In a comment to my post on what really matters in predicting presidential election outcomes, where I said that political scientists tend to look at things like the change in disposable income, reader Vincenzo kindly provided a link to an essay by political scientist Douglas Hibbs where he spells out the model more precisely. Hibbs has what he calls a ‘Bread and Peace’ Model, which looks at [Read more…]
Yesterday was the premiere of the HBO film Game Change about the disastrous 2008 McCain-Palin campaign. Here’s the trailer. [Read more…]
Some newspapers are going to pull the Doonesbury comic strips for next week because it deals with the transvaginal ultrasound issue and the whole Republican assault on women’s access to health services. Strip creator Garry Trudeau is no stranger to controversy over his strip but says that to not address the issue would have constituted ‘comedy malpractice’. [Read more…]
The number of organizations classified as ‘hate groups’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center has risen in recent years, seemingly fueled by the bizarre idea that president Obama is some kind of weird Muslim, Kenyan, communist usurper of American legitimacy who must be overthrown by force before he destroys motherhood and eats all the apple pie. These people cannot seem to see the obvious, which is that Obama is the latest in standard-issue, center-right, pro-oligarchic, authoritarian, political leaders. [Read more…]
On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart thinks that the bellicose language about war with Iran is the result of politicians pandering to their own constituencies, and tries to lower the intensity of the war rhetoric.
(This clip appeared on March 6, 2012. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
Some years ago, two friends and colleagues of mine in different academic departments, both divorced, started living together and had children. They did not pretend they were married nor did they advertise that they were not. The female member once told me that since they were not married, she referred to the other person as her ‘partner’. She discovered that when she did so, people assumed that her partner must be female as well, [Read more…]
Scott Horton goes into more detail in analyzing attorney general Anthony Holder’s speech justifying the killing of US citizens abroad. [Read more…]
I have noticed that when I make calls on Skype, I sometimes hear a small echo of my voice. This has a remarkably discombobulating effect, making it almost impossible to continue speaking.
I learned that a Japanese company has used this effect to create a speech jamming gun that you can use to silence speakers whom you find annoying. [Read more…]