2011 archive
Against the Dark Side 0
I’m behind the times, as usual . . . .
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Barack Obama Is Luke Skywalker | ||||
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Cavalcade of Horribles 0
MarketWatch rounds up the 15 most hated companies in the US.
A couple of the ones on the list are companies that I loathe because of having personally experienced consistent lousiness from them (Best Buy and United Air are in that category–I have told my Best Buy story elsewhere in these pages).
BP, Bank of America, and some others made the list for general overall evilness.
A few, such as GM and Dell, are there for past sins. Dell, with which I have had uniformly positive dealings with (I have three Dells right now and have owned at least seven over the years) made the list because of covering up a defective laptop part in the early 2000s.
And, though I grew up Ford (young whippersnappers will have no idea what that means) and it pains me to say thia, my little yellow GMC truck is one damned fine vehicle.
QOTD 2
Isaac Asimov, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
The Keys Were for the Lox 0
Passengers report seeing a suspicious package on a plane. An arrest follows:
Home, Home on Derange 0
Bob Cesca reports.
It’s That Time of Year 0
Dave Barry looks back on 2010. A nugget:
This is not to say that 2010 was all bad. There were bright spots. Three, to be exact:
1. The Yankees did not even get into the World Series.
2. There were several days during which Lindsay Lohan was neither going into, nor getting out of, rehab.
3. Apple released the hugely anticipated iPad, giving iPhone people, at long last, something to fondle with their other hand.
Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Meeting 0
When: Tonight, January 3, 7:00 p. m.
Where:
- Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library (Libris Room)
4100 Virginia Beach Blvd.
Virginia Beach, VA 23452
Afterthought:
There will probably be lots of seating, since Virginia Tech is playing in the Orange Bowl tonight.
Spill Here, Spill Now, Don’t Look Back 0
Facing South reports on the current status of Buccaneer Petroleum’s wild well. Just because it ain’t news doesn’t mean it ain’t still doing damage.
A nugget:
Study of the oil’s fate and its impact on the marine environment will likely continue for months and years to come, but many independent scientists have produced preliminary research seemingly at odds with a rosy government report and official statements in August that said that at least half of the oil released was “completely gone from the system” and the rest was being quickly degraded.
Eight months after the spill, the safety of Gulf seafood is still being debated among toxicologists, some of whom allege that the Food and Drug Administration’s seafood testing process is flawed, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The FDA’s process does not certify that the products tested are free from contamination, but screens for contamination that reaches “levels of concern.” Cancer-causing chemicals found in crude oil have been detected in Gulf seafood, but according to the FDA have been found at levels that the agency considers to be safe.
Remembrance of Things Past (Updated) 0
Haley Barbour may not remember Jim Crow, but Mike Littwin of the Denver Post does.
If you weren’t there or have that new ailment, “amnesia Barbour barbarica, read his reminiscence. A memory from 1962:
When she asked which side I was taking, I said, innocently, “I’m pro-integration.”
“How would your mother like it,” she said, and I find it stunning even today, “if you brought home a little colored girl?”
Afterthought:
Oppression is seldom oppressive to the oppressor.
Addendum:
Shaun Mullen considers those who still don the gray and take to the barricades, though they do it today with pen, not with bayonet. A nugget:
Read the whole thing.
Oh, My, Cell Phone Vapors! 0
David Polk finds cell phones scary:
Second, this obsession is having negative consequences in the workplace. A member of our advisory board for the Center for Professional Excellence tells of interviewing a candidate for a job in his company. During the interview, the candidate’s cell phone rang, and the candidate answered the phone. Upon the completion of the call, the candidate signaled that the interview can continue. Guess who didn’t get the job? Worse, guess who didn’t understand why they didn’t get the job?
I know that persons use cell phones and other gadgets inappropriately and often stupidly. The local rag had an item in their politeness column about some lady who sent texts throughour the evening Christmas service at her church, giving new meaning to “Let your light so shine” (link not available).
But, ya know, it’s not the phones that are being stupid. Let’s not blame the phones.
What the phones (and other iJunk) do is give humans new and creative opportunities to demonstrate human stupid. And human stupid is always with us.
Afterthought:
If I were a hiring manager (or a prospective suitor or otherwise in the market), I would much rather find out that the applicant was a dolt before making the job offer.
QOTD 0
Heinrich Heine, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
The fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the good Lord has not created money enough.
QOTD 0
Rudyard Kipling, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears.
Family Treed 0
Reverse mirror-image regression Oedipus complexities with a high “ick” facto one step removed from being his own grandpa amongst the Gore-Tex heirsr:
Susan Gore went through with the adoption so that each of her three natural children could reap tens of millions of dollars more from a family trust worth hundreds of millions. But she did it without informing her mother, Genevieve W. Gore, Wilbert’s widow and overseer of the trust, or other relatives outside Susan Gore’s immediate branch of the family.
It is a long and bizarre story that illustrates, among other things, the consequences of attempting to micromanage in our bequests events that may take place after we are gone.
Driving While Black . . . 0
. . . and having a diabetic low gets you tasered and beaten in Ohio.
My friend is diabetic. In fact, she had a low today as we were returning from a walk.
A low does not make someone aggressive; it makes him or her disoriented and weak and it impairs thought.
Indeed, behaving aggressively during a diabetic low is pretty much impossible.
Men with guns and tasers using their badges to shield abuse–all too possible.
Warming 0
A week later, most of the snow is gone and what is left is only a couple inches thick, down from a foot.
64 Fahrenheits on New Year’s Day. That is how you say “unseasonable.”
Some pics:
In the middle distance are some crows, but they skedaddled before I could get a good picture. Crows post a watcher at the highest point around; the watcher sounds the alarm if a threat appears. I know from experience that they can tell the difference between me with a rifle and me with a broomstick.
Geese on a pond very pretty walking round (apologies to String Band).
The one on the left was doing somersaults in the water.
Slipping Deadlines 0
I was looking back in this blog’s history for something I linked to a week ago and stumbled over this post referring to someone who believed that the rapture would take place September 21, 2009.
If it did, I missed it.
He’s trying again (I assume it’s a him based on the general ugliness of the website). Now he suspects that we will not make it to February this year.
Have to make another note in my giggle calendar.
Furrfu.