Category Archives: Politics

Obamastroid

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The Onion: Republicans Vote To Repeal Obama-Backed Bill That Would Destroy Asteroid Headed For Earth

“This law is a job killer,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who argued the tax increases required to save the human species from annihilation would impose unbearably high costs on businesses. “If we sit back and do nothing, Obamastroid will result in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, which we simply can’t afford in this economy.”

“And consider how much money this program will add to our already bloated deficit,” Foxx continued. “Is this the legacy we want to leave our children?”

F*@&ing Bill O'Reilly — How Does He Work?

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Bill “God-of-the-Gaps” O’Reilly. Here’s a follow-on to his bewilderment on how tides work. As long as there is one thing that science can’t explain (or he doesn’t understand), all is well with his world. It’s amazing to me that this argument makes sense to him.

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Predictions

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As the New Year approaches, many people try to predict what will happen in it. This one goes a little further into the future: Ex-Shell president sees $5 gas in 2012

My prediction, if this comes to pass, is that the same people who cried “Socialism!” every time the Obama administration tried something (other than tax cuts for high-income people) to jump-start the economy will wail for government intervention to lower the price of gas. People who scoffed at hybrid and electric cars will wonder why nobody (government and businesses alike) has done more to make them more widely available.

They will do this without recognizing any irony.

That Unfortunate Negative Slope

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America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane

As an American expat living in the European Union, I’ve started to see America from a different perspective.

The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less — right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical — the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.

The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.

The description of Glenn Beck is spot-on, and as to the question of how people can fall so far, so fast owing to our deficient social safety net, I think it has to do with the too-widespread misconception that “unadulterated capitalism” is somehow imbedded in our constitution.

Cash Neutrality

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NYT: Banks and WikiLeaks

[A] bank’s ability to block payments to a legal entity raises a troubling prospect. A handful of big banks could potentially bar any organization they disliked from the payments system, essentially cutting them off from the world economy.

The fact of the matter is that banks are not like any other business. They run the payments system. That is one of the main reasons that governments protect them from failure with explicit and implicit guarantees. This makes them look not too unlike other public utilities. A telecommunications company, for example, may not refuse phone or broadband service to an organization it dislikes, arguing that it amounts to risky business.

Of course, the net neutrality issue isn’t exactly settled. But the arguments have common roots.

While this does not represent my endorsement of Wikileaks, I think that the treatment they have received at the hands of both the government and business is scary. Nobody has been charged with a crime, and the news organization which have been relaying the leaks have not been targeted. Illegal and extra-legal actions have occurred or been contemplated. Does it not occur to “responsible” politicians and pundits that calling for assassination might be problematic? Due process, anyone? Another example of a-la-carte constitutionality. Does anyone expect that to change with Tea-Partiers arriving in a few days, or are some going to be shocked, shocked that the constitution is again being treated as a document of convenience.

I find myself in an unusual situation with regards to safeguarding information. I work for the Department of Defense and have served in the military, yet I am a scientist. I understand and agree with points on both sides. As scientists, it is pounded into our heads that information should be shared, and that the best thing that can happen is to have lots of smart people looking at a problem. The military view is just the opposite — information is to be compartmentalized so that it does not get out. It’s always a struggle to achieve a balance, because scientists don’t work very effectively when they are cordoned off. Maybe the security trade-off is worth the slower pace, maybe it isn’t. When scientists get together and talk science, they share information. You can’t just be at the receiving end all the time. Younger scientists, just starting out, are included because of the expectation that even if they have nothing to share now, they will be able to do so very soon. If you have nothing to share, you will eventually be cut off. It won’t happen right away — we love to talk about our work and contemplate interesting questions, but it has to be a two-way street. So secrecy has a very strong quenching effect on the ability to do science.

But countries do need to keep secrets. And the big problem I have with Julian Assange and Wikileaks is that they do not seem to be discriminating between secrets that are held because they are covering up behavior — the kind of “Pentagon Papers” information that they are using as a justification for their actions — and the secrets that a government needs to keep. The difference between covering up and giving cover. You show people how the sausage is made if the ingredients are not what is given on the label, otherwise you don’t need to know. Wikileaks is telling us how the sausage is made, regardless. That seems more like poking the anthill for the fun of it than the actions of (to paraphrase Justice Black) a free and unrestrained press exposing deception in government.

The War on the War on Christmas

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Halfway There: Happy Humbug!

Therefore I was less than impressed when Prager lamented the death of “Merry Christmas” as a holiday greeting. He declared, with great assurance, that pressure from anti-religious pressure groups had brought nonsectarian greetings like “Happy Holidays” into prominence in preference to speaking of our (not his) dear savior’s birth. Instead of taking Prager’s word for it, I decided to do a little checking. What does Google’s Ngram viewer show?

I’m not sure how authoritative Google’s database is, but if their sampling is close to random, “Merry Christmas” isn’t suffering the fate that some would have you think it is.

“Happy Holidays” is inclusive.
“Merry Christmas” is exclusive.

Not surprising to me the general association of who uses what, and what group is upset about their sense of entitlement being challenged.

Where have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio Bob Feller?

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Feller Proud to Serve in ‘Time of Need’

I grew up in the generation after Bob Feller; I knew about his exploits because the strikeout king of the 70’s (and beyond), Nolan Ryan, was often compared to him. So I didn’t full appreciate his impact in baseball and beyond. But there’s this:

A lot of folks say that had I not missed those almost four seasons to World War II — during what was probably my physical prime — I might have had 370 or even 400 wins. But I have no regrets. None at all. I did what any American could and should do: serve his country in its time of need. The world’s time of need.

A lot of professional baseball players served in WWII, making the same kind of personal sacrifice Feller mentions here (including Joe D, to whom I mean no disrespect by lining out his name), but his passing and the circumstances of his enlistment (exempt from service via the draft) is in stark relief to what I’m seeing around me lately. Personal sacrifice to serve your country in a time of need? I don’t think holding the political process hostage in order to extend tax cuts to the richest 2% of the population qualifies.

My attitude isn’t helped by the fact that the “we all must tighten our belts” rhetoric has already hit me; there will be no cost-of-living adjustment for federal employees. I’ll manage, though, and the sentiment is right — everyone needs to do their part. But that actually means everyone. What bothered me was the process, and the president giving this concession before any negotiations had taken place. And then we see the right’s blustering about cutting the deficit being tossed aside faster than a dress on prom night. As Al Franken noted, it feels like the president punted on first down.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

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Yesterday was the 180th birthday of the Naval Observatory (yay, we had cake); it was established on Dec 6th, 1830 as the Depot of Charts and Instruments. One of my colleagues sent out a copy of a 1913 House appropriations committee hearing transcript, in which the USNO superintendent was interviewed regarding his budget requests.

I found it quite compelling, but I’m biased. It’s interesting that congressional failure to grasp science and general dickishness is not something new; there are inquiries into whether the functions of the observatory could be done with a reduced staff, or eliminated completely in order to save money, possibly because it was being duplicated by one of the “great universities” (those being Harvard and Stanford). The answer then, as now, is no; there’s a distinction between basic and applied research. University astronomers of recent times don’t do the systematic position measurements that go into producing an alamanac. I think the attitude displayed by Mr. Burleson implies that he thought that everyone with a telescope must be doing the same thing. He pegs the dick-o-meter when he suggests that the work being done is” rather crude or backward as compared with the work that is being done at the naval observatories connected with the universities.” I don’t really know why one would phrase the inquiry that way.

There’s a bit of bureaucracy tedium as well, such as trying to convince the committee that when the staff is underpaid as compared to other government jobs or the private sector, people tend to move on before they might otherwise do, and retaining people, even at higher salary, is usually cheaper than continually training new employees.

All in all, not very different from what I see today.