Author Archives: floegel

The Christmas Gift

12/23/2010 – 3:25 pm

The first significant snow of the season is here, right on schedule to transform the backyard fences and sheds into a holiday card. The roads are greasy; the people driving on them all seem impatient, as if they are running out of time and have decided to make bad conditions worse by driving foolishly. I’ve […]

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Do It (For) Yourself

12/17/2010 – 2:54 pm

The Bush tax cuts for the rich are now the Obama tax cuts for the rich. As we wait for the Great Recession’s double dip, as the smart economists (Hello, Paul Krugman!) tell us we need more government spending to offset the consumer spending that just ain’t there, Congress today sends a bill to Barack […]

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Hypocrisy

12/9/2010 – 10:35 am

Week two of the WikiLeaks massive document dump and I have yet to be surprised. By anything. I’m not surprised the US government has a dishonest and unreliable partner in Afghanistan, the State Department thinks Vladimir Putin is an ass, the Americans put pressure on the Germans not to prosecute the CIA assets that kidnapped […]

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Thank You, Bumbler

12/2/2010 – 2:56 pm

I thought they had me this time. I was coming home via DCA Tuesday night and in every security line stood the full-body scanner, dead ahead. Either that, or the pat down, no way around it. I was resigned to my fate. It was a late evening flight; there were few people ahead of me […]

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The Big Squeeze

11/25/2010 – 11:27 am

Happy Thanksgiving. The threatened “pat-down” protest at the nation’s airports didn’t materialize yesterday, so if you flew, that’s one thing you have to be thankful for. It’s not surprising, either. Regardless of how steamed you might be to read about full-body scans, I can’t think of anyone who wants to take more time getting through […]

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Vote for Me!

11/18/2010 – 6:56 pm

Now that election season is over and in the brief window before the jockeying for the 2012 presidential begins, I want to take a moment to talk about – elections. (Sorry. If you want to go do something else, you have my permission.) If you stick around, though, you might find it worthwhile, because you […]

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The Five-Percent Solution

11/11/2010 – 5:31 pm

Happy Armistice Day, as we used to call it. I had a great uncle in the American trenches at 11:11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. (Although, I wouldn’t “have” him as an uncle for another 42 and a half years.) That was the “war to end all war” and/or “keep the world safe for democracy.” […]

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