(Sorry, a little late with this one. I was actually away from the Internet for the last several days.)

Imagine getting your high school diploma at around 18 and three years later the government gives you $80,000, with no strings attached. That’s the radical premise of a book by Yale Law School professors Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott. It’s called The Stakeholder Society, and the suggestion is that those who are given a foundation could use the money to invest in their own businesses, go to college, or otherwise feel they have a stake in society.

Though I heard about it some time ago, I haven’t read the book yet (it’s part of my mammoth Amazon wish list.) I was reminded of it when I read “The $6,000 Solution“, an article that’s part of The Atlantic‘s state of the union report.

Author Ray Boshara suggests an approach more restrained than that of the professors: a $6,000 grant at birth, placed in what he calls an American Stakeholder Account. With 7% return, that’s about $20,000 at graduation.

There are some important points to remember about the principle here, and Boshara does a good job of summarizing them: there’s a big difference between wealth and income, and it’s especially acute to those who aren’t white. A non-biased program such as this (which could be funded with just a quarter of recent corporate income tax breaks) would follow in the tradition of the G.I. Bill and the Homestead Act in granting Americans a good start, and in so doing giving back to our own country through the participation of a vibrant, active citizen.

Seems a good investment to me.

Can you get $80,000 just for graduating high school? Should you? Answer tomorrow.

Yes, in the context of my other movie choices this one is weird. (There’s a reason, but don’t ask.)

No, I didn’t go in expecting it to be any good.

Yes, it was fucking awful.

An excellent, compelling story of discrimination and private life made public that plays out in a meticulously reconstructed 1950s world. Especially good (though sometimes leisurely paced) because the filmmaker has avoided any facile morality lessons.

I seem to be seeing movies about sadness and isolation this week. (To say nothing of movies with Julianne Moore as a ’50s housewife.)

Hey sympatico.ca visitor, feel free to tell me why you decided to suck down the site at 0912 GMT today. I’m curious.

You do tend to notice one computer making 212 hits in just over 2 minutes.

It’s as I always suspected… a career as an actuary makes you question your reason for living! Or something.

At the Globes, Nicholson said he thought they were making a comedy, and it certainly was funny at turns. It was also thought-provoking and not a little scary (e.g., the hot tub scene.)

Overall, a film that’s good on its own merits is made even better by an impressive performance by Jack.

Perhaps today was not the day to see The Hours. As I left the theater, gloom surrounded me. Sleet poured from the darkly gray sky and sullen people huddled up against its chill.

Or perhaps this was the ideal day and time, the mood all the better to contemplate the story’s darkness; its characters’ choices for life and death.

The things you see:

• Mazda MPV, vanity plate: I SEW. Going as slow as you’d expect.
• Tempo, bumper sticker: I LOVE MUZZLELOADING. Driver wearing a reproduction Civil War uniform. Okay, so he likes it enough for a bumper sticker. But what are the chances he’s in the uniform all the time?
• Old-model Dodge Caravan bumper sticker: Will work for... hundreds of thousands of dollars. Apparently somebody hasn’t taken him up on that yet.

This is quite a puzzling ad we have here. I discovered it while searching for luxury hotels in Minneapolis.

The pitch is actually for Match.com, a dating service. What I don’t get: is this the least subtle double entendre ever or just a straight sex sell? (Is he professing his affection for quirky people — or just head?)

It’d been almost 3 months since the new theather opened here, and I had yet to enter it. I’m leaving town tomorrow afternoon, so tonight was my last chance for awhile. So of the rather weak choices, I settled on the always watchable Al Pacino and The Recruit.

The movie was about what could be expected: some spy stuff, a liberal helping of “who do you trust?” and an ending that you’ve seen before. But for all that it’s not so bad if you can put your brain on autopilot and focus on style over substance.

Plus, it has Colin Farrell. Yum.

On Tuesday, [NIH] announced three winners of its “How I Get a Heap of Sleep” contest in which children described their tactics for getting nine hours of sleep each night. One winner was Danielle Wodka, 7, of Lemont, Ill. Her sleep strategies included taking a warm bath and saying her prayers. — Experts Warn Against Sleep-Deprived Kids, Yahoo! News

Wow, is that the coolest contest ever. Too bad I missed the eligible age by about a decade and a half. I think I could show some of that youngsters what “heap of sleep” really means.

I guess I’ll have to settle for becoming a Sleep Awareness Volunteer for the National Sleep Foundation. Then I could become an advocate for “sleep and fatigue issues.” (Could this be my true calling?)

Except it sounds like a lot of work. Making congressional and public policy contacts? Advocacy? Maybe a snap decision wouldn’t be smart.

I think I’ll sleep on it.

Yesterday I was in the throes of a political frenzy. Today I’m trying to cool off. So I’ll keep these short.

Dissent. Those who say “if you don’t like it, move” in regards to American policy toward war are contemptible scum. There’s nothing more American than dissent, despite the Ashcroftian efforts to change that truth. I wouldn’t think it takes a college degree to know that.

Parallels. I’ve heard people compare the President to various movie characters/actors. Sometimes it’s funny and well done, sometimes it’s lightweight thinking of the worst kind, as when those weak writers desperate for description cast Bush as various “cool” film characters — some of whom are actually violent criminals.

Clarity. My boy B-don* e-mailed me in reference to the approval poll chart’s baseline. I thought he had a fair point so I added a caption to the chart (which I continue to present un-edited.) He also asked if I was completely against a war in Iraq. The answer: I don’t unconditionally reject war with Iraq, but I require evidence of weapons, U.N. participation, and a respect for the American people’s will, all of which are sorely lacking. I also want assurances that we would be in it for the long haul. This Newsweek piece puts it perfectly.

More reading. Good stories, tipped by TMW.

• “There’s something profoundly immoral about financing tax breaks for today’s wealthiest Americans by borrowing money from the unborn.” — Don’t Call it ‘Conservative’, John Moyers, TomPaine.com
• “The general [Norman Schwarzkopf] who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn’t seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now.” — Desert Caution, Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post
• “Will we be safer if we invade? The real answer is that we don’t know. But it’s quite plausible that an invasion will increase the danger to us, not lessen it.” — Iraq War: The First Question, Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times

* Here, “my boy” is used in a strictly heterosexual sense to convey camaraderie. But while I’ve got you reading the fine print, what’s up at B-don.com? Anyone speak Japanese?

Think back to where you were on the morning of the 11th of September. Of course you remember, likely very vividly. Now try to recall: where was Bush?

As you probably remember, Bush spent the day at Air Force bases in Louisiana and Nebraska before returning to Washington that evening. What you may not remember is that at the time, leaders in the administration claimed the president’s hiding was due to a “specific and credible” threat to Air Force One which involved a threatening call to the Secret Service using “secret code words” for the plane.

That claim was a lie. As we now know, there was no threat to Air Force One, and the fabrication of one appears to be an attempt to deflect criticism that Bush should have returned to Washington more quickly and spoken to the American public sooner.

And now, once again, we’re asked to believe without evidence.

First, Bush asserted that Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda in Prague or Kurdistan or somewhere, but offered no evidence and dropped it. Then he talked about a “nuclear mujahedin” with ominous aluminum tubes, but the International Atomic Energy Agency has said the tubes were not for nuclear use and that the United States has offered no intelligence that Iraq is even in the market for uranium. We’re told implausibly that Iraq’s failure to disarm as quickly as South Africa is reason to go to war immediately. And just last week, the administration insisted it couldn’t specify the Iraqi danger because it was classified. — ‘Trust Me’ Isn’t Good Enough, Jonathan Alter, Newsweek 03 Feb 03.

A previous president was fond of saying “Trust, but verify.” It may be the smartest thing he ever uttered.

The rich and the stupid have cheered loudly upon news of Bush‘s latest round of suggested tax cuts, with which he promised that “ninety-two million Americans will keep an average of $1,083 more of their own money.” The rich like it because they know what the stupid do not: three-fifths of the money goes to the top 10% of taxpayers. In fact, the middle 20% of taxpayers (income $29,000 – $46,000) would see just a $256-289 reduction. The next quintile (60-80%; those who make up to $77,000) would see a savings of $574-657.

The figure put forth by Bush (who will save $44,000) and Cheney ($327,000) may be technically correct, “but only in the sense that it is also true that if Bill Gates happened to drop by a homeless shelter where a couple of nuns were serving soup to sixty down-and-outers dressed in rags, the average person in the room would have a net worth of a billion dollars. Average, yes; typical, no.” (from The New Yorker) Small wonder the Financial Times, that left-leaning rag, called the claim “obviously bogus.” The honest approach, as anyone with even a tiny amount of statistics will tell you, is to use the median. But I guess it’s not as impressive to talk about savings of not even three hundred bucks.

Learn more. Spinsanity takes on the Bush deception campaign in Taxing the public’s trust, which contains links to PDF tables from Citizens for Tax Justice (table) and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (table.) Also try Not your ordinary averages, which details the myth of the $1,000 check being spread by new majority leader.

…consider the promises of a year ago:

Bush, 29 Jan 02: “[O]ur budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term.”
USA Today, 24 Jan 03: Budget expected to show record deficit

Bush, 29 Jan 02: “When America works, America prospers, so my economic security plan can be summed up in one word: jobs.”
National Post, 24 Jan 03: Fears growing U.S. entering jobless recovery (“jobless recovery” was also the order of the day during George H. Bush‘s term)

Bush, 29 Jan 02: “[C]orporate America must be made more accountable to employees and shareholders and held to the highest standards of conduct.”
USA Today, 24 Jan 03: Corporate reform cools

I’m sure tonight’s speech will include updates on these promises — right after we hear whether Osama Bin Laden has been found “dead or alive.” Actually, if Yahoo!‘s latest news story (Bush Address Won’t Include New Iraq Data) is to be believed, we’ll hear a new promise: his agenda includes “a new plan to direct drug treatment money to religious groups.”

Wonderful.

(Updated at 00:36 on 29 Jan 03. The “record deficit” link had an incorrect URL.)