Category: Shorties

Molly Ivins says: “I have known George W. Bush since we were both in high school — we have dozens of mutual friends…. Spare me the tough talk…. Torture does not work. It is not productive. It does not yield important, timely information. That is in the movies. This is reality.”

The Mess That Greenspan Made points out that the CPI deliberately ignores the true cost of healthcare. I really need to add these folks to the Stuff I Read List.

The New York Times investigates a sociological trend: “They’re Soft and Cuddly, So Why Lash Them to the Front of a Truck?”

Maybe this will help the trade imbalance for a little bit: Japan buying Patriot Missiles until they can figure out how to build missiles themselves. I am concerned about the latest trends from Japan and the SDF.

National Geographic says it is now possible to turn poop into rocket fuel.

Alternet points out Look who we’ve made Ambassador to Italy!

And finally, a pro-life bill even a pro-choice person can love. Pro-life community, put your money where your mouth is.

In no particular order I bring you truly random thoughts.

Fun With Science! Something to do with the kids, and everybody might learn something.

Ten Things You Shouldn’t Buy New? Actually, I disagree with this person. Let me run through a few. Books/CDs/DVDs: yeah, lots of books only get read once. Yeah there’s lots of things you can get at used book stores and libraries. But what is your time hunting The Right Book worth? If you want to feel good about buying books you’ll only read once, donate them to the public library or sell them to Half-Price Books. Kid’s toys: Apparently she’s never heard of safety recalls. As for “sturdy wooden toys,” just because it’s wood doesn’t mean it’s sturdy. Cars: Sorry, a new car has more advantages than New Car Smell. It has, oh, a warranty! No, that’s no promise that it won’t break, but it does mean that if it breaks, there’s someone who will get it fixed. And these days, a good dealership will gladly drive you to work after you drop off your car for service. Over the years I have seen so many people spend the equivalent of a car payment every month fixing an unreliable old car, because they think they can’t afford to replace it. I am not dissing used cars, just telling you to be careful and avoid money pits. Okay, a new car depreciates. So do used ones. Cars are not investments.

A hilarious cookbook! (Thanks to Slashfood) If you enjoy that, please progress to the Institute of Official Cheer.

Alan Greenspan used to be quoted as saying that retirement was like a stool with three legs: savings, Social Security, and pensions. Well, you know how the Administration wants to saw off the “Social Security” leg, but maybe you don’t know about the termites eating away at pensions. Now, personally I do not like to refer to “defined contribution plans” such as 401k programs as “pensions.” Let’s be real, a defined contribution plan is nothing more than a savings plan run by your boss. So keep that in mind as you read.

It’s official, temperatures are rising. Now, what was that the President was saying about there being no such thing as Global Warming?

Doctors agree that abstinence only education is Bad. (Thanks to Paxtonland) “The new policy says that while doctors should encourage adolescents to postpone sexual activity, they also should help ensure that all teens — not just those who are sexually active — have access to birth control, including emergency contraception.”

Finally, Fafblog!’s War on Poverty. (Thanks to Ezra Klein)

CNN brings us this article on overheated housing markets and lists what it considers to be the 50 most overpriced markets. However, some of the “markets” listed are quite silly. Denver-Aurora? Seattle-Bellevue-Everett is one massive multi-county area, but neighboring Tacoma is another area? And with the number of California communities listed, wouldn’t it be easier to say “#1 Northern California, #2 Southern California” (or reverse order)? I wish I understood the agenda of this list.

CNN also brings us an article on education where they helpfully tell us that kids who don’t understand English well don’t do well on standardized tests. This may result in these kids not getting high school diplomas. From the article:

“Do we want a lot of high school students who don’t have diplomas — and therefore have a lot of limited opportunities after high school — because they are still acquiring English?” [Deborah Short, director of language education and academic development at the Center for Applied Linguistics] said. “We need more of a policy on what to do with these children.”

Here’s what we do with these children: teach them English! The kind of employer who has a problem with the fact that someone does not have a high school diploma has an even bigger problem with the fact that these potential employees don’t read, write and understand English. Failing to teach all children the lingua franca of this nation is condemning them to underclass status. The diploma is by comparison just a bit of paper.

Also from the realm of education, even the American Beverage Association thinks elementary school students shouldn’t have access to all the soda they can drink. Seattle schools have already limited vending machines, and are now dealing with the reduced funding for everything that isn’t critical.

Seattle happens to be hosting a convention for state legislators around our nation, and one thing they are steaming mad about is Real ID. They don’t like the fact that the Feds are telling them what to do. They don’t like that they will have to spend thousands of millions of dollars on it. They don’t like the time, money, and responsibility of obtaining and verifying documents on every driver. They, well they don’t like any of it. One thing pointed out in this version of the story is this: “The new requirements are aimed at stopping illegal immigrants from getting driver’s licenses, thus preventing them from boarding planes or entering protected federal buildings.” Now think about this. We want to prevent illegal immigrants from getting into federal buildings, where they might have legitimate business such as applying for asylum, legalizing their status, or being a witness in a court case.

Finally, a word about Cindy Sheehan. Remember, if you can’t go to Crawford, you can still find a way to support her in your community. There is a vigil tonight, and probably one near you. Saying you think the President is wrong does not mean you “hate America.” As far as I am concerned, the guy who did this hates America.

It turns out that the very people who thought they were getting a big tax break from President Bush’s tax break on dividend income are getting socked with Alternative Minimum Tax instead. Ooops.

Journalists and people with actual degrees in economics sitting in high places like the Boston Fed are noticing what I have told you for well over a year, that the official unemployment number does not tell you the whole story, and there are millions more people out of work — honest, hard working people who would like to have an honest, decent paying job — that don’t show up in the official statistics.

The cost of the War in Iraq, both to the United States and to Iraq. Randi Rhodes will gladly explain to you how all rhodes — I mean roads — lead to Iraq. Bolton, Rove, Plame, Downing Street, the Sixteen Words; it all intersects at one point, the desire to invade Iraq. Support our troops: pray for peace or enlist.

A moment of silence for James Doohan, the man who played “Scotty” on the original Star Trek. He passed away this morning.

And finally, in case you should ever need to ship a hippo, the United States Postal Service has some tips for you.

Follow up:

“But for [talks] to happen, the DPRK (North Korea) must do its part by returning to the table without preconditions and abandoning its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” said Chris Ford, a senior U.S. official and member of the U.S. delegation to the IAEA.

Translation: “We can talk about disarming after you’ve disarmed.”

Anti-Terror Follies: The best commentary about current House of Representatives action to make the FBI get a good old fashioned search warrant before browbeating your local librarian, contrasted with wanting to make your ISP keep records on everything that all their clients do on the off chance there may be an investigation someday — and I guess your ISP will pay for the additional storage space by raising your rates. If that isn’t enough, the Homeland Security Privacy Czar (I bet you didn’t know there was one) is trying to find out if the TSA is expanding the scope of Secure Flight (CAPPS III, if you prefer) and amending documentation after the fact.

Missing Persons: It turns out even the news media has started to notice that cute white girls vanishing get lots of press, but tough luck if a missing person is male or black, as the majority of missing persons happen to be. Of course the very sources covering this could fix the problem by changing their coverage and quitting the “missing white girl of the week club.”

Follow up on the housing bubble: even the New York Times admits that just maybe people are overextending to buy houses, using products like adjustable rate mortgages and interest only mortgages that have the potential to put home”owners” seriously behind the 8 ball a few years from now.

A wise man points out the heretical reality that more education does not translate into higher pay, and until such time as we all have household robots, there will always be a lot of unskilled labor needed in our economy.

A millionaire asks Why is Hollywood paying big money for something that doesn’t work?

And finally, how can it not be a top story plastered across the front page of every newspaper and dominating every newscast that a half-dozen Congressmen — backed by over a hundred more — hand carried a letter with a half million signatories to the White House asking Bush to explain himself regarding the Downing Street Memo?

Follow up on signs of a housing bubble.

Follow up on Real ID, which will make us less secure, create more data about us in large databases that will result in less privacy, and make us more vulnerable to identity theft. This last bit is why it is a big deal that even the best biometrics have a 2% fail rate; if we really give a hoot about “security” and “identification,” then biometric failure means some security guy has to go make sure you are really John Doe, and not some guy with John Doe’s severed thumb.

On education, an interesting way to figure out what is known and how bits of knowledge relate to one another. Also, useful for finding glaring gaps in our understanding.

On jobs, not only does the CEO make more than you, he makes 300 times more than you and the fact that so few jobs have been created means there is intense competition for “entry level” jobs, and in a nation where there are plenty short sticks to go around, the young urban poor get the shortest one of all.

And finally, something for those of you who feel like you’ve been fighting for one entry level job after another for the last few years, a friend of mine has a shirt for you: it says I had a job during the Clinton administration.