17 February 2011 (pm)

Workout II 4 x 25 sit ups, rotator cuff (shoulders felt great afterward), 5 mile treadmill walk. 14:20 first mile; then did some 600 m at 12 min/mile, 200 at 14:20 then a 11:50 mile, then some more 600 on, 200 off, 800 on. Total: 5 miles in 13:55.

Then more stretching.

Note to the ladies: if I am laying down to stretch and you walk right over my head (not stepping on me), I will check you out as you pass over my face. Really.

Posts
Republicans: are they really as crazy as they appear? Some are and:

An interesting exchange between John Quiggin and Jonathan Chait on right-wing agnotology — that is, culturally-induced ignorance or doubt. The specific issue is birtherism, the claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya or anyway not in America, which polls indicate is a view held by a majority of Republican primary voters.

Quiggin suggests that right-wingers aren’t really birthers in their hearts; it’s just that affirming birtherism is a sort of badge of belonging, a shibboleth in the original biblical sense. Chait counters that much of the modern right lives in a mental universe in which liberal elites hide the truth, and in which they, through their access to Fox News etc., know things the brainwashed masses don’t.

My view is that Quiggin is right as far as right-wing politicians are concerned: for the most part they know that Obama was born here, that he isn’t a socialist,that there are no death panels, and so on, but feel compelled to pretend to be crazy as a career move. But I think Chait has it right on the broader movement.

Budget stuff The Republicans will not compromise; it isn’t in their political interests to do so. Dick Morris writes:

So what happens if the cuts proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) prove unacceptable to the Senate and the president? What if there is no compromise? What if nobody gives in?

A budget deadlock, played out over months, will doom Obama and assure his defeat. But an easily won compromise will help him get re-elected.

The central question in Obama’s bid for a second term is: Will the issues that doomed his party in 2010 still be the key questions in 2012? If they are, we already know how the election will come out. If they are not, Obama can win.

When the president says he does not “want to re-fight the battles of the past two years,” he means that he embraces this reality. He doesn’t want Obamacare, high spending, huge deficits, cap and trade, card check and the like to be the items in discussion in the 2012 election.

But he has failed to put forward a compelling agenda for the next two years. That was the essential defect of his State of the Union speech — nobody is going to storm any barricades for high-speed rail and more R&D spending.

If the Republicans hold firm in demanding huge spending cuts and Obama does not give in, the question of whether or not to cut spending will dominate the nation’s political discourse for months on end and will spill over into the 2012 election.

To assure that it will, the Republicans should hold firm to their budget spending cuts without surrender or compromise. If necessary, it is OK to vote a few very short-term continuing resolutions to keep the government open for a few weeks at a time, always keeping on the pressure.

When the debt limit vote comes up, they should refuse to allow an increase without huge cuts in spending. If the debt-limit deadline passes, they should force the administration to scramble to cobble together enough money to operate for weeks at a time.

If Obama offers a half a loaf, the GOP should spurn it for weeks and months. Then, rather than actually shut down the government, let them accept some variant of their proposed cuts but only give in return a few more weeks’ time, at which point the issue will be re-litigated. Don’t go for Armageddon — just keep fighting the battle.

Can it be any clearer?

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