Military + Church

http://shlonkombakazay.blogspot.com/2005/02/efficient-version-holy-st-its-fascist.html

This is just a very insane story of the lasting trend of military mixing with religion, right here in the good ol' U.S. If you have ten minutes, I encourage you to read it all, as it is a very frightening yet unbelievable recollection of when a young man went with his dad to a "Men's Night Out".

New Drug Benefit Excludes Many

The new Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit is likely to exclude somewhere around 2 million low-income people, according to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The exclusion is based on personal assets, which according to the plan, makes them ineligible despite their low income.

A disproportionate share are older, widowed women with modest incomes who live alone, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Nearly 60 percent of these women, and others who live alone, have life savings of no more than $51,500, the study found. For married couples, the figure is $63,000.

And why was this restriction put in place?

Republican lawmakers added the eligibility restriction to the Medicare Modernization Act because they were under pressure to keep the drug benefit's 10-year price tag below the widely touted but erroneous figure of $400 billion. The benefit would have cost an additional $10 billion without the limits, Medicare figures show. In fact, the whole program is now estimated to cost $534 billion over 10 years, with some estimates as high as $1.2 trillion.

So, there will be close to 2 million people excluded from this plan, because they actually had a fair amount of savings and because the fiscally responsible Republicans didn't want to raise the projected price of the program by 2.5%, although the plan will clearly dwarf the projections anyways. I really wonder if the people in power have their priorities straight. Dreams of fiscal responsibility vs. sick grandparents...

Full Article at OC Register.

Ex-Governors Talk Some Politics

This isn't something you see everyday,

In a rare joint appearance, California's four living former governors clashed sharply Friday over the role of public employee unions but agreed voters don't want their taxes raised.

Here are some interesting parts,

Deukmejian also feuded with the teachers association while in office but didn't attack them Friday.

Instead, he pointed out that educators have been asking lawmakers for more money every year since he was first elected to the Assembly 43 years ago.

Even so, former Gov. Gray Davis pointed out that California is still spending less per pupil than more than half the other states. He criticized Schwarzenegger for refusing to allocate more for the state's schools.

"I don't think the way he addresses education is right," Davis said. "Would you like us to go back to 50 in per capita spending? Because that is where we are headed."

And,

"I am very grateful to be talking to you instead of being in Sacramento," Davis told the show's host, Lisa McRee.

He is California's only governor to ever be recalled, and Schwarzenegger took his place in 2003. "I ought to send him flowers," Davis said.

I am hopeful that they will put up a full transcript, because I am sure there were some fighting going on that wasn't in the article. Nonetheless, still pretty awesome to see all of the former governors in a room talking politics.

Full Article at the Sacramento Bee.

Kansas and Evolution

Here is an article on the ongoing debate on evolution in Kansas, featured in the Kansas City Star.

A three-member board subcommittee had its second day of hearings on how evolution should be taught in Kansas schools. The entire board plans to consider changes in June in standards that determine how Kansas students are on science.

This is certainly a very timely discussions, with the great emphasis being placed on values since the 2004 election. However, the result of this debate appears to be rigged in favor of intelligent design.

State and national science groups are boycotting the hearings, viewing them as rigged in favor of language backed by intelligent design advocates.

Board members Kathy Martin, of Clay Center, and Connie Morris, of St. Francis, acknowledged they had merely scanned proposed standards retaining the state's current policy of describing evolution as a key concept for students to learn. Martin's acknowledgment elicited groans of disbelief from a few audience members. (italics mine)

Although we might already be a bit concerned over how impartial a subcommittee can be in Kansas, this new revelation certainly validates the fact that the end result is already determined.

What is important to note is that any result in Kansas will certainly garner a fair amount of media attention, which will push the debate into other states as well. Before we know it, other committees like this one may be setup all across the country, resulting in numerous states rejecting the theory of evolution, in favor of religious-based explinations. From there, a number of other areas of education and civil society could also be amended.

The Tragedy Continues

The Economist has a very interesting article on the world's depleting fish stocks and the effect it will have on global food supplies. Here are some tidbits,

Signs of growing scarcity are everywhere: fish are getting smaller, as are catches. Some fishing grounds, such as Canada’s Grand Banks and Europe’s North Sea, are so seriously depleted that they may never fully recover; North Sea stocks of cod have shrunk to about 10% of 1970 levels. Even the last of the world’s waters to be exploited—in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean, and round Antarctica—have succumbed to the rapaciousness of vast fishing fleets. All over the world, governments are wrestling with the problem, trying to balance what’s best for the sea against what’s best for their fishing industries.

And,

So total world production (both marine and inland) increased steadily from 19.3m tonnes in 1950 to 100m tonnes in 1989 and 134m tonnes in 2002. On current projections, it will rise to 179m tonnes by 2015. Ultimately, this could be bad for business: theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass (amount of living matter) of a target species is about 50% of its original level. Most fisheries are already well below that.

And here is where the economics comes in,

Others argue that the focus for the near term should be on beating the fishing fleets at their own game. Today’s vessels can find their prey using sonar and satellites, meaning that a higher proportion of what is in the sea can be caught quickly and easily (though much of this is unwanted “by-catch” which is usually thrown back). Some policy wonks think that satellites should now also be used to track those boats and ensure they are not breaking quota agreements. However, a better first step might be a system of long-term quotas that are transferable between countries, similar to the recently established global carbon-trading scheme.

Some system of quota trading would be the most beneficial in this case, as it might reduce incentive to break the quotas agreed upon. Still, there needs to be some action on an issue like this, and the idea of fish farming, which is also mentioned in the article, seems to be somewhat promising, although it has its fair share of problems: like low yield, pollution, and being bad for biodiversity. Perhaps the solution lies in shifting our consumption patterns to more easily renewable resources, whatever those may be (soy? chicken?). Overall, the future does not look too good for the fishies... or us.

Full Article at The Economist.