Year: 2012

FREE CREDIT MONITORING

Stephen Willey:  “What do you think about this review of creditkarma.com?”

☞  I just spent 10 minutes signing up and playing with it. Completely free. Terrific. Thanks!

ROLLING STONE INTERVIEWS BARACK OBAMA

So much here to like.  For example:

What’s your relationship with the GOP leadership at this point? A little frosty?
It’s not frosty. This isn’t personal. When John Boehner and I sit down, I enjoy a conversation with him. I don’t think he’s a bad person. I think he’s patriotic. I think that the Republicans up on the Hill care about this country, but they have a very ideologically rigid view of how to move this country forward, and a lot of how they approach issues is defined by “Will this help us defeat the president?” as opposed to “Will this move the country forward?”

Is there any way to break through that obstructionism by Republicans?
My hope is that if the American people send a message to them that’s consistent with the fact that Congress is polling at 13 percent right now, and they suffer some losses in this next election, that there’s going to be some self-reflection going on – that it might break the fever. They might say to themselves, “You know what, we’ve lost our way here. We need to refocus on trying to get things done for the American people.”

Frankly, I know that there are good, decent Republicans on Capitol Hill who, in a different environment, would welcome the capacity to work with me. But right now, in an atmosphere in which folks like Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist are defining what it means to be a true conservative, they are lying low. My hope is that after this next election, they’ll feel a little more liberated to go out and say, “Let’s redirect the Republican Party back to those traditions in which a Dwight Eisenhower can build an interstate highway system.”

And this:

In regard to Wall Street . . . why is nobody on trial?
First of all, we’re a nation of laws. So in some cases, really irresponsible practices that hurt a lot of people might not have been technically against the law. They might have been the wrong thing to do, but prosecutors are required to actually build cases based on what the law is. That’s part of the reason we’ve passed Wall Street reform: to make much clearer what is prohibited and what is not, to set up rules and regulations that say, “You can’t do this, and if you do do it, there are going to be consequences.”

Now, that isn’t to say that there may not be more wrongdoing out there. One of the things people have not been clear about, for example, is this recent housing settlement. It was based on banks violating civil laws with those auto-penning of foreclosures, and it was narrowly drawn so that banks have to put up billions of dollars to help families who have been affected, but it still leaves in place the possibility of prosecution. It doesn’t provide any criminal immunity whatsoever. We’ve set up a task force not just with the federal government, but with state attorney generals, that as we speak are actively going through all the records, issuing subpoenas. They will, on the basis of law, make determinations as to whether there are prosecutions out there.

So you think there’s still a possibility of criminal prosecution.
I think there’s still possibilities of criminal prosecutions. But what I’ve instructed the attorney general to do is to follow the evidence and follow the law. That’s how our system works.

What is very relevant, I think, is that you have a Republican Congress, and Republican candidates for president, who have actively stated that they want to roll back the financial regulations that have been put in place. They want to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is one more example of how they have drifted off of what had traditionally been bipartisan ideas. The notion that we would roll back an agency whose sole purpose is to make sure that consumers of financial products aren’t defrauded, aren’t tricked, aren’t duped, and that will somehow make our economy stronger – after everything we’ve been through, that makes absolutely no sense.

There’s so much more.   I think you’ll be interested.  Have a great weekend.
 

Andy Frank: “Paul Ryan is speaking at Georgetown University this week and some professors wrote him a letter taking him to task on his budget and his interpretation of Catholic social teaching.”

☞ It’s worth noting that this is the budget Governor Romney has endorsed.  In part, the professors write:

… [W]e would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has wisely noted in several letters to Congress – “a just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons.” Catholic bishops recently wrote that “the House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.”

In short, your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love. …

May I just add that you don’t have to believe Jesus was divine to embrace his moral teachings.
 

SCIENCE AS A PERSONAL CHOICE

Here is Stephen Colbert interviewing the (very nice) creationist dentist who may be dictating the content of your children’s textbooks.  Laugh, cry — your call.

WE HAVE HOT WATER!

Pete Roehrig:  “This video of one of my favorite comedians, Louis  CK, reminded me of your Friday post. People do take modern conveniences for granted. If you’ve never seen it I’m certain you’ll get a good laugh out of it. And if you don’t watch his show – you should. It’s a riot!”

☞ Truly:  Do not miss this one.

WHEELTUG HAS A NEW AIRLINE!

Alitalia joins El Al, Jet Airways, and Israir as a Wheeltug customer.  This is apparently the second “flag carrier” Borealis has been alluding to in its investor emails — namely, the national airlines of Israel and Italy.

There is still a lot of risk.  But at least we know airlines want this thing is if it works; and that four airlines must think there is a reasonable possibility that it may.  Read it here if Italian is your first language; Google “Alitalia Wheeltug” if it’s not — at some point it should make it into English.

With the parent company currently valued at $20 million, I continue to think this is a pretty great lottery ticket: 50% chance you lose all your money, 50% chance you make (say) a 25-fold profit.  Maybe the chance of total loss is a lot higher than 50%, as my hateful friend “J” insists.  (You know who you are, you evil Spaniard.)  But by the same token, one could make the case that if it does work, all airlines will adopt it, and maybe a car company or two, and this could be a very big business indeed.  It’s been fun to think about, anyway.

Important to stress: even if it really is that good a lottery ticket, there is still a very real chance we will lose all our money!

PARAPRODOKIANS

Peter Kaczowka:  “Joel Wesson’s paraprosdokian is derived from the beautiful classic poem by Jeffrey Ross of Friar Roast fame:

“I Miss Her Sometimes”
by Jeffrey Ross

I ran into my old girlfriend yesterday.
Then I backed up and ran into her again.
I miss her sometimes.

10 THINGS JIM RIGBY WISHES THE CHURCH KNEW ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY

Here.  The first: “If Jesus did not mention a subject, it cannot be essential to his teachings.”  (Jim Rigby, a Presbyterian Minister, was named “Texas Public Citizen of the Year” in 2007 by National Association of Social Workers.)

From Mitt Romney’s very first ad — the one where he showed President Obama saying that “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose” — there’s been something different here.  (What the ad did not reveal was that Obama was quoting his opponent’s campaign.  Like quoting a film critic saying, “ANYONE will enjoy this film” without the preceding four words: “There’s no conceivable way . . .”)

If you missed it, this post made the case that — uncomfortable as it is for me to say about a fellow Harvard Business School grad (or anyone, really) — and rising to a level significantly above that of normal political double-talk — Governor Romney is not reliably truthful.

Which brings us to:

Mitt Romney’s business plan: Lying

By RICHARD COHEN

Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 3:00 a.m.

Among the attributes I most envy in a public man (or woman) is the ability to lie. If that ability is coupled with no sense of humor, you have the sort of man who can be a successful football coach, a CEO or, when you come right down to it, a presidential candidate. Such a man is Mitt Romney.

Time and time again, Romney has been called a liar during this campaign. (The various fact-checking organizations have had to work overtime on him alone.) A significant moment, sure to surface in the general election campaign, came during a debate held in New Hampshire in January. David Gregory, the host of “Meet the Press,” turned to Newt Gingrich and said, “You have agreed with the characterization that Gov. Romney is a liar. Look at him now. Do you stand by that claim?”

Gingrich did not flinch. “Sure,” he started off, and then accused Romney of running ads that were not true and, moreover, pretending he knew nothing about them. “It is your millionaire friends giving to the PAC. And you know some of the ads aren’t true. Just say that straightforward.”

Me, I would have confessed and begged for forgiveness. Not Romney, though — and herein is the reason he will be such a formidable general election candidate. He concedes nothing. He had seen none of the ads, he said. They were done by others, he added. Of course, they are his supporters, but he had no control over them. All this time he was saying this rubbish, he seemed calm, sincere — matter of fact.

And then he brought up an ad he said he did see. It was about Gingrich’s heretical support for a climate change bill. He dropped the name of the extremely evil Nancy Pelosi. He accused Gingrich of criticizing Paul Ryan’s first budget plan, an Ayn Randish document whose great virtue is a terrible honesty. (We are indeed going broke.) He added that Gingrich had been in ethics trouble in the House and ended with a promise to make sure his ads were as truthful as could be. Pow! Pow! Pow! Gingrich was on the canvas.

I watched, impressed. I admire a smooth liar, and Romney is among the best. His technique is to explain — that bit about not knowing what was in the ads — and then counterattack. He maintains the bulletproof demeanor of a man who is barely suffering fools, in this case Gingrich. His message is not so much what he says, but what he is: You cannot touch me. I have the organization and the money. Especially the money. (Even the hair.) You’re a loser.
There are those who maintain that President Barack Obama, too, is a liar. The president’s recent attack on Ryan’s new budget proposal sent countless critics scurrying to their thesauruses for ways to say “lie” — “comprehensively misrepresenting” is the way George F. Will put it. (He also said Obama “is not nearly as well educated as many thought.”) Obama does indeed sometimes play politics with the truth, as when he declared that a Supreme Court reversal of his health care law would be unprecedented. He then backed down. Not what he meant, he said.

But where Romney is different is that he is not honest about himself. He could, as he did just recently, stand before the National Rifle Association as if he was, in spirit as well as membership, one of them. In body language, in blinking of the eyes, in the nonexistent pounding pulse, there was not the tiniest suggestion that here was a man who just as confidently once embodied the anti-gun ethic of Massachusetts, the distant land he once governed. Instead, he tore into Obama for the (nonexistent) threat the president posed to Second Amendment rights — a false accusation from a false champion.

A marathon of debates and an eon of campaigning have toughened and honed Romney. He commands the heights of great assurance and he knows, as some of us learn too late in life, that the truth is not always a moral obligation but sometimes merely what works. He often cites his business background as commending him for the presidency. That’s his forgivable absurdity. Instead, what his career has given him is the businessman’s concept of self — that what he does is not who he is. Business is business. It’s what you do. It is not who you are. Lying isn’t a sin. It’s a business plan.

Richard Cohen is a columnist for the Washington Post.

Which Martin Bashir, citing chapter and verse, argues could be a problem for an elder of the Mormon Church.

And which is also the premise of Paul Krugman’s as-always spot-on post:

The Amnesia Candidate
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 22, 2012

Just how stupid does Mitt Romney think we are? If you’ve been following his campaign from the beginning, that’s a question you have probably asked many times.

But the question was raised with particular force last week, when Mr. Romney tried to make a closed drywall factory in Ohio a symbol of the Obama administration’s economic failure. It was a symbol, all right — but not in the way he intended.

First of all, many reporters quickly noted a point that Mr. Romney somehow failed to mention: George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, was president when the factory in question was closed. Does the Romney campaign expect Americans to blame President Obama for his predecessor’s policy failure?

Yes, it does. Mr. Romney constantly talks about job losses under Mr. Obama. Yet all of the net job loss took place in the first few months of 2009, that is, before any of the new administration’s policies had time to take effect. So the Ohio speech was a perfect illustration of the way the Romney campaign is banking on amnesia [continued …]

NABI

Guru:  “The biota press release says they were looking to raise $50-$55 million in the least dilutive way possible.  There are 44.44 million fully diluted shares at Nabi.  $30/44.44 = 0.67/share in cash.  Then you get 26% of the new company.  If you assume that Biota is worth no more than it was before the transaction, then you get 26% of $180 million/44.44 = $1.05/share in newco, so the total is worth $1.72.  A takeunder.  On the other hand, according to the Biota presentation, they are paying a 19% premium to the $54 million in cash they are getting, or 1.446/share for Nabi, in which case the deal is worth 1.446 + 0.67 = 2.116, or a slight increase over my estimate of the cash in the bank at Nabi as of the end of March 2012. . . .  Biota gets royalties from a flu drug licensed to Glaxo.  Varies with whether there is a worldwide pandemic.  They have a second generation product in development that is longer lasting, could be useful for prevention.  They have also completed successful Phase II trials for a rhinovirus (common cold) drug, partnered with Astra Zeneca (AZN).  Phase III should start this year. . . .  Does this pipeline excite me?  Not really.  I did expect NABI would pull off some kind of merger like this, but had no idea which one.  I’m afraid NABI can be put into the pile of TTNP, FCSC and a number of others that would have been best avoided.”

Here’s a puzzle:  If the English muffins in your freezer say “sell by Sep 06,” does that mean September, 2006?  Or September 6th?  I assume the latter — but September 6 what year?

Well, no matter; they were excellent.

THE CASE AGAINST LEHMAN BROS . . .

. . . is also a case against the S.E.C.  As reported here on last night’s “60 Minutes.”

JAMES B. STEWART ON HIS TAX RATE

Guess what: the current system stinks, and is geared to disadvantage Democrats (because they tend to live in high-tax states, and the deduction they take as a result triggers the Alternative Minimum Tax). Here.

OKEY PARAPROSDOKIANS

Mike Martin:  “Not to be picky, but the list of ‘182 Paraprosdokians’ you linked to last Thursday actually has only 84. It was an interesting MS Excel exercise to find the duplicates, some of which had minor variations, such as a comma.  One my wife likes — not on their list but should be — Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you are rid of him for the whole weekend!”

Joel Wesson:  “The 182 paraprosdokians  includes a lot of repeats yet does not include: I miss my wife,  but my aim is improving.”

Rob Meeker: “They should add my favorite: A little hard work never killed anyone, but why take the chance?”

PACS AND SUPERPACS

Mike Hagerty:  “I am a big Obama supporter, but — contrary to what you said Thursday — I thought he HAD decided to take PAC money, no? Here’s a (sarcastic) suggestion: Perhaps we should just do away with voting.  We could allow candidates to raise as much money as they want (from whatever source they want) and at the end of some time period, the candidate with the most money wins…  Seems like that’s where we’re headed.”

☞ Seems that way.  But on the PAC point, I’m sorry I was not more clear.  You’re thinking of the “superpacs” to which the Supreme Court, in its dreadful 5-4 Citizens United decision, granted free rein.  On those, the President has reluctantly concluded too much is at stake to fight with one hand tied behind our side’s back.  I was talking about federally regulated Political Action Committees (and some 10,000+ federal lobbyists), from which neither the DNC nor the Obama campaign takes any contributions even though it legally could (and even though the RNC does).  That hasn’t changed.  But to simply hand the Koch brothers and a few other billionaires our government?  It may happen anyway (their billionaires are more enthusiastic about superpacs than our billionaires, and there are more of them); but I sure hope not.

You will recall that in his 2010 State of the Union . . .

With the Supreme Court Justices sitting right in front of him, President Barack Obama unloaded . . . on this past week’s ruling qualifying corporations as having the rights of citizens and opening the “floodgates” to their political donations.

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

There was some strong applause from members of Congress — with both sides of the chamber rising to their feet with applause. The Justices — all there except Scalia and Thomas — sat in silence (as is their custom), but at the beginning of the exchange, Justice Alito can be seen shaking his head and mouthing words that seem to resemble “not true.”

— from the Huffington Post

NABI [updated]

So it looks as though we will be getting 67 cents a share in cash plus a modest stake in a new, combined enterprise.  (When I first posted this, I thought the cash was $1.25; sorry.)  Clearly not what we had originally hoped, but better than a total loss.  Guru’s analysis tomorrow.

Tomorrow:  “Lying Isn’t a Sin, It’s a Business Plan.”

I was e-mailing my friend Peace to let her know that someone she had introduced me to had just given $10,000 to Obama Victory Fund 2012.  “Lewis came through!” was my subject line.

Peace wrote back, “Lewis just called me from England!  Said he felt the $ was the right thing to do.”

What I found myself loving almost as much as the money Lewis had given was the exclamation mark Peace had used.  “Lewis just called me from England!”

Speaking as someone who still gets a thrill from almost any airplane ride — I just flew to Chicago! — I embrace that exclamation mark.  Can you imagine?  Calling from England!

I know such calls are now completely routine and essentially free — even if they’re to China! — even if they’re video calls! — but don’t you see?  That just makes them even MORE miraculous.

What today’s kids may not fully grasp, and what some of my contemporaries may occasionally forget, is that the stuff we take for granted has only been around for, basically, five minutes.  I mean, can you imagine that other Lewis, with his pal Clark, trekking across the wilderness from St. Louis to the Pacific not even 10 generations ago, learning that you could do the trip now in complete safety and comfort in a few hours for under $200?  (Which was about $15 in 1805.)  Go out for dinner and be back the next day?

When my late partner Charles was annoyed at some inconvenience — and it was his nature to be annoyed quite regularly — I hit upon the shorthand of smiling, wide-eyed, with raised brows and outstretched palms, and reminding him — gently — “Sweetness!  We have hot water!  Think of it!  As much as we want!!  Whenever we want it!!!”

You might think this would only have annoyed Charles more — I would have thought so, too — and I suppose sometimes it did.  But generally, for reasons still unclear to me, it actually worked.

Which is why I have been saving this bit of treacle to share with you that has been ricocheting around the Internet.  It may just annoy you.  I don’t care.

Lisa Beamer on Good Morning America – If you remember, she’s the wife of Todd Beamer who said ‘Let’s Roll!’ and helped take down the plane over Pennsylvania that was heading for Washington , DC back on 9/11.

She said it’s the little things that she misses most about Todd, such as hearing the garage door open as he came home, and her children running to meet him.

Lisa recalled this story:

“I had a very special teacher in high school many years ago whose husband died suddenly of a heart attack.  About a week after his death, she shared some of her insight with a classroom of students. As the late afternoon sunlight came streaming in through the classroom windows and the class was nearly over, she moved a few things aside on the edge of her desk and sat down there.

With a gentle look of reflection on her face, she paused and said, ‘ Class is over, I would like to share with all of you, a thought that is unrelated to class, but which I feel is very important. Each of us is put here on earth to learn, share, love, appreciate and give of ourselves. None of us knows when this fantastic experience will end.

It can be taken away at any moment.

Perhaps this is the power’s way of telling us that we must make the most out of every single day. Her eyes, beginning to water, she went on, ‘So I would like you all to make me a promise. From now on, on your way to school, or on your way home, find something beautiful to notice.

It doesn’t have to be something you see, it could be a scent, perhaps of freshly baked bread wafting out of someone’s house, or it could be the sound of the breeze slightly rustling the leaves in the trees, or the way the morning light catches one autumn leaf as it falls gently to the ground. Please look for these things, and cherish them. For, although it may sound trite to some, these things are the “stuff” of life.

The little things we are put here on earth to enjoy.

The things we often take for granted.

The class was completely quiet. We all picked up our books and filed out of the room silently. That afternoon, I noticed more things on my way home from school than I had that whole semester. Every once in a while, I think of that teacher and remember what an impression she made on all of us, and I try to appreciate all of those things that sometimes we all overlook.

Take notice of something special you see on your lunch hour today. Go barefoot. Or walk on the beach at sunset.

Stop off on the way home tonight to get a double dip ice cream cone. For as we get older, it is not the things we did that we often regret, but the things we didn’t do.

If you like this, please pass it on to a friend, if not just delete it and go on with your life!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

I know: “Gag me with a spoon.”  And yet . . .

Have a great weekend.

THE GOOD  NEWS: TOBACCO

Ralph Sierra: “TOBACCO COMPANIES MUST LIST CHEMICALS, FDA SAYS – this little noticed story in the Washington Post recently  shows our county’s good fortune in electing Obama. There was a time when tobacco companies were up there with the NRA in striking fear in the hearts of our congresspeople. No way would McCain/Palin have allowed the FDA to require tobacco companies to list the poisons that are used to ‘enhance’ the taste of cigarettes.”

THE BAD NEWS: SMART LAWYERS, WEAK REGULATORS

Whereas this story — HOW TO KEEP HEALTHCARE COSTS HIGH IN ONE EASY LESSON — shows you what we’re up against.  As an investor in speculative drug stocks, I want to preserve incentives.  But it feels as though the balance has swung too far. In this case, Abbott Labs lawyers have figured out a way to hit us up for an extra $700 million a year on just one drug I had never even heard of.

A PARTY ON OUR SIDE

Democrats are for empowering people to vote (“motor voter” laws and the like) and limiting the influence of corporations. Republicans are for limiting the ability of people to vote (shortening early-voting windows, passing laws to discourage voter registration, making it harder for poor people and young people to vote) and expanding the influence of corporations.

Right now, it’s entirely legal for the DNC to take contributions from federal lobbyists and PACs.  Yet for more than 4 years, at the President’s direction, it has not.  The RNC does.   The Obama  campaign never has; the McCain campaign did and I assume the Romney campaign will.  Last I checked, there were more than 10,000 federal lobbyists and PACs, and they love giving money.  We don’t take it; the other team does.  This is not chump change: at $5,000 each, say, that’s $50 million a year.

And that’s just one of the steps the President has taken to weaken the influence of special interests.

Others:

·         President Obama is the first in history to publicly disclose White House visitors.

·         His administration bars anyone who has been a registered federal lobbyist in the past two years from presidential appointments.

·         Donating to the campaign neither provides access nor precludes it. Thousands of people who don’t contribute to the campaign visit the White House every week.

By contrast, Governor Romney does not disclose his bundlers (and only discloses bundlers who are federal lobbyists because it’s required by a law the President helped pass).  He holds fundraisers with lobbyists who are assigned to develop specific policies for him.

Had Al Gore gotten to appoint Supreme Court Justices instead of George W. Bush, we would not have had the 5-4 Citizens United ruling — basically, a Republican “corporations are people” ruling — under which corporations and billionaires can have outsize influence on elections and intimidate specific Congress people into doing their bidding with the mere threat of a $10 million attack against them in their next election.

PARAPROSDOKIANS…

You’ll find 182 of them here — pithy statements with unexpected endings.  Like some of these circling the Internet:

1.  Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.

2.  The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on my  list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some  people appear bright  until  you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be  wrong.

5. War does not determine who is right – only  who is left.

6. Buses stop  in bus stations.   Trains stop in  train  stations.   On my desk is a work station.

150 WATT-EQUIVALENT

Anna Marasco: “Lightbulb guy should talk to some of us who do needlework of various sorts. I use this lamp with this bulb.”

☞ Love it.  Ordered one.  Just 27 watts.

Tim Bonham: “Just a few hours before reading this, I was picking up some plumbing supplies at Menards Building Supplies and saw a big floor display of 3-way CFL bulbs on sale for $4.99 each.  They are 20/30/50 watt, about equal to incandescent 75/100/200 watt, pretty similar to (just slightly less bright than) that lamp he has.  So what he wants is still available, but costing him less electricity to run — despite you and your meddlesome nanny-state ilk.”

Mike Utt:  “Hurrah for market forces!  Peter Kaczowka said it very well here yesterday: ‘We need to use market forces to save the environment. Don’t tell people how to save electricity; raise the price and use that money to fund alternative energy via ‘feed-in tariffs.’ Don’t ban SUVs; raise gas taxes. Implement a carbon tax or ‘cap and trade.’ Factor the true cost to the economy into energy prices and the market will do the rest.’  It may be very difficult politically, but what we need to do is raise the price of energy to make the alternatives more attractive, and more importantly to make all of us conserve. Ramping up to a $2/gallon tax on gasoline and diesel would do a lot.”

☞ Yep.  And ideally, we should do it 35 years ago.

As I’ve written here before (under the broader heading, “Tall Politicians”):

. . . I’m angry that the Secretary of the Treasury in 1974, in the wake of OPEC, looked me in the eye and told me that, yes, ‘everybody knows’ we should be phasing in an annual hike in gasoline taxes (using that revenue to lower income taxes) – a policy that by now would have made all the difference in the world – but that we couldn’t do it because, he said, any talk of raising taxes would be political suicide. (Imagine: at 10 cents a gallon added each of the last 35 years, gasoline would now cost here about half what it does in Europe; yet in the meantime we would have cut our income tax rates to reward work and investment even as we would have dramatically increased our fuel efficiency . . . which in turn would have reduced our dependence on foreign oil, reduced our balance of trade deficit, strengthened the dollar, made our families more prosperous, our environment less burdened, our auto industry thrive. . . .

MEL GIBSON REPLIES

Richard Bliss:  “Mel Gibson may be worse than we imagine but Joe Eszterhas is a notoriously dishonest publicity hound.  And Gibson’s reply doesn’t sound so far fetched, at least to me.”

LOOK WHO’S MOOCHING OFF THE GOVERNMENT

From the New York Times, in part, if you missed it at the time:

Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and ROBERT GEBELOFF

Published: February 11, 2012

LINDSTROM, Minn. — Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government.

He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman.

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice. . . .

It’s a long and balanced piece, paying appropriate respect to the interview subjects and the difficulties they face.  Most of them don’t think the government should provide so much in benefits, yet can’t see how to get by with less.  On a personal level, it animates the macro-economic debate the country is having.  Raise taxes?  Cut benefits?  Whose?  How?

YOUR TAX RATE VERSUS MITT’S

Here.

THE LIGHT BULB GUY

The first thing I should probably say is that if you think the “light bulb guy” from yesterday was a bit rude, wait til you read the item about Mel Gibson, below.

The second thing I should probably say is that after I wrote yesterday’s post, he sent a sheepish reply.  I’m not sure I moved him at all on climate change, but I was right: he’s a nice guy with a good sense of humor.

In the meantime, though, you had some thoughts of your own:

Larry Taylor:  “He is not a nice guy, he is uninformed and hostile. Bush signed the anti-bulb legislation.”

Joel Grow: “While I disagree with everything Disgruntled said, and in no way ascribe to his final statement, I DO admire its elegant, forceful simplicity.”

☞ Exactly.

Beth: “Really? Disgruntled made you laugh?  Well, I suppose you can’t be too mad at someone who bought your book.  But I look at his screed as just one more piece of evidence that the US is hopelessly divided. Seriously, isn’t it time for the US to split up?”

☞ I think we tried that once.

Peter Kaczowka: “‘Disgruntled’ has a point.  We need to use market forces to save the environment. Don’t tell people how to save electricity; raise the price and use that money to fund alternative energy via ‘feed-in tariffs.’ Don’t ban SUVs; raise gas taxes. Implement a carbon tax or ‘cap and trade.’ Factor the true cost to the economy into energy prices and the market will do the rest.”

John Leeds:  “The guy with the ‘fuck you’ letter? I think he’s scared – as are the masses – and is going to be soothed by the person or party who tells him what soothes him. Like many of us, he wants the train-wreck we’re heading for to magically go away.   True train wreck story: a guy I knew was from a railroad family, and so through nepotism got a job working on a freight train. All the old-timers on the train figured he must know the ropes because he came from a railroad family. So they left him in the engine at the controls and went off and did other things. At one point, several miles before the station, the engineer burst into the car and screamed, ‘Why didn’t you put the brakes on? We’re going to wreck!’ My guy had no idea what was going on. ‘But we have a few miles before we get to the station,’ he said. The engineer was stunned. ‘Don’t you know it takes miles for a freight train to stop?’ And that was that. The train wrecked. No loss of life, I’m guessing because they had time to radio in to the station, and I believe they all jumped off the train at a certain point, once the brakes were locked. And that ended his career in trains. … See – so much of what is happening in environmental and fiscal policy is like the train – you have to stop things at a point that seems counterintuitive to the uninformed. I personally believe we’ve gone past the stopping point environmentally, although I hope I’m wrong. But few want to slow the train when everything seems fine to them.  [Change light bulbs? Never!] … Another tidbit to ponder – traditional cultures (paleothic, pastoral, rural Afghanistan, middle America) don’t like change. Humans are wired against it – in former times, when technology didn’t overwhelm the planet, humans were best off having a culture that was technologically in tune with the environment. Groups that were in tune and made changes only after great deliberation by the elders (who had the most life experience and memories and thus knowledge to draw from) survived the best. Also – if disagreements arose, a band of people would simply move away from the others and that was that – there was enough room then to do this. [Why God invented Canada.] …  So – now we live in a time of rapidly changing technology that operates on a scale that can change planetary systems – but we are brain-built to want to live in a present that is in continuity with our past; and built to believe we can simply move out if we don’t like it. [Isn’t that why God invented Canada?] … Last point – as a former middle school science teacher (now a remedial teacher) – I’ve always been struck by how much of science we have to take on faith. Faith that the books are true, that scientists are truthful. Too much intangibility. You can’t see a proton. There are fuzzy pictures of atoms, true – but you’ll never hold one atom in your hand and examine it yourself. And quantum mechanics? The space-time continuum? Or the traditional favorite, evolution. To truly see there’s overwhelming evidence, you either say, yeah, it makes sense, and the experts who study it wouldn’t lie; or you’d have to read through a huge body of evidence.  I once met an (electrical?) engineer, a man of science, who was a fundamentalist Christian. He indicated to me that he believed that the systems used for dating (carbon dating won’t take you very far back) are basically an imaginary science not based on hard evidence – and in the end, how was I to change his mind? So – a guy who uses certain principles of abstract science in his job, feels free to dismiss other principles he doesn’t have to use and conflict with his need to believe the earth is about 6000 years old. …  So – I believe that it will take a train wreck, and perhaps not even that, for the masses to wake up.”

MEL GIBSON: EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THOUGHT

Here.

NEED MORE TIME TO FILE YOUR TAXES?

Form 4868.

FIRST QUARTERLY ESTIMATED TAX DUE

Form 1040ES, if you’ve had appreciable income in 2012 (like capital gains or freelance fees) on which tax was not withheld.

TOUCHY, TOUCHY

What are we to make of an email like this?

Hi Andrew –

I’ve been reading your books and columns faithfully for the last 30-some years. I used to buy copies of The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need for both myself and friends, although I stopped doing that lately since it’s equivalent to making a donation to the DNC now.

I’m writing today because I was trying to assemble a model in my home office and needed more light. I reached over to bump up the three-way lamp to its 250W setting, and remembered, it’s not there anymore. And won’t ever be again thanks to you and your meddlesome nanny-state ilk, who think nothing of substituting your own judgement for mine, with the force of law behind it.

I’ll be buying a second lamp for that room now (how much energy goes into production of a lamp anyway?), and a 150W bulb for it, with lots of backup bulbs. And I won’t be nearly as careful as I used to be about shutting it off when I leave the room. And I’ll be a lot less concerned about putting my thermostat at a comfortable setting as well.

Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.

Disgruntled

I replied:

Thanks. Here’s a simple cheap source for the bulbs you want.  Let me know if you need more help.

I thought of adding: “But as to your larger point (and leaving aside that none of my book royalty would go to the DNC, I’m already federally maxed): you are not the only one on the planet.  For all 7 billion of us to make a go of it, headed for 9 billion, up from 2.5 billion when I was born — and for the generations that may follow — we may need to make some slight accommodations.  Just as you blame me for the inconvenience of someday having to switch light bulbs, so someone else might blame you for, say, their family being killed in one of the increasingly frequent and violent tornadoes meteorologists believe our impact on the environment may be causing.”

And so on.

My guess is that he’s probably a nice guy with a good sense of humor — he did make me laugh — and that eventually he may come around.  But in the meantime, do you see what we’re up against?  If the Republicans tell him that climate change is a hoax and tax cuts are the way to balance the budget — that the sacrifice he is called upon to make is to go shopping — well, he’s primed to buy that message.  If the Republicans tell him that people shouldn’t be allowed to freeload off the current health insurance system — if they can afford it, they need to chip something in (a Republican idea called “the individual mandate”), he’ll say, “HELL yes.”  But once the Democrats adopt the idea and the Republicans tell him it threatens his “last shred of freedom,” he’ll say, “HELL no.”

A REPUBLICAN METEOROLOGIST

Paul Douglas writes, in small part:

Acknowledging Climate Change Doesn’t Make You A Liberal

… The root of the word conservative is “conserve.”  A staunch Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, set aside vast swaths of America for our National Parks System, the envy of the world. Another Republican, Richard Nixon, launched the EPA. Now some in my party believe the EPA and all those silly “global warming alarmists” are going to get in the way of drilling and mining our way to prosperity. Well, we have good reason to be alarmed. …

… My climate epiphany wasn’t overnight, and it had nothing to do with Al Gore. In the mid-90s I noticed gradual changes in the weather patterns floating over Minnesota. Curious, I began investigating climate science, and, over time, began to see the thumbprint of climate change, along with 97% of published, peer-reviewed PhD’s, who link a 40% spike in greenhouse gases with a warmer, stormier atmosphere.

Bill O’Reilly, whom I respect, talks of a “no-spin zone.” Yet today there’s a very concerted, well-funded effort to spin climate science. Some companies, institutes and think tanks are cherry-picking data, planting dubious seeds of doubt, arming professional deniers, scientists-for-hire and skeptical bloggers with the ammunition necessary to keep climate confusion alive. It’s the “you can’t prove smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer!” argument, times 100, with many of the same players. Amazing.

Schopenhauer said “All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally it is accepted as self-evident.” We are now well into Stage 2. It’s getting bloody out there. Climate scientists are receiving death threats and many Americans don’t know what to believe. Some turn to talk radio or denial-blogs for their climate information. No wonder they’re confused. …