California is in deep 22:
Closing California's deficit this year would be immeasurably easier if the state weren't paying for a 10-year borrowing binge...I don't think the MSNBC-types expected Harvard professor Niall Ferguson to speak this way: "I do think that the president regards making touchy-feely speeches as a substitute for having a strategy."
But the state has had an insatiable appetite for debt in recent years. In the last decade, the debt per resident has tripled, to $2,362, according to the credit-rating agency Moody's Investors Service...
Voters have approved borrowing in the last 10 years for such causes as stem-cell research ($3 billion), high-speed rail ($10 billion), and parks, water and the environment ($14 billion). They even took on $15 billion in debt to paper over a deficit that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said would never reemerge — something economists have scolded the state for doing.
Because of its rock-bottom credit rating, California pays a premium for its loans. Taxpayers must fork over roughly $2 for every $1 borrowed — about 20% more than top-rated states, said Matt Fabian, an analyst at Municipal Market Advisors, a bond research firm.
A story from Nazi history I'd never before heard:
On February 22, 1943, Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and Christoph Probst were executed by guillotine in Munich, Germany. Their crimes? Anonymously distributing leaflets criticizing the German government at the University of Munich. They were members of the White Rose, an underground student group that should inspire every American who loves the cause of liberty.
By the end of the interview, Letterman is reduced to admitting to the audience that he is completely outmatched... but that Rand Paul is somehow wrong in his arguments anyway. (video clip included)
6 comments:
Letterman had Geofrey Canada on his show last year.
I don't think he actually watched the movie Waiting for Superman though.
You may not want this as a comment, but your profile email link didn't work. I'd like your opinion of Gill v OPM and Perry V Schwarzenegger (Sorry for the spelling). I'm looking for somebody who feels differently about the two cases because of constitutional principles.
The contact link is my Yahoo Internet Messenger name. From that it's pretty easy to figure out my email address, if that's what you're looking for.
I don't know the cases you're referencing, at least not by name.
I saw a movie on the White Rose during high school. It was fascinating how the Nazis tried to control information flow by control of paper and postage stamps. Trying to purchase too much of either would lead to suspicion. As I remember it they stole much of the paper from offices they worked at but tried to spread the thefts out so that now one would notice. For postage stamps they would do things like tell the clerk at the post office that a beloved aunt had passed away and they needed a large number of stamps to notify the extended family.
At least that is my recollection of the movie version of the story.
Anon
An excellent flick from a few years ago called The Lives of Others was set in East Germany during the early 80s. One of the scenes was a briefing of a secret police official and the briefer mentioned there were only four kinds of typewriters authorized in East Germany and a flyer that was going out was not typed on one of them.
Scary that a government would want to control the communications of its citizens...something like an internet kill switch...has anyone been talking about that recently?
The name of the movie about Sophie Scholl is "The Last Days of Sophie Scholl"
It is extremely powerful and when it came out here in the US, I went from NJ to Philadelphia to see it.
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