Just a couple of weeks after the last round that killed 45. Weather Channel reports 32 confirmed dead, from Texas to Alabama, and storms on the ground in Georgia.

A Mississippi police officer killed while protecting his daughter while on a camping trip, covering her body with his own. He was killed when a tree limb fell on their tent. She was not hurt.

Awful.

More: Cuffy says radio reports of 64 dead in Alabama. He's tweeting from home on a phone that's about out of power, no power at home. Hunkered down, but ok.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:52 PM | Comments (101)
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Gee, it's almost as if Obama tied his good-news document dump (not on a Friday) as a -- get this -- distraction from the day's genuine news.

Slower growth than we have now, and it's not so good, now, either, plus inflation rising to 2.1% to 2.8%, or 1.3% to 1.6% in the core rate. (No, I don't know what the difference is either, except neither's good.)

As for unemployment, it lowered its forecast but said it would stay elevated over its three-year forecast period. For 2011, the Fed said it expects the unemployment rate to land in a 8.4-8.7 percent range, better than a range of 8.8-9.0 percent forecast in January.

"The markdown of growth in 2011, in particular, reflects the somewhat slower than anticipated pace of growth in the first quarter," Bernanke said in prepared remarks before he took reporter questions.

Well that's just wonderful.

Inigo Montoya just emailed me:

This word Integrative Complexity you keep using. I dunna think it means what you think it means.

Posted by: Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (94)
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Rich People Don't Know That They're Rich

When the Obama Rich i.e. those making over $250K a year were asked about whether they personally paid too much in taxes, a majority said yes.

6 percent of Americans in households earning over $250,000 a year think their taxes are "too low." Of that same group, 26 percent said their taxes were "about right," and a whopping 67 percent said their taxes were "too high."

And yet when this same group of high earners was asked whether "upper-income people" paid their fair share in taxes, 30 percent said "upper-income people" paid too little, 30 percent said it was a "fair share," and 38 percent said it was too much.

In fact here is the household income breakdown by quintiles from 2007:

Part of this disconnect is due to the fact that people don't have a good sense for income distribution since they tend to judge their wealth by those above them - the well-off compare themselves to the very-well-off, not to the poor - which explains why people in the upper 1% of all household incomes still refer to themselves as 'middle class'.

But another part comes from the fact that being wealthy ain't what it used to be. Someone pulling in $300K a year lives well, but at best just one or two orders of magnitude better than someone making say $50K. And according to this survey even millionaires don't 'feel like millionaires' until they're worth at least $7 million.

Integrative Complexity

Being richer than 98% of all people and still complaining about the rich. It's a special kind of elite understanding that you don't have the skill for. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:55 PM | Comments (709)
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Best reason? Because the entire Republican Party is going to have the Ryan Plan hung around their necks, and none of them can explain it extremely well.

Ryan can. Ryan may be the only one who can. So shouldn't he take point?

You hear that a lot.

Several House Republicans, however, tell NRO on background that some members feel like they were “thrown to the wolves” without sufficient preparation for the questions they’ve been facing back in their districts. The budget was adopted on a Friday afternoon before a two-week recess, they point out, and members were handed a sheet of talking points to take with them before they went home. “There’s only one Paul Ryan,” one says. “And it’s not that the budget isn’t a great plan, but there’s just so much in there that a lot of us haven’t been able to digest to the point where we can defend it as eloquently as he does.”

This completely makes sense. If Ryan is really the only one who can sell the Ryan Plan -- honestly, Mr. Ryan, you need to run. Our candidate can't beta-male himself by deferring questions to you. And Democrats are going to have a lot of questions and a lot of Mediscare stuff.

Ryan says he wants to be the Paul Revere of Financial Problems.

Well, Mr. Ryan, we may need a combo Paul Revere and George Washington.

If every Republican can become even half as capable as Paul Ryan at defending the GOP budget, itÂ’s difficult to see how Democrats, in the absence of a coherent plan of their own, stand a chance in this debate. In this interview with CBS News, Ryan easily and artfully shoots down just about every Liberal talking point on his budget plan...

Yes, he's good.

One bit of good news from the polls: Seniors are actually... the most receptive to Ryan's plan out of all cohorts? And the most strongly opposed is... the young?

Well, in that NRO article linked above (the one about off-the-record Republicans grumbling that they feel throw to the wolves), some Representatives say that the moment seniors find out the plan won't touch those 56 and older, but only 55 and younger, there is considerable relief.

Integrative Complexity

Whatever the F it is, Paul Ryan's got more of it in his Bic than Obama has in his 2-wood.

Posted by: Ace at 05:37 PM | Comments (112)
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No L.O.O.K.E.R.?

And Solo's Maser-Mauser is only number three? Bumped down by Hellboy's gun, which is just a comically-oversized revolver shotgun? I mean, yeah, it's an okay gun, but it's silly.

Mal Reynold's gun, which is pedestrian, and just some kind of neovictorian hyper-revolver, gets mentioned but an important character/love interest on the show, Vera, doesn't?

Meh. Buncha dummies.

Thanks to gg. more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:10 PM | Comments (128)
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Readers tell me I read the Rush situation wrong-- that he isn't boosting Trump, not really, and that yesterday he was sharply critical of Trump.

They say he's just attempting to establish that which I think is 93% true -- this kid gloves treatment that has generally been granted to Obama is due for retirement. Obama can and should be hit and hit hard; just like any old routine Chicago machine operator. Which is all he is.

The 7% false stuff is about my doubts about highly-personal stuff working. As I've said before, while it's true that "negative ads work," people also like to believe they're above that, and only respond to "substance." Given a negative ad, then, they to tend to internalize it and hold it against the target, but they also hold it against the person making the attack.

Now, if it's plainly "substantive" in nature, most of that is avoided. (But oddly not all -- the squoosh-middle muddleheads are conflict averse and like policy matters being worked out quietly without their notice or input, too.)

I don't know what exactly Rush has in mind, but harsh attacks will work and are called for, so long as they're on subject matters the public is almost ready to believe, even without the attack. You can't lead public opinion by too much. If the public is almost willing to believe Obama is feckless, indecisive, and weak, then definitely hit the crap out of that.

If they're not willing to believe he's got a hidden anti-American agenda, and wishes, literally, to destroy the country through socialist rot, then by all means don't push that meme. It won't have the effect you want, and will in fact cost you more in lost goodwill and credibility.

This is why Drew and others are telling me my "Release the Transcripts" campaign is a bad idea, I'm guessing. He thinks they are not willing to believe Obama is less than very smart, and further, I'd also guess, that the middle has that Trained Aversion to thinking about anything that might implicate, even indirectly, race and Affirmative Action. Start going down that road and the Trained Aversion kicks in, and they say, "Oh, I don't want to hear about all that."

I can't rule that out. This one is on the edge. I think I'd advise most politicians to stay the hell away from this and let surrogates and pundits lead the charge on this, except few pundits have the cajones to do so.

If I were a Trump political advisor, I'd advise him to stay away from the transcripts stuff. Not because I think he's wrong. No, I think he's probably right. But politically, it will probably backfire against him, and he never will get those transcripts.

If what is suspected is true, Obama will never release those less-than-stellar transcripts. And his buddies at the ultraliberal Ivy universities will guard that secret with their very lives.

But I'm not a Trump advisor and I really do want to see this issue dug into so I'm happy that Trump is pushing it. Maybe some other people, some other pundits who appear on national TV, will get over their stupid reflexive internalized racism and just ask of Obama what they'd ask of any other candidate, especially one sold as a "genius."

I think this inquiry will both hurt Trump and hurt Obama. I am not particularly upset by either prong of that.

But yeah, generally, I'd tell actual candidates to stay off the transcript stuff (well, don't undermine those pushing it, but don't bite too hard on it yourself), but I'd also tell the whole GOP to push the issue.

If you're not running in a competitive election, or you're just a party functionary, why not start asking these questions?

It's not racist to ask if someone claimed to be a genius actually managed a B average.

Why does Obama need so much cover on this issue?

Or, as Captain Kirk asked, "Why does God need a starship?"

Posted by: Ace at 03:43 PM | Comments (310)
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He was getting pressured by Fox to make up his mind one way or another (due to their position that they would have to let him go, should he be a live candidate), and a report says he's given the would-be members of his South Carolina political team the go-ahead to work for other candidates.

That's the report, I stress.

This is wacky. I figured he'd run.

He's still at the top of the polls, or close to the top.

I'd run under those circumstances. It's a toss up.

Well, I wouldn't run. I'm lazy. I'd just watch TV.

But if I had greater energy and drive, like Huckabee, I'd run.

Update: At the same Hot Air link, Huck's team denies the story, and says they still haven't decided.

Posted by: Ace at 02:39 PM | Comments (159)
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Update: Tuscaloosa appears to be getting hammered at the moment, including parts of the Univ. of Alabama. Large tornado reported on the ground with widespread damage.

Update: Now out of Tuscaloosa and heading directly for the southside of Birmingham.

Since Global Tornadoing is currently affecting huge portions of the Southeast, this might be something of interest to a number of you who live there and would like to know when it's time to quit commenting in the threads and dive for cover. And then crawl back out of the ruins and continue sniping at each other about whatever it is you were sniping about.

Here's a site called Severe Studios which features a number of livestreaming storm chasers at various locations around the country. They drop in and out often depending on conditions so refresh occasionally to see if anyone's actually on a tornado. Or to see what might be headed your way.

Active warnings underway include parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, the last of which appears to getting the shit kicked out of it. Georgia and North Carolina appear to be next on the hit list.

There's also a big glob of tornado watches stretching from western New York, covering most of Pennsylvania and down into W. Virginia, Maryland and northern Virginia, including the D.C. area.

Some additional resources you might want to stay tuned to:

The Weather Channel though I don't think they're livestreaming.

Weather Underground (Not the radical 60s group) Also not livestreaming but have really good, up-to-date Nexrad maps.

Finally, while not a single source, most TV stations in even the medium-est of markets seem to have their own live storm coverage, helicopters and so forth:

You can find all of them here.

This is already a record-breaking storm season and only looks to get worse. Hope all of you stay safe, along with your loved ones (or even despised ones). After all, we need you guys here so we have someone to kick around. And LauraW needs fresh souls.

You can also haz thread to tell us all about your most horrific storm stories, tornado-ish or not.

Integrative Complexity

Tornados are much like those who we meet in the glorious hole of nature that exists between us and the sky, though often they are over-exuberent when it comes to sucking out the very essences of our lives. Among other things. Like barns and stuff.

Posted by: Genghis at 02:28 PM | Comments (339)
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Odd move. Seems like his genius is in military matters. Intelligence is a related field (lot of intel in warfare) and yet it's not exactly his proven area of standout excellence.

Maybe he wants a challenge, something new. If so, I can't help but grumble We sorta need a head of the head of the CIA, that is, a President.

But I'm sure he'll do well there. If anyone can get the dysfunctional unintelligence agency working, it's he.

Leon Panetta, meanwhile, is moving to... Secretary of Defense.

Gates, who vowed he'd resign before he ordered ground troops in Libya, is departing.

Integrative Complexity

It goes down as easy as sweet mint tea.

Posted by: Ace at 02:10 PM | Comments (111)
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As you might expect.

MSNBC

28% of airtime studied was devoted to the 2012 election
10% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama
A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 92% of the Obama coverage

Birther fraction: .1 * .92 = 0.092, or 9.2%, or just shy of 10% of all available airtime devoted to Birther issues. Of all available airtime, nearly ten percent was spent on Birther stuff.

Fox

16% of airtime studied was devoted to 2012 election
5% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama
A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 8% of the Obama coverage

Birther fraction = .05 * .08 = .004, or 0.4%, four tenths of a percent of all airtime devoted to Birther stuff. Less than one twentieth of the airtime MSNBC spent.

Here's the shocking one.

CNN

11% of airtime studied was devoted to 2012 election
5% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama
A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 100% of the Obama coverage.

Birther fraction: 0.05 * 1.00 = 5%. A full five percent of CNN's airtime was spent on Birther issues.

Now, that is so wack I am almost sure that "100%" is wrong, and perhaps they meant "10%." Assuming that, they'd still beat Fox. But not MSNBC.

If it's really 100% or some other high number, CNN had more than ten times as much Birther stuff as Fox.

Now one can note, rightly, that MSNBC and CNN were always knocking, knocking down this issue. Fine. But who was distracted by this? If, as Obama says, this was a "distraction" from "real issues" and therefore "silliness" -- which network(s) fed their partisan viewers a steady diet of this silliness?

Which network fed them the least of it and, therefore, kept a better focus on things that were not silly?

Integrative Complexity

Partisan political obsessions are a lot like farts -- only your own don't stink.

Corrected: I got MSNBC's fraction wrong and lowballed them at 0.92% when in fact they're at 9.2%. Thanks to iknowtheleft.

You know why I got that wrong, right?

Posted by: Ace at 12:54 PM | Comments (220)
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