Posts by WH
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Hard News: Fox News: I know, right?, in reply to Russell Brown,
Obama has come roaring out of the convention, there has been a big swing in the polls, especially for the Senate. That’s before the effect of Moocher-gate. The debates are Romney’s last chance. It's actually quite sad that I'm this excited.
There’s even been suggestions that the Republican leadership will allow taxes to rise if Obama wins. Not that they really have a choice given the way the relevant legislation is structured.
Taxing someone at 15% instead of 35% is not a subsidy.
It’s a kind of cross subsidy, with federal spending as the service, and tax rates as the price. The US is running a huge deficit caused in large part by tax cuts on upper income earners. Before that stroke of genius there was as surplus.
I don’t think it helps to confuse total tax payments with marginal tax rates in the way suggested by your clip. Mitt Romney’s average tax rate in 2011 was 14%. Do you really think he’s “paying his share”?
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All the best for your submission Emma.
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Hard News: Yes, there is a Media3, in reply to Rob Stowell,
2008 was the first time the Democrats had got near the 60 vote threshold since Jimmy Carter, but it was probably a high water mark for the Democrats. They’re probably not going to get near that again soon. There was a lot of talk about using the budget reconciliation process and amending the Senate’s rules, but the original goal of sweeping the Republicans along with the tide proved to be a bit optimistic.
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Hard News: Yes, there is a Media3, in reply to David Hood,
Thats one way of putting it. Times when the Democrats, if they had cooperated, would have been filibuster proof majority in the Senate
Thanks for that, I was going to look up those dates but had to run out the door.
At the time it seemed that Obama mismanaged the negotiations for the health care bill, but it was probably harder that it looked. He seemed to misread the intensity of the Republicans’ opposition. Maybe he felt obliged to follow through on his bipartisanship rhetoric. That would be a credit to him had it not messed up the implementation of the rest of the Democratic agenda.
I’ve kind of come full circle on Obama, but am not sure what scope there will be for major achievements in the next four years.
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And every story (if you bothered to find them out) will be definitely individual with some common elements perhaps. As for life’s apparent ‘unfairness’ as you put it, the reasons go even deeper.
No doubt. I can't talk about homelessness with any knowledge, but I'm sure we each know people whose lives were scarred by some kind of social exclusion. Some of the smartest people I know went into high school testing in the genius range, and somehow never really made it out. Sometimes all too literally.
All the pomp seem’s tinged with a sadness I dont know how to describe. It’s probably just me
It does seem more subdued this year. I thought Obama was wrong to raise the expectations of his presidency in the way that he did. He had a filibuster proof majority for less than two years, and it won't be easier in a second term.
Don't forget the hanging chads episode. Or the 45%+ of Americans too disillusioned and cynical to vote.
not sure that's such a good example, alll things considered
Those be dark days. Someone should dig up Al Gore's lockbox and use it to pay off the deficit.
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yeah but not many voters wanna have a beer with the man
I suppose it’s why Gore lost to Bush, and why Scott Brown might beat Elizabeth Warren. Sometimes it’s better to vote for Pedro.
I sometimes think about the vagaries of popularity when I walk past homeless people on the street. I think it’s why people like Susan Boyle and Paul Potts elicit such a strong audience response. There’s a part of us that recognises life’s unfairness, and celebrates when an unlikely winner has their moment in the sun.
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Hard News: Yes, there is a Media3, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Romney is not so different from Bob Dole. We’re just some way down the road from when Newt Gingrich tried to shut down the federal government and Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) re-enacted Vincent Foster’s “murder” with a pumpkin.
Romney’s message is complicated by the fact that Obama inherited a mess that was made by Republicans.
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I liked Clinton's speech, but I liked Obama's too. Each gave the speech their place in history allowed them to give. I don't think people wanted another high flown speech about the audacity of hope.
The trajectory of Obama's presidency is looking a lot like Clinton's: a period of early promise followed by unpopular legislation, the loss of his Congressional majority, re-election facilitated by personal charisma and the unreasonableness of the opposition, and then economic recovery. It's easy to forget how acrimonious everything was back in 1996.
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Hard News: Before Lust, in reply to Emma Hart,
You will never see a vagina in advertising. We’ve only just got to the point where it’s all right to say vagina – in an ad for a “feminine hygiene product”, that only airs after the watershed. If we were all “sex is so boring and dull we’re all so over-exposed”, it should be no more controversial to say ‘vagina’ than to say ‘leg’.
I think those are different parts of a larger topic. I’m sympathetic to your point about feminine hygiene products, even it was more Hell Pizza than attempt to promote mature discussion. It’s true that you don’t see a lot of hootenanny in advertising, but its generally pretty strongly implied. It’s one thing to push back Victorian attitudes, another to boost the sales of your toothpaste by hinting at access to a stranger’s gear. A quick google search suggests that it annoys quite a few of us.
A critique of sexual imagery in the media doesn’t really rely on the inappropriateness of sexuality per se, its more that that sexuality has been co-opted to serve someone else’s goals, that something worthwhile has become banal because it was mixed with something completely tedious.
In the same way that Hanover co-opted trust and community by getting Richard Long to do its voice-overs, some people just want to influence your behaviour without any real regard for how that might ultimately make you feel.
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Immersion in our cultural moment has created a sort of sexuality fatigue, a sense that what was once evocative is now either an empty cliche or a frightening political battleground.
I think people resent being so overtly manipulated by writers with axes to grind and advertisers with products to sell. When I see billboards thrusting oversized vaginas at bored passers-by I sometimes wonder whether something has been lost. Scarcely a week passes where the Guardian - the Guardian - does not publish some carelessly expressed flamebait on some aspect of gender or sex.
You have to hope it is a juvenile, angst-ridden phase we will all some day grow out of.