Book of the Month

Shuts and Failures

by Michael Maiello

History

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1 year 15 weeks

Blog Posts

Electric car gets good review

by PeraclesPlease 3/23/2013 - 10:25 am

Okay, this isn't a big post, but after some electric car company called an NY Times reporter a liar last month for the road test review, it was nice to see a very positive review of a practical shipping car, the Renault Zoe (no, I don't own stock or work for the company). [Read more]

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Epic Epigenetics

by PeraclesPlease 1/26/2013 - 6:04 am

[touched off by article on epi-markers & homosexuality]

I'm excited about progress in science on a number of levels, and figure our understanding of matters will be vastly different in 20-30 years based on evolving tools & theories.

Politically I think it poses problems as well - we base our policies on traditional understanding of issues and traditional approaches. First suggestion in the economic crunch was a jobs program 1930's style combined with tax cuts 1980's style. Economics & finance has moved on, but our policy makers haven't. [Read more]

Priming the Black Vision Thing

by PeraclesPlease 1/18/2013 - 3:49 am

[response to other threads got too long]

 

You obliquely point out a big issue - people don't have any real ideas for creating mass jobs in the black community, aside from back to government.

In the 50's I believe (via Buckminster Fuller), Brazil was intent on modernizing, with some wanting to emulate the US with its railroads, despite the existence then of airplanes more suitable for Brazil's vast distances and thick jungles.

People don't shop in black Walmarts because 1) I don't think they much exist, and 2) the white one is much cheaper. (At one point, Walmart had about 13% of all imports from China). [Read more]

Twofer - insurance & Wall Street theft

by PeraclesPlease 1/6/2013 - 7:37 pm

 

Who woulda guessed - holes in Obamacare permitting double digit health care increases?

Combined with revelations that TARP was a scam from the start - HAMP & loans to small business to keep the "recovery" going being 2 more cynical myths.

And who knew Obama's vote for FISA was irrelevant - because the courts just ruled he can ignore it anyway. [Read more]

Say Goodbye to Hillary 2

by PeraclesPlease 1/4/2013 - 7:54 am

Sitting here contemplating the future as I was told I can't predict, and that those premonitions of 2016 are ageist and sexist.

Will Hugo Chavez die before his inauguration 6 days away? Well, he's had an amazing journey, and he's only 58, so it would be wrong of me to predict. Just because he had cancer & 4 major operations in the last 2 years and is now clinging on in a respirator after severe lung infection - well, who knows? [Read more]

Say Goodbye to Hillary

by PeraclesPlease 1/1/2013 - 4:13 pm

It's a thought that occurred to me numerous times, and would seem to be obvious, but Hillary would be 69 by election day 2016.

While Reagan was elected at 69, he was an outlier, and had spent much of his life in casual living, including an age when running from President wasn't so grueling. William Henry Harrison was 2nd at 68, and the rest go from 65 on down. Oh, did I mention Reagan's Alzheimers was covered up at the time? The press isn't so obliging these days (especially not to Democrats)

With a recent brain clot and a prospect of 2 years of heavy campaigning, followed by presumably 8 years as president? Hardly. [Read more]

Defending Teachers

by PeraclesPlease 12/23/2012 - 3:23 am

Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler, as he does frequently, voices the teachers' angle on things - in this case of the massacre - that we've been attacking them for decades, trashing teachers' unions, pretending that public teachers are just lazy and that school vouchers will cure all our ills. Even liberals blasting away at the poor state of education even as minorities make leaps and bounds progress over 2 decades that everyone ignores. Democrats like Rahm Emmanuel and Republicans like Scott Walker blast away at the teachers' unions, one point of sharing in our our rare bipartisan consensus. [Read more]

How Democracies Work

by PeraclesPlease 12/2/2012 - 3:56 pm

Blogger detained for anti-government writings; dies in custody. Head of cyber department fired, 7 officials arrested. Justice & democracy.

Uncharged detainee dies in custody of drug overdose; after unsupervised autopsy, body kept in storage until after general election, when organs have rotted out, at which time remains sent back to Yemen. Permanent war on terror, business as usual.

Suicide? Murder? Fuhgiddaboudit. Held 11 years without charges, ordered released by a judged, held anyway... [Read more]

Afghanistan 4-Evuh!!! War on Drugs!!!

by PeraclesPlease 11/16/2012 - 12:48 pm

Well, I blew it - I thought with the number of green-on-blue attacks and the complete collapse of our efforts there, plus the pointlessness after getting OBL in Pakistan - that we'd start cutting and running right after election day.

Boy was I wrong. Now we're negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement to stay there after 2014, and did I mention Drugs! DRuGs!! DRUGS!!! That's right, Afghanistan is once again essential to our War on Drugs, which has had greater longevity than our War on Terror.

(I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out the Afghanis are growing poppies on the sly) [Read more]

59% Obama vote women

by PeraclesPlease 11/7/2012 - 11:01 am

Ayup, looks like 59% of Obama's vote was female voters in a highly gender defined election. Women made up about 54% of the voters and favored Obama 55-45, so roughly Obama's base is 59% women, 41% men.

So will women get some of the love back, or will they have to fight tooth and nail (oops) for basics like use of contraception, proper health care, abortion rights, and some of the less "soft" non-reproductive-related issues that women might prefer?

In short, will the Obama Administration recognize women as the majority of his base, and reward them the way elections are supposed to do? Inquiring minds want to know, operators standing by....

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