ADVICE FOR BARACK OBAMA from William Galston: “I’ll get right to the point: You are in danger of squandering an election most of us thought was unlosable. The reason is simple: on the electorate’s most important concern – the economy — you have no clear message, and John McCain has filled the void with his own. This is more than my opinion. The Democracy Corps survey released yesterday proves the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Archive for 2008
September 17, 2008
A HANDS-ON REVIEW of Rock Band 2. “Rock Band 2 does not repeat Rock Band’s quantum leap in game-play design and technical innovation. What it does is expand on and improve the original enough to supplant it as the most fun party game of the year, and perhaps of all time. ” With video. But will playing it make you a better citizen?
THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, “digital brownshirts” would be mobilized to silence critics. And they were right!
CAN PLAYING VIDEO GAMES make you a better citizen? But of course!
Plus, taking on Deadly Creatures with a Wii.
KATIE GRANJU: The ugliest TV ad I’ve seen so far this political season.
UPDATE: Tom Elia emails that she’s wrong — he says that these ads that he produced are by far the ugliest so far.
TIME FOR ANOTHER BAILOUT? Anti-Bush merchandise market close to collapse.
THIS IS KINDA COOL: Run Mac OS X on an Eee PC.
VOTER-DATABASE PROBLEMS. I think I’ve identified the source: “The databases were mandated in the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which required all election districts in a state or U.S. territory to consolidate their lists into a single database electronically accessible to every election office in the state or territory. But the databases, some created by the same companies that make electronic voting machines, aren’t federally tested or certified and some have been plagued by missed deadlines, rushed production schedules, cost overruns, security problems, and design and reliability issues.” Federal mandate, inept implementation, lots of problems. Yeah, I know — who could have seen that coming?
INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE TO ESTABLISH safety standards for nanotechnology.
I’D STILL LIKE TO SEE THE FIRST ONE: Tesla Motors’s Second Electric Car Will Be Made in San Jose. And maybe take a test-drive.
NEW OIL-EXTRACTION TECHNOLOGY? Bring it on.
DEATH IN THE CORN: A new dispatch from Michael Yon.
ON-DEMAND MANUFACTURING: The Future is Now: “We’re pretty much at the MITS 8800 stage of manufacturing on demand — there’s no guessing which technologies will come out to be the winners. But we can make some guesses what the eventual results will be, if we just think about what the computer revolution has already done.”
“GREEN CRUDE” from Algae.
IN THE MAIL: In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point’s Class of 2002. Looks very interesting.
INSTA-POLL:
NEW YORK POST: Step Down, Charlie:
Charlie Rangel must be a centipede – given how many shoes have been dropping regarding his personal finances.
Yet he’s pugnaciously defying demands that he step aside as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee – which writes the nation’s tax laws.
And, after two closed-door sitdowns with him in 12 hours, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has no intention of stripping him of his prestigious position – no matter how big an embarrassment he’s become.
“I see no reason why Mr. Rangel should step down,” she said yesterday.
She’s obviously not looking very hard.
Because, with each passing day, the Manhattan Democrat’s ethical shortcomings grow ever more obvious.
Which is why he’s hired a “forensic accountant” to autopsy 20 years worth of back tax returns. (Think “CSI: Charlie.”)
Ouch. Seems to me that the inability of somebody like Rangel to keep his taxes straight is, at the very least, an argument for radical tax simplification of some sort. Not that that gets Rangel off the hook, any more than it would for you or me.
Some more thoughts on Nancy Pelosi’s limp response to the Rangel scandals: “Normal people would be facing jail time for such shenanigans. And we’re not even going to mention his four rent-controlled apartments in the same Harlem building.”
CANADIAN KANGAROO COURT UPDATE: “Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) adjudicator Athanasios Hadjis performed a valuable service on Monday by raising doubts about whether there is any purpose in having agencies like his police the Internet for hatred. . . . It’s unclear how s. 13 could be salvaged. On one hand, any limit to free expression that is likely to be ineffective or applied selectively, as the CHRT’s Internet witch hunts arguably are, will not and should not survive Charter scrutiny. And, as Mr. Hadjis points out, the same is true of any statutory measure which leaves too large a ‘grey zone’ for Internet commenters to fall into, or which imposes an unfair burden on Webmasters who must police long comment threads or large forums for anonymous hatred.” (Via Newsbeat 1).
THE LATEST Carnival of the Recipes is up!
AT THE CONGLOMERATE: “There’s really no statutory authority for the AIG takeover . . . I suspect we’re at the ‘anything goes in an emergency’ stage of things. But maybe reasonable minds could disagree.” As various people in the Bush Administration have learned, the “emergency” stage doesn’t prevent people from second-guessing you later once they feel safe. Will that happen here?
Similar thoughts from Megan McArdle. “Their authority is this: who’s going to stop them? No one wants to take on responsibility for this mess themselves.”
And Fabius Maximus observes: Say good-bye to the old America. Welcome to our new socialist paradise! Plus, from Orin Kerr: “I never knew that’s what they meant by an ‘ownership society.'”
BECAUSE WHEN YOU WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET IT RIGHT: “The IRS has acknowledged that Jamey and Lora Costner of Newport are victims of identity theft and Congress has called on them to testify. Nevertheless, this young couple are being harassed yet again by the IRS for back taxes on income they never earned at a place they never worked (Koch Foods). This time, the feds have already taken $467 from Lora Costner’s 401K fund to pay the debt they don’t owe.”
ELIOT SPITZER’S dubious legacy. Well, one of ’em, anyway.
A ROUNDUP ON THE A.I.G. DEAL, from Dealbreaker, which has been the go-to blog lately on financial matters. You might want to just keep scrolling.