Internal Monologue

A functioning financial system is an essential utility of modern society, like electricity, police, hospitals, phones, roads, and Internet. Therefore, we should expect the public/private balance of control over these institutions to be tilted more towards the public than it hitherto has been.

There's a movement afoot to make the Electoral College irrelevant by getting enough states to pledge to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote that the Electoral College won't matter. Internal Monologue supports this movement. It's made progress since I last checked in: So far, four states representing 50 electoral votes have adopted the pledge: Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland and Hawaii. The concept has been endorsed by newspapers across the country, including The New York Times. Now the Colorado legislature is considering the measure: The debate hits full stride now in Colorado, a state that political analysts say presents a key test for the National Popular Vote project. So far, the states most receptive to doing away with the Electoral College have all been solidly Democratic -- not the swing states that have been high-profile players in presidential elections. But Colorado last year joined a small cluster of newly minted swing states that drew...

" I've since clued in to the perfect analogy for the way Canadians (generally speaking - there are of course exceptions) think about religion. We treat it like underwear. We acknowledge that it exists and plays a role in the life of most people; we believe people should be able to obtain whatever kind of it they are comfortable in; we are even beginning to recognise that some people don't have much use for it and that's okay. But we are really not comfortable with people who run around showing theirs off in public and get a little freaked out about people who exhibit an interest in other people's, especially complete strangers'. To drag the analogy to the breaking point, relative to the Canadian political landscape, American politicians walk around without trousers on quite frequently." - Indigo commenting on slacktivist (HT: Mad Latinist via Facebook )

“Whom the Gods would destroy, they first put on the cover of Business Week.” - Paul Krugman , who just appeared on the cover of Newsweek as a critic of Obama's bank plan.

From Bad Gods . D&D fans should check out the " Monster Manual Comix " series.

The first post on Internal Monologue went up 3 years ago last Wednesday. What a lot has transpired in that time. It's wacky to think I've been writing that long. Coinciding with this nicely is my third Google Ad revenue deposit ($104.11), which just came in yesterday. Thanks everyone for reading.

By the way, I officially claim to have coined the phrase "Loogie of Disrespect", based on this post from December of 2006. The only other reference Google shows is from a much later date. If its meaning is not obvious to you, here's a definition: Hawking the Loogie of Disrespect on something is a way of indicating that it is not worthy of the sacred aura with which our culture has endowed it. " To Hawk " in this context means to audibly expel phlegm from the throat. A loogie is a wad of spit or phlegm. Note that the loogie definition linked to in the previous sentence uses "hock" instead of "hawk". I don't think you can "hock" a loogie, because most pawnshops don't accept loogies as collateral. (If you hear of one, let me know next time I have a cold.)

The U.N. Human Rights Council decided that people's oh-so-tender religious sensibilities need to be protected from the likes of me: GENEVA (Reuters) - A United Nations forum on Thursday passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries. The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favour and 11 against, with 13 abstentions. [...] It called on states to ensure that religious places, sites, shrines and symbols are protected, to reinforce laws "to deny impunity" for those exhibiting intolerance of ethnic and religious minorities, and "to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs" . (via vastleft ) Emphasis added. Certainly I agree with some of this. Religious places should be pr...

...like this one quite often. Freud wrote about this dream, and mentioned that it tends to be good students who have this dream. Which makes sense: this dream is about being anxious about failure. And that impulse would probably be stronger on average in those who do well in school than those who do not.

The cartoon xkcd is very good, but often too geeky for the lay reader. This particular one is good and contains references that most Internal Monologue readers would get.

John Cole makes a rather depressing comparison between how reporters treated Bush vs. how they are treating Obama. When Bush lied our country into a disastrous invasion and occupation, reporters sucked up to him instead of meaningfully challenging him. When Obama tries to fix our disastrous economy and broken financial system, reporters try to play gotcha instead of meaningfully challenging him. Humans are broken: what we need to know about and what we find interesting have drifted so far apart I'm not sure we can survive. (This is more of my " fish out of water " thesis on human nature. Is it just me or was my blog better back in 2006? Internal Monologue' s 3-year anniversary is tomorrow. Pretty soon, even Twitter feeds will have a meaningful heritage to reflect upon.)

Ben Smith , via MyDD : Chuck Schumer reportedly told gay supporters last night that he now supports same-sex marriage — a 180-degree reversal, and an important moment in the marriage fight. It's a big deal because it represents support for same-sex marraige moving toward becoming the default, mainstream position of the Democratic Party. Schumer's a New York senator, but he's also always been extremely careful to protect his right flank on issues like crime and gay rights. His statement: It’s time. Equality is something that has always been a hallmark of America, and no group should be deprived of it. New York, which has always been at the forefront on issues of equality, is appropriately poised to take a lead on this issue. Yay!

Markos of DailyKos : My favorite series finale? Six Feet Under. The last scene is still perhaps the most beautiful television I've ever seen. Blech. I couldn't disagree more. For my extended discussion on this matter, go here .

I made this poster here . The original Geithner photo is from Examiner.com . My post on "Faireyization" is here. Most of the economists I read are not happy with Geithner's plan. It uses massive government loans to minimize the downside risk for investors who buy "big shitpile" securities. Here's Krugman ripping the plan apart : To this end the plan proposes to create funds in which private investors put in a small amount of their own money, and in return get large, non-recourse loans from the taxpayer, with which to buy bad — I mean misunderstood — assets. This is supposed to lead to fair prices because the funds will engage in competitive bidding. But it’s immediately obvious, if you think about it, that these funds will have skewed incentives. In effect, Treasury will be creating — deliberately! — the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For t...

This would have been a good idea : Imagine a newspaper with no "Business" section. Where the Business section is now, there is, instead, a "Work" section. It would make sense for the paper from a, you know, business standpoint. Higher circulation means more revenue for the paper, so it makes sense to focus on the needs, concerns and interests the largest number of potential readers. The current model of a Business section is designed for only the tiniest slice of potential readers -- those who think of themselves primarily as investors . Why not aim, instead, for the vastly larger, overwhelming majority of potential readers, those who think of themselves primarily as people who work for a living? [...] Think how differently that section of the paper would have evolved if it had been the Work section instead of the Business section. It wouldn't have two pages of dense, inscrutable columns of stock prices tailored to people who think of themselves as "inves...

Or hate Social Security so much they don't care about their own financial interest : But the survey also found that 33% of adults over 60 would give up their benefit to be able to opt out now. To save 6.2% on their taxes for the next few years, they are willing to give up 10+ years of future benefits worth about $12,700 per year (average benefit is currently $1056/month). I suppose some of them might be terminally ill, but for the vast majority, that is completely irrational. This survey suggests that 1/3 of our soon-to-retire population has questionable financial judgement. If that isn't an argument FOR mandatory social security, I don't know what is.

The Fed has begun " quantitative easing ", which I think means inventing money out of thin air and using it to buy stuff: Good Evening: After months of threats, the Fed finally pushed the monetization button. Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and the rest of the FOMC decided today to embark upon the one strategy central bankers have always considered the dreaded last option — Quantitative Easing. It’s one thing for the Fed to push the “Easy” button and lower rates or temporarily inject reserves into the banking system, but to push the “QE” button (creating currency out of thin air with which to purchase assets) is an action reserved for only the direst of circumstances. If such a device truly existed in the Board room of the Eccles building, it would be a red button under glass with a “Press Only in Case of Emergency” warning stenciled underneath. I don't know enough economics to know if it's a good thing or not. It seems like the biggest risk of this would be inflati...

Doctor Malignus: You FAILED , Namechanger Man! My plan to take over the world has SUCCEEDED ! I am SUPREME OVERLORD for ALL ETERNITY ! Now PRAISE your NEW RULER , vile WORM! Namechanger Man: All hail our eternal supreme overlord, Doctor Stupidhead Smallpenis. Doctor Stupidhead Smallpenis: NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Which Kupier Belt object are you? Which barnacle are you? Which useless feat from 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons are you? Which hair on Napoleon's nutsack are you? Which DailyKos diarist are you? Which California ballot initiative are you? Which piece of gravel in my driveway are you? Which kind of Duraflame log are you? Which sub-Saharan African nation are you? Which kind of food poisoning are you? Which member of Hall & Oates are you? Which STD are you? Which kind of bottled water are you? Which obscure Monty Python sketch are you? Which Secretary of Housing and Urban Development are you? Which hominid fossil are you? Which law of thermodynamics are you? Which term of Grover Cleveland's presidency are you? Which button on the Microsoft Word 2007 toolbar are you? Which episode of Starsky & Hutch are you? And of course: Which Facebook Quiz are you? I really think the genre has jumped the shark. UPDATE: From Roger on Facebook :...

From Mad Latinist via email:   pimp-master general   n.   humorous   Obs.  the chief of all pimps (as a supposed office or title). 1660  ( title ) The ladies champion confounding the author of the wandring whore, by Eugenius Theodidactus, powder-monkey, roguy-crucian, *pimp-master-general.  1696  M. P IX   Spanish Wives   I . ii. 5 Sir, you gave me five Ducats, as  I hope for Preferment, and to be made Pimp-master general, it deserves double the Sum. (from the OED)

Definitely more tweeny now.

Chris Bowers is flabbergasted by this bit of news : Financial stocks also gained support from news that the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which sets U.S. accounting rules, proposed to give more leeway on mark-to-market accounting rules. [ID:nN16511198] Mark-to-market accounting has forced financial institutions to write down billions of dollars in assets. As far as I understand it, " mark-to-market " means you have to value your assets at what you could actually sell them for on the market. It is contrasted with " mark to model " accounting where you value your assets according to a financial model that you have. (By the way, why does "mark-to-market" have hyphens but "mark to model" not?) It seems to me that we need a good deal more of the former and a good deal less of the latter. I realize that with certain kinds of assets, you need to take into account something other than what price you could get if you had to dump it at a ...

A quote from a fragment of AIGamemnon (via Mad Latinist ): CLYTAEMNESTRA Thanks to a substantial injection of public funds, my heart is freed from its anxiety and the annual bonuses may be paid. [To AIGAMEMNON ] So, my dear lord, dismount from your car, but do not set on common earth the foot that has trampled upon global markets. You to whom I have assigned the task to strew with bonuses, salary top-offs and the like, Quick! With something on the order of $160 million let his path be strewn, that Justice may usher him into a new quarter he never should have seen. The rest my unslumbering vigilance shall order duly, for if Geithner can be made to swallow this than, please god, pretty much fucking anything can be subsequently ordained. In ancient Greek tragedy, the gods inflicted horrible suffering on mortals, often beyond anything one would recognize as justice. In this modern tragedy, mortals inflict horrible suffering on other mortals and are rewarded beyond anything one would recog...

Dolphins at Sea World make cool bubble rings underwater and play with them:

Here's a good proposal : It is high time that we placed all the content of peer reviewed, academic journals online, for free, and without any employment-based firewalls. It is a simple, cheap way to make a big leap forward for our culture, our democracy and our educational system. Information like this should not be restricted to a small percentage of society for the enrichment of the academic publishing world. There really is no way to justify denying 95% of the country access to our best, peer-reviewed academic research. Academia isn't a priesthood. If the goal of your institution is to further intellectual progress and learning, there's no reason you should submit your work to a publisher who charges for reprints rather than put it on the web for free. If your livelihood depends on your position as a gatekeeper to a hoard of information, you better figure out how to add some value. This is analogous to what the newspapers are going through and comes down to the same is...

Internal Monologue is officially calling for Timothy Geithner to resign and be replaced by someone who will place the interests of the country above the interests of the executives of companies that this country has effectively bought (at significantly above market rates, I might add). This AIG bonus stuff is the last straw for me. Josh Marshall : Secretary Geithner found out about the bonuses. He told AIG CEO Edward Liddy it wouldn't fly. And Liddy, in a curiously imperial letter, tells Geithner that much as he is pained by the situation -- to blow it out his ass. Which he apparently proceeded to do. There's really no other way to describe it. [...] Few exchanges have so captured the disconnect that makes this situation so politically explosive. We're collectively taking our country's future in our hands, spending vast sums of money to keep these companies from suffering the consequences of their own folly and (in many cases) criminality. And in return we're rec...

Via Sullivan , an uncompromising autopsy of the newspaper industry by Clay Shirky. My favorite quote: It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem . Emphasis added. I also like this quote from a different post about how we like to share content: This is superdistribution — content moving from friend to friend through the social network, far from the original source of the story. Superdistribution, despite its unweildy name, matters to users. It matters a lot. It matters so much, in fact, that we will routinely prefer a shareable amateur source to a professional source that requires us to keep the content a secret on pain of lawsuit. (Wikipedia’s historical advantage over Britannica in one sentence.)

It's 3/14, so geeks should celebrate. [I sent this from my iPhone, so please excuse any excessive brevity or typographical errors.] --Zachary Drake

From Wolfgang Baur's mixed review of Player's Handbook 2 (D&D 4th Edition): There’s the lurking sense that the designers are cribbing from bad manga, rather than building on the shoulders of the D&D game’s own mythos. That’s a lost opportunity, and it’s a shame that a game that once prized itself on appealing to an educated audience is no longer even aiming for that. Basically, the PHB2 assumes you are sort of an idiot, whereas Gygax always assumed you were smarter than the average reader. The shift leaves me a little offended. Amen, my friend. Gary Gygax never talked down to us. As an intellectually precocious youngster, I can't tell you how important that was to me. 4th Edition is working great mechanically so far: its much more balanced, better paced, easier to run, etc. These are very necessary and welcome improvements. But it's not drawing me in to its own mythology, and it is neglecting the vast D&D mythology that already exists. This is a shame.

from this post on SEXY PEOPLE It must be witnessed to be comprehended...not for the feint of heart.

Oh, big surprise here. Not. Remember when right wingers applauded Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston for deciding to marry the father of her child? Well, now that the election's over, that pretense has been dropped : WASILLA, Alaska (AP) -- Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby. Johnston, 19, told The Associated Press that he and 18-year-old Bristol Palin mutually decided "a while ago" to end their relationship. He declined to elaborate as he stood outside his family's home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage. Of course, I don't know that they were insincere before the election. But the timing does coincide with Sarah Palin's political convenience. UPDATE: By the way, I think Bristol Palin has actually handled herself much better than all the right-wingers trying to use her as their poster-child/cautionary tale, inclu...

Tonight begins my new 4th edition campaign with my Berkeley D&D group. We're using the Scales of War adventure path, modified by me to make the storyline a little more coherent.

Good point, Yglesias : I’m increasingly frustrated with the conventions in which this idea is discussed in public. I think an ordinary person reading that sentence would think that the problem with Citi is that some of its assets are somehow “distressed” or “toxic” in a way that’s causing a problem for the rest of the bank. Take the toxicity off its hands, and the rest can go merrily about its way. But that’s not right. We can argue ’till the cows come home as to what the assets in question are “really” worth, but at a minimum they’re worth $0. And in practice they’re sure to be worth more than $0. Assets with a positive value can’t be a problem for a company. A company gets into trouble because of its debts . Citi’s problem isn’t that it has toxic assets, it’s that it made loans backed with toxic assets . You don’t rescue banks by “tak[ing] distressed assets off the balance sheet of Citigroup or other troubled financial institutions.” The problem isn’t the assets, it’s the debts. You ...

No, Obama, don't add another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan : Nearly every expert seems to agree that 17,000 additional troops will be insufficient to stabilize Afghanistan. Andrew Bacevich says 17,000 troops "hardly amounts to more than a drop in the bucket." Robert Pape believes the Obama administration is merely rehashing the same surge strategy employed in Iraq. And Stephen Kinzer says, "The Afghans are probably the world champions in resisting foreign domination and infiltration into their country," meaning that if 500,000 Russian soldiers were unable to quell Afghan resistance in the 1980's, how well will 17,000 more US soldiers fare?

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) is going to get a primary challenge from Pat Toomey, the Club for Growth (i.e. right wing) candidate. It's likely he'll lose this challenge, and then it's likely Pat Toomey will lose to a Democrat in the general. But who knows? Specter could veer to the right to fend off Tomey, but this would damage him in what has become a heavily Democratic state. Or he could switch parties and become a Democrat, and then kick Toomey's butt in the general as a Democrat. Oh, the howls from his betrayed Republican party would be most sweet to hear!

There's no law that says a depression can't be worse than the Great Depression. [I sent this from my iPhone, so please excuse any excessive brevity or typographical errors.] --Zachary Drake

I made a joke about such an applet on Facebook , but the DCCC went ahead and made one .

In this post I mentioned I should get some data on Rush's unpopularity outside the right-wing base. Here it is: Gallup at the end of January: Republicans like him 60/23, but independents don't 25/45 and Democrats really don't 6/63. Max Blumenthal : An October 24, 2008, poll conducted by the Democratic research firm Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner has Rush Limbaugh enjoying a public-approval rating of just 21 percent among likely voters, while 58 percent have “cold” feelings toward the right-wing radio-talk-show host. Limbaugh’s cold rating was higher than that of all the political figures the firm polled. It was seven points higher than Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright and eight points higher than former Weather Underground domestic terrorist William Ayers. (As the firm points out in an email, it’s true that Wright and Ayers both had lower “warm” ratings than Limbaugh—as you’d expect for men who have virtually no constituencies.) Rasmussen from back in March 2007 puts L...

That didn't take long : Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.” “My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. ... There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or is leadership.” ...Steele, who won a hard-fought chairman's race on Jan. 30, told Politico he telephoned Limbaugh after his show on Monday afternoon and hoped that they would connect soon. “I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. Sullivan : It's Rush's party now. So why shouldn't he run for president in 2012? Make Palin his veep - and be done with it.

A whole bunch of newspapers have been in trouble recently, and everyone is wondering what the new business model will be. Here's a thought: Is there a place for government-supported public newspapers? We have public television and public radio, so why not public newspapers? This post by dday on Hullabaloo offers some good insight into what holes the deaths of these newspapers mean and the sorts of holes they leave.

Republicans today have a dilemma: Do they embrace Rush Limbaugh or not? If they do, they alienate the majority of Americans who don't particularly care for him. (I should get some data on that, but he's on record saying he hopes Obama fails , and Obama is currently enjoying a 67/21 approval rating .) But if Republicans try to distance themselves from Limbaugh, their activist base gets really angry : Is [GOP Chair Michael Steele] nuts? Does he not want contributions? You insult or stand AGAINST Rush....you are spitting on your base. Looks like I may have to change my affiliation to INDEPENDENT (until CONSERVATIVE) is allowed. I didn’t leave the Republican party...they left me. Rahm Emanuel throws the Limbaugh anvil around the Republican party in this clip: (Via Muzikal203 on DailyKos .) I've got my popcorn and I'm eagerly watching the show.

Here are some things I just learned about the boardgame Clue : Outside of North America, it's called Cluedo . Outside of North America, the character "Mr. Green" is "Reverend Green". Did they fear that having a preacher as a murder suspect would provoke a religious backlash against the game in the United States?