Link dump: Part Deux

I’ve made an effort not to talk politics on this here blog.  To be perfectly frank, I’ve made an effort to not discuss politics at all lately.  It’s too vitriolic, and too damn pointless.  I’m burned out on the election a year before the election itself, and I’m 99% sure that no candidates I like are going to get the nomination anyway.  Nobody really cares.  The media tells them Hillary is a lock, so they don’t pay attention to anybody else.  Guiliani or Romney will probably win the Republican ticket, and it’ll be another “lesser of two evils” election.  In reality, I’ll probably end up voting for a third party candidate.

Unless, of course, Kucinich wins.  Surprisingly (to me), he stands for everything I give a damn about in politics.  Even before his congressional career, his two-year tenure in Cleveland is impressive.  Nigh-impeccable voting record, and he actually votes based on an analysis of the bill rather than partisan lines or the like.  He will be the only candidate (other than Gravel) that I’ve bothered donating to.  Gravel, though, frankly has no chance of winning.  Kucinich topped a recent poll, Gravel came in last.  It’s amusing that Gore placed second purely on write-in votes alone.  I must say that much as I may like Gore, the Economist and the Times are absolutely correct.  Everybody clamoring for him to enter the political bear pit now would excoriate him once he got in, and the compromises that inevitably must be made in politics would brush aside the notion of a populist Messiah that people seem to have about him.  At the very least, buy a pocket Constitution.  Donating would be a good idea also. 

On the other side, we have candidates who don’t read The Guardian, The Economist, The American Prospect, or anything that I’m aware of.  Clinton (the only upside to her is Bill back in the White House), Biden (no chance), Edwards (likely VP nominee), and Obama are all talking Social Security.  It’s just not a “crisis.”  The American Prospect and The Guardian both ran the numbers, and both came up with a very good point.  If Social Security is solvent until 2042 even under the worst economic projections, and endlessly under moderate and higher estimates, why are we so concerned about it?  Raise the cap.  Tax the rich more.  Problem solved, and that’s precisely what some of the candidates have suggested.  What boggles my mind is why they bothered suggesting it at all.  It’s just not the major problem. 

Here’s a total breakdown of the system by Krugman.  The Congressional Budget Office sees a different crisis (warning: PDF).  What the hell is wrong with this?  Because the lack of healthcare in this country isn’t problem enough, and people avoid getting preventative care already due to the ludicrously high costs (which just makes it worse when they finally do go in for $problem), let’s now charge them incredible interest rates on their debts.  Would it be so difficult to just get rid of the bureaucratic mess?  I truly don’t see the point of HMOs at all.  Break it down to a single-payer system backed by government money.  Fund it through taxes.  Tax me more.  Don’t care.  Tax the rich more.  It’s not as if the income gap is getting better, contrary to the belief of some. 

Misdirection is the name of the game right now.  This will never make it to the news media.  It’s not like the Fed knows anything.  I mean, the news anchors are telling me that the subprime crash is almost over!  Get in while you can before it recovers!  I’m really not sure if people are buying that line of reasoning or not, but if so, I wish them the best.  At least until the ARMs reset in a year and their mortgage payments jump by 30%.  That won’t affect the housing market or the economy at all as the effects ripple through bonds and funds that were deemed to be safe.  Everything will be a-ok.  You’ll see.

As always, I find some things ridiculous.  I feel like Kissinger is running for president, minus ~50 IQ points.  The man has absolutely no knowledge of intelligent foreign policy, is a warmonger, supports nepotism and protecting his cronies, etc.  How the hell do you run on a platform of “I was the mayor of a city during a major tragedy?”  It sure as hell wouldn’t work for Ray Nagin.  I bet Guiliani finds things like this to be prescient.  Academia has a liberal bias is part of the headline?  Really?  I’ll take that to mean that real life has a liberal bias.  Perhaps that’s the clearest example of the disconnect pundits (on both sides, true, but I see this a lot more often from one of the two…) have from reality. 

Which leads us to… The Heritage Foundation, that beacon of reason.  The Democrats are the “party of the rich?”  That’s fantastic.  Really, it is.  Neither party is really for the people, but there is a difference between “party of the rich” and “party for the rich.”  What baffles me is that The Heritage Foundation is (nominally) populated by people with fairly advanced degrees.  It’s a think tank, and they couldn’t bother to look up the demographics which clearly show an increase in education leads to an increase in the likelyhood that you’ll vote liberal.  Beyond that, the inner city poor and a large percentage of the middle class also votes Democratic.  Immigrants traditionally vote Democratic.  There’s more to it than “party of the rich.”  What they’re really trying to say is “we have no powerbase left other than religious nutcases, sociopaths, greedy people, and those who we can fearmonger to about illegal immigration (read: racists).”  It’s not really fair to say you’re a racist if you’re concerned about immigration, but it is fair to say that our current immigration policy is idiotic, and that the statistics (not cherry-picked examples) on crime just don’t agree with the notion perpetuated by Tom Tancredo and others.

Other than that, just a few neat things to buy:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/9c4a/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/gear/8122/
http://www.nerdkits.com/