By min | February 22, 2011, 12:05 PM | Ummm... Other? | Comments (1) | Link

February 21, 2011

Social Security

In my post on 401ks, i quoted a line that mentioned "uncertainty about the future of Social Security". It was incidental to the article and i was going to just ignore it, but it's been bugging me so i had to come back and correct it.

Despite all the fear mongering you may be hearing, Social Security is actually doing just fine. Here's the story:

In the past, current Social Security benefits were paid by current workers. So the current generation of workers supports the previous. In the 1980s, people realized that when the baby boomer generation retired, there would be more retirees than current workers. Due to the fact that our GDP continually increases (so a smaller group of more productive workers could support a larger group of retirees), this wasn't going to be a catastrophe, but there was going to be a gap. In order to fix it, Alan Greenspan worked with Ronald Reagan and the Democrats in Congress (led by Tip O'Neil) to increase the payroll tax that funds social security. This was probably the most regressive way to fix the problem, but it did fix it. The Social Security Administration began developing a surplus, basically putting money in the bank so that when the boomers retired, it could make up the gap.

(This next paragraph is irrelevant to the debate but i'm adding it just in case it comes up... in the 2000 presidential election campaign, there was a debate about what to do with the surplus. To date, it had been kept as an untouched fund - you may remember Al Gore getting made fun of on SNL for going on and on about a "locked box". The Republicans wanted to 'borrow' the money and include the funds in the general budget. The Republicans won, and now the SSA holds treasury bonds instead of actual dollars. But they'll come due and get traded in for actual dollars when they are needed. So, like i said, irrelevant.)

Now, it was estimated that Social Security would have to start dipping in to the surplus fund between 2012 and 2014. It'll probably be sooner rather than later because with the current recession, people are going to be retiring earlier (which also could mean they'll take the early retirement packages, which means SSA pays out less benefits in the long run). With the surplus, everything will be fine until about 2037. At that point, the surplus runs out and the SSA will be obligated to pay out more than it will take in until our demographics shift again (when all the boomers die, essentially, but it's a little more complicated than that).

Does that mean the fund will be completely bankrupt and go out of business? No one gets any social security at that point? The country goes bankrupt?

No. It means one of two things: Either in 2037 people start receiving 80% of their guaranteed benefits instead of 100%, or the government steps in and covers the remaining 20% out of the general funds budgets. Neither would be a catastrophe.

And that's assuming that no new laws are passed. Right now, there's a very simple and obvious change that would fix the problem completely. Currently, you only pay the payroll tax on your income up to $107,000. If you make more than $107,000, you pay the payroll tax as if you only made $107,000. So if you make $120,000, $250,000, $1million, etc., per year, you're paying less of a percentage of your income into Social Security than people who make $107,000 or less. Eliminating this cap would close the Social Security gap completely.

My opinion is that in addition to doing that, we should also raise the payroll tax in general so that we can actually increase Social Security benefits, either by lowering the retirement age or by increasing payments so that older people can actually live off Social Security. As we saw in the 401k post, people are generally not very good about planning for their future and many people wind up at retirement age without enough savings. Plus with our seemingly increasingly deeper economic downturns, people are forced into unemployment earlier and unable to find new jobs. Having a lower retirement age and/or higher benefits would help. But i'll concede that essentially forcing people to save for retirement is a bit of a Nanny State thing, so i'm willing to debate it.

As for the current proposed solution of raising the retirement age, that is absolutely nuts. First, as we saw above, the coming 'catastrophe' is really about reducing future benefits. So we are going to solve the problem of reducing future benefits by... reducing future benefits? Looking at that solution in its best light, all we are doing is reshuffling the benefits around. It solves nothing. At worst, what it does is ensure that only people that can survive to the higher retirement age will receive any benefits. Poor people who won't have enough savings to make it to age 70 or whatever, and people with physically demanding jobs would couldn't possibly work that long, will never see any money from Social Security, while those who do have money and/or jobs that permit them to work until 70 will get 100% of their benefits. Ridiculous! Better that everyone get 80% benefits than those who need it least get 100%.

Republicans and opponents of Social Security have done a fabulous job of sowing panic about the program, despite the facts. Obama and the Democrats either actually believe it or feel like it's pointless to resist the rhetoric, so they also seem ready to make a benefit-reducing compromise. It needs to be resisted. We're better off letting things reach "catastrophe" in 2037 than make any of the changes currently being discussed.

Finally, and this is really a separate discussion, our long term deficit problems are actually due to rising medical costs. The recently passed health care bill actually addresses those problems to a degree. If we want to go further in addressing our deficit problems, we have to do more on the health care front. A public option would be a good start; single-payer would be even better. Social Security has nothing to do with our deficit problems since it is funded entirely by the payroll tax through 2037.

By fnord12 | February 21, 2011, 8:10 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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WTF, Jeff Parker?

Hulk #30? Finally give me an issue where Ed McGuinness is drawing interiors, and then tease me with the awesomeness of Xemnu... but bring in the Impossible Man? Ugh! And it's a grudge-match over the use of the Hulk trademark (a geeky reference to the fact that Xemnu was originally called the Hulk in his first 1960 appearance). And the whole "Banner & Ross forced to share a body" thing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This book has been good under Jeff Parker. He's made the Red Hulk a decent character. But sales have been going down dramatically since Jeph Loeb left, and the book needed something to get people to realize it's "still"* good. Ed McGuinness on art might have brought people back to take another look at the book. But what they're going to get is a bad joke issue.

*Of course, the book wasn't actually good under Loeb, but it sold well (possibly due to the art and the mystery of the Red Hulk).

By fnord12 | February 21, 2011, 8:00 AM | Comics| Link

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401ks no substitue for actual pensions

Ummm... no kidding?

The 401(k) generation is beginning to retire, and it isn't a pretty sight.

The retirement savings plans that many baby boomers thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases.

The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for The Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse.

It's a great time to raise the retirement age for social security! And force public employees to give up their pensions!

And i don't think the answer is to dump more money into that sinkhole.

Vanguard Group, one of the biggest providers of 401 (k) plans, has changed its advice on how much people should save. Vanguard long advised people to put 9% to 12% of their salaries--including the employer contribution--in their 401(k) plans. The current median amount that people contribute is 9%, counting the employer contribution, Vanguard says.

Recently, Vanguard has begun urging people to contribute 12% to 15%, including the employer contribution, because of the stock market's weak returns and uncertainty about the future of Social Security and Medicare.

Some 401ks don't even offer a guaranteed return option, so you're basically stuck with stocks and bonds, hoping that you don't retire during a downturn. And it seems like more companies are dropping the matching employer contribution, leaving the program with nothing but a tax deferral. I think you're better off stuffing money in your mattress.

Someone likes 401ks, though:

Initially envisioned as a way for management-level people to put aside extra retirement money, the 401(k) was embraced by big companies in the 1980s as a replacement for costly pension funds. Suddenly, they were able to transfer the burden of funding employees' retirement to the employees themselves....

They were a gold mine for money-management firms. In 30 years, the 401(k) went from a small program to a multi-trillion-dollar industry supporting thousands of financial planners and money managers.

By fnord12 | February 21, 2011, 7:46 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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February 18, 2011

Sometimes You Just Read Something Awesome

And it just keeps getting more awesome the more you read. Link

The premise is 2 brothers in the UK who opened a theme park that they claimed would have "a multi-featured snow-covered Lapland village" featuring real reindeer, a bustling festive market and a "magical tunnel of light". They charged £30 for admission and raked in £1.2million in advanced ticket sales.

What they delivered was "a few miserable tethered huskies, a broken ice rink and a collection of cheap garden sheds dusted with fake snow."

So the people complained and they got taken to court and the judge said they had

...promised by deceit to satisfy dreams and have delivered misery by way of disappointment to thousands of people...

That was awesome thing #1. You can send people to jail for delivering misery by disappointment. I would send everyone to jail.

And then i read

The promised "beautiful snow covered log cabins", "delicious seasonal food" and "wonderful ice rink" proved equally illusory.

In fact, on arrival at the park, down a poorly signposted, potholed lane, visitors were greeted by a large concrete expanse and a traffic cone on which a sign had been perched reading "Lapland Way In". Instead of being greeted by an elf, as promised on the website, visitors had to give their tickets to a security guard in fluorescent tabard who, according to contemporary news reports, made a point of telling those coming in that they were being ripped off and later quit after a customer punched him in the head.

Which was awesome thing #2.

Finally, the article concluded with

The park went into liquidation four days after it opened, when bank support helping to fund the attraction was pulled amid a storm of negative publicity. By the time it shut its doors, according to press reports at the time, three elves had been assaulted by irate guests while Father Christmas himself received a punch on the nose by a father who had been queueing for four hours only to be told that his children couldn't sit in Santa's lap.

I think if you get to punch someone in the head, it might almost be worth the £30.

By min | February 18, 2011, 1:52 PM | Ummm... Other? | Comments (1) | Link

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Not being entirely serious...

...but now that we're emerging at a consensus that presidents don't get a lot done during their second term, and acknowledging that Obama is stymied by an economic crisis he inherited, and assuming that a Republican would have had to have done a lot of the same basic stabilization things that Obama did, doesn't it make more sense for us to help a really awful and easily defeat-able Republican get elected in 2012 so that we can vote them out in 2016 to take advantage of the next "first 100 days" burst of legislation before everything gets gummed up again? Otherwise, how long are we waiting until we actually see some new legislation of any importance. (My assumption is that a "third term" Presidency like George H.W. Bush after Reagan doesn't result in the 100 day burst. Actually, i doubt Biden will run for president. Who exactly do we have on the bench? (I'm free, if anyone is interested.))

As an aside, the bills that Yglesias lists at accomplishments during Clinton's first term were in fact truly awful pieces of legislation. If those are the sort of "accomplishments" we're waiting for, let's not bother.

By fnord12 | February 18, 2011, 12:34 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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We Read BoingBoing So You Don't Have To II

Vid #1: Using forced perspective and some Rube Goldberg ingenuity, this guy made Escher's self-replenishing waterfall a reality.

Vid #2: When most 8 yr olds have enough trouble not tripping over their own feet...

By min | February 18, 2011, 11:05 AM | Ummm... Other?| Link

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February 17, 2011

Whatcha Doin Wit Dat Yoke?

(Because i found the lyrics to the Rubberbandits' Horse Outside song)

If only there were individual words for things...

Yoke - Any thing.

This is one of the most commonly used Irish slang words and is completely interchangeable with the word "thing." The Irish use it to refer to any object, although usually the item in question is annoying, irrelevant or unfamiliar to the person speaking.

...
The slang term "yoke" can be used in the following ways:

When needing assistance: "C'mere and help me with this yoke."
When confounded: "What sort of a yoke is that?"
When curious: "Whatcha doin' with that yoke?"
When frustrated: "This stupid yoke!"
When dealing with paparazzi: "Get that stupid yoke out of my face!"

Link

Or, as the one commenter noted, it could also refer to Ecstasy.

By min | February 17, 2011, 9:55 PM | Ummm... Other?| Link

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LCD Soundsystem and the free market.

Yglesias again:

This is my current understanding of the dilemma. Optimal allocation of LCD Soundsystem tickets requires demand-responsive ticket pricing. But good rock bands are not composed of narrow-minded amoral profit-maximizers. Consequently, they're motivated to price tickets at a lower level than the market will bear leading, in turn, to middlemen getting the rents. What's needed is a way for bands to price tickets at demand-responsive levels in a way that's consistent with the norm that the guys in a cool band shouldn't be narrow-minded profit-maximizers. The best solution here, I think, is charity.

Update: Atrios says "Just play more shows.", which is what the band is actually doing.

By fnord12 | February 17, 2011, 10:40 AM | Liberal Outrage & Music| Link

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Brighten Those Armpits!

With this Wakilala Clear Wash (followed by Bright Up Essence), you need no longer live with dull armpits full of accumulated dead skin cells. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it isn't. Just read this customer review:

I used to hate the dark patches on my armpits all "thanks" to the dead skin cells which I find them unsightly. Dead skin cells are accumulated due to the bacteria from bad ventilation and sweat glands.

Wakilala Clear Wash, from Japan, a gentle exfoliating peel specially designed for armpit, is one product I swear by.

Doesn't that sound delicious? We love you Wakilala!!!!!!!

By min | February 17, 2011, 10:38 AM | Ummm... Other?| Link

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What's your life worth?

Based on this NYTimes article (via Yglesias), here's the number various Federal agencies use when determining the monetary value of a human life when determining policy.

Agency	Under Bush	Under Obama
EPA	$6.8 million	$9.1 million
FDA	$5 million	$7.9 million
DOT	$3.5 million	$6.1 million

By fnord12 | February 17, 2011, 10:19 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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February 16, 2011

Thank You, Spectral Force 3

I heal to injure others.
Until the day everyone's wounds heal...
Until then....Skees Plasnir!

Oh, Eunice!

By min | February 16, 2011, 12:18 PM | Video Games | Comments (1) | Link

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Smartphone with Gaming Controls

Sony Ericsson is putting out the Xperia Play, a phone with a slide out controller for video games that are too complex for touchscreen controls.

After seeing the odd way they designated controls on Wanyas' phone just for Zelda - a game so not requiring complex controls - it's good someone thought to attach real gaming controls. Plus, all this crap they think of to add to phones gets me that much closer to my portable, 3-D holographic computer/communication device that I've been dreaming of for years. So go to it, I say.

By min | February 16, 2011, 11:50 AM | Science & Video Games| Link

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February 15, 2011

Asteroid violation

Crazy libertarians:

On the other hand -- and at the risk of confirming Mark Kleiman in his belief that libertarians are loopy -- I don't speak for all libertarians, but I think there's a good case to be made that taxing people to protect the Earth from an asteroid, while within Congress's powers, is an illegitimate function of government from a moral perspective. I think it's O.K. to violate people's rights (e.g. through taxation) if the result is that you protect people's rights to some greater extent (e.g. through police, courts, the military). But it's not obvious to me that the Earth being hit by an asteroid (or, say, someone being hit by lightning or a falling tree) violates anyone's rights; if that's so, then I'm not sure I can justify preventing it through taxation.

By fnord12 | February 15, 2011, 2:00 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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No decline in America's education ranking

You always hear that America's schools are in decline, and the annual rankings of the US vs other countries seems to support that, but it turns out that it isn't true (also see Daily Howler). Turns out we've always been at the bottom of the list.

As Kevin Drum says:

Now, we're still below average among these dozen countries, so this is hardly a glorious result. But we aren't doing any worse than we did in the supposed glory days of the 50s and 60s. We're doing better. And as Mathews says, "If we have managed to be the world's most powerful country, politically, economically and militarily, for the last 47 years despite our less than impressive math and science scores, maybe that flaw is not as important as film documentaries and political party platforms claim. And if, after so many decades of being shown up by much of the rest of the developed world, we are improving, it might be time to be more supportive of what we already doing to fix our schools."

By fnord12 | February 15, 2011, 12:24 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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Is it because you don't get paid more?

Krugman shows that Americans are working longer than they used to, but it's more prevalent in higher income brackets. He attributes it to an increased desire to make money (contra David Brooks). That may be true in the top-most brackets, but i suspect the discrepancy between the lowest and middle brackets is because the lowest paid workers are probably hourly, and companies do their best to keep those workers at 35-40 hours (to avoid having to pay overtime) or under 20 (to avoid paying any benefits at all). Salaried workers in the middle tiers are more likely to be FLSA exempt, etc., and therefore companies can "ask" them to put in more than 40 hours, stay late, work weekends, etc., without having to pay them any more.

By fnord12 | February 15, 2011, 12:20 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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It's a state rep, so i shouldn't really care, but still...

Kansas GOP Rep Connie O'Brien:

REP. O'BRIEN: My son who's a Kansas resident, born here, raised here, didn't qualify for any financial aid. Yet this girl was going to get financial aid. My son was kinda upset about it because he works and pays for his own schooling and his books and everything and he didn't think that was fair. We didn't ask the girl what nationality she was, we didn't think that was proper. But we could tell by looking at her that she was not originally from this country. [...]

REP. GATEWOOD: Can you expand on how you could tell that they were illegal?

REP. O'BRIEN: Well she wasn't black, she wasn't Asian, and she had the olive complexion.

...

O'Brien has been the target of scathing media coverage since her remark, and numerous Kansas Democratic Party lawmakers have asked her to apologize. For her part, O'Brien counters that she's been told she's "got olive complexion" and that she's not going to apologize until she's "had time to think."

To be fair, in the full transcript, it seems there was also an issue about the woman in question not having a driver's license. But O'Brien's response to Gatewood's question is the telling point here.

I'm tired of everyone being asked to apologize for the things they say. She didn't make a mistake. She didn't spill her oatmeal on someone by accident. She's dumb, she's a racist, and she said what she thinks. You can't just apologize for that.

By fnord12 | February 15, 2011, 10:33 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (1) | Link

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February 14, 2011

Further insulting poor Pluto

Link:

The hunt is on for a gas giant up to four times the mass of Jupiter thought to be lurking in the outer Oort Cloud, the most remote region of the solar system. The orbit of Tyche (pronounced ty-kee), would be 15,000 times farther from the Sun than the Earth's, and 375 times farther than Pluto's, which is why it hasn't been seen so far.

...

Whether it would become the new ninth planet would be decided by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The main argument against is that Tyche probably formed around another star and was later captured by the Sun's gravitational field. The IAU may choose to create a whole new category for Tyche, Professor Matese said.

...

Tyche will almost certainly be made up mostly of hydrogen and helium and will probably have an atmosphere much like Jupiter's, with colourful spots and bands and clouds, Professor Whitmire said. "You'd also expect it to have moons. All the outer planets have them," he added.

...

Most of the billions of objects in the Oort Cloud - a sphere one light year in radius stretching a quarter of the distance to Alpha Centauri, the brightest star in the southern constellation - are lumps of dirty ice at temperatures much closer to absolute zero (-273C).

A few of these are dislodged from their orbits by the galactic tide - the combined gravitational pull from the billions of stars towards the centre of the Milky Way - and start the long fall into the inner solar system.

As these long-period comets get closer to the Sun, some of the ice boils off, forming the characteristic tails that make them visible.

Professors Matese and Whitmire first proposed the existence of Tyche to explain why many of these long-period comets were coming from the wrong direction. In their latest paper, published in the February issue of Icarus, the international journal of solar system studies, they report that more than 20 per cent too many of the long-period comets observed since 1898 arrive from a band circling the sky at a higher angle than predicted by the galactic-tide theory.

I only have one question for this so-called new planet:

Okay, how'd it get there?
How'd it get there?
Look, you pinheads who attacked me for this, you guys are just desperate. How'd it get there?
How'd it get there?
Can you explain that to me?
How come we have that and Mars doesn't have it? Venus doesn't have it. How come?
Why not?
How'd it get there?

By fnord12 | February 14, 2011, 3:53 PM | Science| Link

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Keep your government out of my ________

Link.

25% of Food Stamp recipients don't believe they've participated in a government program.
40% of Medicare recipients.
44% of Social Security recipients.
60% of Home Mortgage Interest Deduction participants.

Maybe the government needs to hire a (better?) PR firm?

Update: Similarly, Fewer Want Spending to Grow, But Most Cuts Remain Unpopular.

By fnord12 | February 14, 2011, 12:44 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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February 11, 2011

Turbo Encabulator

Jargon for you.

By fnord12 | February 11, 2011, 9:55 AM | Science & Ummm... Other?| Link

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The only time you'll see Ian Curtis smile

Playmobil version of Transmission.

By fnord12 | February 11, 2011, 9:51 AM | Music| Link

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Vermont keeps looking better

Ezra Klein interviews the governor of Vermont, who is taking advantage of a clause in the ACA that allows states to set up their own health care system. He's going single-payer.

By fnord12 | February 11, 2011, 8:45 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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February 10, 2011

Dude, What the Hell are You Talking About?

I'm super behind on reading my comics so i only just now came across this little gem in the Chaos War: Chaos King One-Shot. I'm sorry for not being more timely with my criticisms. I'm sure anyone who has read this has already forgotten what it was about. I don't blame you.

"As long as we still breathe, Chaos King, your destiny will asymptote."
     -Thrann, Zenn-La Saint of Science

This is just a small example of the sort of things Brandon Montclare has written in this issue (and the art's not so good either, Michael Wm Kaluta).

For those of you who don't remember what an asymptote is, it's the line that a curve approaches as they tend towards infinity. Wikipedia has pictures which make more sense than reading the words.

Your destiny will asymptote? You destiny is a line that some curve will approach over infinite time? What?

I don't think he's saying what he thinks he's saying, and even if he is saying what he thinks he's saying and he's using "asymptote" in a totally legitimate way, it's still wrong cause it just sounds wrong, and I'm sticking with that.

By min | February 10, 2011, 8:19 AM | Comics | Comments (2) | Link

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February 9, 2011

Marvel Sales

December.

By fnord12 | February 9, 2011, 1:15 PM | Comics| Link

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Not quite a correction

Last month i linked to an NYT article talking about how the Obama administration was in disarray over their economic policy. It certainly helped explain why they've seemed so ineffective. But Brad DeLong basically says the article was garbage.

Either way, unemployment is still 9%.

By fnord12 | February 9, 2011, 11:05 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (1) | Link

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Time warp?

Weirdly anachronistic political cartoon.

By fnord12 | February 9, 2011, 9:41 AM | Comics & Liberal Outrage| Link

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Common ground

Didn't think it could happen, but here's some interesting positive news: Tea Party Republicans team up with liberal Democrats to block the renewal of key provisions of the Patriot act.

It's not over yet, of course. There'll be arm twisting and re-votes. But it's a nice start.

Update: Well, not the Tea Partiers, exactly:

You'll likely hear some media accounts saying that the "Tea Party" wing of the GOP was responsible for beating back the Patriot Act, but that's not quite true. Of the 26 Republican "nay" votes, only eight came from the massive freshman class, and many of those generally associated with the right-wing faction -- including Michele Bachmann and Allen West -- voted with the GOP leadership in support of the bill. Indeed, looking specifically at the 52 members of the House Tea Party Caucus, 44 of them voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

Tea Partiers, in other words, generally backed the bill, their rhetoric about "limited government" notwithstanding.

But while it wasn't Tea Partiers who were responsible for the outcome, it's extremely unusual for 26 House Republicans to blow off their leadership on a high-profile vote on anything.

By fnord12 | February 9, 2011, 9:09 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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When "The Hoff Met the Toff"

Nothing more need be said.

"What are you here for?" The prime minister asked Hasselhoff.

"To see you, buddy!" He replied.

"I'm a big fan of Knight Rider," said the PM.

"I'm a big fan of you - are you Tony Blair?" Hoff retorted, before handing him a signed photograph and offering to lend a helping hand in [David] Cameron's "big society" drive.

Link

By min | February 9, 2011, 8:43 AM | TeeVee & Ummm... Other?| Link

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February 8, 2011

Those better be some smurfing good smurfberries

Via Kevin Drum:

Over the winter break from school, 8-year-old Madison worked to dress up her simple mushroom home on the iPhone game Smurfs' Village. In doing so, she also amassed a $1,400 bill from Apple....But like a growing number of parents, Madison's mom, Stephanie Kay, was shocked to find very real charges from iTunes show up in her e-mail box days later.

....The practice is troubling parents and public interest groups, who say $99 for a wagon of Smurfberries or $19 for a bucket of snowflakes doesn't have any business in a children's game. Though a password is needed to make a purchase, critics say that the safeguards aren't strong enough and that there are loopholes.

By fnord12 | February 8, 2011, 2:18 PM | Video Games| Link

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February 7, 2011

Not found on AllMusic.com

Know Your History: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

By fnord12 | February 7, 2011, 1:58 PM | TeeVee| Link

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February 6, 2011

We Can Do It, Gobli!

Fnord12 and i have been playing Spectral Force 3, and, well...

Where's my Knowledge Cat 2?

By min | February 6, 2011, 2:17 PM | Video Games | Comments (1) | Link

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February 4, 2011

What if Mitt Romney had been elected president in 2008?

Brad DeLong:

I see only two key policy differences between RomneyWorld and ObamaWorld. Had Romney been elected president in 2008 we would not have repealed the military policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." And had Romney been elected president in 2008, Elizabeth Warren would not now be assistant to the president for Consumer Financial Protection.

Otherwise? As far as policy is concerned, we would be smack on the mark that we are on now.

But the politics would be very, very different.

I agree with DeLong's conclusions, but he uses it as an opportunity to attack Republican political hypocrisy whereas it makes me wonder why Obama's policies look so much like a Republican's.

By fnord12 | February 4, 2011, 9:50 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link

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February 3, 2011

Shoot for the moon

Some say Bill O'Reilly is the most reasonable of the Fox News crew.

About a month ago, Bill O'Reilly interviewed David Silverman, president of American Atheists, and the Fox News host thought he had a trump card to bolster beliefs in the supernatural.

"I'll tell you why [religion's] not a scam, in my opinion: tide goes in, tide goes out," O'Reilly said, in all seriousness. "Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that. You cannot explain why the tide goes in.... See, the water, the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always comes in, and always goes out. You can't explain that."

The notion that tides can be -- and have been -- explained by the effects of the moon and its gravitational influence on the spinning earth completely eluded the Fox News personality.

Apparently, O'Reilly heard about some of us mocking him over this, so he released a video for "premium members" of his website, including a challenge to those who've scoffed at his evidence of the supernatural.

"Okay, how did the Moon get there? How'd the Moon get there? Look, you pinheads who attacked me for this, you guys are just desperate. How'd the Moon get there? How'd the Sun get there? How'd it get there? Can you explain that to me? How come we have that and Mars doesn't have it? Venus doesn't have it. How come? Why not? How'd it get here?"

Nicholas Graham noted, "In fact, prevailing scientific theory is that the Moon formed as the result of a massive impact with Earth."

Right, and the reason Mars and Venus don't have Earth's moon is because it's Earth's Moon. Other planets have their own moons. It's really not that complicated.

By fnord12 | February 3, 2011, 11:53 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (1) | Link

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She's Crafty

Min & friends at the crafting event they run made the news.

By fnord12 | February 3, 2011, 8:57 AM | My stupid life| Link

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February 2, 2011

The Green Man sleeps his frozen sleep

Will no fair maiden melt his icy heart so we may have Spring in the land?

By fnord12 | February 2, 2011, 10:45 AM | My stupid life| Link

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