This girl is nothing more than the next Denise Richards.
And Richards at least got to play a Bond Girl [as a nuclear physicist, no less].
Monday, September 28, 2009
Political Prisoner’s Dilemma
One wonders if the major players on the Left or Right would remember Psych 101, they’d recall that the “Tit-For-Tat” method of “Prisoner’s Dilemma” called for the first move to always be to “Cooperate”, and that every move thereafter mirror their counterparts’ move[s] [see: http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/TitforTat.html]. Yet the Left seems to never get out of “cooperate” mode, and the Right demonstrates an inability to even consider the possibility of making that move.
Re the Left, Iran provides the most important illustration. Ironically, this Administration’s new foreign policy seems to have worked too well, particularly the combination of the insistence on merely suggesting condition-free dialogue with Iran in combination with going to Cairo and publicly TL’ing International Islamism, among other reason to come to terms with the fact that that it was going to stick around, whether or not it deserved to. Instead, the pseudo-theofascist Persia has responded to his overtures by amping up their misbehaviors. Complicating the situation—and further diminishing any reason for cooperation on anyone’s part with the regime—is the Iranian populace’ reaction to the recent stolen election. Ironically, as statements issued from people involved with the “negotiations” indicate, the Administration realizes its “cooperate” move is empty, but the increasingly fear the consequences of a “defect” move, even thought the consequences of delaying such a move increase the cost of its execution [and the likelihood of an Israeli attack].
[Which, to be fair, I would lay the lion’s share of the blame at the feet of the previous Administration for invading the wrong country. As I’ve said here repeatedly, I would agree with everything Dick Cheney has said about our conduct of the War on Terror—IF we had invaded Iran instead of Iraq. Instead, the invasion and subsequent messes allowed for the possibility that the “game” could be reset to “start” long enough for the incoming Administration to at least present ab initio a salient case for “cooperation”.]
Re the right, events [thankfully] beyond their control may be shaping up in a way that start the political winds blowing at least mildly in their direction...IF they manage to quelch their penchant for dontopedalogy for five minutes. [As prominent examples—and for later discussion—Glenn Beck misreads history, Sarah Palin continues to proudly display that she doesn’t know history, and Rush Limbaugh is laughing all the way to the bank.] In addition to the Iran corner he has backed himself into, Obama has overreached spectacularly on health care to the point that his own party has forced him to abandon the “public option”, at least publicly. Yet the Right continues to assume that stoking its most reactionary and least savory elements will increase the chances of Democrats self-immolation; instead, it allows bankrupt progressive policy to appear at least somewhat credible. If the Republicans were smart, they’d realize that self-destruction is in Democratic DNA and will show up sooner or later.
Failing that, maybe they should give the Israelis a call.
Re the Left, Iran provides the most important illustration. Ironically, this Administration’s new foreign policy seems to have worked too well, particularly the combination of the insistence on merely suggesting condition-free dialogue with Iran in combination with going to Cairo and publicly TL’ing International Islamism, among other reason to come to terms with the fact that that it was going to stick around, whether or not it deserved to. Instead, the pseudo-theofascist Persia has responded to his overtures by amping up their misbehaviors. Complicating the situation—and further diminishing any reason for cooperation on anyone’s part with the regime—is the Iranian populace’ reaction to the recent stolen election. Ironically, as statements issued from people involved with the “negotiations” indicate, the Administration realizes its “cooperate” move is empty, but the increasingly fear the consequences of a “defect” move, even thought the consequences of delaying such a move increase the cost of its execution [and the likelihood of an Israeli attack].
[Which, to be fair, I would lay the lion’s share of the blame at the feet of the previous Administration for invading the wrong country. As I’ve said here repeatedly, I would agree with everything Dick Cheney has said about our conduct of the War on Terror—IF we had invaded Iran instead of Iraq. Instead, the invasion and subsequent messes allowed for the possibility that the “game” could be reset to “start” long enough for the incoming Administration to at least present ab initio a salient case for “cooperation”.]
Re the right, events [thankfully] beyond their control may be shaping up in a way that start the political winds blowing at least mildly in their direction...IF they manage to quelch their penchant for dontopedalogy for five minutes. [As prominent examples—and for later discussion—Glenn Beck misreads history, Sarah Palin continues to proudly display that she doesn’t know history, and Rush Limbaugh is laughing all the way to the bank.] In addition to the Iran corner he has backed himself into, Obama has overreached spectacularly on health care to the point that his own party has forced him to abandon the “public option”, at least publicly. Yet the Right continues to assume that stoking its most reactionary and least savory elements will increase the chances of Democrats self-immolation; instead, it allows bankrupt progressive policy to appear at least somewhat credible. If the Republicans were smart, they’d realize that self-destruction is in Democratic DNA and will show up sooner or later.
Failing that, maybe they should give the Israelis a call.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Bill Maher, Ronald Dworkin, And The Real Health Care Debate
Bill Maher and Ronald Dworkin’s recent essays on Obamacare probably best illustrated where the real ideological positions are staked out: from the Left, Maher, whose main contention is that health care is a “service[/]institution[s] so vital to our nation” that it should be “exempt from market pressures” [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-not-everything-i_b_244050.html], and from the Right, Dworkin, whose counter-contention is that the resulting system of public medicine would be about as efficient as the public school system
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358281875211014.html].
Both are correct. And in this case, both are being equally hypocritical. To a certain point, each author’s respective thesis [at least, as I read them] serves to illustrate the point at which each one’s respective counterpart would be forced to think contradictory. {I’m sure they didn’t do this deliberately, but no matter.]
Maher’s point about removing the profit motive from health care exposes contradictions in the conservative arguments regarding lasseiz-faire, lessened governmental interference in personal affairs, and the concomitant “threat” of triage conducted by panels using progressive tenets as guidelines. Conservatives don’t want government interfering in their health care decisions? Sure; just ask Terri Schiavo or anyone with an unwanted pregnancy. Or, ask former Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who signed the 1999 Texas Futile Care Law, allowing health care workers to remove expensive life support for terminally ill patients if the patient or family is unable to pay the medical bills: a clear case of an economics-driven “death panel”.
Similarly, albeit from the opposite ideological direction, Dworkin’s public school analog is even more apt than he realizes, as it helps put the lie to the notion that health care, like the schools, will become a truly effectively administered public good if the profit motive is removed. Instead, it will be driven by various competing interest groups—particularly, unions—who will have a stake in ensuring the diversion of resources toward themselves and away from the people who need it: in the case of the schools, the children always come last; in the case of health care, the patients will. One system of “profiteering” will simply be replaced by another.
In the end, these two pundits clearly indicate that the health care imbroglio is really about anything but health care, per se; rather, it’s about how various pieces of the pie are to be distributed [or, re-distributed]. This is the main reason that, no matter how much effort Obama and the rest of the far left expends in “drag[ging] them to it” [Maher’s comment in another forum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lBgpI2S4I4], “it”—healthcare—will never become the moral issue the left wants it to become, namely with a moral gravitas comparable to the abolition and civil rights movements, when “dragging” was called for.
The health care “debate”, then, is just an old-fashioned feeding frenzy in…drag.
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358281875211014.html].
Both are correct. And in this case, both are being equally hypocritical. To a certain point, each author’s respective thesis [at least, as I read them] serves to illustrate the point at which each one’s respective counterpart would be forced to think contradictory. {I’m sure they didn’t do this deliberately, but no matter.]
Maher’s point about removing the profit motive from health care exposes contradictions in the conservative arguments regarding lasseiz-faire, lessened governmental interference in personal affairs, and the concomitant “threat” of triage conducted by panels using progressive tenets as guidelines. Conservatives don’t want government interfering in their health care decisions? Sure; just ask Terri Schiavo or anyone with an unwanted pregnancy. Or, ask former Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who signed the 1999 Texas Futile Care Law, allowing health care workers to remove expensive life support for terminally ill patients if the patient or family is unable to pay the medical bills: a clear case of an economics-driven “death panel”.
Similarly, albeit from the opposite ideological direction, Dworkin’s public school analog is even more apt than he realizes, as it helps put the lie to the notion that health care, like the schools, will become a truly effectively administered public good if the profit motive is removed. Instead, it will be driven by various competing interest groups—particularly, unions—who will have a stake in ensuring the diversion of resources toward themselves and away from the people who need it: in the case of the schools, the children always come last; in the case of health care, the patients will. One system of “profiteering” will simply be replaced by another.
In the end, these two pundits clearly indicate that the health care imbroglio is really about anything but health care, per se; rather, it’s about how various pieces of the pie are to be distributed [or, re-distributed]. This is the main reason that, no matter how much effort Obama and the rest of the far left expends in “drag[ging] them to it” [Maher’s comment in another forum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lBgpI2S4I4], “it”—healthcare—will never become the moral issue the left wants it to become, namely with a moral gravitas comparable to the abolition and civil rights movements, when “dragging” was called for.
The health care “debate”, then, is just an old-fashioned feeding frenzy in…drag.
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