In and Out
It's not that I don't believe
David Brooks made $250 million selling apparently flawed body armor to the
Marines, or that he spent $10 million on his daughter's Bat Mitzvah. What
I don't believe is that there was any single attendee who wanted to be
entertained by Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Aerosmith, 50 Cent and Kenny G.
~~~
Critical News From Time: 10 Questions, Jennifer Lopez will now take
your questions, the most important of which was whether her booty was once
insured for a billion dollars. No, says Jennifer, that's just urban
legend. Anti-Guantanamo: Young Saudis captured waging war against
American interests in Iraq can opt to spend their detention in a center in
Riyadh that lets them wear their own clothes, eat nice meals and play ping-pong
until they give up their dogma. They take classes which instruct them that Osama
is really off-base on this one. If they graduate, they get out and
receive a monthly stipend. 80% of all captured Saudis take the option.
Putin's newest BFF is Ahmadinejad and Bush "dismissed the front-page images as
the same kind of pretty picture he takes with foreign leaders". Just
before the Chinese Communist Party's 17th National Congress, the country was
basically locked down. Then Hu Jintao made speeches, including the word
(presumably in Chinese) "democracy" 60 times in his 2-and-a-half hour speech.
Abortion News: WHO says that there is no relationship at all between the
number of abortions and whether they are outlawed, but a strong correlation
between whether they are outlawed and the number of deaths due to improper
procedure. The highest abortion rates are in Eastern Europe, Russia, China
and Southeast Asia. Hillary's 60th birthday fundraiser will feature Elvis
Costello and The Wallflowers. Joe Klein says that McCain is back to being
apostatic and Samantha Powers says yes on calling Turkey on Armenian genocide.
Long article on how stupid it is to pay 5 times the going rate for an Armed
Forces grunt to contractors like Blackwater, who are, by the way, largely
unaccountable for their actions. Foreign companies own the road: an
increasing number of non-US corporations are buying up toll highways. The
cover article is all about birth order: apparently it matters. All
you eldest types will have higher IQs, be more concerned with your parents'
wishes, and will probably be a better educated professional. Middle kids
have self-esteem issues and are less connected to family. Youngest are
likely to be artists, entrepreneurs and adventurers, and usually funnier.
There was more but it was mostly boring (e.g., why Rudy is unlikely like Wendell
Wilkie was unlikely).