Limited, Inc.

Adios, LI readers. This has been immense fun. However, as a habit, blogging has become too expensive for Mr. LI. We received a notice, today, about our electricity. Make the throat slashing gesture -- we have no money to pay it. We have no money to pay rent, etc., etc. And really, it simply takes too muich time, right now, to do this blog. On the bright side, as one of the "self-employed" of the Bush economy, I have just gotten off the phone with the aid agencies suggested by the City of Austin, and have really understood for the first time what the Bush era means. The City suggested the United way, which suggested St. Mary's, Christian Services, Baptist Community Center. This, of course, surprised us. Asking if there were any more, uh, robust agencies to act as my advocate, if not to offer temporary relief, I was told, No. This makes complete sense, of course. It is not that the poor in this country are being ruled with indifference -- rather, they evoke un

Bollettino Trollopians everywhere, take note: according to the Daily Telegraph, the Church of England might be selling off its most expensive bishop’s palaces: “THE CHURCH of England is preparing to sell some of its ancient bishops' palaces and houses as part of a cost-cutting review. The Church Commissioners said yesterday that they would introduce guidelines to maximise the income from properties and those proving too expensive to maintain may be put on the market.” As we all know, the Bishop’s Palace in Barchester is the center of the world – at least, the world Trollope made. Of course, there are the political novels, the Irish novels, the novels and novels Trollope poured out, but the Barchester series is at the center of this universe. Our Tory impulse is to simply hang down our head when we read that the Church might actually be letting some vulgarian bidder, some Saatchi or other, get his hooks on jewels like these: “Among the historic houses is Auckland Cas

Bollettino Economics is the science of explaining how the totalling of an economic model in its collision with reality is really not as bad as it looks. In fact, in the economist's version, it is reality that is at fault! In this, it shares a lot with the science of selling used cars. The latest unemployment numbers certainly point to the ruinous nature of the Bush fiscal policy. While pumping into the system 600 billion some dollars that the state has to borrow, plus the money that it has on hand, is going to produce short term growth, that growth won’t necessarily engender employment. This lesson was learned, by left-wing Keynsians, in the inflation haunted seventies. Right wing Keynsians are reproducing the conditions for that fiasco from the other end. We read, with mounting hilarity, the analysis of unemployment produced by the London Times Business editor, Anatole Koletsky. The numbers do look bleak, according to Koletsky, but that is because you aren’t looking har

Bollettino Hmm. We don’t know if we can pat ourselves on the back yet, but it does look like our projection about the Shi’ite response to Saddam’s capture is starting to assume the outlines we predicted . “Officials held a round of urgent meetings in Washington and Baghdad in the wake of the rejection on Sunday by a powerful Shiite religious leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, of the administration's complex plans to hold caucuses around the country to select an interim legislature and executive in a newly self-governing Iraq. Officials say they are responding to the cleric's objections with a new plan that will open the caucuses to more people and make their inner workings more transparent. Administration officials also expressed concern about a separate part of Ayatollah Sistani's statement on Sunday that demanded that any agreement for American-led forces to remain in Iraq be approved by directly elected representatives.” If you will cast your mind back, faithful

Bollettino We went to a story in the Observer about grunt discontents. The story pointed us to a highly commendable site, run by the Veterans for Common Sense. When Time magazine named the soldier the Man of the Year, there was something about the gesture reminiscent of Uriah Heep rubbing his hands together – an unctuous hypocrisy, if you will. Because, beyond the photo ops, the common soldier of America’s current war is being treated dismally by a government that pinches its pennies, when it comes to family leave for reservists, while throwing its billions away, when it comes to contracting with Halliburtan. It stinks. The Veterans for Common Sense site has a compilation of articles about the collective dump the Pentagon is taking on Times Man of the year . For instance: 1. The wounded. Has there ever been an American war in which the censorship was so hamfisted, and the response of the press was so pussyfooted? In WWII, the press advocated for the GI; in this war, the