« May 06, 2012 - May 12, 2012 | Main | May 20, 2012 - May 26, 2012 »
May 19, 2012
Saturday Layover in Chicago: An honor. This is one mean, wonderful hardworking town.
The Newport Folk Festival July 26 1965
Posted by JD Hull at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2012
Greece's Syriza Leader to Europe: You Cut Off Additional Funds, We Stop Paying Our Debts.
"Gee, really glad we came up with all that emergency money." The man who will likely be Greek's next prime minister has told the Wall Street Journal that if Europe stops funding his recession-ridden country, Greece will simply stop paying its creditors. Greece's austerity program is widely thought to be failing. It is now year five of the country's financial crisis. The economy shrinks substantially each year (headed toward about 5% this year). Half of all young people are out of work. Funding from outside Greece is now paying for basic services, like schools and hospitals. See this story.
Alexis Tsipras, the 37-year-old head of the Coalition of the Radical Left, also known as Syriza.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:23 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2012
Eastern Market: The Best 30 Minutes of My Day on Capitol Hill.
In my old 'hood: A corner of the Hill to eat, drink, buy oddities and watch humans. A small funky Roman forum. And the last of the many public markets that once served Washington, D.C. over a century ago.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2012
The Economist: Downing Street gets down--and down to work.
For The Economist's take on the shape of the United Kingdom and the governing Conservative Party's mid-term slump, see "The Cameron Government: Crisis? What Crisis?". Excerpt:
Two years ago this week David Cameron and Nick Clegg launched their coalition government in a sun-dappled Downing Street garden, at a joint press conference so filled with smiles, jokes and shared glances that it was compared to a gay wedding. On May 8th Britain’s Conservative prime minister and his Liberal Democrat deputy renewed their coalition vows in a tractor factory. There were few jokes. The work of government was “hard”, Mr Cameron told stony-faced workers.
Two-thirds of voters now disapprove of Mr Cameron’s performance and three-quarters disdain Mr Clegg’s. In local elections on May 3rd their parties lost hundreds of council seats, mostly to the opposition Labour Party: when Boris Johnson, the Tory mayor of London, bucked the trend and kept his job, that prompted gossip that he would be a better leader.
Britain’s economy has dipped back into recession. A judicial inquiry into the press has revealed a shamefully cosy relationship between Conservative leaders and newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. The government, and the prime minister in particular, are described as “out of touch” and told to “get a grip”—and that is just to quote Conservatives in Parliament.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)