― TOMBOT, Thursday, 21 April 2005 17:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― rasheed wallace (rasheed wallace), Thursday, 21 April 2005 17:05 (eighteen years ago) link
Whereas the red states - coincidentally restricted in abortion - have more rural poverty. The rural poor didn't have as many alleviating social changes over the past decade or two. So is it any shock, say, that their rates of drug abuse (crime) stayed steady or rose?
Then there's also have the other, more disturbing facet of the reasoning (as nabisco alluded to) - lower crime is good, crime rates are highest among the poor, abortion lowers crime rates - aborting the poor lowers crime and is therefore good. It makes it easier, even unconsciously, to dehumanize and criminalize the poor.
My big problem problem with Levitt (maybe his academic research is better, but his pop-cult economics is what I've seen) is that it extrapolates a great deal from very little and then makes broad, ill-informed pronouncements from the data. ie it's the type of shit that belongs in a humor book or PJ O'Rourke column.
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 21 April 2005 19:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― elmo, patron saint of nausea (allocryptic), Thursday, 22 December 2005 17:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― giboyeux (skowly), Thursday, 22 December 2005 17:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:13 (eighteen years ago) link
Everyone loves to quote the "abortion lowers crime" blurb but no one seems bothered to actually read what the man wrote in his book.
Fuck David Brooks, why are we talking about him? Also yeah can people start reposting NYT articles? I refuse to BUY a David Goddamn Brooks article.
― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:24 (eighteen years ago) link
Because you are president, you are briefed each day on terrorist threats to this country. These briefings are as psychologically intense as an episode of "24," with descriptions of specific bad guys and their activities.
This has had a cumulative effect on your psychology. While many of your fellow citizens have relaxed as 9/11 has faded into history, you don't have that luxury. Your briefings, and some terrifying false alarms that haven't been made public, keep you in a perpetual state of high alert.
You know that one of the few advantages we have over the terrorists is technological superiority. You are damned sure you are going to use every geek, every computer program and every surveillance technique at your disposal to prevent a future attack. You have inherited the FISA process to regulate this intelligence gathering. It's a pretty good process. FISA judges usually issue warrants quickly and, when appropriate, retroactively.
But the FISA process has shortcomings. First, it's predicated on a division between foreign and domestic activity that has been rendered obsolete by today's mobile communications methods. Second, the process still involves some cumbersome paperwork and bureaucratic foot-dragging. Finally, the case-by-case FISA method is ill suited to the new information-gathering technologies, which include things like automated systems that troll through vast amounts of data looking for patterns, voices and chains of contacts.
Over time you've become convinced that these new technologies, which are run by National Security Agency professionals and shielded from political influence, help save lives. You've seen that these new surveillance techniques helped foil an attack on the Brooklyn Bridge and bombing assaults in Britain. The question is, How do you regulate the new procedures to protect liberties?
Your aides present you with three options. First, you can ask Congress to rewrite the FISA law to keep pace with the new technologies. This has some drawbacks. How exactly do you write a law to cope with this fast-changing information war? Even if you could set up a procedure to get warrant requests to a judge, how would that judge be able to tell which of the thousands of possible information nodes is worth looking into, or which belongs to a U.S. citizen? Swamped in the data-fog, the courts would just become meaningless rubber-stamps. Finally, it's likely that some member of Congress would leak details of the program during the legislative process, thus destroying it.
Your second option is to avoid Congress and set up a self-policing mechanism using the Justice Department and the N.S.A.'s inspector general. This option, too, has drawbacks. First, it's legally dubious. Second, it's quite possible that some intelligence bureaucrat will leak information about the programs, especially if he or she hopes to swing a presidential election against you. Third, if details do come out and Congressional leaders learn you went around them, there will be blowback that will not only destroy the program, but will also lead to more restrictions on executive power.
Your third option is informal Congressional oversight. You could pull a few senior members of Congress into your office and you could say: "Look, given the fast-moving nature of this conflict, there is no way we can codify rules about what is permissible and impermissible. Instead we will create a social contract. I'll trust you by telling you everything we are doing to combat terror. You'll trust me enough to give me the flexibility I need to keep the country safe. If we have disagreements, we will work them out in private."
These are your three options, Mr. President, and these are essentially the three options George Bush faced a few years ago. (He chose Option 2.) But before you decide, let me tell you one more thing: Options 1 and 2 won't work, and Option 3 is impossible.
Options 1 and 2 won't work because they lead to legalistic rigidities and leaks that will destroy the program. Option 3 is impossible because it requires trust. It requires that the president and the Congressional leaders trust one another. It requires Democrats and Republicans to trust one another. We don't have that kind of trust in America today.
That leaves you with Option 4: Face the fact that we will not be using our best technology to monitor the communications of known terrorists. Face the fact that the odds of an attack on America just went up.
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:53 (eighteen years ago) link
these "cellular" "telephones" represent a paradigm shift that our founders never intended
― älänbänänä (alanbanana), Thursday, 22 December 2005 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 22 December 2005 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 22 December 2005 19:01 (eighteen years ago) link
Sorry everyone else asked for it. :(
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 22 December 2005 19:18 (eighteen years ago) link
m.
― msp (mspa), Thursday, 22 December 2005 20:36 (eighteen years ago) link
this reminds me of the one bloom county strip where steve dallas cries when he finds out "knight rider" is a children's show.
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 22 December 2005 20:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― elmo, patron saint of nausea (allocryptic), Thursday, 22 December 2005 20:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 22 December 2005 21:01 (eighteen years ago) link
“One of the things I’ve found in life is that politicians are a lot more sincere than us journalists and we are more sincere than the people that read and watch us.µ
vid here
― kingfish trapped under ice (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 10 August 2006 22:27 (seventeen years ago) link
On "Meet the Press," challenged on an assertion that 10,000 Iraqis will die every month if the U.S. pulls out, The New York Times columnist admits he just picked the number "out of the air."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003615101
― Martin Van Burne, Monday, 23 July 2007 14:51 (sixteen years ago) link
I saw the broadcast. He also implied that it's worth losing a few hundred Americans a month if it keeps 10,00,00o,00,000,000 Iraqis from dying. For once Bob Woodward acted like a journalist and went after him.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 23 July 2007 14:54 (sixteen years ago) link
As much as I hate to defend Brooks, I think this is an unfair "gotcha" slam - he was obviously using the number 10,000 rhetorically to begin with. He's just trying to argue that even more Iraqis will die if we pull out, which may or may not be true but is not exactly an assertion "out of the air."
― Hurting 2, Monday, 23 July 2007 14:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Given that so many generals, Bushies, neocons, and "experts" have offered their own out-of-the-air assertions since 2002, I'm prepared to slap the shit out of Brooks, especially after that slavish Bush column he wrote last week.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 23 July 2007 15:00 (sixteen years ago) link
xpost
But Hurting, he's inserting an exact number to make a hypothetical scenario seem like a concrete actuality. Far from the worst of his crimes, but it highlights how slippery his support for his arguments typically is.
― Martin Van Burne, Monday, 23 July 2007 15:03 (sixteen years ago) link
In other words, I'd let this go in many other cases, but Brooks deserves to be called out on this.
― Martin Van Burne, Monday, 23 July 2007 15:04 (sixteen years ago) link
Ok, but advocates of withdrawal say stuff like "It can't get worse than it already is" all the time, which is just as hypothetical.
― Hurting 2, Monday, 23 July 2007 15:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Besides, how literal-minded do you have to be to think that David Brooks is claiming to know exactly how many Iraqis will die per month?
― Hurting 2, Monday, 23 July 2007 15:06 (sixteen years ago) link
Well, he claims to know a lot of stuff that he doesn't!
But regardless, this sort of rhetoric gets those numbers out there as talking points. Soon enough, 10K and 125 become the accepted estimations that you have to argue against.
― Martin Van Burne, Monday, 23 July 2007 15:10 (sixteen years ago) link
Should we just keep a running tally of his clueless Obama/"class warfare"/"lakefront liberal" columns that he dribbles out like so much Olean?
F'instance
Perhaps he'll finally reach the point of just doing a find/replace of "Kerry" with "Obama" on his shit from 4 years ago. It would certainly save him effort.
― kingfish, Tuesday, 1 July 2008 15:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Methinks that lean times at the Times call for a cutback:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/opinion/03brooks.html
― autosocratic asphyxiation (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 3 February 2009 18:21 (fifteen years ago) link
actually i kind of liked that column--he's right, all Ward 3'rs hate everyone in Bethesda and Potomac.
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 18:25 (fifteen years ago) link
I grew up in Ward 3. Maybe the dynamics have changed since I lived there (due to 8 years of republican rule?) but at the time I didn't sense that there was a huge distinction seen between that and Bethesda. Also Ward 3 was full of incredibly intelligent, interesting people who could have made much more money in the private sector and felt some kind of calling to government.
"Nyah, they're just jealous" -- this passes for biting social commentary?
― autosocratic asphyxiation (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 3 February 2009 18:37 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah i was kind of kidding--like everything else he writes about he's way over simplified everything. dude is such a goober
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 18:40 (fifteen years ago) link
ah ok, I think I see the sarcasm now
― autosocratic asphyxiation (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 3 February 2009 18:42 (fifteen years ago) link
as far as i can tell brooks never knows if he's kidding or not.
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 19:00 (fifteen years ago) link
its funny how in their search for a palatable republican the times found the most inane guy in the wrold
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 19:03 (fifteen years ago) link
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/images/2007/05/15/david_brooks.jpg
"OK, fine. Let's talk about inanity."
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 19:05 (fifteen years ago) link
David Brooks is the name of:David Allen Brooks (born 1947), American film and television actor who played archaeologist Max Eilerson on the science-fiction television series CrusadeDavid Brooks (author) (born 1953), Australian author of short stories and co-editor for SoutherlyDavid "Bubba" Brooks, American jazz musicianDavid Brooks (inventor), inventor who patented an innovative insulator for telegraph lines in 1867 while working for the Central Pacific RailroadDavid Brooks (journalist) (born 1961), commentator for The New York Times and other publicationsDavid "Mavado" Brooks (musician), Jamaican dancehall artistDavid Brooks (murderer) (born 1955), teenaged accomplice of serial killer Dean CorllDavid Brooks (politician) (1756–1838), United States representative in the Fifth United States CongressDavid Brooks (rugby league), Australian rugby league footballerDavid Brooks (rugby union), British rugby union footballer
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 19:10 (fifteen years ago) link
No results found for "gayvid brooks".
― velko, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 19:15 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.suepatrick.com/images_home_special/david_brooks.jpg
― velko, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 19:36 (fifteen years ago) link
Maybe this is the David Brooks thread I'm looking for.
Taibbi dissects what has got to be one of the worst things Brooks has written in recent memory.
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/01/27/populism-just-like-racism/
― KORGÜLL THE EXCHEQUER (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Thursday, 28 January 2010 15:39 (fourteen years ago) link
There he was on PBS last night talking about the State of the Union and all I could think about at the time was his error-filled hateful post on Haiti.
Taibbi needs to challenge him to a public debate.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 28 January 2010 16:44 (fourteen years ago) link
MT really on fire there
― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2010 17:07 (fourteen years ago) link
It's hard to believe that the same columnist today wrote a piece that channels some sort of "saner Ross Perot" populist that Obama should either become or lose to in 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/opinion/29brooks.html?ref=opinion
― killah priest, Friday, 29 January 2010 18:42 (fourteen years ago) link
in private he wanks to military coups tho
― u b ilxin' (Hunt3r), Friday, 29 January 2010 18:50 (fourteen years ago) link
it is a source of amazement in my daily life that this guy is allowed to write anywhere, much less for the nyt
― call all destroyer, Friday, 29 January 2010 18:52 (fourteen years ago) link
the soft pink truth
― an emotionally withholding exterminator (m coleman), Saturday, 5 December 2015 14:14 (eight years ago) link
I read this yesterday and was so happy i paid $2.50 for the paper
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 5 December 2015 15:56 (eight years ago) link
lol
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 9 December 2015 17:07 (eight years ago) link
lol eephus
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 9 December 2015 17:08 (eight years ago) link
It's 2 a.m. The bar is closing. Republicans have had a series of strong and nasty Trump cocktails. Suddenly Ted Cruz is beginning to look kind of attractive. At least he's sort of predictable, and he doesn't talk about his sexual organs in presidential debates!
@dick_nixon 3hConrad spoke two languages before English, you know. David Brooks ought to be boiled in oil for writing like this.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 8 March 2016 16:47 (eight years ago) link
heh
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 8 March 2016 16:49 (eight years ago) link
Nixon didn't speak English either.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 March 2016 17:05 (eight years ago) link
That's a pretty nonsensical metaphor.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Tuesday, 8 March 2016 17:12 (eight years ago) link
oh he's really outdone himself with this one
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/opinion/sund4r-pichai-google-memo-diversity.html
― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Sunday, 13 August 2017 16:42 (six years ago) link
on pins and needles waiting for his Charlottesville column
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 13 August 2017 17:46 (six years ago) link
Ugh, the very thought makes me want to step off a bridge.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 13 August 2017 18:04 (six years ago) link
"David Brooks really has three jobs because he has to raise his wife," my fiance said— Sarah Jones (@onesarahjones) March 4, 2021
― G.A.G.S. (Gophers Against Getting Stuffed) (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 4 March 2021 19:03 (three years ago) link
rather condescending toward the wife
― Judge Roi Behan (Aimless), Thursday, 4 March 2021 19:17 (three years ago) link
like giving vince carter a 6 at the dunk contest, come on
― class project pat (m bison), Friday, 5 March 2021 02:28 (three years ago) link
That's hilarious. Is it wrong that I find that hilarious?
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Friday, 5 March 2021 03:06 (three years ago) link
“If Books Could Kill” covers David Brooks’ book
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/867-if-books-could-kill-104279346/episode/david-brookss-bobos-in-paradise-104750888/
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Thursday, 17 November 2022 16:43 (one year ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwwnCKLi5BMOW6L2Gg97bgI_iKYINBPZa
No Fair Remembering stuff has a series on Brooks.
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Thursday, 17 November 2022 16:51 (one year ago) link
from the bobo thing it's amusing to learn that brooks has the exact same approach to class analysis as those edgy left podcasters who've robbed "PMC" of any concrete meaning
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Thursday, 17 November 2022 21:35 (one year ago) link
PMC?
https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/PMC
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Friday, 18 November 2022 01:11 (one year ago) link
the professional-managerial class as conceptualised / later rejected as relevant concept by barbara ehrenreich, long since stripped of any material referents and turned into an all purpose woke/idpol/SJW equivalent by reactionary elements on the left
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Friday, 18 November 2022 02:39 (one year ago) link
hearing more brooks classics it's no surprise obama was so shit with this kind of intellectual nourishment
his totally (by his own admission for once) imaginary scenario of a scat play fetish party cancelling an attendee for not recycling, presented as if he's making some kind of point, is hilarious and disturbing and probably where he accidentally peaked as a human being
he needs to stay the fuck away from joggers in parks
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Friday, 18 November 2022 02:51 (one year ago) link
One of the worst paragraphs I’ve ever read pic.twitter.com/kZRfi2Ol0Y— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) November 24, 2022
― curmudgeon, Friday, 25 November 2022 00:57 (one year ago) link
From the comments on above tweet about Brooks saying his ears were straight outa Compton—
In 1991 when David Brooks was a 30 year old man writing columns about how the Black people who make the music he likes deserve poverty and suffering, his current wife was six years old— Hilary Agro 🍄 @hilarya✧✧✧@masto✧✧✧.l✧✧ (@hilaryagro) November 24, 2022
― curmudgeon, Friday, 25 November 2022 01:02 (one year ago) link
from the same column:
My body has matured; my tastes have not.
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Monday, 28 November 2022 15:29 (one year ago) link
Then there are the times that are just awkward — like the time at a Nas concert when a seven-foot-tall woman in a black bodice came up to me and asked, “What on earth are you doing here?”
rejected Piano Man lyrics
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Monday, 28 November 2022 15:32 (one year ago) link