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The lede to "How to get the country to solvency on entitlements" by George Will:

In 2013, when President Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor, is counting his blessings, at the top of his list will be the name of his vice president: Paul Ryan. The former congressman from Wisconsin will have come to office with ideas for steering the federal government to solvency.

Not that Daniels has ever been bereft of ideas. Under him, Indiana property taxes have been cut 30 percent, and for the first time Standard & Poor's has raised the state's credit rating to AAA. But in January 2010, Ryan released an updated version of his "Roadmap for America's Future," a cure for the most completely predictable major problem that has ever afflicted America.

Those claims may or may not be true (it's George Will after all), but what's the fallout from getting this tax cut?

Indiana lawmakers are moving to enshrine property-tax caps in the state constitution, despite cuts in fire, police and other local services the limits have caused.

Cities already are laying off police officers and firefighters, as well as raising business fees, because the caps have reduced local tax revenues. The state Farm Bureau, which advocates for farmers, has raised concerns that homeowners are getting the biggest tax breaks despite using the most local-government services. Some companies dislike the caps because they set property-tax rates for businesses at three times the rate for homes.

Nothing in life is free, including police and fire protection. That kind of "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" tax policy has real consequences, and it's politically immature to pretend those negative outcomes don't exist.

Back to Will:

Ryan would eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends and death. The corporate income tax, the world's second-highest, would be replaced by an 8.5 percent business consumption tax. Because this would be about half the average tax burden that other nations place on corporations, U.S. companies would instantly become more competitive -- and more able and eager to hire.

Will is out to mislead the reader into thinking that corporate taxes are high, or not competitive internationally. That isn't close to being true, and one has to wonder how likely it is that Will's been told that by now.

Universal access to affordable health care would be guaranteed by refundable tax credits ($2,300 for individuals, $5,700 for families) for purchasing portable coverage in any state. As persons younger than 55 became Medicare-eligible, they would receive payments averaging $11,000 a year, indexed to inflation and pegged to income, with low-income people receiving more support.

Sounds great. Will insurance companies still be allowed to drop those who get sick to protect their profits? Will lifetime maximums still exist? Will people still be denied for pre-existing conditions?

Ryan would raise the retirement age. If, when Congress created Social Security in 1935, it had indexed the retirement age (then 65) to life expectancy, today the age would be in the mid-70s. The system was never intended to do what it is doing -- subsidizing retirements that extend from one-third to one-half of retirees' adult lives.

You mean we haven't been increasing the chance that you'll die before you get the chance to retire regularly? There's more years of life in workers now than ever before, shouldn't corporations be able to profit from that time instead of letting people retire? What the hell were we thinking? (I should stop with the sarcasm, considering the number of right wing protesters willing to go to extremes in opposing anything that isn't to their own detriment, this idea of working until you're old and infirm may catch on.)

Republicans are frequently criticized as "the party of no." But because most new ideas are injurious, rejection is an important function in politics. It is, however, insufficient. Fortunately, Ryan, assisted by Republican Reps. Devin Nunes of California and Jeb Hensarling of Texas, has become a think tank, refuting the idea that Republicans lack ideas.

So where's the Republican party lining up to support this bill like they lined up to support a record number of filibusters?

The superior alternative to the teleprompter.

The stupid, it burns.

Oh my god.

"Santa Fe economist Samuel Bowles says you better get used to it."

"The godfather of rap."

I just switched to a dual monitor setup on my Windows 7 computer at home. The hardware works fine, as far as that it goes, but the behavior is a little off. There's only one taskbar, and it's on the primary window. Every window you open there defaults to the primary window, and must be moved off to the secondary window.

Moreover, if I open a video game in windowed mode and maximize it, it will move itself from the secondary window to the primary one.

It seems to me that a second taskbar on the second monitor which defaulted to opening (and maximizing) windows on that monitor would be something that Windows 7 could do.

It isn't.

Various searches reveals that this is something people have been complaining about since at least 2002. And Microsoft has been asked about it, and given . . . well judge the response for yourself:

One of the aspects under the microscope will the taskbar, a Windows 7 desktop item on which Microsoft did already open up a tad without managing to say very much. Illustrative of this is Chaitanya Sareen, senior program manager on the Core User Experience team, discussing multi-monitor support for the taskbar in Windows 7.

While acknowledging that multi-monitor support for the Windows taskbar is long overdue, Sareen said that, “we tend to think that the design of a multi-mon taskbar is not as simple as it may seem. As with many features, there is more than one way to implement this one. For example, some might suggest a unique taskbar that exists on each display and others suggest a taskbar that spans multiple displays. [...] Keep in mind the complexities of having monitors of different sizes, orientations, and alignments.”

So their solution is to do jack #$!%? NOTHING is better than just picking a solution and saying "deal with it"? WTF?

"Obama’s Philosophically Fascist State of the Union Address" at CNSNews.com

President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms—not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually.

The Amazing Kreskin was never this good at reading minds.

An old joke comes to mind -- a man hiring for an accountant interviews two applicants. He asks the first applicant, two plus two, what's the answer? Four, the applicant responds.

Second applicant, same question. The response -- what do you want it to be? You're hired, he's told.

--Newsbusters

After bitching that Reuters deleted a story "without explanation", NewsBusters goes and does it themselves.

It's not sloppy, it's lying.

Mel knew that mic was live. That was on purpose.

Just six weeks ago, law enforcement officials informed Abdulmutallab of his rights "only after ... Abdulmutallab had stopped talking to authorities." This, according to Republican attack dogs, is outrageous -- he shouldn't have been read his rights at all. The Obama administration, they argue, is treating Abdulmutallab like the criminal he is, rather than the Super Threat that Republicans prefer him to be.

But in 2001, law enforcement officials informed Reid of his rights five minutes after he was taken into custody. And then again two hours later. And then again three hour later.

I know this reality is all terribly inconvenient for Republicans. Facts just keep getting in the way of a perfectly misleading narrative.

But at this point, the GOP and its allies have a choice. Either they can explain why they were entirely silent when Bush handled the Reid case the same way Obama has handled the Abdulmutallab incident, or they can shut up and accept the fact that they've been acting like shameless, transparent, dishonest hacks.

I'm especially interested in hearing Liz Cheney trash her own father's administration for the way it handled the case of an attempted terrorist attack. Go ahead, Liz, we're all ears.

--Steve Benen @ Political Animal.

NewsBusters reports "Reuters Middle Class Tax Hike Story Disappears Without Explanation":

Yesterday, The Drudge Report linked to a Reuters story that referred to the Obama administration's plan to impose "backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families." Reuters described the rate hikes that will take effect if previous tax cuts are allowed to expire

. . .

Reuters pulled the story later in the day without explanation. (see screencap above at right). Those who browse to the old link find only a brief notice stating that the article was removed and will be replaced later in the week.

A major wire story detailing large tax increases on the middle class during an election year would seem to be big news. Yet scarcely an eye was batted when this story disappeared. The administration can ill afford to be seen as raising taxes on the middle class during a recession when the President's Congressional majority is already imperilled. Reuters should be made to explain why this story disappeared.

But, as always, if NewsBusters says it, you need to double check it. The NewsBusters post went up 11:20 ET today. If anybody at NewsBusters had actually bothered to do rudimentary research before making their post, they would have seen that other sites had reported on this yesterday, instead of claiming that "scarcely an eye was batted". Indeed, Reuters had already explained the stories removal the day before:

The Feb 1 story headlined "Backdoor taxes to hit middle class" is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration's budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story.

This is a political version of experimenter's bias in action: the whole point of conservative media commentary is to state definitively that that there is a pervasive and consistent liberal media bias, and then find proof that all of that is true. With that kind of sloppy attitude towards media "research" "errors" like this are closer to the norm than the exception.

Karl Frisch asks "Does anyone still doubt that the right-wing media runs the GOP?" I think the fairer take is to say that there's never been much difference between FOX News and the GOP.

ABC News reports in "Lancet Retracts Controversial Autism Paper":

It was the scientific paper that served as a central pillar for the idea that vaccination could increase children's risk of developing autism.

Now, with a formal retraction from the Lancet, the medical journal which in 1998 published this piece of research by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, most researchers will view the study as if it had never been published in the first place.

In a statement explaining its retraction of Wakefield's paper, the Lancet said: "Following the judgment of the U.K. General Medical Council's Fitness to Practice Panel on Jan. 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al are incorrect ... in particular, the claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record."

"The Lancet is an enormously prestigious journal with worldwide circulation, so its action of repudiation is very important," said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine's Department of Preventive Medicine in Nashville, Tenn. "The retraction puts another nail in the coffin of this awful, painfully erroneous study."

Bad Astronomy, of course, has an insightful comment:

It’s up to the blogs to call out Wakefield for his tireless efforts in creating of the modern antivaccination movement, which is becoming so successful that measles, mumps, pertussis, and other preventable diseases are on the rise again. And to note that not only was his research wrong, but that he may have faked his data. And to say that he has a huge conflict of interest here, since at the time he was involved in creating an alternative to vaccination that would make him very, very rich if people became scared to vaccinate their kids. And to inform people that Wakefield was in the pocket of lawyers trying to sue the vaccine industry. And to basically call out the entire antivax movement for the incredible damage they have done and continue to do to public health.

"The state of Dumbfuckistan."

No more waffling, I'm a Taibbi fan.

"Final Season Of 'Lost' Promises To Make Fans More Annoying Than Ever":

I'm finished serving the will of Junta Kinte. I've now officially seen every episode of LOST broadcast. He can't bite at my throat until tonight.

A couple of day ago, I dissed The Daily Show for running with a right-wing talking point and trying to make it funny.

I was more right than I thought when I chided them for not having a germ of truth to work with:

Days before the 2008 election, Jon Stewart jokingly asked Barack Obama whether his "white half" would have trouble making a decision in the voting booth.

"Yeah," the candidate said, "I've been going through therapy to make sure that I vote properly."

That's disgusting. I believe in making fun of people for what they do, and not what they are.

Last week, though, the president was the punch line. After showing video of Obama speaking to schoolkids, the "Daily Show" host said in amazement: "You set up a presidential podium and a teleprompter in a sixth-grade classroom? . . . I'm not a political adviser, campaign strategist, et cetera, but that's not a great photo op in a middle school classroom."

It was inevitable that Obama would become a late-night target, at least when Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Dave Letterman have taken time out from sliming one another. But Stewart, who makes no secret of leaning left, is a pop-culture bellwether. And while the White House notes that Obama used the prompter to address journalists, not the students, the details matter little in comedy.

While not yet nearly as serious as the memes that derailed Al Gore's campaign, they do matter, because these smears can snowball, and there are some well paid Republican operatives planting dynamite to start the avalanche.

Stewart's barbs are generating partisan buzz. In a tweet, Americablog's John Aravosis invoked Martha Coakley's Massachusetts loss in trashing the prompter joke: "So is this the new post-coakley Jon Stewart, picking on Dems for insignificant BS to burnish his indie credentials. Third time in 7 days." The conservative Fox Nation site, by contrast, ran the video under the gleeful header "Jon Stewart Mocks Obama's Teleprompter Dependence."

Meaning that, at least in this case, there is less space between Fox News and The Daily Show than there should be.

From the transcript of the Barbara Walters interview with Scott Brown, Senator-elect from Massachusetts:

WALTERS: Well, there is the debate now in the Republican Party as to whether it should be more conservative or more moderate. Which direction do you bend?

BROWN: They can do whatever they want. I just know that I'm a Scott Brown Republican. What does that mean? That means I'm going to go down there and be accountable, accessible, open, and honest, and I'm going to bring good government and fairness back to the equation.

I'm a fiscal conservative. I care very deeply about -- because my mom was, as you probably know more than anybody is, you know, she was on welfare for a time. I remember getting the blocks of cheese and worrying about how we're going to pay the bills.

So when it comes to fiscal issues, I'm going to be very, you know, conservative and concerned about people's dollars.

WALTERS: And social issues, a little more moderate?

BROWN: Yes, of course.

I'm going to keep an eye on this guy, if for no other reason to see if lacking a privileged background effects his voting behavior.