Shorties – Page 9 – Shortwoman.com

Shorties Sematary

Nothing about mortgages or housing today, I promise!

When did Progressives turn into Reaganites?: With Progressive “ideas” like these, we don’t need Conservatives. Doesn’t matter, the Party Of No shoulders on. Maybe everybody thinks the Underpants Gnomes will take care of the problem.

The other side of the coin: Everybody’s favorite Liberal President, Richard M. Nixon! That damn Commie signed the EPA into law, called for true universal health care, and made Father’s Day an official holiday.

Speaking of Conservatives: b***s*** like this and this are why I don’t listen to most of them.

I Shot a Bank in Reno, Just to Watch it Die: Bank Failure 83 this year. It’s only June. 90 banks have missed their TARP payments, so watch out for more to come.

I’m not sure I entirely agree, but it’s an interesting thought: why baggage fees are good for most travelers, with bonus bagging on airport security.

Aim Carefully When Shooting Your Foot, You Wouldn’t Want to Mess Up Your Pumps: I’m not worried about Sharron Angle anymore. Between blowing off a major news outlet in a market that represents 80% of the voting base (there’s a link for video goodness) and not having any money, Senator Reid has no problems.

On Why Medical Care is More Expensive: Not only is it more complicated, it actually works now. Speaking of which, how quaint that USA Today thinks patients have any control over the use of electronic medical records! Oh yeah, and it looks like your doc will only have a 21% pay drop from Medicare in June. Which by the way is generally a lean month for doctors anyway.

The Beginnings of Made For TV Disaster Movie: The Night the Oil Rig Exploded. Several scenes already sketched out, with character development and dialogue, ripped from real life.

On Teacher Assessment: It’s only fair to assess them on stuff they have some control over.

It turns out that Moving is Expensive and Inconvenient: Raising taxes on the rich doesn’t cause them to move to other states. If it did, there would be no multi-millionaires in California and lots of huge mansions outside Primm.

On Fraudulent Debt Collection: Has it really gotten to the point where all somebody needs to do is claim you owe money? Even if you do owe money, there’s stuff you don’t have to tolerate from debt collectors.

Why, No Matter What the GDP is, We Are Still in a Recession: Only the very rich have money to spend.

The “Experts” show their Ignorance Once Again: Experts declare that kids don’t need close friends. Parents scratch their heads, wondering where the heck kids will learn to have relationships with other human beings.

The Crazy Neighbor: Whew!

Have a great weekend, folks! Feel free to let me know what you think of the ads in comments.

2001 Maniacs: Field of Shorties

The Truth About Cattle Grazing: done correctly, it can help restore the land.

Two Funny Things and a Lot of Unfunny Ones about Racism: Let’s get rid of the Mexicans, and Who translated this for you? There’s a movement afoot to pass laws that violate the 14th Amendment on the grounds that not everyone born here has parents that are really not American enough. By not American enough, they generally mean “brown.” There are a number of problems with this, aside from Constitutional issues (funny how some people only like the Constitution some of the time). First, you might end up with people who can’t prove they were born anywhere because the law denies them a birth certificate. Second, you might end up with people who are effectively not citizens of any nation, because they weren’t born in the country of their parent’s citizenship. Third and finally, who gets to decide what constitutes “American enough”? At least “born in U.S.” is a simple to apply measure.

More on Friday’s lousy employment report: Good, bad, and ugly. Really ugly.

Obligatory Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Items: Woo, recapturing a whole 10,500 barrels a day. Really interesting that a BP exec managed to dump a third of his company stock a month before the disaster. You would think they could find a cable tie to keep stuff out of the way on the equipment BP is using a mile below the surface. Harry Reid thinks BP should pay for the clean-up (more on Harry come Tuesday with the Nevada Primaries, probably over on TMV). And on BP’s spill “plan”.

Civil Forfeiture Must Go: Guy sells truck on a payment plan. Truck gets seized by the cops. Cops don’t care that guy still has title and is owed money on said truck. Somehow I bet GMAC doesn’t have this problem.

And it’s only June 6: 22% of states have passed new abortion restrictions and 81 bank failures so far this year.

Speaking of the Banks: 6 made $51,000,000,000 last year; the other 980 lost money.

While we’re on the topic of making money: Just the threat of Federal enforcement makes companies want to restate their earnings.

How Laws are Really Made: Most people of my generation were taught that it works something like this, but the truth is a bit more complicated.

Run Sarah Run!: Ten reasons she should just keep doing the speaking circuit and stay the heck off the ballots.

Two Medical Items: Did you know that if enough doctors decide “No, that isn’t enough money for that procedure and we won’t take that insurance anymore,” the Government can decide they are in violation of anti-trust laws? And scroll down for a breakdown of infant mortality rates in developed nations, compared to health care spending per capita and military spending as a percentage of GDP. The United States has a shameful showing.

And Finally, Japanfilter: Fireflies.

The Shorties Centipede

Ok, for the record, I didn’t make it up, this is a real movie. No, not planning on watching it.

Quickie Economic Stuff: Technically we are out of the Great Recession (assuming you can believe the numbers put out by the government but that’s another story). Nevertheless we are not in a recovery. Bankruptcies are still way too high and jobs are still way too few. We’ve still got too many people who have been unemployed over half a year and too many people who are stuck in part time jobs because a full time job just isn’t available to them no matter how hard they try. Oh, and we haven’t fixed the underlying real estate problem.

Obligatory Oil Spill Stuff: Some meteorologists think the spill might be 5 times worse than reported. Oh, and there might be a lot of unexploded ordinance to complicate the mess. So since the containment dome worked about as well as Jon Stewart predicted (starts around minute 5), now they want to try plugging it up with random junk. Hey, it worked in Futurama. But whatever you do, don’t cry for BP; about 4 days’ profits can cover cleanup.

Really cool computer accessories: Laquered wood mouse starts around $300 American.

No Point Reasoning With Some People: Complain about high taxes all you like, they haven’t been this low since 1950.

Closer than you think: The outrageous thing is that cops are busting down doors and killing pets every day across the nation. It’s just that this one time there’s a videotape.

I don’t get it: So it’s better that violent mental patients should rape a female mental patient than they should assault each other?

Must Read: Prohibition Then and Now.

Dear Fed: Sure, the Senate unanimously voted to have a one time audit of the Fed. However, it’s a watered down thing.

Core Requirements: Susie’s must-have course may be Johnie’s fluff class. How important is it to be a well-rounded student?

Blackbird Flyin’ in the Dead of Night: Take these discarded manuals and learn to fly. All your life, you’ve been waiting for this moment to arrive.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?: More like “Don’t put out and I’ll tell.” We already have an unconscionably high rate of rape in our armed forces. This makes me wonder how many people who are discharged are forced into this, and how many are rape victims with the temerity to stand up to their attackers.

And finally: this lawsuit ain’t over ’till it’s over.

Rosencrantz and Shorties Are Undead

Volcanoes!: Ok, the Eyjnafjallajökull eruption was bad, but usually when it goes the far more dangerous Katla volcano goes as well. Icelandic volcanic eruptions are blamed for temporary climate change that resulted in the Mississippi river freezing as far south as New Orleans and causing famines that eventually resulted in the French Revolution. Here’s 5 more great volcanic eruptions.

Real banking reform, now!: Mr. Reich presents what I consider to be a minimum regulatory laundry list. In the meantime, here’s some things you can do to figure out who really owns your mortgage. Oh, and if you are having trouble with your mortgage (or are in bankruptcy), pay extra close attention to this. Crap like that would not happen if it weren’t for “deregulation.” If you are a little lost figuring out the Goldmann Sachs story, here’s a nice analysis. Don’t forget that there’s a criminal investigation into what happened at Countrywide. Could it bring down Bank of America? We can only hope.

The recession is over? Like hell: The economy is very far from normal (and in my opinion will stay that way until the fundamental banking issues and certain insurance issues are solved).

Oh yeah, it’s 4/20: Did you know that a majority of Americans in the West support legalizing (and regulating) marijuana?

Stupid School Administrator Tricks: The story of a school district in Pennsylvania secretly using webcams in school issued notebook computers to spy on children gets deeper and weirder. They now admit to having some 56,000 pictures (and those are just the keepers and the ones they admit to having). Yet somehow, even though they have pictures of sleeping students, they miraculously don’t have any nudies? Yeah, I’m with Amanda on this one: suuuuure they don’t.

On the other hand: The Supreme Court isn’t amused by a SWAT officer who was reprimanded for texting his wife and girlfriend — both!? — on a police issued phone. Justice Stevens asked “Wouldn’t you just assume that the whole universe of conversations by SWAT officers who were on duty 24/7 might well have to be reviewed by some member of the public or some supervisor?”

Stupid Tax Tricks: Teabaggers who don’t know what they are talking about, and the myth that somehow corporations will pass on the cost of taxes on profits to customers.

Stupid Legislator Tricks: Apparently they are using some “new math” on Capitol Hill, as Senator Coburn is going on record as saying more money is “wasted” on Medicaid than is actually spent on it. Can’t he just admit he hates poor people and thinks any money spent on them is a waste? Either that or sign him up for Kumon.

Chemo sucks: but it is better than dying of cancer.

Almost makes me want to take up guitar: light-up guitar picks!

A cool cookbook, I hope: The Primal Blueprint Cookbook. Mine is on pre-order. So far all the recipes shared on Mark Sisson’s blog have been winners.

I will have more to say about this soon: Local interest lawsuit with nationwide ramifications.

Building a castle: In the Ozarks. Now. It’s a pretty cool project!

Star Wars Japan Filter: Did you know that Mark Hamill went to High School in Japan? He’s working on a new movie project, by the way. And just to wrap things up, here’s an artist’s impression of what Star Wars characters would look like as done by Akira Kurasawa.

Survival of the Shorties

Just so you know up front: I’m not big on April Fools jokes. The only thing I ever did was send a new maintenance guy to fix a toilet in a non-existent apartment. My boss was more amused by it than I was. Anyways, on to the Shorties!

Unemployment is Certainly No Joke: It’s high. There’s no sign that it will get better soon. We’re still losing jobs in this economy, and Spring Semester doesn’t end that long off now. Tim Geithner calls it “unacceptable” but hasn’t really offered a plan on what to do about it. Well then, as long as he’s clear on that! Perhaps we could have some sort of, I dunno, public job creation plan? Well, here’s an “ugly truth” about how you can buff your resume.

Something Approaching Justice: The terrorist who killed a doctor in the middle of a church because he happened to perform a medical procedure he didn’t like (and couldn’t have in any event) has been sentenced to life in prison. The soonest he could possibly get parole is 50 years.

Something Light: Barack Obama Looking at Awesome Things.

Doing Something: It’s better than doing nothing. School tries new ways of stopping bullies that don’t involve platitudes to the victims.

Maybe Doing Nothing Would Be Better?: A doctor talks about unnecessary tests. No, not because a doctor is covering his ass.

Something to do when you grow up: Perhaps something that begins with a K.

Something Old: a little history lesson regarding our nation’s banking issues.

Something Serious: It’s Autism Awareness Month.

Something you probably already suspected: Asset Forfeiture Laws can be horribly abused.

Something that will either horrify or amuse you: Scarface, as performed by pre-schoolers. Come on, it’s only 2 minutes and 11 seconds!

And finally, Something I Totally Do Not Need!: Hello Kitty Message Watches. Price, $620-800.

Shorties Row

Follow Up on Sexting Case: Remember a while back we learned about a Pennsylvania prosecutor who decided to prosecute girls whose pictures had been taken unless they submitted to a re-education class on what it means to be a girl? A judge has ruled that the parents have the right to block the prosecution. No ruling on the fundamental Constitutional issue of not letting anybody see the evidence.

Stick a fork in the airlines, they’re done: TSA official has gone on the record that full body scans will very likely become mandatory for airline passengers, despite the fact that the scanners don’t really do half of what they would like us to think they do towards deterring — let alone preventing — terrorism. That’s over and above the health and privacy issues. Heck, if they want to strip search everybody, just be honest about it.

In Memoriam: There will be a memorial garden in honor of the pets killed by tainted food. Scroll down for information and links on how to donate.

Why do we need Health Insurance Reform to stop this crap?: Fortis (and probably other insurers that just haven’t been caught yet) has been actively trying to find ways to cancel the policies of HIV positive customers. Stopping recission and punitive cancellation should be a simple, 3-5 page bill that should have unanimous support in both houses of Congress (or else), but no! They want to pass a monster-behemoth bill that nobody has read that’s loaded with oodles of political favors.

Hey Mister, Wanna Buy a Factory?: Factory utilization is near an all time low. This means we have lots of currently unused capacity. Pair that with the current unemployment rate and it sounds like an opportunity to make some stuff and get the economy going again. Maybe you could even get a piece of that new $38,000,000,000 jobs bill to do it.

Modest, by Billionaire Standards: Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, makes do in a 5000 square foot home.

Oh, you knew I couldn’t resist giving you some obligatory Health Insurance Reform items: Susie Madrak got to interview Michael Moore, and here’s part of what he had to say. Ok, the bill is supposed to cost roughly $940,000,000,000, but it’s supposed to save $1,300,000,000,000. Did the progressives win anything here? Enh, a little. This is why buying your abortion coverage separately is a terrible idea for every woman. Well, actually it’s only one of several reasons. And thankfully, Grayson’s Medicare-for-Anybody bill is up to 75 co-sponsors. I love the fact that it’s short, and politically difficult to stand against. It gives me hope that some things can be fixed with this turd in the punchbowl of a bill after it gets passed.

Where Health Care Meets the Scandal of the Day: Senator John Ensign’s office “organized a telephone call Wednesday night to thousands of Southern Nevadans represented by Rep. Dina Titus, where he spoke out against the pending health care reform bill and urged his audience to call her about it.” A local political scientist called the move “clumsy”. Rep. Titus, if you hadn’t guessed, is a Democrat, newly elected in 2008. Now, the interesting thing about this is that today, Senator Ensign got subpoenaed by the Department of Justice. Oh, and his wife. His Chief of Staff. His political advisor. A few local businesses. Probably the local power company. And a veritable “who’s who” of local political rainmakers. And they don’t just want stacks of documents, they want people to appear before the Grand Jury at the end of the month.

No Child Left Behind: What the heck went wrong? I mean, other than “better” as a standard, and rules designed to make even good schools fail.

You mean they want the banks to pay up? Crazy Talk!: It so happens that 82 of the roughly 700 banks that got TARP funds aren’t paying the dividends they owe the Feds.

And now, a moment of Spring: how to tell if last year’s seeds are still good.

Shorties of Riddick

Let’s start off with the Health Insurance Reform bits: Many thanks to Florinda for noticing this item, the story of the mom who was the only person in the whole Emergency Department with health insurance. However, don’t think that mandatory health insurance would have changed that. And here’s a moving piece on health care — particularly mental health care, as it fits into our nation’s Christian traditions.

Continuing the Bush Economic Tradition: Huzzah, they are now proudly telling us that GDP went up 5.9% in Q4 of 2009. Isn’t that great? The Great Recession is officially over! Of course, that’s only if you ignore the reality of fewer jobs, higher unemployment particularly among people under 25 (many of whom don’t show up in the official statistics), collapsing consumer confidence, and stuff like that. In fact, the Christian Science Monitor has gone as far as to say that the recovery is a scam. Oh well, some jobs cost more to create than others. Real worry that the Senate decided it was more important to go home than to make sure that people on unemployment would be able to pay the rent next month.

Going to the Vitamin Store?: Not sure what to make of this chart of what science really knows about the various supplements you could buy there.

Huh, Maybe Blackwater is Out Of Control: Duh, Senate.

From the Department of WTF: The military thought it important to take time away from 2 overseas wars to spy on… Planned Parenthood? And white supremacists? Why, recruiting?

New USDA Rules on Organic Food: summary here.

“You never know who it used to be”: A local Buddhist temple is in trouble with the city. Why? Too many cats hang out there and the temple is kind enough to see to it they have food and clean water.

Sad but true: The bullet is still mightier than the restraining order. My heart goes out to everybody involved, including the students of the slain teacher. There is still a lot we don’t know about this situation yet. But ladies, one thing I do know is that you don’t owe anybody a “mercy date” or an explanation about why you want nothing to do with them. Stay away from guys that scare you! Stop answering the phone, stop talking to them, stop seeing them, cut them off cold turkey! Telling them more than once that you don’t want to talk to them is still talking to them!

Shorties Todd

Well, “free” does appear in the title: someone is suing FreeCreditReport.com for charging them a monthly fee for credit monitoring in order to get that “free” credit report.

“How can payrolls and the unemployment rate both go down at the same time?“: More than you want to know about how those figures are manipulated and tortured.

Data bears out common sense: Layoffs are often very bad for the companies that make them. Not only are there severance costs and bad morale (duh), it’s harder to hire back good people when market conditions improve.

Speaking of employment: The President is still of the opinion that small business hiring can and must get us out of this recession. Specifically, he said “Government can’t create these businesses, but it can give entrepreneurs the support they need to open their doors, expand, or hire more workers.” And what does he want to do about it? He wants to expand a couple of SBA programs designed to help well established businesses that already have debt. You know what would really help small businesses? Leveling the playing field with large businesses when it comes to taxes. Dave’s point is that only profits get taxed, which benefits large companies rather than small ones; tax cuts benefit big businesses while shafting the government that needs taxes to run. But let’s face it, Joe’s Hardware Shop has no leverage with city hall, but Wal-Mart can threaten to open in the next town over unless it gets tax breaks.

5th Amendment takes a beating: apparently the Obama Administration reserves the right to assassinate Americans overseas with “special permission.”

Makes me wonder why I bother to pay my mortgage: Here’s your real “phantom inventory,” banks refusing to foreclose on homes where the owner is well over a year in arrears. People are paying credit cards ahead of the mortgage now, which makes sense in a way. Financial planners have always said to pay down your high interest rate debts first! And, well, if the mortgage company is unlikely to foreclose, what incentive is there to pay?

Shackleton’s Whiskey: it’s been freed from ice near the south pole, and sent off for analysis and hopefully recreating lost liquor formulas.

Speaking of drinking: did you know that a 7-11 Double gulp is twice the size of what your stomach should reasonably be able to hold? And, at 64 oz, it’s the equivalent of 8 servings of soda.

And speaking of serving sizes: the FDA wants to crack down on misleading serving sizes on nutrition labels. You know, the ones that say a bowl of cereal is 2 servings, or 6 chips is a serving?

Glad to see someone holding the banks accountable: Cuomo has filed a lawsuit against B of A and several of it’s executives, charging that they hid information from shareholders and lied to the Feds to get bailout money.

And last but not least: a lesson about inflation.

Stay warm and dry, wherever you are.

Bless the Shorties

Wishful thinking for those of you up North:

see more Epic Fails

Tama Gets Promoted: Tama, Japan’s most famous train stationmaster-cat, is now an operating officer with the company. Hopefully this post comes with a generous allowance of maguro and catnip.

Political Beliefs Don’t Justify Murder: The ACLU asked the courts in Kansas not to allow the person who murdered Dr. George Tiller to use as his defense that he “honestly, but mistakenly, believed the circumstances justified the use of deadly force.” I love the fact that they are citing Kansas legal precedent to do it, but I wish they had gone one step further and pointed out that killing for political beliefs can be considered terrorism.

It must be nice: New CEO of Bank of America gets a 19% pay raise.

Obligatory Health Insurance Reform Stuff: Senate admits that a bill full of gifts to insurance companies and drug companies without an equal or greater number of gifts to voters is a dead idea. Howard Dean on how to do it right.

Jingle Mail: sending the keys back to the mortgage company and telling them it’s all theirs. It’s not just for homeowners anymore. The world’s most expensive apartment complex has been given back to the bank. At least banks (sort of) know how to run an apartment complex (they hire a management company!).

Starship Troopers: Hold it right there, consumer! Are you really a citizen? Can we really fix the economy without fixing our democracy?

Speaking of the economy: There may be more trouble among small business owners than currently dreamed. That means either we are not having a recovery anytime soon, or we are about to be even more owned by the nation’s biggest businesses.

She works hard for the money, so you better treat her right: Well, assuming she has a job at all (thanks, Jukkou!). Those that do have jobs are “working twice as hard for half the money“. Poverty is moving to the suburbs — there goes the neighborhood! And those who do have a job must deal with a workplace that fits the needs of the 1960s workforce, and the stress of work-family conflicts that increasingly tear the fabric of our communities.

Sorry, not going to say much about the State of the Union. In a few days, all the important things will be spun until you can’t recognize them anyway.

The Violent Shorties

Obligatory Health Insurance Reform front and center: Health care and the denial thereof as a way to control the masses; the good, the bad, and this POS reform bill (no, doesn’t mean “point of service” in this context, sorry).

Not as overt as Quiverfull: religion and women is an interesting read. And I don’t know what to make of this.

Study confirms what most of us knew: When Wal-Mart comes to town, the number of low-wage jobs they create are roughly equal to the number of decent jobs they destroy.

Most Americans are Idiots: Most approve of the use of full body scanners. These scanners are much like a virtual strip search with a side order of radiation. Oh, and they would not have found the Undiebomber‘s stash. Pfeh.

On Employment: America’s Low Wage Future; Are the Baby Boomers starting to retire?; Who are the unemployed?; 6.4 job seekers for every open job.

Mighty Joe Rollino: how many people can lift 635 pounds with one finger? The answer is now zero. Joe has passed away at the amazing age of 104 (insert obligatory comment about fitness and long life here).

Conan is classy: (No, not this Conan). Conan O’Brien’s resignation letter.

This is not news: I seriously do not give a shit where Bill Clinton hides his sausage. I can think of few bigger wastes of journalist time. Enough already!

And one last thought: Airplane accidents.