November, 2010 archive
QOTD 0
Charlie Chan, in The Black Camel:
Obnoxious Rich Person: You need a lie detector.
Chan: Lie detector?
Obnoxious Rich Person: Yes, a device which can tell instantly whether someone is lying.
Chan: Oh. You mean wife. Already have one.
Stray Thought 0
The amount of food that some persons manage to pile on their plates at an all-you-can-eat buffet, where you can go back for seconds and thirds and fourths if you can still walk, is truly astounding.
Were the same ingenuity applied to global warming, the problem would be licked by Tuesday afternoon.
Thanks for the Mythologies 1
A few days ago, I was unlucky enough to catch about two minutes of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, the scene in which the colonists and the Indians are carrying their foodstuffs to the feast.
What a charming scene.
What is missing from the American myth of the first Thanksgiving. (Which actually took place in Virginia even before the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth Bay, having missed their intended destination, Virginia, by some 800 miles. Probably just as well: in those days, Virginians had little patience with stern absolutists determined to impose their religion on others. These days folks like that get elected attorney-general, but I digress . . . .)
. . . anyhoo, what is missing is any recognition that, for the next three centuries, the colonists and their descendants occupied themselves with assiduously attempting to swindle, pillage, expel, and exterminate American Indians.
Shaun Mullen also seems to have some mixed feelings, not so much about then as about now.
QOTD 0
Thanksgiving has become a day for family.
George Carlin:
The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.
Blue Fright Special 0
I just heard on my telly vision that KMart is open on Thanksgiving Day.
To misquote Patrick Henry,
Men cry Peace! Peace! But there is no peace.
There is only pence. And we want your pence!
Stray Thought 0
It’s been quite a gas watching the right wing rediscover another outrage that they can use as another junk you will pardon the expression talking point civil liberties as they cry crocodile tears over TSA searches, given that fomenting fear has been one of their major campaign strategies since the Red Scare of 1918.
No doubt they’re all going to join me in supporting the ACLU now.
Next up:
An AFV competition:
-
How many pigs can fly while this leopard changes its spots?
Them What Hasn’t 0
Robert Kuttner, writing in the Boston Globe, slices and dices the current wailing and gnashing of shears over the deficit, pointing out that the solution is in feeding the economy, not in starving the citizenry. Here are his main points; follow the link for the full argument (emphasis added):
There are three huge flaws in the austerity program.
- First, in a deep and prolonged slump, the economy needs more public outlay, not less, to make up for a paralyzed private economy.
(snip)
- The second flaw is the timing and composition of the proposed deficit reduction plan.
(snip)
Everything is supposed to be on the table, but repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is not part of the proposed package. Nor are other notable increases in taxation of the best-off. Two thirds of the deficit-reduction would come from cuts in spending, and the proposed revenue increases would mostly hit the middle class.
- A third flaw is the inclusion of Social Security cuts. Social Security has nothing to do with the current deficit, and is in surplus for the next 27 years.
The underlying principle of the plan seems to be that those who should sacrifice the most is them what hasn’t.
Humpty Dumpty History 0
Jonathan Zimmerman discusses Confederate Revisionism in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Confederate Revision: that’s the attempt to whitewash slavery out of the causes of the Civil War.
Haven’t Been There Didn’t Do That 0
As a matter of policy, it makes sense, possible fantasies about some Manchurian passenger to the contrary notwithstanding.
As a matter of practicality, it might help explain why some don’t understand the restiveness about the institutionalized indignity of some TSA practices.
Back when the TSA first took over airport security, I was averaging more than one business trip a month, almost all by air. At Philadelphia, TSA was a significant improvement over the Wackenhut rent-a-searchers that they replaced: more polite, more efficient, more professional.
But, as my Freshman roommate once said about some of the senior class ROTC officers in his unit, “Give some persons a flat hat and they think they rule the world.”
Hints from Helen 0
Thanksgiving gathering guidelines from Helen Philpot. My favorite:
The digital era has made it too easy to take way too many useless pictures.
Honestly, persons fill up their hard drives with digital pictures that they will never look at again. The point of taking lots of pictures is to find one good one, not to keep them all.
Read the rest at the link.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Another early release of the numbers because of a holiday. Bloomberg:
Fewer firings lay the groundwork for a pickup in job creation that will generate incomes and spur consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. Even with companies firing fewer workers, unemployment will be slow to decline, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest forecast in which policy makers also lowered their growth projections.
Hirings for greeters for Christmas shopping season continues to climb.
QOTD 0
Jonathan Swift, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Lord, I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing!
Facebook Frolics 0
John C. Dvorak:
Follow the link to find out why he thinks so.
Afterthought:
I think he has a point. Facebook too shall pass.
Via GNC.
Republican Economic Theory Theory 0
An interesting speculation on why they don’t care about the national debt.
If you think that Republicans care because they say they claim to, remember what your Mama used to warn you: “Watch what they do, not what they say.”
Click the chart to be linked to its explanation.
On to the theory:
