Month: October 2010

Kincaid guides us through the new report. Its conclusion that 4.2 percent of men are gay seems roughly accurate to me. But only 0.9 percent of women as lesbian? But then you see among women another 3.6 percent calling themselves bisexual, and an extra 2.3 percent "other." Male sexuality does seem more fixed than women's.

Iowa's judges face electoral Christianist wrath.

Frustrated House still waiting for Senate action on 420 bills. Dudes, chill.

Massie evaluates the British government's attempt to means-test the Child Benefit, a tax subsidy for having children:

[A]s Tyler Cowen says, these are interesting times: the UK is the first Western country in recent memory to attempt a comprehensive overhaul of its welfare state. This means it's going to be a messy, protracted, sometimes piecemeal and sometimes unfair business. Anomalies will abound. (Of course they also abound at present but, by virtue of being customary, established anomalies are much more acceptable than new ones.)

Nevertheless, if you were starting from scratch would you really take the view that what the country needs to do is collect its taxes and then use those taxes to send child-support cheques to every family in the country, regardless of need?

If you want to see what real fiscal conservatives look like, and not the nutjob fiscal frauds now running as Republicans, go to Britain. Makes me proud to be a Tory. And, yes, defense is on the cutting block. And some taxes will be raised. Because they're not a bunch of dishonest loons and are actually taking responsibility for their country rather than demonizing Kenyan anti-colonialists.

"please sir jeffrey goldberg you glimpsed cuban president fidel I castrate and preguntele because he does not let enter the cuban ferrymen so that they can enter to see its families is an injustice which the cuba government hase that does not let enter the ferrymen is necessary to denounce the injustice that I castrate hasen them with not allowing that the cuban ferrymen only enter because they left illegal," – from Goldblog's intray.

Yay for auto-translate!

What if the United States were ruled by intelligent yogurt? John Scalzi has a short story that provides all the answers. He says it's just as realistic as Atlas Shrugged.

Ben Smith sums up the big scoop from Mudflats:

[It's] a remarkable exchange, hinting both at Palin's ambitions — she expected that her endorsement would produce unqualified support for a presidential bid — and at Todd Palin's role as enforcer. Also, their capacity to alienate an ally.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney… has a capacity for intellectual dishonesty that can take your breath away… If he thought there was some political advantage in asserting that two plus two is five, Romney would be out there within minutes with a speech about how business had taught him a thing or two that these government bureaucrats will never understand and promising that in his administration two plus two will equal six.

McArdle isn’t optimistic about a third party candidate in 2012:

I doubt it would get into office by telling us the truth: that solving our problems is going to mean hefty tax increases or unpleasant spending cuts, or both.

Drum agrees. Bernstein continues to believe that a viable third party run is unlikely.

Weigel notices a new Paul ad:

[T]he $500 billion in projected Medicare cuts that Democrats passed to pay for health care reform has emerged as one of the readiest attack lines from Republicans; even though, yes, the rhetoric of the Tea Party denounces Medicare as an unsustainable Great Society boondoggle.

And there I was taking this seriously:

Mr. Paul said he would raise the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare — he did not say to what age — and the deductibles for Medicare, casting these steps as the responsible approach.

Seriously, when Rand Paul is attacking the first ever serious cuts in Medicare in the health insurance reform bill, why on earth should anyone believe the Tea Party's fiscal responsibility message one iota? They're total frauds – Christianists and obstructionists in fiscal conservative clothing.