Monthly Archive: September 2009
general welfare
I got a bit of a kick reading Ian Millhiser’s Rally ‘Round the True Constitution. He does a spectacular job of fearmongering by suggesting that “Tenthers”, his derogatory term for conservative politicians who, in opposition to...
Merit Pay and Teacher Autonomy
Picking up the merit pay ball from Will for a moment, let’s hash out a few competing ideas. First of all, I think just about everyone agrees on two fundamentals: teachers are probably paid...
Point of Order
An unanticipated side-effect of Joe Wilson’s outburst has been a pretty interesting discussion of parliamentary procedure, both at home and abroad. Congress Matters explains the relevant Senate rules and Andrew Sullivan compares Wilson’s interjection...
does no one remember the prescription drug benefit?
I was reading this reader email to Andrew and I really had to wonder– was this person railing against cost overruns and budget deficits when the prescription drug benefit was passed? It’s hard to...
Birthers vs. Truthers
Jonah Goldberg lands some solid blows against the Left’s knee-jerk defense of Van Jones here, but contrasting the travails of our dearly-departed green jobs czar with the conservative establishment’s response to the “Birther” movement...
Obama’s inconsistencies on health care
David Henderson writes, of the public option bit in Obama’s speech last night:
Bad Medicine
by Dan Summers I watched President Obama’s speech last night with interest. As an unabashed supporter of health care reform, I was heartened by how clearly the President described the intentions of his reform...
clowns to the left of me….
“Of late, I’m simultaneously being lambasted by conservatives who’ve read me for years and can’t believe what an apologist I’ve become for Obama and denounced by liberals who used to respect me as fairminded...
Joe Wilson the Thief
I am coming to the opinion that Joe Wilson did not act out in a moment of irrational exuberance and emotionality. I think this was done with calculation, and very much on purpose –...
My Questions for the Seasteading Road Trip
Will Wilson is embarking on what sounds like the coolest road trip ever: a visit to a convention of libertarian seasteaders intent on seceding from the mainland United States. He’s also soliciting questions from...
The Speech
Well I listened to President Obama’s speech on NPR last night whilst playing with my daughter and Curious George. Suffice to say, I didn’t catch the entire thing, though what I did catch sounded...
quote for the morning
“Personally, I sort of liked Rep Joe Wilson’s idea of introducing British-style heckling to the halls of congress; totally disrespectful and out of step with American tradition, true, but their tradition is better. Unfortunately,...
Merit Pay, continued
Stepping back from the weeds of the merit pay debate, it’s kind of amazing to survey the arguments against compensating teachers based on performance and realize that this stuff literally wouldn’t fly in any...
individualism, properly understood
I have been rather harsh in my treatment of the “rugged individual” in these pages, and yet have come to an essentially libertarian position on most economic issues. At the heart of libertarian philosophy...
obligatory reaction post on Obama’s healthcare address
To start things off, I should say that I’m not particularly sympathetic to the Dems’ lackluster efforts at healthcare reform. I’m willing to be persuaded that a robust public option would promote healthier outcomes...
And since we’re talking about health care…
This isn’t really part of the conversation anymore, especially now that Congress and the president have taken it off the table, but it’s worth reminding folks that we could cover a good chunk of...
Let’s all go back to MySpace.
Here’s an article describing how social stratification shows up in social networking among teenagers. Maybe we all knew this already, but there’s some interesting quotes. A few of them after the jump.
