North American links
A nice Dangerous Liaisons mashup critiquing Californian government pensions (funny, if you are not a Californian taxpayer).
Feminism explained (more accurately, a certain sort of American political feminism explained, but still funny).
Which US State is worst at what.
Cruel but funny: advice to a newly unemployed former Congressperson. Advertising your sexual availability on an internet site turns out to be a great way to become a newly unemployed former Congressperson
Ontario Human Rights adjudicator decision gets seriously slapped down by the Superior Court.
A mother on her five year old boy who wanted to dress up as Daphne for Halloween. The pic is adorable.
A New Hampshire libertarian Republican legislator has proposed a bill getting the state out of marriage.
Dubya’s memoirs have sold as many copies in one month as Bill Clinton’s did in six years.
The war on drugs has led to a militarization of law enforcement.
Remembering Jonestown.
About what the State of the Union address has evolved to.
Don’t own a holiday home constantly ready for occupation in New York State, because then you can become eligible for NY income taxes.
About skin colour prejudice within the black community.
About the life of Linda Lovelace, she of Deep Throat.
Ronald Reagan’s farewell speech. It does seem another world. Poll finds he gets the most support as greatest US President.
Rep. Ryan and the policy and politics of deficit reduction.
Wrestling with the issue of how much a wife is an independent political person from her husband.
How Chicago politics works: thuggery and pressure to silence an academic critic.
The FBI reports a decline in hate crimes. Homeland Security is teaming up with Walmart.
Arguing the US defence forces are driving talented officers out with a highly conformist promotion structure.
The Portland Bomber in his own words: the wonders of YouTube™. About not trying to dismiss such attempts.
The new TSA pat down policy is causing a lot of angst. Great post with many links on the madness that is the TSA security check policy. Just to confirm the notion that the TSA may be run by perverted idiots, consider how the Israelis do it. Arguing for the abolition of the TSA asap. One of the co-authors of the original bill is reminding airports that they can opt-out and is suggesting it may be time for abolition.
About the mid-term election results and the failure of social movement politics. Suggesting that economic issues are leading to a “truce” in the culture wars.
Noting two “President Obamas” manifesting on the same podium within the space of a few minutes:
One minute, he's reassuring progressives. We are good and they are evil. It's victims and hostage-takers, no less. Just be patient, our time will come, and accounts with the enemy will be settled. Next minute, he's rebuking the same progressives. Spare me your sanctimonious purism. It's un-American. We have good-faith differences of opinion. "This country was founded on compromise."
A psychblogger founds herself more, rather than less, puzzled by Bush Derangement Syndrome over time. Hatred-where it is not based on direct personal injury-is almost always more about the hater than the hated.
The Census re-apportionments are good for the Republicans, not for the Democrats. About Republican difficulties with highly educated young voters. About shifts in liberalism/conservatism among voter groups.
A Saudi prince suggests the ground zero mosque be moved to another location. Providing some “reality checks” in the Ground Zero mosque debate. Arguing critics have overplayed their hand.
About California’s escalating pension crisis:
California’s public pension and retiree health and dental care expenditures have quintupled since fiscal year 1998-99, from about $1 billion to $5 billion this year. Retirement spending is expected to triple again - to $15 billion - within the next decade.
Since 1998, California’s state workforce has grown by 31 percent and taxpayers now pay for more than 356,000 state workers.
Post with lots of links on California’s solvency and “green economics” problems. Pointing out (indeed, gloating a bit) how much better Texas is doing than California, economically. And yes, it does come down to different public policy:
California’s decline is particularly tragic, as it is unnecessary and largely unforced. The state still possesses the basic assets-energy, fertile land, remarkable entrepreneurial talent-to restore its luster. But given its current political trajectory, you can count on Texans, and others, to keep picking up both the state’s jobs and skilled workers. If California wishes to commit economic suicide, Texas and other competitors will gladly lend them a knife.
Taking a trip through Central Valley in California and seeing an increasingly third world social landscape.
All of Wisconsin’s Democratic state Senators have fled the State to avoid a vote while public sector employees stage mass rallies around the legislature. The national organising of the protests. Noting that certain questions asked endlessly about Tea Party demonstrations are suddenly not being asked about these ones. Washington Post’s Charles Lane nails the hypocrisy of the progressives over intimidation and hyperbolic rhetoric in the Wisconsin games:
This is hypocrisy on an epic scale. I can't think of a more overwhelming refutation of the claim that incivility is the unique province of the American right -- as opposed to what it really is and always has been: a two-way street with both right and left lanes.
Time’s Joe Klein says it all really:
Public employees unions are an interesting hybrid. Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership. Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed...of the public? …
The events in Wisconsin are a rebalancing of power that, after decades of flush times and lax negotiating, had become imbalanced. That is also something that, from time to time, happens in a democracy.
Public sector unions are a crucial support base for the Democratic Party - providing funding and activists.
A businessperson who has never held elected office is seeking the Republican presidential candidacy in 2012. Said businessperson addresses a Tea Party rally in Wisconsin. The appalling condescension from predictable quarters has already started.
About how Obama got conservatives to listen to him in his Tucson eulogy. Detailing how emergency medical response deals with 19 shooting victims. An outbreak of amusing common sense:
"The vast right-wing conspiracy has played President Barack Obama like a violin," Kinsley says. Really? If they can only keep it up, Obama will win re-election in a landslide. My advice to the president is: keep falling for it. Sometimes, conservatives are too damn clever for their own good.
Buy your I hate Palin merchandise. The death threats against her daughter. A surge in death threats against Palin. About making parallels with Dallas 1963, but leaving out the assassin. A Tea Party leader in Arizona has a public death threat - from a US liberal. Recalling the wishing AIDS on Sen. Helms grandchildren and calling for a Congressman to be stoned to death. But political hate, it just a right wing problem, really.
Considering Congressional security in the wake of the Tucson shootings. Loughner fits the profile of political assassins in US history. About how assassins display a mixture of politics and psychological abnormality. About how mental illness of itself does not explain violence. Predicting that Arizona will get less gun control, not more. The shooter’s connection with Congresswoman Giffords started months before Palin was nominated, Obama was elected or the Tea Party kicked off. In defence of political rhetoric. A poll on whether political rhetoric led to shooting. Listing the typical bad responses to tragic events. The more we learn about the Tucson killer’s political inspirations, the more “eclectic” his politics (for want of a better term) seem to be. President Obama’s speech at the funeral.
Feminism explained (more accurately, a certain sort of American political feminism explained, but still funny).
Which US State is worst at what.
Cruel but funny: advice to a newly unemployed former Congressperson. Advertising your sexual availability on an internet site turns out to be a great way to become a newly unemployed former Congressperson
Ontario Human Rights adjudicator decision gets seriously slapped down by the Superior Court.
A mother on her five year old boy who wanted to dress up as Daphne for Halloween. The pic is adorable.
A New Hampshire libertarian Republican legislator has proposed a bill getting the state out of marriage.
Dubya’s memoirs have sold as many copies in one month as Bill Clinton’s did in six years.
The war on drugs has led to a militarization of law enforcement.
Remembering Jonestown.
About what the State of the Union address has evolved to.
Don’t own a holiday home constantly ready for occupation in New York State, because then you can become eligible for NY income taxes.
About skin colour prejudice within the black community.
About the life of Linda Lovelace, she of Deep Throat.
Ronald Reagan’s farewell speech. It does seem another world. Poll finds he gets the most support as greatest US President.
Rep. Ryan and the policy and politics of deficit reduction.
Wrestling with the issue of how much a wife is an independent political person from her husband.
How Chicago politics works: thuggery and pressure to silence an academic critic.
The FBI reports a decline in hate crimes. Homeland Security is teaming up with Walmart.
Arguing the US defence forces are driving talented officers out with a highly conformist promotion structure.
The Portland Bomber in his own words: the wonders of YouTube™. About not trying to dismiss such attempts.
The new TSA pat down policy is causing a lot of angst. Great post with many links on the madness that is the TSA security check policy. Just to confirm the notion that the TSA may be run by perverted idiots, consider how the Israelis do it. Arguing for the abolition of the TSA asap. One of the co-authors of the original bill is reminding airports that they can opt-out and is suggesting it may be time for abolition.
About the mid-term election results and the failure of social movement politics. Suggesting that economic issues are leading to a “truce” in the culture wars.
Noting two “President Obamas” manifesting on the same podium within the space of a few minutes:
One minute, he's reassuring progressives. We are good and they are evil. It's victims and hostage-takers, no less. Just be patient, our time will come, and accounts with the enemy will be settled. Next minute, he's rebuking the same progressives. Spare me your sanctimonious purism. It's un-American. We have good-faith differences of opinion. "This country was founded on compromise."
A psychblogger founds herself more, rather than less, puzzled by Bush Derangement Syndrome over time. Hatred-where it is not based on direct personal injury-is almost always more about the hater than the hated.
The Census re-apportionments are good for the Republicans, not for the Democrats. About Republican difficulties with highly educated young voters. About shifts in liberalism/conservatism among voter groups.
A Saudi prince suggests the ground zero mosque be moved to another location. Providing some “reality checks” in the Ground Zero mosque debate. Arguing critics have overplayed their hand.
About California’s escalating pension crisis:
California’s public pension and retiree health and dental care expenditures have quintupled since fiscal year 1998-99, from about $1 billion to $5 billion this year. Retirement spending is expected to triple again - to $15 billion - within the next decade.
Since 1998, California’s state workforce has grown by 31 percent and taxpayers now pay for more than 356,000 state workers.
Post with lots of links on California’s solvency and “green economics” problems. Pointing out (indeed, gloating a bit) how much better Texas is doing than California, economically. And yes, it does come down to different public policy:
California’s decline is particularly tragic, as it is unnecessary and largely unforced. The state still possesses the basic assets-energy, fertile land, remarkable entrepreneurial talent-to restore its luster. But given its current political trajectory, you can count on Texans, and others, to keep picking up both the state’s jobs and skilled workers. If California wishes to commit economic suicide, Texas and other competitors will gladly lend them a knife.
Taking a trip through Central Valley in California and seeing an increasingly third world social landscape.
All of Wisconsin’s Democratic state Senators have fled the State to avoid a vote while public sector employees stage mass rallies around the legislature. The national organising of the protests. Noting that certain questions asked endlessly about Tea Party demonstrations are suddenly not being asked about these ones. Washington Post’s Charles Lane nails the hypocrisy of the progressives over intimidation and hyperbolic rhetoric in the Wisconsin games:
This is hypocrisy on an epic scale. I can't think of a more overwhelming refutation of the claim that incivility is the unique province of the American right -- as opposed to what it really is and always has been: a two-way street with both right and left lanes.
Time’s Joe Klein says it all really:
Public employees unions are an interesting hybrid. Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership. Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed...of the public? …
The events in Wisconsin are a rebalancing of power that, after decades of flush times and lax negotiating, had become imbalanced. That is also something that, from time to time, happens in a democracy.
Public sector unions are a crucial support base for the Democratic Party - providing funding and activists.
A businessperson who has never held elected office is seeking the Republican presidential candidacy in 2012. Said businessperson addresses a Tea Party rally in Wisconsin. The appalling condescension from predictable quarters has already started.
About how Obama got conservatives to listen to him in his Tucson eulogy. Detailing how emergency medical response deals with 19 shooting victims. An outbreak of amusing common sense:
"The vast right-wing conspiracy has played President Barack Obama like a violin," Kinsley says. Really? If they can only keep it up, Obama will win re-election in a landslide. My advice to the president is: keep falling for it. Sometimes, conservatives are too damn clever for their own good.
Buy your I hate Palin merchandise. The death threats against her daughter. A surge in death threats against Palin. About making parallels with Dallas 1963, but leaving out the assassin. A Tea Party leader in Arizona has a public death threat - from a US liberal. Recalling the wishing AIDS on Sen. Helms grandchildren and calling for a Congressman to be stoned to death. But political hate, it just a right wing problem, really.
Considering Congressional security in the wake of the Tucson shootings. Loughner fits the profile of political assassins in US history. About how assassins display a mixture of politics and psychological abnormality. About how mental illness of itself does not explain violence. Predicting that Arizona will get less gun control, not more. The shooter’s connection with Congresswoman Giffords started months before Palin was nominated, Obama was elected or the Tea Party kicked off. In defence of political rhetoric. A poll on whether political rhetoric led to shooting. Listing the typical bad responses to tragic events. The more we learn about the Tucson killer’s political inspirations, the more “eclectic” his politics (for want of a better term) seem to be. President Obama’s speech at the funeral.