U.S. Congress begins its repeal of Obamacare

January 14, 2017 • 1:45 pm

I can’t tell you how much dread I feel knowing that, one week from today, Donald Trump will begin his first full day as President of the United States. “President Trump”! Would any of us have not laughed at that possibility a year ago?

Well, the nightmare is about to begin. We’re going to get a young and extremely conservative Supreme Court justice to replace Scalia, ensuring a right-wing Court for years to come, and both houses of Congress are majority Republican, which all but ensures that Trump will get his agenda passed. And we have a mentally unstable president driven solely by his ego and hatred of criticism.

Now the Republicans, as promised, are beginning their repeal of “Obamacare.” Yesterday, according to The Atlantic and many other venues, the House of Representatives voted by 227-198, largely along Party lines (a few brave Republicans voted with the Democrats), to begin its repeal of the healthcare law. (The Senate voted the same way earlier in the week.) The first step was a measure called “budget reconciliation”:

What Congress approved this week was a necessary procedural step giving Republicans the power to repeal the tax and spending provisions of Obamacare, and the party demonstrated the ability to overcome some internal resistance to moving so quickly to dismantle the system enacted by President Obama and congressional Democrats.

The next step is to actually repeal Obamacare, which requires strong Republican support, and that won’t be as easy given the consequences if that law isn’t replaced by another that gives poor people some kind of healthcare. After all, over 20 million people have benefited from Obamacare, and, as House minority leader Nancy Pelosi admitted yesterday, the Democrats were far poorer at advertising their successes than at getting the bill passed in the first place.  If Republicans are simply going to take away healthcare from 20 million citizens without a replacement, they’re going to look mighty bad.

So what will their healthcare plan look like? I have no idea, but can’t imagine that it will be better than Obamacare, flawed as it was. And, although I consider myself reasonably informed on American politics—but not nearly informed as many readers here—I can’t for the life of me see any reasons why the Republicans are dismantling Obamacare save two:

1). They want to elminate an important part of Obama’s legacy, and do it as fast as possible.

2). They don’t like poor people and don’t particularly care if they have reasonably-priced access to healthcare. Their palaver about the costs of Obamacare is simply a smokescreen for their anti-poor agenda.

Some of you may poo-poo the second reason, but over the years Republicans have shown a persistent callousness toward the poor, adhering as they do to a “just world” theory that the poor deserve what they get. But as determinists we know that isn’t true: poor people are the victims of their genes and environments, not poor “choices”. This is one reason why determinism needs to be embraced by people (especially Republicans), for it breeds more empathy towards the dispossessed.

I am scared about what will happen to America within a week, and of course that will affect other nations as well. Our president will be an overgrown, emotion-ridden baby who has no idea what he’s doing; his one agenda is to puff himself up and tear down his enemies, and, I suspect, he doesn’t give a damn about what happens to America in the process.

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And while we’re on the topic of Trump, I refer you to reader Heather Hastie’s new post, informative as always, “Why Trump’s tax cuts probably won’t create the jobs he promises.“

Indonesia goes south as sharia law spreads

January 14, 2017 • 12:45 pm

Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world, and is often seen as more modern than its Middle Eastern counterparts. We would hope, then, that if Islam is to become more moderate, Indonesia would serve as a bellwether for that change.

Sadly, it seems to be the opposite. As reported in Thursday’s New York Times, One province, Aceh, established full sharia law 15 years ago, and the rest of the country seems to be following suit.

In Aceh, women are required to dress modestly, alcohol is prohibited, and numerous offenses — from adultery to homosexuality to selling alcohol — are punishable by public whipping.

Here’s a guy about to be publicly whipped for “dating outside marriage”. Now I’m not sure if that’s adultery, but whatever it is doesn’t deserve public shaming.

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(from NYT): August. The youth was punished for dating outside marriage, which is against Shariah, or Islamic law. Credit Chaideer Mahyuddin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The NYT further reports:

In the decade and a half since, Indonesia as a whole has drifted in a conservative direction, and Aceh, once an outlier, has become a model for other regions of the country seeking to impose their own Shariah-based ordinances, alarming those who worry about the nation’s drift from secularism.

“Whenever Aceh issues a law, saying it’s the highest order of Shariah, it provokes others to do the same thing,” said Andy Yentriani, a former commissioner on Indonesia’s National Commission on Violence Against Women, who wants the national government to repeal certain Shariah-based regulations as violations of the Indonesian Constitution.

A recent study found that more than 442 Shariah-based ordinances have been passed throughout the nation since 1999, when Jakarta gave provinces and districts substantial powers to make their own laws. These include regulations concerning female attire, the mixing of the sexes and alcohol.

Before Aceh instituted sharia law, there were discos, alcohol, and the sexes intermingled freely. The discos and booze are gone now, and sexes sit apart at any public gathering. And things don’t look like they’re getting better.

Islamist leaders from outside the province are hoping to push things further here. In late December, Rizieq Shihab, a firebrand preacher who leads the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front, a national organization that led the campaign to have Jakarta’s Christian governor prosecuted on blasphemy charges, gave a fiery speech before a crowd in Banda Aceh.

“When Islam first came to Indonesia it entered through Aceh, correct?” he asked the crowd. “Correct!” the crowd thundered back.

“Aceh is a model for the entire Indonesian nation,” the preacher continued. “It must become the locomotive for the movement to apply Shariah law throughout Indonesia. Agreed?” he asked the crowd.

Is there any Muslim-majority country in the world becoming more moderate and less Islamist? I would have said Turkey a few years ago, but that was before Recep Erdoğan and his dictatorial incipient theocracy. I can’t think of any nations that fill the bill. It looks like Islam’s oppression of gays, apostates, atheists, and women will continue to grow, and, as I’m not a cultural relativist, that’s something frightening to contemplate.

h/t: Diane G.

Forbes’s choice of best popular biology books of 2016

January 14, 2017 • 11:30 am

As I’m out at a meeting in Los Angeles (with a hotel room having a lovely view of the LAX runways–seriously, it’s cool: photo at bottom), I can’t really post much on science, which requires reading a paper several times and then having a lot of time to write about it. So for today’s biology fix, let me just leave a link to an article in Forbes, where GrrlScientist names her ten best popular science books of 2016. Rather than list them, I’ll give her photo of the group. She gives longer descriptions in her text:

biolscibooks

Now I haven’t read any of these yet, though Matthew Cobb reviewed Mukherjee’s book in Nature, where he gave it a mixed but generally positive assessment. A book about domestic cats, The Lion in the Living Room, is, according to GrrlScientist, largely about toxoplasmosis, in contrast to a book I once wanted to write—one about the biology of house cats and how it reflects evolution in their ancestors. (I believe that book has also been written, but I can’t remember its name.)

Several of the books appear to be about the “inner lives” of animals, but the one I want to read most is Frans de Waal’s Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? [2016, Granta Books; Amazon US; Amazon UK].

If you’re a birder, you’ll want to see GrrlScientist’s list in Forbes of “The 12 best books about birds and birding in 2016.”

And the view from my room—the runways of LAX:

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h/t: Amy

When anti-Israel criticism becomes anti-Semitism: German court rules that torching of synagogue reflected criticism of Israel’s policies

January 14, 2017 • 10:00 am

Whenever I say that there’s a thin line between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israeli’s policies, I get excoriated. Truth be told, I think that not a trivial part of movements like BDS or campus protests against Israel are directed not at Israeli politicians, but against Jews themselves. BDS founders have covertly (and sometimes overtly) expressed approbation for the elimination of Israel itself, and there’s simply too much opprobrium directed at Israel—as opposed to other states whose malfeasance is far worse—to be explained by politics alone. Finally, the New York Times reported in 2014, after the synagogue attack discussed here took place, that demonstrators in Belgium and France were shouting not “Down with Israel!” or even “Death to IsraelI”, but “Death to the Jews!”

This opinion has been sustained by a new decision by a European high court—in Germany no less.

In February of 2015, as reported by The Jerusalem Post (and an article in The Daily Beast), a German judge convicted three German-Palestinian men of tossing Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in the city of Wuppertal. The charge on which they were convicted was “serious arson,” but here’s the kicker: the learned judge pointedly added in his decision that the crime was not motivated by anti-Semitism, declaring instead that it came from “a desire to bring attention to the Gaza conflict.”

Does that make sense? Why should German Jews be attacked for what is going on in Israel? Are they responsible for what happened in Gaza? No, the only explanation is that these men wanted to attack Jews, or a Jewish place of worship.

Now I’m not all that keen on added penalties for “hate crimes”, as I feel that punishment should be levied solely for an act itself and not because the perp has some animus against a group. Further, I’m not sure that anti-Semitism would have caused a German judge to levy a longer sentence or whether Germany recognizes anti-Semitic “hate crimes”. (One reader told me that skinheads who had done the same thing were treated much more harshly.)

What offends me is not the judge’s failure to issue a harsher punishment, but his flat claim that throwing Molotov cocktails at a place of worship in Germany constitutes political criticism rather than anti-Semitism. What world is that judge living in? There is, after all, an Israeli embassy to demonstrate against! As Vox noted yesterday:

The court’s decision is baffling — and deeply troubling. The men didn’t target the Israeli Embassy or one of its consulates. They attacked a Jewish institution. To conflate Israelis with Jews — and to say that a disagreement with the policies of the former somehow justifies attacking the latter — is by definition anti-Semitic. And if there is a line between anti-Israel sentiments and anti-Semitic ones, this attack definitely crossed it.

“The ruling judges … found that it was somehow logical that if you were angry with the state of Israel you would choose [to attack] a synagogue, because there are no objects of the state of Israel to protest,” Deidre Berger, the director of the AJC Berlin Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations, told me Friday. “It’s very difficult for us to get a sense of the dimensions of the problems of anti-Semitism in Europe when cases of anti-Semitism are not characterized as such.”

Let’s face it—in many parts of the Middle East, both children and adults are taught not to hate Israeli politics, but to hate Jews per se—as seen by the vile Nazi-like caricatures of Jews coming from both private and state media in that region. This indoctrinated Jew-hatred is also reported by ex-Muslims like Ali Rizvi and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Talk about “Islamophobia”!

Those who claim that implementing a two-state solution—which I favor, but am increasingly wondering if it’s workable—will act to eliminate Muslim animus against Israel are living in La La Land.

But to the point: just this week, a German higher court affirmed the lower court decision, which included suspended sentences for all three men. The decision that the act was not anti-Semitic was also affirmed.

What’s especially ironic about this is that the synagogue previously on that site was burned by the Nazis on the infamous Kristallnacht of November 9/10, 1938, and had been rebuilt. Back then it was clearly anti-Semitism, now it’s criticism of Israeli policy toward Gaza. Does any rational person believe that?

James Kirchick at The Daily Beast made a startling but accurate analogy:

A group of skinheads torch a black church somewhere in the Deep South. Upon being apprehended by the police, they cite the injustices that Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe has visited upon the white farmers of his country as justification for their arson. Mugabe is black, he rules on behalf of “the black race,” and therefore black people everywhere must be made to feel responsible for his crimes.

Anyone making such a ridiculous argument would rightly be labeled a racist. But change the victims from black people to Jews, and the perpetrators from pale neo-Nazis to dark-skinned Muslims, and a great many people will claim that what is obviously a crime motivated by blatant bigotry is in fact a politically-inspired protest.

Amen!

h/t: Grania

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 14, 2017 • 9:00 am
Reader Karen Bartelt has sent some photos of birds from Panama. Her notes:
All of these were from areas near the Canopy Tower (ie, within the old Canal Zone) [see her other pictures, and the Tower, here]:
White-vented Plumeleteer (Chalybura buffonii), female:
p1090238wvp
Blue-chested hummingbird (Amazilla amaiblis):
p1090343bch
Broad-billed motmot (Electron platyrhynchum):
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Whooping motmot (Momatus subrufescens):
p1090634wmm
Common potoo (Nyctibius griseus) [JAC: These are among the world’s most cryptic birds, looking for all the world like a piece of tree sticking up in the air]:
p1090547potoo

Caturday felid trifecta: Turkish cat movie, cool adopt-a-cat ad, and CIA spy cats

January 14, 2017 • 8:15 am

In the time I spent in Istanbul, it struck me that although the city is crawling with cats, they were in very good condition for “strays.” It turns out that the locals take care of them, especially in mosques, as cats are considered almost sacred by many Muslims (see the legend of Muhammad’s cat Muezza). According to Variety, a movie about these cats (see trailer below) will be released on February 10 by Oscilloscope Laboratories; it’s been doing the rounds of film festivals for about there years. Here’s the linketo the official Kedi website.

As far as I know, the film’s blurb on YouTube is accurate, at least in the first paragraph:

Hundreds of thousands of Turkish cats roam the metropolis of Istanbul freely. For thousands of years they’ve wandered in and out of people’s lives, becoming an essential part of the communities that make the city so rich. Claiming no owners, the cats of Istanbul live between two worlds, neither wild nor tame –and they bring joy and purpose to those people they choose to adopt. In Istanbul, cats are the mirrors to the people, allowing them to reflect on their lives in ways nothing else could.

Critics and internet cats agree – this cat documentary will charm its way into your heart and home as you fall in love with the cats in Istanbul. This film is a sophisticated take on your typical cat video that will both dazzle and educate.

And here’s the U.S. trailer:

If it doesn’t play at a local theater, you can order a DVD here for $14.99.

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Here’s an aggressive ad, mocking American car commercials, advertising the Furkids animal shelter in Atlanta. Here’s an excerpt from PuffHo‘s article:

The video, titled “Kitty Kommercial,” features native Atlantan Paul Preston trying to get cats adopted like a used car salesman.

Funny bits include a self-cleaning cat, a woman pretending to be one of those wacky waving inflatable tube men you see at dealerships, and a Sarah McLachlan cover at the tail end, which spoofs her British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ads.

A representative from Furkids told The Huffington Post that Preston is not a local comedian or personality, but a contractor with a rental property management company who just happens to be naturally funny. His sister, Helen, who volunteers with Furkids, had the initial idea for the commercial and thought her brother would be p-awesome in it.

The entire video was completely improvised at one of Furkids’ facilities and was shot in about 30 minutes.

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“Acoustic Kitty”, described by both Wikipedia and LiveScience, was an ill-conceived CIA program that used cats to spy on the Russians, implanting the hapless moggies with listening devices. Here’s the Wikipedia entry:

Acoustic Kitty was a CIA project launched by the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology, which in the 1960s intended to use cats to spy on the Kremlin and Soviet embassies. In an hour-long procedure a veterinary surgeon implanted a microphone in the cat’s ear canal, a small radio transmitter at the base of its skull and a thin wire into its fur This would allow the cat to innocuously record and transmit sound from its surroundings. Due to problems with distraction, the cat’s sense of hunger had to be addressed in another operation. Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer, said Project Acoustic Kitty cost about $20 million.

The first Acoustic Kitty mission was to eavesdrop on two men in a park outside the Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C. The cat was released nearby, but was hit and allegedly killed by a taxi almost immediately. However, this was disputed in 2013 by Robert Wallace, a former Director of the CIA’s Office of Technical Service, who said that the project was abandoned due to the difficulty of training the cat to behave as required, and “the equipment was taken out of the cat; the cat was re-sewn for a second time, and lived a long and happy life afterwards”.[5] Subsequent tests also failed. Shortly thereafter the project was considered a failure and declared to be a total loss.

The project was cancelled in 1967. A closing memorandum said that the CIA researchers believed that they could train cats to move short distances, but that “the environmental and security factors in using this technique in a real foreign situation force us to conclude that for our (intelligence) purposes, it would not be practical.” The project was disclosed in 2001, when some CIA documents were declassified.

You can see the CIA document here, though it’s been redacted. It’s short and I reproduce the whole thing:

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Finally, some lagniappe: Here’s the classic progressivist diagram of human evolution—with a twist.

the-evolution-of-man-and-the-evolution-of-cats

h/t: Jon, Malcolm

Saturday: Hili dialogue

January 14, 2017 • 6:30 am

by Grania

Good morning! Welcome to the weekend. I’m filling in for Jerry while he slumbers in a different time-zone; but he will join us in a couple of hours.

Today is the anniversary of NBC’s Today show (1952), the Casablanca Conference in WWII (1943) and an accidental explosion on the USS Enterprise (1969). No, not that one. It’s also the birthday of Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters fame (1969).

Over on the other side of the world, Hili is usurping the role of the laws of physics.

Hili: I will count to three and you will hide in the kitchen.
A: Do I have a choice?
Hili: No.

dsc00003

In Polish:

Hili: Liczę do trzech, a ty schowaj się w kuchni.
Ja: A mam wybór?
Hili: Nie.