2010 archive
Twits on Twitter 2
The novelty might be wearing off. Ricky Gervais:
For an example of a twit too fantastically stupid to comprehend, go here.
Why We Need the ACLU 1
It’s not just for momentous Constitutional questions.
It’s also for the silly and vindictive–silly except for wanting to put some teenage girls away for being stupid teenage girls.
Like Teenagers in Three-Piece Suits (Updated) 0
They want unrestricted use of the car and someone else to pay the car insurance.
The Obama administration wants the biggest banks to pay more taxes – and to make more loans.
The president says that’s not a contradiction. If the biggest banks can afford thousands of million-dollar manager salaries and “obscene” trader bonuses, he figures they can afford a $10-billion-a-year tax on bank investments to defray the cost of the 2008 bank bailouts.
Addendum:
Read Paul Krugman’s column.
Resurrecting Lies 1
I remember hearing Joe McCarthy’s rants on Marconi’s Magic Box when I was a young ‘un.
He lied. He was a liar through and through, who would say anything to scare the public and get votes.
He is the spiritual godfather of the modern Republican Party, which will say anything to scare the public and get votes.
And in Texas, some folks want his lies to live again.
Now, in the home stretch of a process that will set the state’s nationally influential standards, a liberal watchdog group is worried that the State Board of Education will try to push through changes to claim that communist-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy has been vindicated by history, among other right-wing pet issues.
H/T Karen for the link.
Afterthought:
If these clowns will buy Joe McCarthy, maybe I can sell them this bridge I have here.
Furrfu.
QOTD 0
Teddy Roosevelt, via the Quotemaster:
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
Afterthought: Not just presidents. But the criticism should, one wishes, be based on the Real World, not on the Republican one.
Those Who Cannot Learn from History etc. 0
(with apologies to Santayana) are Republicans:
(snip)
The GOP approach to public life has not changed in a generation: lower taxes, less regulation. That’s it. But, as everyone with a pulse knows, we tried that for the Bush years. It left us, as we know, with a catastrophic economic crisis, an enormous transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich, wars dishonestly begun and incompetently managed and all the rest.
As My Mother Would Have Said . . . 0
. . . the biggest nothing.
Californicated 0
Looking for handouts because Republican economics just doesn’t work.
The Prayer as Prologue 0
Up the road aways, there has been one of those periodic kerfuffles about self-important blowhards inflicting meaningless empty invocations on an inattentive public opening public meetings with prayer.
A summation from a letter to the editor.
Quality Construction at a Price That’s Right 0
This is the warship that was built with steel salvaged from the World Trade Center.
At least it’s still under warranty:
Left Holding the Sachs Bag
0
AKA both ends against the middle. From McClatchy:
Goldman’s sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation’s premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.
Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.
(snip)
“The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who’s proposed a massive overhaul of the nation’s banks. “This is fraud and should be prosecuted.”
But, but, . . it can’t be wrong if really really rich persons did it. Can it?
Plus Ca Change 3
Like it’s something new:
Workers have begun stringing metal cable barriers down the median of Del. 1 that will not only stop vehicles from crossing over into oncoming traffic, but also ease the impact when a car hits them.
The modern take on roadside barriers offers a safer alternative to concrete or metal versions that are more expensive and can do more damage to vehicles, DelDOT spokesman Jim Westhoff said. The new addition to Del. 1 beginning south of the Roth Bridge will be the first use of cable barriers in Delaware.
Bringing Delaware’s highways into the 1920s.