;)
The Commentariat -- Jan. 15, 2013
Erik Wasson of The Hill: "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned Congress on Monday that the U.S. could default on its payment obligations as early as mid-February. Geithner, who has been employing 'extraordinary measures' since the debt ceiling was reached on Dec. 31, said he was running out of maneuvers to delay a default. He urged lawmakers to raise the $16.4 trillion borrowing limit quickly. 'Treasury currently expects to exhaust these extraordinary measures between mid-February and early March of this year,' Geithner said in a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other top leaders. The date range matches an informal estimate made by the Bipartisan Policy Center last week." CW: sure hope the first bills Treasury decides not to pay are Congressional paychecks. ...
... Jonathan Spicer of Reuters: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday urged U.S. lawmakers to lift the country's borrowing limit to avoid a potentially disastrous debt default, warning that the economy was still at risk from political gridlock over the deficit." ...
... "The McConnell Provision." Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post: "... while President Obama was laying down the gauntlet against congressional Republicans on raising the debt ceiling..., he gave a shout-out to an idea that was the brainchild of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) during the last debt-ceiling drama. 'If Congress wants to put the responsibility on me to do it, as Mitch McConnell wanted last year,' Obama said.... 'I'm happy to do that.'" How the McConnell Provision works:
CLICK GRAPHIC TO GO TO LARGER IMAGE.
... The Editors of the righty-right wing National Review tell Republicans to back off: "Republicans should recognize that the prospect of default is the ... primary source of the Democrats' leverage." They suggest Republicans instead pass a bill somehow limiting future spending. CW: I don't quite understand their proposal, but then I don't care. Besides, note that the NR geniuses are such experts that they begin their editorial, "The federal government will hit the statutory limit on its debt within the next two months, and further borrowing would require congressional action." Actually, no. We hit the statutory limit at the end of last year. ...
... Update: it appears the experts at the National Review got their proposed law from famed macroeconomist & Constitutional lawyer Karl Rove.
... Charles Pierce comments on the President's press conference. Short version: "Fk The Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money." ...
... CW: the best thing about the President's presser today is that he has finally learned to say "Republican." He spent 98 percent of his first term calling them "some in Washington," or "Congress" or at best, "the other side." Casual listeners had no idea he was talking about Republicans. (I once got a White House speech writer to slip the word "Republican" into an Obama speech; but it was, as they say in the teevee biz -- an OTO -- a one-time-only event. Obama went right back to calling out "some people.") He made abundantly clear today -- again & again -- who he was talking about. ...
... AND this was inevitable. The Bipartisan Beltway Boys will be complaining the President was way too mean to Repubicans. Dana Milbank gets the ball rolling. "Arguably, Obama's no-more-Mr.-Nice-Guy approach is good politics. His first-term experience made clear that he gained nothing from Republicans when he took a passive approach. When it comes to getting things done in Washington, there's no substitute for forceful presidential leadership.... Yet the performance was also a reminder of why Obama isn't noted for his interpersonal warmth...." CW: so a President has to be in-your-face to get anything done, but, um, s/he can't be "adversarial." The Beltway Boy's advice is "damned if you do & damned if you don't. Either way, I'll get a column out of it. Thanks for a living, Mr. O." ...
"My offer is this: nothing." If you don't have time to watch all of President Obama's news conference (embedded in yesterday's Commentariat), watch the shorter version. Everything about the clip is remarkably apt, including the Senator's extended ethnic slur (wherein oily = nappy):
Democrats Against Gun Control. Steve Kornacki of Salon: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) provided "a valuable reminder on Monday night that the issue isn't simply driven by a partisan divide. In a new interview with a Nevada public television station..., Reid refused to endorse any of the reforms that Joe Biden is expected to present to President Obama on Tuesday.... Reid also all but pronounced the assault weapons ban ... dead on arrival.... The Senate also includes a number of Democrats like Reid from pro-gun states who would rather not go on record voting for a new ban.... In stating that he won't consider legislation that doesn't stand a chance in the House, Reid appears to be giving pro-gun Senate Democrats an opportunity to duck the question." ...
... Thomas Kaplan & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: New York "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lawmakers agreed on Monday to a broad package of changes to gun laws that would expand the state's ban on assault weapons and would include new measures to keep guns away from the mentally ill. The state Senate, controlled by a coalition of Republicans and a handful of Democrats, approved the legislative package just after 11 p.m. by a lopsided vote of 43 to 18. The Assembly, where Democrats who have been strongly supportive of gun control have an overwhelming majority, planned to vote on the measure Tuesday."
** A gun kept in the home was 43 times more likely to be involved in the death of a member of the household than to be used in self-defense. -- Dr. Art Kellerman, whose research was stymied when Congress, at the behest of the NRA, ordered the Center for Disease Control to stop funding gun use studies ...
... Stephanie Pappas of Live Science has more on Congress's stifling of gun research: "Congress members who supported the NRA first attempted to remove all funding from the NCIPC. That failed, but Congress did manage to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's overall budget, the exact amount spent on firearm injury research in the past year.... More chillingly, Congress added language to the budget appropriations bill forbidding any CDC funding that might 'advocate or promote gun control.'" CW: in other words, anything that might hint guns were, like, dangerous.
... David Nakamura & Jon Cohen of the Washington Post: "Most Americans support tough new measures to counter gun violence, including banning assault weapons and posting armed guards at every school, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.... The findings, which also show broad bipartisan support for mandatory background checks to purchase firearms at gun shows, came as President Obama said Monday that he will lay out specific White House proposals on gun-control legislation and executive actions this week." ...
Pew Research Center also found strong majorities supporting background checks, a national gun-tracking database, & bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammo clips.
CW: compare these results with the Gallup poll I linked yesterday, which showed that fewer than half of Americans favored tighter gun control. Gallup (a) loaded the question; (b) asked a wholly different demographic sample from the WashPo respondents; or (c) both. You can bet Republicans will rely on Gallup, just as they did during the presidential race, when Gallup consistently showed Not-President-Elect Whatzizname in the lead. ...
... Yet Another Poll. Shane Goldmacher of the National Journal: "A slim majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe that controlling gun ownership is more important than protecting the right of Americans to own firearms, according to the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll. But beneath that divided topline were far more telling cleavages. The survey showed that the gun-control debate in America has split along the same fault lines -- by age group, ethnicity, gender, even region -- that marked the 2012 presidential contest between Obama and Mitt Romney." CW: ah yes, Romney; that's the name I forgot. And, please, somebody tell Harry Reid, et al., about this. ...
... Alec MacGillis of The New Republic notes that "the national conversation" on gun legislation is actually shifting toward stricter controls. Moves by Democratic Governors Andrew Cuomo (N.Y.), Martin O'Malley (Md.) & John Hickenlooper (Colo.) are paving the way. ...
... Ray Rivera of the New York Times: "The grieving mothers and other parents and family members of victims killed in the Dec. 14 [Sandy Hook] elementary school massacre gathered [in Newtown, Connecticut] at a news conference on Monday to help begin a campaign aimed at preventing the kind of bloodshed that has turned this quiet New England community into a national symbol of grief.... "Perhaps foreshadowing the difficult and contentious debates to come in Washington, group members declined to offer support for any specific measures, saying they needed time to educate themselves on the issues, and emphasizing that the debate must be broader than gun control." ...
... Tom Engelhardt: "Beyond U.S. borders, the reality is: the Pentagon, with the White House in tow, is the functional equivalent of the NRA, and like that organization, it has been working tirelessly in recent years in close alliance with major weapons-makers to ensure that there are ever less controls on the ever more powerful weaponry it wants to see sold abroad. Between them, the White House and the Pentagon - with a helping hand from the State Department ... do their best to pave the way ... for the almost unfettered sales of ever more lethal weapons."
Natasha Lennard of Salon: "Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote a letter to John Brennan -- nominee for CIA director, Obama's counterterrorism adviser, and central architect of U.S. drone warfare -- asking to see the legal opinions and rules behind the targeted killing of U.S. citizens in counterterrorism efforts and demanding a list of countries where America is conducting shadow wars.
Manu Raju of Politico: "New York Sen. Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday he'd support Chuck Hagel's nomination as defense secretary, removing a major obstacle to his nomination and greatly increasing the chances he'll be confirmed, even as Hagel continues to face opposition from the right."
Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The White House says it will give states more time to comply with the new health care law after finding that many states lag in setting up markets where millions of Americans are expected to buy subsidized private health insurance.... A political benefit of this strategy is that it allows the administration to keep working with even the most recalcitrant states." ...
... Elize Viebeck of The Hill: "Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) proposed expanding Medicaid under President Obama's signature healthcare law, a surprising move from a vocal critic of the White House.... Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government covers all initial costs for states to expand their Medicaid programs up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line. Arizona's program currently covers most people below the U.S. poverty level, meaning about 300,000 would gain coverage if the state expands Medicaid."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Around 11:45 on Monday morning, Justice Clarence Thomas broke almost seven years of silence during Supreme Court arguments. But it was not entirely clear what he said."
Denise Lavoie of the AP: "Andrew Good, a Boston attorney who represented Aaron Swartz in the [alleged hacking] case last year, said he told federal prosecutors in Massachusetts that Swartz was a suicide risk. 'Their response was, put him in jail, he'll be safe there,' Good said."
Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "The suicide of Aaron Swartz has drawn new scrutiny to a federal law that has been widely used to prosecute a variety of people accused of being trolls, bullies and cyberthieves. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, enacted in 1986, is the basis for much of the government's case against Mr. Swartz. It makes it illegal to gain access to a computer system without 'authorization.' ... The blogosphere buzzed with arguments on Monday over the scope and application of the law. A petition went up Monday afternoon, pressing the Obama administration to reform the Fraud Act."
Photo by Dreamstime.Live Science: "The hands of the infamous 'Doomsday Clock' will remain firmly in their place at five minutes to midnight -- symbolizing humans' destruction -- for the year 2013, scientists announced today (Jan. 14). Keeping their outlook for the future of humanity quite dim, the group of scientists also wrote an open letter to President Barack Obama, urging him to partner with other global leaders to act on climate change."
David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: "Since beginning his campaign for president, [Egyptian President Mohamed] Morsi has promised to uphold Egypt's treaty with Israel and to seek peace in the region. In recent months, he has begun to forge a personal bond with President Obama around their successful efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Palestinian militants of the Gaza Strip. But the exposure this month of his virulent comments from early 2010, both documented on video, have revealed sharp anti-Semitic and anti-Western sentiments, raising questions about Mr. Morsi's efforts to present himself as a force for moderation and stability."
Congressional Race
I think my job as mom right now is much more important, much more rewarding and much more productive [than being a Member of Congress]. The idea of killing myself to run for a seat for the privilege of serving in a dysfunctional body under John Boehner when I have an eighth-grader at home just really doesn't make sense to me. -- Jenny Sanford, Appalachian Trail victim ...
... Catalina Camia of the USA Today: "Jenny Sanford's decision avoids a potentially messy campaign against her ex-husband [former pseudo-hiker/governor Mark Sanford, who has since married become engaged to the lady he wasn't hiking with] in the GOP primary. The Weekly Standard reported last week that sources close to the former Republican governor say he will run for Scott's seat, which Sanford held from 1995 to 2001 before being elected governor." ...
... You may not see the tragedy in this, but Charles Pierce is having trouble adjusting.
Local News
Some of the panels by Judy Taylor, commissioned for the Maine State Labor Department.Matthew Stone of the Bangor Daily News: "Nearly two years after Gov. Paul LePage had a mural depicting Maine labor history removed from the lobby of the Department of Labor building, the artwork resurfaced Monday at its new home: the Maine State Museum.... LePage ordered the mural removed from the Labor Department lobby in March 2011, saying it presented a one-sided view of history and was not in keeping with the pro-business message of his administration."
Right Wing World *
Nut ... Tree. AP: "U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's son has been charged with assaulting a flight attendant during a trip from Kentucky to North Carolina. The Charlotte Observer reported over the weekend (http://bit.ly/W1D5kg ) that 19-year-old William Paul was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female by aggressive physical force. The paper had previously reported that he also was charged with underage drinking, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive." CW: Not to worry, Littlest Paul. There is a place for you now. ...
... Glenn's Gulch. Igor Bobic of TPM: "Conservative radio host Glenn Beck is planning to construct a self-sustaining libertarian community in Texas to the tune of $2 billion, the Dallas Observer reported on Friday. The community, which Beck dubs 'Independence Park,' does not have a specified location yet, but it will be styled after 'Galt's Gulch,' a fictional utopian commune in Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged.'" Thanks to Lisa for the link.
CW: I owe readers an apology, as there's a whole world of crazy I totally missed -- the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists. Alex Seitz-Wald, in this January 9 Salon post, provides a good overview: "Most of the theories are really pieces of a larger meta-theory: that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, perhaps by the Obama administration, designed to stir demand for gun control." And nice to know my Florida tax dollars are supporting one of these loons, a tenured professor at a state university. May Prof. Tracy too find a home in Glenn's Gulch. ...
... BUT just blowing smoke isn't enough. Now some of these nuts are harassing victims, like this Newtown psychologist who lives near the school & harbored some children who came to his door moments after the massacre.
* Will no longer be an imaginary place. **
** The Glennbeckistan City Hall is to be erected at the junction of Delusion Drive & Paranoia Parkway.
News Ledes
AP: "Northeastern lawmakers hoping to push a $50.7 billion Superstorm Sandy aid package through the House face roadblocks by fiscal conservatives seeking offsetting spending cuts to pay for recovery efforts as well as funding cuts for projects they say are unrelated to the Oct. 29 storm. The amendments by budget hawks set up a faceoff Tuesday...."
New York Times: "Pakistan's supreme court ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in a corruption case on Tuesday afternoon, dramatically raising the stakes in a tense standoff between the government and its opponents."
Reuters: "Royal Bank of Scotland is braced for fines of between 400 million pounds and 500 million pounds ($803 million) for its role in an interest rate rigging scandal, sources familiar with the matter said. The partly state-owned bank is expected to agree a settlement with authorities in Britain and the United States next week and will be hit with a worse punishment than rival Barclays, which was fined $450 million last June."
Reuters: "Italy suspended activity at its consulate in Benghazi and withdrew staff for security reasons on Tuesday after a gun attack on its consul at the weekend which underlined the precarious security situation in the North African state. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on Guido De Sanctis's heavily armored car in Benghazi, Libya's second city, on Saturday. The diplomat was unhurt...."
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Reader Comments (21)
Love this Charles Pierce comment on Jenny's decision not to run:
"Jenny Sanford's decision avoids a potentially messy campaign against her ex-husband. The Weekly Standard reported last week that sources close to Mark Sanford said the former Republican governor will run for Scott's seat, which he held from 1995 to 2001 before being elected governor.
"Potentially messy"?
"How about, "potentially freaking awesome"? How about, "so potentially freaking awesome that Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner would come back from the freaking dead in order to write about it"?
James, I agree––would be a hoot with enough drama for one of those southern guys to rise from the dead and get back to their typewriters.
." CW: sure hope the first bills Treasury decides not to pay are Congressional paychecks." BEST IDEA EVER!!
Re: The president is a prick...ly pear; "Yet the performance was also a reminder of why Obama isn’t noted for his interpersonal warmth...."
Mack the Knife smiled with all his toofs; nice man.
Bruce from the movie, "Jaws" had a nice smile.
The "Wof" in "Little Red Riding Hood has Grandmama's smile.
Every banker I've ever met has a nice smile, so does every undertaker I've had the pleasure of meeting.
The devil herself has a radiant smile.
Ironic that those that spend a lifetime in land of the false smile want the President to be "NICE".
I want a president that smiles from his heart not his face.
And today; what's there to smile about?
But a Glennbeckistan City Hall would have to be built with, um, tax dollars? This could get interesting. Will it be elaborate and fancy, since they are spending it only on the good people, or will it be a Quonset hut in solidarity with their "No Taxes for nuthin'" mantra.
I hope they carry through with their plans. As soon as they break ground, we can take bets as to when some of the members become more equal than others. It's remarkable how opposite ends of a spectrum approach the same color.
Re: the Sandy Hook tinfoil hat crowd who are harrassing Dr. Rosen. That they would believe the shooting was a hoax is sickening and and even further, their treatment of this man is far beyond the pale. Sometimes when I read about such evil people and their actions, I wonder what I spent 22 years of my life in the Army for. It almost, but not quite, makes me feel that it wasn't worth it.
The Citadel in Idaho will be similar to Beckistan. Notice that one of the first buildings to be designated is the Firearms Museum. Where does this craziness and paranoia come from??
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/liberty-driven-fortress-community-being-planned-in-idaho
@Nisky Guy raises an interesting and perhaps for us an amusing question: how will the anti-government crowd self-govern?
I have a feeling that the answer up there at the Citadel will involve frequent shoot-outs in the Neighborhood next to the Arms Factory or at the Reflecting Pool, planned to be contiguous to the Firearms Museum. Reflect on that. My suggestion to the designers is they add a graveyard next to the church. Oh, wait, there is no church. What, no church??!!
Marie
Reservations for nut cases!!! What a splendid idea. Here's to hoping they keep their enterance fees low and their plans on a grand style for the great masses that can benefit from this service. Had anyone else but Grandmaster Beck suggested such a thing, the idea would have been looked upon skeptically.
Lisa, "Where does this craziness and paranoia come from??" It's complicated but I think a major piece is something that no one wants to deal with. It's called IQ. Take a look at the pattern of IQ levels and blue vs. red, or even better tea party. Here we live in a world where technology has become the norm, iPads are basic like paper notebooks used to be. But what if you can't figure out how to use it? What if you have no idea what the hell the Federal deficit really means? Well here is a fact. 50% of the population, that is more than 150 million people have IQ's under 100. And as the world changes more and more in this direction every day, millions are seriously scared. Culture has always been separated in part by intelligence but now its getting really serious. No, you can't have a conversation about gun control with people who think that the government can get into their brains. And to a certain extent their concern is real, but they are incapable of understanding how this new world really works.
P.S. As an example, last month we were getting ready to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. I mentioned to my wife that I would love to make contact with my best man, we have not been in contact in a long time since he moved to the mid-west. She sat down with her iPad and found his cell phone number in about 30 min. Try that as a test for the 'crazy paranoid nut cases'. I don't think it would be a coincidence.
Jim Jones, David Korresh, Glenn Beck ... all they wanted is a happy place where everyone thinks like them.
Don't forget that it was Glenn Beck who on national television threatened Michael Moore with death for holding the views he did. Moore had to hire private security to deal with the thousands of death threats that followed that television confrontation.
@ Patrick. I think these Glennbeckistan/Citadel type places are similar in nature to the utopian communities of the 19th century. Beck himself, as a matter of fact, became a Mormon when he was an adult -- & the Mormons of course established a kind of utopian society -- so it isn't surprising that he is drawn to the idea of living in some nirvana of like-minded people/followers. That's what Sarah Palin's "real America" is -- albeit "real America" doesn't exist -- an ideal small town of nice white Christian people working together for the common good of nice white Christian people.
In fact, I think it's natural to choose to live in a place -- or choose to socialize with groups within a place -- where you hope to find like-minded friends.
In the '50s, Americans got the idea we would find that commonality in suburbia, & the urban flight/blight began. When that didn't work out, along came hippie communes. When those didn't work for most people, some returned to the cities, some hid in gated communities. Then there are the "ideal" towns like Disney World's Celebration, where things didn't work out too well, either. Just south of where I live, the billionaire founder of Domino's Pizza has founded an Opus Dei-type strict Roman Catholic community. I think he found out he couldn't legally exclude the heathen riffraff, but most of us heathen riffraff will self-select out. The secession movement is a version of this idea, too. These people don't want to be part of a country with a socialist black Muslim president.
These are all efforts of people to find & define their "place" in the world. To that extent, Glennbeckistan is an expression of a normal human quest to find "people just like me." Most of us don't go to the extent of moving to MyTown & certainly don't go to the extent of building a fortified city as the Idaho group plans to do -- because we're not crazy.
I don't think the idea of Glennbeckistan is much nuttier than many of these other efforts. Multiculturalism is difficult. Most of us abide or embrace it, but there is a natural impulse to turn inward & get away from people who "don't share our values."
I hope Beck & his ilk find their place, & I'm glad it isn't likely to be near my place.
Marie
@Barbarossa: yeah, you did spend your time in the Army to protect nuts who would harass Dr. Rosen, but you also spent it to protect people like Dr. Rosen & the children he sheltered. That, in my mind, makes the effort well worth it.
Marie
@Marvin Schwalb. I was intrigued by your thesis, but I don't think I've ever seen any research that supports it. Is it true that the average IQ in say, Wyoming, in lower than the average IQ in maybe Vermont?
While I would suspect that the closed mind of conservatives v. the open mind of liberals would cause liberals to, on average, do better than conservatives on IQ tests, I've never seen any research on that. I'd love it if you could point me to some. Thanks.
Marie
These people really are insufferable hypocrites . They really live in a fantasy land. As one of the commentators said we won't be safe until the GOP is destroyed.
Marie, there have been numerous studies of IQ by State (try Google) with variable results, except of course Miss. is always the lowest and Mass. or Conn. the highest. But my hypothesis is not just by red and blue States. It can be red and blue districts and there is no data on that.
Remember that even in Miss. 43% voted for Obama.
Let me go on. We live in an isolated mind world. The contributors to Reality Chex talk about history, do research before taking a position, study the numbers. A lot of our fellow citizens don't do that and to a certain extent can't. We all hate to talk about this reality. It seems arrogent and demeaning. But that doen't mean it's not real. Over the last year I have had several meeting with collegues about ethics in offering new, complex technologies in genetic testing to patients. Specifically are they going to truely understand what they are being told and in the right context. A number of times I had to stop the talk to remind the group that we are not your typical person. As a matter of fact, standard policy states that current consent forms have to be readable by persons with a 5th grade education (my experience is that the standard is rarely met). But it is getting even harder as the world becomes even more sophisticated, not just in medicine.
The untimate problem and reality is that you and I cannot truely understand the mindset of an personwith an IQ of 90. We just don't get it. There is something that would seriously help. We would admit to reality. We would admit that there are children who are going to be left behind.We accept the fact that not everyone can go to college. And then develop and educational system that adapts to reality and provides the best system for all students, yes dependant in a large part on their IQ. It will never happen.
The topics du jour out here offer a supremely target-rich environment for anyone enamored by the lure of rationality, and they involve one of my favorite bull's eyes, the Old Libertarian World Canard.
Unfortunately I don't have time to properly fillet the Beck's Gulch idea (longtime RC readers have probably read my earlier critiques of serious Libertarian philosophers like Robert Nozick so I won't retrace that ground today), except to toss out a question: If this kind of Libertarian community was as necessary and essential as the Glennster seems to think why does it require two billion dollars of seed money to get it going? Shouldn't its essential nature allow it to rise unbidden from the primordial political swamp?
It reminds me of scientific experiments designed to elicit results that might never be seen in the real world (or at least not in the contemporary world), the difference being that some of those tests are used to gain knowledge of something of importance that once existed (the chemical and physical processes of the first three minutes of the Big Bang) versus a world that never has and never would exist naturally (Beck's Gulch).
Why is this a problem? Because pseudo-intellectual swamis like Beck want their followers to believe that this sort of Cloud Cuckoo Land is what the Founders (at least the fantasy, comic book Founders) wanted for us, an idea stolen away by evil liberals and a blah president.
The point here is that almost all of these artificial communities require draconian rules or an unusually powerful commitment in order to survive (monasteries and military encampments, eg) or ineluctably and miserably fail once human nature rears its inevitable head.
Finally, let's review the concept of a gulch: a deep, secluded, narrow ravine created by erosion. In this case erosion of rationality, common sense, and history.
And to any fools who might be thinking of sinking time, money, effort, or reputation into this screwball scheme, I would ask if they understand what it means to be "dry gulched".
'Nuff said.
@Marvin Schwalb. Okay, I did what you said, & I couldn't find a single legitimate study that showed IQs to be higher in blue states than in red states. For one thing, the last time IQ tests were given all across the country was 1960, so there aren't any current comparison data. Some researchers have tried using other tests, like the National Assessment of Educational Progress or the SATs, but those aren't really tests of IQs, & white kids do a lot better than minorities, mostly because white kids go to better schools.
The only factors I found that any academic researchers said accounted for differences in IQ were exposure to infectious disease (this was a biggie), & education, nutrition & wealth.
There was a well-known hoax, promulgated after the 2004 election, the gist of which was that Kerry won all the high-IQ states & Bush won the low-IQ states.
Anyhoo, at this point, I'm not buying your theory: that there's a blue-v.-red IQ pattern. It's nice to think, "I'm a liberal; therefore I'm smart." But I can't find any evidence of it.
Marie
Perhaps Marvin Schwalb should concentrate his superior mind on some of the facets of egocentricity. Mind developement is a function of stimulus exposure, granted some minds have more limited memory capacity than others, however, memory training is very limited in current elementary education systems unless they include musical training. I don't think the human condition has deteriorated, but I believe the kinds of stimulus now acting on young minds is coarser, more violent, and discriptive of a much more frightning world than we were introduced to 60 years ago.
The trap of " those who think like me are smarter than the rest of the world" is not limited to intellectuals. It simply ignores the Bell curve of human capability.
Glennbeckistan sounds prettty awesome I must admit. There will surely be some good television series coming out of that mélange of humanity, but certainly not helping our hurting national IQ any. But hey, it's entertaining!
Beck's idea seems like a tea party version of Etienne Cabet's attempts at establishing the perfect society. The differences in ideology couldn't be more stark. Cabet was a French communist who, in his book "Voyage en Icarie" dreamed of establishing a utopian society founded on egalitarian principles based on a system of work where everyone has what they need, but money and commerce are banned. He and a group of his followers attempted to establish their community in Texas of all places in 1848. (Imagine a group of French "commies" setting up just outside of Dallas today...) The experiment failed multiple times, moving across the Midwest from Illinois to Iowa to Missouri where Cabet finally died in 1856 after being kicked out of the community by his then-ungrateful community members.
The similarities are stunning, but the question is why would Beck be reading up on the French founders of the social economy. Is this a sign he's hiding something in the closet?
And speaking of an initial lack of funding, why are the Koch's not already writing checks and adjusting their building plans for the gargantuan mansion on the hill, overlooking their proletariats? I thought this was their ultimate heaven on Earth.
Re: Beck's home on the range idea: His actual home is in New Canaan, Ct., where many of the rich and famous reside and where my grandchildren go to school. His house is like a mansion and would not be easily assessable for even the Fed-Ex guy to deliver anything––however several years ago he went to the town movers and shakers and told them he wanted to build a huge concrete wall around his property. They turned him down––hence––this new idea of his to build a cozy commune of like fruitcakes––"build it and they will come" and boy, oh, boy won't it be fun to watch what happens. Wonder if they'll have a blackboard in the lobby.