9 December 2010 early AM

Sleep was better than 2 nights ago but not as good as last night. I think that I need to drink more water.

Science
This is an interesting article on how civilizations changed with respect to changing climates:

John Roach writes:Our climate is changing and humans are certainly part of the reason why, according to most climate scientists. Will the changes in the climate force us to change how we live?

Probably, if the past is any guide to the future. At least that’s the implication to be drawn from a newly published study that found a tight relationship between changes in the climate and human cultures in ancient North America.

The study’s authors, from the University of Ottawa, explain that archaeologists divide the chronology of prehistoric North America into three main phases: Paleoindian, Archaic and Woodland. Each period is defined by lifestyle changes that broadly show a move towards more sedentary lifestyles, along with shifts in the types of plants and animals they ate.

To see how tight the connection is between climate and cultural change, the researchers examined a database of radiocarbon-dated archaeological artifacts as well as records and reconstructions of the ancient climate in the northeastern United States. The team found that “with the exception of the transitions into the Middle and Late Woodland periods, the latter of which denotes the adoption of maize agriculture, every cultural transition corresponds to a major transition in the climate and vegetation of the region.”
[...]
Alex Chepstow-Lusty is a researcher in paleoecology at the Center for Bio-archaeology at the University of Montpellier 2 in France who has studied the connections between climate and cultural change in South America. He said the new study shows convincing connections between climate and culture, but he urged caution in interpreting the results.

“Correspondence does not always mean causation and the cultural response is driven by a myriad of socio-economic factors as well –- though somewhere in the mix are environmental drivers,” he told me in an e-mail.”Separating out these factors is often not possible.”

Note the caveat. That is what is interesting in the internet age; people get their work out very quickly and it often gets circulated before the scientific community as a whole gets a chance to completely vet it (beyond the usual peer review process). This “arsenic based life-form fiasco” claim was an example of that.

We see another possible example of that here: there was a widely circulated claim that there was evidence of a “periodic universe” that came in cycles (possibly big bangs/big crunches repeated over and over). Many top scientists are skeptical that there IS such evidence; in fact finding patterns where no pattern really exists is common. That doesn’t mean that this claim is wrong; it is just that there isn’t yet clear and convincing evidence that it is true and many interesting, reasonable conjectures turn out to be false.

Evolution
Jerry Coyne has an interesting article about speciation. His summary (for non-experts such as myself) isn’t hard to read but it is hard to summarize in a paragraph. But I’ll try: roughly, a species is a collection of living beings for which gene flow (via reproduction) is possible. New species from when groups form for which gene flow is impossible (e. g., red squirrels and gray squirrels). This often happens when groups become isolated.
Things get interested when there has been some drift between the species and then they get back together AND they are at a state when, say, mating produces some sterile hybrids and some non-sterile hybrids.
The interesting part: it appears that in such a situation, there is some evolutionary advantage (in terms of being able to pass genes along) to species becoming more selective in their mating and mating with members of the group for which the offspring is more likely to be non-sterile.
Anyway, read the article; it is fun.

Here is another article from Why Evolution Is True You’ve seen the pictures of the various embryos of animals and how similar they look. You’ve also seen how similar they look in the “middle” stage. What is going on there? It turns out that it is in the middle stage that the older genes (older in terms of “on the evolutionary tree”) get expressed. Read Matthew Cobb’s article on this; it too is a treat!

Science in Politics Today’s Republican party does have a large anti-intellectual wing in it; some of it might well be driven by religious or economic interests.

But there may be something else going on. You’ve seen the attacks on Al Gore? Well, there is a school of thought that some Republicans are attacking the existence of global climate change in an effort (or knee jerk reaction) to discredit Al Gore, who is popular in leftist circles.

My Take on the Bush Tax Cut Debate/Compromise

President Obama to OFA supporters
The full press conference (32 minutes) is here:

My take

This is a tough one for me. My knee jerk reaction is “ok, once again the amoral greedy bastards got their way”. But that is, well, a knee jerk reaction. I KNOW that I am prone to that.

I am also hampered by the fact that
1. Economics is NOT my specialty
2. I didn’t put months of detailed study into this
3. I am not as smart and wise as the President who HAS put a ton of time and effort into this.

As far as point one: I’d welcome comments from those non-experts with a different point of view (or the same) and I’d especially welcome comments from those who experts who KNOW economics (say, at the earned Ph. D. level).

So my biggest problem is that I don’t know where my liberal “knee-jerk” reaction ends and what is best for the country begins. Yes, I backed the Health Care Reform package in that it got us moving in a better direction whereas my fear is that this package might be moving us in the wrong direction. It goes beyond the political “oh, damn it, the Republicans won again” reaction.

To be brutally honest, I favor liberal policies because I think that they are better for the country. But if some deity were able to show me that a conservative policy would work better, then yes, I’d hope that the conservative policy prevailed.

This is NOT just a game for me where I am cheering my favorite team (the liberals against the hated conservatives) though I admit that this does influence my emotions. I hope that it doesn’t influence my thinking….though I am sure that it does.

What I hope happens: I think that the President did his job. Now I hope that the Democrats in Congress do theirs: filibuster this bill unless we get concession on the tax cut for the wealthy (say, at the 500K per year income level).
If the tax cuts expire, fine: let the new Republican Congress take it up…and then filibuster everything that doesn’t have at least some of what we want in it.

But my suggestions are worth…well, whatever you are paying to read them. There are many others who know more.

Update My writing this post has, believe it or not, warmed me a bit toward this compromise. Before I wrote this I was getting ready to ask my Democratic Senator to participate in a filibuster (the Republican we saw fit to elect is a liar and an idiot). Now, I am willing to see it go to at least an up-or-down vote.

What my friends are saying

A Republican Friend
“My general thoughts are

1. These tax cuts were a bad idea in the first place
2. I agree with extending only for incomes <250k
3. This agreement shows that neither Republicans nor Democrats are serious about the deficit. Nearly a trillion dollars added to the deficit with no offsetting spending cuts. Sigh.
4. I think the estate tax compromise is about right, although I'd exempt less and have a gradual increase in rates

That said, I do think we could use some sort of 2nd stimulus and I think tax cuts are more efficient than government spending.

The Dems are really having trouble articulating their position. Remember that the tax cuts apply to all income <250k even for those who make more. E.g. someone who makes $350K, gets all the cuts up to 250K, then pays 5% more on the extra 100K. Not too bad

For the record I make well under $250.
"

A “Clinton Democrat” on the idea of the Democrats filibustering this deal:

“The Rs would love that. The filibuster keeps anything from passing, and the Ds get blamed for a massive tax increase for everyone. They will use this as an argument as to why THEY should have a fillibuster proof Senate next time around. Gag.”

A liberal Democrat on the compromise

“Fascinating. I shall repost. Reminds me of that picture that was circulating around election time, with Obama making a “calm down” gesture with his hands. The caption was “Everybody just chill the fuck out. I got this.”"

More moderate Democrat than I
“Forget it, taxes will never be low enough for some folks. If the highest marginal tax rate is 25%, the Republicans will l be fighting to lower it to 22%.”

A Clinton Democrat

“You know the tax cut deal between President Obama and Republican leadership is the correct path forward for most AMERICANS when both Bernie Sanders and Jim DeMint plan to filibuster said deal for their own ideological reasons..”

A Moderate Republican

“You know why Clinton turned out to be a reasonably good president…because he got slapped back to the center from his liberal left…now it’s coming to Obama.”

Another Democrat
“”This compromise gets under my skin, but I also can’t see letting benefits run out for so many (thus also hurting the economy, because those benefits go right back in).”"

A distraught Daily Kos liberal who is leaving OFA over this (link).

Two liberal organizations, MoveOn.org and Bold Progressives are also opposing this.

The Policy

Paul Krumgan: well, we got something out of it (the payroll tax holiday) but the concessions were not worth the price.

Robert Reich says that the deal is expensive and won’t help that much:

It will cost $900 billion over the next two years — larger than the bailout of Wall Street, GM, and Chrysler put together, larger than the stimulus package, larger than anything that’s come out of Washington in years.

It makes a mockery of deficit reduction. Worse, the lion’s share of that $900 billion will go to the very rich. Families with incomes of over $1 million will reap an average of about $70,000, while middle-class families earning $50,000 a year will get an average of around $1,500. In addition, the deal just about eviscerates the estate tax — yanking the exemption up to $5 million per person and a maximum rate of 35 percent.

And for what?

Wealthy families won’t spend nearly as large a share of what they get out of this deal as will middle-class and working-class families, so it doesn’t do much to stimulate the economy.

The deal further concentrates income and wealth in America — when it’s already more concentrated than at any time in the last 80 years.

The bits and pieces the President got in return — extended unemployment benefits, a continuation of certain small tax benefits for the middle class — are peanuts. After last week’s awful jobs report, Senate Republicans would have been forced to extend unemployment insurance anyway.

Or, maybe it isn’t that bad of a deal for us?

The positives (as we’d see them): (via Eclectablog at Daily Kos)

# Working families will not lose their tax cut. A typical working family faced a tax increase of over $3,000 on January 1st. The framework agreement includes a mutually agreed upon solution to the impasse over taxes by extending the 2001/2003 income tax rates for two years and reforming the AMT to ensure that an additional 21 million households will not be hit with a tax increase.
# $56 billion for unemployment insurance extension. According to the Council of Economic Advisers, passing this provision will create 600,000 jobs in 2011 alone.
# $120 billion payroll tax cut for working families
# $40 billion in tax cuts for our hardest hit families and students
# 100% expensing for businesses next year
# Child Tax Credit: The $1,000 child tax credit will be extended for two years with the $3,000 refundability threshold established in the Recovery Act. This extension will ensure an ongoing tax cut to 10.5 million lower income families with 18 million children.
# Earned Income Tax Credit: The Recovery Act included an expansion of the EITC worth, on average, $600 in additional assistance to families with 3 or more children. It also helped working married families by reducing the marriage penalty in the EITC. Continuing this tax cut for two years will benefit 6.5 million working parents with 15 million children.
# American Opportunity Tax Credit: The Recovery Act included a new, partially refundable tax credit of up to $2,500 to help students and their families cover the cost of college tuition. This deal fully extends AOTC for two years, ensuring that more than 8 million students will continue to receive this tax benefit to help them afford college.
# A 2-year extension of the R&D tax credit and other tax incentives to support business expansion.

How do some Republicans see this? From National Review:

I basically think the deal was a net loss. It was a political win for Republicans, but not, in my view, a substantive win for fiscal conservatives. I’ve argued for temporary extension of all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, yet I strongly think that a 3-year extension was preferable to a 2-year extension, as presidential politics will get in the way of a 2012 debate over the future of the tax code. Glenn Hubbard captures my sentiments on the broader question of where the tax reform debate should go.

I’ll also note that the best empirical evidence we have suggests that the tax provisions of ARRA, including the Making Work Pay tax credit, did not work as intended, as my Economics 21 colleagues recently observed:

The researchers [Matthew Shapiro, Claudia Sahm, and Joel Slemrod] find that in response to the one-time tax cuts in 2008, only 25% of households reported higher spending. This result is consistent with a large body of economic literature that suggests households smooth out their consumption over time, and so an unexpected windfall only slightly raises current levels of spending.

More surprising is the analysis of the tax cuts associated with the 2009 ARRA stimulus. These took effect through the form of reduced federal tax withholding on payrolls, and were widely expected to be more effective than one-time tax cuts in elevating aggregate spending. Yet the authors find that a mere 13% of households reported higher levels of spending due to the tax cuts.

The authors suggest that households that anticipate a decline in household income are saving the proceeds, which makes intuitive sense.

I’m glad to see that the Making Work Pay tax credit has been abandoned, though its motivation was sound. Assuming we’re not looking for a huge short-term stimulative effect, we can at least say that the extension of most of the ARRA tax provisions and the payroll tax cut will help middle-income households repair their balance sheets, and that’s certainly something. But let’s be cautious in advancing claims about the “jobs multiplier” we associate with these targeted tax cuts.

And (Greg Mankiw, a Harvard Economics Professor)

I am generally pleased with the compromise over taxes the President and Republicans struck yesterday. (The President should be too, but he seemed dejected at his news conference. Buck up, Mr President! You don’t want anyone to start thinking of the word “malaise.”)

One aspect of the deal struck me as worth discussing with econ students: The compromise includes a one-year cut in the payroll tax by 2 percentage points. The tax cut will be entirely in the employees’ share. Why do you think they designed the policy in this way? Was it the right choice?

Surf to the blog to read more.

And Howard Gleckman:

The tax deal reached by President Obama and congressional Republicans (but not Hill Democrats) includes a bit of good, some bad, and some really ugly.

To summarize, this package would make nearly the entire individual revenue code permanently temporary, which is horrible tax policy. It gives the lie to the pious talk about deficit reduction we’ve heard recently. And much of it will do nothing to stimulate the economy, fervent claims by supporters to the contrary. As George W. Bush might have said, “heckuva job, guys.”

Let’s start with the allegedly temporary aspect of a plan to continue the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for two more years. Like the dozens of special interest tax breaks that get extended a year or two at a time, we now seem on the way to doing the same for the basic structure of the income tax. It is the worst of all worlds, combining the uncertainty of temporary tax law with the massive (but hidden) cost of never-ending tax breaks.

No-one can seriously think Congress will let any of these tax cuts expire on the cusp of the 2012 election, as they are scheduled to do under this deal. If the economy is still soft, pols will tell us it is not the time to let the tax cuts expire. If it is strengthening, they’ll claim low taxes were the reason and insist they should be continued. Either way, the 2001 rate structure will go on, a year or two at a time, until Congress finally agrees to enact major tax reform. And they will add trillions of dollars to the national debt, notwithstanding all the recent cries for fiscal responsibility.

It would be nice if Congress did what former Budget Director Peter Orszag, my Tax Policy Center colleague Len Burman, and others have suggested, which is to use the next couple of years to enact serious tax reform. It would be nice. But it won’t happen.

And let us not forget the bat-shit-crazy point of view, from my favorite drunken ladybug:

O’Donnell applauded President Obama’s hours-old proposal to enact a two-year extension of Bush tax cuts, but called the 13-month extension of jobless benefits a “tragedy” similar to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Edwards’ death.

“[President Obama's] announcement today for economic recovery was more of a potpourri of sound bytes,” she said. “It’s like he took a little bit of what each party wanted and put it together. It’s not constructed. It’s not a solid plan constructed on sound economic principles.”

She later clarified that the tragedy was the huge increase in spending, she said, not the extension of the benefits themselves. The tragedy is how those benefits are funded, she said.

The Politics

One common reaction is that “if Bernie Sanders and Jim DeMint both don’t like it, it has to be good”. Hey, the President wanted bipartisanship, right?

Others seem to take glee in what they see as an unraveling to the Obama presidency; e. g. check out this National Review commentary and the contempt from a Hillary Clinton supporter on the left.

Rachel Maddow also talks about the Obama presidency sliding into irrelevancy but in a more mournful tone.

Some say that the President WANTS this fight with his fellow Democrats:

Obama’s advisers insist he didn’t go out of his way to pick a fight with fellow Democrats when he cut his highly controversial deal with Republicans to temporarily extend all Bush-era tax cuts earlier this week. But if the deal served to distance Obama not only from them but the entire partisan culture of Washington, all the better, they say.
[...]“Compared to these guys, the president looks mature and pragmatic,” the official said.

An angry Obama — in one of his most emotional public statements since taking office nearly two years ago — rebuked fellow Democrats during a White House news conference Tuesday, going so far as to suggest that some in his party put politics ahead of the American people by calling on him to block any extension of Bush-era tax cuts that includes the wealthy.
[....]
One administration official told POLITICO that Obama was so dispirited after his Nov. 18 meeting with the Democratic leadership that he decided, then and there, to place his faith in direct talks with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“The point is the House and Senate [leadership] has proven they are incapable of getting things done,” the official said.
[...]
But Mark McKinnon, a longtime adviser to former President George W. Bush, and an admirer of Obama’s during the 2008 campaign, says the dynamic is much simpler: The president wants to disassociate himself from congressional Democrats because they are losers — even if he’s partly responsible for their historic losses in the midterms.

“If you’re going to pick a fight, better to hit the guy already on the mat,” McKinnon said.

Still, there are distinct dangers to straying too far from the Democratic pack. In the short term, Obama must wrangle the Democratic votes necessary to pass his tax cut deal — no easy task with hostility toward him bursting out in the open this week.

They go on to talk about the 2012 election and the possibility that the President might have to repair relations with his base. Nate Silver isn’t so sure that this will be an issue:

This is not to suggest that the pattern will necessarily be the same in 2012. In contrast to this year — when Mr. Obama ultimately had much to show off to liberals, including a health care bill and a financial regulation package — it is difficult to see how any major liberal priories will be advanced once Republicans take over the House in January. But Democrats could still pass some proposals popular with liberals, like the reversal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, before the 111th Congress concludes its business later this month.

Still, just because liberals are disappointed with Mr. Obama does not necessarily mean they will fail to turn out and vote for him when the only other choice is a Republican. In some ways, it probably helps Mr. Obama that the country has become so polarized and that liberals view Republicans as such an unacceptable alternative, and vice versa. The prospect of a President Palin or a President Gingrich would surely motivate most liberals to vote — and even comparatively moderate Republican candidates like Mitt Romney will be under pressure to show their conservative stripes during the l Republican primaries and are likely to campaign on policies, like a repeal of the health care bill, that liberals overwhelmingly object to.

I can’t imagine any liberal not working their fingers to the bone to defeat Sarah Palin, no matter how much they despise Barack Obama.

There is a school of thought that says “block this even if it means that we get nothing because making the Republicans take it up in 2011 will stick them with a politically unpopular bill”.

On the other hand, there are elements of this compromise that the public likes or at least is willing to put up with:

One Final Issue: Robert Reich says that it sends the wrong message:

Americans want to know what happened to the economy and how to fix it. At least Republicans have a story – the same one they’ve been flogging for thirty years. The bad economy is big government’s fault and the solution is to shrink government.

Here’s the real story. For three decades, an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the top 1 percent. Thirty years ago, the top got 9 percent of total income. Not they take in almost a quarter. Meanwhile, the earnings of the typical worker have barely budged.

The vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going. (The rich spend a much lower portion of their incomes.) The crisis was averted before now only because middle-class families found ways to keep spending more than they took in – by women going into paid work, by working longer hours, and finally by using their homes as collateral to borrow. But when the housing bubble burst, the game was up.

The solution is to reorganize the economy so the benefits of growth are more widely shared. Exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes, and apply payroll taxes to incomes over $250,000. Extend Medicare to all. Extend the Earned Income Tax Credit all the way up through families earning $50,000. Make higher education free to families that now can’t afford it. Rehire teachers. Repair and rebuild our infrastructure. Create a new WPA to put the unemployed back to work.

Pay for this by raising marginal income taxes on millionaires (under Eisenhower, the highest marginal rate was 91 percent, and the economy flourished). A millionaire marginal tax of 70 percent would eliminate the nation’s future budget deficit. In addition, impose a small tax on all financial transactions (even a tiny one — one half of one percent — would bring in $200 billion a year, enough to rehire every teacher who’s been laid off as well as provide universal pre-school for all toddlers). Promote unions for low-wage workers.

But here’s the obstacle. As income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power. Money is being used to bribe politicians and fill the airwaves with misleading ads that block all of this. [...]

Get it? By agreeing to another round of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the President confirms the Republican story. Cutting taxes on the rich while freezing discretionary spending (which he’s also agreed to do) affirms that the underlying problem is big government, and the solution is to shrink government and expect the extra wealth at the top to trickle down to everyone else.

8 December 2010: the non-tax-cut-debate post

Workout notes 100 sit ups (25 at each of the 4 levels of incline), 1 mile AMT, 5K “run” on the treadmill: 10:10, 19:26, 28:16, 29:12 total for 3.11 miles, 2 mile walk (16 laps on the outer lane in 29:30), rotator cuff.

Then I iced my shoulder by taking some of the snow/frozen ice from the outside and putting it into a baggie.

Sleep: got some…but then again I didn’t eat peanut butter nor soy products last night.

Shoulder: it has calmed down a bit; perhaps I’ll hit the weights tomorrow while taking it very, very, very easy on the shoulder press stuff.

Hey, I worked out ok? If you need some inspiration to get out there (and are a heterosexual male):

Posts

Tax Cut Debate I do have a lot to say on this; I’ll give this one its own post.

One irony in today’s blog posts: both posts came from attorneys! That’s a first.

Science

Frogs
Some frogs have an unusual waste removal mechanism:

Imagine some buckshot from a shotgun got stuck in your chest or you had a radio transmitter stuck in your side. If you were a frog, your body might be pristine a few weeks afterward — they apparently have the remarkable ability to pee out foreign objects, with their bladders engulfing the intrusions to help get rid of such junk, scientists now find.

No other animal until now has ever been seen using their bladder eliminating foreign objects embedded in their bodies.

Scientists originally implanted temperature-sensitive radio transmitters in three species of tree frogs in Australia to learn more about how temperature-regulating abilities in frogs might vary with the habitats in which they lived. Unexpectedly, after 25 to 193 days, when the investigators recaptured the amphibians to recover the transmitters, many of the devices — up to 75 percent in one species — were no longer in the body. Instead, the implants had somehow migrated to the bladder.

To confirm these bizarre results, the researchers implanted small beads into the body cavities of five Australian green tree frogs (Litoria caerulea) and five cane toads (Rhinella marina). In all five of the cane toads, the beads made it to the bladders, and all five of the Australian green tree frogs expelled the beads within 19 days on average. (The cane toads seemed to have more trouble doing that, with just one peeing out its bead.)

Hat tip to my friend Linda Grozenger.

Censorship
Guess who wants to censor a book? (no surprise there: fundies). But guess which book? No, it isn’t a book on evolution or cosmology. No, it isn’t a pron book or a book on sex education. No, it isn’t a gay-rights book. It is a book about trying to live while poor! From Randazza’s blog:

Dennis and Aimee Taylor got their panties all in a wad because their son had to read the book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” in his personal finance class at Bedford High School.” (New Hampshire)

In the book, the author (Barbara Ehrenreich) recounts experiences she had while trying to make a living at minimum wage jobs all across America. She criticizes the current conditions in America, arguing that our economic system is unfair toward the poor.

So who is that most likely to piss off? You guessed it… “christians”.

Aimee Taylor is quoted as saying, “The author is a known social Marxist, hates everything American, everything that America stands for or was built on. I mean when you read the book you see that strongly in this woman’s agenda. It’s horrible.” (source).

The irony is pretty thick here — since Ms. Taylor and her husband are calling for mass firings in the Bedford school district – because they don’t like the book that the district assigned to her son. You know, its Un-American to write a book saying that maybe even the down-trodden proles who share citizenship with us should, oh I dunno, live a decent life?

Brrrr….Winter Hits Peoria, IL

Workout notes Lynn picked me up; we went to yoga and then I walked a 7 mile route home (net uphill); I didn’t time it but with all of the traffic stops it took over 2 hours. Yes, that is painfully slow but I had icy and snowy stretches to contend with.

Still, much of the walk was pleasant. It was 8 F when I started and 13 F when I finished, but there wasn’t much wind. There was some traffic, ice and snow.

When I got home, I did a light shoulder routine (mostly for the rotator cuff).

But you know what? In wintertime, most don’t shovel their sidewalks, including those that don’t go all the way to the curb. As far as the curbside sidewalks: that is a place for the City to put snow. This city (Peoria) is a real frozen-crap-box in the winter and I’d leave in a minute if I had a secure job offer elsewhere at a university I liked as much.

Sleep: I slept very poorly last night; it seems that when I have peanut butter and soy milk (with cereal) for dinner, I have trouble sleeping. I am not sure as to why; I’ve read that peanut butter is supposed to be a good bed time snack food.

So I stayed up, blogged some and looked at photos at Girls In Yoga Pants. Some of my favorites were here, here and here. If you are a heterosexual guy and like feminine spandex butts, that site is for you. They have athletic women, Rubenesque women, rounded women, slender women; if I had to add a type I’d add 40+ age women.

Posts
Yes, some liberals at Daily Kos and other places are smarting over the tax-cut compromise. No, I don’t like it either. Nevertheless, count me as among the 83 percent of liberal Democrats and 46 percent of all Americans that approve of the President’s performance.

I think that some see this presidency as an ideological fight; clearly liberals appear to be losing. But that isn’t the point of the presidency; the point of the presidency is to govern the country (at least that is how *I* see it). I wrote a post to that effect at Daily Kos and I got blistered in the comments.

Oh well…some people need to get over themselves.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ll push my representatives to oppose this “deal”. But differing on the President on a few issues doesn’t mean he is a Chamberlain type appeaser. Good grief.

No, he isn’t going to face a serious 2012 primary challenge.

That being said…..I found this poke at the President to be funny:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In his latest effort to find common ground with Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama said today that he was willing to agree that he is a Muslim.

Differences over his religious orientation have been a sore point between the President and his Republican foes for the past two years, but in agreeing that he is a Muslim Mr. Obama is sending a clear signal that he is trying to find consensus.

“The American people do not want to see us fighting in Washington,” Mr. Obama told reporters at the White House. “They want to see us working together to improve their lives, and Allah willing, we will.”

But Mr. Obama’s willingness to back down on his claim of being a Christian does not seem to have satisfied his Republican opposition, as GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) today insisted that the President must also agree that he was born in Kenya.

6 December 2010 PM: Science, Comedy and Pots/Kettles

Humor
Fitness FAIL

Frogs
Jerry Coyne posts some photos of some adorable frogs he saw in South America. Here is a sample to entice you to surf to the whole set:

Cool Satellite Photos

Do you know what this is? Surf here to find out.

Do you know what this is? From how high up was this photo taken? Surf here to find out.

Pots and Kettles
The right wing pundits are yucking it up over this:

Right-wing media figures are flipping out that a U.N. official cited the Mayan goddess of reason while addressing delegates to a climate conference in Cancun, just down the road from Chichen Itza.

No. Really.

Monday, The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin reported:

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also “the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you — because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools.”

That’s it. That’s what happened. The ancient Mayan goddess of reason was invoked to encourage negotiators to tap both “reason and creativity” in developing a response to global warming.

And cue the right-wing giggle fest.

Headlining his ever-classy blog post “UN Delegates Start Off Junk Science Meeting With Prayer to Mayan Goddess,” Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft asked, “Didn’t global warming wipe out the Mayans the first time? So how exactly is Ixchel supposed to help out now?”

Really. How about this:

That’s right: using Bronze Age myths to drive policy is ok.

Mathematics
Say you are cutting a long piece of wood into 2 shorter pieces. It takes you 10 minutes. Now if you work at the same speed, how long does it take you to cut once piece of wood into 3 shorter pieces?

Easy answer, right? Well, it wasn’t easy for this teacher.

This has a nice side note: the guy who sent this to me (on facebook; actually he tagged me in a post) had some friends who commented on their math classes in high school. What a disaster. Basically someone who says “Math always made me feel stupid, and i know im not! ” is stupid. rThere was someone else who claimed that if a student did something in a non-standard way, it was up to the teacher to decipher what the student did. WRONG.

People love to attempt to use a savant or other exceptional talent to justify this assertion, but in fact people who write gibberish are, with probability 1 – 10^(-10), just plain stupid.

One reason mathematicians are called arrogant
This is a RESEARCH PAPER which claims a new method for “finding the area under a curve”. I think that is called “integration”. In short, our freshman homework problems are their research articles!

Bill Maher comes to Peoria
I went; here is part of the Journal Star review:

The host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” took the stage at the Civic Center Theater (15 minutes late) to find a cheering crowd at its feet, ready for him to tackle touchy subjects.

During the 90-minute show, he said things that could easily cause the heads of Bill O’Reilly followers to implode. But I doubt any of them were there. It was more like a coming out party for liberals. Maher sold more tickets than I thought he would; the theater was fairly well-packed.

The pundit started his show by scoffing at California Democrats for not doing enough to rally behind Proposition 19, a measure that would’ve legalized recreational marijuana in the state.

“The Democrats were put on this earth for one reason, which is to drag the ignorant hillbilly half of this country into the next century,” he said to enthusiastic applause.

That was a dig on Republicans, but the Democrats had their own rebukes coming.

“I learned a lot from the health care debate,” Maher said. “I learned that stupidity is a pre-existing condition. And I learned that the Democrats could not sell a Cub Scout to a pedophile.”

Maher made fun of the 10 percent of Pennsylvania voters who, in 2008, told pollsters they “weren’t ready” for a black president.

“We’re not racist, we’re just ‘not ready’ for a black president,” he mocked. “I’m too fragile right now. I’ll be in my trailer. I’ll tell you when I’m ready for a black president.”

Maher said he, actually, has been disappointed in Obama; he was ready for change.

Note: Maher called Sarah Palin a “cunt” (ok, I didn’t like that, though I think that she is anti-intellectual and her followers are mostly stupid) and made a remark about her mentally retarded son while attempting to slam her. That was a bit over the edge too. But overall I liked the performance.

5-6 December 2010 workout

Sunday: icy, snowy 5 mile hike with Lynn over the East Peoria trail. Note: we saw only a few people on the trail but most of them knew who I was.

Monday: leg weights:
squats (no Smith) 10 x 45, 10 x 135, 10 x 135, 5 x 175 (better depth)
leg press: 20 x 180, 20 x 270, 10 x 360
leg extensions: 3 sets of 10
leg curls: 3 sets of 10
toe: 3 sets of 30
push back (glute): 3 sets of 10
back: 3 sets of 20
leg lifts: 3 sets of 20
sit ups: 4 x 25
run: 18:45; 10:10, 8:35

6 December 2010 pm comment

Me: “Obama is not a fighter.” (after the news of the cave in came out)
Wife: “Do we need a fighter?”
Me: “I honestly don’t know”.

Fighting…well, it makes me feel good but the ultimate issue is the long term result. Yes, I think that smart Republicans are selfish greedy amoral bastards and the others are idiots. Ok, not really.

But my point is that the most optimal decision is not always available and sometimes the President has to compromise for the common good.

5 December 2010 (am)

Shoulder notes It felt better last night; I’ll probably have to keep the weights super light this week. Tomorrow: squats and treadmill run/walk.

Today: icy walk on the East Peoria trail with Lynn; 5 very slow miles. I saw people I knew out there; one nice spandex woman too.
I also did my new rotator cuff routine. It should do the trick in a few weeks.

Posts
On the tax cut fight; the Democrats really aren’t in as good of a position as some think. Nate Silver explains:

There are essentially three possible outcomes in the debate: first, that the tax cuts are extended for everyone; second, that they are extended for no one; and third, that they are extended only below some threshold, most likely $250,000 for couples (although alternatives like $500,000 and $1 million have been proposed).

The way in which Republicans would rank these outcomes is clear. Their first preference would be to extend the tax cuts for everyone. But presumably, when push comes to shove, they’d prefer to extend some of the tax cuts — on incomes below $250,000 — instead of ending all of them.

It’s a little bit more difficult to identify the preferences of Democrats, because there are more divisions within the party: between the president and Congress, between moderate Democrats and liberal ones, between Democrats who are electorally vulnerable and those who aren’t. It is safe to say, however, that on balance, the Democrats would prefer to extend the tax cuts only below the $250,000 threshold, and not above it. [...]

So, the theory goes, if Democrats would prefer extending the tax cuts for incomes below $250,000 to letting all of them expire, and so would Republicans — and so, for that matter, would the general public — then what, exactly, is the rub? Not that victories in Congress ever come easily, but shouldn’t this be a fight that the Democrats can win?

The problem with this theory is that it relies, implicitly, on the assumption that the Democrats can take the third option — extending the tax cuts for everyone — off the table. If the Democrats could do this, then they would be in a very strong position. But this is not so easy to do.

We know what the Democrats’ first preference is: extending the tax cuts below $250,000 only. But what is their second preference? If forced to make a choice, would they rather extend the tax cuts for everyone, or for no one?

Republicans, evidently, believe it is the former; this is why they unanimously voted against cloture in the Senate today. By taking the Democrats’ first choice off the table (extending some of the tax cuts), they figure, they can force them to vote for their second choice — extending all of the tax cuts, rather than letting all of them expire.

Suppose, instead, that the Democrats could credibly demonstrate that they’d prefer to let the tax cuts expire for everyone, rather than extending them for everyone. This would make their bargaining position stronger since that is what will happen in the status quo if no action at all is taken.

But Democrats are likely to have trouble convincing the Republicans of this, for at least four reasons.

Yep, the impending doom over this troubled people like me.

We saw it coming. The President is very process and outcome oriented and not one to make a “principled stand”; that might carry some political peril.

But some of that comes from, well, his make up. If you look at the President’s life, he started by turning down big money to help the less fortunate. And he isn’t willing to sacrifice the most vulnerable to make a stand hence his cave in.

I hope that the House rebels. I like the President and I respect him. But on this issue, I have to say that I do NOT support this…though if we get not only unemployment benefits but also a Congressional repeal of DADT and ratification of the SALT treaty I’ll call this session a success….albeit with one important failure.

My fellow liberals all over the place here; some call the President “stupid” and others back him (in general…as I do).

More on the economy: Paul Krugman explains why social security cuts would be devastating to those who need it the most.

Will the Real Oregon Duck Football Team Suit up?

Ok, like many college football fans, I am excited about the impending Oregon-Auburn match up. True, I have a soft spot for TCU and will enjoy the Rose Bowl as well. But in all honesty, the Ducks vs. the Tigers really does match up the best two teams in college football.

But, my real question is: what will Oregon wear? Here are photos from all of their games; from these photos can you count the possible number of helmet-jersey-pants combinations?

In all honesty, I like their throwback uniforms the best (which they haven’t worn this season)

Let’s see: not counting their throwbacks, over the past two seasons they’ve worn white, black, green, yellow and gray helmets, pants and and white, yellow, black or green jerseys. So that is 5*4*5 = 100 different uniform combinations.

Why Didn’t I think of this?

Yes, I have a few published papers and a few original theorems. Yes, they are minor ones.
But for a fee, a company that churns out automatic theorems will attach your name to one.

Hey, it isn’t as if L’Hopital proved the rule that goes by his name.