2015 archive
“Isolated Incidents,” Reprise 0
In the eye of the beholder:
Legal Beagles in the Dog House 0
From the stuff you can’t make up department: In Florida, some lawyers have got their briefs all in a twist.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Somewhat better.
The four-week average for jobless claims decreased to 266,250 in the period ended May 16 from 271,750, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington.
(snip)
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits decreased by 12,000 to 2.21 million in the week ended May 9, the lowest level since November 2000.
Republican efforts to counter this trend are, no doubt, continuing.
Spill Here, Spill Now 0
The legacy of Buccaneer Petroleum continues to expand.
The scientists said large numbers of dead bottlenose dolphins found stranded along shores since the spill suffered from lung and adrenal lesions caused by swimming in oil-contaminated seas.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite with your sawyer.
According to Muhannad, the weapon was a modified shotgun.
“It was a shotgun that had apparently been altered,” Muhannad said. “The barrel had been sawed off, and the stock was shortened.”
Guns and stupid–always a delightful combination.
Motherhood and Apple Pie 0
Americans seem to be all for motherhood, except for the part about actually acting like a mother.
Jesus.
Brackets 0
Dick Polman offers his suggestion for managing the Republican “debates”: Brackets. He says, “Under my system, only a manageable handful will make it to debate night.”
Here’s his list of proposed brackets; follow the link to see who he thinks should be in each one.
- The blasphemy bracket.
- The nutjob bracket.
- The bloodlust bracket.
- The quack bracket.
- The chutzpah bracket.
- The random bracket.
Stages of Racism 0
China Hand tries to make sense of the minstrel show. A snippet:
There was that. Well, there still is that, but a closer look at the minstrel show reveals that the flip side of southern black inferiority was northern white superiority which, in turn, unexpectedly fed back into ideas of southern white superiority.
Read it.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
More friendly politeness in NRA Paradise . . .
. . . and another gun that “discharged” itself.
Dystopian Utopia 0
Elon elucidates the verbal gymnastics. Listen to the audio at the link, then subscribe to TWIB.
Via Juanita Jean.
Appearances Matter. They Also Lie. 0
Colbert I. King doesn’t get the fascination with “clean cut”:
Oh, I get why a guy with a clean-shaven face might be called clean-cut. And surely short hair, neatly combed, might fit that description.
What I don’t understand is why it should be assumed that because someone has a neat appearance, is well-groomed and has fresh breath, he is somehow beyond breaking the rules or getting into trouble.
That phrase, “clean cut,” also cropped up in this little item several years ago.
How Stuff Works: The End of Privacy 0
Simon Phipps explains the theft of your privacy. He’s writing specifically about the recent British elections, but it works the same way on this side of the Big Pond. Here’s a bit:
They issue an instruction to block the fields. The objective is unarguably pure and the things that those one or two people are doing are disgusting, so it must be possible, right? If you object to blocking the fields, it only goes to proves that you’re one of those dirty people. Bureaucrats get to work on the demand. They can’t block an open field, so first they build a road across the field. Then they build a police control point in the middle of the road.
Follow the link to find out what happens next.
“The Smart One,” Reprise 0
In more news of the Smart One, Shaun Mullen discusses the Smart One’s decision to hide behind the flag when called on his saying that, knowing what we know now, he would still support the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq.
Here’s a snippet, in which words are not minced, but the Smart One is:
No, what burned the red, white and blue ass of this veteran is that Jeb Bush defaulted to cowardice. Because, doncha know, any criticism of the troops and by extension his former commander-in-chief brother is unpatriotic — a battle-tested, if vile, tactic from the Republican playbook to tamp down dissent when it threatens to come uncomfortably close to the truth.
If this response has the ring of familiarity, it is because President Bush, and Vice President Cheney in particular, used it early and often in calling into question anyone and everyone who opposed that fool’s mission, which wasted nearly 4,500 American and perhaps 110,000 Iraqi lives, left the country in far worse shape than when the war began, further destabilized one of the world’s most volatile regions and handed Iran — and by extension Al Qaeda and an emergent ISIS — an enormous strategic advantage.
Do read the rest.