2014 archive
Spill Here, Spill Now, Punish the Victims Dept. 0
It is good to be a Duke.
Dukes can can exercise droit du seigneur.
A cheaper option, which leaves the coal ash in place at most sites, would cost at least $2 billion.
Duke officials are keeping a low profile about who will pay that cost, but a state regulator estimated the higher price tag cited Tuesday could cost North Carolina households more than $20 a month.
The story explains that Duke is claiming that the ponds were legal when they were built, so pffftttt!
Who cares that said ponds had a history of problems and poor maintenance?
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
Plessy v. Ferguson rises from the grave, a href=”http://crooksandliars.com/2014/04/justice-sonia-sotomayor-blasts-john”>reanimated by Republicans.
My disgust is boundless, but my surprise is nil.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
It hasn’t gone away; it’s just relocated north from Floida to New Jersey.
(snip)
New Jersey courts closed 12,639 foreclosure cases by entering default judgments against the borrowers in 2013. But CoreLogic found only 5,888 homes actually went to sheriff’s sale in that time. The borrowers or tenants might still occupy some foreclosed properties, but many stand vacant, “zombie foreclosures.” Even after obtaining foreclosure judgments, banks do not have to maintain a property until taking possession at a sheriff’s sale.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Polite show-and-tell.
As the man, who lives in the 400 block of Pollack Drive in Aberdeen, was looking at the gun and handing it back to his friend, he fired and shot himself in the abdomen, Hopkins said.
What If? 0
Ta-Nehisi Coates asks the question.
Follow the link for the answer.
(Hint: The answer is written in the blood of black folks.)
How Good People Do Evil 0
Every day, persons who consider themselves–and are considered by others–to be decent folks, rationalize the acceptance and perpetuation of evil. Nowhere in our history has this been more common than in the creation and perpetuation of the South’s institution of chattel slavery. Southerners who considered slavery to be evil found all kinds of reasons to not only do nothing about it, but to profit from the theft of labor.
In the Roanoke Times, Halford Ryan explores the self-serving rationales of one slaveholder, the one who is most often, after Thomas Jefferson, held up as a paragon of honor. Just read it.
While we are on the subject, I also recommend listening to this scholarly exploration of the history of the concept of race in America.
In the Gardens 0
We went to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens the other weekend. Spring was springing.
A very big crabapple in bloom.
Spill Here, Spill Now, Pay Later 0
Buccaneer Petroleum continues to duck and cover (up).
And BP — having already pleaded guilty to criminal negligence — is hard at work delaying justice.
QOTD 0
Elizabeth I of England:
One man with a head on his shoulders is worth a dozen without.
Sir Walter Raleigh would no doubt agree.
Take the Test 0
Take a quiz on your general (and I do mean general) religious knowledge.
Via Juanita Jean, who theorizes:
At the end, you’ll enjoy seeing how Fox News has had an influence on the answers.
And in More News of Manning Up . . . . 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Laurie Essig comments on what she terms Machismo Man David Brooks’s “manhood problem.”
Do follow the link, if only to see the illustration.
High Crimeas and Misdemeanors 0
Tom Plate of Loyola Marymount University argues against the United States’s media’s apocalyptic coverage of the events in Ukraine and the world in general. A nugget:
Implicit in this fearful assumption is the suggestion that if only the U.S. were more forceful against Russia, less “bad things” around the world would happen. This is fantasy.
He has a point. This is the “Shoot First” theory of international relations favored by the same Diminutive Phallus Brigade that believes in “Stand Your Ground.” Many of our media figures and politicians seems think that the U. S. is Gary Cooper, able to solve all problems in one High Noon moment, then relax as the credits roll and everyone lives happily ever after.
Outside of movies, the credits don’t roll and one High Noon moment leads to the next.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Driven to politeness:
Afterthought:
In late-breaking news of the polite:
Plus Ca Change 0
I’m a southern boy.
All my life, I’ve listened to racists declare, “Oh, golly gosh gee no, Batman, race has nothing to do with it.”