January 2012
4 posts
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December 2011
2 posts
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November 2011
9 posts
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October 2011
4 posts
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Michael Lewis- Financial Disaster Tourist
Former Salomon Brothers bond trader Michael Lewis has morphed into the country’s most talented financial writer, someone with a remarkable gift for making complex financial issues simple to understand. His new book Boomerang, a collection of recent essays for Vanity Fair, is an up close and personal look at the places that got the drunkest in our most recent credit fueled bender- Iceland,...
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Who Can Imagine the Next Goofy Iranian Terror... →
Wired Magazine’s brilliant defense blog Danger Room has run a crowd sourcing exercise to imagine the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s next “attack” on the US. Take a look. Ranked number 4 in horror inducing plots: Financing Sarah Palin’s 2012 Presidential campaign! Number 3: A gigantic “Quds horse” filled with agents and left in Tijuana on our southern...
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September 2011
6 posts
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August 2011
5 posts
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Healthcare and the Fallen Souffle
It is increasingly clear that the United States’ economic troubles are far from over. This Economist analysis argues that the political system has exhausted its remedies for our economic problems. www.economist.com/node/21524886
The stock market plunge that began in earnest last week reflects the market’s belief that we’re not going to recover fully from the recession that began in 2007. ...
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Out of the Ashes: A Steel Mill Grows in...
Amidst the economic gloom comes a remarkable story of revival. The Marcellus shale gas formation is transforming an entire region emptied of jobs. Youngstown, Ohio was, after Pittsburgh and Chicago, one of the nation’s great steel towns. From the 1950’s to the early 1980’s, Youngstown lost virtually its entire steel making capacity, as plant after plant closed down. Now, a...
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July 2011
7 posts
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America Held Hostage, Part II
In this Sunday’s New York Times, Matt Bai had a brilliant essay contrasting the partisan shootout in Washington with successful legislative terms in New York and New Jersey, where, despite sharp partisan differences, Governors and legislators moved together toward reform. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/sunday-review/10governors.html?pagewanted=all
Bai nailed the situation in...
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June 2011
2 posts
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May 2011
1 post
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Hiding in Plain Sight
Ending a ten year long national embarrassment, the US found and executed Osama Bin Laden and buried him, Tony Soprano style, “at sea”. It is clear now why it took so long to find him. He was nestled comfortably in the bosom of our “ally” Pakistan, living a couple hundred yards down the road from their Military Academy.
The biggest risk, after the possible loss of...
April 2011
2 posts
March 2011
6 posts
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Your Tax Dollars at Work!
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is at it again. Here is a YouTube clip of Harry Reid attacking those nasty Republicans for cutting the National Endowment for the Humanities budget on the grounds that it might cancel Elko, Nevada’s world famous Cowboy Poetry Festival. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsDwEUJPlSU
As Dave Barry would have to say, “I’m not making this...
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Scary Food Item of Month
Lord love the Brits. Stiff upper lips and strong stomachs. This NY Times food item purports to picture “Heaven and Earth” - black pudding and mashed potatoes. http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/welsh-rarebit-redux/
But what it really looks like is “Monkey Head in Brown Sauce”. Bon Apetit!
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Reckless Endangerment
On a morning when the US, French and British are attempting to save the Libyan uprising with “surgical” air strikes, the New York Times carries the following story about President Obama’s message to Iranian youth on the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/obama-urges-irans-youth-to-shed-chains/ The video message connects their...
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Virginia Bumper Sticker Watch
Spotted in the Wal-Mart Parking Lot (on the same car!)
WHY EXPERIMENT ON MONKEYS WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY YANKEES AVAILABLE?
and the classic:
GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS (ESPECIALLY THE SNIPERS)!
Semper Fi, dude!
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Fun at the Hospital?
I agree with the author of this post that this whimsical (?!) blood bag probably isn’t going to do much to cheer me up if I’m in the hospital. http://www.ohgizmo.com/2011/03/16/teddy-bear-blood-bags-probably-wouldnt-make-hospital-visits-any-more-enjoyable-for-me/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ohgizmo+%28OhGizmo!%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Why...
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Burnt Offering: Berwick Appointment Doomed
In one of the saddest episodes in the recent history of Washington health policy, President’ Obama’s Congressional allies have apparently decided to walk away from the appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to run the Medicare and Medicaid program and to lead the implementation of health reform. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50698.html.
Berwick, a nearly universally respected...
February 2011
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Harry Reid Takes on the Big Issues!
How many US Senators routinely address their state legislatures? When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did so recently, he proposed taking on a major industry in his state and … outlawing prostitution in Nevada. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50020.html
For a Washington politician to propose outlawing sex for hire while continuing to practice another version of the same...
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See What We Started?
I’ve heard a lot of patronizing cultural explanations about why the Arab world doesn’t have democracies or advanced economies. A lot of those arguments have been blown right out the window in the past three weeks by events in Egypt.
How clear does it have to be: Egyptian people faced down a ruthless dictator with nothing but rocks, social media and an almost insane courage. They...