The Enemy: He Is Us

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Thursday January 26, 2006 · 10:16 PM PST

2006/01/26 · 22:16

I read some of the Bush press conference today and one excerpt struck me. Here it is, in an edited version:

So as I stand here right now I can tell the American people the program is legal, it's designed to protect civil liberties, and it's necessary. Now, my concern has always been that in an attempt to try to pass a law on something that's already legal, we'll show the enemy what we're doing . . . Why tell the enemy what we're doing if the program is necessary to protect us from the enemy?

This is nonsense, that we all know. But, it is very telling. What "enemy" is he talking about? Read More

Missing Non-White Woman

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Saturday July 23, 2005 · 5:43 PM PDT

2005/07/23 · 17:43

I was over at Atrios and he has posted this story from local Philly news radio about a young, pregnant, single mom from West Philadelphia, Latoyia Figueroa, missing since Monday. He posted under the headline, "Odds of this Story Showing Up on CNN?" (for the record the odds are slim and none and slim just left town). So I thought, well that's a bit snarky but well-desreved, but I also thought to myself "What are the odds of this story showing up anywhere?" So, I did a quick LexisNexis search to see if in fact it turned up anywhere. It didn't. Anywhere. Six days later.

More below the fold. Read More

What Does It Mean?

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Tuesday February 15, 2005 · 7:32 PM PST

2005/02/15 · 19:32

I've been thinking about a fact that is thrown around a lot in the Social Security debate but that really doesn't mean very much in and of itself. The gist of the fact is:

In 2042 (or 2052 depending on the source) the Social SecurityTrust Fund will be exhausted and retirees will only get 70+ percent of scheduled benefits.

That is the fact, but what does 70+ percent of scheduled benefits really mean? How much is that in real dollars?

As it turns out, if ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING IS DONE with respect to SS, "While trust fund insolvency would lead to large percentage reductions in scheduled benefits, real benefit levels for average retirees would remain as high as or higher than benefits paid to average retirees today."

Did you get that? "[R]eal benefit levels for average retirees would remain as high or higher than benefits paid to average retirees." Read More

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