Today I went to the new post office for the first time. They closed the branch across the street, so I can’t just walk a block anymore. Now I have to drive a few miles. This is better somehow. And the hours are 9-4, you know, when all of us working stiffs can make it. […]
Tagged fear itselfOnly a shortage of cheap STEMS (a tortured acronym meaning Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). Put the two together, and it’s easy to see why students are too smart to go into a dying field that there is a surplus of STEM people so any calls for more H-1B visas is just an attempt to drive […]
Can someone explain to me this meme of “The government never created a single job”? Schoolteachers, police, and fire departments spring to mind, as do interstate highways, the USPS, the Army, water purification plants, Navy, aquaducts, Lockheed-Martin, and the REA. You can argue that it’s private citizens tax money that pays for those, but that’s […]
What Atrios said: […]it’s weird that Keynes is invoked sort of like he dabbled in arcane voodoo. If you implement policies that lay off a big chunk of your population and destroy functioning civil society, the consequences shouldn’t be much of a surprise. It’s not like it’s hard to explain, or understand. Yes, excess government […]
Tagged OWSIf I were to do something so illegal as to download it from some site, I wouldn’t have to watch five minutes of unskippable commercials and FBI warnings in order to watch this movie. I want to watch this movie; I want to pay for it. Why are the movie companies punishing me for trying […]
and they want us to know where to go first. I doubt that these guys are looking for coupons for Wheat Chex, so maybe unindicted criminals are a better place to start than with mere whingers.
Tagged OWSThe hated “Adventure” Pass has been largely overruled. I don’t have my stack of tickets anymore, though at one point I got one with the number 100 circled in red on it, my 100th citation, I suppose. And I can’t count the number of times I argued with a ranger about these, and had them […]
Iceland does it right, gives the banks a haircut, and sends the banksters to jail. Economy recovers. Compare to Greece, Portugal, Ireland. Draw your own conclusions about whether Keynes was right, or whether the Hayek was right.
Tagged OWSJust in case you thought your nation ever had your best interests at heart — US injects random people with plutonium and pulls 15 of their teeth to study effects.
So I was lying in bed this morning listening to the radio. I’d prefer the BBC, but KPCC switches over to NPR far too early. Then I heard the dulcet, seemingly reasonable, tones of Renee Montagne say this: …we start with a reminder of the root of Europe’s financial crisis: European countries borrowed too much […]
Tagged OWSIt’s a very good time to be camera gearhead. For me, digital reached a watershed in 2008 with the digital F100, the D700 [1]. I suspect that I’ll be using this camera until it breaks. Even a couple months ago, at the end of its life, it was still listed as one of the ten […]
One law for us, another law for them.
Tagged OWSif there are cars parked in it, ever. if a car door opening can take me out. if it’s got potholes or speedbumps or manhole covers or broken glass or worse asphalt than the street. If any of those are true, it’s just a sucker lane, and I’m not going to be in it.
Tagged bikeSigh. Don’t check your personal email at work. And whatever you do, don’t blow any whistles. Aside from that, what a pain – everyone expects to be connected all the time now. If you’re expected to carry a work phone, don’t check your personal email on it.
Smarter than the average bear
Bears use tools. Dolphins exchange names (obSimpsons: Treehouse of Horror – Night of the Dolphins). Humans had a good run but it’s over. Seriously, no one had ever seen a bear use a tool before? I personally witnessed a bear using a rock to break a lock off a bear box 15 years ago. And […]