"You can't be untouchable, but you can be undefeated".

Over at Slate magazine, William Saletan summed up exactly what I have been trying to say for quite a while now.

In a liquid world, you can't seal off evil. All you can do is fight liquid with liquid. You have to absorb the tragedy, flowing around and through it. You need the strength of a river, not a rock. You need resilience. You can't be untouchable, but you can be undefeated.

You can skip the duct-tape, a crack team of investigators and a realistic view of the world will better serve you.

Lean times?

The threat of a recession hastened by the tipping of the housing market has again been raised. I have heard this time and again for several years as the household savings rate dropped into the red and housing prices headed for the sky.

"Refinance this, refinance that; can't afford it? Just refinance!"

With so much of the economy dependent on consumption and so many of the consumers financing their contributions to the economy with credit and mortgages, when creditors come calling it will not be a pleasant visit.

Liberman's Challenge

Connecticut journalist and commentator Colin McEnroe explains what the national media seem unable to get. It's not the liberal wing of the Democratic Party driving opposing Lieberman, it's the Connecticut voters that have supported him lo these many years.

The New York Times and other national media outlets are right that the Iraq war -- this deeply unpopular, catastrophic adventure -- is what finally made the natives brave enough to act, and what may have ended Joe Lieberman's tenure as a senator. But people in Connecticut know the war was only the tipping point. They have long memories of everything that came before.

(Via Atrios)