Would you put a tattoo of your mother on your chest?

It's a beautiful job.  The tattoo artist is amazing.  But having someone draw a big photo of your mom on your chest?  Seriously?

I had thought of getting a tattoo years ago. But it would have been something small, and not in a place you'd see every day. I don't get the large tattoo thing. (Dated a guy once with a huge frog on his leg (and I mean huge).) I also don't get putting mom on your chest.  I love my mom. She's never going on my chest, or any other body part.  How about yours?

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EU Study: Traffic noise can be deadly

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. After spending half a year in rural Africa where there was hardly any noise, my adjustment time back to Paris living was constantly troubled by the screaming of annoying scooter and cheap motorcycle engines. Even now I still detest those sounds but have grown used to hearing them, so don't notice them quite as much. What I don't see in this article is anything about the noise from scooters, which is much more of an issue than car noise.

On a related issue, scooters and cheap motorcycles churn out a lot of air pollution, even more than cars. Any noise or air pollution policy that doesn't address scooters and motorcycles is really off target. EurActiv.com:

Road traffic noise is Europe’s most ubiquitous environmental health problem, with more than 44% of the population – 210 million people – estimated to regularly suffer volumes above 55 decibels.

At this level, voices must be raised to become audible and medical risks increase correspondingly, according to the World Health Organization.

Traffic noise can raise blood pressure, increase stress hormone levels and trigger cardiovascular problems, hypertension and mental illness. It can also cause insomnia, poor work performance and annoyance.

One recent study by CE Delft found that 50,000 people died prematurely and 200,000 suffered from cardiovascular disease each year in the EU because of traffic noise.

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"Hilary Rosen was right: Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life"

Linda Hirshman has written probably her best piece yet. This time about the fake outrage over Democratic pundit and strategist Hilary Rosen's comments about Mitt Romney's wife.

Romney, and the Republicans, are now claiming that President Obama has made the job market worse for women. Romney claims he's getting his information on the issue from his wife, who, as Rosen pointed out, has never held a job in the job market, so how, Rosen asked, could she know if President Obama has made it harder for women to get a paying job?

But never let the truth get in the way of some good ole GOP fake outrage, especially when the victim is a Democratic woman. Yes, Republicans are so concerned about protecting moms. That's why they beat the hell out of Hillary Clinton when her husband was running for president, and did the same to Michelle Obama. Because Republicans really like women... barefoot and pregnant.

Here's an excerpt of Linda's piece in the Washington Post. It's titled, "Hilary Rosen was right: Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life":

In the furor, everyone seemed to forget that unpaid mothers and household work are not what the discussion is about. Republicans are not talking about how jobs for stay-at-home moms have decreased under Obama.

They are talking about how paid work for women has suffered.

When Ann Romney’s husband, who faces a gender gap in some polls, uses her experience and insight as a megaphone for women’s concern over fewer paid jobs, he mistakenly assumes that all women are fungible. Which was, I take it, Rosen’s original point.

Although Ann Romney may be a fine spokesperson on some issues, the dirty little secret of angling for female votes is that while all women’s work, inside or outside the home, has the same worth, as Michelle Obama and Barbara Bush sweetly expressed, all women do not have the same interests. Women who work in the home do not have the same interest in the recovery of the formal job market as women who have to work for pay. Indeed, wage-earning women probably have more in common with their paycheck-dependent male co-workers on the subject of economic recovery than with household laborers such as Ann Romney.

Ann Romney could of course speak for some interests common to all women (and not common to men). All women, for example, have an interest in controlling their reproduction. They may choose to put the issue in the hands of some god, or they may choose to control it themselves, but it is an issue on which women as a group differ from men as a group. What might Ann Romney say about the interest of women in birth control?

Or in breast cancer detection and research, an area where women have an interest different from all but a tiny handful of men? When the Susan G. Komen foundation announced cuts to breast-cancer-related funding for Planned Parenthood, Mitt Romney might have had his wife address that issue, in which, as a breast cancer survivor, she happens to have a real personal stake.

It's a much longer piece, and hard to excerpt because it's all good quotes. Go read it. Read the rest of this post...

EU eyes banker bonus caps

This will surely be met with cries of "socialism" by the bankers, but that would be ignoring the free loans and easy money handed out to the bankers in recent years. If the bankers want to avoid caps, they should worry more about risking their own money and not public money.

Most people would prefer not having to bail out banks or give them free money to play with but until that ends, the bankers should accept that they're the ones to blame for any financial issues. The bankers keep missing this point as they continue to receive mounds of money, much greater than anyone in any other industry could expect to see each year. Nobody likes having flashy tax dollars rubbed in their faces, whether it's the GSA spending wildly or bankers spending wildly on themselves after bonus season.

Don't take the government money or expect more of this. It's that easy.

In a sign that Brussels is hardening its stance on banker pay, European Union parliamentarians are drawing up new caps on bonuses to be included in the bloc’s latest bank capital rules.

The move comes as research from the pan-EU banking regulator reveals huge disparities in bonus sizes across the region and big differences in enforcing existing EU pay rules, which limit the upfront cash portion of a bonus to 25 percent of the total.

The European Banking Authority survey found that the median average ratio of bonus to salary across the block was 122 percent for executives and 139 percent for other risk-takers, such as traders. But one country reported an average ratio of 313 percent for traders and one institution had a ratio of 429 percent for executives and 940 percent for other staff.

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The Occupy Handbook, coming next week

Via Paul Krugman, we learn about what promises to be an excellent new book of essays, background, and analysis — The Occupy Handbook.

The work has 66 contributors include, including these luminaries:

• Paul Krugman
• Robin Wells
• Michael Lewis
• Robert Reich
• David Graeber
• Nouriel Roubini
• Matt Taibbi
• David Cay Johnston
• Martin Wolf
• Robert Shiller
• Peter Diamond
• Emmanuel Saez
• Amy Goodman
• Barbara Ehrenreich

Plus a great many others.

From the editorial description:

The Occupy Handbook is a source for understanding why 1% of the people in America take almost a quarter of the nation's income and the long-term effects of a protest movement that even the objects of its attack can find little fault with [sic].

Roger Lowenstein blurbs:

"More than a scrapbook of the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, The Occupy Handbook, a compilation by our best journalists, thinkers and economists, puts the story of America's revolt against inequality in welcome historical perspective.

From the barricades of 1848, to the barrios of modern Chile, to the improbable campgrounds thrown together in the shadows of New York skyscrapers, the Handbook examines the budding question of whether democracy can foster a more equal, and also a more prosperous, society.

Insightful pieces by Gillian Tett, John Cassidy, Bethany McLean and many more prepare you to think about the next outbreak of outrage and activism-which is only a matter of time."

The book will be available just in time for tax-deadline-day, April 17. You can pick it up at a local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Occupationally yours,

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius) Read the rest of this post...

China slows down in first quarter

If you believe the government numbers - and you can't completely since they're always inflated - the Chinese economy grew at a slower pace to start the year than it has in the past three. Many observers have been following some of the more trustworthy numbers, such as steel and iron ore purchases which indicate construction activity (and which are now flat). The lower growth numbers are still impressive numbers, but not impressive enough if China wants to keep up with its struggle to provide enough jobs for incoming workers.

The other concern is that the first quarter numbers are the fifth straight quarter of declining growth. That is a trend that nobody likes to see. It may not mean the economy is on the rocks, yet, but it does suggest that the Chinese bubble is no longer expanding. There are still plenty of economists who suggest this is part of a soft landing, rather than a hard crash -- but soft landings rarely happen in the real world, as we all known too well. China, in particular, doesn't do easy transitions. More on the latest numbers. Read the rest of this post...

VA GOP Speaker to woman: "I guess I'm not speaking in little enough words for you to understand"

Anna Scholl, executive director of ProgressVA, approached Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell (a Republican) yesterday, asking him to detail the inaccuracies he claimed existed in the organization's report on ALEC.

ALEC, formerly led by Speaker Howell, ghost-writes conservative legislation for state legislatures, and has gotten into some hot water of late, being dumped by the Gates Foundation and Coke, among others.

Scholl attested to the accuracy of the report, pointing out that all of the information included was publicly available for fact-checking. That's when this happened:



Apparently, Speaker Howell isn't used to women speaking their minds, using multi-syllabic words, or being right.

And Howell, not surprisingly, is now in trouble with women's groups for his sexist comments. Read the rest of this post...

Criticism mounts over Obama punt on gay Exec Order. NYT calls it "cynical hedge"

It didn't have to be like this.

The White House could have done the right thing and issued the LGBT non-discrimination executive order for federal contractors. But, somehow, the geniuses that run the place decided against it. Not sure why, but no doubt, it was another inane political calculation on their part. Now, it's a big story.

Today, an editorial in the NYT takes the President to task:

Many federal contractors already have antidiscrimination policies. With Congress gridlocked over the issue, Mr. Obama had the chance to immediately extend protections against anti-gay employment bias to the rest of the employees of federal contractors without imposing a significant new burden on business. Yet the White House said no such executive order “will be issued at this time.”

It is unclear why Mr. Obama declined to do the right thing here. He has taken actions against discrimination, like repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against openly gay service members. And he has voiced opposition to proposed state constitutional amendments in North Carolina and Minnesota to bar same-sex marriage. His hesitation to ban gay bias by government contractors, like his continued failure to actually endorse the freedom to marry, feels like a cynical hedge. It’s hard to see the political sense in it, and it is certainly unhelpful to the cause of full gay equality under the law.

I think this White House makes political calculations based on what their opponents will do (see, for example, this NYT article on how FOX News sets the agenda for the FDA.) The President's political strategists don't factor in what their allies will do in response to negative news. That's because most progressives just sit back and take it. We don't. You'd think they'd know that by now.

John linked to Peter Wallsten's article in today's Washington Post. The first two paragraphs are an indicator of what's to come:

Gay rights activists vowed Thursday to step up political pressure on the White House over President Obama’s refusal to sign a nondiscrimination executive order, with some decrying the decision as an attempt to avoid controversy before the November election.

One prominent liberal donor said he would spend $100,000 to fund a “We Can’t Wait” campaign targeting Obama, a takeoff on the president’s own slogan for his efforts to use administrative actions as end runs around what he has termed an obstructionist Congress. The donor’s money will be used to fly victims of discrimination at federal contractors to Washington to confront Obama and his aides and gin up public attention.

It shouldn't have to be like this. But, it is.

Also, today, at the Washington Post, a column by Joe Davidson, titled: Why Did Obama Refuse Executive Order?

Why indeed?

And, anyone buying the White House "we want to pass ENDA" line needs to read, White House Whopper on ENDA Executive Order, by Jillian Weiss. In response to Jay Carney's claim that the White House is "aggressively pursuing passage of ENDA." Jillian wrote:

What?! Someone's pants are on fire, and they're not mine.

Here's why she wrote that:

On ENDA, the White House never weighed in, despite the fact that there only a few votes needed to pass it, and, in fact, declared they wouldn't, as it wasn't their place to do so.

This is a shell game -- watch the pea under the shell and see if you can figure out where it is this time. The Democrats have successfully played a shell game with LGBT rights for quite a long time.

In my 2010 meeting with Melody Barnes, the Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, this is what happened:

She also noted he has mentioned ENDA, and that he believes it should be integrated into the agenda. He has articulated his support and will continue to. "We are not a barrier," she said. But, she continued, "we look to the Senate leadership; they know what we support and if the President were to push issues it would be a long list. It's up to them."

The White House doesn't have a valid policy reason for why they're not doing this executive order, which means politics is at play. And, it means they're more worried about the reaction from the professional homophobe community than what the LGBT community thinks. Disturbing to think that's how these decisions are made by the Obama team. Read the rest of this post...

GOP congressman says 81 congressional Dems are commies

Someone is either desperate for attention or a complete loon. Maybe both. The Democrats barely even have liberals in Congress let alone communists. Making a bizarre statement like this only proves how extremely far right the GOP has become.

NOTE FROM JOHN: This is GOP Congressman Allen West, who is desperate for attention and a complete loon.

Democrats had better nip this kind of attack in the bud, now.  They did little to respond to attacks from Republicans in 2008 that labeled Obama a "socialist."  Now it's a generally accepted fact on the right that Obama is -- which is absurd.  What's ironic is that many on the left don't find Obama nearly liberal enough.

But our guys have a habit of letting this extremist, even dangerous, rhetoric fester on the right until it sticks and becomes "true."  Then some nut either picks up a gun and tries to assassinate a Democratic congresswoman or a judge, or less sensation but equally harmful, the public ends up believing that a health care plan that gets rid of annual limits and pre-existing conditions actually contains "death panels" when it doesn't.

Some lies you ignore, others you nip in the bud.  Democrats do the former quite well, the latter not so much.  (PS This story is from two days ago, but it's important.  We've seen what happens when we let republicans continually move the goal posts of decency farther and father to the right.  Our politicians, laws, and populace tend to follow.)

More here. Read the rest of this post...

Obama targets journalists

Now that the 2012 presidential election is decided and Romney is the Republican nominee (in the sense that he's the only one left), it's OK to talk about what the current resident is up to, right?

After all, he's going to be the unfettered future resident, as he and I both see it.



So let's start at the beginning, with the government's War on Government Whistleblowers (my emphasis and reparagraphing):

For two years I have been writing about the criminalization of whistleblowing, or as Glenn Greenwald has put it more aptly, the “war on whistleblowers.” I’m an attorney with the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower organization.

How did I get into this line of work? Because I myself was a whistleblower when I worked as a Legal Advisor at the Justice Department and blew the whistle when my advice not to interrogate “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh without an attorney (and, parenthetically, not to torture him) was ignored and then “disappeared” from the file in contravention of a federal court discovery order.

After I blew the whistle, the Justice Department retaliated against me by, among other things, placing me under criminal investigation, referring me to the state bars in which I’m licensed as a lawyer based on a secret report to which I did not have access, and putting me on the “No-Fly” List.

I hope you noticed that use of the No-Fly List. It's not there for nothing; it's for the State to beat you with, any time it wants.

So what's Obama doing?

While the Bush administration treated whistleblowers unmercifully, the Obama administration has been far worse. It is actually prosecuting them, and doing so under the Espionage Act — one of the most serious charges that can be leveled against an American.

And why is he doing this, according to the writer?

At first I thought Obama’s war on whistleblowers was meant to appease the intelligence establishment, which saw him as weak.

I soon recognized this assault as a devious way to create bad precedent for going after journalists. All the Espionage Act cases involve allegations that the government employee “leaked” information (or retained information for the purpose of leaking it) to journalists.

[For example, the] government’s spectacularly failed case against NSA whistleblower Tom Drake claimed that he allegedly retained allegedly classified information for the purpose of leaking it to Siobhan Gorman, then with the Baltimore Sun. It turned out that he disclosed unclassified information about a failed and wasteful (multi-billion dollar) NSA spy program that compromised Americans’ privacy.

And there are plenty more examples, including this:

In the most extreme proof yet that the war on whistleblowers is also a war on journalists, Glenn Greenwald’s explosive piece last night detailed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) repeatedly detaining and interrogating Oscar- and Emmy-nominated documentarian Laura Poitras, who has filmed three of my NSA clients for the third installment of her War on Terror trilogy.

Not surprisingly, her latest film will be about the government’s ever-expanding secret domestic surveillance, NSA treating our nation like a foreign country for spying purposes, and the war on whistleblowers.

The Greenwald piece she refers to is here. A taste:

One of the more extreme government abuses of the post-9/11 era targets U.S. citizens re-entering their own country, and it has received far too little attention.

With no oversight or legal framework whatsoever, the Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals who are suspected of no crimes, detains them and questions them at the airport, often for hours, when they return to the U.S. after an international trip, and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices (laptops, cameras, cellphones) and other papers (notebooks, journals, credit card receipts), forever storing their contents in government files.

No search warrant is needed for any of this. No oversight exists And there are no apparent constraints on what the U.S. Government can do with regard to whom it decides to target or why.

In an age of international travel — where large numbers of citizens, especially those involved in sensitive journalism and activism, frequently travel outside the country — this power renders the protections of the Fourth Amendment entirely illusory.

This is the State in action. Bush grew the State to a certain humongous size. Obama is growing it larger. And I'm not talking budget; I'm talking reach and will-to-power.

Welcome to your Unfettered Obama. Which way do you think he'll turn, come 2013?

The writer, by the way, is Jesselyn Raddack. She's the author of the book TRAITOR: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban.

GP

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North Korean rocket launch fails

It did launch, though the rocket broke into pieces shortly after launch. Maybe the west was trying to help the new leader avoid embarrassment when they begged him not to fire the rocket, which violated UN resolutions. The Guardian:

A much-heralded test of North Korea's rocket technology has ended in failure and embarrassment for the regime in Pyongyang less than two minutes after lift-off.

The Unha-3 rocket, which Washington claimed was cover for a ballistic missile test and drew condemnation from around the world, exploded into about 20 pieces fell into the Yellow Sea.

The North Koreans ignored eleventh-hour pleas from the US, South Korea and Japan not to go through with the launch, insisting its sole purpose was to put an earth observation satellite into orbit.

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Happy Birthday, RomneyCare!

Okay, the birthday was yesterday. But we're still celebrating, since RomneyCare was the inspiration for ObamaCare. Thanks, Mitt!

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