July, 2012 archive
And Now for Some Cheesecake (Updated) 0
This was in the window of a coffee shop that First Daughter took me to on Third Street in Philly.
Addendum:
It was here.
Is Boston Globe Columnist Jeff Jacoby Paying Attention to That Other Presidential Election? 2
Obviously not.
Otherwise, he could not have brought forth this stream of farcical drivel with a straight face.
Break Time 0
Off to drink liberally.
LIBORious Thinking 0
Radio Times tries to explain the LIBOR scam. If you want to know what it is, why it’s important, and what it tells us about the integrity of the responsible fiscals who would rule your world, this is a good primer.
From the website:
Follow the link to listen or click here (MP3).
The Rich Are Different from You and Me 0
As Field discovers, you just have to ask one of them and she will explain to you that the common people don’t get it.
Drinking Liberally Norfolk Today 0
Drinking Liberally is a support group for liberals, where you can realize you are not alone.
When: 6 p., Tuesday, July 10.
Where:
Lola’s Caribbean Restaurant
328 W 20th St (map)
Details here. Meetup page here.
Let’s Do the Time Warp Again 0
Dick Destiny sees parallels between the rationale today’s multifront Great and Glorious Patriotic Wars and the groupthink that gaves us Viet Nam (and Laos, and Cambodia).
And we know how well that turned out.
In these places, the war can never end because all insurgencies and very little wars between bad people are viewed through a dark lens created on 9/11, one that colors the world much as the old Cold Warriors saw communism, a monolithic threat that can only be smashed by the immediate application of military power before it poses a threat to the homeland.
Read the rest. Then see your doctor for some Prozac.
Happy Feat 0
I’m back from visiting First Daughter in Philadelphia (it was good to be back in Philly). I’ll post some pictures from the trip after I get a chance to prepare them for posting with the GIMP (I have a podcast on using the GIMP coming up at HPR).
She took me to a free art show at UPenn in which Stefan Sagmeister explores happiness. My first impression upon entering the tour was that it might be a bit self-indulgent.
It wasn’t; it was introspective, but also thought-provoking and fun, a difficult combination to achieve.
I recommend it highly. Learn more at the website.
QOTD 0
Franz Kafka, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.
You Can Bank on It 1
In the Guardian, Robert Reich explains what should be obvious. In the world of international banks and banking, the odds are that American banks are vault-deep in the LIBOR interest-rate-fixing scam.
Banks that have been willing to promote dodgy mortgages, sell (in)securitized debt, and foreclose on houses without cause (to mention a just a few practices of the responsible fiscals on Wall Street) certainly wouldn’t have any qualms about fixing an interest-rate roulette wheel.
But if that assumption is wrong – if the bankers are manipulating the interest rate so they can place bets with the money we lend or repay them, bets that will pay off big for them because they have inside information on what the market is really predicting which they’re not sharing with the rest of us – it’s a different story altogether.
It would* amount to a rip-off of almost cosmic proportions – trillions of dollars that average people would otherwise have received or saved on their lending and borrowing that have been going to the bankers instead.
It would make the other abuses of trust Americans have witnessed in recent years – predatory lending, fraud, excessively risky derivative trading with commercial deposits, and cozy relationships with credit-rating agencies – look like child’s play by comparison.
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*Conditional voice. Yeah. Right.