Archive for 2011
September 25, 2011
MARITAL PROBLEMS IN TODAY’S AMERICA: “My Husband Keeps Having Babies With Another Woman!”
PETER WOOD: Mobbing For Preferences.
AT AMAZON, markdowns on magazines. I still subscribe to a few in actual paper editions, and like ’em that way.
Also, a collection of safes.
UPDATE: Safes link was busted before. Fixed now. Sorry!
GOOD QUESTION: So Why Can’t We Call The New Deal A Wrong Turn? The answer is that doing so would threaten an entire comfy system. Nowadays, to be “progressive” is to be nostalgic for a time before I was born, and such nostalgia must not be challenged. Never mind that the system is collapsing under its own weight anyway . . . .
BUSINESS IS WHERE YOU FIND IT: Lawyers Eye Jobless As Clients. Or make it. “Lawyers should be allowed to win financial damages from companies that refuse to hire unemployed people, according to a coalition of Democratic legislators, progressive advocates and entrepreneurial trial lawyers. The existence of even a few advertisements excluding unemployed applicants in the national marketplace justifies a federal law creating a novel market for legal skills, say the advocates.”
BYRON YORK: How Herman Cain Won Florida. Key quote:
“I liked Cain, but I wasn’t sure he could win,” said Zena, from Washington County. “But after I heard this, I thought it doesn’t matter if he wins or not — I am for this man. He was awesome.” . . .
One other factor should not be underestimated. Yes, the delegates liked what Cain had to say. But how he said it was just as important. With his deep, booming voice and a style that any motivational speaker would envy, Cain can give a rousing speech, and he gave several of them during four days in Orlando. No other candidate, frontrunner or back of the pack, could match him. It’s not an exaggeration to say that his power as an orator sealed the deal for hundreds of delegates. They believed Cain was speaking to them from the heart, and they were carried away by it. As with the Democratic primary contests of 2007 and 2008, never underestimate the power of a stirring speech.
Thought that last observation should perhaps be a cautionary one. Read the whole thing.
IS TELEVISION FINALLY portraying men in a better light?
IRA STOLL: The Buffett Tax Gambit.
By framing the fiscal-policy discussion this way, as a debate over whether the “super-rich” should pay more, Buffett and his allies in politics and the press avoid certain other questions. And those questions are more important ones. Questions like:
• Who should allocate capital, the people who earned it and own it, or the politicians in Washington as influenced by their lobbyists and campaign contributor cronies?
• How did we accumulate $14 trillion in debt so rapidly, and what are the consequences of that?
• How and why has federal spending grown to $3.8 trillion in 2011 from $1.8 trillion in 2000?
As weak a case as Warren Buffett and Barack Obama have for raising taxes on the “super-rich,” it is nevertheless a debate they would almost certainly prefer to some of the alternatives.
Indeed.
September 24, 2011
JOE KLEIN TAKES A ROAD TRIP, and partially gets it.
BRADY ATTACKS helping Rick Perry’s poll numbers?
GENETIC ROOTS OF female promiscuity? “Females who are promiscuous act that way because it is nature’s way of dealing with inbreeding, researchers have claimed.”
MICKEY KAUS AND JENNIFER RUBIN on the Left-Coast / Right-Coast Podcast.
SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS SUFFERING FROM blurry vision?
HERMAN CAIN WINS the Florida straw poll.
CONCONCON: Roxane De Luca liveblogged my speech earlier today. Plus, a political panel and a strategic panel. Larry Lessig will be talking in a minute. Plus, advance copies of his new book. From the blurb: “A onetime friend of Barack Obama, Lessig, a professor of law at Harvard, is as critical of the president and the Democratic Party as he is of Republicans.”
AT AMAZON, loads of coupons.
HOW TO WRITE OFF YOUR JOB-HUNTING EXPENSES: Become A Consultant! Of course, you have to have some income for this to matter . . .
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Your State University Doesn’t Want You. “According to a new survey of college admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed, the admissions strategy judged most important is the recruitment of more out-of-state and international students, who can pay significantly more at public institutions. Ten percent of those surveyed also reported admitting full-pay students with lower grades and test scores than other admitted applicants, and a majority of schools either use or plan to use controversial commission-paid agents to recruit foreign students (commission-based recruitment is barred in the U.S.).”
Bottom-line quote: “They need the money.”
DAN MITCHELL: The Tea Party Goes Global: Revolt Of The Greek Tax Slaves. “The fiscal turmoil in Greece is not about fiscal balance. It’s a fight between looters and moochers such as Olga Stefou, who think taxpayers should endlessly subsidize everything, and the shrinking group of productive people who are pulling the wagon and keeping Greece’s economy from total collapse. Not surprisingly, the Greek government has tried to prop up its uncompetitive welfare state by pillaging that group of productive people. But it appears that the kleptocrats may have gone too far and triggered a Tea Party-type revolt. . . . These two stories underscore the message that I’ve been repeating for years. Greece’s problem is not deficits and debt. Red ink and imminent default are bad, but they are symptoms of the real problem of a bloated public sector and the dependency culture created by too much government.”
MICHAEL YON: Grapes.
JENNIFER RUBIN: What Would Chris Christie Be Doing?