December 2009
23 posts
The Washington Monthly agrees with me
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_12/021710.php Just because the Detroit pants bomber was indicted does not mean that he cannot be interrogated without counsel. It simply means that you couldn’t use what was gathered at trial. I don’t mean to minimize the difficulty this would cause prosecutors but as I said a couple of days ago, they had a pretty...
More on Leach
I figure I’m not the only guy looking for this: here is a link to a piece by Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Blind Side) in the New York Times Magazine in 2005 about Mike Leach.
Mike Leach Fired From Texas Tech - My Quick...
The coach of Texas Tech’s football team, Mike Leach, was fired today by the university in the wake of a scandal surrounding his treatment of a player suffering from a concussion. This ESPN piece (written prior to Leach’s firing) does a good job of summing up the allegations against Leach. A source close to the family told [ESPN] that James [the player] sustained a concussion on...
Maybe I'm missing something...
This Detroit pants-bomber - there is a growing dispute over whether he should be tried in civilian courts (which would allow him to “lawyer up” in the minds of conservative critics - the Founding Fathers would be so proud of the way they so pithily put the Bill of Rights) or interrogated to give up what intelligence he has on the people who helped him. As Pat Buchanan hinted this...
Couple things
One, Iran’s internal security apparatus simply went crazy today on its citizens. For the best chronology, check out Andrew Sullivan’s blog. There are reports that the nephew of the presidential reform candidate Mousavi was killed today by Iran’s security forces. Two, on the Detroit incident, it seems pretty clear that the perpetrator had more than a sufficient amount of...
Even More Health Care Bill Data and Detroit
The NY Times’ Paul Krugman makes two very good points on his blog today: (1) this is a very expansive social program in terms of the subsidies being provided, and (2) the health care market is already very heavily regulated today between the current role of government as a provider via Medicare and Medicaid and the provision of employer-based insurance (remember that in order for...
Merry Christmas
From my niece’s sock monkey (and me).
Final Xmas Eve Thoughts On Health Care
I warned you I would have time to blog. It occurs to me - I cannot remember the last time the minority fought so hard against a bill but yet still lost. Part of this is due to the changing times, never has the filibuster been so often invoked. The last time I can think of is during the period leading up to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. If you want a good description of that fight, read...
Health Care Done....For Now
The Senate voted 60-39 to pass their version of a health care reform bill this morning. The bill will now go into a conference committee where the differences between it and a version passed by the House of Representatives will be reconciled. A conference version will emerge to be voted upon by both houses. It seems likely that the Senate version will emerge from conference in a slightly more...
Some Will Wonder If This Goes Back On The "If You...
If you have health care coverage through your employer that includes a flexible spending account, the current legislation looks like: (a) it will cut the amount you can contribute to the account pre-tax from $4,500 to $2,500, and (2) will put stricter limits on what you can spend the money on (no more 12/31 trips to stock up on over-the-counter meds).
The Weirdest Metaphor for 2009 Award goes to...
Forgive me in advance for mocking what I think is a cat reference. If it’s not a cat reference, well, I don’t know what to tell you. I was reading this piece about the legal market and how partners are shopping around now that they know what their firms are going to pay them for 2010. In the piece, one of the legal recruiters said that this has been a crazy year and that the law...
Health Care
Looking at the health care “debate” in the Senate right now, I’m struck by a few things. First, Tom Coburn’s plea that opponents of health care should have prayed for someone to miss yesterday’s 1 am vote was a little too accurate of a view for my taste into the depths of the GOP strategy here. They are literally hoping that Robert Byrd, at some point, becomes too...
Baseball, Basketball, etc...
The Yankees re-acquire Javier Vasquez from Atlanta in a deal including Melky Cabrera. Suddenly, the Giants’ ability to find a bargain free agent outfielder becomes even harder. The Bulls blow a 35 point 3rd quarter lead at home to the Sacramento Kings. Vinny Del Negro’s future as coach is in some doubt today. This did lead me to ask to myself, somewhat sarcastically, have the...
Predators
If true, this is disconcerting. Iraqi insurgents allgedly have been able to hack into Predator video feeds.
Quick question
We all know that SF is dying as a newspaper town (I will update this later with a link to a great piece in the current Harper’s about this when I find it.) Here’s my burning question of the day - how good of a Chinese language newspaper town is SF?
Health Care
A few weeks ago, I asked why the health care bill was going to be such a budget buster without a public option. Implicit in that question was another, namely, why is the bill worth the trouble. Here’s one person’s (informed) view that it is worth the effort along with some bullet points in support of that argument.
Food for Thought
There are two food items that San Francisco currently has too much of: : (1) cupcakes, and (2) porchetta. Discuss.
Sports Guy
Currently running on New York Magazine’s site is a discussion circle about Bill Simmons’ Big Book of Basketball, which I guess I would describe as a Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, except of the NBA not MLB and with less stats and more pop culture references. One of the 4 or 5 (I forge the total) contributors to the discussion is one of the freedarko.com guys, and that site...
AT&T's Data Network, Ugh
My phone isn’t really working here in SF today, who knows why, but Twitter is buzzing with the issue. In the midst of that coverage, I came upon this brilliant piece by a semi-famous tech blogger Fake Steve Jobs, imagining a discussion with AT&T in light of their weird statement earlier this week that they were going to try and figure out a way to cut down a limited number of iPhone...
Because Hunter Asked For It...
Tiger. Were I a member of the PGA, I think my response to any media inquiry on this would be “none of my business.” Not because I would be scared of Tiger (any more than I normally would be) but because I’d be afraid of his caddie Stevie. Stevie looks like he’s got a long memory. And like he’s keeping a black book of the dumb things said by the nerds in the PGA. ...
The other shoe
Implicit in most criticism of President Obama’s Afghanistan plan is that “solving” Pakistan is equally if not more key to success. So, today, fom The New York Times: Pakistan Told to Ratchet Up Taliban Fight The Obama administration warned that if Pakistan does not act aggressively, the U.S. will use more force on the Pakistani side of the border, officials said....
It's Late In the Decade So I Feel Safe
in voting this press conference by outgoing Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis the winner of the “Most Ridiculous Throwing Of A Random Unconnected Person Under the Bus” for this decade. Weis got fired this week by Notre Dame. In the weeks leading up to his termination, he seemed pretty resigned to it, volunteering that he certainly hadn’t lived up to the standards he knew he had to...
Afghanistan Is Not Vietnam, Although It Could...
The President gave a speech last night at West Point outlining his plans for the war in Afghanistan over the next two years. Some are likening this buildup to the one engaged in by LBJ during the first several years of his Presidency. I’ve always been interested by the history of the early Vietnam War era, consuming Michael Beschloss’ summary of the LBJ tapes of 1963-1966,...