Hand me the back of the envelope, please, edition 2

In which we learn that the social cost of the carbon in the coal to be removed from the North Porcupine Coal Tract of Wyoming is about 90 times what the mining company will pay the government for the coal. This at a SCC of $65 / ton CO2. Oh, perhaps you prefer the more conservative $12 median estimate from the economics literature? OK, then only 17 times...

Hand me the back of the envelope, please

I listen to NPR News every day, and I am much better informed for it. But often I wish they would do a little more real reporting. Such as asking pointed follow-up questions, and trying to figure out the actual magnitudes of things without relying on he-said, she-said. Dean Baker offers a great example of how to do it, reacting to a particularly egregious report on the implications of the ACA decision.

Hey hey ACA

It certainly seemed paradoxical that Medicare, which provides universal government health insurance coverage to older folks and levies a broad tax to pay for it, could be constitutional, while a system of private insurance that requires participation or payment of a fine (ACA) might not be. Why isn't the fine basically the equivalent of a tax to support a system of private provision? And so Justice Roberts decided the matter. Still, if the power to tax trumps the conservative interpretation of the Commerce Clause, what's to prevent the Feds from regulating whatever the hell they want to, by punishing noncompliance with fines and calling them taxes? Why, they could even force you to buy broccoli that way.

I'm glad the decision went the way it did, but I can understand why Scalia might be scratching his head.

Happy Birthday, Jean-Jacques

Thanks to Bill Connolly, the professor who had the biggest influence on me, Rousseau was the first philosopher I ever tried to think deeply about. I have moved on to shallower waters, but I remain convinced that Rousseau asked the essential questions in political and social theory. His answers are still worth grappling with, flawed as they are, and flawed as he was.

Climate news

This decision upholding the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions is good news, and may even hold up in the Supreme Court given Kennedy's previous votes on related cases. That is, until President Romney replaces one of the moderates with another Republican ideologue.

Of course it will be too little too late anyway, with a future of more wildfires and deluges our likely fate. Mind you, my parents in central Florida, who have been suffering years of drought in their neck of the woods, are happy to put up with a little deluge. If they stay put a few years, they might even have beachfront property...

Your FSA/OWI photo of the day

Man with homemade pipe, Washington, D.C. John Vachon, 1937.

Maybe we're safe, after all...

It is reassuring to know that when the singularity occurs and a superhuman artificial intelligence evolves in the cloud, it will be preoccupied with internet cat images, just like its human predecessors. Maybe it will be too distracted to bother exterminating us.















Hat tip to Echidne.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 16

I think "Rent" is the very best Pet Shop Boys song. But there is a lot of competition. Happy Pride Day!