Month: May 2011

Noah Kristula-Green fact-checks a study used by Republicans to "prove" that austerity juices GDP:

[Alberto] Alesina has indeed found cases where reducing spending was followed by economic growth and reduced deficits. The problem: he found very few cases. More specifically he found 9 examples out of 107 attempts to reduce spending.

Jared Bernstein tackles the same subject:

I’ve been pretty aghast to hear claims that large cuts would immediately generate job growth … when the opposite is almost surely the case.   You can make this a lot more complicated, but when you’re as far below capacity as we are—when so many people are unemployed, e.g.—it’s really quite simple arithmetic.  Government spending feeds right into GDP growth and cuts subtract from it.

Now, when you’re at full capacity, it’s different.

Actually a cooker from an art-cooker show at the Metal Museum. They got the mouth just right, didn't they?

Many pundits are slamming Paul Ryan's Medicare plan because it would increase healthcare cost-sharing. Peter Suderman asks them to take a harder look at Obama's healthcare law:

What these criticisms tend to leave out is that ObamaCare is almost certain to increase cost-sharing too. According to a new survey of employers by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 84 percent of employers expect to make changes in order to help offset the additional cost burden imposed by the new health care law. In practice, as John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis notes in a summary of the survey, in practice, "make changes" means "raise premiums, deductibles, and co-payments."

Dish readers to the rescue:

One of probably scads of emails you'll get on this: I stumbled onto the wheat issue about 10 years ago, and cutting it out of my diet has made a world of difference.  But you won't have to give up pasta (there are many non-wheat varieties available, the worst, probably, being spelt … ) or pizza or cookies (a brand called With Out Wheat or WOW makes a fabulous ginger/molasses cookie!)

No wheat also ends up meaning none of the collateral fat / calories from the things you dress the wheat with – butter on your bread, etc.  So you may find yourself slimming down (I dropped 25 pounds the first year, tho I've taken some back on as I discover the wheat substitutes.)  And, yeah, kiss those itchy patches goodbye. Congrats on the discovery!

Two words: Quinoa pasta. Another writes:

Dude, I sympathize.

I was diagnosed with Celiac's disease five months ago, which means I cannot eat the same things you now can't eat, and I also can never have real beer again. The lack of sandwiches, pizza, scones, ice cream sandwiches, fried anything, pasta, etc., in my life has been maddening, as has my new requirement to read EVERY food label to check for contamination.

But I think the worst thing about a wheat or gluten allergy is having to become the asshole customer at every restaurant you go to. This isn't so much a problem at high end establishments, where people are used to (and get paid well for) taking odd dietary requests. The problem is almost everywhere else. I ask: "does this sauce have gluten in it?" They reply: "no, it's just soy sauce." "Soy sauce has wheat in it." "ORLY?" "YARLY!" Variations on this happens constantly.  

The one positive thing I can say about the diagnosis is that it's a relief to know what's wrong with you and to feel the difference when your system is free from its allergen. And there really isn't a better time to have a wheat allergy. Grocery stores almost all have gluten/wheat-free sections now, which means you can still get rice and quinoa pastas if you want (these tend to range from disgusting to barely passable, unfortunately). I hope your allergy isn't so severe that you have to worry about trace amounts of wheat in your food. Otherwise, good luck, and have fun!

Another:

My son is allergic to wheat as well, and it’s actually not all that hard to accommodate him.  For one thing, Gluten free products are common now.  Second, although he’s allergic to wheat, he can have spelt (which has gluten).   There are a number of spelt products on the market, including breads, pasta etc., and you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between them and wheat products.  Also, you can sub in spelt flour for wheat flour pretty easily in just about any recipe.  So if you want scones, and don’t mind baking, you can easily make them yourself.

Make … them … myself?? Another:

Try the blog “Gluten Free Goddess” for really nice wheat-free recipes.

Another:

Rice flour? But perhaps neither of you bakes.

Too right. But I may now try. Another:

My wife suffers from the same affliction! An allergist discovered she was allergic to wheat when she was a teenager and has had to avoid wheat ever since.  As a sign of solidarity, I am mostly wheat free, but I can't resist the occasional beer or sandwich.

For pasta – we recommend the Tenkiyata brand.  For cookies – Glutino makes a good wheat-free Oreo.  For pretzels – Glutino also makes a great wheat-free pretzel that costs nearly five times what you would pay for the wheat-ed variety (but tastes even better!). For bread – Udi's makes great wheat-free rolls and pizza crusts as well as loafs of bread.  For baking purposes – Bob's Red Mill, Arrowhead Mills, Pamela's and King Arthur make delicious non-wheat flour mixes that approximate pancakes, brownies, cookies and cakes. I have even seen wheat-free Ginger Snaps in a NYC Gourmet Garage store.

Another:

My girlfriend has celiac disease, and has shown me that you can lead a perfectly happy gustatory life without wheat. The most revelatory thing she introduced me to is flourless chocolate torte. It's like cake but richer, and ridiculously easy to make. Aside from that, there are tons of yummy boxed cereals based on rice and/or corn flour, and many pastas are made with rice noodles (most but not all pad thai, for instance!) or, bizarrely, green been flour, you can also buy corn or quinoa noodles in most grocery stores. East and South Asian cuisines rely much more on rice generally, while Central and South American food does wonders with corn flour (have you had the pupusas at the South American food market at that little triangle between Columbia, Euclid, and Champlain every weekend morning? One tent, usually the 2nd one north along Champlain, makes the best). There are some okay wheatless beers, but hard cider is generally a safer bet, we recommend Original Sin or the drier Strongbow.

Then it turns out that many brands now make gluten-free versions of typical pre-packaged things, like ginger snaps (try the Midel brand for those). And many restaurants use mysterious alchemy to make gluten-free versions of prepared dishes: gluten-free pizza works especially well. Check out Pete's A-Pizza in Columbia Heights or Open City in Woodley Park for their GF pizza! I wouldn't recommend trying to make wheat-free bread (almost impossible to do right), but Whole Foods carries many good wheat-free bread brands, so you can still have waffles, toast, bagels, English muffins and cookies.

Another:

So sorry to hear of your recently diagnosed wheat allergy. As I have a number of friends and relatives who also have wheat and other foods allergies, I started this website that shows the food allergy content for the menus of many popular restaurants and the same for the grocery store products from many food manufacturers. Apologies for shameless plug, but I thought it might help.

Another:

A wheat allergy will make your life significantly better.  You should read Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat, which lays out the evidence that wheat and other grains, not dietary fat, are the primary drivers of obesity, diabetes, and other modern-day ills.  You should also look into some dietary variations on the book, such as the Paleo or Primal Blueprint diets.  After reading the book, I eliminated grains, sugar, and processed foods from my diet almost entirely (diet soda is a tenacious bastard.) 

As a result, I wake up more naturally, I have more energy at work, I suffer less of what I might coyly call "gaseous intestinal distress" (read: farting), I have noticeably less plaque on my teeth in the morning, and I've lost about 15 pounds of fat over the last month without consciously eating a reduced calorie diet.  People weren't meant to eat grass seeds, and a wheat allergy is the perfect opportunity to translate to a healthier eating style.

Another:

On the bright side, you can still eat cheese. Lovely, lovely cheese. Unless you develop a lactose intolerance.

I hate cheese. But I am really grateful for all the input. Sometimes, having a blog is a real privilege.

(Photo: Picture of wheat from the Czech Republic, 7 August 2007. By Wiki contributor, Photographer2008.)

Robin Hanson finds that many cancer screenings are basically useless. Ezra Klein chimes in:

[I]f you want to control health-care costs, you somehow need to convince, incentivize or otherwise conscript doctors into doing it for you. … [A]s long as doctors are telling scared and uncertain patients that they need to get screened, they’re getting screened. The moment they stop telling patients to get screened, screenings will plummet. In health care, doctors are really the relevant decision-makers. And right now, they don’t have the evidence to make good decisions nor the incentives to make cost-effective decisions.

Aaron Carroll, a physician, disagrees that doctors “don’t have the evidence to make good decisions”. 

It’s a lot more complicated than that. Physicians are human beings, and just as susceptible to biases as you are. It’s no easier to change their minds, or their behavior, than anyone else’s.

GM made a $3.2 billion profit in the first quarter and it appears Obama will use the bailout as a campaign issue. Regardless, Shikha Dalmia expects taxpayers to lose money in the end:

[To break even] the federal government would have to sell its remaining 365 million shares—about 26.5 percent of company equity—for about $55 per share. But after GM posted its latest earnings report, its stock price dropped to $31, a few dollars below even its IPO price of $33.

Vehement disagreement over my views on MGM has become a perennial feature of the Dish (I addressed the latest batch just last month). Another reader writes:

I was taken aback when you wrote:

I support a religious exemption for Muslims and Jews. But routine mutilation for no reason at all? Let a man decide when he's old enough to make the decision about his own body, and what others may do to it without his consent.

Two problems with this:  (1) there are compelling individual and public health reasons to encourage male circumcision; and (2) infant circumcision is significantly safer than adult circumcision.  (Both points are well documented in this fact sheet by the CDC.)  The risk-benefit calculus here is not unlike that in deciding whether to vaccinate a child.  In both cases, the need for "consent" is overridden by the parent's legitimate right to care for and protect his or her child.

Since children have no reason to fear any consequences from not being mutilated, this notion of protecting the child is bullshit. The analogy with vaccination is deranged. But if an adult man decides it would be in the interests of his health to cut off his foreskin, he should have every right to do so. Another:

I hate to keep harping on the same subject every time you mention it (she says as if you could possibly remember one of 2 million readers) but you keep not making sense.

I'd love for you to explain why "because my holy book tells me so" is a more valid reason for permanently mutilating your newborn that "because I want my son to look like his dad" (which is the most commonly given reason). Even if we accept that religious reasons are automatically superior to plain old preference (which I don't) we would still have to explain why mutilating a boys penis is perfectly acceptable but mutilating a girls vagina is not, not even when the clitoris is left intact. What if someone's religion mandates they clip their babies ears? Should this too be protected? The familiarity of circumcision (which you accept as a mutilation) should not make it more acceptable than other forms of mutilation.

Or maybe we should accept that submitting a newborn to medically unwarranted surgical procedures cannot be protected because this expression of religious liberty of parents inescapably interferes with the much more important bodily integrity of their child.

Another:

Again, your deference to religion is perplexing.  "Let a man decide when he's old enough to make the decision about his own body" – unless his parents happen to be Jewish, or Muslim?  What about Christians – like my parents – who have their sons circumcised on account of Christ's declaration that "not one iota" of Old Testament law should be ignored?

Another:

I think your argument is related to your deep devotion to religious freedom – which, in theory, is fine. However, why can't we, as a society, demand that Jews and Muslims modernize with the rest of creation?

We've done it before. I mean, Leviticus is pretty damned unambiguous about the consequence of sleeping with someone's spouse: "the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death" (Lev 20:10). There's no mention in this verse that the government shall do it. The way I read it, anyone who finds out someone's been committing adultery has the obligation to kill both the adulterer and the adulteress. So why don't we allow Jews and Christians to do so? Because it's fucking wrong! While there are murderous crackpots who read that verse and come to the same conclusion I just did, no sane, modern American would (I hope) believe it's okay to put adulterers to death strictly for their adultery.

Of course, genital mutilation is not like putting someone to death. However, the core of my argument is that you simply cannot defend bending the rules of a proposed law just because of one's religion. If San Francisco goes through with the circumcision ban, all genital mutilation of underage boys should be banned; otherwise, we're wading into awfully murky territory as to what should and should not be allowed with respect to religion.

Additionally, I think it odd that you think most adult males can make up their minds about circumcision except for Jews and Muslims. It's very simple: when a young Jew or Muslim male reaches 18, he may decide for himself if he thinks his religion is worth cutting off a piece of his penis for. Don't Jewish and Muslim boys deserve the same choice afforded to everyone else?

Either genital mutilation is defensible, or it is not – end of statement.

It is indefensible, but it is not so harmful as to preclude the religious interest in infant mutilation in a country where religious freedom is, and should be, absolute.

(Photo: from the Library of Congress. Central Asians perform the barbaric practice on an infant boy in the late 1900s.)

Rob Tisinai explains a category error:

No thing has a purpose; people have a purpose for things. It’s an easy and honest trap door if you find yourself in a rhetorical corner. … The moment I hear “The purpose of…” I know somebody’s trying to get something past me. If purpose doesn’t reside in a thing, but in the intent of the person, then a thing can “have” as many purposes as there are people. What’s the purpose of sex? Procreation, intimacy, recreation, revenge, validation, profit. And many, many others.

“I’m afraid the Democrats will draw the conclusion that because Congressman Ryan’s proposal is not the right one, that we shouldn’t do anything. I completely disagree with that,” – Bill Clinton.

From the president's just-concluded speech at Westminster Hall:

Centuries ago, when kings, emperors, and warlords reigned over much of the world, it was the English who first spelled out the rights and liberties of man in the Magna Carta.  It was here, in this very hall, where the rule of law first developed, courts were established, disputes were settled, and citizens came to petition their leaders. 

Over time, the people of this nation waged a long and sometimes bloody struggle to expand and secure their freedom from the crown.  Propelled by the ideals of the Enlightenment, they would ultimately forge an English Bill of Rights, and invest the power to govern in an elected parliament that’s gathered here today. 

What began on this island would inspire millions throughout the continent of Europe and across the world.  But perhaps no one drew greater inspiration from these notions of freedom than your rabble-rousing colonists on the other side of the Atlantic.  As Winston Churchill said, the “…Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.” 

Money quote:

It's the full Anglophile Monty, begun with a pretty good joke:

I have known few greater honors than the opportunity to address the Mother of Parliaments at Westminster Hall.  I am told that the last three speakers here have been the Pope, Her Majesty the Queen, and Nelson Mandela — which is either a very high bar or the beginning of a very funny joke.

Channel 4's Jon Snow tweets:

C4News poll 8 yrs ago found 22% of Brits had confidence in George Bush: Today we find 72% have confidence Barak Obama: surprise, surprise!!

Others are less impressed: Ken Clarke, Tory grandee, seemed to fall asleep. Alex Spillius notes:

Not his finest but the setting of Westminster Hall made up for that. Deep tribute to US-UK ties. If we don't lead, who will? … By quoting Churchill in his Buckingham Palace toast Obama was trying to lay the ghost of Winston's bust to rest, as it were.

The Churchill quote Obama used is a wonderful one. The phrase "chirps of freedom" is such an unexpected and yet haunting metaphor. Maybe Twitter should coopt it as a slogan. Word clouds of Reagan's, Clinton's and Obama's speeches to parliament here. Former foreign secretary David Miliband notes:

Obama speech came alive talking about diverse societies. But not one non-white person on British establishment side of stage.

(Photo: US President Barack Obama (C) accompanied by the speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow (L) and House of Lords Speaker Baroness Hayman arrive at the Palace of Westminster on May 25, 2011 in London, United Kingdom. The 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, and his wife Michelle are in the UK for a two day State Visit at the invitation of HM Queen Elizabeth II. Last night they attended a state banquet at Buckingham Palace and today's events include talks at Downing Street and the President will address both houses of parliament at Westminster Hall. By Sang Tan – WPA Pool/Getty Images.)