The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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Of course Comcast approved the terms of Olberman's departure.

By Flavius on Sat, 01/22/2011 - 5:28pm |

The COMCAST  contract with NBC will of course have contained a stand-still clause ,standard  in  such agreements, under which  MSNBC was required to avoid any major changes during this final  period before the Closing,now  scheduled for Jan 28.

Just the facts, mam

By Flavius on Thu, 01/20/2011 - 2:29pm |

 

New York Times  Jan 20 2011 Cameron Proposes a Radical Reorganization of England's Heath Care System.

Concluding sentence :  " .......a service in which patients can now sometimes wait months for specialist care."

Sounds bad. But .....

Brother can you spare a dime

By Flavius on Sat, 01/01/2011 - 2:44pm |

The point of post-1945 European welfare states was to free the needy from dependence on private generosity, which tends to miss out the socially marginal, and to be least available when times are hardest. Welfare gave a sense of security and dignity that the less fortunate had never previously enjoyed. It was particularly important to continental societies that had seen how insecurity bred fascism.

2010 the year that ended DADT

By Flavius on Fri, 12/31/2010 - 11:39pm |

Step back and think about  it.

Until now our National policy was to officially designate one group of our fellow citizens as inferior.While at the same time braying about our "Exceptional status".  Yeah, we were exceptional.

The SS Trust Fund is going broke. Good

By Flavius on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 8:31am |

There ought not to be any amount in the Trust Fund. It's a rip off.

As I've explained tediously , each year some money is subtracted from the TF  to be paid out in benefits. And some is added by witholdings from workers' pay checks.

I've seen the Trust Fund and it is

By Flavius on Tue, 12/21/2010 - 9:59pm |

not very impressive.

Some years ago, probably around the start of W's second term, PBS did a program on his brief campaign to privatize Social Security--just in time for us to have diverted our payroll withholdings into securitized sub primes.

At one point in the program they tried to make things more visual by showing the Fund. It was easy. It wasn't a room full of gold bars, or thousand dollar bills. Just a couple of filing cabinets about 4 feet by two feet.

Obama to propose social security cuts in the SOTU

By Flavius on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 3:51pm |

according to Robert Kuttner, via destor.

I'm almost without exception a defender of Obama here.  Not on this one if Kuttner is right.  Not just no but damn no.  In spades.  With bells on.

Hey, we just killed Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Anybody notice?

By Flavius on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 10:44pm |

This is a great achievement. Where's the applause?  Where's the commendations for Barack and Harry and Nancy?

We are in full throat here when expressing our disapproval of some Administration fault or failure. And rightly so. But this great victory seems to have been welcomed with a resounding ho hum.

Is it more fun to punish someone?  To write a stinging post dwelling on Barack's failure(s)?  Or some other targets?

Don't ask, don't tell is in the process of being repealed

By Flavius on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 12:36pm |

Wonderful. Finally  joining  the world's other normal countries. "Exceptional" no longer in this regard.

The vote to limit debate was 63 to 33 with six republicans joining 57 democrats: the 4  announced before :Collins, Snowe, Brown(Mass) and Murkowski plus two additional ones Kirk and Voinevitch.

The formal vote on repeal  is to come later, sounds like this afternoon.

It's a good day.

My cardiologist has a patient who's

By Flavius on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 10:36pm |

chief of staff for a well known  Congressman  . Told him  she supported Obama and wanted to root for Obamacare , and had read the bill.

 And couldn't understand it.,

He replied, neither could he.

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