Perhaps the best analysis I've read...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/video/2011/nov/16/99-v-1-occupy-data-animation?INTCMP=SRCH

You could say the same thing about Paterno...

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/mike-mcqueary-what-angers-most-is-they-see-themselves-when-they-consider-his-actions-in-penn-state-sex-abuse-scandal-111711

Serial Monogamy

Some of you know about our house in Iowa. We've had it on the market since May, but there have been no offers. So we decided to take it off the market and rent it out, again. Posted an ad on Craigslist and got a huge amount of interest. One family that is relocating to the area seems like the perfect match for us. They sent a relocation specialist to look at the house. Pictures were taken, questions were asked, phone calls were made.

Earlier today I called the wife to tell her we've accepted her family's application and would be thrilled if she and her family would rent our house. She was happy, no doubt about it. But she wanted to talk it over with her husband, see a few more pictures from the relocation specialist, and "sleep on it." And given that they'd be taking a lease out on a house sight unseen, I really can't blame them.

I told her that we think they'd love our neighborhood and the neighbors. Our families have a lot in common and so it would be comforting to know that our property would be in good hands. And those of you who have followed our "Great Adventures in Out-Of-State Land Ownership" know that we are great landlords. I told her that we were going to keep our ad open, that the house will be scheduled to show again Wednesday night, but that we'd cancel it as soon as we got a signed lease from them. All in the interest of transparency. And she seemed totally fine with all of this. I found our entire set of interactions (email, text, and phone) to be refreshingly honest. It felt like the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

So tonight I got home and noticed that our Craigslist ad was off the front page. I festered over it for a while, and then, worried that we'd lose this family and not have any traffic at the next showing, renewed the listing.

And now, I feel like we totally cheated on the potential renters. Even though I told her we would continue playing the field. Even though there is no expectation of monogamy, I am totally freaked out that the family will wake up in the morning with the intention of renting our house but that she will go to Craigslist anyway, see the renewed ad, think we decided not to rent to her, and call me to break up with us.

I can't go back and delete the second ad, because that would remove the original one, and if they don't take the house I won't have time to repost a new ad before the showing tomorrow night. What I really need is a good cover story; one of those "it's not how things appear" alibis that always seem to work in the movies and Law and Order episodes. Got any suggestions?

Only in Iowa

Oh, those Iowa business professionals!  Always so innovative!

http://blogs.findlaw.com/free_enterprise/2011/10/10-if-you-guess-who-will-be-fired-next.html

Explain it to me like I'm a 4-year old...

"It's because most of their income comes from capital gains,"
 
From the war over "fixing the tax system" comes the argument that the super-wealthy's low tax obligations is because their money comes from capital gains rather than actual labor.  Interesting.  Because when people complain that public sector employees deserve higher taxes, it's because they aren't working hard enough.   But when people want to protect the wealth earned by gazillionaires, it's because they haven't been working at all.
 
Maybe Kevin Drum can explain it better...

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/lies-damn-lies-and-average-tax-rates
 
Or, maybe not.

I've been making this argument for years!

I'm so glad journalists are finally catching on:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-am-a-job-creator-who-creates-no-jobs/2011/09/20/gIQAhpgGjK_story.html

Twins!

I was finally feeling better. Josh and I drove to work together that morning and we stopped to get donuts to share with my office in celebration of my one-year anniversary at work. Truth be told, we were both feeling a little giddy over the excitement we expected to stir in my office. I shuffled through my papers, just to make sure everything was there. We second-guessed our plans, wondering if we should wait until the weekend when we were to fly back to Washington D.C. for the Jewish New Year, so that our family would be the first to know. But we were bursting with joy and couldn’t wait any longer; we decided to share our news first with the people who had become our Midwest family.

We parked in the A lot by Gilchrist Hall just as Iowa Public Radio started to run down the top news stories. It was 8:05 Central Time and the announcer made a brief mention of an airplane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York. Josh looked at me incredulously. I rolled my eyes, shook my head at the vision of some yutz and his Cessna collapsing down the side of the building ala Wile E. Coyote and thought to myself, “I bet that wasn’t part of his flight plan.”

We thought nothing of it.

When we got to my office, I walked to the conference room, opened the donut box and tacked the ultrasound to the wall. Josh stopped by my colleagues’ desks to say “hi” as he often did, reminded them that today was my one-year anniversary, and encouraged them to grab a donut. No one thought it was strange that he lingered in my office that day; he often hung around for a few minutes before he went to his own office across campus.

Sandy was first, and a moment later we heard a gasp and then “Robin!!” She came charging into my office and cried, “Twins!” and embraced us both. Within moments the rest of the office can streaming in, and Josh and I told and retold our story: how long we had struggled, how we resigned ourselves to ART, how the test the night before the doctor’s appointment made it all unnecessary, how we knew before the doctors that there would be two, and how I had spent the last five weeks praying to the porcelain god. We laughed, celebrated, and mingled, and after about 15 minutes the party started to break-up. Josh left for his own office and we all set down to work.

It was about 10 minutes later when Judy walked back in. “Robin, turn on the radio.” She said quietly. I turned to look at her. Her face had gone deathly white, and the cheerful smile she wore moments before had vanished.

“Turn on the radio.” It was all she could say, and I knew something was very, very wrong.

I went back to the computer, got online and listened to the instant stream of details. Images of horror flashed across the screen. I took it all in but none of it made sense. Pictures. Words. Yelling. Running. Flames. Smoke. Screams. Chaos. My head spun but I instinctively went searching for more news. But every damn site was just cycling through the same details of the two towers’ collapse and the same dreadful images of terrorized masses.

My stomach turned. I saw an online clip of someone leaping to his death from one of the Towers, and my heart stopped beating.

Finally, there was news of The Pentagon and an airplane crash in Pennsylvania. The world stopped breathing.

It would be a few days before all the events would come into focus. The death toll continued to climb and the devastation mounted. Media coverage was angry and the masses were incensed. New details gushed from various outlets daily and added to the collective rage and fury.

But I was a Zombie. I went through the motions at work and at home but my head was filled with fear for the world into which my children would be born. I was entering my second trimester, known as the “honeymoon phase” because my pregnant body should have adjusted to the additional blood volume and surging hormones. But instead of release, my stomach continued to clench and heave. I could feel the lights of optimism and humanity slipping from all of us.

I worried that the human race would never breathe again. And I cried that my twins would never know the world in which they were conceived.