2010 archive
Today’s Wrap Up 0
Spill Here, Spill Now 0
Read this. I’m can’t begin to figure out how to excerpt or summarize it.
I betcha won’t be able to finish it.
Twits on Twitter 0
Twitter goes a-courtin’.
Quagmires To Admire 0
Warning: Check your volume settings. The music is too loud.
And Now for Something Completely Different 0
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Ricky Gervais | ||||
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Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
A smidgen better. Interesting to see what happens in January when retail lays off its Christmas help.
Initial claims fell 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 420,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday, in line with forecasts. The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, touched a fresh two-year low.
We Must Stop the Happy Meal Scourge! 0
As much as I detest MacDonald’s–I think it’s ruined burgers for me for the rest of my life–I must say I have not yet seen a three-year old navigate a Ford Exhibition through the drive-through lanes:
They say McDonald’s is violating several consumer protection laws by marketing its Happy Meals directly to young children because it exploits children’s vulnerability.
“What kids see as a fun toy, I now realize is a sophisticated, high-tech marketing scheme that’s designed to put McDonald’s between me and my daughters,” said Monet Parham, of Sacramento. “For the sake of other parents and their children, I want McDonald’s to stop interfering with my family.”
We Must Stop the Ibuprofen Scourge! 0
She forgot to give the bottle to the school nurse when she got to school.
Pamela Lewis, 35, was charged with one count of distributing a dangerous drug. Her 12-year-old daughter was charged with a possession of a dangerous drug and suspended from school for 10 days, according to Lewis’ uncle, Donnie Davis.
(snip)
Davis said Lewis gave her daughter the pills because she had been complaining of cramps.
Zero tolerance, meet maximum stupid.
The Galt and the Lamers 0
As much as Mark Zuckerberg irritates me with his casual disregard for Facebook users’ privacy, he seems to irritate the Randians even more. The Ayn Rand Institute has accused him of “going guilt”:
Invoking a column he co-authored for Forbes, Watkins declared that the pledge “treats your wealth, not as a justly earned reward, but as a gift from society–one that came with plenty of strings attached. The message is: Fulfill the obligation that came with your riches, give your wealth away–or hide your face in shame.”
The pledge, he claimed, was crafted as emotional blackmail for rich people and is the reason why businessmen “feel unearned guilt for their success.”
The controversial writings of Rand, the Center’s icon, included fierce and unabashed defenses of wealth and a deep dislike of taxes, social programs, and altruism. In modern society, however, altruism is widely considered a virtue, and few, if any, extrapolate malicious intentions from it.
Randian philosophy, you may recall, is simply Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes for sociopathic greed.
The Most Rusted Name in Spews 0
Fox, the news network with its right thumb always on the balance. From Media Matters:
Sources familiar with the situation in Fox’s Washington bureau have expressed concern about Sammon using his position to “slant” Fox’s supposedly neutral news coverage to the right.
Sammon’s orders for Fox journalists to cast doubt on climate science came amid the network’s relentless promotion of the fabricated “Climategate” scandal, which revolved around misrepresentations of emails sent to and from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.
At the time of Sammon’s directive, it was clear the “scandal” did not undermine the scientific basis for global warming and that the emails were being grossly distorted by conservative media and politicians. Scientists, independent fact-checkers, and several investigations have since confirmed that the CRU emails do not undermine the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet.
Via Atrios.
That New Car Smell 0
I wonder whether you can still buy this stuff.
Erzinger had purchased the car about a month before the accident. Accident reconstructionist John Koziol found in his investigation the sedan was emitting new car fumes, court documents said. It might have been a contributing factor, documents said.
Brendan Makes a Phone Call 0
Details here.
Words Fail Me 0
Fortunately, they don’t fail Jon Stewart.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Lame-as-F@#k Congress | ||||
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Via Bob Cesca.
An Armed Society Is a Polite Society 0
An education in firearms:
A gunman opened fire during a Florida Panhandle school board meeting Tuesday, police said.
(snip)
WMBB television reporter Nadeen Yanes told her station that the man came up to the podium at the Bay District School Board meeting and said he had a motion. He then pulled out a can of red spray paint and painted a V with a circle around it.
Yanes told the station he pulled out a handgun and started talking. She said school board member Ginger Littleton hit the gunman with her purse and he pushed her to the ground and started firing randomly.
