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Monthly Archives: November 2008

Being Lonely in Cities

Some famous literary editor once said that he was only interested in buying (as in, greenlighting for publication) books about (I’m paraphrasing, despite the quotes) “people being alone and depressed in cities.” Presumably this is because publishers generally live in New York and generally publish what they think people want, and what people want is [...]

The High Speed Rail for America Act of 2008

Good news, good new!  A bipartisan bill for investment in HSR, co-sponsored by Sen. Kerry and Sen. Specter.  From the LA Times and Sen. Kerry’s press release: The High-Speed Rail for America Act of 2008 builds upon the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 which reauthorizes Amtrak and authorizes $1.5 billion over a five-year [...]

Houlzooka

Curse those unions for bringing down Citigroup!

Huh?

I just saw a commercial for this hearing aid thing that looks like a bluetooth headset. Voiceover: Are you afraid of missing _important_ information? Scene: old lady with a bunch of other old ladies playing bingo. Bingo announcer: B3 Old lady looks confused and frightened. Old lady (to other old lady): What did he say? [...]

Sports Guy bliss

For any of the remaining NBA fans there was this exchange in a recent Sports Guy reader mailbag: Q: If you heard on SportsCenter “Breaking News: NBA coach is a serial killer, bodies found in his backyard” would you even bother listening to see if it was Gregg Popovich, or would that go without saying? [...]

Auto industry

I’m too dumb to have much of an opinion on the whole auto industry bailout thing, but Seth Godin’s latest comments interested me: I’d spend a billion dollars to make the creation of a car company turnkey. Make it easy to get all the safety and regulatory approvals… as easy to start a car company [...]

The Myth of the Gray Suit

I despise the glorification of conservatism. The idea that there were once pragmatic, cautious, competent, gray-suited guys making all the right moves is laughable. If they were so pragmatic and competent, they wouldn’t be extinct from the political landscape. Here’s one gray-suited dinosaur, George Will, making a case for conservatism in 2007: Today’s political argument [...]

NH, week 2.5

It’s important to remember that NH is nice. Trees abound, cost of living is cheap, everything is alarmingly close. If you live in Nashua, no matter where exactly you live, you’re no more than fifteen minutes from work. It’s like a reality as designed by Chris Maahs. I never thought I would say that and [...]

Please come back

We need conservatives.   I am not repelled by small c conservatism.  On the contrary, I believe conservatism is an essential balance and break on the hunger and energy of the progressive movement.  As I read once somewhere, we need gray-haired men wearing gray suits sternly scouring the federal budget for pricey and impractical items. [...]

Let’s play

Paybacks are a bitch.