“Paying fair market values for the assets will not work. Only by overpaying for the assets will the banks be adequately recapitalized. But overpaying for the assets simply shifts the losses to the government. In other words, the Geithner plan works only if and when the taxpayer loses big time.” — Joseph E. Stiglitz The…
The picks of the week from around the web. Bloomberg: “In Geithner We Trust Eludes Treasury as Market Fails to Recover.” Interesting critical portrait of Timothy Geithner, the US Secretary of the Treasury, by Yalman Onaran and Michael McKee. Cold Heat. Ben Jones and Frank Santoro have put the first four issues of their currently-paused…
The fabulous online comics community Scans Daily has been shut down, one assumes by its host LiveJournal. The reason, apparently, was copyright infringement — ie. posting scans whole issues or close to whole issues of new comics on the site. Seeing some of his work there got comics writer Peter David riled, and he informed…
The picks of the week from around the web. Long time since last picks. Haven’t had as much time to surf as normally. This week, however, I have a bunch of comics stuff on my mind. Du9: “Sibylline retrouvée” & “Le Grand recit fantastique.” Fine two-part article by David Turgeon on the never collected, late…
OK, so the prize for weirdest political moment this week goes to the tag team of Gordon Brown and David Cameron, disagreeing in public over the age of Titian when he died. In what in itself is a revealing moment of bizarre self-conception, Brown apparently compared himself to Titian last month, saying the master did…
Today is the 200th anniversary of the great pioneering scientist Charles Darwin’s birth. May his wisdom prevail! Illustrations: David Levine, left 1998, right 1973, (copyright New York Review of Books)
“During the same critical period, Vice President Cheney was urging Secretary of State Colin Powell to consider seriously the possibility that Iraq might be connected to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Powell found the case worse than ridiculous and scornfully concluded that Cheney had what Powell termed a “fever.” (In private, Powell used to…
We’re rid of these assholes. Savor the moments in fuller here.
I hear the argument that demanding of Israel a sense of proportion in its handling of the conflict with Hamas is unreasonable, in that war is always disproportional. It has been most succintly put by André Glucksman. There is truth to this, but that does not make the current invasion of Gaza — it’s a…
“The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things. For those of us old enough to still care about going out on a Sunday morning for our doorstop edition of The Times, it will mean the end of a certain kind of civilized ritual that has defined most of our adult lives. It will…
I know it’s been everywhere today, but I just can’t resist posting it. There’s something fitting to the fact that presumably one of the last memorable images of the lame duck president is him having a pair of shoes thrown at him in a small room. I mean, what could be more pathetic? Well, I…
The picks of the week from around the web. Slightly slim pickings this week, owing to the fact that I’ve been on internet-free holiday. I do however have these recommendations for you: Warren Craghead: “A Flame Expelled.” Top Shelf hosts this short lyrical comic from one of the most compelling experimental comics makers at the…
The picks of the week from around the web. The New York Times: Bill Ayers responds. Op-ed piece from the recently much-maligned former Weatherman Bill Ayers. Succint and to the point, with plenty of things to disagree with. The comments section by the way contains some excellent discussion. A couple of great comics links. “The…
“Obama’s victory is a sign of history in the triple Kantian sense of signum rememorativum, demonstrativum, prognosticum. A sign in which the memory of the long past of slavery and the struggle for its abolition reverberates; an event which now demonstrates a change; a hope for future achievements. The scepticism displayed behind closed doors even…
“Chocolate City is no dream, it’s my part of the rock, and I dig ya CC.” — George Clinton, “Chocolate City” The picks of the week from around the web. Parliament: “Chocolate City”. Emphatically the track of the week. Listen to it here, and go here for the classic album. Gore Vidal on BBC’s election…