June, 2011 archive
Up a Tree (Updated) 0
Via Tri-Cities dot com.
Addendum, the Next Day:
The headline was cute, but wrong. The cat wasn’t feisty. The cat was frightened.
North Carolina Is Burning 0
The smell was really heavy yesterday and this morning:
This peat fire that started on May 5. It could burn for months.
Strange Barmates 0
Last Friday’s Fresh Air explored the history of Prohibition.
A confluence of twisted events led to the passage of the Volstead Act. A tidbit, from the transcript:
Mr. OKRENT: Well, going back as far as the Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s and then the beer tax that was brought in during the Civil War to finance the Civil War, the federal government had been dependent upon the excise tax on alcohol to operate.
In some years, domestic revenue, as much as 50 percent of it came from excise taxes. So the Prohibitionists realized that they couldn’t get rid of liquor so long as the federal government was dependent upon liquor to get its revenue and to operate. So they supported the income tax movement, and in exchange, many of the populists who were behind the income tax movement supported Prohibition.
In 1913, the 16th Amendment is passed. The income tax comes in. The federal government has another means of supporting itself. And at that point, the Prohibitionists who had been operating state by state by state decided we can now have an amendment to the federal Constitution because the government is no longer dependent. There’s another source of revenue.
Also, the state of Maryland had an official state bootlegger.
Follow the link to listen to the show or read the transcript. It’s worth it.
We Need Single Payer 0
We are headed to a society with three classes: the insurance executive bonus babies, the insured, and the dying.
Even the low-income children who were not rejected had to wait an average of 42 days for appointments for urgent conditions such as diabetes, seizures, asthma, or a bone fracture – 22 days longer on average than children with private insurance.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Still over 400k:
Further declines in dismissals followed by gains in hiring would help sustain consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. While payrolls have been climbing, a jobless rate above 9 percent underscores the need for a pickup in employment that will spur an expansion entering its third year.
As Dick Destiny has repeatedly pointed out, as in this post, trying to prosper on consumption without creation is a fool’s game.
Road Hazards 0
Back in my younger days, I had a friend who hacked in Northern Virginia and D. C. for several years.
While he was hacking, he had only one accident. He was driving his personal car; a cab owned by a rival cab company (both companies were owned by the same person) ran a light and broadsided his car.
Driving a cab can be a pita, but he did not encounter anything like this:
She was unhappy that the driver did not permit food in his cab, so she divested herself of it.
Missing the Point 0
It is most distressing that those who most loudly wave the Bible in public are those who least understand what “God of Love” means.
QOTD 0
Elbert Hubbard:
Christianity supplies a Hell for the people who disagree with you and a Heaven for your friends.
The Candidates Debate 0
Chancey DeVega has an penetrating, acerbic review of the Teabagger circus Republican debate in New Hamphire the other evening. I commend it to your attention.
A nugget:
“The Truth Shall Set You Free” 0
But Republicans think you can’t handle the truth.
Conflicts of Interest 0
Noz asks the question:
(snip)
if they really believe that’s the case, then a heterosexual judge also has an interest in the outcome of the case. the same argument they are using to disqualify judge walker because he is homosexual could be used to disqualify any heterosexual judge. so who does that leave to hear the case?
The answer is clear.
Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Third Thursday Dinner 0
- What: Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Third Thursday Dinner
- When: June 16th, 6:00 PM
- Where: Kelly’s Hilltop Tavern, 1936 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 (map), in the nonsmoking section.
This week, there is a guest speaker:
-
Adrianne Bennett, candidate for the House of Delegates 21st District, running against Republican Ron Villanueva
Show up, order off the menu (separate checks), socialize, and talk politics–or whatever else interests you.
See the website for more information.
Brendan Makes a Phone Call . . . 0
. . . and it’s a doozy.
Facebook Frolics, Creepy Guy Next Door Dept. 0
At the Chicago Trib, Mary Schmich considers Facebook and concludes that it’s getting more and more like that guy who sits too close to you one subway. A nugget:
I go to my neighborhood coffeehouse and on the chalkboard out front someone has sketched the F box with the plea: Find us on Facebook!
When I look up a word, the online dictionary instantly prompts me to “share” it on my Facebook wall.
I buy shoes online, and the seller wants me to “share” my size and style with my Facebook entourage.
Driving while White 0
Donvite explains what that means. A nugget:
2 times in the past year I got out of a ticket. I no longer worry about what I’m doing wrong when I drive. I’m white.
QOTD 0
Dorothy L. Sayers, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.
Twits on Twitter 0
Memory Lane 0
Running spyware and malware scans on my Windows 7 box.
Something that is not part of day-to-day life in my Linux world.