NYT: We Need a Second Party

[underpants]

39. LOL I had forgotten about Friedman Units - thanks for reminding us

The Friedman Unit (F.U.), is a tongue-in-cheek neologism coined by blogger Atrios (Duncan Black) on May 21, 2006.[1]

A Friedman Unit is equal to six months in the future.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The Huffington Post cited it as the "Best New Phrase" of 2006.[9]

The term is in reference to a May 16, 2006 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) detailing columnist Thomas Friedman's repeated use[10] of "the next six months" as the period in which, according to Friedman, "we're going to find out...whether a decent outcome is possible" in the Iraq War. As documented by FAIR, Friedman had been making such six-month predictions for a period of two and a half years, on at least fourteen different occasions, starting with a column in the November 30, 2003 edition of The New York Times, in which he stated: "The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_Unit