January 2012
2 posts
Plastic man stretches himself in Seattle Times
On January 16, the Seattle Times published a letter critical of the the proposed Seattle plastic bag ban submitted by one “Ken Holmes” of Seattle, which makes charges of “false claims” and “misleading information”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/northwestvoices/2017234273_groceryplasticbagban.html
The local newspaper of record neglected to mention,...
November 2011
2 posts
Also...
re: aforelinked Keyholez on banks:
What banks got in bailout $ when they desperately need it is quite analagous to a payday loan.
Which do not come at almost 0% interest.
They come at high rates, with some moral condemnation and disrespect along for the ride.
If the banks had been punished, some CEOs fired — anything! — then the payback of $ could legitimately be a victory.
Also — as...
keyholez: banxxxxxxx →
Keyholez is right about the facts. However, lending unlimited pots of money to entities that desperately need it at close to 0% interest and getting no changes in behavior, structure, or management as a result is legitimately something to be mad about I think. Desperation loans deserve a hell of a lot more than we got.
keyholez:
It occurred to me yesterday that a lot of the complaints about...
October 2011
1 post
4 tags
September 2011
17 posts
“As a constitutional matter, Scalia’s assertion is not wrong. The court has never...”
– Why It’s Constitutional to Execute an Innocent Man - The Daily Beast (via felixsalmon)
“The Georgia Department of Corrections said Davis declined to request a last...”
– The last beverage is the least of the offense here, but still — the default is a grape drink?
“Maritime industry satire might seem like a contradiction and a near...”
– http://www.maritimeprofessional.com/Blogs/Martin-Rushmere/September-2011/A-satirical-protest-shakes-up-the-AAPA.aspx
“As consumers increase spending, that can prompt more hiring by retailers,...”
– Curious choice of examples, NY Times.
“(You can’t go on sagely noting, year after year, that we have only 10 years left...”
– An Era in Ideas: Memory - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
“One of the facts about the twin-towers disaster that has been occluded over the...”
– An Era in Ideas: Memory - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
3 tags
“President Obama, this is your army,” Hoffa said. “We are ready to...”
– The real problem with this Jimmy Hoffa quote is the fact that the last sentence doesn’t parse. At all.
“I don’t know where they get off thinking that if you’re over 90 days...”
– Oh American people, your ability to avoid thinking in terms of solidarity never ceases to amaze me.
Project Runway
I look forward to the reunion special when it is revealed that Oliver is a longtime heroin addict and doesn’t really talk with that odd made-up accent.
West Seattle bar overheard
Woman: That's a well-loved shirt, what did it used to say?
Man: I don't remember, it was just a bunch of guns
“Phyllis Campbell serves on the Executive Committee of JPMorgan Chase and is the...”
– Interesting revolving door: regional bank executive to foundation CEO to regional bank executive.
“For most of that time, he has championed numerous efforts to move research out...”
– That’s passion!
“An article on Friday about the doubling of obesity rates worldwide in the last...”
– The usual crack editing by the NYT
August 2011
53 posts
“For many in the environmental movement, the Administration’s apparent...”
– From the NYT — that’s enough examples for a trend piece!
It's time
If the artists formerly known as the Libyan rebels have in fact pretty much won, then the Qaddafi loyalists are now the rebels, no?
Multitasking
Sarah Jessica Parker says she’s “battening down the hatches” in preparation for Hurricane Irene.…While promoting her new comedy, “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” in New York on Thursday, the 46-year-old Manhattan mom said she’s in full storm-preparedness mode.
“Christie is considering mandatory evacuations, but he’s asking people to...”
– Is there a notion I’m not aware of that homeowners go down with the ship?
Clear communication from the Central New Jersey authorities:
“I don’t want to tell people to stay home, especially if it’s not going to happen, but I think it’s going to happen and I think anybody that’s thinking about coming down for the day, they may want to rethink that,” he said.
Dude who said this is “Wayne R. Rupert, Ocean County undersheriff and a deputy emergency management...
On the New Jersey scale of "gone right", but still
From ye olde Asbury Park Press:
David A. Robinson said “this is about as serious a situation as I’ve seen” in his nearly 20 years as New Jersey state climatologist. “But in all the (previous) cases, something has gone right for New Jersey, and we haven’t gotten the multiple shots,” he said.
Never forget
Also, from the same article:
“The Secret Service and armed guards started telling us to leave, firmly,” said Barbara Maring, 42, who was finishing a tour of the White House with her husband and three children. She at first worried that the floor shaking beneath her was caused by a bomb. “Our kids won’t ever forget that experience.”
Imagine if they had been shaken at the Holocaust Museum. Then...
The most beautiful obelisk on the mall......
A black fence encircled the Washington Monument, the obelisk most visible among memorials to American leaders on the National Mall, the day after a 5.8- magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia rocked the capital. (via)
Is identifying the Washington Monument as the most visible obelisk around really all that useful? Who is the audience that’s familiar with relative obelisk visibilities...
I had fancied myself far more productive than...
It took 19 pages for me to document (via bullet points per supervisory instruction) all the miscellaneous work-related info I could come up with to share with soon-to-be-former co-workers. Just shy of 2 pages per year of employment.
Just in case the quick turn of the war had given you a mistaken impression of the competence of the Libyan rebel coalition, note this news item:
Mohammad Gaddafi, a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has escaped after having been arrested by rebels in Tripoli, Libya’s US ambassador said Monday.
Mohammad Gaddafi was arrested on Sunday as rebels seized control of large swathes of...
NATO Campaign Won't Be a Model for Future Action →
One of those cases where the headline is better than the article.
I guess his days really were numbered this time.
The real question is whether the next war will be with Syria, Iran, or Yemen.
“Perhaps the most incredible moment was when a young man approached Perry and...”
This page on how nonprofits use QR codes includes zero examples of a QR code actually being useful. In fact, if you’re familiar with how marketing types obfuscate their failures, you’ll see that most-to-all of them clearly were *un*successful at generating any significant number of hits or attention.
This is because QR codes are stupid.
They are perhaps a useful tool for message...
Moving on to a new job soon, so I’m cleaning 10 years of garbage out of my desk drawers at work. The biggest surprise is how many partially used gluesticks *and* chapsticks I have. Something about that shape of dispenser must utterly fail to activate the waste-not receptors in my brain.
The other surprise is to be reminded that 10 years ago, I got photos via 3.5” disk. And while I...
Burger King tries a new approach to salesmanship:
“[O]ur new marketing approach is more food-centric.”
Well that’s not going to go very well.
Venezuela is nationalizing gold mines and repatriating gold reserves. Is this no big deal with regard to the world economy, or is Chavez intentionally destabilizing global fiat capitalism? More important, what will be the impact?
Keyholez, what’s your read?
From Supermarket News [emphasis mine]:
LOS ANGELES — Leaders of the seven Southern California locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union told SN Wednesday they plan to ask members to reject the employers’ contract proposal.
Voting by the 62,000 clerks and meat cutters here is scheduled to take place Friday and Saturday. A UFCW executive told SN the union knows what it plans to...
Uh oh
Who knows how credible this is, but it’s certainly more credible that any BP denials you’ll be seeing:
Oil from the Macondo Well site is fouling the Gulf anew – and BP is scrambling to contain both the crude and the PR nightmare that waits in the wings. Reliable sources tell us that BP has hired 40 boats from Venice to Grand Isle to lay boom around the Deepwater Horizon site –...
Office revelations
I think I just stumbled upon the knowledge that my boss doesn’t know what “ambient” means.
Not only does McDonalds.com include a lengthy Terms & Conditions page disclaiming legal responsibility for pretty much its entire site, said page includes this list of trademarks. Emphases mine.
The following trademarks used herein are owned by the McDonald’s Corporation and its affiliates: 1-800-MC1-STCK, 365Black, America’s Favorite Fries, Arch Card, Big Breakfast, Big Mac, Big N’ Tasty,...
Best headline ever →
Confidential to every administrator of an official...
Nobody thinks the self-serving compliment you retweeted is as impressive as you think it is. And your boss who you’re trying to impress with your retweetable prowess won’t notice because they don’t understand social media. That’s why they hired you!
“CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports high-level,...”
– This is simply astonishing, especially given recent market turmoil.
How many Rick Perry backlashes, backlashes to the backlashes, etc will we have to live through in the next year and a half?