He's got something like an F from immigration reform groups. One Dubya was enough.

Can you blame Republican politicians for taking advantage of liberal logic?

Especially not when they also buy into that liberal logic. Viz: NCLB.

Another homousia controversy thus begins.

Such a place[Galt's Gulch] does not exist.

Sure they do. They're called "gated communities."

Favorite alternative title for Atlas Shrugged: Left Behind for Libertarians.

Speaking of the forties and fifties, I took a tour of Alexandria in 2000. The guide made a point of blaming pretty much all of Egypt's problems on King Farouk's gambling debts (Seriously!). I guess Farouk's shade can rest easy now, knowing Mubarak's will be taking over.

A generation ago, when Egypt produced a hundred or more feature films a year, Cairo's thirteen first-run movie theaters were as grand as any in London.

My mother-in-law is an Arabic speaker, and she gets sattelite TV from the Middle East. I was surprised by the quality of the older Egyptian movies (from the forties to the fifties). They were generally about as good as most of the offerings coming out of the studio system in Hollywood. A serious drop in quality, though, happened–amazingly!–at the same time Nasser took control.

The Japanese car plants on US soil are actually far less productive than the native car plants of Japan, there fore they are a liability to the Japanese.

I think a study showed a 10% gap, and this was accounted for by the inexperience of the workers. The transplants are still more productive generally than domestic automakers.

Transplants also offer a number of other benefits beyond base productivity due to their proximity to the largest market in the world. It costs a lot of money to ship assembled cars across the ocean, for example. They're not as space efficient as parts.

One of the other ways of maximizing their overall efficiency is to have the U.S. plants build bigger autos (of which they sell far more here) and ship a few back to Japan, while the Japanese plants focus on the smaller vehicles that sell better there, along with the high end luxury brands.

The Japanese aren't the only ones building transplants, too. The Koreans and the Germans are doing so as well. It can't just be good will as no one was hating on the Koreans or the Germans like they were on the Japanese during the 80s. I suspect Tata will probably set up a plant of their own if they ever get serious about entering the U.S. market.

Where in the hell is Krugman getting this stuff?

From the place where his legs meet.

Yglesias seems peeved that Palin co-opted a term from Jewish history.

Even the Derschbag found this bit of hysteria too much. THAT alone should say something.

At any rate, the term isn't exclusively Jewish. It's been applied to Christians, who were accused of murder and cannibalism under the Romans and to Christian heretics and freemasons.

Really, she's been falsely accused of having a hand in the murder of child, along with several others. This is pretty much the textbook use of the phrase.

I fail to see anything objectionable in Palin's comments.

That's because you're not schooled in the Dowdian School of Realist Intentionalism or Yglesian Dog-Whistle Divination or Sullivan's Rules of Uterine Production Authentication. Leave the interpretation to the pros, please.

I don't understand what the hoohaa is about Palin's statement.

It all relates to her still being able to draw breath. Don't overbother yourself about this. Your betters are busy at work trying to remedy the situation.

They're probably right: this stuff is aimed front and center at "Nice White Ladies"…

Nope, not this time, Whiskey. There's too much push back from the new media. Even the hens on The View won't push this meme, it stinks so bad.

It just occurred to me that Sullivan has become the M. Night Shyalaman of the blogging world. The guy who keeps getting work no matter how many bombs he produces. I mean, who didn't laugh when they read Steve's post title. Steve could have stopped right there. No further need to explain the joke. It was just like watching a preview of "Devil" in the theater, and the audience simultaneously started sniggering when the announcer said, "From the mind of M. Night Shyalaman.."

Can Sullivan be so clueless that he's unaware of what a joke he's become? Is it metaphysically possible. Seriously, does anyone with a triple-digit I.Q. go to his site for anything other than his constant supply of unintentional jokes? His self-parody may be the first example we have of post-post-postmodern analysis.

Going after Kaplan also allows Obama to do a solid for his buddies in the older more traditional diploma mills, who crank out equally worthless humanities degrees.

Really, you can't expect Obama to take some dramatic "Nixon goes to China" move right now on civil rights. The only guarantee he has against a primary challenger is his black base. That is, someone like Hillary Clinton won't challenge Obama because they know that if they unseat him in the primaries, the black vote won't come out for them in November. If Obama did what you're suggesting here, then he'd lose that backstop.

Where Obama could play to the right is with immigration. Blacks are nativist in inclination. He'd lose a bit of Hispanic enthusiasm, but as you've pointed out, Steve, that would be made up in white votes.

Hoo,

I'm going to assume you're new to this debate, because you can only make this sort of assertion honestly if you're a beginner:

"I get this idea from the immigration restrictionist crowd that it is either all or nothing."

Go to the first "DREAMageddon" link put up by Kaus:
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/kausfiles/2010/12/17/dreamageddon-is-here.html

He lays out the three positions, including the moderate position. The problem with the so-called DREAM act is that it's so full of loopholes and unenforceable provisions that it's tantamount to a full amnesty; i.e., the "ALL" position.

The DREAM ACT isn't that bad.

The concept wouldn't be that bad if we'd taken care of enforcement. The devil, though, is in the details. The bill is so loose in its wording it would be an effective amnesty for a large chunk of the illegal population, it would encourage all manner of fraud, and it would incentivize further illegal entry.

Just when I thought I could not detest the Bush family any more, they reach a new high in lows.

And how many votes does the Bush family have in the Senate? Answer: Zero. Who cares what they think?

Meanwhile Lindsey Grahamnesty has announced he'll vote no on all the versions of the DREAM act now being proposed.

This is all Kabuki theater for the La Raza crowd. Reid wants to be able to tell them that he at least tried.

There are too many Democrats in red and red-leaning states up for re-election in 2012 for DREAM to get through. Senators like Webb, McCaskill, and Manchin might as well start sending their resumes out to K Street if they let this thing go through. Even Pelosi's having trouble herself getting a majority in the House, as the outgoing blue dogs are pissed about screwed over by her agenda.

I could very well be proven wrong, but this looks like so much empty posturing.

Short hair cuts:

Yeah, it's about the convenience for me. I started balding in my 20s, and when I was single that was very aggravating. It was pretty hard to resist the urge to put on the ball cap when I went out for the night.

Once I hit 30 or so, I cared less, and when I got married, it ceased to mean anything. But keeping up with a circular fringe is pretty silly when you can just set the beard trimmer on 1 every few weeks and go on with your life. Nothing, and I mean nothing, looks worse than a bald dude who lets his hair grow long, unless he completes the effect by putting it into a ponytail. GAY.

I don't do the full shave because the itching and stubble are aggravating. Also, if you're not in full bouncer, bulging and buff mode, you come off looking like Duvall and Pleasance in THX 1138. Or even Brando from Apocalypse Now. Yeesh.

Is the buzz trim lazy? Yeah, it is. After going without the top for over decade, I think I've earned the right to be lazy with my haircare.

You might as well ask him to commit seppuku on national television.

This topic reminds of the Simpson's episode you discussed a few years back:

Marge: Women are as smart as men. Why, a woman invented Liquid Paper.
Homer: Well, you know what a man invented? Actual paper!
Marge: Well a woman also invented the windshield wiper.
Homer: Which goes great with another male invention: the car! [high-fives Bart]
Marge: Ummm, I think a woman came up with nylon stockings. I mean, probably. We certainly use them.
Homer: Let's see, men also have: rocket ships, suspension bridges, constitutional government, snowshoes, brass knuckles…
Marge: [groan]
Homer: …pinball machines, the Renaissance…
[cut to Homer, lying on couch alone at night]
Homer: Oh, why did women invent sleeping on the couch?

Obama will be restrained until at least 2013. Neither the House or the Senate GOP have a lightning rod like Newt Gingrich or Tom Delay. Boehner's just not a very good villain for the media. He's too bland to be the anti-Christ. So the GOP can still be the Party of No to the most radical propositions and can even filibuster a radical judge or two. This will set them up for the 2012 elections.

As far as Obama's agenda being "irreversible," I don't buy it. The health care law is really a regulatory act. It's becoming an apparently bad piece of regulation at that. Well, it's not like the country hasn't deregulated before, and there are some steps that can be taken, like removing interstate barriers and encouraging individually held high-deductible policies.

As for immigration, the GOP is becoming more and more aware of the need to protect it's bases demography. I'd expect more work in the e-Verify direction and possibly a limitation on family re-unification to work its way through. These are pretty easy political fights for the GOP. But this is going to be a long fight with small yardage gains and some losses. So patience is in order.

Mike,

The KJV was not translated from the Vulgate (except for 2 Esdras). Here's the Wiki summation:

"James gave the translators instructions intended to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its beliefs about an ordained clergy.[9] The translation was by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England.[10] In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from the Textus Receptus (Received Text) series of the Greek texts. The Old Testament was translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, while the deuterocanonical books were translated from the Greek Septuagint (LXX), except for 2 Esdras, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorized_King_James_Version

I lazily tossed in Aramaic, because I believe Daniel was originally written in that tongue.

At any rate, you had long tradition of studying Greek and Hebrew in England by that point. While the previous Wycliffe Bible was based on the Latin Vulgate, Tyndale's work and the popular Geneva Bible (which Shakespeare used) were based on the original languages.

I'd be all for trying this approach myself, but you really need to prepare yourself for the possiblity that you wouldn't do any better than Rove did: Maybe 35% to 40% of the "Hispanic" population would respond to such an appeal, but the other 60% to 65% would continue to vote for the goodies.

True, but you don't alienate the majority of the GOP base using this path, so it's still a winner. Combine this with Sailer's citizenism, and you have a broadly appealing American message.

Another reason Shakespeare didn't work on the KJV: it was a translation. Was Shakespeare so proficient in Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic that he could act as a translator? Turning a pretty phrase is great, but it still has to somewhat capture the original meaning of the text. I suppose he could work with wooden translation, but that seems like a dicey thing to do with something as potentially controversial as a translation of the Bible was back then. People died over this sort of thing. Hell, England fought a civil war in part because of differing visions of what the Bible said.

What exactly is so offensive about omitting the "ic"

While it's not on the same level as "teabagger", an obscene allusion, using the noun as an adjective is just sort of douchy and dysphonious. It says that the person using the term is a petty child.

I say this as someone who has no use for the Democratic Party in general.

Fake. As another poster pointed out, the annoying GOP locution of "Democrat Party" is an obvious tell. It's amazing that someone who managed to do a fairly convincing job of mimicking a Hilary supporter would make this sort of rookie mistake.

Otherwise, it's one of those "fake, but true" pieces. The stuff about Obama being detached politically but thin-skinned on a personal level rings true.

He also has a point about the GOP in 2012. They really don't have an alternative to Obama at this point. They'll romp in November, but what solid personality will they put up against Obama?

Utter rot. Rome was not "already on its way out"; yes there was a CRISIS in the third century, but not a collapse.

Even the anti-Christian Gibbon, whom you recommend, admits that Rome after Diocletian was a shell of its former self. Other authorities, like Christopher Kelly, argue that Christian ethics and behavior gave Rome almost another two centuries in the West. The alternatives to Constantine were certainly not attractive. Again, see your own source, Gibbon.

TGGP,

Granted, Obama's style defies quotation, but the equivalence between criminal and revolutionary is there. You have the coke-crazed passage (which, I admit, doesn't give explicit moral sanction to the mugger), and you have this passage which does:

…an age of innocence before Kimathi and other angry young men in Soweto or Detroit or the Mekong Delta started to lash out in street crime and revolution.

There you have it: the thugs who've destroyed Detroit are on a par with people opposing apartheid and colonialism, both of which in Obama's view are unalloyed goods.

To anonymous, I applaud your satire of Fannonian ethics.

You have to love the way Obama morally equates muggers with an independence movement. It's no different than Maxine Waters calling the LA riots an "insurrection" or an "uprising." Really, using Obama's logic, you could say O.J. Simpson was just like Nat Turner.

Marc B,

You're confusing McCarthy with the House Un-American Activities Committee. McCarthy, AFAIK, didn't mess with Hollywood or the entertainment industry. He was more focused on government employees who posed security risks.

In general it's best not to emulate Kubrick's male character…

Kirk Douglas' characters in Paths of Glory and Spartacus being the exceptions to this rule.

What the president can do is bureaucratic impediments. For example, Jindal has been begging the Corps of Engineers to approve dredging to install sand erosion barriers for weeks. The barriers will help halt LA's notorious shoreline erosion (due to other COE projects up the Mississippi River), and it would provide a sand barrier to any oil inflow. It won't even cost the government money, because BP can be stuck with the tab. This is a project that's been on the books for years. But still, the whole project hasn't been approved. The President only now approved a small, small section.

Also, the President could spend a weekend in the area. The place is empty of tourists. Stay in an area hotel, eat a local seafood dinner, have his family spend a couple of hours on the beach, and spend more time making snap visits at the clean up. It would re-inspire confidence in the beaches and provide some short term revenue for caterers in the area. But I guess visiting his corrupt cronies in Chicago is more important.

More info on the spill is available at http://www.thehayride.com. It's a great LA blog.

The NYT article practices the usual slight of hand. The important point remains:

In the poll, a majority of Americans in all age groups described illegal immigration as a “very serious” problem.

No group likes illegal immigration. All we have are differences in degree, not kind. There's no real gap.

As for the "random" interviewees, their selection has all the spontaneity of of a paint-by-numbers picture. There was one funny line, though:

Still, in interviews across the nation, young people emphasized the benefits of immigrants. Andrea Bonvecchio, 17, the daughter of a naturalized citizen from Venezuela, said going to a high school that is “like 98 percent Hispanic” meant she could find friends who enjoyed both Latin music and her favorite movie, “The Parent Trap.”

Wow, "like 98% Hispanic"! How is this "diverse" or "multicultural"?

Now I should think that the US has quite a good reason to want to keep that military elite well disposed toward Americans.

We've been playing that game since Sayyid Qutb was shocked by the brazen sexuality on display in 1940s Colorado. Maybe it's time to try a new tact.

Whiskey, please. One of McCain's first acts, if not his first act, would have been to pass an Amnesty. The health bill sux, but it will make it all the harder to pass amnesty, since it'll kill the false, but critical claims to fiscal control made by Obama and the Democrats. It doesn't make amnesty impossible, but it makes it far less likely than it would have been under McCain.

Lot of alpha males–the jocks and rebel types–actually don't do so well after high school. They may have been kings among schoolmates but they weren't really hitting the books. They usually become auto mechanics or something like that.

Yeah, because we all know that auto mechanics live from hand to mouth.

In a fair world, Bigelow would win for her excellent film. Unfortunately, I think what South Park has called "Dances with Smurfs" will get more awards.

I don't know how you can take a list like this seriously, as it doesn't include Michelle Malkin, Thomas Sowell, and Ann Coulter, but does include Kathleen Parker.

Yes, I skew to the right, but I'm sure there are some lefty equivalents out there.

What the frack was that? 
 
That, my good Razib, was trainwreck, a trainwreck of the sort we haven’t seen since the Matrix sequels. 
 
It was really no surprise to anyone watching the show critically. After the Caine episodes, the BSG’s story arc went to hell. Moore became too eager to turn the show into a space-bound version of Law & Order, trying to shove every current controversy into his show. 
 
Another poster lauded the show for its focus on characters. Why? Few of the characters made any sense. For example, would a serious ship commander turn over his fleet to a subordinate who’d been sleeping with an enemy prisoner just so he could hang around in space waiting for his true love to appear? This is typical of the idiotic moves most of these “well developed” characters would make. The “cheesy” 1970s original had far better characters, and it even had a story that made more sense.

Great. Our government depends on who can turn out the most dummies. Most. Depressing. Thought. Ever.