SOVEREIGN DEBT CRISIS: Pointers From The Past.
Archive for 2011
January 30, 2011
“SHE’S SO GOOD-LOOKING THAT SHE LOOKS LIKE A MAN:” Transsexual model stirs Brazil fashion show.
ANNE BAYEFSKY: Mohammed El Baradei – The Iranian Frontman.
MORE HOLLYWOOD RACISM: Little diversity among this year’s Oscar nominees.
AS LOOTING AND CRIME EXPLODE, Egyptians create local armed militias. This will generally happen spontaneously most anywhere law and order breaks down.
TRIBALISM in the Middle East.
AT AMAZON, markdowns in sports and outdoors.
THOUGHTS ON EGYPT from Barry McAffrey. “We have few good options. The President and Secretary Clinton are carefully walking the line. Oddly enough— only the last Administration with President Bush and Secretary Condi Rice has ever taken a strong reform position with Mubarak.”
BORDERS BOOKS teetering on bankruptcy?
BUT WE’VE GOT OBAMACARE! China Moving Ahead On Thorium Molten-Salt Reactors.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH GREECE? Ask An Entrepreneur. “Sitting in his office, Mr. Politopoulos took a long pull from a glass of his premium Vergina wheat beer and said it was absurd that he had to lobby Greek politicians to repeal a 19th-century law so that he could deliver the exports that Greece urgently needed. And, he said, his predicament was even worse than that: it was emblematic of the web of restrictions, monopolies and other distortions that have made many Greek companies uncompetitive, and pushed the country close to bankruptcy.”
CHRISTINA HENDRICKS’ ETHICAL BODY: With pictures.
FRANCES FOX PIVEN: “She wouldn’t even harm a fly.” “In the course of this brouhaha, it becomes apparent that leftist academics don’t want to be and should not be taken seriously, that the cultural elite can dish out violent rhetoric but cannot take being called on it, that the NYT has blundered into another loser of an argument, and that people who want to waste their tuition money should major in sociology, which has obviously become the redoubt of clueless, revolutionary manqués. . . . Piven denied to the NYT that she advocated violence in the article. It’s hard to see how that defense stands up, unless she is saying that she didn’t know what happened in Greece when she urged the American unemployed to take action ‘like the strikes and riots’ there.”
Here’s a reminder of what Piven’s “strikes and riots” in Greece involved:
At the same time, tens of thousands of protesters marched through Athens in the largest and most violent protests since the country’s budget crisis began last fall. Angry youths rampaged through the center of Athens, torching several businesses and vehicles and smashing shop windows. Protesters and police clashed in front of parliament and fought running street battles around the city.
Witnesses said hooded protesters smashed the front window of Marfin Bank in central Athens and hurled a Molotov cocktail inside. The three victims died from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, the Athens coroner’s office said. Four others were seriously injured there, fire department officials said.
Just for the record. And here’s the conclusion:
In sum, this was another week in which the media and cultural elites acted stupidly and were called on it. Twice in a row now they’ve tried to paint their opposition as violent thugs only to be revealed themselves as snobbish poseurs, projecting their own thuggish urges onto others. It was another week in which those living off the productive labor of others deride those others, try to undermine them, and are in the process undermining the very society which makes it possible for such foolish poseurs to live in comfort.
Indeed.
ROGER KIMBALL: The British disease, coming soon to a bureaucracy near you.
THOUGHTS ON closing post offices. “Unlike businesses in the private sector who have experienced a decrease in customer traffic or business, rather than improve service, increase product offerings, or cut prices, the USPS has chosen to continuously raise the cost of postage, and not offer new services. While the argument may be that rates need to be raised to keep up with inflation and increased costs, the increases simply force more customers into online bill paying, email, and the competition (FedEx and UPS).”
THEY CALL IT THE STUPID PARTY FOR A REASON:
The House Republicans’ first major technology initiative is about to be unveiled: a push to force Internet companies to keep track of what their users are doing.
A House panel chaired by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin is scheduled to hold a hearing tomorrow morning to discuss forcing Internet providers, and perhaps Web companies as well, to store records of their users’ activities for later review by police.
One focus will be on reviving a dormant proposal for data retention that would require companies to store Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for two years, CNET has learned.
Tomorrow’s data retention hearing is juxtaposed against the recent trend to protect Internet users’ privacy by storing less data. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission called for “limited retention” of user data on privacy grounds, and in the last 24 hours, both Mozilla and Google have announced do-not-track technology.
Good grief. Bad move. Don’t do it.
UPDATE: On Facebook, Calvin Gordon Dodge comments: “I have an idea. Given that politicians are far more dangerous than the average person (since politicians wield far more power), let’s require that they keep track off all THEIR activity, and make it accessible to their employers (us) for 2 years.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reade Roy Horton emails: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water. They are the stupid party.”
BRITISH MET OFFICE changed temperature data for press release to make 2010 look hotter than it was.
DAVID WARREN IS not too hopeful about Egypt. I hope he’s wrong.
WILL OBAMA BE “the President who lost Egypt?” Well, stay tuned.
But Chris Matthews is already warming up the blame-Bush narrative. Well, I guess it all started when the first Bush seized Egypt’s Panama Canal.
Meanwhile, Mike Rappaport agrees with my take.
ADVICE TO THE EGYPTIAN PROTESTERS from Andrew Exum.
TIGER MOMS and government schooling.