January 2011
Christina and Caesar Bargas join revellers as they gather on Princes Street ahead of the New Year celebrations on December 31, 2010 in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is expected that around 80,000 people will attend the festivities in Scotland’s capital. By Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.
December 2010
Click the following links to vote for the 2010 Malkin Award, Moore Award, Yglesias Award, Hewitt Award, Von Hoffmann Award, Mental Health Break Of The Year, and Face Of The Year. Also - for the first time - Chart Of The Year and Hathos Alert are on the ballot. The Shut Up And Sing finalists have likewise been announced; it’s now up to you to pick the worst pop song designed to reflect...
The economy will be going gangbusters Your knowledge will reach critical mass Your boss will give you the go ahead (and agree to take the heat if things don’t work out) Your family situation will be stable The competition will stop innovating Someone else will drive the carpool, freeing up a few hours a week There won’t be any computer viruses to deal with, and Your neighbor will...
Click the following links to vote for the 2010 Malkin Award, Moore Award, Yglesias Award, Hewitt Award, Von Hoffmann Award, Mental Health Break Of The Year, and Face Of The Year. Also - for the first time - Chart Of The Year and Hathos Alert are on the ballot. The Shut Up And Sing finalists have likewise been announced; it’s now up to you to pick the worst pop song designed to reflect...
With a Little Help From His Friends | Culture |... →
by Conor Friedersdorf
Until now, I’d only read positive stories about microfinance:
More than 70 people committed suicide in the state from March 1 to Nov. 19 to escape payments or end the agonies their debt had triggered, according to the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, a government agency that compiled the data on the microfinance-related deaths from police and press reports.
...
This might be a useful exercise. Doesn’t matter whether it was a hit or not, it just matters that you shipped it. Shipping something that scares you (and a lot of what follows did) is the entire point. [Funny, it’s actually difficult to publish a list like this… maybe that’s another reason we hesitate to ship, because we don’t want to tout too much]. Here’s a...
Click the following links to vote for the 2010 Malkin Award, Moore Award, Yglesias Award, Hewitt Award, Von Hoffmann Award, Mental Health Break Of The Year, and Face Of The Year. Also - for the first time - Chart Of The Year and Hathos Alert are on the ballot. The Shut Up And Sing finalists have likewise been announced; it’s now up to you to pick the worst pop song designed to reflect...
by Conor Friedersdorf
Mickey Kaus has a proposal:
If you’re worried about incomes at the bottom… one solution leaps out at you. It’s a solution that worked, at least in the late 1990s under Bill Clinton, when wages at the low end of the income ladder rose fairly dramatically. The solution is tight labor markets. Get employers bidding for scarce workers and you’ll see...
JetBlue is ordinarily smart with their web site, which is why their broken system is particularly useful to take a look at. I’m guessing that at some point, management said, “it’s good enough,” and moved on to more pressing issues. And then, of course, it stays good enough, frozen in time, ignored, and annoying. The problem with letting your web forms become annoying is...
Listen to conversations around you. As people tell and recount stories, do they directly quote someone (… “Yeah, Gates finally said, ‘We should really get together after New Year’s.’” …) or do they simply paraphrase and reframe a story without quoting dialogue directly (… “I saw Gates, and he finally said we should get together after New Year’s.” …)? I’ve been listening and wondering, is there a...
James Kwak on Peter Orszag’s decision to join Citibank: This is the mindset of the ambitious educational elite: You go to Harvard (or Stanford), maybe to Oxford (or Cambridge) for a Rhodes (or Marshall), then to Goldman (or McKinsey, or TFA), then to Harvard Business School (or Yale Law School), then back to Goldman (or Google), and on and on. You keep doing the thing that is more...
by Patrick Appel
Chait posits that Christian traditionalists can’t have it both ways on Christmas:
The problem is that religious/cultural conservatives want two things changed about the way our culture observes Christmas. They want the holiday to be more religious (“Jesus is the reason for the season”) and they want it to be observed more universally (“Christmas is our...
Go to work on a regular basis. Art is hard. Selling is hard. Writing is hard. Making a difference is hard. When you’re doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out—this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it’s time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break. Zig taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don’t...
I’m taking some time off-grid for the Christmas season. I leave you in the very capable hands of the Dish team: Patrick, Chris, Conor and Zoe. The Awards season is imminent, and, as you know, your input is essential. It’s been an amazing decade for the Dish, with what looks to be a very exciting second one coming up. Stay tuned; know hope; and see you in the next decade.
Years before he filmed the Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola met Al Pacino and they almost made a movie together. Later, when it was time to cast his greatest film, Pacino was an obvious choice for Coppola. Ask any successful director for a list of actors or cinematographers or screenwriters they’d like to work with and they can answer you, instantly. They’re always keeping lists. Do...
Daniel Tomasulo explains why a bigger smile that extends to your cheeks, eyes and the crow’s feet around them (known as a Duchenne smile) is more genuine than one that doesn’t, and what that implies for your future happiness:
In the longitudinal study of Mills College graduates, Keltner and colleague LeeAnne Harker coded the smiles of 114 women who had their university yearbook photo...
Laura Norén dives into the sociology:
Urination is a biological function that has been subjected to a great degree of social control. Unfortunately, urban design has not kept pace with the demand for clean, easily accessible public restrooms for humans. And there has been no attempt to create any kind of system to deal with canine urine. In most cities it is illegal for humans to pee in public...
If someone asks you that, are you excited to tell them the answer? I hope so. If not, you’re wasting away. No matter what your job is, no matter where you work, there’s a way to create a project (on your own, on weekends if necessary), where the excitement is palpable, where something that might make a difference is right around the corner. Hurry, go do that.
How many people in your life can say, “I’m proud of you,” and you take it fully and without any sort of resentment or dismissal? Whoever those people are, they are probably your mentors. Someone who credibly says “I’m proud of you” usually has two characteristics. First, he is probably higher status / higher power. Most of the time, having pride about someone...
I got a note from someone who “helps lead the internet and Media efforts” at a fairly well known venture firm. A click over to their website indicates that he’s not a Managing Director or a Partner, not a Limited Senior Advisor, nor a Founding Strategic Director, Principal, Director of Business Development, Vice President or even a Senior Associate. He’s an Associate....
Breaking good news. Know hope.
Do you think it bothers her that I don’t listen to her music and wouldn’t recognize her if she stopped by and said hi? It shouldn’t. Even if you’re a pop star, you don’t need everyone to be a fan or a customer. And especially if you’re not a pop star, worrying about whether everyone laughs at your jokes, buys your product or even likes you is...
Today on the Dish, as polling showed unprecedented support for gays in the military, the House voted to repeal DADT. Sargent and a Dish reader helped Commandant Amos eat his Malkin-esque words over gay servicemembers. Choi buckled under the intense pressure of it all. DeMint threatened to torpedo the lame-duck session as the tax deal split the field of GOP presidential hopefuls. Douthat and Andrew...
(actually, to steal a phrase from Alan and Bill, an advance. Retreat is too negative). There’s a tremendous opportunity to create events where people connect. Unfortunately, it’s also easy to turn these events into school-like conferences, not the emotional connections that are desired. You can create an advance with a team that knows one another from work, or even more profoundly,...
While the modern medical name for the feeling produced by a new challenge or large goal is stress, for countless generations it went by the old, familiar name of fear. Even now, I’ve found that the most successful people are the ones who gaze fear unblinkingly. Instead of relying on terms like anxiety, stress, or nervousness, they speak openly of being frightened by their responsibilities...
Chris Beam attacks No Labels, a new bipartisan political group:
No Labels sounds noble in theory. But the group misunderstands what bipartisanship is. It’s not two parties deciding to be nice to each other. It’s a moment when their self-interests happen to align—moments that are increasingly rare. Washington does not have a “civility problem.” It has a polarization...
Some things sell for not much more than they cost to make. Things like steel. Others? They sell for high multiples of cost. Spa services, fancy ties, long haul airplane tickets, coaching, books—these are things that might cost a bunch to set up, but once the factory is rolling, the marginal cost of one more unit is really low. The challenge, then, is to find a way to get new customers...
If you want to drive yourself crazy, read the live twitter comments of an audience after you give a talk, even if it’s just to ten people. You didn’t say what they said you said. You didn’t mean what they said you meant. Or read the comments on just about any blog post or video online. People who saw what you just saw or read what you just read completely misunderstood it. (Or...
Howard Gleckman wants Obama to send the deficit commission’s plan to Congress:
Republicans killed Democrats in November by selling voters on a wildly inconsistent platform of reducing taxes, opposing cuts in Medicare, and balancing the budget. This is absurd, but most voters didn’t know it. By demanding that GOP lawmakers vote on the fiscal panel’s plan—which trims deficits by both raising...
Today on the Dish, Andrew pondered whether Obama could finagle peace in the Middle East after starting over, and drafted a State of The Union address. James Franco’s self-kiss left Andrew speechless, Peter Beinart measured the exodus of Israeli youth to other countries, and Andrew assessed the tuition tax hikes in Britain and what they’ve done to the Lib-Dem brand. We suffered another...
Obama is considering Bowles-Simpson tax reform as a key first step in addressing the long-term debt. The Dish rejoices.
“Whatever you think of WikiLeaks, they have not been charged with a crime, let alone indicted or convicted. Yet look what has happened to them. They have been removed from Internet … their funds have been frozen … media figures and politicians have called for their assassination and to be labeled a terrorist organization. What is really going on here is a war over control of the Internet,...
I have to say I don’t know what to say. I suppose I should hereby retire from blogging. Maybe my amygdala is just completely side-swiped by the mustache or the smile to feel the revulsion at the narcissism others feel. Or maybe Franco is able to show us that he’s mocking narcissism, while obviously seducing himself. Anyway, I can’t stop myself watching it, in the same way a lot...
Daniel Larison says I’m wrong to call Mitch McConnell the “most rightwing of Republicans.” What about DeMint?
While I can understand opposing the deal, DeMint and the Club are in error in their resistance to the deal when they insist that all of the tax cuts be made permanent. The absolutist rejection of the estate tax compromise is also foolish, since the 35%/$5 million...
We have entered a new age in terms of government information and transparency. Governments are now attempting to scapegoat Asssange or pressure companies like Mastercard to squelch the new asymmetry. They remind me of those running the record industry a decade ago or the newspaper industry five years ago or the magazine industry now. Barret Brown observes the radicalism of the change:
There is...
Keith Hennessey, who worked on economic policy in George W. Bush’s White House, supports the tax compromise:
Unlike many Congressional Republicans, I support extending extended unemployment insurance benefits when the unemployment rate is this high. My back-of-the-envelope suggests that, at a 9.8% rate, between four and nine people who would like a job but cannot find one are getting more...
It’s Kelly Slater, and according to Matt Feeney he ought to get more love:
Given surfing’s vague and powerful evocation of things we wish we could do but can’t, Slater’s utterly transcendent status in that sport should offer him somewhere higher to transcend to. If there existed some minimal template for appreciating his brand of excellence, moments like his Teahupoo...
Will Wilkinson takes issue with the priorities of Democrats:
Even if it would be wise in the long run, raising taxes on top earners can wait until the economy’s out of the woods. Conceding for now on taxes is a very small price to pay, especially if you think extending jobless benefits again is imperative. Is Mr Obama’s willingness to kick this can down the road a couple years really...
From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
Nate Silver explains it:
[W]hen liberals are scoring Mr. Obama during 2012, his having achieved the goal of repealing DADT would help to reassure liberals that there had indeed been progress made. In some ways, it would represent a nice compliment to health care: one piece of economic reform, one piece of social reform. Both policies, also, proved problematic for Bill Clinton during the first...
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1.37 pm
Ed Kilgore asks liberals to think a couple moves ahead:
[P]ersonally, I consider ever-worsening economic inequality the great undiscussed issue of our time, and think the abolition of estate taxes would be morally obscene. But those who urge a course of action that makes these positions non-negotiable have a responsibility to game-plan this out a bit in terms of real-life consequences....
Laura Miller compares Google’s new e-book store to Amazon’s Kindle:
Google eBooks is a big improvement on the Kindle (still the most popular dedicated e-reader device) if you anticipate wanting to switch from one dedicated e-reader device to another, but if you’re switching to an iPad, then it’s a wash. On the other hand, if you’re a student at the library one...
Ezra Klein wishes that the Democrats had been better strategists:
The way this should have gone is that Democrats should have proposed turning the Bush tax cuts into a two-year payroll holiday, and adding some other relief measures besides. We should be cutting taxes during a recession — the cuts just shouldn’t be focused on the rich. But Democrats didn’t run that play. They...
Ryan Avent thinks that “most of the rise in Treasury yields is due to improved expectations for the American economy”:
I’ve argued that the surest way to get Congress to tackle deficits is to generate a strong recovery. Bond yields will force action, and bond yields respond most strongly to rising growth expectations.
Hussein Ibish sees the logical next step toward a two-state solution:
With diplomacy in disarray, the importance and indispensability of state building, as the only real source of practical momentum at the moment, is increasingly obvious. On the diplomatic front, Palestinians were blocked from entrenching their position in the UN by the United States, but have succeeded in securing recognition...
Hugh Hewitt, appalled at any cooperation between the GOP and Obama, hyperventilates about Tea Party opposition to President Obama’s deal on tax cuts and unemployment benefits:
On my program today Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake announced he is a “hard no” on “the deal,” and Senator Tom Coburn has not yet decided how he will vote though he sounded very skeptical to me...
Steve Clemons thinks it’s time for Obama to make his own weather in the Israel-Palestine question:
My hunch is that people around the President like Tom Donilon, Denis McDonough, Ben Rhodes, Jon Favreau, and Adam Frankel are collectively the Ted Sorensens of today — though not quite the irreplacable him. They have faith in President Obama, and they need to guide him into what will...
I’m with Bill Galston on this: the key to Obama winning the next two years politically (he’s already won them economically by getting a GOP-backed second stimulus) is to use his next key speech to make one clear commitment: he will do everything in his power to end the long-term debt by the end of his first term. He will do it in part by sweeping tax reform and simplification - the...