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Monthly Archives: September 2010

Am I Wrong Yet?

Friday, September 17, 2010

A few months ago I wrote the following about how the Democrats would blow the great tax cut debate: Here is what will happen. The Blue Dog Democrats, among whom are many recruited by Rahm Emanuel, will undermine the narrative in the House, and join a unanimous Republican caucus to extend the tax breaks, assuming […]

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An American Hero Dude

Thursday, September 16, 2010

It’s folks like this who make you think there might still be hope: Jacob Isom—the rattail-coiffed hero who swiped a Koran from right-wing fanatics and ran—has a dream. “I want to be inHigh Times,” he told me by telephone. Then he showed me a t-shirt screenprinted with his face. After swiping Christian demagogue David Grisham’s […]

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The Pope visits England

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Ooh, that must hurt. Benedict failed to sell out in Glasgow. Apparently, the Brits, who are, if anything worse than us politically, are far more enlightened when it comes to religion. Of course it doesn’t help when this sort of thing happens: The start of the trip risked being overshadowed by remarks by one of […]

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It’s getting warm out there

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

If I read this right, it appears we have just passed through the warmest summer in a very long time. The article is very wonky, but the thrust of it appears to be that July was extremely hot, and so were May and June. Funny, how Fox always seems to talk about global warming on […]

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Nothing succeeds like failure

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

From this morning Times: For 16 years, Marshall A. Cohen served as a director of the American International Group, stepping down just months before the company’s near-collapse in 2008. Several months later, Mr. Cohen was again in demand, joining the board of Gleacher & Company, a New York investment bank. Gleacher expanded its board last […]

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Defending Social Security Disability

Monday, September 13, 2010

My friend Matt Berger passed on a link to an article at Slate by James Ledbetter called America’s Hidden Welfare Program, about the Social Security Disability Program. The program, according to Ledbetter, is a welfare program that encourages people not to work. Now, let us stipulate that I have a financial stake in this, as […]

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Refinancing and recovery

Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Boston Globe’s front page article (Refinancing boom, but little lift for economy) reports on something about which I’ve heard from our real estate attorneys: that refinancings are going strong but home sales are not. The headline puts a negative spin on the refinancing phenomenon, but it might as accurately have noted that despite a […]

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Am I becoming a curmudgeon? (with pictures)

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Am I unreasonable? Don’t answer that. Rather, consider this one case. My wife and I are up here in Ogunquit, Maine, having dropped a pretty penny to stay at a glorified motel with beachfront rooms. Here, as proof, is a picture of the sun rising over the Atlantic, this very morning, taken from right in […]

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Friday Night Music-Is this a repeat?

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Have I done this one before? I’m too lazy to check it out. Of all the one hit wonders from the sixties, Iron Butterfly may have been the wonderest of them all. You had to be there, I guess, but who can forget In a Gadda da Vida? Amazingly, it appears, via youtube, that those […]

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Obama continues Bush’s assault on the law

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Constitution really is on life support. Citing the Obama administration’s evocation of the state secrets privilege, a divided federal appeals court agreed Wednesday to toss a lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary accused of helping the CIA transport detainees to secret foreign prisons where they allegedly were tortured. Ruling 6-5, a panel of the 9th […]

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