May.
New York City’s Comptroller is under investigation for accepting foreign campaign contributions – and just sent an “outreach” email to my foreign company!
I’ve always assumed that the intersection of money and politics is far dirtier here in Hungary than in New York City, where I spent most of my adult life before moving abroad in the late 1990s. Though as of yesterday I am not so sure. [more]
May.
Jenson Button wins 2012 Grand Prix of my dining room window
Back when I was a suburban American teen first getting into Formula 1 racing, the whole thing was so exotically distant I was reduced to buying Italian-language motorsport magazines to look at up-to-date pictures of my favorite cars and drivers. Then I moved to a city an hour or so from a track where an F1 race takes place every summer. And now yesterday afternoon the guy I’m rooting for in this year’s F1 championship staged a series of high-speed runs right in front of my apartment building, leaving clouds of rubber smoke wafting into the flat, and my son cowering under the dining room table. Progress!
Apr.
I firmly believe that my Woody tops your Boner
It seems that across America this week there was lots of cackling over reports that a 73-year-old county official in Murfreesboro, Tennessee by the name of “Bill Boner” was accused of sexually harassing two female employees whom he later fired:
In the complaints, [the two fired employees] accuse Boner of attempting to look down female employees’ shirts, making grunting sounds toward women, commenting about “sex with farm animals, and not needing a wife for sexual satisfaction.”
According to a story about the story on a media industry website, Boner’s exposure was a “gift to journalists.” Which is certainly true in my case, because it gives me an excuse to dredge up a similar item I discovered earlier this year when trolling the internet for news from my hometown of Plainfield, New Jersey, and which didn’t get half the rise out of the media that Boner’s did. [more]
Mar.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Discount Opera Tickets
A nice summary of the mentality of the European and America’s cultural elite:
“Culture is a basic need,” said Andreas Stadler, director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York and president of the New York branch of the European Union National Institutes for Culture. “People should have the right to go to the opera.”
Mar.
Die, Citibank, die, special no apology $3,364.49 keystroke error edition
It’s hardly a secret that the quasi-government enterprise that is today’s Citibank is a black hole of inefficiency and bad service. Still, no harm in passing on a particularly ridiculous experienced I suffered at the hands of the beast last week. [more]
Mar.
The degeneracy that is the modern Western ethical-industrial complex
How very charming:
Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued.
Mar.
And Maalox offers new final solution for gas sufferers
Okay it’s not quite that bad. Still, you’d think the media company of the guy elected mayor of New York a month after 9/11 would be on the lookout for boo-boos like this.
Feb.
If this was a wasted morning, I’m Brian Boitano
Was a bit stressed this morning, as I had to leave on the late side to drop the boy off at a nearby ice rink, where the school was having a field trip. He got spooked and howled for me to stay. Best moment: “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian playing on the loudspeakers as one of the tots face-planted so hard he left a good tablespoon or two of blood and snot on the ice.
Feb.
Winner-take-all economics, special Mars Prize/Facebook IPO edition
Interesting to read this pitch for a “Mars Prize” that could potentially lead to a manned mission costing no more than $10 billion, the very day before Facebook files for an IPO that could see the company end up with a valuation that would make its twenty-something founder able to pay for the prize twice over, with a moon mission or three to spare. [more]
Jan.
Don’t They Have An App For This?
A member of the first generation of native iPad users learns to write, months after learning to scroll, swipe, pinch, tap and TYPE HIS NAME. Strange days.
Latest bad idea in “housing recovery” policy: A federally-run “down-payment protection plan”:
Homebuyers could purchase protection from the government for a one-time fee, say 1 percent of the house purchase price, or $2,000 on a house selling for $200,000. The fee could vary with the risk of house price declines in each area. The plan would be open to all buyers.
At the end of three years, the government would automatically mail checks to protected homeowners if average house prices in their area were lower than when they purchased their homes.
What could possibly go wrong with this?
Jan.
