Proof Rock Band Doesn't Suck

I was about to write a more well-reasoned post about this entry into the "you kids get off my lawn" genre (via Spencer), but I think there's a better way to illustrate the point. You know who dislikes Guitar Hero and Rock Band with a white-hot burning passion?

These guys:



Therefore, Guitar Hero and Rock Band must be good. Q.E.D.

The Real Case For Werewolf Doctors

I greatly enjoyed Ezra's appearance on the Colbert Report, but I think he has the wrong idea about how werewolf doctors lower medical costs. It's not about mauling patients! They'll spend most of the month doing good medical work like everyone else, but on a few special nights they'll eat colleagues who drive up national health care costs by doing worthless tests and prescribing unnecessary medications promoted by Big Pharma. Werewolf doctors are the way a fee-for-service system gets the incentives right.

Against Permanent Senators

As hilarious as this post was, the idea that every Senator ought to be carried out of their seat in a pine box is a little crazy. While there are specific Senators—Ted Kennedy comes to mind—that have made the country better by staying in the world's most dysfunctional body for decade after decade, the general culture wherein elected officials hold office for as long as physically possible isn't particularly good for America. The near-doubling of tenure on the Supreme Court has been well noted, but the trend is the same in both the House and the Senate. Advances in medicine, relatively easier travel, and increased reliance on staff all make it easier for members to function well past their prime. Politics already tends to trail public opinion, and the increase in Congressional longevity is leaving our elected bodies whiter, older, more male, and more conservative than they would otherwise be.

Byron Dorgan's 67 years old. In a number of professions, he would be retiring late. But in the sick world of Washington, he's supposed to hold his seat until the day he dies. I may not like John Hoeven's politics, but surely reducing the average age of the Senate by 0.15 years is a step i nthe right direction.

Yemen: A Real Place Tyler Cowen Went To

I was looking over Tyler Cowen's post about his trip to Yemen back in 1996, and it brought home to me how much foreign policy debates about other countries ignore the fact that real people with real lives live there. When people talking about foreign policy discuss countries like Yemen in the light of how to stop the pants bomber, everything gets flattened out into abstractions that keep you from fully appreciating the humanity of the resident population. If you're going to make your foreign policy decisions in a non-evil way, it's important to keep their humanity in mind.

Apparently the capital of Yemen is a very old-fashioned place with ancient architecture, spicy food, people getting high on qat, water conservation problems, dudes carrying those wide curvy daggers in their belts, and ladies who are staring up foreign men from behind their veils. Overall it sounds pretty weird, as Cowen says, but even the residents of a weird place seem more human when you describe their everyday lives than they do in foreign policy abstraction talk.

2010 Midterms in Two Words

Jonathan Zasloff has a brief todo list to get unenthused Democrats jazzed up to vote in November. I actually think the midterms can be made even simpler. Health care will be out of the way by the end of the month; climate change and immigration aren't going to happen in an election year, so it's really going to come down to two things.

Banks. And Jobs.

While the absolute level of unemployment does have an impact on elections, the 1934 midterms show that change in unemployment is the more important number. If things are at least headed in the right direction, Dems will get some credit. Past that, it's time to get financial reform done raise holy hell about financial reform. Keep it off the calendar until all the budget bills pass, and then dare Republicans to tie up the Senate to stop it. Do they really want to go into the election as the defenders of Wall Street, the Credit Card industry, payday lenders, and sketchy mortgage originators? I doubt it will do them any good, and it will give Democratic candidates in swing districts something to run on that should be quite popular. At the moment, it looks like losses are coming, but there's a big difference between losing 10 House seats and losing 35.

Update: right, failing to pass financial reform because you can't get past those bastards, given a session where there were in fact some accomplishments elswehere is, arguably, a better situation electorally than passing a watered-down bill. So, allow me to revise and extend.