2011 archive
Happy St. Patrick’s Day 0
Internet Zombie Drones 0
Automating FUD. This is not good.
From the Guardian:
A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Back under 400k. Appears to be a very anemic slightly positive trend:
Fewer firings along with increased hiring and a lower unemployment rate may help lift household spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. Federal Reserve policy makers this week said the expansion is getting stronger and the labor market is “improving gradually.”
Let the Poor Man Be 0
It’s bad enough to be in the middle of a family dispute when you are still alive, but this is ridiculous.
QOTD 0
James Madison, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
In framing a system, which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce.
Aside:
So much for originalism.
NFL Luck Out 0
Sure, the players are paid a lot of money–well, a few of them are (most of them aren’t in terms to the toll the game takes on them when the average career is less than four years).
It is difficult to support the owners, who are all have-cake-eat-too.
When the owners asked taxpayers around the country for hundreds of millions of dollars for new stadiums, some of you objected, and some owners had to pick up some of the cost. That has left them nearly broke and able to pay the average quarterback only $10 million a season.
At least we think they’re nearly broke. The owners refused to show their finances to the players, just as they refused to share them with taxpayers. They are, after all, private businesses. Except when they aren’t, like when they demand tax subsidies disguised as “public-private partnerships.”
If you consider yourself a pro football fan and give a darn about the lock-out. follow the link.
Oh Noes 0
The leak, which includes correspondence between staff at BoA subsidiary Balboa Insurance, details plans to delete sensitive documents.
Possible impropriety at a bank.
In other news, salt is salty.
Coming up, water is wet.
Twits on Twitter 0
Warning: Mild Language (but it’s worth it).
Ed-olution 0
Ed Schultz, of The Ed Show, is from these parts and was back visiting over the weekend, so the local rag profiled him. It was interesting.
Here’s bit of it:
(snip)
The shift came in the mid- to late ’90s, when his radio show was based in Fargo, N.D.
“I was taking my show on the road and going into rural America and seeing some infrastructure that was crucial to the country starting to crumble,” he said. “I found myself aligning with what the Democrats were trying to accomplish.”Schultz said the conservatives’ recent “radical and discriminatory attacks” on public education and teachers’ unions hit home. His mother, Mary Schultz, was an English teacher at Granby High School; his father, George, was an aeronautical engineer for the government. Schultz, the youngest of five children, described his life in Norfolk as “very typical and very middle-class.” Education was paramount.
“We’ve had multiple generations of success with public education,” said Schultz, a 1977 graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead, which he attended on a football scholarship. “But all of a sudden, the conservatives have decided to target public education, and I struggle with that whole premise.”
(Micro)Twits on Twitter 0
Bing! Bang! Busted!
On! Wisconsin (Updated) 0
Consolidating the coup:
Republican Scott Fitzgerald saThe state Senate majority leader says votes by Democrats don’t count in committee because they remain in contempt.
Addendum, the Next Day:
The Republican Politburo has apparently decided that enforcing one-party rule was a bad PR move.
Driving while Brown 0
Truly classy, these Republicans. Right out of this week’s episode of CSI: Miami.*
According to the story, he said later, “I was just speaking like a southeast Kansas person.” Says something about southeast Kansas if he’s accurate.
You can hear him be classy at the link.
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*Yes, I know that CSI: Miami is one of the most over-the-top, melodramatic, poorly acted pieces of science fiction on the telly vision, but it has a certain unapologetic campy flair.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Foreclosures feed the market in my area:
Gotta make those sales.