The Pledge Updated

Under The Sun

Just another day here in the old solar system, until the sun explodes.

Doin' The Math

We keep hearing from certain politicians that Tax Cutting is a magic elixir that always fixes anything that could possibly be wrong with our economy.

Here's a simple little chart that says different, in the words of Michael Linden:

“These numbers do not mean that higher rates necessarily lead to higher growth. But the central tenet of modern conservative economics is that a lower top marginal tax rate will result in more growth, and these numbers do show conclusively that history has not been kind to that theory.”

It's from Think Progress, so of course there's a certain bias towards a more traditionally conservative approach to economic stimulus, but still; how d'ya argue against real numbers?

What Congress Looks Like

This does (and somehow doesn't really) surprise me. From a study published in National Journal.

One other thing that caught my eye was the bit on Lobbying experience.  We've been led to believe that government is chock full of lobbyists, but that's not how it looks.  Maybe we need to look at how many people working for lobbying outfits have experience in Congress(?)

Welcome Back, KO

Current TV on the web.

DirecTV: 358
Comcast: 107
Time Warner NY: 103
Time Warner LA: 142
Dish Network: 196
Verizon FIOS: 192
AT&T U-Verse: 189

We Are So Fucked

A rosy outlook from BBC's Richard Black:

"The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.

"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.

"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years."

It's not about "saving the planet".  The planet was just fine before we showed up, and it'll be just fine long after we're gone.  This is about self-preservation, and making our own living conditions as pleasant as possible.  It's about not making it any harder than it has to be to survive; and to thrive; and to enjoy our lives.

Same Shit, New Day

In a very real sense, everything the Watergate Burglars did in 1972 - hijinks that got them sent to jail, and which then led directly to Nixon's resignation (one step in front of Impeachment, Conviction and Removal) - can now be considered reasonably within the law.

NYT Editorial:

Instead of tightening the relaxed rules for F.B.I. investigations — not just of terrorism suspects but of pretty much anyone — that were put in place in the Bush years, President Obama’s Justice Department is getting ready to push the proper bounds of privacy even further.

This is not what I voted for in 2008.

Dilemma

It'll be hard for me to vote for Obama in 2012 because he's continuing a lot of the abuses of power I complained about under GWB (Illegal wars, Gitmo, etc)

And it'll be hard to vote for any of the current Repubs because of the usual reasons (God, Gays, Guns, Abortion, Tax Cuts and all-round dickishness).

Good politicians know all this.  Their advisers know how to slice and dice the polling results in order to tweak their candidate's positions so he picks up more votes than he loses on any given issue.

So it's become a lot easier for me to understand the complete non sequitur of so many people simply rejecting the only thing that has any chance of fixing whatever they think is wrong.  How do you justify participating in a system when you're convinced the system itself is broken?

But when the system is in such dire need of remedy, how do you justify withdrawing your support for it?

The Drought

Back in April, Gov Rick Perry called for Texans to pray because the drought was kinda bad.  Here's what it's been like since then:
Drought Map

Something else I wonder about: Perry has been playing the Labor Arbitrage game, and he's done a good bit of bragging about the influx of people because there're so many new jobs in Texas.  First, Texas leads the US in minimum-wage jobs. Second, the majority of new jobs in Texas are minimum wage or minimum plus 20% jobs.  Third, a big increase in population only puts a greater strain on things like infrastructure and resources like clean water.

Just sayin'.

Voter Fraud

Repubs make a big noise about how the Dems try to steal elections, but some how there's never any evidence of it at the end of loud and distracting investigations.

And then, there's this.

Voters in Maryland started getting mysterious phone calls on election day last year, that told them to "relax" and not bother going to the polls because President Barack Obama and Gov. Martin O'Malley "have been successful."

"Everything is fine. The only thing left is to watch on TV tonight," the robocalls said.

Some truth from The Brennan Center at NYU Law.

Today's Deep Thought

It's illegal in the US for any person to own another person - because people are people and  not property.

If a corporation is a person, then why is it legal for anybody to own it?

Service To Their Country

This young man is a great example of who we want serving in a professional military, and a perfect example of what we stand to lose when we make stupid decisions on what we want those pros to do.

John Kasich

...is a petty, vindictive prick.

Col Wilkerson

When I piss and moan about 'honor', this is part of what I have in mind.

Larry Wilkerson is no hero owing to the simple fact that he didn't say any of this when he was in a position to make it stick, and to make a difference by coming out with it. It's possible that he was just too close to the problem at the time; or that he was living the nightmare scenario for any military pro, where you start to get the feeling that the people in charge are leading you off the cliff, but your training and experience are telling you just to keep your head down and do the work. "Theirs not to reason why" and all that shit.

In the end, though, every soldier has to make a judgement call as to whether or not his orders are inside the legal and ethical boundaries. You don't ever stop being responsible for your own actions.



Watch the whole series here.

Ah Yes, I Get It Now

Today, Stan Collender is the smartest guy in the room.

Here's his lead-in to his blog post at Capital Gains and Games.

On the one hand, many Congressional Republicans are insisting that they don’t have to vote for an increase in the debt ceiling because the presumed dire consequences of not acting won’t be that bad. On the other hand, they’re also insisting that not raising the debt ceiling will indeed be harmful and, therefore, the White House had better agree to do what they want.

Spectacular.