Notes from Howard's Sabbatical from Working. The name comes from a 1998 lunch conversation. Someone asked if everything man knew was on the web. I answered "no" and off the top of my head said "Fidel Castro's favorite color". About every 6-12 months I've searched for this. It doesn't show up in the first 50 Google results (this blog is finally first for that search), AskJeeves says it's: red.
and his ending: "So if you read the chart carefully, you would say we should reverse the tax cuts, stop launching so many deficit-financed wars, and make sure we regulate the financial sector so it doesn’t blow up again. But that’s not exactly the Republican agenda right now."
The first notes how gas prices have come down a little. He points out how Obama (incorrectly) got blamed for the rise in gas prices and now isn't being (incorrectly) credited with the decrease.
He also includes a Goldman Sachs chart on the effects of Taxmageddon and Brad Plumer followed up a little.
Ezra Klein posted an interview with Sen. Tom Coburn, part one: Defusing the debt bomb. Part two isn't up yet but even the just the first part is great. Coburn is hawking a new book and Klein is knowledgable enough (and willing) to ask questions that challenge his opinions and facts.
Digby thinks, "Gosh, it sounds like ole Tom is getting ready to endorse somebody. If I read that right, he has more faith that Obama will compromise with the lunatic Republicans than Romney will. "
Coburn mentions Krugman and cites Sweden as a counter example. Krugman challenges that. "Ezra points out, rightly, that Sweden has actually benefited a lot from very aggressive monetary policy...But Ezra didn’t challenge Coburn on the claim about spending cuts". He charts that Sweden hasn't cut real government purchases but the US has.
Digby pointed out that Obama tweeted "Federal spending, taxes, and the annual budget deficit are all lower now than when President Obama first took office."
The New York Times has an interactive feature, The Future Military: Your Budget Strategy. "The Pentagon has committed to $450 billion in reduced spending over the next 10 years, but may have to come up with a total of $1 trillion in cuts if Congress follows through with deeper reductions. Make your own plan to reduce the budget by choosing some of the most common, interesting or provocative cuts that have been proposed by various parties."
"Brazil, a growing, multicultural nation of nearly 200 million people, is preparing to host two huge international events: the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Brazilians face numerous challenges, building many new structures and the infrastructure to support them, while attending to existing challenges and 'cleaning up' before the world comes to visit. Brazil is also huge (the largest country in the southern hemisphere), and its ecological diversity ranges from dense urban spaces to forested mountains, vast plains to sparkling beaches. It's impossible to sum up a country in a single photo essay, so take this as just a sample of recent scenes from around Brazil. [45 photos]"
Paul Krugman on Spending and Growth. After looking at first quarter data he writes, "So Japan, which is spending heavily for post-tsunami reconstruction, is growing quite fast, while Italy, which is imposing austerity measures, is shrinking almost equally fast. There seems to be some kind of lesson here about macroeconomics, but I can’t quite put my finger on it …"
Jared Bernstein wrote in Rolling Stone, Bill Clinton: How to Tame the Debt Without Screwing the Poor and Middle Class. "The former president sat down for an interview with Tom Brokaw yesterday at a conference in Washington D.C., and was the voice of reasoned experience. I don’t agree with everything he said, but I agree with most of it. And I can’t think of anyone else who so deeply understands the intersection of policy, politics, world affairs, and human nature right now. Here are a few points I thought deserved elaboration:"
I'm most of the way through Clinton's latest book, Back to Work and think it makes a lot of sense. It's in his same conversational tone that you see in all his talks (like on The Daily Show). He cites lots of statistics and facts and is trying to bring in the conservatives and come up with policy proposals that are compromises and could make a difference. It's good stuff. Can we repeal the 22nd amendment?
"Last month, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein published an Op ed and a book making the extremely controversial argument that both parties aren’t equally to blame for what ails Washington. They argued that the GOP — by allowing extremists to roam free and by wielding the filibuster to achieve government dysfunction as a political end in itself — were demonstrably more culpable for creating what is approaching a crisis of governance.
It turns out neither man has been invited on to the Sunday shows even once to discuss this thesis. As Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum note, these are among the most quoted people in Washington — yet suddenly this latest topic is too hot for the talkers, or not deemed relevant at all. I ran this thesis by Ornstein himself, and he confirmed that the book’s publicity people had tried to get the authors booked on the Sunday shows, with no success."
I haven't seen them on anything yet, but it would seem ripe for Jon Stewart (on vacation this week), Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes or even Bill Maher. I would think Bill Moyers would be all over this.
The New York Times reported yesterday Senate Confirms 2 Fed Board Nominees "The Senate on Thursday confirmed two nominees chosen by President Obama for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, overcoming Republican objections and bringing the seven-member board to full strength for the first time since 2006, before the economic crisis."
"For months, Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican and a member of the Banking Committee, held up the nominations, saying the two men would be “rubber stamps” for the policies of the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and, by implication, the Obama administration. Mr. Bernanke has already done more to increase economic growth and reduce unemployment than many of his conservative critics favor, while other critics — predominantly liberal — argue that he has not done enough.
After JPMorgan Chase’s recently acknowledged trading losses, which raised questions about whether the Fed and other agencies had a tight enough hand on the regulatory reins, Senate Democratic leaders found enough votes to surmount objections from Mr. Vitter and others. Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, explicitly linked the vote to the JPMorgan Chase matter, saying the bank had been behaving as if its business were a game of craps."
So something good came out of the JP Morgan Chase loss, though it's not clear yet where these two appointees fall policy-wise. There was also news that the Senate passed a bill the other day. Seriously, what's going on?
"The ad — titled ‘Obama’s Promise’ — lists several pledges that it claims the president has broken. The worst distortion it contains — one we haven’t addressed in this campaign — is an almost entirely groundless assertion that he broke his often-repeated promise not to raise taxes on persons making less than $200,000 a year, or couples making less than $250,000.
The ad shows Obama saying in a 2008 campaign speech, ‘If you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up.’ Then, to the sound of shattering glass, the narrator says, ‘Broken! Obamacare raises 18 different taxes.’
But that’s dishonest nonsense. Only a few of the tax changes in the new health care law will fall on families making under $250,000 a year, or individuals making less than $200,000 for that matter. And they make up only a small part of the $503 billion figure that appears on screen. That 10-year total falls overwhelmingly on individuals who are above those income thresholds — just as Obama promised — or on corporations. Money to be collected from individuals regardless of income would come mostly from taxes (or penalties) that are not yet in effect."
So I haven't seen any of the ads (the benefits of living in MA), and I haven't followed much of the campaign online (it's too soon). I have some issues with Citizens United but agree with the conservatives that political speech needs to be protected. My question here is, when does libel law come into play? If an ad is just false (shocker!), what's the penalty? Is there time to sue? For an ad run in the weeks before a campaign, obviously not, but for an ad run 6 months before, I would think the obvious answer is to sue for libel or slander.
"As far back as records go (1895), never has the U.S. strung together 12 straight months warmer than May 2011 to April 2012 according to new data released today by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) .
The record-setting 12-month period edged out November 1999-October 2000, the 2nd warmest 12-month period, by 0.1°F. The average temperature was 2.8 degrees F above the 20th century average.
In the last year, the U.S. has experienced its second hottest summer, fourth warmest winter (December through February) and warmest March on record. And NCDC announced April 2012 was third warmest on record."
But climate change is either a hoax or too expensive to do anything about...
The New York Times reports today, G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama. "A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the ‘super PAC’ era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from."
"“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Mr. Ricketts is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics.
The $10 million plan, one of several being studied by Mr. Ricketts, includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright, who espouses what is known as “black liberation theology.”
The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”"
This seems to be the story of the day. Charles P. Pierce writes about it in Esquire, 'The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama' Is Just Another Racist Sprocket in the New-Age Slime Slot Machine. "They used to meet in secret. When conservatives decided to go all-in on the remnants of white supremacy, they developed their own code for it. When Trent Lott got caught hob-nobbing with racists, people actually were shocked about it. They don't have to pretend anymore. There is no longer a need for code. There is practically nothing anyone can say about this president in public as long as he's rich enough not to give a damn."
I know this election is going to get ugly. Billionaires are for all intents and purposes trying to buy elections. I wonder if it will get ugly enough to encourage real campaign finance reform.
Update: Now this is fun. Ricketts is the head of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs and they want $100 million in city tax breaks to rebuild Wrigley field. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is not amused.
"[RNC chair Reince] Priebus offers his “all in” commitment even though [Republican Governor Scott] Walker's campaign has a 25–1 financial advantage over [Democratic challenger Tom] Barrett. And that doesn't even count the millions coming in from the Koch Brothers and other national donors who are funding so-called “independent” expenditures on the governor's behalf.
What is the Democratic National Committee offering in return? Not as much. While the Democratic Governors Association and some other groups with party ties have been supportive of the electoral fight in Wisconsin, the DNC has been slow on the draw. Even now, after much discussion of the DNC's slow response, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz says only that she hopes to come to Wisconsin for a fundraising event. Translation: She will make an appearance in Wisconsin where Wisconsinites will be asked to give money to the DNC."
If they're not going to support this campaign with money, I'd like an explanation as to why.
"This debate picked up this year after some Lehigh University students estimated that just the steel for a Death Star would cost $852 quadrillion, or 13,000 times the current GDP of the Earth."
"While it may have some use as a deterrent against possible invaders, the DS is primarily a tool of domestic politics. Prior to its completion, the Emperor is compelled to keep the Imperial Senate around, presumably to maintain the semblance of popular consent. But the Senate imposes some inefficiency — meddling in military strategy, perhaps, or directing spending to some favored planets. Once the DS is operational, the Emperor can disband the Senate and, instead, empower Imperial governors to suppress the local population and extract revenue."
"Peasant 1: Did you hear the Empire blew up Alderaan? What kind of government blows up one of the richest planets in the galaxy because of one smack-talking teenager? It could be any of us next."
Above are number of appearances and first appearances of characters, but he also charts women in the roster and robots and gods. If such things are interesting, you'll also want to check out part 2.
"Unlike most satellite images of Earth, this one was not assembled from multiple swath scans or digitally projected onto a globe model — it’s the full disk of our planet in captured as a single, enormous 121 megapixel image, acquired by Russia’s Elektro-L weather-forecasting satellite.
Like NASA’s GOES satellites, Elektro-L is parked in a geostationary orbit approximately 36,000 km (22,300 miles) above our planet. Unlike NASA’s satellites, however, Elektro-L captures images in near-infrared as well as visible wavelengths, providing detail about not only cloud movement but also vegetation variations. Its wide-angle Multichannel Scanning Unit (MSU) takes images every 15-30 minutes, showing the same viewpoint of Earth across progressive times of the day."
In Focus shows us 50 Years Ago: The World in 1962. "A half-century ago, the space race was heating up and the Cold War was freezing over. Soviet missile bases discovered in Cuba triggered a crisis that brought the U.S. to the brink of war with the U.S.S.R. Civil rights activists won hard-earned victories against segregationists in the American South, and John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. Algeria gained independence from France and the U.S. slowly escalated its involvement in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Seattle held a World's Fair called the the Century 21 Exposition, celebrating the themes of space, science, and the future. Let me take you 50 years into the past now, for a look at the world as it was in 1962. [50 photos]"
It's the space age, war and civil rights with a little camelot thrown in. I really liked this collection.
"In 1806, the Senate, on the advice of Aaron Burr, tried to clean up its rule book, which was thought to be needlessly complicated and redundant. One change it made was to delete something called “the previous question” motion. That was the motion senators used to end debate on whatever they were talking about and move to the next topic. Burr recommended axing it because it was hardly ever used. Senators were gentlemen. They knew when to stop talking.
That was the moment the Senate created the filibuster. But nobody knew it at the time. It would be three more decades before the first filibuster was mounted — which meant it was five decades after the ratification of the Constitution. “Far from being a matter of high principle, the filibuster appears to be nothing more than an unforeseen and unintended consequence of the elimination of the previous question motion from the rules of the Senate,” Bondurant writes.
And even then, filibusters were a rare annoyance. Between 1840 and 1900, there were 16 filibusters. Between 2009 and 2010, there were more than 130. But that’s changed. Today, Majority Leader Harry Reid says that “60 votes are required for just about everything.”
At the core of Bondurant’s argument is a very simple claim: This isn’t what the Founders intended. The historical record is clear on that fact. The framers debated requiring a supermajority in Congress to pass anything. But they rejected that idea."
Always make backups. I think at that point there is some good backup software so this should be easy. A remaining problem is that it's not always easy to check backups but that's just as important. It seems odd that the first time you do a restore, it's probably really critical that you get it right without having practiced.
I never watched the TV series but for some reason I gave the new Tim Burton Johnny Deep Dark Shadows film a shot. I'm sorry I did. I saw it with a group of eight and others did enjoy it, but if I had been seated at the end of the row instead of in the center, I would have walked out of boredom.
The trailer makes it out to be a comedy but while there were a few laughs, they were mostly in the trailer and were few and far between in a film just under two hours long. That might be ok if there had been something else to fill the time, but even with a good cast and lots of roles and even some soapy stuff going on, there was just nothing engaging. Notice I said roles, because there really aren't characters.
200 years ago, the witch Angelique (Eva Green) was spurned by Barnabas (Johnny Depp) so she kills his family, his love and turns him into a vampire and imprisons him. He escapes in 1972 to find his descendants living in his estate but not doing very well. We're introduced to the matriarch (Michelle Pfeiffer), her teenage daughter (Chloe Grace Moretz), the useless wicked brother (Jonny Lee Miller), his troubled son (Gulliver McGrath), the live in shrink (Helena Bonham Carter), the new governess (Bella Heathcote) and the old groundskeeper (Jackie Earle Haley). Angelique is still around and basically owns the town. There you now know virtually everything there is to know about the characters. They're in scenes but we don't get to know any of them. Barnabas is the only one we kinda get to know, but his scenes are mostly about being a 200 year old fish out of water. That works for a bit, but not for two hours.
John Stewart did a great bit Tuesday night of Republicans taking completely hypocritical positions in their need to hate everything Obama has done. He played up the cognitive dissonance angle...
Here's the full interview Romney gave Monday in which he took credit for saving the auto industry:
So it's really not taken out of context. It's also not off the cuff. The Saturday before, a Romney campaign aide said essentially the same thing, Romney campaign aide claims auto bailout was Romney's idea. "'[Romney's] position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed. I know it infuriates them to hear that,' Eric Fehrnstrom, senior adviser to the Romney campaign, said. 'The only economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed Mitt Romney's advice.'"
And here's Romney's NY Times op-ed from Nov 18, 2008, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. Note that this was while Bush was still president and he approved the first part of the auto bailout. Here's the substance of what Romney said:
"IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed. Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check."
He (as always) talks about his dad and then says the government should invest in basic research, not bailouts, ending with:
"But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost. The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk. In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check."
Wikipedia details the auto-bailouts here. The problem was that the industry needed cash on hand to continue operations while it restructured. The problem was the financial crisis, caused a credit crisis and no one was lending money to GM or Chrysler. So the government stepped in to do so, took some ownership, and required changes. These weren't met. Obama created an overseeing task force (instead of a proposed car czar) and they put in a new CEO of GM and gave them more funds and another 60 days to make changes to avoid a chapter 11 bankruptcy even though they expected one to happen. It did in June.
So Romeny is saying they should have just gone into chapter 11 back in the fall of 2008 but again, no bank or private equity firm (including Bain Capital) would give them enough funds to remain operational during a restructuring. The government was the lender of last resort and essentially put them through restructuring. Something they could have done with the banks and TARP funds but didn't.
"Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses, Obama rewarded them. A labor union that had contributed millions to Democrats and his election campaign was granted an ownership share of Chrysler and a major stake in GM, two flagships of the industry.The U.S. Department of Treasury — American taxpayers — was asked to become a majority stockholder of GM. And a politically connected and ethically challenged Obama-campaign contributor, the financier Steven Rattner, was asked to preside over all this as auto czar. This was crony capitalism on a grand scale. The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better."
He goes on, but the crux of his argument is this:
"[Chrysler and GM] were saddled with an accumulation of labor, pension, and real estate costs that made them unsustainable. Health and retirement benefits alone amounted to an extra $2,000 baked into the price of every car they produced. Shorn of those excess costs, and shorn of the bungling management that had driven them into a deep rut, they could re-emerge as vibrant and competitive companies. "
I don't really understand Romney's positions on corporate ownership. He doesn't want unions to have ownership in the company they work for. In his times editorial he says his dad cut his own pay and bought stock in the company, I assume because it would be an incentive to make the company profitable. But then he said "No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options." He also wants "profit sharing or stock grants to all employees." So stock ownership is good, except when it isn't and it should be for everyone but not unions. Got it.
He also talked a lot about how US companies have $2,000 more cost per car than foreign competitors like Toyota because of negotiated wages and benefits packages for workers and retirees. Now some of those did need to be restructures and the UAW was willing but it's not an easy thing to do. Romney doesn't mention that other nations have universal health care so that employers don't have the burden of paying for their workers (and retirees) health care. He's opposed to Obamacare, even though he's obviously for Romneycare. So I guess each state with auto manufacturing should come up with their own health care plan to alleviate the pressure of providing health care to workers so that GM can compete with Japan. Why not adopt the Japanese model of health care to better compete?
"Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.
That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels. If this sounds apocalyptic, it is."
"We need to start reducing emissions significantly, not create new ways to increase them. We should impose a gradually rising carbon fee, collected from fossil fuel companies, then distribute 100 percent of the collections to all Americans on a per-capita basis every month. The government would not get a penny. This market-based approach would stimulate innovation, jobs and economic growth, avoid enlarging government or having it pick winners or losers. Most Americans, except the heaviest energy users, would get more back than they paid in increased prices. Not only that, the reduction in oil use resulting from the carbon price would be nearly six times as great as the oil supply from the proposed pipeline from Canada, rendering the pipeline superfluous, according to economic models driven by a slowly rising carbon price."
If Waterworld wasn't bad enough to convince people, I don't know what will.
"In like five years the prime talking point from Republicans about people who support gay marriage has gone from 'It will destroy society via turtle fucking' to 'Oh of course you're for it you'll say anything popular to get elected' and that is progress."
I really liked Grocery IQ as an iOS shopping list app. I use it on the iPhone and iPad adding items to my using whichever device is closer. It let you track multiple stores and sort items by aisles (with names you could assign) per store and kept track of things previously bought. I shop in a few different stores (Russo's, Shaws, Whole Foods, CVS, Trader Joe's) so this was particularly useful. It could also track prices between stores but I never bothered. Adding items was easy as their was an online database of items. Often just scanning the barcode was enough and you could put it in the store and aisle you wanted.
But then came update 2.6 and they broke things and people are unhappy. Grocery iQ Update Drags App Down, Causing Customers To Flee. I'm not sure what they did. There are still stores but I don't see aisles and there's a master list. I had worked out the aisles for my items over a couple months and had them right between the stores (after doing this you learn to hate store reorganizations). Now there's one master list of items and the aisles are are mixed up in one list that sorted alphabetically. Russo's doesn't have aisles so I had used and sorted names such as outside, left, dairy, cheese, back, bakery, front, etc. Now that's all mixed up in one master list. A mess.
Fortunately the reviews are so bad that it's obviously they're going to have to undo the changes. They've already backed out some (bringing back prices which doesn't help me). I hope they bring back the rest. I've seen some apps that just say if you don't like the changes don't update. That's weak but almost reasonable since the update is free. However it does break the App Store's Update All feature so it's completely unreasonable.
Does anyone else use a grocery list app to the extent I outlines that they like and can recommend? Update: As they comment below, they have released a couple of updates since this post and Grocery IQ is back to being a very good application.
The New York Times has an interactive feature, 
