September 2006

There were 36 posts published in September 2006 (this is page 4 of 6).

Potpourri

  • Thai coup: Earlier this year Joshua Kurlantzick wrote a piece which provides background for what’s happening in Thailand. He notes how the (past?) prime minister’s strong-arm tactics have apparently backfired:

    Terrorism and insurgencies provide elected officials with an opportunity to exploit an inherent weakness of democracies–the willingness, even eagerness, of their citizens to hand near-authoritarian powers to strong leaders in return for the promise of security. But the lesson of the last five years is that authoritarian tactics tend not to quell insurgencies, but to make them worse. And when that happens, democracies exhibit an inherent strength: their tendency to demand accountability.

    Apparently, that’s what we saw yesterday, though not in the most democratic of processes.
    Billmon wonders how the Bush administration will respond to the coup:

    Either way, though, I’m guessing the “principles of democracy” will be plenty flexible enough to allow Shrub to give the new military government his tacit blessing.
    That is, assuming the generals don’t support Roe v. Wade or stem cell research or anything Satanic like that. I mean, Thailand may be important, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.

    Funny how the world usually doesn’t work out to be as black and white as “freedom” versus “the evildoers.”

  • Filibuster for torture: Senator Frist threatens a filibuster against an anti-torture bill. Makes one proud to be a Tennessean, doesn’t it?
  • Housing starts: Professor Hamilton examines the data and concludes that it’s been 40 years since housing has taken a comparable slide to our current one without producing a corresponding recession.
  • Double standard: Female substitute teacher who had sex with a minor isn’t sentenced to jail time. During sentencing, the judge noted that a male defendant would probably have been incarcerated.
  • Bluegrass State turning orange: Amid much fanfare, Maysville, KY, gives Coach Bruce Pearl the keys to the city and makes him an honorary Kentucky Colonel.

Gas Prices And Bush Approval

This graph shows there is a disturbingly close correlation between gasoline prices and President Bush’s approval rate. I’m not a statistician, but a glance at the chart reveals that the two largely parallel each other.
This doesn’t prove that there’s a causal relationship, as other factors are at work. For instance, after September 11, Bush’s approval ratings didn’t shoot up because gas prices dropped (which they did because of reduced demand), but rather because America had been attacked.
Still, the two plots are close enough that it makes me wonder if many Americans base their world/political view based on gas prices. Given the reports I see in the news whenever gas prices rise, I suspect there is something to this.
Obviously, it’s a lame approval barometer. The president has very little control over gas prices. And even if he could control them, why should gas prices be the ultimate factor? Why not health care expenses or housing expenses, which for most people are a more significant cost? Or more pointedly, why not the Iraq War, Katrina response, immigration, or budget policy? These are things a president has far greater impact on.
It’s a weird way of viewing the world.

Potpourri

  • I am a geography novice. Took this quiz a few times. The first attempt was brutal. The next couple tries were better, but only because I was getting countries such as Germany and Brazil rather than ones I’d never heard of. Clearly, I could spend more time studying maps of Africa, the former Soviet republics, and the island nations.
  • A cool animation of a day of flights over North America.
  • The Lincolnization of Bush. On Friday, President Bush continued his effort to compare himself to Abraham Lincoln. Asked about his weird comment on a “Third [Religious] Awakening,” Mr Bush responded:

    I’d just read a book on Abraham Lincoln, and his presidency was right around the time of what they called the Second Awakening, and I was curious to know whether or not these smart people felt like there was any historical parallels.

    Is our president learning American history? The Second Awakening actually occurred before Lincoln, primarily in the 1820s and 1830s. He might want to check that book again.
    But it gets funnier:

    I also said that I had run for office the first time to change a culture . . . to helping to work change a culture in which each of us are responsible for the decisions we make in life. In other words, ushering in a responsibility era.

    Uh, Bush being part of a “responsibility era”? That’s stand up comedy material.

  • Health/diet:

    The current [spinach E. coli] outbreak follows food-borne illnesses from cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, strawberries, raspberries, cantaloupes and unpasteurized apple and orange juices over the last several years. In 2004, produce-related outbreaks surpassed those associated with beef, poultry or fish, with 86 outbreaks, compared with 29 in 1997, when the states started electronic reporting to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Hmm, widespread problems with fruits and vegetables? What is safe to eat these days?

Breaking: Colin Powell Doesn’t Support Al Qaeda

Interesting line from the White House yesterday. Here it is responding to a letter in which General Colin Powell states his opposition to Bush’s terror-detainee legislation:

Firing back, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Powell was “confused” about the White House plan. Later, Snow said he probably shouldn’t have used that word.
“I know that Colin Powell wants to beat the terrorists, too,” he said.

Wow, I’m glad we cleared that one up. It’s good to know that a decorated military commander and Bush’s own former Secretary of State “wants to beat the terrorists.” One might wonder why that issue was even implicitly questioned.
Oh, that’s right–Powell challenged one of Bush’s policies, thus it’s only natural to conclude that he supports the enemy. I’m glad Snow was able to confirm that Powell is still on America’s side.