Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Hey, Thanks For Pointing That Out, Captain Obvious!

 
Also, dogs are handy companions, women are different from men, and the mail gets delivered most days.
 
One interesting factoid: Sugary sodas are now the "single most important source" of calories in the American diet, whatever the hell that means (I'm assuming it means it's the single largest daily source.)

It's A Pity They're Not All Old Enough To Vote

 
Because then Santorum might poll positive numbers today.

An Ode To What Makes New York City Great

 

I Thought It Was Muslims Who Hate Us For Our Freedoms?

 
Apparently, Germany is now an Islamist country.

Monday, January 02, 2012

Because The Sandwich Generation Just Needs More Stress

 

Scary Thought

 
With this last gasp tremblor, one has to ask, should we be getting the frack out of here?

Y'know, Crack Dealers Are More Ethical

 
Keeping America addicted and enslaved, one credit card at a time.

Does Debt Matter?

Technically, yes.
 
Practically?
 

Arab Spring, Redux

 
It looks like Syria may finally fall. Next up, Yemen?

Attention: Tourists To NYC

 
Please check local gun laws before you come here and get arrested. There's entirely too much of this stuff going on around here, and you'll be jailed for a while before you even come to trial.
 
Ignorance of the law is no defense, and NYC specifically bans carrying a gun unless you have an NYPD-issued carry permit.

There Had To Be A Better Way To Handle This

 
Over New Year's weekend, 68 people were arrested as Occupy Wall Street sat in Zuccotti Park, welcoming in the new year. Their crime? Apparently, becoming a bit overexuberant in their desire to reclaim the park.
 
For their efforts, they were tear-gassed, batoned, and subject to a violent police response.
 
I would have hoped Mayor Mike had made it a resolution to find a smarter, more competent way to respond to the protestors. I'm sad to see he's as incompetent as the next hooligan.

Heh. Who Said Irony Is Dead?

 

Not Sure I Understand This

 
It seems to me to be a wasted effort to go after Rick Santorum so hard in Iowa, particularly for Mitt Romney. I can understand Rick Perry needs to, it's like Santorum provides a hand-hold in his scramble to catch up to the other climbers, but Romney really has no reason to do anything but protect his flank from Ron Paul at this point.

Your Homework This Week

 

The World's Richest Thief

Meet John Hammergen, of whom it has been said:

“As far as I’m concerned, a board that keeps loading up its chief executive with more stock and options each year is, from a shareholder perspective, basically committing theft,” says Albert Meyer, a former accounting professor who runs a money-management firm called Bastiat Capital. It’s all legal, of course, but to Meyer you can tell if an enterprise exists for the benefit of shareholders or insiders by the number of options it awards its top executives. Options aren’t free; they dilute the worth of everyone’s shares. And the practice hurts more than the privileged few. Anyone who owns an index fund of the country’s 500 largest companies owns shares in McKesson, a Fortune 500 company. “It’s nothing short of a massive wealth transfer from the retirement accounts of middle-class Americans to a privileged few,” hidden in the guise of stock-option programs like McKesson’s, Meyer argues.

But wait! There's more...

 

This Is Rather Distubring

 
The hot potato that is known as Gitmo looks like it's about to be passed back to the very people who baked it in the first place.
 
Really? If these people really are bent on our destruction, then they ought to be charged and brought to the United States in the name of democracy and justice. And if they're safe enough to return now, why not five years ago? Or even three years ago, so that President Obama could make good on his boast to close Guatanamo Bay?

A Sad Crack To Fall Through

 
Imagine, for a moment, you're one of the first people to respond to a terrible tragedy. You have emergency medical training. You're there, helping people escape the flames and rubble. And suddenly, the tragedy compounds and the people like you, men and women whose only crime was to run towards a disaster instead of away, die.
 
You aren't on any of the official rosters of emergency responders, because you worked for a private ambulance company, not the official rescue services. You are a student in a law enforcement environment, but haven't applied to the police department because you're thinking of going to medical school.
 
It takes a while for official acknowledgement of your sacrifice, presumably because identifying remains was so difficult under the circumstances. When it is established that you are dead, you receive a hero's funeral, with dignitaries giving speeches and you receive full police honors.
 
A decade later, a memorial to the tragedy is erected, and mysteriously, your name appears, not on the official roll call, but as a footnote. As it turns out, you were actually considered a person of interest in instigating the tragedy, because you are Muslim, Pakistani, and hold a degree in biochemistry.
 
It's not clear that Salman Hamdani was denied a place among the official first responders because of the initial suspicions surrounding him, or his Muslim background, or whether he simply slipped through a bureaucractic crack because of his unofficial status-- which is both my guess and my fervent hope.
 
What is clear is he gave his life trying to make one small correction to the terrible misconception that America has deluded itself with: that Muslims hate us, fear us, and want to destroy us.
 
I'm sure that was not on his mind as he watched the towers burn and came to the fateful decision to help. I'm sure his only thought was for the people in those buildings, and those trying to get in to help them get out. I'm sure he didn't think, "Most of them are Christians or Jews." I'm sure he didn't think about whether those people were there officially or unofficially. I'm sure he merely thought "People in trouble, and I can help."
 
We should accord him the same decency.

Friday, December 30, 2011

My Photo Of The Year

dive buddies 160811 by actor212
dive buddies 160811, a photo by actor212 on Flickr.

There were quite a few candidates, but this one has stuck out in my mind as the most memorable one to take, and among the best composed I had for the year