Tag Archives: circus

Quote of the Day: Who Would Be Dumb Enough to Trust Republicans With the Economy Yet Again?

by StellaAnderson Posted on February 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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From Kevin Hassett, a conservative economist who’s advised both John McCain and Mitt Romney, explaining what Hillary Clinton’s economic message should be in the 2016 presidential campaign:

The Republicans gave us a crappy economy twice, and we fixed it twice. Why would you ever trust them again?

Not bad, Kevin! Thanks. This comes via Ed Kilgore, who’s similarly impressed: “Wow, no kidding. Hillary Clinton should say that. It would almost fit on a bumper sticker, and with a few photos would make killer text for a 30-second ad.”

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Quote of the Day: Who Would Be Dumb Enough to Trust Republicans With the Economy Yet Again?

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Scott Walker Still Having Some Teething Problems Balancing the Tea Party with the Mainstream GOP

by hucmzfbl Posted on February 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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I’ve been talking up Scott Walker as a good bet to win the Republican presidential nomination next year, but there’s no question that he first has to find the right balance between the bullheaded “Hulk Smash Democrats” persona designed to appeal to tea partiers and the more mild-mannered Midwestern executive persona designed to appeal to moderates and big-money donors. The latest example of his difficulties with this balancing act comes from a laughable attempt to change the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin. Here’s Walker’s proposal:

The mission of the system is to develop human resources to meet the state’s workforce needs, to discover and disseminate knowledge….

So far, no problem. He just wants to add a bit of boilerplate about training future workers. No one objects to that. But then there’s more. Everything he wants to delete is in bold:

….to extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campuses and to serve and stimulate society by developing develop in students heightened intellectual, cultural, and humane sensitivities, scientific, professional and technological expertise, and a sense of purpose. Inherent in this broad mission are methods of instruction, research, extended training and public service designed to educate people and improve the human condition. Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.

By cracky, we’ll not have our universities extending knowledge beyond the borders of their campuses! And the search for truth? Sounds like a steaming pile of secular liberal claptrap. Off with its head!

But that’s not the end of it. Heather Digby Parton describes what happened next:

After the changes were revealed publicly Walker made a hilariously fatuous claim worthy of Rosemary Woods and the 18 minute gap: somehow those changes just appeared and he didn’t know nothin’ about how they got there and anyway it was the University’s fault for “overlooking” it. He has had to backtrack from that as well, admitting that his people did make these changes and the university official argued vociferously against it. But none of it is his fault because well, it just isn’t. Or anyone else’s.

Last Wednesday, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Walker finally acknowledged that university officials had raised objections about the proposal but “had been told the changes were not open to debate.” And as the Sentinel graphic on the right shows, the proposed changes were, in fact, quite deliberate.

In any case, even Walker is now being forced to pretend it was all a big misunderstanding. So what happened? My guess is that his inner circle thought the changes might win Walker some brownie points with the tea party crowd, which has always been suspicious of long-haired academics and their lefty ideas, but failed to see how bad it would look among the less wild-eyed crowd that looks to Walker as a pragmatic executive type. Walker’s team is having trouble balancing those two constituencies, and that’s a problem since Walker’s key appeal is that he bridges the gap between them.

Needless to say, this dumb little affair won’t do Walker any long-term damage. It’s just a minor dust cloud. Nonetheless, it’s an instructive dust cloud. Clearly Walker still hasn’t quite managed to polish up the balancing act that’s his biggest source of strength in the 2016 presidential race. That’s something he needs to figure out in short order.

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Scott Walker Still Having Some Teething Problems Balancing the Tea Party with the Mainstream GOP

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Google Can Do Well With Its New Communications Products, But Only If It Acts Like a Genuine Startup

by MarylouMuo Posted on February 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Brian Fung tells us that Google is making a “serious play in the communications space,” featuring an aggressive strategy that includes rollouts of new products like ultra-fast internet service, new smartphones, and even wireless service:

Google’s investments in telecom pit the company against some of the largest voice and Internet providers around. But Google has a key advantage: It doesn’t make its money from Internet service subscribers. That’s why it will be able to drive down prices for consumers, to adopt business practices that would be unsustainable for other carriers and to influence Washington policy debates in surprising ways.

“This is a multilayered strategy,” said Harold Feld, senior vice president for the consumer group Public Knowledge. “Even if Google only makes 10 percent profit margin on its fiber and wireless offerings, that’s enough for it to be successful and to achieve the desired result of driving more use of its applications.”

This isn’t quite right. Or maybe I should say it’s only half right. It’s true that these new services will probably help Google increase sales of its core products, thus offsetting low margins in the communications space. But that’s not the real reason Google can afford to do this. The real reason is that Google is a new entrant, which means that entering these new businesses doesn’t force it to cannibalize any of its current businesses.

This is the key problem that kills old companies when new technology hits the street. Every cheap new widget they sell means one less expensive old widget they sell, and very few companies have the stones to just accept reality and really dive into the new widgets regardless. So they sell the new widgets, but only half-heartedly. They defeature them. They limit their sales channels. They don’t spend enough on marketing. Meanwhile, a startup with no such issues eats their lunch because their new widgets are their main business and they just sell the hell out of them.

That’s Google’s big advantage in this space. The fact that entering the telecom business might—might!—boost sales of other Google products is great, but it’s just a bonus, and not one they should be thinking too hard about. In fact, if their new products are tailored too tightly as mere helpers for their old product lines, they could end up in the same position as all those old dinosaur companies that couldn’t quite put their hearts into new tech. That road is well trod, and it’s usually a pretty grim one.

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Google Can Do Well With Its New Communications Products, But Only If It Acts Like a Genuine Startup

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Today’s Intriguing News About New Contraception Options

by rzana79 Posted on February 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Megan Thielking tells me something I didn’t know today:

With some financial help from the Gates Foundation, Massachusetts drug manufacturer MicroCHIPS Biotech is developing an implantable contraceptive for women. Contraceptive implants currently on the market are thin plastic devices that are put under the skin on the upper arm, where they release hormones for up to three years. If a woman decides she wants to have a baby, the implant needs to be removed.

But the MicroCHIPS implant will last up to 16 years, and women will be able to turn it off via remote control if they’re trying to get pregnant. Trials in humans are expected to start next year, but the same microchip technology has been tested successfully in women with osteoporosis. MicroCHIPS Biotech says the implant could reasonably be on the market by 2018.

There are also some new options for male contraception that look promising. Interesting stuff.

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Today’s Intriguing News About New Contraception Options

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Book Bleg Followup

by Myron83Nao Posted on February 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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A few days ago I asked for reading recommendations that wouldn’t tax my brain too much since my chemotherapy regimen has left me more fatigued than usual. Light, multi-part fiction was my primary request. There were loads of ideas, and I figured some readers might appreciate a quick summary. Here are the five that got the most positive comments:

Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series
Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series
James Corey’s Expanse series
Alan Furst’s Night Soldiers series

I probably made this thread harder than it needed to be by not mentioning stuff I’ve read or genres I don’t like that much. Pure genre mystery stories, for example (Christie, Hillerman, Leonard, etc.), have never done much for me. On the flip side, I’ve read lots of 20th century science fiction (Asimov, Heinlein, Willis, etc. etc.), so there’s not a lot new to recommend there. Among specific recommendations that popped up several times:

I’ve read James Clavell’s Asia series and loved it. Maybe I should reread it!
I’ve read Red/Green/Blue Mars. Meh.
I made it halfway through Wolf Hall and finally gave up. That doesn’t happen often.
I’ve read everything by Neal Stephenson. Big fan.
I’ve read lots of John Scalzi, and all of the Old Man’s War series.
I’ve read Roger Zelazny’s Amber series about, oh, a dozen or two times. It begins with maybe the best first chapter ever written. Obviously I’m a big fan.
I’ve tried a couple of Iain Banks’ Culture novels and I’ve just never been able to get into them.
I’ve read most everything by John LeCarre. But it’s not a bad suggestion. I’m sure there are a few I’ve missed.
I’ve read Charlie Stross’s Merchant Princes series but didn’t care for it much. Ditto for the one Laundry book I read. It’s too bad since I like most of his other stuff.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, and I hope everyone enjoyed it. I also got some good nonfiction recommendations, including several by email that didn’t end up on the comment thread. Much appreciated.

Link – 

Book Bleg Followup

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What Do America’s Most Admired Men and Women Say About America?

by ChristiCharlesw Posted on February 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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This is a month old, but Tyler Cowen happened to highlight it today so I thought I’d pass it along. Here are America’s most admired men and women at the end of 2014:

I suppose there are no huge surprises here. Presidents and first ladies always do well. People in the news often do well. And while I was alarmed when I saw Vladimir Putin on the list in Cowen’s post, I’m a little less alarmed now. He’s at the very bottom of the 1 percenters, which likely means he was named by something like 0.6 percent of Americans and then rounded up. This comes to a grand total of about five people in the survey group, which I suppose is nothing to get too stirred up about.

Not a single dead person continues to make the list, which explains why Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher are off the list. Queen Elizabeth II is a perennial favorite and she’s still alive, but after the excitement of her Diamond Jubilee faded, I guess she did too.

What’s the biggest surprise on the list? I’d say Condoleezza Rice. She’s remarkably high on the list for someone associated with an unpopular war and not much recent news coverage. She’s at the very top of the list among Republicans, though, so there must be more going on here than I realize. Rice has been rising in popularity over the last couple of years, and surely that’s not just because she was part of college football’s playoff selection committee last year, was it? Nor do I feel like I see her on Fox News a lot. So what’s going on?

Completely missing from the list are: sports stars, military figures, authors and artists not already famous for something else, and liberal pundits of any kind. Almost missing are politicians aside from ex-presidents and first ladies (Elizabeth Warren is the exception—barely); Republican presidential wannabes (Ben Carson is the exception); and scientists (Stephen Hawking is the exception, almost certainly based solely on the recent biopic). Overall, conservative men do much better than conservative women.

As Cowen asks, “Given who is on the list, what should we infer about America as a nation? About human nature?”

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What Do America’s Most Admired Men and Women Say About America?

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