2012 archive
Stray Thought, Reaganomics Dept. 0
I listen to a lot of Old Time Radio (“old time” in this context means mostly 1940s and early 1950s, not “old time” to me, but, then, I’m old), mostly because it’s fun (see the links in the sidebar).
It reminds one of the days when writers were able to tell a coherent, concise story with a beginning, middle, and end, in half an hour. (This would appear to be a lost art–not just the “beginning, middle, and end” part, but also the “coherent” part).
One of the shows I sometimes indulge in is “Casey, Crime Photographer,” which under various permutations of that name, aired for a decade.
Somewhere in the introduction, the announcer would always say,
The Anchor Hocking Glass Corporation and its 10,000 employees bring you . . . .
You cannot imagine those words today, for, to today’s employers, employees are not partners in production.
Today’s employees are the enemy, to be vanquished, despoiled, and impoverished.
Especially impoverished, so that Wall Street bonus babies can get their bonuses for “cutting costs.”
Just ask Walmart, whose business model is based on exporting jobs to China and abusing employees.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Teabags 1
In the Sacramento Bee, Vanessa Williamson tells of her talks with teabaggers. She found them well-informed about political tactics, but, when it came to actual policy, not so much.
At times, the level of misinformation in tea party circles reached conspiratorial proportions. At a tea party meeting in Massachusetts, people discussed the possibility that the “smart grid” (an electrical infrastructure improvement approximately as controversial as road repair) was in fact a plan that would give the government control over the thermostats in people’s homes. Where are these smart, educated Americans getting such terribly inaccurate information?
Where indeed? Read the rest to find out.
Conventional Wisdom 0
Tampa, Florida, strip clubs gear up for the invasion of Republican Conventioneers.
No doubt the family values of the Republican Party will doom this effort.
Also, pigs, wings.
Web customers pay a monthly membership fee for these virtual interactions. And some of them, the club says, end up coming to Tampa for a trip inside the spaceship-topped nude club on N Dale Mabry Highway where they can visit the strippers in person.
By August — just in time for the Republican National Convention — operators of Club Cam Systems plan to roll out similar ventures at two other Tampa adult clubs. Their goal: drum up thousands of dollars online while giving some of the estimated 50,000 GOP convention visitors a taste of the adult entertainment awaiting them when they arrive.
QOTD 0
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.
Facebook Frolics, Take the Money and Run Dept. 0
A drag on the market. Reducing the IPO hysteria is likely a good thing for investors, if not for banksters. Bloomberg (emphasis added):
(snip)
“We’ve reached a breaking point where sentiment is so negative and scrutiny is so high that companies don’t want to go public and investors aren’t prepared to look at them,” said Sica, who oversees more than $1 billion as chief investment officer of the Morristown, New Jersey-based firm. “You’re talking about long-standing damage to the psyche of companies wanting to go public and investors.”
Long-standing damage to the psyche my anatomy. Fancy way of saying, “OMG we might have to have a product worth investing in.”
The Entitlement Society 0
Robyn Blumner considers the entitlements of one well-known bonus baby. She gives an example of one of his favorite entitlements:
Dade Behring went bankrupt, leaving Main Street creditors empty-handed, but not before Romney’s firm took $242 million out of it. In fact, of Bain’s 10 top business investments that made up 70 percent of the $2.5 billion Bain made for investors, four eventually went bankrupt, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That’s called winning for losing, a game perfected by top 1 percenters.
Follow the link for the rest.
Totally Tubular 0
It all comes down to copper.
Fresh Air looks at the physical infrastructure of the internet, how it works, and how it’s connected. If you use the internet and don’t understand how it works, this would be a good start. It also give you a basis to start separating fact from hype that emanates from the Cyberwar Consortium for Full-Employment of Consultants.
A snippet from the story from the bit about the transoceanic cables:
“They’re about the thickness of a garden hose, and they’re filled with a handful of strands of fiber-optic cable,” he says. “And light goes in one end of the ocean and out the other end of the ocean. And that light is accelerated along its journey by repeaters that look like bluefin tuna underwater.”
Follow the link for the story, the transcript, and the audio.
Droning On, Terminator Dept. 1
At Asia Times, Nick Turse looks to the future Drone Wars. A nugget:
Both Sides Now 0
Sally Kalson examines the recent kerfuffle over Joe Ricketts (grandowner of the Chicago Cubs, may they dwell forever in the cellar that they have made their own) and yet another attempt by the Republican Party to stir up racial animosity. She considers the duplicitous role of PACs. A nugget:
OverOutreach
0
Stephen Colbert analyzes Mitt the Flip’s outreach efforts and enumerates the groups to which he must reach out:
Congratulations, HPR 0
Today, Hacker Public Radio releases episode 1,000.
Help celebrate: Hop over and have a listen. You will certainly find something that interests you (it embraces much more than computers and computing).
Better, contribute a podcast. It’s as easy as making a phone call.
QOTD 0
James Beard, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.
Why Politicians Lie 0
PoliticalProf has some thoughts. A snippet:
I want to suggest that there’s a different, more persuasive account for why politicians lie: They lie because we make them lie. They lie because when they lie, we reward—meaning vote for—them. And when they don’t lie, we punish them—by voting for the other candidate—who, of course, lied to us.
My point can be made in a single, dramatic example, although I am sure that many will resist. In his Democratic presidential nomination acceptance address in 1984, Walter Mondale famously said: “Let’s tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.”
Walter Mondale went on to lose to Ronald Reagan in the greatest electoral college defeat of all time, 525-13. After his reelection, Ronald Reagan raised taxes multiple times, including a massive shift in tax burden from corporations to individuals as a consequence of the 1986 tax reform act.
Read the rest.