September, 2010 archive
iMeglomania 0
Pretty soon, they’ll sue Sesame Street for being “brought to you by the letter i.”
From El Reg:
Apple is reportedly arguing that a video projector with the word “Pod” in its name would cause confusion with its own iPod products.
(snip)
A lawyer representing Sector Labs tells the publication there’s a growing trend of dominant tech firms trying to assume ownership of ordinary words.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet more politeness grows from the barrel of a gun.
Robert G. Lambert, 52, of Trainer, who is white, has been charged with aggravated assault, terroristic threats, harassment, and ethnic intimidation in the incident.
He was dawdling down the road “at a low rate of speed” when they passed him on the way to work.
Also, just down the road from this guy, another burst of politeness:
But that’s not how the people near the bullets remember it.
Stanley allegedly fired from his third-floor apartment window between 7:36 p.m. and 1:40 a.m., when New Castle County SWAT officers took him into custody. The officers used an explosive on his door, then sent a robot into the apartment as a precaution before they went in themselves.
Dustbiters 0
Banks that used to master the universe, but are no more:
Plus three credit unions:
Credit Atrios for the link to the creditless unions.
A Taste of Honey 0
Well, maybe not so much:
Americans consume about 350 million pounds of honey per year, but just 150 million pounds are made domestically, creating a booming market for importers and ample temptation to cut pure honey with additives such as corn syrup that are far less expensive to produce.
“Contract on America” Redux 0
The Republicans pledge more of the same of what got us here. If AA operated on the same principles, their meetings would open with a round of cocktails.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Postcards From the Pledge | ||||
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Talking Points Memo rounds up Republican reactions.
The Booman comments.
I Wooden Stand for This . . . 0
. . . because wood is heavier and more difficult to cart away:
A day or so later, the rest were gone.
Likely stolen to be sold as scrap.
Get Your Nostalgia Here 0
Zandar reports on the breadlines.
Asking the Right Question 0
ThePoliticalCat, in a post entitled “I Pay Taxes So the Rich Don’t Have To”:
Read the whole thing.
Va. Beach Democratic Committee Fourth Saturday Breakfast 0
Date: Saturday, September 25th
Time: 9-10:30 a. m.
Location: Bubba’s Deli & BBQ, 3600 Dam Neck Rd, Virginia Beach (west side of Dam Neck Rd. between Princess Anne Blvd. and Rosemont Rd.; access via service road at Lansdowne Ct. next to the Farmers Market).
Cost: Adults $10.00, Under 12 &6.00 for all-you-can-eat buffet (it’s a pretty good buffet, too–plenty of variety).
More information here.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
In a follow-up to the preceding post, another form of Wall Street derivative. For all practical purposes, no change from last week.
Initial jobless claims increased by 12,000 to 465,000 in the week ended Sept. 18, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The total number of people receiving unemployment insurance declined, while those getting extended payments rose.
Employers that have slowed firings since the recession ended in June 2009 haven’t stepped up the pace of hiring enough to reduce an unemployment rate hovering near a 26-year high. A lack of job growth may signal consumer spending will be restrained in the second half of the year, economists said.
New and Improved Bags of Air 0
When you open up your “portfolio,” there’s no there there, nothing there but air.
Bloomberg:
Within six months, Miller had lost about 30 percent of her $20,000 investment and the bonds were converted into shares of Merck & Co. in a falling stock market. The San Diego resident, who still doesn’t understand what happened to her money, had purchased bonds known as structured notes that include built-in derivatives.
Read the whole thing.
September Mourning 3
In memoriam Atlanta Braves.
The Phillies are on a tear.
It’s a September thing.
(To play 21 ball games and lose only three is one hell of a run in baseball, where two out three is excellence.)
(snip)
The Phillies are 44-15 since July 21, when they trailed the Braves by seven games. They are 18-3 in September.
I’m glad the game was not televised here. My heart probably couldn’t have taken it.
I was out most of the evening to support Andrew. I tried to follow the game on ESPN on my Android G1 (really, first things first), but there was no signal in the auditorium.
I did catch the eighth inning in my truck on the skip from WPHT. (Now that I know I can catch it on the skip, I’ll likely be spending most of my evenings in my truck in the parking lot . . . .)
Couldn’t get it in the condo, but I got to watch the end at the Phillies website.
Most satisfactory.
Unsaid, Thus Unremembered 0
Jonathan Zimmerman, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, asks
That’s the wrong question. Nobody will ever know why Ernest C. Withers – who was in King’s motel room on the night of his murder – informed for the FBI, as a Memphis newspaper reported last week. Withers died in 2007, following a brilliant career that earned him the nickname of “Original Civil Rights Photographer.” He had secrets, and he took them to the grave.
Instead, we should be asking why the FBI was paying people to spy on King. And, most of all, we should be asking why our kids don’t know it.
Open up your son’s or daughter’s American history textbook, and try to find any reference to the FBI’s decade-long effort to harass and discredit King. You’ll search in vain. In our official version of history, it never happened.
He concludes, that, you will pardon the expression, it is a collective whitewashing of the history of that period, a way of denying the radical nature of a movement confronting 350 years of institutionalized racism, mixed with retroactive shame at that history. Read the whole thing to follow his reasoning.
I suspect it is for the same reasons that we rarely see more than a mention of the Trail of Tears.
