Newsweek’s Daniel Gross explains the Consumer Price Index (here’s the official BLS site) in a very simple video. I could do without the goofy sound effects, but it’s a good, 2 minute explanation of how the government tracks inflation.
Per David Simon’s Berkeley talk, though, the video doesn’t go into why this matters. Perhaps they’ll cover that in the next installment of the Economics 101 series.
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Compare this to what Musharraf is doing in Pakistan. Sure, the scale is different, but we’re supposed to be the good guys. Charge them or release them.
I’ve seen some more updates on Rep. Virgil Goode’s attempts to “denounce” Rep. Ellison’s existence as a Muslim Congressman. Along with the associated silliness, I’m bothered by one other glaringly obvious issue. It’s clear, when you read Goode’s statements, beyond the fact that he’s a racist and bigot, that he’s afraid of people with dark skin, and that he’s stupid, he exemplifies why the U.S. policies in the Middle East will never succeed with Bush in the White House. How?
Because he believes that we’re at war with Muslims, and sets up the argument that we need to keep those dirty Muslims out of our country. Only in a country where George Bush can be President can a guy like Rep. Goode get on Fox News to talk about this stuff. Compare this approach to the plans outlined by smarter people and you see why Bush has to wait until after the holidays to come up with a new plan. It’s only taken him 3+ years to figure out the old plan wasn’t working, after all…
It doesn’t stop with Bush, of course, and in 2008 you should remember that. Urge your Republican candidates to break from the hard right rhetoric, and, if they won’t, vote for someone else. Of course, I would vote Democratic right now for a host of other issues, but if you’re really concerned about terrorism, about foreign policy, or about Iraq, there really isn’t another choice.
Fact free, and proud.
Update: From a rebuttal by Eugene Volokh:
A Senate website reports that Presidents Franklin Pierce and Herbert Hoover (a Quaker) didn’t swear at all, but rather affirmed. If a Bible was present (the site is silent on that), it wouldn’t have been used as a swearing device. Nixon, also a Quaker, did swear, apparently on two Bibles. This didn’t seem to help.
The rest of his article, while not quite as chuckle-worthy, is a pretty hard rebuttal of Prager’s entire unfounded point. Of course, if Prager just knew something about American political history and tradition, he would’ve just skipped this entire article and instead wrote his, “Only Christians should hold office in this country” column in more direct terms.
