March, 2013 archive
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
A little better.
(snip)
Those people collecting emergency and extended payments increased by about 136,500 to 1.92 million in the week ended Feb. 23.
Gamed 0
Click through the warning and enter a birthday.
Despite what it says, there’s no language, fake violence, and little maturity.
The League of Bush Leaguers 0
Mike, a Florida resident with a ringside seat at Florida’s Bush league, wonders whether Jeb Bush can outdo George the Worst.
Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt 0
“He Must Be High on Something, Someone Said”* 0
The Streak is baaaaaccccck, spotted at a wedding this weekend.
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*With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.
“Public-Private Partnerships” 0
They work out so well. Like the one to fix potholes in my area’s roads rather than having the highway department employees do it themselves and do it right, as they used to when I spent a summer working for the highway department back in the days of bench seats and no seatbelts:
“It’s more about filling holes than trying to fill them properly,” Siddiqi said about what he witnessed while working for TME from early 2009 to June 2011.
Two other former employees and one still with the company gave similar accounts of the time they spent maintaining the interstates in South Hampton Roads for TME. They described an operation that often cut corners to save money and relied on aging equipment that frequently broke down.
Much more privatization wonderfulness at the link.
Cheap! 0
PoliticalProf explains:
- We want out teachers to be the best in the world, but we pay them so little that teaching as a profession can’t compete for talent with higher-paying jobs.
- We demand that our food supply be safe, but always buy the cheapest we can find.
- We want good roads and good schools … but don’t want to pay property or fuel taxes to support them.
- We want to buy our stuff on Amazon (which is largely exempt from sales taxes) while wondering why local businesses die and local governments (which depend on sales taxes) don’t seem able to get our streets cleaned in the snow.
- We insist that our universities ought to charge low tuition while refusing to pay taxes to support universities.
I could live with all of this (and much more) if we weren’t so damned hypocritical about it.
Read the rest.
The Galt and the Lamers 0
Jay Bookman considers Rand Paul’s recent filibuster (by the way, kudos to Paul for having the integrity to actually, like, you know, talk through a filibuster, rather than talk of one) and rumors that Paul might be the 2016* Republican presidential nominee:
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*2016 is a long time away. This type of speculation now is nothing more than the political press pleasuring itself, something most persons do in private.
Drinking Liberally Norfolk Tomorrow 0
Drinking Liberally is a gathering place for liberals. Socialize and laugh in a friendly atmosphere.
When: 6 p., Thursday, March 14.
Where:
Lola’s Caribbean Restaurant
328 W 20th St (map)
Details here. Meetup page here.
The Burden of Wealth 2
Zoe Williams pities the rich, suffering gazallionaires. A nugget (emphasis in the original):
8. Some people, especially people who aren’t rich, have no idea how small a £2m house can be.
Mansion? YOU CALL THIS A MANSION? I wouldn’t make my enemy’s dog live in it, it’s not even near a park.
More at the link.
Stray Thought, Juice Dept. 0
It occurs to me that one of the principle drivers of economic inequality over the past 40 years has been the shift to financing education with student loans, which harness students to a life of debt and debt to finance debt, sucking their earnings into the coffers of the masters of the universe for most of the rest of their economic lives.
Facebook Frolics 0
You are what you like.
The researchers developed an algorithm which uses Facebook likes — which are publicly available unless a user chooses stronger privacy settings — to create personality profiles, potentially revealing a user’s intimate details.
These mathematical models proved 88 percent accurate for differentiating males from females and 95 percent accurate distinguishing African-Americans from whites.
Via Raw Story.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Your responsible fiscals at work.
His death came more than two years after Wells Fargo mistakenly mixed up his Hermosa Beach address with that of a neighbor in the same condo complex. The bank’s typo led Wells Fargo to demand that Delassus pay $13,361.90 — two years of late property taxes the bank said it had paid on his behalf in order to keep his Wells Fargo mortgage afloat.
That typo was just the beginning of the ordeal.
Once they had their teeth in him, they refused to let go.
Via C&L.
Rent-To-Pwn 0
So that Aaron’s place near me, the one that’s closed, was a rent-to-own electronics store.
Looks more like a rent-to-pwn:
But the lawsuits allege the software was turned on to spy on paying customers — regardless of their rental status — and that more than 180,000 pieces of ill-gotten customer information are being stored on Aaron’s computers.
The captured information, according to the suits, include passwords to emails, social media websites and financial institutions; medical records; and Social Security numbers. They also claim pictures of children, partially clothed individuals and couples in intimate moments were also taken.
The suits seek to get Aaron’s to pay for any adjustments consumers have to pay for repairing credit problems brought on by the alleged activities — including new credit and bank cards — and monetary and punitive damages and attorneys fees. No specific settlement target has been set.
The suits also maintain that customers were never told about the software.
Corporate says that their hands are clean, they had nothing to do with this, it was those dastardly independent franchises, they weren’t even there, they were somewhere entirely other, “look over there.”
Indeed.
If you or someone you know is an Aaron’s customer, do follow the link.
