Month: April 2005
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The campaign of the Pirate Captain
In a comment on my post about the Duke student government elections, Ken Waight of Lying in Ponds points us to a hilarious story about the leading candidate for NC State student body president — the Pirate Captain. I have to quote this one at length — it reads like a story from the Onion:
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The anti-middle school movement
Amen! Educators are realizing that middle school is a bad idea (link requires WSJ subscription): One of the longstanding rites of passage in American childhood is on the wane: middle school. That traditional precursor to high school that usually encompasses grades six through eight can be an exciting and challenging transition for preteen kids. But
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We get letters…
In the Nyhan mailbag: a RNC fundraising letter for the 2005 Durham Area Republican Party Annual Fund Drive. Partisan hackery ensues: Many Democrats and their liberal allies refuse to recognize that the President’s decisive reelection and our Party’s important gains in the U.S. Senate and House are a powerful sign of the American people’s strong
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Bush unpopularity meme spreads
The AP noticed: President Bush’s standing with the public is slumping just three months into his final term, but Americans have an even lower regard for the job being done by Congress. Bush’s job approval is at 44 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. Only 37 percent have a favorable opinion of the work being done
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Intellectual diversity in academia
Via Dan Drezner, I see that Paul Krugman’s column on the lack of conservatives in academia has drawn
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The fake memo meme
Media Matters has a useful rundown of the spread of the false claim that the Schiavo talking points memo was a Democratic forgery (via Atrios). Update 4/8: Salon’s Eric Boehlert has more. The key point he makes is that the truly partisan bloggers are generally hacks who are just throwing s— against the wall to
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Do private accounts really protect you from benefit cuts?
Dan Froomkin quotes Chuck Blahous, the White House Social Security guru, pushing a common administration talking point: Chuck Blahous, the White House’s Social Security expert, took questions on the White House Web site yesterday. He didn’t explicitly address whether the trust fund was worthless. But he did suggest a new link between the government’s spending
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A silly claim from the Center for American Progress
Here’s the introduction to new talking points from the Center for American Progress: By now most Americans are familiar with House Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay’s ethical problems. Fresh off accusations that he took a number of business trips that violated House ethics rules, new revelations surfaced yesterday that indicate DeLay’s family has received
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Will the media notice that Bush isn’t very popular?
As private accounts continue to flatline, a few people are starting to notice that President Bush isn’t very popular, as I pointed out last week. Ironically enough, it was the Washington Times that led the charge: President Bush’s record-low approval ratings are a result primarily of public dissatisfaction with his handling of domestic issues that
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John Lewis and “Phil A. Buster” on the “nuclear option”
Matthew Yglesias flags Rep. John Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, invoking civil rights in an argument defending the filibuster: Rep. John Lewis wins the prize for most dissonant pro-filibuster argument yet: “Sometimes we can speak with one voice as a nation,” said Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), “but there are times when our