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  • Republicans Eye the Tiger of Populism - NYTimes.com

    • To what extent should they try to energize their electoral prospects by hitching themselves to the powerful but volatile strain of populism — characterized by anti-elitism and deep skepticism of government — that Ms. Palin has come to embody?
    • The renewed potency of populist conservatism has been on display since the summer,

  • The Brothers grim | World news | The Guardian

    • Beresford argues that the Brothers' brutality is rooted in the teachings of Rice, its founder, who modelled himself on Ignatius and was "heavily into self-mortification". Self-flagellation was then routine in the Catholic church.
    • "Pain and suffering was good for the soul. If suffering is good, it's a short step to saying, 'why not inflict it?'" Brothers joined the order as teenagers; they were taught to whip themselves as punishment for their sexual urges and discipline their pupils for sexual indiscretions. In an institution that demanded celibacy and yet was riven with "sexualised violence", some Brothers became sexual sadists, argues Beresford. The impact on Ireland has been profound. "The politicians, the businessmen, the priests, all went to Christian Brothers schools and absorbed the diet of violence, religious intolerance and sadomasochism," he says. Beresford wrote in the Irish Times: "To a large extent [the Christian Brothers'] mindset is Ireland's mindset. Their sadomasochism is an unacknowledged part of Irish male identity."

  • Wall Street Resumes Deal Financing - WSJ.com

    • J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is ponying up $2.85 billion in financing to Denbury Resources Inc. as part of the oil producer's takeover of Encore Acquisition Co., announced earlier this month. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. committed to provide more than $3 billion in debt to help private-equity firm TPG Inc. and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board take prescription-drug data provider IMS Health Inc. private in the largest leveraged buyout since May 2008
    • This year, banks are expected to arrange deal-related U.S. loans totaling about $90 billion. That is a far cry from the $289 billion in 2008 and record high of $617 billion in 2007, according to Dealogic.

  • The Betrayal - Timothy Egan Blog - NYTimes.com

    • There was once a political party that came out against concentration of wealth. They called for regulation of food, drugs, and big corporations. Called for “square deal” for the average American. And their robust spokesman, the leader of their party, said this of his countrymen:


      “There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensitive to every duty, regardless of principle, bent only on amassing a fortune.”


      That party was the Republicans, a bit more than century ago, led by Teddy Roosevelt.

  • Uproar as Firms Get Swine-Flu Vaccine - WSJ.com

    • The vaccine, which is paid for by the government, is being distributed to state and major city health departments, which then decide where to send the doses

  • Dede Scozzafava, Republican, Quits House Race in Upstate New York - NYTimes.com

    • Effective immediately, the R.N.C. will endorse and support the Conservative candidate in the race, Doug Hoffman,” the party’s national chairman, Michael Steele, said. “Doug’s campaign will receive the financial backing of the R.N.C. and get-out-the-vote efforts to defeat Bill Owens on Tuesday.”
    • Ms. Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman and former small-town mayor, was nominated this summer by Republican county leaders who quickly found their choice second-guessed by the party’s conservative wing. Many officials in the district, a vast expanse from the Vermont border through the Adirondacks to Lake Ontario, were deeply resentful of the outside involvement.
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  • Book Review - 'Ayn Rand and the World She Made,' by Anne C.­Heller - Review - NYTimes.com

    • “Atlas Shrugged” was published 52 years ago, but in the Obama era, Rand’s angry message is more resonant than ever before. Sales of the book have reportedly spiked. At “tea parties” and other conservative protests, alongside the Obama-as-Joker signs, you will find placards reading “Atlas Shrugs” and “Ayn Rand Was Right.” Not long after the inauguration, as right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck were invoking Rand and issuing warnings of incipient socialism,
    • Rand’s style of vehement individualism has never been universally popular among conservatives — back in 1957, Whittaker Chambers denounced the “wickedness” of “Atlas Shrugged” in National Review
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  • FT.com / Companies / Banks - Barclays chief warns on regulation

    • The chairman of Barclays has warned that Britain’s banks will be damaged if regulators are too rigorous in their implementation of a global crackdown on bonuses and capital requirements while other nations, such as the US, are lax.

  • Harvard Signs On to a New Line of Upscale Clothing - NYTimes.com

    • So more than a few brainy Cambridge brows began to furrow last month after word trickled out that Harvard had entered into a 10-year licensing agreement for a line of preppy clothing modeled after the type that Mr. Fitzsimmons encountered four decades ago.
    • Mr. Kinsley wrote in an e-mail message, referring to the 30 percent drop in the university’s endowment.
    • 1 more annotations...

  • BBC NEWS | South Asia | Who are the Taliban?

    • A predominantly Pashtun movement, the Taliban came to prominence in Afghanistan in the autumn of 1994.
    • It is commonly believed that they first appeared in religious seminaries - mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia - which preached a hard line form of Sunni Islam.
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  • Editorial - 10,000 - Then and Now - NYTimes.com

    • The unemployment rate is now at 9.8 percent. Employment as a share of the population is at its lowest level since January 1984. State governments are teetering near bankruptcy. Solvent businesses are seeing their credit lines cut or canceled. Consumer and mortgage lending are both down, while foreclosure filings rose to a record in the third quarter.
    • the financial industry has managed to carve out far too many exemptions. Under pressure from banks, businesses and their high-priced lobbyists, the House committee also approved a bill that would seriously weaken the oversight powers of a proposed new consumer financial protection agency.
    • 2 more annotations...

  • Capitalism and financial crashes : The New Yorker

    • This is essentially what happened in the lead-up to the Great Crunch. The trigger was, of course, the market for subprime-mortgage bonds—bonds backed by the monthly payments from pools of loans that had been made to poor and middle-income home buyers. In August, 2007, with house prices falling and mortgage delinquencies rising, the market for subprime securities froze
    • a figure dwarfed by nearly twelve trillion dollars in total outstanding mortgages, not to mention the eighteen-trillion-dollar value of the stock market.
    • 14 more annotations...
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