Atrios Explains It All....

Risk Aversion Theory and how a decent program offering government-backed universal health care is the key to helping all our dreams come true:

"Risk Aversion" is about people preferring certainty to risk. You'll take a smaller lower return if it's certain over a somewhat higher average expected return if there's a bit of a gamble involved. Basically, you'd prefer an investment providing a certain return of 3% over one with a 50% chance of 2% and a 50% chance of 4%. And we're not just talking about casino gambling or the stock market, we're talking about basic life choices. You can take that salaried job with health insurance, assuming such things exist anymore, or you can try to start a business, gambling that it will succeed reasonably well and you won't get cancer before you can afford the unaffordable health insurance. If our safety net had a fewer holes, and perhaps more importantly, if we didn't have to worry about health insurance, we could all spend our 20s trying to make it as rock stars, like everyone in Canada does. It isn't risk aversion that's the problem, it's risk. It's the fact that if you take the risky route, there's a non-trivial probability that you are well and truly fucked forever.

"The Era of Dumb Compromises is Over"

Another installment of What Atrios Sez:

For the past couple of decades we've all (by "we" I man all the Very Serious People in the chattering classes) bought into the fantasy that all we need to do is pursue Conservative Means to achieve Liberal Ends and everything will be awesome. First of all, those conservative means usually don't work (I won't say never, but that discussion is too great for the margin of this blog post). But more importantly, the point of such "compromises" was to actually pass some legislation that might achieve stuff, and was premised on the idea that there were people in both political parties who want to make life better for poor people by improving educational opportunities a bit and maybe help a few more people get decent health insurance. Whether those people in the Republican party ever really existed or if they just mugged for the cameras...I don't know, but they don't exist anymore. Right now we have one political party that is very up front about and proud of their desire to mug everyone in the non-millionaire club, steal all their money, and give it to rich people. It's time for the other political party to recognize that the era of dumb compromises is over, and if they'd actually come up with a way to help people, instead of a plan to set up a program to provide the incentivss to blahblahblahblahblahblah....

Pithy Quotes on the State of Things

What Atrios Sez:

Shit is still fucked up and bullshit.

Blogger Apathy

You may have noticed a decided lack of recent posting. I blame this dearth of interest on two people in particular: Anthony Weiner and John Edwards. I backed both of these men. They inspired me, at one time. Turns out they are both complete douchebags. They each suck in their own way. So I'm taking a break from this bullshit.

On a lighter note, I organized a counter-protest outside Planned Parenthood today and totally jacked up the haters' plans. Completely successful culture jamming, if I do say so myself. I'll tell you the whole story one day soon. In the meantime, if you can manage it...stay faithful to your man or woman, keep your fucking junk in your pants and flip the finger to any Bible-thumpin' anti-choice protesters you might encounter giving people shit on the sidewalk. They deserve it for letting Gawd convince them to exacerbate other peoples' misery.

Thank you.

Same As It...Ever Was

Duncan Black:

It's quite fascinating pundits still haven't figured out that the tea partiers are still the same racist authoritarian pro-big-business social conservative desperately afraid that the "wrong" people might be getting some of their tax money lunatics that have always been with us.

Drinking Liberally

Did you know my all-time favorite blogger lives in the "urban hellhole" known as Philadelphia, PA? Someday soon -- perhaps this summer -- I plan to meet him here one Tuesday night and buy him a beer. If my pal Joe W. ever gets into Center City on a Tuesday evening before me, I hope he'll head down to Jose Pistola's at 15th and Spruce to buy him a cold one and say it's from me.

TPM on Colbert

If the Hornet were ever to appear on The Colbert Report, this is just about exactly how it would go...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Joshua Micah Marshall
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Just So We Remember
Cheney and the gang tortured the shit out of people to get false information for an excuse to invade a country in a war which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people including over 4000 US troops.

--Atrios

The Global Village

Interesting blog traffic report...must've got a link overseas somehow:

What Atrios Sez

"...one day I hope this country grows up and recognizes that the fear that maybe someone is getting something I'm not and they don't deserve shouldn't be the primary philosophy of governance."

Regrets, I've Had a Few

Now there's something you can do about those late-night drunken emails you never shoulda sent....

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?

[h/t Baughb]

Crosstown Traffic

Traffic is booming today! As my pal BOD would say, "Thanks for listening." Leave a comment and tell a friend! I'm looking at you SBVOR.

Big Time

Looks like this little blog has a troll. Heh. Biggest has my back though.

Bloggerheads

Blogger appears to be in full meltdown. Time stamps, posting dates, all screwed up.

Now is No Time to Panic

Atrios sez.

A common question I've been getting from friends lately is, "Are you panicking yet?" The answer is no, I've never been panicking. I've long thought this will be a close election, that Obama will win by taking Kerry states and a couple more.

Sounds reasonable.

Paco Camino

I gotta give a shout out to Paco Camino. A classic blog dedicated to everything 1970s. From Charlie's Angels to Lancelot Link and the 20 Minute Workout; from Tareyton cigarettes to Aqua Velva and the Schlitz malt liquor bull, Paco Camino has the '70s covered. Those were definitely strange times in pop culture.


A taste:

Nicknamed the Cobra, he’s a badass batsman standing tall in an unbelievably cramped pro locker room. The first million dollar contract hitter, this 2-time National League Batting Champion, 3-time Golden Glove Winner and 7-time All-Star once knocked the cover off a baseball. That’s why no one says shit if he wears one shoe and accessorizes with wristbands and a cowboy hat. The catalyst of the 1979 World Series, this Paco Camino Man inspired Willie Stargell, unheralded Phil Garner and reliever Kent Tekulve (and his weird sidearm pitching) to deliver three clutch cargo saves and battle back from the brink of elimination against the Baltimore Orioles. We Are Family indeed.

What I am is a slacktivist.

Classic Blogger Flame War

I found a pretty classic blogger flame war going on at Matthew Yglesias' blog at Atlantic Monthly. I won't bore you with the minutiae (you can read it if you'd like here), but here are a couple items from the comments section that caught my eye:




Post:

I dunno, Thomas, I actually was writing in 2000 that I expected Bush to be a terrible President, a yet I still voted for him twice, and might do so again if the alternative was still Gore or Kerrey, although I'm less certain with regard to Gore; if he hadn't put forth a detailed 200 page economic manifesto, I may have followed my inclination to do nothing in support of George W. Bush, and in 2000 I voted in a state which was pretty close.


How awful has Bush been? Well, domestically, every bit as bad as I expected. Internationally? Tell me what the Persian Gulf looks like in 15 years, and I'll make my judgement. To those that say things could not be any worse than what George W. Bush is likely to produce, well, you simply have very limited imaginations. If that makes me a purveyer of cynical bullshit to you, again, you need to recharge your imagination, and you really need to re-evaluate the pros and cons of cynicism.

Posted by Will Allen | September 5, 2007 5:18 PM




Reply:

I think Congress needs to pass a law requiring every single person who says or writes something like that to have I AM A FUCKIN' IDIOT branded on their foreheads. 15 years from now the Persian Gulf might be a better place. 15 years from now we may be selling cigars to the folks from Alpha Centauri. 15 years from now I may be having sex with Hillary Duff. There is no way to know what's going to be 15 years from now and defending or excusing an action with the unknowable is magical thinking at its most infatile. Mike

Posted by MBunge | September 5, 2007 5:48 PM




Post:

Well, golly, mike, given you don't know what the Persian Gulf will look like in 15 years, you really can't comment with any degree of precision as to the wisdom of removing the Baathists by force from in Iraq, since the removal of the Baathists will have inevitably changed what the Persian Gulf looks like in 2020 or so. Bush has made plenty of errors, but they'll largely be forgotten if the Persian Gulf improves markedly in ther next 15 years, even though correlation doesn't prove causation.

Posted by Will Allen | September 5, 2007 6:01 PM





Reply:

I have absolutely no patience with or sympathy for people like yourself. The notion that, "Bush sucks but Gore/Kerry would have been worse", given Bush's track record, is so incredibly pathetic, asinine, intelligence-insulting, etc. that I can barely contain myself when I encounter it. On the scale of stupidest-fucking-things-I've-ever-heard, it is on a level with creationist idiocy.

In short, you are a fucking idiot if you think Gore or Kerry would have been worse than Bush.

Posted by r€nato | September 5, 2007 6:16 PM





Reply:

Gore would have been worse than Bush? Jesus fuckin' Christ I still can't get over that.

If you can't tell the difference between Gore and Bush, I'd like you to sample my special shit-stuffed cannoli. Most people stuff their cannoli with ricotta but I swear you won't be able to taste the difference.

Posted by r€nato | September 5, 2007 6:20 PM




And so it goes.

When are We Supposed to Say Enough is Enough?

In case you wanted more proof that Blogs are going mainstream, check out this exchange on Fox News Sunday, in which WATB Bill Kristol tries to paint the Daily Kos as some kind of whacko consortium (I thought that was O'Reilly's beat?) while Juan Williams sets him straight on where We The People are at politically:

WILLIAMS: What you described as left is now center. The majority of the American
people, 70 percent, want us out of Iraq. In fact, if you asked Iraqis, 60 some
percent of Iraqis say we’re doing more harm than good in Iraq. There’s a center
here and I think what you’re saying is they’re playing somehow to the left.








In fact, what has happened is that people are
frustrated and frustrated when you see this week that the administration has
already started spin control on the upcoming September report. Now all of a
sudden November is the new September. We’re supposed to wait until November to
hear. When you say her vote is wrong, wait a second, you said this two years
ago, you said this five years ago, you said it before 3600 people were dead. Oh,
this is the wrong vote. When are we supposed to say enough is enough in
terms of Iraq?

I don't know about you, but I've been saying it since 2002.








Meanwhile, while that talking heads blather on, we're at 3632, and counting.