In the comments section of yesterday’s post, “ghost707″ writes

The reasons the Republicans rolled over is that they found out that they could fleece the public and get away with it. Democrats controlled most of the institutions in this country, so all they had to do was wave a little money in Republicans’ direction and say “you wanna’ get rich”?

Become a Washington insider and make yourself rich, be above the law. Insider trading, zoning code manipulation, voter fraud - hell anything you want to fill your pockets with cash - never having to worry about consequences.

Democrats will run the country into a brick wall at 200 mph.
Republicans will run the country into a brick wall at 150 mph.

Slight difference, same result.

Commenter “mike Mc.” replies:

The difference between R and D is between 150 and 200mph collisions. Very clever. Not. That’s cute. Sophomoric truly.

And wildly wrong.

And fundamentally its own disaster from about 5 different directions.

I’ve heard “ghost’s” comment, or something very much like it, many times before, on this and many other blogs. It says that essentially “there’s no difference, they’re all bums, choose your poison.”

It’s a sentiment that often fuels voter apathy. It’s a sentiment that can also fuel third-party enthusiasm. It’s a sentiment that lurks around the edges of the Tea Party movement. And it’s similar to the sentiment that—in another place and time—ended up leading to this dreadful result.

It’s the sentiment that was responsible for Ross Perot’s respectable showing in 1992, and therefore at least indirectly for Bill Clinton’s victory despite his getting less than 50% of the total. And therein lies the problem. If you really think there’s no difference between the two parties, or that it’s merely the difference between two different types of fatalities (as ghost indicates), then go right ahead and stay home, or vote for a fringe candidate. Because the most likely result of your actions will be to favor a candidate you despise.

And yes, if more people did those things, we’d probably have a chance of a third-party nominee actually winning an election (by plurality, not majority). But then we’d have had President Perot; does anyone really think that would have been a good thing? Not I, although it certainly would have been an interesting thing.

I believe that ghost’s real complaint is that power corrupts, and that government is an invitation to it. I agree. But I believe that a better way to attempt to counteract that phenomenon is to pay attention to the checks, balances, and limitations wisely written into our form of government by our founders, who were well aware (perhaps even more so than we) of the problem and its potential dimensions, and to work hard for the election of people who promise to do just that. And most of those people appear to be Republicans, although unfortunately not all Republicans (or even most of them) fit into that camp.

That leaves the question: are Republicans in general really all that different from Democrats in general? I agree with mike Mc. that the answer is, “Of course they are, and it matters.” But I’m with ghost707 in saying “but it hasn’t mattered enough, especially fiscally.”

Republicans have acted like Democrats-lite in recent years. But lite and heavy are two very different things, and right now we’re getting the full bore heavy Democrat treatment. I think the differences are readily apparent, part of which is the speed of the fiscal unraveling during the present administration. Another important difference involves foreign policy and the acceleration of the world’s perception of our weakness.

As I see it, what the Republicans did wrong in the early years of the twenty-first century involved the flaws and frustrations inherent in government itself, a slow bleed of integrity and an accretion of power and of corruption by money. Such imperfections seem to be part and parcel of all government—except for some ideal, Platonic one that exists only in our imaginations or legends. The remedy is not to opt out, it is to work for those who seem to be most resistant to such temptations, and to hope they continue to avoid them as long as possible, and then to toss them out as soon as they succumb.

[NOTE: for a graphic example, take HCR (please!). Does anyone think that were Republicans in charge they would have enacted something as dreadful as the current bill? Not even close. But we did get Bush’s much-criticized prescription drug bill in 2003 when they were (slightly, anyway), although I doubt very much that such a bill would have ever been passed by a Republican Congress in the teeth of an economy like the one we face today. Another problem is that when Republicans were in charge they accomplished little to fix the very real defects of our health insurance system, although they probably could have imposed some conservative solutions such as portability, which might indeed have improved the situation, both for us and for them.]

It’s the first day of September.

Although not the official beginning of fall—that doesn’t happen for about three weeks—it’s the real beginning of autumn in my book. And this despite the fact that it’s well into the nineties today where I live.

But when this time of year comes, my hands itch to clean up. Not the yard, but my closets and drawers and cupboards. Despite my best efforts, over time the stuff accrues, and I see that the metaphorical weeding must begin. And although I’m no hoarder, it still can be a wrench to make those decisions and toss things forever.

But how deeply satisfying, to roll out that drawer and actually be able to find what I’m looking for! To cart the detritus to Goodwill (I’ve given up on consignment stores; it’s never been worth the effort for the few piddling coins my goods seem to fetch.)

It’s a task which—unlike so many others, whose rewards remain more abstract and amorphous—offers instant and graphic gratification. And if it’s somewhat Sisyphean (not to mention Augean)—well then, it always feels so good to stand momentarily at the peak of that hill, with the illusion of a finished task.

This Jay Cost article indicates what we already sensed: that the passage of health care reform turned out to have been a sort of Rubicon on the part of the Democrats in Congress. When they decided to cross it, the almost inevitable result was their decline in the polls.

Apparently, many of them believed their leaders when they said that the American public would learn to love HCR if it were passed—although why anyone would credit such as idea is beyond me. You can’t say the signs of voter anger and discontent weren’t obvious from the start, long before the bill was passed by a perverted legislative process that sickened the American people even more than the bill itself (which is saying something).

In fact, it was a little over a year ago, during the town hall meetings of summer, that the Congressional Democrats learned just how little the public thought of their HCR proposals. The anger of the energized crowds was visible and powerful, and it came from groups not usually given to public displays of rebellion. But most Democrats in Congress reacted by either ignoring or insulting their constituents, a course of action that is not usually considered the path to electoral victory.

So why should they be surprised now at the dismal polls? Maybe they’re just surprised at the extent of the gap that appears to have opened up. At least for now, the Republicans have sprinted to an “unprecedented” double-digit (51% vs. 41%) lead in the Gallup generic poll, for the first time since such polls were first taken in 1942.

Anne Hathaway joins the gamine brigade—not very successfully, IMHO:

[NOTE: See my previous post on the subject of the super-short haircut for women.]

…and I wonder whether many people will watch it.

I don’t know if I will. I’ve had a long and exhausting day already (over an hour of which I spent cooling my heels in the Motor Vehicle Bureau). Watching Obama orate is not my idea of relaxation.

I wonder why Obama is bothering to give this speech at all. I assume it’s a way to show support for the troops, and to underline the fact we’re on our way to getting out of Iraq more or less on schedule, a consummation devoutly to be wished for most Americans.

One thing we probably should not look for Obama to do: give credit to his predecessor, George Bush, whose support for the surge prevented the current president from having to oversee an ignominious helicopters-on-the-roof withdrawal a la Vietnam. Nor is Obama likely to acknowledge his own tenacious opposition to the surge policy from which he (and Iraq) now benefit.

Of course, what will happen over time to Iraq is anybody’s guess: functioning democracy, or the descent into chaos and tyranny?

But back to the speech. Much of the preview coverage tonight seems to feature the fact that the Oval Office has been redecorated (not at taxpayer expense, fortunately), and will have its television debut:

How stunningly drab and neutral. Ugh. His office is voting “present.”

A survey reveals a shortfall of skilled workers such as carpenters, welders, and electricians in many of the countries of the West:

The shortage of skilled workers is the No. 1 or No. 2 hiring challenge in six of the 10 biggest economies…Skilled trades were the top area of shortage in 10 of 17 European countries, according to the survey.

The short-term suggestion: importing workers from other countries. Long-term: encourage more people to go into the fields.

I’ve never understood this business of looking down on skilled laborers. I envied them, in a way. They comprehended the workings of mechanical objects, something I’m bad at. They never sat staring at an item like a camera, wondering how to open the little door in order to change the batteries, nor did they stand in frustrated puzzlement in some hotel bathroom at 3 in the morning, pushing the thingamagig that controlled the shower this way and that in a futile effort to find the magic combination of movements that would send the water coursing from the shower head.

What’s more, I had always heard that trades were survival skills, especially good in a situation such as the Depression (my parents had lived through that), in which such services might be traded for goods, and the ability to repair things and keep old machinery going was especially vital. Knowledge of skilled trades was also particularly valuable (and movable) during wartime, when refugeeing from conflict or persecution could become necessary. Those who survived World War II often did so by having such skills, instantly transferable and not requiring the acquisition of a new language.

Now, nearly everybody seems to want to go to college, although not everyone is suited for it. I’m saying that as someone who was suited for it, but never valued the ability overmuch, nor thought it made me better than someone who dealt in more concrete pursuits (such as, for example, concrete). Perhaps that’s because I grew up in a mostly blue collar community, and observed quite early on that the intelligentsia had no corner on intelligence or common sense.

Today I saw that “migraine” was one of the most commonly searched terms on Google, and I wondered why. Lo and behold, it seems that a gene connected with the condition has been discovered by researchers in Europe, giving hope that it may lead to new and more effective treatment.

As a migraineur myself, I have a bit of a personal interest. My migraines (like my mother’s before me, alas) are usually triggered by foods, especially my beloved chocolate, and peanuts; slip me a Reese’s peanut butter cup and you’d just about do me in.

My first migraine occurred at the age of ten, at summer camp. I didn’t know what it was, and I suffered mostly in silence. Shortly afterward my migraines went into hiding, only to return with a vengeance in my mid-forties. They featured zigzag lights and other seemingly groovy but ultimately unpleasant visual distortions, although fortunately the headache/nausea part tended to be mild for me—at least, as migraines go—upsetting and debilitating, but not completely disabling.

Not only do my mother and I have migraines, but they turn out to be triggered by the very same foods. And since neither of us knew about the others’ triggers until ours were already established, the power of suggestion was not a factor. Heredity almost certainly was, and I would bet almost anything that, if you were to study our DNA, that pesky rs1835740 the migraine researchers identified would be right there on the string.

Yes, here we go again. Dionne writes:

But Obama and his party are also in a hole because the president has chosen not to engage the nation in an extended dialogue about what holds all his achievements together, or why his attitude toward government makes more sense than the scattershot conservative attacks on everything Washington might do to improve the nation’s lot.

I thought the best way to prove this would be to show, not tell. And I have another question for Dionne: wouldn’t any such telling by Obama be an extended monologue with the nation, not a dialogue? I mean, isn’t a dialogue a back-and-forth between at least two people? How can the nation answer back?

Although I suppose it’s already sort of answered back through the mechanism of the falling polls.

In Adam Gopnik’s lengthy piece on Churchill in the New Yorker, he writes:

For Churchill always thought in terms not of national interest but of a national character that could trump interest. The Germans “combine in the most deadly manner the qualities of the warrior and the slave,” he said firmly. “They do not value freedom themselves and the spectacle of it in others is hateful to them.” Or, as he put it more succinctly, “They are carnivorous sheep.” We do not think this way anymore.

Not about the Germans, we don’t. But doesn’t it strike you as a rather apt description of much of the Arab world?

Not all people in a culture conform to the description of the group of which they are members, of course. But cultures do have basic characteristics that can be generalized about, and PC-thinking blinds us to certain truths that we ignore at our peril.

…you might do well to start up a conversation about philosophy or English lit or even astrophysics with your new ladyfriend, because she just might be a college grad who went into the business after having trouble making ends meet in another job, according to a study highlighted in this article.

At least that appears to be true in Britain, where the research took place. Of three hundred lap dancers interviewed, all had finished their basic high school education, the vast majority had some post-high-school courses, and a quarter were the proud possessors of a college degree (whether this says more about lap dancers’ intelligence or about the British educational system is unknown). The women report uniformly high rates of job satisfaction (it is also unknown what rates of satisfaction their clients report).

One of the researchers, Dr. Teela Sanders, said that:

…she had been surprised at the “endless supply of women” wanting to be lap dancers. She said: “These women are incredibly body confident. I think there is something of a generational cultural difference. These young women do not buy the line that they are being exploited, because they are the ones making the money out of a three-minute dance and a bit of a chat.”

Well, color me unsurprised. Those who don’t feel they have attractive bodies would be likely to choose another field, and there’s virtually always been an “endless supply of women” wanting to go into what one might call the sex trades, and to justify the decision to themselves.

Money, of course, is the object—as well as (at least sometimes) a feeling of power over men, however illusory it may sometimes be. And after a couple of generations of extreme emphasis on the body, self-esteem, materialism, and the erosion of traditional values about the disgrace of working in such fields, you’ve got an even more endless supply of women waiting in the wings. Despite the growth of opportunities for women to be employed in more conventional fields, sex still pays pretty well in comparison, especially in this economy.

According to the article, feminist groups in Britain consider lap dance clubs to be “a form of commercial sexual exploitation and promote the sexist view that women are sex objects.” Well, of course they do—women are sex objects when they lap dance. My libertarian leanings dictate that, if they want to do so, and are of the age of consent, no one should be able to stop them. But my own experience with the feminist viewpoint on such things—via a conversation with a young lady I know a few years ago, back when she was a college student majoring in Women’s Studies—was that stripping and prostitution and lap dancing and the like were a valid and feminist-approved form of self-actualization.

Whatever the feminist point of view du jour might be, the women themselves are reported to bring a certain drive to the job. As one financial journalist wannabee, now working as a stripper in London pubs, notes:

I’ve met dancers who have degrees in astrophysics from top universities. They’ve pushed themselves hard to get those qualifications and now they’re pushing themselves to be successful dancers.

There’s a movie in there, I’m sure.

Hostile spell-challenged spambot:

i hate brad pit

Well, I’m not a big fan either. I never even liked his looks; too pretty-pretty.

And it’s a good thing, too, because I hear Angelina isn’t about to give him up any time soon.

The administration has announced the suspension of the trial of the accused USS Cole bomber, just in time for the tenth anniversary of that terrorist attack, on October 12th.

I’ve read the entire article, and it’s not exactly clear what’s going on here:

Nashiri was scheduled to be arraigned in February 2009 but the new administration instructed military prosecutors to suspend legal proceedings at Guantanamo Bay. The charges against Nashiri were withdrawn.

In November 2009, however, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. appeared to revive the case when he announced that the military would prosecute Nashiri, one of at least 36 detainees who could be tired in federal court or a military commission.

“With regard to the Cole bombing, that was an attack on a United States warship, and that, I think, is appropriately placed into the military commission setting,” Holder said.

But critics of military commissions say the Nashiri case exemplifies the system’s flaws, particularly the ability to introduce certain evidence such as hearsay statements that probably would not be admitted in federal court. The prosecution is expected to rely heavily on statements made to the FBI by two Yemenis who allegedly implicated Nashiri. Neither witness is expected at trial, but the FBI agents who interviewed them will testify, said Nashiri’s military attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen C. Reyes. “Unlike in federal court, you don’t have the right to confront the witnesses against you,” he said.

But I’ll hazard a couple of guesses as to what’s behind this decision:

(1) The administration doesn’t want to offend its left flank any more than it already has by using the military system of justice, even though it is eminently applicable to this case.

(2) The case is weak and the administration wants to strengthen it before going to trial (this naively assumes a good faith on their part that has not been justified by their actions so far in any of these proceedings).

The Cole families are livid. But who cares about them? Certainly not the Obama administration.

Ah, but maybe he’ll have another meeting with them. That’ll do the trick.