November 30, 2009

Democrats becoming radioactive to...democrats.
— Purple Avenger

I wish I had a Hitler in the bunker mashup ready to go with this.

...Forty percent of self-identified Democratic voters say they are "not likely" or "definitely" won't vote in next year's Congressional elections, according to a little-noticed poll released over the Thanksgiving weekend...

...self-identified Republicans were three times more likely to say they were going to vote next year. The results suggest perilous fights for Democrats in the midterm elections...

Sounds like the Hope/Change Express has morphed into the Crazy Train Suicide Express. more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 10:01 PM | Comments (55)
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Obligatory: Charles Johnson Makes it Official
— Ace

Ten reasons he's parting ways with the right. Let me save you some time:

1) The right is a bunch of stupid haters.

Repeat x10.

Eh. I am only linking the traffic-whore drama-queen since the whole left side of the blogosphere just linked him (following Markos), so my contribution is trivial.

I just wrote this to Dan Riehl, who'd written me about it:

I saw that. Eh. What are ya gonna do.

What is interesting to me is there are a large group of people who wish to consider themselves rationalists and pro-science, but are in fact scientifically illiterate themselves. They convince them they're in the Scientist Club by simply saying "Whatever you say is cool by me, guys!"

That is, of course, as far from science as you can get. You're not "pro-science" if you essentially reject actual science and venerate scientists like Oracles.

Another analogy is that Charles Johnson is the waterboy who offers to do the football players' laundry and take their SATs for them and thinks that by nature of his man-crush devotion to them he too is somehow a part of football.

I kind of hate sportscasters and sportswriters for this reason. Keith Olbermann sort of exemplifies the breed; there's enjoying football, and then there's just basically channeling a homoerotic obsession into a less taboo manner of expression.

If you can, do; if you can't, teach; and if you really, really want to do but haven't the training or talent, just gush about those who do like you're a groupie that just slipped backstage at an REO Speedwagon performance at Six Flags in 1977.

And so here we have Charles Johnson, jazz musician (supposedly -- I imagine his credits are limited to like "Background Horns for the Dorney Park Puppet Playhouse FunFest"), instructing us ad nauseam that the hacked emails don't mean anything, it's just like denying the Holocaust, there's no need to see these guys' data and methoolgy, etc.

That last part is breathtakingly anti-scientific, but this goofy twat thinks he's doing "science" by rubbing SportsCreme on Michael Mann's tender taint.

Charles Johnson just emailed me to say he would write a response, but he can't, he's too busy arranging the beakers and and getting a nice blue flame on his Bunsen burner. He's going to be really adjusting some variables today and other such things of a scientific-sounding nature.

In between, he'll be calling people haters and posting clips of music no one cares about.

Charles Johnson: Splitting atoms... with his blog.

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 PM | Comments (383)
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Stupid Hockey Player Tricks
— DrewM

Dude, it's just a goal. There's no need to try and kill your goalie.

I love the way he doesn't even seem to realize what he's done. He swings at the post again and then just skates off. Tomas Vokoun, the goalie, was taken to the hospital but is fine.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:47 PM | Comments (28)
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Shock: Man Who Once Railed Against Iraq War for Diverting Us from the Real War in Afghanistan Now Says It's Time to Abandon the War in Afghanistan for a Real War To Be Determined Later
— Ace

And remember what they say, as they once said of Walter Cronkite: When you'e lost Keith Olbermann, you've lost Keith Olbermann. Plus whatever desperate fan he's finger-banging in a hotel room this week.

And of course he can't just call for defeat. No, there has to be a bad guy here, and that bad guy can't be Keith Olbermann. The bad guy is... Pentagon officials who just want to fight unending wars because dat's how deys gets paid:

The Pentagon, often to our eternal relief, but just as often to our eternal regret is in the War business. You were right, Mr. President, to slow the process down, once a series of exit strategies was offered to you by men whose power and in some case livelihoods are predicated on making sure all exit strategies, everywhere, forever, don't really result in any service-man or woman actually exiting.

These men are still in the belly of what President Eisenhower so rightly, so prophetically, christened the military-industrial complex. Now and later as the civilian gray eminences with "retired" next to their names, formally lobbying the House and Senate and informally lobbying the nation through television and the printed word, to "engage" here, or "serve" there, or "invest" everywhere, they are, in many cases, just glorified hardware salesmen.

And of course Bush planned this all, too:

....

Mr. President, last fall, you were elected. Not General McChrystal, not Secretary Gates, not another Bushian Drone of a politician. You. On the Change Ticket. On the pitch that all politicians are not created equal.

And upon arrival you were greeted by a Three Mile Island of an economy, so bad that in the most paranoid recesses of the mind one could wonder if the Republicans didn't plan it that way...

Keith Olbermann just admitted that his "Special Comments" come straight from "the most paranoid recesses of the mind."

Not that it matters much, but this graduate of Cow College, I think, shops for his literary allusions in a Bluffer's Guide to the Classics. In his rant he references something he thinks is in Catch 22, in "minder-binder lingo" -- that's the character Milo Minderbinder he means -- but what he references is not a Minderbinder catchphrase at all. Minderbinder's catchphrase was "What's good for the [Minderbinder Trading] Syndicate, is good for you," a parody of the old saying "What's good for GM is good for America."

I have no idea on earth what the hell Olbermann is referencing. I've read Catch 22 about 20 times. I think he probably got it from some dolt's mistaken entry in Wikipedia.

Thanks to DrewM.

Posted by: Ace at 06:07 PM | Comments (189)
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Overnight Open Thread (Mætenloch)
— Open Blog

Good evening and congratulations - you have already gotten through 20% of the week.

M-4s Getting a Makeover?
According to this report the Army wants to spend a few hundred million dollars on upgrades for its 400,000 M-4 assault rifles. The M-4s (a shortened M-16) will get a short-stroke piston system, heavier barrel, ambidextrous controls, and a round counter in the pistol grip. The changes seem to be based on the results of this extreme dust test.

D-M4Carbine.jpg

Convergence of Lifestyles: Bacon Vodka!
Yes it's real. Hopefully Val-U-Rite come out with a low rent version soon.

bloody_mary_left.png
more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:00 PM | Comments (624)
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Oh Dear: Obama Makes a Commercial About Kids That Somehow Manages to Star Himself
— Ace

You know how these feel-good videos usually go: It's the kid featured as having his fantasies fulfilled. It's the kid whose face beams as Mean Joe Greene tosses him his jersey.

Not in the age of Obama. As they say about the narcissistic: They want to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

And they even want to star as a 10-year-old kid in a commercial supposedly about 10-year-old kids.

Disgusting. The man has no shame or self-awareness whatsoever.

Posted by: Ace at 05:38 PM | Comments (125)
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MNF Thread: Patriots v. Saints
— Ace

Whoa! Thanks for a commenter for alerting me. I almost never watch football anymore.*


* Well, I sure don't watch the Giants any more. I guess it's Game of the Week stuff for me now.

PS, thank you, NFL Network, for doing that very annoying thing of keeping one game off broadcast so you could put it on your stupid pay channel that no one subscribes to.

In this case, seriously, thank you.. Was good not to watch the Giants get bullied by the Broncos.

Posted by: Ace at 04:14 PM | Comments (162)
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As I Was Saying: A New Heretic Begins Spouting Blasphemies
— Ace

Not a scientist, but apparently a science columnist on the "green" beat.


As I said, this is too rotten and stinking to be ignored much longer.

Allah quotes the head of the IPCC of course acting as a denier and pretending, as seems to be the party line, that this doesn't mean anything. The science, you may have heard, is settled.

The blubbery idiot Gibbs also instructs us that there's "no real scientific dispute about global warming," of course.

But check out this reversal from Clive Crook, who writes at both the Financial Times at The Atlantic.

First, his kneejerk response, taking the easy route of denial:

It isnÂ’t the world he needs to convince on global warming, it is the electorate back home.

This is all the harder since the climate science email dump, which showed leading experts–people calling for enormous changes in how the world’s economies work–discussing ways to keep their data private, manipulate public opinion, and deny dissenters access to the professional literature. (None of those emails surprised me, by the way. When it comes to public relations, the climate-science cabal is its own worst enemy. I’m surprised so many people are surprised.)

Ah, nothing surprising here. Scientists are manipulative liars; didn't you already know that, you naive fool? We always knew they were manipulative liars so this news is no shock. (Oh, but by the way, trust scientists -- they're the only truth-tellers in the world.)

But now, having read the emails and thought them over, he sings a different tune:

In my previous post on Climategate I blithely said that nothing in the climate science email dump surprised me much. Having waded more deeply over the weekend I take that back.

The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And, as Christopher Booker argues, this scandal is not at the margins of the politicised IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] process. It is not tangential to the policy prescriptions emanating from what David Henderson called the environmental policy milieu [subscription required]. It goes to the core of that process.

One theme, in addition to those already mentioned about the suppression of dissent, the suppression of data and methods, and the suppression of the unvarnished truth, comes through especially strongly: plain statistical incompetence. This is something that Henderson's study raised, and it was also emphasised in the Wegman report on the Hockey Stick, and in other independent studies of the Hockey Stick controversy. Of course it is also an ongoing issue in Steve McIntyre's campaign to get hold of data and methods. Nonetheless I had given it insufficient weight. Climate scientists lean very heavily on statistical methods, but they are not necessarily statisticians. Some of the correspondents in these emails appear to be out of their depth. This would explain their anxiety about having statisticians, rather than their climate-science buddies, crawl over their work.

I'm also surprised by the IPCC's response. Amid the self-justification, I had hoped for a word of apology, or even of censure. (George Monbiot called for Phil Jones to resign, for crying out loud.) At any rate I had expected no more than ordinary evasion. The declaration from Rajendra Pachauri that the emails confirm all is as it should be is stunning. Science at its best. Science as it should be. Good lord. This is pure George Orwell. And these guys call the other side "deniers".

Another heretic.

Here is what is going on here, psychologically.

People like Crook want to think well of themselves, and how they think well of themselves is to associate themselves with those they consider rationalists and humanists and concerned and just-liberal-enough.

Note how blithely he dismisses those who actually want "scientists" to reveal their data and assumptions for inspection and testing as "anti-science." I'm anti-science? Hey, Fuckhead: Out of the two of us I've been the only one pushing for actual science. Skepticism? Testing? Challenging? Do these ring any bells, Prickface?

But you see, psychologically, why he has, without looking at the evidence, chosen to align himself with Jones, Mann, etc.: Because, again without looking at the evidence, he has deemed them "pro-science" and actual scientists like McIntyre "anti-science."

This is not a rational, scientific impulse. This is an emotional and personal one: He likes one group of people more, likes what they stand for and what they believe, thinks they'd be great mates to have a beer with, good smart logical "pro-science" guys of the sort he respects and admires.

And their persecutors, then, must be "anti-science."

But note what ClimateGate is doing and will continue to do: It forces dickheads like this Clive Crook to reevaluate his initial entirely-unscientific bias that Jones and Mann are the "Good Guys," the White Hats, the rationalists. Now he sees they're actually bad guys, black hats, irrationalists.

He hasn't joined the skeptics yet -- he still brands us anti-science deniers -- but notice the huge change in attitude: He now calls his former heroes "deniers" too.

Believe me, in case it's not obvious: 99% of the public has no fucking clue about climate "science." They know 1% of what you know, at best. They have no idea of what the facts are, or the evidence.

All they know is that one side is "pro-science" and the other side is "anti-science."

But what happens when that belief -- the only reason they have to mouth these idiotic claims about us all drowning in 20 years -- is displaced by a new belief, that Jones and Mann are themselves "anti-science"?

Christopher Hitchens had a great point about Clinton's impeachment, why he would never be removed from office. "The American people," he said approximately, "wish to believe they are open and broad-minded about sex," and so Clinton would skate. People's brains -- primitive, predictable things, really -- find "The Narrative" in every story, as simple and as emotion-based as possible.

Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? And based upon such gut level, lizard-brain judgments important decisions are reached.

The Clinton-supporters deemed his detractors to be "anti-sex," and sex is a good thing, and being pro-sex is a good thing, so... no actual arguments about perjury, obstruction of justice, and so on were relevant. The major criteria for judgment was that the pro-sex people were good and the anti-sex people were uptight and wicked and no fun at all, so hey, you want to be on the fun partying team, don't you?

Pretty much all of liberalism works this way -- that's why it persists in the face of so much contrary information. Here are some fun, smart, rational guys and here are some uptight, bigoted, ignorant haters; which side do you want to be on? Nevermind reason or evidence; which crowd do you most wish to associate with? (And, fyi, for the young: Our girls put out more in college, in case that matters to ya. Wink.)

Politics, it has to be kept in mind, is mostly emotional and mostly aspirational. Who we choose as heroes and who we choose as models says, we hope, something about us. We signal to others what kind of people we are (or what kind of people we'd like to imagine we are) by the sort of person we choose to emulate and offer respect to.

In the last election, more people wanted to be Obama -- fun, loose, hip, cool, cosmopolitan -- than John McCain -- dour, old, ungraceful (due to injuries sustained being a war hero... but it's the surface that matters).

This is partly why I get on some commenters for their casual use of nasty racial put downs. Not only do such comments offend me, but those making them make for poor ambassadors for conservatism: Note that every time you do this, there's some reader out there thinking These are not the sorts of people I wish to be around, or to count as my political brethren. I'd rather be part of the team that doesn't think watermelon jokes are all the rage

Be that as it may -- there is a sea-change a-happening. I doubt we "deniers" will ever get credit, except of the most begrudging kind. We'll be told, ultimately, we were "right, but for the wrong reasons," and that sort of thing.

But what is happening now is almost as good: The veneer of aspiration has been stripped from the lying bastards Mann and Jones, and they no longer seem like the sorts of guys you'd want to befriend, let alone be.

Loose, casual kinds of guys? Only, it seems, as regards their coding and methods.

I think it will be interesting and important to watch this unfold over the next several weeks, this psychological paradigm-shift.

The next step, psychologically, is to limit the damage and to claim that these are just a "few bad apples." That allows them to cast out a few bad actors while keeping their aspirational fantasies, and their conceptions of self, alive: They get to continue thinking of themselves as "pro-science" while they throw a few token irrelevants under the bus. They want to heal the psychic damage as quickly as possible, and with as little change as possible.

But will it be possible to do that? Can they just convince themselves that, but for a few "Rogue Operatives," the "science is settled"?

We'll see.

But this is a first, critical step. We have been presented the truly indefensible, and some, at long last, are finding that they cannot defend it.


Hang On: DrewM. tells me the big change I thought I saw here might not be a big change; Crook called these guys a "cabal" in his first posting, indicating he always thought they were crooked.

I may have misread this, a bit, and be calling Crook a "a new heretic" when in fact he's been a heretic all along.

Still: I think the initial response shows him pooh-poohing the matter, and claiming that the only real problem with this "cabal" is its PR efforts.

So I think I'm right, but I don't know, so I'll note Drew's disagreement.

Ether way: I'm still holding to my prediction. I already have green fool Monbiot calling for Phil Jones, to resign. There will be more.

Posted by: Ace at 03:13 PM | Comments (310)
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Mark Steyn: The Chicago Machine Politics of International Climate "Science"
— Ace

That's not actually Steyn's phrase or headline; he borrowed it from James Lewis (and I tarted it up a little too).

Steyn uses it to describe the utter corruption of the peer-review process of climate "science" -- essentially, the Climate Conspirators try to get fired any editor who publishes a dissenting article or who otherwise threatens the Grand Pretend Consensus.


Here’s what Phil Jones of the CRU and his colleague Michael Mann of Penn State mean by “peer review.” When Climate Research published a paper dissenting from the Jones-Mann “consensus,” Jones demanded that the journal “rid itself of this troublesome editor,” and Mann advised that “we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers.”

So much for Climate Research. When Geophysical Research Letters also showed signs of wandering off the “consensus” reservation, Dr. Tom Wigley (“one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change”) suggested they get the goods on its editor, Jim Saiers, and go to his bosses at the American Geophysical Union to “get him ousted.” When another pair of troublesome dissenters emerge, Dr. Jones assured Dr. Mann, “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

Which in essence is what they did. The more frantically they talked up “peer review” as the only legitimate basis for criticism, the more assiduously they turned the process into what James Lewis calls the Chicago machine politics of international science. The headline in the Wall Street Journal Europe is unimproveable: “How To Forge A Consensus.” Pressuring publishers, firing editors, blacklisting scientists: That’s “peer review,” climate-style.

...

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” wondered Juvenal: Who watches the watchmen? But the beauty of the climate-change tree-ring circus is that you never need to ask “Who peer-reviews the peer-reviewers?” Mann peer-reviewed Jones, and Jones peer-reviewed Mann, and anyone who questioned their theories got exiled to the unwarmed wastes of Siberia. The “consensus” warm-mongers could have declared it only counts as “peer-reviewed” if it’s published in Peer-Reviewed Studies published by Mann & Jones Publishing Inc (Peermate of the Month: Al Gore, reclining naked, draped in dead polar-bear fur, on a melting ice floe), and Ed Begley Jr. and “Andy” Revkin would still have wandered out glassy-eyed into the streets droning “Peer-reviewed studies. Cannot question. Peer-reviewed studies. The science is settled . . . ”

Here is my hope -- actually, my belief, because I think this is going to happen.

I think that most scientists have stayed on the sidelines on this. If you're in a different field than "climate modeling" (whatever the hell that "field" is -- it seems to be nothing but sloppy coding and using off-the-shelf statistical software) you have little incentive to get involved or speak out.

Let's face it -- your spouses and friends want to believe this, and they consider it something of a holy duty to promote the "green" agenda. Even if you know that there is something rotten and filthy going on here, what's it to you? Who can fight city hall? Or worse than city hall -- the strong sentiments of your peers and friends and wives and children. Vox populi, vox dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God.

Sure, science is being corrupted, but not your corner of it, and climate "science" isn't really even science in the first place, and their end goals are (supposedly) laudable, so....

People have very big incentives to keep out of this -- and very big disincentives to involve themselves. People always find it easier to ignore a problem and pretend it away than to confront it. And given the choice, they'll do that 99% of the time. It takes a fearless and determined individual to go against groupthink -- and even a bit of a prick, too, because, let's face it, careers can (and should!) be ruined here.

But that sort of individual is rare, unfortunately, even in science, where supposedly only the truth counts and individual relationships and colleagues' careers don't matter.

But now... I don't know if scientists have the choice anymore of ignoring the problem. This case is getting enough attention -- and the details are hair-raising enough for anyone who does science for the science and not just the paycheck -- that others will have to weigh in here, about whether the special papal dispensation afforded for climate secret science is legitimate... or if it is hopelessly corrupting.

Scientists will have to weigh in: Is it "science" when data and methodologies are kept secret and only the conclusions published, stripped of any backing evidence that can be criticized (or even merely examined)?

What the hell is that? If you want to keep your evidence secret, keep your conclusions secret too. You cannot offer naked conclusions -- assertions without a shred of evidence backing them -- as you conspire in secret to delete data rather than disclose it and "hide behind IPR claims." (Intellectual Property Rights, that is.)

Conclusions without evidence deserve the the precise level of seriousness their proponents invest them with: None at all. Because if they meant to be taken seriously, they'd offer their data and methodology to the world.

Some liberals have whined about the plight of these poor climate "scientists," being harrassed to death with thousands of FOIA requests and inquiries and pesterings about data and methods. They have so little time to deal with these things, the apologists whine; who can blame them for getting exasperated and cutting a few corners?

The only reason, however, there were so many requests and follow-up questions and inquires is because they were determined from the outset to reveal nothing. Had they simply done what all other scientists do, and reveal their data and methods upfront and without prompting, they would not have to answer all these pesky FOIA demands.

It is precisely because they are determined to conceal this stuff that it takes so much of their precious jury-rigging time. It is because they are determined to conceal that they spend so much time contriving spurious refusals to legal FOIA demands and so much time plotting to delete emails.

If they weren't spending so much time being dishonest, lying advocates, it sure would free up a lot of their time to do some actual science.

I think this is the time when other scientists get over their fear and denial and start calling out the charlatans posing as their "colleagues."

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:27 PM | Comments (93)
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CBO: Insurance Premiums Will Increase by 10% Under ObamaCare
Gallup: Near-Majority Opposes ObamaCare

— Ace

Above-the-Post Update: The CBO says the the curve will in fact be bent -- upwards.

Individual insurance premiums would increase by an average of 10 percent or more, according to an analysis of the Senate healthcare bill.

The long-awaited report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) also concluded that subsidies provided by the legislation would make coverage cheaper for those who qualify. Â…

Though Republicans will seize on the projections that insurance premiums for individuals would increase, Democrats will highlight the conclusion that the legislation would lower premiums by 56 to 59 percent for those individuals who would receive subsidies to buy insurance on the exchange created by the legislation. Of those who participate in the exchange, 57 percent would be eligible for subsidies. The subsidy would cover about two-thirds of their premiums, the report says.

This is played as if the higher premiums are offset by subsidies. Which is absurd. There is no offsetting here. Those with insurance will pay more for it. Those without insurance will get subsidies from those who have it. There is no "offsetting;" the people paying the bills don't get the subsidies.

There are winners and losers here. If you've got insurance, you're a loser: Congratulations, you will now basically have a complete stranger's health care added to your premiums as if he's a member of your family, because you can afford it.

If you don't have insurance, you may be a winner... sort of. As regards primary effects you come out ahead -- free money! -- but there will be secondary effects, too, as all health care overall is driven to a lower quality.

Broken record time: This is and always was about only one thing. A fairly direct transfer of wealth, and the services that wealth buys, from the middle class to the lower class. There is plenty of reason for the uninsured and poor to support this plan; there is no reason for anyone middle-class and insured to support it. For the latter, there are no benefits whatsoever, and only costs -- except for the benefit of knowing you have basically added a stranger as a family member to your plan, and you can now enjoy the satisfaction of knowing all the extra money you're paying, and all the treatments you're personally be denied, are going to help someone else. Maybe.

Ed goes on to note that even this analysis is broken, because the plan counts on reaping a lot of tax money from "gold-plated" insurance plans. No. The tax will kill gold-plated insurance plans, and thus that windfall will never accrue.

I should note that Obama and the liberals pushing this on us make two or three contradictory claims about what that "gold-plated" tax will do.

First they tell us that that tax will drive people away from such plans, thus supposedly reducing the overutilization of health care resources, which will then "bend the curve" of costs down by reducing demand.

Then they tell us that the additional resources will be freed up to be used for other people.

And then they tell us that this plan will be funded in part from the extra taxes on such premium plans.

Note that all three assertions are mutually contradictory. If the uninsured and poor now use the supposedly "overutilized" resources that the premium insureds now use, then there can be no "bending the curve," as demand is unchanged -- the demand has simply been shifted from one group of users to another.

Further, you obviously cannot talk up how your tax will discourage buying such premium plans and then start counting all the money that will be rolling in when people continue buying these plans and pay the tax on them.

One or the other, guys. One or the other. I remember taking the LSATs. Or the GMATs. There was a section about logical flaws. One of the questions -- designed to be a gimme, an early, easy question -- offered the hypothetical of environmentalists imposing a hefty tax on roads that ran through forests, in order to cut down on traffic running through them, and also proposed that at current rates of highway usage, they'd get x dollars in new revenues, which could then be used to make additional improvements to the environment.

What's the flaw?, the question asked. Well, duh: You can't both claim you're going to reduce something from current levels and then calculate the taxes that will flow in based on current levels.

Again: This was a gimme. One of the first five questions (questions are arranged in order of increasing difficulty), offered, basically, to distinguish the merely dim from the truly stupid.

And now your President and your Congress offers it to you.

Which tells you they consider you truly stupid.

...

49% oppose, 44% support, with leaners. As Captain Ed always emphasizes, these are adults, not even registered voters. The friendliest possible sample for Obama.

I can only restate my belief that to actually kill the monster we need 60% opposition (with likely voters, I guess), or thereabouts. Anything less and there is a high risk of Democrats falling on their swords and passing it despite public opposition. Well, if you define "falling on their swords" as taking a high-paying job as a senior bureaucrat or million-a-year lobbyist/fixer.

Independents oppose passage of a bill by 53% to 37%.

Good but still not a guarantee.

Some pundit or analyst -- and I believe he was a Democrat -- speculated that the Democrats' preferred resolution to this is to almost pass the bill, falling short by one or two votes in the Senate and a handful in the House.

So that the bulk of the Democrats can appease their base and get them riled up and energetic -- blame the Republicans! -- and also that independents will be reassured and comforted that the bill actually didn't pass.

I'm not sure if they're actually thinking that way, though. Some, certainly. But enough of them may be getting that robocall from history that Olympia Snowe received a few weeks back.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (103)
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