MetaFilter posts tagged with Politics

The Economist: The World in 2010

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:09:43 -0800

In 2010, Obama will have a miserable year, NATO may lose in Afghanistan, the UK gets a regime change, China needs to chill, India's factories will overtake its farms, Europe risks becoming an irrelevant museum, the stimulus will need an exit strategy, the G20 will see a challenge from the "G2", African football will unite Korea, conflict over natural resources will grow, Sarkozy will be unloved and unrivalled, the kids will come together to solve the world's problems (because their elders are unable), technology will grow ever more ubiquitous, we'll all charge our phones via USB, MBAs will be uncool, the Space Shuttle will be put to rest, and Somalia will be the worst country in the world. And so the Tens begin.

The Economist: The World in 2010. Previously: 2009, 2008, 2007. How did we do last time around? Guest contributions: President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso lines up Europe's priorities President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev argues for dialogue and cooperation President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed wants his island nation to remain above water President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would like for Islam and the West to live in harmony President of South Africa Jacob Zuma says Africa should rise to the occasion Director-General of the World Health Organisation Margaret Chan predicts the development of the flu pandemic Managing director of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn explains how to prevent another crisis CEO of Yahoo! Carol Bartz believes business leaders should tap into the information flood Chairman of HSBC Stephen Green argues that the financial sector should welcome emerging economies CEO of Fiat Group and Chrysler Group Sergio Marchionne thinks greener cars require bolder action CEO/CTO of SpaceX Elon Musk says the private sector should handle space travel

Telling lies about Poliwood

philip-random — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:34:58 -0800

As I write this, I realize I am about to do something that, for the most part, is never done. I am going to criticize a critic. Filmmakers are never supposed to respond to a critic about their work. It's an unspoken rule of engagement. But in this case, I feel compelled. Barry Levinson (film maker) versus Alessandra Stanley (TV critic for the New York Times) on the topic of her getting her facts WRONG about his latest film Poliwood an "essay" which looks at celebrity involvement in the 2008 Democratic and Republican national conventions. Apparently, this is not the first time Ms. Stanley has got it wrong, wrong, wrong.

Republican Candidate pulls out of Congressional race

saffry — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:50:04 -0800

The only open seat for Congress this election day, in New York's 23rd district, was shaping up to be an interesting 3-way race with possible implications for the future of the Republican party. But after today's Sienna poll showing Democratic Bill Owens leading in this traditionally Republican district, the Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava has announced she is suspending her campaign. Is the race now a shoe-in for Conservative Doug Hoffman, already endorsed by Pawlenty, Palin and others in the far-right of the party? Or will Dede's supporters, who were drawn to her her more moderate stance, simply stay home?

On use vs. exchange value: we must be careful about what we pretend to be

kliuless — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:24:13 -0800

Asset inflation, price inflation, and the great moderation
Economists ~~as penance~~ have been trying to locate the origins of the great chain of causation that has led us to our present situation -- the worrying conclusion is that problems remain -- imbalances precipitated by a labour supply shock [1,2] and/or (the rise of) machines [1,2] have not gone away and continue to persist in decimating the ('developed world's) middle class, as evidenced by high and rising unemployment, which has led to a crisis in central banking itself. moreover, paraphrasing george washington, "the government's entire strategy now is to cover up how bad things are." iow, if there isn't a middle class 'civil rights' movement already, there should be...

Hasta la vista, Gertrude Chataway.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:56:54 -0800

Veto is a four-letter word (google quickview, here's the PDF):.Governor Schwarzenegger of California, at odds with the state legislature but ever the poet, vetoes Assembly Bill 1176 with a nice little acrostic.

Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams

shakespeherian — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:39:47 -0800

Is California finished?

Oh No Here We Go Again

HP LaserJet P10006 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:24:42 -0800

While his uncle hits the motivational speaker circuit, 33 year old George P. Bush ships off to war: other than being arrested at 18 for burglarizing the home of an ex-girlfriend, George P. Bush appears to have all the right credentials to carry the Bush legacy well into the future. And while his dad wants the GOP to shed its "old white guy" image, some are positioning George P. Bush to be America's first Hispanic president.

Did you even DOOO the reading?

jock@law — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:23:05 -0800

Do you feel disappointed in government? Does Obama seem a little too meek for the Presidency? Do you wish he'd make larger structural reforms? Maybe, suggests Matt Taibbi, there's an answer. Citing her ability to speak plainly and her extensive knowledge of the credit system, Taibbi suggests that Elizabeth Warren should run for President. Not in 2016, but in 2012.

Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan

Iridic — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:49:16 -0800

There was a rivalry between the parties, of course, but in Potter's account, it was more like the rivalry between Cal and Stanford than that between today's Republicans and Democrats. The parties had somewhat different constituencies and pledged fealty to a different set of men, but each attempted to encompass as much of the political spectrum as possible rather than merely half of it. The story of the 1850s, by these lights, is about how this changed.

With reference to David M. Potter's The Impending Crisis, Adam Cadre surveys the four antebellum presidents. Previously profiled in his occasional series on the American presidents: George Washington ("...a sort of machine programmed to relentlessly seek out personal success.") John Adams ("...a dead-even mix of good and bad qualities.") Thomas Jefferson ("...a chess player's compulsion to rearrange the institutions of society into a more effective alignment.") James Madison ("...first nerd president.") James Monroe ("...kind of an empty suit...") Andrew Jackson ("...a third-world strongman.") John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and James K. Polk ("...like reading Solo Avengers issues about Starfox and Doctor Druid.")

A concept-map exploring the Left vs Right political spectrum.

blue_beetle — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:54:57 -0800

Left vs. Right , the Infographic

This is just getting embarassing!

Pope Guilty — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:35:41 -0800

You know, if I ran the BNP, I think I would think twice about this whole "trusting people with the members list" idea.

Something something making sausage!

Artw — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:34:58 -0800

"We only went into Iraq because of oil, you know." "We only appease Saudi Arabia because of oil, you know." To hear people talk sometimes, you'd think they never used oil. - David Mitchell on hypocrisy and politics, and how we blame our leaders for making decisions based on what we want, not on what we say.

Have fun storming the White House!

bardic — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:36:33 -0800

"Join in NOW and help Capture Obama and the renegade Cong. Defeat the Union Troops and other allies of the former President and help safeguard American Freedom. " It's the online survivalist game/wish fulfillment entitled "2011: Obama's Coup Fails" (via) Who wouldn't want to play with event like this one: "Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck Found Dead in Camp March 5, 2011 – Clark County, VA – A FEMA camp was liberated today, one of two still controlled by the war criminals loyal to Obama. Rush Limbaugh was executed over a week earlier, we are told, and Glenn Beck was found in his cell and has died, incredibly of an ‘aspirin overdose’, the preferred way to send a message to the enemies of Obama."

Health care plan clears major hurdle

reenum — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:34:23 -0800

The Senate Finance Committee has approved the plan proposed by Max Baucus.

"I don't think it's nice to have diversity anywhere, myself."

afx237vi — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:43:42 -0800

BNP Wives. A 46 minute documentary following three female members of the far-right British National Party.

The perils of openness in government

homunculus — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:35:26 -0800

Against Transparency. "How could anyone be against transparency? Its virtues and its utilities seem so crushingly obvious. But I have increasingly come to worry that there is an error at the core of this unquestioned goodness. We are not thinking critically enough about where and when transparency works, and where and when it may lead to confusion, or to worse. And I fear that the inevitable success of this movement--if pursued alone, without any sensitivity to the full complexity of the idea of perfect openness--will inspire not reform, but disgust. The 'naked transparency movement,' as I will call it here, is not going to inspire change. It will simply push any faith in our political system over the cliff." [Via]

Can you find Satan?

Rhaomi — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:29:52 -0800

"This may truly be the most important new painting of the twenty first century." The McNaughton Fine Art Company presents "One Nation Under God" [cache], an... interesting take on American history in a nifty zoom interface. Artist John McNaughton, who calls himself "the only living artist in the world today" to practice the Barbizon School of French Impressionism, has an extensive body of less opinionated work for you to admire. Interview. Character list.

Because Even the Bible Has a Well-Known Liberal Bias

saulgoodman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:32:27 -0800

The Conservative Bible Project. Rod Dreher of Belief.net offers further analysis of a budding new Wiki project to rewrite the Holy Bible to eliminate what some young conservatives apparently now view as liberal bias in the scriptures (via Harpers).

Eric Schmidt on journalism and the future of newspapers

reenum — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:20:05 -0800

Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave a talk at the Newspaper Association of America convention on April 9, 2009 in San Diego. He speaks about how Google and newspapers might co-exist in the future. Here is a transcript of Schmidt's April talk. Schmidt also spoke at length with Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land recently about Google's responsibility to newspapers.

A little help from his friends

salishsea — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:25:10 -0800

Stephen Harper, Canada's Prime Minister, sings "With A Little Help From My Friends" at a gala last night in Ottawa with Yo Yo Ma and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Harper survived a confidence vote this week with a little help from his former sworn enemies.

Pension Fund Follies

reenum — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:28:48 -0800

Missouri's lack of conflict of interest rules for its teachers' pension funds creates predictable problems Such nuggets as the following can be found within:

Even Yoakum charged $100 for Glamour Shots while in Sacramento, Calif., in April 2007.

I could probably afford better insurance if I wasn't paying for theirs.

sio42 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:53:52 -0800

What kind of health insurance would you have as a federal government employee? The Office of Personnel Management would like to help you decide among the gazillion plan choices you have. Perhaps you are a Congress member? Then head on down to the Attending Physician of the United States, "It's one of the, quote, benefits of being in Congress," Kagen said. "They have physicians and nurses that will see you on the spot, on the beck and call." (link to single page print version). from the article quoting Kagen...

"But while [Rep Steve] Kagen touted in campaign advertisements and news interviews that he had no insurance coverage, he openly admitted he used OAP services. In January, for example, he paid more than $4,000 out of pocket for outpatient arthroscopic knee surgery. After the procedure, he said, he used the attending physician's office and staff to assist him with physical therapy."

Wikipedia on the Office of Attending Physician A NYT editorial on why we can't all have the same health care as Congress - and how we could possibly all have better care.

Congress’s health plan pays for routine expenses like office visits and vaccinations, for example, which is like auto insurance covering oil changes or new windshield wipers. As a result, the premiums are steep — upwards of $13,000 a year for a family (69 percent of which is paid by the government). To provide the 50 million Americans who are now uninsured with such a plan would require scary tax increases.

Nate Silver accusess polling firm of fraud

The Devil Tesla — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:51:20 -0800

42.7 percent of all statistics are made up: After Strategic Visions refused to share the methodology behind some of their polling, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight analyzed the firm's poling results and found evidence of fraud. Strategic Visions responds to The Hill. More amusingly, Nate went on a look at an even more questionable study by the same company claiming that only 23 percent of Oklahoma students know that George Washington is the first president. For good measure, Silver compared the Strategic Visions data with a control set. Continuing ~~research~~ obsessive inquisition revealed that the Atlanta address on Strategic Visions's website is not the company's actual address.

I prefer to think of it as a 'trolley opportunity'

grobstein — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:46:36 -0800

Michael Sandel's "Justice" has long been one of the most popular courses at Harvard. Now for the first time the class is being broadcast online. The site for "Justice." "Justice" is a wide-ranging introduction to issues in normative ethics and political morality that aims to work as a kind of supplementary civic education: "In a way, . . . the course [tries] to model what public discourse would be like if it were more morally ambitious than it is." The video series is an ambitious (and expensive) production, using multiple cameras to capture student discussion as well as Prof. Sandel's words.

More Web Magazines

netbros — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:35:28 -0800

The New York Review of Ideas is a web magazine reporting about New York commerce, literature and politics. The Manzine is actually £2 for the print version, but some of the its best is also online.