February, 2009 archive
It’s Snowing 3
It can’t decide whether it wants to snow or flurry. In any case, I’m glad I bagged DL.
I have described before the strange way in which Delawareans react to snow.
I went to the local Wawa this morning to buy a loaf of bread. It was snowing at the time.
I said to clerk, “I have to tell you, I’m buying this because I’m out of bread, not because it’s snowing”
She was still in hysterics when I left the store.
Drinking Liberally on Steroids 0
Tonight, Triumph Brewing Company, two blocks east of the Old Customs House on Chestnut (That’s 117 Chestnut), Philadelphia, Pa., 6 p., followed by an author talk at 8 p.
Find out more down the hall and to the left at Mithras’s place.
I go to DL because it’s fun. Driving to and from Philly in bad weather on the Main Street of the East Coast is not fun. It looks the one might cancel out the other yet again.
The issue isn’t accumulation.
The issue is mixing bad driving conditions with idiots.
As the old saying goes,
If you try to make something idiot-proof, God will just build a better idiot.
Wall Street: “It’s Not Our Fault” (Updated) 0
Shorter New York Times:
Wall Street says
We just made up whacky investments, seduced the ratings agencies into our velvet-lined handcuffs, ignored due diligence, sold boxes of air for real money, ran Ponzi schemes, drained our employers’ treasuries with fantastickal bonuses to pay for our houses in Greenwich and the Hamptons, and generally gobbled up all the cookies that investors trusted us to protect in our cookie jars.
But, golly gosh gee, Mr. Interlocutor, we had nothing to do with what happened.
Addendum, after Sausage and Eggs:
Words still fail me.
But they didn’t fail John Cole. Or his commenters.
MacArthur Redux? 0
Inquiring minds want to know.
All joking aside, if these rumors are true, it’s insubordination. And CENTCOM has let the press releases go to its head.
Then, again, the source is questionable and the source’s “about” page doesn’t really have any about.
Schadenfrued 0
I do not know whether it would be good policy, but, oh! man! it would be fun to watch Wall Street bankers try to pay for their golden privies on GS-17 salaries and have to face annual performance evaluations from persons who really don’t like doing evaluations and do them with one eye on the budget and no eyes on performance:
Dealing with the matter all at once can both allow for a quicker fix to the financial system and also ensure fairer treatment of bank creditors. First, the shareholders of bankrupt institutions must be forced to eat their losses. However, we may not want to honour all the debts of the banks at 100 cents on the dollar, which has been current practice.
Truism 0
Wingnuts make stuff up because the truth is not on their side.
Compare and Contrast 0
Annette John-Hall in today’s local rag:
Yet at the same time, we wink and nod at the masters of the universe, those corporate CEOs who refuse to change their greedy behavior – behavior we’re all paying for.
Who has harmed more people?
Trivial Pursuit (Updated) 2
Activists of any stripe focus on trivialities so as to distract people from what’s going on and twist the public discourse.
That’s what the Republican fuss over family planning money in the stimulus bill was all about: distracting people.
Full disclosure: Unlike some, I don’t have a position on Tom Daschle’s tax problems. I don’t approve. I don’t disapprove. And I’m too lazy to research them.
I’ve screwed up my taxes a couple of times, and each time I thought I had them right, so perhaps my perspective differs from that of persons who have always filed a Form 1040-EZ and never had to file a Form 1040 Schedule SE.
Some Guy with a Blog suggests taking a larger view:
More below the Fold. Warning: Language
I Am Aware of All Super Bowl Traditions 0
And a game that is not decided in the first quarter is not one of them.
John Cole found it necessary to take an aspirin to protect his heart.
Back to my regularly scheduled reruns.
Diluting the Gene Pool, Football Dept. 0
The competence of sports broadcasters is the reciprocal of the number of sports stations.
Requiem for the Mall 0
But where will the Mallies go?
Aside: I’ve been to the Mall of the Americas. It gets its high store count by cheating. It has–or had at the time I visited–two Radio Shacks on two different levels, and counted them both.
Once More into the FAIL (Updated) 1
The Republican Party wants to do us again. Harder! Harder!
Republican Economic Theory is as bankrupt as Circuit City. But it appears the Republican Party is genetically unable to learn from the past.
Frank Rich in the Toimes:
But even if tax cuts alone could jump-start a recovery, they couldn’t do the heavy lifting that Obama has promised and the country desperately needs: a down payment on a new economy to replace our dilapidated 20th-century model and bring back long-term growth. The Republicans don’t acknowledge the need for this transformation, or debate it in good conscience, preferring instead to hyperventilate over the contraceptives in a small family-planning program since removed from the stimulus bill. All it takes is the specter of condoms for the party of Vitter, Foley and Craig to go gaga.
The Republicans’ other preoccupation remains Rush Limbaugh, who is by default becoming their de facto leader. While most Americans are fearing fear itself, G.O.P. politicians are tripping over themselves in morbid terror of Rush.
Addendum, Sometime during the First Quarter of Super Bowl whatever it is:
On ABC’s This Week:
(Congressman Barney) FRANK: …Let’s agree that we’re all Americans here, Jim. Nobody’s got the “American way” versus presumably the “non-American way.” And as far as spending versus tax cuts, I think we need to fix some highway and bridges. I never saw a tax cut fix a bridge. I never saw a tax cut give us more public transportation…
But wait! There’s more! Follow the link.
Video here.
Via Instaputz.
The Free Hand of the Market 0
Doctors don’t open up the prescription pads and start writing prescriptions for improper, unproven, and, sometimes, dangerous uses of powerful (and often grossly over-priced) drugs (emphasis added).
Drug companies encourage them to do it:
The guilty plea in Philadelphia federal court had been expected since earlier this month, when the Indianapolis company agreed to a settlement that also included a $1.4 billion fine.
The Philadelphia U.S. Attorney’s office had charged Lilly with illegally promoting Zyprexa to treat dementia and Alzheimer’s in the elderly.
That’s the free, as in unfettered and unmonitored and conscienceless, hand of the market.
Chart of off-label drug marketing here.
Bushonomics: The Hangover 0
January reports coming in this week, and those folks who got seasonal (Christmas) jobs in retail, package delivery, and things like that there don’t have them any more:
The Labor Department will report on the January employment report on Friday, the cap of another busy week for economic data, most of which are expected to be gloomy, if not doomy.
The data calendar includes January purchasing-managers surveys from the Institute for Supply Management; January auto sales; December data on consumer spending, consumer credit, factory orders and construction spending; and the latest weekly figures on jobless claims. The Federal Reserve is also likely to report on its quarterly survey of lending conditions at banks.
The news is expected to be universally grim. The jobs report is the big one, however.
Site Update 0
I have shot the trouble and reactivated the WordPress Mobile Plugin.
Is Nothing Sacred? 0
No.
Afterthought: At one time, persons could talk about the “rights of Englishmen”–and English women.
Indeed, the Founders did so in the Declaration of Independence; one of their grievances against King George III included the phrase,
Now it’s the surveillance of Englishpersons.
And it’s happening in the U. S. A. too.
Eight Is Enough? (Updated) 2
Facts are starting to trickle out about the woman who, with the help of implanted embryos, bore eight babies last week.
Now, I’m not going to get involved in any discussion of the morality of fertility drugs, in vitro fertilization, or stuff like that there. For one thing, I haven’t thought it through, because I’m well past the age when stuff like that could conceivably (as it were) affect my daily life. For another thing, it’s just not worth the effort.
But this sentence at the end of the article in today’s local rag caught my eye:
Forty-six physicians and staff assisted in the deliveries of the six boys and two girls.
I know persons with serious health problems who refuse to go to the doctor because they have lousy or, indeed, no health insurance.
Something about that makes my nerves jangle.
Addendum, That Evening:
According to the Times of London, Mama wants to go on a Magical Money Tour.
Stray Thought 0
A dog is man’s best friend. Except when it is man’s most annoying friend.
And there’s no looking forward to the empty nest.
(Wanna dog? Free shipping. Tranquilizers are on you.)