Tag Archives: beautiful

Why Does Donald Trump Have Nothing Against Germany?

by ValentiCatalano Posted on September 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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Which of these countries is not like the others?

  1. China
  2. Germany
  3. Japan
  4. Mexico

Answer: When Donald Trump goes on a tear about foreign countries that are stealing our jobs thanks to their “cunning” and “ruthless” leaders, he always talks about our horrible trade deficit. China: $300+ billion. Japan: $60+ billion. Mexico: $50+ billion.

Who doesn’t he mention? Germany, which is in second place at $80+ billion. Why is that? What is it that makes Germany not like those other countries?

And as long as we’re on the subject of Trump, I caught a bit of his speech in Dallas today and heard him bragging about the fact that every network was covering him. He explained it this way: “It’s a very simple formula in entertainment and television. If you get good ratings—and these aren’t good, these are monster—then you’re going to be on all the time even if you have nothing to say.” Credit where it’s due: Trump may not actually be much of a builder, but he sure does know his TV. And himself, apparently.

Also worth noting: Trump got plenty of cheers for all his usual shoutouts, but by far the biggest cheer came when he promised to toss out every illegal immigrant within his first 18 months. “We have to stop illegal immigration,” he said. “We have to do it.” That set the arena rocking for nearly a full minute, ending in a fervid chant of “USA! USA! USA!” Judging by this, immigration is still the single biggest key to his appeal.

Finally, on a more amusing note, Trump complained that because all his events are televised, he can’t just give the same speech over and over like other politicians. I wonder if he actually believes this? I haven’t heard anything new from Trump in months. Every speech he gives relies on all the same snippets. He changes the order depending on his mood, but it’s always the same stuff. He may be new to politics, but the idea of a standard stump speech is something he seems to have in his blood.

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Why Does Donald Trump Have Nothing Against Germany?

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Your Job Is Safe From the Computers — For Now

by HamishFurlong Posted on September 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee try to calm our fears about robots taking all our jobs. Sure, some jobs will disappear, they say, but others will be created:

For example, machines are currently dominating the jobs in routine information processing. “Computer,” after all, used to be an actual job title of a person who sat and added long rows of numbers. Now it is, well, an actual computer.

On the other hand, jobs such as data scientist didn’t used to exist, but because computers have made enormous data sets analyzable, we now have new jobs for people to interpret these huge pools of information. In the tumult of our economy, even as old tasks get automated away, along with demand for their corresponding skills, the economy continues to create new jobs and industries.

This may not be quite as reassuring as they intended. I figure that “routine information processing” probably still accounts for tens of millions of jobs. “Data scientist,” on the other other hand, requires an advanced education and probably accounts for tens of thousands of jobs at best. This trade is going to leave a whole lot of people unemployed.

More generally, though, I’m surprised at the amount of attention given to the question of whether automation is taking away jobs right now. The bulk of the evidence suggests that it’s not—or, if it is, it’s happening at a very slow rate. But this is an uninteresting question since there’s really very little controversy about it. Artificial intelligence doesn’t exist yet, so of course it’s not taking away any jobs. The question that matters is (a) whether AI will eventually exist, and (b) how many jobs will be left for humans if and when it arrives.

Brynjolfsson and McAfee, for example, say that there are three areas where “humans have a distinct advantage over machines”: creative endeavors, social interactions, and physical dexterity. True enough. But there’s no reason to think this will last long. The vast bulk of humanity isn’t very creative; most of us are surprisingly willing to put up with obviously artificial congeniality; and physical dexterity in robots is already within shouting distance of being good enough for machines to start digging post holes. If we ever create true AI—or even something close—none of these three things will give humans any advantage over digital intelligence. Most likely, homo sapiens will be obsolete within a few decades.

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Your Job Is Safe From the Computers — For Now

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Friday Cat Blogging – 11 September 2015

by Rachele6065 Posted on September 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Like all cats, Hilbert and Hopper love staring out the window. So much cool stuff: birds, squirrels, rabbits, bugs, butterflies, and invisible pixies. I don’t know what had them entranced in this picture, but it was probably a butterfly. We’ve had several monarchs hatch lately, and they are very attention-grabbing critters. Especially if you’re a cat.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 11 September 2015

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Scientists Say "Trust Us" on Blood Pressure Study

by KamDriggers Posted on September 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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The New York Times reports on a big U-turn in the study of low blood pressure:

Declaring they had “potentially lifesaving information,” federal health officials said on Friday that they were ending a major study more than a year early because it has already conclusively answered a question cardiologists have puzzled over for decades: how low should blood pressure go? The answer: way lower than the current guidelines.

….Less than two years ago, a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute panel went the opposite direction. People had been told to aim for a systolic blood pressure of 140. But the panel recommended a goal of 150 for people ages 60 and older, arguing that there were no convincing data showing lower is better.

Given the fact that this represents a major change to a recommendation from two years ago, it would be nice to see the data. And yet, apparently it hasn’t been released. Austin Frakt is annoyed:

I have high blood pressure, so this is of more than academic interest to me. I’ve also heard plenty of horror stories of people being massively overmedicated in an effort to get their blood pressure below some magical target. So if you want me to get my systolic blood pressure down to 110 or so, you’d better have some mighty convincing data.

But of course, this is not about me me me. Frakt is right: this is just bad science, and it’s especially bad in the areas of health and nutrition, which are overrun with both crankery and constantly changing recommendations. If you have big news, release it in a reputable journal and let other experts take a look at it. Don’t announce blockbuster findings and then promise that “a paper with the data would be published within a few months.” This is not the way to do things.

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Scientists Say "Trust Us" on Blood Pressure Study

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Republicans Is Weird, Summer 2015 Edition

by KishaLeatherman Posted on July 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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No, this isn’t about Donald Trump. It’s about Sen. Mike Lee of Utah—who plans to offer yet another amendment to repeal Obamacare, but this time with a special super-duper secret sauce added to the upcoming highway funding bill:

Lee said he will try to re-offer the Obamacare repeal as a special amendment that is directly related to highway funding. Under Senate rules, amendments that are directly related, or germane, to the underlying legislation can pass with just 51 votes.

Lee knows that the chair of the Senate is likely to reject his logic that Obamacare repeal is germane to highway funding, so he plans to use the nuclear option. That means he will formally object to the ruling of the chair, which requires a 51-vote simple majority — then he plans to move on to the coveted simple majority vote.

….If his plan works, Lee gets to tell his supporters that he’s responsible for a major vote to kill the health care law he reviles. The House voted to repeal the law in February, so the two chambers could then theoretically conference the bills — leaving it up to Obama to veto a bill to kill his own signature policy achievement.

So the plan is simple: have Republicans declare ex cathedra that repeal of Obamacare is germane to highway funding, and then pass Lee’s amendment with 51 votes. It’s brilliant! All that’s missing are the sharks with lasers attached to their heads!

Aside from being mind-numbingly stupid1, it also won’t work. Democrats will just filibuster the entire highway bill, or else they’ll vote for it and then Obama will veto the entire mess. Result: Obamacare stays in place but our highways continue to crumble into dust. Nice work, Senator! It’s good to see that the Republican Party remains committed to the sober, responsible kind of leadership that makes our great nation the envy of the world.

1It’s times like this that I regret the recent banishment of “retarded” from polite conversation. Because I think we all know that it’s the word that really fits here.2

2Though I suppose there’s no reason to insult the developmentally disabled by comparing them to Mike Lee.

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Republicans Is Weird, Summer 2015 Edition

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Friday Cat Blogging – 24 July 2015

by Fidelia13O Posted on July 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hopper and Hilbert like to (a) play-wrestle with each other, and (b) jump up on the fireplace mantel. Here they are doing both. Hopper has lately been taking control of these affairs, finally realizing that she’s the real alpha cat in the household even if her brother is bigger. As she’s finally figured out, being alpha is more about will and energy than about size, and she’s got both. Nonetheless, you can see in this picture about how seriously she takes it.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 24 July 2015

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It’s Not Just Social Security Anymore. Jeb Bush Wants to Destroy Medicare Too.

by SallyAbelfld Posted on July 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Republicans have been talking for years about “reforming” Social Security. Usually this involves privatizing it in some way, which they insist that people will love. In fact, they’ll love it so much that, um, Republicans don’t dare suggest that their reforms should apply to current recipients. Or to people who are within even a decade of retiring. Why exempt these folks? There’s a lot of blah blah blah when you ask, but the real reason is that these people vote, and they actually pay attention to Social Security. They know perfectly well that the current system is a better deal for them. It’s only younger workers, who don’t pay as much attention and have been brainwashed—by conservatives—into believing that Social Security will never pay them a dime anyway, who give this nonsense the time of day. Even if the GOP’s reformed version of Social Security is a lousy deal, anything is better than nothing. Right?

But I’ve never really heard this argument about Medicare. Until now. Here’s Jeb Bush:

A lot of people recognize that we need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits. But that we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something—because they’re not going to have anything.

Boom! If we don’t gut Medicare, they’ll have nothing. When they turn 65 they’ll be out on the street dying, with no one to help them. Why? Because Democrats let the system go bankrupt. Wouldn’t it be much better to offer them some crappy, rationed system instead? At least it’s something, after all.

Jesus. You’d think we were Greece. Oh wait—these guys do think that Democrats are turning us into Greece. So I guess it makes a kind of sense.

In any case, Jeb sure picked the wrong time to make this pitch. Just yesterday we got the latest projections for Social Security and Medicare. If they’re correct, the cost of both programs will top out at a combined 12 percent of GDP by the middle of the century and then flatten out. That’s about 3 percent of GDP more than we’re spending now.

So this is what Jeb is saying: Right now the federal government spends about 20 percent of GDP. We can’t afford to increase that to 23 percent of GDP over the next 30 years. That would—what? I don’t even know what the story is here. Turn us into Greece? Require us to tax millionaires so highly they all give up and go Galt? Deprive Wall Street of lots of pension income they can use to blow up the world again?

Beats me. This whole thing is ridiculous. Over the next 30 years, we need to increase spending by 1 percent of GDP per decade. That’s it. That will keep Social Security and Medicare in good shape. Why is it so hard for people to get that?

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It’s Not Just Social Security Anymore. Jeb Bush Wants to Destroy Medicare Too.

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Disability Insurance Is Going to Be a Big Deal In Next Year’s Presidential Campaign

by KathiPumpkin5 Posted on July 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Another year, another report from the Social Security Trustees. Here’s the basic chart, which shows the combined Social Security Trust fund becoming insolvent in 2034, one year later than last year’s projection. At that point, if nothing is done, benefit checks will be reduced about 25 percent.

There’s not much change since 2014, as you’d expect since this stuff doesn’t change a lot from year to year. The bigger news is that if you pull apart OASI (old age benefits) from DI (disability), it turns out that DI is going to be insolvent next year. Everyone has known this for a while, so it’s no big shock. But next year is an election year, which means Congress either needs to come up with a fix this year, while everyone is mesmerized by Donald Trump, or else put it off until next year, when they’ll have to do it under the blazing white klieg lights of a presidential campaign.

It’ll probably be next year, since Social Security traditionally doesn’t get fixed until it’s literally a few days away from not sending out checks to people. That should make this a great campaign issue between Republicans, who think DI is going broke because too many lazy bums are gaming the system, and Democrats, who mostly think it’s going broke because boomers are retiring and the economy is still weak.

So who wins this argument? Republicans have a story that will appeal to their base audience, but when you finally get to the point where checks to disabled people are being reduced—or not being sent out at all—that tends to concentrate the mind wonderfully. Public opinion will likely end up on the side of the disabled, especially since the usual fix (moving a bit of money from OASI to DI) is cheap and painless.

But we’ll see. In any case, this is a fight that can’t be avoided. You can count on it becoming a focal point of next year’s campaign.

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Disability Insurance Is Going to Be a Big Deal In Next Year’s Presidential Campaign

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The July Surprise

by Donnie6686 Posted on July 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore surveys the Republican primary landscape and throws out a few thoughts about the upcoming first debate on Fox:

Fox will allow only ten participants, chosen by the results of five national polls taken in the week or so before August 4.
Right now, Donald Trump is sucking up all the media oxygen, making it hard for marginal candidates to move up in the polls and avoid being forced into the kiddie debate.
This makes the end of July a critical period for all the C-list candidates.

Here’s Kilgore:

It’s increasingly clear the polling spike marginal candidates need to make the cut needs to happen in late July—not earlier, not later….John Kasich’s scheduled July 21st campaign launch probably couldn’t be timed much better; if he gets a post-announcement bounce, it could bounce him right up into the top ten. For those in the danger zone who have already announced—Perry, Jindal, Santorum, Graham, Fiorina, Pataki and maybe even Christie—the only way to get this sort of bounce is to force one’s way into the news.

So for these candidates, the big strategic question is whether throwing a bomb or three in late July to make the Fox debate cut is worth the long-term risk of self-marginalization. The alternative is to accept a place at the kiddie table “forum” earlier on August 6 and hope media, activists, donors and party elites don’t mentally strike one’s name from the insanely long list of contenders. I’m guessing most of these birds will not want to take that chance. Get ready for some serious gyring and gimbling in late July.

Sounds like fun! I hope they all take Kilgore’s advice. But what kind of bombshell could they drop that would make social media go wild? Discuss in comments, please.

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The July Surprise

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Today’s Proposal In Legislative Transparency: You Amend It, You Own It

by MargieIGTj Posted on July 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last week Wisconsin Republicans tried to sneak language into a budget bill that would have gutted the state’s open records law. Sadly for them, they got caught and had to withdraw the proposal—which, Gov. Scott Walker hastily assured us, “was never intended to inhibit transparent government in any way.” Uh huh.

This kind of sleazy behavior is hardly uncommon, but there’s one bit of it that’s equally common and even sleazier:

State Republicans have refused to disclose who inserted the language into the budget legislation, which was approved late Thursday evening. Before dropping the provisions entirely, the governor’s office said Friday it was considering changes to the proposals concerning public records law, but would not comment as to whether Walker was involved in the proposals in the first place.

Here’s my proposal for transparency in legislating: every change in every law has to be attributed to someone. There’s no virgin birth here. Someone wrote this language. Someone asked that it be inserted. Someone agreed to insert it. You have to be pretty contemptuous of your constituents to clam up and pretend that no one knows where it came from.

This kind of puerile buck-passing is way too common, and it needs to stop. Maybe if they knew their name was going to be attached, legislators would think twice before inserting egregiously self-serving crap like this.

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Today’s Proposal In Legislative Transparency: You Amend It, You Own It

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