One thousand, five hundred three words, of which one thousand fifty six have been excreted before we get this:
Military spending does not compare well economically with many other forms of government spending, some experts say. Professor [Robert] Pollin [an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst] calculated in a recent analysis that $1 billion in spending on health care produced an economic benefit about 14 percent larger than spending on defense. The impact of spending on transportation, education and energy were even larger.
A recent study of federal spending since World War II by Alan Auerbach and Yuriy Gorodnichenko, both economists at the University of California, Berkeley, found that the economic benefits from nonmilitary spending were at least 50 percent larger than those from defense spending during periods of normal growth.
Although I have to admit that those who like their news served up with a bit of comedy won't want to miss
“The central thing that distinguishes them from other agencies is that they are the customer,” Professor [Daniel] Sarewitz [ director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University] said. “You can’t pull the wool over their eyes.”
We'll just ignore the track record of pretty much every major weapons system since Eisenhower, and ask whether the reader--or Professor Sarewitz, for that matter--has ever gone camping wearing what the Pentagon does with actual wool.
• Shorter Lisa Miller, "The new evangelical vote":
"The incredible transformation of Evangelical Christian voters into open-minded cosmopolitans over the past twenty years can be seen in the fact that many of them voted for Romney in Iowa".
• Shorter David Weigel, "Newt Gingrich and the NAACP" :
"Gingrich's comments about the NAACP and food stamps have been widely misconstrued as racist by everyone who doesn't pay as much attention to Newt Gingrich as I do, because he's been calling Barack Obama the 'food stamp President' for months now without once mentioning his race."
Evangelical Christians choose magical underpants because they hate the Kenyan muslin usurper even more.
ReplyDeleteWhatta shock.
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Is Weigel so deaf that he can't hear the dog whistle? Or is he simply a retarded simpleton? Where is he from, there is a village missing an idiot.
ReplyDeleteI guess Weigel wasn't yet a zit on his Daddy's face when Reagan added strapping young Bucks packing T-bones in their Welfare Cadillacs to his long list of Bullshit Anecdotes, right after he kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article in 1/8/12 Indianapolis Star about Bear Run coal mine written by Heather Gillers. I would highly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteUncle Omar, I remember reading Weigel's blog at the War Criminal Post before they yanked his chain and eventually rehired him at Slate.
ReplyDeleteI think he was taught a lesson about speaking the truth, even occasionally.
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Huh. Did you see Gingrich calling out David Gregory as a millionaire demanding painful cuts for the masses?
ReplyDelete