Political Bloviation

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…

I’m really not informed enough about secondary education to say if this is a good idea for school systems, teachers and students or not. But I can say that increasing the number of young people in the worst job market in memory probably isn’t a very good idea.
Dozens of public high schools in eight states [...]

U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.
You gotta love the Onion…

Here’s a very cogent observation from the comments at Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution econoblog:
It seems to me that the American political system is simply broken. Canada could reduce the size of government and keep health care spending in check because in a parliamentary system with strong party loyalty, individual politicans are given “cover” by their [...]

Foreigners cut Treasury stakes; rates could rise – washingtonpost.com.
The Wapo notes that the Japanese have overtaken the Chinese as the number one purchasers of American government debt.
Apparently we’ve gotten to 88 mph in the Delorean and the flux capacitor has taken us back to 1985…
Fear the Japanese Overlords!
h/t Ezra Klein
The real danger is that the [...]

The problem with the stimulus bill was that it was too small. Republicans were allowed to substitute tax cuts, which most reputable economists deem least effective for stimulating the economy in the name of bipartisanship.
Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked.
Let’s say this bill had started spending money [...]

Editorial: Engadget on Windows Phone 7 Series — Engadget.
The phone geek at Engadget are really excited about MS getting up on their hind legs and actually releasing what looks like an interesting mobile OS. They rewrote the whole thing from the ground up. It’s about time.
My last taste of a MS mobile OS was WinMo [...]

I thought the statement which essentially blamed Kumaritashvili for his own death was callous and suspect. If their were no defects why did he slam in to a bare metal support at 90 MPH? How that even possible if the track was as safe as they say below? I thought the whole thing stank of [...]

The New Yorker as an intersting bit on the internal incoherence of the recent wave of American populism:
The electorate, we hear, wants Barack Obama to be more of an economic populist but less of an ambitious reformer. He has to aggressively create jobs but also be less spendthrift. This advice may be contradictory, but then [...]

Got some iPants with a big-ass iPocket and $600 dollars to waste on a device with no discernible purpose not already met by much cheaper devices? Then you, my friend, are all ready for a new iPad. Coming soon to fanboy poseurs everywhere.

Do these guys have any sense of ethics at all?
Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.
via Wall St. Helped Greece to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis – NYTimes.com.
It appears [...]

Denouncing Medicare cuts in one moment while proposing even larger cuts and dismantling the entire program on the another moment. No conflict there, no sir, it’s all perfectly consistent:
“Don’t cut Medicare. The reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong.” So declared Newt Gingrich, the former [...]

I suspect that this trend will continue, if Obama doesn’t allow Republicans to dictate the agenda. Sadly, this is a very big if. He hasn’t seemed to want to win arguments with the opposition, so much as to make them ever so happy that he’s a great guy who really want to listen to their [...]

People still use pay phones? Who knew? The NY Times did story where they followed the activity of a phone booth in Queens for a week. I found this little vignette touching:
Mr. Patir, 59, pulled a quarter from a pocket. He happened to be walking by the phone booth when he decided to call his [...]

Jon Stewart skewers the GOP line that the invitation to discuss HCR with the President is a trap. It’s only a trap if the discussion reveals you have nothing to say. There’s a 2nd bit included by John Oliver where he highlights the contradiction between the GOP meeting in Hawaii and the working 40 year [...]

Gaming the system, regulatory capture and a revolving a door between the regulated industry and the regulatory agency. Sounds very much like what happened to banks. The important difference is that Toyota isn’t going to get federal help on the taxpayer dime. They’ve screwed themselves over by being just a little too smart for their [...]

“They’re gonna go to budget reconciliation, which I believe would set a very bad precedent, because essentially — if they could do it, and I don't know if they can do it, but if they could do it — what you have done, effectively, is to take away the filibuster in the United States Senate,” [...]