the Slow Century

O'Reilly Threatens to Strike Again

2006-05-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

Bill O'Reilly threatens to give Mexico the French treatment...I find it absolutely hilarious.

And Screw you too, SOU

2006-02-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

It is way too late for me to justify a late response to the State of the Union. The kind of diatribe required to do so would necessitate much more effort on my part than I'm willing to offer at the moment. Certainly more than I think is owed to our discredited, lame-duck, smirk-happy, and increasingly-gray-haired President.

Instead, I shall point readers to yet another fucktastic response from the good people at annotated rants. I personally cannot seem to grow tired of their refined sense of humor.

Screw the Times

2006-01-27T06:51:00.000-08:00

Some of you may remember the website Fuck the South, a brilliantly composed rant that appeared soon after the ’04 election, and was presumably written by a devastated Kerry supporter. The website became the most eloquent (albeit vulgar) expression of what many Kerry supporters and Bush opposers felt on election night. Among the highlights were bragging about the North having all the “fucking monuments” and ridiculing red-state Floridians for needing their “fucking orange juice.”

Now there are a couple of new “annotated rants,” including Fuck the New York Times. Highly recommended.

Levy Picks Best of '05

2006-01-26T19:57:00.000-08:00

For those of you interested in catching up on your political theory, Chicago professor and New Republic contributor Jacob Levy has provided a generally excellent list of of his favorite for 2005. Of course, this list was published a month ago, but due to my absence from the blog I feel compelled to mention it now.

Apologies/Graduate Applications

2006-01-26T18:35:00.000-08:00

My sincere apologies for the unbelievable drought of new posts for the past several months. As I have mentioned to some of you, I have been in the process of applying to political theory PhD. programs since October, which has proven to be an unbelievably tedious and time consuming endeavor (especially for a weak multi-tasker such as myself).

The one thing that I have learned from the whole application thing is that the "common application" is a sham. Sure, it provides the convenience of not having to rewrite my phone number each time I access a new school, but that's about it. Apparently, every school is so eager to create the illusion of elitism that they feel the need to insert random rules in to the "common" form. A typical example of a "special" rule:

"Most schools allow your recommenders to submit their letters online, but WE must receive that separately, the essays, however, must be sent online"
or
"Most schools allow essays to be submitted online, but WE require that they be sent on recycled, pink-hued bond paper. The recommendations, however, must be sent online."

All this while using the same exact interface.

A certain university from somewhere in the continental United States takes the cake, however. Their application is akin to filling out a tax form, and includes such important questions as the "total value of your mortgage assets" and "check here if you are a direct descendent of the class of 1907." They didn't require an essay though...apparently that would be too much to ask of an applicant.

Anyway, now that it is over, posts will continue on a more consistent and predictable basis. What is more, I will probably not get accepted thus giving me a lot of free time!

Harriet Miers looks like Ian McDiarmid

2005-10-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to point that out.

McCarver, Awful Announcer

2005-08-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

There are many things to hate about baseball on Fox, such as the obnoxious "3D" Terminator-esque scoreboard and accompanying sound effects. But without question the most painful thing to watch is Tim McCarver, particularly when he gives one of his pseudo-erotic speeches about how great Jeter is.

Finally someone has taken the initiative to bring down this awful announcer!

Tego Pasa el Rolo Cocolo por E.E.U.U.

2005-07-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

Por fin, el Zulu Igual que Chaka esta recibiendo la atencion que se merece en la prensa Americana. Fader se ha convertido en la mejor publicacion de musica...que otro magacin publicaria una doble portada con Rick Rubin y Tego?

Esta sold out sin embargo....

Post-CAFTA Media Reaction

2005-07-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Kudos to the New York Times editorial page for being among the few on the center-left to come out in support of the recently approved CAFTA agreement. “The benefits of free trade outweigh those of protectionism”, the editors declared categorically.

Yet it is disheartening to see how so many Democrats ended up taking such a highly illiberal and protectionist stance on the issue—a position that does nothing but play on the same “politics of fear” that President Bush has been rightly accused of. But is there really much to fear from opening our markets to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic? America may indeed lose jobs to these countries, but they will mostly be in agriculture and textiles, sectors that have been quite unproductive and dependent on government handouts for many years now. It is the height of hypocrisy for liberals to decry world poverty while voting to keep poor countries from competing in sectors where they are clearly superior.

There are also some Democrats who voted against the bill in the name of defending the poor in Central America. Take for example what Representative Artur Davis—an often brilliant Congressman with a promising future—said in opposition to CAFTA:

“It tells us that we can roll back our trade deficit on the backs of unskilled workers around the world. It tells us that we can somehow improve certain industries and the profits of certain industries by diverting them to low-wage economies.”

That is a severely misguided statement and ignores the history of economic development in the United States. This country did not always enjoy high wages, nor did it always deplore teenage labor. In fact, not too long ago teenage labor was a fact of life in America, not because we were cruel to the young, but because it was necessary to sustain families who depended on additional help on the farm or on additional income. I am sure that most families in Central America would love to work less hours and make enough income to be able to send their children to school, but that is a luxury that most of them do not have, as their livelihood depends on a family’s full involvement. To suggest that this cheaper labor is “unfair” to American workers is simply ludicrous; what’s unfair is our refusal to allow competition on equal terms. But of course, American workers were not the ones who swayed the protectionists in Congress—they rarely are—it was the influence of our government-supported industries, such as agriculture. In other words, it was big-business protectionism.

What pains me even more, however, is how many on the left-wing are trying to paint CAFTA's passage as some sort of appeasement by the centrists of the DLC. Paul Waldman (who I otherwise respect greatly), recently wrote a bitter column for Tom Paine.com, in which he criticizes New Democrats for seeking “strength” by adopting “Republican-lite” postures on trade and defense. He argues that the perceived Democratic weakness is not really on issues or ideas, but on “character”; the current fight between the Democratic Party is thus one between “triangulators and fighters”. Of course, Waldman thinks that protectionists are the fighters and free-traders are the triangulators. But how does opportunistic fighting solve the Democratic Party's "character problem"? Since when is being a “fighter” considered a good measure of character? Isn’t character better measured by the consistency and sincerity of a person’s position?

Whether we agree or disagree with their public policy, New Democrats have always made clear where they stand—and the 15 Dems who voted for CAFTA proved to have enough “character” to let their ideals take precedence over a tempting, convenient, but ultimately misguided attack on the Republican opposition.

Toothless in Wapping

2005-07-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

"Wapping is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is situated on the north bank of the River Thames facing Bermondsey and Rotherhithe and is part of the Docklands area of London."

So says wikipedia.org.

But now on to more pressing matters: Google Earth, quite possibly the greatest invention since language. If you download only one useless program this year make it this one. A truly remarkable distraction for any occasion.