And not “2:30-3pm.” This is the time that Bean and I agreed on. And this post was posted at that time, not posted later and back-dated in order to provide evidence in support of my position.
Just for the record.
What the heck, let’s have a Biden thread.
Kathy at The G Spot, although pointing out Biden’s positives — such as VAWA — has some reasons progressives should be unhappy:
Biden’s record on choice is weak. He’s nominally pro-choice, but he supported the ban on so-called “partial birth” abortions, opposes public funding for abortion, and received a none-too-encouraging rating of 60% from NARAL last year. But what concerns me even more are his votes in favor of limiting the estate tax and “reforming” bankruptcy law. The bankruptcy bill, in particular, was an abomination, and his vote in favor of it was unconscionable. That bill will ruin peoples’ lives — in fact, I’m sure it has already. I’ve heard the rationale that since Biden is from Delaware, he’s “the senator from MBNA” by default, but I don’t buy that excuse. Does anyone really think Biden, who’s held his senate seat for longer than most Americans have been alive, would have suddenly become politically vulnerable if he’d voted differently? I doubt it. It’s not like opposing the bill would have been unpopular with the voters.
Then there’s a whole other issue — call it, the asshole factor. Biden is a hothead and a blowhard, and he’s well-known for his habit of making gaffes and unfortunate remarks. Here are some of his greatest hits:
(You’ll have to click through to Kathy’s to read the greatest hits!)
Meanwhile Ezra argues that the choice of Biden should please progressives:
For progressives, this is encouraging pick. More encouraging than Bayh, or Kaine, or even, in a way, Sebelius. More encouraging than picks who might have been more progressive, but less pugnacious. Elevating Biden suggests that the Obama campaign has decided to have an argument. Not try to win on momentum and inspiration and GOTV, but to engage, and win, an argument about which set of ideas is better for the future of the country. And in Biden, they’ve engaged at the point of greatest vulnerability and opportunity for Democrats: National security.
A political history of the past few years in Democratic politics is a history of the party’s failed attempts to dance away from foreign policy discussions. There was the Thomas Frank school of thought: Pivot from “national security to economic insecurity.” There was the George Lakoff approach: Reframe the language. There was the Kerry approach: “How can they be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them in Boise?” But even if these approaches had succeeded — they didn’t — they would still have bespoke long-term weakness in the Democratic Party: A fundamental inability to win arguments about American foreign policy.
A Democrat has not been elected during wartime in over 50 years. A healthy party cannot only prosper when the world is at peace and the waters are quiet. But seven years of Republican incompetence and failure have generated tremendous mistrust in the conservative foreign policy approach. Iraq was a historic blunder, Osama bin Laden is loose, America’s international standing is dismal. There’s an opening for Democrats to press the advantage, argue that they, in fact, have the better record, and the sounder ideas, on national security. But they have to actually engage the argument. They can’t hope that events will do the work for them. Picking Biden, the Obama campaign signaled that this is a project they want to take on, and a project they realize will have to be engaged affirmatively and aggressively.
I think both Kathy and Ezra make good cases, and in my usual wishy-washy fashion I agree with them both. But it’s D-Day who wrote something that had me screaming “yes! SO true!” at my computer monitor:1
Actually, who betrayed the public is you, the media, again, because you just couldn’t stand not being insiders for ten minutes and waiting out the pick and maybe using those resources of staking out potential candidates’ homes and working the phones on, I don’t know, illegal wars and torture. The press only breaks out their investigative skills every four years so they can scoop their competition by 20 seconds. Would it have killed them to embargo the story and let the campaign play it out the way they wanted? Would it have mattered to anyone?
This secret was so tantalizing to them, making it necessary to marshal the full resources of the American media, while eight years of secret government and secret law received no such attention. The discovery of the pick was an end in itself, justifying their clubby, insider self-images as the coolest kids in the room. And then, after they’ve undermined the rollout, they blame the candidate.
Curtsy: Auguste. (And see here for more well-earned press-bashing.)
Obama, during a soon-to-be-forgotten controvery, said that Republicans take pride in being ignorant.
Here’s a relatively minor example that illustrates the point: During the saddleback forum (EconomistMom posted the relevant part of the transcript), McCain said:
My friends, we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Now I don’t know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue…
(LAUGHTER)
… but the point is, it was $3 million of your money. It was your money. And, you know, we laugh about it, but we cry - and we should cry because the Congress is supposed to be careful stewards of your tax dollars.
This is a argument McCain has reused year after year — it’s part of his stump speech.
So what is McCain talking about? The funding (which was actually $5 million, spread out over several years) was for a project that measures the population of grizzly bears by conducting DNA tests on grizzly hair.
“The main question we’re trying to answer is how many grizzly bears are now in the NCDE,” says Kate Kendall, who coordinates the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project. A U.S. Geological Service research biologist stationed at Glacier National Park, Kendall explains that wildlife managers can’t effectively protect, control, restore, or otherwise manage grizzly bears or other wildlife population unless they first know how many animals exist and whether the population is increasing or decreasing. […]
An accurate number of NCDE grizzlies has eluded biologists for decades. Comprising Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, Great Bear, and Mission Mountains wildernesses, the ecosystem is one of the wildest and most inaccessible in the contiguous United States. Moreover, grizzly bears are among the most difficult animals to count. For decades, biologists thought a reliable population estimate of these secretive bears in the NCDE would be impossible to obtain.
Then came DNA hair follicle sampling. By snagging the hair of bears visiting lure stations or using rub trees, researchers can now identify individual animals and accurately estimate population size with the same DNA technology police use to solve crimes.
“In addition to being quick and relatively inexpensive, one major advantage of DNA analysis is that we don’t have to trap, tranquilize, collar, and otherwise handle bears,” says Kendall. “In fact, there’s really no interaction between bears and people.”
The project involves nearly 5,000 stations, some of them as much as 50 miles from the nearest road. Each station needs to be set up by trained technicians (among other things, you need someone who won’t get in trouble with bears despite wandering around in the woods with big bottles of extremely effective bear bait — the project has so far had nearly 100 bear sightings but zero bear-related injuries). The bear fur samples also need to be collected and the stations sterilized and reset for the next bear, and eventually dismantled. Each sample needs to be tracked (they use bar codes), packed, shipped, identified by DNA, and then the data needs to be interpreted.
First of all, let me just say: Damn, that’s really cool.
It’s a clever and innovative solution to a measurement problem that scientists recently thought impossible to solve. And without it, we can’t be certain if the grizzly bear population is going up or going down — which is important, because federal law requires the government to protect endangered species, and that can’t be done without good data.
Here’s a few questions I’d like to see McCain asked:
1) On dozens of occasions, you’ve cited the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project as a prime example of wasteful government spending. Are you opposed to tracking the population of grizzly bears to make sure they don’t go extinct? Are you opposed to protecting endangered species?
2) If you’re not opposed to tracking the population of grizzly bears, then what less expensive but equally effective means do you propose?
3) Why did you vote for a program that you’ve cited dozens of times as an example of useless government pork?
The truth is, I suspect McCain voted for the program because he knows it’s a good program and a responsible use of taxpayer money. But McCain is so lacking substance — and so certain that the way into Republican hearts is through aggressive ignorance and mockery of good science — that he doesn’t hesitate to mock a program he knows is valuable in order to advance his anti-government, anti-science campaign. What matters to an empty shirt like McCain isn’t substance, and certainly not good science; the only thing that matters is votes.
Alternatively, McCain is such an ignoramus that he thinks the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project really is a bad idea — or perhaps, he simply has been speaking against it for years, on dozens of occasions, without ever bothering to find out what it is.
(See also: Scientific American, The New York Times.)
David Leonhardt has written a long and substantive (although definitely pro-Obama) piece on Obama’s economic policies. It’s definitely worth reading if you want a one-stop summary of Obama’s economic views.
From a progressive point of view, assuming the article is accurate, Obama’s not as bad as a lot of centrist Democrats — or, more accurately, his positions reflect how the center of the Democratic party has moved a bit to the left since 8 years ago — but neither is he the answer to progressive dreams.
In practical terms, the new consensus means that the policies of an Obama administration would differ from those of the Clinton administration, but not primarily because of differences between the two men. “The economy has changed in the last 15 years, and our understanding of economic policy has changed as well,” Furman says. “And that means that what was appropriate in 1993 is no longer appropriate.” Obama’s agenda starts not with raising taxes to reduce the deficit, as Clinton’s ended up doing, but with changing the tax code so that families making more than $250,000 a year pay more taxes and nearly everyone else pays less. That would begin to address inequality. Then there would be Reich-like investments in alternative energy, physical infrastructure and such, meant both to create middle-class jobs and to address long-term problems like global warming.
All of this raises the question of what will happen to the deficit. Obama’s aides optimistically insist he will reduce it, thanks to his tax increases on the affluent and his plan to wind down the Iraq war. Relative to McCain, whose promised spending cuts are extremely vague, Obama does indeed look like a fiscal conservative. But the larger point is that the immediate deficit isn’t as big as it was in 1992. Then, it was equal to 4.7 percent of gross domestic product. Right now it’s about 2.5 percent.
I would have liked the article much better if Leonhardt had said the truth flat-out — by all appearances, Obama’s plan will increase the deficit (Obama aides optimism aside) or at best keep it the size it is, but McCain’s plan1 would increase it more.2 It’s odd that Leonhardt dodges around this question, since Obama openly admits that he doesn’t expect to balance the budget.
Leonhardt also emphasizes Obama’s interest in market-based solutions to problems. For instance, on cap-and-trade:
By last year, Democrats in Congress essentially agreed that to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the government should place a nationwide cap on these emissions and then issue tradable permits giving companies the right to produce them (thus the term “cap and trade”). Most Congressional bills envisioned giving away many of the permits to power companies. Economists, by and large, considered this giveaway to be the worst part of the plan. It would require Congress to decide how many free permits each company should get and would set off a frenzy of corporate lobbying.
The alternative was to auction off the permits — to let the market set their value. “If you don’t auction 100 percent of the permits,” [Obama econ adviser] Goolsbee told me, “this could be one of the biggest pieces of corporate welfare ever.” With Congress making the decisions, the power companies with the best political connections might get the permits. With a full auction, the permits would end up with companies willing to make the highest bids. Presumably, these would be the most efficient companies, the ones able to produce the most energy (and profits) for a given amount of greenhouse-gas pollution.
The auctions would have another big advantage too. They would raise billions of dollars for the government, money that could then be returned to taxpayers to offset the higher energy prices created by the emissions cap.
It seems likely that a President Obama would sign a cap-and-trade bill even if it did give away some permits. But candidate Obama has at least moved the debate toward a more pro-market solution.
The writer roots Obama’s market attitudes in his background at the University of Chicago. There’s some left-wing critique of Obama’s market bias in the comments at this post on Angry Bear.
A curious lack in the article is any discussion of trade policy. Nor is there any discussion of wage gaps (either gender or race).
Anyhow, I could go on more, but I’m going to go to the pool with my niece and nephew instead. Later, folks.
This article in Harper’s (pdf link), about (among other things) the philosophical implications of what’s beyond the final screen in Pac Man and other classic arcade games, is the best thing I’ve read all week. I’d never before realized that Pac Man models a deterministic universe — but Ms Pac Man doesn’t. (Curtsy).
Anyhow, consider this an open thread. Post whatever you like, as long as you like, with whomever you’d like. Self-linking is beautiful.
From Bully Says:
Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con while I was having lunch on the balcony of the Convention Center on Sunday July 27: a bunch of guys looking at the digital photos on the camera of another, while he narrated: “These were the Ghostbusters girls. That one, I grabbed her ass, ’cause I wanted to see what her reaction was.” This was only one example of several instances of harassment, stalking or assault that I saw at San Diego this time.
John goes on to point out that ComicCon has no written policy against this sort of behavior. Rachel at Inside-Out, herself a comics industry pro, thinks that ComicCon management would be responsive to a campaign of polite emails asking them to add an anti-harassment policy:
Let me make one thing abundantly clear: by harassment, I am not just talking about wolf whistles, “Nice costume” comments, or accidental touch. ComiCon is crowded–REALLY crowded. It is pretty much impossible to navigate without coming into physical contact with another person. What I’m talking about is people deliberately touching, stalking, demanding sexual favors from, or actively harassing other congoers–fans and professionals–without consent. These things are not only rude, they’re illegal.[…]
I am not suggesting that ComiCon install propriety police, or that congoers should walk around with their hands in their pockets at all times, or that it’s anything short of ridiculous to expect to have a three-foot (or one-foot, or six-inch) radius of personal space on a crowded con floor. What I am saying is that ComiCon desperately needs a clear, public policy against personal harassment.
If you think that ComiCon International needs to articulate a clear policy against personal harassment in their programs, please drop them a line and say so. (And when you do, please be polite, patient, and respectful. As I wrote above, this doesn’t look like malevolence to me–just omission.) […]
<a href="mailto:cci-info@comic-con.org
” title=”mailto:cci-info@comic-con.org
“>cci-info@comic-con.org
Head over to Inside-Out to read Rachel’s complete post, and also for more complete contact info for comic-con.
From the Washington Post:
The offer, for a job as a terrorism research analyst, was pulled the day after Schroer told her future boss that she was making the medical transition from being a man, David, to being a woman, Diane.[…]
Schroer, of Alexandria, had a prestigious military career that ended in retirement in 2004 after seven years in the Army’s Special Forces command. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Schroer became director of a 120-member classified organization that tracked and targeted international terrorists. She routinely briefed the country’s top officials, including Vice President Cheney.[…]
The Library of Congress, represented by Justice Department attorneys, has argued that Schroer cannot sue because the Civil Rights Act does not protect transsexuals or prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
Anyone else reminded of the desperately needed Farsi and Arabic linguists the Pentagon fired for being queer?
So is it the case that conservatives really don’t believe that the “war on terror” is really very serious, and that’s why they won’t bother employing the best anti-terrorism experts if they happen to be trans or queer? Or is it that their bigotry is so extreme and irrational that they’d honestly prefer for more Americans to die in terrorist attacks, rather than allow gay, lesbian and/or trans people to be employed? I’m honestly not sure which it is.
Over at Hit and Run, Nick Gillespie says “what, me worry?” to schools cutting programs and services in response to tightening budgets:
Jesus Christ, is this the worst of it? If so, please just stop. As someone who had kids in the Maryland’s Montgomery County schools for a couple of years, I can guarantee you that they could choose to cut something other than funds for “an award-winning” math team with ease. Indeed, the district seemed hellbent on calling three-day weekends whenever snow was forecast for a Friday morning. And where are the calls to make administrators ride their bikes or carpool to school?
Some of the cuts Nick do seem pretty trivial — switching from stop-at-every-home bus service to neighborhood bus stops, for instance. Others, however, are serious: Cutting school weeks from five days to four. Raising the costs of school lunches and charging parents for bus service (in one high school, they’ve cut out bus service altogether). Not being able to get up to date textbooks degrades the quality of education, and so — believe it or not — does cutting electives and math teams.
That Nick responds to these real problems with mockery — as if no reasonable person could possibly be concerned with cutting to a four-day school week, or updated textbooks — shows how irresponsible the idealogical anti-government tax-cutters are.
Meanwhile, Nick’s ideas on how to save money are ludicrous. Administrators typically use their own cars to get to work, so calls for biking or carpools for admins won’t save a cent. And snow days actually save money for school districts (as does any other method of cutting the number of school days).
Nick goes on:
Per-pupil spending is up over 300 percent in constant dollars since the early 1960s. You’d think somewhere in that increase, schools would figure out how to fund meaningful stuff and drop crap.
Of course, a lot of that increase has gone into special education, school breakfast and lunch programs, bilingual education, and computers. These expenses were all either low or nonexistent in the early 1960s — and yes, they are “meaningful stuff” and not “crap.”
The other thing to consider is that as long as we want students to have direct interaction with teachers, the costs of education will always go up, due to Baumol’s disease.
When Mozart composed his String Quintet in G Minor (K. 516), in 1787, you needed five people to perform it—two violinists, two violists, and a cellist. Today, you still need five people, and, unless they play really fast, they take about as long to perform it as musicians did two centuries ago. So much for progress.
An economist would say that the productivity of classical musicians has not improved over time, and in this regard the musicians aren’t alone. In a number of industries, workers produce about as much per hour as they did a decade or two ago. The average college professor can’t grade papers or give lectures any faster today than he did in the early nineties. It takes a waiter just as long to serve a meal, and a car-repair guy just as long to fix a radiator hose.
The rest of the American economy functions differently. In most businesses, workers are continually getting more productive and can produce a lot more per hour than they could ten or twenty years ago. […] Generally, productivity growth is a boon, but it creates problems for non-productive enterprises like classical music, education, and car repair: to keep luring talent, they have to increase wages, or else people eventually migrate to businesses that pay better. Instead of becoming nurses or mechanics, they become telecom engineers or machinists. That’s why teachers are getting paid a lot more than they were twenty years ago. (The average salary for an associate college professor has risen almost seventy per cent since the early eighties, and that’s if you adjust for inflation.) To pay those wages, schools and hospitals have to raise prices. The result is that in industries where productivity is flat costs and prices keep going up.
I have no idea if school districts really spend more (as a percentage of the total) on “crap” now than they did in the 1960s. But I’m skeptical, because Nick presents zero evidence to support his implication.
What I do know is that the amount of “meaningful stuff” schools are providing, and the legitimate costs of the “meaningful stuff,” have gone up significantly since the early 1960s. Too many libertarians, like Nick, act as if they believe in a free lunch; we can make HUGE cuts in education budgets and not suffer any pain at all, because there’s lots of unnamed “crap” to be cut! But it’s nonsense. Just saying “costs have gone up 300%” as if that alone proves there’s a huge amount of waste is economic illiteracy.
There’s nothing wrong with McCain talking about his Vietnam experience all day long, but I find the way it’s framed funny. From the June 11, 2008 AP story “McCain Reluctant To Talk About Vietnam“:
NEW YORK - Prodded on the campaign trail to talk about his compelling personal story, John McCain usually demurs. “I’m very reluctant to do so, as you know,” the presumed Republican nominee told a donor at a small fundraiser here this week.
McCain explains to CNN why ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” is his favorite song:
“If there is anything I am lacking in, I’ve got to tell you, it is taste in music and art and other great things in life,” McCain joked. “I’ve got to say that a lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane and never caught up again.”1
On the other hand, his taste for ABBA is pretty much the thing I like best about McCain.
“Journey” is the story of Josh “Wolverine” MacAlistaire, a 19th century frontiersman in isolated Michigan, who considers moving further west because hated “civilization” is beginning to catch up to him. This book is the first of two reprint volumes. “Journey” was originally published in the early 80s, and has been long out of print.
A lot of “Journey’s” story is concerned with going-ons at Fort Miami in Michigan, where white settlers are in conflict with American Indians (Loebs seamlessly mixes historic and fictional characters). Loebs avoids traditional “brave white man fighting savages” cliches, thankfully.
The strength of the comic, however, is Loeb’s brutal, thrilling depiction of MacAlistaire’s life in the Michigan wilderness. Whether fleeing an accidentally enraged bear (there’s no question of fighting it), nearly getting killed by a tornado, or hugging a dog for warmth after falling through ice, the most vivid parts of “Journey” are the stories of how MacAlistaire survives.
