Mr. Romney: Two can play that game

Mitt Romney launched a blatantly dishonest attack at President Obama (“if we continue to talk about the economy, we lose”).

So two can play at that game:

(yes, all of these Romney quotes are cherry picked out of context)

Question for Mr. Romney: how does your economic plan differ from President Bush’s plan?

Republicans declare that Pepper Spray is a vegtable

Really? Via Paul Krugman:

Republicans Declare Pepper Spray A Vegetable

Ok, this is satire….well, sort of:

Hey, we drink water, so Ms. Kelly would be cool with being waterboarded?

How much should we tax the rich?

This is a fair question; I suppose the answer depends on what we want to do: optimize revenues or some other reason.
Of course there is a balance: tax them too much and they either leave or don’t invest further. Don’t tax them enough: well, you get what we have now.

But I acknowledge that the answer is complicated; I do know that the economy was better off under Clinton rates than under Bush rates.

Paul Krugman discusses this:

In the first part of the paper, D&S analyze the optimal tax rate on top earners. And they argue that this should be the rate that maximizes the revenue collected from these top earners — full stop. Why? Because if you’re trying to maximize any sort of aggregate welfare measure, it’s clear that a marginal dollar of income makes very little difference to the welfare of the wealthy, as compared with the difference it makes to the welfare of the poor and middle class. So to a first approximation policy should soak the rich for the maximum amount — not out of envy or a desire to punish, but simply to raise as much money as possible for other purposes.

And the answer is:

Using parameters based on the literature, D&S suggest that the optimal tax rate on the highest earners is in the vicinity of 70%.

Krugman anticipates some of the responses:

I hear the following arguments:

1. Theft! Tyranny! OK, I hear you. This can’t be argued on rational grounds; I think there are a lot more important moral issues in the world than defending the right of the rich to keep their money, but whatever.

2. They’ll go Galt! This amounts to saying that D&S’s estimate of the “behavioral elasticity” is too low. Maybe, but they’re pretty careful about that, and your gut isn’t better than their econometrics.

(emphasis mine).

I love Paul Krugman; he doesn’t put up with their BS. The polyester pants set detests him.

Speaking of right wingers, check out this Fox News clip:

Is it a wonder that much of the rank and file Republican base is populated by delusional people?

Doing the Right Thing….

Every Thanksgiving, my wife invites her brother’s adopted son to spend Thanksgiving in our home (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and part of Saturday). The young man is mentally retarded and lives in a group home; her brother is, well, has a ton of health problems and is near indigent and can’t receive the boy.

Sure, we see the ads of the smiling mentally retarded people getting hugs, etc. And yes, there are some who talk about all of the “love that they bring”, etc.

But the truth is: they aren’t easy to be around, and many, if they are honest, don’t like them. I don’t either.
No, they aren’t evil people or anything like that.

And it is easy to hide behind “oh, there are some who love these people; let THEM entertain them”. But the fact is that my wife is doing the right thing, even though it isn’t easy for her.

So the least I can do is to “man up” and do the right thing too and to be supportive of my wife and be a good host.
Hiding behind “oh, it is hard for me but easier for others” is weak and lame.

Besides, I have a race this Saturday (4 miles) and tickets for an NFL game this Sunday. THAT is worth looking forward to!

Fast Neutrinos and Slow Ollie

Workout notes
Cold and drizzly so I went inside; I ran, did some leg weights and stretched for 10 minutes.
Weights: 3 sets of leg presses (20 x 180, 20 x 180, 10 x 270, with toe raises; squats: 10 x 45, 10 x 135, 10 x 135 Smith Machine, 1 set of lunges)

The run came first:
10:15 mile on the treadmill.
Then on the track (200 meters) 2 laps harder, 1 lap easier: 9:05, 8:51, 8:45, 0:59 for 27:42 for 5K (26:42 for 3 miles). This was better than last week and two weeks ago. I walked a recovery lap.

Then I went back to the treadmill for 2 more miles; this time I started at at 10:20 pace but kept raising the incline until it was at 4 and stayed there for 3 minutes; then I dropped it to 3 and then 2 (2 minutes each) and then kept it at 1 the rest of the way; total time was about 20:22 but it wasn’t easy with the incline.

Then came the weight and stretch session.

Fast Neutrinos
the “faster than light” neutrinos did NOT exhibit the type of radiation that they were expected to exhibit. So, where was the error? If nothing else, we learned something from all of this.

Protesting and Police

Oh no…they will be arrested by….

(larger shot at Girls in Yoga Pants)

I never got involved in these sort of activities when I was young..and now I am too old.

Mika Brzezinski’s Anti-Newt Rant Drives Her To Emotional Brink | MRCTV

She can’t believe that he resonates? She doesn’t know Republicans very well.

Mika Brzezinski’s Anti-Newt Rant Drives Her To …, posted with vodpod

Football and Vacuuming

Workout notes
Weights: same old, though I did a set of seated dumbbell presses with no support (6 x 40) and a standing one (10 x 40) as well as my usual 15 x 40 (supported). I had 2 sets of 9 x 125 on the incline, 10 x 135, 4 x 170, 4 x 170, 9 x 155 on the bench, 50 lb. on the pulley curl, and 6 x 160 on the lat pull down.

Swim: 5 x (25 long, 25 fist, 50 free), 10 x (25 free, 25 back) on the 1:10-1:05, then 4 x 250 (pull, free, pull, free), 200 side.

Football
While I share disgust with the Penn State pedophile scandal, when it comes to the other dark sides of football, too many harken back to an era that, well, didn’t exist. Guess what? Coaches had their players play while injured ALL of the time; look up the story of Frank Leahy telling a player with a broken nose: “well, nothing more can happen to it then. Get back in there and do some blocking”. You might look up Bear Bryant’s infamous Texas A&M practices where the players were denied things like water.

But the article did point me toward this excellent New York Times article by all pro defensive lineman Kris Jenkins. I can recommend it.

College football: The Big Ten and the SEC are very different; the Big Ten is content to be a strong but regional conference. Positioning for a national championship is secondary.

Spandex/Big Butts
Hey, these are just moms running the vacuum cleaner…while wearing spandex.
Ok, a couple of these are car vacuum cleaners…

My conclusion: these moms want to have more kids.

Irrational Conservatives, Irrational Liberals and Karma

There have been some interesting reading going around the internet lately.

The first two readings come from New York Magazine

David Frum talks about how insane conservatives have become in terms of insisting on ridiculous ideas.

On the other hand, Jonathan Chait notes that liberal insanity comes from the expectations that too many liberals have of Democratic presidents.

I am sorry to say that I think that Mr. Chait is right on. Here is what many liberals don’t see (or don’t want to see): yes, it is true that many liberal ideas (e. g. public option for health insurance) are popular with a majority of Americans. But that really doesn’t mean anything; people in Congress (Representatives and Senators) actually do a decent job of voting the way that their constituents want them to vote. We (my friends and I) might not like John Boehner or Eric Cantor, but these people accurately represent their constituents. The sad fact is that our “representative” system gives people who live in sparsely populated, mostly conservative areas disproportionate power; remember that Wyoming, Idaho and North Dakota have the same number of Senators as Illinois, California and New York.

Bottom line: I don’t like the way that Republicans in Congress vote, but for the most part they represent people that think very differently than I do. I might not like those people; I might think of them as ignorant, selfish and stupid (and they probably think even worse of me), but they are entitled to vote for who they want to vote for.

Personally, I’d love it if we would just split this country into two countries and let the wingnuts have their know-nothing theocracy.
And yes, if Rick Perry PROMISED to lead such a secession, I’d vote for him.

But all isn’t lost; sometimes douche bags get bitten by their “douche-baggery”. Example: there was a law firm that handled foreclosures. The decided to have a “dress up” Halloween party at work, and some of their employees (many) thought it would be great fun to mock those made homeless by the mortgage crisis and bad housing market.

Well, those photos got out and they are no longer laughing:

Steven J. Baum P.C., a firm that specialized in foreclosures, is closing its doors a month after photos showing employees celebrating Halloween by dressing like the homeless surfaced in a New York Times column by Joe Nocera. Nocera wrote a follow up column this weekend, in which he quoted an angry email he received from Mr. Baum himself. The firm announced the shuttering via press release and was reported by the NYT:

“Disrupting the livelihoods of so many dedicated and hardworking people is extremely painful, but the loss of so much business left us no choice but to file these notices,” said Mr. Baum in a press release issued on Monday. A firm spokesman said it would have no further comment beyond the release…

On Saturday, Joe Nocera, The Times columnist who originally wrote about the firm’s Halloween party, published another column about the controversy. In it, he quoted an e-mail that Mr. Baum had sent him last week.

“Mr. Nocera — You have destroyed everything and everyone related to Steven J. Baum PC,” said the letter. “It took 40 years to build this firm and three weeks to tear down.”

“I think that’s what they call shooting the messenger,” Mr. Nocera said.

Uh, no Mr. Nocera. You brought it on yourself; no one to told you to get your jollies at the expense of the less fortunate.
Funny how these a-holes are all for accountability until THEY are the ones that screw up and face the consequences.

Economy
If you are a Republican and you don’t like the actual facts, you make them up. Yes, that might fool the insipid polyester pants set:

Greg Sargent sends us to Paul Ryan’s latest — an attempt to debunk the CBO report on income inequality. As usual, Ryan makes me think of Ezra Klein’s old line about Dick Armey: he’s a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.

Greg gives us a thorough takedown by Tim Smeeding, who really really knows his inequality stuff. I’d just add that Ryan repeats the familiar line about how we have vast income mobility, so that the picture given by static inequality comparisons is misleading.

But as I’ve pointed out, the CBO report itself takes that argument on and refutes it. Multi-year measures of inequality, it turns out, aren’t much lower than single-year measures. How is that possible, when many people change income quintiles? Because they’re usually moving short distances on the income scale.

It is how you slice and dice it. Example: suppose you declare that morbid obesity for a 6 foot male starts at, say 300 pounds. Well, you might have lots of movement of people into and out of the “morbidly obese” range…but most of that is, say, 305 to 297 and back. One can slice the data to make it appear that one is moving in and out of a category.

Gosh, I love Paul Krugman. I love how he refers to Newt Gingrich:

Or Maybe Jabba The Hutt

Mr. Gingrich (who has a Ph. D., in History from Tulane) is also good at “wowing” the Newsmax crowd.

But I am saving the Best for last: President Obama just OWNED the Republicans. Remember that Super Committee that was part of a deal that many of us howled about? Well some said “not so fast”; part of the deal was this super committee which, if it failed, would trigger some massive defense cuts? Well:

Okay, remember when Democrats and progressives during the debt ceiling showdown last summer were bitching that President Barack Obama was triangulating and wimping out by negotiating (and yielding much) with the tea-party-controlled Republicans? Well, that was then. In the latest twist of this never-ending saga, Obama is both calling out the Republicans and holding what appears to be a position of strength. That may all shift suddenly. This is politics. But Obama’s Democratic fans should savor the moment.[...]

This is the direct approach: Were it not for the extremists of the House Republican conference, there would be a multitrillion-dollar deficit-reduction compromise. This spin has the benefit of being true. Obama, don’t forget, put major entitlement reductions on the table during the debt ceiling negotiations, notably a slight hike in the eligibility age for Medicare and a readjustment in the cost-of-living allowance for Social Security. It’s unclear whether the Democrats would have, at the end of the day, backed him up on this had Speaker John Boehner kicked in sufficient revenue increases to seal the deal. But Obama was at the time leaning on his party’s congressional leaders to support such a compromise—and there were signs he might win them over. Boehner did no such thing with his party. Instead, he walked away from the so-called grand bargain—twice. So when the punditerati push the easy pox-on-both-houses analysis, they’re forgetting this recent history. But Obama, to his credit, is not.

In short, the Republicans threw away getting much of what they wanted because…well, they wanted it ALL.

The Evidence for the Invisible Man: not Convincing to young people (or to me)

Ok, this is heartbreaking to me because I love frogs and toads. But this is nature; sorry but I fail to see evidence for intelligent design here. I see the result of a blind, heartless process.

Or

It is no secret that young people are not flocking to the church:

And the Barna group carried out a five-year project to determine why so many young people are leaving Christian churces. The preceding link gives the results:

Overall, the research uncovered six significant themes why nearly three out of every five young Christians (59%) disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15.

Five of the reasons involve the church being overprotective, affording young people only a “shallow” Christian experience, being too simplistic and judgmental in sexual matters, being intolerant of other faiths, and being unfriendly to doubters. These are all good reasons to abandon faith completely, and bode well for secularism. But the most interesting reason is this one:

Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science.
One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity and science. The most common of the perceptions in this arena is “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” (35%). Three out of ten young adults with a Christian background feel that “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%). Another one-quarter embrace the perception that “Christianity is anti-science” (25%). And nearly the same proportion (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.” Furthermore, the research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.

Frankly, that is fact: when religion speaks on “truth” as in “things are this way for this reason”: they are flat out wrong. Religion can be useful to some for private reasons (inspiration, solace) and, as my wife likes to say, “it is one of the few places where you are challenged to live a better life”. But the “theology” behind the comforting, inspiring (to some) myths is just plain wrong.

Of course, this generational divide is lamented in some quarters (note: this article is mostly about the political divide):

Today, the split between young Americans, their parents and grandparents is as glaring as the difference between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. It extends to their votes but has its roots in racial, economic, religious and demographic differences.[...]

The differences at this year’s Thanksgiving tables will be obvious from the start. According to a recent Gallup poll, older Americans are much more likely than younger folks to say a prayer to begin their Thanksgiving dinner.

The poll found 73 percent of Republicans saying religion is important to their daily lives. That’s much higher than the 59 percent of Democrats who make the same claim. Similarly, 40 percent of Republicans say they go to church once a week, compared to only 27 percent of Democrats.

Now what about that power of “god”? Well…Jerry Coyne shares a cartoon with us: