CONTACT INFORMATION :


About Me:
Real Name: Duncan Black
Age: 38
Location: Philadelphia


Support This Site



RSS Feed
Latest

Search Now:  
Amazon Logo


Blogroll:

Pandagon
Daily Kos
Matthew Yglesias
Josh Marshall
Hullabaloo
Unqualified Offerings
corrente
First Draft
AmericaBlog
Echidne
Firedoglake
Feministe
Crooks&Liars;
Washington Monthly
Glenn Greenwald
General J.C. Christian
Crooked Timber
Pacific Views
The Big Picture
Shakespeare's Sister
Feministing
Oliver Willis
Think Progress
Adventus
Sadly, No!
Poor Man
Whiskey Fire
Alicublog
TBogg
Talk Left
Orcinus
Roger Ailes
Suburban Guerilla
Upyernoz
Booman Tribune
She Flies...
Attaturk
All Spin Zone
Will Bunch
The Sideshow
Tom Tomorrow
Majikthise
TAPPED
MyDD
Dependable Renegade
Ezra Klein
August J. Pollak
NToddler
Open Left
LG&M;
Calculated Risk


 
  Search this site:
check to have links open new windows


Tuesday, July 27, 2010
 
Surprisingly Good At First, But Then There Was That Other Thing

I agree - and have written several times - that after 9/11 Bush was surprisingly good about limiting the general anti-Muslim hate. However that did all kinda fall apart with the whole AL QAEDA AND SADDAM ARE THE SAME stuff which ended up lumping all arabsandmuslimsandswarthybrownpeople together.

 
Priorities

This is how empires fall.

 
Lunch Thread

enjoy

 
Glibertarian Inferno

McMegan is always wrong.

 
Structural Unemployment

Just to clarify what I wrote earlier, I think most arguments about structural unemployment are bullshit and are just an excuse to do nothing other than gawk at the misery of millions of unemployed people. Residential construction workers have have skills that could easily be employed doing other perfectly useful things. But the one argument I don't think is bullshit is the hysteresis one, that long term unemployment does eventually increase the amount of structural unemployment.

 
They'll Be Back Tomorrow

One big mystery to me about the catfood commission is that there are people who think that all they need to do is find some "fix" which will allow Social Security to be scored as "solvent" for 75 years and then we'll all join hands and sing and all political controversy about the issue will disappear forever.

The people on the Right want to destroy Social Security and steal all the money. That's their goal. And if something the catfood commission proposes is actually passed, they'll get right back to work on their goals.

 
We Painted All Those Schools Right?

Not especially shocked that no one has any idea what we did with all the money, but it does remind me of that multi-year period where it seemed that we invaded Iraq in order to free Iraqi schoolchildren from the tyranny of peeling paint.

 
Telling Us What We Need To Know

It's long struck me that when the internet decided to destroy journalism, the journalist class had a choice. They could have made the point that they were important because they were skilled at compiling and communicating what might interest people, or they could cling to their AUTHORITAH and claim they were important gatekeepers, deciding what the rabble should know. They chose the latter, and now they wonder why we don't applaud.

 
Hysteresis

Economists are, sadly, very quick to embrace the "new normal" and start babbling about "structural unemployment" as an excuse to do nothing, but, yes, long term unemployment does start to increase structural unemployment.

Oh well, nothing to be done. Move along.

 
Muddying The Waters

Years later, I continue to be very confused about just what journalists think they're for.

 
Morning Thread



Monday, July 26, 2010
 
Monday Night

Question for the week: Just who is responsible for the clusterfuck that is HAMP and why does this person still have a job?

 
More Thread

enjoy

 
Happy Hour Thread

A little early, but 4PM seems to be when the local establishments begin.

 
Inscrutable

What's really weird is that the people of Afghanistan have a very odd culture, one which leads them to get upset when foreign powers kill innocent people.

Wacky Afghanis!

 
Bringing The Band Back Together

Netroots Nation also provides a slightly weird reminder of just how long I've been doing this bloggy thing. There are just a large number of people, some I know well, some not, who I have a long weird shared history with.

I've been doing this about as long as the Beatles were releasing albums. Yes I am comparing myself to the Beatles.

 
Just What Is This Affirmative Action You Speak Of

As Adam suggests, when people blather on about affirmative action they should be specific about just what they're talking about. Aside from minority contracting rules and some civil service bonuses, there just isn't all that much of it that amounts to much more than occasionally HR people looking around the room and recognizing that if they give all their friends' kids the summer internships they aren't likely to have too many black people in the hiring pipeline. I'm exaggerating a bit, of course, but not all that much.

 
Beware Of The Bond Vigilantes. Also, Unicorns

At 3% it's practically a crime for the government not to borrow absurd amounts of money and spend it on good stuff.






Disclaimer:
This is a personal web site. It is not a production of Media Matters for America (MMFA). Statements on this site do not represent the views or policies of MMFA. Preferences for electoral candidates posted on this site have not been expressed using any MMFA resources.



 

 
 












Drinking Liberally