Bush Tries to Scare Congress into Giving Him More Authority Again.
Section 8. Review: Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency. [from Paulson's proposed legislation]
WMDs in Iraq. Eep! Attack!
(a few [...]
In this economic environment, what I’m looking for is a reliable investment.
Commentary on this article from the ny times.
Paulson’s argument: the government has to act now to prop up the markets, whether or not it has a clue what it’s doing. Remember the tragic passage of the Patriot Act? Amongst dire circumstances and fear, the government grabs some power from its citizens that it’ll never willingly [...]
An acquaintance of mine was telling me yesterday all about his experience with communism. He grew up in communist Poland and managed to escape when he was fairly young (his sister came later, mother not).
Here are a couple of interesting bits of emphasis he put on his experiences and those of his family:
Ah, political season is clearly here.
Reminds me of the ol’ JibJab video of Kerry and Bush last time around. A wee bit of criticism for this one: there are some parts where it’s hard to make out what they’re saying.
This video touches on a lot of critical ideas that seem to be missing from the politics of today. I think a lot of people who consider themselves educated haven’t really considered this perspective very seriously.
Excerpt:
Professor Friedman let me ask you what may turn out to be a long and rather convoluted question. You’ve said [...]
Some reasons not to vote for either of the major presidential candidates this year:
War. This was the one reason I considered supporting Obama after Ron Paul dropped out. I figured a strong anti-war stance was the most important issue to me. Since then I’ve discovered: Obama has voted repeatedly to fund the war in Iraq. [...]
confused. unable to make decisions. think i can make a decision, but then when that decision leads to the next decision, i’m frozen again. stuck, frozen. don’t know what i want. can see many possibilities, but don’t know which road to take. limbo.
the world won’t wait for me to make up my mind. if i [...]
I’ve had this backpack since high school. It’s had zipper problems for over a year, and now it’s worn a hole through the bottom. I guess this probably seems trivial to most people — throw it out and get a new one. But that’s not something that I do very often with my personal stuff. [...]
5000 bucks will buy you 7-8 minutes of zero gravity via parabolic flight. Neat.