RIP Kindle

Don't drop your kindle.

- Posted by Gartagnon

Location:Millinocket,United States

Blogging is hard

So once we got to Maine, I realized I'd rather hike and drink beer than blog. Also I get no service in most of the park. In conclusion, trip has been great so far but it takes too much work to tell you about it. And now, some pictures!



Lobsters in a lobster shanty. I ate one.


Adam in a lake.


Hiking.


Proof that I went to Acadia.


Purple flowers.


Our noise violation, for being "giggly motherfuckers."


Hiking Cadillac Mountain, the tallest mountain on the Atlantic seaboard.


A campground-made burrito for lunch.


Don't know.


After a 10 mile hike.
- Posted by Gartagnon

Connecticut

So we're in Connecticut. Cool name, but not a great state. There are basically a lot of trees.


Obama's mini DREAM Act maneuver today is both great policy and politics. I was wondering when he'd start using immigration as a wedge. Good work.

Lee reminded me that I once went on a road trip with FIVE guys, which would make it more masculine than this one. However, one of the fellas cried about a girl (it wasn't me, assholes) so that is minus two man points, meaning this trip is actually way more masculine.

- Posted by Gartholomew

Location:Blue Star Memorial Hwy,Haverhill,United States

10:32 AM, 6/16/2012

That's what time this summer's Great American Road Trip started. So far nothing has happened, but it's still great. Our car is packed. See?


That's the trunk.

- Posted by Gartagnon

Location:14th St Loop,,United States

Gourmet Trail Mix

Two quick notes before we leave

1) Gourmet trail mix exists
2) I just bought 7 bags of it

OMG ROAD TRIP

Hm should I keep a blog about going to Maine? OK! Here's what you need to know:

1) I'm going to Maine tomorrow for a week.
2) Matt, Adam and Lee are joining. They are all road trip veterans of a variety of stripes.
3) We're going to Acadia National Park and Baxter State Park.
4) I really want to do a whale watch, but it's $60/person and that is really expensive, which is why I didn't tell anyone how much it costs yet.
5) I still think Obama is going to lose, so this could be the last road trip of the Obama Presidency.
6) Last weekend I saw a rattlesnake while hiking. It was REALLY COOL and looked like this:

7) Being 4 guys and 0 girls, this is the most masculine road trip in the History of GARTs (Great American Road Trip™) and possibly the most masculine thing of my life.


NOW YOU KNOW.

Killing Osama

Some folks are going to say this ad is somehow unfair:

It's not. One of the major divisions between both Obama and Clinton and Obama and McCain during the 2008 campaign was Obama's willingness to take out bin Laden if they know he were hiding in Pakistan. The operative quote, from one of his debates with McCain was:


"That, if the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out. Now, I think that’s the right strategy; I think that’s the right policy."


Seems like pretty much exactly what happened in Pakistan.  It's entirely fair game to take credit for the things you said you would do, especially when you were attacked for those policies in the prior campaign, and your current opponent also intimidated he would not have taken the same actions.


Still, and this says nothing about the substance of the ad, which is good, but I really dislike Bill Clinton's post-presidential tone and presentation, where he emulates the role of wise, humble elder statesman.  It just seems so transparent to me. Yes, it's persuasive and will appeal to almost everyone, but Clinton's routine is pure schtick.  He's acting.  Here's how Bubba really feels about the whole Osama issue:

"Increasing the Size of Government"

One thing that gets my goat in political debates these days is when folks - generally conservatives and critics of the Obama administration - bemoan that Obama has "permanently increase the size of government."  (approvingly linked to from Romney's top economic advisor, Greg Mankiw).  The general critique goes something like this:

When he (Obama) came into office, he favored a massive injection of new government spending into the economy in the name of “stimulus” — counter-cyclical federal activity aimed at offsetting depressed consumer demand emanating from a recession-battered private sector. The net result provides little if any boost to aggregate demand because the states — and to some extent private citizens — simply pocket the federal money and reduce their deficits and debts. Meanwhile, what federal taxpayers get is a permanent increase in the size of government.

It would be interesting to parse out exactly how Obama has permanently increased the size of government.  First, it would be useful if we had some consensus on what the "size" of government actually relates to.  Is it the number of people the government employs?  This seems unlikely, since, as Krugman has repeatedly highlighted, going back about 20 years, Obama's is the first that resulted in a sustained drop in public employment:



So it's not that.  It could be that conservatives think that the $800 billion stimulus itself amounts to a permanent increase in the size of government - in the sense that once we start spending $800 billion, Congress will continually reauthorize that spending level, creating a new baseline.  But that hasn't happened - the lion's share of the stimulus program was spend in the first two years, and Congress has made almost no attempt to reauthorize that spending (though, considering the underperforming economy, it certainly should have).

I think the only way it permanently increases the size of government would be by increasing government debt.  I don't think this is an intellectual rigorous way of defining the "size" of government - when I think of size of government, I think of what it's permanent spending obligations are (not one-off spending, like the stimulus), or how many people it employs. Still, the stimulus did increase government spending for two years, and that will have to be paid for, so in a limited way it did increase the overall amount of government we'll have to pay for.  Still, compared to other major fiscal events, it is minuscule:

So I don't understand the criticism that the stimulus permanently increased the size of government, when so many other recent programs and policies had a much greater increase, with far fewer critical peep to be heard from stimulus-critics.  But maybe I'm missing something.  Regardless, it would be nice if there were more consensus folks clarified what they mean by "size" of government.

Welcome Back

I feel like I have stuff to say about politics again.

This is "silly season" in presidential politics - most voters, who are quite reasonably involved in more important things, won't focus on the presidential campaign until after Labor Day, giving them about two full months to analyze the candidates.  This is smart and gives voters more than enough time to come to a reasoned voting decision.  (In fact, well over 90% of voters have, whether they know it or not, already made up their minds, even if they haven't started paying attention yet.)  Still the newsrooms and cable shows of America need something to report on, so we'll have oodles of absolutely meaningless stories about trivialities (i.e., Romney's dog's diarrhea and Obama eating a dog as a little guy).  I won't be talking about that stuff.

But.  There are tons of interesting things going on, both looking forward and backwards.  Looking forward, there are huge domestic and international issues that will be resolved, one way or another, in the very near future.  A nuclear Iran.  The expiration of a number of tax cuts at the end of the year (Bush tax-cuts, Obama payroll tax-cuts).  And yes, the looming presidential election.  Looking backwards, we are reaching the point where there is enough balanced reporting on the past three years - contrasted with valuable but flawed versions that appear in the daily news - to start to evaluate how the Obama administration has fared, what it has learned, and how it will function if reelected for a second term.

These are the things I'll talk about.

The Real Test in 2012

vs.

DJ GMP