Killing the fishing industry with kindness

To understand the failure of both the free market and the US political system one need only look at the fishing industry.

Everyone agrees that that the Maine cod fishery has been severely over-fished and is on the brink of total collapse. The logical policy would be to call a halt to all fishing of cod until the the stocks have returned to a sustainable level. Instead the administration proposes the highest quota that can be plausibly be described as sustainable, the industry protests the proposed cuts as 'devastating', the overfishing continues and a few years later the sustainable catch is lower still.

Here is how the New York Times reports the proposed cuts:

“It’s going to be hard to preserve the industry at those low numbers, and that’s something that concerns us a great deal,” said Sam Rauch, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries arm, who led the meeting of fishermen, scientists and regulators.

However hard it might be to preserve the industry with lower quotas it is going to be a lot harder to preserve the industry by fishing cod to extinction like the dodo and the passenger pigeon.

It is the same depressing story in the EU. As George Monblot puts it in the Guardian:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a year, after which no one will ever eat fish again.

Privatization is frequently mooted as the solution to 'government' failure. As if converting the common fishing grounds into private property by government decree was not a government intervention. It might work, but experience in Iceland suggests not. Read the rest of this post...

Video: 5 year old girl talks to 911 operator when dad can’t breathe

This video isn't new, but I'd never seen it before.  Chris' wife Joelle just sent it to me.  It's really neat.  And amazing to think of a five year old with this much composure (other than the fact that she keeps wanting to go change clothes before the ambulance guys get there LOL).

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Anatomy of an unsafe abortion

Thanks to Amanda Marcotte via Twitter, we find this reminder of the days when abortion was illegal, so the daughters of the Rest of Us (the 99%) went to back alleys to have them.

As you read this, keep in mind this was posted on Saturday, February 12, 2012. The author is a doctor. Graphic detail alert below, my emphasis and paragraphing:

I was in clinic when I heard the overhead STAT page to the emergency room. As I sprinted down the stairs, I ran through the possible scenarios. ... Logically there was only one conclusion.

A nurse was holding the staff entrance to the ER open. From the look on her face I surmised this was to save the minute or two it would take to punch in the numbers on the lock and inquire at the desk for patient’s whereabouts. ...

On the gurney lay a young woman the color of white marble. The red pool between her legs, ominously free of clots, offered a silent explanation.

“She arrived a few minutes ago. Not even a note.” My resident was breathless with anger, adrenaline, and panic. I had an idea who she went to. The same one the others did. The same one many more would visit.

A doctor, but considering what I had seen he could[n]’t have any formal gynecology training. The only thing he offered that the well-trained provers didn’t was a cut-rate price. If you don’t know to ask, well, a doctor is a doctor. That’s assuming you are empowered enough to have such a discussion. I was also pretty sure his office didn’t offer interpreters.

This is the world of no abortion — which means, this is abortion for the 99%. A bleeding flowing life-threatening mess.

And if your sadly logical mind has taken the next step, you've realized that in a world of no birth control, there will be many more stories like these.

Culture of life indeed. As my old Uncle Straight Talk used to say, "That's BS, son, it's culture of whatever confuses you. Same with the 'hate the sex' sex talk. Heck, they're rutting like flies at their convention. Sex, no-sex, that's just words, son. Power is what they care about. The rest is just to fog you till they get what they want."

Uncle Straight Talk, he knew a thing or two.

So does the doctor who wrote this great article. More?

A terrified medical student and I raced down the hallway with the gurney. The amorphous red pool dripped onto the floor as we rounded the corner to the elevators. The double doors that led to the operating rooms swung open. “The urology room. They’re between cases,” my resident shouted.

I saw an anesthesiologist out of the corner of my eye. “You. Now!” Most emergencies can wait a few minutes to check in at the front desk and for the anesthesiologist and nursing staff to take stock of the situation. This was not one of them.

Why do I emphasize what I did? People need to know, when abortion victims die, what that looks like.

[W]e were bearing witness, because we knew if she died it was unlikely anyone would read about her in the paper.

As are we bearing witness, now.

Read the rest to find out how this woman's story ended. You won't be sorry.

GP Read the rest of this post...

President digs in on contraceptive rule, won’t change policy to appease Catholic bishops

Good for him. I'm kind of liking this whole "President" thing. In all seriousness, we now have a trend. The President has been digging in his heels, in the face of political bullies, for a good six months now, and he doesn't seem to be stopping. And it's been helping him in the polls. I've always said that people want their leaders to lead, even if they don't agree with them - they want strong leaders who know what they want.

Of course that isn't the only reason President Obama is sticking to his guns. Perhaps this new PPP poll, showing that most Catholics support the President and not the Catholic bishops, must have something to do with it. And keep in mind, PPP is possibly the best polling outfit out there.

Key findings from the survey include:

-57% of Catholic voters support the new policy President Obama announced yesterday allowing women who work for religiously-affiliated hospitals and universities to receive coverage for prescription birth control without requiring Catholic institutions to pay for the coverage directly. Only 29% oppose the policy because they believe it still goes too far in requiring birth control coverage; additionally 5% oppose it because they think Catholic hospitals and universities should be required to pay for this coverage. Catholic women are particularly positive toward the policy, with 59% of them expressing support.

-With the inclusion of President Obama’s solution for religiously-affiliated institutions, Catholics favor the requirement that health plans cover prescription birth control by a  margin of 54% to 42%. Catholic Democrats (80% - 17%) favor the requirement by virtually the same margin that Catholic Republicans (16% - 79%) oppose it; significantly, politically independent Catholics favor the requirement by an 18-point margin (56% to 38%). Catholic women also favor it by an 18-point margin, while Catholic men favor it by a 4-point margin.

-This issue has the potential to cause Mitt Romney trouble with Catholic voters in the fall. 51% say they side with Barack Obama on this issue, while only 38% prefer
Romney’s position. Hispanic Catholics, a group Romney must make in roads with, go with Obama 59/32 on the policy and Catholic women do so by a 54/35 margin. Catholics ave been a key swing voting group in recent elections, supporting George W. Bush in 2004  and then Obama in 2008. Obama’s even-handed approach on this issue has him positioned  well with Catholics for the fall.

-Congressional Republicans risk losing their majority in the House and squandering any opportunities in the Senate by continuing attacks on the popular birth control benefit.

Cardinal Obama seems to have outranked, and outflanked, the old pedophile-enablers in the eyes of the Catholic faithful.

It's all well and good that the Catholic bishops think they rule the world.  They don't.  Neither does the Pope.  He rules Catholics.  Well, actually he rules a minority of Catholics in this country.  And he certainly doesn't have the right to tell any of the rest of us non-Catholics, or our elected officials, what to do.  I voted for President Obama, I didn't vote for the Pope.  The Catholic bishops are entitled to their opinion, but that's all it is.  An opinion.  And its their opinion, not the opinion of Catholics in America.

And I'll say it again.  I don't want a bunch of guys who excuse and enable pedophilia lecturing the rest of us about morality.  No moral credibility whatsoever. Read the rest of this post...

Former Komen board member wants Brinker to quit

This gets to the heart of the problem at Komen for the Cure. In her dual roles as Movement Conservative, loyal Bushie activist on the one hand, and mega-million–raising breast cancer charity CEO on the other, Karen Brinker seems to have "mixed" goals. Or less kindly, she has mixed her twin goals into one unified effort.

Either way, the heart of the conflict is Brinker herself. Here a former Komen board member publicly calls on Brinker to resign.

As the Last Word web-blurb says:

Eve Ellis, a former fundraiser and board member of Komen, who left the organization last week over the controversy, joins The Last Word to discuss her departure and what really went down in the boardroom.

Well worth watching.



Not sure you noticed, by the way, but the first paragraph of the displayed text (at 0:20 in the clip) of Brinker's apology could also be read as a justification of the original shameful act:

... we in women's health organizations must be absolutely true to our core missions, and avoid even the appearance of bias or judgment in our decisions.

That "appearance of bias" could apply to the giving of money to Planned Parenthood (biased in a pro-choice direction) as well as the withholding of it (biased toward anti-choice).

And notice the tag line "No-good deed," which puns on the phrase and has a pro-Brinker interpretation as well as a negative one. It was overlaid as part of an Andrea Mitchell segment about Sally Quinn's Brinker interview (0:45 in our clip).

Andrea Mitchell (Mrs. Alan Greenspan) and Sally Quinn are both Village insiders, just like Brinker (whose BFF is Laura Bush from way back). They just can't keep away from the "one hand–other hand" excuse-the-insider thing.

Ms. Ellis does a great job of parsing and dissecting Brinker's "apology," saying it "seems hollow" and then says why. Listen for that starting at 1:48. It's very good, very smart.

Ellis's bottom line:

    ▪ Replace Nancy Brinker
    ▪ Replace the board

Yes. If Komen wants to be considered "apolitical," they need to clean house.

Until they do, it will be hard not to see them as just another "right-wing fog shop" — a functioning charity with a disguised political core — and a ton of lobbying money at its not-apolitical disposal.

Please support both of these changes. The time to complete the job of really making Komen apolitical is now. When the next news-blonde goes missing, it might be too late.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Imports and exports decline in China

While the US is squeaking out some minor good news with the economy, China is now staring down the ugly side of the economy. With little hope of a strong rebound in Europe (or the US) the export machine has trouble ahead. Without very high growth every quarter along with high jobs growth, China will have very serious problems. Add to this the softening real estate situation and we may be finally seeing the bubble burst in China.

Exports fell 0.5% from a year earlier to $149.9bn (£94bn), while imports were down 15% at $122.7bn, customs data showed on Friday. China's politically sensitive global trade surplus tripled compared with a year earlier to $27.3bn. Analysts expected January trade to fall due to the Lunar New Year holiday, the country's most important holiday. Chinese exporters rushed out orders in December and then shut down for two weeks or more in January. But the import decline was sharper than expected, suggesting that even with the holiday factored in, the world's second-largest economy is slowing markedly. China is a major buyer of iron ore, oil and other commodities and industrial components, meaning any downturn could hurt suppliers such as Australia, Brazil and South Africa.

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