I mostly agree with both the author of the aritcle and your statements, and I understand Google's decision pretty well. I do, however, want to point out, that Google is hardly a non-profit. I am more than certain, that the ability to do business, and obtain profit from their google.cn outfit played a part in their decision. I do not think, however, that the "high moral ground" is shifted in any way by understanding that.

Posted at February 12, 2006 7:47 AM in response to Google's "Foreign Policy"

Clearly a gut-check time for the Dems. Their (and our) success hinges on two important factors: (a) no dissent in the ranks of the 45 Senate Dems and (b) their ability to make the north-eastern Republicans flinch.

In the next few days we will see a lot of frames being constructed and a lot of arguments made. To win, Dems must be successful in the following: [1] making it a generally supported consensus that Alito is exteremely conservative; [2] winning out on the appeasement gift to the extreme right-wing meme; [3] providing considerable cover to people like Chafee for their dissent from the GOP party line (the reward), [4] providing clear evidence of drastic fallout if north-eastern GOP senators vote for confirmation.

The goal of the Dems must be ensuring a losing committee vote for Alito, and, if that is not possible - ensuring a losing confirmation vote - which, unless one of the "unusual" suspects flips will be considerably harder. Filibuster should be their #3 option, but it should be an option they all must be willing to embrace including facing the hardest consequences.

Posted at October 31, 2005 11:18 AM in response to Alito

I think this is good analysis. What I would add is a repetition of my thought expressed above: it is up to Democrats to let it be known now that a hardline right-winger chosen to appease the religious right is NOT going to get confirmed. The Dems have 40 votes for a filibuster, but more importantly, if they play their cards right, they can probably ensure that a wingnut nominee does not make it out of the committee.

The second important point is that the Dems must start pushing the weakened White House and GOP in turmoil memes. The first one is a major argument to get NorthEast Republicans to flip (what is more useful for Chafee's reelection: White House support, or a GOP maverick aura?), the second - continuation of the absolutely brilliantly (even if only by chance) played Miers nomination - let GOP eat itself. Even with a nominee opposed by all 45 Dem Senators, the public spotlight has to be on the internal GOP arguments about him/her.

Posted at October 27, 2005 1:24 PM in response to Driving Out Miss Harriet

This was meant to read "votes for confirmation and DOES NOT leave to see the results."

Posted at October 27, 2005 10:00 AM in response to Driving Out Miss Harriet

Right now the Dems look to emerge clear winners out of this conundrum, with the caveat that they are ready to stay united in their opposition to a right-wing hardliner.

It appears that this is the Democrats' turn to fight. If a hardliner is nominated, the Dems have the "this is a clear cave-in to the right-wing fringe of the Republican Party" meme that is very easy to propagate under the current circumstances. And they have two potentially moderate Republicans on the Judiciary committee: Specter and Chafee. It is the Senate Democrats' duty to create an environment in which Chafee votes for a confirmation of a hardliner and lives to see the results.

Posted at October 27, 2005 9:58 AM in response to Driving Out Miss Harriet

An important thing to observe in this debate is that we, liberals, do not think that scientific truth is relative. There is a good reason why evolution is taught in schools and universities and why intelligent design is not. The reason is plain simple - evolution is supported by the sicentific consensus (this is as close as I can get to saying "evolution is true"), while intelligent design is not.

Any self-respecting liberal should cringe at the thought of children, any children, being taught things that are not true. Now, kids do go to Sunday school, and learn as fact things that, in my opinion are incorrect, or at the very least unprovable. But this is done in addition to getting a generally well-thought-out education (it might not necessarily be always well-delivered and has definite room for improvement, but it is well-thought out). The hope is that as children grow - they get to chose themselves what to believe in, but we cannot say that we did not try to make them accept reality.

Now, imagine large swaths of kids going to these alternate reality schools that teach Intelligent DEsign, and that God put dinosaur bones in the ground to f*ck with liberals. One can make a hyporitical argument that this takes the kids attending these schools out of running for spaces in colleges that don't have "Bob Jones" in their name, and since such schools will be attended in majority by white kids from middle-class families, the proponents of more diversity in colleges should only support that. However, Matt's point, which I agree with completely, is that no matter who the parents are and what they think, their kids deserve education that is right.

Education is not relative and teach the controversy is not symmetric. Everybody is entitled to be taught things that are true. Noone should be forced to be taught things that are false.

Posted at October 22, 2005 8:58 PM in response to Education and Equality

But why bother being like Japan or Germany when we can just be like Brazil or Russia instead?

Sorry to disappoint you but Russia has had universal health care ever since the 1920s. Seriously though, while private medical practice has made its appearance in Russia in the past 15 years, the vast majority of doctors work for state-run hospitals and clinics. The health coverage system has been recently switched from "district-based" (when you had a clinic and a hospital assigned to your geographical location) to insurance-based, where you acquire insurance policies through your place of employment.

The deteriorating state of most state-run medical facilities and the staff salaries are a separate issue affecting the quality of health-care in Russia, but access is very clearly not!

Posted at October 21, 2005 5:20 AM in response to Health Care With Your Hyundai?

I agree wholeheartedly that big public universities provide the best bang for the buck in terms of education. I disagree that they are "phenomenally expensive" - a year of college education in my school, with two double-digit increases in the past two years, still does not cost significantly more than a year of taking one's three-year old to a daycare center.

I do not like the trends though. My university had to increase tuition because state funding was cut on two consecutive years, once the Republican governor replaced the Democratic one. The problem is simple - university had to cover its costs - be it salary, construction, equipment purchases or maintenence. When the state portion of the budget decreases, tuition goes up to cover. So, if the goal of your state governor is to destroy public higher education in the sate - all (s)he has to do is cut state funding for the universities every year under the premises that "hey, we cut you last year and you did just fine". Then see how potential students get priced out.

Posted at October 19, 2005 12:01 PM in response to College.com?

Progressing aversion of the populus to the word "liberal" might explain why the Democratic activist line in that graph stagnated. It does not however explain by itself why Republican line kept on moving towards "very conservative". While the term "liberal" had undergone an undeserved beating, this does not mean that all of a sudden "very conservative" acquired undue appeal.

One should probably take the graph with a grain of salt. However, this grain is no bigger than the grains with which one should take all other political survey results.

Posted at October 10, 2005 10:18 PM in response to The Mystery Solved

I tend to disagree strongly with the "anything for a non-wingnut" approach. You are talking about the Supreme Court of your country. People have lifetime appointments there that last much longer than Bush's tenure. If she'd be gone at the end of his administration - yes, by all means, confirm her by widest margins possible. The problem is, you confirm someone who is (a) not qualified, (b) nominated by someone who himself is not qualified - and you establish a track record of turning the last line of defense for the American law into a place of lifetime cushy appointments. And she is going to sit on that bench until 2020 or even further into the future...

There is a much more important principle at stake here than simply playing for a non-wingnut. Just how unqualified must a person be for one to draw the line simply on principle of not turning the high court into a circus, without regard for the nominiee's politics.

Posted at October 7, 2005 12:41 PM in response to Harriet's Odds