This is a tumblelog, kinda like a blog but with short-form, mixed-media posts with stuff I like. Scroll down a bit to start reading, or a bit more to read more about me.
The Cory Booker imbroglio has ignited a silly but potentially pernicious debate in the Democratic Party between so-called “pro-growth centrists” who want the President to focus on how well he’s done getting the economy back on its feet after the Bush administration almost knocked it out, and…
Mitt Romney, 1994 Massachusetts Senatorial Debate
The abortion that Mitt doesn’t talk about anymore - Abortion - Salon.com
(via fatsy)
It’s a tough thing, trying to be the Republican nominee, while still, at times, holding amazingly reasonable views regarding governance. One of two things has to happen in this situation: A.) You don’t get nominated by the RNC and don’t get to represent that party, or B.) You sacrifice deep, moral convictions in order to gain power and appease the party.
It’s too bad.
Students stage a protest against tuition fee increases on May 25, 2012 in Montreal. (AFP Photo / Rogerio Barbosa)
TAGS: Protest, Politics, Opposition, Education,North America, Police, Security
Ontario students have pledged to take to the streets in solidarity with their protesting fellows in Montreal and other cities of Quebec. The students are defying emergency laws the authorities are imposing to curb down the wave of dissent.
Students in Quebec have been protesting for more than 100 days now, with violent clashes between police and protesters reported on several occasions. The latest demo on Wednesday night resulted in a police crackdown on demonstrators.
About 700 people were detained throughout the province, which pushed the total number of detentions over the months over 2,500. That is at least five times more than during the 1970 crisis, when martial law was declared in Quebec in response to the actions of radical nationalists.
The protest against the hike of tuition fees was mainly focused in the province’s largest city Montreal, but it is now spreading outside of Quebec. A group of students the neighboring province of Ontario pledged their support of the movement Friday.
“The most important thing we can do in Ontario to support the struggle in Quebec is to bring the spirit of democracy and activism into the province of Ontario,” said student and activist Xavier Lafrance as cited by the Toronto Sun. “The spirit is in the air. Mr. McGuinty needs to be aware that it can and will happen in Ontario.”
Calling the rally scheduled for June 5 the “beginning in Ontario,” Sandy Hudson, Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students – Ontario, said the group is expecting to “build a movement and have capacity.”
On May 18, Quebec provincial government issued a controversial emergency regulation called Bill 78 designed to undermine the students’ ability to impose school shutdowns. It restricts public gatherings larger than 50 people, provides fines for protest leaders endorsing unsanctioned events and forbids covering of faces on demos, among other things.
The regulation’s effect on freedom of assembly is drawing an increasing number of older protesters to join their students. The Montreal Gazette cites Henri Fernand, 65, who took part in Wednesday’s rally in his wheelchair as saying: “The youth is our future and I’m proud of them. I’m here in solidarity with the students.”
Voice Array
2011 audio / visual installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer stores 288 samples from public, replayed as a stack with blinking lights:
As a participant speaks into an intercom, their voice is automatically translated into flashes of light and then this unique blinking pattern is stored as a loop in the first light of the array. Each new recording pushes all previous recordings one position down and gradually one can hear the cumulative sound of the 288 previous recordings. The voice that was pushed out of the array can then be heard by itself.
Hawaii to become first U.S. state to ban plastic bags at checkout in every county
Hawaii is slated to become the first state in the nation to ban plastic bags at checkouts in every county.
“This is groundbreaking,” said Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, according to msnbc.com.
Carlisle signed off on the ban last week, joining Honolulu County with the state’s three other counties, which had already passed the ban.
“By signing this environmentally friendly bill, Honolulu joined our neighbor island countries. Hawaii has become the only state in the United States where every county has plastic bag legislation.” Carlisle said.
The change goes into effect on July 15, 2015, giving retailers “plenty of time to get ready,” he told msnbc.com.
“Retailers will be able to use up their inventory of bags and make arrangements to educate the public on the importance of bringing their own bag,” Carlisle said.
Bans are already enforced in Kauai and Maui counties, and Hawaii County’s takes effect on Jan. 16, 2013.
The news comes on the heels of a report from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography documenting a shocking increase in plastic waste floating in the northeast Pacific Ocean.
Particularly in a region dubbed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” marine life is changing as creatures ingest plastic at alarming rates.
The bans passed after a two-year campaign directed by the Sierra Club, an environmental group.
“Passing the bans did take an effort — change always does — but people seemed to understand the need for such an effort,” Robert Harris, director of the Sierra Club’s Hawaii chapter, told msnbc.com.
“Being a marine state, perhaps, we are exposed more directly to the impacts of plastic pollution and the damage it does to our environment,” he said.
“People in Hawaii are more likely to be in the water or in the outdoors and see the modern-day tumbleweed — plastic bags — in the environment.”
![theatlantic:
What Can a Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Teach Us About Obamacare?
Ronald Coase won the Nobel Prize in Economics for showing that social costs are symmetrical. In The Problem of Social Cost, Coase invoked the example of a farmer whose crops are trampled by the neighboring rancher’s cattle. Before Coase, it would have been common to view the rancher as the culprit responsible for imposing costs on the blameless farmer. Coase pointed out that no matter which way the legal rights were allocated, one was imposing costs on the other. If the law forces the rancher to keep his cattle fenced in, the farming imposes fence-building costs on the rancher. If the law gives the rancher the right to let his cattle roam free, then the farmer bears the social cost.
Coase’s work was instrumental in establishing a new field of scholarship — the economic analysis of the law, which has been highly influential in many legal areas. In light of this, it is surprising how little role the core Coasian insight had in the Supreme Court’s recent oral argument about the Obamacare mandate. Much of the discussion seemed to take for granted that this mandate encroaches on individual liberty, depriving individuals of the “freedom” not to purchase health insurance.
But as Coase’s analysis makes clear, framing the issue in terms of individual liberty is deeply misleading. When the uninsured get sick and go to the emergency room for care they cannot afford, someone has to pay the costs. If the law gives the uninsured the right not to buy health insurance, then the costs for their emergency care are imposed on the insured, whose payments must cover the hospital’s costs. If the law instead requires the uninsured to buy health insurance, they become personally responsible for the cost of the care they receive.
In other words, the issue is not whether to have a mandate, but rather on whom the mandate should be imposed.
Read more. [Image: mrfoto/Shutterstock]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4hmbdmCiO1qcokc4o1_400.jpg)
What Can a Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Teach Us About Obamacare?
Ronald Coase won the Nobel Prize in Economics for showing that social costs are symmetrical. In The Problem of Social Cost, Coase invoked the example of a farmer whose crops are trampled by the neighboring rancher’s cattle. Before Coase, it would have been common to view the rancher as the culprit responsible for imposing costs on the blameless farmer. Coase pointed out that no matter which way the legal rights were allocated, one was imposing costs on the other. If the law forces the rancher to keep his cattle fenced in, the farming imposes fence-building costs on the rancher. If the law gives the rancher the right to let his cattle roam free, then the farmer bears the social cost.
Coase’s work was instrumental in establishing a new field of scholarship — the economic analysis of the law, which has been highly influential in many legal areas. In light of this, it is surprising how little role the core Coasian insight had in the Supreme Court’s recent oral argument about the Obamacare mandate. Much of the discussion seemed to take for granted that this mandate encroaches on individual liberty, depriving individuals of the “freedom” not to purchase health insurance.
But as Coase’s analysis makes clear, framing the issue in terms of individual liberty is deeply misleading. When the uninsured get sick and go to the emergency room for care they cannot afford, someone has to pay the costs. If the law gives the uninsured the right not to buy health insurance, then the costs for their emergency care are imposed on the insured, whose payments must cover the hospital’s costs. If the law instead requires the uninsured to buy health insurance, they become personally responsible for the cost of the care they receive.
In other words, the issue is not whether to have a mandate, but rather on whom the mandate should be imposed.
Read more. [Image: mrfoto/Shutterstock]
