Alice in Billionaireland

It's confusing to see the snarling red faces of America's financial overlords. Of all the people on earth, what do they have to be angry about? They almost obliterated the world economy, and as punishment, we opened up the U.S. treasury and told them to haul off as much as they could carry. Meanwhile, everyone else is just praying the Medicare age won't be raised beyond 82.
However, their fury makes perfect sense if you understand that they live inside an all-enveloping fantasy world. You may have seen that Paul Ryan was recently spotted downing two $350 bottles of wine with Cliff Asness, a hedge fund manager. When a woman approached and criticized them for that kind of extravagance as Ryan plots to slash all social spending, Asness apparently said to Ryan "fuck her." Asness was previously known for staging a memorable public freakout about the Obama administration's bailout of Chrysler in an open letter titled "Unafraid in Greenwich, Connecticut."
So far so normal in 2011. But I don't think anyone's noticed this, from Asness's bio on his company's website:

He received an MBA with high honors and a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago where he was Eugene Fama’s student and teaching assistant for two years (he is still respectfully scared of Gene).

In other words, Asness is a protege of Fama, who's an extremely schmancy figure in right-wing economics. (And John Cochrane, a University of Chicago finance professor who was also eating with Asness and Ryan, is Fama's son-in-law.) This is the milieu in which Asness spends his days.
And here's the significance of that: Fama was recently spotted confidently telling everyone that the sky is green:

Barack Obama Is Powerless Before the Majesty of the Law

Does the 14th Amendment of the Constitution trump the debt ceiling and allow the executive branch to continue borrowing past August 2nd? Oh man, if it did that would be great—Obama could just tell the Republicans to forget it, he's not going to be blackmailed into slashing Society Security and Medicare!
Sadly, Obama's lawyers have told him it doesn't, and therefore, as Obama explained at a public appearance today, that settles that:

OBAMA: Now, the gentleman asked about the 14th Amendment. There is -- there's a provision in our Constitution that speaks to making sure that the United States meets its obligations. And there have been some suggestions that a President could use that language to basically ignore this debt ceiling rule, which is a statutory rule. It’s not a constitutional rule. I have talked to my lawyers. They do not -- they are not persuaded that that is a winning argument. So the challenge for me is to make sure that we do not default, but to do so in a way that is as balanced as possible and gets us at least a down payment on solving this problem... But I’m sympathetic to your view that this would be easier if I could do this entirely on my own. (Laughter.) It would mean all these conversations I’ve had over the last three weeks I could have been spending time with Malia and Sasha instead. But that’s not how our democracy works.

Huh:

President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations. Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20...
Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch.

Of course, as people with a sophisticated understanding of the law know, there's a huge difference between ignoring the debt ceiling and bombing Libya. For instance: Obama wants to bomb Libya.

Alzheimer's and Caffeine: It's Not Just Mice

I'm taking a break from the usual futile political analysis for something that may actually help someone somewhere.  You may have heard about this news when it was published in 2009:

[The] Florida ADRC study included 55 mice genetically altered to develop memory problems mimicking Alzheimer's disease as they aged. After behavioral tests confirmed the mice were exhibiting signs of memory impairment at age 18 to 19 months – about age 70 in human years – the researchers gave half the mice caffeine in their drinking water. The other half got plain water. The Alzheimer's mice received the equivalent of five 8-oz. cups of regular coffee a day. That's the same amount of caffeine – 500 milligrams -- as contained in two cups of specialty coffees like Starbucks, or 14 cups of tea, or 20 soft drinks.
At the end of the two-month study, the caffeinated mice performed much better on tests measuring their memory and thinking skills. In fact, their memories were identical to normal aged mice without dementia. The Alzheimer's mice drinking plain water continued to do poorly on the tests.

(The PDF version of the study is here.)
My father has had progressing symptoms of dementia (not formally diagnosed as Alzheimer's, though that's been both our assumption and his doctors') for several years, and it had gotten to the point where he was so cognitively impaired that he couldn't recall the names of just about anyone other than immediate family and he was sleeping 20+ hours a day.  On my most recent trip home my mother mentioned that he'd stopped drinking coffee, but while I was there we happened to give him a few cups—and we noticed an immediate and dramatic improvement in his awareness, alertness, short-term and long-term memory, level of engagement, and many other more subtle things as well.  It was like having my old dad back.
In researching a possible connection I came across the 2009 study mentioned above, and since then we've been making sure he has at least 5 cups of coffee a day (which translates roughly into the 500mg dose mentioned in the study).  It's continued to have a dramatic effect, which we see within a few minutes—"like watching a flower open in time-lapse", as my mother said—and lasts throughout the day as we supplement the coffee dosage.  I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it happen for myself; after years of watching my father drift further and further away from us, it's nothing short of miraculous.  Luckily for us he loves coffee (that's one of the things he seemed to have forgotten), but if that ever becomes a problem we'll try adding caffeine pills to his daily pharmaceutical regimen.
So if you know someone with symptoms of dementia, try giving them caffeine, and if you know someone who knows someone with symptoms of dementia, tell them to try giving that person caffeine.  There are no guarantees that it will have the same effect it did with my dad, of course, but it's so simple and low-risk there's no reason not to try it.  Seriously: tell everyone and anyone you know who might benefit from this, because it could literally change their lives.
If you do try this I'd be very interested to hear what kind of results you see, whether positive, neutral or negative.
(A little more on my father here, if you're interested.)
MORE INFO: Here's an excerpt from the abstract for a 2002 study:

Patients with AD [Alzheimer's disease] had an average daily caffeine intake of 73.9 ± 97.9 mg during the 20 years that preceded diagnosis of AD, whereas the controls had an average daily caffeine intake of 198.7 ± 135.7 mg during the corresponding 20 years of their lifetimes (P < 0.001, Wilcoxon signed ranks test). Using a logistic regression model, caffeine exposure during this period was found to be significantly inversely associated with AD (odds ratio=0.40, 95% confidence interval=0.25–0.67), whereas hypertension, diabetes, stroke, head trauma, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, vitamin E, gastric disorders, heart disease, education and family history of dementia were not statistically significantly associated with AD. Caffeine intake was associated with a significantly lower risk for AD, independently of other possible confounding variables.

So consuming 198.7 ± 135.7 mg of caffeine a day may help you avoid Alzheimer's.

It Turns Out What Was Obviously Going to Happen Will Happen

MCCONNELL: It set the template for the future...no president — in the near future, maybe in the distant future — is going to be able to get the debt ceiling increased without a re-ignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending and get America headed in the right direction. I expect the next president, whoever that is, is going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again in 2013, so we’ll be doing it all over.

So there will be an infinite number of chances for Democratic presidents to slash Social Security and Medicare—and sure normally they'd love to hold an extensive debate on such a momentous decision, but darn it, they're being held hostage by the dastardly insane Republicans so there's NO TIME WE MUST SLASH SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE OR WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE. Etc.

No, You Should Start Blaming Yourselves

A liberal writes about his erstwhile man-god:

Should liberals blame themselves, as so many are suggesting, for missing these red flags? How can we when so many were convinced of his sincerity? He is the most gifted orator in generations. He made us hear what he wanted us to hear. We so needed to find hope after eight dispiriting years under Bush that we had to believe—the alternative, that he was just another slick-talking politician, would have been nihilistic.
We must stop making excuses for him and stop blaming ourselves for blindly supporting him.

You would think that objectively and accurately assessing the readily available evidence concerning Obama rather than euphorically embracing his empty rhetoric would be recognized—after the fact, if nothing else—as rational, not "nihilistic".  You would think an adult would understand that nobody can make  them hear anything, if they choose to exercise their own judgment and skepticism.  You would think it would go without saying that "blindly supporting" any politician—or indeed any authority figure—is an act for which people most certainly should blame themselves, if for no other reason than to demonstrate a sincere intention not to do it again.
You would be wrong.  In the age of Obama, being a liberal means never having to say you're sorry.
— John Caruso

Thanks a Lot, Asshole

Two things have been obvious since at least the summer of 2008: (1) Obama's dearest wish was to be a centrist corporate president and rerun the Clinton administration exactly; and (2) circumstances would prevent that and force him significantly to either the left or right of Clinton. It's been clear since soon after he was elected that when he had to choose he was going to go far to Clinton's right, and tonight he made that choice irrevocably.
The worst part about Obama's behavior isn't the agreement to slash government spending, though that's bad enough. The worst part isn't even his wholesale adoption of right-wing rhetoric and fairly tales. The worst part is that—because he wanted to use the debt ceiling as leverage against the 17 remaining liberal Democrats in Congress—he eagerly created the precedent that this will happen whenever the debt ceiling is raised and a Democrat is president.
So get ready for this every couple of years for the rest of your life. Won't let us zero out Medicare? WE'LL CRASH THE ECONOMY. Won't let us make it illegal to say the words "global warming"? OUR FINGER'S ON THE DETONATOR! Won't let us pass a law tying the serfs to the land? WE'LL BLOW UP THE WORLD!!! And then the Democratic president will agree to it and send out the press release celebrating the "kind of compromise that makes America great."
Thanks a lot, asshole.

Aqua Buddha Thrilled by Rand Paul Result; Terra Buddha, Pyro Buddha, and Aero Buddha Profoundly Discouraged

Aqua Buddha threw up his watery hands in moist thanks for Rand Paul's election as the new U.S. Senator from Kentucky, but other elemental Buddhas around the world shook their heads in despair at what they saw as terrific neglect by most of their worshippers.
"None of our worshippers won a single seat of any importance whatsoever," said the earthy Terra Buddha, scratching himself. "A Pyro Buddha follower won comptroller of something," he continued. "What the hell is that?"
The other elemental Buddhas agreed that, with the election of Rand Paul,
a huge Aqua Buddha booster, the Buddha of the Water, as some know him, will be "absolutely insufferable."
Pyro Buddha was too angry to speak, but Aero Buddha tried to take Paul's win in stride. "Yes, the Aqua Buddha worshipper won," he conceded. "But let's not forget -- the Witch lost."