Over the weekend, Chris Hughes got the Washington Post to publish his self-justifying op-ed about dumping a bunch of boring print scriveners on the way to engineering a vertically integrated media platform… excuse me, “Crafting A Sustainable New Republic“:
… I’ve never bought into the Silicon Valley outlook that technological progress is pre-ordained or good for everyone. I don’t share the unbridled, Panglossian optimism and casual disdain for established institutions and tradition of many technologists. New technologies and start-ups excite and animate me, but they don’t always make our lives or institutions better. That’s one of the many reasons why I bought the New Republic — to preserve and invest in an important institution in a time of great technological change. Its voice and values have been important for a century, and technology should be used not to transform it but to develop and amplify its influence…
Dana Milbank — who used to be paid to write for TNR, and is now paid to write for the Washington Post — is not happy with Chris Hughes. “TNR Is Dead, Thanks to Its Owner“:
… After just two years, Hughes decided that saving long-form journalism was just too hard. He declared that the 100-year-old journal of opinion would become a technology company, and he brought in a new CEO who literally proposed that writers team up with engineers to make “widgets” for TNR’s website….
Hughes is no Lippmann; he’s a callow man who accidentally became rich – to the tune of some $700 million – because he had the luck of being Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate at Harvard. Hughes seemed intent on proving he could be a success in his own right, but it hasn’t happened. He created a “cause-oriented social network,” Jumo, in 2010, but when it didn’t take off, he was done with it in 2011. He turned out to be no more devoted to TNR…
… When he took over in 2012, he fired the magazine’s business staff, hiring instead a Harvard friend with no media experience. He had no interest in the work needed to woo advertisers. He redesigned the website himself; it looked good but didn’t work well. He tried to eliminate landline phones, seeing no reason why reporters might need them. And his spending spree caused annual losses to swell from $1 million when he bought the struggling magazine (he was its fifth owner in a decade) to $5 million…
Hughes lashed out in a group email to staff because senior editor (and former Post reporter) Alec MacGillis had dared to propose writing a piece about Apple avoiding taxes just after Apple’s Tim Cook had come out of the closet. Hughes shot back that “Apple has acted squarely within the law” and that MacGillis’s argument would be “tone deaf.” MacGillis quickly backed off, but Hughes did not, writing twice more to defend Apple’s tax strategy and to call Cook “incredibly heroic” for coming out.
After Hughes’s husband lost by 30 points in what should have been a close race in a swing district, it became an open secret that Hughes was done with the New Republic. At a lavish 100th-anniversary gala for the magazine at the Mellon Auditorium Nov. 19, Hughes did the seating chart himself – and he put most of the magazine staff at tables in the back. He told junior staffers they could not bring guests to the event, and he reacted furiously when one politely asked if she could bring her fiancé who had given the magazine pro bono advice on social media strategy.
Two weeks later, Foer, after learning of his firing second-hand, called Hughes, who claimed, absurdly, that it was “Guy’s decision.” In a Hughes op-ed published by the Post Sunday night, after the staff walkout and withdrawal of articles by outside contributors forced him to suspend publication, Hughes said that the New Republic should “become a sustainable business and not position ourselves to rely on the largesse of an unpredictable few.”
An unpredictable few? The magazine relied on an unpredictable one – him – and he failed it…
Speaking of click metrics, I had to hunt the WaPo site for Hughes’s op-ed, but Milbank’s post is at the top of the “Most Read Opinions” sidebar. Sometimes hiring a task-specific professional might be a smart business choice, I guess.
***********
Other than cheering from the sidelines, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Eric U.
seems like they got the owner that they deserved
MattF
I didn’t realize the degree of Hughes’ shitheadedness. The mass resignation makes sense now.
Linnaeus
If he was done with The New Republic, why not sell it?
Baud
If I ever win the lottery, I’m going to buy Balloon Juice and turn it into a print magazine.
Pogonip
More bad news–my neighbor’s 18-year-old dog died. Ready for some good news for a change.
Baud
Tax dodging is so gay.
Baud
@Pogonip:
You deserve some good news. Hope it comes your way soon.
The Other Chuck
We really need a “Rooting For Injuries” category.
jl
@MattF:
I was wondering about the mass resignations too. If what Milbank writes is true, I can understand the mass resignations too.
And from what Milbank writes, TNR could have been saved from the work Foer was doing.
I have not been a fan of TNR for quite awhile, but if it did good work again, I could forgive it for being the poster-rag for vacuous neoliberalism BS and the the Peretz years.
Corner Stone
When are we going to bring back the top marginal rates from the 1950’s?
That’s the only thing that could possibly save us at this point.
BGinCHI
If Dana Milbank calls you a dick and everyone agrees, then you are, indeed, a dick.
Corner Stone
Fucking accidental multi-millionaires and other disgusting heirs to fortunes wrung out of the commonweal.
Elizabelle
@BGinCHI:
Even if Dana Milbank whispers that you’re a dick …
MattF
@BGinCHI: Sometimes, as Freud didn’t say, a cigar is just a cigar and a dick is just a dick.
different-church-lady
Nothing quite like watching a bunch of writers for whom 800 words would invariably be accompanied by an apology for lack of brevity lamenting the “death” of long-form journalism.
Botsplainer
So I dropped my iPhone 5 into the toilet in the YMCA after flushing, but as I was untangling my headphones.
It still works – it hadn’t sunk all the way as I snagged it with lighting reflexes while shouting “motherfucker”.
Dunno if the 7 year olds changing in the locker room ever heard their candyass father shout “motherfucker” in between Fox News tirades against Onama and wholesome Hallmark programming, but he was sure glaring, not that I have a shit.
BGinCHI
@Elizabelle: Especially if he whispers, which in his case is like shouting for normal humans.
BGinCHI
@Botsplainer: I find this post surprisingly relevant to the posted topic.
Analogy win.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Villagers talking to themselves don’t need a lot of words.
different-church-lady
@Botsplainer: And your excuse for using your phone on the toilet was why?
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Maybe the TV was on the fritz?
BGinCHI
@different-church-lady: TNR digital subscription?
Sloegin
Somehow I’m envisioning TNR becoming a Kinja property, with clickbait articles of a few hundred words or less.
Talk about leveraging your synergies.
Botsplainer
@different-church-lady:
No pockets. My gym clothes are embarrassingly brief because I refuse to wear baggy Jesus shorts, long Jesus socks or a baggy Jesus shirt with simpering Jesus love printed on it when I sweat.
Besides, I like showing my tats, and the younger Jesus moms seem to like talking to me, since I’m working out harder than their Jesus adoring exurban candyass husbands.
Baud
@Botsplainer:
I’m starting to think it was Jesus who made you drop your phone in the toilet.
different-church-lady
@Botsplainer: That’s a “long-form” way of saying you’re slightly insane, no?
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
Thank goodness my Y has family, kids and adults only locker rooms. it also has wifi which is how I can comment from the bike.
Just to be safe may want to do the rice thing with your phone tonight.
SiubhanDuinne
Haven’t been around much lately, but I’ve skimmed the last half-dozen or so threads and have seen a number of ominous, veiled references to Betty Cracker’s dog. I went back a few more threads to try and find the original reference, but was unsuccessful. Please, someone, tell me what’s going on and reassure me that it’s not completely dire. TIA.
Pogonip
@Botsplainer: Is there a contest to see how many times you can work “Jesus” into a post? If so, I think you win.
Botsplainer
@Sloegin:
Kinja.
Lololol
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne:
Congratulations: you appear to be living life correctly.
KG
@Botsplainer: i fully endorse this comment.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: She posted toward the end of one of the recent threads that it was just a “sprained tail.”
Eric U.
a while back, TNR did a hit piece on Juan Cole because he honestly analyzes the situation in the middle east. Apparently he was a little upset about it. I sent him an email saying that it was their way of validating him. He seemed to appreciate it. I suspect that there still were worthwhile articles in every issue. It’s just that when there is hate speech and pro-republican bullshit in a significant percentage of the issues, I can’t be bothered.
Now that I think about it, the hit piece on Juan Cole was when I was still getting the paper edition. Huh. I canceled when Peretz published his column about how we should exterminate the brutes or whatever nasty thing he said about Muslims.
Keith G
@Botsplainer: That was a lot of………information.
KG
@Sloegin: i don’t know what it says about me, but my first thought when reading this comment was “what’s the connection to the Jimmy Buffett songs?” i’m bummed that there is another meaning of Kinja
divF
@Botsplainer: It sounds like the C in YMCA plays a more prominent role at your place than it does at mine.
Elizabelle
Caught a bit of “The Fountainhead” on TCM. Good score, but the dialogue was painful. But for the music, would have been fun to watch without sound.
Seems to be King Vidor day on TCM. Some socially conscious movies this morning; recorded them.
ETA: Cooper’s vaunted courtroom speech is a paean to selfishness.
Nobody ever asks who puts up his monstrous buildings.
srv
Microsoft, Apple and Facebook became successes because the owners were dicks.
Look at all the pundits who are dicks getting clicks.
And Congress is brimming over with dicks.
I don’t see how dragging out TNR’s decades long death spiral to serve as a platform for more dick clicks is less dickesh.
Karen in GA
Wow! You mean his connections got him where he is? And here I thought you could only get ahead by hard work! How very, very unfair!
Sucks when it hurts your friends, right? Fuck you, Milbank.
BGinCHI
@srv: Wow, I really learned something there.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic:
Glad to hear it was just sprained.
Siubhan: one of the boxers came up injured late Saturday night; much discussion of what to do and how serious.
Elizabelle
@Karen in GA:
Yeah, and when you think his ass was already parked in a Harvard dorm room so that he could be roommates with Zuckerman.
Bootstraps. They are for the unworthy.
the Conster
Chris Hughes should have bought Twitter or Icanhazcheezburger. I hear there’s a niche market for an all haiku social media site.
BGinCHI
The novels of the future will be written with emoticons.
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
The downtown Y is properly set up and VERY diverse.
This one is in a pulsing red pustule of an exurb.
There has been some pushback though – the big TVs are never on Fox anymore and they took down the complaint card board due to the graffiti that happened after somebody complained about rock music in the wellness/cardio center (complainer wanted that nauseatingly cloying “Praise Music”). That was a day after some hag with perfect old lady cursive complained about women stripping nude in the locker room, and was begging for some Christian modesty.
Sadly, I wasn’t the graffitist, but still approved the effort.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Thanks, I’ll go back and prowl Saturday night.*
*(I don’t think I’ve ever said that before, at least not on a Monday.)
JustRuss
Odd that Milbank chose to highlight that. I mean, why do reporters need landline phones? More secure than cells, I suppose, but is that really an issue for most reporters?
srv
McMegan seems frustrated with all her commenters ragging on her defense of the ‘liberal’ TNR.
Here’s a voice from the old, old days of Balloon-Juice for you vets:
John, you should offer ole TD FP rights to drag this emoprog site back to the middle.
Baud
@Botsplainer:
Was it the men’s locker room?
Botsplainer
@Baud:
Nope – ladies.
K488
@Elizabelle: The score to The Fountainhead is by Max Steiner, who apparently had met Brahms when he was a child. I have to admit that I’m more of a Korngold fan, but Steiner had some remarkable chops. As for the rest of the movie… ugh.
burnspbesq
That happens to be correct, but it’s hardly exculpatory for Hughes.
Baud
@Botsplainer:
Then WTF?
different-church-lady
@Botsplainer: Nude people in locker rooms? Well, I never!
different-church-lady
@JustRuss:
So they can actually hear the person on the other end — a feature no cell phone manufacturer has yet to include in any commercially available phone.
the Conster
@the Conster:
“preserve and invest”?
Disruption! no Pangloss here
I slurp Apple’s dick
different-church-lady
@srv:
ThresherK
@Elizabelle: We are sans TCMtil we call one of the companies to service us. Did they run VThe Crowd”? That would be a boffo Vidir twin bill with “The Fountainhead”.
“
burnspbesq
Hoo boy. The Knesset voted to dissolve. Snap election in Israel.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/03/israeli-politicians-vote-dissolve-knesset-parliament-elections
In about six months, we’ll be nostalgic for Netanyahu. This time, the real crazies are taking over.
Botsplainer
@Baud:
Exactly. The mockery was funny as hell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Huh. Never see his name mentioned when the martyrs-by-proxy are tweeting their “so proud to have worked with…” (I am in the Club, dammit!) laments about TNR
BGinCHI
@burnspbesq: It can get worse?
Barry
@burnspbesq: “That happens to be correct, but it’s hardly exculpatory for Hughes.”
In addition, I’ll be that Apple was involved with giving money to have loopholes installed in those laws to the extent that it’d be bribery for us Little Guys.
burnspbesq
@BGinCHI:
Is that a rhetorical question?
SatanicPanic
@burnspbesq: we’re really just talking about different degrees of real crazy, right?
burnspbesq
@Barry:
Apple was so far ahead of the curve, there was no curve at the time. It also helps that unlike most technology companies whose R&D cost-sharing agreements are pretty much pure tax shelters, Apple has actually been doing R&D in Ireland since 1982.
burnspbesq
@SatanicPanic:
That depends. We could be talking orders of magnitude.
Barry
@burnspbesq: “In about six months, we’ll be nostalgic for Netanyahu. This time, the real crazies are taking over.”
I know that it’s Godwinning, but at this point I expect Israel to go full, ah – ‘irony’ – any year now.
mai naem mobile
I know TNR was crappy under Peretz but I had clicked on a few TNR articles in the past couple of years. There were some decent pieces. Its a pity that the right have sugar daddies for dreck like Daily Caller,National Review, Washington Beacon, Human Events, Twitchy, Breitbart, Commentary,Forbes,IBD, Newsmax etc.etc. I know I’m forgetting others but the left only has Wash Monthly,Nation,Mother Jones, Think Progress and TAP. I’m not even talking about radio and teevee.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
Ugh.
I’ve pretty much lost faith in humanity already, but watching people discuss Affirmative Action and Gay Marriage as if both prove that blacks and gays, respectively, have more rights in America than anyone else, just makes me want to slap people with a clue-by-4 so badly.
Anne Laurie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Milbank talks about his former TNR employment right in this column; I didn’t want to use that in the excerpt, but I also didn’t want you guys complaining that I somehow tried to cover up this important datum!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wasn’t doubting it, I just don’t think he quite fits with the elite bright (once) young things who have been wallowing in self-congratulatory indignation and the unspoken collective decision to pretend that Marty Peretz never happened.
Thoughtful David
@Eric U.:
Me too. I subscribed in the 1990s, and at first, I thought it was great. Then I started noticing a pattern, that I can pretty much summarize as “the only good Arab is a dead Arab.” It extended to other Muslims as well, but was especially focused on Arabs, and Israel could do no wrong, had never done any wrong, and could in the future never, ever even think about doing wrong. So I dropped them.
I would say that Fucking Peretz should personally take the blame for killing TNR, but he did have help
mai naem mobile
I wonder how Timothy Noah feels about what happened at TNR being that Foer gave him no reason for firing him last year.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
It always cracks me up that his supposed “original” and “revolutionary” designs are all bad ripoffs of Frank Lloyd Wright. Given Vidor’s lefty sympathies, I wonder now if he was making Rand ridiculous on purpose, or if that’s just naturally how her stuff looks onscreen. A bit of both, I’d guess.
Thoughtful David
@different-church-lady:
Yup. If I ever want to make an important phone call, I use a land line. If you’ve ever noticed, it’s a technology that Just Works. Yeah, yeah, it’s so 20th Century, but it Just Works. I can punch in a set of numbers and get a connection that’s good and clear. Usually even when I call places like Brazil or Ecuador. I never say “you still there?” unless the other person is on a cell phone.
I’ve got a cell phone, and I’m no curmudgeon. But I appreciate each technology for what it brings.
Tree With Water
“Hughes] reacted furiously when one politely asked if she could bring her fiancé who had given the magazine pro bono advice on social media strategy”.
I never even heard of Hughes before the mass resignation, but If that depiction is even in the ballpark he is a championship caliber pissant. The woman’s fiancé should send him a bill for services rendered.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Not a bad choice.
Paula
Yeah, Harvard!
Seriously, though, do these kids have a “diversity/cultural literacy” course credit requirement that can mitigate this kind of entitled douchery?
Pogonip
@Thoughtful David: Hear, hear!
And keep your important stuff in a safe deposit or a fire-resistant box, not on a computer.
I remember a colleague stubbornly struggling for 4 hours to get a computer to print an address label. After the first hour, I quietly typed an address label on the typewriter we still had ( they’ve since taken them away from us), put it on the envelope, sealed it, and took it to the mail room. When she finally got the label printed she said something about computers being more efficient. O_O
Pogonip
@Thoughtful David: P.S. I’M a curmudgeon, damn it. Join us! Come to the dark side! We get things done and we have cookies!
And remember, folks–the U. S. hasn’t won a war since it computerized DOD. Coincidence, you say? On the dark side, we know better…
Keith G
I see that Elizabeth Warren is gearing up to derail an Obama nomination to an under-secretary slot at Treasury. It seems that Antonio Weiss is the nominee and he has made money in the past structuring tax inversions on Wall Street – think the Burger King/Tim Horton’s deal.
I guess no one at Goldman Sachs wanted the job.
Elizabelle
@ThresherK:
No “The Crowd”, but they did have “Our Daily Bread” (not seen, just recorded so far), “Not So Dumb” (w/ Marion Davies), “The Wedding Night” (Gary Cooper, 1935, caught a bit of this, quite good about a married author who falls in love with a young Polish immigrant; studio was apparently trying to make Anna Sten into the second coming of Garbo, but she was good in her own right). Also “An American Romance” about an immigrant succeeding in the steel industry — skipped that one, and then the ponderous but well photographed Fountainhead.
Caught some of a Harold Lloyd talkie this morning; something about a dairy truck driver who becomes a boxer. It was charming. I like H Lloyd a lot.
? Martin
@burnspbesq: Back when they started the arrangement, they were doing almost all of their European manufacturing there. It was a pretty sizable operation. The manufacturing went when Apple nearly went bankrupt, but they keep the operations center there and as you note they do have an R&D center.
My understanding is that Ireland set up the incentives to attract companies like Apple to set up operations, which they did and created a lot of jobs (thousands at one point). No different than what states are doing to attract Apple or Tesla, etc. Apple just kept the arrangement.
max
@Paula: Yeah, Harvard! Seriously, though, do these kids have a “diversity/cultural literacy” course credit requirement that can mitigate this kind of entitled douchery?
Given that most of the folks bickering with Hughes are also Harvard types, I think they’re too busy having douche-offs to bother with the diversity.
That’s not true, really. They did have at least one person from Yale working there.
@? Martin: My understanding is that Ireland set up the incentives to attract companies like Apple to set up operations, which they did and created a lot of jobs (thousands at one point). No different than what states are doing to attract Apple or Tesla, etc. Apple just kept the arrangement.
But then the Irish politicians realized they could milk their EU membership by turning themselves into a tax haven, which worked long enough to generate the moniker ‘Celtic Tiger’, but not long enough to avoid having their banking system implode.
max
[‘On net, the GDP gains from the tax breaks were completely eaten by the bank rescues. They’d have had more gains if they hadn’t been a tax haven.’]
Doug r
@Botsplainer: I guess she doesn’t know at some y’s they swim nekkid .
Elizabelle
Saw “The Homesman”, directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones this weekend, and it was terrific. Hillary Swank was female lead. Her character (Mary Bee Cuddy) was about 50 years ahead of her time.
Limited release; won’t be in theatres long, but would greatly suggest you give it some business.
Excellent depiction of how bleak it was to try to survive on the Nebraska plains in the 1850s; the isolation, children dead of diseases now easily cured, failed crops, loveless marriages.
Beautiful cinematography and a lot of famous actors in small parts.
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
Man, this is some good shit. Somebody take a look at Belfast and tell me again how Ireland is a “success” story of low cost jurisdictions.
Corner Stone
@Botsplainer:
*Shutters*
Corner Stone
Who is this hick singing the opening at Lambeau?
Mike J
@Corner Stone: Belfast isn’t in Ireland.
Anne Laurie
@Mike J:
“Shut yer feckin’ gob, ya Prot barstid!”
.
(/not Rep. Peter King, former NORAID supporter)
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
IIRC, “Our Daily Bread” is now controversial because it was a hit in Nazi Germany and some douchebag wrote a book last year claiming that it’s fascist propaganda as part of his claim that Hollywood was making pre-WWII films to Nazi specifications. Most actual scholars of the period dispute his characterization of the film and his historical claims. Self-Styled Siren did a good piece on the controversy (and if you’re not reading her blog, you should be).
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Original post here.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Self-Styled Siren. Is this the piece on Our Daily Bread?
I’ll watch the movie over the next few days.
My attention span is about 30 minutes these days, unless in a movie theatre, sad to report.
(Going to see “Wild” tomorrow, I think … loved the book.)
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: A second chance to see Betty’s wonderful Ybor City photo.
It should be in a calendar. Like it tremendously.
And glad the boxer is on the mend.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
Mozart didn’t score very many movies. He was all about the live performances.
? Martin
@Corner Stone:
I wasn’t defending it, just noting the circumstances under which it came about, which almost everyone gets wrong. I don’t agree with any of these setups – local or otherwise.
PaulW
coping with crashing my car, failing to get more of my story written, and blogging about the gray and darker days ahead.
Steeplejack
@Doug r:
Nobody believes me when I tell them that in the ’70s I belonged to an old-school downtown YMCA where swimming nude was an unremarkable thing. Ditto locker room, steam room, etc. This place was so old-school that I think they still rented out single-occupancy rooms. A different era.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
It’s shudders. You’ve been told before. This can no longer be blamed on autocorrect.
Another Holocene Human
Can’t post at lgm and can’t figure out how to contact Scott or Lisa or maybe too impatient, but I agree with what Lisa is saying here:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/12/violence-racialized-failure-american-state-guest-post-lisa-m-miller
heck I think I had a little to drink last night and posted something like that on the internet
when CHI puts money to have more patrol ossifers out there to keep Black boys from infesting public spaces in “safe” hoods and pulls money OUT of the homicide squad because “let those animals kill each other” that sends a message
CHI has a long history of not investing the money necessary to investigate homicide in the South side of Chicago
That’s over and above the gun running problem from Indiana and Mississippi (like that poor kid who got shot in an accident the other day, guns kill, usually you or your family members statistically).
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
Just when I think I want to leave New England for warmer weather I hear something like this and feel grateful that I live in a state where your religion is your own business and certainly not something that enters public discussion.
We had 4 TVs in the gym, all muted, and they were tuned to sports and one to the local broadcast of a high school basketball tournament.
If someone turned Fox on there would be a revolt.
Steve from Antioch
This is an interesting article – especially the polling:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/08/why-eric-garner-is-the-turning-point-ferguson-never-was/
It demonstrates that, contrary to the shrieking in some quarters, the public does have a fairly nuanced view of the two different uses of deadly force.
MomSense
@Baud:
Ha! The older women with boobs down to their stomachs just whip their clothes off after they swim gabbing and laughing with each other the whole time. I would never dare say anything to those women. They know all the things and would not tolerate a second of Christian modesty. They also have potty mouths and tell the raunchiest jokes.
The Sailor
@Steeplejack:
I think he was right the first time.
Someguy
I know we’re supposed to cheer the fragging of Foer because TNR is kind of neoconny at times and Hughes is super ueber gay prog techie but honestly he’s going to turn TNR into a screechy douchebaggy Gawkermedia clone.
And one Gawkermedia is roughly three too many.
burnspbesq
@Corner Stone:
In case you’re too fucking stupid to notice, Ulster is not part of the Republic of Ireland. It is, regrettably, still part of the United Kingdom.
And in case you’re too fucking stupid to remember what you read four years ago, the manifesto of every single party in Ulster in the last general election called for Scotland-style devolution of control over tax policy to Stormont and the adoption of a 12.5 percent headline rate of corporate tax on trading profits.
The meltdown of the Irish banking system was the more or less direct result of a property bubble bursting, and had little to do with the manufacturing sector.
Anne Laurie
@MomSense:
At our old persons’ gym, the default is sports/CNN/HGTV. And the proprietors are always happy to switch one tv to HGTV for me and the Spousal Unit. We’re becoming connoisseurs of “Love It or Leave It” and the one about the house-flipper/realtor couple in California…
MomSense
@Anne Laurie:
I want to hate that house flipping couple in California but they have sucked me into their world. I just can’t quit them.
ThresherK
@Elizabelle: An unalloyed delight was stumbling across “Safety Last” last First Night in Boston. With live music by the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra. (Yes, they have one.)
ThresherK
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I will now be a regular at that blog, for any number of reasons. Note that the Siren will discuss a showing of The Crowd, in Manhattan, next week.
Jack the Second
The local party was really disappointed with Eldridge’s performance. They felt that he was a real drag on the down-ticket races.
different-church-lady
@burnspbesq: Yeesh, next thing you’ll be trying to convince us Toronto is in another country.
different-church-lady
@ThresherK:
Boston is a great place for silent film music. Lots of music schools, and still a handful of surviving old-world movie houses.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: For fuck’s sake, you are becoming dyspeptic enough to be minor Dickens character.
burnspbesq
@different-church-lady:
Hard to tell sometimes. The U.S. Customs personnel at Pearson Airport are every bit as surly and unhelpful as the U.S. Customs personnel at any airport within our borders.
Culture of Truth
I’m supposed to root between Zuckerboerg’s roomie who interneted the ‘Glass Bell Curve Journal’ and some hack who writes for the Amazon Guy?
Omnes Omnibus
@Culture of Truth: You could think for yourself, but I doubt that you will.
Culture of Truth
@Omnes Omnibus: well then you are wrong – so sad
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Some people bring out the best in me.
Elizabelle
@ThresherK: That would be beyond cool.
Rafer Janders
@Corner Stone:
Belfast is in Northern Ireland, which politically is part of the United Kingdom, is subject to rule from London, and uses the pound sterling. It’s not in the Republic of Ireland, which governs itself and uses the euro.
Bigby
@The Other Chuck: In sports, I call that a “Blimp Game”; one where you hate both teams so much you hope the Goodyear blimp pulls a Hindenburg in the middle of the field, taking out both teams simultaneously during play. Doesn’t work well for baseball tho’, and it’s tough to get the blimp into hoops and hockey arenas…