Personal Musings category archive

“Reality television” is to today as dance marathons were to the 1930s.

I don’t know why it rubs me the wrong way, but it does. I really dislike hearing a man refer to his spouse as “the wife.”

Yeah. I know the arrow is supposed to point the other way.

But that’s the Republican equation.

Witness this column from the Guardian:

California has apologetically invested in liberalism – and has reaped a toxic asset. The Golden State is headed towards the kind of public-sector meltdown usually reserved for third-world banana republics. Unemployment has skyrocketed to nearly 10%. The public education system is one of the nation’s five worst. California has the country’s dirtiest air and most gridlocked roads. And we have a government so dysfunctional that even sober onlookers are considering the merits of a constitutional convention. It’s often said that California’s present determines the nation’s future. If that’s true, Americans may need to begin stocking up on firearms and canned goods.

There’s much more at the link, but I didn’t want to waste any more electrons on it.

The author leaves out what necessitated this budget: decades of misgovernance under Republican Economic Theory, which, from passing Prop. 13 to requiring a super-majority to pass a state budget, has left California virtually ungovernable.

He left out that, the day before the budget was passed, California was shutting down. And what is government? It’s not Nyarlothotep, though it’s seldom perfect, just as you and I are seldom perfect.

It’s police, fire fighters, food and housing inspectors, persons who serve the public (and, by and large, persons who, unlike bankers, don’t get bonuses for failure). Government is the engine that makes civilized society possible.

Republicans don’t like government, therefore they must not li–oh, never mind.

Who are these people and why does anyone care about them?

When you hang out a sign that says “bank,” persons should be able to bank on you, not just with you.

I have an ambivalent relationship with Daily Kos.

Self-Indulgence below the Fold.

One of the nice things about listening to the BBC News Hour is being continually reminded that TWIAVBP.

The show was 22 minutes old before they got to Mr. Obama’s speech.

I couldn’t put off getting a haircut any longer, even though I come from the generation that believes that hair should be long and skirts should be short.

Read more »

Indeed.

An interesting post on forgiveness over at Straight, Not Narrow. Among other things, the poster said

The people who don’t know Jesus completely get a “glazed over” look when you talk about forgiveness. They act like you’re crazy to forgive someone for hurting you so badly. They want you to punch the person or slash their tires or something. Heard any good Carrie Underwood songs lately? Actually, if you’ve heard any amount of Country/Western songs, they seem to have a high proportion of revenge songs!

I think there is a piece missing: Many of the persons who claim to know Jesus also

get a “glazed over” look when you talk about forgiveness.

They say the words, but they do not act the acts.

I am so tired of those who practice hate in the name of the love.

The Journal-Register Company, holder of a number of local newspapers, files for Chapter 11.

Revenue had declined 20 percent since 2006, the company said. Moreover, it carried a huge debt load, the legacy of a business strategy of buying daily and weekly newspapers in suburban areas. In recent months its stock traded at pennies a share.

I think we would all be better served if the fancy three-syllable word “leverage” were retired in favor of the short, pithy, accurate word, “debt.”

The fancy-smancy “investment bankers” have made a trade of buying companies, mortgaging them to the hilt, keeping the money, and leaving the companies in an Addams Family episode the lurch.

The “investment bankers” get rich, the companies, their executives, and their employees get screwed.

Witness the Chicago Tribune.

All that debt was not there until Sam Zell purchased the company and sucked it dry.

And then tossed it out the back door onto his trash heap.

Without his Zellmanship, the company would not be in the trouble it’s in. It would be in Little Trouble, not Big Trouble.

In the Olden Days, when I was a young ‘un, a company in overwhelming debt was a bad thing.

So now it’s called “leverage.” That way, no one but the cognoscenti will know it is, in fact, crippling debt.

nam vere est.

I agree with John Cole.

The most optimistic Pollyanna rationale that I can come up with is that the Administration is buying time because it hasn’t figured out what to do yet.

I’ll be writing letters tomorrow.

The same persons who are complaining that the stimulus package will be paid for by our grandchildren didn’t seem to care that the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq would be paid for in the same way.

God, how I love hypocrisy.

Why does every company keep changing its phone menu options?

AKA “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature” (emphasis added):

Federal officials said new estimates showed that the Central Valley Project (in the San Jaoquin and Salinas valleys of California–ed.), the large irrigation system operated by the reclamation bureau, would be able to provide zero to 10 percent of its contracted deliveries.

If the zero estimate proves true, it would effectively eliminate hundreds of farmers’ principal water supply. Water supplies to wildlife refuges, cities and industrial sources would also see smaller cutbacks, but agriculture would be hardest hit.

Those cows aren’t going to be happy.

Don’t eat.

Tight state budgets have led some of the biggest farm states to leave dozens of food inspection jobs vacant at a time when hundreds have been sickened by a nationwide salmonella outbreak tied to a filthy peanut processing plant.

Fun fact, from a food inspector I used to work with: Most of the illnesses that persons attribute to “intestinal flu” are actually food poisoning. If it lasts 24 to 48 hours, it’s probably food poisoning.

A mileage tax.

We’ve already got one. It’s called a gas tax. The more miles you drive, the more gas you buy, the more tax you pay.

The lower your miles per gallon, the more often you buy gas, the more tax you pay.

Doesn’t take a GPS to figure that out.

Frankly, as I commented over at Duncan’s, I think this comes from the school of thought that says

The more complicated the technology, the better the idea.

Folks, that just ain’t so.

Afterthought: And if there is a motive beyond this to reduce actual miles driven, well, gas prices can do that too. Remember last summer.

Hope she has a big car.

They have enough money to make a getaway.