Eric Kleefeld notes this awesome allusion from Michelle Bachmann (crazy-MN) at a Tea Party rally against health care reform, referring to their efforts as "the charge of the light brigade!" Kleefeld notes something important: The fun part here is that the Light Brigade lost that famous battle of the Crimean War -- they lost it badly, sustaining heavy numbers of deaths and injuries. They are celebrated not for victory, but for their bravery in taking on truly insurmountable odds in a military disaster. It's hardly the sort of positive example that could [...]
Matt Taibbi wrote a polemical piece a few days ago - describing the Obama administration as being in the pocket of big financial interests. The substance of his criticism is reasonably accurate. 2009 has been a pretty good year for those folks, and the proposed measures to go after them have been relatively toothless. But...being on the right side of an argument doesn't make you right. And Taibbi risks treading into the territory of ending up at the right conclusion but doing so in all the wrong ways. To illustrate, critics [...]
Disappearing - Super Deluxe Ezra Klein has a post today calling a spade a spade : At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score. This, of course, raised a firestorm. Charles Lane , editor at the Washington Post, called it "venomous," "disgusting," and an "outrageous smear." The response from a lot of folks on the left [...]
Me, December 8 : I don't want to assign good motivations to a jerk like Lieberman if they're not warranted, but is there even the smallest chance that his machinations are designed to allow him to have his cake and eat it too? He gets to infuriate the left - who have somewhat strangely decided that the public option is the only thing that matters in the health care bill - but potentially support a 'compromise' that does as much for the actual goals of health care reform as anything else that's on the table. [...]
God - John Lennon For someone with politics that I share, Amanda Marcotte manages to write a lot of things that infuriate me. One example : But the debate between religious people and atheists exists on a plane beyond whether or not one should be allowed to believe what you want (which most people agree, outside of religious fundamentalists). Whether or not there is a god is not a matter of personal preference or inherent tendencies. It's a truth claim. It's less like being gay or straight, and more like [...]
Lots of discussion today about Woodrow Wilson and how he got so overrated. I think it's pretty simple, actually. Every other president associated with a Major War that was Won By The Right Side is a widely believed to be a great president (Washington, Lincoln, FDR). So people assume that Wilson must also therefore be a great president. He's the guy who's major argument for being in the Hall of Fame is "well, everyone else who reached X milestone is in, so I guess we need to induct him, [...]
No time for anything original from me. But here's some funny lines written by other people about the Conrad-Gregg deficit reduction commission being proposed: Jonathan Chait : "Conrad and Gregg seem to think that instituting major reforms in the public interest is rare because the threshold for passing legislation is too low. Thus they've designed a process that creates new and higher supermajority requirements, on an issue where getting even 51% to sign on is probably impossible. And if that fails, maybe they'll conclude the process was too easy. Next time they could also require [...]
Posit the following: Joe Lieberman, in his heart of hearts, supports health care reform because it is good for people, and it conforms with his general view of the world. Also, Joe Lieberman is doing everything in his power to be a total ass because he hates liberals and wants to make them squirm. The general theory on Lieberman for the past month or two is that however much the former influences him, it is a lot less significance than the latter. Thus, Joe Lieberman goes after the public option because his hatred of liberals wins [...]
I've been writing all day about the social contract, so I head here for a quick break. - To accompany me while writing, I listened to the entire Beatles catalog yesterday, chronologically. Yep, even "You Know My Name" and "Little Child." Not that this is news or anything, but they were a really, really good band. For more on The Beatles, check out my project ranking all of their songs from worst to first. - My friend Josh has started a Bruce Springsteen blog . In the spirit [...]
No time, as always. I'm now into paper-writing mode - trying to put together two approaches to the same question, each of which will hopefully eventually morph into my field statements. Which is to say: I've got a lot on my mind. That said, it's December and it occurs to me that I've failed to review a LOT of my favorite albums for the year. So I'll try and squeeze in a little bit of time for that here and there when I need a break from thinking about legality and legitimacy. For [...]
I was pretty worried about the draw. The US was in a pot with the rest of CONCACAF as well as the Asian teams and New Zealand. Meaning that the seven teams were guaranteed to never be drawn against included five of the weakest ones at the tournament. Not that Japan, New Zealand, Honduras, and North or South Korea are total pushovers. But I'd rather play them than most other teams. Toss in the possibility of drawing a seeded team, the unseeded France or Portugal, and a team like Ivory Coast or Cameroon and [...]
Never Tragic - S The story of the guy who killed four police officers in Seattle is tragic, for all kinds of reasons. First, the obvious one. There are few things more horrifying than the murder of those tasked with preserving the peace. You don't have to think the operation of the criminal justice system in general or a lot of cops in particular is just and fair (and believe me, I don't) to still feel incredibly disconcerted about something like this. There's a lot to dislike about the system, but [...]
So I'm busy with Thanksgiving and paper-grading and end-of-the-term research and such, but I'm popping back up for a second to ask a very simple question: Am I the only one who wants to wipe all traces of the "Jingle Bell Rock" off the face of the earth? I love this time of year, and I even actually like quite a lot of Christmas songs. But that one just makes me want to scream.
Undeserving You - Holy Roman Empire Scott Lemieux, who I normally agree with on basically everything, makes one of my all-time least favorite arguments regarding the France-Ireland match: The blame for being eliminated from the World Cup belongs, in its entirety, to the players of the Irish team. They put themselves in the place in which a single bad break could eliminate them by 1)losing the first game and 2)blowing failing to extend a lead in the second game. This is just boilerplate conservatism laundered through the metaphor of [...]
So health care has passed yet another hurdle. On a straight party-line vote, it is now available to be debated in the Senate. I just want people to remember three things in a few weeks when the Republicans are blanketing the media with complaints about things 'moving too quickly' and how they would be willing to work with the Democrats if they just had some more time to consider things. 1. It's just a tactic , and not a very good one. 2. They voted today in a unified block to PREVENT health [...]
The Cliffs of Insanity - Mark Knopfler (from the Princess Bridge soundtrack ) Today's winner in the 'huh, are you serious?' category is Jason Zengerle at The New Republic (who I normally quite like): I was pretty shocked by this new poll that found that 52 percent of Republican voters think ACORN stole the 2008 presidential election for Obama. I wanted to get some perspective, though, so I looked for polls that assessed voters' feelings about the 2000 elections. I figured that, even with hanging chads and all, fewer Democratic voters would [...]
Dancing in a Minefield - Plushgun There's a grand tradition of sleek electro-pop with a slightly overwrought sense of the emotional that was re-popularized by The Postal Service in the early part of the decade, but really has its roots back in the 80s. Plushgun is yet another fine entry into that tradition. When everything works on their debut Pins and Panzers , you get delightful, airy, energetic pop hooks and a sense of good feeling about the world at large. By far the best example is the [...]
Luck Of The Irish (Live) - John Lennon (from the Anthology set which, BTW is totally awesome and an essential purchase for any serious Lennon fan) Perhaps this will be the thing to finally convince people that the lack of video replay in the game is a relic of past ages and a massive dis-service to the players who invest years of their lives in the game, and the supporters who live and die with their national team. Sure, France had a legitimate shout for a penalty a few minutes earlier. [...]
If " taxpayers should not have to pay for a procedure they believe is tantamount to murder " then why have we spent $700 billion dollars fighting a war in Iraq?
A New Holiday (November 16th) - Carissa's Wierd Yes it's that fateful day once again. But since I just posted about Carissa's Wierd, I'll leave off talking about them anymore. Instead, a brief television interlude. It's important to state before I begin that I don't actually have a TV - so I only watch things online. Anyways, last year, I was commenting pretty regularly on the first season of Dollhouse. Not because it was great, but because it was a new Joss Whedon show and it (occasionally) showed some signs [...]
Heartache with Hard Work
iamamiwhoami: kin - Teaser
Album Review: alt-J – An Awesome Wave
Azealia Banks – ’1991′ & ‘Van Vouge’
Big Boi & Theophilus London (feat. TRE LUCE) - 'She Said OK'
