Australian Working-Class Films and Netflix queue as time capsule

After adding most of these movies to my Netflix queue I got to thinking about my queue as a sort of time capsule/practical joke I play on my future self. Half the time a movie comes up to the top of my queue I have no memory of putting it there, and sometimes I really have to wonder why I ever did. What possessed me to put Strangers When We Meet on there? Right now I have Astroboy, Strike, and Doctor Who Season 3, disc 4 at home. I guess that makes me well-rounded. Strike is obvious, of course. But Astroboy? Well played, past me. Well played.


(h/t Working-Class Perspectives, for the films)

Taibbi stumbles close to the truth

In a blog post on Rolling Stone called "Obama Doesn't Want a Progressive Deficit Deal," (go read the whole thing; it's short, I'll wait) Matt Taibbi is both right and wrong in his summary:

I simply don't believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc. That they won't do these things because they're afraid of public criticism, and "responding to pressure," is an increasingly transparent lie. This "Please, Br'er Fox, don't throw me into dat dere briar patch" deal isn't going to work for much longer. Just about everybody knows now that they want to go into that briar patch.

I don't think the Democrats would be worse off with most voters either. Some voters will be demagogued no matter what Obama and Congressional Democrats do or don't do. And then there's racism, of course. But the Democrats haven't retreated from bread and butter issues like job creation because they're afraid of "public criticism." They may well be, of course, but they're even more afraid of losing their lifeblood: campaign contributions from Wall Street and the rest of corporate America. That is why Obama and the Democrats enact policies that are pro-rich and pro-business. This is not rocket science.

Voting and class

Another great post from Andrew Gelman on whether or not people vote against their own interests (spoiler alert: they don't). Written in reaction to this awful BBC article, it serves as a useful reminder to check the occasional fact.

Update: on a related note, this from factcheck.org, on non-elder health insurance coverage rates.