A tax credit so silly even a four-year-old can exploit it. It’s hard not to laugh when viewing the results of the federal first-time home-buyer tax credit. The credit, worth up to $8,000 for the purchase of a home, has only been available since April of last year. Yet news of the latest taxpayer-funded mortgage [...]
Archive for October, 2009
First-Time Fraudsters
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Obama and the Old Hat People
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
People thought something small, agile and smart was coming to government, but so far it’s turning out to be just big-box politics. If you’re an elected Democrat anywhere to the right of Barney Frank, and trying to defend a competitive seat next November, you’ve got to be starting to sweat. You wake up in the [...]
Sins of Emission
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Energy and Environment on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The ethanol boondoggle is also an environmental catastrophe. Donning FDR’s cape, Eisenhower’s stripes and JFK’s boat shoes, President Obama observed in Florida on Tuesday that his “clean energy economy” will require “mobilization” on the order of fighting World War II, building the interstate highway system and going to the moon. Of course, the only “mobilization” [...]
Tuesday’s Elections and the Democratic Agenda
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Losses in New Jersey or Virginia could spook Congress. Democratic enthusiasm for President Barack Obama’s liberal domestic agenda—particularly for a government-run health insurance program—could wane after the results of the gubernatorial elections next Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey. GOP victories in either state will tell Democrats in red states and districts that support for [...]
Dalai Lama Lesson
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged China, Dalai Lama, India on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
India shows the world how to stand firm with China. As Barack Obama prepares for his trip to Beijing next month, he’d be wise to cast an eye toward New Delhi, where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is showing the rest of the world how to deal with Beijing when it gets into a bullying mood. [...]
Today in History – October 28
Posted in This day in history, tagged October 28 on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Wednesday, Oct. 28, the 301st day of 2009. There are 64 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On Oct. 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland. On this date In 1636, the General Court [...]
Three Theories on Solving the ‘Too Big to Fail’ Problem
Posted in Economy and business, Politics on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The biggest financial crisis in 70 years has bequeathed a to-do list of overwhelming length for bankers, regulators and politicians. Somewhere near the top is the “too big to fail” (TBTF) problem: The existence of financial institutions so large, so interconnected, so leveraged or so complex that the government dare not let them fail for [...]
Number-Crushing: When Figures Get Personal
Posted in Living, Mathematics on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Real-Estate Developers Factor In Love of 6 and 8, Fear of Unlucky 4 and 13; What Happened to Floors 40 Through 59? Everyone can agree that 1+1=2. But the idea that 7 is greater than 13 — that some numbers are luckier than others — makes no sense to some people. Such numerical biases can [...]
Financial Historian on ‘29: ‘Great Crash’ Vs. ‘Break in the Market’
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion, History on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Everett Digital Raising cash, 1929 style. Today marks 80 years since the best known part of the 1929 stock market collapse, a two-day rout on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29 of that year. The equities crash brought a painful close to the period of unbridled financial optimism that was the 1920s. To mark the occasion, [...]
Starfish ‘pump up’ to cool down
Posted in Natural sciences on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Cool starfish (purple indicates cool areas, red indicates warm) _____ One starfish has a remarkable strategy to avoid overheating in the sun, scientists have discovered. The starfish pumps itself up with cold seawater to lower its body temperature when exposed to the sun at low tide. It is equivalent to a person drinking [...]
Nazi Assassin Goes on Trial in Germany
Posted in Law on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
An archive photo showing Heinrich Boere in 2003 in his home town of Eschweiler near Aachen. Heinrich Boere, 88, a former member of Hitler’s SS, goes on trial in a German court on Wednesday charged with murdering three Dutch citizens during World War II. It will be one of the last Nazi war crimes prosecutions, [...]
Celestial sacrifice
Posted in Arts and Entertainment, Other on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Cecilia Bartoli’s new album An album by the Italian mezzo-soprano that honours the art of the castrati Farinelli’s sacrifice paid off LONG before singers became superstars by surviving humiliating television contests, they did so by surrendering much more than their dignity. For almost 200 years Europe’s biggest singing celebrities were the castrati: surgically snipped “man-boys” [...]
Sizzling away
Posted in Economy and business, Other on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
America’s consumer-protection bill Wall Street is losing its battle against the proposed consumer agency BARNEY FRANK, head of the financial-services committee in America’s House of Representatives, likes to point out that shaping legislation, like making sausages, can be a stomach-churning spectacle. So it is with the Obama administration’s financial reforms. The latest banger to be [...]
Murder in Kabul
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Politics, tagged Afghanistan on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Terror in Afghanistan The Taliban kill several UN staff in Afghanistan, ahead of a presidential election THE murder of at least six foreign, civilian, UN staff in a private guest house in Kabul, and a near-simultaneous rocket attack on the city’s most prestigious hotel, on Wednesday October 28th, are reminders of the apparently expanding reach [...]
Poor circulation
Posted in Media on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Newspaper industry Sales of American newspapers keep falling MORE bad news for America’s newspaper industry. In the six months to the end of September, daily circulation fell by 10.1% to 30.4m compared with the same period in 2008. All of the top 20 papers have seen their circulation plunge, with the exception of the Wall [...]
Giving democracy a dose of clarity
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Other on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
There have been various attempts over the decades to bury moral philosophy — to dismiss convictions about right and wrong as cultural prejudices, or secretions of the brain, or matters so personal they shouldn’t even affect our private lives. But moral questions always return, as puzzles and as tragedies. Would we push a hefty man [...]
Say “eeee.” Say it again. Go on: “eeee.” Maybe I’m easy to please, but doing this a few times makes me giggle. “Eeee.” Actually, I suspect it’s not just me. Saying “eeee” pulls up the corners of the mouth and makes you start to smile. That’s why we say “cheese” to the camera, not “choose” [...]
Afghanistan Votes, the U.N. Dithers
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged Afghanistan on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
IF the second round of Afghanistan’s presidential elections, now scheduled for Nov. 7, is a rerun of the fraud-stained first round, it will be catastrophic for that country and the allied military mission battling the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In the next week and a half, the United States and the United Nations, which has [...]
Don’t Build Up
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Afghanistan on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off
It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here’s my vote: We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to [...]
Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Afghanistan on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials. The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including [...]
Rewarding Burma’s Generals
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged Burma on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The new message from Washington: Deal with Pyongyang, win diplomatic goodies. The Obama Administration is starting to worry about Burma’s nuclear ambitions. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the White House is taking the same failed tack it used with Tehran and Pyongyang and trying to cajole the generals out of their [...]
Is ObamaCare Pro-Life?
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health, Religion on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Cardinal Francis George weighs in. President Barack Obama may inspire near-worship among his fans, but he’s struggling to win converts to ObamaCare. On Thursday, Cardinal Francis George, the Catholic archbishop of Mr. Obama’s Chicago hometown, told us every one of the health-care reform bills passed by congressional committees allow for taxpayer funding of abortion — [...]
The Life Span of a Rodent May Aid Human Health
Posted in Health, Natural sciences on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
PROTECTED EXISTENCE Naked mole rats like this one in South Africa rarely leave the safety of their underground tunnels. The queens never come to the surface. Even the workers are exposed only when they need to shovel out dirt. They live in underground colonies with a queen, her harem of favorite males, soldiers to defend [...]
Volcanoes Played Pivotal Role In Ancient Ice Age, Mass Extinction
Posted in Energy and Environment, Natural sciences on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
This photograph shows volcanic ash beds — formed around 455 million years ago — layered in the rock of the Nashville Dome area in central Tennessee. Researchers at Ohio State University have discovered that volcanoes played a pivotal role in a deadly ice age that occurred nearly half a billion years ago. Perhaps ironically, these [...]
The WellPoint Revelation
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Private insurance premiums could triple under ObamaCare. Washington is captivated by the Senate melodrama over the so-called public option, salivating at the ring of Harry Reid’s political bell (see below). But the most important health-care questions continue to be about the policy substance—particularly those that Democrats don’t want asked. Foremost among them is: How will [...]
Lieberman Steps Up
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Opposing Reid’s public option gambit. The health-care debate isn’t over, notwithstanding the White House-Nancy Pelosi attempt to make it seem inevitable. Majority Leader Harry Reid had barely announced his plan to include a public insurance option when Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman declared yesterday that he’d join a filibuster against such a Senate bill. “We’re trying [...]
Old Trick Threatens the Newest Weapons
Posted in Computers, Conflicts and wars on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Despite a six-year effort to build trusted computer chips for military systems, the Pentagon now manufactures in secure facilities run by American companies only about 2 percent of the more than $3.5 billion of integrated circuits bought annually for use in military gear. That shortfall is viewed with concern by current and former United States [...]
Ancient ‘Monster’ Insect: ‘Unicorn’ Fly Never Before Observed
Posted in Natural sciences on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
This image of an ancient fly in amber shows the strange horn on its head, topped by three eyes. Just in time for Halloween, researchers have announced the discovery of a new, real-world “monster” — what they are calling a “unicorn” fly that lived about 100 million years ago and is being described as a [...]
Obama Is Right About Fox News
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Media, Politics on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
But the criticism was clumsy. Journalism has a special, hallowed place for stories of its practitioners’ persecution. There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source. And the Newseum in Washington, D.C., establishes the profession’s legitimacy with a memorial to fallen scribes, thus drawing an implicit connection between [...]
If you’ve ever had a problem with rodents and woken up to find that mice had chewed their way through the Cheerios, the Famous Amos, three packages of Ramen noodles, and even that carton of baker’s yeast you had bought in a fit of “Ladies of the Canyon” wistfulness, you will appreciate just how freakish [...]
