In Houston, it's certainly the weather for shorts... hot as hell in the daytime, but almost no rain encouraging mosquito breeding... oh, wait, that's a different kind of shorts. Here are a few short items that have caught my attention recently:
- Michigan's War on Women Hits Dangerous New Low - ACLU
It seems that Michigan politicians are hell-bent on making the cliché “when the country catches a cold, Michigan gets pneumonia” a reality.
For proof, look no further than the more than 50 pages that make up a three-bill package: HB 5711, HB 5712, HB 5713. This legislative behemoth is on a fast track in our State House of Representatives, and will make safe abortion services virtually inaccessible to Michigan women. - Stewart Lansley, guesting for OECD Insights, offers the first of three posts arguing that, contrary to conventional wisdom, economic inequality inhibits rather than promotes growth.
It always seemed obvious to me, but it is good to have someone formalize this notion. I'll try to link parts 2 and 3 when they're published. (Via Mark Thoma of Economist's View.)
- Activists: In The Fight Against AIDS, Obama Doesn’t Measure Up To Bush - John Donnelly, GlobalPost.com via TPM:
... In the middle of this tightrope, the end of AIDS appears closer than ever because of new scientific discoveries that could dramatically reduce new HIV infections all over the world. But at the moment, there’s new danger of falling because political leaders in the United States as well as the developing world may have lost their sure-footedness for the way ahead, no longer talking about AIDS as a pressing matter of life and death and putting crucial funding in jeopardy.
- UPDATE: Via Bryan, Weather Underground guru Dr. Jeff Masters informs us about "Spring 2012: most extreme season in U.S. history". No kidding!
Michigan is the template for the new fascism. The good news is that its anti democratic, anti Keynesian economic model is failing.
ReplyDeletekarmanot, is Michigan really any worse than, say, Ohio, or (Dog forbid) Wisconsin? And that's just naming states one might hope would exhibit better sense... Texas, of course, is on the road to Helena Handbasket in the fascism department. And even Texas isn't the worst by a long shot (*cough* Mississippi, Alabama, both Carolinas, Florida in the past decade or so *cough*).
ReplyDeleteThe War on Women is every bit as real as is the War on LGBTQs, and both will continue to demand our utmost efforts to fight.