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Monthly Archives: January 2009

The next act

Monday, January 26, 2009

Here we go again. Pro Publica reports that the next financial meltdown is coming to a community bank near you, particularly if you live in an area that has seen a lot of development in the past few years. …small banks are suffering from a wave of defaults on construction and development loans that could […]

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Pope Benedict embraces a holocaust denier

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Having long since joined the ranks of the non-believers, I have no personal stake in any particular religious faith, but I must confess that, having had Catholicism pounded in to me at an early age, I still feel a bit of a preference for the old faith. Perhaps the way I feel is a bit […]

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Obama’s First Address to the Nation

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Obama has updated the weekly radio address. It’s on youtube now. Sounds like he’s listened to Al Gore on the power grid issue. Isn’t it great to have a president who knows what he’s talking about, and makes sense to boot?

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Friday Night Music-Don McLean

Friday, January 23, 2009

One of the weirder moments in the Inaugural concert was Garth Brooks singing “American Pie”. He chose to stick to the chorus and didn’t sing the verses. It’s an odd song, to say the least, to sing at a concert that is delivering a message of hope and optimism. The song does neither. It reminds […]

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Obama does bad

Friday, January 23, 2009

Yesterday I noted that Obama had done a great thing in dismantling a portion of the Bush cloak of secrecy be repealing Bush’s executive order on presidential records. Today, I’m sorry to report (you won’t see much about this in the press, I would suspect) that he has taken a huge step down the Bushian […]

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More Silly hat Pics from Inaugural day

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I was put on notice by my spouse that I should post these pictures, which were sent to us by one of the other attendees at the bash at the Par Four. I posted a number of pictures of people wearing a silly hat. Little did I know that someone got a picture of me […]

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Obama does good

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Somewhat lost in the flurry of presidential orders of the last few days is this one, revoking Bush’s executive order allowing incumbent presidents and ex-presidents to exercise absolute control over access to their records held in the National Archives. Bush’s order went so far as to allow a president to exercise control from beyond the […]

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Can’t stop saying good-bye

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
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Holding up Holder

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A short time ago I expressed some cautious optimism about the possibility that the Obama administration might go after the torturers. My basic argument was that a flat out declaration of intent to do so would give Bush the cover to pardon his henchman, on the grounds that any such prosecutions would be political harassment, […]

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Inauguration Day in Groton

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

It has been an almost entirely satisfying day, at least for those of us who watched on television. Bush is gone. The speech was good, though not one for the ages. For those on the front lines, braving the cold and the crowds, the reports filtering in suggest that the folks in charge of crowd […]

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