Month: May 2011

Where to begin with this borderline insane piece of rightwing doggerel. How about here:

First, Obama doesn't rely on rational description to persuade the American people, but rather on his — now seemingly shrunken — oratorical skills, without regard to substance.

Seriously? Remember that detailed September 2009 speech on healthcare, or even the recent speech on debt reduction? The most recent speech on energy at American University? You can disagree with these speeches – but, seriously, they are not pieces of "rational description"? You mean: compared with, say, Palin or Trump or the theological utterances of Santorum or the precise policy analyses of Mike Huckabee … or the Mission Accomplished speech of his predecessor? Then this breathtaking lie:

Obama is worse in another way. Though Carter had a mean streak, he was not prone to divide and name-call in the way that Obama has done. From his remarks about bitter clingers to his administration's increasing willingness to call any criticism racist, Obama's administration has been far more divisive than Carter's.

Is he out of his mind? Of all the public figures who are prone to divide and name-call, Obama is in the lead? The victim of one most vicious, constant, lying smear campaigns in a very long time is the one who name-calls and divides? See if you can find in Reynolds' archives any moment of criticism of Obama hate from, say, Rush Limbaugh? Or Glenn Beck? Or Sarah Palin?

I've given up trying to understand the pathological hatred of the most likable, genial and even-tempered president since Reagan.  Oh and one small thing: Reynolds says that the ACA that will help insure 40 million or so people who have not had any health insurance has done "little for health" and the the stimulus package did "little for the economy." Of course, you can criticize elements of both these measures.

But, again, what were or are the GOP alternatives? No stimulus at all – even one which was one-third tax cuts; letting the depression gather steam until unemployment soared to its natural level; abandoning the auto industry and refusing to bail out the banks, precipitating a global depression. On health, leaving 40 million without any access to health insurance and turning Medicare into a voucher scheme, where the vouchers will not replicate the level of care seniors now get. But Obama is the problem?

It's because these arguments make absolutely no sense at all that one is forced to wonder where the animus really comes from. Because it cannot possibly be from these facts alone.

Ed Yong explains what Cheryl Nickerson has learned from sending bacteria into space:

[Her experiment] demonstrated that bacteria turn into superbugs in the gravity-free environment of space, gathering together, gaining strength and becoming much more effective at causing disease. … With infectious powers bolstered by zero gravity, bacteria represent a significant risk to the health of space-faring humans … By observing how bacteria react to the extreme environment of space, its researchers hope to learn more about how they behave in the human body.

(Image: D. rad Bacteria: Candidate Astronauts, "known as an extremophile, bacteria such as D. rad are of interest to NASA partly because they might be adaptable to help human astronauts survive on other worlds," by Michael Daly and DOE)

“Humans have a tendency to fall prey to the illusion that their economy is at the very center of the universe, forgetting that the biosphere is what ultimately sustains all systems, both man-made and natural. In this sense, ‘environmental issues’ are not about saving the planet—it will always survive and evolve with new combinations of atom—but about the prosperous development of our own species,” – Carl Folke, science director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, explaining the one lesson he would pass on from his work. Seed Magazine asked ten other scientists to do the same.

Not quite as easy as Romney – in another lapse into Reagan nostalgia – would have you believe. Obama's current rate is 11.29. Carter's – in year 3 – was 17.07 heading to 20.76. Reagan's Misery Index rating was higher than Obama's for every year of his first term. Neither Carter nor Reagan inherited – I repeat, inherited – the sharpest downturn and worst finanical crisis since the 1930s. And what if the Index declines next year – as it well might?

Romnet remains one of the dumbest politicians on the national scene. It's goo to see him going nowhere fast so far (though this, of course, could change).

Ben Jervey picked apart the Energy Information Agency's "Annual Energy Outlook" for 2011:

Whether we dramatically expand offshore drilling or stop selling offshore drilling leases entirely, there will be essentially no impact on the price of gasoline until 2020. If we look out as far as 2030, the difference would only be $0.05—$3.59 per gallon as opposed to $3.64 per gallon. The idea that offshore drilling would significantly ease the pain of high gas prices is a canard.

He contrasts it with an outlook that focuses on increasing miles per gallon in cars:

By 2030, if we increase fuel efficiency in cars 6 percent every year for just eight years starting in 2017, per gallon gas prices would be $3.44 per gallon. Compare that to the $3.59 per gallon price that we'd get under the massive expansion of offshore drilling. That 6 percent scenario wasn't pulled out of thin air—it's a legitimate proposal being debated in D.C. that would yield a fleet-wide standard of 60+ miles per gallon by 2025. (See Go60mpg.org) Even the less ambitious 3 percent increase in gas mileage would bring about cheaper gas ($3.51 per gallon) than maxing out our offshore oil reserves.

 
Maggie Koerth-Baker connects the two:

You've probably seen these whimsical taxidermy projects. Usually, they're just common rabbits with deer antlers glued to their heads—one step up from those shellacked frogs holding little wooden beer bottles that you can buy in any Gulf of Mexico resort town. Less well known is the fact that jackalopes-the-joke are based on reality. Rabbits really can grow "horns", actually tumors, when they're infected with a virus.

In fact, jakalopes exist for the same reason Guardasil—the controversial cervical cancer vaccine— and annual pap smears exist. The virus that causes tumors to grow on the heads of rabbits is related to the one that causes tumors to grow on the cervixes of human women.

(Photo by Flickr user ampersans)

Azim Shariff explains a study that found the greater the rate of belief in hell in developing countries, the stronger their economy:

[I]f supernatural punishment increases adherence to moral norms, and economic success rests on minimizing corruption and maximizing honest trade, then it makes sense that these types of religious beliefs could have a large scale impact. Indeed, we and others have argued that religious beliefs—and in particular those regarding omniscient, punitive supernatural agents that police our moral behavior—may have been instrumental in producing the level of cooperation required for early societies to grow beyond small groups where everybody knew each other.

The best way to think of the White House Correspondents' Dinner is as a cycle of insecurity. Washington's political nerds secretly want to be respected by politicians and politicians secretly want to be celebrities and celebrities secretly yearn to be regarded as political nerds. For one night a year, they all get to grasp drunkenly at the objects of their desire. It's win-win-win.

It's also usually painful and probably subtly corrupting of our entire politic-journalistic process. But last night was pretty pain-free and I avoided most pols (thought not Rahm Emanuel's ice-cold stare-down). The profound pleasure was in seeing Donald Trump so publicly humiliated by both Seth Myers and the president. I got to sit next to Aaron Schock, the abs-laden cutie-pie, for the dinner. (Thanks, Tina!) And I got to shake hands with John Hamm, gaze at Bradley Cooper across the room, smooch with Arianna, gossip with Lois Romano, chat with Paul Rudd, listen to Leon Wieseltier's jokes (unchanged since 1993! but still funny), hang with Bill Hader, be regaled hilariously by Mike White's performance art, and – praise be to Allah – come within a few inches of Zach Galifianakis' beard. Good times. Pic of me and Aaron here. Full VF slide-show of pics here. Yep, we closed the party around 4 am. 

Alas, I missed Sarah Palin but caught a glimpse of her fleeting departure. What a figure. She must be at least 8 months along by now.

(Photo: Justin Bishop for Vanity Fair.)

Beard foliage for spring:

Alexander "A Million Years" from benjamin kutsko on Vimeo.

Peter Moskos challenges Americans to reconsider the status quo of our prison system:

If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it. Of course most people would choose the rattan cane over the prison cell. And that's my point. Faced with the choice between hard time and the lash, the lash is better. What does that say about prison?