Month: August 2009

Oh Afghanistan, Went Too Far Again, Crashed Our Car in the Rain

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by Eric Martin Quote of the day material from Rory Stewart who cleverly sums up the mindset of our "strategic class" – an echelon of "experts" that establish a disturbing level of continuity in outlook from one administration to the next, Republican or Democratic: Since arriving at Harvard in June last year, [Stewart]has been consultant to several members of … Read more

The Great David Simon Challenge of ’09

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by publius I'm a bit torn about attacking the protests at the health care town halls, even assuming they're organized.  I mean, that's sort of what democracies are about.  These protests do worry me, but for a different reason — they worry me because they're a test of whether our media instititions are capable of … Read more

Hate Crimes Hatin’

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by publius Oh Richard Cohen — why must you torment me so?  Today's new torment is a column devoted to denouncing hate crimes.  I guess there's nothing much going on in DC these days.  Anyway, here's the thrust of it: The real purpose of hate-crime laws is to reassure politically significant groups — blacks, Hispanics, … Read more

Pony Express Local, Part I

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by Eric Martin As is customary with the ebb and flow of the Iraq withdrawal debate, Col. Timothy Reese's widely disseminated memo calling for a slightly accelerated timeline for removing troops from Iraq has provoked responses from those that warn against deviating from the original timeline (at least in terms of getting out ahead of schedule), and those that advocate pushing the ultimate withdrawal date back a decade, … Read more

Quote of the Week

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by publius Via Amanda Marcotte, here's your quote of the week.  It's from Arthur Laffer, of Laffer Curve fame: If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.

The New Net Neutrality Bill

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by publius

I just finished reading the net neutrality bill that Markey and Eshoo introduced last week — the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 3458) (pdf).  And it's really good stuff.  The leadership should move on it.

The bill covers all the more well-known problems.  For instance, it prevents Internet providers from blocking sites, and from entering into agreements to deliver certain sites at higher speeds.  That's all to the good.

But the bill has several important provisions that you may not be as familiar with.  Below the fold, I've listed a few that stood out to me:

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The “Costs” of Inaction

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by publius Ross Douthat's column praising the budget policies of my adopted state of Texas has been pretty thoroughly critiqued.  But I thought Ezra Klein's chart captured the essence of the problem with it.  The upshot is that Texas's budget is in relatively better shape because there's not as much spending on social services.  It's … Read more

What’s Driving Unrest In Iran?

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by publius One last observation about Iran…  A couple of weeks ago, we had a good thread on Marx.  One point I made was that the most persuasive part of Marx (to me) was his argument that economic interests generally drive events.  That doesn't justify his normative proposals (which are wrong, and require humans to … Read more

New Sanctions for Iran?

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by publius Momentum in Congress seems to be gaining for new sanctions against Iran that would cut off its imports of refined gasoline. As the NYT explains, Iran has lots of oil, but not enough refining capacity to meet its domestic needs. Anyway, I’m hoping someone can convince me that new sanctions are a good … Read more

Andy’s Book

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by publius We recently received a comment from Wes Olmsted, Andy's father, on one of our threads.  I'm posting it below verbatim:___________ This is not a comment on this topic, but is a note about Andy Olmsted's book. I had previously stated that it could be ordered on line at Vantage but this turns out … Read more