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Rolling Stone: Obama in Command
Rolling Stone: Obama in Command
A good interview, and explains Obama's long-game strategy explicitly. His indignation at progressives and Democrats complaining about the state of things when much has actually been accomplished is reasonable, but his final statement bothers me. "We have to get folks off the sidelines. People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. Bringing about change is hard — that's what I said during the campaign. It has been hard, and we've got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place." OK, but what does that mean? What's going to make a difference with ten-to-one odds and enormous corporations and special-interest groups lined up on the other side? Your base gave you a lot of money to help you get elected, but is that what you're asking them to do again, deep in a recession? They need direction, advice, some instruction or insight. What exactly do you want us to 'try harder' at?
·rollingstone.com·
Rolling Stone: Obama in Command
Vanity Fair: Washington, We Have a Problem
Vanity Fair: Washington, We Have a Problem
"A day in the life of the President." "Durable achievement demands a long time horizon—something that the country as a whole seems to have lost. We can’t wait for the carrots to grow—we keep pulling them up to see how they’re doing. Thus, deeply complex problems, from illegal immigration to the BP oil spill—problems that by definition have no quick or easy solution, despite their obvious urgency—become easy emblems of presumptive failure, whatever the president may actually be doing to address them."
·vanityfair.com·
Vanity Fair: Washington, We Have a Problem
Sophiologist: Pres. Obama on Republicans in yesterday’s Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, 9/6/10
Sophiologist: Pres. Obama on Republicans in yesterday’s Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, 9/6/10
"These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class. They drove our economy into a ditch. And we got in there and put on our boots and we pushed and we shoved and we were sweating and these guys were standing, watching us, sipping on a Slurpee."
·sophiologist.tumblr.com·
Sophiologist: Pres. Obama on Republicans in yesterday’s Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, 9/6/10
Squashed: The Proposition 8 Ruling (in simple language)
Squashed: The Proposition 8 Ruling (in simple language)
On August 4, 2010, Federal Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that California’s Proposition 8, which prohibits California from recognizing same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional. The ruling was stayed pending appeal–which means that nothing will happen until a Federal Appeals court reviews it. As you might imagine, it will be appealed. The ruling itself is 138 pages long. I’ll summarize.
·squashed.tumblr.com·
Squashed: The Proposition 8 Ruling (in simple language)
Robert Reich: The Origins of the Enthusiasm Gap
Robert Reich: The Origins of the Enthusiasm Gap
"A stimulus too small to significantly reduce unemployment, a TARP that didn’t trickle down to Main Street, financial reform that doesn’t fundamentally restructure Wall Street, and health-care reforms that don’t promise to bring down health-care costs have all created an enthusiasm gap. They’ve fired up the right, demoralized the left, and generated unease among the general population."
·robertreich.org·
Robert Reich: The Origins of the Enthusiasm Gap
Ars Technica: 750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy
Ars Technica: 750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy
How the two astronomical numbers most often thrown out by the intellectual property lobby are utterly bogus. Interesting: "When someone torrents a $12 album that they would have otherwise purchased, the record industry loses $12, to be sure. But that doesn't mean that $12 has magically vanished from the economy. On the contrary: someone has gotten the value of the album and still has $12 to spend somewhere else."
·arstechnica.com·
Ars Technica: 750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy