Tuesday: Springtime for the NYTimes and Big Lies

It’s been really cold in NJ this spring.  Yep, I know it’s still early but I wore the liner of my trenchcoat yesterday and could see my breath in the chilly rain.  I’m thoroughly sick of it.  If you in the midwest are holding onto the zephyrs, please let them go already.  I feel like [...]

Obama = Worse than Bush

Barack Obama in August, 2007: Barack Obama today? Read it and weep, Conflucians. From Raw Story (h/t commenter iloveny) President Barack Obama invoked “state secrets” to prevent a court from reviewing the legality of the National Security Agency’s warantless wiretapping program, moving late Friday to have a lawsuit that challenged the program dismissed. The move [...]

The Brits are Bored with Barack

First thing this morning, commenter Fif, posted a link to a hilarious blog entry by Iain Martin at the Telegraph UK, “Barack Obama really does go on a bit.” Isn’t it time for him to go home yet? It is good, in theory, that the new President of the United States is taking so much [...]

What’s wrong with this picture?

No, I’m not talking about the fact that they didn’t put the tallest guys in the back row.  From Egalia at Tennessee Guerilla Women: World leaders are men. Women are wives. The imbalance of power is unmistakable. There was plenty of racial and ethnic diversity at the G20 Summit of World Leaders. Gender? Not so [...]

Monday: Billionaire Biologists

The NYTimes has an article about the world of D. E. Shaw quants and an Larry Summers.  Louise Story, who wrote the piece, doesn’t go into details about what it is that Shaw’s group does exactly and, to be honest, this is really a job for someone like David Kestenbaum, the Harvard trained physicist turned [...]

Confluence Insomniac’s Edition

Ok, I’ve tried everything (well, *almost* everything) I can think of to get to sleep and nothing is working.  I see that myiq2xu failed to post my two recommendations for Worst Music Video.  And although I don’t think anything will top Vlad of Moldavia, I thought I’d post my nomination for Worst International Music Video.  [...]

Sunday Evening Open Thread

News from a land down under: THE bra market is expanding, literally. Up to 40 per cent of Australian women now buy bras with a cup size of DD or higher, new figures from lingerie suppliers show. In the 1950s, the most common bra-cup size was a B – three sizes less than a DD. [...]

THE BOOK CLUB: A LIFETIME LOVE AFFAIR

I learned to read before I went to school. Coming from a dysfunctional and chaotic upbringing, I found an escape valve in reading since I was able to transport myself from my surroundings and shut out the din taking place in another room. A book became not only an outlet but a friend, a comfort, [...]

Sunday: Ask not for whom the pitchfork comes.

PBO made this “you’re in a heap o’trouble” statement to his friends in the financial industry the other day: The bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president of the United States. Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial [...]

Let them eat cake

From The Guardian: Bankers rage at G20 “witch hunt” Bankers and hedge fund managers were furious yesterday at attempts by the G20 to cap their pay and regulate them for the first time, calling it a “witch hunt” by world leaders. “Regulation is generally bad. You should let the market decide what the people will [...]