CBO: Obamacare saves money, GOP plan costs $109bn

It's surprising that Democrats haven't done a better job of throwing this in the GOP's, and specifically Mitt Romney's, face. Politico:

Overall, the new estimate pegs the costs of the law’s health insurance coverage provisions at $1.2 trillion over 11 years, a figure that is more than offset by new taxes and Medicare cuts. CBO also projected that the House GOP’s effort to repeal the law would add $109 billion to the nation’s debt over 10 years, a number that is far below the $210 billion estimated last year.

Read the rest of this post...

Catholic church laments prison term for pedophile-enabler

From the NYT:

Monsignor Lynn served as secretary for clergy for the 1.5 million-member archdiocese from 1992 to 2004, recommending priest assignments and investigating abuse complaints. During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that he had shielded predatory priests, sometimes transferring them to unwary parishes, and lied to the public to avoid bad publicity and lawsuits.

He got three to six years.  Classic statement from the Catholic church:

In a statement Tuesday, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia said that its procedures for protecting children had improved significantly since “the events some 10 years ago that were at the center of this trial.”

It acknowledged “legitimate anger in the broad community toward any incident or enabling of sexual abuse.” But it also described the sentence as overly harsh, saying “fair-minded people will question the severity.”

“We hope that when this punishment is objectively reviewed, it will be adjusted,” it said.

So how much jail time is appropriate for aiding and abetting the rape of children?  Any?

And here's another question: Why is this guy still a Catholic priest at all? He appeared in court in his full priestly garb. They still haven't fired him? Boy if he was gay they'd have gotten rid of him immediately. As we've noted repeatedly, the Catholic Church simply doesn't value the safety of young children. Read the rest of this post...

Union housekeepers announce global boycott of Hyatt

Via email and votehyattworst.org (my emphasis and paragraphing):

Dear Friends,

Housekeepers nationwide need your help. ... [T]his week Hyatt housekeepers are launching a global boycott of Hyatt. Please take two seconds to support them by voting Hyatt the Worst Hotel Employer in America.

Why is Hyatt the worst?

• Hyatt has replaced career housekeepers with temp workers earning minimum wage.
• Hyatt housekeepers have heavy workloads that can lead to debilitating pain and injuries.
• Hyatt has fired women shortly after they have spoken out about abuse and indignities at work.
• And Hyatt even turned heat lamps on workers protesting these conditions during a brutal Chicago heat wave.

Worldwide, we are calling on five million people to take a stand and Vote Hyatt Worst. By joining together, we will urge Hyatt to change its ways.

I offer this in the interest of keeping you well informed. This is happening, with or without you. If you click, it happens with you.

In case you've forgotten, Rule 2 of an Effective Progressive Coalition:

Members of the Coalition have each others' back.

Not that you would forget...

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius Read the rest of this post...

Senate Democrats pass extension of Bush tax cuts only for incomes below $250k

The GOP dropped its filibuster and let the bill pass, but they still voted against it, which is odd.  Perhaps they wanted to deny Democrats the benefit of the the televised drama of a real filibuster. Read the rest of this post...

Why "centrists" want to kill the New Deal

This is the audio of the recent conversation between myself and Jay Ackroyd on so-called "centrism" and the relentless attempt to reverse the New Deal.

In my view, the "third way" is a cover story for the left-elites' attempt to keep the current aristocracy (both left-seeming and right-seeming elites) firmly in place. But listen and decide; and weigh in with comments if you disagree.

Articles mentioned in the discussion:

  ■ Jeffrey Sach: Move America’s economic debate out of its time warp (free registration required)
  ■ Paul Krugman: Magneto Muddles
  ■ Brad DeLong: What Is to Be Done Now?: Jeff Sachs Appears to Miss the Point by a Substantial Margin

Navigation hint: Holding down the right and left arrow keys performs an excellent fast-forward and fast-rewind. You can also click in the progress bar.

Listen to internet radio with Jay Ackroyd on Blog Talk Radio

The discussion opens with the Jeffrey Sachs article and "centrism."

The discussion of "rent-seeking economies" (which in the current instance means "making bankers whole") starts at 26:20. My article on rent-seeking is here.

Thanks for listening.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius Read the rest of this post...

Newsweek to eventually cease print publication

I'm not comfortable at all with this.  It feels like more than simply trading in the floppy disk for a memory stick - i.e., a graceful transition from obsolescence to a more modern, and useful rebirth.  We've lost the media, in a bad way.  And all of us played our role (the right in trying to destroy the gatekeepers of the truth, and the left in unwittingly supporting the right by incessantly bashing the media's ineptitude).

Putting all those newspapers and magazines online for free was a huge mistake in retrospect, IMHO. Read the rest of this post...

Top Romney foreign policy adviser endorses Bachmann's anti-Muslim witchhunt

I wonder how Team Romney would feel about an anti-Mormon witch hunt?  Would that be okay too?  Or is religious bigotry acceptable in the Romney campaign only when it's focused on religions the Mormons don't like?

From Think Progress:

Today on Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney’s radio show, Mitt Romney foreign policy adviser John Bolton defended Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) call for the U.S. government to investigate suggestions that government employees — including a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — are affiliated with a Muslim Brotherhood plot to infiltrate the U.S. government.

[Romney foreign policy adviser John] BOLTON: What I think these members of Congress have done is simply raise the question, to a variety of inspectors general in key agencies, are your departments following their own security clearance guidelines, are they adhering to the standards that presumably everybody who seeks a security clearance should have to go through, are they making special exemptions? What is wrong with raising the question? Why is even asking whether we are living up to our standards a legitimate area of congressional oversight, why has that generated this criticism? I’m just mystified by it.

Here's the problem. Some have expressed the concern that Romney will toe the Mormon line and do what his faith wants if he wins the presidency. That would be the same thing Romney adviser Bolton, and Bachmmann (and Limbaugh and Beck) are accusing Muslims of.

So, if Romney adviser Bolton thinks it's okay to ask government agencies to make sure that Muslims in government aren't secretly following the orders of Islam-central, wherever that may be, does Team Romney think it's okay to ask government agencies to do the same with Mormon federal employees? Read the rest of this post...

Never before seen video of Orca attack at Sea World just released

It gets wild about 1:30 into the video. This was just released via FOIA request. It's of a 2006 attack where an Orca grabbed a trainer's foot and pulled him under.  He finally got free, but has wounds to both feed, including some breaks. I've got the video and screen captures below.

The video is really quite horrifying but also fascinating. The man gets pulled under, then after a while the animal resurfaces and stays at the surface for a while, still holding his foot in its mouth. He keeps patting the animal, trying to calm it, occasionally the Orca pulls him under again, as his foot is still in its mouth, then you notice from a different camera angle that his foot is free yet he's still patting the animal. It's not clear why until you realize that he's seems to be slowly pushing the animal towards the entry ramp to the pool. Just as he gets close enough, he releases the Orca then runs for his life to get out of the pool. It's amazing.

Here's the video, then some screen caps for those who may not wish to watch the entire video:



Screen captures:

The orca pulls the trainer down further.

The orca then swims around with the trainer's foot still in his mouth.

Finally, the animal and trainer are on the surface - you
finally realize at one point that his foot is free.

The trainer keeps slowing pushing the orca towards the entry
to the pool. 

The trainer makes a break for it, just as the orca realizes
and starts to turn around.

The trainer swims frantically for the edge of the pool,
the orca now clearly following him.

He gets to the edge of the pool, orca still coming.

Another trainer reaches out to help him as he frantically
tries to get out of the pool with a broken foot, the orca is now
at the edge of the pool, but diving.

He's out, the orca has moved on.

Read the rest of this post...

What is "climate catastrophe"?

UPDATE: A complete list of climate series pieces is available here:
The Climate series: a reference post.
________

This continues the Climate Catastrophe series I've been doing lately. Most recently, these have included:

  ■ Hugging the monster: Climate scientists and the C-word (Catastrophe)

  ■ The epic heat wave: "Of course it's about climate change"

  ■ Hansen on 3°C: Quarter to half of species on earth may die from global warming

I'll have a number of others — including a set of five that deal with Bill McKibben's recent (and must-read) article in Rolling Stone.

But before I continue, I want to look at the term I've been using as a substitute for the overly-polite "climate change" and its older cousin, the more accurate "global warming." My substitute — Climate Catastrophe.

What is "climate catastrophe"?

"Climate catastrophe" is not just a scare phrase, a metaphor. It's a description. Recently I quoted James Hansen in his paper "Perceptions of Climate Change: The New Climate Dice" (pdf):

If global warming approaches 3°C by the end of the century, it is estimated that 21-52% of the species on Earth will be committed to extinction.

That's Hansen writing, not me. Note that a rise in 3°C is about 6°F (actually 5.4°F). Not much. And as you'll soon read, we've already achieved .8°C of that 3°C — we're more than a quarter of the way there.

Now look at Hansen's estimated extinction rate — in round numbers, 20–50% of species gone for good. (That's a pretty wide range, by the way. As climate predictions go, we've been "exceeding expectations" lately, so I would anticipate the higher part of that range to be more likely, something like 30% or above.)

Here's what percentages of mass extinction look like over the history of life on earth:

Marine extinction intensity through time. The blue graph shows the apparent percentage (not the absolute number) of marine animal genera becoming extinct during any given time interval. It does not represent all marine species, just those that are readily fossilized. (source and image info)

The most recent spike in extinctions — a modest one, with about 14% of species going away — was 30 million years ago. Look at the far right end of the chart for it.

Hansen is talking about an extinction rate of 1.5 to 3 times that, 20% to 50% of species going extinct. Given the tendency of recent climate predictions to be low, I'd start at 30% as the lower boundary. So look at the whole chart for spikes above 30% extinctions. There are only six that I can identify. Six 30%–or–more extinction events in 542 million years. At the 40% level, there are only three.

Six extinctions events with 30% or more species eliminated; three with 40% or more. Hansen's high estimate is 50%.

There is only one extinction event that eliminated 50% of the species on earth, at the Permian–Triassic boundary, some 250 million years ago. Here's what occurred (some emphasis added; my paragraphing; see original for cite-notes):

The Permian–Triassic (P–Tr) extinction event, informally known as the Great Dying, was an extinction event that occurred 252.28 Ma (million years) ago, forming the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods, as well as the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras.

It is the Earth's most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct. It is the only known mass extinction of insects. Some 57% of all families and 83% of all genera became extinct.

Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on Earth took significantly longer than after any other extinction event, possibly up to 10 million years. This event has been described as the "mother of all mass extinctions."

The mother of all mass extinctions. So far.

This is "climate catastrophe" — Humans poised to knowingly cause the seventh greater-than-30% extinction event in the history of life on earth. If not worse.

According to Hansen, if we increase the global average temperature less than 6°F by the end of this century, those extinctions could occur as we watch — in our, our children's and our grandchildren's lifetimes.

What happens on the way to these mass species extinctions?

Climate catastrophe is not just the extinctions themselves — it's also the world-historical convolutions in human life as we get there.

These are just a few: Mass migration of populations. Mass starvations. Global reshaping of coastlines. The fall of national political structures; the rise of local barons and strongmen. Revenge by the starving dying masses on those who are blamed.

Need more? They are easy to devine. All of this is contained in the phrase "climate catastrophe."

Another data point — what are the odds that one of those extinctions won't end up being us? After all, the larger species (top predators) are hit hard in these events. And I do rank us up there as top predator; we are literally, in fact, our own worst enemies. I fear no species like I fear my own; most people I know would agree.

Bottom line

I think many of us are proud of our predatory status. It would be a shame if we were our own next victims, but that looks like a possibility.

Am I wrong? Consider just the mass starvation caused by huge disruptions in food supply. Remember, the earth is not a cylinder, with equal mass to the north of the U.S. The growing area in Canada, if Canada becomes the breadbasket of North America, will certainly be smaller than the equivalent growing area now within our borders. And that doesn't touch the food wars that will occur in the rest of the world.

If water and food are scarce, there will certainly be mass migrations. Imagine this compressed into two generations.

I won't dwell here; I'm looking for solutions. But "hugging the monster" means recognizing the problem. It breeds urgency and concentrates the effort.

Looming climate catastrophe — that's definitely a problem worth recognizing.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
  Read the rest of this post...

Romney adviser says Obama doesn't appreciate America's white heritage

Why doesn't Romney simply start running ads saying "Vote Romney, he's whiter."

In an age in which it's apparently okay for Mitt Romney to repeatedly just make stuff up about President Obama, this interpretation of these incredibly inappropriate comments by a Romney advisers is more than fair.  From ThinkProgress:

An adviser to Mitt Romney told a London paper that Obama has not been an effective partner for Britain because he doesn’t “fully appreciate” America’s “Anglo-Saxon heritage.” The racially tinged comments come hours before Romney lands in London for a series of high level meetings and the opening of the Olympic Games.

Jon Swaine of the Daily Telegraph has the story:

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

Funny, because America's Anglo-Saxon heritage wasn't very important to the Romney family when they abandoned America and moved to Mexico in order to avoid US anti-polygamy laws (the 19th century's version of the Swiss bank account).  Even Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico.  Not very Anglo-Saxon of him.  Not that I care, but Romney obviously cares - so he needs to explain the contradiction: Does he love America or not?

I don't know about you, but my family never abandoned America.  Romney's did. Read the rest of this post...