March 2010
47 posts
2 tags
Letters →
Eli Saslow writes a nice window into how a citizen’s letters, calls, and emails ultimately reach the President, what the response is, and how it all happens.
11 tags
STARTing to sink in
I suppose this qualifies as PAM; Spencer Ackerman over to the Washington Independent has finally noted that even if you manage to keep Dick Lugar aboard the START train, you still have to find seven other GOPers willing to vote with the President on anything:
that acrimonious tenor is likely to flip some of the [relatively few GOP] yes votes [on arms reduction under W Bush for fuck’s...
3 tags
5 tags
iPaddery
I think “the web” doesn’t mean what John Battelle thinks it does:
There’s a very easy way for the iPad to [have a HyperCard like development environment for casual users to make apps with], and it doesn’t involve creating another HyperCard. It just involves the iPad becoming a world class Internet client. So far, from all I’ve heard, it sounds like it...
5 tags
“Whether a loss of, say, 19 House seats and 3 Senate seats [by the Democrat in...”
– Nate Silver, funniest man alive. What is hard to say is: if The Democrat were to somehow post a net win of 19 House and 3 Senate seats, would that be regarded as a “win” by the media. I think the answer is pretty clear.
4 tags
“The 2008 campaign was an extended tour of the swamp wherein reside [John...”
– Charles Pierce, writing to The Nation’s Eric Alterman, first channeling the good doctor, then quoting him. Magnificent.
7 tags
Cheneyism's Test
Domestic terrorist plot unsealed:
Nine members of a Michigan-based Christian militia group have been indicted on sedition and weapons charges in connection with an alleged plot to murder law enforcement officers in hopes of setting off an anti-government uprising.
Presumably the Tea Klan and the right-wing noise machine will come out strongly in support military tribunals, repeated torture,...
4 tags
Rad Jihadi Action
Top reasons cited for joining the jihad:
Motorcycles
Guns
Access to women
Wish I were making this up. Religious motivation is “pretty far down” the list.
Worth remembering that the GOP considers this sort of thing a fundamentally existential threat to these United States. Which the GOP has quite a low opinion of, apparently.
But it’s good to know that spreading around a...
9 tags
STARTs and stops
Obama notes the recent progress in strategic arms reduction treaty talks with Russia:
“It cuts — by about a third — the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia will deploy,” Obama said describing the agreement. “It significantly reduces missiles and launchers. It puts in place a strong and effective verification regime. And it maintains the flexibility...
3 tags
5 tags
“From this day forward, all of the cynics, all the naysayers, they’re going...”
– Barack Obama. I hope he’s right, but doubt he is. The Democrat is functionally incapable of this sort of messaging.
5 tags
The Doc Fix Myth →
By far the best analysis I’ve seen on this total non-issue.
For the tl;dr sect: right-wingers have built a closed information loop based on false premises re: true cost of healthcare reform with regard to a key pre-existing condition that’s not addressed by the reform package at all (this being the annual “doc fix” legislation). A permanent doc fix, when and if it comes,...
5 tags
6 tags
5 tags
6 tags
Hopey Changey
James Fallows positively nails it:
the significance of the vote is moving the United States FROM a system in which people can assume they will have health coverage IF they are old enough (Medicare), poor enough (Medicaid), fortunate enough (working for an employer that offers coverage, or able themselves to bear expenses), or in some other way specially positioned (veterans; elected...
5 tags
3 tags
The Ballad of El Gibby
I don’t reckon Alex Chilton remembrances can get much better than this story:
The Players
The night of the Butthole Surfers appearance at the huge Pandora’s Box festival in the Netherlands, [bassist Mark] Kramer went to fetch [singer Gibby] Haynes for a sound check. “It is firstly most important to state that, on this night, Gibby had eaten an entire handful of four-way acid tabs and...
4 tags
WellPointers
Burns: You know, Smithers, I think I'll donate a million dollars to the local orphanage...when pigs fly! [They laugh. The pig sails across the sky before them.]
Smithers: Will you be donating that million dollars now, Sir?
Burns: Nooo, I'd still prefer not.
4 tags
When Pigs Fly
2007: WellPoint pledged that its charitable foundation would give $30 million in grants to help the uninsured
2010: "It was just not something that the company really wanted to do," said one former executive, who, like others interviewed for this story, asked not to be identified out of concern that discussing WellPoint could have adverse career consequences. "So it went by the wayside."
1 tag
6 tags
Terrible news for the Democrat
All that back-room, closed-door, no-debate, unconstitutional wrangling has produced this epic fail of an outcome:
CBO has finished its work [scoring the “fix” sidecar and final healthcare reform bill] and will release the official preliminary score later today. But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130...
1 tag
5 tags
Islands in the stream
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has put out an analysis of MSM’s business model and its prospects. A few grim highlights:
We estimate that the newspaper industry has lost $1.6 billion in annual reporting and editing capacity since 2000, or roughly 30 percent, which leaves an extra $4.4 billion remaining. Even if the economy improves, we predict more cuts in...
3 tags
3 tags
“It’s entirely possible that more people will be killed driving to the dealer for...”
– Theodore H. Frank; so very true. Fantastically good piece.
3 tags
Color me gruntled →
Turns out Ben Zimmer is taking over the “On Language” column for the NYT. I am stunned. Amongst the various pinch-hitters that have been filling that space since Safire shuffled off his mortal coil, I rated Zimmer’s as superior. Vastly superior, even. This led me to assume that the NYT would either
a) eliminate “On Language”
-or-
ii) hire someone to collect...
3 tags
Exergue →
A partial list of words found circled in David Foster Wallace’s dictionary. Exergue has long been a particular favorite to Lemkin.
6 tags
Tax Outrage Sydrome
Tax expert Roberton Williams, interviewed by Derek Thompson at the Atlantic has some notes on the political landscape for reform (as currently proposed via Wyden Gregg, which itself only has life so long as the President disavows any and all knowledge of it):
From a political perspective, you say, “We’ve got to do it because you can’t trust big government.” That’s...
5 tags
Competiton
The Jane Hamshers of the world really need to sit down and consider this kind of thing in light of their own unyielding demands for some theoretical, perfect-out-of-the-gate plan that they feel could pass if given the chance and, at least, 55 newly minted progressive Senators:
Congressman Alan Grayson, (D-Orlando), today introduced a bill (H.R. 4789) which would give the option to buy into...
3 tags
“I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now...”
– Rush Limbaugh. Why wait, Rush?
8 tags
Gravity (and other theories)
Yglesias wants to know:
If Mitch McConnell & co were really so sure that passing health reform would be a political loser for Democrats and that organizing around repeal will be a big winner, then wouldn’t they be making it easier to pass the damn bill?
It’s not that if McConnell believed what he said he’d be voting for the bill. But if your opponents are determined to inflict a wound...
5 tags
Party of Terror
Talking Points Memo reports:
[Pentagon shooter John Patrick] Bedell even railed against the concept of public education. “Government control of the schools that shape minds is pervasive in today’s world,” he said. “The imperative to defend the freedom of conscience must lead us to eliminate the role of the government in education and leave parents and communities free...
3 tags
8 tags
Always Bad for the Democrat
Jamison Foser takes a look back to the most recent legitimately questionable use of the reconciliation process, the Bush tax cuts, to gauge what must have been a veritable torrent of “end of democracy” style editorials and hard-hitting analytical articles and investigations. Right?
The Senate reconciliation vote occurred on May 23, 2003. In the month of May, only one New York Times...
4 tags
4 tags
Post Office eBox
Has it occurred to anyone else that our Post Office, lately a money loser, needs some fundamental rethinking?
Rather than stop Saturday delivery or just raise the cost of a stamp, why not really think about what this organization should be doing long term.
America currently has among the lowest internet access speeds in the civilized world. Especially in more rural areas, there simply...
6 tags
“In an op-ed in Tuesday’s Post, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) offered an...”
– E.J. Dionne. Thank you.
6 tags
Requirement
(D) MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE—
(i) REQUIREMENT—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, after the effective date of this subtitle, the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are—
(I) created under...
2 tags
“Yesterday, I found the idea of “man on dog” sex repellent. This morning, though,...”
– Matthew Yglesias, turtle fucker.
5 tags
It's marketing, Jake. Forget about it
In their respective races for total global domination of the ever-popular bland beer segment, SABMiller and Anheuser-Busch have a natural tendency to clash over events like the upcoming FIFA World Cup in South Africa. And why not? Just the fan parks segment of the operation (not the actual stadia where games are going on, mind you) account for a staggering quantity of beer:
40 percent of the...
6 tags
“A lot of people are noting that Orwell was a socialist and Gingrich...”
– Ezra Klein
2 tags
Hanford is Closed
ryking:
And now something adorable to take my mind off the fact that Barack Obama has just restarted America’s nuclear weapons development program.
What part of this is so hard for you to understand (emphasis added)?
the new strategy commits the United States to developing no new nuclear weapons, including the nuclear bunker-busters advocated by the Bush administration.
There will...
4 tags
“Comprehensive health care reform will not work through reconciliation. But if...”
– Kent Conrad (~D, ND) and (clearly) a friend to Lemkin
6 tags
6 tags
“If I had to guess, I’d say [the Chilean earthquake] must have to do with Chile’s...”
– Pat Robertson. Presumably he means these folks literally got to meet Jesus through Pinochet’s direct and focused intervention. Must. Resist. Godwin’s. Law.
3 tags
MicroReconciliation
Memo to the media: healthcare reform has already passed. Both houses of Congress. It is done.
However, the two houses passed marginally different versions of the legislation. Thus, the House will likely pass a modified version of the Senate bill. The Senate, then, will reconcile their already passed bill with that “final” output. The order of the action may flip, but that’s...
