Over at Forbes, a site I don’t visit too often, Josh Barro, who helms “The Barrometer” (Get it?) gets his knickers properly in a knot over Righteous Rick Santorum’s promise to shut down the “pandemic of harm from pornography” currently plaguing the United States, said pandemic having gone completely unnoticed by everyone but Rick until…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Waiter! Another $350 bottle of wine! We’ve got a country to save!
Over at the New Republic, Alec MacGillis has a nice article on how Obama lost the hedge fund managers. Among the many indignities Obama and his post-New Deal crew foisted upon the billionaire boys club is the following, involving Clifford Asness, founder of AQR Capital Management, a $16 billion firm: Last July, a Rutgers business…
Greg Smith: Truth-teller, dumb-ass, or pussy?
OK, that might be just a tad strong, but those seem to be the options for Greg, based on the reactions I’ve seen to his farewell to “toxic and destructive” Goldman Sachs that appeared in the NYT yesterday. According to Matt Yglesias, Greg just doesn’t get it. Once upon a time Goldman was a firm…
You have a friend at Goldman Sachs. Unfortunately, he just quit
Greg Smith, formerly of Goldman Sachs, lays it on the line in an Op-Ed in the Times that will undoubtedly ring around the blog world today: “TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for…
“Santorum Sweeps Two States”: Does the NYT love Rick?
How do you “sweep” two states?* Especially since Rick “God Hates Homos” Santorum barely won a third of the votes in Alabama, and less than a third in Mississippi, beating Newt “Just a Fat Prick from Georgia” Gingrich by less than 2 percent of the votes. But, hey, I’ll take it, and so will the…
Ten thousand things I don’t like about Tim Geithner: No. 10,001
Please, please, please, somebody tell me something nice about Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner. Did he once save a child from a burning building? When he was in college, did he once stand for hours outside his beloved’s window, crying his eyes out because she rejected him? Does he spend his idle moments playing…
Murmur, Murmur
OK, this is pretty late, like 20 years, but over at Salon Steve Kornacki has an interesting (to me) piece on attempts by various would-be presidential candidates to win their party’s nomination by announcing a choice for vice-president prior to the convention. Back in 1992, Jerry Brown was hounding Bill Clinton in the New York…
Jimmy Owens: The Monk Project
A very long clip, with excellent sound, though with interviews as well, which are (usually) interesting, but not as interesting as the music. Trumpeter Jimmy Owens leads a group with Kenny Barron (piano), Winard Harper (drums), Howard Jones (tuba and baritone saxophone), Wycliffe Gordon (trombone), Marcus Strickland (tenor saxophone), and Kenny Davis on bass. I’ve…
Yes, Charles Murray is an asshole
The big man, after being wined and lunched by the Financial Times, tries to hit them up for a $350 bottle of wine. (And this after a palate-numbing martini. Très chic!)1 And, in addition to trying to hit up the FT for a $350 bottle of wine, and bragging endlessly about his oenological expertise, Murray…
Pseudo-New Yorker
Legal humor here. “‘If it wasn’t San Andreas fault, whose was it?’ Wow, girlfriend, I walked into that one eyes wide open.” “Did the earth move for me too? Totally.” “No wonder they were so anxious to sell.” “They’re not widening, they’re closing. In a month, you won’t even notice them.” “Why does this shit…