December, 2012 archive
Memento Mori 0
I remember the first funeral I attended.
I was in the tenth grade; one of my classmates, a good friend, had been out driving his new (to him) car. He had run off the road at a bad curve, known locally as “Dead Man’s Curve,” and died from his injuries before he was discovered hours later.
At his funeral, while standing outside the funeral home (the same one where my brother and I made the arrangements for my mother), I heard one grown-up saying to another, “He was just like all the rest of these kids . . . .”
They did not notice that one of the rest of those kids was standing right next to them.
They were heartless, self-centered jerks, bigoted and wrong, sanctimonious and rude, all at the same time.
Same like Mike Huckabee.
The Scrooge Party 0
Mean for the sake of mean–it’s a Republican thing.
The Voter Fraud Fraud 0
Dick Polman shares this nugget:
“A lot of us are campaign officials – or campaign professionals – and we want to do everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that’s voter ID, sometimes we think that’s longer lines – whatever it may be.”
Sex, Lies, and Videotape 0
You can’t make this stuff up.
Dustbiters 0
Just when we were losing faith, another bank fails, restoring our opinion of the wisdom and efficacy of our Galtian overlords.
Bank no more on
It Was a Dark and Stormy Day 0
Wednesday afternoon at North Beach:
The iJunk Chronicles 0
Driving while Black 0
The Florida Times-Union reports officials in the State Attorney’s Office said Thursday they won’t be seeking the death penalty against 46-year-old Michael David Dunn. He was initially charged with second-degree murder.
Dunn is accused of the Nov. 23 shooting death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis.
The brutal truth is this:
I’m certain he never imagined he could be charged for shooting a black kid. After all, it was only a black kid.
As I said, it’s a brutal truth, but I can think of no way to prettify it.
That’s how some folks (still) think in these modern times.
Gun Nut Paradise Approacheth Poste Haste 8
No doubt the NRA will shortly produce a press release informing us that, had the kindergarteners been armed, they would have taken out the shooter.
Via Susie.
News Ripped from the Ticker 0
Wait for the poem at the end.
What Do You Get When You Give Coffee to Someone Who’s Drunk? 0
A: A wide-awake drunk.
Psychology Today helps you prepare for the holidays by explaining why coffee doesn’t sober you up.
Sing a Swan Song for Cool 0
I somehow think that Justin Timberlake was not in mind when this law was passed.
The lawyer, Richard Catalano, 51, challenged the citation and courts repeatedly sided with him. But the state kept appealing.
The final declaration came Thursday, with the high court ruling that the statute is unconstitutional because it prohibits certain forms of speech while permitting others.
Boogieing down with Justin Timberlake.
Oh, my.
Stray Thought 0
I’m so old I can remember when television networks had new Christmas specials every year.
Light Bloggery, Last Day 0
The ceremonies are ceremonied and the family is ungathering.
My mother lies beside her husband of 59 and 11/12 years (almost to the day) and life goes on.
The Compromise-on-the-Budget Myth 1
Jonathan Chait exposes why the “both sides need to give” is a myth and explains why the Republican demands for spending cuts are rooted in ideology, not in any practical problem-solving or analysis.
A nugget:
(snip)
There really isn’t money to be cut everywhere. The United States spends way less money on social services than do other advanced countries, and even that low figure is inflated by our sky-high health-care prices. The retirement benefits to programs like Social Security are quite meager. Public infrastructure is grossly underfunded.