My dad mentioned the polar vortex last night. He wasn't as cheerful about it, possibly because he's in his 80s and not pregnant. He always used to be the last guy in the room to get cold, but that stopped a while ago.
When he got too weak to fight off everyone else for all the blankets?
Stevie Wonder's triplets are too quick for him.
I love that the minimum wage increase gets stuffed in the same paragraph as the capital gains tax cut.
Also, the long term capital gains tax rate is already at 15%. Maybe he wants to move the short terms capital gains tax to 15% as well? Because, you know, day trading is an important economic activity that creates jobs.
3-4 inches of snow at the house this morning, first of the year. It's about 20 now, maybe heading for 30.
20 inches heading to 30? That was quick, you'd think it would have been on the news.
BillO doesn't know what the median income is so what makes you think he knows what the capital gains rate or the effective corporate tax rate is? It's policy by no-nothings- I heard that something is bad, so let's do this thing that I've always believed should be done, even if it was already done. He probably thinks crime is at an all-time high too and that test scores are at an all time low and that the earth is cooling.
20F, obvsly.
7 He undoubtedly thinks all that stuff, but if he brings some of his flock over to increasing the minimum wage, that's better than the usual bullshit.
"No, Nothing" works about as well these days.
Bill O'Reilly has perfected the wingnut pundit method of absolute certainty backed by complete ignorance. Sean Hannity is a close second, but Papa Bear still holds the lead.
5: It hit 91 on Friday. Pleasantly cool today, though, high of 70.
"The dole". Fuck you, Bill. Unless you moved to England and also time travelled back to 1982, in which I both excuse "the dole" and hope an unemployed miner explains that it's "pancrack" before beating you up.
This is completely off topic but is anyone here going to Tuesday's concert at the Wigmore Hall, Dallopicolla, Montovani & Schoenberg on the program, or Thursday's Amsterdam Sinfonietta concert (Shostakovich)?
I was going to go, but I had a thing.
Neither of those things appears to be happening near where I might conceivably attend.
O'Reilly is a dick. How can he not have known how many Americans are living on or below $50,000 / year? It's only been the top news story for about a decade now.
And...now that the GOP have control of Congress, it's okay to admit it, is that the deal? Not class warfare now?
Christ, what an asshole.
Right - meant "here" as in commenter on this website, not here in SF. Better half will be in London and Amsterdam. Mentioned in jest I could see if anyone here would be around to meet him for a pre or post concert drink, was shocked! when he said "sure, why not?" You lot have made a better impression than I would have thought!
Temperature in Chicago is expected to plunge mid-week, and might not get above freezing I think on Thursday.
In other news, on the subject of 20th C Avant Garde music, I downloaded the 1936 recording of Berg's Lyric Suite that is packaged with Webern's recording of the Violin Concerto It's an interesting and listenable recording by the Galimar String Quatet, but lacks the distinction, the revelatory quality of the Webern.
Webern's potential as a conductor and interpreter rests entirely on this one privately-financed recording, and on his orchestration of Schubert's German Dances which has often been performed. A great might-have-been.
The American soldier who killed Webern became obsessed with him later in life. Overcome with remorse about his walk-on part in cultural history.
And...now that the GOP have control of Congress, it's okay to admit it, is that the deal? Not class warfare now?
The GOP has a long history of liking/not liking ideas depending on whether or not they can take exclusive credit for them. When health insurance exchanges and the individual mandate were part of the Heritage Foundation's alternative to Hillarycare, those were solid conservative ideas. But when they became cornerstones of Obamacare, those same policies represented a "government takeover of healthcare" and a threat to individual liberty. Go figure.
How much of that was actually wanting to implement a solution vs. just having a decoy against a more liberal proposal? Same with cap'n trade, formerly the market-based solution to climate change instead of outright regulation, now it's the Devil.
To be fair to Bill O'Reilly, he's been pushing a minimum wage increase for a while. This article is from January, and I think he's been taking the same position even longer than that:
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly says the "pinheads" in the Republican Party should stop opposing the minimum wage.
"The Republican Party should really wise up and stop opposing raising the minimum wage. It should be 10 bucks an hour" to keep employers from exploiting workers, O'Reilly said Wednesday during his opening "Talking Points Memo" segment of his TV show....
"The GOP needs to stop working against working people," O'Reilly said.
President Barack Obama announced in his State of the Union address Tuesday that he was raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour by executive order, and urged Congress to raise the federal wage level to the same amount from the current $7.25.
O'Reilly agreed, at least in concept.
"Come on, 10 bucks an hour? Babysitters get that," he said....
Obenshain told him people will lose jobs and that the free market should decide wages, but O'Reilly wasn't buying it.
"It's just baloney. They're on the wrong side of it," he said of Republicans, who have fought Democratic attempts to raise the minimum wage.
How much of that was actually wanting to implement a solution vs. just having a decoy against a more liberal proposal?
That's the real question, isn't it? Are they deceiving us, or are they deceiving themselves as well?
It does make me think that, whenever the Republicans offer a "conservative" alternative to a Democratic policy proposal, the Democrats should just call their bluff and take it, because otherwise it will end up being the Democratic position twenty years later.
Where my head actually went when I read the O'Reilly bit was, "Wouldn't it be hilarious and awesome if Republicans, out of misplaced malice, decided to 'screw' the Democrats by coopting all of their best ideas?" As in, in the national headquarters, they rub their hands and cackle, "They've been coopting our ideas for decades - let's see how well they like it when we up-end the apple cart!"
whenever the Republicans offer a "conservative" alternative to a Democratic policy proposal, the Democrats should just call their bluff and take it
Well that's what they want you to think, isn't it?
whenever the Republicans offer a "conservative" alternative to a Democratic policy proposal, the Democrats should just call their bluff and take it, because otherwise it will end up being the Democratic position twenty years later
Isn't this exactly what Obama did with Obamacare? (And in a half-dozen other instances.) Didn't work so well. If Obama had started with a significantly more liberal proposal, Republicans would have been trumpeting the Romneycare model from Massachusetts as a pro-market way to tackle the problem.
"Calling their bluff and taking it" just moves the goalposts.
Isn't this exactly what Obama did with Obamacare?
No its more like what if Hilary had accepted the original AEI proposal back in the 90s. (I'm not sure I have the timing of this quite right.)
It wouldn't have worked, though. Most of the health care industry back then believed they could block any change at all in government policy. There were no "conservative alternatives" that had widespread backing.
This is really the same thing that happens every time. YOu don't get conservatives rallying around a single alternative proposal. That's not the purpose of those proposals. The proposals are just there to confuse the discussion with lots and lots of options.
27.1: Sure, but what I mean is that Romneycare was the conservative pro-market alternative to liberal healthcare reforms right up until the day Obama embraced it.
19.last: Apparently, the haunting continues down the generations.
I think 27.last nails it. The right is playing a cynical game. Their priorities are dismantling the welfare state and tax cuts for the rich. Pretty much everything else is window dressing (with the exception of the religious right, who seem to genuinely believe their crap).
Their priorities are dismantling the welfare state and tax cuts for the rich. Pretty much everything else is window dressing
That's not really fair. Keeping labor costs low, including especially resisting union activity, is also a genuine priority.
Don't forget personal enrichment.
Moral hazard is for the little people.
Fuck the moral hazard of skin-in-the game for healthcare.
I'm about to have to go to urgent care plus or the ER after a trip to the ER on Saturday. And I was good on Friday and sought treatment at my PCP's office. I have good insurance, but this still adds up to $175-$225.
High-deductible plans can suck it.
Dismantling the welfare state, tax cuts for the rich, keeping labor costs low, including especially resisting union activity, personal enrichment, the war on Xmas, and occasionally blowing up other parts of the world.
I refuse to believe that k-sky, or anyone else, has actually read all of the linked writing in 29. My eyes glazed over within seconds.
36: And a fanatical devotion to the Pope. Not this one, the last one.
36: And this paddle game. The game where you paddle children.
High-deductible plans can suck it.
But if you didn't have a high deductible, you wouldn't have any incentive to remain sick.
I love Guerlain perfumes, except for Shalimar, which is gross. Samsara is my staple.