July, 2012 archive
I Get Mail on R.E.S.P.E.C.T. 1
My friend Andrew was most distressed to learn that, when President Obama visited Virginia Beach last week, not one city dignitary graced his visit with a greeting.
Here, posted with permission, is Andrew’s letter to the Mayor and City Council:
I believe a person’s actions confirm their proclamation of respect.
Mr. Mayor, I am appalled at the lack of respect from the leadership of Virginia Beach. Like him or his policies, his political ideology or group affiliation, Barrack Obama is the President of these United States and as such, if nothing else, his station as President of the United States should be respected. He is not my president, he is OUR president. That people think it is acceptable to disrespect the President of the United States is more than troubling to me.
I have seen many comments, political decisions, advertisements, all hailing the greatness of this city and reaching out to welcome visitors. Yet, when the VIP of VIPs comes to this city, who did you send to greet him? Not one city official was there to greet him. It is one thing, an embarrassing moment in itself, that a city of our size, the largest in the state, is void of diversity in its elected leadership. This is an astonishing fact indeed, considering the diversity of the population itself.
In a city that is geared to visitors, we have a Mayor, 10 Council persons, one highly paid City Manager, and a Convention and Visitors Bureau head who happens to be a retired Admiral who should know protocol and not a single one showed up to bring a hand of welcome to the highest office in the land. If you can’t respect the man, at least respect his station, the office of the Presidency.
For you Mayor Sessoms, I would think you would be glad to have a true photo standing with the President rather than the fake photo used to help get you elected.
I have heard your words in speeches and in conversations. Your claims of the zest Ato promote understanding,” and to reach out to the various elements of our city sound hollow. Wouldn’t have been great to see a show of welcome to show to the many that question your motives and intentions. Sir, if your true goal is to “advance understanding”……well? In the immortal words of semanticist, S.I. Hayakawa, “meanings are in people, not in words.” Words have no intrinsic meaning other than meanings that are internalized by each individual. Your lack of presence is an action that speaks volumes!
The citizens of this city, not only, but especially our African American population, should be outraged that the elected leadership of Virginia Beach failed to roll out the red carpet for the President of the United States.
Mr. Mayor, our City Manager, all the Council persons and the head of our Convention and Vistor’s Bureau, I end with this thought: Former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, once said, “To every man [or woman] there comes a time when he [she] is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a great and mighty work; unique to him [her] and fitted to his [her] talents; what a tragedy if that moment finds him [her] unprepared or unqualified for the moment that could be his [her] finest hour.”
To me, the arrogance is astonishing and very repulsive, that our city leadership was tapped on the shoulder and found to be woefully unprepared and unqualified for the moment that could be it’s finest hour!
Respectfully,
Andrew Jackson
The Entitlement Society 0
The San Jose Mercury-News lists some of the bonus babies who got bonuses right along with their walking papers:
(snip)
Or the ruckus caused by a generous departing payout to Hewlett-Packard’s Apotheker, who left with millions of dollars after just 11 months on the job.
(snip)
In another example, AMD’s Dirk Meyer got an $8.7 million severance in January 2011 after only 3 1/2 years as chief executive. Meyer was ousted because of the company’s sluggish growth and failure to get chips into smartphones and tablets.
And then there is Yahoo(YHOO). CEO Carol Bartzleft with $3 million in severance after she was summarily fired in a phone call from the board chairman in September 2011. She also got a prorated cash bonus of $477,534 and accelerated vesting of restricted stock she could exercise for a year.
You don’t have to do a good job. This isn’t “pay for performance.”
This is the club of “wears nice suits, looks good in meetings, draws pretty charts” taking care of its own.
Being in the the club means never having to say you’re sorry.
Cantor’s Cant 1
Excerpt:
We are in the midst of a coin-operated government.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
More Democrats need to be willing to stop waffling and take off the gloves.
Via The Richmonder.
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
What you don’t know can’t hurt them. Facing South reports:
Details at the link.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy, Bait and Switch Dept. 0
At Philly dot com, Jeff Gelles tells the story of another foreclosure victim. A nugget:
(snip)
Ironically, borrowers like Fiorilli, committed to paying off a loan rather than walking away, are offering a gift to lenders.
If her foreclosure winds up in Philadelphia’s conciliation program, Clarifi’s Anita Brown predicts, the judge will see it that way, too. “The court is going to say, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Bank of America, are you nuts? Take the money and get out of here.’?”
One does not have to editorialize. The facts do it for one.
Lies, Damned Lies, and What Did Mitt Flip Today? 0
Out of the mouths of Bains. TPM:
In fact. Sen. Kerry (D-MA) had released 20 years of tax returns when he ran for president in 2004.
Details at the link.
About Damned Time 0
Now we’ll see whether they just try to go after the errand boys or actually have the courage to confront the Mr. Bigs.
Civility, Republican Style 2
In the midst of a longer post about something else, Field sums up civility on the campaign trail, as defined by Republicans: it’s for the other guys (emphasis in the original).
Anyone who welcomes support from Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and the lot, then complains about “incivility” is talking through his hat.
In other news, Chauncey Devega wonders about sociopathy.
Image via Field.
Fifty Shades of Stupid (Updated) 3
The internet is awash in porn. If you don’t find it, it will find you.
In most towns of any size, you can’t travel more than a few miles in any direction without passing “adult novelty” stores or their less classy cousins (which for some reason always have yellow windows).
Old people (like me) do it in bathtubs on television during Wheel of Fortune.
Even Publishers Clearing House markets “marital how-to” videos, or, as I like to describe them, porn for people who are against porn.
And now some bozo writes a series of racy novels (which I am sure are not in the same class as A Man with a Maid, which has been in and out of print for over a century and read mostly by not-women) that many women seem to like, thereby causing (mostly not-women) pundit heads to explode all over the place.
Women sometimes like to read about it too.
Oh, the horror.
Addendum, the Next Morning:
In Problem Solving . . . 0
. . . the first and most important step is to define the problem accurately.
Kangaroo Kourts 0
Having an incompetent attorneys is like having no attorney.
Indeed, it may be worse. There is an appearance of fairness.
Mitt the Flip Sings “Gimme Shelters” 0
Robyn Blumner tries to follow the money and finds the trail disappears into the Bermuda Taxangle:
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
In a shocking decision, a Georgia court rules that banks must follow the law:
State law was modified in 2008 to require that foreclosure notices and legal advertisements include the name and contact information of the mortgage owner and of organizations that could negotiate a modification, short sale or other relief on lender’s behalf.
“A debtor has a right to know which entity has the authority to foreclose, and there should be no confusion about the identity of that entity. The practical ramifications are troubling if it were otherwise,” the court majority agreed in its opinion.
This may be the end of the economy as we know it.
Oh whatever shall we do?
Dustbiters 0
I got caught up in making cauliflower with caper sauce last night and forgot to check the bank obits. No longer with us are
Georgia maintains its lead as the graveyard of bankster grifters.
Giving Windows the Reboot 0
My friend recently got a Windows 7 computer.
She is moving slowly from her XP box to it, as she has XP tailored to her taste and isn’t eager to learn about all the changes Microsoft makes with every new version to convince you it’s something new (kind of the way car makers in the 1950s moved the chrome around with every new model year).
So it’s been sitting over there (——————>) all week doing nothing.
Apparently, it can’t deal with that. It is demanding a reboot, just because it can.
Maybe it wants its electrons stroked or something.
My old Slackware webserver, long since retired, was once up for 156 days without a reboot.
One of the members of my LUG discovered a Linux server at his work that had been running without a reboot for over three years. I say “discovered” because it was so trouble-free that the staff had forgotten about it.
And this Windows box, which has been sitting there doing nothing, now wants a reboot I guess because it’s bored because no one has taken it out to play.
It must take a lot of expertise to write code this crappy.
Words fail me.
Full Disclosure:
I’ve never gotten a message like this on my Windows 7 box, but it’s usually booted into Wubi.
Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus 0
making sure sick people go bankrupt because of crushing medical bills voting against the tyranny of the Affordable Care Act.
He does the arithmetic and points out that House Republicans have voted to repeal it almost once a week.
Those folks just don’t get this whole tyranny thing. We’re talking about legislation passed in 2009 by the House and Senate, signed by the president and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. You call that democracy? Smells like tyranny to me.
According to CBS News, the House has spent at least 80 hours, or two full work weeks, on the repeal effort. It costs taxpayers about $24 million a week to operate the House, according to the Congressional Research Service.
So that would mean these 33 votes have cost us about $50 million. Money well spent, I’d say.
Read the rest. Really. It is delightful.
