Another exciting adventure in data manipulation

The Wall Street Journal's opinion page is placing the potential demise of America's credit rating squarely on President Obama. To do so, they use equal parts of spin and data teasing. Witness the following graph used as "evidence" of Obama's guilt.

Eegats! That's a humongous change in spending! Why Obama goes from almost the bottom of the graph to the top in just TWO YEARS! This is unprecedented! That socialist! That cad! Think about our children's futures...they'll be serfs to the government's debt for the rest of their lives!

Wait, what's that you say--the bottom of the graph is set to 17% and the top is 26%? So Obama didn't take is from the top to the bottom in two years? And Obama didn't take over office until 2009 when it was already at 22%? You mean George Bush is responsible for that horrendous increase from the bottom at 17% to 22%? But the way you tell the story, Mr. Editor, and the way the graph looks, it's as if Obama took us from a balanced budget to total meltdown in just over two years. Leave it up to that liberal media to distort stats to make a democrat look bad.

Too much sarcasm? Sorry, sometimes I find it humorous the way graphs are manipulated to go along with preconceived notions. The amount of politicking from non-politicians, flip-flopping on the debt, blaming Obama for Bush's debt etc., tends to crack me up. Enjoy.

Alien lovin'

Katy Perry is blowing up the airwaves again. This time it's with her summer jam, E.T., which explores romantic encounters during alien abductions. Sound bad? it is.

The abduction analogy is carried on too long, and the extensions vary from comical to downright sick. After describing the joys of foreign, alien touch, Ms. Perry waxes poetic about her muse. "You're so supersonic" she announces, with no justification of how a fast lover can be a good lover. But spending time with the lover is not enough, she wants him to take her. "Take me," she commands, "wanna be a victim--ready for abduction." Anyone else creeped out by that abduction fantasy?

The song mightavoid outright laughter if not for the cameo by Kanye West. Kanye warms up with some space lifted from the Jetsons. "I know a bar out in Mars where they driving space ships instead of cars. Cop a Prada spacesuit about the stars." West really hits his stride when he announces that he has abducted Katy and "tell me what's next, alien sex." He rhymes "disrobe" and "probe" his victim, with a delivery that leaves no guess what instrument will be probing his abductee. Kanye is in on the rape fantasy. When his lover tries to leave "I abducted you! I tell you what to do, I tell you what to do!", he barks. Asserting his domination over the masochistic victim.

Not your type of loving? me neither. When I get around to it, I will post some of my favorite alien love songs.

My doctrine is not mine...

My doctrine is not mine...but him that sent me.

Last Monday the first major GOP presidential debate occurred in New Hampshire. The Debate marked the first time that major candidates, such as Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Michelle Bachmann graced the stage for an evening marked by brotherly love amongst the candidates and a refusal to criticize front-runner Mitt Romney and blame for everything wrong deflected towards President Obama. Some of my favorite moments included:

• Mitt Romney's demagoguery about the "Obama Depression." Despite bad employment numbers, Obama's economic programs pulled us out of a depression a year ago in a jobless recover.
• Michelle Bachmann's to abolish the republican-established Environmental Protection Agency
• Tim Pawlenty's refusal to criticize Romneycare (or "Obamneycare" as he has called it at recent rallies).

But perhaps my favorite moment came when Ron Paul was asked how he would remedy the decrease in US manufacturing. In case we were confused on whether Congressman Paul was an ideologue stuck on two policy issues, his answer should clarify that: abolish the Fed. Yep, the Fed.

According to Paul the Fed's policies have weakened the dollar[1] and no one wants to invest in the weakened dollar. Ergo, manufacturing sucks. But he's dead wrong. If monetary policies were to create a weakened dollar it would stimulate manufacturing in the States. Say the dollar were to be decreased 10%. Then there would be a 10% discount for all foreign purchasers. Europe would have a 10% discount on everything that it bought from us. China would too, but domestic labor prices are so low in China that they wouldn't buy much from us regardless. In the other side, a weakened dollar would make foreign imports more expensive; so we would by less from abroad. Both of these effects should increase manufacturing within the States. Which brings me to my title.

Congressman Paul, and many in the GOP field, are strict doctrinaires. They espouse an unflinching belief that their doctrines--whether it be abolishing the Fed, cutting taxes while reducing the deficit, or privatizing anything and everything done by the federal government--provide some general theory of relativity for governing on which all the world can be governed. That fact of the matter is that the Fed is not responsible for jobless rate, trickle down economics was debunked twenty years ago, and even Adam Smith would argue that the free market doesn't solve everything. But that doesn't refute republican doctrines, they're just trials of faith for the true believers who are going to take back our country.

[1] Given that we have yet to see real inflation, I think this assumption is questionable but I will assume it for sake of argument.