the best....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=27447282�

If you guys didnt have a chance to watch, Clinton and Obama were on stage together the other day. Its just soo amazing how they have a way with words, and how they are able to inspire so many people...if I could pay for that...

On this occassion its tough to say who was better, obviously it was Obama's crowd, and Clinton still looks like he's being forced into campaigning for Obama, but damn they are a dynamic duo...rediculous. Also rediculous that Bill was basically soo good at being a president that he got his wife elected to senate. I mean I think Hilary is great and desrves to be there, but I'm sure when she first ran people juged her more on him than on herself...

anyways, back to my point that these guys truly inspire me, and make me feel like there is hope for our country. I've recently been feeling down becuase I feel like the people of the US are soo easily hoodwinked sometimes. I mean I can see voting for bush the first time around, but after his blunders and bad mistakes after the first 4 years, I'm not sure how he got re-elected. And now Palin, I mean shes great at being about the republican base, and I'm ok with people believing in those ideals and philosophies, but whether or not you agree with what she says, you cannot seriously tell me that people think she's ready to run the US. I mean compared to Bush maybe, but seriuosly? Have you seen any of her interviews? Like when Katie Curick asked her what newspapers and magazines she read...I mean even if your from mars, you can easily ramble of 3 newspapers, the times, the wall street journal, and your hometown paper for crist sake...Also, she got on SNL and basically did her skit with whats her name...like she let the baldwin dude like talk shit about her on tv and just stood there and took it for 30 seconds...what were they thinking? did she just want to say "live from ny?"...I mean in general its less her fault than McCain's for picking someone that he didnt know shit about other than her sex....but still, I can understand how she took the stage and shook things up and thats great, but people still being all about her...cant stand it.

heres to hope and change...

'spread the wealth around'

For those of you who missed it, the OECD put out a report last week called Growing Unequal?. The report focused on income distribution and poverty in OECD countries. In the midst, as we likely are, of a very serious recession, this report strikes me as particularly relevant. It shouldn't be surprising to most that according to the report, the gap between the rich and the poor has continued to widen over the past two decades. What concerns me is that I sense a very strong sense of apathy about this issue. Interestingly, I read about the report in the Financial Times (of London), but nobody has mentioned it to me here at home, nor have I seen any mention of it in the media.

I'll spare you a country by country breakdown (I was disaappointed to see that both inequality and rates of child poverty have gotten worse in Canada), but I found notable that many of the changes are attributed to demographic changes in the labor force. The bird's eye view is that people in obsolete jobs get left behind as economies increasingly shift into more valuable, often information-intensive roles. Here, it must be said, strong social programs such as education seem to be the key. Protectionism, even when it manages to keep obsolete jobs around, too often leads to stagnant wages that cause the workers' income to shrink over time (on a relative basis). Indeed, the authors make this very point, although certainly not exclusively.

Nordic countries and western European countries, such as
Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. Social spending on people of working age
was 7-8% of national income in 2005 and the share of working-age people in
poverty was between 5% and 8%. At the other end of the spectrum, Korea, Mexico,
Turkey and the United States spent 2% or less of national income on benefits and
had 12-15% of the working age population in poverty.

I could go on for pages and pages about this, but instead, I'll just encourage you to go and read the report yourself.

The authors also emphasize that "Work alone is not sufficient to avoid poverty: more than half of poor people live in households where one or more members are in work." Sad, no? On this closing note, I would strongly urge all of you to read The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David Shipley.

NKW

HOLY $HIZA....

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/notorious/


with TEASER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Damn, i might come back to NY just to watch this....i guess just with nitin, but still...pub crawl may way back to the east coast...

Schwarzenegger library…

Did anyone know that in Demolition man they predicted that Arnold would get the 61st amendment passed and become the president of the uS>????

I bet gulp did, and I bet gulp could recite the dialoge line for line with perfect actor accents...

Shampoo Challange.....

I challange any and all of our great picklers to find me a shampoo that does not, FOR FREE, give you an extra 20% of shampoo....

wtf is this, some sort of big joke? scam? does JnJ think we are soo stupid as to be like, well they offer me 20% more so I should go with them...and 20% more than what? More than when they first started manufacturing the bottles 40 freakig years ago???? come on

Norman Mailer, 1962 (Some Things Stay The Same)

To the Editor of Playboy
December 21, 1962

Dear Sir,

I wish you hadn't billed the debate between William Buckley and myself as a meeting between a conservative and a liberal. I don't care if people call me a radical, a rebel, a red, a revolutionary, an outsider, an outlaw, a Bolshevik, an anarchist, a nihilist, or even a left conservative, but please don't ever call me a liberal.

Yours,
Norman Mailer