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— Feminists should defend Twilight fans . . . or maybe not .
— Even the woeful Knicks won’t touch Allen Iverson but we’re still all assured he’s a great player.
— Senate bill’s employer responsibility provisions are an improvement ...
Other
In its largest reconstruction effort since the Marshall Plan, the United States government has spent $53 billion for relief and reconstruction in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, building tens of thousands of hospitals, water treatment plants, electricity substations, schools and bridges.
But ...
World
Iraq
Washington, D.C
Michael Jordan seems to have been stung by the negative reaction to his horrifying Hall of Fame speech and decided to start showing some class and humility :
If the NBA were to retire Michael Jordan’s No. 23 leaguewide, the newly inducted Hall of Famer says there are several more ...
World
Jordan
Larry Johnson
Building on yesterday’s idea, borrowed from Brad DeLong, that the Fed could stimulate the economy by raising its long-term inflation target from two percent to three percent it’s worth noting that there are other arguments for thinking that this would be a good idea. First off, ...
World
Foreign Policy
I think we might do a lot of good in the world, and even improve people’s personal decision-making, if we made everyone take a basic statistics class in high school. Certainly both the mammogram dispute and the post-Nidal Hasan resurgence of interest in “profiling” of Muslims ...
Other
Homeland Security
I agree with Stephen Walt’s overall point that part of what we’re seeing on Barack Obama’s Asia trip is that the Bush administration’s squandering of American national power has increased China’s status vis-a-vis the United States. That said, there’s a ...
World
China
It’s a little bit difficult to believe, but this is not a parody. It’s an actual preview for an actual movie about the tea party movement:
Find out more here .
Other
David Corn describes the premise of a new online game :
It’s January 2011. The GOP is about to assume control of both houses of Congress—having been voted in by a public deeply suspicious of Democrats after President Barack Obama conducted clandestine talks with President Felipe ...
World
Mexico
Canada
Quentin Peel’s analysis of the new EU jobs contains a lot of interesting background, but I’m not sure that the lede is right:
The appointment of Herman Van Rompuy, Belgium’s prime minister, as president of the European Council and Lady Ashton of the UK as European Union “high ...
World
Rasmussen Reports poll reveals John McCain to be pretty vulnerable to a potential primary challenge :
Senator John McCain’s future in the U.S. Senate may be a little less assured than previously thought.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely 2010 Republican Primary voters in ...
Congress
John McCain
One reason that Barack Obama has stayed in pretty good political shape despite a terrible economic situation is that the public has consistently recalled that this recession began under George W Bush and reached its highest point of crisis under Bush. But as horrible labor market conditions ...
White House
Recession
Republican National Committee
Barack Obama
Steve Benen observes that the other thing about the CNN poll referenced below is that it shows that the public has absolutely insane ideas about balancing the budget. In particular, 67 percent of voters claim to believe that “the government should balance the budget even when the country ...
Other
David Brooks has a good column today arguing that Timothy Geithner’s approach to the financial crisis has been vindicated and that actually one of the most roundly criticized aspects of the Obama administration’s approach has worked out well.
He makes strong points, but I would ...
White House
Timothy Geithner
David Brooks
Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier’s complaints about the health care bill seem oddly vague to me and disconnected from any real knowledge of the provisions of the bill. But at the very end he makes some reasonable points:
So the majority of our representatives may ...
Congress
Health care
Brad DeLong offers this chart :
The reason to be concerned about the long-term deficit is that the basic underlying concept of Medicare—the government will pay for health care for old people—implies a gigantic long-term fiscal shortfall. There’s no reason to be concerned about the ...
Other
Did you really change your mind?
— Climate change activism foiled by belief-desire psychology ?
— The constitutional procedure for implementing preventive detention.
— The more Democrats talk about fixing health care the bigger the minority calling the status quo “excellent” ...
World
Lou Dobbs
Turkey
Belgium
Ezra Klein said something important but, I think, slightly wrong about what kind of health insurance people prefer:
People tend to prefer PPOs to HMOs . PPOs tend to be more expensive than HMOs. But HMOs tend to have a higher actuarial value . The average PPO is in the low 80s, while the ...
World
Health care
Denmark
I had a few dialogues over the weekend with people about why on earth Phoenix is doing so well so far in the season. Looking at it a little bit more closely, “good luck” seems to be a big part of the answer. All the research shows that the best predictor of future performance is ...
Other
I wrote earlier this week that based on his own analysis of the situation, Ben Bernanke has an obligation to provide more monetary expansion . A bunch of people responded to that by asking what, exactly, the Fed can do and I didn’t have a great explanation of the details for them. But ...
World
Foreign Policy
In addition to displaying clear ignorance, on the campaign trail last year Sarah Palin demonstrated a habit of lying. Consequently, it makes sense that some media organization decided to scrutinize her book for accuracy. It seems pretty clear, however, (see Greg Marx ) that the Associated ...
