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The Thin Blue Line Freezes Out Menino

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UPDATE — As the Herald reports today (and two commenters from the BPPA note below), the inclusion of the EMS Division is a mistake on the part of Yoon campaign. The EMS Division of the BPPA has not endorsed any mayoral candidate or agreed to serve on any host committee. If I understand correctly, an overzealous Yoon campaign took the EMS Division’s campaign donation to Yoon in his role as a city councillor to be an endorsement of his mayoral candidacy. In addition, it sounds like the campaign was initially fuzzy on the nature of the event. I invite the commenters below to add additional information if it is relevant. ORIGINAL POST: Mayor Menino has asked all city unions to […]

Nationalization is Coming

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Its clear that the occasional side conversations are entering the mainstream. Heck, even Lindsay Graham, John McCain, and Alan Greenspan seem to be on-board. There are four assumptions you need to buy into to think this is the ‘least bad’ option: 1) Speed trumps ideology — Part of the nationalization argument says that in order for recovery to begin, we need to flush out the bad loans as soon as possible. The Japanese experience is the lesson here — you can let zombie banks hang around and they will, for a long time, but they won’t provide the capital the economy needs to grow again. 2) Counterparty Risk is primary — This crisis was initially termed a ‘liquidity crisis’, so […]

Getting There: Transportation Reform in 2009

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Author(s): Steve Poftak — Publication date: 2009-02-16 Category: Better Government Abstract: Transportation policy will play a prominent role in Massachusetts politics over the coming months. The Massachusett Bay Transportation Authority’s (MBTA) structural deficit is projected to grow to $160 million in FY2010. The MassPike is facing an operating deficit and the potential implosion of its financing structure. MassHighway is scrambling to initiate a $3 billion accelerated bridge repair program that will leave us with hundreds of structurally deficient bridges even after it is done. [wpdm_package id=67]

Is global warming due to sulfur and not carbon

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A great post by DA Mittell on his new blog (welcome to the blogosphere, Mr. Mittell!), where he delves into the work by Dr. Peter Langdon Ward on volcanic activity, sulfur and global warming. I quote at length, because there is no snipping where Mittell is concerned: A year ago, I had the privilege as a mere editorialist of reading, along with scientists of several disciplines, the draft of a paper on the causes of global warming written by Massachusetts native Dr. Peter Langdon Ward. Dr. Ward studied earthquakes, plate tectonics and volcanoes for 27 years at the U.S Geological Survey. Viewing climate change over the whole history of the Earth, Dr. Ward noticed that warming patterns have appeared consistently […]

Lincoln 200 and the US History MCAS requirement

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Anne Neal of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has a beautiful letter she sent out today. It begins: Anniversaries and birthdays—humble and not so humble—give all of us occasion to celebrate and to give thanks. Today, we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, who so eloquently understood that America’s founding documents embody not just abstract propositions but living, breathing principles that unite us as a people. In his speech at Peoria on October 16, 1854, Lincoln called for Americans, to “re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it.” It was time, he said, that “all Americans—…all lovers of liberty everywhere—join in the […]