Links of the day

Tom Wolfe and the New Vulgarians..."Tom Wolfe is on form, and writing about hedge-fund managers. Apparently they're "even coarser and ruder than their predecessors could have ever imagined being," but you knew that"...

Sallie Forth to a BB Rating..."where will Sallie find the money to lend out if it has a double-B credit rating? Why, its shareholders, of course: JP Morgan and BofA have promised a credit line of as much as $200 billion if the bond markets prove recalcitrant"...sure they will, since they can charge higher interest due to the double-B rating, while the government still covers any student defaults...sounds like a no-brainer to me...in my view, the government should stop backstopping student loans...

Tanks for the Lesson: Leopards, too, for Canada...

It would seem that the Canadian Forces are taking some of the lessons re-learned during Operation Medusa in Afghanistan to heart. Canada's DND:

"The heavily protected direct fire capability of a main battle tank is an invaluable tool in the arsenal of any military. The intensity of recent conflicts in Central Asia and the Middle East has shown western militaries that tanks provide protection that cannot be matched by more lightly armoured wheeled vehicles.... [Canada's existing Leopard C2/1A5] tanks have also provided the Canadian Forces (CF) with the capability to travel to locations that would otherwise be inaccessible to wheeled light armoured vehicles, including Taliban defensive positions."

...duh!!...