Political Bloviation

In case you missed it a few weeks ago:
YouTube – Epic beard man.

67 year old white dude (Beard Man) insults a younger black man (Corn Rows) by asking him how much he would charge to shine his shoes. Admittedly, that could be construed as a racist remark by anyone. Jesus might have tried to pimp [...]

Here’s a post on a development in an ongoing case brought by a couple of private military contractors who allege imprisonment in a US military facility and torture for blowing the whistle on illegal arms trading inside Iraq by their employer Shield Group Security. It appeared that SGS was selling arms to insurgent groups at [...]

Magazine Preview – Building a Better Teacher – NYTimes.com.
A long but worthwhile piece on improving education by improving teachers, rather than worrying about standardized test scores or charter schools or class size:
When researchers ran the numbers in dozens of different studies, every factor under a school’s control produced just a tiny impact, except for one: [...]

2010 Walk Now for Autism Speaks: Tampa Bay – General Donation.
I have a very personal connection to this effort. It’s is for my granddaughter Elisabeth and other families living with autism. She’s  and is a very sweet 5 year old little girl who’s still struggling to learn to speak. Please follow the link above and [...]

I have seen the future and it’s SSD.

The more I see an hear about SSD devices, the more I like it. I know I’m going to upgrade to SSD for the OS and swap file partitions, perhaps with a few programs that would benefit from the extra speed. That would require a another drive for [...]

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: US Manufacturing Is Not Dead.
Bondad at 538 takes on the notion that US manufacturing job are gone (and aren’t’ coming back) because free trade agreements like NAFTA allowed US markets to be flooded with cheap foreign goods. He literally graphs the issues to death.
The main point appears to be that that [...]

The New Yorker points out that despite bitching and moaning to the contrary the Senate Health Care bill is bipartisan:
…the Democrats’ bill more closely resembles Richard Nixon’s health-care proposal—the one that Ted Kennedy went to his grave regretting he hadn’t embraced—than it does Bill Clinton’s, to say nothing of Harry Truman’s. Nor are all its [...]

This was a gem from Krugman, I don’t usually copy an entire post, but this was worth it:
Jonathan Chait and Robert Waldmann, in slightly different ways, highlight a crucial dynamic in American political debate: the extent to which public figures are punished for actually knowing what they’re talking about.
It goes like this: Person A says [...]

Are there no limits of civilized behavior that’s not subject to be waived away by legal sophistry?
At the core of the legal arguments were the views of Yoo, strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, that the president’s wartime powers were essentially unlimited and included the authority to override laws passed [...]

Krugman, on the shear incoherence and cowardice of the GOP’s so-called  small government activists:
…ever since Reagan, the G.O.P. has been run by people who want a much smaller government. In the famous words of the activist Grover Norquist, conservatives want to get the government “down to the size where we can drown it in the [...]

Anyone with an interest in what’s wrong with the Senate should read the whole thing. Here’s what’s wrong in one paragraph.
most strident partisans must learn to occasionally sacrifice short-term tactical political advantage for the sake of the nation. Otherwise, Congress will remain stuck in an endless cycle of recrimination and revenge. The minority seeks to [...]

The GOP preaches small government when out of power, while massively expanding it when actually in power. Their policy of don’t tax and spend is directly related to the looming fiscal crisis that threatens to push the federal government down the same road as California and Greece. What they actually do while in power is [...]

John Birch Society at CPAC | Talking Points Memo.
CPAC welcomes everyone’s favorite old time racists. They’re faithful followers of Brother John Birch…
(Apologies to Charlie Daniels for paraphrasing “Uneasy Rider“)

Seth MacFarlane, on last nights Real Time with Bill Maher, says: “If Ronald Regan was President, he’d try Dick Cheney for war crimes.” This was in response to Bill asking if anyone has seen Dick Cheney brag about personally ordering water boarding on the Sunday talk shows. The assertion is, I assume, based on Reagan [...]

As a long time supporter of systemic health reform I find this heartening:
Democrats will finish their health reform efforts within the next two months by using a majority-vote maneuver in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.
Reid said that congressional Democrats would likely opt for a procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper [...]

The New Poor – Despite Signs of Recovery, Long-Term Unemployment Rises – Series – NYTimes.com.
Brother can you spare a dime? – Tom Waits version. No one can give voice to the pain of a working man without a job like Tom.
I guess the song is making a come back…

That’s quite a defense, but it’s hard to disagree with that headline. If you haven’t been following this, it’s regarding the investigation of DOJ lawyers who provided the White House and DOD legal cover to torture detainees as long as it didn’t result in death or permanent injury:
Justice Department Will Not Punish Yoo and Bybee [...]

Getting the Facts Straight — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

I find it extremely unlikely that the Democrats in Congress would rediscover the contents of their metaphorical nutsacks and actually do something.
Sen. Michael Bennet’s effort to revive the public option in the reconciliation process is gaining steam, with almost 20 senators signing on to the idea. Among them are Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, who [...]

Nerd Merit Badges – Welcome.
I can honestly say I’ve earned many of these…