2010 archive
Can This Romance Be Saved? Stupid Pet Tricks Dept. 0
30 days in the pokey, three years probation:
Toll admitted attaching her boyfriend’s dog — then named Rex – to the fridge, saying she did it as a way of getting back at him for paying more attention to the dog than to her, according to police.
Still Afloat 0
Good news:
The money will allow the Washington-based SS United States Conservancy to buy the ship from Norwegian Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Genting Hong Kong, and maintain the vessel in its South Philadelphia berth for up to 20 months while redevelopment and refurbishment plans are completed.
The Rich Are Different from You and Me 0
From the Toimes:
By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.
Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.
“The rich are different: they are more ruthless,” said Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist.
Via John Cole, who wonders
how Republicans (will) try to pin this . . . on black people and Fannie Mae and Barney Frank.
Stray Thought 0
If your cat won’t sit still, give your catatonic.
All Your Vowz Does Belongz to Virginia 0
Kook-Kook-Kooky-a-choo.
Aside: When I was a young ‘un growing up here, sure, it was a Jim Crow state and bigotry was the law, but, like Firesign Theatre, it was Not Insane.
Via the Richmonder.
One More Time: Cost of Anti-Science Anti-Vaccine Hysteria 0
Whooping cough is the “P” in “DPT“:
California Department of Public Health spokesman Ken August says as of June 30, there have been 1,337 reported cases of whooping cough in California. About 700 more cases are being investigated by local health departments.
Whooping cough was declared an epidemic in California after 910 cases of the highly contagious disease were reported as of June 15.
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.