Hans Friedrich

"Prejudice is global, but tolerance is local."

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:22:00 -0800

“Prejudice is global, but tolerance is local.”

- Nate Silver

"Speculating on the social portrait of a depression, circle 2009: “By looking at what we know..."

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:47:43 -0800

“Speculating on the social portrait of a depression, circle 2009: “By looking at what we know about how society and commerce would slow down, and how people respond, it’s possible to envision what we might face. Unlike the 1930s, when food and clothing were far more expensive, today we spend much of our money on healthcare, child care, and education, and we’d see uncomfortable changes in those parts of our lives. The lines wouldn’t be outside soup kitchens but at emergency rooms, and rather than itinerant farmers we could see waves of laid-off office workers leaving homes to foreclosure and heading for areas of the country where there’s more work - or just a relative with a free room over the garage.””

- Lines at the ER, a television boom, emptying suburbs. A catastrophic economic downturn would feel nothing like the last one.

A Proposal for a New WPA to Revive New York's Infrastructure

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:22:19 -0800

A Proposal for a New WPA to Revive New York's Infrastructure: “Great architects need a great canvas. New York needs infrastructure. And a lot of people need jobs. A proposal.”

Photo

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:23:38 -0800

Happy Halloween Photo - awaiting the wand (via :lynn:)

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:40:21 -0700

Happy Halloween

Photo - awaiting the wand (via :lynn:)

blacknwhite

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:10:55 -0700

blacknwhite: “Using this plugin, your MSIE users will see your website with a grayscale color.”

Photo

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:03:51 -0700

"Nonetheless, this reality is intolerable to some, and they have created an alternative narrative. In..."

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:12:12 -0700

“

Nonetheless, this reality is intolerable to some, and they have created an alternative narrative. In this narrative, Obama is “a Marxisant radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters.” Once elected, presumably, will reveal himself to be the monster that he is, in the manner of Kang and Kodos in that classic 1996 Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons.

… (yet) no one who actually knows Obama has ever said, “You know, once he’s got a couple of drinks in him, he starts going on about Che and finishing the Revolution;”

”

- Conspiracy Theorizing - Peter Sagal

"It’s a bit odd that we give the Undecided Voter such a privileged place in American elections...."

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 09:50:18 -0700

“It’s a bit odd that we give the Undecided Voter such a privileged place in American elections. Because from a civic standpoint, few creatures are as contemptible.”

- Undecided voters? - Los Angeles Times

"Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up,..."

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:47:05 -0700

“Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up, and it’s the fault of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and poor minorities?”

- Are Minorities to Blame for the Subprime Mess? | Newsweek Voices - Daniel Gross | Newsweek.com

The Money Meltdown

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:28:47 -0700

The Money Meltdown: A guided collection of reading resources gathered in one page.

Nobody comes out looking good: the folks who bought these houses...

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:21:00 -0700

Nobody comes out looking good: the folks who bought these houses made and made poor choices, trading financial prudence for the status symbols of overconsumption, the craven mortgage brokers who fudged and obfuscated the financial reality of these people’s situations to get them loans regardless of the applicants’ true ability to pay, and the banks who underwrote the mortgages, knowing full-well that the they were enabling a bubble that inflated the value of these homes 2-300% above what the fundamentals would dictate.

All this is a given. But this knowledge shouldn’t provide a false “they had it coming” complacency - blame aside, something very tragic for the fabric of American society is happening here.

Make-Believe Maverick : Rolling Stone

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:57:00 -0700

Make-Believe Maverick : Rolling Stone:

“In its broad strokes, McCain’s life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers’ powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives’ evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.”

Video

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:46:50 -0700

“Charley Says” - a 1973 animated British PSA series...

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:42:17 -0700

“Charley Says” - a 1973 animated British PSA series where a little boy narrates various “stranger danger” pronouncements as told through the meows and growls of his ginger cat Charley. Here, Charley nearly drowns during a fishing trip with the little boy’s father, and then explains the dangers of wandering away from adults while near water. As dark and hilarious as it sounds.

Also:

Charley Says - In The Kitchen

Charley Says - Matches

Charley Says - Mummy Should Know

Charley Says - Charley’s Tea Party

Charley Says - Strangers

Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives...

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:51:56 -0700

Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives @ TED

"I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you?..."

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:37:06 -0700

“I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you? It’s about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them.”

- Harry Truman in 1948

Benoit Pioulard - Idyll

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:13:28 -0700

Benoit Pioulard - Idyll

RNC protest photos

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:44:20 -0700

RNC protest photos

What's the matter with Canada?

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:52:42 -0700

What's the matter with Canada?: My backup plan if McCain wins the election is sounding less appealing.