May 5th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Tonight’s Homework
All the cool blogs of have-of-day quick link roundup posts. So why not this one?
– Peter Beinart says we should talk to Hamas.
– Interpreting the stress tests.
– Rebecca Traister on Jeff Rosen and Sonia Sotomayor.
– Everyone I know hated Ross Douthat’s second column but I think it’s an important point.
– Torture makes your intelligence worse.
– One more study debunks the myth of union intimidation.
Let’s go Nuggets!
51 Responses to “Tonight’s Homework”
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May 5th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
If we exercise self-control, then we can make every comment on this post relate to the unparseability of the first sentence of the post.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
The traditional and cultual of China?
May 5th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
1) First death of US citizen from the swine flu reported –30 year old woman in Texas, with unspecified other health ailments.
2) Assuming she was in the first 200 victim cohort, that works out to about 1.5 Million deaths in total US population of 300+ Million. About the same death rate as the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed 500,000 Americans out of 100 million.
3) Like the Spanish flu, this first victim was a young adult , vice the infants and elderly that are usually stricken by normal flus. Also, this occurred in spite of modern medicines like Tamiflu being available.
4) If the virus continues to spreads at the current R0 =2.27
rate, here is the calculated rate of growth in total victims over the next two months –as I noted in an earlier post:
i= 0, Rt (total ) = 20 (April 26 )
i=1, Rt = 65 (April 29)
i=2, Rt= 168 (May 2)
i=3, Rt = 402 (May5)
i=4: Rt= 933 (May
i=5: Rt = 2139 (May 11)
i=6: Rt = 4875 (May 14)
i=7: Rt = 11087 (May 17)
i=8: Rt = 25187 (May 20 )
i=9: Rt = 57196 (May 23)
i=10: Rt = 129855 (May 26)
i=11: Rt = 294790 (May 29)
i=12: Rt = 669,194 (June 1)
i=13: Rt = 1,519,090 (June 4)
i=14: Rt = 3,448,356 (June 7)
i=15: Rt = 7,827,789 (June 10)
i=16: Rt = 17,769,101 (June 13)
i=17: Rt = 40,335,880 (June 16)
i=18: Rt = 91,562,467 (June 19)
i=19: Rt = 207,846,820 (June 22)
i=20: Rt = 471,812,303 (June 25 )
**US Population only around 300 Million ***
5) As I noted last week, Obama needs to lay his foot up HHS’s ass and get N95 masks ready for distribution out to the population. Not so much for the current environment but as a backup if current measures do not reduce R0.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Don’t the cool blogs have sentences written in English, too?
May 5th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as
May 5th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
This just in: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090505/pl_politico/22134
—————
“AIG now says it paid out more than $454 million in bonuses to its employees for work performed in 2008.
That is nearly four times more than the company revealed in late March when asked by POLITICO to detail its total bonus payments.
———–
Remember that number if the government runs out of Tamiflu for the poor.
Yes, I know. Obama is playing the long game, yada yada yada…
May 5th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
The first sentence reads like REM lyrics circa 1983.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
all your bases are…
May 5th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Did you see this?
It’s a rare live performance by Opal after Hope Sandival joined but before they became Mazzy Star. It features a strong performance of “Blue Flower” followed by a lovely cover of the Doors’ “Indian Summer”.
Hope Sandival is like the mystical, demure Libbets Casey.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Is “of have-of-day” Yglesias-ese for “have”?
Let’s go Mavs!
May 5th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
To follow up on Don Williams’ comment, the Dallas medical director is withholding potentially vital information. Send him an email at the link.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
OK follow Ezra Klein’s model and don’t put commentary around the dump. A list of links is easier to skip for people who don’t want a list of links. You put commentary around it and we all have to read the post.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I can’t believe Ross Douthat kept that scrotum hair on his chin for his NY times photo. And put on a tie, asshole!
May 5th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
All the cool blogs are belong to us!
May 5th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Uh, Don? Don’t you have to assume that every single one of that 300,000,000 population will become infected in order to get to that 1.5 million number?
Seems just a shade pessimistic.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
To follow up on Don Williams’ comment, the Irish immigrants flooding these United States are drunk, disease-ridden and morally degenerate.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Matt, you know I never badmouth you on this blog, so take this in the best way possible . . .
Let me proofread these entries before you post them.
It’s okay, there’s a recession and things are slack at work. Not that much fun at home, either.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Yes! Go Nuggets! Chauncey ‘Smooth’ Billups is back home and we love it!
May 5th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I’m a big fan of the tab dump post. Also, ROFL @chad. You’re totally right, Douchehat’s scrot hair is outta control.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Craig, Ezra does post commentary; he just posts it as the links instead of around.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
May 5th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Re KnowNothing at 16: “To follow up on Don Williams’ comment, the Irish immigrants flooding these United States are drunk, disease-ridden and morally degenerate.”
—————
You forgot to add “and dirty fighters” to their List of Virtues.
One of my ancestors was William Gannon of Ulster, who served in the Continental Army.
Of course, the Irish lack that trait which we of Welsh descent call “laudable determination” but which our neighbors ,for some reason, call “pigheaded stubbornness”.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Gee, maybe it Ross’s 2nd column was “an important point.” That means I’m stupid, because I didn’t see any point at all. I should review, I guess: Republicans need centrists. But not like the centrists they have now. Different, cool centrists who are totally conservative. OK. Is that the “important point”?
May 5th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
All of this talk about centrists-but-not-THESE-centrists sounds a lot like the late-90’s/early-00’s push for “compassionate conservatism,” i.e., less vitriolic language advocating the same policies
May 5th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Sentence FAIL.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Don Williams: you might want to ignore the anti-Irish troll; just note how racist many “liberals” are and move on.
Do you know of an expert discussing figures like the ones you posted? It’s amazing how the only epidemiologists the MSM can find are apologists.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
@6 Don Williams: “Yes, I know. Obama is playing the long game, yada yada yada…”
You gotta play the long game, unless you line up the Republicans in front of firing squads and string up the Blue Dogs and the corporate lobbyists. It is tempting, no doubt. Let’s instead crush these people in the next two elections and then build a nice country.
You know, those AIG bonuses don’t look that bad when you see the breakdown. The perps in Asset Management are continuing to rob the till but the bonuses for the other divisions seemed within the bounds of reason.
Don’t forget, AIG is an industry laughingstock. Whatever power they retain is ephemeral. Their morale has been broken. Break the enemies morale, and the battle is nearly won.
Cheer up. I for one, smell VICTORY!
May 6th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Re Max424 at 27: “You gotta play the long game, unless you line up the Republicans in front of firing squads and string up the Blue Dogs and the corporate lobbyists.”
—————
You speak as if that would be a BAD idea.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Forget the sentence structure. Please don’t do the post of just links. Its a sure sign of a lazy blogger (you are letting your commentators do the work) and usually the first indication that a blog is debookmarkable. There are blogs were the blogger does nothing but this for weeks.
You either come across something on the internets interesting enough to comment on, our you don’t. Many of us know how to use Google and can find lots of cool internet content on our own.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Your buddy Ross dissed the mighty Rush. How long before he apologizes?
May 6th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Matt-
What, exactly, is Douthat’s “important point”, in your opinion?
May 6th, 2009 at 12:45 am
Don Williams: you might want to ignore the ladder-pulling blogwhore who still hasn’t worked out just what kind of person might consider it pathetic and embarrassing that a person with the last name “Kelly” (or “Buchanan” for that matter) spouts the same racist shite that was aimed at Irish immigrants in the 1850s.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:32 am
At first I was gonna be like “Oh god not another link dump” because I’m not a fan but then I reread the post and I was like “Wait, what?”
I think in like six months we’re all going to look back on link dumps and chuckle and say how glad we are that nobody does those anymore, sort of like the topic requests.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Does anyone have a Greasemonkey script to automatically remove Don Williams’ comments? Thanks.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:51 am
Cool blog fail.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:10 am
I think in like six months we’re all going to look back on link dumps and chuckle and say how glad we are that nobody does those anymore, sort of like the topic requests.
Ah, can it only be a decade since what now gets called a “link dump” was what people called “a blog”?
May 6th, 2009 at 2:15 am
Here’s concept: the world’s largest democracy is holding elections, and nobody cares. I’d say it’s some small and insignificant country, but it’s the second largest country in the world. The elections take a month, but they are mostly done. The amount of votes cast already eclipses any inconsequential vote in the United States. But they have at least another 200 million votes to go. What’s left in their election is much bigger than our election can ever be. So let us bow down and celebrate the greatest democracy in the world. When they are done with their election, 700 million people will have voted. And that ain’t no joke. So tip a glass to India for it’s commitment to democracy. Yes, they are absurdly corrupt, but at least they can run an election. Take that, Florida.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:37 am
Good call, fostert:
The elections take a month, but they are mostly done.
Minnesota has them beat.
But you’re right: Americans need their elections to have results (ideally with magic wall graphics) within ten minutes of polls closing. India, not so much. The BBC has some good stuff.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:52 am
Oh, an by the way, nobody can call the Indian election with most of the votes in. That extra 200 million votes might change it. My candidate is Mayawati, who is an extremely rich dalit who is currently governor of the most populous state in India, Uttar Presh. And by populous, I mean 200 million people. But it’s looking like her third party won’t be able to form a coalition. She’ll have to try again next time. But there’s still 200 million votes to go, so who knows. But we in America should take a pause at that. 200 million votes is more than we had in our last election. And for India, that’s just the last period of voting. And unlike the US, they can vote within international standards. We will never have UN representatives looking at our elections because our elections are too fucked up for anyone to even consider the possibility that they might be fair. And that really is no joke.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:51 am
Here’s the real joke: we can’t run elections that can come close to abiding by international standards. Iran and India can too. So who’s the joker now? Here’s my rule: we can bitch about Iran when we have the democratic standards that can meet what the UN expects. If we can’t meet Iran’s standards, maybe we need to look at what we’re doing. When we founded this country, we really were the most innovative and influential country in the world. I’d like to see us be that country again. But if we want to wallow in redneck values and torture people, we can’t do that. George Washington made that concept very clear, but now we question it. But that’s okay with me, there are other countries that really did take our values to heart. If I have to go there to experience the American Dream, I will do so. But I’d really like America to become America again. I grew up being taught that the Russians were evil because they tortured people. Now that we do the same, who is evil? We are doing our best to become the Soviet Empire. We never liked their silly communist ways, but we always liked the viscous government control, didn’t we? So now we are doing it. And MY situation will always be the same. I’m not a real drug dealer, if I were, you wouldn’t know who I am. I wouldn’t be talking,would I?
And I’m just a customer who could easily nail the Federal officials who are watching this blog. And I watched them while posting. I may have committed crimes, but those that are watching have far more crimes, and I’ll track them for fun. And given that they are so easy to track, I’ll stick on this thread just for fun. Bring it on, FBI, I’ll just track how you you it.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Great idea!
May 6th, 2009 at 5:52 am
Fostert,
I have a very bad feeling about this Indian election, and I fear that Modi’s star is rising. This is a man, mind you, who ought to have been hanged for incitement to murder back in 2002.
May 6th, 2009 at 7:06 am
these posts are the blog equivalent of cheap-ass clip shows.
May 6th, 2009 at 7:33 am
I thought Douthat’s column was fine as far as it went: I agree the GOP needs a new generation of centrists/moderates, a generation that is explicitly looking for new approaches to the issues that have pushed the current GOP to near-marginal status.
The hard part, of course, is figuring out what that means in practice, and the fundamental problem is going to be getting the current GOP base to accept the need for this move. After all, the New Democrats actually took over the party for a while–and although I would argue Obama represents a new phase, I’m not sure he would have been possible without Clinton paving the path. So is the GOP base ready to let that happen, to not only include some centrist “New Republicans” into their coalition, but to put them in charge?
I think the smart money is on the GOP base needing at least a few more electoral defeats before they will be ready for such a move. But we shall see.
May 6th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Hope Sandoval rocks! – politics is for boring, ugly people.
May 6th, 2009 at 8:09 am
What? What is this about?
May 6th, 2009 at 8:49 am
What, no comment on the intersection of MY’s two passions, the NBA and politics: Dave Bing elected Mayor of Detroit?
May 6th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Re: What, no comment on the intersection of MY’s two passions, the NBA and politics: Dave Bing elected Mayor of Detroit?
Bing is simply a caretaker who is going to serve less than a full year in office, until the real election this year. So it’s not all that big a deal.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Bing is simply a caretaker who is going to serve less than a full year in office, until the real election this year. So it’s not all that big a deal.
Will he bring in his backcourt mate Jim Boeheim to help out?
May 6th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
of today have
May 6th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
have end-of-day