Our Times
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --George Santayana
Page 1 of 62 pages 1 2 3 > Last »
June 2008
|
2:36 am Monday
June 2, 2008
No backtalk
|
Here’s Hoping
by McGehee
57°F. and cloudy in Riverton, WY
I know I wouldn’t mind seeing the price of a tank of gas go down over the next week or so.
Finally, there is some good news about gas prices.
Last week, the price of crude oil futures actually went down, and there were signs that the dollar was strengthening.
Additionally, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that it is six months into an investigation of possible price manipulation in the oil futures market. »
‘Encouraging’ signs in gas price outlook
I never thought I’d look forward to the prospect of seeing a “2” at the front of a gas price, but…
[People] [Government] [Politics] [Our Times]
|
May 2008
|
In One Important Way, It IS ‘the Economy, Stupid’
by McGehee
45°F. and sunny in Riverton, WY
The economy will certainly have an impact on the 2008 election—in a way, it’s already begun.
Millions of dollars behind in raising money and unlikely to meet a fast-approaching final deadline, the Denver committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is considering spending cuts.
Committee sources say they are working with the Democratic National Convention Committee to consider lowering the $55 million in private cash and donated services that must be raised to bring the convention to town. The cuts would be made to the many parties the host committee is obligated to throw for the delegations and the news media, and other hospitality functions not tied to production aspects inside the convention hall.
“There have been no specific decisions made,” host committee spokesman Chris Lopez said. “We’re always identifying costs and weighing them against our anticipated revenue.”
Lopez said the committee is still working to satisfy its full obligation. »
DNC host officials short on cash
Even if economic issues never play a part in the upcoming fall campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain, their impact on campaign contributors will place one or the other at a distinct advantage.
Just one more variable to watch.
[People] [Government] [Politics] [Elections] [Election 2008] [Our Times]
|
April 2008
|
9:39 am Friday
April 25, 2008
No backtalk
|
Kidz 2day!!!
by McGehee
67°F. and sunny in Coweta County, GA
The cell phone ad featuring the family with a daughter and a grandma who actually talk like text messages, may not seem so funny in a few more years.
OMG! The shortcuts and symbols that teenagers use in electronic conversations are creeping into their schoolwork!
That’s one of the conclusions of a study released Thursday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the National Commission on Writing, and it’s no surprise to Sacramento teens.
“My drama teacher gets papers that use “b/c” for “because,” said Katie Talbot, a senior at McClatchy High School in Sacramento. “Sometimes I get text messages and I have no idea what they mean. Why can’t people just use a few more letters and have it make sense? I think writing is very important. I guess my generation is just super-lazy.”
Talbot herself is anything but lazy. She texts and e-mails “pretty much all day,” she said, but takes pains to use proper language. “I always use full, grammatically correct English,” she said. »
Teens’ texting symbols invade schoolwork
As do I. Then again, when I send text messages I don’t try to cram a 400-word thesis into 136 characters (spaces included). If I exceed my character allotment, I edit for brevity and clarity, drawing on a wide-ranging vocabulary and a respect for my recipient and for the English language.
Still, even if there were a practical reason for “txt-spk” in SMS text messages—which, given the lack of actual content, there isn’t—kids need to learn where it is and is not appropriate to use slang.
I simply will not take anyone seriously who uses “txt-spk” unironically while typing on a full-size keyboard.
[People] [Here's Your Sign] [Our Times]
|
|
10:37 am Saturday
April 19, 2008
No backtalk
|
Good on the UFW—Did I Really Just Say That?
by McGehee
63°F. and mostly cloudy in Coweta County, GA
Having grown up in California and had conservative attitudes from a young age, it’s highly unlikely that I would ever praise a radically leftist and actively race-pimping organization like the United Farm Workers. But there it is:
The United Farm Workers union has signed an agreement with a Mexican state to help recruit guest workers to labor on U.S. farms legally—and under union contract.
“If this is something that’s going to be utilized more in the future, then we’ve got to get in on it,” UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said of the H-2A guest worker program. “We’re looking for enlightened employers who are willing to sit down and do this with us.”
The agreement was signed in early April in the western state of Michoacan, which has a long history of migration to California and is governed by the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution. »
UFW signs pact with Mexican state for guest workers on U.S. farms
The “under union contract” part doesn’t even bother me so much, if it means the UFW can be held responsible for how cleanly the program runs.
Yeah, not exactly a teeny-tiny “if"…
[People] [Beyond the West] [Our Times] [War]
|
|
5:43 pm Monday
April 14, 2008
No backtalk
|
So Right, It’s Exasperating
by McGehee
50°F. and cloudy in Coweta County, GA
Others have been making the case that using food as fuel is a bad idea, but one of the other factors has only been mentioned by one observer that I’m aware of.
Still, the higher U.S. prices seem eye-popping after years of low inflation. Eggs cost 25 percent more in February than they did a year ago, according to the USDA. Milk and other dairy products jumped 13 percent, chicken and other poultry nearly 7 percent.
USDA economist Ephraim Leibtag explained the jumps in a recent presentation to the Food Marketing Institute, starting with the factors everyone knows about: sharply higher commodity costs for wheat, corn, soybeans and milk, plus higher energy and transportation costs.
The other reasons are more complex. Rapid economic growth in China and India has increased demand for meat there, and exports of U.S. products, such as corn, have set records as the weak dollar has made them cheaper. That’s lowered the supply of corn available for sale in the U.S., raising prices here. Ethanol production has also diverted corn from dinner tables and into fuel tanks. »
Food Costs Rising Fastest in 17 Years
It’s all well and good to pursue world trade—but Americans gotta eat too.
[People] [Government] [Politics] [Our Times]
|
|
8:03 am Wednesday
April 2, 2008
No backtalk
|
If They Think It Was a Shock to Come Home to That…
by McGehee
52°F. and sunny in Coweta County, GA
...imagine if they’d been home when it happened.
Brown said he and his wife returned home last Wednesday to find pictures knocked to the floor and cracks in a hallway’s drywall. He crawled into the attic, where he saw a hole about the size of a loaf of bread in his roof, with a tire peeking through.
“When I crawled up there and saw it pushing through the roof, I thought, ‘I must be dreaming,’” Brown, a mechanic, told the Banner-Herald. »
Tire Falls From Helicopter Into Ga. Home
If only the helicopter had belonged to a company that installs skylights…
[People] [Our Times]
|
March 2008
|
Bad Idea
by McGehee
57°F. and cloudy in Coweta County, GA
The Federal Reserve already has a mission, which isn’t necessarily compatible with this new one it’s hankering for.
In the past two weeks, the Federal Reserve, long the guardian of the nation’s banks, has redefined its role to also become protector and overseer of Wall Street.
With its March 14 decision to make a special loan to Bear Stearns and a decision two days later to become an emergency lender to all of the major investment firms, the central bank abandoned 75 years of precedent under which it offered direct backing only to traditional banks.
Inside the Fed and out, there is a realization that those moves amounted to crossing the Rubicon, setting the stage for deeper involvement in the little-regulated markets for capital that have come to dominate the financial world.
Leaders of the central bank had no master plan when they took those actions, no long-term strategy for taking on a more assertive role regulating Wall Street. They were focused on the immediate crisis in world financial markets. But they now recognize that a broader role may be the result of the unprecedented intervention and are being forced to consider whether it makes sense to expand the scope of their formal powers over the investment industry.
“This will redefine the Fed’s role,” said Charles Geisst, a Manhattan College finance professor who wrote a history of Wall Street. “We have to realize that central banking now takes into its orbit everything in the financial system in one way or another. Whether we like it or not, they’ve recreated the financial universe.” »
Fed Leaders Ponder an Expanded Mission
No. It doesn’t. The Federal Reserve has a very narrowly defined mission that it has done ... not exactly well, but more or less competently.
“Protecting" Wall Street will mean regulating Wall Street, which will bring more and still more politics—especially the brainless, immediate, parochial politics of U.S. elected officials—into the workings of international markets.
Imagine your 401(k) at the mercy of a mid-level aide in Nancy Pelosi’s office, because that recent bottom-quintile Kennedy School graduate has been tasked with the Speaker’s handling (snicker) of global financial policy.
Epochs end by such innocuous but ill-advised, utterly unthought-out actions as the Fed’s Wall Street bailout.
Leaders of the central bank had no master plan when they took those actions, no long-term strategy for taking on a more assertive role regulating Wall Street.
That right there tells the story. They acted without thinking, and now they’re going to try to rationalize it and thus lock in for all time the power to act without thinking.
We’ll regret this.
[People] [Government] [Politics] [Our Times]
|
|
What Will It Take to Get Them Back Together?
by McGehee
66°F. and rain in Coweta County, GA
Apparently, three bullets.
AP reports that Snorky (center, top, with trunk) of the Banana Splits has passed away from a pulmonary edema at the age of 61, a week after forwarding the final revisions to his publisher, Ferrar and Strauss, of the long-awaited memoir of his life and times with the band. The Banana Splits were to have reunited for a colosseum tour this summer.
It’s somewhat poignant, as the band only recently resolved their differences. Jealousy of the attention that Snorky attracted is said to have strained relations and caused The Banana Splits’ initial dissolution after their third album, Fursonic for the Now, was critically panned and sold poorly. Fleagle’s well-publicized heroin addiction scuttled some public appearances, and the band called it quits in 1971. They got in touch with one another again last year, as the result of a “Behind the Music” documentary. »
Sad News
I don’t mean to make light of a horrible blow to American pop culture, but Snorky never really deserved all the attention he got. He was the glamorous front-man, but it was the others—especially Drooper—who carried the musical load that made the Splits what they were.
It’s worth noting that Drooper has managed to move on after the Bananas split. He’s been happily married to the same lioness for 32 years and runs a successful recording studio in Pasadena. You may have heard his work in some of the more popular TV commercials of the last decade.
[Me] [Humor?] [People] [Our Times]
|
Page 1 of 62 pages 1 2 3 > Last »
|
|
