Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. And the more we tip the bartender, the more frequently he hands out free dishes of chips and dips. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: Memorial Day has come and gone. You are now permitted to wear white clothes, open-toed shoes, and boater hats.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
31 May 2011
27 May 2011
BBC asks "why get married?" but omits pretty obvious answer
BBC Magazine article discusses the question of why a couple would get married after having kids, without suggesting the most obvious answer: for health insurance or legal or tax purposes. (Granted, marrying for the health insurance is perhaps not so obvious in a nation with socialized medicine.) But my point is that government- or authority-recognized marriage has only ever been an economic contract. The religious trappings and moral imperatives were added for solemnity -- to make the couple take the marriage more seriously, put them in mortal fear of their souls if they change their minds afterward, and provide some predictability in estate planning.
Anecdotally, I know an American couple who got married only for the health insurance. They've kept their marriage open, have had two kids, and are still together some dozen years later. From what I understand of their decision to get married, they flatly wouldn't have done it if one of them hadn't needed healthcare. Another acquaintance of mine has been married twice, and both times it was solely for health insurance because of a chronic condition. The first marriage was kind of predictably a disaster, but the second seems to be going well.
And in the end, that person moved to England for, as they put it, simply to stay alive. No American health insurance company, even the Cadillac insurance they got through the second spouse who worked for a Fortune 500 company, would pay for their preventive and ongoing care in a timely and reasonable manner, so they moved to a country where you just go to a clinic, get treatment, and go home.
As for marrying for legal and tax purposes, for crying out loud, what do you think the fight about gay marriage is all about? It's about hospital visitation rights, intestate inheritance issues, and mortgage interest tax deductions.
Most of the time, follow the money. Marriage qua marriage is an economic and legal question, and that's all it will ever be. Consider how easy it is to get married, compared to how complicated it is to get divorced. And have you noticed that, once you are divorced, you tend to have to identify yourself as "divorced," not "single" again? A marriage that ended years or decades ago follows you forever!
Anecdotally, I know an American couple who got married only for the health insurance. They've kept their marriage open, have had two kids, and are still together some dozen years later. From what I understand of their decision to get married, they flatly wouldn't have done it if one of them hadn't needed healthcare. Another acquaintance of mine has been married twice, and both times it was solely for health insurance because of a chronic condition. The first marriage was kind of predictably a disaster, but the second seems to be going well.
And in the end, that person moved to England for, as they put it, simply to stay alive. No American health insurance company, even the Cadillac insurance they got through the second spouse who worked for a Fortune 500 company, would pay for their preventive and ongoing care in a timely and reasonable manner, so they moved to a country where you just go to a clinic, get treatment, and go home.
As for marrying for legal and tax purposes, for crying out loud, what do you think the fight about gay marriage is all about? It's about hospital visitation rights, intestate inheritance issues, and mortgage interest tax deductions.
Most of the time, follow the money. Marriage qua marriage is an economic and legal question, and that's all it will ever be. Consider how easy it is to get married, compared to how complicated it is to get divorced. And have you noticed that, once you are divorced, you tend to have to identify yourself as "divorced," not "single" again? A marriage that ended years or decades ago follows you forever!
26 May 2011
The way to less sodium in your diet is to eat less processed food
An article at MSNBC discusses the problem of too much sodium in American diets, but gets to the next-to-last, below-the-fold paragraph before mentioning a huge way to reduce one's sodium intake: eat less processed food. Quit the TV dinners, quit the junk food, don't eat out so often, get out of the habit of "convenience" foods, and you'll get less sodium in your diet.
A frozen dinner or shelf-stable lunch from a box looks cheaper than a from-scratch dinner or sack lunch until you feel hungry again one hour afterward. Old-fashioned oats cooked in the microwave, topped with raisins or brown sugar, is cheaper and healthier than ready-to-eat box cereal or instant oatmeal from a packet. MSNBC should have offered views from CDC and Center for Science in the Public Interest way, way before talking to flaks from ConAgra, Kraft, Cargill, General Mills, and Campbell's.
In short, there's a reason behind the cliché "an apple a day keeps the doctor away."
A frozen dinner or shelf-stable lunch from a box looks cheaper than a from-scratch dinner or sack lunch until you feel hungry again one hour afterward. Old-fashioned oats cooked in the microwave, topped with raisins or brown sugar, is cheaper and healthier than ready-to-eat box cereal or instant oatmeal from a packet. MSNBC should have offered views from CDC and Center for Science in the Public Interest way, way before talking to flaks from ConAgra, Kraft, Cargill, General Mills, and Campbell's.
In short, there's a reason behind the cliché "an apple a day keeps the doctor away."
Ratko Mladic captured; Serbia into the EU?
The arrest and pending extradition of Ratko Mladic to the Hague for trial on war crimes during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s is being seen as a major step on the pathway to Serbia's admission into the EU. That's great, but what is Serbia's economy like? The EU is currently stuck holding gazillions of euros in Greek debt that nobody in the world will buy. What will adding Serbia to the EU do to help or harm that situation?
This is actually an upfront question. I don't intend any snarkiness or anything. Had Mladic's fugitive status been the only barrier to admitting Serbia to the EU?
This is actually an upfront question. I don't intend any snarkiness or anything. Had Mladic's fugitive status been the only barrier to admitting Serbia to the EU?
Mikey Wild, R.I.P.
The story of the Mayor of South Street, Part I (9:05):
Part II (10:00):
Part III (9:09):
Fuck the American healthcare system that failed to get him the cancer medicine and treatments that he couldn't afford.
Part II (10:00):
Part III (9:09):
Fuck the American healthcare system that failed to get him the cancer medicine and treatments that he couldn't afford.
24 May 2011
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. And the more we tip the bartender, the more frequently he hands out free dishes of chips and dips. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: This chapter is looking for a new co-organizer. See our information page at the national website for more information.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: This chapter is looking for a new co-organizer. See our information page at the national website for more information.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
20 May 2011
17 May 2011
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. And the more we tip the bartender, the more frequently he hands out free dishes of chips and dips. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: Primary Day in Philadelphia is pretty much Election Day. We'll have results on the TV if one of the local stations bothers to show them.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: Primary Day in Philadelphia is pretty much Election Day. We'll have results on the TV if one of the local stations bothers to show them.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
10 May 2011
The paper apologizes, but for what?
Religious zealot newspaper Di Tzeitung published an apology for doctoring the Situation Room photo.
That's what they apologized for: doctoring the photo, against the clear proscription from the White House against manipulating the image.
The statement speaks for itself.
That's what they apologized for: doctoring the photo, against the clear proscription from the White House against manipulating the image.
The statement speaks for itself.
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. And the more we tip the bartender, the more frequently he hands out free dishes of chips and dips. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: I'm off to JC Penney this week to exchange a Mother's Day gift from my mom (shh! Don't tell). What did you give or receive -- or both -- for Mother's Day this year?
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: I'm off to JC Penney this week to exchange a Mother's Day gift from my mom (shh! Don't tell). What did you give or receive -- or both -- for Mother's Day this year?
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
09 May 2011
Schumer's "no ride list" for trains is stupid
Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D.-N.Y.) "no ride list" for Amtrak (Reuters) is stupid.
His reasoning is that bin Laden had been planning to blow up some train tracks on or around the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. So there are at least two reasons why Schumer's proposal is stupid:
One, it's closing the barn door after the horses have run out. Bin Laden is now dead, his plans discovered and publicized. I for one doubt that his organization is so well organized that it will just pick up and implement these plans -- which were so inexact or incomplete that they didn't include a precise date or location for the event -- without their leader. And even if they could, why would they keep on with a plan that the government is now aware of?
While it would be dead simple to bring the Northeast Corridor to its knees by strategically blowing up a single bomb somewhere between D.C. and Boston, it's apparently difficult to arrange. I'm actually flabbergasted that it hasn't been done yet. It's like 450 miles of very vulnerable and largely unsecured track. Are terrorists stupid? Incompetent? Badly organized? I don't know. But it seems to be it would be a hell of a lot easier to carry out than the 9/11 operation.
Two, and really I think this is the more important point, how will preventing a suspect from entering onto a train prevent him from planting a bomb on the tracks on which the train runs?
I mean, really.
His reasoning is that bin Laden had been planning to blow up some train tracks on or around the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. So there are at least two reasons why Schumer's proposal is stupid:
One, it's closing the barn door after the horses have run out. Bin Laden is now dead, his plans discovered and publicized. I for one doubt that his organization is so well organized that it will just pick up and implement these plans -- which were so inexact or incomplete that they didn't include a precise date or location for the event -- without their leader. And even if they could, why would they keep on with a plan that the government is now aware of?
While it would be dead simple to bring the Northeast Corridor to its knees by strategically blowing up a single bomb somewhere between D.C. and Boston, it's apparently difficult to arrange. I'm actually flabbergasted that it hasn't been done yet. It's like 450 miles of very vulnerable and largely unsecured track. Are terrorists stupid? Incompetent? Badly organized? I don't know. But it seems to be it would be a hell of a lot easier to carry out than the 9/11 operation.
Two, and really I think this is the more important point, how will preventing a suspect from entering onto a train prevent him from planting a bomb on the tracks on which the train runs?
I mean, really.
Heaven forbid women should serve at the highest levels of government
Did you hear the one about the religious zealots who are so upset at women serving at high levels in the national government that they illegally wipe them out of official photographs in which they appear?
Brooklyn's Hasidic newspaper Di Tzeitung printed, on the front page and above the fold, the White House's official photo of President Obama and his security team watching the bin Laden raid. You've seen the photo, I'm sure. But the image you've seen isn't the one the newspaper printed. Rather, they censored it, removing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who is in an office that is "three chickenbones" away from the Presidency) and national security official Audrey Tomason, Director for Counterterrorism.
Trying to figure out why the newspaper editors cut the two women from the photograph. Tomason's shirt was too low-cut? Both women's heads were unshaved, and uncovered at that? Did the newspaper find that they hadn't yet had their post-menstrual mikveh and their panties checked? (BTW, that second link there makes for some fantastic lunch break reading. Start at page 1 of 9.) That is to say, presumably, the newspaper wiped them from the photo for religious woman-hating reasons. But isn't there also a religious admonition against deceit?
So here's the censored photo, via Failed Messiah, the blog that I understand to have first broken this story. I can't seem to find the Di Tzeitung newspaper online(because the Internet is too contaminated by all the immodest, unclean women who use it?) EDIT: because everybody misspelled it, and differently, so I couldn't successfully Google it the day I wrote this post:
And here's the original, which a few people have pointed out was released with the express instruction from the government that it not be "manipulated in any way":
And here's one that's been making the rounds, proscription on manipulation be damned:
But my point, and I do have one, is this. Imagine if women had not been oppressed for the past 5,000 years. And I don't mean to say that there is zero oppression of women any more; for just the latest example, see Indiana's plan to cut off its federal family planning dollars nose to spite its face, or recent figures of the ratio of men to women in engineering education (some 20%). But just imagine. If girls and women had been allowed into schools of philosophy, medicine, sciences, and engineering over the centuries, how far along in technology would the world be now? Would we still be spinning our wheels with fossil fuels? How many problems, challenges, wars could have been resolved more quickly, and intellectual advances been made sooner, if half the world's population had not been barred from participating on account of their sex?
Take that Audrey Tomason, for instance. I don't know what a Director for Counterterrorism does, or even exactly what agency or office her directorship is in. But I assume that she was the most qualified individual for the job. And something about her job and her expertise won her a ticket to be in that room to watch the live video of Navy SEALs popping terrorists. My guess is that she, or the people she directs, were indispensable for the operation to succeed, or actually probably simply to take place. What if she were barred from her job merely because she's a woman? What if the next most qualified person were also a woman? In other words, what if the most qualified man for the job had gotten the directorship over Tomason and who knows how many other women due solely to his sex, even though he wasn't as well qualified for the work as Tomason? The President stated that the mission had barely more than even odds of succeeding. Who wants to make the odds worse by not allowing the best people to fill the highest posts in the government?
Religious zealots, that's who.
Di Tzeitung published the doctored photo on Friday. Will any mainstream news outlets call them out on their front-page lies, or will it just be low-level bloggers like me? Oh, and the New York Daily News.
Brooklyn's Hasidic newspaper Di Tzeitung printed, on the front page and above the fold, the White House's official photo of President Obama and his security team watching the bin Laden raid. You've seen the photo, I'm sure. But the image you've seen isn't the one the newspaper printed. Rather, they censored it, removing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who is in an office that is "three chickenbones" away from the Presidency) and national security official Audrey Tomason, Director for Counterterrorism.
Trying to figure out why the newspaper editors cut the two women from the photograph. Tomason's shirt was too low-cut? Both women's heads were unshaved, and uncovered at that? Did the newspaper find that they hadn't yet had their post-menstrual mikveh and their panties checked? (BTW, that second link there makes for some fantastic lunch break reading. Start at page 1 of 9.) That is to say, presumably, the newspaper wiped them from the photo for religious woman-hating reasons. But isn't there also a religious admonition against deceit?
So here's the censored photo, via Failed Messiah, the blog that I understand to have first broken this story. I can't seem to find the Di Tzeitung newspaper online
And here's the original, which a few people have pointed out was released with the express instruction from the government that it not be "manipulated in any way":
And here's one that's been making the rounds, proscription on manipulation be damned:
But my point, and I do have one, is this. Imagine if women had not been oppressed for the past 5,000 years. And I don't mean to say that there is zero oppression of women any more; for just the latest example, see Indiana's plan to cut off its federal family planning dollars nose to spite its face, or recent figures of the ratio of men to women in engineering education (some 20%). But just imagine. If girls and women had been allowed into schools of philosophy, medicine, sciences, and engineering over the centuries, how far along in technology would the world be now? Would we still be spinning our wheels with fossil fuels? How many problems, challenges, wars could have been resolved more quickly, and intellectual advances been made sooner, if half the world's population had not been barred from participating on account of their sex?
Take that Audrey Tomason, for instance. I don't know what a Director for Counterterrorism does, or even exactly what agency or office her directorship is in. But I assume that she was the most qualified individual for the job. And something about her job and her expertise won her a ticket to be in that room to watch the live video of Navy SEALs popping terrorists. My guess is that she, or the people she directs, were indispensable for the operation to succeed, or actually probably simply to take place. What if she were barred from her job merely because she's a woman? What if the next most qualified person were also a woman? In other words, what if the most qualified man for the job had gotten the directorship over Tomason and who knows how many other women due solely to his sex, even though he wasn't as well qualified for the work as Tomason? The President stated that the mission had barely more than even odds of succeeding. Who wants to make the odds worse by not allowing the best people to fill the highest posts in the government?
Religious zealots, that's who.
Di Tzeitung published the doctored photo on Friday. Will any mainstream news outlets call them out on their front-page lies, or will it just be low-level bloggers like me? Oh, and the New York Daily News.
A brief note referencing this blog's namesake
The role of the namesake of this blog in a secret U.S. government project has been referenced in an article about wacky conspiracy theories that turned out, after all, to be true ("Sometimes They're Right" at The Daily Caller). Though I think I'm supposed to say that I can neither confirm nor deny that such an article exists.
On prospective clients who don't hire me
There are two ways to deal with a prospective client who doesn't hire you, and actually they aren't mutually exclusive ways.
One is to say to yourself, Well, that's too bad. I wonder what I could have done differently to get that party to hire me. I think I did an honest evaluation of the hours it would take me to do the work, leaving off the self-education hour to make sure I do it right (because we live in the future now, where new lawyers aren't hired by firms and don't get the early-career mentorship that lawyers of past generations used to get). Then I gave a competitive rate for those hours and explained to the party why they should hire a lawyer rather than use forms they download from the Internet. They didn't hire me, and that's their loss. Let's take a lesson and see what I should say to the next prospective client that will make them more likely than this party to hire me.
The other way is to say to yourself, Well, we'll see how it goes when one person in the management team exits this penny-wise, pound-foolish enterprise, and they don't have an agreement in place for dividing the business, and they have to go by the Commonwealth's default rules, which will make nobody happy and will result in at least one member getting away with far more than they deserve and another member getting totally screwed. It will happen, and they could avoid it, and I'll still be in my office blogging away saying, "I told you so" while they're crying to a court and pleading with their creditors.
Not mutually exclusive, no; you just have to be careful to blog the second reaction anonymously.
One is to say to yourself, Well, that's too bad. I wonder what I could have done differently to get that party to hire me. I think I did an honest evaluation of the hours it would take me to do the work, leaving off the self-education hour to make sure I do it right (because we live in the future now, where new lawyers aren't hired by firms and don't get the early-career mentorship that lawyers of past generations used to get). Then I gave a competitive rate for those hours and explained to the party why they should hire a lawyer rather than use forms they download from the Internet. They didn't hire me, and that's their loss. Let's take a lesson and see what I should say to the next prospective client that will make them more likely than this party to hire me.
The other way is to say to yourself, Well, we'll see how it goes when one person in the management team exits this penny-wise, pound-foolish enterprise, and they don't have an agreement in place for dividing the business, and they have to go by the Commonwealth's default rules, which will make nobody happy and will result in at least one member getting away with far more than they deserve and another member getting totally screwed. It will happen, and they could avoid it, and I'll still be in my office blogging away saying, "I told you so" while they're crying to a court and pleading with their creditors.
Not mutually exclusive, no; you just have to be careful to blog the second reaction anonymously.
03 May 2011
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. And the more we tip the bartender, the more frequently he hands out free dishes of chips and dips. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: A discussion of the various conspiracy theories as to whether Osama bin Laden was actually killed over the weekend, or whether he was killed years ago and had been kept in carbonite until President Obama needed a political diversion.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: A discussion of the various conspiracy theories as to whether Osama bin Laden was actually killed over the weekend, or whether he was killed years ago and had been kept in carbonite until President Obama needed a political diversion.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
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