Power based on love is a thousand times more effective

Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation was Monday. I mentioned the day when I wrote about Wab Kinew’s book a couple weeks ago. It is a time for the nation to grapple with the way European settlers of Canada treated the original residents. In honor of that Michael de Adder posted a few appropriate cartoons. The last one has the caption, “John Cabot didn’t ‘discover’ anything.” Today, through Canadian news, I learned that Kinew was elected as premier of Manitoba in 2023. Tuesday was Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday. Of course, there were tributes and best wishes from many people. Walter Einenkel wrote a tribute for Daily Kos. He was the 39th president and did a pretty good job of it (though not many thought so at the time). After he wasn’t reelected in 1981 his stature seemed to grow through the Carter Center and its push for democracy and human rights around the world and also his personal involvement with Habitat for Humanity. The tribute ends with a cartoon based on Carter’s wish that, though he is under hospice care and has been for about 18 months, he very much wants to live long enough to vote for Harris. Bill in Portland, Maine, as part of his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, also has a tribute to Carter. Here’s the part on his presidency:

That Jimmy grin and the sense of optimism that went with it was what the country wanted and needed after the Republicans’ Watergate mess. Although his one term isn't considered a rousing success, he kept us out of war, focused our attention on energy policy, protected huge amounts of land, was at the helm during the creation of eight million jobs, brokered peace between Israel and Egypt, and brought honesty and integrity back to the White House.

We could use some of that honesty and integrity in the current campaign. BlisterPearl posted a cartoon in honor of Carter. I can’t make out the creator’s name. It shows a series of houses built by Carter for Habitat for Humanity. Each house has a one-word sign: Grace, Compassion, Dignity, Humility, Faith, Love, Honesty, Courage, Service. Bill in Portland, Maine also honored the 154th birthday of Mohandas Gandhi on Wednesday, the guy who employed non-violent dissent to great effect. Many, including Martin Luther King and John Lewis, employed his tactics. A couple of quotes:

“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.” “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.”

Sigh. From those lofty thoughts back to the every day mud. Marhsall Cohen and Daniel Dale of CNN Politics discussed 12 election lies the nasty guy has been saying over the last couple months to lay the groundwork to dispute the 2024 election if he loses. He made similar statements ahead of the 2020 election and we saw where that went – an attempt to overthrow democracy. Here are some of the lies. The article describes where the nasty guy said it and why it is false. + Harris can only win through cheating. + Democrats replacing Biden with Harris is unconstitutional. + Voting by non-citizens is a widespread problem. + The FBI caught Iran spying on his campaign and gave the info to Harris. This is partly true in that Iran did hack his campaign. + California’s vote counts are dishonest, though California won’t decide the election. + There was fraud in early voting. + A large portion of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent. + Biden or Harris orchestrated his legal cases. Yes, all of them are false. All of them damage democracy. Morgan Stephens of Kos wrote that the nasty guy has been saying he knows nothing about Project 2025 and its authors. Also, during his time in the Oval Office he implemented suggestions made by the Heritage Foundation, the group that authored Project 2025. They then boasted about how the nasty guy did their bidding. The post’s title says there are 11 times he did their bidding, but then lists two more before the count is started. Here are some of them. + Pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. + Repealed net neutrality. + Cut child nutrition programs. + Banned transgender people from the military. + Eliminated grants to prevent violence against women. + Slashed the Department of Justice civil rights division. + Pulled out of the World Health Organization during a pandemic. Don’t believe him when he says he doesn’t know Project 2025 and its authors. Kos of Kos discussed a speech the nasty guy gave last weekend. He says the speech is making it harder for news outlets to “sane-wash” his mental state. But they’re still doing it anyway. The speech, though rambling, also insulted his supporters. Some of the things he said: He hates paying overtime (no one clapped for that line). He blamed small crowd sizes on Biden and past losses on cities with large black populations. He insulted Harris’ intelligence. He said Democrats will cheat in the election. He gave a solution to theft. That should have gotten a lot of press, and didn’t. An example of how the media has been treating the nasty guy: Bloomberg said he “sharpened his criticism” of border security. Mark Jacob responded:

When Trump says immigrants are “animals” who will invade your kitchen and slit your throat, Bloomberg sane-washes him by saying he “sharpened his criticism.” This is a stain on journalism. It’s utter malpractice that endangers our country.

In a pundit roundup for Kos, Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Sebastian Smith on what the nasty guy said about theft:

Trump in Erie, PA, says in US “the police aren’t allowed to do their job.” To stop crime, you need “one really violent day.” He says: “One rough hour and I mean real rough, the word would get out and it would end immediately.”

Somewhere else I heard this is similar to the plot of The Purge. See below. Dworkin also quoted Elad Nehorai discussing the Middle East:

We launched 2 wars in which hundreds of thousands were killed as a response to a terror attack where thousands were killed, wars which brought neither security nor peace and which most now regret. And here we are 20 years later with people cheering almost the exact same thing. People confuse hurting the enemy with safety, and this lesson never seems to be learned. Hopefully one day we’ll raise a consciousness that goes beyond violence = success.

Dworkin added:

You can hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. This can also be thought of as tactical success, strategic failure.

EJ Dionne of the Washington Post discussed North Carolina as the center of the faith war. One side is white evangelical Christian’s loyalty to the nasty guy.

Don’t try to tell this tale to Bishop Haywood Parker, the senior pastor at Truth Tabernacle Ministries here. “There are White evangelicals who will utilize the gospel and twist it in a way that works to their advantage and gives them a way to support Trump,” he told me last week. “But there are lots of us who don’t feel that way. When I’m told that if I support Kamala Harris that somehow, I’m anti-church, anti-Biblical, that really bothers me.” Parker is not alone. In fact, he represents another equally powerful, politically active Christian tradition shaping this year’s elections.

I found The Purge on the Barnes & Noble website as a horror movie released in 2013. It looks like there are four sequels. The description of the first says in part:

In the not-too-distant future, rampant crime and prison overcrowding have inspired the U.S. government to implement a unique solution to restore the peace: Each year, for a 12-hour period, any and all crime becomes permissible as police put their jobs on hold, and hospitals close their doors. It's called the Purge, and remarkably, the annual event leads to drastically reduced crime and record-low unemployment levels throughout the rest of the year.

The plot of this first movie is about how a family tries to secure their home during the purge which, of course, goes wrong. I doubt the nasty guy watched this movie. I wonder who told him about it. Well. After that we need something more upbeat. Towards the bottom of his Monday column Bill in Portland, Maine included a meme. It shows Biden as Dark Brandon in a yellow convertible saying, “Get in Patriot, we got some malarkey to stop.” And in his column for today he included a video by Dominique Davis that uses stop motion and live actors to create short scenes that are a lot of fun. Each little scene is shown to ways, in fast motion from the side, then as intended in stop motion. The video is 1:19 long. In the comments of another pundit roundup are a couple good cartoons. The first is by Mark Parisi and features one cat talking to a kitten saying, “I should warn you, this place is haunted by a tiny, red, uncatchable ghost dot.” The other is by David Hayward, the Naked Pastor. Jesus says to a crowd, “I really don’t care what religion you are, if any. Just use it to make you more kind and less jerk.”

It's difficult to heal trauma without truth-telling

Almost a week ago (I’ve said many times things can sit in my browser tabs for quite a while) Michel Martin, host of NPR’s All Things Considered, held a discussion about truth and reconciliation commissions. Such commissions were effectively used in post-Apartheid South Africa and in Northern Ireland. In the discussion was Denise Altvater, a co-founder of the Maine-Wabanaki State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Martin introduced Altvatar by saying:

That commission was convened to address the widespread practice of taking Native American children from their homes and placing them in foster care or adopting them out to white families. That was Denise's experience, and it was deeply traumatic for her. She recalls being tortured and abused when she was separated from her mother for years.

Altveter described the result of her work in the commission:

The most important was having the space where my voice and others' voices could be heard and believed in a place where we knew that something was going to happen. So it was so life-changing to tell your story in that type of an atmosphere, and it transformed me into somebody who started having courage that I never had before. And it just transformed my life. So healing and having a voice were the two most important aspects to me.

Rev. Nelson Johnson described the incident that led to a truth and reconciliation commission in Greensboro, North Carolina:

We were organizers - active organizer in the textile industry and in communities throughout North Carolina. We chose to have a march through the historical Black community. Well, nine carloads of Klan and Nazis drove into the march with a cache of weapons, and they fired on the group. Five people were killed. I was wounded. And I knew then that this couldn't happen without the police collusion. We fought it from the very, very beginning. Two juries did not convict the Klan or found them not guilty of anything. So at our 20th anniversary of this tragedy, we mull over what to do. We resolve to build a truth process over 40 years of persistent work.

He described what the commission accomplished:

Well, it laid a foundation of information that was available to the community. The population of our city had been so thoroughly inundated with the view that we were responsible for our own deaths, I think it opened the door for what eventually happened. And that is that the city used the document, although some 40 years later, to help them come to a conclusion that the police deliberately did not show, that the city government created an atmosphere that mitigated against a decent trial.

Johnson is now working towards a national truth process. Rev. Mark Sills is also of Greensboro, raised in a white privileged family. His father preached against segregation and the Klan burned a cross in their yard. Even with that he felt had been lightly touched by racism. Martin said some people believe these commissions are “basically beat-up-on-white-people day.” Sills responded:

There's a fact that truth commissions exemplify that cannot be denied. And that is, it's difficult to heal trauma without truth-telling. You have to uncover and acknowledge what has been done wrong before you can fully move forward. And so that's what this commission accomplished.

Sills concluded with this:

To me, racism is like an addiction. And an addicted person may not at first see that they have a problem. It may make them feel strong or wise or intelligent or powerful. And anyone who's ever worked with addicted people knows you cannot help a person resolve an addiction, overcome an addiction, until they're ready to acknowledge that they have a problem. Truth commissions are a way that society can acknowledge the things that are killing us and destroying us and fraying the edges of our culture. And once those things have been identified and acknowledged, then progress - real progress, substantive progress - can be made. So I think the models that are represented in Maine and in Greensboro are worthy of - for other communities to look at ways to go forward.

Because so many people lost jobs that resulted in less buying and less payment of sales and income tax to the states. State and city budgets are hurting. Ian Reifowitz of Daily Kos reported that New Jersey is leading the way by raising taxes on the rich. Governor Andrew Cuomo has dismissed a wealth tax in New York, saying it should be done nationwide. He doesn’t want to put his state at a competitive disadvantage. But Reifowitz says Cuomo is wrong. He quoted findings from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities of two main results. 1. Raising top income tax rates is unlikely to harm state economies in the short run. 2. Differences in taxes between states have minimal effects on state economic growth. David Root, who runs a wealth management company, told the New York Times that a person who would be affected by the wealth tax is pretty well entrenched in their location with too many local ties to move. New Jersey shows how it works at the state level. Reifowitz reviewed Biden’s proposal for the nation (I’ll let you read the details). Then Reifowitz reminds us that the income of billionaires has been going up by just under $5 billion a day, for an increase of $1.31 per billionaire. In contrast, the income of the bottom 82% of American earners dropped by 4.4%. CNBC did an analysis of why raising taxes on the rich was a bad idea. As evidence they explained where a $400,000 household income goes and why that isn’t enough. Laura Clawson of Kos tears their reasoning to shreds. Even though they’re declared to be “middle class” the family is in the top 2% of earners. This sample family has: A pricey home in the city rather than a less a less pricey one in the burbs. Hefty donations to retirement accounts. Hefty contributions to college funds. Extended hours at day care. Pricey vacations. Most “middle class” families are getting by with far less and many “get by” through debt. So a description of this family just getting by is …

well, this whole exercise in the name of arguing against slightly more fair taxation is outrageously offensive. This is a myth people write for themselves about why they deserve what almost no one else has. This is the personal finance analysis of people for whom only people richer than themselves truly exist, who are always, no matter how much money they make, going to be looking at the income category above themselves and feeling bereft. Here’s something to try for anyone who feels middle-class at anywhere above, let’s say, the 89th percentile for income: Look below rather than above yourself, for a damn change, and embrace reality. Yes, the ultra-rich are ultra-rich, and the distance between them and the rest of us is horrifying. But if your rationale for claiming middle-class status is that you don’t live like the 0.1%, you’ve let our twisted, unequal economy twist your judgment. And if you think that your choices about how to spend your $400,000 a year mean that you shouldn’t pay an extra 1% in taxes, you’re just looking to justify a monstrous selfishness—and unfortunately, you’re finding plenty in our society to back you up in that.

Kos of Kos says we should stop using the frequent Democratic mantra of “Run like we’re 10 points down!” His reasons: People are motivated by winning, not losing. If their candidate is ahead they’re more excited about helping out and voting. But if a candidate is behind people are more likely think about walking away. See 2010. At least this year no one is staying home. People are voting early in large numbers. And…

People aren’t voting to elect Joe Biden anymore. They’re voting to give Donald Trump the biggest middle finger possible. This is transcending mere electoral considerations and becoming a cultural moment. Even California, which has no competitive political offices at stake, has record turnout. Knowing Biden is going to win the state isn’t deterring any golden stater from casting that delicious anti-Trump vote.

There are more races than president. A forecast for a Biden win should prompt us to say that’s awesome, can we flip the Texas House? But if we act like we’re 10 points down we’re also saying all these other races are out of reach. From a post written at the end of September (yeah, sometimes it takes a while for me to get to some things) Joan McCarter of Kos reviews various cases of Postal Service workers, even some managers, who are defying Louis DeStroy’s efforts to slow down the mail. Related to that, Hunter of Kos reported that DeStroy has reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed by Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. In the settlement DeStroy agreed to reverse all changes that have recently delayed the mail. However, wrote Hunter, because the nasty guy administration lies so much it is quite possible that DeStroy was lying when he agreed to reverse all changes. We’ll have to wait until postal workers tell us that changes have been made. From this week’s download of Michigan’s coronavirus data: Six days ago the number of new cases was above 1400. The peak at the beginning of April was just above 1600 new cases a day. That same day the number of deaths was 22. The last time it was this high was in early June. Since mid September the number of cases per day has risen sharply. Before then the weekly peak was under 900 cases a day.

There must be actual consequences

SemDem of the Daily Kos community discussed what the GOP is calling Ballot Security but will actually be aggressive voter intimidation.

Back in 1981 the GOP ran a Ballot Security Task Force, even sporting official looking armbands, though the whole thing was made up by the GOP. From a description in the New Republic:

Once the poll monitors had set up shop, they soon began, in the language of the complaint, “disrupting the operations of polling places, harassing poll workers, stopping and questioning prospective voters, refusing to permit prospective voters to enter the polling places, ripping down signs of one of the candidates, and forcibly restraining poll workers from assisting, as permitted by state laws, voters to cast their ballots.”

Because of how ugly it got and how illegal it was the GOP was put under a consent decree. That was kept in place for nearly four decades. A federal judge allowed that decree to expire in 2018. So the GOP is getting ready for full-on aggressive voter intimidation. They’re recruiting 50,000 volunteers as “poll watchers.” The nasty guy uses terms such as an “army” ready to “go to battle” to defend him against his enemies. Several organizations with misleading names, such as Honest Elections Project and True the Vote, are helping recruit the volunteers, with a preference for military veterans. State level GOP officials are setting up their own groups. These volunteers will be encouraged to do all those things described in the quote above. Of course, they will be doing them in black majority precincts.

SemDem discussed what we can do about it.

The number of undecided this time is low – about 2.4%. That means the Get Out The Vote drives will be critical. Which side can get more of their people to the polls would win. Or … which side could do the most to prevent the other side from voting.

The Democratic leadership needs to prioritize voting over campaigning. They need to prepare for the legal battles that will surely come.

As for the rest of us, SemDem has suggestions. Be a poll worker. Be a poll monitor, though if someone is aggressive I don’t think I’d be the right guy to tell them to back off. Be part of a group to monitor ballot drop boxes to make sure they aren’t tampered with. If you’re in an area where there will be long lines (because officials make sure there aren’t enough voting machines) bring comfort to the line with food or drink. Report voter intimidation to local election officials, the Democratic Party, and to the ACLU (1-866-OUR-VOTE).

Check your voting eligibility and get others to check too. That’s not a big deal in Michigan because one can register to vote on election day (thanks to voting rights passed two years ago), but is a big deal elsewhere. Do not accept a provisional ballot. They rarely get counted. Instead, work out what issue needs to be resolved.

A great way to avoid voter intimidation is to vote at home if at all possible, even if that means taking the completed ballot to city hall rather than putting it in the mail.



Andrea Grimes tweeted:

“but GOP voters use mail-in ballots, too! this doesn’t make any sense!!”

it does if you realize he’s trying to stop an election and short of that, entirely deligitimize it, rather than stop democrats, uniquely, from voting

it’s not 4D chess it’s just logic

Dan Solomon responded:

incidentally, this is why i think Texas is a much more important state for Biden than the conventional wisdom says. because we aren’t doing widespread mail-in voting, our results will be in early, and if Biden wins it, it disrupts whatever narrative the Trump campaign might want

Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed that every single appointee in the nasty guy administration needs to know they will be prosecuted if (hopefully when) Joe Biden wins the election. Dartagnan includes quotes from Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times and from a report from the Center for American Progress. If not prosecuted all of them will go on a looting spree between the time the election is called and the inauguration. We already know that several of them such as Cruella DeVos at Education are there to destroy the department they were put int charge of. We must assume once they know they’re on their way out they will maximize the damage. They will delete data from hard drives, shred documents, actually steal government property, and do all they can to cover up what they’ve done.

Why? Because so far no one has stopped them and many, such as William Barr of formerly Justice, clearly believe they will get away with it. Because if we’re a nation of the laws that no one is above the law we must demonstrate that. If we fail to it will happen again.

An objection is that such criminal charges are seen as political that any future president will feel free to conduct harassing investigations against the opposing party. But Barr has already breached that precedent. Others will complain prosecutions will be divisive. But we already are divided. In addition we should explain that everyone, including Republicans, should be united in support of the rule of law. There should not be one set of laws for the well connected and another set for everyone else.

These investigations should not be done by Biden or even Harris who has a prosecutor background. It should be done by career Justice officials who show integrity (if there are any left).

There should be a Truth Commission. One was proposed after Bush II (see waterboarding and the Wall Street crash), but didn’t happen. Because it didn’t we now have the nasty guy. And if we don’t again, there will be another nasty guy.

But the efforts can’t stop at “exposing” the criminality. There must be actual consequences – jail time if appropriate.

Biden will want to look forward, not back, especially after this nightmare. But Biden can’t do what Ford did for Nixon. If he did he would approve all the nastiness – including kids in cages – the nasty guy committed.

The only way to keep these people from looting on the way out is to make sure they know they will be prosecuted.

Truth and Reconciliation

I am finally able to publish my post about the Just Resolutions between Rev. Ed Rowe and Rev. Mike Tupper and those who filed complaints against them. The details were presented at a gathering in East Lansing last week. Ed and Mike are the Michigan United Methodist pastors who performed same-sex weddings. The Just Resolutions are the agreements they reached with the Michigan bishop. More details in my brother blog.

Truth, Reconciliation, and Torture

What is more important -- find out how torture has become a standard American practice and prevent it from happening in the future or to punish those that perpetrated it? Which of those options will more effectively deter presidents from choosing torture in the future? Which is better for the country? Which more closely follows Christian principles?

In an opinion piece in Newsweek Stuart Taylor says we can't get both. We probably can't get the second. Disclosure time: only that first question is discussed in Taylor's article. The rest are mine.

Pushing for war crimes convictions on any of those involved (including Cheney and Bush) will (1) make them clam up, (2) start a huge legal battle that will last years and will include the Supreme Court with the desired result not guaranteed, (3) ruin the lives of people who were advised what they were doing is legal and necessary to combat terrorists, and (4) perpetuate and compound the partisan divide. In addition, such investigations and trials will probably fail due to the way the War Crimes Act was recently amended (the article does not provide details), even though the Supremes said prosecutions could proceed. The fourth point would be especially important to President Obama (should he get the job) who is running on his ability to end the bickering.

If we give pardons to the various participants (including the next president pardoning Cheney and Bush) we would be able to (1) uncover all important facts, (2) identify innocent victims and compensate them, (3) foster a serious national discussion about how the USA should interrogate those it holds, (4) recommend legal reforms, and (5) make way for appropriate apologies and restore America's good name.

Before I got halfway through this article I knew I needed to discuss it, mostly because it raises personal moral issues on both sides.

I want Bush and Cheney outta there! I want to change the way America works so that it becomes extremely difficult for another president to do what these two have done to rip and trample the Constitution. Impeachment and removal from office seems the best way but we have a bunch of wimpy Democrats in Congress right now. In light of discussion below I note that impeachment and removal carries no additional penalties. But with that route closed, what's left? More laws and procedures? Laws haven't stopped Bush. He's done quite well in getting Congress to declare what he's done to be legal and he's ignored the rest. Even if he's pardoned, will he spill? Nope. He's the most secretive prez. we've had and it's a habit with him. Will stories of what really happened (the what and, more importantly, the why) deter future presidents? How do we say No More! and mean it? Can we?

This attempt to discover truth and not to place blame reminds me of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa at the end of the Apartheid era. It chose the route of truth over trials, letting both victims and perpetrators tell their stories and that the perpetrators would get amnesty. The general consensus seems to be that it worked well (though I'm basing that claim on my own memory of the time) and was an integral part of reducing tensions between the races and paving the way for a workable democracy. However, there are criticisms of the commission with many blacks saying reconciliation without justice was impossible. The whole process was weighted in favor of the abusers. The Commission's report showed that atrocities were committed by both sides. Is that knowledge enough to ease relations? Is South Africa free of its racial tensions? I can only report there is very little in American news, which isn't saying much.

I try to follow the teachings of Christianity in spite of many Christians seeing me, a gay man, as a Christian impossibility. Naturally, I don't understand those teachings in the same way that the Fundies do. For example, I don't buy into the idea that Jesus will return and do some righteous butt-kicking -- the good people will vanquish the bad. In my view, the goal isn't to kick butt, but to work for reconciliation.

And here is where Taylor's proposal gets messy. I understand we may not gain a lot by prosecuting the grunts who carried out the torture and tossing them in jail, however that might please our sense of justice, though there is a lot to be said for subordinates disobeying and even resigning over commands they know to be wrong and we should encourage that attitude.

Which brings us back to South Africa commission. Is reconciliation possible without justice? In this case, what is justice? Does justice require throwing perpetrators in jail? Or is it enough for abusers to say the understand what they did is wrong and they won't do it again and perhaps even work to make sure it doesn't happen again? When does justice cross the line to vindictiveness and vengeance? What is suitable justice for Bush and Cheney?

This Newsweek article claims pardons and the accompanying search for truth will foster a national discussion about torture. Will this really happen? I doubt it. There has been a lot of talk of Obama's presidential run fostering a national discussion on race. I've even read a lot of pundits and bloggers calling for such a discussion. But all the actual discussing I've read is either more racial garbage or claims that race problems are so yesterday, we've seen the light and we're post-racial now. I doubt we will be any more adult in our discussions about torture.

So will Stuart Taylor's proposal work? First note that I raised a whole lot more questions than I answered. Second, this is one posting in particular I would appreciate your opinion.

I have my doubts. I agree that it is important to get to the truth and lots of people involved in torture will invoke the Fifth Amendment without a pardon. It is also important to get the cooperation of the underlings to find out how things went wrong at the top. I might even concede that prosecuting those at the bottom of the chain of command won't buy us much and that America's image abroad would be strengthened.

However, Giving Bush a pardon won't get him to talk. Somehow, compensation for victims will get lost in Congressional business, especially since most (all?) of them are not Americans and most are Muslim. The national discussion on torture won't be any more adult that what we get right now on race. And considering what Bush has done to the Constitution and the nation I don't see how new or revised laws will stop some future president from doing the same.

And the one remedy that I see as effective -- impeachment -- has been dismissed.

Update: It was only after I had written this that I read some of the comments left with the Newsweek article (and the one of interest wasn't posted until after the writing was done). One of them says that Stuart Taylor was a crony of Ken Starr and was quite gung-ho about prosecuting Bill Clinton. One of Taylor's articles on Bill is here.

So while I stand by my meandering analysis of the original proposal I see the proposal was highly biased.