All excerpts are quoted from the respective link(s).
- The Curse of Cheap Money | The Big Picture – This is the central enabler of the Housing Bubble.
- How to Ease Your Transition to Google Voice – Google Voice – Lifehacker – Once you accept an invite, register your number, and make your first text or phone call, you might be wondering how to go about actually using Google Voice—after all, nobody's calling you on that number just yet, and your number doesn't have any rules set up to begin with. That's where this guide starts off. There are lots of resources that explain how Google Voice's features work, but we're hoping to help you learn how to get people calling that number, work past the flaws in its system, and manage the callers for a better overall phone experience.
- High-Priced F-22 Fighter Has Major Shortcomings – washingtonpost.com – Its troubles have been detailed in dozens of Government Accountability Office reports and Pentagon audits. But Pierre Sprey, a key designer in the 1970s and 1980s of the F-16 and A-10 warplanes, said that from the beginning, the Air Force designed it to be "too big to fail, that is, to be cancellation-proof." Lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 subcontracts to vendors in more than 40 states, and Sprey — now a prominent critic of the plane — said that by the time skeptics "could point out the failed tests, the combat flaws, and the exploding costs, most congressmen were already defending their subcontractors' " revenues.
- Netanyahu’s paranoia extends to ‘self-hating Jews’ Emanuel and Axelrod – Haaretz – Israel News – Netanyahu appears to be suffering from confusion and paranoia. He is convinced that the media are after him, that his aides are leaking information against him and that the American administration wants him out of office. Two months after his visit to Washington, he is still finding it difficult to communicat[e] normally with the White House. To appreciate the depth of his paranoia, it is enough to hear how he refers to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Obama’s senior aides: as “self-hating Jews.”
- Consumerist – General Motors May Sell Cars Through eBay – General Motors – General Motors is considering a partnership with eBay to make it easier for consumers to impulse-buy new vehicles, the recently solvent car maker announced yesterday. Though the deal isn't yet finalized, General Motors would like to sell their vehicles both through traditional auctions and with a "Buy It Now" option.
- Bill Moyers Journal . Wendell Potter on Profits Before Patients | PBS – Looking back over his long career, Potter sees an industry corrupted by Wall Street expectations and greed. According to Potter, insurers have every incentive to deny coverage — every dollar they don't pay out to a claim is a dollar they can add to their profits, and Wall Street investors demand they pay out less every year. Under these conditions, Potter says, "You don't think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you're going to meet Wall Street's expectations."
- Bob Sutton: Jeff Pfeffer on Why "Efficient Market" Thinking is Inefficient – Jeff's arguments (read the rest, it gets even better) for some reason reminds of what one of my friends in college used to say when people were following the herd rather than thinking for themselves or taking a different path: "Eat shit, 10 billion flies can't be wrong."
- Jonathan Curiel – ’round the world we go – Robert McNamara: reluctant anti-war activist – True/Slant – During the run-up to the Iraq War, Robert McNamara never joined an anti-war protest, never went on CNN to voice his displeasure at George W. Bush. That wasn’t McNamara’s style. But he did announce his views on conflict in general, in the 2003/2004 documentary “The Fog of War.” And in interviews with reporters – including me – McNamara all-but-said the Iraq War was a big mistake that would lead to scores of American and Iraqi deaths, and the diplomatic isolation of the United States. As the Secretary of Defense under John F. Kennedy, and a still-admired figure in matters of warfare and diplomacy, McNamara had gravitas. He knew this. In his own old-school way, McNamara became an anti-war activist.
- Sarah Palin Battles The Internet (And The Rest Of Your Scritti Politti) – Anyway, shortly after Sarah Palin went WARBONKERS on a blogger you never heard of, the entire internet responded in an even more vapid and juvenile fashion, and now there are stupid Photoshops everywhere, thanks to Sarah Palin, because that is what happens when you feed the beast with your stupid anger, instead of calmly letting some stuff slide and depriving the beast of oxygen.
- Are Your Initials Holding You Back? « PsyBlog – In fact we are so sensitive to what things are called and the unconscious associations these generate, that our performance in a variety of arenas may be marred by something as seemingly insignificant as our own initials.
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