Someone (JMF, I think) recommended that I what Prometheus. But it was one of those “you should probably see this” rather than “this is really good” recommendations. It is a curious film. It is a prequel for Alien but uses a fanciful notion to get there. It uses the Prometheus myth, but in a surprisingly stupid and direct way. Basically, despite our sharing the vast majority of the DNA of most other mammals, we were created by some alien (who looks like he shares 99% of his DNA with chimps) who commits suicide. Or something.

The film deals with this by having one of the characters counter the nonsense of this argument by noting if the Engineers really did create us, it would mean that two centuries of science on natural selection was wrong. To this, the female scientist responds (as she does throughout the film), “I choose to believe.” Well then, I guess no more need be said! Perhaps a better ploy would have been to put up some blinking subtitles, “Begin suspension of disbelief now…”

The plot of the film also makes little sense. The robot infects the male doctor, which kills him and gets the female doctor pregnant with a creature, whose sole purpose is creating an alien in another host: you know, the double host procreation cycle that is so common in advanced organism. But that’s not even what’s confusing. Why did the robot infect the male doctor? We don’t know. He just did it because… I know! Robots in Ridley Scott films are evil while robots in James Cameron films are good. Or something.

There is one moment in the film when the writers seem to have awaken from their somnolent composing to realize that the whole film didn’t make sense. The robot asks the male scientist why he wants to meet his maker. It highlights the fact that the robot lives among his makers and he has no special insights because of it. The big issue here is that ontologically this quest is childish. Surly after meeting their maker the humans would then want to go on to meet their maker’s maker.

The film is little more than a muddle trying to make itself to an ending where the crew of the original Alien can find a crashed spaceship infested with alien eggs. It also makes numerous awkward allusions to the Alien film series. But it does manage to engage the viewer throughout. Scott is nothing if not a good painter of scenes. Unfortunately, the script doesn’t seem to even try to make sense the way the other films in the series did. (Note: I haven’t seen Alien vs. Predator and its sequel.)

Afterword

If you ever have to kill me, I would prefer a bullet in the head. Please do not burn me alive as they seem to like to do in Alien films. You could also cut off my head. I understand that setting people on fire makes for great images, but can’t we at least agree that no one is going to beg to be burned to death—especially when other options are available?

This is from an article this morning in Politico: “Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson are back at it, pushing the White House and congressional Republicans to get off the partisan sidelines and strike a deal that can keep government debt in check.” This is why we have major problems in this country. This is why basic economic facts don’t matter. This is why people who have been wrong again and again and again are still treated as thoughtful policy thinkers.

There are so many things wrong with this. Perhaps most important, this is editorial masquerading as journalism. The writers don’t know what Bowles and Simpson are up to; they only know what these two men say they are up to. As I’ve reported in the past, Simpson and Bowles are not honest brokers when it comes to the deficit. Their first task is to reduce the top marginal tax rate. There second task is to gut entitlement programs. After that, if the deficit gets reduced, great! But that isn’t their main concern.

Also: who says government debt is not in check? And how exactly is the White House on “the partisan sidelines”? Obama has been only too willing to make these deals. But this is the same old false equivalence that exacts no price from Republicans for being extreme and obstructionist even while giving Democrats no credit for compromising.

Matt Yglesias points this out the Simpson-Bowles bait and switchin a surprisingly funny article today, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles Unveil “New” “Deficit Reduction” Plan. He notes that Obama has already taken their recommendations for a $4 trillion cut to the deficit over 10 years—$2.5 trillion of that having already been enacted. That leaves $1.5 trillion of deficit reduction to go. But suddenly, these gentlemen are back saying we must reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion:

I can tell you why it has: the big media figures are all economic conservatives. They all love the idea of balancing the budget on the backs of the poor while giving themselves a tax break. What could be better?

In a later article, Yglesias points out that most of the increase in the deficit reduction demanded by the new Simpson-Bowles plan is due to it just being later. But this doesn’t really fly when you consider that much of the savings that Obama has made in the budget has been in effect for almost two years now. Of course, it doesn’t really matter. The fact remains that their primary goals have nothing whatsoever to do with the budget; they just think that the government should spend its money differently: less for the poor and more for the super rich. And with a big assist from the major media, they will eventually get everything they desire and more.

This article title refers to Night of the Simpson-Bowles.

Update (19 February 2013 1:26 pm)

Ezra Klein shows that there is a big change in the new plan: they are calling for much less revenue compared to spending cuts. In other words, they are getting closer and closer to the Republican Plan of no taxes: put it all on the backs of the poor! But don’t worry Simpson-Bowles are Very Serious!

Update (19 February 2013 7:43 pm)

It’s amazing how many people have written about this subject. I thought about doing a round up, but there is just too much. It is all of two kinds. Much of it is the usual Very Serious People approach that claims that we should break out the champagne just to celebrate that we have great thinkers like Simpson and Bowles to show us the way. Obviously, you don’t need to read any of that nonsense. Of the coverage that is worth reading, it is all pretty much the same as I’ve reported here. However, Timothy Noah wrote a piece that I think really gets to the heart of the deception that is the new Simpson-Bowles plan, Simpson-Bowles Is Back—With More Bad Ideas:

And speaking of George Washington dying from blood letting: the sea lamprey. The photo on the left is apparently of a large sea lamprey from the waters of New Jersey. These things are parasites that latch onto fish and literally bleed them to death—just like the best physicians of the 18th century! According to GrindTV, this picture is either shot in such a way to make the blood sucking vermin look big or it is photoshopped. They can grow up to three feet in length, but this one looks like it is twice that length. (Then again, my friend Will tells me that New Jersey has more Superfund sites than any other state. So who knows?)

Depending upon your background, this parasitic bastard either looks like the creature in the Alien movies or a monster from an H. P. Lovecraft story. As for me, it makes me think of our first president. Of course Cthulhu always makes me think of him.

You probably think that today was President’s Day. But you are wrong: according to the federal government, it was Washington’s Birthday. And in keeping with my tradition of ruining holidays, this makes my task much easier. Although note: there is no reason to destroy good holidays like this one where nothing is expected of me. What’s more, today a lot of people were writing that I wasn’t expecting. Jonathan Chait was in fine form. And The Plum Line blog was working at about half capacity.

As is more or less common knowledge, George Washington was the richest president we ever had, even though he never got to see a movie and there is a lot of folklore to the effect that his access to dental care was poor. And he didn’t have very good healthcare. He got sick and his doctor bled him to death. But that’s pretty common today: doctors kill a lot more people than is normally realized. But he did have one thing that we don’t: slaves. In fact, he had 300 of them. And that and his land is the basis of his vast wealth. Interestingly, the second richest president was Jefferson. Hmm, what do they have in common? (Jefferson had more slaves: over 650!)

So maybe we should change the name of this holiday to something more appropriate like: Slave Owning Bastards We Revere Day. Or: Our Dirty Little Secret Day. Or: Ain’t Slavery Grand Day! (That last one needs the exclamation mark as part of its name.) The funny thing is that most people rate Washington very highly as president—often as number one. I’ve never really understood this. To me, the only great thing he did (and I admit, this is a big deal) is step down after two terms. Certainly, he was popular enough to have taken the country in a very bad direction. Then again, because of the bleeding, he died shortly after leaving office, so maybe it didn’t matter.

Regardless, it’s nice to have a day off. I just wish it were for a better reason. How about Typhoid Mary Day?!

Last week, Reed Richardson wrote a really good column comparing the Republican and Tea Party responses to the State of the Union address, How the Media Skews its State-of-the-Union Response Coverage. I thought about this before the event. Marco Rubio is a Tea Party darling. He wasn’t going to say anything that the Tea Party would disagree with. So what’s with the Tea Party response?

Richardson notes that the Tea Party is only supported by about 8% of the population and yet the major media treat it like an important group. Compare this to a Gallup poll that found that 36% of Americans view socialism positively. That’s 4.5 times as many people. And what do we get from the major media: a heavy diet of extreme Tea Party policy.

Let’s look at budget ideas. Paul Ryan has offered up two budgets in a row. These are harsh policy ideas that large majorities of Americans disagree with. What’s more, they aren’t really budgets at all: they are just claims that somehow (Magic!) the budget will be balanced. Ryan never explains what he will cut. (This is typical of Republicans because they know that what they want to cut is toxic to most people.) This unserious and unpopular budget gets loads of attention from everyone in the media!

Now compare that to the yearly People’s Budget from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It is an actual budget: it says what it will cut (lots of military spending). Say what you will about it, it is a serious budget and it is far more popular than Ryan’s budget. And yet: most people don’t even know it exists because the media don’t cover it.

I think it is an outrage why truly liberal ideas that are fairly popular are considered outside of the Overton Window while extremely unpopular conservative ideas are considered just things that important people say—things that deserve blanket coverage on the the TV machine. Why is this? Journalists usually argue that it is because these liberal ideas have no chance of passing. Even ignoring the obvious self-fulfilling aspect of this: the same thing can be said about the conservative ideas that these journalists do cover.

My theory for why this happens is a little complex. It comes from the fact that regarding economic issues, journalists tend to be conservative. When it comes to social issues, they tend to be liberal. But here’s the key: they think of themselves as liberal in a general sense. Thus, they mistake their conservative opinions about economics as liberal. They push against this because they want to be seen as objective. And so their reporting on economic issues gets even more conservative.

I’ve written about this quite a lot. It frustrates me that MSNBC is seen as a liberal network. Most of the time when I watch it, I see a lot of socially progressive ideas but mostly moderate or even conservative economic discussion. This bugs me because I continue to think that social issues don’t matter all that much. If we have extreme economic inequality (which we do), then we are not going to have social justice either—regardless of what the law is.

This is why when we have a Democratic president, we get two conservative responses to the SOTU address. And what’s more, both are fundamentally the same because there really is no difference between extreme and moderate Republicans: they are just Republicans. But when we have a Republican president, the media would never stand for a Democratic and Socialist responses. This even though the Socialist response would better represent the views of a large section of Americans than the Democratic response (much less the Tea Party response).

Afterword

I am not against social liberal policy. It is important and at times it is the most important thing. Voting rights can often take precedence. My point is that social issues are not a substitute for economic issues. If someone is a social liberal and an economic conservative, then he is a conservative. Or let me be perfectly blunt: social conservatives are bigots. So most American journalists are not bigots. Hooray for them! But that doesn’t make them liberal.

I often wonder why people have such a low opinion of bloggers. In my experience, there are a lot of good bloggers out there. It is downright scary just how talented a lot of people are. And then there are the bloggers who never really try. It is surprising how many blogs have one post. But mostly, people do it for a few months and then stop. But that’s like anything: a lot of people buy guitars that just sit in their closets. Why do people think bloggers are idiots?

Ladies and gentlemen: Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm! I discovered her this morning from Jonathan Chait, a man who knows comedy when he sees it, even if it is unintended. Wilhelm is kind of a Tea Party idiot, but not as smart. She blogs over at the Avon-Avon Lake Patch. And man does she care about wasteful spending! For example, last week she had an idea for how the government can save money by not posting signs for animals, Animals Can’t Talk:

As Chait notes, “What else could the signs be for, if not for the animals themselves?” I wonder! Isn’t it just like the stupid government to go posting signs for animals? I mean, I know it’s in picture form, but really! I mean, it doesn’t even make sense. Deer near another part of the road won’t even see those signs! I can see maybe putting up “no deer crossing” signs so the deer would know that the government (Which wants to limit the liberty of deer!) doesn’t want them to cross there. But what’s the point of telling deer, “Here is where we want you to cross?” This is madness!

Wilhelm ends her article in such a way that you can’t think she’s just kidding: “Yes, signs are important—to humans; ‘Stop’ signs, and others are more than just costly decorations scattered along the roadways. However, depending on the school district, most humans can read them, but animals not so much.” Oh, how charming! Depending on the school district! Get it? Because our schools are so bad, people can’t read the word stop. And animals can’t read at all. But she’s very clever there with that, “Not so much”!

You may be asking yourself, “Sure, she’s an idiot and that often does mean she’s a conservative. But how do you know?” Well, in the text I’ve quoted, I think it is pretty clear. There’s the assumption that the government just wastes money on stuff. (Interestingly: she looks old enough to be on Social Security, which I bet she doesn’t think is wasteful.) Regardless of that, she has written a lot of other things. Consider this golden oldie from right before last year’s election, Obama’s Going to Take Your Stuff!

Yes my friends, Kathleen O’Brien Wilhelm is one of those people. She’s dangerous. You may have thought that Joe Scarborough was ignorant. But there are legions of people like Wilhelm out there who are willfully ignorant, believing in things that are patently false. (Death panels! Czars! Free cell phones!) And I’ll bet she has a lot of people who hang on her every word—people who right now are writing letters complaining about those wasteful deer crossing signs because, damn it, deer can’t read!