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Monthly Archives: May 2014

Soylent? Really?

Thursday, May 29, 2014

I make it a regular point to read the Times Tech Section, which appears every Thursday, the same day Apple posts a new free App on the App Store. Thursday must be a day favored by the tech gods. Anyway, today it took a while for me to decide that today's column by Farhad Manjoo […]

Filed in American Life | | Comments (0)

Things look up in Kentucky

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Seems Mitch McConnell has a little problem; one many of us have seen coming for some time. The Kentucky version of Obamacare has been a huge and popular success there, so Mitch has to pass through the eye of a needle so small it would daunt the tiniest camel. He has chosen to do so […]

Filed in Democrats, Health Care, Politics | | Comments (0)

Yet another false equivalency

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

In wandering around the internet today I came upon an article that directed me to this quite able takedown, by David Shorr of TPM, of yet another pundit who blames our current political dysfunction on both parties equally. I couldn't resist some low hanging fruit left un-plucked by Shorr. He quotes John Schindler, the plague […]

Filed in Dysfunction, Pompous Pundits | | Comments (0)

Hey Joe, your 15 minutes are up!

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Isn't it about time that the media let Sam Wurzelbacher slip back into the obscurity from which he came? Who cares what he thinks, and I use the word “thinks” advisedly.

Filed in Crazies | | Comments (0)

Demagogues hard at work in Europe

Friday, May 23, 2014

This morning Paul Krugman warns once again about the rising of the right in Europe, the result of, ironically enough, conservative to right wing (in normal times) economic nostrums. It’s hard to imagine war in today’s Europe, which has coalesced around democratic values and even taken its first steps toward political union. Indeed, as I […]

Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism, Foreign Affairs | | Comments (0)

It’s graduation time, and the pundits are whining

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

It's graduation time, which means graduation speakers, which means controversy about graduation speakers, which means inevitable claims that protest against graduation speakers somehow implicates the right of free speech. The example that provoked this post is here (Open Season on Free Speech), but its brothers and sisters are legion. The fact is that despite the […]

Filed in Lawyer stuff | | Comments (0)

Well, that’s all right then

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

These people make Walmart look good. Yesterday the New York Times revealed that the people building NYU's campus in Abu Dhabi were systematically abusing the foreign workers doing the actual work: Facing criticism for venturing into a country where dissent is not tolerated and labor can resemble indentured servitude, N.Y.U. in 2009 issued a “statement […]

Filed in Corporate Crime | | Comments (0)

A typical case of American blind justice

Monday, May 19, 2014

Every once in a while you see a story like this and you wonder. I'd like to think it couldn't happen here, but this took place in Washington State, not Alabama: At the very end of last year, Shaun Goodman left a bar in Olympia, Washington in his Ferrari and led police on a high […]

Filed in American Life, Equal Justice | | Comments (1)

Piketty

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Blogging has been slow here, as I've been occupied making my way through Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century, attending conventions (still not finished with those), and watching episodes of Doc Martin on Netflix. I finished Capital today. (*Doc Martin* will take a little longer) It's an easier read than one might think. No […]

Filed in Book reports | | Comments (2)

25% normal

Thursday, May 15, 2014

I’ve been busy lately, what with attending meaningless nominating conventions and such like. So, no posts of substance lately. You must, therefore content yourself with entertainment: excerpts from the Idaho Republican primary gubernatorial debates. So, one normal guy. That’s not too bad. Did you catch the look on the moderator’s face?

Filed in Crazies | | Comments (1)