What a week.

We've seen the Clinton slime machine kick into full gear.

Huckabee has come right out and said we should bring the Constitution into line with his view of the Bible.

Wall Street continues to implode. The CEO's who brought it about are enjoying their $100M bonuses. Republicans think the solution is to cut corporate taxes.

So not much new happening in politics.

Here at Chez Geek, we've had some network emergencies and a new router. We also had a brain-cramp moment and deleted some data that we really shouldn't have. We recovered most of it and had backups of some of the rest. We also started referring to ourself in the plural, and we think we like it.

More Shenanigans at Bank of America

Just when you thought the lies couldn't get any more brazen....

Bank of America is buying out Countrywide Financial at a hefty discount, as Countrywide is reeling from all the bad loans it made. So get this:

"I think it's positive for the borrowers," Bruce Marks, chief executive of Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America said. "There are millions of home owners with unaffordable mortgages. The deal will allow Bank of America to restructure loans to what homeowners can afford."

Marks suggested that Bank of America will be able to help current Countrywide customers where Countrywide can't, because it doesn't give risky subprime mortgages, so it plans to convert them into prime loans.

News flash... whether or not it's subprime is NOT a question of whether it's fixed-rate or adjustable-rate. It's a function of the borrower's prospective ability to repay. So apparently BoA is going to have its High Priests of Accountancy wave their magic fingers over the balance sheet, and >poof!<>Either this is incredibly sloppy reporting, even by CNN's standards, or someone's blowing a particularly cheap grade of smoke. Fortunately, they did talk to someone who injected a note of reality:

"[This deal] doesn't make any difference to the home owner," said Hanzimanolis. "The only difference will be where you pay your bill to. Just because Bank of America is buying your Countrywide subprime loan, it doesn't change [into a prime loan] when they buy it."

But the story then goes back to cheerleading for good ol' BoA, friend of the working family & all that.

Taylor noted that restructuring loans also makes financial sense for the bank. "Bank of America may very well intend on having loans restructured to ones that are closer to prime loans and performing assets, because they would rather have the homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages than face the alternatives."

In doing so, Bank of America may be able to recoup some of the losses it incurred from purchase of Countrywide, said Marks. Since the bank has already written off the value of many of those loans, it plans on getting strong returns by restructuring customers' loans.

Okay, let's take this one at a time. They've written off the loans... so they're not going to foreclose, but instead if they can get anything, even below market, they can get strong returns, stronger than expected at least. Ah, the joys of tax law. Speaking of which, how about having the taxpayers subsidize the entire deal? Which they're going to do... But that's another story.

"restructuring to avoid foreclosure," short version: Rewarding someone who took out more mortgage than they could afford, in order to avoid the painful consequences of dealing with a loan that should never have been written in the first place. Thus avoiding market discipline for irresponsible lender and irresponsible borrower.

Meanwhile, if you've been struggling to keep up on your payments? Sucker.... see how many current mortgages (versus, say, those delinquent 3+ months) get restructured. Holding off until you had a down payment saved up? Stooopid. Enjoy the higher rates and tighter credit check. Meanwhile, the guy next door, with the lower credit rating, no down payment, and more house than he can afford? He's going to get below-market interest for years, possibly the rest of his mortgage, so he doesn't get foreclosed. You, on the other hand, by showing some responsibility, demonstrated you're more than capable of making higher payments.

Responsibility is punished, and recklessness is rewarded.

Feh.

Fanboys and their obsessions

From xkcd, the coolest & geekiest webcomic out there:




That's what strikes me about the Paul crowd...there's an obsessive element to it. I understand enthusiasm for a candidate, but there's such a strong element of with-us-or-against-us and hero-worship to so much of it. Yes, I have a favorite candidate, who I'm enthusiastic about... But I don't maintain that candidate is without weakness or will be the single-handed savior of American democracy. And whatever is driving his fanbase, it's not well-reasoned agreement with his positions, which are an incoherent mess. (Get the government out of almost everything except national defense and regulating orgasms; economic ideas regarded by most economists as crackpot--and yes, they're based on ideas from a Nobel-winning economist, but it was Nobel-winning economists who brought us the LTCM debacle--a Nobel is no sign of infallibility; and why can't Paul quite bring himself to distance himself from the white-separatist fringe?)

Oh, well. Every election has its sideshow.

Clinton Desperation Syndrome

Andrew Sullivan has a quick post quoting a Clinton campaign email. He notes the subtext, but I think he misses the deeper irony.

From a Clinton campaign email list:

The Iowa caucus process is a broken and flawed process. It was designed to allow for the active party Dems generally known to one another to assign delegates and was not designed to handle a flood of students and independents. It was a system designed to give more power to Dem party loyalists. In the tension over whether the candidates should be chosen by the party or by the general public, the Iowa caucus was designed to give the party the advantage. For this reason, the Iowa system failed on Thursday.

Translation: we couldn't control it. So it sucks.

The irony is that Her Inevitableness ran on a not-so-subtle argument that she had the ground organization (i.e. control of the party activists) to lock up the nomination.

Obama won in spite of the control of the machinery, not because of it.

Obama as Rorschach

So pundits on the right see Obama as being, underneath the airy rhetoric, actually deeply progressive.

Meanwhile, some on the left are concerned that underneath it all, he's actually deeply conservative.

Meanwhile, others recognize his liberalism but compare him to Regan all the same.


I don't know whether it's seeing different subsets of the facts; seeing the same things but valuing them differently; or some sort of political Rorschach. But it certainly is interesting.

Well, crud.

Just got word back that a conference paper I'd submitted was turned down. The reviews were generally positive, but one reviewer essentially ripped me a new orifice, rating the paper very low, which brought the average rating down beneath the acceptance threshold.

Now that experience--several generally positive reviews and one blistering denunciation--is not in itself all that unusual. It's not universal, but it happens. And reading the blistering reviews, while not always pleasant, is often educational. I've read through blistering reviews that did in fact home in on design flaws, overstated claims, or places where I had, in fact, overlooked something. Not pleasant, but useful. And someone clearly went to some trouble to review the paper, to read it closely. I haven't always agreed with the criticisms, but they are, for the most part, at least mostly fair.

In this case, I can't help wondering. The comments included that I should have included some examples of X (there were 3 in the paper already, wasn't that enough?), should have included some examples of Y (Y being something completely irrelevant to the point I was making), it should have been presented as a case study (I thought it was, though the words "case study" didn't appear in the title, so maybe that point wasn't clear), and that I didn't address any of several other questions (which admittedly were interesting, but were not what the paper was about).

The rest of the blistering criticism seem to boil down to "this wasn't the paper I wanted to read; you should have written a different paper."

And the icing on the cake: My paper was the only one reviewed for this conference by this particular reviewer.

Oh well. The system is what it is, and I knew what it was like when I chose this career. Most of the time it works fairly well, but it's not perfect, and sometimes the imperfections spatter. And if I'd submitted something I thought was marginal and it got accepted because a review got sloppy the other direction, I wouldn't be complaining.

A good question

J. Zasloff asks a very good question:

Now that Edwards seems fatally wounded, I'm still wondering whom I should vote for. So I'll ask it again: what is at the center of the Obama Administration's first 100 days?

He draws a contrast with Edwards, who has made poverty the centerpiece of his campaign. I'm not sure I could answer that question about Hillary. But he makes a valid point, that "change we can believe in" is perhaps inspiring, but also pretty vague. (I'm not sure I'd agree that Edwards is "fatally wounded," at least not yet. Wounded, yes. Fatally? Perhaps not. Too early to tell. But that's another question.)

If Obama's presidency were a mixed bag at best...what would he point to at the end of the year with pride and say "at least we got that done, and if that was done, the other things aren't as important?"

Who needs parody?

You know, it's really hard to write a good, spot-on parody of the classic whiny liberal NuYawker looking down her nose at the silly rubes in the Midwest, giving a dozen totally bogus made-up reasons why it's so unfair that people outside NuYawk City and California have to be considered at all.

On the other hand, why bother writing a parody when the Times has Gail Collins?

Now it gets interesting

The GOP's Wall Street wing and East Coast Establishment (to whatever degree either bloc is non-mythical) both loathe Huckabee. Winning in Iowa will definitely help his fundraising, but he's still short of cash coming into Super Tuesday. If he can keep riding the evangelical vote, the difference in fundraising may not be as decisive as it would be for some other candidates. Still, it looks as if a GOP bloodbath is in the works. The knives will be out, and as I said a bit ago, paraphrasing someone else I can't remember, no one does a political knife fight better than Republicans.

Of course, a lot can happen between now and the time the primaries are over. The only Republican to win Iowa and go on to win the election was Bush 2000. Still plenty of time to coalesce around another candidate, and try to put down the upstart preacher who doesn't understand the role of the evangelical vote in Rove's GOP--to reliably turn up at elections, then go back to church and wait another 4 years, until they're needed to vote Republican again. No, the evangelicals are refusing to go to the back of the bus, and the rest of the party is looking on in horror. They embraced the fusion of politics and religion; they are now reaping the whirlwind. Whether they can get past this point without going through a complete purge and meltdown is very much up in the air; having perfected the politics of division and destruction, they appear ready to be consumed by it.

Which makes the Ron Paul situation all the more interesting. Ten percent of the vote, fifth place finish, behind Fred "Campaigning is such a bother" Thompson and McCain. But it seems high enough that Fox News' decision not to include him in the Republican debates is even more transparent than it was before. After all, it's still very very early in the process; too early, it seems, to be able to say with justification that it's only about including 'viable' candidates. Paul has a number of ideas that are distinctly crackpottish, but he's the only republican candidate talking seriously about limits on executive power, which is the defining issue of the next administration. As for his crackpottish ideas, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let him explain himself; that'll do the job of sinking his candidacy.

On the Dem side, well, this makes thing interesting indeed. Hillary is trying to sell herself as the agent of change, while also running on nostalgia for Bill. Um, hel-lo.... The 'inevitability' narrative just took a hit close to the waterline. She came in third. Not far behind Edwards, but third all the same. This raises the pressure for New Hampshire; she has to win there, convincingly, or the 'inevitability' meme is dead and the campaign is over. (If she loses Iowa and New Hampshire, then her last chance is South Carolina; but if she loses the first two, what are the chances of taking the third? It seems the more the voters get to know Hillary, the more they prefer someone else...)

Edwards has got to be sweating it. His campaign is still viable, but no more than that. He was hoping for a win, he came in a rather distant 2nd. He's got to do well in NH and in the south. Whether his trial-lawyer skills will be enough.... we'll see.

For Obama, he's celebrating, and rightfully so. His speech hit all the right notes, he won by a respectable margin with a large turnout...he can legitimately claim a very real victory. Yes, if he takes the nomination, the choice of a running mate becomes very important; it has to be someone with serious foreign-policy chops. But that's a very good problem to have. Yes, the slime machine (both the Clintons' and the Republicans') will kick into high gear. But the campaign has a way of testing a candidate; so far he's risen to the challenge every time.

Also, John Aravosis has a hilarious statistic.

Hey, that'll boost traffic...

Documentation of the Ron Paul Effect...

[but is the humiliation worth it?]

[this post & the previous: h/t Andrew Sullivan]

Even a conservative evangelical sees through it

There's an interesting post discussing one's experience on the campaign trail for the Huckabee campaign, and the many interesting things learned....

The Mainstream Media Ain't So Bad -- Many bloggers (including me) have a knee-jerk reaction to the mainstream media. We "just know" they have a liberal bias and that they can't be trusted to report accurately on Republicans and conservatives. If my experience is any indication, then most of what we know is "just wrong."

[...]I expected that I'd have the toughest time with the professional journalists but most of the reporters that I dealt with (especially Michael Luo of the New York Times and Jonathan Martin of Politico) were quite fair and always professional. Even when their coverage was cringe-inducing I rarely could fault them for being inaccurate or putting their own biases ahead of the facts.

Unfortunately, the same can not be said of the conservative media.

[...] Almost always the mainstream media from the "liberal" outlets were more fair and balanced than were the ones from the "conservative" side of the media.

Some conservative outlets, of course, were notably fair and accurate. [...]

But while there were a few other exceptions that I could praise ... far too many of the conservative outlets refused to present any evidence that conflicted with their typical anti-Huckabee narrative.

[...]

As a campaign staffer, I found such behavior frustrating. But as a consumer of conservative media I found it infuriating. There are a number of pundits, bloggers, reporters, and radio hosts that I will never trust again to be "fair and balanced."

Sometimes learning the truth can be painful, can't it? Sadder but wiser now, and all that....

Mitt Romney will never be President -- I won't be surprised if Mitt Romney wins the Iowa Caucus. I will be surprised, however, if he's still in the race when the South Carolina primary comes around. Even if the impending scandal that has been rumored for weeks doesn’t derail his campaign (I can't say what it is but you should hear about it before Jan. 8), his inherent dishonesty will eventually do him in.

It's not just his flip-flops on the issues, though that should be enough....No, what will destroy Romney's chances is that he will lie about an issue, know that he is lying, know that you know he is lying, and say it anyway. It's not just that he's dishonest. It's that he thinks we're stupid.

Now it's true that in the short term, we do tend to be stupid.... [M]ost people have yet to realize--as have the other campaigns and the mainstream media--he is a liar. But eventually the public catches on.

[...] Because most of it is done behind the scenes (i.e., scurrilous emails sent to reporters and influential bloggers) it is difficult to point out the most egregious examples. Don't take my word on it, though. Ask around to the other campaigns and media outlets.

[...] His "lie and buy" strategy may get him a narrow victory in Iowa but he'll flame out soon enough.

Tell it, brother.

There's nothing here that we didn't already know. But it's nice to see it admitted.

The "fair and balanced" thing, I think, goes back to a point Garry Trudeau made (and yikes, I'm actually quoting him, what's wrong with me?) The so-called "liberal" takes it as a given that the other person's viewpoint may be valid, that listening to "the other" is inherently worthwhile. (What's done after that, and how it's often misused, is another story. And I should note that "listen to" and "agree with" are not synonyms.) The conservative, on the other hand, knows he's right... Why should he listen to someone who's wrong? If he knows what the story is, why should he listen to some staffer try to convince him otherwise?

The whole sorry spectacle is, to a degree, the legacy of Karl Rove, the politics of personal destruction writ large.

On the other hand, maybe it's simpler than that. Nobody does a political knife-fight better than Republicans. The money elite of the GOP is terrified of Huckabee, and want him stopped, almost as much as they want Ron Paul to shut up.

Oh well. Nice to see someone start to gather just a bit more awareness than they had before...

No comment necessary

From today's Washington Post homepage.

I suppose there's nothing wrong with relaxing a bit and mugging for the camera, but... is this really the image they want to present? Of course, as things get down to the wire, I'm becoming more and more horrified by what's coming out of this campaign, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. On the other hand, personally, I've felt the GOP was ready for a good crash/burn for quite a while... This may be the party's Nemesis.

Decisions, decisions...

I'm working on the schedule for next semester, and have hit the perennial dilemma. Based on the number of weeks in the course, etc., our second exam should be at about week 12 or so. But there's this little thing called spring break right then. So the question is, do I hit the students with an exam right before break, or right after?

On the one hand, an exam right before break always feels a bit cruel. On the other, given that it takes a few days after break for students to get back into the groove, you can make a case that an exam after break is cruel, that it pushes them to perform right after they've been away from the material for a while.

Last year we had the exam right after break... I think this year we'll try it before, and see if it makes a difference.

Isn't this thrilling?

Sinking into Oligarchy

Glenn Greenwald has a must-read post about what the BushCo criminal enterprise has done to the rule of law and the idea that no one is above it.

Most revealing of all, anyone who insists that this should be different -- anyone who believes that our highest political officials and largest corporations should be held accountable when they break the law -- is a shrill "partisan," bent on vengeance and Guilty of obstructionism: trying to prevent the political establishment from operating in a harmonious, bipartisan manner to do their Important Work. At least under the Bush presidency, investigations into wrongdoing are bad and disruptive and mean-spirited, and calls for consequences for illegal behavior are shrill and nasty.

Count me as a proudly shrill partisan, then. Eight years of BushCo has done fundamental damage to American democracy, far more than Al Qaeda could ever dream of doing.

Also in that article, check out the link to Privacy International's new annual report. Based on their objective criteria, the US is now an "endemic surveillance society," right up there with China, Russia and a few of the military juntas of southeast Asia.

Question for the ages...

What is there about wills, estates, etc., that brings out the worst in family members? The most vicious fights over the most trivial stuff? And it's not stuff that has any sentimental value... we're talking about dilapidated junk. Yet there's a huge amount of "I GOTTA GET MINE!!!" going on.

I know, I'm not the first to ask that question. I'm just seeing it up-close-and-personal for the first time, and it's not pretty.

Helpful Suggestions

I saw a link to this article, revealing that President Doofus is planning on spending time next year traveling the world trying to boost America's image in the world.

With all due respect, it's going to take more than some speechifyin' to do that, mostly because of stuff President Doofus has done.

So, in the helpful spirit of the holidays, here are some suggestions on what he could do to boost America's image and standing in the world, that would definitely have more effect than any number of speeches he could give (because face it, speechifyin' is not his long suit):

1. Announce that effective immediately, waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques are contrary to the policy of the United States, and will not be applied against any person in U.S. custody anywhere in the world.
   
2. Reaffirm our historic adherence to Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, prohibiting cruel and inhumane treatment of persons in custody. (This would NOT extend POW rights to detainees; but all persons in custody are entitled to minimum decency.)
   
3. Instruct the Justice Dept to appoint a special counsel to investigate the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes as potential obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy.
   
4. Announce our immediate commitment to the Kyoto Protocols and strengthening the Bali agreement. Additional funding in alternative-fuels research to be funded by a carbon tax. (Drive up the cost of crude, and the market will find an alternative.)
   
5. Announce your plans to reduce troop presence in Iraq by 50% by December 2008, and to have all troops out of Iraq by December 2009. In order to help the Iraqi government transition, non-military foreign aid may have to increase substantially. But if we're no longer spending a billion a week in Iraq, we can afford it.
   
6. Double the funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to stop the disgrace of toxic toys.
   
7. I was going to say "Resign," but then I realized that would lead to President Vader. Stay where you are, the alternative would be worse. So, instead of resigning, announce that your primary focus will be the day-to-day operations of a caretaker administration, pending the next President. In the meantime, you will try to clean up some of your messes and attempt to restore the rule of law.
   

Further evidence religion makes you stupid

Or, "I don't understand it so it must be wrong. The Big Bang is silly, the universe didn't just blow into place, saying God did it is SO much more logical."

I'd think this was a parody, but the fool is apparently serious.

This illustrates the problem with religion. Once you throw out your thinking brain and start accepting absurdity on faith, your ability to understand anything else goes out the window.

[h/t: Ed Brayton, John Wilkins, both of whom deconstruct the fool's rant in more detail.]

Religion vs spirituality

The last couple of posts (heck, a continuing thread of posts throughout) beat up on the Bible-beaters. (But they're such an easy target.)

And yet, "spirituality" is one of the things I've listed as a semi-regular topic for the blog, though I haven't discussed it much. Maybe it's time to address that.

"Spiritual but not religious" is, I suppose, the closest I can come to describing my own outlook. (Some would say that's a null referent, that there is no such thing as spirituality without religion; I'm not so sure. In fact, I am sure; it's not a null.) A higher purpose to life, a long-term trend toward enlightenment and awareness of how we affect each other beyond our own tribe, recognition of our responsibilities toward each other, a commitment to live a little closer to "love thy neighbor as thyself" today than yesterday--those are what I try to aspire to.

Is there Something out there, Something Much Bigger Than Us? Perhaps. It can't be proven; there's no positive proof of anything that's convincing, and a negative can't be proven. (See the Black Swan fallacy.) And of course, "I would like this to be true" is no proof at all. I'd like to own a sports car, but no matter how much I want it, just wanting it isn't going to make a Ferrari appear in the carport.

But there are several things my spirituality is not. I reject dogma. I reject "You must believe this because our great-great-grandfathers believed this." I reject any system that requires me to ignore evidence or abjure reasoning. I do not claim to have all the answers, but I refuse to give up my right to ask any question I please. I reject any system based on blind obedience or accepting the ridiculous "on faith," especially any system that uses my ability to accept the ridiculous as a measure of merit. I reject any system requiring me to pay homage to a tribal sky-god in bad need of a 12-step program, or that takes ancient texts of dubious authorship as unquestionable ultimate authority. I reject any system based on who it excludes or who it hates--if there really is a Big Is out there, then it's out there for everyone, not just those who agree with me or who have names I can pronounce easily.

Thus, I reject organized religion, a man-made institution in which the control freaks have run amok, institutionalizing their privileges and consolidating their control. I particularly reject the toxic combination of religion and politics, which brings out the worst qualities of both. (See the Romney and Huckabee campaigns for easy examples; Pat Robertson's presidential run also comes to mind.)

Some people claim to be able to find spirituality through religion; personally, I've not seen much evidence of it. And for every person who does, there seem to be several more who clearly don't, who find in religion a way to confirm and reinforce their bigotry and let their worst instincts run rampant. I suspect those who found spirituality through their religion, would have found it by some other means if religion hadn't been there. Thus, no net loss if it were gone.

So as long as the Bible-beaters keep acting the fool, I'll keep mocking them.

And so it goes.

That's not what "separation of church & state" means

Sen. Grassley is asking several of the richer megachurches for information about how they're maintaining their tax-exempt status and how they're spending donor's money. Only 2 of the six he's contacted have sent any information back; one said he's welcome to subpoena them (I can see the press conference where they play the martyr card already). The others have said nothing.

The leaders of two ministries contacted by Mr. Grassley’s office who have answered his queries are Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries of Newark, Tex., and Joyce Meyer, who with her husband, David, runs Joyce Meyer Ministries from Fenton, Mo.

Popular with women for her no-nonsense brand of self-help, Ms. Meyer was asked by Mr. Grassley’s office to explain the “tax-exempt purpose” of purchases including a “commode with marble top” bought for $23,000 for her headquarters.

Hmm. I have a hard time seeing how that level of luxury is needed in a church organization.

Oddly enough, none of these megachurches belong to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, and of course they're not audited by an outside auditor.

My favorite argument, though, is that because they're churches, the Senator is violating Church-State separation by even asking the question. Amazing how the Bible-beaters talk about how separation is a liberal humanist myth when they're talking about forcing religion into public life, but they scurry and hide behind it when it's convenient. But why shouldn't snake-oil salesmen also be hypocrites?

It's really quite simple. There are laws that say you don't have to pay taxes on donations, provided you're using them for church purposes. The government is within its rights to verify that you're obeying the law. Otherwise, let the church pay you an outrageous salary, pay income tax on it, and buy your own $23,000 commode.

Poor Huckabee, Victim For Jesus

Once again, Huckabee misses the point:

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee made no apologies Sunday for the religious tone of a recent holiday campaign commercial and said it is important to look for Jesus at this time of year.

"You can find Santa at every mall. You can find discounts in every store," Huckabee said from the pulpit of Cornerstone Church. "But if you mention the name of Jesus, as I found out recently, it upsets the whole world. Forgive me, but I thought that was the point of the whole day."

No, Governor. No one's upset that you said Merry Christmas. Put away your persecuted-Christian complex. It riles up the base, but it makes you look like an idiot to the rest of us.

The problem is that you can't decide whether you're running for President, or Pastor-In-Chief. Different roles. It's fine for a preacher to preach religion. For a President, not so much.

Of course, deep thought isn't his long suit. On the one hand, he says:

Asked whether he was running for president of Christian America, Huckabee said he was campaigning to be the "president of all America, to be the people's president."

However, on the same day, he delivers a sermon at church, where he says

"The great truth of Christmas is that no matter how good we are, we're not good enough to know God without the Christ," said Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister. "And no matter how bad ... we are not so bad that he cannot find us."

"So while some people seem to want us to lose Jesus, I would like for us to do our best to find him," Huckabee said at the megachurch, where televangelist John Hagee is the senior pastor and founder.

And he insists his church appearance isn't political. So when he's president, will he occasionally take time out to make non-political, non-presidential church appearances to promote Christianity?

Seeing no contradiction here, no hypocrisy in his behavior, reveals his lack of consideration, the shallowness of his analysis. Feh. I'm with Hitchens on this one. Though part of me hopes he does well enough to cause serious problems for the GOP establishment. They spent years listening to Rove; let them reap the whirlwind.