Diagram as commentary: how Goldman Sachs circumvents SEC with Facebook offering.
Reggie Middleton’s diagram for his post, Goldman Creates a Facebook Hedge Fund for HNW Clients Historically Ripped Off By Such Vehicles, Spits In Face Of ...
Category: power
politics, history, force
The British Isles became the United Kingdom. What might the Caribbean islands have been?
Yesterday it occurred to me: what if Puerto Rico and Cuba had federated long ago? This morning, while measuring the nautical distance between their nearest port...
The separation of powers and personalities.
Yesterday I spent some time thinking about the differences between grifters and leaders and how the public stage beckons and rewards them both. So much so that,...
On friendly politicians and presidential character.
My parents just sent me a story in the Washington Post by Anne Kornblut that focuses on the personal slights and favors that underpin so much of our politics. I...
Bruce Sterling sheds light on the cultures that led to cablegate, obscures what comes next.
Bruce Sterling knows his nerds, outsiders in real life who are insiders online, alternately diffident and insolent. In his interesting assessment of the Wikilea...
Civil rights victories are always win-win. The repeal of DADT is great news for all Americans.
There were well-publicized protests in select California cities after President Obama was elected and Prop 8 was passed. Some of that anger was fueled by the ru...
David Rothkopf on the “rich dark chocolaty center” of U.S. politics
David Rothkopf, astute and witty as ever, discussing the various political centers, from the expedient to the principled center, from the independent center to ...
Russian white nationalist street gangs, terrorism and post-Soviet political culture. Also, the confederate flag.
Charles Clover has written a brilliant, daring report on terrorists in Russia who are inspired by racist nationalism and financed by officials of the Russian st...
The Chamber of Commerce versus the Business Roundtable
The Financial Times: Amex chief calls for jobs taskforce By Francesco Guerrera and Suzanne Kapner in New York Published: December 5 2010 22:00 Ken Chenault, the...
Why did Congress create a postal service and how did talk radio come about?
Fascinating, brief and polemical history of public media – now mass media – in the U.S., from the postal service to radio then television, etc.
Bleeding heart versus what, exactly?
Apparently, I’m a bleeding heart. Twice in two days I’ve sat through tear-jerkers; one about charter schools in New York City and a second about a U...
Art capturing life imitating art: Norway and Houston, Taxi Driver and Scarface
A striking parallel from Peter Beste’s celebrated series on Norwegian Black Metal bands and Houston rappers: Archetypes of alienation.
Would more drugs on television lead to less drug use?
Given how many Americans consume illegal drugs, you’d think there’d be more television shows featuring the banality of illegal drug use. (I’m ...
The emotional states of America: the problem with political identities is they’re not as fluid as politics.
The problem with political parties that offer their followers an identity is that identities are inherently conservative. If a certain attitude – say, animosity...
Josh Marshall: “Reality matters for policy; but perceptions matter for elections.”
Josh Marshall: President Obama does have a re-calibration he needs to do with a big cross section of the electorate. Reality matters for policy; but perceptions...
Common sense solutions exist because of disciplined trial and error, not guesswork.
All year long the new Speaker of the House John Boehner has been promising “common sense reforms” to the spiraling costs of health care and the myri...
Sad, funny quote about today’s election in one of the few useful reports in the NYT.
Ha ha. Ha. Sigh. Kathleen Morse, a homemaker from Epping, N.H., described herself as a centrist-leaning independent, but this time she voted for anyone with an ...
Good on Colbert, Stewart and Co. Haters will hate but comedy is how stable societies evolve. Politics without humor is tribal war.
I’ve read a few comments today from liberals all too happy to piss on the Colbert Stewart Parade because it’s not political enough or not the right ...
The politics of personality disorders: Tom Junod on the Tea Party as a coalescence of resentment.
A few weeks ago I wrote that there might not be a Tea Party if more Americans treated their elders with love and compassion. Tom Junod has written a lengthy ess...
The last 10 years in a nutshell: David Frum on anti-elitism and how we have “careened from one mistake to another”.
David Frum rips Charles Murray a new one but also points out that where there’s smoke (obfuscation) there’s a smoldering fire: Murray is of course r...