This is the first I've heard of this.
Straight Talk Express Off Rails...Again
This time re: cigarettes and taxes. Matthew Yglesias, take it away:
So first McCain wants us to believe that he's so fanatically opposed to making public services more generous, that this is why he's opposed to raising cigarette taxes. Smoking is bad, says McCain, and it's important to promote public health by reducing its incidence. But it's even more important that we starve the government of funds for things like police and courts and infrastructure and health care and education and parks and the military than that we reduce the rate of smoking. Then, perhaps realizing that this is crazy, he turns around and asserts without evidence that higher cigarette taxes increase the rate of smoking.
Read the full post for context.
Good thing the media isn't paying him any attention.
Why I Hate Weddings
No offense to all you lovely married people or those who hope to walk down the aisle someday soon, but our Bridezilla-pandering culture needs to be cut off. This NYT fashion piece about Botox for bridesmaids makes me want to place these brides-to-be on a time-out until they can tell me who their wedding is really for - their loved ones or all the girls they hated in high school.
True Love
Thanks to Adam Istas for emailing this (he should have put it on the blog).
Given the fact that we live in such a whacked-out world, it's nice to watch something so full of love.
No Nukes Are Good Nukes
Apparently the Nuclear Regulatory Commission takes issue with the world's new found favor for nuclear energy. I, for one, am glad that someone is bursting this hysterical bubble. I had to rope and gag myself to deal with that article in PM Network!
Gay Penguins? Gay Penguins! Nooooo!
Link.
For the second year running “And Tango Makes Three”, a children's book, has topped the American Library Association’s list of “Ten Most Challenged Books”. The tale of two male penguins adopting an orphaned egg provoked more written complaints to libraries and schools in 2007 than any other book.
Man, I suck. Take 2
Last night, rather reluctantly, I took my new, super sleek, Trek 7.2 into the shop. It needs a tune-up and I thought I’d jazz it up with a water bottle cage, some toe clips and maybe a new light.
This morning, I rode my old, 1970s vintage Schwinn to the train. The ride was only 3 miles but I bitched and moaned the entire time. It’s slow. I barely fit on it. And it’s hardly anything to look at.
When I got to work, I even emailed my friends to complain about “my janky old bike.”
Then I read this article. And now I feel like a major ass.
Both Ways Barack
MTV aired its first ever political ad last night. Surprisingly, it was an attack ad against Obama. Less surprisingly, the ad looks like its aimed at 15 year olds. Least surprisingly, the ad comes off as mildly condescending. The ad is clearly a 40-year-old's idea about what a 20-year-old would find intriguing. Sigh.
Farm Subsidies
Freakonomics has a good Q&A up about the benefits (none) of farm subsidies.
I want to use this opportunity to vent quickly on American sugar cartel. Did you know that Americans pay roughly three times the price for sugar as the rest of the world? Seriously. We pay that much because the government restricts sugar imports. Right now the sugar lobby (it does exist) is trying to persuade Congress to buy sugar imports from Mexico just so that American consumers can't buy them. This is disgusting not only because restriction on trade is almost always a terrible idea, but also because it has a terrible effect on Americans: death.
Since sugar costs so much soft drink manufacturers (to take but one example) opt to substitute sweeteners for sugar because it's more cost effective. Their choice: high fructose corn syrup. This makes farmers and the corn lobby happy, but makes the rest of us miserable. Not only does high fructose corn syrup taste worse than sugar, but it's much more unhealthy. Fructose reduces two enzymes critical to heart health. The fructose in fruits isn't likely to cause this problem, but high levels of fructose -- like high fructose corn syrup -- is.
So thanks, Government, for policies that are both unhelpful and harmful to the average American.
McCain Makes Own Journey
From the Borowitz Report:
In a daring bid to wrench attention from his Democratic rival in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) today embarked on an historic first-ever visit to the Internet.Unasked question: Until now, where has McCain gotten his porn?
Given that the Arizona Republican had never logged onto the Internet before, advisors acknowledged that his first visit to the World Wide Web was fraught with risk.
But with his Democratic rival Barack Obama making headlines with his tour of the Middle East and Europe, the McCain campaign felt that they needed to "come up with something equally bold for John to do," according to one advisor.
Alberto Gonzales Might Need a Lawyer
Interactive diagram of potential crimes committed by members of the GWB White House.
Hertzberg Eviscerates RI Governor
Hendrik Hertzberg, writer for the New Yorker and champion of the National Popular Vote movement, takes Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri's argument against a national popular and essentially shoves it back up Carcieri's ass. It's a strong argument and a history lesson all in one.
Electing the President by popular vote wouldn’t be the first great democratizing change to have bubbled up from the state level. That’s how we got two others, the popular election of senators and woman suffrage. Oregon found a way to have its senators picked by its people in 1907; by 1913, when the 17th Amendment was finally added to the Constitution, popular election was already a reality in twenty-nine states. Wyoming enfranchised its female citizens as early as 1869; by 1912 eight other states had followed suit. The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, by which time the women of Wyoming had been voting in local, state, and federal elections for half a century. The National Popular Vote plan is in this venerable tradition.
Leave It Alone, John
Senator McCain's opening remarks from last night's speech in Columbus, Ohio:
"You have billed this event as a Presidential Town Hall, and I sincerely hope that the next president is here today. My opponent, of course, is traveling in Europe, and tomorrow his tour takes him to France. In a scene Lance would recognize, a throng of adoring fans awaits Senator Obama in Paris -- and that's just the American press."Keep whining about the press genuflecting to Obama. We'll keep watching the station of Murrow edit out your blunders while no one seems to notice, probably because they're all covering Obama.
At this point shouldn't McCain be grateful that the press is paying him no mind?
Favorite Projections Site
Fivethirtyeight is an outstanding place to get your polling information and analysis. The author was anonymous for a long time but recently stepped out from behind the curtain -- Nate Silver, the advanced baseball statistics guru. Worth a read each day.
Really?
I just heard a kid walking by my window. He was probably about 10.
This is what he said:
'Wow! That's a Dodge Viper! That gets 40 mpg on the highway!'
I don't get kids these days.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Veggie Sperm
This has nothing to do with politics, but being a vegetarian, I found it pretty interesting. And Tegan, I'm sure you'll agree.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25833435/
McCain hates birth control... but he can't remember why
I really hate it when politicians want to limit women's rights just for kicks. At least real misogynists like Pat Buchanan have street cred.
Check out Katha Pollitt as she reams McCain a new one.
PEW on NYer Obama cover
Link.
Among those who actually saw the Obama cover – roughly half of the public (51%) – the verdict was decidedly mixed. While 50% say it was okay for the New Yorker to publish the cover, 45% say it was not okay.
Attitudes about the cover differ sharply by party. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans who saw the cover say it was okay for the magazine to publish it, 65% of Democrats disagree. Independents are much closer to Republicans in their views on this issue: 59% say what the New Yorker did was okay 36% say it was not.