Feb
9th
Tue
9th
I'm Adam Isacson. I live in Washington and work on Latin America at the Center for International Policy. I'm a dad, a husband, and I don't get enough sleep.
Following:
Feb
8th
Mon
8th
Oh, did I say 8 to 10 inches?
* PRECIPITATION TYPE...SNOW. * ACCUMULATIONS...10 TO 20 INCHES. * TIMING...MID-AFTERNOON TUESDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY.
Tomorrow afternoon's forecast
ACCUMULATIONS...POTENTIAL FOR 8 OR MORE INCHES OF SNOW. THERE IS A GOOD LIKELIHOOD OF SNOW IN EXCESS OF 10 INCHES.
Can i just say how much I love this? I went to school in New England for six years and always hoped for a snowy winter like this one. Never got it.
Feb
7th
Sun
7th
From Talking Points Memo. “The red bars are the accelerating rate of job loss during President Bush’s last year in office; the blue bars are the decelerating rate of job loss during President Obama’s first year of office.”
Don’t know if the title is correct, and these are all still job losses. Still, that’s quite a graphic.
Hanging out in the front yard with the kid last night, as the snow really started to fall in earnest. It’s still falling; now I can’t even open the front door all the way.
Not my best video work, but if you live someplace that doesn’t get snow, _this_ is what a snowstorm looks like.
Feb
5th
Fri
5th
Stuck in a long pre-blizzard supermarket line, snaking all the way up the “Health & Beauty” aisle.
My cart’s been parked next to the “Nubian Heritage” products so long, three different African-American women have had to ask awkwardly to get past me.
Feb
4th
Thu
4th
Huge snowstorm coming. The supermarket was so mobbed we just left.
The only things totally sold out were nacho chips and “premium salad blends.” Which is all you need to know about people who live in Washington, really.
Late in the conversation, I asked Biden about the surprise applause line in President Obama’s State of the Union speech — “I do not accept second place for the United States of America.” Will we hear more on the America-as-No.-1 theme?
What followed was a torrent, in red, white and blue.
“From me you’re going to hear more,” he replied emphatically. “I want to tell you something, because if we cede the ground to those who suggest that — I don’t mean foreigners, I mean domestic critics — that somehow, we are destined to fulfill [historian Paul] Kennedy’s prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended, then we might as well throw it in now, for God’s sake. I mean it’sridiculous.”
- from E.J. Dionne’s column in today’s Washington Post.
I haven’t read The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in nearly 20 years, but as I recall Paul Kennedy argued that:
- Rising powers have robust, growing economies but modest militaries.
- Declining powers have stagnant, indebted economies and huge, outsize militaries.
Which pretty accurately describes the budget Biden’s administration introduced Monday.
