Just got an email thanking Michael D. and others for their support of Project Valour-IT, and it looks like they are going to pass 200k.
Well done.
by John Cole| 3 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
Just got an email thanking Michael D. and others for their support of Project Valour-IT, and it looks like they are going to pass 200k.
Well done.
by John Cole| 92 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Popular Culture, General Stupidity
Via Outside the Beltway, this:
In the genteel world of bridge, disputes are usually handled quietly and rarely involve issues of national policy. But in a fight reminiscent of the brouhaha over an anti-Bush statement by Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in 2003, a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.
At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”
By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of “treason” and “sedition.”
“This isn’t a free-speech issue,” said Jan Martel, president of the United States Bridge Federation, the nonprofit group that selects teams for international tournaments. “There isn’t any question that private organizations can control the speech of people who represent them.”
Saying “we did not vote for Bush” counts as treason in General Wingnuttia. Good to know half the country is plotting to undermine the US.
by Tim F| 12 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
Christopher Hitchens commenting in the Atlantic on Arthur Schlesinger’s memoirs:
Inded, Schlesinger’s good manners are almost masochistic. Of Vidal, he writes, “At least he knows me, which in a way legitimizes his right to attack me.” Self-deprecation could do no more; still, one might ask for a little more gin in the martini.
Alice Roosevelt once quipped to an unattached young woman at a dinner party, “If you don’t have anything good to say about anyone here, come sit by me.” That said, given the compulsive Hitchensian habit of poisoning every well that he jumps into, even Alice Roosevelt would read Hitch’s Schlesinger diss to as misery craving company, and feeling slightly uncomfortable in its absence.
This post is in: General Stupidity
1. Georgia is in severe drought
2. Governor Perdue decides to pray for rain on Tuesday
3. Forecast called for rain Tuesday
4. Prayer service goes ahead as planned
5. Skies completely clear up immediately following prayer service
6. No rain
Maybe God was celebrating Opposite Day!
by John Cole| 69 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity
The Weekly Standard simply can not control themselves when it comes to the idea of Joe Lieberman as the VP candidate under a Republican presidential candidate. Here is Michael Goldfarb parroting that idiot Bill Kristol.
I am at home and feel like shit, so i am not up to it, but does someone want to spend a few minutes and go through some of the older Gore/Lieberman era Weekly Standard dribblings to find out what Kristol and company thought about Lieberman then (Sore/Loserman sound familiar, anyone?). Because that could turn out to be loads of fun.
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Politics
Robert Garrett writes in the Dallas Morning News:
While many GOP presidential hopefuls are quick to deplore illegal immigration, they should be careful, former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros warned Monday.
They risk driving Hispanic voters into Democrats’ arms for years to come, he said.
Mr. Cisneros, in an interview before he spoke to the Hispanic Scholarship Consortium in Austin, said that though the Republicans use immigration to fire up their base, they may wind up deeply angering Hispanics.
“Those who have simply focused on security at the border and not on the other humane aspects” of the immigration issue offend Hispanics, he said.
I think that’s right, and I think that Bush (supported by McCain) had the most compassionate plan of all the Republicans – at least that I have seen so far, although it was still a horrible plan. But the danger is not just in losing votes. The real danger – not security, not “taking our jobs,” not votes – is the risk that we create a permanent sub-class in this country. I would even go so far as to say a subservient class. That scares me. And it’s wrong.
I drive to Alpharetta every day, and around Atlanta during the week, and what I see are (mostly) Mexican workers involved in manual labor, gardening, cleaning, dishwashing, and all those jobs we stereotypically attribute to people with little or no education. I’ve not seen one plan yet that fully addresses this, except the merit-based immigration bill that was roundly vilified by the Democrats because it interfered with the so-called “family reunification intent” of our current immigration policies.
On compassionate grounds, family-based immigration seems to be a good thing. But practically-speaking, it doesn’t work. We have relatively uneducated Hispanic population coming to the country, getting a menial job, eventually getting green cards and citizenship, and bringing their relatively uneducated families with them. Their families, in turn, will take similar jobs – or at least that’s been my observation. In the end, what you have are millions of Hispanic laborers, restaurant workers, and more – here for the benefit of the middle and upper classes. That, to me, is a dangerous, continuous cycle of poverty. Fortunately, if the political will is there, it’s one we can fix.
My preference would be for the merit-based system. That system (which, by the way, is the norm, and is quite effective in countries like Canada andothers) would work like this. According to Michael Chertoff, the new system:
calls for most green cards to be based on a merit system that counts heavily education, employment skills and experience in the United States. “Family [ties] will come in as a tie-breaker,” Chertoff said in a White House briefing May 17.
Shouldn’t this be exactly what we want? I would even support people who are already here illegally, and who would be willing to get an education, to qualify for this program without having to leave the country. I would support more student visas for Hispanics (and other groups too, but let’s focus on them) so that they can come here and get the education they cannot get back in their own country. Since Mexico seems determined to get an immigration bill through, we could work with them to create a Mexican-funded scholarship program to achieve that end, or use some of the aid we already give them anyway to fund it. When that person gets a good job, a green card, and can provide for his or her family, let that person bring the family in. I’m all for that.
Finally, let’s get rid of the one thing that is a massive incentive to make it to this country illegally. Repeal of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
I would change it to say that at least one parent must be a citizen of the United States. The only intent of foreign-born parents who give birth here (with few exceptions) is to ensure their child has U.S. citizenship. It’s their ticket in.
We have a choice: We can drive anywhere in this country and see the latino population living in poverty conditions, or we can offer them an immigration bill with solid proposals that will offer a hand up and not a hand out. We’re spending billions on a system that keeps Hispanics at the bottom rung of society. Why not use that money effectively? What I want to see are latinos coming to this country and joining the business world in larger numbers. I would love to see them contribute to the scientific community in larger numbers. I want them to go to school, learn English, and have anything but the life I am sure the majority are living now. I don’t want this country to be in a situation where we continue to create what is quickly becoming the modern-day version of slavery. Is that a harsh comparison? I don’t know. I don’t think it is.
Do we need people to pick vegetables and wash dishes? Absolutely. I don’t believe the tripe that Americans won’t do this work. I don’t believe it for a second. When I was in my late teens and early 20’s, I did that work, and I’m as pasty white as you’ll get. And there are plenty of uneducated native born Americans who are willing to do it.
I know one thing for sure: If we don’t do something to change the family-based immigration system to a merit-based one, then in 20 years or less, we are going to be in the middle of a civil rights movement like we haven’t seen since the 60’s. I guarantee it. My guess though, is that the political parties are more interested in getting the latinos on side than they are providing any practical solutions to our shared immigration problem.
by Tim F| 64 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Science & Technology
Real Climate (bolding mine):
There is an interesting, if predictable, piece up on the BBC website devoted to investigating whether there is any ‘consensus’ among the various contrarians on why climate change isn’t happening (or if it is, it isn’t caused by human activity or if it is why it won’t be important, or if it is important, why nothing can be done etc.). Bottom line? The only thing they appear to agree about is that nothing should be done, but they have a multitude of conflicting reasons why. Hmm…
The journalist, Richard Black, put together a top 10 list of sceptic arguments he gathered from emailing the 61 signers of a Canadian letter. While these aren’t any different in substance to the ones routinely debunked here (and here and here), this list comes with the imprimatur of Fred Singer – the godfather to the sceptic movement, and recent convert from the view that it’s been cooling since 1940 to the idea that global warming is now unstoppable. Thus these are the arguments (supposedly) that are the best that the contrarians have to put forward.
Alongside each of these talking points, is a counter-point from the mainstream (full disclosure, I helped Richard edit some of those). In truth though, I was a little disappointed at how lame their ‘top 10′ arguments were. In order, they are: false, a cherry pick, a red herring, false, false, false, a red herring, a red herring, false and a strawman. They even used the ‘grapes grew in medieval England’ meme that you’d think they’d have abandoned already given that more grapes are grown in England now than ever before (see here). Another commonplace untruth is the claim that water vapour is ‘98% of the greenhouse effect’ – it’s just not.
Pay attention to the entire post, but notice the bolded bit. It seems amazingly convenient how warming critics shift from outright denial, which serves the fossil fuel interests who fund their movement, to a state of overwhelmed apathy at the sheer magnitude of the problem, which serves the fossil fuel lobby just as well. It analogizes to the seamless transitioning from WMD hysteria to democracy promotion to an overfed sunk costs fallacy, or the kaleidoscope of bogus arguments that fuel creationism. In each case the silliness adds up to a series of disposable and often self-contradictory rationalizations that serve a fixed goal.
At least for Iraq and creationism this movementarian absolutism has an element of self interest to it. Contrariwise the farther you step back from the climate “debate” the less sense it makes. In fact it looks almost exactly like the tobacco “debate” that was really settled some time in the 50’s, but stayed alive for decades after because of a brilliant and blindingly cynical PR campaign by the tobacco lobby. The entire gamut of false front astroturf groups, slanted studies and bogus experts forcing the appearance of a debate comes straight from the tobacco playbook. The only question is why the right wing felt such a compelling need to get behind it this time. Is there something inherently liberal about avoiding catastrophe?
It seems to me that the sad saga of warming denial illustrates a major weakness of conservative monementarianism. Climate science isn’t really partisan in any meaningful way, yet as long as the movementarians think that attacking the science will score a vctory against liberalism they will go on attacking just the same. All the petro lobby needed to do was polarize a scientific matter along political lines and the rightwing movement willingly became what amounts to the private army for a cause almost completely tangential to their individual interests. Retired tobacco execs look on with a mix of humor and deep jealousy.