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Freud 1, Zombies 0: When it comes to ghosts, "the line between believing and not believing is not so firm." Ellen Ladowsky searches for paranormal activity in London. ... 2:21 P.M.
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Howie's Choice: WaPo ombudsperson Andrew Alexander looks up from his desk and notices that East German figure skating judge press critic Howie Kurtz, who is paid by CNN and covers CNN, has
an inescapable conflict that is at odds with Post rules.
Who knew? ... Next question: Does a weakened WaPo Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have the ... um, clout to make Kurtz change his beat? Maybe--CNN fame isn't what it used to be! Meaning the chances that Kurtz would quit are probably lower. ...
P.S.: Kurtz says
"My track record makes clear that I've been as aggressive toward CNN -- and The Washington Post, for that matter -- as I would be if I didn't host a weekly program there ... "
BS, BS [several items], BS [4th item], BS, BS, BS [4th item]. ... 12:39 A.M.
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I realized the other day that I don't really like President Obama. I try to explain here. Maybe it will pass. ... Lack of 'likeability' isn't necessarily a big problem in a President. But if a President thinks he's more or less beloved, it could be. ... 12:35 P.M.
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Castro: Penn, Si! Hitchens, No! Ann Bardach on how Hitch got bumped while a useful celebrity got the story. ... She also reports that stars like Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio are routinely spied on "with sophisticated listening devices and hidden video cameras" when they visit Havana. Do they know? Bardach sees potential blackmail: "Be careful what you say; we may have compromising data on you." ...12:35 P.M.
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The "man in charge of the [Chevy] Volt’s battery development and integration" is bailing out of General Motors "in the middle of [the Volt's] frenzied gestation." TTAC thinks it's a perverse side-effect of government intervention--with all the new federal electric car money sloshing around, and pay caps looming, it's more lucrative to be an independent "consultant." ... 5:35 P.M.
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Ben Sheffner says Gawker is "running a very risky business." Why? No libel insurance. ... 12:30 P.M.
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Bob Wright thinks the Web is the new God, in a particular sense. .... 1:37 A.M.
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Charles Lane argues that unions are now a "significant" impediment to "sensible health care reform" because of their tooth-and-nail fight against taxing "Cadillac" health plans. ... Even if you think (as I do) that the unions have a point when they argue they gave up wage increases in order to get lavish health benefits, isn't the answer to give them five years (or until their next contract negotiation) to rebalance the mix to what it would be in a world in which employer health benefits didn't go untaxed? ... If the problem for powerful unions is they no longer have quite the clout they used to have to extract wage increases in exchange for giving up "luxury" health benefits ... well, that's their problem. ...
P.S.: Lane also criticizes unions who support single payer but want to preserve their right to bargain for "supplemental" coverage.
Probably the only thing less likely to pass Congress than single-payer is single-payer with a layer of extra benefits for unions only.
Hmm. Why shouldn't unions, or anyone, be free to bargain for supplemental benefits**--at least for more treatments or services--on top of what's available in a single payer plan (as long as those benefits are taxed)? Lane seems to imply that the idea of single payer is that the government plan would have near-monopoly status--you take what it offers, and that's it. No adding on to the system for, say, cancer drugs the government's decided not to pay for.** If that's Lane's version of single-payer, I know a woman named Betsy who'd like to talk to him. ... 1:50 A.M.
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Whatever you think of the Polanski case, this is a good hed:
Free Roman Polanski! Demand Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen
1:51 A.M.
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Suppose Larry Summers suddenly became Lindsay Lohan. Or (more accurately) Lindsay Lohan suddenly became Ezra Klein: You're a young showbiz celeb who, unlike Paris Hilton, can actually act. Since you're worth something in respectable box office terms, and you've done the occasional Disney film, getting publicity via, say, an illicit sex tape is both unnecessary and counterproductive. But you can be the victim of an illicit twitter leak! Not a crudely straightforward public post, like Demi Moore, but something that at least has the appearance of, and maybe actually is, an authentic privacy violation. ... P.S.: Not saying that's what happened here. Just saying! I guess this is obvious ... 4:27 P.M.
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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The Case Against Mayor Villaraigosa: "[V]irtually every major initiative from Villaraigosa has been a dismal failure." Even among the ardent L.A. Dems I know, nobody isn't disappointed in this guy. It's amazing that he is essentially running unopposed. ... We need the L.A. Times to go broke fast so we can start other publications, with a pulse, and begin to build a New York-style political culture. ... 10:36 A.M.
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Nate Silver: The Final Humilation!
Former genius Nate Silver's Oscar prediction record: 4 out of 6.
Fox blowhard Bill O'Reilly's Oscar prediction record: 5 out of 5.
O'Reilly says, "I am an oracle once again. But it wasn't even difficult." It was for Silver! ... P.S.: I've checked out O'Reilly's claim on NEXIS, and unfortunately it is accurate. Here is the relevant passage, from his Friday pre-Oscar show. (His secret methodology: He bet on Hollywood liberal politics.)
I believe "Slumdog" will win best picture, as it deserves.
Frank Langella should win best actor. His performance as President Nixon in "Frost-Nixon" is simply off-the-chart brilliant. But Mr. Langella was humanized Nixon, so he will lose political points from some members of the very liberal academy. That means it's between Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn. With gay marriage being a big Hollywood issue, you do the math.
Mr. Rourke, by the way, was great in "The Wrestler," but he is acting a bit strange this week here in L.A.
[runs video clip of Rourke saying "I should have been in that gay movie."]
"Check" is glad Rourke was not in "Milk."
Best actress, Kate Winslet. Best supporting actor, the late Heath Ledger. Best supporting actress, Penelope Cruz in the Woody Allen movie.
P.P.S.: O'Reilly did "predict this will be the lowest-rated Oscar telecast in history." It wasn't. ... P.P.P.S.: And ... Frank Langella? ... 10:14 P.M.
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Cincinnotus: Steven Rattner isn't just leaving his investment firm to go work for the Treasury Department on the auto bailout.** He's leaving investment banking ("after 26 fulfilling years on Wall Street") to "begin a new phase of my life in the public sector." [E.A.] Sounds like he doesn't intend for this to be his last Administration job. ... What if, you know, he succeeds and Detroit doesn't need bailing out in a year? Geithner, watch your back. ... [via Gawker]
**--where he will be either "a" lead advisor on the bailout or the lead advisor, depending on which part of the NYT's account you read and how carefully you read it. ... P.S.: He has my full support. ... 9:52 P.M.
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Was that a light stand making that sickening "thud" in the background--or was it Nate Silver's aura of infallibility crashing to the ground? Where is your Taraji P. Henson now, Mr. Right-to-the-Last-Decimal? Ha ha ha. You are one of us now. ... Recommended: Rob Long's twitter commentary. Not for the Denby-minded! ... Also the authoritative Kim Masters. ... And XX. ... And darlakbrown. ...and scottimmergut. ... Update: Silver actually missed two out of six. (His "logistic regression" also favored Mickey Rourke.) The categories he picked in were not tough ones (e.g., Heath Ledger). Back to baseball for you! ... 6:11 P.M.
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Saturday, Februay 21, 2009
Will Taraji P. Henson destroy Nate Silver? Oscar oddsmakers say yes! ... But given Silver's track record, the odds on Henson (you can currently get 19-1) look mighty attractive. ... Except, you know, she wasn't that good in the movie. ... There is also Dana Stevens' methodological objection:
The Academy's voting practices don't involve "logistic regression"; they involve actual regression, the acting out of primitive, unmappable affects like grief, pity, fear, and desire.
8:10 P.M.
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Isn't the border fence shovel ready? ... [Thks. to reader C.W.] 8:03 P.M.
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"The Best We Can Do": A few days ago I said there were only four GM cars I would consider buying. That was before I bought the most recent Consumer Reports guide, in which the Cadillac CTS and the GMC Acadia --about which GM VP Lutz said, "This is the best we can do"--get below-average reliability ratings. That leaves two, the Chevy Malibu and Pontiac G8 (and one of those two, the G8, is too new for reliability reports). ... The case for further subsidizing GM would seem to be almost entirely macroeconomic (i.e., bankruptcy now would deepen the recession). ... 7:32 P.M.
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Don't Answer That, Part XVIII: Mark Hemingway, among others, is charging that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "is angling for a 'big chunk"' of the stimulus bill's $8 billion for high-speed rail "for his pet project," a magnetic-levitation train between L.A. and Las Vegas. ... Am I crazy--I sort of like the idea of a high-speed rail line to Vegas. It wouldn't destroy existing communities--the route is mostly desert. It seems like a good full scale test bed for new technology that, if it works, can later be applied in more densely-populated, harder-to-build-in areas. And it would open up the route for development. (Don't worry about an office park boom destroying the fragile Barstow ecology. Barstow is already a mess.) .. As Keynesian boondoggles go, this seems like a promising one (although, Yglesias notes, there are other possible routes) ... 7:07 P.M.
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Kooky Kabuki? From NYT:
The administration official said the president was reserving for himself any decision on the viability of G.M. and Chrysler.
Hmmm. Isn't this the sort of decision that plays out better if the president at least pretends that some cabinet or other official is making the basic decision? Does Obama really want to pull the plug on G.M. and Chrysler himself? The time-tested way of doing this, you'd think, would be to have some hard-ass Larry Summers type recommend cutting off federal subsidies. They take the heat. Then Obama can intervene to soften the blow a bit. ... Unless, that is, Obama has no intention of cutting off subsidies. ... But even if that's just a threat designed to prod the cost-cutting negoatiations, why make it a less credible threat? ... 2:28 A.M.
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News Flash: Mayors Want More Federal Money! Sorry, they want a new "urban policy agenda." This was the most depressing story of the day. Is there even a hint that all the ongoing bleating for subsidies will be accompanied by any reforms? Or will it simply be more money to maintain existing (unionized) civil service bureaucracies? ... P.S.: Of course, if the new stimulus welfare money helps rebuild the underclass, that will give big city mayors even more guilt-trip power, no? It's all beginning to make sense. ... P.P.S.: "Recovery Zone" bonds! I'm deeply suspicious. Sounds like a Carter-era Washington Monthly waste story waiting to happen. ... ... 2:06 A.M.
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Sorry, Steve. Back to Maxim! Reporter-turned-financier Steve Rattner won't be the car czar after all. There will be no car czar. ... Was Rattner ever really actually under consideration for this job, or is he just well connected at the New York Times and other media organizations? ... The Times' account of his non-ascension has a plaintive tone ("It was not clear why the administration changed course or whether Mr. Rattner would have a role on the task force."). ... [Wasn't he your candidate?--ed. I was working this one from both ends. You have a problem?] ...1:11 A.M.
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Nate Silver Infallibility Watch: Hah! The whiz who predicted the election correctly goes fish-out-of-water and uses his "logistical regression" to predict the Oscars. Please, let him be wrong. ... P.S.: Taraji P. Henson is his Achilles heel! (He picks her for Supporting Actress.) The rest of the awards are actually pretty cut-and-dried. Most people in the U.S. with indoor plumbing could get them right. ... 12:53 A.M.
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