Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Ad space is available on the Mediaburn Network. All you need is a banner to upload and a credit card: Buy ads here 9:04:41 PM

The Tripod Community Site from Terra Lycos is now offering Weblogs: http://blog.tripod.lycos.com/ 8:06:31 PM

Update email I received today from DATA (Debt, Trade, AIDS in Africa) with comment from Bono. "Wow, don't mess with the American people... from churches, campuses, coffee shops and computers they got their message through to Washington: AIDS in Africa is an emergency. This week, the President responded. Now, he and Congress have to rapidly translate his bold vision into cash that saves lives. Africa needs the people of America to keep raising awareness of the AIDS crisis, and make sure the politicians deliver the money. AIDS is not just an unprecedented humanitarian tragedy in Africa, it?s a threat to peace and global stability everywhere." - Bono Friends, We had quite a night last night and you all need to be heartily congratulated. As a result of your phone calls, emails, persistence and determination- the President stood up and responded to the will of the American people. His announcement for $15 billion over the next five years is cause for celebration. We're thrilled that the President has committed his Administration to this initiative and thrilled that he has attached a meaningful total of money to the cause. The next step is to keep a keen eye on what happens in this next week. The President's 2004 budget will be released on February 4th at which time we will learn more about exactly how this money will be spent. We will also begin to answer very important questions that will enable us to truly evaluate the President's initiative. We need to find out whether this is truly all new money or if it has been taken from other foreign aid accounts. We feel quite certain that at least $2.5 billion is needed in 2004 for the AIDS crisis to make up for lost time and to kickstart the programs. We also feel strongly that a substantial amount should be directed through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria which is a funding mechanism that draws upon global resources to fund the very best country-driven, technically reviewed proposals around the world. These are all important questions and we must strongly encourage the Administration, the Senate and the House of Representatives to ensure that the best possible and most effective mechanisms are used to deploy this money. Keep an eye out and we'll be back in touch once we know more about exactly what the President?s announcement means. We have won a huge battle and we truly owe it to you. We now have to make sure that these dollars we fought so hard for are used effectively and efficiently on those who need them so dearly. If we continue to work together, we really can make a difference. Thanks again!!! DATA http://www.datadata.org 6:29:30 PM

From Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment: You do the math When I was in school learning about the difference between an average (or mean), where you add up the values of a bunch of items and then divide by the number of items, and a median, where you line up a bunch of items and find the value of the one in the middle, I always thought the median was sort of meaningless. What practical use would it ever have? Watching President Bush's State of the Union tonight I thought, Oh, this is where medians come in handy. I'm referring, of course, to the claim -- repeated yet again in the president's speech -- that his tax cut plan offers an "average" tax break of over $1000. "Ninety-two million Americans," Bush told us with a straight face, "will keep this year an average of almost $1,100 more of their own money." This average is a convenient fiction; it's a statistic that exists only because the enormous benefits accruing to the dividend-owning super-rich skew the "average" -- and camouflage the fact that the cuts most middle class taxpayers will receive under Bush's proposal are piddling. The few rich taxpayers with mega-breaks are statistical "outliers"; if you used a median rather than an average you'd end up with a far lower number -- one much closer to what most of us would actually get under Bush's plan. Now, this claim had already been widely debunked before the speech; I'm not breaking any news here. Paul Krugman put it most memorably when he wrote, "A liberal and a conservative were sitting in a bar. Then Bill Gates walked in. 'Hey, we're rich!' shouted the conservative. 'The average person in this bar is now worth more than a billion!'" I guess I shouldn't be shocked at this late date that Bush and his administration would continue to use blatantly misleading "facts" to sell their policies; it's been their economic approach from day one. Still, it's appalling. And the very consistency of Bush's willingness to twist simple facts in demonstrably manipulative and sometimes outright deceitful ways has a more pernicious effect than simply discrediting his policies: It leaves us with the sense that the man is deeply untrustworthy. I wouldn't buy a used car from anyone who I knew played so fast and loose with simple arithmetic -- let alone trust him on matters of life and death, war and peace. Unfortunately, the U.S. has already made its down payment. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment] 12:37:55 PM