Forty years yesterday man walked on the moon. It was a beautiful accomplishment, perhaps the fitting coda to the giant waves of nationalism that engulfed the planet from 1914-1945. It was also, like any piece of pure art, completely pointless.
Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
Tranquility Base
Posted in Corruption, Foreigners, Industrial Policy, Inspirational, Military, Miscellaneous on July 21, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Good To Be the King
Posted in Inspirational, Miscellaneous, Movies on July 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Yes, it’s ten days old; still have to post the Guardian’s explanation of Megan Fox’s casting in Transformers: Talking to Megan Fox who was in town for the Transformers 2 premiere, I found her more forthright and intelligent than her performance in the mega-hit would suggest. The role demands that she drapes herself over motorbikes [...]
Short Boat
Posted in Miscellaneous, Television on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
There are few things as addictive as watching an incompetent crew of environmental activists traipsing around the Southern Ocean looking to throw things at the Japanese whaling fleet. If it’s Friday, it’s time for Whale Wars:
Rules and Laws
Posted in Foreigners, Inspirational, Labor Policy, Miscellaneous, Obama, Supreme Court on July 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
After my cranky comment that Douglas Blackmon’s Slavery by Another Name had moved back the goalposts on my quest to get through the Pulitzer Prize winners for General Nonfiction (21 of the past 25 down, but only 31 of 51 overall), I figured I should go ahead and get it out of the way. I’m [...]
IOU
Posted in Finance, Miscellaneous, Obama, Politics on July 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In the continuing downward spiral that is California’s financial condition, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase (collectively, the Third Bank of the United States) have now changed tack and stated that they will not accept the state’s 3.75% IOUs after all: A group of the biggest U.S. banks said they would stop [...]
Governor Crazy
Posted in Miscellaneous on June 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’m kind of enjoying this whole Mark Sanford AWOL thing; it’s a refreshing throwback to the days when a governor could do something completely nuts and not have threats of prosecution for prostitution across state lines. I have no idea what the guy has been doing, but my guess is that it has very little [...]
Mo’ Cali
Posted in Domestic Policy, Miscellaneous on June 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Idea Locker doesn’t like my proposal to break California into three states: California doesn’t need to be broken up. If you were to give each of the de novo states that same comically bad constitution that California has now, each mini-state would have the same problems. It’s not that California has such an unwieldy [...]
Thanks
Posted in Miscellaneous on June 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Discovered a rather unusual rush of traffic last night – generally I am pretty sure I know personally everyone who could possibly read the blog – and realized it stemmed from James Kwak‘s kind words on Twitter. Thank you. Funny thing is the sense of urgency Twitter seems to create in its readers. Almost all [...]
California Dreaming
Posted in Domestic Policy, Miscellaneous on June 17, 2009 | 7 Comments »
The financial crisis has affected all state budgets, but no state quite as enormously as California. The state has endured the perfect storm: the legacy of the 1978 tax revolt, a liberal, growing population that governs through direct ballot initiative, high sales and income taxes that threaten to tip businesses and commerce out of state, [...]
Society
Posted in Miscellaneous on June 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Thanks to Rortybomb for finding this guy:
