Happy Birthday to Robert Downey, Jr., 48. Surprised how many of his movies I've seen; I count at least nine movies he's been in that I've seen, despite that I never have watched Weird Science.
And some good stuff:
1. Alex Pareene on "the Mark Penn test."
2. Iraq dead-enders, from Dan Larison.
3. The future of marriage; Reihan Salam's view.
4. Yeah, I agree with Matt Yglesias about immigration, except I think I might be more pro-immigration than he is.
5. Ezra Klein on GOP health care policy.
6. And Abby Rapoport looks at NoDak populism.
That Klein link (#5) and Chait's take ( http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/pretend-gop-urged-to-adopt-imaginary-health-plan.html ) are good fodder for considering whether the GOP is "post-policy" or merely, let's say, "crypto-policy."
ReplyDeleteLevin and Ponnuru, presumably articulating the most ideologically coherent and publicly acceptable version of influential GOP views, lay out some relatively clear HC policy priorities for what they'd push the GOP to do once it gains back sufficient political power. But they're also fastidiously careful in how they obfuscate about rejecting the driving goals behind Obamacare (universal coverage; comprehensive not catastrophic coverage; accepting health-care coverage as a domain of public obligation). Maybe these are just a set of positions, not policies; but if they are, it's because the party seems to want to consciously withhold policy details for the time being, not because they have no idea what to do policy-wise.
Never seen "Weird Science"??? WTF??? It's Bill Paxton's finest role!
ReplyDelete1. Not a big Hughes fan.
Delete2. It really seemed that it would be horribly sexist when it came out.
3. And the real reason: I'm passionately loyal to its natural competitor, Real Genius.
4. OK, also: I suppose it was never on heavy rotation any time that I had HBO or SHO back then.
Real Genius is awesome.