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November 14, 2007
Open Link Thread
The internets are so big, and I am so small.
November 14, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
I don't remember if this made the rounds fully:
http://www.ready.gov/kids/home.html
Posted by: Gavin | Nov 14, 2007 5:48:09 PM
Gun control, still bad politics.
Also the ZunePhone.
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | Nov 14, 2007 6:25:20 PM
Will our Democratic congress finally have the guts to offer Iraq war funds with the proper restrictions and the hold firm?
Posted by: George | Nov 14, 2007 6:30:43 PM
Well,ok: I can barely keep track, but in the last hour:
Myth of American Mobility ...Ian Welch at the Agonist, WaPo article, includes an excellent excerpt from an interview with Elizabeth Warren. Projects that marriages etc may be postponed for youth until the family almost disappears, and notes that blacks are falling from the middle class to the bottom. UHC is not going to help that much.
Interdependence is the Law of Society ...Mark Thoma quotes a passage from John Bates Clark, who I always considered an jerky marginalist.
"The organic whole is in the position of employer to the millions who work, and it cannot always keep them busy; but it is not at liberty to starve them. It may take away their comforts; but, if it take their lives, it is murder. Civilization has placed us all in one boat; by mutual help we are sailing the homeward-bound ship of humanity. He who will not help may be thrown overboard, possibly; but he who, by force of circumstances, cannot, must be carried to the end." ...JBC, an excerpt of the excerpt. Comment section as usual worthwhile, except for mine.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Nov 14, 2007 8:00:01 PM
I shall continue to pimp WeAreLabor, a great resource for Labor news, until it gets more then 5 hits a day. Or you tell me to stop. Or I get tired of doing so.
Posted by: Jake | Nov 14, 2007 8:01:01 PM
Oooh, neat second link, McManus. I'll intervene to make sure you don't go against the wall the day the revolution comes.
Posted by: NBarnes | Nov 14, 2007 8:14:58 PM
Now I gotta alienate
Dark Side of Ron Paul ...Dave Neiwert of Orcinus and Glenn Greenwald are very close to a blog war over Ron Paul. This link could bring the lib & antiwar hordes to Ezra. Never mind that this confirms my suspicions about Greenwald.
My own take. I was reading a Making Light thread cursing libertarians, and posted some links to left-libertarianism, council-communism etc. They didn't have a clue, and didn't care:libertarianism and small-gov't political theory was only a right-wing phenomenon.
This is what happens when liberals marginalize the left and forget their origins:they empower the fascists. The liberals aren't really in the position or have their hearts in attacking government, and when gov't becomes the enemy, all they can imagine is some new improved LEADER to save their whimpering butts. Say hi to the new boss.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Nov 14, 2007 8:58:17 PM
What suspicions did you have about Greenwald?
Posted by: mad6798j | Nov 14, 2007 10:03:08 PM
bob
that link on ron paul was unexpectedly scary.
i wonder if some of those supporters like jimmy carter?
imagine, if they started sending financial contributions to his library.
Posted by: jacqueline | Nov 14, 2007 10:36:38 PM
jacqueline, Neiwert addresses that. The right wing fringe groups have always been very selective about whom they support or endorse. That is why the enthusiasm for Ron Paul is so striking. Stormfront would never send money to Carter.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Nov 14, 2007 10:42:58 PM
"What suspicions did you have about Greenwald?"
I had a longer comment I saved to my desktop. Greenwald is popular.
Short:He was & is a Republican.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Nov 14, 2007 10:47:33 PM
Here are some good links on Massachusetts healthcare from our alt weekly:
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid50398.aspx
The price you pay
“Individuals who cannot show proof of health-insurance coverage by Dec. 31, 2007, will lose their personal-income-tax exemption when filing their 2007 income taxes,” reads the stern-sounding diktat on Mass.gov. Effectively, that’s a $219 fine.
Which is not chump change, of course, but compared, say, with the $3000 settlements extracted by the RIAA from people caught sharing music files online, it’s a bargain. So it’s not hard to believe that Massachusetts citizens with a libertarian bent might be willing to pay it rather than get the required insurance, just to make a point about governmental intrusion.
But that ain’t all. “Failure to meet the requirement in 2008 will result in a fine for each month [emphasis added] the individual does not have coverage. The fine will equal 50 percent of the least-costly, available insurance premium that meets the standard for creditable coverage.” As the saying goes: it adds up.
http://thephoenix.com/Article.aspx?id=50400&page=2
But even at Kia prices, are the state’s young adults signing up for the low-budget insurance? It’s hard to say, because so far, with the data spread among many points, nobody yet knows for certain who is and who isn’t participating, and why. Officials estimate that 200,000 previously uninsured people have bought health insurance in Massachusetts in the past 16 months. That leaves somewhere between 150,000 and 300,000 still to sign up, depending on whose estimates you believe.
Some theorize that the ones who have signed up are lower-income families taking advantage of new subsidies and low-cost options — meaning that the remaining uninsured might be the higher-income young adults who may prove far more difficult to convince.
To prompt remaining laggards into action, the state will begin imposing penalties, through the state tax system, beginning January 1. That fine will start at a couple hundred dollars for 2007, but for 2008 will likely be equal to half of the cost of the cheapest available insurance plan — as much as $1500.
Some, including McDonough of Health Care For All, argue that the penalty should be lower during this start-up phase. McDonough says that a lower fine is under consideration. “We’ve been urging the Patrick administration to view 2008 as a phase-in year,” he says.
Posted by: bob | Nov 14, 2007 11:25:21 PM
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