Al Franken Gets Kinetic

 

I’m Mad Too, Carl

OK, not really. I’ll be a little disappointed in a week when the big top comes down on Carl “Clownshoes” Paladino. In the meantime, here’s some Rachel Maddow:

 

 

Mad does mean crazy as a loon, right?

New Blog to my List

Adding a blog I never read, but should have been because they seem brilliant at any meal anytime. Loved this post proclaiming Americans as idiots. That seems a little harsh. But, I’m an American, and an idiot. Some of the folks in this piece live on rungs lower than I, though.

So let's see...they like Social Security and Medicare, but they want spending cut to the bone. They want Washington to be involved in schools, but they want Washington out of their schools. They want Washington to help reduce poverty, but they don't want social programs for "Those People."

These are the people who think they are well-informed because they watch Fox and listen to Beck, Limbaugh and Savage.

Here is the brilliant rant that led me from Tbogg over to Brilliant at Breakfast:

We are a profoundly ignorant. People don't know anything about their own religions. We know little of our own history, let alone our history in context with the rest of the world. We worship sports heroes who torture dogs, but we point at scientists and laugh. A profoundly messed-up woman like Christine O'Donnell can run on a platform of "See? I can't manage my finances either. I'm you." We had eight years of a dry drunk as president because people thought he was the guy they'd want to have a beer with -- as if that were ever going to happen. Now there are people who would vote to give the nuclear codes to an aging high school mean girl because they'd like to fuck her -- as if that's ever going to happen. Smart people are regarded with scorn as "elites." Ignorance is regarded as a virtue.
This is how an empire dies. And we are going to be around to see it.

And from Tom Engelhardt:

If you had told me then that we would henceforth be in a state of eternal war as well as living in a permanent war state, that, to face a ragtag enemy of a few thousand stateless terrorists, the national security establishment in Washington would pump itself up to levels not faintly reached when facing the Soviet Union, a major power with thousands of nuclear weapons and an enormous military, that “homeland” -- a distinctly un-American word -- would land in our vocabulary never to leave, and that a second Defense Department dubbed the Department of Homeland Security would be set up not to be dismantled in my lifetime, that torture (excuse me, “enhanced interrogation techniques”) would become as American as apple pie and that some of those “techniques” would actually be demonstrated to leading Bush administration officials inside the White House, that we would pour money into the Pentagon at ever escalating levels even after the economy crashed in 2008, that we would be fighting two potentially trillion-dollar-plus wars without end in two distant lands, that we would spend untold billions constructing hundreds of military bases in those same lands, that the CIA would be conducting the first drone air war in history over a country we were officially not at war with, that most of us would live in a remarkable state of detachment from all of this, and finally -- only, by the way, because I’m cutting this list arbitrarily short -- that I would spend my time writing incessantly about “the American way of war” and produce a book with that title, I would have thought you were nuts.

And just to make sure future opponents are well armed:

The Obama administration is laying out a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar military aid package for Pakistan as it presses the Islamabad government to step up the fight against extremists there and in neighboring Afghanistan, U.S. officials say.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were to unveil the plan Friday at the end of the latest round of high-level U.S.-Pakistani strategic talks here, the officials said.

What could go wrong?

Pakistan shut down the Torkham border crossing, the most important NATO supply into Afghanistan, on Thursday in apparent protest of a NATO helicopter attack that killed three Pakistani soldiers on the frontier. It was the third such incursion into Pakistan in less than a week.

The other NATO supply line through Pakistan remained open — the Chaman crossing in Baluchistan, where it seemed likely the tankers were heading.

A lengthy closure of Torkham would place intense strain on the US-Pakistani relationship and hurt the Afghan war effort. But a long shutdown continued to be seen as unlikely.

In spite of our country being geographically challenged we have somehow stumbled into the appropriate region.

Who Knew?

Walking is good for you. 

Beyond the snarkiness, it is a good article and important research. I’m sure there are many worse ways to spend research dollars. SDI, anyone?

Research shows that walking can actually boost the connectivity within brain circuits, which tends to diminish as the grey hairs multiply.

"Patterns of connectivity decrease as we get older," said Dr. Arthur F. Kramer, who led the study team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

I’ve been sans automobile for going on two years and can say that part of that connectivity building is just trying to remember the bus schedules.

"The aerobic group also improved in memory, attention and a variety of other cognitive processes," Kramer said. "As the older people in the walking group became more fit, the coherence among different regions in the networks increased and became similar to those of the 20-yr olds," Kramer explained.

And here I was attributing these improvements to the tai chi. But, I do hope this is so, as I hope to be trying to assimilate to a new culture and language soon and will likely need all the cognition I can muster.

The findings come as no surprise to Dr. Lynn Millar, an expert with the American College of Sports Medicine. She said while walking might seem like a simple activity, the brain is actually working to integrate information from many different sources.

"When we walk we integrate visual input, auditory input, as well as input that's coming from joints and muscles regarding where the foot is, how much force, and things like that " said Millar, a professor of Physical Therapy at Andrews University, in Berrien Springs, Michigan.

I’m usually just trying to keep from being run over, as Queensbury is not the most pedestrian friendly town. I do have new sidewalks between apartment and work, though. Occasionally during the winter they remove the snow from them as well.

"It's that old concept: if you don't use it you lose it," she said. "In order for something to be beneficial we need to do it repetitively, and walking is a repetitive activity."

Millar, author of "Action Plan for Arthritis," said while some changes are inevitable with age, they don't have to happen as quickly as they do in some people.

This was a big motivator for me. I had blood clots in the summer 2008 and have had arthritis in my left knee and hip for five years or so. Walking was said to be good for both and, of course, I’m a cheap bastard and could save money. But, I think if you keep doing something then you keep being able to do it and I want to be able to keep walking. The Lord helps those who help themselves.

A pedometer helps quantify things. Otherwise, I think it’s likely to exaggerate how far you think you walked. This is mine and it’s fairly cheap. And this is a really cool site to record steps on, even if they are a day ahead of me.

Don’t click the video unless you like cheesy 80’s music as much as I do:

 

The Cronkite Moment

Will there come this moment for the Afghanistan War? There doesn’t seem to be a journalist with the gravitas of Uncle Walter. Certainly Katie Couric will not cut it. Maybe just for shock value we could have an O’Reilly or Hannity or Beck declare the conflict lost. That would just be for partisan advantage over a Democratic president, though. Hardly heartfelt.

The events there seem to be more ever-present lately. Maybe it is just a shift of our media collective toward presenting it for the clusterfuck it is and laying aside the support the troops (and the war) at all costs.

Seven U.S. troops have died in weekend attacks in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions, while officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign workers for a female candidate in the western province of Herat.

Two servicemen died in bombings Sunday in southern Afghanistan, while two others were killed in a bomb attack in the south on Saturday and three in fighting in the east the same day, NATO said. Their identities and other details were being withheld until relatives could be notified.

I recognize the geo-political reality that Afghanistan is right next door to a nuke wielding Pakistan. I realize that women are brutalized by religious zealots stuck in medieval times. I salute the bravery of these campaign workers who surely must have known they were placing their lives in danger to work for the election of a female candidate.

When I enter a search for “India Pakistan Peace” I don’t find much in the way of organizations working toward that goal. If we turned our time, efforts and resources away from Afghanistan and toward resolution between these two nations and eventual de-nuclearization of them it would likely solve a number of our problems.

Whatever Afghanistan is going to become, it is going to become with or without our troops there. Opium production has increased exponentially since our involvement. We have placed a former CIA asset and kleptocrat in charge of their country in the form of Hamid Karzai. Can things get worse? Probably for awhile. Are they going to get better with tens of thousands of US troops there? Probably not.

I’m just an average schmuck with a laptop and a broadband connection. My opinion could be wrong. I figure I have about a 50%  chance. Stay or leave. Those are the options.

UPDATE: FWIW, saw this piece at Newshoggers about the Chinese moving into Kashmir in a big way, ostensibly to improve their shipping times.

  Now, China isn't exactly a U.S. enemy and if they want a base in the Gulf then they're legally allowed one if the host nation (Pakistan) will co-operate - but many analysts have written about China's maritime expansion in worrying tones, seeing an eventual confrontation with the US as more possible because of it.

We are hardly in a position to get confrontational with the Chinese for any number of reasons. And since they are still willing to exchange dollars for treasuries it’s likely they don’t want to be either. Jon Huntsman seemed like a capable choice for ambassador to China when he was chosen. Hopefully, that is so and we will find a way to make lemonade out of this situation.

The Last Sane Republican

Yes, I realize there are a few others who have come out on the side of the angels in the mosque Islamic community center debate. But Ron Paul is higher profile. He seems to be the most principled politician on either side of the divide. I know there have been charges of racism and that libertarianism deep down is crazy, but moments like this are likely the reason he inspires the devotion that he does.

Ron ripped into opponents of the Cordoba House project, saying that the rhetoric taking on the plan is clearly "all about hate and Islamaphobia."

And:

"The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims," Ron wrote in a statement to RonPaul.com "This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservative's aggressive wars."

And no, I don’t give a rat’s ass about his unprincipled kid.

Classic Ron Paul:

 

Why Small Investors (and pigs) Get Slaughtered

The psychology of investing leads people to invariably jump in and out of investments at the wrong time. Been there, done that.

Investors withdrew a staggering $33.12 billion from domestic stock market mutual funds in the first seven months of this year, according to the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund industry trade group. Now many are choosing investments they deem safer, like bonds.

The recipe for loss, or at least middling returns, is to sell on type of investment on the downturn and buy another when it’s ascending. Put simply, we sell low and buy high. These people are buying into bonds as they are riding high.

Take free advice for what it’s worth, but the Occam’s razor portfolio would likely beat any managed mutual fund over the long run. It will 3 ETFs and 10 minutes of work a year.

Put 40% of your money into BND which is a total market bond ETF. Put 30% of your investment money into VTI which covers the entire US market from low to high. And put the remainder into VEU which is an index that invests in the whole world excluding the US. Choose a brokerage with cheap commissions which will re-invest dividends for you. Rebalance back to the 40-30-30 split once a year and Bob’s your uncle.

When  it comes to investing, I’ve done all the dumb things.