That’s probably a title I should have saved for another post, but I’ve already gone and used it for this great National Geographic project asking US Senators to draw maps of their states from memory. I grew up with maps on my wall – this is where we live now, this is where we used to live, this is where [relatives] live, etc. – and can draw a terribly accurate map of the US from memory, and could probably draw a pretty decent map of the world from memory, too (tho’ I’ll likely screw up pieces of Central Asia and parts of Africa’s Atlantic coast).
Category: Personal Page 13 of 59
Just returned from a very satisfying week in southern Utah (I know, right?). A write up (explaining my conversion to Zionism (!!)) and pictures to follow, but for now:
Finally found a radio station between Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park today, and its playlist reminded me that some places are just stuck in time. Whenever I go back to Atlanta, it’s the usual early 90s hip hop/R&B. The Twin Cities always seem to play the same late 80s hair rock. And out west? It seems that they’re still working from the same playlist I heard when we lived here in the 70s:
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Gordon Lightfoot from cwd543 on Vimeo.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKCnHWas3HQ[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0KKGdb4qUY[/youtube]
So much possibility.
We’re coming up on the 20 year anniversary of the Wall coming down.  Roger Cohen’s got a video about a man who helped make that happen without bloodshed.
Atrios cites a rather amazing metric:
Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.
All a bunch of lazy parents and welfare bums, right? Well, every time I hear about food stamps, I think about the first place I ever saw them- standing in line at the commissary on a US Army base:
Military members and their families are using more food stamps than in previous years – redeeming them last year at nearly twice the civilian rate, according to Defense Commissary Agency figures.
The agency reports that more than $31 million worth of food stamps were used at commissaries nationwide in 2008 – an increase of about $6.2 million, or more than 25 percent – from the $24.8 million redeemed in 2007. That contrasts with a 13 percent overall increase in food stamp use by Americans for the same period, according to the Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program.
Meanwhile, Congress is dumping half a billion dollars into a jet fighter engine the Pentagon doesn’t even want.
I was going to link to Mike@Blueweed’s excellent The Tyranny of Quaint with a bit of mocking about how he needs to write more, but I think I need to take some Windex to this glass house, first. So, here goes:
Remember, no matter what happens next Tuesday, “it’s good for conservatives“:
There is nothing, nada, zilch, zero, nothing, that is bad news for conservatives. When they win elections, it proves we’re a conservative country. When they lose, it proves it. When we pass health care bills, it proves it. When we lower taxes, it proves it. When we raise taxes, it proves it. Everything proves it always.
Always.
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Of course, Democrats do have a pretty solid claim on the suckage:
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has proposed a variety of ideas on how to advance the [DC voting rights] bill. But the reaction from party leaders, as the Web site Politico reported, seems to be “forget it.” No doubt Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), looking ahead to his own tough reelection battle, sees no gain in irritating the powerful gun lobby. In fact, Mr. Reid voted for the Ensign amendment, making it easier for other Democrats to follow suit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says that she’s looking for opportunities to pass the bill, but to date that hasn’t involved pressing members to put principle ahead of political interests. President Obama, who sponsored voting rights legislation as a senator, has done nothing on the issue.
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This man built a Pan Am 747 First Class cabin in his garage. I’m not saying it’s okay, but I understand.
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There are, in fact, clever people with a sense of fun in DC.
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Aww, are “good white people” are under threat in the US?:
Here’s one of the “questions” asked in the poll, tailor-made for Fox News Channel:
Federal Communications Commission Chief Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd wants the FCC to force good white people in positions of power in the broadcast industry to step down to make room for more African-Americans and gays to fill those positions. Do you agree or disagree that this presents a threat to free speech?
It’s worth noting that this question only elicited 51 percent support.
Hilarious.
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The willingness of Redskins fans to support an organization that does this continues to be beyond my grasp.  I’m not a football – or really even a sports – fan, but I moved to DC right after Jack Kent Cooke died in 1997, and haven’t been able to escape Redskins news since then. And you know? It’s been uniformly shitty the entire 12 years. Why, people?
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Former Murky Coffee owner, tax cheat, and douchebag extraordinaire Nick Cho finally got booked on tax charges.
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If you ever leave me again,
I’ll down a bottle of
baby aspirin:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqBWMUMhIGE[/youtube]
Update: Wait, forget that crap copy. Go here and enjoy the extraordinary talents of Subtle Sexuality’s fabulous KELLY KAPOOR (and erin hannon).
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Readability helps with exactly that. I like it. Very much.
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How the public lost out on the battle between Big Pharma and generics.  It’s a short but informative look into one of the many battles with big consequences for the costs of health care.
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I find my stuff in the most interesting places. (Okay, it’s probably not that interesting to too many people beyond me, considering the dearth of entries. But still.)
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I know it’s supposed to be satire, but I kinda wonder if Ken Cuccinelli wrote this.  Cuccinelli is the GOP candidate for Virginia Attorney General, and is such a bigot that even the normally spineless VA Log Cabin Republicans not only won’t support him, but are calling for his defeat. That link also helps illustrate why I think libertarian support for GOP candidates is misplaced (and that’s putting it very kindly):
No real libertarian has a record (like Mr. Cuccinelli does) of
· Opposition to repealing the state sodomy law, even though it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court
· Opposition to allowing private companies to offer health and life insurance benefits to domestic partners of their employees
· Opposition to prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation for state and local government employees
· Opposition to allowing local governments to choose what benefits they give their local employees
· Opposition to any kind of legal protections for gay and lesbian couples, even the limited rights embodied in domestic partnerships or civil unions
· Support for banning gay/straight alliances in public high schools
· Support for state funding of abstinence programs
Each one of those stupid little Gadsen flags ought to have an asterisk at the end of “Don’t Tread on Me”, leading to a “Tread On Him, Instead.” That would be a far more honest and accurate portrayal of the beliefs of the vast majority of “libertarians.”
In case you’ve not seen:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk[/youtube]
The Onion, as it often does, nails it in this not-exactly-fake op-ed:
I don’t question God. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall put none above Him. Which is why I know that if it were part of God’s plan for me to stop viciously condemning others based solely on their sexual preference, He would have seen fit—in His infinite wisdom and all—to have given me the tiniest bit of human empathy necessary to do so.
It’s a simple matter of logic, really. God made me who I am, and who I am is a cold, anti-gay zealot. Thus, I abhor gay people because God made me that way. Why is that so hard to understand?
It would be funnier, I guess, if I hadn’t heard that from so many people. It goes on:
Compassion, tolerance, understanding, basic decency, the ability to put myself in another person’s position: God could have endowed me with any of those traits and yet—here is the crucial part—He didn’t. Why? Because the Creator of the Universe wants me to demonize homosexuals in an effort to strip them of their fundamental human rights.
More.
Ah, good ol’ fashioned values at work:
A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
[ . . .]
“I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house,” Bardwell said. “My main concern is for the children.”
Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.
“I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves,” Bardwell said. “In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer.”
But he’s not a racist.