February, 2015 archive
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Back over 300k.
(snip)
The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, gained to 294,500 from a revised 283,000 the week before.
In the one constant in a changing world, Bloomberg’s experts again missed the mark.
The Case of the Disappearing Snow Shovels 0
Whenever there is a bit of snow, you see stories of panicky persons buying all the snow shovels.
What happened to the snow shovels they bought during their last panic?
Aside:
The region is suffering under four or so whole inches. That’s almost 10 or 11 centimeters. Oh, the humanity!
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is mandatory when students are at home.
And we have yet another gun that discharges all on its ownsome.
Aside:
Gunnuttery means never being responsible for guns that fire themselves.
Lies and Lying Liars, an Industry 0
The Rude One explains why Bill O’Reilly will survive and thrive despite the current kerfuffle over his lies. Two snippets:
No one on the right cares about right-wing liars. They just don’t.
(snip)
Lies are the fuel that runs the outrage engine that gets the base amped up and ready to vote for idiots.
Follow the link for the full dose of rudeness.
Underlying It All 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., uncovers the foundations of Rudy Guiliani’s recent claim that President Obama doesn’t love America “like us.” He reveals what that “us” is thinking.
How did this bleeping N-word become president of the United States?
Read the rest.
Driven to Destruction 0
It appears that residents of neither Pennsylvania nor Massachusetts are able to drive in the snow.
Afterthought:
Some years ago, I was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on a training gig. When I arrived, the temperature was lower than the windspeed. (The customer had been sending me pictures of his snowbound parking lot for a week, so as to enhance my anticipation of the trip.)
As he drove me to my hotel after the training class, we were engulfed in snow. Visibility was minimal.
I asked, “Tod, is this a white out?”
“No,” he said, “because you can just barely see that,” as he pointed to a shadowy shape that was likely a tree ten feet from the road. At that point, a pick-up careened past us and slid into the ditch.
“Tod,” I said, “it appears that South Dakotans do not know how to drive in the snow.”
He replied, “Frank, no one knows how to drive in the snow.”
I ended up spending an extra night in Sioux Falls because the airport closed the next day. The airline ticket agent was a transplanted Philadelphian. She comped my extra night in a hotel because I was polite to her (she did not have to, as a snow storm is considered an “Act of God” for reaccommodations purposes). (I have found that nasty does not win friends, but does most certainly influence people.)
She told me that the one thing she missed most about Philly was Butterscotch Crimpets. When I got home, I mailed her a box of Tastycakes.
I used to say, that, once you Tastycake, you will never Hostess again.
Now, you can never Hostess again.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite at the intersection of Stupid Street and Gun Nut Way.
(snip)
Police concluded the man accidentally discharged his gun inside his car when the gun shifted between the driver’s seat and the console. The man reached for the gun and unintentionally fired it while reaching, Grimsley said.
“‘Reaching’ for what?” one wonders.
Stewart: Wingnuts Want War Porn 0
Excerpt:
Six years into his presidency . . ., this man still thinks he can peruade us through reasoned argument. Has he met us?
Video moved below the fold because it autoplays on some systems.
In the Eye of the Beholder 0
As you may have heard, Rudy Guiliani recently unleashed his inner racist and various reporters and commentators had the gall–the unmitigated gall–to notice.
Wingnuts cried “media bias.’
At the same time, Howard Dean suggested that Wisconsin governor and Koch Brothers sycophant Scott Walker, being a college drop-out, was not qualified to be president. Republicans freaked out, but Democrats made no charges of media bias.
Jonathan Bernstein attempts to understand the contrast. A snippet:
But liberals didn’t go crying about conservative media bias in the Dean-Walker case because they don’t see every news story as an example of prejudice against them. Conservatives do.
Didn’t Someone Once Say, “Kanye West Is an Idiot”? 0
Whether or not you care about the fashion “industry” (haven for men who hate women), you should read my local rag’s fashion writer’s take-down of Kanye West’s line of “fashions.”
It is as delightful a skewering of an vacuous poseur as I’ve seen in many months.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Another case in which cleanliness meets stupid:
The father has been charged with all kinds of stuff. Meanwhile, this politeness resulted in no charges.
‘Splain me the difference, Lucy.
