Apparently Democrats use this phrase far more often that Republicans. I agree with Stoller that its usage in Demspeak is pretty odd. In most cases, they either could say “people” (as when Clinton says “The American people know where I stand”) or “Americans” (as when Edwards says “the illegal spying on the American people that this president has been engaged in”) or “America” (as when Obama says “But what the American people are looking for right now is straight answers to tough questions”). Meanwhile, I don’t think anyone other than grandiloquent pols and columnists ever use the phrase.
The Third Man
Here we go, Pakistan’s missing opposition leader Nawaz Sharif gets himself a Washington Post op-ed where he makes the case for Pakistani democracy very forcefully. This is the guy who actually got booted from power by Musharraf’s initial coup.
You Are Not A Beautiful, Unique Snowflake
But I am, as “Yglesias” fails to make the list of America’s top 5,000 surnames despite the surge of Spanish since the 1990 census. “Iglesias” does better, achieving number 1660 on the list. My mom’s name, “Joskow,” also doesn’t make the cut.
Pricey
Tyler Cowen explains why the real costs of war with Iraq are even higher than they seem. I’m not so sure about this, though:
The American public simply does not have the stomach for fighting a costly, potentially futile war every few years. U.S. voters have already lost patience with the pace of reconstruction in Iraq, and that frustration will linger; remember, it took the country 15 years or more to “get over” Vietnam. The projection of American power and influence in the future requires that an impatient public feel good about American muscle-flexing in the past.
I dunno. If there were some unusually large attack against US forces in Iraq tomorrow, and the administration was able to adduce evidence that some of the explosive material came from Iran, and announced limited air strikes against facilities of the officially designated IRGC’s Quds Force would people really rise up indignantly?
Royal Dutch Shell spanked for greenwashing ad
Kind of sad from a company often touting its green side:
The Advertising Standards Authority, which issued the ruling Tuesday, only has the authority to remove ads from Britain’s media, which the oil producer has already done….
Groups such as Friends of the Earth filed the U.K. complaint against the ad, created by the J. Walter Thompson agency, which were headlined “Don’t Throw Anything Away. There is No Away.”
It showed the outline of an oil refinery, which had chimneys producing flowers. Part of the ad read: “We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers, and our waste sulfur to make super-strong concrete. Real energy solutions for the real world.”
The U.K. complaint said the image of refinery chimneys emitting flowers misrepresented the environmental impact of Shell’s refineries.
The complaint alleged the ads implied that Shell used all of its waste CO2, or carbon dioxide, to grow flowers, whereas the group believed only 0.325 percent of Shell’s emissions were used to grow flowers, and the waste sulfur claim implied all Shell’s waste sulfur was used to make concrete.
Doh!
More on the ruling below — if only our FTC had this kind of backbone, we wouldn’t see so many ads touting how green Chevy is when it is working so hard to fight tougher fuel economy standards at the national and state level:
Saturday Elitism Blogging
Big day in the thrilling world of Division I-AA sports as Harvard is set to play Yale for the Ivy League title in the annual Game. Certain Longhorns of my acquaintance have been known to disparage the Harvard footballing tradition, but as you can read here football as we know it — the “concessionary rules” — were developed precisely to facilitate the playing of this most rivalrous of rivalry games. And where else can you find fight songs in Latin:
Illegitimum non Carborundum; Domine salvum fac.
Illegitimum non Carborundum; Domine salvum fac.
Gaudeamus igitur!
Veritas non sequitur?
Illegitimum non Carborundum—Ipso facto!
My understanding is that’s some kind of joke.
Ingraham upset that Dodd spoke Spanish during debate.
Last night on Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor, stand-in host Laura Ingraham was incredulous that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) had the audacity to speak Spanish during Thursday’s CNN presidential debate. “What’s with Chris Dodd speaking Spanish?” she asked. “Speaking Spanish!” Watch it:
At one point in last night’s debate, Dodd said, “Bienvenidos tambien” (Welcome).
Filibuster
By now you’ve probably heard that Senate Republicans filibustered efforts to fund a phased redeployment of American military forces from Iraq. I was at a breakfast this morning with Nancy Pelosi where she addressed the problem of majoritarian legislation passing the House, then going to the Senate, then attracting majority support in the Senate, and then dying anyway in terms that hinted around at the idea that maybe the Senate’s cherished traditions aren’t such a hot idea. Certainly I think so, and certainly I wish the Democrats had seized the opportunity of the “nuclear option” debate to finally rid the country of this horrible prop of status quo bias.
It’s worth considering that in January 2009, Americans will probably have a president elected on a platform of universal health care and robust action to curb carbon emissions, a House Speaker who backs both of those things, and a Senate Majority Leader who backs both of those things, and nevertheless the odds for either of those things happening aren’t especially good and the reason is the filibuster.
