We accept that life is unfair, that some people will live in cramped apartments and others in sprawling mansions. But our existing insurance system is not simply inequitable but also lethal: a very recent, peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health finds that nearly 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance. That’s one needless death every 12 minutes.

Today Paul Krugman has an editorial on the demise of American education.

[F]or the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.

Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual — a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis — its effects exacerbated by the penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior that passes for “fiscal responsibility” in Washington — deals a severe blow to education across the board.

Krugman goes on to comment on the recent job loss numbers. Of the 273,000 jobs last month, he says, “29,000 were in state and local education, bringing the total losses in that category over the past five months to 143,000.”

These two stories bounce around my mind in the context of a renewed debate on what our next steps should be in Afghanistan and Iraq. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on our military operations. In my personal life, when money gets tight I prioritize my spending. If it is important, I spend it. If it isn’t important, it doesn’t get funded.

By not funding health care and not funding education we are saying that these things are not important. How can that be? This is baffling to me. How can they not be important?

Geography has made us neighbors, history has made us friends, economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies.

— President Robert F. Kennedy on US / Canada relations.

The US President’s first foreign trip is highly symbolic. Yesterday President Obama reinforced a long standing tradition and made Canada the destination for his first foreign trip. President Bush’s first foreign trip was to Mexico. US / Canada relations were strained throughout his entire term. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford never visited Canada at all.

Granted, this trip was more than a pit stop than an extended visit. He arrived in the morning to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ate through a working lunch, held a joint news conference, met briefly at the airport with the leader of Canada’s opposition party, and was back home in the White House in time for dinner.

Even though he only had time to pop in for a quick chat, I am glad that my native country is back at the top of the list for our new US President.

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

– Mark Twain

As I watched the latest meltdown from the latest cabinet confirmations I can’t help but think that Mark Twain may have been on to something in his assessment of people who run for political office.

It has been obvious to me for a long time that congress is broken. I couldn’t quite articulate exactly how I thought it was broken but I knew something was wrong. And then I discovered Lawrence Lessig’s latest mission. Partnering with Joe Trippi, he is determined to change congress. He makes a powerful case that lobbying and special interests have eroded the very foundations of the constitution.

Through the magic of podcasts I have heard him speak on the subject on two occasions and I concur with his diagnosis. The best of his talks was titled Coding Against Corruption. He opens with three brilliant examples showing how big money yields undue influence resulting in absurd and corrupt decisions by congress. He then goes on to make a great case that we can change the way the system works.

Lessig is a masterful speaker and presenter. The rhythm and pace of his presentations are mesmerizing. His subject matter insightful and profound. Give a listen to Coding Against Corruption. It will be an hour well spent. It will change the way you think about congress.

The squeaky wheel doesn’t always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.

– Vic Gold

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
– Lord Acton

I was born in Canada and came to the US between my sophomore and junior year in high school. One of my first courses in my newly adopted country was high school civics. I learned with a newcomer’s sense of awe about the three branches of government and their important role in each checking the power of the other. It is highly attributed that this system of checks and balances is the genius of the America.

In the intervening years since those wide-eyed high school years I have been a casual observer of the reality that power and money are self preserving. The more you have of each the more you tighten the circle to protect and increase your lot. The fiasco on wall street is evidence of what happens when the self-reinforcing power/money loop runs exponentially out of control.

If there is any hope of reforming this mess, and I have no expectation that it will be reformed, it would seem that some sort of system of checks and balances will have to be devised. Increased (and effective) regulation might help with some of the “checks” that are needed. But are there “balances” that have yet to be devised? Does the final dissolution of trust by Bernard Madoff mean that investors will demand enough clarity and transparency to balance the unhealthy tendencies of money grubbing?

I have never been a strong advocate of regulation but it it seems to me that a more robust system of checks and balances is needed in our financial systems. The “checks” are somewhat obvious (i.e. regulation). The “balances” are yet to be determined.

<the suspect> tried to manufacture a “weapon of mass destruction, that is, an explosive device capable of causing multiple deaths or serious bodily injuries to multiple persons, or massive destruction of property,”

At the height of the Cold War, “weapons of mass destruction” meant nuclear warheads that were capable of eliminating broad swaths of humanity with a single explosion. With the onset of the “war on terror” we expanded WMD to include bio-weapons that could infect the water supply for an entire city or chemicals that could poison the air of a local community.

Now it seems that our redefinition of the phrase has gone too far. From the article:

The device was made of a can of gunpowder taped to a box of shotgun shells and a bottle with buckshot or BB pellets, according to court documents.

Excuse me? Our BB Bomber constructed a make-shift bomb from a coffee can and some shotgun shells and he is being charged with trying to manufacture a WMD? What can the phrase mean if a quick trip to Wal-Mart and some duct tape yields a weapon of mass destruction? I fear that our language is deteriorating faster than our laws.