Nobody loves life like an old man.

“There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.”

“The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders.”

“The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.”

“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it’s all over much too soon.”

“Look at what your idea of success would be. The more that you take in external motivators, the more it reduces your ultimate satisfaction because it doesn’t come from inside.”

“Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”

“While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.”

“To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.”

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn . . . “is to learn something.  That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder in your veins, . . . you may see the […]

“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.”

Michael J. Totten takes exception to the frequently expressed view that “the war on terrorism started in Afghanistan and it needs to end there.”  In my New Atlanticist essay “Afghanistan: Necessary But Not Sufficient,” I explain why he’s right.   My conclusion:

Defeating the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies there and in neighboring Pakistan is vital to regional…

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Min Zeng and Mark Gongloff report that in the wake of the failure to pass the bailout bill, overnight lending rates are ratcheting up–a trend which was already well on its way before the vote.

But, as has often been the case during this crisis, credit markets are singing a different tune. Overnight dollar Libor rates more than doubled to 6.875%, as…

I don’t know if you’ve been following it but an interesting story has been unfolding off the coast of Somalia. Last week pirates (who, interestingly, claim legitimacy as a sort of Coast Guard for Somalia) seized an arms-carrying Ukrainian cargo ship off the coast of Somalia and are demanding a $20 million ransom for the release of the crew and ship. American, French, and British…

“Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.”

The NYT has an editorial about the scourge of plastic bags, “which have only a brief, useful life, can survive forever in landfills and are of enormous concern to not only environmentalists but local officials who are running out of places to put their trash.”

I’m old enough to remember when biodegradable brown paper bags were the norm in American grocery stores. Not only…

This video, called “Burning Down the House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis” (although, oddly, set to the tune of “Money for Nothing”) is apparently all the rage (at least in my wife’s office). It traces the subprime crisis to the Jimmy Carter era Community Reinvestment Act.

To the extent this view is correct (and I suspect, like anything else complex, there are…

“Anyone without a sense of humor is at the mercy of everyone else.”

Nate Silver compares the list of Representatives voting No on yesterday’s bailout bill with the list of swing districts — that is, those where the re-election of the incumbent is seriously in doubt — and finds a surprisingly strong correlation.

VULNERABLE GOP = 3 YEAS, 17 NAYS (15%)

OTHER GOP = 62 YEAS, 116 NAYS (35%)

VULNERABLE DEMS = 5 YEAS, 13 NAYS (28%)

OTHER DEMS = 135…

“There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.”

Friends should be weighed, not told; who boasts to have won a multitude of friends has never had one.

How do you write woman so well? - I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.

“The essence of romantic love is not the company of a lover but the pursuit.”

The Devil himself had probably re-designed Hell in the light of information he had gained from observing airport layouts.

“No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.”

“Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.”

“Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.”

“The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

The Free Hugs Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

(AFP/File/Anoek de Groot)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: Tanya - Let’s see. Hooters should be just at the end of this hallway…

Second: Rachel Edith -

Dear Free Hugs Guy,

Please hug David Letterman for me.

XO,

John McCain

Third: Gollum - Juan’s business model sucked in the execution, but his…

…why are so many politicians running around engaging in partisan politics? Lets go with Ezra Klein’s take on the situation,

And so the Republicans killed this bill. Without their cover, the Democrats couldn’t save it, because politically, they couldn’t take ownership of it.

If this situation is so bad (the Dow Tanking 700 points! OMFG!). How come they are playing…

An interesting meme is developing among smart commenters from across the political spectrum that the House’s failure to pass the bailout bill demonstrates the soft underbelly of our political system itself.

Ezra Klein:

Above all, though, this is a failure of politics. Like with global warming, with health care, with the national debt, with immigration. It is further proof that we have a…

Perhaps the House Republican leadership have read Michael Moore’s latest diatribe?

Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the…

Drudge reported that the Dow plunged 500 points. Something happened. I’ll post more as it comes in.

Update:

Looks like investors are fearing the bailout will not pass. Dow down now 700 points.

Update II:

I’ve heard several unconfirmed reportst that the bailout has not passed. One that it failed in the Senate and the other that if failed in the House. Take this with a shovel…

“This is courage…to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends.”
– Euripides
      

While I am not a fan of the bailout, buying the toxic assets from foundering financial institutions, there is a logic to it that, in the end, could work. Here is the idea,

Right now people are very uncertain and very nervous. As such they are most likely to to err on the side of caution. So when a financial insitution is in trouble and wants to sell some risky assets to shore up their balance…

And while we’re on the subject of public debt it might be entertaining to compare the public debts and GDP’s of various OECD countries:

Country
GDP ($T)
Public debt ($T)
Percent

France
1.87
1.21
64.7%

Germany
2.59
1.93
63.8%

Italy
1.8
1.9
105.3%

Japan
4.28
7.53
176%

United Kingdom
2.77
.864
31.2%

United States
13.81
9.67
70%

Source: CIA.gov

Bible Quotes
Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked,”Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him”
Matthew 2:1,2
More Bible Verses
      

Seth Godin has a number of “random travel thoughts,” several of which relate to airport security:

When I go through security, why do I need to remove a cardigan sweater but the woman standing next to me can keep her cashmere blouse on? Are certain kinds of wool inherently risky?

What would happen if Imagineers from Disney designed the security line? Why not let them try?

After…

When I read this transcript from Fareed Zakaria this bit leapt out at me:

The Chinese are by far the largest holders of American debt, for example. They buy billions of dollars’ worth of American Treasury bills every week.

Now perhaps Mr. Zakaria is engaging in a masterful piece of misdirection by conflating “debt” with “American Treasury bills” but, assuming he…

Dan Qualye was, rather unfairly in my view, a national joke.  From very shortly after George H.W. Bush picked a rising star senator from Indiana that few outside his home state had ever heard of to be his vice presidential running mate in 1988, Quayle became the butt of late night comics, “Saturday Night Live,” and other culture-setting institutions and became generally thought of as…

While he doesn’t come right out and say so, I sense that Thoreau seems less than pleased with the bailout compromise:

Screw it. The real divide in this mess is not rich-poor, it’s responsible-irresponsible. Whether you’re a moron who borrowed too much or a moron who loaned too much, you get taken care of. Screw all of them. The Congressional Republicans will take care of the irresponsible…

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Barry Eichengreen notes that the globalization and diversity of the current economy makes it much less amenable to easy government fixing than its Great Depression counterpart. On the other hand, we’re simply not going to see anything close to the economic devastation we saw during that era:

[W]e are not going to see 25% unemployment rates like those of the Great Depression. Then it took…

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to the office.

Time for the Monday OTB Caption ContestTM

(AFP/Mandel Ngan)

Winners will be announced Thursday PM

“Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.”

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

“The question should be, is it worth trying to do, not can it be done.”