I drive through the central artery tunnel of Boston’s infamous Big Dig every so often, when visiting my friend Morris, or seeing my retinologist. SamJay uses the Big Dig every workday.
The Boston Globe has been good about staying on top of the project’s many failings, most of which seem to be due to incompetence and/or corruption, rather than inherent engineering challenges. Today’s Globe has the story of how an alleged lack of attention to detail in the design of guard rails has resulted in deaths and dismemberment.
The PBS News Hour has an outstanding explanation of how Goldman Sachs plays not only the market, but the government. There is no better way to spend 20 minutes than watching these two videos. There’s no dramatic music, no rhetorical hyperbole, just quality journalism by Paul Solman that should have you fuming.
I heard about this while watching Keith Olbermann. Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada issued a statement that seemed to implicate… the letterer?? Then, in the middle of the piece, Bill Clinton’s doctors held a press conference about his heart stent operation. I just checked the MSNBC site and this part of Olbermann’s show isn’t there, so I grabbed it myself from the re-broadcast at 10. I sure can make good video transfers off of Verizon FiOS TV, huh?
Clinton’s doctors refused to say what brand of stent was used but if it’s a Kamen stent there’s still a comics connection, because it was invented by Dean Kamen, son of the late comic book artist Jack Kamen.
Seeing the end of printed newspapers on the horizon, Mark Fiore was one of the first political cartoonists to use Flash animation. Fiore is a liberal, and around the time that George Bush was re-elected I watched a lot of his cartoons. But eventually his bag o’ gag tricks became somewhat repetitive, and I stopped watching.
Back in December, NPR used one of Fiore’s cartoons, and it went relatively unnoticed for a while, but then went viral.
But Fiore doesn’t give Obama a free ride. Unlike Republicans, Democrats think it’s all right to criticize a sitting President from their own party. The lock-step adherence to the GOP party line during Bush’s tenure was both impressive and appalling.
It is my opinion that George W. Bush was by the far the worst President we have ever had — how I wish we’d never gone into Iraq — but there’s no doubt that the mess he left behind is Obama’s to fix, and I’m pretty much with Jon Stewart in my criticisms of the job Obama is doing so far. Financially, there are two things that I think must happen, where Obama could show some leadership:
Eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
Bring back Glass-Steagall to separate investment banks, commercial banks, and the insurance industry. (Note: Glass-Steagall was repealed during Clinton’s second term.)
As far as fiscal policy goes, I think we’re spending all we can now. Borrowing more money from China isn’t in our national interest, not even in the short term.
