December 2010
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2010 in Politics
The Good
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repealed
Extended unemployment benefits secured for another 14 months
Payroll tax holiday creates a (somewhat) more progressive tax structure
Financial Reform
NEW START Ratified
Benefits extended to same-sex partners of federal employees
Fair Sentencing Act increases the threshhold of felony possession of crack cocaine to prevent the racially...
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"Opposing Anything Obama Says" Sweepstakes
kohenari:
It’s not clear whether Tucker Carlson can actually hear himself talk. Most recently, he said that Michael Vick should have been executed for his role in a dogfighting ring.
While I personally believe Vick’s actions to be heinous and while I don’t root for him on the football field, it’s definitely heartening to me to know that Carlson clearly doesn’t mean what he said; it’s just one...
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Cultural Relativism and Mental Illness →
Symptoms of mental illness seem to vary dramatically depending on the culture. This is the most interesting and thought-provoking story I’ve heard in a while.
Where are the politically-minded Conservatives on...
I try to keep the dashboard diverse—but I’m struggling to find intelligent Conservatives writing on Tumblr. The finds thus far tend to be either:
Libertarians, who are almost-but-not-really conservatives in the same way dogs are not cats.
Overly fond of posting women in various stages of undress—which (concerns about gender relations aside) unacceptably restricts the places I...
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Cancelling flights due to crazy weather on the...
That seems sort of alarmist. Shouldn’t they wait until all the science is in? This whole “blizzard” thing is a hoax.
Upon seeing a baby moose by the ski trail...
… pointing and shouting “Moose!” happens reflexively. The mother moose did not appreciate that. Apparently she wants her baby to grow up in a world without labels.
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Team Sweden
correlationstonone:
“Assange had a lot of help making Sweden look like the last place on Earth that you would want to take your penis. The aforementioned megahit movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, makes the place look like a snow-filled ass cave that Jeffrey Dahmer lived in before he got a raise. (It’s a good movie otherwise.) If you haven’t read any background about the so-called rape...
I managed to use a Minneapolis airport restroom...
…until I saw the “how are we doing” sign from the cleaning crew with the slogan, “Giving our customers the best airport experience in North America.”
“The Sierra Club Magazine was telling me all about earth-friendly liquor...”
– Carolyn, on her plane reading. She added, Oh. Look, it’s vegan mascara.”
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The more I thing before I ride off into the sunset...
The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with Obama’s tax compromise. It accomplished a number of things.
Avoided the (potentially catastrophic) termination of the lower-bracket cuts during a recession.
Continued extended unemployment benefits for thirteen months—which will hopefully be long enough for the unemployment rate to have crept down.
It did a bunch of tricks...
"Innocent until proven guilty"
silas216:
squashed:
… is a legal maxim about the burden of proof in criminal cases. It’s also a caution about invoking formal penalties prior to a conviction.
It does not mean that we can’t discuss the credibility of accusations. It does not mean that people need to pretend they believe the accused is wholly innocent in the face of uncontroverted evidence.
As an example:
Many people have...
Truth and its detractors
Regarding those who insist that the prosecution of Assange is a political set-up, robot-heart-politics writes:
**I am accustomed to hearing outright lies from the right.**
I expect it. I expect for them to bend the truth to the point that it’s not the truth at all. To obscure facts under mounds and mounds of bullshit. To LIE LIE LIE when it suits their purposes.
I expected better of the...
The Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal just passed the...
65-31.
The Republican senators voting “yes” with the Democrats were Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mark Kirk of Illinois, John Ensign of Nevada, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine.
'Don't ask, don't tell' repeal moves toward law -... →
Republicans voting for cloture:
Scott Brown (MA)
George Voinovich (OH)
Olympia Snow (ME)
Susan Collins (ME)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Mark Kirk (IL)
This is happening. On a side note, John McCain seems to be so upset about the DADT repeal that he may be considering scuttling a major nuclear weapons treaty in protest. Apparently his big boy pants shrank in the dryer.
"Innocent until proven guilty"
… is a legal maxim about the burden of proof in criminal cases. It’s also a caution about invoking formal penalties prior to a conviction.
It does not mean that we can’t discuss the credibility of accusations. It does not mean that people need to pretend they believe the accused is wholly innocent in the face of uncontroverted evidence.
As an example:
Many people have...
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I just saw a Prius parked next to a Volt. That Prius owner’s going to feel like a chump when he gets back to the car.
“The Court does not work for CITI and cannot wait for CITI, a multi-billion...”
– Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack reprimanding Citimortgage for not submitting an affirmation that the foreclosure documents it submitted to the court were true. The judged dismissed the foreclosure case. (via officialssay)
I suspect this came as a surprise to CITI, who is frequently...
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The Truth that Creates Us
Last night, I posted some thoughts on the fluid nature of truth. Sarah (in San Fransisco) agreed, but concluded her post,
There is no Truth. There is only truth that we create.
I don’t think Sarah and I actually agree.1 While truth isn’t some dead specimin to tag and collect, truth is every bit as real as we are. Truth pulls us like the moon pulls the tides. Or perhaps like the...
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“The U.S. government fabricated rape charges against Julian Assange” is like “Where’s the birth certificate?” but for liberals.
kohenari asked: In response to something I posted a couple of days ago, about whether we only care about things for the brief time they personally affect us, you wrote:
"No. We fit a line to data points as best we can to decide what is true. Truth is subjective experience held together by myth."
I'm not sure I have any idea at all what you mean. Care to expand?
"No. We fit a line to data points as best we can to decide what is true. Truth is subjective experience held together by myth."
I'm not sure I have any idea at all what you mean. Care to expand?
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The Truth is a Well Told Story
Postmodernists are criticized for playing fast and loose with the truth. I think it’s more fair to criticize the truth for playing fast and loose with humanity. If we believe in anything, we believe in truth. But we have a devil of a time nailing down what it is.
A fundamentalist Christian might hold up a Bible and say that it, whatever it is, is truth. As statements of truth go,...
kohenari asked: In response to something I posted a couple of days ago, about whether we only care about things for the brief time they personally affect us, you wrote:
"No. We fit a line to data points as best we can to decide what is true. Truth is subjective experience held together by myth."
I'm not sure I have any idea at all what you mean. Care to expand?
"No. We fit a line to data points as best we can to decide what is true. Truth is subjective experience held together by myth."
I'm not sure I have any idea at all what you mean. Care to expand?
For lawyers, the abreviation “SOL” probably refers to “Statute of Limitations” rather than “Shit Out of Luck.” It amounts to the same thing, though.
Your Internet Age is how old people would assume your actual age is based on the things you post on or say about the Internet. It doesn’t necessarily correlate to your actual age.
Sitting alone at the restaraunt...
…is starting to get awkward. I think the waiter is giving me a knowing look. It’s only a matter of time before he puts his hand on my shoulder and says sympathetically, “Dude, she’s not coming.”
What can I tell him? If I explain that she’ll totally be here any second, he’ll just nod knowingly. It’s not like that!
On the reported death of the individual mandate
A few people suggested that the death of the individual mandate would be catastrophic to health care reform.1 After all, some portion of the savings is supposed to come from ensuring that as many people as possible are insured. And perhaps healthy people will attempt to game the system if they can simply buy insurance when they get sick.
I don’t think this will be a much of a problem as...
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Hey, Politico, would you mind never using the...
I refer, of course, to this article, referring to Obama’s “behind-the-scenes charm offensive designed to build bridges with incoming committee chairmen.”
I understand that who calls who and what attitudes are expressed in those calls are all part of the power game of politics. A friendly phone call may be a strategic.maneuver. It may be cynical. It may be calculated.
But the...
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Judge: Individual mandate is unconstitutional →
Danny Liberty writes, “What? What? What the hell is this?”
This is a ruling by a Virginia Federal Judge saying that the individual mandate part of the healthcare reform is unconstitutional. This is a ruling in one of about 20 law suits surrounding healthcare reform. Because that part of the law doesn’t take effect until 2014, this ruling doesn’t really affect anything...
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“When property rights become an illusion dispelled easily by debt-wielding...”
– C2N regarding Treasury Blocks Legal Aid for Homeowners Facing Foreclosure | The Nation
Correlations to None is Denethor, Steward of Gondor.
Treasury Blocks Legal Aid for Homeowners Facing... →
“And you never ask questions with God on your side.”
– Bob Dylan
Is Bernie Sanders still talking? →
I’m really torn on this tax cut proposal. On one hand, I think it’s best for the country if the whole thing goes through. (Stripping out the upper-income cuts would be best. I’d actually strip out the Bush cuts for everybody making over $80,000 and use that to further reduce the payroll tax.)
On the other hand, I’m on Team Bernie.
“Some people had acne, I had extremism.”
– Making nothing out of something: LOL
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jeffmiller replied to my post:
There’s a large difference between “asking” the successful to “help out a bit more” and forcing them to. It’s kinda hard for them to create jobs when we’re taxing their businesses to death.
Isn’t it almost certainly true that taxes do kill off business at the margins? Those business that almost survive but can’t might be able to get if taxes were lower. Pointing out...
catbus-deactivated20110416-deac asked: I'm a whiny adult baby with no perspective when it comes to taxation and cannot tell the difference between legislation written for small businesses and multinational gazillion-dollar corporations. My question is, what political party and / or blogging platform and / or Internet dating service is the best fit for me to find other whiny adult babies with no perspective?
Anonymous asked: There's a large difference between "asking" the successful to "help out a bit more" and forcing them to. It's kinda hard for them to create jobs when we're taxing their businesses to death.
“Incompetent governing would be extending unemployment benefits for more than 99...”
– The “Right” Viewpoint, making a persuasive case for increasing funding for literacy in high schools.
As it turns out, extending unemployment benefits for more than 99 weeks was never actually on the table. The “extension” would prolong the extended unemployment benefits so...
“F*** your “equality of opportunity”!”
– Johnr48, making a persuasive case for why we ought to vote Republican.
Seriously. Can we get some hereditary nobility up in this country already? It’s what the Founding Fathers would have wanted.
The rest of JohnR’s, um, innovative ideas about Law, Politics, and Grammar are here.