Klein’s Crazy Constitutional Commentary.

(H/T Instapundit) This comment is going to haunt Ezra Klein for the rest of his career as a ‘wonk:’

…as it should, because it was an incredibly stupid thing to say – even considering that it was said on MSNBC, which means that almost nobody saw it anyway. For those without video access, Klein (in the process of sneering at the GOP’s plan to start the 112th Congress with a reading of the Constitution*) rather bravely admitted that he has a learning disability which makes it difficult for him to read English properly:

The issue with the Constitution is not that people don’t read the text and think they’re following it. The issue with the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago.

At least, I assume that’s what he’s admitting. Because the alternative is to take seriously his notion that there really is something difficult to comprehend about a document so simple and straightforward that its mere existence argues strenuously against the notion that nothing well-written ever comes out of committee.

As you might have guessed, I am not taking seriously Klein’s notion.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Continue reading Klein’s Crazy Constitutional Commentary.

Washington Post Making Mock of Uniforms…

Mask, slipped.

…that guard us while we sleep*. I’ll summarize the WaPo’s (quite vile) op-editorial for you: the author (Colman McCarthy) still wants to keep ROTC off campus in this new, post-DADT environment because the military is made up of icky people who actually approve of the thought of going out and fighting evil. With guns. And who have a completely different working definition of Christianity than Colman McCarthy and the rest of his professional ‘peace activists.’ But Colman McCarthy still loves the troops! …all the way over there. But Colman McCarthy doesn’t want them stinking up his precious university system with their guns and God and the inconvenient truth that they embody – said truth being that the only use that a professional “peace activist” has in the fight against evil is that he or she might take a bullet that might otherwise hit a worthwhile human being.

And if you think that was offensive, you should have seen what I originally wrote: it was some deliberately inflammatory (note: not ‘inaccurate’) speculation on how low a professional peace activist like Colman McCarthy would have gone to defeat Bush in 2004, or stop the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place. Let’s just say that the terms ‘small child,’ ‘gasoline,’ and ‘matches’ were involved…

(Via RCP – also, note the difference between the old title [‘ROTC Taints University Campuses’] and the new one. RCP generally doesn’t editorialize in its title choices.)

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Whichever editor approved this Washington Post article should be ashamed of him- or herself. I do not expect shame, but it’s long past time that we started telling these people when they’ve done something foul.

Continue reading Washington Post Making Mock of Uniforms…

#rsrh America’s most technically skilled politician in danger?

I refer, of course, to Dennis Kuchinich; a man who has managed to spend the last fourteen years and two Presidential elections as a household name and respected* figure in American politics, despite the fact that by any objective standard he is a dead ringer for a Keebler Elf having a midlife crisis.

Seriously:

Tell me that you don’t want to score some tollhouse cookies off of the guy.  Tell me.  Yet he thrives in our political environment, with power, money, and marriage levels… somewhat above what one might expect.  I say this respectfully; Kuchinich, like the World War II Canadians, punches above his weight class.  That’s something to respect, even if he’s a dolt in terms of his political views.

Continue reading #rsrh America’s most technically skilled politician in danger?

Picked up Decision Points for the Kindle…

…almost by accident: it may be a little too easy to get books for the Kindle. I also would like to have a intuitive way to be able to use Amazon.com certificates to buy stuff for the Kindle, too. Anyway, Decision Points is pretty good, so far. Amusing bit of trivia: George and Laura Bush have the same anniversary date as my wife and I.

As I said: trivia.

Moe Lane

Book of the Week: The Arrival.

I flipped through The Arrival in the library yesterday while riding herd on my eldest, and it’s really pretty good. It’s a graphic novel that uses fantastic imagery to give the 21st Century reader an idea of just how mind-altering it was to immigrate to America in the 19th century. I mean mind-altering in a good sense, of course: I’d say ‘transformative,’ but the spell check doesn’t recognize that as a word and it’s probably wise to do so. Anyway: I liked it.

And so, adieu to Hogfather

What the BLS survey modification will and will not do.

You may have heard that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has modified its survey of unemployment.  There is probably going to be a good deal of confusion over what’s being changed, so let me summarize the situation.

  • Official unemployment numbers are derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which surveys American households every month in order to gather various statistical data.  The potential confusion lies in that the CPS isn’t uniform in how it defines unemployment; depending on the question, somebody may or may not be actually considered to be in the labor market.
  • So the CPS will (over the next four months) start including people who have been out of work  for between two and five years in their calculation of median length of unemployment, which the BLS pretty explicitly thinks is being under-reported.  Previously, the cutoff date was only two years; anybody out of work for longer than that would be considered effectively not part of the work force for the purposes of determining this specific statistic.
  • However, the CPS will not change the BLS definition of ‘unemployed‘ (no job, actively looking for work in the last month, ready to work) for the purpose of their most commonly reported-on statistic (the U-3, which is currently 9.8%).  As Ed Brayton – no friend to the Right – notes, this means that the currently reported unemployment rate numbers will not change because of this policy.
  • Take up any contradiction in the assumptions behind calculating median unemployment length and calculating the current unemployment rate with the BLS.

Continue reading What the BLS survey modification will and will not do.