Events

What if the stimulus package signed into law a year ago today had actually worked? Let’s say this bill had started spending money within a matter of weeks and had rapidly helped the economy. Let’s also imagine it was large enough to have had a huge impact on jobs — employing something like two million people who would otherwise be unemployed right now. If that had happened, what would the economy look like today? Well, it would look almost exactly as it does now. Because those nice descriptions of the...

Two more items about anthropogenic climate change. First, from NPR this morning Most don't see a contradiction between a warming world and lots of snow. That includes Kevin Trenberth, a prominent climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. "The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years ago means there's about on average 4 percent more water vapor lurking around over the oceans than there was, say, in the 1970s," he says. Warmer water means more...

I received three items from the Internets today bringing various threads about the right into perspective. First, a note about Joe the Plumber's frustration with the McCain campaign: "I don't owe him sh*t," Wurzelbacher said. "He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it." "McCain was trying to use me," he said. "I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy." Readers will note that one of my long-time criticisms of the right is their pandering to people who want to avoid...

Paul Krugman has a good explanation today why the problems of Spain and Greece come from the ways Europe and the U.S. are different: [T]here’s not much that Spain’s government can do to make things better. The nation’s core economic problem is that costs and prices have gotten out of line with those in the rest of Europe. If Spain still had its old currency, the peseta, it could remedy that problem quickly through devaluation — by, say, reducing the value of a peseta by 20 percent against other European...

Forty nine states have snow on the ground right now thanks to a rash of snowstorms caused, in part, by human-induced climate change (.pdf, 1.8 MB). First, the situation on the ground: The extraordinary rash of snowstorms which have swept the U.S. in recent weeks, many generating record snowfall, have produced one of the country's most expansive snow packs in recent memory. National Weather Service researchers charged with monitoring the country's snow cover and its water content estimated Friday that...

My biggest problem with this is, I had a headache before seeing it:

Via Andrew Sullivan, a brilliant depiction of the idiocy of marriage inequality:

From reader MB, a business venture he wishes he'd thought of: Many people in the U.S.—perhaps 20 million to 40 million—believe there will be a Second Coming in their lifetimes, followed by the Rapture . In this event, they say, the righteous will be spirited away to a better place while the godless remain on Earth. But what will become of all the pets? Bart Centre, 61, a retired retail executive in New Hampshire, says many people are troubled by this question, and he wants to help. He started a service...

Not so much: Former representative Charlie Wilson died. This is a good weekend to watch Charlie Wilson's War (screenplay by Aaron Sorkin) one more time. A couple days ago Northern Illinois had a 4.2-magnitude earthquake, and no one knows why. Speaking of Illinois, after the amusing silliness with the Lt. Governor primary race, the legislature has proposed eliminating the office altogether. That would make the Attorney General second in line for Governor. People from outside Illinois should note that the...

It's just dawn in London, about five hours before my flight takes off, and this is the headline on the WGN Weather Blog: Entire Chicago metropolitan area upgraded to winter storm warning The entire Chicago metropolitan area is being placed under a winter storm warning effective from this evening through noon on Wednesday. Previous the winter storm warning had been in effect only for counties close to Lake Michigan where lake-enhanced snowfall was expected to boost snowfall total and surrounding areas...