Archive for March, 2011

Hex Wrench

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2 years ago
by filistro in

Car­ole Smith

I am not a witch.

I just wanted to get that out of the way right up front, lest I be accused of lack­ing objec­tiv­ity when I talk about Car­ole A. Smith, who is indeed a witch and has suf­fered quite griev­ously as a result. The entire story of Car­ole Smith’s fir­ing as a TSA secu­rity screener is too long and com­plex to sum­ma­rize here, so I urge you to read the arti­cle and form your own opinion.

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Fair Laissez-​​Faire

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2 years ago
by Michael Weiss in

About two weeks ago, this site had the begin­nings of a dis­cus­sion about whether a form of laissez-​​faire cap­i­tal­ism, with reg­u­la­tion only to pre­vent trust for­ma­tion and to ensure trans­parency, could avoid delv­ing into crony cap­i­tal­ism.

Reg­u­la­tion of com­merce can be rep­re­sented as a con­tin­uüm. On the least restric­tive end is eco­nomic anar­chy, a world of pure caveat emp­tor. On the other end is monar­chic eco­nomic con­trol, even more cen­tral­ized than Soviet com­mu­nism, where all com­merce is con­trolled by a sin­gle person.

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On Wisconsin

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2 years ago
by filistro in

Car­los Lam

Mean­while, back in Wisconsin…things just keep get­ting cra­zier. Now we have the bizarre story of Car­los Lam, a deputy pros­e­cu­tor for John­son County, Indi­ana, who e-​​mailed Gov­er­nor Walker to advise set­ting up a “false flag” oper­a­tion. This would have been a staged “attempted assas­si­na­tion” of the gov­er­nor in order to erode pub­lic sup­port for the unions.

As Josh Mar­shall notes, it’s inter­est­ing that the pros­e­cu­tor offer­ing this help­ful sug­ges­tion cites his 18 years’ expe­ri­ence in Repub­li­can pol­i­tics as a bona fide for giv­ing such advice.

And now an appeals panel has sent the recently-​​signed col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law to the Wis­con­sin Supreme Court.

From where I sit, it looks as if the governor’s Excel­lent Union-​​Busting Adven­ture is going to prove very, very costly to the GOP, and the effect will linger well into 2012. Do we have any refugees on the ground out there who can give us a clearer pic­ture of the cur­rent mood in Wis­con­sin and neigh­bor­ing states?

Related Arti­cles

Saving Baby Joseph

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2 years ago
by filistro in


Joseph Maraachli

Joseph Maraachli, born Jan­u­ary 22, 2010, suf­fers from the Clas­sic Infan­tile form of Sand­hoff dis­ease. The thirteen-​​month-​​old has been in a veg­e­ta­tive state since last fall, has min­i­mal brain func­tion, and will inevitably die some­time within the next two years. Until ear­lier this month, Joseph was being kept alive on a res­pi­ra­tor in a Cana­dian hos­pi­tal in Lon­don, Ontario. On Feb­ru­ary 17, when he devel­oped the need for a tra­cheotomy, his doc­tors decided it would be both cruel and futile to sub­ject him to the surgery, and opted to remove him from the res­pi­ra­tor, an action planned for Feb­ru­ary 21 (in a sad irony, the day is cel­e­brated as “Fam­ily Day” in much of Canada). At that point an Amer­i­can priest and sev­eral “right-​​to-​​life” groups, as well as Fox News, inter­vened at the urg­ing of the child’s par­ents and man­aged to have Joseph relo­cated to Mis­souri, where he had the tra­cheotomy per­formed this week. He will remain under skilled nurs­ing care until his death.

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In This Corner…Tim Pawlenty

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2 years ago
by dcpetterson in

2012 Con­tender Series: Tim Paw­lenty

This issue of the Con­tender series will be a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from past install­ments. It will con­cen­trate on impres­sions and reac­tions. I con­fess, I will be unabashedly par­ti­san. I have lived with this man as Gov­er­nor of my state. I want oth­ers in the nation to under­stand what is being pre­sented to them.

The basic facts about Tim Paw­lenty are pretty straight­for­ward. (more…)

A Matter of Style

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2 years ago
by filistro in

A young, styl­ish Barack Obama

I’m speak­ing of the president’s style, which seems to be get­ting a lot of unwel­come atten­tion lately. And I’m not refer­ring to his per­sonal style, which is gen­er­ally impec­ca­ble. I can’t remem­ber when Amer­ica has had such a grace­ful and ele­gant pres­i­dent. The man never seems to put a foot wrong (an attribute he shares with all babies every­where, who never look awk­ward no mat­ter what posi­tion they’re filmed in). This is an emi­nently pho­to­genic pres­i­dent. I’ve only seen him look less than ele­gant on one occa­sion, and that was his regret­table first pitch at the Nation­als’ open­ing day last year…(shud­der)…a moment best for­got­ten by base­ball fans.

But in recent days there’s been a fair amount of con­cen­tra­tion on the president’s gov­ern­ing style…and not just from the right, either. Ruth Mar­cus caused quite a stir this month when she accused Obama of run­ning a “Where’s Waldo” presidency:

For a man who won office talk­ing about change we can believe in, Barack Obama can be a strangely pas­sive pres­i­dent. There are a star­tling num­ber of occa­sions in which the pres­i­dent has been miss­ing in action—unwilling, reluc­tant or late to weigh in on the issue of the moment. He is, too often, more reac­tive than inspi­ra­tional, more cau­tious than force­ful. (more…)

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