Liberal Talk Radio

First rule — keep baby-killing philosopher/utilitarian ethicist/professor Peter Singer way the hell away from “rationing” arguments. You’d think the Republicans were behind this one . . .

Our enthusiasm for the sport aside, this seems to go beyond even the 1919 Black Sox Scandal: Football is being used as a vehicle for money laundering, according to an agency responsible for tracking the proceeds of crime. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) report warns football is at risk from criminals buying clubs, transferring [...]

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

This time, a coordinated message but Vice-President Biden still sounds off key: President Obama branded Wall Street bankers “shameful” on Thursday for giving themselves nearly $20 billion in bonuses as the economy was deteriorating and the government was spending billions to bail out some of the nation’s most prominent financial institutions. “There will be time [...]

Ron Suskind’s “telling lessons” illustrate the genesis of the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut and Sarbanes-Oxley, which is to say, the Administration acted quickly to address structural flaws in the financial system: The Federal Reserve chairman and senior economic officials of the Bush administration solemnly filed into the large conference room of the Treasury Department. There [...]

. . . is using the example of being forced to set your thermostat at 60 as “a teachable moment”: Conservationists swoon at the possibility of it all. Here in Alaska, where melting arctic ice and eroding coastlines have made global warming an urgent threat, this little city has cut its electricity use by more [...]

Maybe you trust this man to make smart environmental policy? I wouldn’t: Representative Anthony D. Weiner, Democrat of Brooklyn and Queens, drives a 2008 Chevrolet Impala, leased for $219 a month. Representative Michael R. McNulty, a Democrat from the Albany area, gets around in a 2007 Mercury Mariner hybrid, a sport utility vehicle, for $816 [...]

Apocalypse Tom owns a 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX, an all wheel drive pseudo sports car that goes faster than Tom reasonably needs to drive and allows him to go over Snoqualmie Pass in winter weather that keeps everyone except chained-up semis and Tom at home. The WRX has a 15.9 gallon gas tank, and requires [...]

As seemingly every Times columnist this week argued against Clinton continuing the charade, several of us wondered where Clinton apologist Paul Krugman stood on the matter. Now we know: Mr. McCain, we’re told, is a straight-talking maverick. But on domestic policy, he offers neither straight talk nor originality; instead, he panders shamelessly to right-wing ideologues. [...]

I was watching ESPN’s SportsCenter at the gym this morning, and, between the Clemens steroid thing and the Arlen Specter NFL Patriots thing, it looked more like CSPAN than ESPN. Confidential to our elected officials: you’re probably introducing a fair number of people to the workings of Congress here. If you want them all to [...]