The Politics Of A Second Stimulus

Noam Scheiber is in favor:

I guess my only response is that, while the politics of a second stimulus may be extremely unfavorable, the politics of 10 percent unemployment as you head into a midterm election–or, worse, a presidential re-election campaign–are far, far worse. Even if you can't pass another stimulus today, you want to begin laying the groundwork for passing one as soon as possible. Yes, you'll take a lot of heat from the GOP even at that point. But not nearly as much as you'll take if the unemployment rate doesn't improve by the summer/fall of 2010.

Derek Thompson is against:

I expect that the politics of shifting attention away from one of the three big issues of the docket — health care, climate change and bank regulation — are dangerous. Conservative Democrats — and a solid majority of Americans — are getting nervous about deficits at a time when the Obama administration is pressing them to help pass a trillion-dollar health care reform bill and a potentially even more costly climate change bill to cap carbon emmissions. Say what you want about the long-term impact of climate change and health care reform, but they're going to cost an intimidating sum over the next few years. If Obama presses for a second stimulus, I expect he'll meet plenty of resistance from his own party. Politicians should be nervous about these job losses, but come 2010, they'll be most worried about losing their own.

Donald Marron says econo-pundits can't count.

Outing Iran: Abjeez

A reader writes:

My wife, who is a Middle Eastern scholar, told me about this group, Abjeez – two Iranian sisters based in London who do world pop. This piece DemoKracy, is brilliant, in the way it used the media metaphor to comment on the "democracy" that America has brought to the Middle East and Iraq in particular. It used images that are seldom, if ever seen on US TV, but are frequently seen in the rest of the world. And best of all, their music is great!

The Trouble With State Media

Matt Welch and Michael C. Moynihan beat up on Ezra Klein. Moynihan:

If Auntie Beeb has avoided sensationalism, as Klein claims, how does he explain the BBC's own chairman acknowledging that the programming has been significantly "dumbed down" in recent years? In 2002 Gavyn Davies confessed to The Independent, "If the accusation of dumbing down is becoming a frequent and mainstream attack from people I respect then, yes, I am worried about it." But it wasn't dumb enough to compete with private channels like ITV and satellite services like Sky, according to an internal BBC reportscathing: "It is with sadness and some anger that they note the 'dumbing down' of programmes and the over-emphasis on celebrity led, contrived reality and lifestyle formats." that recommended further sensationalism and mindless reality programming. A 2008 internal review, which quizzed former employees on the state of government-run media, was scathing: "It is with sadness and some anger that they note the 'dumbing down' of programmes and the over-emphasis on celebrity led, contrived reality and lifestyle formats."

The New Face Of The Pro-Life Movement?

Weigel reports:

One element of the conservative movement is much more excited [about Palin's resignation]. Anti-abortion activists, who embraced Palin after the birth of Trig and after the unmarried pregnancy of Palin’s daughter Bristol, are ecstatic about the possibility that Palin, freed from the duties and turmoils of office, could become a historic leader and spokeswoman for their cause.

The Long Road

Jennifer Vanasco shares moments of public acceptance:

[W]henever we’ve visited each other, someone has publicly applauded us for being in love.

There was that police officer. There was the chic African-American woman on a train who, once we had gotten up to leave, shouted out after us, “You go, girls! You’re beautiful!”

There were the gay men who applauded us when we walked into a Chicago bar because they had seen us kissing outside.

And there was the elderly white man at a Broadway theater who sat behind us with his wife and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I don’t mean to disturb you. But I just wanted to say that you both have excellent taste in women.”

(Some) Information Wants To Be Free

Malcolm Gladwell's review of Chris Anderson’s new book, Free created quite a controversy last week. One of the most quoted bits:

[H]ow does YouTube bring in revenue? Well, it tries to sell advertisements alongside its videos. The problem is that the videos attracted by psychological Free—pirated material, cat videos, and other forms of user-generated content—are not the sort of thing that advertisers want to be associated with. In order to sell advertising, YouTube has had to buy the rights to professionally produced content, such as television shows and movies. Credit Suisse put the cost of those licenses in 2009 at roughly two hundred and sixty million dollars. For Anderson, YouTube illustrates the principle that Free removes the necessity of aesthetic judgment. (As he puts it, YouTube proves that “crap is in the eye of the beholder.”) But, in order to make money, YouTube has been obliged to pay for programs that aren’t crap. To recap: YouTube is a great example of Free, except that Free technology ends up not being Free because of the way consumers respond to Free, fatally compromising YouTube’s ability to make money around Free, and forcing it to retreat from the “abundance thinking” that lies at the heart of Free. Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube will lose close to half a billion dollars this year. If it were a bank, it would be eligible for TARP funds.

Yglesias chimes in with a few solid points.