FRICTION TAPE

Recovering muckraker. Hockey fan. I like the Federalist Papers.

[stackiii]

Housekeeping Note: Friction Tape Going Dark

I relaunched my old WordPress blog today, so I won't be posting here anymore. I hope you'll check me out over there, and that you'll join my email list.

I will leave this site and all its content here for archival and reference purposes.

[stackiii]

A Quick Debt Ceiling Primer for Laymen

I just received the following question via text message from a friend who doesn't follow national politics very closely:

What happens if the government goes into default on our loans? Can the Chinese then ship the Capitol building to Beijing? Do they get to start charging admission to our national monuments? Admission payable only in yen? And when I see stats that say the deficit works out to $54k per citizen, shouldn't the debt amount only be divided by the number of legislators who sold our asses to start with?

There's a lot packed in there, but I wanted to specifically address the questions about defaulting on the national debt because they pertain to the looming debt ceiling fight. It's a sad question for me to read, because it means the Obama messaging machine (the only thing this president is good at is messaging; we've known that since 2007) is winning the narrative war over the debt ceiling when someone who doesn't follow national politics very closely frames the question that way.

The short answer is that we won't default on our loans. The debt ceiling debate has nothing to do with whether or not the United States will default on its debt to foreign bondholders.

Each year, the United States government spends roughly $4.5 trillion, with roughly a third going to (a) service on the national debt (pretty much through interest payments only), (b) what's called "mandatory spending" (in other words, entitlements like Medicare and Social Security), and (c) what's called "discretionary spending" (in other words, spending on pretty much everything else, from corn subsidies and Navy ships to SNAP benefits and federal employee salaries; this is why the government is currently shut down ... House Republicans tied annual discretionary spending authorizations and appropriations to a one-year delay of Obamacare implementation, and the Democrats aren't going to play ball on that). The interest payments the United States has been making on those bonds held by foreign investors have, so far, been enough to prevent them from coming to call on the principal investment. Bonds are meant to be low-yield, safe, long-term investments anyway.

The debt ceiling is a statutory limit on the amount of money the United States Treasury can borrow from the world market by selling bonds in a given year. Treasury raises money through this practice for the purpose of raising money to pay for programs Congress created with legislation, and the president enacted with his signature. Both Congress and the president like this type of funding of government spending because it allows both to demonstrate value to tax payers through public expenditures without ever having to raise taxes on citizens to pay for those programs. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican voter, odds are that you will oppose a representative who raises your taxes come Election Day.

So the question isn't whether we'll default on the national debt if we don't raise the debt ceiling; it's whether or not politicians will get to have their cake and eat it too if Treasury can't borrow enough money to pay for everything elected officials think the government should pay for as expressed through legislation.

The broader problem isn't the statutory cap on how much money Treasury can borrow in a year; the broader problem is how many programs the government wants to try to run. Neither Republicans nor Democrats want to pay a political price for raising taxes, and frankly, it's not all that clear that Republicans want to limit the number of programs the government should try to run, for all the lip service party members pay to "reducing the size and scope of government," or to Reagan's three favorite bogeymen, "waste, fraud, and abuse." The Republican Party (absent Rick Perry, and even he struggled with it in presidential primary debates) can't really name much of anything in terms of programs they actually want to end. That's smart politics to not box yourselves in and paint a target on your back for Democrats to pound ... but current fiscal policy is unsustainable.

The shutdown is the product of a policy rider (Obamacare delay) that is a wedge issue between the two parties being attached to the funding of already-enacted government programs. The debt ceiling is a separate issue from the shutdown.

Further questions from non-political friends welcome.

Cartoon via Mark J. Perry

[stackiii]

[stackiii]

A Very #ConferenceIII Fantasy Roster

Today I drafted the following team, and it's pretty Central Division heavy:

Center

Jonathan Toews (CHI)

Jeff Carter (LA)

Damien Brunner (NJ)

Left Wing

Pascal Dupuis (PIT)

Dustin Brown (LA)

Brandon Saad (CHI)

Right Wing

Michael Ryder (NJ)

Vladimir Tarasenko (STL)

Alexandre Burrows (VAN)

Defense

Shea Weber (NSH)

Ryan Suter (MIN)

François Beauchemin (ANA)

Michal Roszival (CHI)

Dennis Seidenberg (BOS)

Goaltender

Nicklas Backstrom (MIN)

Ondrej Pavelec (WPG)

Bench

Colin Wilson (NSH)

Mikko Koivu (MIN)

Of course, I tried to avoid a Central Division bias in this year's Official Friction Tape Fantasy Team™ roster (last year's roster here), which I drafted yesterday:

Forward

P.A. Parenteau (COL)

Johan Franzen (DET)

Valeri Nichushkin (DAL)

Brendan Gallagher (MTL)

Michael Ryder (NJ)

Ryan Kesler (VAN) -- keeper from last year

Defense

Cody Franson (TOR)

Dan Boyle (SJ)

François Beauchemin (ANA)

John Carlson (WSH)

Goaltender

Cory Schneider (NJ) -- keeper from last year

Evgeni Nabakov (NYI)

Utility

Daniel Alfredsson (DET) -- keeper from last year

Logan Couture (SJ) -- keeper from last year

Bench

Jaromir Jagr (NJ) -- keeper from last year

Jeff Carter (LA) -- keeper from last year

Mike Ribeiro (PHO) -- keeper from last year

Luke Schenn (PHI)

I've got a little more confidence in the Official Friction Tape Fantasy Team™ roster this year than I had in it last year, and I have certainly more in it than I have in the team I drafted today for a separate league. Regarding today's draft: Damien Brunner is gifted but unproven; Colin Wilson should lead Nashville in scoring, but consistency and injury are his two biggest bugs; Brandon Saad and Vladimir Taransenko may have slumping sophomore seasons. Otherwise, I think the team is pretty well-rounded.

Regarding OFTFT™, Valeri Nichushkin should be an exciting rookie to watch in Dallas; Ryan Kesler should look to rebound after missing most of last season with injury, and should be a dynamic player for Team USA in the Sochi Olympics; the obvious weakness here is in goal, as Cory Schneider may not wrest a starting job away from Martin Brodeur (making him useless as a fantasy option), and the Islanders may not play well enough in front of an aging Nabokov to help him in the wins column.

Sadly, I don't have enough confidence in the Predators this year to have loaded up either roster with a bunch of homer picks. I wanted to draft Pekka Rinne today, despite questions about his health, and I drafted former Predators Ryan Suter and Cody Franson. Hell, I even considered drafting former Predator Martin Erat late in today's draft, or current Predator Rich Clune, whose 113 PIMs were good for 5th in the NHL last season.

*sigh* Maybe next year.

[gifhumor-blog]

Leaving work on a Friday...

[stackiii]

It's Friday afternoon, and I need:

A ping pong table; and

A cat.

That is all.

[stackiii]

What if "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" had been a Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster?

(Source.)

[stackiii]

There better be a Danny McBride cameo in this.

[stackiii]

"He's the Neville Chamberlain of sports bloopers." Ouch.

[stackiii]

Wow.

[stackiii]

My Roommate @BryanPick on "Honest Trailers: #BreakingBad"

This is a guest post. WARNING: The video below contains spoilers to AMC's Breaking Bad.

"...yet is so good, it got TV snobs to finally shut up about The Wire."

No. It got us to talk about something else in the same sentence as The Wire.

"So all-consuming, you push it on all your friends even if they don't watch TV."

Who doesn't watch TV? "I don't watch TV" was a snob-cool thing to say before The Sopranos. Now it's just being a philistine.

"Seriously, you better tune in fast if you want to avoid being ostracized by white people."

... Okay, that's correct.

[stackiii]

Say my name.

[stackiii]

Drew Johnson's Editorial Headline: "Inappropriate" for Times-Free Press, A-OK for Facebook?

This post is still up at the T-FP's Facebook page:

I generally think "media bias!" claims are overblown, but blaming Drew's firing on an abrogation of the internal editorial process seems like a heaping load of bullshit.

Drew Johnson, a friend, has a reputation for acerbic statements. He has been a known quantity in Tennessee for many years now. T-FP knew what they were getting when they hired him. Hell, it's probably, at least in part, why they hired him in the first place.

I'm hearing his offending "shove it" editorial was the most-read piece ever on T-FP's website, and their advertisers and sponsors have got to love the attention. But I also suspect that someone over there -- or maybe even outside the paper, like a potentially embarrassed Mayor Andy Berke -- was looking for a reason to get rid of Drew, and so they've dressed up this non-troversy as some firing offense, when really it's probably not a firing offense at all (if Drew's side of the story is to be believed, which I think it is).

[stackiii]

Chattanooga Times-Free Press Still Featuring Drew Johnson Headline They Claimed to Be "Inappropriate"

As of this writing (3:23pm Eastern on Thursday, August 1, 2013), this still appears when you visit the offending editorial:

The Times-Free Press claimed earlier today that the headline above was "inappropriate for [their] newspaper."

[stackiii]

Chattanooga Times-Free Press Terminates Editorial Page Editor Drew Johnson, Possibly for Anti-Obama Editorial

Their full, unedited side of the story:

Free Press editor Drew Johnson has been terminated after placing a headline on an editorial outside of normal editing procedures.

Johnson’s headline, “Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough,” appeared on the Free Press page Tuesday, the day President Barack Obama visited the city.

The headline was inappropriate for this newspaper. It was not the original headline approved for publication, and Johnson violated the normal editing process when he changed the headline. The newspaper’s decision to terminate Johnson had nothing to do with the content of the editorial, which criticized the president’s job creation ideas and Chattanooga’s Smart Grid. The Free Press page has often printed editorials critical of the president and his policies.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press is unique in that it has two editorial pages, the conservative Free Press page and the liberal Times page. This newspaper places high value on expressions of divergent opinion, but will not permit violations of its standards.

Drew's version:

Johnson adds in the comments of the thread above:

We change headlines all the time at the last minute. I had a filler headline in that stunk and thought of that Johnny Paycheck song and changed it. Didn't think it would be a problem. Apparently, I was wrong.

What do you think? Is there a "there" there?

[stackiii]

A "Super Cut of [x]" Video Truly Worthy of the Form

A super cut of SNL actors and guests cracking up and breaking character:

Thanks, Internet!

See also the super cut of Wolverine brandishing his adamantium claws across the X-Men film franchise from this morning.

[stackiii]

"Super Cut of [x]" Videos Are Overdone, But...

...I started chuckling a little under halfway through this super cut of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine brandishing his adamantium claws across the various X-Men (and related) titles that have been released to date. Have a look: