Sunday Links: Pirate Kitty Edition
12th November 2006
by gordo
I had a great set of links assembled for you today, but my online links database (yes, there is such a thing) was down for most of the day. This list is still pretty good, though:
Alon discusses the split between the liberals and the Democratic party, and includes a disturbing link to some speculation that Howard Dean might be replaced at the Democratic National Committee by a centrist, possibly Harold Ford.
This would be a monumental error. Without Dean’s 50 state strategy, Democrats wouldn’t have taken the Senate. House Democrats were also assisted by this strategy, and they also got a boost from the netroots that Dean cultivated and the liberal Democratic voters that he helped activate. Perhaps most importantly, Dean actively worked to differentiate his party from Republicans, making it harder for their candidates to blur the ideological lines between themselves and their opponents.
In short, Dean is by far the best DNC chief in history, and the party should try to get at least one more election cycle out of him.
***
As both of my readers are aware, Katie is currently visiting Alon in New York City. You’d think that they’d do something fun, like maintain one another’s blogs for a week, but no. They’ve each been blogging on their own.
One thing Katie has been doing is taking great photos. Check them out here.
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Howard Dean isn’t the only Democrat who might be disappointed soon. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will almost certainly move up from Minority Leader to House Speaker, but Steny Hoyer (D-MD) might not get promoted from Minority Whip to Majority Leader. Who might get that job instead? Jack Murtha (D-PA).
Stram is pushing for Murtha, but I think he’s being a little unfair when he criticizes Hoyer for not taking the rhetorical lead on the issues. Even so, he makes a good case: Murtha took a considerable political risk when he changed sides on the Iraq War debate. He didn’t allow his position to “evolve”: as soon as he thought that the pro-war position was untenable, his instinct was to immediately stop the killing.
The Iraq War is the biggest single issue facing the US today. Substantial progress on several fronts will be impossible until we begin a withdrawl. And Murtha risked his seat and became the Democrats’ lightning rod on the issue. I can’t think of a better candidate for Majority Leader.
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Over on the Republican side, Ken Mehlman will certainly be out as RNC chair. Some have floated the name of Michael Steele, who recently tried to convince Maryland voters that he was a Democrat. Helmet of phralsjlsdfjjl thinks that the Republicans might be courting the homeless vote.
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Randy Paul has a good commentary on this article, which appeared in Investor’s Business Daily. Paul describes this attack on John Conyers (D-MI) as “hysterical, baseless and racist trashing of incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers of Michigan.” I thought the same thing when I first found the article through a link in the comments over at Common Sense Political Thought.
***
Oliver Willis says that another centrist Democrat will run for president: Bill Richardson of New Mexico.
That would make Vilsack, Richardson, Kerry, and Clinton the centrist candidates, and they would be running against Gore Feingold nobody. Will Edwards or Obama step up and take the nomination from the split field of DINOs? Or will the Democrats concede 5-10% of their votes to the Green Party?
***
Rex Kramer, Danger-Seeker is still in denial about the elections, and has a heart-to-heartless chat with Dick Cheney.
If you click just one link in this series, make it this one.
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Matt Ortega catches McCain moving the goalposts on the Iraq war again. Just before the Election, McCain said that we are entering a “critical time”. But he said the same thing in 2004, and again last August.
One can imagine McCain as a Confederate Senator, telling his colleagues, “The post-Appomattox phase of the war will be crucial.”
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There are some substantial policy differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, but This Old Brit reminds us that Israeli policy is not among them.
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Timothy Shortell, Ph.D. catches Faux News using a rhetorical question to smear liberal bloggers. Liberal bloggers like me:
Are Liberal Bloggers Sending the Same Message as Terrorists?
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OK, I’m no terrorist, but I can be mean sometimes. I shouldn’t laugh at this, and I shouldn’t link to it, but I just can’t help myself:
And just in case you weren’t offended by that, here’s one from the same source:
***
Tex of Red State Feminist chimes in on the Spears/Federline custody dispute. A couple of relevant points:
1) Federline doesn’t even live in the same section of the house as his kids.
2) Federline didn’t seek custody of his kids from a previous relationship.
3) Seeking custody is a common tactic of absentee fathers who want to force their wives to agree to a less favorable financial settlement.
4) Britney Spears isn’t nearly the singer that Christina Aguilera is. See them performing together in this video.
***
Remember back in April, when I said that Republicans were mishandling the immigration issue? Mike the Mad links to exit poll results that indicate a 30 point shift in the Latino vote, in favor of Democrats.
November 12th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Oh, I love Sunday links. I laughed. I cried.
Now if I could figure out how to get Appletree to grade papers for me. Surely there must be a WordPress module for that, no?
November 12th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
Christina Aguilera is a bad singer. I presume that by comparing Britney to her unfavorably, you mean that she’s even worse, not that she’s less bad…
Timothy (Prof. Shortell? Dr. Celebre?), there’s a fairly easy way of grading papers. First, you assign to each student a likability score between 0 and 100. This will bias the program in favor of students you like. If you want the grades to have a mean of m and a standard deviation of s, and a student’s likability score deviates from the mean likability by d standard deviations, then every paper the student submits should be drawn from a normal distribution (m + d/2 + k, (s/2)^2) where k is a constant for a given assignment that corrects for rounding grades higher than 100 down. The chance the students will find out that effort doesn’t pay off is minute; most of them make no effort anyway.
November 13th, 2006 at 1:38 am
Timothy Shortell, Ph.D.–
Grading is easy. Give everyone As. Nobody complains, and you get great evaluations.
Alon–
Seriously. Check out that video clip. It’s not even close. It’s the difference between an early round American Idol performance, and a late round performance. Britney should be singing duets with William Hung.
As for the grading, I always assumed that every prof used the “likability” formula. I’m pretty sure it’s the first thing they teach in prof school.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:31 am
No, you’re supposed to pick this skill up for yourself. I was taught to aim for an average around B-, unless I had an unusually strong or weak class. I was also taught to assign problems from the textbook, which controls 70% of the American calculus textbook market and has solutions to all problems in the nooks and crannies of the internet.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
So, calculus 101 is really Google 101?
It’s just as I suspected! The Math Industry is based entirely on fraud!
November 13th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
I would switch blogs with alon for the week, but I think he’d kill me and go crazy. he’s too worried about his “traffic” and “fluff” posts that I apparenty litter my own blog with… so he wouldn’t want that floating into his. ha.
btw. that cat is awesome
November 13th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
fluff is nice.
It makes the world go around much smoother.
I mean seriously, unless it’s Wittgenstein or theoritical physics, everything is fluff. Just different kind of fluff.
November 13th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Wittgenstein is the fluffiest of fluff.
November 13th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
I heart fluff. And Wittgenstein.
November 13th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
I heart kittens, especially pirate kittens. Wittgenstein, not so much.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
In regards to Britney - Christina is totally a good singer alon. stuff it. And we should all keep in mind that Britney was slowly exiting her trailer trash character until she was back with K.Fed. …This lifestyle isn’t healthy for kids. …They should just be given to the state of New York.
November 14th, 2006 at 1:35 am
Katie–
Honestly, I think the kids are better off with their nannies and tutors than they would be as wards of the state.
Timothy Shortell, Ph.D.–
I’m glad you like the pirate kitty. He wasn’t too happy about having his leg taken off with a pair of bolt cutters, but I think the end result is cute enough to outweigh any discomfort he might have felt.
Now it’s time to get him that eye patch…
October 15th, 2008 at 5:24 am
As in natural ‘hair-ball’ I presume, eh?
October 15th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
That is what we plan for Pogo’s costume this year- the kids want to take him trick-or-treating this year. (Pogo is my rescue dog with three legs. My youngest daughter has finally gotten over her worry that other dogs will attack him out of envy because three legs are so cool.)
October 15th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
A peg leg dog would be awesome. I think you have to make the leg short, though, because he won’t want to use it to walk.
October 15th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
That’s the plan. I just don’t want it waving around too much as he hops around. I’m thinking fabric, if I can con Mom into doing some sewing for me.
October 15th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
how about a plastic hook?
October 15th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Good idea…we even have a fabric Cap’n Hook hook that will do. you’re brilliant!
October 15th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Yep
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