Siri is just a crappy doctor

My PhillyMag editor Erica Palan loves her new iPhone 4S, but she's not worried that Siri won't point her to the nearest abortion doctor:

When I asked Siri where I could get a Pap smear nearby, she didn’t understand. She was similarly confused when I asked her where I could get a mammogram, a colonoscopy and a prostate exam. Also, when I told her I had a broken hand, she asked for an email address instead of recommending hospitals or doctors. When I asked for advice for my bunion, she responded, “I don’t know what you mean by Bunyon. [sic]” After wondering who could fix my toothache, Siri asked me to provide a contact name. She’s not pro-life. She’s just not a very good medical professional. 

Siri doesn’t know how to correlate the names of specific medical procedures to nearby results. Ask Siri where the nearest Planned Parenthood is and she instantaneously provides addresses. She also suggested 16 gynecologists in my area. Ask her for an emergency dentist and she serves up search results within seconds.

The rich aren't so different from you and me, politically

When the party leanings of independents are taken into account, 57% of the nation's wealthiest adults associate themselves with the Republican Party, compared with 44% of the "99%." At the same time, Gallup polling finds little difference in the two groups' ideological views. Among the very wealthy, 39% say their political views are conservative, 41% call themselves moderate, and 20% liberal, similar to the percentages seen among all others.

via gallup.com

But even if their self-identifications are similar, that doesn't mean their priorities—and their ability to press for those priorities—is the same. Lots of people call themselves "fiscal conservative/social liberal" for example, but that means a lot of different things depending on who is doing the talking.

The problem with third parties

Philadelphia Daily News columnist John Baer gets Third Party Fever:

WANT AN alternative to a 43-precent-job-approval president and whoever the Republican "Gong Show" offers? Fed up with Obama but afraid of the right?
Well, there's a move afoot, kicked off by a billionaire biz guy, to nominate a centrist, bipartisan ticket through a national online convention.

It's scheduled for next June, run by something called Americans Elect and open to all registered voters.

Its pitch: Pick a president, not a party. It plays to national disgust with Washington gridlock, Democratic disappointment in Obama and GOP angst over the Republican field. And it isn't a bad idea.

It's not a great idea. It would be nice to break through the Washington gridlock on occasion, yes, but electing a third party president won't do much to end that. If you're really wanting to shake things up, you've got to start electing Americans Elect candidates to Congress.

That's arguably harder to do than fielding a candidate for presidency. To run for Congress, you've actually got to develop a local constituency, and to do that you probably need to have an agenda somewhat more detailed than "those guys suck"—voters need to know, generally, what you stand for and what you'll try to get accomplished in office. And if you actually get to Congress, there's no guarantee that your presence there won't further calcify the divisions.

But Congress, not the presidency, is where the gridlock is. Third party efforts suck because they focus on the unattainable goal of hitting a home run and capturing the presidency; it skips the hard work that would really be needed to field a consistently credible alternative party.

Federalist 54, slavery, and 'The 1 Percent'

Like a lot of liberals, when I think about the Constitution's original provision that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning representation in Congress, I often think about it in racial terms: They were literally saying that black people were less than fully human! Sometimes I think about it in political terms: Southern politicians were accruing power—and thus preserving slavery—by giving slaves any human weight at all. But I don't often think about it in economic terms.

Federalist 54 changes that for me. This is the paper in which James Madison must justify the three-fifths apportionment to the people of New York. And his primary justification is this: Slaves are a form of wealth. And wealth deserves a little extra representation in the halls of government.

No really. This is what Madison writes:

"After all, may not another ground be taken on which this article of the Constitution will admit of a still more ready defense? We have hitherto proceeded on the idea that representation related to persons only, and not at all to property. But is it a just idea? Government is instituted no less for protection of the property, than of the persons, of individuals. The one as well as the other, therefore, may be considered as represented by those who are charged with the government. Upon this principle it is, that in several of the States, and particularly in the State of New York, one branch of the government is intended more especially to be the guardian of property, and is accordingly elected by that part of the society which is most interested in this object of government. In the federal Constitution, this policy does not prevail. The rights of property are committed into the same hands with the personal rights. Some attention ought, therefore, to be paid to property in the choice of those hands.

"For another reason, the votes allowed in the federal legislature to the people of each State, ought to bear some proportion to the comparative wealth of the States. States have not, like individuals, an influence over each other, arising from superior advantages of fortune. If the law allows an opulent citizen but a single vote in the choice of his representative, the respect and consequence which he derives from his fortunate situation very frequently guide the votes of others to the objects of his choice; and through this imperceptible channel the rights of property are conveyed into the public representation. A State possesses no such influence over other States. It is not probable that the richest State in the Confederacy will ever influence the choice of a single representative in any other State. Nor will the representatives of the larger and richer States possess any other advantage in the federal legislature, over the representatives of other States, than what may result from their superior number alone. As far, therefore, as their superior wealth and weight may justly entitle them to any advantage, it ought to be secured to them by a superior share of representation."

Basically: Rich men have disproportionate influence on selecting representatives in government—more because of their awesomeness than because they purchase it seems—and so should rich states. That's why it's fair to (mostly) count slaves when determining a state's representation in the House of Representatives.

The logic, as Madison admits, is "a little strained." If wealth determines representation, then why not make a tally of all the assets within a state and determine representation accordingly? The answer, it appears, is that slaves can be punished for committing crimes—that separates them from mere livestock, and, well, it all gets very depressing to read and think about.

But Federalist 54 is interesting in light of the recent "Occupy Wall Street" protests. At the heart of the demonstrations, I believe, is a belief that every citizen should have roughly equal representation in the federal government—the anger against "The 1 Percent" is anger not just that rich people are getting richer much faster than the rest of us, but that they have disproportionate influence with our government to bend policies to their will. To the protesters, that seems undemocratic—a betrayal of the American promise.

If we're to take Madison at his word, though, the problem is actually pretty foundational: The idea that wealth deserves more say in the halls of our democratic government seems at odds with the "one person, one vote" ideals we're usually taught, but it's baked into our government's DNA, part of the founding documents. 

Karen Heller's oversight on Herman Cain

At the Philadelphia Inquirer today, Karen Heller pooh-poohs the idea a candidate—say, like Herman Cain—should have to give up pursuing the presidency just because of adultery allegations. "Adoring your spouse is an admirable quality, particularly in one's own partner. But fidelity shouldn't be the determining factor on which candidate gets your vote. Richard Nixon was faithful to Pat, just not to the Constitution," she writes.

I don't entirely disagree: I wrote something similar back when Anthony Weiner was in hot water. But that said: It's absolutely a good thing that Cain was driven from the race.

Why? Not because of the adultery allegations, at least not on their own. The problem is that the adultery allegations came after stories that Cain had sexually harassed subordinates back when he was running the restaurant lobbying association. Essentially: He used and abused his power to try to get women to go to bed with him. Those allegations didn't merely suggest Cain was a bad boy in his private life; they suggested that Cain handled the perks of leadership in selfish, abusive, distorted fashion. That should be the concern of voters—and to my mind, should've been enough to drive him from the race on their own. The adultery allegations were the straw that broke the camel's back.

So I agree with Heller: Adultery, on its own, shouldn't be a disqualifier from high office. When it's combined with power abuses, though, there's a real problem. It would've been nice if she'd at least acknowledged that part of the story, instead of stripping it down to a mere tale of adultery.

I wonder what Newt thinks of this?

Children as young as 12 toil on farms as long as 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, often in sweltering conditions, a recent report by Human Rights Watch found. Because of biological characteristics (such as a greater surface-area-to-body-mass ratio and a lower sweat capacity) and a reduced tendency to know when to take a break in response to heat symptoms, young farm workers are particularly at risk of excessive heat exposure, Public Citizen said in its comments.

Reserving its objections to the practice of child labor, to which it is opposed, Public Citizen called on the DOL to establish a heat-stress threshold that requires employers to take immediate action to prevent the onset of heat injury, among other protective measures.

via citizen.org

Do we deserve a Great Depression because the Greeks were irresponsible?

Rod Dreher seems to think so. Here he is, commenting on David Brooks' column sticking up for Germans who don't want to bail out their Eurozone counterparts:

I wonder what would be worse: a Depression that serves as nemesis for the hubris of the Eurozone tower of Babel, or saving the Eurozone by throwing overboard the “precious social construct” of moral hazard and an economic system that rewards virtue and punishes vice.

Those are two bad choices, but you know what? The Depression is worse. In the latter scenario, people who don't deserve to live comfortable lives get to do so—but so do the people who do deserve to. In the former scenario, people who made bad choices pay for them—but so do a lot of other people who don't. I'm not a fan of tripping lightly over moral hazard, but I'm even less a fan of the misery that accompanies a Depression.  And there's no telling where those ramifications would end. The last Depression ended with a genocidal world war, after all.