Drinking Liberally in Cincinnati

Chess Move of the Day: the S&P Downgrade

2011-08-08T13:34:00.002-04:00

Two of the remarkable characteristics of the Standard and Poor's downgrade of the USA are its completely evidence-free nature and how thoroughly the markets have ignored it. First, S&P makes a two trilion dollar error in its "justification" of the downgrade. When they're called on it, they simply remove any objective evidence from their analysis with a big middle finger aimed right at the US government. Then, as the stock markets open today, the big run into US Government debt begins, lowering the interest rates on new US debt issues.

Why would S&P do this? Well, if you remember the Abu Dhabi/Kings County fraud case, S&P and Moody's argued that they were not, in fact, committing fraud when they rated dog shit as investment grade, but were actually engaging in free speech.

What better way to demonstrate that the ratings you peddle are as worthless as, let's say, a random blogger's angry post than to call out the institution which helped bail out your entire industry with a laughably unjustified and ineffective downgrade? No one's going to listen to you--and they haven't--and you'll get to use it as evidence of the free speech nature of your business in any ongoing litigation.

Fucking 11-dimensional chess players, these guys.

DL cancelled tonight, 01/11/11

2011-01-11T09:22:00.001-05:00

Due to the snow, we're cancellng Drinking Liberally tonight. See you next week at Fries!

Drinking Liberally District 2, 7:30PM Tuesday October 12 at Dutch's

2010-10-07T19:40:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been a few months since we lost Hyde Park Tavern, and we've had a pretty good summer of Progressives in the Park and Eating Liberally.

But now it's time to start thinking about a new home for Drinking Liberally, District 2. So, on Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 7:30PM, we'll be trying out a new location: Dutch's Bar and Bottle Shop in East Hyde Park.

Some of you may be familiar with the beer and wine store that Dutch's was and still is. In the past couple months, they purchased the building next store and added an intimate little bar with outdoor patio and bocce court.

In addition, they are dog-friendly (to friendly, well-behaved dogs, of course) and have a huge beer selection. For example, on the night I went there they had Unibroue Emphémère Apple on tap. Nice.

The one disadvantage of Dutch's it shares with Fries: they do not serve food. We'll be ordering out pizza from Hyde Park Pizzeria, which delivers right to Dutch's.

Dutch's is at 3378 Erie Avenue, right next to the Starbucks down from the corner of Marburg and Erie. The 69 bus stops right at Marburg and Erie, the 51 about three quarters of a mile away at Paxton and Erie and the 24 at Observatory and Shaw about one and a quarter miles away.

We hope to see you there!

German Pride Month - Oktoberfest Outrage!

2010-09-16T18:45:00.001-04:00

So it's that time of year again. All those people who choose to adopt the "German Lifestyle" come out of the woodwork and parade their "German-ness" around town. Personally, I don't have a problem with a person who chooses to be German, but do they have to have a festival to rub it in our faces? I mean, seriously, we don't get to have a non-german pride festival. Last time I looked, we live in America and we only welcome Americans here!

Germans must be degenerate anyway. First they can't spell "oKtober" properly; then they hold their October festival in September. German-ness is unsafe as well. Adopting the German Lifestyle often leads to alcoholism, heart disease, dancing like chickens, and the desire to commit genocide. Is this the type of people we want our children to see on the streets? Keep your German behavior where it belongs, in your beer halls and in the privacy of your own homes. We don't need to see it!

Honestly, no one really is born German anyway; it's a choice they make. After all god created Adam and Eve, not Helmut and Helga. They could just as easily choose to not be German and reject the love of sausages and wild drunken parties.

A Day with Kentucky's Senate Candidates

2010-09-03T15:04:00.001-04:00

On Thursday September 3rd, both candidates for US Senator from Kentucky visited Northern Kentucky. Rand Paul visited with members of the NKY Chamber of Commerce. Jack Conway attended a rally at the opening of the Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign office in Erlanger. I had an opportunity to attend both events and wanted to share my thoughts.

Disclaimer: Drinking Liberally as an organization does not support or endorse any candidate. The follow are my personal views on the two candidates.

Rand Paul Luncheon

My first visit with the candidates started with a luncheon for Rand Paul. The luncheon was organized by Legacy, the young professional organization which is part of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. The format for the forum was question and answer using pre-screened questions that were submitted by Legacy members. The questions were asked of Dr. Paul by Northern Kentucky Enquirer politics reporter Amanda Van Benschoten. Legacy had reserved seating for 80 persons but it appeared that a few tables had empty seats. The event was free for legacy members and $25 for the general public.

If after reading my post on the event, if you would like to hear more, I've recorded audio from the event. It's not the best quality recording but it's all there., all 38 mins of it.

When thinking about how best to write up a review of Rand Paul's discussion with Legacy, I thought the best way to present it would be using the old technique of the compliment sandwich.

Compliment 1: During one discussion of cutting spending, Rand Paul became one of the very view Republican candidates I've heard that admitted that military spending needed to be examined and reduced when looking at total spending.

The Critism: For the most part, Rand Paul did nothing to differentiate himself from other Republicans. For someone who is portrayed by his supporters as a Washington outsider that is going to step in and make major changes in Washington, he continued to make the same promises that Republican's have been making for the last 30 years. During the approximately 30 minutes of speaking he mentioned cutting taxes, smaller government, reducing spending, fighting for a balanced budget amendment, and term limits. While his website admits that other Republicans have been unable to do things such as balancing the budget while in power, he does not provide any plan of his own to do this.

I took special notice of how, during one part of his speech, he cited the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation as credible sources. I had my biggest "laff" when he cited the ideological thought experiment, the Laffer Curve as a source for his economic policy.

Again, in summary, same old Republican promises with the same old lack of a plan to deliver them.

Compliment 2: Ummmm, Dr. Paul had a nice dark jacket / khaki pant combo going on that looked professional yet comfortable.

Jack Conway Event

The Jack Conway event had an different format and a different focus. Attorney General Conway stopped by to rally supporters at the opening of the Kentucky Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign office in Erlanger. The event featured several speakers. First Julie Smith-Morrow, who is running for the State Senate seat in KY District 24, spoke about her campaign. In addition, US House of Representative candidate in the 4th district, John Waltz, spoke to the crowd about his campaign to defeat Geoff Davis in November.

Jack Conway took spoke after a brief introduction. His focus was on rallying the approximately 80 supporters and encouraging them to donate and sign up to volunteer for the campaign. Jack Conway's speech focused on addressing some of the many areas where he and Rand Paul do not agrees. Conway, as Attorney General, was especially animated when talking about Rand Paul's promise to cut funding for drug enforcement. In addition, Jack Conway poked a little fun at a couple of incidents where Rand Paul couldn't remember why Harlan Kentucky was famous and seemed to think the town of Hazzard Kentucky was famous for the Duke's of Hazzard.

While there was not a lot of information on the issues involved in the campaign provided to those in attendance, the event was an excellent rally that served it's purpose of motivating his supporters. While the conservative media in Cincinnati did not provide equal coverage of this event compared to the Rand Paul luncheon, it was clear that there were a large group of motivated individuals out who were ready to get to work on his campaign as well as the campaigns of John Waltz and Julie Smith-Morrow.

Fishy Business in Sustainable Seafood?

2010-09-02T08:51:00.002-04:00

An opinion piece in this week's Nature (subscription required) and an interview on the Nature Podcast (begins at 13:19 in the player below) detail possible problems at the Marine Stewardship Council, a London-based independent organization which gives seafood a "blue seal" of approval for sustainability. The problems include a preference for certifying large fisheries, which are more scientifically difficult to prove sustainable; the continuing use by "sustainable" fishing operations of bottom-trawlers, which have been demonstrated to devastate ecosystems; and the continuing use of adjudicators--those who mediate disputes over sustainability--who are not trained in biology (one of them was an oil and gas lawyer, like the ones who negotiate with our friends at the Minerals Management Service). Another, separate issue is whether it is proper to mark as "sustainable" fish caught to feed farmed fish, like the krill caught to feed farmed salmon.

The problems may stem from the tremendous demands of Wal-Mart, which announced a plan in 2006 to work with the MSC to make all seafood sold in its stores sustainable.

The opinion piece proposes reforms to make the MSC use more biological science in making decisions, reduce non-scientific bureaucracy, decertify operations which use bottom trawlers, and focus on certifying less-scientifically-controversial, smaller fisheries.

Special Guests at Drinking Liberally in Covington

2010-08-03T09:14:00.004-04:00

Last night, Drinking Liberally Northern Kentucky held a special event to host Living Liberally co-founder, Justin Krebs while he continues his cross-country book tour. Justin currently promoting his new book, 538 Ways to Live Work and Play Like a Liberal.

In addition to Justin, we also had a visit by John Waltz, Candidate for Congress in the 4th District of Kentucky. John's campaign is quickly gaining momentum and has been very exciting to watch.

We also had a visit last night by Tom Elfers. Tom is currently running for County Commissioner in Kenton County.

If you missed last night's stop on the book tour, Justin will be joining Drinking Liberally in Cincinnati at Fries Cafe @7:30PM Tuesday 8/3.

Here are some pictures from last night's exciting event.

Drinking Liberally in the News

2010-07-30T08:57:00.001-04:00

The Drinking Liberally event on Monday in Covington has made the Enquirer's NKY Politics writer's blog.

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/nkypolitics/2010/07/30/political-notes-730/

The story should also be in the print edition of the Enquirer this weekend.

Drinking Liberally Founder to Visit Tri-State August 2-3

2010-07-26T10:35:00.005-04:00

We are pleased to announce a special pair of events coming to our area next week.

Justin Krebs, co-founder of the international organization, Drinking Liberally, and author of 538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal, will be in the area visiting the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky chapters of Drinking Liberally on August 2nd and 3rd.

On Monday, August 2nd, Justin will be attending the Northern Kentucky chapter of Drinking Liberally. The event starts at 7:00 PM and will be held on the 2nd floor of Zolas, 626 Main Street (Mainstrasse) in Covington. Also attending this event will be special guest, Democratic Party candidate for Congress in KY District 4, John Waltz. John's campaign is quickly gaining momentum and has gathered national attention.

On Tuesday, August 3rd, Justin will be visiting the Cincinnati chapter of Drinking Liberally. The event starts at 7:30 PM and will be held at Fries Cafe, 3247 Jefferson Avenue in Cincinnati, near the UC Campus.

At both events, Justin's book will be available for purchase and Justin will be signing copies.

Here is a quick bio for the two special guests at Drinking Liberally this upcoming week.

Justin Krebs

Justin Krebs is a political & cultural entrepreneur based in New York City. He is co-founder of Living Liberally and serves as one of the organizations National Directors. He is one of the founders and Artistic Directors of The Tank, a non-profit venue for performing arts and public affairs in Manhattan. Over the past decade, he has been an Activist Fellow for CREDO in San Francisco, managed issue advocacy campaigns in New York City, produced an award-winning documentary for PBS on youth civic engagement, and served in the office of US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. He has published “Grounds For Play,” a history of playgrounds in New York. He is a NJ native, Harvard alum and New Yorker for the past decade.

John Waltz

John was raised in a working class family. His dad worked for General Motors for over 30 years and his mom was a homemaker. The youngest of seven children, John grew up believing that through hard work, a person could provide for his or her family, even when times were tough. His father taught him the value of hard work, loyalty, and perseverance. John learned early to respect others, but he also learned not to shy away from a fight.

John enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was assigned to an aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington. His first day at sea was September 10, 2001, one day before the terrorist attacks. John’s group was immediately sent to New York to safeguard the city and the harbor.

After the attacks, John served in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. He went back to Iraq as a civilian vocational instructor teaching Iraqis to be electricians, and also worked to raise funds to build hospitals in Iraq. John realized success in the Middle East is about more than just military strength; it requires improving the daily lives of Afghans and Iraqis, and giving them the economic freedom to no longer be dependent on warlords.

During his military service, John was ordered to take an anthrax vaccine that had not been approved by the FDA. When he came home from the Middle East, John suffered severe health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, seizures and even strokes.

Needing help with the Veterans Administration, John went to his Congressman, Geoff Davis, who gave him the brush off. As he got more involved in veteran advocacy and learned about Davis’s record, he was appalled at how little Davis actually did for the people he represents.

I'm on a Boat!

2010-07-22T16:19:00.002-04:00

It's official. Reason.tv has announced they are organizing a cruise for their libertarian leaning followers. One of the groups excited about this cruise is the Sea-steading Community as indicated by their blog post with this amazing video.

The Sea-steading Institute, started by Milton Friedman's grandson, Patri, is dedicated to developing a way for the secular far right to live out their ideals. These individuals have decided that the only way they can get away with not paying taxes to any government is to set up their own flotilla of like-minded individuals who would work together to move out into international waters. These persons are especially excited about this Reason.tv cruise as they are discovering that "converting cruise ships may be [the] best option for establishing near-term, ocean-stable settlements."

Wait, a group of like minded individuals living together outside of the bounds of normal society??? Where have I heard that before. Oh yeah, living on commune. So maybe the left and the right have more in common than we thought. Once you move far enough to each extreme, the only way to actually live your politics is to cut yourself off from the rest of our society and live on a commune/ship.

Well then, I wish the sea-steaders best of luck on their endeavors and hope they are adept and fighting off pirates. Who knows, as I keep moving farther to the left, maybe one day we'll each have our own set of political utopian ships that pass in the night in international waters.

Summer Time Fun for DL

2010-07-15T11:24:00.003-04:00

Following the success of last month's "Progressives In The Park" hosted by the Cincinnati chapter of Drinking Liberally, the Northern Kentucky chapter held it's first outdoor event.

We couldn't have asked for better weather or a nicer location. It was great to see everyone out last night and we hope to see you all at the next Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky "Progressives in the Park" event!

Here is a short film with some commentary from myself and Rebecca and time lapse video of the event.

Almost Blasphemy or The Queen City Gets It's Crown

2010-07-13T13:31:00.002-04:00

"Thou Shall Not Build Higher Than The Carew Tower!"

It's been an unwritten rule in Cincinnati that you don't build anything higher than the Carew Tower. So today, with the new Great American Tower getting the final piece of it's Tiara placed, I thought I'd go downtown and witness this occasion.

I decided to observe the action from the top of the Carew Tower, and throw a little support back to the Cincinnati landmark. Here is some amateur video I took of the tower topping.

The verdict??? In the end, it doesn't look that bad to me. I was especially happy to see that I was almost eye level with the top of the new tower while standing on the observation deck of Carew Tower. Now if only the Ascent in Covington would grow on me...

Better scrap the vacation house

2010-07-12T12:09:00.002-04:00

NYT:

More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.

The CoreLogic data suggest that the rich do not seem to have concerns about the civic good uppermost in their mind, especially when it comes to investment and second homes. Nor do they appear to be particularly worried about being sued by their lender or frozen out of future loans by Fannie Mae, possible consequences of default.

The delinquency rate on investment homes where the original mortgage was more than $1 million is now 23 percent. For cheaper investment homes, it is about 10 percent.

Clearly this is all the fault of the Community Reinvestment Act. This is nothing the repeal of the estate tax can't fix.

Scotchy scotch scotch. Here it goes, down into my...pension?

2010-07-02T10:41:00.002-04:00

The New York Times reports that Diageo (the maker of my favorite blended scotch, Johnny Walker Black) is shoring up their pension fund with two million barrels of actual scotch.

Drink up, retirees!

No Ohio Ballot Initiatives in 2010

2010-07-01T09:40:00.002-04:00

The June 30th deadline for turning in petitions to get special issues on the ballot for the 2010 election cycle just passed. While there were two visible issues being pursued by their supporters, for different reasons, neither will be on the ballot this year.

First, a group lead by Tea Party members were circulating a petition called the "Health Care Freedom Amendment." These are the people who were looking to, as their signs put it, "stop healthcare mandates in Ohio." As of June 21st, it looks like the group backing it, The Ohio Project, threw in the towel after realizing they were not close to gathering enough signatures to get the petition on the ballot this year. Signatures do not expire in Ohio so expect to see these people out all summer as they attempt to get this on the ballot in November of 2011.

The second visible initiative was the Farm Animal Welfare amendment to what was passed as issue 2 last year. After collecting more than enough signatures to get this issue on the ballot in November, leaders of Ohioans for Humane farms were contacted by Governor Strickland to broker a last minute deal between the Humane Society of America and those representing Agro-business. The result is that new restrictions will be put in place to protect animal welfare in Ohio. While the deal brokered didn't place any restrictions on existing chickens in battery cages, no new permits will be issued for this type of factory farming operation. Many of the other restrictions sought by Ohioans for Humane Farms were in the measure such as the restrictions on gestation and veal crates, a ban on strangulation, and a ban on the sale of downed cows. The measure also includes some additional restrictions that will be placed on puppy mills and the sale of wild and exotic animals plus felony penalties will be placed on cock fighting. The currently released details on the agreement can be viewed on Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle's blog here.

Wayne Pacelle also mentions in his statement that signatures in Ohio "never expire" so should the Governor or the Farm Bureau fail to act on this agreement, we may see this on the ballot in 2011 or 2012.

I Can't Believe It's Not Salmon!

2010-06-30T11:18:00.000-04:00

From the town that brought us half-Governor Sarah “I can see Russia from my house” Palin and her, “consider abstinence before doin’ it” daughter Bristol, something new yet not quite as crazy has appeared, fish flavored vodka.

This really fills a much needed drunken seafood void in my life because let’s face it, how many times have you been slamming down vodka shots and thought, “man, if this only tasted like Salmon, my life would be complete.”

So, if you are one of Sarah’s Facebook friends and it seems that she may be making a lot more sense just remember, it could be the tasty goodness of smoked salmon flavored vodka talking. She hasn’t turned into a Socialist, just turned to the bottle.

But for marketing purposes, they should really come up with a better name. May I suggest perhaps, “Salmon Russkie” or, “Bristol Mist”?

Mmm, so meaty!

Cincinnati Pride Controversy

2010-06-28T15:22:00.003-04:00

Cincinnati is poised to hold it's annual gay pride event, Equinox Cincinnati, this weekend. This annual event is surround by criticism and controversy, but this time it comes from an unexpected source, the local gay community.

For the first time in several years, the local pride event will be moving out of Northside and instead be focused on fountain square and the bars downtown. The location change alone was enough to start up feelings of discontent as reported by Citybeat back in January, but other accusations about the lack of inclusiveness by the organizers have surfaced. A member of a local troop of drag kings has been highly critical of the Gay Chamber of Commerce and their handling of the festival complaining about the lack of inclusion of "visibly queer folks, trans folks, and people of color". The writer, Jaq, continues and, in summary, accuses the organizers on being too focused on business and not on community.

The organizers of Equinox Cincinnati have responded with a lengthy message on Facebook explaining their side of the issues. Much of their explanation tends to focus on the fact that this event is organized and run by a small group of inexperienced volunteers.

Whether this week's event is a success or failure, the debate it has sparked will surely continue for months to come. Has the local pride organizers become dominated by wealthy and middle class white male business owners and thus changed their focus? Is the local pride community neglecting a neighborhood that has been very supportive for many years?

Even though Cincy's pride celebration is happening outside of pride month, lets celebrate with a great analysis of pride month from Infomania:

When you're running, Schmidt happens

2010-06-28T13:44:00.001-04:00

I’ve had this rant bouncing around in my head for a long time, and I keep hoping that what I’m about to go off on would rectify itself on its own, but this past weekend it reared its ugly head again, so I figure it’s just time to let loose.

I hate running in races with Jean Schmidt.

Over the last 15 or so years, I’ve run in close to 100 races of all different distances, from a mile to a marathon. I’m by no means an elite runner, but I’m pretty good. I usually finish in the top 10-15% of the field, and I occasionally walk away with an age group medal. So I think I’ve got enough experience and credibility that I can make some judgments about how people should handle themselves during a race.

At the beginning of a race, everyone has to line up in a queue of sorts. Usually it goes about 10-12 people wide, so when you figure that most races have hundreds - or even thousands - of runners, the queue can get extremely long.

It’s generally understood that the fastest runners start at the front, the slowest runners and walkers at the back, and everyone else fills in the middle based on how fast they are. There’s a good reason for this. Once the race starts, runners need to have space to accelerate and run at their race pace. If slower runners start at the front of the pack, the faster runners will quickly catch up to them, and will need to go around the slower runners to keep their pace. This makes for a messy situation, because now those faster runners have to sidestep the slower ones, and could run into not only the slow runners but also fast ones trying to get around other slow runners. If enough runners start too far up in the pack, it can get dangerous really quickly.

Jean Schmidt, without fail, lines up way too far up in the pack. She’s a very good runner for her age group, but her times in no way justify her constantly lining up in the first four or five rows of a large race pack. And having run over 80 marathons, she ought to know better.

Anyone that’s an experienced runner knows right around what time they’re going to run. For example, if you typically can race 4 miles in 30 minutes, you’re not going to put up a time of 25:00 on a given day. You may run 29:00, but you’re not going to have disproportionate gains that occur out of nowhere. That’s just not the way it works.

A neophyte to the running world can be forgiven – once or twice – for making a mistake like this. Maybe they just don’t understand what a race is like or how fast the front-pack runners are, and once they experience it they realize that they need to start farther back. But if you do it more than a few times, you’re either oblivious to the race that’s going on around you, or you’re just being disrespectful to the faster runners.

I would think that, after participating in race after race where scores of runners pass her in the early stages, or being in races where she has to walk part of the race – and I’ve seen this happen - she would realize that she needs to line up farther back. Or maybe she feels justified in starting up front because she’s one of the fastest in her age group – I would dispute this strongly, because I don’t see other slower runners in this situation start up front, but if that’s her reasoning then she should move to the side of the pack so she doesn’t get in the way of as many runners.

It’s inconsiderate and disrespectful to other runners to continue to do this, and it’s a bad reflection on a runner’s character when they continue to flout convention in this regard. If you continue to do this over time, it’s fair to wonder why you do this, and what that says about you overall.

On Being Certain As An Affective Disorder

2010-06-25T12:07:00.003-04:00

In 1999, my family accompanied me on a business trip to England. Another Dem and Anomalily were walking in Regent Park when they encountered a man walking a dog. They asked him, "Does your dog bite?" He said, "No," and when they went to pet the dog it snapped at them. They looked up at him, horrified.

Unapologetic, he said, "This is not my dog."

You may think this is stolen from the Pink Panther movie, but my wife and daughter swear that it happened to them. And, what's more odd is that when they would recount this story, I would be certain that I was there, even though it's provable that I was not. (I was in Reading that day.)

This review is about that feeling of certainty: that feeling that something is "right", despite the evidence. On Being Certain: Believing When You Are Right Even When You Are Not by Robert A. Burton, MD, makes the case that the feeling of "rightness" is a fundamental human emotion, a reward system honed by natural selection to augment our recently-evolved ability for abstract thought. But, like other parts of our brain, it can misfire and operate independently of critical thinking.

The book starts with a evocation of the "feeling of knowing" using an excellent tool: a short, seemingly nonsensical paragraph. The reader is invited to read it thoroughly, think about it, before being handed a clue that "locks in" an interpretation. Here it is; read from the top of page 5:

From this examination of what it feels to know, we go on to review how we know what we know. Burton examines the mutability of our own memories and the certainties we have, using an experiment conducted on some college students around the mid-80's. The day after the Challenger exploded, Ulric Neisser asked his class to write down everything they remembered about the event. A couple of years later, they were asked to orally recount the same events. One-quarter of the students had all the details different than their written accounts; less than 10% agreed with their written accounts. One student said, "That's my handwriting, but that's not what happened."

"Does your memory bite?" "Well, that's not my memory."

What they misremembered was wrong, but it felt right. Likewise, Dr. Burton describes various pathologies where the feeling of certainty is at odds with the facts at hand, from John "Beautiful Mind" Nash's belief that coronation as the Emperor of Antarctica was imminent to a young woman with Cotard's syndrome, who is certain that she herself is dead even when she can feel her own pulse.

What all these sum up to, Dr. Burton contends, is that "Conviction is not a choice." Due to the fact that feelings of certainty can be aroused by direct brain stimulation, that feeling must be part of the wetware we all have. It can misfire as unreliably as your fear-inducing amygdala can when it interprets that dust bunny caught on your bedspread as a spider about to crawl on you.

And that gets into the mechanisms of how the mind works. Dr. Burton uses a variety of sources, from John Searle to Stephen Pinker, to advocate for a modular, society-of-mind view of our inner mental workings. Remember that old trope about how we don't use 90% of our brains? Well, that's wrong, but it may be true that 95% of our thoughts are below the level of conscious awareness. It is demonstrably true that our brains warp time and perception to make reality comprehensible to an organism that adapted from swinging through trees to running down antelope: If you take a light-based message board, designed to scroll a message across like the news feed in Times Square, and alternate colors in each row of lights, your brain will edit the perception of reality to provide the illusion of motion. If there is a red light next to a green light, with the green light turning on a short interval after the red light turns off, your brain will edit the perception so that the green light comes on exactly half that short interval earlier to provide continuity.

Your brain changes your perceptions to provide comfort and continuity to your awareness.

"Does your thought bite?" "That's not my thought."

Dr. Burton tries to get us to be conscious of when a thought begins, and riffs on the "sense of self" to think about what the brain whould need to do to make us aware of when a thought ends: the sense of knowing.

The central problem, Dr. Burton says, is that this adaptive mechanism, this limbic reward pellet, is as prone to misfire as many of our other systems. Just as a severe depression produces feelings of worthlessness have nothing to do with our value to the world, our sense of knowing can fire when we know not.

Like when conservatives say they know the Iraq War was the right thing to do, regardless of the lack of WMD's. Or when liberals say you must decrease class sizes to increase student performance. Or when I say that I was there when the Pink Panther guy talked to my family in Regent Park.

I found this to be a little gem of a book--only 224 pages with 18 pages of footnotes. I appreciate his arguments about the uncontrollability of the sense of knowing, but I'm not sure I'd throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to mistrusting it. Just as sometimes a person will get depressed because there truly is something wrong with their lives, you'll get that feeling of knowing because you have actually come to a valid conclusion from the evidence. Dr. Burton makes the point that you can't ever trust the feeling, and after reading his book I'm not sure I disagree.

The key thing is to know when to trust the evidence, and when to have a decent respect of the opinions of mankind when it comes to your own self. And, after reading the book, I think Luke just got lucky here:

Chutzpah = BP

2010-06-24T09:59:00.002-04:00

I don't see how anything could go wrong with this:

[A]bout three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters...

But BP’s project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an “onshore” project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP...

Rather than conducting their own independent analysis, federal regulators, in a break from usual practice, allowed BP in 2007 to write its own environmental review for the project as well as its own consultation documents relating to the Endangered Species Act, according to two scientists from the Alaska office of the federal Mineral Management Service that oversees drilling.

The environmental assessment was taken away from the agency’s unit that typically handles such reviews, and put in the hands of a different division that was more pro-drilling, said the scientists, who discussed the process because they remained opposed to how it was handled.

I'm so glad we had competent adults manning essential government agencies during the Bush administration, that showed absolutely no preference to industry over the welfare of American citizens.

Good lord.

It only matters if an R is in the lead

2010-06-21T12:38:00.004-04:00

One of my favorite blogs has a saying that says "this is excellent news for republicans", meaning that no matter what happens, the media can spin it to say that it was a great development for their party. Even McCain's moment when he didn't know how many houses he had was considered a good event by some (I'm looking at you, Mark Halperin).

Washington Post reporter Chris Cilizza gets sucked into that line of thinking from time to time, and today pens a piece about how the gubernatorial elections in the "Rust Belt" states could serve as an indicator to republican general election success in 2012.

That swath of manufacturing- based states in the Midwest -- Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan -- with tentacles that reach as far east as Pennsylvania, has been the epicenter of the economic difficulties in the country over the past few years.

Each state is hosting a competitive gubernatorial race this fall. Republicans argue that a clean sweep (or close to it) would immediately change the electoral calculus heading into the nationwide redistricting in 2011 and President Obama's reelection race in 2012.

"[T]he industrial Midwest is the measure of success or failure for the Republican Party," said GOP consultant Curt Anderson, who has worked in the region on and off for the past 15 years. "We cannot win a national election without doing well in this region, and we can't be healthy as a party without doing well there."

There are two problems I have with this logic. First, all elections are local, and in the succeeding paragraphs of the article Cilizza goes on to discuss issues that have little or nothing to do with the national political atmosphere (Illinois' current governor dealing with the Blagojevich aftermath, Pennsylvania & Wisconsin's history of switching parties of governor, and the lack of a good Democratic candidate in Michigan), which likely will not impact the general election in 2012.

The other problem that drives me crazy is that these indicators only seem to matter when they might favor a republican. Since the beginning of 2008, there have been 17 special elections to replace members of the U.S. House. 14 of those were won by Democrats, including ones in Louisiana and Mississippi. They won Dennis Hastert's old district, held Kristin Gillibrand's NY-20 seat that most had written off as a lost seat, won in NY-23 where there hadn't been a Democrat since the Civil War, and held John Murtha's PA-12 in an election that was supposed to test the GOP message of nationalizing representative elections. Yet all anyone ever hears about is how Scott Brown's election to the U.S. Senate was the sign that the tide was turning for the right.

I understand that reporters like Cilizza have to create a theme/storyline of some sort. I just wish they'd be a bit even-handed about it, and not pick and choose the facts that best suit the story they want to tell.

The financial crisis, reinterpreted

2010-06-16T13:22:00.002-04:00

Tuesday’s New York Times contained an article about how the big banks have conceded the fight on finance reform regarding barring them from trading on their own accounts, and were focusing on the language in the bill about derivative trading. The whole article is worth reading, and isn’t too technical, but there’s one passage towards the end of the article that drove me up a wall.

The big banks argue that the Volcker proposal is misguided…the banks assert that the financial crisis of 2008 was a lending-based crisis caused by reckless loans made to unqualified home buyers. It was not, they say, a trading crisis.
[John Dearie, an executive vice president of the Financial Services Forum] said, lending “is arguably the riskiest activity that any financial entity can engage in. It is money out the door that banks hope will be paid back.”

This is a completely disingenuous line of thinking, as there was a lot more going on than just giving out bad mortgages.

First, yes, inherently lending is a risky activity, in as much as that the bank is giving out money that they don’t have 100% certainty will be repaid. However, there are ways you can mitigate that risk significantly, such as undertaking an extensive review of a prospective recipient’s financial history to ensure that they are capable of repaying the loan, or setting a higher interest rate for those clients that are considered high risk, or requiring a down payment, or ensuring that brokers retain some responsibility for the mortgages they originate. These are just items off the top of my head that the financial industry in general failed to perform during the housing boom. Implementing any number of these, and other, actions would have reduced the amount of bad mortgages out there.

The issues with the mortgages above, however, pales in comparison to the impact of what the banks and financial institutions did with those mortgages. They took these mortgages that they knew were bad (or at least should have known were bad), chopped them up into thousands of little pieces, mixed them together with the pieces of other bad mortgages, and created securities based on these borderline junk mortgages and had them rated as AAA prime investments. By the time everyone realized that these securities were barely worth the paper they were printed on, the shit was already starting to hit the fan.

So while risky mortgage loans were involved in the crisis of 2008, to say that these loans were the main cause of it while ignoring the rash actions of the financial institutions that exacerbated the situation is a grave misinterpretation of history. But I wouldn’t expect anyone from the financial services industry to acknowledge that.

Driving to Dayton will never be the same... farewell Touchdown Jesus

2010-06-15T07:20:00.005-04:00

Last night, the statue affectionately called Touchdown Jesus or Big Butter Jesus was struct by lightning and burned to the ground leaving nothing but the glowing steel frame. The name of the church that owns that statue would have lead you to believe that the statue was made of "Solid Rock" but actually it was a mix of wood and Styrofoam.

(Photo from the Middletown Journal - Nick Graham)

I think this picture needs a caption. Cyborg Jesus? Stick Figure Jesus? What do you think. Post your caption in the comments.

If you want to see how Styrofoam and wood can burn here is amateur video posted on youtube caught the blaze as it was happening.

Somehow now, the Monroe exit on I-75 has lost a little bit of its charm. No longer do you have the roadside hat-trick of Touchdown Jesus, Traders World, and the Hustler store. Instead, when we need to travel between Dayton and Cincinnati, we'll be left to look at endless stretches of retail, urban sprawl, and the brief stretch of farms.

So as we mourn the loss of this tri-state landmark, lets look back at the fun times we had at Touch-down Jesus's expense. At this moment I can think of no better time to watch Heywood Bank's tribute to this statue.

This week in beer

2010-06-14T15:15:00.002-04:00

Since we're a drinking group, it's only fitting that we should be following the doings in the alcohol world. And last week there were a couple interesting stories about the state of large (and smaller) breweries.

First, last week The Atlantic noted that sales of Bud Light and Miller Lite were down significantly last year, while sales of wine and "spirits" rose slightly. The article noted that people were looking to drink something more innovative or creative, which the big pilsners are sorely lacking in, or were saving their money to purchase smaller craft beers.

One of the breweries that they're buying from - Samuel Adams - is growing so fast that they're on the verge of no longer being considered a craft brewery, which is defined by sales of less than 2 million barrels per year. This could not only affect their status as a small brewer in the beer community, but could also make them ineligible to enjoy the lower excise tax per barrel sold that they currently enjoy. However, that looks like it will not be a problem, as Congress is moving on a bill that would raise the threshold to 6 million barrels.

Meanwhile, if you're into the World Cup, you might want to check out Slashfood's World Cup of beers. I have to confess, I've never heard of most of them, but it's a fun little exercise.

Well that was fast...better check the radar gun

2010-06-11T21:06:00.002-04:00

Clearly the Ohio state legislature thinks much more clearly than its Supreme Court does. Barely a week after the court decided that the police could issue a speeding ticket based on nothing more than an officer's eyesight, members of both houses introduced bills that would require some sort of support for the ticket via laser/radar/helicopter.

Good. I still wish they'd have done something about the whole payday lending thing, but at least they got something accomplished here.

All the cool kids are calling out John Kasich

2010-06-10T20:00:00.002-04:00

Last month I ripped into Ohio House candidate Mike Wilson for his support of gubernatorial candidate John Kasich's plan to phase out the state income tax. Yesterday the Akron Beacon-Journal ran an editorial that went directly at Kasich over the same plan.

First, the state has spent the past five years reducing taxes, individual income tax rates falling by almost 17 percent, the homestead exemption on property taxes expanded and business taxes slashed $1.6 billion annually. Second, Republicans point to Strickland for the state losing 430,000 jobs. Are they saying the tax cuts haven't worked? Or is the fair conclusion that the governor isn't to blame for a national recession?

...[r]emember the Republican majority in the Ohio Senate struggling last year with a relatively puny $851 million deficit? Many in the caucus said no to postponing the final installment of the income tax cut. They failed to come up with a coherent plan for closing the gap through spending cuts. The performance hardly qualified as a profile in leadership. Kasich the candidate must show that he can do better.

It used to be that the Democrats would spend money on programs, run up a little debt, then the republicans would get elected, cut taxes and spending, and then people decided they liked having the programs that got cut so they put the Dems back in office, and the circle went unbroken.

Somewhere along the way - say during the Reagan years - the republicans decided that they could cut taxes and keep spending on programs. For whatever reason, people just stopped questioning the rationality of this line of thinking.

We should probably rethink that, because if Kasich is any indication, the party has no interest in fiscal responsibility of any sort.

What's your Carbon Footprint if You're Amish?

2010-06-09T16:59:00.002-04:00

The Amish community in Lancaster County, PA are coming under rare government scrutiny by the EPA. What would cause the EPA to look threaten the Amish farmers in this community?

Well it appears that the Amish farmers make up 50% of the farms in this county and very few of them take any efforts to contain the manure from their cows. This leads to pollution of the local water which ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. Water quality in the Chesapeake Bay has been poor for some time leading it's watershed to come under special scrutiny by the EPA.

I guess even the Amish have to worry about the impact of their animal centric diet.

Defining a raging lefty

2010-06-08T18:11:00.002-04:00

Kevin Drum takes on The Atlantic's James Bennet for his claim that both sides of the political aisle were united in 2008 behind the notion that Obama was a raging lefty. I'm not sure I totally agree with his assessment.

I've heard variations on this many times, but where does it come from? The right certainly invested itself in a narrative of all-but-Marxism to galvanize the troops in opposition to Obama, but the left? Maybe I'm just hanging in the wrong precincts, but it seems to me that the left pretty much always saw Obama as a pragmatic, mainstream liberal. Seriously: who on the left ever claimed Obama as a fellow "raging lefty"?

Maybe it depends on your definition of "raging lefty", but I think there were more than a few Democrats that fit the description that Kevin questions. During my time canvassing for his campaign, I found that the majority of the people I talked with fell into one of three categories (from least to most populous):

people that knew his record as a pragmatist and felt pretty good about it
people that knew his record, wished he was more liberal, but either decided they were ok with it or hoped that a liberal congress would pull him further to the left
people that just assumed that he was an uber liberal because he had such a progressive and unique campaign, without looking into his past history.

Surely the right's beliefs were rooted in a sort of Obama derangement syndrome, as Kevin points out. Having said that, I think there's some validity in Bennet's point insofar as their feelings about him were rooted more in what they wanted to believe he was than in what he actually was. Maybe that doesn't qualify as raging, but I wouldn't dismiss the idea out of hand.

The Longest War by the Numbers

2010-06-08T12:41:00.006-04:00

This week marks a special milestone in the war in Afghanistan. Surpassing Vietnam and the American Revolution, the war in Afghanistan has now become the longest war the United States has ever participated in.*

Rather than talk about whether we should be there or what could have been done to leave sooner, let's just look at the numbers.

Item	Numbers	Comparison
Casualties (civilian)	~9,000 - 29,000	Somewhere in the range of the population of cities the size of Cheviot (~9,000) up to the city of Florence, KY (~28,000) have been killed.
Casualties (US + Coalition Forces)	1811	If the bodies were laid end to end they could stretch nearly 2 miles from Fountain Square to UC. (calculation assumes ~11% of soldiers were female)
Cost in $ (at the time of writing)	$276, 320,000,000	Enough to send over 2.7 million Americans to a private university for four years or 9.8 million Americans to a public university for four years.
Total Troops Currently Deployed (US)	~59,000	Enough people to fill 9/10 of Paul Brown Stadium, to fill 1.4 Great American Ball Parks, fill, 3.5 US Bank Arenas, or fill Music Hall 16.7 times and the Arnoff 21.7 times.
Length of the War	>104 months	An estimated 35 million children have been born in the united states since the start of the war.

*(Note there is disagreement on when Vietnam started. The first US Combat troops arrived in March 1965 but the "Gulf of Ton-kin Resolution" was passed in August 7 1964. The longest war claim refers to when US combat troops arrived on the ground in Vietnam.)

I can drive 55, but the officer can say I drove 65

2010-06-07T15:27:00.000-04:00

This makes no sense to me at all:

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a trained officer's visual judgment is enough to cite a driver for speeding.
In a 5-1 ruling, the court said police don't need radar or laser evidence to confirm what they judge with their own eyes.

What am I missing here? This seems to be a terrible precedent to set. 'Oh sure, you think you were going 55, but I could see you were going 65. Your speedometer must be broken. Oh, and by the way, my word is final, so you're screwed. Have a nice day.'

Let's hope they don't have a finding like this in Arizona, because if they do, then an officer could pull anyone over under the auspices of thinking that they saw they were speeding without having to provide any sort of justification.

Progressives in the Park

2010-06-06T19:53:00.001-04:00

During the summer of 2010, we're going to try something new. On the second Tuesday of each month from June through October, we'll picnic from 7 to 9 in one of our beautiful Cincinnati and Hamilton County Parks. This is intended to be a recession-friendly and family-friendly event. We'll supply a hot barbeque grill, you bring your own burgers, hot dogs, buns, etc. If you can't bring your own hot dogs, we may have some for sale at cost.

This Tuesday's event will be held at Owl's Nest Park in O'Bryonville from 7PM to 9PM. Owl's Nest is a compact jewel of the Cincinnati park system hidden in plain sight. It's an old Cincinnati family homestead with plenty of old trees, a ballfield, picnic area and shelter. It's also down the street from another great park, Annwood, which has a grotto that you'd never know is hidden in the middle of Cincinnati.

In case of rain, we'll move to O'Bryon's Pub down the block.

Permatan channels Mean Mr. Mustard

2010-06-06T15:10:00.002-04:00

He's mad at Sir Paul:

McCartney was given the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress.
“After the last eight years, it’s great to have a President who knows what a library is,” McCartney quipped.
The conservative site HumanEvents.com asked Boehner for his response:
“Like millions of other Americans, I have always had a good impression of Paul McCartney and thought of him as a classy guy, but I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of grace and respect he displayed at the White House,” Boehner told HUMAN EVENTS. “I hope he’ll apologize to the American people for his conduct which demeaned him, the White House and President Obama.”

This is what Boehner is focusing on? This is what he gets outraged about?

Please. The minority leader ought to be worried about things other than what a British musician thinks of a self-proclaimed C-student president.

And to think, this guy might be Speaker of the House next year. I can't wait to see the ridiculous crap he'll focus on then.

Raptorous

2010-06-04T16:43:00.003-04:00

Today was a day that both conservatives and liberals can agree was one for the history books. On its first try, a rocket that's capable of lifting almost as much as the shuttle to the International Space Station succeeded in blasting to orbit. And that rocket, the raptor-named Falcon 9, was privately funded and developed by startup company SpaceX.

We still don't have a very-heavy-lift rocket, like the Saturn V that took us to the moon, but no one does because no one is willing to find a use for it. Until we have a well-defined, well-funded and broadly supported mission for such a vehicle, we shouldn't develop one. But private industry is taking up the challenge thrown down by President Obama, who wants to get NASA back in the business of science and exploration and out of the business of "truck driving" with heavy-lift vehicles like the FalconX.

Bravo SpaceX.

That pesky reality gets in the way of politics

2010-06-04T12:35:00.002-04:00

The republicans in the Ohio state house introduced a measure recently to eliminate the Ohio state tax over a 10 year period. It's highly unlikely to pass, given that the Democrats control the state house.

But, if it were to pass, everyone would be thrilled, because no one likes paying taxes, right?

[Toledo] Mayor Mike Bell yesterday condemned an idea to eliminate the state income tax, which he said would cost the city up to $18 million a year.

The city of Toledo began 2010 with a $48 million deficit that was balanced after implementing a combination of cuts, revenue enhancements, and employee concessions.

Hmmm. So he's saying that cities like Toledo need the proceeds from state taxes to help balance their budgets, which are already strained and kept in the black only by cutting services and employee salaries/benefits. Who knew that tax revenues went towards useful purposes?

If this sounds familiar, it should. A few weeks back, when I looked at the candidacy of Mike Wilson, I saw that the 10 year elimination of the tax is part of his (and republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich's) platform. And, as with his view that the estate tax should be eliminated, municipalities are not too pleased with the idea of getting rid of these taxes, because they depend on these revenues to keep city hall running, and to provide services for its citizens.

No one loves paying taxes. Some of us just realize that, if you want to get services, you have to pay for them.

Wasteful mandated medical spending

2010-06-03T20:29:00.002-04:00

As the New York Times noted earlier this week, over the past several years many states have enacted laws that either suggest or mandate that a woman be administered an ultrasound before getting an abortion. The thinking is that, by giving women a view of the being inside them, the mother will rethink her decision and not go through with the abortion itself.

By that standard, how effective are these laws? Ummm, not so much:

In one of the few studies of the issue — there have been none in the United States — two abortion clinics in British Columbia found that 73 percent of patients wanted to see an image if offered the chance. Eighty-four percent of the 254 women who viewed sonograms said it did not make the experience more difficult, and none reversed her decision.

Wow. Zero. Not a single one. Even I had expected for there to be a couple here or there, but that wasn't the case.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, there were about 26,000 abortions performed in the three states that the article notes require a provider to perform an ultrasound before an abortion (Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi). If you go with an average cost of $300 for a fetal ultrasound (I found estimates between $200-500, so $300 is a conservative guestimate), this means that these states are requiring providers to spend $7-8 million on a procedure that, in every case, does not serve its intended purpose.

Of course, this is a drop in the bucket compared to the $28 million that Florida would mandate if Governor Charlie Crist signs a bill that the state congress has passed, though signs are that he will veto the bill.

Proponents of these laws will point to the fact that, as noted in the Times article, ultrasounds are performed by clinics in most first trimester abortions, and say that this does nothing that wouldn't already be performed. But this is a false equivalency. When a clinician orders an ultrasound, it's because a medical professional has made a decision - which they were trained in graduate schools to make - that there is a medical need or purpose to perform the procedure. When an ultrasound is mandated by one of these laws, it's driven by the desire to dissuade a woman from going through with an abortion. It's not medical, it's ideological.

(Incidentally, for those republicans that went off on how health care reform would put the government between you and your doctor, I'd like for them to explain how this isn't exactly what these laws are doing).

If proponents of these types of laws are driven by any sort of evidence-based beliefs, they would look at this study and decide that this isn't working, and pick another battle. That they want to push this to even more states shows that this isn't about results; it's about shaming.

Hey, Feds, Get Offa My Cloud

2010-06-03T10:32:00.003-04:00

"Cloud computing" is a technology buzzword which seems just past its peak. We won't go into the geekier aspects of the tech, just what it means for end users: Cloud-computing applications like Evernote, Google Mail, and Google Docs store your information online, in a "cloud" of servers. That makes it always available to you from any Internet-connected device: iPhone, Android Phone, laptop, etc.

These applications can make you incredibly productive. AnotherDem and I plan our vacations using Google Docs, updating a shared document with travel plans, things we'd like to do, and places we'd like to go. I used a shared Google calendar at work to schedule support worker shifts until we got shared Exchange calendars on our own system. And I'm just getting to understand just how powerful, from a Getting Things Done perspective, Evernote can be.

Did you know that the federal government can freely access any of your emails on these servers that are greater than 180 days old...without a warrant? Or that they don't even need a warrant to get at any data you store in Google docs or Evernote?

The law that governs the protection of this kind of online information is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. As explained in a segment in last week's On the Media, the Act's ancient provisions were written when CompuServe was cutting-edge, my home computer was an Atari ST running GEM, my work computer was a Zenith Z-100 running Windows 2, and the Mac was...well, you get the picture.

This statute clearly needs to be updated to protect our data that's in the cloud, requiring due process of law before law enforcement can get at it. That means a warrant signed by a judge.

It's time that Congress modernize the ECPA to bring out-of-control law enforcement down to earth.

The Trouble with Boys... and Girls

2010-06-03T09:52:00.003-04:00

One of the latest videos to go viral shows a group of 8 and 9 year old girls dancing to Beyonce's song Single Ladies. Their has been a lot of outrage over the hyper-sexualization of our children. The comments have ranged from attacking the parents to labeling the girls with some pretty adult terms.

My question for everyone today is this. Do we have a double standard for how we view young girls compared to young boys?

Last summer I stumbled on a band on fountain square at Midpoint Music Festival called The Trouble with Boys. It's a punk band consisting of all 11-12 year old boys. This band just happens to be returning to Cincinnati on Friday playing again at Fountain Square.

Given how rock stars are generaly associated with sex and drugs, are we giving this band a pass because they are boys? Is it a double standard? What do you think? Let's hear your comments.

Military Service, Honesty, and Politics

2010-06-02T18:15:00.003-04:00

Lately there have been a rash of stories about politicians embellishing military records -- it must be a Memorial Day theme. Most of the stories focused on Blumenthal, a Democrat from CT who is currently Attorney General and is running for US Senate. Blumenthal had given the impression that he served in Vietnam, when in fact he served stateside. The brunt of the story focused on a speech he had given where he said "in Vietnam". However, to his credit, earlier in the same speech, Blumenthal noted that he was stateside. Perhaps most importantly, he apologized for giving the wrong impression.

But two much more egregious embellishments have arisen in the wake of Blumenthal. Representative Mark Kirk, who is running for US Senate in Illinois, has made two outright lies in his resume. First he stated repeatedly he won an award which he never won -- U.S. Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year. Indeed, he even had this fictitious award on his Congressional website. While the biography was corrected, it was done so only after the Navy told him to do so.

Last week, Kirk, a commander in the Naval Reserves, said his staff called the false claim to his attention as if they discovered it themselves. What actually happened was that after his staff got the heads-up from the Navy, Kirk's team scrambled a damage-control operation, putting a statement on his website correcting the record before a story came out.

To add to the Kirk story (like claiming a fake award isn't enough), apparently, Kirk also "falsely claimed that he was 'the only member of Congress to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom'" on his Congressional website. Well, he wasn't actually "in" Iraq. He too, served stateside. The latter error isn't as egregious as the former, but that was precisely the kind of error for which the Republicans went after Blumenthal.

Lots of politicians (especially Republicans) have padded their resumes. Today, we have a Republican who padded her dad's resume. Governor Brewer of Arizona (of anti-immigrant fame), recently told The Arizona Republic that comparisons to the immigrant bill and Nazis hurt her feelings:

"

The Nazi comments...they are awful," she told The Republic. "Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that...It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced."

The thing is, her dad was never in Germany -- or Europe for that matter. According to AZCentral, It turns out he worked at a munitions depot in Nevada and died in 1955 in California. Now Brewer is claiming she meant that he died because of the chemicals to which he was exposed in that munitions depot. That might be the case, but he didn't die fighting the Nazi regime.

I'm not sure what it is that makes these folks need to embellish their military careers. You don't need to get an award to serve valiantly. One needn't serve overseas to serve their country. But there is a difference between ducking bullets far from the comfort of home and family, and Brewer's father's service -- which was a service too. If Brewer's father did indeed die from working in unsafe factory conditions, I would hope she would be a champion for workers' rights and healthcare. Alas, that isn't the case.

Real headline or Onion headline?

2010-06-02T18:12:00.001-04:00

Feds meet with James Cameron on oil spill.

And the answer is...

The Rollergirls situation

2010-06-02T18:04:00.000-04:00

Disappointing news came out yesterday concerning the Cincinnati Rollergirls. Mercedes Stafford, better known to fans as Sadistic Sadie, plead guilty to charges of wire fraud. According to the plea agreement, she illegally obtained over 500 plane tickets from her regular employer, United Airline, that were valued somewhere between $400,000-$1 million. She gave these tickets to friends, family, and also to the Rollergirls squad.

Certainly Ms. Stafford has made some incredibly bad choices over the past few years - not the least of which was to procure tickets for the team and potentially involve them in this - and we can hope that she'll take advantage of the time she's going to have over the next several years and turn things in a more positive direction when she's released from prison.

It's also fair to start wondering how this will affect the team going forward. This has been a difficult past couple days for the team, and they've done about as well as can be expected in dealing with the situation - when you start up a volunteer roller derby team, the last thing you expect is to have something like this pop up.

But the reality is that the Rollergirls have built themselves up into being one of the major entertainment options in town, and have been getting tons of publicity. And to a large extent, that's been because of Sadistic Sadie. For all intents and purposes, she's been the public face of the team. She's the one player any casual fan of the team knows. She makes the public appearances. She was the most talented skater on the team - so much so that she was named the Women's Flat Track Derby Association skater of the month for May 2010 (this honor has since been removed from the web page, but it lives on in Google Cache). She had the most charisma of anyone on the squad. And now the team has to figure out where to go from here.

I'm hoping that fans don't desert the team over this - to the contrary, I hope they support the team even more now, because there's no reason to believe that this went any further than one skater. But, for all the effort that this team has put into giving roller derby legitimacy, and showing fans that the Rollergirls are just regular people that play a rough sport on the weekend, this is a huge setback. It takes a lot to convince some people to give roller derby a chance, because they see it as either the cartoonish pro-wrestling style event that took place in the late 70's, or as some sort of seedy underground fight with shady characters and drunk hoodlum fans. Those people likely won't give it a chance now.

I'm not a P.R. consultant (though I don't think it'd be a bad idea for them to talk to one), but if it were up to me I'd start getting my skaters out in front of the public, and start getting people to know them and see them as the face of the team. Like it or not, I think they're going to have to actively distance themselves from this situation, and likely from Sadie as a player. I'm not sure that sitting back and saying that they didn't know what was going on is going to be an adequate response to this situation.

It's 106 miles to Sacramento, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.

2010-06-01T15:05:00.003-04:00

This is more than a bit frightening:

A group of conservative attorneys say they are on a mission from God to unseat four California judges...[v]owing to be God's ambassadors on the bench, the four San Diego Superior Court candidates are backed by pastors, gun enthusiasts, and opponents of abortion and same-sex marriages.

"We believe our country is under assault and needs Christian values," said Craig Candelore, a family law attorney who is one of the group's candidates. "Unfortunately, God has called upon us to do this only with the judiciary."

...Critics say the campaign is aimed at packing the courts with judges who adhere to the religious right's moral agenda and threatens both the impartiality of the court system and the separation of church and state.

"Any organization that wants judges to subscribe to a certain political party or certain value system or certain way of ruling to me threatens the independence of the judiciary," San Diego County's District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said.

"Judges should be evaluated based on their qualifications and their duty to follow the law."
The Better Courts Now candidates accused the bar of being swayed by politics. Candelore said a victory would mark only the beginning: "If we can take our judiciary, we can take our legislature and our executive branch."

Let's review where we're at. If you're a judge that follows precedent in coming to a decision that angers the right-wingers, you're an activist judge. But if you're running for a judgeship on the platform of restoring a religion's value to the bench - and eventually to the other branches of government - well then you're just doing the work of God.

Incidentally, the San Diego County Bar rated the group's candidates as "lacking some or all of the qualities of professional ability, experience, competence, integrity and temperament indicative of fitness to perform the judicial function in a satisfactory mode." Substitute the word "judicial" with leglislative or executive, and I think you'd describe about 90% of all republican candidates.

Pissing Contests?

2010-05-31T17:04:00.008-04:00

Over the last few weeks, I've been in several situations where I've had the opportunity to meet new people that share my left of center views on politics and life. It never fails though, once you get a group of liberals together, we often enter into a liberal pissing contest, trying to out-liberal the next person. Our big tent beliefs, where we welcome many different points of view, seems to often lead us into conversation such us this:

(yes, I've said one of those things myself)

Thinking about our liberal conversational races to the left made me ask myself: "Do conservatives have their own version of right-wing pissing contests?" I've never been a conservative so I don't know. What do they do when they are alone together? Do they sound like this?

What do you think? What do conservatives say to each other when a group of them get together? My challenge for you this week is to post in the comments what you think these conservatives say when they get together. Feel free to re-write any of these liberals or conservatives lines and post them here or come out tonight at Fries Cafe or Wednesday at DLNKY's meeting and let us know what you think. If you've actually overheard one of these conversations (either liberal or conservative) please share them!

Sports and politics: Rangers go bust, W makes out like a bandit

2010-05-31T09:56:00.002-04:00

This past week, Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers filed for bankruptcy, citing debts in the neighborhood of $500 million. The bankruptcy proceedings cap off a tumultuous 12 year reign of ownership under Tom Hicks, a businessman that showed a tremendous lack of sports acumen in running multiple sports franchises, including the Rangers and Liverpool FC of the English Premier (Soccer) League.

Hicks purchased the team in 1998 from a multiple owner group, of which one of the partners was George W. Bush. This is a great article that details how W got into team ownership, and how he made out with a huge return on his investment. For those that don't feel like reading the article, here's a summary:

Bush purchased a 1.8% stake in the team for $500,000, all of which was borrowed from a Midland, Texas bank
The other owners granted him an additional 10% ownership in the team, mostly due to his 'celebrity status'
He and his fellow owners got the taxpayers to finance a new stadium, which they then purchased for themselves at a 70% discount
They then purchased land around the stadium well below market value (under threat of seizure by the city of Arlington)
When Hicks purchased the team, Bush's take was over 20 times what he put in just ten years earlier

Raise your hands if any of this surprises you.

The gift that keeps on giving

2010-05-28T07:57:00.005-04:00

I've been working on a post about the most recent developments surrounding Senate nominee Rand Paul (R-KY/nuttyland)...but recent developments just keep developing. The latest surrounds comments that he made during an interview with an English-speaking Russian television outlet called RT.

For those that can't view videos, around the 8:30 mark, Paul starts discussing immigration. He states that the U.S. "shouldn't provide an easy route to citizenship", because Mexican immigrants support Democrats by a margin of 3-1. He also discussed the idea of an "underground electric fence" along the border, and that we're the only country that he knows that grants citizenship to anyone born on American soil.

First, it's good to see that Paul has overcome his bout of exhaustion that forced him to cancel his Meet The Press interview. I guess he needs to work his way up to talking with the American press again, kind of like how UC plays schools like Ohio Northern in basketball to prepare themselves for the regular season. But more troublingly, Paul has decided that the 14th Amendment - which grants citizenship as explained above - isn't such a good idea. For a candidate backed heavily by the Tea Partiers, who revere the Constitution in such high regard - at least the parts that they like - this seems pretty inconsistent.

So let's summarize what we've learned about Paul just during his first 10 days as the republican nominee. Paul:

thinks that government has no right to tell private businesses that they cannot discriminate against other races, as required by the Civil Rights Act of 1964
believes that the Americans With Disabilities Act isn't "fair to the business owner"
slammed a newspaper in 2002 for supporting the Fair Housing Act because a free society can "allow hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin"
is worried that there's an underground plot to create a common North American currency called the Amero, which would lead to the creation of an EU-styled North American Union, and then a NAFTA superhighway that would connect Canada and Mexico through the U.S.
doesn't think that the federal courts should be allowed to hear abortion rights cases like Roe v. Wade
is not currently certified by the generally accepted ophthalmology board, but has created his own competing board that has been entirely inconsequential
says he has no problem with gay marriage, but does not support it being "government sponsored", which is problematic since all heterosexual marriage is government sponsored in some way
believes that criticizing BP's handling of the Louisiana oil spill as "un-American", and thinks people shouldn't try and find fault in disasters like this or the recent West Virginia mine explosion because "sometimes accidents happen"

All of this has led to Paul holding a narrow 3 point lead in the most recent poll of his Senate election contest against Democrat Jack Conway, and trailing by a 60-20 margin amongst moderates. Further complicating the issue is that the Libertarian Party is coming around to the realization that he's not much of a libertarian, to the point where they're considering the possibility of fielding a candidate of their own.

In the end, I expect Paul to win simply because I don't know that being this crazy is going to hurt him that much in Kentucky. Where this is going to hurt the republicans is nationally, because Paul is not playing well, and is quickly becoming the example of everything that is wrong with today's GOP.

Lie to Me: Is the TSA using science in airport security?

2010-05-27T12:51:00.003-04:00

A great news feature in Nature, Airport security: Intent to deceive?, by Sharon Weinberger, goes through the Transportation Security Administration's use of trendy but unvalidated interview techniques called "Screening Passengers by Observation Technique" (SPOT). The TSA is relying on decades-old research, none of which appears to be reproducible, to engage travellers in casual conversation in an attempt to find terrorists.

The article does mention Israeli airport screening techniques at the end. That's important, but it might have been better to mention them first because they're the first thing most people will think of in this context. Israeli airport security is famed for using passenger interviews to screen out threats, with an enviable record of success. But, as the article and Bruce Schneier and his commenters point out, the Israeli techniques are different than SPOT and those differences may make them impossible to implement in the USA.

Is it right to blame this on the previous administration? The article ends with one researcher pointing out the nine years lost in doing basic research on human deception after 9/11. I'd say that's confirmed, but if the Obama administration doesn't want to own this one, they have to stop chatting up passengers and talk to real researchers.

Grammer's, Cafe de Wheels, BikeFlix and Rollergirls

2010-05-21T09:47:00.002-04:00

Three events this coming week: DL is moving to Grammer's for one night next Tuesday, BikeFlix later that same night at Grammer's, and the Rollergirls outing on May 29.

This Tuesday, May 25, Drinking Liberally is continuing our celebration of Bike Month in Cincinnati by switching locations to Grammer's Bar, 1440 Walnut Street, at the corner of Liberty and Walnut. (Enter from Liberty.) Weather permitting, we'll be outside on the urban-style back patio. Grammer's Bar is also dog-friendly...feel free to bring your well-behaved pooch!

To kick things off at 7:30, we'll have Cafe de Wheels on site. Cafe de Wheels is Cincinnati's original burger truck, serving delicious burgers, fries, Cuban sandwiches, including the new Tower of Power burger.

At 9PM, you can stay to watch the BikeFlix movie of the week: Il Postino. You can get details on the Bike Flix Facebook Page.

Is this starting to sound like the perfect date night? Think of it: you, your significant other, and your other, canine, significant other, enjoying delicious burgers from Cafe de Wheels and great beer from Grammer's, watching one of the most romantic (bike-related) movies of all time under the clear spring night sky of Cincinnati?

Come join us for at least part of the night!

On Saturday, May 29, we'll be doing a group purchase of tickets for Rollergirls. Unfortunately, the Rollergirls has a new requirement of a minimum of 20 tickets to get the $8 price, so we have to charge $10 per ticket plus the usual small PayPal fee. If we get enough attendees, I'll refund two dollars to you at the Gardens, so you can buy two $1 PBRs right away. Please buy your tickets by noon, Friday, May 28.

Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

Examining the candidacy of Mike Wilson

2010-05-07T10:36:00.003-04:00

After Cincinnati Tea Party founder Mike Wilson won the republican primary for the Ohio House seat in the 28th district, I figured it would be worthwhile to read up on him a little more and learn about his core issues and beliefs. I went to the issues page on his campaign website, hoping to find the depth and nuance that I find so sorely lacking in the Tea Party. What I found was kind of a mixed bag.

The page starts with his vision, which contains elements that I'll get to later. He then lists his "core issues". These are three one-sentence bullet point statements. He's against the public funding of abortion (which I thought was already decided in HCR, but ok), he wants the 2nd amendment protected (even though there hasn't been, and there are no plans to, challenge the 2nd amendment during the Obama administration, but good to know), and he believes in school choice. I would really have liked for him to have gone into greater detail about the last one, because there are a bunch of directions that could go. Regardless, these are his core issues, but there's no specifics about what exactly he plans to propose or do about them if he's elected, so it's just basic slogans.

He goes into much greater detail about his "other issues" positions, and this is where things fall apart a bit. Wilson wants to "create jobs in Ohio", which is admirable. He wants to support small business, but cites a study from a partisan institute with a reputation for publishing misleading - and sometimes false - numbers to prove that the state is unfriendly to small business. His five point plan to address this is as follows:

Support John Kasich’s plan to eliminate the state income tax over a 10-year period
Support plans to eliminate Ohio's death tax which causes the successful to leave Ohio.
Work to reduce the size of state government by consolidating cabinet agencies and eliminating overlap.
Promote reform of Ohio's broken workman's compensation system
Advocate for right to work legislation that gives workers the freedom to make decisions about union membership for themselves.

I will stipulate to having no knowledge of the workman's comp system in Ohio, though I would be curious how it addresses the issue of small business. But that's not surprising, because the above points don't really address that issue either.

Right to work laws are not much more than a right-wing creation to reduce the role of unions in the workplace. They allow workers to enjoy all of the benefits of union membership without actually paying dues. Non-union workers earn less, and states with right to work laws have significantly higher fatality rates than those that do not.

The biggest problem with this piece is the tax eliminations that he wants to enact. The estate tax in Ohio only applies to estates with a gross value exceeding $338,000. This is a fairly low ceiling relative to other states with an estate tax, and if he wanted to argue that it should be raised I could get on board with that. But he doesn't. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Ohio collected a little less than $67 million in "death and gift taxes" in 2009. For a $1 million estate, the total estate taxes would run $58,600, or less than 6% of total estate value. If we assume that the average estate that this applies to is $1 million (total top-of-my-head guestimate), this tax applies to less than 1,200 estates per year in Ohio, all of which is paid out by people that received an inheritance. This is what he's fighting for?

(It should also be pointed out that an attempt was made to repeal the tax back in 2001, but was beat back because of declining state revenues and a group of municipalities that demanded a continuation of the tax. More on the reality of tax revenues in a minute.)

Eliminating the state income tax gets to an even bigger problem. The Census Bureau shows that Ohio collected $8.3 billion in individual income taxes in 2009. Wilson wants to eliminate those taxes, which would delight people since no one likes paying income taxes. But, there's nothing in his plan that outlines the spending cuts he would make to cover the decrease in tax revenue.

Oh wait, there is the part about consolidating cabinet agencies. Which agencies? How much will that save? Wilson doesn't say, but this is par for the course with the Tea Party in general. Tax cuts are great, but you have to find a way to pay for them through spending cuts, and no one ever seems to want to provide details on where those will come from, because people like services, and telling them that those services are going to go away isn't going to make them happy or likely to vote for you.

I can't stress this enough. Wilson (as well as gubernatorial candidate John Kasich) is proposing to eliminate $8 billion dollars of tax revenue without any sort of plan for how to balance the lost revenue with reduced spending, and this is considered a serious fiscal policy position. I'm sure that the republican response will be "we'll find the spending cuts we need to make this work", or something along the lines of trickle-down economics with no hard numbers to explain how this will all balance out. This is lunacy. Imagine if you and your wife were struggling to make ends meet, and then one day you came home and said, "Honey, I just bought a Maybach!" And then when she said, "We're already knee-deep in debt, how the hell are we going to pay for it", you just replied, "Oh, we'll figure it out as we go along." How well would that go over? Flip the spending and revenue sides of the situation, and that's exactly what Wilson is proposing.

Wilson then moves on to his next "other issue", transparency in government. Again, a pretty good idea. Here are his points:

Blog on each piece of significant legislation I vote on so my constituents know where I stand.
Share my cell phone number with my constituents - 513-494-OH28 (6428).
Introduce legislation to require state agencies to publish a searchable database of their expenditures on the Internet.
Work to recreate the Legislative Budget Office who's mandate is to provide non-partisan analysis and scoring of bills before the General Assembly.

I think the first two points are great, though I wonder if he's going to regret giving out his number, but good for him to want to be held accountable to the people. Actually, the last two are pretty good ideas as well, except for one little problem (outside of the typo in the fourth point). Creating a statewide database costs money to create, implement, and maintain. Creating a budget office costs money, and also creates another layer of government, both of which Wilson says he's against. Again, how will these be paid for? Wilson doesn't say. (UPDATE: in the comments, it's stated that a version of his proposed LBO already exists in the form of the Legislative Services Commission.)

The last section deals with "fighting back against an out-of-control federal government". According to Wilson, "[o}ver the last 120 years, arrogant politicians have subscribed to the fatal conceit that a one-size fits all federal government could more effectively direct our country than the 50 states or hundreds of millions of people scattered across our fruited plains." Setting aside that no one has used the term "fruited plains" in about 120 years (and I'd be curious why he picked 120 years), the utter mess that would be created by having essentially 50 individual republics is hard to express in words. Having that system 120 years ago may have worked well; it's kind of a different world now.

Anyways, citing the 10th amendment, Wilson promises to:

Fight to pass a sovereignty resolution in the House identical to S.C.R 13 which passed in the Ohio Senate in September, 2009.
Support nullification legislation should Congress pass a health care bill that requires consumers to purchase government-approved insurance.
Support firearms freedom legislation that nullifies federal regulations for firearms and ammunition that do not cross Ohio’s borders

State sovereignty is a huge mess that deserves a post of its own, and I'll leave well enough alone on the firearms point. Healthcare, however, I'll take that one on.

Wilson doesn't seem to want to fight the part of healthcare reform that essentially tells insurance companies that they can't use pre-existing conditions or recissions to trim their enrollment of subscribers that get extremely sick or are considered "unprofitable". If that's the case, then there absolutely has to be a mandate that everyone have insurance - and anyone associated with the health insurance industry will tell you that. Otherwise, there's no incentive for someone to purchase health insurance until they get sick. The insurance companies need to collect premiums from healthy subscribers to subsidize the costs of the unhealthy, or else they'd go bankrupt quickly. Incidentally, this was a conservative idea back in the early 90's, when the Clinton administration tried to pass healthcare reform.

However, if Wilson really wants to pursue this route, he needs to go even bigger. You see, the 10th amendment states that any powers not delegated by the Constitution to the federal government are yielded to the states. And the Constitution empowers Congress to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises," to "provide for" the "general welfare" of the United States, and to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." Putting laws into place to help cover the millions of uninsured citizens in this country would seem to fall under the "general welfare" clause.

It should then follow that, if this doesn't fall under the general welfare clause, then neither does Medicare. Or Medicaid. Or Social Security. Or the VA system. So if he believes that a federal government mandate to have health insurance violates the 10th amendment, then I say he needs to go big and nullify all of the above for the state of Ohio. You shouldn't pick and choose from things you like and don't like.

Look, all of the above being said, I do have a lot of respect for what Mike Wilson is doing, and I have a feeling that other than our political differences I'd like the guy. I've challenged the Tea Partiers to step up and put their money where their mouth is, so good for him. And it takes a lot to commit to running a congressional campaign, it takes a physical and mental toll on you, you have to spend pretty much every weekend meeting and greeting people, and with three kids that can't be easy. Having said all that, you need to have defensible policy positions, and I'm just not seeing that here. Maybe there's something more that will surprise me, but it just seems like a lot of republican slogans, and I think that if he gets elected to Congress, he's going to find out that governing is a lot harder than just going in and trying to cut taxes.

Steve Chabot is just making stuff up

2010-04-22T19:08:00.004-04:00

The Enquirer has clearly slipped over the past several months. Ok, well it'd been slipping for a lot longer than that, but it's become very evident recently. First there was the abhorrent editorial about health care reform that looked like it'd come right out of a G.O.P. press release, and now they've allowed former congressman - and currently republican candidate for the 1st district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives - Steve Chabot to pen an op-ed disagreeing with current representative Steve Driehaus' take that taxes are low.

It's fair to say that Chabot takes a few liberties with the facts. And when I say liberties, I mean he completely ignores them, makes up his own facts, and then tries to play them off as being true. Don't believe me? Let's take a look.

Chabot: The so-called economic stimulus package pushed by the Pelosi-Reid Congress, which Driehaus voted for, clearly hasn't worked.

Reality: According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus package created 2.1 million jobs in the last three months of 2009 alone. This is backed up by multiple economic research firms, who also believe that the stimulus package saved us from a far worse recession, and possibly a depression.

Chabot: And the true unemployment rate is 17 to 20 percent if you factor in those who are underemployed, work only part-time or have given up looking altogether.

Reality: I couldn't find any record of Chabot citing underemployment/part-time workers when Bush was president, so I find it interesting that he's using those now to calculate unemployment numbers. The Obama administration took over an absolute mess, and has been losing less jobs every month, after months of accelerating job losses under Bush.

Chabot: Driehaus and congressional Democrats are allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, meaning income taxes will be going up on virtually everyone.

Reality: Under the Bush tax cuts, the bottom 60% of income earners saved no more than $600 per year, whereas the top 1% saved over $53,000 per year. They disproportionately helped the upper class, and did very little for the bottom 80% of the American workforce.

Chabot: Driehaus also failed to mention that he voted for the much-criticized cap-and-trade legislation, which amounts to a new energy tax on every American. It would mean significantly higher costs to heat or cool your home and drive your car, and would run up the cost on virtually everything you buy.

Reality: I'm sure that Chabot is referring to the republican-pushed study that said that cap and trade would cost the average family $3,100 per year. This has been widely discredited. The EPA's own study came up with a cost of $98 to $140 per year for an average family. Other estimates have been somewhat higher, but none even close to the $3,100 figure.

Chabot: [Driehaus'] liberal allies in Washington are seriously considering imposing a new national sales tax on all of us. The plan is to have an "independent" commission study the potential options...and then recommend a VAT (Value Added Tax) after the election. Doug Elmendorf, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, has admitted that his people are already studying it.

Reality: First, Driehaus would hardly call himself a liberal. Second, multiple members of the Obama administration have already said that a VAT is not an option. Third, 85 Senate members have already signed a resolution against a VAT, so the chances of that getting through Congress are non-existent. Most every civilized country has a VAT of some sort, but that's not going to be happening here.

Chabot: [A] recent report showed that $316 billion of the $670 billion in increased taxes already passed by Congress over the past year, raised taxes on middle class families, not the wealthy.

Reality: The report that Chabot is referring to is a report published by the republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee. Some of the tax increases are hardly middle class specific ($65 billion on a tobacco tax increase), some of them are not actually taxes ($64 billion in fines for individuals and companies that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, $13 billion from capping FSA contributions at $2,500), and some are just ridiculous ($2.7 billion for a 10% increase in taxes on tanning salons, which is silly since John Boehner clearly is the bigger utilizer of tanning salons). Also, the figures Chabot cites are over a 10 year period - while Chabot doesn't outright say that these "increases" are immediate, he doesn't do much to clarify that they aren't.

Chabot: Driehaus cited a study by Citizens for Tax Justice as his source that we should all thank him for our "low taxes." When a group has the term "justice" in its title, it's usually a tip-off that they're a liberal outfit.

Reality: This is true, since it's well known that justice has a liberal bias. Also, this means that all members of the Justice League, with the exception of Solomon Grundy, are liberal as well.

Chabot: Congress passed a trillion-dollar health care bill that many of its members didn't even read.

Reality: The bill came in at under a trillion dollars, and I'd like to know how Chabot is so certain that members did not read the bill. Also, it's hard to take Chabot seriously when he complains about the passage of a budget neutral health care reform bill, when he voted in favor of the Medicare Part D bill, which was little more than a giveaway to the pharmaceutical companies, and cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars and had no provisions for how to pay for it.

Chabot: Let's move to a flatter, simpler, lower and fairer income tax. And if a national sales tax is in our future, let's make sure that it replaces federal income taxes altogether.

Reality: Both flat taxes and (especially) national sales taxes are terribly regressive. A sales tax disproportionately hits lower and lower-middle class families, since they consume almost all of their income, whereas the upper class tends to save considerably more, since they don't need to use all of their income to survive.

It's a shame that the Enquirer gave Chabot a forum to spew his misinformation to their readership. Here's hoping that they give Driehaus ample opportunity to set the facts straight.

UPDATE: I should point out that the majority of my fact-checking took all of about a half-hour. If a blogger can poke this many holes in an op-ed that quickly, you ought to wonder why the editors of a major local publication couldn't do the same. Of course, that's assuming that the editors wanted to fact-check the op-ed; my gut tells me that wasn't a priority for them.

Top 10 Reasons Health Care Reform is Good for Teabaggers

2010-03-21T23:55:00.001-04:00

10. No lifetime limits on coverage, so grab an extra Big Mac.
9. Illegal immigrants will still clog ER's, but you'll avoid them with preventative care.
8. Your kids will now be covered on your policy up until age 26, even if they don't live in your basement.
7. Keep riding your chopper without a helmet...you're now covered. But you're still idiots.
6. That repetitive motion injury from flag-waving? Covered.
5. You can now spend your time on 9/11 conspiracy theories instead of worrying about medical bankruptcy.
4. You don't have to show a Kenyan birth certificate to get insured.
3. The law is 100% death panel free. Except for the death of freedom. Forgot that one.
2. Being tread on is now covered.
1. Stupidity no longer a preexisting condition.

The Too Big to Fail Date Index

2010-01-12T14:19:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail. A well-written book which reads like a thriller. When comparing it to other accounts, I thought it would be useful to have a date index of the events in the book. As a public service , I present my date index in comma-separated value, CSV, format. Feel free to load it into your favorite spreadsheet or text editor.

Date,Pages
"February 2007, Undated",123-124
2007-08-09,101
"November 2007, Undated","140-142,135"
"January 2008, Undated",160-161
"February 2008, Undated",161
2008-03-13,77
2008-03-14,78
2008-03-15,59
2008-03-16,"59, 78"
2008-03-17,"9-17,30"
2008-03-18,31-35
2008-03-23,"36-39,103-104"
2008-03-27,49-54
2008-03-28,54-56
2008-03-29,56-57
2008-03-31,57
"March 2008, Undated",162
2008-04-02,58-60
2008-04-03,"66-72,78"
2008-04-11,79-83
2008-04-15,"83-84,90-100"
"April 2008, Late",104
2008-05-14,163
2008-05-15,163
2008-05-18,102
2008-05-21,105-108
"May 2008, Undated",163
"May 2008, Mid",100
"May 2008, Late",104
2008-06-01,114
2008-06-02,114-115
2008-06-03,114-115
2008-06-04,109-111
2008-06-05,"89,111-113,115"
2008-06-08,117-119
2008-06-09,"125-127,149-152"
2008-06-10,"127-128,185"
2008-06-11,128-131
2008-06-12,131-135
2008-06-15,"152,165"
2008-06-27,166-168
2008-06-28,"168,173-175,177-178"
2008-06-29,"175-176, 178"
"June 2008, Late","147-148,179-181"
2008-07-04,180-182
2008-07-05,180-182
2008-07-06,180-182
2008-07-07,183
2008-07-08,184
2008-07-10,185-188
2008-07-11,189
2008-07-12,189-195
2008-07-13,196-199
2008-07-14,201-202
2008-07-15,199-201
2008-07-16,202-203
2008-07-17,203-204
2008-07-21,204-205
2008-07-23,205-206
2008-07-29,207-210
2008-07-30,211
2008-08-04,212-213
2008-08-05,214-216
2008-08-06,210-212
2008-08-07,87
2008-08-08,88
2008-08-11,89
2008-08-21,220-221
2008-08-22,218-220
2008-08-23,223-224
2008-08-24,223-224
2008-08-25,221-223
2008-08-26,"221-223,224"
2008-08-27,221-223
2008-08-28,221-227
2008-08-29,221-223
"August 2008, Undated",216-218
2008-09-02,227-228
2008-09-04,228
2008-09-05,228-229
2008-09-06,229
2008-09-07,230
2008-09-08,231-232
2008-09-09,232-250
2008-09-10,251-268
2008-09-11,268-284
2008-09-12,284-309
2008-09-13,"1-3,309-330,333-338"
2008-09-14,"330-333,339-372"
2008-09-15,372-389
2008-09-16,389-408
2008-09-17,408-429
2008-09-18,429-445
2008-09-19,"445-454,456"
2008-09-20,454-470
2008-09-21,470-483
2008-09-22,484-485
2008-09-23,485-487
2008-09-24,487-489
2008-09-25,489-490
2008-09-26,490-491
2008-09-27,491-494
2008-09-28,494-498
2008-09-29,498-500
2008-09-30,400
2008-10-02,501-502
2008-10-03,502-505
2008-10-04,505
2008-10-05,505
2008-10-06,505
2008-10-07,510
2008-10-11,509-510
2008-10-12,511-512
2008-10-13,517-528

Eating Liberally and Trivia

2009-12-20T22:22:00.001-05:00

Drinking Liberally will forgo the usual Tuesday meeeting and go Eating Liberally on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 for Trivia Night at Balboa's Pizza, 2038 Madison Road in O'Bryonville at 7:30PM. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

It's trivia night, so please tell us if you plan to come so we can reserve enough space. The 11, 69 and 24 buses all stop right outside the door of Balboa's.

Remember that next Tuesday, December 29, 2009, we'll also be doing Trivia at Molly Malone's in Pleasant Ridge.

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

DLD2 @ HPT, Tuesday, December 8, 2009 7:30PM

2009-12-07T13:28:00.001-05:00

Drinking Liberally District 2 will be meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at The Hyde Park Tavern, 3384 Erie Ave at 7:30PM. Look for us at the top of the stairs to the right. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

This week we saw Kathleen Parker say something reasonable and the disclosure of the code that runs the right-wing blogosphere..

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The Hyde Park Tavern has good parking, an excellent drink selection, a unique and delicious "gourmet bar food" menu, and friendly, efficient staff.

The 69 bus stops a short walk away at Marburg and Erie, just past The Coffee Emporium. The 51 bus stops just north of Victoria Ave and Paxton Ave, a pleasant three-quarter mile walk or bike ride away, straight east down Victoria Ave to Erie.

John Karabaic

Open source code has its downside

2009-12-02T17:58:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of a commenter at Balloon Juice, we've been able to uncover the programming code used to operate the right-wing blogosphere. Shockingly, it's far more complex than I thought it would be.

10 variable x,y
20 function GetWhatObamaJustSaidOrDid
30 x=GetWhatObamaJustSaidOrDid
40 y=concatenate(x," is the most traitorous act in the history of mankind.")
50 print y
60 goto 10

It's all come 360 now

2009-11-29T10:26:00.003-05:00

Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist, published in the Enquirer, that writes about things like "family values" and typical right-wing soccer mom topics.

Kathleen Parker once wrote a column defending intelligent design that was so mind-numbingly stupid that I spent almost 600 words ripping it to shreds.

Kathleen Parker called on Sarah Palin to step down as the VP candidate, because she was out of her league. For that, she was excoriated by the right, to the point that Red State inducted her as the initial target of something they called Operation Leper (apparently something to demonize those who veered 1% from party orthodoxy).

Kathleen Parker penned a pretty solid, though hardly 100% agreeable, column this week, arguing that the items in the so-called purity checklist being considered by the RNC "aren't so much statements of principe as [they are] dogmatic responses to complex issues that...require more than a Sharpie check in a square", and laments the GOP's equation of nuance with indecisiveness and a lack of leadership skills.

Kathleen Parker has become one of the reasonable thinkers of the right.

Dear FSM, we're so screwed.

DLD2 @ HPT, Tuesday, November 24, 2009 7:30PM

2009-11-23T17:33:00.002-05:00

Drinking Liberally District 2 will be meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at The Hyde Park Tavern, 3384 Erie Ave at 7:30PM. Look for us at the top of the stairs to the right. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Thanks to everyone who showed up at the Comet last Thursday for our 5th Anniversary bash. It was great to meet at the original site of DL Cincinnati again, have some big-ass burritos and strange-dream-inducing™ queso dip, and Bonbonerie cake. Pictures will soon be in our Flickr feed.

This week we saw some climate change deniers take the law into their own hands as well as the fight for health care for all move to the Senate. We're still waiting for a good explanation as to why the Hamilton County BOE takes so long to tally votes. Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

The Hyde Park Tavern has good parking, an excellent drink selection, a unique and delicious "gourmet bar food" menu, and friendly, efficient staff.

John Karabaic

News Flash: Some Climate Scientists are Assholes

2009-11-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

There's an old joke: Why are university politics so nasty?

Because the stakes are so low.

Climate skeptics have violated UK law by breaking into an email server and publishing a load of correspondence full of scientific slang (a "trick" is the scientist's equivalent of a computer engineer's "hack": an elegant (or inelegant) solution to a gnarly problem), personal vindictiveness and childish photoshopping.

Nothing they've released invalidates the scientific truth of global warming.

RealClimate.org, another intended target of the hackers, said it best:

Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Yes, folks, climate skeptics have stooped to breaking the law and violating the privacy of personal communications to warn us that...scientists are human.

Challenge to the Hamilton County BOE

2009-11-07T05:57:00.004-05:00

At somewhere around 7:30 on election night, we saw our first results fron the Hamilton County Board of Elections. They published the absentee ballot count - partial absentee count, that is.

And then...crickets. 8:00, nothing. 8:30, nothing. Around 8:45, I got a call from a friend viewing the results at the BOE, telling me that they said they won't have any new results for another hour (to be fair, they were able to overdeliver - about 9:30 they were able to post votes from 1% or so of the precincts).

Yes, more than two hours after the polls closed, the BOE was practically unable to post vote counts from a precinct. And I don't know how that happens. By my count, this is at least the fifth consecutive election where precinct vote counts seemed to be significantly delayed for no good reason (or at least no explained reason).

I had a conversation with someone knowledgeable about the process, and he gave me an explanation that, if I understand it right, was so shocking to my system that I needed to quickly grab another beer.

I don't know why things seem to move so much slower at our BOE than others around the state/country/world. Maybe it's the speed in which the poll workers get the ballots to the BOE. Maybe it's the vote counting software. Maybe the chairman is spending too much time searching for pictures of Dr. Evil.

Whatever the reason, I'm dumbfounded. So I'm issuing this challenge to the BOE: explain why it's so much tougher to count votes in this town than it is anywhere else. If someone working there can send us an explanation (to cincinnati@drinkingliberally.org) of how the whole system works, and what seems to hold up the process, we'll publish it verbatim.

I'd just like to know whether it's worth coming down on election night next year, or if it's better to just stick at the celebration parties for a few hours before worrying about how the actual elections turn out.

Dems starting to learn to act like wise guys

2009-10-30T19:49:00.001-04:00

Shorter Tom Harkin: "My, Senator Lieberman, that's a lovely chairmanship you have there. It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it."

DL Lecture Series and Drinking Liberally Downtown

2009-10-15T09:59:00.001-04:00

Next week we're moving from our regular venue at Fries to take part in a special event hosted by Oxfam America.

Next Tuesday, Oxfam America will be giving a presentation on Global Poverty and Climate Change at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation.

Climate change affects our entire planet: natural resources, wildlife, and people. Any solutions to the challenge of climate change must address all of these different impacts in a fair and equitable way. By cutting emissions and providing funding for adaptation, the US can reduce damage to our planet's ecosystem while at the same time helping the poorest people survive the changes to their climate.

Please come join us at 7PM at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, 200 West 4th Street, for the presentation and a Q&A session. When it ends around 8:30PM, we'll go to the Rock Bottom Brewery in Fountain Square and probably close it down at 10PM.

Please RSVP to us and Gene Gardner at 513-681-2794 or GeneGard24@aol.com if you plan on attending the Oxfam event. If you can't make that, please join us at the Rock Bottom Brewery afterwards.

Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Together with individuals and local groups in more than 100 countries, Oxfam saves lives, helps people overcome poverty, and fights for social justice. Oxfam America is an affiliate of Oxfam International.

Ownership on loan from the devil

2009-10-10T06:32:00.002-04:00

The ownership of the NFL's St. Louis Rams has let it be known that they might sell the team if the price is right. Several groups have stepped up and made bids to purchase the team. One of those groups is led by, among others, Rush Limbaugh.

On its face, I think this is an incredibly bad idea. Obviously, Limbaugh is a terribly divisive personality, and it's just not smart to have an owner that's going to offend half your fan base.

Of course, if players don't want to play for him either, that's a big problem too.

"All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in (President) Obama's America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting 'right on,'" [New York Giants defensive end Matthias] Kiwanuka told The Daily News. "I mean, I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants, it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play."

"I am not going to draw a conclusion from a person off of one comment, but when it is time after time after time and there's a consistent pattern of disrespect and just a complete misunderstanding of an entire culture that I am a part of, I can't respect him as a man."

On Friday's edition of ESPN's Pardon The Interruption, co-host Michael Wilbon added, "I don’t know whether Rush Limbaugh is a straight-up bigot, or if he just plays one on TV or the radio. But he is universally reviled by black people in this country, and justifiably so…he’s referred to the NFL as Bloods and Crips without weapons…does he not think that black people had TV’s and radios in the 20th century, when he started saying these things?"

Peer pressure is a powerful thing. And if Kiwanuka and Bart Scott (also mentioned in the embedded article) feel this way, I've got to believe there's many others that do also. And if they believe he's racist, they're probably going to make it known to their cohorts that they should probably consider whether they want to play for such an owner. It wouldn't surprise me if players that sign with the Rams would be treated like someone that crossed a picket line.

For a league that prides itself on parity and competitive balance, the possibility that one of its 32 teams could put itself at such a disadvantage simply because of their owner ought to seriously worry its leadership. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the other team owners need to think long and hard over whether they want to approve this group's bid if Rams ownership accepts it.

A million freeper heads are exploding this morn

2009-10-09T08:35:00.002-04:00

First, congratulations to President Obama on the Nobel peace prize. I can't wait to see the reaction from the wingnuts.

PS: Just getting settled Down Under. So far so good. Definitely miss DL!

Always check the fine print

2009-10-03T13:38:00.001-04:00

What happened yesterday? Let's see, Chicago got knocked out of contention to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and the right-wing press got all excited and stuff.

Soon after news broke that the International Olympic Committee had rejected Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics, which President Obama had personally lobbied for, Weekly Standard blogger John McCormack published a celebratory post on the magazine’s blog, titled “Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!.” McCormack wrote that “Cheers erupt at WEEKLY STANDARD world headquarters”.

Glad to know that the righties were so excited that America's not going to be hosting a worldwide event that gets broadcast internationally for two weeks straight.

Oh, and then there was the senator that took a little trip to Central America.

One of the de facto government’s main supporters in Washington, Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, has announced plans to visit Tegucigalpa on Friday. One Congressional staff member said Mr. DeMint hoped to meet with members of the de facto government and other Hondurans. Other staff members said he intended to encourage [interim president and coup leader Roberto] Micheletti and his supporters to resist.

Never mind that just about every legitimate government in the world does not recognize the current leadership of Honduras, or that they've practically imposed martial law and given themselves the authority to shut down any news outlet that "attack peace and public order". No, senator DeMint needs to go check out how the new banana republic is doing.

I seem to remember a time when criticizing the president, rooting against the country, and defying U.S. foreign policy was considered to be unpatriotic, and made you a terrorist supporting, cheese eating surrender monkey. I guessed I missed the line in that memo that said it was set to expire on January 20, 2009.

George Will is full of hot air too

2009-10-02T20:19:00.002-04:00

George Will at the Washington Post has a tendency to slap together some pretty shoddy columns on global warming. He threw another one together earlier this week. Multiple bloggers have gone after this column and poked holes in Will's logic, which usually isn't too difficult to do.

Ezra Klein offers a subdued, yet reasoned, approach to the dissection of the piece:

...[G]lobal warming is not shorthand for “every day will be hotter than the next everywhere on the planet.” It is shorthand for for the observation that an "anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is amplifying the natural radiative forcing of the troposphere’s temperature," thus creating a general trend toward higher temperatures. The year-to-year variability that forms the basis of Will's column is not a challenge to this theory. It is built into it.

If Will is aware of this, he does not show it. There is not a line rebutting this thinking, much less a paragraph. Given that, it is perhaps no surprise that more technical disputes are not aired, either...[B]ecause he is not using [the U.K.'s National Weather Service, the Met Office's measurements] firsthand, he is relying on a report that arguably understated the Met's conclusions. Their data actually show that the 2000s were the hottest decade on record, much hotter than the 1990s. Indeed, if you look at the 10 hottest years on record, eight were in the 2000s. Two were in the '90s. Those two were in 1997 and 1998, which the Met says was a function of the weather event El Niño. They explain their data at length here. Will gives no airing to their explanation.

Nor does he explain why he's using the Met's data. After all, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies thinks that the 2000s have seen triple the warming that the Met estimates. I have no idea who's right. If Will has a considered take on this question, he's not yet published it.

There are several other more detailed takedowns of the column than Klein's, but what I find most interesting is who he's employed by - the Washington Post. The fact that they're allowing him to go after the paper's sacred cow is something that I find mildly refreshing.

But then I see that their opinion writers also think that prosecuting a child rapist is outrageous, and I lose faith in Fred Hiatt's paper again. Oh who am I kidding, I didn't have any faith in it in the first place.

Burt Rutan is Full of Hot Air

2009-10-02T01:13:00.006-04:00

At the Experimental Aircraft Association "Airventure" in Oshkosh on 29 July 2009 and 01 Aug 2009, aerospace engineer and X Prize winner Burt Rutan gave a presentation on the Anthropogenic Global Warming "hoax". It's available at http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/Rutan.AGWdataAnalysis%20v11.pdf. It's full of the usual climate change denialist nonsense.

The first part of the presentation lays out Rutan's qualifications. I won't challenge those. (Likewise, I will not challenge his ad-hominem attacks on professional climate scientists, his love affair with the petroleum industry, his lies about meteorologists, and even his nonsense about the ozone hole being a hoax.) I will challenge his statements where they are in error, I will argue with his interpretations where his facts are correct and I will point out his "selective use" of facts in the climate change debate.

What is astonishing is that he attacks the "cherry picking" of data by climate scientists, yet never cites his sources or methods.

What follows are links to pages on "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic", a set of tutorials created by professional climate scientists which demolish each of his arguments one by one. For each slide where he makes one of the usual arguments, I'll provide the link to the refutation by climate scientists. You should read his presentation, and then the data in the links.

Pages 15-16. "Natural emissions dwarf humans" (I would gladly show him how compound interest works, but I'll do it in a way that hits home. Please, Mr. Rutan, give me 3.42% of 3.62% of your income, increasing as we increase emissions on a compound basis for the next 100 years!)
Pages 17-18. The argument here is twofold: "There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature" and "Geological history doesn't support CO2's importance." He mentions that we're close to the level 300M years ago. He neglects to mention that CO2 levels have not had this rate of increase, or been at this level, while humans have tried to scratch out a living on this planet. We don't know how to live in any other kind of climate.
Pages 19-20. "Manipulation of CO2 data" I suppose this is also covered by "CO2 is a fertilizer." There's also a more recent "controversy" on this which was answered quite nicely by the Real Climate folks.
Pages 21-22. "Temperature correlates with sun". This is also called the "solar forcing" argument.
Pages 23-24. "It was Warmer During the Holocene Climate Optimum", "The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as today", and "It was so warm 1000 years ago, Greenland was actually green". And if you're interested in what the Younger Dryas is, try Greg Laden's great explanation.
Pages 25-26. As stated before, the medieval warming never happened. He's also playing with data here, covered by "One Hundred Years is not Enough".
Pages 27-28. This is addressed by "There are problems with the temperature records" His statement about James "Hanson" falsifying data is just flat-out untrue, as Hansen himself explained. There's a very detailed analysis of the measurement glitch by the guy who discovered it. Rutan doesn't have enough of a commitment to accuracy or proofreading ability to even spell Hansen's name correctly.
Pages 29-30. Pretty much a detailed ad-hominem attack on Jim Hansen. But it's full of lies. Jim Hansen did not call for the jailing of climate change skeptics. (Maybe this "Hanson" fellow that Rutan keeps referring to did.) Harrison Schmitt's degree is in geology, not in climate science. What industry do geologists usually work in...I wonder? I could equally--and as relevantly--cite Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, who supports the Planetary Society's roadmap that Schmitt quit over. Rutan, if you're saying that only "Scientists" (your capitalization) have credibility, you miss one thing. You're not a "Scientist". Why should I believe you? Credentialism goes both ways. And, lastly, saying that it cooled in 2008 means you just don't understand what "climate" is.
Pages 31-32. As stated before, the medieval warming never happened. And, since he's impugning the Hockey Stick by name, I should include "The Hockey Stick is Broken"

It's late now, and I have to get to bed. I'll continue with the refutation of slides 33-66 another time.

I don't mean to belittle Rutan, but he's clearly out of his depth here and relying on arguments which have been refuted for years. It's common for experts in one field to think that carries over to other fields.

There are climate scientists who have made searching for the truth their life's work. Who have been giving each a hard time about the data and its interpretation for the last hundred years, ever since "Svante Arrhenius first calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming".

When the fate of the planet is at stake, I'll go with them.

For the batshit crazy loved one

2009-09-28T21:56:00.002-04:00

It's the Sarah Palin & Michelle Bachman action figures.

I'm speechless (and this is coming from someone that owns a Jesse Ventura action figure).

Free advice for the Dems

2009-09-28T21:08:00.002-04:00

Better get prepared to deal with this as the new media meme:

Jill Abramson, the managing editor for [the New York Times] news, agreed with [NYT editor Clark Hoyt] that the paper was “slow off the mark,” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies. Keller declined to identify the editor, saying he wanted to spare that person “a bombardment of e-mails and excoriation in the blogosphere.”

Yes, this is something that should be a much bigger concern for the Times. Don't hire editors for the purpose of doing things like...ummm, editing, or silly tasks like "fact checking and determining whether something is newsworthy or not. No, much better to go out and get a young, enterprising conservative newsroom guy to monitor the wingnut right (to be safe, you might want to hire someone that comes from a long line of republicans, since you can't come out and ask about political affiliations in the interview process).

Come to think of it, the Washington Post tried something similar to this three years ago. I believe his name was Ben Domenech. From what I can remember, it did not go so well.

Nevertheless, they better be prepared to deal with the fact that Fox News is basically getting its own news bureau now.

Iron City Lockdown

2009-09-28T11:31:00.002-04:00

A couple of interesting videos from Pittsburgh last week. Who are these uniformed men, and what are they doing with this person?

And what exactly do the words "inappropriate use of force" mean to the Pittsburgh Police?

And, to make it clear, I understand that clearing the streets may be necessary to ensure the public safety, particularly at an event like the G20.

Almost as important as making sure that the crowd is free of guns at an event where the President is speaking.

It's not that the "ordinary" student poses a threat; it's because troublemakers cold be using them as camouflage

The same way a potential assassin could use a group of law-abiding, gun-toting citizens as camouflage.

By the way, would the right wing be as off the hook about these protesters if they *were* asserting their 2nd Amendment rights?

Thoughts on the Cadillac Ranch/Midpoint controversy

2009-09-27T20:31:00.003-04:00

Since we've held events at Cadillac Ranch in the past, and our group is full of Midpoint fanatics, I felt it was worthwhile to chime in on the fiasco from last night at Cadillac Ranch. Basically, the GM at the Ranch decided to cancel the rest of the acts for the evening after a poor turnout for the night's opening band.

Some people have latched on to the notion that the Midpoint organizers should have planned their schedule better, and put bands at the Cadillac Ranch that would fit their regular clientele. I have to say, I was quite surprised that the Ranch was even hosting any events at all associated with Midpoint - it doesn't really seem to fit their style. Of course, the GM at Cadillac Ranch could have spent 20 minutes on Google, checked out the bands, and then suggested to the organizers that maybe they ought to rethink their scheduled lineup (the GM says that he wasn't given a say in the matter - he may be right, but a little proactive work might not have been a bad idea).

But this isn't about suitability - this is simply about a bar not holding up to its end of a deal. The GM at the Ranch said he'd host bands for the entire festival. Then, when the first band didn't bring in a ton of people, he cancelled the rest of the acts, without making any sort of arrangements as to where those bands might be able to play the rest of the night. Never mind that people tend to flow in and out of the bars during a festival, he just decided to cut ties on a whim.

Not living up to a deal is among the worst sins a business can commit, especially when its done in plain view. I'm disappointed in how the Cadillac Ranch conducted itself. I hope everyone that ever considers organizing an event there has paid close attention to this incident. Better have a backup plan as well.

Sorry

2009-09-27T16:20:00.001-04:00

I posted something earlier today that, in hindsight, probably wasn't a good idea. It's been pulled from the site. My apologies to those that were offended by it.

Why healthcare reform needs to pass

2009-09-27T09:05:00.002-04:00

This is just sad.

News of Kimberly Young’s death Wednesday, Sept. 23, came as a shock to those who knew the vibrant 22-year-old who was working at least two jobs in Oxford after graduating with a double major in December 2008.

Young became ill about two weeks ago, but didn’t seek care initially because she didn’t have health insurance and was worried about the cost, according to Brent Mowery, her friend and former roommate.

Mowery said Young eventually went to an urgent care facility in Hamilton where she was given pain medication and then sent home.

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Young’s condition suddenly worsened and her roommate drove her to McCullough Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford, where she was flown in critical condition to University Hospital in Cincinnati.

“That’s the most tragic part about it. If she had insurance, she would have gone to the doctor,” Mowery said.

Grownups will look at this and decide that not one more person should die because they don't have insurance and can't afford basic care. Partisan children will look at this and scream about death panels, socialism, and a government takeover of healthcare.

Enough already.

This says it all about the public option

2009-09-22T11:22:00.002-04:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Whose holiday is it anyways?

2009-09-21T21:51:00.003-04:00

From Glenn Beck's radio show today:

By the way, I just thought I would put this out there, and what you do with it is your own business. But, this weekend, I put out a tweet on Twitter that September 28th is the Day of Atonement for the Jewish faith, and I thought it would be a good day for all of us to fast and pray, you know. And I got this idea from Thomas Jefferson. After they put together the Continental Congress, the first thing they did was put together a day -- a national day of fast and prayer, and I thought the Day of Atonement would be a good day to do it.

Aside from the obscene, dishonest, and completely warped misinterpretation of Jefferson's views on government endorsed days of prayer...as someone who was raised Jewish - hell, as a human with multiple brain cells - I can really only muster a short phrase to respond to Mr. Beck, which Dick Cheney said far greater than I ever could.

Oh, and for those of you that are more offended by my use of language, than by the behavior of Mr. Beck, I will take your concerns under consideration. But, in the meantime...

DLD2 7:30PM, Tuesday, September 22 2009 at HPT

2009-09-21T14:42:00.001-04:00

Drinking Liberally District 2 will be meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at The Hyde Park Tavern, 3384 Erie Ave at 7:30PM. We may be outside on the patio, depending on the weather. If it's wet out, look for us at the top of the stairs to the right. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

This week we saw

local weather and global climate are not the same.

Nuts for ACORN, casually incurious about jobrolling, negligent homicide, rape and murder at those doing business with the Bush administration.

Coming Soon:

Michael Pollan is coming to Cincinnati on Sunday, September 27, lecturing at 1PM at the Cintas Center at Xavier. We'll be having a Brunching Liberally event for those who want to get together. Tell us if you're interested.

This month is a Trivia Month. Tuesday, September 29 we'll be at Molly Malone's for Trivia Night.

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

The Hyde Park Tavern has good parking, an excellent drink selection, a unique and delicious "gourmet bar food" menu, and friendly, efficient staff.

John Karabaic

Consistency in outrage would be a really good thing

2009-09-19T15:57:00.002-04:00

I'm sure everyone's seen the ridiculous ACORN videos of employees trying to give tax advice to a pimp & prostitute. Certainly their actions were deplorable - if you take at face value that they were actually being serious, which I don't, but that's another story entirely - and the president of the organization called for an immediate investigation, something many companies given government funding have refused to do. I'm looking in your general direction AIG...

Nevertheless, the House of Representatives voted Friday to strip all federal funding for the organization, so people who would have used its services to, among other things, keep their houses from being foreclosed upon will just have to do without, and probably lose their house. Two presidential hopefuls - Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal - cut off all funding towards ACORN. Of course, a two minute conversation with one of their staffers would have unearthed the fact that their states don't provide any funding to the organization, but that's an inconvenient fact - you have to prove your commitment to the wingnuts to get to the top in the party.

I could possibly take this seriously - a few bad apples don't represent an entire company, but you do want to find out how many bad apples you have - had they shown half this level of zeal in investigating Haliburton/KBR when employees were implicated in the rape of co-workers. Or when their negligence in wiring on U.S. bases caused the deaths of multiple soldiers and U.S. armed forces members. Or when the founder of Blackwater (now here's a logical concept, perhaps the creator of a company represents the values of the whole organization better than a few staffers) was implicated in multiple murders. Or when both firms were found to have overcharged the U.S. government by millions of dollars.

Or maybe I'd take it more seriously if they were in some way interested in the latest scandal involving Gale Norton, the former Secretary of the Interior - that's a cabinet level position. She awarded three prime drilling contracts to Shell, which will net them hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, and then - POOF! - she goes to work for Shell. Surprisingly, there's some question as to whether she was engaged in talks concerning future employment with Shell during the negotiation of the leases, and if she might have steered the leases to Shell because of these discussions. Shockingly, both of those are against the law.

All of these are far more egregious, shocking, and wasteful of taxpayer money than this whole ACORN mess. But the GOP doesn't really care much about any of these because...well I'm just not sure anymore. Maybe it's because these are associated with big business, and government corruption that benefits Bush-era employees, and that's a no-no in the modern republican party. And maybe it's because Obama had dealings with ACORN in the past. Or maybe it's because they find it easier to go after an organization that helps poor people, because it's politically more expedient.

Whatever the reason, call me when you guys are ready to get serious and be consistent with your outrage. As I've said many times before, I won't hold my breath.

It's getting hot in herre, even if it feels cold in herre

2009-09-17T19:37:00.002-04:00

I don't know about you, but I've heard more than my fair share of righties spouting off this summer about "I guess this cold weather proves that fat Al Gore wrong, there clearly is no global warming." And it has been a very cool summer; July 2009 was the coldest July in recorded history. No doubt August was probably among the coldest as well.

So I guess this means that everything's just fine and we can stop worrying about global warming right? Not so fast, my friend.

The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August (Northern Hemisphere summer/Southern Hemisphere winter) season according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The preliminary analysis is based on records dating back to 1880.

NCDC scientists also reported that the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for August was second warmest on record, behind 1998. For the June-August 2009 season, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was third warmest on record.

I guess it's just another example of how some people don't understand the difference between weather and climate. Or between trends and outliers. Or between rational thought and knee-jerk reaction.

Our liberal media at work

2009-09-13T09:33:00.002-04:00

So I'm watching ABC's This Week, and who is on their weekly roundup? Cokie Roberts (simply regurgitates right-wing talking points), Sam Donaldson (kinda liberal-ish, but still a Washington insider that spews the 'pox on both their houses' crap), David Brooks (conservative columnist), and George Will (less intelligent conservative columnist).

Yep, that Obama-controlled media sure is pushing their lieft-wing agenda on the country...

What to do when someone beats you to your best stuff

2009-09-10T19:35:00.002-04:00

As I'm finishing up mowing my grass today, I came up with the perfect analogy to describe the republican party with, after last night's antics. So I'm rushing to get everything done, put the mower away, open up the laptop...and then I see in my RSS reader that someone already beat me to it...

[A]s Joe Wilson's outburst last night made clear, [the GOP] is the party of the College Republicans.

Damn you Sully and your readers!!!

So I'll take this off in a slightly different, but still accurate and slightly scary, direction. For the past year, I've believed that the Tea Party has been owned by the republican party. After watching the behavior of republican party congresspeople during the president's speech, I'm now beginning to think that the Tea Party is starting to own the republican party.

Think about it. Anyone that was at the Democratic Forum health care town hall last week can relate to me saying that I had the same feeling when Wilson screamed that the president was a liar, as I did when a random teabagger yelled out that something Driehaus said wasn't true (the man later yelled that he had written a book, which clearly wasn't true since the man was no older than 45, and Goodnight Moon was written in 1947). And it wasn't just Wilson's outburst; there was a significant amount of snickering and disagreement through parts of the speech, not to mention the "what bill?" sign held us by another congressman.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't ever remember a sitting member of Congress behaving in the manner that Wilson, or some of his compatriots, did during a presidential address. I'd expect this kind of behavior from average everyday protestors. Members of Congress ought to be able to handle themselves with more composure than them.

Ultimately, this may end up being beneficial for the Dems. While the president was speaking to Congress in a reasoned tone, making his case for reform, the GOP'ers were acting like children. Screaming out, holding up signs, murmuring, giving each other titty twisters. In front of the nation, 32 million American viewers saw a president and a party that wants to get things done and fix a broken system, and they saw that the other party simply isn't serious about even listening to ideas on how to fix it.

Michelle Cottle at The New Republic said a few months back, "I've given up hope for a loyal opposition. I'd settle for a sane one." Absent sanity, I'd be willing to settle for a mature one. I won't hold my breath.

I'm Angry At My Parents

2009-09-09T12:36:00.001-04:00

Given the events that transpired yesterday with President Obama’s speech to our children, I found myself getting angry at my parents for not speaking out when I was in school.

If my parents only cried partisan politics, I wouldn’t have been required to watch President Reagan deliver a state of the union address and write about it and even understand why there is a state of the union address.

If my parents only called out my teacher as a commie socialist liberal, I wouldn’t have had to keep up on current events and listen to President Carter speak about the Camp David Peace Accords.

If my parents would have only accused the school superintendent of being some sort of Nazi sympathizer, maybe I could have skipped my History class when we watched President Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

And maybe if my parents told my teacher that they thought that President Lincoln was too divisive, maybe then I wouldn’t have had to stand up in class and recite the Gettysburg Address.

Because of my parents I had to spend valuable time listening to our Presidents and learning about this country of ours. That is time that I could have spent out on the playground or at home watching cartoons.

If it wasn’t for my parents making me go to school and learn things, I wouldn’t feel this responsibility of being an American citizen. If they only spoke out maybe I wouldn’t bear the burden of understanding how our political process works.

DLD2, 7:30PM, Tuesday September 8, 2009 at HPT

2009-09-08T10:24:00.000-04:00

Drinking Liberally District 2 will be meeting today, Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at The Hyde Park Tavern, 3384 Erie Ave at 7:30PM. We may be outside on the patio, depending on the weather. If it's wet out, look for us at the top of the stairs to the right. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

This week, President Obama came to town, and many folks we know and love were seen in national media as they got fired up and ready to go.

President Obama is also addressing the nation's schoolchildren today. We've posted one possible Republican response. Put your own in the comments section of the blog!

Coming Soon:

Michael Pollan is coming to Cincinnati on Sunday, September 27, lecturing at 1PM at the Cintas Center at Xavier. We'll be having a Brunching Liberally event for those who want to get together. Tell us if you're interested.

This month is a Trivia Month. Tuesday, September 29 we'll be at Molly Malone's for Trivia Night.

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

We'll be outside on the patio. RSVP so I can get a headcount. In honor of Bastille Day, we'll be storming the bar tomorrow. Bring your knitting!

The Hyde Park Tavern has good parking, an excellent drink selection, a unique and delicious "gourmet bar food" menu, and friendly, efficient staff.

John Karabaic

The Republican Response to President Obama's Address to the Nation's Schoolchildren.

2009-09-08T09:22:00.001-04:00

Let us pray.

Talk amongst yourselves...

2009-08-28T17:16:00.001-04:00

...I'll give you a topic:

Complaining about the assumed politicization of an upcoming event, for the purposes of furthering a political cause, is politicization itself.

Discuss.

In God We Trust...to give us health insurance

2009-08-28T16:59:00.002-04:00

At one of the recent health care forum/town hall events hosted by senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of his constituents told her story on how she's dealing with not having sufficient health care coverage.

"Just the other day I went to County General because my legs were giving me awful pains, and this nurse started asking me questions about providers, and what was my health care plan, and wanting my insurance card so she could copy it. I said, 'Miss, I don’t need all that fancy paperwork – not as long as I have Jesus in my heart'.

No matter what sort of hardships and illnesses life throws my way, I always count on the Lord to oversee my managed care. So I told that nurse to send my bills right up to heaven. Send them right on up, because Jesus is my preferred provider, and He always grants me full coverage. After all, Jesus believed in healing the sick and helping the poor, so He most definitely believes in paying my doctor bills on time.

The Son of God doesn’t screen for pre-existing conditions, and the only requirement for coverage is that you accept Him into your life. There is no deductible with the Lord, and every doctor, clinic, and hospital is in His network. As long as I get down on my knees and submit my claims every night, Jesus will accept them. Even though Peter denied Him three times in a single night, He never denies me, no matter how many ovarian cysts and respiratory infections I might develop."

This would be ridiculous, were it not for the fact that senator Coburn has explicitly stated that he believes the most important aspect of the health care debate that hasn't been discussed is "...us as neighbors helping people that need our help". And really, who's a better neighbor, or a better friend, to the God-fearing faithful than Jesus? So his constituents just decide to go without health insurance, because they believe that the Lord will take care of them. Not a very wise health care policy from where I'm standing.

Ok, I should really come clean on something. The statement from Coburn is accurate (as well as his follow-up that "[t]he idea that the government is the solution to our problems is an inaccurate statement.") But the story above didn't occur at one of the town halls. It's a story I pulled from my page-a-day calendar, produced by...wait for it...The Onion.

The fact that an article from The Onion can be read as almost plausible just shows how far off the rails this debate on health care has gotten. Put me before the death panel and shoot me now.

Jokers Wild

2009-08-19T15:49:00.001-04:00

It seems of lately that the right-wing fringe is having some contest to see who can bring the most crazy. Since the beginning of this year we have just seen an influx of people and groups trying to one up the other. It’s time to meet the contestants.

Contestant #1: The Teabaggers. This is the group who is named after something I prefer not to mention and that they are totally oblivious to. This group says that their purpose is to protest an overreaching government and excessive taxes. How they bring the crazy: as far as I know, there hasn’t been a tax increase under the Obama administration and as far as an out of control government, they are one President too late.

Contestant #2: The Birthers. This is a group that seems to be lead by Dentist/Lawyer/Realtor Orly Taitz. Their belief is that President Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore cannot be President. How they bring the crazy: No matter how many documents that have been presented to prove otherwise, they will not go away. That and disputing an illegitimate Presidency is so 2000.

Contestant #3: The Deathers, Astroturfers, Anti-Health crowd. These people go by different names but their sole purpose is to derail any health care proposal brought to the table. They believe that President Obama wants to kill grandma, force sex changes and abortions upon us, and send our kids away for bad behavior. How they bring on the crazy: They are pro-life yet oppose health care.

Contestant #4: The Name Callers. This is the group headed by Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh who like to babble on about Socialism, Fascism, Racism, and any other “ism” they can come up with. By calling an African American President and Latino Supreme Court Justice a racist, it helps mask their hatred for African Americans and Latinos. Plus, they like to throw around the word Nazi most likely because it’s the only “N” word they can get away with. How they bring on the crazy: They don’t just bring it on – they are.

Contestant #5: The Gun Nuts. They have been around for a long time and usually surface after a child has been killed by a gun or when we elect a Democratic President. These are the ones who think it is okay to carry an AR-15 near an event hosted by the President because it is a 2nd amendment right. How they bring on the crazy: They are carrying guns near the President. What happened to Squeaky when she did that?

Contestant #6: The Child Predators. This is a quiet group who does not get a lot of attention but they like to attack children based on the beliefs of the child or their parents. The main players in this are Michelle Malkin and Fox News. Bob Cesca of HuffPo has the details in his post. How they bring on the crazy: It’s one thing to spew your vile at an adult but to go after children seems even too twisted for a right-winger.

Contestant #7: Tom DeLay. He is going to make an appearance on Dancing With The Stars. How he brings on the crazy: Wearing sequins and tights in public? The GOP usually keeps that behind closed doors and bathroom stalls.

It’s been a long time since we have had a reasonable debate or discussion on issues in this country but seeing how the other side wants to act, I don’t see us being able to do that anytime soon.

The long-term effects of bungling health care, part 2

2009-08-17T19:24:00.002-04:00

Building on yesterday's post...I'd originally meant for this to be a part of it, but decided to split it off since it goes off in a little different direction. And it's long too. I'm good at that.

As everyone's been worried about the fate of the public option and whether it will make it to the final bill, there's been a few on the left that have raised a reasonable point: are we making the perfect the enemy of the good? After all, we're pretty good at that - hand us a bill that doesn't give us 100% of what we want, and we're liable to freak out a tad.

So should we be willing to look at a bill that doesn't include a public option? Paul Begala writes what I think is theoretically an extremely good piece, arguing that we shouldn't demand that everything gets done all at once. To make his point, he analogizes the healthcare debate with that of the Social Security Act of 1935:

No self-respecting liberal today would support Franklin Roosevelt's original Social Security Act. It excluded agricultural workers...domestic workers...the self-employed, or state and local government employees, or railroad employees, or federal employees or employees of nonprofits...[it] did not have benefits for dependents or survivors [or] a cost-of-living increase. If you became disabled and couldn't work, you got nothing from Social Security.

If that version of Social Security were introduced today, progressives like me would call it cramped, parsimonious, mean-spirited and even racist. Perhaps it was all those things. But it was also a start. And for 74 years we have built on that start. We added more people to the winner's circle: farmworkers and domestic workers and government workers. We extended benefits to the children of working men and women who died. We granted benefits to the disabled. We mandated annual cost-of-living adjustments. And today Social Security is the bedrock of our progressive vision of the common good.

It's a pretty good line of thinking. Even if you can't get exactly what you want from the outset, you can at least get some of it, and then over time fill in the gaps as the program becomes more popular.

But here's where Begala's argument falls short. Regardless of whether healthcare reform becomes a huge success or not, the current republican party will never get on board with any effort to implement or expand any aspect of it. I'd go so far as to say that, if they get back into power after reform is passed, they'll do everything in their power to undo every aspect of it. So it behooves the Dems to make this bill as perfect as possible, because they may not get another bite of the apple.

Drinking Liberally D1 at Fries Cafe, 8/18/2009 at 7:30PM

2009-08-17T16:55:00.000-04:00

Adam is out this week, so I'll be haiging Drinking Liberally District 1 this week. In other words, I'm in charge.

Drinking Liberally District 1 will be meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at Fries Cafe, 3247 Jefferson Ave at 7:30PM. We may be outside on the patio, depending on the weather. If it's nice out, look for us at the patio to the left at top of the stairs. Otherwise, we'll be downstairs. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Despite its name, Fries Cafe does not serve food. We'll be ordering pizza from Adriatico's New York Style Pizzeria down the street. If you plan to have pizza, please show up by 7:45 so you can get in on the order.

Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

This week we saw

Rove outsourcing sliminess.

A fundamentalist, a scientist and a politician walk into the Tulsa Zoo...

And we're sad to report that even if we pass health care reform we can't cure some kinds of stupid. [Note, this may become a regular feature.]

You can't cure some kinds of crazy, either
And there's nothing like ending on an up note.

Coming Soon:

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

There are many, many buses that stop nearby Fries, including the

A whole host of express buses that go near UC and the hospitals stop just a few minutes' walk away. Please check out the Metro's website for other routes. Someday, you may be able to take a streetcar there.

John Karabaic

The long-term effects of bungling health care

2009-08-16T10:05:00.002-04:00

As health care legislation spirals downwards towards (at least partial) failure, I think it's important to start looking at not just how this will affect the current Congress, but also the long-term effects on the 2010 and 2012 elections. And a lot of this circles back to the so-called "enthusiasm gap" which the Dems dominated in the last two elections.

We had millions of people who spent countless hours volunteering for both Obama and congressional candidates all across the country. We'd had enough of Bush, and we wanted control of the White House back. We wanted to give him a Democratic majority in the Senate (since no one in the media seems to acknowledge that 60 votes are now required to pass any legislation, but that's an issue for another day), and widen the gap even further in the House. We busted our ass to get this all done, and we succeeded.

Once we did that, we expected that our party would use its majority standing to implement a more liberal agenda. One that would undo the wrongs of the previous administration, get our economy back on track, and most importantly reform healthcare for this country.

Instead, what we're seeing in the healthcare debate is a bill that seems to be getting watered down slowly but surely. Republicans that have absolutely no interest in getting a bill passed are, for some unknown reason, being allowed to have massive input into how any reform bill gets constructed. Townhall meetings are being hijacked by right-wing extremists, but there seems to be no organized Dem response to their ridiculous statements.

As we all watch this mess unfold, I really think a lot of the volunteers that worked so hard on the campaigns are going to start saying to themselves, "we caved on key aspects of the stimulus bill, we don't have Don't Ask Don't Tell repealed, Gitmo hasn't been shut down, torture hasn't been completely ruled out, and now we might not get a decent healthcare bill? What the hell did I do all this work for"?

And if that happens, we're in deep shit. Our volunteers put in the work to get these candidates elected (and don't think that canvassing doesn't make a difference in swaying votes, because it does) because we wanted thing to change. We lose the enthusiasm, we lose the advantage, and then the opportunity to get real change implemented is lost.

So Stupid A Caveman Wouldn't Watch It

2009-08-12T16:41:00.003-04:00

Geico is just one of many advertisers pulling their spots from Glenn Beck's program. This is exactly what needs to be done to end the hate speech and nonsense.

I should add if you are keeping score, the following have pulled ads:
P&G
Progressive
Lawyers.com (Lexis-Nexis)
Men's Warehouse
Sargento

Chuck Norris Takes A Roundhouse Kick To The Head

2009-08-12T16:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Chuck Norris posted an opinion piece on a right-wing blog which was complete and utter nonsense about a provision in the current health care legislation on home visitation programs for families (Page 838, Sec. 440). In Chuck Norris land the voluntary program is interpreted as “government agents” will come to your house in the middle of the night, kick down the door, steal your children, and send them to camps for political re-education.

In this battle, Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott gets the last blow and writes a response to the weak minded actor.

“The health care crisis facing every American is not a B-movie script; people are going bankrupt because the medical industry controls the medical care you receive. And unless and until the American people take control of the health care system, uncontrolled greed will remain America’s attending physician.”

This is a must read from the Congressman and if you are into torturing your brain, here is the link to the Chuck Norris rant.

To give him some credit, he is really no different than any other wingnut out there who forgoes research and just makes things up.

Maybe he should stick to what he does best – doing late night infomercials for exercise equipment.

Chimps Need Churchin'

2009-08-12T11:00:00.002-04:00

Forget the economy and healthcare reform because according to a mayoral candidate in Tulsa, Oklahoma the big issue facing us is to bring some churchin’ to the zoo. Just when I thought we were getting past that whole creationism has a place in science debacle, there are people who still have not let it go.

Here is Anna Falling, candidate for mayor of Tulsa in her own words:

"Unless we find ways to engage the Church back into public policy decisions we will be lost as a city, state and nation."

Back into? I don’t think there was ever an “into” in the first place. You see, separation of church and state and freedom of religion is one of those things that makes our country great. People who try to impose their religion on everyone else is something we can do without.

I like to go to the zoo to learn about animals and if I want to learn about religion there are plenty of churches to go to. Tell you what – keep your religion out of my zoo and I will keep animals out of your church. Okay, I’ll let you have your live nativity scene and for the crazies you can have your snakes but that’s it. No more.

Supporting Our Troops, Rove Style

2009-08-12T09:17:00.002-04:00

So we learned yesterday that His Rovishness is pretty good at getting others to do his dirty work for him. He got Scott Jennings, one of his aides, to to complain that Rove's political cronies "are getting killed out there" over New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias's "lack of action on voter fraud stuff."

Never mind that the "voter fraud stuff" wouldn't have stood up to a casual look at the evidence, much less a grand jury's questions, according to Mr. Iglesias himself.

The Bush Administration, in statements for the record, had said the Iglesias was dismissed for subpar performance and absences from the office. None of those issues were discussed in the email trails uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee. All the discussions centered around bogus indictments for voter fraud issues against Democrats who would face off against Republicans, particularly Senator Pete V. Domenici.

The kicker: Those "absences from the office". Iglesias was a Navy Reservist, fighting Bush's War in Iraq.

Support our troops, indeed.

Health Care in Space

2009-08-11T09:00:00.002-04:00

The "Conversations" column in this week's New York Times features a discussion with NASA's chief bioethicist, Paul Root Wolpe. In discussions of how he helps the space agency navigate the ethics of human experimentation, the conversation turned to the circumstances under which astronauts refuse to be part of an experiment.

It turns out that astronauts really hate to be deprived of sleep because microgravity causes insomnia, so they most often refuse experiments which would impact their sleep schedule. That was surprising enough. All the SF books I read growing would talk about how great it would be to sleep in zero-g. Yet another thing they got wrong.

But the best part was when I read this little nugget:

Others opted out because they were concerned that medical information collected on them couldn’t really be private and might interfere with their getting health insurance after retirement.

Yet another argument for health insurance reform: it will help in the conquest of space.

Who knew?

DLD2 7:30 PM, Tuesday 8/11/2009 at HPT

2009-08-10T18:10:00.000-04:00

Drinking Liberally District 2 will be meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at The Hyde Park Tavern, 3384 Erie Ave at 7:30PM. We may be outside on the patio, depending on the weather. If it's wet out, look for us at the top of the stairs to the right. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

This week we saw

Astroturf can be a violent thing. (Comparisons to the 2005 grassroots revolt against privatizing Social Security are baseless, as Paul Krugman has pointed out.)

Can a dead guy become an ambassador, even if it's to Norway?

And we're sad to report that even if we pass health care reform we can't cure some kinds of stupid.

Coming Soon:

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

We'll be outside on the patio. RSVP so I can get a headcount. In honor of Bastille Day, we'll be storming the bar tomorrow. Bring your knitting!

The Hyde Park Tavern has good parking, an excellent drink selection, a unique and delicious "gourmet bar food" menu, and friendly, efficient staff.

John Karabaic

Wait wait, don't tell me...you're that stupid

2009-08-10T17:26:00.003-04:00

Instances of crazy wingnuttery have become so commonplace that it's easy to miss a few here and there. So we need to celebrate it when a prime nugget stares us right in the face. But when there are two staggering instances of utter wingnut stupidity, well that's like Christmas in August.

Let's start in St. Louis, where teabagger Kenneth Gladney was handing out yellow flags that said "Don't Tread on Me" outside a healthcare town hall event, hosted by representative Russ Carnahan. He got into a little scuffle with some pro-reform reps, and ended up going to the hospital to treat injuries to his "knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face." (initially it was reported that he was hospitalized, but it was later corrected to reflect that he sought treatment on his own, rather than being taken away in an ambulance)

Setting aside the fact that the video of the incident (see link above) completely refutes Gaffney's harrowing account of the incident, this has become quite a cause celebre for the right-wing blogosphere. In fact, a protest was organized over the weekend to back Mr. Gaffney. Over 200 people heard his attorney, David Brown, speak on his behalf. All went well until Brown told the crowd that he was accepting donations to defray Gaffney's medical expenses because...wait for it...

Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance.

So, to be clear, a man goes to a meeting to (in theory) protest health insurance reform, gets into a scuffle, and then has to take up a collection because he lost his health insurance when he lost his job. Got it.

The Investors Business Daily tries to top it, though, by publishing a fear-mongering editorial on the rationing of healthcare. It's garden fare right-wing pablem; you'll be told when to die, Obama wouldn't specifically say that someone won't visit you to tell you how to go, this is going to lead to British-style health care, etc. He then goes on to lay out the "points system" that the Brits use to decide the value of giving a specific person the care they need (i.e. you get points for good health, and lose points for illness or disabilities). Now, I don't think what they say is right, but for now I'll concede to get to the money quote. According to the IBD,

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Well, they're right this is scary. Except for the fact that...wait for it...

Of course, that same Stephen Hawking who wouldn’t have a chance in the United Kingdom was in fact born in the United Kingdom, has lived his entire life in the United Kingdom and lives there still today, at the ripe old age of 67.

Do you think these guys ever try and think things through, or do they just think we don't have access to Google to fact check?

Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe

2009-08-10T16:15:00.002-04:00

Oh yea, things are going to get a lot sexier in Norway with President Obama's appointment of Barry White as Ambassador.

Wait, I'm being told that this is a different Barry White. My apologies.

Phony Outrage From The Astroturf Movement

2009-08-06T20:26:00.000-04:00

Because it’s too damn hard to join into the discussion and find common ground on an issue, the nuts on the right have been up to what has become their signature form of douchebaggery.

Here is how it works. You create a group that appears to be a grassroots effort created by everyday Americans. The corporate lobbyists and GOP give you money for your, “movement”. You spread your movement through its normal channels – your Fox News, Rush Dirtbags, etc. etc. You make it seem really bad and say things like, “The Democrats want to kill your grandma” and, “If this health care bill passes, mandatory sex change operations for everyone”. This creates outrage among the lemmings and the uninformed attack Democratic representatives at town hall meetings.

But that’s not enough because you can’t depend on the lemmings all the time. They may not hold up to their end of the bargain so you need to pay people to show phony outrage. Think of the 2000 Florida election debacle and the number of GOP staffers showing their fake outrage over the recount.

It’s not like they learn or even study history but you would think that they would have learned from the McCain/Palin rallies that people just don’t get into angry mobs. To me they are acting like the little kid you see at the store kicking and screaming when they don’t get their way. It’s annoying to customers and embarrassing to the mother. But in this instance, I don’t think those mothers care.

In which I get mad at Obama

2009-07-30T20:02:00.005-04:00

Why am I upset with our president? You can't see it clearly from the picture, but the lightness of Obama's beer is owed to it being a BUD LIGHT!!

Not only should that slightly spiked water never be consumed anywhere other than a baseball game, it's not even produced by an American beer company anymore! Of the four members of the roundtable, only Henry Louis Gates drank an American beer (though, in fairness to Biden - who drank a Buckler NA - there aren't many quality American non-alcoholic beers out there).

Seems to me, if you're going to hold something like this, you ought to at least enact an American beer only policy. Bad call.

(by the way, when I get my beer night at the White House, just stock up on some Stone Self Righteous Double IPA - had that at the last DL, excellent stuff)

Deep Thought Update: Clearly this is proof that Obama is not an American citizen. I expect to see the birth certificate any day now.

Of Teabaggers, Birthers, and Deathers?

2009-07-29T16:36:00.001-04:00

The teabaggers didn’t get the thrill that they thought from teabagging and the birthers have been disproved many times over. So what comes next? Deathers? It used to be that the ones on the right believed that the lunatic fringe came from the liberals but more and more they have shown that they can do conspiracies better than anyone.

Last night Rachel Maddow showed the new trend in right-wing politics – the government is trying to kill old people. And it’s not the usual crazies talking about it. It is the Republicans on the floor of the house. Check out the video (via C&L).

So, after we kill the elderly, what do we do next? I say Soylent Green!

Tea baggers showing their true colors

2009-07-24T19:19:00.003-04:00

Meet Dr. David McKalip. He's a neurosurgeon in Florida who serves on the American Medical Association's House of Delegates, as well as the founder of several anti-healthcare reform groups and an occassional op-ed writer on said topic for the St. Petersburg Times.

Oh, and in his spare time he forwards racist pictures of the president to his buddies.

Yep, this struck the mediocre doc as humorous. And who did he pass this along to? His friends in the...wait for it...Tea Party movement!!
Naturally they're just disgusted and livid about thi...I'm sorry, what?

David, we all support you fully and are here for you. I can assure you of one thing and that is we will protect our own. We all have your back my friend!
Let me know what I can do to help. I am here for you if you need me David.
Amy Kremer

Who's Amy Kremer? Only the national coordinator of the Tea Party movement. And she's not backing down, because according to her and the doctor, this is all the fault of the liberal media.

Better protestors, please.

Who Really Is "Acting Stupidly"?

2009-07-24T15:19:00.002-04:00

While the mainstream media is beating the crap out of ridiculous stories like this and taking out of context the underlying meaning of it all, we are no closer to health care legislation.

We are in the middle of a bad economy, two wars, and a bunch of House and Senate Republicans who want to fight the President only to see him fail. And to make matters worse, we have a bunch of so called "Blue Dog Democrats" who are more than happy to appease them.

We have suffered through eight years of someone acting stupidly and it's time to stop acting offended about remarks that really don't matter in the long run and get down to some business.

Drill, Baby, Drill

2009-07-24T10:58:00.001-04:00

When Another Dem and I first went to the beaches on Texas's Gulf Coast about 20 years ago, she warned me "Don't wear your nice bathing suit". That warning still applies.

Yep, we have a total right to destroy other industries and ecosystems in our lust for energy.