Liberal Talk Radio

Now that the academic world is supremely conscious of fair-labor practices, universities are having trouble finding enough suppliers to churn out that endless stock of sweatshirts, t-shirts and shot glasses bearing the logo of dear old State U.: Five months after Columbia joined a national effort to enforce labor standards in the factories that produce [...]

As George Allen’s unannoucned-but-widely-presumed candidacy for the GOP nomination for president of the United States rapidly implodes, James Carville (if he’s not in his native Louisiana watching the Saints whoop up on the Falcons) must be preparing a tactful, if slightly satisfying speech to his wife, Mary Matalin, the powerhouse GOP operative who signed on [...]

NY Times follows up its own Sunday special on the decline and fall of the American housing price bubble with the first evidence that prices are decling in nominal, not just in real, terms: The median price of a previously owned home fell for the first time in 11 years last month, and inventories of [...]

If the Post is to be believed, after a week on the talk-show circuit, ex-New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey may still get his comeuppance — in front of a grand jury: Jim McGreevey may have blabbed too much in his tell-all autobiography — and not just about his sex life. It’s “not inconceivable” that the [...]

If Fashion Week has started to resemble the red carpet at the Oscars (a point amplified by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on last week’s The Treatment), then the United Nations General Assembly meetings are not far behind. For a taste, grab your jaundiced monocle and join Ben McGrath in this week’s Talk of the Town: So many [...]

Don’t blame organic farming, for organic farming could have prevented this latest outbreak. Feeding cows a natural, hay-based diet — as opposed to the awful grain-based diet that most commercial feeding operations use — can eliminate their ability to carry E. coli. From a 1998 NY Times article: Grain feeding helps make beef tender and [...]

The role of organic farming in the latest e. coli outbreak, the torture “compromise,” a war of words at the UN, the coup in Thailand, and the role of Adjustible Rate Mortgages on the housing bubble.

As some of you know, in my double-super-secret life, I’m a mild mannered technology director, buying and installing and troubleshooting Apple computers all over Seattle. So I’m going to take this Saturday (and hopefully some Saturdays to come…) to outline various thoughts on the tech industry. If this doesn’t appeal to you at all, feel free to skip these posts.

Two weeks ago, Apple Computer did something very unusual and talked about a prototype product, the iTV, which won’t be available for some 6 months. The iTV takes all the movies, music, and photos you have stored on your computer, and streams them to your TV. It’s a hot little gadget, and one that dovetails nicely with the fact that Apple now sells TV shows and movies from their iTunes store. But there’s one feature that they haven’t announced, one that would fit perfectly in the living room.

In a negligence case against the Los Angeles-area Metrolink train system, plaintiffs throw stuff up there and see what sticks: Superior Court Judge Emily Elias said the consolidated claims involving negligence and dangerous condition of property could go forward against the commuter rail system, but dismissed an argument claiming Metrolink violated a pledge on its [...]

Is it just me or wouldn’t you have expected the U.S. to threaten Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan would be bombed into the stone age if they didn’t stop working with the Taliban after Sept. 11? I know it’s pick-on-Richard Armitage season, but “cooperate or we’ll bomb you” is basically the definition of military deterrence . [...]