Category Archives: Politics

Politics, Science and Edumacation

Hawaii Linkorama

  • Huffpo has their most egregious examples of Fox News bias. I dunno. First, HuffPo continues to confuse opinion with news reporting. Second, almost all of these can be seen in the MSM for the Democrats. In particular, the criticism of Fox for reciting Republican talking points falls flat. I used to run a regular feature in which I would put Democratic Party press releases and NYT editorials side-by-side and invite readers to guess which was which. Narry a mention, of course, will be made about Olberman and Maddow’s secret meeting with Obama.
  • You know, couldn’t he prosecute the woman for trespassing?
  • What would life be like without the internet? My third favorite magazine takes a look. Not shown: me writing random thoughts on walls.
  • Ah, DMV. Do you ever fail to be a source of humor?
  • CO2 levels at 15 million year highs.
  • Soviet sentimentalism. Never grows old, does it?
  • Team Obama decides that voters are too stupid to vote without parties. I suspect, however, that the motivating factor here is to get more Democrats elected.
  • Again, remind me why Bloomberg is touted as a Presidential Candidate? How do you make the business environment in NYC worse?
    • Politics

    Grab a Mop

    It’s when he says stuff like this that I can’t help but like the guy. I disagree with Obama plenty and I’m under no illusions about his loyalty to Democratic interests. But I don’t think I’ll ever hate him. And for that, I’m an outsider in my own philosophy and a man with no party.

    Healthcare, Politics, Science and Edumacation

    Thursday Linkorama

  • Barbara Ehrenreich became famous for her book Nickeled and Dimed, a story of year she spent as a poor person. It had some huge flaws, mainly her insistence on changing jobs and refusal to avail herself of private assistance. Nevertheless, the book was very popular in academic circles for reinforcing liberal beliefs about poverty. Seems like she’s still at it, ignorantly attacking recent research indicating women’s happiness is beginning to fall off.
  • The New Paternalism: Old Paternalism with a little more condescension.
  • Two more horror stories from the UK NHS.
  • If the GOP can’t even run a website, how they can run the country. Oh, yeah.
  • What does Eliot Spitzers warrant a column on Slate? Ignore the man’s private behavior; he’s a puritanical totalitarian twerp.
  • Fascinating stuff on the Soviet doomsday machine.
  • Another interesting article on Obama’s love of language, both in speeches and writing.
  • Um. What?.
  • If we cut oil consumption, the Saudis want compensation. I knew there was a good side to this global warming stuff: it pisses off the oil sheiks something fierce.
  • Looks like the school that wanted to suspend a 6-year-old over his utensils has come to their senses. Now we can make zero tolerance policies work — so long as every wronged child gets an internet uproar.
    • Politics, Taxes and Spending

    VAT

    The more I think about it, the more I think:

    1) We’re going to have to raise taxes to balance the budget. Right now, the tax burden is lower than its historical average in the post-WW2 era. The money for Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and defense — none of which will ever be cut — has to come from somewhere.

    2) A Value Added Tax is the least destructive way to get there. It’s much better than the stupid Fair Tax, which I’ve attacked here. And if it replaced much of our existing system, the capital and potential freed up would more than compensate for the deleterious effects of a tax increase.

    Of course, the GOP is not interested. They’re too busy screaming, “They’re raising taxes! Taxes! Taxes! Taxes! AIEEEEEEEE!” The question is not whether taxes are going up; the question is whether they can be raised in the least destructive way possible.

    Law and Order, Politics, War on Terror

    Wednesday Linkorama

  • How in the blue fuck does this guy stay on the police force? Who’s doing the background checks around here?
  • Anatomy of a right wing smear job. I’m getting more and more embarrassed by these jokers.
  • Speaking of embarrassing “conservatives”, watch Colbert demolish Glenn Beck. It’s scary that Colbert’s joke image isn’t as far out there as Beck’s “real” one.
  • Police are stopping and searching a million people a year. What is this? The Soviet Union?
  • Rick Perry needs to resign. Executing an innocent man is bad enough. What Perry is doing is criminal.
  • That Barack Obama. There he goes again, cutting and running in Afghanistan. Oh, wait. No he’s not.
  • A list of people who could have won the Nobel Prize.
  • A question. If a business is too big to fail, should the Feds break it up into divisions that aren’t too big to fail? Is the existence of such a business as great a threat to our nation as criminal and foreign armies? Ah, well. Given the Groupthink of the financial industry, there really is no difference in having big business vs. small ones.
  • One of Obama’s advisors defends sharia. Really.
    • Politics

    Un-American

    A great post from Greenwald — he’s great when he doesn’t drive me up the wall — tackles the DNC’s statement that critics of the Obama Peace Prize are siding with the Taliban. I was at my wit’s end when conservatives did this — and still do it to me when I come out against torture or express concerns about Iraq or suggest that we may end up having to accept a nuclear Iran. The shameful thing about the “joke” headlines Greenwald suggests — e.g., Obama sides with Castro and Chavez on Honduras — is that they are actually real headlines on many “conservative” blogs.

    For another take, Reason points out (as Greenwald does) that the new optimism Obama has created in confined mostly to Europe — we are just as an unpopular as ever in the Middle East. And Matt Welch argues that it shows a bizarrely US-centric tilt to the Nobel Committee. I also like Sullivan’s take — why not give it en masse to the people who boldly stood up to the Iranian government as it stole an election?

    Politics

    A Noble Nobel

    I’m with Radley. I think the best thing Obama could do is decline the Nobel Prize. He won’t, since he can’t resist a chance to make a speech. But as Balko notes:

    It wouldn’t just be admirable, I’d imagine it would be hugely poitically popular, too. And it would take the wind out of the sales of the righty pundits dogging him this morning for a decision he had no part in making.

    Let me put it this way. My opinion of Obama would go up several notches even though I would know it was a political decision.

    PS – My reaction to this is more astonishment and amusement than OUTRAGE! The Peace Prize has long been rendered meaningless since they started handing it out to terrorists and wealthy crack-brained politicos. I wish we had something that legitimately recognized peace-makers in the world. Because there are many many out there who deserve recognition more than the most famous man on the face of the planet.

    Update: I’ve been thinking more about this and why it bugs me. It doesn’t OUTRAGE me, but I’m not happy about it. And what I’m finding, to my astonishment, is that it’s because I’m somewhat idealistic.

    Maybe it’s crazy, but I think the words “Nobel Prize Winner” should mean something, despite some of the extremely poor choices that have been made in the past. It should mean Norman Borlaug, who saved a billion lives. It should mean Martin Luther King or Gandhi, who liberated millions without firing a shot. It should mean the Grameen Bank, who are trying desperately to create an economy in Bangladesh. Hell, it can even mean Jimmy Carter, who made peace between Israel and Egypt.

    What it should not mean is a glib, sliver-tongued politician whose primary qualification is that he isn’t as bad as George W. Bush. And let’s be honest. As bad as Bush was, it wasn’t like he was Genghis Khan or something. Rewarding Barack Obama for comparatively minor breaks from Bush’s policies is an absurd over-reaction. And the claims that this will force Obama to follow through on his promises are beyond ridiculous. That’s sleeping with someone in the hopes they’ll be nice to you.

    Politics, Science and Edumacation, War on Terror

    Aussie Linkorama

    6 Comments
  • The “debunking” of global warming? Myth. Again. But the Denialists now have another few years of ammunition. Look how much mileage they’ve gotten out of the global cooling canard.
  • Now that Britain has banned guns and knives, they’re taking aim at pub glasses. Yes, pub glasses. Stand by for their next announcement to remove people’s fists.
  • God help me. I do sometimes like Scalia.
  • I would definitely eat irradiate meat. In fact, I suspect that with my travel schedule, I am.
  • The overcrowding doomsayers are crawling out of the woodwork again. Ignore them (although I don’t know where Bailey is getting his Year 2100 projections).
  • Good on the Obama team for having low-level talks with Iran. It looks like concessions were made. We are fools to not consider talking to Iran, given the demographic firestorm that is soon to dislodge their leadership. More on Iran here, although I think Cole is a bit too glib and far far too generous in his reading of Iran’s actions.
  • I’ve been predicting for a while that terrorists would put bombs inside their bodies. Increasingly, we see that finding terrorists is important than finding weapons.
    • Politics

    Olympic Schadenfreude

    Look, I’m happy for Rio that they got the Olympics. I’m a little disappointed they’re not coming back to America but didn’t think Chicago would be a great place for it.

    But what the hell is up with the “conservatives” crowing about how Obama “lost” the Olympics? Remember when it was bad to be happy when your country lost? I miss those days.

    Politics

    All Class

    Michael Moore’s movie is opening this weekend. By a strange coincidence, Moorewatch and all related sites are undergoing a number of brutal DDOS attacks. This is not unprecedented.

    Stay classy, you guys.

    Update: Looks like a mix of DDOS and server problems, actually. More of the latter today.

    'Culture', Politics, Sports

    Friday Linkorama

  • For once, a heart-warming non-political story.
  • Something else non-political that will make you grin. Mike Blowers calls his shot — before the game. Blowers has been one of my favorite players since I traded for him in a computer simulation only to watch him have a better season than he ever had in real life.
  • What is this? Three non-political things in a row? Read this about the importance of feeling stupid. I’ve observed that the principal difference between people who drop out of science and people who stay is that the stayers don’t take it personally when they feel stupid. (This is not to be confused with leaving and staying in academia, where the stayers just are stupid. Oh. Wait.)
  • Is the Keynsian multiplier 1? It’s just one paper, but the idea that massive spending (or, to be honest, massive tax cuts) stimulate the economy seems on shakier ground than supporters want to admit.
  • OK, back to politics. In response to Barack Obama, the Republican Party has clearly decided to go insane.
  • I find the videos of kids singing Obama’s praises a bit creepifying — not because it’s Obama but because I find the entire Cult of the Presidency thing creepifying. But the Right Wing’s hysteria has a very short memory. Check out this video of kids praying for (or to) Bush. Now that’s disturbing.
  • Democrats have restored abstinence education funding. Why?
    • Healthcare, Politics

    Tuesday Linkorama

  • Eventually, Democrats are going to run out of excuses. Now, they can’t even pass budget on time. Of course, the Republicans weren’t much better.
  • Memo to the GOP. Socialism actually has a dictionary definition. That definition is not anything I don’t like.
  • Somehow, I don’t think the housing crunch is over. We’re continuing to prop up this bubble. Until it kills us.
  • Ah, the War on Drugs. What stupidity have you unleashed today?
  • More paranoia about kids (with some hefty lucre thrown in).
  • Defensive medicine explained. Note that those who dispute the notion of defensive medicine don’t consider tests of questionable value to be “defensive”.
  • Uh-oh. The FDIC is running low of funds. I keep hoping the economy will turn around. But there’s a lot of ominous rumbling out there.