Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Daylight Savings Wackiness
Beck: Reform Judaism = Radical Islam
On his radio program, Beck says Reform Judaism is "almost like radicalized Islam."
Beck's a clown, but clowns are kind of scary.
Long, wonky, nerdy, tangential post on why Republicans are wrong
Deficits 101: all a deficit means is that the government is taking in less money than it's spending. It's like if you make $40,000 a year but spend $45,000. That's it. So if that happens, you'd probably want to check out where your costs are coming from and cut them where you can. Oh good more charts:
Charts are great. Anyway, a few things should stick out to you here. Two costs are flat -- "other spending" (things like the military, education, etc. etc.) and "social security" will cost basically the same now as the always will. The driver of the future deficit is almost completely health care costs. In other words, if you want to be serious about the deficit you should focus on health care reform.
Oh wait. Didn't Obama do something like that? I seem to remember something about ObamaCare cutting about $450billion in medicare costs over the next ten years? Wow! That is actually a lot money. By comparison, the House Republicans right now are debating about cutting between...$66million and $100million in cuts. If you extend that by ten years, that's still about 1/50th the amount of cuts Obama passed in health care reform. And that's exactly where we should be focusing.
Sorry, that was a huge tangent, but it's important. The cuts the Republicans want are utterly superfluous to our long-term fiscal condition, and hurtful in the short-term. They're cutting programs like Pell Grants so middle class kids can go to college, Head Start so poor kids can get pre-school education, heating subsidies for people who can't afford it in the winter, and great programs that are demonstrated to work, like Teach For America. They are NOT cutting Medicare/Medicaid, and they actually criticized Obama for making those cuts (they also just claim without any basis that the cuts won't happen. I don't understand that argument at all...they're in the law.)!
The takeaway is this: look at the chart at the top of the page. In the last year, the percentage of private sector people being hired has gone steadily up, while the number of people in the public sector (people employed by the government) has gone down. The Republicans are now proposing cutting MORE people from the public sector. How will this strengthen our economy in the short term, and how will it help cut the deficit in the long term? Public sector employment has next to nothing to do with the deficit.
OK.
New Guest Blogger
In the coming days and weeks, we'll be rolling out some guest bloggers. You've already met Asian Correspondent Tricia Honggr. Next up will be the famed Number 2 Meal Orange Soda Contributor, blogging about a certain dog with a ghost paw.
The Greatest Movie of All Time
Asian correspondent Honggr reporting live here for the first time!
This cinematic masterpiece is called TipToes (with a solid 29% on Rotten Tomatoes) and I can't believe I didn't know about it until now (thanks Daniel Tosh!). Here is the basic plot:
Matthew McConaughey knocks up Kate Beckinsale. His family happens to be all dwarves and he kind of has a problem with that. Sometimes. But anyway, he didn't tell Kate about his family's genetic situation until it was too late and she spends a good amount of time debating whether or not to keep this baby that may potentially be a dwarf.
Real quote from the movie: "So you had a circle jerk with a bunch of little people? I would love to see that!"
Spoiler alert, baby is a dwarf. McConaughey ends up dumping Miss Kate after she gives birth to his dwarf baby because it would be easier for her to raise this baby alone rather than having McConaughey around. Because McConaughey has a problem with dwarves, remember?
Then she falls in love with McConaughey's twin, who also happens to be a dwarf, and also happens to be Gary Oldman (you know, Sirius Black... Commissioner Gordon!). Right, because sometimes, a twin is 10 years older and more British-y than the other twin. It totally happens all the time. Oh, and Patricia Arquette is involved somehow.
Anyway, the movie is not a comedy.
DOMA Arrigato Mr. Obam-o
That is a horrible post headline! Meh.
The Obama administration just announced it will stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court. Cool!
DOMA was one of those fairly odious pieces of law Bill Clinton supported during his reelection campaign in 1996. It defined marriage as a union between a male and female and denied the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage. What?! Bill Clinton signed that you say? Yeah he did! People should stop thinking he was the man so much -- name one piece of legislation Obama has signed that is so obviously both morally wrong and a sell-out of his core constituency. (Note: this is an unfair question. Obama hasn't had to do this yet because he had unified Democratic control of both houses of Congress. But still!) Clinton had a bunch. Don't Ask Don't Tell. DOMA. Uhh...NAFTA to some people I guess but I like that one. The point is he compromised his values a lot for the sake of winning elections, and I don't think there's much of an argument you can make that Obama has or will do that.
Anyway, this is really good. It's one more step toward gay marriage, which is really one of the most no-brainer civil rights issues of our time. I generally credit whoever disagrees with me with having at least a legitimate argument. Pro-life? I disagree, but I can see why you would want to err on the side of protecting a life if you can't really determine when "life" begins. Tea Party? Bunch of nuts, generally, but concerns about spending and the deficit need to be taken seriously for our long-term stability. Etc. etc. But I really have never heard any kind of cogent, fact-based (not theological) argument against gay marriage. I've heard a lot! They're all ridiculous.
UPDATE: 8 gay rights victories since Obama took office.
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