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Sharp Spike In U.S. Economic Growth Is Not A Blip But A Nascent Boom

December 23, 2014, 2:53 pm
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The boom is here: the economy just grew 5 percent, and it’s not going to stop

The economic recovery is real, and even though it's not spectacular, it's getting there.
The good news is that the economy grew at a 5 percent annual pace in the third quarter this year, revised up from the 3.9 percent that the Commerce Department had previously estimated. It's the best quarterly growth since 2003, and, on the heels of the 4.6 percent growth in the second quarter, it's also the best six months the economy has had in that long. The even better news, though, is that this growth, unlike every other uptick the past few years, looks sustainable.
This isn't a blip. It's a boom.
Well, at least by the sad standards of this slow and steady recovery. The truth is that for all the hype and headlines about every little head fake, the economy has just been chugging along at the same 2 percent pace the past few years. Sometimes it's grown a little bit faster than that when companies have had to restock their inventories or sell more overseas. And sometimes it's grown a little slower than that when the opposite has happened, or when, like last winter, Arctic conditions have kept people in their homes and out of stores. But, as you can see above, growth has been remarkably consistent if we look at it over the past year, and not quarter, to smooth out these regular ups and downs.
The economy's 2.7 percent growth the past 12 months actually isn't the fastest of the recovery, but it is the best. You can see that if we strip out the volatile inventory and net export numbers to get something that goes by the catchy name of final sales to domestic purchasers. It shows us the economy's underlying strength in terms of consumer spending, government spending, and private investment. Basically, how much of today's growth we can expect to continue tomorrow. It's also grown 2.7 percent the past year, a post-crisis high. Most of that's due to stronger consumers, who thanks to the combination of lower unemployment and less debt, are finally in decent enough financial shape to start spending a little bit more. And that's only going to continue now that job growth is picking up, and plummeting gas prices are taking money out of the pump and putting it in people's pockets.
It's been awhile, but this is what a virtuous circle looks like.
Even the bad news here is kind of good news. The housing market, you see, continues to be stuck somewhere between depressed and the doldrums. Residential investment only added 0.1 percentage point to the economy's 5 percentage points of growth, and that's despite years of inactivity that's somehow left us close to a housing shortage. At some point, as un-and-underemployment decline to more normal levels, twentysomethings are going to move out of their parents' basements—sometimes stereotypes are true—and we're going to need to start building again. This recovery, in other words, still has room to grow. We might even stop hating it.
Well, let's not jinx things.
Matt O'Brien is a reporter for Wonkblog covering economic affairs. He was previously a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.


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Weird Enuf Fer Ya? News From Barbaria #165

December 23, 2014, 5:11 pm
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Obamacare Enrollment Update

December 23, 2014, 8:31 pm
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"Obamacare: Where's The Train Wreck?"

So Far, 6.4 Million Obtain Health Care Coverage for 2015 in Federal Marketplace

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that 6.4 million people had selected health insurance plans or had been automatically re-enrolled in coverage through the federal insurance marketplace.
New customers accounted for 30 percent of the total, or 1.9 million.
For 2014 enrollees who took no action by Dec. 15, coverage was automatically renewed for 2015 by the federal government.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, who is in charge of the federal marketplace, said she did not know how many people had been automatically re-enrolled by her department. But she and her aides suggested that the number was in the range from 2.7 million to three million.
Dec. 15 was the deadline to sign up for coverage that would start on Jan. 1. The automatic or passive re-enrollments, combined with a surge of interest among consumers just before the deadline, produced a big increase in activity in the federal marketplace. People could sign up a first time, switch to new plans, choose to extend coverage in their current plans for a year, or do nothing and be re-enrolled in the same or similar plans.

Is the Affordable Care Act Working?

In the first four weeks of the three-month open enrollment period, through Dec. 12, nearly 2.5 million people selected health plans, the administration said. In the week after that, more than 3.9 million people signed up or had their coverage automatically renewed, lifting the total to 6.4 million. The enrollment period ends on Feb. 15.
Officials said that about 35 to 40 percent of people already enrolled had returned to the online marketplace, allowing them to shop for new health plans as the administration had recommended.
“This is an encouraging start,” Ms. Burwell said, but she added, “We still have a lot of work to do.”
The administration has been more successful in signing up new customers than in changing public opinion of the health care law. Polls show that people’s views remain deeply divided, with those holding unfavorable opinions of the law slightly outnumbering those with favorable opinions.
The new enrollment numbers do not include people signing up for insurance through state-run exchanges like those in California, New York and 11 other states. Taking account of federal and state exchanges, officials said they were on track to meet their goal of having a total of 9.1 million people enrolled and paying premiums next year.
Those who go without coverage in 2015 may be subject to tax penalties that could approach 2 percent of household income for some taxpayers.
HealthCare.gov, the website for the federal marketplace, is working much better than last year, but the back end of the system, used to update enrollment information and to pay insurers, is still a work in progress, so federal officials often lack vital data.
As of mid-October, before the latest enrollment period began, 6.7 million people had insurance through the federal and state exchanges. But Ms. Burwell said Tuesday that she did not know how many of them were in the federal exchange, which now serves 37 states.
About 85 percent of people with marketplace coverage receive federal subsidies to help defray the cost. Critics of the law have challenged the authority of the federal government to pay those subsides for insurance bought in the federal marketplace. They contend that the Affordable Care Act allows subsidies only for people who use an exchange established by a state.
The Supreme Court is considering those arguments in the case of King v. Burwell, which the court is scheduled to hear on March 4. Supporters of the health care law, who see the litigation as a threat to subsidies for millions of people, have urged the administration to develop contingency plans.
Ms. Burwell refused to say if she was working on such plans, but said she was confident that the administration would prevail in court.
“Nothing has changed in terms of the subsidies and assistance people can get,” Ms. Burwell said. “We believe that our position is the position that is correct and accurate.”
She said she had seen no evidence to suggest that “Congress intended for the people of New York to receive these benefits for affordable care, but not necessarily the people of Florida.”
Correction: December 23, 2014 
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated when the Obama administration said that 6.4 million Americans had obtained health care coverage through the federal marketplace. The information was provided Tuesday, not Monday.
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Much work still needed on health care sign-ups

BY RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVARASSOCIATED PRESS
12/23/2014 



Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article4863702.html#storylink=cpy
The second sign-up season under President Barack Obama's health care law is off to a good start but there is a way to go to make it a success, administration officials said Tuesday.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said 1.9 million new customers have picked a plan as of Dec. 19 through the federal insurance market that serves 37 states. Another 4.5 million have renewed existing coverage, with most automatically re-enrolled.
The numbers don't include states running their own insurance exchanges, including California and New York. The administration will release a full 50-state report next week, Burwell said.
"We still have a lot of work to do," she said. "But this is an encouraging start."
At her year-end news conference, Burwell dodged questions about a Supreme Court case seen as the most serious threat left to Obama's law. The case, King v. Burwell, will be argued in early March.
The health care law provides taxpayer-subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to coverage through their jobs.
Plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case argue that the law, as written, only allows subsidies in states that have established their own insurance markets. Supporters of the law say that while the text may be confusing, Congress clearly intended to subsidize coverage in all 50 states.
Burwell wouldn't outline any contingency plans in the event the court rules against the administration.
"We believe that our position is the position that is correct and accurate," she said.
More than 8 in 10 customers in the insurance markets receive subsidies. Without them millions would be unable to afford their premiums. If the court's ruling goes against the administration, it's unclear if there would be a grace period while officials pursue a legislative fix or other solutions.
Burwell said Congress intended to offer consumers subsidies regardless of where they live. Florida, for example, did not set up its own market. But more than 900,000 Floridians enrolled for coverage through the federal exchange, which was created under the law as a backstop.
With the HealthCare.gov website running much better this year, Burwell has set a target of 9.1 million customers signed up and paying premiums in 2015.
Independent analysts believe the administration can meet or surpass that goal through a combination of returning customers and people signing up for the first time. The law prohibits insurers from turning people down because of health reasons. Virtually all Americans must have coverage or face fines.
This year, as the law's coverage expansion went into full swing, the number of uninsured people fell by more than 10 million. In addition to subsidized private insurance for the middle class, the law offers an expanded Medicaid program for low-income people in states that agree to it.
Open enrollment ends Feb. 15.


Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article4863702.html#storylink=cpy



Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article4863702.html#storylink=cpy
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Secular Marriage Was Established As An Alternative To Religious Marriage

December 23, 2014, 8:45 pm
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The religious right isn't retreating,
it's reforming
And that's a good thing for people on all sides of the gay marriage debate
Late last month, First Things magazine published a brief article arguing that pastors whose beliefs do not permit them to officiate same-sex weddings should withdraw from participating in government-sanctioned marriage entirely, thereby drawing "a clear distinction between the government-enforced legal regime of marriage and the biblical covenant of marriage." The conservative publication also hosted a pledge to the same effect. Hundreds of pastors have signed, agreeing that preservation of religious liberty and biblical faith requires such abstention.
Predictably, the pledge made headlines. Christianity Today conducted a follow-up poll, finding that about a quarter of Protestant pastors agree with First Things' proposal, as do about a third of all Americans. But despite this significant agreement, many — even those sympathetic to First Things' politics and theology — saw the pledge as a retreat, a too-soon abandoning of Christian influence in the broader culture.
Russell D. Moore of Southern Baptist Convention argued that pastors should continue to participate in government marriage unless and until doing so required them to perform marriages they believed to be unbiblical. Similarly, here at The Week, Damon Linker called the pledge "an unprecedented retreat of theologically conservative churches from engagement in American public life," heralding the end of the religious right as we know it.
What such responses fail to recognize (and what even the original First Things article fails to note) is that divorcing religious and civil marriage is not retreat but reform. It is not a new idea, but a return to the way Christian marriage operated for 1,500 years. And it is thoroughly orthodox, if the endorsement of no less a figure than C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity carries any weight.
It wasn't until the 16th (or even 18th) century in Europe that the government had any involvement in deciding who was or wasn't married. In early American history, too, marriage requirements were largely decentralized. Couples typically wed in church and were supposed to register their marriages with the government, but "common law marriages," a sort of automatic marital status based on long-term cohabitation, were widely recognized.
In the years after the Civil War, however, marriage laws in the United States changed dramatically, as marriage licenses were introduced as a racist method of social control. Nearly 40 states used marriage licenses to outlaw unions between whites and non-whites, legally reinforcing the racism of the day. Likewise, some states refused to grant licenses to prisoners, divorced people, addicts, and those deemed mentally ill.
Thus, when the First Things article states that, "In the past, the state recognized marriage, giving it legal forms to reinforce its historic norms," it operates from a post-Civil War view of an institution which has existed for millennia.
And while First Things worries about allowing the government to "redefine marriage," I'd suggest that redefinition already happened — and it started hundreds of years ago. What was supposed to be a covenant between two people, their families, and God has become a legal formality that can only occur with the state's permission.
By putting marriage in the hands of the government, we've already said that God's perspective isn't the last word. By taking marriage out of the church and into the halls of Congress, we make a sacred covenant into a secular contract. And by legislating marriage in any way, we cede this holy ground to the state.
But theology aside, there is a strong political argument for re-privatizing marriage, which we libertarians have been making for years. If we take the state out of marriage entirely, we allow each side of the gay marriage fight to make their own decisions for their own lives. Neither side is required to recognize relationships they don't support. Neither side is able to tell the other what to believe. Neither side "wins" the culture war — and neither side loses.
On a practical level, this move would require decoupling marriage from the many legal shortcuts it boasts today, on issues like taxes, parenting, and hospital visitation. These have become issues which, understandably, motivate much of the push for legalizing gay marriage. This is a significant project, certainly, but it should not be an overwhelming objection. Plus, those wishing to include a legal contract in their marriage could still do so; standardized, legally-binding forms would undoubtedly be just a Google search away.
But more importantly, peaceful coexistence becomes an option when both groups stop trying to use the law to override each other's choices; indeed, with re-privatization, "all the disputes over gay marriage would become irrelevant. Gay marriage would not have the official sanction of government, but neither would straight marriage."
For the LGBTQ community and their allies, privatized marriage offers a much faster route to full equality, no longer making the legitimacy of any relationship something that can be decided by millions of strangers at the ballot box.
For Christians of any conviction about same-sex marriage, there's no real loss here: The government's approval isn't what makes us married now, so we wouldn't be any less married without it. And rather than the much-feared government redefinition of marriage, we'd have something of an un-defining — a reforming return to a much older model of matrimony.
As David Boaz summarizes, "Marriage is an important institution"— especially for those of us in the church. "The modern mistake is to think that important things must be planned, sponsored, reviewed, or licensed by the government." Whether you want to protect the sanctity of Christian marriage, pursue equality for gay couples, or both, the first step is kicking the government out of the marriage bed.

Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian is a freelance writer and seminary student living in the Twin Cities. She is a regular contributor to The Week's Speed Reads blog and pens a weekly column for Rare. Her writing has also appeared at Relevant Magazine, The American Conservative, Antiwar.com,Reknew, and other outlets.



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Previously Unknown "Bourbon Virus" Kills Kansas Farmer

December 23, 2014, 9:01 pm
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John Seested, Kansas Farmer, Dead At 68

Mysterious Virus That Killed a Farmer in Kansas Is Identified

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Researchers have identified a previously unknown virus, thought to be transmitted by ticks or mosquitoes, that led to the death of a farmer in Kansas last summer.
The illness was fast-moving and severe, causing lung and kidney failure, and shock. The man, previously healthy, died after about only 10 days in the hospital, according to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease specialist who treated the patient at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City.
The newly discovered microbe has been named the Bourbon virus, for the county where the patient lived, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said in a statement released Monday. The virus was identified by scientists at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through a process that took several months, according to Dr. J. Erin Staples, a medical epidemiologist at the C.D.C. laboratory in Fort Collins, Colo.
She said the virus was a type of thogotovirus, part of a larger family known as orthomyxoviruses. Its nearest relatives are found in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, Dr. Hawkinson said. Those viruses are spread by ticks and mosquitoes.
Researchers do not yet know whether there have been other cases in the United States. They hope to test stored blood samples from people who had similar illnesses in the past that could not be identified.
“I think we have to assume this has been around for some time, and we haven’t been able to diagnose it,” Dr. Hawkinson said. He added, “We suspect there have been milder cases and people have recovered from them, but we don’t have a lot of information.”
There is no treatment for the disease. The best defense is to avoid insect bites by wearing pants and long sleeves outdoors and applying bug spray that contains the repellent DEET.
The medical mystery began late last spring, when the patient was admitted to the hospital with a high fever, muscle aches and loss of appetite. He worked outdoors and often had tick bites. That history and his symptoms, combined with abnormal results on blood tests — his liver enzymes were too high, his platelets and white cells too low — made doctors suspect tick-borne diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever or ehrlichiosis. But tests for those illnesses came back negative.
Dr. Hawkinson suspected another, recently discovered tick-borne illness caused by the Heartland virus and sent blood samples to the C.D.C. for testing. But those tests also came back negative.
Researchers at the C.D.C. noticed that something else seemed to be growing in the samples that were tested for the Heartland virus, and they eventually identified the Bourbon virus.
But the researchers are not certain that ticks or mosquitoes transmit the virus, or whether other animals might carry it.
“We will be working with state and local health departments come springtime to do extensive field investigations,” Dr. Staples said.
For now, the risk to the public is low because ticks and mosquitoes are not active in cold weather. But ticks rebound earlier in the year than mosquitoes do, she said, once the temperature starts consistently reaching 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

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The Growing Belief That Traditional Catholicism's View Of Homosexuality Is Monstrous

December 23, 2014, 9:08 pm
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The foolish cruelty of Catholic conservatives who want gays to disappear
Anti-gay bigots on the fringes of the Church are acting decidedly un-Christian
This has been a year of clashes, sometimes quite fierce, between the Catholic Church and the rapidly expanding rights of gays. In a series of skirmishes throughout the spring and summer, Catholics made the case for their freedom to uphold traditionalist teachings about sex and marriage. Then, in the fall, the Vatican's synod on marriage and the family provoked outrage among Catholic conservatives for, among other things, proposing to treat homosexual desires and relationships with a modicum of dignity and respect.
Even though I support same-sex marriage, I have taken a strong stand in favor of religious freedom. I have also made the case that opposing gay marriage is not prima facie evidence of anti-gaybigotry. I still believe that — though a recent egregiously anti-gay article in the conservative Catholic magazine Crisis is enough to inspire some doubts.

First, the backstory.
The Catholic Church teaches, right in the Catechism (Paragraphs 2357-2359), that homosexual desires are "intrinsically disordered." This has led most gays and lesbians to reject the church wholesale, and a few sexually active homosexuals, like Andrew Sullivan, to stay in the church unhappily, aware that no matter what good they may do in the world, no matter how often they attend Mass, pray, or follow the example of Jesus Christ in other ways, church doctrine will judge them "bad Catholics" for engaging in the mortal sin of homosexual acts.
But those aren't the only options. In recent years, a small (but growing) number of devout lay Catholics who experience same-sex desires have decided to bring themselves into conformity with their church's teachings on sexuality by embracing celibacy — permanently denying fulfillment of their sexual desires. The so-called "celibate lesbian Catholic" writer and blogger Eve Tushnet is the best known of them. Joshua Gonnerman, a PhD candidate in theology at Catholic University, is another. Both participate in various groups whose aim is to convince gay Catholics that celibacy is a viable and even appealing option, opening up spaces for other (non-sexual) kinds of emotional connection and intimacy.
Now, you might think that Tushnet, Gonnerman, and other celibate gay Catholics would be treated as heroes or saints by conservative Catholics. Unlike the many who either denounce the church for its strictures against homosexuality or actively work to bring about liberalization and reform, here are gay Catholics who publicly affirm church teaching and actually live it. In doing so they not only deny themselves the kind of intimacy and satisfaction of physical and emotional desires that heterosexuals get to enjoy and readily take for granted. They also open themselves up to severe abuse for bucking cultural trends that valorize sexual expression and fulfillment. And they do it all out of a love for the church and a conviction that some of its most controversial and counter-cultural teachings are true.
I know plenty of conservative Catholics who admire Tushnet and her compatriots. Austin Ruse, author of the Crisis takedown, is not one of them.
Now, maybe I shouldn't take him too seriously. He is, after all, a man prone to Breitbartian rhetorical excess. He got in a bit of hot water last March, for example, when he wrote that "the hard left, human-hating people that run modern universities" should "all be taken out and shot." He later clarified that he didn't mean his call to arms to be "taken literally." (Apparently he was advocating metaphorical lethal violence.)
Ruse's latest anti-gay rant was provoked by a positive profile of Tushnet and Gonnerman on the front page of the Washington Post's Style section. After some oddly nasty commentary on the photo that accompanied the Post story (we hear about Tushnet's bare feet and Gonnerman's crossed legs, pursed lips, and "dirty socks"), Ruse gets to the point. While Tushnet and Gonnerman — whom he dubs "the New Homophiles"— are "95 percent there when it comes to Church teaching," the "last 5 percent is a serious problem."
What exactly do they get wrong? First, they affirm a gay identity. Second, they think that this identity gives them distinctive spiritual gifts. Ruse thinks both assumptions are false, because they treat homosexuality as something fixed or given, and even as something positive in certain respects. The truth, for Ruse, is that homosexual desires are the problem — and they shouldn't be granted any from of validity. On the contrary, they should simply be overcome, transcended, cured. Like a disease.
This is nothing new. Variations on this view have been espoused by anti-gay bigots for a very long time. But that doesn't make it any less grotesque. Especially for a Christian.
Ruse's argument resembles nothing so much as those deployed against gay priests at the height of the pedophilia scandal just over a decade ago. Whereas some argued that the problem was a failure on the part of a subset of priests to abide by their vows, others claimed that it demonstrated that no one with such disordered desires should be admitted to the priesthood in the first place. As long as those who hold such starkly anti-gay views wield influence in the church, accommodation between Catholicism and homosexuality will be impossible. Gays will be faced with a stark choice: leave the church for good or somehow make their homosexual desires vanish. Exile or erasure.
There is no third alternative. Not even celibacy.
This holds gay Catholics to an absurdly high standard — one far higher than any straight Catholic is ever expected to meet. It would be like telling all Catholics that they are henceforth expected not only to stop acting sinfully but also to stop being drawn to or tempted by sin at all. This amounts to insisting on redemption as the precondition of communion with the church, rather than the other way around. It gets things exactly backward.
Then there's the fact that Ruse's position blithely ignores a mountain of scientific evidence, not to mention a similarly vast testimonial literature by homosexual men and women, that same-sex desires are innate to certain individuals (across a range of species). They are not some temporary or imposed disorder that can be argued or prayed away. They are not a choice. They are not an excuse for perversion. They're real. Some people are just born with them.
That's why Tushnet and Gonnerman irk Ruse so intensely — because despite their manifest devotion to the church, and willingness to endure the deprivations of celibacy for the sake of their faith, they nonetheless insist on treating their homosexual desires as givens that may possess a particle, a grain, a tiny scrap of dignity, rather than as traits that deserve to be denied, explained away, or consigned to oblivion.
In the end, the problem for Ruse and like-minded Catholic conservatives is that homosexuals refuse to disappear.
At one point in his essay, Ruse insinuates that in talking and writing about their experiences of coming out as gay, Tushnet and Gonnerman display narcissism. Perhaps so. But what about a man who sets himself up as the Grand Inquisitor, eagerly casting stones at people trying, however awkwardly, to abide by the extraordinarily demanding strictures of their church? I'd say that's a person so consumed by hatred of homosexuality that he's willing to risk looking like a complete jerk — and willing to make his church look like an institution deeply, almost existentially, devoted to cruelty.
Eve Tushnet, Joshua Gonnerman, and others like them show a different way. If the Catholic Church hopes to avoid seeing the gates of hell prevail against it, it will have to follow their example — and make abundantly clear who the real "bad Catholics" are.'

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Senator Elizabeth Warren's War Against Wall Street

December 24, 2014, 6:45 am
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Elizabeth Warren's Illustrated Quotations

"Politics And Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"

"Plutocracy Triumphant"
Cartoon Compendium

"Taibbi: The $9 Billion Whistle Blower At JPMorgan-Chase. Financial Thuggery At The Top"



Federal Reserve Bank Investigator Carmen Segarra Fired For Holding Banks Responsible


"The Rich Aren't Just Grabbing A Bigger Slice Of The Pie. They're Taking It All"


Warren's War Against Wall Street


The revival of the U.S. financial system after the crash of 2008 is arguably the Obama administration’s biggest domestic policy success. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in her jihad against Wall Street, seems determined to devalue this accomplishment — and to make financial expertise a mark of shame for Democrats, rather than a source of pride.
Warren’s current target is Antonio Weiss, the president’s nominee for Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance. Weiss’s chief defect, in the eyes of Warren and other liberal critics, is that he worked as an investment banker at Lazard and, in that role, appears to have advised Burger King on how to reduce its U.S. tax liability.
Never mind that Weiss is a liberal Democrat who advocated tax hikes for the rich and is publisher of the progressive literary journal the Paris Review. What offends Warren is the Lazard connection. “Time after time in government, the Wall Street view prevails,” she argued in a speech this month.“Enough is enough,” Warren wrote last month for the Huffington Post. “The over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends a bad message.” She told a New York Times reporter that, while she had sometimes supported nominees who had worked on Wall Street, “the Antonio Weiss nomination is a mistake, and that’s why I’m fighting back.”
Warren’s enemies list includes Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the key architects of the administration’s Wall Street rescue. They had never worked as private bankers but were suspect because they managed the bailout plan known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Warren criticized TARP in 2009 and 2010, arguing (incorrectly, as it turned out) that it would be a taxpayer giveaway to the banks. She hectored Geithner in 2010 to redo his “stress tests” of U.S. banks after a first round indicated that TARP had been effective. “How could you be confident of these financial institutions without rerunning the stress tests?” she asked. As it turned out, TARP made a $15 billion profit, Treasury announced last Friday.
Has Warren apologized for getting this wrong or conceded that the financial recovery program engineered by Geithner, Summers and then-Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke was a success? Not to my knowledge. But in the process, she disowns a Democratic president’s historic achievement.
To be fair, President Obama sometimes seems embarrassed about taking ownership of his financial rescue effort — leaving Geithner and Summers in the crossfire of critics. This certainly seemed the case in the summer of 2013, when Obama floated Summers as a replacement for Bernanke at the Fed — and then let him twist in the wind while enemies took potshots. Summers (who privately had been promised the Fed job by Obama) finallywithdrew his name from consideration.
In the Summers debacle, the fact that he was a former Treasury secretary, former president of Harvard and a distinguished economist proved less important than the fact that he had toxic political enemies. The outcome weirdly had the effect of distancing Obama from his own economic policies.
Making economic policy isn’t a popularity contest, especially when financial markets are in a panic. Helping Wall Street regain confidence and stability was the last thing an angry public wanted in 2009 after the markets crashed. But without such support, markets can buckle and liquidity can disappear, often for decades as has been the case in Japan. “Our job was to fix it, not to make people like us,” Geithner told Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times for a May profile.
When historians look at the Obama presidency, they’re likely to credit the president especially for doing the politically unpopular things that were needed in 2009 to salvage the financial wreckage. The strength of the U.S. financial recovery since then has surprised analysts from Beijing to Brussels. But for Warren, it seems to be an embarrassment.
Warren and the neo-populists are right that the recovery hasn’t benefited Main Street as much as it has Wall Street and that the fruits of American prosperity are skewed toward the wealthy. Changing the structural problems that limit job growth may be the country’s biggest economic challenge, as Summers has argued persuasively. But fixing this problem will surely be harder if liberal Democrats such as Weiss, who understand the financial world enough to challenge it, are barred from government for the offense of working on Wall Street.
Read more about this topic:

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American Extremism: Pushing The Poles Farther Apart

December 24, 2014, 8:07 am
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The Patron Saint of "American Exceptionalism"

Not just ignorant, but proudly ignorant.

And not just proudly ignorant, but boastfully ignorant.

Aggressively ignorant.

Dear Boo,


We live in an increasingly "bifurcated world." 


By many measures, "the antipodes" continue to diverge.


Perhaps this divergence is most evident in frequent reports of "income inequality" although it is also true that humans, in the main, enjoy better nutrition than at any time in my life... probably any time in history.


In statistical terms, we now have more "standard deviations from the mean" with peak performers soaring and under-performers lagging far behind. 


Here is a revealing "particular."

"On average, children run a mile 90 seconds slower than their counterparts 30 years ago."

On the other hand, note this impressive statistic: "Global life expectancy has increased by about six years since 1990, reflecting gains in rich countries against heart disease and in poorer countries against diarrhea and malaria."

When I was born in 1947, U.S. life expectancy was 60 years.

Another notable divergence in American culture is that "The Land of The Free" has become "the land of the overworked and the underemployed."

In Germany it is standard operating procedure during recessions to minimize unemployment by reducing full-time workers to four-day weeks, re-distributing "the fifth day" among "the unemployed."


We Know What To Do. 
But Politicians Don't Know How To Get Elected If They Do It

It is often said that the United States is a conservative nation.

In fact, we are an extremist nation, constantly bouncing from one pole to the other with little regard - indeed, active disregard - for Balance.

At the end of the day, there are many more "solutions" than whiny gringos would have us believe.

What's missing is "political will." 

Divine Desperation: Feeling Hopeless Makes People Stop Doing What They Can


Love

Dman

PS Although the paranoid "right" would have us believe we live in unprecedentedly dangerous times, we actually live in the safest time - ever! 

Harvard's Steve Pinker Notes Slight Uptick In Violence In A Much More Peaceful World


Unfailing American Optimism
(Another manifestation of The National Lunacy)

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"Twas The Night Before Christmas..."

December 24, 2014, 8:49 am
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"And to all a good night!"

A Visit from St. Nicholas

BY CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (Random House Inc., 1983)

"And to all a good night!"
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171924

"Santa Claus Is More Real Than You Are"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2011/12/real-presence-of-santa-claus.html

"How The Grinch Stole Christmas" 
My audio recording



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El Gran Kalimán, El Hombre Increíble

December 24, 2014, 12:41 pm
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Merry Christmas! How St. Nicholas Saved Three Sisters From A Life Of Prostitution

December 24, 2014, 1:34 pm
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Saint Nicholas of Myrna

"In his most famous exploit,[33] a poor man had three daughters but could not afford a proper dowry for them. This meant that they would remain unmarried and probably, in absence of any other possible employment, would have to become prostitutes. Even if they did not, unmarried maidens in those days would have been assumed as being a prostitute. Hearing of the girls' plight, Nicholas decided to help them, but being too modest to help the family in public (or to save them the humiliation of accepting charity), he went to the house under the cover of night and threw three purses (one for each daughter) filled with gold coins through the window opening into the house."

"Learning That There's No Santa Taught Me To Believe"
Rich Cohen
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/12/learning-that-theres-no-santa-taught-me.html

Greetings,

Wondering what to "get" your "hard-to-please friends" this Christmas?

Here's a little something to warm their hearts.

Stewart, Colbert And Oliver Probe The Spectacular Idiocy Of Climate Change Deniers

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Happy Holy Days!

Pax-Shalom-Salaam

Alan

"And to all a good night!"
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171924

"How The Grinch Stole Christmas" 
My audio recording
https://soundcloud.com/alan-archibald

"Santa Claus Is More Real Than You Are"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2011/12/real-presence-of-santa-claus.html

"Pope Francis Links"




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George W. Bush Adviser's Op-Ed Prophecy Was The Worst. Ever!

December 24, 2014, 2:52 pm
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The Psychiatric Diagnosis Of American Conservatives: Folie a Plusieurs 

"American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

"Are Republicans Insane?"

"The Republican Party Is A Satanic Cult"

Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

"Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

"Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
  1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-bible-belt-is-christianitys-enemy.html
  2. "Republicans For Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism

The Guardian: John Olivers' Viral Video Is The Best Climate Debate You'll Ever See

Stewart, Colbert, Oliver Probe The Spectacular Idiocy Of Climate Change Deniers

    George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"

    Conservative Norm Ornstein: The Media Ignore Republican Lunacy

    "Let's Just Say It. The Republicans Are The Problem"
    Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

    "Just How Far Out Is The Republican Fringe?" Norm Ornstein (And Is It The Fringe?)

    "It's Even Worse Than It Looks"
    Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

    "When Extremism Goes Mainstream"
    Conservative Norm Ornstein

    "The Real Death Panels," Conservative Norm Ornstein

    Now that the Dow has hit 18,000, let us remember the worst op-ed in history

    It's not hard to think of things more important than the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Odds are you're thinking of one right now.
    The stock market, after all, isn't the best barometer of the economy's health. And the Dow isn't even the best barometer of the stock market, since it averages share prices in a weird way. But if arbitrary round numbers are your thing, the Dow passed a big one on Tuesday, closing above 18,000 for the first time.
    And that brings us to the worst op-ed in history. On March 6, 2009, former George W. Bush adviser Michael Boskin offered whatever the opposite of a prophecy is when he said that "Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow." Now let's set the scene. Obama had been in office for less than two months at that point, and in that time, stocks had admittedly fallen a lot as markets worried that the big bank bailout known as TARP wouldn't actually be enough to save the banks. It got so bad that Citigroup briefly became a penny stock.
    Boskin, though, didn't think that this once-in-three-generations financial crisis was to blame for the market meltdown. Instead, he blamed it on Obama for ... talking about raising taxes? "It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street," Boskin philosophized, "as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy." What followed was the usual conservative jeremiad against higher taxes on the rich, lower taxes on the poor, and deficit spending. Obama's trying to turn us into Europe, and that's why markets are pricing in the possibility of a Great Depression—not the dying economy he inherited.
    It was an obvious stretch, but it was extraordinarily ill-timed, too. You can see just how much in the chart below.
    Dow Boskin Op Ed
    Stocks bottomed on March 9, three days after the op-ed, as the Federal Reserve's bond-buying and the Treasury's stress tests restored confidence in the financial system. Then the stimulus started to kick in, putting enough of a floor under the economy that it began growing again that summer. It's been a nasty, brutish, and long recovery, but unemployment is finally back under 6 percent and the economy is now growing at its fastest pace in over a decade.
    Add it all up, and Obama's radicalism has killed the Dow to the tune of a 171 percent return since Boskin's op-ed.


    Matt O'Brien is a reporter for Wonkblog covering economic affairs. He was previously a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.

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    Solar Energy And Electric Cars Set To Revolutionize Life In America

    December 24, 2014, 3:00 pm
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    A man charges his Model S vehicle at a supercharger station at the Tesla Motors Inc. Gallery and Service Center in Paramus, New Jersey, U.S., on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014. 

    How solar power and electric cars could make suburban living awesome again

    The suburbs have had it rough in the last few years. The 2008-2009 economic collapse led to waves of foreclosures in suburbia, as home prices plummeted. More recently, census data suggest that Americans are actually shifting back closer to city centers, often giving up on the dream of a big home in suburbs (much less the far-flung "exurbs").
    It doesn't help that suburbia has long been the poster child for unsustainable living. You have to drive farther to work, so you use a lot of gas. Meanwhile, while having a bigger home may be a plus, that home is also costlier to heat and cool. It all adds up -- not just in electricity bills, but in overall greenhouse gas emissions. That's why suburbanites, in general, tend to have bigger carbon footprints than city dwellers.
    You can see as much in this amazing map from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, showing how carbon footprints go up sharply along the east coast as you move away from city centers:

    Source: UC Berkeley CoolClimate Network, Average Annual Household Carbon Footprint (2013).
    But now, a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper byMagali A. Delmas and two colleagues from the UCLA Institute of the Environment suggests that recent technologies may help to eradicate this suburban energy use problem. The paper contemplates the possibility that suburbanites -- including politically conservative ones -- may increasingly become "accidental environmentalists," simply because of the growing consumer appeal of two green products that are even greener together: electric vehicles and solar panels.
    "There’s kind of hope for the suburbs, basically," says Delmas -- even though suburbia "has always been described as the worst model for footprint per capita, but also the attitude towards the environment."
    Here's why that could someday change. Installing solar panels on the roof of your suburban home means that you're generating your own electricity — and paying a lot less (or maybe nothing at all) to a utility company as a result. At the same time, if you are able to someday generate enough energy from solar and that energy is also used to power your electric car, well then you might also be able to knock out your gasoline bill. The car would, in effect, run “on sunshine,” as GreenTechMedia puts it.
    A trend of bundling together solar and "EVs," as they're called, is already apparent in California. And if it continues, notes the paper, then the "suburban carbon curve would bend such that the differential in carbon production between city center residents and suburban residents would shrink."
    The reason is that, especially as technologies continue to improve, the solar-EV combo may just be too good for suburbanites to pass up — no matter their political ideology. Strikingly, the new paper estimates that for a household that buys an electric vehicle and also owns a solar panel system generating enough power for both the home and the electric car, the monthly cost might be just $89 per month — compared with $255 per month for a household driving a regular car without any solar panels.
    This dramatic savings becomes possible to contemplate, notes the study, due to the growing prevalence of $0 down payment options both for installing solar panels, and for buying electric vehicles.

    A home with solar panels on its roof is shown in a residential neighborhood in San Marcos, California in this September 19,2013 photo. REUTERS/Mike Blake
    So are we really on the verge of a widespread phenomenon of green "bundling"— suburbanites installing rooftop solar, and then using it to power both their homes and also their cars? The paper points to four separate trends that are, at least, suggestive:
    1. Electric vehicle owners and rooftop solar owners clearly overlap. Drawing on data from California — home to half of the U.S.'s purchases of Teslas, the highly regarded (if pricey) all electric luxury vehicle — the researchers show that these electric vehicle buyers tend to be wealthy and highly educated. Their reasons for purchasing, they say in surveys, are not solely environmental — they also include desires for vehicle performance and to own an exciting new technology.
    But Tesla buyers overlap with one very important group — rooftop solar power installers. Examining data from California's Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, the study found that 45 percent of rebate applicants who had an all-electric vehicle (like a Tesla) claimed that they either already had solar panels installed, or that they planned to install them. By contrast, only 36 percent of plug-in hybrid buyers said the same — which may be significant since plug-in hybrids can also run on gasoline.
    And suburban solar power users, in California, aren't your traditional greens. "They’re making this choice for a bunch of reasons," says Delmas, "but not because they are liberals and think it's good for the planet."
    2. Tesla's stock price and several solar company stock prices are positively correlated. The paper goes on to assert that investors may sense this nascent relationship between solar and electric vehicles — showing as much by analyzing the stock price performance of Tesla in comparison with two solar stocks: First Solar, and SolarCity. The latter, they researchers note, is also chaired by Tesla's Elon Musk, which might account for some of the relationship.
    But nonetheless, the stock performance correlation also held for First Solar. For every percentage point increase in the value of First Solar's stock, the study found, Tesla's price increased by .1 percent. In other words, the market might be signaling that it sees a connection between the sectors, and expects both to profit -- or even that, in Delmas's words, these companies are in some sense "addressing the same market."
    "If you have an electric car, you’re going to use more electricity in your home, it makes sense for you to have solar panels," says Delmas. "And once you have solar panels, it makes sense to have an electric car."
    3. Electric vehicles and solar panels keep getting better — and cheaper. Teslas have improved in range from the original 2008 Tesla Roadster, which could drive 245 miles without recharging, to the Tesla Model S, which can travel 265 miles. And the researchers show that for other plug-in hybrid or battery electric vehicles — the Chevy Volt, Toyota Prius plug-in, Ford Focus Electric, and Nissan Leaf — the trend is similar.
    For each of these cars from 2011/2012 through 2014, the paper shows, vehicle price declined even as for several models (Volt, Leaf) the miles per gallon equivalent actually increased — and for the other two (Ford Focus Electric, Prius) it held constant. "These suggestive results highlight the fact that the cost of ownership of electric vehicles in the United States is falling," note the authors.
    For solar power, meanwhile, the numbers are way more dramatic. The authors cite a stunning figure from Clean Technica: From 1977 to today, the average cost of a solar panel declined from $ 76.67 per watt to $ 0.613 per watt!
    4. Financing options for Teslas and solar keep getting better. Perhaps most important to consumers, it is now increasingly possible to acquire both electric vehicles and solar panels through advantageous financing plans. In particular, SolarCity allows you to pay for your solar installation from the money that the solar installation itself creates by generating energy. That means that households don't have to make any down payment, and don't have to pay for the system's maintenance. They can just let the sun itself pay it off.
    Therefore, writes Delmas's co-author and UCLA economist Matthew Kahn, the "synergistic possibilities" for those owning these two technologies are growing. And the people buying both solar and EVs, he adds, will be doing so "due to cost minimization and product quality rather than because they want to please Al Gore."
    Maybe there's a future, then, in which suburbanites someday might actually have an energy cost advantage over city dwellers -- at least if they own the right technologies. If so, suburbanites wouldn't have to feel nearly so bad about their carbon footprints -- though not even cars powered by the sun will save them from suffering through that daily commute.
    Update: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that solar panel costs had declined from $ 76.67 per watt to $ 0.613 per watt from "1997 to today. "Actually, that is the change from the year 1977 to today.
    Chris Mooney reports on science and the environment.
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    Cuban Jews See Obama-Castro Detente As A "Hanukkah Miracle"

    December 24, 2014, 7:37 pm
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    Hanukkah revelers in HavanaChildren with paper likenesses of candle flames are among Cubans celebrating Hanukkah at Temple Beth Shalom in Havana. 
    Prisoner's release, U.S. moves are 'Hanukkah miracle' for Cuban Jews
    Happy Hanukkah, announced the emcee, as Cuba's tiny Jewish community gathered at Havana's largest synagogue and sang first the Cuban national anthem, then that of Israel.
    Jews here are celebrating the holiday with an air of optimism long in coming. The opening of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, along with the release from jail of Alan Gross, a U.S. Agency for International Development subcontractor who is Jewish, has energized a dwindling community that struggles to survive.




    "This was a Hanukkah miracle," said Adela Dworin, president of the Jewish community based at Temple Beth Shalom. "It was about time."
    Teens danced to klezmer music in the celebrations Sunday night, which saw the kindling of the sixth of eight candles in an ornate silver menorah. Several hundred people filed into the sanctuary, men with colorful kippa, children with construction-paper likenesses of candle flames on their heads. Hanukkah, an eight-day holiday also known as the Festival of Lights, represents a 2nd century rebellion of Jews against their oppressors in territory that is now Israel.
    Only about 1,500 Jews remain in Cuba, two-thirds of them in the capital, where there are three temples.
    Jewish leaders made a point of visiting Gross during his five years in prison and a military hospital, especially during Jewish holidays such as Passover and Rosh Hashana, when they would take him latkes, chocolate or a menorah.
    "We tried to help him maintain his tranquillity and his faith as a good Jew," said David Prinstein Señorans, another senior leader of the community.
    Dworin said that in Gross' darkest moments of desperation, especially toward the end, he spoke of not wanting to live anymore.Travel, trade with the U.S. are among Cubans' top hopes


    "I reminded him our religion prohibits suicide; I'd like to think we planted a grain of sand and raised his spirits," Dworin said in an interview after Sunday night's Hanukkah celebrations. "We never would abandon a fellow Jew, whether you agree with his way of thinking or not."
    By March of this year, she said, Gross no longer wanted visitors, his depression that severe.
    When he was first arrested for importing satellite and other sophisticated electronic equipment, there were reports that Gross was providing the material to the Jewish community. Cuban Jewish leaders quickly distanced themselves from that claim and say now that there was no formal relationship between the community and Gross in terms of providing Internet or other communications supplies.
    "The Cuban government knew we were never involved; it would be ridiculous," Dworin said.
    Jewish leaders say that, despite their diminished presence, their relations with the Cuban government are good. They noted a Hanukkah visit to the temple a few years ago by President Raul Castro, who participated in the candle-lighting. In 1998, then-President Fidel Castro also dropped by in what was considered a groundbreaking gesture by a government that officially for years was atheistic and did not encourage free religious observance.
    "Our synagogues are open, and we don't need police guards," said Fidel Babani, another prominent member and former president of the community.
    Before the 1959 revolution, Cuba had a booming Jewish population, estimated to number at least 15,000. Jews had lived in Cuba since the era of the Spanish Inquisition, with a large influx in the early part of the 20th century from Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
    The post-revolutionary communist government's decision to nationalize businesses and seize many properties drove many Cubans, including Jews, into exile; others feared the official atheism of the ruling party's early years. It was what Jews at the time called a migration stampede.
    By 1989, considered the lowest point, there were fewer than 800 Jews left. The number has been on the rebound in recent years; it is no longer difficult to assemble a minyan, the 10 males required to hold a religious service, Babani said.
    Still, no rabbi lives in Cuba. The person officiating over Sunday night's ceremony was not an official rabbi; one visits periodically from Argentina.
    "We hope the normalization [of diplomatic relations with the U.S.] means Cuban Jews will return and more Jewish groups will visit," said Prinstein. "It is no secret: We live thanks to help from abroad."
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    "What 2000 Calories Looks Like," New York Times Video

    December 24, 2014, 7:49 pm
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    The New York Times’ Viral “What 2,000 Calories Looks Like” Is Unoriginal and Misleading

    Shortly after being published on Monday, the multimedia story “What 2,000 Calories Looks Like” shot to the top of the New York Times’ most-read and most-emailed articles lists. That readers would warm to this article, a production of the data blog the Upshot, is unsurprising. After all, it features gorgeous, full-width photographs of appetizing food—both homemade and from chain restaurants—and it relates to the so-called “obesity epidemic,” one of Times readers’ favorite topics. What is surprising is that the Times—usually a bastion of good taste and restraint in an Internet culture fueled by clickbait—would stoop to publish such an unoriginal and intellectually dishonest piece of work.

    One problem with the Times article? It is really, really late to the game. Health magazines and general interest websites have published features essentially identical to “What 2,000 Calories Looks Like” for years. BuzzFeed, in fact, made a video showing what 2,000 calories worth of different foods looks like just last March. Business Insider did a nearly identical video just a few weeks later.







    You may also recall a spate of 2013 articles about what 200 calories of food looks like. A year or so before that, Glamour did “What 100 Calories of Your Favorite Halloween Candy Actually Looks Like.” Lifehack’s version was “What 500 Calories Really Looks Like in Different Foods.” Splitting the difference, the health website Sparkpeople has a 300-calorie version. The genre is so common that The Toastrecently ran a spoof headlined “What 100 Calories Really Looks Like” that featured Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son and a still from “The Itchy and Scratchy Show,” among other absurdist examples.
    Perhaps it’s not fair to begrudge the Times its late-breaking addition to this genre—after all, very little of what’s published on the Web is entirely original, and the Times’version clearly aims to make a statement about the contemporary American diet and elicit a reaction from its readers that’s more than just “OMG.” But that statement is what makes the Times version even worse than other photo collections aiming to educate Americans about the relative caloric density of different foods.
    The gist of the Times piece is that chain restaurants like Chipotle, Potbelly, McDonald’s, and Olive Garden are guilty of serving “dishes so rich that a single meal often contains a full day’s worth of calories,” i.e., 2,000. (Let’s leave aside the fact that different individuals have wildly different calorie needs and that almost no one needs exactly 2,000 calories a day.) Meanwhile, 2,000 calories’ worth of home-cooked food, according to the Times, is far more satisfying and diversified than a fast-food meal. “We asked James Briscione, the director of culinary development at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, to prove it by preparing some examples of a day’s worth of home-cooked meals totaling about 2,000 calories, everything included,” explain the Upshot writers.
    The problem is that this is a false dichotomy—unhealthy, overly fatty, unsatsifying restaurant food on one side, wholesome, satisfying home-cooked food on the other—that relies on unfair selectiveness on the part of the writers. Sure, they admit, it’s possible to eat a reasonable number of calories at Chipotle by ordering a bowl—but instead of showing you that option, they show you a carnitas burrito with guacamole and chips and a Coke to reach their 2,000 quota.
    The food stylist and photographer also went to great lengths to make fairly large amounts of restaurant food look meager. For instance, the Times’ meal from P.F. Chang’s consists of spinach, dumplings, orange beef, pad thai, caramel cake, and wine. I can’t think of anyone, save perhaps a competitive eater or someone coming off a daylong fast, who would eat all that in a single sitting. But the Times’ photo of this food crowds all the plates together to make the spread look “closer to a single meal’s than a full day of food.” Meanwhile, the photographs of the home-cooked foods show it spread out broadly across the full width of the page, which makes the array of food selected look even more expansive than it really is.
    But that’s almost beside the point. It should surprise absolutely no one that it is possible to find very high-calories dishes at restaurants, and that it is possible to cook very low-calorie food at home. What the Times doesn’t show is that it’s also possible to eat healthily at restaurants and unhealthily at home. (The next time you’re snacking on cheese and crackers while cooking dinner, or helping yourself to a second helping of homemade granola, try keeping track of calories.)

    But neither of these scenarios is particularly relevant to most people—almost no one eats exclusively in restaurants, or exclusively at home. And almost no one orders only the highest-calorie options when they go out to eat, or prepares elaborate meals of chicken, arugula, Brussels sprouts, and squash when they stay in. For most people, figuring out what and where to eat is not a simple choice between McDonald’s and a healthy home-cooked meal—it’s a complex calculus involving time, energy, money, emotions, and cravings. While the Upshot acknowledges that cooking at home “may take more time than fast food,” it doesn’t even begin to address the way people actually eat in real life.
    The point is, “What 2,000 Calories Looks Like” doesn’t teach you anything meaningful about the relative merits of eating out versus cooking at home. All it teaches you is that it’s possible to make 2,000 calories look like not a lot of food, but it’s also possible to make 2,000 calories look like a lot of food—it just depends on framing.

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    Text Of Pope Francis' Christmas Eve Homily

    December 24, 2014, 8:05 pm
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    Text of Pope Francis' Christmas Eve Homily


    By Associated Press Dec. 24, 2014

    VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican's official English-language translation of Pope Francis' prepared homily, to be delivered in Italian, during Christmas Eve Mass on Wednesday in St. Peter's Basilica. Spelling and style are the Vatican's.

    "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined" (Is 9:1). "An angel of the Lord appeared to (the shepherds) and the glory of the Lord shone around them" (Lk 2:9). This is how the liturgy of this holy Christmas night presents to us the birth of the Saviour: as the light which pierces and dispels the deepest darkness. The presence of the Lord in the midst of his people cancels the sorrow of defeat and the misery of slavery, and ushers in joy and happiness.
    We, too, in this blessed night, have come to the house of God. We have passed through the darkness which envelops the earth, guided by the flame of faith which illuminates our steps, and enlivened by the hope of finding the "great light". By opening our hearts, we also can contemplate the miracle of that child-sun who, arising from on high, illuminates the horizon.
    The origin of the darkness which envelops the world is lost in the night of the ages. Let us think back to that dark moment when the first crime of humanity was committed, when the hand of Cain, blinded by envy, killed his brother Abel (cf. Gen 4:8). As a result, the unfolding of the centuries has been marked by violence, wars, hatred and oppression.

    But God, who placed a sense of expectation within man made in his image and likeness, was waiting. He waited for so long that perhaps at a certain point it seemed he should have given up. But he could not give up because he could not deny himself (cf. 2 Tim 2:13). Therefore he continued to wait patiently in the face of the corruption of man and peoples.
    Through the course of history, the light that shatters the darkness reveals to us that God is Father and that his patient fidelity is stronger than darkness and corruption. This is the message of Christmas night. God does not know outbursts of anger or impatience; he is always there, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, waiting to catch from afar a glimpse of the lost son as he returns.
    Isaiah's prophecy announces the rising of a great light which breaks through the night. This light is born in Bethlehem and is welcomed by the loving arms of Mary, by the love of Joseph, by the wonder of the shepherds. When the angels announced the birth of the Redeemer to the shepherds, they did so with these words: "This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Lk 2:12).
    The "sign" is the humility of God taken to the extreme; it is the love with which, that night, he assumed our frailty, our suffering, our anxieties, our desires and our limitations. The message that everyone was expecting, that everyone was searching for in the depths of their souls, was none other than the tenderness of God: God who looks upon us with eyes full of love, who accepts our poverty, God who is in love with our smallness.
    On this holy night, while we contemplate the Infant Jesus just born and placed in the manger, we are invited to reflect. How do we welcome the tenderness of God? Do I allow myself to be taken up by God, to be embraced by him, or do I prevent him from drawing close? "But I am searching for the Lord" - we could respond. Nevertheless, what is most important is not seeking him, but rather allowing him to find me and caress me with tenderness. The question put to us simply by the Infant's presence is: do I allow God to love me?
    More so, do we have the courage to welcome with tenderness the difficulties and problems of those who are near to us, or do we prefer impersonal solutions, perhaps effective but devoid of the warmth of the Gospel? How much the world needs tenderness today!
    The Christian response cannot be different from God's response to our smallness. Life must be met with goodness, with meekness. When we realize that God is in love with our smallness, that he made himself small in order to better encounter us, we cannot help but open our hearts to him, and beseech him: "Lord, help me to be like you, give me the grace of tenderness in the most difficult circumstances of life, give me the grace of closeness in the face of every need, of meekness in every conflict".
    Dear brothers and sisters, on this holy night we contemplate the Nativity scene: there "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Is 9:1). People who were unassuming, open to receiving the gift of God, were the ones who saw this light. This light was not seen, however, by the arrogant, the proud, by those who made laws according to their own personal measures, who were closed off to others. Let us look to the crib and pray, asking the Blessed Mother: "O Mary, show us Jesus!'"
    ___
    Copyright Vatican Publishing House
    "The Childhood of Christ"
    Gerard van Honthorst


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    Notice The Grace Of The Man And Woman Flanking The Aggrieved

    December 24, 2014, 8:18 pm
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    Contortionist: Go Figure

    December 24, 2014, 9:20 pm
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    G.K. Chesterton On Santa Claus, 1935

    December 24, 2014, 9:29 pm
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    It's Christmas Eve; At those households that sustain the myth, Santa will soon be coming down the chimney, or through the window, or down a chimney Santa made himself and then made disappear (this my parents told me). He'll drop his presents and take his cookies and continue on flying at an impossible speed to take care of the rest of the world's millions of children.
    For those of you with children, you may or may have not told them some version of this story. Perhaps you're at the point of "telling the truth" about Santa, or already have long ago. What happens to Santa after you stop believing in him? G.K. Chesterton wondered something similar. Writing in Commonweal in 1935, he asks:
    Is the child to live in a world that is entirely false? Or is the child to be forbidden all forms or fancy; or in other words, forbidden to be a child? Or is he, as we say, to have some harmless borderland of fancy in childhood, which is still part of the land in which he will live: in terra viventium, in the land of living men? Cannot the child pass from a child's natural fancy to a man's normal faith in Holy Nicholas of the Children without enduring that bitter break and abrupt disappointment which now marks the passage of the child from a land of make-believe to a world of no belief?
    Read all of "Santa Claus and Science" here, and have a happy Christmas Eve. If you want to track Santa's global journey by satellite, you can do so here.

    "Learning That There's No Santa Taught Me To Believe"
    Rich Cohen

    Merry Christmas! How Saint Nicholas Saved Three Sisters From A Life Of Prostitution

    G.K. Chesterton: "The Anarchy of The Rich"

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    G.K. Chesterton Quotations... And More

    Pax On Both Houses: Compendium Of G.K. Chesterton Posts
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/10/pax-on-both-houses-gk-chesterton-posts.html


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    Diane Rehm Guest Gets To The Nub Of Police Violence And How Easily It's Prevented

    December 25, 2014, 6:00 am
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    New York City police officer Darren Cox, right, accompanied by fellow officers, leaves flowers at a memorial in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014 in honor of two police officers who were shot there Saturday.
    New York City police officer Darren Cox, right, accompanied by fellow officers, leaves flowers at a memorial in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014 in honor of two police officers who were shot there Saturday. 

    Alan: Diane's guest David Klinger (professor of criminology and criminal justice) gives lucid analysis on how to minimize deadly police force by "structuring the encounter" with suspects by "staying back" and "slowing things down" in order to "create space" wherein tempers can cool before they explode. At minute #34 of the audio file below, Klinger points out that these demonstrably successful approaches are standard operating procedure in most major police departments and that their viability is validated by "every study." Klinger also spotlights swashbuckling disregard of these procedures in the recent deadly encounter with a nine year old (black) boy playing with toy gun, a boy who would not have been shot were he white.

    Cleveland Police Shoot And Kill 12 Year Old With Toy Gun
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/cleveland-police-shoot-and-kill-12-year.html

    "Video: WalMart Shopper John Crawford Didn't Aim Toy Gun At Anyone Before Police Shot Him Dead"
    (Imagine Crawford as a young white guy. Maybe your son...)

    White Man Jaywalks With Assault Rifle. Guess What Police Do

    Black Kids Get Shot For Their Mistakes. White Kids Get Psychologized
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/08/black-kids-get-shot-for-their-mistakes.html

    "Actor Jesse Williams Gets Real About Relentless Dehumanization Of Black Men"

    "Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right


    U.S. Police And Public Safety


    Listen
    In a speech yesterday New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called the murder of two New York police officers last weekend ‘an attack on all of us’, ‘an attack on our democracy.‘ He said it was time ‘to put aside political debate’ and ‘to put aside protests.’ The man who killed the two officers as they sat in their patrol car had claimed his actions were in retaliation for the deaths of Michael Ferguson and Eric Garner. Some protestors and some politicians, including Mayor de Blasio, are being accused of raising anti-police sentiment. Please join us to discuss the killings of two police officers in New York and the on-going debate over racial fairness in the U.S. criminal justice system. Alan: Diane's guest David Klinger (professor of criminology and criminal justice) gives an insightful analysis of how to minimize counterproductive, injurious and even deadly police force by "structuring the encounter" with suspects by "staying back" and "slowing things down" in order to "create space" in which tempers can cool before tempers explode. Klinger points out that these demonstrably successful approaches are standard operating procedure in most major police departments whose viability is validated by "every study." Klinger 

    Guests

    • David Klinger associate professor, department of criminology and criminal justice,University of Missouri, St Louis
    • Paul Butler professor at Georgetown Law School.
    • James Pasco executive director, Fraternal Order of Police
    • David Goodman reporter, New York Times
    • Sherrilyn Ifill president and director-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

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