That Times article couldn’t be better timed, because I was already planning on putting out another “What is CNN thinking?” rant today.
I remember a very long time ago, I read an article asking celebrities, “What’s the first thing you do every morning?” Most of them said they tuned into CNN for their daily dose of news, because back in those days, CNN stood for quality and accuracy, for great coverage of breaking and continuing news stories, and for objective reporting.
I (Uncle Jimbo) have been a regular guest on RT's The Alyona Show for several years now (A playlist of many of the bits here). Arguing with her and riffing on the news has been a lot of fun and hopefully some entertainment in the process. Now she and her producer Jenny Churchill are loading up the truck and moving to Beverly, Hills that is. They will be doing a show for the Huffington Post's new online Live offering and once they are up and running I will be joining them via the internets from time to time. It sounds like an interesting format where they will engage with commenters and other online entities which is right in my sweet spot.
On the eve of Mitt Romney’s trip to Israel, America’s Jewish vote may be in play in ways that it has not been in the past. Traditionally, most Jewish Americans have voted for Democrats. In 2008, President Obama got between 74 and 78 percent of the Jewish vote. But 2012 might be different.
Like Marx and George, Veblen’s ideas threatened what he called the “vested interests.” What made his analysis so disturbing was what he retained from the past. Classical political economy had used the labor theory of value to isolate the elements of price that had no counterpart in necessary costs of production. Economic rent – the excess of price over this “real cost” – is unearned income. It is an overhead charge for access to land, minerals or other natural resources, bank credit or other basic needs that are monopolized.
This concept of unearned income as an unnecessary element of price led Veblen to focus on what now is called financial engineering, speculation and debt leveraging. The perception that a rising proportion of income and wealth is an unearned “free lunch” formed the take-off point for Veblen to put real estate and financial scheming at the center of his analysis, at a time when mainstream economists were dropping these areas of concern.
LAS VEGAS — US spy master Keith Alexander courted hackers at an infamous Def Con gathering rife with software tricksters wary of police and ferociously protective of privacy.
National Security Agency (NSA) director Alexander was the latest, and perhaps the most controversial, federal official to attend the annual hacker conference in Las Vegas to recruit warriors for battles being fought on the Internet.
The Republican nominee in Ohio’s Senate race stands to reap a significant financial windfall if the government defaults by not raising the debt ceiling, a move he opposed last year and has indicated he would vote against if elected to the Senate.
According to personal financial disclosure documents examined by ThinkProgress, Josh Mandel’s wife owns an undisclosed amount of ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury exchange-traded fund (ETF). This ETF aggressively "shorts” U.S. Treasury bills, meaning that it bets against U.S. debt and spikes when Treasury bill values drop. If a default were to occur, the desirability of Treasury bills would plummet and Mandel’s ETF would skyrocket in value.
That precise scenario could become more likely if Mandel wins his race against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). One of the top issues Mandel lists on his website is to "Stop increasing the debt ceiling.” Similarly, when Congress was embroiled in the debt ceiling fight last year, he state
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For inspiring tales of triumph, nothing beats the Olympics. From Mary Lou Retton’s shocking 10.0 to the grace of wounded warrior Kerri Strug, relive the most emotional events from past Games.
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