Month: July 2009

Ezra Klein tackles Megan.

"What I mean is that people think AI is a talent show. No. It's a reality show with writers!! We're all actors. All these shows have writers that guide the public opinion. The Hills, Real World. All of them. … Do you think a billion-dollar enterprise is subject to the whim of the public?" – Ju'Not Joyner, American idol contestant who claims he was cut from the show for not being docile enough with the AI lawyers.

McCardle and Ambinder are having a back-and-forth over obesity: Megan interviewed Paul Campos who called obesity a fake problem, Marc –who is writing an article on waistline politics – responded, Megan fired back, Ambinder followed up and Megan went one more round. Here's Marc:

McArdle is right that it it's not fair for government to lecture people about weight loss and exercise, but she's right for the wrong reason: policy choices — ag subsidies, zoning laws, education and budget priorities — create a flow that, absent any intervention, are sweeping many young kids, particularly poorer kids of color, into obesity. Government's role isn't to scold; it's to make better policy choices. She's wrong about the interventions, too: some, like a physical education project in Somerville, Mass., seem to be working. Taking fast food vending machines out of schools and weighing children at least once a year has arrested the obesity growth rate in Arkansas.  Nationally, the obesity growth rate also seems to be be slowing.

Fallows sides with Ambinder. Like Megan, I have a visceral dislike of being told by government how to live my life. 

(Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty.)

Trita Parsi calls for a halt to negotiations with Iran:

From TNR's editorial on health care:

But, according to this post by Marc from last week, the focus on cost is largely the White House's doing:

Obama is arguing both that we can have universal healthcare and that his plan will save us money in the long run and is the only way to tackle the fiscal crisis. This is an extremely complicated argument and counter-intuitive. Obama may be correct (he surely is in recognizing the impact of the health sector on America's bottom line) – but the public's skepticism toward this sugary medicine is totally understandable. Universal healthcare will cost money – lots of it; making the whole system less damaging to the economy, business and government will mean fewer choices, more visible rationing, and less research. It's no mystery why healthcare reform is hard. It means real healthcare for a few who don't have it; but less healthcare and lower leverage for patients for the many who do. But we will get something. As with climate change, we will get a start worth improving on.

Karen Tumulty sizes up the health care debate:

A reader writes:

As a general matter — when police officers are involved in a traffic stop, they are in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation.  When citizens approach them yelling and screaming, whatever the substance, that does constitute disorderly conduct, because it is interfering with the ability of the police to give their full attention to the traffic stop and to ensure both their own safety and the safety of the person they have stopped.
Second, here is the instigation for this incident, according to Pepin Tuma:

Then the group noticed five or six police cruisers surrounding two cars in an apparent traffic stop on the other side of the street. It seemed to Tuma that was more cops than necessary.  "That's why I hate the police," Tuma said.

It's apparent that Tuma knows nothing about police work. There are TWO cars stopped here.

That is not a standard traffic stop, by definition.  So clearly, something more was going on.  Tuma, however, with zero experience or knowledge, thinks he is able to judge the correctness of police procedure despite knowing nothing of the facts.  It's quite possible that a serious crime was being investigated, one in which the suspects may have been armed and dangerous.  It is rare for any more than two police cars to be in one place at one time unless there is a risk of danger or violence.  That makes Tuma's behavior that much worse, and justifies an arrest for disorderly conduct.  The conduct is not criticizing the police — it is interfering with their work in a way that could put both police and citizens in danger.

But the cop, according to the story, had to cross the intersection to arrest someone for singing "I hate the police." That's not a member of the public approaching a cop yelling and screaming and preventing him from doing his job. But we only have one side of the story. I'll try to keep tabs on what happens next.

The voices rise:

Fallows explains.

Henry Louis Gates Jr:

Thank God that we have a President who can rise above the fray, bridge age-old differences and transform events such as this into a moment in the evolution of our society’s attitudes about race and difference. President Obama is a man who understands tolerance and forgiveness, and our country is blessed to have such a leader.

The national conversation over the past week about my arrest has been rowdy, not to say tumultuous and unruly. But we’ve learned that we can have our differences without demonizing one another. There’s reason to hope that many people have emerged with greater sympathy for the daily perils of policing, on the one hand, and for the genuine fears about racial profiling, on the other hand.