Verities and Vagaries

Thanks and farewell

Poplicola — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:36:48 +0000

First of all, we’d like to thank everybody who ever came by to read or check out what we’ve been doing over here. It’s been a great few years doing this, but it’s time for us to move onto other projects. This space will clear up by March 31.

It’s time for new adventures. We’ll see you around.

On a bike

Poplicola — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 20:23:15 +0000

Yay it’s almost bike-riding season.

Still don’t get fixies, though.

Won’t somebody please think of the members of Congress?

Poplicola — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:19:07 +0000

Being in Congress isn’t any fun anymore:

They don’t make national policy anymore. They can’t earmark money for communities back home. The public hates them.

And perks little and big, from private jet travel to a little free nosh now and then, have been locked down by ethics rules.

As they head for the exits this year, many leaving Congress say the prestigious job of being a congressman sucks now, and that’s why lawmakers young and old are trading in their member pins for a new life in the private sector.

Hump-Day Song of the Week: Shuffle by Bombay Bicycle Club

Poplicola — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:55:41 +0000

The Agenda

Poplicola — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:19:18 +0000

Hey, look at that: it’s Super (Dooper?) Tuesday. If Santorum sees a win, we get six more weeks of Santorum.

Anyways:

The U.S. and five other nations have agreed to resume nuclear talks with Iran.

The U.N. Millennium Development Goal to halve the number of people without access to clean water has been reached well ahead of its target of 2015.

A great profile of Dr. Mila Means, who opened a clinic in Wichita to try and take over for Dr. George Tiller, the abortion provider who was gunned down in 2009, while Kansas has passed draconian anti-abortion laws.

The economy: Getting better.

Ezra Klein had two good pieces on why health care in the U.S. costs so much. You should read both.

I’m with Bernstein: More presidential news conferences, please.

Student loan debt is a pretty big problem.

Six things rich people really need to stop saying.

“We can be poor in spirit, and I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing. It can be here today and gone tomorrow.” – Ann Romney

More on those robots that are going to destroy us all

Poplicola — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:27:51 +0000

Meet Cheetah. Cheetah runs 18 fucking miles an hour. Cheetah is the fastest-running robot made (yet). It’s even damn fast compared to humans. Usain Bolt may have the world record at 27.29 mph, but that was over 100 meters. Fast long-distance runners rarely go over 15.

Cheetah was created by DARPA, the inventor arm of the military. You may remember them for having invented the Internet. The future will remember them for inventing the end of humanity.

They (didn’t) take our jobs

Poplicola — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:59:20 +0000

While folks think immigrants take their jobs, it’s just not true. Wil Wilkinson explains:

If it were impossible to tell immigrants and native workers apart — had they no differences that matter to the job market — an increase in the supply of immigrant workers would likely ding natives’ wages and make work harder to find. That’s just supply and demand. But native and immigrant workers in California are different in important ways. They are not what economists call “perfect substitutes.”

Rather, they can be “complementary,” which is to say, better together.

Peri notes that most less-skilled immigrant workers don’t speak English as well as natives do, and that matters. It means that primarily Spanish-speaking workers flock to manual work, which pushes native Californians toward jobs for which speaking English gives them a clear competitive advantage. These jobs tend to pay more than manual labor, which has helped keep native wages from falling. But most importantly, the division of labor between immigrants and natives promotes specialization, which in turn boosts overall productivity: Each group comes to perform its respective tasks more efficiently than it otherwise would. Increased productivity makes specialized immigrant-native teams of workers worth more to employers than less-specialized native-only teams, and that helps keep wages and demand for workers up.

This explains what Peri calls “the counterintuitive fact that there is a zero correlation between immigration and wage and employment outcomes of natives,” and exposes the error in Kaus’ anti-inequality proposal. Sealing the border won’t boost native wages — not even in America’s most immigrant-thronged state. In fact it would increase inequality and needlessly perpetuate want.

And, even if immigrants were “perfect substitutes,” you’d only be adding more people to the economy, which has the same effect as having more children or increasing the population naturally. They wouldn’t be taking your job, they’d be part and parcel to the creation of another of your jobs.

Well, maybe Mikhail Prokorov has a future in rap music

Poplicola — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:31:17 +0000

Sadly, it appears that Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokorov won’t win the Russian presidency, what with former President Putin garnering around 64.9% of the vote as I’m writing this and Mr. Prokorov getting a measly 7%. Some folks are saying that 7% is good enough to give him a future in politics. Maybe. I think his future should clearly be in rap music.

I’m just sad that he pronounces his name “Michael” instead of “Mick-ale.” But that’s actually probably just a latent craving for Mickey’s.

Yo, is this racist?

Poplicola — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:08:55 +0000

Yeah, this is super racist:

Montana Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull, a George W. Bush nominee, admitted on Wednesday that he forwarded a racially-charged email implying that President Barack Obama might have been the product of a sexual encounter between his mother and a dog.

“A little boy said to his mother; ‘Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?’” the email forwarded from Cebull’s official court email address on Feb. 20 read, according to the Great Falls Tribune. “His mother replied, ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!’”

The federal judge’s email called the joke “a bit touching” and said he wanted all of his friends to feel what he felt when he read the email. “Hope it touches your heart like it did mine,” he wrote.

Also, you should check out Yo, Is This Racist? if you haven’t been there.

The Agenda

Poplicola — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:43:44 +0000

Yay diplomacy: North Korea has agreed to suspend its nuclear program in exchange for food assistance.

More: The Egyptian government has agreed to allow the seven non-profit workers who were arrested and jailed for interfering in Egyptian politics to post bail and leave the country.

Syria has launched an offensive on rebels in the besieged city of Homs.

Romney won the Arizona and Michigan primaries last night.

The U.S. GDP grew 3% in the fourth quarter—better than expected.

Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry has announced he will run for Senate again to replace the retiring Ben Nelson.

I completely agree with Kevin Drum and Atrios.

Russia, man. Here are some downright creepy Putin ads.

Rick Santorum in college.

A bill in Utah would mandate that at least two members of its Alcohol Beverage Control Commission be drinkers.

“I gotta press the button. That will be my heavy lift in terms of manufacturing.” – Mittens Romney

No related posts.

Won’t somebody think of the poor bankers?!

Poplicola — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:38:41 +0000

Don’t read this unless you like shitting out of your mouth:

Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country’s top 1 percent by income, doesn’t cover his family’s private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.

“I feel stuck,” Schiff said. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.”

The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.

“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”

Hump-Day Song of the Week: Jump Around by House of Pain

Poplicola — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:59:59 +0000

Happy Leap Day, bitches.

Friday Funny: Dubstep solves everything

Poplicola — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:19:19 +0000

The Agenda

Poplicola — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:38:39 +0000

Today’s must read: A solid piece on Mitt Romney’s change of mind on abortion.

A U.N. report released today has found that Syria has committed “gross human rights violations.”

Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK) has apologized for telling constituents at a town hall that he’d have to personally pull a gun and maybe kill some senators to pass the Paul Ryan budget.

Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland says he has not ruled out taking on Governor John Kasich in a rematch.

New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez has lost her hairstylist until she changes her mind on opposing same-sex marriage.

What people should know before they say say “some degree of airpower” with regard to Syria.

The myth of the eight-hour sleep.

Men aren’t going extinct.

We noted a while back a video of a teacher beating his 17-year-old student in a rap battle. Turns out, the teacher has now quit his job to pursue a career in rap.

Lego Millennium Falcon Stop Motion Assembly 3d from Francisco Prieto on Vimeo.

Geometry teacher really bad at coming up with original examples

The Agenda

Poplicola — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:50:11 +0000

A little light. Work has been crazy today.

President Obama sent a $3.8T budget to Congress today. To their credit, two good pieces on Wonkblog.

The U.S. and North Korea are holding nuclear talks next week.

Rick Santorum has taken a big lead in Michigan—the state in which Mittens Romney was born. He seems to have also caught up with Romney nationally.

Last week, the Obama administration compromised with Catholic bishops on mandating that their employer-provided health insurance provide contraception. After calling it a good step, now the U.S. Conference of Bishops have decided any compromise is unacceptable.

Shares in Apple now over $500 for the first time.

I’ve been calling this for months, so it’s good to see the news media picking up on it: The 90s are coming back.

Fuck no Rick Santorum.

“He’s a good friend. But, I would say 95.99 percent of our conversation is about President Obama’s re-election. That’s much to my chagrin. I would like to talk about me.” – Rahm Emanuel, on David Axelrod

Pedant Rant: AP Stylebook confuses acronyms and initialisms

Poplicola — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:10:00 +0000

The AP Stylebook has arguably been more valuable to me than the articles the Associated Press actually produce.

However, come on, not to be a grammar policeman (that’s your job!), but neither LRA nor IRA are acronyms. An acronym is a word made up of the first letters of other words. What you have there are initialisms.

You’re right to an extent, though: Don’t use them so often.

Just a major corporate record label being a dick…

Poplicola — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:32:48 +0000

Nothing to see here:

Sony Music has come under fire after it increased the price of a Whitney Houston album on Apple’s iTunes Store hours after the singer was found dead.

The music giant is understood to have lifted the wholesale price of Houston’s greatest hits album, The Ultimate Collection, at about 4am California time on Sunday. This meant that the iTunes retail price of the album automatically increased from £4.99 to £7.99.

I, of course, blame piracy.

CPAC Rap

Poplicola — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:06:08 +0000

Posted without comment. Carry on.

The Agenda

Poplicola — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:59:44 +0000

Today’s read: U.S. officials tell NBC News that attacks on Iran’s nuclear scientists are being carried out by a Iranian dissident group with assistance from Israeli secret service.

The Obama administration has compromised on its rule that mandates that health insurance cover contraception with no co-pay.

At least 25 have been killed by a bomb blast in the Syrian city of Allepo.

New formal rules will put women closer to fighting roles in the U.S. military.

The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) for insider trading.

Dating tips from CPAC.

No related posts.

The Agenda

Poplicola — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:00:17 +0000

Today’s must-read: James Fallows measures the Obama presidency so far.

The big news today is that a deal has been reached with Greece. Greece gets a $173 billion bailout, and in exchange they make some steep budget cuts (yay austerity!). The bailout will be on hold until the austerity measures are reached. Bankers have agreed to take a 70 cent loss on every dollar of Greek debt.

Oh, other big news is that 49 states’ attorneys general have reached a settlement with five of the nation’s largest banks over foreclosure fraud.

It apparently is the 1990s again, because the House passed a line-item veto bill. It’s different from the 1990s-era version (which was found unconstitutional) in that it allows Congress to quickly consider the items the president vetoed.

Teen pregnancy fell to an at an all-time low in 2008 due to increased use of—and an increase in the effectiveness of—contraceptives. However, black and Hispanic teens experience pregnancy and abortions at a rate of 2-4 times that of their white peers.

The House and Senate have now both passed versions of a bill aimed at banning insider trading by members of Congress. However, there are major disagreements regarding differences between the bills as they move into conference.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission today issued licenses to Southern Company to build two new nuclear reactors—the first in over 30 years.

Why Do All Panty-Sniffing *Young* Conservatives Look Alike?

Crazy, I know, but the rich are more conservative (with graphs!).

Democratic Mississippi state representative Steve Hollard has introduced a bill mandating that the Gulf of Mexico be called the Gulf of America (in Mississippi).

Scientists have been stumped over how the zebra got its stripes, but there is now a working theory.

Senator Rand Paul’s budget cut proposal would be illegal