links for 2009-04-16

"Prior to the Palin blow-up, the evangelical wing and the traditional upper crust WASP wing of the party had a pretty basic agreement about the value of pure white virgin daughters. Having a few of these hanging around on podiums made politicians look good, and preserving the myth of the pure white virgin was of the utmost importance. Everyone thought they agreed on this topic. But Bristol Palin had to go have a baby, and the difference of opinion on what to do about girls who don't live by the standards of purity became harder to deny."

Contrary to the pessimists, I prefer to view matters like this. While it will be an extremely difficult battle, there are nevertheless at least three key âknobsâ that our leaders can turn, in fine tuning their climate policies, that will help them achieve legislative or policy victory. And if they get the bass, volume, and tone just right, they can still win.

"I kind of feel bad for the guy. His instinct is to try to make everyone happy, or at least to try to avoid making anyone angry. Thus when faced with the choice of contradicting himself or contradicting whoever it is he happens to be talking to, he'll usually opt for contradicting himself. And then he'll get caught contradicting himself, and then everyone winds up angry with him and no one is happy.

You may remember this as the plot of every single episode of Three's Company."

"As you can see, when you add up all federal taxes and compare it to where the money is, our system is only barely progressive at all. The bottom quintile doesn't do too badly, though they're probably paying a little more than they should, but CEOs and bankers are paying only slightly more than teachers and engineers."