http://www.democraticunderground.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:24:37 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:24:37 Which is exactly who he said he was. I don't understand why so many of my fellow progressives made the mistake of assuming any differently.

I made the choice to support Obama early in the primary season, right after Edwards dropped out. Yes, it was "settling" for an electable moderate candidate, ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/32 Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:42:16 You have to make a distinction between the Fordist model that grew this economy and the corporate model that is destroying it.

Ford himself was a problematic figure, not least because of his labor relations and his antisemitism, but he understood that a mass consumer economy required that workers... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/31 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:12:45 I didn't really notice kids until our son was born in 2005. I'm now a stay at home dad for him and my daughter, who is two and a half. I spend a lot of time at parks and on playdates and various places where folks bring their kids. What I've noticed in the six years I've been a parent has been that ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/30 Mon, 09 May 2011 23:57:34 Peggy Noonan three years ago:

"There was no grousing about John McCain, and considerable grousing about the Bush administration, but it was almost always followed by one sentence, and this is more or less what it was: "But he kept us safe." In the seven years since 9/11, there were no further att... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/29 Mon, 09 May 2011 12:28:33 You need to make a distinction between what is part of the party platform for voters and what we know from political science. Of course it's not desirable to tell voters that they are ignorant and make vote choices on an irrational basis, but we know empirically that this is true, at least for many ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/28 Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:08:01 Which is a racist agenda. When they put out signs that have the preisdent with a bone in his nose, compare him to an ape, etc., it reveals what everyone ought to know but they will deny: the tea party people are the one and the same as the John C. Calhoun people, the Nathan Bedford Forrest people, t... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/27 Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:20:07 isn't that the very definition of a dead letter? The fact is that presidents have specifically avoided taking actions that would "comply" with the War Powers Resolution, but simply have claimed to act in a manner that is "consistent" with it. I didn't pull this out of thin air: I am a political scie... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/26 Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:20:44 The president has heard of these ideas: they were taken straight off the president's Save Award website.

Allow government travelers to purchase discounted and non-refundable airline tickets

Refundable government airfare prices typically are two to three times higher (usually several hundred do... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/25 Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:30:20 We fixed Social Security back in 1983. Remember? The 1983 Social Security Amendments were supposed to fix the problem that are now being addressed by the President's Deficit Commission. At the time, the Amendments instituted a hike in FICA taxes, but these were not put in any sort of "lockbox": inst... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/24 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:59:21 Now that we have had time to reflect on it, it is clear that what the catfood commission wants to do will be horrible, especially for folks in my generation. While it's pretty easy to get folks who are currently retired fired up about these things, it's harder for folk who won't retire for 30 years ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/23 Wed, 01 Dec 2010 23:28:08 I know we haven't spoken in a while, but it's me, your President. Remember how you helped me to become elected in 2008? God, that was awesome! I know I have not been returning your phone calls, that we still have 50,000 troops in Iraq, that the war in Afghanistan has become the longest in our nation... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/22 Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:39:51 At the tea party events I've seen you do see many of the same homeschool fundie moms with their kids in homemade clothes you see at antiabortion events.

But the Moral Majority is not the wellspring of this culture: instead, it is related to it via a common ancestor: the traditional southerner, ma... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/21 Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:23:05 I'm working on a little project about the tea party movement, so I wanted some numbers on tea party strength in the various states, but couldn't find any good data. The best I could find was a wikipedia list of the various tea party protests

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tea_Party_protests... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/20 Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:37:29 Today, the GOP talking point is that Al-Waleed bin Talal is "just an investor," yet how is it that there are photos of him together with Murdoch, and that Murdoch is also invested in Al-Waleed bin Talal's media company? That's not simply an "investment." Why is there no talk of how long he's been a ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/19 Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:50:45 A subjective understanding of what women felt in the 1950's, or data on the frequency of abortion before Roe? Most of my understanding of that time comes from my reading of second-wave feminists. This is an era before women had their consciousness raised. My mother was one of them--a girl who grew i... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/18 Mon, 10 May 2010 21:22:17 Part of the lie that has been perpetrated by the media is that they describe the Tea Party Movement as something new: it isn't. These folks take their ideas from folks such as John C. Calhoun, George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, John Birch and Lester Maddox. Whether they are motivated primarily by raci... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/17 Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:36:02 I take it that it has been too long since you have read Ted Kaczynski's Manifesto. What follows is an excerpt from Ted Kaczynski's manifesto. If you can tell me how it is that what follows, a paranoid rant about the supposed pathologies of the American left, qualifies as something that ought to make... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/16 Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:20:13 My third field is comparative, which includes some readings in economics, particularly international political economy, but I couldn't model a social welfare equilibrium if I tried, which I have. For the explanation of where I got the graphic, see my reply to one of the replies above.

To underst... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/15 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:41:27 It should be clear by now that the administration had made up its mind with regard to the escalation in Afghanistan some time ago. Multiple trial balloons were floated, and proxies have been out for some time saying it's a forgone conclusion, while Republicans have accused Obama of "dithering." No... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/14 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:12:40 http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/uploads/protest.jpg

To bring up the racial hatred of the folks who have historically been the biggest racists in this country in the context of the health care debate. That's the thing, though, it's not a health care debate, any more than the teabaggers want ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/13 Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:34:37 Am I particularly happy about Warren playing any role in the Obama inauguration? Not particularly. But what's really upsetting is that this is keeping us from keeping our heads in the game. This is a massive distraction that hits enough people's hot buttons that we've become rather obsessed.

... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/12 Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:49:10 Anachronistic Dysmorphic Hairstyle Disorder
A condition wherein the sufferer feels that the same hairstyle s/he had at age 18 is still fashionable at age 40 or later. More common in women, but only because there is greater variation in women's haircuts. Maintaining the same haircut for 20 or 30 ye... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/11 Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:53:34 why did Carter lose in 1980? It was not simply the hostage crisis, but also because squabbling in the party crippled his ability to lead from the White House, squabbling that led to a bitter primary fight between Carter and Ted Kennedy. Though he had a solid Democratic majority, much of Carter's d... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/10 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:50:56 http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3006/2625539074_8a59282237.jpg?v=0

Fake Democrat turned MSM professional prettyboy George Stephanopolos wrote an article on "How to be a Better Voter" that appeared in this week's Parade magazine, the tabloidish "news" insert that appears in many local papers. The ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/9 Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:43:26 justificationon why the occupation of Iraq has been such a failure is that its leaders have no intention of ever winning, no intention of ever ending the occupation. The Cheney regime’s real goal is to keep the war going on forever, or at least as long as it can, not in order to accomplish any neoc... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/8 Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:15:42