Why I Give My 9-Year-Old Pot calms down J., an autistic 9-year-old. Pot, Part II

He has autism and terrible pain. Marijuana is taming his demons.

By Marie Myung-Ok Lee

Last spring, I wrote about applying for a medical marijuana license for my autistic, allergic 9-year-old son, J., in hopes of soothing his gut pain and anxiety, the roots of the behavioral demons that caused him to lash out at others and himself. After reading studies of how cannabis can ease pain and worry, and in consultation with his doctor, we decided to give it a try. A month into daily cannabis tea and mj-oil cookies (my husband discovered his inner baker), I reported, we both felt that J. seemed happier. But it was hard to tell. He'd have a good morning, then at dinner he'd throw his food. Still, we did notice that when he came home from school with stomach pain (he wasn't getting any supplemental cannabis there), he'd run to the kitchen and demand his tea and cookie. As if he knew this was the stuff that dulled the hellish gut pangs.

How is J. doing now, four months into our cannabis experiment? Well, one day recently, he came home from school, and I noticed something really different: He had a whole shirt on.

Pre-pot, J. ate things that weren't food. There's a name for this: pica. (Pregnant women are known to pica on chalk and laundry starch.) J. chewed the collar of his T-shirts while stealthily deconstructing them from the bottom up, teasing apart and then swallowing the threads. By the time I picked him up from the bus stop after school, the front half of his shirt was gone. His pica become so uncontrollable we couldn't let him sleep with a pajama top (it would be gone by morning) or a pillow (ditto the case and the stuffing). An antique family quilt was reduced to fabric strips, and he even managed to eat holes in a fleece blanket—so much for his organic diet. I started dressing him only in organic cotton shirts, but we couldn't support the cost of a new one every day. The worst part was watching him scream in pain on the toilet, when what went in had to come out. I had nightmares about long threads knotting in digestive organs. (TMI? Welcome to our life!)

Almost immediately after we started the cannabis, the pica stopped. Just stopped. J. now sleeps with his organic wool-and-cotton, hypoallergenic, temptingly chewable comforter. He pulls it up to his chin at night and declares, "I'm cozy!"

Next, we started seeing changes in J.'s school reports. His curriculum is based on a therapy called Applied Behavioral Analysis, which involves, as the name implies, meticulous analysis of data. At one parent meeting in August (J. is on an extended school year), his teacher excitedly presented his June-July "aggression" chart. An aggression is defined as any attempt or instance of hitting, kicking, biting, or pinching another person. For the past year, he'd consistently had 30 to 50 aggressions in a school day, with a one-time high of 300. The charts for June through July, by contrast, showed he was actually having days—sometimes one after another—with zero aggressions.

http://www.doublex.com/section/health-science/why-i-give-my-9-year-old-pot-part-ii

Sotomayor shows she's no Clarence Thomas as Supreme Court opens

By Michael Doyle

WASHINGTON -- A recast Supreme Court kicked off its new season Monday, with novice Justice Sonia Sotomayor immediately taking center stage.

In just an hour, the court's newest justice asked more questions than Justice Clarence Thomas has asked over the course of several years. Sotomayor's aggressive role in a Fifth Amendment case, in turn, underscored how she could put her own stamp on a court whose 2009-2010 docket is still taking shape.

"The Supreme Court is already off to a notable start, and there is so much more to come," Caroline Fredrickson, the executive director of the American Constitution Society, a liberal lawyers organization, said even before inaugural oral argument Monday.

The 55-plus cases already scheduled for the coming months cover everything from gun rights and patent protection to free speech and the punishment of juveniles. The court is likely to accept another 25 or so cases before the 2009-10 term ends next June.

As always, some cases are acutely technical; dry as dust pension disputes, for instance. Others carry constitutional significance, a compelling set of facts or sometimes both.

On Tuesday, for instance, the court will consider the criminal conviction of a man who sold videotapes of pit bulls fighting. Virginia resident Robert J. Stevens was sentenced to 37 months in prison for violating a federal law that bans depictions of animal cruelty.

Congress passed the law in 1999 in response to reports about so-called "crush videos."

"A crush video is a depiction of women inflicting torture on animals with their bare feet or while wearing high-heeled shoes," the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals explained. "In some video depictions, the woman's voice can be heard talking to the animals in a kind of dominatrix patter."

Stevens -- joined by civil libertarians, book publishers and the entertainment industry, among others -- argues that the law infringes on free speech. The Obama administration defends the law as reasonable, saying that "the value of the speech" is outweighed by its "social costs."

An equally anticipated set of cases from Florida question whether it's cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/76574.html?storylink=omni_popular

Improbable movie trading cards

Plus stickers!

http://automaticlifestyledispenser.com/blog/2009/07/23/improbable-movie-trading-cards/

Why is Betsy McCaughey on MSNBC?

 

by Jamison Foser

Yesterday, I noted that the problem with Betsy McCaughey isn't that she's a liar -- it's that the media gives her a platform to lie.

Let's be clear about this: it isn't just FOX News and the New York Post that are guilty of promoting someone whose claim to fame for 15 years has been spreading falsehoods about health care reform.

As I write this, McCaughey is on MSNBC, talking about health care.  Why?  What has she ever done to deserve such a platform?

(And remember MSNBC's promotion of McCaughey next time someone tells you it is a "liberal" cable channel.)

UPDATE: McCaughey and MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan just had this exchange:

McCAUGHEY: You're not a very fair moderator.

RATIGAN: Well, you're not a very fair answerer, so there you go.

Right.  McCaughey isn't a very fair answerer.  in fact, she's a liar.  We've known she's a liar for 15 years.  She's famously a liar about the very topic MSNBC is hosting her to discuss.  So why is she on television?  Why is Ratigan interviewing her?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200910060012

From One House To Another: Dems Warn Honduran Lawmakers Not To Heed GOP

 by Scott Nance

A group of six senior House Democrats have penned an open letter to members of the Congress in Honduras, urging President Manuel Zelaya be restored to office and rebutting apparent Republican statements to the contrary.

The letter signed by Reps. James McGovern and Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, Sam Farr and Xavier Becerra of California, Gregory Meeks of Florida, and Janice Schakowsky of Illinois, was sent to Honduras as four Republican members of Congress visited interim Honduran President Roberto Micheletti and communicated their support for the coup, according to an organization that released the letter.

The elected leader of Honduras, Zelaya was deposed in a June 28 coup. Zelaya has since returned to Honduras but is isolated in Brazil's embassy there.

"We believe that the coup against President Zelaya was unconstitutional; the absence of a legitimate president, the violations of human rights and the curtailment of civil liberties are unacceptable; and these conditions make the holding of free and fair elections next November in Honduras impossible," the Democrats write in their letter, addressed to the president of the Honduran legislature.

The Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA), an organization that supports the reinstatement of Zelaya, praises the Democrats' letter.

 

http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/one-house-to-another-dems-warn-honduran.html

Tim Meadows & Craig Ferguson Skewer Kanye, Bush, Oprah In Olympics Sketch

Craig Ferguson talked to "Late Late Show" correspondent Tim Meadows last night about Chicago's failed bid for the Olympics. After taking shots at Chicagoan Kanye West, and former President George W. Bush, the pair decided that Oprah has lost some cache: "Ten years ago she could have forced the world to host the Olympics between her butt cheeks." Meadows then told Ferguson to embrace Rio's win by getting a Brazilian bikini wax--it just got weirder from there.


WATCH:

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/07/tim-meadows-craig-ferguso_n_312355.html

Congressional GOP Fundraising Committee On Pelosi: It’s Time To ‘Put Her In Her Place’

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has a press release today, hitting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for having the temerity to express doubts that Democratic members of Congress will support with the troop increase that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has recommended for the war in Afghanistan. The release claims that in the past, Pelosi has made "pleas for action in Afghanistan" and is now "backpedaling on Afghanistan amidst increasing criticism from the radical left." It cites her saying this:

"I've also made it clear it's a very difficult vote to get from the members," she added. "Their constituents don't like an escalated war in Afghanistan. They'd like to see a different approach. But let's see what the president has to say." (Glenn Thrush, "Pelosi skeptical about Afghan surge, McChrystal," Politico, 10/05/2009)

Pelosi, of course, is not "backpedaling" in any way. In the first paragraph of the Politico article cited by the NRCC, the reporter notes that Pelosi said she is still "agnostic" on a troop surge; she was simply stating the realities in her party.

So what is the NRCC's solution to dealing with Pelosi? It wants McChrystal to "put her in her place":

What place does the NRCC think that this accomplished woman — the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history — deserves to be in?

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/06/nrcc-pelosi/

AZ Sheriff Loses 287g ICE Immigration-Enforcement Authority: Critical Moment for Immigration Reform

by dawnt

I usually lurk and read (occasionally comment). But we are at a seminal moment in immigration reform, and I didn't see any diaries here about today's important development on 287g.

287g is the program that allows local law enforcement agencies to act as ICE agents -- investigating and detaining people suspected of living or working in the country without authorization. Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio is the "poster boy" for this program. He's the guy that you hear about who has "neighborhood sweeps" and has been accused of arresting people for cracked windshields and then hauled them in on immigration violations. More than 500 advocacy groups asked last month for the entire program to be terminated. Arpaio is always used as the example for why the program is no good.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced Monday evening that ICE stripped away his 287g authorization to investigate and detain people he suspects are living/working in the U.S. without authorization... But wait, there's more...

• dawnt's diary :: ::

Arpaio is currently under investigation by the Dept of Justice for civil rights violations, and by the Dept of Labor for labor violations. He is being sued by a number of individuals, organizations, and fellow local officials. The mayors of two cities in Maricopa County have called him out for what they allege is racial profiling.

NOTE: If Arpaio's name sounds familiar, it's because he's in the news constantly... The county even pays for his international PR firm. Still not sure who he is? Just think "tent city jails," pink underwear, striped uniforms, chain gains, pink flip-flops, and green bologna. Also, after you read what I posted here, if you want more info, you can read my Huffington Post article here.

Under what's left of Arpaio's 287g agreement with ICE, Arpaio will still be able to screen inmates already in his jails, but he will no longer be able to detain people for suspicion of being/working in the U.S. without authorization under the agreement.

Arpaio, though, says:

I don't need the feds to do my crime suppression to opt to arrest illegals. I can do it without the federal authority, and I'm going to continue to do it. It makes no difference. It helps us. Because I don't have to do all the paperwork for the feds, number one. And number two, I won't be under their umbrella, their guidance. So I will operate the same way, nothing is going to change.

So, whether or not he has authority under 287g, Arpaio says he is still going to continue doing what he was doing. He also says:

Nothing changes because pursuant to our duties in these crime suppression [sweeps] we arrest anybody that violates the law. If we find during the arrests that that there are illegals, we arrest them. Now the only difference [is] we're going to take 'em down to ICE. I hope they accept them, if they don't, I'll bring 'em myself to the border. So nothing really has changed. This is all politics. They want to use me to get rid of this 287 agreement across the country.

He was on a local radio show last night (Sunday) saying not only will nothing change, but he intends to conduct immigration raids "very soon to show Washington and everybody else I'm not changing, I will not be intimidated by Congress, by alleged racial profiling investigations by the Justice Department, by all these demonstrators, these politicians, all trying to keep me from doing my job, so nothing will change. Stay tuned."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/6/790115/-AZ-Sheriff-Loses-287g-ICE-Immigration-Enforcement-Authority:-Critical-Moment-for-Immigration-Reform

Roman Polanski looks for work

My Life in Congress

The vast right-wing conspiracy is back

Some of Bill Clinton's most unhinged foes are flinging wild charges at Obama. This time, they're better organized

By Joe Conason

Wearily familiar as he is with the "vast right-wing conspiracy," Bill Clinton says the network that sought to destroy him and his wife, Hillary, remains malignant as ever, yet lacks the might of a decade ago. "It's not as strong as it was, because America's changed," he told David Gregory on "Meet the Press." "But it's as virulent as it was."

Whether Clinton is correct about the current condition of his old adversaries can best be measured by the passage or wreckage of healthcare reform and the outcome of next year's congressional midterm elections -- the same early milestones that marked the beginning of Clinton's tumultuous White House tenure. Perhaps Barack Obama will be saved by political demography and decent intentions, as the former president tried to assure Gregory; perhaps he and his administration will prove less vulnerable to intrigue and propaganda and less flawed than their predecessors.

What Obama should anticipate -- indeed, what he is already encountering -- is a cascade of slurs, threats and rhetorical violence that reanimates all of the worst themes of the bad old days. That wave will inevitably damage the president and his hopes for change, even if the majority of Americans is less receptive to right-wing messages than they once were. The greasy machinery once used to grind Clinton down has grown larger and more sophisticated by orders of magnitude, from Fox News Channel (which did not exist during his first term) to all of the conservative digital outlets that enable echoing and organizing on a truly vast scale.

The negative mythologizing of Obama bears a remarkable resemblance in tone and style if not precisely in content to the attacks on Clinton. "It's like when they accused me of murder, and all that stuff they did," said the former president -- presumably a reference to the wilder fantasies circulated in conservative publications about Obama, from the forged Kenyan birth certificates to the president's supposed plans to inflict corruption, homosexual radicals and Muslim jihad on innocent Americans. While some of the current themes mimic those deployed against Clinton, there are generational differences and the obvious fact that Obama is not just notionally "the first black president." That status evokes a special animus on the far right, of course -- although Clinton at least had earned the lifelong hatred of his most dedicated enemy, "Justice Jim" Johnson of Arkansas, for fighting segregation and racism in Arkansas.

Back when videotapes still had to be circulated by mail order, the Clinton-hunters did a brisk business with "The Clinton Chronicles," a "documentary" alleging that as governor of Arkansas he oversaw an enormous, unchecked racketeering enterprise that encompassed international bank fraud, cocaine smuggling and multiple murders, facilitated by a kind of backwoods dictatorship. Nothing resembling that remarkable work of extremist art, once promoted by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, has appeared so far in the crusade against Obama -- but that doesn't mean nothing is in the works. Many of the same organizations and operatives behind the original Clinton smears are still active and some have amassed considerable wealth and influence over the intervening decade.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/10/05/clinton_obama/

Latest sign of the apocalypse

McDonald's restaurants to open at the Louvre

It is a move which has managed to get both France's art lovers and gastronomes choking on their Gitanes.

By Henry Samuel in Paris

Lovers of France's two great symbols of cultural exception – its haute cuisine and fine art – are aghast at plans to open a McDonald's restaurant and McCafé in the Louvre museum next month.

America's fast food temple is celebrating its 30th anniversary in France with a coup -the opening of its 1,142nd Gallic outlet a few yards from the entrance to the country's Mecca of high art and the world's most visited museum.

The chain faces a groundswell of discontent among museum staff, many already unhappy about the Louvre lending its name and works to a multi-million pound museum project in Abu Dhabi.

"This is the last straw," said one art historian working at the Louvre, who declined to be named. "This is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum," he told the Daily Telegraph.

Didier Rykner, head of The Art Tribune website found the idea "shocking".

"I'm not against eating in a museum but McDonald's is hardly the height of gastronomy," he said, adding that it was a worrying mixture of art and consumerism. "Today McDonald's, tomorrow low-cost clothes shops," he said.

McDonald's confirmed that a restaurant will open next month. The Louvre confirmed it will be positioned in the underground approach to the Louvre, known as the Carrousel du Louvre.

The stonewalled gallery was opened in 1993, five years after the famous Louvre pyramid. The Carrousel's initial remit stipulated that its "commercial activities will be regulated and restricted to cultural or tourist activities".

The Louvre has the right to protest against boutiques it considers fail to meet such criteria. However, the museum told the Daily Telegraph it had agreed to a "quality" McCafé and a McDonald's in place by the end of the year, which it said was "is in line with the museum's image".

"The Louvre welcomes the fact that the entirety of visitors and customers, French or foreign, can enjoy such a rich and varied restaurant offer, whether in the museum area or gallery," the museum said in a statement.

The McDonald's would represent the "American" segment " of a new "food court", and would be situated "among (other) world cuisines and coffee shops," it wrote.

It added that the franchise owner "has taken the utmost care in ensuring the quality of the project, both in culinary and aesthetic terms".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6259044/McDonalds-restaurants-to-open-at-the-Louvre.html

ElBaradei says nuclear Israel number one threat to Mideast

 

TEHRAN, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.     At a joint press conference with Iran's Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30years, the report said.     "Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses," ElBaradei was quoted as saying.     Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear capabilities, although it refuses to confirm or deny the allegation.     "This (possession of nuclear arms) was the cause for some proper measures to gain access to its (Israel's) power plants ... and the U.S. president has done some positive measures for the inspections to happen," said ElBaradei.     ElBaradei arrived in Iran Saturday for talks with Iranian officials over Tehran's nuclear program.

 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/04/content_12181647.htm

Great time for US consumers: America is on sale

By RACHEL BECK

NEW YORK (AP) - There has never been a better time to be a consumer. America is on sale.

The Great Recession has caused massive job losses and hardship for millions, but it has also fostered a shoppers' paradise. Anyone who still has the means to spend can find unheard of deals.

Prices on everything from clothes to coffee to cat food are dropping, some faster than they have in half a century. Items rarely discounted - like Tiffany engagements rings - are now. The two biggest purchases most people make - homes and new cars - are selling at steep price reductions.

"This is the new normal," says Donald Keprta, president of Dominick's, a supermarket chain in the Midwest, which just cut prices by as much as 30 percent on thousands of items. "We aren't going back."

Consumers like Karen Wilmes, a mother of two in Hopkinton, R.I., relish the steals. During a recent trip to Shaw's Supermarkets, she bought a basketful of goods, including Eggo waffles, Kleenex tissues and Betty Crocker cake mix. The retail price: $63.89. Wilmes paid $7.31 by buying items on sale and using coupons.

"The deals out there are unbelievable," says Wilmes, 36, who writes the Frugal Rhode Island Mama blog, which tracks local and national bargains. "We can put the money I save toward something else."

And she's doing just that, but only when she can find another deal. Wilmes and her husband recently bought a Samsung television from Best Buy's Web site for $1,299, about $300 less than she found at other stores. She also got free delivery and another $13 back from ebates.com, which receives commissions from online retailers for directing customers their way.

What's happening now has been building for years. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. introduced "every-day low prices" many years ago. Amazon.com redefined the idea of bargain prices during the late 1990s when it helped introduce online shopping. After the 2001 recession, automakers introduced zero-percent financing to boost sales. McDonald's "Dollar Meals" made fast food even cheaper.

But until the Great Recession came along, consumers hadn't seen anything yet.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091004/D9B4D6C01.html

Corporate Offense

Lawyer’s motion admits Birthers seen as ‘batsh*t crazy’

 

By Daniel Tencer

The de facto leader of the "Birther" movement has launched an all-out attack against a federal judge in Georgia, accusing him of colluding with the US attorney general, comparing him to racist Southern judges of prior eras, and alleging "pervasive bias" in his rulings against her.

And in one passage from her filing, Lawyer Orly Taitz says the term "birther" is a "pejorative appellation ... often coupled with more colorful epithets such as 'batshit crazy,'" and denies that her client in the lawsuit is part of any political movement.

Taitz had filed a lawsuit last month with the US District Court in Columbus, Georgia, on behalf of a US Army captain who challenged her deployment orders to Iraq on the grounds that she can't be sent there on President Obama's orders because he was not born in the United States and is therefore not entitled to be president.

Last month, Judge Clay Land tossed out Taitz's lawsuit, filed on behalf of Army Capt. Connie Rhodes, dismissing it and its claim that President Obama wasn't born in the United States as "frivolous." The judge also gave Taitz several weeks to explain why he shouldn't fine her $10,000 for contempt of court.

Shortly after the courtroom defeat, Capt. Rhodes sent a letter to Judge Land saying she no longer wanted to be represented by Taitz in the matter.

In a motion filed with the court on Friday, Taitz asked Judge Land to recuse himself from the case because of "personal contacts and financial stakes he may have with President Barack Obama's administration," reports the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

And in what is yet another bizarre twist to the case, Taitz filed an affidavit from a witness who claimed to have seen US Attorney General Eric Holder enter a coffee shop in Columbus on a day when the Birther case was to be heard in court.

"I looked up and immediately recognized an individual entering and approaching the serving counter, due to his well know[n] TV displayed distinguishing features: his trim upper lip mustache, not large of stature and general olive complexion," one Robert D. Douglas stated in the affidavit.

Tellingly, the affidavit does not definitively state the person Douglas saw was Holder.

But that was enough for Taitz to conclude, in her court filing, that this amounted to "circumstantial evidence suggesting that, in fact Judge Land was influenced by prior association or direct ex-parte communications with Attorney General Eric Holder, acting as agent on behalf of de facto President Obama."

As the Ledger-Enquirer pointed out, Judge Land is an appointee of former President George W. Bush.

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/birther-leader-judge-collusion/

Norway 'the best place to live'

Children in Norway can look forward to a high quality of life

Norway is the best place in the world to live while Niger is the least desirable, according to an annual report by the United Nations.

The 182 countries were ranked according to the quality of life their citizens experienced.

Criteria examined included life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrolment and country economies.

However the UN human development index used data collected in 2007 - before the global economic crisis.

Opposites

The UN Development Programme said the index highlighted the grave disparities between rich and poor countries.

Norway's consistently high rating for desirable living standards, is, in large part, the result of the discovery of offshore oil and gas deposits in the late 1960s.

Niger, however, is a drought-prone country which has sometimes struggled to feed its people.

Other countries to reach the top spots were Australia and Iceland.

However, living standards in Iceland have changed since the data was collected, as it was one of the countries worst hit by the credit crunch.

The 2008 crisis exposed the Icelandic economy's dependence on the banking sector, leaving it particularly vulnerable to collapse. The country's three major banks were nationalised and Iceland had to seek international support in order to stay afloat.

Human Development Report Office deputy director Eva Jespersen told the BBC News website that although the country's now-reduced gross domestic product figure would "pull Iceland down" next year, its high life expectancy rates and commitment to education would "cushion the decline to some degree".

Afghanistan was regarded the second least desirable place to live, just below Sierra Leone in third from bottom place.

The index shows that life expectancy in Niger was 50 years - approximately 30 years shorter than for those living in Norway.

For every dollar earned per person in Niger, $85 was earned in Norway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8290550.stm

What's for tea? Amazing pictures of the polar bear who took an interest in the menu on Arctic ship

By Daily Mail Reporter

A group of wildlife enthusiasts were looking forward to their lunch during an expedition to the Arctic island of Svalbard.

But they soon discovered a hungry polar bear was also rather keen to try their cauliflower soup.

The giant predator poked his head through the open porthole into the kitchen of the ship, which had weighed anchor so the passengers could enjoy the fabulous icy landscape.

Anybody home? A polar bear pokes his head through the ship's kitchen window during a lunch stop by Svalbard

Polar bears are the largest land based carnivores and treat all animals as potential prey

Enlarge  

Defeated: The polar bear wanders away after failing to secure a quick and easy lunch

Peckish: The bear gets a whiff of the cauliflower soup cooking in the galley

He stayed by the boat for another couple of hours and even stood on his hind legs to better investigate any scavenging potential.

The incredible shots were taken by wildlife photographer Andy Rouse, who led an expedition on the M/S Stockholm.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1218255/The-polar-bear-invited-dinner.html#ixzz0TB4x1MfU

Will California become America's first failed state?

Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?

by Paul Harris

Patients without medical insurance wait for treatment in the Forum, a music arena in Inglewood, Los Angeles. The 1,500 free places were filled by 4am. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolises a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory.

But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush. The crisis is so deep that Professor Kevin Starr, who has written an acclaimed history of the state, recently declared: "California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America."

Outside the Forum in Inglewood, near downtown Los Angeles, California has already failed. The scene is reminiscent of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, as crowds of impoverished citizens stand or lie aimlessly on the hot tarmac of the centre's car park. It is 10am, and most have already been here for hours. They have come for free healthcare: a travelling medical and dental clinic has set up shop in the Forum (which usually hosts rock concerts) and thousands of the poor, the uninsured and the down-on-their-luck have driven for miles to be here.

The queue began forming at 1am. By 4am, the 1,500 spaces were already full and people were being turned away. On the floor of the Forum, root-canal surgeries are taking place. People are ferried in on cushions, hauled out of decrepit cars. Sitting propped up against a lamp post, waiting for her number to be called, is Debbie Tuua, 33. It is her birthday, but she has taken a day off work to bring her elderly parents to the Forum, and they have driven through the night to get here. They wait in a car as the heat of the day begins to rise. "It is awful for them, but what choice do we have?" Tuua says. "I have no other way to get care to them."

Yet California is currently cutting healthcare, slashing the "Healthy Families" programme that helped an estimated one million of its poorest children. Los Angeles now has a poverty rate of 20%. Other cities across the state, such as Fresno and Modesto, have jobless rates that rival Detroit's. In order to pass its state budget, California's government has had to agree to a deal that cuts billions of dollars from education and sacks 60,000 state employees. Some teachers have launched a hunger strike in protest. California's education system has become so poor so quickly that it is now effectively failing its future workforce. The percentage of 19-year-olds at college in the state dropped from 43% to 30% between 1996 and 2004, one of the highest falls ever recorded for any developed world economy. California's schools are ranked 47th out of 50 in the nation. Its governm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/california-failing-state-debt

Quelle Surprise! New York Times Fails to Call Private Equity Looting by Its Proper Name

The New York Times tonight features a generally very good piece, "Buyout Firms Profited as a Company's Debt Soared," by Julie Creswell that falls short in one important respect: it fails to call a prevalent and destructive practice of private equity firms by its proper name.

PE firms in the risk-blind environment preceding the credit crunch got into the habit of producing good to stellar returns by modifying their usual formula. The traditional model was to buy companies with a ton of debt, then improving their bottom line by a combination of partial asset stripping (selling off ancillary operations), cost cutting, and once a blue moon, actually doing something to improve operational performance. Then the company would be sold, either privately, usually to a corporation, or taken public.

But the PE firms found a much easier approach: just pile on more and more debt, and pay themselves a special dividend. No need to do any work, just keep borrowing until you had recouped your investment and then some. And that way you did not need to care how the company fared. If you destroyed the business, it was of no mind to you and your investors. Other saps were left holding the carcass.

George Akerlof and Paul Romer called that activity looting in a famous 1993 paper and depicted it as criminal:

Our theoretical analysis shows that an economic underground can come to life if firms have an incentive to go broke for profit at society's expense (to loot) instead of to go for broke (to gamble on success). Bankruptcy for profit will occur if poor accounting, lax regulation, or low penalties for abuse give owners an incentive to pay themselves more than their firms are worth and then default on their debt obligations….

Our description of a looting strategy amounts to a sophisticated version of having a limited liability corporation borrow money, pay it into the private account of the owner, and then default on its debt…

First, limited liability gives the owners of a corporation the potential to exploit lenders. Second, if debt contracts let this happen, owners will intentionally drive a solvent firm bankrupt. Third, when the owners of a firm drive it bankrupt, they can cause great social harm, just as looters in a riot cause total losses that are far greater than the private gains they capture.

This version wasn't sophisticated. It was done in broad daylight. The Akerlof/Romer article describes how looting occurred (among other places) in Chile and in the US during the savings and loan crisis. But the New York Times article is robbed of its punch by its inability (due to Grey Lady conventions) or reluctance to call this form of chicanery what it is, a fraud perpetrated on society as a whole.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/10/quelle-surprise-new-york-times-reluctant-to-call-private-equity-looting-by-its-proper-name.html