Posts from — April 2008

People who don’t live here don’t understand why I would fly a modified storm warning flag whenever the lege is in session – I know the path of destruction they can visit on the state while supposedly doing “The People’s Business”.

The Republicans control everything, but that doesn’t mean they will get anything done.

From the Miami Herald‘s Naked Politics blog

Health care:

Republican Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottamp passed out a talking point or too yesterday to Democrats on the House floor yesterday during yesterday’s contentious debate over the House healthcare plan vs. the Senate/Gov. Charlie Crist’s plan. Some Republicans groused that Kottkamp didn’t even stop to talk to them.

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Feline Hierarchy

Wait your turn.

[Editor: this accidentally shows the structure of feral society. On the top level are Molly eating from the bowl as befits her status as senior alpha, and she shares the level with The Lone Ranger, the local alpha. On the next level in the center is Tonto, TLR’s sister. On the right is Tip who is an adult female, and on the left are Ms Gruntled and Baldy, juvenile females. Waiting for a chance to eat is the Gray-nosed Cat, the senior tom.]

Friday Ark

Send some positive vibes to LabKat, JS, and Coby. Coby is undergoing surgery for a problem, and the procedure is complicated by his other medical conditions.

First off, to the best of my knowledge my little place is considered part of the “liberal” segment of blogtopia™, and I have only been vaguely aware of the existence of the individual identified as Megan McArdle. To be brutally frank, only the specialists in snark directed at right-wing blogs ever mention her name.

So I’m a little surprised that Kevin Drum has written a post, GET A GRIP, in which Megan McArdle complains about “the comment threads on our media appearances”, and suddenly Kevin decides that this is “[o]ne of the most inexplicable tropes of the liberal blogosphere”. What’s “inexplicable” is how comment threads became the “liberal blogosphere”.

It becomes more inexplicable when Roger Ailes [the good one], points out in his piece, Bang the Drum, Slowly, that Ms McArdle is really complaining about an article in the Village Voice.

These “friendly fire” incidents do not bode well for the election. You are supposed to clearly identify the target before you pull the trigger.

If you aren’t a regular visitor to All Hat and No Cattle [why aren’t you?], check out the photos at the bottom of today’s edition.

Nice, Lisa, really nice. [this is what living on the Panhandle does to you.] 😈

Badtux links to the UK site, The Register, which tells us about the latest Microsoft atrocity: Windows Vista update ‘kills’ USB devices

Microsoft has admitted it is investigating reports that a recent Windows Vista security update causes havoc with some USB devices, but the software giant is yet to provide a fix for the cock-up.

The Windows Defender update was released last week, but some unfortunate Vista customers have claimed that their USB mice and keyboards among other devices refuse to work after the update is installed on their computers.

It becomes a bit difficult to do much when you don’t have access to your keyboard, which means catching the system before it gets into its regular boot sequence and prevent things from loading. One of the major reasons for not turning on automatic updates is that they prevent you from creating a “restore point” on your Windows system before things go weird as a result of the update.

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Back in June of 2006 we were introduced to the Miami Haitian Ninja Terrorists, that the humorless media referred to as the Liberty City 7. The Justice Department and FBI trumpeted the election year capture of a “dangerous group of” unemployed Haitians who were hiding by hanging out in an abandoned warehouse wearing Ninja costumes. [Why haven’t the Waylan brothers picked up on this?]

In Episode Two, Miami Haitian Ninja Terrorists – The Trial, Brother Levi, who wasn’t really clear on who or where he was, was found innocent of everything [including willfully having a rational thought] and the jury couldn’t decide on the guilt or innocence of the other six. The Justice Department decided to retry the remaining six, and, according to the Miami Herald, were presented with another hung jury and mistrial. [Read more →]

This is beyond absurd, as reported in the Kansas City Star: Former workers at area munitions plant charged with sabotage

Former employees of an Independence munitions plant allegedly stole tons of copper that was to have been forged into bullets for U.S. soldiers, according to sabotage charges unsealed Tuesday.

The copper — described as “bullet cups” in the indictment — eventually was sold to a Moberly, Mo., salvage company for $45,362.

Charles Dale Osborn, 45, of Odessa, Mo., and Timothy Duane Langevin, 36, of Independence, were charged in the 10-count federal indictment. According to allegations in court records, the conspirators initially smuggled out of the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant relatively small amounts of copper in buckets, but later used heavy equipment and a trailer to haul out ever-growing loads.

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Dan Dupont at reports on Pentagon Financial Systems: Still a Mess

Given that some of the computer systems in question “run on old-style I.B.M. mainframes and rely on Cobol, the ancient Sumerian of computer languages,” none of this should be much of a surprise.

“This was a bunch of systems patched together,” says Greg Bitz, a former director of the center. “I never went home at night without worrying about one of them crashing.” Bitz predicts a crisis as older programmers retire. “Try to find somebody today who knows Cobol,” he says.

Portfolio’s story is accompanied by a time line of efforts to reform the system since 1968, though it misses a key moment from 1997, when John Hamre, then the Pentagon comptroller, was being grilled by a lawmaker during a hearing on the woeful state of Pentagon financial computer systems. His answer: “The good news, sir, is they’re all going to collapse in the year 2000.”

So the problem is COBOL. Wikipedia notes:

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Via PSoTD, the Pennsylvania Progressive is shutting down after 23 months because of a complaint filed with TypePad by another supposed progressive who is a local Democratic party functionary.

This is how you lose elections.

Keith Kisser at Invisible Library is celebrating his fifth blogiversary™ and the publication of his book, The Machine of the World.

Tax Day

Borrring

[Editor: This is my tax return from last year.]

Both Scorpio at Pacific Views and Chuck Dupree at Bad Attitudes have written about the new Senate mortgage bill as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

For me this is the money quote:

In addition, the Senate passed a package of measures including a tax credit for buyers of foreclosed properties, funds to state and local governments to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed homes, and tax breaks for home builders. The bill’s prospects in the House and the White House are uncertain.

If the state and local governments are going to use the money to provide low cost housing, I can probably go along with this provision, but experience says that isn’t going to happen, because that’s not what they want to do. While some of the McMansions on the chopping block could become group homes, I really doubt that anyone will go along with that program.

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It is one of the things that you can see in the record if you look back, but it doesn’t really make any logical sense. Paul Krugman has been discussing this for some time and his latest installment is Bartels bash.

What is under discussion is the fact that the market does better and the income gap between rich and poor narrows under Democratic Presidents, but there is no real reason why it should. Presidents don’t obviously have a lot of power over the economy in general, but the data says this happens.

I’ve known for a long time that the stock market does better under Democratic Presidents, but that’s counterintuitive. The market insiders support Republicans, which the numbers say is betting against themselves.  The statistics say there has to be a reason, but no one can find the link.

It is of note that the party of Congress doesn’t seem to make any difference, only the party of the President.

I have had this discussion too often and am frankly tired of it. Yes, I understand that guns are a problem for people who live in urban settings, so people who live in urban settings ought to consider doing something about it that doesn’t affect those of us that don’t.

Bears, alligators, 6-foot diamondback rattlesnakes, coyotes, foxes, and raccoons are apt to be in my neighborhood. If I call the sheriff I am told it may be 30 minutes or more before someone can get here, because it’s a big county and there aren’t all that many deputies. If the Hedgemony has sent the local Guard to help with his misadventure in the Middle East, there are even fewer deputies, and an unpaid auxiliary deputy may be the only one available to respond, after an hour or so.

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