Author Archives: Chris
All in a day at nursery school
From the daily teacher’s email:
[Today] we read a book about how dinosaurs eat and we asked the children what they thought dinosaurs ate. Here are their words:
[Child #1]: Meat
[Child #2]: Garbage and ham.
[Son]: No, just ham. There wasn’t any garbage back then.
Thought for the Day: 21 October 2015
Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Weekly Digest – October 18, 2015
Must Read
- Gracen Johnson, Small town feedback loops, big city solidarity
- David Dayen, Paul Theroux and the Poverty Behind the Numbers
Should Read
- Elise Gould, More of the Same: [Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)] is Continued Evidence of a Slow Moving Economy
- Sarah Kliff, This study is forcing economists to rethink high-deductible health insurance
- Martha Bebinger, Baker’s Proposed Limit On First-Time Opioid Prescriptions Ignites Controversy
- Andrew Bacevich, On Building Armies (and Watching Them Fail): Why Washington Can’t “Stand Up” Foreign Militaries
- James Fallows, How the Press Can Deal With the Benghazi Committee: When a congressional investigation turns into a partisan operation, the media need to treat it as such.
It’s about being able to control your own destiny
(From Bill Moyers’ show last year – some background here. Bernie tries to do right by people. Imagine if even half of our elected representatives were committed to doing right by people? We need more like him.)
‘Tis the season
(source)
In the event you were under the impression that Russia gives a rat’s ass about Syrians
From today’s New York Times:
Some Russian analysts say the Kremlin is using the conflict in Syria to test a new generation of weaponry from a major procurement program that military officials began in 2010 after years of oil-boom profits.
“There are radars and all sorts of new control systems, and of course we need a firing range,” Konstantin V. Remchukov, the editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, told the Echo of Moscow radio station this week.
“We carried out a lot of exercises,” Mr. Remchukov said. “But a firing range like that opening before us in Syria, with these bombing sorties, with drones and other objects of the new generation, this is, of course, a favorable place for fine-tuning all our new weaponry.”
Weekly Digest – October 11, 2015
Must Read/Watch
- Mark Kleiman, Don’t just stand there, do something! (Provided there’s something useful to do.) [Ed.: See Note 1 below.]
- James Suroweicki, The Corporate-Friendly World of the T.P.P.
- Russell Berman, Here Come the Republican Moderates [Ed.: For the good of the country let’s hope so.]
[Ed.: Related reading here and here and here.]
Should Read
- Robert Kuttner, Bernie Sanders Is About as Radical as Harry Truman
- Patrick McGreevy, Gov. Brown approves automatic voter registration for Californians
- Tyler Rogoway, The Pentagon’s ‘Concurrency Myth’ Is Now Available In Supercarrier Size [Ed.: Related reading]
- Charlie Pierce, Texans Are Dying Because Texas Fears ‘Job-Killing Regulations’
- Monica Davey (NYT), Flint Officials Are No Longer Saying the Water Is Fine
Thought for the Evening: 8 October 2015
The Democrats should nominate a sane Republican for Speaker of the House. I bet there are enough pragmatic Republicans and Democrats to get a sane Republican elected so that Congress can get a few non-controversial things – at least things that shouldn’t be controversial – done, e.g., passing spending bills, passing a transportation bill, raising the debt ceiling. Given how things are playing out within the GOP caucus I think that looks the most constructive path forward. Would enough Republicans go for it? Who knows, but I hope the Democrats are at least making inquiries.
The political consequences? I figure if that’s how things went down then the Democrats gain a few seats in Congress next year – although not a majority – and almost certainly win the presidency. The Republicans lose some seats but probably maintain a majority in the House and possibly the Senate. So what’s in it for them in compromising? They get to demonstrate that at least some of their caucus is willing and able to govern. It helps them rebuild their “brand” as a sane center-right party and it gives them a better shot at the presidency in 2020.
Oh, and you want to keep the number ideologues in Congress to a minimum? Have open primaries. The top two votegetters move on to the general. Sure, some of my preferred candidates wouldn’t make the cut but I think it would be worth the sacrifice if it would cull the goons from the herd.
Thought for the Day: 8 October 2015
Half a century ago, such ideas as full employment, a strong labor movement, national health insurance, investments in early childhood, free higher education, ending poverty in the richest nation on earth, progressive taxation, large-scale public infrastructure outlay, effective consumer regulation, and full enforcement of civil rights were utterly mainstream. Guess what? They still are.