Month: August 2011

Not everyone at the Iowa State Fair was thrilled to see the Palins. Check out this Alaskan's exchange of views with Todd:

Glenn Greenwald dismembers the denialism of Dennis Blair, in the wake of this horrifying report.

From a reader:

I would first like to say that I dearly love your blog, but I must beg you to tone down the number of Angry Birds posts. As someone with extensive gaming experience, having spent six years of my life averaging around 3-4 hours of World of Warcraft a day and now spending my time playing at least 15-20 games of Starcraft 2 every day, I cannot take it much more.

Ever since Angry Birds came out, older people with smart phones have all of a sudden noticed the existence of video games and have taken to writing pages upon pages about this terribly one dimensional game that does no justice to any of the incredibly intricate and well crafted games out there that are played by millions of people for hours every day – sometimes professionally.

It isn't even that I don't like Angry Birds; in fact, I had gone through and beaten the game's PC predecessor, Crush the Castle, well before the iPhone version first emerged. There is nothing wrong with flash games, or simple games like hearts and solitaire, but that doesn't mean that just because millions of adults finally got their video game cherry popped upon receiving a smart phone I can stand by and say nothing while you act like the little kid who just discovered sugar.

It seems reasonable to assume that more people have played Tetris during the course of their lifetimes, yet you don't see article after article gushing about how ingenious it is. All I am saying is that if I have to read another paragraph telling me how "it mixes an unexpected conceit with a pleasing aesthetic world and complicates simple goals with the friction force of straightforward physical laws." I am not sure how I will react. Please stop trying to rationalize the fact that you are finally addicted to a video game and admit it, you might even gain a new sense of perspective on what tens of millions of Americans do on a daily basis.

Historian James Wright urges Congress to enact a wartime surtax, "as it has done for nearly all past U.S. wars":

Congress should consider enacting a surcharge on individual and corporate taxes that would retire the debt accumulated by these wars, pay their current operating costs, and establish a fund that would provide for veterans. This new tax could be deferred until the still fragile U.S. economic recovery gains strength. It would conclude when the wars have ended and the debt and obligations have been met. A surtax would spread this cost over multiple years, and the rate could be applied progressively. Soldiers and their families should be exempted for some number of years for every year served, and families with casualties who had been principal taxpayers or dependents should receive a permanent exemption.

Aaron captured Eddy's sideways glance this morning, while I was engrossed in Dishness. Sometimes that cartoon is closer to the truth than you'd know (excepting the hairline):

Charles Marohn attacks a new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers that urges more transportation investment:

We spend a billion here and a billion there and we get nothing but a couple minutes shaved off of our commutes, which just means we can build more roads and live further away from where we work. (Or, as we call that here in America: growth.) Sixty years of unproductive infrastructure spending later, we are awash in maintenance liabilities with no money to pay for them. This is what happens when you have a government-subsidized, Ponzi-scheme growth system that, at all times, lives for the next transaction.

(Image: "Ballast" one of many amazing cityscape paintings by Amy Casey, interviewed by Nicole Pasulka here.)

The WSJ pulls its usual stunt on Ron Paul, the candidate earning a close second in Iowa. But they don't seem to like Perry or Bachmann either. And are looking for an alternative.

They are both anti-secular Christianists with far-right cred and celebrity appeal, but only one has substantial experience, as Doug Mataconis notes:

Perry has his own vulnerabilities, as I pointed out yesterday. Nonetheless, just looking at these two candidates on paper there really doesn’t seem to be any comparison. Perry has served in Executive positions (Agriculture Commissioner, Lt. Governer, Governor) for twenty years. Bachmann has been a Congresswoman from a central Minnesota Congressional District since 2006, and before that served in the Minnesota State Senate for six years. During her time in Congress, she has no significant legislative accomplishments to put on her resume, and has essentially earned her reputation as a backbench bomb thrower. If you’re a voter in Iowa looking for a conservative who is actually qualified to sit in the Oval Office, the choice is rather obvious I think.

Frum also finds Perry the more formidable challenger to Romney:

For the first time, Romney has a rival on his right with the ability to raise the resources to make a contest. True, Perry’s liabilities remain real and large. (Rule 1 of American faith-based politics: if you organize a prayer event, you’d better not exclude Catholics.)  But unlike all the other non-Romneys to date, Perry also has strengths, including a proven ability to raise money by the barrel-load.

Weigel suggests that Perry has a good shot even in Bachmann’s native Iowa:

[S]he is running a very un-Iowa celebrity campaign. What do I mean? The classic Iowa campaign, especially if we’re talking about an underdog candidate like Bachmann still is, is extremely personal. The candidate shows up, gives a speech, and leaves after every voter leaves. Bachmann’s “Meet Me in Ames” tour was more like the blitz you see before an election. … Perry won’t have to change much to be more accessible than Bachmann is, and it would be unusual for her to change and become more accessible.

Ed Morrissey reinforces that view:

The lighting had to be changed before Bachmann spoke, apparently at the campaign’s insistence, which delayed her entrance and interfered with the timing of her entrance announcement.  But more puzzlingly, Bachmann didn’t arrive to mix with the crowd before the event started, waiting until she was scheduled to speak to enter the Electric Ballroom.  Perry arrived early and greeted every table, the kind of retail politics that Iowa usually rewards — and that Iowans expect.  Whether the attendees were off-put by the snub or not, Bachmann received less enthusiastic response than Perry did for his speech.

I remain a bit of a skeptic about Perry. His massive vulnerability in a general election is that he will seem like George W. Bush running as Sarah Palin. But that may be magic in the primaries.

(Photo: Republican presidential candidate Texas Governor Rick Perry arrives at the Black Hawk County GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner August 14, 2011 in Waterloo, Iowa. The visit comes a day after Perry announced that he would enter the race for the Republican nomination. Perry is sharing the spotlight at the event with Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who won yesterday’s Iowa Straw Poll and the straw poll’s fourth place finisher former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum. By Scott Olson/Getty Images)