September, 2009 archive
On Czars 0
The fuss in the wingnutosphere about “White House Czars” is crap.
“Czars” is a media term. The title is “Advisor” (or some parallel thereunto). Their charter is to focus on specific topics on which administrative authority is scattered amongst a number of federal agencies–in other words, to make themselves experts in something or other.
They have no power nor authority, except to suggest policy to the president.
To the extent that wingnuts fulminate about “White House Czars,” they betray their (often willful) ignorance about how government works.
There, I’ve got that off my chest.
UDel v DelState (Updated) 0
The University of Delaware is playing Delaware State University in a regular season football game for the first time ever; the current coaches of the two teams have worked together to make this happen (the UDel had a much harder row to hoe).
Everyone who cares about Delaware college football (that doesn’t include me since my kids are outta there) seems to be celebrating it as a big day. Indeed, it is such a big deal that the Philly PBS station is televising the game. PBS stations do not commonly broadcast college football games.
UDel is a much larger school with a strong football history and will likely crush DelState.
Why haven’t they played before? The local paper notes (emphasis added);
Those factors contributed to the oddity and decades-long curiosity about their failure to play football, which was rooted in UD’s administrative stubbornness, plus a historic economic and social disconnect between UD and historically black Delaware State.
Disconnect.
Yeah. That’s one way to put it.
Delaware was a segregated state. UDel was all white. DelState was all black.
When I was a young ‘un, white schools did not play black schools. Period.
“Disconnect.”
It is a good thing they got over it. It is a bad thing that persons seem mystified about why it’s taken so long.
Addendum:
Closer than expected: UDel 27, DelState 17.
At the link, there’s a picture captioned
Delaware State fans show their pride for the Hornets with plenty of red attire, homemade posters and colorful pompons.
It’s a picture of the DelState band in the stands. Of course, they are wearing red. They’re the band.
My daughter wore blue to all the games. She was in the UDel. band.
A Whiter Shade of Pale 0
Megan Carpentier speculates at the Guardian about those who yearn for a return to the days when full participation in American society was summed up in the phrase, “free, white, and twenty-one”:
And you have folks like Joe Wilson, who decided that a presidency held by an African-American man didn’t deserve the same respect as one held by a white man and used his protected position in the political hierarchy to do what his ideological compatriots at town hall meetings could not: take the usurper, the pretender, the un-real American, as evidenced by the colour of his skin, down just a peg, back to where he supposedly belongs in America’s hierarchy. It could have been any issue: health care, taxes, education reform (and opposition like this has reared up in each case).
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Except, of course, for the random killings:
Death is a hell of a price to pay for failure to yield.
I’ve got nothing against guns. Hell, I like guns. I taught both my sons how to shoot (would’ve taught my daughters too, but the opportunities didn’t arise–everyone should know gun use and gun safety).
But the notion that a country full of hot-headed rubes packing heat will somehow enforce civility is dumber than reality TV.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Fox News 0
Calling out the lies.
Dustbiters 0
The bigger they are, the more likely they are to get bailed out (mp3).
The rest bite the dust.
(Think the Irwins are related?)
Life on the Tea Plantation 0
Annette John-Hall goes to tea country and meets someone who believes that wanting reasonable health care is forbidden because it’s not in the Constitution (not to mention that all they had back then were country doctors who often were worse than the disease):
For now, Marino has good health insurance through her job at a public utility in St. Petersburg.
The president has assured that people like her wouldn’t have to change their coverage under the new bill. Marino wasn’t having it.
“I don’t believe that,” she said.
Why?
“I just don’t,” she said.
He’s been in office only nine months. You’re saying you don’t believe him, our president?
“Yes. I’m saying I do not trust him,” Marino replied, without elaborating.
I have to wonder whether she would not “just not trust him” if he were pink like me.
Stray Thought 7
Whoever invented wallpaper should be forced to walk the Earth in eternal unrest until all wallpaper has been removed from all walls.
ACORN (Updated) 0
It was the wrong thing to do morally, but the right thing to do politically. To the extent that the GOP had ACORN to take shots at, ACORN was a distraction.
The Republican Party needs villains to attack, because it has nothing to offer except making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Just look at their track record, for Pete’s sake.
If it cannot find villains, it will make them up, which is what it did with the Voter Fraud Fraud and Acorn.
Of course the Republican Party attacked ACORN. ACORN tries to help poor people, and we can’t have that, now, can we?
Addendum, Later That Evening:
The BooMan describes what it was like to work for ACORN.
As a Southerner 1
I really don’t like it when folks make jokes about the South just because it’s the South.
But, honest to Pete, sometimes the South just asks for it.
Next they’ll ban clothespins and ice cubes.
Sheesh.
The Entitlement Society 1
Those who protest the cost of government while demanding better government services.
They have no self-awareness.
Not a jot. Not a tittle.
All they have is blind ideolog–oh, never mind.
Words fail me.
Somewhere To Go, Something To Do 0
That was me. I was on the road all day.
That wasn’t these folks.
That’s slightly over a three per cent decline in the number masquerading as good news.
Follow the link. A kewpie doll if you can figure out the explanation of “seasonally adjusted.”
By the way, these are the folks who don’t get bonuses when companies screw up. They just get screwed.
Back to Basics 0
R. Danielle Egan of St. Lawrence University comments in a column unrelated to the cartoon:
So I have decided it’s time that what I’ve been watching be called what I believe it is: racism.
To borrow a phrase from the previous post, recognizing racism isn’t rocket science either. Except for the racists, who, now that racism is no longer de mode, find all kinds of other rationales for their hate.
More Auth.
CDS: Credit Derivative Snake Oil 0
A professor from the University of Maryland who used to trade securities distills the snake oil.
A nugget:
Follow the link to see the analysis. It’s worth the three minutes.
Aside: When you cut through the Wall Street/financial press double-talk, this stuff ain’t rocket science. That’s why they use the double-talk.
Housekeeping 1
I’ve removed some RSS feeds from my sidebar, mostly big feeds such as Reuters and MarketWatch, for which the content is readily available elsewhere.
I’ve also removed a couple of blogs that have become relatively quiescent of late. And I’ve added the food recall feed from FoodSafety dog gov, which I learned about from somewhere I forget where I’m trying to remember.
The Real Death Panels 0
Glomarization has the story.
Stray Question 1
Why did I get a spam phone call to my cell phone, in Spanish, from an unlisted number in Omaha, Nebraska?
Probably a war dialer.
By the way, I have no problem with Spanish nor with those who speak it; I mention it solely to show that whoever made the call needs some help in basic market research.
