Looks like Sarah Palin found work she's actually interested in:
talking about herself to "collaborator" Lynn Vincent. Way more
interesting than that chief executive thing, which got stale over the
summer.
"treat seriously every small detail"
This
Money Mule thing has scam written on it five ways to Sunday,
but in the current economy, the right combination of credulity and
desperation are probably available in profusion. It's more subtle than
the Nigerian Finance Minister email, but it amounts to pretty much the
same thing. Dangle a promise of money for (almost) nothing, and let the
fish's greed do the hard work of making it all sound plausible.
"Please strictly follow my instructions, do your best to perform your
functional duties properly, be responsible and careful and the results
will not take long to appear!"
It's as old as
the
Red-Headed League, at least. Beware the business opportunity
with exclamation points.
We prefer insurance companies between our decisions
The caption quote from State Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota is precious:
"All I'm trying to do is protect the individual’s right to make health
care decisions. I just don’t want the government getting between my
decisions with my doctors."
And toward that end, he's hoping to amend the state constitution to
outlaw the
requirement that nearly everyone buy insurance or pay a penalty.
He also doesn't want the government getting between his health care
insurance company's decisions about what they'll offer to cover,
how much to charge, and even whether they'll offer to cover him
at all. Freedom!
Here in Idaho, we haven't heard it from any of our
legislators—yet—but Wayne "Freedom Foundation" Hoffman
weighs in with the literalist argument from the U.S. Constitution.
States freedom!
Nemesis answers: "Superman’s
Kryptonite is NOT the Constitution. It's the narrow minded people who
have theirs, and apparently think politics is a zero sum game."
(More answers in the
Huckleberries Online thread.)
28.Sept.2009
Little Miss Torture
Like father, like daughter, so maybe we will have a President
Cheney someday? Be still my heart. And shut up about the stupid
"ticking time bomb" already, will you? Jack Bauer can always torture
what he needs out of just the right terrorist, but the non-fiction world
doesn't lend itself to such simple plot devices.
As far as defending this great country... well, let's just say I'm
happier having the Cheneys as free-lance bloviators than holding any
position of actual responsibility.
We're safer that way. (Even if Liz gets the Elliott Abrams "fun
person" seal of approval.)
25.Sept.2009
Collateral damage in the war on ACORN
Looks like there are two possibilities: either the Defund ACORN Act is
to be taken on its face, and it's going to lead to
defunding of many, many more organizations
that include miscreants (and miscreant organizations); or,
it's unconstitutional. (Or what the heck, why not go for both?).
Glenn Greenwald:
"The irony of all of this is that the Congress is attempting to
accomplish an unconstitutional act: singling out and punishing ACORN,
which is clearly a "bill of attainder" that the Constitution explicitly
prohibits—i.e., an act aimed at punishing a single party without a
trial. The only way to overcome that problem is by pretending that the
de-funding of ACORN is really about a general policy judgment (that no
corrupt organizations should receive federal funding). But the broader
they make the law in order to avoid the Constitutional problem, the more
it encompasses the large corrupt corporations that own the Congress (and
whom they obviously don't want to de-fund).
Meet your G-20
Just who are these people, anyway? We don't know the whole gaggle of
elites meeting in Pittsburgh by name, but we can at least list the
2032 countries represented. (The European Union, with 27
member countries, is one of the members, but 4 of its members
were already in the G-7.) it started with the G-7, the USA, Japan,
Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and Canada. Tough to exlude China from
an economic summit, what with the world's 3rd largest GDP these days.
Add a handful of $trillion-GDP players and another handful of sizeable
sub-$trillion countries, and you've got a way to slice up the $53
trillion (or so) bulk of the planet's economic activity.
We're a long way from Pittsburgh, and the snippet on
last night's Newshour of the protestors at the G-20 summit
(following the conversation with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula de
Silva) was mildly comedic, ahead of the civil disobedience.
PROTESTOR: I mean, I could throw out a lot of things that have,
like, become, like, clichéd statements, like ending global
capitalism and all that, which, ultimately, like, I am for, and if there
was a button that could just, like, wipe the whole thing out, yeah. But,
man, I always blow it in front of the camera.
Things sound considerably
calmer
today, not so many police helicopters, gunboats and Humvees darting to
and fro, or broken windows, smoke canisters, sound cannons and stun
grenades.
Sounds like a trade show for the latest in crowd control technology, "4,000
police officers from all over the country" coming to the city, by
one account.
"After the initial diagnosis [of esophageal cancer in October 2006],
Church completed two books; saw his daughter, Nina, marry; and managed
to reach his 60th birthday, which neither his father nor grandfather had
done..."
Update:Diane
Ronayne's column in the Sunday (9/27) Statesman adds a
beautiful personal note to the memories of Church's life, along with a
serendipitous announcement of the October 2 silent sunrise walk on the
140th anniversary of Gandhi's birth.
"[In 1978] he interviewed for the post of parish minister at All Souls
[Church in New York City], where he delivered tryout sermons so moving
that he won the job over 24 other candidates.
"His speaking style was direct, and he expressed his religious
philosophy in simple terms. “Do what you can,” he often
said, “want what you have, and be who you are.” When he took
the job, church attendance hovered around 100 on Sundays. Today, it is
not uncommon for 1,000 worshipers to attend."
Giant digester eggs
Boise's
Watershed is a fascinating little side trip in our neighborhood, a
sort of Exploratorium meets sewage treatment plant. A little weird, but
wonderful, actually. Still, Boise's approach has nothing on New York
City's, as depicted by the inimitable Maira Kalman in her latest blog
entry,
For
Goodness' Sake. (Good
lighting never hurts.)
24.Sept.2009
A target-rich environment
Now that we've just about buried ACORN (as evidenced by RNC chair
Michael Steele gleefully jumping on the bandwagon, and Idaho GOP
Chairman Norm Semanko piping up with "me too!"), perhaps it's time
to do some more thorough housecleaning, and
defund Blackwater as well. The so-called
Defund ACORN
Act is broad enough to deal with a multitude of sins. "Any
organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State
regulatory agency" comes under its purview.
Think there might be any fraudulent forms involved in a $73 million
no bid security contract with DHS for the aftermath of Katrina in New
Orleans? Or perhaps some of the other ten figures worth of
feeding at the government trough that Prince and the gang have done in
security contracts since 2003?
"[A] recent federal audit of Blackwater, compiled by the State
Department and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction,
suggests the company may have to repay some $55 million to the
government for allegedly failing to meet the terms of just one federal
contract in Iraq, which, it is important to note, is $2 million more
than the total money allotted by the federal government to ACORN over
the past 15 years."
Beats walking
Unless of course you need the exercise. The Segway was rolled out with a
ton of mystery hype, and failed to take the world by storm.
Honda's geekily named U3-X just popped into view with pretty much
no hype, let alone expectation. But check out the video: as
useless little techno toys go, this servo-controlled "unicycle" (it has
small wheels packed inside a bigger, main wheel) is a hoot. Can't wait
for the off-road version.
Could be some wait, however: "Unfortunately Honda President Takanobu Ito
said the machine was still 'a proposal,' and the company has no sales
plans, pricing or firm ideas on where or how it will be used." Beyond
getting attention at press conferences and trade shows.
You knew somebody had to say "gob-smacked"
sooner or later, talking about a
huge Anglo-Saxon gold hoard found in Staffordshire, England. Maybe
1500 pieces altogether, waiting 14 centuries for somebody with a metal
detector to come by.
"It has been declared treasure by South Staffordshire coroner Andrew
Haigh, meaning it belongs to the Crown."
That was easy!
Update: here's more of the story,
from the NYT. The "Crown gets the treasure" part is true, but they
also pay for it! Half to the guy with the metal detector, and
half to the farmer.
23.Sept.2009
What, you can't pitch a tent in your yard?
We've only got a fraction of an acre, and no one ever complained
in our neighborhood. Donald Trump's got hundreds of acres, so if
Moammar wants to camp out, what's the big deal?
If you ask me, those people in Westchester County are pretty stuck up.
Necessary permits, plural, in order to put up a tent? Please.
"Since Coney Island needs attention and needs development and since
we're circus-friendly, I for one would welcome him here," Mr. Zigun [the
unofficial mayor of Coney Island and impresario of its sideshow and
museum] said. "Politics aside, it would bring tourists to Coney Island
and that’s what we need."
It's not a ton of money at issue by his count: "Idahoans pay around
$780,000 a year to insure members of the House and Senate (a small
portion of that amount is for the staff of both chambers)." If we were
to save half of that, it's not going to fix the big budget trouble
we're in at the "business is good but
unemployment is stil high" end (we hope!) of the Great Recession,
but fair is fair, right?
Iowa: Bizarro Idaho
Our states get confused a lot, what with three syllables and the same
vowels and our geographic proximity (when viewed from east of the
Appalachians), and
here we see there may actually be another reason. Their long-time,
Reagan Revolution, small-government conservative, Chuck
"they're going to pull the plug" Grassley is turning out
to be insufficiently right-wing for the "social conservatives" that are
feeling their oats in the GOP. He couldn't even get elected as a
delegate to their last state convention. (Don't U.S. Senators get in
free?!)
But get this: they have a "well-known conservative" named Bill
Salier, reporting "so much talk of primarying Chuck Grassley."
Someone even more Sali than our own
Bill
Sali!
Iowans also know how to use "bupkis" in a sentence, and employ
easily-understood farming metaphors:
Among Democrats, a former state legislator, Bob Krause, is talking of
running against Mr. Grassley, saying it has been "a long time to go
without rotating crops."
"From high above, the silent explorer captures one sweeping view of the
scene below: planet and all its darkened rings, at sunset... one of the
most enchanting spectacles this solar system has to offer.
"Before too long, the sun will rise again, lavishing its brilliance
everywhere. To the vehicle orbiting above and its remote companions, all
hints of shadows and hidden dimension will magically vanish."
The New York Times has a nice
feature about Porco today, too, including a segment of its
20-minute podcast for Tuesday.
"She was a studious child and a spiritual seeker—'13 going on
80'—who lived a lot in her head. Later, as a student at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook, she said she spent two years as a
chanting Buddhist and even went on a two-week pilgrimage to Japan, where
she was the majorette in a Buddhist marching band, wearing hot pants.
'Now, THOSE were the days,' she wrote in an e-mail message."
19.Sept.2009
Double-buffered DirecTV
I came late to the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) party, well after TiVo
was a household name. We never actually did TiVo, but have DirecTV's
DVR, and dust collecting on the old VCR and all the old tapes.
If you're not there yet, my condolences; it's just a better way to watch
TV, if you do any of that. It makes it possible to watch what you want,
when you want, and to skip over all the junk. 60 Minutes, for
example, only has 40-some minutes of content. You don't want to
watch (most of) the ads, you don't have to. In addition to the "recorded
earlier" shows, it improves "live" viewing, once you have enough buffer
to take care of all the non-viewing. We keep the channel set to PBS,
which gives us the previous 90 minutes of whatever's been on, starting
from when we turn on the TV.
Just recently, DirecTV rolled out double-buffering for their DVRs, which
I guess TiVo had all along (or at least for a while, called it "Dual
Live Buffers")? I saw the announcement about it just after the software
had been downloaded, but didn't pay attention at the time. Today I
went to actually use it, and found that
their instructions didn't make it clear how to actually make it work
to follow two shows "live."
One of their customers posted a better explanation in a discussion
forum, and on the off-chance one of my current (or future) readers needs
a little help, here's the essential information:
1. Press the DOWN arrow twice (below the orange SELECT button) to
activate the feature. The channel you were watching stays in the buffer,
and a second buffer is started on channel 201.
2. Change the channel (with the number keys, or Guide, or Channel
UP/DOWN) on this second buffer to the other channel you want to
watch.
3. Now the DOWN arrow will toggle between the two buffered channels, and
you can pause, rewind, fast forward "as usual" on either one.
The feature times out after 2 hours of no activity on the remote
control. (What, did you fall asleep?) If you want to know more, more,
more, check out
this
DBSTalk.com FAQ.
18.Sept.2009
Now this is a witch hunt
Kevin Richert says
he's not sure "how much of these czar wars are really parliamentary,
and how much of it is simply partisan," so let's see: who started the
campaign, anyway?
David Weigel is more sure than Richert, and deconstructs the
supposed Russian Court that Obama has assembled, homework that the
Republican Senators' staffs might have performed before they dictated
the right-wing talking points into
a letter to the President.
Should we laugh or cry that Republicans are now prepared to ask the
President to "reconsider [his] approach of centralizing authority at the
White House"?
Oddly enough, the letter says they've identified 18 "czar"
positions they don't like, but Crapo's press release, at least, didn't
actually list the positions they feel are a bridge too far. Maybe
there was just a hyperlink to
Glenn Beck's deeply
pointless buffoonery on YouTube?
17.Sept.2009
Semanko: take the fall, Minnick!
Are we having an election in November or something? Who let the dogs
out? This just in, call it "Idaho Republican News" ('cause that's what
the Idaho Republican Party said it was, not even authorized by any
candidate or candidate’s committee), Chairman Semanko
Calls on Minnick to Take Responsibility for the Actions of the
Democratic Party.
I'm not making this up, and I didn't get that from The Onion,
even though they don't have it up on the
broadsheet just yet.
And Norm and the Grand Old boys are going to take responsibility for...
what, exactly? Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and teh crazy?
Boehner: Rebellion is OK with me
I try not to let the fact of the House's Minority Leader's obsessive
grooming bias me against him, and even though I disagree with most of
the positions he holds, I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But every time I hear him speak, I question his honesty, and his
sincerity.
Today's interview with John Boehner on the Newshour is the latest
example. He talks about the (lack of) Republican support for health
care reform as if he has nothing to do with it ("I don't think, from
what I can see, that it's going to garner any Republican support"),
trots out "big government takeover" as if that were fact, rather than a
biased description of the latest proposal, and distorts the context
we're in by speaking for everyone with an opinion that is by no means
universally shared: "Democrats and Republicans understand that we do
have the best health care system in the world."
I get that same disingenuous feeling when he talks about people being
"involved" in democracy, "but they ought to do it in a civil tone."
It's rebellion by his assessment, "I've never seen anything like
this," and he's got nothing to do with it, really? It's just happening
around him while he's adjusting his tie and spraying his hair?
BOEHNER: ...And so this conversation that's underway is healthy
for our democracy. It was Thomas Jefferson 220 years ago who said, "A
little rebellion now and then is good for our democracy."
JEFFREY BROWN: Right, but "rebellion" is a charged word, of course,
because the rebellion back then was a serious matter.
BOEHNER: It was. But having Americans engaged in this public
debate is healthy. And I would hope that it would continue, but continue
in a civil way.
"Where was the Tea Party movement when the tax burden was shifted from the
high end to the middle? Where were the patriots when Wall Street, backed in
Congress by Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, rewrote securities laws so that
the wonder boys of Lehman and A.I.G. could reduce home mortgages to poker
chips at a trillion-dollar table?
"Where were the angry 'stiffs' when the banking industry rolled the 2005
Congress into rewriting bankruptcy law, making it easier to keep people in
permanent credit card hock?"
Get your shot, or get on the bus
Taking crazy to a whole new level:
Rischy Rich
Not that it's actually news that Idaho's freshman
Senator Jim Risch is quite wealthy... despite the
flannel rancher persona he used in his campaign materials.
Most of
his tally is indeed in "ranch and farm properties in Idaho, totaling
284 acres, which together amount to at least $16 million."
$56,000 an acre is some nice lookin' ranches and farms, ain't it?
The
dustier sort of rancher
around here tends to talk more about hard work
and scraping by, the only wealth beyond measure the great feeling you get
from riding the range on the occasional pleasant morning.
In the category of "strangest choice of words by a spokesman" we have
Kyle Hines' observation that "He fills out the forms, as you know, and the
numbers kind of lie where they lie.... He filled out the forms correctly
and accurately."
We presume that's "lie" as in let sleeping dogs, rather than "lie" as in
rebuke-ready breach of decorum (and shouldn't that be "lay"?)
Religious counterpoint to that
The pastor of Boise's Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Tri Robinson,
delivered
the opening
prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday, at
the invitation of Idaho's CD-01 Rep., Walt Minnick. I haven't been a
student of House prayers, and I'm generally lukewarm to public expressions
of piety, but given Robinson's good works, and the appropriateness of the
exhortation in Paul's epistle to the Phillipians, I was able (on the second
try) to get the message in spite of its wrapper.
Would that members of the House could hear as well, and "let [their] hearts
be tender, and compassionate, agreeing whole-heartedly with each other,
loving one another, and working together with one mind and one
purpose."
"We pray as Paul prayed, for pure motives, for selflessness, not trying to
impress others, but thinking of others as more important than ourselves. We
pray that we wouldn't look out for our own interests, but represent the
interests of those that we're called to serve."
The Un-Religion
The Secular Student Alliance at BSU is offering the chance
to make your own unreligious statement, with
debaptisms. Just a spritz of unholy water in-your-face,
a reverse prayer, and you're all unset. (And Pascal's got
nothing on SSA: "just in case we're wrong," the debaptized
receive a Get out of Hell free card.)
Nathaniel Hoffman provides a
retrospective of southern Idaho's
environmental watchdog,
3 decades from its inception. I know enough of the people he talked to,
it sounds like homecoming or something.
Nice to see our state represented in the
roll
call for the vote to
chastise Representative Wilson for his breach of decorum the other
night. Most of his party didn't go along to the final tally of 240-179,
led by John Boehner, calling the proceedings a "partisan stunt" and a
"witch hunt." (Not really much hunting in this, Wilson has an assigned
seat with his name on the desk, right?) Boehner complained that Dems
were "demanding an apology from a man who has already apologized," but
he did not, in fact apologize to the body whose decorum he violated.
Hell, even Serena Williams figured out the proper form of an apology on
the third try or so. It really is OK to apologize an extra time or two,
lest we suspect the contrition is feigned.
Flying the flag's a little risky
When you're flying the flag of counter-dissent among the dissenters.
It's a BYOB crowd: bring your own bullhorn. Second video on the
Tea party hangover. The louder you shout, the better your point of
view, right?
Kevin Richert has
a choice lament and random observation on this subject of civil
discourse (right next to civil discord, you notice).
"Aside from noticing his shirt, I also couldn't help notice that my
fellow shopper had a case of an item called Smart Water. I can only hope
it was the fast-acting variety."
The Joe of Courage
He's apologized to the President and now he will not be muzzled!
No apologizing to Nancy Pelosi, or the other 533 Members of Congress
whose rules he breached! One apology is plenty!
When is "FREE" actually $12.99 and a "pig" a pig in a poke? Why, when
there's an asterisk behind it, or, as in the promo email in the inbox
this morning, a footnote. Or two.
The first footnote on "FREE" says, and I quote:
"Actual software upgrade is free- this
does not include a $12.99 processing and handling fee."
The second says "Systems may require
upgraded and/or separately purchased hardware and/or a DVD drive to
install the Windows 7 software and take full advantage of Windows 7
functionality. See" blah blah blah on another website.
And the third footnote in that one litte sentence says
"Information about
Windows 7 is preliminary and subject to change. Some product features of
Windows 7... may require advanced or additional hardware. The features
and functionality you find in the pre-release product may not appear in
the final version of Windows 7. Windows XP Mode requires either OEM
pre-installation or post-purchase installation of Windows XP Mode (which
runs on Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate) and a virtualization
technology such as Windows Virtual PC. Windows XP Mode will be available
in early 2010...."
Then when your new PC is all set (and possibly upgraded) and your O/S
upgrade is shipped and handled and installed on top of XP Mode which
won't be available until 3 months or more after your upgrade ships...
you can try connecting to the Internet for only $99 a month!
CableOne's marketing department is no slouch: they've got the
99and the asterisk going.
14.Sept.2009
KKK: Next Generation
When you're part-way through a connect-the-dots picture, there comes a
moment when the image pops out from the sketchy background. That's the
feeling I got reading
Nathaniel Hoffman's entry on CityDesk, responding to the local Sept.
12 Tea Party event. As
TUBOB
(I think it was) said, "if the sheet
fits, wear it."
When the internet bubble was inflating, I got interested in tracking
market capitalization, and my
Top 100 Market Cap tracking was one of the most
searched-for things on fortboise.org for many years. My interest waned
mostly because the site I was scraping data from got less and less
reliable, and I didn't care to do a lot of manual rework. Plus, a "top
100" chart updated from time to time really wasn't that compelling to
look at, even with sortable columns. Too bad I stopped looking right
about the time the real estate bubble was fully inflated, and I didn't
collect the numbers during the financial meltdown last year.
Leave it to whiz kids Karl Russell and Shan Carter at NYT Interactive to
hit this challenge out of the park, with their
interactive graph of the market capitalization of the 29 biggest
financial firms from the Oct. 2007 market peak (when their combined
stocks toted up to almost $2 trillion), through the nadir in late winter
($290 billion), and to last Friday, with their "recovery" to
about half of the peak value.
"...Wall Street's landscape has been permanently altered. Lehman
Brothers, gone. Bear Stearns, gone. Merrill Lynch, gone. Main Street's
landscape has also changed. Wachovia, National City, Washington Mutual
and Countrywide, all gone. These venerable financial giants all crumbled
under the weight of the financial crisis.
"Those that were left shrank down to a fraction of their former market
capitalizations by early 2009, but since then, they all have grown.
While most are nowhere near their former size, two—JPMorgan Chase and
Wells Fargo—are slightly larger than they were at the market's
peak."
12.Sept.2009
RiverSweep 2009
We were in
Liz Paul's 30-volunteer boat contingent, searching out and
picking up trash along the Boise River between the Glenwood Bridge and
Eagle Road. The total effort on the day had almost twenty times
as many volunteers!
We enjoyed a perfect late summer morning, no hint of a cloud, warm
enough to make the cold water enjoyable, and a beautiful, quiet stretch
of the river that few people experience. It alternates overgrown willows
and cottonwoods and peeks into expensive yards built on the premise that
flooding on the Boise River is a thing of the past.
While we did fill dozens of trash bags with outright rubbish and
recyclables, the rather good news is that the river and its banks were
pretty clean even before our work today. If the people who drink crummy
beer and various other containerized beverages would learn some manners,
maybe the sweep could relax to every couple of years.
11.Sept.2009
Three-quarter million dollars per word
That's assuming it's splits evenly between "You" and "lie!" for Joe
Wilson's astounding outburst directed at the President speaking to a
joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
$500,000 and counting raised for his opponent, Democrat Rob Miller
in the 2010 election.
And the DNC road Wilson's coattails for another $million
collected since 9:30pm EDT Wednesday.
That Joe Wilson knows fundraising!
Jim Chu's estate auction
The material wealth of a life cut short is up for sale later this month,
managed by
Corbett
Auctions on Thursday, September 24, out in Eagle.
Jim Chu was killed on his bike this spring, and
honored by local cyclists
in his passing.
There's some wonderful stuff in his estate: a Santana tandem, a little
John Deere tractor, good quality woodworking equipment, and so on.
Lisa Hecht wrote: "We would be honored to have some of the items Jim
treasured go to his friends, and so invite them to come. It will
benefit his daughters, Sara and Jenny."
10.Sept.2009
Old school
Driving by the busy intersection of Cole and Fairview this weekend, I
noticed the new chainlink fence around the old Cole Elementary, and a
sign for Ideal Demolition
Services, "a full service demolition contractor." I rode my bike down
Tuesday evening to see what the light would do for a photographic
subject not long for this world, and came upon the
protestors who want to save the historic building that finds itself
in an awkward spot, 107 years after it started being a school out in the
country, west of Boise. (The school itself was established in 1888,
14 years before the current building was put up.)
I suppose if I'd gone to school there I'd have fond memories that I
wouldn't want demolished, but it's been a hulking anachronism for some
time, it seems to me. Janice Stevenor Dale,
writing on NewWest.net, derides the "audacity" of the plan "to
reduce history to rubble."
Talk of "the importance to the neighborhood" (let alone its
"aesthetic") is heart-warming, but overlooks the fact that there hasn't
been a "there" there at Cole and Fairview for some time; it's the
collision of the endless Fairview strip mall with an overworked
arterial that has no way to expand without huge changes along its
route.
While singing the praise of the past, Stevenor Dale bludgeons the most
recent design and construction work to cope with Boise's growth,
referring to nothing in particular as "concrete block buildings that
would double as a prison." That's not what I saw when we went to the
open house for the new community center at Morley Nelson Elementary
earlier this year.
If there's a case to be made for "adaptive reuse," by all means, let's
consider it. The question of whether that could make sense is one of
fact, while the motivation to bring a sign out to the street corner or
to write a testimonial to a building that has "served valiantly" is
one of emotion. "Save Our School!"—if it makes sense, not as a
quaint memento on the corner.
9.9.9
Teachable moment
I imagine the barking dogs of the rabid right have applied makeup to
cover the egg on their faces and are moving on to the next item on the
outrage to-do list, now that the President has spoken to (most of) our
children and the sky is still overhead. I pity the
5
students at nearby Fairmont Junior High who were pulled out the
event by their parents, but at least they had company.
Only one student
was pulled at Lincoln Elementary in Caldwell, sent to political
solitary confinement by her parents. Then there was the mass delusion
in the whole Bonneville Joint School District in eastern Idaho
"flooded with phone calls from parents who were upset over the address,
which they called an attempt to promote a political agenda."
For parents and school official with sufficient reading aptitude, the
speech was available for preview. Did they forget to do their
homework? Or is it really a partisan concern that kids might be
exhorted to work hard, stay in school, and understand the critical
importance of education to their future?
There's definitely more to learn here than the obviously good advice the
President dispensed. It has to do with credibility and
reputation of those who let their own partisanship blind them to
what is our common purpose. The very idea of having a common
purpose has apparently been thrown off the bloviator bus in the
rightmost lane, as it teeters on the verge of the breakdown lane.
It's a wake-up call to the Eastern Idahos of the country, but it remains
to be seen whether they've slept through the alarm again.
It was a different world
My dad liked the numbers in his birthday, 90 years ago today.
The Boston police force went on strike that day, more than 1100 officers
(3/4ths of the force) walking off the job and leaving the city to chaos
and riot. Governor Calvin Coolidge called out the entire Massachusetts
Guard to restore order and emerged a hero.
World War I had just ended, with the signing of the Treaty of
Versailles. Curly Lambeau had just founded the Green Bay Packers in his
home state. Afghanistan had just gained its independence from the
United Kingdom. A dirigible, the British R34 had just made the first
crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by air.
Also born in 1919: J.D. Salinger, Andy Rooney, Nat King Cole, Pete
Seeger, Sir Edmond Hillary, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Good luck / bad luck
The original battery in our not-quite-a-clunker Windstar lasted
15 years! But yesterday, halfway through an errand, it went flat.
Wouldn't even tickle the starter with a jump.
But the two of us were there, with our other car.
It happened right outside an auto parts department! But it was a car
dealer's parts department.
They had a replacement in stock! But it was really expensive.
(Not as expensive as the set of rims a young couple was shopping for
while I waited by the counter though. $700, and neither the clerk, nor
the guy, nor the missus reacted as if that were a ridiculous amount of
money to spend on wheels.)
Labor Day
Sharpening the resistance
Sisyphus has a little pep rally with a reminder to
arm yourselves with
the truth to resist those demons in the dark. Good post, good links
on 43SB.
"This basic, gut-level fear of loss, fear of tribal obsolescence and
irrelevance, is all the 25%-and-shrinking right has left. It has been
overwhelmed by its most paranoid, bigoted elements. Not activists, not
online petitioners, but U.S. senators and Republican thought leaders say
the president wasn’t born in the U.S.; that he wants to kill old people;
that he is not fit to speak to school children. They are banging drums
and chanting just outside the campfire circle of rational civic
discourse. Their din makes it impossible to think, to plan, to govern.
They can not lead, but in their twisted fear they can prevent the rest
of us from going anywhere either."
The text is out, and
Obama's radical socialistic indoctrination for the nation's school
children is there for all to see. Looks good to me, lots of fine
exhortation, but for an audience from kindergarten to seniors in high
school, it might be a little on the long side.
"Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when
you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of
weakness, it's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to
admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new. So find
an adult you trust—a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or
counselor—and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your
goals."
4.Sept.2009
Wingnuts jump the shark
It seems too kind to the nuts, and to cruel to the Grand Old Party to
connect the dots, but yes, some of these wingnuts are indeed
Republicans, and even office-holders, who fear? loathe? the idea of the
President speaking directly to their children.
Is there anything that can't be politicized for an advertising dollar?
P.T. Barnum must be jiggling from the echoes off of Fox
"News."
State Sen. Steve Russell of Oklahoma is worried about a "cult of
personality." The Governor of Texas is concerned that the President
didn't tell everyone more about what he'd have to say.
Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer said he was "absolutely appalled that
taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist
ideology." (Wow, is Greer from Idaho or something?) The Associate
Director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom has
"alarm bells" going off, but it might just be tinnitus. (Does Cato
provide health insurance?)
Our Superintendent of Public Education
had
questions and got answers, and they all seem pretty darn bland,
and he's all about reassurance and understanding, and mild promotion of
the event. (You can't be too careful, with all the socialist ideology
running around these days.) Writing to our superintendents, principals,
charter school administrators, and public information officers, Luna
says:
"I believe this will be a unique opportunity for all school children,
including Idaho's students, to hear from our country's highest elected
official."
3.Sept.2009
Dear Senator Risch
I saw in
Kevin Richert's blog at the Idaho Statesman that you said
you're hearing from "300 to 1,500 constituents a day" with 85% saying no
to "Obamacare."
That's so strange, given that Obama, so far, has not given much in the
way of specific guidance to the committees in the House and Senate who
are working on health care reform.
For my part, I haven't yet written to you because everything I see about
what you're saying tells me that your mind is closed on the matter and
you're just toeing the Republican Party line, saying no to anything and
everything the Democrats propose.
According to Richert, you say you want reform to be "market-driven (not
government-driven), patient-centered and quality-focused." We have a
market-driven system for the most part, and that is WHY we need reform.
The market cannot drive reform, it can only drive for profit, and that's
the problem: it's leaving out tens of millions of people who need
insurance. It IS up to the government to apply appropriate regulation,
to change the path we're on, with INDUSTRY-centered and PROFIT-focused
"health care."
I hope that you and the rest of Idaho's Congressional delegation can
provide some leadership, and not just keep saying no to everything
that's proposed.
(Don't miss the comment section of Richert's blog post, where former
Representative
Larry Larocco notes that our other Senator is doing more than
Risch.)
Welcome to democracy, sort of
Supporters of health care reform organized a rally here in Boise yesterday,
and the Just Say No crowd turned out a small mob to
do their best to shout down the idea of pretty much any health care
reform, it sounds like. They're against all the current proposals, any
new proposals, and all the made-up strawman proposals to boot.
Use the smallest effective dose
So I'm not actually going to raise my alchohol consumption to 4 drinks a
day to keep from losing my mind. I've taken my share of "vitamin I" but
not so much since I gave up soccer. Without any
particular studies to inform me, I did decide that it would be better
not to take anything that masks pain before playing.
Pain's an important signal, and I want to know what my nervous system
has to tell me, in general. Do I need to protect something? Put on a
brace? Quit for the day? Find a different sport?
"The studies variously defined light to moderate drinking as 1 to 28
drinks per week."
How about...
a
finely crafted Pilsner? Nice to see someone rescue the category from
industrial brewing.
Health care heats up
I was going to wait to see how
Obama's public appeal to Congress turned out before saying more,
but then this outstanding statement of opinion from the MountainGoat
Report,
getting frank with Walt. Part of our ongoing electronic town hall
meeting, and the Congressman (or one of his aides) can respond right
there in the comments if he'd like.
2.Sept.2009
A horsey and a ducky
Boise is in a fever about the
Biggest Game Ever to come to town. Whoopie. The Statesman's
printers must be running short of blue and orange ink by now. I won't be
driving, parking, shuttling, tailgating, or caring about it, but I will
make a prediction: Bronco fans will be insufferable for some time to
come if they manage to pull off a non-upset (the Ducks are rated two
spots lower than BSU at this point) win, and beat Oregon for the 2nd
year running.
But then... you know.
Circus comes to town
Timothy Egan gives us the right coast perspective
on Idaho's wolf hunt, now underway:
"For years, Idaho officials have been trying to convince businesses that
their state is not a hotbed of hate-filled rubes, gun-toting racists and
assorted nut jobs getting their information from Glenn Beck."
Substitute Fox "News", and you'd be closer; Mr. Beck is a
relative newcomer on the assorted nut job informant scene. The real
problem with the task before Idaho officials is, as far as anyone can
see, the state's nether regions are a hotbed of hate-filled
rubes, gun-toting racists and assorted nut jobs.
Those of us of a different ilk see it as a mixed blessing: it helps
keep the tourists at bay, but then tourists are a big part of our
economy.
Aside from shooting wolves, the
recent comment by the man who puts the "goober" in "gubernatorial
candidate," Rex Rammell, have helped propel our state into the active
awareness of east coast liberals for 15 minutes, at least. The
Republican top dogs lined up to denounce his "joke" (or as he later
deemed it, his courteous response to the woman who brought up the idea
of hunting tags for assassinating the current President), and Rammell
proceeded to milk the publicity he was getting for all it was worth.
Today we have the dual spectacle of Rammell's refusal to apologize
for his remark and
blaming GOP leaders for that, and Rammell's lawyer
disagreeing with his client,
on
the record no less, concerning another threat of personal
destruction, this one aimed at Rammell's bid for Governor.
"Mincemeat" hasn't come up in the conversation yet, but it should fit
somewhere, especially with the coming holiday season. It's all gravy for
the GOP leadership, though. You can't help but look reasonable (to
say nothing of sane) in a contest with Rammell.
Update: all kidding aside, there are some reasonable people
in these parts. Rocky Barker is one of them, and his column today
provides
a serious look at the issues concerning wolves and their
management.
1.Sept.2009
Oh good, I can just skip it then
The Medium reports on a
Facebook exodus: does it make you nosy, is it a scene turned
desperate, are there stalkers? Privacy compromises? (Is the Pope
Catholic?) Is it abusive, disillusioning, beholden to corporate
interests? "A third wave of dissenters appears to be bored with it,
obscurely sore or just somehow creeped out."
"Is Facebook doomed to someday become an online ghost town, run by zombie
users who never update their pages and packs of marketers picking at the
corpses of social circles they once hoped to exploit?"
My complaint is simple: I see these "invitations" to check something or
someone out on Facebook, and the link goes to a login page. There are
just so many interesting things to see and do without getting another
account somewhere.
Setting the record straight
Jeremy Cahill's good at that, such as in this roundup of
seven points about Dick Cheney and torture. They bear repeating,
since Dick Cheney hasn't given up on his self-promotion, misinformation
and book tour to convince us all that only he knows how to
protect the country, and torture is the way to go.
"And, with the cooperation of a lazy and pliant media, Cheney continues
to run his own televised miseducation camp. And let’s be honest: It
ain’t just Fox News. The Washington Post now appears to be
a private little Pravda for Cheney and his tiny group of minions
formerly employed by the CIA. 'The Post management, it seems, is
determined to return to its past practice of acting as stenographers for
the CIA’s PR machine,' [Ray] McGovern, former CIA analyst,
recently
wrote."
V for Victory, and X for a finger in your eye
Anita Moore, Esquire, and OPL besides just had to mention that
the fluorescent-lighted Table Rock cross is
one of "Idaho's gems." To her, the old complaints about a religious
monument on public land were just "some idiot atheist," and how much
better to have a shining symbol to provide "a rebuke to the unbelievers"
instead.
I wasn't around here when the Jaycees worked their "foresight" to
purchase the tiny parcel from the County (?) so that the monument could
stand unfettered by the Constitution. Just out of curiosity, I looked up
the information for the parcel in question, #S0918243550, on
the
Assessor's website. It's 0.07 acres, or just over 3,000 square feet,
which is quite a bit less than the c. 70' x 120' yellow rectangle I get
from their map generator. But the "funny" thing is that the yellow
rectangle isn't under the cross. Whoopsie!
I guess getting it accurately carved out of the 245 acre parent parcel
wasn't considered all that important? The oh-so-special 0.07 acres is
real close to where the crosses are, at least. Add "crosses" to
the list including horseshoes and hand grenades.
There seems to be a special tax deal, too: in 2000, the property was
valued at $1,000 (by the "market" method), and no tax was assessed. The
value has run up to $6,600, and taxes are now most of $100 per year.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
It may be easier to screw it up...
than it will be to fix it, even though some people have concluded that
geo-engineering is "feasible". If you accept the hypothesis that
human activity is an important driving factor in the climate change
going on now, we are already involved in this "geo-engineering,"
probably not in a good way.
Since engineering (like all human enterprise) proceeds with a
substantial component of trial and error, there are some risks involved
with modifying one's life-support system on the fly. Maybe this is an
argument in favor of Mars missions: we could go practice on another
planet before trying stuff here. Best if we could "terraform" Mars
first, and make it more earthling-friendly... but then we'd like to have
it for a backup, right? Except
there'd be colonists, and they'd get uppity sooner or later, and
then they wouldn't be keen on a bunch of carpetbaggers moving in.
So, back to earth, and all the hair-brained and/or brilliant ideas for
fixing and/or modifying the climate. The Beeb says that "the report also
highlighted an inadequate international legal framework for cross border
projects."
"The greatest challenges to the successful deployment of geo-engineering
may be to social, ethical, legal and political issues associated with
governance rather than scientific issues."
If we're desperate enough to do something "quick"... will we find
supra-national political will? Or will one hyperpower or a few
technologically advanced countries (or one crazy one) simply take
matters into their own hands and do what they think will work? (The
article didn't mention any solutions involving nuclear weapons, but I'm
sure that will occur to someone sooner or later.)
If we're not desperate, it's hard to see what will motivate a
coherent international action. Interesting times.
Just who are these people, anyway? We don't know the whole gaggle of
elites meeting in Pittsburgh by name, but we can at least list the
.
Unless of course you need the exercise. The Segway was rolled out with a
ton of mystery hype, and failed to take the world by storm.
Kevin Richert says
around here tends to talk more about hard work
and scraping by, the only wealth beyond measure the great feeling you get
from riding the range on the occasional pleasant morning.
When is "FREE" actually $12.99 and a "pig" a pig in a poke? Why, when
there's an asterisk behind it, or, as in the promo email in the inbox
this morning, a footnote. Or two.
Then when your new PC is all set (and possibly upgraded) and your O/S
upgrade is shipped and handled and installed on top of XP Mode which
won't be available until 3 months or more after your upgrade ships...
you can try connecting to the Internet for only $99 a month!
We were in
Driving by the busy intersection of Cole and Fairview this weekend, I
noticed the new chainlink fence around the old Cole Elementary, and a
sign for 
While singing the praise of the past, Stevenor Dale bludgeons the most
recent design and construction work to cope with Boise's growth,
referring to nothing in particular as "concrete block buildings that
would double as a prison." That's not what I saw when we went to the
open house for the new community center at Morley Nelson Elementary
earlier this year.
Boise is in a fever about the
the fluorescent-lighted Table Rock cross is
