Sunday, June 30, 2013
Three Monkeys
"Europeans are furious" at the US governemnt for having been spying on Europeans, it says here, while Americans are furious at Edward Snowden for revealing that the US government is spying on Americans. Europeans don't want to be spied upon, while we don't mnd our government spying on us, we just don't want to know about it.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
This Will Be Interesting
Kyle Petty, son of Richard “The King” Petty said the other day that, while Danica Patrick “can drive fast, she is not a racer.” Kyle drove for close to twenty years and won eight races in the major circuit, then known as Winston Cup. In his statement he added that he himself was never “a racer” and that if he knew what it took to be one he would have been one. I would not actually disagree with any part of his statement.
That has raised an absolute tempest between the Danica haters and her loyalists, and what makes it potentially interesting is that Kyle is one of the commentators for the Sprint Cup race that will be on TNT later this evening. I cannot wait to see how the television crew handles this little drama, given that NASCAR has been promoting Danica as being the best thing that has happened to the sport in decades, notwithstanding her average finishing position of 26th and her standing of 27th in the championship race.
I may actually watch the pre-race blather, which I do not usually do.
Her fellow Rookie-of-the-Year contender, and boyfriend who is six years younger than she is, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., has an average finish of 18.5 and stands 19th in the championship race. He finished ahead of her 14 out of 17 races, and in 10 of those races he was at least 10 positions ahead of her. That has to have led to some rather interesting pillow talk.
Danica has finished 25th or worse in 14 of the 17 races this year, which would tend to give some credibility to Kyle Petty's assertion.
Update, Sunday morning: During the rain delay they interviewed about thirty drivers. Danica Patrick was not among them, and neither was Ricky Stenhouse or Danica's team owner, Tony Stewart.
That has raised an absolute tempest between the Danica haters and her loyalists, and what makes it potentially interesting is that Kyle is one of the commentators for the Sprint Cup race that will be on TNT later this evening. I cannot wait to see how the television crew handles this little drama, given that NASCAR has been promoting Danica as being the best thing that has happened to the sport in decades, notwithstanding her average finishing position of 26th and her standing of 27th in the championship race.
I may actually watch the pre-race blather, which I do not usually do.
Her fellow Rookie-of-the-Year contender, and boyfriend who is six years younger than she is, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., has an average finish of 18.5 and stands 19th in the championship race. He finished ahead of her 14 out of 17 races, and in 10 of those races he was at least 10 positions ahead of her. That has to have led to some rather interesting pillow talk.
Danica has finished 25th or worse in 14 of the 17 races this year, which would tend to give some credibility to Kyle Petty's assertion.
Update, Sunday morning: During the rain delay they interviewed about thirty drivers. Danica Patrick was not among them, and neither was Ricky Stenhouse or Danica's team owner, Tony Stewart.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Trivial Question
Why are we celebrating a Senate that cannot find $20 billion to feed Americans who are going hungry, but can find $60 billion to keep people out of this country?
And The Losers Cry "Foul"
The losing side always seems to think that the winning side somehow “rigged the game” and cheated them out of what was rightfully theirs, no matter what the vote count may have been or what the nature of the process was. The undesirable outcome is never the “will of the people,” but is always a manipulated outcome achieved by scoundrels who suborned democracy.
(That does happen, of course. Think Florida and the year 2000.)
A piece the other day at Attywood complains that other states have gay marriage, so why can’t Pennsylvania have it as well? The answer is pretty simple, but seems to elude the writer of the piece; when the people of Pennsylvania quit electing representatives to government who oppose gay marriage, then they can have gay marriage. It’s not rocket science. You get the government you elect.
Do these politicians run on a platform of favoring gay marriage and then vote against it once they are in office? They do not. They are proud of opposing gay marriage, they campaign on the issue, they make speeches about opposition to gay marriage, and they win the election. Why are the voters upset and surprised that the state does not allow gay marriage?
Don’t raise the fig leaf of “Citizens United” at me on this. For one thing, voters who allow their vote to be purchased deserve precisely what they get; they are beneath contempt. But politicians purchase ads which feature the views they espouse. The advertisements to which these voters succumb scream the anti-gay marriage views espoused by the candidate.
When we stop electing representatives who oppose abortion, then a woman’s right to choose will be safe in this nation.
When we stop electing representatives who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare then our social safety net will be secure.
In a discussion elsewhere conservative voters were accused of “voting for what politicians said and ignoring what they do,” but on these large issues that is nonsense. Politicians who oppose gay marriage, abortion and the social safety net do not hide their views. On the contrary, they make those issues central to their campaigns, and they win election. At reelection time they boast of having voted against those issues and they win reelection. There is no subterfuge here. You want gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose and a social safety net, quit electing these guys.
The voters who “vote for what politicians say and ignore what they do” are the liberals who reelected a Congress that had promised in 2008 to end the war in Iraq and gave us “the surge” instead; a Congress that decried the Patriot Act and then renewed it in 2009.
The voters who “vote for what politicians say and ignore what they do” are the liberals who reelected a president who said that he would close Guantanamo and then made no more than token effort to do so; who promised the most transparent government ever and then prosecuted more whistleblowers than all of the presidents preceding him combined; who promised to “change Washington” then named Wall Street to his cabinet.
Complain away, but we have the government we elected.
(That does happen, of course. Think Florida and the year 2000.)
A piece the other day at Attywood complains that other states have gay marriage, so why can’t Pennsylvania have it as well? The answer is pretty simple, but seems to elude the writer of the piece; when the people of Pennsylvania quit electing representatives to government who oppose gay marriage, then they can have gay marriage. It’s not rocket science. You get the government you elect.
Do these politicians run on a platform of favoring gay marriage and then vote against it once they are in office? They do not. They are proud of opposing gay marriage, they campaign on the issue, they make speeches about opposition to gay marriage, and they win the election. Why are the voters upset and surprised that the state does not allow gay marriage?
Don’t raise the fig leaf of “Citizens United” at me on this. For one thing, voters who allow their vote to be purchased deserve precisely what they get; they are beneath contempt. But politicians purchase ads which feature the views they espouse. The advertisements to which these voters succumb scream the anti-gay marriage views espoused by the candidate.
When we stop electing representatives who oppose abortion, then a woman’s right to choose will be safe in this nation.
When we stop electing representatives who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare then our social safety net will be secure.
In a discussion elsewhere conservative voters were accused of “voting for what politicians said and ignoring what they do,” but on these large issues that is nonsense. Politicians who oppose gay marriage, abortion and the social safety net do not hide their views. On the contrary, they make those issues central to their campaigns, and they win election. At reelection time they boast of having voted against those issues and they win reelection. There is no subterfuge here. You want gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose and a social safety net, quit electing these guys.
The voters who “vote for what politicians say and ignore what they do” are the liberals who reelected a Congress that had promised in 2008 to end the war in Iraq and gave us “the surge” instead; a Congress that decried the Patriot Act and then renewed it in 2009.
The voters who “vote for what politicians say and ignore what they do” are the liberals who reelected a president who said that he would close Guantanamo and then made no more than token effort to do so; who promised the most transparent government ever and then prosecuted more whistleblowers than all of the presidents preceding him combined; who promised to “change Washington” then named Wall Street to his cabinet.
Complain away, but we have the government we elected.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
This 'n That
I watch the Food Channel a lot, probably more than I do any other one channel, and I not only have never seen Paula Deen, I had never even heard the name until this latest “news” broke. I can cite a couple dozen names of people who star on the Food Channel, but until now Paula Deen would not have been one of them. “Huge Food Channel star?”
Everyone is cheering about DOMA having been overturned, but actually only half of it has been. The remaining half is of lesser impact, but it would be well to get rid of the remaining part of the act that says that states do not need to recognize marriages performed in other states if that marriage would not be permitted in their own state.
We are about to lose one of the truly great men of the century in Nelson Mandela. He has made the world a better place in ways that very, very few men have done.
Since the first of the year we have been hearing about an “improving economy” and how consumer spending has been improving steadily. Now we find out that the economy grew at only a 1.8% annual rate in the first quarter, and that consumer spending was reduced by almost a full percentage point from its previous estimate. But not to worry, because the economy is picking up steam like crazy now. Yeah, right.
An economy that grows at 1.8% is actually shrinking, because the population is growing at 2%, not to mention the impact of inflation.
Obama says that he wants Putin to give Snowden back to us but is not going to do any “wheeling and dealing.” This is descending from comedy into farce. After we have been so nice to Russia, doing things like goading Georgia into picking a war with them over South Ossetia, admitting former Soviet nations into NATO and bringing NATO right up to Russian borders, this whole Syria deal… And we think Putin wants to curry favor with us.
In typical Congressional weirdness, the immigration bill wending its way through Congress actually encourages hiring noncitizens. People who are amnestied under the bill will be ineligible for health care provisions under Obamacare, so employers will incur lower employment costs for them than for citizens, for whom they will either have to provide health care or pay a penalty. Do these clowns ever actually think about what they are doing?
The vet started our cat on a new medicine and said to let her know if Molly "started acting wierd." Um, she's a cat. How do I know if she's acting wierd? "Well," the vet says, "if she's licking herself or running around a lot." Are you serious? Have you ever had a cat? Or even seen one?
The problem with spellcheckers is that they will accept "manes" when you meant to type "names." Shit.
Everyone is cheering about DOMA having been overturned, but actually only half of it has been. The remaining half is of lesser impact, but it would be well to get rid of the remaining part of the act that says that states do not need to recognize marriages performed in other states if that marriage would not be permitted in their own state.
We are about to lose one of the truly great men of the century in Nelson Mandela. He has made the world a better place in ways that very, very few men have done.
Since the first of the year we have been hearing about an “improving economy” and how consumer spending has been improving steadily. Now we find out that the economy grew at only a 1.8% annual rate in the first quarter, and that consumer spending was reduced by almost a full percentage point from its previous estimate. But not to worry, because the economy is picking up steam like crazy now. Yeah, right.
An economy that grows at 1.8% is actually shrinking, because the population is growing at 2%, not to mention the impact of inflation.
Obama says that he wants Putin to give Snowden back to us but is not going to do any “wheeling and dealing.” This is descending from comedy into farce. After we have been so nice to Russia, doing things like goading Georgia into picking a war with them over South Ossetia, admitting former Soviet nations into NATO and bringing NATO right up to Russian borders, this whole Syria deal… And we think Putin wants to curry favor with us.
In typical Congressional weirdness, the immigration bill wending its way through Congress actually encourages hiring noncitizens. People who are amnestied under the bill will be ineligible for health care provisions under Obamacare, so employers will incur lower employment costs for them than for citizens, for whom they will either have to provide health care or pay a penalty. Do these clowns ever actually think about what they are doing?
The vet started our cat on a new medicine and said to let her know if Molly "started acting wierd." Um, she's a cat. How do I know if she's acting wierd? "Well," the vet says, "if she's licking herself or running around a lot." Are you serious? Have you ever had a cat? Or even seen one?
The problem with spellcheckers is that they will accept "manes" when you meant to type "names." Shit.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Zombie Math
Paul Krugman claims today that “tougher climate policy will, almost surely, be job-creating, not job-destroying, under current conditions.” His reasoning seems to involve unicorns and magic ponies because of a “termite theory” which was debunked under it’s former name of the “broken window theory,” but which he says is “right under these conditions.”
Paul Krugman again confuses his mathematical models with real world conditions when he says that a policy that raises energy prices will do no harm because “our economy isn’t supply-constrained right now, it’s demand-constrained.” Meaning, of course that people are not buying enough. So, he says, “Even if prices go up a bit, how will this reduce real demand?”
The stupidity of that statement is really hard to fathom. Will people spend less money if prices go up? No, they are already spending all of the money they have, and borrowing to spend more. That is not the point. The point is where that money is being spent and how that spending pattern affects the economy. The point is that when their electric bill doubles and the heating bill goes up they will spend less on other things.
They will spend less, for instance, on clothing, and when clothing makers are selling less clothing they lay off workers. So there are fewer clothing workers, but there are no additional electric workers because only the price of electricity went up, not the amount being used. That, my good Doctor Krugman, is a net loss of jobs, caused by the price increase of electricity.
The problem for Dr. Krugman is that he deals in mathematical models. For him “real demand” has nothing to do with what real people are doing in a real world, it is simply the amount of consumer dollars that are flowing in an outward direction. So he’s right in that prices will not change the amount that consumers spend. But the real world does not allow that to be extended to mean that jobs will not be affected merely because the amount of spending is unchanged. One cannot merely plug in mathematics; one has to actually think logically in the framework that exists outside of the ivory tower at Princeton University.
Paul Krugman again confuses his mathematical models with real world conditions when he says that a policy that raises energy prices will do no harm because “our economy isn’t supply-constrained right now, it’s demand-constrained.” Meaning, of course that people are not buying enough. So, he says, “Even if prices go up a bit, how will this reduce real demand?”
The stupidity of that statement is really hard to fathom. Will people spend less money if prices go up? No, they are already spending all of the money they have, and borrowing to spend more. That is not the point. The point is where that money is being spent and how that spending pattern affects the economy. The point is that when their electric bill doubles and the heating bill goes up they will spend less on other things.
They will spend less, for instance, on clothing, and when clothing makers are selling less clothing they lay off workers. So there are fewer clothing workers, but there are no additional electric workers because only the price of electricity went up, not the amount being used. That, my good Doctor Krugman, is a net loss of jobs, caused by the price increase of electricity.
The problem for Dr. Krugman is that he deals in mathematical models. For him “real demand” has nothing to do with what real people are doing in a real world, it is simply the amount of consumer dollars that are flowing in an outward direction. So he’s right in that prices will not change the amount that consumers spend. But the real world does not allow that to be extended to mean that jobs will not be affected merely because the amount of spending is unchanged. One cannot merely plug in mathematics; one has to actually think logically in the framework that exists outside of the ivory tower at Princeton University.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Media Hysteria
If the media circus regarding Snowdon was not so pernicious it would be utterly hilarious on more than one level; first being that the real story is about what the government is doing, not about Snowdon’s flight from government prosecution for blowing the whistle on government malfeasance. It’s positively awe inspiring to watch the degree to which the media has “missed the point,” except that they have not done so by error, they have done so deliberately, as water carriers for the government.
Then there is the reasoning given for Snowdon’s “flight from justice,” which in reality can be summed up in two words which no one is mentioning; “Bradley Manning.” I suspect that if Snowdon thought that he would receive justice in this country he might well have stayed and faced it, but given the years of torture to which Bradley Manning has been subjected by the Obama administration and the kangaroo court that is trying him now, Snowdon reasonably chooses to take his chances in international flight.
Finally is the utter hysteria with which the media has reached over the “criminal of the century” and the need to capture him at all costs. To hear the media tell it this guy ranks up there with Ames, the Rosenbergs and Hanssen, and maybe worse, for telling the world what most of it already knew, namely that the American government has been watching who is making phone calls and what is being transmitted on the internet. There may be someone in the outer reaches of Mongolia who didn’t know that.
Not to mention the absurdity of the claim that letting terrorists know we are monitoring their phone calls "endangers national security.” Terrorist cells can no more destroy this nation than can a herd of house cats, and the term “national security” has been so overused as to have become as meaningless as the concurrent word “terrorist.”
As horrible the event was, “national security” does not mean preventing two guys from deploying pressure cooker bombs at a sporting event to kill three people. We need to prevent it, but it is not a matter of “national security.”
Edward Snowdon threatened the unfettered power of the federal government over the people of this nation, and that government wants to make an example out of him to prevent others from following his example.
Then there is the reasoning given for Snowdon’s “flight from justice,” which in reality can be summed up in two words which no one is mentioning; “Bradley Manning.” I suspect that if Snowdon thought that he would receive justice in this country he might well have stayed and faced it, but given the years of torture to which Bradley Manning has been subjected by the Obama administration and the kangaroo court that is trying him now, Snowdon reasonably chooses to take his chances in international flight.
Finally is the utter hysteria with which the media has reached over the “criminal of the century” and the need to capture him at all costs. To hear the media tell it this guy ranks up there with Ames, the Rosenbergs and Hanssen, and maybe worse, for telling the world what most of it already knew, namely that the American government has been watching who is making phone calls and what is being transmitted on the internet. There may be someone in the outer reaches of Mongolia who didn’t know that.
Not to mention the absurdity of the claim that letting terrorists know we are monitoring their phone calls "endangers national security.” Terrorist cells can no more destroy this nation than can a herd of house cats, and the term “national security” has been so overused as to have become as meaningless as the concurrent word “terrorist.”
As horrible the event was, “national security” does not mean preventing two guys from deploying pressure cooker bombs at a sporting event to kill three people. We need to prevent it, but it is not a matter of “national security.”
Edward Snowdon threatened the unfettered power of the federal government over the people of this nation, and that government wants to make an example out of him to prevent others from following his example.
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