March 2012
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“What the lobbyists want, what Wall Street wants, is they want Etch A Sketch...”
– Elizabeth Warren (via manicchill)
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“If I’m the godfather of this thing, then it gives me the right to kill it.”
– Mitt Romney, as quoted in NY Mag’s “Don’t Pick Mitt Romney As Your Child’s Godfather”. The quote is coupled with a picture of Don Corleone. I think that’s about right. Mitt, that’s no the kind of Godfather they meant.
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A few thoughts on Obamacare and the Supreme Court
I don’t know what’s going to happen—but I think that knocking over the entire Affordable Care Act is too sweeping an act for a Supreme Court that doesn’t want to be viewed as overly political. This is a case that demands a clear and principled ruling and should delineate the bounds of federal power for decades. It’s a case that law students will read for a century....
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Vote Your Brand
Anti-Government Extremist and some other libertarians has provided an excellent case study in why endorsements matter. They have provided a list of bullet points where Obama has, allegedly, done great harm to civil liberties. They claim that Obama’s presidency has been “a third Bush term.” They argue that people who really care about civil liberties should vote for Ron Paul.
...
Uh-oh.
I was just realizing that I was browsing the internet looking for cat pictures for work-related purposes.
Then I realized that if I thought I was browsing the internet looking for cat pictures for work related purposes, I was probably suffering from some extreme self-delusion.
Any suggestions on what to do to cure extreme self-delusion?
Edit: I found the cat picture I needed. Any suggestions...
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Expected Value: Utility vs. Dollars
thecallus:
ShortFormBlog: Mega Millions record jackpot: The odds are fairly long, everybody shortformblog:
$540M the amount the Mega Millions jackpot is going for this weekend, which is a record by the way
$176M the amount it would cost to theoretically buy every single ticket combination possible in the lottery
$117M the amount, after federal (not state) taxes, you’d gain if you...
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Crying peace, peace, when there is no peace.
Some of the responses to Trayvon Martin’s death have reminded me of the prophet Jeremiah speaking against those who falsely claimed that there was no problem.
From the least to the greatest,
all are greedy for gain;
prophets and priests alike,
all practice deceit.
They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
‘Peace, peace,’ they say,
when there is no...
I accidentally watched a Fox News clip discussing...
I’m about to go Catbawse1 over this one. Seriously. They had a guy on who claimed that Obama’s eminently reasonable comments on this “controversy” stemmed from his apparent desire to divide and destroy America.
Fox News, go away already. A kid was killed. That’s not a controversy. You’re embarrassing us.
Seriously, this is an entire vat full of unacceptable....
Re: Zombie Cuddle, The Callus and the Individual... →
zombiecuddle:
zombiecuddle:
Ignoring the Constitutional argument, I do not think that forcing people to purchase health insurance from private corporations is as bad a thing as most of you seem to.
I mean, I’m sympathetic to the reasoning. But I have a hard time seeing it as exploitative. The ACA…
I don’t really understand the back-end stuff enough to argue with this. But I do think you’re...
I'm concerned about the upcoming healthcare law...
thecallus:
squashed:
The smart money seems to be betting that the individual mandate will be struck down. Fine. Great. I never liked that mandate to begin with. I’ll be glad to see it gone. I don’t think it accomplishes much of use anyway.
That said, I’m concerned at what else the decision would unsettle. Because we use tax incentives for all sorts of thing. Can I credibly argue that the...
I'm concerned about the upcoming healthcare law...
The smart money seems to be betting that the individual mandate will be struck down. Fine. Great. I never liked that mandate to begin with. I’ll be glad to see it gone. I don’t think it accomplishes much of use anyway.
That said, I’m concerned at what else the decision would unsettle. Because we use tax incentives for all sorts of thing. Can I credibly argue that the government...
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Dominique Strauss-Kahn charged in France with... →
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Mitt Romney is like the scrawny kid in elementary...
… who just can’t quite manage to get his chin over the pull-up bar, no matter how long he struggles. Eventually the gym teacher gets tired of him hanging there depressing everybody and tells him he got close enough to count and everybody can finally go to their next class.
That’s what’s happening as the Republican Party Elders line up to endorse Romney. He won some...
seecircumlocutory-deactivated20 asked: hey! so my representative, the colossal phallus scott garrett, is in charge of the subcommittee that oversees fannie and freddie. he's from the district where NJ gerrymanders all its republicans. anyways, as he runs these magnificent institutions, what should i say to him about the 'must evict' policy? (to give you some insight into who i'm dealing with, he voted against...
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loveandchunkybits-deactivated20 asked: Have u seen a proton or a neutron? a photon? a glacier? How about Idaho in person? Ive seen none of the above. I hate sarcasm, its useless, too easy and manipulative. Just say what you have to say. There will always be people who take advantage of every system. Policies should anticipate this and allow, say 1-5% error and move on. Success is gauged by unsuccessful people, so for our system to keep...
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Unicorns, Santa Claus, and Welfare Queens
I’m on something of a quest to track down some of the world’s more elusive fictions.
If I can find a unicorn, I can cut off its horn and use it for, um, male enhancement. Or something like that.
If I can find Santa Claus I can kick his ass for that one time he brought me deodorant instead of a bicycle.
And if I can actually locate a real-live welfare queen, I can shame her to...
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A lesson from the Romney campaign
If you’re going to make a massive and embarrassing blunder, don’t involve a beloved childhood toy that every opponent and reporter secretly wants an excuse to play with. Gingrich has probably directed his campaign to keep this blunder in the news because he’s still trying to get his picture just right.
Companies asking for Facebook passwords as a job... →
If you are inverviewing candidates for a job, don’t do this. As a preliminary matter, it is wildly inappropriate to pry into non-publicly available, personal information that isn’t directly relevant to job performance, unless that job requires some kind of heightened security clearance. If it’s behind a password or a locked door, it’s a personal space.
Just as...
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Government intervention, foreign and otherwise
Bonnie and I have gone back and forth on the relationship between pacifism and libertarian non-intervention. I think we agree on the following:
We can slash the U.S. military budget. Dramatically.
Our dual goals in Afghanistan are to reach something resembling lasting peace and withdraw. The speed and manner of withdrawal hinge on whether we beleive we have a chance of accomplishing something...
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The Hipster Libertarian: On whether libertarians... →
One of my recent posts criticizing libertarians has made the rounds of some libertarian bloggers. The initial responses were less insightful—but earlier today I got some thoughtful responses from EvilTeaBagger and TheHipsterLibertarian. I think these merit some discussion. Let’s kick the discourse up a notch.
As a preliminary issue, I should mention that my initial post criticized a...
Running Chicken: The Problem of Online Anonymity →
kohenari:
In principle, I don’t have any problem at all with people who write anonymously or pseudonymously. But in practice I find it incredibly troubling.
It’s clear that, for some, this is really the only way to express oneself or to publish critical points of view. There are bloggers who have a credible fear of persecution based on identity, religious belief, or political opinion. For...
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So here's the problem for Mitt "Etch A Sketch"... →
shortformblog:
It makes it much harder, perhaps impossible, for Romney to begin to tack back to the center to appeal to the centrist voters, an absolute necessity for the fall campaign after the free-range extremism of the Republican primary. Every time Romney makes a move, or even a head-fake, it becomes an Etch-a-Sketch moment.
Now, because it’s been said out loud, everyone will be...
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Dumb answer or dumbest answer?
Romney spokesperson Eric Fehrnstrom blew the question about whether the prolonged primary against Santorum would pull Romney too far to the right.
Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.
The correct answer, of course, is “Mitt Romney is a man of principle....
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More on Freddie Mac's "must evict" policy
Earlier today I asked a few thousand of my closest friends on the Internet to help me ask Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Finance Agency to change an abhorrent policy requiring that non-profits assisting families to buy their homes back after foreclosure evict the family.. A lot of you stepped to the plate—and I would love to keep the ball rolling on this one until the policy is...
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Update on Freddie Mac's "Must Evict" Policy
Earlier today I asked you all to contact Freddie Mac’s PR director Brad German at (703)903-2437 to discuss Freddie’s policy requiring a punitive eviction before it would sell a property at market value to somebody interested in buying it. First, for those who helped, thank you for the help. Second, if you’re still willing to making a call I would really appreciate if you could...
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Let's crash another switchboard together
This one is important. I’d like to spread the word on this particular issue as widely and as quickly as possible. Reblogs are hugely appreciated. This is something where we can change something with a bit of advocacy.
The Short Version
As a U.S. citizen you are now a majority shareholder of Freddie Mac. Congratulations. Freddie Mac is one of a number of entities that bears substantial...
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On Afghanistan
I’ve criticized a few others for what I consider particularly obtuse or dishonest stances toward U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It’s only fair that I offer some thoughts of my own. The bottom line is that I trust the President on this one—but that’s not a trust I walk into blindly.
There are three persuasive sets of arguments for withdrawal from Afghanistan.
...
statistsgonnastate asked: "When you believe in peace for the sake of peace, we’ll talk. Until then, let’s not bullshit each other." Please offer proof that Libertarians do not care about peace. Please recognize that isolationism and non-interventionism are not the same thing. Please offer proof that when/if we ever get out of this war Libertarians will stop caring about peace. If you cannot do these...
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All that needs to be said about Paul Ryan's new...
It cranks up unnecessary military spending
It pays for this by slashing medical services to the poorest people.
The rest is smoke and mirrors.
CNN: A grand jury will probe Trayvon Martin's... →
This is one of those encouraging details that doesn’t illuminate as much as I wish it would. It leaves two possible stories open.
The Seminole County police department and district attorney investigated the case as a homicide from the beginning and acted reasonably professionally in the face of public outrage by deflecting questions about an ongoing investigation.
Alternatively, when a...
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Could we all do the internet a favor and Wikipedia... →
It’s over. Seriously. In this case “over” means over. Not just “end of major combat operations over.” We have embassy employees. We have some guys guarding the embassy. But if that exceptionally limited presence constitutes a “war,” we’ve got wars in Germany, South Korea, Kuwait, Japan, Italy, and however
If, for whatever reason, you think we still...
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Libertarians, stop trying to play the pacifist...
libertarians-and-stoya responded to my support for Obama on the grounds that he’s competently kept the ship afloat and pointed it in the right direction by writing:
Forgot “mass murder of Muslim men, women and children”. Seems pretty boring to me.
The Cheeky Libertarian has been doing the same thing. There’s a war. The U.S. is part of it. Therefore, they argue, everything that...
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I will, of course, be voting for Barack Obama in...
I guess I’m not young anymore, by Tumblr standards. But as political demographics go, thirty is still young.
My reasons for voting for Obama are pretty simple. At heart, I’m a boring guy who wants boring things. Predictability. Fairness. Stability. Family. My dog. We’ve got things pretty good—and I don’t see any need to radically reinvision the American Dream....
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“[T]his needs to be a bilingual country.”
– Rick Santorum, out of context. In context, he was telling Puerto Rico that it should start speaking English. But if bilingualism is good for the goose …
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Charismatic Megafauna
Newt Gingrich spends a lot of time with animals. This goes beyond the standard “get photographed at the Iowa state fair” thing. Gingrich really likes going to zoos. When Newt launched his “Pets with Newt” initiative, it seemed like a self-serving attempt to remind people about that time Romney strapped his terrified dog on top of the car. But once you look at the site,...
Looking for meaning in all the wrong places
shortformblog lists three things we have learned about Afghanistan shooting suspect Robert Bales:
one Bales, who joined the Army two months after 9/11, was reportedly suffering from a series of financial troubles. He and his wife tried to put their home on the market days before the incident.
two He also suffered from a series of legal problems, including past domestic violence allegations...
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“Vetoing state laws governing voting procedures shows a dangerous pattern of...”
– Floyd and Mary Beth Brown at Townhall.com
We all know that this whole “voter fraud” thing is a phantom, right? In person impersonation fraud rarely if ever happens. The chances and consequences of detection is extremely high—and even if you pulled it off, the chances that your...
The Cheeky Libertarian: Playing loosely with... →
DADT was put in place as an executive order and could have been repealed with an executive order. He could have also excused those soldiers who were affected by DADT of their ‘crimes’.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a bipartisan compromise put in place under Clinton to prevent gay service members from being discharged over sexual orientation (“don’t ask”) unless they...
