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Monthly Archives: January 2014

Another major surprise: Government works!

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

I'm currently making my way through Doris Kearns Goodwin's latest, The Bully Pulpit, a sort of dual political biography of Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Without getting explicit, she's making a lot of points about our current situation. Among other things, she claims, and I think I agree, that one of Teddy's greatest accomplishments […]

Filed in Environment, Good News, Politics | | Comments (0)

Who could have known that outsourcing government doesn’t work?

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Here's further proof, should anyone need it, that “privatizing” public functions often makes those services more expensive and lower quality. For decades, citizens have been sold on the mantra that the hungry private sector can do a better and cheaper job of providing services than “inefficient” government. Now it is true that there were some […]

Filed in Corporate Crime | | Comments (0)

Friday Night Music

Friday, January 3, 2014

This feature is becoming occasional only, as it becomes harder and harder to adhere to certain self imposed limitations, the most important of which is that there shall be no repetition of artists. Anyway, one of my readers (my only reader?) asked me if I’d ever featured the Youngbloods, to which I responded that it’s hard to […]

Filed in Music | | Comments (1)

Great David Brooks takedown

Friday, January 3, 2014

I don't read David Brooks. I let other people do that for me. He's just another Edmund Burke wannabe, without the brains to pull it off. But I did read him once or twice in the past, and my distant memories are enough to know that this parody of his recent marijuana column is spot […]

Filed in Pompous Pundits | | Comments (0)

A bit of sanity, in Utah of all places

Thursday, January 2, 2014

A state legislator in Utah is proposing a state constitutional amendment “that that would exempt religious institutions from performing same-sex marriages even if the state is required to issue marriage licenses to gay couples”. Now, your first reaction might be to roll your eyes, but the guy's rationale, to my mind, makes sense, and even […]

Filed in Lawyer stuff, Religion | | Comments (0)

Something we can all agree on

Thursday, January 2, 2014

If you’re like me (and you should be) you’ve seen lots of maps of the U.S. showing differences among the states in graphic fashion. Typically, they show the Southern States coming off as one might expect: worst. For instance, divorce rates are higher in the Bible Belt, as are rates of teen pregnancy. The disparity […]

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No Mystery Here

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

This morning the Times ran one of those year in review stories, this one about house prices. The story notes that, in what should not be a suprise to any sentient being, the increase in house prices of recent days appears to be a passing phase, and it's more than likely that the rate of […]

Filed in Economics | | Comments (0)

Where are the Obama haters when we need them?

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A few days ago, I noted my utter lack of surprise at the fact that Eric Holder has refused to enforce a subpoena sought by some government officials investigating JP Morgan's role in aiding Bernie Madoff. It seems there is some doubt that the financial geniuses at the bank really didn't know Madoff was scamming […]

Filed in Corporate Crime, Corruption | | Comments (0)