I've Moved!

Literally and figuratively, I have moved to a new place.  Buying a house and moving south to the suburbs of DC is my excuse for not posting in such a long time--I hope that's adequate.

Since I no longer live in Charm City, I've decided to switch gears and end my writing at TheBmoreSoloist.  However, I've started a fancy new blog called AndOneForBlog!  This new base of operations will be a collaborative effort with a few close friends, so even if I don't post as often as I'd like, you won't be left waiting for new content.  

We'll be having discussions about a wide variety of topics as each poster adds some about what they know and enjoy.  Please follow the new blog if you felt this one was worth your time, and enjoy the interactions with the new crew.  Thanks for reading what I've put here--I hope to continue earning your interest.

Highlight of the Day

Emily Hauser, a fellow member of Ta-Nehisi Coates's commenting community, has a wonderful post on her blog today about the friends we leave behind as children.  It's worth reading.

FATALITY!

The Daily Show has been on a roll lately, with some brutal indictments of the petty horse-race journalism perpetuated by the major news networks, especially FOX.  My personal favorite was Jon Stewart's surprisingly civil conversation with Mark Thiessen which, while not as vicious as Stewart's assault on Jim Cramer, certainly put Thiessen's reluctance to interact with reality on full display.

These clipse deserve to be watched again and again and again.

Judicial Activism

The National Review posted a finely researched article about the ways Democrats and Republicans enjoy decrying and utilizing judicial activism.  It's worth a look as we prepare for a "whale of a fight" over whomever President Obama chooses to nominate to replace Justice Stevens.

What the Affordable Care Act Does

I should have posted this a month ago, but since the topic is back in the news cycle, here's a breakdown of what the Affordable Care Act does, and when.  Everyone should read it if they want to know what to expect from insurance companies in the next decade.

"No Duh" of the Day

In no realistic scenario can Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act.  This one-dimensional thinking is what you get from a party that basis its existence on absolutes.

On Parties and Philosophies

Since my last post, I've continued to dwell on the current state of American conservatism and the Republican Party.  For months, the public has watched in stupefied awe as the sorry soldiers of the political right impotently lash out at the new political and cultural realities that have begun to eclipse their own.  Tea Party protests, crooked publicity stunts from Sarah Palin, and threats against Democratic lawmakers have made it easy for people to wonder: "What the hell is wrong with these people?"  

However, the increasing frequency of this question’s proposition has produced a minor backlash from people who would otherwise sympathize with Republican values.  These people do not condone the signs carried by Tea Party protesters, often dislike Sarah Palin, and stand aghast at the intimidation being used against Democratic politicians.  More than these things however, these Lost Conservatives do not appreciate (and often take offense at) the smug boastings of Democratic—or more specifically, Obama—supporters who are certain of their righteousness in the face of GOP absurdity.

The Republican Party would like everyone to believe it is not related to the Tea Party movement, but this proposition continues to confuse outside observers.  The GOP seems to be making no attempts to differentiate itself, and to many people, the relationship seems too much like the hands of a puppeteer: one is drawing your attention with a suit and tie while the other engages in vandalism and political bullying.  They may be playing different characters, but they're putting on the same show.


This is where the Lost Conservatives become very important.  They see the Republican Party in disarray, the lunatic fringe getting highlighted because sanity doesn't sell.  Lost Conservatives do not believe the Tea Party fits the image of the Republican Party, and that the upstart movement, as unseemly as it may be, does not justify a complete dismissal of the Republican Party’s dignity and integrity.  They give Republican lawmakers slack because they understand that it is difficult for politicians to break the group-think that plagues our two-party system and criticize allies, especially in the face of losing votes for fear of not being conservative enough.  For Lost Conservatives, "the heart of the party" is still with Reagan and the glory days of American conservatism, and Republicans will, by default, right their ways once this storm has passed.  It irks them to see the Republican Party painted with such a broad brush because they used to support it and would like to support it again.


What, then, should the public be paying attention to when searching for the identity of the Republican Party?  The outlandishness of the GOP cannot, by itself, be enough reason to look elsewhere since, by definition, a party’s identity can only be determined by… well, the party.  To understand the GOP, the public must begin to separate conservatism from the Republican Party—we must differentiate between parties and philosophies.  The basic tenets of classic American conservatism—low taxes, minimal government bureaucracy, financial stability, etc.—either do not exist as part of the current Republican Party's philosophy, or are cynically used as tools for securing reelection.


It is important to acknowledge that there are many groups with vastly different objectives in most political parties; neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are always unified bodies.  The whole point of having a political party is that people can represent their interests in larger numbers, thus earning individuals more bargaining power and consideration.  But in an effort to salvage the image of the Republican Party, Republicans (and, to a lesser extent, Lost Conservatives) would like us to ignore the basic purpose of a political party simply because blatantly radical elements are now the primary motivators of GOP policy creation and activism.


I've said this before, and it remains true: it is up to the people who feel they have been affronted—the Lost Conservatives—to stand up and make clear who we should be listening to when we inform ourselves about Republican identity. It cannot possibly be that difficult.  We live in an age where media outlets broadcast Tweets and Facebook updates as news; how hard can it really be for moderates to step up, if only momentarily, to say, "We wholly reject the paradigm of the current Republican Party, and you should not think of us this way?"


This well-intentioned quest does not bode well for our representative democracy.  By forsaking their own interests while they wait for the Republican Party to welcome them back, Lost Conservatives release themselves of the burdens of their principles at a time when it would do them the most good to push these ideals as hard as possible.  This behavior is irrational and hinders the recovery of the GOP.  No one benefits when moderates sit back and sigh, "This too shall pass."  Democracies thrive on internal conflicts driven by the self interests of various groups, and if people are willing to surrender that, I find it difficult to sympathize with them.


Democrats gain nothing from providing a home to the Lost Conservatives.  Their core goals and philosophies are too different to result in a stable party.  For the Lost Conservatives to regain their voice, they must retake the Republican Party.  Until that happens, the stagnation of the GOP will continue, and the Lost Conservatives will be left to hold their nose and watch the Democrats fumble their way towards liberal policies that the Lost Conservatives could shape and improve if they had a larger voice.

The Lunatic is in the Hall, Again

In college, I studied the growth of the militias in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, which culminated in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.  Security specialists can tell you that these people have not gone away or changed their methods, and I wonder what will have to happen before Republican party members decide that they should turn down the heat on the pot of domestic resentment and violence that they brought to a boil, and now choose to conveniently leave unattended on the stove.  A recent article by John Marshall states that "thankfully, nobody has been injured or killed."  I wonder what the workers and victims of the February 18th attack on IRS offices in Austin, TX would say to that?  Maybe we should ask for the opinions of doctors who have been killed by (ironically) pro-life activists for providing controversial--but legal--services to patients?  Perhaps Marshall was referring to those who haven't been killed yet, like Tom Perrielo's brother.  What will it take for people to realize that things have already gone too far?

We all know that both sides of the political spectrum have radicals and people who act out inappropriately (ELF and certain WTO protest organizations would be reasonable comparisons), and all who participate in such thuggery should be condemned.  That said, the moral equivocating of the modern GOP is disgusting, and deserves to be ridiculed not only because its leaders refuse to speak up, but because they were actively engaging in the incitement of these lunatics.  We've all heard countless examples of GOP members touting ridiculous claims since the 2008 presidential race and this behavior is what differentiates the actions of current conservatives from the actions of a group like ELF: one is mainstream, and the other is not.

Christopher Hitchens, when discussing radical Islam, once asked, "Why is it that we can't get condemnation easily, or at all, when, for example, Shiaa mosques and funeral processions in Iraq are blown up Muslim fascists?"  The comparison is no doubt hyperbolic, but the principle can still be applied: Public officials bear the very serious responsibility of loudly rejecting repugnant acts, regardless of how unpleasant it may be to do so, or how disconnected the acts are from a political platform.  Nothing is more damaging to a democracy's political institutions and processes than misinformation, and it is for this reason that the Republican party will suffer for its alignment with the Tea Party movement.

I continue to hear GOP leaders and friends question the necessity or benefits to speaking out against violence, and it saddens me to think that they really don't feel the urgency behind quelling the outrage of their political friends.  What's going on right now is not political activism--it's Quixotic intimidation disguised as patriotic rebellion against the windmill of federal government:

Successful governing (that is, the creation and enforcement of public policies) requires all parties involved in the process to maintain a certain level of sincerity in order to be taken seriously.  In America, there is currently no such agreement between the left and right.  Until that basic trust has been re-established, (starting with a mass renunciation of violence and vandalism by Republican politicians) the GOP will continue to be a party that bases its entire existence on the infantile tantrum it has thrown over being out of power.  In the mean time, the pot continues to boil.

The End of an Era

Distressing news recently came from the world of underground rap and hip-hop.  El-P announced via the Def Jux Web site that he was effectively shutting down the label.  Many of the emcees who made their home with Def Jux during its 10-year run will likely end up with great deals elsewhere, but to see such an immense group of talent get broken up is still upsetting.

Artists like The Perceptionists, Aesop Rock, Rob Sonic, Cage, Del Tha Funky Homosapien, Cool Calm Pete, Camu Tao, and Cannibal Ox all helped the label redefine what hip-hop was, as well as who could participate in making it.  On a personal level, the label helped me get into rap and hip-hop; I hope everyone at Def Jux lands okay.

The Def Jux logo

Song of the Day

I'm currently reading Bruce Feiler's newest book "America's Prophet," but it has nothing to do with my choice for today's song.  Aesop Rock's just been in my head.  I'll be posting about Feiler's book soon, though.  Enjoy:

Star Wars is Alive and Well

Somewhere, Ronald Reagan is smiling.  In the last several days, two different groups of scientists announced that they were able to shoot down something speeding through the air with a laser.


Let me repeat that: human beings can now shoot things out of the sky with lasers.


On February 12th, Boeing announced that it had successfully shot down a ballistic missile during a firing range test of its new airborne laser system.  The Cold War is over, but apparently that doesn't mean we've collectively stopped thinking about the danger of long-range missiles.  How this will affect the way we talk with or about Iran and North Korea remains to be seen, but I imagine our Iranian policies will be mostly unchanged.


Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons yet, and both Israel and the United States have had other anti-ballistic missile defense systems for quite some time.  The United States seems to be more concerned with preventing Iran and North Korea from selling their technology to other hostile governments or militant groups, and these new systems do nothing to prevent that.  However, these defenses drain a good deal of power from the threat of a nuclear attack, which makes saber-rattling from both countries even less intimidating than it already is.


On a different note, scientists working with the Intellectual Ventures Lab released video of a new system they've developed to fight malaria by frying mosquitoes in flight.  The system is so sensitive that it detects the wing speed of things that pass in front of it, and fries only the female mosquitoes as they go by.  This lessens (or possibly eliminates) the threat of diseases carried by mosquitoes, since only the females bite.  Below is the video release by IV Lab, shot at 6,000 frames per second.

Take-Down of the Day

Plenty of notable personalities used the storms that recently hit the mid-Atlantic to bolster their claims that climate change is a hoax or, at the very least, an exaggeration.  Given that the scientific community was still trying to get its bearings after Climate-gate, it was the perfect time to pounce


Unfortunately for these skeptics, Fred Pearce at the Guardian has been helping to clarify what actually happened with Climate-gate.  His piece exposes (again?) many global warming detractors as the intellectual slobs we suspected they are.

If There's One Thing I've Learned...

...it's that politics is exhausting.  It takes a certain level of stamina to follow the details of multiple stories as complex as health care reform, the daily grind of Congress, or the Obama administration's fluctuating feelings on where to try terror suspects for their crimes.  The internet has made it extremely easy to find other people's analyses, but finding raw information and synthesizing it to create meaningful posts on a regular basis is something I just haven't gotten the grip of yet.  Duties and desires exist outside of the blogosphere, and I'm still trying to find the proper balance between the things I need to do and the things I'd like to get better at.


In short, my apologies for going on an unexpected hiatus for a whole week.


My goals for this blog have changed since it began several months ago.  Originally, it was a way for me to organize my thoughts about current events while trying to train myself to write in a professional way on a more regular basis.  Now I find that this blog is more of a cathartic thing, allowing me to release energy built up over the course of a day or week as I follow the news.  There are a lot of things I'd like to be an expert on: Congressional procedures, political prospects for 2010 and 2012, the Torture Memos, the Arab-Israeli conflict... the list goes on and on.


Over the course of the coming months, my schedule will become increasingly busy, and my time to sift through the hundreds of stories brought to me by Google Reader will diminish further.  When I do write, however, I hope to do so as an expert about the topic, even if that means I don't have something posted the day an event takes place.  I'm not a newspaper, and blogs suffer when the writers try to be things they are not.


My golden rule--never get too personal!--will still stand, but I (and as a consequence, my blog) will benefit from not forcing myself to write about dreary, serious things all the time.  Thus far, I have been quite passionate about the topics this blog has addressed, and I will continue to be attached to them, but I hope to inject my personal interests into more of my posts from now on.  


I hope everyone continues to read and enjoy The Baltimore Soloist as I try to retool my writing habits.  And, as always, please pass this site on to your friends and family if you feel I deserve it.

Follow-Up of the Day

Andrew Sullivan agrees that the Chicken Little act put on by pro-choice supporters before the Super Bowl was a bit too much.


On a lighter note, congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for their epic Superbowl win over the Indianapolis Colts.  Here's Tracy Porter's gnarly interception that really put it away for the Saints.  I found out yesterday that an interception being run back for a touchdown is known as a "pick six."  Football slang is great.

Statistics of the Day

I know I'm a little late with this, but my initial skepticism of the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll that made such a splash among internet commentators last week kept me from talking about it until today.  After examining the methodology behind the study, I'm much more comfortable accepting it as legitimate.  Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com provides some great analysis.

If nothing else, this study proves once again how good the Republican party was at controlling its brand and its message.  As silly as some of these responses may seem, they stem from strict party discipline among Republican lawmakers and a desire to gain an advantage over President Obama by any means necessary.  The Republican modus operandi continues to be peddling demonstrably false statements.

Even more telling than the responses are the questions.  That Republicans overwhelmingly believe some of the things being asked is simply mind-boggling.  (One note--make sure to look at the scale of the Y-axis when looking at each graph on Nate Silver's page.  The graphs can be misleading without careful reading.)  Overall, the differences in responses from one GOP supporter to the next are negligible.  Only non-White persons answering questions about racism or Obama's birthplace had significantly different answers than their White counterparts.  And this is where things get complicated.

Since the presidential race in 2008, the GOP has been desperately trying to change the way it looks to the American people, but this survey shows how badly it is failing.  Republican opinion is now a feedback loop built on paranoia and stereotypes.  The irony of course is that, like anyone else, GOP members resent being stereotyped because it detracts from their ability to look like a party that truly fits the entire country.  This survey has exposed (again) how much Republican concentration goes into keeping cultural norms and social mores in place, and how unconcerned party members are with formulating policy that does anything else.

Until the Republican party gets serious about solving problems and not chasing figments of its imagination, it will continue to be a miserable afterthought in the minds of serious problem solvers.

The Law: 2 Assholes: 0

Good news from the court system this week. First, a military appeals court found "no reversible errors in the decision of the lower court" in the convictions of two perpetrators of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.  Then, yet another terrorist was brought to justice in civilian court.  Two points for the good guys.

The courts can handle these cases--they've been doing so for many years.  That some people can't bring themselves to trust the court system they live under doesn't mean the United States shouldn't default to civilian trials for these thugs.

A Simple Test

We're going to do a test.  Get a piece of paper and something to write with, or just open up a new Word document.  Once you're ready and without hovering to see the URL, click on the link below and write down the first five words that come to your mind.  Don't think--just react and write.

Click here when you're ready.

After you've written down your five words, start reading after the jump to find out why I asked you to do this.

And Last, but Not Least...

...A nice bedtime story that will smash your hopes for cooperative government like a six-year old with a baseball bat in a field of fireflies.  I can't say this is unexpected, but it still hurts to read.

Follow-Up of the Day

You'll find a calm tone and plenty of statistics throughout William Saletan's discussion about the odds of women and fetuses surviving the same situation Pam Tebow encountered when she was pregnant with Tim.  Like I mentioned yesterday, we can't turn away from the lurid details that make us squirm, and this article will help you get used to them.

Take-Down of the Day

Jessica Grose has a nice rebuttal to Lori Gottlieb's unabashedly ego-stroking "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough." I haven't read the book, but I did read the article it's based on, and I was unimpressed. Authors should be smart enough to know when they're projecting and not writing solid, research-based content.