April, 2009 archive
Greater Wingnuttery XI 0
Some Guy with a Website.
The Last Time I Saw Paris . . . 0
Actually, I’ve never seen a Paris, neither Paris, France, nor Paris, Texas.
I still might consider visiting Paris, France.
Lies, Damned Lies, and the Wall Street Journal 0
From John Cole. Follow the link for the guts of the story.
2009 Pentagon budget: $513 billion
2010 proposed Pentagon budget: $534 billion
Mr. Rogers, Agent of Evil 0
Phillybits has the details.
Adventures in Linux: Ekiga 0
Earlier tonight, I made my first PC to Phone call using Ekiga, calling a phone number in another state.
Zombie Lies 0
They. Walk. Again. By. Night. No matter what anyone does.
Scene on the Boardwalk 3
Surf on a cloudy Sunday at Virginia Beach, Va.
One Down, Eight To Go 0
Lives, that is.
Good Grief, a Fool and His Money Dept. 0
I was hoping these folks had disappeared by now.
Two Different Worlds 0
Reality and Wingnuttia. Hugh Jackson discussing Mr. Obama’s overseas trip in the Guardian:
Other times, Obama deployed refreshing candour, such as during the town hall gathering in Strasbourg when he acknowledged American “arrogance” and admitted the country “shares blame for what has happened” but also called Europe on its “anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious.”
To America’s angry conservatives (bit of a redundancy there), Obama’s behavior abroad was nothing short of deplorable.
The Heritage Foundation blasted Obama for embracing “a ‘collective action’ that essentially demotes America as a world power.” Obama’s declaration in Istanbul that the US “is not and never will be at war with Islam” flabbergasted the conservative blogosphere (a curious development in that Obama’s predecessor on occasion said much the same thing). Newt Gingrich dismissed Obama’s call for nuclear arms reductions as a “fantasy foreign policy.” The former Speaker’s fellow Fox News personality Sean Hannity dubbed Obama’s trip the “new world order tour” while “Hannity’s headline” at the bottom of the screen during his show declared: “Obama Attacks America”. And of course during the entirety of Obama’s travels all the conservatives on the radio, television, in blogs and everywhere else were saying “socialism” over and over and over again – but not in a nice way.
Age and Experience . . . 1
. . . count for nothing.
But some surgeons and patients are now citing increased interest in surgery among people wanting to look younger and “fresher” for the ever-competitive job market.
(snip)
“Before the economy turned down, people would come in because they wanted to have more fun and enjoyment out of life,” (surgeon Payman Simoni–ed,) he said. “But now plastic surgery has become a necessity for some. People cannot only rely on their skills in this market. They want to look refreshed and youthful so they can compete for jobs,” he said.
Me, I earned every one of these grey hairs, and I’m keeping them.
Ignorance on the March 2
On the Media reports on Texas’s persistent attempts to pass off creationism as something other than the fable it is. From the website:
Listen here
or follow the link to listen to the segment or read the transcript.
.
Locked and Loaded 0
Unlike cake knives, this is the kind of stuff that warrants school authorities coming down like a ton of brickhouse (with apologies to Mr. Brickhouse, who was my mother’s principal for 15 years of teaching):
Students were taken out of the classroom and searched, but nothing was found. Newark police and school officials then searched the classroom, where they found the magazine with three 9 mm bullets on a desk under some papers and a 9 mm Smith & Wesson pistol in a bookbag. The gun had one bullet in the chamber, police said.
No One Took That Handset Away 0
So Brendan made another phone call.
Break Time 0
Off to drink liberally.
Jindal Bells: Why They Won’t Ring in Washington Dept. 0
Shorter version: By embracing Richard Nixon’s odious Southern Strategy four decades ago, the Republican Party finds itself today backed by historical reality into a corner where it is outnumbered and trapped.
Picking public faces of color, such as Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal, cannot erase a history of appeals to bigotry, prejudice, and nativism.
David Swerdlick at The Root:
Republicans’ long-term problem isn’t Jindal’s recent decision to oppose the president by signing on to Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” mantra, or that Steele could face a premature vote of no confidence . . . .
The “elephant” in the room is post-Goldwater Republican reliance on antipathy toward minorities among the hallowed voter demographic known alternatively as Reagan Democrats or “real” Americans. And in the present-day reality of an Obama world, it takes more than a loquacious black dude or true-believing, Indian-American public policy whiz to bootstrap that party into the 21st century.