Rise If You Must

Random Anecdotal Economic Indicator Of The Day

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:54:22 -0500

“Yesterday I looked at bags I couldn’t afford and decided that I will find a way to afford them.”

—A young lady in my office today.

Op-Ed Contributor - Where Credit Isn’t Due - NYTimes.com

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:31:14 -0500

Op-Ed Contributor - Where Credit Isn’t Due - NYTimes.com:

I iz all up in yer paperz.

This week on our “You Ask, We Answer” segment I talk...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:19:19 -0500

This week on our “You Ask, We Answer” segment I talk about my politics, Superman, the dollar, gold and poker.

I’m going to take away your internets if you people insist...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:21:48 -0500

I’m going to take away your internets if you people insist on using them like this.

How well do you know your state capital domes?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:02:16 -0500

How well do you know your state capital domes?

thesevagabondshoeskate: While on an Iowa theme… I’m pretty...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:28:16 -0500

thesevagabondshoeskate:

While on an Iowa theme… I’m pretty picky about my sweet corn but I get down with both La Esquina’s (pictured, from an interesting dinner the other night that may have included a motivational speaker) and Cafe Habana’s.

In my experience, you should never mess with Iowa girls when it comes to corn. It’s like a religion. Someone should make a movie about these children of the corn fields who…oh, wait. Never mind.

How To Get Your Boob Job Done In Thailand

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:10:19 -0500

How To Get Your Boob Job Done In Thailand:

Just in case you were wondering.

10 Ways Credit Card Companies Are Still Screwing You

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:47:45 -0500

10 Ways Credit Card Companies Are Still Screwing You:

Service-y!

My favorite Halloween photo.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:43:48 -0500

My favorite Halloween photo.

A Guy From The Awl Interviews Gavin McInnes For Peter Feld's Brand Channel

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:16:00 -0500

A Guy From The Awl Interviews Gavin McInnes For Peter Feld's Brand Channel:

This is your hadron collider.

(Peter adds: thanks - all interested parties please use the brandchannel link.)

Dim but true.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:04:15 -0500

Dim but true.

Clusterstock: You Ask, We Answer

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:23:18 -0500

Clusterstock: You Ask, We Answer:

The video is up.

Bad Signs For Conservative Books

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:03:20 -0500

“The poet and sometime senator Gene McCarthy once described bad signs one could come across in his home state of Minnesota. “We Serve All Faiths” was perhaps the worst—the slogan of a mortician. When New York publishers got into the conservative book business, they might have hung out a similar shingle. For while a few rich people have gotten richer by leaping into the publishing mainstream, the movement has lost its conservative mind.”

—From Party Favors, my survey of the state of conservative book publishing in the latest issue of The American Conservative.

Here's Why The New 'V' Might Be Awesome

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:45:46 -0500

Here's Why The New 'V' Might Be Awesome:

“The original “V” drew obvious connections between the Visitors and the Nazis, and much has been made over the possible anti-Obama sentiment of this “V.” The instant adoration, the attractiveness and rhetorical skills of Anna, the idea that the Visitors will woo us with universal healthcare and then destroy us all seem a right-wingish take on the president’s ascendancy. Perhaps that is the creators’ intent, but most successful science fiction contains an element of, if not outright humor, then the absurd. That the human race will be enslaved not through brainwashing or firepower but adequate healthcare is pretty hilarious in a dark and almost possible way.”

Clusterstock: You Ask, We Answer TOMORROW

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:46:00 -0500

Clusterstock: You Ask, We Answer TOMORROW:

A couple of times a week, we address reader questions and feedback on video.

Tomorrow, it’s my turn to provide the answers in a video segment, which we’ll post at about 11AM ET.

So if there’s anything you want to ask or complain about, fire away. You can do this until 9:00 AM ET, in three ways:

Leave a question in the comments below
Tweet your question and include the word “#tbilive” (TBI Live)
Send an email to kangelova@businessinsider.com

We won’t have time to get to all questions, but we’ll pick a few we think everyone else might be interested in. Feel free to ask anything, even if it’s not really related to the stuff we write about.

Lucy Carney is the luckiest girl in the world. She already has a...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:04:00 -0500

Lucy Carney is the luckiest girl in the world. She already has a copy of my brother Tim’s new book, Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses.

The rest of you can’t get a copy until the end of the month

6h057: The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:45:12 -0500

6h057:

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

— Elie Wiesel

The opposite of not-voting is not voting, it is indifference.

funsize: @carney, look! more black and grey stripes!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:43:18 -0500

funsize:

@carney, look! more black and grey stripes!

Anti-Voting Is Not Advocacy of Indifference Or Apathy

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:38:34 -0500

Here’s a letter that I wrote to the Harvard Crimson in 1995:

Poor Daniel Altman. He was born too late. His heart yearns for the “activistic” [sic] ’60s. Those were high days; ours are low and apathetic, he writes (“The Passive Nation,” column, May 1, 1995). But are they?

Altman thinks most Americans are uniformed about important political issues. This is the fault of the media, who keep us in the dark by plying us with trashy entertainment disguised as news. What we need is five minutes a day of reporting on Congress, something that could be required of every network, Altman proclaims.

Nonsense. Altman may spend his time watching “The Gordon Eliot Show” or Connie Chung’s latest deceptions, but the rest of us get more news than we can stand. Every hour on the hour nearly every radio station gives us all the latest from Washington, D.C. and Beacon Hill. And then we have the nightly news, reporting on the latest political events every evening. I swear if I have to hear any more about the Contract With America I am going to bust. Or maybe change the channel. The last thing we need is a mandatory five minutes of Newt and Dick’s Majority Adventures.

If Americans are uninformed about politics despite the endless blather, it may be because they have better things about which to worry. Many of us believe that life is not lived best by paying close attention to the events in Washington, but by paying close attention to our families, friends and neighbors. We live on a human scale and refuse to let the television fool us into thinking that this scale has become global. We cannot know or care about very many more people than our grandfathers knew or cared about. We act locally and think locally, because we live locally.

Altman thinks this means that we “are content to let others make decisions for [us].” The facts are just the opposite. Americans want to take power back from Washington so that we can make our own decisions. We are tired of the national government deciding what prayers our children may say in school, what sorts of people deserve our compassion and what means we can use to defend ourselves from criminals. Learning that there are more important things than the national government is the first step in taking back control of our lives. Altman may think this view myopic; the “passive” nation he writes about wishes people like Altman would quit trying so hard to look over our fences, into our schools, churches and homes.

Altman’s other program to make Americans into hypermetropic policy wonks is compulsory voting. “A democracy shouldn’t have a ‘right not to vote,” he argues. Furthermore, “passive” Americans who do not vote do not have the right to dispute the decisions of elected officials. This is what most Americans learn in basic high-school civic education, but it is exactly wrong. When we vote we tacitly agree to abide by the outcome of the election; when we don’t vote, we make no such agreement. Personally, I do not think any Americans should lost their right to argue with elected officials; but if Altman is right, and voting takes away some group’s rights, it’s the voters, not the “passive” Americans.

When the political contest is between Yale College’s George Bush and Yale Law School’s Bill Clinton, why should we be burdened with voting? Altman’s argument assumes that elections offer us meaningful choices. Sometimes our system does, sometimes not. Voluntary voting allows us to decide whether we have been offered a meaningful choice. Compulsory voting would force Americans to choose between the lesser of two evils. This is what Boogie Down Productions’ front-man calls a choice “between the mumps and the measles.” Decent people do not vote for evil, and when offered a choice between a greater evil and a lesser evil, they walk away. Low voting rates may be the best indicators we have that our elections are the sort that decent people want no part of. Altman’s plan would conceal this problem while doing nothing to solve it.

Americans are not passive. If we do not vote it is because we actively reject the measuring of our worth by our participation or support for centralized government. Real activism is always local. It begins at home and within onself. Sure, people do not necessarily know what is best for them, but this only reminds us that people are much less likely to know what is good for others. What has Altman so mixed up is that we are taking charge of our lives without seeking to be in charge of other people’s lives. To a centralist who does not realize that compulsion is the antonym of freedom, this is baffling.

Altman the activistic atavist is too in love with the idea of forcing people to be free. He envisions a ‘brave government’ shaping a “passive people.” Get real. Americans are a brave people who want a passive, limited government. The era of American support for centralized activism, whether a war on poverty or drugs or whatever, is long past. As Brutus warned us long ago, standing armies are inimical to liberty. Americans are rejecting war as a domestic policy, and with it the centralization of life’s most important decisions. All the compulsory programs in the world will not turn back the clock.

John Carney

Don't Vote, It Only Encourages Them

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:30:08 -0500

ninety9:

Can someone find the tumblr post where Carney argues against voting, so I can reblog it with “Should have pitched Slate”

Here you go.