Newbridge, Ireland, 7.38 am
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The View From Your Window
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan16 May 2012 | 1:21 pm -
Picture of the Day: Barack Obama Brandishes a Baguette
Politics : The Atlantic16 May 2012 | 12:03 pmThe president visits a D.C. deli and brings a bite to eat to a meeting with Congressional leaders. Twitter via HuffPostPol Wednesday morning, the president visited Taylor Gourmet, a D.C. sandwich shop where he conducted a small-business roundtable. (Presumably, his political advisers figured it would be bad economic optics for him to visit the rival Washington deli Breadline.) While there, he also picked up a bite to eat -- and, evidently, brandished it at reporters. Obama's next stop was a meeting with Congressional leaders; he quipped, "I'm going to offer them some hoagies." If sharing… -
Federal Spending, Taxes, and Deficits Are Lower Today Than When Obama Took Office
Business : The Atlantic16 May 2012 | 12:17 pmMichael Linden presents this clever, smart graph that shows spending, taxes, and the deficit all lower today, as a share of GDP, than in Obama's first year:This is an inconvenient truth. It is inconvenient for Mitt Romney that spending, taxes, and the deficit are all lower today than when President Obama took office. It is inconvenient for liberals (not to mention, really inconvenient for the unemployed) that we've been overly aggressive in paring down our deficits even with high unemployment and huge cuts to state and local government. It is inconvenient to tax reformers seeking to raise… -
The Brain-Computer Interface That Let a Quadraplegic Woman Move a Cup
Health : The Atlantic16 May 2012 | 1:18 pmTwo severely paralyzed people operated robotic arms and prosthetics using thoughts captured by implants in their brains, a new study disclosed. Inside the brain of a test subject known as S3, a symphony of neurons fired in her motor cortex one day in April last year. Paralyzed by stroke 15 years earlier, this 58 year-old woman with a bright smile and wearing a flashy red shirt imagined that her arm was working again and that it was moving in space. She ordered it to pick up a cup filled with a morning dose of Joe. Near her wheelchair a blue and gray robotic arm swung into action. Swiveling… -
Marilynne Robinson's Small, Rich Body of Work
Master Feed : The Atlantic16 May 2012 | 12:47 pmThe Pulitzer Prize-winning author has written only seven books over the course of her career, but her slow care is part of what makes her great. Since her first novel,1980's Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson has written just six books: two novels—Gilead (2004) and Home (2008)—and fourworks of non-fiction, Mother Country (1989), The Death of Adam(1998 ), Absence of Mind (2010), and this year's When I Was A Child I Read Books. Can a novelist who produces only three works of fiction in 32 years be considered great? Can an essayist whose primary concerns—the compatibility of Christian dogma…
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The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
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The View From Your Window
16 May 2012 | 1:21 pmNewbridge, Ireland, 7.38 am -
Quote For The Day II
16 May 2012 | 1:05 pm"When evangelicals turn their anti-gay sentiments into a political campaign, all it does is confirm to my gay friends that they will never be welcome in the church. It makes them bitter, and it makes me mad too. This is why I never refer to myself as an evangelical. Ugh. I’m embarrassed to be part of that group,” - an evangelical college senior, in a blog post by Rachel Held Evans. Money quote from the post written the day after Amendment One passed in North Carolina: As I watched my Facebook and Twitter feeds last night, the reaction among my friends fell into an imperfect but… -
Pressuring The President
16 May 2012 | 12:40 pmConor Friedersdorf claims that I'm not doing it very much: In the aftermath of a huge step like embracing gay equality, gushing is understandable. But the prior months of comments about how lucky we are to have him, the invocations of "12 dimensional chess," constantly comparing him to the Road Runner, the celebrations of his strategic acumen as if it's as laudable as doing what's right, and enthusing about how cool he is? It's increasingly hard to take at the end of a first term littered with broken promises. And it obscures the fact that Obama ought to be pressured… -
The End Of A Third-Party Pipe Dream
16 May 2012 | 12:30 pmAvlon is sad that Americans Elect has failed to find a candidate. Chait is unsurprised: I do think there is a general desire out there for a third-party candidate. It’s just that the desire isn’t ideological. Lots of Americans think the parties both stink and have little understanding of what the parties actually believe. The idea that there’s a third-party movement rooted in any set of policy goals is silly, and the notion that the there’s a third-party movement rooted in Tom Friedman’s particular policy goals is completely insane. Larison nods: Americans Elect failed because it… -
What Is Romney Worth?
16 May 2012 | 12:19 pmA comprehensive analysis: Supplemented by a dozen interviews – from local real estate experts to private equity partners – we get a detailed look at the current state of Mitt’s money, pinpointing his net worth at $230 million, split between 9 different asset classes. Highlights include the sale of nearly all of his individual equities – he sold 71 stocks since his last disclosure – and a big move into cash. He now holds $16 million, up from $1 million in August. Still, he's no George Washington.
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Politics : The Atlantic
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Picture of the Day: Barack Obama Brandishes a Baguette
16 May 2012 | 12:03 pmThe president visits a D.C. deli and brings a bite to eat to a meeting with Congressional leaders. Twitter via HuffPostPol Wednesday morning, the president visited Taylor Gourmet, a D.C. sandwich shop where he conducted a small-business roundtable. (Presumably, his political advisers figured it would be bad economic optics for him to visit the rival Washington deli Breadline.) While there, he also picked up a bite to eat -- and, evidently, brandished it at reporters. Obama's next stop was a meeting with Congressional leaders; he quipped, "I'm going to offer them some hoagies." If sharing… -
How Republicans Get Declared RINOs
16 May 2012 | 11:31 amAre these 12 freshman members of Congress from the "Tea Party" class of 2010 the biggest traitors to conservative causes?ReutersStephen Moore, the Club for Growth's founder, once said of his organization, "We want to be seen as the tax-cut enforcer in the party." Since it commenced operations in 1999, it has helped to bring about and defend George W. Bush's tax cuts, spent many millions ousting moderates in GOP primaries, and totally failed to bring about the balanced budgets demanded by fiscal conservatism. Like Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, its disproportionate focus on taxes… -
Video of the Day: Chris Christie and Cory Booker Team Up for Viral Video
16 May 2012 | 10:04 amIs the Garden State big enough for two outsize political personalities? Two of America's most charismatic and easily caricatured politicians have teamed up to poke fun at themselves: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker. The Seinfeld-themed video makes sport of the frequent speculation that Christie is a potential Republican vice-presidential nominee as well as Booker's extramayoral heroics, from rushing into burning buildings to shoveling residents' sidewalks. They made it for the New Jersey Press Association Legislative Correspondents Club Show. We won't ruin the… -
What Will Americans Elect Do Now That It Can't Find a Candidate?
15 May 2012 | 5:29 pmThe project to recruit a centrist third-party standard bearer appears to have fizzled. But it's unclear what happens in states where it's already on the ballot. Americans Elect via YouTube As David Karpf wrote here 10 days ago, the Americans Elect third-party experiment of 2012 looks like it has hit a dead end. No declared candidate is anywhere close to hitting the group's requirement of earning 10,000 supporters across at least 10 states, with at least 1,000 from each state. Former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer is the closest at just 5,840. He has less than 600 from California. As Jonathan… -
What's Behind George W. Bush's Odd Romney Endorsement?
15 May 2012 | 5:15 pmThe former president blurted out his support for his party's nominee -- only to be greeted with silence in return. Reuters Updated 6:48 p.m. George W. Bush's endorsement of Mitt Romney on Tuesday appears to have been unplanned. The former president had just given a speech on human rights in Washington, and afterward, Matt Negrin, a reporter for ABC News, followed him to the elevator and asked who he's supporting in the election in November. "I'm for Mitt Romney," Bush said, as the elevator doors inched closed. Well, sure he is. What else was he supposed to say? But it was beyond strange to…
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Business : The Atlantic
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Federal Spending, Taxes, and Deficits Are Lower Today Than When Obama Took Office
16 May 2012 | 12:17 pmMichael Linden presents this clever, smart graph that shows spending, taxes, and the deficit all lower today, as a share of GDP, than in Obama's first year:This is an inconvenient truth. It is inconvenient for Mitt Romney that spending, taxes, and the deficit are all lower today than when President Obama took office. It is inconvenient for liberals (not to mention, really inconvenient for the unemployed) that we've been overly aggressive in paring down our deficits even with high unemployment and huge cuts to state and local government. It is inconvenient to tax reformers seeking to raise… -
Could a Carbon Tax Save Europe?
16 May 2012 | 11:01 amA new report argues that reforming how Europe treats energy could, by 2020, cut some countries deficits in half Reuters Turmoil over budget cuts roils Greek streets. France elects an anti-austerity president. Even Germany's Austerity Queen Angela Merkel faces electoral backlash. It appears Europeans are getting sick of tightening their belts. But when you can't cut any more, there's little else to do but hustle up more cash. For governments allergic to raising income taxes, a European Climate Foundation analysis released yesterday shows there's a less painful way to slash deficits -- one that… -
Mitt Romney, One Night Stands, and the Economics of Relationships
16 May 2012 | 10:33 amGuest Post by Gabriel Rossman-- Professor Rossman is a sociologist at UCLA. His work applies economic sociology to media industries. He blogs at Code and Culture and is the author of Climbing the ChartsIn the course of a discussion about Mormons, a friend pointed me to a religious testimony offered by Clayton Christensen (who is best known for his work on disruptive innovation). In his testimony, Christensen describes his belief in the Book of Mormon through a religious epiphany reminiscent of St. Augustine's "tolle lege" experience. However this is in the second half of the essay, the… -
The Crazy Way Europe Measures Inflation Might Doom the Euro
15 May 2012 | 4:09 pmThere's a long list of things that could kill the euro zone. But the most deadly might also be the most overlooked. It's the crazy way that Europe measures inflation.Let's step back for a minute. Most central banks nowadays aim for price stability defined as 2 percent core inflation. The "core" means that they strip out volatile food and energy prices because 1) those prices mostly don't figure into long-term contracts, and 2) they're set in world markets. But Europe goes further. They strip out housing too. Spain and Germany can't agree on how to calculate housing costs. Neither can the… -
Why Older Americans Have the Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis
15 May 2012 | 3:45 pmWe have, on this site, focused like a laser beam on the job crisis for the young. But today, a compelling report from the GAO reminds us that among those who have lost a job, older Americans might just have it worse. Actually, they absolutely have it worse. Americans over the age of 55 are the least likely to find another job and the most likely to take a significant pay cut for the next position.Who they are: Since 2010, more than half of all unemployed older workers -- or 1.1 million people over the age of 55 -- have been out of a job for more than six months. Forty-two percent have been…
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Health : The Atlantic
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The Brain-Computer Interface That Let a Quadraplegic Woman Move a Cup
16 May 2012 | 1:18 pmTwo severely paralyzed people operated robotic arms and prosthetics using thoughts captured by implants in their brains, a new study disclosed. Inside the brain of a test subject known as S3, a symphony of neurons fired in her motor cortex one day in April last year. Paralyzed by stroke 15 years earlier, this 58 year-old woman with a bright smile and wearing a flashy red shirt imagined that her arm was working again and that it was moving in space. She ordered it to pick up a cup filled with a morning dose of Joe. Near her wheelchair a blue and gray robotic arm swung into action. Swiveling… -
Patient S3: The Woman Who Controlled a Robotic Arm With Her Brain
16 May 2012 | 12:06 pm15 years after she lost the ability to move her body, Cathy Hutchinson is learning how to use her brain to control a robotic arm. A robotic hand manufactured by the German space agency (DLR).Today scientists announced in the journal Nature the results of a landmark experiment in which paralyzed subjects were able to control a robotic arm using only their thoughts. The research, after decades of exploration, holds out promise for the future of restoring damaged bodies using robotic prostheses. Led by researchers at Brown University, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Massachusetts General… -
The 'Cupcake Wars': Massachusetts vs. Bake Sales
16 May 2012 | 9:54 amEven small changes to school regulations can cause a massive uproar. lamantin/Flickr While Weight of the Nation is airing on HBO this week (I'll comment on it after it's fully aired), here's what happens when public health officials try to do something to make it easier for kids to eat more healthfully. The Massachusetts public health department came up with a proposal to ban bake sales in public schools 30 minutes before, during and after classes. The reaction? An uproar. The ban, according to critics, would Make it harder to raise money for class trips and athletic equipment Undermine the… -
A Short History of Motherhood Offers Simple Advice: Trust Your Instincts
16 May 2012 | 9:37 amA review of the advice that mothers have been given over the decades concludes that no one's exactly sure what they should do. efleming/Flickr New mothers would be saving themselves a lot of grief if they paid less attention to books and more attention to their own instincts when raising their baby. This is one of the points that emerge in historian Angela Davis' new book, Modern Motherhood: Women and Family in England, 1945-2000. Dr. Davis, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Warwick, interviewed 160 British women of all ages and… -
Study of the Day: Smaller Families May Lead to Smarter Children
16 May 2012 | 9:14 amA new longitudinal study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin shows that family size, not birth order, matters for intelligence. Susan Law Cain/Shutterstock PROBLEM: Ever since Francis Galton noticed the preponderance of firstborns in the English scientific community (PDF), experts have weighed in on whether birth order affects intelligence. Theorists have argued that "laterborns" live in less cognitively stimulating environments filled with more kids and are left with fewer resources for the pursuit of knowledge. Since intelligence is fairly heritable, can this seeming birth-order…
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Master Feed : The Atlantic
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Marilynne Robinson's Small, Rich Body of Work
16 May 2012 | 12:47 pmThe Pulitzer Prize-winning author has written only seven books over the course of her career, but her slow care is part of what makes her great. Since her first novel,1980's Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson has written just six books: two novels—Gilead (2004) and Home (2008)—and fourworks of non-fiction, Mother Country (1989), The Death of Adam(1998 ), Absence of Mind (2010), and this year's When I Was A Child I Read Books. Can a novelist who produces only three works of fiction in 32 years be considered great? Can an essayist whose primary concerns—the compatibility of Christian dogma… -
Marilynne Robinson on Democracy, Reading, and Religion in America
16 May 2012 | 12:47 pmAn interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author about her recent collection of essays, When I Was a Child I Read Books AP Images We tend to speak of democracy as though it were a precious heirloom, something we were lucky enough to be handed by our forefathers. In a new collection of essays, Marilynne Robinson critiques this passive stance, insisting that democracy is an ongoing negotiation that requires creativity, compassion, and vigilance. When I Was a Child I Read Books is the fourth book of nonfiction for the novelist, whose bestselling Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. The… -
Wes Anderson's 'Moonrise Kingdom' Opens Cannes on a Sweet Note
16 May 2012 | 12:18 pmThe ode to young love overcomes the Royal Tenenbaums director's worst tendencies Focus Features MORE FROM FRANCE 24 FRENCH ELECTIONS 2012: How will Hollande play on the international stage? GREECE: Greece could exit Euro Zone MALI: Amnesty reports the worst human rights crisis in years My Cannes 2012 experience got off to a kind start yesterday. When I found myself cash-less and red-faced at a sandwich stand, the petite, blonde-haired woman behind the counter cheerfully chirped, "Pay me tomorrow, it's no problem!" Then, as she handed me my lunch with a smile: "This wouldn't happen in Paris."… -
Federal Spending, Taxes, and Deficits Are Lower Today Than When Obama Took Office
16 May 2012 | 12:17 pmMichael Linden presents this clever, smart graph that shows spending, taxes, and the deficit all lower today, as a share of GDP, than in Obama's first year:This is an inconvenient truth. It is inconvenient for Mitt Romney that spending, taxes, and the deficit are all lower today than when President Obama took office. It is inconvenient for liberals (not to mention, really inconvenient for the unemployed) that we've been overly aggressive in paring down our deficits even with high unemployment and huge cuts to state and local government. It is inconvenient to tax reformers seeking to raise… -
Float Over London's Futuristic Cityscape at Night
16 May 2012 | 12:13 pmIf Mary Poppins were set in the world of Blade Runner, this dizzying montage would be the intro sequence, and Jason Hawkes would be the cinematographer. The aerial photographer has been capturing stunning footage of London'sglittering architecture, including the new Shard, from above during the run up to the 2012 Olympics. For a selection of his high-resolution still images, like the one below, see Alan Taylor's photo gallery on In Focus. Hawkes's books of aerial photography are available here. Images and video courtesy of Jason Hawkes. For more information, visit…
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Megan McArdle : The Atlantic
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Mitt Romney, One Night Stands, and the Economics of Relationships
16 May 2012 | 10:33 amGuest Post by Gabriel Rossman-- Professor Rossman is a sociologist at UCLA. His work applies economic sociology to media industries. He blogs at Code and Culture and is the author of Climbing the ChartsIn the course of a discussion about Mormons, a friend pointed me to a religious testimony offered by Clayton Christensen (who is best known for his work on disruptive innovation). In his testimony, Christensen describes his belief in the Book of Mormon through a religious epiphany reminiscent of St. Augustine's "tolle lege" experience. However this is in the second half of the essay, the… -
The Wacky World of Prices: Rental Cars, Hollywood, and HBO
15 May 2012 | 1:35 pmGuest post by Gabriel Rossman -- Sociologist at UCLA. His work applies economic sociology to media industries. He blogs at Code and Culture and is the author of Climbing the Charts. I study media markets and one of the interesting things about the entertainment industry is there's a lot of complex pricing. This includes both simple bundling (eg, basic cable) and two-part tariffs (eg, HBO). These pricing practices are forms of price discrimination, which is to say they are ways to customize the price point so the seller doesn't leave much money on the table relative to each particular… -
What Is Causality?
15 May 2012 | 9:31 amGuest post by Jim Manzi, founder and Chairman of Applied Predictive Technologies, and the author of Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics and Society.Gabriel, your very deep post that, in passing, requested my comment was fascinating.My family thanks you for the weekend I just spent staring off into space. You open with this: Sampling error? Omitted variable bias? Bah, that's for first-year grad students. What I find really interesting is there are some fairly basic principles for how analysis can get really screwy but which can't be fixed by adding… -
What Really Happened to Income Inequality in the 20th Century?
14 May 2012 | 3:45 pmGuest post by Scott Winship, Brookings Institution. Follow him on Twitter: @swinshi I promised that this was the last post I would write this week dwelling on rising inequality at the top, and I do want to shift to the comparatively under-appreciated lack of rising inequality in the bottom half of incomes. But bear with me, as this turned into two separate posts. To review, in my first post on high-end inequality, I showed how outsized gains at the top are mostly concentrated in the top half of the top one percent and noted that these gains came even as the poor and middle class became… -
The Wacky World of Prices: Rental Cars, Hollywood, and HBO
14 May 2012 | 1:35 pmGuest post by Gabriel Rossman -- Sociologist at UCLA. His work applies economic sociology to media industries. He blogs at Code and Culture and is the author of Climbing the Charts. I study media markets and one of the interesting things about the entertainment industry is there's a lot of complex pricing. This includes both simple bundling (eg, basic cable) and two-part tariffs (eg, HBO). These pricing practices are forms of price discrimination, which is to say they are ways to customize the price point so the seller doesn't leave much money on the table relative to each particular…
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Ta-Nehisi Coates : The Atlantic
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An Expensive Vacation From Hell
16 May 2012 | 11:16 amAlessandra Stanley piece on the vacation she took with her daughter is getting battered in the Times comments, but I loved it. I thought the writing was beautiful, and the voice pitch perfect:On our third day of so-so meals, erratic service and no Jacuzzi or bike repair, I went to a manager and complained, telling him that we felt as if we were at a dress rehearsal for someone else's vacation. He was very polite and apologetic, but there was a look in his eye that spooked me -- like that of a hostage who opens the door and pretends everything is O.K. though there is a gun prodding his back. -
Trayvon Martin Updates
16 May 2012 | 10:20 amThe notion that George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin didn't get into a fight is basically dead:A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a "closed fracture" of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation... The morning after the shooting, on Feb. 27, Zimmerman sought treatment at the offices of a general physician at a family practice near… -
The Lost Battalion
15 May 2012 | 8:44 amIt's yours on the early side... -
Marriage Equality and Humanist Evolution
14 May 2012 | 6:10 pmJigga speaks:Applauding the president for endorsing same-sex marriage last week, the rapper said, "I think it's the right thing to do ... whether it costs him votes or not." "I've always thought it as something that was still, um, holding the country back," Jay-Z explained. "What people do in their own homes is their business and you can choose to love whoever you love. That's their business. It's no different than discriminating against blacks. It's discrimination plain and simple."It's always wild seeing rappers come out against homophobia. I've got more than my share of songs I can't… -
Marriage Equality Will Not Hurt Obama Among Black Voters At All
14 May 2012 | 3:06 pmTo the polling data, Robin:The opinions of whites largely reflect the population as a whole: 49% say Obama's expression of support for gay marriage did not alter their opinion of the president. Among those who say it did, somewhat more say it made their view of him less favorable than more (29% vs. 20%). Most African Americans, on the other hand, say the announcement did not alter their opinion of Obama. About twothirds (68%) say this, while about as many say it made them view Obama more favorably (16%) as less favorably (13%).I think Obama ultimately will lose roughly seven or eight votes…
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James Fallows : The Atlantic
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Iran Drumbeat Watch: Rand Weighs In
16 May 2012 | 7:55 amAfter a 5 am airport checkin, my thoughts naturally turn to: Armageddon, despair, the bleak inevitabilities of life. Though on the brighter side, the TSA operation at San Diego turns out to have an metal-detector-only line, which for once I managed to sidle towards and make my way through without being intercepted for "random" extra screening.*Back to the dark side: the Spring 2012 issue of Rand Review, from the Rand corporation, has published an article on the threats posed by Iran and the ways to deal with them. Please read the whole thing, which elaborates on this opening premise:An… -
Book News: Pushback, Videos, Lists
15 May 2012 | 2:42 pmGiven that today is Official Publication Day for China Airborne, I am erring on the side of adding some updates. As promised, I will move these items off the "main" site and onto a standalone book-news page once we get that up and running:1) An enjoyable session last night in at a Zócalo event in Santa Monica. Amazingly quick (and skillful) after-action wrapup provided a few minutes later by an unnamed Zócalo blogger. Find out who this person is, and recruit him or her.2) Interesting pushback to my excerpt on "What is the Chinese Dream?" from Samuel Crane* at the Useless Tree blog. Worth… -
Filibuster and False-Equivalence Fiesta
15 May 2012 | 1:42 pmNews has piled up fast about the filibuster in the past two weeks, and I am way behind in taking note of it. While I have ten minutes at a computer just now -- and am not in a taxi, in a security line, in a green room, or in some other fashion enjoying the delights of new-city-each-day travel -- here is a quick update on some relevant reading tips:1) Ezra Klein on the lawsuit Common Cause is initiating, on grounds that abuse of the filibuster has risen to the level of unconstitutional offense. (More info from Common Cause here.) Klein's item also has this explaino-graph: 2) Greg Sargent on… -
Book News: Zocalo, Rand Forum, Chinese Movies
14 May 2012 | 1:10 pmOther people's travel problems are not interesting, and thus I will go easy on my latest misadventures* at the hands of United Airlines. I will say, though, that if I see you either at a Zócalo event in Santa Monica this evening, at 7pm, or tomorrow evening at the Revelle Forum at UCSD, also at 7pm -- and I am wearing something other than the blue jeans and blue-checked shirt I am wearing right now, that will mean one of two things. Either United Airlines has figured out how to give us back the bags (with a week's worth of clothes, notes, supplies, pills, presents, etc) that my wife and I so… -
The Chart to Accompany All 'Jobs, Jobs, Jobs' Discussions
13 May 2012 | 6:22 amNumbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, graph from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The spike in "total employment" (including government) in early 2010 is presumably Census hiring. The pattern for the next few months was total employment going up while government employment was going down. And you can see the overall pattern, including what the trend was in 2008, how it changed in 2009, and also the worrisome very recent slide.For discussion, see Media Matters and Greg Sargent. And related from our Derek Thompson.
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Jeffrey Goldberg : The Atlantic
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Stories to Make You Feel Great About America
16 May 2012 | 10:09 amHere are two stories that will leave even the most committed cynic slack-jawed in wonder at America's promise, and also make you wonder if the people who think we should close our borders to immigrants are total idiots. (h/t Andrew Exum on the first story, Scott Stossel on the second).This is from the AP, via Stars and Stripes: NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Orlando Morel was 6 years old when he and his mother left Haiti on a crowded small wooden boat destined for America. Now 24, Morel remembers the blue of the ocean everywhere. And the hunger.When a piece of bread fell into the water, Morel quickly… -
The Other 'Nakba'
15 May 2012 | 3:25 pmToday is the day Palestinians commemorate the "Nakba," the "disaster" that brought about the rebirth of Israel. I'm an advocate of a Palestinian state on 100 percent of the West Bank and Gaza (with land swaps, obviously -- the nefarious Obama plan that the majority of Israelis also endorse) and of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, but what I won't do is label as a "nakba" a war that saw the 600,000 Jews of Palestine prevent their own slaughter at the hands of invading Arab armies.The Middle East suffers today from the crucial mistakes made by Arab leaders in the late 1940s. The United… -
Iranian Official: 'We Have Bypassed the West's Red Lines'
15 May 2012 | 9:20 amHere's the quote of the day (from yesterday), from a story by the New York Times' man in Tehran, Thomas Erdbrinck:"Without violating any international laws or the nonproliferation treaty, we have managed to bypass the red lines the West created for us," said Hamidreza Taraghi, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is close to the negotiating team.There's been a lot of happy talk about the possibilities of real breakthrough at the upcoming P5 + 1 talks in Baghdad next week, in which the members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, try to steer Iran to an… -
Willful Delusion Re: Iran
14 May 2012 | 12:20 pmAnthony Cordesman of the The Center for International and Strategic Studies has published an extremely thorough report about Iran's nuclear program that should quell the doubts of those who believe that Iran's nuclear pursuits are benign or even TBD. The report, based on close readings of past IAEA reports as well as other declassified documents, paints a very sober, Monday-ruining kind of picture about the advanced scope of the Iranian program, the inadequacy of the current P5+1 agenda, and the limited efficacy of a potential strike on the program. This report, taken with last week's news of… -
An Iran-Strike Worst-Case Scenario
11 May 2012 | 7:31 amAhmed Rashid, writing in Haaretz, outlines what he sees as a highly likely response in the Muslim world to an Israeli, or American, strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. It's a worst-case scenario, but nevertheless a plausible one (h/t Hussein Ibish). Rashid says the locus of rage would be in Shia communities, but Sunnis might also erupt, as well. By the way, if someone has a compelling counter-argument, please send it along. Rashid: In countries that border Iran, such as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, all of which are subject to a powerful U.S. military or political presence, Iran, to…
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Clive Crook : The Atlantic
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Peter David
12 May 2012 | 7:34 pmYou may have read that Peter David, The Economist's Washington bureau chief and author of the paper's Lexington column, died in a car crash on Thursday night. Peter was a superb journalist, one of the best The Economist ever hired. His range was stunning. He was recruited in 1984 to write science articles (he was working for Nature at the time), and did that with distinction. Later he became the paper's main authority on the Middle East. He wrote the Bagehot column on British politics. He ran the business sections of the magazine; then, as foreign editor, he ran the international sections. In… -
The Election According to the Swingometer
10 May 2012 | 5:03 pmFor as long as I can remember (which is a long time), the alpha and omega of UK election analysis has been the Swingometer. This is a BBC graphic that translates the shift in the national two-party vote--the swing--into parliamentary seats won and lost: a pendulum that sweeps across a list of constituencies ordered by size of the two-party majority. So simple. I recall Peter Snow gyrating idiotically beside ever more elaborately animated versions of this concept, election after election. I've often wondered why I've seen no US version. (Maybe CNN has one. I don't watch CNN as often as I… -
American Snobbery
9 May 2012 | 8:54 amAs a Brit from a working-class family, raised in a northern working-class town, who attended (at taxpayer expense) a fine quasi-private school and then went to Oxford, I'm interested in snobbery. It's a trait I despise. I've seen plenty of it in my time, though there's far less in Britain than there used to be. As a young man I aspired to live and work in the US because I wanted to be part of a thriving classless society. Of course that was naive. America is not a classless society. I'm not talking about the 1% and the 99%, and I'm not talking about mainstream America and the underclass… -
On Warren Buffett and Stephen King
4 May 2012 | 1:48 pmThe continuing argument about plutocrats who want to be taxed more heavily is puzzling to me. It seems to cause confusion where there really shouldn't be any. There are those who say: If Warren Buffett wants to pay more tax, he should shut up and just send a check to the IRS. And there are those who find that idea ridiculous and irrelevant: Buffett's saying the tax code is unfair, and he can't put that right by sending in a donation. Two of The Economists' bloggers (here and here) have been debating Stephen King's recent contribution to the tax-me-more literature. King's with Buffett. I want… -
Myths About World Trade
3 May 2012 | 2:51 pmThe McKinsey Global Institute has just published a memo on the changing character of global trade. Trading myths: Addressing misconceptions about trade, jobs and competitiveness. The misconceptions aren't straw men. The report dispels a lot of confusion about "offshoring" and is well worth reading. Myth 1: Mature economies are losing out to emerging markets in trade and thus facing increasing trade deficits. In fact the balance of trade between advanced and emerging economies isn't worsening. Myth 2: Manufactured goods drive trade deficits. No, advanced economies have lately been in surplus…
