November, 2010 archive
QOTD 0
Margaret Atwood, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.
Afterthought:
When evil and stupidity ally themselves, all bets are off.
Marketing Genius 0
After I got the loaf of garlic bread home (no, not that type of garlic bread–the other type, with honking great chunks of roast garlic mixed right in the dough), I noticed that it had directions:
Preheat oven to 385 degrees. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
What a brainstorm!
Another American half-baked marketing idea: Half-baked bread.
(It was actually pretty good. Half a loaf was better than none, and half a loaf is left over.)
Economics 101 1/2 0
Mike Thompson explains why the GM bailout was a bad idea: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
See the video for the clear explanation.
The Entitlement Society 1
Corporate version:
This corporate giant already receives billions of dollars in government contracts, including $1.8 billion in military work at the Lynn plant. Despite that infusion of taxpayer money, 600 workers were laid off anyway this year.
Last year, GE reported $11 billion in profits on $157 billion in revenue. But the company pays zero federal income tax, because it reported losses on its US operations. It received a $139 billion federal bailout for its GE Capital unit. Now, it wants a state bailout, too.
Really can’t blame GE for trying to milk the system. It stinks, but it’s whatchamaycallit “low hanging fruit.” Politicians have proven themselves pushovers for corporate welfare demands.
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Dick Destiny on Security Theatre 0
No doubt, if this happened, it would lead to TSA-mandated pre-flight enemas all around:
(snip)
The reaction in the United States would be wonderful to watch unfold.
“See what I can make those people do to themselves,” the man would say to his comrades. Merriment all around.
The False God of Reportorial Objectivity 0
Dick Polman comments on the media’s shibboleth of objectivity that manifests itself as dueling talking points. He points out that the storied reporters of the past did not refuse to take stands even as they tried to report the whole story, A nugget:
It was this moment, on camera, in 1954, during his special report on red-baiting smear artist Senator Joe McCarthy: “We will not walk in fear of one another, we will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. If we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular…”
In much reportage, truth lies, not in the facts as events, but in the picture which the facts paint. Those pictures are often abstract and want interpretation.
Be Careful What You Wish for 0
From Southwest Virginia Today:
Follow the link and read the column this introduces.
Voices of the Terrorized 0
The purpose of a terrorism as a tactic is to create fear leading to the breakdown of order and to overreaction in response, thus weakening the polity.
In the cases of Michael Smerconish in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Richard Adams in the Guardian, the tactic has certainly succeeded.
Given that one’s chance of dying in a car wreck are far greater than those of dying in a terrorist attack, one wonders whether they view driving with the same calculation of danger that they apply to travelling by air.
One doubts it.
Afterthought:
Mr. Adams’s analyses are subject to question. According to his column, he considers Charles Krauthammer, whom I find a vitriolic polemicist (and that’s on his good days), to be “sane and rational.”
Spill Here, Spill Now, CSI Dept. 0
The Boston Globe looks as efforts to assess the effects Buccaneer Petroleum’s blow-out:
Scientists know they are seeing a tiny fraction of the damage; most of the harm is believed to have been done offshore and deep in the ocean.
The whole thing is worth a read.
Move Along, Folks, Nothing To See Here 0
Something to do with not being able to see through all the transparency:
Paul Lanteigne got right to work for his new company.
Within days of stepping down as Virginia Beach sheriff in December, he began exchanging e-mails and documents with former subordinates about a multi million-dollar contract that would soon be up for grabs.
Some of the information high-ranking officials in the Sheriff’s Office passed onto their former boss was available to anyone. But some was not, such as drafts of bid specifications for the contract, which Lanteigne received weeks before other competitors, e-mails and other documents obtained by The Virginian-Pilot show.
No laws were broken. According to the story,
Procurement experts interviewed by The Pilot agreed that providing early bid specifications to one company doesn’t violate Virginia law but said it’s not consistent with industry standards and discouraged the practice because it could provide competitive advantage.
er, yeah.
Facebook Frolics Follow-up 0
Means, motive, opportunity BFF–Before Facebook Frolics:
It was the subject of testimony in open court, forgotten, but not a deep dark secret.
Afterthoughts:
Pastors are human also, though we don’t want to a and many of them cannot admit it. Immorality covered with hypocrisy is far worse than the initial immorality. Give me an honest sinner over a pious hypocrite any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
If someone is of a mind to stray, Facebook and similar services are tools of convenience. The mind to stray comes first, the straying comes second.
Down at the Farm 0
The internet connection has been up and down all day.
I’ve had to reset the modem (“reset” is a fancy word for “unplug it, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in”) a dozen times or more today.
The problem is outside the house and seems to affect the whole complex.
The ISP had a repairman here working on the CTV box this afternoon in response to a neighbor’s call that he was having trouble with his HBO and On-Demand services.
If the drivel is interrupted, it will be because the supply line has been interrupted; ample supplies are on hand.
Electoral Democracy, Teabagger Style 0
Teabaggers claim to be all about the voice of the people.
Except, of course, when the people disagree with them.
How High School Athletics Prepare You for Life, TSA Dept. 0
When our high school track and football coach sensed malingering or horseplay, his most common response was to say, “Stop playing grab-ass and get to work.”
Now, in TSA World, playing grab-ass is work.
About Face 0
Andrew Murray considers the War in Afghanistan and concludes that it has become all about face–saving face. A nugget:
That may seem scary. But then it is the same world order that gave us the crash of 2008. Poverty, unemployment and eye-watering cuts are the down-payment the British people are being asked to pay for its maintenance. Afghan and Pakistani civilians are paying a still higher price.
Another way of putting it would be to say, as my mother used to say when she tired of my questions, we’re still there, well, just because.
