Morning Ed: World {2017.04.11.T}
This is a pretty good window into why most people are sympathetic to DREAMER-types.
In the US as with a lot of places, they’re less concerned where you were born than whether you speak the language.
Air India has apparently lost patience with India’s political class. But not for long, I guess.
The EU may have a domestic migration problem. Such is common in the United States as the best and brightest flock to comparative few places.
Babies for sale, $1,400. Well, they were for sale, at any rate.
Things in Turkey are getting pretty bad, it seems, and not (just) from a civil rights angle.
Religious face coverings are exempt from a new rule about masks at soccer events in Sweden, so niqabs have become quite popular.
If Scotland were to become a province of Canada, we would have to consider making Albania a state.
Population per capita pic.twitter.com/xmqrOcozhD
— Terrible Maps (@TerribleMaps) April 2, 2017
That is a great map!Report
I particularly like how there is no data for Kosovo.Report
Honestly, kind of expected Romania to be the one with an ambiguous result.Report
I am inordinately proud of myself for being able to identify Kosovo on an unlabeled map.Report
It’s the only one there named after a Beach Boys song.Report
Are we sure the data’s right in Denmark?Report
It’s explained in footnote 2(b)Report
Or not, that’s the question.Report
Something is rotten there.Report
Probably a ghost in the data.Report
I did the “internal migration” thing, from South Florida to Boston. The opportunity came because of career stuff. I went for culture and opportunity.
It seems a weird dynamic, actually. As people like me flee from places like that, those who remain in places like that — well look at the electoral maps. Then looks at the economic maps.
I don’t believe in simple causality here. These are interactive effects, feedback loops, etc. In other words, Richard Florida probably noticed a real pattern, he just didn’t understand why the pattern occurred or how to capitalize on it.
In any case, I’m in Boston now. I’m so fucking glad I’m no longer in the South.
#####
If Canada takes Scotland, do you think they’d take Massachusettes too?Report
By the way, I just wanted to say that I’m really happy you’re still alive!Report
Is there a reason I wouldn’t be?Report
*nods*Report
Veronica, you should know better by now.Report
Actually, I think I followed this one. Orlando night club shooting.Report
Orlando is in North Florida and Veronica is from South Florida. She was also in Boston for a long time by the time it happened. If I’m remembering correctly, her music tastes are metal rather than Latin.Report
Lee,
North Florida starts at Jacksonville and heads east. North Florida actually speaks with a Southern accent. (lawyerliz is from there, so I’ve heard plenty about North Florida).
South Florida is the flatlands that the NYC folks have grown colonies in (mostly because the Southerners knew better than to live there).Report
Jacksonville is in the extreme North East of Florida. That makes North Florida very small.Report
Lee,
Oh, you! I meant West, and yes, I should have looked at the map.Report
Pinky,
…. no. just no.Report
Then I still have no idea what you’re talking about, but at least I realize it now.Report
Of course. Let’s just say that the focus has changed from “unexplained deaths” to “explained deaths.”
And, yes, it’s probably a good thing if you still can’t imagine what I’m talking about.Report
To move back to the topic, I wonder if the EU will see a similar social dynamic, that is, not just a shift in economic contours due to internal migration, but also a shift in social contours. Will we see the “east” become increasingly homophobic and xenophobic, while the “west” becomes increasingly tolerant?Report
If Canada takes Scotland on, probably the Turks and Caicos would be next.Report
The Dreamer article is spot on. These kids were brought into the United States by their parents and not on their own will. You need to be a really xenophobic or legalistic person to think it is moral and right to send them back to a place they have no knowledge of simply because of the law.Report
Maybe so but letting them stay encourages other illegals to bring their kids. That seems like a reason enough to stop it. Besides, how young is young? A blanket amnesty for illegal minors makes no sense if a baby is treated the same as a 15 year old. Besides, who’s fault is it that he decided to get a DUI? He could have killed someone.Report
Lee,
I despise slavery. You despise the Marianas, but speak up for the practice on the mainland.
Do you remember the parable about the Camel’s nose? I mind that we currently have one billion economic migrants that wish to enter America. If we do not enforce rules properly, civilization itself will end.Report
LeeEsq April 11, 2017 at 10:06 am “You need to be a really xenophobic or legalistic person to think (etc.)”
notme April 11, 2017 at 10:13 am …
Thing o beauty, that.Report
It was good, notice how he goes out of way to put any objection to amnesty into one of two camps of folks that are unreasonable. It’s a good way to portray the other side in an argument.Report
I’m amused to see a Babylon 5 reference in that piece about Jorge Matadamas.
Well, no, it’s not really a B5 reference, but a mention of the zocalo, a word which was used in B5 to refer to the same sort of place, an open space where commerce takes place, often on the small scale rather than the large.
I suppose if I weren’t so provincial and had been to Mexico City, and not just Mazatlan, I would know that.Report
World’s Sixth-Largest Economy Raises Gas Taxes To Invest $52 Billion in Infrastructure. story here.
go, California, go. wow, is Jerry Brown an amazingly talented politician.Report
Sure if being a one party state makes you a talented politicianReport
Hopefully transit would get a fair share of the infrastructure money.Report
Why should people that pay the gas pay for mass transit that they don’t use?Report
notme,
Because they’d rather pay for public transit than have to sit in Traffic while they repave the road AGAIN.Report
Why should people that pay the gas pay for mass transit that they don’t use?
Why should they pay the gas tax to rebuild a bridge they don’t use?Report
Because part of being a citizen means paying taxes that might benefit your fellow citizens more directly than it benefits yourself at times.Report
Because mass transit reduces congestion and wear and tear on the roads they do use.Report
The more people who take mass transit, the fewer cars on the road.Report
+100Report
As a subway rider, I do my best for people that decide to drive into Manhattan.Report
They are a lost cause.Report
It helps that pretty much every time people get behind the wheel and experience the state of our roads, it makes Brown’s case for him that we aren’t doing enough to maintain them.Report
It also helps that the state’s Republican party is so self-destructive that the Democrats hold the supermajority necessary to pass tax increases without needing a single Republican vote.
More voters are registered as no-preference or other third party than as Republicans.
go, state GOP, go …. down the drain.Report
Actually there was one Repub vote and Brown bought it with some money. Do you even read your own articles?
“Only one Republican, state Sen. Anthony Cannella, backed the deal, which provides nearly half a billion in funding for two projects in his Modesto-area districts. Cannella said he and Brown had hammered out a deal at the governor’s mansion just before the vote took place.”Report
If the roads are that bad then they certainly shouldn’t siphon off gas money for mass transit.Report
Especially when mass transit reduces the wear and tear on …
Never mind.Report
Only if you assume that a significant number of those folks are going to give up their cars, which seems to be the standard librul assumption.Report
notme,
No, if you aren’t doing the majority of your transit in the CAR, then you aren’t breaking the road. Seems easy, innit?
Using the car once a month (as I do) doesn’t really matter then, does it? (and I use it outside the city).
I don’t own a car, but ownership isn’t the problem. Usage is.Report
You realize that a car sitting parked on a driveway is not inflicting wear and tear on roads, right?
And from that, how your objection is a non sequitur unless for you “giving up your car” includes “venturing over a kilometer away from your car a few more times a week?”
I see this silly objection all over the place whenever there is discussion of any non-personal-automobile transportation:
– It is argued out that such and such measure will result in X more trips a month by bus / foot / bicycle and correspondingly X fewer movements of cars. Which will reduce among other things, smog, traffic congestion, and wear and tear on roads.
– Knee-jerk naysayer objects that people who currently drive for 100% of trips over five blocks aren’t going to sell their cars next week – as if that had ever been the goal.
The success metric for alternative transportation is not “cars crushed into metal cubes because nobody wants a car anymore.” It is “trips that would have been taken by car, that are instead taken by the alternative means.”
I mean, in any big enough city there are probably a handful of people who barely need their car, for whom this one specific change will be the one that turns the economic logic around for them, such that it makes more sense for them to sell their car and rent one a few times a year. But those folks probably weren’t taking all that many trips by car already, so their reduced automobile usage wasn’t a major part of the success of the measure.
And yet the silly argument keeps being made – I guess because there is some audience for whom it is persuasive of something.Report
Turkey – Interesting article. I loved Erdogan’s criticism of the “interest-rate lobby”. Yeah, any number of ethnicities he could have been referring to there. It’s also interesting that people travel outside their country for political campaign events in Europe. Makes sense, but I’d never thought about it before.Report
Cultural appropriation of niqabs. smgdmfh.
One wonders how long it will be before this gets nipped. Strikes me as a hair too late to nip it in the bud.Report
Hey, remember the Israel/Palestine thing? Golly, I sure do! I spent most of the late 90’s and a lot of the Oughts arguing about it.
Man, that just sort of disappeared, didn’t it? Occasionally, we get a story about how some college campus is doing some weird BDS thing until donors start writing letters and it gets undone but, seriously, this argument used to be ubiquitous and now? Poof. It’s gone.
If you miss arguing about Israel/Palestine, though, you should read this article.
It’s about how the Two-State Solution is one of those things that appeals to ivory tower eggheads but isn’t supported on the ground.Report
The goal of most anti-Israeli forces had been to destroy Israel rather than help the Palestinians. The might want to destroy Israel because they see it as imperialist/colonialist or a blot on Islam or because they simply hate Jews and want us dead or miserable but I always find that the destruction of Israel is the most important goal even among the Palestinians.Report
Lee,
This doesn’t excuse apartheidReport
Someday, someone somewhere will say such a thing about refugees from the Middle East.
And it will be taken seriously.Report
Gotta say, if we can’t accept everyone, I’m going to go with accepting the people who DON’T want to kill us. (Well, that and the smart uns).Report
You’ll take the folks liberals think should be imported and like it.Report
Schumer: If Trump doesn’t release his tax returns, ‘it’s going to make tax reform much harder’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/04/11/schumer-if-trump-doesnt-release-his-tax-returns-its-going-to-make-tax-reform-much-harder/?utm_term=.22ec5052bc35
The Dems just keep getting better and better.Report
The good news is that Trump promised to release his returns, so I’m sure it won’t be a problem at all. I can’t imagine why it’s even a question.Report
I remember when we all used to make fun of Dubya’s sentence structure, coherence and intelligence. We called him “Chimp”, if I recall correclty. Trump makes Chimpy look like Stephen Hawking.Report
What does that make Spicer?Report
A sympathetic character in our national tragicomedy. It’s hard to present the ravings of an ignorant, self-absorbed lunatic as a coherent, positive world view. He does his best. Even when he favorably compares Hitler to Assad.Report
Report
Test question from basically day 1 of the New Era:
How would you have dealt with Trump’s demand that his Press Secretary go before a national and international audience to state, unequivocally, that Trump’s inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s?
It’s all been downhill from there.
Well, not really. I’ve watched enough of his briefings to think Spicer has improved quite a bit. Got his sea legs under him. Which is good. Cuz the rest of Trump’s time in office is gonna feel like we’re floating unguided on high seas heading for some big ole rocks.Report
Having to lie is one thing, a bad thing to be sure. But the sporking up simple stuff where doesn’t have to lie is more of the issue.Report
Sea legs. Maybe it’s just not possible to get a stable stance on a boat rocked by hurricane conditions while at sea. Which is exactly what the baying lunatic who’s setting “policy” has created.Report
I’ll grant that trying to represent Trump would destroy even the best PR professional in short order, but I’m pretty sure that the the first thing in the manual is, “Don’t say something that later has you clarifying that you’re not a holocaust denier.”
I have to admit that Spicer is growing on me. He’s the one inept player in this whole mess who is kind of adorable. He has been given a completely impossible task and he’s not even up to doing it on an amateur level. The incongruity makes it sort of fun.Report
“The Smirking Chimp” is still aggregating thoughtful essays from the left.
(I was a fan of “Der Chimpler”, myself.)Report
Scrolling thru the writers and topics it looks like a pretty good site. Bookmarked.Report