Perhaps the longest sustained non sequitur ever.

There are many sides to the gun-control debate that is raging right now, and I don't mean that there are sides that are for greater regulation and sides against (thought that is also true).  What I mean is that some are arguing for banning this sort of weapon but not that; others are arguing that high-capacity magazines should be regulated rather than the guns themselves; others are interested in discussing background checks rather than criminalizing possession.  One of the more interesting--and more subtle--parts of the debate has to do with the term 'assault weapon'.  The term is hazy, and often mistaken for a synonym of 'automatic'.  In fact, the current legal definition (at least in practice) includes semi-automatic weapons.  This, however, may lead one to think that an assault weapons ban would include all semi-automatic weapons.  However, many (most?) handguns are also semi-automatic (which simply means that the gun automatically loads a new cartridge after firing).  It seems clear that part of the gun-control debate will have to include a clearer categorization of gun-types (this would be a good idea even if no new legislation follows).  Maureen Martin posted an article at the Daily Caller last week explaining intelligently the problem with the current legal nomenclature regarding guns.  You would think the natural conclusion of such an article would be that we need to sort out the classification of gun-types before we discuss regulation.  Instead, what follows does not follow at all (hence, the non sequitur in the title of this post).

Martin may be correct, but usually what is contained must be mentioned in the premises--otherwise your conclusion is entirely irrelevant.  Nevertheless, her article contains no statistics concerning gun restrictions and violence, gun restrictions and mass murder, gun restrictions and gun murder rates.  She finishes my asking us to "carefully consider overly simplistic cures."  I think I'll take her advice and carefully and with consideration ignore her article.

Gun debate begins with reason.

The week and  half since the shooting in Newtown has been a hazy fog of half baked arguments regarding gun control and prevention.  The conversation (if you can call it that) has been cacophonous, with every side of the debate speaking to his or her own concerns without addressing the concerns of the other participants.  Some are afraid that their guns will be taken away--as if there is a real risk that the Second Amendment will be repealed (and as if anyone is actually calling for such a repeal).  Others are suggesting that teachers be armed.  The NRA is calling for armed guards in our schools, claiming that new gun regulations won't make any difference--after all, there are so many other weapons Lanza could have used to commit his crime (maybe a crossbow?).  Still others are pointing out that there were armed guards at Columbine, and that that did not prevent the Colorado massacre.  Finally, Lindsey Graham doesn't think there is anything he or his fellow lawmakers can do to prevent a massacre.

The problem is that no one has set out the ground rules of the debate.  That is to say, when one claims that gun-control won't work, they are obliged to first indicate what working means.  To argue that it won't have prevented Newtown is nonsense since Newtown has already occurred.  To argue that armed guards didn't prevent Columbine is likewise facile to the point of being meaningless--Columbine did occur.  The question must be set out clearly, and it must be agreed to, before a fruitful conversation can take place--and that question can only be: will new gun-control laws reduce the number of these sorts of shootings (an perhaps reduce gun-violence altogether)*.  Anyone who argues that gun-control laws would not have prevented Newtown is being disingenuous and should be dismissed outright.

*To be sure, the question has address, eventually, whether or not such restrictions violate the Second Amendment.

Diagnosing a killer.

The last seven days have been occupied by attempts to diagnose the Newtown killing.  Is it a gun problem?  Is it a mental health problem?  Is it a family values problem?  Westboro Baptist thinks gay marriage was the cause.  Megan McArdle thinks we've failed our children by not teaching them to bum-rush a shooter.  Charlotte Allen took second best to McArdle's stupidity--but just barely.  Her diagnosis was that the amount of damage caused by such killers could be reduced significantly if our elementary schools employed more men.  She may be right, but the solution sounds a little like trying to address your body odor problem by simply staying at home--it addresses the symptoms but ignores the cause.  However, Allen's response today pushes her incomprehension to a new level.  At the end of her apologia, she has a look at the Newtown Public Schools website (which she mistakenly refers to as the Sandy Hook web site), disparagingly noting that their safety page contains a bunch of links to anti-bullying web sites.
We don't yet know if Lanza was bullied, but bullying is often a factor in these kinds of shootings.  Indeed, bullying--even on Facebook--is its own serious problem that needs to be addressed--or has Allen forgotten Amanda Todd.

Look who's talking!

"How can you tell me smoking is bad for me when you smoke two packs a day?"  "Simple, because it's true."  Hypocrisy is a moral failing, not a logical one.  This is the example I use to explain one of the lowest sorts of logical fallacy (though it has a fancy Latin name): tu quoque.  John Nolte uses precisely this fallacy to introduce his discussion of the role the media plays in motivating shooters such as Adam Lanza.

Though this be one of the lowest forms of fallacy (in my opinion, to be sure), it is not the only fallacy committed by Nolte in this same post.  If you don't believe Nolte's claim that the promise of media fame contributes to the actions of a Lanza, you "simply [don't] want to believe it."  Nolte makes no argument here, he simply attacks the motivation of a hypothetical detractor--a type of ad hominem fallacy, though I cannot decide if it is a sort of poisoning the well or circumstantial (I'm open to suggestions).  In addition, Nolte bifurcates on the question of media coverage, suggesting that the media should ignore such news events altogether.  He could have made a very reasonable case for a policy that would call for news outlets to not show the face or mug shots of alleged shooters (incidentally, his article begins with a huge head shot of Lanza).  Instead, he calls for a media blackout.  Indeed, his comparison between the role of guns and the role of the media fails to distinguish between final cause or motive and instrumental cause.  Without such a distinction, the comparison is meaningless.

So, Jesus and a dinosaur walk into a bar...

Breitbart.com is up in arms today at the NYT editorial page for including this advertisement.  According to Breitbart contributor John Nolte, the ad is "Christian Mocking" and disrespectful.  I cannot resist, however, pointing out that literalism (reading each word of the Bible as literally true) is not a Christian doctrine--at best it is evangelical.  More importantly, it is incredibly stupid and intellectually lazy--and a recent invention.  The Church Fathers (for example Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa) did not believe that the creation story in Genesis was meant to be taken literally (as the former's Hexaemeron and the latter's De opificio hominis witness).  One can be a devout, orthodox Christian without believing that god created the world in six days (or that the brothers of Yahweh (the Elohim) copulated with human women creating a race of giants (the Nephilim) (Gen. 6:4)).

In the wake of tragedy...

...and after the grief, we begin to diagnose.  Was the killer insane?  Did he have a motive?  Was he bullied?  What role did his family life play?  What role did gun laws in his region play?  Some of these will be answered in time.  Others will remain unclear.  What is clear is that there can be no effective treatment/prevention without a proper diagnosis.  Certain commentators will present extremely ill-considered preventative measures in part because they haven't the patience for diagnostics; to wit, Newsweek's Megan McArdle suggests we teach children that is it best to rush the gunman in these and similar situations.  This will reduce the number of casualties.

Others will turn to god for answers.  Certainly this is a less ill-advised reaction.  Nevertheless, god can be used to make rash (to say the least) diagnoses.  After Westboro Baptist threatened to picket Sandy Brook Elementary, claiming, as they always do, that the massacre was the direct result of homosexuality, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has followed suit.

Never waste a good tragedy.

Notice the relation between the first tweet and the last. 

Some people just can't resist trying to score a political point.

Daily Drudge

This story is a riot.  It's also a spoof--This is That is satire.  But don't tell Drudge--he's reporting it as if it is news.

Bill O'Reilly is anti-Nicene!

David Frum accuses O'Reilly of denying Nicea (the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus Christ) even while defending Christmas in the war on Christmas.  It's not often you find a theological conflict of this sort in modern political media.  I wonder, is O'Reilly an Arian, a monophysite, and adoptionist?  We'll have to get to the bottom of this--you deserve answers.

CORRECTION!

Dear reader(s),

Though it was unintentional, I must apologize for misleading you.  I recently claimed in a blog post that Mitch McConnell is the worst negotiator ever.  However, this implies that one day a worse negotiator may join the senate.  Instead, in the interest of accuracy, I should have said, "Mitch McConnell is the worst negotiator possible."  This week the senate minority leader actually lost a negotiation with himself.  As I've already noted, POTUS has been calling on congress to relinquish control over the debt ceiling.  McConnell (among others) has been dragging his feet over this, despite the fact that he proposed a bill in 2011 which would have had precisely this effect.  On Thursday, believing that senate democrats would oppose such a bill, McConnell called for a vote on the McConnell plan.  Harry Reid agreed to an immediate up or down (simple majority) vote.  McConnell was assuming that Reid would baulk, showing disunity among democrats and especially between congressional democrats and the White House.  When Reid agreed, McConnell had not choice but to filibuster his own bill--a bill for which he himself had called the vote.  The full story here, and here, and here, and here.  Video here.

The minority has no rights.

Hopefully the title of this post grabbed your attention.  It doesn't mean what you think, and I am going to try and explain as part of this post.  The outgoing 112th congress is the worst ever.  This is not hyperbole, it is actually measurable (though there is room to dispute the criteria).  In 1948, Harry Truman dubbed the 80th congress the "do nothing congress".

Nevertheless, the 80th congress passed more than 900 bills, while the 112th passed fewer than 200(even when Newt Gingrich was speaker and Bill Clinton president, congress managed to pass more than 300 bills).  Part of the problem with the current congress is their abuse of the filibuster.

Simply put (because it is a bit more complex that this) filibuster forces a 60/40 majority on certain bills, rather than the usual simple majority of 51/49.  The filibuster is often defended on the grounds that it defends the rights of the minority.  You must keep in mind that, in this instance, we are not speaking of visible minorities or ethnic minorities or religious minorities.  We are simply speaking of the party that won the fewest seats in the Senate.  One might argue that they are an ideological minority (Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or progressives), but that reasoning would be specious--these are accidental minorities.  Rather, these minorities are 'minor' precisely because they could not convince enough people to vote for them.  For better or for worse, it means that they have to compromise more than the majority party. This is not a prejudice, the way it would be were we speaking of a gender minority--it is simply an effect of the electoral process (there is always a winner and a loser).  So, the next time you hear the phrase "the rights of the minority" in the context of filibuster reform, know that this is just nincompoopery.

Here's some more reading.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/13/13-reasons-why-this-is-the-worst-congress-ever/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/05/17-bills-that-likely-would-have-passed-the-senate-if-it-didnt-have-the-filibuster/

"WaPo's @JRubinBlogger kicks DeMint on way out"

The mixed metaphor notwithstanding (kicking you when you are down + letting the door hit you in the ass on the way out), Byron York's tweet was misleading.  It makes it sound as if DeMint lost his seat or was fired.  In fact, he's moving on to a better paying job at the Heritage Foundation.  Regardless of what you think of DeMint or or the Heritage Foundation, Rubin's blog post was intelligent and spelled out the ways that DeMint has failed to serve conservatives (in Rubin's opinion).  I can imagine some dissent from Rubin's position, but such should be accompanied by facts, arguments, something.  Instead, Mark Levin simply told her to go to hell.

 

Michelle Malkin, on the other hand, resorted to punctuation.  Instead of showing how Rubin is not a true conservative, she used scare quotes to make sure that we know that Malkin does not consider her far right enough.  Too bad, this could have been an interesting conversation.

The epitome of disingenuous journalism.

I have no problem watching a show presenting ideas with which I disagree.  But I am on the lookout for bad logic, bad procedure, lying and disingenuousness.  Greta Van Susteren nabs some pretty influential guests (whatever you may think of their policies), and one would think the show would be informative for that reason.  I don't watch it all the time, so I will not make a general statement about the show.  But I've begun to notice a pattern of disingenuousness that this clip from December 4 takes to an extreme.  First, instead of asking her guest, Rick Santorum, his opinion of POTUS' fiscal cliff offer, she asks Santorum to argue in favor of the deal.  This is a classic straw man--of course Santorum is not going to give the strongest version of the argument (he likely doesn't know it).  So, knocking it over should be a piece of cake.  A conversation regarding Santorum's position would have been interesting and informative--asking him to defend it is a cheap attempt and the trappings of fairness.  In addition, Van Susteren had the chance to correct Santorum on an obvious error.  When he discussed filibuster reform, he claimed that POTUS wanted to "change the rules of the senate to make 51 votes all that is necessary to pass a bill in the US senate."  Regardless of how you feel about filibuster reform, this would not represent a change--this is the current rule in the senate.  The filibuster is the exception to that rule.  Again, a discussion as to why Santorum is not in favor of filibuster reform would have been interesting--but not if it is firmly founded on a falsehood.

Words are your friends.

Some conservatives have their eyes on how congress spends its time (and your money).  It is not uncommon for congress to spend unnecessary time on ridiculous legislation when they should be considering more important matters.  Yesterday, congress voted (almost unanimously) to remove the word lunatic from all legislation.  Here's how Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin reacted:

Granted, there are more pressing issues right now (though they too could be solved rather quickly and easily--as they no doubt will be when congress does it's homework the night before the fiscal cliff deadline).  Nevertheless, I can easily imagine instances where the word lunatic would be inappropriate in legislation.  To be clear, when I say inappropriate I do not mean offensive.  Rather, I mean entirely inaccurate.  Words have meaning, and when we make legislation regarding medical conditions using terminology which is not recognized by the medical community problems will arise.  As for reports that the word idiot has been allowed to remain in the wording of legislation, this is a term everyone understands.

Science, religion and education.

I think it is absolutely imperative that the Bible be taught in schools (indeed, I do teach portions of the Bible at the college where I work).  It should be taught, however, in religion classes or in literature classes.  The Bible is one of the most influential texts in the whole of western history, and should be treated as such.  It is not, however, a science book (nor do any of its authors really make such a claim for it), and, hence, should not be used in science classes.  Apparently the Indiana state legislature agrees, since Rep. Dennis Kruse was unable to pass his legislation that creationism be taught alongside evolution in science classes.  But Kruse will not quit.  Instead, he's decided there is more than one way to skin a cat.  His newest proposal, which he calls the "truth in education" bill, will allow students to ask questions in class, challenging teachers to prove what they are teaching.  Why hadn't we thought of that before?

Mitch McConnell, worst negotiator ever!

As I've noted many times in recent weeks, the debt ceiling is a chimera.  Actually, it's not just a chimera, it's a chimera that was created by the US and that legislators are using to scare the public.  POTUS and Tim Geithner have now inserted the debt ceiling into the fiscal cliff talks.  The response of Greta Van Susteren and Sarah Palin was to compare such an eventuality as giving debt ceiling responsibility to POTUS to giving him a limitless credit card.  This was an incredibly uninformed response, but neither here nor there since neither of these women is a policy maker or legislator.  However, this week Mitch McConnell chimed in with the same (false) analogy:

The analogy is, of course, demonstrably false, and we should assume that McConnell knows it's false.  So why would he make such a claim?  It's part of the pissing contest over the fiscal cliff.  It simply looks bad to give your opponent anything, no matter how insignificant.  This is a terrible tactic for negotiating.  If you have something entirely meaningless (both to yourself and in itself) that someone else wants, and for which someone else will give you something in exchange, you take that deal--that is a successful negotiation.  What McConnell is doing is more akin to throwing a tantrum.

Homeland is a terrible soap opera.

I cannot let this Homeland phenomenon go.  I don't mean the show itself; I mean the fact that people actually like it. 

Apparently people like the show so much that they are mad when an episode falls short of their expectations.  The problem is that their expectations are impossible to understand.  After all, how can you please an audience that finds the romance between Carry--a bipolar top spy in the CIA (and the CIA had no idea she is bipolar)--and Brody--an ex-POW turned terrorist and Muslim convert--"compelling", as Lyons claims.  Lyons refuses to give Homeland the benefit of the doubt--after all, she gave the benefit of the doubt to Lost, The X-Files, and Prison Break as was burned each time.  Lesson learned?  No, because the lesson is not that Lyons should not give the show the benefit of the doubt, but rather that Lyons watches some really shitty shows.

Obama says US economy "poised to take off".

POTUS has been making claims that the US economy is poised to take off.  Meantime, Michelle Malkin of Twitchy.com and others on Twitter are calling the statement laughable.

While the economy may not take off, it seems it is indeed poised to do so if the deficit is any indication.  The deficit is shrinking at the fastest rate since WWII.

I am not attributing this fact to Obama or the WH.  Nevertheless, this seems like a good position from which to take off.  I have no doubt that Congress and POTUS can find a way to screw this up, but calling the statement laughable is a little disingenuous.

(Incidentally, consumer confidence and business spending are both up).

Debt ceiling, again.

I've posted recently about the debt ceiling--this week Greta Van Susteren interviewed Sarah Palin regarding the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling.  Both reacted to Timothy Geithner's request that the task of reviewing and raising the debt ceiling be given to the president.  Palin and Van Susteren agreed that that would be tantamount to giving president Obama a credit card with no limit.  Now Boehner and Fox News are showing their indignation over Giethner's suggestion.  "Congress is never going to give up this power," the House Speaker told Fox News Sunday.  Boehner doesn't understand the debt ceiling any more than Van Susteren or Palin.  First, it is not a power, it's a responsibility--the US gains nothing by raising the debt ceiling (except that we guard our credit rating); we do not get more money out of the situation.  Second, congress already shirked this responsibility (which resulted in a downgrade of the credit rating of the US).  

Debt ceiling-what it's not.

It's not a credit card with no limit, as Greta Van Susteren and Sarah Palin suggest toward the end of this video.  Van Susteren's outrage (shared by Palin) over the idea that POTUS might take over the responsibility of raising the debt ceiling (subject to approval by congress) is incredibly mis-informed.  Raising the debt ceiling is largely a matter of optics--congress regularly reviews (and raises) the ceiling simply to remind themselves of how much they owe (of our money) before they think of borrowing more.  Whether or not the US can borrow more money has absolutely nothing to do with the debt ceiling--though if the international community of lenders sees that we are so irresponsible as to not review and raise our debt ceiling, they may be disinclined to lend to us.  In addition, the idea of taking the debt ceiling review out of the hands of congress was suggested my Mitch McConnell in 2011.

As far as the first half of the video, Leno is being held up as the only example of a journalist over at CBS with enough balls to call for answers regarding who changed the talking points on Benghazi before Ambassador Rice went on air.  Unfortunately, Leno's balls are not as impressive as his tardiness--the intelligence community has already indicated that they were responsible.  Maybe Leno missed the same meeting McCain missed.

Creationism and the economy.

Bill Nye makes the connection between science, creationism, politics and the economy.  Rubio is not only wrong about the age of the earth (since when does Rome teach literalism?), he's also wrong about the impact of such thinking on the future of the economy.

Rice conspiracy explained.

Ok, it's not exactly explained.  However, Rachel Maddow has proffered as reasonable an explanation as any--indeed, it may look like a conspiracy theory, but it's far less crazy than the Susan Rice conspiracy theory.  What happens if Susan Rice is not nominated?  The GOP is suggesting that they'd confirm John Kerry for Secretary of State with no fuss.  If Kerry is nominated, his senate seat opens up and Scott Brown can run for the Massachusetts seat.  Worth a gander here.

McCain's World.

John McCain seems to have lost touch with reality.  Last week he called for hearings on the Benghazi fiasco, which hearings he then missed because he has several more television appearances scheduled so that he could call for hearings on Benghazi.  His questions about Rice have been answered (including the question as to who changed the talking points).  His suggestion that Rice should have used some of the knowledge she gained from the intelligence community to bolster her report to the American people stretches the bounds of good logic--what she knew apart from what she said was classified; this has been the issue all along.  Now he is comparing Benghazi to the death of Bin Laden.  Indeed, he actually called for the release of a photo of POTUS in the situation room watching the Benghazi affair go down just as we saw a photo of POTUS watching the Bin Laden raid go down.  Of course, the former does not exist because the Benghazi attack was not orchestrated by the US.  Were it the case that that photo existed, then we'd have a real conspiracy on our hands.

[READ MORE]

Why is Glenn Beck no longer on Fox?

Here's just one reason.

Dr. Seuss was a douche!

I often use this political ad by Dr. Seuss to demonstrate bad logic to students.  Dr. Seuss lived in a different time, and so I can give him a pass.  Fox News, on the other hand, presented this headline this morning:

Unless your backyard happens to be a prison yard, this seems like an empty threat.

"Fair share" revisited.

Robert Reich makes an interesting case for raising taxes on the wealthy.  Nevertheless, he includes that terribly vacuous argument that the rich should "pay their fair share".  This is indeed true (true of all citizens, in fact).  However, you cannot make such an argument without defining what you mean by "fair share"--Quantity?  Percentage?  Capacity?  Otherwise, this argument has no meaning whatsoever.

Backwards logic.

While the accusations against Susan Rice are beginning to simmer down, one would expect the opposition to her nomination (which has not been made yet) would take a calmer tone.  Rep. Jeff Duncan has decided to double down, instead, claiming that Rice has been "tainted" by this whole Benghazi affair.  Of course she has, because your party tainted her.  It's a little like throwing a pile of shit at someone and then complaining that he stinks of shit.

This is a brilliant tactic--1. Question the credibility of your opponent; 2. Once her credibility has been restored, argue that it doesn't matter because her reputation has been smeared (with no recognition that you are the one who smeared her). 

(This is not an endorsement of Susan Rice for Secretary of State).

Marginal Tax Rates Explained (in part).

Small businesses and those on the lower end of the wealthy (those making around $250,000) seem to have found a way to make it through the fiscal cliff and Obamacare.  If the cliff is avoided by raising taxes on those who make over $250,000, these top earners and small businesses will simply make sure they do not earn more than $249,000 in a year.  After all, after you pass the magic number, your tax rate goes up, right?  Sort of.  A marginal tax rate doesn't quite work that way.  After an earner passes $250,000, his or her tax rate goes up, but only on what he or she has earned beyond $250,000.  That is, if you make $260,000 in a year, only $10,000 of that will be taxed at a higher rate.  Thus, if you try and keep your income below that magic number, you're only screwing yourself.  If you're going to invite a small business expert on your show, this is one of the things he should know--and if you are going to play the journalist on your show, you should call him out if he doesn't know this basic fact.

More info here, and here.

(This is not an endorsement for raising taxes).

RedState.com is seeing red.

Erick Erickson over at RedState.com objects to the recent CNN.com article which includes RedState and Erickson personally on its list of arch-conservatives who are in denial over Obama's reelection.  Indeed, Erickson shows clearly that he and his blog have not only not denied the reelection, but that he has explicitly claimed there was no fraud, and that Obama won the election "fair and square".  Nevertheless, Erickson's reading of the CNN article is superficial at best.  The CNN article does discuss actual deniers (those who claim the election was rigged, unfair, unconstitutional, etc.).  But there is a deeper sense of denial--denial not merely of the fact of Obama's reelection, but denial as to the reason for his reelection.

The problem is that Erickson, though he accepts the reelection itself, denies the reason for Obama's reelection.  Claiming that conservatives did not communicate their principles clearly is not supported by the evidence: ask Todd Akin.

Wild and unsubstantiated accusations.

The non-scandal of Susan Rice's involvement with the Benghazi attack has been unraveling in the last days.  John McCain and Lindsey Graham have been leading the charge against Rice, claiming that she must have lied to protect the Obama administration just before the election.  As it turns out, not only was there no evidence when McCain and Graham began making these accusations; there is now evidence to the contrary--the CIA gave her certain talking points she was allowed to cover, and redacted certain others (including any mention of al Qaeda).  The Washington Post editorial board just published a column calling the GOP attacks bizarre, and pointing out why they are so bizarre.  Nevertheless, the article, which reveals the stupidity of wild, unsubstantiated accusation, ends with one of its own.

The WP editorial board may be correct, but simply indicating the skin color of a certain percentage of the signatories does not make this speculation any less wild than the bizarre GOP attacks they've just described.

McCain's pathetic apology.

I was a fan of John McCain during most of the 2008 election.  I admit, I liked him as the lesser of several evils, but he represented a more moderate Republican (for most of his campaign).  Lately, however, he's been more and more extreme, some say in order to avoid becoming obsolete.  Last Sunday he was pounding the media pavement to get his point across--indeed, we was so busy calling for hearings on Benghazi that he missed the first hearing on Benghazi.  His most relevant statements had to do with Susan Rice and the speculation as to whether she may be nominated to replace Hillary Clinton.  McCain drew a line in the sand, claiming not only that he would filibuster her nomination for Secretary of State, but that he would oppose any and all of President Obama's nominees.  His problem with Rice had to do with her report after the 9/11 attack in Benghazi.  He claimed that she was either incompetent or a liar for not having included references to al Qaeda in the report.  As it turns out, the al Qaeda references were redacted by the CIA, as everyone had been telling McCain.  McCain has finally conceded the point, but while he is big enough to call Rice a liar on national television, his apology has appeared on his web site only. 

The deficit is shrinking.

The deficit is shrinking at a really fast pace.  In the last three years the deficit has gone from 10% of GDP to 7%.  Here are the various charts that are floating around. (Continued below).

This is good news, certainly.  But it doesn't mean that all our problems are solved.  As Slate's Matthew Yglesias points out, the deficit reduction is not a matter of successful economic policy by the Obama administration, but is, at least in part, "the flipside of the huge increases in the deficit that were associated with the recession."  And Mother Jones points out that a deficit that is too small can be just as dangerous as a deficit which is too big.  So, the upshot is that the conversation about the fiscal cliff need not include the question of the size of the deficit. 

Now that's hard hitting journalism.

If you try hard enough (or not at all) you can turn any story into a potential scandal.  America has questions, Channel 5 News has answers.

Ever wonder...?

Do you ever wonder how these incredibly busy pundits and politicos turn out so many books while doing their radio shows, interviews, attending fund-raisers and speaking events?  Simple: they don't.

Just because it's new, doesn't mean it's News!

In the past days many bloggers, pundits, journos and commentators have been discussing the Marco Rubio interview in GQ.  In my own blog I pointed to some of the more interesting comments on Rubio's evasion of the question in Paul Krugman's blog over at the New York Times.  More recently, several news organizations and blogs have struck back, defending Rubio and/or attacking media coverage of the story by pointing out that then Senator Obama made almost identical statements at a conference in 2008.

Slate.com's approach to the allegedly unbalanced way the media has treated the story was to note that "willful ignorance of science is a bipartisan value".  Michelle Malkin's approach is characteristic, relying heavily on tone and question-begging epithets:

In general, people love to point out hypocrisy; and one could claim that that is what is going on here.  Nevertheless, while pointing out hypocrisy may be somehow satisfying, it is logically irrelevant, and certainly has no bearing on what makes the news.  If I were to critique Rubio's position while maintaining the same position myself, I would be a hypocrite.  However, that would not invalidate my critique, nor would it make my position newsworthy, because I do not have the same standing as Senator Rubio.  Of course the president is newsworthy in this sense.  Nevertheless, "the president said it too" is not newsworthy either.  Why?  Because the issue is not who believes in creationism and who believes in evolution in Washington.  The issue is that certain politicians, and especially politicians on the right, use their religious belief to make policy.  In that sense, their beliefs are relevant and newsworthy.  And, in that same sense, what the president believes regarding creation is about as newsworthy as whether he prefers Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

Rubio's ruin?

The online world has been all a-Twitter about Marco Rubio's comments regarding the age of the Earth in a recent GC article. Some are defending him--after all, he wisely did not answer the question. Others are ridiculing him--after all, this is a rather basic piece of knowledge about the physical universe.  Paul Krugman has presented one of the more interesting and intelligent analyses I've seen so far (except for his last conclusion, which is a hasty generalization and should have been omitted). Rubio, in his response to the question, claimed, "the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow." Krugman astutely points out that the growth of the economy (certainly in the long term) is connected to education. Rubio's silence on the issue seems to imply that there are two good answers to the question: a) the Bible says the world (not merely the earth) is around 6000 years old; b) physics and geology say that the Earth (and, indeed, the whole solar system) is around five billion years old.  I think it is important to teach the Bible in our schools (and, in fact, I do)--we are speaking of one of the most influential books in the Western Canon. Nevertheless, the Bible should not be taught as if it were physics (I resent having to make this point). Physics should be taught as physics. There is room for disagreement as to the age of the universe, even among physicists.  However, the options are somewhere between 13.5 billion and 15 billion years--6000 is not on the list. The future of all economies is in technology (energy, sustainability, personal computing, etc.). If the US economy is to advance in the long term, science must be a central and strong feature of our education system. By the way, this does not change the status nor the importance of the Bible (virtually none of the church fathers, for example, believed that Genesis should be interpreted literally--nevertheless, none of them are thought to have betrayed the faith). Indeed, it opens up the beauty of what its authors were trying to convey.

There's bad journalism and then there's bad journalism.

I've made this case before, but it keeps popping up--so, I'll give it one more go and then try to let it rest.  Pew Research has released another very interesting report on coverage of the 2012 presidential race.  Among its recent findings it turns out that in the last week before the general election MSNBC presented no positive political coverage of Romney and no negative coverage of Obama.  They compare this to Fox News' coverage in the following graph:

The differences are indeed striking, but not at all conclusive of anything but the facts (viz., MSNBC presented no positive Romney stories and no negative Obama stories).  Notice that what is striking is not the positive to negative gap on the Obama side--the gap is precisely the inverse on the Fox side (51 points)--but the fact that there were no negative reports on Obama, and no positive on Romney.  However, this is not philosophically impossible.  One might run similar research on reports regarding Donald Trump (on any station at any time of the year).  Were you to find a network that ran an equal number of positive and negative stories on Trump, I'd suggest you watch a different channel.  Nevertheless, News Busters today posted a blog regarding this research.  Their conclusion was that this is "disgraceful".  Notice there is absolutely no analysis, just a presentation of the numbers.
At the same time, Media Matters just posted this blog regarding Walmart's handling of unions and strikers.  I hate to have to say it, but to be sure--I am not arguing in favor of unions, nor am I arguing in favor of Walmart, I am arguing in favor of reasonable and proper journalism.  Notice that, regardless of what you think of the story and the actors in it, this is a conflict of interest, and should have been avoided, or declared as such.

I wonder...

...if these models know how their stock photos are being used.

Blogger boggles the mind.

You may know of Pamela Geller, author of the Atlas Shrugs blog, and, more notably, the woman responsible for this ad running in several states:

She has exercised her right to free speech, having paid to place this ad in subways and buses.  I respect that right.  She has a hard time understanding why people may find the use of the word savage offensive.  After all, the word simply means uncivilized, does it not?  Well, sort of.  Its primary meaning is untamed or wild, indeed.  But it tended to imply beast rather than beastly when used to refer to African or American natives during colonization.  In this sense, the word was used to imply that such persons were not human, and therefore did not have souls--today, you might use neanderthal as a synonym to imply one is not a homo sapiens sapiens.  But that is a different point.  Rather, today she wants to argue against a gentleman (apparently he has been less than gentlemanly in other contexts, but that is, again, a different issue).  Instead, she has decided to take on a religious point: the meaning of the word jihad.  In her most recent post, she includes an interview with Ahmed Rehab, a spokesman for Hamas-CAIR.  Quite apart from the question of the intentions of this group, Rehab claims that jihad means spiritual struggle, and that it does not have to indicate a violent struggle or war.  In response to Rehab (whose intentions may be nefarious), Geller decides to wax theological (not to say philological).

I am no fan of violent jihad, nor of religious war of any sort.  Nevertheless, Geller should stick to what she is good at: making up funny question-begging epithets (I particularly like 'enemedia').  There is a long history (over 1000 years) of interpreting jihad to mean inner struggle in a spiritual sense.  Many followers of Mohamed (certainly not all) have tried to steer away from certain violent aspects of the Qur'an, just as many Christians and Jews have reinterpreted parts of the Old Testament to find meaning in aspects of our past with which we no longer agree.  The Qur'an often uses the word jihad to mean the struggle or cause (generally of Allah, it would appear).  Different sects interpret this in different ways, some placing emphasis on holy war.  But for Geller to call this a lie is factually incorrect.  Rehab may be disingenuous, but that is another matter; though I would have  more respect for Geller--read: any--had she simply said that.

Her criticisms of Dan Ponce, the journalist (read: enemedia) who interviewed Rehab, are likewise incomprehensible.  She wants to know why Ponce did not ask Rehab certain questions about his alleged crack-pot positions on terrorism (see the bottom of her blog entry).  The simple answer is: because it is a report about how the Muslim community (and the broader local communities) are reacting to her ads.  Those questions seem interesting to me, and I might like to hear the answer.  But here they would be entirely irrelevant.  Ponce may have chosen his interviewee poorly.  Once again, that would have been an intelligent point on Geller's part.  Too bad she did make it.

You're not making the compelling case you think you are.

Free speech is a double edged sword--what is mean is not that there are good aspects and bad--all aspects are good, in principle.  However, the same freedom of speech which defends your right to say stupid shit also defends my right to call what you say "stupid shit".  You may not like it, you may disagree, but you cannot claim that I am violating your freedom of speech without rejecting your own (that is how these rights work).  Nevertheless, when the president of Fordham chided the campus Republicans for inviting Ann Coulter to speak, Fox and WSJ descried this as a kind of censorship.  The result was that the campus Republicans rescinded their invitation.  This seems to me a free speech success--the university's president criticized Coulter as intentionally inflicting pain on others race, sex, sexual orientation, or creed.  Whether or not you agree with his assessment, he made an argument rather than a proscription--he did not censor the campus Republicans, he shared his opinion with them.  They agreed and changed their minds.  How can this be anything but a free speech victory?

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/free-speech-campus/2012/11/18/wsj-how-free-speech-died-campus#ixzz2CbNe4ScX

intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/free-speech-campus/2012/11/18/wsj-how-free-speech-died-campus#ixzz2CbNe4ScX

Maverick McCain?

I remember when John McCain was a moderate, calling himself a maverick for breaking rank with GOP talking points.  Recently he seems to have been tacking to the other extreme, suggesting he would filibuster Susan Rice's nomination as Secretary of State.  Now he is saying he will support no nominee for Secretary of State.  Regardless of how one feels about Rice, the position needs to be filled.  How is this a reasonable (much less moderate) stance? [ARTICLE]

Lack of evidence is evidence of nothing.

The Petraeus scandal and the Benghazi affair are both still unraveling.  They are both extremely important stories, no doubt, having foreign policy as well as national security implications.  It may turn out that the White House mishandled one or both.  Nevertheless, there is no evidence of such malfeasance or incompetence as yet.  This does not prevent the GOP from creating certain conspiracy theories prior to the presentation of any evidence.  At first, they presented arguments from coincidence, not realizing that that is a self-defeating argument--if it were a coincidence, it cannot have been an orchestrated conspiracy (look up the definition of coincidence).  But it seems certain commentators are taking it down a notch.  Why look for evidence when a lack of evidence will work just as well. 

In logic, we call this an appeal to ignorance--the attempt to use lack of evidence as evidence. 

God wants you to vote!

The separation of church and state does not mean that the individual voter should not consider his religious belief(s) in how he will vote.  Nevertheless, one should make sure his conscience is not self-contradictory, before he uses it as a measuring stick by which he chooses a candidate.

Rev. Franklin Graham says, in one and the same sentence, that God is in control and that evangelicals have no one to blame but themselves.  Not only are Graham's facts off, but the sentence is self-contradictory.

News Busted, like Jon Stewart, but neither funny, relevant nor accurate.

And incredibly classless to boot.  I like political satire, and I do not have to agree with the comments to appreciate the humor.  Nevertheless, News Busted just posted their latest episode providing the following exhortation to watch:

I shall not provide a link to the video for obvious reasons.  Nevertheless, I do recommend you go to their Twitter page (@newsbusters) and tell them what you think.

All I want for Christmas...

Is systematic extermination of homosexuals in Uganda.  This is apparently how Ugandan clerics expressed their desire for the passage of Uganda's so-called "kill the gays bill".  'Some Christian clerics at the meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, asked the speaker to pass the law as 'a Christmas gift.'"  To a certain degree, the story is old news.  Rachel Maddow has been reporting on the bill and the involvement of US legislators in encouraging its passage for some time:

Nevertheless, last Monday it seems the bill was passed and will take effect in the new year (Merry Christmas AND Happy New Year!) [ARTICLE]  What I find disturbing today, is that it is not being reported more broadly in the news.  Here's what you get if you search "Uganda" over at CNN:

And Fox:

And if you search at MSNBC, you'll find it last:

Geraldo is the voice of moderation at Fox News

I remember when Geraldo Rivera was not considered a reliable journalist, and perhaps he is still not.  Nevertheless, by comparison to his Fox colleagues on the issue of the connection between the Petraeus scandal and Benghazi, he provides a voice of moderation--suggesting one may be skeptical without drawing conclusions not supported by available evidence--if not of reason.  VIDEO

Klingons need saving too!

I've noted previously that several economic and political analysts suggest that 'fiscal cliff' is a misnomer.  Some are now suggesting that we should be talking, instead, about an 'austerity bomb'.  What is intended by this is that, if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, then the budget will simply be too small to pay for all the programs currently in place.  As I understand it, if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, there will  be an automatic series of cuts, including significant cuts to the defense budget.  Defense hawks are worried that this could cripple national security.  Not necessarily:

(Full article).

McCain wants answers...

But not as much as he wants to be on television.

Notice, by the way, that skipping the meeting hasn't prevented McCain from drawing conclusions (full article):

NB: Although I hate having to do this, I must point out what is not implied by this post.  I am not implying that Benghazi was not a total disaster.  I am not implying that the White House is not to blame.  I am simply suggesting that, if McCain wants information, perhaps he should show up to the meeting.  And if he is going to skip the meeting, he might consider living by the rule: "It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and prove the point".