2012 archive
Maddow: “Virginia Has Been Weird All Year” 0
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Lost in a Lost World 0
In the Guardian, Michael Cohen compares the two recent political conventions and what they might indicate about the parties. A nugget:
If their three-day convention in Tampa is any indication, Republicans reside in a fantasy world where government plays no role but that of malevolence, where the free market is the salvation to all that ails this nation and where the country is locked in a Manichaean struggle between the forces of freedom and a failed, socialist interloper named Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, Gary Younge wonders whether that bell you hear is finally tolling for the odious Southern strategy:
Follow the links. Read them both.
The Spousal Approval Factor 0
Daniel Ruth wonders why all the fuss about the wives of presidential candidates. A snippet:
Giving Her Ex the Bird 0
The bird allegedly aimed the invectives at the neighbors, who happen to be Taylor’s ex-husband and his girlfriend.
Reminds me of the pastor who was willed a parrot by one of his flock, an reformed pirate. To the embarrassment of the pastor, the parrot swore, well, like a sailor. He was bemoaning this at Sunday school one day when a lady said, “I have a parrot and all she does is pray all day. Maybe we should introduce them.”
The pastor agreed and arranged a visit.
As soon as he saw the lady’s parrot, the minister’s parrot whistled and said, “Hey, Baby, let’s get it on!”
Wait for it.
School Daze 1
The reason is so far unknown, but the influence of foreign substances has been ruled out.
I’m betting it has something to do with the laptop on the console.
School Principal Deboy Beamon said he received a call about the wreck at 2 a.m. When he arrived he found a patrol cruiser parked in an assistant principal’s office.
Follow the link. The picture is a hoot.
Barn Yesterday 2
We used to see these all along the road when we would go visit my grandmother in South Carolina in the 50s and 60s.
Now they are going away.
Now the barns are vanishing from the landscape. Made obsolete by bulk-curing methods in the 1970s, many have fallen into disrepair. If you look closely, you can still see them by the roadside, being consumed by kudzu, sliding into a slow sideways collapse, or crushed under fallen trees.
“Catherine Bishir called them one of the most rapidly diminishing historic resources in the state,” says Benjamin Briggs, executive director of Preservation Greensboro . Bisher is a co-author of “A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina.”
I treasure history. I trained as an historian. One of the afflictions which afflicts us, as afflictions are wont to do, is the cultural inability to the remember further back than last week. It allows con artists and flim-flam men to ply their trade.
Nevertheless, I question the belief of some that, just because something is old, falling down, and useless, it transforms ipso facto into an “historic resource.”
Facebook Frolics 0
Facebook never deletes anything. They may remove it from view, but it’s there somewhere in the Faceborg.
Police are investigating “the deleting of information” and believe access to the account “may reveal information related to Defendant’s pre-murder behavior, associations, and activities as well as post murder behavior and conversations,” the warrant said.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
A crew broke into Alvin and Pat Tjosaas’ desert home and took everything after being directed by Wells Fargo to secure the structure.
The couple, however, didn’t have a mortgage on the home.
Via Atrios, who points out that, if you or I did this, we’d be in jail, whereas banksters are different from you and me.
Facebook Frolics, Airplane Dept. 0
He called the airport alleging that the person who supplanted him in his ex-girlfriend’s affections was packing explosives.
Said rival completed his trip and promptly got pinched over some outstanding warrants.
A Flame for the Ages 0
This is the most magnificent flame I have ever read. I’ve written some great flames, especially back on the old AOL STA message board, but this surpasses my best work.
Even better, it was sent to a bigoted gay-bashing Maryland state legislator by an NFL player who does not fear speaking out.
Via Balloon Juice.
“I Got Mine” 0
Jason 330 explains Republicanism.
Twits on Twitter 0
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
Facebook Frolics, Blinded by the Hype 0
Mark Cuban, who is rich because he knew when to get out of the dot-com bubble, says wasn’t suckered in Facebook stock. Instead, he zucked himself.
(snip)
(Blomberg’s Jonathan Wiel comments–ed.) In spite of the shareholder lawsuits filed against Facebook, I have seen no indication that the company’s executives lied to the public about its performance or prospects. Facebook’s prospectus warned about the risks. The decline in Facebook’s rate of revenue growth shouldn’t have surprised anyone. In 2010, sales grew 154 percent. In 2011, they rose 88 percent. By the first quarter of this year, the year- over-year rate was 45 percent. Last quarter, Facebook’s first as a public company, it was down to 32 percent.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
I am confident that there was no misconduct here. It was merely an attempt to spread politeness:
As the twig is bent and all that, eh, what.