Another link round up

Busy day.  The one person I’ve heard back from said definitely keep up the commentary on them, otherwise what’s the point.

• Ross Douthat and Megan McArdle suggest a way that the print media to save the mainstream media’s business model: extortion.
• Kevin Drum notes that unions are there in part to keep teachers from having to work twelve hour days and become heroes in movies about troubled students.  I find that convincing.  Teachers don’t need to be driven by social conscience to go well above and beyond normal duties, they’re already probably in a lower income field because they’re teaching.  Our video game industry is of a size that it can get ridiculous amounts of work out of its reasonably well paid people because they really want to make games.  That doesn’t scale up to a nation wide education system.
• Also Kevin Drum’s mom house seems to attract cats the way a Japanese harem comedy guy attracts girls.
• Yglesias notes that moderates don’t necessarily want a smaller government, but instead want an effective government.    Trimming bloat is of course one way to get a more effective government, but if there were easy political wins they’re isolated to recent programs or have been made long ago.
• According to Barron YoungSmith of TNR, the talk of appointing Hillary Clinton to State may be related to assuaging potential feminist backlash from appointing Larry Summers to Treasury.  Can’t say that idea excites me, I much prefer Sen. Clinton’s domestic policy to her foreign policy.
• David Shorr discusses how we could move towards nuclear disarmament.  I think he’s absolutely right.  With the fall of the Soviet Union, there’s no reason we’d ever need to worry about being conventionally overwhelmed on the defense and thus needing a nuclear first strike.  Meanwhile the non-proliferation regime basically has broken down and nukes are slowly spreading.
• Obama is standing firm against torture.    Good.  Hopefully he’ll also take the next step and be sure to gather preserve evidence that may be needed for future war crimes trials.
• CVS is now selling DC Metro Smarttrip cards.  Thank goodness, I’m tired of having to evangelize the things just so my traveling companions don’t slow me down. (Hattip: Greater Greater Washington).