Anyway, back on topic. I was listening to Brian Lehrer interview people about how politically contentious the census can be, and he ended the show by playing a ridiculous 2010 Census pop song with their hip slogan and priceless lines like “pursue it, theres nothin to it, every woman and man, they can do it“…

I’ve done some research now, to find out if there is really an official 2010 Census Song. I can’t find <the one I heard closing Brian Lehrer (skip to the end) but these are equally amusing.
Enjoy:

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed landmark health care legislation Saturday night.  The vote was 220-215.

I’m not sure what the House of Representatives Health Care Reform Bill entails, but if it looks anything like what the Senate pushed through, it’s nothing dramatic or exciting. Certainly nothing to get all worked up about. Certainly no reason to throw rationally minded American’s values out the window, and use child exploitation for political sabotage. But then, what fun would CSPAN be without a few bouncing babies reminding us not to reproduce, lest our children have to get jobs at the age of two,  in order to pay off the expenses of their birth.

Thanks, baby.

This week, I spent a few feverish days sweating and coughing through the nefarious swine flu. As I lay dying, my thoughts flitted between being caught up in a lava storm, and my indefinite lack of health insurance. I realized that if if my temperature of 203° did not break, I would have to call Barack and tell him he was running out of time.
Luckily, my delusions were stronger than the virus, my health returned after an extended nap and some ibuprofin, and I had a chance to figure out just what we all are waiting for.

Here’s the breakdown, as I best understand it.

Barack Obama had an IDEA. After some public dispute and despite some public distaste, this IDEA became a BILL. Now, before we will see any changes in the way things work the BILL must become a LAW. Sound familiar? Okay, Schoolhouse Rock explains it best. I’ll leave that part to them.

Last week, the Baucus proposal for health-care reform passed in a much-anticipated Senate Finance Committee vote, gaining the head-turning support of a single Republican, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. But this is only the first step in a long and arduous process for our friend “Bill”. Time’s Jay Newton-Small acknowledges that “[t]he notion that anyone is now actually in control of this process is an illusion. But,” he continues, “to the extent that anyone’s hand is on the tiller, it is [Harry] Reid’s.” The Senate Majority Leader will control which amendments come to a vote, which is of course a powerful position during the merger process. He will be working with White House staff and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to blend the Finance bill with a more liberal version passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — before bringing a final product to the Senate floor.

If passed, the legislation would then go to a conference committee to reconcile differences between the House and Senate bills before heading to the president’s desk. That is, if the House of Representatives can draft some sort of agreement…hopefully before another H1N1 plague comes around and reminds us we still can’t afford to wait.

What happened to all of the fearless, reckless optimism of last fall? During Obamas hallmark campaign, everybody seemed to believe that by this time we’d all be movin’ on up. Just remember, nine months into Obama’s presidency, he is still the charming, happy, dancing machine you voted for. Don’t give up hope!

Installed by former President Bush’s administration in 2006, the crimson addition to the diplomatic post was billed as a way to circumvent censorship and “offer hope and freedom to Cubans oppressed by a brutal regime”. Five-foot-high red letters that ran across 25 windows on the outside of the fifth floor streamed news, political statements and messages blaming Cuba’s problems on the country’s communist system and socialist economy.

After the United States launched the ticker, Cuba erected obstructions so it could not be seen, inciting increasingly negative “dueling billboards”.

Fidel Castro accused the U.S. mission of becoming “headquarters of the counterrevolution,” which he said violated diplomatic protocol. He led a million Cubans to protest in front of the mission in 2006, and erected 138 black flags (later traded for Cuban flags) to block the view of the ticker from those passing.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington that the news ticker was turned off in June.

The Obama administration believes the ticker was “really not effective as a means of delivering information to the Cuban people”, and was “not serving the interests of promoting a more productive relationship.”

Pause.

Really?

I need a moment here to pause and be grateful. I live a wonderful life, and these are the things I am thankful for today:

1. Oatmeal cookies when I come from work.
2. Air in my bicycle tires.
3. A President that doesn’t humiliate me, or make me sulk in American despair.

Whether or not you’ve ever been a fan of President Obama or his politics, maybe some can agree on this point. Let’s not broadcast hate speech on our diplomatic posts.
Let’s not.

Spokesman Kelly noted that the Cubans had dismantled “a few very negative billboards and graffiti” around the facility and the United States viewed their removal as “a positive gesture.”

I was hoping for a more open discussion about the nominee’s thoughts on judicial activism, a practice I believe is present throughout the American judicial system, for better or for worse. When Sotomayor’s nomination was first made public, it was her infamous comment on the capabilities of “a wise Latina woman”, her rejection of a white fireman’s reverse-discrimination lawsuit, and President Obama’s decree for a sentimental, sympathetic sort of Supreme Court judge that took the limelight. Republicans repeatedly criticized Obama’s past assertion that he wanted a justice with “the quality of empathy,” and Sotomayor disavowed Obama’s statement as a senator that some decisions would be determined by “what is in a judge’s heart.”

However, in the past four days of testimony, Sonia has not said much of anything. With an underplayed apology for “offending some people” Sonia was able to sidestep any more challenges about her previous comments on racial or personal prejudices. She did an excellent job of coming off as a woman without much opinion on anything at all; a judge who is nuetral and, “pretty much [...] mainstream”, in the words of  Republican, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.  It seems that she is an easy-in for the nation’s highest court, and the past four days have been more of a political tradition than anything to write home about. 

If confirmed, Sotomayor would become the first justice appointed by a Democratic president in 15 years. SO. 

What do we know about Sotomayor?   From arguably the most progressive President in decades, I wonder how much more “nuetral and mainstream” I can take. Nonetheless, Obama and Sotomayor have both done an excellent (dull) job of rocking no boats and stepping on very few toes. 

We might know that  Justice Scalia wants to criminalize abortion,  or that Justice Breyer is a strong advocate of federal gun regulation, but as Dahlia Lithwick from Slate points out, “What we haven’t learned is anything more about her views on guns, gay marriage, abortion, military tribunals, or eminent domain. We may actually know less about her views on these matters today than we did going into these hearings.”

Brilliant?

The judge’s role, Sotomayor said, is ”not to make law. It is to apply the law” — echoing a common Republican applause line used against judicial activism. The law must command “the result in every case” she states again.

Personally, I remain skeptical of any impartiality in the context of power. Nonetheless, for those Americans who are still waiting for Obama to start the Revolution, Sonia Sotomayor, for the time being seems to want to just…do her job.

The outcry for a re-count comes after the surprising landslide victory for incumbent Ahmadinejad last Friday. Supporters of Mousavi have called for, and been granted, an investigation into the election.

The whole thing sounds a little familar, doesn’t it?

While Bush didn’t exactly win by a landslide–or at all–in the 2000 election (or again in 2004), I think some of us can empathize with the people of Iran, Bush supporters or not.

When democracy fails, or we seriously begin to question it, what is our responsibility as citizens? Do we riot or protest in the streets of our capitol or do we submit our inquires to the democratic justice system?

What advice would you give the people of Iran? Should the results of public elections stand, even if they are undesirable? How do we live in a country and under a leader who we do not support?

Tell us what you think.

Here is a video for your inspiration and education.

Instead of focusing on the differences between pirates and the people they attack, Leeson draws out the similarities between democratic societies and the world of piracy. He begins by extending Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” theory to the economies of pirates. Leeson makes a simple yet critical connection, “Smith’s invisible hand is as true for criminals as it is for anyone else, although criminals direct their cooperation at someone else’s loss.” Our land-based economy cannot survive with individuals working entirely alone for personal benefit, and neither can a pirate economy. Leeson points out that pirates must work together to benefit from, as he aptly names it, the invisible hook.

The invisible hook, Leeson writes, led pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries to create democratic and ethical codes that had uncanny resemblances to the constitutional democracies crafted during the same era. While captains acted like kings on merchant ships, pirates crafted their societies around maximizing profit for everyone, and cooperation was the only way to secure it. Democratic codes created solidarity among them, giving each man equal representation and power for deciding everything from who was captain to how to divide up booty. Some codes even articulated how to pay out insurance to pirates injured on the job, and how to vote out a dishonorable captain. It was a far cry from the merchant ships, whose captains acted like kings.

Even the best-known stereotypes of pirates fit into Leeson’s economic theories, as examples of pirates’ “signaling” and “branding” to secure booty with minimal cost. The greatest of these signals was the Jolly Roger, the famed skull and cross-bones flag. “The Jolly Roger, then, signaled ‘pirate,’” Leeson writes, “which meant two things. ‘If you resist us, we’ll slaughter you. If you submit to us peacefully, we’ll let you live.’” The flag, along with the barbaric reputation it carried, enabled pirates to exercise power over mercantile ships with little effort, albeit with sometimes incredibly cruel punishment. Most of the time, however, crews submitted peacefully, relieving pirates of the trouble of fighting.

Whenever pirates did have to live up to their reputations, as Leeson explains, they had stipulations to follow. Torture was one of the acts significantly regulated by pirate code, primarily used for three main reasons, according to Leeson: to gain information, especially about treasure on captured ships; to punish government officials in retaliation for capturing or executing other pirates; and to punish abusive merchant captains. Pirates were merciless to those who did not surrender or cooperate, but were surprisingly humane to those who knew better than to challenge the Jolly Roger.

Going further into the dynamic culture and society of piracy, Leeson discloses some surprising facts about pirate conscription. Forcing merchant sailors to either “join the pirate crew or die,” Leeson tells us, was the exception and not the rule to pirate recruitment. More often then not, the economic benefits of joining a pirate ship outweighed the costs of remaining a lowly merchant crew member. Furthermore, Leeson sheds light on pirates’ progressive and profitable approach to racial tolerance, capitalizing on the economic benefits of having black men on their ships and sometimes even granting them equal rights.

The Invisible Hook reconciles the world of pirates and men by applying what we understand about democratic society, justice, and, ultimately, economics, to piracy. Leeson does the work of economist at a level that does not require fluency in economic theory. He writes with awe and respect for piracy, reconciling a childhood fascination with a mature and informed understanding of these rebellious seamen.