Thursday, January 09, 2003

Math You Can Do: W has given those non-economists among us a buzz phrase to hang on to that will win any argument from bar-room to bedroom - "Double Taxation." He used it eight times in two minutes in his Chicago speech. It works on everything from dividends to that Double Mocha Frappe Latte with sprinkles. These dudes know what they are doing and are leaving the dems standing out in the cold with only their tired tax rhetoric to keep them warm. Deborah Orin, as usual, captures the essence of what just went down.

Slapping Leather: W should spend more time at the ranch. It seems to reinvigorate the inner cowboy that lobbed the Pickering nomination (and 19 others) right back up to the Hill. This refusal to let the dems play their frayed old race card has Teddy the K. and Chuck Schumer spluttering, Hillary seething and the rest of us near breathless with the coolness of it all. Here the Boston Globe tells us dems are "disappointed." Awwww.

Futile Gesture: The AP writers union says that reporters there don't make as much as the New York Times cafeteria senior cook and have announced that their members are huffily removing their by-lines from their articles. Does anyone besides their mothers care?

Ledes We Love: On an AP story this morning comes this: "Somers, Conn: Millions of gallons of sewage from the Osborn Correctional Institution are unaccounted for, or something is wrong with a sewage flow meter." There is no by line on the story so we don't know who to thank but we think they deserve a raise.

Oxford Out: One sure way to get publicity for your organization is to start a buzz that BJ Clinton is going to run it. It takes several days for the story to be pumped up, considered, editorialized about and then summarily shot down. And so it is with the ludicrous suggestion that he would sit still long enough to be Chancellor of Oxford University. Rush and Malloy in the Daily News had the brains to call up and ask. Here's his answer.

Watch That First Step: Environmental activist John Quigley has been living in a big old tree in Santa Clarita, California for 69 days. He has announced that he is "stepping down." That's the part we like. The next thing we like about this story is his reason for leaving his perch and it makes him sound like a fired politician. He wants to spend more time with his family.

-Your New York Dwelling Triple-Taxed LComStaff