Ah, The Black Irish January 29, 2009March 12, 2017 YESTERDAY’S VOTE So the President’s economic stimulus package passed the House without one – not one – Republican vote. Sound familiar? The same thing happened to President Clinton’s first budget. It passed without a single Republican vote. And yet it steered the economy into better balance . . . prosperity followed . . . and by the time he left office he handed the Republicans what they themselves called “surpluses as far as the eye could see.” I’m afraid it won’t be so easy this time. But one thing not to worry about is that Republican lawmakers unanimously think it’s a bad plan. That’s what they thought sixteen years ago. And aren’t they the ones who thought the disastrous Bush economic strategy was worth voting for? GIANT PHOTOS Richard Factor: You don’t need a special camera to take giant gigapixel photos. Microsoft has a free site – photosynth.net – to which you can upload as many photos as you want, so long as they all have some overlap. The site stitches them together for you. I did one of Mount Rushmore.” ☞ Looking at it close up, there’s clearly room for FDR to the right of Abe Lincoln – and maybe one day another great man or woman. O’BAMA If you haven’t heard this song, it is all but guaranteed to get your toes tapping. We have an Irish President! THE FIRST INTERVIEW But he is also Kansan, and Kenyan, and members of his family are Muslim. Here is one review of President Obama’s first formal TV interview as President. (“What Obama did has provided a new punctuation point in American foreign policy. This is a new game and a very impressive new leader.”) DIVERSIFICATION – THE FATAL FLAW Overheard at a recent cocktail party: “Diversified? I was wonderfully diversified – except that all my investments were on Earth.”