friend of the built environment

I previously noted now well Republicans work collectively right now. Part of this is because Republicans are a more ideological party than Democrats today. They are also able to enforce discipline within the party quite well as a minority, especially considering that as the opposition it eliminates any specific need to demonstrate results. One drawback [...]

Great new post from the Urbanophile:
What if instead of spending a huge amount of money to try to save one building, the city found a little bit of money to do basic maintenance to preserve the structural integrity of many buildings – and create a safe path through parts of them that tourists could walk [...]

An interesting quote from Sublime Oblivion’s latest newslog:
Likewise, following the collapse of Pax Americana, the American Republic will remain; it will be like a crustacean that has shed its shell, and it will, if anything, be enthusiastic about reclaiming its old spheres of influence in a far blunter, more aggresive manner than it maintains Pax Americana today.
The Americas [...]

A couple thoughts on a Monday when I will not be going to work…
A lot of leftist nail-biting has been done in response to the generally right-wing accusation that the Obama administration and its Democrat Congress have achieved very little due to the health care war. Sublime Oblivion contradicts this with an interesting summary of [...]

Reading Sean and Anatoly’s analyses of Victory Day and its association with Stalin’s rule in Russia today made me ponder the future impact of 9/11 on the minds and morals of a future US.
In many senses, 9/11 began a series of events that culminated, in the latter days of the first GWB term, in what [...]

What the bigots are saying about the mosque proposed for Lower Manhattan:
As I lost my firefighter brother in the south tower on 9/11, the last thing I want to see is a mosque on that site.
Personally, I agree. I also think we should ensure that Catholic churches are removed from the viscinity of all [...]

Paul Krugman makes a good case that, on a macro scale, the US (and much of the industrialized world) are experiencing a deflationary recession with significant downward-pressure on the prices of industrial goods.
All well and good. No real argument.
But the things that others are screaming about when they talk about hyperinflation, however, does not even [...]

I find it odd that a major new argument against the Obama administration by conservatives is that it is opportunistically using the devastation of the Gulf oil spill to push a renewed pro-environment agenda. That the US should not let BP’s mishap slow its domestic oil exploitation priorities.
I find it especially odd that conservatives, who [...]

James Howard Kunstler’s 1993 opus was ahead of its time.
Kunstler does a grand sweep of pretty much every topic that interests me, and it’s a big surprise to me more than anything that I failed to read this book until now. My favorite excerpt is one I read in the beginning of Chapter 11, which [...]