For Your Further Enlightenment XX

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• David Frum, CNN: "Wake up GOP: Smashing system doesn't fix it"
• The Onion: "Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington"
• Think Progress: "GOP Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson: Muslims Are As Qualified For Presidential Appointments As Anyone Else"
• Slate: "A Primer on the Debt-Ceiling Crisis: A compilation of helpful stories, charts, and live blogs that will help you keep up with the debt-ceiling debate."
• William Saletan, Slate: "Christian Terrorism: If Muslims are responsible for Islamic terrorism, are Muslim-bashers responsible for the massacre in Norway?"
• Associated Press: "'Christian terrorist'? Norway case strikes debate"
• Think Progress: "Meet The Wells Family: The Funders Behind The FAMiLY LEADER’s Bob Vander Plaats"
• James Fallows, The Atlantic: "The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling"
• NPR: "Dos: Veteran Punks With A Low-End Theory"
• Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic: "Grover Norquist's Pledge Is a Colossal Failure"
• Bruce Bartlett, The Fiscal Times: "Barack Obama: The Democrats’ Richard Nixon?"
• Dana Milbank, The Washington Post: "The New Party of Reagan"
• Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast: "Give the People What They Want: Higher Taxes"
• Discover: "A Storm Wraps Around Saturn"
• Kenneth C. Davis, CNN: "Why U.S. is not a Christian nation"
• Associated Press: "NY motorcyclist dies on ride protesting helmet law: Troopers say man would have likely survived if he had been wearing a helmet"
• Annie Lowrey, Slate: "Do Tax Cuts Ever Increase Government Revenues? Three historical examples of tax cuts paying for themselves, and how they undercut the GOP claim that tax cuts always do that."
• Brian Merchant, Slate: "How To Spark a Right-Wing Frenzy: My one-minute YouTube clip of Al Gore was a conservative-media sensation. Here's why I took it down."
• Think Progress: "Shame Of America: Desperate Man Robs Store For One Dollar In Order To Go To Jail To Get Health Coverage"
• Dahlia Lithwick, Slate: "Too Gay To Judge? The preposterous, appalling effort to disqualify Vaughn Walker from judging the California gay marriage case because he is gay."
• The Lookout: "Workers’ share of national income plummets to record low"

Maybe it's time to switch to decaf

Incredulously, the gentleman from Florida, who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries. Unbelievable from a member from South Florida. It slashes Medicaid and critical investments essential to winning the future in favor of protecting tax breaks for Big Oil, millionaires, and companies who ship American jobs overseas." —Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional ,and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up. Focus on your own congressional district! I am bringing your actions today to our Majority Leader and Majority Whip and from this time forward, understand that I shall defend myself forthright against your heinous characterless behavior……which dates back to the disgusting protest you ordered at my campaign hqs, October 2010 in Deerfield Beach. You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me! —Rep. Allen West

Waterloo Part 2

Republicans slit their own throats. Again.

I borrowed the following column from Forbes. I hope no one objects.

GOP Passes Up Generational Conservative Victory In Order To Protect The Wealthy

Jul. 10 2011 - 5:48 pm

By Rick Ungar

Oh, the irony.

After generations of conservative dogma based solidly in the belief that fundamental changes to America’s entitlement programs are essential to the economic survival and betterment of the nation, that goal is now, finally, within the reach of the true believers.

Yet, remarkably, this dramatic change in national direction is being permitted to slip right through conservative fingers by the very people whom those ensconced on the right should be counting upon to bring home this great philosophical victory.

The fulfillment of the conservative dream is not vanishing from sight because Nancy Pelosi and the forces of progressivism are prepared to defend entitlements to the death. Nor is it happening because the President of the United States has counted up the votes and decided that messing with entitlements will cost him re-election.

It is not even the result of “bleeding hearts” like me rising nobly in defense of the needy and downtrodden.

Significant entitlement reform, long the goal of the fathers of modern day conservatism, is being flushed down the drain by the very Republican Party that has long battled to bring that goal to reality.

Somewhere in Connecticut, William F. Buckley Jr. is turning over in his grave.

On Saturday, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced that the ‘grand bargain’ – rumored to bring $4 trillion in debt reduction over the next ten years through a mixture of entitlement reform, defense cuts and a measure of revenue increases resulting from cleaning up the tax code to get rid of some of the corporate entitlement programs that result in lower taxes and higher subsidies – is now off the table.

Apparently, Boehner could not sell the GOP Congressional Caucus on a deal that involved anything in the way of revenue increases- not even in exchange for accomplishing reforms for which his party has fought since the days of FDR and his “New Deal”.

True conservatives should not blame Boehner for this heresy as it appears that he is no happier with the position he is being forced to take than the President is with his proposal being rejected by House Republicans who don’t grasp the whole compromise thing.

What Boehner likely understands – better than those who he is supposed to be leading – is that the GOP is permitting the fundamental change, long at the heart of the conservative cause, to vanish into thin air and that it is happening in the name of protecting corporate subsidies that are the very antitheses of a free market economy – another of the inviolate tenets of conservative policy.

Subsidies that provide government incentives to industry are as anti-free market as government subsidies and controls that conservatives argue have skewed the costs of health care in America and led to our current crisis.

According to American conservative scripture, a truly free market requires that players compete on level ground – not with the edge that comes from government handouts and special tax breaks, whether they be for the benefit of a corporation or an individual.

Thus, the GOP is rejecting the opportunity to accomplish a landmark, philosophical milestone by protecting a policy that is, in and of itself, a violation of that same conservative philosophy.

Is the irony of this enough to make even the most ardent conservative believer question what in the world is going on here?

It certainly should be.

Could the explanation for this odd behavior be that the Congressional Republican Caucus has decided to turn its back on what is supposed to be their most fundamental beliefs because their constituents are demanding that they do so?

Apparently not.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the GOP Caucus does not appear to have any interest whatsoever in listening to its base.

“Two-thirds (67 percent) approve of making more of high earners’ income subject to Social Security tax, and nearly as many approve of raising taxes on incomes of over $250,000 (66 percent), reducing military commitments overseas (65 percent) and limiting tax deductions for large corporations (62 percent),” the Pew Research Center reported last month.

“Notably,” Pew found, “Republicans are as likely as Democrats to approve of limiting corporate tax deductions.”

Still, any kind of tax increases – whether it be a greater tax bite on the wealthy or on corporations seen as “job creators” – is off the table as far as large numbers of Republican House members are concerned.

Via the Christian Science Monitor

So, the GOP rejection of the debt deal is neither based in the free market philosophy nor the fundamental belief in entitlement reform. It is also not based on meeting their obligations to their constituents.

So, what is driving their rather remarkable position?

It must be jobs and the economy.

Surely, the Republicans in Congress are convinced that removing tax subsidies to the oil industry and cleaning up the tax code to get rid of corporate welfare that is no longer of any discernable value to the nation will make what is already a very bad jobs situation even worse.

Except that it turns out that you have to search long and wide to find an economist who supports this notion.

The other argument that advocates of tax cuts for the rich make is that many small-business owners would be see their taxes go up and thus would be discouraged from hiring workers. The facts do not support this. “Only 3 percent of small-business owners are in the top bracket,” notes Roberton Williams, a senior fellow with the Tax Policy Center, which is sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. And, he adds, “They are not all what we think of as job-creating small businesses. A lot of them are hedge-fund managers and law-firm partners.” So other than perhaps a few restaurateurs on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the workforce is unlikely to be affected.

Via Newsweek

So, while Eric Cantor continues to try and sell his base on this argument, it’s pretty hard to find anyone who knows anything about economics who actually is buying the pitch.

If it’s not philosophical dogma or fulfilling their obligation to those who elected them and it’s not the economy and/or jobs, what exactly is their problem?

I don’t know about you, but I can only think of one other explanation – fealty to the wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals who keep your Republican leadership rolling in the campaign cash so they can remain in their powerful jobs.

Now, if you believe this is a good enough reason to risk the financial stability of the nation – and possibly the world – then it’s all good.

Personally, I’m a little concerned.

I fear we are witnessing one of the most perverse and dangerous games our leaders have ever embarked upon. I’m stunned by the sheer audacity of these elected officials so ready to play chicken with the financial lives of so many simply to benefit a very few.

But what really amazes are the millions of middle class Americans who continue to believe that these officials are somehow acting in their best interest.

As curious as I am to see what will ultimately come of this game, my curiosity is far more piqued by the possibility that these middle class Americans might finally understand that the Republicans they sent to Congress work for the big corporations and care little for their needs and problems.

Should that light bulb (incandescent or otherwise) finally turn on, these folks should be assured that nobody is expecting them to run into the waiting arms of the Democratic Party. They can still quietly send their Congressional representatives a message indicating that they would prefer not to be abandoned so that Exxon might keep the government checks flowing in while maintaining their standing as upright, committed conservatives.

If these folks could – just this once – grasp what is being done in their name and communicate their rejection of the behavior of their leaders, the rest of us would genuinely appreciate it.

A true conservative should be as disgusted with what the Congressional Republican Caucus is doing as the rest of us and probably a great deal more so.

Source: http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/07/10/gop-pass-up-generational-conservative-victory-to-protect-the-wealthy/

David Brooks: the voice of sanity

Here's an excellent column from New York Times columnist David Brooks. If only more Republican politicians thought like Brooks does.

The Mother of All No-Brainers

By David Brooks

Published: July 4, 2011

The Republicans have changed American politics since they took control of the House of Representatives. They have put spending restraint and debt reduction at the top of the national agenda. They have sparked a discussion on entitlement reform. They have turned a bill to raise the debt limit into an opportunity to put the U.S. on a stable fiscal course.

Republican leaders have also proved to be effective negotiators. They have been tough and inflexible and forced the Democrats to come to them. The Democrats have agreed to tie budget cuts to the debt ceiling bill. They have agreed not to raise tax rates. They have agreed to a roughly 3-to-1 rate of spending cuts to revenue increases, an astonishing concession.

Moreover, many important Democrats are open to a truly large budget deal. President Obama has a strong incentive to reach a deal so he can campaign in 2012 as a moderate. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has talked about supporting a debt reduction measure of $3 trillion or even $4 trillion if the Republicans meet him part way. There are Democrats in the White House and elsewhere who would be willing to accept Medicare cuts if the Republicans would be willing to increase revenues.

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred billion dollars of revenue increases.

A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.

The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.

This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.

The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.

The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.

The members of this movement have no economic theory worthy of the name. Economists have identified many factors that contribute to economic growth, ranging from the productivity of the work force to the share of private savings that is available for private investment. Tax levels matter, but they are far from the only or even the most important factor.

But to members of this movement, tax levels are everything. Members of this tendency have taken a small piece of economic policy and turned it into a sacred fixation. They are willing to cut education and research to preserve tax expenditures. Manufacturing employment is cratering even as output rises, but members of this movement somehow believe such problems can be addressed so long as they continue to worship their idol.

Over the past week, Democrats have stopped making concessions. They are coming to the conclusion that if the Republicans are fanatics then they better be fanatics, too.

The struggles of the next few weeks are about what sort of party the G.O.P. is — a normal conservative party or an odd protest movement that has separated itself from normal governance, the normal rules of evidence and the ancient habits of our nation.

If the debt ceiling talks fail, independent voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.

And they will be right.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/opinion/05brooks.html

Bon appétit

From "The Delusion of Indispensability" by Christopher Badeaux (links added by Φ):

The problem is not merely the corruption of power. It is the flip side of the coin — the delusion of indispensability, a delusion brought a politician’s inner circle, by the legions of his fans (brought closer by today’s mass, instant communication streams), and, frankly, every fawning article in the nominally independent press reinforcing that image. A brave man will stand in the face of the worst storm if he perceives he is needed on the battlements. This, I suspect, is why Anthony Weiner continued for as long as he did. . . . 

As an aside, I suspect this is why President Obama — whose approval rating is trailing, and whose every domestic initiative has either been an expensive failure or an expensively unpopular ratings-killer — is seeking re-election. His fans basically called him the Messiah, and he did nothing to dispel that perception. When he came into office in 2009, he let everyone know that he believed we were essentially in another depression, and when his adoring fans in the press told him he could fix it, you know he cried in his head, Yes we can! His utter failure to accomplish anything is actually totally irrelevant to his self-perception, and that is why he is out now re-enacting Al Gore’s successful 2000 campaign. 

Is the president's approval rating trailing? Well, according to Gallup, it's at 46%, which is up from a low of 41%, and better than the approval ratings of Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter at the same point of their administrations.

Usually when Republicans talk about the president's expensive, job-killing domestic initiatives, they're talking about health care reform. According to Politifact, the law is not job-killing, it does not "[crush] small businesses 'with billions in penalties,'" and it is not "the biggest tax increase ever in the history of our country." Politifact rated Paul Ryan's claim that the health care law "is accelerating our country toward bankruptcy" as barely true:

Almost every expert from every side on the health care law would agree that there's a lot of uncertainty involved in projecting its budget impact. Looking strictly at the CBO's analysis of the budget effect of the health care law, it is a deficit-reducer, both in the short and long term. But Ryan points to several legitimate concerns about the assumptions made by the CBO -- particularly whether reduced Medicare payments are sustainable -- assumptions that even the CBO and Medicare's chief actuary noted may be suspect. The fate of those cuts may largely determine whether the new health care law ends up in the red or black. For now, though, those cuts are law. Congress would have to act to reduce or eliminate them. So Ryan is overplaying his hand when he claims the law is "accelerating our country toward bankruptcy." We rate his claim Barely True.

Last year, Mike Pence claimed that the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill will kill jobs. Politifact also rated that statement as barely true:

Ultimately, even the supporters of the bill we spoke to acknowledged that some jobs will likely be lost, or never created, due to passage of Dodd-Frank. However, many of the experts we spoke to agreed that not passing the bill would put even more jobs in the greater economy at risk, not to mention countless nest-eggs, homes and other non-job-related concerns. Would potential job savings offset job costs? Unfortunately, there is no way to know. Still, Pence's comment ignores the principle that preventing financial shocks is job-saving. On balance, we rate the statement Barely True. 

Badeaux claims that every domestic initiative has been an expensive failure. Just one counterexample is enough to prove that he's wrong.

Did the president claim that we were in another depression in 2009? Well, in December of 2008, he said of the economic crisis, "as tough as times are right now, they're nothing compared to what my grandparents went through, what the greatest generation went through." He did say that "when you think about the structural problems that we already had in the economy before the financial crisis, this is a big problem and it's going to get worse." Well, what the hell do you expect him to say? Should he have declared the economy is fundamentally sound, as his opponent did? Besides, even if we were not in a depression, it was the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It was very very bad. Perhaps Badeaux doens't remember or simply didn't notice.

Has the president failed to accomplish anything? As the links above show, the president has accomplished much. So Badeaux's ridiculous claim is obviously false.

What I think happens to people like Badeaux is that they repeat their politically motivated bullshit so frequently, to others and to themselves, that they begin to believe it. They assert it freely in their own echo chambers where it goes unchallenged. It is eventually accepted as the gospel truth as a consequence. Bullshitters have no regard for the truth or falsity of their claims anyway, since the whole point of making claims for them is to achieve this or that goal; the truth or falsity of the claims is irrelevant.

Sadly, in the case of Badeaux, we have a man who is not only shoveling the bullshit, but is also gobbling it up.

Bon appétit!

It takes one to know one

This morning, little Moe Lane is as delighted as a school boy that Mark Halperin called President Obama "kind of a dick."

First of all, it takes one to know one, Moe. And secondly, the president was not being a dick; you're being a dick, Moe.

Moe Lane's approach to blogging involves a now-familiar combination of assholery and asshattery.

In "Obama’s class warfare… against Obama’s stimulus program," Lane attributes the following statement to President Obama: "I've said to Republican leaders, 'You go talk to your constituents and ask them, "Are you willing to compromise your kids' safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?"''' Obama uttered these words during his press conference yesterday. (But in what context? More on that later.) Lane's source, NationalJournal.com, argued that Obama is engaging in class warfare:

If President Obama's news conference accomplished anything on Wednesday afternoon, it underscored, in striking tones, his strategy for winning the debt ceiling fight with Republicans: Make it a clash of classes.

• Rich versus Poor.
• Us versus Them. 
• Those who support children, food safety, medical research and, presumably, puppies and apple pie versus the rich fat cats who don't.

In Obama's world, Democrats are for kids and Republicans are for corporate jets. 

As a sidenote, I should point out that if Obama is engaging in class warfare, it's not as if he fired the first shot. The class war has been in progress for decades now, and the plutocracy is unfortunately winning. Republicans accuse Democrats of engaging in class warfare in order to get public opinion on their side and thereby manipulate Democrats into laying down their arms. In general, Republican politicians think that sacrifices for the general welfare must be borne by the middle class. Do they really expect us to take this lying down?

In any event, if you want to know what Democratic and Republican politicians are for, just look at what they want to spend money on.

Anyway, Lane calls the president "shameless" and "clueless" for making the statement:

It’s shameless because President Obama has only one rhetorical trick, and that’s to demonize everybody who disagrees with whatever faux-Hegelian position he’s ended up taking on any given day.  It’s particularly clueless because what the President apparently doesn’t know is that the latest iteration of the tax break in question was put into place as part of Barack Obama’s own 2009 “stimulus.”

First of all, I actually read most of Hegel's The Phenomenlogy of Spirit, and I have no idea what Lane is talking about. What is a "faux-Hegelian position"? That sounds like pseudo-intellectual bullshit to me. Secondly, how does Lane express factual disagreements without demonizing the people with whom he disagrees? What advice would he give the president? Is Obama being too "uppity" for his taste? Republicans want to cut government programs and hand out tax breaks to wealthy people. That's a fact. Lane needs to learn the difference between challenging Republican positions and demonizing Republicans.

Lane accuses the president of hypocrisy. He cites a Fox News story from February 2009 as his source, though I quote it at greater length than he:

Just a few months after lawmakers scolded auto executives for flying to Washington in private jets, Congress approved a tax break in the stimulus package to help businesses buy their own planes.

The incentive -- first used to help plane makers recover from the 2001 terror attacks -- sharply reduces the up front tax bill for companies who buy assets like business planes.

The aviation industry, which is cutting jobs as it suffers from declining shipments and canceled orders, hopes the tax break in the economic-stimulus bill just signed by President Barack Obama will persuade more companies to buy planes and snap a slump in general aviation that began last year.

"This is exactly the type of financial incentive that should be included in a stimulus bill," said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., in an interview. His state lost at least 6,900 jobs at Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft, both based in Wichita. 

So, according to Lane, the president is a hypocrite for supporting tax breaks for businesses that buy aircraft in 2009 and condemning similar tax breaks in 2011.

Has Lane been living under a rock for the past two years? Though many Americans are still hurting badly, the recession is over, and the domestic political focus has shifted from stimulus spending to cutting the deficit. Lane assumes that the present political and economic climate is more or less the same as it was over two years ago. That's just stupid.

Further, Lane seems to assume that if a person supports a tax break at one time, that person must support that tax break at every time or else be a hypocrite. That's also just stupid. The fact that a tax break is appropriate at one time doesn't show that it's appropriate at every time.

For whatever reason, Lane is reasoning like a child or someone who is brain-damaged, not because he himself is a child or brain-damaged, but because it serves his political purposes to simplify this debate.

Lane points out that Republicans did not support the stimulus bill that contained tax breaks for aircraft purchases. So it seems odd to him that the president is scolding Republicans for supporting tax breaks for businesses now. But Republican politicians were against the stimulus then (even though one third of it was in the form of tax cuts) and in favor of tax cuts now because their default position is to be against whatever that black guy in the White House advocates.

Before I finish, I should provide you with the context of the quotation from the president's press conference that Lane is moaning about:

So the question is, if everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that the tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table and get a deal done. Or, we’re so concerned about protecting oil and gas subsidies for oil companies that are making money hand over fist — that’s the reason we’re not going to come to a deal.

I don’t think that’s a sustainable position. And the truth of the matter is, if you talk to Republicans who are not currently in office, like Alan Simpson who co-chaired my bipartisan commission, he doesn’t think that’s a sustainable position.  Pete Domenici, Republican, co-chaired something with Alice Rivlin, the Democrat, says that’s — he doesn’t think that’s a sustainable position. You can’t reduce the deficit to the levels that it needs to be reduced without having some revenue in the mix.

And the revenue we’re talking about isn’t coming out of the pockets of middle-class families that are struggling. It’s coming out of folks who are doing extraordinarily well and are enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born.

If you are a wealthy CEO or a . . . hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they have ever been. They’re lower than they’ve been since the 1950s. And you can afford it.  You’ll still be able to ride on your corporate jet; you’re just going to have to pay a little more.

And if we — I just want to emphasize what I said earlier. If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who are not getting college scholarships. If we do not have those revenues, then the kinds of cuts that would be required might compromise the National Weather Service. It means that we would not be funding critical medical research. It means that food inspection might be compromised. And I’ve said to some of the Republican leaders, you go talk to your constituents, the Republican constituents, and ask them are they willing to compromise their kids’ safety so that some corporate jet owner continues to get a tax break. And I’m pretty sure what the answer would be.

Look, I'm not in love with this president. He hasn't been as liberal as I would have liked. But Lane is just being a dick. If you read the quotation in context, the president's position on deficit reduction is actually quite moderate: cut government spending, but tax those who are doing extremely well in this economy so that we don't need to cut programs that huge numbers of Americans rely on. The position is obviously more moderate than the Republican position, which appears to be to address the deficit merely by crippling and eliminating whole government programs.

Moe, stop being a dick.

Republicans sense that they now have an opportunity to turn back the clock to pre-New Deal America, and they're attempting to seize it. I think that they're actually making a huge mistake. Even Paul Ryan acknowledges that failing to raise the debt ceiling will result in cuts to "vital programs."  And consider the following diagram:

Everyone knows someone who has benefited from at least one of these programs. I've benefited from three of them. But as the diagram shows, many people don't know that they have benefited from government social programs. One way to inform them of that fact is to start hacking away at their budgets. Do Republican politicians really believe that their party won't pay dearly one day for the kinds of cuts they want to make? Have they forgotten those Tea Partiers who urged them not to touch their Medicare? While their ability to alter our perceptions of reality with political spin is impressive, it is not unlimited.

Update. Here's Andrew Sullivan's reaction to Halperin's (and Lane's) claim that the president was being a dick:

In the negotiations with the Republicans, Obama and the Dems have offered a couple of trillion in cuts. The Republicans have refused even to discuss increasing tax revenues in return. For the president to react with understated anger strikes me as perfectly natural and overdue. 

Here's a non-sexist method of giving children hyphenated last names. (You can thank me later.)

My wife and I are having a baby.

The little critter is due on New Year's Eve.

The problem is naming her or him. My wife and I have different surnames. She didn't take my name when we tied the knot, because we both believe that that practice is patriarchal and sexist.

Now, I'm not making the ridiculous claim that people who engage in that practice are patriarchal and sexist. All I'm condemning is the practice itself. Think about it: why should the woman take the name of the man? What is it about having a vagina that explains or justifies this? I haven't a clue myself.

Anyway, my wife asked for advice on some forum for expecting ladies, and not a single person saw anything wrong with the traditional practice. Many of them justified the practice simply by saying that it's traditional, as if that alone would justify it. (It doesn't.)

So this got me thinking. Couples in our position sometimes give their children hyphenated names. But if everyone gave their children hyphenated names, the practice would become impractical. What if John Adams-Bennett and Jane Collins-Davis had a child? What would they call it? Jeff Adams-Bennett-Collins-Davis? And what if Jeff grew up and fell in love with Jennifer Eaton-Fitzgerald-Gardner-Howard and had a child with her? What name would they give it? Seriously? (What's the deal with the names? Did whitey hijack this blog or what?)

Before I became a father-to-be, I never gave this much thought. I simply concluded that this is a difficult problem. But finding a solution to this problem isn't really that difficult, and I've got one. Here it is.

First, some definitions: 

• A male name is the non-hyphenated name of a father.
• A female name is the non-hyphenated name of a mother.

Where the parents have non-hyphenated names,

• the hyphenated name of a son consists in the male name followed by the female name, and
• the hyphenated name of a daughter consists in the female name followed by the male name.

Where the parents have hyphenated names,

• the hyphenated name of a son consists in the male name of the father followed by the female name of the mother, and
• the hyphenated name of a daughter consists in the female name of the father followed by the male name of the mother.

Therefore, in the now usual case where grandparents have non-hyphenated names, a son takes the name of the paternal grandfather followed by the maternal grandmother, and a daughter takes the name of the paternal grandmother followed by the maternal grandfather. 

Consider the following diagram:

I weirdly chose the names of letters of the Greek alphabet to represent surnames. Names in blue are male names; names in red are female names. Boxes indicate gender: names in blue boxes refer to male children; names in red boxes refer to female children. In the diagram, Abel Alpha and Bella Beta have a son whose name is, say, Alan Alpha-Beta. (Since the child is male, the name of the father is first.) George Gamma and Daisy Delta have a daughter whose name is Dakota Delta-Gamma. (Since the child is female, the name of the mother is first.) Alan and Dakota meet, fall in love, enjoy a very special night together, and have twins nine months later. The male twin is named Alec Alpha-Delta. (Alec is given the male name of his father and the female name of his mother. Since Alec is a boy, the male name is first.) The female twin is named Bethany Beta-Gamma. (Bethany is given the female name of her father and the male name of her mother. Since Bethany is a girl, the female name is first.)

This system might strike you as being (1) complicated and (2) weird. Compared to the traditional system of naming, it is both. It also has the disadvantage of requiring that people keep track of which names are female and which male. (If they're in the proper order, this shouldn't be a serious problem.) But it has several obvious advantages. It is significantly less sexist and patriarchal than the traditional system. I say "significantly" since it appears that the father's surnames always come first, and that might seem sexist to some people. (If we remove the requirement that female names for daughters come first, or that male names for sons come first, the problem disappears. But that requirement guarantees that female names come first at least half the time, roughly, and this requirement was itself motivated by an egalitarian impulse.) But even they could not deny that this is an improvement. Female surnames would be passed down, and anyone who bears a child would give at least part of her hyphenated name to her child. The practice of combining names would also become expected of men and not just women.

So, as long as you know your mother's maiden name and your partner knows his, you can put this system in practice the next time you bring a child into the world. So, why not?

The only problem my wife and I have with this system is this: if our child gets a hyphenated name, it could get ugly, and the father's male name is the problem. I guess we should hope for a girl!

(Alternatively, we could adopt the practice of giving male children the father's surname and female children the mother's surname. But that would be simpler than the method I've described and therefore not as interesting!)

Why the Weather Channel's TOR:CON index is humbug

I live in the Central Time Zone of the United States where severe weather is relatively common. I have a NOAA weather radio because I do not want to be killed in my bed at night by a tornado. I am also an anxious person. Lately, the focus of my anxiety has been the weather. So I am part of the Weather Channel's key demographic: Persons Who Are Easily Terrified.

Today, there is a chance of severe thunderstorms from Northern Minnesota to Nebraska to Northern Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Damaging winds, hail, and isolated tornadoes are the "primary risks" for persons living in this large portion of the lower 48. This no mere chance of severe weather: the Weather Channel describes it as a "Weekend Storm Threat." Chances of severe weather are often described as threats in order to make the consumer of Weather Channel products feel more threatened. Those feeling threatened are more likely to compulsively consume Weather Channel products so as to "track" and "stay on top of" any severe weather that may or may not develop.

One Weather Channel product designed for this purpose, I believe, is the TOR:CON, or the tornado condition index. According to the Weather Channel,

The TOR:CON values range from 0 to 10. A value of 4 means that there is about a 40% chance of a tornado within 50 miles of a location in the specified area of severe thunderstorm activity. This also means that there is a 60% chance that a tornado will NOT occur.

I have a habit of freaking out when the TOR:CON values for my area are high. But I've thought about it, and I believe that I have no good reason to, even when the TOR:CON value for my area is a whopping 10, or a 100% chance of a tornado within 50 miles of my location.

A TOR:CON value is really the probability that there will be a tornado within a circular area with a radius of 50 miles. The area of a circle is π multiplied by the radius squared. So such a circular area measures approximately 7,854 square miles. Now, consider a worst-case scenario: a mile-wide EF-5 tornado traversing this circular area through its center and thus on the ground for a hundred miles. The area flattened by this tornado would therefore measure 100 square miles. If we divide 100 by 7,854, we obtain .0127. Therefore, if we assume that the TOR:CON for the area in question is 10, there is a 1.27% chance that a person in the area in question will be in the path of such a tornado. Is this something that a rational person should worry about? I don't think so.

Now, if you tell someone, even someone like me, that there is a 1.27% chance that I will be in the path of a tornado, that person will not respond with the trepidation required to keep him or her glued to The Weather Channel for the very latest updates on a very dangerous severe weather threat that could destroy everything in its path. Why, it could happen tomorrow, you know!

I am neither a mathematician nor a meteorologist. My analysis is admittedly overly simplistic. So, for example, perhaps my line of reasoning erroneously assumes that if there is a tornado in the area in question, there will be only one. But we all know that tornadoes often occur in bunches. What I think my reasoning accurately shows, however, is that the TOR:CON is inherently and deceptively alarmist. In order to get sufficiently worrisome TOR:CON values, one must increase the size of the area in question from, say, the square mile in which my house is located to a 50 square mile area with my house at its center. I think people like me (i.e., mathematically unsophisticated and unusually anxious) make a fallacious inference: for example, we infer from the fact that the TOR:CON value is five that the chance that a tornado will affect our neighborhoods is somewhere around 50 percent. And it obviously isn't.

This is only one of the reasons why I hate The Weather Channel.

Todd Rundgren, "Day Job"

From the outstanding 1993 album No World Order.



Don't quit your day job

Corporate-crybaby
A bit wiser and a whole lot older, feelin' bolder
Suckin' up to the last stockholder with a
Golden parachute slung over your shoulder

Jacked-up-B-boy
Another fool got stuck in the whirlpool
Lookin' for a fast break, not enough cake to go 'round
Another brother goes down, and he's out of the gene pool

Media-pimp
Day after day, night after night if the money is right
The campaign goes on to make right seem wrong
With computer animation and a hip-hop song

Land of opportunity, this is the
Stop
Don't quit your day job

Cowboy-politician
Suckin' up to the aristocracy
Not even sure if you like democracy
Tryin' to establish an american royalty, a personal dynasty

Priests-of-the-airwaves
Let the buyer beware, it's a jungle out there
So buy my advice and don't think twice
Then me and your money will go someplace sunny

Celebrity-stud-monkey
Kiss and tell, got a book to sell
'Cause you don't excel or do anything well
Since you slipped past thirty, better keep the sex dirty

Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money

(http://trconnection.com/lyrics/Song.21.4)

At least we don't need to worry about wicked ice giants.