2010 archive
Meta: Weekend Break 0
The kitchen floor is cleaner than it has been in a month and I’ve finished some computer tweaks I’ve been considering for some time but which required some Googling research.
My timing was pretty good; yesterday, the power was out for six hours, from 9:00 a. till 3:03 p.
Whatever it was, it was a power company thing, not a storm (it was a beautiful day) nor a rogue vehicle.
One amusing side effect: when the power came back on, it reset the sprinklers, which normally go off at midnight. They went off at three and did it again today. (If I had my druthers, there wouldn’t be any sprinklers–they just encourage the grass to want cut.)
Ignoring the idiocy for a few days was relaxing, but it occurs to me that John Cole was correct. If you don’t pay attention to what’s going on as it happens, you will find yourself susceptible to the spit and spin and toxic spills that pass for the political process these days when it comes to decision time–and politics ain’t just a game, though a lot of folks try to game the polity.
It’s stuff that affect lives, such as Wall Street’s three card monte and the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq.
Light Bloggery 0
Taking the weekend off. See you Monday.
Dustbiters 0
This week’s crew of ex-banks is starting to assemble:
If it’s not one not-bank, it’s another:
Twits on Twitter 0
Really, folks, including the authorities, are taking twits far too seriously.
Unfloppable 0
The Philadelphia Inquirer interviews one of the railroad men involved in the incident that inspired Unstoppable, the movie whose relentless onslaught of advertisements has annoyed me so much that I shall probably avoid it (no link provided to the movie because I’m already sick of it).
Aside: I used to work for the railroad. I can tell they phonied up the facts just from the ads.
No real railroader would be heard saying, “I’m starting to like this job.” They may love railroading–the railroad is fun and I miss it–but real railroaders aren’t going to admit that they like their jobs.
They’d rather talk about back pay.
Lacking in the Bushes 0
Bob Barr, who, you may recall, led the move to impeach President Clinton, is not impressed with George the Worst’s memoir.
Many Republicans and conservative talk-show pundits are swooning over Bush’s re-emergence into public life; but it is difficult to grasp why any of them would have nostalgic feelings toward man who largely is responsible for his party’s electoral defeats in 2006 and 2008. What’s more, Bush’s demonstrated contempt for free markets, individual liberty, and the Constitution are counter to what the Republican Party supposedly believes in.
Coming from Barr, the word, “supposedly,” in the last sentence of the excerpt is telling.
Lack of Progress Dept. 0
The distressing thing about this story is not that it might have happened–the courts will figure that out–but that it would surprise no one if it did happen.
Court documents quote a text message by the bar’s general manager as telling a shift supervisor to cease a weeknight promotion that brought in African American customers. “We don’t want black people we are a white bar!” the manager wrote in October, the lawsuit alleges.
Twits on Twitter 0
It should give us pause, on both sides of the Atlantic, how quickly members of the right wing leaps to thoughts, even in jest, of death for those who disagree with them.
Veterans’ Day Reprise (Updated) 0
Shaun Mullen tells the rest of the story of the girl in the photograph.
Addendum:
Link removed. Shaun emailed me that he had to delete the post because it was giving the rest of Kiko’s House the vapors for some reason which he could not figure out.
Computers. Great when they work. Otherwise, otherwise.
Read this one instead.
Lord Mayor of the Flies
1
Ring in the new Hobbesian reality in LaLaLand:
“The city is going to have to contract for police services, period,” Half Moon Bay City Manager Michael Dolder said after an emergency meeting last week at which City Council members contemplated having to cut roughly $1.2 million out of the city’s general fund by June — money they were counting on before voters defeated Measure K, a 1-cent sales tax increase that would have raised as much as $1.4 million for the city each year.
Deficit Reduction Report Report 0
Readers Digest Condensed Books version, courtesy of “Seeing the Forest”:
And the middle class gives up the home mortgage deduction so the rich can get their taxes reduced?
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Locally,
The number of foreclosure auctions and repossessions in the region rose to 1,680 in October, up nearly 5 percent from the previous month and 59 percent from the 1,055 reported a year ago, according to RealtyTrac, a foreclosure-monitoring service based in Irvine, Calif.
Meanwhile, Virginia AG Cuccinelli stops fighting against science he doesn’t like long enough to do some some actual attorney-generalling:
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli alleges the American Neighborhood Housing Foundation – which has offices in Chesapeake and Richmond – violates Virginia’s consumer-protection laws. His office filed a lawsuit last week in Circuit Court.
Veterans’ Day 0
“Because we are already there” is not a reason. It’s a rationalization.
QOTD 0
Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
It does not prove a thing to be right because the majority say it is so.
Crotchrocketeer 0
Episode 1: Liftoff.
Negron zipped past the officer in the northbound lanes and shortly afterward crashed into the back of the SUV at mile post 52.8 in Mantua, police said.
The impact threw Negron through the back of the vehicle’s window and into the rear seat, police said.
A rough landing, but the astronut is recovering,
