Question of the Day

Is it over the top to consider bridgegate an act of domestic terrorism?

More on Christie

There is almost no doubt at this time that the Bridge closure was politically motivated pay-back to screw with the lives of Democrats.  But the whole Mayor of Fort Lee theory involves levels of stupidity that strain credence.

Rachel Maddow has another theory that almost seems compelling.  Here it is in a 17 minute video from last night's broadcast.

What the Frozen Hell?!? Friday

All those things that were going to happen when  .  .  .

Well - they can happen now.

Shallow Stupid - The Bully is a Dupe

He makes excuses, says he didn't know
About that bridge thing when no one could go.
"I worked the cones." See - it's all just for show.
That's why the Bully is a Dupe.

It wasn't Christie, no - it was his staff
Now they've resigned both the riff and the raff
They jammed up Fort Lee, and just for a laugh.
That's why the Bully is a Dupe.

He loves to spew a lot of hot air
He doesn''t care
Traffic is broke
He says it's OK

He hates Fort Lee; and he don't give a whoop.
That's why the Bully is a Dupe.

To the tune of -




Source

Regarding the Lions

Lions football – Desolation of Smaug – Which is the vaster, more devastated waste land?

Ever on the alert for new ways to lose, the Lions, rather than waiting to blow the game in the waning seconds, blow it with fully 9 minutes left.

Then, the big challenge – could they hang on to this loss against the hapless Vikings?

YES! Yes they could.

It’s yet another 4th Qtr collapse, but a new variation on the never-ending theme. With 10 min left the Lions, ahead 13-7, had the Vikes pinned deep in their own end. They punt, Lions get the ball to mid-fieldd but NO! – a penalty on the run back takes them back near the 20.

On 4th and 16 the Loins [not a typo] punt FROM THEIR OWN END ZONE: 48 Yd punt — 52 Yd return back to the 7. Two plays later the Vikings get a TD and extra point to go ahead by 1. This is followed by 9 minutes and 19 seconds of pointless anticlimax.

Thus endeth yet another tragic season.

Regarding Tauriel

I suppose if you're going to invent a gratuitously plot-extending character out of whole cloth, you could do worse than a beautiful and totally kick-ass warrior elf-maid. Such characters are not unknown in the cannon.

And given the precedence of fluidly poetic elf names like Eärendil the Mariner, Elrond Halfelven and Luthien Tinuviel, couldn't Tauriel have been given a more elaborately Elvish appellation; maybe something along the lines of Elvangien Lilliel?

Granted, that might seem a bit over-blown for a common wood elf.

But since the whole thing was overblown, it at least has the virtue of thematic consistency.

Smaug Alert

"The Desolation of Smaug" runs 2 1/2 hours.

Three hours of that involved an intricate game of hide and seek deep under the mountain. [Smaug is THE most bad-ass dragon EVAH!]

Ten or so minutes consumed melting [or perhaps smelting] gold.

Another hour and a half involved hand to hand elv-orc and dwarve-orc combat in a variety of locations, and the mandatory beheading of orcs - which, I will grant you - is always a cool thing.

Exploring Dol Guldor - less than an hour, I think.

The really, really deep look into the depths of Sauron only took a few seconds.

The Athelas quest, only a few minutes, but the pig was annoyed.

You totally lose track of time in a spider cocoon, so I won't even guess.

Wholly made up adventures of 1) Bard, and 2) the absolutely totally platonic relationship between the unfortunate Kili and the lovely she-elf whose name I can't remember - Maybe a half hour.

Dwarve jail break was a barrel of fun that took less than 1/2 hour.

White water adventures - 10 minutes.

Hanging cliffs - 17 minutes, 27 seconds.
Gandolf - check.
Smaug - check.
Arkenstone - check
Kili - check
Bard - check
Legolas* - check

Did I miss any?


All of that said, though it was a bit overblown, I really did enjoy it.


_______________
* Yeah Legolas - deal with it.

Vocabulary

Lyonnaise (adj): Cooked with onions. Ex - The Lions played today as if they once again ate too many lyonnaise potatoes at lunch.

Lionize (v): To treat as an object of great interest or importance. Ex - Now who will lionize the Lions?

Leonine (adj): Of or resembling a lion or pride of lions. Ex - Once again, the Lions were not leonine today.

Lie on (verb phrase): To recline on top of. Ex: Once again the Lions were found to lie on the ground.

Lionesque* (adj): Failing for no apparent reason. Ex: The Lions were certainly lionesque again today.

__________________________________
* H/T to my ivory-tickling friend Ryan.

Same As it Ever Was

Source

We don’t let gravity keep us from building bridges.

Steve Randy Waldman, while talking about the economics of inequality, mentioned in passing that the poor die with negative wealth.

Doesn’t this imply that their spending needs were greater than their ability to spend?

Doesn’t that suggest that if they had a little more, they would spend every penny of it?

Nor does it have to be technology driven. Maybe they get a third meal one day a week, a better pair of shoes for the kids or a new pair more often, a five-year-old instead of a seven-year-old used car.

Still – the economic and the moral considerations converge at the low income level. It’s true that economics is not a morality play. However well or ill we understand it, econ, as a natural phenomenon, is a brute force, like gravity. That’s why humans with a moral compass need to intervene. We don’t let gravity keep us from building bridges.

Going Nuclear

This post at LGM reminded me of my "Party of No" post from almost 4 years ago.

I've updated the graph, and maybe made it a little easier to read.

From Congresses 65 [1917-18] through 91 [1969-70] there were never more than 7 cloture votes in any two-year session.  The line rising up from the bottom left of the graph shows what has happened to votes per session since.  It's color coded by the party with the minority in the senate, Red for Rep, Blue for Dem.  The yellow dot shows the 44 cloture votes to date for the current 113th congress. 

 Filibusters use is down from the 112 cloture votes of the 110th congress.  But the 73 votes of the 112th congress is still above the pre-Obama high of 61 in the 107th congress.  With more than a year left in the current 113th session, it was on a pace to exceed the total of the 112th.  However, that will probably now not come to fruition.

Dems have used the filibuster, but typically about as often as the current norm.  Reps have been responsible for the vast majority of the increased filibuster use over time.  The squiggly red and blue lines [same color code, right scale] indicate the number of senators per party at a given time, counting independents who caucused with the party as being of that party.

It's pretty clear that abusing the filibuster has not been a problem over the entire span of the last century.  It clearly has become one now.  Filibuster use more than doubled as soon as BHO became president.  Using it to block appointments has been particularly egregious, prompting the current change in senate rules.

For additional context, he alternating blue-red line at the top of the graph shows the sitting president's party affiliation.

I see Kevin Drum at Mother Jones has covered this subject as well.

Money quote:

The last straw came when Republicans announced their intention to filibuster all of Obama's nominees to the DC circuit court simply because they didn't want a Democratic president to be able to fill any more vacancies.

Cloture vote counts and make up of the Senate from Senate.gov.

Inflationary Derp

Once again, Krugman takes on the inflationistas, aka your typical derpy Republicans.  Their tired story goes this way:

Vice Chair Yellen will continue the destructive and inflationary policy of pouring billions of newly printed money every month into our economy, and artificially holding interest rates to near zero. This policy has been in place far too long.

Of course, it's nonsense.

PK shows this from FRED, here as graph 1.

 

Graph 1 - Monetary Base and Inflation since 2009

Sure, enough, a big, big change in Money and a pretty flat non-response in Inflation.

But this is only short term, since the Great Recession [GR].  Lets take a longer view in Graph 2, using the same FRED database.  Here the two data sets are on opposite axes, to let Inflation more visibly inflate.

Graph 2 - Monetary Base and Inflation since 1970

Aside from the Great Inflation Dragon, ca.1980, it's been a rather steady and featureless climb for Inflation up until the GR wiggle.  The Monetary Base had a slightly faster than linear rise, until the three recent big steps up.  

PK's point, then, is well taken.  Let's look at it a different way.  Here in Graph 3 is Inflation as a function of the Monetary Base.

Graph 3 - Inflation vs the Monetary Base, 1970 on

Pretty dramatic.  In the past, it would have seemed that increasing the Monetary Base correlated with rising Inflation. Suddenly, though, when the GR arrived, that stopped and stayed stopped.   More likely, though, both variables just trended up over time, each for its own reasons.

Here is the same graph, with the GR truncated.

Graph 4 - Inflation vs the Monetary Base, 1970 through 2007

But if you look at annual changes, a somewhat different picture emerges, as seen in Graph 5.

Graph 5 - Inflation vs the Monetary Base, Annual % Change

 It's hard to see an overarching pattern here, but at a detail level, it seems that the movements are contrary.

That appears to be an illusion, though.  The scattergram in Graph 6 below, with Inflation on the vertical axis, suggests that there is no relationship at all.  Note that this data set is truncated at 2007, so there is no effect from the GR.

Graph 6 - Annual Change in Inflation vs Annual Change in Monetary Base, Through 2007

There are big changes in the Monetary Base with almost no change in Inflation; and big changes in Inflation when the change in Monetary Base is small.   In post WW II America, there is no broad correlation between Monetary Base growth and Inflation..

Including 2008-13 in Graph 7 emphasizes just how different those years really are.

Graph 6 - Annual Change in Inflation vs Annual Change in Monetary Base, Through 2013

Just to demonstrate that the money measure doesn't matter much, Graph 7 shows the annual Inflation rate vs the change in MZM.

 Graph 7 - Annual Change in Inflation vs Annual Change MZM, Through 2013

Now the Christmas tree shape is leaning hard to the left, suggesting, if anything, that the relationship between Money supply growth and Inflation might be negative.

What this leaves us with is very few things inflating these days, other than the money supply and Republican derp.