Groundhog Day
Beat the heat
One wag wondered if Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow meant that we
would have some winter, which we really haven't. Ok, it's been
dark, and cold, and even snowed a little once or twice, but
compared
to what we're used to it just hasn't amounted to much. Which bodes
badly for the hot season to come, promising something dry, burning, and
smoky. But I do not come to praise, nor bury the weather, but rather
Spay Neuter Idaho Pets, Inc. and its
cleverly cute event marketing. In addition to
$19
vouchers for spaying ("Beat the Heat!"), you might like the
4th
Annual "SPAY" ghetti No Balls fundraiser.
If your pets could read, they would give those puns an "ouch." But a
worthy cause, to be sure.
Be still my heart
What better holiday than Groundhog Day for Donald Trump to pop up again,
and endorse
Mitt Romney? In Las Vegas.
It seems that Mitt has reached either a sufficient state of craziness,
certainty of capturing the nomination, or both, for Trump to reach a
state of pronouncement. If it's sunny in southern Nevada, expect 6 more
weeks of campaigning.
And, as Gail Collins points out
9
months of Mitt Romney talking will produce a mighty stream of
strange insights about the rest of us, as seen by the very rich.
An endorsement from the Donald will be perfect.
31.Jan.2012
Mitch McConnell is a big, fat liar
"Even by Washington's lax standards," as
Sahil
Kapur puts it on TPM. McConnell is taking a new tack toward his
prime directive of making Obama a one-term president, gushing about
how Obama "got everything he wanted from a completely compliant
Congress" for his first two years of office.
You don't say.
The Senate Minority Leader is counting on the populace having a
seriously defective memory, but he's got a hard sell ahead of him.
Congress isn't the problem, you say? Because for two years they played
along with the President? So it's all his fault. He's also
counting on people being really, really stupid, it would seem.
Maybe this is Kentucky Karisma, but it's hard to imagine it having
persuasive power on a larger stage.
30.Jan.2012
The incredible richness of being Newt
It's really only a matter of time before Gingrich is fully hoist on his
petard, given how much historical material he has provided. He's
definitely come up with some big ideas over his storied career. "Big" is
not a synonym for "good" as has been amply illustrated, such as by
Johanna Neuman's 2009 op-ed in the LA Times, and a new piece
in The Nation,
How Newt Gingrich Crippled Congress. Regardless of who gets the
Republican nod (Magic 8-ball has gone back to
doubtful on Newt's
chances), Obama is certain to run against the ineffective, unpopular,
minority-obstructed Congress. If Gingrich is his opponent, slather on
the irony of it being Mr. Speaker's creature from the black lagoon.
James Salzer's piece for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, down
where they've known Gingrich the longest, describes how his
language
set a new course of relentless demonization that made him what he
was. No wonder his "positive campaign" for the Republican nomination was
a brief respite before the return of
the
wild and woolly.
Terrance Heath provides a ton of links and much, much more on the epic
struggle of
Newt
v. Newt, wherein our protagonist comes to resemble the image in his
opponents' attack ads ever more closely.
28.Jan.2012
Keystone was a dud anyway
A Fox News contributor lists
six
reasons Keystone XL was a bad deal all along and "deserved to be
rejected," so... does that mean it was actually a good idea? Now I'm
confused. But the favorite talking point of the decriers was that see,
Obama's not serious about creating jobs! because he got sucked into the
sped-up decision timeline and said no, without time to evaluate this
properly we're not going to do it.
TransCanada's sales job had magically inflated their estimate of
3,500-4,200 temporary jobs to 20,000... "person-years of employment,"
based on... their forecast model, and undisclosed inputs.
Tar Sands Action has more on the subject, with a link to the
National
Wildlife Federation's fact sheet on TransCanada's exaggerated jobs
claims. The NWF puts the "most conservative estimate" at a couple
hundred temporary jobs for local workers, fewer than a couple thousand
jobs altogether.
Not waiting for Superman
If I'd hung in for more of Mitch Daniels' Debbie Downer routine after
the State of the Union speech on Tuesday, I see from Paul Krugman's
latest column that I would have heard him extol the accomplishments of
Steve Jobs as a job creator. He was that, but
as
Krugman points out, most of those jobs (by a factor closer to 20
than 10) are in other countries. It's not just about cheap labor:
"[T]he advantages of industrial clusters—in which producers,
specialized suppliers, and workers huddle together to their mutual
benefit—have been a running theme [in economic geogrpahy] since
the 19th century."
This country's industrial cluster around the Great Lakes has been a
mainstay of the country's economy, and the actions taken at the end of
the Bush administration and the beginning of the Obama administration
(bipartisan action in many regards) at least put the brakes on its
precipitous decline, and may well have turned things around. Michigan's
unemployment rate going from 14.1% down to 9.3% is a Huge Deal;
Republicans would be a lot smarter to celebrate and share credit for
the accomplishment than to try to belittle and disown it.
"[Mr. Daniels' remarks Tuesday got the facts wrong, but highlighted] an
important philosophical difference between the parties. One side
believes that economies succeed solely thanks to heroic entrepreneurs;
the other has nothing against entrepreneurs, but believes that
entrepreneurs need a supportive environment, and that sometimes
government has to help create or sustain that supportive
environment."
27.Jan.2012
Déjà vu
Tipped to the jolly game of
seeing
if Google can guess your age and gender (and finding that they
recognize me as wise beyond my years), and reading up on
their latest
advertising and privacy policy, I had a flashback to my hoary
Ad Attack! column, now well more
than a decade old, and predating Google's buyout of DoubleClick.
"Anyone may opt out of the DoubleClick cookie (for AdSense partner sites,
DoubleClick ad serving, and certain Google services using the
DoubleClick cookie) at any time by clicking the button above...."
they now say, even though there is no button above that I can see.
I don't suppose the previous three or five times I opted out of
DoubleClick have persisted? They do offer an
advertising
cookie opt-out plugin, which seems vaguely sinister but might work.
There's also a link to the
Network
Advertising Initiative opt-out tool, which I'm also pretty sure I've
used at least once in the past, serving up a bunch of broken status
images, and exactly ONE (out of 84 member companies) that it sees me as
having opted out of.
Select All, Submit. And wait to see how many of the 83 confirm.
Looks like more than a quarter didn't do as they were told on the
first try. So much for voluntary compliance.
So how 'bout that, seven dozen companies, most you haven't heard of,
tracking your on-line behavior in order to target marketing, or who
knows what? How many do you suppose are fronts for, or otherwise
connected to the NSA?
Not that we're paranoid or anything.
Running with losers
Not sure why the WSJ let it out from behind their paywall (free ticket
from Facebook, maybe?), but Bret Stephens' opinion that
the
Republicans deserve to lose is an entertaining, sly, vituperative
lament. If his opening paragraph is really the litany of what the right
wing finds so objectionable about the current president, one has to pity
their pathetic (and slightly unhinged) rage. Obama "thinks ATMs are
weapons of employment destruction"? How does that even make sense?
"...maybe Republicans will [figure] out that if they don't want to
lose, they shouldn't run with losers."
But the core element is that Obama "cynically betrayed his core promise
as a candidate to be a unifying president," who knew? Given Obama's
centrist and status quo decisions on most major issues, the only
translation for this that I can imagine is that Obama failed to
capitulate as fully as the ruling class would have preferred. The
president's "pragmatism" is but a "veneer" over what he stand for, which
isn't named, but you know doesn't have to be. (Haven't you been
following? He's a Socialist!) Still, well-played with this:
"As for the current GOP field, it's like confronting a terminal
diagnosis. There may be an apparent range of treatments: conventional
(Romney), experimental (Gingrich), homeopathic (Paul) or prayerful
(Santorum). But none will avail you in the end. Just try to exit
laughing."
And what better way to go out laughing than to nominate Newt Gingrich?
"A primary ballot for Mr. Gingrich is a vote for an entertaining
election, not a Republican in the White House."
What a shame we missed out on "the GOP A-Team" of
Mitch Daniels (he of the "grave" rebuttal), Paul Ryan, Chris Christie,
Jeb Bush, and Haley Barbour, shirking their duty because they won't work
hard and have reluctant spouses. It's going to be all their fault.
raveling
Tom von Alten
tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org
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Thursday, 02-Feb-2012 13:18:10 MST
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