Democratic state legislators have begun fleeing their respective capitals as if the plague has broken out. Perhaps they see it that way. Republicanism has gone viral, and it seems that no state is safe, no matter how unionized.

But this plague is called democracy, and the cure is worse than the disease.

Read the full article at CNN.com

See more great art by Swedish artist Johan Thörnqvist at his website.

The most ridiculous critique of civil service unions I've heard so far this week goes like this: "It isn't fair that the union members can vote for the people who will ultimately meet them on the other side of the negotiating table.  Even worse, the unions contribute money to campaigns and thus have undo influence over there negotiating partners in government."

Here's the deal: how much money you get paid is based on how much other people get paid. This is a fact of life. Your paycheck is based on what other people get in other jobs like yours, and what other people in your area make, and what other people with your qualifications make. The price of those people's work sets the price of replacing you if you quit your job. If you make less than they make, it can only be so much less. If you make more than they make, it's only realistically going to be so much more.

I've spent a lot of time studying the tactics of the right wing. While I've expended a great deal of energy disparaging them, I have also developed a certain respect for the right's ability to recruit millions of Americans to its side. In a few decades, the conservative movement has transformed itself from a faction within the once vastly outnumbered Republican Party to the most powerful voting block in the nation.

The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better by Tyler Cowen

The Great Stagnation, a short yet ambitious e-book by economist Tyler Cowen, has been generating a lot of buzz lately. It has been recommended by Matthew Yglesias (ThinkProgress), Ezra Klein (Washington Post), Tim Harford (Financial Times), and Nick Schulz (Forbes), to name a few.

I bought the book on the suggestion of EmmaZahn here at dagblog. I found it to be clear, original, and so engrossing that I missed my subway stop. But I did not ultimately find it persuasive.

In the book, Cowen argues that America's spectacular growth of the past 200 years has been driven by the consumption of "low-hanging fruit" which we have now exhausted. In particular, he cites cheap land, advances in education, and technological innovation. He argues that since we can no longer rely on these drivers, our economy will stagnate for the foreseeable future.

But you don't have to be an economist to see that the evidence Cowen relies on to bolster his low-hanging fruit theory has been derived from some aggressive cherry picking.

I was walking to the station this morning, and heard a rush of steps in the old creekbed next to the road. I looked over expecting a beaver and saw a startled doe, which was looking back at me across the swale. "Hello, deer," I said, then realized how odd that sounded. I'll be glad when my wife rejoins me next week. I find myself talking to plants, the TV, the sink.

 Remember Mark Williams?  The same Mark Williams who was kicked out of the Tea Party Express (!) for writing a letter from the "colored people" to President Lincoln?  The same Mark Williams who called President Obama an "Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug"?

The U.N. Security Council is poised to vote on a resolution that would condemn Israeli settlement activities in occupied Palestinian territory, calling the construction "illegal" and "a major obstacle to the achievement of peace."

The White House is trying to block the resolution, but Obama has not indicated whether the U.S. would veto it. Predictably, American politicians and pundits from across the political spectrum are furious that Obama would "sell out" Israel.

This week DARPA unveiled its newest entry into the spy game, the Nano Hummingbird.  The teeny, tiny $4 million prototype flew around a parking lot and then through a standard-sized door, all the while showing us on a small screen what it was seeing through its teeny, tiny eyes.  The hope is that it can be used for reconnaissance and surveillance without anybody noticing, as it zooms in at eight miles per hour and gathers info we might find useful.

I started reading the Econbrowser blog because it's peak oil-aware founder JD Hamilton posted frequently on The Oil Drum. At some point, Hamilton brought in the very technical Menzie Chinn as co-blogger. Yesterday, in Analogy Watch: "Cairo has come to Wisconsin"? Chinn repudiated the claim Paul Ryan had made on MSNBC:

Williams College was never Berkeley. Founded in 1793 among the minor mountains of western Massachusetts, the red brick buildings of this tiny liberal arts college housed generations of white, Protestant elites from the East Coast. In 1961, the New York Times Magazine described Williams as "a gentleman's school -- fashionable, mildly snobbish, not too obtrusively intellectual."

This Slate article is pretty darned amazing.  John Dickerson imagines that President Obama is secretly working with the Republicans on some hardcore budget cutting.  Dickerson writes of this approvingly, as if a back room deal is the only way that we'll get to the Social Security and Medicare cuts that he believes we need.

Sam Antar, one of the architects of the “Crazy Eddie” fraud of the 1980s, has examined the current state of politics and has made an important decision - He's going back to crime.

And what a week it was! (Just this morning, Mubarak stepped down in Egypt.  Nothing can top that.  I mean nothing.)

Dear readers, compatriots, and assorted morons,

There have been rumors that I would bow to the outpouring of popular contempt by resigning my position as Administrator in Chief at dagblog.com, one of the most populous and strategic properties in the blogosphere. Those rumors are lies.

I have faced public flaming several times in my illustrious career. I did not submit, nor yield to ad hominem attacks. I do not negotiate with trolls.