It seems the Swift Boat Veterans for Lies (remember them, the fellows who called Kerry a war criminal?) have focused their rheumy gaze on a new target. This time they’ve set their sights on the AARP, and the issue is the restructuring (destruction of) the Social Security program.

The AARP has had the bad taste to openly oppose the administration’s plans to privatize the Social Security system, and as such have incurred predictable Neocon wrath. True to form however, the Swift Boat Liars (I refuse to call them by their newly adopted name, “USA Next”) will not, it seems, resort to rational debate and logic to win this particular war. Their first ad on the subject accused the AARP of failing to support troops fighting in Iraq, as well as promoting gay marriage. I am a member of AARP, and receive its mailings. I have never heard or seen either of these issues addressed by the organization. The truth is, it never has addressed these issues. Never. I guess that doesn’t matter. In the new America, it is no virtue to live in the “Reality Based Community.” I’m sick of quoting Goebbel's views on influencing public opinion, so I won’t. The Liars’ national chairman, by the way, is none other than Art Linkletter. Conservatives say the funniest things! My head is starting to swim…

• • • • •

Last month I believe I mentioned the Missile Defense System. It seems this absurd program is staggering on as we speak. The dynamics are real simple. You deploy the system at the same time you test the system. If this makes sense to you, then your initials are GWB.

I suppose the overall concept is rational in a paranoid sort of way, but the fact of the matter is that the thing doesn’t work. Never has. Probably never will. The latest failure occurred on February 14th. The interceptor rocket failed to launch, leaving the target rocket to splash into the sea. This test flop cost $85 million dollars. Did I mention that the system is already being deployed? Not one test has been successful.

• • • • •

Part of the Department of Homeland Security’s responsibilities is to allocate funds for port security. I suppose the term port would imply a seaport, but perhaps it applies to airport facilities as well. No matter. The department’s inspector general has concluded that the funds were allocated idiotically (my term, not his). For example, Wyoming received four times as much antiterrorism money, including funds for port security, as did New York. The I.G. implied that the funds might have been distributed with a bit more pragmatism. Let’s see… Wyoming… Was that a red state or a blue state? What about New York?

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) complained with lungs of brass in a letter to Bush that stated in part:

"Your administration awarded port security grants in the states of Oklahoma, Kentucky, New Hampshire and Tennessee," Mr. Lautenberg wrote. "While there may be some form of maritime facilities in these locations, I question whether, of the nation's 361 maritime ports, these locations are truly the front lines on the war on terror."

I don’t know whether or not he received a reply, but I would have dearly loved to know what it was. I would also dearly love to know what sort of maritime facilities might be contained in the sovereign and arid state of Oklahoma.

I suppose it doesn’t matter if there was a reply; that is what an opposition party has been reduced to in the New Order: Filibusters and letter writing.

• • • • •

One of the hallmarks of the conservative mindset is that the private sector can always do a better, more cost effective job than the government can. I guess that would include the health care field as well. Let us consider the case of Prison Health Services, a for-profit entity engaged to provide medical services to prisoners in New York State.

From the New York Times of Feb. 27, 2005:

“A yearlong examination of Prison Health by The New York Times reveals repeated instances of medical care that has been flawed and sometimes lethal. The company's performance around the nation has provoked criticism from judges and sheriffs, lawsuits from inmates' families and whistle-blowers, and condemnations by federal, state and local authorities. The company has paid millions of dollars in fines and settlements.”

It seems that Prison Health Services has discovered a unique method of controlling costs: Withhold medication from prisoners! What could be simpler? The benefits are twofold: You save money on medication, and when the person dies, he needs no more medical care!

Intriguing! Lets stay with this a bit…

From the same article:

“Brian Tetrault was 44 when he was led into a dim county jail cell in upstate New York in 2001, charged with taking some skis and other items from his ex-wife's home. A former nuclear scientist who had struggled with Parkinson's disease, he began to die almost immediately, and state investigators would later discover why: The jail's medical director had cut off all but a few of the 32 pills he needed each day to quell his tremors.

Over the next 10 days, Mr. Tetrault slid into a stupor, soaked in his own sweat and urine. But he never saw the jail doctor again, and the nurses dismissed him as a faker. After his heart finally stopped, investigators said, correction officers at the Schenectady jail doctored records to make it appear he had been released before he died.

“Two months later, Victoria Williams Smith, the mother of a teenage boy, was booked into another upstate jail, in Dutchess County, charged with smuggling drugs to her husband in prison. She, too, had only 10 days to live after she began complaining of chest pains. She phoned friends in desperation: The medical director would not prescribe anything more potent than Bengay or the arthritis medicine she had brought with her, investigators said. A nurse scorned her pleas to be hospitalized as a ploy to get drugs. When at last an ambulance was called, Ms. Smith was on the floor of her cell, shaking from a heart attack that would kill her within the hour. She was 35.”

Ah, they were only prisoners, right? We have to control costs somehow…

• • • • •

Finally, lets straighten out a few thing regarding the ongoing abortion issue. The debate seems to be centered on whether or not life begins at conception. This seems to be a theological issue, not a legal one. Until this theological issue is decided, it cannot be legislated. Well I suppose it can be, but not effectively. Theologically, I know of no religion that holds last rites or burial services for miscarriages, so I guess the issue has in fact been put to rest.

No? Here’s another point:

Outspoken opponents of abortion are for the most part fundamentalists. That is, they take the entire Bible to be the literal word of God. In the King James Version, Adam lives only when God breathes the breath of life into him. As an allegory for the birth process, this would seem to imply that life begins only when respiration does. If the Bible is literal truth...

I feel the ice growing thinner and thinner under my feet, so I’ll say farewell to all my Gantseh Megillah friends. As always, I welcome any and all comments.