Tyler Cowen and Ezra Klein on Palin’s Speech and What Obama and McCain Would Each Accomplish — or Not — As President

For today’s conversation, we bring together Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University who blogs at MarginalRevolution.com, and The American Prospect’s Ezra Klein.

Posted 09/04/08 in Daily Intel : Instant Politics

Tags: barack obama, early and often, elections, foreign policy, health care, instant politics, iran, john mccain, politics, sarah palin, social security

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• The police blotter shows no intention of taking a holiday. In the West Village, a New Yorker's after-dark nightmare came to life when a woman hailing a taxi was kidnapped and raped by the three men who offered her a ride. The nearby NYU dorm is abuzz with freaked-out students exchanging stories. [NYP] • And in this heartwarming Thanksgiving bit, an estranged gay son came home to reestablish contact with his Brooklyn parents; what he found was Dad's bones, which the mother had squirreled away to continue picking up his Social Security checks. [NYDN] • So much for the fantasy Spielberg offered in The Terminal: A judge rules that a Harlem grocery clerk's deportation to Somalia shouldn't be affected by the fact that Somalia, well, has no government and is currently kinda-sorta run by an Islamist junta. The deportee's pro bono lawyer is furious. [NYT] • In what's shaping up as the worst week in race relations since Katrina, MTA executive Gary Dellaverson stands accused of racism after joking to the reporters that he was "putting needles in [his] Roger Toussaint doll." Al Sharpton is already calling for Dellaverson's resignation, saying — and we quote — the remark was "the same as if he said, 'I want to stick pins in my Al Sharpton watermelon.'" Except that actually, Al, no, it's not. [amNY] • And just to break up the relentless gloom of today's news, the Black Eyed Peas won three American Music Awards. Wait, that's just as depressing as the other ones. [Newsday]

Posted 11/22/06 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line

Tags: al sharpton, brooklyn, crime, deportation, mta, music, racism, rape, social security, the morning line, west village