Why means testing of Social Security benefits is a bad idea

One of the ideas being floated around is to ‘means test’ Social Security benefits. i.e., to base benefits on income and wealth. Kevin Drum explains why this is already being done at some level by the way benefits are calculated and why it would be a pointless exercise to pursue any further.

Paul Krugman also makes an important point about keeping our language on benefits clear. Using the umbrella term ‘entitlements’ in budget debates is meaningless because the economics of Social Security is quite different from Medicaid and Medicare.

Circumcision

I have never understood how modern societies permit male circumcision while they rightly condemns the female variants. It seems like as long as some practice is old and stamped with the word ‘approved by religious authorities’, it is exempt from the usual protections we give children.

I am glad to see that the creator of Jesus and Mo shares my concern.

Why atheism is winning-3: The dilemma facing clergy

(For previous posts in this series, see here.)

In the previous post, I wrote about how modern scholarship based on scientific and literary analysis has shown that almost all the things claimed in the Bible and their stories and characters are fictional.

One can immediately see why this knowledge is so dangerous to religious institutions and why they would not be anxious to have it widely known. The religious establishments have a vested interest in hiding the truth about the religious texts because they must be well aware that their entire business model and revenue stream depends on people thinking that at least some of the major parts of their religions are true. All religious institutions thus have to find a way to keep their followers in the dark about what their own scholars know.
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Who holds the national debt?

As discussions about the budget and the national debt take center stage, it is interesting to see to whom the US government actually owes money.

Contrary to popular belief, China is not our biggest creditor. 53% of the US debt is owed to Americans and American institutions, with China coming second with just 9.8%, Japan a close third with 9.6%, and the UK next with 5.1%. All the oil-exporting countries hold just 2.6% of the national debt.

It’s not easy being a hypocrite

Poor Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. The sudden popular uprisings against governments all over the Middle East must be causing them headaches.

When protests started against a brutal dictator they had supported for decades, like Mubarak in Egypt, they tried to appease both sides by appealing for calm and hoping that things would blow over either with minor concessions to the protestors or with a transfer of power to another authoritarian leader (like Suleiman or the military) that would continue to be a US client. The awkwardness of this attempt was clearly visible during the days of protest.

It must have been a great relief to them when protests erupted in a country like Iran where they dislike the leaders, because then they could try and restore their credibility by offering full-throated support for the democratic demands of the protestors and condemning the efforts of the Iranian government to suppress and intimidate them.
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What is a Santorum?

In 2003, when he was a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum made some disgusting anti-gay remarks, suggesting that homosexuality was on a par with pedophilia or bestiality. In response, Dan Savage launched one of the first political google bombs that defines the word Santorum as, let me just say delicately, something pretty unsavory. As a result of this google bomb, this definition is what turns up first (even ahead of his own campaign website) when you google Santorum’s name. How much this contributed to Santorum’s crushing 18-point defeat in his 2006 senatorial re-election campaign is unclear

Now that Santorum seems to running for president, people who have never heard of him but are curious are (naturally) going to google him and get this result. Santorum was asked recently what he could and would do to combat the problem. It turns out that he has few viable options.

Although Santorum exemplifies the worst kind of sanctimonious religious bigotry, this episode shows that politics in the age of the internet can be brutal and that even the most powerless of groups can no longer be attacked with the kind of impunity that politicians have long been used to.

Comments problem

There seems to be a problem with the comments feature in that all comments are being rejected.

I have informed the system administrator and hope that it will be fixed soon.

My apologies to all those who tried to comment and were rebuffed. Please don’t take it personally – my comments were rejected too!

UPDATE: The system administrator has fixed the problem.