tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87337740142771028682024-02-07T11:40:00.356-05:00'Bank SlatePersonal and political musings and pontification.swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-80789805391978906452022-07-09T07:54:00.003-04:002022-07-09T07:59:15.897-04:00Responding to Anti-Abortion Activists After Our Reproductive Rights are Gone<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">First off, thank you. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-81a6e1bc-7fff-2601-fe2d-9137d0cc7733"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’re entering an America where women and girls are forced to carry out their pregnancies. Rape victims will be forced to bear and deliver the children of their abusers. Children will be forced, by the state's power and the threat of criminal prosecution, to relinquish control over their lives. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a great number of people who have voted for and helped bring us to this horrific new reality. Most of them lack the basic conviction to own it and admit this is what they wanted, or at least conceded their role in bringing it about. It’s refreshing to see someone who will state that this new situation, however oppressive, is something they have deliberately sought and find desirable.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t agree that it is desirable, of course. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First off, we are not generally required, by law, to give of our bodies to sustain the lives of others. Even if a real, living, breathing human needs a new kidney, a blood transfusion, or a bone marrow transplant - you are not a murderer for failing to provide it. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every day, in every community, people die. Many of them could have survived, a least a little longer, with interventions that are much less strenuous than a 9-month, dangerous, life-transforming ordeal. Living in a free society means we get to choose when, and how much, we will give of ourselves to sustain the lives of others. As a legal matter, nobody should be forced by the state to use their body to sustain the life of another.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We should (but no longer do) have a right to bodily autonomy. But I agree there are critical moral distinctions around what is and is not a “person” - which is, of course, the crux of this issue. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The progress of sperm and egg combining and growing and gestating and ultimately, potentially, resulting in a live birth of a human baby is relatively well understood. It is also a fuzzy continuum, with an uncertain outcome, that begins in a very un-person-like state. The question of where you draw the “person” line has no fixed, correct answer. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nonetheless, I understand that you are prepared to draw that line, that you feel strongly that the line must be drawn at or near conception (please correct me if I’m wrong), and that you feel that this preference of yours must be strictly and precisely enforced by state law and that anyone who fails to abide by it rightly deserves criminal prosecution and imprisonment. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, given the inevitable, horrible outcomes of this state imposition - I have to ask: Why are you doing this? What makes you so sure you’re right that you would impose it on everyone and strip away our right to control our own partners, children, and lives? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does your certainly come from faith? I’m not religious. I don’t feel that any particular religious text should define American law. But even within the bible, I’m not aware of any passage stating that someone is fully human at the moment of conception. It wouldn’t matter to me, but aren’t such things relevant to you? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even with contradictory text, you might still claim your conviction comes from a divine source of revealed truth. Even if that’s a firm tenet of your faith, surely you are aware that not everyone shares that faith. Do you believe in religious freedom? If religious freedom means anything, it means that nobody should be compelled by law to surrender control of their lives based on religious beliefs they do not share. The freedom to abide by your own faith is among the rights that are being thrown away. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps you are so firm in your faith that you would see it imposed absolutely on everyone. You need to recognize everyone who does not share your conviction will be rightfully angry at having their fundamental rights stripped away in the name of your faith. You would object if you risked imprisonment by failing to abide by the arbitrary tenets of some other faith. You should expect similar resistance to the imposition of yours. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But perhaps your conviction isn’t purely based on faith. Maybe you feel compelled by science or morality. I’ve heard mention of tiny toes and heartbeat-like electrical impulses. The plain fact is that even under natural processes (or divine choice, if you prefer) less than a third of fertilized eggs end up as live births. Many fertilized eggs are simply washed away, unnoticed and unmourned. Often pregnancies result in stillbirth and miscarriages. Both biological and theological evidence suggests that embryos are not particularly sacred. But under our new pregnancy police-state we can be confident that many miscarriages will become murder investigations as zealous prosectors ensure that nobody is feloniously trying to determine the course of their own life. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you truly care about “unborn lives”, targeting miscarriages and infant mortality would be much more welcome, and less freedom-destroying projects than criminalizing pregnancy. There’s plenty of work to be done in neonatal care, maternity services, sex education, access to contraception, health care, racial disparities, and anti-poverty. Historically, anti-abortion advocates don’t have a strong track record in supporting these initiatives. They do have a history of opposing women’s rights, opposing women’s equality, and attempting to control the sexual lives of young and unmarried women. These perceptions raise questions about your actual motivations. </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I (mostly) try to be dispassionate in these discussions, but it’s not at all an abstract philosophical issue for me. I’ve been in the room when the doctor informed us that they thought my wife had an ectopic pregnancy. And that it would kill her. We instructed the doctor to terminate that pregnancy. Do I deserve to go to prison? How about the 19-year-old, with a shitty, abusive boyfriend, who makes the same decision? What does she deserve?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before our sons were born, my wife conceived twins. One of them was stillborn, and the other, our daughter, was born prematurely and died in infancy. In the lived experience of my own life, there’s a profound difference between the two. The little girl who lived, however briefly, will always be loved and remembered by us. The one that didn’t survive the womb, is not. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is not at all unusual. Churches, families, parents, and institutions all recognize that actual babies that arrive, alive are people we are excited to welcome into this world. But we also recognize that this is not the outcome for many, the majority even, of pregnancies. These losses can be mourned, but they should not be crimes. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As another example, let us consider the nice, young, married couple that would like to have a child and have trouble conceiving one. They undergo IVF fertilization, and in the process of creating the child they will raise and cherish, they create and destroy dozens of embryos. Do we celebrate them? Or are they monstrous destroyers of state-protected “unborn lives”? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not so long ago, when we had protected rights in the matter, these were interesting moral questions that we could debate. That’s no longer the case. Those rights are gone. At the very least, it would be nice to know under what circumstances we can be regarded as murderers, and what the basis, if any, for these distinctions are. It would also be good to have an understanding of under what circumstances we are to be granted by the state a measure of control over the most consequential, profound, and transformative aspects of our own lives.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I notice that you’ve asked me to “Choose life”. I assume this was written in some prior era when we had rights in the matter and there were choices to be made. Pasted into the current situation, where those choices are no longer available and have been replaced with threats of criminal prosecution, your request seems in rather poor taste.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-51291451184938865222022-07-08T16:10:00.002-04:002022-07-08T16:10:52.483-04:00The Choice to Have Children is the Fundamenatal Choice of Our Lives: We'll Miss it Now that it's Gone<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Family is everything. Who do you love? Will you have children together? At what stage in your life will you have children? How many? How will you manage those burdens, those challenges, those joys together? </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-8587bd31-7fff-1893-aae2-dbee52c589ab"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More than where you live, more than where you work, these questions about family and children - whether, when, how, and with whom - are absolutely central to who you are. They are the choices that define your life. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I find it astonishing, and tragic, that anyone would want to take those choices away. From everyone. It seems impossible that anyone would be so insistent that the right to control your own body does not belong to Americans. I’m saddened that the fundamental choice of with whom you will have and raise children is not contained within their definition of what it means to live in freedom. People who throw around phrases like “liberty” and “limited government” are insistent that the defining choices of our lives do not belong to us. These are not rights that we have. The government gets to make those decisions. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone who has had multiple (opposite sex) partners, everyone who had sex as a teenager, everyone who had sex, at any time, with someone with whom they were not fully prepared to raise the child that could have been conceived right then and there - and that is a group that includes almost everyone - all of those people benefitted enormously from the rights that they enjoyed. Until now. </span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those fundamental rights have been taken from all of us. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And for what? </span></span>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-15931870642472746282019-12-03T14:36:00.001-05:002019-12-03T15:50:03.442-05:00You Are Empowered: Mastering Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers League<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdb6yoppBwnRAjOAc2K0iZB4kwDbLzuc9GnYXrInSY_GgA5LWrUhYgTJQDRocxn9oXcce___tjKPjaJVMpR8-6T43IPUKKOp24pm0fZ4ahCamYMLcJsm0jYU4pAwmTGj1Nv7ZjaYBMr2c/s1600/dnd-adventures-600x360.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="600" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdb6yoppBwnRAjOAc2K0iZB4kwDbLzuc9GnYXrInSY_GgA5LWrUhYgTJQDRocxn9oXcce___tjKPjaJVMpR8-6T43IPUKKOp24pm0fZ4ahCamYMLcJsm0jYU4pAwmTGj1Nv7ZjaYBMr2c/s320/dnd-adventures-600x360.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
A little over a year ago I decided to get back into RPGs. I quickly gravitated to the role of Dungeon Master for D&D's Adventurer's League (AL) and I've kept that up running games once or twice a week in local stores.<br />
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In that time, I've refined my system for running games. I thought I would share my advice for getting the most out of your games in D&D's Adventures League.<br />
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<b>You are Empowered</b></h3>
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Adventurer's League is Dungeons & Dragons. The role of the Dungeon Master is not fundamentally changed in AL. There are restrictions on what character players can bring to the table. The rewards the players can walk away with are limited by the adventure and AL rules. Within the adventure, you are the DM. You have all the powers and responsibilities that come with the role.</div>
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Your first responsibility is to the story. Everyone is there to have fun. Everyone should be there for an adventure. You have the power, but also the obligation, to challenge the players. You have a sacred mandate to make them sweat. Work with the players to shape the best story that you can. In pursuit of that goal you can (you should!) improvise, surprise them, and reward creativity. You have the power to interpret any situation and adjudicate the rules however you see fit. Use this power wisely. Use it to enhance the story.</div>
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There is plenty of on-line advice on dos and don't. Like all advice (including this post) it's up to you to decide what guidance to follow and which you will not. Find a style that works for you. Your guiding principals are the pursuit of adventure and fun. </div>
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The Adventure is the Script. You are the Director.</h3>
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I enjoy the creative aspect of DMing. Initially, I was worried about being restricted to stories written by other people instead of coming up with my own. Now I really embrace it. There are a ton of wonderful, creative, adventures available. Running them doesn't limit my creativity. It unleashes it.</div>
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I think of each session I'll be running as a movie I'll be directing. I treat the adventure as a (rather rough) script. I want to respect and take advantage of the creativity, talent, and inspiration of the author. But, like any good director, I also want to make my mark on it. I want to use these ingredients to tell the best story that I can.</div>
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Generally, I know what adventures I'll be running several weeks in advance. I download, print them out, and read them long before I intend to run them. I'm running an adventure or two each week. So, I usually have several adventures lying around, in my queue, at any given time.<br />
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I read over the adventure. Then I let it marinate for a while. I think about them at work, when I'm in the car, washing dishes, going about my day. What's special and unique about this adventure? What genre is it? What's the story? Who are the antagonists and what do they want? Who are the NPCs and what are they like? What are our action scenes? What's the best pacing for this story? How challenging will it be? </div>
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What I want to do is figure out what is cool and interesting and unique about this particular adventure. Then I want to lean into that - figure out how show that, use it and enhance it. </div>
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I also consider things that the adventure, as written, maybe doesn't do so well. How well does it tell it's own story? How well defined and interesting are the NPCs? Can I make them more interesting? What does it do to surprise the players? </div>
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I think about how I can bring out the greatness of each adventure. I think about what I can do to address the weaknesses of the adventure. I incorporate those ideas into my adventure planning.</div>
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Prep Doesn't Have to Be Work</h3>
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Most of my adventure "prep" time is really in the noodling, daydreaming, and thinking through the adventure. It's not work. It's the opposite. It's fun. </div>
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Over the days and weeks, I'll go back and skim the adventure a few times and maybe do a close re-read of a few sections. Within a few days of my "run date", I'll have mapped out in my head how I want things to go. I'll have a handle on the characters, scenes, and action sequences and how I intend to run them. </div>
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At that point, I'll prepare my notes. I prepare a single piece of paper, in two columns. I write down names or characters and locations. I'll do quick reminder of each scene. For fights, I'll note the types and number of each adversary. For traps, I'll note the saves and damage. Typically, I can fit everything I'll need to remember on a single piece of paper. </div>
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If the adventure involves fighting spell-casters (and most of them do), I'll have given thought to which spells are likely to be cast. I'll look up those spells and paste the description into my notes. I'll also separate out the stat blocks for the adversaries from the rest of the adventure, and put those with my notes as well.</div>
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With that packet - notes, spells, monsters - I tend to have everything I need. I'll have the adventure print-out if I need it. But generally, I won't be spending much time looking at it. I've got my plan. I've got my notes. When the unexpected happens, I can look it up, or make it up. </div>
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For the final steps, I'll grab the maps and minis I'll need from my collection and set those aside. I have a reasonable collection of both, but they are something of an afterthought. I can comfortably make do as needed.</div>
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Maps, minis, notes, plan. I'm ready to run.<br />
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<b><br /></b>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-25614935408038741052019-04-28T16:22:00.001-04:002019-05-02T07:17:20.384-04:00Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBNHjj2KgumCz0YiT7DVauWHdDSa9VnxEpixWNvBgSBBSZHBha0rVSO1KPog8D6zyR6jzEnUAZRatK6BpjEzpjBM0vHZi0bT1Ctdl1Cq2wCHQG9eK2BDg67bJVItVEYIvUdV-FehNib0/s1600/Wildfires-California-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBNHjj2KgumCz0YiT7DVauWHdDSa9VnxEpixWNvBgSBBSZHBha0rVSO1KPog8D6zyR6jzEnUAZRatK6BpjEzpjBM0vHZi0bT1Ctdl1Cq2wCHQG9eK2BDg67bJVItVEYIvUdV-FehNib0/s640/Wildfires-California-11.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I've recently finished reading David Wallace-Wells' book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Uninhabitable-Earth-Life-After-Warming/dp/0525576703/ref=sr_1_3?hvadid=322344844285&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9002432&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=3201626412938490217&hvtargid=kwd-601783823186&keywords=the+uninhabitable+earth&qid=1555266326&s=gateway&sr=8-3" target="_blank">The Uninhabitable Earth</a>. It is a sobering, terrifying, and absolutely essential book. It also offers a potent counter to the many lies that we hear and tell ourselves about global warming.<br />
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<b>Lie Number 1: This is an issue about prior and future generations.</b><br />
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More than half of all greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere have been released since 1990. Some changes and warming are already unavoidable. But, if we do not make radical reductions in human emissions by 2050, the damage will be catastrophic and irreversible.<br />
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The vast majority of greenhouse admissions have happened and will continue to happen during our lifetimes. Most of it has occurred since we became aware of the dangers of global warming. And it will continue to compound indefinitely. If we do not act then we will condemn all of humanity for every future generation. That sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration. It isn't one.<br />
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We, the people alive today, have the only chance to address this problem.<br />
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<b>Lie Number 2: It won't be that bad. "Nature lovers" might care, but humanity will be fine.</b><br />
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We are already beginning to see the effects of a warming world: more hurricanes, more wildfires, flooding, heat waves, etc... This is the very beginning. It will continue and it will continue to get worse. As the temperatures rise, year after year, tiny increases - fractions of a degree in a global average - will have a compounding and relentless effect.<br />
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Wildfires will continue to eradicate communities. Higher temperatures will render much of the earth essentially uninhabitable. Storms will overwhelm and flood areas where people live on a regular basis - including many of our largest and most populous cities. Water supplies will dry up. Heat waves and droughts will endanger much of the world's food supply. Season after season.Year after year. Without end. The cumulative effect will lead to massive migration, dislocation, and unrest.<br />
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Our current path puts us on course for a world that is very different from the one we live in. This is not in some far-flung future. We are seeing it now. We'll continue to see the effects accumulate in the years and decades to come. By the end of this century, the world could be violently transformed. And the changes will continue.<br />
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<b>Lie Number 3: We have bigger problems right now. </b><br />
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With most policy, political, and societal issues we can make changes. Politicians serve limited terms. They can be voted out. Their policies can be reversed. Tax policies can be altered. Health care plans can be enacted. The process of change can be slow, partial, and infuriating. But with time and enough dissatisfied voters, it can happen.<br />
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Or sometimes change doesn't happen. We muddle along for decades dealing with inefficiencies, sub-optimal conditions, and even gross injustice. But, we can. We do. We muddle along. Life goes on. And when the conditions are finally right for a change, it can happen.<br />
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Global warming is not like that. If the good people of 2040 or 2062 or 2087 decide that they have had enough - it will be too late. If they decide, only then, to get serious, then we will be on the wrong side of irreversible. Dramatic action in future years can prevent an even worse fate. It won't allow them to un-melt the glaciers, refill aquifers, or turn parched fallow fields back into fertile land.<br />
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The time to act to is now. We can continue to strive for progress elsewhere. But we really don't have more important issues to work on.<br />
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<b>Lie number 4: This is a partisan issue.</b><br />
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Nobody will escape the effects of catastrophic climate change. It doesn't matter where you live. Rural, urban, north, south, coastal, inland - everyone will be affected. We're all in this together. And everything and everyone you care about is under threat.<br />
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We know that tribalism has an extremely powerful pull. We can see that the human capacity for rationalization is limitless. You can find reasons to look away, to ignore the problem, to oppose the solutions, to wait-and-see. There is no shortage of people offering convenient excuses and lies.<br />
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But you can choose to see the truth. You can choose to confront it and all of it's terrible implications. You can support, request, require, and demand action. And when you do, you can do so knowing it the right and necessary thing to do.<br />
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<b>Lie number 5: It's already too late</b><br />
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It is not too late to act. We've been slow to act. At this point, some warming is inevitable. But it's not too late to achieve a stable, sustainable world. It's not too late to leave our children and grandchildren a world that is recognizably similar to the one we inherited.<br />
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We have the technology today. And that technology will continue to improve. We can see the extent of the problem. The solutions are known. Changes will be needed. We'll all be asked to make sacrifices. There will be costs. But the cost of inaction will greatly exceed of costs of doing what needs to be done.<br />
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This is the fundamental challenge of our time. But it's not too late to embrace it.<br />
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<br />swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-4974519439822283242016-11-19T05:15:00.002-05:002016-11-19T08:06:22.213-05:00Crying WolfThere is a blog post making the rounds entitled "<a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/" target="_blank">You Are Still Crying Wolf</a>". The thrust of the piece is that it is inaccurate and unfair to call Trump a racist, and that doing so is counter-productive and scares people unnecessarily. It argues that calling out Trump is calling wolf.<br />
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If it is, then let me join the call. There is a wolf.<br />
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To me, the piece reads like holocaust denial literature. It uses statistics and clever argumentation to convince us to deny the evidence that has been placed plainly before us. Trump made a name for himself in politics by peddling the "birther" lie. During the Republican primary he jettisoned all conservative orthodoxy and boiled it down to the different groups of brown people we need to expel and be afraid of. During the general election he advocated for targeting racial minorities for voter suppression and mass incarceration. In the early days of staffing his administration, Mr. Trump has already appointed a racist, rogues gallery who openly oppose the civil rights and sacred laws they will be entrusted to defend and enforce.<br />
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These choices will have terrible consequences for real people. American citizens, lawful residents, and people, whose only crime is a desire to live and work in America, are going to be persecuted. They will be intimidated, insulted, beaten, disenfranchised, and have their rights denied. They will be detained, imprisoned, deported, tortured and killed. Some of this will come from people who have been inspired and energized by Trumps rhetoric. The worst of it will come from the administration itself and be backed by full force of executive and law-enforcement authorities.<br />
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This is not based imagination or speculation. These are promises that were made. Looking at the what's going on, day by day, it is clear that the pledges of persecution are promises Trump intends to keep.<br />
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I fully expect, indeed I am counting on, the majority Trump voters to say this is not what they want. That they are not racist. That they do not support it when people are attacked based on their race, color, or religion. Trump voters are not some unknown other. You are my friends, colleagues, neighbors, gaming-buddies, and family members. I know you and have always known you. You say it's not about race. And I believe you. I live in New Hampshire. We've really only got the one race. Why would it be all about racism? I believe you.<br />
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But you had a choice. And you made a choice. And you chose the wolf. You may have had any number of reasons for your choice. You didn't hear the cries. You didn't trust the crier. Whatever the reason, if you voted Donald Trump, then this is the choice you made. It may not be what you want, but it's a consequence of your choice. And you are responsible for those consequences.<br />
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If this isn't what you want, if these aren't your values, then you need to stand up. And you need speak up.<br />
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We chose the wolf. We need shepherds more than ever.<br />
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<br />swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-36675631059744961362016-11-01T17:44:00.001-04:002016-11-17T16:21:58.149-05:00Do Not Vote for Donald TrumpAfter everything that has been said and done in this campaign, I know that nothing I can say is going to sway anyone. But everyone who cares about the country has an obligation to say this. So, I am saying it.<br />
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Do not vote for Donald Trump.</div>
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If you already hate Donald Trump, then this isn't for you. If you're on the fence, or you don't like Trump but kinda agree with what he's saying, think maybe he's the best of some bad options, or are a sincere Trump support - then I am asking you- Please. Think about this. </div>
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You should only vote for Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States if you can honestly say he is prepared to honorably and capably serve in that office. He is not. Trump has shown us time and again, in so many ways, that his not someone well-suited to be President of the United States.</div>
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<b>Donald Trump is a horrible person. </b>We require many virtues in our president: Wisdom, sound judgement, intelligence, eloquence, the ability to soothe the American people during times of trouble. Trump lacks all of these virtues. He is thin-skinned, cruel, vindictive, paranoid, undisciplined and self-centered. He associates with bigots and conspiracy mongers. Trump has been enthusiastically embraced by our nation's racists and white nationalists. His treatment of women make him, at best, a foul-mouth, pervy, serial-adulterer. At worst, he's a sexual assault repeat offender. He lacks the temperament and good judgement to be president.</div>
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<b>Trump does not know anything. About anything. </b>Most people running for President don't start out as a expert on every issue. There is a certain expected learning curve. Trump has not shown even a rudimentary understanding of any of the issues facing the nation. Time and again, in interview after interview, debate after debate, Trump has shown the same pattern. He gets a question, he spouts some vacuous campaign slogan, pivots to some nonsense on a vaguely relevant or unrelated topic, and then just spins to whine and complain about something he thinks Democrats have done. </div>
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On issue after issue, Trump claims he knows more than anyone else on the topic, and then demonstrates he knows nothing at all. He has no idea what his wall will cost or what impact it will have. He has no understanding the economy, how to craft a trade deal, or how to bring back manufacturing jobs. Trump's foreign policy consists of insulting, alienating, and abandoning our military allies and economic trading partners. His military strategy consists of vague notions that vary from naive, to childish, to dangerous.<br />
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His ignorance could be mitigated if he surrounded himself with "good people" and accepted their guidance. He doesn't. He surrounds himself with sycophants and yes-men and isn't interested in their advice.</div>
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<b>His secrecy and corruption should trouble you. </b>Trump's primary claim to the presidency is that his successful and reputable business career has prepared him for the office. And yet, in defiance of decades of tradition, he has refused to release any of his tax returns. Without them we can't evaluate how ethically, honorably, and effectively he has run his business. It is expected that the President of the United States will place his assets in a blind trust to avoid conflicts between his self-interest and the interests of the nation. This too Trump has refused to do. Trump has business interests around the world and, incredibly, he wants to serve as president without severing these ties or even revealing his debts, obligations, holdings, conflicts, domestic and overseas partners and debtors. The reason he won't release his tax returns if that if we knew the truth, we would find it unacceptable. We can't accept that.</div>
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This might be tolerable if Trump had a history of ethical behavior and putting others before himself. He has no such history. He's been avoiding paying his taxes with dubious loopholes. His charitable foundation is a sham. His "Trump University" was a fraud designed to con money out of the poor dupes who put their faith in him. Trump has been involved in thousands of lawsuits. Many of them stem from his failure to honor contracts and willingness to stiff, rip-off, and abandon the individuals and business, large and small, that are foolish enough to work with him or put their trust in him. </div>
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<b>Donald Trump does not understand or respect the constitution. </b>There was a time when Trump supported reasonable gun control measures. He doesn't any more. For some people, that'll be enough to say he supports the constitution. He doesn't. Trump opposes freedom of speech. He has repeatedly tried to use the legal system to silence his critics. He opposes freedom of religion and plans to persecute religious minorities. He opposes freedom of the press. He supports torture, the very definition of cruel punishment. He supports "stop and frisk" searches without a warrant. Trump advocates voter suppression and voter intimidation efforts to deprive people of their right to vote. </div>
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Trump's admiration of authoritarian leaders, like Vladimir Putin, is well established. His unwillingness to stand up to an aggressive, expansionist Russia should be deeply concerning. His emulation of Putin's tactics is even more disturbing. Democracies can die. They can become dictatorships. Trump has put up plenty of signposts to indicate where he wants to take this nation. When politics is criminalized and political opponents are imprisoned; while minority rights are not respected and leaders focus more on stoking resentment against some scapegoat "other" than trying to address the real problems in the country; when a free press is attacked and discredited; when the truth no longer matters; when the electoral process itself is threatened - then we are on our way to tyranny.<br />
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Even as private citizen, Trump abuses the legal system to extract revenge and silence his critics. We should be fearful of what he will do with the full powers of the executive. He can not be trusted to be an impartial executor of the law and to safeguard our democracy.<br />
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<b>Trump is not a protest vote. </b>You might be hoping to "send a message" or that, somehow, Trump is going to work some outsider magic in Washington D.C. He won't. Trump is the nominee of one of our two main parties. The main arguments for supporting him are: the supreme court, passing the Ryan agenda, and that he's "better then the alternative" (because the alternate is a Democrat). Notice that these arguments could be made no matter who the nominee is. They allow you to rationalize and justify overlooking Trump's own failures and shortcomings. Voting for Trump sends the message that you'll vote for literally anyone the GOP chooses to nominate, no matter how awful. That's not a protest vote. That is a puppet vote.<br />
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<b>This is your vote. </b>Who you support is a reflection on you. It is a reflection of your priorities and on your values. Donald Trump is not worthy of your vote. Whatever your principles are, he does not share them, and he does not live by them. Whatever your standards are, he does not rise to them. Whatever you want for America, he cannot provide it. Whatever qualities you look for in a President of United States, Donald Trump does not have those qualities.<br />
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Do not vote for Donald Trump.</div>
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swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-31492410788273112162016-06-14T18:35:00.002-04:002016-06-14T18:40:42.838-04:00Second Thoughts<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed</span></i><span style="font-size: large;">.</span></div>
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The founders of our country included the right to bear arms in the Constitution's Bill of Rights. That 18th century decision has serious, often tragic, and too-frequently horrific repercussions in the world we live in today. It is past time to consider the text, meaning, limitations, and implications of an amendment that, for better and worse, still has its hold on us today.<br />
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It was included as a bulwark against tyranny, as protection against internal and external powers that threatened the fledgling Republic. The founders were suspicious of standing armies and, having just won a war with them, felt that the individual states' citizen militias were indeed necessary for the security of a free country. <br />
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Beyond authorizing state militias, the amendment states that "the right of the people to <i>keep</i> and and bear arms shall not be infringed". Keep. This implies ownership and that the 2nd amendment confers rights upon individuals as well.<br />
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On first consideration, the 2nd amendment appears to be quite broad in scope, and specifies a sincere restriction on governmental gun control. On further inspection, we can see the limitations.<br />
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We relied on armed militias at the nation's founding. But things have changed. The stated premise of the amendment is no longer relevant or true. Armed, citizen militias are not necessary to the security of the state. More often they are a threat to it. The US has a substantial and very well equipped standing army that is perfectly capable of protecting the nation and projecting power abroad. The old state militias have been folded into a National Guard that is funded, armed, deployed by, and effectively under the control of the federal government. It is no longer the case that a well regulated militia is necessary to have a free country.<br />
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Even if the premise is no longer valid, the amendment can still have force. It's text still holds meaning. It confers a right but, like all Constitutional rights, it is subject to limitation.<br />
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There is already a consensus agreement that citizens do not have the right to own any weapons they may desire. Explosives, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and all manner of military equipment, are banned from private ownership. It is illegal to own these things because we recognize that there are obvious, practical limitations to the 2nd amendment. Allowing everyone to access the means of mass murder and wanton destruction is a threat to a free society. It is not required by our constitution. There is ample precedent for restricting weaponry simply because of its lethality and destructive capacity.<br />
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There is also precedent for controlling not only what weapons are available, but who may have them. Guns are designed for the purpose of killing other people. We can lawfully attempt to keep them out of the hands of dangerous individuals. Felons, fugitives, and convicted domestic abusers are currently prohibited from owning guns. This list could be expanded. People are rightfully aghast that someone being investigated for terrorism ties can still lawfully purchase a semi-automatic rifle.<br />
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The Bill of Rights was intended to place limitations on the powers of the federal government. Typically, its restrictions apply to the states as well. Freedom of speech is protected against actions by both state and federal legislatures. The 2nd amendment is the exception. And the exception is written into the amendment itself. The militias were state entities. The amendment plainly states that they are to be <i>well regulated</i>. It's a straightforward reading of the text to see that it does place limitations on federal regulation of firearms. It is also clear that the amendment confers not only the right, but the obligation of the states to regulate access to weapons. Mental gymnastics are required to read the phrase "well regulated" and conclude that it means unregulated. The 2nd amendment gives states the authority to regulate firearms as they see fit.<br />
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The second amendment prohibits the federal government from fully disarming the states and their citizens. It does not prohibit a national ban on military weapons that can be used to commit murder on a massive scale. It does not stop us from enacting stronger background checks and keeping deadly arms out of the hands dangerous and unstable people. It does not mean that the states can not regulate guns to any extent that they desire, including creating a total ban. We can create gun-free states. <br />
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Honoring our constitution does not require inaction after each horrific slaughter. It is not true that there is nothing we can do. That is our choice. We can make a different one. <br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-33329064253794759362014-03-09T09:32:00.002-04:002014-03-10T07:49:31.918-04:00Breeding a Love of Board Games<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmN5vuepXXW6bplld0zYoVGaCkHoZZALnW0LU7rvThrmcmfkktjLo89YU8Xy6h9nUXuA4ZZ9ZDlsG0nfxMVsryAZbGM9nvv2TKfDvHc0a7SqKQEdhMMKDJDz1DxfdtfFRrJ0sxrurXgY/s1600/board-games.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmN5vuepXXW6bplld0zYoVGaCkHoZZALnW0LU7rvThrmcmfkktjLo89YU8Xy6h9nUXuA4ZZ9ZDlsG0nfxMVsryAZbGM9nvv2TKfDvHc0a7SqKQEdhMMKDJDz1DxfdtfFRrJ0sxrurXgY/s1600/board-games.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m an avid gamer. So, with my own children, I launched a concerted and sustained effort to impart my love of board and card games. I wanted to make them into good gamers. That effort has yielded spectacular results. Here is my proven system for getting the most out of playing games with children.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-6e73c92a-a6f3-8078-f31b-e0148bb75cc8" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Start Early</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can start very early. As soon as my kids could speak we were playing games. At age 2 we got plastic holders that little hands could use to hold a hand of cards. We played many games of Loot and other simple games. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early on, you’re really just introducing the concepts. Wait for your turn. Take your turn. Participate in a structured activity. Understanding the concepts of rules and restrictions. You don’t need to worry about strategy or who’s winning. That’ll come soon enough. Start by getting them used to playing games, participating, and having fun. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t Emphasize Winning and Losing</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Playing games means winning games and losing games. Playing lots of games means winning a lot and losing a lot. These things should be treated as inevitable parts of playing games for everyone. The important thing is not the winning or the losing but that you have fun playing. Like so many things, you’re better off modeling this truth than explaining it. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have fun playing. Get in character. Provide color commentary. Praise the clever play. Recognize when you’ve been outmaneuvered. Engage in some good-spirited gloating when they’ve fallen into your trap. Cherish the tension of the tight game when the outcome hangs in the balance.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When it’s over, you can acknowledge who won and who lost. But it should almost be an afterthought. The play's the thing. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Games should be fun. Part of making a game fun is being gracious in victory or defeat. For children who have trouble with either, make it clear that good sportsmanship is a requirement. If they want to play games with you, they need to do their part to make the game fun for everyone during and after the game. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Play to Win. But Level the Field.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I taught my kids to play chess I started by taking away my own rooks and my queen. Then I played to win. Early on, I taught them useful lessons about protecting your pieces and the power of a promoted pawn. It wasn't long before I really needed to be in top form or a blundered move would cost me the game. Soon after that I was reintroducing my pieces to avoid certain defeat. When my son reached kindergarten he became a competitive member of the 5th grade chess club. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kids should earn their victories. But playing games where they are at a huge disadvantage isn't fun for anyone. Start by choosing games that involve a lot of luck, or that rely on skills like pattern recognition, or memory - where adults don’t have a clear advantage. When you go for the strategy game, stack the odds in their favor to make sure your victories are well-earned as well.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t Explain the Rules </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With most adults it’s considered unfair to start a new game until everyone is familiar with all aspects of the rules. Often this will lead to lots of context-free explanation of arcane and unfamiliar systems. This often concludes with an agreement to “just start playing and figure it out as we go”. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With kids your best bet is to skip to the just-start-playing part. Give an overview of the point and very basics of the game. Then deal out the cards. Go first. Play with an open hand. Explain what you’re doing, and why, as you do it. When it’s the next player’s turn, explain their options. But let them make their own choices. Until everyone gets the hang of it, don’t worry about optimal plays and good strategy. Make a “bad” play if it helps introduce a new rule. Your focus is on getting players to understand the game. Dive in, and have fun. Cutthroat can come later. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Come Prepared</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’ll be introducing a new game, make sure you come to the table prepared. Read the rules. Make sure you understand them. Think about how you’ll be teaching the players to play. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If a question comes up during the game, you can spend a few seconds looking it up in the rules. But if you don’t find it quickly, make a ruling. You can come up with your ruling by consensus, by your best guess off the designer’s intention, or by giving the younger player the benefit of the doubt. But make a decision. After the game you can look up the real rule (returning to the rulebook or looking it up online). Make sure to explain if you ruled incorrectly and how you’ll handle it next time.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re less comfortable with your own game-design skills then stick with the rulebook. But experienced gamers can consider modifying games for younger players. Many games can streamlined, simplified, or rebalanced to make it a better game to play with little kids. If you’re going to do that, make your modifications beforehand, and explain any changes to players before you begin. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Choose New Games</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monopoly is not a good game. Chutes and Ladders is not good. Battleship is OK. Clue has some really clever bits and some pointless, tedious bits. Stratego is still great.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the last 15 years or so there has been a renaissance in board and card game design. There are now ridiculous numbers of games you can choose from. There are game appropriate for every taste and age group. Game designers have learned a lot of lessons about the different means and mechanics to create a fun experience. There are more games available today. There are better games available today.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Check with your friendly local game store for suggestions. Here are a few of mine:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.gamewright.com/gamewright/index.php?section=games&page=game&show=142" target="_blank"><b>Loot</b></a> by <a href="http://www.gamewright.com/gwintro.html" style="font-weight: normal;" target="_blank">Gamewright</a>. - Loot is my-all-time favorite game to introduce to little kids. It’s got simple rules, fun artwork, a jolly pirate theme, supports most any number of players, and has enough depth to make it fun for all ages. The publisher GameWright is also my favorite publisher of games for kids and<a href="http://www.gamewright.com/gamewright/index.php?section=games&page=index" style="font-weight: normal;" target="_blank"> their catalog</a> is good pace to look if you’re looking for a new game.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2653/survive-escape-from-atlantis" target="_blank"><b>Survive: Escape from Atlantis!</b></a> by Stronghold Games : The object of Survive is have member your little tribe escape on the last boats from an ever-shrinking island. You want strand your opponents in the hopes that the ground will disappear beneath their feet and you can send sharks to devour their little people. Good family fun for all ages. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.gamewright.com/gamewright/index.php?section=games&page=game&show=245" target="_blank"><b>Forbidden Island</b></a> - Gamewright again! Another game about about escaping from a sinking island. Unlike the cutthroat Survive, Forbidden Island is a cooperative game. Everyone is working together to escape with the loot and their lives. Co-op games can also be a great way to play games with kids. The trick is to work together while still letting younger players makes their own choices rather than playing the game for them.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gamesalute/villains-and-vigilantes-card-game" target="_blank"><b>Villains and Vigilantes Card Game</b></a> - <a href="http://superhumangames.com/" style="font-weight: normal;" target="_blank">Superhuman Games</a> - Ok. Villains and Vigilantes isn’t really designed for young children. It </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>was</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> designed by me. My kids were the lead playtesters and really enjoy it. But it is a “gamer’s game”. When you’re ready for some superheroic action, with a little complexity, check it out. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be Careful What You Wish For</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These days it seems like every room in our house is overrun with gaming paraphernalia. Dinner-time conversation inevitably revolves around the merits of some obscure card. Our Sunday afternoons are spent at Magic: the Gathering tournaments. “Dad. Do you want to play a game of something?” is a constant refrain. I don’t get together with my friends as much since I get more than enough gaming at home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once the seed is planted it may grow beyond your control. Enjoy.</span>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-82906499903427830842014-02-16T17:27:00.000-05:002014-02-17T07:23:12.257-05:00Obamacare Before and AfterFor a long time we didn't get health insurance from our jobs. I purchased health insurance for my family on the individual market. Last spring, I switch to a new employer that does provide health insurance. If we hadn't switched, I expect we would have been one of those families being told that because of Obamacare, we would be losing our health insurance plan. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that our previous insurer is no longer selling individual insurance in New Hampshire.<br />
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But that's OK. We didn't like our plan. We didn't care if we could keep it.<br />
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I didn't like the sign up process. The price quoted to me online was totally misleading. I couldn't sign up on online at all. I had to contact an independent broker to actually navigate the process. The actual price was much higher than the one quoted on the website.<br />
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I didn't like the fact that they wouldn't insure my entire family. They would insure some of us, but they would not sell a policy to cover my son - who is a generally healthy, normal kid. He was born prematurely with a low birth-weight. Preexisting condition. For him we had to buy a separate, more expensive plan. From a different insurer.<br />
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They wouldn't cover maternity. That would be too risky given our history. We aren't planning to have more kids. But I didn't like the idea of a for-profit health insurance company making that decision for us. Whether or not to have children is the kind of decision we should be able to make for ourselves.<br />
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We didn't really like having a $5,000 per-person deductible. The insurance didn't end up covering much of anything. If we had more than one incident in a year we could be out $10,000+ in addition to the money we were paying in premiums. That didn't happen every year. But it did happen.<br />
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We contacted the insurance company when the law changed and they could no longer reject children due to preexisting conditions. They waffled, delayed, and refused to quote us a new price for a policy that covered our entire family. When they finally relented, they jacked up the price so much that we were better off sticking with the separate plans. I didn't like that.<br />
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One time my wife had knee surgery at our local hospital. We were informed that the hospital was in-network. But the anesthesiologist in the hospital was <i>not</i> in the network. So, we were supposed to pay for that. We appealed that decision and won. But the insurance took the novel approach of simply never, ever paying the money they agreed to pay. I didn't like being told a dozen times, over many phone conversations, over several years that this would be taken care of. I didn't like collection agents calling us to demand the money that the insurance company had promised, but never paid.<br />
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We did not like our insurance plan. But we kept it. We renewed that plan year after year, ever as they kept jacking up the premiums. We kept our plan because there is no way we would take the risk of going without health insurance. We kept our plan because the alternatives were worse. Other options had ever more strict underwriting requirements and wouldn't sell us policies at all. Or they were ever more expensive. Or provided even worse coverage.<br />
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I supported the ACA and was very much looking forward to being able to purchase insurance on the health care exchange. We started getting insurance through my new job before the exchanges were launched. But it's instructive to compare what's available now compared to what we were going through.<br />
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The insurance exchange in New Hampshire is far from ideal. We're part of the federal exchange and have had to deal with the complications that came with that. What's worse is that there is no competition, and not much to choose from within our exchange. Currently, there is exactly one insurance company that offers policies through our state exchange.<br />
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The good news that the sole insurer is the biggest, most reputable insurer in the state. They can no longer pick and choose among members of our family. They don't get to decide if we're allowed to have more children. And getting an accurate quote from the web site was quick and easy<br />
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Under our old plans, we were paying a total of $832 per month for multiple plans, each with a $5,000 per person deductible. On the exchange today, a comparable plan would cost us $730 a month. Even without subsides, we could save over $1,200 a year. Or we could pay what we're paying now for superior coverage, fewer hassles, and a more reputable insurer.<br />
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I've been a supporter of health care reform. I didn't support that effort because I wanted everything to stay the same. I recognized that system was terrible. The whole point of the reforms was to change it.<br />
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That's not a promise that was broken. It's a promise that was kept.<br />
<br />swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-13831246674097781102013-01-07T12:04:00.000-05:002013-01-07T13:27:35.582-05:00Stopping Gun Violence in AmericaThe goal ending gun violence in general, and horrific mass shootings in particular, is one that is shared by most all Americans.<br />
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It is also true that a great many Americans own weapons and keep and use them responsibly. We have a strong traditions of gun ownership and guns are tightly intertwined with our history, our politics, our entertainment, our mythology, and in many cases, our sense of self.<br />
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This combination had made ending gun violence very difficult in America. But I wonder if we can find some common ground and move towards a solution. Ideally we should all seek a system that preserve our traditions and allows for continued gun ownership while keeping these uniquely lethal capabilities out of the hands of criminals and psychopaths.<br />
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My proposal goes like this:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Existing regulation regarding the purchase of firearms is left unchanged. No additional restrictions are added on who can purchase guns or what people can do with the weapons they already own.<br /><br /></li>
<li>A federal law would make it illegal to sell any firearm ammunition to individuals for private use.<br /><br /></li>
<li>During phase 1, there would be no new restrictions on ammunition people already own or purchase before the law goes into effect.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Licensed gun ranges, gun clubs, and similar operations would be authorized to purchase and sell ammunition in most any type and volume. </li>
<ul>
<li>All of this ammunition would have to remain on and be used on the premises.</li>
<li>These gun clubs would be given a very wide latitude in terms of the their scope, size, and the variety of tactical, recreational, and sport opportunities they offer.<br /><br /></li>
</ul>
<li>Whenever a valid hunting license is purchased, the individual would also be able to purchase a small quantity of ammunition appropriate the weapons they will be hunting with and the game being hunted.<br /><br /></li>
</ul>
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<li>After 10 years, phase 2 would go into effect. At this point private ownership of firearm ammunition would no longer be legal. </li>
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<li>The penalty for owning ammunition would be minor - more like a speeding ticket than a jail sentence.<br /><br /></li>
</ul>
</ul>
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The goal with this proposal would be to immediately limit access to lethal capacity to new gun purchasers. People could keep their guns and get new ones. But, over time, the intent is to move the capacity to use them as lethal weapons out of peoples homes, out of the hands of criminals, and into more controlled settings. This would preserve the use of guns for hunting, sport, and recreation. It would also bring about a fundamental shift in the unrestricted availability of deadly force and end much of the tragedy that comes with it.</div>
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swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-10806863404897890432013-01-06T15:41:00.001-05:002013-01-06T15:41:28.358-05:00The Way of the GunWhen my son Isaac (age 12) wrote his Christmas gift wish-list this year it consisted of:<br />
<ul>
<li>Nerf gun. </li>
<li>Nerf gun. </li>
<li>Nerf gun. </li>
<li>Money. </li>
</ul>
This year we had also had a 14-year-old French cousin joining us for Christmas. So, when my mother called in search of gift suggestions, I had the bright idea: Nerf guns for everyone! I figured a big, plastic firearm was the quintessential American gift and envisioned much merriment with all of us boys - I included myself in this plan - blasting away at one another.<br />
<br />
In the aftermath the Sandy Hook shootings, the thought of pointing guns, even bright plastic ones, at children filled me with nausea and dread. I had second thoughts. But my always-agreeable mother had already gone ahead with my plan. So it came to be that a substantial Nerf arsenal awaited us under the Christmas tree.<br />
<br />
Christmas morning came. The Nerf guns were a big hit. Of course. As soon as they were opened and unboxed, with piles of sparkly presents still sitting unopened under the tree, we ran outside to shoot blue darts at one another in the fresh snow.<br />
<br />
The Nerf guns was hardly the only firearm-themed Christmas gift received. Our favorite toys, computer games, board games, card games, television shows, movies, and books all feature guns and lots of them. The depiction, recreation, and immersion in imaginary gun violence is one of my, and now my son's, major preoccupations. Blowing holes in a wide variety of zombies, mercenaries, aliens, and assorted "bad guys" is a near-daily staple and a welcome source of temporary escape from the basic banalities of modern life.<br />
<br />
For all my indulgence in firearm fantasies I've pretty much kept my distance from the real thing. I've rarely held, and never fired an actual weapon. I don't own a gun and don't ever intend to. But I can see the appeal. I understand the powerful pull, and the mythic aspects of guns. In spite of that, and in some ways because of it, I wouldn't want an actual weapon in my home or in my life.<br />
<br />
For a great many Americans their relationship with guns is much less distant. Around 45 millions households in the US own a total estimated around 270 million firearms. The vast majority of these weapons are kept perfectly safely and securely. They are used for sport, hunting, collected, and used responsibly for fun or recreation.<br />
<br />
But these are weapons. They are designed to do damage. With weaponry that powerful, and access this easy, it takes only a tiny percentage of dangerous individuals to cause horrific damage. Every year there are thousands of firearm deaths in the US. Thousands of murders. Thousands of suicides by gun. Every few months we receive news of another shocking mass shooting. It is too often, too regular, to easy for a psychotic individual to go on a shooting spree in an office, a movie theater, or a school. Each time we are appalled, we grieve, we shrug, and we go on.<br />
<br />
Here in the US, the guns have always been here. And the tragedies have come with them.<br />
<br />
I wonder if we aren't ready for a change.<br />
<br />
There are multitudes of guns owners in the US. They are also citizens, parents, colleagues, businesses owners and community members . The horrors of gun violence reach the guns owners and those without alike. We should be unified in our desire to prevent gun violence. We should share the objectives of reducing violent crime, and stopping the terrible killing sprees, while preserving lawful, safe, responsible, and even for-fun firearm use.<br />
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In my next post I'll propose a plan to do that.<br />
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<br />swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-8772334387254580672012-11-04T05:47:00.000-05:002012-11-04T05:47:02.381-05:00Obama: Still the Best President Ever<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBfgyQl0KJ7N6mVxPjsgGtkxdrZth5IFsXrqCIF1eThZENDJmSYy0t61O6oUfOYhFGZLO_XluEfwjBhj3Hgks8OLn-wGZPJUGCmkwwnM4RjDo6-POjSnXz40Jy2Gre6v6p3cXp98rky8/s1600/obama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBfgyQl0KJ7N6mVxPjsgGtkxdrZth5IFsXrqCIF1eThZENDJmSYy0t61O6oUfOYhFGZLO_XluEfwjBhj3Hgks8OLn-wGZPJUGCmkwwnM4RjDo6-POjSnXz40Jy2Gre6v6p3cXp98rky8/s400/obama.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Back in December of 2009, before Obama had completed his first year in office, before he signed health care reform into law, I <a href="http://bankslate.blogspot.com/2009/12/obama-best-president-ever.html" target="_blank">wrote a post</a> proclaiming that Barack Obama the best President in my lifetime. I also predicted that he is likely to be a better President than any successor I will live to see.<br />
<br />
Three tumultuous years later, I am pleased to see that President Obama has lived up to my expectations. I am proud to stand by my initial assessment. I will enthusiastically cast my vote for his re-election on November 6.<br />
<br />
We have a tendency the mythologize our presidents. But the office of the presidency does not come with the powers to shape the nation in accordance to your will. There is no enchanted staff, bestowed on inauguration day, that can be wielded to shine the blessing of full employment upon us all. Even the Hollywood-tale of the spellbinding statesman able to unite us, cow the opposition, and win the day with unimpeachable logic and soaring rhetoric - is largely a myth.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, inevitably, the President of the United States is just a person. The office itself is a job. The chosen individual is either good at it, or not.<br />
<br />
By this basic, honest, standard Barack Obama has been an exceptional President of the United States. Over the past four years, day after day, on issue after issue, he has demonstrated an uncommon combination of wisdom, patience, competence, compassion, and leadership. He is good at this.<br />
<br />
There are number of areas where the actions of this President have had a positive impact. On education, the environment, financial reform, immigration, the war on terror, clean energy, killing Bin Laden, foreign policy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, marriage equality, equal pay for women, women's reproductive rights, disaster relief, student loans... the list of positive achievements is long and impressive.<br />
<br />
And there are two issues in particular that have touched us directly.<br />
<br />
I've spent my career working for technology start-up companies. It has often, and recently, been the case that these small and new companies do not offer health insurance coverage with the job. Shopping for insurance for my family has given me an all-too-close perspective on the dysfunction of the current system and the urgent need for reform. We've been denied coverage, had family members rejected due to pre-existing conditions, and seen huge premium increases year after year. Even for people with money and good jobs, the system is broken. It hasn't worked. It especially hasn't worked for small businesses. My experience has left me with zero sympathy for anyone who has opposed health care reform and immense gratitude for this administration for seeing this through.<br />
<br />
Everyone should be able to afford health insurance for their family. Thanks to this President that is will soon be a reality. It is inconceivable to me that anyone would want to throw it all away and return to the costly, nightmare, unstable system we've been force to live with.<br />
<br />
The second issue is the economy. Our family has been fortunate enough to have weathered the Great Recession with relatively little personal hardship. But it's not hard to remember what things were like four years ago, when the financial crisis hit. I remember walking by the empty storefronts on my way to work. I remember wondering who was going to close next, and how this business or that new restaurant was going to survive. I remember personally laying-off one new hire and putting off on others while we cut back to see what would happen.<br />
<br />
Are we better off now than we were four year ago? We absolutely are. I've recently left my job and signed on with a new one, not because I had to, but because there were new opportunities to pursue. In my little corner of the world, new businesses are opening. New companies are hiring. Existing companies are seeing new opportunities. Entrepreneurs are dreaming and scheming once again.<br />
<br />
Part of the recovery comes from the natural rhythms of the business cycle. But no small amount of credit is due to President Obama and his administration. They pushed through the stimulus bill that invested in roads, bridges, clean energy companies, and saved million of jobs. They provided assistance to the states to close budget gaps and keep workers on the job. They cut our taxes and put more money in our pockets. They supported an aggressive monetary policy that saved our financial system and insured banks were there with the capital and credit that businesses need to survive and to grow.<br />
<br />
The last four years have not been easy. We have been cursed to live in interesting times. But we have been blessed to have Barack Obama as our President for the last four years. I am proud to support him for another term.<br />
<br />
All people, all politicians, all Presidents are imperfect. But this one is as good as they get. We are lucky to have him. He has earned our support, our respect, and our vote.<br />
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<br />swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-33072453984344407722012-11-01T09:24:00.000-04:002012-11-02T09:45:45.452-04:00Star Wars: A New New Hope<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC1a6Yq8E-sOGcHXHrPICv2-eDKxfx0uEsl0XC67rZL5iD5E3eRPDqQ987ID1ND_R4lVaVYKRtv3qjTk1ZiRam5IKtOSv4wneJoJL65LClZAD7Kon5SfRK_ADIzd_UE3gBvcgJ1RtPoOQ/s1600/starwarswallpaper1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC1a6Yq8E-sOGcHXHrPICv2-eDKxfx0uEsl0XC67rZL5iD5E3eRPDqQ987ID1ND_R4lVaVYKRtv3qjTk1ZiRam5IKtOSv4wneJoJL65LClZAD7Kon5SfRK_ADIzd_UE3gBvcgJ1RtPoOQ/s400/starwarswallpaper1024.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Not so long ago in the galaxy we call home, the assumption was that there would be no more Star Wars movies. Now we discover that a whole new trilogy is in the works. What do the Disney Star Wars movies have in store for us?<br />
<br />
My imagination runneth over...<br />
<br />
And so I offer you (and the Walt Disney Corporation) my vision of a new Star Wars trilogy.<br />
<br />
<b>Theme</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
After the fall of the empire, the galaxy struggles to avoid spinning into chaos. The first new generation of Jedi, lacking the mentors of the Jedi of old, struggle to harness the ways of the force and to avoid the temptations of the dark side.<br />
<br />
<b>Setting </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Set about 20 years after the end of Episode VI., the New Republic is still in its infancy. The galaxy is more chaotic than ever with a multitude of squabbles among the member planets.<br />
<br />
The old the Imperial Navy is now under the control the New Republic. Much of it is under the command of master strategist Grand Admiral Valorum . Valorum also controls Kamino, the cloning facilities, and the stormtrooper army. Valorum is a hero of the New Republic, but is fiercely anti-Jedi. He sees the history of the galaxy as a series of destructive wars and enslavement brought on by the eternal struggles between the Jedi and Sith.<br />
<br />
Luke continues to struggle with the temptations of the dark side and has left it to Leia to form the new Jedi Academy. The academy struggles to create a new generation of Jedi with no capable mentors to lead them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Characters</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Luke: </b>Luke is the galaxy's last trained Jedi. But he is well aware of the Skywalker legacy. Shortly after the fall of the empire, Luck formed a new Jedi Academy. It was quickly struck by tragedy. Assassins hired by Valorum, attempted to kill Luke. They killed a number of young padawan instead. Wracked with grief, Luke no longer feels fit to train Jedi. He grows beard and becomes a hermit.<br />
<br />
<b>Han and Lando:</b> Han and Lando are now elder statesmen in the New Republic. Both are frustrated with the bureaucracy, chaos, and responsibility and long for the scoundrel days of old. They have inherited C-3PO and R2-D2.<br />
<br />
<b>Leia and Chewbacca: </b>Leia and Han are married with children. After Luke's grief-driven withdrawal, Leia has taken it upon herself to try and form the new Jedi Academy. She knows she is incapable of instructing Jedi, but is desperate that the next generation of force-sensitives, including her own children, receive proper instruction in the force. Chewbacca has joined her in trying to help form the academy.<br />
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<b>Grand Admiral Valorum: </b>This hero of the rebellion now commands much of the old imperial forces. The admiral feels that all Jedi and Sith are a threat to the galaxy and works to exterminate any force-sensitive beings.<br />
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<b>Talaya Secura: </b>A middle-age, Twi'lek woman. Talaya was a young padawan in the final days of the Republic. She escaped the purge of the Jedi and was able to remain in hiding during the dark times. As the only available Jedi with any formal training, she is the main instructor of the new Jedi Academy. She does not feel up to the task and struggles with her own darkness.<br />
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<b>Jedi Academy Students: </b>A mix of ages and species, including the Solo/Skywalker children. This force-sensitive group struggles to inherit the mantle of the Jedi Knights. They are much less disciplined than the Jedi of old, have different aptitudes within the force (precognition, starship piloting, telekinesis, acrobatics, mind tricks). They don't yet have, or know how to construct, lightsabers. The Jedi Academy students are the protagonists of the trilogy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Episode VII:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Open with the attack on Luke by Valorum's assassins. This leads the the death of the padawan and Luke's grief.<br />
<br />
Then queue theme and the crawl.<br />
<br />
Jump forward several years. Leia recruits Talaya and struggles to set up the academy. We meet the new students and see their training. Meanwhile, Han struggles to deal the formation of the New Republic. The new padawan struggle to learn the ways of the force. They want to have adventures and serve the New Republic, like the padawan of old, but are constantly held back.<br />
<br />
Valorum sends out another set of assassins after Leia and Luke. They succeed and kill them both.<br />
<br />
Talaya, Chewbacca and the students hunt down the assassins. They catch and defeat them. But are bloodied in battle. The students learn that Valorum was behind the attacks, and as they are drawn into the conflict and thoughts of revenge, they are also drawn closer to the dark side.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Episode VIII:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>Open with a stormtrooper assault on the Jedi Academy. The students survive but the academy is destroyed.<br />
<br />
This leads to a split in the students. Talaya leads the group that will become the Dark Jedi. They construct lightsabers and head out to take revenge on Valorum. The Light Jedi suspect the revenge mission will lead to the dark side. They stay behind to complete their training and avoid temptation. The Solo/Skywalker kids are split between the two groups.<br />
<br />
The Dark Jedi hunt down Valorum and infiltrate his command ship. They overcome his assassins and stormtroopers and kill Valorum.<br />
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The Dark Jedi learn that in his quest to eradicate the Jedi, Valorum had amassed an archive of Jedi knowledge. This includes instructions on finding the lost Jedi/Sith training grounds on the planet Korriban.<br />
<br />
With the death of Valorum, Talaya also assumes command of the stormtrooper army. The Dark Jedi prepare to travel to Korriban to rebuild the Jedi Order.<br />
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<br />
<b>Episode IX:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
The Dark Jedi overcome local authorities and take control of Korriban where they establish their new Jedi Order.<br />
<br />
When the New Republic sends an armada to investigate, their ships are defeated. It is clear that the new Jedi Order has gone to the dark side and is a threat to New Republic.<br />
<br />
The students of the Light Jedi led by one of the Solo kids, construct their own lightsabers and head out to confront the Dark Jedi.<br />
<br />
The final confrontation pits the groups of students against one another. Some of the students are redeemed and return the light side. Others are killed. Ultimately, the light side is triumphant.<br />
<br />
After the battle they reform the new Jedi Order, but first they destroy their lightsabers. They will neither serve the New Republic nor subjugate it. Rather than bringing peace to the galaxy the new order pledges to stay out of the fight and seek inner peace.<br />
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<br />swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-31165570402482253942012-10-25T15:25:00.000-04:002012-10-25T15:26:13.712-04:00A Hollow Man Without a Plan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1j3Eo0R8WkVCS5yVFUfQ90U7DielccDv4Tm9e1kJ86m-dJrCYV8FtM3kedUViZpqJJE55ZVMkwk-I6nxkQYYmTKmtAN8r42UT8I_sybuz6jKBAEw9ELKu9c03v_OdMLjGe2Gac4SeZA/s1600/Mitt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1j3Eo0R8WkVCS5yVFUfQ90U7DielccDv4Tm9e1kJ86m-dJrCYV8FtM3kedUViZpqJJE55ZVMkwk-I6nxkQYYmTKmtAN8r42UT8I_sybuz6jKBAEw9ELKu9c03v_OdMLjGe2Gac4SeZA/s1600/Mitt.jpg" /></a></div>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.2846481360029429" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mitt Romney is not a very charismatic leader. He is not an exciting, dynamic speaker. He doesn’t have a strong connection with the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Americans. He isn’t a terribly experienced politician. His career, working as a leveraged-buyout king, has not equipped him with stories or policies attuned to the plight of working Americans. Mitt Romney is not a man of firm principles or of great integrity. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romney does have several advantages as a presidential candidate. He looks the part. He’s smooth and adaptable. He has an uncanny capacity to simultaneously adopt any and all positions that he finds advantageous and can do so with such calm confidence that the contradictions are all but obscured. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romney is the ultimate business consultant - pliable and prepared. He has a unshakable smile on his face and a blizzard of numbers at his disposal. Mitt’s mr-fix-it appeal comes, in no small part, from the promise that he is prepared to deal with the twin demons of our age:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.2846481360029429" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unemployment is high and has been for the last four years.</span></b></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.2846481360029429" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our budget deficits are vast and unsustainable.</span></b></li>
</ul>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.2846481360029429" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the unemployment question Romney is quite specific. His 5 point plan will create 12 million jobs in 4 years. On deficit reduction, he is less specific, but promises to “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">put an end to deficit spending”. Accomplishing these two tasks would be a great and worthy accomplishment. Unfortunately, the plans to do so do not exist, and these claims are largely fraudulent.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When asked for the reasoning behind their 12 million jobs number, the </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/mitt-romneys-new-math-for-jobs-plan-doesnt-add-up/2012/10/15/fd1d1e1c-170f-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_blog.html?hpid=z3"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romney campaign cited </span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one study that said his tax policies would generate 7 million jobs, another that claimed his energy policies would create 3 million jobs, and a third that supported the idea that Romney’s China policy would save 2 million jobs. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7 + 3 + 2 = 12 million jobs.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The problem with claiming that Romney’s tax plan will create 7 million jobs is that Romney doesn’t really have a tax plan. He has some vague principles that call for lowering rates and eliminating deductions. The study necessarily ignore the effect of eliminating the unspecified deductions. And it has a timeline of 10 years. Not 4. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The energy policy claims are even more slippery. The cited study looked at current energy policy over the next 8 years. Current energy policy is the Obama administration’s policies, not Romney’s. It’s good to hear that it’ll create millions of jobs. But claims that those jobs will be the result of Romney policies are groundless. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the China policy numbers are pure fiction. The cited study there claims that Chinese copyright and piracy policies have cost American’s 2 million jobs. There is no chance that a Romney administration will cause a an immediate change in Chinese law or that it will have an immediate effect on US employment.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romney’s job numbers are highly dubious. His deficit reduction plan is worse. Romney calls for full extension of the Bush tax cuts, then another 20% reduction in tax rates, two trillion dollars in additional military spending, and extra $716 billion in Medicare spending. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They promise to cut spending and reduce tax deductions to pay for it all. But Republicans will need to come up with 7 trillion dollars in tax increases and spending cuts to pay for their promises. Of course, they have specified almost nothing about where this $7 trillion is supposed to come from. And even if they find the money, that would just get us back to the astronomical deficits we have now. Any real deficit reduction would have to be on top of that. Somehow. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romney doesn’t feel your pain. But he wants you to think he has a plan to ease it. He doesn’t. </span></b>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-59665218077726769152012-10-17T15:04:00.000-04:002012-10-17T15:23:21.736-04:00Binder? I Hardly Know HerMitt Romney, as he never tires of telling us, is a business man. He spent his career buying and selling businesses, running them, squeezing them for cash, and getting to understand them from the inside and out. So, when he received a debate question about women in the workforce, that should have been an easy question.<br />
<br />
Surely, Mitt Romney has worked with women. Someone who "knows business" like Mitt Romney must know something about the role of women in the workforce. Right?<br />
<br />
Apparently not.<br />
<br />
When asked about equality for women in the workforce, Romney replied with his born-famous "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/16/full-transcript-of-the-second-presidential-debate/" target="_blank">binders full of women</a>" reply:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
ROMNEY: Thank you. And important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I went to a number of women’s groups and said, “Can you help us find folks,” and they brought us whole binders full of women.</blockquote>
Romney didn't know any women he wanted to invite into his cabinet. He wasn't aware of any women who might be suitable to work in his administration. Fortunately, these women's groups were there with their "binders full of women".<br />
<br />
Ok. How did you like working with women, Mitt?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was ... because I recognized that if you’re going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school. She said, I can’t be here until 7 or 8 o’clock at night. I need to be able to get home at 5 o’clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said fine. Let’s have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you.</blockquote>
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Even when he gets to work with these exotic women, in his own cabinet(!), he still views them primarily as special cases who, unlike men apparently, require flexibility so they can spend time with their kids.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We’re going to have to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I’m going to bring to play, that are going to be so anxious to get good workers they’re going to be anxious to hire women. </blockquote>
But don't worry! If we elect Mitt Romney things will be going so great that employers will even be willing to hire these troublesome women!<br />
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Except, employers are already perfectly willing to hire women. Currently, <a href="http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/Qf-laborforce-10.htm#.UH75-G-HJQg" target="_blank">women comprise 47%</a>* of the workforce. And rising. The fact that, with all his great business experience, Mitt Romney has nothing to say about the reality of working women is surprising. And not encouraging.<br />
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What about his policies? Did Romney promote any of these great workplace flexibility rules at all the businesses he owned? How about equal pay? When Romney is the boss is that something he offers? Or not? Is the binder story really all he's got on women in the workforce?<br />
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Romney keeps telling us he knows business. But on topics from role of women, to job creation, to the macro-economics of the 21st century Romney always tells and never shows. We're supposed to trust him. But he never tells us why. We have scant evidence that he empathized, understood, learned from or even attempted to improve the lives of all the men and women that worked for him. We have plenty of evidence that he knows how sweep money into his own pocket and that those of his plutocrat partners. Where is the evidence, or even the anecdotes, that show he learned anything about improving the lives of actual working Americans?<br />
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If you've been running companies for 25 years you shouldn't need a bunch of Massachusetts women's groups to tell you where to find working women.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">* Ol' Mitt sure does have his blind spots when it comes to 47% of Americans.</span><br />
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<br />swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-39569928224162606152012-08-29T07:57:00.000-04:002012-08-29T11:06:28.427-04:00To Protect the Life and Health of the MotherWe found out Christine was pregnant in the emergency room.<br />
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We wanted to have a baby. But our enthusiasm was dampened by the circumstances that brought us there. Christine had been experiencing severe, crippling abdominal pain for days. We were saddened but not surprised by the doctor's news. They thought it was an ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg was growing in one of Christine's fallopian tube instead of her uterus. If allowed to continue, the condition was guaranteed to be fatal to both Christine and the embryo.<br />
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The doctors recommended an operation to terminate the pregnancy. Immediately. We agreed.<br />
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After the operation we learned that the original diagnosis had been incorrect. It was not an ectopic pregnancy. The pain was caused by a substantial ovarian cyst. Christine was still pregnant.<br />
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Six months later we were back in the ER. Once again Christine had been experiencing severe pain. At this point she was 27 weeks pregnant - visibly bulging, but a very long way from the ingested-watermelon-look of a full term pregnancy. Once again we got the news that the pregnancy was killing her. She had HELLP syndrome and was hours away from a coma and death. The cure was to end the pregnancy. Immediately. Again.<br />
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Our local hospital was not equipped to handle the situation. We both grew up in Lebanon, New Hampshire and our parents were still living there. We asked that Christine be taken Dartmouth Hospital. The doctors were very concerned about her health deteriorating during the two hour ambulance ride. Ultimately, that's where they took her. Shortly after she arrived, our daughter Mattea was born, and Christine recovered.<br />
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Mattea weighted 1 lbs. 12 oz. at birth. Initially, she did very well and had no major health issues other than her low birth-weight. At six weeks, in yet another emergency setting, a new set of doctors informed us that Mattea had necrotizing enterocolitis. Her intestines died. Once again we were thrust into decisions involving the life and death of our child. And once again we really had no choice at all. Five days later Mattea died. She was our first-born child and the only daughter we will ever have. We were able to spend only a short amount of time with her. But we fell in love with her with an intensity that I had not anticipated and that the years without her have not diminished.<br />
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Following the murder of late-term abortion provider George Tiller, the blogger, Andrew Sullivan published a <a href="http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2009/12/posts-of-the-year-its-so-personal-a-roundup-june-5-2009.html" target="_blank">series of posts telling the stories of Tillers patients</a> and of other women and families that have faced similar situations. I read through the stories of loving families thrust into impossible situations, of pregnancies gone horribly wrong, of children who could never be. What happened to us was tragic but not unique. The ectopic pregnancy was a false alarm. When Christine's HELLP appeared, the way to save Christine was to deliver Mattea. I have no illusions that another outcome was impossible. If the conversation had taken place a few weeks earlier, the baby could not have survived. A few hours later and Christine might not have.<br />
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Bringing life into this world is complicated and often dangerous. We don't often discuss it with anyone but our closest confidantes. But for so many families, pregnancy does not go smoothly. Many couples, many women experience infertility, miscarriages, complicated pregnancies, ectopic pregnancies, premature births, pregnancies where the life of the mother is threatened, pregnancies that will not result in a child that can thrive, pregnancies that are the result of rape, incest, coercion, or abuse. It's complicated.<br />
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When we talk about pregnancies being terminated, we usually only talk about the unwanted pregnancies. We act as if the inconvenient pregnancies are the whole story. They are not. Biology does not care if you are married or unmarried. It does not care if your baby is wanted or unwanted. Especially in the case of late-term abortions, if you are wondering how anyone could make such a terrible choice, you must remember that sometimes people have no choice.<br />
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When these issues are debated in our public spheres and in our august legislatures we need to recognize our limitations. Congress does not have to power to abolish tragedy. It can not legislate right or wrong. It can not save us from biology. They can create laws that compound tragedy with criminal trials and incarceration. It seems inconceivable that legislators would be willing to take tragic circumstances, like we experienced, and call them crimes. But the laws they propose would do precisely that. We have to see life as it really is and not just how we wish it to be.<br />
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<br />swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-57677677417423480662012-08-18T07:34:00.000-04:002012-08-18T07:45:12.049-04:00Romney's $716 Billion Medicare Ad Campaign<br />
Romney and Ryan have a new ad up explaining that they won't keep the cost controls Obama added to Medicare:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/l4gPvToKTWU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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The ad complains that changes made in the ACA cut $716 billion dollars from Medicare spending over the next 10 years. This is true. Most of the cost reductions come from two changes to Medicare:<br />
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<li><b>Medicare Advantage: </b>Medicare Advantage is an option that allows Medicare recipients to purchase private plans instead. The program will continue, but previously we paid 14% for the private plans than we pay for traditional Medicare plans. Under the ACA the playing field is leveled. We pay the same amount for the private and public plans, and save many billions of dollars.</li>
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<li><b>IPAB: </b>The Independent Payment Advisory board is a an independent body with the mandate of controlling Medicare costs. They are charged with insuring that Medicaid costs don't grow faster than GDP + 1%. Previously, Medicare didn't really have a budget and so health care costs have been growing out of control. The IPAB is there to find inefficiencies and set policies to insure Medicare stays within its budget.</li>
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These changes, along with anti-fraud initiatives and other pilot programs, are on track to reduce Medicare spending by $716 billion over the next decade without a reduction in benefits.</div>
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Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have pledged to get rid of these changes. They promise to spend an extra $716 billion on Medicare. </div>
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The Romney and Ryan plans call for a similar mix of private and public plans competing on price. Cost growth is subject the same caps on rates. But their plan doesn't go into effect until 2023 at the earliest. That would mean pissing away the 716 billion dollars with another decade of runaway health care costs. And even then, they don't actually do anything to control health costs. The limited growth rate just applies to the voucher you'll get. The cost of the health plans can continue to rise, unconstrained. Patients will have to make up the difference with their own money.<br />
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They plan to convert Medicare to a voucher program. They waste a ton of money in the next decade. Over the long term, costs to taxpayers and consumers continue to rise. And even when it's fully implemented, their plan still costs the government and taxpayers more than the laws they seek to repeal.<br />
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Under Romney and Ryan that $716 billion doesn't get us a reformed Medicare system. It doesn't reduce the deficit. It doesn't provide affordable health care to all Americans.<br />
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It just allows them to run that ad.<br />
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swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-19711429962975849562012-08-12T21:38:00.000-04:002012-08-18T07:35:17.771-04:00Romney - RyanThe more I think about it, the more I think Ryan was a smart pick for Romney.<br />
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The Ryan pick is not show of strength. Romney's plan seems to have been to to stay vague, complain about Obama and the economy, and coast to victory by keeping himself and his part out of the spotlight. The Ryan pick is an acknowledgement that the plan wasn't going so well.<br />
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Ryan brings a lot to the ticket. He's the movement conservatives hero and the favorite wonk of GOP elite. This helps Mitt with a still-suspicious base. Ryan is good looking, good-natured, is not a known culture-warrior, articulate, a loyal partisan, and has a particular talent for presenting radical policies with soothing manner and a straight-face.<br />
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Paul Ryan does bring substantial baggage in the form of his sweeping, transformative budget blueprints. There's concern that his extreme positions will scare off moderates and elderly. But, until yesterday, anyone who knew how Paul Ryan was also knew how they were going to vote. The low-information middle has never heard of this guy. This gives both parties to the chance to try and define him.<br />
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The big question is will the Ryan Budget become the Romney (or the Ryan-Romney) Budget? Democrats will push for it. They would love to run a choice campaign, know a big target when the see it, are sure to mention Ryan's-plan-to-end-Medicare at every opportunity. Republicans will push for it as well. They've already voted for it twice. Ryan's policy initiatives are what catapulted him to prominence and led the GOP powers that be push for him to be on the ticket.<br />
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The person least interested in seeing the Romney-Ryan ticket run on the Ryan plan is probably Mitt Romney. Ultimately, I expect him to (semi-successfully) move away from the Ryan plan. If Romney wanted to run on the details for the Ryan plan (such as they are), Ryan would be an obvious assent. But if Romney wants to run away from the plan, then neutralizing Ryan by drawing him close, is also a smart plan. Ryan won't be an independent voice calling the shots from Congress and nobody will push the plan without him.<br />
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The Romney campaign has been <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/06/the-massive-policy-gap-between-obama-and-romney/" target="_blank">maddeningly vague up until now</a>. Every policy issue has been answered with a mish-mash of contradictory talking points and devoid of substance. The Ryan pick might mark a move toward and honest policy discussion. But since both Ryan and Romney have reputations as policy wonks there's a serious risk that they will simply try to ride their repudiations and continue to avoid policy specifics. They can wave in the general direction of their various "plans" while declining to offer anything that could actually be evaluated.<br />
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Both liberals and conservatives are clamoring for battle over their policies and visions for the country. The Ryan pick offers the promise of a campaign with renewed focus on policy and legislative proposals. We should all hope, and strive to insure, the rest of the campaign lives up to that promise.swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-14889443286332427662012-06-11T20:30:00.000-04:002012-06-11T20:30:32.212-04:00Taking Republicans Seriously: The Ryan Plan<b id="internal-source-marker_0.40632488182745874" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan is the GOP’s favorite policy wonk. Ryan’s budget blueprint, </span><a href="http://paulryan.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Pathtoprosperity2013.pdf"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Path to Prosperity</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> lays out a comprehensive vision of the future of the federal government.The wide-ranging document addresses everything from tax policy, defense and domestic spending, to entitlement reform. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most politicians are known for their vacuous rhetoric. Ryan’s plan lays out the GOP agenda in stark numbers and explains how his party intends to govern, how they will balance the budget and their plan for the future. This plan has been put before US House of Representatives and approved, with near-unanimous acclaim, by the Republican majority. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mitt Romney has joined the chorus of approval calling Ryan’s plan “marvelous”. And so this document represents, not just the guiding vision for the modern Republican Party, but a detailed plan of action. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The plan is not without its detractors. Commenters outside the GOP have suggested that the plan is a sham and that Ryan is a fraud. But given that is budget resolution has been put before and approved by the US Congress, it deserves serious consideration. Is it possible that all these pundits, politicians, and would-be presidents have heaped so much praise on this plan without considering its implications? Would the Republican majority vote to enact this plan into law if it didn’t reflect their values? Of course not. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, it is worthwhile to examine this document and see what it says about the priorities and governing vision of the Republican party.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The GOP wants to raise your taxes. A lot. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Broaden the tax base to maintain revenue growth at a level consistent with current tax policy and at a share of the economy consistent with historical norms of 18 to 19 percent in the following decades. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Currently, federal revenue comes in at a little under 16% of GDP. Republicans want to increase that to 18% of within the next two years and to 19% over the next decade. These increases would generate an additional $13 trillion over the next decade. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The GOP does not plan to increase taxes across the board. The Ryan plan calls for the AMT to be eliminated and the top tax rate to be reduced to 25%. That means tax cuts for the rich. The increased revenue comes from the elimination of deductions. Regardless of the deductions eliminated, anyone currently paying more than 25% is going to get a substantial tax cut. In order to meet the revenue targets, a large number of Americans are going to be taxed at the 25% rate. Deductions are going to take a big hit. The home mortgage deduction, employer-sponsored health care, child care, earned income tax credits will all be on the block.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In order to meet aggressive revenue goals, and still offer generous tax cuts for the rich, the plan calls for steep tax increases for the poorest and middle-class Americans.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That means you get a big tax increase. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Republicans aren’t interested in controlling the cost of Medicare and Social Security.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the per capita cost of this reformed program for seniors reaching eligibility after 2023 could not exceed nominal GDP growth plus 0.5 percent. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The initial version of the Ryan budget contained a controversial plan to end conventional Medicare and replace it with a voucher program. The 2012 version of the plan modifies that idea, leaving the private plans as an optional addition. It sets the cap in Medicare cost growth at GDP growth + 0.5%. This is the exact same rate of increase President Obama has proposed. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Ryan plan would not save the government any money relative to the Democratic alternative. It does eliminate Medicare cost controls that are part of current law, raising the likelihood that medical costs for seniors will rise faster than the Medicare payments. This will result in worse coverage and increased cost to patients and seniors.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The plan calls for a study of Social Security, proposes no specific reforms. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Ryan plan eventually eliminates the entire federal government.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/us/politics/house-republicans-release-budget-blueprint.html"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Entitlement and domestic </span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> programs outside Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would shrivel from the 12.5 percent of G.D.P. it reached in 2011 to 5.75 percent in 2030 to 3.75 percent in 2050, according to the Congressional Budget Office.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The GOP budget cuts funds for Medicaid and turns it over to the states to do more with less. It increases spending on defense and doesn’t cut Medicare or Social Security. The tax increases in the plan are not sufficient to achieve major debt reduction. The debt reduction comes from unspecified cuts in non-entitlement government spending. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These cuts are quite severe. They are so severe that by 2050 the plan calls for non-entitlement spending to be only 3.75% of GDP. That number includes defense spending. Republicans have stated that defense spending must not fall below 4% of GDP. So, under this plan, there won’t be enough money for all the proposed defense spending. And there won’t be any money at all left for anything else. At all.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Implementing and sticking with this plan would turn the federal government into an insurance company with an army. Everything else (FBI, veterans benefits, border patrols, federal prisons, education funding, housing, R&D, every federal department and agency, food inspection, homeland security, parks, energy... etc..) would be rapidly squeezed and, ultimately, eliminated.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Republicans have been very clear that the Ryan Plan is their plan. If they win the presidency and the majority, this is their agenda. Tax cuts for the wealthy. Big tax increases for everyone else. Medical costs continue to rise. Everything else gets slashed or eliminated. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Will they actually follow through with it? I don’t know.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But, that’s the plan.</span></b>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-80422264740011990972012-05-22T17:21:00.000-04:002012-05-22T17:21:25.411-04:00Law, Morality, and Terror<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8472791987005621"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">President Obama began the year by signing the 2012 Defense Authorization Act. This law may, or may not, depending who you ask, authorize the government to detain US Citizens indefinitely, without trial. The President has approved, via drone missile strike, the execution of US Citizens. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The nature of modern conflicts force us to enter a multitude of grey areas and force us to confront a number of questions. What authority should the government have to engage enemies abroad or detain adversaries at home? What’s the proper line between law enforcement and war? How do we strike a balance between security and the rights citizens and humanity? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What do we want? What </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">should</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> we want? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a question we all should grapple with. That’s what I’m trying to do here. My goal is to present a basic moral, practical, and legal framework within which policies and actions can be evaluated. In deciding the proper treatment for accused terrorists, suspected militants, or other enemies of the state, I divide them into three basic categories. These categories are differentiated largely by the circumstances under which the targets are operating or process by which they came to be in US custody. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
<h2 dir="ltr">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8472791987005621"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Categories </span></b></h2>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8472791987005621"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Criminals </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyone operating or apprehended on US soil, or in a friendly nation where our law enforcement officials can operate with relative freedom should be treated as a criminal. Regardless of the severity of the accusation, the detainee captured by law enforcement officials should be arrested and tried in criminal court. These individuals should be entitled to all of the rights, privileges, court systems and standards of evidence as anyone else arrested in the United States. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prisoners of War</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An individual, operating outside the US, captured, detained or handed over to the US military, who is thought be engaged of acts of war against the United States or its allies may rightfully be detained as a prisoner of war. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These persons should be treated in accordance with international norms and in a way consistent with our own expectations of how captured US service members are to be treated by other nations. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only people actively engaged in acts of war, or planning such actions can be rightfully held under this authority. Attempts to kill American soldiers or civilians and similar acts of destruction are adequate qualification. But no amount of preaching, writing, speaking or other non-military act is sufficient. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prisoners of war should have the opportunity to challenge the circumstances of their detention and to demonstrate that they should not be rightfully held as prisoners of war. They may be held until such time as the relevant conflict has ceased, or they are not longer considered a threat. This may result in an indefinite period of detention. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prisoners of war may also be charged with crimes, subject to military courts, and thus incarcerated for longer periods of time.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Enemies on the Battlefield</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Individuals engaged in acts of war against the US, and not subject to apprehension by military or civilian authorities, may be properly regarded as battlefield enemies. They are legitimate targets and may be targeted and killed by our armed forces. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><h2 dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Implications</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The above represents relatively straightforward framework. That may or may not be controversial. It does carry several implications that should be called out.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Citizenship</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">None of these categorizations are dependant upon citizenship. An accused terrorist arrested at Logan airport with a Yemeni passport gets the same access to the courts as an American citizen. Similarly, holding an American passport affords you no protection if you are holding a rifle on a rooftop in Kandahar or organizing militants in a village in Waziristan. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Transparency and Authority</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Much of the controversy around military and terror policies stem from questions of transparency and authority. Even if we grant the powers to detain or kill, who gets to decide when they are applied? What level of transparency do we require? Should our government be required to inform us if they’ve decided they are entitled to kill someone? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m taking the basic position that the framework outlined here is a moral framework. Issues of transparency and accountability don’t change the morality of the underlying actions. Torture or an extra-legal assassination doesn’t become moral because it is covered up successfully or rationalized to someone’s satisfaction. The acts are moral or immoral, legal or illegal, whether we find out about them or not. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The flip side of that is that, in a democracy, authority is granted by the people. But it is granted. We should not require military commanders or their civilian leaders to publish a list their targets or their protocols. Ultimately, we have to recognize that, with our elections, we are entrusting imperfect people with tremendous power. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have to elect people we can trust. We have to trust the people we’ve elected. We have observe and evaluate the outcomes and see if that trust has been violated. </span></b>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-25153080240443892412012-03-27T20:19:00.002-04:002012-03-28T13:34:41.836-04:00Of Course the Individual Mandate is Constitutional<b id="internal-source-marker_0.7349896999076009"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s lots hand-wringing going on today about the ongoing health care reform case before the Supreme Court. I don’t get it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The question before the court is whether congress has the power to assess a tax penalty against people who can afford to purchase health insurance but decline to do so. It’s clear (to me anyhow) that congress does have that authority. It has it under </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">both</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the commerce clause and under their taxation authority.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Health care costs have obvious implications regarding interstate commerce and interstate economic activity. Health care is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Every state, every municipality, every company, every family in this country has been pummeled by rising health care costs in recent years. The national deficit derives in no small part from rising health care costs. There are vast implications of escalating health care costs and with dealing with the uninsured. These implications transcend state borders. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you travel to another state and get into a car accident, you will wind up in a hospital in that state. Whether or not you have insurance, whether or not you can pay your bill, whether or not the other people in that state will have to cover the cost of your care -- these are issues of interstate commerce.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The individual mandate is specifically designed to encourage people, who might otherwise take their chances on foregoing health insurance, to purchase policies from the upcoming health care exchanges. These exchanges will include national and inter-state plans. The entire point of the mandate is that it is essential in controlling costs in the plans offered in the health care exchanges, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">which will be available across state lines</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The counter argument is typified by the broccoli conundrum. If congress can assess a penalty for going without health insurance, where does does this slippery slope lead? Where does it end? If the tax us for not having health insurance </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can they tax us for not eating broccoli</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the flimsiest of straw men. The commerce clause ends when the activity being regulated is no longer relevant to interstate commerce. Since there is no economic necessity that compels the consumption of broccoli congress could not do so under the commerce clause.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But if congress can’t compel us to eat our vegetables using the commerce clause, they probably could do so using the tax code. The tax code is already riddled with exemptions, rebates, and penalties for all kinds of activities. That’s what the tax code is. You already pay a penalty for not owning a home, for not being married, for not having kids, for not being blind and for working for a living instead of cashing a dividend check. On the corporate side it’s even worse. No doubt there is someone somewhere facing tax implications for the manner and extent to which they do or do not produce broccoli. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A tax penalty for choosing to forgo health insurance is not extraordinary. And the punishment for ignoring the individual mandate </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a tax penalty. You can’t be arrested. It’s not a crime. There’s no fine. When it comes time to pay your income tax, your health care decisions will contribute to the amount you owe the IRS when you file your taxes. And if you decide you aren’t going to pay this tax penalty - if you say screw health insurance and screw the tax penalty too -- that’s ok! There’s no penalty for that either. If you decide not to pay what you owe due to the individual mandate, the laws specifies that there’s nothing they can do about it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The individual mandate is important to controlling health care costs across the nation and across state lines. That’s why it exists. That’s why it’s in the law. And that’s why we’re arguing over it. The enforcement mechanism is a tax penalty and a limply enforced one as well. Laws along these lines are well within the authority of congress. </span></b>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-66283072970064894542012-02-11T16:51:00.000-05:002012-02-11T16:51:07.275-05:00Answers to the Fairness Quiz<div><b id="internal-source-marker_0.17359563615173101"><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The concept of “fairness” has been coming up a lot in my house. Generally, my son Isaac is complaining that “it’s not fair” that he has to eat the same dinner as the rest of the family. I’ve suggested that he appears to have a distorted concept what the word “fair” means.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A recent Wall Street Journal editorial had a “<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206980068367936.html?fb_ref=wsj_share_FB_bot&fb_source=profile_multiline">Fairness Quiz</a>”, intended for President Obama. Reading the quiz it seemed to me that confusion about what constitutes fairness may be more widespread. </span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I decided to take the “quiz” (</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in bold)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and included my answers below. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">President Obama has frequently justified his policies—and judged their outcomes—in terms of equity, justice and fairness. That raises an obvious question: How does our existing system—and his own policy record—stack up according to those criteria?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes, and the richest 10% pay two-thirds of the tax?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes. The top 10% possess 80% of all financial assets. Since they have 80% of the money it doesn’t seem unfair that they would pay 66% of the taxes.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that the richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country's income-tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation, including socialist Sweden?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure. There there is more income inequality in the US than “socialist” Sweden. Maybe the income inequality isn’t fair, but obviously it’s not unfair to the people that benefit from it.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that American corporations pay the highest statutory corporate tax rate of all other industrialized nations but Japan, which cuts its rate on April 1?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No. It is widely acknowledge that the US corporate tax code is riddled with loopholes and special deals. If the code was streamlined then more revenue could be raised at a lower rate. Of course, the corporates that benefit from these loopholes want to make sure they are maintained. And they hire lobbyists. </span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that President Obama sends his two daughters to elite private schools that are safer, better-run, and produce higher test scores than public schools in Washington, D.C.—but millions of other families across America are denied that free choice and forced to send their kids to rotten schools?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes. American kids are entitled to decent schools and we should endeavor to provide them. But wealthy people are going to want something better for their kids than we have the means to provide for everyone. People should be free to send their kids to private schools. And we shouldn’t be surprised that that expensive private schools are better than those paid for by taxpayers.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that Americans who build a family business, hire workers, reinvest and save their money—paying a lifetime of federal, state and local taxes often climbing into the millions of dollars—must then pay an additional estate tax of 35% (and as much as 55% when the law changes next year) when they die, rather than passing that money onto their loved ones?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taxes need to come from someone. Taxing dead millionaires doesn’t seem significantly less fair than taxing non-dead, non-millionaires. 55% does seem too high. 35% seems fair.</span></div><span style="background-color: #eff4f8; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, former Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel and other leading Democrats who preach tax fairness underpaid their own taxes?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No. Everyone should pay the taxes they are required to pay under the law.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that after the first three years of Obamanomics, the poor are poorer, the poverty rate is rising, the middle class is losing income, and some 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs today than in 2007?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is rising poverty fair? To whom? I don’t understand the question.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that roughly 88% of political contributions from supposedly impartial network television reporters, producers and other employees in 2008 went to Democrats?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes. Working in television doesn’t mean you aren’t entitled to have an opinion about politics or mean that you should not be permitted to give money to whomever you choose. </span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that the three counties with America's highest median family income just happen to be located in the Washington, D.C., metro area?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once again I don’t understand the question. Is it fair to whom? Other counties?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that wind, solar and ethanol producers get billions of dollars of subsidies each year and pay virtually no taxes, while the oil and gas industry—which provides at least 10 times as much energy—pays tens of billions of dollars of taxes while the president complains that it is "subsidized"?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Burning oil and gas come with a massive externality in that it is causing dangerous global climate change. The cost of dealing with this will be borne by it’s victims and is not factored into the cost of the commodities themselves. It is perfectly fair for a government to strive towards a tax and subsidy policy that seeks the maximum benefit (and tries to mitigate disaster) for it’s citizens.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that those who work full-time jobs (and sometimes more) to make ends meet have to pay taxes to support up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits for those who don't work?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The extended unemployment benefits were necessitated by chronic long-term unemployment caused by a massive financial crisis. The nation certainly benefited from the extra protections offered the unemployed as the economy recovered. Since taxes for the employed were not increased during this time (and they were, in fact, reduced) it seems perfectly fair all around.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that those who took out responsible mortgages and pay them each month have to see their tax dollars used to subsidize those who acted recklessly, greedily and sometimes deceitfully in taking out mortgages they now can't afford to repay?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If that were occurring, it wouldn’t be fair. The actual fate for people who haven’t been able to pay their mortgages is that they’ve faced foreclosure and eviction. The system does not seem to be unfair to those people who have been fortunate enough to be able to keep their homes.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that thousands of workers won't have jobs because the president sided with environmentalists and blocked the shovel-ready Keystone XL oil pipeline?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s certainly fair for the government to consider the environmental impact of an oil pipeline before approving it. And it would certainly be unfair, to the citizens within the pipeline’s path, for the project to be approved if the environmental assessment was not permitted to take place.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama's largest campaign contributors received federal loan guarantees on their investments in renewable energy projects that went bust?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the reason for the loans is solely or primarily the donations, then that is not fair. If the actual criteria for approval of a project is some other, more fair system... well, then that would be more fair.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that federal employees receive benefits that are nearly 50% higher than those of private-sector workers whose taxes pay their salaries, according to the Congressional Budget Office?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The real number is that total compensation is about 16% higher for federal employees than in the private sector. Much of that difference is due to better benefits packages for non-college graduates in government jobs. </span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that a government job is one of the few ways for a high-school graduate to get health insurance? I guess that depends on your definition of fair.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that soon almost half the federal budget will take income from young working people and redistribute it to old non-working people, even though those over age 65 are already among the wealthiest Americans?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Current beneficiaries payed into these programs for the entirely of their working lives. So long as the workers paying in now receive comparable benefits, the system is fair.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that in 27 states workers can be compelled to join a union in order to keep their jobs?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the salary, benefits, and other terms of the employment that make the job desirable were established due to the efforts of the union then it’s fair to ask that the people who receive those benefits to contribute to the union.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that nearly four out of 10 American households now pay no federal income tax at all—a number that has risen every year under Mr. Obama?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not true. Most every working American pays federal income taxes for Social Security and Medicare. Many households don’t earn enough to have to pay additional income taxes. But there’s nothing unfair about poor households paying any and all taxes the laws requires them to pay.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that Boeing, a private company, was threatened by a federal agency when it sought to add jobs in a right-to-work state rather than in a forced-union state?</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 2010 Boeing received </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">$19.4 billion in government contracts. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The American taxpayers have been been more than “fair” to the Boeing corporation.</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it fair that our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids—who never voted for Mr. Obama—will have to pay off the $5 trillion of debt accumulated over the past four years, without any benefits to them?</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My kids benefit from the low tax rates we pay now. We will all benefit from an economic recovery. We do owe it to them to restore some fiscal sanity over the long term. Is it fair that they will will inherit the cost of substantial borrowing to deal with massive financial crisis caused by reckless millionaires? It is not. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But who ever said life was fair...</span></b></div>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-83902740832127936502012-01-14T15:25:00.000-05:002012-01-14T15:25:19.634-05:00The Truth About Bain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div><b id="internal-source-marker_0.7911470967810601"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Newt Gingrich's PAC has new video out about Mitt Romney’s role as the CEO of Bain Capital. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/BLWnB9FGmWE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> </b></div><div><b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s obviously a hit piece. But the video is devastating. The bulk of it is regular people describing what Mitt Romney’s company did to their employers and their lives. They also talk about the obscene profits Romney and friends made pillaging these companies. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The counter-argument, that criticism of these kinds of corporate raiders is an attack on capitalism, is simply untrue. People who have ideas, build companies, create jobs, manage organizations, and really build things can be praised and respected. The financiers who don’t do the work, but who do make the investments and provide the capital to make businesses possible are vital. Without them most of us wouldn’t have our livelihood. I don’t begrudge them their big paychecks or their return on investment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We can praise capitalism and still be appalled by the vultures that reap obscene rewards by preying on it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The private equity firms like Bain Capital stand accused of not building great companies but of pillaging them. They boosted the stock price by decimating the workforce, routed the companies assets into their own pockets, had the companies borrow heavily to hand the cash over to the new owners and abandoned once-healthy companies to debt and bankruptcy. Making money by streamlining and rebuilding troubled companies is one thing. Making a fortune by gutting them is quite another. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Activities taken in pursuit of obscene wealth are not intrinsically virtuous. We’re all living amongst the wreckage of those who performed selfish acts for personal gain. We know the damage that can be done by financiers untroubled by morality or consequence. It is inconceivable that in the aftermath of the economic crash, and the bank bailouts, that we would choose to elect a ruthless corporate raider as our President. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe there is another side of the story. If so, we need to hear it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romney needs to account for his actions at Bain. He needs to tell us the story of how he conducted his business. He needs to get beyond his phony talking points and tell us who Mitt Romney really is. If Romney is going to run on his business experience then we need to know he has experience improving the lives of working Americans and not in destroying them. We need know he’s on the side of the middle class an not just the ruling class. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are owed the truth of what was going on at Bain Capital. If even a part of Romney’s vast fortune came from pillaging of successful companies, raiding employees’ pensions to scoop up additional millions, and destroying jobs to feed his personal greed, then Romney is unfit to be President.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He owes us the true story. And it better be good. </span></b></div>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-30022387639326400642012-01-09T20:52:00.002-05:002012-01-10T07:57:41.869-05:00"I Like Being Able to Fire People"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/dBOqLxzGTx8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div><b id="internal-source-marker_0.1732022042851895"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romney really stepped in it on the eve of what is supposed to be his big win tomorrow in the New Hampshire primary.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I like being able to fire people” is a line that is sure to haunt him. He’s not talking about his Bain Capital days - during which he surely did fire a lot of people. But the comment reveals him to be someone deeply out of touch with our times and the modern climate. Nobody with any experience with unemployment or a shred of compassion for those who have actually lost their jobs would think to say those words.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Mitt is actually talking about is health insurance. He likes being able to “fire” his health insurer. This too is deeply misguided. The services a health insurer provides is paying your medical bills. When you’re staring at huge medical bills, that your insurer has refused to pay for, being able to “fire” your insurance company isn’t going to be much comfort.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you do “fire” your insurance company, well, then you and your family won’t have health insurance. And if Mitt Romney has his way, then nobody will be obligated to sell you a new insurance policy on account of the “pre-existing condition” that caused the trouble in the first place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mitt Romney might “like being able to fire people.” That won’t get people to like him.</span></b></div>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8733774014277102868.post-89905162314130287862012-01-02T21:05:00.000-05:002012-01-02T21:05:09.763-05:001st In the Nation Primary<div><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8751270580105484"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the great joys of being political junkie and New Hampshireite is, of course, the cyclical spectacle that is the nation’s first presidential primary. I had expected that much of 2011 would have been spent talking in events and using this space for some eyes-on observations of contenders and characters vying to be our next president. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But. As it turns out... not so much... I didn’t manage attend a single town hall, didn’t hear any stump speeches, didn’t have a single candidate sighting. This outcome stems in no small part from the fact that my focus and attention have been directed elsewhere. But also reflects the nature of the campaign.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My natural loyalties tend towards the Democrats and I love me some Obama. I’ll happy vote for his renomination and would even if there was competition - which there isn’t. No drama there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Republican nomination battle has been a wonderful show. I’ve been following the ebbs and flows of that contest with a mixture of schadenfreude and slack-jawed amazement. But even there the action hasn’t been in New Hampshire. My Granite State perch hasn’t improved the view.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Normally, in a contest this open I would expect something of an ongoing carnival atmosphere. Battling visibility events, a town square occupied with supporters from different camps, phones constantly ringing with campaign calls and pollsters, and lots of candidates coming to town are all part a robust campaign season. Not this year. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There have been a few appearances by candidates and near-candidates. Sarah Palin and Donald Trump both popped into the gourmet goodies shop beneath my office during their flirtation phases. A visiting Parisian relative happened upon Rick Perry offering up his ignorance of evolution during a </span><a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/perry-parries-hecklers-in-portsmouth/"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">downtown stop</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Yard signs have popped up most everywhere. But the season’s been relatively quiet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps this is as it should be. The unfair influence of the New Hampshire is an regular complaint. This time the campaigns have been national affairs from the start. The fortunes of the candidates have been tied the televised debates and, more importantly, the post-debate media-spin, and the blogospheric reaction. The rise of Herman Cain certainly had nothing to do a great ground operation. Gingrich's flame-out was unrelated the efforts of local organizers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m a fan of the traditional first ballots cast by the good citizen’s of Iowa and New Hampshire. More than ever, it appears we’ll just be the first to ratify decisions that have already been made by the parties as a whole. </span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soon it'll be all over. It feels like it never really begun. </span></span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</span></b></div>swainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08696058464538049417noreply@blogger.com0