Month: May 2010

A reader makes an interesting point:

Reading the story that Laura Bush admits to secretly supporting both gay marriage and abortion rights, it occurs to me that she has now become persona non grata from every Catholic institution in the United States. Not just Michelle or Hillary or Nancy or Rosalynn or, especially, Betty Ford, but Laura Bush! There is now no First Lady of the United States who would be welcome to speak before an institutional Catholic audience in this country. That's something to think about.

An interesting assessment, polled April 30, of how the public judges a nominee for SCOTUS, and the relevant public questions they can consider.

A reader writes:

You frame Kagan as an empty vessel with no documented policy positions. But because of her now-public policy memos; significant scholarship on yes, executive power, but also hate speech and porn law (the latter is a fascinating area of law with very few voices: it's basically her and a former professor of mine, Amy Adler); and her admittedly unsurprising defense of gay law students, we're confronted with a Supreme Court nominee with one of the most full and interesting public records in recent memory. 

These scant writings are almost scrupulously opaque, and that last sentence is simply ridiculous. Another writes:

What is it that you're not "being permitted to know" about Kagan?  Have the Senate hearings been canceled?  No?  Then you'll get your answers then.  Good grief.

Not if they are conducted the way Kagan once criticized. Another:

I know that the confirmation process is deeply flawed and has become essentially a form of theater. But that is not Kagan's fault. Or Obama's. The system has been set up so that Supreme Court nominees, after getting the approval of the executive, have to convince the legislature they are up for the job. And this process works sometimes — it got rid of Miers.

And then there's Roberts, a total stealth radical, posing as an umpire. Another:

I understand your concern about the Kagan blank slate.  What I simply cannot see is how any nominee, right or left, can say anything of substance in our current political climate.  Do you really think that Kagan could say that she supports gay marriage and a women's right to chose without setting off a political maelstrom?  The right tried desperately to take down Sotomayor over her fairly innocuous "wise latina" comment. Obama is simply doing what needs be done to get a nominee through at this time.

Look: my position on her nomination remains what it has long been. The president gets the benefit of the doubt. But this nomination does seem an almost absurd logical conclusion of the Bork lesson. Maybe the hearings will help turn that tide. Here's hoping they will …

Glenn Greenwald was made for this moment.

NPR found experts to analyze a video released – begrudgingly – by BP:

[Purdue University's Steven Wereley] made a few simple calculations and came up with an astonishing value for the rate of the oil spill: 70,000 barrels a day — much higher than the official estimate of 5,000 barrels a day. The method is accurate to a degree of plus or minus 20 percent. Given that uncertainty, the amount of material spewing from the pipe could range from 56,000 barrels to 84,000 barrels a day.

Bonus cofferdam clip here. Go here for footage from an entirely different vantage point – a plane flown by Alabama resident John Wathen. Money quote:

The Gulf appears to be bleeding. Will we ever be able to stem the tide?

Friedersdorf interviews Yglesias about urban affairs:

Q. Asked to allocate a billion dollars in funds on anything that falls under the rubric of urban affairs, what would you prioritize?

A. Better buses! It's rare that you have a policy issue that can be solved by throwing more money at the problem, but the technology to make bus service more frequent and equip buses with GPS systems that provide real-time schedule updates to bus stops exists and operates in many parts of the world. We should be installing it in our major cities.

McArdle takes on QVC in the latest issue:

The QVC process is so finely calibrated that a producer watches call volume in real time; whenever it spikes, the host hears a voice in his or her ear: “Whatever you just said, say it again. It’s working.” The lessons are disseminated to other hosts, and to the product spokespeople, who must spend hours training before they may present their products on air.

Bruce Schneier doesn't like them:

There's a certain blindness that comes from worst-case thinking. An extension of the precautionary principle, it involves imagining the worst possible outcome and then acting as if it were a certainty. It substitutes imagination for thinking, speculation for risk analysis and fear for reason. It fosters powerlessness and vulnerability and magnifies social paralysis. And it makes us more vulnerable to the effects of terrorism.

Worst-case thinking means generally bad decision making for several reasons. First, it's only half of the cost-benefit equation. Every decision has costs and benefits, risks and rewards. By speculating about what can possibly go wrong, and then acting as if that is likely to happen, worst-case thinking focuses only on the extreme but improbable risks and does a poor job at assessing outcomes.

Avent says Leonhardt is missing the point:

On the face of things, the problems are similar: revenues minus spending equals a negative number in both America and Greece. And Mr Leonhardt seems stuck on that similarity.

But the differences are crucial. Greece needs to come up with that 6% right now, in the space of a couple of years, in an environment of negative economic growth, because markets are close to refusing to lend Greece any additional money. America needs to close that 6% gap over the space of several decades, during which time it is likely to grow at a real annual rate of about 2.5%.

Do you see how these situations are different?

Today on the Dish, Andrew kept the heat on Kagan, a reader turned up the temperature, she continued to be coy, Crist went to bat for her, David Sessions surveyed the Christianists, Serwer joined the race/ethnicity debate, and Kinsley sounded off. In election fallout, Andrew and a reader examined the proposals for electoral reform, the Tories touted their religious and gay diversity, the Brits showed up the US, and the BBC made a funny flub.

Oil spill updates here, here, and here. HCR update here. More on the drug war here, here, and here. The debate over Israel and smears carried on here and here. Get your Palin fix here and here.

In assorted coverage, Leonhardt defended himself on Greece, Sara Rubin looked at the lettuce threat in Arizona, Drum replied to Andrew about atheism and the afterlife, Friedersdorf lovingly hated on NYC, Lewis Black pwned Beck, several more readers added to the burqa discussion, and others rapped about Modern Family. Paternal superhero here. Super creepy ad here.

— C.B.