Sunday Open Thread [7.1.12]
Amazing it is July — where did all of the time go? But it *is* Canada Day for those of you looking for an excuse to celebrate something.
On this hot Sunday, some of you might be inside taking advantage of air conditioning. Hope you have power. The storm wreaked havoc everyplace and the Baltimore/DC area was pretty hard hit. Family members in Baltimore still don’t have power as of now. So how about some long(ish) reads for today:
The Measured Man — COmputer scientist Larry Smarr is working on a computer-assisted study of his body. It is obsessive and strange, but may also point the way to a health model that specifically models you and your body.
A new introduction written by Matt Taibbi accompanying the 40th anniversary (really? 40 years? yikes) of Hunter S. Thompson’s legendary Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 is excerpted in Slate. There’s symmetry in that, right? Sounds like it might be time to buy a new copy.
Another great dissection of the failure of newsrooms. The Death and Rebirth of Television News: “All of Life is Reduced to the Common Rubble of Banality” —
But it’s hard to fill an entire day with content, they snivel, you’re picking out the worst of the lot on purpose and neglecting the real news like Anderson Cooper. Fair enough. But explain to me then why I can spend an entire day leaping from blog to blog reading the most intensely intelligent and insightful thoughts on events around the world without scratching the surface of what’s available, while an entire news room can’t find seven whole stories to read off a teleprompter before repeating. I know they’ve got no problem cut and pasting from the Internet to the teleprompter since hardly an hour passes before they’re reading tweets or user comments to fill time before commercials.
What interests you today?
Chip Flowers will be on Norm Oliver’s show on Channel 28 tonight at 9.
There’s a lot of stories out today about how John Roberts tied himself into a legal pretzel to find ACA constitutional. Also a lot of unseemly praise for Roberts suddenly being a moderate now. I guess it is the beginning of the Roberts Era on the Court, if only because he will be around for a while.
Roberts’s ruling has declared the ACA constitutional, while his Citizens United ruling has likely delivered Republicans the means to repeal it. Go figure.
If Democrats ever get the 80-seat Senate needed to pass a Demmocratic bill, the first order of business is the Citizens United fix.
Brad Bennett wants to be back in 2014? WTF?
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012307010050&nclick_check=1
Agreed on Citizens United. Wingnut radio says that Roberts is suffering from epilepsy related madness. How else could you explain ACA?
If the individual mandate is a tax, then Romney’s tax record in Massachusetts needs to be revised. The media isn’t going to make this point on their own, so the Obama campaign needs to get pro-active here before the flood of “Obamacare tax” attack ads begins.
Too late.
I wouldn’t put much stock in the Roberts re-evaluation. The next term is going to take on the Voting Rights Act and a University of Texas affirmative action plan challenge, so they’ll be back giving the green light to black and brown people in a few months and conservatives will be very happy.