| Aug 30 | It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better |
| Aug 30 | What is Plan B for Mark Warner? |
| Aug 29 | This Isn't Happening |
| Aug 25 | Friday Shuffle! |
| Aug 25 | The Bankruptcy of Conservative "States' Rights" (Part 1 in an unending series) |
| Aug 23 | Wake Me Up When |
| Aug 22 | The Slightly Fuzzy Math of the Washington Monthly |
| Aug 18 | Friday Chinchilla, Shuffle, & N'awlyns Blogging |
| Aug 18 | Nixon Goes to China (21st Century Mediterranean Edition) |
| Aug 17 | Civic Participation Roundup |
| Aug 16 | Glug glug |
| Aug 15 | Department of Useless Information |
| Aug 14 | Where Democracy Goes to Die |
| Aug 13 | It's a Small World After All |
| Aug 12 | Friday Chinchilla Blogging & Shuffle! |
| Aug 11 | Firings and Hirings |
| Aug 10 | Only Human |
| Aug 8 | Blogging: Still Harder Than It Looks |
| Aug 6 | Elsewhere ... |
| Aug 5 | Friday Chinchilla Blogging & Shuffle! |
| Aug 3 | The Grocery Store Conundrum |
| Aug 2 | Believe |
| Aug 2 | Paul Hackett Day |
Ways to help:
In general, more person-hours are not really needed, despite the magnitude of the travesty. "Throwing money at the problem" is a reasonable thing to do in the short term. In the long term, write your congressperson and tell them to take FEMA oversight or funding for Army Corps of Engineers projects seriously, and talk to your local Red Cross organization about becoming a disaster/emergency volunteer.
This is disgusting. [ed. note: Steve Gillard is African-American. He's using the N-word to make a point.]
Virginia Governor and part-time Superhero Mark Warner is about to announce he won't run for Senate. I think Warner's one of the three or four best potential nominees out there (Wes Clark, Evan Bayh, and Bill Richardson being the others), but I still find this decision curious. True, running for Senate takes eighteen months, which means during the last six months in office he would be running around like a headless chicken trying to raise money. But of course, he's already taking the initial steps to run for President, so he's a busy guy anyway. Hence, Richard Cranwell's statment that "he really wants to finish out his term strong. He doesn't want anything to distract from that" doesn't pass the smell test.
What I really don't understand is Warner's complete lack of a backup plan. Perhaps he thinks that even if he doesn't win the nomination, his moderate record and swing state governorship will demand his presence as the Vice President. But if he doesn't get that job, what does he do? Angle for a cabinet post? Go back to counting his money? Wait until John Warner retires, then take his seat? I'm stumped.
I went away for the weekend and the entire world exploded into conversations on Intelligent Design (I couldn't even avoid it on vacation!), as though the merits of ID were a topic on which there could be reasoned debate.
This is, to put it bluntly, insane.
Mark Schmitt is your go to reading on the subject:
Shortly after the Gingrich takeover of Congress, a colleague of mine said, "You should never underestimate the degree to which they don't give a shit. It's their strength." A decade of observation later, I think that aphorism is about 80% true. "They" -- the particular faction of the Republican party that currently holds power -- give a shit about a few things: Taxes. They don't like taxes. Lawsuits. Social Security. Regulation. The minimum wage. As a college classmate of mine's father once said, after a few martinis, "There hasn't been a good day in this country since Franklin Roosevelt became president." Those are their core beliefs. And I do believe that some portion of the right feels very strongly about abortion. The rest of it , though -- "compassionate conservatism," anti-gay-marriage, anti-small government, Medicare prescription drug benefits -- are all just rhetorical means to an end.
Intelligent Design fits into "the rest of it". It's a technique created for the purposes of (a) winning school board elections, and (b) increasing Republican party Identification/decreasing Democratic party identification by making the GOP into God's Official Party while turning Democrats into a bunch of atheists/witches/secular jews who hate Christianity/whatever, and nothing more. It's financial backers include deep pockets of right-wing infrastructure. It exploits conventions of "objective journalism" to produce articles with headlines frighteningly close to "Opinions on the Shape of the Earth Differ". It should be relegated to the dustbin of ideas somewhere near Holocaust denial, "smoking doesn't lead to cancer", and "tax cuts pay for themselves". Can we please stop taking these jokers seriously?
Of course, you play politics with the public you have, not the public you wish you had. And the "teach evolution only" position is wildly unpopular. So it's time for scientists to improve their PR and media relations skills, while in the meantime advocating elective courses in comparative religion, were you can devote a whole semester to the origins of life if you so desire. Or create a senior English/philosophy class and talk about the idea there. If it's good enough for Harvard, it's good enough for me.
Required Reading:
Off to Victoria, BC edition. Chinchilla blogging will return along with a few pictures from said trip.
Fuel Economy Plan Bypasses California to Help Out Detroit
The secretary [of Transportation, Norm Mineta] said a sweeping fuel economy proposal unveiled Tuesday by the Bush administration would lower gas bills for sport utility vehicles like the Navigator and other trucks. It would save $800 million to $1.3 billion over nearly two decades when the higher upfront costs for more efficient vehicles are included.
But the plan conflicts with air quality rules passed by California. The administration supports legal efforts by automakers to turn back the rules, which sharply curb tailpipe emissions of global-warming gases.
Who said this, and when?
Well, I definitely think the [American anti-war] demonstrations are prolonging the war in that they're giving the enemy, who I believe must face defeat on relative comparison of the power of the two nations, they are giving him encouragement to continue, to hold out in the hope that division here in America will bring about a peace without defeat for that enemy.
Many of the demonstrations now taking place in this country could not legally take place if there was a legal declaration of war, so we, I think, are faced with a choice here. But again, and I'm sure the Senator agrees with me, America will jealously guard this right of dissent, because I think the greatness of our country has been based on our thinking that everyone has a right even to be wrong.
George W. Bush? Dick Cheney? Donald Rumsfeld? Some Heritage Foundation backbenching pundit?
For a while, I reminded my friends that the closest analogue to the current folly in Iraq was not Vietnam, but the Spanish-American War. While I was right at the time, we are rapidly approaching the point where I will be wrong. If, of course, we're not already there.
Since the Haditha bombings on August 3rd, I have lost what little hope I had that US troop presence would help stabilize Iraq and could eventually aid the reconstruction process. I'm now completely lacking for ideas as to what the United States should do next. Adding more troops is impossible without drastic alterations in our existing defense posture, and would probably not be productive; complete withdrawl would likely result in de facto rule by various militias; the constitution currently fails to satisfy the more religiously moderate Sunnis and move backwards on the issue of women's rights, and no one seems interested in making progress on reconstructing the country's economy. Where to go from here is a choice I have to leave to someone else.
Thankfully, the world is full of people with more expertise in this subject than I have. For starters, try Juan Cole of Informed Comment.
Via Urs and other suspects, the new US News College Rankings are out, prompting another round of disparaging remarks about the impact of such rankings on trivial things such as learning. The center-left Washington Monthly has countered with its own set of rankings.
Not surprisingly, the major winners in the Washington Monthly rankings are top tier state schools, several of which clawed their way into the top thirty at the expense of tier-1B private schools. Meanwhile, SUNY-Ithaca is well ahead of both New Haven State University and UMass-Cambridge, while the article goes to great lengths to disparage Nowhere New Jersey University on several fronts. Brown is unmentioned.
A couple of points, in no particular order:
In other college news, the average tuition at four year colleges is up quite a bit, which may have something to do with the increase in public school quality over the past decade. UGA is now a respectable school, Michigan and UT-Austin are on par with almost any private school in the country, and several other state schools like UCSD and Wisconsin have been rapidly climbing the ladder. The only mystery to me is why Illlinois and Penn State have failed to keep up.
I'm off to the murder capital of America this weekend, so Electoral Math will be out of commission. I may make an appearance or two over at Ezra's.
As a parting gift, here's Troy perched underneath my coffee table
It's safe to say no one predicted Likud party leader Ariel Sharon would be the one to force a unilateral withdrawl from the Gaza Strip. Nonetheless, here we are, watching as Israeli Defense Forces forcibly evacuate the last few protestors. The Gaza pullout probably won't end the violence, but it does signify a multipartisan commitment to the peace process, which is a momentous change considering just two years ago Sharon ordered the ... um ... "neutralization" of several prominent Hamas members. One the other side of the fense, the pullout won't meet all Palestinian demands. But at least it starts the process of establishing space for a new Palestinian homeland existing alongside Israel.
Is this the biggest piece of non-war international news since the English-Ireland peace accords in 1997? Discuss.
"We simply cash the checks, count the votes, and move on" -- Maryland State Senator Clay Davis, The Wire Season 1
Andrew Rasiej, who's running for New York City Public Advocate, wants to know why neither party has done a very good job using the internets. As far as I can tell, the main answer is that it's not clear how email, the web, would dramatically improve Congress' ability to do their job. Email and internet communication (outside of advertisements) now sit in a large netherworld, where there are too many communicators for a Congressional staff to deal with each letter personally, and too few votes at stake for elected officials to take the internet seriously as mass media (there were roughly 300,000 unique visitors to johnkerry.com on the last day before the election) . Like talk radio, the internet has allowed a large number of people to feel like insiders, and that's a good thing as far as increasing party loyalty, but the audience size is still small enough that it's not quite on the radar of your average Congressperson.
The GOP correctly identified both that conservative talk radio would grow in size and that its audience was a set of self-selected opinion leaders who would then disseminate information through person-to-person networks -- you don't know how many times my mother has complained about her great aunt beginning sentences with "I heard on Rush that ...". It's clear that center-left internet news sites could be nourished into a counterbalance to conservative talk radio, but it's not clear that anyone is interested in both doing it and making sure that the network doesn't just become a half million choir-preachers.
Today's post is brought to you by the number 6371, the number of earmarks in this year's transportation bill, a six-fold increase since the last transportation bill Clinton signed, and a forty-fold increase over the 152 earmarks that made Reagan uneasy about signing the 1987 version of the bill.
Let us be honest, "The era of big government [being] over" is over.
It's another night of Drinking Liberally tonight. Head over to Montlake Ale House for spirit and spirits.
Today's post is brought to you by the number 45, Bush's job approval as recorded by Rasmussen Reports.
Did you know that it's illegal in Washington to improperly dispose of refrigeration equipment? Or that an "unauthorized junk motor vehicle" may be impounded, even if it's on cinder blocks that are on private property?
To learn all about this and more, such as which towns care enough about nighttime noise from rowdy teenagers to pass noise ordinances, take a look at the archived Municipal Codes of washington cities and towns, courtesy of the Municipal Service & Research Center. Which also has a handy list of ways various cities saved money, or at the very least, ways they appeared on paper to be saving money..
Yesterday's Friday Chinchilla Blogging landed in front of the eyes of a center-left twentysomething living in North Atlanta. Unless she's a transplant, there's a decent chance I know her, even if she goes to trivia night at the "wrong" Mellow Mushroom (the "right" one is the one at Briarcliff and Lavista near Emory Villiage, which, if I remember, was also too crowded even in 1998, when I was one of the annoying kids she complains about). Also, two weeks ago one of my neighbors from grade school found me talking about Bobby Kennedy. Eerie, huh? Reading about the ATL again made me a touch homesick (fear not, Urs, I'm not leaving Seattle any time soon).
Along with Neil the Ethical Werewolf, Shakespeare's Sister, Daniel Munz, and hopefully a few other folks, I'm now perma-guest blogging for Ezra Klein on weekends. Having a whole crew will eliminate the push to come up with something useful to say every four hours. Tune in this week for discussions of Governor Schwarzenegger and gamer girls. Check out my new compadres at The Ethical Werewolf, Shakespeare's Sister, and Daniel Munz; I hear others may join shortly.
Update: Also the Daily Pepper.
In light of going semi-semi-pro, and the trend towards full length names rather than nicknames, I'm switching to my full middle name and changing the pronunciation of my last name from boo-DROW to BUH-drow (long 'o's in both pronunciations). I've been trying to push this change in my real life, too, but haven't had too much luck. Alas.
65 degrees and overcast for the next ten months edition:
I had 'em both lined up for a great shot, then Troy decided to run away:
Update: Hipster Bingo and The Gossip got in the way, but Friday Night Name That Movie over at Shakespeare's Sister is good clean fun. Ditto John Howard's.
Some polling and focus grouping from Democracy Corps gives some insight in to who exactly has been souring on the GOP. The primary gains have been among rural voters, non-evangelical Christians, and post-graduate degree holders. However, focus grouping shows that rural and small town America may have fired the Republicans, but are not yet interested in hiring Democrats. These data fit well with the results from the Hackett-Schmidt election, which shows both low turnout in the extremely rural counties and a hefty swing towards the Democratic party.
Frustratingly, after explaining to us how much importance rural voters attach to cultural signifiers, Democracy Corps then goes on to list a series of policy issues . With the exception of veterans' benefits, which is clearly strikes the psyche on an emotional level, and perhaps adding some ethics reform to eliminate the "Culture of Corruption" I am skeptical that further demagoguery of the pharmaceutical industry or proposing childhood obesity testing at public schools or dotting the Midwest with windmills will overcome opposition to abortion or support for school prayer and display of the Ten Commandments.
At the very least, this means it's time to find some gun-totin', church-goin Democrats. Brian Schweitzer and Paul Hackett demonstrate you can still succeed while being pro-choice and pro-gay rights and still win. But in less libertarian parts of the country -- Nebraska, South Dakota, much of the South -- it may mean the path to victory requires a pro-life candidate here and there, or at least spending time talking about how to reduce the abortion rate.
One of the most striking things about RFK: In His Own Words is how often Kennedy misspeaks. His speeches may look like sermons when written down, but when he actually opens his mouth, he's just as liable to stumble, stutter, or rephrase a sentence as you or I. Well, maybe not that often, but certainly more often than your average Presidential candidate today has a slip of the tongue. And his voice isn't terribly poetic, or at least, it didn't sound poetic to my ears, which may just be a function of the generational gap. Instead, it's Ted Kennedy's euology that sounds much more eloquent:
My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.
As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:
"Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not."
Regardless, it's still a fantastic collection of speeches, and if anything it serves to further humanize one of the most compassionate voices in American politics.
Weekend content:
Michael Lind (of Made In Texas fame) contributes some provocative thoughts on immigration, acquiring US citizenship, and affirmative action. His alternatives to current guest worker proposals seem to rely on having fewer immigrants, though I'm not sure what he wants to provide in terms of citizenship.
Left Center Left provides some more thoughts on prices and food quality at neighborhood grocery stores in working class parts of town.
There was some followup on the topic of why Being Poor Is ExpensiveTM, but I've lost it in the ether.
I'm guest blogging for Ezra Klein again this weekend. Enjoy!
I guess this week the gods of Shuffle want me to lose all my indie cred. I swear, I have some. Anyway:
Troy wasn't a big fan of the camera today, but a raisin or two can fix that
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Trolling through the some infrequent reads, I had one of those magical realism moments where the entire world seems to be pulling you towards the same subject. After getting an email exhorting me to volunteer for a local organic farmer that delivers fresh produce to poor neighborhoods, I ran across Ian Ayres guest blogging for Jack Balkin on retail discrimination and brand identification, then saw Phoebe Maltz, while touching on other subjects, compare the price of produce at upscale hippie organic grocers and in poor neighborhoods. All of this talk of the intersection between working class and the consumer economy leads to this Brooking Institute study (hat tip: former Senator John Edwards) that shows just how expensive for those who live in working class neighborhoods to purchase gasoline, food, banking services, and a number of other basic goods and services. The question is why? Why don't market forces put as much downward pressure on the price of food in lower-income neighborhoods as they do in middle income and upper-middle-income neighborhoods?
The Brookings Institute concludes that several factors are involved; the lack of political capital spent attracting business development to working-class neighborhoods, the lack of business intelligence on the potential market for a full-size grocer in a working class neighborhood, and in the case of financial services, weak laws on predatory and discriminatory lending. Brookings recommends a number of urban policy prescriptions; all of them interesting ideas, but I'm still curious about the root causes. Are there any armchair economists out there with a hypothesis or two as to why the market doesn't work the way it "should" here? Do the working poor get ripped off because their work weeks are so long that convenience foods often seem like a better alternative than cooking a meal? Do the poor have systematically worse access to information on the market price of basic goods in the rest of the city? How much does effective public transportation (or lack thereof) make a difference? Is this simply a case where grocers believe they can make more money by increasing their market share among middle- and upper-middle class shoppers? Does this reduce the amount of competition in low-income neighborhoods?
I know all of these questions make for an unsatisfying post, but this question has gone largely unanswered, even as policymakers search for an answer. My personal hunch is that, as usual, several factors are in play. First and foremost is the scarcity of time and transportation in low-income neighborhoods. The next most important factor is probably the relative lack of competition in various markets (food, gasoline) in these areas. Also playing key roles are a lack of political attention and limited access to basic financial education. But I'd be happy to have my hunches proven wrong.
Anyone out there with some empirical evidence one way or another?
Recommended Reading:
Update: In this TPMCafe thread, a common theme which I neglected is the difference in crime rate, and therefore, in insurance costs. Otherwise the conventional wisdom seems to be correct, allthough there appears to be some business intelligence that shows that even in "car culture" areas, low-income consumers exhibit less price sensitivity than middle class consumers. I think this means that regulation may not be the answer, but instead that improved education on basic finances might be a good idea.
Paul Hackett just took a district that went 64-36 for Bush and pulled to within 51.6-48.4. Granted, he had a huge number of factors working in his favor: Bush's job approval in the district isn't terribly high; the GOP machine that dominates state government is historically unpopular; his opponent was something of an empty shirt; and he got a wave of money that no one was expecting; and low turnout tends to favor the opposition party in special elections; because they're a bit more juiced to go for the win. But Hackett had to do a lot of things right, he portrayed himself as a "get government out of my bedroom and my gun case" libertarian, a left-leaning PAC funneled money to a front group that criticized Schmidt from the right, he went negative in a way that didn't make him the victim of being the negative campaigner, by focusing on the facts of Schmidt's association with the Ohio Republican machine, and emperically he ran a great ground game.
Contrary to a lot of folks out there, I think the Cook political report was pretty close to spot on. Half of Hackett's improvement is probably attributable a combination of Hackett the candidate and the special election, and the other half is attributable to statewide or nationwide disatisfaction with Republican governance. Districts where Republicans normally win with over 60% of the vote will take a very strong candidate to become competitive -- someone with a great biography, a party switcher, someone with serious bank, or an extremely well known city or county father. But districts that went 56-44 now may be neck-and neck, and districts that went 58-42 are on the margins of being competitive. That's huge, and at least doubles the number of potential competitive districts in 2006.
Make no mistake about it, though, this shows that Democrats can win anywhere. Consider throwing some loose change to the DNC or D-Trip.
Believe.
Content elsewhere: More shilling for my message ideas on immigration reform.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 06:15 20 September 2005
