Saturday, September 20, 2008

20 Sep 2008 09:25 pm

Palin's Populism

An Alaskan reader writes:

Thanks for your thoughtful insights on our Governor -- you and a handful of responsible journalists have brought to light what many of us already knew and what the mainstream media in Alaska failed to cover.

If you want to dig more deeply into Sarah Palin's economic theory -- or lack thereof -- I think you will find that while she espouses the free market, she has adopted a quasi-socialist and populist belief in the commons. One of her champions is former Gov. Walter Hickel, who has argued that commonly owned resources should be developed for the maximum benefit of the people -- and that this system of economic organization represents a new paradigm for states and nations.

Continue reading "Palin's Populism" »

20 Sep 2008 08:36 pm

The Farce Of Palin

Another segment from Real Time:

20 Sep 2008 07:10 pm

Marriage Gains In California

Some encouraging news:

Opposition to a California ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage is mounting following Attorney General Jerry Brown's move to change the language on the initiative, according to a Field Poll to be released today.

The poll found that just 38 percent of likely voters support the measure, while 55 percent intend to vote no. That compares with 42 percent in support and 51 percent opposed in July.

But the fundraising is nowhere near where we need it to be. Donate here.

20 Sep 2008 06:34 pm

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

A little rhetorical excess on my part - but you get the point:

20 Sep 2008 05:55 pm

Keep Marriage For All In California

A new anti-Prop 8 ad:

BoingBoing has more context. The No On 8 website is here. If you believe in marriage equality, please donate here. The campaign is being outspent by the Mormon church and the Christianist right.

20 Sep 2008 05:05 pm

God And Math

The final two paragraphs from Michael Miller's article on neuroscience:

Faith is also being studied. Earlier this year the Annals of Neurology published an article by Sam Harris and colleagues exploring what happens in the brain when people are in the act of either believing or disbelieving. In an accompanying editorial, Oliver Sachs and Joy Hirsch underscored the significance of what the researchers found. Belief and disbelief activated different regions of the brain. But in the brain, all belief reactions looked the same, whether the stimulus was relatively neutral: an equation like (2+6)+8=16, or emotionally charged: “A Personal God exists, just as the Bible describes.”

By putting a big religious idea next to a small math equation, some readers might think the researchers intend to glibly dismiss it. But a discovery about brain function does not imply a value judgment. And understanding the reality of the natural world—how the brain works—shouldn’t muddle the big questions about human experience. It should help us answer them.

20 Sep 2008 04:43 pm

Carr Bait

Mark Bauerlein has an article on the difficulty of slow reading online. A taste:

In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects read Web pages linearly, sentence by sentence. The rest jumped around chasing keywords, bullet points, visuals, and color and typeface variations. In another experiment on how people read e-newsletters, informational e-mail messages, and news feeds, Nielsen exclaimed, "'Reading' is not even the right word." The subjects usually read only the first two words in headlines, and they ignored the introductory sections. They wanted the "nut" and nothing else. A 2003 Nielsen warning asserted that a PDF file strikes users as a "content blob," and they won't read it unless they print it out. A "booklike" page on screen, it seems, turns them off and sends them away.

20 Sep 2008 04:23 pm

Number 43

Jonathan Rauch's National Journal cover story on Bush's legacy is well worth a read. His thesis:

Bush may go down in history as a transitional and comparatively minor figure. His presidency, though politically traumatic, may leave only a modest policy footprint. In that sense--though by no means substantively or stylistically -- Bush's historical profile may resemble Jimmy Carter's more than Truman's or Nixon's. Recall that in 1980 many people wondered if the country would ever recover from Carter. Five years later, he was all but forgotten.

But if Carter had had two terms ... ? Jon continues:

Continue reading "Number 43" »

20 Sep 2008 04:00 pm

The Ethnic Cleansing We Presided Over

A UCLA study assesses the success of the surge by using satellites to study light patterns in Iraq:

"Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said lead author John Agnew, a UCLA professor of geography and authority on ethnic conflict. "By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left."

Petraeus was pushing at an open door - not that what he did wasn't still remarkable. And so the decline in violence cannot be ascribed entirely to the surge at all:

Continue reading "The Ethnic Cleansing We Presided Over" »

20 Sep 2008 03:53 pm

Bad Math

Nate Silver considers the Bradley Effect.

20 Sep 2008 02:21 pm

Press War

A bit from David Wise's 1973 article on Nixon and the press:

...in Nixon's view television ideally should serve only as a carrier, a mechanical means of electronically transmitting his picture and words directly to the voters. It is this concept of television-as-conduit that has won Nixon's praise, not television as a form of electronic journalism. The moment that television analyzes his words, qualifies his remarks, or renders news judgments, it becomes part of the "press," and a political target.

20 Sep 2008 01:28 pm

Malkin Award Nominee

"I always listen to Mark Levin while making Friday night dinner ... Funnily enough, he has explained just what it is community organizers do. Advocating, for instance, for affordable housing for the poor — the poor who traditionally rent, because they are bad loan risks. The day that reasoning by banks was junked as "racist," was the day this crisis became a possibility.," - Lisa Schiffren, NRO.

20 Sep 2008 01:19 pm

The Palin Nightmare

The discussion on Real Time last night ... eventually led to a real tough argument between me and Bill over religion. Yes, I'm defending people of faith:

20 Sep 2008 12:20 pm

Why Palin Fired Monegan

To hire Chuck Kopp as police chief - because national Christianist forces were looking for a commitment before they helped launch her national career:

Kenai City Police Chief Chuck Kopp was a rising star in Alaska's Christian conservative movement. He was a frequent speaker at local religious and patriotic gatherings. He was school board president of Cook Inlet Academy, the fundamentalist Christian high school in Soldotna his missionary-educator father founded. Kopp also was on the board of Port Alsworth's Tanailan Bible Camp, also founded by his father.

Through Samaritan's Place, Franklin Graham has been the chief benefactor of the Tanailan Bible Camp building and rebuilding a church and meeting hall and guest cabins. The evangelical scion of Alaska, Rev. Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, is on Samaritan Purse's Board of Directors, so there's a clear connection between Graham, Prevo and Kopp.

Only problem: Kopp was a known sexual harasser when Palin appointed him (and she knew it). But religious fanaticism and sexual acting out are not exactly strangers to one another, are they?

20 Sep 2008 12:10 pm

The View From Your Window

Barcelona, Spain, 7.30 pm.

20 Sep 2008 12:05 pm

The Road To Nowhere

A helpful non-partisan account of the facts behind the road to the bridge to nowhere Palin secured for Alaska.

20 Sep 2008 11:48 am

$1 Trillion

That's how much Paulson's plan might cost. That's a lot of zeros. But, hey, no one said socialism was cheap, did they?

Friday, September 19, 2008

19 Sep 2008 09:59 pm

A Message For Obama

A reader writes:

On his otherwise very thorough website, Obama has no subject heading on his issues page for TAXES, despite the fact that it is the oldest and easiest attack the Republicans make in every election.  Why don't they address it explicitly?  I'm sure it's discussed in the context of the economy, etc., but this seems pretty stupid to me.

Me too.

19 Sep 2008 08:13 pm

News From The Front

Andrew Romano comments on Obama's new strategy:

My point here is not to claim that Obama's misleading attacks are somehow worse than McCain's. Most of this stuff is child's play compared to the whole McCain-sponsored "lipstick on a pig" kerfluffle, which I characterized as "idiotic" and "condescending." And I agree with National Journal's Stuart Taylor, Jr., that the Arizona senator "has lately been leading the race to the bottom" of the barrel. What's more, Obamans have a point when they say their man has the right to fight fire with fire. It would be political suicide for Obama to allow McCain to keep hitting below the belt without landing a few low blows himself.

Continue reading "News From The Front" »

19 Sep 2008 07:56 pm

Cheney Lives?

Another legitimate question: does Palin believe that the vice-presidency belongs to both the executive and the legislative branch, as Cheney did? After the Cheney years, finding out what the potential next veep would do with his extreme beliefs about his office's role is a critical question. But as with all such critical questions, not only will Palin not answer; neither will her spokesmen. Deference is what the people owe her; not questions.

19 Sep 2008 07:26 pm

Face Of The Day

A supporter of US Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama wears a hat during a rally at the Baseball Stadium at Cashman Center in Las Vegas on September 17, 2008. By Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.

19 Sep 2008 07:06 pm

Palin's Road To Nowhere

She's still lying - about everything. But she cannot escape the facts of her fiscal profligacy and pork-barrel insanity.

19 Sep 2008 06:05 pm

How Extremist Is Sarah Palin?

No Biblical literalist can believe in evolution. So either Sarah Palin does not hold the faith she says she does or she denies one of the core theories of scientific modernity:

Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. "She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board," said Munger, a music composer and teacher. "I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, 'Sarah, how can you believe in creationism -- your father's a science teacher.' And she said, 'We don't have to agree on everything.'

"I pushed her on the earth's creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she'd seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them."

If you thought Christianism reached its apex under Bush, wait for Palin. She will, of course, lie if asked, depending on the audience. It's what she does.

19 Sep 2008 05:19 pm

Of All Types

Kassia Krozser faults the New York article on book publishing woes for ignoring large sections of the industry.

19 Sep 2008 05:00 pm

Welfare Queen

A reader writes:

I just listened to the video you posted of Palin's interview on Fox, and what is striking to me isn't even that she repeats her lie on the bridge but that she betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what an earmark is or what she is accused of lying about:

"If its something that Alaskans really want and support, which at this point they are not willing to support to such an extent that we'll pay for it ourselves, we better kill the project 'cause we know that the rest of the nation isn't going to pay for it."

So Palin seems to be admitting here that the reason she eventually opposed the bridge after supporting it is that it was no longer going to be paid by the federal government. She is explicitly saying that Alaskans (and herself) would be fine with the bridge if it were paid by the "rest of the nation." But she still took the money for other projects anyway.

The logic behind it is the direct opposite of McCain's anti-pork message. I think the best way to think of Palin is as a welfare queen, draining other people's money in order to enrich Alaskans and get her more votes. As Kinsley put it in his must-read Time column:

Alaska ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.

And she has the gall to talk about Other People's Money. All she has done her entire life is take other people's money. Mainly yours.

(Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty.)

19 Sep 2008 04:45 pm

Know Hope

The American Psychological Association votes massively to withdraw from cooperating in any way with the Bush-Cheney torture program.

19 Sep 2008 04:36 pm

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Nige suggests:

I must draw your attention to the fact that today is not only International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Why are we talking like pirates? Because we aaar), but also the 139th birthday of Ben Turpin. They don't make entertainers like that these days (which is probably just as well)...

19 Sep 2008 03:40 pm

Fireworks

McCain smacks Biden for his taxes are "patriotic" remark. Notice the subtle conflation of past votes with Obama's actual economic plan where he pledges to cut middle class taxes. Not a direct lie, but a direct attempt to mislead and distort:

19 Sep 2008 03:20 pm

McCain's Fathomless Contempt

Larison has a sharp post on McCain's political style:

Contrary to the conventional pundit interpretation that McCain has “sold his soul” and abandoned his once-honorable former self, the thing to understand about McCain’s lies in this campaign is that he invests these misrepresentations with his utter contempt for his opponents.  From McCain’s perspective, this infusion of contempt seems to transform shoddy, baseless attacks that disgrace him into indictments of the other politicians (e.g., Romney wants to surrender in Iraq, Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election).

Continue reading "McCain's Fathomless Contempt" »

19 Sep 2008 02:46 pm

Krauthammer On Torture

Just read this paragraph:

But [Bush] alluded also to some of the measures he had undertaken, including "listening in on the enemy" and "asking hardened killers about their plans." The CIA has already told us that interrogation of high-value terrorists such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed yielded more valuable intelligence than any other source. In talking about these measures, the president mentioned neither this testimony as to their efficacy nor the campaign of vilification against him that they occasioned. More equanimity still.

Equanimity as human beings are routinely tortured by his order. That's the leadership Krauthammer admires.

Continue reading "Krauthammer On Torture" »

19 Sep 2008 02:46 pm

Your People, My People

Obama goes after McCain's economic advisers:

While McCain does the same to Obama:

Continue reading "Your People, My People" »

19 Sep 2008 02:15 pm

A Newly Minted McCain Supporter

Steven Landsburg looks over McCain's economic policies and mostly likes what he sees. He also criticizes Obama:

Like Bush (only far more so), Obama is fine with tariffs and subsidies. Like Bush, he wants to send jackbooted thugs into every meatpacking plant in America to rid the American workplace of anyone who happens to have been born on the wrong side of an imaginary line.

Continue reading "A Newly Minted McCain Supporter" »

19 Sep 2008 02:11 pm

The WSJ Vs. McCain

They know - as we all know - that if McCain gets a chance to demonize an otherwise perfectly innocent figure in order to demonstrate his own unique integrity, he will.

19 Sep 2008 02:09 pm

Moore Award Nominee

Karen Tumulty accuses McCain of playing the race card with this new ad:

This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.

For once, I agree with Goldfarb.

19 Sep 2008 01:59 pm

Torture In Israel

After an admirable 1999 Supreme Court attempt to stop it, the Israeli intelligentsia moves toward the Bush-Cheney model of torture for terror suspects. On this issue, Israel is a saint compared with its neighbors in the region, of course. But when you see more than one democracy jettisoning a core foundation for a free and moral society, you realize how far we've come, and how strong an influence the most powerful torture-nation, America, now has. When the country that led the global campaign against torture is now in the vanguard of legitimizing it, it is unsurprising that global standards of human rights collapse.

What amazing success Osama bin Laden has had in destroying the integrity, freedom and morality of the West. It is his greatest victory - and he could not have done it without Cheney.

19 Sep 2008 01:48 pm

Patriotism And Taxes

Joe Klein defends Biden for saying this:

The truth of the matter is that we are in trouble.  And the people who do not need a new tax cut should be willing, as patriotic Americans, to understand the way to get this economy back up on their feet is to give middle class taxpayers a break. We take the tax cut they're getting and we give it to the middle class.

Ramesh Ponnuru counters:

The invocation of patriotism does no analytical work here. You could just as well say "good people should support tax increases." You would merely be dumbing down the debate in a way liberals usually find objectionable.

I've long been a conservative opponent of progressive taxation in principle.

Continue reading "Patriotism And Taxes" »

19 Sep 2008 01:32 pm

Heads Up

I'm on Bill Maher's HBO show tonight - live! You never know what I might say.

19 Sep 2008 01:23 pm

Gallup: Obama Near Record High

He's now closing in on 50 percent, five points ahead of McCain in the Gallup Daily Tracking. RCP has his national lead now at 2.2 with a strong bounce and McCain with a steep decline. Obama's current lead is now a smidgen below McCain's highest lead in his convention bounce.

19 Sep 2008 01:20 pm

The Republicans 1980?

Ross wonders what will happen if McCain loses:

Continue reading "The Republicans 1980?" »

19 Sep 2008 01:00 pm

Nothing To Hide

The 'first dude' won't testify. The point, after all, is not investigation. It's deference.

19 Sep 2008 12:50 pm

The Coming Slowdown

What the economic crisis may mean for main street:

For an individual or business that falls behind on payments or needs an increase in short-term credit because of the slowing economy, credit will be much harder to obtain than in recent years.

This is going to slow growth. We have not seen this much stress in the financial system since the Great Depression, so we do not have any recent history to rely upon in quantifying the magnitude of the slowdown. A recent educated guess by Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs suggests that G.D.P. growth will be just about 2 percentage points lower in 2008 and 2009. But as he explains, extrapolations of this sort are highly uncertain.

19 Sep 2008 12:50 pm

The Palin Disintegration

Chait has an excellent summary of how every alledged advantage has evaporated and every liability has begun to gain more and more traction:

The swift disintegration of Palin's anti-pork credentials has been especially amusing.

Continue reading "The Palin Disintegration" »

19 Sep 2008 12:40 pm

The View From Your Window

Lincoln, Nebraska, 1.15 pm.

19 Sep 2008 12:34 pm

The Bridge to Lies

Watch her dodge! Watch Hannity defer:

She's in another world. We have someone with a serious psychological problem.

19 Sep 2008 12:07 pm

Huh?

Palin strikes again:

"Oil and coal? Of course, it’s a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, you know, the molecules, where it’s going and where it’s not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first,” Palin said. “So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it’s Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It’s got to flow into our domestic markets first," - Sarah Palin, Energy Expert and University of Idaho graduate in sports journalism.

Hilzoy, mercifully, unpacks it. Hard not to wince at the grammar and the logic. Remember this is allegedly her sole area of expertise and she's barely above high school level.

19 Sep 2008 11:53 am

Palin's Collapse Continues

Moulitsas notes a staggering 21 point decline in a week. More here. On 9/11, Palin had a 52 - 35 favorable - unfavorable rating. She now has a 42 - 46 favorable - unfavorable rating. She went from + 17 to - 4 in a week [update now - 5] . Kos says this proves that the focus on her constant lying, religious fanaticism, spectacular stupidity, ignorance of basic facts even on energy, total unawareness of and interest in foreign policy and inability to hold a press conference was a strategy worth pursuing.

I agree but not for partisan reasons. My concern with Palin is merely to expose the truth about her in the face of an historically unprecedented campaign of seclusion, press intimidation and constant, constant lies.

19 Sep 2008 11:44 am

Plumbing And Obesity

Stephen Dubne proposes a novel theory:

Is it possible that the availability of good plumbing has contributed to our national weight gain? This may sound ludicrous, but think about it for just a moment. Very few people have to trek through the night to use an outhouse anymore; furthermore, restroom facilities are readily available just about everywhere — which means you don’t have to worry about getting rid of your waste, which frees you up to consume as much as you’d like.

Is he shitting us?

19 Sep 2008 11:39 am

The Crunch and The Next President

Megan explains what the economic meltdown means for the candidates' economic proposals:

McCain will probably not be able to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.  It's possible that tax revenues will recover by 2010, though frankly I think the magnitude of the cuts on Wall Street will take years for the tax base to digest.  But we won't know that until early 2011, after the tax cuts have already expired. He'll likely have to push this through with the grim memory of a plummeting 2009 revenue line fresh on everyone's minds.

But Democrats shouldn't smile too much, because this also means Barack Obama will not get his middle class tax cut. 

Continue reading "The Crunch and The Next President" »

19 Sep 2008 11:31 am

The San Diego Tribune On Marriage

The conservative paper that favored civil unions over marriage for Californian gay couples has now changed its mind. They are now opposing the anti-marriage Proposition 8:

Supporters of Proposition 8 make two arguments. The first is that, for thousands of years, marriage has been defined as between a man and a woman exclusively. Considering how Californians historically have been wide open to change, this appeal is not likely to carry much force.

The second argument made by supporters is that children should be raised solely by a father and a mother, not by two fathers or two mothers. Yet the debate over child-rearing is entirely beside the point, because Proposition 8 is about marriage only. It would do nothing to prevent gay couples from adopting children or from having children through artificial means.

Continue reading "The San Diego Tribune On Marriage" »

19 Sep 2008 11:25 am

The Obama-McCain Blather On The Economy

Noah Millman provides a summary of each candidates' economic crisis messaging:

McCain: We’re in this mess because a bunch of Wall Street hot shots got us into it, but they won’t dare to pull that stuff when I’m in the White House, because I survived five years in a POW camp. Do I look like the kind of guy who hangs around with a bunch of Wall Street sissies who buy their shirts at Thomas Pink? Not on your tintype girlie-girl.

His Obama take-down is very shrewd too. Don't you wish we had an actual conservative on either ticket?