From the NYT’s ArtsBeat blog: Well, that only took, what, 50 years? After a career spanning nearly a half-century as a solo artist and a member of groups like Buffalo Springfield and Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Neil Young won his first Grammy Award in a pre-telecast ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon. Great! …
It’s just pulled all Macmillan books from its website, citing differences over the pricing of e-Books. Lots of discussion at Making Light, including links to John Scalzi’s thoughts and a letter from Macmillan’s CEO. Amazon’s getting awfully high-handed here; I think I’ll switch to Powell’s and Borders once my last order clears.
The Hawai’i State House just punted on a civil unions bill, and they did it in the most cowardly fashion imaginable: on a voice vote. The State Senate passed a bill which would allow the same rights to both same-sex and heterosexual couples on the first day of the new legislative session, so it moved …
Well, now. That was extraordinary. Have you ever wished there was something similar to the Brits’ House of Commons Question Time, when members ask questions of the Prime Minister? That’s what happened today at a Republican Retreat in Baltimore, and it’s safe to say that they will probably not invite President Obama to speak to …
Today on ATC Robert Seigel spoke with a guy named Robert Call in Chillicothe to whom he’d previously spoken a while back. This was a guy who seemed generally sympathetic to the President’s goals. Seigel asked the guy about health care reform, and the guy said he was glad it was sinking because he liked …
Full text. I thought he did well. I’d have liked a little more fire and brimstone directed at The Party of No, but evidently Obama and his team felt this wasn’t the time or place for it. Equally, it could just not be his style to express anger in public. Exhorting his fellow Democrats to …
You’ve got a lot of smart political pros working for you, Mr. Obama, so were they all out to lunch yesterday when your team leaked the spending freeze plan? If it was basically a series of targeted cuts as it now appears to be, why announce anything at all? You could have submitted your budget …
Continue reading ‘Hand one to the other side, why doncha?’ »
Headline: Obama Seeks Freeze on Many Domestic Programs Dear sweet Mother of God, and he’s got economic historians working for him, too. Look at the charts at Wikipedia. See the dip in GDP and the spike in unemployment in 1937? That was when Roosevelt listened to the anti-deficit opposition and rolled back many of his …
Update below Steve Benen of Washington Monthly has written a memo outlining his ideas on how to get the health care reform bill passed. Some clever soul named Ian in the comments at Balloon Juice created a website called Pass The Damn Bill which redirects to Benen’s memo. I urge you to read the memo …
For a period of about 25 years I couldn’t wait for a new Dick Francis novel; I often got them in hardback for my birthday (it coincided with his publication dates). These days I don’t find them compelling enough to do that; I’ll wait for the paperback. Sure, economics has something to do with it …