Econ 101

Hidden Costs - that's always one of the big bugaboos when somebody's trying to teach you about how to run a business.

What about the hidden costs to taxpayers, and the corrosive effects of so many tax dollars finding their way into the offshore accounts of people who run very big, very profitable companies?  We don't hear that one mentioned very often - mostly what we get is that crap about Welfare Cadillacs and Food Stamp Lobsters.

hat tip = HuffPo

Spending puts money into circulation, which creates demand, which causes prices to go up, which makes it profitable to hire more workers, which creates supply, which requires spending, which puts money into circulation...

Ya gotta be careful with sustainability - nothing can expand forever - but without some kind of growth, there is no life.  So ya still gotta make that big ol' wheel go 'round.

Also too - ya gotta be a little careful and at least not completely fucking stoopid when it comes to how you spend all those bucks.

Wal-Mart is a fair example of a company just pretending to be all about the free market, while actually being a multi-billion-dollar leech.

And speaking of leeches:  Kinda related, here's a quick look at the empty promises (and outright fallacy) of another type of outfit turning nice fat profits (mostly) by trying to shoehorn something into Free Market Principles that won't fit and doesn't belong there in the first place:

However, operating non-profit charter schools can be very profitable for charter school executives like Eva Moskowitz. Moskowitz earns close to a half a million dollars a year ($485,000) for overseeing school programs that serve 6,700 children, which is over $72 per student.

--and--

The head of the Bronx Preparatory School earns $338,000 to manage schools with 651 students or over $500 per student.

--and--

The head of the Our World Charterearns $200,000 to manage schools with a total of 738 students or $271 per student.

--and--

The local head of the KIPP Charter Network earns $235,000 to manage schools with 2,796 or $84 per student.

--and--

By comparison, the chief educational officer of Texas is paid $214,999 to manage a system with almost 5 million public school students(*).

 (* = less than 5¢ per student.  A little arithmetic reveals that if the guy in Texas was being paid half of what Eva Moskowitz averages per student, he'd be pulling down $180 Million a year)

So, the only way you're gonna get the top talent is to throw fuckloads of money at people; but that only works in the "private sector" (and it seems to apply only to upper management, and not to the people who're doing the actual work at places like Wal-Mart); and throwing fuckloads of money works in the "private sector" when it comes to "educating" kids in Charter Schools, but you can't possibly expect the same results in Public Schools, cuz hey - we already tried throwing fuckloads of money at public schools and it didn't work, so the only thing that makes any sense at all is to throw fuckloads of money at private schools, where I'm sure doing exactly the same thing will in fact achieve a different result.

This isn't about Free Enterprise or Entrepreneurial Spirit or any of that Harvard Business School bullshit - the whole point of the exercise is to figure out how to funnel tax dollars into your own pockets.  Oorah - git some.

We are so fucked.

Rain

It started raining very early this morning.  And from what I understand, it's raining all over the place.

It's raining on very rich people, and it's raining on very poor people, and it's raining on everybody in between.

How long must we endure the monstrous  tyranny of this evil socialist rain!?!

Too Typical

Sometimes, it looks pretty simple - spend 4 or 5 years convincing the rubes ObamaCare is a Job-Killing, Granny-Murdering, World-Ending monster, then make a very public show of voting to "repeal" it (50 times), all while continuing to make as much noise as possible about what a horrible thing ObamaCare is so the rubes continue to send in their money and forward all those idiotic emails and most importantly, turn out to vote.

Then, while they're all busy getting their hate on across the river at CPAC, do some very quiet mending of ACA - slip some amendments into marginally related bills in the house and get it taken care of before anybody notices you're doing exactly the opposite of what you say you're doing.

Just make sure you have some plausible-sounding bullshit to cover your ass - like you were only trying "to help the small business owner".

Here's the AP story from 4-1-14:

WASHINGTON (AP) — At the prodding of business organizations, House Republicans quietly secured a recent change in President Barack Obama's health law to expand coverage choices, a striking, one-of-a-kind departure from dozens of high-decibel attempts to repeal or dismember it.

Democrats describe the change involving small-business coverage options as a straightforward improvement of the type they are eager to make, and Obama signed it into law. Republicans are loath to agree, given the strong sentiment among the rank and file that the only fix the law deserves is a burial.

"Maybe you say it helps (Obamacare), but it really helps the small businessman," said Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., one of several physician-lawmakers among Republicans and an advocate of repeal.

No member of the House GOP leadership has publicly hailed the fix, which was tucked, at Republicans' request, into legislation preventing a cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

It is unclear how many members of the House rank and file knew of it because the legislation was passed by a highly unusual voice vote without debate.

PoliticusUSA from March 11:

What makes this news all the juicier is that Boehner and company introduced these bills last Friday while conservatives were distracted by CPAC. The right wingers were screaming about repeal from across the river the Republican leadership was submitting legislation that improves the law. On at least fifty previous occasions, Republicans tried to pass off attempts to repeal the law as improvements. In this case, Republicans are actually doing their jobs.

The GOP is pretty sure the rubes can't handle anything more complicated than a 10-word bumper sticker; partly of course because that's what Repubs have been selling the rubes for a very long time - that all you need is some common sense, and if you ever need more than that, well then, it's just because those bad old Dumbocrats wanna make it difficult for hard-working real 'Mericans like y'all to understand it - so just send me a few more dollars and I'll keep fighting to take USAmerica Inc back from the dirty brown hordes who don't carry the right guns to the right church on Sunday, and even when they do, they don't worship in the right language or study the right book, and did you know some of their churches actually take Food Stamp money and pass it on to Obama's campaign fund? - or some other fucked-up mashup of god and Daddy Reagan and the sanctity of the 2nd amendment and Mom's home cookin' and FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It should be obvious that the GOP (I should say the not-crazy-as-a-bug-fuck wing of the GOP) does not want ObamaCare to go away for the same reason they don't really want Roe v Wade overturned - because they need the issues, which provide the heat, which sweats the bucks outa the faithful, which buys the advertising, which turns out the vote, which wins re-relection, which keeps them in power.  Unfortunately, Repubs have been catering to the crazy-as-a-bug-fuck wing for so long that they're in danger of being consumed by these Monsters Of The Id that they've created.

I don't like making predictions, but I like what probably happens if the bug-fucks get put in charge of the US Senate even less.

Sideliner Yeah-But: what if the group of Mega-Donor decisions by SCOTUS makes it even harder for the GOP to maintain their fictions about appealing to grass-roots voters?  I doubt that's a big concern because "conservatives" don't like to change much of anything - especially their way of "thinking" - even when new information comes to light, but sometimes, when the Big Money pops up, the little money shrinks back to where it all but disappears.  If you're a little strapped for cash to begin with, sending $20 to a political campaign gets a lot harder when you know there's somebody out there already pumping millions into it.  So why bother?

Anyway - these people still have no soul and no honor.

WWJD?

If Jesus worked in advertising or PR:



I'm not convinced Jesus was a real guy.  It makes more sense for me to go along with the idea that "he" was an amalgam - pieced together from a lot of old stories about heroes and newer notions of how maybe we could do things a little differently; that instead of always reacting in a knee-jerk way of meeting force with force, we should at least consider just being kinda relaxed and groovy.  I certainly prefer the Hippie Jesus of peace and love to the Badass Jesus that gets pimped at us constantly by One Million Moms - or Several-Dozen-Screaming-Twatwaffle-Goons - or whatever wacko faction du jour happens to have found something that offends them after deliberately going miles out of their way to find something that offends them.

A Moldy Oldie

Driftglass and BlueGal brought this up on their podcast this week - it's something I kinda remember now, but I'd forgotten about it completely.

The original isn't up at TPM anymore, but going thru the thing and clicking more or less randomly on some of the links, it's still intact.  And while it's old info, the principle is the same: Political Bait-N-Switch, and an awful lot of straight-up hypocrisy.


Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some expamples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you're going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you'll have to start by draining this swamp:

Hypocrisy
You can't flip out -- and threaten impeachment - when Dems use a prlimentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that's centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.

You can't vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it's done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against, is especially ugly) -- 114 of you (at last count) did just that -- and it's even worse when you secretly beg for more.

You can't fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.

You can't call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.

Are they "unlawful enemy combatants" or are they "prisoners of war" at Gitmo? You can't have it both ways.

You can't carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.

You can't refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn't meet with you.

You can't rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.

You can't rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.

You can't be for immigration reform, then against it .

You can't enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.

You can't flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent about white presidents doing the same. Bush. Ford.

You can't complain that the president hasn't closed Gitmo yet when you've campaigned to keep Gitmo open.

You can't flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn't even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed (on the mouth) leaders of countries that are not on "kissing terms" with the US.

You can't complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt -- the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)

You can't attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hourswhen you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn't issue any condemnation). *Obama administration did the day of the event.

You can't throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when -- in fact -- only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.

You can't condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attemted terror attack on his.

You can't mount a boycott against singers who say they're ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he's ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Moaist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.

You can't cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it's too short.

You can't support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.

You can't demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.

You can't praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it "treasonous" under a Dem president.

You can't propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.

You can't be both pro-choice and anti-choice.

You can't damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you've paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.

You can't condemn critizising the president when US troops are in harms way, then attack the president when US troops are in harms way , the only difference being the president's party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).

You can't be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.

You can't vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of 'open debate'.

If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it's 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you're taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God's stand, too.

When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can't send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).

You can't criticize Dems for not doing something you didn't do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.

You can't decry "name calling" when you've been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.

You can't spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare

You can't praise the Congressional Budget Office when it's analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it's unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don't.

You can't vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don't. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.

You can't call a reconcilliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.

You can't spend tax-payer money on ads against spending tax-payer money.

You can't condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the madates were your idea.

You can't demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don't.

You can't whine that it's unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party's former leader admits you've been doing it for decades.

You can't portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.

You can't complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you've routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain -- threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented -- and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.

You can't question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn't object when your own Republican president appointed them.

You can't preach and try to legislate "Family Values" when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer's wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheatingon your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coherce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife's mother;

Hyperbole
You really need to dissassociate with those among you who:
--assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million "isn't a lot of money";

--say that "Comrade" Obama is a "Bolshevik" who is "taking cues from Lenin";
ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;

--liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and "this Muslim guy" that "offed his wife's head" or call then "un-American";

--say Obama "wants his plan to fail...so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy";
equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;
smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;

--say that the president wants to "annihilate us";

--compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot the attack on 9/11,or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators (update: it's also not Armageddon);

--equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with "what the Nazis did";

--call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, an unconscionable abuse of power, a violation of the presidential oath or "the end of representative government";

--shout "baby killer" at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing -- cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);

--prove your machismo by claiming your going to "crash a party" to which you're officially invited;

--claim that Obama is pushing America's "submission to Shariah";

--question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;

--claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;

--call a majority vote the "tyranny of the minority," even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority -- it's democracy, not tyranny;

--call the president's support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect "treasonous" (especially when you supported the same thing when the president shared your party);

--call the Pope the anti-Christ;

--assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;

--accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers, drunk and suicidal;

--equate family planing with eugenics or Nazism;

--accuse the president of changing the missile defense program's logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;

--accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists; terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and

--advocate a traitorous act like seccession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we're clear: sedition is a bad thing).

History
If you're going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they're NOT synonymous!)

You can't cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you've decided you don't like his ideas.

You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word "terrorism" or say we're at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.

If you're going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.

You can't just pretend historical events didn't happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn't make it better.)

You can't say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from "socialist utopia"; health care reform is not "reparations"; nor does health care reform create "death panels".

Hatred
You have to condemn those among you who:
--call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot;

--elected leaders who say "I'm a proud racist";

--state that America has been built by white people;

--say that poor people are poor because they're rotten people, call them "parasitic garbage" or say they shouldn't be allowed to vote;

--call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don't like their politics ( re - pea -ted - ly );

--assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son's politics;
--declare that those who disagree with you are shown by that disagreement to be not just "Marxist radicals" but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
--joke about blindness;
--advocate euthanizing the wife of your political opponent;
--taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases -- especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;
--equate gay love with bestiality -- involving horses or dogs or turtles or ducks -- or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;
--casually assume that only white males look "like a real American";
--assert presidential power to authorize torture, torture a child by having his testacles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;
--attack children whose mothers have died;
--call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they've said or done something that would even smell like racism -- same for invoking racially charged "dog whistle" words (repeatedly);
--condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;
--complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americansbecause of their race;
--blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;
celebrate violence, joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, "fun" political violence, hints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence or actual violence (and, really, suggesting anal rape with a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale);
and
--incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a "bloody battle" with the president of the United States.

Oh, and I'm not alone: One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.

So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we'll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.

(Anticipating your initial response: No there is nothing that even comes close to this level of wingnuttery on the American Left.)

Written by Russell King

John Allen :: An open letter to conservatives by Russell King

More Than Words --Extreme

Saying "I love you"
Is not the words I want to hear from you
It's not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew how easy
It would be to show me how you feel

More than words

Is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
'Cause I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real

What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying "I love you"

More than words

Now that I've tried to talk to you
And make you understand
All you have to do is close your eyes
And just reach out your hands
And touch me
Hold me close, don't ever let me go

More than words

Is all I ever needed you to show
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
'Cause I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real

What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying "I love you"

Songwriters
BETTENCOURT, NUNO / CHERONE, GARY F.

Published by
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

These Foolish Things --Ella Fitzgerald

The winds of March that make my heart a dancer

You've Been A Good Ol' Wagon --Dinah Washington

Nobody needs a clown when a good man can be found.

Google Dude

If Google was actually a research assistant.

Part 1




Part 2

Logical Fallacy #8 - Personal Incredulity

A form of Argument from Ignorance:

Arguments from incredulity take the form:
P is too incredible (or: I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true); therefore P must be false.
I cannot imagine how P could possibly be false; therefore P must be true.

These arguments are similar to arguments from ignorance in that they too ignore and do not properly eliminate the possibility that something can be both incredible and still be true, or appear to be obvious and yet still be false.

Today's Pix

My Dearest Mr Koch

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Social Progress

And the hits just keep comin'.

Via Nicholas Kristof at NYT:

In the Social Progress Index, the United States excels in access to advanced education but ranks 70th in health, 69th in ecosystem sustainability, 39th in basic education, 34th in access to water and sanitation and 31st in personal safety. Even in access to cellphones and the Internet, the United States ranks a disappointing 23rd, partly because one American in five lacks Internet access.

“It’s astonishing that for a country that has Silicon Valley, lack of access to information is a red flag,” notes Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which oversees the index. The United States has done better at investing in drones than in children, and cuts in social services could fray the social fabric further.

--and--

Over all, the United States’ economy outperformed France’s between 1975 and 2006. But 99 percent of the French population actually enjoyed more gains in that period than 99 percent of the American population. Exclude the top 1 percent, and the average French citizen did better than the average American. This lack of shared prosperity and opportunity has stunted our social progress.

You can play with the charts and maps by going to the Social Progress Index website.

Have fun - Mediocrity Uber Alles!

hat tip = FB friend DR

An Important Skill Set

Knowing you're good at something requires the same set of skills as being good at something.

Being stoopid means you lack the tools necessary for knowing you're stoopid.



Goes a long way towards explaining  - oh, I dunno - Louie Gohmert, The GOP Platform Committee, Victoria Jackson, Libertarianism, ad nauseam...

The Task At Hand

How come the people in charge are so often the ones who don't know a fucking thing about what makes something work?



I can't count the number of times I've been in meetings like this.  I just wish I could honestly say I was never a good example of everybody except the guy in the blue shirt.

It Occurs To Me

What is it with "conservatives" that gets them so hung up on The Supply Side of every-damned-thing?

Wanna talk Economics?
They can't think of anything but cutting taxes for themselves, and a harsh dose of Austerity for everybody else.  (Supply Side Economics, btw is self-defeating because it leads to a slow deflationary death spiral - which, in case ya hadn't noticed, is pretty much what we're in right now)
Global Labor Arbitrage
Supply Side Economics

How 'bout that War on Drugs?
We concentrate almost solely on interdiction and putting millions of users in prison (which may look like working the demand side, but actually only serves the purpose of the suppliers by conveniently gathering all the customers in one place) - again, just working the supply side.

Yeah OK, we try to get "our partners" in places like Afghanistan and Colombia to help us, but c'mon, they don't actually do anything helpful that I can see.  And why is that?  Because there's a huge demand for their #1 export, and they're not stupid enough to shut down the drug trade on their end because that's what keeps them all in power.  Plus, you've been preaching Supply Side at 'em for 30 years - do ya really think the message they've gotten is that they should cut back on THE SUPPLY!?!.  So what does it get us?  Prisons that are so crowded they've become little feudal states that generally operate outside the control of anything "government" can do, for one thing.  And don't get me started on the total FUBAR of the Privatized Prison Industry, and the connections to DoD and Defense Contractors and DEA and BATF and Capitol Hill and Wall Street and and and.

Well what about Abortion then?
"Conservatives" seem to think we don't need to do anything but shut down all the clinics and harass women at every turn in an attempt to shut 'em up - which means they're all over the supply side again, while fervently struggling against everything that's been proven effective in preventing the need (ie: demand) for abortion.  Family planning and birth control.  Equal pay for women.  Early and honest Sex Ed.  Free condoms.  Public education.  Lots of public information.  Public women's healthcare centers. etc.

And wait just a damned minute there - in a system of unfettered free market capitalism, isn't it supposed to be a good thing to have lots and lots of clinics doing all manner of abortions on demand?  As long as they turn a profit, isn't that what y'all keep telling us is what god intended?

So guess what, kids - there are actually two sides to these things, and if you just stop for a minute, you might see that working the Demand side is a lot more effective in practically every instance.  At the very least, ya gotta work the Demand side as well as the Supply side.

Every time you turn around, it's like "conservatives" are boosting the fuck outa the Supply Side approach (which doesn't work, tho' they keep insisting it must), while slashing and bashing away at Demand Side solutions (which they insist can't work, when it's actually and obviously what does work).

Why do ya suppose they do all that?

What Day Is It?

ROCKVILLE, MD—A study released Tuesday by the National Institute for Mental Health confirmed that the vast majority of Americans’ anxieties and phobias have no logical grounding in reality, aside from those related to being attacked in open waters and torn limb from limb by a gigantic, merciless shark. “Our research shows that people’s most common fears, such as the fear of flying or heights, are wholly unfounded, with the notable exception of the fear of a tiger shark swimming up undetected while you wade in the surf, latching its piercing teeth into your thigh, and dragging you screaming out to sea,” said the study’s lead author, Michael Buckley, citing clinical studies that described any pervasive sense of paranoia unrelated to being disemboweled by an inescapable frenzy of five sharks while swimming close to shore as “entirely irrational.” “We found that those individuals who expressed anxiety about public speaking, small spaces, germs, darkness, and nearly every other clinically identifiable source of phobia spent much of their time worriedly obsessing over these unrealistic concerns when they would have been far better served to channel this dread toward the very real danger of entering the ocean with a small cut or a piece of shiny jewelry and splashing around too close to the surface, all things that are likely to instigate a lethal bull shark or great white attack.” According to Buckley, the only two other reasonable and completely justified phobias discovered in the course of the study were the fear of getting caught in a swarm of killer bees and the fear of dying alone.

I'm No Superman --Lazlo Bane

Watching some old Scrubs episodes yesterday.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

When you turn an economic philosophy into a system of government, you're just looking for trouble.  Ask the Soviets how it worked out for them.

In his 2010 Citizens United opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "The appearance of influence or access ... will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy." He further stated, "Ingratiation and access, in any event, are not corruption."

I'll believe it when it happens, but apparently there's a fair probability that the Repubs will win enough seats to take over the majority in the US Senate, and that they'll pad their lead in the House, and even more important, that they'll continue to hold commanding majorities in 25 - 35 state legislatures, plus a shitload of county boards.

You can pass it off as the typical losses that the party in the White House always suffers in midterm elections.  You can also say it's because the GOP has a higher nutball density (and a much lower paranoia threshold), and those nutballs never fail to turn out, and they never vote for anybody but Republicans.

Meanwhile, it seems like the Dems are about as sharp and focused as a bagful of wet yarn - as usual.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a post about yet another example of a Coin-Operated Politician who's been busted for influence peddling - which makes it impossible for me to ignore the simple fact that sometimes even the really smart guys like Anthony Kennedy say some of the stoopidest fucking things.

So, here ya go - Meet Mr Leland Yee:

Desperate for funds to repay $70,000 in debt owed by his failed 2011 San Francisco mayoral campaign, Yee repeatedly begged, prodded and pressed undercover agents acting as businessmen to make campaign contributions. In exchange, he often did what many politicians do every day: connect donors up with other influential lawmakers, sing their praises to bureaucratic agencies and write letters of support. While the alleged illegal acts in Yee's case go well beyond that kind of access -- prosecutors charge he helped to coordinate an international arms deal -- access was a large part of how he pitched his donors. He opened his door and regularly stated his intent to keep his door open, especially if he ascended to higher office.

We know that big donors get access for their money. Just look at the White House visitor logs, the goings-on at political fundraisers or the Republican presidential aspirants heading to Las Vegas to kiss the ring of billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson. But what we rarely hear is those behind-the-scenes conversations.

The point here is that under the "rules" of unfettered capitalism, everything is a commodity.  Everything is for sale.  Everything and everybody has a price.  And anything goes in the marketplace.  Ya get what ya pay for and ya pay for what ya get.

When we set it all up to sell a candidate like we sell cars and hamburgers and remedies for anal itch, why would anybody think we wouldn't see the kind of auction we've got going on now where power goes to the highest bidder?  If I can throw several tens of millions of dollars at a politician while you and 200 of your closest friends can managed maybe a hundred bucks each - then my voice gets really loud relative to your voice.  And it should be obvious to anybody with a living thinking brain in their skull that - all of a sudden, and gosh, for no apparent reason that Mr Justice Kennedy can think of - my single vote counts for more than your vote plus the votes of your 200 buddies.

So how confident are we s'posed to be about that whole democracy thing now?

A Difference Of Ethos

(not an April Fools thing)

There is no Chief Ethics Officer.
This is not a democracy.
The free market is morally neutral - as God intended.
You get along by going along.
Conform and be dull.
Embrace the Noble Lie.
Watch more TV.  Go out to a movie.
Stay safe - take the blue pill.



DecodeDC

A Few Toons

via Democratic Underground

The KrugMan Speaks

Paul Krugman takes down the bullshit from Jamie Dimon - that the reason you're not finding a decent job is your own damned fault - stoopid losers.

From his piece in NYT:

“Today, nearly 11 million Americans are unemployed. Yet, at the same time, 4 million jobs sit unfilled” — supposedly demonstrating “the gulf between the skills job seekers currently have and the skills employers need.”

Actually, in an ever-changing economy there are always some positions unfilled even while some workers are unemployed, and the current ratio of vacancies to unemployed workers is far below normal. Meanwhile, multiple careful studies have found no support for claims that inadequate worker skills explain high unemployment.

But the belief that America suffers from a severe “skills gap” is one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it’s true. It’s a prime example of a zombie idea — an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die.

Hat tip = Salon

Jamie Dimon lives in his little bubble with a variety of others who occupy similarly lofty stations in USAmerica Inc.  And there's a handful of other bubbles occupied by Big Power Wielders - mostly, those bubbles are filled with people holding C-Level positions in Politics and Military Branches and Law Enforcement etc.  Then, you can add in the bubbles from the rest of the planet, and feed it all a constant stream of talking points and rebuttal arguments from a cluster of Media Bubbles (DumFux News, NRO, AEI, WSJ, etc), which gives us the now-infamous Echo Chamber Effect, because, remember now, Press Poodles get their "news" from the newsmakers, and those newsmakers are all inside one of those bubbles - and before your very eyes the world is transformed into a 1950s Disney cartoon with no grounding in reality at all.

Can you say 'entropy'?


So the Zombie-Think Dr Krugman talks about is an important phenomenon to watch.  It's one thing for the rubes to buy in - hell, ya gotta get the rubes to go along with it, or it won't work - but when it looks like the guys who're supposed to be running the scam start believing their own bullshit, it's time to call in the dogs and piss on the fire cuz this hunt is over.

Today's Eewww

Science (and the dogged relentless pursuit of What Da Fuck) does not always lead to rainbow-farting unicorns, or - really - to anything guaranteed not to make your skin crawl.  I can almost understand why some people just throw up their hands and say, "Fuck this - I'm goin' with Jesus".

Almost.

At about 2:05, you might feel a powerful urge to run and hide.



Go ahead - do some porn surfing with the key word 'hairy' - do it now.  I fuckin' dare ya.

It's Just A Theory

hat tip = X-Christian (commenter) at Moyers & Company

Denying the Big Bang:

In the first episode of Cosmos, titled “Standing Up in the Milky Way,” Tyson dons shades just before witnessing the Big Bang. You know, the start of everything. Some creationists, though, don’t like the Big Bang; at Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis, a critique of Cosmos asserts that “the big bang model is unable to explain many scientific observations, but this is of course not mentioned.”

"Not mentioned"?

Ya mean like on the gazillion other occasions when Tyson has said, "I don't know" in response to questions like:
What came before the big bang?
--and--
What does the big bang have to do with dark matter and dark energy?

When he doesn't know something, Tyson admits it, and he doesn't pretend that his imaginary friend has the answer, but conveniently left it out of that one stoopid book.  C'mon, Ken - we all know you're a douche, but it's important for you not to let the rubes see you actually being a douche out in public like that.

Anyway:

Alas, this creationist critique seems very poorly timed: A major new scientific discovery, just described in detail in the New York Times, has now provided “smoking gun” evidence for “inflation,” a crucial component of our understanding of the stunning happenings just after the Big Bang. Using a special telescope to examine the cosmic microwave background radiation (which has been dubbed the “afterglow” of the Big Bang), researchers at the South Pole detected “direct evidence” of the previously theoretical gravitational waves that are believed to have originated in the Big Bang and caused an incredibly sudden and dramatic inflation of the universe. (For an easy-to-digest discussion, Phil Plait has more.)

Pushing back against the Denialists when they inevitably try to pull the False Equivalence  crap:

First - there're some big differences between the use of "theory" when we're talking about science, and the use of "theory" when we're indulging ourselves in conversational conjecture and speculation and such like that there.

Conflation of the two meanings is a very useful rhetorical trick, but it's a fucking trick. Please stop using it; please stop falling for it.

Second - here's a handy, and (I'm fairly certain) incomplete list of some other minor items that are also "just theories":

1. Atomic Theory
2. Theory of Matter and Energy, also Conservation of Matter and Energy
3. Cell Theory
4. Germ Theory
5. Theory of Plate Tectonics
6. Theory of Evolution
7. Big Bang Theory
8. Chaos Theory
9. The “Gaia” Theory of a Sustainable Earth, which is illustrated with the idea of Spaceship Earth
10. Theory of Quantum Mechanics
11. Theory of Special Relativity, which subsumes The Theory of General Relativity which subsumes Newtonian theories of motion
12. Photon Theory of Light Energy and its speed of light
13. Theory of Electromagnetism as begun by Maxwell and continued with the work of others
14. Theory of Radioactivity or Nuclear Theory
15. Theory of Molecular Bonds
16. Theory of States of Matter - or is this part of Atomic Theory and Molecular Bond Theory?
17. Theory of Thermodynamics—hey, I guess this theory takes care of the States of Matter and the Molecular Bond theories.
18. Theory of Homeostasis within Living Organisms
19. Constructivist Theory of Learning
20. Theories of Self and Development - mental processes in the brain.
21. Theory of Gravity

I realize pointing these thingies out should be tres obvioso by now, but repetition is the surrogate mother of political success (aka: the brood bitch of propaganda).  Turn-about's fair play, muthuh fuckuh.

And just to put the cherry on top - your eyes may have been opened by the Lord's eternal awesomeness, but if you've got your head up your ass, all you're gonna see is your own shit.

Yo - Brian

At first blush, it's easy to follow Mr Fischer's reasoning as he says he "discriminated", but he wants us to understand that he's not really "discriminating" (tho' of course he is), but no really, he just wants us all to know that he thinks wimmins is all wonderful and capable and competent...but but but flip flop flip.

The not-so-discreet implication is that them wimmins is only wonderful and capable and competent at doin' all that Wimmin's Work, but hey, let's throw the gals a bone, shall we? (even a bad double entendre seems appropriate here because the kinda shit this guy peddles is convoluted enough to confuse a Byzantine Imperator).

Maybe we should talk about the obvious Mommy Issues that are just barely below the surface, but also too, anybody who spends that kinda time and energy gushing about how welcoming and comforting he feels women are - well, maybe we're into a little self-loathing; trying to admit to being a complete dickweed who has none of the loving qualities he says he finds so endearing in women.  Or maybe he's overcompensating a tiny bit because he has doubts about his own manliness.

Or maybe it's just another mundane example of a guy applying a little lubricating flattery to loosen up somebody's panties.

Fucking classic, dude.

Telomeres And Centromeres

Read all about it at NIH.  But that'll give you a headache unless you're Amy Farrah Fowler - and besides, I put that up there just to pump up my public image by inviting you to infer that I actually read that shit, and that I might have some remote chance of understanding it.  I don't read it, and while I insist on believing I could understand it if somebody explained it to me in very simple terms, I really just don't fuckin' get it.

But, I found this helpful:



And here's one from Carl Sagan:



I love the part when Sagan points out that Creationists have to knock down the thing about the 4.5-billion-year-old Earth - cuz if they don't, they've got exactly bupkis when it comes to their denial of evolution.

Flipping The Message

A while back, Cadillac ran this ad aimed at the Douche Bucket demographic:




Here's an Answer Ad from Ford:



The world is what we make it, kids.

Today's Doonesbury

Gary Trudeau can be about as subtle as a hand grenade in a bowl of oatmeal.  What passes for 'wry' is usually more like a barstool across the face.  Which is what it takes sometimes.  Like now fer-instance.

DIY Whitewash

First, say something honest-ish sounding:  "There will be no whitewash".  But don't use the term "whitewash" because that's old hat, and you must never ever ever allow any words to be used that might make anybody question your "integrity".

Second, make it clear to the handful of underlings who actually know you're a lying sack of shit that they will burn if they say anything - that's what you tell them in private just before you announce that they've been fired for the scummy things they did on your behalf and at your instruction been fired for doing bad things totally unbeknownst to your own saintly self, or that they've left public service to pursue opportunities in the private sector, or that they need to spend more time with family blah blah blah.  Also, publicly you say there will be no immunity and no deals and no fuckin' around here - I mean it.

Well, no shit - you cut people loose and leave 'em standing naked and alone while you threaten to bring the full power of a state government down on them as you slide on by?  Gosh - you just might get some very quiet people that way.

Third, since all or most of your fellow-consprators won't be saying anything to your hand-picked team of "investigators", there's no real chance that anything of substance will ever turn up - not in time to make a difference anyway - so you can conveniently insinuate that the people who know where you buried the bodies are actually the guilty ones because - hey, why else would they plead the 5th?  Why would they not testify if they have nothing to hide - am I right or what?

Of course, Bridget Ann Kelly et al will deny it and refute the findings, and we'll all have a merry old time being distracted by raising money for the Defense Fund and spending the next several years slugging it out in court, and watching the whole thing every day and every night on Nancy Grace and DumFux News and Ed Schultz.

But Christie has done the politically smart thing by getting his shit out in front.  No matter what else, he gets to point at "an investigation that exonerated me fully", and to play the jolly ol' fat workin' stiff who's just tryin' to do a job for the fine folk of New Jersey, but who's beset on all sides by disloyal sycophants and a corrupt liberal-biased press; and they're all jealous of his masterful prowess; and they only wanna bring a good man down to further their own ambitions.

And you just keep pounding away at it - believe what I say, not what your lyin' eyes are tellin' ya.

There's a perversely delicious beauty to it.