DOING THE MATH: How Many People Are At Least 1/32 Native American? It turns out to be surprisingly hard to determine.
Archive for 2012
May 27, 2012
IN THE MAIL: From Timothy Matthew Slemmons, Year D: A Quadrennial Supplement to the Revised Common Lectionary.
A LOOK AT all those racists in the Democratic primaries:
Wait a minute. Haven’t I been told for 30 years now — and by such media eminences as the longtime Washington Postie Thomas B. Edsall — that dastardly Democratic racists in Southern states had left their party for the more cruelly Caucasian climes of the GOP and had thereby turned Dixie into a Republican stronghold?
Why, yes I have. But despite the theory that the GOP had sucked in all the available racists in a 12-state area over the past 30 years, apparently there are still melanin-hating meshugenahs in the Democratic camp. It took having a black president to smoke them out at last. They were so clever at hiding their tracks that they probably even voted for the black candidate in 2008.
Only rather than switching parties like a normal evil racist would do, they chose to stay Democrats in 2012 just so they could embarrass and humiliate Obama.
Those who assert that Obama’s poor showing among voters in his own party is due to the one factor he can’t control are not doing him any favors. They are, instead, helping create a smoke screen of self-delusion.
Yeah, but on the other hand I’m kind of enjoying the show.
SHOCKER: Green energy jobs far short of Obama goal.
President Obama has made much of his commitment to green energy as he launches his re-election bid, but the nascent industry has produced far fewer jobs than the president promised, despite massive, repeated infusions of taxpayer dollars.
Since taking office more than three years ago, Obama has routinely promoted wind, solar and other green energy efforts, touring factories — often the beneficiaries of federal grants — and touting the manufacturers as cutting-edge job producers who are leading America’s transition to energy independence. He had promised in 2008 to help those companies create millions of jobs.
“We can invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy … to create 5 million new jobs, new energy jobs, all across [the] country, jobs that pay well, jobs that can’t be outsourced,” Obama, the candidate, told an Ohio crowd.
But the president has fallen far short of his own mark.
The wind industry has actually lost about 10,000 jobs since 2009, even though it doubled its domestic production, the American Wind Energy Association reports. And Republicans were quick to point out that as Obama blocks the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas, the oil and gas industry has added 75,000 jobs since the start of his term.
Obama spent $90 billion of his stimulus package on green energy projects, including weatherization of buildings and development of electric vehicles. Yet, by the end of last year, just 16,100 people landed new jobs in the so-called green industry, Labor Department statistics show, far short of the 200,000 jobs the White House projected it would help create each year.
It’s like the whole thing was really just about funneling money to cronies and contributors.
GOLF: The Hill: President Plays Golf, Press Pool Gets Left Behind. “In a breach of long-held tradition, however, Obama’s motorcade left Andrews without the reporters in tow. The president returned to the White House shortly before 6 p.m., according to the administration, and the press vans got there about 15 minutes later.”
AT AMAZON, new releases in DVD and Blu-Ray.
MATTHEW FEENEY: A TALE OF TWO DEFICITS. “Europe’s democratic deficits are just as morally distasteful and ruinous as the economic deficits. The President of The European Commission is José Barroso, who never had to stand in a public election for the position. The twenty-seven commissioners who represent the constituent nations of the EU are all unelected.”
KATHLEEN PARKER: Cory Booker’s Truth And Its Consequences. “Booker has gained much unwelcome attention from his own political party, while being nearly sanctified by Republicans, for the singular offense of telling the truth. And then untelling the truth. And then . . . stay tuned.”
FROM BILL QUICK, thoughts on overcoming evil.
Plus, from the comments: “Being a Christian doesn’t mean being a wimp.” Just ask Pizarro.
IT’S A GOOD ARGUMENT, AND IT HAS THE ADVANTAGE OF BEING TRUE: Super-PAC ads look to tie Obama to Wall Street and turn off his supporters.
Hey, they don’t call him President Goldman Sachs for nothing.
FROM “BIRTHERS” TO “GIRTHERS:” Meet The Weiner Truthers: One year later, a dogged handful still believe that Anthony Weiner was framed.
DATECHGUY IS HOSTING THE MORNING DRIVE ON WCRN. Follow the link to listen live online.
SIGN OF THE TIMES: “Boy, people hate the government.”
May 26, 2012
AN AFTER-ACTION REPORT on Everybody Blog Brett Kimberlin Day.
READER DEIRDRE MUNDY WRITES: “It’s probably time for a zombie preparedness post. Patient zero has appeared in Miami.”
A Miami police officer on Saturday fatally shot a naked man who was chewing on the face of another man on a downtown causeway off-ramp, police and witnesses said.
If you want to be prepared, you might go here. And here.
AT AMAZON, summer deals from Cuisinart.
STACY MCCAIN: Kimberlin v. Walker Hearing Scheduled: 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Rockville, Maryland. I wonder if it would help for Walker supporters to show up at the hearing?
“CHOOMAQUIDDICK” BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY:
If you exhaled prematurely when you were with the Choom Gang, “you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time.”
Before there were Death Panels, there were Doob Panels.
Heh. Thanks to reader Missy Nelson for the tip.
I WONDER IF HE MISSES CHER? Gregg Allman: Engaged to 24-year-old girlfriend.
POPULAR MECHANICS VISITS the top of World Trade Center 1. Plus, pictures from the top.