While perusing a message board today, I came across a post that called the U.S. to task with respect to election fraud and disgust with the Bush administration's policies thereafter. The writer asked why Americans didn't demonstrate the same outrage that is being expressed in Tehran now. Good question, and to me, there is no answer but to say that Americans failed to protect their own democracy.

Sometimes I like to listen to classical music on WGBH, one of our local NPR stations. For what seems like a large percentage of the days in the year, however, they interrupt the programming for 20 minutes per hour with annoying fund drives. How much of WGBH's revenue comes from driving listeners insane/away?

In our memorandum, available here, we describe the Obama Administration's White Paper on Financial Regulatory Reform. The White Paper is just the beginning of what is likely to be a legislative, regulatory and ideological marathon, despite the Administration's best efforts to achieve domestic political support before its publication.

It may be the fastest and most unexpected revolution in political economy since the fall of the Soviet Union, but it is still startling to realize that the United States government currently owns the largest insurer (AIG), mortgage provider (Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac), multiple banks (Citigroup and Bank of America), as well as a majority stake in GM and a significant share in Chrysler.

The Howard E. Burr Collection contains not only film, equipment, lobby cards and posters, but also a variety of movie magazines. Collector 'Doc' Burr built up large holdings in Photoplay, a classic of film fandom, and he was, of course, a serious collector of film collector catalogs such as The Big Reel, Blackhawk, and other lesser known publications aimed at the amateur film collector.

The Harvard Film Archive has over 15,000 films in our collection. Sometimes we acquire films one by one, sometimes we are given small collections, and sometimes we acquire large collections all at once. We open the HFA blog with the announcement of a large collection we are in the opening stages of acquiring, the Howard E. Burr Collection.

We are not confronting the Basij. Basiji is our brother. In this we are not confronting the revolutionary guard. The guard is the keeper of our revolution. We are not confronting the army, the army is the keeper of our borders. These organs are the keepers of our independence, freedom and our Islamic republic. We are confronting deception and lies, we want to reform them, a reform by return to the pure principles of revolution.

The New York Times has reported that the Sangamon County (which contains Springfield) State's Attorney will not charge Senator Roland Burris with perjury for his sworn statements made to legislators prior to his being admitted to the Senate.

A brand-new New York Times/CBS nationwide poll shows widespread support for a real public health insurance option. The wording of the question was clear: "Would you favor or oppose the government's offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private insurance plans?"

Since President Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo, the Middle East has seen sweeping political change in Lebanon, where a pro-western faction defeated the heavily-favored representatives of Hezbollah, and in Iran, where the world is now bearing witness to the state's largest political uprising since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Obama's Cairo speech, like his Philadelphia speech on race, portrayed an America that is not simply tolerant of difference, but embraces it. His speech was both lofty in its idealistic rhetoric and firmly grounded in realism.

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