January 2010
2 posts
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Movin'
Tumblr ain’t so hot, folks. I’m movin’ on. Here.
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Happy Birthday Earl Scruggs!
The most revolutionary and soulful banjo player of the 20th century is celebrating his birthday today.
Earl’s cosmic excellence is difficult to overstate.
December 2009
6 posts
3 tags
Coase
It’s Ronald Coase’s 99th birthday. Coase published his Nature of the Firm when he was 27. I’m told that he wrote it at the tender age of 21. Yowza!
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Contest Results
Contest winner: http://tinyurl.com/yz9qo7l
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Video Contest
Our short video is officially no longer in the lead at the Independent Women’s Forum video contest, and we may not get enough votes by midnight tomorrow to keep us there. Despite the fact that we have approximately 15-20 times the views as any of the other videos, that hasn’t translated into votes. If you want to help our video win the contest, help us promote it before midnight MONDAY...
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A Humble Request
RT @cobrown: Watch this: http://tinyurl.com/ybky6ud Type “My choice for the winner” in the comments. Earn my undying devotion. Retweet. #healthcare #hcr #handsoff
Double Down on Transit!
Kentucky’s Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo wants a monorail in Louisville and if Kentuckians send him to the U.S. Senate, he’ll try to get it. After all, they’ve built monorails in Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook and by gum it put them on the map.
His press release indicates Mongiardo is ready to get serious about public transportation:
A recent study by the American...
November 2009
7 posts
SNL Obama in China Cold Open
Here.
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“Kentucky is stricken with poverty like old women are stricken with cats.”
– Aaron Lane Morris
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Little American Flags for Others
Do statements like this not elicit at least a raised eyebrow anymore?
… abortion-rights supporters say it is offensive to require a separate purchase for coverage of a medical procedure that for most women is unexpected.
Isn’t that exactly the point of insurance? You buy it. You relax. Should some unforseen event befall you, you will be kept relatively whole financially and your...
Words That Sound Like They Mean Something Else #1
hoary
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October 2009
8 posts
4 tags
Manipulating the Price of Now
“Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd, who is fighting for his political survival, proposed Monday an immediate interest rate freeze on the estimated 700 million credit cards in circulation.” (USA Today, Tuesday)
My question: Does Chris Dodd believe that pushing the price of credit (interest rates) to below-market rates had anything to do with our current financial crisis?
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“Of course the Cold War is also one of the driving forces for the entire reason...”
– Secrets of The Shining: Or How Faking the Moon Landings Nearly Cost Stanley Kubrick his Marriage and his Life by Jay Weidner
… I want to believe.
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Ahem
Dear Legacy Recordings,
A small point of information. It’s Bill Monroe, not Bob Monroe.
Cordially,
Caleb
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WatchMoore here is basically incoherent. No matter, though. The point in posting this is that you can get the shirt the kid is wearing here.
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September 2009
22 posts
3 tags
Orange Death?
In Delaware, Brett Chidester, 17, committed suicide in 2006 after becoming a carrot eater. There was no evidence that Chidester was under the influence of carrots when he killed himself, but within four months, state legislators passed “Brett’s Law,” making carrots a controlled substance.
Now replace “carrots” with “salvia” and you know what really...
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GDP
Louisville has a GDP remarkably close to that of Ecuador. Thanks @andyroth.
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Cuba Moves Toward Markets
What is happening in Cuba? Long-term loans of farmland, for one:
The Cuban government, in its most dramatic reform since Castro took over for his ailing older brother Fidel three years ago, is offering private farmers such as Fuentes the use of fallow state lands to grow crops — for a profit.
The most interesting sentence of this great story:
They are paid in cash, which Fuentes...
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Attention Voters: Meg Whitman's Time Is More...
Meg Whitman is a nonvoter. She is, therefore, an awful person and should not be allowed to serve as governor.
Meg Whitman owes the voters of California more than an apology. The successful former CEO of eBay is a Republican candidate for governor in 2010. She is running as someone who will bring the skills of the boardroom to the serious economic problems afflicting her adopted home state. Because...
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Klein: Bills are Long Because ...
Ezra Klein says:
Whining about the length of a bill is the first refuge of the scoundrel. It’s supposed to denote complexity and ambition and overreach. But what it really proves is that legislative language is sort of arcane.
Scoundrel, really? Legislative language is arcane, sure. But that doesn’t always mean that bills have to be long. Long bills don’t denote complexity?
...
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"We Can't Cut Spending"
Mark Thoma points to Bruce Bartlett’s Forbes piece on how Republicans are unrealistic about cutting spending. I think Bartlett is basically right about Republicans overestimating the ability of Republican-controlled governments to cut spending, but heavens, the criticism has to cut both ways, dudn’t it?
I question how anyone, anyone can believe that a federal government that has been...
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What Would Medicare Do?
Medicare would spend $8000 on a device that could be replaced with a $150 iPhone app.
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Steve Nunn
Former Kentucky lawmaker Steve Nunn (son of former governor Louis B. Nunn) has been charged with murdering his ex-girlfriend. The story keeps getting stranger.
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Things Change
Me: I'm a Nats fan now.
Girlfriend: I've seen that coming for some time.
Update - I feel I need to amend this to say that, no, I did not dump my girlfriend in favor of the Nationals. Also, I am still a St. Louis Cardinals fan.
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POTUS Addresses the Children
President Obama will talk to students tomorrow. He’ll say this:
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
I know Mr. Obama taught constitutional law at one point, but I think even he would be hard pressed...
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RAWK
WOXY is about to hit #100 on its “2009 Modern Rock 500.” You can listen here in various formats.
I don’t agree with a lot of it. However, more than one percent of their top 500 is Talking Heads and two songs are in the top 30. I can’t argue with that.
No Zappa, though.
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Snippy Debate?
Not to be sexist, but does anyone else think that there’s a perspective clearly missing from this Bloggingheads exchange? Just a thought.
August 2009
17 posts
2 tags
FRE and Me
People laughed or cringed or bit their tongues when I bought Freddie Mac at $.40/share. I bought it because I couldn’t imagine a world where the federal government wouldn’t try to nurse the broken, ill-conceived, compromised agency back to “health.”
Nursing Freddie Mac back to health may well include dumping all of those bad loans onto the books of U.S. taxpayers and...
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Dead Kennedys
Well, no, actually. More like They Might Be Giants.
Jesse Walker says Ted Kennedy inspired a Styx song. He also inspired TMBG’s “Boat of Car”:
I took my boat for a car I took that car for a ride I was trying to get somewhere But now I’m following the traces of your fingernails That run along the windshield* On the boat of car
If I’d been thinkin’ I would...