- Shocking Barack
- “You would be shocked at the level of interest.” (I still say we ought to trade Chavez for him. And I’ll keep saying it until someone makes fun of it and/or takes it seriously.)
- No, really — fuck YOU, Arnold.
- Everyone was mocking this yesterday, but I think it’s pretty clearly explained by this.
- Happy birthdays to Cris Kirkwood, Christopher Lloyd, and Catherine Deneuve
- Speaking of Chavvy, tomorrow is the anniversary of his big contract extension.
- In principle, I agree with Yglesias’ (and Atrios’) oft-repeated call more ideological-but-not-partisan journalism, but … the one thing I think Murdock does know that they don’t, is that while ideological journalism pretty much relies on the old MSM business model (or charity), partisan journalism always has multiple options of plugging itself into various new/old revenue streams.
- Gladwell has a smart:
If you had a single piece of advice to offer young journalists, what would it be?
The issue is not writing. It’s what you write about. One of my favorite columnists is Jonathan Weil, who writes for Bloomberg. He broke the Enron story, and he broke it because he’s one of the very few mainstream journalists in America who really knows how to read a balance sheet. That means Jonathan Weil will always have a job, and will always be read, and will always have something interesting to say. He’s unique. Most accountants don’t write articles, and most journalists don’t know anything about accounting. Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school. If I was studying today, I would go get a master’s in statistics, and maybe do a bunch of accounting courses and then write from that perspective. I think that’s the way to survive. The role of the generalist is diminishing. Journalism has to get smarter. - Would you like to buy a monkey? Oh, wait.
- I fucking love Al Franken:
- I never expected all this … hoopla!
- Holy crap. Is this true? Jordan Cronenweth was the original DP for Buckaroo Banzai?!?
- Um …
Ew.
Re 10: Rock on.
Re 3:
I work with those people (and on a different one of their cases). If the State would just do what they’re told the would SAVE a shit-ton of money. Blaming those decisions for increasing the budget issues is just plain nuts. (fair disclosure: the case I work on does increase costs, but only because the old system was in clear violation of the constitution – hence the injunction)
I suppose the next logical step is for Arnold to blame the Constitution for the budget mess.
As I see it, perhaps the biggest problem with CA’s budgetary system is that every. Single. Stakeholder. bears responsibility for (and is invested in the systems built up around) the decisions and actions that laid the groundwork for wrecking the system, exacerbated the crisis, and actively/passively block resolution.
And that’s not a nonpartisan/pox-on-all-their-houses/all-politicians-are-teh-SUXXORZ statement. It’s that everyone is incented in the opposite direction of progress.
And the whole super-majority voting requirements / term limits structural disaster.
9. “Capuchins satisfy GARP”
Speaking of Capuchins, I made my father take me to see Monkey Trouble in the theaters. I can’t believe the kind of crap I put him through.
I always thought of Garp as more of a bonobo.
I didn’t understand repoz’s joke in the slightest, but I still laughed.
I’m pretty sure I got this right, but so did a few other folks. Hopefully my essay pushes me over the top.
That’s a cute essay idea.
My non-cheating/non-googling quiz guesses:
1. Aluminum (Al) — E. Jet turbine blades (half-educated guess)
2. Copper (Cu) — H. Pennies (too easy … it can’t be a trick question, can it?)
3. Magnesium (Mg)– C. Green plants (half-educated guess)
4. Potassium (K) — A. Bananas (what [yuppie/hippie] parent doesn’t know this?)
5. Rhenium (Re) — I. Photocopiers (guessing)
6. Scandium (Sc) — F. Lightweight bicycle parts (guessing)
7. Selenium (Se) — B. Electrical wires (quarter-educated guess)
8. Titanium (Ti) — D. Hip implants (though IIRC E and F could also be correct … trivium: my wedding band is Ti … looks like he doesn’t make it anymore, but it’s similar to this, but with an open square channel instead of the inlay, and the channel has a metallic blue, um … annealing? glaze?)
9. Zinc (Zn) — G. Nickels
I did some moderate googling. Like I said in my (typo-filled post), it’s pretty complicated because it’s not a perfect one to one, so you have make the pieces fit. For example, wires can be aluminum or copper, the former coming into practice when copper got super-expensive.
You flipped pennies and nickels in your answer. Pennies are made from zinc (much cheaper) and then copper plated I think. Nickels are actually made from mostly copper.
Good guess on the magnesium, I think it’s part of chlorophyll. Hip implants is also correct for titanium, I’m pretty sure, but again it’s tricky since lightweight bikes can also be made from titanium. I’m fairly certain that titanium is not strong enough fro jet turbine blades, though.
I had to look up Rhenium and Scandium. I looked up Selenium too, but I take it back because the answer should have been obvious (to me, anyway).
As the illustrious Too Short says, you gotta get in where you fit in.
William Miller was a silly-con.
Nice essay. I liked the next one too:
I would have to go with Cesium in response to either question.
Got periods? Sal will cesium.
some stupids
Patriot #1: Not such a philosophically bad argument, but people who make this argument haven’t quite thought everything through, for reasons tango unintentionally touched on in #5. There are a ton of purely logistical reasons for the state to recognize marriage completely apart from the question of whether the state should “support” it. So I declare a stupid.
Mike Harris #13 and John Lynch #16 make the same stupid.
Xeifrank #22 is about the most idiotic comment one is likely to read.
Colin Wyers #40 is a smart man wielding a very stupid point.
#1: I myself am not anti-state marriage. I think North and South Dakota should have every right to enter into a cohabitative compact together.
I think it’s probably the right answer (although not quite the way Patriot describes it.
Specifically, I think states should “civil union” any two people (with, perhaps, age-related rules). States should marry no one. Religions, etc. should be able to marry anyone they want and no one they don’t.
Then you just change the law so that all legal references to married couples change to civil union couples, and make “marital status” a suspect classification (i.e. illegal to discriminate against in almost any circumstance, like race).
Basically, France does it right.
What is gained by that if you don’t substantively change any of the laws? The anti-gay-marriage people would be just as pissed off, most gay marriage proponents would prefer that less to government-recognized gay marriage and the benefit is some sort of ineffable sense that the government is “staying out of marriage” when in fact there is no substantive difference. I also think it is just false that marriage is a religious institution, which many people use as a premise for these sorts of arguments.
I don’t think it’s false at all, and for a lot of people I think that is a meaningful part of the opposition.
What changes wrt each group:
Gay couples – No longer get fewer or different rights than any other couple. Equality.
Concerned Christians – The “institution of marriage” is as preserved as they want.
Churches – Do not have to change, no civil exposure for discrimination
Anti-Gay people – Nothing. Sucks to be them on many levels.
Basically, from where I sit all non-assholes win.
It is a meaningful part of the opposition for sure, but it’s false in the sense that tens or hundreds of millions of people get married and like marriage and do not feel that there is any religious component to it. It is a religious institution for some people and not for others.
concerned christians-no, it’s not preserved as they want. they want the state to recognize marriage. There are roughly 0 “concerned christians” who care about the “institution of marriage” who like this idea.
churches-they are not really in danger of civil exposure of discrimination because of this and they are under no obligation to perform gay marriages in any case.
A couple issues:
“tens or hundreds of millions of people get married and like marriage and do not feel that there is any religious component to it”
So what do they care if it’s called a civil union (as long as that’s what EVERYONE gets)? And if they do care, they can go to any of what would be a huge list of people doing marriages and have one. It works in other countries.
“they want the state to recognize marriage”
That’s not everyone’s position. I’m not saying it’s a magic bullet that would get 100% support, but it would convert a whole lot more than zero people. Heck, I know a lot more than zero people who would change positions for this (or at least much more enthusiastically support it).
“they are not really in danger of civil exposure of discrimination because of this”
Not now, since gay marriage is illegal. Depending upon how the law is changed, that could change.
Bottom line, all I’m saying is that it really shouldn’t cost any supporters and would certainly attract a non-zero number of opponents (heck, preservation of religion is one of the arguments in favor of the First Amendment).
Some non-religious people would care. Just because they like what they are to be called “marriage.” Maybe that is silly, but so is going to great lengths to not call it marriage for no other reason than that it is a controversial term.
The First Amendment is exactly why churches are not in any danger of exposure. Among “concerned christians,” who are the main opponent of gay marriage, I think you are just wrong, and the idea would convert very very very very very few people.
If you’re not going to change the substantive law anyway, and there would not be/is not wide support for this proposal anyway, I still don’t see the point. Equality can be and will be gained by having gay marriage. Various people will be pissed off, but they would also be by the no-marriage idea.
So, basically: why not just allow gay marriage? It is way way way way way more likely to happen than getting rid of state marriage altogether.
Maybe you’re right, and it seems to be what states are doing (which, so we’re clear, is not at all a problem for me).
I just think there’s less nothing to the “marriage is a religious event” argument than there is to all of the other crap, and the fix is simple.
Strange exercise.
yeah. there’s an elephant in the room that can’t be productively debated, and asking for arguments that ignore the elephant is sort of silly.
What elephant?
90% of honest anti-gay marriage arguments/sentiments are based on the notion that gay=bad. xeifrank is worried his kid’s teacher or the maoist bureaucrats on the states curriculum committee will confuse his moral teachings.
It was a joke…
My experience has been you could justifiably say the same thing about most comments Xeifrank makes on almost any topic.
wtf does his signoff “vr” mean?
I always presumed it meant volkisch reich.
Very respectfully.
Also, yes. This is horrendously stupid on many levels. Not least of which is that they ARE refused service in some important settings. Like hospitals.
#10 has multiple sizable stupids:
A. That’s not a “straw man”
B. I don’t think he’s using the term “bright line” correctly (though I could be wrong)
C. In any case, what does that second sentence even mean?
D. His “argument” at the end simply fails at demolishing the putative “straw man” at the beginning: what about women who are infertile? Should tubal ligations and vasectomies be illegal? Should the government put a procreative time limit on marriages, and dissolve them after 5-10 years?
Yeah, I didn’t read to the bottom of that one. It’s stupid. Also, the no-kids heteros argument is itself just a response to a different stupid argument, not an argument in itself. “Bright line” is sort of used correctly in the sense that “one man and one woman” is a proxy for “values a, b, and c” and is a bright line relative to something like proving to the judge that you intend to have kids and will be solid community members or something.
Yeah, but his “bright line” isn’t “drawn to be as inclusive as possible.” And if it was — to include “men and women” and “men and men” and “women and women” — then if he really believes that its broadness/inclusiveness isn’t an argument against it, then wouldn’t he be in favor of legalizing all marriages?
He’s wrong that it’s “drawn to be as inclusive as possible” but it’s still a bright line that bears a reasonable relationship to breeding.
All a “bright line” in (at least in law) is a clear standard.
I.E. “mergers that result in a company with >X% market share are illegal” is a bright line.
The contrast is to “standards,” which in that example would be “mergers that result in a company with too much market share are illegal.”
He is advocating for a bright line, just a stupid one.
I’ve never quite understood how the slippery-slope-to-polygamy argument isn’t valid. As opposed to the slippery-slope-to-box-turtles-and-8-year-olds argument against the repeal of sodomy laws, polygamy in the abstract involves consenting participants (and I think there’s a reverse-slipper-slope argument against presuming that all/most women who enter into polygamous marriages are coerced: so, do we make “shotgun weddings” and the quasi-arranged marriages of various Hiltons/Rockefellers/etc illegal?).
Which is to say, I have no problem with either gay marriage or polygamous marriage.
Your hatred of mormons is insufficient. Goodbye.
More seriously, if there’s a movement for polygamy I’ll consider it. As of now, I’m not aware of one.
There are various Mormon splinter groups who have been prosecuted (or in their minds persecuted) for practicing polygamy. And there are a fair number of (non-religious) people who are into “polyamory” at least some of whom, presumably, would want the legal protection of marriage.
And it seem to me that the discussion of whether those people are entitled to certain rights should not really depend on either how many of them there are nor how … well, repulsive is probably too strong a word … icky I might find their practices.
Polyamory Lovins?
I know that “splinter” implies that they’ve broken off from the church, but I disagree with the usage of the word “Mormon” in “Mormon splinter groups”. To practicing Mormons, polygamists are no more Mormon than a Catholic or atheist.
Splinter seems right. The polygamists are apostates in the eyes of the LDS, no doubt. But they do share the same sacred text and recognize the same Prophet as the Mormons, and their schism wasn’t all that long ago, in religious years. They’re still Mormons, in the same way that excommunicated gay-marriage-performing defrocked priests are still Catholics, though shunned and damned to Hell.
I see your point, but a slight correction: Mormons believe in a living prophet, and I’ve always been under the impression that “fundamentalists” didn’t follow the same current leaders. Which would make sense, considering their actions have been condemned by actual Mormon leaders for quite some time.
Of course, depending upon who you believe, there are still mainline Mormons with multiple wives.
No more Mormon, or no Les Nessman?
“It’s a helicopter, and it’s coming this way. It’s flying something behind it, I can’t quite make it out, it’s a large banner and it says, uh – Happy… Thaaaaanksss… giving! … From … W … K … R… P!! No parachutes yet. Can’t be skydivers… I can’t tell just yet what they are, but – Oh my God, Johnny, they’re turkeys!! Johnny, can you get this? Oh, they’re plunging to the earth right in front of our eyes! One just went through the windshield of a parked car! Oh, the humanity! The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! Not since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been anything like this!”
{ waits for JL to pounce }
Yeah, these be murky waters through which I dare not tread.
I think the murk is from the excess fat on FSU’s pastrami.
To the extent that marriage conveys certain benefits (immigration status, employer health care benefits, taxes), allowing multiple instances of it seems like it gives greater opportunity for abuse. That is, while any marriage could be a sham, at least under the present circumstances it is limited to one potential sham per person.
(I don’t claim this is a particularly strong argument, but I think there’s at least a little something to it.)
OK, I can certainly see someone operating a one-man/woman get-your-citizenship business. But 1:1 marriages allow for the same abuse, and there are systems in place to provide some monitoring/oversight of those which would likely be tripped by such a scheme.
You lose the logistical/wheel-greasing benefits of marriage with polygamy and get confusion instead. Also, there is that reverse slippery slope argument, but I don’t think either are particularly compelling, and tend to prompt a “so what?” I think it’s a tricky question, though, and I don’t have a strong view. My sense is that is polygamy as practiced is probably a pretty ugly/bad thing, but then that’s what a lot of people, formerly most everyone, thought of the “gay lifestyle,” so…
Well, a separatist feminist take on traditional 1:1 breeder marriage is that it’s just as ugly/bad.
True, and that is also a tricky issue. Currently in the U.S. it is basically fine, but in the 19th century in all times before it was something of a dystopian system, yet still necessary for women because they would also be pretty bad off by not marrying. If you throw out marriage altogether, there are still a ton of practical issues that need to be dealt with, especially on dissolution of the non-marriage, and certainly in the past at the very least that would not have and did not resolve itself well for women at all.
{ adds “logistical/wheel-greasing benefits of marriage” to euphemism directory }
What about consensual adult incestuous marriages? Would that be more or less palatable as legalized polygamy?
I’d find those personally icky but not legally objectionable.
Ditto.
I’d be ok with sibling-incestuous marriages, not with parent-child. Laws against incestuous breeding are probably good though, to the extent that the popular understanding of the science of that is true. Although that also gets into some pretty ugly territory…
I think pretty much everyone would agree that Hiltons and Rockefellers should not be encouraged to breed.
uh….
ACK! (head esplodes)
Fixed.
I’m too tired to do the same thing with Whiskey, but still…
TWHS
And, of course …
Proposed lesson plan:
Now, kids, I know you want to emulate your favorite snarky best friends that you see on television shows and in movies. But being gay is not so easy. It’s a learned behavior. You’ll need lots of practice.
Cool video
I always thought it was more like “dozens of people”, but maybe I’ve been underestimating the scope and fervor of the community all this time.
“We” in that case simply refers to A’s fans, and “hundreds” is the total Coliseum attendance.
Nope. mk’s point still applies.
Dear Ezra: The answer is “because it’s hard“
What is something that makes me want to Nuke ’em all?
There was something on TPM recently that said the WH and DoD were opposed to the amendment as well.
DoD I can understand. But the White House? Seriously?
Against a “don’t rape your employees” law?
I’m with you, but c’mon — that’s a willfully inflammatory (dare I say, partisan) mischaracterization of the amendment.
Fair enough. (of course, I am partisan and I do think it’s crazy. I’d like to be a try to get a client out of one of those.)
yet another reason to like Franken.
super kool econ project for Levitt or Gary Becker: calculate the wage premium for higher risk/reduced redressability of rape; report findings to silly silly liberals who hate contracts.
Anyone else watching the Monty Python series on IFC? Last night’s was on the making of Holy Grail, and there were a few interesting nuggets:
– It was partially financed by members of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. The Pythons were stunned to hear that these superstars were fans
– Elvis was a huge fan of the movie, supposedly watching it over 40 times in his pvt screening room. When hurt playing football, he was asked how bad it was and responded “It’s just a flesh wound”
– Sure way to get a bad audience response – tell people you’re worried that your new comedy film isn’t any good and ask them to come watch it to see if it’s funny.
I’m excited about it, but waiting for the DVD release.
Well. This game appears to be over.
Neyer misunderstands. No matter how good human umpires are, there will always be best and worst umpires.
A-Rod v. Fuentes? Pass the popcorn.
(actually, pass the smoked gouda and salami on wheat with trader joe’s dijon mustard. but you get the idea.)
Showoff.
Walking A-Rod can’t possibly be the correct move here, can it?
How about running for A-Rod and then also for Matsui when down a run in the top of the ninth?
MikeA bait.
I’m surprised, in a good way, to be reading this. Maybe there are ideas so plainly good that bipartisanship is possible.
So, given the international community’s apparent stance on Polanski (basically that he had sex with a minor and should only serve, at most, two years), I’m wondering where the disconnect lies. He essentially ass-raped a 13 year-old, according to the transcripts we discussed here late last week/early this week, and yet the Europeans wanna make us out to be blood-thirsty savages for wanting to punish this guy.
Where am I off track here? Where’s the disconnect?
He drugged her, too. Not sure that accounts for the disconnect, though…
He’s famous/rich/influential.
It’s the same as the “this has already ruined his life, why punish him too” argument you hear when captains of industry are caught committing white collar crime.
Also, the whole “statutory rape isn’t real rape” crowd – which isn’t a universally crazy position – might not know that this was both “real” and “statutory.”