A Very Bitter Vote

In a little while, I'll be heading to the polls to cast my vote to help bring this horrific toxic sludge dumpster fire of an election to an end.  Even though I can't stand her or her equally dishonest and corrupt husband, I'll be casting my vote for "Crooked Hillary," because, just as I anticipated ten years ago when I foolishly entered the political sphere as a candidate to try to head it off, the Republican party has become an insane, hate-filled death cult determined to undermine civil society and punish "those people."  Unfortunately, many of my friends and neighbors, whom I love and respect, will be supporting her opponent; the greatest buffoon, liar, con man, jackass, idiot and douche bag to ever win a major party nomination.  And considering the 17 candidates the Republicans had to choose from for the primary season, the GOP ably managed to select the very worst from an utterly disgusting field.

I will go to the polls, say hi to the poll worker I know from church, then show him my ID, because Ohio is one of the many states to pass a voter ID bill to try to suppress the vote of poor people and minorities.  Our ignoble politicians know these people usually vote in person, and they want to make it as difficult as possible for them to cast their votes.  If I would've voted absentee, I never would have had to show an ID and never would have to have been seen in order to cast my vote.  Those lying "public servants" will claim that is to prevent voter fraud, even though many more charges of voter fraud arise from absentee voting as opposed to in-person voting.  The difference is that more elderly Republicans vote absentee.  Keep that in mind when Republicans discuss voter fraud today.  After I get signed in, I'll cast my vote and head to work. After work, I'm going to feed the cows, pick up some food and a lot of beer, and settle in and watch the results and post my thoughts here and on Twitter.  I doubt that it will be pretty. Hopefully, the voting will be completed without any violence or massive errors.  But, come Wednesday, it will be morning in America again, and we'll somehow have gotten through this self-inflicted horror show and moved on.  Thank God!

News of the Obvious: State and Local Taxes are Regressive

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ran an analysis that most folks with a lick of common sense and a bit of understanding about political interests would figure out on their own, that state an local taxes are pretty regressive, and cost poor folks a lot larger slice of their income than they cost wealthy people.  I mainly skimmed the report and looked at the graphics, but I seriously doubt that conservatives will punch many holes in their analysis.  Here is a chart showing the impact of state and local taxes on different income brackets nationwide:

This chart is a little more useful when your state's Republican party proposes "tax reform" or "income tax cuts."  It demonstrates who benefits and who is harmed by various tax changes:

Yeah, it is shocking that when states like Kansas and Ohio increase sales taxes and cut income taxes it is the wealthiest residents who benefit, and the poorest residents who are harmed.  Same goes for cigarette tax increases.  Whodathunkit?  Actually, Ohio is even more regressive than the national average, in spite of a somewhat progressive income tax:

I would hypothesize that one reason for this is because numerous municipal and school district income taxes (which many other states don't have) hit earned income much harder than unearned income (dividends and capital gains, for instance).  I only pay city income tax on the fairly small portion of my income coming from my town job.  Also, Kasich's entirely stupid plan to exempt half of the first $250,000 in income from pass-through entities keeps me from paying state income tax on 50% of the income from my farm partnership with dad.  Here are a few of the explanations from the report:

• Kansas enacted more changes to its personal income tax on top of those already passed in 2012. Tax rates are gradually reduced to 2.3 and 3.9 percent and both standard and itemized deductions are pared back. The food sales tax rebate was reinstated, but made nonrefundable. If revenue targets are reached in future years, the income tax could be repealed entirely. Kansas also increased its sales tax from 5.7 to 6.15 percent.

• North Carolina replaced its graduated personal income tax rate structure with a flat rate of 5.75 percent and enacted several other changes to the tax including: the elimination of all credits except for the child tax credit (this included allowing the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit to expire), elimination of per­sonal exemptions, elimination of a $50,000 deduction for business pass-through income, an increased standard deduction, eliminating most itemized deductions and subjecting property taxes and mortgage interest to a $20,000 cap and allowing unlimited charitable contribution deductions. The package also expanded the sales tax base, increased sales taxes on electricity, and phases-in a corporate income tax rate cut that will eventually bring the rate from 6.9 to 3 percent.

• Ohio reduced personal income tax rates across the board and exempted 50 percent of business pass-through income from the tax (capped at the first $250,000). The state also enacted a very limited non­refundable EITC equal to 5 percent of the federal credit in 2013 and expanded it to 10 percent in 2014. At the same time, the state’s sales tax was increased from 5.5 to 5.75 percent and its base was expanded.

• The District of Columbia cut income tax rates for middle-income residents and increased the standard deduction. Further rate cuts, as well as increases in the standard deduction and personal exemption, could take effect if revenue grows sufficiently quickly. The District of Columbia also phased-out its per­sonal exemption for high-income taxpayers and made permanent its 8.95 percent income tax bracket on high-income earners. The city’s EITC was expanded for childless workers and its property tax cir­cuit breaker was enhanced. The business franchise tax rate was cut from 9.975 to 9.4 percent, and could see further cuts to 8.25 percent contingent on revenue growth. DC’s sales tax base was also expanded, while its rate was lowered from 6.0 to 5.75 percent. The city also reformed its gas tax so that the rate can grow alongside gas prices in the future.

It is interesting to see how Republican (and ALEC-backed) tax changes seem to go from one state to another, like some kind of hideous virus.  For instance, Kansas went with the pass-through tax exemption, then Ohio and Missouri followed suit.  Ohio got rid of the business personal property tax, now Michigan is following.  Very rarely do these changes benefit people at the lower end of the income spectrum.

No matter how you figure it, people making less than $250,000 and voting Republican are suckers.

Final 2014 Weekend Links

A mixture of new stories and lists of the best of 2014:

Best of Longform: SB Nation's Finest Features of 2014 - SB Nation

Inside the Indiana Megadairy Making Coca-Cola's New Milk - The Salt.  Fair Oaks Farms.

China's Pork Obsession Is Endangering The World - The Economist via Big Picture Agriculture

The Ugly Goatlings of 2014 (Or Stories You Should Have Read) - Modern Farmer

Dealing Christmas Trees In New York City - Priceonomics

A Tree Is Known By It's Fruit - Texas Monthly.  Murder and family secrets.

The Messy Minds of Creative People - Scientific American blog

Chicago gave hundreds of high-risk kids a summer job.  Violent crime arrests plummeted - Wonkblog

As North Dakota Oil Town Booms, a Priest Steadies the Newcomers - New York Times

Oil Jobs Squeezed as Prices Plummet - Wall Street Journal. “Having to do everything yesterday costs a lot of money. People will quit making $150,000 a year for $25,000-a-year skills.” See also, Some States See Budgets at Risk as Oil Price Falls - New York Times

The Best Wired Stories of 2014 - Wired

14 for 2014: Great Reads From The Wall Street Journal - Wall Street Journal

The Real Story of How America Became an Economic Superpower - The Atlantic

Ground Truth: In Dozier's neglected cemetery, a search for lost boys and the reasons why they died - Tampa Bay Times

Longreads Best of 2014 - Longreads

It's a Wonderful Life, Comrade - Truth-out.  How the FBI believed Communists were behind the movie, It's a Wonderful Life, and how Ayn Rand was involved in that report.  Also, Cult Edit of It's A Wonderful Life Is the Best Holiday Movie You've Never Seen - Wired

RAND Corporation report says the Iraq War was George W, Bush's greatest blunder - Raw Story.  News of the Obvious.  Thanks RAND.

Now that the Dow has hit 18,000, let us remember the worst op-ed in history - Wonkblog

Also, I just read James Fallows's cover story in next month's The Atlantic, and it will definitely get a post when it goes up online.

When We Drink the Most

Via Wonkblog:

In this marvelous, modern age, even outlets you hadn't considered offer bits of data. Like the manufacturer of the BACtrack breathalyzer, which plugs into your phone and tells you just how drunk you are. Granted, if you have a portable breathalyzer that you bring with you wherever you go, you probably drink more than the average person.
But after anonymizing and compiling data from those probably-above-average-drinkers, the company released a report with a perhaps-surprising finding: People drink more in the winter. They created this graphic, an interactive version of which is at their site. The darker the color, the higher the average blood alcohol content for the day. (The drunkest day in February? Super Bowl Sunday.)

People drink more in the winter.  No shit.  I think anybody in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota or the Dakotas could tell you that.

Hoosiers Still Can't Figure Out Clocks

Pacific Standard:

So what makes certain parts of Indiana likely to dissent? The state’s refusal to adopt a single time zone is easier to explain: Much of the state wants to be on Eastern Time, the time zone of Wall Street and of nearby Louisville and Cincinnati, but its western corners are metropolitan areas that draw on neighbors (Chicago and the Evansville tri-state area) who observe Central Time, so it splits the difference.
DST, though, is more complicated. The way that DST messes with time is to take the summer months and dislocate their noons from the sun: The “springing forward” pulls noon an hour (or more, depending on your location) before the sun’s highest point, whereas the “falling back” restores the natural match. This can mean that, come June, if you’re far West in a time zone, the sun won’t reach its highest point until, say, 2:00 p.m. If you’re a farmer, that distortion robs you of good working time. And one of the farming regions that’s farthest west in a U.S. time zone, and so most likely to lose the most agricultural working time to DST, is the Eastern Time part of Indiana.
For Indiana farmers like Laverne Stoll, who plants beans and makes hay in Loogootee while also working part-time at Graber Post Supply in nearby Montgomery, a 2 p.m. solar noon can throw off the whole system. “It can be a certain time on the old Standard Time, and we think we should be putting up hay,” Stoll says, “but the dew’s still on the ground, and it just throws us back and throws off the whole schedule of things.” And it was because of objections like Stoll’s that, through 2005, much of Indiana declined to participate in DST.

That whole argument that farmers get screwed by daylight savings time makes farmers sound really dumb.  I mean, without daylight savings time, sunrise would be at about 5:20 am, instead of 6:20, while sunset would be at 8:15 pm instead of 9:15.  There is no loss of working time.  My old neighbor Woodie used to frequently bitch about daylight savings time screwing farmers (he also claimed that Allis-Chalmers gas tractors were more fuel efficient than John Deere diesels).  I never pointed out that it didn't make any difference.  Does it matter if I get into the house at 9:00 or 10:00, or if the alarm goes off at 4 or at 5?  No, so please pipe down, or tell the reporter that daylight savings time makes it really hard to go snipe hunting or cow tipping.  Don't make farmers sound ignorant of basic arithmetic.

Roundup Resistance Forces Farmers To Return to Old Chemistry

Wall Street Journal:

About 42 million acres of soybeans planted in 2012 were treated with non-glyphosate herbicides, double the 2006 total and equivalent to 57% of all soybean acres, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report this year.
Farmers increasingly have turned to some herbicides considered harsher than glyphosate. In 2012, they used more than six million pounds of 2,4-D, nearly four times the 2005 level, according to USDA data. Use of dicamba more than doubled to 87,000 pounds over the same period.
Farmers are having to brush up on their chemistry. Travis Starnes, 36 years old, who grows corn, wheat and soybeans near Monroe, N.C., said he's again relying on a notebook of chemical recipes his family compiled in the early 1990s, before Roundup became dominant, to plan his herbicide use.
"Basically, it's like history repeats itself," Mr. Starnes said.
Thanks to the bigger arsenal, some farmers now say they are gaining ground in their war against the super weeds. In the South—where a longer growing season and warm climate have made it the battle's front line—fewer cotton and soybean acres were lost last year to invaders such as pigweed, marestail and ryegrass, according to farmers, academics and industry officials....
Thanks to the bigger arsenal, some farmers now say they are gaining ground in their war against the super weeds. In the South—where a longer growing season and warm climate have made it the battle's front line—fewer cotton and soybean acres were lost last year to invaders such as pigweed, marestail and ryegrass, according to farmers, academics and industry officials.
"Most [farmers] feel like they are either winning or fighting to a draw," said Bob Scott, a weed science professor at the University of Arkansas. "They're not losing fields anymore."
But success is costly. Some farmers' herbicide expenses have doubled or tripled since resistant weeds set in, cutting deeper into budgets at a time when corn prices are down 38% from their 2012 peak and soybean prices are off by 16%.

I don't know that I'd consider marestail a superweed, but it is frustrating.  But, ryegrass?  That would seem dangerous to use as a cover crop if you are going to have a hard time killing it.  Then again, I'd assume atrazine would cook it pretty good.  As for the "no shit, Sherlock" part of the story, there's over there is even more.  Screw that.this:

Scientists for decades have observed weeds capable of withstanding herbicides, but applying Roundup to the same fields every year speeded up the development of immunity in some weeds, researchers say.

Whodathunkit?  The article finishes with the nightmare scenario for industrial agriculture, hand-weeding:

Meanwhile, some farmers have returned to an expensive, but proven, method of weed control: the hoe.
Hand-weeding, which can cost farmers up to $150 an acre, has again become common in some parts of the country.
Last summer, Heath Whitmore, who farms rice and soybeans near Pine Bluff, Ark., spent a week chopping down palmer amaranth plants that had survived his chemicals. "That's what my dad and my grandfather used to do," he said. "That's what it's reverted back to."

Now that would fricking suck  I've tried knocking down pokeweed in some fields, and it is really easy to see and to knock down.  That seems like a never-ending task.  You hit a whole bunch, then you see even more in another part of the field.  Knock that down, and there's even more over there.  I hate that shit.

News of the Obvious - Inequality and Stagnant Economy Edition

Business Insider:

Marie Schofield, chief economist, and Toby Nangle, head of multi asset allocation at Columbia Management, have a great little note up reminding people of the basic force that's holding back the economy.
For decades, the top 5% have been accumulating an ever-increasing share of the national income in the U.S.:

Columbia Management

The remaining 95% were only able to keep their buying power up by taking on more debt.
Lately that hasn't been an option.

The excerpt of the report the post cites pretty much says that the gains of the top 5% since 1980 have come as wages for everybody else have stagnated, or in some cases declined.  Widely available credit at steadily lower interest rates from the post-Volcker busting of inflation (and the destruction of manufacturing jobs at the same time) masked the drain the inequality produces on economic growth, but here in the aftermath of the Great Recession, debt growth for the 95% isn't really an option, and growth has been lousy. I think that minimal credit growth, combined with household deleveraging and adoption of labor-saving technology are most of what's to blame for the slow recovery in jobs in this chart, and that the impact of both a decreasing share of productivity growth for the bottom 95% and the adoption of technology can be seen in each of the 3 most recent recessions (one could make the point that the last four recessions have been the slowest peak-to-trough-and-back in the post-war period):

from : Calculated Risk

Corporate profits and and shareholder returns have soared during that time, while wages have stagnated and debt loads have increased for the non-rich.  Maybe it is just coincidence that these changes have correlated with the era of tax cuts and "trickle-down economics", but I believe there is causation. While Dave Camp's recent tax reform plan called for two tax brackets and a tax surcharge that is in effect a third tax bracket, while continuing to tax capital gains and dividends at a reduced rate, I believe we need even more brackets than we have now (with higher marginal rates at the top), with dividends taxed as regular income and capital gains taxed at 28%, just like in the horribly oppressive high-tax days of the early Reagan administration.

News of the Obvious - Entrepreneurs and Tax Cuts Edition

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Cutting state taxes to attract entrepreneurs is likely futile at best and self-defeating at worst, a new survey of founders of some of the country’s fastest-growing companies suggests.  The study, which is consistent with other research, should be required reading for state policymakers — especially those in Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin who are pushing for large income tax cuts.
The 150 executives surveyed by Endeavor Insight, a research firm that examines how entrepreneurs contribute to job creation and long-term economic growth, said a skilled workforce and high quality of life were the main reasons why they founded their companies where they did; taxes weren’t a significant factor.  This suggests that states that cut taxes and then address the revenue loss by letting their schools, parks, roads, and public safety deteriorate will become less attractive to the kinds of people who found high-growth companies.  (Hat tip to urbanologist Richard Florida for calling attention to the study.)
As I wrote last year on why studies show state income tax cuts aren’t an effective way to boost small-business job creation, “Nascent entrepreneurs are not particularly mobile.  Rather, they tend to create their businesses where they are, where they are familiar with local market conditions and have ties to local sources of finance, key employees, and other essential business inputs.”
I also argued that state tax cuts could be counterproductive, impairing states’ ability to provide high-quality services that make a state a place where highly skilled people want to live.
The new survey provides further evidence for these arguments.  It found that:

• “The most common reason cited by entrepreneurs for launching their business in a given city was that it was where they lived at the time.  The entrepreneurs who cited this reason usually mentioned their personal connections to their city or specific quality of life factors, such as access to nature or local cultural attractions.”


• “31% of founders cited access to talent as a factor in their decision on where to launch their company. . . .  A number of founders also highlighted the link between the ability to attract talented employees and a city’s quality of life.”

• “Only 5% of entrepreneurs cited low tax rates as a factor in deciding where to launch their company” and only 2% mentioned “business-friendly regulations” and other government policies.  The report’s authors concluded, “We believe that the lack of discussion of these factors indicates that marginal differences in these areas at the state or municipal level have little influence on great entrepreneurs’ decision-making processes.”

I love the bullet point that says,"The most common reason cited by entrepreneurs for launching their business in a given city was that it was where they lived at the time."  No fucking shit?  Somebody who is putting their financial stability at risk is going to move away from the place he or she knows people and to a place where they are total strangers just to avoid a few percent in tax on income they have no idea whether they will make or not?  Maybe some dumbfuck Republican believes that, but I sure as Hell don't.  And yet, our dipshit governor is pushing for yet another income tax cut because government services haven't been bled completely dry quite yet.  If the sun shines, John Kasich proposes a tax cut.  If it rains, he proposes a tax cut.  If somebody takes a shit, Kasich proposes a tax cut.  If the sun comes up...

Mr. Obvious Headline of the Day - Where the Uninsured Are

Half the nation’s uninsured live in just 116 counties

A new study conducted for The Associated Press shows the administration is best off focusing on a relatively narrow geographic area: Half of those under 65 without insurance live in just 116 of the nation’s 3,143 counties. And half of all 19-39 year olds without insurance — the most coveted demographic as health-care providers look to expand their risk pools — live in 108 counties.

No shit, half the uninsured live in the counties which contain almost half the population:

Using Census data, we've figured out that half of the United States population is clustered in just the 146 biggest counties out of over 3000.

Sure, 146 is more than 118, but should we really be surprised that there are a lot of uninsured people where there are a lot of people?  I'd say no.  I bet you'll be surprised to learn that the counties with the most uninsured happen to be the largest counties in the country.  No, really.  I know, that's fucking amazing.

Corporate Responsibility?

Why don't the tenets of "personal responsibility" apply to corporate "persons"?:

Bombarded by lawsuits and under federal investigation, the chemical company that spilled a dangerous solvent into a West Virginia river and fouled the drinking water of 300,000 people filed for federal bankruptcy protection Friday.

Freedom Industries Inc., owner of a storage tank that ruptured Jan. 9 and spilled 7,500 gallons of a coal-treatment foaming agent called MCHM into the Elk River, sought protection from creditors under a Chapter 11 filing by its parent company, Chemstream Holdings Inc. of Pennsylvania.
The filing will protect Freedom from creditors, temporarily halt lawsuits against it and allow the company to continue operating.
The spill prompted the governor to order residents of nine counties in the Charleston area not to use tap water for anything but flushing toilets. No baths, no washing dishes; even boiling the water could not make it safe.
In court documents, Freedom Industries says a water line break brought on by frigid temperatures may have caused "an object piercing upwards" to punch a hole in the 35,000-gallon storage tank, allowing the chemical to flow down an embankment into the river. The Freedom facility is just upstream from a major water treatment plant.
Freedom says in its filing that the water line scenario is "hypothesized" and intended for "explanatory purposes only." The hypothesis, it says, is not intended as a legally valid explanation in defense against any lawsuit.
Eight businesses and individuals filed a joint class action suit Monday in federal court in Charleston against Freedom, the local water company and the Tennessee chemical company that produced the MCHM, which is used to wash coal. The suit alleges that the companies either failed to take reasonable precautions to prevent the spill or concealed the true dangers of the chemical.

Hopefully, the bankruptcy filing will give the public a view into the corporate books, and how much money went into preventative maintenance and spill prevention, versus executive salaries and payouts to shareholders.  I'm betting the numbers won't be pretty.  It would seem like limited liability for corporations would lead to limited freedom of speech and other corporate "rights" as laid out by the Roberts Court.

Farmers Vote

That's what I've always said when explaining why we still have direct payments in the farm program, and apparently, that's what researchers have found out:

To measure what influences lawmakers’ farm policy votes, Carnes and Bellemare tracked down sets of data that they thought could indicate important motivators, such as a legislator’s personal policy preferences (the researchers looked up which officials had once managed, or owned, a farm), the number of voters in a district that would benefit from the policy, and the size of the campaign contributions that legislators had received from agriculture industry groups. The researchers write that, of course, the longer a legislator had been a farmer, the more farmers a legislator represented, and the more money a legislator received from farm groups, the more he or she supported legislation trumpeted by organizations such as the American Farm Bureau Federation.
But Bellemare and Carnes went a step further—they looked at the relative importance of each factor to figure out which one held the most sway over legislators. They found that the relationship between the three factors—a lawmaker’s background, the electorate, and industry group—is where things get interesting. For every control case, the number of farm worker constituents within a congressperson’s electorate outweighed the influence of interest group spending and lawmaker background. To be sure, the amount of money a legislator received from political action groups, and the years he or she spent corralling pigs and the like, did correlate with more support for bills that protected agriculture interests. But the number of farmers in a representative’s district was tied the closest to a representative’s farm policy votes.
Media and food activists like Bill McKibben have been known to blame tendentious lobbying efforts for a heady farm bill. But it turns out voters in farm states or districts could be the most important drivers of legislators’ decision-making.

I was telling a guy that last week, and he was getting really pissed at me.  He didn't get that I was mocking the system, but he'd also had a few.

A Study of Life

The Atlantic:

In June 2009, The Atlantic published a cover story on the Grant Study, one of the longest-running longitudinal studies of human development. The project, which began in 1938, has followed 268 Harvard undergraduate men for 75 years, measuring an astonishing range of psychological, anthropological, and physical traits—from personality type to IQ to drinking habits to family relationships to “hanging length of his scrotum”—in an effort to determine what factors contribute most strongly to human flourishing.

The director of the study's key takeaway:

 Vaillant’s key takeaway, in his own words: “The seventy-five years and twenty million dollars expended on the Grant Study points … to a straightforward five-word conclusion: ‘Happiness is love. Full stop.’ ”

That would be my best guess at what happiness is.  The article linked to is one of my all-time favorites.  It was fascinating to me to get glimpses into not only what the subjects told the doctor, but his reading of it.  If you have an hour or so, I highly recommend it.

Do Children Make People Happier?

Shankar Vendantam reports on a recent study:

VEDANTAM: And she often finds that things that people think they can happy actually don't. So she said when I looked at the 2004 study, people reported that they were happiest when they were having sex. But there was a catch.
LYUBOMIRSKY: People didn't report having sex very often. So if you're really, really happy when you have sex but you don't have it that often, it's actually not going to affect your happiness that much overall.
VEDANTAM: And she just finished a series of studies looking at this parenting and happiness question. She looks at a more representative sample of people - both men and women - and she finds that actually parents are slightly happier than non-parents. And not just when they're at work and away from their kids, but actually when they're with their kids and looking after their kids. She also finds a very interesting gender difference. Parenting appears to make men happier than it does women.
INSKEEP: This is part of what you're telling me, is it not, Shankar, that when you are doing some menial task, it might get very dull and repetitive - you have to do the laundry then you have to do the laundry again, you have to do the laundry again - you're going to be unhappy with a lot of specific tasks. But the broader picture may cause you to feel a different way, and if you're able to focus on the broader picture.
VEDANTAM: Yeah. I think, Steve, you've missed your calling as a researcher because I think this is what Lyubomirsky has looked at. She says there's a difference between happiness measured on a moment-to-moment level and happiness measured at a larger level. Parents report significantly more meaning in their lives than non-parents, even though on a day-to-day basis parenting may be a grind.

I think that last point gets at it pretty well.  Parents report more meaning in their lives than non-parents.  What does that boil down to?  When parents are dealing with the day-to-day bullshit we all deal with, they've actually got more of a motivation to deal with it.  They've got a child to provide for, so they have a reason to put up with a shitty job.  I, on the other hand...

News of the Obvious - Just Friends Edition

Scientific American reports on a study that finds guys are much more likely than girls to be interested in being more than just friends with their opposite sex friends:

The results suggest large gender differences in how men and women experience opposite-sex friendships. Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief. In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends. Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite-sex friends; because females generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual. As a result, men consistently overestimated the level of attraction felt by their female friends and women consistently underestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends.
Men were also more willing to act on this mistakenly perceived mutual attraction. Both men and women were equally attracted to romantically involved opposite-sex friends and those who were single; “hot” friends were hot and “not” friends were not, regardless of their relationship status.  However, men and women differed in the extent to which they saw attached friends as potential romantic partners.  Although men were equally as likely to desire “romantic dates” with “taken” friends as with single ones, women were sensitive to their male friends’ relationship status and uninterested in pursuing those who were already involved with someone else.

These results suggest that men, relative to women, have a particularly hard time being “just friends.” What makes these results particularly interesting is that they were found within particular friendships (remember, each participant was only asked about the specific, platonic, friend with whom they entered the lab). This is not just a bit of confirmation for stereotypes about sex-hungry males and naïve females; it is direct proof that two people can experience the exact same relationship in radically different ways. Men seem to see myriad opportunities for romance in their supposedly platonic opposite-sex friendships. The women in these friendships, however, seem to have a completely different orientation—one that is actually platonic.

I don't think this news comes as a shock to almost anybody, at least among guys.

No Shit Headline of the Day

Fewer modern farmers rely on almanacs for insights

Who would have guessed that massively vague weather forecasts made a year in advance that say something like, "Dec. 3-6, windy, cold" aren't very useful, or that planting and chores done based on lunar phases isn't based on any science or logic?  I always buy an almanac, but I laugh after big snowstorms when somebody tells me the almanac predicted it, but they predicted an even bigger one is coming later in the season.  I usually try to get them to bet on it.  Anyway, we can always count on a story hitting the news wire each year when the new almanacs come out.  At least we can count on some traditions:

 The 2013 edition of the Old Farmer's Almanac hit shelves Wednesday.

"In the early days, I suppose it used to be the main source of information, maybe the only source of information," said Annie Cheatham, executive director of the New England Farmers Union, which gets a copy of the Old Farmer's Almanac every year. "Of course, that's changed a lot with satellite information."

The 221-year-old Old Farmer's Almanac based in New Hampshire — not to be confused with the slightly younger Farmer's Almanac based in Maine — predicts a cold winter in the East, South and Southwest and a mild winter in the Midwest, heartland and West Coast. Summer, however, will be warmer on the West and East Coasts and cooler throughout the rest of the country.

The Old Farmer's Almanac, which boasts a 3.1 million print circulation plus digital versions, is used by all audiences, not just farmers, editor Janice Stillman said.

One of my other favorite bits of folk lore is that potatoes should be planted on Good Friday.  Nothing like using a day which may fall anytime within about a 36 or so day period.  I take that to mean that late March or early April is a good time to plant potatoes, not that I have to plant them on Good Friday.

Mr. Obvious Headline of the Day

From the NYT website: Romney Says His Gaffes Are Hurting His Campaign.  The actual story headline is Romney Admits Mistakes as Michigan Votes in Crucial Primary.  I liked the first one better.  Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse, how pitiful Mitt Romney is when he tries to come across as a normal human being, or the fact that he may lose to Rick Santorum's crazy Catholic anti-sex hate train.  I mean really, wanting people to go to college is being a snob?  Seriously?

News Of The Obvious: Americans Are Extremely Safe

Andrew Sullivan:

Michael Cohen and Micah Zenko want us to understand we've never lived in a safer world:

The world that the United States inhabits today is a remarkably safe and secure place. It is a world with fewer violent conflicts and greater political freedom than at virtually any other point in human history. All over the world, people enjoy longer life expectancy and greater economic opportunity than ever before. The United States faces no plausible existential threats, no great-power rival, and no near-term competition for the role of global hegemon. The U.S. military is the world’s most powerful, and even in the middle of a sustained downturn, the U.S. economy remains among one of the world’s most vibrant and adaptive. Although the United States faces a host of international challenges, they pose little risk to the overwhelming majority of American citizens and can be managed with existing diplomatic, economic, and, to a much lesser extent, military tools.

I don't think this can be overemphasized.  We can rain bombs on any country we want to.  Nobody can just rain bombs on us.  How many innocent Iraqis and Afghans have been accidentally or otherwise killed by American aggression in their own country in the past five years?  How many Americans have been killed by foreigners in our country?  The battlefield is so asymmetrical it is insane.  And yet, Americans get scared by every tin pot brown skinned Muslim who talks bad about us.  I don't get it.  Why would some 70 year-old in Kansas be afraid of terrorists or losers in Iran? 

Chart of the Day

Republican budget plans are bullshit:

Whodathunkit?  Cutting taxes makes the deficit bigger?  Really?  There's a news flash. The Republican party is an embarrassment to the country.

News of the Obvious: Warfare Economics Edition

The Reformed Broker highlights an economic study:

The Institute for Economics and Peace is out with a monumental piece of research on how wars affect the US economy...
The bottom line in their findings is that:

• Public debt and levels of taxation increased during most conflicts;
• Consumption as a percent of GDP decreased during most conflicts;
• Investment as a percent of GDP decreased during most conflicts;
• Inflation increased during or as a direct consequence of these conflicts.

Sure, the Institute for Economics and Peace may be biased about the costs of war, but I think these observations are pretty obvious.  I think I probably could have guessed each of those answers without thinking too hard.

News of the Obvious Chart of the Day

Via the Dish, an infographic on religious Americans:

An interesting chart would be Amish technology usage versus the rest of society.  This chart is just stupid.  When the majority of the country claims to be religious, survey results are going to closely match general society.  That doesn't take much figuring.  Another part of the infographic shows religious Americans are more likely to be heavily involved in civic groups than society in general.  That is at least more significant than the technology graph above.