Newspeak

I love to look at the way politicians use language.

But then again, I've been known to make my own sausage, so I've got a strong stomach.

This morning I was listening to the Sec. Transportation discuss Amtrak. Next year's budget lists zero dollars for Amtrak. He says the Administration is really proposing nothing for Amtrak, that's just a way to force Congress to engage in reform.

What they want to do, he said, was move it to a more private model, where Amtrak lines are paid for from passenger income. What the Gov't is supposed to pay for, according to him is the rail infrastructure; the track, the bridges and the tunnels, sort of like the Interstate Highway System. Of course, that might mean (to apply his example to a concrete location) you couldn't get off the train in Kansas, if the state didn't want to pay for passenger service. The "road" would be there, but no offramps.

Given the way in which Amtrak (which had record income and ridership last year) is working (commuter runs, like DC-NY, and Los Angeles to Santa Barbara have lots of passengers: Long haul. like Los Angeles to Seattle, or Portland to Chicago don't) this will kill long distance rail travel.

This is, however, a subtle dodge, and a bit of subterfuge. Amtrak doesn't own the rails, the tunnels, the bridges. Rather it is forced to use the rails of private companies, not quite at their pleasure. The gov't pays them to allow Amtrak to run passenger rail, but they get to set the speeds, and have priority (which is why a long distance ride is almost never on time).

So the $1 billion they say they are willing to spend on the infrastructure (those rails, tunnels and bridges) would be to pay the frieght haulers, by way of removing the cost of replacing track from Boulder to Kansas City, while no longer demanding that they allow trains to run on the tracks the people are, now, paying for.

Gotta love it.

Luxury

I am not a big fan of modern poetry.

I am also not a big fan of poetry of the moment... meant to get some aspect of the personal life into verse.

There are, however, a few subjects which cry out for poetic expression, common emotions we all get to live through, with and around.

Love and death are the most prominent of these, and while they have produced great stuff ("In Memoriam" and many of Shakespeare's Sonnets, by way of example), they have also produced a lot of dreck.

On of the members of my f-list lost her husband last week. From reading her LJ for the past, bit more than a year, IIRC, I would say she gave a very good example of the verse from Billy Joel, "You may love 'em forever, but you won't like 'em every day."

It has been hard for her. Today, she posted a poem.

I like it.

lahermite's I have the luxury of mourning

Chain links

I have to drive to L.A. for the weekend (duty calls) but I thought, before I went, I'd toss out the things I've seen which I want more people to see.

Just when you thought it couldn't get more twisted Secret legal theories are being offered to keep people in prison without trials, "ATTORNEYS FOR the Justice Department appeared before a federal judge in Washington this month and asked him to dismiss a lawsuit over the detention of a U.S. citizen, basing their request not merely on secret evidence but also on secret legal arguments. The government contends that the legal theory by which it would defend its behavior should be immune from debate in court." Wash. Post

According to the NYT the case is about a plot to assassinate Pres. Bush, though the point out it never seems to have gone beyond the bull session stage. Ali and the arrest/indictment is on the testimony of un-named co-conspirators.

But, lest you worry too much about being arrested and held forever, CIA avoiding scrutiny by contracting out the "disappearing" of people.

I feel so much better now.

Why conservation might be more than just a personal virtue Lundberg on Peak Oil The problems with overconsumption are more than just what car we get to drive. People have been railing about it for decades, and the overwrought tone of those early adopters to panic didn't help (nor yet the tendency of people to think 20 years is a long way away, and so put off the need to find a solution). But someday the oil will run out. Before that the price will go up. Somewhere between those two points, life is going to change, a lot.

Oil makes everything about how we live possible.

But there are happier notes DeLay in Trouble? We can only hope. "Though the change has received little notice, DeLay's strength in his suburban Houston congressional district of strip malls and housing developments has eroded considerably -- forcing him to renew his focus on protecting his seat." Wash. Post

On the other hand, the folks who are complaining about the high rates of abortion, well it seems they don't really mean it NEW YORK — Abortion-rights groups and Senate Democrats are challenging their opponents to bridge the deep divide over abortion by working together to reduce unintended pregnancies. Thus far, those calls to seek common ground have been greeted mostly with silence or ridicule.

...Referring to Reid and Clinton, Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council said, "Their idea of reducing unintended pregnancies is more sex education and distribution of contraceptives. ... That's not the solution, that's part of the problem.

...Reid's bill focuses on the fact that nearly half of America's 3 million annual unintended pregnancies end in abortion." Seattle Times

Yep... sex education and contraception would lead to fewer unplanned pregnancies, at least that's the evidence, but these people are against that, which makes me wonder what the real agenda is? Then again, there was the guy who said Social Security would be completely funded, and the Army not struggling with recruitment if Roe v. Wade had never happened, so maybe I don't need to wonder all that much.

Add in the willingness to support pharmacists who have religious objections to filling prescriptions for birth control (and just where does that harden up. Is the checker allowed to refuse to sell condoms? Can I say someone looks too fat and my religious objections to gluttony preclude me from selling him that carton of ice-cream, pound of butter and leg of lamb? Who decides what religious values trump such things) and I see more than just a campaign to save unborn lives, I see a campaign to make women pregnant more often.

Speaking of Social Security... When you look at the arguments being made, they aren't new. The Recycled Rhetoric is just that. "Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it." The ... Republican platform claims that the federal government will not be able to meet its financial obligations to pay retirement benefits and two-thirds of the people will be deprived. It also insists that "the fund will contain nothing but the government's promise to pay" and is "unworkable." Salon.

The bit in there I took out, it was 1936. That means for 70 years the Republicans have been saying the system is broke, can't pay for itself (which means they are saying the U.S. will renege on its debts, a scary proposition, if true, because that affects a lot more than just Social Security).

But they wised up. In 1964 Goldwater advocated privatization to deal with what he claimed was the system's crisis: "It promises more benefits to more people than the incomes collected will provide," he said.

Which brings up a side note. The President keeps asking for a counter-plan. Those of us who want to keep Social Security don't need one. It works, it's been working and it will (with perhaps a few modest tweaks) keep working.

So we don't need, and actually dare not, present any sort of counter proposal while this one is on the table. If that happens the question will immediately become, which plan is better, not do we want to keep social security. When that happens, the President's (as yet unrevealed plan) will win. He has the means (a majority in both houses) to force it, if he can get enough cover for the people who have to face re-election. If there is an alternate plan on the table, they had to vote for one, and they can pitch it as being the better of the two, no matter how much it stinks; nor yet that its real purpose is the killing of Social Security.

Reagan ran against social security but, for all his ills, actually worked out a compromise which patched the problem and made it possible to get across the ugly spot now being touted as the death knell of SS. He did that with Alan Greenspan.

But Greenspan (at last) has been shown up for the Randist he's always been. These days he says the system (which he made what it is) is broken beyond repair. Never mind that, if it is, he broke it.

Harry Reid, and Paul Krugman Deficits and Deceit have been taking him to task. The short of it is, he got a tax increase passed (under Reagan) then got a tax cut passed (under the present Bush) and now says the deficit can't support SS.

I guess that runs me out of useful structure for adding more links.

Strange, but apparently true (edited)

Friendditto.

I've not heard of them before today.

Since I've no locked posts, I am not worried about them for me (though I can see where I might want to lock some posts, or filter them) I do have a couple of private posts, which ought not be affected, since I am not using this service.

But I hear things about it which I find offensive. Not crucial (since if I want to post something you've locked I can always paste it, this just makes it, so I hear, easier), but offensive.

I don't think it can go to the locked posts of friends, by way of the FOF reading list.

If it can, then I am past offended, because that, it seems, is an invasion of privacy.

So, as I 1: have no locked posts, and 2: have no way to know if any of you have chosen to use this, I won't ask you to take yourselves off my friends list. On the other hand, if I do start locking posts, and then see them talked about all over town. I'll be annoyed.

***

I went and looked at them. The FAQ says they can't keep Friends Only posts. Since this seems to be the cause of so much of the angst, I wonder what the facts are. I see no reason, on the face of things, to doubt them. Then again, I am loathe to share my password with anyone.