Here are a couple of videos of economist Dean Baker explaining things recently. Think of him as one of the few other guys like Paul Krugman, or vice versa.
In the first segment, near the end he discusses one remedy for the trade imbalance with China. The dollar is over-valued, he informs. If you remedy that, then the trade imbalance has a chance to shift. It doesn’t fix the abandonment of non-military manufacturing and how that would have to be reconstituted but it’s a lot better than idiotic suggestions to impose tariffs after the horse has been out of the barn for years.
In other matters some pundits and Dems think it means something for the President that at town hall meetings, in a place like Hazleton, PA, older people have gotten up to call out their GOP rep crazies.
Pennsylvania, freshman Lou Barletta was rebuked by a 64-year-old woman who wanted to know why he backed “a plan that will destroy Medicare.” (“I won’t destroy Medicare,” Barletta responded. “Medicare is going to be destroyed by itself.”)
Setting aside the fact for a moment that Democrats have never shown any facility for sustaining an argument against extreme right GOP policies with regards to the old white voter demographic, this is still the hinterland of Pennsylvania, fer cryin’ out loud.
Except in Dauphin County, where African Americans live, and State College — where the lib’ral perfessors and students live — nobody’s going to be voting for Obama in 2012. The GOP mostly thinks he’s not an American and yesterday will make no difference. Except for Philly, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Hershey and State College, it’s finished there.
Following continued attacks by anti-hunting groups to ban traditional ammunition (ammunition containing lead-core components) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976, Representative Lou Barletta (R-Pennsylvania-11) became an original co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation (H.R. 1558) to clarify the longstanding exemption of ammunition and ammunition components under the act. The Hunting, Fishing and Recreational Shooting Sports Protection Act is being championed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) – the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry. The act also calls for lead fishing tackle, similarly under attack from anti-hunting groups, to be exempt from the TSCA.
“We applaud and thank Rep. Barletta for co-sponsoring this common-sense measure,” said NSSF President and CEO Stephen L. Sanetti. “This bill will continue to ensure that America’s hunters and shooters can choose for themselves the best ammunition to use, instead of unnecessarily mandating the universal use of expensive alternatives.”
“The economic growth of America’s firearms and ammunition industry continues to be a bright spot in our country’s still ailing economy,” continued Keane. “Passing this important legislation will help to ensure that our industry, which is responsible for more than 183,000 well-paying jobs and has an economic impact of more than $27.8 billion annually, continues to shine.”
The argument was to ban old lead shotgun pellets because of hunters who don’t collect their kills because they’re too stumblebum. The kill is then carrion and when it gets eaten by scavengers, the lead pellets also take down the animals that eat it. Two for the price of one, so to speak.
What we have seen, he said, is “a massive shift in capability from the U.S. to China. What we have done is traded jobs for profit. The jobs have moved to China. The capability erodes in the U.S. and grows in China. That’s very destructive. That is a big reason why the U.S. is becoming more and more polarized between a small, very rich class and an eroding middle class. The people who get the profits are very different from the people who lost the wages.”
That’s very destructive. Ya don’t say!
Recommendation: Instead of sending drones to Libya, bomb GE.
The Empire’s Dog Feces — section, “America’s best-est places to work!”
Not long ago, Kyle Maxwell had a bright idea. The 25-year-old effects artist thought DreamWorks Animation needed a panini machine in its cafeteria, so he e-mailed CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, a legendary Hollywood mogul whose credits include Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda, and Megamind. At the next company-wide meeting, Katzenberg publicly thanked Maxwell for his suggestion and ordered that it be done.
Within the week, DreamWorkers were chowing down on bespoke paninis, and Maxwell had acquired a mover-and-shaker rep to go with his computer-animation chops. “Now I get all kinds of weird e-mail from people at DreamWorks,” says Maxwell. “They’re like, ‘Hey, can you get us a new staircase?'”
Bespoke paninis. If you had a button you could push to destroy the person who came up with that expression, you’d use it without a moment’s hesitation.
Zappos, Las Vegas:
The online apparel and footwear retailer famously includes “Create fun and a little weirdness” on its list of core values. Applicants are carefully screened to make sure they can cut it in a corporate culture where rules are few, professional titles include “cruise director,” and colleagues frequently stage spontaneous parades down cubicle row.
This quirky zeitgeist appears to have survived Amazon.com’s 2009 acquisition of Zappos. Job interviews still take place in rooms with zany themes, including Cher’s Dressing Room and an Oprah-style talk show set where candidates sit on a couch next to their HR host. Standard interview questions include “On a scale of 1 to 10, how weird would you say you are?”
There’s no right answer to that question, says recruiting manager Christa Foley, 37. “We’re looking for people who don’t take themselves too seriously,” she adds. “Somebody who gets into an argument with us about the definition of ‘weird’ will probably not be able to handle a parade with cowbells.”
Perks include free lunches, 25¢ vending machines (all proceeds go to charity), and a full-time life coach on staff. And customer service is a religion at Zappos: All new hires are required to work in a call center during their first month on staff, even if their jobs don’t involve customer interaction.
If you patronizes these people you not only hasten the decline but also encourage morons.
What Ted Nugent should have done was use his column at the Washington Times to review Atlas Shrugged.
Of course, to do it would have required taking a week night or afternoon off between rides to the rib shacks and rodeo barns in Texas at the beginning of his summer tour.
So, instead, he repeats the sub-Ayn Rand-ian lament about the iniquity of punishing the “producers” for the benefit of all the rest of us parasites.
Punishing the producers by taking more of their wealth and giving it to others who have done nothing to earn it is anti-American, historically counterproductive and by all accounts, brain-dead. Additionally, punishing the producers will cause the economy to continue its swan dive into the street.
Last time I looked the Great Recession the John Galts of Wall Street caused the “swan dive into the street.” It wasn’t people on welfare who shipped all the jobs to China in the last ten years.
If you want to read something good and amusing on the adolescent temper-tantrums coded into the DNA of the “producers” who feel put upon by the “parasites” and their theology of the wealthy as supermen, go here
Reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead will help you understand the deep cheap level of attraction for Rand by the intellectual lightweights of the far right,” it informs.
I guess you could call Nugent an intellectual lightweight.
The photos at the top are priceless. Ayn Rand in a snood. Haw!
If you’ve been following Nugent’s columns, either he’s censoring himself or WaTimes editors have cut down his real estate. Recent columns are running at about half the wordage of a couple months ago.
No surprise, anymore, the GOP is just about kicking down the disadvantaged, in their eyes, defending the wealthy from parasites –everyone else.
Nothing from the bunch startles. You expect regular bursts of crazy angry cruelty from the politicians swept into power as a consequence of despondence and Obama’s do-nothing political malfeasance in 2010.
Under a new budget proposal from State Sen. Bruce Casswell, children in the state’s foster care system would be allowed to purchase clothing only in used clothing stores.
Casswell, a Republican representing Branch, Hillsdale, Lenawee and St. Joseph counties, made the proposal this week, reports Michigan Public Radio.
His explanation?
“I never had anything new,??? Caswell says. “I got all the hand-me-downs. And my dad, he did a lot of shopping at the Salvation Army, and his comment was — and quite frankly it’s true — once you’re out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes.???
Under his plan, foster children would receive gift cards that could only be used at places like the Salvation Army, Goodwill and other second hand clothing stores.
The plan was knocked by the Michigan League for Human Services. Gilda Jacobs, executive director of the group, had this to say:
“Honestly, I was flabbergasted,??? Jacobs says. “I really couldn’t believe this. Because I think, gosh, is this where we’ve gone in this state? I think that there’s the whole issue of dignity. You’re saying to somebody, you don’t deserve to go in and buy a new pair of gym shoes. You know, for a lot of foster kids, they already have so much stacked against them.???
Casswell says the plan will save the state money, though it isn’t clear how much the state spends on clothing for foster children or how much could be saved this way.
It would be dishonest not to mention that America has always been full of people like this. In the Seventies, they were plentiful where I grew up. This country has always provided a special fertilizer in the heartland for them — a mix of toxic Calvinism, twisted views of religion in which faith is recast as a set of rules and fables for the damnation of others, and civilization only a few hundred meters removed from Deliverance.
And so the pinched cruelty was a common thread over tense holiday meals in the Smith household, used for browbeating reflection on how the elders never had anything when they were kids and so etc…
The difference between then and now: The lunatics whose distinguishing features were stupidity, lack of perspective, dishonesty and a complete absence of charity weren’t massed and in power. They were just more assholes you knew sitting around a table and taking it out on family members and neighbors.
Like Wisconsin and a large number of other states, Michigan now has a good case of buyer’s remorse, one it can do little about. I don’t care to bet on the odds that 2012 will fix it.
If the NBA had any true gay convictions, the NBA should host a Homosexual Night. During halftime, the homosexuals could come down on the court, hold hands and prance around the court to music by the Village People. The NBA could then give each homosexual a pink basketball as a symbol of solidarity.
Uncle Ted considers himself quite the humorist. But where was the copy editor for that lede sentence?
“Homosexuals are a protected class in America,” he adds. “If you think what happened to Mr. Bryant was a travesty, just wait until you see what homosexuals in the military do when they claim they have been mistreated because of their sexual orientation.”
Readers know the mainstream press refuses to take on Ted Nugent. Whenever profiled, he’s portrayed as — at worst — a playfully idiosyncratic character from the right, sticking up for guns, hunting and free speech. And the music press, although it will now start interviewing him locally all over the country as he does his annual ag fair/casino tour, never mentions what’s he really like — someone who regurgitates the worst of Glenn Beck and the Tea Party on a regular basis, ranting about the conspiracy of Islam and sharia law overtaking the nation, or how some very old lady professor is at war with him, or how the Middle Eastern countries where everyone is in revolt are “goofy.”
If you have only read their coverage of Nugent over the past year you’d never know the man makes uncivil extremism seem middle of the road.
You also know that almost all the outdoor columnists in the country declined to make much out of the mighty hunter having his license revoked in California for deer baiting.
Until now.
This weekend, an outdoor columnist let Nugent have it with both barrels. In his home town of Detroit. It was in response to Nugent’s audience with Michigan’s governor to argue for — guess what — the legalization of deer baiting.
Nugent is a rock star whose career depends on getting public attention. Because of that he has more than once made a statement that was outrageous or thoughtless.
But his defense of baiting is more than disingenuous. Last year Nugent was fined $1,750 after pleading no contest for baiting deer in California and not having a properly signed hunting tag. He managed to plea-bargain away another charge of illegally killing a deer, which would have had far more serious consequences.
Had Nugent been convicted on the illegally killing a deer charge, he would not have been able to buy hunting licenses for up to three years in many states, including Michigan.
Nugent also told [Governor Snyder] that the state should not try to ban game ranches and that the threat from feral pigs is greatly exaggerated. Once again, Nugent’s claims need to be taken with a bucket of salt: He owns game ranches in Michigan and Texas (where he now lives) and sells canned hunts.
Nugent’s Web site said he charges $5,500 for people to hunt buffalo with him at his fenced Sunrize Acres facility in Michigan. And people can pay up to $7,700 on his Texas ranch to hunt various Asian and African antelope, sheep and deer. They can also hunt whitetails with him there, but it costs extra (the Web site says “call for pricing”).
Nugent sells hunts for “wild boar,” which makes his statement about feral pigs less than disinterested. (Michigan’s wild pig problem began with escapees from game ranches.) Though he might not be concerned about them, wildlife, agriculture and environmental agencies in several states spend millions of dollars each year to try to eradicate wild swine and repair the damage they do.
At the federal Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge in Florida (home to the Kennedy Space Center), trappers remove 2,500 or more wild swine each year, and car-pig collisions are a serious problem. The ancestors of those swine were introduced by the Spanish 400 years ago, but they still breed like rabbits.
Michigan’s pig farmers are concerned about escaped swine because they say the feral animals can carry serious diseases that threaten a pork industry valued at about $500 million.
Ethical hunters understand that their primary concern isn’t their desire to kill a specific animal or bird during the next open season but maintaining the health of all the wildlife and the habitats in which they live. Nearly as important is maintaining their image as ethical among that great mass of people who don’t hunt but do vote.
If it’s just about making it easier to kill deer, let’s not stop at baiting. As one reader suggested, why not let hunters put sedatives in the bait to slow the deer and make them easier to shoot?
Whenever I hear hunters complaining about the threat from animal rights advocates, I tell them not to worry about that small group. If they want to see the biggest threat to hunting, many hunters need only look in the mirror.
Nugent was playing Nutty Jerry’s, a concert barn in Winnie, Texas, twenty miles southwest of Beaumont, this weekend. You can bet if he read this today it gave him a major case of heartburn.
Nugent was well and deservedly crapped upon in his old home town.
The Detroit Free Press columnist patiently explained that tuberculosis in the deer population is a problem for Michigan and that scientists do not as yet have a precise grip on how it spreads. However, it can spread to cattle which requires the condemning and decimation of the infected.
Law prohibiting baiting was put in place in Michigan as a disease control measure under the reasoning that anything that reduced the concentration of infected animals would help in the control of the disease.
“The [Department of Natural Resources] overcame a late start [in combating tuberculosis] and brought the incidence of disease down by drastically dropping deer numbers and banning baiting and feeding,” wrote Eric Sharp.
Because a small number of people still illegally bait in Michigan, the DNR has not been able to totally eliminate the disease, although the incidence rate has been lowered to 1.9 percent in the most affected area.
The Detroit Free Press on Nugent is here. The picture of Ted included with it is not flattering.
A handful of lines from reviews of the alleged first part of Atlas Shrugged:
“I’m cultivating a society that honors individual achievement” and “Businesses die because people are paid by need, not ability” don’t exactly roll off the tongue. — Rickey, the Philly Inquirer
The dialogue seems to have been ripped throbbing with passion from the pages of Investors’ Business Daily. Much of the excitement centers on the tensile strength of steel …
Oh, and there is Wisconsin. Dagny and Hank ride blissfully in Taggart’s new high-speed train, and then Hank suggests they take a trip to Wisconsin, where the state’s policies caused the suppression of an engine that runs on the ozone in the air, or something (the film’s detailed explanation won’t clear this up). They decide to drive there. That’s when you’ll enjoy the beautiful landscape photography of the deserts of Wisconsin. — Ebert
“We don’t want Atlas shrugging in America,” said the movie’s producer today on Stossel.
And here’s a ragingly incoherent/incompetent piece on the same by Allison Kilkenny of Huffington Post/The Nation who also misses the one sinker that rips the entire bottom out of the boat.
My theory as to why Republicans can’t make documentaries with any legs: To make a documentary, particularly if it has anything to do with science or laws of nature, you have to actually have some talent for understanding such matters.
The GOP hates these things. So even when there’s no political agenda, embedded dummkopf-ism spoils everything.
There’s also some wry humor to be found in the fact that the Libertarian/GOP/Tea Party won’t even patronize the stuff made exclusively for it.
I like what I’ve heard so far from Mr. Trump about his vast understanding of banking, business, and how America is getting the short end of the economic stick from a dramatically inferior China …
I’m intrigued with Trump. I’ll be even more intrigued when he begins to offer us his opinions on his vision for America in 2012 and beyond.
Pine View Farm picks up a humorist’s joke on Glenn Beck leaving Fox for the SyFy Channel. If you want the laughs go here.
The subtext is that SyFy is dogshit — like Beck.
However, there are different kinds of dogshit. Beck is toxic excrement.
SyFy is just stinky.
Toxic excrement threatens existence. Stinky shit just bores and stupefies.
Beck is malevolent and malicious crap, as described earlier today.
SyFy Channel, on the other hand, is not a national venue for the regular condemning of Jews, academics and the entire world Muslim poor class for an audience of frightened fat white men and women.
SyFy Channel, for example, focuses on frightening stupid fat white men and women with harmless stories about trash like something called the Pet Phret demon from Thailand.
The Phret is a giant ghost, according to Destination Truth, a reality show which aired alleged video of it lurking around a tower the other day.
SyFy features reality shows where the hosts are far less in the money than Beck. The stars of Ghost Hunters and Destination Truth are more meagerly intelligence-insulting and benign.
You never worry that the ghost-hunting idiots scouring haunted houses with their budget Radio Shack gear and green night-vision tint will suddenly go anti-Semite and take a significant part of the country down with them.
Advertising on SyFy is also not exclusively exhortations to buy gold by Gordon Liddy.
SyFy does have professional wrestling.
And well over half its audience must now surely physically resemble the characters known as Dickie and Coover in Justified.
Which is kind of mildly bad.
Beck’s ejection from Fox does present a problem for Ted Nugent. Since about half his columns at the Washington Times stem from stuff Nugent
sees on Beck’s show, he’s lost a significant source of material that will resonate with his readers.
Ken Braun [of Mackinac] explained why he FOIA’d the labor faculty at Wayne State (as well as Michigan State and the University of Michigan), pointing to portions of the Wayne State site he said were clearly advocating political outcomes rather than education.
From MIRS News:
By the time the Capitol Confidential published its story about WSU’s Labor Studies Center, the university had taken down a link to a free “activists handbook” for those looking for a “nuts and bolts guide” for creating a living wage campaign, a page dedicated to passing the federal “card check” and a specific manual for public employee unions trying to “defeat privatization.”
Mackinac and Wayne State’s labor studies faculty have been at war since at least 2005, when the state Chamber of Commerce called for and got the school to shut down a student-run site advocating for a higher minimum wage.
Mackinac is now in the news regularly for its anti-labor positions and its near constant name-checking on Rachel Maddow, for using “maddow” as a search term linked to its FOIA requests.
Maddow has pointed out, fairly accurately, that the purpose of these requests is not only about securing information that can be used out of context for attack purposes but also for purposes of political intimidation.
The last time Mackinac figured in this blog was for a discussion of Glenn Beck’s novel, ghost written by Jack Henderson, called The Overton Window.
The Overton Window is an invention of Mackinac’s and as part of Beck’s publicity push for the book, he featured a representative of the Michigan institute on his show.
Overton Window is a good versus evil book, the Tea Party kind, where the US government is the evil and patriots battle to thwart its nefarious plans.
Washington Post reviewer Steven Levingston deemed it at risk of falling into the tradition of novels like “The Turner Diaries,” America’s premier piece of violent white bigot fiction, a fever dream about vengeful destruction of the US government.