Month: August 2007

velvet hat trick:

I was informed that a velvet hat trick is in fact where you have sex with a women in all three possible positions, that’s a velvet hat trick.

Robert Reich wonders What Happened to Labor Day? as the modern labor movement is a modern anachronism at best and at worst, considered a nuisance and obstruction:

But don’t blame Ronald Reagan or corporate greed. Blame us – you and me. You see, starting about 30 years ago and with increasing efficiency, technologies have given us consumers a world of choice – low priced goods and services that often depend on low wages here and elsewhere.

Four-lane federal highways and long-haul trucks linking non-unionized manufacturers in the South to the rest of us. Container ships and cargo planes linking us to foreign producers. Big-box retailers using computers to find the best deals anywhere around the world. And now the Internet letting us find the best deals for ourselves from anywhere, too.

In other words, we as a nation have traded off lower priced goods and services, in place of a unionized workforce with the bargaining clout to get higher wages. So now, a lot of us get good consumer deals and lousy paychecks.

No one trumpeted this choice. It’s happened gradually. But is it the right choice? That’s what we ought to be asking ourselves — at least once a year, on Labor Day.

I can’t conceive of the idea that no one has factored this into their shopping decisions. It’s all every well to say domestic garment workers deserve a living wage but at the same time who will pay the prices their products would bear? When we see how many items we used to produce here that are now imported from across the Pacific, one can look at it dispassionately as a triumph of the modern economy. But tell that to domestic growers or manufacturers who can no longer count on domestic markets for their products.

And the answer is not a blanket “don’t buy imported goods.” Nor is it a demand that we support inefficient or underperforming domestic manufacturers.

But as with the foods we eat, we should understand how and where things are made and how those decisions affect us. I can’t quite understand how canned black beans can cost less if they are made in China than if they are made here in the US.

The charitable Laura Turner says of Senator Craig’s arrest:

it makes me pretty uncomfortable to see a career and probably also a marriage and social life destroyed in this way.

My reply (at her site, reproduced here:)

The fact that Craig has consistently voted against any legal protections for gay citizens has contributed to the illegal bathroom sex venue. I realize there is some thrillseeking fun in public sex, but the police in a busy airport are asked to clean up the illegal activities in a public place that is intended for all ages to use. If a person enters that place and engages in well-understood coded behavior that would otherwise lead to a crime, and then pleads guilty to that offense — not to mention trying to use his Senate business card for intimidation or mitigation — why not throw the weight of the law at him?

He has contributed an environment that drives gays into the shadows, increasing the likelihood of public places being used for private activities, all while engaging in those activities. And he didn’t even tell his wife he had been arrested and pleaded guilty?

I don’t think the Senator deserves your discomfort. It seems to me that Slate and others are framing this through their attitudes — that his behavior was harmless and was part of a consensual activity — while if he had been asked to weigh in on cruising in an airport bathroom, his voting record suggests he would not be as charitable as you are.

Talking Points Memo:

Carlson beat up a man? A fully grown man? Please. Tucker Carlson could be beaten into submission with nothing more than a heavy thought.

• Seattlest: Elephant Ears, Bare Breasts at County Fair
  The idea of a mother taking the son she conceived as a result of a concert kneetrembler to a show by the same group, 18 years later, was too funny to be true.
  (tags: humor values familyfun)
• the terrorists have already won
  6 Iraqis, en route from working with Marines at Camp Pendleton, were speaking Arabic and freaked out some dingbat: the plane was pulled back from departure and held til the next day. Nice.
  (tags: terra fear culture values osamabinforgotten)
• Hoisted from Archives: Upper-Class Living Standards in 1900
  the past is a different country indeed: read the whole thing for a new perspective on living standards of 1905.
  (tags: culture values economics history)

Playing around on indaba (think: an online version of Apple’s GarageBand) and I have gotten tired of the bass loops that come with GarageBand. An actual bass might be more useful.

Craigslist always seems to have something. I’d score this one in a heartbeat, but for the $100 I don’t have at present. Selling a couple of old enlargers though, even though combined they won’t cover it. I’ll keep looking.

Once kids go back to school, I gotta find a way to break out of poverty.

CBGB founder Hilly Kristal, RIP:

Hilly Kristal, founder of legendary NYC punk nightclub CBGB died yesterday. He was 1975.

Sadly, No! » Tired Of Waking Up Tired*:

I’ve been reading up on the subject of our predecessors and have been trying to imagine what it must have been like to be an early Homo sapien. Competing with and possibly warring with other species of hominids, worried a Neandertal might sneak up and smash your head in with a rock while you’re sleeping, never feeling safe, always afraid and when I got close to conjuring up such fear I discovered what it feels like to be a wingnut. OH NO!!! BROWN PEOPLE!!

Talking Points Memo | Bible Says: Craig Lied:

Let the purges begin. Presumably, in addition to homosexuals, the GOP must be cleansed of the divorced, adulterers, abortion recipients, gamblers . . . the list goes on. Once you remove all the “sinners” from the Republican Party, the Democrats should hold a decided electoral advantage.

• so why did he plead guilty?
  people can talk all they like about the gestures and their meanings. But the police report and the fact he pleaded guilty make it pretty clear.
  (tags: hypocrisy gop gay values culture crime)
• Crosscut Seattle – A staff departure ruffles Seattle’s popular and public KUOW-FM
  In Port Townsend last weekend a bookstore owner I chatted with said that if he didn’t get KPLU (another NPR affiliate in Tacoma), he would have to start his own station. That’s how people feel about local radio.
  (tags: radio values news journalism)
• The Raw Story | Study: US preparing ‘massive’ military attack against Iran
  The United States has the capacity for and may be prepared to launch without warning a massive assault on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, as well as government buildings and infrastructure, using long-range bombers and missiles, according to a new
  (tags: iran worstpresidentever oil war)