December, 2009 archive
Not What You They Told You 0
Daniel Burke of the Religion News Service on contemporary conceptions of Christmas vs. the Bible:
Centuries of Christmas carols, creches and pageants—among countless other works of art—have ensconced this scene in the heart of the Nativity for generations of Christians. But the Bible doesn’t.
Read the whole thing.
(Even the most superficial reading of the Christian Bible puts the Wise Men’s arrival about two years after the birth.)
Criticality 0
Because the job market for persons with resumes of failure is so tight.
It’s like the football coach carousel. They lose somewhere, move on (to spend more time with their families, no doubt), and other teams pick them up and give them raises. Twenty years of this, and they get inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Kenneth Feinberg approved a deferred stock grant valued at $3.26 million and an annual long-term incentive award of as much as $1 million, according to a letter today to AIG released by the Treasury Department. The employee, who wasn’t identified in the letter, gets a $450,000 cash salary. The recipient is one of AIG’s top 25 managers and isn’t Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche, a Treasury official said.
Swampwater 0
Return of the Swamp Thang:
The underlying issue is that, after years of “privatizing” military functions, such as policing, quartermastering (?), and the like, the military does not have enough people to do what needs to be done. This produced an appearance of restraint in defense spending, but no savings, as mercenaries, who are loyal to whoever signs their paycheck, took up the slack.
It was also a great strategy for hiding the actual costs of military operations, since expenditures for the mercenaries are hidden in various line items in the budgets for numerous departments, including State and the CIA, while shoveling money out the back door into the swamp, as it were, and saving nothing.
This is another example of bad (Republican) policy leading to disastrous results, with which we are now stuck.
Lock. Load. Shoot Foot. 0
I get mail:
The Senate’s health care bill must be killed.
It is an ungodly mess of errors, loopholes, and massive giveaways. When the American people find out what’s actually in this bill, they will revolt. Congress and President Obama have no choice but to do better for health care than this bill.
It goes on to list all the ways in which the Senate bill is not perfect, and there are many. (The full text of the email is below the fold).
All or nothing never won a battle, and this is just one battle. All or nothing (“unconditional surrender”) has won wars, but not battles.
This is the Senate bill, not the final bill; the conference committee still awaits. The odds are that the final bill won’t be much better, but, if the Senate bill is killed, nothing else will get done for the next 20 years. Killing it won’t lead to improvements; it will lead, instead, to two more decades of nothing.
It is very difficult to disenfranchise folks once they have been enfranchised. If a health care bill passes, it will enfranchise millions of persons with health care, lame though it may be. The next battle will be about improving it, not about junking it.
Ideologues are great for bringing issues forward; they aren’t very good at getting bills passed (at least not progressive ideologues; right-wing ideologues seem to have had a field day the past decade) because they tend to put purity above feasibility–that works great for engineering soap, but it doesn’t mean much in politics.
“No Religious Test . . .” 0
Except:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Of course, the option “to affirm,” rather than “to swear,” was included because a number of religious sects and denominations (most notably Quakers, are against “swearing” an oath.
Via The Daily Dish.
Twits on Twitter 1
’nuff said:
Hey East Coasters! Any teabaggers out in the streets to stop the Socialist snow removal trucks?
Meanwhile, snow storms have a way of highlighting stupid.
Twitter via the News-Journal. Dither via Eschaton.
We Need Single Payer 0
From Eschaton, a reminder:
But anything would be better than what we’ve got (unless your business model is based on denying health insurance claims).
Weather News 1
You snow it’s snowing hard when this happens.
In other news, I called my brother in Delaware on the telly phone to tell him about hard it’s been raining in Virginia Beach.
The Fee Hand of the Market, Contraindications Dept. 0
It is telling that the possibility that the Masters of the Universe might be required to behave responsibly sends share prices down:
The same thing happened to shares in Jesse James Enterprises, Inc., when Jesse got regulated caught.
Dustbiters 0
I get an early night, sleep a good ten hours, and wake up to seven fewer banks. From the too-small-to-be-bailed dept.:
- First Federal Bank of California, Santa Monica, California
Imperial Capital Bank, La Jolla, California
Independent Bankers Bank, Springfield, Illinois
New South Federal Savings Bank, Irondale, Alabama
Citizens State Bank, New Baltimore, Michigan
They shoulda stuck to giving away toasters to get business.
It Was Never about Football 0
If you want to look at half-clothed women, that’s fine with me.
But don’t pretend it has anything to do with athletic prowess.
Give me an honest lech over a hypocrite any day of the week and twice on Sunday–especially twice on Sunday.
Sauce for the Gander 1
The article in the newspaper Al Masry Al Youm was written by a female Saudi journalist, Nadine al-Bedair.
It has been denounced by some Muslim clerics as inflammatory and anti-Islamic.
But others have said it serves the purpose of highlighting how badly some husbands treat their wives.
One spouse is so damned much trouble why would anyone want etc.
QOTD 1
This says a lot about the continued viability of the Republican Party.
Steven Spielberg, via that Quotemaster:
The public has an appetite for anything about imagination – anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible.
Kooks and Liars 0
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Highway to Health – Last Tea Party Protest of the Year | ||||
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Coin of the unRealm? 0
The coins have not been authenticated. The story goes on to say
The U.S. Hobby Protection Act, first enacted in the early 1970s, requires that replica coins — a popular novelty item — be marked with the word “COPY” on the surface of the coin, Tiso said.
“The coin has to say ‘copy,’ otherwise it’s illegal,” said Tiso, the president of G.R. Tiso Numismatics, who explained that it’s a violation of U.S. federal law to sell unmarked replicas.
If only persons had inspected credit default swaps and “securitized” debt futures as thoroughly.
It occurs to me that, with the coins, at least there’s something to inspect.
