saga chronicling Native America's collision with Europe and the rest of the world, a train wreck that continues to this day. (claude)
• GothmogIV reflects on America's poor and the overwhelming demand for housing assistance in On Conscience. (grog)
• Mokurai invites us to consider hatred; ours for others and others' for us, and suggests a path out of the morass: Middle East Compassion Meets Rage. (claude)
• gjohnsit brings us some Fairy Tales and History Rhymes. (shayera)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: August 13, 2010.

carolita has Top Comments 8-14-10 – Fear and Loathing Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

Fifteen days and 3659 miles later, your intrepid curator of the Wrap has returned from far-flung places. It's good to be back, of course, although the in-box did swell to fairly preposterous proportions in my absence.

With that in mind, consider this return edition of the Wrap to be the "clearing out the in-box" edition of the Wrap. No campaign stories in this edition, folks--this one is pure data. Allow this to be a pretty comprehensive compendium of the polls that have accumulated over the past two weeks. A special tip o' that hat to both Swing State Project and DC's Political Report for filling the gaps.

With that, head below the fold for all of the numerical goodness that has stacked up on the front porch in my absence...

One of the things that science fiction and fantasy do well is to take a moral dilemma and recast it in terms that get past our lifetime of built up prejudices. Given the right twist, good writers can sneak up with us on tales that talk right to our problems with race, with gender, with age and do it in a way that slides past that crust of accumulated expectations. Sometimes it takes an elf or an alien to point out the oddities of human behaviors and beliefs.

But there's another kind of alien -- and they're all around us. They're called children.

When we think about young characters, we often think of them in terms of children's books, but some of the most important literature in history comes with a child or young adult providing the viewpoint. The reason this works so well is partly the same reason that playing out Cold War politics with Klingons works, but they also bring in another element.

When we're moving along the Mississippi with Huck Finn, it's not just that we feel his confusion in looking at the world. We also feel the shame and difficulty that we would have in trying to explain that world. Huck doesn't just see the world from a perspective untainted by an adult's responsibilities, he sees it from a position unstained by decades of compromises. Seeing the institutions around us examined by young eyes can make us reappraise decisions we made long ago. A young narrator can't quite give us back the years, but sometimes she can manage to peel away the varnish.  

Huck's far from alone on that literary raft. He needs to slide over all give space for Holden Caufield, Mattie Ross, and plenty of room for Scout Finch. Young characters have been a staple of some of the most popular (and most significant) books from Jane Ayre to Katniss Everdeen. Here are a few other youngsters who have some very precocious things to say to their adult readers.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
At 15, Christopher John Francis Boone is the oldest of the four protagonist on this list. He may also be the oddest. Boone's condition is never given a label in the book, but it seems clear from the first person account that he is somewhere along the broad spectrum of autism-related disorders. In some ways, Boone is a savant, able to untangle mathematical puzzles at a glance. He's also an admirer of Sherlock Holmes, so when he finds the body of a neighbor's dog, it seems only right to Boone that he should put his own considerable deductive skills toward solving this murder. Unfortunately, every gift that Boone has at math is matched by a total inability to decipher the emotional life and motivations of those around him. The investigation of the dog's death unravels a long list of lies -- some small, some large -- and ultimately they bring down Christopher's world. All the while Christopher remains the detached eye at the middle of the storm he is helping to create. Whether the viewpoint here is actually like that of someone suffering from autism is impossible to say -- but it does make for a very interesting read.

The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
Susie Salmon is one of the most appealing characters in literature. She's also dead. At several points in Sebold's tale, those two facts make it nearly impossible to continue. We're crushed under the weight of "what if," lanced by the thought that Susie will never go to the prom, never go to college, never grow old. Susie might be able to move on from her own death, but for the reader (and her family members) that movement is much more difficult. There is an ongoing ache to not just catch the rapist and murderer who ended Susie's life, but to make right what can never be made right. What makes this ghost-story-told-by-the-ghost work, what makes it possible to get through the pain of the story and into the joy, is the absolutely lyrical prose. Just jaw-dropping, beautiful stuff on the page. Emotions, actions, and decisions of the highest possible consequence painted out in the blazing colors you can only get from the intensity of a young teenager -- and the talent of a very gifted writer.

When You Reach Me
by Rebecca Stead
If you pick your books by weight, this slim volume won't catch your eye. Go back and look again. Think of this book like one of the good M. Night Shyamalan movies. Every word of every sentence in this book is doing double or triple duties. There are subtle hidden meanings lurking on every page, and every action -- every action -- has its consequences. Strange anonymous notes begin appearing in the life of sixth-grader, Miranda. Suddenly everything in her Upper West Side neighborhood seem connected in a way that they didn't before, and that connection only gradually becomes clear. Unlike the other books on this list, this book is really aimed at a young audience, but adults will not find the mysteries easily dismissed. There's time travel at work in this tale, only not quite like you might expect.

Bee Season
by Myla Goldberg
This has been one of my favorite novels since the moment it appeared. It's  right up there with the non-fiction work Into Thin Air in terms of the sheer number of copies I've purchased to hand to friends. Anyone standing near me who admits to not reading this book, is in danger of finding it gifted to them. That said, the feedback I've received on the book is far from universal praise. This is not the easiest or most uplifting of novels. Eliza Naumann, 11, appears at the outset of the novel to be the least accomplished member of a highly accomplished family. Her older brother is a fine student and a talented musician. Her mother is a successful lawyer. Her father is both cantor in the local synagogue and a religious scholar. But as the novel progresses we get to see that there's both a good deal less -- and a hell of a lot more -- to all these characters than what we saw at the outset. Each of them is, in a way unique to themselves, on a quest to find God -- quests that take them past failure, rebellion, and madness. And it may just be that Eliza is the one who can complete the journey... though the power of spelling bees. I'm cheating a bit with this one, as not all of the novel is told from Eliza's viewpoint. I don't care.  Just assume I've handed you a copy and said "read this."

Via Climate Progress, CNN's long time climate change skeptic and purveyor of every wingnut talking point on global warming in the book, Chad Myers, finally admits the truth:

Is it caused by man? Yes. Is it 100% caused by man? No. There are other things involved. We are now in the sun spot cycle. We are now in a very hot sun cycle. there are many other things going on. But, yes, a significant portion of this is caused by greenhouse gases keeping heat on the shore, on the land, in the atmosphere that could have escaped without those greenhouse gases, so, yes, it’s warmer. . ..

No doubt we're now supposed to applaud Myers for ending his long reign of misinformation and energy industry apologetic -- assuming that is what this signals -- and just forgive him. Which might still be possible, but would have been a lot easier if not for the stuff I've emphasized above. And that kind of material is all too representative of the ghost of Myers' past denial. That bold statement is not only wrong, it's not just a common, discredited climate change denier talking point, it is 100% empirically wrong. Below are the sunspot and solar irradiance cycles plotted on the same graph courtesy of NASA.

As you can see, both sunpots and solar irradiance move together and both are just barely coming out of a deep minimum. The sun has been in the coolest part of its cycle, with the least number of sunspots, for the last two years (2010 hasn't finished out yet, but record heat on top of the recent solar minimum is yet another reason to be worried). In meteorology circles, this is high school level stuff. Which means either Myers, who is CNN's purported national weather expert, has a poor understanding of the science in his field, or he intentionally lied on "America's most trusted" news network.