Let’s start with the CDC: “If you are generally well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake, or terrorist attack.”
Is Sovereignty right for you?
Enjoy Juanita’s potpourri.
Oh yeah, and you gotta get your Snowden, Snowden, Snowden, yet more Snowden, privacy, and NSA links someplace! Have a bonus NSA comic.
Just starting to come up for air. Hopefully back to more normal posting next week.
Ok, the title was kinda a cheap one.
Solar Airplane!: “The organizers said the flight was the longest and highest by a piloted solar-powered craft, reaching an altitude of just over 28,000 feet above sea level at an average speed of 23 knots, or about 26 miles per hour.” The biggest problems were drinking water that froze and an iPod battery that ran out. Maybe he could have used a solar powered MP3 player!
How to reduce unemployment, Republican style:
Susie’s Right: Maybe paying attention to the base instead of the cash, the cash and the votes will take care of themselves.
Comrade E.B. Misfit is right too: on Declining Sales and Spying on Americans (which seems to me a colossal waste of resources).
Roman Treasure: Amateur with a metal detector stumbles on thousands of rare old coins.
Well, I guess I’m willing to give up on ever being on MSNBC too: No really, a female employee was once found dead on the floor of then Congressman Joe Scarborough’s office. It’s true! And then the strange part happened.
Shoppers are back, but they’re picky: 10 months of retail gains, but things aren’t improving as fast as experts thought they would (or as fast as retailers would like).
Another Cartoon About Republicans (Because I Feel Like it):
Yeah, but you have to do business with Chase: Chase is offering discounted interest to small businesses that borrow money and then hire new employees. Interesting that they are trolling for “qualified” borrowers. I wonder how hard it is to actually qualify for the program.
This is going to be a mess: New reporting rules that were stealthily placed into the health insurance reform bill would require small businesses to report and file a form 1099 on any vendor from whom they bought more than $700 of goods or services. For example, I will have to report my office rent, my cell phone bill, and probably my office supplies. I might be able to get around reporting my NAR membership because the money gets split between national, state, and local organizations. Sounds like the “Put IRS Agents and Accountants To Work Act”. Hat tip to Jukkou-san, sorry it took so long to find an authoritative source.
Raise interest rates?: That’s what Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig says. His reasoning is that the economy is growing and rates are too close to 0% now. I agree, but for different reasons.
And Finally: Look out for sub-standard olive oil. I honestly don’t know what to tell you other than to make sure you trust your supplier, sniff it before you use it, and hope.
There was a witch who knitted things:
Elephants and playground swings.
She knitted rain,
She knitted night,
But nothing really came out right.
The elephants had just one tusk
And night looked more
Like dawn or dusk.–Karla Kuskin
So much stupid has been committed by various Republicans in the last day that I thought about adding to yesterday’s post. But then I realized that things had merely come full circle.
Oh sure, it’s easy and fun to figure out how many chickens you should take with you to the doctor’s office for various services! Just punch it into the Lowden Plan Chicken Calculator! But please don’t forget to scroll all the way down. The amazing thing is that she’s not backing down one inch from her chicken-barter statement. She could have said she merely meant that we need to be flexible and think outside the box for solutions, anything other than suggesting it was really desirable to show up at Doc’s place with a truckload of chickens.
Of course it’s almost obligatory to point out that if the Democrats have a single functional brain cell, they will line up behind Senator Dodd and insist that every Republican choose to stand either with reform or with corruption on financial services reform (heck, we may have to make the Democrats do it too).
I suppose I did gloss over GOP Chairman and token “black man” Michael Steele admitting that African Americans really have no reason to vote for the Grand Old Party today. Why did I put “black man” in quotes? Because if he were either one he would have told *ahem* people like these where to shove their signs.
Right there is where we start knitting. We’re in the process of transcending mere Stupid Republican Tricks and tying them back to the racist, sexist claptrap that I railed about — with some resistance I might add — a few weeks ago. Racism? Check! Sexism? Huh, let’s see… sexism, sexism….
Oh here! I personally think it’s pretty freaking objectionable to send out a newsletter to your base suggesting “Let’s take [Congresswoman] Betty Sutton out of the House and put her back in the kitchen.”
Yeah. Since her previous job was not as a chef, that is offensive as hell. Can she at least keep her shoes, or would they like to see her barefoot and pregnant too? And [expletive] them for trying to make it somehow acceptable to say this. Oh, says the local official who approved the mailing, we haven’t gotten any complaints! And so, then, the donations are rolling in on that crap? What do his wife and daughters think of that rhetoric? Are they proud of what Daddy said?
Obviously this man doesn’t speak for the entire party. There are women Republicans. Former Secretary of State Condi Rice for example. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Senate Candidate Sue Lowden of Nevada.
Here’s some free advice to the Republican Party. You can’t continue to alienate the 51% of Americans who are women and the 12% of Americans who are black and actually keep winning free and fair elections. If they continue on their current path, they will more and more resemble a misshapen toy elephant made of yarn scraps, with only one tusk.
In Closing: on airlines; surely nobody expected the SEC to investigate anybody; I hope this movie doesn’t suck; speaking of movies, Food, Inc. streaming free for a limited time; Orcas are more than one species; what part of the Americans with Disabilities Act didn’t the school understand?; Japanese mechanical dolls; and Worst Person in the World, 33 AD.