Category: Shorties

Mom, can I come home? On one hand, the economy is sufficiently bad that there is a societal trend towards young adults staying at home or moving back home. On the other hand, how quickly we forget how many seasons Meathead and Gloria lived with the Bunkers, how many years it took to scrape together the money for the downpayment on the Jefferson’s old place. (Thanks to Sarah, for pointing out this story!)

Wanted: Alternative to Hillary. A fascinating piece about the intersection of money, politics, and influence. His name is Chris Korge, and he supports Hillary Clinton in 2008 — but only if she’s running.

Fifteen scientific replies to challenges by creationists. Not just a must read it’s a must understand.

The Chinese proverb is “Wealth never survives three generations.” The problem is that nobody is teaching young people to manage their money.

Go Sandra! Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has spent the last several days shaking trees and slaughtering sacred cows, showing us all what a real conservative sounds like! In one apparently brilliant speech, she blasted pro-life advocates on Terri Schiavo, cautioned against “strong-arming” the independent judiciary, and warned against the beginnings of a dictatorship.

Finally, yet another story to keep an eye on: possible mistakes — including disobeying a judge’s direct instructions — may mean accused “20th hijacker” mistrial. I am at a loss for why the prosecution would deliberately do things to jeopardize this case. After all, the Government badly needs to show that they are on top of the terrorism thing, and what better way to do that than to convict this guy? Unfortunately, I think the Christian Science Monitor has hit on an underlying and very chilling fact: “‘This [Moussaoui trial] is about whether the criminal justice system has any role in the war on terror,’ says Juliette Kayyem, a public policy expert at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.” If there is a mistrial, a retrial, or anything short of sending Moussaoui to death row, I expect to hear rhetoric about how these people, these suspected terrorists should not be tried in civilian courts at all, but rather by military tribunals. However bad terrorists may be, it is very dangerous to the rest of society to have certain crimes tried in secret courts.

Have a great week, everybody.

No, seriously, this one’s almost too short to be shorties. It is my hope to bang out something about healthcare tomorrow.

Karl Rove is planning on Hilary being the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008. This is why a) she must not run;: b) she should pretend to be serious about running as long as possible. Let the Republican Machine figure out how to take her down, then pull a bait-and-switch.

Today I got an envelope from UNICEF. It had a nickel glued to the first page and the text on the envelope read “This nickel could save a child’s life.” Well for Heaven’s sake, why the heck haven’t they saved the child instead of mailing the nickel to me?? And this is supposed to make me want to give them more money. What will they do with it, mail it across the world one nickel at a time? Do I look like I’m made of nickels?

Tax time is closer than you think. Here’s tax pitfalls to avoid and the official IRS website, where you can download forms and instructions.

Finally, the Christian Science Monitor brings us this item on declining real income for “younger” Americans. By younger they mean anyone under 44: “Income fell 8 percent, adjusted for inflation, for those under 35 and 9 percent for those aged 35 to 44.”

A cure for boredom or a prescription for insanity? You decide!

Almost 6 months later, ” Louisiana rebuilding plan unveiled.” My favorite part? “[I]t would require that people who receive housing assistance rebuild to new federal standards that haven’t been finalized.” Because it’s so easy to plan your rebuilding budget when the rules governing what you can and can’t do haven’t been written yet. According to the Washington Post, there is a take the money and run clause — I mean a mortgage buyout provision. I wonder what happened to the people who were sent to Katrina Camps.

Soon, there may be no such thing as “public records.” Good luck getting a replacement birth certificate. Or researching disease clusters. Or finding your birth parents. Or finding the health impact of industrial sites.

Within a decade, one of every 5 dollars spent in the United States will be spent on healthcare. This number may be low, as I think the expectation that prescription drug costs will go down is unrealistic. Every month new drugs are developed and patented, and there will always be a premium charged for them. Furthermore, there are hundreds of diseases being researched at any given time, meaning new drugs to treat those illnesses will soon be under development. Keep in mind this figure includes health insurance, hospital costs, drug costs, and actual fees paid to medical professionals. Oh, and if “The [Bush] administration predicts that Americans would become more thrifty consumers if they had to pay more of the upfront costs, which occurs with health savings accounts,” then they should get the tax rules and forms changed so that Joe and Jane Average can deduct premiums for individual health insurance policies.

Neo-Conservatism is dead. Long live Neo-Conservatism. Now lay down and shut up already!

And finally, Honda may start selling a “cheap” hybrid vehicle in 2007 or 2008. Unless of course they don’t.

Maui may be running out of sand.

Romance Filter (Happy Valentines Day): Diamonds and the ethical purchase thereof.

Real conservatives don’t shut up and drink the Kool-Aid, but they may get flamed by people who claim to be real conservatives and like their Kool-Aid.

Enjoy some taxpayer-funded prepackaged news. You would think that they could have saved some of that sixteen hundred million dollars by consolidating those 343 PR contracts. For that matter, when we are talking this kind of money, wouldn’t it be cheaper to create an in-house PR agency and in-source it?

Maybe the White House thinks the Vice President shooting somebody is funny, (yeah, freaking hilarious) but Asian news sources are calling it “a bizarre and sinister episode.” So tell me, is it funnier now, since the victim has had a heart attack because “Some of the birdshot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his heart….”?

Bad enough that the courts are split on whether it’s ok for the FBI to track where you are via your cell-phone just because, now the Federal government would like to set up a giant omnibus electronic medical records database. Never mind that even Consumer Reports says “Electronic Medical Records Have Potential for Misuse.” Even news outlets less than 200 miles from Dubya’s Crawford ranch are publishing opinions against this sort of thing. Here’s the short version: creates big commercial database; subject to misuse and outright hacking; will be used by insurance companies to deny payment or coverage; will be used by other entities to “legally” discriminate based on medical conditions past or present; will probably not result in better care, particularly in the sort of emergencies where an omnibus medical record would be darn handy. ER docs are too busy saving your life to try and figure out how to get a remote computer database to barf up your records and — since they will likely contain streams of incomprehensible but succinct billing codes — then interpret them.

Let’s start off with Ten Important News Stories That The Media Doesn’t Cover.

New study suggests that public school students do just as well on math tests as private school students, once they unleveled the playing field by adjusting for background and used a small enough sample size. I think what this study shows is that the government can prove anything it wants to prove badly enough. See also: global warming, War on Terror.

Compare and contrast, 50 points, essay question: “US plans to ‘fight the net’ revealed” dealing in “information operations,” versus Congressional staffers re-write Wikipedia entries to suit their bosses. Exceptional answers may be submitted to Wikipedia.

Next up, Most Americans think President Bush’s eavesdropping plan is a risk to their civil liberties. Also they think that by the end of the Bush Administration, the economy will be the same or worse, the health care system will be the same or worse, and the Federal budget deficit will be bigger.

Grim reading on the fact that if Roe v. Wade falls, abortions will not stop just because they may be illegal. Wealthy women will always be able to get one, and poor women will die trying. The way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

How many years have we been told that the key to getting ahead in this increasingly knowledge and skills based economy is to go out there and get the best education we possibly can? Yeah right! An alarming number of people who took that advice are buried under “another mortgage” worth of student load debt.

And on a final, happier note — pun intended — Jukkou-san brings us the Virtual Armonica.

“Torture data long enough, and it will confess to anything you want it to.” Barry Ritholtz brings us The Unpleasant Truth About Inflation and Rethinking the ‘Strong Jobs Recovery’ Scenario. In short, data is being manipulated to make it seem that inflation is benign and job growth is decent if not spectacular. If you only read two items on the economy today, make it these.

I bought a funnel cake today where Jesus walked… No, really, there is talk of building a giant Holy Land theme park in Israel. Because, well, God Knows there are no land disputes there. And the world clearly needs more theme parks.

Violence Against (Some) Women Act. In seems that when Congress reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, they managed to put in a section making it against the law to anonymously “annoy” someone online, but somehow they missed the fact that it’s perfectly legal to buy the phone records of a complete stranger or the object of one’s dark obsessions. Um, how exactly does this make me safer?

Who Likes Short Skirts?? Well, not your clients and not your boss. That cheesy guy who gives you the creeps but hey he’s a client and he pays you well? He likes short skirts! Seriously ladies, a new study confirms common sense: Looking “sexy” and looking like an intelligent management/executive type don’t mix. “Dress for success” is still largely true.

And one more thing: Don’t forget that Mr. Alito’s confirmation hearings begin today. Be sure to scroll down and click to watch the slideshow of quotes. My favorite is when he ruled against the school newspaper that didn’t want to run advertising for beer. Strip-searching the 10 year old girl just because her daddy was suspected of being a drug dealer falls a distant second to that.

Firefilter: “Well, honey, I never did like that chimnea.”

The “safety dance” has lyrics. On one hand, congratulations to the TSA for figuring out that bad guys are bad not because of what they are named, but because of what they do. On the other hand, I can think of a lot of reasons someone might be nervous in an airport, particularly when being questioned by a man with a gun. I have concerns regarding the possible misuse of this program.

You might want to take a few moments on a regular basis to pay attention to what is happening in Asia.

Where have I read this before? Oh yeah, now I remember. It’s the same kind of trash people were saying about Generation X fifteen years ago. Can we have some kind of contest to come up with a better name than “Generation Y”? Surely we can think of something; after all, Generation X used to be known as the “baby busters.”

Looks like we won’t see Dow 11,000 in 2005. GM and housing inventory are at levels not seen since the Reagan Administration.

This government spying thing is like watching a Ron Popeil infomercial on late night cable; every time you look, somebody is saying “But wait! There’s more!”

And finally, a little Geography quiz.

Happy New Year, stay safe, don’t drive drunk, and don’t fire guns into the air, alright?

Fafnir delightfully sends up section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

Cutting through the nonsense about Bush’s secret wiretaps. I wonder if we will ever know why the New York Times saw fit to sit on the story for over a year.

Don’t forget, there is still a Supreme Court nominee in play.

I used to live in Las Vegas, and I was unaware that we had our very own United States Senator.

Maybe your heart is in the right place this holiday season, but think before you give stuff away. If it truly isn’t good enough to use, what on earth do you think a person living in poverty will do with it?

As Epiphany approaches, don’t forget the three wiseguys who will bring widening scandal in the new year: Abramoff, Noe, and Cunningham. Only time will tell who is brought down as these investigations continue and players rush to toss one another under the bus. I keep wondering if, how, and when this will tie back to the Plame leak investigation.

Mmm smells like Nixon. The FBI is busy investigating peaceful activist groups. The DHS might be busy worrying about grad students who want to read source material on the dreaded red peril, Communism (the facts and theories are still coming in on this one).

A judge says yet again that you can’t teach “God created the world” and call it “science.”

Have a great day folks. And be careful; it’s nuts out there.

David Horsey on the Economy: a pictures speaks a thousand words.

Let Sleeping Preschoolers Lie: Remember last month we learned that too little sleep may be causing behavior and/or learning problems at school? Funny, nobody thought to ask how many of these problems might be cured by making sure the kids consistently get a good night’s sleep. It turns out that younger kids may also not be getting enough sleep.

Psst, Buddy, Wanna Buy a House? When the housing market slows down, it may cost the economy 800,000 skilled jobs. That does not include support services, such as mobile food services or sales of work clothes. Please note that these predictions are in the event of a “slowdown,” not a “bubble bursting.”

There Go 30,000 More Manufacturing Jobs: Ford may cut 30,000 more jobs. Merry Christmas. That’s on top of GM’s 30,000 announced layoffs. But those people get 95% of the pay they would get if they were working. (I don’t understand how GM hopes to save a lot of money this way.) According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, there were over 99,000 announced layoffs in November. and December is off to a big start. Keep these numbers in mind when the “job creation” numbers come out next.

Security Update: On this day when a man apparently trying to flee an airplane was shot dead by an Air Marshall, it might interest you to know that 30,000 people discovered they were erroneously put on a Federal terrorist watchlist. An unknown number of people may simply not know they are mistakenly on such a list. Of course, the watchlists are a waste of time and money anyway. In other security news, Gilmore Vs. Gonzales is finally going to Appeals Court. This case is about a lot of very important things, the most pressing of which are whether you need to show an ID card in order to travel, and whether the government can hold us to “secret laws.”

A leading Democrat answers the question What did we know and when did we know it.

Kansas University thumbs its nose at the state Board of Education and offers a class called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies.” I wonder if they will have a lecture on the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Dude! It turns out that making pot busts a low priority in Seattle has not resulted in a drug fueled apocalypse of hedonism.

The Color Purple: Crushed between sagging public opinion of Republican tactics and a chairman of the Democratic party whose book suggests that DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) should consider themselves in danger of challengers in a future primary, Some “purple” Democrats are no longer voting for Republican bills.

Some travel tips for infrequent fliers, and an interesting item from Europe: the EU may stop going along with the United States’ data demands.

Finally, a few pre-Thanksgiving words on live Christmas tree safety. My only live Christmas tree safety tip is this: Don’t! Leave it growing somewhere outside! Seriously, imagine a door-to-door salesman showing up at your house saying “I am offering you the opportunity to pay me to put a messy, highly flammable allergen in your home for an entire month!” You might laugh before you threw him off your property. There are very nice fake trees to be had; Aluminum trees are no longer state of the art, but you can still get one if you love kitsch. And unlike live trees, you won’t have to buy a new one every year. If you just have to get a live tree, plant one in your yard and get outdoor lights.

I wish all of you a marvelous and bountiful Thanksgiving. May we all be mindful of what we have, and what others do not have.