Word: thingness
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...Would being smaller and more focused have helped Citi over the past two years, or in the period just before that when it was piling up investments in mortgage-backed securities and LBO debt? Since all of its peers, even the smaller banks, did the same thing, probably...
...difficult in the middle of winter - especially if you live in the frigid Northeastern U.S., as I do - to remain convinced that global warming will be such a bad thing. Beyond the fact that people prefer warmth to cold, there's a reason the world's population is clustered in the Tropics and subtropics: warmer climates usually mean longer and richer growing seasons. So it's easy to imagine that on a warmer globe, the damage inflicted by more frequent and severe heat waves would be balanced by the agricultural benefits of warmer temperatures...
...comforting thought, except for one thing: it's not true. A study published in the Jan. 9 issue of Science shows that far from compensating for the damages associated with climate change (heavier and more frequent storms, increasing desertification, sea-level rise), hotter temperatures will seriously diminish the world's ability to feed itself. David Battisti, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, and Rosamond Naylor, director of the Program for Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University, analyzed data from 23 climate models and found a more than 90% chance that by the end of the century...
...thing that will be very familiar to the new First Family is city life. Unlike every other President stretching all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt, Obama has spent his entire life living in urban areas. Some of his supporters believe this background makes him more culturally sophisticated than many of his predecessors (they're relieved he won't call the city "Warshington"), while others say it allows him to better understand multicultural, 21st century America. But the fact that Obama has spent weekends walking down the street to the barbershop instead of riding a 4x4 across a ranch...
...There is no such thing as short-term history," an insouciant President Bush told the White House press corps yesterday. That's a sentiment his pal from across the Atlantic can only hope proves true. A special envoy to the Middle East for the U.S.-Russia-E.U.-U.N. "Quartet" of powers since 2007, Blair has maintained a surprisingly low profile as Israeli forces move into Gaza. Back in Britain, his substantial legacy - a more affluent and, by some measures, fairer Britain - looks imperiled by the economic downturn. For the moment, a gold medallion, even one given by the lamest...