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| Saturday, September 6th, 2008 |
shadbolt75
|
10:58a |
Who will win Texas?
While I agree with some libertarian ideas, I'm not a big fan of Bob Barr. However, he claims that he will win Texas this November and here's why:
The Bob Barr presidential campaign has stated “serious legal consequences” will occur should Senators Barack Obama and John McCain be allowed on the Texas general election ballot after they knowingly missed the state’s deadline to file.
According to documents obtained by the Barr campaign, neither John McCain nor Barack Obama complied with Texas Election Code § 192.031, which requires that filings must be submitted “before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before presidential Election Day,” listing the “names of the party’s nominees for president and vice-president.”
“The Election Code of the State of Texas imposes requirements on a political party, which must be met if its candidates for president and vice-presidents are to appear on the general election ballot,” Russell Verney, Bob Barr’s campaign manager stated in a letter sent to the Texas Secretary of State’s office. “The Democratic Party and Mr. Obama, and the Republican Party and Mr. McCain, blatantly ignored the Texas statutory deadline.”
The deadline, which was set at 5 p.m. on August 26, passed before Sen. Obama was nominated and before Sen. McCain had even selected his running mate.
“The law is clear, and it was clearly not followed,” says Verney. “The Texas Supreme Court was emphatic when it stated that the law ‘does not allow political parties or candidates to ignore statutory deadlines . . .’ Senators Obama and McCain did not file by the deadline; therefore, Texas should abide by the laws it created. No political party or candidate is above the law.”
Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. |
theenemywalksin
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3:08a |
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| Friday, September 5th, 2008 |
ytterbius
|
10:29p |
Pretty ugly shiite going on with the Banks. U.S. to take control of mortgage giants: reports"The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Friday that the U.S. Treasury Department is close to finalizing a plan to buttress the two companies that includes changes to their senior management. The plan could be announced as early as this weekend, the paper said." Silver State of Nevada Is 11th U.S. Bank Collapse This Year"Sept. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Silver State Bank of Henderson, Nevada was closed by U.S. regulators, the 11th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Depression." Here's Chris Martenson's Take He'll probably be adding more as time goes on. |
ytterbius
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8:55p |
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stormbear
|
9:49p |
Truthiness and Sarah Palinovski Originally published at Town Called Dobson. You can comment here or there. 
When I was studying economics at Wake Forest University, the Cold War was still on and Reagan was in his second term. As part of the course, we had to read the English version of Pravda. It was an eye opening experience and a icy dip into some high class propaganda.
One issue that has stuck in my mind all this time had some guy smiling in the camera and the caption was something like “Siberians Happy With Government” or some such. The photo of the man showed him squatting, barefoot, in front of a pot bellied stove. In the background, the door was open and the landscape beyond was snow covered. Even though he was smiling, it showed the utter poverty the USSR had produced. The headline, if read by low information people, might see something different, but someone from my cynical generation would see something altogether different.
During the last eight years of Bush/Cheney/McCain has proven to have the same level of propaganda and denial of the facts. War is peace. Civil rights are weakness. Debt is stability.
Palin is like those guys on steroids. Not only is she willing to bend the truth, she has a panache to lie, not just once but in a steady stream. It is like drinking from the fire hose of hate.
Bush has been often compared to Hitler and the Nazi regime. Some of those attacks were warrantless, while some of those acquisitions were analogous. But Palin is a bit different, slightly out of phase from Cheney and his minions. To me, Palin seems to be old school Soviet. She is a whole different breed of fascist.
She is their new messiah… and we can’t let them win.
|
riverheart
|
1:05p |
Funny political stuff from the RNC From last night's Republican National Convention "big night", a couple of laughs: John McCain had a backdrop of a large screen behind him showing the image of a majestic building. It turned out to be Walter Reed. But not Walter Reed Medical Center, the military hospital; instead, it was Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, CA. Source here, including the full image behind McCain. (All television viewers saw was the green lawn.) Tom Ridge, caught live on Tom Brokaw, referred to McCain as John Bush. Personally, I agree with him. |
albatrossumi
|
8:47p |
from Time:  I don't know. I think he's in Egypt riding a camel or something.
- MARLON JACKSON, of the Jackson Five, when asked why his brother Michael did not attend the BMI Urban Awards, which presented the family with a lifetime achievement award
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albatrossumi
|
7:59p |
How to get hit by a bus Hey kids ! Here's how to impress your friends after school and nearly kill yourself. Boy meets bus in Dumfries. |
legilimentis
|
9:29p |
Charlie Chaplin - A Dog's life
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legilimentis
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9:21p |
Sherlock Holmes
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legilimentis
|
8:52p |
Icons: Robert Downey jr.  ( MORE HERE... ) Current Mood:  depressed |
theenemywalksin
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3:10a |
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| Thursday, September 4th, 2008 |
black_happy
|
1:13p |
OMFG....
Sushi Kyo on 1st Ave has the best Chicken Yakisoba ever.
Unfortunately, after that I just want to go have a smoke and then curl up and sleep under my desk, but it was worth it.
Soooo fat.... sooo happy. |
albatrossumi
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8:56p |
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albatrossumi
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8:49p |
Commando
For the Song Hall of Fame.... "Commando" by the Ramones
First rule is: The laws of Germany
Second rule is: Be nice to mommy
Third rule is: Don't talk to commies
Fourth rule is: Eat kosher salamis
|
stormbear
|
1:17p |
The Sarah Palin Coup d’état Originally published at Town Called Dobson. You can comment here or there. 
Here is my new theory. I believe the GOP NeoCons, like Rove, are working to make the best out of a bad situation. McCain is really not their boy. He is malleable to a point, but he is not the puppet that Bush is.
So they find Palin who already has puppet strings attached and she is more than willing to destroy the nation to achieve their NeoCon fantasies.
After McCain is in office, the unreal pressures of office will be applied, including internal pressures to get McCain to crack. If he doesn’t do something stupid on his own, some other psychological event could be faked and he would be forced from office for care in a mental facility. At this point, Palin is commander in chief.
After the past 8 years, I have learned these people are capable of anything.
Special Note: I will be giving a presentation at Adobe’s San Francisco 601 Townsend Street office on September 16th at 6:45pm. During the presentation I will chat about how I started the strip and show how I use Adobe’s software to create the strip along. Expect antics!
Print out your favorite TCD comic strip and I will autograph it!
The event is free and Adobe feeds you pizza! Seats are still available so RSVP HERE.
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legilimentis
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9:03p |
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theenemywalksin
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3:09a |
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| Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 |
ytterbius
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11:41p |
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| Thursday, September 4th, 2008 |
little_e_
|
12:52a |
Recent Readings Since the Thucydides, everything else I've read has seemed to just fly by. The last batch of books: The Gridlock Economy, by Michael Heller The Experts' Guide to 100 Things Everyone Should Know How to Do, compiled by Samantha Ettus Chronicles of the Celts by Iain Zaczek, and Celtic Warrior Chiefs, by John Matthews and Bob Stewart. The Last Quest of Gilgamesh doesn't count, because it's a picture book I got for Link, but it's a damn good picture book! TGE was a fairly light, quick read. The core idea of the book is that too many chefs spoil the stew. Let me give you an example, given by Heller in the book. Imagine you find a magical parkinglot near Times Square. At first, you're the only person parking there. Hooray! So you tell some of your friends, and they tell their friends, and so on. Soon, the lot is full of honking horns and no one can use it. Tragedy of the commons. So the government steps in and divies up the parking lot. Each person is given 1/12th of a parking spot. With a little negotiation, you could buy up the other 11 rights to your spot, or each of you could use the spot 1/12th of the time--but in most cases, the 12 owners of each spot can't decide what to do. Maybe you buy up 10 pieces, but the last person refuses to sell--or demands an exorbitant rate. The parkinglot then becomes 'gridlocked'. No one can use it, because too many people need to agree before it can be used. The real examples of gridlock Heller describes in the book are generally worth national attention. "Spectrum Gridlock", for example, ties up much of our electromagnetic spectrum in non-productive uses--or non-use entirely. Real estate gridlock either hampers development or compels states to use the ever-unpopular eminent domain. Copyrights, especially in medicine, electronics, etc., do as much to hamper development as foster it. Etc. I have two main complaints with the book. One, it is often too timid. The author repeatedly says things like, "Well, but maybe things aren't as bad as they seem, and the industry will muddle through things on its own and everything will turn out peachy." Way to undermine your own point. In some cases, the entire system is corrupt and needs to be done away with. Two, while some of the authors solutions are quite good, many of them amount to little more than adding more layers of bureaucratic control--just outside of the hands of individuals. To solve the problem of land development, for example, he suggests making home owners associations more prevalent, and giving these associations the power to decide to sell the entire block to a developer, if 51% of the block agrees to it--thus preventing holdouts. Since I already find HOAs annoying at best, this idea doesn't really rub me the right way. If people are genuinely under-utilizing the land, and we think it would be good if we, as a society, set up some mechanisms to encourage people to either better-utilize the land, or encourage people to sell/turn the land over to people who can, then there are less meddlesome ways to acheive this. Namely, a Land Value Tax. Nowhere in the book does Heller discuss the value of taxes to encourage people to do what we want and to disincentivise less-optimal usage, even though he does recognize that taxes can play this part. I suppose there is a third, minor quibble with the book, which is that Heller seems to calculate the utility of things largely in dollar values. For example, he writes that parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are being underutilized in 'educational' programming, because they're not bringing in the dollars that other parts of the spectrum are. However, we may as a society want to devote some resources to less profitable uses--public parks, for example, or wildlife preserves. Anyway, it's a light and quick read, so if you find the ideas interesting, it's worth a look. The Experts' Guide... was a predictably fluffy book. Some of the entries were good, others were more mediocre. Also, I don't really think everyone 'needs' to know how to tie both a bowtie and a regular tie--maybe some men do, but most women don't even wear ties. (Likewise, most men can skip the section on lipstick.) Overall, it's the kind of book you might give a recent highschool or college graduate. Mostly fun, but not a complete guide by any stretch of the imagination. Chronicles of the Celts was an entertaining book with history and background notes well-interleaved with the stories. It retells stories from the Ulster Cycle (chiefly featuring Cu Chulainn and the Cattle Raid of Cooley,) the Finn Cycles, the Mabinogion, and the Barzaz Breiz--tales from Ireland, Wales, and Brittany (Northern France). I've had this book for ages, but for some reason never read it--I guess it struck me as overly-academic at first glance? At any rate, I enjoyed it quite a bit, and got to refresh my memory of some good tales. I really liked the illustrations in the Celtic Warrior Cheifs book when I was younger, but upon return, I found them somewhat lacking. Cu Chulainn doesn't look like a youth, but a chubby old woman. And why they put Boudicca's armpit hair on the cover I really can't say. The almost identical picture of her inside the book features sleeves. At any rate, I liked the sections on Cu Chulainn and the Fiana, but found the sections on Boudicca and Macbeth a little more historical and a little less story-full than I would have preferred. Of course, as an insight to Celtic history, they were pretty good. (Though I suppose I kind of object to Macbeth's presence in the book at all. I guess they wanted someone from Scotland, but what about Robert the Bruce or William Wallace?) Overally, I liked the Chronicles better, though CWCs isn't bad. |
| Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 |
ytterbius
|
10:41p |
John Stewart Interview.
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ytterbius
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10:08p |
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bingblot
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10:20p |
*pets nice shiny new hard drive* (Unfortunately it's also completely blank so now I'm trying desperately to remember all the other programs/bookmarks I had saved on it.) But at least I'm not computer-less anymore! Thank God. *hugs Bartlet* How sad is it that today when I went to do a quick grocery run and I signed the receipt for paying by credit card, I thought 'this is a standard form contract.' Really, at Columbia, I was analyzing my dinner choices in light of rational choice theory and now, this when I'm starting to analyze my entire life in terms of contracts or property law. I don't win any awards in the sanity department. *hugs my very dear ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dianthe* |
ytterbius
|
6:11p |
Bush announces $1 billion in aid for Georgia
Fuck you GW.
FUCK YOU GW.
God Dammit, Fuck you GW!
Just keep throwing around the fucking Billions of Dollars for your little War Games, War Lords, and War Industries, meanwhile, Americans are getting FUCKED in every way possible as the overall Economy disintegrates.
Fucking piece of Shit. |
theenemywalksin
|
6:11p |
Should I have more rice and beans? Fuck yes. |
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al_gore_2008
frustrated