2009 archive

An interesting post on forgiveness over at Straight, Not Narrow. Among other things, the poster said

The people who don’t know Jesus completely get a “glazed over” look when you talk about forgiveness. They act like you’re crazy to forgive someone for hurting you so badly. They want you to punch the person or slash their tires or something. Heard any good Carrie Underwood songs lately? Actually, if you’ve heard any amount of Country/Western songs, they seem to have a high proportion of revenge songs!

I think there is a piece missing: Many of the persons who claim to know Jesus also

get a “glazed over” look when you talk about forgiveness.

They say the words, but they do not act the acts.

I am so tired of those who practice hate in the name of the love.

The Journal-Register Company, holder of a number of local newspapers, files for Chapter 11.

Revenue had declined 20 percent since 2006, the company said. Moreover, it carried a huge debt load, the legacy of a business strategy of buying daily and weekly newspapers in suburban areas. In recent months its stock traded at pennies a share.

I think we would all be better served if the fancy three-syllable word “leverage” were retired in favor of the short, pithy, accurate word, “debt.”

The fancy-smancy “investment bankers” have made a trade of buying companies, mortgaging them to the hilt, keeping the money, and leaving the companies in an Addams Family episode the lurch.

The “investment bankers” get rich, the companies, their executives, and their employees get screwed.

Witness the Chicago Tribune.

All that debt was not there until Sam Zell purchased the company and sucked it dry.

And then tossed it out the back door onto his trash heap.

Without his Zellmanship, the company would not be in the trouble it’s in. It would be in Little Trouble, not Big Trouble.

In the Olden Days, when I was a young ‘un, a company in overwhelming debt was a bad thing.

So now it’s called “leverage.” That way, no one but the cognoscenti will know it is, in fact, crippling debt.

nam vere est.

I agree with John Cole.

The most optimistic Pollyanna rationale that I can come up with is that the Administration is buying time because it hasn’t figured out what to do yet.

I’ll be writing letters tomorrow.

The same persons who are complaining that the stimulus package will be paid for by our grandchildren didn’t seem to care that the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq would be paid for in the same way.

God, how I love hypocrisy.

Why does every company keep changing its phone menu options?

AKA “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature” (emphasis added):

Federal officials said new estimates showed that the Central Valley Project (in the San Jaoquin and Salinas valleys of California–ed.), the large irrigation system operated by the reclamation bureau, would be able to provide zero to 10 percent of its contracted deliveries.

If the zero estimate proves true, it would effectively eliminate hundreds of farmers’ principal water supply. Water supplies to wildlife refuges, cities and industrial sources would also see smaller cutbacks, but agriculture would be hardest hit.

Those cows aren’t going to be happy.

Don’t eat.

Tight state budgets have led some of the biggest farm states to leave dozens of food inspection jobs vacant at a time when hundreds have been sickened by a nationwide salmonella outbreak tied to a filthy peanut processing plant.

Fun fact, from a food inspector I used to work with: Most of the illnesses that persons attribute to “intestinal flu” are actually food poisoning. If it lasts 24 to 48 hours, it’s probably food poisoning.