2014 archive
Drinking Liberally Norfolk Tomorrow 0
Drinking Liberally is a gathering place for liberals. Socialize and laugh in a friendly atmosphere.
When: 6 p., Tuesday, August 12.
Where:
Uno Chicago Grill
5900 Virginia Beach Blvd
(Janaf Shopping Center) (map)
Tuesdays for Norfolk, Thursdays for Virginia Beach to make it easier for persons with commitments on either day to catch at least one per month.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite while visiting your grandparents.
Police say the boy accidently (sic) fired the gun, striking himself.
Money Changers. Temple. 0
It would appear that Matthew 6:5 was not one of their memory verses in Sunday School.
After the bout of Facebook Frolics, the discount has been discontinued.
One wonders whether their next marketing stunt will be a discount for beating plowshares into swords.
National Collegiate Acquisition Association 0
Bob Molinaro comments on recent developments in the politics of big-time college sports. A nugget:
As (Big 12 commissioner Bob–ed.) Bowlsby might say – with great pride, no doubt – this is the face of college football most fans recognize.
“Our professors – I have an office I could swim in,” (KSU football coach Bill–ed.) Snyder said. “They’re in a cubbyhole somewhere, yet they go out and teach and promote education every day, and I value that.”Football no longer has any bearing on the quality of the person, the quality of students.”
Paywalls 0
President Obama’s recent action to prevent federal contractors from forbidding employees to discuss their compensation leads Michael Carroll down a memory hole:
He had a point. I did talk to my co-workers about my salary, and it was so low that I did not have all that much respect for it. Al was coming from a different place. He did not want discussion because dissension might flow from comparing paychecks. Employees might learn that there were often big differences in salaries of people doing the same job with the same skills and experience. Discussion might reveal disparities based less on performance and more on race, gender, who was sleeping with the boss and other things best left unspoken. This might generate more discussion and even less respect for our salaries.
More memories at the link.
Fantasies in a Fantasy Land 0
Balloon Juice’s Anne Laurie does a masterful takedown of Libertarianism and its dupes, symps, and fellow travelers.
Just read it.
War and Rumors of War 2
Eugene Robinson comments on Alabama (it would be Alabama, woudn’t it) Congressman Mo Brooks farcical claim that President Obama and the Democrats are waging a “war on whites.”
But maybe not. Maybe Brooks has fully bought into the paranoid myth of white victimhood that gives the opposition to Obama and his policies such an edge of nastiness and desperation.
I do not believe it can be a coincidence that this notion of whites somehow being under attack is finding new expression — not just in Brooks’ explicit words but in the euphemistic language of many others as well — at a time when the first black president lives in the White House.
The myth of victimhood is not new. Long after it was understood that slavery was morally wrong, Southern whites justified its perpetuation by citing the fear that blacks, once liberated, would surely take bloody revenge against those who had held them in bondage. Jim Crow laws and lynchings had a similar purpose. In the minds of his assassins, 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured and killed to protect the flower of Southern womanhood.
The myth surfaces whenever Obama comments on race.
Feeding that sense of victimhood has been one of the prime tactics of white supremacists, both thet blatant ones and the subtle ones, over the centuries. So long as they can maintain an “us and them” mentality, they can keep themselves in power. As Lyndon Johnson said
Read the rest.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite when closing the sale.
The bullet struck the gun owner in the pocket area, and shrapnel from the bullet hitting the pocketknife ricocheted and struck the other man in the hip.
One-Note Samba 0
Noz:
He’s quite correct, you know. Thinking that something must always be done leads to doing the wrong something more often than not.
Stray Thought 0
We watched Sharknado yesterday. It was riveting in a way, keeping one wondering what the next bit of fantastickal stupid might be. I cannot say that “it was so bad it was good,” but it was so bad it was amusing.
Driftglass is fond of saying (I’m paraphrasing here) that what distinguishes science fiction from other genres is the science.
By that standard, Sharknado is not science fiction; it’s fictional science.
Chartering a Course for Disaster 0
Wayne O’Leary does his homework and uncovers the motivation for the charter school movement; he finds that it’s not educational excellence. A nugget:
Doin’ the Bitcoin Boogie 0
From El Reg:
Geeky details at the link.