Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Found via Daily Funnies.

When you build a private industry around a public service, astoundingly bad ideas soon become the only ideas the market is capable of having. This is because public services are different from the kind of service given at a McDonalds’—or even from your local cable company. They are part of vital infrastructure, and a robust society can only be built on a foundation of free and democratic access to such services without fear of exploitation.

It might shock you to learn this post isn’t about health care. story is not about health care—it’s about prisons.

Debit cards are increasingly popular, so why shouldn’t jail inmates have them. How about a get-out-of-jail prepaid debit card when they’re set free?

They can. (Does this strike anyone else as kind of strange/funny?)

Strange, MSN Money? Yes. Funny? No.

The story is a further sign of how our society is now actively turning our prison facilities and inmates into a potential revenue stream. Incarceration and the actions of the justice system should be a public service. It should exist to see to it that justice (whenever possible) is done, and that those who can be rehabilitated get the help they need to re-integrate into society.

A system like this is full of flaws.

• It builds a private, profit-based monopoly whose market is literally captive.
• Being profit motivated, it is structured find ways (surcharges, service fees, etc) to leech money off of taxpayer funds, as well as from people who genuinely don’t need any more leeching done to them.
• It further underscores the importance of a debit/credit card to a person’s identity in modern society. Now, when children who grew up using pretend credit cards get busted for any number of possible infractions, they can rest assured that they will have a debit card waiting for them, full of their sub-minimum wage earnings—minus the registration, monitoring, fraud protection, and transaction fees.

Perhaps worst of all is that the range of services offered includes a “self-serve kiosk” that permits you to pay bail with a credit card in the event that you’re arrested—or allows your friends and/or family to pay your bail “from the comfort of their own home.”

Streamlining processes and making them easier to handle quickly is a good thing, yes. But putting somebody in a situation where they can swipe their credit card or face a night in lock-up puts them in a situation that immediately drives them into debt. And bear in mind that bail is not always paid by the guilty, meaning anybody stopped by the police can find themselves relying on the Visa or Mastercard to get them out of a jam.

Worst of all about that idea, however, is the fact that it suggests a revolving-door approach to the justice system. Systems like this are only profitable when they have a high flow of customers. Putting in bail kiosks is a blatant expression that in the future, the justice system will be the major cash cow of Wall Street.

Ask yourself this: Do you want to drive—even at the speed limit—past a police officer whose district is controlled not by public service, but by private industry? Do you want to walk down a street patrolled by a police officer whose office can only turn a profit if he meets his daily quota? The profit motive has no place in our judicial system.

Every now and then, you wish some people would keep their big mouths shut. Not because what they say is stupid or annoying, but because comprehending their statement would unveil a world of lovecraftian horror whose stygian depths are broken only by the merest hints of the movement of the cthulhoid terrors that inhabit them.

Behold, the non-Euclidean geometry of (D – Nebraska) Sen. Ben Nelson’s mind as he reads what can only be a thank you note to Mutual of Omaha.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said Friday that he will oppose legislation that would give people the option of a public health insurance plan….

Nelson’s problem, he told CQ, is that the public plan would be too attractive and would hurt the private insurance plans. “At the end of the day, the public plan wins the game,” Nelson said. Including a public option in a health plan, he said, was a “deal breaker.”

Yes. That’s Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska stating that he won’t support a public health care option because it would just be too good. Apparently, our government must now be prohibited from actually helping people in need because it’s bad for private industry’s profit margins.

An informed executive?

Really?

Huh. After eight years, that’s just… weird.

Seriously, this post at The Ethicurean reinforces a pattern that I’ve been noticing in Obama now that we’re talking about his preparations to take over the Big Office. It seems that whenever someone brings up an issue that is of vital importance but that isn’t typically thought of, Obama’s already thinking about it.

Obama’s plan calls for profound changes to our food and farm policy. These changes could lead to a healthier, safer food supply, stronger local economies, and the return to common-sense agricultural systems that are good for our children, our bodies, our planet, our national future, and our world.

Of course, there are doubts over Obama’s support of corn ethanol, but that’s why we have open discussion and debate – and a President who appears ready to engage in said open discussion and debate. For my part I still don’t quite get why nobody’s talking about agave ethanol. I mean, if we’re gonna be talking about ethanol, anyway, why not talk about the source for it that thrives in wastelands, requires very little water to grow, and is actually a nitrogen-fixing crop instead of a prima donna crop.

Having discovered a combination political and cute blog, I have now determined that I will do my part to ruin your cuteblogging for the day.

Here, we have a kitteh.

Kitteh will now demonstrate the mindset of the average John McCain voter and the steps they go through.

1. Insert head into box.


2. Struggle to get head out of box.


3. Immediately stuff head back into box.


4. After much struggling, accept assistance in getting your head out of box.


5. Stuff head right back into box.


6. Pretend you didn’t just stuff your head into the box, even though said box is still firmly wedged on your head.

There. Now try looking at your precious kittens without thinking about how they represent segments of the American electorate.

With news about Palin’s no-holds-barred shopping spree circulating and in the process ticking off even the most loyal Republican donors, McCain’s campaign is quick to play down the story. The campaign that has depended on minor past associations and “he has a funny name” to smear their opponent now feels that we shouldn’t be talking about this when there are bigger issues to discuss.

But it actually is a big issue. Big enough that John McCain felt compelled to bring it up on the Senate floor at least twice. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Heck, you don’t even have to take the so-called “liberal media” at their word. You can look it up on the Congressional Record for the 103rd Congress, a word-by-word transcript of the proceedings on the Senate and House floors maintained by the federal government and published through the Library of Congress. Go ahead and browse through May 25, 1993. That’s when McCain had this to say:

Madam President, the amendment before the Senate is a very simple one. It restricts the use of campaign funds for inherently personal purposes. The amendment would restrict individuals from using campaign funds for such things as home mortgage payments, clothing purchases, noncampaign automobile expenses, country club memberships, and vacations or other trips that are noncampaign in nature.

Madam President, I want to emphasize I will be citing some examples of how campaign funds have been used which are extremely egregious, but I want to point out they are not illegal, and the purpose of this amendment is to restrict the use of those campaign funds because, if we are truly going to have campaign finance reform, I do not believe that campaign funds should be used for such things as country club dues, tuxedos, vacations, and other purposes for which they are now almost routinely used by certain Members of both bodies.

But that was just McCain’s comments on the introduction of his own amendment. Surely, I’m not going to hold one prepared statement given on the Senate floor by an elected official in favor of his own amendment against the guy, am I?

No, I’m not.

I’m going to hold two statements against him. Also in the 103rd’s Congressional Record, you’ll find January 31, 1994.

I want to remind my colleges in the Senate and those in the other House of Representatives, as well as the six FEC Commissioners, that on May 25, 1993, the Senate unanimously adopted my amendment to the campaign finance reform bill that restricted the use of campaign funds for inherently personal purposes. [...]

According to Ms. [Sara] Fritz, campaign funds have been used to buy such items as a jumbo illuminated globe from Hammacher Schlemmer, for trips to exotic locals such as Thailand, Taiwan, and Italy, and for tuxedos and an unexplainable $299 for bow ties.

I tell ya, that John McCain. He’s a real, straight-shootin’, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do guy.

One of the things that has bothered me the most about the outgoing administration has been their willful ignorance. That is, not just that they don’t know something or they know it incorrectly, but frequently they refuse to let anybody correct them on it. This Presidential/Vice Presidential policy known, I believe, as “The Stick My Fingers In My Ears And Hum ‘The Song That Never Ends’ Doctrine,” has reared it’s ugly head time and time again, just like Pootin rearin’ ‘is head over Alaskan airspace, donchaknow.

Speaking of the Republican party’s last, best hype for the future, Palin has been executing “The Stick My Fingers (Etc.) Doctrine” with surprising ease. Almost as if she’s had lots and lots of practice.

At the one and only VP debate, Palin somehow managed to squeak by with people giving her a draw against Biden despite the fact that she clearly didn’t know anything about the Constitution. She declared the Constitution to be “flexible” on the role of the Vice President in government. It was Joe Biden who quickly pointed out the facts. The Constitution is not flexible on the role of the Vice President, the VP is part of the Executive branch and not some fourth branch of the government unto itself, and the VP’s assigned duties are very, very narrow with regards to direct influence on how the country is governed.

But Palin must have been in her fifth refrain of “It goes on and on, my friend” by that point, because Think Progress has the footage of her on the local news telling a kid that the Constitution gives her not only the duty of breaking ties in the Senate, but powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal legislators. No, she is, indeed, Super-Legislator!

Q: [Third Grader] Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: Aw, that’s something that Piper would ask me, as a second grader, also. That’s a great question, Brandon, and a Vice President has a really great job, because not only are they there to support the President’s agenda,—they’re like a team member, the teammate to that President—but also, they’re in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it’s a great job and I look forward to having that job.

As the election heats up, trust the nuns to come out of the woodwork for Barack.

On a side note, after 106 years of experience that ruler has gotta have some sting behind it.