Dems to make Bush tax cuts permanent

An extraordinary act of cowardice from a party that found such cuts repugnant just a couple of years ago. From Time:

Senate Democrats will soon advance a plan to make permanent President George W. Bush's 2001 tax cuts for middle-class Americans earning less than $200,000, but let the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans expire, two Senate party aides said Tuesday. They will also propose to reinstate a 45% estate tax on individuals for the next two years.

The emerging tax plan is designed, as much as anything else, to clarify the differences between the two parties as they hurtle toward the fall elections. Following on their success with the financial-regulatory-reform bill, Democrats are betting that Republicans will once again take up a legislative battle on behalf of the wealthy. "Republicans are going to have a real choice ahead of them," says a Democratic aide. "Are you for extending these tax cuts for middle-class families or are you against them because you want to protect tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans?"

This, of course, will be the second Obama tax cut in two years despite an already record low tax burden. The likely effect of permanent Bush tax cuts as shown by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (via Ezra Klein):

Tax cuts are the perfect example of a policy that is popular yet irresponsible. The cost is enormous, and the gain for the average citizen minimal.

Need I show more examples on this blog? Over and over we've seen how tax hikes amounting to pocket change for the average person can completely solve the budget woes of entire school districts. Instead, cities around the country are putting fire and police departments in hock. Meanwhile, at the federal level the argument on taxes is between those who want to bankrupt the Treasury cutting huge checks to the rich, and those who want to bankrupt the Treasury cutting checks for chump change to the middle class.

We have completely lost our minds on this issue.

Top Secret America

A massive report from the Washington Post. It's huge. It will make you sick to your stomach.

That being said, I know it's sexy in media circles to frame things in teabagger terms, but the "waste" and "overspending" in our secretive shadow government is so, so very beside the point.

Bradley Manning charged

And he could face 52 years in jail. Manning is the whistleblower who gave damning government documents to Wikileaks. People are already starting to compare him to Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

This is a serious matter. I wasn't all that surprised to see Obama give in on the public option, and it didn't shock me to see a smaller stimulus than was expected. His willingness to open our shores to further offshore drilling was unwise but not entirely unexpected. What has truly shocked me about this administration and this former-constitutional-law-prof-turned-president, however, is the secrecy of this administration, its cavalier attitude toward civil liberties, and the zeal with which it pursues whistleblowers. Never would I have thought that Barack Obama would be an enemy of civil liberties and a British Tory Prime Minister a defender of them.

Whistleblowers serve a valuable purpose in democratic governments. Governments that have whistleblowers in their midst have more incentive to deal honestly with the people and be more effective because someone is watching. As with all things in government, oversight is key.

Whistleblowing is also a right, however, one tied to freedom of speech, privacy, and dissent. One can't help but notice the sustained rollback of our civil rights over the last 30 years, and any hope we had of a Democratic president acting as a bulwark of those rights is all but gone.

cutting unemployment benefits won't create jobs

It's a pretty simple calculus, really, but no one's pointing it out. Cowardly Democrats and craven Republicans want unemployment benefits to expire, so the argument goes, so that people will get off their duffs and go get jobs. This theory assumes that there is a glut of jobs out there going unfilled.

The situation they are describing is what happens in times of full employment, not an economic downturn. The problem is not that a half million jobs are going unfilled; the problem is that there are a half million fewer jobs than applicants. This is not difficult to understand.

Journalism in the age of Bush and Obama

The Frum bruhaha is in fact only a small part of a wider clustershag happening all over the world of journalism over intellectual freedom, dissent, and the proper role of journalists vis-a-vis their subjects.

We have three major leak stories:

1. Wired Magazine reported on the exposure and arrest of Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst who supplied several thousand documents including a controversial video of a helicopter strike on Iraqi civilians to the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. See Greenwald's excellence coverage of the matter for details.


2. Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings published a humdinger of an article exposing disparaging comments made by General Stanley McChrystal and his staff about civilian leaders that ultimately led to his resignation. CBS News' Lara Logan slams Hastings in response, denigrating his journalistic ethics and his patriotism for daring to publish the remarks because there's an unspoken agreement that you don't publish anything that will embarrass the troops. "Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has," she says at one point.


3. FishbowlDC published remarks disparaging prominent conservatives made by Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel, whose beat is the conservative movement, on the liberal journalist listserv Journolist. The WaPo freaked out, and accepted Weigel's resignation. Conservative Atlantic blogger Jeffrey Goldberg says they were right to can him, that only conservatives should report on the conservative movement, and that he would gladly publish remarks from the listserv if they suited his purposes. Greenwald pwns him on it, and Joe Klein comes to Goldberg's defense by questioning Greenwald's patriotism and calling him a lawyer over and over (that may sound unfair, but seriously read it. One wonders if it was really written by John Boehner, as overloaded with sophomoric, Republican innuendo as it is).

There are numerous similarities between some of the stories, such as the question of whether anything you say in front of a journalist is unpublishable. What I find more interesting is the response from establishment journalists on these issues. We have Lara Logan and Joe Klein, neither one known as a conservative and one known as an out and out liberal, not only not taking the journalist's side but impugning people's patriotism. Meanwhile, in the first story, one involving an actual, bonafide whistleblower, the print press has already apparently lost interest, with coverage of the story now occurring almost exclusively online. To test this argument, I mentioned this story to a friend of mine who pays close attention to national news but doesn't read blogs, and he had never heard of this story, or even of Wikileaks!

In the first two stories there's the similar thread of establishment media personalities being uninterested in whistleblowing and hostile to reporting that is unfavorable toward the government. They show how the press has become more deferential toward the government in recent years and perhaps no longer claim the civil libertarian mantle they once did.

In the third story we see a similar argument that reporters should not be adversarial toward their beats, though this time it's an ideological beat. The argument from the WaPo and Goldberg is essentially that reporters should agree with those they're covering, that someone covering conservatives should be a fellow traveler (nevermind for now the issue that the WaPo doesn't have anyone covering the liberal side!). Also, what constitutes lack of "toilet training" in journalism is whether you say ugly things about your subjects and use naughty language, rather than whether you write things that are later proven to be utterly false, refuse to retract them, and use your column to let your friends insult your enemies anonymously.

Interesting and scary to see what's happening to that profession. And they wonder at their credibility problem.

professional conservatism

Don't look now, but there's a really interested bruhaha going on right now in the conservative community about ideological orthodoxy. Some of you may remember a post I linked from David Frum called "Waterloo" about the GOP's historic defeat when the healthcare bill passed. Frum is a big name conservative who served in the Dubya White House but who, on occasion, has been able to have honest conversations about the state of the Republican party.

As you can guess, he was promptly ostracized after his post. Among other things, his request to have his blog added to the conservative blogads network was denied. According to the manager of that network, John Hawkins, his was only one of two blogs that have been denied, the other being the dreadful Little Green Footballs which actually shifted from a Bush-loving conservative blog to a Rachel Maddow-loving liberal one.

Frum's response is very interesting. Here's one bit that resonated with me:

Hawkins seems to be suggesting that we go on TV not as individuals, to express our own ideas as best we can, to offer the most useful information we can discover. No – people should appear as representatives of pre-existing tribes: conservatives, liberals, blacks, whatever, to engage in a ritual of synchronized repetition of pre-existing phrases. You are a conservative? You must say THIS – and never that. You must approve THIS – and never admit to doubts about that.

Hawkins asks: “What’s the point of putting Frum on TV?” Take him seriously though and you have to wonder: What’s the point of putting ANYONE on TV when the job could be so easily automated?

This is similar to the point I've been trying to make for a long time when I talk about "professional conservatives." Hawkins ascribes to the same view of punditry as that of many TV news shows: when you bring on a guy that's a conservative (which you're always supposed to do, of course), he isn't supposed to be an expert with an expert's individual opinion. Rather, he's merely the representative of the conservative movement that they're for some reason entitled to in every single news segment, and thus his job is to present the conservative line. His role is to counter the expert and represent the Right.

Frum, however, has the temerity to suggest that the conservative should also be an expert bringing his expert opinion, rather than a medium for GOP talking points.

Ireland's economy in the toilet because of austerity

Clearly the problem is that they didn't fire enough teachers. Bond investors feed on their tears.

the GOP's Elena Kagen clown show

Just finished watching Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III of Alabama accuse the late Justice Thurgood Marshall of having "used [his] power to redefine the meaning of our constitution."

You don't have to be Ralph Ellison to read between those lines.

more on war, or moron war

We have a lot to learn.

In the NYT Ross Douthat argues for permanent war in Afghanistan ... I mean, staying until we "succeed," which in the context of his article just means until the Taliban are guaranteed never, ever to rule again, Al Qaeda are eradicated in Pakistan, and the Middle East is no longer volatile. Then we can go home!

Maybe we can hope to be as successful there as we were in its sister-warzone, Iraq, where after 4000 soldiers' lives and hundreds of billions of dollars we have "succeeded" in finally establishing the Islamist state with strong ties to Iran that we've always dreamed of.

And look here! Here's Joe Klein in TIME, one of the major liberal voices in the press, referring to the antiwar base of the Democratic party as "vestigial," as in a useless, degenerate extra part inherited from a prior age. It is notable that those who are considered "antiwar" are considered deserving of such open contempt -- by a liberal pundit!

Just as with Iraq, however, we can at least take heart that the people are smarter than their chickenhawk pundits.

the corrosive effects of war

A great piece in the Post today from Andrew Bacevich on the increasing mistrust and alienation our professional army feels toward the rest of the populace. The opening two sentences are much broader, however, and I'm glad to see someone saying it:

Long wars are antithetical to democracy. Protracted conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government.

I hope that we get at least one great benefit from the war in Afghanistan, since it looks like we'll get little else: the lesson that even "good" wars are bad. Aside from the trite costs "in blood and treasure," war creates new enemies even when it vanquishes the old ones, damages our reputation abroad, desensitizes our people to violence (which carries its own attendant degradations of character), and breeds resentment of our democratic values and civil rights among both the military and civilian populations. It makes us coarser and more authoritarian as a people.

diving in soccer

(image c/o Shrunken Mind)

Yeah, it bugs me. In World Cup, and in futbol leagues around the world, guys take comically fake dives in order to draw a foul whenever they can, as incredulously gawked at here by the New York Times today. Supposedly it's a major turn-off for many American viewers because it comes across as unsportsmanlike and an affront to masculinity to feign injury to tug at the heart strings of the refs. John Doyle at The Globe brushes off those complaints by making an argument about how the need for moral uprightness in sports is a distinctly Anglo thing, but he opens himself to the same Anglo-centric charge of which he accuses American viewers.

The real problem with American "tut-tutting" over soccer dives and the Times' treatment of it as some strange, foreign ritual is that -- news flash! -- it happens in American sports all the time. Anyone watched a basketball game in the last, I don't know, 30 years? At both the college and NBA levels, your average hoops game is filled with foul-drawing theatrics to rival Ronaldo's finest performances. How about a football game (yes, even the hallowed sport of manliness and sportsmanlike conduct!) where a defensive end got anywhere within 5 yards of the kicker? Christ, at least in FIFA you can get yellow-carded for diving; in football and basketball there is no penalty for make-believe.

In America as in other countries, the culture of sports dictates that teams play to win by any means at their disposal, despite all the lip service paid to sportsmanship. Anything not explicitly against the rules is fair game, and anything that is explicitly against the games is still done if there's a decent chance you won't get caught.

Death to the Death Penalty

A beautiful ad from Amnesty International:

the Big 12 survives

Amazing. Texas is staying, and the Big 12 moves on with a new TV contract.

So now the Big 10 has 12 teams, the Big 12 has 10 teams, and the Pac 10 has 11 teams (for the moment; they're likely to pick off Utah to make an even 12). All that's left to see now is whether the Pac 10 takes Utah and what the look of the Big 10's divisions and championship game will be.

Bummer. I was rooting for mass chaos.

Nebraska officially applying to the Big 10

That loud pop you heard? That's the sound of Nebraska putting the Big 12 out of its misery. Sports Illustrated:

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- University of Nebraska officials said Friday that they will apply for membership in the Big Ten Conference and expect to be accepted.

Chancellor Harvey Perlman disclosed the plan during a meeting of the university's Board of Regents, proposing that play in the new conference begin in 2011 after one more year in the Big 12. He said he believed Nebraska is more "aligned" with the Big Ten when it comes to academics, culture and athletics.

He also said the move offered stability "that the Big 12 simply cannot offer." The regents approved a resolution supporting the move to the Big Ten.

Of course, that's all bullshit for the papers. This was about the Big 10 Network, perhaps along with a little frustration at Texas becoming the center of gravity of the conference.

Speaking of Texas, UT already said there is no Big 12 without Nebraska. I guess it will be on Kansas to turn off the lights on the way out.

the empathic civilization

Jeremy Rifkin argues that capacity for empathy is not only wired into our cerebrum, and that this capacity extends to animals as well, and is exhibited by animals, but that our capacity is growing due to technological advances. It is a bold and hopeful challenge to the cynicism that is in vogue today, typified by things like the monkeysphere.

David Mitchell's Soapbox

I had no idea Mitchell was doing these. Here's the latest:

Sources: Nebraska to the Big Ten, Colorado to the Pac 10

(All this c/o the most excellent Dr. Saturday)

So the disintegration begins. The Chicago Tribune:

The Big Red will be joining the Big Ten.

A source with knowledge of the expansion talks has confirmed to the Tribune that Nebraska will be invited to apply for Big Ten membership, a mere formality in the process. An announcement is expected Friday.

The league has not determined, the source said, whether it will remain at 12 schools or expand to 14.

For every action, there is more grist for the San Jose Mercury News' Jon Wilner:

Just got off the phone with a source familiar with the negotiations between the Pac-10 and Big 12 schools, who said:

* Colorado “is likely to formally accept” an invitation to join the Pac-10 on Thursday.

Repeat: Colorado to the Pac-10 on Thursday.

At that moment, it will become the Pac-11.

* Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State are committed to joining the Pac-10 if Nebraska joins the Big Ten … and they might do it even if Nebraska doesn’t join the Big Ten.

On the home front, here's Red Raiders.com:

When Nebraska leaves the Big 12 Conference this week, so too will Texas Tech, Texas and Texas A&M, a high-ranking Tech official confirmed Wednesday.

The official said those three Texas universities have vowed to stick together through any major conference upheaval, which — according to multiple reports from reputable newspapers across the country — Nebraska will trigger this week.

The University of Texas, along with Tech and A&M, should soon be leaving the conference to join the Pacific-10 Conference, according to the source.

Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle says that Texas and A&M may actually go their separate ways, with the Aggies going to the SEC.

UPDATE: edited out statement by Captain Obvious that, if Nebraska gets the 12th Big 10 invite, then Mizzou isn't. It was early in the morning.

Notre Dame and the Big 10 in talks

Amazing stuff happening in college football as we speak:

According to sources, the Big Ten officials and Notre Dame officials have entered into talks that could drastically alter the realignment talk which has dominated headlines in recent days. One insider told FanHouse on Tuesday that the two sides are talking about the nation's biggest independent joining one of the most influential conferences to give the Big Ten its desired 12 members.

The source said the talks "could not necessarily" be described as negotiations but said if Notre Dame can be convinced to give up its long standing independence that things could move rather quickly. Another source familiar with the back-and-forth between Notre Dame and the Big Ten over the years believes all of the Big Ten expansion talk which began with commissioner Jim Delany's announcement last December has always been aimed at getting the Irish to join the conference.

That last comment is interesting. The idea behind it is that the conditions that allowed ND to remain independent rather than joining the Big 10 a decade ago have been deteriorating, so the Big 10 decided last year to try its hand with Notre Dame. Notre Dame said no because the Big 10 still has little to offer; the Irish already have a sweetheart TV deal (though not quite as lucrative) and the Big East for all their non-cash-cow sports.

The Big 10 Network is the conference's ace in the hole. Because it brings in so much money, the Big 10 is more attractive than any other conference to any school out there. So the Big 10 made its move: "either you come with us, or we pull all the pillars out from under the Big East and leave you truly independent."

Checkmate? Let's hope so. With a far less favorable BCS deal than what we once had, the likely impending doom of our NBC TV deal in 2015, consistently shittier scheduling than we had even five years ago (Western Michigan and Tulsa? seriously?), and a commitment to our non-football varsity sports, many of which we just spent millions of dollars building fields and stadiums for, the Big 10 makes a lot of sense.

Let's look at scheduling for a moment. The complaint from Irish alumni about joining the Big 10 is that we'd have to fill our schedule with their shite teams. Here's the ND 2010 schedule:

Sept. 4 PURDUE
Sept. 11 MICHIGAN
Sept. 18 at Michigan State
Sept. 25 STANFORD
Oct. 2 at Boston College
Oct. 9 PITTSBURGH
Oct. 16 WESTERN MICHIGAN
Oct. 23 at Navy (at Meadowlands - East Rutherford, N.J.)
Oct. 30 TULSA
Nov. 6 Open Date
Nov. 13 UTAH
Nov. 20 ARMY (at Yankee Stadium - Bronx, N.Y.)
Nov. 27 at USC

Here's Michigan's schedule:

Sat, Sep 4 Connecticut 3:30 pm
Sat, Sep 11 at Notre Dame 3:30 pm
Sat, Sep 18 Massachusetts 12:00 pm
Sat, Sep 25 Bowling Green TBA
Sat, Oct 2 at Indiana TBA
Sat, Oct 9 Michigan State TBA
Sat, Oct 16 (7) Iowa 3:30 pm
Sat, Oct 30 at (9) Penn State 8:00 pm
Sat, Nov 6 Illinois TBA
Sat, Nov 13 at Purdue TBA
Sat, Nov 20 (16) Wisconsin TBA
Sat, Nov 27 at (5) Ohio State TBA

Which one has more crappy games?

Big 10 teams have eight conference games per season. That means the Irish can keep their annual games with Navy and USC, have two cupcake games (or even better, rotate in real teams that we play now like Pitt, Boston College, and UCLA) and still get their requisite 8 conference games.

As far as conference games go, the Big 10 would likely split into 2 divisions roughly divided by geography. The three Indiana schools, Ohio St. and Penn St. + 1 other team would form the eastern division. A Notre Dame Big 10 schedule, then, could conceivably look like this:

Sept. 4 PURDUE
Sept. 11 MICHIGAN
Sept. 18 at Michigan State
Sept. 25 STANFORD
Oct. 2 at Boston College
Oct. 9 INDIANA
Oct. 16 ILLINOIS
Oct. 23 at Navy (at Meadowlands - East Rutherford, N.J.)
Oct. 30 PENN STATE
Nov. 6 Open Date
Nov. 13 OHIO STATE
Nov. 20 NORTHWESTERN
Nov. 27 at USC

Tough schedule. Me likey. The problem with it is Notre Dame doesn't get any cupcakes while other Big 10 teams still do. The only teams we can take out to make room are BC and Stanford, meaning we've lost the ability to have new quality out-of-conference teams come play. Thus one of the sticking points may be limiting the Big 10 to fewer conference games or fewer cupcakes so we can still bring Boston College to town once in a while.

A Classical Education

Stanley Fish in the NYT on the need for a return to the old model of secondary school curricula. Like most people, I've been struggling with pinpointing the problem with current practices in education, other than "teaching to the test" which I find vague and unhelpful by itself. Unpacking it a bit, there's the problem of students learning strategies of test-taking rather than the content of their classes, which Fish mentions, but the failings of the educational system extend much further than that. Many, many students arrive at college campuses and are woefully unprepared, so unprepared, in fact, that colleges are having to increase the size and number of remedial classes available to make up the slack. There are problems with testing, as many allege, and problems with the curriculum, as Fish argues, as well as problems with overexperimentation, social promotion, imbalanced funding, and other problems.

There is also the problem of the internet. Nicholas Carr talks about the difference between reading books and reading on the internet in his book The Shallows, where he alleges that the easily distracted, multitasking nature of internet reading doesn't train the mind in reflection and in holding attention and ideas for extended periods of time that book reading does. Consequently, students get to college and have great difficulty reading more than 10-20 pages at a time, and are virtually incapable of the abstract thought necessary for philosophy and literary theory. The frequent reading of internet drivel instead of books combined with neglect in teaching grammar also means students get to college and cannot write. They have no sense of spelling or punctuation on the one hand, and cannot sustain an argument through multiple pages on the other. This may be another byproduct of "teaching to the test" if, as some allege, the need to spend more time on test stuff has cut into reading assignments.

I'm not sure if returning to a classical education is a panacea, but I do agree with its proponents that students may not be doing anywhere near enough reading and writing, and that may lie at the core of the problem.

SEC expansion?

There are also interesting questions in this expansion matter for the SEC. Despite their tremendous success in football, huge payouts from the BCS, and lucrative TV deal, they've been blown off thus far by schools in favor of the Big 10 and Pac 10 because of their low academic reputation. After the Texas schools (A&M is the only one that's shown any interest), their most obvious targets for expansion to a 16 team format similar to the coming Big and Pac behemoths are the Florida contingent of the ACC, Miami and Florida State, as well as North Carolina, Duke, UVA, and VA Tech. NC, Duke and UVA are likely not part of SEC for a reason, the same reason, in fact, that likely explains why Texas is uninterested in the SEC's overtures -- North Carolina, Virginia and Texas are the three most academically esteemed public universities in the Old South. Like the Texas 3, the Tar Heels and Blue Devils are likely a package deal as well as UVA and VA Tech.

It's an interesting point of the current state of conferences that none of the schools in Virginia and North Carolina belong to the SEC. In fact, every school in the ACC except Boston College is located in the South. Yet so far there is no discussion that I know of involving a mass flight from the ACC to the SEC. It seems more likely, in fact, that the ACC will become the 4 major conference by absorbing the Big East!

It's an interesting mimicry of political culture, where Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida have gradually become better educated and more alienated from the rest of the South.

"the timeline could be affected"

From Matt Hinton:

Saturday, Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott reportedly presented a handful of options to conference presidents, chancellors and athletic directors for pursuing expansion. Today, Scott said he'd been granted authority by the membership to pursue any and all of them...

To recap, according to both ESPN Los Angeles and Orangebloods.com, the four options Scott laid on the table on Saturday ran as follows, from least to most dramatic:

• Retaining the current 10-team structure, unchanged since Arizona and Arizona State joined the Pac-8 in 1978;
• Adding Colorado and Utah to form a 12-team conference with two six-team divisions and a championship game, a la the SEC, Big 12 and ACC;
• Brokering a merger with six Big 12 schools, as reported by Orangebloods on Thursday, as long as one of those schools is Texas; or
• Brokering a full merger with the entire Big 12, creating an unwieldy, 22-team behemoth that would completely redefine the concept of a "conference" in college sports.
...
While "by the end of the year" is certainly technically correct, and in keeping with the conference's initial 6-to-12-month timeline for considering expansion options, every indication over the last 72 hours suggests the strike is bound to come by the end of the month, if not by the end of the week.

Reacting to this news (and to contact from the Pac 10 assuring them that there will be an invitation incoming), the Big 12 has presented an ultimatum to Nebraska and Missouri to declare their intentions to stay in the Big 12 or listen to the Big 10's siren song by the end of the week.

For the Big 10, who had been planning on settling on a plan in November or so, "the timeline could be affected," as Big 10 commish Jim Delany put it.

If you remember, the Big 10 is not only courting the Tigers and Huskers, but also still has its designs on Texas, though the Texas legislature's insistence that any conference who wants the 'Horns also take A&M and Tech is a problem for the Big 10. Thus, if Delany wants Mizzou and Big Red, he's got to give them assurance of invites this week, and if he wants even a shot at Texas, he needs to send them an invite this week as well, which means clearing the way for Texas Tech through Big 10 presidents that don't think the Red Raiders meet the Big 10's academic standards.

So my thought: where is Notre Dame in all this? Do we have a plan of action in case the Big 12 falls apart this week? If the Pac 10 becomes the Pac 16, the Big 10 will become the Big 16. You can take that to the bank. I'm guessing we don't want to be left out of that?

Doug Gillett had a great post on why ND is independent several months ago, and it's worth looking at again. Of course, alumni cares aside, it's a money thing, specifically our sweetheart BCS deal and our even sweeter NBC deal. Gillett shows, however, that conference schools in the SEC and Big 10 have done comparably well with conference TV contracts, and actually gotten a much better payout from the BCS than ND overall (like 10 to 20 times as much).

Plus, of course, that sweetheart deal with NBC is increasingly unlikely to be renewed in 2015 as ND continues to stagnate in football and NBC struggles with, well, everything. Sure, Brian Kelly may pull off the great Return to Glory, but when your master plan for maintaining current revenue includes "winning a national championship" as a prerequisite, you don't have a good plan.

If Delany gets the Texas schools, ND is screwed. The Big 10 is actually 11 schools, plus the Texas 3 plus Mizzou and Nebraska = Big 16, with no room for the Irish. I don't think this is going to happen, though, because there are too many hurdles for Delany to clear with too many people to get those invites out this week. He's been outmaneuvered by the Pac 10.

There's a pretty good chance, I think, that the Pac 10 will raid the Big 12 South and the Big 10 will make off with Mizzou and Nebraska, leaving 3 schools left for the Big 10 to grow into the Big 16. Supposedly Syracuse, Rutgers, and UConn are being courted to become the last 3.

Again I ask: do we have a plan?

"raghead"

This article from the Charleston, SC NBC affiliate is amazing in so many ways, for the offensiveness of the story itself, the inaccuracy of the guy's comments, for the choice of title, for the apology. South Carolina is a crazy place.

No, wait, this may be better. The money quote:

“She’s a f#!king raghead,” Knotts said.

He later clarified his statement. He did not mean to use the F-word.

in the NCAA inter-conference cold war, the first shot is fired

And it's fired by ... the Pac 10:

According to "multiple sources close to the situation," the Pac-10 plans to offer conference membership to six Big 12 teams at its conference meeting in San Francisco, forming a 16-team behemoth that spans the entire Western half of the country and encompasses seven of the nation's top-20 television markets.

Those six teams: Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado. Let the denials begin.

The vastly restructured league will reportedly feature two eight-team divisions with an East-West divide: The new newcomers will join Arizona and Arizona State in the "Inland" division, with the original "Pac-8" schools – California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, USC, UCLA, Washington and Washington State – holding in the "Pacific" division.

That's the entire Big 12 South, switching Baylor with Colorado. Colorado's AD confirmed it last night.

It's funny, I was just thinking about this possibility over the weekend, considering the likelihood that, now that the Big 10 has put massive expansion on the table, one of the other big time conferences (i.e., the SEC or Pac 10) would attempt a pre-emptive strike to keep from being left out in the cold.

So the big question: will they jump? I think they might. Missouri has all but admitted that they would accept an invitation from the Big 10 if offered, and Nebraska has made some noises that they would consider such an offer as well. In the increasingly likely event that the Big 10 plunders the Big 12 North, the southern teams only have two options: the Pac 10 and the SEC. The Big 12 South has cultivated strong rivalries and academic relationships between its schools that now gain national attention, and this deal is probably the only one they'll get that preserves them (the SEC has supposedly expressed interest in Texas and Texas A&M, but not in Tech, Oklahoma, or OK St.).

Plus, conferences are also very much about academic relationships, and the SEC is laughably deficient in that respect. There are really only two high caliber public universities in the Old South, North Carolina and Virginia, and they're both in the ACC! Add Clemson and Duke to the ACC milieu, and you're left with an SEC that counts Vanderbilt as pretty much its only school with serious academic credentials. Meanwhile, the Pac 10 includes Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and Southern Cal.

And finally, there's the money question. The Big 10 Network has been a financial success beyond the most optimistic expectations, bringing millions to every school in the conference. In an expanded Pac 10, a network along the lines of the Big 10 Network would lock up the media markets in the two most populous states in the Union (California and Texas), plus Seattle, Phoenix, and Denver. The SEC just can't compete with that. The Big 12, by the way, has the fewest quality TV markets of all, claiming only the Texas markets plus Denver and St. Louis.

If it's a decent deal, I think they should accept the invitations. It's the smart play given the circumstances, especially for Red Raider fans who have a serious concern that Tech be in a conference that is:

• viable and profitable


• includes Texas and A&M


• will further Tech's goal of becoming a Tier 1 research university

Long live the Pac 16!

Incidentally, this may constitute one of Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick's "seismic" changes that "forces our hand."

Galarraga

Tough break. Personally, I feel worst for the umpire, Jim Joyce, who admitted after the game that he'd blown the call and felt horrible about it. We bitch about blind refs all the time, but of course they do an incredibly difficult job (interpreting split-second events in real time) and make dozens of calls per game. They're going to botch one on occasion. What can you do?

What can you do, indeed. ESPN has technology to show you instantly where a ball was vis-a-vis the strike zone when it crossed a plate and where the runner was when the first baseman caught the ball. Computers don't make mistakes. If the technology is there to take the mistakes out of refereeing, why not use it?

Having humans there to "eyeball" it is what you do when you lack the precision of modern technology. Umpires are for little league at the local park, not for the Majors. If the fans really would prefer to leave the authority with an umpire making their best guess in close calls, that's fine I guess, but you can't complain when they blow one.

On the other hand, Matt Hinton notes that even the Galarraga incident pales in comparison to the bizarro, "Kafkaesque" call that robbed Oklahoma of victory in the Holiday Bowl several years ago, which has to be the worst call ever made in the history of sports:

And that call was deemed to have been confirmed by video evidence!

Of course, this is not to say that refs + instant replay isn't significantly less error-prone than just refs. Instant replay is going to catch some of the refs' mistakes, and thus it's certainly worth implementing. Leagues that continue to refuse to do so are asking for trouble.

CJ's returning in July/August

Important news for Benders.

the gold standard: nugget of idiocy

Apropos of my apparently ongoing diatribe against libertarianism is this wonderful refutation of the gold standard argument by Matt Steinglass posted in, of all places, the comment section of one of his blog posts.

The upshot: value is intangible, and therefore money is intangible. It is no more inherent to gold nuggets than it is to nickel currency or electronic pulses in an online stock exchange. There is no more of an imperative on people to admit the value of a gold nugget than to agree to the value of a government-backed sheet of denim with George Washington's face printed on it. To insist that one must always be equal to another just adds a pointless level of complexity while tying the value of the dollar to the vagaries of the gold market.

This quote from Paul Krugman at the link Steinglass provides is absolutely brilliant:

The legend of King Midas has been generally misunderstood. Most people think the curse that turned everything the old miser touched into gold, leaving him unable to eat or drink, was a lesson in the perils of avarice. But Midas' true sin was his failure to understand monetary economics. What the gods were really telling him is that gold is just a metal. If it sometimes seems to be more, that is only because society has found it convenient to use gold as a medium of exchange--a bridge between other, truly desirable, objects. There are other possible mediums of exchange, and it is silly to imagine that this pretty, but only moderately useful, substance has some irreplaceable significance.

The rest of the Krugman article, while dated, is also very useful.

Intellectual Freedom and Natural Rights

I came across an interesting fault line in liberal politics today that I thought I'd share and compare with y'all.

It happened in my intellectual freedom class. Someone posted a discussion about Haystack. Haystack is a program developed in the United States that allows the user to bypass the state censors in Iran, providing Iranians with unfettered internet access.

Me, I think it's awesome. I think undermining oppressive governments' bans on intellectual freedom should be our national pastime. I believe that all human beings have a natural right to intellectual freedom, and the more a government tries to curtail it, the less legitimate that government becomes.

There was a surprising near-consensus among the people in my class that generally identified as "liberal," though, that this was an arrogant imposition of our cultural values onto others, and that we could be negligently engendering the lives of people who use it.

Is this a generational thing, with my beliefs being a relic of Cold War-era liberalism? Is the classic liberal belief in natural rights in decline? Is it war fatigue? Are you "furt" or "agin't?"

RAISE TAXES YOU MORONS

49 South Bend teachers getting pink slipped, says the South Bend Tribune.

Calculator time! Using the article's own estimate ($50k per teacher), the cuts save the school corp $2.45 million. Calculating by households (42,908 of them in the city of South Bend), it would cost $57 per household to keep all the teachers next year, or about four dollars and 75 cents per household per month. Two dollars and 37 cents off the primary breadwinner's semimonthly paycheck.

Even in a baby blue city like South Bend, there are only two possible options on the table: cutting teachers and cutting other stuff. Tax hikes don't even merit a mention in the paper. There is no discussion of it, as if it's so horrible a prospect as to be unthinkable. I might as well be suggesting that we cast every third child into Lake Michigan to reduce the need for teachers.

It's $2.37 a paycheck, people. $2.37 to keep 49 teachers in classrooms, 49 neighbors and friends from losing badly needed income in the middle of a recession. When did $2.37 become an unthinkably heavy burden?

What foolish, unserious leadership we have that the clear, obvious, and painless answer won't even be discussed.

the end of LOST

I thought it was beautiful. I was surprised to discover how emotionally invested I'd become in the characters, even the ones I don't like. Also, it was the most compelling, most moving portrayal of Heaven (happy Limbo?) I've ever seen.

Once it became clear that many of the mysteries would never be solved, LOST took on an airy, dreamlike quality that I think enhanced the show. It became a show filled with characters that are intensely familiar in a story that's always a little disorienting, where you never quite know for sure where you are or where you're headed. Bizarre, magical things happen, but this isn't a police procedural where every mystery has a discreet, rational answer. The marvels are just part of the show's landscape.

My only real substantive critique: in my ideal ending, the show's ultimate hero would have been Ben Linus rather than Jack. His story just seems like a better allegory for the everyman trying to figure out What It All Means and led astray by limited, human explanations. That he ended up being a bystander in the climax, after all he'd done to shape the story arc since Season 2 or whatever, bothers me.

exhausted with LOST exhaustion

Oh, give it a rest. I'm so sick of these faux-apathetic, world-weary reviews of LOST. If you don't like it, stop watching it. Don't keep writing articles about how it's so convoluted and lots of the puzzles and mysteries don't matter and how it's gone downhill.

The rest of us figured that out several seasons ago. You're a little late to the party.

Bonus turd points for a shitty review that also engages in what Ta-Nahisi Coates calls "tired on-the-other-handism." Accusing the Obama Administration of having "increasingly unfulfilled ambitions" the day after the Senate passed the most far-reaching financial regulation bill since the Roosevelt Administration wasn't the best timing. Plus, it's been widely publicized that Obama has already fulfilled over a fifth of his campaign promises. What a lazy reliance on cliche! The Washington Post really has turned into a shitty rag.

Maddow

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Word. Rachel Maddow is unquestionably the finest interviewer on cable TV, and quite possibly on TV in general. Here she is above politely yet mercilessly exposing Rand Paul's nutty side, potentially opening up the KY Senate race in the process. She's done some great work in terms of straight journalism as well.

This is interesting, I think, because it illustrates how her skills far outstrip her job, and yet she's likely to be passed over for numerous promotions because she's a avowed liberal feminist, and therefore not as "serious" as others. MSNBC may be claiming a liberal news format (curious considering their longest show is headed by a conservative, former Republican congressman), but frankly FOX News is the only place in news television where you can get ahead without playing a faux centrist lickspittle.

And of course Coates is right, Palin knows better than to go within 200 feet of The Rachel Maddow Show, but Palin doesn't do any non-sympathetic interviews anymore. Still, what I wouldn't give for five minutes of Sarah Palin on Maddow!

interactive budget simulator

Pretty cool little gizmo here. Very helpful in showing people what would have to be done to make real cuts in the deficit, which is nice, though I'm not happy with the lack of some options. You can gut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, for instance, but there is no option to take a chainsaw to the military budget.

I suppose in that way it reflects contemporary American politics.

Overall, it's actually pretty easy for a Nazi Socialist Trotskyite like me who thinks Americans are coddled when it comes to tax burden.

Utopian

Right off the heels of my giving Peter Beinart rare kudos, he says:

I'm not asking Israel to be Utopian... I'm not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis, since that would require Israel no longer being a Jewish state.

Yeah, I mean let's not go all crazy, wild-eyed liberal on this thing, right? No one's saying Israel can't have a permanent ethnic underclass or systematic discrimination of religious minorities. I mean, look, sure we may be pro-civil rights, but we're not ideologues!

what goes around comes around

This proposition has a very interesting dynamic to it that I think Leonhart missed. As we all know, the reason coke has decreased in price while good foods have more significantly more expensive over the last 30 years is because of the switch from sugar to high fructose corn syrup and the attendant massive federal corn subsidy. Coke is cheaper because it's steadily gotten cheaper to make.

Consider, too, that counties and municipalities have been getting shat on from a fiscal standpoint by the federal government (and state governments, as well) since the Bush years. They've been getting less help and more underfunded and unfunded mandates as irresponsible presidents, congressmen, and governors pass tax cuts and restrict funding, effectively pushing the tax burden down to municipalities.

A city government like DC taxing the f**k out of a product that benefits from heavy federal subsidies is a clever way to reclaim some of that lost tax revenue. On the other hand, it's unlikely that Coca Cola will eat that cost rather than just passing it on to the customer, so what really ends up happening is taxpayers continue to pay twice for the same product while no longer getting the benefit of lower prices that is the raison d'etre for the subsidy.

supposedly huge GOP wave year

and yet the Republicans keep losing. I'm honestly getting confused now. The narrative I've been assuming since '08 was that the GOP would have a big midterm as the non-incumbent party, mistake historical precedent for a silent far right majority, and then let the teabaggers drive their party straight into an electoral meat grinder in 2012, from which eventually will emerge a chastened, kinder, more centrist GOP a la the Tory model in Britain. I've never really been convinced that they would be flipping the House, but I was expecting pretty serious gains.

And yet special election after special election rolls around, several in seats currently held by the Dems but packed to the gills with blue collar, conservative voters, precisely the type of district that's supposed to deliver all these new Republican congressmen, and the GOP candidate widely expected to win flops. In this particular case, the final count was a bigger Democratic blowout than even the most optimistic polls.

There's been an excuse for most of the others. Doug Hoffman's vote got split. Tedisco got really close and Obama won that district, anyway. Florida's 19th was super Dem-leaning, as were CA-10 and CA-32.

How do you spin losing a special election in a district that John McCain won where the last incumbent congressman was notoriously corrupt, where President Obama's approval rating is 35%, where only 30% of voters approve of healthcare reform, where Nancy Pelosi is extremely unpopular, and the Republican candidate had a $308,000 to $73,000 cash advantage?

After all that, Critz won by almost 10 points.

unreelected

Say goodnight, Arlen. The Washington incumbency racket takes one on the chin today. Arlen Specter was the worst kind of centrist, one whose position on any given bill was determined almost exclusively by political expediency, whose every move was calculated to appeal to as many voters as possible. Specter was easily cowed by Bush into voting consistently with the hard right, and cowed by primary voters into voting consistently Democratic (for a time). If his erratic voting patterns had been the product of compromise, I would understand and perhaps even applaud, but I remember all attempts to compromise with Specter during the Bush years, and they always concluded with a quick visit from the president and a sullen looking Specter voting the party line. He was utterly without principle and without backbone, not even a centrist so much as a cipher.

Good riddance.

the decay of liberal Zionism

A very good thesis here by Peter Beinart on the growing ideological gulf between American Jews of different generations, and between Orthodox/Israeli Jews and liberal Jews.

The article is also about a much bigger and scarier issue, however: the slow asphyxiation of democratic values in Israel. Major government figures in Israel believe that Israeli Arabs should have their citizenship revoked. Not for committing acts of terrorism, mind you; for simply being Arab. Huge percentages of Israelis believe Arab citizens should be barred from serving in the Knesset. And the youngest generation of Israelis is the most right wing and authoritarian of all.

love those Michiana conservatives

Mark Souder from the 3rd district (Elkhart to I think Fort Wayne), last seen introducing legislation to replace Franklin Roosevelt on the dime with Ronald Reagan, has been exposed having an affair...

wait for it...

with the woman he filmed pro-abstinence-education commercials with.

Yes, he is resigning, effective Friday. Yes, this is the same Mark Souder who just won his party's primary a couple of weeks ago.

"will enable me to be re-elected"

The most damning political ad I've seen in a while. Amazing the things Specter chooses to be candid about, since he does it so rarely.

gettin' to be that time

Grilling season again! Finally. I've got a couple of things in particular that I want to try out this summer:

Atomic Buffalo Turds

*slides coke-bottle glasses up nose* As my anthropologist friend corrected me, properly speaking these would actually be Atomic Bison Turds. Glavin.



Anywho, I experimented with these once in the winter out of the oven, sans li'l smokies. My theory that they would still be delicious was correct. I also made a batch of ABT's sans bacon, as in vegetarian. My theory that they would still be tasty was also correct. Jalapenos take on such a rich, wonderful flavor when cooked. I can only imagine what these will be like exposed to smoke.

We're planting jalapenos again this year, so hopefully there will be plenty of opportunities to experiment with different recipes.

Speaking of bison...

Bison Steak

I made grassfed steak a couple of summers ago, which is similar, and was awesome. My connect disappeared from the Elkhart Farmers' Market, unfortunately, but the bison folks are still there, so I'm going to give this a shot. I've had bison brats already, and I was impressed, so I'm optimistic.

Brisket, Texas style

This is something I've been building up to for a long time. After careful consideration, I've decided that, the first time at least, I should let the oven do much of the work. I still plan to start and finish the brisket on the grill, though. I'm not a heretic.

If all goes well, brisket + tortilla + BBQ sauce, salsa, and/or pico de gallo = 2 minutes of carnivore euphoria.

Why Libertarianism Doesn't Work

An interesting observation from Paul Krugman.

At its best, libertarianism fails to sufficiently appreciate the power producers hold over consumers (and, by extension, their government). At its worst, libertarianism is supportive of that power imbalance, and is nothing more than a philosophy of "might makes right," the cult of Ayn Rand.

putting competent people in charge

And, as a corollary to that, putting people in charge who believe in their charge. NYT:

WASHINGTON — In a burst of rule-making, federal agencies have toughened or proposed new standards to protect Americans from tainted eggs, safeguard construction workers from crane accidents, prevent injuries from baby walkers and even protect polar bears from extinction.

Over the last year, the Obama administration has pressed forward on hundreds of new mandates, while also stepping up enforcement of rules by increasing the ranks of inspectors and imposing higher fines for violations.

A new age of regulation is well under way in Washington, a fact somewhat obscured by the high-profile debates over the health care overhaul and financial oversight system and by fresh calls for greater federal vigilance spurred by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the deaths of coal miners in West Virginia.

W. very famously let the foxes rule the henhouse for 8 years, putting people in charge of regulatory agencies who were either incompetent or who believed that government was incapable of protecting consumers without destroying the economy.

It is partly because of this extensive Bush Administration incompetence and neglect that movements like locavore-ism and homemade pet foods made headway in the aughts: people no longer felt like they could trust Kraft, Alpo, and even Earthbound Farms to provide safe products. As cool as local stuff sounds, I'm not sure I'd be buying locally made cat food, local, free range eggs and chicken, and organic, off-brand peanut butter if it weren't for e. coli and melamine.

Nice to have a president hiring people who do their jobs.

poll craziness

There are primaries coming next week in 3 Senate races, and the incumbent stands to lose in several of them (possibly all 3!). The one people are really freaking out about, though, is Joe Sestak's sudden and consistent lead over Arlen Specter in PA.

Speaking specifically of this race, I'm surprised anyone else is surprised. Specter is a truly loathsome senator, the Platonic form of the gutless, "finger in the wind" politician whose only principle is being ardently pro-reelection. He's been a Democrat for all of a year, was cowed over and over again for 8 years by George W. Bush (when he wasn't ardently supporting him!), and the way he's stepped into the party and demanded that they give him all their support just because he's an incumbent has been embarrassing.

More broadly speaking, I'm also surprised that people continue to put so much stock in election polls so far out. Seemingly static election numbers regularly go wild 2 weeks from election day because people don't start paying attention until then. This is especially true with primaries for whatever reason. Remember, for instance, that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain had a prayer of winning a month before the Iowa Caucus. In '04, Howard Dean was cruising to a blowout win just a week and half out. You just don't know until a few days before Election Day.

National Day of Prayer

Unpossible! The intarwebs told me Saddam Hussein Obama canceled it!

What's funny is that today thousands of people are going to receive the chain email in question and forward it to their friends and family, livid at the audacity of their dirty muslim president. What a country.

hung

With all but 9 seats in, the UK Parliament tally is 302 Tories to 256 Labour to 56 Lib Dems.

It takes 326 seats to form a majority, so the Tories can't do it by themselves, and Labour can't do it even with an (unlikely) Lib Dem coalition. Either Cameron and Clegg will form a Tory/Lib Dem coalition government, or the Tories will run a minority government.

In any case, the most obvious likely consequence of this election has indeed come to pass: the historically long tenure of Tony Blair's New Labour has come to an end. David Cameron will be the next Prime Minister.

Fun Fact: despite the huge increase in support, the Liberal Democrats will finish with fewer seats after this election.

UPDATE: I should clarify. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are not a natural match, and a joint government between them would be a rare sight indeed, from what I understand, much rarer than Labour/Lib Dems as those two parties are ideologically closer (and both are historic nemeses of the Tories). The Conservatives have a much more natural ally in the Irish DUP, the largest and most hardline unionist party in Ulster, but the DUP doesn't have enough seats to put the Tories over 325, either. Besides, imagine the damage that would be done to the peace process in Ireland if the DUP were allowed to form a government in the UK!

UK elections today

Big day across the pond as Britain votes in a new Tory government, with David Cameron as Prime Minister. There's no question at this point that the Conservatives will finish with substantially more seats than Labour. It's less clear whether they'll be forced to run a minority government or will be able to pair up with the Liberal Democrats* or, if they get close enough to a majority, with the DUP of Northern Ireland (the main -- and most hardline -- unionist party).

*From what I can tell, the Lib Dems are "liberal" in a more classical sense than we think of, a center left party that's strong on civil liberties, pro-multilateralism and pro-peace, but its current leadership is squishy on the welfare state, preferring more free-market-y solutions than Labour. Still, their manifesto sounds pretty rockin' to me. Amazing how much ideological space there is between "centre left" and "center left."

the Conedog speaks

F**k Jay.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

values

Been watching a couple of political ads in the British elections, including a pretty good one from Eddie Izzard. What I find interesting about them is that one party regularly references having "values." We Americans would generally assume it would be the Conservatives, but we would be wrong. It's Labour, the only major party in England that self-identifies as socialist.

elsewhere in the South

Buried in the swamp of news coverage about the Gulf oil spill is the situation in Nashville, where they received 1/4 of their average annual rainfall over the weekend. 28 people have died so far.

Teabonics

I weep for my country.

insurance rescissions ending next month

Politico:

The health insurance industry has decided to end its practice of cancelling claims once a patient gets sick next month, well before the new health care law would have required it, the industry’s chief spokesman said Wednesday.

"While many health plans already abide by the standards outlined in the new law, our community is committed to implementing the new standards in May 2010 to ensure that individuals and families will have greater peace of mind when purchasing coverage on their own," AHIP president and chief executive Karen Ignagni said in a letter to top House Democrats.
...
Congressional Democrats and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had pressured companies to end the practice early. The overhaul plan will ban the practice in September, except in cases of fraud or intentional misrepresentation, and subject it to a third party review.

White House health reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle said the administration will be watching to ensure the industry does indeed institute the ban.

There was a lot of BS in the healthcare bill, and too many compromises were made with people who negotiated in bad faith, but at the end of the day the single worst practice in the American healthcare system is coming to an end. This is going to save lives.

what a difference a year makes

The top 2 stories at TPM right now are that McCain's ratings are at their lowest ever, and that Florida Governor Charlie Crist is planning to leave the GOP and run for Senate as an independent.

If Republicans had any sense, they'd be drafting Crist to run for president. As it stands, he's another casualty of the teabaggers' and Club for Growth's War on Moderates. McCain could be another.

Another casualty? The Hispanic vote, and in time, the state of Arizona if Kos is right. The governor's polling among Hispanics in AZ has dropped twenty six points since the infamous anti-immigration bill was signed.

protecting doctors who lie

Because apparently people still need one more reason not to live in Oklahoma.

worst worship ever

I guess this really is what it's all about.

"a dramatically effective administration"

Andrew Sullivan counts all the achievements of the Obama Administration since inauguration one and a half years ago:

An end to illegal torture of terror suspects. A beginning to a saner method of detaining, trying and convicting terror suspects.

Adept handling of the worst financial crisis and recession since the 1930s, leading to a profitable bank bailout (excluding Freddie and Fannie) and a return to growth. Check.

Salvaging of the automobile industry, which is now showing signs of life.

Passage of an ambitious stimulus package that has helped repair many crumbling parts of the US infrastructure and poured money into green industry.

The biggest social policy reform since LBJ - guaranteeing access to health insurance for all Americans.

Financial re-regulation of an out-of-control Wall Street, and the beginnings of real scrutiny (see Goldman) of the self-serving corruption at the heart of the financial industry.

Repaired relations with Russia, leading to a new START treaty, and better relations with China, leading to a revaluation of the yuan.

Joint Chiefs' endorsement of ending Don't Ask Don't Tell.

A tough re-balancing of the US position in the Middle East, away from the Likudnik-oriented jerking knees of the last eight years, and an assertion that US foreign policy should be conducted to advance the interests of the United States, not the interests of a belligerent faction in a foreign country.

The first point is very much debatable, and most of the others came with significant compromises, but this is still a pretty remarkable list of accomplishments.

bartering for healthcare

It is helpful to remember that people elect total f**king morons to high office all the time. All chicken jokes aside, the percentage of Americans who are farmers isn't exactly the highest it's ever been. What will, say, the regional manager of a mid-size paper company be using to barter for chemotherapy? What does a radiology technician barter with in this exciting new healthcare economy? To use an example befitting Lowden's home state, what does a waitress or a hotel clerk barter with? How many cardiologists would accept payment for a $100k procedure in pretty much anything other than dollars?

Nevermind her breezy suggestion that everyone just take that twenty thousand dollars you have just lying around and shove it in a health savings account.

We really are ruled by idiots.

Boyz-N-the-Hood

Finally saw the video. An oldie but a goodie.

why it has to be marriage, and nothing short of it

Sweet Jesus.

why 47% pay no federal income tax

In short, because of the Child Tax Credit, which is a Republican innovation. Kudos to them, I guess, because I'm all for it.

I'd also like to take this moment to post a reminder about marginal tax rates, since I'm starting to see more of this idiocy make its way into newspaper columns. About a year ago I wrote a post on the subject in light of rich idiots who were cleverly thinking up ways to make exactly $249,999 so as to dodge President Obama's tax hike on people making $250k/year.

This is a basic misunderstanding of how the income tax works. If you make $300,000, for instance, Obama's tax hike would only affect the last $50k of income that pushed you over the cap, not the entire $300k. Thus, someone who makes $250,001 will make more money than someone making $249,999. That's how progressive taxes work.

Hans Kung finds his moment

The long knives are coming out for Joseph Ratzinger, such as this public letter from liberal theologian Hans Kung published in the Irish Times. It's a good read.

A major theme in the life story of Joseph Ratzinger, one not well understood by the press (the American press in particular doesn't really have anyone who understands the crucial subtexts of Vatican actions, statements and positions) has been his personal crusade against liberalism in the Church since his tenure in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition).

Ratzinger and Hans Kung were the two youngest theologians at the Second Vatican Council, and both were liberal. Ratzinger had a conversion experience that correlates very closely with his ascent up the hierarchy, after which he pursued and harassed virtually every major liberal Catholic theology in the post-war era. He toppled Hans Kung from his post at Tubingen University (after Kung went out of his way to get Ratzinger a job there!). As Archbishop of Munich, he blocked Johann Baptist Metz from teaching at the University of Munich. As Inquisitor, he suspended Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff and investigated Gustavo Gutierrez multiple times. He took issue with Karl Rahner and investigated Edward Schillebeeckx. He had Uta-Ranke Heinemann, the first woman to hold the chair of Catholic Theology at the University of Munich, excommunicated.

Since he became Pope, conservative American bishops have become increasingly emboldened and overtly political, while American nuns are suddenly finding themselves and their lifestyles under widespread investigation, with the possible consequence of losing their homes and being rounded back up into convents.

It should be a cruel irony for the Church that it gets one of its most dogged and intelligent Inquisitors in years installed during the 80's and 90's, but he spends all his time chasing liberal theologians and pays no mind to the scourge of clerical pedophilia. Unfortunately, there's nothing ironic about it, as we're starting to see that pedophilia and its tacit acceptance likely has a long, quiet history in the Catholic hierarchy.

an uncanny coincidence

I present to you two completely unrelated facts:

1. the national deficit is at its highest level in history, over a trillion dollars at this point,

2. Americans' federal tax burden is the lowest it's been in 60 years.

I see no possible relationship here whatsoever. What about you?

Meanwhile, a new poll shows what every other poll ever taken on the subject has already shown: we all agree that spending needs to be cut to fix the deficit problem, but nobody actually wants to see any significant part of the budget get lower funding. Gosh, if only there were a way around this problem, some way to close the deficit without cutting hugely popular programs. Hmm, boy that's a toughy.

Andrea Gibson: "I do"

As someone who has the occasional sleepless night related to this subject, this movie reminds me that it could be worse. When that day comes, at least we'll both get to participate.

Bobo marginalized, but still part of his party

I've had one or two friends lately claim that David Brooks is close to jumping ship on the GOP and joining the Democratic party. This is why that will never happen. At the end of the day, American politics are still about haves and have-nots (in both the economic and political senses). Either you believe:

1. that the world and the free market are fundamentally just, that people are where they are because they chose to be there, and that, as Dr. Phil once said, "there are no victims, only volunteers," or


2. that life isn't fair, that some people have an inside track to success and guard their privilege jealously, and that someone has to look after the weak because it sure as hell won't be profit-driven companies and bosses.

Brooks may believe in evolution and climate change, and he may have gay friends, but at the end of the day, he's just an old Tory who thinks people are rich because they're better people.

barbecuing without bigotry

(image from LOLCats, obviously)

Yesterday my better, meatless half and I went to a BBQ restaurant (I know, but I can't make it every time I want it). When we go, she has to get a potato and salad because there aren't any vegetarian entrees, and then she has to request that they leave the bacon off her salad because there also aren't any vegetarian salads. Admittedly, this is hardly just a BBQ restaurant issue, and she claims she loves the potato and cornbread muffins there, but one of the waitresses was also wearing a shirt that said "vegetarians are free... to change their ways."

I noticed this attitude on the various internet BBQ and grilling/smoking sites as well when I went looking for vegetarian modifications to ABTs, this defensiveness masquerading as apathy towards vegetarians, this total unwillingness to make even the tiniest concession to non-meat-eating guests. It's like the point of BBQing is to make some sort of puerile statement about your machismo, a middle finger to all those who would look down on your cheese-filled bacon-wrapped sausage fatty topped with mayonnaise, a bottle of Wild Turkey, and a George Thorogood CD, like vegetarians and environmentalists and your doctor.

Fuck all 'em! I do wut I want!

When did BBQ become an expression of conservative white male angst and fear? Why can't it be about making good food that everybody can enjoy?

Put another way, is it fair or polite to ask people to check their diets at the door when they come to your cookout? Do you really want the event to have this undercurrent of hostility that will make some of your guests feel unwelcome?

I approach grilling/smoking from the perspective of someone who loves all kinds of food. I've had not just mind-blowing steak, but wonderful tofu dishes. I love fajitas, pizza, and cheeseburgers as well as sushi and Szechuan vegetables and bhindi masala.

And yes, there have been cookouts where I nailed the meat dish, but the best thing that came off the grill was still the vegetable entree. Portabellas drizzled with balsamic vinagrette and studded with garlic cloves, people. They're not just for breakfast anymore!

Don't be a dick: when you make your menu, whether it's for a restaurant or a Saturday cookout, be considerate and remember that other people's diets aren't about you. People aren't refusing to eat steak or sausage because they secretly hate you and your vile capitalist ways. Yes, some people do so out of an environmentalist, ethical or anti-meat industry stance (which is fine, again, because it's not about you), but others do so because it's healthy and can help with weight issues. Some attendees may be eating kosher, halal, Hindu, or Catholic/Lutheran/Episcopalian during Lent (do you know the religious affiliations of all your guests? I often don't), while still others may have high cholesterol, lactose intolerance, digestive issues, or any number of other things. Don't make your friends choose between your food and their beliefs or health.

What you'll quickly discover is that vegetables do wonderful things when exposed to smoke and an open flame, too. There's a whole world of food out there outside the realm of meat just waiting to be explored. I recommend starting with the peppers.

Krugman's primer on the economics of climate change

A great read.

Stupak retiring

There's a lesson here. It will be misinterpreted by myopic editorials as "the Tea Party is unstoppable!," but I think most people would agree that Stupak came under so much fire because he chose to grandstand and obstruct the president's signature legislation, his own party's electoral hopes, and the dire needs of millions of Americans ... and then back off.

What's funny about his decisions during the healthcare debate is that the bill that passed the Senate never did provide any financial support for abortions. In fact, the pro-Roe crowd was generally angry because it placed extra burdens beyond the Hyde amendment on women seeking abortions. There was a joke circling the internet after Stupak's meeting with the president and his reversal that Stupak couldn't bring himself to believe that the bill didn't fund abortions because it was female senators, women's groups, and nuns telling him so. Finally they all went to the president and told him Stupak won't believe it unless it comes from a man.

In a way, I suspect an element of truth here. My guess is that this had nothing to do with abortion policy. Stupak put his finger to the wind and guessed that this was going to be a major anti-Democratic wave election year, and he needed to get out in front of it. Grandstanding against HCR on behalf of the anti-Roe crowd gets him in the good graces of tea partiers, McCain voters, the US Chamber of Commerce (who will be doing the lion's share of PAC spending this year) and the Christian Right all at once.

Only things didn't work out like he'd hoped. He was probably told by the Speaker that he wouldn't be allowed to join the handful of red state Dems allowed to vote the other way to protect their own asses, so he recruited a bunch of other "pro-life" Democrats to his cause, hoping he could just torpedo the bill and Obama's loss would be his gain. He took a lot of the blame when HCR looked dead, and Democratic groups (and, ahem, voters) were furious.

And then he learned a hard lesson about leading an army of cowards. When it looked like the president was going to lose, they flocked to Stupak. When the conventional wisdom shifted, however, and people started talking about how, during the 1994 elections, centrist Democrats were slaughtered en masse by the GOP whether or not they supported HCR, and that passage of HCR was absolutely essential to the Democrats keeping Congress, knees all around him started shaking.

Then votes in Congress started flipping the Speaker's way, and the Stupakers became the last group left holding up HCR. They caught the angry eye of the Speaker, the White House, and the Democratic electorate at large. Rahm came knocking on their door with the message that the White House "is going to remember who stood in the way of this legislation." Democratic groups and unions start evaluating their support. Support for Stupak et al. among their own Democratic constituents started sinking.

I imagine at some point Stupak and his buddies gathered with their campaign advisors, looked at polls they had commissioned hoping that their gains among tea partiers, Christian conservatives, and Republicans were offsetting Democratic losses, and learned the ugly truth about triangulating your own party in the post-Clinton age: after so many bridges burned and so many allies spurned, Republicans said they supported Stupak et al. in larger numbers ... but still plan to vote for their Republican opponents in November.

Everyone wanted off this sinking ship, they were finished with Stupak's folly (including Stupak himself), but they needed some way to save face, and that's how the president's Executive Order came to be. It won't save them, as Stupak eventually figured out. Stupak made several serious miscalculations:

1. he badly misjudged how important his own party considered HCR


2. he relied on a cadre of cowardly, centrist congressmen to defend against the White House, congressional leadership, every Democratic/liberal interest group in America, and the vast majority of Democratic voters


3. he made a play for Republican and independent votes at the expense of Democratic ones (i.e., gave his own supporters a HUGE reason to stay home), and then tried to renege, effectively antagonizing all three groups

That last one is what gets the "centrists" every time. Research shows that most "independent" voters have amorphous, frequently changing political views, but nobody likes a waffler.

all we want: lower taxes and more services

What's so hard about that?

political compass, 2010 edition

Grims brings back the political compass test taken here a couple of times. Everyone remember this test? 2 axes, an economic X axis ranging from communist (in the purely Marxist sense) to free marketeer, and a political Y axis ranging from authoritarian to anarchist.

Here is my history:
2005: -6.50, -4.92
2007: -6.0, -5.23
this year: -6.62, -5.03

Still deeply unserious, apparently.

Facebookers, you make me proud

Not sure if you've heard about this Constance McMillen story that's making the rounds, but her douchey classmates made a Facebook group called "Constance quit yer cryin." Sounds terrible, right? Well, here's something heartening: the reaction from the Facebook community has been, er, less than positive. Check out the comments.

Great point, Reverend

Criticism of the pope's handling of child molestation cases is just like anti-semitism!

One almost wonders if these people are actually Masonic saboteurs in deep cover. It's easier to believe than that someone really thought this homily was a good way to defend the Vatican. How can a group be so tin-eared, so utterly unable to grasp the gravity of these charges against them?