Month: December 2009

Steve Smith reports:

Claiming substantial gains in its digital and events programs for 2009, The Atlantic says its high profile relaunch last year and new business plan have paid off. While other books sank, the overall ad revenues for the brand grew 16%. Print revenue did drop “slightly,” the company says, but a 115% rise in digital ad revenues more than offset the loss. According to the latest PIB figures for the third quarter, ad pages for The Atlantic were down only 4.3% over same quarter 2008. The latest min Digital Box Scores shows that TheAtlantic.com attracts about 3 million monthly

uniques to over 16 million page views.

According to publisher Jay Lauf, The Atlantic was able to expand its base of advertisers beyond the usual suspects in 2009. “Travel, luxury, auto, liquor and technology were among the new groups that helped us maintain close to last year’s revenue,” he tells minonline. “The common theme we seemed to hear was substance and intelligence matters more than ever.”

TheAtlantic.com site has expanded substantially this past year, adding new sections in food, politics and business to expand its inventory and offer potential advertisers more credible scale. Lauf says that site traffic has grown over 40% in the last year and 500% since 2007. The most recent addition, The Atlantic Wire, is a novel aggregator of opinions and columnists. Andrew Sullivan’s “Daily Dish” blog continues to be one of the most influential idea generators in the political blogosphere. TheAtlantic.com won this year’s Webby Award for Best Magazine Site and claims 40 new advertisers, including Porsche, SAP and Luis Vuitton.

The suite of Atlantic LIVE events also expanded with the Washington Ideas Forum and the State of the Union for Health Care, which helped drive that revenue up 27%. Subscription revenue across the paid properties also rose 18% in 2009.

James Lipton, creepy already, creeps out some more:

More creepiness here.

Ezra Klein asks:

Is there any evidence that financing wars brings them to a quicker close? Any papers examining this question?

From Bruce Bartlett's column last week:

History shows that wars financed heavily by higher taxes, such as the Korean War and the first Gulf War, end quickly, while those financed largely by deficits, such as the Vietnam War and current Middle East conflicts, tend to drag on indefinitely.

Ugandan blogger, GayUganda, is waiting for the new law – inspired by American Christianists, abetted by Rick Warren – that will soon jail or execute him for being who he is. I'm unsure when in history a group of American "Christians" have actually intervened in a foreign country to create what is the equivalent of an ongoing pogrom of terror against a tiny minority, scapegoating them as evil, demanding that their own families inform on them if they are gay or face legal punishment, and threatening the death penalty for any homosexual daring to have a love life. And I can only imagine what the response in America would be if the target were any other minority – Jews or immigrants or the sick – or the usual targets of majoritarian hate. But a declaration of a form of genocide against gays gets shrugged off by the world's leaders, including the Pope, whose silence is reminiscent of another Pope not so long ago.

This gay Ugandan blogger's latest post is here – a heart-rending blend of disbelief, optimism and pessimism. From the comments section, a reader asks:

I hope the bill wont see the light of the day. How about your safety and that of other gay men at the moment?

The blogger's response:

Ha, life is unfair. No real assurance, or insurance to it.

Ok, seriously, what about our safety? Well, we are making lots of noise as and when we can now. When the bill becomes law, those of us who are out will be most likely hauled in for any more 'promotion' of homosexuality…!

But, sometimes, sometimes it is actually worth the while to hang out ones neck. Afterall, I will only die once…. Gallows humour. But, better than nothing.

Cookie Monster backs up Rammstein:

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"The more I think about this (Obama's Afghanistan move), the smarter it is – both militarily and politically. But that tends to happen with Obama decisions, doesn't it?"

Exactly! The most fascinating thing about our president is that he doesn't base his decisions partly on a desire of winning the daily news race. You really have to respect a person who lays out a plan that, at least initially, everyone is going to hate. President Bush had to scare us into seeing things his way ("we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"). How cool is it to have a president who trusts us to understand his decisions on realistic terms, without having to result to such tactics? Besides, for years most rational people have agreed that there's no ideal outcome for us in Afghanistan. Why should we blame the president for coming to the same conclusion?

From Calculated Risk. Free Exchange wonders if December will bring job growth:

Tomorrow, the payroll numbers for November will come out, and they are expected to show a decline of about 100,000. It could be the last drop in payrolls for this recession, if these jobless claims improvements hold up. And with four straight months of expansion in the manufacturing sector, this is not entirely unexpected.

A military reader writes:

I've written you a few times. You've responded, once. I'm usually not too happy with you.

Anyway, I'm now in Kandahar, working for Stan. That Stan. 

I was anti-Iraq.  Beginning to now, in the US and in Anbar with a gun in my hand.  I was anti-Afghanistan … the Bush/Rummy version, after about week six. So … here's my tip:

We're going to win this one.  We have

a plan.  I call it C2.  COIN and cordwood. 

We're trying to learn counter insurgency, while at the same time, we're stacking insurgent (the only accepted term at the moment) bodies like cordwood.  They've gotten a little bit afraid, and are growing more so every day.  The relatively fast 30k is going to relatively quickly change the picture, in noticeable way, in Helmand and Kandahar.  We're booting the Canadians out of command of Kandahar City.  Omar's town.  We're putting a bright, smart, tough, funny Brit 2 star in charge of RC South, where the battle really matters. 

Come on out.  I'll show you around.  But, please, avenge your Iraq mistakes by backing us when we need you, and other reasonably sane guys with platforms, to help out a little.  Obama has taken some huge brave risks; but they're smart risks, and we're going to prove him right. 

I've said, in so far as this matters, that I am backing you and will back you until 2011, just as I hoped the surge that I opposed would somehow work (which has yet, alas, to be proven).  But the Dish has a responsibility to make a judgment but also to subject that judgment in the future to constant scrutiny and new evidence. In war, where everything is unpredictable, that holds particularly true. I'd leave now just as I would have left Iraq two years ago. But I understand the counter-arguments and certainly hope we can get a better outcome within a reasonable time-frame.

Show me. And may God protect you.

This pharmaceutical industry practice is hard to defend:

In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the cheaper generic brand: you hold off on marketing your generic for several years, and in return, we'll give you a share of our profits on the drug.

David Link notes one staggering fact from yesterday's New York state senate debate. There was no debate. Only one senator spoke against marriage equality, and his rambling diatribe had no actual arguments in it:

Diaz’s oratorical contribution did not bother to include any explanation of what might be wrong with equality.  The first six minutes of his speech were an appeal to Republicans.  He is a Democrat, and wanted to stir up resentment among his colleagues on the other side who don’t get much gay support (e.g., in Diaz’s pretty naked words, money).  He then launched into a lengthy recitation of the obvious fact that there are religions that oppose homosexuality, and offered a complete roll call of the 31 states that voted gay marriage down.  Finally, Diaz urged his fellow popularly elected senators not to “do away with the people’s will.”

Amidst all of this, there was no argument against same-sex marriage (procreation, preserving the state’s economic resources, supporting heterosexual families), and it is telling that Diaz felt no need to do so.

It reminds me of this moment when a gay constituent actually confronted her own state representative with argument and evidence and civility and was greeted with a simple statement of no. No reason. Just no: