Liberal Talk Radio

Using the Google Suggest feature (“As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you’re typing and offers suggestions in real time . . . Our algorithms use a wide range of information to predict the queries users are most likely to want to see”), here are the first terms Google suggests if [...]

One of the big knocks on increasing the cost of emitting carbon as a solution to global warming is that it’s “regressive,” i.e., it hurts the poor disproportionately. I don’t really buy that argument, for a number of reasons. One, the poor are going to be hit the worst by climate change, which will make [...]

Since nationalization is in the news these days, I’ve been thinking a bit about a different kind of nationalization — specifically, the kind that happens when you’ve got a single buyer for a product, aka “monopsony”. This is what the defense industry is today, an industry that has only a single client. I’ve been noodling [...]

Microsoft compound boo-boo with ham-handedness. If they really want to make themselves beloved, they’ll sue to get the money back.

A post-Oscar preview, Obama’s budget and housing plans, and finally, 17,000 more troops head for Afghanistan. Links Mentioned: The details on the budget …

the stimulus passes, the bank bailout advances, and finally: our international news roundup. Links Mentioned: Chavez’s gambit … GM & the UAW go down to the wire … Israel’s election dynamics … the details (such as they are) of the bank bailout.

President Obama owed Huffington Post writer Sam Stein one. Last night, he paid him back: It was a bookend moment. President Obama on Monday evening became the 10th American president to call on Helen Thomas at a White House news conference. And he was the first to call on Sam Stein, a reporter for The [...]

The Professor hits Portland, the stimulus hits the Senate, and Michael Phelps hits… Links Mentioned: transit funding in the stimulus … the Chamber of Commerce goes after the Republicans … Khatami throws his hat in the ring … Seth Meyers responds to the Phelps brouhaha.

The President’s newest gambit: capping executive pay at $500k/year for banks that have received bailout funds. Loopholes abound: Obama’s pay rules focus on any firms that seek and receive future help from government, with a firm cap on those getting “exceptional” assistance. Citigroup and Bank of America among the few examples of firms so far [...]

I’m not entirely sure when substituting popular music for actual acting started happening (was it James Van Der Beek’s fault?), but it started bothering me during Grey’s Anatomy — specifically, the final scenes in the final episode of Season 3 (“Didn’t We Almost Have It All?”), when Sandra Oh’s character rips off her wedding dress [...]