Modern Family Oscars Commercial
In Advertising, TV, Video on Mar-8-2010 with no comments
The Inbox Zero Merit Badge
In Culture on Mar-4-2010 with no comments
This might be about the only merit badge I could ever earn, cause mine is almost always zero.
Topeka Wants Some Google Fiber Optics
In Technology on Mar-2-2010 with no comments
Google recently released a request for information (RFI) asking cities to submit a bid for them to be chosen as a testbed for their super high-speed Internet service, which is 100 times faster then what is currently offered. It would appear Topeka wants to be a “player.”
Topeka Mayor Bill Bunten signed a proclamation Monday calling for Topeka to be known for the month of March as “Google, Kansas—the capital city of fiber optics.”
Lamar Warns Of “The End of The US Senate”
In Opinion on Mar-2-2010 with no comments
Sen. Lamar Alexander’s (R-Tenn.) appearance on ABC’s This Week Sunday was a pretty darn dishonest display to say the least. One argument, in particular, was pretty hard to overlook.
“The reconciliation procedure is a little-used legislative procedure—19 times it’s been used. It’s for the purpose of taxing and spending and reducing deficits.
“But the difference here is that there’s never been anything of this size and magnitude and complexity run through the Senate in this way. There are a lot of technical problems with it, which we could discuss. It would turn the Senate—it would really be the end of the United States Senate as a protector of minority rights, as a place where you have to get consensus, instead of just a partisan majority, and it would be a political kamikaze mission for the Democratic Party if they jam this through [....]“
The very next question host Elizabeth Vargas asked was, “Why political kamikaze, though?”
So let me see if I go this right. No effort at all to push back against Alexander’s dishonest claims much less set the record straight for viewers. No, the question focuses on the electoral consequences of the legislation, rather than the substantive. Instead the senator’s straight right policy lies were allowed to pass, while the senator’s campaign predictions drew scrutiny.
With that in mind, lets just explain how flat out dishonest about his comments actually were. (1) For Alexander to dismiss reconciliation as a “little-used legislative procedure” is disingenuous. Reconciliation has been used, legitimately, to pass everything from welfare reform to COBRA (the “R” stands for reconciliation), Bush’s massive tax-cuts to student-aid reform, nursing home standards to the earned income tax credit.
In fact, in the not to distant past, Senate Republicans even considered using reconciliation to approve drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. So it is a little too late to characterize the same procedural measure as some kind of outrage, after Republicans relied on it extensively.
(2) To insist that reconciliation’s purpose is to “reduce deficits” is wrong on like ten different levels. As Paul Krugman noted, “[R]econciliation was used to pass the two major Bush tax cuts, which increased the deficit—by $1.8 trillion.”
(3) Even if we concede that health care reform is bigger in “size and magnitude” than the other bills approved through reconciliation, the plan isn’t to pass health care reform through reconciliation. The Health Care Reform bill passed the Senate with 60 votes. Reconciliation will be utilized to makes minor tweaks and changes to that bill after the House passes the Senate bill.
And finally, (4) To suggest passing a budget fix by majority rule “would really be the end of the United States Senate as a protector of minority rights” is comically ridiculous.
It was a rather depressing and pitiful display all around. But here’s the real kicker: there will be no consequences. Lamar Alexander, who may actually know better then most on his side of the aisle, made a variety of demonstrably false claims on national television. Not only was he not called on it, Alexander will almost certainly be invited back, rewarded for his dishonesty with more opportunities to mislead the public.
Will They Ever Stop Whining?
In Opinion on Feb-28-2010 with no comments
I think most of our politicians in DC and reporters live in a bubble where they have no clue what the rest of the world outside of it is like. But I swear, folks that work on Wall Street live inside of a bubble inside of a bubble.
Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, says he believes Washington has become increasingly erratic and unfair in its treatment of the banks over the last few months, and he now has some regrets about participating in the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
“F.D.I.C. is going to cost us a lot of money. TARP cost us a lot of money. This bank tax, my first reaction was, ‘That will cost us a lot of money,” Mr. Dimon said Thursday at the bank’s annual Investor Day conference in New York. “I think we are getting into the capricious, arbitrary and punitive behavior.”
Oh boo fucking hoo dude, you got a $17 million dollar bonus last year, not to mention billions from the tax payers to bail your sorry ass out. For the first time in my life I’m really beginning to understand why the French went so nuts with the guillotine. They were just sick to death of having to watch spoiled, super rich aristocrats behave like a bunch of assh0les and decided to put an end to it.
Tommy Young is a marketing consultant, tech geek, designer, writer, and sometime thinker based in St. Louis. More »
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