May, 2010 archive
Better Holes and Gardens 0
The Virginia Beach Correctional Center starts a garden. Someone actually gave the jail a greenhouse:
It costs the city about $4,000 a day to feed the jail’s roughly 1,300 inmates. Stolle, who took office Jan. 1, thinks he can do better. If the garden experiment works, he said he plans to expand the project to 2 acres. He’s also got land-use rights for 90 acres in Princess Anne, which could be used to grow even more food, like corn, beans and squash, he said.
And the inmates quoted in the story like getting out into the open air.
The Wild Well 0
A threat to the air also:
For instance, hydrogen sulfide has been detected at concentrations more than 100 times greater than the level known to cause physical reactions in people. Among the health effects of hydrogen sulfide exposure are eye and respiratory irritation as well as nausea, dizziness, confusion and headache.
The concentration threshold for people to experience physical symptoms from hydrogen sulfide is about 5 to 10 parts per billion. But as recently as last Thursday, the EPA measured levels at 1,000 ppb. The highest levels of airborne hydrogen sulfide measured so far were on May 3, at 1,192 ppb.
Follow the link for more.
BP = Bad Pollution.
History Lesson 0
The reason the Founders included a procedure for amending the Constitution is that they believed it could be improved.
The Booman has more.
Afterthought:
Lincoln rotates in his grave. It is truly odd to see the Republican Party taking a stand in favor of the version of the United States Constitution which wrote slavery into the law of the land.
Divorce Fair 0
I am surprised an American hasn’t thought of this: Italians are organizing a “divorce fair.” It sounds sort of like a job fair and career re-entry training for the spousal market place:
Services include life coaching, beauty tips and advice on how to get rid of ex-spouses who turn into stalkers.
Prepare for Another Round of Supreme Misrepresentation 0
Media Matters debunks myths and lies about Elena Kagan. A nugget:
CLAIM: Kagan’s policies regarding military recruiters at Harvard indicate that she is an “anti-military” “radical” who “defied” the law . Phyllis Schlafly claimed in her March 31 syndicated column that Kagan “defied the Solomon Amendment” — a statute requiring schools to provide the same access to military recruiters that they provide to other potential employers or lose federal funding. Liz Cheney called Kagan’s actions “radical,” and other conservatives have also distorted Kagan’s position regarding military recruiters on Harvard Law School’s campus. And The Washington Times published a 2009 op-ed referring to Kagan as “an anti-military zealot.”
REALITY: Kagan consistently followed the law, and Harvard students had access to military recruiters during her entire tenure as dean. . . .
Follow the link for the full story.
The Wild Well 0
Video from Waterkeepers. It is difficult to watch it all the way through.
Via Facing South.
Ponzi Fonzis 0
Last week, I read an article which quoted a financial type as saying that Ponzi schemes make up a much higher percentage of private investment plans than anyone would likely suspect. Indeed, the persons quoted pretty much said that, if it’s a private scheme, it’s more likely to be a Ponzi scheme than not.
I didn’t write about it and now I can’t find it. I did find a similar story from USA Today.
A story in this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer brought it to mind: A well-respected local investment counselor with a large clientele amongst friends and family passed away. Nobody can find any of the investments he counseled:
Dog Gone 2
Now, this is strange:
The dogs were traced to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Martinsville by a microchip roughly the size of a grain of rice implanted under Sammy Jo’s skin before the Zimmers adopted her from the shelter in 2002.
Reportedly the dog owners’ electric fence wasn’t working and the neighbor was pushed over the edge by the dogs’ cat-chasing behavior.
I’ve never placed much stock in those electric fence things. I know it wouldn’t have kept my Labrador in–he used to go through the lower screens on the porch because, frankly, he didn’t even notice them. I solved that problem with several sheets of lauan plywood.
Driving While Brown 2
Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe:
We have an illegal immigration problem today only because federal law makes legal immigration so costly and difficult. A concrete-and-barbed-wire wall along the border will not fix that problem, and neither will punitive sanctions on employers who hire illegal aliens. Meaningful immigration reform would focus instead on simply making it easier for low-skilled or unskilled workers to enter the country lawfully.
Like I have said.
Immigration laws became restrictive when immigrants became less white. The less white, the more restrictive.
(Remember how, back in the anti-Italian immigrant days of the turn of the previous century, Italians were invariably described as “swarthy”? So automatic was it that “swarthy Italian” seemed to be one word for a couple of generations. Now, not so much.)
The “immigration problem” results not from immigrants. It results from bigotry.
All the rest is rationalization for bigotry.
Not white. Not welcome.
R. I. P. Lena Horne 0
Details here.
Motto Lotto 0
The Slant on mottoes.
Stray Thought 0
A golf course is an over-priced do-it-yourself merry-go-round for persons with too much time on their hands.
Happy Mother’s Day 0
Now, why can’t you and the kids get along the rest of the year?
The Rugbyologist has a theory. Follow the link for the explication:
So, how do we resolve parent-offspring conflict? Canaries. That’s right. Canaries.
The Law of Unintended Consequences . . . 0
. . . strikes again:
In Boston alone, Craigslist’s revenue from “adult’’ ad postings is anticipated to increase to $942,500 this year, from $160,000 in 2009, according to a consulting firm that tracks the classified ad website.
Frankly, I don’t see how Craigslist was to blame for the actions of a lone nutcase, but I guess it’s a convenient target.
Full Disclosure: I’ve used Craigslist once, to find new homes for my dogs before I moved. The effort was successful.
Telephone Roulette 0
Whoever had my land line number before I got it is about to have his or her cell phone service cut off for lack of payment.
I’d answer the phone and inform the callers that the person they are calling isn’t here any more, but none of the callers are human and I don’t have the stomach for jumping into a phone number menu hell, especially with Verizon, proprietors of the worst customer service phone system in the known world.
QOTD 0
Phil Angelides, head of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission:
It appears the financial crisis was an ‘immaculate calamity’; no one was responsible.
More business quotes at the link.