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22816 [lbo-talk] NH: not a psephologist's graveyard after all -- rank: 1000

A GOOD DAY FOR THE POLLSTERS The Accuracy of Pre-Election Tracking Polls in New Hampshire Despite the jokes about the glut of pre-election tracking polls in New Hampshire, these surveys were remarkably accurate in predicting the outcome of the race. And an analysis shows that when accumulated together, they provided a virtually perfect snapshot of the New Hampshire electorate’s voting intentions. Added together, the surveys predicted the level of support for every candidate within a single perc ...

Document Size:	5441
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 30 08:15:47 PST 2004

22817 [lbo-talk] Tuff Lib'rul -- rank: 1000

Bill Bartlett wrote: >Either way, they will have to pay. Deficit spending isn't an >alternative to taxation, since interest inevitably can only be >repaid from tax dollars. For sure, but it can be repaid by squeezing programs other than debt service. Doug

Document Size:	4678
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 30 08:11:52 PST 2004

22818 [lbo-talk] Tuff Lib'rul -- rank: 1000

Max B. Sawicky wrote: >Deficit finance is a second resort, if immediate taxation >is not possible. If you allow that the spending is worthwhile, >it follows that it's worth the cost, even if the rich evade >paying for it. But if the debt/GDP ratio is constant you're probably not adding any new programs, though you're still wasting money on debt service. If the debt/GDP ratio is rising, you may be adding new programs, but at some point the creditor class is going to get pissy and dem ...

Document Size:	5369
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 30 07:49:24 PST 2004

22819 [lbo-talk] Tuff Lib'rul -- rank: 1000

Max B. Sawicky wrote: >If we expect nothing good in the way of government >spending, we should be for limited government. It seems a lot of American liberals believe in deficit spending as a way to evade taxation. Who said nothing good could come of gov't spending? Lots of good can, if it's the right kind. How to finance it then? Why borrow money from rich people and pay them interest rather than tax them? Doug

Document Size:	4825
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 29 21:08:54 PST 2004

22820 [lbo-talk] Hutton hoopla, Kelly - Britain's Vince Foster? -- rank: 1000

[via Sam Smith's Progressive Review] HUTTON HOOPLA GUARDIAN - If Tony Blair thought that the Hutton inquiry would draw a line under the Kelly affair, he was utterly mistaken. So unequivocal was Lord Hutton's report, so apparent his willingness to give the government the benefit of the doubt, that only two papers swallow it whole. . . As Simon Hoggart puts it in the Guardian: "The gist of the inquiry is: Blair without flaw - official!" Apart from a minor criticism of the failure of the ...

Document Size:	12531
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 29 15:13:46 PST 2004

22821 [lbo-talk] Tuff Lib'rul -- rank: 1000

Max B. Sawicky wrote: >One progressive alternative to this position is that >deficits may continue indefinitely as long as debt >does not grow more rapidly than GDP. What's the point of them then? They inject no stimulative power, and the government still wastes money paying interest to rich people. Or would you argue that providing a Treasury market is a public good? Doug

Document Size:	4798
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 29 15:08:04 PST 2004

22822 [lbo-talk] Maggie T -- rank: 1000

John Kozak wrote: >Sorry I missed your talk last night - did it go well? I think so. Attendance was reasonable in quantity and high in quality. That 1/2-inch blizzard wasn't well timed. I've got to thank James Heartfield for getting the space, at Patrick Hughes's studio <http://www.patrickhughes.co.uk/>. I think he brought along a good chunk of the former RCP. I had a great time talking with two guys from the Transport & General Workers Union, who were very interested in the product ...

Document Size:	5432
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 29 14:53:36 PST 2004

22823 [lbo-talk] Maggie T -- rank: 1000

andie nachgeborenen wrote: >The received wisdom now is that Denis Thatcher was far >from being a gin-soaked old bigot. Well, up to a >point. God, I love Brit obits. No piety at all. So the piece does mention her Alzheimer's. But I asked around in London and it wasn't widely known - not like Ronnie's here. Despite the rude obits, they're so discreet in life. Doug

Document Size:	4751
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 29 13:42:09 PST 2004

22824 [lbo-talk] Re: star dreck -- rank: 1000

BklynMagus wrote: >As for queers, the images are still sanitized (Will - who has >nothing better to do than worry about Grace. Doesn't he ever get >laid?) or caricatured (Jack -- more fey, but no less asexual). Hey, there's The L Word. The women are all impossibly gorgeous, but at least they're not caricatured as Birkenstock dykes. And they have lots of sex, just like boys! Doug

Document Size:	4829
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 29 13:33:31 PST 2004

22825 [lbo-talk] Fwd: Manual Labor of the Mind -- rank: 1000

Posted, January 24, 2004 Manual Labor of the Mind An award-winning book critic approaches the great ideas as if they were familiar friends. But it wasn't always that way. By Ellen E. Heltzel Hi Margo, Let's talk about winners -- and losers. In the first category, there's Scott McLemee, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education and someone who has written and reviewed for outlets from Salon to Lingua Franca. A week ago, McLemee <http://www.bookcritics.org/2003Finalists.htm>was an ...

Document Size:	12086
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 29 12:52:18 PST 2004

22826 [lbo-talk] Maggie T -- rank: 1000

A British journalist I had lunch with the other day told me that Mrs Thatcher has Alzheimer's. I hadn't heard this before - has anyone else? Interesting contrast between the U.S. and Britain - Reagan wrote a letter announcing his diagnosis and retirement from public life, while Mrs T just disappeared quietly. Doug

Document Size:	4774
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 28 16:42:37 PST 2004

22827 [lbo-talk] East Germans still stuck on Marx -- rank: 1000

Brad Mayer wrote: >This passage was particularly choice, reminding me very much of the >tenor of discourse from certain quarters here on LBO: > >"In this situation, it’s not surprising that, in East Germany, Karl Marx >still ranks as the “best of Germans,” while, lumped together, Westerners >and Easterners rate him as third only after Konrad Adenauer, West >Germany’s first chancellor, and Martin Luther. Of course, as political >scientist Konrad Löw points out, the Le ...

Document Size:	6169
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 28 16:38:13 PST 2004

22828 [lbo-talk] Heartfield interviews Henwood -- rank: 1000

another version... http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA378.htm

Document Size:	4640
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 28 09:37:12 PST 2004

22829 [lbo-talk] Nationalism & Internationalism Re: Benny Morris responds -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >Nationalisms of settler colonialists and anti-colonial nationalisms >of the colonized are not the same thing and do not occupy the same >place in leftist politics. No they're not, but it's fascinating how anti-colonial nationalism can devolve into bourgeois nationalism - and how often bourgeois nationalists play the anti-colonial card. >Also, it is too simplistic to set up an either/or choice between >nationalism and global capitalism, especially in that i ...

Document Size:	5503
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 28 09:20:40 PST 2004

22830 [lbo-talk] Cheney's war on Blair -- rank: 1000

Financial Times - January 25, 2004 Cheney 'waged war' on Blair Iraq strategy By James Blitz in London and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Dick Cheney, US vice-president, "waged a guerrilla war" against attempts by Tony Blair, the British prime minister, to secure United Nations backing for the invasion of Iraq. Mr Cheney remained implacably opposed to the strategy even after George W. Bush, US president, addressed the UN on the importance of a multilateralist approach, according to a ...

Document Size:	7786
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 27 18:13:05 PST 2004