Maggie Koerth-Baker at 3:15 PM Thursday, Jun 16, 2011
What if Lee Harvey Oswald only killed J.F.K. because he missed?(Via Glenn Fleishman)
Source: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/16/interesting-theory-a.html
Maggie Koerth-Baker at 3:15 PM Thursday, Jun 16, 2011
What if Lee Harvey Oswald only killed J.F.K. because he missed?(Via Glenn Fleishman)
Source: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/16/interesting-theory-a.html
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web?s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has officially opened, finally?after costly delays, rewrites, cast changes, the sacking of auteur/director Julie Taymor, and numerous injuries. See photos from the controversial Broadway spectacle and other shows and performers that have been plagued by injuries over the years.
Gallery: Broadway?s Injured List
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Marshall Auerback is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and Consulting Strategist with PIMCO, the world's largest bond fund. He is also a fellow for the Economists for Peace and Security and regularly blogs at www.newdeal20.org.
President Obama?s advisers think a corporate tax cut will make America more competitive, but is he getting advice from the wrong people? Marshall Auerback on where the real key to recovery lies.
Message to Barack Obama: It is time to panic. Our economy is growing at annual rate of just 1.8 percent. Manufacturing just grew at its slowest pace in 20 months. More than 44 million Americans?one in seven?rely on food stamps. Employers hired only 54,000 new workers in May, the lowest number in eight months. Jobless claims increased to 427,000 in the week ended June 4. The unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent. Nearly half of all unemployed Americans have been without work for more than six months. About 25 percent of all teenagers who are looking for work are unemployed. Eight-and-a-half million Americans are underemployed?i.e. working part-time because their hours have been cut or because they can?t find full-time work. There are, on average, 4.6 unemployed people for every one job opening. And even if all the open positions were filled, there would still be 10.7 million people looking for work.
To be fair, it?s not as if the president is totally oblivious to this problem. He?s just getting advice from all of the wrong people?the very sorts who got us into our current mess in the first place. Last week, for example, President Obama convened a meeting of several Wall Street executives, consulting them for their thoughts on how to speed up economic recovery. And in his new business-friendly guise, Obama has also been consulting a number of CEOs from leading Fortune 500 firms. The overwhelming consensus to jump-start the economy appears to be an endorsement of a cut in corporate tax rates.
This represents a fundamentally flawed approach. Why? Because corporate tax cuts represent a supply-side response to a problem that is fundamentally one of poor aggregate demand. Leaving aside the fact that a number of corporations do not pay anywhere near the current prevailing marginal rate (hello, GE), supporters of corporate tax cuts have to explain how further cuts in their marginal rates will help the economy, given that prevailing historically high profit margins and high profit rates already in place have done little to reduce unemployment.
Why are firms ignoring the profit signal to expand production, and hence increase jobs? In fact, you can make the case that with a booming stock market, why should businesses bother with all the uncertainty of reinvesting in tangible productive capital when they can buy back shares, issue a special dividend, or initiate a merger to get their stock price up pronto? How will corporate tax cuts change all of that?
John Lawrence / Getty Images
There is little point in offering new investment or R&D tax credits if businesses can?t sell the goods subsequently produced.
Even one of the former architects of our current misfortune, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, recognizes this basic fact. In a recent Financial Times piece, Summers notes that what we are experiencing today is fundamentally a problem of aggregate demand?or, to put it more succinctly, a lack of spending power in the economy.
Summers notes, correctly, that introducing supply-side reforms?i.e., corporate taxes (a lot of which aren?t paid in any case)?will not solve the problem of an economy characterized by lack of demand. There is little point, for example, in offering a slew of new investment or R&D tax credits if businesses can?t sell the goods subsequently produced as a consequence of the credits.
Once spending decisions are made and acted on, the firms then find out whether they have overproduced or underproduced. If they have overproduced?that is overestimated aggregate demand?they observe an unintended build-up of inventories. That signals to firms that they were overly optimistic about the level of demand in that particular period.
Once firms realize they have overproduced, output starts to fall. Firms lay off workers and the loss of income starts to multiply as those workers reduce their spending elsewhere. At that point, the economy is heading for a recession. Corporate tax cuts won?t alter that reality because the problem is fundamentally one of consumers being unable to buy their products.
The only way to avoid these spiraling employment losses would be for an outside intervention to occur. Yes, this intervention could well come from an expanding public deficit, or it could come from an expansion in net exports. But the latter is dependent on the policy responses of other countries (it takes two to tango), so if Asians or Europeans decide they aren?t interested in purchasing more American goods, then there is little alternative to an expanded government intervention.
Which suggests that income tax cuts, or increased government fiscal expenditure, is the way to engender a recovery in demand. And to anticipate the cries of the fiscal ?austerians,? it?s worth noting that those who continue to emphasize the fiscal ?costs? of sustaining of aggregate demand via higher government spending or income tax cuts ignore the fact that today there are huge daily losses in foregone income, corporate tax revenue, and output from prevailing high levels of underutilized resources. High unemployment actually adds to the very deficit problem the fiscal hawks decry on a regular basis.
The losses engendered by high unemployment will never be regained and the longer we persist with economic bloodletting, the greater will be the damage to the economy for years ahead. It's all about spending and sales. We lost 8 million jobs almost all at once a few years back because sales collapsed. Businesses hire to service sales. So until we get sales high enough to keep everyone employed who's willing and able to work, we will have overcapacity, an output gap, and unemployment.
A "normal" economy is one with sufficient demand for full employment.� In this context, there is no particular need to promote even more demand. We have a demand-deficient economy today. When demand is constraining an economy, there is little to be gained from increasing potential supply. Our advice to the president: Sales create jobs, and income creates sales.� Families, not big Fortune 500 companies, currently don?t have enough income to dig us out of the ditch we?re still in. Take a page from Ronald Reagan?s playbook and cut all marginal tax rates significantly. Or embrace a full payroll tax holiday for every employer AND employee in the nation. This will have the dual effect of increasing the take-home pay of those working for a living which will help sales and employment, as well as cutting business costs, which, in competitive markets, works to lower prices. �A ?win win? for businesses and consumers and vastly superior policy to another unnecessary cut in corporate tax.
Marshall Auerback is a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and consulting strategist with PIMCO, the world's largest bond fund. He is also a fellow for the Economists for Peace and Security and regularly blogs at www.newdeal20.org.
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Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-06-15/corporate-tax-cuts-wont-work/
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Maggie Koerth-Baker at 3:26 PM Wednesday, Jun 15, 2011
Ever wonder what naturalists, geologists, and other scientists who do observational work in the field are writing down in those ubiquitous, little notebooks? Harvard has published a collection called Field Notes on Science and Nature, that compiles the drawings, notes, and even specimens that fill the pages of scientists' field books?along with essays where the scientists who took the notes discuss their approach to note-taking and the "whys" behind the things that captured their attention.
Source: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/15/harvards-collection.html
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The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web?s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has officially opened, finally?after costly delays, rewrites, cast changes, the sacking of auteur/director Julie Taymor, and numerous injuries. See photos from the controversial Broadway spectacle and other shows and performers that have been plagued by injuries over the years.
Gallery: Broadway?s Injured List
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For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
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The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web?s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Hugh Hefner announced his upcoming nuptials to model Crystal Harris are off?five days before the wedding. From Julia Roberts? famous abandonment of Kiefer Sutherland to the Bennifer breakup of 2003, see other stars who never made it down the aisle.
Gallery: Broken Engagements
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Culture Buzz A group of kids go to town on each other in a suburban neighborhood, utilizing virtually every kind of (animated) weaponry to destroy each other. Plus, they enjoy a nice lunch together.
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I think this is either the third, or fourth time I've seen this on Buzzfeed in the last 30 days. Sorry to bust the Old button on something so young, but?
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Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught since 1982. His seven nonfiction books include God?s Name in Vain: The Wrongs. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), spent 11 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. His twelfth book, The Violence of Peace: America?s Wars in the Age of Obama, was published by Beast Books in January.
The Pentagon Papers have been released 40 years after Daniel Ellsberg leaked them. Stephen L. Carter on what Ellsberg?s theories teach us about the tactics of Republicans today.
The formal release of the Pentagon Papers by the Defense Department on June 13 garnered only passing news coverage. In this age of WikiLeaks, when too many of those to whom confidences are entrusted keep them only long enough to figure out which friend to tell first, it is easy to forget the existence of an earlier era, when rules of secrecy were taken seriously, and the publication of classified data was considered a scandal. The case arose in 1971, when the New York Times and the Washington Post published excerpts from a top secret Pentagon study of American policy in Vietnam. At the time, the newspapers were doing something brave and new, and might have faced criminal contempt citations for their actions, had not the Supreme Court, in a case the outcome of which in those days seemed anything but certain, stepped in to protect them.
Republicans are being accused of brinksmanship in the debate over the debt limit. (Charles Dharapak, File / AP Photo)
The leaking of the report known as the Pentagon Papers was a landmark in the history of the First Amendment, and this week?s formal release has occasioned the press to publish great paeans to itself. But more intriguing lessons for contemporary politics can be found not in the 40-year-old tussle over the leak of the classified study but in the scholarship of the man who leaked it?Daniel Ellsberg. Indeed, Ellsberg?s work on conflict has fascinating implications for the titanic battle being waged in Washington over whether and how to raise the federal debt ceiling.
Ellsberg?s point was that the willingness to take seemingly irrational risks might actually prove a rational winning strategy.
Ellsberg, nowadays usually described as a Defense Department analyst, was considerably more than that. In the 1960s, he was one of the preeminent figures in game theory and among the early explorers of what has come to be known as conflict theory. This expertise was precisely the reason that he was involved in preparing the classified study of United States policy in Vietnam that became the centerpiece of the Pentagon Papers. Henry Kissinger once referred to Daniel Ellsberg as the most brilliant student he ever taught.
From his undergraduate days at Harvard onward, Ellsberg was fascinated by the dynamics of military conflict in particular, but also of conflict generally. Ellsberg?s particular contribution?and the one that should echo today?was on the use of blackmail as a tool of coercion. In a paper he wrote while in his early 20s, Ellsberg demonstrated that blackmail, to be effective, must be credible; and that its credibility was often enhanced by the adversary?s uncertainty about what the blackmailer might do. But he went even further to show that the credibility of blackmail rests not only on the intentions of the blackmailer, but also on the costs to the victim.
In one famous example, based on a real episode, Ellsberg posed the case of a bank robber who hands the teller a note demanding $5,000; otherwise, the robber says, he will blow up a hand grenade. After the frightened teller hands over the cash, the robber notices that there is more money than he thought and demands the rest. The teller refuses. The cost of complying has become too high, at the teller?s current level of belief in the threat. If the robber wants the rest of the money, he must find a way to persuade the teller that he really will blow them both to bits.
Ellsberg?s insight was that blackmail has greater force when the blackmailing party creates a situation in which he will incur costs if he backs down. The greater the cost to the blackmailer from not carrying out his threat, the greater the likelihood that the victim will believe the threat is real?and thus give in. On the other hand, the risk to the blackmailer becomes very large if the victim chooses to remain steadfast.
Ellsberg?s theory has obvious implications for the political conflicts of the present day. Consider the battle over raising the debt ceiling, and, in particular, the opprobrium being heaped upon congressional Republicans for their evident willingness to allow the borrowing authority of the federal government to expire if Democrats will not agree to large spending cuts. The Republicans are being accused of brinkmanship?another term from conflict theory, although its popularizer was not Ellsberg but Nobel Laureate Thomas C. Schelling?and the accusation is entirely correct. Brinkmanship, for Schelling, involved leading your adversary along the edge of a cliff (the ?brink?), where neither one of you knows exactly where the cliff ends and the tumble begins. You win if your adversary is so afraid of the fall that he refuses to remain at the edge. The classic example is the Cuban Missile Crisis, where each side waited for the other to step back from the precipice. In the debt-ceiling negotiations, this is precisely the Republican strategy.
Ellsberg?s point was that the willingness to take seemingly irrational risks might actually prove a rational winning strategy, as long as your adversary believes you will do what others would consider irrational. The more costs you incur by not carrying out your threat, the more you will be believed. The Democrats are already gearing up to attack the Republicans for shutting down the government, if indeed this result occurs. That such a campaign is being planned suggests that the Republicans have succeeded in making their threat credible. And, indeed, should the negotiations fail, the Republicans will lose enormous credibility if they do not allow the shutdown to occur. In other words, the reputational costs to backing down would be substantial, probably greater than the reputational costs of carrying out the threat. But the point of the threat is to get your way, and the Republicans are betting that the Democrats, persuaded that the Republicans are serious, will back down and give them all or part of what they want.
As for Ellsberg himself, he has just turned 80 and is still going strong. He was recently arrested at an antiwar demonstration and has spoken up in defense of Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of providing the WikiLeaks documents to Julian Assange. But I like to imagine that in his spare time, the scholar in Daniel Ellsberg must be paying close attention to the debt-ceiling fight. Whichever side one might believe to be right on the merits, it is a fascinating coincidence that the report known to history as the Pentagon Papers has been officially released in the midst of this real-world test of its author?s theories.
Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught since 1982. His seven nonfiction books include God?s Name in Vain: The Wrongs. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), spent 11 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. His twelfth book, The Violence of Peace: America?s Wars in the Age of Obama, was published by Beast Books in January.
Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-06-14/the-gop-masters-of-the-credible-threat/
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Cory Doctorow at 4:32 PM Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011
I've teamed up with McNally-Jackson, a most excellent indie bookstore in Soho, NYC, to print and sell my DIY short story collection With a Little Help right in the store, using an Espresso book-machine. You can order them here, or buy them in-store. It's similar to the deal I've struck with The University of Melbourne's Custom Book Centre for sales and distribution in Australia in New Zealand. I'm really excited to see how this works out, as there are plenty of amazing stores in the USA with Espresso machines with whom I'd be delighted to make similar arrangements.
Source: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/14/with-a-little-help-a.html
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With his Republican rivals declining to attack Romney during Monday's debate and doing little to upend his standing in the polls, Romney took a pack of reporters on an early morning victory lap through a diner in Manchester and several businesses in nearby Derry. Benson told the candidate that both he and the Boston Bruins, who just forced a crucial game 7 in the Stanley Cup finals, were the two big winners of Monday night. "It was a good night for both of us," Romney said with a grin. As he stopped to shake nearly every hand in sight, Romney encountered voter after voter who - either by luck or masterful advance work - complained about the stagnant economy under President Obama and called on Romney to take his business experience to Washington. Derry resident Mary Ellen Zarba approached Romney outside the hardware store and complained that her husband has been forced to work overseas in Saudi Arabia for three years because he cannot find a job in the United States. "That's three years of President Obama's term, and it has not worked," Romney told her. "If I am President of the United States, there will not be a day I am not getting briefed on and thinking about bringing American jobs to America." Across the street at Derry Farm and Supply Company, the store's owners griped about the sagging business climate and lamented the empty storefronts that pepper Derry's main drag. Co-owner Ann Evans, 61, said she was rooting for Romney. "I did see the debate last night, and you were great," she said. "Nobody fazed you." Romney said he was pleased his opponents trained their fire on President Obama instead of each other. "I think people were pretty respectful of one another and we aimed our barbs at the president," he told Evans. "He is the one who is responsible for what's going on right now." Not everybody who saw Romney campaigning on Tuesday was encouraging. One man, rolling down Derry's main drag in a truck, shouted out the window: "Go home! Save your money!" And a handful of restaurant-goers in Manchester and Derry seemed none too pleased to have their breakfasts interrupted by a bubbly man in jeans and a button-down shirt asking about their job security, while a platoon of reporters shoved cameras and microphones into their faces. None of that appeared to bother Romney, who projected an air of confidence about his positioning in the race. "Five years ago it was, 'Who the heck or you?,'" he said. "Now it's like, 'Oh yeah, I know who you are.' Either, 'I know who you are, please leave my table,' or, 'I know who you are, I'm going to vote for you.' I like the latter a lot better." Speaking to reporters after his retail swing, Romney said he had "a good debate" but complimented his opponents on their performances as well. And while he left the debate site at Saint Anselm College on Monday without a scratch, he predicted that his opponents would not be so easy on him in the future, particularly on the topic of the universal health care plan he developed in Massachusetts. "I don't think there will be any questions that will be put to rest until somebody has won," he said. "If people want to look at what happened in Massachusetts, I am not running for governor of Massachusetts," Romney said. "I am running for President of the United States. I am looking forward to the chance to debate President Obama on Obamacare." |
Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/14/romney-takes-a-victory-lap-in-new-hampshire/
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By Igor Volsky on Jun 13, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Earlier today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he saw no roadblocks to formally repealing the ban on gay military members serving openly,? stressing that ?if the military chiefs make their recommendation to move forward on the repeal before the end of the month, he will sign it.? Under that scenario, repeal would take effect as early as September. He added that ?the training has gone well and people have been ?pleasantly surprised? at the lack of pushback from the troops.?
During tonight?s presidential debate in New Hampshire, however, five of the seven Republicans on stage rebuffed Gates and suggested that they would reinstate the Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell policy:
? RICK SANTORUM: The military is ?not for social experimentation.? Commanders should have a ?system of discipline in place that punishes ?bad behavior,?? he stressed.
? TIM PAWLENTY: Despite being the first presidential nominee to argue that he would bring back the policy and even go after the Congressional funding to implement repeal, Pawlenty stressed that he would listen to the commanders on the ground. ?We?re in a nation in two wars. I think we need to pay deference to our military commanders, particularly our combatant commanders,? he said.
? MITT ROMNEY: ?I believe it should have been kept in place until conflict was over.?
? NEWT GINGRICH: Even though the Pentagon?s comprehensive survey of the military attitudes found that 70 percent of service members responded they would be able to ?work together to get the job done? with a gay service member in their immediate units, Gingrich managed to conclude that ?the Army and the Marines overwhelmingly opposed changing [the policy].? He added that he would reinstate the policy, if asked to do so by the military.
? MICHELE BACHMANN: ?I would keep the Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell policy?.
Watch the exchange:
Only Ron Paul and Hermain Cain argued that they would not overturn the repeal.
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
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From the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper.
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The always lovely Emma Watson is looking glamorous in the July issue of Vogue.?
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Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/fjelstud/and-you-know-the-bike-is-dangerous
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American Sauce: The education problem Capitol Hill (CNN) - The candidates are talking economy, security, health care and the deficit. But we aren't hearing much about the other topic Americans say they care about the most: education. Take a CNN/Opinion Research poll from January as proof. When asked if different issues were important for Congress and the president to tackle, more people said education was "extremely" or "very important" (83 percent) than terrorism (80 percent). And education received about the same response as health care and the budget deficit. American Sauce:
So where are we with education policy? Listen to this week's American Sauce, dedicated to high school and college graduates everywhere. Topics: how America's low math scores could cripple our economy (and add to our deficit) in the future, where we are with No Child Left Behind and whether every student should go to college. We talk with experts, give you the latest from Congress and interview a brutally honest 19-year-old who isn't sure that others' dreams for him to go to college make sense in the real world. |
Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/13/american-sauce-the-education-problem/
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Gov. Sununu wants a guv for president ? just not Huntsman (CNN) ? Former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu has narrowed down his picks for president in 2012 to three men who have held the same job in other states - Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, should Perry throw his hat in the ring. The Granite State Republican stalwart, who served as chief of staff for former President George H.W. Bush, said he is partial to those with executive experience because ?you need more experience than being a community organizer to run this country.? Pawlenty served as governor of Minnesota, Romney served as governor of Massachusetts and Perry, who has said he is considering a bid for the White House, is the current Texas governor. Sununu and his son, former New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu, both appeared Sunday on CNN?s ?State of the Union? with Candy Crowley. The younger Sununu said governors are attractive because of their ?chief executive experience, leadership, decision-making, handling all the aspects of the budget, dealing with different political constituencies.? When asked about all-but-declared candidate Jon Huntsman, a former governor of Utah who most recently served as President Obama?s U.S. Ambassador to China, the elder Sununu said, ?Well I only support Republicans.? ?He fawned over Obama to the point where he sounded like he should have been on MSNBC,? he said of Huntsman, who is a Republican. ?Every candidate has an issue, but he seems to have a collection of issues,? Sununu added, referencing his stances on cap and trade, health care and civil unions. Huntsman defended some of those positions earlier on ?State of the Union,? plugging his health care plan in Utah that was devoid of a mandate and defending his stance on civil unions. ?I favor civil unions,? Huntsman said. ?I don?t think we have done enough in the name of equality in the area of, or at reciprocal beneficiary rights.? The younger Sununu said those issues will prove problematic in the Republican primaries, the first of which is held in New Hampshire. ?Jon Huntmsan has weaknesses on some substantive issues but the fact that he's served in a Democratic administration makes it a little tough in a Republican primary,? Sen. Sununu said. Looking ahead to Monday night?s CNN/WMUR/New Hampshire Union Leader presidential debate, the elder Sununu said it?s ?intro night, not decision night.? His son said it will give Pawlenty the opportunity to paint the primary as a two man race with Romney. CNN hosts the first New Hampshire Republican presidential debate on Monday from Manchester at 8 p.m. ET. Follow all the issues and campaign news leading up to the debate on CNNPolitics.com and @cnnpolitics on Twitter. Watch State of the Union with Candy Crowley Sundays at 9am ET. For the latest from State of the Union click here. |
[ comments ]
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By Matthew Yglesias on Jun 12, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Paul Krugman is shrill on the idea of controlling health care costs by rolling back Medicare:
It?s a mystery why anyone claims that shifting more people into private insurance is a good idea. Actually, no, it isn?t a mystery; it?s an outrage.
This is one situation in which I think it?s unfortunate that debates about the best way to organize public services get bound up with debates about redistributive taxation. The primary organizing principle of the contemporary conservative movement is the idea that it?s difficult for rich people to get a fair shake in tax policy debates, and someone needs to stand up for them. And obviously the need to finance a Universal Medicare program through taxation could become the vehicle for substantial redistributive taxation. But the point underscored by Krugman?s chart is that Medicare being a good deal for the vast majority of people isn?t dependent on the assumption that rich people will be picking up the tab. It?s simply more efficient to organize an insurance function with the largest possible risk pool.
Source: http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/06/12/243101/the-mystery-of-private-health-insurance/
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Shushannah Walshe covers politics for The Daily Beast. She is the co-author of Sarah From Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar. She was a reporter and producer at the Fox News Channel from August 2001 until the end of the 2008 presidential campaign.
From her "unflippinbelievable" exasperations to requests for Champagne and low-carb foods, the former VP candidate's emails reveal some oddball quirks. By Shushannah Walshe and ABC News' Michael Falcone. Plus, read The Daily Beast's complete coverage of Palin's emails.
ANCHORAGE?For Sarah Palin, it is almost a term of art.
When something goes wrong, it's not just bad, it's "unflippinbelievable," or alternately, "flippin unbelievable."
Julio Cortez / AP Photo
Palin's repeated use of the softer version of the coarser expletive is just one of the amusing observations to emerge from the thousands of pages of her email conversations between December 2006 and September 2008 made public Friday.
"Unflippinbelievable. Please have him clarify asap," Palin wrote in an August 4, 2008, missive to several aides in response to a quote in a newspaper article that the governor did not like.
On July 9, 2008, she had a similarly unfavorable reaction to a story in the Anchorage Daily News, telling staffers, "It's flippin unbelievable that the ADN allows lies like this to be posted. I'm calling."
?Can you flippinbelieveit?? she wrote to a top administration official.
She deployed another variation on July 3, 2008: "And flippin' a... do they need an explanation for Trig being there also, in his snugglie," she wrote, expressing disdain for a reporter's inquiries about Palin's use of state funds to ferry her children to official events.
At other times, Palin flips the word on its head to convey excitement rather than disgust.
"Can you flippinbelieveit?" she wrote to a top administration official who wrote her a congratulatory note after Palin delivered her vice-presidential acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention. (The official opened the email exchange with a message bearing the subject line: "Un-Flippin-Believable.")
Of course, Palin also used the term in its more traditional form, as in: "Ill see you flippin' burgers in a couple of hours.' She wrote that to a group of her closest aides, presumably in preparation for a barbeque in the summer of 2008.
Another favorite term of Palin's: "Argh," sometimes spelled with extra "h's" and even an exclamation point depending on the magnitude of her displeasure.
"I know. Arghhh," she wrote on July 1, 2008. Later in the day, she ratcheted up the sentiment: "Arghhhhh!"
"Arghhh. May something please bump us off the front page now?! :)," she wrote in response to a July 2008 press interview.
And about two weeks after she was selected as Sen. John McCain's 2008 running mate, she typed to her staff: "Arghhhh! I'm so sorry that this office is swamped like this! Dinosaurs even?! Ill try to run through some of these in my head before responding." (It was a reference to the flood of press inquiries the governor's communications aides were receiving during her first weeks on the campaign trail.)
Apart from Palin's language, the nearly 25,000 pages of Palin emails also reveal some of the former governor's tastes, quirks, and habits.
At times, Palin expressed a desire for "small bottles of champagne" and "low-carb foods."
In an email exchange on July 29, 2008, Palin's residence manager, Erika Fagerstron, told the governor she was heading to the store to buy "a couple of things for the house."
"Do you need anything?" Fagerstron asked, noting "I have formula (orange container/sensitive) and mocha stuff on my list."
Palin's response "Small bottles of champagne, low-carb foods. Thanks!" Erika replied, "Sorry, but Im not sure what kind of low-carb stuff to buy."
"It's cool," Palin wrote back. "I'll get to the store at some point here for that. Mainly, just dont want the kids to have too much sugar/white carb stuff."
As governor, Palin received countless invitations to events throughout the state. Some were stranger than others, like an invitation from a Wasilla resident inviting Palin to her farm to see the filming of a movie.
"They are filming a 'psycho thriller' on the property and she wanted to know if you would like to stop by and say hello to the crew," the governor's deputy press secretary Sharon Leighow wrote in a July 2008 message
Palin did not respond to Leighow's message, but she did seem interested in another invitation sent a month earlier. That one was for a Wynona Judd concert being held at Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage.
Palin agreed to speak on stage with the country singer and was curious about guests' seating arrangements: "How many would u guess they's accomodate for me?" she asked an assistant. The aide said "six" and asked Palin if she wanted to take a bus to the base with other VIP concert-goers.
"I'd rather not ride the bus," Palin wrote back.
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