I guess the most important thing to remember right now is that we don't know what government is going to emerge from the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Some are hopeful that this is some sort of Arab Enlightenment, the beginnings of new democracy in Muslim North Africa. Others are worried that militant Islamists will have an opening.
Maybe it's simplistic, but I tend to believe dictators are always worth overthrowing. The possibility of democracy is worth the risk of Islamist takeover.
Friday, January 28, 2011
A friend of mine sent me a link to this "news" segment today, needing a moment to rant. One sympathizes.
In general I'm done worrying about Sarah Palin unless and until she becomes a serious contender for anything important. I feel sometimes like she could come down with a serious case of dementia tomorrow and nothing would change. She could say in an interview, for instance, that Barack Obama's arms treaty with the Galactic Empire robs us of the right to shield ourselves from the Eye of Mordor. The people who still support her right now would find the headspace to fit the new Palinism into their worldview, the rest of us would think she's a blithering idiot, and the press corps would ask the president to respond to her "remarks." There is just nothing Sarah Palin can say that will make her supporters question her competence, and the rest of us have similarly made up our minds about her.
In general I'm done worrying about Sarah Palin unless and until she becomes a serious contender for anything important. I feel sometimes like she could come down with a serious case of dementia tomorrow and nothing would change. She could say in an interview, for instance, that Barack Obama's arms treaty with the Galactic Empire robs us of the right to shield ourselves from the Eye of Mordor. The people who still support her right now would find the headspace to fit the new Palinism into their worldview, the rest of us would think she's a blithering idiot, and the press corps would ask the president to respond to her "remarks." There is just nothing Sarah Palin can say that will make her supporters question her competence, and the rest of us have similarly made up our minds about her.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Chewbacca and R2D2: secret Rebel agents?
Submitting this thesis to the readership. In essence, a close reading of Stars Wars episode IV: A New Hope while relying on the veracity of episodes I-III (i.e., the new ones) reveals two secret Rebel agents relying on patsy front men to sell their cover: R2-D2 and Chewbacca.
is abortion "like slavery?"
I see TNC is getting entangled in Rick Santorum's new rhetorical IED:
Conservatives really like this comparison because it seems like an ironclad way to hoist liberals with their own petard, and I see various ones have already given this comparison their endorsement.
Personally, I still think arguments made by analogy are almost always specious. People usually move from "X is" to "X is like" because they only want you to see this one detail here, not all those inconvenient ones over there.
For example, Coates points out the problems with the "abortion is like slavery" thesis by pointing out that slaves were considered people, just unequal people, and moreover that they were themselves one of the primary agents in their own abolition. It totally glosses over the long struggle of black people escaping slavery and becoming abolitionists, pamphleteering, preaching, and helping other slaves escape bondage via the underground railroad. Thus the "pro-life as abolitionist" model is that of altruistic white men condescending to lift up and extend their own privilege to some helpless, voiceless other, which is understandably offensive to others, not to mention "bad history" as Coates argues.
In this way, Rick Santorum interestingly steps into the same puddle as Hillary Clinton back in '08 when we were all forced to litigate the degree to which Lyndon Johnson (and by extension white America) can or should claim responsibility for the Civil Rights Act. African Americans are very sensitive to this subject because white people tend to understate the role of black people in their own emancipation.
That is all, of course, aside from the more obvious critique that if you decide personhood begins at conception, you're still "deciding who are people and who are not people," and it's not just a matter of setting the start date earlier. If "personhood" includes, say, "the right to make your own medical decisions," there is the wee matter of the mass of flesh surrounding the fetus.
There's yet another wrinkle in Santorum's logic that I thought worth mentioning. Despite the reductionist description of the president as "a black man," Barack Obama is not the descendant of American slaves. There isn't anything in his heritage that would make this issue more acute for him than for Santorum.
"Well if that person, human life is not a person, then, I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'We are going to decide who are people and who are not people.'"
Conservatives really like this comparison because it seems like an ironclad way to hoist liberals with their own petard, and I see various ones have already given this comparison their endorsement.
Personally, I still think arguments made by analogy are almost always specious. People usually move from "X is" to "X is like" because they only want you to see this one detail here, not all those inconvenient ones over there.
For example, Coates points out the problems with the "abortion is like slavery" thesis by pointing out that slaves were considered people, just unequal people, and moreover that they were themselves one of the primary agents in their own abolition. It totally glosses over the long struggle of black people escaping slavery and becoming abolitionists, pamphleteering, preaching, and helping other slaves escape bondage via the underground railroad. Thus the "pro-life as abolitionist" model is that of altruistic white men condescending to lift up and extend their own privilege to some helpless, voiceless other, which is understandably offensive to others, not to mention "bad history" as Coates argues.
In this way, Rick Santorum interestingly steps into the same puddle as Hillary Clinton back in '08 when we were all forced to litigate the degree to which Lyndon Johnson (and by extension white America) can or should claim responsibility for the Civil Rights Act. African Americans are very sensitive to this subject because white people tend to understate the role of black people in their own emancipation.
That is all, of course, aside from the more obvious critique that if you decide personhood begins at conception, you're still "deciding who are people and who are not people," and it's not just a matter of setting the start date earlier. If "personhood" includes, say, "the right to make your own medical decisions," there is the wee matter of the mass of flesh surrounding the fetus.
There's yet another wrinkle in Santorum's logic that I thought worth mentioning. Despite the reductionist description of the president as "a black man," Barack Obama is not the descendant of American slaves. There isn't anything in his heritage that would make this issue more acute for him than for Santorum.
Friday, January 21, 2011
"impeachment"
Yeah, people get it wrong all the time, I know. I still would not have expected such a foul-up here, and then a failure from the "editor" to recognize the mistake.
This is all separate from the issue of Joe Lieberman's nauseating sanctimony during the whole Lewinsky scandal. Contra Brooks, it was not one of his finer moments.
Nor does it pertain to David Brooks' perplexing failure to recognize that Joe Lieberman is one of the most vindictive egomaniacs in the entire Senate, changing positions on a dime solely to obstruct the people that he thinks didn't adequately champion his re-election bid in '06. His support of the Medicare buy-in compromise last year, and then blindsiding Reid by reneging on that support just as it was reaching the tipping point in the Senate, comes to mind as one of the most egregious examples.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
This is all separate from the issue of Joe Lieberman's nauseating sanctimony during the whole Lewinsky scandal. Contra Brooks, it was not one of his finer moments.
Nor does it pertain to David Brooks' perplexing failure to recognize that Joe Lieberman is one of the most vindictive egomaniacs in the entire Senate, changing positions on a dime solely to obstruct the people that he thinks didn't adequately champion his re-election bid in '06. His support of the Medicare buy-in compromise last year, and then blindsiding Reid by reneging on that support just as it was reaching the tipping point in the Senate, comes to mind as one of the most egregious examples.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
the internet catches up with Paula Deen
Paula Deen publishes a recipe for English peas on the Food Network website which, as far as I can tell, is just heating 2 cans of peas in a 1/2 stick of butter. 3 years later, it finally goes viral, and the comments section is something special.
My favorites so far:
My favorites so far:
I tried it but I thought it might be missing something..... oh yeah, it's a trailer park.
If my can of peas has small Spanish translations under the English text, will they still work for this recipe?
The English peas turned out just great with a little help from my new friend Annette, and went perfectly with Boiled Hot Dog on Hot Dog Bun, in particular, and she's promised to walk me through that one soon. She suggested I work up to it with one of Chef Deen's intermediate recipes first, though, like Opened Bag of Chips Adjacent to Opened Can of Dip.
If these were truly English peas, the recipe would have included making sure that you overcook them till mushy and all "pop" is gone from them. But I liked this recipe anyway. Although I didn't have any canned peas, so I dug through my freezer for frozen ones. Finding none, and with my butter already melted, I decided to slice up some bananas lengthwise and cook them in the butter, but it needed a little smidge of something, so I dumped half a cup of dark brown sugar in there, which was absolutely lovely, but simply not showy enough, so I tossed in some banana liqueur and a splash of rum. Of course, since I cook on a gas stove, I probably shouldn't have shook the pan so vigorously because the rum lit on fire and the whole dish burned until all the rum cooked off. But I spooned it over some vanilla bean ice cream and called it good. It was good. Will try Paula's recipe again in the future (with my modifications, of course!
Which half of the 1/2 stick of butter should I melt?
This reminds me of when I used to eat with my Aunt and Uncle back in my home town. She'd open a can of k'luth, which is Bachi for peas. Some times we wouldn't know what we would get because we lost our translator droid during the previous harvest.
I took helpful tips from one of the reviewers and I had something that came out exactly like Bananas Foster! Yum!!
House votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act!
O no!!
As I read one person say, perhaps now they'll move to repeal the president and the Senate.
Perhaps they should repeal the 2006 and 2008 elections, and the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt. Or they could bypass the whole need to repeal the health care law by just voting to abolish sickness and death.
I wonder if they'll hold a vote to officially designate Democrats as the party that's ugly and stupid and smells funny. I bet Dan Boren (D-OK) would vote for it. Maybe they can attach a rider that disowns San Francisco and Massachusetts.
In all seriousness, though, in a way it's the perfect way to usher in the Republican congress. The Democrats ran the most productive House in ages, and one that dealt seriously with substantive issues. Like the results or not, they tackled difficult questions on health care, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, economic stimulus, and other major issues. Their first big splash legislation was the Lily Ledbetter Act, which made a tiny modification to an existing law but with huge implications, stating that the 180 grace period for filing a lawsuit under the Civil Rights Act resets with each discriminatory action.
The Republican congress, on the other hand, purports to make a massive, sweeping change in the lives of the people, repealing the ability of college graduates to stay on their parents' insurance, allowing insurance companies to begin dropping you from their coverage if you get sick, re-establishing the Medicare donut hole, and repealing tax credits for small businesses that contribute to employee health insurance, all while increasing the debt by $500 billion over the next 10 years. In reality, however, the vote does nothing. Political theater utterly lacking in substance. It really is the perfect foil for the Democrats and President Obama, who have enacted real reforms over the last two years, but are pathologically, infuriatingly* incapable of scoring political points.
*Yes, infuriatingly (and no, I don't care if that's not really a word). It isn't a compliment to say Democrats are incapable of scoring political points. Not scoring points is how we got a Republican House in the first place. The Affordable Care Act's popularity sank as low as it did because Democrats were completely unwilling to defend it. What, was it supposed to speak for itself? Where were all Democrats insisting that the CBO says it cuts the deficit? Where were all the accusations that Republicans want to reopen the donut hole? That they're in the pocket of the insurance industry? That they care about shareholders more than voters? That they're anti-retirement? That they want to work Granny to death? Where were the rallies in front of those Wal-Mart parking lots where poor people are getting root canals right there on the pavement like refugees?
John Boehner doesn't care about sick people!
As I read one person say, perhaps now they'll move to repeal the president and the Senate.
Perhaps they should repeal the 2006 and 2008 elections, and the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt. Or they could bypass the whole need to repeal the health care law by just voting to abolish sickness and death.
I wonder if they'll hold a vote to officially designate Democrats as the party that's ugly and stupid and smells funny. I bet Dan Boren (D-OK) would vote for it. Maybe they can attach a rider that disowns San Francisco and Massachusetts.
In all seriousness, though, in a way it's the perfect way to usher in the Republican congress. The Democrats ran the most productive House in ages, and one that dealt seriously with substantive issues. Like the results or not, they tackled difficult questions on health care, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, economic stimulus, and other major issues. Their first big splash legislation was the Lily Ledbetter Act, which made a tiny modification to an existing law but with huge implications, stating that the 180 grace period for filing a lawsuit under the Civil Rights Act resets with each discriminatory action.
The Republican congress, on the other hand, purports to make a massive, sweeping change in the lives of the people, repealing the ability of college graduates to stay on their parents' insurance, allowing insurance companies to begin dropping you from their coverage if you get sick, re-establishing the Medicare donut hole, and repealing tax credits for small businesses that contribute to employee health insurance, all while increasing the debt by $500 billion over the next 10 years. In reality, however, the vote does nothing. Political theater utterly lacking in substance. It really is the perfect foil for the Democrats and President Obama, who have enacted real reforms over the last two years, but are pathologically, infuriatingly* incapable of scoring political points.
*Yes, infuriatingly (and no, I don't care if that's not really a word). It isn't a compliment to say Democrats are incapable of scoring political points. Not scoring points is how we got a Republican House in the first place. The Affordable Care Act's popularity sank as low as it did because Democrats were completely unwilling to defend it. What, was it supposed to speak for itself? Where were all Democrats insisting that the CBO says it cuts the deficit? Where were all the accusations that Republicans want to reopen the donut hole? That they're in the pocket of the insurance industry? That they care about shareholders more than voters? That they're anti-retirement? That they want to work Granny to death? Where were the rallies in front of those Wal-Mart parking lots where poor people are getting root canals right there on the pavement like refugees?
John Boehner doesn't care about sick people!
Thursday, January 06, 2011
perceived vs. actual threats
An interesting point via Grist. I've noticed last year there was some discussion "out there" about the topsy-turvy way people -- and parents in particular -- perceive danger. This sentence illustrates it well:
Of those, of course, car accidents far outstrip everything else, accounting for some 30% of teen fatalities. Those fatalities, by the way, occur more frequently in rural/exurban areas than urban/inner suburban ones, as shown by this map from the CDC website and this UVA study cited in the Grist article.
Ironically, parents often react to illusory danger by subjecting their kids to actual danger, e.g., driving their kids around to prevent them from walking and public transportation, or escaping the hordes of drug pushers, terrorists, and shifty strangers of the cities by moving to the gun-ridden, car-centric, condom-eschewing exurbs.
Our relatively new parental culture of keeping kids in sight at all times must be hell on single parents. My mother let me walk home from school every day at least partly because she had little choice, what with school letting out fully two hours before her job. I suspect being a "latchkey" kid fostered in me a sense of the outside world as a safely navigable place, which perhaps ultimately led to my independence in junior high and willingness to take long road trips in high school and college. It may even have had a hand in my choice to go to Ireland alone for my junior year rather than the group study abroad programs that everyone else joined. It's still the best decision I ever made, and those trips to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, and Durango are some of my fondest memories.
If Mom made that choice to start letting me walk home from school today, she'd probably be reported to Child Protective Services.
...the five things most likely to cause injury to children up to age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are: car accidents, homicide (usually at the hands of someone they know), child abuse, suicide or drowning. And what are the five things that parents are most worried about (according to surveys by the Mayo Clinic)? Kidnapping, school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers and drugs.
Of those, of course, car accidents far outstrip everything else, accounting for some 30% of teen fatalities. Those fatalities, by the way, occur more frequently in rural/exurban areas than urban/inner suburban ones, as shown by this map from the CDC website and this UVA study cited in the Grist article.
Ironically, parents often react to illusory danger by subjecting their kids to actual danger, e.g., driving their kids around to prevent them from walking and public transportation, or escaping the hordes of drug pushers, terrorists, and shifty strangers of the cities by moving to the gun-ridden, car-centric, condom-eschewing exurbs.
Our relatively new parental culture of keeping kids in sight at all times must be hell on single parents. My mother let me walk home from school every day at least partly because she had little choice, what with school letting out fully two hours before her job. I suspect being a "latchkey" kid fostered in me a sense of the outside world as a safely navigable place, which perhaps ultimately led to my independence in junior high and willingness to take long road trips in high school and college. It may even have had a hand in my choice to go to Ireland alone for my junior year rather than the group study abroad programs that everyone else joined. It's still the best decision I ever made, and those trips to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, and Durango are some of my fondest memories.
If Mom made that choice to start letting me walk home from school today, she'd probably be reported to Child Protective Services.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
bipartisanship, a dish best served cold
It's been quite a lame duck session, has it not? What was supposed to be a legislative winding down of the 111th Congress saw the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ratification of the New START Treaty, and a tax cut package no one seems to know what to make of, as well as serious pushes of a 9/11 worker health bill and the DREAM Act.
What's been most interesting about it has been the sudden flood of Republican "yea" votes in the Senate, where none have been seen in years it seems. The usual suspects who've flirted with bipartisanship in the last few years -- i.e., the three New England Republicans not named "Judd Gregg" -- finally started following through, and even Gregg himself put his country first on START. We also saw a few one-offs from erstwhile party men like Bob Corker.
And then there are the Democrats' new best friends, Republicans who voted for several Democratic initiatives who've never cottoned to anything with the slightest whiff of donkey before. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and Dick Lugar (R-IN) voted for the DREAM Act and the START Treaty. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Arlen Specter (?-PA) voted for all three. Yeah, that's right: the DREAM Act, a bill laying out a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, got votes from a Utah Republican and an Alaska Republican.
Lugar's harder to figure out (he's quite old, and may be headed for retirement), but Murkowski, Specter* and Bennett share a particular something in common: they were both primaried this year and lost. It's interesting to see that Senators are normally this petty, and it isn't just a particular personality who radically changes his voting patterns to get revenge on party leadership after such an event. Not sure, however, if it's comforting or disheartening.
*I suppose technically Specter lost the Democratic primary, but he was only in that party because he'd been driven out of the GOP by Senator-elect (ugh) Pat Toomey.
What's been most interesting about it has been the sudden flood of Republican "yea" votes in the Senate, where none have been seen in years it seems. The usual suspects who've flirted with bipartisanship in the last few years -- i.e., the three New England Republicans not named "Judd Gregg" -- finally started following through, and even Gregg himself put his country first on START. We also saw a few one-offs from erstwhile party men like Bob Corker.
And then there are the Democrats' new best friends, Republicans who voted for several Democratic initiatives who've never cottoned to anything with the slightest whiff of donkey before. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and Dick Lugar (R-IN) voted for the DREAM Act and the START Treaty. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Arlen Specter (?-PA) voted for all three. Yeah, that's right: the DREAM Act, a bill laying out a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, got votes from a Utah Republican and an Alaska Republican.
Lugar's harder to figure out (he's quite old, and may be headed for retirement), but Murkowski, Specter* and Bennett share a particular something in common: they were both primaried this year and lost. It's interesting to see that Senators are normally this petty, and it isn't just a particular personality who radically changes his voting patterns to get revenge on party leadership after such an event. Not sure, however, if it's comforting or disheartening.
*I suppose technically Specter lost the Democratic primary, but he was only in that party because he'd been driven out of the GOP by Senator-elect (ugh) Pat Toomey.
Monday, December 20, 2010
the difference between President Obama and President McCain
Next time you want to say Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton, is just another moderate Republican president, remember this moment. Remember this reaction to repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell from the man whose biggest weakness in the 2008 Republican primary was that he was too liberal.
Friday, December 17, 2010
guilty of some crimes, innocent of others
When considering the moral consequences of a news story, when distinguishing the faces from the heels, it helps to learn to distinguish relevant facts from irrelevant ones. For instance, there's no inherent contradiction in Roman Polanski being both a brilliant filmmaker and a child rapist.
This is important when looking at all this Wikileaks stuff, too. If you take my view, Julian Assange is providing an important service by keeping a website for whistleblowers to publish their material. Whistleblowers keep the government honest, as their presence is a major incentive not to cut corners or allow corruption to set in. Plus, of course, the act of whistleblowing is often the only method by which corruption is rooted out and stopped once it has taken root, and the only way to ensure someone is held accountable. Nothing disinfects like air and light.
[A side note: whistleblowers often give up much more than just their careers for their country and their integrity. Bradley Manning's mind is currently being destroyed by extended solitary confinement in Quantico (8 months and counting) for his contribution to Wikileaks.]
It is perfectly possible, however, that a man on this crusade against the invisible, unelected, secretive powers that rule our world also raped two women. The accusers have gone public, and the charges are serious:
Is it possible that this was all a multi-government conspiracy to shut down Wikileaks? Uh, I guess it's theoretically possible, but which is more likely?
C'mon, seriously.
This is important when looking at all this Wikileaks stuff, too. If you take my view, Julian Assange is providing an important service by keeping a website for whistleblowers to publish their material. Whistleblowers keep the government honest, as their presence is a major incentive not to cut corners or allow corruption to set in. Plus, of course, the act of whistleblowing is often the only method by which corruption is rooted out and stopped once it has taken root, and the only way to ensure someone is held accountable. Nothing disinfects like air and light.
[A side note: whistleblowers often give up much more than just their careers for their country and their integrity. Bradley Manning's mind is currently being destroyed by extended solitary confinement in Quantico (8 months and counting) for his contribution to Wikileaks.]
It is perfectly possible, however, that a man on this crusade against the invisible, unelected, secretive powers that rule our world also raped two women. The accusers have gone public, and the charges are serious:
The first complainant, a Miss A, said she was the victim of "unlawful coercion" on the night of 14 August in Stockholm. The court heard Assange was alleged to have "forcefully" held her arms and used his bodyweight to hold her down. The second charge alleged he "sexually molested" her by having sex without using a condom, when it was her "express wish" that one should be used.
A third charge claimed Assange "deliberately molested" Miss A on 18 August.
A fourth charge, relating to a Miss W, alleged that on 17 August, he "improperly exploited" the fact she was asleep to have sex with her without a condom.
Is it possible that this was all a multi-government conspiracy to shut down Wikileaks? Uh, I guess it's theoretically possible, but which is more likely?
- Three different governments conspired to convince two of Assange's ex-lovers to concoct false rape stories in order to provide the pretense to arrest him, throw him in Gitmo and shut down his website
- the dude raped two women, and also happens to run a famous whistleblower clearing house website
C'mon, seriously.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
compromise wins
I don't normally care much for his work, but Steve Kornacki at Salon nails this one:
McConnell and Kyl, being the odious, nihilistic saboteurs that they are, held the entire lame duck session hostage over rich people's tax cuts. Among the things held hostage? Unemployment insurance, meaning that if Obama played chicken with the Republicans and they didn't blink, millions of people could have had their last monetary lifelines cut just in time for Christmas. Obama could not let that happen.
Was there really a chance the GOP would have let unemployment insurance expire? Well, Republicans did just get elected partly on angst over entitlement spending. Besides, Republicans and conservatives are ideologically unfriendly toward such generosity in the first place. You tell me.
And besides, what's the endgame there? The Republicans could always just let the lame duck session end and then bludgeon the Democrats over letting everyone's tax cuts expire. Then when the new Congress convenes, pass the tax cuts all over again and dare the Democrats and Obama to vote against them. Democrats get hammered several times on the same issue and get nothing in return. No unemployment insurance, no additional stimulus, no START treaty, no DADT repeal, nothing.
By admitting Republicans have the upper hand and compromising on tax cuts, however, Obama was able to extract a fair amount of stimulus out of the deal and broke the logjam for potential work on DADT and the START treaty. I'm not a fan of tax cuts as stimulus, but when the choices are stimulus via tax cuts and nothing at all, you take what you can get. If either of the other things passes, so much the better.
Furthermore, Obama kept the tax cuts from becoming permanent. Will relitigating the issue in 2 years just mean Obama loses again? Maybe, and yes a 1 or 3 year extension would have been better politically, but at least there's a chance sanity could win out next time.
As part of the deal, expiring unemployment benefits for millions of Americans will be extended for 13 months. Just as important, there is now a real prospect that the Senate will act on repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and ratification of the START treaty before this month's lame duck session ends. Is extending tax cuts for the richest Americans (and blowing another hole in the deficit in the process) a steep price to pay for all of this? Absolutely. But that's politics: Obama took the best deal he could possibly get...
...Note that the deal also includes a reduction in the Social Security payroll tax and an expansion of the earned income tax credit and the college tuition tax credit. This is on top of the extension in unemployment benefits. These measures have one thing in common: They are stimulative in nature.
McConnell and Kyl, being the odious, nihilistic saboteurs that they are, held the entire lame duck session hostage over rich people's tax cuts. Among the things held hostage? Unemployment insurance, meaning that if Obama played chicken with the Republicans and they didn't blink, millions of people could have had their last monetary lifelines cut just in time for Christmas. Obama could not let that happen.
Was there really a chance the GOP would have let unemployment insurance expire? Well, Republicans did just get elected partly on angst over entitlement spending. Besides, Republicans and conservatives are ideologically unfriendly toward such generosity in the first place. You tell me.
And besides, what's the endgame there? The Republicans could always just let the lame duck session end and then bludgeon the Democrats over letting everyone's tax cuts expire. Then when the new Congress convenes, pass the tax cuts all over again and dare the Democrats and Obama to vote against them. Democrats get hammered several times on the same issue and get nothing in return. No unemployment insurance, no additional stimulus, no START treaty, no DADT repeal, nothing.
By admitting Republicans have the upper hand and compromising on tax cuts, however, Obama was able to extract a fair amount of stimulus out of the deal and broke the logjam for potential work on DADT and the START treaty. I'm not a fan of tax cuts as stimulus, but when the choices are stimulus via tax cuts and nothing at all, you take what you can get. If either of the other things passes, so much the better.
Furthermore, Obama kept the tax cuts from becoming permanent. Will relitigating the issue in 2 years just mean Obama loses again? Maybe, and yes a 1 or 3 year extension would have been better politically, but at least there's a chance sanity could win out next time.
Monday, December 06, 2010
the Wetzel Plan, 2010 edition
We do it every year here, highlight Yahoo! columnist Dan Wetzel's plan for a 16 game playoff in college football like the one played in division II. It gives automatic seeds to all 11 division one conferences, with 5 at-large bids that would normally be chosen by a panel of experts a la the NCAA basketball tourney (for the purposes of illustration, Wetzel goes with highest seed). Each game is played on the higher seed's home field, with the championship game on neutral ground. This year:
It's something, isn't it? In the first round, we're looking at Michigan St. at Arkansas, VA Tech at Ohio State, and LSU at Oklahoma, and it just picks up from there. TCU would face off with the winner of VA Tech-Ohio St., Oregon would get the winner of Oklahoma-LSU, and we'd get a potential Michigan St. at Auburn matchup.
One of these days, hopefully.
It's something, isn't it? In the first round, we're looking at Michigan St. at Arkansas, VA Tech at Ohio State, and LSU at Oklahoma, and it just picks up from there. TCU would face off with the winner of VA Tech-Ohio St., Oregon would get the winner of Oklahoma-LSU, and we'd get a potential Michigan St. at Auburn matchup.
One of these days, hopefully.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
courts and banks as partners in crime
A very helpful article here from Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone on the mortgage-backed securities crisis, the foreclosure crisis that it spawned, and how banks are getting out from under their own bad decisions by fraudulently kicking homeowners out on the street, and all with the help of the judicial system.
There are several truths coming out of this story that I think most people have a hard time coming to grips with. The first is that, as I and others have said before, Americans have been trained since It's a Wonderful Life to think of bankers as accountants when we should be looking at them as used car salesmen. They're not trying to protect your interests, and their bottom line no longer depends on your prosperity. Remember for a moment that banks are also credit card companies and tell me they're not just trying to get you on the hook for as much as possible.
The second is that nearly every case of foreclosure in the United States now happens because the judge allowed the bank to commit fraud. Banks so completely f**ked the normal system of titles and paper trails with the whole mortgage-backed securities debacle that they can't prove which mortgages they own, and rather than try to untangle that Gordian knot of securities, they just forge the paper trail. If the judges were to insist on proper paperwork, two things would happen:
There are several truths coming out of this story that I think most people have a hard time coming to grips with. The first is that, as I and others have said before, Americans have been trained since It's a Wonderful Life to think of bankers as accountants when we should be looking at them as used car salesmen. They're not trying to protect your interests, and their bottom line no longer depends on your prosperity. Remember for a moment that banks are also credit card companies and tell me they're not just trying to get you on the hook for as much as possible.
The second is that nearly every case of foreclosure in the United States now happens because the judge allowed the bank to commit fraud. Banks so completely f**ked the normal system of titles and paper trails with the whole mortgage-backed securities debacle that they can't prove which mortgages they own, and rather than try to untangle that Gordian knot of securities, they just forge the paper trail. If the judges were to insist on proper paperwork, two things would happen:
- There would be no more foreclosures
- All the big banks would fail. All of them.
Friday, November 19, 2010
TSA admits it punishes people who opt out of body scanners
Amazing. From Consumer Traveler:
What does "more invasive" mean? At some airports, this. It also comes with verbal abuse from TSA agents, as recounted by Jeffrey Goldberg during his own encounter.
Welcome to George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman's America.
TSA officials commenting for the article, “added that checkpoint requirements for passengers departing from the United States haven’t changed since the underwear bomber incident last December.” That suggested pat-downs were still the same as they had always been.
However, when meeting with privacy officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and TSA later that month, I was told unofficially that there were two standards of pat-downs. One for the normal situation where passengers are going through metal detectors and a different pat-down for those who refuse to go through the whole-body scanners.
With this latest announcement, TSA admits that it has been clandestinely punishing passengers for refusing to go through the invasive whole-body scans with an even more intrusive aggressive pat-down and that soon those more invasive pat-down will creep from airport to airport.
What does "more invasive" mean? At some airports, this. It also comes with verbal abuse from TSA agents, as recounted by Jeffrey Goldberg during his own encounter.
Welcome to George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman's America.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
coverage for me but not for thee
Great story from Politico about an anti-health care bill freshman congressman demanding his government health care now that he's in congress. The real juicy part:
I and many liberals have often found it striking how conservatives of all stripes seem incapable of recognizing the gravity of other people's problems until they are forced to deal with them personally. This is, I think, why conservatives reacted so loudly to President Obama's employment of the word "empathy" when describing the traits he wanted in a Supreme Court justice. It's a word liberals have been bludgeoning them with for generations to the point that it's become dog-whistle for "not a conservative hypocrite." It's the liberal retort to the conservative "bleeding heart" jab.
“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange...
“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.
I and many liberals have often found it striking how conservatives of all stripes seem incapable of recognizing the gravity of other people's problems until they are forced to deal with them personally. This is, I think, why conservatives reacted so loudly to President Obama's employment of the word "empathy" when describing the traits he wanted in a Supreme Court justice. It's a word liberals have been bludgeoning them with for generations to the point that it's become dog-whistle for "not a conservative hypocrite." It's the liberal retort to the conservative "bleeding heart" jab.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Maddow vs. Stewart on the news
It's actually pretty rare for us to be treated with an interview between two brilliant people who are neither ideological/tribal cohorts nor opposites. This is a real treat; I think Jon Stewart has a lot of insights about media and politics that he can't really articulate in a direct way on his own show, and Rachel Maddow is best interviewer on television. To adapt a quote from Steve Earle, "and I'll stand on Bill Moyers' coffee table and say that."
Thanksgiving tips from NYC chefs
Cool article from the Times. Carving the bird beforehand to keep from drying out the breast? I can't believe that never occurred to me! There are some awesome-sounding recipes with the articles, too.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
interesting math
Anyone else find it interesting that the presidential commission charged solely with tackling the budget deficit recommended tax cuts for the wealthy?
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