Nothing to say. See you in a week or two.

{ 10:34 AM }

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Happiness, said Aristotle, is not a feeling or an experience, it is an ethical state of being. It means judging that you have made the right choices and done the right things, and enjoyed a measure of luck along the way. Where and when you are born, how the play of daily contingency affects you, do not determine your happiness, but they do constrain it. And so it often seems as though the choices of everyday life, cosmically small though they are, matter far more than events in distant capitals and war zones.

But here is the key point. You must live your entire life with honour and commitment. You must try to build something larger than yourself: a community of citizens, a community of reason, a just and peaceful world. You may be defeated, because violence, arrogance and unreason are powerful forces in history. But that does not diminish your responsibility.

&mdash Mark Kingwell

{ 9:24 AM }

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Fake is the new real. From a WaPo chat:

Jena, Germany: Howard, I deeply enjoy your articles.

I was wondering if you could comment on the impact of Jon Stewart's Daily Show and the Colbert Report to journalists. In my opinion, The Daily Show and more recently the Colbert Report have started substantively "out perform" real journalists on holding guests to actual facts

It seems on the cable networks, guest have a carte blanche in respective to their "truthiness", yet on Comedy Central, I feel, both shows offer a higher degree of veracity to the facts and intellectual honesty.

Is it just me?

Thanks.

Howard Kurtz: No, you've got plenty of company. Of course, these shows have the freedom to make stuff up, be insulting, put fake reporters in front of green screens and pretend they're in Iraq, etc. But they certainly do a great job of nailing hypocrisy in ways that much of the MSM doesn't even attempt.

Comedy is the new tragedy.

{ 10:38 AM }

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Put your dreams on hold. It's the healthcare, stupid (Investment Advisor Magazine):

Who doesn’t have great dreams for their retirement, grandiose plans for what they’re going to do with all that free time?

Well, folks, you might as well put those dreams on hold, because most of us are apparently only going one place after we retire: Right back to work. According to a recent survey released by Putnam Investments entitled “The Working Retired,” that much-anticipated phase of life that is retirement is increasingly proving to be nothing more than a very brief hiatus for much of America’s working population. The survey found that seven million previously retired Americans returned to work for pay after a non-working hiatus that averaged only 1.5 years.

The number of working retired is only going to increase in the coming years, says David Tyrie, director of retirement services at Putnam. The survey states that 67% of the current workforce aged 40 or older plans to resume working after they retire, and in most cases, it is not because people want to, but because they feel they have to.

It's not new but it's more relevant than ever. Here is the original survey.

{ 11:37 AM }

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Freelance Enron asskisser, the photo. Last week we looked at the mysterious case of Lee Perry, possibly the only person in the USA, excluding Bush and Cheney and Ashcroft and Gonzales, who "believes" that Ken Lay is "innocent."

Earlier this week the Houston Chronicle helpfully published his picture (link to full Enron coverage).


Lee Perry and his signs at the start of court
outside the federal courthouse in Houston.
[2/6/06]

{ 9:38 AM }

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Privatize this. When a president oversees and encourages rampaging deficits, it's impossible to take his pro-privatization talk seriously (WSJ):

With four years left in this decade, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is underwater. At this rate, the decade is shaping up to be the worst in at least a generation and perhaps longer. Consider: Even if the index rings up 10% annualized gains during the next four years (the historical average), stocks will finish this decade with only a 4% average annual gain. That would make it the worst since the 1930s.

"Worst since the 1930s." Hmm...

{ 11:09 AM }

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Adopt a Mexican. Compare and contrast Mexican dogs...

With the help of Continental Airlines, Houston-based Saving Animals Across Borders plans to fly the eight dogs to the U.S. for adoption on Wednesday or Thursday. The pooches will be picked up in Monterrey and taken, via Houston, to new homes in Colorado.

[...]

"Mexican dogs make such great pets," [Dallas native Kelly] Karger said. "They really appreciate it when they've been rescued and don't have to worry about where their next meal comes from."

...versus Mexican human beings...

[Minuteman Project founder Jim] Gilchrist is focused on lobbying and forming an all-volunteer group of retired law enforcement officials to go after employers who hire illegal immigrants.

He also favors revoking birthright citizenship and a temporary moratorium on legal immigration. He claims to have the support of Americans who are tired of sharing public resources with illegal immigrants.

Let's have Texas secede from the Union retroactively.

{ 9:50 AM }

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Department of Katrina. That's a heckuva proposed 2007 budget (from the WSJ summary):

Corps of Engineers

Total Budget (billions)
4.9

% Change from FY 2006
–41.3

Looks like we'll be adding several new verses to "When the Levee Breaks."

{ 1:54 PM }

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