Month: October 2010

Classic piece of jujitsu. Indeed, Brown's tenure was from 1975 to 1983. D'oh!

Calderone has the latest.

He admits to his lies:

"I acknowledge that my access to others' computers was wrong, participating in the poll was wrong, lying was wrong, and there is absolutely no excuse for any of it," Miller wrote in the 2008 e-mail admitting what he had done.

Of course, he followed the Palin model in the last few months:

During the campaign, Miller first refused to answer questions from reporters about it, then acknowledged he had been disciplined. He's refused to discuss the details, however and won't agree to an interview with the Daily News.

Good news for Murkowski, it seems to me. Or even McAdams? What an irony it would be if Sarah Palin helped elect a Democratic Senator … from Alaska!

It's that time of year again.

Ron Hill notices:

It’s hard to say exactly why there is so little uproar over the growing movement to legalize medical marijuana or to even decriminalize pot. One could argue that politicians are afraid to take sides on an issue where polls show the electorate almost evenly divided. Yet politicians take controversial positions on issues such as abortion and gay marriage regularly and the country is almost equally split on these issues just as they are on marijuana.

Not too long ago any elected official who even hinted that marijuana should be legal under certain circumstances, much less decriminalized, would have been run out of office. The next few years will be an interesting time to watch the changing face of the drug war – and the evolving views of the Republican Party.

(Image via Norml)

"I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day.

Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people. Life moves on.

As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it.

I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever. This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it," – Bishop John Shelby Spong.

Dana Goldstein reviews the literature:

Something called "character education" is quite trendy in education reform right now. It's based on research from positive psychologists such as Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson that suggests traits like "grit"–perseverance, goal-orientation, and long-term ambition–are more highly correlated with academic and workplace success than traditional measures of skill and talent such as IQ. 

But:

[W]e have no idea whatsoever whether traits like grittiness can be taught in school. To what extent are they taught at home? To what extent are they internal to a child's DNA? As Education Week reports, the largest to-date federal study of character education programs has found they lead to no discernible, long-term improvements in students' academic performance or behavior. 

Ezra Klein gives odds:

[I]t's much easier to see how divided government worsens the deficit and very hard to see how it reduces it. The vehicle for worsening the deficit [extension of the Bush tax cuts] already exists and has Republican support. The vehicle for reducing the deficit doesn't. And that's before we talk about health-care reform, where Republicans have supported both repeal and, more specifically, repeal of the bill's cost controls, either of which would worsen the deficit picture further.

That, anyway, is where I'd put the odds. For those who disagree, what are the deficit-reducing bills divided government will pass that will have more impact on the deficit than the tax cuts (and, if you think it'll happen, repealing health-care reform, which CBO says will worsen the budget outlook)?

Kevin Drum is less sure because he doesn't have a good grasp on Obama's position. I fear Ezra's right; and that the GOP will be as nihilist with respect to this country's economy and polity in the near future as in the recent past. They are entirely a negative force right now, as McConnell indicated.  What are they actually for, except revenge?

Joel Wing follows the patchy paper trail:

Despite its security and political issues, Iraq still has large amounts of money flowing through its coffers due to its oil industry. The problem starts there, as no one knows exactly how much petroleum is produced because of the lack of meters, a weak bureaucracy, theft, and corruption. Once the oil is sold and deposited, the trail gets murkier as the banks lack an efficient book keeping system. When the funds are distributed to the various ministries things get no better because of the paper-based system, the lack of trained and qualified staff, and political appointees. The IMF and United States have been pushing reform for several years now, but progress has been slow and uneven. They can only go as far as the Iraqis allow them, and so far, that’s only been in small increments. Until Baghdad wants real change, its finances will remain a wreck.

Points for originality:

Much like magazine perfume advertisements, the mailer says, "Open for a fragrance sample of "Loretta, The Scent Of Washington." On the inside of mailer, the piece says, "Something smells rotten about Loretta. It's the stench of Washington." Below that is the scratch and sniff panel. A GOP source who experienced the Eau de Sanchez put it this way: "It is a horrible odor, like the combination of the five or six worst possible scents you can imagine."