This is it for me, at least for this chapter. I am off to join some people who don’t much appreciate voices singing out of key, and while they might be able to get over my public disdain for coaches who punt in opposing territory, it would be rather awkward to continue to point out [...]
Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
The End of the Internet
Posted in Corruption, Education, Energy Policy, Health Care, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Inspirational, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Middle East, Miscellaneous, NAFTA, Obama, War on Terror on December 15, 2009 | 29 Comments »
Picking Fights
Posted in Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Miscellaneous on November 24, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I’m a little surprised to see this: Wal-Mart, the mightiest retail giant in history, may have met its own worthy adversary: Amazon.com. In what is emerging as one of the main story lines of the 2009 post-recession shopping season, the two heavyweight retailers are waging an online price war that is spreading through product areas [...]
Good Job Switzerland
Posted in Foreigners, France, Miscellaneous on September 28, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Roman Polanski, after thirty years of thumbing his nose at justice, was arrested by the Swiss police while on his way to collect a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
No, Mind If I Fart?
Posted in Drugs, Foreigners, Miscellaneous on September 15, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Marc Ambinder and Crooked Timber reflect on the oddest aspect of tobacco regulations: they work. I would have predicted that the ban would never work in pubs. But it did – pretty well instantaneously as best as I could tell. If it hadn’t been for the Irish example, I would have bet even larger amounts [...]
May The Road Rise Up To Meet You
Posted in Inspirational, Miscellaneous on August 26, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Edward Kennedy, dead at 77. We will see plenty of reverential soft-focus pieces on the news over the next few days, stories about the “Lion of the Senate,” about his advocacy for the downtrodden, about the long-lost era when Democrats were not the party of Wall Street. I’d like to see something a bit more [...]
Insane Bolt
Posted in Miscellaneous, Olympics on August 22, 2009 | 4 Comments »
I don’t know what this guy is on, but he sure is fun to watch:
Fiftieth State
Posted in Miscellaneous on August 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of Hawaii’s accession to the Union. It should be a much better place.
More About Food
Posted in Food, Foreigners, Miscellaneous on August 3, 2009 | 15 Comments »
Michael Pollan has a very long piece in the New York Times Magazine that focuses on the seeming contradiction between the strong ratings for the Food Network and the declining amount of time and complexity that goes into a typical American household’s meal preparation: Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day [...]
Merci
Posted in Health Care, Inspirational, Miscellaneous on August 1, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Wow. Big thanks to James Kwak at Baseline, Mike Konczal at both The Atlantic and Rortybomb, Felix Salmon at Reuters, Orangederange at Digg, and everyone who took the time to comment recently. Only eight of my posts have even broken the hundred view mark; to have one just shy of ten thousand is rather surprising. [...]
Inequality
Posted in Foreigners, Labor Policy, Miscellaneous on July 26, 2009 | 3 Comments »
James Kwak takes on Will Wilkinson, who has a critique of Paul Krugman‘s articles about income inequality. I’m not sure I agree with any of them. The third grade version of the debate so far: Paul says that when he grew up in the 1950s, everything was perfect. We lived in cookie-cutter suburbs, drove one [...]
