Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktA few links that may be of interest…
Climate alarmist James Lovelock admits to being, well, a bit alarmist.
Voter ID laws? We don’t need no stinkin’ voter ID laws.
A Chinese company markets a new pair of sunglasses by naming them after Helen Keller.
The Obama admin embraces the implied racism of disparate impact laws.
Cool time lapse video of girl growing up, from infant to 12 years old.
Filed under: fun stuff, racism, voter ID laws | Tagged: climate change |
All Things in Moderation 
From the voter fraud story:
“None of the cases appeared to involve someone who misrepresented his or her identity at the polls to vote.”
Jame O’Keefe is still at large then.
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I know Jeffrey Sachs is a moderately oldish lefty from Columbia, thus not on most people here’s top ten list of persons of interest, but I thought this was a pretty decent brief description of the global nature of both our concerns and interests as a nation. Life sure is getting more complicated. I left out the quote about global warming but it’s in there……………….lol
This decline reflects Europe’s slow growth in terms of both population and output per person. On the other side of the ledger, the global GDP share of the Asian developing countries, including China and India, has soared, from around 8% in 1980 to 25% in 2011, and is expected to reach 31% by 2017.
The US, characteristically these days, insists that it will not join any new IMF bailout fund. The US Congress has increasingly embraced isolationist economic policies, especially regarding financial help for others. This, too, reflects the long-term wane of US power. The US share of global GDP, around 25% in 1980, declined to 19% in 2011, and is expected to slip to 18% in 2017, by which point the IMF expects that China will have overtaken the US economy in absolute size (adjusted for purchasing power).
But the shift of global power is more complicated than the decline of the North Atlantic (EU and US) and the rise of the emerging economies, especially the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). We are also shifting from a unipolar world, led mainly by the US, to a truly multipolar world, in which the US, the EU, the BRICS, and smaller powers (such as Nigeria and Turkey) carry regional weight but are reticent to assume global leadership, especially its financial burdens. The issue is not just that there are five or six major powers now; it is also that all of them want a free ride at the others’ expense.
The shift to such a multipolar world has the advantage that no single country or small bloc can dominate the others. Each region can end up with room for maneuver and some space to find its own path. Yet a multipolar world also carries great risks, notably that major global challenges will go unmet, because no single country or region is able or willing to coordinate a global response, or even to participate in one.
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This was sort of interesting as well. Looks like some changes might be in the works regarding how board rooms and shareholders review, vote and compensate. This is the third or fourth story I’ve read along these lines in the last couple of weeks.
Mr. Poppe, who manages money for the Sequoia Fund, one of the most well-respected institutional investment firms in the country, made his letter public last Thursday, setting off a debate within the upper echelons of corporate boardrooms.
His letter, which he wrote with his partner, implored his firm’s investors to vote against the re-election of one of Goldman Sachs’s most prominent board members, James A. Johnson, a former chief executive of Fannie Mae. Mr. Poppe characterized Mr. Johnson’s tenure as being “at the center of several egregious corporate governance debacles.” Mr. Johnson also is a board member of Target, and Mr. Poppe also advises his investors to vote against his re-election if he is nominated again.
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My guess is that the only effective check on bad governance of most publicly traded entities is for the big institutional investors to actively watchdog the officers through directors they elect, and experts they hire.
Opposing James Johnson as a director should be a no-brainer, from what I recall.
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Another link that I should have included, illustrating the genuine awfulness and lack of thought that is Dodd/Frank: What Is A Swap? An exceprt (but really, you need to read it all):
Note that this doesn’t even touch on the actual substance of the regulations themselves. How could it, given the utter lack of clarity over what it is that is supposed to be regulated?
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Gaia finds Lovelocks lack of faith… disturbing.
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“lack of faith… disturbing.”
One of my favorite movie moments.
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NoVa, Wait till I start dropping ‘Spinal Tap’ references!
Scott, it’s hard not to think this wasn’t intentional, but, as Napolean said, “Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.”
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McWing:
Almost certainly incompetence. And inevitable incompetence at that.
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“The only effective check on bad governance of most publicly traded entities is for the big institutional investors to actively watchdog the officers through directors they elect, and experts they hire.”
Bogle has been beating that drum for years. Perhaps the institutional investors are coming around to that point of view.
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Obama admin says that the War on Terror is over.
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The article linked by Scott points to the Admin adjusting to the new ME reality, and concludes that the positioning will be unpopular.
I don’t get that. It might not be popular, but I don’t think it will be unpopular.
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Mark, this one’s for you buddy. A little insight from Jeff Greenfield on the interview he did with Huntsman that caused such a whirlwind of blogging activity.
Huntsman: “My first thought was, this is what they do in China on party matters if you talk off script.”
Those words were spoken Sunday night by Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor and Republican presidential candidate, in a public interview with me at New York’s 92nd Street Y. Huntsman was describing how his comments about the potential appeal of a third party got him disinvited to speak at a Republican National Committee event in Florida.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Huntsman was painting with a brush so broad as to compare the Republican Party with Communist China. For one thing, Huntsman is not yet under house arrest with his Internet access forbidden.
But here’s what the dust-up missed. If you take all of what he said to me over some 90 minutes, it is all but certain that John Huntsman is not going to be a Republican much longer.
The real message he is carrying is that both parties–the “duopoly,” as he calls it–are paralyzed by polarization and inertia, and that the Republican Party in particular is pursuing an “unsustainable” course.
Why, I asked him, shouldn’t Republicans learn from their 2010 midterm victory that an unswerving opposition to Obama is politically profitable?
Because, he replied, “It’s unsustainable. It can’t last more than a cycle or two. … With the political center hollowed out, the American people are going to say, who’s going to populate the center where you’ll get things done.”
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lms (from Greenfield):
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Huntsman was painting with a brush so broad as to compare the Republican Party with Communist China. For one thing, Huntsman is not yet under house arrest with his Internet access forbidden.
Well certainly that latter sentence shows why the comparison was is a foolish one, but its hard to square the former with what Huntsman actually said. Comparing the Republican party with Communist China was exactly what he was doing.
If you take all of what he said to me over some 90 minutes, it is all but certain that John Huntsman is not going to be a Republican much longer.
That being the case, one wonders why the big brouhaha over being disinvited to speak.
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Sorry Scott, but you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I don’t know much about the story, Huntsman, Greenfield or whether conservatives over-reacted to Huntsman’s comments or not. I only linked the story because I know Mark likes Huntsman. Third Party in 2016 might be interesting though.
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lms:
Sorry Scott, but you’re barking up the wrong tree here.
I’m not sure what tree you think I was barking up. I was just commenting on the story you linked to.
Third Party in 2016 might be interesting though.
Well, there’s always the Libertarian party, of course. But yes, I would certainly find it interesting if some moderate Dem bolted the party and made a show of running against Obama in the general.
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I do like Huntsman.
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This WSJ editorial will be the funniest thing you’ll read all day. 70% baby! It’s for the children!
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“It’s for the children!”
I want a paternity test first.
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Scott
I was just commenting on the story you linked to.
No problem, usually when you use my name you’re trying to get an argument going. And just out of curiosity, I wonder how many women self-identify as Libertarian? I was talking 2016 btw.
Back to work for me.
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lms:
No problem, usually when you use my name you’re trying to get an argument going.
Am I?
And just out of curiosity, I wonder how many women self-identify as Libertarian?
No idea, but I know of one for sure who didn’t.
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Am I?
Yes, in my opinion. Either that or you’re trying to get me to defend something that I simply found interesting but am not married to…………………..lol
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lms:
Either that or you’re trying to get me to defend something that I simply found interesting but am not married to…
Nope. Not trying to get you to do anything whatsoever. Just making a comment on something you posted.
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Nope
I must just be getting paranoid in my old age then, or maybe it was that skull fracture I had earlier in the year. You forgot to quote the lol btw.
Off for a few days probably……………have a good week all.
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I have to admit that Huntsman’s R primary campaign strategy was, and I’m not kidding, absolutely fascinating. I do not think we’ll ever see anything like it again.
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“I wonder how many women self-identify as Libertarian?”
trick question. we all look like Comic-Book Guy and live in our mother’s basement.
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You mean chicks don’t dig that?
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well, the. best. girls. ever. do.
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You mean chicks don’t dig that?
well, the. best. girls. ever. do.
Comic-Book Guy would probably be a stretch, but certain comic book characters would do it.
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Also: a short clip on “where are the women libertarians”
http://reason.com/blog/2010/12/10/reason-tv-where-are-the-female
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oh! oh! inter-squad libertarian vs. Objectivist fight
“Washington-think-tank libertarians take an incrementalist approach within the two-party system. The Libertarian Party offers a third way. Ayn Rand–inspired Objectivists promote their ideas through education. Reason magazine preaches the gospel of cultural libertarianism. Silicon Valley techno-entrepreneurs would invent their way to Libertopia. Wall Street free-marketers want deregulation. The Free State Project plans to concentrate 20,000 libertarians in New Hampshire. “Seasteaders” dream of building societies on the ocean. And then there are the regular old Glenn Beck disciples who just want to be left alone. “They all want to shoot each other in the face over who gets to be the real libertarian,” says Matt Welch, editor of Reason. At the very least, they all agree they should be allowed to acquire the weapon with which to do so.”
http://nymag.com/news/politics/70282/
warning: long
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Nice new gravatar, NoVA.
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From that ReasonTV link:
“Another thing also is the pretentious nature of libertarianism. I think that you can’t have five people in the room without arguing about the semantics of one word…”
That in no way reminds me of any libertarians I have ever run across.
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yello:
That in no way reminds me of any libertarians I have ever run across.
What exactly do you mean by “reminds”?
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What exactly do you mean by “reminds”?
Genuinely laughing out loud.
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