Money well spent
Behold Stimulus Watch, which gives you an idea of what we'll be getting for our billions. I particularly liked this one:
Forks
of the Road Heritage Trail. This project would greatly enhance one of
the primary gateways to our city by creating an African American/Ethnic
Heritage Trail along a stretch of St. Catherine Street between the
Forks of the Road Slave Market Site
All for a cool $600,000,000. Which the site estimates will create a whopping 65 jobs in the Natchez, MS area. Yay!
I'm going to propose a 'White Man's Burden" trail. I'll mark out a path between home, school, work, the tax office, and the place where you got mugged because the government is wasting money on stupid shit instead of actual infrastructure.
I can deliver this for approx. $100,000 ($1,000 for signage, $4,000 for labor and my very modest $95,000 management fee). Talk about value!
Posted by: Hermit Dave at January 31, 2009 11:00 PM (WhFvm)
I was gonna win more medals too,
...but then I got high. Dude, dude, what the hell were you thinking doing bong hits within ten thousand miles of a camera? Seriously, you're gonna lose your endorsements, and maybe your shot at winning some more in '12. Obligatory for all stories involving weed, (and matched with obligatory Content Warning)
1
Totally off-topic, but here's a literary classic you'll want to put on your bookshelf. http://www.chroniclebooks.com/index/main,book-info/store,books/products_id,7847/title,Pride-and-Prejudice-and-Zombies/
Posted by: kishnevi at January 31, 2009 11:56 PM (cJphf)
2
Awesome, I'm totally going to have to pick that up.
Posted by: doubleplusundead at February 01, 2009 12:13 AM (fDw+c)
Google bomb defused
I'm gonna go ahead and guess that it was about fifty percent "busy with other stuff" and fifty percent "because they're liberal douchebags":
It took four years for Google to address the "Google bomb" that was lobbed at former President Bush.
But it took the Internet behemoth only a few days to defuse the same attack on President Obama.
Four years versus a few days ... Some Googlers are asking why.
The main question I think most of us are left with is: Public Fister?
Posted by: Moron Pundit at January 31, 2009 06:28 PM (2uped)
2
I must be stupid, because I don't even know what a Google bomb is, and I am utterly curious why someone would even type the words Public Fister. Does this Public Fister have anything to do what the Welfare for Welfare Bill will accomplish for the middle class folks that drive the economy? And does the Public Fister plan on doing anything about the Public Fister's ideology?
Posted by: Two Dogs at January 31, 2009 07:01 PM (2uFPX)
PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: And a good choice. It's none of
my business, it's not my party. But Michael's been here in THE
SITUATION ROOM many times, we've debated issues. Terribly smart guy. I
like that he's run for office. He served as Maryland's lieutenant
governor. He had some failed bids for office, which is good too. You
learn a lot from the canvas. So, good for them.
But I think
Candy's piece is instructive. The real leader of the Republican Party
in America today is a corpulent drug addict with an AM radio talk show,
Rush Limbaugh. He's the real power in the Republican Party. And so
Michael Steele is going to need to stand up to Limbaugh if he wants to
actually lead the party of Lincoln.
Gee. Somehow, I get the feeling a talking point is circulating.
As opposed to the corpulent, murdering drunkard that used to lead his party?
Posted by: doubleplusundead at January 31, 2009 05:01 PM (fDw+c)
3
Went to "Five Feet of Fury" and was surprised to see a Canadian paper also going for Rush's throat. Very strange that everyone got the word at the beginning of Obama's presidency to start bashing Rush. Have they isolated him as the conservative with the biggest voice? The one that has the most power? The one that has the most cohesive argument against the liberal agenda? Very interesting and very pathetic. These people operate off fear on a continual basis. Global warming, depression/recession, don't listen to that, don't eat meat, salt, sugar. For God's sake these people lead miserable lives.
Posted by: mare at January 31, 2009 05:08 PM (X1fsj)
I'm on a very restricted diet right now, and I'm basically an involuntary vegetarian. Does this mean I'm going to turn into a liberal weenie? If I start spouting liberal talking points and bashing radio personalities, someone please stage an intervention.
Posted by: Hermit Dave at January 31, 2009 06:21 PM (WhFvm)
5And so
Michael Steele is going to need to stand up to Limbaugh if he wants to
actually lead the party of Lincoln.
If Steele wants to lead the party of Lincoln to victory, he'll embrace Limbaugh. Maybe not every single position, but slapping one of the standard bearers of the movement is hardly the path to success. But I suspect Begala may know that.
Posted by: XBradTC at January 31, 2009 09:08 PM (TJKBb)
6
I think that was David Frum, the male Kathleen Parker, who wrote that piece,
Posted by: ian cormac at January 31, 2009 09:39 PM (eCrFX)
I think we just found one way Obama will preserve jobsMandate it
On Friday, Obama issued an executive order that requires all new contractors who win a service contract to include a clause that requires them to give the right of first refusal to the workers under the prior contract. The new contractor cannot hire anyone new until the right of first refusal has been been provided. Why the hell would anyone bid on a new contract if the new company isn't allowed to bring in its own employees?
And of course there's an exemption provision, of course there is. I see no situations in which the director of an agency would possibly decide that, nope, this won't apply to this contract. None at all!
"It will happen to you...if you let it."
I'm about to lose some Evil RethugliKKKan cred here, but I've never owned a gun. Hell, I've never even fired a gun. Even so, I can't help but fear that the following is a glimpse into our not-too-distant future:
Posted by: XBradTC at January 30, 2009 10:00 PM (vII9H)
4
You mean Dollhouse? I'm torn, what with my white hot hatred of Joss Whedon competing with Eliza with a gun. Guess what's winning?
Posted by: alexthechick at January 30, 2009 10:12 PM (DMkhn)
5
Three guesses the first two don't count, I'm a sucker for all things, Dushku, although I picked up "True Calling" only when it aired on Scifi, and I'll tune into Dollhouse, as I did into Firefly, and even Drive, until if fell off a cliff.
Posted by: ian cormac at January 31, 2009 12:07 AM (9EG7Z)
I'm watching Buffy all the way through. Dunno if I'll watch all of Angel.
Posted by: XBradTC at January 31, 2009 01:09 AM (vII9H)
7
I'd recommend Angel, too, Brad. All in all, I think it turned out to be a better series than Buffy. The story arcs were amazingly well done.
Posted by: Sean M. at January 31, 2009 04:31 AM (rLWHv)
8
At some point you have to at least watch the crossovers, Brad. But the crossovers will be hard to understand if you haven't been watching Angel in the same order.
And Dollhouse premiers in about two weeks on Fox.
Posted by: Alice H at January 31, 2009 11:17 AM (jRtPb)
1
I have to admit not being sold on the idea of Nuge as the President of the NRA, I think you want someone who exudes a quiet confidence, not someone with a loud, intemperate style like Nugent. Not that I think you want a squish or someone who'll roll over like a GOP Senator, but you don't measure passion or strength by loudness.
Posted by: doubleplusundead at January 30, 2009 06:27 PM (D2cBI)
2
I'm all for it, if only because the recorded messages the NRA wants me to listen to when they call for donations are guaranteed to be AWESOME.
Posted by: leoncaruthers at January 30, 2009 06:29 PM (JSO4h)
I think we are headed for the biggest assault on the Bill of Rights (not just the second) in history. We can't pussy foot around with this stuff anymore, let's throw some blood & guts into the fan and see what happens.
Posted by: A. Weasel at January 30, 2009 06:35 PM (bqcfE)
4
Absolutely we need non-squishes, but you can't just go charging in either, you need to strategerize, and I question whether The Nuge can offer up the kind of smart, strategic thinking we need right now.
Posted by: doubleplusundead at January 30, 2009 06:42 PM (D2cBI)
5
I think he's a little smarter and restrained than he gets credit for, but that's his fault. I just look at everything that's coming up on the horizon, and I feel like pulling a "Nuge"... pull out a gun, climb a tree and start screaming "wake the fuck up America".
Posted by: A. Weasel at January 30, 2009 06:57 PM (bqcfE)
6
He has always presented himself well on Glenn Beck's show. I think he gains credibility when people hear him. The perception and the reality are not the same thing in this case.
Posted by: mare at January 31, 2009 01:18 PM (X1fsj)
7
And I agree with A. Weasel, libs will ALWAYS try and make conservatives look crazy you cannot avoid that. It's best to have a strong, no-backing-down voice to push back.
Posted by: mare at January 31, 2009 01:21 PM (X1fsj)
I'll take the "phony" over the hack any damn time
I was just listening to Sean Hannity on the radio and he pissed me off nearly immediately. While singing his own praises, he said: "A lot of guys on here are phony...I hear ya Dennis Miller...only in it for the ca-ching."
Lame.
The two shows' formats are different. Hannity's is all talking points, while Miller's is politics, sports, entertainment, whatever. Maybe if Miller was still harping on Rev. Wright three months after the election, Hannity wouldn't feel this way.
(I know this is kind of a ridiculous thing to post on, but his big fat head got to me.)
I'll have to listen to the quote in context, but the way you quoted it right there doesn't give me the impression that Hannity was calling Miller a phoney.
Why say "I hear ya Dennis Miller" instead of just saying "Dennis Miller". I don't know, it sounds like he was giving a shout-out to something Miller said/thinks.
Then again, maybe not. I just don't see why Hannity would make such a silly (and obviously not positively recieved) remark.
2
No, it was definitely a slam. Someone called in to compliment Hannity on just how awesomely awesome he is (gee, wonder how she got through), and he said "I'm just here telling you how I feel, there are a lot of phonies in this business....Dennis Miller - we all know you're in it for the ca-ching."
In fairness, sometimes a caller will call into Dennis Miller and thank him to being level-headed or something, and he'll say something like "Yeah, I can't go through the list of things day in and day out like Hannity does." But that's pretty much true.
3
Ah, definitely a slam then. That's terribly disappointing.Not that I'm a huge Hannity fan or anything, but anytime you have a conservative voice putting down another conservative voice, it's a sad thing to see.
Honestly, putting down someone who doesn't do exactly the same thing as you, or doesn't do it as well, or does it for different reasons, makes you sound like a...what's the word I'm looking for....oh yeah, liberal.
4
I heard it, too, and Vinty is right. He was putting Dennis Miller down. It was a cheap shot.
Posted by: Sean M. at January 30, 2009 10:41 PM (rLWHv)
5
Watch those "fat heads" comments. I heard Hannity say Friday that he had lost about 30 pounds.
Posted by: TimothyJ at February 01, 2009 12:32 AM (IKKIf)
6
Tim, Hannity could lose all the weight in the world, and he'd still have a fat head. I know because he suffers from a condition that I also have. It's called "Big Fat Irish Head Syndrome." And, unfortunately, it's incurable.
Posted by: Sean M. at February 01, 2009 04:41 AM (rLWHv)
I heard the remark and have been burning ever since. I agree with 'vintage duh' and 'citc' completely.
Dennis' show is scintillating, his mental quickness and wordplays are dazzling. His laughter, which is genuine, is infectious. He has entertaining guests and doesn't back down on his beliefs. I particularly admire him for defending Bush, the War on Terror, and our troops and his unrestrained vitriol toward Islamofascists.
He runs intellectual circles around Hannity. Being in show business, he seems a voice crying in the wilderness against the entertainment zeitgeist.. This shows a high level of courage that Hannity never has to face in his cushy, backslapping environs.
Dennis also reaches an audience that most conservatives could never hope to duplicate. Thus more opportunites to change minds in the free marketplace of ideas.
Dennis combines politics and entertainment in a very compelling package. Don't miss it!
Posted by: AJ at February 05, 2009 07:36 PM (99kiJ)
2
I was behind Steele from the beginning, but I was sweating before the 6th ballot was announced, knowing the penchant of the RNC to always make the stupid choice.
3
After an initial euphoria, I slid into a mildly positive view of Steele. I definitely favored him over anybody with that country club baggage. (WTF were people thinking?!!?)
Posted by: Sockless Joe at January 30, 2009 05:40 PM (tzEdT)
4
That initial euphoria being several weeks ago, that is.
Posted by: Sockless Joe at January 30, 2009 05:41 PM (tzEdT)
5
I wonder if Democrats will jump at the bait and accuse Republicans of voting for Steele simply because he's black...
And some of the solutions for the banking industry are just chock full of potential Epic Fail.
The report covers Treasury's administration of the bailout, called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, through Jan. 23. Nearly $294 billion had been released by that date — almost $200 billion of it through a program to inject capital directly into financial institutions.
The roughly $200 billion in capital injections doesn't include any of the separate money authorized to guarantee losses for Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc., or about $20 billion to stabilize automakers Chrysler and General Motors Corp.
"Even with more time and better data, it will remain difficult to separate the impact of TARP activities from the effect of other economic forces," the report said.
Recent moves to improve oversight of the money hadn't gone far enough, according to the report. Treasury introduced a plan to survey the 20 largest participating firms each month following an earlier GAO report that blasted the program's lack of transparency.
More information about how the money was divided and how recipients spent it was still necessary, the new report said.
"We continue to believe that additional action is needed to better ensure that all participating institutions are accountable for their use of program funds," the GAO said.
The report also said Treasury had "taken important steps" to address nine recommendations from the earlier report, which included calls to improve communication about the bailout and hire staff to oversee it.
But Treasury "has yet to fully address eight" of the recommendations, the report said.
"The lack of a clearly articulated vision has complicated Treasury's ability to effectively communicate to Congress, the financial markets, and the public on the benefits of TARP," the report said.
Also Friday, officials including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair were meeting to discuss overhauling the bailout program and other financial and regulatory reforms.
Officials have been considering several programs, including a government-run "bad bank" that would buy up trouble assets clogging banks' balance sheets, and additional guarantees against losses like those granted to Bank of America and Citigroup. Additional capital injections also are possible.
Perhaps moving forward, a good measuring stick for deciding whether or not to pass a particular reform or bailout, these lawmakers should ask "Later on down the road, are we going to be able to tell if this worked?"
If the answer is "no", maybe passing that particular law/bailout/stimulus, whatever, shouldn't happen. I think that'd be a fairly good way of getting a rough feel about any particular spending bill.
When you can't even be honest about the intent of legislation, or when you don't really know what the intent is, it's hard to measure its success.
If congress would just admit that the banking system is bankrupt and needs to be recapitalized then the results would be easy to measure. Not that I think this is the right approach, but if they're going to toss money around, they might as well be honest about it.
Oh wait, honest politicians? What the fuck am I thinking!?!?! Carry on.
Posted by: Hermit Dave at January 30, 2009 04:38 PM (WhFvm)
A Letter from the US Economy
Dear People of the United States,
Though in the past I have never directly addressed you, preferring to act either via unseen methods (the so-called "invisible hands") or through sweater-clad proxies, I am taking the exceptional step of speaking directly to you, the US taxpayer, during this time of our joint crisis.
I have taken this drastic measure because more and more of you are being misled by charlatans, fools, and gun-toting religious nuts who want you to believe that I will receive little or no benefit from the stimulus package that is currently passing through congress.
I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth, and I shall be stimulated more thoroughly than a Viagra-swilling Urkel giving massages at the Playboy Grotto.
Perhaps you live in a fairy-tale world where cat feces miraculously shape themselves into effigies of the Virgin Mary strangling Christ by his umbilical cord, or where bicycle paths spontaneously carve themselves in areas where they are patently infeasible and unnecessary, but here in the real world it takes tax money forcibly removed from your pocket to provide these valuable social services to the chronically unskilled and underemployed.
During your morning commute on the Interstate, where you see a large empty expanse of terrain beside the road, I see a place where an ultra-modern, high-cost light rail system could endlessly shuttle half-empty trains back and forth in an eternal procession of protected union jobs and hopelessly outdated railworker benefits packages, all taking people from a place they don't live near to another place they don't want to go.
Assuming, of course, that no tit mice or red-crested dungbombers would be disturbed by the installation of such a rail system, in which case it will have to be rerouted through a residential area.
I have read several economic "columnists" claim that there are legitimate concerns, but I can assure you that they are invalid. Even now sociology and performing-arts majors are flooding the rolls of the unemployed; don't they deserve a chance to be hired by a shoddy construction outfit owned by a well-connected huckster so that they, too, can have the life experience of building shoddy high-density housing that will crumble into disuse within the next 3 to 5 years?
To those of you who still feel that my stimulus is less important than your paltry tax dollars, which you will doubtless squander selfishly thinking only of yourselves, remember that when I am angry my wrath is terrible to behold. If you think that my boundless rage will be slaked by closing thousands of Starbucks and brutalizing the journalism industry, you are fooling yourself.
Inefficient car manufacturers are only the beginning. Unless I get my stimulation, I may turn my attention to other trillion-dollar operations that are poorly run.
Or as my friends in Chicago might say, "Nice government you have there. Wouldn't want anything to happen to it, would you?"
As a disclaimer, I want to note that things are rough out there right now, and if you have lost your job, or know a person who has, I am not attempting to minimize it or downplay it. But, the drop was not as bad as predicted.
I know the Deciders are still trying to overhype the drop, with this as example:
The weakness in the fourth quarter was masked by a buildup in inventories, which adds to output even if they are unwanted. Real final sales for domestic product, which excludes inventories, decreased 5.1% in the fourth quarter.
Nice try buddy.
Anyway, I don't want to go all Kos-like in my conspiracy theories, but I wonder if the Deciders want things to sound worse so that they can hype The Magic Unicorns, and then claim that The Messiah's policies have lifted us out of this slump, and not the natural business cycle.
Further rubber/latex outfits were found in Mr Santiago’s car and in the ladies’ toilets of his workplace at Aquis House in Blagrave Street, Reading.
The evening before he died Mr Santiago printed off information from the internet explaining how inhaling “poppers” (legal chemicals used to stimulate a sexual high) via a gas mask can cause arousal.
At an inquest into his death Berkshire coroner Peter Bedford explained Mr Santiago had only worked at Aquis House for one day before he died.
On Monday, July 21, he arrived ready for his 6.30pm to 6.30am shift.
But the next morning, when fellow guard Christopher Courtenay arrived, Mr Santiago was nowhere to be seen.
Reading from Mr Courtenay’s statement, Mr Bedford said: “At 6.30am I could still not see him. I assumed he was in the bathroom.
“At 6.50am I carried out a full patrol. Ralph was still not back.”
Mr Courtenay visited the staff bathroom and discovered the men’s toilet was locked. He went upstairs to get a key, when he opened the door he found a body.
However, he was not certain it was Mr Santiago because only his eyes were visible under the mask.
Paramedics and the police were called. In a statement, PC Barbara Cummings described Mr Santiago as wearing “a black latex suit, gloves, a gas mask and Wellingtons.”
Mr Santiago’s girlfriend Hannele Vaher did not attend the inquest but had previously explained “he had fetishes”, of which she did not take part.
She said he was “prone to dressing up” and adding that he took poppers.
Toxicology tests showed Mr Santiago, of Beresford Avenue in Surbiton, had some alcohol in his system.
1
What happens to people that creates this pathetic need? Most people just worry about clean underwear.
Posted by: mare at January 30, 2009 04:17 PM (X1fsj)
2Blu-ray Ripper is currently the best Blu-ray DVD Ripping software, that can easily rip Blu ray (*.m2ts) and DVDs (*.vob), even the protected DVD disc to HD/SD videos like AVI, 3GP, MP4, MKV, MOV, MPEG, VOB, FLV, SWF, M4V, WMV, MKV HD, MOV HD, etc. with super fast ripping speed and excellent image and sound quality. And the converted files from Blu ray or DVD are high compatible with iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, Wii, Xbox, BlackBerry, Zune, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, etc for playback and edit
