September, 2012 archive
Spill Here, Spill Now 0
Gross negligence:
Is It Safe To Come Out Now? 0
Are the political conventions over?
QOTD 0
Neil de Grasse Tyson:
The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.
Sauce for the Goose 0
Republicans and some members of the punditocracy are starting to moan that those big bad Democrats are being “uncivil.”
It seems to me that, often, when someone is losing on the facts, he or she then starts to moan about “civility.”
Bob Cesca’s not having it:
Click to read the rest.
iSay What uSee 2
The ACLU does not think much of Apple’s iJunk iNanny.
A nugget; much more at the link:
(snip)
An app providing a stream of basic information about the conduct of a policy that is the subject of current public debate would seem as American as, uh, apple pie.
Of course, Apple is a private company not covered by the First Amendment, and the App Store is not a public forum. In fact, Apple is arguably like the New York Times, with a right to pick and choose what it “publishes.”
But aside from what Apple has the right to do, you have to wonder how many of its customers say to themselves, “wow, I got a new iPhone, oh boy, now I can access all the information in the world that Apple allows to filter into my new device because nobody finds it objectionable!”
Endless War 0
It’s a bipartisan problem.
I will point out, though, that it’s the Republicans who want yet another war.
Excerpt from Robert Greenwald in the interview:
The pundits who welcomed this war, many who welcomed the Iraq war . . . , how many times must they be wrong for us to say, “Stop . . . .”
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
A little better. Reuters:
It was the first drop in new claims since the week that ended August 4 and the lowest level since then as well.
(snip)
However, the four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of labor market trends, edged up to 371,250.
Aside, He Grumped:
I also looked at the Bloomberg story and could not understand what they were trying to say. The item started with (emphasis added):
The fewest what in a month since when?
Bloomberg could help the situation by dropping a couple of its “experts,” all of whom likely have day jobs, and hiring a copy editor or two.
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Join us tonight.
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.
What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)
When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, September 6.
Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)
Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)
Facts Are Inconvenient Things . . . 0
. . . for Republicans. Steve Benen reminds us
Then the Bush/Cheney era happened. Republicans took a massive surplus and turned it into an even more massive deficit, adding the costs of two wars, two tax cuts, Medicare expansion, and a Wall Street bailout to the national charge card.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) later referred to the Bush/Cheney era as a time in which Republicans decided “it was standard practice not to pay for things.” In just eight years, GOP policymakers added $5 trillion to the debt in eight years.
As Driftglass pointed out in this weekend’s podcast, one party lives in a world of facts and of cause and effect.
The other party–well, their convention was last week.
Republican magickal fanstastickal thinking accounts for the ability of Paul Ryan to give a speech so fanciful that even the establishment press could not ignore the fabrications, even as his fellow Republicans acclaimed them as tablets from the mount.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
A Surfeit of Politeness: A Philadelphia Daily News editor visits the gun room, where guns used in crimes are stored, of the Philadelphia Police Department.
Read the rest.
