8.28.2010
Don't hold your breath
Op-Ed Columnist - Gail Collins - Fixing Social Security - NYTimes.com
Some experts, including people in the administration, believe that Congress should raise the age at which people can retire on full Social Security benefits, which is currently 66 and will rise to 67 for younger workers. Personally, I will be happy to rally around this idea the very second that the White House announces there is a large pool of job opportunities for unemployed 60-year-olds that are going begging.
8.27.2010
Wait, you didn't really think...
President Obama’s vacation is par for the course - BostonHerald.com
OAK BLUFFS - President Obama declared yesterday Women’s Equality Day, then went golfing with three men.
...no. You did? Seriously?
(Emphasis from the original.)
And this is somehow news?
Former FEMA head: Gov't didn't tell all on Katrina - Boston.com
Former Federal Emergency Management agency director Mike Brown tells NBC's "Today" show "there was a disconnect" about what the Bush administration was saying about the situation, and how bad things actually were.
Get-friggin'-organized software makes me nutso craZy, it does
See? I've just spent almost an entire morning trying to get so-called organized and I'm worse off than I was before. Come on. I'm age challenged and even I can remember what I have to do today. Mostly. More or less. So why isn't that good enough? I had a professor once who said, "I leave a great deal to unfinished business," and I took it to heart.
Even when I was working and actually, you know, doing things I could never use that stuff - the software, and before that those little get-organized notebooks everybody used to carry around. I figured it was more work to get organized than it was to get done.
Anyway, most of what I forget didn't really need doing anyway.
And stick to your ribs, too
McDonald’s Hamburgers: Almost Entirely Indestructible -- Grub Street New York
In the name of both art and science, New York photographer Sally Davies decided to buy a hamburger happy meal from McDonald's, set it out on a table, and take a picture of it every day until it disintegrated. That was 137 days ago and the end is nowhere near...
When geeks get left alone in the kitchen
Cooking hot dogs via electrocution - Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
[Disclaimerzilla: While we could give you lots of warnings about all the different dangers involved and how to possibly skirt them, the simple truth is that this just isn't safe. If you are foolish enough to attempt this, you will have to deal with pointy things, raw electricity out of the wall, hot steam, and the possibility of fire. If that isn't enough, and you succeed, you are still faced with the possibility of having to eat a hot dog. In summary: do not, under any circumstances, cook hot dogs this way.]
8.26.2010
No, Bunky, there is nothing like Chicago politics
Clout St: Brown 'Jeans Day' program lacked proper controls, record keeping
An inspector general's report on a "Jeans Day" program in Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown's office needs better financial controls and record keeping.
Brown today released a statement saying she would not resume the program, which allowed workers to wear jeans to work if they paid a small fee...
I've been meaning to take this picture all summer
We had a very big wind storm earlier in the summer - June, I think - and it blew a lot of tree branches and even whole trees down. This one in the cemetery was by far the biggest I saw and while the other debris around town was cleaned up in a week or so this tree is still right there. I have no idea how they're going to get rid of it - it's way too big for any chain saw I ever saw and probably too big to be lifted out whole, at least by any easily available equipment. If they do remove it, it's going to cost a bundle to have it done. Or maybe they just intend to leave it there.
Ahhh, when spies were spies
UK declassifies file on blonde Nazi ballerina spy | Raw Story
A former ballerina, Marina Lee was said to have naturally light blonde hair and to speak several languages, and a page in her security service dossier made note of intelligence passed on by the French: Very nice legs.
You can't tell the players without a scorecard
Op-Ed Columnist - The Trends of August - NYTimes.com
...the Republican establishment is in identity denial. John Boehner is vowing that if his party wins a majority in the House, he will run things differently than either Nancy Pelosi or her Republican predecessor, the evil dictator John Boehner. And of course, Senator John McCain just notched up a triumph in Arizona, running against Senator John McCain.
(Noted by our Midwest bureau.)
And for extra points see Timothy Egan's "Building a Nation of Know-Nothings."
Privacy: Unreasonable
The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS - TIME
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.
8.25.2010
I'm not kidding this time: The end of the world is here
Ochocinco tweets apology for in-game tweeting - Yahoo! News
The Cincinnati Bengals receiver was fined $25,000 on Tuesday for violating the NFL's restrictions on posting to social media sites before, during and after games.
Tweeting? Really? Tweeting?
Hoosiers, or maybe not
Illinois Tollway to go after Hoosiers for unpaid tolls, fines - chicagotribune.com
The Illinois Tollway has targeted about 116,000 Indiana motorists who owe an estimated $7 million in unpaid tolls and fines due to a two-year lapse in issuing violation notices....
The problem started in May 2008 when the tollway and its contractor, Texas-based Electronic Transaction Consultants Corp., turned off the system for issuing violation notices to Indiana motorists, officials said Tuesday.
8.24.2010
Noted
UNDERNEWS: BANK CREDIT CARD USURY CLIMBS AGAIN
Progressive Review - One of the interesting things about usury - a topic neither politicians nor the archaic media wish to discuss - is that the Bible is far more critical of it than it is, say, of gay marriage, abortion or Muslim mosques....
Indeed
WikiLeaks Keeps Funding Secret - WSJ.com
The controversial website WikiLeaks, which argues the cause of openness in leaking classified or confidential documents, has set up an elaborate global financial network to protect a big secret of its own—its funding....
WikiLeaks's lack of financial transparency stands in contrast to the total transparency it seeks from governments and corporations.
Today's most unfortunate picture
Shirley Sherrod - Yahoo! News Photos
Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, right, puts his arm around former Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, left...
8.23.2010
The title says it all
Sharon Angle: "Am I too conservative? They probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin."
Honey, I'll be a little late
Worst traffic jam ever? Gridlock spans 60 miles - World news - Asia-Pacific - China - msnbc.com
A traffic jam stretching more than 60 miles in China has entered its ninth day with no end in sight, state media reported.
Pop quiz
Question: Can I get to the grocery store and back before it starts raining again?
Answer: TBA Yes!
But at least he didn't get dressed up in a flight suit
US combat brigades still in Iraq: report | Raw Story
The US military and the Obama administration loudly trumpeted the withdrawal of the "last combat brigade" from Iraq last week, but news reports suggest the move is purely semantic: The combat brigades are still there, but under a different name.
The Army Times reported on Saturday that the US still has seven combat brigades inside Iraq, but they have been renamed "advise and assist brigades."
As a Monday Morning bonus we might nominate this quote to The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.
8.22.2010
Maybe worth a try
UNDERNEWS: TOO BIG TO FAIL, TOO BIG FOR JAIL
The avaricious banks remain too big to fail and, unfortunately, too big to jail.This issue is still off the media agenda. If the bankers were Muslims, who wanted a mosque in the lobby of JP Morgan Chase, this might change....
On the Google/Verizon plan to kill the net - but neutrally, of course
We've already seen examples of political censorship over mobile networks. In 2007, Verizon refused to run a pro-choice text message from advocacy group NARAL, due to its supposedly 'unsavory' nature. Yes, this happened; yes, this kind of censorship would be continue to be legal under the Google-Verizon deal; and yes, Google, this is evil.
Nonetheless, the guy who decided to put stickers on tomatoes should be horsewhipped, yes, flogged
Consumed - A Design Campaign for Bananas - NYTimes.com
If you’ve ever wondered why it seems impossible to fill a grocery cart without adding at least one item whose packaging has been redesigned, the answer to your question is the fact that you’ve asked it. “New look! Same great taste!” openly confesses the blatant goal of catching your eye for no substantial reason.
The last gods
On Language - The Language of Leaks - NYTimes.com
“To call the torrent of information about the Afghanistan war released by WikiLeaks a mere leak is to insult the gods of hydrodynamics.”
Ahhhhh
US troops to return only if Iraqi forces fail - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON – It would take "a complete failure" of the Iraqi security forces for the U.S. to resume combat operations there, the top American commander in Iraq said...
Nature dudes
Technology Leads More Park Visitors Into Trouble - NYTimes.com
The national parks’ history is full of examples of misguided visitors feeding bears, putting children on buffalos for photos and dipping into geysers despite signs warning of scalding temperatures.
But today, as an ever more wired and interconnected public visits the parks in rising numbers — July was a record month for visitors at Yellowstone — rangers say that technology often figures into such mishaps....