Month: November 2011

Michael Tomasky puts the Gingrich surge in context:

This Gingrich boomlet is the same thing as the Michele Bachmann boomlet and the Rick Perry boomlet. It’s just people not wanting to say yes to Romney. I sometimes half think that if Jack Abramoff were running, he’d have his boomlet, too. But now here’s the serious question. Is the Anyone-But-Mitt industry flourishing because of something particular to Romney, some stylistic tic? Is it his plastic, Bob Forehead–ish personality and carriage? Could someone else with Romney’s dubious (from the right-wing point of view) record get away with it, someone less oleaginous, someone with a surer instinct for the anti-elitist one-liner? Culture and symbolism and authenticity mean a lot to conservative voters. So maybe it is just Romney.

Emily Badger is tired of renting:

Both [housing researcher Arthur] Nelson and [Richard] Florida have floated the idea that we need some kind of hybrid rental/homeownership model, some system that decouples “renter” status from income class, while allowing professionals who would have been homeowners 20 years ago to live in a comparable setting without the millstone. Maybe we allow renters to customize their homes as if they owned them, or we enable condo owners to quickly unload property to rental agents.

Short of putting us all in houseboats, I don’t know what these hybrid homes would look like, how they’d be paid for or if anyone will be willing to build them. But I suspect the trick lies outside of the architectural and financial details, that it lies in removing that fear of the approaching property manager, that lack of control over a dying dill plant. It lies in creating a feeling of ownership without the actual deed.

Earlier coverage of renters as second-class citizens here.

(Image from Thomas Doyle’s Distillation series.)

Not very, according to Alex Massie. Jonathan Bernstein agrees. Even if Newt won't win the nomination, Steven Kornacki thinks the Gingrich boomlet matters:

[H]is surge is still significant, if only because it makes it harder for any other candidate to claim the default non-Romney role that they’ve all been scrambling for. This is probably a development the Romney campaign welcomes; they probably figure that Newt, with his self-destructive tendencies and lack of a real campaign organization and meaningful establishment support, would be easy to marginalize if he’s their main rival once the primaries and caucuses actually start.

David Friedman offers a more optimistic reading of the otherwise terrifying phenomenon:  

The energy for an earthquake has to come from somewhere, and I don't think the amount of energy that goes into pumping water underground can be close to enough. What is presumably happening is that pumping in the water causes the release of energy that is already there. Dissipating that energy might mean lots of small earthquakes instead of a small number of big ones, which would probably be a net benefit.  If so, what has been identified is not a bug but a feature.

Timothy Taylor highlights several studies which suggest that grade inflation in the humanities is causing science and math majors to change their minds:

[T]here are lots of reasons why students don't persevere in [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)] courses: inadequate preparation at the high school level, students who have unrealistic expectations or don't want to commit the time to studying, or that the courses are just hard. It's of course possible to address these issues, but difficult. However, if one of the issues discouraging students from taking STEM courses is that grade inflation is happening faster in the humanities, then surely, this cause at least is fixable? 

Today on the Dish, Andrew urged the president go big on budget reform, the GOP is prepared to say no, and a reader wondered if we should accept the do-nothing option. It's no accident that the Tea Party is candidate-less, Gingrich is plainly dumb, and Josh Marshall downplayed Newt's chances. Kevin Drum trusts Mitt in an emergency, we inspected the former governor's unfavorables, and once again, there's a new GOP frontrunner. Zuccotti Park was cleared, a seemingly unfazed Jerry Sandusky responded to the charges against him (a reader's analysis here), and Charles Pierce took the longview. 

Andrew grappled with the escalating nuclear crisis over Iran, 70 Syrians were murdered, and Obama had the last word on waterboarding. We assessed the damage after Cain's Libya episode, Gloria Cain's "delightful" interview didn't make a dent, and in our AAA video, Andrew imagined how a McCain presidency would have been different. 

We tracked youth unemployment, the Great Recession is suffocating 25-34 year-olds, and most states face a long, hard road to recovery. American millionaires rake in more than $30 billion in government subsidies annually, Richard Kahlenberg assailed affirmative action for the rich, and we reviewed the Supreme Court's choices on Obamacare. Andrew reflected on the Dish's insideriness, atheists found meaning, and Gabby Giffords bravely sprung to life.

The world's most expensive photograph here, FOTD here, MHB here, VFYW here, and VFYW contest winner #76 here.  

– M.A.

(Photo: U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), U.S. Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), U.S. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), and U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) participate in a Joint Deficit Reduction Committee hearing in Washington, DC. The special Joint Committee is tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by Thanksgiving. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.)

An important new detail from Pennlive.com. Here's the email he sent to a friend, arguing that the Grand Jury report was misleading in its summary of events:

“I did stop it, not physically … but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room … I did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police …. no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds … trust me. I am getting hammered for handling this the right way … or what I thought at the time was right … I had to make tough, impacting quick decisions.”

The report says:

"The graduate assistant was never questioned by University police and no other entity conducted an investigation."

The conflicts in these accounts are mounting. I may well have been wrong to trust the Grand Jury report summary. Its details may help. But we won't get the full story till the trials.

William Saletan marvels:

What you see in Giffords is what researchers are learning about the mind. Right now, at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, 30,000 humans are swarming around the Washington, D.C., convention center, exchanging the latest discoveries about neurons, receptors, and circuits. What they’re finding everywhere is plasticity. The brain isn’t built once. It rebuilds itself, day after day, editing a network of 100 trillion synapses that absorb, represent, and manage experience. It makes us who we are. And, when necessary, it remakes us. Just ask Gabby Giffords.

Moving video of Gifford's incredible recovery here.

He's more electable than Newt:

Follow-up here.