CT Blue

Monthly Archives: May 2009

Making Groton Look Good

Sunday, May 31, 2009

I’ve railed in the past against the Groton Town Council’s penchant for granting tax breaks to hotels. In the most recent case, they granted a tax abatement to a hotel developer who had forgotten to ask for an incentive before he built his hotel. Not to worry, the Council voted to give him his incentive […]

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Take the Oath

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Entirely optional of course, this being a secular humanist sort of thing.

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Friday Night Music-Radiohead

Friday, May 29, 2009

My son is staying with us for a few days, and I asked him to suggest a video, and he directed me to Radiohead’s video of “House of Cards”. It is unclear if this video breaks the no lip synching rule, since it’s somewhat sui generis. Here’s how it was made: In Radiohead’s new video […]

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Groton Hearts Dodd, by a slim margin

Friday, May 29, 2009

Yesterday the Groton Democratic Town Committee adopted a resolution I authored supporting Dodd. The vote was close, there being three Merrick Alpert fans on the committee (including Merrick), and a number of people who voted no because they felt it was too early to endorse anyone, though I carefully avoided the word “endorsed” in the […]

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The memes keep on a coming

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Yet another right wing meme has sprung up about Sonia Sotomayor. Her alleged high reversal rate in the Supreme Court proves that she is far too radical to be on that court. Nate Silver demolishes math here. But I suggest that it’s wrong to buy into the basic premise. First, from a purely partisan point […]

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A trip down memory lane

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I was perusing a front page article in the Globe this morning (co-written by a brilliant young reporter who coincidentally shares my last name), and I noted that Republicans are taking offense at the idea that someone’s life story should be considered in determining his or her fitness for the bench: Obama, however, was quickly […]

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Prop 8 upheld

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The California Supreme Court, as expected, upheld the validity of Proposition 8. A quick reading: before we held that same sex couples were constitutionally entitled to the legal use of the term “marriage” to describe the legal relationship to which they, along with opposite sex couples were entitled to enter. I.e., civil unions with the […]

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Obama’s pick

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Obama has picked Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. I don’t know much about her, so I have no opinion about her legal philosophy, although she certainly appears to have the paper credentials. Of course, so did Alito and Roberts, though I’m sure we can be confident that she won’t be fellow travelers with them […]

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Karl Marx, Looney Tunes Edition

Monday, May 25, 2009

I’ve always believed that Karl Marx’s analysis of society was spot on. His expectations for the future, on the other hand, never cut the mustard. As to those societies that called themselves communist, none made any serious attempt to create the kind of state that he envisioned. They used his ideas to grab power, but […]

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Pity the corporate media

Monday, May 25, 2009

The New York Times drips sympathy for Freemantle Media Enterprises, the company that owns the rights to “Britain’s Got Talent”, the show on which Susan Boyle appeared. Seems that Freemantle has been unable to leverage Ms. Boyle into a windfall profit: The case reflects the inability of big media companies to maximize profit from supersize […]