October, 2009 archive
Quotable Quotes 0
Take the quiz.
Dialectic 0
Glenn Greenwald dissects the internal contradictions of Beltway blather. A nugget:
In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies . . .
Lounging around in the editorial offices of the capital of a rapidly decaying empire, urging that more Americans be sent into endless war paid for with endless debt, while yawning and lazily waving away with boredom the hordes outside dying for lack of health care coverage, is one of the most repugnant images one can imagine. It’s exactly what Adam Smith denounced. And it’s exactly what our political and media elite are.
Read it.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Except when the trigger finger combines with reckless dumbness:
A Florida man shot and killed his fianceé early Friday morning after mistaking her for an intruder.
This idea that some have that arming more yahoos with fireamrs somehow increases public safety is farcical.
It has no support in fact, only in ideology and wishful thinking.
Afterthought: Come to think of it, it’s sort of like Republican economic theory.
A Three Hour Tour 1
Contact with the Northwest Airlines plane was lost for an hour as it flew at 37,000ft, sparking hijack fears.
The crew said they had been distracted by a “heated discussion” but officials will check if they had fallen asleep.
Follow the link and look at the neat map towards the bottom of the page of the airplane’s meanderings after it overshot Minneapolis.
Wonder who these guys will be flying for next week.
Fox. Henhouse. 0
And the inevitable result.
I listened to this today, which John Cole discussed here.
Missing from it is any mention of this: Fox consistently reports lies as truth.
The quotation below was said about an article in Time, but it applies to every day on Fox:
I’d love for Newton-Small or anyone else at Time to explain exactly what value they think they’re providing to readers when they report two statements, one of which must be false, but refuse to say which.
There should be more to journalism than he-said-she-said. When someone says something demonstrably false, competent journalists demonstrate that it be demonstrably false–they don’t keep repeating it as if it were true.
Dustbiters 0
Reducing the number of bank stocks on the market. These are no more:
And that’s just the Eastern Time Zone.
Actually, they weren’t done with the Eastern Time Zone.
Moving west:
Sheila Bair on the 100th bank failure of the year and your deposit insurance.
“The chances of your bank failing are low . . . . For an insured depositor, a bank failure is a non-event.”
Me: But the bank failures say a lot about the calibre of the banksters.
Contract Killing 2
Matt Browner Hamlin (emphasis added):
If you slurp at the public trough, expect public strings. Frankly, it’s about time (or even much too late) that these bozos realized our money kept them in country club memberships:
Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury official leading the pay review, said average salaries for the top 25 executives would be cut 90 percent starting next month.
The action will apply to the top executives at Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors Co., GMAC L.L.C., Chrysler L.L.C., and Chrysler Financial.
Aside: Am I the only person who finds the expression “take a haircut” to refer to taking a loss somewhere on a continuum between stupid and fatuous?
Hamlin link via Eschaton.
Diet of Wormtongues 0
We no longer eat food.
According to my grocery store, we now consume “meal solutions.”
I thought “meal solutions” was what astronauts ate drank.
“No Email before My Evo” 0
H/T Susan for the pic.
Oh, My 0
I have been falling down drunk before (it has been a long time admittedly), but at least I knew enough not to get back up.
Via Huffington Post, where you can see the original, silent but in color.
Papered Over 0
“It’s a travesty, a real travesty,” (Mayor) Councill said. “We have 1,100 families to take care of. We want to help, sustain and find work for these people.”
My high school played Franklin in sports, which required a two and a half hour trip across the Bay to get to the games. And. when I was a young ‘un, we drove through Franklin twice a year on the way to visit my grandmother in South Carolina back.
We would always joke that the smell of the mill was the smell of money. Back then, it was still Union-Bag Camp Paper Co.
Franklin was a neat, well-kept little town on U. S. 58 out in the country (since then, the suburbs of the Hampton Roads area area have marched relentlessly towards it and it is no longer out in the country).
I guess it will no longer have the smell of money.
Operation Repo 0
Your money or your–oh, never mind.
Via Kiko’s House.
Afterthought:
Does this qualify as “padding your resume” or is it “resuming your padding”?
Fox. Henhouse. 0
Twits on Twitter 2
At the Guardian.
Nary a Peep 1
Karen’s comment to the post about the Peeping Thomasina reminded me of the story of the elderly maiden lady who called the local sheriff to complain that some some local boys were skinny-dipping within view of her kitchen window.
The sheriff drove out and determined that, although they were partially screened by trees, they were visible. He told the boys to move up the stream aways.
The next day, the maiden lady called to complain again. “But,” asked the sheriff, “didn’t they move?”
“Yes,” she replied, “but I can still see them from my bedroom window.”
So he asked them to move farther upstream.
The next day, she called him again. When he asked whether they had moved, she said, “Yes, but I can still see them.”
There’s One Born Every Minute, Gag Me with a Spud Dept. (Updated) 1
I thought white potatoes came ready to microwave right out of the ground. Just wash them and poke them a few times with a fork.
Apparently not.
The “microwavable potatoes” are two for three dollars.
Regular Idahos are $1.49 a pound (Idahos, not red russets or plain ole low-brow round lumpy white potatoes).
Figure about three Idahos per pound and do the arithmetic. That’s awfully expensive Saran Wrap.
Addendum:
I received an email from someone what has tried these thingees, which says, in part,
Yukk.
They Got the Wrong Person 3
They should have arrested the Peeping Thomasina:
Fairfax county police say a woman and a 7-year-old boy were walking by the front window around the same time.
The woman called police to report the incident.
They arrested him for exhibitionism.
Video, fully clothed, at the link.
H/T Susan for the tip.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Still over half a mil. What’s missing from the snippet on continuing claims is how many persons had their unemployment insurance expire.
(major snippage)
There were more encouraging signs, with the number of people collecting long-term unemployment benefits dropping 98,000 to 5.92 million in the week ended Oct. 10, the latest week for which the data is available.
That was the lowest level since March and it was the first time that continuing claims fell below the 6 million mark since April.
