Poor Alan Greenspan

Sadly, Alan Greenspan (perhaps after watching what happened to former Secretary O'Neill [though he could not be fired by the President]) today in testimony before the House Budget Committee said that Social Security benefits must be trimmed to prevent a looming fiscal crisis. Despite this belief, he continues to urge the Congress to make permanent the President's tax cuts (costing approximately $1 trillion).

Perhaps since he knows Social Security benefits will not be trimmed (at least not for the boomers), he can be credited with offering a "solution" to the fiscal crisis while remaining the President's lackey on tax cuts. I just hope he doesn't tarnish his legacy by going to bad for this administration's clearly reckless tax policies.

Here is the text of his testimony.

album of the year

The music industry continues its absurd battle against copyright violations, even when they produce some quality works like DJ Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album" which is combines the Beatles The White Album with Jay-Z's The Black Album in a wicked awesome way. So awesome that it has become the most popular internet download of recent time (ok, I'm making that up, but it's really popular). But since some fascist (EMI) owns the rights to The White Album, the Grey Album will never be released.

The Grey Album has received a ton of press recently, including this NYT article. If you like rap, ask me, and maybe I'll mail you a copy. Because that's what 3l1t3 p1r4t35 (Andy will get it, almost nobody else will (maybe Graham Archer, if he reads this) do.

for shame

To recap the President's cabinet:

Secretary Paul O'Neill was fired, more or less for disagreeing with the President about tax cuts. He felt such cuts would be fiscally irresponsible, and could lead to record deficits. Which we now have.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Education Rod Paige today called the National Education Association (the teacher's union) a "terrorist organization". The President ignored Paige and instead said:

"I fully understand it's going to be the year of the sharp elbow and the quick tongue. But surely we can shuffle that aside sometimes and focus on our people."

Whatever that means.

In his "apology" Secretary Paige says:

"As one who grew up on the receiving end of insensitive remarks, I should have chosen my words better."

To translate: "Since I'm black, I know all about being insulted, and therefore am immune from criticism despite having made remarks for which I should be fired. If you suggest I should be fired, you're probably racist. Or a terrorist. Or (gasp) a racist terrorist."

There is almost nothing about this that does not anger me.

To run

Nader to run as independent candidate.

To run or not to run?

In an open letter to Ralph Nader, editors of The Nation urge the former Green Party candidate not to seek the Presidency as an independent candidate (Nader having already withdrawn his name from consideration as a Green Party candidate).

Nader responds, and in doing so, demonstrates the divisive effects his potential campaign would have on the left. Though I voted for him four years ago, and agree with most of his arguments about the problems of our current electoral system, in my mind, all he can do is hamper efforts to remove the President from office.

like the indoor tennis court

I'm about 50 pages from finishing Mao II and have found myself disinterested in the conclusion. Yet, because of the time I've already invested getting to this point, it seems foolish not to finish. Economists would chide me for this, and mutter something about sunk cost.

If my subway ride were a bit longer in the morning, this wouldn't be a problem, but as it is, I can't really get any reading done on the train. Still, it beats sitting in traffic.

Celebrate and Discover

From today's Washington Post:

WASA officials suggest that the best way to flush the lines for 10 minutes is to take a shower and flush the toilet before drinking or cooking. That process will drain several gallons of water from the main pipes serving the homes.

Washington, D.C. - A Capital City

dump

I have a few things I wanted to add, but I'm tired, so here they are in disorganized list form:

• Chandra would probably approve of this article which describes threats by Indians over the observation of Valentine's Day in their country.
  
• The Strib ran a series on obesity in Minnesota. Included in one of the articles is a link to Ample Answers a website with things for the...not-so-thin. Among them is this Telescoping Fork. The description is awesome.
  

Bedtime.

election web fun

Mike sent me this link to Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections to a site where you can generate your own Presidential election prediction map.

This is mine. Perhaps a bit optimistic, but I think we'll win. There's a lot of other cool stuff for political nerds, including county-by-county maps. Good stuff.

Clever writing

When she wants to, I think Maureen Dowd is the best opinion columnist in the country. Today she demonstrates this.

Also, an amusing Joebituary in Slate.

fun with ricin

No work again tomorrow, and perhaps for the remainder of the week. It did feel a bit weird when (explaining to Anne (my sister) why I wasn't at work) the words "my office is closed because of a terrorist attack against my building" came out of my mouth. Fortunately, I haven't manifested symptoms of ricin poisoning, and would have by now. So I guess I'm not going to die.

Rock.

no work for me (part II)

For the second time in as many weeks, work has been cancelled by a white, powdery substance. This time, it's a little less sweet:

Ricin closes Senate office buildings