Yes, Dominique the Sheik, former chief of the International Monetary Fund, who’s wasted more Trojans than Achilles, is under investigation again. The prosecutor’s office in Lille, France says that Strauss-Kahn “may have sexually assaulted a Belgian prostitute at a sex party organized at the W Hotel in Washington in December 2010,” Maïa de la Baume…
The growing inequality: Does anybody care?
99% versus 1%? Who doesn’t like those odds? It’s a well-established fact that, since 1979, American productivity has been steadily rising, but median compensation hasn’t been. (See Lawrence Mishal’s excellent new article here) Rather fortuitously, Bain boy and Romney protégé Edward Conrad is coming out with a book, Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told…
The Way of the Warrior
A couple of weeks ago, the war historian Max Hastings, whom I would call excellent if not eminent, had an interesting piece in the Daily Mail* on the thirtieth anniversary of the Falklands “War,” that near-comic opera dispute—near-comic opera if you can get past the thousands of casualties, and 900 dead—between Great Britain and Argentina…
Inside of (some) neoliberals there is a socialist struggling to get out
I’m a big fan of Brad DeLong’s “Grasping Reality” blog. Brad is a liberal neoliberal’s liberal neoliberal. He knows a great deal about economic history, and knows that it was capitalism, and nothing else, that turned western civilization from a good deal for the top 10 percent into a good deal for potentially everyone. At…
James B. Stewart, lying on behalf of truth
Over at New York magazine, Jonathan Chait takes a long poke at Rep. Paul Ryan. Although I often find Jon a bit knee-jerky, when it comes to Ryan, our knees jerk in perfect time. Chait points, among other things, to the near-worshipful reception that Ryan often receives in the press, as a sort of political…
Optreden ICP do Monk—“Jackie-ing”
Intense. ICP features Michael Moore, alto saxophone + clarinet; Ab Baars, tenor saxophone + clarinet; Tobias Delius, tenor saxophone + clarinet; Thomas Heberer, trumpet; Woller Wierbos, trombone; Misha Mengelberg, piano; Mary Oliver, violin; Tristan Honsinger, cello; Ernst Glerum, bass; Han Bennink, drums. Posted by Vrijegeluiden
Whole Iran Deal not a Big Deal, Experts Say
Yes, that whole Iran thing that everyone was so worried about, well, it’s not really a big deal, says NYTimer James Risen, in an article quoting both faceless and faced experts, politely stepping down all the sturm und drang that the Times has been peddling for the past year or so—quoting, of course, only the…
Pseudo-New Yorker
Legal humor here. “The same thing happened to me! I asked her to give me head, and then, shit, I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” “Yeah, I know they grow back, but, still, it’s embarrassing.” “The things you do for love, right?” “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, my palpitating abdomen!…
Yeah, she’s a Romney
Speaking in Stamford, Connecticut, Mitt’s missus said the following: “I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids.” Of course, she didn’t mean that she’s glad that some mothers have to work. She “meant” “I…
Spencer Ackerman, mad as hell and seemingly unlikely to take it much longer
At the Dish, Andrew Sullivan posts this rant by Spencer Ackerman on what’s wrong with DC, which he praises as “Best Spontaneous Anti-Beltway Rant Ever.” In fact, it’s a fairly predictable collection of bitches and moans about what happens when you shove together thousands of highly ambitious people in a few square miles of real…