A New New Deal

Paul Krugman hits the nail on the head in his column today about the need for a jobs bill, and what such a bill should contain. The good news is that it looks like a jobs bill is forthcoming, but we'll have to wait and see whether it will be targeted enough to have a real effect.

Krugman mentions something similar to a New Deal-era Works Progress Administration as an option, and I've thought the government should have done this last February, but they didn't believe unemployment would climb to 10.2 percent. To me, the WPA is Keynesianism at it's simplest, most effective, and most popular. By popular, I mean popular with the American people, not necessarily with economists. My older relatives still talk about how great Franklin Roosevelt was for the country and how he lifted the nation's spirits at a time when unemployment was at 25 percent(!!!) When they talk about this, they usually refer to two things he did specifically: first, repealing prohibition, and second, creating the WPA.

At its height, the WPA employed millions of people to work on infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, and dams. Not only did this reduce unemployment, it also brought all parts of the country into the 20th century. Because of the WPA, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother in Texas had electricity for the first time. For some of my great-uncles in New York, it was the first time they were able to bring home a paycheck in months or years. I know many conservatives today would poo-poo this and say they were just on the government dole, but getting paid for doing work and being able to feed their family something other than chicken they got for free from a sympathetic friend down the street gave them pride they hadn't felt in a long time.

I know it's a different world than it was in in the 1930's and, like Krugman, I understand that such a program will be open to a lot of criticism from the right, but we should be looking to the past to see what works. Growing GDP shouldn't be the only priority. Instead of just writing unemployment checks, why not ask people to do something while they're getting government money?

Nothing New Under The Sun

Ok, let's see if you can follow me here.

This is The Postal Service from 2003:

Ok, now this is Owl City from 2009 (keep in mind none of the parties involved in The Postal Service are involved now):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI4JLa0hbUw

(embedding is disabled on every version of this video for some reason, so you'll have to go to the yootoobs yourself to view it)

I mean, there's ripping off, and then there's...I mean, goddamn.

The Passion of Saint Carrie of Orange County, continued...

If you like a little surrealism with your CNN, you should have been watching Larry King Live last night with special guest Carrie Prejean.

I don't think Carrie Prejean is a smart person.

WWJD

Now that the Washington D.C. city council is set to vote to allow gay marriage in the district, the Catholic Church is threatening to pull all of it's social services from the district.

Although the measure before the city council explicitly states that no churches or religious organizations would have to marry the gays if they didn't want to, apparently that language is not strong enough. They are worried they might have to extend employee benefits to same-sex partners of Catholic charity workers.

I can understand why they may not want to do such a thing, but their reaction shows you where their priorities lie. I'm not a biblical scholar, but I seem to recall that Jesus talked a lot about the poor...feeding, clothing, etc. It's kind of a big deal. I don't recall the part where he talks about employee benefits not being extended to domestic partners. Maybe it's somewhere towards the back.

Perpetual War

This is the most encouraging news I've seen about our plans for the war in Afghanistan in some time. Obama has rejected all the options put forward by his generals and insisted that they be revised to contain an exit strategy.

This is important not because we should leave soon, but because if the Afghan government is under the impression we will be there indefinitely, it has no incentive to try to clean up its act. We already know that Karzai is corrupt and he doesn't seem to care about doing anything about it, but he might be more apt to if he thought he might be left to the mercy of the Taliban at some point.

Beyond that, having an open-ended occupation of Afghanistan is not in the national security and financial interests of the United States. The "safe haven" argument is a non-starter and doesn't hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. Pretty much any country in the world could serve as a location to hatch terrorist plots, including our own. Major Hasan did not need a safe-haven to plot his rampage at Ft. Hood. He just needed a gun. Continuing to occupy Afghanistan will not ensure that no terrorist attacks happen in the United States, and neither will leaving Afghanistan. That problem is going to be with us as long as we are seen as the premier superpower and thus the shiniest target.

However, there are geopolitical issues to consider other than terrorism which make the situation infinitely more complicated, namely Pakistan and its nuclear weapons. The threat of those weapons falling into the wrong hands is very real since last Spring the Taliban got very close to the capital of Islamabad.

I would speculate that these broader issues and implications are the main reasons why Obama will still give Gen. McChrystal most of what he wants. Dovish as I might seem, I'm not necessarily against that, but we should face the fact that we are going to have to leave at some point, or else nine years will turn into eighteen years.

Just a little off the sides please.

Here's an interesting article regarding labioplasty, the procedure to remove excess skin from the labia. I'm inclined to side with the doctors and say there is no real physical harm in the procedure. I'm guessing the clientele is probably the botox alienesque vixens getting the surgery, so what's a little more nipping and tucking anyway?

Taylor Swift is Hawt.

Congratulations to Taylor Swift for conquering the Country Music Awards and basically winning every award of the night. At 19 years old, she is the youngest person ever to win Entertainer of the Year at the CMA's. I know everyone at The Daily Ire is proud of you...I wonder if Kanye was watching.

Morning Announcements

South Park took on Glenn Beck in last night's episode.

He's just "asking questions."

¡Adiós!

Lou Dobbs is leaving CNN so he can devote more of his time to hating Mexicans.

The "t-word"

Nidal Malik Hasan is a terrorist. There, I said it.

When Timothy McVeigh blew up the building in Oklahoma, he was a terrorist. When the 9/11 highjackers flew the planes into the world trade towers, they were terrorists. However, in our current political climate, we aren’t allowed to call someone out for what they actually are.

Apparently, its is not enough to call someone a terrorist when they: scream "Allahu Akbar!" before murdering 13 and wounding 29 people while our nation is engaged in two wars in the Middle East, give presentations justifying suicide bombers and point out “we [Muslims] love death more than you [Non-Muslims] love life,” have ties to imams who endorse and encourage al Qaeda activities and jihad on Americans and consider you a hero for murdering Americans.

Why? Because Mr. Hasan also happens to be a Palestinian and a Muslim. Had this been someone who looked more like Timothy McVeigh or was a different faith, there would be no hesitation in calling him out as a domestic terrorist.

I understand avoiding unwarranted blow back, crowd control, etcetera, but when our government walks around on eggshells to such an n’th degree and tolerates extreme cultural relativism this is what happens. There’s being polite then there’s being suicidal, and we are choking ourselves with PC rubbish.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with approaching matters with caution and forethought, but there is a point where Political Correctness and accompanying spin becomes ridiculous.

First the word “terror” and all “offensive” Bush policy language is removed from anything to describe our foreign policy, activities that once were called “terrorism” are reclassified as something else, people make claims that the U.S.’s actions are akin to those same terrorist activities it is supposedly trying to suppress, the cowboy swagger is replaced by eloquent culturalism. And now people who are clearly terrorists aren’t to be called “terrorists.”

These are the policy decisions by the Obama administration that were supposed to curtail events like Fort Hood and assuage the Middle East. And now they’re trying to cover their collective backsides on the Fort Hood attack by utilizing the tool that was instrumental in causing the whole mess – extreme political correctness

But, we all know what happened at Fort Hood. We know what Mr. Hasan is. We are not as stupid as our government likes to think we are. We know when they’re giving us double talk.

They call it “post traumatic stress disorder” (though Mr. Hasan never went to war). They say he was a lone nut (though he has ties to imams and was proselytizing on base). They hesitate to say it was religiously motivated (though he screamed "Allahu Akbar!"). They say the real issue is the military needing to do a better job addressing workplace stress like civilians workplaces (though the two are mutually exclusive).

There is one very important reason for all this: the occurrence of a terrorist attack under an Obama administration looks extremely bad given the policy shift it put in place.

Panopticon

The Google sees all.

Where's Jesse?

So a black guy punches a white woman in the face because of an argument over what the black guy called "white privilege" and yet there is nothing calling the black guy out as being a racist in any article I can find on the internet.

I don't know if the guy is in fact a racist, and that's not really the point. The point is had it been a white guy punching a black woman in the face, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would have been on this quicker than you could say "hate crime." The assailant would have been lambasted as a hate mongering racist and the talking heads would have been all to happy to comment on how redneck racist teabaggers are ruining the country and sabotaging any hope of of becoming a post racial community. But no, here, it's simply "an unfortunate event." Kinda like when that white kid was beaten up on the school bus.

And, why isn't the great One coming to the defense of the black guy and commenting off the cuff about how stupid the white woman must have been for arguing about this, a la the Henry Gates incident?

The Simpsons: Behind the Laughter

Being a Simpsons fan of the highest order, I can't wait to read John Ortved's new book "The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History."

The books has actually been somewhat controversial due to three of the shows original executive producers, Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon, refusing to be interviewed, and actively trying to thwart the book's publication. However, from what I read about this book it doesn't seem like it will contain any explosive revelations for fans. Most of us know that Matt Groening is more of a cartoonist than a brilliant sitcom writer, and as such the show's unique humor that developed over the first few scenes was very much a product of a collaboration of writers.

That being said, Matt Groening has managed to create two brilliant shows that have very different styles of humor, The Simpsons and Futurama. That's a lot more than Seth MacFarlane can claim.

A Stop To Sprawl

This is good news. One good aspect of a bad real estate market is that it might put the kibosh on sprawl, and it looks like more young adults are choosing to start families in urban hellholes with mass transit options rather than soulless suburbs where every Applebee's has a parking lot bigger than my block.

However, Atrios is skeptical of the long-term implications of this change. People really do love their authentic Italian lotsa-mozzarella-pizza-balls at the local Carino's.

On Second Thought...

...maybe we shouldn't scale back military spending after all.

Stay Classy, Rev. Phelps

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church (the godhatesfags people) are taking a break from the pride parades and soldiers' funerals to protest outside Sasha and Malia Obama's school.

Would anybody really mind if a bomb accidentally "fell" on the Westboro Baptist Church? I'm thinking along the lines of another Waco but without the long, protracted stand-off.

Twenty Years Later

Usually Ross Douthat just brings the stoopid to the pages of The New York Times, but this week his column is somewhat thought-provoking. His contention seems to be that we don't recognize and celebrate the full significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. This is probably true, but sadly it is understandable because although most of the existential threats to liberal democracy have been vanquished, we act as if our existence is one the line every time a Hugo Chávez or a Kim Jong-Il yawns.

Today would be greeted by more celebration if things had actually changed here after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but even though our Cold War rival collapsed, we are still always on a permanent war footing. We still spend as if we are gearing up for a showdown with another superpower. I'm not advocating that we go back to a pre-World War II setting where we have no armaments industry and scrap every tank, but there is a lot of ground in between no standing military and spending far more than any industrialized nation.

Maybe Douthat is right that we should recognize this day and take stock. It might provide some perspective when looking at the dangers in the world today.