HTML clipboard
|
November 20, 2008 20 November, 2008
November 19, 2008 19 November, 2008
HTML clipboard
|
November 18 – 2, 2008 18 November, 2008
|
Late Night Humor The Tonight Show with Jay Leno President-elect Barack Obama is still looking for a White House dog. In fact, he has spent more time selecting a dog than John McCain did selecting a running mate. President Bush had some good dog advice for the president-elect. Bush advised him to get a dog that is easy to train. Bush told him it took him almost eight years to get Barney to bite that reporter. According to CNN, Barack Obama’s popularity going into office is higher than Clinton’s, Reagan’s, or either of the President Bushes when they entered office. On Fox News, he’s somewhere between Attila the Hun and lead poisoning. President Bush briefed President-elect Obama on the state of the nation this week. I don’t want to say things look bad, but Obama’s new slogan is “Maybe We Can.” Late Show Top Ten Top Ten Signs You’re Watching A Bad Spy Film 10. Keeps leaking classified information on his Facebook page Late Show with David Letterman On this date in 1972, the Dow Jones hit 1,000 for the first time. Unfortunately, the same thing happened today. And on this date in 2000, Bill Clinton was the first president to visit Vietnam. At least that’s where he told Hillary he was going. Barack Obama’s family is out looking for a dog for the White House. I hear Beverly Hills Chihuahua is on his short list. He’s looking for a pet that does not shed . . . that rules out that thing on Donald Trump’s head. Late Night with Conan O’Brien The Republican Party is considering naming the first African-American chairman in their party’s history. Unfortunately, Republicans are having a hard time finding an African-American who is white. When Barack Obama’s daughters Malia and Sasha move into the White House, they are going to have to get used to having a chef cook their meals. The White House chef is furious about it and said, “Great — four more years of making SpaghettiOs and chicken fingers.” Yesterday in Georgia, John McCain was campaigning for a Republican congressman who is facing a runoff election. You can tell McCain is a little bitter about his defeat because instead of saying “my friends,” he now says “my ungrateful bastards.” People in the publishing industry are speculating that President Bush will write a book after he leaves office. And by “write,” they mean “draw.” The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson They say that Barack Obama’s transition is going to cost $12 million. It sounds like a lot, but it’s less than Sarah Palin would have spent on the inaugural gown, the tiara, the cape, the scepter . . . golden trousers for her husband . . . It’s rumored that they’re going to make a Monopoly movie. It’s official — Hollywood’s out of ideas. With the way the real estate market is, it could actually be quite scary. Jimmy Kimmel Live! California is burning again. We have a tradition here. Once every six or eight days we set the place on fire. While the fires were smoldering, much of the state was participating in an earthquake drill. They pretended there was a 7.8 earthquake. They say it was the biggest pretend earthquake ever to hit the United States. Five million people participated — only six people died. Barack Obama is hard at work selecting a Cabinet. The big rumor is he may select Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Finally — a secretary Bill doesn’t want to sleep with. |
Today’s Papers Exit Quietly The New York Times leads with word that the Iraqi government has been firing inspectors general who are supposed to keep an eye out for corruption. These oversight officials were put in place in every cabinet-level ministry at the behest of American officials in order to bring some level of transparency to the Iraqi government. But as claims of corruption in the Iraqi government increase, it seems Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government would rather get rid of the watchdogs instead of dealing with the growing problem. USA Today leads with a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that reports the Pentagon spent around $600 million in more than 1,200 Iraq reconstruction contracts that were canceled. Almost half of these contracts were canceled due to problems with the contractor, including failure to deliver and poor performance. The Washington Post leads with a look at how a number of political appointees have been transferring over to civil service posts in preparation for the end of the Bush administration. Between March and November, around 20 political appointees in a variety of departments have become career civil servants. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with, and the Los Angeles Times fronts, the hijacking of a huge oil tanker by suspected Somali pirates more than 450 nautical miles from the Kenyan coast. The hijacking of the Saudi-owned Sirius Star supertanker carrying more than $100 million worth of crude came as a shock because pirates usually operate much closer to shore and don’t go after such huge targets. The LAT leads locally with news that the California State University system is proposing a plan to cut enrollment at its 23 campuses by 10,000 students due to the state’s budget woes. The dismissals of the Iraqi oversight officials were done so quietly that no one knows exactly how many people it actually involves. Out of a total of 30 cabinet-level ministries that have one inspector general each, some say as many as 17 were fired. Other estimates are much lower and the head of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said he knew of six dismissals. Interestingly, the Washington-based Bowen says much of the blame for this turn of events lies with the United States because it created the powerful positions but provided little training and support for what was an alien concept in Iraqi politics, known for its secrecy and back scratching during Saddam Hussein’s reign. Of course, the suspicion is that Maliki will either seek to leave the jobs vacant or fill them with supporters. It is difficult for managers to get rid of employees with civil service status The WSJ notes that the hijacking of the Saudi-owned oil tanker “sharply increases the stakes” in the efforts to protect energy supplies. Although hijackings by pirates off the Somalia coast have been on the rise, these attacks are usually closer to shore and none of the affected vessels came close to having the dimensions of the Sirius Star supertanker. “What this represents is a fundamental ability of pirates to be able to operate off the coast to an extent we have not seen before,” U.S. Navy Lt. Nathan Christensen tells the LAT. “It’s the largest ship we’ve seen attacked.” Although there have recently been stepped up efforts to monitor the Somali coast to try to push back against the pirates, the threatened area is huge and amounts to “four times the size of Texas,” notes the WSJ. Many fear that this hijacking means that pirates are becoming more daring and sophisticated in their attacks. They certainly have a financial incentive to carry out these risks as ransoms continue to increase. The NYT points out the pirates’ profits are expected to reach $50 million this year. The LAT fronts an interesting look at how the bad economic situation coupled with increasing deficits may be just what the doctor ordered for President-elect Obama to finally be able to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system. Some have been suggesting that Obama should put healthcare on the backburner since there’s so much else to deal with, but others say the new administration will have a rare opportunity to take dramatic action. Not only are doctors and physicians worried about the newly unemployed joining the millions of Americans who are uninsured, but businesses also see it as an urgent issue since medical benefits eat up so much of their budgets at a time when profits are shrinking. The NYT points out an eleventh-hour plan by the Bush administration to issue a rule that would prohibit health care providers from discriminating against health care workers who oppose abortions or sterilizations procedures due to their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” This means it would be illegal for a health care center to require staff members to perform or assist in these procedures. Three officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are speaking up against the plan, saying that it would put in doubt 40 years of civil rights law that already prohibits job discrimination based on religion. The WP goes above-the-fold with a long profile of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that details how the former head of Goldman Sachs has changed quite a bit during his 30-month tenure. Although he was skeptical, to say the least, of government involvement in the economy when he first arrived in Washington, he was forced to change his mind when faced with such a disastrous economic picture. “My thinking has evolved a lot to the point where I’ve seen regulation up close and personal,” Paulson said. “I’ve realized how flawed it is and how imperfect, but how necessary it is,” he added. Paulson said that sometime in the next few weeks he’ll unveil a set of plans to update the country’s regulatory structure so the government can properly oversee a bigger chunk of the market. He’ll also urge the new administration to give the government the power to take over any failing financial institution, not just banks. “There is no playbook for responding to turmoil we have never faced,” writes Paulson in an op-ed piece in the NYT. “We adjusted our strategy to reflect the facts of a severe market crisis, always keeping focused on our goal: to stabilize a financial system that is integral to the everyday lives of all Americans.” Paulson insists that as Obama’s administration will take over and try to figure out how to best deal with the slump, it will benefit from a more stable banking system as well as having the authority and resources to tackle the problem. Indeed, in an interview with the WSJ, Paulson said he’s unlikely to tap into what is left of the $700 billion bailout package because he’d rather keep it on hold for an emergency and not make decisions that will tie Obama’s hands. “I’m not going to be looking to start up new things unless they’re necessary or it’s just clear that they need to be done,” Paulson said. This suggests that the Bush administration doesn’t plan to use any of the bailout money to prevent more home foreclosures, a course of action that many have been pressing for. One of the strongest proponents for action in the foreclosure front has been Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, whom the LAT profiles today on Page One noting that she’s one of the few officials “whose reputation has actually improved during the financial crisis.” Bair’s focus on the issue, on top of her willingness to criticize the Bush administration, may earn her a spot in Obama’s administration, particularly since the incoming president has always highlighted his plans to include Republicans in his government. In an op-ed piece in the LAT, historian Matthew Pinsker says that Team of Rivals, the book on the Lincoln presidency that everyone seems to be citing these days as Obama puts together his cabinet doesn’t tell the whole story. While it’s true that Lincoln gathered former rivals in his cabinet, that approach didn’t work as well for him as many assume. Not only did Lincoln anger friends, but he also ended up having to rule with an iron fist over his advisers after his former rivals almost destroyed his presidency. “Lincoln was a political genius,” writes Pinsker, “but his model for Cabinet-building should stand more as a cautionary tale than as a leadership manual.”
First Same-Sex Marriage, Now This Plus Ça Change • ”Ms. Lewinsky, the former intern at the center of the investigation into sex and lies at the White House, had said in her debriefings with prosecutors in recent weeks that she had given Mr. Clinton the Zegna tie on his 50th birthday, in August 1996. According to what Ms. Lewinsky told a close friend, Ms. Lewinsky told the President that because they would not be able to see each other every day, ‘when I see you wearing this tie I’ll know that I am close to your heart.’ On the day of her testimony, Mr. Clinton was inveighing against handguns in a televised ceremony. Prosecutors apparently wondered, Was the tie a sign, a plea for solidarity?”–New York Times, Aug. 19, 1998 Bill Ayers Finally Speaks Out Why Wasn’t He in the Courtroom to Begin With? Now She Outranks Adam Those Election Spurs Are Fast! Stay Away From State Control Creeps News of the Tautological News You Can Use • ”Plagued by Fungus? Bacteria? Try Copper Socks”–headline, Reuters, Nov. 15 Bottom Stories of the Day • ”Nothing Changes at Top of BCS Standings”–headline, MSNBC.com, Nov. 16
|
Headlines The Ethicist Am I My Bookkeeper’s Keeper? By RANDY COHEN I am a minister in a small Baptist congregation. The church alerted me that because of a bookkeeping error, I’ve been receiving several hundred dollars more than I should in each paycheck. I probably should have caught the mistake, but I was never good at numbers. That’s why I went into theology. They want me to refund this money. Must I pay for someone else’s mistake? NAME WITHHELD, TEXAS You’re not being asked to pay for “someone else’s mistake” but to return something that doesn’t belong to you, money paid in error. If you found someone’s wallet, wouldn’t you give it back, even if someone made a mistake by losing it? But while you are obliged to refund this money, your employer should not demand immediate and inconvenient repayment of the total sum. The error accumulated over months; its correction, too, can be gradual. But surely a minister must be good with numbers. Ten commandments, 12 disciples, 40 days and 40 nights of rain, the Trinity — muddle those numbers, and you’re heading for heresy. UPDATE: For reasons unrelated to this dispute, the minister left the job to work for a nonprofit in another state. The church offset some of his debt against unused vacation time and uninvested retirement withholdings. He wrote a check for the remainder, $520. I own a busy cafe-delicatessen with 25 employees. All the workers except two enjoy listening to background music from the radio while they work, as do I; those two say it irritates them, gives them headaches and makes it hard to talk to the customers. I turned off the music, but most of my workers say I’m unfair. Should I heed the majority or respect the wishes of those two employees? H.D., NEW YORK Headaches? Are the antimusic duo misrepresenting their distress as a chronic medical condition, like those cabdrivers who were “allergic” to cigarettes? I admire both your concern for working conditions and your nod to workplace democracy. And while the minority should be protected from the tyranny of the majority — or else we would all be assailed by the Top 40 — here you have a supermajority, 24 out of 26, more than what’s needed to break a filibuster or override a presidential veto, a near-consensus worth heeding. Are there situations when majorities are too slight to set some policies? Yes. Is this one? No. One way to proceed gently: introduce music so quiet that it’s barely audible, then gradually increase the volume each day, leveling off when the two holdouts object. Who knows: they might get used to it or even come to like it. UPDATE: Soft music now plays on weekends and holidays when the two audiophobes are off. Employer, employees and customers enjoy it. Can someone paid by my community college to tutor students in my chemistry classes also be a grader for me? The tutor feels this may be a conflict of interest. But don’t I, the teacher, have the same conflict when I teach the class and grade students’ papers? MIKE DANIEL, BAKERSFIELD, CALIF. The tutor is overly fastidious. Because he is paid by the college, his financial relationship to the students is like that of any other teacher, as you note. His grading papers would be problematic if, as is sometimes the case for tutors, he were paid directly by individual students (or encouraged them to tip heavily). Such payments could be seen as a sort of bribe to ensure a higher grade. In those circumstances, he would have to recuse himself from grading his students’ papers.
|
|
|
November 18, 2008 18 November, 2008
<!–[if !mso]>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
<![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
false
false
false
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
<![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]>
<![endif]–>
<!–
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:536871559 0 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:”";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:#606420;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
p
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0cm;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0cm;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;}
@page Section1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
–>
<!–[if gte mso 10]>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:”";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
<![endif]–>
HTML clipboard
|
|
|
|
|
November 11, 2008 17 November, 2008
<!–[if !mso]>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
<![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]>
Normal
0
false
false
false
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
<![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]>
<![endif]–>
<!–
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:536871559 0 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:”";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:#606420;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
p
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0cm;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0cm;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;}
@page Section1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
–>
<!–[if gte mso 10]>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:”";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
<![endif]–>
|
|
|
November 11, 2008 17 November, 2008
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
Normal
0
false
false
false
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:”";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
|
