Month: September 2010

Abram Sauer tracks down the Sarah Palins of the world:

None of the British Sarah Palins were interested in changing their names. And neither is Glen Beck, from Fort Bragg, California, who happily told tales of women asking to meet him, and a hotel that left an extravagant fruit and cheese basket (complete with complimentary wine) in his room. But there are plenty of downsides. "I would kinda like to see him share his wealth as compensation for having to answer for him," he says. "Somehow I don't think that will ever happen."

Felix Salmon takes on market forecasting:

If you add together the fund managers and the economists and the TV pundits and everybody else telling you where the economy and the markets are going, you’ll get a number somewhere in the tens of thousands. The question isn’t whether one of them will turn out to be right, it’s just how many of them will turn out to have been right.

In fact, given the thousands of people in the market, it’s a statistical certainty that many of them won’t just be right once, but will be right time and time again. Such people are generally lauded as being fabulously smart and prescient, and lots of money gets thrown at them. As a general rule, it’s a good idea to make sure that money isn’t yours.

(Chart by Carl Richards.)

R.L.G. at DiA counters Douthat:

The Republican race begins very soon. And early advantages can become self-sustaining. There are many reasons Ms Palin might not win, including some of those that downed Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean; the frontrunner has a special kind of vulnerability as everyone takes aim at the same time. But she has to be considered the frontrunner as of today. Those who think she isn't have to say who they think is.

Tyler Cowen defends it:

Liberal arts education forces us to decode systems of symbols.  We learn how complex systems of symbols can be and what is required to decode them and why that can be a pleasurable process.  That skill will come in handy for a large number of future career paths.  It will even help you enjoy TV shows more.

Adam Ozimek checks in on illegal immigration around the globe:

No, it’s not illegal Mexican immigrants coming into the United States, but Southeast Asian, North Korean, and African illegal immigrants coming into China. If you think our border problem is daunting, consider that China’s mostly unprotected border stretches 13,670 miles across rain forests, mountains, and deserts. According to the article, from the L.A. Times, the demand for foreign labor comes from rising Chinese wages and a shortage of low-skilled workers, and those willing to do harder field work at profitable pay.

Today on the Dish, the New York Times torture farce continued. Andrew was unimpressed with Woodward's excerpts, but more importantly disappointed with Obama's ultimate decision for Afghanistan. But at least the president spoke to Americans like adults.

McCain knew nothing about DADT. Andrew sparred with readers over yesterday's vote, HRC and the Democrats weren't any help, Reid was indefensible, and Mataconis spread the blame around. A Chambliss staffer didn't know the internet could trace his homophobic rants, and Dan Savage reminded gay kids that things will get better.

Following her mama grizzly mentor, O'Donnell swore off the national media. Bernstein and Douthat debated Palin's chances, another of her proteges campaigned on bigotry, and Nyhan charted her unfavorability; she looks a lot like Dan Quayle.

Andrew responded to Ross on what might change for the GOP base between now and 2012, and he agreed with Mark Greenbaum that divided government could benefit Obama. Rand met with the neocons, and Kos got so defensive it sounded like straight-up paranoia. The FBI lied to Congress over monitoring activists, a cartoon helped us understand health care, and Stewart and Colbert blurred what little is left of the line between media and politics. On race, Ta-Nehisi went after Marty, Matthew Duss called out a double standard for Jews and Palestinians (eg Helen Thomas and Marty), and Pat Buchanan played the race card. Sullum and Stimson argued over intoxication, while support for Prop 19 kept getting higher.

VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here. More Americans believed Obama was a cactus, Milton's Paradise Lost was headed for 3D, and Burning Man made people all sorts of happy.

–Z.P.

A reader writes:

I can't imagine that you really believe this.  It's certainly true as you've said many times that gay rights is treated in the most cravenly cynical way by the Democratic Party as merely a means of energizing base voters, and not as an issue actually worth fighting for, sacrificing real political capital for, and I know that you're not a politician, and you have every right to be angry at the way the Democratic Party has treated the gay community and the rights of gay people in this country. 

But voting for Sharron Angle over Harry Reid will not get you where you want to go.  I think if you want to get gay rights to be taken seriously the gay community needs to change their approach to politics.  The HRC needs to be disbanded, and the the gay lobby needs to get militant.  No more buttoned-up Georgetown types; gay rights needs real radicals who simply are not willing to compromise.  Period.  You've said it yourself.  Right now for Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party, gay rights is just another issue among many.  It has to become more than that.  Politicians have to be scared, legitimately scared, of fucking with the gays. 

The gay lobby needs to have as much pull as the gun rights lobby.  That's the only way that things change on an acceptable timeline (meaning now!).  But you know all this, you've said it yourself, and it's why I said I can't really believe you believe what you said about Angle and Reid.  I'm worried that you're becoming like the rest of us, horribly depressed by the current state of the world. 

I was so happy when you returned from your blogging break because you immediately brought back that cleared-eyed sense of realism coupled with your unique brand of optimistic faith in the power of pragmatic adults like Obama to lead us back on the right path – however long it takes.  The emphasis in that statement should be on the "s" in adults.  It's going to take many of us, as you well know, to get things changed, and again as you well know the current leadership of the gay lobby is not capable of changing anything.  I wish as much as you that Reid and Obama cared about gay rights enough to really fight for it, but wishing for people to care about things the way that you do is not a means for changing the world.  And voting for incompetent reactionaries over cynical polls is also not a means for changing the world. 

Reid and Obama and basically every politician in DC needs to be embarassed about what they have done to so many people who have voluntarily risked their lives to defend their freedom.  There are people out there in this country who are capable of getting that message out there, but those people do not lead the gay rights movement.  They should.

Another writes:

I understand you're upset. I'm upset too. But seriously? You'd rather a crazy person hold one of the most powerful positions in our gov't (that of a US Senator)? Is this the same person who day in, day out, rails against Sarah Palin? And speaks of their constant struggles with Obama's timidity but feels lucky to have him over the possibility of a crazy person in Palin?

It seems like you've let your emotions about this issue overtake your better judgment. If you had used this as a reason to primary Reid or a push to replace him as senate majority leader, I'd be right there with you. But you're arguing for voting for someone with whom you actively disagree on nearly everything of import to a six-year term just to register your displeasure with the way the incumbent has chosen to advance issues that you care about (issues which would likely not be advanced at all were Republicans to be in power).

Here's to hoping that a later vote is more successful, or that the Supreme Court advances our rights where our legislature has thus far failed. But this issue, just like gay marriage, is reaching a critical mass where I feel that the laws are behind the times. And now it just seems like a question of WHEN and not IF. It's dreadful that our system allows for such long lapses between acknowledgment by many of a need for a change and the actual implementation of that change. But that's how it is.

Another:

It seems to me that your irrational anger at Reid and the Democrats is nothing much more than cutting off your nose to spite your face.  That said, I think you're dead-on accurate in your condemnation of The HRC.  I used to be a "Federal Club" member of HRC, donating thousands of dollars a year to them.  No longer.

Another:

As an African-American, I know a CW position is to say that the gay rights movement is similar to the modern Black Civil Rights movement.  Fair enough. But I don't think we'll ever find anyone who believed/fought in that movement say that they'd vote for the bigoted opposition, because they didn't like how things went down on one of the issues (of many) with the party that they know at the end of the day was their greatest hope to get what they wanted done.  They would do as they did, continue to encourage, prod, shame, etc., but never flippantly throw out notions of wasting their precious vote – real or not.

Woodward quotes Obama as saying that:

“We can absorb a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever … we absorbed it and we are stronger.”

Marc Thiessen twists Obama's words and accuses the president of thinking that another 9/11 is "no big deal." Serwer pushes back:

Thiessen is in the category of Republicans who would apparently prefer Americans not show resilience and bravery in the face of another terrorist attack. Of course, it was only a few weeks ago that Thiessen was arguing that the administration, by saying another attack on the scale of 9/11 was unlikely, was also being complacent.

Earlier Serwer took an even firmer line:

Basically Republicans are outraged and offended at the notion that the president has enough faith in the courage of the American people that another terrorist attack wouldn't reduce them to a quivering mass of frightened little children.

Mataconis is on the same page.

Matthew Duss calls out Goldblog, Shafer, and myself: