July, 2012 archive
A11 Ur Dronz R Be1onz 2 Us 6
Drones hacked and pwned.
The Rich Are Different from You and Me 1
They are used to getting away with stuff. Bloomberg comments on LIBOR:
Sadly, the Libor case reveals something rotten in today’s banking culture. We hope the investigations expose the bad actors, lead to jail terms for those who knowingly manipulated the market, and force out the senior managers and board directors who participated in, or overlooked, such conduct.
Why so exercised? In the Barclays settlement documents, regulators released smoking-gun e-mails that reveal the extent of the dirty dealing between bank traders (looking to protect profits and bonuses) and senior officials in bank treasury units (hoping to convince markets that their banks weren’t in financial difficulty). The two aren’t supposed to collude, but it’s obvious that the Chinese walls between them come with ladders.
The Agony of Defeat 0
I have not wasted time and effort theorizing about internal motives of Supreme Court justices in their rulings. They are unfathomable and irrelevant.
It’s the rulings that count.
Nevertheless, the discomfiture of wingnut world at what they see as Chief Justice Roberts’s apostasy is rather delicious.
Droning On, Driving while Brown Dept. 0
From the website:
The US Department of Homeland Security has already spent $240 million on the drone project for the US Border Patrol. Each predator drone costs $18 million to build and can run $3,200 per hour just to fly. So are flying robots in the sky effective for patrolling America’s borders? Trevor Timm, activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, gives us his take.
It’s all about alternative markets, folks.
Summer Movies 2
If your Republican friends don’t know which movies to see this summer, Contradict Me has a list for their viewing pleasure.
Change We Can Believe In . . . 0
. . . because we see the evidence every day. A snippet from a column about the Affordable Care Act decision, by Robyn Blumner (emphasis added):
If Romney hadn’t decided that he wants the presidency more than personal integrity, he might have savored the victory for a program modeled after the one he helped establish in Massachusetts as governor — with an individual mandate.
Vacated Senses 0
From an article about the travel tribulations of midweek holidays, such as this week’s Fourth:
I doubt that “confused” is the correct word, and I doubt that persons considering whether and how to take time off this week appreciate being described as “confused” by some suit in a suite.
The Zombie (Lie) Apocalypse 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr, considers zombie lies of the right wing. A nugget:
That is the lesson of the birthers and truthers, of Sen. Jon Kyl’s “not intended to be a factual statement” about Planned Parenthood, of Glenn Beck’s claim that conservatives founded the Civil Rights Movement, and of pretty much every word Michele Bachmann says. It seems that not only are facts no longer important, but they are not even the point.
Rather, the point is the construction and maintenance of an alternate narrative designed to enhance and exploit the receiver’s fears, his or her sense of prerogatives, entitlement, propriety and morality under siege from outside forces.
He goes on to look at what the right wing’s imperviousness to truth implies; it’s not pretty.
The facts lean left.
That’s why the right needs lies.
Read the rest.
Comment Rescue, the Mitt the Flip Back the Glass Game 0
From George Smith, reacting to this post:
Someone should suggest a fun game to the press, drink a shot every time Mitt Romney lies. First reporter to be arrested for DUI while following the Romney tour bus, wins.
Stormy Weather 0
The local rag has posted some pictures of the lightning show last night.
We were asleep at the time.
Light Bloggery 0
Break time.