a blog of personal eccentricity
Can’t say I’m surprised, but I am slightly taken aback by how much so in some nations.
More interesting, though, is the enormous increase in the number of people who have confidence in America’s foreign policy. “Even in some countries where the US remains unpopular, significant percentages nonetheless say that they think Obama will do the right thing in international affairs,” says Pew.
David Brooks nails what’s wrong with the party:
We’re only in the early stages of the liberal suicide march, but there already have been three phases. First, there was the stimulus package. You would have thought that a stimulus package would be designed to fight unemployment and stimulate the economy during a recession. But Congressional Democrats used it as a pretext to pay for $787 billion worth of pet programs with borrowed money. Only 11 percent of the money will be spent by the end of the fiscal year — a triumph of ideology over pragmatism. [emphasis mine]
I think this last line bears emphasis. The one thing that sours me about the Democratic Party is not their intentions and motivations. I find it considerably difficult to cast judgement on those that wish to improve the lives of citizens, wielding the powerful authority to do so: Government. At the end of the day, it’s good to have a political party that cares about the well-being of Americans.
However, this ideology (as munificent it may be) must be tempered with the implications of reality. During the past two congressional elections, Democrats netted additional seats in swing states (including my state of Virginia) not because of some grandiose shift in sociopolitical ideology. No. Democrats won because Republicans lost the trust and confidence of Americans. And, if you look at the latest crop of congressional Democrats, you find that they often sit closer to the center of the traditional political spectrum Continue reading ‘How Democrats Can Become the New Republicans’
An interesting article on our health care system. Jacob Weisberg tackles the system from a moral, financial, and sociological perspective. He finds a tenuous disconnect with the latter.
It is on the sociological level, though, that we’re missing the boat most completely by sticking doggedly with a workplace-based system that no longer makes sense. America has always been a mobile society with a labor market that grows more fluid over time. Once, the norm was to work for a single employer for one’s entire career. Today, people change jobs an average of 11 times before they reach 40. Fear of losing health coverage keeps people in jobs they would otherwise leave, creating a drag on economic efficiency.
Why Congress and the Obama administration tussle over the health care reform, it seems that a small cadre of politicians on both sides of the political line may have stumbled upon something much, much better: Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who has, perhaps, the most effective, sensible, and cost-effecient way of improving American health care. Continue reading ‘Defining American Health Care’
An excellent photo collection of Obama during his first 167 days in office. Is there any doubt we have the hippest leader in the world?
For a written companion, I recommend David Brooks’ piece here.
It’s being talked about.
The basis for the idea is largely tactical — under state law, cities have more taxing power and greater control over roads than counties do — and it led to more than a few snickers about the thrilling nightlife in downtown Fairfax (punch line: there isn’t any).
If Fairfax does become a city, it would instantly become one of the largest in the nation, the size of San Antonio or San Jose.
It would also diverge dramatically from the stereotype of the gritty metropolis. Fairfax enjoys many of the benefits — wealth and jobs — and few of the detriments — crime, troubled schools — of a large urban center. With a median household income of $105,000, it is the wealthiest large county in the nation. Among large school systems, it boasts the highest test scores. And it has the lowest murder rate among the nation’s 30 largest cities and counties.
I’m rather indifferent on the matter of city status. There will be those, likely young professionals, who wish to retain a city feel without losing the benefits of suburban elements. Yet, for those who want to remove themselves from any and all things urban, it seems that over the many coming years, we may witness a gradual migration away from northern Virginia.
My hope is that an efficient high-speed rail system could connect the D.C. area with areas such as Richmond, Norfolk, et al. to allow workers the benefits of D.C. area employment, with the convenience to travel home one hundred miles every evening.
Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra recently tweeted: “Iranian Twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in House.”
The gross exaggeration prompted this website. A few examples after the jump.
Even the Guardian Council can’t avoid owning up to the election mess. Despite acknowledging irregularities, they affirm the June 19 results as valid. An air of incredulity stirs:
“The plausibility of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s claimed victory is called into question by figures that show that in several provinces he would have had to attract the votes of all new voters, all the votes of his former centrist opponent, and up to 44 percent of those who voted for reformist candidates in 2005,” said Thomas Rintoul, one of the study’s authors.
“In the province where Karroubi did best in 2005, his home province of Lorestan, Ahmadinejad got some 71 percent of the vote,” wrote Nate Silver in an analysis that was posted on fivethirtyeight.com, a politics and polling Web site. He added, “If Ahmadinejad won the election, he did it by winning over these rural Karroubi voters. And if he stole it, those were the votes he stole or intimidated.”
In addition to these concerns there are, oh, just a few more:
How did the government manage to count enough of the 40 million paper ballots to be able to announce results within two hours of the polls closing? How is it that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s margin of victory remained constant throughout the ballot count? Why did the government order polls closed at 10 p.m. when they often stay open until midnight for presidential races? Why were some ballot boxes sealed before candidates’ inspectors could validate they were empty? Why were votes counted centrally, by the Interior Ministry, instead of locally, as in the past? Why did some polling places lock their doors at 6 p.m. after running out of ballots?
Via Daily Dish, which has superb coverage and commentary on the protests in Iran.
Needless to say, the protests going on in Iran are remarkable. I get the sense that the US media outlets are under-reporting staggering developments in the country.
With minimal digital communiques and reportage coming from Iran, information is more difficult to come by.
This blog appears invaluable.
A news quiz offered by the Pew Research Center. Sadly, I only scored 9/12
There is a lot of speculation as to the precise nature of the roughly 2,000 photos of detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan; ones that the President does not want the public to see.
If they are anything (or worse) than the photos below, then it is nothing short of horribly opprobrious conduct by American military personnel.
From the Telegraph:
At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
I’ve posted select photos (originally shown on the site at-Largely) after the jump.
WARNING: GRAPHIC Continue reading ‘Obama Keeping Photos of Rape from Public? (warning, graphic)’
Obama decides. She’ll be the first Hispanic appointment to the Supreme Court, should she be confirmed.
Describing the sacrifices made by Sotomayor’s parents, who came from Puerto Rico to New York to raise their family and focused all their efforts on their children’s education, Obama said the family exemplified the American dream. “What Sonia will bring to the court, then, is not only the knowledge and experience acquired over a course of a brilliant legal career, but the wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life’s journey,” he said.
Slate has a check list that seems formidable to Republican objection:
Woman: Check. (She’ll be the third in history if she makes it.)
Hispanic: Check. (She’s the first Hispanic nominee.)
Bipartisan: Check. (She was first nominated by President George H.W. Bush.)
Experienced: Check. (She’s been confirmed by the Senate twice and has more federal judicial experience than those sitting on the court did when they were nominated.)
Liberal: Check.
Smart: Check. (She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton and has a law degree from Yale.)
Legal range: Check. (She has been a prosecutor, trial judge, and private lawyer.)
Biography: Check and check. (Obama praised her “extraordinary journey.” Sotomayor grew up in a housing project and lost her father at age 9.)
My latest contribution, further discussing a Pew Research Poll that found many of Christianity’s most pious were also the most supportive of torture. I take a look at how Christianity and suffering have been intertwined since the former’s beginnings.
A taste:
The most prevalent symbol of suffering is the cross itself, on which Jesus painfully respirated his final breaths. The scourging that occurred before his murder and the extracted death that crucifixion entails (a ghastly crushing of the lungs by one’s own weight) provides a saddening irony over the matter. It seems hard to fathom Christians finding a minutiae of justification for such primitive and egregious violations of international law and human dignity. Christ’s divinity was emboldened by his staunch antipathy toward marginalization and barbarity. And this is the ultimate point of Christianity: to mimic the man many view as the human incarnation of the divine.
And it seems Colonel Stanley McChrystal fit in quite well with the Bush administration’s pliant definition of it. McChrystal oversaw the Iraq U.S. military camp Nama, a prescient acronym for Nasty Ass Military Area. A former interrogator, the nominally cloaked “Jeff,” at the camp remembers one method of extracting information from prisoners:
The harshest frequent technique used at Nama was the use of cold water, Jeff says. Cold can be a serious torment to a naked man on a winter night; in Afghanistan, one prisoner died from hypothermia. Sometimes, to maximize the humiliation of the Iraqi men, American women would be brought in to watch them undress. Sleep deprivation was also used to an extreme extent, especially in Jeff’s early days at Nama. They could keep a prisoner on his feet for twenty hours, and although the rules required them to allow each prisoner four hours of sleep every twenty-four hours, nowhere did it say those four hours had to be consecutive — so sometimes they’d wake the prisoners up every half hour.
“Was the colonel ever actually there to observe this?“
“Oh, yeah. He worked there. He had his desk there. They were working in a big room where the analysts, the report writers, the sergeant major, the colonel, some technical guys — they’re all in that room.”
A classy touch. I hope he’ll see his commitment through.
In January, Sandy Tsao, an army officer based out of St. Louis, MO, told her superiors that she is gay — a violation of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law. Tsao then wrote to President Obama, urging him to change the DADT policy: “I do hope, Mr. President, that you will help us to win the war against prejudice.” On May 5, Tsao received a handwritten letter from Obama with a pledge to repeal DADT at some point:
