Yesterday we learned that LinkedIn was hacked and someone got over 6 million password hashes. Here's the Reuters report, LinkedIn suffers data breach. We don't know details of how they got in, but we know about the passwords. In that regard LinkedIn almost did a reasonable job in protecting passwords. Here's an explanation (I hope) for the layman.
Web sites don't, or shouldn't, store your actual password. If someone got (or had) access that would be too easy (or tempting) to steal. Instead they hash them and store the hash. A hash function takes some string (of letters or numbers or whatever) as input and mashes them up into a number of some fixed length. It's important that the function uses just the string and not other stuff like a count or the time, that way, whenever you hash that same string you get the same number as a result. So a hash function might turn "Alice" in 1234 and "Bob" into 5678. Since you can enter any string as input and it always gives a fixed length number, there can be duplicates, but that's ok as along as you always get the same result.
The way computers use them for passwords is easy. When you create your password, it hashes it and stores the hash. Then when you login, you enter your password and the computer hashes it and compares it to the hash it has stored. If they match you're in, if not, you try again. So this should be good right? Only you can login, the computer doesn't know your password (just the hash) and even if someone steals the hash they don't have your password. Almost.
While it's hard to turn 1234 into "Alice", computers are good at doing lots of things over and over. What if someone knew the hash function used and got the file of all the hashed passwords? They could just try every string and check the results. Maybe "Charlie" hashes to 3456 and "Delta" to 1023. But it would be easy to write a program to try every string or say every string up to 8 letters long and get the hash result. Now they could take a hash from the password file and look it up in their results to see what string hashes to that value. This is called a dictionary attack because the attacker is building a dictionary of all the hash values.
A cryptographic hash function is just a very strong one. It uses very big numbers so it should rarely result in duplicates and is very hard to undo. It should be impossible (with current knowledge) to turn 1234 back into "Alice" and even if you make a small change to the input "alice" it should result in a very different number. The current standard cryptographic hash function is SHA-1. It was designed by the NSA and while there are some theoretical weaknesses now discovered it still hasn't been broken. There is a new standard in development, but current best practice is to use SHA-1. It turns strings into numbers 160 bits long, that's about 49 decimal digits.
But even cryptographic hash functions are subject to dictionary attacks. If every site just hashed their password with SHA-1, then it would be useful for attackers to build one big dictionary of the hashes of all strings of password length. They could reuse it for every site on the internet. Except for one thing, salt. The idea is that easy site, before they hash the password, uses one number, known as salt, to change it to some other string, and then they hash that. So Amazon might use 3221 (well much bigger) for their salt and Yahoo might use 9873, so even if Alice uses the same password at both sites they will have very different hashes. Now it's not so useful to build a dictionary of SHA-1 hashes, because they need to build one for each salt value.
And that's what LinkedIn forgot, the salt. They just used SHA-1 on your password and stored that. So now, hackers are hashing all the random strings they can and comparing the results to hashes they found at LinkedIn, if they find a match, they know your LinkedIn password.
So now you should understand why there are all these annoying guidelines about picking passwords. How many strings do hackers have to try to find your password hash? Let's say your password is 4 lowercase letters, that's 264 or 456,976 possible strings. A 10 letter password is over 141 trillion possibilities. That's big, but still small for a computer to try. But computers treat upper and lowercase letters differently. So if some of the letters in your password are uppercase, then the attackers have to try 5210 or over 144 quadrillion strings. Add digits or punctuation marks and attackers have to try over 3 quintillion 10 character strings. Make it 13 characters long and they have to try over a septillion possibilities. This is also the reason you don't want to pick known words. Instead of just trying every combination of characters alphabetically, they'll hash words they find in the dictionary first in the hopes of cutting down their attempts.
This is also why you shouldn't reuse the same password at different sites. Once they know your LinkedIn password, then they'll try it on your Facebook account and email and bank account, etc. Your password is only as strong as the weakest (or dumbest) site where it's stored.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
How to Prevent Drone Pilot PTSD: Blame the 'Bot
Danger Room writes How to Prevent Drone Pilot PTSD: Blame the 'Bot. "The human operators who control America’s killer drones are susceptible to the same psychological stress that infantrymen sometimes experience after combat. But better drones and control systems could help reduce the controllers’ stress levels — by allowing the people to blame the robots for the awful human cost of remote air strikes."
Ok, I've seen previous reports about this:
"For drone operators, many of whom live in the U.S. and steer their armed drones via satellite from air-conditioned trailers, combat stress can be accentuated by the contrast between their jobs and their otherwise peaceful surroundings. “You shoot a missile, you kill a handful of people,” Missy Cummings, an MIT drone developer and former pilot, told Salon. “And then — this is what is strange — you go home. Your shift is over.” When you fight in a war without living in a combat zone, “it’s harder to keep it in perspective,” Cummings said."
But this seems ridiculous:
"A more independent drone could alert its controller for assistance only when it has spotted a likely target. The operator would give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down for the robot to fire a weapon. With only minimal involvement, the human being could avoid feeling fully responsible for the consequences of the strike. Drones are already becoming more autonomous by the day, opening the door for a different emotional dynamic between them and their operators. Another guilt-avoidance tactic is to anthropomorphize the drone, Calo adds. It turns that robots that look more human can inspire many of the same emotions that actual people do in each other."
I don't doubt there's (possibly) some truth to it, but then again it sounds like they're arguing that we should make our soldiers think that guns kill people and it's not the people doing it. That sounds a bit scary.
Ok, I've seen previous reports about this:
"For drone operators, many of whom live in the U.S. and steer their armed drones via satellite from air-conditioned trailers, combat stress can be accentuated by the contrast between their jobs and their otherwise peaceful surroundings. “You shoot a missile, you kill a handful of people,” Missy Cummings, an MIT drone developer and former pilot, told Salon. “And then — this is what is strange — you go home. Your shift is over.” When you fight in a war without living in a combat zone, “it’s harder to keep it in perspective,” Cummings said."
But this seems ridiculous:
"A more independent drone could alert its controller for assistance only when it has spotted a likely target. The operator would give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down for the robot to fire a weapon. With only minimal involvement, the human being could avoid feeling fully responsible for the consequences of the strike. Drones are already becoming more autonomous by the day, opening the door for a different emotional dynamic between them and their operators. Another guilt-avoidance tactic is to anthropomorphize the drone, Calo adds. It turns that robots that look more human can inspire many of the same emotions that actual people do in each other."
I don't doubt there's (possibly) some truth to it, but then again it sounds like they're arguing that we should make our soldiers think that guns kill people and it's not the people doing it. That sounds a bit scary.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Fails
As ABC reports, Wisconsin Gov. Defeats Recall. That's pretty depressing but I'll take some solace from this:
"While Walker's victory will be Voters in preliminary exit poll results today said they favored Obama over Mitt Romney in November by a slight 6 point margin (51-45 percent)."
"While Walker's victory will be Voters in preliminary exit poll results today said they favored Obama over Mitt Romney in November by a slight 6 point margin (51-45 percent)."
NRO Gives NASA Two Military Spy Telescopes For Astronomy
The Washington Post reports NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy.
"The telescopes were built by private contractors for the National Reconnaissance Office, one of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. The telescopes have 2.4-meter (7.9-foot) mirrors, just like the Hubble, but they have 100 times the field of view. Their structure is shorter and squatter.
They’re ‘space qualified,’ as NASA puts it, but they’re a long way from being functioning space telescopes. They have no instruments — there are no cameras, for example. More than that, they lack a funded mission and all that entails, such as a scientific program, support staff, data analysis and office space. They will remain in storage while NASA mulls its options."
"The announcement Monday raised the obvious question of why the intelligence agency would no longer want, or need, two Hubble-class telescopes. A spokeswoman, Loretta DeSio, provided information sparingly. “They no longer possessed intelligence-collection uses,” she said of the telescopes. She confirmed that the hardware represents an upgrade of Hubble’s optical technology. “The hardware is approximately the same size as the Hubble but uses newer, much lighter mirror and structure technology,” DeSio said. She added, “Some components were removed before the transfer.”"
"DeSio, the NRO spokeswoman, said the telescopes were built in the late 1990s and early 2000s."
"These are formidable eyes in the sky, apparently. NASA official Michael Moore said that if the Hubble Space Telescope were pointed at the surface of the Earth instead of at outer space, “you could see a dime sitting on top of the Washington Monument.” The spy telescopes have a feature that civilian space telescopes lack: a maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more-focused images, said David Spergel, a Princeton University astrophysicist and a co-chair of the National Academies of Science committee on astronomy and astrophysics. The new telescopes are “actually better than the Hubble. They’re the same size, but the optical design is such that you can put a broader set of instruments on the back,” he said."
So many mixed feeling about this. I wonder what capabilities NRO has that it can give these away and what those capabilities would mean for civilian science?
"The telescopes were built by private contractors for the National Reconnaissance Office, one of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. The telescopes have 2.4-meter (7.9-foot) mirrors, just like the Hubble, but they have 100 times the field of view. Their structure is shorter and squatter.
They’re ‘space qualified,’ as NASA puts it, but they’re a long way from being functioning space telescopes. They have no instruments — there are no cameras, for example. More than that, they lack a funded mission and all that entails, such as a scientific program, support staff, data analysis and office space. They will remain in storage while NASA mulls its options."
"The announcement Monday raised the obvious question of why the intelligence agency would no longer want, or need, two Hubble-class telescopes. A spokeswoman, Loretta DeSio, provided information sparingly. “They no longer possessed intelligence-collection uses,” she said of the telescopes. She confirmed that the hardware represents an upgrade of Hubble’s optical technology. “The hardware is approximately the same size as the Hubble but uses newer, much lighter mirror and structure technology,” DeSio said. She added, “Some components were removed before the transfer.”"
"DeSio, the NRO spokeswoman, said the telescopes were built in the late 1990s and early 2000s."
"These are formidable eyes in the sky, apparently. NASA official Michael Moore said that if the Hubble Space Telescope were pointed at the surface of the Earth instead of at outer space, “you could see a dime sitting on top of the Washington Monument.” The spy telescopes have a feature that civilian space telescopes lack: a maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more-focused images, said David Spergel, a Princeton University astrophysicist and a co-chair of the National Academies of Science committee on astronomy and astrophysics. The new telescopes are “actually better than the Hubble. They’re the same size, but the optical design is such that you can put a broader set of instruments on the back,” he said."
So many mixed feeling about this. I wonder what capabilities NRO has that it can give these away and what those capabilities would mean for civilian science?
Warming Turns Tundra To Forest Really Quickly
The University of Oxford reports Warming turns tundra to forest. "In just a few decades shrubs in the Arctic tundra have turned into trees as a result of the warming Arctic climate, creating patches of forest which, if replicated across the tundra, would significantly accelerate global warming.
Scientists from Finland and Oxford University investigated an area of around 100,000 km2, known as the northwestern Eurasian tundra, stretching from western Siberia to Finland. Surveys of the vegetation, using data from satellite imaging, fieldwork, and expert observations from indigenous reindeer herders, showed that in 8-15% of the area willow (Salix) and alder (Alnus) plants have grown into trees over 2 metres in height in the last 30-40 years.
Previous models assessing the potential impact of forestation have suggested that the advance of forest into Arctic tundra could increase Arctic warming by an extra 1-2 degrees Celsius by the late 21st Century.
A report of the research is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
'It's a big surprise that these plants are reacting in this way,' said Dr Marc Macias-Fauria of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology and the Oxford Martin School, first author of the paper. 'Previously people had thought that the tundra might be colonised by trees from the boreal forest to the south as the Arctic climate warms, a process that would take centuries. But what we've found is that the shrubs that are already there are transforming into trees in just a few decades.'"
Scientists from Finland and Oxford University investigated an area of around 100,000 km2, known as the northwestern Eurasian tundra, stretching from western Siberia to Finland. Surveys of the vegetation, using data from satellite imaging, fieldwork, and expert observations from indigenous reindeer herders, showed that in 8-15% of the area willow (Salix) and alder (Alnus) plants have grown into trees over 2 metres in height in the last 30-40 years.
Previous models assessing the potential impact of forestation have suggested that the advance of forest into Arctic tundra could increase Arctic warming by an extra 1-2 degrees Celsius by the late 21st Century.
A report of the research is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
'It's a big surprise that these plants are reacting in this way,' said Dr Marc Macias-Fauria of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology and the Oxford Martin School, first author of the paper. 'Previously people had thought that the tundra might be colonised by trees from the boreal forest to the south as the Arctic climate warms, a process that would take centuries. But what we've found is that the shrubs that are already there are transforming into trees in just a few decades.'"
Monday, June 04, 2012
Using Shale Gas Over Coal Does Not Help Climate
The Guardian reports Using shale gas over coal does not help climate, says big gas investor "The investor's key conclusion – that fugitive methane is wiping out any carbon saving from switching from coal to gas, and will continue to do so for 20 to 30 years unless the problem is addressed – run counter to recent claims from the International Energy Agency that the switch has cut US emissions substantially. The IEA is set to publish a major report on gas on Tuesday. But the IEA did not include fugitive methane in its calculations of the impact of shale fracking on US emissions."
Using Shale Gas Over Coal Does Not Help Climate
The Guardian reports Using shale gas over coal does not help climate, says big gas investor "The investor's key conclusion – that fugitive methane is wiping out any carbon saving from switching from coal to gas, and will continue to do so for 20 to 30 years unless the problem is addressed – run counter to recent claims from the International Energy Agency that the switch has cut US emissions substantially. The IEA is set to publish a major report on gas on Tuesday. But the IEA did not include fugitive methane in its calculations of the impact of shale fracking on US emissions."
Chris Mattews On Obama: ‘I Don’t Understand Why He Thinks Small’
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I agree. (via TPM)
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I agree. (via TPM)
Sunday, June 03, 2012
It's Official: Keynes Was Right
Henry Blodget says IT'S OFFICIAL: Keynes Was Right. I find it a reasonable way to convince someone.
"Basically, austerity puts you into a death spiral in which you keep trying to cut your way to prosperity, but all you end up doing is digging a bigger hole. And in the meantime, tens of millions of people are out of work, the economy is retrenching, and everything is generally miserable."
"And by 2007, they had put us in one hell of a hole. And, given that, it seems reasonable to think that, as Krugman has long argued, one of the problems with the economy now is that the original stimulus just wasn't big enough. And it also seems reasonable to conclude that, given the mess we got ourselves into, there is just no quick fix, regardless of what anyone does."
"The Austerians love to point at the 1930s as "proof" that Keynes was wrong. Look at the huge "New Deal," they say. Look at all those expensive public works projects. Look at all the spending the government did to try to get us out of the Great Depression, and it never really worked. What got us out of the Depression, the Austerians smugly observe, was World War 2. But what was World War 2 if not an absolutely gigantic Keynesian stimulus? The Federal deficit in World War 2 was massive—much bigger than any time during the Great Depression. And we built up a huge Federal debt load. And ... we set the stage for two decades of amazing prosperity, in which we worked off those debts."
Exactly.
"Meanwhile, given that we've already racked up $15 trillion of debt, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to our spending another couple of trillion upgrading our piss-poor infrastructure. Incurring debt to build things that help all Americans, from unemployed folks to business leaders to children, is a trade-off I'm willing to make. Especially if the jobs created by this "stimulus" spending help alleviate our massive unemployment and inequality problems."
"Basically, austerity puts you into a death spiral in which you keep trying to cut your way to prosperity, but all you end up doing is digging a bigger hole. And in the meantime, tens of millions of people are out of work, the economy is retrenching, and everything is generally miserable."
"And by 2007, they had put us in one hell of a hole. And, given that, it seems reasonable to think that, as Krugman has long argued, one of the problems with the economy now is that the original stimulus just wasn't big enough. And it also seems reasonable to conclude that, given the mess we got ourselves into, there is just no quick fix, regardless of what anyone does."
"The Austerians love to point at the 1930s as "proof" that Keynes was wrong. Look at the huge "New Deal," they say. Look at all those expensive public works projects. Look at all the spending the government did to try to get us out of the Great Depression, and it never really worked. What got us out of the Depression, the Austerians smugly observe, was World War 2. But what was World War 2 if not an absolutely gigantic Keynesian stimulus? The Federal deficit in World War 2 was massive—much bigger than any time during the Great Depression. And we built up a huge Federal debt load. And ... we set the stage for two decades of amazing prosperity, in which we worked off those debts."
Exactly.
"Meanwhile, given that we've already racked up $15 trillion of debt, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to our spending another couple of trillion upgrading our piss-poor infrastructure. Incurring debt to build things that help all Americans, from unemployed folks to business leaders to children, is a trade-off I'm willing to make. Especially if the jobs created by this "stimulus" spending help alleviate our massive unemployment and inequality problems."
Global CO2 Emissions Hit New Record In 2011, On Track For 11°F Warming By 2100
ClimateProgress reports IEA: Global CO2 Emissions Hit New Record In 2011, Keeping World On Track For 'Devastating' 11°F Warming By 2100.
“When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius [11°F] [by 2100], which would have devastating consequences for the planet.”
“When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius [11°F] [by 2100], which would have devastating consequences for the planet.”
32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow
32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow "When we ignore how innovation actually works, we make it hard to see what’s happening right in front of us today. If you don’t know that the incandescent light was a failure before it was a success, it’s easy to write off some modern energy innovations — like solar panels — because they haven’t hit the big time fast enough.
Worse, the fairy-tale view of history implies that innovation has an end. It doesn’t. What we want and what we need keeps changing. The incandescent light was a 19th-century failure and a 20th- century success. Now it’s a failure again, edged out by new technologies, like LEDs, that were, themselves, failures for many years.
That’s what this issue is about: all the little failures, trivialities and not-quite-solved mysteries that make the successes possible. This is what innovation looks like. It’s messy, and it’s awesome."
Worse, the fairy-tale view of history implies that innovation has an end. It doesn’t. What we want and what we need keeps changing. The incandescent light was a 19th-century failure and a 20th- century success. Now it’s a failure again, edged out by new technologies, like LEDs, that were, themselves, failures for many years.
That’s what this issue is about: all the little failures, trivialities and not-quite-solved mysteries that make the successes possible. This is what innovation looks like. It’s messy, and it’s awesome."
Meet the two newest additions to the Periodic Table of Elements
Meet the two newest additions to the Periodic Table of Elements "Get ready to amend you periodic tables. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has officially approved the names for elements 114 and 116. Meet Flerovium and Livermorium."
What Krugman Said
While I agree with almost everything Paul Krugman says I often find his TV appearances frustrating. It seems he never has enough time to make a convincing point. He's often on This Week opposite George Will and they both say some statistic and explain "what the real problem is" and neither side wins, or at least convinces anyone to change their mind. Still I watch.
This morning on the opening segment were Krugman and Will and two campaign spokespeople, Eric Fehrnstrom for Romney and Stephanie Cutter for Obama. They talked about the jobs report and budgets and who and fix the economy, etc. After both campaign people spoke about Solyndra Krugman said the following:
"We're talking as if a billion dollars was a lot of money and in a $15 trillion economy it's not. Solyndra was a mistake as part of a large program which has been by and large had a pretty good track record. Of course you're going to find a mistake, to be fair that's probably true in Massachusetts as well. But this is ridiculous that we are taking these tiny tiny missteps which happen in any large organization including corporations. Bain Capital had losers too right, even from the point of view of its investors. So this is ridiculous and the fact of the matter is this president has not managed to get very much of what he wanted done. It's terribly unfair that he's being judged on the failure of the economy to respond to policies that have been largely dictated by a hostile Congress."
I completely agree. I don't care about Solyndra or dogs on cars or bullying from 45 years ago. I care about policies. I'm sure the right will say Krugman is so out of touch he doesn't care about a billion dollars. He rightly eschews comparisons between the national economy and a household budget but to put his comment in those terms; the median household income is $49.390, by comparison Solyndra to the US economy is like worrying about $3.38.
I noticed one strange thing about the program, when most people were talking the camera had a static closeup on the speaker. They switched between some two shots and long distance shots but always with clean cuts. A few times the camera slowly zoomed in on the speaker which has the affect of making the comments a little more intimate. How often is a few? Well they did it once on George Will and ten times on Eric Fehrnstrom. Sure, four of them were more minor, but six of them were big obvious zooms while he was speaking, slowing making his face fill the center of the screen as he made his point. Maybe it was just difficultly with a cameraman or assistant director but it didn't always happen and it never happened to someone representing the left. Hmmmm....
This morning on the opening segment were Krugman and Will and two campaign spokespeople, Eric Fehrnstrom for Romney and Stephanie Cutter for Obama. They talked about the jobs report and budgets and who and fix the economy, etc. After both campaign people spoke about Solyndra Krugman said the following:
"We're talking as if a billion dollars was a lot of money and in a $15 trillion economy it's not. Solyndra was a mistake as part of a large program which has been by and large had a pretty good track record. Of course you're going to find a mistake, to be fair that's probably true in Massachusetts as well. But this is ridiculous that we are taking these tiny tiny missteps which happen in any large organization including corporations. Bain Capital had losers too right, even from the point of view of its investors. So this is ridiculous and the fact of the matter is this president has not managed to get very much of what he wanted done. It's terribly unfair that he's being judged on the failure of the economy to respond to policies that have been largely dictated by a hostile Congress."
I completely agree. I don't care about Solyndra or dogs on cars or bullying from 45 years ago. I care about policies. I'm sure the right will say Krugman is so out of touch he doesn't care about a billion dollars. He rightly eschews comparisons between the national economy and a household budget but to put his comment in those terms; the median household income is $49.390, by comparison Solyndra to the US economy is like worrying about $3.38.
I noticed one strange thing about the program, when most people were talking the camera had a static closeup on the speaker. They switched between some two shots and long distance shots but always with clean cuts. A few times the camera slowly zoomed in on the speaker which has the affect of making the comments a little more intimate. How often is a few? Well they did it once on George Will and ten times on Eric Fehrnstrom. Sure, four of them were more minor, but six of them were big obvious zooms while he was speaking, slowing making his face fill the center of the screen as he made his point. Maybe it was just difficultly with a cameraman or assistant director but it didn't always happen and it never happened to someone representing the left. Hmmmm....
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Child Poverty in the US
Bob Herbert wrote Meek in the Land of the Plutocrats about how the government has largely ignored the poor.
"You won’t hear about it in the presidential race. Barack Obama can barely bring himself to say the word "poor." And Mitt Romney was famously dismissive about even the deepest concentrations of poverty. “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” he said. “We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it.” He later described his comment as a “misstatement.” Fifty million Americans are poor and another 50 million have been characterized as “near poor,” which means they can feel the awful flames of poverty licking at their heels. That’s almost a third of the entire U.S. population."
Valerie Jarrett of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement replied, The White House defends its anti-poverty agenda. She lists a lot of things Obama has done (Head Start, child care assistance, child nutrition programs, school aid, Pell Grants, education tax credits, CHIP, etc.) and also things Republicans have blocked (voting to cut SNAP by 20%, and Medicaid by a third).
Both are right. Melissa Harris-Perry had Herbert on today and put up this graph:
Really, Unicef says we're second worst of developed nations regarding child poverty at just over 23%. I didn't hear Obama or Romney talking about that.
"You won’t hear about it in the presidential race. Barack Obama can barely bring himself to say the word "poor." And Mitt Romney was famously dismissive about even the deepest concentrations of poverty. “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” he said. “We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it.” He later described his comment as a “misstatement.” Fifty million Americans are poor and another 50 million have been characterized as “near poor,” which means they can feel the awful flames of poverty licking at their heels. That’s almost a third of the entire U.S. population."
Valerie Jarrett of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement replied, The White House defends its anti-poverty agenda. She lists a lot of things Obama has done (Head Start, child care assistance, child nutrition programs, school aid, Pell Grants, education tax credits, CHIP, etc.) and also things Republicans have blocked (voting to cut SNAP by 20%, and Medicaid by a third).
Both are right. Melissa Harris-Perry had Herbert on today and put up this graph:
Really, Unicef says we're second worst of developed nations regarding child poverty at just over 23%. I didn't hear Obama or Romney talking about that.
Friday, June 01, 2012
That Jobs Problem
So the jobs report sucked, what a surprise. Republicans are of course saying it's the president's failed policies that are killing jobs but I live in a different reality, one that Steve Benen describes nicely in The The road not taken.
"It seems like ages ago, but it was just last September when the president delivered an address to a joint session of Congress, laying out a detailed plan to boost job creation. It's easy to forget, but it was a credible, serious plan -- the AJA would have prevented thousands of layoffs for teachers, cops, and firefighters; invested heavily in infrastructure; and cut taxes intended to spur hiring."
"Despite public clamoring for action on jobs, congressional Republicans reflexively killed the American Jobs Act, saying it was unnecessary. The House wouldn't bring it up for a vote, and a Republican filibuster killed it in the Senate. For GOP policymakers, this was a time when Washington should stop investing in job creation and start focusing on austerity -- lower the deficit, take capital out of the economy, and everything would work out fine."
I want to hear Democrats blaming the Republicans for this. I want the DNC to be working at winning Congress as well as reelecting the president.
Jared Bernstein gives some advice in What's To Be Done?. Quantitative easing, dealing with taxamageddon, yet again extend unemployment insurance benefits and if at all possible enact some stimulus.
Brad DeLong wonders What Can Ben Bernanke Do Now To Summon The Confidence Fairy? and saying that QEIII won't help, comes up with only two ideas: stimulus and a new Fed chairman.
"It seems like ages ago, but it was just last September when the president delivered an address to a joint session of Congress, laying out a detailed plan to boost job creation. It's easy to forget, but it was a credible, serious plan -- the AJA would have prevented thousands of layoffs for teachers, cops, and firefighters; invested heavily in infrastructure; and cut taxes intended to spur hiring."
"Despite public clamoring for action on jobs, congressional Republicans reflexively killed the American Jobs Act, saying it was unnecessary. The House wouldn't bring it up for a vote, and a Republican filibuster killed it in the Senate. For GOP policymakers, this was a time when Washington should stop investing in job creation and start focusing on austerity -- lower the deficit, take capital out of the economy, and everything would work out fine."
I want to hear Democrats blaming the Republicans for this. I want the DNC to be working at winning Congress as well as reelecting the president.
Jared Bernstein gives some advice in What's To Be Done?. Quantitative easing, dealing with taxamageddon, yet again extend unemployment insurance benefits and if at all possible enact some stimulus.
Brad DeLong wonders What Can Ben Bernanke Do Now To Summon The Confidence Fairy? and saying that QEIII won't help, comes up with only two ideas: stimulus and a new Fed chairman.
Are We About to See Another Stolen Presidential Election?
Rachel Maddow has also covered this in the last few days but Digby puts the whole thing in context, Are We About to See Another Stolen Presidential Election?. The Florida voter purge is just amazing. How it's happening while the heads of the DNC are Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager, I just don't understand. I have no idea how those two keep their positions.
The Charts That Should Accompany All Discussions of Media Bias
I guess the right is whining about biased media coverage. To GOP, blatant bias in vetting. Digby isn't too happy about it. But James Fallows seems to settle it with The Charts That Should Accompany All Discussions of Media Bias.
"Main point: At no time in the past year has coverage of President Obama been as positive as that of Governor Romney. Indeed, at no time in the past year has it been on-balance positive at all."
"Main point: At no time in the past year has coverage of President Obama been as positive as that of Governor Romney. Indeed, at no time in the past year has it been on-balance positive at all."
How Agnostic is The Economist About Print Versus Digital?
Joshua Gans asks How agnostic is The Economist about print versus digital?.
"So I took a look at said pricing. For Canada, the digital only subscription was $129.99 and print subscription was $137.19, a difference of $7.20 annually. That seemed a tad low. When I moved to Australia, the difference was $146 per annum. Now that seemed more like it. Why the difference? Well, it could be that advertising is worthless in Australia and print advertising is worth relatively more than digital advertising in Canada. So while print costs may be higher they might be offset by higher advertising rates.
However, there are two clues that this isn’t really the story. First, consider the US. The difference between the print and the digital subscriptions is $0. As the print option includes the digital one, this is telling me that The Economist does not, in fact, have a digital option in the US. They want everyone to get the print edition even if they toss it in the bin except when they have a plane flight and need to for take off or landing. This is hardly agnostic behaviour. What’s more if advertising rates are higher for print than for digital units then all these people being shipped physical copies are polluting the advertising numbers there. Seems like a strange and value destroying thing to be doing."
I was surprised to find out that in the US the digital and print cost the same, because when I renewed back in November, the digital was cheaper. I paid $110 for a year and remember the print (which includes digital) to be more like $135. Now it seems both are $127.
The Economist is I think the best iPad magazine by far. It recreates the articles but the issues are real text so they are easy to resize and small (and fast) to download. The images and graphs are all included. There aren't too many ads and it's easy to navigate. Also, it's kinda cool that you can download an audio file for each issue with someone reading the article (not a computer generated voice). Also the sharing features are good enough (Facebook, Twitter, email).
Still I'm not keeping up with it as much as I used to. Too many other things to read and without a pile growing on the coffee table to remind me, I often skip it. I'm not sure I'll renew for $127.
"So I took a look at said pricing. For Canada, the digital only subscription was $129.99 and print subscription was $137.19, a difference of $7.20 annually. That seemed a tad low. When I moved to Australia, the difference was $146 per annum. Now that seemed more like it. Why the difference? Well, it could be that advertising is worthless in Australia and print advertising is worth relatively more than digital advertising in Canada. So while print costs may be higher they might be offset by higher advertising rates.
However, there are two clues that this isn’t really the story. First, consider the US. The difference between the print and the digital subscriptions is $0. As the print option includes the digital one, this is telling me that The Economist does not, in fact, have a digital option in the US. They want everyone to get the print edition even if they toss it in the bin except when they have a plane flight and need to for take off or landing. This is hardly agnostic behaviour. What’s more if advertising rates are higher for print than for digital units then all these people being shipped physical copies are polluting the advertising numbers there. Seems like a strange and value destroying thing to be doing."
I was surprised to find out that in the US the digital and print cost the same, because when I renewed back in November, the digital was cheaper. I paid $110 for a year and remember the print (which includes digital) to be more like $135. Now it seems both are $127.
The Economist is I think the best iPad magazine by far. It recreates the articles but the issues are real text so they are easy to resize and small (and fast) to download. The images and graphs are all included. There aren't too many ads and it's easy to navigate. Also, it's kinda cool that you can download an audio file for each issue with someone reading the article (not a computer generated voice). Also the sharing features are good enough (Facebook, Twitter, email).
Still I'm not keeping up with it as much as I used to. Too many other things to read and without a pile growing on the coffee table to remind me, I often skip it. I'm not sure I'll renew for $127.
Tornado Tracks
IDV User Experience: Tornado Tracks "It tracks 56 years of tornado paths along with a host of attribute information. Here, the tracks are categorized by their F-Scale (which isn't the latest and greatest means but good enough for a hack like me), where brighter strokes represent more violent storms."
Are there just no tornados in the west or don't we track them?
Are there just no tornados in the west or don't we track them?
Hope: The Sequel
John Heilemann wrote in New York Magazine about the Obama campaign Hope: The Sequel.
Digby wrote about it, "I will never understand why political campaigns think it's helpful to telegraph their plans in public, but here's the obligatory "inside the Obama campaign strategy" piece by John Heileman in New York magazine. To the extent it isn't spin, it's quite interesting, and since so much of it is unflattering, I'd have to guess that's most of it."
Since much of the article talks about their worry about not having enough money, I wondered if it isn't just another political play since it basically says there's reason to be afraid of the other guy and we're short of funds. But as usual, digby nails it in her ending: "Speaking of which, has anybody heard anything about an agenda for that second term?"
One thing that struck me in the article: "But Obama’s plea to look forward, angel, would cut more ice if the economy would cooperate a bit more generously and consistently. The Obamans have been praying for circumstances like those that unfolded in 1983–84, in which slow but steady improvement on the jobs front would let them run an updated version of Reagan’s “Morning in America” campaign. Instead what they’ve been handed is a succession of fits and starts and false dawns, in which decent jobs reports are followed by anemic ones, creating in the electorate a widespread and free-floating angst—with just a third of voters saying the economy is improving and nearly two thirds believing the country remains on the wrong track."
Maybe they could do more than just pray.
Digby wrote about it, "I will never understand why political campaigns think it's helpful to telegraph their plans in public, but here's the obligatory "inside the Obama campaign strategy" piece by John Heileman in New York magazine. To the extent it isn't spin, it's quite interesting, and since so much of it is unflattering, I'd have to guess that's most of it."
Since much of the article talks about their worry about not having enough money, I wondered if it isn't just another political play since it basically says there's reason to be afraid of the other guy and we're short of funds. But as usual, digby nails it in her ending: "Speaking of which, has anybody heard anything about an agenda for that second term?"
One thing that struck me in the article: "But Obama’s plea to look forward, angel, would cut more ice if the economy would cooperate a bit more generously and consistently. The Obamans have been praying for circumstances like those that unfolded in 1983–84, in which slow but steady improvement on the jobs front would let them run an updated version of Reagan’s “Morning in America” campaign. Instead what they’ve been handed is a succession of fits and starts and false dawns, in which decent jobs reports are followed by anemic ones, creating in the electorate a widespread and free-floating angst—with just a third of voters saying the economy is improving and nearly two thirds believing the country remains on the wrong track."
Maybe they could do more than just pray.
Public Money Finds Back Door to Private Schools
Jared Bernstein wrote Public Money/Private Schools…Don’t Let the Hulk See This about this New York Times article, Public Money Finds Back Door to Private Schools.
"The credit was allegedly set up to provide a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for those who wanted to contribute to a state scholarship fund so poor families could leave failing public schools and face a similar choice set to that of wealthier families. But, in fact, the legislation was intentionally crafted to enable parents whose kids already attended private school to keep the credit for themselves.
Since the tax credit only goes to families with kids in public school, in one part of the ruse in Georgia, a kid going to private school enrolls, but doesn’t attend, public school. The law was strategically written to differentiate between enrolling and attending."
"As you’d suspect if you’re at all familiar with horrible ideas like this at the state level, ALEC is a “big proponent” and this virus is spreading. There are now such programs operating in eight states across the country at a cost of $350 million to state coffers. They are paying for students to go to religious schools and for football scholarships."
"The credit was allegedly set up to provide a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for those who wanted to contribute to a state scholarship fund so poor families could leave failing public schools and face a similar choice set to that of wealthier families. But, in fact, the legislation was intentionally crafted to enable parents whose kids already attended private school to keep the credit for themselves.
Since the tax credit only goes to families with kids in public school, in one part of the ruse in Georgia, a kid going to private school enrolls, but doesn’t attend, public school. The law was strategically written to differentiate between enrolling and attending."
"As you’d suspect if you’re at all familiar with horrible ideas like this at the state level, ALEC is a “big proponent” and this virus is spreading. There are now such programs operating in eight states across the country at a cost of $350 million to state coffers. They are paying for students to go to religious schools and for football scholarships."
Maxim Interrogates the Makers and Stars of The Wire
Tomorrow is the 10 year anniversary of The Wire. Maxim Interrogates the Makers and Stars of The Wire. "Ten years ago this month, The Wire premiered on HBO and… almost nobody cared. The Baltimore saga of cops and dealers, junkies and politicians, poverty and hope, polarized critics, was ignored by the Emmys, constantly struggled for ratings and faced cancellation more than once. But it also inspired a future President, created a bona fide American folk hero, and helped launch the current ‘Golden Age’ of television. Now for the first time ever, the creators, writers, cast and crew recall the making of an American classic."
Warning: reading this will make you want to rewatch the whole series.
Warning: reading this will make you want to rewatch the whole series.
Investigating Solyndra
Based mostly on this article Mitt Romney's Ads: Still Wrong on the Stimulus that Rachel Maddow mentioned last night I spent the morning reading lots about the Department of Energy loan program that funded Solyndra among other things.
I read the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 74 page pdf staff report from March 20, 2012: The Department of Energy’s Disastrous Management of Loan Guarantee Programs. I don't recommend it, instead the 9 page pdf Solar Projects: DOE Section 1705 Loan Guarantees by the Congressional Research service was far more informative, breaking down the programs into different parts and explaining the differences in funding solar manufacturing vs solar generation projects.
Follow the links at the beginning of Grunwald's article to see take downs of various Republican attacks on the programs. The 75 page report tries to cover a few problems but it reads as a collection of minor complaints. The program was designed to help innovation for ventures that couldn't get loans from banks and the private sector. They were alternative energy programs and were a little too risky for loans in the wake of the financial crisis. So yeah, some, like Solyndra didn't work out. In part because of falling price of natural gas and the Chinese subsidizing their solar manufactures lowering global prices.
The House report claims that the loans were risky, that DoE knew there was too much risk, that they weighted 80% of the loans into solar making an unbalanced portfolio, and that they violated laws in granting loans by not picking truly innovative technologies and by funneling loans to Democratic donors. The New York Times covered it fairly. The DoE replied to the report in part by pointing out how they cherry picked emails.
"Critics have cherry picked and taken out of context an email from the Chief Engineer of the loan program’s Technical and Project Management Division in which he said that one of the many technologies used in the projects could not, by itself in isolation, be defined as innovative. The email never says the project as a whole is not innovative or not eligible -- it simply asks for some corrections to powerpoint slides. Indeed, what the critics – and unfortunately, the New York Times – fail to mention is that the same career official also signed off on the project as a whole meeting the program’s standard for innovation, and wrote a memo discussing at some length the specific innovative technologies being used in the project."
The report turned me off early with this sentence, "Loan guarantees supporting “clean” energy-related projects began in the 1970s as a response to the perception of record high oil prices for the foreseeable future and the notion that the country was in the midst of an “energy crisis.”" Emphasis added, but really, the 70s energy crisis was just a notion? I guess Carter wasn't a bad president.
They cite Germany as an example of failing solar polices saying "According to news reports" and quoting this, Goodnight Sunshine. They don't mention that it's an opinion piece and not a news report. I prefer this one from MIT's Technology Review, Real Electricity Flows from Virtual Power Plants.
"The ability to deliver utility-scale power from renewable sources may also prove critical to Germany's green-energy plans, which are the most ambitious among all the industrialized nations. Following a decision last year to move away from nuclear power, Germany now plans to get a third of its power from renewable sources by 2020 and has committed to reaching 80 percent by 2050."
But of course, this whole thing is just political gamesmanship. The day after the report came out the House questioned Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. Afterwards Darrell Issa (R-CA) tweeted a pic of Chu getting in his official SUV calling it hypocrisy. "DOE spokesman Damien LaVera said the charge and picture is nonsense. 'This photo shows the secretary getting into a single, flex fuel vehicle which — as the chairman knows — is used for security.'"
I wish the title of this article were true, GOP running out of gas on Solyndra.
Did you catch that, Jim Jordan accidentally told truth about Solyndra investigation. Also telling is:
Yep, the Congressman heading the investigation is a birther. So it's gone on for more than a year, looked through 185,000 pages of documents, held ten hearings and come up with little. Think there's anything to it?
As Grunwald wrote, "That’s the real news. The Department of Energy has handled $37 billion in stimulus money, more than its annual budget. Overall, the federal government has distributed over $800 billion in stimulus money. Where are the sweetheart deals? Where are the actual outrages that are provoking outrage? During the debate over the stimulus, experts warned that as much as 5% to 7% of the stimulus could be lost to fraud. But by the end of 2011, independent investigators had documented only $7.2 million in fraud, about 0.001%. As I’ve written, reasonable people can disagree whether the stimulus was a good thing, but it’s definitely been a well-managed thing."
I'm still waiting for the investigations into the billions lost to defense contractors during the Iraq war.
I read the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 74 page pdf staff report from March 20, 2012: The Department of Energy’s Disastrous Management of Loan Guarantee Programs. I don't recommend it, instead the 9 page pdf Solar Projects: DOE Section 1705 Loan Guarantees by the Congressional Research service was far more informative, breaking down the programs into different parts and explaining the differences in funding solar manufacturing vs solar generation projects.
Follow the links at the beginning of Grunwald's article to see take downs of various Republican attacks on the programs. The 75 page report tries to cover a few problems but it reads as a collection of minor complaints. The program was designed to help innovation for ventures that couldn't get loans from banks and the private sector. They were alternative energy programs and were a little too risky for loans in the wake of the financial crisis. So yeah, some, like Solyndra didn't work out. In part because of falling price of natural gas and the Chinese subsidizing their solar manufactures lowering global prices.
The House report claims that the loans were risky, that DoE knew there was too much risk, that they weighted 80% of the loans into solar making an unbalanced portfolio, and that they violated laws in granting loans by not picking truly innovative technologies and by funneling loans to Democratic donors. The New York Times covered it fairly. The DoE replied to the report in part by pointing out how they cherry picked emails.
"Critics have cherry picked and taken out of context an email from the Chief Engineer of the loan program’s Technical and Project Management Division in which he said that one of the many technologies used in the projects could not, by itself in isolation, be defined as innovative. The email never says the project as a whole is not innovative or not eligible -- it simply asks for some corrections to powerpoint slides. Indeed, what the critics – and unfortunately, the New York Times – fail to mention is that the same career official also signed off on the project as a whole meeting the program’s standard for innovation, and wrote a memo discussing at some length the specific innovative technologies being used in the project."
The report turned me off early with this sentence, "Loan guarantees supporting “clean” energy-related projects began in the 1970s as a response to the perception of record high oil prices for the foreseeable future and the notion that the country was in the midst of an “energy crisis.”" Emphasis added, but really, the 70s energy crisis was just a notion? I guess Carter wasn't a bad president.
They cite Germany as an example of failing solar polices saying "According to news reports" and quoting this, Goodnight Sunshine. They don't mention that it's an opinion piece and not a news report. I prefer this one from MIT's Technology Review, Real Electricity Flows from Virtual Power Plants.
"The ability to deliver utility-scale power from renewable sources may also prove critical to Germany's green-energy plans, which are the most ambitious among all the industrialized nations. Following a decision last year to move away from nuclear power, Germany now plans to get a third of its power from renewable sources by 2020 and has committed to reaching 80 percent by 2050."
But of course, this whole thing is just political gamesmanship. The day after the report came out the House questioned Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. Afterwards Darrell Issa (R-CA) tweeted a pic of Chu getting in his official SUV calling it hypocrisy. "DOE spokesman Damien LaVera said the charge and picture is nonsense. 'This photo shows the secretary getting into a single, flex fuel vehicle which — as the chairman knows — is used for security.'"
I wish the title of this article were true, GOP running out of gas on Solyndra.
More than a year into a probe that's extended to the Energy Department loan guarantee portfolio, Republican investigators even acknowledge they've fallen short of substantiating their allegations that the administration helped political allies like Tulsa oilman George Kaiser secure hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies through a loan guarantee to Solyndra.
"Is there a criminal activity? Perhaps not," Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa told POLITICO after last Tuesday’s showdown with Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "Is there a political influence and connections? Perhaps not. Did they bend the rules for an agenda, an agenda not covered within the statute? Absolutely."
In some respects, Republicans have accomplished their mission. Even if no one goes to jail, they've turned Solyndra into a four-letter word, vilified the Nobel laureate Chu and left a popular DOE program in shambles. They also make no bones about how they've turned Solyndra into a campaign issue.
"Ultimately, we'll stop it on Election Day, hopefully," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Environment & Energy Daily. "And bringing attention to these things helps the voters and citizens of the country make the kind of decision that I hope helps them as they evaluate who they are going to vote for in November."
Did you catch that, Jim Jordan accidentally told truth about Solyndra investigation. Also telling is:
Solyndra and the overall DOE program have also fallen from the public radar for [R-FL Rep Cliff] Stearns’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, where there have been no hearings specifically called on the loan guarantees since last fall.
Stearns said he has reservations about allowing testimony from perhaps the most obvious witness: Herb Allison, the former Treasury official whose internal review of the DOE program found the government could lose as much as $3 billion from companies that default on their loan guarantees, a lower figure than the $10 billion Congress put aside for losses.
“We're just concerned if we bring them in, we'll just provide more cover for the administration,” Stearns said.
Stearns — who has called for Chu to be fired and threatened to hold a contempt of Congress vote if the White House didn’t comply with the subpoenas — has other problems. For instance, his recent remarks related to Obama's birth certificate. “All I can tell you is that the general consensus is that he has produced a birth certificate,” Stearns said during a February town hall meeting. “The question is, is it legitimate? That’s where we stand now.”
Yep, the Congressman heading the investigation is a birther. So it's gone on for more than a year, looked through 185,000 pages of documents, held ten hearings and come up with little. Think there's anything to it?
As Grunwald wrote, "That’s the real news. The Department of Energy has handled $37 billion in stimulus money, more than its annual budget. Overall, the federal government has distributed over $800 billion in stimulus money. Where are the sweetheart deals? Where are the actual outrages that are provoking outrage? During the debate over the stimulus, experts warned that as much as 5% to 7% of the stimulus could be lost to fraud. But by the end of 2011, independent investigators had documented only $7.2 million in fraud, about 0.001%. As I’ve written, reasonable people can disagree whether the stimulus was a good thing, but it’s definitely been a well-managed thing."
I'm still waiting for the investigations into the billions lost to defense contractors during the Iraq war.
Mitt Romney - Running the Campaign of a 12 Year-Old
I saw this mentioned on Rachel Maddow last night and had to look it up. Axelrod's Anti-Romney Message Gets Drowned Out.
"In a morning news conference on the steps of the Massachusetts Statehouse, David Axelrod, one of Mr. Obama’s senior strategists, tried mostly in vain on Thursday to level Mr. Obama’s latest broadside on Mr. Romney’s record as governor of the state. Instead, he was booed, heckled and chanted down by supporters of Mr. Romney who refused to let up even for a moment as Mr. Axelrod and Democratic state lawmakers sought to make their case. The group included several staff members in his Boston headquarters, including an aide’s dog wearing a Romney T-shirt."
Romney had an event at the Solyndra building. He told press to get on a bus without telling them where they were going and went to Solyndra. When asked about his staff drowning out Axelrod he Romney replied “At some point you say, you know what, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If they're going to be heckling us, why, we're not going to sit back and play by very different rules." Now Maddow spent all too much time talking about how this is the antiquated version of the quote, but really the important part is is he saying that Obama has done this to him? If so, I can't find a reference. The above article says:
"Although pro-Obama protestors have appeared at some of Mr. Romney’s events, paid Obama staffers have not publicly heckled or booed Mr. Romney or his team, as some of his staff did to Mr. Axelrod today. Citing Mr. Romney’s remarks, Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign, Tweeted that the Republican nominee had invented a “mythic event in which our campaign ‘heckled.’”"
Maddow also called out Romney for lying in his ads and in person about Obama's record. She pointed to this Mike Grunwald piece, Mitt Romney’s Ads: Still Wrong on the Stimulus which investigates this claim, “The Inspector General said contracts were steered to ‘friends and family.’” Grunwald points out:
"Except that Newsweek article was an excerpt from the book “Throw Them All Out,” written by Peter Schweizer, a right-winger who has served as an adviser to Sarah Palin’s PAC, edited one of Andrew Breitbart’s websites, and written a slew of books portraying liberals as pond scum. Not exactly a disinterested source. And it turns out that the inspector general never testified that stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. He said his office was investigating whether stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. So far, it hasn’t confirmed that any were."
Meanwhile, remember the GOP is supposed to be all about jobs jobs jobs. So what is the House doing while it's actually in session? House rejects bill penalizing doctors for sex-selective abortions. "The House on Thursday rejected a Republican bill that would impose fines and prison terms on doctors who perform abortions for the sole purpose of controlling the gender of the child, a practice known as sex-selective abortion.
The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), H.R. 3541, was defeated in a 246-168 vote. While that's a clear majority of the House, Republicans called up the bill under a suspension of House rules, which limits debate and requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass."
And sure we can probably agree that abortion merely because of gender is a bad thing, but..."The bill includes a provision that would allow a women's husband or parents, by merely alleging that an abortion is because of gender, to seek injunctive relief to prevent the doctor from performing abortion procedures, sending an incredibly private and personal decision into the courts," Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) added Thursday. I'm not sure how it's supposed to work, but that seems open to abuse.
I really think the GOP likes talking about abortion but doesn't really want to restrict it because then they would lose a big political rallying point. That's why they bring it up in ways they know it will fail. Jobs, jobs jobs.
"In a morning news conference on the steps of the Massachusetts Statehouse, David Axelrod, one of Mr. Obama’s senior strategists, tried mostly in vain on Thursday to level Mr. Obama’s latest broadside on Mr. Romney’s record as governor of the state. Instead, he was booed, heckled and chanted down by supporters of Mr. Romney who refused to let up even for a moment as Mr. Axelrod and Democratic state lawmakers sought to make their case. The group included several staff members in his Boston headquarters, including an aide’s dog wearing a Romney T-shirt."
Romney had an event at the Solyndra building. He told press to get on a bus without telling them where they were going and went to Solyndra. When asked about his staff drowning out Axelrod he Romney replied “At some point you say, you know what, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If they're going to be heckling us, why, we're not going to sit back and play by very different rules." Now Maddow spent all too much time talking about how this is the antiquated version of the quote, but really the important part is is he saying that Obama has done this to him? If so, I can't find a reference. The above article says:
"Although pro-Obama protestors have appeared at some of Mr. Romney’s events, paid Obama staffers have not publicly heckled or booed Mr. Romney or his team, as some of his staff did to Mr. Axelrod today. Citing Mr. Romney’s remarks, Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign, Tweeted that the Republican nominee had invented a “mythic event in which our campaign ‘heckled.’”"
Maddow also called out Romney for lying in his ads and in person about Obama's record. She pointed to this Mike Grunwald piece, Mitt Romney’s Ads: Still Wrong on the Stimulus which investigates this claim, “The Inspector General said contracts were steered to ‘friends and family.’” Grunwald points out:
"Except that Newsweek article was an excerpt from the book “Throw Them All Out,” written by Peter Schweizer, a right-winger who has served as an adviser to Sarah Palin’s PAC, edited one of Andrew Breitbart’s websites, and written a slew of books portraying liberals as pond scum. Not exactly a disinterested source. And it turns out that the inspector general never testified that stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. He said his office was investigating whether stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. So far, it hasn’t confirmed that any were."
Meanwhile, remember the GOP is supposed to be all about jobs jobs jobs. So what is the House doing while it's actually in session? House rejects bill penalizing doctors for sex-selective abortions. "The House on Thursday rejected a Republican bill that would impose fines and prison terms on doctors who perform abortions for the sole purpose of controlling the gender of the child, a practice known as sex-selective abortion.
The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), H.R. 3541, was defeated in a 246-168 vote. While that's a clear majority of the House, Republicans called up the bill under a suspension of House rules, which limits debate and requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass."
And sure we can probably agree that abortion merely because of gender is a bad thing, but..."The bill includes a provision that would allow a women's husband or parents, by merely alleging that an abortion is because of gender, to seek injunctive relief to prevent the doctor from performing abortion procedures, sending an incredibly private and personal decision into the courts," Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) added Thursday. I'm not sure how it's supposed to work, but that seems open to abuse.
I really think the GOP likes talking about abortion but doesn't really want to restrict it because then they would lose a big political rallying point. That's why they bring it up in ways they know it will fail. Jobs, jobs jobs.
The Austerity Agenda
Krugman on The Austerity Agenda.
"The answer is that an economy is not like an indebted family. Our debt is mostly money we owe to each other; even more important, our income mostly comes from selling things to each other. Your spending is my income, and my spending is your income. So what happens if everyone simultaneously slashes spending in an attempt to pay down debt? The answer is that everyone’s income falls — my income falls because you’re spending less, and your income falls because I’m spending less. And, as our incomes plunge, our debt problem gets worse, not better."
"So why have so many politicians insisted on pursuing austerity in slump? And why won’t they change course even as experience confirms the lessons of theory and history? Well, that’s where it gets interesting. For when you push “austerians” on the badness of their metaphor, they almost always retreat to assertions along the lines of: “But it’s essential that we shrink the size of the state.”"
"So the austerity drive in Britain isn’t really about debt and deficits at all; it’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programs. And this is, of course, exactly the same thing that has been happening in America."
"The answer is that an economy is not like an indebted family. Our debt is mostly money we owe to each other; even more important, our income mostly comes from selling things to each other. Your spending is my income, and my spending is your income. So what happens if everyone simultaneously slashes spending in an attempt to pay down debt? The answer is that everyone’s income falls — my income falls because you’re spending less, and your income falls because I’m spending less. And, as our incomes plunge, our debt problem gets worse, not better."
"So why have so many politicians insisted on pursuing austerity in slump? And why won’t they change course even as experience confirms the lessons of theory and history? Well, that’s where it gets interesting. For when you push “austerians” on the badness of their metaphor, they almost always retreat to assertions along the lines of: “But it’s essential that we shrink the size of the state.”"
"So the austerity drive in Britain isn’t really about debt and deficits at all; it’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programs. And this is, of course, exactly the same thing that has been happening in America."
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