numbskulduggery

Let 2015 be the year we remember that you don’t have to be a good person to make good art; that the making of good art does not sanctify you as a person; and in fact, that the existence of a lot of excellent art depends for its inspiration on the unhappiness and imperfection of its creators. Let’s stop acting like we’re shocked, shocked when an artist we love is revealed to be a flawed human and acknowledge that in pursuit of something we love. And then let’s figure out what we want to do with that information, beyond simply reacting with outrage.

~Dean Baker

addendum: Days are hard.

Pim Pom

Chuck Moore, a consultant for the city, described one fire station’s Rube Goldberg machine in September during testimony in Detroit’s bankruptcy trial: When an emergency alert comes in, a fax machine is triggered. This shoots out a piece of paper, which knocks over a soda can full of change, notifying those at the station of the situation. At another station, a fax comes in and bumps a door hinge, which pulls a wire and rings a doorbell.

That said, I find the dominant conversation about the incident -- the conversation about whether the NFL should have suspended Ray Rice for more games, to be off-putting and wrong headed. While I think Ray Rice should face criminal sanctions, and think the fact that he is not facing significant criminal sanctions is likely a miscarriage of justice, I do not think that we should regard private businesses as proper courts for the administration of justice. The irony here is that it is those on the political left who are most concerned with the issue of domestic violence, but their chosen remedy, which increases the power of private enterprises over their employees while doing nothing to address the failure of the public sector, plays into the hands of the political right. 

I probably should have disclosed that Lowe is my wife's longtime celebrity crush, so I was probably motivated here by Darwinian hostility against a romantic rival. If I was destined to fight with Lowe for my wife's love, I have selected the most favorable possible grounds to do so: A debate over tax policy.

Jeff Frichette, director of training for The Range 702 in Las Vegas, said the incident in Arizona would never occur at his business. He credited this to how continuously shooting range’s safety officers are trained. “Hypothetically” a 9-year-old would be able to shoot a fully-automatic weapon, but it’s a discretionary decision, he said. That decision is based on physical and safety guidelines, he said. Children need to understand the concept of safety before they are allowed to shoot, Frichette said. Also, they must be “physically and mentally prepared” before they are allowed to shoot a fully automatic weapon. This includes a 4-foot height requirement, he said, adding that even then, they have to master other weapons such as a semi-automatic .22-caliber rifle before they’re allowed to shoot a fully automatic. He added that a petite-looking child would likely only be allowed to shoot a semi-automatic rifle.

--Barack Obama

Saturday beats part two, an Omega track I'm not even a little bit ashamed to like.

Saturday beats that I can't really defend liking.

In American politics, to get your ideal policy outcomes you need to overcome a multiplicity of veto points. This rarely happens. The fundamental dilemma on immigration, as on so many other things, is that Republicans are failing to respond to this in a rational way. If you can't get what you want, you ought to consider the realistic alternatives in order of preference and try to get the best possible outcome. But Republicans have repeatedly decided to elevate clean hands and the right to be indignant about the evils of Obama-ism over attempting to advance any substantive goals. This leads, naturally, to a situation conservatives find frustrating. They have a majority in the House and many seats in the Senate and Obama's approval ratings are underwater, yet conservatives keep ending up with terrible policy outcomes. What they don't realize, however, is that they fault for this lies not with their stars but with themselves. But the facts are what they are. Conservatives are getting an outcome they hate because they decided — once again — to eschew any effort to have input into the direction of policy.

McCarthy argues, persuasively, that it's a mistake to see impeachment as an essentially judicial process. It is undertaken by elected officials, and is meant to be a political action that serves political purposes. Republicans who want to defeat Obama, he thinks, should recognize that hanging him on some legal technicality proven beyond all reasonable doubt is not the point. Such violations are neither necessary nor sufficient to make the case for impeachment. The real case is the political case. Obama's agenda has been rejected, and yet he continues to seek to advance it.

-President Barack Obama

It strikes me as distasteful at best to have poor heads-of-households sit down, explain why they are poor, and map their way out of poverty. We do use conditions in other social programs. We ask recipients of unemployment insurance and welfare, for instance, to demonstrate that they are working or looking for work. It often involves checking in with a human being, tracking your time, and so on. But the “life plan” proposal takes that a gigantic step further — creating, in essence, poverty probation officers who decide whether the poor are working hard enough to receive government aide.