Utterly Meaningless » 2008 » September
  • THEY REALLY DO

    Filed on September 6, 2008 at 4:21 pm under by dcobranchi

    FOSSILIZED GRILL CHEESE SANDWICH

    Filed on at 9:31 am under by dcobranchi

    Somehow I just doubt this is anything other than a rock.

    THAT IMAGINARY RECESSION

    Filed on at 9:24 am under by dcobranchi

    Freddie and Fannie are seized by the feds:

    Senior officials from the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve on Friday called in top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants, and told them that the government was preparing to place the two companies under federal control, officials and company executives briefed on the discussions said.

    Taxpayers will have to foot the 100s of millions this will cost. Bondholders will make out like bandits. That’s the GOP version of the free market at work.

    SO FAR, SO GOOD

    Filed on at 5:53 am under by dcobranchi

    Hanna’s just passed a few miles east of us. Pounding rain but very little wind. We lost electricity for about 10 seconds before it flickered back on.

    VERY CLASSY

    Filed on at 5:42 am under by dcobranchi

    I feel sorry for the kid. Hopefully, homeschooling will work out better for him. OTOH, the parents who complained ought to be covered in peanut butter and honey and tied down on a fire ant hill.

    Twelve-year-old Aiden Broadhurst has lived all his life with the knowledge that he could die from anaphylaxis if he comes in contact with anything that has peanuts in it.

    [snip]

    The problems faced by children with anaphylaxis are made worse by people who do not understand, which is why the family has decided to speak out about Aiden’s situation, Trevor Broadhurst said.

    Although most students and teachers at school were understanding, the Broadhurst family received phone calls from irate parents who objected to being told what they could include in their children’s lunches, he said.

    LESS THAN IDEAL

    Filed on September 5, 2008 at 2:39 am under by dcobranchi

    Great lede on a home makeover type article:

    As anyone who does home schooling knows, it is ideal to have a specific place within the house for the children to go to “school” — a place to teach and to store the materials. That is not always possible, and more frequently than not, the kitchen table converts into the workspace when needed.

    OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

    Filed on at 2:34 am under by dcobranchi

    The Stasi roughed up an HEK who was in St. Paul to protest the war in Iraq.

    KEEPING OUR FINGERS CROSSED

    Filed on at 2:24 am under by dcobranchi

    Hanna is still tracking to pass right through here, but as a strong tropical storm. All hatches are battened down. Water jugs will be topped off tonight. (We’re on a well, so if we lose electricity we lose water.) We have plenty of food and the camp stove.

    Even if we lose power for a day or two, I’m sure we’re ready.

    V. 1.0

    Filed on September 3, 2008 at 4:27 pm under by dcobranchi

    Google’s new browser? Meh.

    Ugly layout. One click too many to access your bookmarks. And worst sin of all, the scroll wheel doesn’t function properly. Clicking it in FF either opens up a new tab (if you’re hovering over a hyperlink) or activates smooth scrolling (if you’re not). Chrome doesn’t know squat about scrolling.

    WISHFUL THINKING

    Filed on at 1:19 pm under by dcobranchi

    Sorry, Rudy, size does matter.

    Sep 3rd, 2008 | ST. PAUL, Minn. — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani says if Sarah Palin had been president when the U.S. came under attack on Sept. 11, 2001, he’s confident she would have been able to handle the crisis.

    Palin’s experience as the mayor of a tiny Alaska town and as Alaska’s governor for less than two years have led critics to question her readiness to be vice president in a John McCain administration — and president should he be unable to continue serving.

    In an interview Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Giuliani was asked, “If she were the president on 9/11, you would have been confident?”

    Giuliani responded: “I’d be confident that she’d be able to handle it. She’s been a governor of a state, she’s been mayor of a city.”

    OUR FIRST HURRICANE?

    Filed on September 2, 2008 at 11:37 pm under by dcobranchi

    The current track puts Hanna just west of us. The models are predicting a move eastward, so I expect tomorrow’s updates to have her going right over the top of our house overnight Friday.

    TO DO:

    Fill up water jugs
    Buy gasoline and oil for chainsaw
    Make sure chainsaw actually starts
    Break out air mattresses for a “camp out” downstairs on Friday
    Fill camp stove and lanterns

    TO MY FRANCOPHONE FRIENDS…

    Filed on September 1, 2008 at 9:41 pm under by dcobranchi

    Can anyone tell me what the idiom “et bien” means?

    I WANT THIS GAME

    Filed on at 6:20 pm under by dcobranchi

    EA geeks. Big!

    IS SHE TOAST?

    Filed on at 6:00 pm under by dcobranchi

    The more info that comes out, the more it looks like my wife’s prediction that she’ll withdraw to spend more time with her lawyers family will be the final verdict on Sarah Palin.

    UPDATE: Game over.

    Members of ‘Fringe’ Alaskan Independence Party Say Palin Was a Member in 90s

    September 01, 2008 6:52 PM

    The campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., likes to herald the independence of its new running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

    Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which, since the 1970s, has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

    And while McCain’s motto — as seen in a new TV ad — is “Country First,” the AIP’s motto is the exact opposite — “Alaska First — Alaska Always.”

    Lynette Clark, the chairman of the AIP, tells ABC News that Palin and her husband Todd were members in 1994, even attending the 1994 statewide convention in Wasilla. Clark was AIP secretary at the time.

    “We are a state’s rights party,” says Clark, a self-employed goldminer. The AIP has “a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law.”

    She says it’s not accurate to describe the party as secessionist — they just want a vote, she says, adding that the members of the AIP hold different opinions on what Alaska should be.

    “My own separate opinion as an individual is that we should be an independent nation,” Clark says. Others in the AIP “believe that being a commonwealth would be a good avenue to follow.” Some advocate statehood — but a fuller statehood than exists now.

    She doesn’t know what Palin’s position was.

    “It never came up in conversation,” Clark recalls. “But when she joined the party, our platform was right under her nose.”

    Clark says that Palin left the party and became a Republican in 1996, when she first ran for mayor of Wasilla.

    The McCain-Palin campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The AIP platform states that the purpose of the party is to “seek the complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska in conformance with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, of the federal constitution … To prohibit all bureaucratic regulations and judicial rulings purporting to have the effect of law, except that which shall be approved by the elected legislature … To support the privatization of government services …”

    Walter Hickel, a former Republican governor, was elected to the governorship in 1990 as an AIP member — the third-largest party in Alaska — with a plurality vote of 38.8%. A Seattle Post-Intelligencer story that year said that “Hickel is running with the Alaska Independence Party, a fringe group advocating that the 49th state declare itself a sovereign nation. But he’s not a separatist; he’s an opportunist: the Independence Party was the only 11th-hour ticket to the general election.”

    Hickel returned to the Republican Party in 1994; he endorsed Palin in her gubernatorial run in 2006. Subsequent AIP gubernatorial candidates did not fare as well as did Hickel, garnering less than 2 percent of the vote.

    Earlier this year, Palin sent a video message to the AIP for its annual convention, where AIP vice chair George Clark told the small crowd that Palin “was an AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town –- that was a non-partisan job. But you get along to go along -– she eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, and well, I won’t go into that. She also had about an 80 percent approval rating, and is pretty well sympathetic to her former membership.”

    Lynette Clark says that Palin is “a fine individual. She’s forthright and she puts Alaska first.”

    She is not a fan of McCain.

    “I can’t understand why in God’s name she has aligned herself with a candidate who opposes the development of our republic and Alaska’s resource wealth,” Clark says.

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