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Here Come the Republicans! Oct. 1 ( Bloomberg ) -- U.S. House Republicans’ pledge to cut $100 billion from the federal budget next year would slash spending for education, cancer research and aid to local police and firefighters. A 21 percent cut in Pell Grants would take almost $5 billion from student tuition. A 21 percent cut across the board would take about $15 billion from education. A 21 percent cut at the National Institutes of Health would take about $6 billion from health research. A 21 percent cut would take $400 million from police. I could go on, but it makes me cry, and you don't want a sobbing blogger. Especially when letting the tax cuts for those making over a quarter million bucks a year expire would save all that and have about the same impact as those cruel cuts on the budget. You know I don't think the Democrats are always right, but I agree with their statement about all this cutting into the hearts of our citizens: “It will have a serious impact ...

YEA G R A P H I C S !!! Not since Ross Perot has a major politico used graphics to "draw" the facts. Finally, Austan Goolsbee gives it a shot. 'Tain't perfect, but it's pretty good. [ NOT Austan Goolsbee ] Check it out. I reiterate my many-times-recommended-to-Prez-Obama plea: "Use graphics; Use video; Use stills; USE VISUALS to make your points.

Geometric Growth! "Modern science is advancing at an unprecedented rate, and the amount of scientific data is doubling every year ." And that's the biggest story I can find anywhere. The quote is from the 27 August issue of Science Magazine, but their reference is back to a 2005 paper. If you Google (or any other search engine) " Scientific data doubles every year " you'll see what I mean . It's enough to make you optimistic. Pix credit: http://www.maricopacomputer.com/

Ever Heard of Edward Bernays? Forget about (well, you know...) Hitler's guy Joseph Goebbels or Stalin's guy Molotov. They just gave propaganda a bad name. But Bernays basically invented it. CHAPTER I From his 1925 book ORGANIZING CHAOS, the first paragraph: THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. Bernay's first task was to drag the screaming isolationist U.S.A. into World War I. ... with stuff like this: Then he parlayed his techniques into a big P.R. business. His first biggy account was a ciggy account - Chesterfield. This dude convinced women is was cool and sexy to smoke. ... with stuff like this: All rights reserved by Christian Montone But Propaganda wasn't "bad" until the Nazis and the Commies used it to brainwash ...

An Arrow Through the Throat of the Deficit Hawks (Who will eat our livers if we don't get them first.) Bloomberg .com is a hard core financial news site. No wishy -washy ideology-driven spins on the money news. Here are some excerpts from today's issue: Are the "Bond Vigilantes" Going to Punish Obama? Instead of punishing the Obama administration for running up a budget deficit ..., bond investors are pouring money into fixed-income assets as inflation slows and equity markets stumble. That’s a turnaround from 16 years ago, when Bill Clinton was forced to abandon stimulus plans after his advisers said the bond market would punish him with higher borrowing costs if it sensed swelling deficits. “The deficit concerns are on the back burner,” said Andy Richman , who oversees $10 billion as a strategist in Palm Beach, Florida for SunTrust Bank’s private wealth management division. “The bigger concerns are on the deflationary mode and seeing grow...

Why Do We Make Dangerous Decisions? (Like deciding climate change "isn't real") Fiddling while the Arctic Melts It amazes me that whole swaths of humanity ignore facts, refute the irrefutable and get all conspiracy-ish when issues arise that they don't like or that make them uncomfortable. Two unrelated (except they were both in the NY Times) columns offered nice, tight nuggets of insight into why some of us human beans lock our mental steering wheels and drive ourselves into major crashes. Here's an excerpt from an Op-Ed on our dismal climate fate, the author Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor of global systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada. Climate policy is gridlocked, and there’s virtually no chance of a breakthrough. Many factors have conspired to produce this situation. Human beings are notoriously poor at responding to problems that develop incrementally. And most of us aren’t eager to change our lifestyles by sharpl...

And Understand America a Little Better The Big Short by Michael Lewis. I'm a little late, since it's been the top biz book on the NYTimes list (still up there close). It's been praised and berated with vigor. But, MAN, it's a killer book. When you read it, not only will you understand the causes of the Great Recession better than you did before, but you will have an insight into us human folk with another layer of delusion ripped away. And it's a hoot to boot, a fun book to read. The characters are great (notwithstanding that they are real), and the narrative plays at full throttle. Imagine, a page-turner about synthetic CDOs and that ilk! It'll put a different light on Tuesday's headline from the Christian Science Monitor, " How Wall Street uses your money to lobby against you. " Enjoy.

More Stimulus NOW The deficit hawks are dangerous to America. He said conservatively, in quiet understatement. Nothing is as important as getting our army of unemployed back to work. Cutting the deficit can and should be done, but not now. Not with the gnawing cancer of mass unemployment claiming more lives daily. There are so many extremely productive places to spend more stimulus money. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our education system is in tatters and a whole new category of American industry is just waiting to be stimulated by the right laws and the right government funding - c lean e nergy, e fficient h omes a nd b uildings, and e fficient t ransportation. (CEEHABET, acronym fans). Oh, and there is the little fringe benefit of saving ourselves from climate change and freeing ourselves from dependence on malign foreigner's oil. So I'm signing on wholeheartedly to... [[ drum roll, bugles ]] Reboot America - Manifesto ... started by The Da...

...They're not even willing to check it out. Now that's sad, ain't it? I've had the experience many times that a "discussion" of differing opinions ends up with categorical rejection of any idea that runs contrary to what a person believes. "That's just not so," said a pal in response to what I saw as irrefutable evidence that it is so. Then I ran across an article in Science News about how mathematics is being used to fight terrorism. It's brilliant. It's effective and getting moreso fast. It puts to powerful use all those billions of bucks worth of intelligence we are buying. However, the very idea is running smack into the "belief so extreme" that it "just can't work" that some important intelligence types won't even see for themselves. Here's the paragraph that caught my eye. ARGHHHHH . Now that makes me mad. Sure, when I can't get someone to consider one of my ideas, it's frustrating....

You will LOVE it, if... ... You like great writing. (I don't use "great" with "writing" very often, but Spiller deserves it.) ... You think war is a fascinating subject. ... You think PTSD is a new thing. ... You think this makes the book sound worthwhile: Enjoy.

... That Would Be 2009 Woe is us. The predictions keep getting worse, while the denialists keep getting louder. Something completely human about that, no? In case you missed the latest blast from the future from the National Academy of Sciences, here is the L.A. Times piece on it (from a month ago - thanks, Digg, for reviving it). Always check your sources, boys and girls. Know what the N.A.S. is? The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. The NAS was signed into being by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863, at the height of the Civil War. Do you believe the NAS or the latest Climate Denialist/Birther/Creationist whackjob? Up to you, of course. In short, the big, Congressional-mandated study by all those distinguished scholars says things are URGENT, we should get on the stick an...

IT'S ONLY MONEY More than 1 in 5 (U.S.) kids live in poverty (U.S.A. Today) Now that is just unacceptable. Remember that the top 1% in American wealth have more money than the bottom 80%. Then there's: A new Gallup poll finds the national debt tied with terrorism as voters' biggest worry. Health-care costs, unemployment, immigration, and global warming all lag. http://bit.ly/9sbXaf Oh, great, the "deficit hawks" are about to eat our livers again. Quoting that rich old liberal George Soros: "June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor George Soros said “we have just entered Act II” of the crisis as Europe’s fiscal woes worsen and governments are pressured to curb budget deficits that may push the global economy back into recession. " The "pressuring" comes from deficit hawks who - in my humble opinion - just don't understand that getting the economy going again with LOTS of jobs is the only way to start reducing the national...