Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

What is going on with the Middle East?

There is a steadily increasing drumbeat of accusations by American officials such as Rice, Mullen, CIA, regarding Iran’s role in Iraq and their nuclear capabilities, and more ultimatums from Maliki regarding militias.

Econobloggers

The Milken Institute had a conference that included Professor Mark Thoma of Economist’s View, Felix Salmon of Market Movers, Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism, and Paul Kedrosky of Infectious Greed. The video is about an hour long, interesting especially after the first eight minutes, and lets you put a face to the names. Updated.

UH OH!

CoRev sends along the following information as the news hits the UK papers and today’s New York Times. UH OH! NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has flipped to its cool phase. The last time this happened was in 1946, and for the next three decades we had cooler than […]

Liberal Massachusetts Economic Growth

Economy in state outpaces US growth Adds 4,600 jobs through March The Massachusetts economy expanded at a healthy clip in the first three months of the year despite a national economic slowdown, breaking with the recent past when the state suffered longer and deeper recessions than the rest of the United States. The University of […]

GAO and another whittling the beak

Special May Day Whittle by ilsm: GAO Testimony Apr 29 2008 on the widely commented upon DoD acquisition problems with the 95 Systems they reviewed this year. States part of the problems at the “What GAO Found” page: “In addition, only a small percentage of programs used two key systems engineering tools- preliminary design reviews […]

More bragging for the economy

Cactus notes: James Pethokoukis continues misinforming readers (why does he do this? is it some sort of a hobby?) out at US News and World Report: Out: Recession. In: Expansion. That’s my quick take ontoday’s first-quarter gross domestic product number, which showed thatthe economy grew 0.6 percent in the first quarter. Nevermind that these figures […]

Hillary and Fox News

On Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton will appear in a pretaped interview on Fox News‘ “The O’Reilly Factor.”

I feel better already!

Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report comments on the President’s reassurances at a White House press conference today, keeping his tax cuts as a way out of the slowdown. In all seriousness, how many people who are worried about theirfamilies’ finances right now are going to say, “I’ve been reallyworried, but now that I know […]

A Word About Counterfeit Affiliations

By Noni Mausa In the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur and his companions come to a cave which is guarded by a terrible monster. The king and his men scoff when they see that the monster has every resemblance to an ordinary white rabbit. But as they approach the cave, the […]