September, 2011 archive
QOTD 0
David Mamet:
Those who do not read have no advantage over those who cannot read.
Playboy, (vol. 51, no. 1) January 2004, p. 139.
And Now for Something Completely Different 0
Stoner Avenue:
Misdirection Plays 1
Responding to a particularly odious racist video (you will have to click through to view it–I suffered through about 30 seconds before being about to bear no more), Chauncey DeVega decodes the code:
- Republican “Small government”=”Southern Strategy.”
As is common with DeVega’s work, the post is long, tightly-reasoned, and amply supported with evidence.
Here are two nuggets (I couldn’t restrict myself to just one). The full post is here:
Ignoring for a moment Lee Atwater’s naked confession on the matter, rank and file former Reagan Democrats, suburban swing voters, and today’s Tea Party GOPers would bristle in defense at the suggestion that race or racism plays any role at all in their disdain for “big government.”
To Conservatives, such an argument is bizarre and strange: How could tax cuts and government rollbacks have anything at all to do with racism or racial resentment?
(snip)
Of course, the evidence suggests otherwise. The chants of “take our country back” beg the response “from who?” The narrative of “real America” plays on xenophobia towards non-whites, and a fear of how some type of Other is always at the gates, ready and willing to steal the hard earned just rewards of the (white) American middle class. Ultimately, in a previous year the fixation would have been on Reagan’s mythical welfare queens or nefarious “quotas” and “affirmative action” programs that deny white men job opportunities.
Most certainly, there are women (referring to the video–ed.) straight out of central casting who view food stamps and public assistance as a credit card of sorts and raise their children to believe that receiving support from the State is a “job” to be aspired to, a career to invest in. Likewise, they have twins in “respectable circles” who broke this country’s economy by advocating for irresponsible tax cuts for the very richest Americans, embracing robber baron capitalism, and gutted the American middle class through financial crookery.
Their crimes are different by orders of magnitude. That fact is irrelevant. Herein lies the rub: Colorblind Conservatism looks at the former with immediate suspicion and disdain, while the latter looks back in the mirror and is greeted with a smile.
In your heart, you know he’s right.
Handicapping Republican Presidential Possibilities 0
Mike Littwin looks at poll results (which are pretty meaningless this far out, but the create jobs for newsreaders), concluding that the seem favorable for the (dis)loyal opposition party.
Then he considers the field:
. . . It’s the Ken Buck/Christine O’Donnell strategy writ large. As I’ve mentioned before, Rick Perry is the Ken Buck that Michael Bennet wanted to run against.
Read the whole thing.
Free as in Beer Speech
0
I am pretty much a civil liberties absolutist. I avidly support the ACLU, both the organization and its mission.
Nevertheless, I find it difficult to see beer ads in college newspapers as a free speech issue. This seems to be not about speech, but to be a Trojan Horse for more beer ads, as if there were a shortage of them already.
The answer could determine whether the student newspapers at Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, which claim a mostly adult readership, are subject to a state prohibition against liquor advertising in college newspapers.
A decision is likely by early November.
The narrow issue is a remnant of a 2006 lawsuit filed by Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times and UVa’s Cavalier Daily challenging the decades-old ban. U.S. Magistrate Judge Hannah Lauck overturned it in 2008, ruling that it violated the papers’ constitutional rights to free speech.
That was reversed by a federal appeals court, which said the ban is narrowly tailored to serve the state’s interest in curbing underage drinking.
“An Armed Is a Polite Society” 0
Now Floridians can talk about politeness once more:
Judge Marcia G. Cooke said doctors had a First Amendment right to ask about firearms, and she rapped the state’s lawyers for failing to provide more than anecdotal evidence to show the law was needed.
“The State has attempted to inveigle this Court to cast this matter as a Second Amendment case,” Cooke wrote. “Despite the State’s insistence that the right to ‘keep arms’ is the primary constitutional right at issue in this litigation, a plain reading of the statute reveals that this law in no way affects such rights.”
Florida plans to appeal, because, after all, happiness is warm gun.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Lay off more garbage collectors immediately so as to fix this:
The Labor Department says weekly applications rose by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 428,000.
The week included the Labor Day holiday. Applications typically drop during short work weeks. In this case, applications didn’t drop as much as the department expected, so the seasonally adjusted value rose. A Labor spokesman says the total wasn’t affected by Hurricane Irene.
Still, applications appear to be trending up. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose for the fourth straight week to 419,500.
After all, isn’t that how “austerity” works?
Meanwhile, up the road a piece.
The city’s (Philadephia–ed.) ability to help families without homes is getting weaker.
“The city is very blatantly turning away folks,” said Marsha Cohen, a lawyer for the Homeless Advocacy Project, which provides free legal help to individuals without homes. “It’s never been like this.”
Bushonomics has made homelessness a growth industry. Cities can’t supply the necessary infrastructure to support it.
Meanwhile, J. M. Ashby sums up the Republican position:
This would transform the bill into a self-fulfilling prophecy of a “second failed stimulus.”
. . . There is absolutely no element of good-faith at work on the conservative side of the aisle. They aren’t interested in your jobs. Only their jobs.
QOTD 0
Robert M. Pirsig, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
Break Time 0
Off to drink liberally.
Legacies 0
I am violating my promise to myself not to post 9/11 stuff, because Mike Littwin’s article is too good to pass up. A nugget:
“Blood Sport II” 0
Peter Bergman explains. Listen at least to the first five minutes.
Spill Here, Spill Now 0
The post mortem report is in:
Other companies also shared some of the blame, according to the report, which noted that rig owner Transocean, as owner of the Deepwater Horizon, was responsible for conducting safe operations and for protecting personnel onboard.
No surprise. As seems quite common amongst our well-heeled betters, greed trumps judgment and safety.
Elizabeth Warren’s Announcement 0
Key quote:
Washington is rigged for big corporations that hire armies of lobbyists.
Via Balloon Juice.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Indicators for the foreclosure-industry continue to look promising.
The banksters have created a new growth industry, promising jobs for hundreds of process servers and robosigners:
The firm’s quarterly report forecast that 22,759 more mortgages in the region would be underwater if home prices declined 5 percent from current levels.
