Puppets make everything better—even in science! At the San Diego Zoo’s program to repopulate the California Condor, they are using a puppet to rear the young ones. Why? Because everyone loves puppets! Actually, no. They don’t want the little condors imprinting humans as mothers. This will allow the condors to grow up and go out into the world and do what they were meant to: eat rotting flesh.

That’s something I didn’t know. Growing up in California and hearing about the near extinction of the condor, I always thought they were some beautiful big bird like a crane. Alas, no. They are a kind of vulture. And I know: every animal has its purpose. We are all one in the ecosystem. And I’m very fond of the vulture’s approach to survival. There’s always someone dying. And as The Onion recently asked, Wait, Why Can’t We Eat Other People Again? I mean, other than the fact that it’s kind of gamy.

But one way we certainly are all alike is in our fondness for puppets. Just watch this young condor. Mama!

Image is a low-resolution detail of a photo by Bob Grieser.

According to The Young Turks (see the video below), a group of scientists looked at a large group of users’ Facebook behavior to determine what it said about them. This wasn’t just obvious stuff like who their friends were. They specifically looked at their “likes.” For example, suppose someone posted, “I just had a great burger at Jack Rabbit Slim’s.” If another person liked that comment, the scientists would assume that the person liked hamburgers. Or something.

The amazing thing is that they were able to say a whole lot about people based upon their likes: race, sex, sexual orientation. Also surprising: they were significantly better at determining race than sex. But another thing they calculated was whether the person had a high IQ. Being the intellectual snob that I am, I was very interested in this.

The three “likes” associated with high IQ were: thunderstorms, science, and… Curly fries? I can see science: it does tend to appeal to smart people. And I can kind of see thunderstorms for two reasons. First, I like storms of all kinds so it must be something smart people like. Second, thunderstorms are associated with bad omens and such—at least if you’re a fool. But curly fries bothers me.

To begin with, I don’t like curly fries. While my intellectual abilities have taken a beating these last couple of decades, I’m sure I’m in the upper half of Facebook users in terms of intelligence. Proof: I am not a Facebook user. QED. Another issue is that curly fries are not a good invention. They are more likely to be unevenly cooked. Consecutive rings are usually stuck together. Extra grease collects in the space between rings. But these are minor issues. Curly fries are very often seasoned! Who needs seasoning when you have potatoes cooked in oil?!

Anyway, if hating curly fries is dumb, I don’t wanna be smart.

This morning, Jonathan Chait wrote that, Why Obama and Paul Ryan Will Never, Ever Agree. Basically, he claims that with the budget, the two sides are trying to solve different problems. I think it is all rather too complicated. He claims that Obama wants to do three things with the budget: (1) prevent retirement spending from crowding out other government spending; (2) delay cuts as much as possible until the economy is doing better; and (3) reduce the debt by reducing income inequality. This is not what Ryan wants out of the budget.

According to Chait, Ryan wants: (1) reduce all government spending; (2) make the budget cuts now because the deficit is suddenly a big urgent problem; and (3) increase income inequality to get money away from the takers and back to makers. I don’t particularly accept that this is the main dynamic. But even if it is, there is a middle ground.

I often wonder about my thinking regarding people like Paul Ryan. Can they really be as cynical as I think? Well: yes. In general, you can’t go wrong thinking that people are primarily motivated by making their own lives as comfortable as possible. The main thing with liberals (and even moderates like Obama) is that they retain some notion of social responsibility. They want to do well for themselves, their friends, and their “tribe” (for pretty much all people in power: their fellow rich people). But they don’t want to do it at the direct expense of the weaker members of society. For one thing: the guilt would be a real buzz kill.

For people like Paul Ryan, hurting the weak is part of the thrill. Despite what he claims, Christianity seems to have had no effect on Ryan’s thinking, but Ayn Rand certainly has. And the one thing that Rand hammers on more than anything else it is that altruism does not exist. (This is patently false, but what else is new?) What’s more, she teaches that altruism is wrong. (It is strange that she teaches that altruism is wrong when she claims it doesn’t even exist.) So Paul Ryan thinks forcing the weak to pull themselves up is the right thing to do.

But Chait is still wrong about the impasse and we can see this by looking at Obama’s position. Ryan wants to enrich the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Obama wants to shore up the budget at the expense of both the poor (a lot) and the wealthy (a little). The opposite of Ryan would be someone who wants to enrich the poor at the expense of the wealthy. So on this continuum, Obama is already way more than half way from the liberal position to the Ryan position.

So it is true that Obama and Ryan will never agree. But it isn’t because there is no center point. Obama has moved more and more toward Ryan. The only reason there is no compromise point is that Ryan and his conservative allies won’t compromise. And why should they? Through their intransigence, they push the debate further and further to the right.

As I wrote before, there are some thing that should not be open to compromise. Unfortunately, it seems it is only ever the conservatives who believe that:

This is effectively what Chait is saying by not acknowledging that Obama is the compromise.

It’s the birthday of a couple of conservatives I find repellent: Charles Krauthammer (63) and Jamie Dimon (57). And yes, I know Dimon is a Democrat, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a conservative. As I write about a lot: the democratic party is not liberal; America does not have a liberal party. I would be happy if either of these guys died, but I’d be more happy if it were Dimon.

It is also Neil Sedaka 74th birthday. I never stop being amazed that he isn’t gay. And the Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee is 92.

But today is a big day because L. Ron Hubbard was born 102 years ago! Now he was a total hack. I’m not talking about Scientology, here; I haven’t read Dianetics or any of its successors. But I do think this video is pretty cool. It must have happened:

Scott Prouty was on The Ed Show tonight. He’s the guy who shot the embarrassing Romney 47% video. Based on the interview, I think there are a whole lot of lesson from the video:

1. Schmooze with the help!

Prouty tells the story of working an event where Bill Clinton was speaking. After the event, Clinton glad handed with the staff. That’s so Clinton! It reminds me of the line in Primary Colors, “This son of a bitch actually likes these people!” But here’s the thing: that is why Prouty brought his camera to the event; he thought Romney might stay for pictures with the staff. The lucky fool!

I was in grad school during Bill Clinton. I knew Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was not exactly a friend of mine. Governor, you’re no Bill Clinton.

Romney reminds me of the main character in Local Hero who is proud of being able to to close deals without human contact. “I’m more of a telex man.” He isn’t the kind of guy who meets with the help. That was very clear during the campaign: Romney is a wholesale politician, not a retail one.

One thing that Romney said about all those “takers” in the nation: he was right. In general, the poor will not vote for the Republican candidate. It isn’t for the reasons that Romney and Ryan think, of course. It is because the average Walmart employee who needs to depend upon food stamps and medicaid for his children knows that the Republican Party is not only not working for him, it is actively working against him; it hates him; it wants to destroy him. So Mitt Romney was right when he said it wasn’t his job to get their votes. He was right that they weren’t going to vote for him. But he is completely wrong to assume it was because he wasn’t going to give them free stuff. (Although: what free stuff did Romney have to give after all of the gifts he was offering to the rich?)

All of this just highlights what I’ve long said: the 47% video didn’t affect the presidential election much at all. The reason it went viral was that it showed what people already knew about Mitt Romney. Regardless of the pretty words, Romney was a plutocrat. You could just hear it when he sang “America the Beautiful”:

Every day, You Tube sends me a collection of videos that I might like to watch, and they are usually right although I rarely take the time to watch them. Anyway, today they sent me the “Light a Virgin” scene from Reservoir Dogs. I had just been talking to Will about that scene and how I had read that when Tarantino met Madonna, she told him that his theory on the song was not correct. So I watched it.

It is an interesting scene, but what really stood out to me was how ridiculous the scene was in the context of the whole movie. The gang all dress in the same clothes: black suits, white shirts, and black ties. Why would they do that? It makes them stand out. It would make a get away harder, especially if (as is the case in the film) the police show up.

But it’s worse than that. Why would they all go to a diner before the robbery, dressed in their very memorable outfits? Even if their heist went off without a glitch, the store employees would remember that they all wore black suits, white shirts, and black ties. The TV news would alert their viewers to report any men seen that day in black suits, white shirts, and black ties. And at least some people at the diner would report, “Yeah, there were six guys dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties.”

What’s more: it isn’t just those six guys. The mastermind and his son were there with them. All the other guys might be from out of town, but those two aren’t. In fact, those two are established in the film as being known organized crime figures. But they’re careful, see. At least they were careful until that day.

I understand that it is all about style. Having all the guys dress the same looks cool. (I’ve always thought Tarantino took the idea from another film—it seems very Hong Kong action.) And I understand that the opening scene is great with lots of the dialog that Tarantino is known for. But it isn’t realistic, although many people thought it was at the time. There is a direct line from Reservoir Dogs to the pure fantasy of Django Unchained.

Afterword

Speaking of well-dressed criminals, I just remembered Chow Yun-Fat pulling off his tie at the end of The Killer to use as a tourniquet. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. By the way, The Killer is a great film.

This afternoon, Greg Sargent wrote, Republicans Say They Want Entitlement Cuts. But They Want Dems to Own Them. In it, he shows that all this Republican talk about entitlement reform is just a way for them to trick Democrats into owning Medicare and Social Security cuts so that they can campaign against them in 2014 and 2016. As usual Sargent is dead on. What would be really surprising is if Obama does not fall into that trap.

But Sargent—a good, strong liberal—makes a mistake in how he writes about the issue. Word is that Republicans will accept a small tax increase if the Democrats make a big show of owning large entitlement cuts. The Republicans will finesse the coverage of such a tax increase by calling it “tax reform.” And that is just how Sargent writes it: he puts “tax reform” in quotes, because it is a euphemism. But he has no problem writing a sentences like this, “Dems would have no choice but to offer up significant entitlement reforms.” Do you see it? He writes as though “entitlement reforms” is what it claims to be.

When people talk about “entitlement reforms” what they mean is “entitlement cuts.” Using the former phrase is just a way to hide what is really going on. Everyone loves reforms: they make things better! But no one likes cuts: they make people poorer. As a result, I always bristle when I see the phrase “entitlement reform.” But mostly, I don’t see it right next to “tax reform.”

There are so many ways that we fight our liberal battles on conservative turf. And I admit: this is perhaps a minor one. But we are forever talking about issues through a conservative prism. Sargent uses scare quotes around “tax reform” because he is specifically talking about how conservatives will spin tax increases. But the fact that he even uses “entitlement reform” (with or without scare quotes) shows that he has accepted the conservative framing of the issue. And that’s no good.

What a day for birthdays!

It is Mitt Romney‘s birthday. And speaking of martyrs to irrational causes, Italian mystic and Catholic Saint Gemma Galgani was born 125 years ago (she’s been dead 100 of those years). In 1831, Clement Studebaker was born—I’m sure you can guess what he’s know for.

But there’s more! Jack Kerouac was born in 1922. And John Lennon’s mom Julia was born in 1914. I know: big deal. But she is the subject of one of my very favorite John Lennon tunes:

Also having birthdays today: Al Jarreau (1940); Liza Minnelli (1946); North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad (1948); James Taylor (1948); Rob Cohen (1949); Ron Jeremy (1953); Titus Welliver (1961); Dave Eggers (1970); and so on.

But the big deal today is that Edward Albee is 85. It is hard to overstate just how much I love Albee’s work. I would write more about him, but it is late. So here is a little bit of one of Albee’s greatest plays A Delicate Balance. This is where Claire talks about not being an alcoholic:

It’s amazing that this is a play. It seems every bit as real as the best of Cassavetes (who was not born on this date).

Earlier today, the second blogger to received the coveted Frankly Curious Artist’s Rendering, Jonathan Bernstein, published A Minor Defense of Ryan and the Republicans. His point is that we can’t expect Republicans to be anything but Republicans. Obama winning re-election doesn’t suddenly mean that Republicans aren’t conservative or that they are just going to accept anything because the Democrats won in November.

I’ve written about this before. (And I wish I could find it!) I respect the Republicans for standing by their principles, even while I think those principles are totally vile. A robust democracy depends upon everyone energetically pushing their own ideas. The problem is not the Republicans trying to get the best deal they can in negotiations with Democrats. The problem is the Democratic Party and its tendency to seek out the middle. If the United States had a true liberal party, we would be getting policy that was to the left of the current president’s positions. But instead, all of Obama’s “reasonableness” just means we get gridlock when we don’t get ridiculously conservative policies.

Understand: I don’t claim that it is all the Democrats’ fault. But it is the lack of conviction of Democrats that has allowed the Republicans to become a revolutionary party. And there is no negotiating with these people. The Republican Party had a man as its standard bearer (John McCain) who was for a healthcare individual mandate while running for president, but the moment he lost he changed his position: suddenly, the individual mandate was socialism. I find this behavior extremely frustrating. But the Republican Party didn’t become crazy all by itself. The Democrats allowed this to happen by avoiding standing for anything lest it be used by the Republicans to claim that they were “liberal”! What a terrible fate: conservatives calling the liberal party “liberal”! That’s a fate worse than death!

So Bernstein is correct: we shouldn’t expect the Republican Party to role up into a ball and do whatever the Democrats say just because of the November election. Instead, we should expect the Democratic Party to start standing for actual liberal policies. And the great thing about that is if they do, it will pull the Republican Party back from the edge of the crazy cliff.

Maybe I’m just a cynical old guy. But Rachel Maddow spent the entire A section of her show talking about gun control. I’m cool with gun control. As I’ve argued before: by the time we notice that the government is coming for us, our guns won’t do bit of good. (It is interesting that those most concerned about their guns being taken away, are not at all concerned about targeted assassination and executive overreach. Instead, they cheer it on: we’re number one! We’re number one!) So I’m fine with the government coming in and taking away all our guns. The idea that universal background checks will destroy our liberty is more than ridiculous.

But it isn’t that important either. With tighter gun control, we might reduce the number of gun homicides by a thousand per year. That’s a very big deal to those thousand people who don’t get murdered. My question is just how big a deal it is more generally. Families USA reported that 26,000 Americans die every year because they lack health insurance. It is hard to say how many people die early because of poverty. We do, however, know that people in the upper half of income earners live six years longer than those in the bottom half of income earners. So I tend to think it is millions.

This isn’t just about what’s most important. I believe that Rachel Maddow is pushing the gun control story—which she has been doing for months—because it is one issue that looks like a winner for liberals. But is that really what liberals should be pushing? I find that liberals do this much too much for my tastes. There was much rejoicing after the Fiscal Cliff deal, “We made the Republicans cave on taxes!” The fact that the president didn’t get a good deal didn’t seem to matter. And now it looks like a Pyrrhic victory.

So what are we going to get now: a universal background check that is a no brainer in exchange for the 700,000 jobs lost via the Sequester? Is that what we liberals are hanging our hopes on? Are we going to celebrate nationwide same sex marriage while millions of children are born into perpetual poverty? I know it isn’t an either or question. It is just that liberals seem to cheer for the easy, but mostly useless issues, while they don’t even talk about the really important issues.

People are dying but at least we banned that 31 round clip. Now gunmen can only kill 30 people before reloading!

Steve Benen at Maddow Blow noted a really telling anecdote over at the New York Times about Obama’s GOP outreach. Four months ago, the president invited five GOP congressional leaders to a secret screening of Lincoln with some of the stars of the film. All five people declined.

As Benen notes, “Are we to believe that all five—invited in secret so they wouldn’t have to take heat from Fox or the GOP base—were all washing their hair that night?” He thinks the GOP is just being unreasonable, but I think there is something more profound going on here. The modern Republican Party (as I’ve said again and again) is a revolutionary party. They are not the loyal opposition. They are the disloyal opposition. They do not think that the Democratic Party is legitimate.

So these Republicans refusing to go to the White House is all about snubbing him. The fact that the president is offering fine food, entertainment, and Tommy Lee Jones makes the event all the more repellent. It highlights the fact that Barack Obama really is the President of the United States. He really does have the power to screen films with movie stars. And most of all: it highlights the fact that the Republican Party in its current form is going through its death throes. Think: the Federalist Party in 1805. And that is the point: the Republicans do not want to think of the Federalist Party in 1805, even though the party staggered along until 1829.

I can’t exactly say, “It’s been good to know ya.” But I am eager to say, “So long!”

Afterword

I have no idea if Tommy Lee Jones was there or not.