I have a bone to pick with Greg Sargent. I appreciate his effort, but how long can the man go on spouting happy horseshit without realizing that it has become discouraging. At least a few times per week, he writes something along the lines of, “Boehner has already admitted Republicans won’t allow default.” In this he is talking about how the Republicans have signaled (and in some cases came right out and said) that they will not allow the federal government to default because of a refusal to raise the Debt Ceiling. Oh, though it were so!

It is true that Boehner said, “I’m not going to risk the full faith and credit of the federal government.” But one can only read so much into that. To begin with, Boehner is talking about himself, not the party. But far more important, the statement sounds like a hope more than a commitment. If he is signaling, it is to his caucus, not to the rest of the nation. It’s more like, “Please guys, don’t do this!” And since saying it, he’s been pretty quiet.

My take on the situation is far less sanguine. Even when Boehner was doing his reasonableness tour, much of the Republican Party was enamored with the idea of crashing the economy. I know how revolutionaries feel about this kind of stuff. It is an exciting prospect to remake the society without all those compromises that we’ve allowed over the last 225 years. Just like young science fiction fans, they see only the good in a post-apocalyptic world.

Even worse, many conservatives seem to have been emboldened by the Sequester. When it went into effect without a global meltdown, they took it as more evidence that fears of any policy are overblown. (Of course, no one said the Sequester would cause a global meltdown—only that it would harm people and the economic recovery.) I think there are easily 100 Republicans in the House who are chomping at the bit to crash the economy. The fact that John Boehner indicates that he doesn’t want to do that doesn’t mean all that much.

The real question is whether the GOP establishment can figure out a way to raise the Debt Ceiling without it looking like a political defeat. That’s going to be important not just for the more radical members of the party. We all know that most Republicans worry primarily about being challenged from the right in a primary. In general, I think such concerns are overblown. Last year, for example, there was great concern that Orrin Hatch would lose his primary. So Hatch moved even further to the right. But in the end, he got more than twice as many votes as his challenger Dan Liljenquist. Just like Democrats pandering to the middle, Republican concerns about right flank attacks are mostly mythical. But they believe them and that could cause them to allow a default, even when they know it is a bad thing.

Hopefully, they will realize crashing the economy will not just be bad for the country; it will be bad for them. Most of these Republicans would suddenly find they have much more to worry about in the general election. With half the country out of a job, they would have nothing better to do than show up at the polls.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of politicians doing things they knew would hurt them. That’s certainly what the leaders of the South did. They went for it all and lost it all. That’s all good. But it also cost the lives of over 600,000 people. But that’s always the case: powerful men thrive despite their mistakes and weak men (by the millions) suffer. Jefferson Davis not only lived 24 years past the end of the Civil War, but he remained rich and respected. Regardless what happens, Ted Cruz’s good life is assured.

Jordan Ellenberg over at Slate reported on Yitang Zhang and the big goings on in the field of prime number theory. There are two stories. One is that Zhang managed to prove some thousands of year old questions. The other is that he is in his 50s.

As I hope you know, a prime number is any natural number that is divisible only by itself and the number one. So 7 is prime, but 9 is not because it is divisible by 3. The first few prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 17, 19, 23, 29. Why are prime numbers interesting? Well, there are many reasons that mathematicians study them. The most fundamental reason, which you may remember from school, is that all natural numbers can be represented by a product of prime numbers. For example, 24 equals 2×2×2×3. But mostly, I think that prime numbers are interesting because they are strange and difficult.

The big news is that Zhang proved that the set of consecutive odd numbers that are prime is unbound. I know what you’re thinking, “Wow! I have no idea what you just said!” Don’t worry, it is very simple. An example of this is 5 and 7: they are consecutive odd numbers and they are prime. On the other hand, 7 and 11 are consecutive prime numbers but they are not consecutive odd numbers; 9 is in the middle.

As you can see in the list of the first 9 prime numbers above, the further you go up, the larger the gap between prime numbers. In general. But its pretty random. The question is whether as the numbers get big whether these consecutive prime numbers stop occurring. They don’t. They get less common, but they never end. Apparently, mathematicians have long assumed that to be true. That amazed me because I always assumed it was not, but then I’m not a mathematician and I’ve never been that interested in number theory.

So the result isn’t amazing. What Yitang Zhang did is prove that this was so. He also proved some other things, but I had enough difficulty getting my head around this one. And of course, Zhang’s age makes for an interesting story in a world that (wrongly it turns out) thinks that only young people are great mathematicians.

The whole subject of prime numbers has always bugged me. From my earliest days I can remember being offended by the fact that the number 2 is prime. I don’t know how common this is, but I have always personalized numbers. One small part of that is a quasi-racist belief that even numbers are just better than odd numbers. The odd numbers are contrary; they offend me. The prime numbers are even worse! So how can a nice little even number be grouped with those thugs the primes? And it’s all because 2 is a Very Small Number. In fact, the number 2 is remarkable: it is divisible by every number equal to or less than itself.

Zhang’s brilliance was to treat prime numbers as random. That may seem obvious, but it’s not. The fact is that prime numbers are not random. But apparently, treating them like random numbers provides great insights. I don’t pretend to understand it. But I feel good that not everyone making important discoveries is younger than I am.

Afterword

Here are two rather large consecutive prime numbers: 104,681 and 104,683.

On this day in 1883, swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks was born. Actor, dancer, and musician Scatman Crothers was born in 1910. The great meteorologist and Chaos Theory pioneer Edward Norton Lorenz was born in 1917. And singer Rosemary Clooney was born in 1928.

Actress Joan Collins is 80 today. Chess grandmaster Anatoly Karpov is 62. Tuesdays with Morrie author Mitch Albom is 55. And Jewel is 39.

By a nose, the day belongs to botanist Carl Linnaeus who was born on this day in 1707. Linnaeus is the founder of the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature—the formal system for naming species. What I’ve always found so amazing is that the vast majority of species we categorized based upon attributes turned out to be dead right when we looked at genetics. As someone who is caught inside his own head and not very clear on the outside world, I find it amazing that others can see reality so clearly. It is hard to overstate his impact on biology.

Happy birthday Carl Linnaeus!

During the Great Depression, Roosevelt was very angry that the Supreme Court kept blocking his reforms. A slim majority on the Court was very conservative. (Sound familiar?) What could the president do? Well, he could pack the court. The number of people on the Supreme court is not stated in the Constitution. So Roosevelt threatened to add the number of seats on the court and fill them with pro-New Deal justices. Ultimately, this wasn’t done for a few reasons—most notably the retirement of a conservative judge that gave the liberals a small majority. But the point is, “court packing” does not refer to the normal procedure of presidents filling open seats.

Now you know more than Senator Chuck Grassley. In the debate over whether to allow Sri Srinivasan sit on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Grassley complained six times about Obama’s supposed efforts at “court packing.” He apparently thought that trying to fill vacancies was “court packing.” We see this problem again and again. Start with a Senator of relatively limited mental acumen. Let them age past the 70-year cognitive decline. And watch the stupid fly!

Dylan Matthews helpfully put together the following compilation of Grassley’s embarrassment:

Now, I don’t want to hear any complaints that most people don’t know what “court packing” was either. This is true. I’ve asked a number of people and there is widespread confusion on the matter. Just the same, none of these people go around complaining that Obama is engaged in “court packing.” They don’t even do it in private. And they certainly don’t have staffs that vet their talking points.

Of course, Grassley’s comments don’t exist in a vacuum. He probably got them from a Wall Street Journal editorial over the weekend, Packing the D.C. Circuit. The editors too are confused on the matter, thinking that liberals’ desire to fill the vacant seats as court packing. I am constantly amazed that modern conservatism has such a weak intellectual basis. Gone are the days of William F. Buckley. Now, the few good thinkers on the right are largely ignored. And the Wall Street Journal editorial page has long been nothing but a bastion of right wing freaks and conspiracy theorists.

I understand that Rush Limbaugh bases his talk show on the ravings of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. But Chuck Grassley? With his large taxpayer provided staff? This is just sad.

Afterword

The Bell Curve author Charles A. Murray is actually making the argument that African Americans are poor because they are stupid. People get confused about this fact, thinking that he’s just some bigot. No. All the eugenic inspired ridiculousness is done in the name of an attack on Affirmative Action. But United States Senators (and plenty of other rich and “successful” people) are constantly showing that they are pretty dim. Where’s the outrage over that?

Last week, God tweeted out the following:

Thus far, it has almost 10,000 retweets. Clearly, this is an example of retweet trolling. God knows how arrogant most atheists are. I am not, however. My mother used to say, “Don’t tempt the gods.” I think it’s good advice, even if I don’t happen to believe in any gods. Anyway, my ideas about the nature of reality are that even if this isn’t a universe in which you die and go to the heaven of the God of Abraham, such a universe must exist at some point somewhere. Or not. Regardless, I’m hedging my bets.

This morning, God tweeted another very smart thing (he’s God after all):

That explains everything! Millions live without healthcare so that Dick Cheney can get a new heart (regular or artificial) whenever he needs one. Thanks God!

Steven Dennis over at Roll Call goes after Rand Paul’s use of old talking points. Paul is going around saying, “We are now borrowing $40,000 a second. We are borrowing $4 billion a day.” Oh. My. God! Did he say “$4 billion a day”?! That’s a Very Large Number! And as normal with these kinds of pronouncements, there is no context at all.

Dennis reported that these numbers are no longer valid. With the huge decrease in the deficit, we are now borrowing half as much. But Rand Paul has not changed his talking points. I don’t know what Dennis is expecting. So the government is borrowing only $2 billion a day? The amount does not matter. It could be $2 million a day. What Paul is really saying is, “We are borrowing mumble mumble a day! Are you not outraged!”

Also note that Paul tweeted, “We borrow from China just to run the ordinary functions of government.” That’s technically true. But it is deceptive. The Chinese portion of government borrowing is 8%. The point is that Rand Paul has no interest in the budget or government borrowing. He just wants to scare everyone. “Look: big number!” It doesn’t matter whether the number is right or not. He’s deceiving people whatever the numbers are.

A similar thing happened last year. Rand Paul was on a talk show with Paul Krugman. Paul said that government spending was up; Krugman corrected him. Afterwords, Paul found out the truth: while Federal spending was up, total government spending was down. He then proceeded to dismiss this because apparently, only federal government spending counts. Rand Paul never lets the facts get in the way of his talking points.

Like most conservative zealots, Rand Paul is in a constant state of outrage about the government. Since he is ideologically committed to the idea that the government is by definition bad, he never looks at what the government does to figure out if any given part of it is good or bad. He just knows that it is all bad. And thus we get the comments like, “Do you know how much the government is borrowing?!” It’s all context free. Rand Paul adds nothing to the policy debate, even when he’s right about a particular policy.

This is a remarkable video. It is beautiful. And it is proof that God is not good!

H/T: Brad Plumer

Yesterday, Ed Kilgore wrote, Please Listen Up, Political Reporters: What Ted Cruz Means When He Says He Mistrusts Both Parties. In it, he took on Ted Cruz and his habit of claiming that he doesn’t trust either political party. As Kilgore noted, “Does it mean, as political reporters often blandly repeat, that ‘Tea Party’ pols like Cruz are hardy independents who care about principle rather than about the GOP, and represent a constituency that is up in the air?” He provided two answers: “No” and “Hell no!”

This is an issue that I’ve been hammering on for a while. The only difference between the Tea Party and the Republican Party is that the Tea Party is only made up of the stronger Republicans. So it makes no sense to even have a different name for the Tea Party; they are just the base of the Republican Party. What’s interesting is that the Democratic Party has a progressive base too but no one labels it as a separate party. And that’s strange when you consider that the this base is far more likely to abandon its party than the Tea Party is.

As you all know, I am constantly disappointed in the Democratic Party. Yet when someone asks me, I tell them I am a Democrat. I think it is disingenuous to say otherwise. This comes from my many conversations with conservatives who claim to be “independent.” (This doesn’t tend to happen with liberals; the independents who tend toward the Democrats really are in the muddled middle.) You aren’t an independent if you agree with everything the Republicans say but think they aren’t quite pure enough. And that is exactly what Ted Cruz is all about.

What the Tea Party movement was about from the beginning was the Republican base upset that it lost big in 2008. It was the outgrowth of the widely held opinion that the 2008 crisis and the presidency of George W. Bush were caused by not being conservative enough. There was also all that racial insecurity. “I’m losing control of my country!” I won’t go as far as Bobcat Goldthwait who says they are just racists, “Obama’s a… a… a Socialist! What’s a Socialist? I don’t know, but they like fried chicken.” But there is a lot of that. The whole birther movement is not because Obama is black but because he is “other.”

Whenever talking about the modern Republican Party, all roads lead back to Life of Brian. The only ones the People’s Front of Judea hate more than the Romans are the Judean People’s Front. So it is madness to suggest that the Tea Party is somehow independent of the parties. That makes it sound as if its members disagree equally with the two parties. But the fact is that they always (By definition!) disagree with the Democratic Party. And they always agree with the Republican Party. Except, of course, they shout louder. But what they shout is same thing.