And I can’t believe there would be any electoral fall out that would follow what would be clearly understood by all as a classy gesture. McConnell — or Gregg, or any of a number of Republicans of impeccable (sic) right wing ideological pedigree — would be able to demonstrate a kind of reasonableness that the rest of their recent actions hide pretty well.
Even better: they would be praised for the kind of gesture that the GOP has found it impossible to make in response to what polls show is a pretty effective campaign to suggest that they are refusing the proffered hand of a very popular president.
Plus, of course, its just the right thing to do, the sort of care you take for those with whom you work — even the ones with whom you disagree, who you may in fact dislike — just because it makes the world a slightly better place in a way that costs nothing. Your mama told you to do such things; I and my wife work on my eight year old all the time to get him to internalize the notion that kindness is the default option in his dealings with the world.
Is this so hard to get? To do? If you are a Senate Republican, I guess so.
I can’t even get angry about this one. It’s just sad. These are damaged people.
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Evil Republican Senators Watch.
-rePost: Excellent News For Eminem Fans-Eminem is having a Relapse
Excellent news! I have to say for me Eminem’s music is like Andy Warhol’s art. I’d like to explain it but its like a magic trick it ceases to amaze you if it is explained.
Eminem is having a Relapse
Just what has Eminem been doing for the past three years? According to this profile of the now-reclusive artist: recording.
…..
His new album, Relapse, is due out sometime in the next month or two.
Eminem is having a Relapse.
-rePost: Let Celebrate!-1234567890 Day
thanks to kottke for the pointer!
1234567890 Day
This Friday, in addition to being Friday, is also 1234567890 Day. At 6:31 pm EST on that day, the Unix time will be 1234567890.
1234567890 Day.
-rePost: Something To Be Happy About-Unfogged
Unsullied
Posted by Becks
on 02.11.09
It’s almost equally impressive in this day and age that Captain Sully from Flight 1549 has been in the spotlight as a hero for nearly a month now without some sigh-inducing reveal like he’s having a sleazy affair or has a history of DUIs or some such. You know people are surely digging, loving to take down heroes almost as much as making them.
Kudos, sir.
Unfogged.
-rePost: Darwin-Op-Ed Contributor – The Origin of Darwin – NYTimes.com
This reads like a great eulogy
MY fellow primates, 200 years ago today, Charles Darwin was born. Please join me in wishing him happy birthday!
Unlike many members of the human species, Darwin makes an easy hero. His achievements were prodigious; his science, meticulous. His work transformed our understanding of the planet and of ourselves.
At the same time, he was a humane, gentle, decent man, a loving husband and father, and a loyal friend. Judging by his letters, he was also sometimes quite funny. He was, in other words, one of those rare beings, as likeable as he was impressive.
Op-Ed Contributor – The Origin of Darwin – NYTimes.com.
-rePost-GMANews.TV – Japan bestows grant to RP for its medium-term economic goals – Business – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA
Thank You to Japan! This is great news.
Japan bestows grant to RP for its medium-term economic goals
02/13/2009 | 04:20 PM
MANILA, Philippines – Japan extended a special grant to the Philippines, allowing Manila to meet its medium-term economic goals.
Worth Y700 million or P361.544 million, the said grant was the eighth such batch in Japan’s non-project grant aid (NPGA), the Japanese embassy’s Philippine website said.
All eight grants have now reached a total of Y15.1 billion or P7.803 billion.
Besides allowing the Philippines to procure commodities such as fertilizers, the grant also supports various projects including the distribution of personal computers for public secondary schools around the country.
GMANews.TV – Japan bestows grant to RP for its medium-term economic goals – Business – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA.
-rePost-Business – Starbucks plans instant coffee debut – INQUIRER.net
This seems wierd to me. It’s like they determined that because of a deep recession they are blowing up thier biz model. They decided to be mass market, hope they know what they are doing.
Starbucks plans instant coffee debut
By Lisa Baertlein
Filed Under: Beverages, Lifestyle & Leisure, Food, New Products, World Financial Crisis, Economy and Business and Finance
LOS ANGELES — Starbucks Corp. is moving into the instant coffee market as it works to shake off its reputation as a seller of pricey coffee drinks.
The Seattle company plans to unveil Via instant coffee on Tuesday and to make it available next month.
Starbucks says the new drink item was 20 years in development and replicates the taste of Starbucks coffee. A trio of single-serve Via packets will sell for $2.95 and 12 packets will be priced at $9.95.
The move pits the company, which already sells its coffee beans in grocery stores and in its own shops, against giant food sellers with established instant coffee brands. They include Nescafe maker Nestle and Sanka seller Kraft Foods Inc .
Business – Starbucks plans instant coffee debut – INQUIRER.net.
-Shovel Ready Projects For Filipino Stimulus-Jobless Filipinos to plant trees – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
some caveats:
This type of stimulus is actually more of a way to help the poorest of the poor survive. A way to transfer necessary cash so the super below poverty line people have a way to feed themselves. This makes me think that it is more aptly called a poverty aleviation stopgap.
The AFP called the government department, ministries. This probably means that the editor/copy editor/proof reader forgot that this is going to be read by filipinos. If they were aiming for a more International bent and that caused them to change departments to ministry, I feel that they should not have.
The environmentalist in me is very happy!
The realist fears most money would go to corruption.
Jobless Filipinos to plant trees
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 19:54:00 02/12/2009
Filed Under: Unemployment, Forest and forest management, Environmental Issues
MANILA, Philippines—President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is to pay 180,000 people to plant trees across the archipelago as part of efforts to ease the fallout from the global economic meltdown, the government said Thursday.
The P7 billion ($148.7 million) program, to be put in place over the next six months, will be funded by government ministries, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told reporters.
More than 15,000 people have lost their jobs in the Philippines over the past two months, mostly in the crucial electronics and garments sectors, amid plunging demand for Filipino exports.
Jobless Filipinos to plant trees – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.
Best Sentence Today-rePost-Goverment A Precondition To A Free Market-Stumbling and Mumbling: Nationalization and free markets
But the question isn’t: would this system be ideal? Perfection is unobtainable. It is: would this system be better than a heavily but imperfectly regulated industry? Could it be that state ownership, far from being the enemy of private enterprise, might in this case be a precondition for it?
Stumbling and Mumbling: Nationalization and free markets.
-rePost-The Persistence of Ideology by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Winter 2009
The feeling of oneness you get, the feeling that you are not alone in your struggle, I’d have to confess I had that moment in the movie hero when the emperor shi huang ti was telling the unamed assassin(jet li) knowing that someone truly understands him, an of all people his enemy , he is ready to die! I felt a lot less than him. I was happy knowing that I am not alone.
Who, then, are ideologists? They are people needy of purpose in life, not in a mundane sense (earning enough to eat or to pay the mortgage, for example) but in the sense of transcendence of the personal, of reassurance that there is something more to existence than existence itself. The desire for transcendence does not occur to many people struggling for a livelihood. Avoiding material failure gives quite sufficient meaning to their lives. By contrast, ideologists have few fears about finding their daily bread. Their difficulty with life is less concrete. Their security gives them the leisure, their education the need, and no doubt their temperament the inclination, to find something above and beyond the flux of daily life.
If this is true, then ideology should flourish where education is widespread, and especially where opportunities are limited for the educated to lose themselves in grand projects, or to take leadership roles to which they believe that their education entitles them. The attractions of ideology are not so much to be found in the state of the world—always lamentable, but sometimes improving, at least in certain respects—but in states of mind. And in many parts of the world, the number of educated people has risen far faster than the capacity of economies to reward them with positions they believe commensurate with their attainments. Even in the most advanced economies, one will always find unhappy educated people searching for the reason that they are not as important as they should be.
The Persistence of Ideology by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Winter 2009.