2008 archive
Bushonomics 0
Over at the Booman Tribune.
Fact Checks 0
I’m not going to bother to post them, but Fact Check dot org has their end of campaign fact checks up.
Speechless 0
As I said, deeply corrupt.
And, as I didn’t say, inhuman, unfeeling, and willing to sell their souls.
If they had any.
H/T Karen for the link.
Toys in Babeland 0
Over at ASZ.
Andrew Sullivan 0
endorses Obama (old news) with a wonderfully balanced discussion, not only of the Senator, but also of the malfeasance of the Current Federal Administration.
Bushonomics: Scapegoat Dept. 0
One of the stories making the rounds is that current economic situation is the fault of poor folk: specifically that government efforts to stop racial and ethnic profiling in bank lending practices somehow forced lending institutions to make loans to persons who couldn’t afford to repay them.
One of the laws mentioned in this urban legend lie is the Community Redevelopment Act of 1977. This law was intended primarily to end the practice of redlining, under which lending organizations would refuse to lend to persons living in particular areas regardless of the creditworthiness of the loan applicants.
Joe DiStefano points out in yesterday’s local rag that (emphasis added):
In Philadelphia, CRA-compliant banks such as PNC and Mellon PSFS were pushed out of the inner-city home loan market in the late 1990s by subprime lenders. The latter weren’t subject to either the CRA or to traditional credit discipline, but found a ready market for higher-priced, high-risk loans on Wall Street.
In other words, the CRA had nothing to do with the ditzy mortgages that started all this. Blaming the CRA is as nonsensical as blaming Franny Mae and Freddie Mac, who got into ditzy mortgages late and only because it seemed the only way they could keep business. By then, the merry-go-round was already spinning too fast (follow the link for a fact-filled discussion of the roles of Fannie and Freddie).
But, you see, under Republican Economic Theory, the poor must be to blame.
Here’s how it goes:
-
1. Wealth = Virtue (see the proof here).
2. The wealthy, having wealth, are virtuous.
3. The virtuous do not do bad things.
4. The poor, having no wealth, are not virtuous.
5. The poor, not being virtuous, are to blame. For everything. Q. E. D.
No, poor folk did not cause this mess. (But other folks believe the scapegoating because, I guess, they just don’t want to take the time to determine whether there’s a fact behind each talking point.)
The current economic situation results logically from Republican Economic Theory.
Republican Economic Theory does not attempt to understand economics.
It is no more than a fancy suit of clothes to disguise the purpose of the Republican Party: to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
(Slightly edited to correct poor phrasing at 20:08 EDT 11/03/2008.)
Dirty Tricks: It’s a Republican Thing 0
Consider this news story. Follow the link. Read the whole thing.
In the entire story, there is not an example of a dirty trick designed to keep potential Republican voters from voting.
As my mother would have said, not a single solitary thing.
The Republican Party is deeply corrupt.
No, it’s not the corruption of graft and bribes; whenever you get a large enough number of persons in a room, you will find a certain percentage of the them are greedy and selfish. That is a human thing, not a political party thing.
As George Washington Plunkett famously said, “There’s honest graft and there’s dishonest graft.”
And Republican graft is the most dishonest of dishonest graft.
It betrays the very concept of the United States of America.
Drinking Liberally 0
Kill time tomorrow before the returns start coming in at the Plough and Stars, 2nd and Chestnut, Philadelphia, Pa., 6 p.
This is a different venue from the usual one.
Adventures in Linux (Geek Alert) 0
Since I resurrected the one computer and migrated the website to it, I ended up with an extra computer–the old P3 that was my webserver.
I’ve set it up as a test machine and have been playing with other versions of Linux, other than Slackware, that is.
I had already messed about with Mandriva and was completely and totally disenchanted.
For other adventures, go below the fold.
Too Stupid for Words 0
A gentleman recently posted to the Opera newsgroup, opera.general, about a webpage that didn’t work.
A little later, he posted this (emphasis added):
Just received the following from the developer of the site mentioned above:
– – The problem with Opera is that it is SO standards compliant that it does not implement the extensions that FF (Firefox–ed.) and IE do. As a result, a number of JavaScript functions in the dictionaries do not work. – –
The problem is that Opera is too “standards compliant.” Too “Standards Compliant.” TOO “STANDARDS COMPLIANT.”
Give me a break.
There’s a reason standards are there.
That’s so persons will comply with them, so that, when they comply with the standards, stuff bleepin’ works.
Words fail me.
Why Me, Oh Lord? 3
On the day that I’m painting the floor of the back porch and can’t let the dogs out into the backyard until the paint dries, Stinky Sparky gets the throw-ups.
Bushonomics 0
Change we can trust:
Why such worry? On top of watching their retirement savings dwindle and foreclosure notices rise, reports about mass layoffs keep rolling in. With weekly initial claims for state jobless benefits hugging the half million mark, a bottom of the labor market doesn’t appear to be in sight.
Two More Days 0
“With the head of our enemy, to deliver to our emperor.”
“I think the United States losts its way . . . .”
Via the Booman Tribune.
Moving Day 0
Sometime tomorrow, I will shut down my server and move it upstairs to the server room.
Currently, it’s sitting on a table in the kitchen.
I will be offline for about half an hour, probably in the morning after church.
But I’ll be back.
Both of my regular readers can look forward to that.
Swiftly Go the Days 0
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and jeers.
With apologies to Sheldon Harnick.
Punditry 0
Adam Felber on the cluelessness of Imaginary Bubba:
(snip)
. . . Imaginary Bubba doesn’t represent the American people as faithfully as his hosts think. In fact, Imaginary Bubba is wayyy out of touch with Joe Sixpack, which is odd, because they went to junior high together. But in the first three debates, Imaginary Bubba, largely, called it a tie. A slight McCain advantage in the first, maybe.
What made this all the more startling is that the pundits ignored actual Bubbas in favor of their imaginary ones.
(snip)
Of course, all three times, (the post-debate–ed.) polls turned out to be right, an accurate reflection of how the debates were perceived, and Imaginary Bubba turned out to be wrong.