Politics of the Social Web

The very fact that you're reading this means that you probably check out Ebay, Hulu, LinkedIn far more often than say reddit, Etsy, or Spottify. And note that users of Twitter, Amazon and Farmville are more GOP-leaning than you'd expect.

Meanwhile Buzzfeed Politics has veered so far left that we're gonna need a bigger chart and a third dimension to fully capture their dishonest hackery.

Related: Does Abstaining From Facebook Make You Suspicious?

As examples they use Norwegian shooter Anders Breivik, who used myspace instead of facebook (or as they put it, "largely invisible on the web", haha @ myspace), and the newer Aurora shooter who used adultfriendfinder instead of facebook. So being social on any other website isn't good enough, it has to be specifically facebook that people are using.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:03 PM | Comments (717)
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Not content to let the rest of their acronymically-labeled colleagues grab the spotlight for boneheaded actions, the Drug Enforcement Administration got into the act in grand style:

The phone rang before sunrise. It woke Craig Patty, owner of a tiny North Texas trucking company, to vexing news about Truck 793 - a big red semi supposedly getting repairs in Houston.

"Your driver was shot in your truck," said the caller, a business colleague. "Your truck was loaded with marijuana. He was shot eight times while sitting in the cab. Do you know anything about your driver hauling marijuana?"

"What did you say?" Patty recalled asking. "Could you please repeat that?"

The truck, it turned out, had been everywhere but in the repair shop.

Commandeered by one of his drivers, who was secretly working with federal agents, the truck had been hauling marijuana from the border as part of an undercover operation. And without Patty's knowledge, the Drug Enforcement Administration was paying his driver, Lawrence Chapa, to use the truck to bust traffickers.

Read the whole thing.

The driver was killed, and the truck suffered massive damage. This has pushed the small businessman who owns it to the edge of bankruptcy as Leviathan in DC stonewalls him.

The problem clearly is that Mr. Patty thinks he built that business, but he didn't. His truck moves on roads paid for by The Government, and by God when they need to use it in the War On Drugs™, who is he to think they should get permission or take responsibility for damage they caused?

And that dead driver? Well, as we all know from Fast & Furious, if you want to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs.

(h/t Purple Avenger)

Posted by: andy at 04:09 PM | Comments (226)
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Strangely enough, of course, a Romney Rally coming before the election can work to improve Obama's standing, and then, of course, result in an Obama victory, thus demolishing the very reason for the Romney Rally.

With just 100 days left until the U.S. presidential election, investors are beginning to make bigger bets on which candidate will carry the day.

One analysis concludes that last week's sharp three-day market surge can only mean that Wall Street is banking on a victory from Republican Mitt Romney.

That's the logical interpretation one can draw from a rally amid conditions that otherwise would demand a selloff, Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Adam S. Parker said in an analysis that asserts there is no other reason now to like stocks than a Romney win.

That said, note the item in the sidebar about Obama overperforming in swing states, and on FoxNews, Rove just said three states (Nevada, Ohio, and Colorado) shifted from "Toss Up" to "Lean Obama."

Ohio looks worse for us every cycle. This may be a cycle where we do in fact lose it, and will need one of the emerging red states to overcome that big blow.

Posted by: Ace at 02:35 PM | Comments (228)
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As Legal Insurrection notes: Didn't Obama speak more disparagingly of Pennsylvanians?

But so apparently this is a thing.

At a fundraiser in Israel (presumably among Americans), Romney noted a great income disparity between Israelis and Palestinians.

Romney said some economic histories have theorized that "culture makes all the difference."

"And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things," Romney said, citing an innovative business climate, the Jewish history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the "hand of providence." He said similar disparity exists between neighboring countries, like Mexico and the United States.

I can't believe someone didn't say this was racist.

Oh, here we go.

"It is a racist statement and this man doesn't realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation," said Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"It seems to me this man lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people," Erekat added. "He also lacks knowledge about the Israelis themselves. I have not heard any Israeli official speak about cultural superiority."

Nah but they think it really hard.

Well, look at Romney. He's got a senior aide to the Palestinian president saying nice things about Israel.

Let us now begin taking bets: How long until someone makes the connection to the NAACP speech, states that Romney is deliberately "provoking" "minorities" to win white (or Jewish) votes, and further speculates that the Israel comments are actually also designed to insult black Americans (in as much as they might identify with the Palestinians in their struggle against a Racist Overgroup)?

Bonus: Who is the first left-wing writer to float it?

Also: Drew expressed his belief that the Palestinians shouldn't be at the Olympics because they actually attacked the Olympics and murdered Jewish activists (and the IOC continues to refuse to even have a moment of silence to observe the 40th anniversary of the murders -- it's "too political," it turns out).

Drew got bushwacked, but he fought 'em off. He offers a more detailed argument than Twitter permits at his blog.

Brilliant: I predicted a zig when the left already zagged.

See, they're claiming Romney's statement is also... anti-semitic.

It's true that Israel has logged tremendous achievements, said Abraham Diskin, a political science professor at the Inter-Disciplinary Center outside of Tel Aviv. But "you can understand this remark in several ways," he added. "You can say it's anti-Semitic. 'Jews and money.'

@johnekdahl tipped me to that.

Note: I changed the headline. I was trying to push the "Pennsylvanians" idea, but it wound up just looking like a typo (which it actually wasn't). So, since it's confusing, I changed it.

Posted by: Ace at 01:46 PM | Comments (234)
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Shhhh. We just have a presidential election coming up. We wouldn't want the media broadcasting state secrets about the most relevant and pressing problem we face at the moment.

In its latest update, ObamaÂ’s Office of Management and Budget slashed its GDP forecast for 2012, to 2.3% from 2.7%, and for 2013, to 2.7% from 3.0%. Pretty tepid growth.

In the near-term, where we have the greatest knowledge (still sketchy, but the greatest knowledge, since we can just ballpark guess it will be something like current situations), he revises his forecasts downward.

But then, two to five years from now, when our knowledge becomes almost nonexistent, he confidently projects a big bouncing baby boy boomtime recovery, weighing in at a respectable 4.1% in hazy 2015.

Okay. Sure.

How does the White House's "projections" match up against organizations not directly involved in seeking the reelection of their boss?

The correlation is poor.

[T]he IMF recently put out its extended forecast for the U.S economy, and its sees markedly slower growth than the White House: 2.0% in 2012, 2.3% in 2013, 2.8% in 2014, 3.3% in 2015, 3.4% in 2016, and 3.3% in 2017. In total, the White House sees the U.S. economy generating about $1.5 trillion more in real GDP growth during the next six years than the IMF does.

...

And certainly there are mainstream economists out there more gloomy than the IMF. The economic team at JPMorgan, for instance, sees the economy growing at just 1.9% this year and next.

And, as Pethokoukis points out, those projections are all already biased to the optimistic side of things, assuming that this is in fact a real but weak "recovery" which will continue for a long time, rather than, say, bouncing along the bottom in a protracted depression.

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 PM | Comments (216)
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Funny. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (109)
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As Instapundit says, did we exit the first one? (Answer: No, because we're in a depression. The Great Depression featured periods of weak growth, followed by fresh contractions, too.)

The slowdown announced Friday — on top of another slowdown in the first quarter — is further proof that the president’s class-warfare economic rhetoric and policies are pushing the country perilously close to a double-dip recession.

The numbers are pretty stark: Growth of 2 percent for the first quarter was already scary, down from around 4 percent at the end of last year. A few years out of a stiff recession like the one we had, the economyÂ’s normally roaring, not sagging back down.

So the drop to a 1.5 percent growth rate for the second quarter is really quite staggering. At this rate, we could be in double-dip territory even by Election Day, as consumers continue to slash their spending and businesses their investments.

...

And make no mistake: A double-dip recession would be pretty bad stuff.

Read on. It could be quite bad. Upside: Easy election win; downside: a horrendously deep contraction with unemployment in the upper teens.

Posted by: Ace at 11:32 AM | Comments (134)
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I couldn't resist. You can get a sample for free off Kindle. I didn't make it all the way through.

Anyone else try this? I was thinking of reviewing it but I completely forgot what the hell I read about 20 minutes after I read it.

It was uh... seriously amateurish, which is weird, because the woman works in television, so you'd think she'd at least have a clue.

Here's something weird. She lives in London. I mean, for real. Now, London is one of the world's capitals. It's an intriguing city. People would consider buying this book just for its setting. And, living in London, she'd be an natural expert in the city -- or at least it would be easy for her to do some scouting and reading and make herself an expert. If she wants to know, say, precisely what the interior of the upper rooms of the Hippodrome look like (that's London, right?), all she has to do is take a 90 minute trip to scout it. 90 minutes, there and back, plus an hour's worth of notes.

Plus, London works really well for the concept of a sexually bent, controlling man and innocent virginal girl. London has all that Dracula atmosphere, it's a world economic capital of a country that once ruled the seas, and frankly I think all English men are kind of sexually twisted anyhow. (I blame Jeremy Irons for this prejudice. Not the roles he plays in movies -- he once tried to play footsie with me at a gala.)

And even for the innocent angle-- even though all London women are clearly whores (I've seen clips of Ladettes to Ladies), I'm sure there are still middle-class suburbs a few miles out where you can find women who haven't seen more cock than a Perdue distribution center.

So, you get it. It would be both very easy and commercially advantageous for her to set it in London.

Instead, she sets it in Seattle, a city she clearly has no concept of (she spends a paragraph describing the sweeping view from Dr. Moneycock's office, but never says what can be seen in this view, because, I think, she's never seen the city and has no idea if, say, you should be able to see the ocean or mountains from it).

The only reason she sets it in Seattle, I guess, is because that's where it was set when it was a Twilight slash-fic, and she's lazy. And oh god, is she a terribly lazy writer. But she's also dumb, because it should have been easy to switch to London, rather than describe western Washington state so vaguely as a bit of highway, a city, some more highway, and then a beach.

And maybe she kept Seattle to really push the idea that this is really about Bella and Edward (and also Jacob, who I'm told makes an appearance as a budding rapist later).

I could talk about how awful a writer she is, but I won't. I'll just mention that simple-to-fix thing.

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (337)
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Yes, we call those people socialists, and we call the "capitalism" they favor "socialism."

So, this is New Stupid.

“Every now and again, I meet with someone who’s been very successful on Wall Street, who says, ‘I want to support your campaign because I believe you will save capitalism. I believe in capitalism, and I understand there have to be rules. And they have to be consistently enforced.’ That’s what I think is at stake in this election.”

ThatÂ’s a hefty assignment, the salvation of capitalism, but Democratic strategists, while cringing at the grandiosity of the statement, say she articulates her vision for the assignment as well as any candidate.

The Secret Life of Warren, Betty

Her advanced cyborg brain's positronic gears all go ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.

Via @wodeshed and @theh2.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (197)
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One.

Polish human rights icon and former President Lech Walesa all but endorsed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Monday, urging him to “be successful.”

“I wish you to be successful because this success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe and the rest of the world, too,” the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was heard telling Romney when the press were allowed in on the tail end of their meeting. “Gov. Romney, get your success – be successful!"

Apparently -- I didn't follow this at all -- Walesa is one of the many friendly leaders that Obama has gone out of his way to snub. He refused to let Walesa accept an award on behalf of a dead Pole, for example. And that was just the latest of many actions which alienated the Poles:

Obama's snubbing of Walesa follows several peculiar actions that upset the people of Poland. On September 17, 2009, he canceled plans for a joint missile defense system between the United States and Poland, one of our most dependable post-Cold War NATO allies. Obama did so for pro-Russian reasons....

Obama's snubbing of Walesa also follows his recent private assurance to Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin -- inadvertently caught on tape by an open mic -- that, in regard to missile defense and nuclear issues, he would "have more flexibility" "after my election." In other words, more pro-Russia steps at Poland's expense.

Obama's snubbing of Walesa also came alongside a terrible gaffe about "Polish death camps."

The Hill piece notes that Walesa had in turn snubbed Obama, stating "I won't meet with him. It doesn't suit me."

I wish this meant more, but now that I look at the history here, I have to think that Polish-Americans who keep ties with the old country (and that country's politics) already are well inclined to vote against Obama.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 AM | Comments (146)
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