I think I'm catching B1's flu. There's a certain character to an influenza sore throat that is different from rhinovirus sore throats -- the way they present is different. And B1 definitely had the real flu -- it bugs me that one has to distinguish that -- flu (influenza) from "stomach flu" (aka, gastroenteritis, aka [most likely] norovirus), just because people get confused. Not the same diseases, people.
Anyway, I'm definitely coming down with something. We'll see whether it fully presents this weekend or what. I hope my body fights it off. We'll see. Absolutely everybody's been sneezing around work, and that's one of the key ways flu gets spread. *ACHOO*
Right now, it's sore throat, drainage, headache (I never get headaches), and zero appetite. No fever, yet, but we'll see if that creeps in -- B1 had a fever of 100.8, which isn't a super-bad fever, but it was bad enough to wear him down, for sure. It's easy to spot when he's got a fever, as his ears and cheeks flush red, and the general lassitude he shows. For me, it's usually a combination of actually getting the chills -- since I never get cold; and/or loss of appetite and libido (it's true -- my libido checks out when I get sick; that's a sure sign of me being on the mend, as my libido comes right back when I'm on the upswing).
Chicago's definitely back into classic March weather. That heat wave we had passed, and now it's back to the spring chill.
Oh, before I forget! This is super-cool! I told B1 about this, and he was intrigued. I'd already known about that, but it was nice to see some new stuff about it come out. I love the idea that there could be billions of habitable planets even just in our own galaxy. That's fabulous!
Friday, March 30, 2012
Supreme Fallacies
As ever, Paul Krugman gets it right...
Is requiring that people pay a tax that finances health coverage O.K., while requiring that they purchase insurance is unconstitutional? It’s hard to see why — and it’s not just those of us without legal training who find the distinction strange. Here’s what Charles Fried — who was Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general — said in a recent interview with The Washington Post: “I’ve never understood why regulating by making people go buy something is somehow more intrusive than regulating by making them pay taxes and then giving it to them.”
Indeed, conservatives used to like the idea of required purchases as an alternative to taxes, which is why the idea for the mandate originally came not from liberals but from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. (By the way, another pet conservative project — private accounts to replace Social Security — relies on, yes, mandatory contributions from individuals.)
So has there been a real change in legal thinking here? Mr. Fried thinks that it’s just politics — and other discussions in the hearings strongly support that perception.
I was struck, in particular, by the argument over whether requiring that state governments participate in an expansion of Medicaid — an expansion, by the way, for which they would foot only a small fraction of the bill — constituted unacceptable “coercion.” One would have thought that this claim was self-evidently absurd. After all, states are free to opt out of Medicaid if they choose; Medicaid’s “coercive” power comes only from the fact that the federal government provides aid to states that are willing to follow the program’s guidelines. If you offer to give me a lot of money, but only if I perform certain tasks, is that servitude?
Yet several of the conservative justices seemed to defend the proposition that a federally funded expansion of a program in which states choose to participate because they receive federal aid represents an abuse of power, merely because states have become dependent on that aid. Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed boggled by this claim: “We’re going to say to the federal government, the bigger the problem, the less your powers are. Because once you give that much money, you can’t structure the program the way you want.” And she was right: It’s a claim that makes no sense — not unless your goal is to kill health reform using any argument at hand.
Reactionary Ideology Trumps Science
This is an appalling study. Basically, it shows that among "conservatives" (I'd call them "reactionaries" in truth), there's been a 28-point drop in their trust in science since the mid-1970s. While liberals and moderates have maintained their same level of trust in science, conservatives went from 63% in around 1974, to around 35% today.
What that says to me is that ideology has eclipsed science within the ranks of conservatives. This is a disastrous turn for them, and reflects the triumph of Know-Nothingism among their ranks. Such a steep decline can't be attributed to the general dumbfuckery of their ranks, either; this is occurring at the elite end of the conservative spectrum, and that means the culprit must be ideology.
The secular religion of ideology has supplanted science among the ranks of conservatives. I've grimly joked that the Right is the American equivalent of the Taliban, but this is puts data behind that idea. It's like Galileo being forced to recant his ideas before the Pope, because they didn't mesh with Church doctrine. And this is where the GOP is? Lordy, it's embarrassing.
And what's more, these ideologues are actually framing public policy -- not based on actual science, but on fucking ideology? So, the rest of the country (and, by extension, the world) is forced to suffer the consequences of their hidebound ideology?
Science and empiricism are about as close to sacred as I get, honestly -- I respect them because they are data-driven, methodological, and they work. Ideology is creepy, it's the snake eating its own tail, and has, at its heart, only "Because I said so" as its justification. Pathetic. Horrific.
For a group to be so blinded by ideology that they turn their backs on something with such a proven track record of success as science? Holy shit. I'd be hugely embarrassed if I were a thinking conservative, honestly. This "brain drain" within their ranks is dreadful, and accounts for the absence of actual ideas from the supposed "Party of Ideas." Another few years of this ideological winnowing of reason and the idea of a "conservative intellectual" will be oxymoronic!
If reality doesn't fit their theories, they throw out reality. *golf applause* What this brain drain points to is that objective science wasn't buttressing their ideological views, so they have stopped trusting it, rather than changing or adapting their views to reflect extant reality. Insanity. Idiocy.
And for what? An ideology. The Way Thinks SHOULD Be(tm) is not the same as The Way Things Actually Are, conservatives! Reality is going to bite you on the ass, whether you acknowledge it or not. That's what's cool about science, why it will always (eventually) beat out ideology. "Why? Because I said so, that's why." Sorry, but that doesn't pass the intellectual sniff test. You want to embarrass yourselves that way, that's fine; just don't inflict that kind of militant ignorance on the rest of society, please. And what's worse, don't expect the rest of us, those who haven't drunk the Kool-Aid, to go along with your bullshit.
What that says to me is that ideology has eclipsed science within the ranks of conservatives. This is a disastrous turn for them, and reflects the triumph of Know-Nothingism among their ranks. Such a steep decline can't be attributed to the general dumbfuckery of their ranks, either; this is occurring at the elite end of the conservative spectrum, and that means the culprit must be ideology.
The secular religion of ideology has supplanted science among the ranks of conservatives. I've grimly joked that the Right is the American equivalent of the Taliban, but this is puts data behind that idea. It's like Galileo being forced to recant his ideas before the Pope, because they didn't mesh with Church doctrine. And this is where the GOP is? Lordy, it's embarrassing.
And what's more, these ideologues are actually framing public policy -- not based on actual science, but on fucking ideology? So, the rest of the country (and, by extension, the world) is forced to suffer the consequences of their hidebound ideology?
Science and empiricism are about as close to sacred as I get, honestly -- I respect them because they are data-driven, methodological, and they work. Ideology is creepy, it's the snake eating its own tail, and has, at its heart, only "Because I said so" as its justification. Pathetic. Horrific.
For a group to be so blinded by ideology that they turn their backs on something with such a proven track record of success as science? Holy shit. I'd be hugely embarrassed if I were a thinking conservative, honestly. This "brain drain" within their ranks is dreadful, and accounts for the absence of actual ideas from the supposed "Party of Ideas." Another few years of this ideological winnowing of reason and the idea of a "conservative intellectual" will be oxymoronic!
If reality doesn't fit their theories, they throw out reality. *golf applause* What this brain drain points to is that objective science wasn't buttressing their ideological views, so they have stopped trusting it, rather than changing or adapting their views to reflect extant reality. Insanity. Idiocy.
And for what? An ideology. The Way Thinks SHOULD Be(tm) is not the same as The Way Things Actually Are, conservatives! Reality is going to bite you on the ass, whether you acknowledge it or not. That's what's cool about science, why it will always (eventually) beat out ideology. "Why? Because I said so, that's why." Sorry, but that doesn't pass the intellectual sniff test. You want to embarrass yourselves that way, that's fine; just don't inflict that kind of militant ignorance on the rest of society, please. And what's worse, don't expect the rest of us, those who haven't drunk the Kool-Aid, to go along with your bullshit.
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