B12 Solipsism

Danger No Swimming, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Coast Guard is comin’ to getcha!

(slight photoshop work)

Two photos stitched together so that the sign and the boat are both in focus. Nothing spectacular, just a reminder that summer is approaching rapidly.

Usually not a good sign to receive a letter from the FDIC, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

My bank got eated!

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Helga Viking
Film: Float
Flash: Off

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Saving account, I think it held something like $400. Guess my retirement plan is shot now. According to the letter, if I don’t take action in the next month, they will just send me a check for the full amount. Whoo hoo. Birthday is coming up, maybe I’ll spend it on an iPad.

Also, especially in the enlargement of this photo, my fingers look like elephant legs. I guess I’m not a young man anymore.

You would think the fact checkers of The New York Times would stop liars like David Brooks from publishing factually erroneous columns that embarrass the NYT brand. Apparently not. Differing opinions is one thing, but out and out lies?

Ezra Klein writes:

The factual statements Brooks uses in his argument are wrong. Not arguable, or questionable, or suspicious. Wrong. And since everything else flows from those wrong facts, the rest of the column can’t be taken seriously.

“Reconciliation has been used with increasing frequency,” writes Brooks. “That was bad enough. But at least for the Bush tax cuts or the prescription drug bill, there was significant bipartisan support.” The outcome of letting reconciliation go from rare and bipartisan to common and partisan is that we will go from a Senate where “people are usually pretty decent to one another” to a Senate that “bleaches out normal behavior and the normal instincts of human sympathy.”

Chilling stuff, huh?

But none of Brooks’s evidence is true. Literally none of it. The budget reconciliation process was used six times between 1980 and 1989. It was used four times between 1990 and 1999. It was used five times between 2000 and 2009. And it has been used zero times since 2010. Peak reconciliation use, in other words, was in the ’80s, not the Aughts. The data aren’t hard to find. They were published on Brooks’s own op-ed page.

Nor has reconciliation been limited to bills with “significant bipartisan support.” To use Brooks’s example of the tax cuts, the 2003 tax cuts passed the Senate 50-50, with Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. Two Democrats joined with the Republicans in that effort. Georgia’s Zell Miller, who would endorse George W. Bush in 2004 and effectively leave the Democratic Party, and Nebraska’s Ben Nelson. So I’d say that’s one Democrat. One Democrat alongside 49 Republicans. That’s not significant bipartisan support.

[Click to continue reading Ezra Klein - Everything David Brooks says about reconciliation is wrong ]

Mr. Klein continues on this vein, with examples and proof and EVERYTHING. You should click the link.

I’m quite curious as to how the editors of the NYT will handle this gaffe. Will there be a correction in tomorrow’s paper? An appended comment to the Op-Ed? or will they just ignore the egg on their faces?

Jonathan Chait adds at The New Republic:

Oh, the humanity!

So using a majority vote procedure to pass legislation that the minority party has used strict partisan discipline into whipping its members into opposing is fundamentally about denying the humanity of the Other. It is a sad thing, and both parties sadly share some blame, but on the matter before us, the Republicans are in fact correct.

In reality, Brooks’ conclusion is absurd. Does he really think that passing changes to the health care bill through reconciliation will materially effect how parties act in the future? He believes that the next Republican administration with more than 50 but fewer than 60 Senators would decline to pass a tax cut through reconciliation, but will now do so because the Democrats did it? I doubt even Karl Rove could say this with a straight face.

In any case, we don’t have to guess about the future. We can look to precedent. Bill Clinton passed the signature domestic achievement of his presidency, the 1993 deficit reduction bill, through reconciliation with zero Republican votes. Sadly, Brooks was not there to explain how this denied the Republicans’ humanity. In 2001, George W. Bush did get some Democrats to support his tax cut, most of them after it was a fait accompli. Why did he go through reconciliation, rather than regular order? It certainly had costs — he had to sunset the whole thing after ten years. He did it because he didn’t want to make the compromises he would have needed to get 60 votes. And if you think he would have given up the tax cut if a handful of Democrats hadn’t jumped aboard, you’re delusional.

[Click to continue reading David Brooks At His David Brooksiest | The New Republic]

If you want a laugh, you can read David Brooks for yourself

Drink it before the ice melts, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

My favorite drinking game.

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: Pistil
Flash: Off

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If I’m motivated, can drink three drinks with the same ice cubes (i.e., before they melt). Personally, love good whiskey-with-an-E best when the ice has melted maybe 10%. Enough cold water to blend, but not too much to dilute it.

Anyway, I think it’s time for me to pour today’s cocktail, as I’m too tired to work on anything important today.

Guitar blues, iPhoney edition, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

messing around with the Best Camera iPhone app instead of working

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from last year

Edit ∆ (delta) IL Connect Four, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

or whatever that says (Oil? Delta IL?). Pretty cryptic.

Kinzie Street and the stairway leading up to Orleans St.

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from last spring

Dragon Skull, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

at least that’s what it looked like to me.
Lake Michigan

Roger’s Park, Chicago, or perhaps Evanston (border is a bit amorphous right here)

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I’m sure there is an equation (Thermodynamics, perhaps?) that describes how this ice formation is created with waves, but I leave that as an exercise for you, the reader.

Intellectual Amnesia, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

slightly punched up in Photoshop (Velvia)

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from 2008

It’s a Blue Light Special, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Red Light, Blue Light, all semantics anyway

[view large: www.b12partners.net/photoblog/index.php?showimage=129 ]

down the street from me

Colleen and Seth – Colfax 1971, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

My mother and me, circa 1971 (?), Colfax, California.
Slightly retouched in Photoshop.

maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&time=…

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This is probably my favorite photo of my mother. Something about her expression here is just perfect. She isn’t smiling, exactly, nor quizzical.

Not sure exactly the provenance of this photo: think it was taken in Colfax, California, but don’t know where exactly, nor who took it.

The 1959 VW survived several more cross-country trips past this photo, and eventually became reused as the motor for a sawmill in Frostpocket¹. Blue in this photo, later painted school bus yellow.

1. if memory serves [↩]

Streets slick with regret, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: Float
Flash: Off

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more photos from Milwaukee

The Things We Didn’t Do, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward, mild snow.

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more from Sunday’s sojourn to Milwaukee.

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass” (Lewis Carroll)

Alice in Wonderland, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

a clearer photo of the billboard that peeks at me through my office window

Details visible if you embiggen:
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I probably will see this movie, but maybe not in the theatre. Sometimes my agoraphobia¹ is stronger than my desire to see films on large projection screens.

DVDs come out pretty soon these days

1. or whatever, agoraphobia is probably a little strong [↩]

Temple for lease, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: Pistil
Flash: Off

embiggen:
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spent a few hours in Milwaukee on Sunday. Mostly doing work related things, but squeezed in a photo-stroll for about an hour right at dusk.

I really like Milwaukee for some reason, probably because at least from an outsider’s perspective, Milwaukee still has so many buildings left from the industrial age. Most of these structures no longer exist in Chicago, especially downtown.

Merchandise Mart Sonnet 2628, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

yet another shot of the Merchandise Mart at night

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a little noisier¹ than I would like, but…

1. ie, digital noise from low light [↩]