He's gone

Hall & Oates did a great tribute to Alan Colmes (who's leaving Hannity & Colmes this year) on Thursday's TDS in a reworked version of "She's Gone." I thought the lyrics were worth posting:

Anytime you need a token liberal
Nothin' but a body to fill a chair
The barest shadow of a person
Alan Colmes is always there.

But all those years of non-existence
Can really run a person down.
Now he's leaving Hannity forever
Alan, please don't go!
You're the only non-douchebag on that show

He's gone. Bye bye,
Oh why
He was the Tango to his cash
And he's gone.
Oh why
To the extent
That I hadn't noticed he was there
But he's gone.
Oh why
What went wrong?
He's gone. Bye bye
Oh why?
He was the Laurel to his Hardy
He's gone
To spend
More time
Not being seen with his family
He's gone
What went wrong?

The Year in Ideas

I love the yearly issue of NYT Magazine that contains the "Year in Ideas." Some of these are pretty amazing. Enjoy.

Two Bailout Proposals

OK, so I didn't even read the first one. It apparently says that only two automakers should get bailout money, based on whoever will bid the lowest price. More interesting than the idea? The source. What's Eliot Spitzer doing back in the news?

Another idea ... Why do the taxpayers have to cough up this dough? How about the government does a 401(k)-style match, essentially a subsidy for investing in the automakers specifically, so that most of the money is still coming in from the private sector? Administratively complicated, but theoretically superior, at least as far as I can tell.

MN-Sen: What's going on?

So, Intrade contracts on Franken winning the election in Minnesota have held tight between 30 and 35 for about a week and a half now, which is rather remarkably consistent. In the last two hours, however, the price has shot up to very close to 50.

HuffPo has allegations about Coleman corruption all over their front page, but that wouldn't have any bearing on the election. So if anyone's got any idea about anything else that might be making this happen let me know. If it's just reaction to the allegations, well, just one more bit of evidence that political betting markets aren't efficient.

Well that didn't take long ...

"Hey, you think we've waited long enough? Can we start calling our opponents un-American now that we've got the power?"

"Long enough? Jenny, we just won the election. Like, barely a month ago. I mean, hell, we haven't even taken office yet. There's still only 51 Democrats in the Senate and there's still a Texan in the White House. I'm not sure that counts as 'waiting'."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But this auto bailout thing - I really want it! I can't believe I have to wait even longer. This is totally unfair!"

"Dude, you can just wait a month and then we'll be in power."

"But I want it now! You know what? Screw it, I'm calling the Republicans un-American."

"No! You can't do that! That'll make us look just like those oth- ... too late."

"Inhaling Fear"

...is the title of a NYTimes op-ed today (side note: "a NYTimes" or "an NYTimes"? the latter sounds right to me (thanks to vowel sound at the beginning of the pronunciation of the letter "N"), but, N being a consonant, I though maybe it should be the former...).

Anyway, it's about how brain studies have shown that anti-smoking ads actually lead people to crave a cigarette more and how anti-smoking efforts should be reformed.

I don't know how to fix this, because I don't really understand why people smoke at all (because it's relaxing and looks cool, of course, but the health risks just seem so obviously a deal-breaker, for me), and I don't even know if it's the government's place to tell people not to do something that's legal. Acccording to the op-ed, they're using money from a Big Tobacco settlement on these ads, which is better than taxpayer money, but are public funds being used for similar campaigns, like encouraging kids to exercise? I'm not really cool with that (despite the fact that I obivously think that children should exercise and not smoke cigarettes).

And I couldn't have said it better

OK, so it appears that the aforementioned constitutional crisis, wherein Hillary Clinton would be ineligible to be Secretary of State because she was in Congress when Congress gave the position a pay raise, has been averted. And I couldn't have said it better myself:

"She’ll make $4,700 less per year than the current black Secretary of State, because that’s how Barack Obama’s America rolls."

Cynical Politics?

OK, so it's possible I'm just being overly political here, but do you think it stands to reason that Barack Obama appointed Janet Napolitano to DHS as an olive branch to John McCain, as it removes a very large (and really the only) challenger to his Senate seat in 2010?  Just a thought ...

I try to get out, but they just pull me back in.

GMail just introduced some pretty great new features. Not only does AIM now integrate with GChat, but now GMail supports Tasks. It really is upsetting how happy these features make me.

Blagojevich Update: Jesse Jackson, Jr.

As you've probably heard by now, Jackson is allegedly implicated in the tapes as being willing to pay for the Senate seat in question. If so, a potentially enormous political career has ended before it even begun.

Quick Thought on NY-Sen

Hillary's Senate seat is also open to a gubernatorial appointment. While speculation flies fast that Governor Patterson is looking to Caroline Kennedy, I for one do not buy this at all. NY has plenty of good candidates and she just doesn't seem like the Senate type. Notably, Patterson has more or less said he doesn't want to appoint a white male from NYC ... Carolyn Maloney has been endorsed by "Women's groups" according to electoral-vote.com. Also there's Andrew Cuomo, but this guy on NPR just said Patterson doesn't want to give him the seat (competition for him?)

GoogleWatch continues!

Here's the latest information on trends in searches on Google. Nothing mind blowing, but the list did introduce me to a few things I had never heard of (e.g. Tuenti, a Spanish-language equivalent of Facebook).

I mean what if 'Cloverfield' happened, right?

(as an aside, I really liked the first half or so of that movie, which was about what this post concerns - "what if you were just living your life, at a party or whatever, when all of a sudden real shit starting going down?" - but I wasn't so crazy about the whole alien/monster thing).

Anyway, Carly should really be writing this post, as she knows more than I do about this stuff, but our conversation about it yesterday sparked me. I don't have any real insight, just questions: What kind of "major disaster" should we be worried about? How should we prepare? Whose responsibility is it to help protect us, and they preparing effectively?

Some peoples' answers to these and other questions are in these articles:

A report on "Protecting the Public's Health from Disease, Disasters, and Bioterrorism," courtesy of Carly

An op-ed about how to distribute the Anthrax vaccine, should there be another attack

The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism's report, saying there probably will be, and it will be soon

A discussion of how to protect people in fancy hotels in dangerous places, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks

Homework

OK I need your help. I've basically got the go-ahead to implement some sort of voluntary office competition, in which whoever reduces their utility bills the most wins a prize.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to out-do all of the logistical complications. First, you obviously have to go by percentage since we don't all live in the same-sized houses. But do you go month-by-month? If so, I could write off every other month by putting my heat on 85 degrees and easily winning the following month. And creating a baseline represents difficulties ... ideally we would compare all the bills for 12 months of 2009 to 12 months of 2008, but that's too administratively complex.

So I'm throwing my hands up. Ideas?

This is pathetic.

Apparently MSNBC chose to play the same footage of five Blackwater contractors walking across the street fifty-four times in fifteen minutes. That is correct: 54 in 15. That would be 3.6 plays per minutes, or one play every 16 2/3 seconds.

The most frustrating part of this for me is that I know this happens all the time. Watching TV news is unbearable because the repetition and simplification is so drastic and blatant. This is really not okay.

What is the Republican Party to do? (Part 47)

If you remember my superboring lecture way back in the day, I compared the left-right spectrum of politics to ice cream stands along a beach.

Looking at the senate, let's start from the left. First off, there's a lot of Democrats. Secondly, there's quite a spectrum of them. There's your Schumers and Kennedys, sure, but there are also Landrieus and Byrds. So let's imagine that the Democrats start at the far left (say point 0) and extend halfway over (point 50).

The Republicans? Well, there's not very many, as you know, and you may also know that the Republican senators who lost were pretty moderate. The ones left are much more often the DeMints and the Chamblisses of the world. So if you start at the far right (point 100) and extend left, you'd probably only go, say, 30 points over (to point 70).

This leaves a 20-pt gap (again, everything is obviously quite arbitrary) from points 50-70 that is up for grabs. I'm not sure if I've presented this in a manner that makes any sense, but if so, you'll see that the Republicans have the option of moving to the right (and into obscurity) or taking up some of that middle, at least for now. If they don't move at least in the short run, there's gonna be a long night in store for them in November 2010.

Joe the Annoyer

He may still be getting publicity for the wrong reasons, but at least he is lowering his own credibility in the process.

Corruption in Government: What to Do?

Why did this all happen? In my opinion, the answer is simple.

As governor of a state like Illinois, I'm sure you frequently meet with some of the most powerful people in the country. And some of the richest. And you probably help a lot of those rich people become richer (not necessarily in corrupt ways). Yet the governor of Illinois makes a salary of $150,000, more or less. And what was he trying to get? In real terms, not very much: a position with a salary of $300,000 (and other stuff, sure, but really not that much - not a $120M no-bid contract anyway).

In one of my econ classes we studied Singapore or Hong Kong or somewhere like that, wherein government employees were given huge salary increases. The result? There was more competition for government jobs so better individuals ended up getting the positions. Also, since salaries were already high, the temptation for corruption was less because (1) it took more money to even be worth it and (2) the fear of losing one's job made it even less likely the person would want to engage in corrupt activites.

So my counter-intuitive solution is to pay these guys more. Because if one of the most powerful people in the state is only making $150,000, what else should we expect to happen?

Also, by the way, Blagojevich is under no legal pressure to resign his seat, and could even appoint a senate replacement today, should he desire.

Better version of our gameshow...

Well, I think this may be the death knell of Bush, Kennedy, or Other, our fantastic quiz show. Who (Allegedly) Said It? asks contestants to who said each phrase, Rod Blagojevich or Tony Soprano. Well done, Beast.

Stimulus/Rebate

I've heard from a number of source, not the first of which is this one, the following bailout proposal. Since the $350B left to spend in the bailout package is approximately equal to two months of federal government income, just have a two month holiday on all taxes of all forms.

This sounds totally reasonable, but the same way a flat-dollar rebate (though there were adjustments to fix this) is extremely progressive, this tax holiday would be extremely regressive. Many poor Americans pay no tax at all (and I suppose the shut off valve for taxes wouldn't take away earned income tax credits ...) and of course those who pay the most in taxes would see the most benefit. So of course conservatives are all over this but don't be fooled - it's a (thinly) veiled regression of the tax code.

My turn

OK, if Bart gets to post cute animals (which I haven't looked at yet) then, even at the risk of being that crazy guy who likes cats, I'm taking a turn, too.

These are my two cats, Pax (the tigerish one) and Rex (the pantherish one). They're both in the 8-9 month range. I swear this wasn't my intention; I needed pictures off my camera for a project, but as I was going through them (277 of 'em) I couldn't help but appreciate these few.

Corruption, Part II

Rod Blagojevich, governor of Illinoise, has been arrested this morning for getting financially friendly with potential Obama Senate replacements.

Democrat Pat Quinn is temporarily in charge of the gubernatorial responsibilities.

Liberal Media? Perhaps so ...

It makes sense right?  The media should totally follow the story of a guy if he's in Congress, making laws on behalf of his constituents, and ends up clearly guilty of accepting bribes, yet nonetheless manages to stay extremely close in his reelection bid, only to finally be declared the loser of the razor-thin election roughly a month after the fact?  It's totally fair that the media follows that story, right?

Well, the media has not been doing it's job in following around Bill "Cold Hard Cash" Jefferson.  Jefferson, or BCHCJ as I call him for short (not really), was finally defeated in his re-election bid in Louisiana's 2nd district.  To speak to the relevance of his defeat, the Democrat was defeated in this heavily black district by none other than Vietnamese Republican (don't laugh) Anh "Joseph" Cao.

I know the bribery aspects of his story are older, but I have no idea why this guy got almost no coverage when Ted Stevens was all over the news.  I guess Senators have roughly 4.35 times as much power as Representatives (though Stevens got more than 4.35 times as much coverage) and I suppose the whole 60-seat thing really drove the narrative on the Senate election this year.  Either way, even very involved people I know don't know about BCHCJ, so I think the story was underreported.  Either way, he lost, so hurrah to that!

Woot off!

Well, time for another day of checking Woot far too frequently.

Dulling the pain of being broke...

There's an article in Times blogs today about Prohibition. To tell you the truth, it's not actually that interesting, but one thing did make me think: Along with the amendment's unpopularity by '33, another factor contributing to its reversal was the revenue it would generate, in its sales and large tax, to bolster the depressed economy. This has always been one of the most convincing arguments I've heard for legalization of marijuana (not that I need to be convinced, obviously, I mean one of the most compelling things to tell people who do): legalize it, tax the shit out of it, and inject an amount of money that I can't even fathom (because I'm bad at math) into the (legal) economy. Given our current economic conditions, no time like the present...

(btw, if you guys are, I'm very interested in having a conversation about drug policy in general...)

The Democratic Senate Majority, Prisoner's Dilemma Style

Nate's got a particularly good article on how it's possible for 58 seats to be better than 59.

(In response to the article: of course, the moderate Republicans in question could work out deals with each other ahead of the vote)

OK, so now the back-patting is legit

Anybody ever heard of this magazine anyway?

(And, for the record, I called MN-Senate for Coleman, a result that is currently trading at 69% on Intrade)

Football History

So, probably only Bart will be interested in this, but I'm working on putting an Excel spreadsheet together with a win-loss record for each team throughout its history. Long story short, Cleveland is officially regarded as being one team throughout its history. As part of the deal to move the Browns to Baltimore, Art Modell agreed to let the city keep the team's "history," so Baltimore is regarded as a 1996 expansion team and Cleveland is regarded as a 1946 expansion team that suspended operations from 1996-1998. I'd have never guessed.

Ugh

I know you're sad to see Tom Brady out this season, but at least you don't have the Rams. We've got two touchdowns in our last five games. We're also 2-0 this season when scoring 17 pts.

No Comment

It just seems so wrong.
Eh, let's double down while we're at it.

Dammit, I just realized this was my 200th post.

"At Least He Kept Us Safe"

In this group, it's hard to imagine many missed the Peggy Noonan article last week, lobbing a Hail Mary attempt to hold on to something positive about the Bush Administration, and citing the fact that there were absolutely no terrorist attacks at all period totally zero not a single one during Bush's presidency, unlike lazy-ass Bill Clinton, who let the USS Cole (is that a book? Why am I italicizing it?) get blown up by al-Qaeda.

Anyway, of course I threw up a little in my mouth reading the original article, but I think this summary is a little more interesting than what I would have written.

(Oh, and if I hear Bill O'Reilly or Peggy Noonan make one more comment about how we should have had more regulation before the collapse I'll lose it completely)

Bush's Final Days

Despite everybody being all Hopey and Changey, don't forget that one of the worst presidents in American history is still in the oval office, and for the first time since 9/11 has, in some ways, a sympathetic image, not to mention the fact that no one is watching.

Here's a mediocre but interesting "by the numbers" on his presidency.
(What struck me most was FOIA requests vs. FOIA processors over time)
The same site is also keeping a watch on his 11th hour activites.

An exception for servants...

Bush's new neighborhood did not allow non-whites to live there until 2000. Fantastic way to continue the legacy of a terrible presidency.

The train Nazi (Not the Nazi train)

Here's a pretty entertaining article by Christopher Buckley about how it feels to have public enforcer responsibilities fall to you. Damn free-rider problem.

I also recommend everyone check out at least a book or two of Buckley's, as the tend to be fluffy fiction with some fun laughs along the way. Thank You For Smoking is the best of his book that I have read.