• How to Research and Compile Legislative Histories, June 26, 2009 – with WiFi Classroom
• Drafting Effective Federal Legislation and Amendments, July 29, 2009
• Preparing and Delivering Congressional Testimony, July 30, 2009
• As Time Goes By – “Let’s get it out of the way once and for all: that’s not Louis Armstrong in Casablanca, folks. If you’ve heard the famous version of the tune from said movie, that’s not Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong recorded many, many standards in the studio and though “As Time Goes By” would have been an apt choice, it was never to be. Louis Armstrong never recorded tune. There. I’m glad that’s out of the way. Of course, I didn’t say that Louis Armstrong never performed the tune…”
• A Manifesto for Scholarly Publishing – “books remain the most effective technology for organizing and presenting sustained arguments at a relatively general level of discourse and in familiar rhetorical forms — narrative, thematic, philosophical, and polemical — thereby helping to enrich and unify otherwise disparate intellectual conversations. … In effect, books remain valuable precisely because they are distinct from the other, more transitory, forms of scholarly communication.”
• Taleb Watch – “I think folks are beginning to catch on to what I and others have been saying for a long time–Nassim Taleb is fantastically overrated.”
• Jihadists ‘Smell Blood’ in Pakistan – “Influential former Obama administration advisor on South Asia, Bruce Riedel, told a Washington audience yesterday of the very real possibility that Islamic jihadists could seize control in Pakistan.”
• Online museum devoted to telling horrors of communism goes active Tuesday
• Mortgage Market Remains Solidly Frozen – “‘Mortgage rates jumped again to 5.75% and refis are frozen solid. The trade-up market is dead but some new houses are still moving …. for now. ‘”
• Mandatory composting in San Francisco
• Unemployment Claims: Record 6.8 Million Continued Claims
• Stiglitz: America’s double-standard on economic crises infuriates the poor world – “In the eyes of many throughout the developing world, the revolving door, which allows American financial leaders to move seamlessly from Wall Street to Washington and back to Wall Street, gave them even more credibility; these men seemed to combine the power of money and the power of politics. American financial leaders were correct in believing that what was good for America or the world was good for financial markets, but they were incorrect in thinking the converse, that what was good for Wall Street was good for America and the world.”
• Do Lower Rates Help Recasts? – “not only are there many homeowners sitting on neg-ams about to recast, but many specuvestors used them to purchase flips that are now unable to sell”
• Barney Frank Runs Away from Tough Questioning – “Congressman Frank is a bully pure and simple and today he was put in his place.”
• Households with Mortgages: Approximately 20 Percent Equity
• An Uneven Playing Field – “Similarly, a frustrated executive from AC Milan blames Kaka’s departure on the Italian tax system: ‘I repeat, this is all a matter of different types of taxation. If we were a Spanish club, we would have saved €40 million.’ Policymakers and soccer fans alike should take note.”
• foodie nonsense – “So the Scotts are having their burn barrels fabricated out of scrap metal by a local welder for ideological reasons, as opposed to the frickin’ common sense reason that ALL custom welding is done by local tradesmen?”
• You don’t (want to) know yourself
• “We got the Duke!” – “Today marks the passing of another famous convert who only entered the Church a few days before his death in 1979. John Wayne was raised a Presbyterian but he married three Catholic wives, and his children were all raised Catholic.”
• Lancets, bloody lancets – “How about the humble lancet? Here’s a device that someone with type 1 diabetes could use between 1,200 and 4,000 times a year.”
• HP Mini 110 XP Edition – $299.99
• Hummingbirds outpace fighter pilots – “Hummingbirds are the fastest animals on Earth, relative to their body size. They can cover more body lengths per second than any other vertebrate and for their size can even outpace fighter jets and the space shuttle — while withstanding g-forces that would make a fighter pilot black out.”
• How to Discover Your Kid’s Real Values
• And a Dog Named Gyp: 1922