The IHT today has an interesting piece about "Generation B," or those of the baby boom generation forced from well-paying and secure employment into the emotional and financial wilderness. The story profiles several boomers; one forced from an "executive" position in security with a Fortune 500 firm… Read full post »

The International Herald Tribune is reporting that the US government has agreed to take a 30-40 percent stake in Citigroup through the conversion of preferred shares to common stock. While the deal was predicted, and the partial nationalization of a large swath of our banking sector is now all but as… Read full post »

So the purported plans for the taking of a 40 per cent government stake in Citigroup, while roiling shareholders, to my small mind tastes a lot like our collective future.

The floating of the prospect of a partial, rather than full, nationalization in recent days seems to be a roadmap… Read full post »

So with Tim Geithner's announcement aujourd'hui of the restructured bailout package what's old seems to be new again. We seem to have traded in a bailout package that no one was happy with, and which achieved negligible results, for one that looks awefully similar. But wait, this one harnesses t… Read full post »

So travel, especially the intercontinental variety, is a real sonofabitch. Small cabins and bad movies/television shows make for little sleep. This time the entertainment consisted of "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," plus some bizarre Charlie Sheen/John Crier sitcom called "Two-and-a-Half Men," where, inex… Read full post »

It's quite clear that rugby is not only a superior sport to American football, but that the players are much more physically attractive than our steroidal he-men. Why, then, is rugby not more popular in the US?

A cursory examination of the sport would find that it is visibly bloodier than… Read full post »

So, at the risk of beating a dead horse (see previous post), the Sunday morning talk shows were quite interesting, mainly due to the presence of newly-ordained RNC chair Michael Steele. Speaking to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Steele attributed Republican losses to a failure of leadership and st… Read full post »

Sophia Nelson over at The Root has a rather interesting column claiming that, although the GOP needs to do a better job reaching out to the African American community, "the...real problem with black people is not so much that white conservatives in the party do not reach out to blacks, but… Read full post »

So...I've been reading an inordinate amount of talk lately about the supposed lack of ideas of the Republican party. This strikes me as, quite frankly, wrong. More than wrong, in fact, it obfuscates and removes responsibility for our current quagmire from conservatives who deserve the burden of blame… Read full post »

Generally, I take little interest in active participation in a forum such as this. I'm like most of us that way. But, lately, I've found myself leaving one too many posts on the websites of the New York Times, and, worse, the Washington Post. The obfuscation. The banal, often incoherent arguments.… Read full post »