2014 archive
Break Time 0
Off to drink liberally.
“Obamacare Is Made of People” 0
Jon Stewart tackles the D. C. Federal Court’s fantastickal reasoning for sabotaging the Affordable Care Act.
Below the fold in case it autoplays.
Driven to Distraction 0
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
I’ve seen drivers eating, shaving, even reading books propped on their steering wheels at low and high speeds, but I haven’t seen that.
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
And to hell with them when they do get fracked. Just sacrifice them (emphasis added).
(snip)
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection—which oversees the oil and gas industry—has no ongoing or planned health studies, though it is researching air and water quality at certain sites, Scott Perry, the agency’s director of oil and gas management, said at a media event last month. None of the hundreds of millions of dollars in impact fees the state has collected from the industry since 2011 has gone to state or local health departments.
Revenue for the Plutocracy trumps the well-being of the populace every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Under 300k.
(snip)
The four-week average of jobless claims, considered a less volatile measure than the weekly figure, decreased to 302,000, the lowest since May 2007, from 309,250 in the prior week.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits declined by 8,000 to 2.5 million in the week ended July 12, the fewest since June 2007. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits held at 1.9 percent, today’s report showed. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
None of Bloomberg’s “experts” were even close. I don’t know why they even bother.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to your playmate.
They told officers they believed the gun was unloaded, and that it was fired accidentally.
One boy was hit in the right ankle. He was taken to University Hospital for treatment of a non-life threatening wound, police said.
“It was fired . . . .” I love the passive voice; clearly the gun is the victim here.
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
As Republicans stick their fingers in their ears and go “la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.”
Update:
I don’t know what happened to it either. It was there when I wrote the post.
Swamp Things 0
Dick Polman marvels at wingnut opposition to a non-binding U. N. treaty designed to help disabled persons. A snippet (emphasis added):
This is the kind of stuff that passes for deep thought in the fever swamp; nevertheless, most Republican senators owe their jobs to fever-swamp voters. Which means that the odds for ratification approximate the odds of the ’14 Phillies morphing into the ’27 Yankees.
Please do read the whole thing.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to thy father and thy mother.
The investigation revealed that the woman and her 23-year-old son were going through her recently deceased husband’s gun collection. At some point, the son picked up a 9mm handgun, which then fired, striking his mother in the leg.
“. . . which then fired.” Divine intervention, no doubt.
The Parked Economy 0
My local rag has an odd story about research by a local professor which seems to point to a correlation between whether persons “front-in” or “back-in” parking spaces and their economic behavior. A snippet:
He then looked at recent economic statistics, such as savings rate and growth in gross domestic product, and found that the more reverse parkers, the more economic success.
For example, of the six countries, China enjoyed the largest annual productivity increase from 2001 to 2011 – 17.8 percent. Virtually tied on the bottom were Brazil (1.3 percent) and the United States (1.5 percent). “Based on the way people park,” Li wrote, “we can gauge their economic performance.”
The link, Li said in an interview last week, is whether a society leans toward instant or delayed gratification. Rear-first parkers, he reasoned, are delayed-gratification types: They take more time to park so they can have a quicker getaway.
Note that he is not claiming causality, merely correlation.
Full Disclosure:
I usually back into parking spaces, but gratification of any sort has little to do with. It’s simple visibility.
If I get caught parked between two honking great SUVs, I’d much rather front out than back out.
Implanted Memory Syndrome, Republican Fables Dept. 0
Jon Stewart revels in Republican lies about Reagan.
Below the fold because it may autoplay.