Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini's book What Darwin Got Wrong - says reviewer Richard C. Lewontin - considers an immense amount of biology missing from our modern formulation of evolution by natural selection. Why, when vertebrates evolved wings, did they have to give up their front legs to do it? Why don't birds that live in trees make a living by eating the leaves instead of spending so much of their energy looking for seeds or worms?

Mark Lillo charts how both right and left libertarianism & radical individualism have led to "communities of like-mindedness"; and now to an angry movement that wants to be free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don't talk or look like they do.

Dr. Desiree Pardi, a leading practitioner in palliative care, counseled patients about accepting death, until cancer spread in her body, and she chose to fight it.

Peter B. Bach, M.D., M.A.P.P.: The Debate over Regional Variation in Health Care Spending: "The regional variations in health care spending that are documented by the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care have been cited by many as a justification, and possible basis, for changes in provider payment rates. ..."

H.J. Aaron (health economist) and R.D. Reischauer (former director of HBO): "Health care reform advocates will and should celebrate their history-making legislative success.... But supporters must not relax. They should prepare to meet the serious challenges that remain.... Far from having ended, the war to make health care reform an enduring success has just begun. Winning that war will require administrative determination and imagination and as much political resolve as was needed to pass the legislation."

John K. Iglehart: 'President Barack Obama, sealing a hard-fought and historic victory, has signed into law the Democrats' comprehensive health care reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a sweeping measure that would expand coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. Appearing March 23 in the White House, Obama said, "Today . . . health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America. . . . We have just enshrined the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care." '

The passage of health care reform is the end of the century-long welfare project and the beginning of the task of saving the country from fiscal ruin. [FS: I completely disagree with Brooks's conclusions.]

It's long past time to acknowledge that a party that promotes ignorance and provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country.

In the debate leading up to the victory for health care reform, President Obama urged lawmakers to do what is right, while opponents relied on fear and cynicism.

Harvard econ prof David Cutler says the Obama plan will cut costs-$600 billion over the next decade-and that those in Washington should not walk away from it.

Dr. Peter J. Pronovost, medical director of the Quality and Safety Research Group at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, travels the country advising hospitals on innovative safety measures.

In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. [Liberal snobs who sneer at] faith-based organizationstypically give away far less money than evangelicals. They're also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.

The Coffee Party was formed on the opening premise that the federal government "is not the enemy of the people."

Americans' Break for Coffee: "Let's wake up, smell the coffee,
and converse civilly about America's ABCs" (Incomplete write-up-2/14/10)
A. Our Government is Paralyzed
Americans Break for Coffee poses an alternative to the Tea Party movement. It reaffirms the Founders' assertion that American government was intended to "form a more perfect union," despite competing interests and beliefs about the shape of that union.(1)
Our system of checks and balances was intended to avoid tyrannical rule and to protect the rights of minorities, and at the same time to ensure that lawful majority rule ultimately prevailed (in a republican legislature representing all citizens, and elected according to constitutional protocols). Although the Founders were conservatives who did not mind slowing down the legislative process, they certainly did not intend to set up a process in which a determined minority could prevent new legislation that did not have unanimous consent.
(1) Today there is justifiable anger among voters that the legislative process is not working the way it is supposed to work. In an unprecedented way, the minority party appears determined to use every available parliamentary maneuver to prevent the lawfully elected majority to claim any success in implementing the platform which it presented to the voters in the last elections.
The Senate filibuster - a internal parliamentary rule allowing indefinite prolongation of debate, and thus veto power to 40% of senators - was used infrequently until recently. During the last 2 years of George W. Bush's presidency, from 2006-2008, minority Democrats "threatened or used filibusters on a wide variety of issues, including legislation affecting campaign finance, abortion, war spending, the Patriot Act, and the nominations of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court and Dirk Kempthorne as Interior Secretary"
However, continues David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapers, 'Republicans appear to be taking the filibuster to a new level. They've filibustered 15 nominees to mid-level jobs that formerly got routine approval,' even though all but one were ultimately confirmed. ' "Being unable to stop filibusters can make the party in power look ineffective,' said Julian Zelizer , a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, who's written extensively on the filibuster. 'The Republican goal now is to make Obama look like an ineffective leader.' " (2)
(2) Many are also justifiably concerned about the excessive influence of corporations and wealthy private interests on government, as compared to the influence of individual citizens. Saving financiers on Wall Street has seemed to take precedence over saving the jobs and homes of Main Street voters - even if saving the world financial system was a rational precondition for avoiding another Great Depression. The Supreme Court has used this occasion to overturn past congressional legislation and has ruled that corporations' entitlement to "free speech" allows them to spend as many dollars from their coffers as they want to bankroll political parties and movements - even if that money overwhelms the amount of money that individual voters may be able or willing to spend to make their candidates' ideas known within "the public square."

B. China and Europe Are Pulling Ahead of America, As We Dither on Huge Challenges
Former Republican Commerce Secretary Peter G. Peterson summed it up: "Our country faces structural challenges that are undeniable but, politically speaking, untouchable." (3) If we continue to delay in meeting them, these problems will only grow in their scope and in the cost to fix them.
Democrats, Republicans and Independents should be able to agree with Peterson when he cites 2 "elephants in the room":
* A burden of growing, unfunded Federal liabilities - especially related to Medicare and Social Security -"could destroy the quality of life of future generations."(3)
(Yes, there is a "Social Security Trust Fund," but it constantly leaks into payment of the Federal government's general expenses. One presidential candidate in 2000 did recommend putting then-existing government surpluses into a "Social Security lock box" that could not be raided; but he was just ridiculed for the way he said "lock-box." [4] )
* A nationally low savings rate [and excessive consumption of imported goods] makes us "dangerously dependent on foreign lenders."
If these lenders pull the plug on lending, they could "trigger a true crisis: a plummeting dollar, soaring interest rates, and runaway inflation." (3)
I'm sure we could agree on other marauding mammoths that threaten our children's future:
* China and Europe are ahead of us in "green technology" using solar and wind and "clean coal" power as alternatives to fossil fuels like oil. (5)
Our own oil supplies are limited. We have lots of coal, but have done little to minimize the environmental impact of mining and burning it. Our dependence on oil from politically unstable, often hostile foreign countries makes us very vulnerable to disruptions caused by enemy violence or natural disaster. (It also adds further to our foreign debt, so long as imports exceed exports.)
* Our leading Wall Street bankers and financiers have developed a habit of looking for short-term personal profit instead of the national good.
They hired math-whizz specialists to develop and sell extremely risky financial instruments (like mortgage-backed derivatives), while disguising the house of cards they erected with investors' retirement funds. Much of the 2008 financial crisis might have been prevented if, a decade earlier, Republicans and Democrats hadn't repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which was passed after the 1929 stock market crash precipitated the Great Depression and kept banks from speculating with, in Louis Brandeis's words, "other people's money." (6)
* We fiddle while we watch the crumbling of our infrastructure - highways and bridges; bus, train and air terminals; dams and water-supply and sewer systems.
At the same time our politicians refuse to invest in renovation that only governments can coordinate, citing the public's opposition to new taxes and "too much government."
* Speaking of travel innovation, China and Europe are ahead of us in developing high-speed long-distance rail service.
This would be one way to decongest (and reduce demand for more) highways and airports, reduce energy consumption, and create jobs.
________________________
1. Preamble to the United States Constitution, 1787: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

2. David Lightman, "Senate Republicans: Filibuster everything and win in November?" McClatchy Newspapers, 2/12/2010 - http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100212/pl_mcclatchy/3425660.
3. Peter G. Peterson [Secretary of Commerce under President Richard M. Nixon], "How Business Can Rescue the U.S. Economy," Business Week, 11/5/09 - http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_46/b4155102865997.htm. Peterson doesn't just blame government or citizens. He is disturbed by the silence of business leaders, calling them "MIAs" in the battle to solve national problems (as New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman has described them). He calls for "a private-sector Marshall Plan to rescue our own economy-a vast effort in which business leaders, including CEOs and their boards, organize to be heard on the issues and not just lobby for favors. It's time to create a new nonpartisan organization, a public movement to which business leaders lend their names in order to speak out about our long-term structural problems and their potential solutions. "[We must] lead by example. That means any call to sacrifice begins with us. To take just one example: At a time when soaring health-care costs threaten U.S. competitiveness, do we fat cats really think we should get our Cadillac health benefits tax-free? It's time to get off our butts, cure ourselves of an aggravated case of short term-itis, and create a movement that makes it safe for our politicians to opt for the hard choices and unsafe for them to continue to do nothing-to deny the undeniable and pretend we can sustain the unsustainable. "
4. Don Luskin, "Social Security: There is No Trust Fund, Only IOU's, Capitalism Magazine, April 11, 2005 - http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4190.
5. Bob Herbert, " Watching China Run," The New York Times, 2/13/2010 - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/opinion/13herbert.html?scp=1&sq=china%20and%20green%20technology&st=Search. "Covering a conference on the importance of energy and infrastructure for the next American economy," Herbert reflects: "China has nothing comparable to the research, industrial and economic resources of the United States. Yet the Chinese are blowing us away in the technology race to the future. . . . What's at stake is the future of the American economy. The low-carbon era is coming. We can be dragged into that newer, greener world by leading countries like China; or we can take up the challenge and become the world's leader ourselves."
6. Melvin I. Urofsky, "The Value of Other People's Money, Op-Ed, The New York Times, 2/6/2009 - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/opinion/07urofsky.html. "Some things never change. . . . In 1914 Louis D. Brandeis. Brandeis, a commercial lawyer and future Supreme Court justice, described a dangerous combination of avarice, lack of accountability and poor oversight in "Other People's Money, and How the Bankers Use It," one of the best-known exposés of the Progressive era. . . .
Our current crisis, after all, was in part fueled by bankers making big gambles with other people's cash. They bundled and sold sub-prime mortgages, took their profits, and then left others holding portfolios full of worthless, even toxic, paper. This was exactly the kind of behavior that Brandeis despised. He believed that it was one thing for an individual to put up capital in risky ventures, playing to win but prepared for failure. But he saw the bankers of his time dodging failure by manipulating the marketplace at the expense of smaller entrepreneurs and consumers.
For Brandeis, regulation was not supposed to be a restraint on innovation or the entrepreneurial spirit, but rather a check on unbridled greed. He believed in a free market, but one in which the government enforced rules of fair competition so that the most talented could succeed. Clear rules would help ensure that business was conducted fairly and openly."
7. Keith Bradsher, "China Sees Growth Engine in a Web of Fast Trains," The New York Times, 2/12/2010 - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/business/global/13rail.html?scp=1&sq=china,%20high%20speed%20trains&st=cse. "In China, 42 high-speed rail lines have opened or are set to open by 2012; the U.S. hopes to build its first high-speed line by 2014. . . . The Chinese bullet train, which has the world's fastest average speed, travels 664 miles" from coastal Guangzhouon to Wuhan, deep in the interior in a little more than three hours. Although this is the same distance from Boston to southern Virginia, the train takes less time than Amtrak's fastest train, the Acela, takes to go from Boston to New York. By comparison, the United States' first high-speed rail line will, by 2014, link only the 84 miles between Tampa and Orlando, Fla."

Republicans are getting away with their populist masquerade, and Democrats are not convincing the country that they offer anything better.

News, commentary and archival information about the Tea Party movement from NYTimes.

More than populism, the movement is about a transformation from political indifference to bracing for tyranny.

Includes Fred letter re accepting imperfect HCR bill, even without public option.

On the stimulus, the correct story is the big story - the macroeconomic story. According to private forecasters -- not talking Obama administration folks, but private firms that are paid by other private companies to accurately analyze the market -- the stimulus worked.