Joe the Plumber (no longer a plumber; first name actually Samuel) popped into our town yesterday evening to sell his new book and to remind people that he's still a plain and simple guy. Mission accomplished, on at least one of his missions.
About 11 people wandered into the rows of seats set up hopefully in the basement of a downtown Border's bookstore to hear Joe speak. Joe addressed them from behind a lectern and with a microphone, but that seemed unnecessarily formal.
Buhwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! But wait, it gets better.
Seen properly 'unfunded liability' is just a fictive artifact stemming from the Trustees having to assume current law. If they are able to pay full benefits they are obligated to do so, to that extent there is a liability. But it is limited, if Congress decides to fund that liability it will be paid, if Congress deliberately decides not to the liability goes away.Magic!
It is useful and even crucially important to understand the gap between projected revenue and projected cost at the point of Trust Fund depletion. It is equally useful but not particularly important to examine that gap in some future year. What is not useful is to sum up those amounts and hang them like the Sword of Damocles over our heads. The summed gaps are not legal liabilities because Congress is free to eliminate them. Now some might consider them moral liabilities and potentially the needed changes would lead to some political liabilities for that future Congress, but the notion that every child born in America automatically inherits $150,000 in unfunded debt is hooey. Because before 2041 actions will be taken to either fund that debt or write it off and poof that 'Unfunded Liability' vanishes.
And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of [Jindal's] own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.The GOP really need to learn the meaning of "cognitive dissonance."
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness of one's behavior. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
In yet another blow to the old wingnut mathom that the media is biased to the left, two IU professors have published a book that shows definitively, when it comes to electoral coverage during Presidential election campaigns, the Republicans are given the edge.A visual analysis of television presidential campaign coverage from 1992 to 2004 suggests that the three television broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC -- favored Republicans in each election, according to two Indiana University professors in a new book.They don't regard this as some kind of "conspiracy," but rather a natural reaction to the drumbeat of "liberal bias" pouring forth from the right-wing media.
"We don't think this is journalists conspiring to favor Republicans. We think they're just so beat up and tired of being accused of a liberal bias that they unknowingly give Republicans the benefit in coverage," said Grabe, who also is a research associate in political science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. "It's self-censorship that journalists might be imposing on themselves."Thanks for providing more data to support what the reality-based community knew already: Corporate-owned media skews right. Always has, always will.
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The Second World War pulled the nation out of the Great Depression because it required that government spend on such a huge scale as to restart the nation's factories, put Americans back to work, and push the nation toward its productive capacity. By the end of the war, most Americans were better off than they were before its start. Yes, the national debt ballooned to 120 percent of GDP. But the debt-GDP ratio subsequently declined -- not just because post-war spending dropped but because the economy continued to grow as war production converted to the production of consumer goods. Lesson: The danger isn't too much stimulus, it's too little stimulus.The War was just an extension of the New Deal. Government spending driving the creation of jobs.
Santorum said he believes Muslims’ religious views cannot be changed or altered, so Middle Easterners reject American, democratic ideals.
“A democracy could not exist because Mohammed already made the perfect law,” Santorum said. “The Quran is perfect just the way it is, that’s why it is only written in Islamic."
Now far be it from me to chide someone for a little verbal slip, but when you're putting yourself up as an expert on the Middle East and you make this kind of fundamental goof that you fail to correct, you've eliminated your credibility. Completely.
Santorum is passing through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as a part of his college campus tour on which he describes to students what he believes are the dangers in not knowing what is going on in the Middle East.Heh... Someone needs to teach Mr. Santorum that Islam is a religion. Arabic is the language of the Koran.
Like Gary Larson's hopeful dog in the cartoon, I really hope these Republican governors do reject the stimulus money. I really hope they put ideology ahead of necessity. It won't be long until the torches and pitchforks come out.A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.Living in the Conservative echo chamber has deafened these idiots to the pain of their constituents. How arrogant to put ideology ahead of the people they're supposed to be helping.
[The] governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.Of course, they all have reasons to consider rejecting the money. Selfish, narrow-minded reasons. But I suppose they're reasons...
U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the No. 3 House Democrat, said the governors — some of whom are said to be eyeing White House bids in 2012 — are putting their own interests first.If these governors truly believe that this money won't help their states, then I say they should "man up" and reject it. Don't be a chickenshit, reject the money that you doubt will help anything. Come on, don't dither about it. Turn it down.
"No community or constituent should be denied recovery assistance due to their governor's political ideology or political aspirations," Clyburn said Wednesday.
A Happy American FamilyI want to talk about the underlying responsibility of being a gay dad. We're trying so hard to fit in. We're trying to get married and share insurance policies and we're trying to go on typical family vacations to see Grandma and Grandpa. I even did my best to describe the normal madness of traveling with small ones. But there's nothing normal about turning the car around when you're half way to the airport because you forgot your daughters birth certificate. That's right. Having Rose and Evan's original, authenticated birth certificate was the other thing this baby roadie had to have on his person. It mattered as much as infant Zantac and warm hats and clean diapers. Keep in mind, we were two men traveling with two little girls. If you look at it with a crooked eye you can make yourself see things. Can you imagine if you had to deal with indignity of having to explain your family? Even worse, proving that your biological daughter was yours?Prejudice and bigotry are not family values.
As some of our readers have already noticed, there was a significant problem with the daily sea ice data images on February 16. The problem arose from a malfunction of the satellite sensor we use for our daily sea ice products. Upon further investigation, we discovered that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February. Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality control measures prior to archiving the data.This is good news and should revise the estimates for the speed of global warming. It means it may not be too late to halt the climate shift we're experiencing. The issue with their sensor was confirmed when they compared their data to another data collection instrument and realized their error.
Meet Utah State Senator Chris Buttars. In a recent interview he revealed how his twisted hateful mind works. Here's what he thinks about our LGBT brothers and sisters:
Even the Donald is having trouble in this economy. His Trump Entertainment Group filed for bankruptcy protection. Donald, you're fired!
On Christmas Eve, the conservative pundit Monica Crowley argued on Fox News that instead of rescuing America from the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s spending on public works made it worse. She insisted that this bizarre claim was confirmed by “all kinds of studies and academic work.”Of course it's F(au)x News so who's really surprised? No references, no citations, just bloviation. But when you live in a land populated with unicorns and concern trolls, facts don't matter. Only what you believe matters. Facts only get in the way of ideology.
The show’s host backed her up. “Yes,” said Gregg Jarrett, “I think historians pretty much agree on that.”
The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. In fact, if anything it was the New Deal itself that made the Great Depression "Great."You can point them to the chart above, pat them on the head, and remind them to take their meds. Reality is back in charge. Get over it.
Assume that the problem is insolvency and the modest market value of US commercial banks (about $400bn) derives from government support (see charts). Assume, too, that it is impossible to raise large amounts of private capital today. Then there has to be recapitalisation in one of the two ways indicated above. Both have disadvantages: government recapitalisation is a bail-out of creditors and involves temporary state administration; debt-for-equity swaps would damage bond markets, insurance companies and pension funds. But the choice is inescapable.It's so crazy it might just work! Or not...
If Mr Geithner or Lawrence Summers, head of the national economic council, were advising the US as a foreign country, they would point this out, brutally. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF managing director, said the same thing, very gently, in Malaysia last Saturday.
The correct advice remains the one the US gave the Japanese and others during the 1990s: admit reality, restructure banks and, above all, slay zombie institutions at once. It is an important, but secondary, question whether the right answer is to create new “good banks”, leaving old bad banks to perish, as my colleague, Willem Buiter, recommends, or new “bad banks”, leaving cleansed old banks to survive. I also am inclined to the former, because the culture of the old banks seems so toxic.
So I ran a simple regression of the teenage unemployment rate as a function of two variables. One was the adult (over 35) unemployment rate and the second was the minimum wage. This is based on the premise that the adult unemployment rate captures the bulk of the business cycle impact on the teenage unemployment rate.Facts can be such pesky things when they disagree with your assumptions. Another in a long run of CONSERVATIVE FAIL.
What I found was that the adult unemployment rate accounted for about 87.5% of the teenage unemployment rate and the minimum wage accounted for only 12.5%.
Australia's fragile ecology has been tipped on it's side by global climate change. Who's next?The death toll from the deadliest bushfires in Australia's history could reach into the hundreds as the devastation is uncovered in the burning and blackened ruins of towns, the authorities warned last night.
Described as "hell on earth", the fires left at least 108 dead, but police in Victoria said the final death toll would be much greater.
"I think it [the body count] will be up into the 100s ... 200," acting Sergeant Scott Melville, who has the job of dragging bodies out of charred vehicles and homes, told the Melbourne Age. "It's like a friggin' war zone up here, it's like a movie scene."
Victoria has roasted in extreme temperatures for a fortnight. The bushfires which worsened last Saturday were driven by hot winds of more than 60mph, and record temperatures of 46.4C in Melbourne, the highest in 70 years.
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"Cutting food-stamp funding [which represents the single best use of stimulus funds from an economic perspective, you get $1.73 in value from every $1.00 spent] to attract Republican support is proof-positive that the Republicans are not trying to come up with an effective stimulus here. If your house is on fire, and you call your fire department, and your fire department tells you to pour gasoline on the flames, they're not actually making a good-faith effort to help you put out the fire. They're not a good fire department.Well said.
"If you're working up policy to fix an economic crisis, which is characterized by there being no spending in the economy, and someone in that debate says, 'OK, but cut the spending out of the rescue plan,' they're bad at making policy.
"And you know what? It matters when you're wrong. A whopping proportion of the Republican rhetoric about stimulus is wrong.... It's just wrong. The time is now to take the radical step, as Americans -- as civic-minded Americans concerned about our future -- it's time to take the radical step of privileging correct information over incorrect information....
"If you are wrong, from here on out, you should lose the argument and you should lose your political potency. Form a flat-earthers club or something, where you talk enthusiastically to each other about your made-up economic ideas that aren't based in reality. But get out of the way of the people who are actually trying to save the country."
China has the world’s largest steel industry. Indeed, in 2005, China made more steel than the next four largest producers combined. From 2000 to 2005, China’s steel production increased by over 170 percent, as the Chinese industry added capacity at a furious rate. Between 1998 and 2005, China’s steel exports more than quadrupled, as China established itself as one of the world’s leading exporters. This explosive growth in both production and exports would not have been possible without the support of the Chinese government.Like the old Soviet-era of "amateur" athletics (remember Lake Placid in 1980? The Miracle on Ice?), Chinese "companies" are really just extension of the government.
Shortly after 7.30pm, with less than three minutes to play in a tightly fought final, the Cardinals had taken the lead with a crucial touchdown. Fans watching in Arizona would have been forgiven for scenting a victory for their team against the odds. Then the pictures from Tampa disappeared.
Instead, viewers in the Tuscon area were astonished to see a woman unzipping a man's trousers to reveal "full male nudity" followed by what was described as "a graphic act" between the couple. Somehow, the feed from Super Bowl XLIII had been mixed up with a 30-second excerpt from Club Jenna, an adult cable TV channel featuring Jenna Jameson, one of America's most famous porn actresses.
(insert shock and awe here) Apparently this was a no-holds-barred interaction between Jenna and her partner.
Once the pictures from the Super Bowl returned, Cardinals fans did not get the climax they were looking for. The Steelers pipped them 27-23, scoring with only 35 seconds left on the clock.
Heh...
