June 19, 2012 archive

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5 x Five – Hot Button Issues – Race 3:23

Krugman’s Lament

Guilt

I am guilty,

But not in the way you think.

I should have earlier recognized my duty;

I should have more sharply called evil evil;

I reined in my judgment too long.

I did warn,

But not enough, and clear;

And today I know what I was guilty of.

Albrecht Haushofer

PBS News Hour

A Mythical Anniversary

June 18, 2012, 3:34 pm

I tried to knock down the simply insane conventional wisdom then gelling among Very Serious People. Intellectually it was, I think I can say without false modesty, a huge win; I (and those of like mind) have been right about everything.

But I had no success in deflecting the terrible wrong turn in policy. Moreover, as far as I can tell none of the people responsible for that wrong turn has paid any price, not even in reputation; they’re still regarded as Very Serious, treated with great deference.

Rachel Maddow

Myths of Austerity

Published: July 1, 2010

When I was young and naïve, I believed that important people took positions based on careful consideration of the options. Now I know better. Much of what Serious People believe rests on prejudices, not analysis. And these prejudices are subject to fads and fashions.



This conventional wisdom isn’t based on either evidence or careful analysis. Instead, it rests on what we might charitably call sheer speculation, and less charitably call figments of the policy elite’s imagination – specifically, on belief in what I’ve come to think of as the invisible bond vigilante and the confidence fairy.



So the next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you’ll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we’re bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we’re good.

Colbert Report

Interest Rates: Varieties of Error

June 19, 2012, 8:57 am

Originally, claims that deficits would drive up rates weren’t based on arguments about solvency; they were based on the “crowding out” claim that the government would be competing with the private sector for a limited supply of savings. Then, when the promised rate spike failed to materialize, this was attributed to Fed purchases, with the claim that rates would spike when those came to an end. Wrong, and wrong again. As I wrote at the time, all this represented a basic misunderstanding of how the economy works.

Now, maybe there’s a solvency issue, and bond vigilantes will turn on America over that – although of course this keeps not happening either to us or to anyone else with their own currency. But you do need to know that many of the people making the solvency argument originally made a completely different argument – one that was completely wrong.

Can marijuana be an effective treatment for glaucoma?

 Medical marijuana has also been used to reduce acute and chronic pain associated with cancer patients terminally ill with remarkable efficiency. It also has a rich history of providing relief from such things as nausea, headaches, menstrual cramps and painful muscle spasms.

After cataract, glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness worldwide. He reached over 60 million people worldwide. Glaucoma is caused by a progressive accumulation of excess fluid in the body of the eye. When excess fluid causes increased pressure in the eye, the optic nerve can become seriously compromised leading to blindness. Research results from as far back as 1970 found that marijuana contains active ingredients that can both reduce intraocular pressure in the eye and the pain caused by the actual state.

The medical benefits of marijuana are not a new phenomenon in this country. In contrast, before 1937, there were about 27 different types of prescription drugs that contain THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. A pharmaceutical company like Eli Lilly and Squibb has developed several of these drugs based on THC with relatively high degrees of success. However, the federal government, by adopting the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, caused the general prohibition of marijuana to be used as a medicine legally.

Works exactly how medical marijuana in glaucoma is not completely understood, but it is thought that marijuana produces certain chemicals that can effectively reduce intraocular pressure in the eye.

Conventional treatment for glaucoma has focused on the preservation of vision by slowing the deterioration of the optic nerve caused by a dangerous increase in intraocular pressure. Treatment options involve drugs that lower the pressure inside the eye. This is why medical marijuana has received much attention in patients with glaucoma. However, a new generation of glaucoma is now released promising to be more efficient, while medical marijuana because of the ability of these drugs actually reverse the disease progression.

A major disadvantage of having to use medical marijuana to relieve symptoms of glaucoma is that marijuana has a fairly short-lived duration of its effectiveness is usually limited to only two or three hours. This requires that glaucoma patients use cannabis to eight times a day to get the same kind of relief other glaucoma medications currently provide.

Like most of the marijuana taken to treat glaucoma is consumed by smoking, a patient must consider the risks associated with smoke inhalation. Street marijuana is not organically grown and therefore often contains impurities that can irritate and cause damage to both the lungs and trachea of the patient. This is less true with medical marijuana, which is one reason why patients with glaucoma have urged lawmakers to legislate the use of medicinal marijuana.

Currently there are 17 states that allow medicinal use of marijuana for certain types of diseases. Glaucoma is one of them. Currently, in states like California, medical marijuana is legal as long as the patient can produce identification medical marijuana card and the recommendation of 420 doctor use, which identifies the patient as a person who received a recommendation for physicians to treat disease medical subject.

Upon obtaining these documents, a patient may consult a medical marijuana dispensary in local or clinic and get their medicine themselves.  

On This Day In History June 19

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge.

June 19 is the 170th day of the year (171st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 195 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.

Passage in the Senate

(President Lyndon B.) Johnson, who wanted the bill passed as soon as possible, ensured that the bill would be quickly considered by the Senate. Normally, the bill would have been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator James O. Eastland , Democrat from Mississippi. Given Eastland’s firm opposition, it seemed impossible that the bill would reach the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield took a novel approach to prevent the bill from being relegated to Judiciary Committee limbo. Having initially waived a second reading of the bill, which would have led to it being immediately referred to Judiciary, Mansfield gave the bill a second reading on February 26, 1964, and then proposed, in the absence of precedent for instances when a second reading did not immediately follow the first, that the bill bypass the Judiciary Committee and immediately be sent to the Senate floor for debate. Although this parliamentary move led to a filibuster, the senators eventually let it pass, preferring to concentrate their resistance on passage of the bill itself.

The bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, 1964 and the “Southern Bloc” of 18 southern Democratic Senators and one Republican Senator led by Richard Russell (D-GA) launched a filibuster to prevent its passage. Said Russell: “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states.”

The most fervent opposition to the bill came from Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC): “This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary, unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason. This is the worst civil-rights package ever presented to the Congress and is reminiscent of the Reconstruction proposals and actions of the radical Republican Congress.”

After 54 days of filibuster, Senators Everett Dirksen (R-IL), Thomas Kuchel (R-CA), Hubert Humphrey (D-MN), and Mike Mansfield (D-MT) introduced a substitute bill that they hoped would attract enough Republican swing votes to end the filibuster. The compromise bill was weaker than the House version in regard to government power to regulate the conduct of private business, but it was not so weak as to cause the House to reconsider the legislation.

On the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) completed a filibustering address that he had begun 14 hours and 13 minutes earlier opposing the legislation. Until then, the measure had occupied the Senate for 57 working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the bill’s manager, concluded he had the 67 votes required at that time to end the debate and end the filibuster. With six wavering senators providing a four-vote victory margin, the final tally stood at 71 to 29. Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the 37 years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.

On June 19, the substitute (compromise) bill passed the Senate by a vote of 71-29, and quickly passed through the House-Senate conference committee, which adopted the Senate version of the bill. The conference bill was passed by both houses of Congress, and was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964.

Muse in the Morning

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Rai and Jiri, at Lungha

Late Night Karaoke

It Would Have Been 35 Years Today 20120618

I am feeling a bit wistful tonight, so please bear with me.  On this date 35 years ago the former Mrs. Translator and I were married.  I was 20 and she was 19.  We had both been in relationships before, but as soon as we met we knew that we were going to be special to each other.

I was at a friend’s house one afternoon and a powder blue 1976 Camaro pulled into the driveway.  I do not recognize the car.  It pulled up to where my friend and I were and driving it was the most beautiful girl that I ever saw.

She was my “type”.  Petite, with long, dark, hair that had just enough natural curl.  Her voice was not shrill, but not masculine either.  As Goldilocks would say, it was just right.  I was 18 and she was 17.  It was not what is termed “love at first sight”, but we were immediately attracted to each other.