New York Times :: Red Ink Realities [Paul Krugman]
Article

> According to cleverly misleading reports from the
> Heritage Foundation and other like-minded sources,
> the deficit is growing because Mr. Bush isn't
> sufficiently conservative: he's allowing runaway growth
> in domestic spending. This myth is intended to divert
> attention from the real culprit: sharply reduced tax
> collections, mainly from corporations and the wealthy.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 6:49 PM

New York Times :: The Girls Next Door
Article

> Last September, in a speech before the United Nations
> General Assembly, President Bush named sex trafficking as
> ''a special evil,'' a multibillion-dollar ''underground of
> brutality and lonely fear,'' a global scourge alongside the
> AIDS epidemic.

Evil, in this case, is le mot juste.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 9:57 AM

New York Times :: Career Girls [Op-Ed : Rhonda Garelick]
Article

> But each year, frankly, I feel increasingly compelled to look
> beyond my syllabuses and to devote myself more to teaching
> "wakeful" political literacy: the skills needed to interrogate all
> cultural messages. Students need to be able to mine the
> implications, for example, of a "Family Time Flexibility Act" which,
> while claiming to help women balance home and family, might
> have actually decreased overtime pay. They need to look
> critically at a presidential address that divides the world into
> opposing halves labeled "with us" and "with the terrorists."

Of course, Dr. Garelick's own CV includes a 1995 publication, "Outrageous Dieting: The Camp Performance of Richard Simmons", so we might allow her lotus-eaters a couple more years to wake up. If, by that time, they have not, they should have the first real effects of the administration's economic policies to help rouse them.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 9:58 PM

New York Times :: War of Ideas, Part 4 [Thomas Friedman]
Article

> That these two nations are locked in an utterly
> self-destructive vicious cycle that threatens Israel's
> long-term viability, poisons America's image in the Middle
> East, undermines any hope for a Palestinian state and
> weakens pro-American Arab moderates. No, you can't draw any
> other conclusion. Yet the Bush team, backed up by certain
> conservative Jewish and Christian activist groups, believes
> that the correct policy is to do nothing. Well, that is my
> definition of insane.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 6:35 PM

New York Times :: Two Fathers, With One Happy to Stay at Home
Article

> Sociologists, gender researchers and gay parents themselves
> say that because gay men are liberated from the cultural
> expectations and pressures that women face to balance work
> and family life, they may approach raising children with a
> greater sense of freedom and choice.

I'm pretty sure, in the end, it will turn out that gay couples are the only people who really know how to raise a child. And it will spell the end of high school football as we know it.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 10:32 AM

New York Times :: The H.M.O. Approach to Choosing a Lawyer
Article

> Chances are that you have a family physician for regular
> checkups, but it is not likely that you have a personal
> lawyer to call for routine legal matters. According to the
> American Bar Association, half of all consumers who need a
> lawyer do not seek legal help. The reasons include cost and
> uncertainty: many people say they do not know how to find a
> good attorney.
>
> This potential demand is fueling the growth of prepaid
> legal-services plans, also known as legal H.M.O.'s.

Let's not mince words : L.M.O. will do.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 8:35 PM

New York Times :: Parties Where an ID Is the Least of What You Show
Article

> Unlike the dismal, failed swinging attempt in "Carnal
> Knowledge," in which two husbands make a surreptitious
> deal to seduce each other's wives, the younger scene is
> driven largely by women - many of them erotic-party promoters
> who use the Internet as both a marketing tool and a screening
> aid, to keep their crowds enticingly attractive and to keep
> paying customers coming back.

Another step forward for the beautiful people.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 10:30 AM

New York Times :: At the Luxury End, Holiday Sales Were Hopping
Article

> The holiday season saw the nation's high-rolling shoppers
> propel luxury stores like Neiman Marcus and Tiffany, but
> over all, many merchants were disappointed.

Someone was feeling flush. Do you think it could have something to do with the way tax cuts were structured?
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 11:25 AM

New York Times :: Rubin Gets Shrill [Paul Krugman]
Article

> The point made by Mr. Rubin now, and by Mr. Mankiw
> when he was a free agent, is that the traditional immunity
> of advanced countries like America to third-world-style
> financial crises isn't a birthright. Financial markets give
> us the benefit of the doubt only because they believe in
> our political maturity - in the willingness of our leaders
> to do what is necessary to rein in deficits, paying a political
> cost if necessary. And in the past that belief has been
> justified. Even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when the
> budget deficit soared.

IMF gets shrill, too. See Times' article. posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 9:00 AM

New York Times :: Cultural Theorists, Start Your Epitaphs
Article

> Nowadays Mr. Eagleton lives the life of an academic
> superstar, jetting about the world from one academic
> conference to another. He has an apartment in Manchester
> as well as his home in Dublin and an 18th-century rectory
> near Londonderry, in Northern Ireland.

An 18th-century rectory in Londonderry -- Marxism as it was meant to be.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 8:41 AM

Los Angeles Times :: 'Pregnant' San Andreas Could Be Ready to Deliver
Article

> "I am interested in those other faults, but the San Andreas
> is the only one capable of producing a magnitude 8 earthquake,"
> said McGill, who stashes bottled water under her desk, just in
> case. "I would expect a 7 here, or a 7.5. A 7.9 is possible."
>
> A 7.9 would release about 65 times the energy of the 6.7
> Northridge quake, which killed 57 people and caused $40 billion
> in damage.

Investment tip : buy property after big one

[A friend working as an economist in London concurs: "Definitely agree w/your trade rec. A big one will seriously reduce risk of another big one from occurring for a few decades. You want to buy around the epicentre following a quake. Morbid, yet investor savvy all the same."]
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 8:33 AM