I have come to distrust the media...I think a "shuffle the deck" plan would be a slight improvement. Each person selected to attend is given a card. On the car, you ask your question. Cards then shuffled and each candidate alternates in picking a card from the deck. If a question is a duplicate, pick a 2nd card.

Candidates of course can begin an answer to a question and quickly switch the topic and make the statement (my opponent hangs with terrorist, my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 7:47 AM on October 7, 2008

I confuse her with the governess of Alaska...but this one seems not to wink.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 6:51 PM on October 6, 2008

This is not something new or unknown, but the odd part is that we allow for more and more births and then send more and more aid in our cute humanitarian way. Go figure.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 10:13 AM on October 6, 2008

60 Minutes last evening had a well done segment in which it was made clear that the taking down and the skirting of regulations made it possible for the mess to come about...alas, we now hear from the Right that it is all the fault of so and so at such and such a place making bad mortgages to minority people and that caused the entire mess. In fact, you have to go back to Ronnie and Jimmie et al to see the loosening of regulations and oversight that has been taking place which, in turn, has... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 6:24 AM on October 6, 2008

As the campagining goes on, forever it seems, McCain over and over reveals his inability to believe in anything and keeps changing his positions and his words and his mind. Now we had, a short while ago, a big story on The NY Times about the McCain gambling addiction> Easy enough to say well he has loads of money so who cares. But a gambler at the nuke trigger etc is in fact a serious worry. Then there is this:
http://therealmccain.com/doctors/?... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 2:10 PM on October 4, 2008

There is this consolation about the forthcoming debate: a prof, specialist in presidential politics, said this morning on tv that at this point the debates don't really matter unless something from Obama is so outrageous as to make a difference.

S. Pinker (MIT linguist) noted today in the NY Times that there is a difference between the debate format and the interview, and that in a debate, there is little chance for digging deeper and deeper into responses. Then too it... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 3:08 PM on October 4, 2008

MIT linguist Steve Pinker, in The NY Times, today pointed out the difference between performances in a debate and an interview. In the debate, note that the camera is on the person being asked a question and thus we do not see what takes place with the other debater. Here, though, Is the use of a split screen to show us what Palin was doing while grabbing the essence of what Biden was saying:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/03/palin-can-read/
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 1:38 PM on October 4, 2008

The two earlier depressions were caused by this or that buty after 1929 Great Depression, the govt and the people knew that things could be managed by the govt. Thus FDR built in constraints...over a period of time, these regulations and constraints have been removed and/or ignored, and we got the present crisis. Oddly, the "free market" folks, anti-govt regulation, now turn to the govt (our money) to bail them out: ie, save their butts from their greed and folly and malfeasance. We... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 2:21 PM on October 3, 2008

Are we then to assume that the sort of thing we are now undergoing is like \weather cycles and are not man-made but a natural phenomenon? Irving et al lived prior to a time when we had a govt that could deal with economic problems through the Fed, inflation etc. We have had regulations and controls in place and they have been removed or ignored or not policed properly. That has allowed greed to play its role, uncontrolled. Any number of Democrats, back to Carter, have been involved in... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 4:54 PM on October 3, 2008

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=304013

explains what is going on...why do you think the revised senate bill raises FDIC as much as it does? Not for your bank account or mine.
the system will not collapse. Too many of the Lords of the Universe are counting on YOU to make sure they are ok
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 12:07 PM on October 2, 2008

Carr uses an offbeat approach to his book. He knows that he can not recall lots of the stuff he had done while seriously addicted so as a good reporter he did some investigative searching to find out something objective about his past. Most if no all recovery books assume the writer is fully aware of his past and can be objective in recall. But the great reporting and writing aside, all recovery books can but follow this pattern: I once was lost but now I'm found. If not found, then no book....... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 8:05 AM on October 2, 2008

Warren Buffet on tv a very short time ago and interviewed by Charlie Rose. B. said that the magnitude of the problem --no credit--is so immense at this point that only federal govt intervening can work and that without it, all would crumble. In passing he noted that people like him under the last few years (ie, ush) paid hardly anything while those cleaning his office paid a lot (percentage of income) and that the wealthy ought to be doing much more. there have been any number of pundits telling... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 7:22 PM on October 1, 2008

As noted, many men in fact do fancy pantyhose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantyhose_for_men

we used to say to women when they put on silk hose: you can run but you can not hide.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 6:20 PM on October 1, 2008

You know, I was going to vote for Obama becfause I thought he would be good with the economy, and I thought he had a sensible position on foreign affairs, and I thought he was bright and cool. Buit now, after watching Palin, I decided to switch and vote for McCain
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 4:50 PM on October 1, 2008

Here is what I really like about Palin. I miss teaching, something I had done for many many years, and when I hear her asked questions, I am instantly reminded of my dumb broad students--and yes, I can say that now that I am retired--who sounded exactly like her (guys do it too but not so well) and circle round and round and say nothing. Nada. Zip. Any teacher who has been in the game long enough knows this sort of fakery. I will now speak for all those teachers who have to endure such crap: We... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 5:55 PM on October 1, 2008

People magazine for music
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 7:01 AM on October 1, 2008

I have never been so taken with the guy as most here seem to be, but I find what he has to say about the bailout not impressive. Sure, he quotes a guyh who was prescient in figuring the meltdown would take place. But simply letting things go, a libertarian view, makes me shudder to think that the conservative GOP in the House wnant this and that makes it questionable when sol impressive a magazine as the The Economist does a big series on the situation and contends that the bailout must take... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 6:55 AM on September 30, 2008

I was born during that bad time and as a child, very young, I guess some of my habit reflect those times and find myself often answering people who complain about this or that: I was a Great Depression baby and that is why.

Best book for details on FDR and how he reacted, how the courts acted, how congress acted, and the various people behind his "brain trust"--

Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man
in paper and reissued--a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 7:32 AM on September 29, 2008

Is that a new model or the same as the "Corolla"?
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 1:12 PM on September 28, 2008

It will be a victory, Lefty, when we get a permanent base in Iraq and when we get most of the oil rights there...then we can send troops to Afghanistan to make sure the poppy growth for heroin is controlled by us rather than the Taliban.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 10:12 AM on September 28, 2008

this is what is so frightening about her, finally

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvesa49zSIM
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 11:49 AM on September 27, 2008

In what seems a thousand years ago, when I was celebrating my anniversary with my first wife, I went to a very nice and expensive restaurant upstate in Ct. We were alone (got there a bit early) and soon after, Newman and his wife walked in and sat at a table across the way...we were the only two couples there at that time. I turned to my wife and said: "don't look at them, I don't them to recognize me." My wife noted that we had little to say to each other but they were talking... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 8:59 AM on September 27, 2008

I have a number of vets and friends on the right and they always end up by suggesting that we could have, should have, won Viet Nam. They forget that it was the American public that said enough, enough, and got the troops out of there. McCain is in that mode. We could have won that war, Iraq, and also Afghanistan if we simply keep sending troop[s and never leave any place.

Ob ama will always be wooden.It is his nature. He is bright and informed but lacks passion. On the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 8:39 PM on September 26, 2008

Note to Sarah: I got bad news fopr you. My lin-laws are coming up from Florida to stay with us!
But fret not. They are Obama fans and Jewish.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 8:35 PM on September 26, 2008

You don't have to listen! It is already won!!



His gang just couldn't wait to let us know so we could, like McCain, get to bed early
cause he missed his nappie to fly back from DC, where he fixed the bailout and made
the GOP a bunch of smiling ultras, convinced that a free market fixes all things but
what a vasectomy calls for and a flat tire.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 1:54 PM on September 26, 2008

FDIC will probably require some 2.5 billiion bailout as more bankis go down the drain.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 4:18 AM on September 26, 2008

I was going to suggest that perhaps giving women the vote was a big mistake, but the, so you gentle folks would not chastise me for being a male chauvinist pig, I decided instead to note that when Hitler came to power, just about everyone in or out of govt thought it cool to imitate his moustache. It became all the rage. So too, Saddam's butt boys sported his moustache. And Jackie O's pillbox hat? and how many guys went out and bought rocking chairs after seeing JFK in his?
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 1:52 PM on September 25, 2008

Needs to be pointed out that there is a fairly steep increase in Americans leaving to live elsewhere. Best advice: hire one of the zilliions of immigration lawyers if you can afford it and let him or her do the work for you...lawyers know a bit more than just the law.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 7:29 PM on September 24, 2008

and meantime: Bush to address nation this evening. Further, the first time an army unit has been stationed in the nation and trained for civil disobedience...golly, the election? the economy? Iran?
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 1:02 PM on September 24, 2008

McCain is acting very presidential. His country needs him and he is responding. And, by tghe way, did he tell you about being a POW? If you check his attendance records, this may well be the first time ion ages he has been back to Congress. I wonder which of his 13 cars he will drive there?
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 6:22 PM on September 24, 2008

last time I pAid attention to that thing was when they were suggesting Palin would have her name pulled and a new running mate would replace her. I think they might have been wrong.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 2:06 PM on September 24, 2008

I am not at all interested in Bristol Palin's pregnancy. It is her business. It is her family's business. But does anyone know if she plans to breast feed?
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 11:51 AM on September 24, 2008

Meanwhile, while we were reading this McCain has announced that he is suspending pol.itics, and will not debate, and asked Obama to join him in a bipartisan way to solve economic problem (the bill) by Monday! And Bush to address the nation to tell us how urgent it is.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 12:26 PM on September 24, 2008

As I might have earlier noted: Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" is not only now made visible but has given us the Finger via Congress and our President...
[...A clue to what we can expect can be found in the congressional response to the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which helped pave the way for the current economic crisis.

This now infamous piece of legislation repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed in 1933 in response to the banking collapse... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 4:29 AM on September 23, 2008

Interesting side note. today's Time mag pointed out that with all the yelling Obama remains very cool. He has to. If you are white and you yell, you are a populist. If you yell and yo are black, you are a militant.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 3:29 PM on September 22, 2008

Kristol is hardly an economist and here he simply speculates what this or that one might possibly do, tossing in a gratuitous insult about Obama and spending when in fact it is the people in power and the guys who stood for deregulation that have brought this mess about. Kristol might be against the bailout but he gives us little ecomomic advise to work with.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 6:26 AM on September 22, 2008

DNA?
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 2:07 AM on September 22, 2008

IF you take a look at how much both the Dems and the Reubs got from banking, insurance et al sources for campaigns, and then realize what the lobbyists have also contributed, you will understand why there is a bi-partisan agreement to use your tax money to bail out these people...the bail out program is prepared by the same people who allowed the mess to take place.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 12:27 PM on September 21, 2008

Is the market the only indicator of how the nation is doing economically? I sort of am interested also in deficit, employment, infrastructure, health etc etc After all, when Hitler took over leadership in Germany, things were economically a hopeless mess but he sure got the nation busy in short order.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 12:44 PM on September 20, 2008

I was friendly with a woman who, as a very young child, was sent with her mother and father to Auschwitz. She was singled out among the prisoners by Mengele to go to her death (the kids side) but she ran to her mother, on the "for work" side, and the mother, knowing German, pleaded for the child. The child survived and late met and married a Polish guy who was an underground anti-Nazi. He joined up with the Russians, was later imprisoned by them and sent to Siberian camps...Finally... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 7:50 AM on September 20, 2008

reefer madness
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 4:41 PM on September 19, 2008

Adam Smith's "invisible hand" just gave taxpayers a very visible finger
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 12:12 PM on September 19, 2008

I love the comment above by Dodd! He is mySenatror and one of the big recipients of money from AIG...I am not knocking the Dems. Both parties got lots of money from AIG, and the lobby thing was also going on at the same time. of course payback time now to bail them out...Isn't that what makes the free market work?
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 2:11 PM on September 19, 2008

Pleasant and clever timeline thing but it tells us little or nothing about the actual printing process, the use of type, copy, corrections, paper used, binding etc, which finally becomes important for the sort of thing that was so well studied by Fredson Bowers of Univ of Virginia and is now more readily done by computer analysis.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 10:35 AM on September 19, 2008

Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate a governor! wow. Even back then they had Good and Evil.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 7:28 PM on September 18, 2008

The comments seem to have drifted from the original issue of the post to a spitting contest on a book about other issues.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 1:02 PM on September 18, 2008

Wasn't this clear from the start? Even Sec Rice had warned Georgia not to provoke Russia. And they did.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 6:37 AM on September 16, 2008

I had seen that article posted in a number of places to show that Obama was using things for his own end. From what I recall, Iraq announced that they wanted a withdrawal and apporved the Obama timeframe. The the Bush administration announced that we and not this brand new democracy (Iraq0 would decide when we would leave. I believe too that Obama has stressed over and over than withdrawn troops are needed in Afghanistan, the place where Al Qaeda operates and incressingly is getting stronger... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 3:20 PM on September 15, 2008

Put another way: You have to go back at least to Nixon'stime to find any Democrat elected president with ONLY the white vote. And since then, blacks have been knocked off the voter rolls in a few states--Ohio, Florida to name the first nes that come to mind. And it is going on now too. This means the Democrats get the white vote plus minority votes if they are to win; the GOP is the White Party, though they will of course deny this.But as Sen Schumer pointed out: constant references to Obama as... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 8:26 AM on September 15, 2008

We seem to want to believe that there are unknown forces out there from some other place and at the same time many of us scoff at the notion of god, angels,religion. Is this a move toward a new belief? For me: just trust your govt. they would alwauys tell you what was going on.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 6:34 AM on September 15, 2008