calorie counts?!

Is NYC now requiring restaurant menus to include calorie counts right next to the menu item? Bizarre! And kind of awesome. See Exhibit A here.

I love New York. I miss it. It's wonderful to be back.

Why that was my only post on health care

Because I can't stand it, this flagrant, consequenceless lying. It drives me up the goddamn wall. I can't watch the news; I can't read more than an article or two before reaching my limit and triggering my gag reflex. The fact that people who lie, lie, lie aren't immediately called out, publicly and unequivocally, means there's no disincentive to just lie, lie, lying. I feel guilty for not paying more attention, but it just disgusts me, and I have to back away slowly or risk harming myself or others.

REQUIRED reading

Liberals and conservatives alike, take 30 minutes and digest this. Not the way I would've written it, but the substance is well worth your time.

Makes me mad

Seriously, reading stories like this drives me batshit crazy.

Holy health insurance, Batman!

Miracle of miracles: we have a health care reform bill.

The House bill's text here (all 1000+ pages of it).

Section-by-section summary here (shorter but not entirely helpful).

Slate's Timothy Noah approves, as does CAP's Matt Yglesias.

I haven't read it so I'll reserve my comments for later. Starting this Friday I'll have a good two months off, so it's not like I don't have time to read the damn thing.

As for what it actually looks like in the end...

Shawty, same doubt!

Late, as usual. Thanks to Navs for the many minutes of hilarity this has given me tonight.

Animation makes everything better

Fuck you, Rush.

Rush Limbaugh is a hack. He's the worst of the Republican Party. His hypocrisy is stunning. He's a sing-and-dance entertainer masquerading as some sort of political leader. And for reasons beyond my understanding, instead of running screaming in the other direction, the right has brought him into its warm embrace.

Rush Limbaugh is a douche. There, I said it. I wish more people on the right would say it, too. But I'm not going to apologize.

UPDATE: Ross Douthat has a more eloquent, balanced, and thorough critique. I know it's long, but it's a good read, and worth clicking through for the rest.

Just imagine, for a moment, how conservatives would react if four months after the worst defeat liberalism had suffered in a generation, an Olbermann (or a Moyers or a Michael Moore or a Bill Maher or whomever) showed up to deliver the keynote address at a liberal equivalent of CPAC, and during the course of his speech he blasted every Democrat who disagrees with him as a miserable sell-out, suggested that conservatives are fascists and conservatism a psychosis, lectured the crowd on the irrelevance of policy ideas to liberalism's political prospects, and insisted that the only blueprint liberals need to win elections is the one that Lyndon Johnson used to rout Barry Goldwater. And then further imagine that both before and after this speech, a series of left-of-center politicians ventured criticisms of Olbermann, only to beat a hasty and apologetic retreat as soon as he turned his fire on them. Conservatives would be chortling - and rightly so! Not because liberalism needs to purge or marginalize its Keith Olbermanns, or because impassioned liberal entertainers don't have a place in left-of-center discourse - but because when your political persuasion faces a leadership vacuum, you don't want to have it filled by someone who appeals to an impassioned but narrow range of voters, and whose central incentive is to maximize his own ratings.

Policy Prescriptions by Flight of the Conchords

Any thoughts on the president’s new stimulus package? What do you recommend for the U.S. economy?
Jemaine: Budgeting. Bret: Yeah, the government should do a budget.

I believe we already have a budget.
Jemaine: It doesn’t seem like it. Bret: They need to put aside a certain amount each week for rent and then some money for food and then some money for partying, having a good time. Jemaine: Put aside some for invasions!

You never know what you'll find in the congressional record

On April 17, 1975, Senator Jacob Javits (R-NY) introduced S. 1450, "a bill respecting the decriminalization of personal, private use of marihuana." Supporters of the notion included William F. Buckley and Ann Landers. 121 Cong. Rec. 10,575-84 (1975).

Honestly, who throws a shoe?!

From The Huffington Post: At President Bush's press conference in Iraq with Iraqi President Maliki, an Iraqi journalist--who had previously been kidnapped by Shiite militiamen--stood up and threw his shoe at President Bush, then bent down, fetched his other shoe, and threw that one too.

President Bush's response:

"So what if the guy threw his shoe at me?" Bush told a reporter in response to a question about the incident."Let me talk about the guy throwing his shoe. It's one way to gain attention. It's like going to a political rally and having people yell at you. It's like driving down the street and having people not gesturing with all five fingers. It's a way for people to draw attention. I don't know what the guy's cause is. But one thing is for certain. He caused you to ask me a question about it. I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it."

See the link above for video and photos. Notice the President's quick reflexes. Quite impressive!

UPDATE: A Saudi man has offered $10,000,000 for the shoe.

UPDATE 2: I'll be just as surprised as you if I'm the first person to make this joke.

Basic principles

I've been reading Ross Douthat recently, adding in some new (to me) conservative thoughts to my daily dish. Today two things caught my attention.

1. Talking about the need for the Right to engage in debates it has historically avoided, Ross says:

This problem is not, repeat not, a matter of conservatives needing to abandon their core convictions in order to win elections, as right-of-center reformers are often accused of doing. Rather, it's a matter of conservatives needing to apply their core convictions to questions like "how do we mitigate the worst effects of climate change?" and "how do we modernize our infrastructure?" and "how do we encourage excellence and competition within our public school bureaucracy?" instead of just letting liberals completely monopolize these debates, while the Right talks about porkbusting and not much else.

I'm all for conservatives "applying their core convictions" to climate change and education. But I'd prefer not to limit climate change discussion to "the worst effects," and I'd like a discussion of the merits of competition in public schools specifically rather than just a blanket assumption that it would be a positive thing.

2. On Christina Romer, Barack Obama's choice to head his Council on Economic Advisers, Ross says:

[She's the appointee] who should give Americans the most hope that Obama won't be significantly hiking their taxes any time soon.

Would it be so hard to acknowledge which subset of Americans--the wealthiest--are the ones facing potential tax hikes under Obama?


Ross is a smart, eloquent, and reasonable dude. But he starts from a set of basic assumptions about the world, and I think they are really pretty different from mine. It's those assumptions that keep us from agreeing, so it's those that I want to talk about. Hey, you conservatives out there, let's talk first principles! I'm all ears.

Joe Lieberman keeps his job

Senate Democrats voted yesterday to allow Sen. Joe Lieberman, who switched to a third party when he lost a fair fight in the Democratic primary in 2006, and who endorsed John McCain for President, to stay on as Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Lieberman is a wolf in sheep's clothing. This is a bribe. We'll regret it.

Sunday reading: Karl Rove

Check out this interview in the NYTimes Magazine. It's pretty amazing to witness such unselfconscious jackassery.

Libertarians

Prof. Volokh has some thoughts about a possible renewed Conservative-Libertarian coalition.

I can understand that, having to make a choice between free markets and free societies (think Wall Street deregulation versus ending the drug war), Libertarians would vote with their pocketbooks instead of with their consciences. But given that both parties are big spenders, have we seen any indication of Libertarians leaning Democratic? How big-government do Republicans have to get before Libertarians put the monetary issues aside and for a moment focus on social liberties? (Besides guns?)


Yes yes I know this post may not be my most eloquent, but it's late and I've been severely underslept all week, so gimme a break.

But Mo-om! He's a SOCIALIST! I don't WANNA play with him!

[My friend Adam's blog gets way more comments than mine. I responded to this one:

What about socialisim is your favorit thing? Because when the MESSIAH is elected welcome to socialisim in a big way! Tell me is OBAMA really your candidate of choice! Convince me why I should vote for him! (typos hers)

. . . with this.]

Socialism is a doctrine that calls for public (rather than private) ownership or control of property and natural resources. So, for instance, a factory that produces cars would be owned by--and distribute its profits and losses to--the people who contribute to the functioning of the factory. Barack Obama doesn't support things like this, because he is not a socialist. He is a capitalist. All capitalists (except some libertarians) support taxation.

Both Obama and McCain support taxing people. They just have different philosophies on how to go about it. Obama thinks your income should be taxed more as you make more, and that the middle class and the poor should get some tax relief (AKA, pay less). One argument for this is that the poor and middle class tend to spend a larger percentage of their income and save less, so cutting their taxes increases the amount of money flowing back into the economy through their purchases. Some people also think this is fair.

Under McCain's plan (I found this on his website), he would cut some taxes--the capital gains tax rate, the corporate tax rate, and taxes for the top income bracket--that tend to favor people who make more money than average. One argument for this is that heavily taxing top income brackets may dissuade people from making more money, since they keep less of it and can pass less down to their children; and also, that taxing investment gains discourages people from buying stock. Some people also think it's just unfair to tax people more as they make more.

To be clear, both Obama and McCain support some taxation, which is, in essence, redistribution of wealth: we pay taxes, and in return we get some percentage of the social services the government provides to everyone as a whole. They go about it in different ways, but the philosophy is the same: we pay taxes as members of a society, and we get something in return. Obama and McCain do differ in what they think we should get back, and in what they see as the proper role of government in providing social services. But neither candidate supports seizing the GM factories and giving ownership of it to the workers. That would never, ever fly in this country.

I support Obama, and I am not a socialist. I believe in free markets, but that markets fail and government regulation can help prevent that. I believe everyone should have access to primary health care and a good education through 12th grade. I think it's silly to provide subsidies for business if you're not also going to provide subsidies to individuals. I hope that this country's economy remains competitive internationally, but I think that will come from innovating--something we're historically good at--and not from propping up industries that can't compete. I also believe in property rights, in keeping the government out of my bedroom, and in making lots of money.

I won't try to convince you to vote one way or the other. My tax discussion above was as unbiased as I can manage. I don't know why people say Obama is a socialist; I do know that makes the real Socialist Party in this country very unhappy. They don't like to be misrepresented. And they have someone running for President too. His name is Brian Moore, NOT Barack Obama.

Message creep?

Here's a video of some eloquent McCain supporters:



Check out at 24 seconds where the argument against Obama is, "His middle name is a terrorist's name!" Followed by, "He takes money from terrorists!"

See how conveniently the link to Bill Ayers--a 60 year old white dude--has meshed with the H in BHO to make Obama sound like an Al Qaeda operative!

I know many McCain supporters have valid, rational, and even clever reasons for supporting him over Barack Obama. I respect that. The shouters in this video do not qualify. "Vote McCain, Not Hussein"? Do us all a favor and stay home on the 4th.

(HT: Matt Yglesias.)

I voted!

Today I did my civic duty for the first time. (In my defense, I was thoroughly disenfranchised in 2004 when Miami-Dade County conveniently forgot to mail me my absentee ballot despite 3 mailed requests and several irate telephone calls.) My voice has been heard--or will be, once I put this in the mail.

Hooray!

I also got to vote on Florida's constitutional amendments, including the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment:

This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.

It seems like the amendment bans not only "gay marriage" but also civil unions that grant 100% equivalent rights. Can that be right?? Good grief, Florida--why?! Now you're just being mean.

UPDATE: My momma says this gender-neutral ban actually will affect a surprising constituency: elderly people in relationships that started late in life, who don't want to jump through hoops to get legally married. Domestic partnerships between straight couples suffer too.

Should be studying for midterm

And I will, in a minute. For now, though, I want to respond to something William Saletan said in Slate today:

Sarah Palin spent her first days as John McCain's running mate being pounded over her daughter Bristol's out-of-wedlock pregnancy. In this predicament, critics saw Puritan hypocrisy, maternal neglect, and the predictable consequences of abstinence-only education. There are many good grounds for criticizing Palin. This isn't one of them.

I disagree. Not because I think it makes Gov. Palin a bad mother; my silly doings as a teenager certainly shouldn't determine the quality of my own mom's parenting. (She was great, btw, and still is.) But Gov. Palin has said that she supports overturning Roe v. Wade and giving the decision back to the states, and that she personally opposes abortion even in cases of rape. It's not farfetched to assume that, were Roe overturned and the decision turned over to Alaska's voters, she would vote to ban all abortions except where the mother's life is at stake.

And yet! And yet, when the Palins announced that their daughter Bristol was pregnant and keeping her baby, they referred to Bristol's decision. She made a choice. It would be one thing to come out and say, "We as a family believe that the only choice--a mandate, in fact--is to let this baby live. It is a human being and we refuse to kill it. Abortion is not an option for us, and it should not be an option for any healthy woman who becomes pregnant, unless her own life is at risk." But she didn't say that. She talked about her daughter's choice as exactly what it was, and what it should be. That is hypocricy, and it's worth criticizing.

BHO

I'm sorry, but when did having the middle name "Hussein" become not only a disqualifier for public office but also a badge of terrorism? My name means "shadow of the world" in Farsi. Well shit, then I must be the devil.