All That Is Necessary

Category: Uncategorized

  • Current Recession Not (Yet) As Bad As 1982

    After repeatedly invoking the specter of the Great Depression to frighten the public into supporting the “stimulus” bill, the Obama administration has moderated its rhetoric. Professor Mark J. Perry of the University of Michigan offers statistics to show just how inappropriate it is to even talk about comparisons with the Depression: The chart above shows […]

  • Googliath Continues Patchwork Expansion in NJ

    Patch.com, the venture-capitalized, Google-zillionaire-backed startup that recently launched town-specific news and information websites in Maplewood, South Orange and Millburn, today announced plans to expand into an additional three nearby communities. The newest Patches are slated to open in May in Summit, Westfield and Scotch Plains (including Fanwood), all in Union County. Summit is contiguous with […]

  • Live-Blogging the Tuscan Road Water Main Break

    As the crisis unfolds, the Avellino Waterproofing ad appears as a cruel joke… mocking me. About 6:05 a.m., Eastern DAYLIGHT Time — The Web Goddess reports no water pressure at any upstairs faucet. “I hope we don’t have a burst pipe in the basement.” Yoicks!! This would have to happen on the very morning that […]

  • Seaman Recruit Harry Kirk Petersen, United States Navy

    The other day I sat in a restaurant and watched my son become a man. Harry recently bailed out of college. He was in the third year of a five-year construction management program at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and he hated the place. He had been working at the Philadelphia Housing Authority through Drexel’s co-op […]

  • Step Aside, NY Times — Patch Is Bringing Google Zillions to Hyperlocal Maplewood

    I got interested in the hyperlocal Maplewood BlogolopolisTM because the mighty New York Times was wading into the fray (and I happen to know the local Times reporter). But it turns out the Times is only the SECOND-best capitalized hyperlocal effort in Maplewood. The newcomer to watch is something called Patch.com. I barely noticed Maplewood […]

  • Looks Like A.T.I.N. Is Going Hyperlocal For A Little While

    I’m going to have a followup post later today about Patch.com and (I hope) the Maplewoodian, but in the meantime I want to call attention to Alan Wolk’s fact-filled post about the NYT launch. I may have gotten my post up sooner yesterday, but he’s done a lot more research. His post starts: One suggestion […]

  • Maplewood NJ, Pop. 23,000, Now Has Four FIVE Competing Local Websites

    (Don’t miss my followup post about the true 800-pound gorilla of the story. Also, I tweaked this post’s headline and added a substantive Update at the end.) Suddenly the Maplewood hyperlocal web neighborhood is crowded. The mighty NY Times today launched two local websites, each staffed with a full-time, veteran Times reporter. One site is […]

  • Think Twice Before Having Fun on Facebook

    (I subsequently wrote a followup to this post.) (Insert cruel joke here about my apparent IQ) I love the Internet. For starters, I met the Web Goddess on an online divorce support group. Thanks to the Internet, I have been able to pontificate on this blog to an audience of literally dozens of people who […]

  • Mr. Obama’s War: I Told You So

    President Bush salutes in front of General David Petraeus and Admiral William Fallon, September 2007, in Iraq President Obama today announced an Iraq withdrawal plan that George Bush would be proud to call his own. Actually, it IS Bush’s own. Don’t be fooled by the lawyerly language in his pledge to complete “the responsible removal […]

  • How NOT To Talk About Race

    This week brings two reminders of the fact that it is possible to make statements that are both a) intellectually defensible, and b) really, really stupid. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Americans focus too much on race, or not enough. Attorney General Eric Holder believes that to make progress in race relations, “we must […]