Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2569

One-Upping Orszag

Clive Crook is sounding like a right-wing version of Paul Krugman:

extend all the Bush [tax:] changes for two more years, and
combine it with generous payroll-tax relief.

I just worry about the debt. But Clive knows a lot more about this than I do.

Paul Krugman - United States - Business - President - Government

Post-Factual History

James Bridle explains his project. He writes that history is not "a set of facts, but ... a process, and one in which,
whether we agree or not with the writers, our own opinions and biases
are always to be challenged":

This particular book—or rather, set of books—is every edit made to a single Wikipedia article, The Iraq
during the five years between the article's inception in December
and November 2009, a total of 12,000 changes and almost 7,000 pages.

It amounts to twelve...

Great American Novelists

Craig Ferman digs through Time's archives:

Time put 14 authors on its cover in the 1920s, 23 in the 1930s, seven in the 1940s, 11 in the 1950s, 10 in the 1960s, eight in the 1970s, four in the 1980s, four in the 1990s, one in the 2000s, and, now, Franzen in 2010.

Alan Jacobs muses on the author's latest here. It got a rave in the Economist.

Time - 1970s - 1950s - 1960s - 1990s

Needless Checks And Balances?

Thoreau compares the US to other mature democracies. I have to say that fiscally, the US system seems spectacularly flawed. In Britain right now, even a coalition government has to actually balance the books and cannot pass the task off by blaming the opposition. The Lib-Tories will be held directly responsible for the pain this causes, and they will have a reasonable amount of time, with a solid majority, to prove (or not) that their fiscal strategy is working. Not so Obama. And if we get...

Why Emergency Rooms Are Packed

Ezra Klein points to an obvious reason – they are always open:

One of the big problems here is time: Primary care doctors don't have much of it, and what they have is generally between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. Patients also don't have much time, but what little time they do have is between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m., Monday to Friday, and then the weekends. Emergency rooms have long waits, but at least you can schedule when you're waiting for a time when you're not supposed to be working.

It...

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish, Andrew came back. He asked the big questions about humility and humiliation in religion and politics and extended a hand to Ross to embrace the equality of their respective marriages.

Obama stepped up his game; we remembered the 1990s; and we read the tea leaves of today's political polls. We looked at which party might get to claim the business tax cuts and whether Obama's transportation proposal was any good. Marty Peretz weighed in on the Mosque; Chait volleyed with...

Where Are The Torturers Now?

Re-employed by the CIA as contractors. Not only was there no accountability. There is actual reward. Under Obama.
















United States - Business - Construction and Maintenance - Barack Obama - Government

"Gateway Drugs"

Mike Meno sighs:

Last week, researchers at the University of New Hampshire released yet another
discrediting the gateway theory. Their findings, based on survey
from more than 1,200 students in Florida public schools, showed that a
person's likelihood to use harder drugs has more to do with social
environmental factors than whether or not they've ever tried marijuana.

"There seems to be this idea that we can prevent later drug problemsby making sure kids never smoke pot,"...

When Cops Go To College

Melinda Burns sums up a new study:

Weighing in on a long-simmering dispute, a recent study for the Police Quarterly shows that officers with some college education are less likely to resort to force than those who never attend college.

The study found no difference with respect to officer education when it came to arrests or searches of suspects. But it found that in encounters with crime suspects, officers with some college education or a four-year degree resorted to using force 56 percent of...

In Defense Of Shark-Jumping, Ctd

A reader writes:

I think it's pretty clear that "jumping the shark" was written into Happy Days and turned into a cultural meme solely for use in this scene from Arrested Development (Season 2, Episode 3).

More contemporary shark-jumping here, here, and here.

Happy Days - Jump The Shark - Television - Arts - Sitcom