What the centrists have wrought - Paul KrugmanThe Party of Limbaugh strikes.
...The real question now is whether Obama will be able to come back for more once it’s clear that the plan is way inadequate. My guess is no. This is really, really bad...
| The Cuban Revolution at Fifty |
| Thieves' Quarrel |
| Israeli Tail, American Dog (2) |
| SWISH, Obama and the Terrorists |
| Multi-racial Britain |
"AT&T FREE MSG: Share your love ... Add a Line for your Valentine! Visit an AT&T Store .."Lungs searing, I gasp out my Death Wish.
Gordon's Notes: Annals of idiocy - AT&T spams customers about a TV showSo now they're back, advertising AT&T services.
... lunacy like AT&T's recent bonehead move deserves at least a whimper or two (emphases mine) ...AT and T Sends Customers ‘Idol’ Ads - NYTimes.com
Some AT&T Wireless customers have voted an emphatic no on a promotion for “American Idol” that popped up on their phones this week.
AT&T, a sponsor of the show, said it sent text messages to a “significant number” of its 75 million customers, urging them to tune in to the season premiere on Tuesday night...
... Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T Wireless, said the message was meant as a friendly reminder. “We want people to watch the show and participate,” Mr. Siegel said. He added, “It makes perfect sense to use texting to tell people about a show built on texting.”
... Mr. Siegel said the message went to subscribers who had voted for “Idol” singers in the past, and other “heavy texters.” He said the message could not be classified as spam because it was free and because it allowed people to decline future missives...
... Richard Cox, the chief information officer for Spamhaus, a nonprofit antispam organization based in Britain, countered: “It’s absolutely spam. It’s an unsolicited text message. People who received it didn’t ask for it. That’s the universal definition of spam.”..
Was Kevin Costner's Waterworld an ahead-of-its-time eco-parable? - By David Zax - Slate Magazine
... I might as well come out and say it: I liked Waterworld in 1995, and I like it now...I liked it too.
I hope there is some comfort for this young woman's grieving friends and family in the Economist's obituary ...
Anastasia Baburova, a Russian journalist |The Economist
... In Turgenev’s poem “The Threshold”, a young woman stands before a door. A voice asks whether she is prepared to endure cold, hunger, mockery, prison and death, all of which await her on the other side. She says “Yes” to everything, and steps over. “A fool,” cries a voice from behind her. “A saint,” suggests another.
Fascism is alive and growing under the tyrant Putin.
As if the world, and Russia, didn't have enough to worry about.
The world needs a healthy and happy China ...
This is not surprising ...
Talking Points Memo | Neanderthal Party
... 36 out of 41 Republican senators who voted to scrap all spending in the Stimulus Bill. All of it...
Including McCain.
Since Obama can't count on every Democratic Senator to be reality-based, he has a very tough road ahead. It's good he's good, but the odds are long.
Why am I not surprised?
The Party of Limbaugh has been denying reality for years. It wasn't just Bush who lived in another world, that has become the culture of his party. The POL is anti-science, anti-empiricism, pro-belief and devoutly Marketarian.
They don't reason, they believe.
Obama will do his best, but too much of a America is still the Nation of Limbaugh. That didn't end with his election.
Editorial - The Travails of Tom Daschle - NYTimes.comThe worst part is I'm sure Daschle feels he's incorruptible. Sure, feeble-minded family docs can be bought for the price of a pen, but Senators are made of sterner stuff.... Like many former power players in Washington, Mr. Daschle cashed in on his political savvy and influence to earn $5 million in recent years, including more than $2 million from Alston & Bird, a law and lobbying firm; more than $2 million from the private equity firm, InterMedia Advisors, which provided the car and driver; and hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches to interest groups, including those representing health insurance plans, medical equipment distributors and pharmacy boards.
Although Mr. Daschle was not a registered lobbyist, he offered policy advice to the UnitedHealth Group, a huge insurance conglomerate...
I'm on some CDC lists, so I got this email today:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working together to provide important information about the recall of certain peanut butter and peanut-containing products that are associated with the recent Salmonella Typhimurium outbreaks.
The latest resource is the new HHS, FDA and CDC social media Web page at http://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia/, which provides many helpful tools in order to reach as many people as possible.
The social media site makes it easy to obtain automatically updated information on the outbreak and the product recall. The site provides resources for both consumers and partners, including:
- Salmonella Typhimurium Outbreak Map widget
- FDA products recall database widget
- Updated mobile site content
- CDC Podcasts
- FDA Dos and Don'ts During the Peanut Salmonella Outbreak Video
- CDC Health-e-Cards
- And more!
Many of these resources are available in both English and Spanish.
Sign up to receive email updates when new information is added to the Social Media Tools page.
Information about the Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak and the product recall is also available at:
- www.hhs.gov
- www.fda.gov/salmonella
- www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/peanutbutterrecall/index.cfm
- www.cdc.gov/salmonella/typhimurium
Call 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for up-to-date information about the recalls and hundreds of other health and safety topics.
We're in the Obama era now. It reminds me pleasantly of the days when Gore was reinventing government, and Federal sites were actually useful.
The FDA has been in desperate trouble for years; another gift from the Party of Limbaugh. The only bright spot in our latest food debacle is that the FDA is now receiving intensive therapeutic attention.
The Buy.com spam has been flowing in lately. Amazing variety, amazing volumes. I'd blacklisted them a year ago, so I was a bit surprised. (See my personal blacklist of named spammers).
Turns out they'd gotten another email address of mine, probably scraped from the net, and their spam was flowing in from a new hole. I decided to submit a 'remove request' and see if they were any better behaved these days, but that just doubled the sewage.
So I've closed the new opening. Of course I'll never purchase anything through Buy.com. I'm disappointed that Google Checkout hasn't dropped them.
Conde Nast is the king of the named (public) spammers, but Buy.com is a close second!
I hope they're not long from this world. Please avoid them.
faughnan - NYTimes.com SearchSomewhere all the stories meet ...
... John J. Faughnan, 67 years old, pastor of t. Rosalia's Catholic Church of Pittsburgh and a former resident here, died last night in Pittsburgh, according t ... Feb 28, 1936...
and
TROTH ANNOUNCED OF MISS FAUGHNAN; Napanoch Girl, an Alumna of ...
Announcement has been made of the engagement of Miss Kathleen Faughnan of the Hotel St. Andrew, ... Miss Faughnan has made her home with her uncle and aunt, ...
