The Imperial Conquest of Wall Street
Posted on December 22nd, 2009 at 8:06 pm by Steve

Come to think of it, this would explain the $700 BILLION bailout of the banking sector…

If Only!!!
Posted on December 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm by Steve

Facebook ads are really weird sometimes:

for a good cron job
Posted on December 18th, 2009 at 2:51 am by jaz
…call me.

that’s right

just wanted to share that after all these years of hearing about “how awesome a cron job is… oh man, it’s the greatest thing… etc.” it finally made sense to take part in the act…

and if you’re curious and want to watch, i’ll be performing it every hour, on the hour from now until infinity. i may however tone it down to weekly if there aren’t many viewers.

for a good cron job call daemon

…just in case you hadn’t geeked out yet today…

Where Is My BASS?
Posted on December 17th, 2009 at 12:38 pm by Steve

Lorin Bassnectar has done it again! If you don’t absolutely love his remix of the Pixies’ Where Is My Mind?, then… where is yours??

[audio:bassnectar.mp3]
The Party of Wars and Jails
Posted on December 14th, 2009 at 5:34 pm by Steve

David Bromwich’s dissection of what he calls Obama’s Delusion (in the October 22, 2009 London Review of Books) includes this gem:

The Republican Party of 2009….has become the party of wars and jails, and its moral physiognomy is captured by the faces of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, faces hard to match outside Cruikshank’s drawings of Dickens’s villains, hard as nails and mean as dirt and with an issue still up their sleeve when wars wind down and the jails are full: a sworn hostility towards immigrants and ‘aliens’.

Read the whole thing.

“Just Say Noel!”
Posted on December 14th, 2009 at 5:26 pm by Steve

It’s that time of year once again. Posting Nina Paley’s excellent sticker (h/t to lulutsg!) sent me scurrying to the far corners of the web, and I found this little Christmas tidbit courtesy of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities:

in 1659, a law was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony requiring a five-shilling fine from anyone caught “observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way.” Christmas Day was deemed by the Puritans to be a time of seasonal excess with no Biblical authority. The law was repealed in 1681 along with several other laws, under pressure from the government in London. It was not until 1856 that Christmas Day became a state holiday in Massachusetts. For two centuries preceding that date, the observance of Christmas — or lack thereof — represented a cultural tug of war between Puritan ideals and British tradition.

The law makes for strange bedfellows. In this case… I expect I’ll be waking up next to the younger Reverend Mather. And, perhaps, I’ll finally learn why they called him “Increase!”

“Over the LINE!”
Posted on December 10th, 2009 at 6:08 pm by Steve

From NII part-time-blogger Dan comes the story of Matt Penkul, a 31-year-old Lynn resident who scored a record-breaking 514 in three strings of candlepin bowling, rolling 155, 161, and 198.

Unfortunately, the foul line sensors at Metro Bowl in Peabody weren’t turned on that night, and so his record won’t be counted. I stand firmly with the Massachusetts Bowling Association in favor of foul-line sensors, as friend-of-the-blog Shwilly B knows all to well. I agree with Walter, from the film The Big Lebowski:

My favorite quote from the linked article comes around the middle:

The sensors intended to keep a bowler from crossing the foul line were off, making Penkul’s score unofficial, said Al Gangi, president of the Massachusetts Bowling Association.

“No foul lights, no record,” Gangi said.

It is the second time in five years the absence of the foul lights has negated the record. Chris Sargent of Haverhill bowled a 517 at the same alley in 2004, officials said.

“It’s all politics,” Sargent said. “If they want to count it, they’ll count it. Or they’ll say, ‘Too bad.'”

Classic!

You Were Hoping For…?
Posted on December 9th, 2009 at 11:34 am by Steve

HMO stocks rise as public option wanes in US reform

NEW YORK, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Shares of U.S. health insurers rose on Wednesday after efforts to overhaul the health system moved away from creating a government-run insurance plan long viewed as damaging to the industry.

That Reuters dispatch tells you all you need to know about the Democrats’ scuttling of the already-watered-down “Public Option.”

My belief in the utility of national electoral politics remains nearly nonexistent. Current events have done nothing to modify that opinion.

Change Like You Won’t Believe
Posted on December 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm by Steve

Bush: “Unlawful enemy combatants.”

Obama: “Alien unprivileged enemy belligerents.”

Joanne Mariner, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, calls this a “cosmetic change” that has no serious impact. The new language is contained in the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. Mariner points out that

the Obama administration has adopted the Bush-era position of claiming that persons who provide support to hostilities can be treated just like persons who engaged in hostilities…

Her article has all the gory details if you’d like to read them.

Mutt’s Lace Cookies, beta edition
Posted on December 8th, 2009 at 4:12 pm by Mutt

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