Month: January 2012

Today on the Dish, Andrew reexplained his disappointment with Obama's failure to tackle tax reform and still didn't like the tax breaks that were in the State of the Union, but took back his harsh broader characterization from last night and recognized that he got meep-meeped. Andrew also agreed with the RNC about the SOTU, defended the claim that male and female sexuality were different, "enjoyed" the life of the one percent, and posted his Colbert appearance with a bonus spot the underbloggers game. Bloggers had more to say about the SOTU, got angry about the speech's moral blindness, and noticed a distinct lack of health care discussion as compared to previous years. Readers hated Daniels' response but loved seeing Andrew think and write in real time. Roundup of last night's coverage here.

Newt was the narrow 538 favorite in Florida, pushed for the Hispanic vote there, had some absurd ideas (a shock, I know) about the debate schedule, seemed likely to produce great TV in the general, faced ballot access issues, and constantly invoked Reagan even though he trashed the president when he was in office. The myth of a Mitch Daniels candidacy was – again – debunked, it wouldn't have mattered much even if someone like Daniels had been running, self-deportation got explained, and the February debate schedule was mercifully light. Obama's record was defended on both libertarian and pro-Israel grounds.

America failed to decline and our moral understanding of war crime failed to be clear. The 1% found a champion, reblogging had market value, and the future of cars was considered. Readers debated the SAT and teacher intelligence, homeless shelters with alcohol succeeded, and science accounted for night terrors. Ad War Update here, Tweet of the Day here, FOTD here, VYFW here, and MHB here.

– Z.B.

As someone who experiences them, Sally Adee explores their causes:

It goes by many names, known variously as night terrors, the incubus, witches’ pressure and Old Hag syndrome. It happens when a few important wires get crossed in your brain and you accidentally wake up in the middle of dreaming. Old Hag syndrome is usually explained away as an evolutionary hiccup, a terrifying but harmless side effect of a mechanism that evolved to protect you. …

Waking sleep paralysis is a glitch where you wake up in the middle of REM sleep. During the REM phase — the part of the sleep cycle when you do your dreaming — your body and evolution have wisely conspired to paralyse you. Well played, evolution: Considering the crazy shit most of us get up to in our dreams, it was a good idea to equip our motor cortex with an off switch. Before this feature came standard-issue, several of our ancestors undoubtedly went off on lovely dream-fuelled midnight excursions that terminated in the stomach of a bear.

Last September, Alexis Madrigal reported on the work of Shelley Adler, who found that in the 1980s Hmong men of a certain age "were in some sense killed by their powerful cultural belief in night spirits":

The truth is that we don't understand the relationship between belief and biology quite as well as we'd like to think. That's one reason sleep paralysis is so useful as a probe for the boundary of mind and body. The night-mare is "a link between our biological and cultural selves." While people of all cultures experience sleep paralysis in similar ways, the specific form and intensity it takes varies by culture, soaking up whatever local spirits or monsters happen to be lurking nearby.

Yglesias ponders it:

A lot of the issues around autonomous cars amount to basically "but under some conditions something could go wrong and cars could crash and people die." Meanwhile, over ninety Americans die each and every day thanks to automobile mishaps, and 1.2 million are seriously injured every year. There's a social convention in the United States that we don't talk about those ninety daily deaths as a serious problem, even though obviously if we had nine people getting killed by terrorists every month there'd be a perpetual state of freaking out. High-speed motorized transportation is a serious business, and conventional automobiles are held not to the same tough safety standards that we apply to most other products so it's extremely difficult for something new to compete. 

Jim Antle pours cold water on the Kristol-orchestrated speculation surrounding a last-minute Daniels bid: 

[T]he first time a Daniels candidacy was floated, he didn't exactly catch fire with the base. He offended social conservatives by calling for a truce on their issues, he annoyed national security conservatives by putting military spending on the table for cuts and suggesting some of our overseas commitments needed to be reevaluated, and economic conservatives disliked his flirtation with a VAT. Daniels was polling about 1 percent. Obviously, that will all need to be dealt with — assuming Daniels even wants to run, which is doubtful — if Daniels is to avoid the fate of Jon Huntsman. A late entrant would have to be able to win primaries and amass delegates fairly quickly. A candidate who nobody voted on who was simply imposed by the establishment at the convention would have no legitimacy.

Larison has been on the case for quite some time: 

Daniels was talking about cutting the military budget in the name of fiscal responsibility. When Huntsman proposed something similar, he was demonized for running to "the left" of Obama on the issue. To the extent that anyone took Daniels seriously as a possible presidential contender last year, hawks attacked him for these comments at the time. Daniels was also more willing than Huntsman to consider raising taxes to increase revenues. One important difference between the two was that Daniels didn't make the mistake of running, and Huntsman did. We can get some idea of how Daniels would have fared in the nominating contest by looking at Huntsman's results.

And then, of course, there are Daniels' connections to the Bush administration. Thoughts on his SOTU response here and here.

(Image via runmitchrun.com)

Jim Geraghty spotlights Newt's ballot-access issues: 

[Gingrich] has missed the requirements and deadlines to appear on the Republican primary ballots in Missouri and Virginia. In Tennessee, Gingrich's campaign put forth names for only 34 of the 41 potential delegates. In the District of Columbia, the Gingrich campaign paid $10,000 instead of paying $5,000 and collecting 296 signatures from registered Republicans who live in the District. His campaign came perilously close to missing the Ohio ballot deadline.

An Israeli protester, who painted her face black and white to show her sympathy with different races, takes part in a protest on January 25, 2012, against racism and discrimination in the Mediterranean city of Tel Aviv. By Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images.

Matt Steinglass thinks the Republican field this year was bound to be terrible regardless of candidate:

Republicans have buried their differences by assaulting everything Mr Obama supports, and because Mr Obama is a pretty middle-of-the-road politician, that includes a whole lot of things that many Republicans used to support. They are disenchanted with their candidates because their candidates are incoherent, but their candidates are incoherent because the base is incoherent. If the GOP wins this election, the party's leaders are going to be confronted with that incoherence pretty quickly. Unfortunately, so will the rest of us.

Brian Bolduc questions the feasibility of Gingrich's challenge to Obama if nominated:

The Commission on Presidential Debates organizes these events every presidential-election cycle. The tradition is to hold three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate, each 90 minutes in length. For security purposes, the commission begins planning about two years in advance. In fact, the commission has already announced the dates and locations of this year's debates.

While the commission could add more debates, it would be difficult. Debate planners work within a six-week window. They can't hold the debates until after Republicans nominate their candidate at the end of August. They also are reluctant to hold debates too close to the election itself; they like to allow voters'  impressions of the candidates to simmer. (The last debate is currently scheduled for October 22.) … And the logistical problems shouldn't be overlooked. The commission starts working so far in advance to prevent the technological catastrophes that bedeviled earlier efforts. For instance, in 1976, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter stood mute onstage for 20 minutes after a power outage stopped the debate cold.

Newt is spluttering that he might skip future GOP debates if the crowd is prohibited from cheering or applauding. Jennifer Rubin adds: 

Newt Gingrich's top rationale for his candidacy (I know, it's silly but it's his argument) is that he is the best debater and will stalk President Obama until he relents to a series of Lincoln-Douglas marathons. … The Presidential Debate Commission rules say no applause or crowd reaction. Newt says he won't show unless his pom-pom gals and guys can have outbursts. And his top rationale for his candidacy is his debating prowess. Do you see a problem here? The modified version of Gingrich's campaign rationale is now this: "I'm the best debater so long as I have my cheerleaders so I can level Obama provided they change long-standing presidential debate rules."

Felix Salmon thinks companies that figure out how to monetize sharing services like Tumblr and Pinterest are the future's winners:

[T]here are 9 curators for every creator on [Tumblr]. Reblogging, on Tumblr, is so easy that the vast majority of Tumblr sites actually create little or no original content: they just republish content from other people. That’s a wonderful thing, for two reasons. Firstly, it takes people who are shy about (or just not very good at) creating their own content, and gives them a great way to express themselves online. (As Arianna Huffington says, “self-expression is the new entertainment”.) And secondly, it acts as a natural amplifier for the people who do create original content — the average post on Tumblr gets reblogged nine times, and therefore reaches vastly more people than if it just sat on its original site waiting to be discovered by people visiting it directly…the social, digital world is one where the biggest media companies have a much lighter touch, and where the content creators with the broadest reach will be the ones who care the least about protecting their copyrights. I suspect that we’re only in the very early days of seeing how this is going to disrupt just about every media organization built on the idea of hosting a website and selling ads

A reader writes:

I love watching your process. I was very pissed off at you last night for the totality of your dismissal; I was gratified by the community that responded (whereas I went to bed); now I'm touched and awed by "After Some Sleep", as I was after you walked back your Ron Paul endorsement (elements of which had troubled me), by your relentless drive for honesty and the blessing of your humility. What is also dawning on me today is how grateful I am for all the readers and contributors you have cultivated. This is indeed a family – perhaps virtual and clearly no substitute for a flesh-based one, but real nonetheless. To go from tantrum to scolding to a cathartic and mature admission that there is room for error and a middle ground, I feel like I am part of a living, growing, evolving entity.