On the inherent fallibility of phone survey data:
Breslin original
Counterpunch commentary

Posted by: æ | Sep 20 2004 16:48 utc | 3

Amazing the decline of the average lifespane in the US.
Twenty years ago, the US, the richest nation on the planet, led the world’s longevity league. Today, American women rank only 19th, while males can manage only 28th place, alongside men from Brunei.
—
This decline is astonishing given America’s wealth. Not only is it Earth’s richest nation, it devotes more gross domestic product – 13 per cent – to health care than any other developed nation. Switzerland comes next with 10 per cent; Britain spends 7 per cent. As the Boston group – Alicia Munnell, Robert Hatch and James Lee – point out: ‘The richer a country is, the more resources it can dedicate to education, medical and other goods and services associated with great longevity.’ The result in every other developed country has been an unbroken rise in life expectancy since 1960.
—
Jacobs and Morone state: ‘Check-ups, screenings and vaccinations save lives, improve well-being, and are shockingly uneven [in America]. Well-insured people get assigned hospital beds; the uninsured get patched up and sent back to the streets.’ For poor Americans, health service provision is little better than that in third world nations. ‘People die younger in Harlem than in Bangladesh,’ report Jacobs and Morone.
This brings up the question – what in the US is not declining?
Lifespan crisis hits supersize America

Posted by: Fran | Sep 20 2004 18:25 utc | 5

Pursuant to America’s Ill-Health
“In other words, as the nation’s middle-aged fatties reach retirement age, more and more will start to die out. Life expectancy in the US could then actually go into decline.
The voice of God says: the article is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1307954,00.html
Matthew says: killing off the poor fatties with cheeseburger diets is also a cool way of insuring that they never live long enough to collect on their social security so we have more money to give away to halliburton
The voice of God says: plus, buy stock in McDonalds!
Matthew says: yes, with privatized social security, americans can have their assets forceably invested in corporations that take steps to make sure they never live long enough to claim the benefits
The voice of God says: frankly, you have to admire the brilliance of it on some, sick level.
Matthew says: yeah
The voice of God says: on the other hand, it’s another reason not to smoke, if you care to think about it. cheeseburger or cigarette, you don’t have the financial means to manage your condition, but that Hummer owner you were behind at a stoplight yesterday sure does.
Matthew says: well, all of government is really a scam to get the resources of poor bastards into the hands of rich bastards
Matthew says: it’s really strikingly obvious but it took reading about how the English did this sort of thing to the Indians and Africans to drive it home for me
Matthew says: I mean, if we could go out every day and hunt/gather what we needed, who would give a fuck, right? Since we can’t, the society that took that ability away from us owes us something
The voice of God says: well, i’d say that’s true of somebunall governments. For example, while there’s not doubt some degree of that in, e.g. Holland, it’s consideribly less so than here.
Matthew says: but really, the that’s the whole point – making subsistence impossible by virtue of the need to pay taxes in currency and then squeezing the money out
Matthew says: take halliburton
The voice of God says: sure, and get a good state religion going to convince people that it’s all going to better after they’re dead… again- it’s sick but it’s not stupid.
Matthew says: a bunch of poor fucks get money taken from them (out of their checks), and it gets given to halliburton, who writes a big check to dick cheney
The voice of God says: dick cheney before cheney dicks you, baby!
(TVoG = æ; Matthew = my buddy Matt; We’re trying to help each other quit smoking, BTW. Next goal for me after the degree.)

Posted by: æ | Sep 20 2004 19:58 utc | 7

@Fran 2:25
Debt is not declining.
But with shorter lifespan the social security cost will sink dramatically as will the pension costs for companies. This could help to turn around the debt situation too. If the lifespan sinks further unemployment may also decrease.

Posted by: b | Sep 20 2004 20:46 utc | 9

VODKA ANYONE?

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 20 2004 21:04 utc | 11

Americans are greedy and refuse to and have been brainwashed into putting their money into high yield mutual funds instead of local banks and bonds that fund local projects (muni bonds).
Foriegners aren’t as greedy and are willing to take the 3-5% return on bonds backed by the American taxpayer. We have thus become slaves to foriegn bond holders.
Further, there has been a drastic shift in spending priorities from domestic spending during the Clinton years to military spending that only benefits states that have bases and contractors.
Also, when you hear a financial analyst talk about how deficit spending doesn’t hurt the economy if stays at a certain percent of gross domestic product, that is plan bullshit. When there was a balanced budget during the Clinton years, that meant money was looking for investment opportunities instead of going into bonds. The economy took off and private investment boomed in the late 1990s.
Now, everyone will say there was a stock bubble. I disagree. What happened is Bushie with his deficit spending and tax cut on capital gains burst the market bubble and money fled to housing and government bonds. Safe harbors that wouldn’t attract that money there if the government weren’t borrowing so much money. Further, the fed manipulated the market by contracting the money supply causing the shift to other financial instruments and safe harbors such as real estate.
Tell me where I’m wrong.

Posted by: jdp | Sep 20 2004 21:23 utc | 13

r’giap, I’ve only just been reading up on some of the posts I missed, and I read about your diabetes. I’m very sorry. But you sound great, oh steely one.

Posted by: teuton | Sep 20 2004 23:23 utc | 15

John McCain says:
“We’re not going to have those national elections until we get rid of the sanctuaries. We’ve got to go in there, we’re going to have to sustain tragically some more casualties and the longer we delay with these sanctuaries, the more difficult the challenge is going to be and the more casualties we will incur and the Iraqi people will suffer.”
Juan Cole says:
John, you ignorant slut.
Experience and common sense say:
Guerilla movements cannot be effectively countered by conventional forces. What do we have a lot of in Iraq? Conventional forces. OTOH, the job in Iraq is just too large for unconventional forces. Where does this leave us? In a bad place.
Christopher Allbritton at Back to Iraq is finishing up a Time magazine story and heading off on a two-week vacation. “Iraq is now a powder keg,” he writes. And while he hopes it doesn’t blow, if it does he wants it to wait until he’s back in town to cover the eruption. A good reporter is like that and we can at least be thankful that a few continue to exist.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 21 2004 0:10 utc | 17

There is a very interesting interview with Seymour Hersh up at Salon.com referencing his new book.
Hersh sees the current Iraqi debacle as equal mixtures of utopianism, fantasy, and incompetence on the part of the Neoclowns that run defense policy in this administration.
About the best analysis I have seen in 3-4 months.
When you decide to pick easy low-hanging fruit from trees, and don’t know anything about the nature of orchards, a debacle is what you get.
Well worth a read. I think readers can get a free day pass over there.

Posted by: J. Appleseed | Sep 21 2004 0:29 utc | 19

@koreyel, 4:00
you just made me choke on my cheeseburger

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 21 2004 0:45 utc | 21

Al Lorenz is a Civil Affairs NCO in Iraq. (Those guys, almost all reservists, are worth their weight in gold.) At lewrockwell.com he tells us Why We Can’t Win the War:
…First, we refuse to deal in reality. We are in a guerilla war, but because of politics, we are not allowed to declare it a guerilla war and must label the increasingly effective guerilla forces arrayed against us as “terrorists, criminals and dead-enders.”
This implies that there is a zero sum game at work, i.e. we can simply kill X number of the enemy and then the fight is over, mission accomplished, everybody wins. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We have few tools at our disposal and those are proving to be wholly ineffective at fighting the guerillas.
The idea behind fighting a guerilla army is not to destroy its every man (an impossibility since he hides himself by day amongst the populace). Rather the idea in guerilla warfare is to erode or destroy his base of support.
So long as there is support for the guerilla, for every one you kill two more rise up to take his place. More importantly, when your tools for killing him are precision guided munitions, raids and other acts that create casualties among the innocent populace, you raise the support for the guerillas and undermine the support for yourself. (A 500-pound precision bomb has a casualty-producing radius of 400 meters minimum; do the math.)
Second, our assessment of what motivates the average Iraqi was skewed, again by politically motivated “experts.” We came here with some fantasy idea that the natives were all ignorant, mud-hut dwelling camel riders who would line the streets and pelt us with rose petals, lay palm fronds in the street and be eternally grateful. While at one time there may have actually been support and respect from the locals, months of occupation by our regular military forces have turned the formerly friendly into the recently hostile.
Attempts to correct the thinking in this regard are in vain; it is not politically correct to point out the fact that the locals are not only disliking us more and more, they are growing increasingly upset and often overtly hostile. Instead of addressing the reasons why the locals are becoming angry and discontented, we allow politicians in Washington DC to give us pat and convenient reasons that are devoid of any semblance of reality.
[There’s more.]

Posted by: Pat | Sep 21 2004 0:54 utc | 23

Jim Henley at Unqualified Offerings:
(H)ere’s a short history of the future in which we launch our drive to retake “rebel-held areas of Iraq” right after the November elections.
Tacitus writes something rueful but stirring, full of sorrow that this necessary step was so long delayed but grimly reassured that at last the country is meeting its responsibilities. Even I am moved, briefly. Dan Darling [at Regnum Crucis] posts an impressive-looking order of battle followed by vatic pronouncements about the certain doom facing the enemy. Someone named Trent Telenko appends 50 comments about how we “Jacksonians” are going to end up having to kill all the Muslims anyway, not that the idea gives him any pleasure, you understand. The newspapers all report that military spokespeople announce that hundreds/thousands of insurgents/terrorists/guerrillas/anti-Iraqi forces/deadenders/rebels have been killed. Some newspapers pick the wrong term from the list of options in an article or two and Glenn Reynolds links to 50 bloggers expressing their outrage. The [weblog] Command Post goes into overdrive, and does an excellent job of posting breaking news. Foreign news sources have the bad taste to show dead bodies, proving that they are not patriotic Americans at all. Somebody stops to add up the Fermi numbers of enemy casualties and compares it to public estimates of the size of the resistance back in Fall 2003. This person does not get linked by Glenn Reynolds. Mark Steyn reprints his annual column about how the press is ignoring the good news from Iraq. Military spokespeople announce that they believe they might be very close to capturing or killing someone who may be either Abu Zarqawi or a popular female impersonator come to Anbar province to perform at an anniversary party in the desert. Most importantly, military spokespeople announce that we’re winning, and soon thereafter, that we’ve won. Iraqi police and army units are bused into recaptured towns with great fanfare. We actually capture or kill Abu Zarqawi. Cries of triumph ring from NRO to Little Green Footballs.
And then it unravels over the next few weeks and months, on schedule. The inside pages of the nation’s newspapers note that some of those Iraqi police and army units aren’t showing up for work every day, and a few of them may, may you understand, be supplying weapons to the rebels. Oh yeah. It turns out there are still rebels out there. Some IEDs go off. A few suicide bombs. A brief quiet becomes decidedly less so. Some version of an election is held, at the end of which various personages pronounce themselves unsatisfied. None of these people work in the White House. It dawns that arrangements to turn security over to “Iraqi army and police units” amount to reestablishing No-Go zones. Military spokespeople caution reporters that there may be a spike in violence in the runup to the inauguration of the new government since “that’s what the insurgents most fear.” Hawks darkly mutter that they’d have gotten away with it too, if not for those treasonous doves.
Then the whole cycle starts again, because that’s how hell works. [Google ‘Sysiphus.’]

Posted by: Pat | Sep 21 2004 2:21 utc | 25

@Kate Storm:
Thank you for the link to R. Giap’s reference.
Doctorow is a very powerful writer.
What better indictment of Bush could there be than that.
I read mostly history. Will have to catch up on the last 35 years of literature. I’ll start with D.
Thanks

Posted by: J. Appleseed | Sep 21 2004 4:04 utc | 27

Christopher Preble at the Cato Institute says A Democratically Elected Government in Iraq May Not Be Friendly to the US:
…The Bush administration hopes that Iraqis will replace Saddam Hussein’s secular socialism with a new breed of secular liberalism. This ideal government would be committed to free enterprise, respect the rights of women, be tolerant toward ethnic and religious minorities, be favorably disposed towards Israel, and open and hospitable for American diplomats and businessmen.
But what if Shi’a Muslims, who comprise over 60 percent of the total population of Iraq, elect a leader with ties to Iran – a democracy, but one in which religious mullahs dominate political life, suppress dissent, are building nuclear weapons, and fund terrorism? What if ethnic Kurds, emboldened by their relative autonomy from the last 12 years, choose leaders committed to full-fledged statehood, independent of Iraq? What if a host of candidates split the votes of Shiites and Kurds, while minority Sunni Muslims unite behind a former Baath Party official?
In short, if a democratic election, reflecting the honest and freely expressed wishes of the Iraqi people, produces a leader deemed insufficiently committed to Washington’s goals, the Bush administration will be forced to affirm or reject its alleged attachment to the principle of democracy.
When protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago taunted their opponents with the chant “The whole world is watching,” there was more than a little hyperbole in their claim. Thirty-five years ago television was prevalent in the United States, but it was just beginning to blanket the globe.
Times have changed. Today, hundreds of millions of television viewers in the Arab and Muslim world watch live broadcasts from sympathetic satellite news networks that didn’t exist even 10 years ago. And if the Bush administration engineers an un-free election in post-Hussein Iraq, limited to candidates pre-approved by Washington, many will see this as confirmation of their long-held suspicions that this entire war had nothing to do with spreading democracy.
The whole world is watching.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 21 2004 5:19 utc | 29

Bush can not and will not win the war in Iraq for one simple reason, he is not Arab. If he wants the oil or just wants to protect Israel, his army will be there forever. Another 300,000 troops and equipment will be needed for Iran, 100,000 and equipment for Sudan (If he wants to keep the chinese away from their oil). Then there’s Syria, Lebanon, and if he pisses off Turkey a little more and what if Pakistan decides they have had enough of his bullshit. And. What about the coalition of the un-willing; France, Germany, Spain, Canada, Mexico, most of south America, China, Russia, ( You are either with us or against us!) Jeez.. I forgot North Korea and holy shit even South Korea has been sneaking in some unaccounted for nuclear research and developement.
I guess i’m a little carried away here, but,is this man nuts or what?

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 21 2004 6:09 utc | 31

Pat– you’re on fire, would pay a whole lot more than money to see JC play the Akroyd to McCain’s Curtain call.
Sassybelle – Jerome has had some tragedy in his own life to deal with–details at the annex.
Richard– great letter, put the slammed the disraeli gears into low to ramp the spinzones tires up that mountain.
…..Anybody still weeping go to Zogby, the cat is dead, with rigormortis, and it is not bouncing.
….Finally, don’t forget the only thing Rovians can do successfully is TV….any minute now real events will smack them upside the head to good effect (hopefully it will not be a tragic, but instead a comic, event).

Posted by: RossK | Sep 21 2004 6:34 utc | 33

U.S. to sell Israel 5,000 smart bombs
hmm – not really “sell”. The US taxpayer will also be served the bill.

The United States will sell Israel 5,000 smart bombs for $319 million, according to a report made to Congress a few weeks ago.
The funding will come from the U.S. military aid to Israel, and the bombs range from airborne versions, guidance units, training bombs and detonators.
…
Government sources said the bomb deal, one of the largest weapons deals of recent years, did not face any political difficulties, despite the use Israel has made of U.S.-made F-16s in some of its assassinations in the territorie
…
The government sources said Israel will not be asking for any new weapons systems or purchases until after the upcoming November elections.

Posted by: b | Sep 21 2004 7:49 utc | 35

Bill Gertz has a piece at the WaTimes on the potential for an al Qaeda strike within the US between now and the inauguration. His sources are generic and he has no new information to add. It’s like the WH coming out and “predicting” that violence will increase in Iraq and Afghanistan in the time period leading up to one or another “milestone event.”
The anonymous author of Imperial Hubris points out (as does Juan Cole) that al Qaeda doesn’t have to carry out an attack within the US to bolser its position. The war in Iraq – and failures in Afghanistan – have done that already.
But what al Qaeda would be seeking to do is to drive home the “lesson” of Iraq and Afghanistan (that is, our powerlessness) on American soil. I can think of no more painful blow. I don’t think anyone else can either.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 21 2004 9:39 utc | 37

That be Lucinda Williams (above)
sorry

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 21 2004 9:49 utc | 39

clueless joe
i thank you for your thoughts & at the moment not so good – am having enormous shifts – extremely high & extremely low on the same day – i imagine the hospitalisation is to regulate that but i am resisting it – like most of us i am a little scared of hospitals
& my body is experiencing so many changes including what they call ‘transitory blindness’ & as i have only one eye that functions in any case(perhaps that explains my unreconstructed althusserianism)& don’t feel i have a lott of room to manouevre – gave a seminar today on james agee’s ‘let us now praise famous men’ & in the middle of it i experience a feeling of losing conciousness as if i have fallen off a bike – in any case – i am a little frightened & a little in wonder at the lessons my body is teaching me
if anyone here knows anything or know any links with diabetes 1 – i would be very thankful – as i think my ignorance of what is happening is not helping matters & perhaps causing unnecessary irritation
soory to male this call here – but some days i’m a little close to panic & my doctors are a little too elliptic for the moment
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 21 2004 16:55 utc | 41

@r´giap
It´s not that easy to train the right amount and timing(!) of providing insuline and calories to the body. That´s why a few days in hospital will help. Tip from my father: Allways carry a piece of sugar in your pocket. If it feels as if you faint it is usually to little sugar in your system – take a piece and you will be fine in just a few minutes.
Diabetes Insight seems to be a good start – lots of links (left menue “www-links”, then top menue “new and summary)
International Diabetes Federation partly industry funded, but some links.
National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse

Posted by: b | Sep 21 2004 17:36 utc | 43

i have done a quick scan kate & b
it will really be a great help
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 21 2004 18:13 utc | 45

Can’t Let the Cat In

Posted by: Harry Chapin | Sep 22 2004 3:53 utc | 47