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As the U.S. debates the “Buffett tax” the LibDem party conference here in the UK is generating a series of proposals to address wealth inequality, from the inspired to the woolly-headed. Inspired: (not least because it’s so blinking obvious). Danny Alexander suggests hiring more Treasury auditors who are devoted to ensuring that wealthy people who [...]
Archive for September, 2011
September 18th, 2011
Category: Personal moment
In politics, spin doctors making a living by interpreting or twisting ambiguous information in a particular way. Parents are assigned this role by young children, whether they want it or not. As I watched a children’s gymnastics class the other day, the occasional 3/4/5 year old would tumble off a cushion and do a big [...]
September 18th, 2011
Category: Crime Control, Personal moment
There really ought to be a B&E internship program or something. Not a high grade on that effort, dude.
September 18th, 2011
Category: Affordable Care Act, Politics and Leadership
MoveOn scores with a simple, powerful video.
September 17th, 2011
Category: Britain, Drug Policy
Last Saturday, I had the pleasure and honor to march through Cardiff with about a thousand people in recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Loved ones of people in recovery from babes in arms to grandparents came along for the fun (as did some other professional clinician types like me). It was the [...]
September 16th, 2011
Category: Crime Control
Firedoglake Book Salon tomorrow on Adam Winkler’s new book on the Second Amendment front in the gun wars.
September 16th, 2011
Texas unemployment rises to 8.5%, the highest in 24 years. (h/t TPM). Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, clearly a basket case due to liberal policies, the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.4%, the lowest in two and a half years. It should be mentioned that Texas job losses stem from public sector reductions. Since public sector workers like [...]
September 16th, 2011
Category: Film
Robert Montgomery (father of Elizabeth of Bewitched fame) earned his place in film noir heaven with “Ride the Pink Horse”. The “disillusioned, rootless ex-GI” is the ultimate film noir protagonist (though the cynical, hard drinking private eye vies for the distinction) and Lucky Gagin is the apotheosis of the type. I wish I knew more [...]
September 16th, 2011
Category: Literature
Elmore Leonard said that a book or a chapter should never open with a description of the weather. That’s generally good writing advice, but from the moment I read “The skies over Gatwick were an insipid grey” I was hooked by the writing of Robert Goddard. He is enormously popular in the UK but for [...]