Quotes by Timothy Noah - Page 3

Why does Medicare have such difficulty accommodating a cut - no, wait, a trim to its annual spending increase - of two measly percentage points? Two words: baby boom.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Difficulty
Annual
Boom
Percentage
Trim
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What if an asteroid were to strike planet Earth? What could we possibly do to prevent it? However many guys we have working on this problem, it can't possibly be enough.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Planet Earth
What If
Asteroid
However
Planet
Prevent
Strike
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Romney has become reluctant to say that human activity causes global warming, and even in his greener days he was always somewhat cagey about which remedies he'd support.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Causes
Global Warming
Greener
Human Activity
Reluctant
Romney
Somewhat
Warming
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Loopy as the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system is, it's better than what you'd probably get by putting such decisions in the federal government hands.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Association
Federal Government
Federal
Motion
Motion Picture
Ratings
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Under Obama, income growth has been confined almost entirely to those at the top of the income distribution, continuing a pattern that began under President George W. Bush.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Confined
Continuing
Distribution
Income
President George W Bush
Bush
Entirely
George
George W
George W. Bush
Pattern
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Success is a wonderful thing, but it tends not to be the sort of experience that we learn from. We enjoy it; perhaps we even deserve it. But we don't acquire wisdom from it.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Wisdom
Acquire
Deserve
Wonderful
Perhaps
Success Is
Tends
Wonderful Thing
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I recognize that Republicans see a moral difference between a dollar taken away from a millionaire in government benefits and a dollar taken away from a millionaire in taxes.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Benefits
Moral
Dollar
Republicans
Recognize
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Various people have explained why Henry Kissinger is a bad choice to run an investigation into what went wrong on Sept. 11. He's a liar. He's an apologist for corrupt regimes.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Investigation
Regimes
Corrupt
Explained
Henry
Liar
Sept
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The federal government does not trample in jackboots those with whom it does business. It wraps them in cotton batting and, when they express ingratitude, apologizes profusely.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Batting
Cotton
Federal Government
Ingratitude
Trample
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When the topic is growing income inequality, it's hard to prettify an imbalance between the rich and everybody else, so instead, conservatives try to argue that it doesn't exist.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Imbalance
Income
Income Inequality
Inequality
Conservatives
Everybody Else
Topic
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One of the enduring mysteries of America's occupation of Iraq is why a nation that so little relishes peacekeeping nonetheless refuses to turn the job over to the United Nations.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Occupation
Peacekeeping
United Nations
Nation
Enduring
Mysteries
Nonetheless
Refuses
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The Bush administration got a lot of things horribly wrong in its disaster response to the New Orleans flood, and it deserves almost all of the bitter recriminations hurled its way.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Administration
Disaster
Flood
New Orleans
Response
Almost All
New Way Things
Bush
Bush Administration
Horribly
Orleans
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The promise of Obama's presidency, in many people's minds, is partly that America will move toward becoming a post-racial society. It's pretty clear, though, that we aren't there yet.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Presidency
Promise
Partly
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Is class snobbery a social reality in the United States? Absolutely, and the kind that's codified by meritocracy is probably more toxic than the old-fashioned kind based on bloodlines.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Snobbery
Toxic
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Being superintendent or the superintendent's chief of staff is important work, but there's no chance it's as difficult as being a teacher, and I hesitate to say that it's as important.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Teacher
Important Work
Staff
Chief
Hesitate
No Chance
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You know what isn't class warfare? Progressive taxation, as in, say, expecting billionaires to pay at least as much in taxes as their secretaries. Ideally, in fact, they should pay more.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Class Warfare
Expecting
Taxation
Warfare
Billionaires
Ideally
Secretaries
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I won't dispute that bankers' privileged treatment in the 2008 crash merits populist scorn. But unfortunately, without a bank bailout, there probably would have been a worldwide depression.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Depression
Crash
Populist
Privileged
Scorn
Treatment
Bailout
Bank
Dispute
Unfortunately
Merits
Worldwide
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Stock prices relative to company assets are no better at signaling the likelihood of future earnings growth than they were the day the Titanic sank, and risk management is a good deal worse.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Assets
Likelihood
Management
Relative
Risk Management
Future Good Better
Earnings
Good Deal
Prices
Stock
Titanic
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Without the three-fifths rule, there wouldn't have been a Constitution of the United States - not one that governed the American South, at any rate - because the South wouldn't have ratified it.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Constitution Of The United States
Rate
United States
Governed
Rule
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Whenever a president nominates somebody to a high-profile post, there is always the risk that some skeleton, real or imagined, will emerge from the nominee's closet and doom the whole enterprise.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Doom
Enterprise
High Profile
Always Will Real
Closet
Emerge
Nominee
Real Will Always
Post
Skeleton
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You can be president of the United States and have the best, most bipartisan-seeming idea in the world. But if it doesn't have a constituency, you might as well be town clerk of Toad Suck, Arkansas.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Arkansas
Might
President
States
United States
Idea
Clerk
Well
Toad
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Everyone agrees that animals should not be exposed to unnecessary pain. But neither should scientists be hamstrung by the requirement to use anesthesia in every animal experiment that might cause pain.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Agree
Anesthesia
Animal
Exposed
Pain
Unnecessary
Experiment
Neither
Requirement
Scientists
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If we were to compile a list of the ways in which the United States has made both itself and the wider world a better place, then at or very near the top would be its commitment to universal education.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Better Place
Commitment
Education World Better
Education Better World
Compile
List
Near
Wider
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The advantage of a market-based national defense is obvious: Every citizen would receive an individualized amount of military protection, based on the value each of us placed on defending the homeland.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Advantage
Amount
Homeland
Military
National Defense
Obvious
Protection
Based
Citizen
Defending
Placed
Receive
Value
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The Pentagon got fed up with its recruits getting ripped off by payday lenders and in 2007 got Congress to make it illegal to extend such loans to members of the military. But civilians remain fair game.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Civilians
Congress
Fair Game
Fed Up
Illegal
Members
Military
Pentagon
Ripped
Extend
Fair
Fed
Loans
Remain
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President Obama seems to think that you win by demonstrating that you're a more reasonable person than your opponents. It didn't work too badly, I'll grant, as an electoral strategy in the 2012 election.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Demonstrating
Election
Opponents
President Obama
Reasonable
Strategy
Badly
Grant
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The only agency of the federal government with a more demoralized workforce than Homeland Security is the Small Business Administration, a notorious turkey farm that should have been abolished years ago.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Abolish
Administration
Agency
Demoralized
Federal Government
Homeland
Homeland Security
Notorious
Small Business
Workforce
Farm
Turkey
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Wal-Mart uses technology to increase sales volume, but the more it does so, the more it drives down profit margins - its own and everybody else's. The same logic does not appear to hold for Goldman Sachs.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Goldman Sachs
Logic
Margins
Profit
Volume
Appear
Drives
Hold
Sales
Uses
Wal-Mart
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Electing Barack Obama president was a glorious Jackie Robinson moment for the United States of America. Obama didn't just win; he became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win a popular-vote majority.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Barack
Carter
Democrat
Glorious
Jackie
Jimmy
Majority
United States Of America
Barack Obama
Jimmy Carter
Robinson
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Steve Jobs was the greatest manufacturer of consumer products of his age. His marketing vision put him on par with Henry Ford, and his grasp of the aesthetic component to industrial design far surpassed Ford's.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Aesthetic
Component
Consumer
Ford
Grasp
Industrial
Manufacturer
Par
Steve
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We live in an era of mind-blowing scientific discovery, virtually none of which ever makes the front page, even as every trivial twist and turn in the rococo political drama has a secure place as the lead story.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Discovery
Drama
Mind Blowing
Secure
Front Page
None
Page
Scientific
Trivial
Twist
Virtually
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I'd never have guessed that, six years after Medicare introduced a drug benefit, it would still be forbidden to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies. Health reform might fix that, but it probably won't.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Forbidden
Health Reform
Medicare
Pharmaceutical
Pharmaceutical Companies
Reform
Six
Benefit
Fix
Companies
Introduced
Negotiate
Prices
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One of my lifelong hobbies has been to collect 'aptronyms' - the newspaper columnist Franklin P. Adams's term for people whose names were curiously appropriate to, or provided ironic comment on, their occupations.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Appropriate
Comment
Franklin
Hobbies
Ironic
Term
Collect
Columnist
Curiously
Newspaper
Occupations
Provided
Whose
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The hometown economic elite - rich local families or individuals whom people used to praise or revile, read about in the society pages, and gossip about incessantly - disappeared from most American cities decades ago.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
American Cities
Cities
Decades
Gossip
Hometown
Incessantly
Pages
Praise
Disappeared
Elite
Individuals
Society Rich People
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The doomsayers of the 1970s were wrong about how quickly the world would run out of oil, but not about the dangers that hydrocarbon consumption posed to the global environment, especially with respect to climate change.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Respect
Climate Change
Consumption
Environment
Oil
Change Respect World
Change World Climate
Run
Dangers
Wrong
Global
Global Environment
Quickly
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Within the narrow confines of Permanent Washington - the journalists, lobbyists, and congressional lifers who are the city's avatars of centrism and continuity - Ford is considered the beau ideal of American leadership.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Leadership
Lobbyists
Permanent
Considered
Beau
Confines
Congressional
Washington
Ford
Ideal
Journalists
Narrow
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Right now, as I'm typing this, some liberal somewhere is saying something unforgivable about Michelle Bachmann or Ann Coulter. I condemn you, whoever you are! But I'm not going to conduct a house-to-house search to find you.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Typing
Somewhere
Condemn
Liberal
Michelle
Saying
Search
Whoever
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Some liberals think that describing any role that education gaps play in creating income inequality is some sort of sellout - that, in essence, you're telling the middle class, 'Tough luck; you should have stayed in college.'
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Describing
Essence
Gaps
Income
Income Inequality
Inequality
Luck
Middle Class
Liberals
Sellout
Stayed
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If one does not wish to take the word of journalists, human rights groups, and the United Nations that Iraq conducted a deliberate campaign to eradicate the Kurdish population, there's always the word of the Iraqis themselves.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Deliberate
Groups
Human Rights
Nations
Population
United Nations
Campaign
Eradicate
Iraqis
Journalists
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The argument most commonly made in the filibuster's favor is crudely partisan: 'Our side may be in the majority now, but someday it will be in the minority, and when that happens we'll want to block the other side's extremist agenda.'
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Block
Extremist
Filibuster
Majority
Someday
Commonly
Favor
Minority
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The intriguing aspect of food charges on airlines is that they create the perfect laboratory for any economist who wishes to study the question of how to price a good that possesses, by universal consensus, absolutely no objective value.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Aspect
Consensus
Economist
Intriguing
Laboratory
Airlines
Good Food Value
Charges
Objective
Possesses
Price
Wishes
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There is no better example of social and economic policy discussion as an idle pastime for the rich than the World Economic Forum at Davos. These guys make the millionaire schmoozers at the Aspen Ideas Festival look like short-order cooks.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Cooks
Discussion
Economic Policy
Idle
Pastime
World Better Look
Aspen
Better World Look
Festival
Forum
Look World Better
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We live in a diverse nation, but it isn't that diverse. If any one state showed results so dramatically different from the results in each of the other 50 states, the likeliest explanation would be that someone had tampered with the polls.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Diverse
Explanation
Polls
Dramatically
Tampered
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The liberation of Iraq, which is already hard to justify from the perspective of American interests, at least had the virtue of freeing Iraqis from a brutal dictator. Despite all the anarchy and violence, life has gotten better for most Iraqis.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Anarchy
Brutal
Dictator
Justify
Liberation
Perspective
Virtue
American Interests
Freeing
Iraqis
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Whenever a Kurd wants to measure the depth of some foreign leader's commitment to Kurdish autonomy, he listens for one particular word. That word is 'federal.' Anyone who will say he favors Kurdish federalism can be counted a friend of the Kurds.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Autonomy
Commitment
Depth
Favors
Counted
Federal
Listens
Measure
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The gulf between Virginia and Maryland isn't only a function of geography. It's also sociological. Indeed, it's probably not much of an exaggeration to say that Maryland suburbanites and Virginia suburbanites constitute two mutually hostile tribes.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Exaggeration
Function
Geography
Hostile
Maryland
Sociological
Tribes
Virginia
Constitute
Gulf
Indeed
Mutually
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There is quite a lot of mutual misunderstanding between the upper middle class and the working class. Reviewing what's been said about the white working class and the Democrats, I realized that there's even a lot of disagreement about who the working class IS.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Class
Middle
White
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The fallacy is that politicians don't really do much about social issues. They just demonize their opponents as elitists and reap the benefit. It's a stupid way to do politics. Economic issues can more often be addressed concretely, and it would seem logical for people to vote their interests in this area.
Timothy Noah / Journalist
Issues
Often Is
Stupid
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Timothy Noah Quotes - Page 3

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