North American links

Jul 04, 2010 06:26

G20 looter gets reversed by a passing citizen.

Canada would like to remind everyone why it is a great place to do business. So, they have wider welfare coverage, lower debt, lower corporate taxes and an unstressed financial system than the US. (As does Oz, btw.) Perhaps the Yanks can take a lesson (or two?)

Mississauga (sixth largest city in Canada, third largest in Ontario) has had the same Mayor for 31 years: the city is debt free and has $C700m in reserves. Mayor Hazel is 88 years old and got 92% of the vote last election. About the failed ideas of failing cities.

Cuba has an illegal internal migrant problem:
“[The eastern region] has always been the less affluent, impoverished part of the island,” he said, “heavily dependent upon agriculture, less on tourism, and also happens to be more black and mulatto.”
The effort to keep migrants out and prevent overcrowding in Havana may have resulted in police discrimination against darker-skinned Cubans presumed more likely to be illegal, Gonzalez said.

A particularly appalling child molestation non-case.

Polling finds Americans tend to be cool with Guatanamo Bay and military tribunals.

The Obama Administration is expanding the list of people covered by parental leave for sick children.

About the lack of streets in the US named after women. Noting shifting gender roles works both ways. Trying to work out the ins and outs of the Al Gore sexual assault case: that political and policy opinions are not a statement of personal or moral character is the most obvious point.

Mark Lilla reviews four books on the Tea Party phenomenon:
The conservative media did not create the Tea Party movement and do not direct it; nobody does. But the movement’s rapid growth and popularity are unthinkable without the demagogues’ new ability to tell isolated individuals worried about their futures what they want to hear and put them in direct contact with one another, bypassing the parties and other mediating institutions our democracy depends on. When the new Jacobins turn on their televisions they do not tune in to the PBS News Hour or C-Span to hear economists and congressmen debate the effectiveness of financial regulations or health care reform. They look for shows that laud their common sense, then recite to them the libertarian credo that Fox emblazons on its home page nearly every day: YOU DECIDE.
Evangelical Christians are worried about the libertarian streak in the tea party movement. Academic polling study finds significant levels of racial resentment among Tea Party supporters. Querying the methodology of the study. A poll finds Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to blame “the Jews” for the financial crisis.

In the US, conservatives are outbreeding liberals, but migration is balancing the effect. Mapping American opinion on social and fiscal issues. 30% of the US population is socially and fiscally conservative: by far the biggest of the 9 opinion blocks. Noting how comments on a video of a Democratic Congressman assaulting a student questioner expose the tribalism of US politics.

An amusing summary of the US immigration debate. Using the littering argument by photo against illegal immigration. Poll finds that the controversial Arizona law is quite popular. Massachusetts is passing a tough anti-illegal immigrant law.

Violent crime fell significantly in the US. More. Part of a continuing trend.

A very American/competitive jurisdictions reasons to be Governor: so your grandchildren don’t go live somewhere else. Gov. Christie of New Jersey is showing himself to be serious about tackling New Jersey’s fiscal mess. And just lots of fun when answering questions from journalists.

The US Supreme Court rules, for the first time, that the right to bear arms is an individual right. More.

How confirming a US Supreme Court Justice became an intensely political process.

On the IQ evidence, 3 Jewish members of SCOTUS is about right. About the decline of the WASP elite.

Worries about SCOTUS nominee’s “lack of form” and hiring record. Debating the nominee. Worrying about her First Amendment views. Compilation of links on the nominee. Tracking the various stories folk want to tell about the nominee. Examining her thesis for clues about her judicial philosophy.

At least one Republican politician realises it is silly to call Obama a socialist: he is a corporatist. The sort of convenient job offer than is par for the course in Chicago politics does not run quite so well at a national level.

The polling continues to be bad for Democrats.

media, american, links, polling, policy

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