Simplicity Itself

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Monday March 05, 2007 · 12:14 AM PST

2007/03/05 · 00:14

The spotlight shining on the Walter Reed fiasco is drawing attention to an old problem: The disintegration of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA is falling apart; multiple data leaks, a backlog of disability claims in the 600,000 ballpark (and growing), and care regarded by many as substandard. It's shameful.

However, there is a simple solution. It could be the key Democrats are looking for to win public support for a single-payer health care system.

rneches

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Sunday October 29, 2006 · 3:30 PM PST

2006/10/29 · 15:30

Originality is what we do with what we did not originate.

--- Eric Hoffer

One of the most fundamental tools available to the scholar is the quotation. Without it, the scholar would be forced to derive everything from first principles, or to rely on her audience to examine and absorb the material from cited works. Citation, for obvious reasons, is only useful of the audience has access to the cited works in the first place. Much of academic discourse would be impossible without the ability of scholars to quote one another.

The same is true in any area where ideas are currency. It is difficult to formulate a coherent critique of anything that does not dissect specific passages. This is perhaps the principle factor that has propelled blogs into the mainstream political arena; blogs routinely quote lengthy passages from their sources, whereas newspapers do not. Read More

The Naive Economist

rneches

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Tuesday May 23, 2006 · 1:41 AM PDT

2006/05/23 · 01:41

When I first picked up The Economist, it was a guilty pleasure. To most newspapers, interest rates, current account deficits, leveraged debt, and currency reserves are eldritch mysteries to be left to experts who furnish perfunctory prognostication that the editorial staff may then broadcast across the backmatter of the business section like seed stock over a parking lot. To The Economist such matters were far from mysterious; they were quantifiable, they could be compared and contrasted with other periods in history, tested against theories, and their causes and consequences scrutinized. After the starvation rations offered by the newspapers, reading The Economist felt as if some careless adult had accidentally let it slip into my hands, and I held the recipe for a brew of terrible power.

Since then, I've done a bit of growing up, but sadly it seems that the venerable weekly has diminished. This is most obvious when the topic of politics comes up -- and it always does. The great sages that write for the weekly can't seem to avoid swallowing both their feet. Read More

Net Neutrality: It's the Utility, Damnit!

rneches

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Tuesday April 25, 2006 · 5:19 AM PDT

2006/04/25 · 05:19

"It's not about the customer, you see, it's about their profits," Kossak mcjoan argues. That couldn't be more correct, though probably not in the way it was meant. I'm a good liberal like most readers of DailyKos (I even have an autographed copy of Crashing the Gate), but the way this debate has been framed makes me very annoyed with our side. Liberals instinctively frame the debate as "corporate greed verses everyone else." Not only is it wrong, but it's one of the reasons people ignore us.

You see, I am an AT&T shareholder. I'm also a Comcast shareholder. I am very interested in the profits of these companies. I want them to make great steaming heaps of money because this will become my money. That's why I think it's absolutely essential to preserve network neutrality.

Why, you might ask? Won't AT&T and Comcast make more money if they can charge Google to access their customers? Sadly, No! (apologies to Seabas, Brad and Gavin) Read More

Protecting the Courts: It's the little cases

rneches

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Friday March 10, 2006 · 3:36 PM PST

2006/03/10 · 15:36

Back in the early 1990s, running on an anti-government platform might have seemed an odd position to take, given the commonly construed purpose of a political party. After all, would you hire a doctor who proudly proclaimed that "I hate sick people?" Or a teacher that told you of their loathing of children? Yet, that's exactly what the GOP did, and Americans gave them the thumbs up. Today, the GOP has made good on its tacit promise, which, after all, was never really about "small government." It was about contempt for government. I'm not going to enumerate the ways in which this has manifested itself -- other people have done a much more thorough job of that than I can ever hope to do.

So, when Sandra Day O'Connor warns us about the GOP assault on the Judicial system, it sends cold chills up my spine. To explain why I find this such a frightening idea, let me regale you with my own small experience with the Judicial system. Yes, I know it is trivial compared to the Big Ideas people usually talk about, but stick with me if you can. There is a good reason why I bring this up. Read More

High-school Chemistry now Illegal

rneches

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Sunday March 05, 2006 · 3:43 PM PST

2006/03/05 · 15:43

People wonder what is wrong with elementary and high school education in America. Yet, if one is interested in discovering the cause of the decline in the quality of education, one need not look beyond the things we endeavor to keep out of the hands of students. Whether it is because we deem such things offensive, dangerous or "too hard," by denying students and teachers access to the tools, ideas, data and literature necessary to explore the world, we are smothering students.

The details below the fold. Read More

Google and China: Made for each other?

rneches

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Thursday February 16, 2006 · 7:59 PM PST

2006/02/16 · 19:59

I have some sympathy for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco. I really do. Given how little America seems to appreciate human rights these days, it's difficult to see how the folks running these companies could have acquired an aversion to the abuse of human rights. In a way, it really is unfair to expect commercial enterprise to understand or protect the civic institutions that permit them to prosper. Firms are established for the singular purpose of making money; it is supposed to be up to the individual citizen to worry about civic duties like protecting human rights. Read More

Bush is our Exit Strategy

rneches

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Wednesday January 11, 2006 · 1:15 AM PST

2006/01/11 · 01:15

A few days ago, Atrios said:

We will never leave Iraq while George Bush is president, because
they've decided that leaving is losing.

Although I agree with his view of the situation, I heartily disagree with Atrios on his conclusion, especially as a matter of strategy. The presumed Iraq strategy among many in the Democratic movement is that we ought to crush the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, and then our guy or gal withdraws the troops. I think we may be forced to take this route, but I think it is a very undesirable outcome.

It would be far better for the Democrats to seize congress in 2006, and impose a sensible exit strategy on the White House. Then the Democrats should crush the Republican candidate in 2008. There are several reasons why this is more sensible. Read More

Winning the "Culture of Corruption" Point

rneches

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Sunday January 08, 2006 · 6:30 PM PST

2006/01/08 · 18:30

To beat the Republicans in 2006 and 2008, the best message the Democrats have is to highlight the corruption of the Republican party. The Republicans will be unable to refute this accusation, and so their strategy will be largely based on accusing the Democrats of similar corruption. To date, the Democratic response to this message has been, roughly;

We're not in power, so how can we be corrupt?
We're not corrupt.
OK, maybe we've been corrupt, and maybe a few of us still are, but we're way less corrupt.

I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's not too far from the mark. This is a lame refutation. We'll need something stronger.

More beneath the fold. Read More

Arlington West

rneches

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Thursday August 18, 2005 · 2:59 AM PDT

2005/08/18 · 02:59

A few days before the election, I was walking around Santa Monica with some friends. We were going to go for a stroll on the boardwalk, and we found the Arlington West memorial. Read More

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