I think he went to a couple of Georgetown games when he was president, but I don't think he really cares. He did pick us to win or make the final four or something a few years ago when Hillary was running for President. Didn't he go to the Final Four when Arkansas made it in the early 1990s?

jerseyhoya wrote:I think he went to a couple of Georgetown games when he was president, but I don't think he really cares. He did pick us to win or make the final four or something a few years ago when Hillary was running for President. Didn't he go to the Final Four when Arkansas made it in the early 1990s?

I'm sure he did. I just don't remember him being a huge sports fan either way.

Thompson didn't come to Georgetown till the early 1970s. The basketball team's most notable alums from the Clinton era at school and earlier were Henry Hyde, Paul Tagliabue and James Jones (Obama's NSA Advisor). Really quite a hat trick of names there, but not exactly basketball legends.

jerseyhoya wrote:The Hoya message board is burnin' up over rumors that the 44th President of the United States will be taking in Duke Georgetown at the Verizon Center

Since we don't talk about politics in here any more I thought I would share

I wonder if he'll root for the hometown team or if Reggie Love will have him rooting for Duke. Probably the latter. I hope the crowd gives him $#@! for it.

Rooting for Duke would be like rooting for the bankers

Rooting for GTown would be like rooting for SUV -er, "truck" - drivers

real dilemma there

I'll get it back to politics / economy:

Bernanke was reconfirmed by the Senate.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Feds-Bern ... et=&ccode=

Checking RCP, the biggest flap is obama's apparent criticism of the court. I think he might actually get some political benefit. It give real heft to populist Judge bashing.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I think he went to a couple of Georgetown games when he was president, but I don't think he really cares. He did pick us to win or make the final four or something a few years ago when Hillary was running for President. Didn't he go to the Final Four when Arkansas made it in the early 1990s?

I'm sure he did. I just don't remember him being a huge sports fan either way.

He may not have been a sports fan to the degree the Bushes or Obama are, but he seemed like a pretty decent fan to me. In addition to Arkansas, I heard that his favorite baseball team was the Cardinals. (And we all know Hilary is an ardent Cubs .... err Yankees fan.)

traderdave wrote:I'll get it back to politics / economy:

Bernanke was reconfirmed by the Senate.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Feds-Bern ... et=&ccode=

Ah geezus... booo

Obama is a great speaker. Unfortunatley, little of his "let's all get on the same page and do the people's work" message will do a thing except keep his perception more positive. His economic plans are terrible. His avoiding the reality of the over-bloated militarism and hyped up threats to national security mean that : nothing changed. Nice speech, nice guy ... great affect, but his own chiefs sat stone faced on Gays, all his stuff was super calculated and he too was playing politics and posturing. He used his bullypulpit to make himself sound authentic and caring - but he didn't really have any teeth to his rhetoric. I luv'd him chiding the Supreme Court but it won't change Roberts mission. Roberts was appointed for a specific purpose and its purely political and he will do his job probably for most of the rest of my life if he remains in good health...

traderdave wrote:I'll get it back to politics / economy:

how about that John Edwards sex tape? He continues to lower the bar for every human being on earth

A serious question: why did the Republicans vote unanimously against reinstating pay-as-you-go budgeting? Was it reflex, or actually some principle (other than a deep and demonstrated belief in not paying for what you spend)?

One day after the president upbraided Congress in his State of the Union address for excessive partisanship, Senate Republicans voted en masse against a plan to require that new spending not add to the deficit (it passed anyway as all 60 members of the Democratic caucus hung together). And some Republicans peremptorily dismissed Mr. Obama’s main job-creating proposal, expressing no interest in using $30 billion in bank bailout money for business tax credits.

Kid, I love your new look, but...well....you really don't get this whole politics thing, do you?

Philly the Kid wrote:Obama is a great speaker. Unfortunatley, little of his "let's all get on the same page and do the people's work" message will do a thing except keep his perception more positive. His economic plans are terrible. His avoiding the reality of the over-bloated militarism and hyped up threats to national security mean that : nothing changed. Nice speech, nice guy ... great affect, but his own chiefs sat stone faced on Gays, all his stuff was super calculated and he too was playing politics and posturing. He used his bullypulpit to make himself sound authentic and caring - but he didn't really have any teeth to his rhetoric. I luv'd him chiding the Supreme Court but it won't change Roberts mission. Roberts was appointed for a specific purpose and its purely political and he will do his job probably for most of the rest of my life if he remains in good health...

Philly the Kid wrote: but his own chiefs sat stone faced on Gays

You haven't watched too many of these, have you? They are supposed to be (traditionally) passive like the SC Justices. Unless it has to do with Veteran affairs, they don't move. Apolitical.

jerseyhoya wrote:Posted for Pacino

The one thing that scares me about mass transit, high-speed trains in particular, is the whole notion of "If you build it they will come". With the cost of mass transit to the rider recently, I am not so sure.

My main reference point is PATCO but fares from Westmont to Philly are nearly $5.00 now (they'd be a bit higher than that but the DRPA but a hold on a planned 10% increase later this year) and the DRPA is projecting 100,000 LESS riders in 2010. I think Amtrak is still a fairly reasonable ride, especially when I travel to "secondary" stations, but they have a long history of problems, both operational and financial, with Acela.

traderdave wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Posted for Pacino

The one thing that scares me about mass transit, high-speed trains in particular, is the whole notion of "If you build it they will come". With the cost of mass transit to the rider recently, I am not so sure.

My main reference point is PATCO but fares from Westmont to Philly are nearly $5.00 now (they'd be a bit higher than that but the DRPA but a hold on a planned 10% increase later this year) and the DRPA is projecting 100,000 LESS riders in 2010. I think Amtrak is still a fairly reasonable ride, especially when I travel to "secondary" stations, but they have a long history of problems, both operational and financial, with Acela.

Even with those problems, I believe the NE Corridor is the only profitable part of Amtrak--and I think the fundamental problem with speed and operational issues are the tracks, not the trains.

One problem with Amtrak is that it is subject to a lot of political interference. As far as I know, there really is no reason for a government subsidy for a train that goes from New York to Chicago. However, in places like California, Texas, and Florida, regional high speed rail does make sense, much like the Northeast corridor. To fly from Dallas to Houston, if you count the time getting to and from the airport and the time standing on line is probably 4 hour trip, even if only an hour is spent in the air. A train that could go 120 mph could make the trip in 2 hours.

A lot of people are pretty stupid about mass transit. People in SE Pa often say dumb stuff like "why should I pay for trains when I don't use them? I drive." This statement is stupid on two levels--first, if all the passengers of trains got on the highways, traffic would be much worse. Second, of course, your road that you use mostly for free don't exactly pay for themselves (though of course a gas tax does account for a substantial proportion of the highway budget.

One conservative Canuck's take on Obama's trade strategy

The idea that trade is somehow out of balance around the world, and needs to be fixed by governments deliberately imposing policy and programs, is an economic idea long ago dismissed and even ridiculed. In Mr. Obama’s case, he is dragging America back to mercantilism — the idea that countries get rich and create jobs via exports. Imports — of oil and energy, for example — are seen as drags on the economy that suck jobs away. In Mr. Obama’s world, companies that produce shoes in India are depriving America’s economy of employment and prosperity.

What really creates jobs and prosperity is trade, not exports. And trade on a global scale is never and cannot be balanced on a nation-to-nation basis. It is impossible. And it is undesirable and dangerous to want to bring about such balances by government action. Mr. Obama’s plan to “double our exports” over the next five years sets a goal that is unachievable by any government policy. No economic theory that’s still valid today supports the use of government policy to foster exports for the sake of exports, on the grounds that any such measures can only lead to trade frictions, even trade wars, and a decline in the real wealth creator — free trade.

I'm still trying to get my head around the idea of how doubling exports in 5 years is even logistically possible, forget that it makes little sense in terms of wealth creation.

NYT take from yesterday

The trouble, trade experts say, is that meeting that goal would require the president to engage in a fight to the death with the liberal wing of his own party, persuade China to allow its currency to appreciate 40 percent, get global economic growth to outperform the salad days from 2003 to 2007, and lower taxes for American companies that do business abroad.

And, while he is at it, forget about strengthening the dollar in the foreseeable future.

Since the Obama administration has not yet clearly articulated a trade policy or even sent several completed trade agreements to Congress, his pledge to double exports in five years was greeted with incredulity, even among Democratic trade policy experts.

“It’s like someone dropped a paragraph from a Bush or a Clinton speech, given the low profile the administration has accorded trade so far,” said David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official with the Clinton administration.

Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, added: “How will he perform this miracle? It really is a mystery.”

As expected, a big GDP number (pdf), signifying nothing much. It’s an inventory blip: topline growth at 5.7 percent, but only 2.2 of that is final demand.

And I find myself wondering why I even bother reading the actual numbers; the Goldman Sachs prediction was almost exactly right.

Krugman.

Link

So it sounds like the KSM trial might be moved.

Much as I was initially for having it here as an affirmation of our system and a rebuke to both the terrorists and the pants-wetting crowd on the right, the costs and inconvenience that go with "security theater" probably make it best to be done somewhere else.