Later On

Businesses: you have to watch them like a hawk. For example:

Source: New York Times, November 21, 2009

Last spring, President Obama signed a bill into law that raised the tax on roll-your-own cigarette tobacco from $1.10 per pound to a whopping $24.78 per pound. The revenue from the tax was to be put towards expanding children’s health insurance programs. But tobacco companies have found a way to sidestep the new tax: they have started re-labeling the same product as pipe tobacco, which is taxed at only $2.83 a pound. As a result, the market for roll-your-own tobacco has exploded, quintupling in just five months. Exploiting the tax loophole this way also lets tobacco companies thumb their nose at the new U.S. Food and Drug Administration‘s tobacco regulations by continuing to sell sweet and fruity-flavored tobaccos, which are banned under the new rules because they are attractive to youngsters. Tobacco companies are saying they’ve merely found a way to save themselves from a prohibitively high tax that would force them out of business.

Mike Lillis at Washington Independent:

The finance industry, seeming to forget that it was responsible for the economic turmoil that’s pushed unemployment above 10 percent, is lobbying furiously (and successfully) against Democratic legislation designed to protect consumers and prevent a similar episode in the future.

Yesterday, industry representatives held a conference call with reporters boasting about just how effective they’re fight against the proposed reforms has been. Washington Post columnist Dan Milbank today captures the essence of the industry’s reasoning:

[T]he argument most likely to prevail for the financial firms on Capitol Hill was offered by Chris Stinebert, [head of the American Financial Services Association]. “Especially now, when we’re in a very, very sensitive time, when the capital markets are just starting to recover,” he said, “introducing a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace could be very detrimental.”

Most of America, though, will have a tough time sympathizing with the alleged misfortunes of Wall Street firms, some of which are posting record profits at the same time that unemployment continues to leap.

With that in mind, Milbank offers his translation of Stinebert’s argument:

[T]o put it another way: Don’t regulate us now because the economy is still suffering from the mess we made because we weren’t regulated the last time. Chutzpah, it appears, is recession-proof.

Those fiscally responsible, deficit-hawk Republicans—where are they? Where were they for the 8 years of George W. Bush? Still missing. Mike Lillis in the Washington Independent:

Here’s an interesting response from Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), senior Republican on the Finance Committee, when asked by a reporter this morning whether Congress intends to pay for the wars its launched, or continue to borrow the money and pile onto federal deficits.

Defending America is a number one responsibility and money’s not the first consideration. The first consideration is winning….

But we have always, one way or the other, raised the money to defend America, and in this case to defend America from a different kind of war, the war on terrorism. And it will be done.

He’s right on one account. You fight a war because you must, and the budget concerns should be immaterial. But the original question was, effectively, “Why aren’t lawmakers willing to ask Americans to pay for the costs of protecting the homeland, either through tax hikes or spending cuts elsewhere in the government?”

Grassley ducked it, and his argument that Congress has “always … raised the money to defend America” ignores the truth that, since 2001, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been funded primarily by borrowing from abroad — a particularly curious whitewash in the context of Republican criticisms that health care reform will break the federal budget.

The costs of that failure to ask for shared sacrifice have been tangible. When George W. Bush was elected to the White House in 2000, the nation’s debt was $5.7 trillion. Eight years later — after several rounds of tax cuts and two unfunded wars — the number had jumped to $10.0 trillion.

It’s worth noting that most of the Republicans now criticizing the costs of health care reform, Grassley included, also supported those mid-war tax cuts.

Those fiscally responsible, deficit-hawk Republicans—where are they? Where were they for the 8 years of George W. Bush? Still missing. Mike Lillis in the Washington Independent:

Here’s an interesting response from Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), senior Republican on the Finance Committee, when asked by a reporter this morning whether Congress intends to pay for the wars its launched, or continue to borrow the money and pile onto federal deficits.

Defending America is a number one responsibility and money’s not the first consideration. The first consideration is winning….

But we have always, one way or the other, raised the money to defend America, and in this case to defend America from a different kind of war, the war on terrorism. And it will be done.

He’s right on one account. You fight a war because you must, and the budget concerns should be immaterial. But the original question was, effectively, “Why aren’t lawmakers willing to ask Americans to pay for the costs of protecting the homeland, either through tax hikes or spending cuts elsewhere in the government?”

Grassley ducked it, and his argument that Congress has “always … raised the money to defend America” ignores the truth that, since 2001, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been funded primarily by borrowing from abroad — a particularly curious whitewash in the context of Republican criticisms that health care reform will break the federal budget.

The costs of that failure to ask for shared sacrifice have been tangible. When George W. Bush was elected to the White House in 2000, the nation’s debt was $5.7 trillion. Eight years later — after several rounds of tax cuts and two unfunded wars — the number had jumped to $10.0 trillion.

It’s worth noting that most of the Republicans now criticizing the costs of health care reform, Grassley included, also supported those mid-war tax cuts.

John Bolton is a complete coward—it’s pitiful to watch, and at the same time the contrast between his war-loving rhetoric and his abject personal cowardice is morbidly fascinating. Was he always so fearful? Glenn Greenwald:

John Bolton is the prototypical right-wing pseudo-tough-guy:  cheering on every war he can find without ever getting near any of them.  And as usual for this strain of play-acting, chest-beating warrior, all of the belligerence and craving of vicarious power masks a deep and pitiful cowardice.  That is often the principal purpose of warmongering from a distance.  Yesterday, Bolton — on "Washington Times Radio" — revealed that he is so petrified of Terrorists that he would not feel safe in New York City during the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and would not even allow his family there (audio here):

Host Melanie Morgan: Given the nature and danger of bringing these terrorists to American soil, where do you think is the most safe place to be when they get here and this trial begins? Where would you put your family?

John Bolton: Well, not New York City, I’m afraid to say. This is part of the callousness and the really, lack of professionalism and judgment to put them on trial anywhere in the United States in civilian courts.

The cowardice on display here is difficult to overstate — and to behold without being ill.  I lived in Manhattan on 9/11 and for many years thereafter.  For weeks — even months and years after that attack — it was widely assumed that New York would be a likely target for another attack, but I never heard a single New Yorker — not one — talk about fleeing the city or hiding their family in some faraway place.  [Well, Hugh Hewitt did talk about how he was on the "front lines" by broadcasting from New York City at the height of the Iraq War. – LG] During the 2004 election, New Yorkers voted for the candidate who wanted to treat Terrorism like a law enforcement problem over the pseudo-tough-guy "war president" by a margin of 80-20.  The fears engulfing Bolton and which he’s attempting to infect the country with are found almost exclusively among this species of war-mongers obsessed with flamboyant — and very public — rituals where they proclaim their own "strength" and "courage."

John Bolton and his comrades love to run around accusing anyone who doesn’t want to wage more wars of being an "appeaser" and "surrendering" to Terrorists, but Bolton’s cry here is the ultimate, definitive surrender:  I’m too scared of the Terrorists to go about my normal life.  I’m too petrified even to have my family in the same city as a terrorist trial.  We can’t adhere to our normal political system because the Terrorists will kill us all.  Given Bolton’s comments, this might be the most ironic and desperate book title in the history of publishing: …

Continue reading.

I crossed 10th Street in Pacific Grove and the Clock Tower was in easy sight, but I was suddenly overcome by common sense and walked back. I have to say that two days with no walk left me feeling much more antsy than I would have anticipated—or maybe it was the new shoes? At any rate, I fully enjoyed the walk and am pleased to have done it early rather than letting it get usurped by other activities.

Using this map application, I see that I walked just a little over 2 miles. A 20-minute mile is a pretty slow pace, but it will gradually improve. And I do enjoy the walk: critical.

Basically, all the latest measurements show that we’re doing worse than the most pessimistic projections. This latest post at Skeptical Science is well worth reading—and ponder the graphs. The post begins:

Global warming is happening before our very eyes. All over the world, from the Arctic to Antarctica, scientists are observing the impacts of climate change. In the three years since the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) was drafted, hundreds of peer reviewed papers studying climate change have been published. A summary of the latest research has been compiled in The Copenhagen Diagnosis, released by the University of NSW and authored by 26 climate scientists. It’s a resource heavy report, referencing hundreds of papers. Here are some of the highlights:

At a time when we need to be lowering our carbon footprint, global CO2 emissions have been sharply rising. In fact, the acceleration in fossil fuel CO2 emissions is tracking the worst case scenarios used by the IPCC AR4. Consequently, atmospheric CO2 is increasing ten times faster than any rate detected in ice core data over the last 22,000 years.

Figure 1: Observed global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production compared with IPCC emissions scenarios. The coloured area covers all scenarios used to project climate change by the IPCC.

Over the past 25 years, global temperature has warmed at a rate of ~0.2°C per decade. Superimposed over this long term trend is short term variability. Most of these short-term variations are due to internal oscillations like El Niño Southern Oscillation, the 11-year solar cycle and volcanic eruptions. Over periods less than a decade, such short-term variations can outweigh the anthropogenic global warming trend. For example, El Niño events can change global temperature by up to 0.2°C over a few years. The solar cycle imposes warming or cooling of 0.1°C over five years. However, neither El Niño, solar activity or volcanic eruptions make a significant contribution to long-term climate trends. Consequently, over the past decade (1999-2008), the warming trend is 0.19°C per decade. consistent with the long term trend.

Figure 2: Global temperature according to NASA GISS data since 1980. The red line shows annual data, the red square shows the preliminary value for 2009, based on January-August. The green line shows the 25-year linear trend (0.19 °C per decade). The blue lines show the two most recent ten-year trends (0.18 °C per decade for 1998-2007, 0.19 per decade for 1999-2008).

Satellite and tide-gauge measurements show that sea level rise is accelerating faster than expected. The average rate of rise for 1993-2008 as measured from satellite is 3.4 millimeters per year while the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) projected a best estimate of 1.9 millimeters per year for the same period. Actual sea level rise is 80% faster than projected by models. Sea level is likely to rise much more by 2100 than the often-cited range of 18-59 centimeters from the IPCC AR4…

Read it all—there are more graphs. And note that sea level has risen 6 cm just since 1990. After more graphs and a list of findings, he concludes:

… There is a common theme emerging from the most recent peer-reviewed research. When uncertainties expressed in the IPCC AR4 report are subsequently resolved, they point to a more rapidly changing and more sensitive climate than previously believed. Skeptics tend to characterise the IPCC as imposing an alarmist bias in their conclusions. The latest empirical data indicates the opposite is the case.

At least, at high energies, as I understand this article by Zeeya Merali in Scientific American:

Was Newton right and Einstein wrong? It seems that unzipping the fabric of spacetime and harking back to 19th-century notions of time could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.

Physicists have struggled to marry quantum mechanics with gravity for decades. In contrast, the other forces of nature have obediently fallen into line. For instance, the electromagnetic force can be described quantum-mechanically by the motion of photons. Try and work out the gravitational force between two objects in terms of a quantum graviton, however, and you quickly run into trouble—the answer to every calculation is infinity. But now Petr Hořava, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks he understands the problem. It’s all, he says, a matter of time.

More specifically, the problem is the way that time is tied up with space in Einstein’s theory of gravity: general relativity. Einstein famously overturned the Newtonian notion that time is absolute—steadily ticking away in the background. Instead he argued that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a malleable fabric that is distorted by matter. The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two conceptions of time don’t gel.

The solution, Hořava says, is to snip threads that bind time to space at very high energies, such as those found in the early universe where quantum gravity rules. “I’m going back to Newton’s idea that time and space are not equivalent,” Hořava says. At low energies, general relativity emerges from this underlying framework, and the fabric of spacetime restitches, he explains.

Hořava likens this emergence to the way some exotic substances change phase. For instance, at low temperatures liquid helium’s properties change dramatically, becoming a “superfluid” that can overcome friction. In fact, he has co-opted the mathematics of exotic phase transitions to build his theory of gravity. So far it seems to be working: the infinities that plague other theories of quantum gravity have been tamed, and the theory spits out a well-behaved graviton. It also seems to match with computer simulations of quantum gravity.

Hořava’s theory has been generating excitement since he proposed it in January, and physicists met to discuss it at a meeting in November at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In particular, physicists have been checking if the model correctly describes the universe we see today. General relativity scored a knockout blow when Einstein predicted the motion of Mercury with greater accuracy than Newton’s theory of gravity could.

Can Hořava gravity claim the same success? …

Continue reading.

Steve Benen at Political Animal:

Trevor Francis, the communications director at the Republican National Committee, was forced out yesterday. A couple of hours later, the party announced that Alex Castellanos, a notorious Republican media consultant and CNN contributor, will take over as a senior communications adviser to RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

The news prompted Atrios to note, "I’m sure CNN will keep his seat warm." I assumed the same thing, but as it turns out, that won’t be necessary — Castellanos will still be sitting in the same seat.

Longtime Republican media strategist Alex Castellanos will continue to serve as an on-air personality for CNN despite recently taking on a consulting role for the Republican National Committee, the network confirms.

On Monday, it was reported that Castellanos, who has served as a media consultant for many Republican presidential candidates as well as an advisor for the private health insurance industry, will play an expanded role at the RNC after the committee parted ways with its communications director, Trevor Francis.

Apparently, Castellanos makes enough money doing media work for private health insurance companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that he’ll be unpaid for his work as the RNC’s senior communications adviser. And since Castellanos won’t literally be on the Republican National Committee’s payroll, CNN is entirely comfortable paying him to offer "political analysis" on the air.

And here I thought the ethical/professional lines had already been blurred too much. Now, CNN — you know, the network that has positioned itself as above the fray — will feature regular on-air commentary from the Republican National Committee’s new message/strategy guy.

Constant Reader points out an exception Bill Moyers program. Here’s the transcript:

Our country wonders this weekend what is on President Obama’s mind. He is apparently, about to bring months of deliberation to a close and answer General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan. When he finally announces how many, why, and at what cost, he will most likely have defined his presidency, for the consequences will be far-reaching and unpredictable. As I read and listen and wait with all of you for answers, I have been thinking about the mind of another president, Lyndon B. Johnson.

I was 30 years old, a White House Assistant, working on politics and domestic policy. I watched and listened as LBJ made his fateful decisions about Vietnam. He had been thrust into office by the murder of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963– 46 years ago this weekend. And within hours of taking the oath of office was told that the situation in South Vietnam was far worse than he knew.

Less than four weeks before Kennedy’s death, the South Vietnamese president had himself been assassinated in a coup by his generals, a coup the Kennedy Administration had encouraged.

South Vietnam was in chaos, and even as President Johnson tried to calm our own grieving country, in those first weeks in office, he received one briefing after another about the deteriorating situation in Southeast Asia.

Lyndon Johnson secretly recorded many of the phone calls and conversations he had in the White House. In this broadcast, you’re going to hear excerpts that reveal how he wrestled over what to do in Vietnam. There are hours of tapes and the audio quality is not the best, but I’ve chosen a few to give you an insight into the mind of one president facing the choice of whether or not to send more and more American soldiers to fight in a far-away and strange place.

Granted, Barack Obama is not Lyndon Johnson, Afghanistan is not Vietnam and this is now, not then. But listen and you will hear echoes and refrains that resonate today.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve already put it into my Netflix queue. Read what Francis Lam has to say:

I have a new hero. I’ve never met him, never tasted his food, and even still, I am a worshiper at the altar of Michel Bras.

For years, Bras was to me just another name in the long list of French chefs who supposedly changed everything. I regarded him with a vague sense of respect, the kind you affect mainly because you know you’re supposed to. So out of professional obligation, I went to the French Institute/Alliance Française’s Crossing the Line Festival, where Bras gave a rare interview to go with a screening of "Inventing Cuisine: Michel Bras," a 10-year-old documentary on the creation of four of his dishes.

But from the title shot of the movie — Bras spooning sauces onto a plate in tight lines and deliberate smears — I was stunned. I recognized his swoops and dramatic arcs as signature plating styles of some of my favorite chefs today; I had no idea food could have looked like that a decade ago. I sat up.

Bras is known as kind of a vegetable savant, and so the film begins with him at the market before dawn, selecting, and soon we see him preparing them with his team.

Vegetable prep in every kitchen I’ve ever worked in is a chore, shit work, a task where you find satisfaction mainly in getting something done more quickly than you did it yesterday. It’s about powering your way through, leaving trails of carrot peels in your wake. So watching Bras work is stunning…

Continue reading.

As you know, I’m a big fan of Roku, the simple device that presents streaming video (which it receives from your wireless router) to your TV via any mode of hook-up. (I use HDMI, which is simplest if your TV has that, but it also offers the full range of ways to connect.) I have been primarily watching movies from my Netflix Watch Instantly queue, but I have watched a couple of rentals from Amazon.

But now! Look at all the channels they offer, with most of them free. And they cut the price of the unit to $80. If you like movies and you already have wireless in your house, I don’t see any reason not to get a Roku.

Christina Bellantoni reports in TPMDC:

When President Obama likes a magazine article, White House staffers had better read it.

Obama’s must-read is Ron Brownstein’s Saturday blog post "A Milestone in the Health Care Journey" at the Atlantic’s political Web site.

Politico noted today that Obama found the article, which lauds Max Baucus’ approach to health care, a good summary of the cost controls in the health care bill.

An administration official tells TPMDC that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned the article as homework during a recent meeting.

According to the official, Emanuel told senior staffers "not to come back to the next day’s meeting if they hadn’t read the article."

Brownstein’s blog post begins:

When I reached Jonathan Gruber on Thursday, he was working his way, page by laborious page, through the mammoth health care bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had unveiled just a few hours earlier. Gruber is a leading health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is consulted by politicians in both parties. He was one of almost two dozen top economists who sent President Obama a letter earlier this month insisting that reform won’t succeed unless it "bends the curve" in the long-term growth of health care costs. And, on that front, Gruber likes what he sees in the Reid proposal. Actually he likes it a lot.

"I’m sort of a known skeptic on this stuff," Gruber told me. "My summary is it’s really hard to figure out how to bend the cost curve, but I can’t think of a thing to try that they didn’t try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here….I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn’t have done better than they are doing."

Gruber may be especially effusive. But the Senate blueprint, which faces its first votes tonight, also is winning praise from other leading health reformers like Mark McClellan, the former director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under George W. Bush and Len Nichols, health policy director at the centrist New America Foundation. "The bottom line," Nichols says, "is the legislation is sending a signal that business as usual [in the medical system] is going to end."

Both the Senate bill’s priority on controlling long-term health care costs, and its strategy for doing so, represents a validation for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT)…

Continue reading. I was particularly interested in the post since I’ve been especially critical of Baucus.

What a story. Zachary Roth at TPM Muckraker:

From federal prosecutor to accused violent gangster, pimp, and drug-dealer…That’s the unusual career trajectory taken, say the Feds, by Paul Bergrin, who was indicted earlier this month in a 39-count racketeering indictment.

In a drama that could have been made for HBO, Bergrin — a white-collar defense lawyer who once represented, pro bono, a solider accused of abusing Abu Ghraib detainees — seems to have allowed his gangster clients to drag him into a world of violent crime. And he may have gone a lot further than Maury Levy ever did for Stringer Bell.

Bergrin, a former AUSA with the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, is charged with leading a criminal enterprise that used violence, intimidation, and deceit to generate millions of dollars, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Among the most eye-catching allegations against him:

• That he used a Newark restaurant as a front for a cocaine-distribution network.
• That he oversaw a $1,000-an-hour call-girl ring in New York City.
• That he had a witness killed in one drug case, and hired a hitman to kill another.

You can read a key portion of the indictment here.

Bergrin was first arrested in May. His lawyers have argued in court papers that …

Continue reading. The story gets even more amazing.

As you can see, the buying moratorium has frayed a bit, but I’m back in “no-buy” mode now. When I saw this teapot at Whole Foods, I was sorely tempted.

The lid is attached, which I like, and inside is a stainless basket for the tea leaves. The first cup you pour brings the water below the level of the basket, I believe, so that the tea doesn’t continue to steep.

My Adagio UtiliTEA teakettle lets you specify with a knob setting how hot to make the water, from barely warm to furious boil. White tea should steep in water between 160º – 170º F. The knob setting isn’t marked, but I have a highly accurate digital thermometer. I didn’t want to have to hot the pot, so I wanted a setting that would make the water hot enough so that, after it was pour over the tea leaves into the teapot and warmed the pot (almost instantly), the resulting temperature would be in range—i.e., the water would be heated enough so that the cooling effect from warming the teapot leaves the water at the correct temperature.

The first pot was too cool—the settled temperature was 141º—so for the second pot I turned the knob up. The settled temperature this time was 164º.

I like the teapot because it makes enough for 2.5 cups. Very nice.

I just got another pair of MBT shoes (on sale, natch):

This is the MBT Men’s Safiri – Chill Leather/Nylon. I really like them. This is the first pair of shoes I’ve had since I was a kid that I didn’t want to take off when I went to bed.

I tried an MBT sandal, but I’m not a sandal guy. Plus the sandal had the flatter sole design—done, I presume, to make the shoe look more “normal.” But I thought it didn’t work so well as the regular sole. Fortunately, the returns process at FootwearEtc.com is free and easy.

Take a look at these shoes. And here’s the Cool Tools review.

My own review in an earlier post.

Man, these are great shoes. (And I get no freebies for saying that.)

The Grosvenor brush, mixed boar and badger, is breaking in. I got two good passes of lather and a brief return to the soap—Cyril R. Salter shaving soap this morning—gave me plenty more for the final pass. The Fat Boy with its Swedish Gillette blade did a superb job: three quick passes to perfect smoothness. And I do like the Booster Sage aftershave.

I’ve been feeding Megs nothing but the Evo 95% Duck for a while—she didn’t like the little bit of homemade food I added. But tonight I decided to try the little chunks of chicken skinless thigh meat. I snipped off about 9-10 and pushed them into the canned food in her bowl before I gave it to her, and covered them up.

I put the bowl down, and she started eating. After about 5 seconds she obviously had the first little chunk of meat because she stopped and sat up a little, chewing vigorously—and seemingly with relish. It probably was, since she immediately went to work on the rest of it and stopped only when she had eaten all the little chunks of chicken, along with more than half the canned food in the bowl. She’ll finish the rest later.

It did my heart good to see how much she enjoyed the little bits of chicken meat.

It was impressive. They are doing a lot of work in many areas, they fully deserve any support you can provide. Take a look at their site to see the things currently underway. I encourage you to join.

Clever way to shorten.