Tuesday Open Thread
Welcome to our Tuesday Open Thread. First day back at the grind after a long weekend and apparently we are in for a real heat wave all week. It is too early to have to crank up the AC. Just make sure all of your new plants have plenty of water this week.
The European Magazine interviews Rolf-Dieter Heuer, who is the director of the European Organization for Nuclear Research and also oversees the CERN laboratories in Switzerland. Great (but too short) interview with Heuer discussing the mis-naming of the “God-particle”; the limits of human knowledge and the boundaries between science and religion:
The European: Let us talk about the idea of the divine. For much of human history, religion and science were deeply intertwined. Galileo was expelled from the church for questioning those links. How would you separate the two realms?
Heuer: We separate knowledge from belief. Particle physics is asking the question of how did things develop? Religion or philosophy ask about why things develop. But the boundary between the two is very interesting. I call it the interface of knowledge. People start asking questions like “if there was a Big Bang, why was it there?” For us physicists, time begins with the Big Bang. But the question remains whether anything existed before that moment. And was there something even before the thing that was before the Big Bang? Those are questions where knowledge becomes exhausted and belief starts to become important.
One of the amusing things about listening to the media discuss Newt Gingrich is their insistence that Newt represents the *intellectual* of Republican Party politics these days. As if the barely coded BS of “con man” or “Kenyan” or “socialist” counts as intellectual heft. Michael Lind at Salon takes a look at another of the brain-dead intellects of the right, Niall Ferguson, who is currently hawking another disposable book:
Ferguson is the most prominent of a number of British conservative intellectuals and journalists who have found more sympathetic audiences in the U.S. than in their own country, where their enthusiasm for Victorian imperialism and Victorian economics stigmatizes them as cranks. His Old World accent and reactionary politics might not have been sufficient to earn Niall Ferguson his cisatlantic celebrity, were it not for the demise of American intellectual conservatism, chronicled by Sam Tanenhaus and others. The mass extinction of America’s intellectual right at the hands of anti-intellectual Jacksonian populists like the Tea Partyers has created a lack of native conservative thinkers with impressive academic credentials who are willing to dash to a TV studio at a moment’s notice. And in an era when the conservative movement is symbolized by lightweights like Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg, rather than William F. Buckley Jr., George Will and Irving Kristol, even Niall Ferguson can be mistaken for an intellectual.
Ouch! But dead on and it never ceases to amaze me how reverently these self-styled intellectuals are referred to in the media. When the wingnut right are busily racing to the bottom, there is no need to either join them or help them normalize their BS.
And, for fun, How The Apocalypse Would Happen If Heaven Were A Small Non-Profit
Are you catching up with the world today? What interests you out there?
Tags: Open Thread, Science
Republicans offer to let one hostage go if Dems testify the deficit is their fault.
Basically, House Repubs are putting up a bill with a clean authorization to raise the debt limit, but the bill also contains a “finding” that the debt limit is being raised because of Obama’s budget proposal. There is an interesting debate on dKos about whether Dems should take that deal.
I say yes. Call their bluff. Get the debt-limit hostage out of harm’s way.
The Biden group is currently busy negotiating concessions to the right to win Republican support for the debt limit. But if we can get it for free, Biden should cancel those talks this afternoon. Then we can stop talking about concessions and move on to the budget with one less hostage to worry about.
anon – Dems take the deal. Do it now. You are giving away nothing because Republicans live in their own reality anyway.
Here’s something:
Please Make Some Calls To The Transportation/Land Use and Infrastructure Committee In Support Of The ‘Traffic” Bill That DelDOT Wants To Kill
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD about the AGENDA for this Delaware State House committee hearing tomorrow and get people to make calls today – tonight, if possible, and attend the meeting on Wednesday. Call the committee members and Speaker Gilligan! The word is out that DelDOT doean’t like this bill and that Deputy Attorney General Fritz Schrank-their lawyer, will be there to discount this bill.
WHAT: House Committee: Transportation/Land Use and Infrastructure
WHO: Dems – William Carson, Jr. Chair Gerald Brady Vice Chair Edward S. Osienski Earl Jaques, Jr.; GOP – Gregory Lavelle Ruth Briggs King
WHERE: House Majority Hearing Room at 1PM
AGENDA – HS 1 for HB 101
Sponsor: Hudson Additional Sponsor(s): Sens. Blevins – CoSponsors: Reps. Ramone, Brady, Carson, Keeley, Mitchell; Sen. Ennis
AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 17 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO AGREEMENTS THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION MAKES WITH LOCAL JURISDICTIONS FOR TRAFFIC STUDIES RELATED TO DEVELOPMENT.
Synopsis: Memorandums of Understanding (MOAs) exist between the Department of Transportation and local governments to guide their interaction on land use development.This bill requires the Department of Transportation and local jurisdictions to rework their MOUs which may be in conflict with the authority of the Department of Transportation as set forth in this Bill. It requires the Department to put a greater emphasis on safety factors. It allows the Department to use its discretion to broaden, if necessary, any traffic study that will be required in conjunction with an application. This should help diminish future road congestion throughout the State. The bill also requires the Department to analyze the future costs to the State of construction and maintenance in conjunction with the project for which the application is submitted. It provides additional specific data that the local jurisdiction should consider in making its decision. Subsection (c) also mandatesthat traffic studies will not be based on traffic counts obtained on days or in periods when schools are not in session except on roads that have increased traffic due to weekend and vacation trips. Subsection (b) requires a TIS for all new development and redevelopment that will increase the traffic load. If the Department believes a full TOA is needed, it shall be treated with the same effect as the TIS. Subsection (d) requires a study of a signalized intersection in each direction from a proposed project for which the traffic needs to be studied. Subsection (e) mandates a TOA for project that will mean 50,000 square feet of additional gross floor area, or a 10% increase in traffic at the nearest large intersection not at the project entrance. Subsection (f) requires a report on bridges that may be impacted by a site development or rezoning. Subsection (g) requires DelDOT to coordinate with local jurisdictions to insure the developer meets its agreedto terms recorded on the Record Plan. Subsection (h) makes clear that the Department of Transportation has the final authority over the roads and highways of this State. The public safety must be paramount, and federal law must be considered in the air quality standards that can cut off federal funds if exceeded. Backed up traffic is the single greatest contributor to bad air quality.
Well, perhaps I overstated it a bit.. Repubs didn’t actually agree to vote for their own bill… and they included a 2/3 majority clause. So it might not be that good a deal for Democrats, except as a thought exercise to make us consider more carefully what Biden’s group is giving away.
I’ve been pointing out for weeks now that sitting back and waiting for these guys to deliver a clean bill on this is as close to a perfect hand as they’ll ever get. And although the GOP wants you to believe that the vote they just had (not exactly clean) is to make Dems pay some political price. Except — it is the Business Community who really wants this debt limit raised and they have good reasons for it.
If Dems were smarter, this letter from these business representatives *ought* to be the basis of an ad campaign that tells Americans that Republicans are not only going against the interests of business trying to recover, but are actively trying to make the economy worse. The beauty part of this is that it lets these Dems look Business Friendly which they want to do above all else.
“I say yes. Call their bluff. Get the debt-limit hostage out of harm’s way.”
Wrong move. As E.J. Dionne has pointed out, the Republicans are employing a game theory strategem known as the Madman ploy. The goal is to convince your opponent that you are so crazy you might do anything, prompting him to give in to prevent it. As Cassandra notes, it is the Republicans’ own friends in the business community who will put a stop to the strategem.
If they fail to raise the limit and disaster ensues, nobody will be blaming the Democrats (except those who blame them for everything anyway). If disaster fails to ensue, then hunky dory.
Agreed, Geezer. Voting Yes only makes sense if the bill passes. If Repubs won’t vote for their own bill, there’s no point in playing their game.
So now we wait to see what the Biden group gives away to Republicans for the debt limit. Obama is meeting with Repubs and Dems this week to discuss the Biden negotiations. It sounds like an agreement has been reached and Obama is showing up to close the deal. We’ll find out about it after it is too late. It is a familiar pattern by now.
Obama’s original budget proposal already got to about a trillion dollars in cutbacks — including some cutbacks in places he probably shouldn’t have cut back. Nonetheless, Biden is already indicating that they’ll get to a trillion and so is Cantor. This couldn’t have been all that hard since there was already a trillion in cutbacks already identified by the Administration.
Many Dems are now calling this nothing more than a political stunt…a joke. However, these were the same people that were calling for the clean up or down vote as recently as two weeks ago! Talk about a joke! The Dems bluff has been called and Steny is right to call on all Dems to vote no. He knows what it will mean if they don’t. You, Cassandra, are apparently too stupid or too naive too see it.
It is a stunt. And one that requires a 2/3 majority to approve. Which isn’t exactly a clean bill. Which Dems won’t get with this House, right? So putting up a bill that can’t possibly pass according to its own rules is a stunt by definition.
But apparently you don’t get that this is a stunt that *should* backfire on the GOP. Maybe not now, but when you start seeing your guys talking about voting against it before they voted for it, you’ll know who got the short end of that stunt. So next time you want to call somebody stupid, you better double check your mirror.
In what way are the Democrats bluffing? You ought to be a little slower to call others stupid and/or naive, because I didn’t see anything smart or sophisticated in your comment.
The Jon Stewart / Anthony Wiener / Dewey Beach Connection
http://blogs.delawareonline.com/pulpculture/2011/06/01/the-dewey-show-with-jon-stewart/
So how much does it cost to fly a NJ State Trooper Chopper for an hour? So now add the fact that you are carrying a 600lb slob pretending to be a cost cutting Governor. Now add the fact that he was choppered in to see his kid’s little league game. NOW add the fact that he could not even walk 300 feet from the chopper to the stands of the game, but had to ride in a state car for 300 feet.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/01/981069/-Chris-Christie-defends-using-state-helicopter-to-attend-sons-baseball-game?via=blog_1
You can get a helicopter tour of Manhattan for approx $1200 – 1500 per half hour (that is renting the entire vehicle for yourself).
Christie is a fraud.
So are his teabag supporters.