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21
May 09

How can I miss you when you won’t go away?

Both Obama and Cheney have spoken.   Obama’s transcript is at ThinkProgress; The NYTimes Caucus blog provides a summary and links to the full-text at AEI [PDF].

Via the Great Orange Satan:

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Obama’s National Security Speech: “Chill, I Got This S*#T!”

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Cheney’s Personal Insecurity Speech: “OMGZ!  Teh Feer!  Iz Scerd!
As always thanks to Wordle

Cheney ‘rebuttal speech’ was framed by the press as portraying him as an equal to the President, with the press loving the conflict, even if its imagined. The Elected-President with a 60% popularity rating is going to be challenged by the Former Vice-President (of the losing party no less) with the 30% approval rating.   The story should be looking at Cheney’s audacity.

Despite Cheney’s desire to not look backwards, his speech does anything but the contrary, hoping to salvage Cheney’s reputation, Bush’s legacy, and the Grand Old Party’s brand.     Most importantly, whatever you do, don’t talk about Torture Club.

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29
Apr 09

Daily Links for April 29th

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14
Apr 09

Daily Links for April 13th through April 14th

  • Where are the Best Cities for Job Growth? | Newgeography.com – The study is based on job growth in 333 regions–called Metropolitan Statistical Areas by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which provided the data–across the U.S. Our analysis looked not only at job growth in the last year but also at how employment figures have changed since 1996. This is because we are wary of overemphasizing recent data and strive to give a more complete picture of the potential a region has for job-seekers.
  • The Case Against Homework. | MetaFilter – Does assigning fifty math problems accomplish any more than assigning five? Is memorizing word lists the best way to increase vocabulary—especially when it takes away from reading time? And what is the real purpose behind those devilish dioramas? Sara Bennett wants to stop homework. Here she explains why (pdf).
  • The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos [Full List] – Urlesque – Internet Trends, Viral Videos, Memes and Web Culture – Join Urlesque as we count down our picks for the top 100 viral videos that made the Internet such a wonderful place. These are the clips that make us laugh the most, inspired future videos, or even changed the web as we know it. See the full list below and click on the video titles to get a deeper look into each selection. Or, start from the beginning and peruse the entire list. Just wanna know what #1 is? You can do that, too.
  • The Bush Six to Be Indicted – The Daily Beast – The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.”
  • About That 4% Increase In Military Spending… | Capital Gains and Games – So how did this increase suddenly get labeled as a cut by some congressional Republicans and a number of folks in the media? The answer is "cleverly," "brazenly," and "embarassingly."
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13
Mar 09

Daily Links for March 12th through March 13th

  • Small Car, Big Shadow — The American, A Magazine of Ideas – Throughout the 1950s Romney inveighed against “dinosaur” size cars. He popularized the phrase “gas guzzler” (at a time when gasoline was about a quarter a gallon!) and he brilliantly finessed the American public’s perceived negative impression of small cars by calling his Ramblers “compacts.” By 1959 the public was at last paying attention. The Nash name (and Hudson’s too) had by then been relegated to the scrap heap of automotive history. But the original 1950 Rambler had become a pop culture icon thanks to a song called “Beep, Beep.” Sung by a now forgotten group called the Playmates, it had made the charts in late 1958 with its whimsical tale of a Cadillac driver who spots a “little Nash Rambler” in his rearview mirror.
  • Balkinization: The Stewart-Cramer interview and the predicament of journalism – We should congratulate Jon Stewart for outstanding television, and for an absorbing interview that raised really important issues. In this sense, he is doing great journalism. But we should not assume that regular journalists could simply imitate his mannerisms and his aggressive questioning tactics and turn journalism around. Their subjects will not behave like Jim Cramer, a journalist, did. Professional journalists must abandon the bad habits of contemporary journalism, and the sycophancy, corruption, and complicity that come with them; but to do that, they also have to find some way to free themselves from much larger social and economic forces that lead to co-optation.
  • Frank Schaeffer: Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (From a Former Republican) – The worsening economic situation is your fault and your fault alone. The Republicans created this mess through 8 years of backing the worst president in our history and now, because you put partisan ideology ahead of the good of our country, you have blown your last chance to redeem yourselves. You deserve the banishment to the political wilderness that awaits all traitors.
  • CMS-Watch-subway-map-2009-large.jpg (image) –
  • American adults flunk basic science – Over the past few months, the American government has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars for economic bailout plans. While this spending may provide a short-term solution to the country's economic woes, most analysts agree that the long-term solution must include a transition to a more knowledge-based economy, including a focus on science, which is now widely recognized as a major driver of innovation and industry. Despite its importance to economic growth, environmental protection, and global health and energy issues, scientific literacy is currently low among American adults.
  • Pew Research Center: Socialism, American-Style – We love the free market, but fear corporations and global competition, and depend on Uncle Sam to keep us safe
  • FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Americans Losing Their Faith in Faith … And Everything Else – The longstanding project called the General Social Survey, which has polled Americans about their feelings on a variety of political and social issues for more than 35 years, just recently came out with their preliminary 2008 data (which, I should warn you, is a little bit cumbersome to access). One of my favorite sets of questions on the GSS is one that asks Americans about their degree of confidence in various social institutions; here is what those numbers looked like in 2008 as compared with eight years earlier before George W. Bush won the Presidency, as well as in 1976 when this question was first posed:
  • Pew Research Center: Stop the Presses? Many Americans Wouldn’t Care a Lot if Local Papers Folded – As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.
  • Interactive Map Showing Immigration Data Since 1880 – Interactive Graphic – NYTimes.com –
  • The Economic Meltdown Comes To Prime Time – It's clear that the not-so-great depression of our times has come to the vast wasteland that persists just beyond the LCD screens in America's living rooms. The New York Times runs through some recent and upcoming episodes of popular shows that have dealt with the [economic] crisis.
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18
Feb 09

Daily Links for February 17th through February 18th

  • Why the Republican Party Must Die – Generational Theft and End of Republicans – Esquire – So now all taxes are socialism and any kind of deficit spending is generational theft? This is just crazy talk. But we're used to crazy talk from fringy Republicans. Either they're trying to convince us that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs or they're insisting that 99 percent of the world's scientists are wrong about global warming — and that they have a Professor of Dentistry at Oral Roberts University who can prove it. That you can pay down the deficit by cutting taxes. That the God of Love who embraced lepers and prostitutes is really the God of Gay-Bashing. It's almost hilarious the things these guys come up with. And now they want us to take their economic ideas seriously.
  • The green-eyed monster that lives in your brain: Scientists discover the jealousy lobe | Mail Online – Now the area of the brain which controls jealousy has been found, scientists have ­announced. It is the same part which detects real physical pain – perhaps explaining why feeling envious of your lover's philandering ways hurts so much. The spot which makes people delight in others' misfortune – called schadenfreude – was also located by the team. 'It's interesting the part of the brain which detects physical pain is also associated with mental pain,' said Hidehiko Takahashi, who led the research.
  • FRAMESHOP: Is American Car Patriotism Dead? – I am optimistic, if not a bit nostalgic. If GM would start tomorrow to build that path from 'buy American' to 'buy green'–the next 5 years could be the most exciting time the American consumer has ever known. The innovations that could hit the market as a result of a completely reinvented GM would be virtually limitless. The Detroit Auto Show could become the biggest world stage for green technology ever known. Michigan could become the center of a new green manufacturing movement. The result would be a radical shift in how we experience and how we think about American cars and how we think about being American.
  • Tuesday Map: Osama bin Laden’s current location | FP Passport – Geography Professor Thomas Gillespie of UCLA has employed a technique typically used for tracking endangered species in order to pinpoint the most likely location of the world's most wanted terrorist. In a paper (pdf) published in the MIT International Review Gillespie describes how he used biogeographic data including bin Laden's last known location, cultural background, security needs, declining health, limited mobility and height to create a mathematical model that he claims will show where the terror mastermind is hiding.
  • Public School Intelligentsia » Blog Archive » From The Desk of Schadenfreude Esq.: What’s Good for Facebook is Good for America – Again, really much ado about nothing.
  • Progress on NASA’s Constellation – The Big Picture – Boston.com – Looks like the future is going to look a lot like the past.
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