A quick note about e-reading "The Federalist Papers"

I didn't plan to take a year-and-a-half to read "The Federalist Papers," but I got distracted along the way. But I finished them tonight on my brand-new Kindle. In fact, I read the entirety of them using the Kindle app on a variety of machines. For the record, these are the devices upon which I read the book:

• An HP netbook.
• An iMac desktop computer.
• My iPhone.
• An iPad 1.
• An iPad 2.
• The Kindle.

Remember when we used to pick up a book and just read the book? I love today's flexibility, though, and I use it.

What kind of president would Ron Paul be?

This year, for instance, Paul has sponsored 47 bills, including measures to withdraw from the United Nations, repeal the federal law banning guns in school zones and let private groups coin their own money.
None has moved, and 32 have failed to attract a single co-sponsor.
“He’s somewhat of an introvert [and] a little quirky, so he doesn’t work the legislative process like most do,” said former congressman Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), who served with Paul from 1997 to 2010. But Wamp said Paul, as president, might succeed where Paul the legislator had not.
“When you’re president, they can’t just ignore you,” Wamp said. “Because you have a mandate.”

via washingtonpost.com

I had a period of about four hours a few weeks ago in which I considered whether supporting Ron Paul was the right way to go: The performance of the president on civil liberties issues has frustrated me that much.

But Paul has too easily lent his name—if not his mind—to racist sentiments and crank conspiracy theorizing. And as the above article suggests, he's wholly ineffectual at operating within the system. And that's probably for the best! But the president *runs the system.* He's not quite Lyndon LaRouche with a portfolio, but he's not far off that mark either.

UPDATE: My Philly Post column is about Ron Paul's appeal to racist voters.

Congress is getting wealthier, faster than you

Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home ­equity.

Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.

via washingtonpost.com

The death of public universities

At the University of Virginia, state support has dwindled in two decades from 26 percent of the operating budget to 7 percent. At the University of Michigan, it has declined from 48 percent to 17 percent.

Not even the nation’s finest public university is immune. The University of California at Berkeley — birthplace of the free-speech movement, home to nine living Nobel laureates — subsists now in perpetual austerity. Star faculty take mandatory furloughs. Classes grow perceptibly larger each year. Roofs leak; e-mail crashes. One employee mows the entire campus. Wastebaskets are emptied once a week. Some professors lack telephones.

Behind these indignities lie deeper problems. The state share of Berkeley’s operating budget has slipped since 1991 from 47 percent to 11 percent. Tuition has doubled in six years, and the university is admitting more students from out of state willing to pay a premium for a Berkeley degree. This year, for the first time, the university collected more money from students than from California.

via washingtonpost.com

As an individual matter, I despair of getting my son a top-flight college education some 15 or so years from now.

As a societal matter, two points:

First, a lot of parents are going to despair of getting top-flight educations for their children. The death of public universities is going to mean the death of opportunity for a lot of smart kids—and, to some extent, the death of merit in this country. Talent will still out, on occasion, but this exacerbates income inequality by robbing young people of proving grounds where they could demonstrate their ability to climb the social ladder. If you can afford a great public university, good for you. And if not, too bad.

Second: The research done at those public universities has helped spur innovation that, in turn, has helped drive the American economy. We're robbing ourselves of our future.

Holiday homophobia

Somebody took part of their Christmas Day to post these comments to my blog, and I thought the were worth sharing with the wider community, without comment:

Dude you and your article on gay rights is a total load of crap. The backlash against Gay Filth in AMERICA is building daily, The people of Hawaii will have a Statewide Day of Shame to show their anger and disgust for allowing civil rights to be allowed by a wacko governor in direct opposition to the 70% of voters who are opposed to the encroachment of homosexual perversion.

What type of article will you write when the first homosexual military member is brought up on charges for sexually harassing a straight fellow soldier or when a straight soldier kills a homosexual that can't take no for an answer. Then we will see if you are so elated over the end of DADT

Christmas in the country has begun.

Taken at Valley Township

Don't trade away unemployment benefits, Mr. President

This inability to connect economic policy to the larger problem of joblessness is a real problem with the debate over the payroll tax cut. This disconnect explains why the unemployment insurance extension bundled with the payroll tax cut have attracted so much less attention. After all, if all that matters is the first tranche of money, the payroll tax cut will affect many more households than the UI extension. But all serious economists agree that the extension of unemployment insurance is a far more efficient fiscal support – providing about 50 to 100 percent more jobs per dollar added to the deficit.

What makes unemployment insurance so much more efficient? It is laser-targeted at families in genuine distress, meaning that the recipients will spend every marginal dollar that comes in the door. This also makes the extension better targeted at alleviating actual economic misery.

via epi.org

Read the whole thing.