September, 2011 archive
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
In a follow-up to this:
After supporters of James and Sharon Bullington cried foul, the country’s biggest lender decided today to reimburse the legal fees and waive all late fees connected to its error.
Plus Ca Climate Change 0
Steve Chapman skewers climate change deniers. A nugget:
They used to uphold respect for science. Now they prefer magical thinking.
Republican Match-dot-com 0
Who is the latest heart-throb? Margaret Carlson handicaps the suitors at the Miami Herald. A nugget:
There was that spring fling with Donald Trump, for example. Trump was in first place back in April in a Public Policy Polling survey, clocking in at 26 percent to Romney’s 15 percent, but he was a distant memory by the time Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann burst on the scene. While Sarah Palin played hard to get, Bachmann jumped into the race with both heels. Feisty, pretty, happy to let the United States default on its debt, she climbed from 6 percent to 14 percent in a month. By Aug. 13, the party activists who flock to the Iowa Straw Poll were sufficiently in love to give Bachmann a winning 29 percent of the vote in an eight-candidate field, knocking out Bachmann’s home-state competition, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
It is rather like one of those romance comic books, isn’t it.
There’s always someone new along the Appalachian Trail.
Blaming the Victim 1
McClatchy discusses the apparent trend of blaming unemployed persons for, apparently, laying themselves off.
One manifestation of this is complaining that persons with no income pay no income taxes.
A nugget:
The reality is that the economy isn’t creating jobs fast enough to re-employ the 8 million-plus who lost jobs in the Great Recession of 2007-09.
“People blame the chronically unemployed when, in fact, they’re the victim of a much larger economic calamity that’s beyond their control,” said Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.
QOTD 0
Patricia Neal, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.
Twitches on Twitter 0
Christine O’Donnell proclaims, I am not a twitch.
Time To Declare Victory and Come Home 1
Because “We’re already there” is not a reason to stay.
Because “We never admit a mistake” is not a reason to stay.
Because “It creates jobs for Blackwater Xe and Lockheed-Martin and Dupont” is not a reason to stay.
Because “We are accomplishing nothing and will accomplish nothing” is not a reason to stay.
Because “Mine is bigger than yours” is not a reason to stay.
Because “Youngsters need an opportunity to die for their country” is not a reason to stay.
Name me a reason to stay.
Cantor’s Cant 0
Dick Polman wonders about Eric Cantor’s insistence that disaster aid be offset by budget cuts in other areas.
In particular, why were Republicans so willing to ratify the invasion of Iraq without insisting that the high cost be “offset” by slashing other programs? Cantor never uttered a peep. How come it was OK in 2003 to indulge that neoconservative dream regardless of cost (the Iraq tab approaches $1 trillion), but it’s not OK in 2011 to help Americans recover from a natural disaster regardless of cost?
Gee, I wonder. Perhaps it has something do with who is president today, and who was president in 2003.
The answer is quite simple.
The contemporary Republican Party doesn’t have principles.
It has tactics.
“An Armed Society Is Polite Society” 0
In discussing the arrest in Georgia of a promising NBA star, Leonard Pitts, Jr., gets to the heart and soul of gunnuttery:
At the very least, teach them that a gun is not a penis. It’s a tragedy that Crittenton didn’t know that.
Bill Nye the Science Guy: Too Confusing for Fox News 4
The amount of dumb-stupid it takes not to be able to understand Bill Nye is mind-numbing.
It’s not a reflection on the host. He’s doing his job, following the Fox party line, and dumb-stupid is the only weapon they have.
Via C&L.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Still high:
Laying off more highway workers will no doubt fix this.
QOTD 0
John Boynton Priestley, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
As we read the school reports on our children, we realize a sense of relief that can rise to delight that, thank Heaven, nobody is reporting in this fashion on us.