Jon Huntsman attacks China’s One Child policy, saying it causes instability and sex trafficking. It’s interesting how, a couple of years ago I completely misread Huntsman. When he took the China Ambassadorship, I assumed that it meant two things: (1) He had decided not to run for president, which he had already been considering at the time, and (2) he was, in essence, cashing out. An ambassadorship to China can be very lucrative in the long run, especially to someone who speaks Chinese. And yet, here he is running against Obama and potentially burning his bridge to China.

I have to wonder if there’s something more going on in the Romney/Huntsman rivalry than mere political positioning. Huntsman has to know that he’s not going to get the nomination by picking off Romney support. Both come from very old and established Mormon families. Perhaps the writer in me likes to think that it’s a War of the Roses sort of thing, where Huntsman’s quest isn’t quixotic so much as a good Hatfield trying to settle some old score with a McCoy. The town of Phillippi in Delosa had this dynamic. You had two patriarchs (both white, conservative-ish Democrats) who repeatedly traded the mayorship every 4 or 8 years for about twenty or so years. One of them died and the the other moved on to another elected position (becoming a Republican in the process), but even after all of that each of the families continued to recruit people (sometimes family members, sometimes outsiders) to run so that there was always a Hatfield candidate and a McCoy candidate. You always know who won because they would rename the Phillippi Fairgrounds whenever they took office to either the Hatfield Fairgrounds (he founded it) or Phillippi Fairgrounds (to prevent Hatfield credit for getting it done).

For David Alexander: High-speed rail lines rarely pay their way. Britain’s government should ditch its plan to build one.

As amazing as it sounds, we may already be losing the housing surplus. Meanwhile, homes in Baltimore are selling for $10,000 and less.

California prisons are isolating inmates for years at a time. The deleterious effects are hard to fully state. It’s not hard to make the case that this is a passive form of torture.

It’s commonly argued that high-stakes testing is killing arts and music programs. It really doesn’t appear to be the case outside of isolated incidents and Arizona. The Redstone district has a music and an art teacher with weekly classes for each. That’s exactly what I had. The main difference: We had PE daily. They get it once or twice a week.

Statistics on country music (references to mama, booze, etc.). One of the odd things about country music, the “conservative” genre, is how often men cry about being women and women cry about being strong.

A while back, Conor Friedersdorf explored why the media has been paying so much attention to Huntsman and so little attention to the likes of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson, given their respective poll numbers. I would dispute that the media hasn’t been paying attention to Ron Paul. More like, the media simply isn’t taking him seriously, compared even to Michelle Bachmann whose chances of winning the presidency were always roughly the same (roughly 0%). Now Gary Johnson they are ignoring. Why? I think Friedersdorf is right that Huntsman tells the media what they want to hear, but I think it goes beyond that. Huntsman fits a John Anderson mold. Bachmann fits the new Tea Party mold. Johnson and, to a lesser extent Ron Paul, don’t fit the recognizable pattern. So they treat the former like he doesn’t exist and the latter like a Lyndon LaRouche who simply polls better.

Misconceptions about war.


Category: Newsroom

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12 Responses to Linkluster ???

  1. web says:

    The one disagreement I have with your assessment is that calling Ron Paul a “Lyndon LaRouche who simply polls better” (albeit from the right-wing end rather than left-wing end of the spectrum) is really not all that far off the mark.

    LaRouche is a generally Labor-Party infiltrator to the Democrats; Paul is a generally Libertarian-Party infiltrator to the Republicans. Both have views that can be described as totalitarian, anti-Semitic, or very close to a conspiracy theorist mentality.
    Both run close-knit groups that form what can only be described as cults of personality. Both have been generally perennial presidential “candidates” whose impact – prior to the 2012 season, and Paul still likely will just be a flameout who vanishes after the primaries – is minimal at best.

    Yes, Ron Paul polls better. He’s got a congressional district to his name (one of those darned gerrymandered ‘safe districts’), and he’s got a legion of fans more than willing to commit fraud or even minor computer crimes (some of his supporters were caught using botnets to tilt online-based polls in 2008) in his name. But in terms of how he operates, and in terms of the analogy, calling him a right-wing version of Lyndon LaRouche really isn’t invalid.

  2. trumwill says:

    Err, I don’t think it’s that far off the mark, either. The question is whether the following, the congressional seat, and the poll numbers mean that the media should take him more seriously. I think probably so. If not as a competitor, then as a part of the overall debate. He’s certainly earned it more than Huntsman.

  3. David Alexander says:

    My link doesn’t work!

    Coincidentally, today was my first visit here for quite a while. 🙂

  4. David Alexander says:

    Meanwhile, homes in Baltimore are selling for $10,000 and less.

    From a pipe dream policy standpoint, I’ve argued that improving the schools, public transport network, and solving the crime problem would definitely help in improving Baltimore. It’s close enough to Washington that the use of European operating characteristics and rolling stock would slash commute times between the two cities, and improving the schools and fighting crime would help to make it into an attractive overflow for Washington DC’s commuter belt, especially for those looking for cheaper, classic urban charm.

  5. trumwill says:

    David, your link is fixed.

    There are few cities that wouldn’t be hurt by improving schools and lowering crime :). Improving commute to Baltimore and DC might be a worthwhile project… except if it’s public transportation you have to get to and from the main hub.

  6. David Alexander says:

    except if it’s public transportation you have to get to and from the main hub

    DC has this cute thing called a subway. Coincidentally, Baltimore has one too! And DC was smart enough to leave actual buildings with offices near the train stations! Baltimore with some rezoning can do the same! Shocking isn’t it when you attempt to have some urban growth? 🙂

    Admittedly, one can argue that this does nothing for those commuting to office parks, but at that point, theoretically, we really shouldn’t be pushing for types of developments anyway, and that in a practical real world sense, those office park workers looking for cheap housing tend to be the type that ends up with exurban housing.

    Regardless making these types of changes would require amendments to laws and arguably constitutional changes at the federal, state and municipal levels. In other words, it’s easier for me to move to Canada than to try and build what I would find to be a more rational plan for urban and suburban areas.

    As for the British, they’re actually at a somewhat similar point that France was at nearly forty years ago when the plan was undertaken to build the first TGV line. The classical lines were tapped out for capacity, not fast, and given the expense of trying to build new tracks or new mainline, the second option was taken. The UK is going to have to do something and while signaling can give 2 minute headways at 125 mph if one runs a disciplined operation (like Switzerland does), it doesn’t necessarily provide that extra advance in terms of increasing average speeds or providing for extra freight and regional passenger capacity. The other tricks like adding carriages/cars and extending platforms may not necessarily work due to the nature of certain rolling stock consists which may create penalties on performance and the fact that switch locations on the track may prevent further movement of the platform area, especially when dealing with structures dating to the Victorian era. And contrary to what they’ve noted, SNCF has basically run high speed services onto classical track for the benefit of the smaller towns that were bypassed or not near the high speed lines. In turn, there’s been a renaissance of regional services that have taken their place.

  7. Brandon Berg says:

    Did you plug numbers into Google translate and ask it to translate 57 into Chinese and 61 into Japanese (or vice-versa) without realizing that numbers look exactly the same in both languages?

  8. Brandon Berg says:

    Both have views that can be described as totalitarian, anti-Semitic, or very close to a conspiracy theorist mentality.

    I guess that in principle anything can be called totalitarian, just like anything can be called a frying pan.

  9. trumwill says:

    Brandon, 57 (Chinese, the translator doesn’t do Japanese numbers) was selected randomly. I went back to Chinese for this one because one of the entries involved China.

  10. trumwill says:

    David, I knew that DC had a subway system, but not Baltimore. That would definitely help, if their system is robust.

    Want to compare growth rates between Baltimore County and Fulton (Atlanta), Harris (Houston), and other icky suburbany places? We could compare Baltimore proper with the other cities… but Baltimore City hasn’t had any growth. 🙂

    More seriously, further connecting Baltimore to DC really might be a worthwhile project. I could be convinced either way.

  11. Mike Hunt says:

    [Trumwill] had PE daily. [Redstone] get[s] it once or twice a week.

    That’s amazing to me. Starting in fifth grade, we had PE either 4 or 5 times per week.

  12. trumwill says:

    We had it every day starting in Kindergarten or maybe the first grade.

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