This is what I mean up top by ‘Occasional Long Lapses.’ Just too busy at the moment. This is interesting though. The Home News covers where I live now, but it the Courier News was one of the papers we got every day when I was growing up. That was the one that covered my high school. I think the site change should be a strong improvement.
April 28, 2008
April 25, 2008
Hey, Look! Mickey Just Exploded!
This seems like a good investment:
At the cost of nearly $500 million, a Los Angeles-based company is “developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum.” The park “is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland.”
April 24, 2008
Republicans Like Their Citizens Dumb
Sex education programs that teach abstinence ‘only’ don’t work. That knowledge is not new or revelatory. Even so, it had to be repeated yet again to members of Congress yesterday. Here’s who pointed the news out to Congress yesterday: Dr. Margaret Blythe of the American Academy of Pediatrics, experts from the American Public Health Association and U.S. Institute of Medicine, the American Psychological Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Seems like this would actually get the attention of members on the Hill. These are some pretty impressive people and organizations. They have spent considerable time actually researching and studying these issues. They have the evidence to back up their statements.
Evidence, shmevidence. We don’t need no high-falutin’ smart people tellin’ us real Amercuns what is and what ain’t, with their fancy “numbers” and “proof.” That’s why we vote for patriots like this boob:
Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, said that it seems “rather elitist” that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate.
We is just simple farmers … people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
Take my house. Please.
On Tuesday, the existing home sales data for March were released. I showed the data in two ways, seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted. Today, the March new home sales data were released. U.G.L.Y. At a seasonally adjusted annual selling rate of 526k, new home sales were the weakest they’ve been since October 1991. Sales were down 8.5% from the prior month (and that included a significant downward revision to the prior month), down 36.6% year over year, and down more than 62% from the July 2005 peak.
edited for more info and reformatting
April 23, 2008
What. The. Hell.
Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital
Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
What the hell, people?? How can any place on earth still be so backward in 2008? It’s like a bad Monty Python sketch.
Christ, What A Mess
CLINTON 55%
OBAMA 45%
Christ, what a mess this is. The above is taken – formatting and all – from the headline on Drudge. Republicans are reveling in Democrats’ inability to close this thing out. I still think it’s a function of having two strong candidates, however, as opposed to Republicans’ having zero strong candidates. Let them have their cheap thrills now. As long as whoever loses on the Democratic side pretends to lose gracefully and throws their weight behind the other candidate McCain stands little chance.
April 22, 2008
New Home Sales Weakness – Another View
Earlier I threw up a quick chart of the new home sales figures released this morning. That chart reflected seasonally adjusted numbers. Below is a chart of the non seasonally adjusted new home sales figures back to 1999. I’ve circled the March numbers for each year, for comparison to the March figure for this year, which was far and away the worst march in the data. As always, click on the chart for a larger version.
“Clearly there’s a difference of opinion here”
From the WSJ article ‘McCain Tax Cuts Would Bloat Deficit Or Take Huge Spending Curbs‘:
[McCain's] campaign also says there is no cost to a proposal regarding the tax treatment of capital expenses. Outside experts put the cost at tens of billions of dollars a year.
Under that plan, the federal government would take an upfront tax hit and be forced to pay additional interest on a larger national debt, said Ronald Pearlman, a tax professor at Georgetown Law Center and assistant secretary for tax policy under President Reagan.
To say there is no cost to the government is “so intellectually dishonest it’s outrageous,” Mr. Pearlman said. Mr. Bounds, the McCain spokesman, responded: “Clearly there is a difference of opinion here.”
Clearly. That last line just cracks me up. Someone should point out to Mr. Bounds that the McCain campaign is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. This dispute is a question of facts. And, as has become more and more common, the McCain campaign couldn’t care less what the facts are. I think McCain knows it too. I think he’ll abandon all this crap if he actually wins, but he knows this is his last shot and he appears desperate. He looks like he will say or do anything at this point to win.
Oil Set For Small Correction?
Oil prices are up 134.55% since January of last year. The front-month May ‘08 contract rolls off today though and last minute activity related to that could be a factor behind some of the most recent gains. If so, the shift to June as the new front-month contract may result in better profit-taking in the days ahead, potentially dropping the price back toward $110, at least temporarily.
April 21, 2008
From The Onion
Poll: McCain Getting Even
According to an AP-Yahoo poll, Sen. John McCain was roughly tied with any Democratic candidate, a dramatic shift from a November poll in which a potential Democrat candidate was preferred over a Republican by a 13 percent margin. What do you think?
Ben Close,
Systems Analyst
“The American people are getting harder and harder to predict when they start wanting a white man for president.”
Judy Napier,
Event Planner
“That’s pretty big news heading into the pivotal month of May.”
Matt Rivers,
Furniture Mover
“Just think how his popularity will soar after Clinton and Obama kill each other.”
Human Wave Flees Violence in Zimbabwe
That’s the headline from this article in today’s NYT.
I did some searching (read: searched the State Dept. website, checked Google news for Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe “United States”), but I can’t find an actual response from the Bush Administration. Do we even have a response? Is Rice doing anything, or just just keeping quiet and hoping it resolves itself? Seriously, if anyone has read a specific response from the US, I’d love to see it. Feel free to let me know in comments.
Update: Ah, crap. Two minutes after posting this, I find the State Department’s response, such as it is. It’s here. That’s the most recent response though, and it’s from the 11th. Our response to this is woefully lacking.
Obama: Chilly Elitist? Alliance Builder? Both?
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a decent, if superficial, wrap up of Obama’s history in Chicago politics. There’s nothing particularly new in the article. There’s certainly nothing that makes it worthy of the front page placement it receives. The article does repeat the ‘Obama is an elitist’ meme though.
The article doesn’t really add much to the weight of evidence that Obama can be condescending and that he may feel he’s smarter than most others. I still think it’s probably true though that he does feel that way.
You know what? So do I. Obama is, by all accounts, typically the smartest guy in the room. We’ve been led by the dumbest for the past seven years. Isn’t it time we tried someone with a little intellectual heft? My concern is that many people who read the Journal article will focus on the ‘elitist‘ and ‘sometimes chilly manner‘ aspects. However, what interests me the most in that paragraph is the comment about ‘his skills as a listener and his ability to connect with people of different views.‘ Maybe he does think he’s smarter, because it sure appears that he is. But listening and connecting with others are signs that he still understands good ideas come from a multitude of places and people.
After he was criticized as arrogant by some fellow Illinois state legislators, he forged alliances with establishment Republicans and Democrats in meetings and at poker games. After he was trounced in a congressional race by a former Black Panther, he barnstormed black churches to build support for a Senate run.
We’ve read enough articles about perceptions of his arrogance and occasionally chilly nature. I want see a reporter follow up on his ability to forge alliances with establishment Republicans and Democrats in meetings and at poker games. I want to hear how it is that such an ‘arrogant, chilly elitist’ is able to connect so well with such disparate individuals and groups. Judging only from the press, there seems to be something of a dichotomy there, but reporters focus only on one side of that. Maybe that’s good. Maybe it’s best to focus on this now. This aspect of the story will be old and played out by the time the general is in full swing. Hopefully, as reporters look for something new to cover at that time, there will be more attention given to what even reporters acknowledge is his ability to work with all comers.
April 18, 2008
What I Wish
See, now, if you were to look back at my posts, it’s clear that I just steal something from other, better, writers and offer some comments on it. That’s not bad. It’s what many (if not most) blogs seem to do. Some do it better than me. Hopefully, some do it worse. What I wish, is that I was one of those who do it better. What gets me thinking of this is this from Kathy G. Hell, I haven’t even read the whole thing. But she takes her lead from a Maureen Dowd column and then just turns in a terrific piece of writing that is all her own. I don’t even care about agreeing/disagreeing with the content. I just wish I could write that well.
Title Goes Here
I have written some opinions noting differences with Blue Girl (below) and Atrios and Matt Yglesia. For the most part, I do agree with them though. In fact, I agree with Blue Girl’s post that I commented on. I just question one of the numbers she throws out. I feel the need to point this out, because I suddenly thought “Christ, this makes me look like Kaus, pretending to be contrarian.” And once I thought anyone may think I could be in any way like Kaus, I felt like a needed a shower.
Separately, but related, I also understand that no one is actually reading this. In that sense, to compare myself to Kaus, is more than a little hubristic. And that also means that Blue Girl, Atrios, and Yglesia really couldn’t care less what the hell I write. (yes, by the way, it is COULDN’T care less, not could. Much of the world seems to need reminding)
Questioning Blue Girl’s Numbers
Kevin Drum links to Blue Girl, Red State, who writes that
A new study by the RAND Corporation, released just today, pegs the number of veterans suffering from PTSD and depression at about 300,000 and the number of veterans who sustained brain injuries at about 320,000. With only one direction for those numbers to go, we are facing an immediate future where we have somewhere in the neighborhood of a million veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan needing care that the VA is ill-equipped to handle.
I write about this only to note that I was surprised at the numbers being thrown around. I knew that we’ve had 120k to 170k or more in Iraq, plus lesser numbers in Afghanistan. I also realized that they were being cycled in and out, so there have been many, many more troops who have been involved. But a million potential veterans needing care from this war? I had not realized that many were involved.
According to wikipedia, we’ve got 1.426 mln active troops and 1.458 mln reserve. That’s larger than I realized. And according to parts of the Rand study Blue Girl reports, there have been approximately 1.622 mln involved in the wars. Even so, about 550k of the active troops are Air Force or Navy — again, according to wikipedia, FWIW. They are likely to have much more limited interaction with the war on the ground. So if a million are going to need assistance as a direct result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that strikes me as a particularly high percentage and perhaps overstates the situation, as awful as it is.
