Oh, and I have a half-baked theory that I actually slept better in a non-air-condioned room, but I'm not fully convinced.
You could test that theory, I bet.
2: I'd have to convince the roomies that it was a good idea, and I'm pretty sure they both slept awfully without AC. My room's on the front of the house and seems to get a cross-breeze effect at night, whereas they're more in the stifling, holy-shit-I'm-breathing-soup part of the house.
Oh, right, whole-house AC. You quaint southerners with your folkairways.
Solve your night vision problem here:
http://www.brightguy.com/
We used to be all window-units-in-the-bedrooms, but the landlord works for an HVAC company and they retrofitted central air into the existing duct system. I'm actually impressed with how (1) quickly the work was done and (2) well it works, as I had thought it was massively expensive and difficult to do such a thing. Apparently not?
However, I should advise, just as a general rule: have a ukulele around; it helps.
This is true. We have a small one (for a toddler) and it does help. Even when the lights are on.
I am nobody's uncle.
It's been a very long time since I have been in the dark. Most of the power outages here occur during early evening, tornado time, and rarely last into night. The houses across the street are on a different circuit or whatever, as are the streetlights on the main drag 1/2 block down.
We also have a small violin and a small piano. Mother does not want a son as tone deaf as his father.
I often think about how dependent our society is on electricity. If we ever lose the ability to generate it we are going to be so fucked.
(I call it sulphur-lamp-yellow, but I'm not sure they're actually sulphur lamps)
They're sodium vapour lamps.
11: Ah, that looks right. I had "S-word-chemical + yellow" conspiring towards "sulphur" for some reason.
My grandfather was a physicist specialising in metal halides, so it's the sort of thing I know.
Freaking US. Always with the early turnover and/or defensive breakdown.
Are you having exceptionally crazy weather back east? Sounds like it; there was a tornado in my mom's town in VT a couple of weeks ago.
uncomfortable to walk around an urban landscape at night without lighting.
You didn't bring torches?
15: This particular thunderstorm managed to park itself over town in just such a way as to snap trees and power poles in a fashion that I'd never seen except in oh-shit-the-sky-is green tornado weather in Illinois.
I think there have been a few more hot, humid air masses (more typical of July and August) than usual for this time of year, which leads to more violent weather when it clashes with the cooler, drier air that accompanies the relatively cool fronts this time of year. But I don't know that it has been exceptionally crazy.
The US really isn't looking dangerous here.
Also, this summer seems to be exceptionally cool over here. It's barely made it to 60 in the last couple of weeks.
It's barely made it to 60 in the last couple of weeks.
I want to go to there.
|| One of my roommates appears to be incapable of being near, or in, the apartment without being on the phone/skype. Possibly not in the shower, but just possibly. It wouldn't drive me nearly as crazy if the bits of conversations I overhear were actually interesting. |>
20: Yeah, broadly speaking the western and eastern US tend to run opposite of each other in temperature deviations. For instance see this map for May 2010. I suspect June will show a similar pattern,
Jesus, put the ball *in* the goal.
I would like to go somewhere where it gets into the 60s and 70s during the day, maybe with some fog at night that usually burns off. That's supposedly "normal" here. But not this year.
Weeks in the 50s with no sun qualify as warm where I live the rest of the year.
25: At least they're looking better. Until Ghana scores on the counterattack.
Several of my Spanish-speaking friends are having fun with Ghana-gana puns.
Ghana making more mistakes at the back now, but their luck so far running. US all individuals, no real intra-team communication.
He's apparently missed only once in his career. (Internationally, I think, so not including MLS.)
Cut it a bit close. Not the most obvious call as well.
Yeah, I wish I knew enough Spanish to know what the announcers were saying. That looked 50/50, or whatever they call it.
There's really no reason games should be more entertaining tied at 1-1 than 0-0, but they always seem to open up after 1-1.
This is going to shoot-out and that will be annoying and sad.
I keep mishearing Feilhaber as "fail harbor."
I hate shoot-outs. They should replay the match in its entirety on short notice.
I'm going to write a letter to 15-year-old me saying, "One day you will watch a former US president sitting with Mick Jagger at a World Cup soccer game in South Africa. And nothing about it will really be that remarkable."
"fail harbor."
Where the fail whale lives.
Back to the weather: there was one day here above 80 (high of 83) since I got here. The day before had a high of 64; the day after, a high of 61. That's kind of weird.
I hate shoot-outs. They should replay the match in its entirety on short notice release lions.
Tierce, was your "Bah" a commentary on the quality of the call leading to the PK or did it signal a more general discontent?
"From Hell's heart, I stab quite close to thee"
No the penalty was fair enough, I just want Ghana to win! Hackney is very Ghanaian.
Is there a difference between Ahab and FailAhab?
||
Half the city is watching World Cup matches, half the city is at Pride, and half the city is cleaning up basements and cars after the mini-Superstorm. Guess which half I'm part of.
||>
Moby-Dick dies, so Ahab =/= FailAhab
51: That's three halves, Natilo. I'm not so much with the maths, but I'm pretty sure that's impossible. But I'm guessing storm clean-up and sending sympathies if so.
Is it clearly stated that Moby Dick dies? I honestly can't remember. But it doesn't work out so well for Ahab.
Stanley is wrong at 48: it should be bears.
Ahh, but you forget: I live in the Twin Cities. So I actually get 4 halves to play with, and the fourth half is the ones who are in Detroit for the USSF.
We didn't actually get that much water -- just a quarter inch or so over maybe 20% of the basement, but we have a LOT of junk down there to move around and clear out. Oh well. It could always be worse.
43: Ghanaians of a certain age love them some Mick Jagger, but I'm sure they also understand multi-national loyalties.
51: How are you not at the Nomad? Basements can wait.
57.1: In my house we specualted he consults a chart of record sales by country to decide for whom to root.
Also, that was nicely done and about the most likely way Ghana was going to score, if they were going to score.
Shit. I guess every 90 minutes the US has a defensive breakdown. Forget it would apply here.
The US held up for 90 minutes against Algeria. But then, so did everyone else.
It is not clearly started, and the internet tells me that many believe M-D does NOT die. I cannot this minute find my (very lovely) copy, and fear I have lent it to someone and forgotten who. I have always assumed he does, but am not sure on what evidence.
Also: I rescind my bah.
66: In that game they got lucky and Algeria only hit the bar after the breakdown about 6 minutes in.
I thought the whale, like an Italian footballer, intentionally dove as part of its attack.
If US going to lose, much happier to have it be someone like Ghana than many others (now in the right thread).
I love the international comments at the FIFA site. Some guy from Ireland will feel for us because we love our country so much and will be sad. Others say how well the US and Ghana have done, and that we can both be proud of how far we've come. It's very sweet.
Hey, here's a dumb question: who pays for the different national teams? Is it all done by sponsorship ? And is there prize money for the winners and runners-up, or is it all for pride and a trophy?
Sponsorship, gate for games, dues for a lot of med level teams and youths, philanthropy, receipts from money held in trust, occasional grant.
That is for the us. Other countries may be diff.
Man, it must be really stressful for someone rooting for the US. So many chances at goal they keep being denied.
76-77: I wonder about the curious North Koreans.
BzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzt!
ratzinfratzin, &%###@&@h3-{{*#%@!!!
So Ghana gets Uruguay next? Tough match.
Man. They need to do something about those first ten minutes in each half. So fucking frustrating.
I wonder if the US players stay on to watch the rest, because, hey, why not, right? They clearly like soccer.
86: qualifiers for 2014 being next spring. Some deliberate progress would be goddamn fucking fantastic.
Qualifying isn't really a problem. (Yes, yes, practice time. I was just being snarky.)
I really enjoyed that last little scramble in the Ghana goalmouth. Ghana were generally defter in mid field (if a bit callow) than the US but totally squeakybum a lot of the time at the back. US not good at seizing unexpected opportunity. The Hackney vuvuzelas have started -- people jump into cars and drive round the streets honking and waving!
Also just read the last two chapters of Moby-Dick on-line: I would say it is studiedly unclear. The ship is dragged down to hell with its captain (and a stray seagull); the sea is the shroud of all as it has been for 5000* years; only one remains to tell the tale. Ahab is tied to the whale -- so does the whale go to hell too? Is the sea also a shroud for the whale? If only one remains, does that include Moby-Dick? Left precisely ambiguous.
*Why 5,000? Is this Bishop Ussher time? (Which would be more like 5,900?)
It is true that qualifying isn't too problematic. But something like 2/3 of the roster will be ancient by int'l standards in '14. And then we have like a year before the next Gold
Cup, and that one qualifies for confed cup, so we need to do well there too.
Ugh, so sad that Bob went with Redcardo from the start.
Moby-Dick
It's sweet of you to do a little hypenated homage to Moby Hick, but he really has made remarkable progress on his hyphen abuse.
91.last is dumb; but I'm not a huge fan of Clark.
Sorry yes, Moby Dick is the name of the whale; Moby-Dick is the name of the book.
94: Sheepishly, I learned that the book's name was in fact hyphenated only after making my joke. So.
It's a great business for the utilities, because they effectively sell off-peak power at peak rates.
Note to self: Write business plan in anticipation of the eventual revival of the U.S. PPP market.
97: Who are the ~5%? The few remaining heirs of Josslyn Hay, Beryl Markham, etc.?
Dang it people, you need to be interesting right now! I'm plunging into despair! Please, distract me!
100: Someone just told me a crappy joke about the oil spill. Is that interesting?
Geez, TJ, why do you hate Ghana so much?
'Cause they eliminated us twice.
Am I the only one who loves darkness?
I can understand why women don't like unlit streets, but outside the city core I'm often sad that we have so banished the night. One must go far out into the country to really see the night sky at all, and _far_ out into the country to see it clear.
And last night was a nearly full moon --
I'll be traveling across the West by car soon, and quiet and night wind and the opportunity to do some stargazing in the dark are some of the reasons.
Alternatively you could keep your eyes on the road.
Anyone following the riots in Toronto?
I am pleased there's an African team in the quarters, but it's a pity the US are out.
Sports sucks. I don't know why I keep getting sucked into having a rooting interest, when I know that l'm going to end up dejected. I don't even have the perv factor -- it's women's beach volleyball for me here on out.
Where you'll be sucked into having a rooting interest.
105
I tend to use blue highways, and to occasionally turn off on side roads park and get out of the car. One can't be forever driving. I like wildlife refuges, old river bridges, state forests, obscure little state parks with lakes. I'm also partial to general stores, small restaurants in small towns, family-owned drive-ins with signs that say things like "Klobnock's (since 1957)"
You can poke around and have a lot of that kind of fun if you don't waste time going to The Corn Palace or Wall Drug, or eating at Cracker Barrell out at the truck stop on the interstate.
I'm rooting for the side that trashed a bank.
To add insult to injury, the top story on the blogs I read is the fucking JounoList story. I'm reduced to reading about (infinity, 1)-categories.
117: That's it. You better bring it because it's on.
116: It is strange to see a bunch of people with real jobs writing stuff that would get them in real world trouble and putting it on the internet. At least, putting it on a listserv. 1998 called and wants its scandal back.
Yggles had a line here that made me snort audibly:
It sort of surprises me that this campaign worked, and The Washington Post seems to have felt that these emails constitute a good reason to accept Weigel's resignation. I say "sort of" because obviously no organization that employs Charles Krauthammer on a regular basis can be counted on to exercise sound judgment in a consistent way.
The whole Journolist bruhaha is incredibly lame. Those defending it are naive, and those trashing it are idiotic.
But yggles has been using the backhand nicely in connection with it.
57.2: Nomad seems overpriced, and my friend had her pocket picked there last week.
120,121:Zap! Bang! Pow!.
Yggles is the fantasy superhero of the passionate middle, hyper-articulate division.
Bon mots almost almost as good a show of power as getting a respected and beloved national journalist fired from his job?
Yggles is the fantasy superhero of the passionate middle, hyper-articulate division.
I started following him because, for some reason, I thought he was related to Julio Iglesias.
124: No love for Enrique? ¡Bailamos!
It is strange to see a bunch of people with real jobs writing stuff that would get them in real world trouble and putting it on the internet under their real names.
Fixed that for you.
Not that Weigel didn't get hosed. It's a shame.
I'm rooting for the side that trashed a bank.
I thought that's what they were supposed to do. I heard just this morning on the radio that Obama wanted attacks on banks.
It is freakin hot here in Virginia. I am slightly concerned bc I do not currently have any clients who are air conditioning experts.
125: Generation gap.
126: That was sort of supposed to be a self-referential joke.
128: I could ask my HVAC'ing landlord if he wants to get a divorce, but he might raise my rent or something.
129.2: ? I mean, use pseudonyms! That's what they're for! Don't tell me your name is really Moby Hick.
Plus also, journolist was a private email list with apparently, supposedly vetted membership, which, you know, that often doesn't work in the end (hello, 1998), so still you ... oh, I don't know.
107: There's not much point to it, the rioters get all the good stuff first.
130: Direct action is required.
"Hello Mrs. HVAC. Sure is a hot summer. That must get kind of lonely with Mr. HVAC always being on a call. Why don't you invite me in for some sun tea?"
123: how much more of a show of power than Palin, Joe the Plumber, and Erick Erickson do you need, bob? I think most sane people see that the media are wired for conservative-ish -es.
131: Moby Hick is my real name. Mom liked early American novels and dad huffed paint.
But wasn't the whole point of Journolist to be a place to exchange ideas and information with other journalists? If they'd used pseuds, you wouldn't know who you were getting information from, in which case you may as well take story ideas from the comments of Clusterfuck Nation and wall of the men's room. Anyway, the participants would probably mostly be people who knew each other. It wouldn't be hard to see past a pseud in that case. Anyway who knew me would have no trouble figuring out my name.
I think there have been a few more hot, humid air masses (more typical of July and August) than usual for this time of year, which leads to more violent weather when it clashes with the cooler, drier air that accompanies the relatively cool fronts this time of year. But I don't know that it has been exceptionally crazy.
Thursday afternoon's storm was pretty crazy here. From 3:30-5 p.m. the temperature dropped 26 degrees and a massive storm with IIUC 70-mph gusts came though. I spent a large part of Friday driving through West Philadelphia and west/south into Delaware and Chester counties, and the tree damage was astonishing to behold. Bridges closed, roads detoured, and numerous major intersections without working traffic signals even 18 hours after the storm.
Branches through car windshields, entire trees uprooted, leaves and debris littered so widely that it looked like entire corridors had gotten a haircut. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power, and many including my grandfather still didn't have it back a day later. At first when I saw the damage in West Phila. on Thursday night I thought we had had a tornado, but the damage was far too widespread and it turned out to be straight-line winds.
You know what demographic still gives Obama a 95+% approval rating? Kenyans.
Well, that locks up Delaware's electoral votes for 2012. Only 267 to go!
The whole Journolist bruhaha is incredibly lame. Those defending it are naive, and those trashing it are idiotic.
You can say that again. I'm frankly a bit bewildered that this could have happened given that all of the players involved are younger than me. I've decided that it must be an acquired blindness. Ask them ten years ago if that was a stupid thing to do and they'd have had no trouble seeing it. Occupational hazard, maybe? It's probably hard to work in Washington if you don't have a certain level of denial about your immunity to scandal.
"Anyway who knew me" s/b "Anyone who knew me".
I doubt they were members of Journolist, Moby
I'm honoring them for 138 whatevers (matches, sets, games?) they played.
...how much more of a show of power than Palin, Joe the Plumber, and Erick Erickson do you need, bob?
I can't seem to decipher this.
Okay. Presume most of all of the people on the journolist believe it was very wrong for WaPo to accept Weigel's resignation. I don't know many of the listserv members, but I do know that Marc Ambinder and Paul Krugman are among them, and so presume that at least 25% of the 400 were of that caliber.
Brad DeLong is constantly calling on the Washington Post to close its doors. If a significant number of the 400 demanded that WaPo rehire Dave or close its doors, this might not actually accomplish either goal, but at least would demonstrate a solidarity and commitment (and friendship) greater than "Dave's a great guy, and will find a new job."
I believe they could shut WaPo down, but I am an optimist.
Report from Toronto on G20 protests, with the required condemnation of crazy lefties throwing feces, thereby deserving to get their skulls broken. Or whatever.
140: You did that yesterday and I noticed that it was non-sequitur but did not make the connection. It's like the Nine Billion Names of God, once we get a catchphrase for every number our purpose here will be fulfilled.
Re:G20 meeting
Europe Sacrifices Labour for Finance ...Michael Hudson
Let me see, long, what to paste...
What is missing is an awareness that the cost of labor can be lowered by progressive taxation and a tax shift back onto property - land and rentier income. Instead, the cost of living is to be raised, by shifting the tax burden further onto labor and off real estate and finance. The idea is for the economic surplus to be pledged for debt service.In England, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has described a "euro mutiny" against regressive fiscal policy. But it is more than that. Beyond merely shrinking the economy, the neoliberal aim is to change the shape of the trajectory along which Western civilization has been moving for the past two centuries. It is to roll back Social Security and pensions for labor, health care, education and other public spending, to dismantle the social welfare state, the Progressive Era, and classical liberalism.
But of course, "violence" is the privilege of the state.
the Progressive Era, and classical liberalism
Isn't "classical liberalism" what the Progressives were trying to over turn (i.e. free trade and markets without social welfare)? Or have the 1960's become the classical era?
136.last: I'm off in two seconds, but this is an interesting post on the matter:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/06/the_sad_bullshi.php
Last, oildrum
The future most people are living into is beginning to disappear. The financial crisis threw the first punch, but oil depletion will deliver the knockout blow. The moment people realize that the society they have known their whole life can no longer function the same way without the energy provided by oil, it will become glaringly apparent that the future will be very, very different. It's not just that we will no longer have fresh food flown in from around the world. Some of the fundamental assumptions held by people living in the rich countries will no longer hold:* many jobs that have never existed before will once again no longer exist
* retirement, a phenomenon only a century old, will disappear
* accumulating "wealth" will be out of reach for most people
* most children will no longer be able to attend institutions of higher education
* diseases and conditions that are easily treated now will once again claim livesOnce a person has realized that these and many more futures will no longer exist, they will ask themselves the following question: If the future I've lived with my whole life will not longer occur, what will my future be?
retirement will disappear...for most
most people
most children
claim poor lives
Obama's kids & grandkids will do great in Dubai.
The impression I got from reading is that Gail the actuary thinks it is best to be a calming leader of the new improved serfdom.
118 makes me wonder if there's a venture fund called Late Stage Capital Management.
The list -- You're on it now.
145:Good grief
Liberalism first became a powerful force in the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting several foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as hereditary status, established religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings.
Classical liberalism assumes "liberalism" and then tries to protect the individual and property after the traditional institutions have been dissolved. Age of Adam Smith and the Founders.
What the neo-liberals want is a neo-feudalism, a secure and unassailable hereditary wealth and status for elites.
151: The classical liberals wanted to protect property and individual right, but didn't much give a shit about social welfare. They were not big on public spending for anything that didn't go "boom."
As for your take on neo-liberalism, I'll pass. When the water is that murky, diving isn't a good idea.
152.1: Tigre and Bunny: classical liberals.
146: Gah. I'm going to have to stop reading this stuff because it's making me seriously irritable. I don't know why, but I am particularly bothered by the framing that obscures all sense of agency.
Dude is a grown-up person. He didn't have to do what he did -- either saying the stuff in the first place, issuing the "clarification," the apology, or resigning. He chose to. Yes, within a stupid, arbitrary and unfair set of social rules that are enforced more against left-leaning people than right-leaning ones. Big whoop.
I like my job too, and I especially like paying my mortgage and having health insurance. But I hope that if one of the many stupid things that I do ever ends up like this, I have the guts to make them fire me rather than resign.
Huh. I thought he was right to offer to resign. Given that he covers the conservative movement, he'd quite arguably compromised his ability to work with sources and so on.
You know what creates really great yellow pools of light at dusk? The lamps on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Yeah, I don't get the resigning part of it. At least, not after reading the apology post. I was expecting something much worse when I heard about the story.
It is generational, but it's about a slippage from a dying ideological model of journalism's best practice to a (re)birth of one
The dying one (which has infected US journalism far more seriously than, say, UK journalism): is that news reporters are best when they have no stance or desires of their own and no social realm, and can stay above the fray reporting factually; that if the light is shined on them, nothing of interest will be seen.(1)
The reborn one (which is closer to bob's war of all against all, though it still insists on specific craft values): says that journalism will be better when journalists can once again acknowledge their own being as social animals with perspectives and drives and an interest in the world (and not just their own world).(2)
I read Weigel's resignation as -- as much as anything -- an act of disgust: "they need me more than I need them (3); I'm out of here -- let them plead if they really want me. My craft ethics are better anyway, plus this wider open world is here to stay."(4)
1: Further signs that the Cult of Objectivity is dying and rotting -- all the stupid stuff like Dana Milbank making "comedy" youtubes, and the White House corps playing squirty-pistol games with Biden. These are people unable to speak up for their own Social Real, drawn in halting self-hating wannabe fashion to the freedoms and sense of self-presence of, well, things only slightly less lame than them.
2: Leftist journalists have -- quite rightly -- always distrusted pseudo-disinterested centrist journalism. (The right followed the left here.) Quite apart from anything else, you can't get good writing out of someone disguising or lying about the shape of their own interests. (Including lying to themselves.)
3: He's right, too. WaPo isn't worth being part of: it's deliquescing strikingly fast.
4: A close friend -- she's in her early 20s -- just wrote a very funny piece apologising to the kids she likely soon begin having for all the stuff they will one day encounter by and about her teen self littered over the internet: pictures of her drunk at parties; bad Goth poetry. Stuff she has forgotten about; or remembers, but no longer has the passkey to go back and delete. Will they care, though, or will it just be ordinary? It is already ordinary in her world (the world of people who've been on the net since they were tots): she and her friends are beginning to fashion their own rules and assumptions about the negotiation of this should-be-private-but-not material.
I am guarded and use a string of pseuds on the net: I prefer to keep my various social spheres from colliding. As a citizen, this is common sense. But as a writer, I feel an increasing sense of dishonesty, almost cowardice, as a consequence: it is really not what I am about as a writer. Openness is better: or rather, openness will one day be better, once we have strangled the last [_____] in the entrails of the last [_____]. (PS: Never use versions of that last sentence in casual conversation at work, EVEN AS A JOKE!)
Bob I read you as pointing out how powerless the institutionally affiliated liberals are, compared to the conservaquacks, and that Weigel's scalp was a demonstration of their power.
I guess I misread you, sorry.
once we have strangled the last [_____] in the entrails of the last [_____]. (PS: Never use versions of that last sentence in casual conversation at work, EVEN AS A JOKE!)
How about: Once we have strangled the last guy who steals soda from the fridge with the entrails of the last non-flusher.
159:Umm, perhaps that is close to what I am saying, or perhaps I am being incoherent (cue Sifu et al). My main non-trivial adjustment to your sentence:"how the institutionally affiliated liberals are not exercising their power compared to the conservaquacks". I don't think liberals are at all powerless. (Tangent:how process-liberalism defines itself as self-restraint)
I have the guts to make them fire me rather than resign. ...Witt
Look, I simply don't think the assessment of political power is amenable to empirical analysis. (I am trying to avoid flying off into tangential space here, e.g., the way the hegemony induces a self-underestimation of non-institutional power). In this I am closer to the "Conservaquacks" or tea-baggers than to the reality-based vote-counters. They got Weigel because they wanted it and believed they could, and because the Journolisters accept the Conservoquack's. assessment of reality.
And yes, this anti-empiricism leads to utopianism, alienation, paranoia, and assorted "delusions" All my vices are now tools.
Think I might go read the MLK speech on the Mall.
Okay, I see what you were getting at bob.
Is this still the soccer thread? England looked like the US on that one. Long ball defended poorly.
Germany the younger team -- but I only just started watching. I think it may still be a nailbiter. Flying Rodent just tweeted it will be a "pants-down spanking", Germany the spankers.
AWESOME! We have a replay of 1966 -- a disputed goal, bounced in then out!
Things speed up: maybe we will outdo Isner-Mahut: 70-68 to the winner
Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott tweets: "It was in!"
I am finding this far too entertaining.
(I have a slightly insane facebook friend who believes that the US goal against Algeria was engineered by the CIA to ensure that Germany will meet England in the quarters -- because it will heighten tensions within the EU... Can't wait to see what he thinks of this!)
I know. I have a plane to catch in ten hours, and a thousand-odd words to write before then, and bags to pack, and I really need to sleep, and this isn't helping.
& seriously, video replays would be bad for football, and if we get them 'cause the English can't handle 1966 in reverse, then I will be v. v. angry.
From the commentary opening the second half: "It may just be that clouded the issue and papered over the huge cracks in England's play... it looked a dead duck"
Nice strike. That woulda been something.
if the english can score two in the next twenty minutes I will be impressed.
OK the window of opportunity for justified complaint is closing, I think. England have been pretty awful: even the bit where it got exciting was because Germany got awful also.
There is little more melancholy than a pair of fans dressed up as Battle of Britain airmen -- including huge false moustaches -- when England is being hammered. Crowd chanting: "England's going home" -- that's OUR crowd.
The germans are taking the mickey now.
(I hope the english do pull something out the hat, but I think they're going home.
Retweet: "The only way this match can improve now is if England actually bring on three lions."
Germany looking for the 5-1 payback. I half want to see Crouch for Rooney as a "Fuck you, Wayne" gesture. I think they have a sub left?
i feel sorry for capello. the problem he has is that england haven't played very well, and there's very little a manger can do when the players fuck it as spectacularly as England have.
Biggest England defeat in world cup history. Which they kind of deserved.
So Ghana did beat the US and Germany did beat England! I'm not usually that good!
And Ghana could take Germany. Not sure who plays who next though.
Germany gets Argentina/Mexico winner. Ghana, Uruguay.
My Mexican friends are truly excited about this afternoon's match-up, but I'd be astonished if Mexico won it.
I know the thread's on to soccer, but thanks, tierce, for 158: it's pretty much exactly as I see the more interesting aspects of the Weigel affair. (And yeah, his 'apology' is not very abject, with its repeated "I stand by this [remark]," and "I stand by that [remark]." He sounds less chastened than annoyed, and I'd quite plausibly want to be quit of the Post as well. It's a dying venue, with no one but itself to blame.)
Capello gave an even more than usually incomprehensible post-match interview. Yes, his English is intermittent, and to be fair, the first question he faced was: "Fabio, how big a turning point was Frank Lampard's goal?" -- which is King of Russia's beard-like in its unanswerable paradoxicality. But "They played well" is still probably the wrong response.
Was it Bostoniangirl asked about Toronto?
Indisputable Proof thru photographic analysis that the "black bloc" and other "violent" particpants in the protests are in reality police agents. We can all see the yellow-dotted combat boots.
I agree with most of 158. A fair bit of it can certainly be attributed to Upton Sinclair's observation that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.", but that does not let any of them off the hook.
Thanks to Jackmormon, I have been obsessively watching soccer on Univision!
Argentina-Mexico in 2006 was fantastic, IIRC.
Superb little glimpse of Maradonna to set us up, apparently doing the Lambeth Walk! Oi!
Brit commentator at start of Arg-Mex: "The world cup hasn't ended, and nor has the world"
And offsides, if I understand the rule. The way everyone's standing around, you'd think an NFL game broke out.
202.1: What I was referring to.
I don't get the English commentary, so I have to supply the analysis for myself.
It was offside yes -- and the big protest was because they showed a replay on the giant screen, and everyone in the ground saw it was offside.
Second goal was fine though.
I think at this point I should take advantage of the nice weather and go out. I can watch the replay later. I was hoping for a close game.
204: Sure. It was brutally offside. But that one was a different kind of ugly.
Retweet: "Mexico's goalie has hair like a My Little Pony"
Retweet: "Wait, I mean Argentina's"
Enough with the fucking "retweet". We are not, in fact, on twitter here.
Was that a sideline brawl? Go soccer!
Argentina-Mexico in 2006 was fantastic, IIRC.
Argentina-Germany, on the other hand, was horribly ugly, and the brawl that broke out afterward cost Germany a key player in the next game, which they lost to those whiny Italian mofos.
Retweet is like replaying bad decisions on the giant screen: bound to lead to brawls.
AIEEEE you retweeted right into my knee. Get the stretcher! Get the stretcher!
At World Cup time one is reminded that Argentina is more than Borges and surprisingly Arisch models.
217: It's just "Borge" and I think he was Danish. But, when he played the song that sounded funny, then turned the sheet music right-side-up and played Beethoven, it was brilliant.
219: The Daily Flippanter regrets the error.
Is Maradona wearing a ring on all four of his fingers? He looks like he's got on brass knuckles.
222: That's probably rosary beads. He does wear a watch on each wrist, though.
I guess if God has already helped you out once...
...you don't want to forget what time it is.
Btw, since I know you're all wildly curious, the Social-Security-bashing event that I had to attend on Saturday enjoyed surprising pushback from liberal and progressive attendees. Despite an agenda sharply gerrymandered to get 3500 Americans to agree that we need to cut Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, there was strong agreement on more taxes for the rich, the need to continue spending and get us out of the recession (ostensibly not even a topic open for discussion on the agenda), and cut military spending.
Susie Madrak's report has an especially zingy comparison of America Speaks to Amway, and it's a good write-up of the local event.
Someone at Firedoglake has a good write-up too.
228: Wow. That is fantastic to hear. Best line from your links so far:
Come to think of it, why aren't progressives holding town hall meetings on Social Security?
||
Because I didn't read the original linked article, I missed the fact that the "icing" trend may have started at Stuffwhitepeople Like University.
Sigh. The faculty are trying so hard to change it from a bro school to a hippie school. They are backed by administration, who want the school to be anything but a bro school, and have banned almost all the frats. And yet. The frat boy antics continue. Really what they have gotten is a bunch of frat boys who smoke dope and wear organic hemp.
|>
228, 229: I don't see why more progressives aren't working to means test social security. If I weren't related to them, I'd be a bit angry at all the old people I know who are drawing SS in addition to more than adequate other incomes.
What does "means testing" Social Security mean?
230: That article was actually not linked in the original post, so you can rest easy on that score.
231: As a progressive I would guess it's because progressives have given up on the idea of "pensions" other than Social Security ever existing for anyone currently under 45.
What does "means testing" Social Security mean?
It means "not giving it to people unless they need it". Another way to make it more equitable would be to stop funding it with an incredibly regressive tax, but the former is more popular among people who hate taxes.
What does "means testing" Social Security mean?
Limiting it to poor people. And I suspect there's little enthusiasm for the idea because means-tested entitlement programs tend to end up much less popular politically than universal programs (see Medicaid vs. Medicare).
231: Fuck that. I put the $ in, now I'm taking it out and paying taxes on it again too. The gummint wants to sell the idea of SS as "insurance" they get to live up to that sales job or I burn shit down as soon as I can find my torch, pitchfork, and cane.
There's a big bunch of ground between "limiting it to poor people" and "sending a millionaire $1,200 a month just for shits and giggles and so the upper 5% doesn't feel special enough after the capital gains rate cut."
238: Eh, I mean, there aren't that many millionaires, and the money saved by cutting them off from SS is unlikely to be worth the (increased) support they'll give to efforts to eliminate it entirely if they no longer benefit.
Mm. Yeah, I don't know. If you've paid into it all your working life, you're going to feel like you're owed it, regardless of your means upon retirement.
I do understand 235: the way it's funded is problematic. But face it, we have enough problems on our plates at the moment, and apparently a billionaire named Pete Peterson is pushing to abolish SS altogether. One hurdle at a time: let's just push back against that notion. Which we are not particularly doing.
Also, means-testing is a pain in the ass administratively.
I mean, there aren't that many millionaires
That's pretty much the reason Republicans give for why increasing the marginal rate for the top brackets won't help. It's true, in a sense, but only if you set the bar for "helping" very high.
Most conservative policy suggestions that aren't just "raise taxes" or "stop helping people" seem to amount to "save money by creating a giant bureaucracy". For example, the idea of doing drug tests on poor people to see if they can live or die. This would entail a giant bureaucracy so that poor people can be issued papers stating whether they are virtuous or not. Means-testing in general fits this description. Avoid the terrifying spectre of one person cheating the system by making sure that there is a huge and inefficient system which tries to cheat people first by demanding paperwork.
By "raise taxes" I mean "cut taxes".
That's pretty much the reason Republicans give for why increasing the marginal rate for the top brackets won't help. It's true, in a sense, but only if you set the bar for "helping" very high.
That's a totally different situation, though. There aren't very many millionaires, but by definition they have a lot of money, so raising rates can easily raise a lot of money without affecting very many people.
243: What do you mean creating a giant bureaucracy? Everybody with any assets or income at all already gives these details, or at least closely related ones, to a giant bureaucracy every year. I think the reason the Dems don't discuss means testing on SS is the same reasons the Reps have been saying things like "Government health care sucks/Medicare is Great." In both cases, the reason is that rich, old people vote.
245: It is true that the amount of money we are talking about is less for means testing SS, but I don't see a big moral difference.
What do you mean creating a giant bureaucracy? Everybody with any assets or income at all already gives these details, or at least closely related ones, to a giant bureaucracy every year.
Yes, and that giant bureaucracy exists in part to ensure that people aren't intentionally underrepresenting their incomes to avoid a higher tax rate. Adding another advantage to having a lower income will just create yet another advantage to underrepresent income in a specific new way, which would require at least some additional bureaucracy to monitor and prevent.
I think the reason the Dems don't discuss means testing on SS is the same reasons the Reps have been saying things like "Government health care sucks/Medicare is Great." In both cases, the reason is that rich, old people vote.
This is absolutely true, but I don't see how it's a problem. Rich old people vote, so policies that rich old people like are likely to get enacted, so finding a way to get old rich people to like whatever policy you support is a good idea.
248.last: I suppose. But, when the revolution comes, I'm going to redistribute the Little Rascals on the basis of need.
249: So I feel justified in bitching.
I don't really see public policy in moral terms, and I think the tendency of American policy elites (not just conservatives, either) to focus so much attention on who "deserves" what and how to structure policy so it rewards the "good guys" and punishes the "bad guys" is pretty misguided.
SS is billed as a program whereby, before you know whether or not you'll become wealthy, you begin to pay in, and you keep on paying in. How things cash out in the end should not really be relevant to how repayment, in the form of Social Security checks, occurs. As Biohazard put it: it's insurance.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a society giving and gracious enough, generous enough, that SS could be viewed as a society-wide support network. If you don't need the support, you don't get it, and don't feel aggrieved by that. We're not that society.
I wouldn't mind seeing a gradual shift toward that kind of rhetoric, however.
252: Maybe, but the bank bailout has really driven that thought from my mind.
Meanwhile, I recommend reading the write-up on the America Speaks event in Witt's second link in 228.
It is entirely possible that my views are colored by how annoying my retired neighbors have been over the past six months.
Anyway, every minute they spend writing Congress to save their SS is a minute in which I don't have to pretend to care why Mr. X is pissed at Mrs. Y and how nice the street was in 1980.
Moby, you're in Pennsylvania, no? Isn't it like 98 degrees? Nobody cares about anything right now.
Moby, think of Social Security as the first dollars of income, not the last.
235
It means "not giving it to people unless they need it". Another way to make it more equitable would be to stop funding it with an incredibly regressive tax, but the former is more popular among people who hate taxes.
This is misleading. When you consider the benefit formula as well, the system as a whole is extremely progressive (in that it is a much better deal for low income workers than high income workers).
And just to show that spending time here has value in the real world: CTY site director told assembled parents this afternoon that he usually likes to start out by mentioning alumni who have gone on to marvelous things, but this year, the one who's been most in the news lately is Lady Gaga. Thanks to you lot, I had some idea what he was talking about.
237
231: Fuck that. I put the $ in, now I'm taking it out and paying taxes on it again too. The gummint wants to sell the idea of SS as "insurance" they get to live up to that sales job or I burn shit down as soon as I can find my torch, pitchfork, and cane.
I basically agree with this. You want to cut something go after medicare. Or social security disability much of which is paid to people which I don't consider disabled.
or social security disability much of which is paid to people which I don't consider disabled.
Oddly enough, we may actually agree on this, at least to an extent. But I'm very curious: Have you ever actually met anyone -- and if so, how many? -- who is on SSDI?
There are always these items:
Camille Paglia on the state of sex among the (upper) middle class.
The state of affairs in Toronto on the occasion of the G20 meeting. I really don't know what to make of this. It's not clear what was being protested, and who escalated to the smashing of things.
Actually, that's enough. I looked at something today about reporters being caught on-mic saying that Sarah Palin's a moron, but that's not very interesting.
And listen to teo, everyone. He's entirely right on means testing.
258: Must be the other end of the state. We've been muggy, but not that bad.
259: Money is fungible. Half of public policy is designed to get people to forget that, often for good reason, but it is.
Sorry, I didn't see that there was an interesting conversation going on over here, when I posted that.
And listen to teo, everyone. He's entirely right on means testing.
Aw, thanks.
Must be the other end of the state
Yup. Liquid air, that's us.
Aw, thanks.
Don't let it go to your head. I'm not so sure about the morals part of your argument.
3
Oddly enough, we may actually agree on this, at least to an extent. But I'm very curious: Have you ever actually met anyone -- and if so, how many? -- who is on SSDI?
This has come up before. Long ago I was a post doc at UC Berkeley and use to hang out in the student union. Some of my fellow idlers were on SSDI based on mental problems. In my lay opinion any problems they may have had (they appeared more or less normal) were not sufficient to prevent them from working. There was another guy who hung out there who did have obvious mental problems. However he was not receiving SSDI and was I believe homeless. I distinctly remember two people receiving SSDI, there may have been more.
I really don't know what to make of this. It's not clear what was being protested, and who escalated to the smashing of things.
I'm not sure what you're asking here. I was at the protests on Saturday, at least for the first part, and it began as a standard labour movement/NGO-type march/parade, with the Communist Party, Socialists, Bolsheviks, etc. tacked on at the end.
The problems began after the march had turned up Sapadina from Queen W (if you know TOronto), and the black bloc users, along with others, tried to push through the police line south.
Eventually they gave up and turned back along the parade route toward University Ave. That's when the window smashing began. By this point the main body of the parade was already back at the start/end point.
It looks as though the police had removed their line at Queen and University (why, I don't know - maybe they thought no one would want to come back that way?) and some of the anarchists were able to run along a complete deserted Queen Street to Yonge St., and began smashing windows there as well. The police car burning took place on Queen and on King.
What happened at the non-violent protests later in the evening is something different. The police had obviously been instructed by that point to allow no protests whatsoever -- including in the "designated free speech zone".
270: For mental illness, SSDI goes to the relatively "normal" more often than not. Early onset is positively related to disease severity and negatively related to treatment working (mostly, it gets complicated). And, with early onset, you probably didn't get the kind of employment history you need to get SSDI.
I'm not so sure about the morals part of your argument.
Yeah, I figured you wouldn't be on board with that.
Probably what happened with the protests was that police started inciting violence either as undercover "protestors" or by herding people into places from which they couldn't disperse and then ordering them to disperse. That's what usually happens.
In Pittsburgh there was very little damage to anything except for exactly one guy who broke a bunch of windows on Forbes Avenue and Craig St. The police started arresting and gassing random people before they could successfully provoke any violence.
271: I'm not sure what you're asking here.
Hi, Soo. I wasn't asking anything specific, just meant to say that I hadn't read far enough into things to understand what happened -- it seems concerning enough, but I just didn't know enough about it as yet. Thank you for your write-up.
Nobody's picked up on the Camille Paglia link in 264...it's a different Unfogged these days. Mundane over-familiarity has killed our drive to talk about sex for 1000+ comments.
As I think people already pointed out above, SS is already implicitly means-tested in the tax and benefit formulas. Directly means-testing social insurance programs is generally a bad idea. The beginning of the stigmatization spiral.
Nobody's picked up on the Camille Paglia link in 264
Probably because it's a really silly article. It's hard to stop rolling your eyes for long enough to say anything.
276.1: In the link at 264, she blames the (uncited) lack of sex on technocracy, androgyny, over-familiarity, women with small asses, movies, video games, and Lady Gaga. That's a great deal of ground in a short essay. I think she should have focused on video games or female ass-size. A narrower theme can help.
266.last: Of course it is. But everyone needs at least a certain amount of it, and for retired people it makes more sense to just give everyone a basic amount than to figure out who needs more and top them up.
279: Funnily enough, it doesn't work that way with finding money to raise kids.
But, enough about that. PGD wants to talk about asses.
280: True dat. That ought to change some, but in the direction of giving more help with kid-raising expenses.
277-78: hey, I'm sure that if life was like a romance novel we'd be getting it on way more. Imagine if all the men were pirates or vampires, and all the women were buxom and swooned.
She doesn't even mention the single biggest change in upper middle class sexual mores, namely that it's routine for both sexes to have screwed their brains out with alll kinds of different partners through their mid to late 20s, before getting married. I'm not entirely sure what impact that has, but it puts a different spin on marriage when it's not the beginning of regular sex.
Probably what happened with the protests was that police started inciting violence either as undercover "protestors" or by herding people into places from which they couldn't disperse and then ordering them to disperse.
Yeah, I don't know about that. Kettling was clearly happening later in the evening and today, but it didn't happen at all before the window smashing began. The police had lines on the north-south cross streets along the parade route, but except at the "turns", the east-west cross streets weren't blocked at all.
The RCMP has acknowledged it has had undercover people in the anarchist movement since before the Vancouver Olympics, and there were obvious "undercover" police mixed in with the general protesters, but the actual window smashing? That was planned beforehand, though by whom I don't know. People came prepared.
I count 37 generalizations in that article.
286: Does Word 2010 have a new feature and did you do it the hard way?
You people with your "Cite! Cite!" As if a woman needs to provide a cite for what she knows perfectly well is happening. It's because of your damn baggy shorts.
I'm wearing tighter pants these days. Apparently, pleats are out.
A good opportunity to quote Molly Ivins on Camille from back in 1991:
What we have here, fellow citizens, is a crassly egocentric, raving twit. The Norman Podhoretz of our gender. That this woman is actually taken seriously as a thinker in New York intellectual circles is a clear sign of decandence, decay, and hopeless pinheadedness. Has no one in the nation's intellectual capital the background and ability to see through a web of categorical assertions?
Is she implying that Pilates amplifies breasts? That's a novel idea.
I think I'm not parsing this sentence correctly or something:
A class issue in sexual energy may be suggested by the apparent striking popularity of Victoria's Secret and its racy lingerie among multiracial lower-middle-class and working-class patrons, even in suburban shopping malls, which otherwise trend toward the white middle class.
Is it confusingly written, or is it just me? Is she saying multiracial working-class people venture out to suburban malls that they would otherwise avoid just to go to Victoria's Secret? Given the figure of the average Victoria's Secret model, doesn't this contradict her generalizations about racial preferences in body shapes? I'm so confused.
291: I read that as saying Pilates gives you the lean athletic look, then you pair that with breasts that were amplified by the addition of saline.
I liked the article linked in 264. I also liked the Sandra Tsing-Loh divorce essay last year. There's a place for strong personality and sweeping generalization.
There's a place for strong personality and sweeping generalization.
Never!
The second person pronoun was poorly chosen in 293. But, I won't correct it. I'm afraid Paglia will view my concern for writing as androgyny.
hey, I'm sure that if life was like a romance novel we'd be getting it on way more.
"Were". Also.
Thank you so much for reminding me of the Ivins essay quoted in 290. The whole thing is just great, but the capper for me is the ending:
There is one area in which I think Paglia and I would agree that politically correct feminism has produced a noticeable inequity. Nowadays, when a woman behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say, "Poor dear, it's probably PMS." Whereas, if a man behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say, "What an asshole." Let me leap to correct this unfairness by saying of Paglia, Sheesh, what an asshole.
Is it confusingly written, or is it just me?
Sadly, I think she's trying to say that the wearing of Victoria's Secret undergarments is a sign of sexual robustness, as evidenced by its popularity among multiracial women, and um even though those shops are usually in suburban shopping malls, uh,
No, it's not you.
the wearing of Victoria's Secret undergarments is a sign of sexual robustness
That's more or less what the troopers said, but with a different connotation.
A class issue in sexual energy may be suggested by the apparent striking popularity of Victoria's Secret and its racy lingerie among multiracial lower-middle-class and working-class patrons, even in suburban shopping malls, which otherwise trend toward the white middle class.
If she ever bought fancy lingerie herself, she would know that the upper middle class doesn't patronize VS because the quality is crap. If you can afford it, it's La Perla all the way.
There's no denying that if adult men did Pilates more often and wore more closely-fitting clothes, things would be improved.
Oh, Molly Ivins. I will never teach modern American nonfictional prose, but if I ever did, you'd be on my list, love.
270
... were on SSDI ...
Actually I am not sure they were on SSDI. They were receiving some sort of government disability payment.
297: Here is the chapter containing the famous list from the Meese Report excerpted in neb's link (scroll down a couple of screens). The magazine list goes from "A COCK BETWEEN FRIENDS" to "69 LESBIANS MUNCHING" then books and films ("2,325 separate magazine titles, 725 book titles and 2,370 film titles") followed by graphic descriptions of the content of some of the magazines and then the excerpted novel also described in neb's link. All text, but otherwise grade A government porn as only a commission that included James Dobson could produce.
Also, Paglia probably doesn't know anything about suburbs or malls. Not all suburbs are middle-class or wealthier. That stereotype was never entirely true, but it's become less true over time. Malls in urban cores I've been too have tended to be the more upscale ones, but that probably reflects the peculiarity of where I've lived, along with the fact that I'm not going to travel to some upscale suburban mall since it's too damn expensive and I generally hate shopping anyway.
305: Those descriptions are pretty priceless. It reminds me of that "porn for the blind" thing Ogged linked to ages ago.
They appear to have limited their investigation almost exclusively to cities on the eastern seaboard, with a little data from elsewhere. What kind of methodology is that?
re: 302
The pilates class that runs before my martial arts class seems to be about 40% men. However, they are pretty much all, to a man, fairly elderly. I'm not sure they are the close-fitting Italian/Saville-row tailoring types.
I keep meaning to turn up a bit early myself and check out the pilates class, but I worry it'd leave me unable to train immediately after, as exhausted 'core' muscles wouldn't be good when it comes to injury prevention.
Those descriptions are pretty priceless.
I was struck by the ones where they felt compelled to include the race of the individuals in the description. You just know that some of the materials required detailed home study by members of the commission.
