Month: October 2013

Not In The Clear Yet

Yesterday, Stan Collender claimed that it “still no better than 50-50 … that the debt ceiling will be raised by October 17”:

One of the biggest problem[s] with the current shutdown/debt ceiling situation is that no one has any assurance that the person they’re negotiating with has any authority to agree to anything. The president can’t be sure congressional Democrats will go along with what he might agree to with Republicans, Boehner absolutely knows there is no guarantee that House and Senate Republicans will follow his lead and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) won’t be followed blindly by Senate Republicans. In other words, even if there were a deal it is not clear who could agree to it.

This, and the likelihood of simple miscalculation of time, could render any agreement moot, and tip the markets into a tailspin, along with our recovery. I just hope that sense of urgency exists in these negotiating rooms. The point is not that we should get out of this fiasco by the skin of our teeth – but that a functioning country never gets even close to this kind of potential meltdown. Every day that passes erodes the credibility of the US economy and government, and thereby its currency. And at some point, the erosion becomes a mudslide.

What’s Wrong With The Collins Deal?

McConnell is in favor of it:

McConnell embraced a plan by Senator Susan Collins — the Republican from Maine — on Sunday, which would raise the debt limit through January and fund the government through the end of March, while delaying for two years Obamacare’s medical-device tax and require income verification in order to qualify for Obamacare subsidies.

I truly want to get a deal but this one would be, to my mind, merely a delay in the crisis, even an extension of it. If the GOP were to take the debt ceiling off the table, or come up with a way to do it indefinitely, we’d be talking. When hostage-takers release the hostage, they don’t usually get to keep their weapons. But if that is not an option, then, as an interim step, why not raise the debt limit through January 2015 and let the midterms decide the fiscal future?

And if the GOP needs a face-saver, I suppose K-Street’s medical device tax is as meaningless a concession as any. It’s not integral to the ACA. And you can see why the president might have negotiated such a thing outside of any self-induced debt crisis. As for sequestration, I have no problems with keeping spending at those levels until March, along Collins lines, and I think the Democrats should be very wary of over-playing their hand. We are in an emergency here – and haggling over spending levels for the next six months does not seem to me to be a good enough reason to hold up a potential deal.

Ezra explains why Democrats have rejected it nonetheless:

Two main arguments were made against the Collins deal. First, it locks in sequestration levels of spending for six months. Key Senate Democrats see that as a much larger, and more dangerous, concession than the old CR, which only agrees to it for six weeks. Second, the deal’s delay of the medical device tax meant it was, in fact, a concession in order to reopen the government — and Democrats think it’s important to persuade the GOP that they can’t win anything through this kind of hostage taking.

I don’t think that’s a big win. I think it’s a minimal concession for them to save face in what is already a political disaster for them. Jonathan Cohn adds:

Reid and McConnell are still talking. Those talks will probably be the basis of whatever agreement ends this crisis. But Democrats have established a pretty simple test for new proposals: Is it a deal Democrats would make in normal circumstances, without a shutdown and without the threat of default? So far, nothing Republicans have suggested comes close to meeting that criteria.

I think adjusting a medical devices tax in return for a sequester-level CR and a lifting of the debt ceiling till after the mid-terms would be easily a deal Dems would accept under normal circumstances. The key issue, in my view, is the debt ceiling threat. That’s the fiscal weapon of mass destruction we have to abolish or defuse indefinitely.

Yes, For Them, This Is A Game

A cruel, vain, exploitative, nihilist, irrelevant, made-for-TV game:

Conor Friedersdorf sighs:

What I think, when I see that memorial closures are the thing that gets conservatives in the streets, is that movement leaders and rank-and-file activists alike cannot be counted on to identify and take on the most serious issues facing veterans, or the most serious threats to liberty. Instead they spend their time seizing on symbolic issues that promise to result in the best optics for a given news cycle — World War II veterans traveled to Washington and can’t visit the memorial dedicated to them!

Think what victory would mean in this instance: the barricades would come down, which will happen anyway as soon as the government reopens. In other words, there’s no substantive upside for this particular rally, whether you’re concerned about benefiting veterans or safeguarding liberty. It was held so that Cruz and Palin could aggrandize themselves, so that conservatives could revel in their self-image as liberty loving patriots who honor veterans, and so that the Obama Administration would look bad. Protests are nothing more than political theater for these people. Or if they actually intend to effect change, their strategy verges on nonsensical.

Earlier Dish on the rally here.

When “Conservatives” Boo The Cops

You realize they are not conservative in any way at all. Yelling at police doing their job maintaining security at the White House, calling them “brownshirts,” “stasi” and saying that one unit “looks like something out of Kenya”: can we dispense with any illusions that these are patriotic political actors, respecting those who serve our country in the military or police force? They are delusional, racist fanatics.

And I should add: the composure and restraint of these public servants in the face of these yahoos and morons is remarkable.

When Sexual Harassment Is Murky, Ctd

A reader writes:

I know nothing about this case.  But if the professor had fought the allegations, his life would have ruined by everything being aired in public, true or not.  As someone once said after being found not guilty, “Where do I go to get my reputation back?”  I think a reasonable case can be made for an innocent person to walk away from untrue allegations rather than fight them, especially in today’s media atmosphere.

Another:

As a female post-doc in a male-dominated field, I read with interest the article you linked to. I am sure affairs and sexual harassment happen in all work places, but I think there is something about the professor/student, mentor/mentee relationship that contributes to it. I have been hit on/flirted with/sexually harassed (depends on how you define it) by multiple male professors over the years. And I admit I don’t always send entirely clear signals. I have no desire to have affairs with these men (I am gay), but I do sometimes enjoy playing (and trying to win) their game.

It gives me power in the relationship – not because I think I will get special treatment professionally, but because, perhaps in a twisted response to their egos, I like seeing how far I can get them to go. It makes them human; no longer are they “important professors” – just men thinking like men. When it gets too far or just awkward, I put up boundaries and declare myself the winner.

So I can understand the student in the article up to the point of turning her professor in. I recognize my role in the game and am not out to ruin careers or marriages. But I suppose it is a dangerous game to be playing, especially for the professors …

Bulky Beasts

Humans aren’t the only ones putting on weight:

The National Pet Obesity Survey recently reported that more than 50 percent of cats and dogs –that’s more thanStanding Tall 80 million pets – are overweight or obese. Pets have gotten so plump that there’s now a National Pet Obesity Awareness Day. (It was Wednesday.) Lap dogs and comatose cats aren’t alone in the fat animal kingdom. Animals in strictly controlled research laboratories that have enforced the same diet and lifestyle for decades are also ballooning.

In 2010, an international team of scientists published findings that two dozen animal populations—all cared for by or living near humans – had been rapidly fattening in recent decades. “Canaries in the Coal Mine,” they titled the paper, and the “canaries” most closely genetically related to humans – chimps – showed the most troubling trend. Between 1985 and 2005, the male and female chimps studied experienced 33.2 and 37.2 percent weight gains, respectively. Their odds of obesity increased more than 10-fold.

Even wild animals are growing fatter, leading researchers to investigate new causes of obesity:

The potential causes of animal obesity are legion: ranging from increased rates of certain infections to stress from captivity. Antibiotics might increase obesity by killing off beneficial bacteria. … But feral rats studied around Baltimore have gotten fatter, and they don’t suffer the stress of captivity, nor have they received antibiotics. Increasingly, scientists are turning their attention toward factors that humans and the wild and captive animals that live around them have in common: air, soil, and water, and the hormone-altering chemicals that pollute them.

(Photo from James Marvin Phelps)

On Assholes

Zach Dorfman leafs through Aaron James’ book on their moral significance:

For him, an asshole is defined by three important qualities, which also serve to differentiate his behavior from other morally repugnant characters such as the jerk, or much more seriously, the sociopath. First, the asshole considers himself — and James and I agree, assholes are almost always men — to possess special privileges or advantages over others.

Moreover, he behaves in a manner that reflects this belief (making the asshole distinct from the mere egoist, who may believe that he is better than others, but for a variety of reasons, does not act on this belief systematically.).

Second, the grounds for this belief are assumed and not argued for. An asshole believes deeply that he alone deserves special treatment, that he is somehow entitled to it. This kind of asshole behavior, as James goes on to show, produces both minor-league assholes, such as the line-cutter or reckless freeway driver, as well as their major-league brethren, such as, say, Donald Trump or Anthony Weiner. (Of course, significant overlap is possible, and minor leaguers rarely disappoint when called up to the big leagues.)

Third, and finally, assholes are “immunized” to the protests of others. An asshole might hear you out, recognizing your complaints as valid in an abstract way, but he never truly listens.

Arrogant Artists

British researchers ran an experiment to gauge the creativity of certain personality types and found that narcissism drives people to take on more creative endeavors:

The participants, a mix of undergraduates and college graduates, took a series of tests to measure the “big five” personality factors: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. In addition, they provided a self-assessment of their creativity (answering questions like “how innovative do you consider yourself?”), and indicated how many creative activities (out of a list of 34) they had engaged in during the past year. Those activities including “composed a poem” and “choreographed a dance.” …

When the scores were added up, “Narcissism self” was the variable that most strongly predicted not only self-assessed creativity (no surprise there), but also engagement in creative activities.

Jillian Steinhauer underlines that narcissists weren’t proven necessarily more creative, only more likely to try their hand at the arts:

In the end, people with narcissistic tendencies were not only more likely to say they were creative; they also were more likely to do creative things. The personality traits of extraversion and openness also corresponded to increased creative activity, which is telling about what this study really shows: that self-confidence goes a long way. If you believe you’re good enough at something, chances are you’ll do it, even if it’s unstable or difficult, as so many creative pursuits are. And chances are you’ll continue trying to do it even in the face of rejection, which is also required in creative fields like art and writing.

Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date

Kera Bolonik puzzles over the ongoing use of laugh tracks in sitcoms, noting that “fake laughter is like a fake orgasm — it’s not infectious”:

In fact, we’ve had them imposed on us since the fifties, when sound engineer Charley Douglass started “sweetening” the audio, inserting laughs at failed jokes, editing down yuks that went on too long, to regulate the comic beats. But what is louder than the din of disingenuous laughter when a joke isn’t funny? It’s a hand hanging in the air, waiting for the high five slap that never comes, that loud silence of one hand clapping. But bad jokes are like tripping over air currents — you’ve gotta catch your fall and keep moving.

Network sitcoms have become less reliant on laugh tracks — Parks and Recreation, Glee, Modern Family, and the new Brooklyn Nine Nine, for example, don’t use them. But these are mockumentaries, musicals, and/or single-camera shows. Laugh tracks tend to signal to an audience that they’re tucking into more conventional fare, by which I mean, a show that, as Joseph Winkler described in “A Sitcom Even a Nihilist Could Love,” features beleaguered straight-man (or woman) protagonist at work surrounded by zany colleagues, and at home, where he or she juggles a fraught relationship with an overbearing or neurotic parent, a partner or an ex (or the ever-present absence of no love life at all), and a resident smart-alecky kid. And the laughs punctuate every sentence like an exclamation point.

(Video: a laugh track-free clip from The Big Bang Theory)