September 2008
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Best-of-greed
I just like that headline and wanted to write it down while it’s still in my front-of-mind. Feel free to re-use it. Continue reading
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#polylanguagization
The #4 item on Twitter (behind Bailout, McCain and iPhone) is Selamat Hari Raya. #5 is #atlgas, for gas in Atlanta. Continue reading
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The 2012 campaign
Got an email from my sister Jan the other day. She’s a Navy veteran who knew McCain, along with other notables. She’s also quite astute about politics, and follows it more closely than I do. I asked her if it’s cool to pass the email along, and she said yes, so here goes… After seeing… Continue reading
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Quote du jour
Shel Israel: I think that www.whitehouse.gov should just show the Fail Whale from now through the next inauguration. Continue reading
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Bail Off
The bailout was shot down in the house. Redraw your own conclusions. Mine is that it’s a Bad Thing. Continue reading
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Upsiding
Eric Norlin points (via Howard Linzon) to this piece by Andy Kessler. Eric’s summary: Smile. Think abundance, not scarcity. Get optimistic. I’m an born optimist, so this has an appeal. Continue reading
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Saint Paul Newman
Great remembrance of Paul Newman by Manohla Dargis in the NY Times. (I’d like to beg forgiveness for the annoying login required by the Times, but I won’t. It’s just plain wrong for the Times to retain that friction after it’s bothered to open its content anyway.) My own favorite Newman moves are later ones:… Continue reading
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Thoughts atop the cliff
In his comment here, Mike Warot encourages me — and the rest of us — to watch this video by Karl Denninger, whose blog is here. I did. It’s good. But I’m not sure Denninger is right. Or all-right, let’s say. Just somewhat. Here’s the problem as I currently see it. (And I’m no economist.… Continue reading
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Fewer degrees of separation
Stephen Lewis latest, New York Women: Self-Vetting, My Aunt Estelle, and Haikus for Sale, visits the locus and origins of his firmly grounded sensibilities — for example, our distinctly New York senses of humor and our mutual stubbornly-held convictions that work involves heavy-lifting and adding of value rather than flim-flam, image building, and manipulation. The… Continue reading
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Quote du jour
James Fallows: After thirty years of meeting and interviewing politicians, I can think of exactly three people who sounded as uninformed and vacant as this. All are now out of office. One was a chronic drunk. Bonus link. Continue reading
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Hate to say it, but…
I think McCain won the thing. Not on substance, but on style. McCain sounded like Reagan, and Obama sounded like Kerry. The CNN talking heads seem to be giving the edge to Obama, but I just saw Guiliani on MSNBC, who made it clear that Obama gave the right wing talk machine a pile of… Continue reading
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Splurge vs. Purge
Dave supports the bail-out, which many are calling the Splurge. At this point, so do I. That puts me in the company of Warren Buffett and detaches me from Kevin Phillips, who says (below) that it won’t work. Elsewhere Kevin says it just cuts off one tentacle of an octopus. Maybe he’s right. From this… Continue reading
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The Live Web
The other day I was sitting in the company of leaders in one industrial category. (I won’t say which because it’s beside the point I want to make.) A question arose: Why are there so few visitors to our websites? Millions use their services, yet few bother with visiting their sites, except every once in… Continue reading
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Who nose?
On the right, Charles Krauthamer: Paulson is a lame duck. In four months, he is gone. Paulson is asking for the money not for self-aggrandizement but for the same reason Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the markets are asking for it: to prevent the American economy from going over a cliff. Some disdain… Continue reading
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Palin = Evita?
That’s what Naomi Wolf says. It sounds alarmist and paranoid, and in line with The End of America, but as creeped out as I already am by what I hear on the radio (e.g. ordinary Americans saying Wall Street should fail just because fat cats need to be blamed… ignorant of their dependence on an… Continue reading
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By the weigh…
There will be no debate between McCain and Obama tonight. Odds are there won’t be a debate between Palin and Biden, either. Because either one will burst the McCain/Palin bubble. Just my hunches. Bonus guess. Continue reading
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Closer to home
Now J.P. Morgan is the bank that ate the bank that ate my bank. For what little it’s worth at this point, WaMu — Washington Mutual — was a bozo bank. What can you say about a bank that never got its online banking to work right? Plenty, but it’s too late to bother. More… Continue reading
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Circling the drain
Before. After. Best comment under the latter: Look, there are times when you put country ahead of party. The Republicans did it in 1974 when they told Nixon to get out. The Democrats did it in 1988 when they agreed to drop all the Iran Contra investigations in exchange for Howard Baker agreeing to… Continue reading
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Quote du jour
Chris Carfi: The customer really is in going to be in control. Deal with it. Continue reading