All serious people agree: Paul Ryan is very serious.
The only way he could be more serious is if he held up a vial of baby powder of mass destruction.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
What Have You Done For Us Lately
I don't think that politics is completely transactional, but it is somewhat, and in thinking about the wee problem with older voters it's wrong, I think, to see that it's all about various generational issues. Republicans gave them a prescription drug program. It wasn't a program loved by liberals for various reasons, but it still provides seniors with some drug coverage.
They Don't Care
I'm reasonably sure that there are many Republicans in Congress who want a government shutdown, and many more who just don't give a shit. The real question is...what's next? I doubt they know. Or care.
Markers
Out there in America there are still people on their recliners getting enraged that Crayola has acknowledged the existence of multiple skin colors.
No Endgame
I was never quite sure, but certainly suspected all along that a shutdown was inevitable. This is a "we must destroy the country to save it" crew, and they're going to do their best.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Early Evening Thread
Hopefully we investigate the New Black Panther Party's involvement in the Wisconsin election fraud.
Winning The Present
Don't know about recall recount issues, but for now congratulations to Kloppenburg.
Differentiate
I would hope that other Dems would step back and let Pelosi lead the messaging on this stuff. Though that's not likely.
Bye Glenny
What has too often been left out of coverage of Beck is that strong pressure on advertisers by various involved groups likely had a big impact on his eventual leaving, and certainly a big impact on the amount of money flowing into Fox's coffers.
Urban Hellhole Blogging
The big change since I've been living in Philly has been the revitalization of residential neighborhoods outside of Center City, so much so that proximity to Center City is much less of an issue for people moving here.
These are real estate agents talking their book, and I'd hardly describe Graduate Hospital as "fringe" anymore, but it's definitely the case that the number of places I'd recommend as a good place to live in the city has grown quite a lot. It isn't just perception of crime and similar, it's that retail corridors have come back to life in more places, providing people access to things in their neighborhood.
“For my buyers, walkability is almost equal to price as the most important criterion,” says Stephanie Somers, a Realtor at RE/MAX Access who focuses on Center City’s “fringe neighborhoods,” like Fishtown and Graduate Hospital. She lists Walk Scores for all the properties on her website.
“Being close to Center City comes up less often now,” she says. “The focus is more neighborhood-centric — people want to come home and be social right in their [area].”
These are real estate agents talking their book, and I'd hardly describe Graduate Hospital as "fringe" anymore, but it's definitely the case that the number of places I'd recommend as a good place to live in the city has grown quite a lot. It isn't just perception of crime and similar, it's that retail corridors have come back to life in more places, providing people access to things in their neighborhood.
And John McCain Reallly Wants Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Yes, kudos to Coburn for actually admitting taxes might have to increase, but in practice I doubt there's a tax hike he'd actually support, at least not one directed at rich people.
They're All Preening
Well, to put it more bluntly, they're all lying. "Deficit hawks" don't care about the deficit. They care about lowering taxes for rich people. So none of them are going to be for raising taxes on rich people.
Improving Healthy Food Deserts
Improving access to decent food for people in poor neighborhoods is a good thing.
Nothing To See Here
Move along folks.
(Reuters) - The core at Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactor has melted through the reactor pressure vessel, Democratic Congressman Edward Markey told a hearing on the nuclear disaster on Wednesday.
Cars Are Expensive
It was until my visit to a thirdworldish country without much decent mass transit that I really understood how absurd it is to build a world where most people, in order to have access to decent jobs and the economy generally, have to purchase and surround themselves in a couple of thousand pounds of metal in order to get around. Sure in a more prosperous country this is a reasonable thing to ask of more people, but it still leaves plenty of people out. Cars are very expensive. And, no, roads don't pay for themselves.
The Debate Rages On
I've never known for sure of the various Lords of Slate, such as Weisberg and Saletan, are stupid or evil, though I guess I'm finally coming to the conclusion that one doesn't have to choose. Weisberg is clearly stupid and evil!
Win win everyone.
Win win everyone.
One Thing I've Learned
Is that it really isn't worth expending any effort to defend people and organizations who won't defend themselves. I've walked out on that branch a few times only to have it chopped off.
The Brave And The Bold
I'm not one who imagines there was some golden yesteryear of the press, but I do think that once upon a time a proposal to transfer money from the middle class to the rich and to impoverish any old person who got sick would have been treated with some skepticism.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Iraq'd
I don't really care about the journalism angle of all of this, but nice to know a 'Saudi general' instantly tried to pin the Oklahoma City bombing on Iraq.
Teabagging For Obamacare
Why precisely healthcare reform animated the teabaggers is a big mystery, one I'm sure mystifies most of them, but someone should explain to them that, roughly, Ryan wants to replace Medicare with a crappier version of Obamacare.
The Battle
Yes, the Great Social Security War of aught five was indeed our finest moment. Then the greatest concern was that Dems would get suckered into putting up their own 'plan' to solve the 'crisis.' The press demanded it! Even though, you might remember, the Bush administration didn't actually release a plan until the thing was basically dead. The worry wasn't simply that the Republicans might be able to ram it through, the worry was that Dems would enable and co-own a very unpopular, expensive, and likely to be ultimately disastrous policy.
But one thing was different then, though we didn't know it right away. We had Nancy Pelosi, and her response when asked about when the Dem plan was going to be revealed was:
Bloggers understood both the issues and the political dynamic much better than most people in DC seemed to. But we had an ally who fortunately did too.
But one thing was different then, though we didn't know it right away. We had Nancy Pelosi, and her response when asked about when the Dem plan was going to be revealed was:
Never. Is never good enough for you?
Bloggers understood both the issues and the political dynamic much better than most people in DC seemed to. But we had an ally who fortunately did too.
And A Pony
Hey, if it'll get unemployment down to 4% I'm all for it.
...actually, it's even better. A UNICORN PONY. Heritage (.pdf) says Ryan plan will cause unemployment to go all the way to 2.8% in 2021. Which, you know, won't happen.
An analysis performed by the Heritage Foundation at Ryan’s request found the unemployment rate would be reduced to 4 percent in 2015 by Ryan’s budget, an incredibly low number when many economists believe the economy will not return to so-called “full employment” of about 5 percent until years after that.of course it won't.
...actually, it's even better. A UNICORN PONY. Heritage (.pdf) says Ryan plan will cause unemployment to go all the way to 2.8% in 2021. Which, you know, won't happen.
And Another Reminder
To any eventheliberals who get tempted by deficit cutting talk because, well, because. Paul Ryan doesn't care about the deficit. Republicans don't care about the deficit. They care about tax cuts for rich people, and some of them are also feudal sadists who want poor people to suffer. But mostly they care about tax cuts for rich people. That's it. Any deficit cutting, real or imagined, is there to pave the way for even more tax cuts for rich people.
Repeating Myself
For some reason only crazy liberal bloggers watching political campaign ads on the teevee in their basements noticed that GOP candidates' only semi-substantive issue in the last election was an attack on Obama Medicare cuts. And they went hard on it. And old people freaked.
Wrong Week To Quit Sniffing Glue
Looking forward to a week of the press actually or pretending to not understand the most brilliant document ever created in the history of mankind, the Paul Ryan budget.
Monday, April 04, 2011
In Their Hearts
I don't know who this was, but the truth is a lot of elected Dems do ultimately share the basic belief that there's something courageous about sticking it to your constituents.
How Large Is The Federal Beer Tax
I didn't know, though had a memory of it being raised under the reign of George I. The internet tells me it was doubled, and is now $18 per 31 gallon barrel. What was interesting to me was that smaller producers catch a break, and only pay $7 per barrel. I wonder which influential senator with a craft brewery constituency slipped that one in there. Breaks for the little guys usually don't happen.
Governor Mittens
I'm sure he won't, but I still think the best chance Mittens has is to run as a right of center technocrat and hope that after flirting with the crazy the Sensible Republicans vote for him in the primaries after all. It might not work, but nor will the Multiple Choice Mitt act.
Walk
NAR is hardly a tool of liberal urbanites, but I still remain a bit skeptical that the results of this survey. Or, at least, I don't think there are simply enough options for walkable neighborhoods in most areas, and little chance for turning neighborhoods into walkable ones. Often the best people can hope for often are isolated islands of development, where walking is somewhat possible within but there's no connective tissue to other areas. There's just too much car infrastructure in the way.
Foreign Aid
Every now and then a poll comes out which shows that people think we spend eleventy zillion dollars on foreign aid, and all right thinking people laugh at how stupid Americans are. But I'm reasonably sure most people see our global military presence - somewhat correctly, somewhat not - as "foreign aid". And is this not how we're advertising our freedom bomb expenditures in Libya?
The Revolution Will Be Blogged
Despite the lack of teevee cameras, Wisconsin activists are doing their thing and doing it well. Kudos.
Invisible Lefties
The disparity in media coverage between what right wingers get anywhere anytime and what lefties have received over the past decade is so huge that when I reach for reasons I tend to get more paranoid about news organizations than I usually am. It's hard not to see it as a deliberate decision from the top. Ignore the protesting hippies.
Cartel Smash
I'm in the "pay the damn players already" camp, especially for football players who face non-trivial risk of life-altering injuries, but I'm actually curious if there is a business opportunity to set up a professional club league in basketball to try to compete with the NCAA. College sports are hugely popular in some parts of the country, but not everywhere, and maybe a little financial competition for good players is what is needed.
How They Won
Yes the economy sucked and there was almost inevitably going to be some Dem backlash. But, otherwise, they won with ads like this.
Denis Leary's America
Compassionate conservatism was always bullshit, but it reflected a time when people felt the need to be somewhat convinced that they gave a shit, that supporting cuts in vital social programs wouldn't really cause mass suffering because THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT. People were still assholes, but they weren't entirely comfortable embracing that.
Oh well.
Unserious
Yes Paul Ryan is a wingnut so it's to be expected, but anyone "serious," as Alice Rivlin is supposed to be, who thinks you can give vouchers to old people so that they can buy awesome insurance on the open market is someone who should never be listened to about anything ever again. All actual serious people should shun her.
Waiting For The Opposition
Cuts won't hurt the Republicans unless someone else points out that the cuts are, you know, bad.
Do You Remember When You Couldn't Put It Away
I think I'm too old to be nostalgic for stuff that is so recent.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Nothing To See Here Folks
Just barely resisting temptation to post a picture of blinky.
Experts estimate that about 7 tons an hour of radioactive water is escaping the pit. Safety officials have said that the water, which appears to be coming from the damaged No. 2 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi, contains one million Becquerels per liter of iodine 131, or about 10,000 times levels normally found in water at a nuclear facility.
Foot Stamping
Righteous sound and fury on a blog sadly isn't the best way to achieve anything, but as we are once again faced with a likely bipartisan effort to dismantle the best of the New Deal Legacy we do need to find a way to communicate the message that any Dem who participates this a) will face a well-funded primary challenger and b) lose their next election regardless as their Republican opponent will run against them as defenders of all such things. It'll be an easy trick to sucker Dems into supporting their agenda and then pin the whole thing on Obama Democrats.
All Rather Depressing
One would hope that when Republicans, who ran on opposing Obama's Medicare cuts, propose to destroy Medicare, a political party with an ounce of self-preservation instinct would figure out how to win the messaging war, but...
The Teabaggers Wanted To Keep Government Out Of Their Medicare
Looks like they'll get their wish.
No word if that private health insurance will be required to provide mobility scooters.
Their Medicare proposal would allow those nearing eligibility to remain with the current system, and it would create a program that would provide payments to Medicare enrollees to buy private health insurance.
No word if that private health insurance will be required to provide mobility scooters.
Nothing To See Here
Starting to think they have no idea what they are doing.
Workers tried Sunday to block the leakage of highly radioactive water into the sea from the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant by injecting polymeric water absorbent that can soak up 50 times its volume, but the water flow remains unaffected, the government's nuclear safety agency said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, meanwhile, told a press conference that it could take several months before radiation stops leaking from the plant, suggesting a lengthy battle ahead to resolve the crisis triggered by the devastating March 11 quake and tsunami.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Dinner Thread
Grilling season begins. Grilled steaks/halloumi/onions/peppers/tomatoes. Artichoke on the stove.
What We're Hearing
It's a muddle, but I've been thinking about how to boil down the basic political message people are hearing these days. What I've come up with is: one party says big spending cuts are necessary but sorta sad, one party says spending cuts are necessary and awesome.
Generations
I'm increasingly convinced that there is a big generational aspect when it comes to urban issues and parking. People, even urban hellhole dwellers, who came of age when the car was ascendant, can't imagine it any other way and don't get that the type of students who would be interested in living on an urban college campus located right on a metro line are probably the kind of students who are a bit less likely to want to have a car.
Moving away from your parents and having the freedom to get around is... moving away from your parents. No car required everywhere.
I don't think there's a care-free revolution sweeping the country, but this is a selection issue. Students who want to go to places where you don't need a car are going to be much less likely to want to bring a car.
At the meeting, there seemed to be little concern about the new student center, which will activate a huge dead plaza in front of drab, bunker-like buildings (inspiringly named "38" and "39.") Building two new residence halls for 600 students on the southwest corner of the campus, however, puts residents on edge–primarily because the campus plan doesn't call for increasing the current footprint of some 800 parking spaces, at the Office of Planning's behest. Won't all those students want to bring their cars?
The graying residents of Tenleytown seemed certain that they would, despite UDC officials' protestations to the contrary.
"I think we all know from our own days in college that that's not true," argued ANC commissioner Karen Perry.
"Having a car is like moving away from your parents," another audience member insisted. "Come on, it's lifestyle!"
Moving away from your parents and having the freedom to get around is... moving away from your parents. No car required everywhere.
I don't think there's a care-free revolution sweeping the country, but this is a selection issue. Students who want to go to places where you don't need a car are going to be much less likely to want to bring a car.
If I Was Stupid Enough To Try To Set Up A Newspaper Business
I'd run an evening tabloid like the Evening Standard, or at least the Evening Standard I remember. Haven't been in London to read it in awhile. A later afternoon/evening paper seems to fit the rhythm of things than a morning paper, and it was a good mix of tabloidy headlines and more substantial art/culture/politics coverage. And the internet tells me it's free now.
Shape Of The Earth: Views Differ
oy.
Do bills need to be passed by both the House and the Senate to become law? It's very controversial.
Several Democrats argued that the measure is unconstitutional, charging that it would "deem" that the 2011 spending bill, H.R. 1, has the force of law if the Senate fails to act. Some Democrats seized on the floor comments from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who broke with his party and said on the floor that this aspect of the bill "violates my conscious and the Constitution, and I cannot vote for it."
Do bills need to be passed by both the House and the Senate to become law? It's very controversial.
Friday, April 01, 2011
"A Different Breed Of Rider"
Mechnical turnstiles are a bad idea, tho the faster pull-away doors like you have on DC metro would be ok, but, uh, whuh?
Frequent rail passenger Douglas Diehl of Drexel Hill said he could envision riding free from Trenton on SEPTA's train and then returning on the cheaper NJ Transit River Line. He said he got conflicting answers from SEPTA representatives Friday about that possibility. And Diehl said rail passengers would not be happy with the proposed gates in Center City stations.
"Regional Rail passengers are a different breed of rider," he said. "And now SEPTA is going to treat them like subway riders and make them go through turnstiles?"
Curious
In our glorious neo-feudal era it's unlikely that any of our elites will ever be held accountable for much, but I'm curious about how far this extends. What if, say, John Roberts got liquored up, plowed through an elementary school playground, killed few kids, then drove off in view of several surveillance cameras. What happens?
Bundle
It's true that as with many bursting bubbles, even if some people lose their shirts in the crash it's possible that left behind in the wake is something useful. However, it isn't clear that a bunch of extra modern housing is a 'good thing' even in a place where numerous people didn't previously have access to such accommodations. A house is more than a house, it's also a location. One thing that location needs to provide is access to gainful employment. Ghost cities might provide for some improved accommodation for people at low prices, if prices are going to drop, but that doesn't do much for them if there are no jobs nearby, no functioning government services, no retail, etc. And unoccupied housing units can deteriorate very, very fast.
But What About All Those Coastal Elites
They don't necessarily come right out and say it, but given all the attention paid to "liberal elites" by our media one might come away with the impression that rich people vote for Democrats and poor people vote for the party of Real Working Americans, the Republicans. It is of course not actually true.
The problem with actual liberal elites, who do exist, is that they're class traitors.
The problem with actual liberal elites, who do exist, is that they're class traitors.
Hopefully
The "global sports initiative aimed at building world peace" will involve a round track, motorcycles and rollerskates, and a heavy metal ball.
Move
In many discussions about mass transit someone will pipe up and say something along the lines of "it doesn't go near me so it sucks." Well, yes, in cities not named New York mass transit is certainly less than comprehensive in this country, but if you do happen to be employed in a city with a half decent transit system, and you want it to be near you, move to a place near the choo-choo train. And of course I get that moving is a complicated and expensive endeavor, and you can't force your employer to be conveniently located near the choo-choo, but factor it into your location decision when you are faced with a move.
Dozens
The tea party was always both over-covered and gullibly covered, but now it's getting to be ridiculous. I could personally get dozens of people to show up to something, but I couldn't get dozens of reporters and teevee cameras.
Don't Ignore The Good Ones
Yes, most airports in this country have crappy transit connections much as most cities have crappy transit, but we do actually have some decent ones. Off the top of my head there's Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Philly, Washington (National), ...
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