Captain Oblivious

If depression has an evolutionary purpose, it's certainly not obvious. Depression makes people consider suicide and less interested in sex, which does not encourage the species' survival. But two evolutionary psychologists theorize that depression's purpose is enhanced mental skills.

Moronic. Unbelievably stupid.

Depression is not "sadness," you idiots! You can't conduct a scientific research project where you simulate its effects by making people watch a short movie that makes them sad! Depression does NOT give people "more time to think" about problems. Depressed people do NOT have "enhanced mental skills" while they're depressed.

Stupid, unbelievably stupid. Only people who aren't depressed could ever have come up with such drivel.

In reality, winter snows do not invalidate the reality that the planet just experienced the hottest decade on record. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms.

This past January was the warmest January on record for the planet. And as National Wildlife Federation climate scientist Amanda Staudt notes, winter storms are getting fiercer even as the season gets warmer. “The last few years have brought several unusually heavy snowstorms as warmer and moister air over southern states has penetrated further north, colliding with bitter cold air masses,” she explains.

Of course, the idea that "It was cold today, so global warming must be a conspiracy" has been around for quite a while. That's why taking climate advice from meteorologists is ... um ... not very smart. So when Sen Inhofe claims "scientists" don't agree on climate change and includes meteorologists in his "scientists" - well, let's just say the old rule still applies: consider the source.

So, let me get this straight. The financial industry took truly insane risks with the global economy, and their irresponsible misconduct brought about economic collapse. Democrats are, with varying degrees of urgency, trying to bring some levels of common sense and accountability to the system, in order to prevent future catastrophes.

And as a result, Wall Street, its corporate lobbyists, and congressional Republicans have teamed up to block reform and prevent new rules from becoming law, and the GOP is being rewarded with huge campaign checks.

Conservatives, who somehow claim to be economic populists, are on board with all of this, and the electorate, which is presumably livid with Wall Street, is poised to reward the political party that stands with those who brought the global system to the brink of collapse, and reject efforts to prevent another crisis.

For cryin' out loud, people, wake the heck up. Hint: if it's bad for Wall Street, it might very well be good for ordinary people. Or do you LIKE seeing those geniuses take home multi-million dollar bonuses that are paid out from our tax dollars?!?

I know you all won’t do it, but this really is a gimme. Set up the room with a side for the Democrats, including nameplates, one for the Republicans, including nameplates, and hold the summit no matter what. If they come, you can have the summit. If they don’t, then you can have the summit without them, and can use the time (as the camera pans over their empty seats) to promote the positive aspects of the current bill all while discussing the only GOP plan out there- the Paul Ryan bill. I’d suggest panning the room a good bit.

And if the Republicans don’t take a hit in the polls for refusing to show up, and if the media does not rip the Republicans apart, then you all can take out a shovel, beat bipartisanship in the back of the damned head until dead, and bury it in the WH yard, and start acting like you have large majorities.

Since they're determined to be the party of "No," why not make sure everybody sees them refusing to participate in governing the country?

Some comedian - and I’m 98% sure it was the great Tony V - said “Happy Holidays” to the crowd.  And one guy, out in the audience off towards stage right… booed.  That’s right, a guy booed “Happy Holidays.”  Swear to god.

Most of the crowd was perplexed.  Even among East Coast, hyper-informed Boston comedy fans, there are not all that many people who live inside the bubble of the Hatfield-McCoy Appalachia that is cable news. In fact, if the reason for the booing was readily apparent to you, be warned - you’re inside that bubble.

Tony handled it beautifully, and used the moment to segue into a great riff about Christmas. I’d be willing to bet that he’d run up against it before.

“It” is the new, virulent anger against the idea of saying “Happy Holidays” - which is to some people as horrifying and awful as some commie trying to sneak a “Season’s Greetings” by you - which is in turn as bad as a hearty, happy “Fuck Jesus!” apparently.  It’s a sign that you hate Christmas and Christianity and the Constitution and the principles that our nation was founded upon.  It’s a sign that you hate America, just like the President of the United States.

I love me some Adam Felber, I really do.

In late November 2009, more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded:

• The messages, which span 13 years, show a few scientists in a bad light, being rude or dismissive. An investigation is underway, but there’s still plenty of evidence that the earth is getting warmer and that humans are largely responsible.
• Some critics say the e-mails negate the conclusions of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the IPCC report relied on data from a large number of sources, of which CRU was only one.
• E-mails being cited as "smoking guns" have been misrepresented. For instance, one e-mail that refers to "hiding the decline" isn’t talking about a decline in actual temperatures as measured at weather stations. These have continued to rise, and 2009 may turn out to be the fifth warmest year ever recorded. The "decline" actually refers to a problem with recent data from tree rings.

Shocker. Anti-science climate change deniers are wrong again. Huh. Who knew?

My very, very strong suspicion is that there has never been a time when there weren’t truly crazy people on all sides of the political spectrum doing their truly crazy things. Maybe 1% or so, or even 0.1% — which is a very large number, when you’re talking about a population of, say, 100 million. 

I tend to agree with this. There are some serious nut jobs in the US. The current media slant (not right or left, towards sensationalism) and internet availability combine to give them massive megaphones. Of course, as a Lefty, I think the conservatives wackos are much, much worse than the liberal ones. But I agree that the liberal ones EXIST, and in roughly similar numbers.

The reality of the contemporary United States is that, even as income inequality has exploded, the average tax rate paid by the top 1 percent has fallen by about one-third over the last twenty-five years. Again: it has fallen. The rich have gotten unimaginably richer, and at the same time their tax burden has dropped significantly. And yet conservatives routinely describe this state of affairs as intolerably oppressive to the rich. Since the share of the national income accruing to the rich has grown faster than their average tax rate has shrunk, they have paid an ever-rising share of the federal tax burden. This is the fact that so vexes the right.

Most of the right-wing commentary purporting to prove that the rich bear the overwhelming burden of government relies upon the simple trick of citing only the income tax, which is progressive, while ignoring more regressive levies. A brief overview of the facts lends some perspective to the fears of a new Red Terror. Our government divides its functions between the federal, state, and local levels. State and local governments tend to raise revenue in ways that tax the poor at higher rates than the rich. (It is difficult for a state or a locality to maintain higher rates on the rich, who can easily move to another town or state that offers lower rates.) The federal government raises some of its revenue from progressive sources, such as the income tax, but also healthy chunks from regressive levies, such as the payroll tax.

The sum total of these taxes levies a slightly higher rate on the rich. The bottom 99 percent of taxpayers pay 29.4 percent of their income in local, state, and federal taxes. The top 1 percent pay an average total tax rate of 30.9 percent--slightly higher, but hardly the sort of punishment that ought to prompt thoughts of withdrawing from society to create a secret realm of capitalistic übermenschen. These numbers tend to bounce back and forth, depending upon which party controls the government at any given time. If Obama succeeds in enacting his tax policies, the tax burden on the rich will bump up slightly, just as it bumped down under George W. Bush.

You know, no need to pull a Joe Wilson on them. /snark

Seriously, whenever conservatives propose a flat tax, I always say, "Ok, flat EVERYTHING, set it at 30% and be done with it - I'm with you." But that's not what they want. They only want a flat income tax, and they insist on setting it ridiculously low, which just guarantees that they'll never win the debate because too many of the people who might buy into their theory can do a little bit of elementary math.

News flash: Rich people do NOT pay a higher tax burden, proportionally, than middle class people - at least not in any significant way.

PS I know, the article's making a lot of analytical and historical claims about Ayn Rand. I'm not gonna go there, because frankly Rand has already received far more attention than she deserves.

In the competitive world of Washington protests, crowd size is often a matter of dispute. Organizers usually boast of huge crowds, while police and the news media offer much smaller estimates.

So supporters of Saturday’s “tea party” protests against President Barack Obama were quick to highlight their big turnout. To bolster countless claims on blogs and Facebook, many posted a photograph that showed a gargantuan crowd sprawling from Capitol Hill down the National Mall to the Washington Monument.

But it turns out the photo is more than 10 years old, apparently taken during a 1997 Promise Keepers rally.

Um, what is WRONG with people who try to pull this kind of shit?!? Do they think they won't get caught? Heck, since when is drawing almost 100,000 people to a demonstration something to be ASHAMED of?!? Just tell the f$cking truth, you idiots!

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

There are so many stupid people in our country, and they're so LOUD, that a movie about Charles Darwin can't even be shown here. It's entirely possible that this movie sucks. But I won't be able to tell, because I live in The United States of Ignorance.