9/17/14 Today's Inquiries

I was a beautiful, cool, breezy day outside. I had my windows open. The city was repaving the road by my house.


The Links:

I posted an analysis of truthiness a few days back and this first link is an excellent demonstration of the concept. Conservatives hate Obama. They're inclined to believe anything negative said about the guy because it fits in with their hatred. So when Charles Krauthammer says Obama says "I" more than any other president, conservatives believe it. Even when it's totally not true.

Since Krauthammer can't be bothered to check on mere matters of fact, I found the transcript of President Obama's speech about the death of Osama bin Laden, and checked the pronoun counts and rates. In fact, the speech contains 1396 words, of which 10 are 'I', for a rate of 0.7%. Perhaps Krauthammer was thinking of President Reagan's Address to the Nation on Events in Lebanon and Grenada, which did have "29 references to I" — though the overall word count was higher, so that the rate was exactly the same, at 0.7%.

Cognitive dissonance close to home:


So hey, some good news! The number of children living in poverty has fallen for the first time since 2000.  Thanks Obama.

More good news! CALPERS the largest public pension fund in the united states had announced that it's going to close it's positions in risky hedge funds. It looks like all the losses at the hands of private equity were getting to be too much.

Empathy for the poor: a meditation.

It can be difficult to avoid falling into easy and ill-informed moralizing that if those with low incomes just managed their food budget a little better, or saved a little bit of money, worked a few more hours, or avoided taking out that high-interest loan, then their economic lives could be more stable and their longer-term prospects improved.

Congress just might vote against military action in Syria. That would be unprecedented and a welcome change. Also, a new ground war would unite our enemies.

A sign that the tech bubble may be close to bursting?

Alison Bechdel was named a recipient of the 2014 MacArthur Genius Grant yesterday. Very cool.

Kids these days. Can't even get 'em to smoke and drink like they used to.

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