November, 2010 archive
Dustbiters 0
This week’s crew of ex-banks is starting to assemble:
If it’s not one not-bank, it’s another:
Twits on Twitter 0
Really, folks, including the authorities, are taking twits far too seriously.
Unfloppable 0
The Philadelphia Inquirer interviews one of the railroad men involved in the incident that inspired Unstoppable, the movie whose relentless onslaught of advertisements has annoyed me so much that I shall probably avoid it (no link provided to the movie because I’m already sick of it).
Aside: I used to work for the railroad. I can tell they phonied up the facts just from the ads.
No real railroader would be heard saying, “I’m starting to like this job.” They may love railroading–the railroad is fun and I miss it–but real railroaders aren’t going to admit that they like their jobs.
They’d rather talk about back pay.
Lacking in the Bushes 0
Bob Barr, who, you may recall, led the move to impeach President Clinton, is not impressed with George the Worst’s memoir.
Many Republicans and conservative talk-show pundits are swooning over Bush’s re-emergence into public life; but it is difficult to grasp why any of them would have nostalgic feelings toward man who largely is responsible for his party’s electoral defeats in 2006 and 2008. What’s more, Bush’s demonstrated contempt for free markets, individual liberty, and the Constitution are counter to what the Republican Party supposedly believes in.
Coming from Barr, the word, “supposedly,” in the last sentence of the excerpt is telling.
Lack of Progress Dept. 0
The distressing thing about this story is not that it might have happened–the courts will figure that out–but that it would surprise no one if it did happen.
Court documents quote a text message by the bar’s general manager as telling a shift supervisor to cease a weeknight promotion that brought in African American customers. “We don’t want black people we are a white bar!” the manager wrote in October, the lawsuit alleges.
Twits on Twitter 0
It should give us pause, on both sides of the Atlantic, how quickly members of the right wing leaps to thoughts, even in jest, of death for those who disagree with them.
Veterans’ Day Reprise (Updated) 0
Shaun Mullen tells the rest of the story of the girl in the photograph.
Addendum:
Link removed. Shaun emailed me that he had to delete the post because it was giving the rest of Kiko’s House the vapors for some reason which he could not figure out.
Computers. Great when they work. Otherwise, otherwise.
Read this one instead.
Lord Mayor of the Flies
1
Ring in the new Hobbesian reality in LaLaLand:
“The city is going to have to contract for police services, period,” Half Moon Bay City Manager Michael Dolder said after an emergency meeting last week at which City Council members contemplated having to cut roughly $1.2 million out of the city’s general fund by June — money they were counting on before voters defeated Measure K, a 1-cent sales tax increase that would have raised as much as $1.4 million for the city each year.
Deficit Reduction Report Report 0
Readers Digest Condensed Books version, courtesy of “Seeing the Forest”:
And the middle class gives up the home mortgage deduction so the rich can get their taxes reduced?
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Locally,
The number of foreclosure auctions and repossessions in the region rose to 1,680 in October, up nearly 5 percent from the previous month and 59 percent from the 1,055 reported a year ago, according to RealtyTrac, a foreclosure-monitoring service based in Irvine, Calif.
Meanwhile, Virginia AG Cuccinelli stops fighting against science he doesn’t like long enough to do some some actual attorney-generalling:
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli alleges the American Neighborhood Housing Foundation – which has offices in Chesapeake and Richmond – violates Virginia’s consumer-protection laws. His office filed a lawsuit last week in Circuit Court.
Veterans’ Day 0
“Because we are already there” is not a reason. It’s a rationalization.
QOTD 0
Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
It does not prove a thing to be right because the majority say it is so.
Crotchrocketeer 0
Episode 1: Liftoff.
Negron zipped past the officer in the northbound lanes and shortly afterward crashed into the back of the SUV at mile post 52.8 in Mantua, police said.
The impact threw Negron through the back of the vehicle’s window and into the rear seat, police said.
A rough landing, but the astronut is recovering,
Crabbing about Apples 4
I would suspect these folks already have computers, likely even laptops.
Is there any kind of justification for locking them into the walled orchard:
(snip)
City officials say it currently costs $710 to print each city council information packet and another $200 per council member to assemble and deliver the packets.
It’s happening here in the city and in the state:
State lawmakers first received laptops as part of a 1999 pilot program which was extended the following year to provide computers to all 140 members of the legislature. Since then, those computers have been replaced every 3-4 years.
It is possible that there are data security concerns that justify the government’s purchasing and setting up the computers, but let’s look at the math: They could get laptops for half the price of iPads and netbooks for a third the price.
They are letting themselves get sucked into the Apple vortex of hype.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 1
Released early because of the holiday:
Fewer firings are a first step to improvement in the labor market, followed by faster job and income growth that will help fuel gains in consumer spending. Bigger increases in payrolls are also required to bring down an unemployment rate that’s close to 10 percent.
Walmart must be hiring up greeters for the Christmas rush.
Aside: I commend Bloomberg for not be afraid to use the word, “firings.”
