This is the future of politics, and I don’t know if I like it. It’s a site called “Eightmaps”, and is a mashup of Google Maps and the Yes on Prop 8 donor list. It shows, by residence or place of business, where donors live, their name, and how much they donated. On the one … Read more
Lamenting the downfall of traditional reading and how people raised on the internet (yes, thank you, that’d be us) are more or less illiterate. There’s a whiff of self-righteousness under a thick smog of condescending superiority, topped off with the occasional note of fear for an ill-defined apocalypse. Seriously, people, there are Luddites in every … Read more
So apparently Israel approached the United States asking if we’d be willing to help them bomb Iran. Being somewhat reasonably alarmed by the concept of Iran having the Bomb, they were looking to destroy Iran’s capability to enrich uranium. It seems incredible that Israel might do that and the Iranians would just grin and bear … Read more
As I studied for my ConLaw final, this question popped into my head: How can people claim to be able to wring objective meaning or “original intent” out of vague phrases like “the freedom of speech,” “equal protection of the laws,” and “due process of law,” when constitutional experts can’t even agree whether or not … Read more
I was reading my New York Times this morning when I saw what had to be the most ludicrous article in recent memory. It was a plea for Obama to uphold the rule of law and the dignity of the Constitutional process. I assumed this to be a fairly standard hypocrisy put out by a … Read more
I’m not going to venture a solid opinion on the conflict, since offering any kind of opinion on that seems just like a losing proposition. Rather, I offer a purely analytical post. As a sidenote, you should all read this post by Megan McCardle more articulately explaining why. But as a purely practical matter, the … Read more
At the Nuremburg Trials, we (meaning primarily the US) set the precedent that the initiation of aggressive war was a crime punishable by death. I’d really appreciate a coherent explanation as to why the Iraq War is substantively different, given that we now know that there was no immediate threat to our security. Have to … Read more
The scandal surrounding Bernie Madoff’s bilking of all those nice people is, in the grand scheme of things, not that consequential. But I think it’s unsurprising that it’s sucking up a lot more press attention (for the moment) than the ongoing slow-motion collapse of our economy. After all, the Madoff story has a villain, victims, … Read more
I couldn’t help but notice a pretty odd parallel (or, properly, inversion) between the abortive auto bailout killed by Senate Republicans and the TARP bank bailout of October. The first one, killed by House Republicans. Gosh, the Republicans do not like bailouts. Sidebar: While yes, large government bailouts do go against the Republicans’ stated ideals … Read more
Area of the country most likely to suffer from an auto industry failure: The Great Lakes region, a Democratic stronghold with large investments in manufacturing. Area of the country most likely to benefit from an auto industry failure: The South, a Republican stronghold with large investments in auto assembly plants owned by foreign firms. … Read more