Now that Obama has won his biggest legislative priority and is closing in on at least one other important win, the tone is change. The hapless patsy has become the snarling bully. The lack of Republican support for Obama's agenda, once a credit to Republican tough-mindedness, is now blamed upon Obama's stubbornness. Here is a recent cover of Obama--the nefarious, but powerful, overseer:
The Standard is a reliable reflection of Republican propaganda tropes. The shift in tone from gloating at Obama's weakness to complaining at the unfairness of his strength is the clearest signal Obama seems to be escaping the worst fate -- to be a Jimmy Carter or a Bill Clinton circa 1994 or 1995.
Maybe Obama Isn't Like Carter Afterall
You should click on this link, just to see the other covers of Obama on The Weekly Standard. Here's the key quote from Jonathan Chait:
"It's Your Piece of S--- Now"
Stewart goes where the press dare not go...
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Release the Kagan | ||||
| ||||
Sometimes Playing The Outside Game Is All You Need For The Win
Here's part of a nice post from Nate Silver at 538.com (An absolute must-read site; especially as we get closer to the mid-terms).
I don't look forward to the possibility of a 'Tea Party' controlled House. But, they are definitely playing the 'outside game'.
In addition, obviously, there is significant anti-incumbent sentiment within the country which seems to cross all political boundaries. While Mollohan lost to a challenge from his right -- not incredibly shocking in a state where just 34 percent of the Democratic primary electorate describes itself as liberal -- incumbents of all kinds are having problems:
-- Republican Senator Bob Bennett was eliminated at Utah's nominating convention last week by Tea Party-supported candidates.We scarcely need to mention, of course, how many Democratic incumbents are liable to lose their general election bids.
-- Also in Utah, Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson was forced into a primary after delegates gave 45 percent of their votes to Claudia Wright, a retired schoolteacher who ran sharply to his left.
-- Arlen Specter appears more likely than not to lose to Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania next week. Sestak has made a point of running to Specter's left, although polling indicates ambiguous patterns of preferences according to voter ideology. (In Rasmussen's cross-tabs [gated], Sestak leads 56-39 among liberal primary voters but also 51-38 among conservatives; Specter leads 46-37 among self-described moderates.)
-- Recent polling shows Democratic challengers closing on incumbent Senators Richard Burr in North Carolina and Chuck Grassley in Iowa.
-- John McCain, having released this strange ad, seems to be nervous about his position in Arizona, where J.D. Hayworth is challenging him and has been close in some polls.
I don't look forward to the possibility of a 'Tea Party' controlled House. But, they are definitely playing the 'outside game'.
Untrustworthy Scumbags
The owners of Facebook are building a huge, searchable, database of all the important aspects of their user population. And they’re not shy about finding new ways to exploit it. Plus, it’s a bait and switch. “Here’s a great way to connect with family and friends that YOU can control. I mean WE can control. And we change the rules about WE and YOU any time it suits us. Have fun!”. And the beauty of the bait and switch is that it gets the user base comfortable with sharing information with each other. Why not, it’s fun to share. But then Facebook can change the default on that privately shared information from private to public as soon as it finds a market for the data. Then sell the information to highest bidder. And so long as they make the effort to hide previously private information difficult, but possible, they can still sell most of the data. Enough of it to make some bucks on their (Not yours) valuable data.
I’m beginning to think the “private to public - bait and switch” IS their business model.
Frankly, they do create value for the users. I haven’t found a tool that works as well as theirs. The network effect is amazing. You put a profile on and within a few months, you’ll reconnect with dozens of people you never thought you’d ever have contact with again. It’s pretty amazing.
It’s too bad the owners are untrustworthy scumbags.
The Problem Is That You're Reading USA Today
Yesterday, I thought I found a brilliant factoid here. Then I read this from Kevin Drum:
Umm. 27.5% is much higher than 9.2%. And frankly, what was I thinking that the number could even be 9.2%? I mean payroll taxes alone are close to 14% (Split between employer and employee). 9.2% on its face should have looked wrong to me. My bad.
Not quite. According to the BEA, personal income in 2009 totalled $12 trillion and personal current taxes totalled $1.1 trillion. Sure enough, that's 9.2%. But, ahem, there's also $967 billion in "contributions for government social insurance." That's taxes to you and me. So that's $2.1 trillion in taxes, or about 17% of personal income.
But according to the OMB, federal tax receipts in 2009 totalled $2.1 trillion. And according to the Census Bureau, state and local tax receipts in 2009 totalled $1.2 trillion. That's $3.3 trillion, not $2.1 trillion. Do we really have $1.2 trillion in taxes not being paid by individuals? State and federal corporate taxes only amounted to about $200 billion. Are they not counting the employer portion of payroll taxes?
In any case, our total tax bite, which is eventually paid by individuals no matter what channel it goes through, was $3.3 trillion in 2009. That's 27.5% of personal income, not 9.2%. Caveat emptor.
Umm. 27.5% is much higher than 9.2%. And frankly, what was I thinking that the number could even be 9.2%? I mean payroll taxes alone are close to 14% (Split between employer and employee). 9.2% on its face should have looked wrong to me. My bad.
Not So Happy Owning in Nevada
Check out the chart below:
That's 70% of homeowners have negative equity. Let me repeat that number. 70%.
(Hat tip: Marginal Revolution)
That's 70% of homeowners have negative equity. Let me repeat that number. 70%.
(Hat tip: Marginal Revolution)
"It's playtime in the world of imagination"
Plus a nicely timed "Oh... so no-one knows what the f--- they're doing"
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Oil Containment Solution Randomizer | ||||
| ||||
Anybody Get the Logic of this Little Tidbit
From the analysis of a poll by PPP:
What? I'll assume they were joking.
28% of Republicans said the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico made them more likely to support drilling off the coast
What? I'll assume they were joking.
Tell Me Again What the Problem Is
Source
UPDATE: This information has been challenged pretty well by Kevin Drum. 9.2% just looks wrong. See this.
Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.
UPDATE: This information has been challenged pretty well by Kevin Drum. 9.2% just looks wrong. See this.
Midterm Tea Leaves (or: The People Are Pissed Off)
Here's Charlie Cook's take (link):
I've been reading this kind of thing all year and will probably continue to read it. Here's the part I don't entirely get:
When one party has control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, a midterm election is pretty much a referendum on that party. The electorate's anti-everything mood is likely to manifest itself only one way in November -- that is, against Democrats. Between now and then, however, a different dynamic could be in play. Republicans in particular should watch upcoming primaries apprehensively to see whether their party is nominating candidates with the potential to attract broad-based support and take full advantage of the anti-Democratic tide, or if it is opting for candidates who might be too extreme even in what should be a great year for the GOP.
But have no doubt: The anger is real. The only question is precisely how it will be channeled.
I've been reading this kind of thing all year and will probably continue to read it. Here's the part I don't entirely get:
Meanwhile... In The Real World
Arnie is faced with a problem that no one-liner can solve.
Source
Noted in the article, it's a $20 billion deficit, there's no way to raise taxes as it requires a 2/3 majority vote in the legislature to pass any budget (seriously, this is a bad structure), state revenues are expected to be lower than originally projected, federal help has been smaller than anticipated. Oh, and apparently most of the options to close the deficit were used last year. Anticipated cuts will be 'harsh'. Wow.
Did I mention that the recession is supposed to be over? Hooray recovery!
The state budget crisis has been quiet for the past few months but will return to center stage this week as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prepares to belt out some bad news.
The governor is scheduled to release an updated budget plan Friday that will probably include even deeper cuts than those he proposed in January, when he called for reductions in health and human services, prisons, education and state worker pay, among other areas.
Source
Noted in the article, it's a $20 billion deficit, there's no way to raise taxes as it requires a 2/3 majority vote in the legislature to pass any budget (seriously, this is a bad structure), state revenues are expected to be lower than originally projected, federal help has been smaller than anticipated. Oh, and apparently most of the options to close the deficit were used last year. Anticipated cuts will be 'harsh'. Wow.
Did I mention that the recession is supposed to be over? Hooray recovery!
Arnie Was Always Good with the One-Liners
Here are a couple quotes from the CA governor's commencement speech at Emory:
Source
Hat Tip
“I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me.”
“Finally, the Kennedys will think I’m a success. And Maria can finally bring me home to meet her family.”
Source
Hat Tip
What's a Trillion Dollars Worth Anyway?
Europe Growth Forecast Chart
Nice interactive chart for seeing the growth forecast in europe. The 'PIGS' look like you'd expect them to (bad). I was a little surprised by France's high unemployment rate. Here's the link to the chart (where you can actually play with it).
Hat tip: Barry Ritholtz
Hat tip: Barry Ritholtz
Big Content Win
This is pretty technical, but one easy way to understand it is that it means my brother-in-law is right: Selectable output control is going to go away. Big content is actively looking for ways to close the 'analog' hole. And based on this piece in Arc Technica, the hole just got smaller:
So, here's the deal:
After almost two years of deliberation, the Federal Communications Commission has granted Hollywood and cable companies permission to shut down analog streams to HDTV equipped home theaters. The geek term for this is "selectable output control" (SOC)—until now forbidden by the FCC. The Motion Picture Association of America requested a waiver on the SOC ban in May of 2008, arguing that without it, Hollywood studios could not securely offer consumers pre-DVD released movies on television.
So, here's the deal:
A Tipping Point?
Just another person cancelling their Facebook account. Or is it?
(It probably is - but, I'd love to be at the beginning of this particular wave)
Here is James Kwak at the Baseline Scenario (link):
(It probably is - but, I'd love to be at the beginning of this particular wave)
Here is James Kwak at the Baseline Scenario (link):
In short, there has been a massive, one-directional shift in how much of your information is visible by default either to everyone on Facebook, or to everyone on the Internet. Now, the usual defense of Facebook is that this is only by default; you can control information access via your privacy settings, which have gotten more fine-grained over time.
But this argument doesn’t fly for me. First of all, there is the problem that many people don’t realize they have this control and don’t use it. Second, finding and using those privacy settings is not trivial. But for years, I figured that I was savvy and careful enough to protect myself adequately. I’m not that paranoid about personal information on the Internet to begin with–there are various versions of my biography already floating around–and besides, I worked in the software industry for eight years (some of that time helping to design and configure software, not just market and sell it), so I should be able to figure this stuff out.
Want To Increase Voter Turnout?
Apparently, it's as easy as asking the right question:
Link
A new study shows that phone calls to encourage people to vote can be made more effective by a simple strategy - that is, by asking the would-be voter to spell out what time they plan to vote, where they will be coming from prior to voting and what they will have been doing beforehand.
Link
Wired Calls For A New Facebook
Link
This spring Facebook took that even further. All the items you list as things you like must become public and linked to public profile pages. If you don’t want them linked and made public, then you don’t get them — though Facebook nicely hangs onto them in its database in order to let advertisers target you.
This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public — and linked to public pages for each of those bits of info — or you don’t get them at all. That’s hardly a choice, and the whole system is maddeningly complex.
Simultaneously, the company began shipping your profile information off pre-emptively to Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft — so that if you show up there while already logged into Facebook, the sites can “personalize” your experience when you show up. You can try to opt out after the fact, but you’ll need a master’s in Facebook bureaucracy to stop it permanently.
Another Facebook Post
Really just a link.
And a quote:
And a quote:
Facebook is a great service. I have a profile, and so does nearly everyone I know under the age of 60.
However, Facebook hasn't always managed its users' data well. In the beginning, it restricted the visibility of a user's personal information to just their friends and their "network" (college or school). Over the past couple of years, the default privacy settings for a Facebook user's personal information have become more and more permissive. They've also changed how your personal information is classified several times, sometimes in a manner that has been confusing for their users. This has largely been part of Facebook's effort to correlate, publish, and monetize their social graph: a massive database of entities and links that covers everything from where you live to the movies you like and the people you trust.
Updates to Where's Wiebe
Between helping with the kids, I had a pretty fun Saturday updating the blog. Here's what's new:
- I played around with the blog template and got a color scheme that I think I like.
- Added "Sources" which is really the blogs I frequent the most. It's also what give me 'the inspiration' for most of my posts. I'll probably add a few more things like this when I get around to it.
- Made two 'sub-blogs' that link right into the main "Where's Wiebe' Blog. The first is a video game blog. I figure that as I play games, I'll post my thoughts on them here. Over the past few years, this has been one of my primary source of entertainment. I don't know that will always be true (I've taken breaks from video games that have lasted for years), but I suspect that it probably will. Why not capture my thoughts in the moment. Here's a link to the blog: What's Wiebe Playing. There's also one in the top right hand side of the page.
- The second 'sub-blog' is a book blog. I've moved from watching TV on the train during my commute to reading books. I'm surprised that it's keeping my interest because it's been a while since I regularly read books. My interest right now tends towards behavioral economics, but I'll move from that I suspect. This is just a place to capture my thoughts as I finish the books. I did some back filling today with my most recent reads. Here's a link to the blog: What's Wiebe Reading. There's also one in the top right hand side of the page.
Kevin Drum on Facebook
Is Facebook Evil?
The more I read about Facebook, the more I really don't like Facebook. I'm way behind the curve on this stuff, but the other day I read a post about privacy settings and realized just how little I know about it. I've always been pretty sparse with my Facebook account, so I'm not really worried about my darkest secrets becoming public or anything, but after reading this and then following the links I went in and changed a whole bunch of settings that had made my preferences available to third parties at Facebook's whim. I had no idea these settings even existed. Then today I read this. "There is something seriously wrong with their business ethics," says Thomas Baekdal, "when they even contemplate publishing content that was previously marked private."
Immigration Opinion
Here's something that would really work badly, but is supported by a plurality of the public according to a Economist/YouGov Poll:
How is that supposed to work? Arizona passes an incredibly tough immigration law. Then, lo and behold, Massachusetts passes amenesty and grants citizenship to existing illegals (say, under certain conditions). And then the new citizen takes a vacation to Arizona, where they get put in jail and deported.
Really, it doesn't make any sense.
...nearly half (48%) of the public thinks states should be permitted to set their own immigration policies...
How is that supposed to work? Arizona passes an incredibly tough immigration law. Then, lo and behold, Massachusetts passes amenesty and grants citizenship to existing illegals (say, under certain conditions). And then the new citizen takes a vacation to Arizona, where they get put in jail and deported.
Really, it doesn't make any sense.
It's a Hoax
Right?
Key quote:
Key quote:
"We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action."
My Favorite Employment Chart
And the job news is positive. I'm still not expecting a robust recovery, but the trend looks much better than it did for the past couple years.
Source
Source
Judson Phillips
I'm not a fan of the tea-party. Fair to say that they aren't fans of me. Here's my favorite quote from a recent Washington Post interview.
Maryland: I am sorry but your answer of "I think the political class is afraid of the Tea Party movement. After all, we get people out as volunteers and get them to the polls. For them, it cannot be the same as usual in D.C. A lot of them are going to be unemployed after the first of the year and that does scare them" is really offensive. This us vs. them mentality is really repulsive to me. I am a hard-working middle class American and I don't agree with anything you are saying, and I have a right not agree with you. But you splitting the citizenry into classes of "elites/political class/Washington insiders/liberals" vs "real Americans" is just plain wrong! and that's the problem with your movement.Liberals are just as American as you are and you and your movement has no right to question people's patriotism or Americanness just because they disagree with you.
Judson Phillips: Yes we do. You folks in the left do far worse. Patriotism is not something that cannot be measured. It can be. And you folks on the left, as a general rule are not patriotic. You do not love this country. You are embarrassed by us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
