I've haven't read the books, but agree that episode 3 is where GoT really starts to stand out on its own - and moreover, really stand out head and shoulders above The Borgias, which has had thus far a lot of thematic similarities with GoT.
Another great post. Speaking of maps this one http://www.history-map.com/picture/004/Population-Slave-Map-001.htm which a lot of people probably have already seen really shows that upland/lowland split you refer to. It was one of the first use of 'heat mapping' (i.e. shading to represent geographically tagged data) and one of the first uses of mapping what would be called now 'human terrain'
"there’s nothing ideological about the defeat of the Nazis. "
If their ideology would have let them make allies of the Poles, Ukranians and other Slavs that absolutely positively hated the Russians, the Germans could have defeated the Russians on the Eastern front (maybe. it still would have depended on how many trucks the Americans could have sent to Murmask. But it would have been a hell of lot closer.)
I would say at this point that “libertarianism” has a branding problem.
Before Rick Santelli's rant, the libertarian brand was carried by persons as diverse as a blue druid and a woman who argued against child pornography laws. The potheads are actually refreshingly normal.
If you just track Balloon-Juice's site, you get two mentions of the Michigan EMF by a masthead blogger (one which consists of a Maddow video link and both of which say that the poster hasn't followed it that closely) around the time of passage a month ago. Then jack squat from the mast head bloggers until Benton Harbor becomes the first place that this is implemented.
Seriously can you find any mention in a main post at Balloon Juice about this between this one: http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/11/maddow-on-michigan/ and this one http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/17/financial-martial-law/ and literally 3 days ago?
Why the hell IS the right like this right now? Seriously, it baffles me. The timing stinks.
Because over the last 20-30 years, the Democrats have made peace with bourgeois whiggishness on an individual level, and corporations at the structural level, thus are able to pilfer what had been a big chunk of the Republican party since its founding. (and serving as a counterveiling force on the big chunk of the Democratic party the Republicans had sliced off of the course of the fifteen to twenty years before that)
Serious question: does raising the cap on income subject to the SS FICA result in a higher payout upon retirement in either your scenario or the option in the Times calculator? That's the way it would work now unless the benefit calc was altered concurrently. (for the website, at least, it's seems at first glance to raise the payout, as half the deficit reduction over 20 years is in the first five years)
Regarding the skewed old demographics of the poll, the one interesting (to put it neutrally) thing on the cross tabs is that the yutes (18-29) were the second highest demo for wanting mixed race mariage illegal at 54% (geezers were at 56%, every one else was 38-39%)
My ex-rectum hypothesis is that if you're that age and (still) living in Mississippi, and you self-identify as a Republican you're going to tend to be of a certain type.
I, for one, am intrigued at the concept of budget making by plebiscite in the antepenultimate paragraph of the original post.
Everyone would have something like the Combined Federal Campaign booklet and by April 15 include on the tax forms the 5 or 6 digit codes of those agencies and/or departments they want to fund and to what % (and just keep it on the discretionary side). The first year I imagine there'd be a radical shift in budget priorities, but after that it might be relatively stable year over year - after all, we re-elect around 90% of the congress people every other year
dreams of a pipeline
Wait, you seriously think Afghanistan is about a dang pipeline? (Yeah, we need to get the heck out yesterday, but this is truther nonsense)
Hell, even John McCain, the oldest presidential candidate in recent memory, still has a parent living who could have shot down the nonsense about his birth;
The funniest part about that is, McCain was born in (what is now) Panama. And there were actually some noises about that fact on (what was then) the fringes of the Republican party in early 2008
You have way too high opinion of the CIA. It was before I was born, but I remember reading about a certain body of water just off the Carribean that was made (in)famous when the "CIA handled this sort of thing"
There were plenty of ex-patriates from Iraq in America in 2003, also. In Afghanistan, most of the government managerial staffing *is* being done by people who were living in the West during the 80's and 90's. That has not been a panacea, and in some cases, has actually helped that same 'talent' rob the country blind.
There is also plenty of people that have been playing - and continue to play - the influence game in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don't think this a clusterfuck, as far as these things go, (and as goverment things go generally), but it is far far too early to tell whether or not all this will actually work.
The responsibility to one's country is very arbitrary, though. Only a minority of people in the world get to chose what country they live in, (and nobody choses which one their born in). And what is considered 'my country' 'your country' and 'their country' at the margins is mostly an accident of history.
(Not to say that using this accident of history has some practical benefits. But it is question begging from a pure morality standpoint)
And, with the exception of South Africa* in the post '45** era, those countries thus isolated just keep on doing it.
*maybe Burma is finally coming around. Maybe.
**to be fair, the real measure is the post '91 era. Cold war superpower politics had both thumbs on the scale too much to measure anything reliably before the Berlin Wall came down.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Nostalgia & Freedom”
>FULL POINT
Agreed.
On “Are you watching ‘A Game of Thrones’ yet?”
I've haven't read the books, but agree that episode 3 is where GoT really starts to stand out on its own - and moreover, really stand out head and shoulders above The Borgias, which has had thus far a lot of thematic similarities with GoT.
On ““Ninety-eight Percent of Texas Confederates Never Owned a Slave””
Another great post. Speaking of maps this one http://www.history-map.com/picture/004/Population-Slave-Map-001.htm which a lot of people probably have already seen really shows that upland/lowland split you refer to. It was one of the first use of 'heat mapping' (i.e. shading to represent geographically tagged data) and one of the first uses of mapping what would be called now 'human terrain'
On “Foote’s Civil War, Volume II: Tragedy and Just Causes”
"there’s nothing ideological about the defeat of the Nazis. "
If their ideology would have let them make allies of the Poles, Ukranians and other Slavs that absolutely positively hated the Russians, the Germans could have defeated the Russians on the Eastern front (maybe. it still would have depended on how many trucks the Americans could have sent to Murmask. But it would have been a hell of lot closer.)
On “School reform, Benton Harbor, and the Tea Party”
I would say at this point that “libertarianism” has a branding problem.
Before Rick Santelli's rant, the libertarian brand was carried by persons as diverse as a blue druid and a woman who argued against child pornography laws. The potheads are actually refreshingly normal.
So a branding problem? Yeah, tell me about it.
On “The Libertarian Response? Happy You Asked!”
Please tell me what it does.
"
If you just track Balloon-Juice's site, you get two mentions of the Michigan EMF by a masthead blogger (one which consists of a Maddow video link and both of which say that the poster hasn't followed it that closely) around the time of passage a month ago. Then jack squat from the mast head bloggers until Benton Harbor becomes the first place that this is implemented.
Seriously can you find any mention in a main post at Balloon Juice about this between this one: http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/11/maddow-on-michigan/ and this one http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/17/financial-martial-law/ and literally 3 days ago?
"
(insert animated gif of Orson Wells clapping)
On “Tits! Swords! Edginess!”
yet another thing for muslims to apologize for.
On “Societal Constructs Often Result In Sub-Optimal Leisure Options”
Related:
http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/2011/gendered-advertising-remixer-application-beta-release
(I think I saw this on fark, but may have seen it here and forgot y'all have already seen it)
On “Pop Quiz”
Why the hell IS the right like this right now? Seriously, it baffles me. The timing stinks.
Because over the last 20-30 years, the Democrats have made peace with bourgeois whiggishness on an individual level, and corporations at the structural level, thus are able to pilfer what had been a big chunk of the Republican party since its founding. (and serving as a counterveiling force on the big chunk of the Democratic party the Republicans had sliced off of the course of the fifteen to twenty years before that)
On “The Return to Normalcy Budget”
Serious question: does raising the cap on income subject to the SS FICA result in a higher payout upon retirement in either your scenario or the option in the Times calculator? That's the way it would work now unless the benefit calc was altered concurrently. (for the website, at least, it's seems at first glance to raise the payout, as half the deficit reduction over 20 years is in the first five years)
On “Occasional Notes: Excesses and Deficiencies”
Re: 1015 K.
Well, duh, Jennifer Aniston is a national treasure.
On “A Too-Kind Comparison”
Because the alternatives are 1) kill em outright 2) say 'go home but pretty please don't fight the war anymore'
(#2 has in fact been used in war before, and was a common enough practice in medieval times that it is where the term 'parole' derives from)
On “Revisiting the Mississippi Interracial Marriage Poll”
Regarding the skewed old demographics of the poll, the one interesting (to put it neutrally) thing on the cross tabs is that the yutes (18-29) were the second highest demo for wanting mixed race mariage illegal at 54% (geezers were at 56%, every one else was 38-39%)
My ex-rectum hypothesis is that if you're that age and (still) living in Mississippi, and you self-identify as a Republican you're going to tend to be of a certain type.
On “How Responsible Are You for Where Your Taxes Go?”
I, for one, am intrigued at the concept of budget making by plebiscite in the antepenultimate paragraph of the original post.
Everyone would have something like the Combined Federal Campaign booklet and by April 15 include on the tax forms the 5 or 6 digit codes of those agencies and/or departments they want to fund and to what % (and just keep it on the discretionary side). The first year I imagine there'd be a radical shift in budget priorities, but after that it might be relatively stable year over year - after all, we re-elect around 90% of the congress people every other year
On “A 4/20 Reminder”
Well, as the original post was about drugs, it is on-topic - in a meta-sense at least.
On “A Confession of Bias, Followed by a Bunch of Stuff You Should Probably Ignore”
dreams of a pipeline
Wait, you seriously think Afghanistan is about a dang pipeline? (Yeah, we need to get the heck out yesterday, but this is truther nonsense)
On “Birtherism”
Hell, even John McCain, the oldest presidential candidate in recent memory, still has a parent living who could have shot down the nonsense about his birth;
The funniest part about that is, McCain was born in (what is now) Panama. And there were actually some noises about that fact on (what was then) the fringes of the Republican party in early 2008
"
Who shot JFK?
You and me.
On “Quote for the day”
You have way too high opinion of the CIA. It was before I was born, but I remember reading about a certain body of water just off the Carribean that was made (in)famous when the "CIA handled this sort of thing"
There were plenty of ex-patriates from Iraq in America in 2003, also. In Afghanistan, most of the government managerial staffing *is* being done by people who were living in the West during the 80's and 90's. That has not been a panacea, and in some cases, has actually helped that same 'talent' rob the country blind.
There is also plenty of people that have been playing - and continue to play - the influence game in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
"
I don't think this a clusterfuck, as far as these things go, (and as goverment things go generally), but it is far far too early to tell whether or not all this will actually work.
On “After the Fact”
America goes to war because three planets align: opportunity, history and political consequence. We’ve always been late to the war party.
I respectfully disagree:
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/forces.htm
(Yeah, most of them aren't called 'wars' - but neither is this one. And the list doesn't count the Indian wars)
On “The bad logic of intervention in Libya”
The responsibility to one's country is very arbitrary, though. Only a minority of people in the world get to chose what country they live in, (and nobody choses which one their born in). And what is considered 'my country' 'your country' and 'their country' at the margins is mostly an accident of history.
(Not to say that using this accident of history has some practical benefits. But it is question begging from a pure morality standpoint)
On “Toward a norm of humanitarian intervention”
And, with the exception of South Africa* in the post '45** era, those countries thus isolated just keep on doing it.
*maybe Burma is finally coming around. Maybe.
**to be fair, the real measure is the post '91 era. Cold war superpower politics had both thumbs on the scale too much to measure anything reliably before the Berlin Wall came down.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.