Month: April 2009

Conor Clarke:

As near as I can tell, Paul Ryan and his staff just took the CBO projections that ended in 2019 and drew a random line, extending upward at about a 45 degree angle, until 2080. There's no real attempt to make it look scientific.

That's a 70-year projection no less, to make the Democrats look much worse (if you extend the obama line for the same amount of time, the government is spending 90 percent of GNP at the end). I can barely find a single conservative blog touting the thing, which tells you something. And the spending freeze on discretionary items right now seems clinical. The GOP says it wants fiscal discipline, after spending like Sarah Palin at Saks for eight years. But it seems to have no idea how to accomplish it in fact.

Mark Kleiman says it's bunk:

Legal cannabis, even taxed, would presumably be way cheaper than the current illicit product. Other things equal, that would mean that the legal cannabis industry would have lower revenues than the current illicit industry. That wouldn't stimulate the economy: just the reverse.

It’s a total wardrobe malfunction in London.

A new product has launched: "Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer." Kassia Krozser sighs:

As I write this, all I can think is that if more books smelled like crunchy bacon, I might become a breakfast person.

Larison insists:

The “surge” failed, and its failure was foreseen from the beginning.

Jay Rosen on the new HufPo-funded investigative journalism effort:

It is important to stress that the new Investigative Fund is separate from the Huffington Post as both a legal entity and an editorial producer. It is a new non-profit, and so the announcement of its birth, along with the $1.75 million starter budget, is really the launch of a new Internet-based news organization with a focus on original reporting. You might say the operating principle is: “report once, run anywhere” because work the Fund produces will be available for any publication or Web site to publish at the same time it is posted on The Huffington Post. (Probably through a Creative Commons license, but this has not been decided.)

Bob steps on Mickey's April Fool's joke.

From the Atlantic food channel, Samuel T. Stanley explains what it is like to have gastric bypass surgery:

What am I missing at work? Why did I do this? Why do bariatric patients have a higher chance of dying in their first post-surgery year than others? What if the pain never goes away? I really, really crave a piece of pizza right now…

Joe Klein reacts to Richard Holbrooke meeting with the Iranians:

If you think the public gavotte is all that's happening between the US and Iran right now, you are very naive. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this were not the first time Holbrooke had met with an Iranian in the past few months. Clearly, cooperation on the Af/Pak part of the program is proceeding apace and it ain't happening by osmosis. I wouldn''t be surprised–indeed, I'd be disappointed–if there weren't discussions taking place on a range of issues, out of the public eye. That's how these things get done, when they get done.

Atherton, California, 8.30 am