Dr. X's Free Associations

Who Will Reduce Public Debt?

The Caucus:

WASHINGTON – A centrist budget-watchdog group is punching trillion-dollar holes in the claims of Republican presidential candidates that they would rein in the mounting federal debt if elected, according to an analysis to be released on Thursday.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group of former members of Congress, former administration officials, budget experts and business leaders of both parties, analyzed each candidate’s agenda under three scenarios – most optimistic, intermediate and most pessimistic, depending on the specificity of the candidates’ proposals. It found that all four men remaining in the Republican race would increase annual budget deficits beyond what is currently projected, under at least one of the scenarios studied.

Here are the projections for public debt under various proposals. Realistic baseline represents the CRFB's estimate of the debt trajectory.

 

So according to CRFB, only Paul and Obama have offered proposals that are projected to actually reduce public public debt. Romney increases the debt, but does no worse than the current realistic trajectory of increase. On the other hand, Gingrich and Santorum are poster boys for out-of-control debt.

But many conservative voters prefer smoke, mirrors and the pompous blather of so-called fiscally responsible, conservative candidates.

I've been severely busy

So posts may slow down for a while.

The Theologian in Chief

I never thought I'd hear a candidate for the American presidency critique a possible opponent's theology, but last week Rick Santorum said that the president believes in a "phony theology." Actually, the pope has called other Christian denominations "deficient" and Catholic theologians regard their theology as heretical. And non-Christian denominations are considered "gravely deficient," having beliefs and rituals that could lead a person away from salvation.

So except for Newt Gingirch, all of Santorum's opponents are heretics and believers in phony theologies. And since Mormons believe in three separate and distinct gods, as well as a phony book, their theology and practices would appear to be pagan and "gravely deficient."

I look forward to more of Rick Santorum's critique of the theology, rituals and practices of the other candidates, as well as his criticism of the theology of most Americans who don't know any theology or belong to heretical and gravely deficient denominations.

It will be like a replay of my Catholic school experience, only with 300 million students in the classroom and Sister Mary Richard Santorum as America's scowling mother superior. But be forwarned Americans: if Sister Mary Richard catches you chewing gum, she'll make you stick it to your nose until lunchtime.

Vintage Photos: 1939

Photo by Marion Post Walcott, Farm Security Administration.

Playing dominoes or cards in front of drug store in center of town, in Mississippi Delta, Mississippi

Out-of-wedlock births

In the U.S, 53 percent of births to women under 30 are now out-of-wedlock, but college graduates are still marrying before having children. One consideration that powerfully affected my college educated peers, both women and men, was the expectation that they could and would build a professional future. Laying the foundation for that future, and the accompanying financial stability and lifestyle, would be far more difficult with children in the picture. Not impossible, but far more difficult. I imagine that, even today, having a child would be unthinkable for most serious, full-time college students.

Crowdsourcing Campaign Attacks

New York Times:

Campaign officials confirm Obama's Chicago-based organization has begun combing through the former Pennsylvania senator's background looking for possible lines of attack. It also emailed Obama's Pennsylvania supporters this past week asking for material that could be used against Santorum in upcoming speeches and ads.

I can't say exactly why this bothers me, but I find it a bit creepy. Of course, I know what his opponents have done and will continue to do, so...

Local WTF?

An intoxicated driver survived a car-totaling 142 MPH crash in a 40 MPH speed zone, suffering only "minor injuries." 

Vintage Photos: 1938

Osage, West Virginia. Photo by Marion Post Walcott.

Coal miners' wives making ice cream to sell on Saturday afternoon after payday.

Anger Management

Alyssa Rosenberg writes:

The Grammys’ invitation to [Chris] Brown, for example, and his win there seem to have validated his perception that he is being unfairly judged for having battered a woman (in the past, he’s thrown temper tantrums when asked entirely reasonable questions by journalists about the incident, something it seems odd his management team didn’t prepare him for). “HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate F–K OFF!” he Tweeted after the show, as if musical prowess ought to make us forget that he beat a woman.

I don' know how the court decided on the treatment in this case, but if there is no comprehensive pre-sentencing psych evaluation, a court prescription can be futile.

Medicine Against God's Will

February 13, the New Yorker, Transfiguration: How Dallas Wiens Found a New Face.

A bit of history from an article about a man who lost his entire face in a devastating electrical accident.

Sushruta’s treatises found their way to Renaissance Europe, and, in 1557, Gaspare Tagliacozzi, a professor in Bologna, described a form of rhinoplasty from Sicily that was much like Sushruta’s. He understood reconstructive surgery in psychological terms, explaining, “We restore, repair, and make whole those parts which nature has given but fortune has taken away, not so much that they delight the eye, but they buoy up the spirit and help the mind of the afflicted.” The Catholic Church disagreed; it judged that he had been tampering with the will of God and excommunicated him. --Raffi Khatchadourian

Hendererson, NV cops beat the daylights out of driver in diabetic shock

Radley Balko, via Ed Brayton:

Adam Greene is on his stomach as a pack of police officers pile on him, driving their knees into his back and wrenching his arms and legs. One officer knees him in the ribs; another kicks him in the face.

“Stop resisting,” officers on the video yell, but Greene, his face pushed into the pavement, hasn’t resisted. He doesn’t even move — maybe can’t move — because he’s gone into diabetic shock caused by low blood sugar…

A Highway Patrol trooper enters the scene first, gun drawn, and kicks the driver’s window of Greene’s four-door sedan. After several moments, the trooper opens the door.

The trooper, his gun still raised, then gives Greene conflicting commands. He first tells him not to move, then tells him to come forward.

A second trooper quickly cuffs Greene’s wrist and pulls him from the car, which rolls forward until an officer stops it.

Greene flops to the ground, clearly dazed as five officers rush him. A sixth officer, with Henderson police, enters the frame late and delivers five well-placed kicks to Greene’s face.

“Stop resisting mother (expletive)!” one officer yells.

Greene doesn’t scream until a second Henderson officer knees him in the midsection — and then does it three more times. Greene was later treated for fractured ribs.

A Republican Death Wish?

Pew Research Center:

Rick Santorum’s support among Tea Party Republicans and white evangelicals is surging, and he now has pulled into a virtual tie with Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. In polling conducted Feb. 8-12, 30% of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters favor Santorum while 28% favor Romney. As recently as a month ago, Romney held a 31% to 14% advantage over Santorum among all GOP voters.

Santorum is now the clear favorite of Republican and GOP-leaning voters who agree with the Tea Party, as well as white evangelical Republicans. Currently, 42% of Tea Party Republican voters favor Santorum, compared with just 23% who back Romney. Santorum holds an almost identical advantage among white evangelical Republican voters (41% to 23%).

Fox News removed 5000 comments to story about Whitney Houston's death

Apparently the massive comment thread was so full of vile racial slurs that Fox decided to take it down and close commenting rather than moderate the thread. Many comments ran along the lines of "typical n****r."

And I bet you many of those Fox commenters don't think of themselves as bigots in their everyday life, which is possible because bigotry isn't a binary attribute of character. People have both bad and good sides. In the ideal version of themselves, they may consciously reject bigotry as immoral, but in the real associations that occur in their thoughts, or in the comments they might make anonymously or to a safe face-to-face audience that won't criticize them, a less admirable side can emerge. But this bigoted side is discounted as some sort of excusable exception, not REALLY who they are. Instead, the ideal self is regarded as the real self. So they can spew hate in a bigoted celebration of a tragic death, yet be offended in real life if someone picks up on the dark side of their views and suggests that they might harbor some racist attitudes.

And I haven't even mentioned the unconscious racial biases that affect perception and judgment.

I wonder how many comment threads after the death of Heath Ledger were rife with vile statements related to his race.

In no particular order, some other white celebs who died of drug overdoses: Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Corey Haim, Chris Farley, John Belushi, Judy Garland, Sid Vicious, River Phoenix, Anissa Jones, Dana Plato, Elvis Presley, Keith Moon, Margaux Hemingway, Anna Nicole Smith and that guy from The Smashing Pumpkins. And I guess we could reasonably consider Kurt Cobain's suicide drug-related.

Vintage Photos: 1939

Sign for Marcella Plantation, Mileston, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi.

Tenant families on their porch, Marcella Plantation, Mileston, Mississippi.

Photos by Marion-Post Walcott.

Quentin Rowan: Plagiarist Extraordinaire

The New Yorker has an absolutely fascinating account of 'spy novelist' Quentin Rowan's journey to acclaim using extensive plagiarism mashups all the way. He's got to be one of the most skillful, hardest working plagiarists in history. Rowan cooperated with the author of the article, so it gives you something of a glimpse into his mind.

In response to an apology from Rowan, one of the many plagiarized writers, Charles McCarry, wrote the following to his publicist:

Hi Jack,
Poor guy—all that cutting and pasting and no joy.
Pretty good editor, obviously . . .
Best,
Mac
p.s. You may want to add: “He has done me no harm and I bear him no ill will.”