PORK BELLIES are bacon.
Archive for 2010
December 29, 2010
December 28, 2010
STACY MCCAIN WONDERS WHY I’M NOT DOING BETTER in Andrew Sullivan’s Malkin Award poll. Maybe it’s because both Stacy McCain and Andrew Sullivan are, for reasons of their own, misrepresenting my quote — which was about nuking North Korea in the event of a full-scale border-crossing invasion, thus placing me squarely in line with Bill Clinton’s position, which was that we should erase North Korea from the map of the world in such an event. One expects such chiseling dishonesty from Sullivan, and such impishness from McCain (and, of course, both are trolling for links), but apparently Sullivan’s readers are harder to fool than you might think.
Meanwhile, I note the irony that the “Yglesias Award’ — that’s supposed to be the good one — is named for a guy who advocated lying on Twitter, and who calls people with whom he disagrees Nazis and tells them “Fuck You.” What has Malkin done to compare? Oh, right, she’s a Republican.
MAYOR MICHAEL BILANDIC BLOOMBERG: Revolt: NY City Council members rip Bloomberg over snow removal, vow to hold hearings. This is probably good news for Obama, as a third-party Bloomberg bid would probably siphon off squishy “no labels” types from the Democrats.
UPDATE: Reader Dan Friedman emails: “The thing about Bloomberg, and the problem for NYers, is that as bad as he is, he is really the lesser of many evils, one of whom will be the next mayor. Waiting in the wings to succeed him are the usual crop of bureaucrats, club house pols, race hustlers, union lackeys and the like. Giuliani, and to a lesser extent Bloomberg, kept those hacks at bay. They’ll be back in force during the next election.” This is what happens when your political system is fundamentally broken and corrupt.
END-OF-YEAR MARKDOWNS on kitchen, home, and pet stuff.
UNLEARNING the lessons being taught.
IN COLORADO, CLASS WAR OVER NUCLEAR POWER, with the rich inhabitants of Telluride unconcerned about jobs for the less-wealthy:
Telluride, the rich ski town an hour away by car and a universe apart in terms of money and clout, has emerged as a main base of opposition to the proposed mill, called Piñon Ridge, which would be the first new uranium-processing facility in the United States in more than 25 years if it is approved by Colorado regulators next month.
To residents here like Michelle Mathews, the fact that many opponents of the mill hail from Telluride is a crucial strike against their arguments.
“People from Telluride don’t have any business around here,” said Ms. Mathews, 31, who works as a school janitor and ardently supports the idea of bringing back uranium jobs. “Not everyone wants to drive to Telluride to clean hotel rooms.”
Nobody ever says that cleaning hotel rooms for rich people is bad for the environment. Like private jets for celebrities, it’s inherently green . . . .
BUILD YOUR OWN backyard ice rink.
DRIVING FAST in the Ferrari 458 Italia. “What makes the 458 Italia so remarkable is that Ferrari has made piloting a $230,000 sports car feel like playing a video game.” Just remember, you don’t get extra lives.
REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.
REASON TV: “We need a libertarian Che Guevara.” Only more competent and less murderous, please.
THE MANY FACES OF socialism in Latin America.
WHAT ARE YOUR WORST SCHOLARLY ARTICLES? I think mine was a piece on U.S. telecommunication trade policy that I wrote for the Tennessee Law Review. It was okay, technically, but when I wrote it I found that I was a lot less interested in the topic than I thought when I agreed to write it, and I think it showed. . . .
THIRD TRIPLET defrosted, born 11 years after sisters.
POLL: Just 21% Want FCC to Regulate Internet, Most Fear Regulation Would Promote Political Agenda. “Most Mainstream voters see free market competition as the best way to protect Internet users, but most in the Political Class prefer more regulation. Seventy-eight percent (78%) in the Political Class believe the regulations would be handled in an unbiased manner, while 72% of Mainstream voters believe they would be used to promote a political agenda.” Ya think?
FROM THE FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN EDUCATION: How To Challenge Your College’s Speech Code.
Related: College Censors, Get Ready To Open Your Wallets. “In a letter to 296 public college and university presidents and general counsel, FIRE warned that the law is increasingly clear that speech codes at public universities are unconstitutional and that they risk being held personally liable for violating the free speech rights of their students if they continue to maintain policies censoring speech. That goes for all of their administrative employees as well, from deans and provosts to lower-level student affairs officials.”
If you’re looking for an end-of-year charitable donation, you might want to consider F.I.R.E. I just donated to ’em.
WE’RE LIVING IN BIZARRO WORLD: Chris Matthews: Why Doesn’t Obama Just Release The Birth Certificate?
SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? Bureau of Labor Statistics: “Long Term Unemployment” Extended to 5 Years. “Effective with data for January 2011, the Current Population Survey (CPS) will be modified to allow respondents to report longer durations of unemployment. Presently, the CPS accepts unemployment durations of up to 2 years; any response of unemployment duration greater than this is entered as 2 years. Starting with data for January 2011, respondents will be able to report unemployment durations of up to 5 years. This change will likely affect estimates of average (mean) duration of unemployment. . . . There has been an unprecedented rise in the number of persons with very long durations of unemployment during the recent labor market downturn. Nearly 10 percent of unemployed persons had been looking for work for about 2 years or more in the third quarter of 2010. Because of this increase, BLS and the Census Bureau are updating the CPS instrument to accept reported unemployment durations of up to 5 years. This upper bound was selected to allow reporting of considerably longer durations while limiting the effect of erroneous extreme values (outliers).”
PEW: Men, Women, And The New Economics of Marriage. “In the past, when relatively few wives worked, marriage enhanced the economic status of women more than that of men. In recent decades, however, the economic gains associated with marriage have been greater for men than for women. In 2007, median household incomes of three groups — married men, married women and unmarried women — were about 60% higher than those of their counterparts in 1970. But for a fourth group, unmarried men, the rise in real median household income was smaller — just 16%.” Part of this, though, is because low-income men are less likely to become married. Plus this: “The decline in marriage rates has been steepest for the least educated, especially men, and smallest for college graduates, especially women. College graduates, the highest earners, are more likely today to be married than are Americans with less education — 69% for adults with a college degree versus 56% for those who are not a college graduate.”
UNEXPECTEDLY! Consumer Confidence Shows Surprise Drop In December. “Consumers’ labor market assessment worsened. The ‘jobs hard to get’ index rose to 46.8 percent in December from 46.3 percent last month, while the ‘jobs plentiful’ index dropped to 3.9 percent from 4.3 percent.”
ALVIN GREENE is running for office again. I see him as a favorite-son candidate in 2012. . . .
