Five Myths About the 2010 Census and the U.S. Population - Brookings Institution -
(via adrifting)
[video]
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Mr. Obama won the election because he was able to “rent” a significant number of independent voters — including Republican business types who had never voted for a Democrat in their lives — because they knew in their guts that the country was on the wrong track and was desperately in need of nation-building at home and that John McCain was not the man to do it.
They thought that Mr. Obama, despite his liberal credentials, had the unique skills, temperament, voice and values to pull the country together for this new Apollo program — not to take us to the moon, but into the 21st century.
Alas, though, instead of making nation-building in America his overarching narrative and then fitting health care, energy, educational reform, infrastructure, competitiveness and deficit reduction under that rubric, the president has pursued each separately. This made each initiative appear to be just some stand-alone liberal obsession to pay off a Democratic constituency — not an essential ingredient of a nation-building strategy — and, therefore, they have proved to be easily obstructed, picked off or delegitimized by opponents and lobbyists.
So “Obamism” feels at worst like a hodgepodge, at best like a to-do list — one that got way too dominated by health care instead of innovation and jobs — and not the least like a big, aspirational project that can bring out America’s still vast potential for greatness.
” — Op-Ed Columnist - The Fat Lady Has Sung - NYTimes.com (via rustytanton)[video]
Obama vs. House GOP: Best TV ever -
“The whole thing basically went like that: Republican asks obnoxious question rooted in Glenn Beck-ian talking points; Obama swats it away, makes the questioner look silly, and then smiles at the end. It got so bad, in fact, that Fox News cut away from the event before it was over.”
Anonymous asked: Sorry Joe, no question. Just want to say good going on the Saporta Report discussion..
Cheers,
Mason
Thanks, Mason.
Here’s a link to the discussion on SaportaReport
rustytanton asked: Interested in why you decided to resurrect Bloglanta on Tumblr, and what happened to the old content?
Good question. I really decided to do it just to do it, and maybe I’ll justify the decision later. But somewhere in my mind, I felt like Tumblr was a better match than WordPress. Really, it’s also from a feeling I have that there’s a vacuum that needs to be filled.
All the old content is still in the database, but I haven’t made the archive available yet. At some point, after Bloglanta died down the only comments that came in were spam comments, so I had also closed off commenting. Think I should make the archive available?
A new feature on Tumblr lets you ask me questions.
Also, I’ve moved Bloglanta to Tumblr, but not yet actively promoting it.
I usually don’t blog about work, but this will be an exception.
We’re at the end of a campaign to raise $25,000 for 2009, and we’re still not yet at our goal. It’s at the point where that last $5,000 is the most difficult to raise.
For those who don’t know, I work for the Atlanta Coalition of Performing Arts. The organization has been in existence in various forms for 25 years (hence the fundraising goal) as an Atlanta-based arts service organization.
Many are aware of our discount ticket service, AtlanTIX. But many in the general public are not aware of what else we do in support of the performing arts. Our services range from assembling an annual Unified Auditions (250 actors, 150 companies, and lots of coffee consumed, I’m sure), to connecting artists with affordable health insurance plans.
Please take a few moments to take a further look at what we do and why it’s worth your support, and consider a donation of $25 or more before the year is out. Thank you!