Very Bold St. Rudy

St. Rudy came to visit our local xenophobe agitator, the son of Italian immigrants who has a sign at his local tourist spot demanding people order only in English. CNN just informed me that Rudy thinks learning English should be mandatory for those obtaining citizenship. Such a bold stand, to endorse the current policy.

Language
Applicants for naturalization must be able to read, write, speak, and understand words in ordinary usage in the English language. Applicants exempt from this requirement are those who on the date of filing:

*
have been residing in the United States subsequent to a lawful admission for permanent residence for periods totaling 15 years or more and are over 55 years of age;
*
have been residing in the United States subsequent to a lawful admission for permanent residence for periods totaling 20 years or more and are over 50 years of age; or
*
have a medically determinable physical or mental impairment, where the impairment affects the applicant’s ability to learn English.

Pushing Feminism Off the Map

I never read Stiffed, but Backlash was one the books which most informed my views about how our screwed up media operates. I, too, look forward to reading Susan Faludi's latest book.

Pep Talk

Maybe Countrywide should hire Ben Domenech for some motiviational speaking.

Bill Clinton Got Laid In College

Just in case you were still wondering what motivates our elite babblers.

Just In Case

You were wondering if these people will say literally anything about their political opponents, including the soldiers they claim to revere, I give you Rush Limbaugh.

Thread

Enjoy.

Win One For the Box Turtles

The gift that keeps on giving.



...adding that back in the day I had a little fantasy about how a young disgraced conservative might find the path to redemption. It involved enlisting in our armed services. God I'm an idiot.

Chris Matthews' Freshman Dorm Listening Tour

Man, that Daily Show segment with Tweety was truly bizarre in precisely the way you'd expect.

Wanker of the Day

Michael O'Hanlon.

More thread

I thought this was pretty funny.

Oops, sorry, I have such amnesia I forgot I saw it here. Look, it's nearly 2:30 in the morning, I'm vague.

Ah, this one is interesting:

"By a 2 to 1 margin, those who see little accomplishment in Congress's first nine months blame the inaction on Bush and the GOP more than they do the majority Democrats."

Signed,
Not Atrios

Another Evening Thread

You're welcome.

Evening Thread

Out for dinner and an apparently naughty Ang Lee movie.

Issa

JMM clips the video.

Leave Them Alone

Please, CNN, stop showing the goddamn lurid photos of the child rape victim.

Veiled Threats Much

Darrell Issa, on this morning's Washington Journal (1:07:20 or so in):

If Henry Waxman today wants to go to Iraq and do an investigation, Blackwater will be his support team. His protection team. Do you think he really wants to investigate directly?

Failure

Obama shamelessly panders to the angry liberal blogger segment of the population.

Because the American people weren’t just failed by a President -- they were failed by much of Washington. By a media that too often reported spin instead of facts. By a foreign policy elite that largely boarded the bandwagon for war.

The Iraq war came about in large part because of a complete failure of our elite Village institutions. Bygones, they say.

War Tax

Leaving aside the merits of this, politically or otherwise, it occurred to me this morning that literally ever story about legislation or proposed legislation contains an aside about how the person "plans to pay for it" or an aside saying that they didn't say how they were going to pay for it.

Every policy except war, of course.

The Tears of David Broder

Unlike many in The Village, it seems that most people in the country understand that politics is a process which involves disagreement and don't think that's too much of a problem.

Track to the Future

Along those lines, I'm looking at the planned light rail system for Norfolk, VA. There's a nice little interactive map. You can click on the proposed stations and get views of the local area. I don't know Norfolk at all, so I'm basing all of this on the information provided by the map, but given what I can see I'd say that light rail is probably a stupid idea unless it's accompanied by very different development around many of the stations. That could happen, of course, but there are lots of reasons that it might not happen, including existing zoning regulations and general NIMBYism opposed to change. The rail line itself imposed on an existing development pattern won't save the world, but if development patterns are allowed to adjust to the presence of the rail line then maybe we're getting somewhere. But the point is that a successful light rail line doesn't just provide another way to get people from A to B; a successful line will change the way the area is developed. The real question is whether people want that change or not.


...adding, local opposition to change is often an issue:

Hampton Roads Transit’s original plan was to run the train all the way to the Virginia Beach oceanfront, but Beach voters rejected the idea and the Beach council backed out. Norfolk decided to proceed on its own.

Preferences

Let me play a bit of a contrarian for a moment and point out that while it is true that various policies lower the price of automobile travel and make people consume more of it, ultimately the issue of roads-vs.-transit is really more of a preference issue rather than price tweaking issue. While certainly individuals respond to the choices and costs they're faced with, overall these policies exist to a great degree because that's the world people want to live in.

Or, to put it another way, lots of people like automobile-centric suburban development. Not everyone does, but lots of people do. To sell more mass transit oriented policies, one has to convince people that a world with more mass transit-suitable development is a world people want to live in. It isn't simply about building more trains and fewer roads.

My guess is that people are increasingly open to moving away from the post-war American dream aesthetic, but I'm not sure of that.