There are many times that doing the ‘right thing’ in public policy is difficult - the cost can be a hard sell. There are other times doing the right thing should be easy, where there are even cost savings, but the policies aren’t pursued. The constituencies for such program(s) are usually small or […]
With our economy in the doldrums it appears that the Bush Administration is trying to start a public works program for actors. There are no doubt a lot of good TV actors out there looking for work, so employing them in public information campaigns might be admirable, if the Bush Administration weren’t so deceitful.
This entry was going to be called “Money Talks” and focus on two impressive paragraphs from a Robert McIntyre economic analysis in The American Prospect:
“Bush’s assertion that he’ll cut the deficit in half by 2009 includes the following explicit assumptions: Spending on defense and homeland security will fall by 14 percent as a share of […]
Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” has garnered a lot of serious discussion and angst — and now a bit of humor. My wife showed me Steve Martin’s humorous take that suggests, as others have more seriously, Gibson’s desire to ’stick to the text’ and his altruistic motives are a bit of a […]
The list of embarrassments for the Bush Administration has been cataloged in numerous books - but every once in a while you read something that seems beyond belief, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Here is the New Republic’s description (subscription required) of the new leader of the Directorate for Information […]
A must-read for today, see Bob Herbert’s New York Times Op Ed The Unrecognizable Recovery. A lot of scary stuff there, but perhaps the most profound thing that struck me, more than job creation numbers revised down over the past months, more than increased time for the long-term jobless before finding work, more than […]
With my eldest child sick with the flu (plus the rest of life to deal with) I’ve neglected the blog the last couple days — back again tomorrow.
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Posted 07 March 2004
† Hiram Wurf
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What is so threatening about gay marriage to social conservatives? Religious objections aside (and this isn’t to say people in ‘good faith’ don’t have them) it is because marriage is mainstream. Gay people, to this perspective, may or may not be okay in general, but they are ‘best’ when they are outsiders, oddballs. […]
Joe Trippi did a great job with his pastoral retreat for key Dean Staff at his Maryland farm last week. He chose the right location for the right audience at the right time — it was, I’m sure, a cleansing experience for all involved in the Dean heartbreak. Extending the effects of this […]
I have long assumed that Republicans have a competitive advantage over Democrats in governing. “Conservatives” tend to believe in little and slow change - people are best left alone, and government can do little to help them. This makes governing a lot easier. You don’t need to deliver much to be perceived […]
