November, 2009 archive
David Brooks Confidential 0
Bill Shein has the skinny. A nugget:
4:25 p.m. – Edit column slightly. Add suggestion that U.S. soldiers wear bulletproof pink Oxford dress shirts to remind them of the super-genius neoconservative hawks who masterminded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4:26 p.m. – Remove suggestion that soldiers wear bulletproof pink dress shirts. File column.
Rated “R” 0
For Republican.
One more time: This would just be another nutcase, except for that whole “family values” shtick.
If you go to pat yourself on the back for being holier than thou, be careful not to break your arm.
Return of Beyond the Palin 0
NCIS agent to gun-totin’ babe: “Who do you think you are, Sarah Palin?”
When Sarah Palin becomes joke on NCIS, it’s pretty clear . . .
. . . she’s done.
In Transit, Reprise 0
Address changes are in the works.
Brendan Writes a Column 0
and points out that, once again, working persons are getting the shaft.
There was column in today’s local rag suggesting that walkouts should be banned and that transit should be thrown open to competition.
The reason that SEPTA and other transit agencies exist is because the profit-making railroads and bus companies no longer wanted the business.
The writers conceded that the transit agency had been underfunding the pension fund (the primary issue in the strike, though not the only issue).
I worked in the passenger transportation industry for a long time. I did not work on the road, but I worked close enough to the road to know that it is damned hard work that goes on 365 days a year, with screwy hours and often obnoxious cargo that wants first class service at fourth class rates and thinks it is entitled to treat the employees like dirt.
But God forbid transit employees should expect to be treated like decent human beings and have management honor its promises, like, for example, just to mention one pulled out of thin air, to fund their damned pensions.
In other words, to put it bluntly, workers should just bend over and take it.
QOTD 0
Marc Lamont Hill on the November 2, 2009, episode of Radio Times, Hour One:
Fox News is to news as professional wrestling is to sports.
Follow the link and search the archives for November 2 or listen here (mp3).
Stressed Tests 1
Bloomberg (emphasis added):
(snip)
“The program was misconceived from the beginning,” said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents the examiners. “Employees believed the procedures were directed more at reducing examination hours than at ensuring proper supervision.”
The program started in 2004.
The cynical amongst us might consider it as part of the “why regulate anybody, the monied classes can do no wrong” policy of the Republican Party.
This Can Serve Only To Increase Reliability of Search Engines 0
Rupert Murdoch has said he will try to block Google from using news content from his companies.
The billionaire told Sky News Australia he will explore ways to remove stories from Google’s search indexes, including Google News.
I love the “explore ways to remove stories from Google’s search indexes” wording. Some exploration to remove old links may be necessary, but, at any time, search engines can be blocked by inserting the following into the header of the webpage (I inserted the period after the first < so the code would be visible):
<.META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
This is news as old as search engines.
What he really wants is to go from billionaire to gazillionaire.
In the meantime, to the extent that, at least in the USA, Fox News doesn’t show up in searches, public ignorance will decrease.
We Need Single Payer 0
Before the insurance companies bleed us dry.
In a nutshell:
Where Your Rx Drug Payments Are Going 0
To pay the fines. Bloomberg:
In September 2007, New York-based Bristol-Myers paid $515 million — without admitting or denying wrongdoing — to federal and state governments in a civil lawsuit brought by the Justice Department. The six other companies pleaded guilty in criminal cases.
In January 2009, Indianapolis-based Lilly, the largest U.S. psychiatric drug maker, pleaded guilty and paid $1.42 billion in fines and penalties to settle charges that it had for at least four years illegally marketed Zyprexa, a drug approved for the treatment of schizophrenia, as a remedy for dementia in elderly patients.
In five company-sponsored clinical trials, 31 people out of 1,184 participants died after taking the drug for dementia — twice the death rate for those taking a placebo. Those findings were reported in an October 2005 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Yeah. Right. 0
If the work of God is running a bucket shop . . . Follow the link for Great Adventures in Rationalization.
He Can’t Do It Alone 0
It is not uncommon to see my fellow lefties bitching that Obama hasn’t lived up to expectations.
Dan Froomkin where have they been?
But on some key issues such as jobs, the bank bailout, the war in Afghanistan and a whole slew of executive-power related issues, Obama has fallen way short of expectations. He surrounded himself with too many people who represent politics-as-usual, and he has buckled under to pressure from the national security establishment that Bush put on steroids.
But Obama’s supporters aren’t giving him even rudimentary political cover.
Almost forgotten these days is the fact that in Obama’s first address to Congress. In February, the new president served up a pretty darn bold agenda, backed up by a respectably progressive budget proposal. So what was the reaction? Obama looked over his shoulder and saw — no one.
Politics is the art of the possible. More is possible when persons stop bitching and start acting, or even keep bitching and start acting.
Phone calls are all well and good, but I used to work in Washington and knew lots of folks who worked on the Hill.
Someone who takes the time to write a real letter, in his or her own words, gets more of a listen than someone who calls or someone who signs a form letter, whether it be printed or electronic.
Effort counts.
He Can’t Handle the Truth 0
The truth doesn’t have enough truthiness.
Without sufficient truthiness, Republicans cut and run:
Listen all the way through to Ed’s comment at the end.
Via James Wolcott.
Great Moments in Code-Speak 0
Regarding the House vote on the health care bill (plenty of details elsewhere–I’m not even going to bother):
What he said (emphasis added):
What he meant:
Health care is too lucrative to make it affordable.
I Am Not Alone 0
As I sit here at 6 a. m. on a Sunday morning in my robe and into my first cup of coffee, I find it good that the image of the lonely geek with no social skills blogging away in his or her pajamas may not be accurate.
The New York TImes reports on a study that indicates that
. . . people who regularly use digital technologies are more social than the average American and more likely to visit parks and cafes, or volunteer for local organizations, according to the study, which was based on telephone interviews with a national sample of 2,512 adults living in the continental United States.
The study found some less-than-social behavior, however. People who use social networks like Facebook or Linkedin are 30 percent less likely to know their neighbors and 26 percent less likely to provide them companionship.
You can find the full study here.
QOTD 0
Charles Eliot Norton, from the Quotemaster:
The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.
Afterthought: The Booman, quite coincidently, brings this quotation to life in describing what happens when war for a lie becomes a policy, rather than a crime.
(And yes, I know that Iraq is the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie. It is because of Iraq that Afghanistan went from a war of purpose to the “War of Because of We Are Already There–Oh, Well.” Both courtesy of the Previous Federal Administration.
Dustbiters 1
I can understand why, after Lehman fell, the Bush Administration panicked and pretty much shovelled money onto the Acela to New York.
I don’t like the no-strings attached way they did it, but I don’t think it was done out of malevolence (unlike, say, the whole concentration camp thing). I think it was done because they were in unthinking “OMG We Have To Do Something” mode, and, combining that with the Republican belief that the wealthy are inherent virtuous, produced dumbness.
The principle, “Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity,” applies.
But the result has been to reward the outfits who had the most to do with turning financial markets into a world-wide bucket shop while penalizing the little guys, like these, who bank no more:
- United Commercial Bank, San Francisco, California
Gateway Bank of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
Prosperan Bank, Oakdale, Minnesota
