8-10-10

-8-10-10—After a dispute with a passenger who stood to fetch his luggage too soon on a full flight, [Jet Blue flight attendant Slater] got on the intercom, let loose a string of invective, pulled the lever that activates the emergency-evacuation chute and slid down, ... On his way out the door, he paused to grab a beer from the beverage cart. Then he ran to the employee parking lot and drove off...”—NYT A1

--A federal jury on Monday [in Arkansas] convicted a physician of conspiring to detonate a car bomb that badly injured the state medical board chairman. ... Prosecutors said the bombing was in retaliation after the board sanctioned Dr. Mann for overprescribing pain medication. NYT A11

8-7-2010

8-7-2010—Greenspan calls for repeal of all the Bush tax cuts—NYTB1

--Those who served in military since September 2001 face unemployment rate of 11.8%
--WSJA4

—Afghan guards staged a fake rocket attack in June on the site where a South Korean military base was under construction, in an apparent ruse to get more danger pay NYT A6

--In [the] 25 to 34 year old [group with a college degree] the US ranks [12th] behind Canada, South Korea, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Israel, France Belgium and Australia. That’s beyond pathetic.—Herbert NYT A15

8-4-2010

-8-04-2010—The last three men nominated to the Supreme Court have all been married, and, among them, have seven children. The last three women—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Harriet Myers (who withdrew)—have all been single without children.—Leonhardt,NYT B1
--In a major push into the battered US commercial real-estate market, China’s $300 billion sovereign-wealth fund is in advanced talk with Harvard University’s endowment to buy its stakes in half a dozen US focused real estate funds for about $500 million... WSJ C1

update July/August 2010

--8-2-2010—“the mediocrity of Harvard undergraduate teaching is an open secret of the Ivy League.”—Hacker, HIGHER EDUCATION? Cited WSJ A11

--8-1-2010—Last February ... as a freak winter storm paralyzed much of the East Coast, relatives of Senator James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is a skeptic of climate change, came to Washington and erected an igloo.—NYT WK4

7,31,8,1/2010--...studios are cutting back on standard Hollywood fare like romantic comedies because foreign movie-goers often don’t find American jokes all that funny. WSJ A1

7-31-2010—It’s your choice, Mr. President ... To paraphrase the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., they can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.—Blow, NYT A15
7-31-2010—“[the corporate bosses] threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output, said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they give by the time you get to the first quart of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.” That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II.—Herbert, NYT A15