14 June 2011 (am)

Workout notes yoga in the morning followed by a 6.4 mile walk (10.4 km) (1:29:56)

I did a few “less slow” segments and focused on posture. It was drizzling and in the low 60′s F.

Note: I have some tingles in the calf/foot/side of the leg, but no sharp pain. I’ll just have to keep stretching this area as well as my back.

Posture: I am going to have to focus on this intensely.

Wildlife: in addition to the usual rabbits and squirrels, I saw a large raccoon on Cooper st. It walked away from me warily but appeared to be injured or ill; it’s back was arched.

Last night’s debate
One of the things that I had forgotten about was this: this is super early in the election cycle; hence the average voter has yet to pay attention. Hence the candidates were really focused on appealing to those who can write big campaign checks and those who have lots of friends who can write big campaign checks; hence the appeals to “get the government off of our backs”, “low taxes”, blah, blah, blah.

The people that they were talking to have money and aren’t worried about health insurance!

Nate Silver explains this well. He also says a couple of other things:

That is not to say that Ms. Palin will necessarily engage in such a careful analysis when she decides whether to run for president. But it’s possible that she’s missed her moment — whether or not she decides to run. Rather than being a proxy for Ms. Palin, Ms. Bachmann may instead be preferred to her in the eyes of Republican voters.

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Besides Ms. Palin, the other candidate whose decision will have the most influence on the race is Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Mr. Perry — although he has some vulnerabilities — could potentially fulfill William F. Buckley’s commandment to Republicans: nominate the most conservative candidate who is electable.

I agree with Mr. Silver about Palin. But I disagree about Gov. Perry. For one, Gov. Perry has made too much secessionist noise.

Besides, his “Texas miracle” is a big sham and this is coming to light.
For one thing: states can always compete with each other as far as racing to the bottom; that is, a state can tell a business: “open up here; we have no environmental laws and we won’t tax you and you can fire workers whenever you like”. Hence national jobs don’t increase; they merely get shifted.

The other thing is that Texas is now paying the piper, so to speak:

So, to recap: Texas schools are in crisis, but the government’s response to a budget shortfall is to cut funding for education even further. It doesn’t take someone with good math SAT scores to figure out what’s going to happen next.

Once upon a time Texas prided itself on what it called the “Texas Miracle.” The state initially didn’t get hit as hard by the recession as other parts of the county, a fact that legislators claimed was due to its low-regulation, low-tax, business-friendly culture. During Rick Perry’s re-election campaign last year, the governor boasted that the state had “billions in surplus.” Less than two months later, however, the news of a gaping deficit made the miracle look a bit less wondrous, as Paul Krugman was quick to observe:

But reality has now intruded, in the form of a deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years.

And that reality has implications for the nation as a whole. For Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting — the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending — has been implemented most completely. If the theory can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere.

Krugman is not exaggerating. Texas ranks 49th out of all 50 states in per capita state tax burden. There is no fat left to cut. When revenue collapses because of an economic downturn, what little social services remain must be gutted. And it’s only going to get worse, because Texas’ population is growing, and the demands for services will continue to rise.

Debate Spin
The DNC made an interesting video of the debate:

In all honesty, they caught the candidates answering the questions that was asked of them. Mr. Cain was answering the “are you uncomfortable with Muslims” question, Mr. Romeny was answering the “are you going to repeal Obamacare” question, Mr. Gingrich was answering the “space program” question (his answer is that private enterprise would have advanced us further than NASA did) and Mr. Pawlenty was asked about the “gay marriage” situation (“how would you handle the fact that some states have made it legal”).

Still, it was a hard hitting, if a bit misleading, ad.