Interactive Map: Is Your State Legislator a Member of ALEC? "The Jefferson Rifle" I have been asked to post a few "David Brin Classics".... some of my older riffs and rants... here online for a new generation to share and ponder.
I've been mulling which ones. Then the topic of the Second Amendment and gun control recently came up. Along with the observation that some liberals are starting to nurse fantasies of needing to be armed, themselves, in the era that they see coming down the road. Of course, at one level, this topic is a special example of one of my frequent complaints, that many issues in modern life are artificially posed as either-or, zero-sum choices between one rigid position and another. InFact: Conspiracy Theories. Why do so many people believe in completely improbable conspiracy theories?
Everywhere you turn these days, someone is promoting some wacky-sounding conspiracy theory. Everything from the old classics like the government shot John F. Kennedy and the government was in on 9/11, to the most far-out stories like Denver Airport is the secret headquarters of the Illuminati, and world leaders are actually reptilian aliens wearing electronic disguises. And we'll always have the popular favorites: the medical industry conspires to keep us all sick, the food industry conspires to make us all fat, and the oil companies conspire to suppress new clean energy technologies. This Is What the 2008 Electoral Map Would Look Like if the Election Were Decided by [Fill In the Blank] A number of sites have featured a hypothetical electoral map entitled “This Is What the 2008 Electoral Map Would Look Like if the Election Were Decided by 18-29 Year Olds.”
![This Is What the 2008 Electoral Map Would Look Like if the Election Were Decided by [Fill In the Blank]](http://cdn.pearltrees.com/s/pic/th/washington-independent-31520083)
Needless to say, it’s a very blue map. I spent the weekend poring over the CNN exit polls from last Tuesday’s election and converting the state-by-state data for a number of demographics into my own hypothetical electoral maps. The result is a set of maps that visualize the outcome of an election decided exclusively by the following age groups, genders, income groups, political affiliations, etc. Election maps. Email: Thanks to everyone who wrote in about the maps.
This page has had nearly a million hits since the election and I've received so much email that I may not be able to reply to everyone, but I much appreciate all your comments and suggestions. WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN? By Jonathan Haidt. What makes people vote Republican?
Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? Who Increased The Debt? National Debt Graph by President. The best odds on the presidential election come from the betting markets and can be found here.
In 1981, the supply-siders commandeered the Reagan Presidency and employed their Voodoo economics, as Bush senior had called it in 1980. He was saying that tax cuts would not increase government revenues. As you can see on the graph above (get it on your smartphone app info), the Voodoo failed just as Bush predicted, and the supply-siders turned a 32-year winning streak into a debt disaster that continues to this day. For 20 years, under Reagan and the Bushes, the national debt increased compared to GDP every single year. In most other years it decreased. What's causing today's huge deficits? Bush senior fought against supply-side debt, so the Republicans didn't support him and he lost to Clinton, who put an end to supply-side economics. What about Obama? Recessions cut tax revenues—in this case, dramatically. The Election. Economics and Politics by Paul Krugman - The Conscience of a Liberal.
An outdated view of patriotism. It bothers me that the Tea Partiers spend so much time questioning the president's patriotism and love of country.
There was a time when Americans, after an election, rallied around their president, hoping that, regardless of party, he would do a good job for the country. That is what used to be called patriotism. Now the Tea Partiers actively are hoping for President Obama's failure and doing everything within their power to ensure he does fail, even if it means four years of failure for the Unites States. Low-Effort Thought Promotes Political Conservatism. The authors test the hypothesis that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism.
In Study 1, alcohol intoxication was measured among bar patrons; as blood alcohol level increased, so did political conservatism (controlling for sex, education, and political identification). In Study 2, participants under cognitive load reported more conservative attitudes than their no-load counterparts. In Study 3, time pressure increased participants’ endorsement of conservative terms. In Study 4, participants considering political terms in a cursory manner endorsed conservative terms more than those asked to cogitate; an indicator of effortful thought (recognition memory) partially mediated the relationship between processing effort and conservatism. Together these data suggest that political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.
Will The Real Ronald Reagan Please Stand Up? Hide captionAs president, Ronald Reagan raised taxes and granted amnesty to illegal immigrants.
Would today's Reagan conservatives vote for him — or run attack ads? Getty Images As president, Ronald Reagan raised taxes and granted amnesty to illegal immigrants. Would today's Reagan conservatives vote for him — or run attack ads? It's no secret who the most popular Republican is in this year's GOP presidential race.