July, 2010 archive
Light Bloggery 0
Network maintenance, backups, and all that good geeky stuff.
Wine Bottle Vending Machines 2
Pennsylvania tests bottle vending machines, complete with breath-testing machines, in supermarkets.
Customers seem to think that they are better than the alternative, the alternative being patronizing Pennsylvania’s archaic state store system, which makes the traffic circles in Washington, D. C., look like marvels of forethought:
Numerous attempts at reform have been turned back by special interests intent on keeping their slice of the pie. So simply stocking Chianti and cabernet on supermarket shelves is not an option under the state’s post-Prohibition liquor laws.
One cannot blame Pierre L’Enfant for not foreseeing that horses would give way to automobiles. The Penna. state store system has no such excuse.
The Regent’s “Confederate Reckoning” and the Myth of the Confederacy 0
Radio Times looks at the symbolism and the reality of the Civil War:
A listen helps illumate the strength of the Confederate myth.
Stephanie McCurry, at the beginning of the interview (slightly edited for conciseness):
This issue of the Civil War gets new salience . . . because of our own (“heightened political” was the adjective in the preceding sentence–ed.) moment. This guy in Virginia, the Governor, I mean this situation in Virginia, I think, . . . is a case in point, that the uses of the Civil War and of history in general, but especially of slavery and the defeat of slavery in the Civil War are about the politics of the moment. It always has uses. . . . politicians don’t feel any real obligation to be accountable to the . . . truth of the past.
. . . slavery and the Civil War can be run through a mill that serves political interests in the moment. What you see with the Republican Governor is the uses of the Civil War but not of slavery, so it has to be pruned out of that discussion or he can’t use it for what he wants to use it for, so the idea of a shared history without any reference to slavery is absolutely implausible. And it’s not a shared history. . . . African-Americans and white Virginians who had ancestors in that state 150 years ago . . . don’t have a shared history. They have two histories of one event. . . .
You can’t just make it about sacrifice and honor.
Follow the link to listen.
Throwing away the Key 1
Leonard Pitts, Jr., on the “no-fly” list:
- They won’t let you fly.
- They won’t tell you why.
- They won’t show you the list.
- They won’t take your name off the list.
- They won’t give you any way to appeal.
The list, then, is a purgatory to which one can be consigned in perpetuity with neither due process nor judicial review, because one’s name happened to be similar to that of some bad person. And there is no form you fill out or person you can talk to to have the error corrected. You’ve simply got to live with it.
I can understand a desire to keep the list confidential.
The no appeal thing, though, is beyond the pale.
Start Pocketing Catsup Packets 0
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| America’s Got Nothing | ||||
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Via TPM.
The America That Makes John Boehner Nostalgic 1
Dick Polman looks back at the America John Boehner wants back. A nugget:
Read the whole thing and ask yourself, do you want that country back?
I don’t.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 1
Apparently, just because he could:
(snip)
The teenagers, whose identities were not released, had crossed into West Philadelphia on the Spring Garden Street bridge. They did not appear to have been targeted, (Philadelphia Police Officer Christine–ed.) O’Brien said.
Don’t even think of trying to convince me he could have done this with a knife or a baseball bat.
Aside:
Once again, I am not against guns.
I do find laughable the notion that everyone’s running about packing heat is going to make public life more peaceable.
QOTD 0
Pat Paulsen, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.
Wolves in Defict Hawks’ Clothing 0
Dean Baker reveals what’s behind the Republican Party’s sudden concern about deficits.
The more likely explanation is that the Republicans want to block anything that can boost the economy and create jobs. Throwing people out of work may not be pretty, but politics was never pretty, and it is getting less so by the day.
Krussandra 0
John Cole on Paul Krugman.
Zandar summarizes the nay-sayers:
In other words, we can’t afford stimulus because it’ll hurt the bond traders.
Great Aches from LIttle Oak Horns Grow 0
(Actually, that’s the punchline from a joke about oboe lessons.)
Scientific Blogging explores the mysteries of the vuvuzella:
Full story here.
We Still Need Single Payer 0
When I read this, I couldn’t wondering, what does an overbite have to do with anything? Then, I realized, it was just an excuse to take the money and run:
That congenital deformity was an overbite. Now 17, Kenny again has coverage after her parents successfully fought back with the help of state insurance regulators — a battle that no longer will be necessary because a key provision of the health care reform law bans rescission of insurance.
Spill Here, Spill Now, Inland Dept. 0
Buccaneer Petroleum invades Lake Ponchartrain, seeks revenge for Battle of New Orleans:
Twits on Twitter 0
In the Netherlands.
Journamalism (Updated) 0
Glenn Greenwald exposes the double-standard of American reporting, pointing out how it’s torture only when someone else does it.
Addendum:
QOTD 0
On this date in 1776,the Declaration of Independence was signed. (It was read to the public on the Fourth, signed on the Sixth. The Founders expected that, if the revolution be* not crushed, the Sixth of July would be the day of celebration.)
George Mason, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
We are now to rank among the nations of the world; but whether our Independence shall prove a blessing or a curse must depend upon our own wisdom or folly, virtue or wickedness…. Justice and virtue are the vital principles of republican government.
__________________
*Look, Mrs. Shannonhouse: Subjunctive Voice.
(I wish she could look. Italian war bride to an American GI, graduate of Middlebury College, 12th-grade English teacher, French III teacher. Fluent in English, Spanish, French, and her native Italian–so fluent in Spanish that she could take Spanish shorthand–the best teacher of English I had, and a gentle lady. RIP, Mrs. Shannonhouse. Your students remember.)