White House Correspondents Dinner

I'm not a big fan of the WHCD, but it has its moments. Stephen Colbert in 2006, hurling zingers at a sitting president glaring at him from 20 feet away, was tremendous. Obama has a natural gift for comedy, I think, but my favorite from this year is Kevin Spacey's "House of Cards" spoof:

Paul Krugman On The Attempted Rehabilitation of W

 I've reprinted in its entirety an article entitled "The Great Degrader" by my favorite columnist, Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman, on the extraordinary push Republican revisionists are putting on to rehabilitate the image of George W. Bush around the time of the opening of W's presidential library:

I’ve been focused on economic policy lately, so I sort of missed the big push to rehabilitate Bush’s image; also, as a premature anti-Bushist who pointed out how terrible a president he was back when everyone else was praising him as a Great Leader, I’m kind of worn out on the subject.

But it does need to be said: he was a terrible president, arguably the worst ever, and not just for the reasons many others are pointing out.

From what I’ve read, most of the pushback against revisionism focuses on just how bad Bush’s policies were, from the disaster in Iraq to the way he destroyed FEMA, from the way he squandered a budget surplus to the way he drove up Medicare’s costs. And all of that is fair.

But I think there was something even bigger, in some ways, than his policy failures: Bush brought an unprecedented level of systematic dishonesty to American political life, and we may never recover.

Think about his two main “achievements”, if you want to call them that: the tax cuts and the Iraq war, both of which continue to cast long shadows over our nation’s destiny. The key thing to remember is that both were sold with lies.

I suppose one could make an argument for the kind of tax cuts Bush rammed through — tax cuts that strongly favored the wealthy and significantly increased inequality. But we shouldn’t forget that Bush never admitted that his tax cuts did, in fact, favor the wealthy. Instead, his administration canceled the practice of making assessments of the distributional effects of tax changes, and in their selling of the cuts offered what amounted to an expert class in how to lie with statistics. Basically, every time the Bushies came out with a report, you knew that it was going to involve some kind of fraud, and the only question was which kind and where.

And no, this wasn’t standard practice before. Politics ain’t beanbag and all that, but the president as con man was a new character in American life.

There was a time when Americans expected their leaders to be more or less truthful. Nobody expected them to be saints, but we thought we could trust them not to lie about fundamental matters. That time is now behind us — and it was Bush who did it.

 Well said, Brother Paul.

"Haboob" in Phoenix

"Haboob" is an Arabic word for a dust/sand/windstorm, usually caused by the collapse of a thunderstorm cell. The plunging air hits the ground and roils outward, picking up debris across the open desert. This is video of a 1,000 foot haboob rolling across Phoenix, Arizona.


Click here for an article by William DeBuys at grist.org (an environmental blog worth a click) entitled "The Least Sustainable City: Phoenix as a harbinger for our hot future."

Target's Vicious Anti-Union Employee Indoctrination Video

Click here for a complete transcript of a video shown to new Target employees (I was unable to capture the video itself).

Here's an excerpt from the employee handbook threatening firing for discussing unionization at Target:

Union Philosophy
We believe in solving issues and concerns by working together with your help and input. Target wants to continue to create the kind of workplace where team members don't want or need union representation to solve issues. We don't believe a union or any third-party representative would improve anything for you, our guests or the company. There are a lot of great things that go along with being a Target team member and you don't need to go to an outside party to get them.

Under "Get To Know Our Expectations"
As a new team member, you need to know what Target expects from you. Here are a few examples of things that could cause you to lose your job.

Don't Solicit Your Team Members
During working time (not including meal and break periods or any other times when a team member is not expected to be engaged in work activities) you must not ask your team members to join organizations or pools, or to make gifts to charities. Work connected with the United Way annual drive is not a violation of this rule.

Here's a statement from a former Target employee:

I work at one of the most productive Target distribution centers in the country. I'm in the outbound department where you basically load truck trailers with 400+ boxes an hour for 12 hours a night. Since around February we've had about 14 reported injury incidents. Just this past Saturday a woman had her arm caught in a conveyor belt and her skin was ripped off and she received a compound fracture. The next day 3 workers were injured as well. Needless to say, the admins are freaking out now and we had a big meeting on Monday about how much they care for us, safety, blah blah (I'm thinking her injury is related to company negligence, as they visited her in the hospital and are showing her support, where with other workers who have had heart attacks and other ailments received no such "love"). Anyways, Target NEEDS to unionize. My job before this was union, and while it had its problems, they were nothing compared to this. And the health insurance is WAY too much. Most of my co workers are constantly popping pills for pain or smoking weed when they're off the job to deal with pain, and therefore don't report any of their injuries, as you're immediately drug tested and terminated if it comes back dirty. In our orientation we also watched that hilarious anti-union video and were told to report anyone who mentions unions.

Urban Wingsuit Flying: Rio de Janeiro

Surely this can't be legal???

Hong Kong's Symphony of Lights, 8:00 every evening, as seen from the Promenade in Kowloon:

Sacre bleu! Henri has sold out, shilling for Friskies:

Cowardly Senators Fail To Pass Manchin-Toomey Background Check Bill

Click here for a New York Times article by Gabby Giffords on the cowardly senators who defied their constituents and pandered to the NRA in the recent vote on background checks. The list includes Democrats Baucus of Montana, Begich of Alaska, Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Pryor of Arkansas. (Harry Reid, a strong supporter of the bill, voted against it for valid procedural reasons.)

Props to Republicans voting for the bill: Kirk of Illinois, McCain of Arizona, and Toomey of Pennsylvania.

In a wide cross-section of polls, about 90% of Americans favor background checks for gun purchases (eliminating the gun-show and Internet loopholes). In contrast, according to a Huffington Post survey) Americans like:
apple pie: 81%
kittens: 76%
child labor laws: 71%
baseball: 67%

According to a recent Pew poll, 83% favor background checks, including 79% of gun owners, 86% of other people in households with guns, and 85% of people in non-gun-owning homes. Tommy Christopher at Mediaite writes:

Public support alone is not, of course, a reason to pass a law; if it were, our national anthem would probably be the theme song from Wheel of Fortune. But massive public support does remove an excuse for blocking an otherwise-worthy law. Background checks, assault weapons bans, magazine limits, and even a national gun registry have all been judged to be constitutional by the Supreme Court, have demonstrable benefits to public safety, and respect the Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment. No one has been able to give a single reason to allow the sale of these weapons and magazines, beyond the mistaken belief that the U.S. Constitution guarantees it.

Some radical senators, like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, are no doubt voting their tea-party Second Amemdment convictions. But I'm sure the bill failed because of a significant number of senators who cynically valued the NRA's political donations -- $25 million in the last election -- over the wishes of their constituents. I'm sure they're feeling a lot of pressure but believe that as in the past, the pressure will subside, and with time, the issue will be back-burnered and forgotten. But this time, perhaps public opinion is so strong that it cannot be denied: If the pressure is kept up, day after day, if those swing senators continue to be universally reviled, perhaps there is enough momentum to get this done.

U.S. Economic Graph - Perception, Ideal, Actual

5,000 Americans were asked what they thought the nation's distribution of wealth was and what they thought it should be; those perceptions were then compared with actual distribution.

Bitcoin

Click here for a Bob Rankin article entitled Should You Invest in Bitcoins? Excerpt:

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a form of currency that relies on cryptography for authentication (verifying that the currency is legitimate and hasn’t been tampered with) and peer-to-peer networking technology for transaction processing and records archiving. A unit of currency, also called a Bitcoin, is created out of thin air and given to someone in exchange for his/her work: processing transactions for the Bitcoin community. That person may then exchange Bitcoins for other things.

Existing Bitcoins are used in trade just like traditional currencies, with records of transactions being kept by the Bitcoin community. In fact, the first thing a desktop or Android Bitcoin app (called a “wallet”) does is download every single transaction since the first Bitcoin was created. That takes more than a day, I can attest! (Future apps are supposed to eliminate the need for this.)

No government controls or manages the Bitcoin system; the community of Bitcoin users does so through open-source software that implements the Bitcoin protocol. The peer-to-peer network that supports the Bitcoin system is as elusive and resilient as the Bittorrent network that continually defies government interference with music and video trading. Government taxation, confiscation, and direct manipulation of the value of a Bitcoin are practically impossible; a good thing, in many opinions.

On the other hand, no government can protect Bitcoin users from getting ripped off. If you pay with Bitcoins and don’t receive what was promised, you are on your own. No one has figured out how to break into the Bitcoin network and steal Bitcoins yet, but no computer system is invulnerable. If someone gets into the software “wallet” from which you manage your Bitcoins, they can spend all of your virtual money. There is no way to challenge unauthorized transactions; there is no one in charge to accept such a challenge.

River Shannon - A Murmuration of Starlings