StupidiNews!

• Two aid workers kidnapped in Somalia in October have been freed by US troops, according to Danish sources.
• LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has signed a city ordinance into law saying that adult film actors must use condoms when filming.
• Six Arab League nations plan to remove observers from Syria ahead of blessing a UN plan to take "all needed measures" to end fighting there as peace talks disintegrate.
• Apple recorded a staggering $13.1 billion in record profit in the 4th quarter of 2011, as consumers bought 37 million iPhones after Steve Jobs's death.
• Google wants to change the way the web's TCP protocol works in order to create more web pages faster and more efficiently.

Last Call

Bret Stephens of Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is the latest winger voice to shred the "losers" currently running for the GOP nomination, but as awful as these clowns truly are, Stephens all but promises that the GOP version of history (which no doubt the WSJ will play a big part in) will be far, far more cruel to the Republican "A-Team" currently sitting out this election if they can't stop the Kenyan Socialist Usurper from another term.  After all, Stephens argues, it barely takes anyone with a pulse to beat "that one" and yet Romney and Gingrich aren't cutting it...

Finally, there are the men not in the field: Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour. This was the GOP A-Team, the guys who should have showed up to the first debate but didn't because running for president is hard and the spouses were reluctant. Nothing commends them for it. If this election is as important as they all say it is, they had a duty to step up. Abraham Lincoln did not shy from the contest of 1860 because of Mary Todd. If Mr. Obama wins in November—or, rather, when he does—the failure will lie as heavily on their shoulders as it will with the nominee.

What should readers who despair of a second Obama term make of all this? Hope ObamaCare is repealed by the High Court, the Iranian bomb is repealed by the Israeli Air Force, and the Senate switches hands, giving America a healthy spell of Hippocratic government.

All perfectly plausible. And the U.S. will surely survive four more years. Who knows? By then maybe Republicans will have figured out that if they don't want to lose, they shouldn't run with losers.

And Stephens is basically praying that Israel attacks Iran, because Rick Perry won't be able to make that (immediate) call.

Of course, the joke is that all the Republican names being bandied about have the same exact problem:  they can't win the rabid right and the moderate middle needed to beat President Obama.  After all, if it was as easy as Stephens yells it is, they'd be in the race now, wouldn't they?

Republicans swear up and down that any "thinking" American electorate would make a permanent GOP majority where liberals are regularly thrown off cliffs for sport, and yet they can't figure out why they can't achieve it.

Bret Stephens is a big clue as to why that's the case.  Keep begging.  I'm sure that Magical Super Republican will jump in the race any day now...

Alzheimer's Prevention

Use your head.  How many times do we hear that?  In the case of preventing Alzheimer's, it can be incredibly useful.  Studies have shown that engaging the brain has helped "routing" issues with protein buildups associated with Alzheimer's.  It makes sense on a basic level.  Our brain is constantly making new paths, and by constant use we are blazing new trails, more options for our brain if faced with the disease.

What is new is that a recent study suggests that exercising the brain not only helps with pathways, but the buildup of the damaging plaque as well.  That doesn't mean Alzheimer's strikes people who aren't intelligent, but by using our brains in certain ways we can  help lower the risk or the effects of the disease.

It's hope.  For those who haven't seen it, there are few things worse than watching a person disappear one memory at a time.  Anything we can do to head that off is a good thing.

Team Obama And The Stimulus

A midly depressing piece from Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker this week about President Obama running headlong into the political reality of a Republican Party sworn to destroy the country in order to take him down is all the rage right now, but the essay reveals the kind of bad advice the President was getting, especially economically, from his top advisers on the stimulus.

Obama was told that, regardless of his policies, the deficits would likely be blamed on him in the long run. The forecasts were frightening, and jeopardized his ambitious domestic agenda, which had been based on unrealistic assumptions made during the campaign. “Since January 2007 the medium-term budget deficit has deteriorated by about $250 billion annually,” the memo said. “If your campaign promises were enacted then, based on accurate scoring, the deficit would rise by another $100 billion annually. The consequence would be the largest run-up in the debt since World War II.”

There was an obvious tension between the warning about the extent of the financial crisis, which would require large-scale spending, and the warning about the looming federal budget deficits, which would require fiscal restraint. The tension reflected the competing concerns of two of Obama’s advisers. Christina Romer, the incoming chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, drafted the stimulus material. A Berkeley economist, she was new to government. She believed that she had persuaded Summers to raise the stimulus recommendation above the initial estimate, six hundred billion dollars, to something closer to eight hundred billion dollars, but she was frustrated that she wasn’t allowed to present an even larger option. When she had done so in earlier meetings, the incoming chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, asked her, “What are you smoking?” She was warned that her credibility as an adviser would be damaged if she pushed beyond the consensus recommendation.

Peter Orszag, the incoming budget director, was a relentless advocate of fiscal restraint. He was well known in Washington policy circles as a deficit hawk. Orszag insisted that there were mechanical limits to how much money the government could spend effectively in two years. In the Summers memo, he contributed sections about historic deficits and the need to scale back campaign promises. The Romer-Orszag divide was the start of a rift inside the Administration that continued for the next two years.

Even then, the President was told that the only thing that mattered was the deficit, not the economy.  Any idea to do more was shot down ruthlessly.  The reason was that Larry Summers badly underestimated the depth of the Great Recession, and Orszag and Rahm Emanuel went along with it.

Since 2009, some economists have insisted that the stimulus was too small. White House defenders have responded that a larger stimulus would not have moved through Congress. But the Summers memo barely mentioned Congress, noting only that his recommendation of a stimulus above six hundred billion dollars was “an economic judgment that would need to be combined with political judgments about what is feasible.”

He offered the President four illustrative stimulus plans: $550 billion, $665 billion, $810 billion, and $890 billion. Obama was never offered the option of a stimulus package commensurate with the size of the hole in the economy––known by economists as the “output gap”––which was estimated at two trillion dollars during 2009 and 2010. Summers advised the President that a larger stimulus could actually make things worse. “An excessive recovery package could spook markets or the public and be counterproductive,” he wrote, and added that none of his recommendations “returns the unemployment rate to its normal, pre-recession level. To accomplish a more significant reduction in the output gap would require stimulus of well over $1 trillion based on purely mechanical assumptions—which would likely not accomplish the goal because of the impact it would have on markets.”

Paul Krugman, a Times columnist and a Nobel Prize-winning economist who persistently supported a larger stimulus, told me that Summers’s assertion about market fears was a “bang my head on the table” argument. “He’s invoking the invisible bond vigilantes, basically saying that investors would be scared and drive up interest rates. That’s a major economic misjudgment.” Since the beginning of the crisis, the U.S. has borrowed more than five trillion dollars, and the interest rate on the ten-year Treasury bills is under two per cent. The markets that Summers warned Obama about have been calm.

In other words, it wasn't just a bad political decision to short-change the stimulus, it was a bad economic one too.  And The Kroog was right all along.  Interest rates in the US remain at record, historic lows.

And yet we're told that if Republicans get back into power, they will cut, cut, cut government spending while the economy continues to languish because it will "encourage growth."

 

It sure will.  Growth in the top one percent's share of wealth in the country, that is.  But the larger issue is that Larry Summers basically killed the recovery.  They never fought for a larger stimulus because they truly didn't believe a larger one would even help.  In fact, Summers pointed out a larger stimulus would have hurt the markets.

Considering the trillions doled out to the banks anyway, I find that laughable.

StupidiNews! Science Roundup Continues

A scientist has found possible signs of life on Venus.  This is far from confirmed, but I get excited when a scientist bucks convention and has some facts to work with.  Our history is riddled with stories of scientists who were objective and refused to let the snooty league keep them from questioning observations.  What he describes as a flap and a possible scorpion-like shape could very well be signs of life.  At this stage, one way or the other, we should refrain from believing we know the answer.  Considering the differences in atmosphere and surface, any discoveries wouldn't just be entertaining, it could lead towards a better understanding of life as a whole.

Speaking of strange forms of life, a deep sea shrimp spews bioluminescent fluid to scare off the predators. And as the article points out, that's not even when it gets weird.

All I'm saying is, we don't know everything and until we do (in fact, after we believe we do) we should let our minds remain open and try to see things for what they really are.  Even when that is glowing shrimp goo.

Mom Hosted Kegger... For Teens

GREENSBURG, Pa. -- A prosecutor will seek a prison term for a western Pennsylvania woman who has pleaded guilty to serving a half-keg of beer to teen guests at her son's graduation party, before three of them were killed in a crash about a mile away.

Sanders-Watt wasn't charged with involuntary manslaughter, because prosecutors couldn't prove the beer she served caused the crash on June 26, 2010. That's because the driver, 19-year-old Michael Simpson, had been drinking at another location before the defendant's party.

But Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck said Sanders-Watt faces a maximum of 45 years in prison and, though she'll likely receive less under state sentencing guidelines, he will ask a judge to put her in jail or prison rather than letting her serve probation or house arrest. Her sentencing will be scheduled in about three months.

Parents don't have the right to make decisions for other parents. This woman's poor judgment led to the death of three people, and any parent who serves alcohol to teenagers is running the same risk.

I've heard adults say they take the keys and make the kids stay at their home if intoxicated. That's just disgusting. Teaching underage kids how to drink is not admirable. Letting them participate in the myth that they are old enough to make mature decisions isn't helping them. Supplying alcohol can lead to many risks, from alcohol poisoning to accidents at the home.

Do you want your kid to grow up to be like Andy Dick, sobbing at a bar until closing time, and hated by all mankind? That's how people get to this stage of stupidity, contributing to their failure at an early age sets them up for punishment that takes a lifetime to recover from... if they live long enough.

Iran, So Far Away, Part 9

The US continues to ratchet up the tension on Iran's economy by singling out Iran's largest banks and saying that anyone who does business with them will not be able to do business with the US.

The United States on Monday sought to tighten the financial screws on Iran by imposing sanctions on the country's third-largest bank for allegedly helping Tehran develop its nuclear program.

Now any foreign firm that deals with Iranian state-owned Bank Tejarat and its affiliate, Belarus-based Trade Capital Bank, will no longer be able to access the U.S. financial system.

The sanctions "will deepen Iran's financial isolation, make its access to hard currency even more tenuous, and further impair Iran's ability to finance its illicit nuclear program," Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen said in a statement.

The United States and Europe are pressuring Iran to talk to the international community about its nuclear activities, which the West says are aimed at developing a weapons program but which Tehran says are peaceful.

The European Union on Monday banned imports of oil from Iran and followed the United States in imposing sanctions on its central bank, which acts as the clearinghouse for the country's oil revenue.

And yes, yesterday's EU decision to go along with oil sanctions has Iran in a real bind now.   They are screaming for revenge.

Iran accused Europeans on Monday of waging "psychological warfare" after the EU banned imports of Iranian oil, and President Barack Obama said Washington would impose more sanctions to address the "serious threat presented by Iran's nuclear program."

The Islamic Republic, which denies trying to build a nuclear bomb, scoffed at efforts to choke its oil exports, as Asia lines up to buy what Europe scorns.

Some Iranians also renewed threats to stop Arab oil from leaving the Gulf and warned they might strike U.S. targets worldwide if Washington used force to break any Iranian blockade of a strategically vital shipping route.

Yet in three decades of confrontation between Tehran and the West, bellicose rhetoric and the undependable armory of sanctions have become so familiar that the benchmark Brent crude oil price edged only 0.8 percent higher, and some of that was due to unrelated currency factors.

In other words, the market has already priced in the sanctions, meaning that Iran has less leverage than ever.  We'll see how this goes, but the combined EU and US sanctions are going to have an effect on Iran's political situation, and soon.

The Big GOP Debate Thread: Newt And Mitt

The two big stories from last night's Florida debate were Mitt on the attack, and Santorum and Ron Paul clearly being treated as also-rans.  The contest is now down to Gingrich vs. Romney.

Mitt Romney came ready to take on Newt Gingrich in Monday night’s debate. And for one moment at least he really seemed to throw over the Florida frontrunner in a conversation about lobbying.

Gingrich’s GOP opponents have attacked him for months now over the work he took on after leaving the House, accusing him of being a lobbyist. Gingrich has responded by saying he was just an extremely well-paid former politician companies hired to help them do business with active politicians.

Gingrich has tried to dance that dance for a while now, but during the debate Monday, he finally seemed to trip up.


Romney went after Gingrich hard on the topic, first dismissing Gingrich’s claim that he was a historian for Freddie Mac.

“They don’t pay people $25,000 a month for six years as historians,” Romney said, referring to the fees Gingrich’s consulting firm was paid by the mortgage giant. “They weren’t hiring you as a historian.”

Which is funny if you think about it.  Here's Mitt Romney, worth a quarter of a billion dollars, going after Newt for being on Freddie Mac's payroll, and Newt dropping back into indignation as a defense.

Meanwhile, we learned early this morning that Romney's tax rate last year wasn't 15%.  It was less than that.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released tax records on Tuesday indicating he will pay $6.2 million in taxes on a total of $42.5 million in income over the years 2010 and 2011.

Bowing to increasing political pressure to provide more detail about his vast wealth, the former private equity executive released tax returns indicating he and his wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010. They expect to pay a 15.4 percent rate when they file their returns for 2011.

Romney's tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans because most of his income, as outlined in more than 500 pages of tax documents, flows from capital gains on investments.

Some 500 pages of  awesome capital gains, taxed at at lower rate than Americans who make 40 grand a year.  That's going to help him with the average American, right?

StupidiNews!

• President Obama will speak to Congress and the country in tonight's State of the Union address, urging that government's role in America is to ensure "a fair shake for all."
• Starbucks will expand into wine and beer in California and Georgia after successful testing in the Pacific Northwest with the offerings.
• Egypt's first session of parliament since the ouster of Mubarak reflected the diversity and growing power of political groups.
• EU officials are looking to give Greek bond investors a steeper "haircut", offering a lower rate of return for Greek bonds in exchange for bailout help.
• Climate numbers for 2011 indicate that last year was around the 10th warmest on record as La Nina kept the year from being "exceptionally" hot.

Last Call

Rick Santorum winning the state of Iowa's Republican caucuses despite a position on rape and abortion like this pretty much seals the deal that they should lose their "first in the nation" status entirely.

SANTORUM: Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

Yes ladies, rape is awful. But you get a lovely parting gift, as decreed by Rick Santorum and his fellow anti-choice nimrods.

Everyone repeat after me:  There's no difference between Obama and the Republicans on issues that matter!

Re-Birther Of The Uncool, Part 3

Whether you believe that the Republicans will self-destruct in November or not, the Birther component of the anti-Obama campaign will never, never end unless the people who continue to spew this nonsense are actually made to pay a price.

A judge has ordered President Barack Obama to appear in court in Atlanta for a hearing on a complaint that says Obama isn’t a natural-born citizen and can’t be president.

It’s one of many such lawsuits that have been filed across the country, so far without success. A Georgia resident made the complaint, which is intended to keep Obama’s name off the state’s ballot in the March presidential primary.

An Obama campaign aide says any attempt to involve the president personally will fail and such complaints around the country have no merit.

The hearing is set for Thursday before an administrative judge. Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi on Friday denied a motion by the president’s lawyer to quash a subpoena that requires Obama to show up.

If the President shows up, every other state GOP machine will file similar complaints with friendly judges and he'll have to show up there as well.  If the President ignores the complaints, it will "prove he has something to hide" and feed the nasty e-mail whisper campaign that basically hasn't stopped since early 2008. The sinister point of all this is not to prove or disprove anything, but to so demoralize voters that they'll entertain the notion that if the Republicans win, all this idiocy will go away and that the GOP will behave themselves again.

It's complete nonsense, of course.  All of it.  The idiocy was always there and surrender by the electorate is the only way the GOP wins with their current field of cartoon villain mouth-breathing doucheknockers.  But that's the point:  no matter how many times the President personally staples his birth certificate to people's foreheads, they'll never believe him.  Jesus Christ could descend from the sky with John Wayne's pet T-Rex that's piloting the Millennium Falcon, during halftime at the Super Bowl, grab the mic while Sam Elliott hands him his own mustache and say "You guys, he was born in Hawaii, knock this crap off already" and they would wonder how POTUS managed to brainwash America and the world into seeing such a perfect simultaneous mass hallucination.  They would in fact blame fluoridated water.  I kid you not.

Almost enough to drive a guy to drink.

President Obama, Jobs, And Government

This analysis on government job creation from Gallup economist Dennis Jacobe from last week is notable for two reasons:  first, it shows that President Obama is doing exactly what Republicans say they want him to do by cutting government jobs, especially at the federal level, and increase private sector jobs.  Second, it proves that Republicans are lying about jobs, as usual.

Take this graph, showing the difference between areas of the federal government that said they were hiring, and those who said they were cutting jobs.

Job creation by the U.S. federal government fell further into negative territory in December 2011 with Gallup's Job Creation Index at -20, worsening from -15 in November and from -12 in October. While 23% of federal employees in December said their area was hiring, 43% said employees were being let go -- by far the most negative conditions Gallup has found since it began tracking federal government job creation in August 2008.

Note the area before January 2009...when George W. Bush was still President. In August 2008, that number was +30. In December 2011 under Barack Obama, that number is now -30.  Under this President, federal jobs are being cut dramatically...far more than under the previous president, literally a 50 point swing in the difference between hiring and firing.

But at every turn you hear Republicans on the campaign trail saying how Barack Obama has presided over "unprecedented growth in big government and federal workers."  Nothing could be further from the truth. Federal belt-tightening was happening before the GOP won the House, and the stimulus and Census jobs also dried up. In 2011, Gallup's polls showed federal departments were letting more people go than hiring, despite GOP tinfoil idiocy about hiring "hundreds of thousands of IRS agents to enforce Obamacare" as boldfaced lies.

What about at the state and local levels?  Those jobs cut cut massively too, although they are starting to balance out.

Again, Gallup's numbers show that government employees declined at the state and local level, despite the stimulus.  In fact, at both the local and state level, more employees were getting fired than hired in every single month of the Obama presidency so far.  In spring of 2010 those numbers were brutal.  Only now, three years later, are these number starting to moderate as states, counties, and cities are running out of jobs to cut.

But surely Republicans aren't lying when they say Obama has destroyed private sector hiring, right? The stimulus failed and wrecked the economy?  Wrong.

Job creation levels in the private sector have steadily improved since early 2009...when the stimulus bill was signed into law.  Overall government jobs are shrinking, not growing.  Private sector job growth is increasing, especially since 2010.

In fact, that's exactly what Republicans say the country needs to be doing now:  firing "overpaid" government employees and hiring more private sector workers.  That's exactly what's been going on under President Obama.  But Republicans can't admit that...because it would mean that they were lying.



He has reduced the size of the government.  He cut taxes on the middle class.  Private sector job growth is steadily improving.

But the Republicans have to lie.  It's the only way they can win.

Illinois Catches Missouri's Cold

Illinois citizens may have to provide identification and be listed in a database so they don't buy too much cold medicine, and perhaps contribute to meth production.

It's the dumbest thing in the world.  I can say this from experience, because Missouri's been doing this for a long time.  Zero good has come from it.  Now, our state wants us to get a prescription for over the counter medicine as a secondary measure, because this database is a fail.  Except for collecting information, that is.

If the people of Illinois can't squash this, they face a long spiral of stupidity.  We call that a StupidiSpiral around these parts.  First, someone is going to make a lot of money installing systems and designing the database.  Then the stores raise prices to compensate for the pain in the ass that has become Sudafed. The state will say prescriptions are the next logical step, ignoring why we have over the counter medicines in the first damn place. Now poor people (or uninsured) who can't afford a doctor visit now can't afford basic relief because someone might use it to make meth.

There is no gray area here.  Law enforcement: do your jobs, and stop putting innocent people through harassment to have access to a perfectly legal substance.  Government: know your limits and for once respect them.  It's wrong to have people give their personal information to have access to cold medicine.  This is asinine and backfires on the vulnerable and the ill.

Idiots, all of them.

Obama Gets It Right

While Republicans decide whether they will allow a woman to own her body or have access to birth control, Obama acknowledges that he doesn't have the right to decide for women.  That in itself is refreshing.  Here is what he had to say today, courtesy of HuffPo:

As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue -- no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant woman and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

Obama gets it on many levels.  It's not about his personal beliefs, it's about the right of a person to make medical decisions.  The reality is, our bodies should not be held hostage to the beliefs of someone else.  But that's not all, it's about education, preventing those unwanted pregnancies in the first place so abortions are not necessary.  We can help promote adoption when it's a good option.  It's all about choices, and in this case, protecting them.

Obama isn't afraid to come out and openly support women, and I am so grateful to him for that.  It's a risky move for him, but I admire him for having the strength to speak when many would have remained silent.  He has come out in open support of fair wages for women.  He has demonstrated his respect for women not just through his words, but his actions.

Thanks, O.  We got you in in 2012.

Iran, So Far Away, Part 8

The Republicans continue to attack the President's Iran policy as "weak" and "appeasement", and while they continue to stumble all over themselves saying that they will take "whatever action is necessary" to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, the President's policy has quietly gotten the Iranians back to the negotiating table.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said only negotiations and not sanctions can resolve the standoff over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

“Consensus can only be reached through serious negotiations based on a cooperative approach and not via the wrong path of sanctions,” Ramin Mehmanparast said yesterday according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

The comments come as European Union foreign ministers are set to meet in Brussels tomorrow to consider an oil embargo and additional financial sanctions on the country. The U.S. and the European Union are urging Iran to return to nuclear talks, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Jan. 20. If Iran’s leaders agree to a “serious dialogue,” they must be prepared to discuss steps to give up “options for nuclear weapons,” he said.

Iran is already under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions. The U.S. and its allies say they suspect that Iran’s nuclear program is a cover for developing atomic weapons, a charge the Persian Gulf nation has repeatedly denied, maintaining the program is for civilian purposes. Mehmanparast told IRNA that claims that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons are “baseless.” 

Iran at this point is begging for negotiations, because the threat of US and now EU economic sanctions on anyone who does business with Iran over oil is rapidly killing Iran's currency.

Iran’s national currency fell by 11 percent Saturday amid the government’s refusal to sign off on a move to raise bank interest rates, state news agencies reported.


The semiofficial Fars news agency said the the country’s currency, the rial, was trading at nearly 20,000 to the U.S. dollar on Saturday on the black market, compared to 18,000 rials a day earlier.

The rial was trading at around 10,500 riyals to the U.S. dollar in late December 2010.

In other words, the President's Iran policy has cut the value of the Iranian rial in half.  That's a hell of a "smart power" motivator, is it not?  Enough to have Iran practically begging for a diplomatic solution.  Now granted, there are still tons of ways that this could go wrong, but the alternative is the Republican plan to bomb Iran now and worry about diplomacy after we install a puppet government, plunging us into another ten-year war with unforeseen consequences.

All in all, I'd rather go with the smart power approach.