True.

Bruce Bartlett: Fiscal Responsibility Requires Higher Taxes; Auditing the Fed; How Much Debt is Too Much?

The Republican party needs more adult voices like this.

FCC Chairman Julias Genachowski at Brookings

Broadband and Mobile Communications

Oh no . . .

I don't think I'll ever view that Sunday school lesson the same . . .



Update: It was pointed out to me that it doesn't look like he threw the frog in the water . . . I'm not sure what he was trying to do.

How Congress Works

BREAKING NEWS: BAT LOOSE IN CONGRESS

New Flash: Fox is not a legitimate news source

Not a huge fan of CNN either, but they're at least not blatant hacks.

I knew there was a reason I voted for Obama

To get people like this into government. Take that! wireless providers.

This is awesome!

The Guardian: Google signs deal to print 2m books on Espresso machines

Two million out-of-copyright books that have been scanned by Google could come back into limited printed form after the search giant signed a deal with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Espresso Book Machine - a custom book printer able to produce a bound one-off 300-page paperback, with a full-colour cover, in about five minutes.

Missing Republicans

Kung Fu Monkey: I miss Republicans

Hat Tip: Delong

Poor whites and the race factor

I wondered for a while why there was/is so much hatred of blacks among people of Irish heritage and poor whites in general. Beyond observation of current events, it seems to come up again and again in history (even in my informal, non-exhaustive studies) that you see especially high levels of racism among poor whites and Irish immigrants in particular(who tended to be uneducated, discriminated against, and thus very poor).

I concluded that in a highly hierarchical society such as the Old South, those who are near/at the bottom of the totem pole can be expected to fight hard for any status that they have. When all of a sudden the stratus below you starts organizing effectively for more civil rights and equality (leaving you behind), you can't be expected to be happy about your impending loss of relative status. This is obviously not the entire explanation, but I think it is partially what was/is going on.

Anyway, here's an article I stumbled upon that articulates very well what I concluded (wow that sounds really snotty).

The Root: The Birthers and Jim Crow 2.0

Update: Another article that talks about the issue well as far as I can tell.

racismview.com : Irish-Americans, Racism and the Pursuit of Whiteness

Wow, this looks familiar . . .

This concerns me . . .

BBC: The Rise of Israel's military rabbis

Israel's army is changing. Once proudly secular, its combat units are now filling with those who believe Israel's wars are "God's wars".

Military rabbis are becoming more powerful. Trained in warfare as well as religion, new army regulations mean they are now part of a military elite.

. . .

In previous wars rabbis had to stay far from the front, he says. In Gaza, they were ordered to accompany the fighters.

"Our job was to boost the fighting spirit of the soldiers. The eternal Jewish spirit from Bible times to the coming of the Messiah."

None of this is necessarily surprising or unprecedented, but I still don't like it. A country who thinks it has God on its side regardless of the atrocities it commits cannot be a dependable ally to the United States or any other country. We already have militant Islamic fanatics to deal with. We don't need a more modern (nuclear-armed) and efficient state to engage in the same kind of fanaticism.

In short, this is obviously a terrible development to the extent that peace in the Middle East is desirable. There is no hope as long as either/both sides think God gave them the land of Palestine, and that's just that.

Delong: Tire tariffs stupid

Barack Obama does something really stupid: Tire Tariffs

Why oh why can't we have better Democratic presidents? . . .

Let's see... 250 million cars in America... need 4 tires per car... need new tires every 2.5 years. 400 million tires a year... $1.4 billion dollars a year... 10,000 worker jobs saved... $140,000 dollars per worker-job per year.

Looks like we could (a) let the Chinese sell us tires, (b) tax each tire by $2.50, (c) pay each tire worker who loses his or her job $100K a year, and we come out ahead: American households have more money to spend on other things, China has more jobs to help what is still a very poor country grow, and tire workers have higher incomes and more leisure as well.

But, you say, it would be stupid to impose a $2 a tire tax and use the money to pay each laid-off tire worker $100K a year.

That's the point: when the policy you are adopting is worse for everybody than a policy you agree is stupid, the policy you are adopting is best characterized as really stupid.

This is ridiculous . . .

Apparently the next Beck target is Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge. His ideas have been all but endorsed by the likes of Greg Mankiw, Steven D Leavitt and all kinds of very market-oriented economists and business managers. He himself has even presented and been well-received at the libertarian CATO institute (a very interesting listen by the way). How are we supposed to attract competent and fresh-thinking individuals to low-paying government jobs if they know they're going to be intellectually lynched by politically-motivated demagogues?

Glenn Beck - Fox's Robert Langdon

NY Times on the Speech Controversy

Some Parents Oppose Obama School Speech

It's a good article. First, some mind-bogglingly misinformed comments:

“The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child,” said Brett Curtis, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.

“I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”

Then a good reminder that both parties are political in the cynical sense of the word:

The first President George Bush, a Republican, made a similar nationally broadcast speech from a Washington high school in 1991, urging students to study hard, avoid drugs and to ignore peers “who think it’s not cool to be smart.” Democrats in Congress accused him of using taxpayer money — $27,000 to produce the broadcast — for “paid political advertising.”

And finally, some people who make sense:

Some Houston parents, however, said telling children they should not hear out the president of the United States, even if their parents dislike his policies, sends the wrong message — that one should not listen to someone with whom you disagree.

“It’s difficult for me to understand how listening to the president, the commander in chief, the chief citizen of this country, is damaging to the youth of today,” said Phyllis Griffin Epps, an analyst for the city who has two children in public school.

Orwellian?

Hardly. Having looked at it after being asked about it by various people, I don't see a big problem. The democratically elected leader of the country is going to give a nice speech about staying in school, educational achievement, setting goals, etc. I don't see anything insidious at work here, but I also don't give any credence to the hypothesis that President Obama is another Mao waiting to happen.

Here are some sources that may be interesting (hosted on my Skydrive).

The original lesson plans:

Pre-K to 6-year-olds
7 to 12-year-olds


The new, post-outrage lesson plans:

Pre-K to 6-year-olds
7 to 12-year-olds

Really?

NYTimes: Conservatives See Need For Serious Health Debate

And the lack of this would be who's fault?

Update: A good discussion of this

Yay for Libertarian Paternalism

CNNMoney: Obama to workers: we'll help you save

Most of the following changes will take effect immediately because of rule changes made by the Treasury Department.

Auto enrollment in retirement plans: To make it easier for smaller and medium-sized employers to automatically enroll workers into retirement plans, the administration will clear up some bureaucratic paper-work hurdles for employers to offer that option. Employees could still choose to opt out of the retirement plans.

Saving tax refunds: To make it easier for those owed tax refunds to save, the IRS will allow tax filers in 2010 to recoup their refund by issuing U.S. savings bonds.

Sick days and vacation time become 401(k) money: To make it easier for workers to rack up savings, the White House will make it easier for employers to convert (or allow workers to convert) unused vacation and sick leave pay into 401(k) contributions.

Richard Thaler's hands are obviously all over this.

Krugman on Macroeconomics

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?

A good article that you should read.

Hat Tip: Greg Mankiw