-
Rep. Jack Kingston provides a stirring indictment
Of himself in this case. From the AJC
But Rep. Jack Kingston is making no apologies for being the House champion for Georgia when it comes to snagging federal dollars for his home state and his home district around Savannah.
In the current spending bills working their way through Congress for the new fiscal year, which begins next month, Kingston is sponsoring or co-sponsoring earmarks estimated at $83 million, more than any other Georgian in the House.
Despite being a conservative Republican, Kingston argues that snagging programs and projects is a time-honored tradition for Georgia lawmakers.
I suppose they’re going to lose a few more rounds. It’s always time for term limits.
-
Advice on seeming Reaganesque
Since all of the Republicans candidates for president are trying to be the next Ronald Reagan, why not run on his platform? Just cross out the parts about the Soviet Union, and presto! It’s not like much of his domestic agenda got enacted. We still have the departments of Energy, Education and so on. Government is still the problem after all…
-
An awesome use of web video
Check out dylanmessaging.com
-
Random thought
The more advanced the combatants in a war, the less likely it is they’ll be fighting the same war.
-
Shock Doctrine
A well done piece of propaganda is Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, available on MySpace TV. It’s another attempt to get everyone riled up about income disparity, which no one seems to mind. Unmentioned is the fact that it is an indie film, being released on a social networking site, and being given away. Hardly something that would happen in a poor society.
-
Friday round up
Sorry for the light blogging, work and the house hunting process have been quite draining on me.
Anyway, Here is your recommended reading for today
- The Economist has a great read Iraqi Kurdistan, or as it will soon be known, Kurdistan.
- The absolute minimum you should know about Character sets and Unicode
- Russia Tests “Dad of All Bombs“. It’s good they’re keeping themselves busy. Money Quote: ” Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn’t hurt the environment”
- Megan McArdle on why we haven’t been attacked since 9/11. Personally I think it’s a lack of talent/money/motivation on their part, plus a host of supporting factors
- The view from the top of the world
- I’m surprised this hasn’t come back to life among the many Bush conspiracies.
- There’s this from Craigs List
Sushi Model: Willing to act as display showcase as sushi is displayed placed on body for patrons to eat off of.
• Model preferable of Asian ethnicity
• Height requirement: 5’6” to 5’11”
• Slim built; clean and body shaven
• Will wear bottom with pasty/string bikini top or topless
• Compensation: $200/3 hours - Don’t you just love it when support for Microsoft Products is done using commands only they know? Check this out (which did work for me)
-
Quote of the morning
From David Frum on BloggingHeads.tv
First God blesses you with luck, then he curses you by letting you think you’re smart
-
The best new development in some time
Check out this article on MSNBC about American computer geeks disrupting and scooping al Qaida’s internet efforts. Basically they just troll message boards and other places on the internet and post bin Laden’s releases early and generally disrupt the marketing effort.
Since most of radical Islam consists of marketing, this is a wonderful, unexpected organic development. A heroic romantic vision of a struggle appeals to disgruntled losers everywhere, but a bumbling piece of incoherent crap will just send them back to video games and porn.
Everyone feel free to attach the 5th Generation terminology of your choice…
-
Maybe countries are in the Gap for a reason…
From the Economist Blog
Why would anyone with a robust sense of reality simply assume that each national jurisdiction contains the seeds of a viable economy? If we insist on thinking of development as a matter of national growth, we may well consign most of the bottom billion, and their children and their grandchildren, to unrelenting poverty trapped within their UN-recognised national prisons. Our real moral concern should not be the Central African Republic, but its unfortunate denizens. The best thing for their prospects may simply be to get out–to leave for a place where growth has already commenced. The West’s many attempts to jumpstart growth where the world’s poorest already reside has yet to work. So why does the international community insist on betting the poor’s lives on the gamble that it will, finally, some day?
While development has worked in some places, South Korea and Taiwan come to mind, there is little compelling evidence that a society locked into antiquated social capital can shift to a modern one absent the destruction of the existing social capital. The shocks would be a significant war, or a tyrannical government (i.e. China) willing to uproot society.
Its food for thought anyway.
-
A minor internet miracle
Yesterday I was searching for a domain name for a friend of mine, and found exactly what we wanted, in the .com! That hasn’t happened in years, it’s a name you think would be taken as too.