Morning Ed: World {2017.04.11.T}

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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71 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    That is a great map!Report

  2. veronicad says:

    I did the “internal migration” thing, from South Florida to Boston. The opportunity came because of career stuff. I went for culture and opportunity.

    It seems a weird dynamic, actually. As people like me flee from places like that, those who remain in places like that — well look at the electoral maps. Then looks at the economic maps.

    I don’t believe in simple causality here. These are interactive effects, feedback loops, etc. In other words, Richard Florida probably noticed a real pattern, he just didn’t understand why the pattern occurred or how to capitalize on it.

    In any case, I’m in Boston now. I’m so fucking glad I’m no longer in the South.

    #####

    If Canada takes Scotland, do you think they’d take Massachusettes too?Report

  3. LeeEsq says:

    The Dreamer article is spot on. These kids were brought into the United States by their parents and not on their own will. You need to be a really xenophobic or legalistic person to think it is moral and right to send them back to a place they have no knowledge of simply because of the law.Report

    • notme in reply to LeeEsq says:

      Maybe so but letting them stay encourages other illegals to bring their kids. That seems like a reason enough to stop it. Besides, how young is young? A blanket amnesty for illegal minors makes no sense if a baby is treated the same as a 15 year old. Besides, who’s fault is it that he decided to get a DUI? He could have killed someone.Report

    • Kimmi in reply to LeeEsq says:

      Lee,
      I despise slavery. You despise the Marianas, but speak up for the practice on the mainland.

      Do you remember the parable about the Camel’s nose? I mind that we currently have one billion economic migrants that wish to enter America. If we do not enforce rules properly, civilization itself will end.Report

    • dragonfrog in reply to LeeEsq says:

      LeeEsq April 11, 2017 at 10:06 am “You need to be a really xenophobic or legalistic person to think (etc.)”

      notme April 11, 2017 at 10:13 am …

      Thing o beauty, that.Report

      • notme in reply to dragonfrog says:

        It was good, notice how he goes out of way to put any objection to amnesty into one of two camps of folks that are unreasonable. It’s a good way to portray the other side in an argument.Report

  4. Doctor Jay says:

    I’m amused to see a Babylon 5 reference in that piece about Jorge Matadamas.

    Well, no, it’s not really a B5 reference, but a mention of the zocalo, a word which was used in B5 to refer to the same sort of place, an open space where commerce takes place, often on the small scale rather than the large.

    I suppose if I weren’t so provincial and had been to Mexico City, and not just Mazatlan, I would know that.Report

  5. Francis says:

    World’s Sixth-Largest Economy Raises Gas Taxes To Invest $52 Billion in Infrastructure. story here.

    go, California, go. wow, is Jerry Brown an amazingly talented politician.Report

    • notme in reply to Francis says:

      Sure if being a one party state makes you a talented politicianReport

    • LeeEsq in reply to Francis says:

      Hopefully transit would get a fair share of the infrastructure money.Report

    • Burt Likko in reply to Francis says:

      It helps that pretty much every time people get behind the wheel and experience the state of our roads, it makes Brown’s case for him that we aren’t doing enough to maintain them.Report

      • Francis in reply to Burt Likko says:

        It also helps that the state’s Republican party is so self-destructive that the Democrats hold the supermajority necessary to pass tax increases without needing a single Republican vote.

        More voters are registered as no-preference or other third party than as Republicans.

        go, state GOP, go …. down the drain.Report

        • notme in reply to Francis says:

          Actually there was one Repub vote and Brown bought it with some money. Do you even read your own articles?

          “Only one Republican, state Sen. Anthony Cannella, backed the deal, which provides nearly half a billion in funding for two projects in his Modesto-area districts. Cannella said he and Brown had hammered out a deal at the governor’s mansion just before the vote took place.”Report

      • notme in reply to Burt Likko says:

        If the roads are that bad then they certainly shouldn’t siphon off gas money for mass transit.Report

        • Mike Schilling in reply to notme says:

          Especially when mass transit reduces the wear and tear on …

          Never mind.Report

          • notme in reply to Mike Schilling says:

            Only if you assume that a significant number of those folks are going to give up their cars, which seems to be the standard librul assumption.Report

            • Kimmi in reply to notme says:

              notme,
              No, if you aren’t doing the majority of your transit in the CAR, then you aren’t breaking the road. Seems easy, innit?
              Using the car once a month (as I do) doesn’t really matter then, does it? (and I use it outside the city).
              I don’t own a car, but ownership isn’t the problem. Usage is.Report

            • dragonfrog in reply to notme says:

              You realize that a car sitting parked on a driveway is not inflicting wear and tear on roads, right?

              And from that, how your objection is a non sequitur unless for you “giving up your car” includes “venturing over a kilometer away from your car a few more times a week?”

              I see this silly objection all over the place whenever there is discussion of any non-personal-automobile transportation:
              – It is argued out that such and such measure will result in X more trips a month by bus / foot / bicycle and correspondingly X fewer movements of cars. Which will reduce among other things, smog, traffic congestion, and wear and tear on roads.
              – Knee-jerk naysayer objects that people who currently drive for 100% of trips over five blocks aren’t going to sell their cars next week – as if that had ever been the goal.

              The success metric for alternative transportation is not “cars crushed into metal cubes because nobody wants a car anymore.” It is “trips that would have been taken by car, that are instead taken by the alternative means.”

              I mean, in any big enough city there are probably a handful of people who barely need their car, for whom this one specific change will be the one that turns the economic logic around for them, such that it makes more sense for them to sell their car and rent one a few times a year. But those folks probably weren’t taking all that many trips by car already, so their reduced automobile usage wasn’t a major part of the success of the measure.

              And yet the silly argument keeps being made – I guess because there is some audience for whom it is persuasive of something.Report

  6. Pinky says:

    Turkey – Interesting article. I loved Erdogan’s criticism of the “interest-rate lobby”. Yeah, any number of ethnicities he could have been referring to there. It’s also interesting that people travel outside their country for political campaign events in Europe. Makes sense, but I’d never thought about it before.Report

  7. Jaybird says:

    Cultural appropriation of niqabs. smgdmfh.

    One wonders how long it will be before this gets nipped. Strikes me as a hair too late to nip it in the bud.Report

  8. Jaybird says:

    Hey, remember the Israel/Palestine thing? Golly, I sure do! I spent most of the late 90’s and a lot of the Oughts arguing about it.

    Man, that just sort of disappeared, didn’t it? Occasionally, we get a story about how some college campus is doing some weird BDS thing until donors start writing letters and it gets undone but, seriously, this argument used to be ubiquitous and now? Poof. It’s gone.

    If you miss arguing about Israel/Palestine, though, you should read this article.

    It’s about how the Two-State Solution is one of those things that appeals to ivory tower eggheads but isn’t supported on the ground.Report

  9. notme says:

    Schumer: If Trump doesn’t release his tax returns, ‘it’s going to make tax reform much harder’

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/04/11/schumer-if-trump-doesnt-release-his-tax-returns-its-going-to-make-tax-reform-much-harder/?utm_term=.22ec5052bc35

    The Dems just keep getting better and better.Report

    • Troublesome Frog in reply to notme says:

      The good news is that Trump promised to release his returns, so I’m sure it won’t be a problem at all. I can’t imagine why it’s even a question.Report

  10. Stillwater says:

    I remember when we all used to make fun of Dubya’s sentence structure, coherence and intelligence. We called him “Chimp”, if I recall correclty. Trump makes Chimpy look like Stephen Hawking.Report

    • gregiank in reply to Stillwater says:

      What does that make Spicer?Report

      • Stillwater in reply to gregiank says:

        A sympathetic character in our national tragicomedy. It’s hard to present the ravings of an ignorant, self-absorbed lunatic as a coherent, positive world view. He does his best. Even when he favorably compares Hitler to Assad.Report

        • Will Truman in reply to Stillwater says:

          Report

          • Stillwater in reply to Will Truman says:

            Test question from basically day 1 of the New Era:

            How would you have dealt with Trump’s demand that his Press Secretary go before a national and international audience to state, unequivocally, that Trump’s inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s?

            It’s all been downhill from there.

            Well, not really. I’ve watched enough of his briefings to think Spicer has improved quite a bit. Got his sea legs under him. Which is good. Cuz the rest of Trump’s time in office is gonna feel like we’re floating unguided on high seas heading for some big ole rocks.Report

            • gregiank in reply to Stillwater says:

              Having to lie is one thing, a bad thing to be sure. But the sporking up simple stuff where doesn’t have to lie is more of the issue.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to gregiank says:

                Sea legs. Maybe it’s just not possible to get a stable stance on a boat rocked by hurricane conditions while at sea. Which is exactly what the baying lunatic who’s setting “policy” has created.Report

            • Troublesome Frog in reply to Stillwater says:

              I’ll grant that trying to represent Trump would destroy even the best PR professional in short order, but I’m pretty sure that the the first thing in the manual is, “Don’t say something that later has you clarifying that you’re not a holocaust denier.”

              I have to admit that Spicer is growing on me. He’s the one inept player in this whole mess who is kind of adorable. He has been given a completely impossible task and he’s not even up to doing it on an amateur level. The incongruity makes it sort of fun.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Stillwater says:

      The Smirking Chimp” is still aggregating thoughtful essays from the left.

      (I was a fan of “Der Chimpler”, myself.)Report