Friday, April 09, 2010
Friday morning Atlantic City tab dump
Been tooling away in management meetings for the last couple of days, and then I will disappear in to the Virginia woods for a few days of cycling through the flowering trees. Blogging will depend on my air card reception, which will be somewhere between weak and non-existent. But here's what I have piled up in the last day or so.
A short-hand look at the differences between conservatives and liberals. (Heh.)
Ronald Wilson Obama??!? Conservatives are going to hate this piece, but in the interests of self-preservation ought to worry that it might be right.
Retail sales and jobs are improving, which is annoying to both political parties.
Both Republicans and Democrats are rooting for bad news. Republicans loath to give President Obama credit for anything, and Democrats want another stimulus bill passed. Hence, a recovery defeats what the parties seem to favor as an economic means to a political end.
A sharp observation, and a measure of the cynicism of our political classes (and many bloggers on both sides). Future economic growth depends very much on our national mood, and responsible leaders should be working to improve that mood, not dampen it. A plague on both their houses.
The New York Times, not surprisingly, trippingly skips by the real story. Bonus: A revealing correction at the Grey Lady.
I admit, I do not understand the appeal of the weepy TV people, not Oprah and not Beck. But boy do they tap in to America's wallet.
The "favorables" of the Democratic Party are at an 18-year low. No wonder Bart Stupak is retiring.
A simple thank you would improve my mood considerably. Because I am a realist, I expect the vilification to continue.
Unexplained discrepancies in the measurement of Arctic sea ice and the media uses thereof.
At this point, only the surprise involvement of Eliot Spitzer could make the John Edwards affair more sordid than it already is. (Just a little fantasy of mine, move along.)
Now that the Democrats (and the more irresponsible Republicans) have spent all the money that can possibly be collected by the personal income tax until the end of time, they are quite obviously laying the groundwork for a value-added tax. From a politician's standpoint, a VAT is a virtually bottomless piggy-bank because it is so invisible to the average voter. All they will see is that prices are going up and -- by all appearances -- "corporations" are responsible.
Ezra has some sharp-eyed observations about two surprisingly successful "old media" organizations, NPR and The Economist.
Keep the flags flying.
2 Comments:
By 
VC-Ron, at
Fri Apr 09, 08:59:00 PM:
Re Ronald Wilson Obama, let's pray this does not come to pass. Or, fast forward 20 year and we will be reading the obituary of the United States of America!
By 
, at
Sun Apr 11, 09:56:00 AM:
"there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow."
So what really happened to Polish President Kaczynski & Entourage? This may just have been an unfortunate accident ... or not. It's above my pay grade, but do others here have insight?
The KGB is thought to have been behind the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. Personally, I'd bet Oswald acted alone but on Moscows' orders. I'm not alone in entertaining this speculation: Time 1978: Was Lee Oswald a Soviet Spy?
