January 2008
112 posts
Wake Up AM podcast #108 →
This week: Suddenly there is just Hillary and Barrack. Also, - McCain, on the verge of the nomination and on the verge of senility -Mukasey’s doublespeak is a little more sophisticated but in the end, he’s just another Gonzales - SOTU, another rerun And, The Second Great Depression, it’s just getting started. Laugh till you cry! Join us for another comedy ridden episode.
How That “Twofer” Works →
I just got done telling somehow how if Hillary were elected, Bill Clinton would be one of the greatest ambassadors the Oval Office ever had:
Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium...
The Abraham Lincoln Logs #134 →
Abe greets the new year, lights up a cigar with Cheney and talks New Hampshire hi-jinx with Hillary… The Chain of Custody your ballots merit…
BaldGuyShow | Music Show #231 | Renee Zawawi →
Today we review Renee Zawawi and her CD “L-E-G-E-N-D-S“!
00:06 AJ - BaldGuyShow.net - Intro
04:57 01 American Girrrl
11:08 04 Flirt With Me
15:57 07 Never Knew
20:31 10 Papa
28:48 12 On The Road
37:03 AJ - BGS Outro
I give Renee Zawawi 2 Stars out of 5!
www.reneezawawi.com & www.l-e-g-e-n-d-s.com
*Please support the bands and artists and buy their music, It...
GOP Debate →
I can’t really watch the whole GOP debate, because it’s at the Reagan Library and the Reagan worshipping is too out of control.
But I did flip to it and see the four remaining candidates — Huckabee, Paul, Romney, and McCain — sitting next to each other. And it struck me… what an odd group of characters. But, of course, they do represent the four food groups of the modern conservative party: the...
Porous Streets →
A genius idea, methinks. Let stormwater get naturally filtered into the ground, instead of channeling it to a sewage system where it needs to be treated.
Downside? Well, it will make it that much harder to find out how much blow you all used last weekend (so maybe that’s an upside, actually?).
Or Maybe it Was a Design Flaw →
Yesterday I linked to a Bob Herbert column that argued for more federal funding for infrastructure, and used Minneapolis’ collapsed I-35W bridge as its central example.
Well, this article in today’s NYT says the bridge died of a design flaw, not neglect:
The conventional wisdom is that the Interstate 35W bridge, aged and due for major maintenance, collapsed because of neglect. Surely...
We Won’t Have Rudy to Kick Around Anymore →
Thank the high heavens, Rudy Giuliani and his band of nutty, nutty advisors will not be getting their hands on the nuclear launch codes any time soon.
John McCain, however, is now the front runner, promising, in the words of Joe Scarborough, “less jobs and more wars.” Check it:
Costs of Living →
I was a bit depressed to read that IT salaries fell in Seattle last year to sixth-highest nationwide, until I plugged the number into CNN Money’s cost of living calculator, and discovered that $80K goes a lot further in Seattle than even the $93K you’d earn in Silicon Valley.
One reason to be bullish on Seattle’s housing market is that it still has a long way to go to catch up with a lot of other...
Just Walk Away →
Here’s a good sign the housing market isn’t coming back anytime soon.
The real irony here is that the banks shot themselves in the foot with this one. If they hadn’t pushed through the Bankruptcy Bill in 2005 — which made it harder to delcare bankruptcy and walk away from credit cards — home owners wouldn’t have shifted all their debt into their houses, resulting in so much negative equity.
...
Land Use and Climate Change, II →
Following up on this post from last week, an article in the San Francisco Chronicle highlights some efforts underway in CA to combat climate change via smart growth:
In Oakland, Fruitvale Village demonstrates how infill development, where new land uses are created on sites previously used for another purpose such as manufacturing, can encourage economic revitalization and the use of mass transit....
Infrastructure →
Good Bob Herbert column today:
We appear to have forgotten the lessons of history. Time and again an economic boom has followed periods of sustained infrastructure improvement. It’s impossible to calculate all of the benefits from (to mention just a few) the Erie Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and helped make New York America’s premier city; the rural electrification...
Bear Hunting Raffle as School Fundraiser →
With skyrocketing costs of just about everything these days, selling cookies to raise money for a school trip just doesn’t cut it anymore. So when the Boosters club of Noble High School in North Berwick, ME, needed to raise $100,000 to send 200 students to New York City on a cultural trip, the school resource officer and Master Maine Guide, Rick Varney, came up with the idea of selling raffle...
Fact Checking the State of the Union Speech →
Get the truth and the lies here.
Elections and the Media →
This is a couple weeks old, but still interesting:
CNN, which had been sucking wind behind the blabbers of Fox News before the election, is suddenly bubbling along on huge numbers, buoyed by debates, primaries and all the dots being connected in between. Almost 3.3 million people tuned in to CNN’s prime-time election coverage last Tuesday, nearly double the number of the 2004 New Hampshire...
Win Some, Lose Some →
While searching for something else on the blog, I found this post from almost a year ago on how Bill Clinton will help his wife’s campaign.
In light of the past week in South Carolina, that’s not looking too prescient.
On the other hand, I’d like to take a bit of credit for using the word “Billary” before it made it’s way into the recent national political discourse.
Episode 3.3- Johnny Iraq and Whales; Interview... →
Tear down this wall!; Dennis is no longer a menace; Will an asteroid render the 2008 election irrelevant?; John calls out the Democrats (surprise!); G-Dub kills the Whales; Interview with Wade Norris, the volunteer coordinator for the John Edwards campaign and host of Ultimate Politics; Rants- John: Gaza gone googoo; Jeff- McCain is Old.
Stick A Fork In Her, She’s Done (Nice Obama-Q!) →
Bill Kristol piles on the Clintons in what is actually a pretty good op-ed today:
Then on Saturday, in Columbia, pre-spinning his wife’s imminent defeat, Clinton reminded reporters out of the blue that “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in ’84 and ’88. And he ran a good campaign. And Senator Obama’s run a good campaign here. He’s run a good campaign everywhere.”
What do Jesse Jackson’s...
Episode 330 →
Obama wins big in South Carolina, the stimulus package and American Empire, and finally: Wal-Mart goes green? Links Mentioned: Ted Kennedy endorses Obama … details on the stimulus … Parag Khanna on the end of hegemony … Wal-Mart’s new strategy
Episode 330 →
Obama wins big in South Carolina, the stimulus package and American Empire, and finally: Wal-Mart goes green? Links Mentioned: Ted Kennedy endorses Obama … details on the stimulus … Parag Khanna on the end of hegemony … Wal-Mart’s new strategy
Meat →
Good piece in the NYT Week in Review on the explosion of global meat supply and it’s attendant stresses on the environment:
Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of...
Super Tuesday and 'Super Duper Tuesday' →
Since a group of southern states banded together and moved up their primaries to help Jimmy Carter beat Ted Kennedy, The history of ‘Super Tuesday’ which went from a phrase used by journalists to a semi-official group of primaries to the 24 state primaries (on either Dem or Repub side) that are being dubbed ‘Super Duper Tuesday’. Of course TR deserves credit for the first...
Obama Wins South Carolina →
I’ll outsource the commentary to the man himself…
….and the rest to Noam Scheiber…
Obama took over 80 percent of the black vote, yes, but also about a quarter of the white vote. That stacks up pretty well alongside Hillary’s 36 percent and Edwards’s 29–well enough that Nora O’Donnell of MSNBC could call it “almost a three-way split,” and The New York Times could proclaim that a “coalition of...
CyberPunkRadio - #98 - Sex Bobots Green n Politics →
DJ Defwheezer, Azeem and Variable Unit - Handbook for the Apocalypse (Handbook for the Apocalypse)
Huckabee on the Stimulus →
He’s making sense:
“One of the concerns that I have is that we’ll probably end up borrowing this $150 billion from the Chinese,” he said. “And when we get those rebate checks, most people are going to go out and buy stuff that’s been imported from China. I have to wonder whose economy is going to be stimulated the most by the package. ”
The former Arkansas governor then proposed a major public...
115 - Blasting The Right Basics: Countering Five... →
Today, a really big change of pace. You’ll be treated not to one subject in depth, or even two topics with extended segments. No, today I have 5 QuickBlasts for you, in the areas of foreign policy, taxation, regulation of business and health care. Let’s get right into it. Sometimes you don’t need long permutations and combinations of an issue, you just need a solid fact or two...
Wake Up AM podcast #107 →
This week: Full Circle: FDR brings us out of a depression only to have the Reagan “Revolution” and over 30 years of Republican privatization bring us back to the brink of depression. Also - one more look at the Clinton / Obama fiasco of a debate - an Emergency Economic Plan that will work - and, we’ll let you in on our brief adventure with corporate radio Join Us!
Land Use and Climate Change →
I’ve long harped on the fact that changing land use policies is central to curbing emissions. We simply can’t cut greenhouse gases substantially without changing our living, traveling, and commuting patterns. In that vein, here’s a good bill being debated in Olympia that would tie climate change to the State’s Growth Management Act. If a city wanted to change it’s zoning, climate change impacts...
Charity →
Matt Yglesias questions the effectiveness of charitable donations to wealthy universities and arts and cultural institutions, and wonders if we need to restrict the tax exemption:
To me, to figure this out we’d need to have some serious estimates about the impact of restricting charitable deductions. How much new tax revenue are we talking about? If we kept the deduction in place for institutions...
More Stimulating →
If my previous post didn’t convince you that the current stimulus packages being bandied about are ill-conceived, how about hearing it from a Nobel prize-winning economist?
We should begin by strengthening the unemployment insurance system, because money received by the unemployed would be spent immediately.
The federal government should also provide some assistance to states and localities,...
Nixon, Gold, and Inflation →
If you’re someone who studied economics [like me!], then chances are, you’ve probably taken at least a class or two about the monetary crises of the ’70s.
For the rest of you … did you know?
Richard Nixon was responsible for the first major inflationary event of the ’70s? ‘Tis true. He took us off the gold standard, and that led to a chain of events which resulted in tremendously high oil prices...
Cars and the Wealthy →
A new study purports to demonstrate that in many cases, wealthy individuals are incentivized to use public transit:
An interesting snippet:
Alternatively, if Wrich * F < C then some rich people will take public transportation. In this case, a four ring city can be one outcome. In the inner ring, the rich take public transportation. In the next ring, the poor take public transportation. In...
Stimulating! →
The ridiculous thing about the “stimulus” package that President Bush and the Congress is proposing is that it we have to borrow to pay for it. The idea of an $800 tax rebate is being bandied about. But since we’re already in debt, that cash is going on Uncle Sam’s credit card, which is all but maxed paying for two wars and three rounds of Bush’s previous tax cuts.
On top of that, most people are...
We Now Return to Your Regularly Scheduled... →
Don’t look now, but President Bush (Remember that guy?) is going to give his last(?) State of the Union address on Monday.
With all the economic turmoil today, it’s pretty clear what he’s going to talk about, but the real question is just how little coverage it will get with the Democratic primary in South Carolina just 48 hours earlier.
Maybe He Can Send Some Traffic Cops Over To Tehran... →
Giuliani the statesman:
Rudolph W. Giuliani likens himself to a boxer who never takes a punch without swinging back. As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him.
In August 1997, James Schillaci, a rough-hewn chauffeur from the Bronx, dialed Mayor Giuliani’s radio program on WABC-AM to complain about a red-light sting run by the police...
Facebook →
Having used the iPhone interface for Facebook for a few months now, I’m convinced that smart phones are the natural environment for FB and its applications. So it makes perfect sense to me that Nokia is making a deal to put Facebook prominently on all of its phones.
In fact, I’d go even farther. Having my Facebook contacts on my phone is almost more important than my phone’s own address book....
BaldGuyShow | Music Show | #230 A & B →
Today we rock out with some of the best music that I got from the great bands out there in 2007!
00:03 AJ - BaldGuyShow.net - Intro
01:04 I Am (Molly’s Theme) - MUNK
05:58 01 I Lived I’ve Loved I Lost - A Verse Unsung
09:59 03 Infectious Smile - Adam Zadok
15:37 For You (Time and Time Again) - AJ and The Frozen Tundra Blues Band
19:08 03 Rotten Apple - American Heartbreak...
Sicko →
I finally got around to seeing Sicko last night, and I’d like to second the Professor’s enthusiastic review from last summer.
I was initially skeptical about what I’d heard about the detour to Cuba, but it was really powerful stuff. And showing a poor, communist country treating 9/11 rescue volunteers better than our own government was about as good an indictment as one can get.
One thing that...
Regulation = Innovation →
In the Cascade Mountains, plans are underway to tap underground volcanoes as a source of energy. Why?
One reason for the growing interest in geothermal in the Cascades is a requirement that, by 2020, 15 percent of the energy used by Washington state’s major utilities come from renewable sources. California and Oregon have similar requirements.
Episode 329 →
The caucuses and primaries kick off in Nevada and South Carolina. We’ll look at the state of the presidential race and how the recent economic outlook may change the game.
Links Mentioned: Frank Rich on Romney’s newfound populism … Bob Herbert on stagnating wages … Details on McCain’s win.
Episode 329 →
The caucuses and primaries kick off in Nevada and South Carolina. We’ll look at the state of the presidential race and how the recent economic outlook may change the game.
Links Mentioned: Frank Rich on Romney’s newfound populism … Bob Herbert on stagnating wages … Details on McCain’s win.
Stimulus →
A look at stimulus packages past and present, and how previous presidents FDR, Eisenhower, Ford and Clinton reacted to recessions. We’ll also look at how the two main economic theories, classical and Keynesian have fared over history and why Keynesian is the view that everyone from Barack to Bush seems to be interested in today.
Sonics →
If you need any more evidence that economic impact studies around sports arenas are full of crap, read this hilarious Seattle Times article. The Sonics were for economic development before they were aganst it.
(via Postman)
Dumb and Dumber →
At this point, nearly 7 full years into the Bush regime, there’s hardly a malediction I can hurl in Monkey Boy’s direction that hasn’t been spoken before. And yet somehow I’m still amazed at the idiocy of both Bush and the toadies with which he’s managed to surround himself.
Faced with the prospect of stagflation (that’s a lack of growth coupled with rising prices), all Sackless Wonder Ben...
Quote of the Day →
Ezra Klein:
The difference between Romney and McCain is that the press hates Romney for lying to them, while McCain has figured out how to get them to lie for him.
Food, Food, Food! →
Show Notes: Our grandparents knew how to grow food for themselves. They had to during World War II. Our current president in time of “war” told us to “go shopping.”
Could you feed yourself and your fa
BaldGuyShow | Artist Review | Show #229 | Heather... →
This is a Demo Promo CD by Heather Ballentine that she sent me to review.
00:10 AJ - BGS Outro
00:10 AJ - BaldGuyShow.net - Intro
01:37 01 Under My Spell
11:55 03 It Wasn’t Over For Me
17:04 05 Exclusively
20:51 AJ - BaldGuyShow.net - INFO
21:22 Kenny drop5_19_2007 10_44 AM
23:55 07 Rocky Ground
32:56 AJ - BGS Outro
I am Giving Heather Ballentine 4.25 Stars out...
Energy Efficient Wal-Mart →
Credit where due. Wal-Mart is rolling out some newer, more energy efficient stores:
The High Efficiency stores use technology tested and developed in two experimental green stores Wal-Mart opened in 2005 in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colorado, including a white roof that deflects the sun’s heat.
The latest generation takes the energy savings built into the HE.1 last year and adds new...
Documentally.com - Episode 034 (mp3) →
Undercover, Underpaid - An uncommon moment where I take time out from my nearly normal format and ask for feedback from anyone that has the time to have an opinion on which direction my podcast should meander next. I also play a Billy Bragg song - ‘Take down The Union Jack’… And mention a few friends.
Please feel free to comment on my blog.. www.Documentally.com
Wake Up AM podcast #106 →
This week: MSNBC proves that our Democracy is being undermined by the mainstream corporate media. Also, - After a lame attempt to manufacture an incident with Iran, Bush goes to the mideast discarding an olive branch so he can use both hands to saber rattle - An exclusive interview with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern And, Huckabee wants GOD to rewrite our Constitution Join Us!