2010 archive
Self-Fulfulling Memories 0
About 24 minutes into this show, the Wall Street Journal guy claims that, last year, Barack Obama never even reached out to Republicans over last year’s stimulus package.
And no one called him on it.
I guess by “reached out,” he meant “gave in.”
Hurrididn’t 0
Earl stayed well out to sea.
We had April showers that dropped more rain and did more damage. Even the Banks seem to have gotten off lightly:
“We’re seeing some minor flooding on the roadways, a few trees on the ground – that’s really all,” Mosko said. “So far all the marinas I’ve looked at, they’re in good shape.”
About 10:20 a.m., Dominion’s (Power-ed.) website was reporting that a little more than 3,400 of its customers were without electricity. About 250 customers were without service in Virginia.
Judging from the water in the flower pots, there’s been about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of rain.
They Don’t Like It When Someone Talks Back to Them . . . 0
. . . and questions their pretty little narrative.
Shorter Cenk Uygur:
You spent it, and you’re not going to give it back.
Via Bob Cesca.
Unqualified 0
When I would jawbone with the IT manager at one of my old employers’, we used to agree that anyone dumb enough to do something like this on his work computer should be fired for stupid.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Still high:
Employment is stagnating as businesses, uncertain sales will hold up, delay adding workers. Federal Reserve policy makers, who cut growth forecasts for the second half of 2010, indicated they were concerned lingering unemployment and “elevated” claims were limiting consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy.
Not just sales. Bosses are not rewarded for increasing the employment rolls.
Goldman’s Sacks 0
The Seattle Times:
That’s more than double the $630,000 the investment bank spent in last year’s second quarter. For the first six months of the year, Goldman Sachs spent $2.77 million on lobbying as Wall Street regulations came to the forefront of the national agenda.
Plus Ca Change 0
Someone once said of the Viet Namese War that the only way to end it was the declare victory and withdraw.
Lesson learned.
I congratulate Mr. Obama on the courage to sort-of-end George Bush’s Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq, but there is no joy. As Atrios points out,
Disaster Pr0n 0
I just got an email from a friend in Colorado who said, among other things:
Well, listening to the news here, it sounds like the east coast will be knocked off the side of the country.
I haven’t been paying attention to broadcast news, but I was reminded of how, when I lived in the Greater Philadelphia Co-Prosperity Sphere, any threat of a storm became Arma-OMG-geddon. I haven’t gotten a sense of that kind of coverage here, but the Philly local TV news market is sensationalist by any standard.
Here, such coverage would make a little more sense–this is a coastal area.
There, protected by the sixty-mile sandbar of New Jersey, I found it silly and stupid.
One of my favorite memories of broadcast news OMGness:
About a decade ago, there were reports that a storm might make landfall along the New Jersey Shore; I forget which one.
Local broadcast media were in full we-have-to-foment-panic mode.
The storm missed. They usually missed; in that part of the world, hurricanes come ashore at full strength maybe twice or three times a century.
Cut to the local news . . . .
-
“And now to Joe Hairgel, who is on location at Long Beach Island. Joe?”
(Picture of Joe, every hair in place in a fresh breeze, on the boardwalk under bright blue sky in front of a peaceful beach scene, the sunrise at his back. The surf is somewhat larger than average).
“Melvin, if the storm had come ashore, the scene behind me now would be quite different . . . .”
As my mother would have said, “The biggest nothing.”
Aside:
Had the storm hit, could anything have been much dumber than sending a news crew into harm’s way to stand on the boardwalk in 135 mph winds? Honestly, one huge wave does look a lot like any other huge wave.
“Hurricanes cause waves” is not news.
It’s disaster pr0n.
Sex Education 0
If you don’t talk about sex, it doesn’t exist.
(No, I don’t find it any easier to discuss with my kids than anyone else does–thank God my ex was a nurse who could deal with the Talk, and she dealt with it very well).
When I was a young ‘un, there was no such thing as sex education, at least not in the schools and in most cases not in the homes.
In rural mostly-Protestant Jim Crow Virginia, where I grew up, abstinence-only was assumed, at least by parents.
Sure, every year, some girls would sort of disappear from the high school, no one would say why.
Sure, every teen-aged boy back then was concerned mostly with how to become Not Abstinent.
Just like every teen-aged boy now and forever.
It seems to me that the only difference between then and now is that the teen-aged girls are a little more honest about wanting to be Not Abstinent.
Sure, knowledge is the best weapon against stupidity and against girls disappearing (or, more likely these days, ballooning) every year in high school.
Sure, our governor lives in a fantasy world where hormones don’t moan and ignorance promotes virtue.
The motto seems to be, “Let them learn about sex in the back alleys and the locker rooms, just like your parents did.”
Furrfu.
The Commish (Updated) 0
One thing that really hasn’t been made clear is why a local Commissioner of Revenue needed to lobby the state legislature.
There have been vague mumblings and hints of “additional funding for the office,” but I’ve seen no clear statement of “We needed this,” unless “this” was to get out of Norfolk, which doesn’t seem very plausible to me.
Richmond is a nice town; so is Norfolk. Neither is hardly Wildwood as a resort spot.
Inquiring minds are perplexed.
Addendum, the Next Day:
Today’s local rag reports that the Mayor of Norfolk has a theory: Because it was there.
“Sharon felt once she had a travel budget, it was an entitlement,” he said.
Stray Thought 0
Have you noticed how all the folks who think social security must be cut seem to be independently wealthy?
This Is Going To Put a Crimp in NCIS’s Writers 0
Last Friday, Judge James Orenstein in the Eastern District of New York recognized that Maynard’s reasoning also applies when the government tries to retrace a person’s whereabouts using historical cell phone location information stored by cell phone carriers. Judge Orenstein rejected each possible factual difference between GPS vehicle tracking and historical cell phone tracking, and concluded that cell phone tracking is just as intrusive to Americans’ reasonable expectations of privacy in the details of their everyday lives as GPS tracking.
On second thought, possibly not.
Even given that members of the military have their rights somewhat limited during their service–it’s part of the job–television detective show writers don’t seem to pay much attention to actual law in any event. There’s not enough time in an hour to apply for a warrant.
Full Disclosure:
I enjoy NCIS. It’s a comic book brought to life.
I Get Mail 2
It should be an interesting weekend.
From my car insurance company:
As Hurricane Earl approaches, we trust that you are taking every precaution to ensure you will suffer no injury or damage to your property.
We realize our most important responsibility to our policyholders following a loss is to ensure the claim settlement process is quick and easy. We are busy preparing to do just that; teams of GEICO claim adjusters have deployed along the projected storm path, and they will remain in affected areas until they have resolved every hurricane-related claim.
And so on.