2011 archive
QOTD 0
Jim Morrison:
Violence isn’t always evil. What’s evil is the infatuation with violence.
Additional reading here.
The Morning Show 0
Effectively captured by Comically Vintage.
The President’s Weekly Address 0
From the transcript:
Twelve million families will benefit from a $1,000 child tax credit and an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit. Eight million students and families will continue to benefit from a $2,500 tuition tax credit to make college more affordable.
And millions of entrepreneurs in big cities and small towns across the country will benefit not only from the business expensing plan I mentioned, but from additional tax cuts that will spur research and development.
2nd Amendment Remedies, Reprise (Updated) (Updated Again) 0
Delaware Liberal has a timeline of domestic political violence, both committed and exhorted, from 2008 to the present.
The drip-drip-drip has not been so noticeable, but the total accumulation is quite appalling sizeable.
Addendum:
TPM’s Josh Marshall on Countdown with sane and sensible comments:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Addendum-dee-dum-dum:
Michael Tomasky talks sense on the relationship between rhetoric and violence at the Guardian. A nugget:
If buffoons run about for months and months spouting nonsense about “second amendment remedies” and “by force if necessary,” they lose the moral right to be shocked, shocked! shocked! if some fugitive from a looney-bin takes them up on it.
“But I never expected this to happen despite calling for it for the last two years” really doesn’t make it to the rational excuse list.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Polite maybe. Stupid, yes.
Quibble: I don’t think “supervised” is a good word in the first line. How in the world can a 15-year-old be expected to “supervise” a grown-up, even when the younger is plainly the more grown-up of the two?
(snip)
Spano said he offered the micro Uzi because Dr. Charles Bizilj wanted his two sons to shoot an automatic weapon and a regular Uzi the father had picked out was failing to fire in automatic mode.
“I told him it wasn’t a good idea because it shoots fast and kicks hard,’’ said Spano, who was 15 when the shooting occurred.
The story goes on to report that one juror has been dismissed because she could not contain her tears.
Clownstitutionality 0
(I know that this has been amply echoed in the echo chamber, but I really just cannot resist.)
The hollowness of the Republican declaration of loyalty of the Constitution of the United States of America is exceeded only by their ignorance of its provisions.
Sessions and Fitzpatrick sent letters to every member late Friday apologizing for the episode, saying they were deeply committed to “maintaining the integrity of the People’s House.”
In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “What a maroon. What an ignoranamus.”
Afterthought:
Hanlon’s comments seem appropriate. A nugget:
Chucking Finn 0
Clarence Page discusses the recent silly attempt to bowdlerize Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
Twain was a man of his time who rose above his Southern heritage to reject the bigotry and prejudice of his upbringing. And even though the Civil War ended outright slavery when Twain was a young man, explicit and outspoken bigotry, prejudice, and racial oppression were accepted in the public discourse long after Twain’s death.
Page comments:
Young Huck’s moral compass is warped by his drunken, brutal father and the culture in which Huck was raised, as his casual use of the N-word illustrates. Escaping his father, he unexpectedly teams up with the slave Jim. He feels guilty at first about helping his neighbor’s “property” escape. Yet as he gets to know Jim and his desire to rescue his wife and children, the slave becomes a better father figure than the one Huck left behind. To me, the book is that rare classic that I not only praise but still enjoy reading.
Huckleberry Finn, despite the burlesque humor, is a novel of transcendence, of Huck’s realizing that the beliefs he was brought up with were evil.
The discomfort that Huck Finn causes today says more about the persistance of those same beliefs in our society than it does about Twain’s honest confronting of them, counched as it was in the common speech of his time, in the pages of a book.
Seeing Red. Not. 0
Computers are stupid.
They just do what they are told, but they do it really really fast.
If they are operated by incompetents, they automate incompetence.
Case in point (emphasis added):
-
Grandma writes Christmas checks in red ink. Recipients deposit checks at ATM. ATM scan reports checks as blank because scanner is not seeing red. Bank closes account for fraud. Consequently automated payroll deposits are rejected and checks bounce.
No human being ever looks at checks.
Bank branch and customer service claim that they are powerless to fix the problem.
Newspaper intervenes. Between efforts of customer and newspaper, problem is finally resolved in customer’s favor.
Stupid is as stupid does. Q. E. D.
Facebook Frolics 0
According to the story, they were arrested the same day as the Nebraska school shooting.
It’s not a Facebook issue, really.
It’s that the internet is a public place, and these folks don’t know how to behave in public.
When I was a teenager, “Don’t get caught” was one of my primary guidelines.
When Texas Does Silly, It Does Silly Big 0
DFW officials are concerned that arrivals seeing a strip club as they leave airport property would create a bad first impression of Texas.
I’ve been to DFW.
The sight of anything indicating that you are leaving airport property is a welcome sight.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy. Also, Dustbiters. 0
In a blow to the banking industry which sent bank stocks downward, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that, when banks bring cases for foreclosures, actual evidence must be presented:
Wall Street bankers are stunned that what they say may not go and pledge large temper tantrums and whiny-fests until they get their way. Also, campaign contributions.
In other news, the FDIC shut down another bank: First Commercial Bank of Florida, Orlando, Florida. Sources indicate that actual evidence was involved.
Updates when if more banks bite the dust today.
Updated:
Another one bites the dust, leaving behind a legacy of universe-mastery:
Snakes on a Train 1
Life imitates art lavishly produced, badly written, poorly acted, over-the-top B-movies:
The woman became concerned that she could not find Penelope, her pet snake, as the train surfaced between Andrew and JFK/UMass stations. At the stop, the MBTA held the train for about four minutes as T employees helped search the car in which the woman was riding, but Penelope was nowhere to be found.
Penelope is apparently condemned to ride forever ‘neath the streets of Boston.
The Dons of Commerce 0
Bill Shein explains.
Cantor’s Cant (with a Chorus) 0
The larger issue is that Republicans are the used car salesmen of politics. All they are missing are the white belts and shoes.
They’ll say whatever sounds good to make a sale, and no warranties apply.
Shorter Scalia: Women Don’t Count 0
Ann Woolner, writing at Bloomberg, explains. A nugget:
When the Amendment was written, “Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant,” Scalia said.
Here we have a perfect example of what’s so very wrong about so-called originalism, the theory Scalia claims to follow. The idea is that the Constitution should be interpreted according to its authors’ original intent, no changes allowed.
The 14th Amendment wasn’t meant to protect women, religious minorities, ethnic groups, and certainly not homosexuals. Written after the Civil War, its single aim was legal rights for newly freed slaves.
Newly freed MALE slaves, that is.
The leopard reveals his spots.
“Originalism” is to the law what the Laughable Curve is to economics: Fancy dress clothes for sacrificing the public good to the benefit of the privileged.
The Entitlement Society 3
“All these high CEOs and Wall Streeters getting bonuses on our tax dollars and . . . the government coming after public employees saying they’re the . . . cause of this . .”
Screenshot:
At the Guardian, Paul Harris comments on the anti-worker frenzy, pointing out the dipsy-doodle to distract persons from the real culprits:
All that was the work of the finance industry.
If You Buy Next Door to a Pig Farm, Don’t Complain about the Smell 0
Two examples today:
- Rich folks in Philly are trying to shut down a restaurant that has been in operation years longer than the building they occupy has existed.
- Folks in southside Virginia don’t want the Navy to use its airport (which it admittedly hasn’t been using) because they don’t like the sound of planes. Trainees have been flying to Florida to use an airport there (fuel conservation and costs anyone?).
Regarding the former, well, the arrogance of the well-heeled who are such delicate flowers of privilege that they are willing to destroy a popular business and put persons out of work because they are miffed by the sight and sound of the hoi polloi. Words fail me.
Regarding the latter, even though it is true that the military sometimes uses “military necessity” and “training purposes” to excuse lax and improper and even illegal practices (Google “benzene camp lejeune“), but, in this case, I mean, really. It is an airport, for Pete’s sake. It’s there to port air. Grow up.
Aside:
At dinner last night, some of the young whippersnappers revealed that they had never heard a sonic boom. Apparently, there was one in the area about a year ago caused by a natural phenomenon which resulted in a bit of consternation.
Back in the olden days of men of iron and ships of wood titanium, used to hear them all the time.