A Few Late Thoughts

» CBS: Poll: Bush Approval Rating At New Low
Amazing, a President less popular than gay marriage itself delivering the State of the Union, peddling an issue that gets him even less traction. The wingtards are going to have to tighten their blinders ever more to convince themselves that history will judge W. more forgivingly than folks in the right here and now.

» Houstonist: City councilmembers seek budget input from public
Best public service blogpost of the still-young year here. For Houstonians, this is where your out-of-whack lightpost complaints get heard and reacted on. Want to fix something wrong in your neighborhood, make it out to these meetings. Naturally, I say that having missed my own meeting tonight. Ah well, it just means I'm due for the next one. Besides, I tend to get real drowsy listening to MJ Khan speak in public. Anne Clutterbuck (my nextdoor councilmemeber) is next week. Maybe if I've got some free time then.

» TNR: Equality Bites (Jonathan Chait)

Reynolds's crucial role within the conservative movement was on full display at a packed-house Cato forum last week in which he defended a paper--titled "Has U.S. Income Inequality Really Increased?"--he published earlier this month and summarized in a much-discussed Wall Street Journal op-ed. Reynolds was introduced by Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at Cato, who began by noting that it is a matter of opinion whether income inequality matters at all. (In his opinion, it doesn't.) Nonetheless, he suggested, "Economists and reporters need to be extremely careful in looking at trends in income statistics over time. All sources of income data have various quirks and shortcomings." In other words, conservatives aren't sure whether inequality is rising, and they don't really care if it is. Their primary concern is that newspapers treat the question as a matter of dispute rather than a settled fact.

Must-read of the day here. While Chait's example centers on the rather mundane case of a conservative "economist" attempting the game the media on the matter of income inequality, the lesson cuts to so many other examples ... from the attempts to assert the existence of a "liberal media bias" to "intelligent design" to "global warming." The point isn't to disprove it, it's to detract from credible science or professions in order to get the one and only thing that really matters to conservatism: power.

» Chron: Climate scientists feeling the heat (Eric Berger)
» WaPo: Climate Policy's Odd Man Out (Sebastian Mallaby)
Regarding that very point above, here's a nearly perfect study in contrasts: The Houston Chronicle's Eric Berger - properly gamed by the right in how to balance truth out with ... wait, what is it that you balance truth against? And the Washington Post's Seb Mallaby, who's managed to break some interesting ground by noting Bush administration officials' differences in thought on dealing with global warming.

» Mayor White: State of the City Address
Just in case anyone in Texas wants to see what a "State of ___" address is like from someone still respected by those who originally elected him or her.

» Chron: Former Astros pitcher, pitching coach Vern Ruhle dies (Jose de Jesus Ortiz)
A sad day for this longtime Astros fan. If you look at Vern Ruhle's stat sheet, he looks like a guy who just had one good year in an otherwise modest career. For those who watched him in his prime, we remember him as the guy who stepped up his game the most after JR Richard went down with a stroke. He had some of the more hard-luck outtings in the playoffs in 1980 & '81, battling Fernando Valenzuela all the way to a 2-1 loss after giving up all of four hits to the Dodgers in 1981. He wasn't an All Star ... just a gamer. For all the notable talent the Astros had on the mound in that era, guys like Ruhle were just as much of a joy to watch.