War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Monday comes way-too fast! And with that ugly shit out of the way, there’s some good news/bad news on the energy front — fuel costs at the pump may not be as bad as predicted earlier this year, but less cash means more driving, which means more pollutants into our struggling environment. Seasonal forecasts are…
Chump change: A trivial sum of money, a trivial matter. For example, Dave was sick of working for chump change, he wanted a decent salary, or, ‘Don’t put that on the agenda, it’s chump change.’ This expression uses chump in the sense of “a fool or sucker who should be ignored.” [Slang; 1960s] Also see…
One of the bedrocks of being alive and being anywhere near ‘successful,’ is having a job — working a wage. And although job openings in the U.S. rose in March to the highest level in more than three years, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker noted yesterday unemployment remains at “a very elevated…
In a most-personal and open manner, Rick Santorum endorsed Mitt Romney for president — the broadcast via e-mail at about 11 o’clock last night. Who’s the wiser? Reportedly, last Friday Romney visited Pittsburgh where he and Santorum clinched together for “an over-hour long one-on-one meeting,” and three days later, the endorsement came in the middle…
Despite all my efforts to keep track of shit, I’d never heard of Climate Impacts Day — the event launched by Bill McKibben’s 350.org — until this morning and was reading Dr. Jeff Masters, where he talks about how climate change is altering our weather in the worse way. And the entire process is geared toward…
Moist weather here early this morning along California’s northern coast — a seemingly continuous drizzle which turns into a deep, wet fog and then back again. Fairly normal, though, for this region, but it still gets old, and everyone appears jolted with a zest for life at each sliver of sunshine, which comes infrequently. Rare…
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. — George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946 (h/t Juan Cole) Politics is weird. And creepy.…
One item that’s fallen off the news radar the past few weeks is gas prices — no more the hand-wringing stories of people going without food to fuel their vehicles and all is well. Out of sight, out of mind? You betcha. Yesterday, I put another $20 worth of gas in my Jeep with the…
Mitt Romney waxing eloquent Friday at Otterbein University in Ohio: “The impact of gathering facts, gathering information, learning about the reality behind the words, has proven to me, in the business sector, that facts are more important than words and that results are more important than words,” he said. “So as you look at the…
As we begin a near-seven month nightmare — the 2012 elections — the US of A has become one vast holding pen of pure bullshit, creating an ironic, near-mockery of American democracy. Not only is the political discourse so freakin’ stupid, sometimes just a pain to watch, but the distortion of so much data is…