Profiles in Hypocrisy

Sen. Joseph Lieberman always used to deplore the filibuster. Win or lose he wanted an honest vote, majority wins. But now he will support a filibuster to prevent a majority vote from occurring. What is so important as to cause the senator to reverse his principled stand against parliamentary chicanery? This long time crusader for states rights and individual freedom is determined to block a bill which would grant states rights to offer their citizens the free choice of government run health insurance like that which Sen. Lieberman himself has enjoyed as a senator for the past twenty years.

Could it be that ole Joe is owned by the insurance industry? He wouldn’t be the only one, and Democrats feature as prominently in the campaign finance disclosures as do Republicans. In the end each congressman will show with his vote whether his loyalty is to the citizens of his district or to the lobbyists who keep him in power, influence, and money.

Congress show the courage of your health care convictions

A letter to my representatives…

I am writing to urge you to support health care reform. There must be some public option and it must be an OPTION not mandatory. Doctors and patients should be the primary decision makers. But one thing worse than a government bureaucrat making medical decisions is an insurance company bureaucrat making medical decisions, motivated exclusively by profit and accountable to no one.

Until the bill is passed and signed into law I ask Congress to bolster its determination to stand up to the special interests and make the necessary compromises. Do this by passing a bill to eliminate the public option health care for members of Congress and the White House. Let you all go out on the private insurance market and buy your own health coverage with whatever pre-existing condition restrictions the insurers wish to impose. The experience could concentrate your minds wonderfully to the task at hand.

here I am at work

Fortunately that’s not my current boss but a previous boss.

Migrants lured by social services

Some in the U.S. have long complained that illegal immigrants from Mexico are a net drain on society because they use social services like hospital emergency rooms without paying their share of taxes. Now there is hard data showing that indeed large numbers of migrants are crossing the US-Mexico border drawn by available medical care.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-08-31-mexico-health-care_N.htm

Oh, did I mention that the border crossers are headed South? They’re moving to Mexico in order to buy into the state run health plan.

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Did the US really engineer the 1953 coup?

I’ve been listening to The Persian Night (see previous post) for perspective on the current troubles in Iran. Author Amir Taheri makes the remarkable claim that the US was not behind the coup that restored the Shah to power and overthrew a democratically elected government – the provocation which caused the 1979 seizure of the US embassy and decades of poisoned relations between the two countries. Taheri claims:

• Iran’s government was not a democracy. Mosaddeq was prime minister of a constitutional monarchy, appointed at the pleasure of the Shah. Mosaddeq had illegally dismissed parliament and defied a royal order removing him from his post, and was ruling as dictator.
• The US and Britain did have plans to incite protests to support the Shah reclaiming his legal authority, but these plans failed utterly. Mosaddeq was toppled by the people, and by the communists.
• The CIA and the Soviet Union, for very different reasons, found it helpful to promote the myth that it was CIA actions which deposed Mosaddeq.

History is too subjective, and current history even worse, so we must ask who is Amir Taheri and how objective is he? Taheri has many outspoken critics, and he must be either a pathological liar or an excellent journalist who has earned the hatred of his enemies. Or maybe he is a bit of both. George Washington University hosts the National Security Archives including the only contemporary documentation of events of that day, and published a book, Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran. The source document which GWU posts does indeed say the CIA operation was a failure in words which Taheri quoted accurately in his book. However the book seems to conclude – based just on bits I’ve read on the web – that the CIA and British Intelligence nevertheless helped to create the conditions which resulted in the coup. And it was described as “quasi-legal” in that it was restoring the legal ruler of the country in place of a dictator; but had the Shah not agreed then the CIA would have gone ahead anyway.

Some say that monarchists (like Taheri) commonly hold the fantasy that the 1953 coup was a popular uprising. Further complicating this tangled web of subjectivity, many supporters and detractors of Taheri cast their arguments in terms of US politics, left versus right. Taheri is a neo-con, and so if you’re a Red Stater you must trust him implicitly and if you’re a Blue Stater you must reject him completely. This seems completely off base to me. I can’t claim to understand Iranian policis, and neither should the U.S. pundits trying to understand it in our terms. I understand enough to know that Iranians have many very different concerns than we do. I don’t think you could characterize Mosaddeq or Pahlavi as left or right, let alone Ahmadenijad, Khamenei, Mousavi, Rafsanjani, etc. I guess that false mapping has a long standing basis, since it was a Democratic president (Truman) who supported Mosaddeq and a Republican president (Eisenhower) who oversaw the CIA plot against him. But such simple minded thinking could lead us to believe that if Mousavi took power, he would be an Iranian Barack Obama.

Mosaddeq

12th century poet passes judgment

“Look at our times. A handful of imposter clerics, having learned a couple of Suras for deceit, having no notion of reason and science, unaware of what man is about, desperate like asses in search of fodder. All they care about is eating and fornicating. They fear not God, have no shame of men. They have cast aside notions of honor. They seek nothing but loot and plunder. Alien they are to the rules of Faith. Oh unique Prophet of God, for your sake your uma for the sake of Allah, rise from your garden tomb in Medina. Behold who is ruling your followers. Oh Muslims, the time has come to send the Koran back to heaven for although its name is still with us its content has come to naught.”

- حکیم ابوالمجد مجدود ‌بن آدم سنایی غزنوی

- Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā’ī Ghaznavi, 1080-1131

As related in The Persian Night by Amir Taheri

http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Night-under-Khomeinist-Revolution/dp/1594032408

http://www.emusic.com/audiobooks/book/Amir-Taheri-The-Persian-Night-MP3-Download/10032063.html

Street Smart hybrid electric bicycle

Last weekend I went to Street Smart San Diego where, among many interesting booths, they offered test rides of various hybrid electric bicycles. I really liked the Eneloop from Sanyo which is coming to the U.S. this Fall. It’s not just an electric assisted bicycle (in the spirit of "mild hybrid" automobiles) but a hybrid integrated drive (in the spirit of Toyota’s hybrid synergy drive. You don’t have to think about controlling the electric motor. The way you ask for power is to pedal, and the bike matches your effort 2-to-1 at low speeds and 1-to-1 at high speeds. Coast on a slight downhill and it reclaims some energy to recharge the battery. Brake and it reclaims more.