Items by Justin Katz

• Gelatinous Things

  —Anchor Rising

  Monique and Matt talked cranberry sauce and various topics on last night's Matt Allen Show. Stream by clicking here, or download it.... [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 1:41pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Thankfulness, To and For

  —Anchor Rising

  "What are you thankful for?" is a tough question. It's sort of an annual version of "how are you doing?" One isn't supposed to embark on an extended dissertation on the profundities of life, but it somehow feels as if...' [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 9:29am EST
  by Justin Katz

• Hey, Why Don't You Just Pay Yourselves?

  —Anchor Rising

  Didn't want to let this slip away: In what it called a sign of progress, GM also pledged to start paying back $6.7 billion in U.S. loans. But the money will come from a contingency account full of government cash,...' [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 1:45pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Boards and Commissions Out of Control

  —Anchor Rising

  The Rhode Island Way is taking insidious form in some of the public boards and commissions that are meant to help the residents of Rhode Island keep an eye on their government, and the Board of Election's attack on the... [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 9:34am EST
  by Justin Katz

• Battle for the Catholic Brand

  —Anchor Rising

  To some extent, I'm probably out of sync with the perceptions of the general public, on this one, but I find this sort of thing astonishing: In a televised forum that was by turns casual and bitter, the two leading...' [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 7:08am EST
  by Justin Katz

• A Merit-Based Meeting

  —Anchor Rising

  Thankfully, the Tiverton School Committee's workshop on merit pay is much better attended than has been, well, any other meeting since the poorly considered passage of the retroactive teacher contract. Maybe 50 people. School Committee Chairman Jan Bergandy mentioned some... [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 7:09pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Losing Sleep Over and Paying Attention to Education

  —Anchor Rising

  I've got a letter in the online version of the Sakonnet Times (prospectively in the print edition out tomorrow) that begins thus: Residents who wish to understand the gradual deterioration of Rhode Island's public school system need only contrast school...' [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 1:41pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Voter Forum, Part 2

  —Anchor Rising

  Although I haven't had the opportunity to watch it yet, it's good to see that We the People of RI has posted some YouTube footage from the second event held by the Rhode Island Voter Coalition:...' [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 9:43am EST
  by Justin Katz

• On "Conservative Cases"

  —Anchor Rising

  Conservatives should appreciate the organic nature of public discourse. Leave it to leftists to long for a controlled setting — like a classroom or a non-profit board meeting — in which some mediator decisively declares points won or lost. In... [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 5:45am EST
  by Justin Katz

• Cuts Better Than Spending

  —Anchor Rising

  Via the Corner, some economic research out of Harvard (PDF): Our results suggest that tax cuts are more expansionary than spending increases in the cases of a fiscal stimulus. Based upon these correlations we would argue that the current stimulus... [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 1:47pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• The Cringing Generation

  —Anchor Rising

  The end of a recent Mark Steyn column on the nanny state's murder of the "reasonable man" standard rings too true not to pass along: Sikhs like to carry their traditional kirpans — knives up to eight inches — and... [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 9:50am EST
  by Justin Katz

• An Oversold Index

  —Anchor Rising

  Whatever its retrospective analytical utility, URI Economics Professor Len Lardaro's Current Conditions Index seems pretty useless as a gauge of future trends. The news reports that use it simply make no sense: The Current Conditions Index dipped to 33 in... [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 5:46am EST
  by Justin Katz

• The Green Religion and Expensive Government

  —Anchor Rising

  Just wanted to mark this final stage in the incremental establishment of the green religion as the official doctrine of the land: New major public projects and building renovations in Rhode Island, including schools, must be designed and constructed in... [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 4:18pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Thanks and Violence

  —Anchor Rising

  At the tail end of Friday night's Violent Roundtable on the Matt Allen Show (the podcast of which may be found here), Matt asked Andrew, Marc, and I what we're thankful for. I've always found that to be a tough... [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 12:16pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Also About Refashioning America

  —Anchor Rising

  A fair number of people who might be said to lean right — libertarians and moderates and such — would do well to consider a review of the current standing of Catholic charities by Archbishop Charles Chaput, of Denver: When... [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 8:47am EST
  by Justin Katz

• Transforming Society to the Aristocrats' Tastes

  —Anchor Rising

  Perhaps you've come across this already, but information divulged by a former senior adviser to the British government is worth considering, here across the pond: The [reports from the Performance and Innovation Unit, Tony Blair's Cabinet Office think-tank] were legendarily...' [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 3:56pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Preemptive Rebuttal on Property Taxes

  —Anchor Rising

  Yes, the common advice is simply to ignore NEA-RI Assistant Executive Director Pat Crowley, and for psychological purposes, that is certainly an attractive approach. Its problem is that it's in Crowley's nature to rush to expose more broadly forming strategies... [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 12:29pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• A Deadly Scheme

  —Anchor Rising

  Henry Aaron and Isabel Sawhill, of the Brookings Institute, provide a wonderful example of the insanity of allowing individuals to plan large segments of the economy: So here is what we propose: Congress should enact a value-added tax, the equivalent... [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 8:07am EST
  by Justin Katz

• Deny Fathers (and Reality) at Your Peril

  —Anchor Rising

  Fr. John Kiley makes an excellent point in an RI Catholic column that is, for some reason, not online: And it is not just television that demeans men. Catholics would be surprised how often a priest goes to another parish... [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 5:45pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• "Smart" Like a Fox

  —Anchor Rising

  At least I'm not alone in my concern that the "smart grid" craze opens up new horizons of privacy infringement: Smart grid technology -- including new "smart meters" being attached to businesses and homes -- is designed in part to...' [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 1:40pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Anchor Rising on the Roundtable

  —Anchor Rising

  Although you all should listen to Matt Allen every night (and especially on Fridays), for planning purposes, it may interest you to know that Anchor Rising (Andrew, Marc, and me) will be filling the seats and taking the mics for... [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:47am EST
  by Justin Katz

• Unemployment Down, Lack of Jobs Up

  —Anchor Rising

  One wonders whether the editorializing in this Projo report of unemployment numbers follows some sort of template, because it's otherwise difficult to understand: For the first time in nearly three years, Rhode Island's unemployment rate dropped, to 12.9 percent in... [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 9:40am EST
  by Justin Katz

• The End of the Entitlement Road

  —Anchor Rising

  Is this astonishing video of a protest turned near riot related to a wrongfully imprisoned innocent, wanton murder of grandmothers, or government confiscation of children? Nope. It's over a proposed 32% tuition increase for the University of California system. It's...' [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 5:28am EST
  by Justin Katz

• Patrick Unleashed!

  —Anchor Rising

  Rep. Patrick Kennedy gives the impression of a politician sprinting to catch a departing train. Take as evidence of the impression the fact that Patrick Crowley loves this clip of Kennedy in action while filling his seat on the House... [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:49pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Patrick Unleashed!

  —Anchor Rising

  Rep. Patrick Kennedy gives the impression of a politician sprinting to catch a departing train. Take as evidence of the impression the fact that Patrick Crowley loves this clip of Kennedy in action while filling his seat on the House... [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:49pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• A Southwestern Forum

  —Anchor Rising

  The Rhode Island Voter Coalition is hosting a follow-up to its Meet the Candidates forum a month ago. I liveblogged from the first, the complete video is up on our YouTube channel, and I encourage all who can to attend... [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 1:48pm EST
  by Justin Katz

• Backfilling the Stimulus Spending; "Who really knows?"

  —Anchor Rising

  And in a sentence, posted by Kevin Boland, we have the perfect summary of the government stimulus program: Ed Pound, the director of communications for the Obama Administration's "stimulus" website (recovery.gov), dropped a bombshell in interview with the New Orleans... [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 9:42am EST
  by Justin Katz

• Two Distinct Topics

  —Anchor Rising

  Marc brought the topics of Vegas and boobies to last night's Matt Allen Show, and yes, they were two distinct topics. Stream by clicking here, or download it.... [...]
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