100 Notable Books of 2010

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The Spanish Prisoner by Paul Krugman

"The bad news about America is that a powerful political faction is trying to shackle the Federal Reserve, in effect removing the one big advantage we have over the suffering Spaniards. Republican attacks on the Fed — demands that it stop trying to promote economic recovery and focus instead on keeping the dollar strong and fighting the imaginary risks of inflation — amount to a demand that we voluntarily put ourselves in the Spanish prison." Read the full article

I do not entirely agree with him on the Spain's debt issue. Although, by joining the Euro zone they have lost their ability to devalue their currency, but at least their debt remains in Euro (the luxury from which most of east Asian countries were deprived, during 1997 crisis). However, he is right on the money in condemning the latest assaults on the Fed's independence (though despite what he says, the attacks are not coming only from conservatives, but from the liberals as well).

Dear Congressmen, confine the democracy to that dysfunctional Congress and don't mess with the Fed's precious Independence, please!

WikiLeaks: U.S.-Iran Relations "Now What" Moment?

"Moreover, as the leaked cables show, the highest levels of the Obama administration never believed that diplomacy could succeed. While this does not cheapen Obama's Nowruz message and other groundbreaking facets of his initial outreach, it does raise three important questions: How can U.S. policymakers give maximum effort to make diplomacy succeed if they admittedly never believed their efforts could work? Why was Iran expected to accept negotiation terms that relinquished its greatest strategic asset (1200 kg of LEU) without receiving a strategic asset of equal value in return? And what are the chances that Iran will take diplomacy seriously now that it knows the U.S. never really did? The Obama administration presented a solid vision, but never truly pursued it. " Read the article

India's Ambani hosts party for 'world's priciest home'

The world's most expensive dwelling...Read the article

Eating the Irish by Paul Krugman

"Then the bubble burst, and those banks faced huge losses. You might have expected those who lent money to the banks to share in the losses. After all, they were consenting adults, and if they failed to understand the risks they were taking that was nobody’s fault but their own. But, no, the Irish government stepped in to guarantee the banks’ debt, turning private losses into public obligations."

"Before the bank bust, Ireland had little public debt. But with taxpayers suddenly on the hook for gigantic bank losses, even as revenues plunged, the nation’s creditworthiness was put in doubt. So Ireland tried to reassure the markets with a harsh program of spending cuts."...

"But at this point Iceland seems, if anything, to be doing better than its near-namesake. Its economic slump was no deeper than Ireland’s, its job losses were less severe and it seems better positioned for recovery. In fact, investors now appear to consider Iceland’s debt safer than Ireland’s. How is that possible?

Part of the answer is that Iceland let foreign lenders to its runaway banks pay the price of their poor judgment, rather than putting its own taxpayers on the line to guarantee bad private debts. As the International Monetary Fund notes — approvingly! — “private sector bankruptcies have led to a marked decline in external debt.” Meanwhile, Iceland helped avoid a financial panic in part by imposing temporary capital controls — that is, by limiting the ability of residents to pull funds out of the country."

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Cost of long-gun registry a fraction of what Tories claim, report shows

I am not against saving some money here and there, but guys, there's a limit to bullshitting the public! There is a slight difference between $1.5 million and $2 Billion!!!!

"An independent cost-benefit analysis of Conservative legislation to kill the federal long-gun registry has found the public savings could amount to just over $1.5-million annually"...

"This September’s very close vote is the furthest we have come to dismantling the $2-billion wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry,” said Christopher McCluskey, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. “We will continue to work to scrap it.”

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A Spanish Bailout Would Test Europe’s Strained Finances

"But any bailout of Spain — with an economy twice the size of the other three combined — could severely stress the ability of Europe’s stronger countries to help the financially weaker ones, and spell deep trouble for the euro, Europe’s common currency". Read the full article

U.K. to measure happiness alongside GDP

I'm no fan of Tories, but I'm beginning to like this guy! Shame on me! :))

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A Hedge Fund Republic? By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

"Oops! That’s already us. The top 1 percent of Americans owns 34 percent of America’s private net worth, according to figures compiled by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. The bottom 90 percent owns just 29 percent." Read the full article

Scientists Claim Breakthrough In Antimatter Hunt

"Scientists may have been able to capture elusive atoms of antimatter"..."But in a report published online by the journal Nature, the scientists said they'd been able to trap individual atoms and keep them around for a bit more than one-tenth of a second. To a particle physicist, that's a pretty long time." Read the full article

The Man Who Shattered Our Economy

The story of Citibank's CEO...It is a disgrace that some people are spending time in jail for shoplifting, but these bandits are enjoying their lives! Read the full story

15 Food & Cooking Myths, Busted

"MYTH: Raw foods are more nourishing than cooked foods because their enzymes are still alive."

"MYTH: Brining meats before cooking makes them juicier and more tender."

"MYTH: Searing meat at a high temperature seals in its juices."

I have heard these so many times that I have hard time believing they aren't true...Read the full article

Top 10 Must-Have Apps for the iPhone, and Some Runners-Up

Google, Soundhound, Hipstamatic, Evernotes and many more...Read the full article in NYTimes

The Hijacked Commission by Paul Krugman

I do not agree with him entirely but he does raise some valid points...

"that “bipartisanship” would mean what it so often does in Washington: a compromise between the center-right and the hard-right."..."what the co-chairmen are proposing is a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases — tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class"...

"They want the age at which Social Security becomes available to rise along with average life expectancy. Is that reasonable? The answer is no, for a number of reasons — including the point that working until you’re 69, which may sound doable for people with desk jobs, is a lot harder for the many Americans who still do physical labor. But beyond that, the proposal seemingly ignores a crucial point: while average life expectancy is indeed rising, it’s doing so mainly for high earners, precisely the people who need Social Security least. Life expectancy in the bottom half of the income distribution has barely inched up over the past three decades. So the Bowles-Simpson proposal is basically saying that janitors should be forced to work longer because these days corporate lawyers live to a ripe old age."...

Read the full article in NYTimes

Super Efficient Crew Builds 15-Story Chinese Hotel In Just SIX DAYS

Un-freaking-believable!!! Watch this amazing video

Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow

Two people that I deeply respect are having an impeccably eloquent and intelligent debate about news media...not to be missed:

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Dundee V&A design winner chosen

There are few things in the world that make me as excited as good architecture...Read the article in BBC

Implanted chip 'allows blind people to detect objects'

"A man with an inherited form of blindness has been able to identify letters and a clock face using a pioneering implant, researchers say." Read the full article in BBC

Virus breakthrough raises hope over ending common cold

"Scientists say they have made a landmark discovery which could pave the way for new drugs to beat illnesses like the common cold." Read the article in BBC

Liberals refuse to give Tories ‘free pass’ on jet purchase

"Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are not letting up on their fight against the $16-billion purchase of 65 next-generation stealth fighter jets, arguing Stephen Harper’s Tories want a “free pass on the largest sole-source contract in Canadian history.”... Read the article in Globe and Mail

First of all; and amidst all the cuts in public services to balance the budget, I am glad that we are spending billions of dollars to modernize our airforce. You know, that was the main reason we couldn't suceed in Afghanistan: Compared to some bearded fanatics armed with Kalashnikov, our airforce was not modern enough!!!

" the Tory memo says. “When the economic recovery is still fragile, the last thing the aerospace workers and their families need is Michael Ignatieff threatening their jobs.”

Interesting, so my dear right-wing economists, Keynes' idea- that the governments can create jobs during recessions through spending - works perfectly well when it comes to the military, it only fails when we try to build more useful things than killing machines, huh?!!

Finally, I hate the gutlessness of Liberals. The problem with this deal is not the fairness of its price, it is its contradiction with the ruling party's slogan of fiscal responsibility. When you don't dare to make such a simple case, you wonder why you can't get elected?!!!

David Broder: War With Iran Will Save Economy, Obama Presidency!!!

Could someone please stop this idiot, David Broder?!

"Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve." Read the full article

Mugged by the Moralizers by Paul Krugman

"So the moralizers are winning. More and more voters, both here and in Europe, are convinced that what we need is not more stimulus but more punishment. Governments must tighten their belts; debtors must pay what they owe. The irony is that in their determination to punish the undeserving, voters are punishing themselves: by rejecting fiscal stimulus and debt relief, they’re perpetuating high unemployment. They are, in effect, cutting off their own jobs to spite their neighbors." Read the full article

Federal Reserve's, Bernanke's credibility on line with new move to boost economy

"The Federal Reserve is preparing to put its credibility on the line as it rarely has before by taking dramatic new action this week to try jolting the economy out of its slumber." Read the full article

The Economy Is Growing -- But Jobs Aren't Following

"A growth rate of 5 percent or higher is needed to put a major dent in the nation's 9.6 percent unemployment rate."...Read the full article