2015 archive
Product Differentiation, Reprise 0
Jeb “Oh God Please Not Another” Bush turns to the same stable of warmongers as his apparently (in Republican eyes) non-existent brother did so as to supplement his wisdom and perspicacity.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
More polite parenting.
Adonis Forbes had come to check on the teenager, Murain Hawkins, who was babysitting Forbes’ children in the 2000 block of Tennessee Street. Police said Forbes was “working on his handgun” when the firearm discharged, striking Hawkins.
The Politics of Parking 0
With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, the Boston Globe’s Luke O’Neill tries to figure out the politics of parking-place savers (those folks who, after digging out a parking place on a public street, then stake a claim to it with a piece of furniture. Along the way, he manages to cite both Locke and Hobbes.
Here’s a bit from his introduction.
The counter-argument is no less easily applied to a political point of view: The roads, they say, belong to all. One cannot own what belongs to the people, and the act of shoveling out a space contributes to the greater good, providing more parking for others to enjoy. It is, in effect, a tax one pays for the use of the public space, which is just.
And yet, the more and more people I ask, the analogy breaks down, with many self-identifying progressives saying they are in favor of space-saving.
It doesn’t make sense.
It’s an interesting and wry take on a contentious issue.
And the Winner Is . . . 0
The idea that casino gambling could replace honest taxation to support state and local governments has always been a mug’s game. The state mark might win in the short-term, but, in the long-run, the mark always looses.
The casino industry has grown exponentially over the last decade as revenue-hungry states have moved to claim business that once went across state lines to Atlantic City, New Jersey, or the tribal-owned megaresorts in Connecticut. After Nevada, Pennsylvania has emerged as the country’s No. 2 gambling marketing, overtaking Atlantic City, where four of 12 casinos closed last year.
As long as politicians are too chicken to fund public needs through honest taxation, they will remain marks for the privatization scam of the day.
Dry-Gulched 0
I used to fly into Burbank frequently.
On the last bit of the leg from Phoenix, the air lane follows the aqueduct that California used to steal water from the Colorado River. The plane would cross a mountain range and I would see a swath of green lawns, almost every one with a swimming pool in the backyard, all made possible by the Colorado River (which no longer reaches the sea).
I always found the view vaguely disgusting.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is essential to proper parenting.
The gun fell to the pavement hammer-first and discharged one round on impact, which went through the (four-year old–ed.) boy’s leg above the knee and lodged in the trim of a nearby building, according to the release.
Not only did this gun discharge itself all on its ownsome, it fell out of its holster without apparent human intervention. No one could have figured out how to keep the gun in its holster. Life is just funny that way; sometimes, a gun’s gotta do what a gun’s gotta do . . . .
Faster Ball 0
It’s about time.
The changes, announced jointly by MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association, will require hitters to keep one foot in the batter’s box, create a time limit for breaks between innings and streamline the process of challenging a call on the field. MLB, the MLBPA and the World Umpires Association have agreed on the changes, which will begin in spring training, and they will evaluate the results after the season.
My brother has long thought that the “one foot in the box” rule would be the easiest way to speed up the game in the Bigs; he tells me the rule is common in the Minors. He will be surprised, though, to see that a limit is being placed on commercial breaks time between innings.
Between the Lines 0
Jim Wright reads between the lines and exposes the racist underpinnings of Rudolph Guiliani’s recent remarks that Obama doesn’t love America “like us.”
Here’s a bit. Do read the rest; it’s a magnificent post.
That’s what plantation owners used to say when they sold black children away from their parents, when they broke up families: they’re not like us, they don’t love their kids like we do.
That’s what we used to say when we sought our Manifest Destiny across the Great Plains. We’re special. Indians? They don’t love America like we do. They can’t love their kids or their wives or their god like we love ours. They can’t, they’re savages.
That’s what we used to say when we burned down villages in Korea and Vietnam, hey don’t feel sorry for them, they don’t feel emotions the way we do. That’s what we say about Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. They don’t feel pain or loss, they’re not the same as us, they can’t love their kids or their spouses or their country like we do.
That’s what we used to say when women wanted to vote. Hey, god love ‘em but they just don’t think like we do. They’re not like us, like real Americans.
Not Dean’s List Material 0
Then, again, that may depend on which list.
When a student by that name at a Radnor Township university ordered fake IDs from China, his first mistake was having the cards delivered to campus, police say.
The second was not realizing that he shared a name with a ranking school administrator.
Hijinks ensue.
