Archive for March 17, 2010
Foodies: Follow Ruth Reichl on Twitter
Oops — one more thing before I say good night: Foodies — follow Ruth Reichl on Twitter. She’s the former editor of the former Gourmet magazine.
Her tweets are worth a thousand words. Seriously. They’ll make you drool.
GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California is a Mess
So goes California, so goes the nation?
A new day, a new sign that California is sinking into a metaphorical, if not literal, ocean. True/Slant colleague David Knowles points to a new UCLA study that shows 1 in 4 Californians are uninsured. The day before, Michael Roston took a look at the state’s spectacularly bad unemployment numbers and saw nothing short of a Dust Bowl migration in reverse. The number of people unemployed is now equivalent to the total populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.
Let’s not forget that nearly 22,000 of the state’s teachers were handed pink slips yesterday.
I lived in Orange County, California when I was in junior high middle school. My family moved to the dark state of Michigan just before I entered high school but while we were in CA, my mother raved about how my brothers and I could go to a university there, essentially, for free. The whole place seemed to be filled with light and possibility.
Not anymore.
Michele Bachmann Says I’m Not a “Real” Person
I’m a member of MoveOn, though I have problems with the course they’re on these days. MoveOn aside, far as I know, I’m still a “real” person. But, according to Michele Bachmann, I’m not.
So typical of the right — vaporize those you don’t agree with and pretend they don’t exist. What an unrealistic and frankly, kinda psycho way of dealing with life. Especially — especially — for a politician.
Obama Gives Interview to Fox — Fox Uses it Against Him
As I noted yesterday, President Obama was to sit down today with Fox’s Bret Baier for an “exclusive” interview. Why? Robert Gibbs, Obama press secretary tweeted that Fox has a big audience and “it’s worth a shot” — presumably meaning it’s worth a shot to try to reach Fox’s audience.
Having monitored Fox for five years while blogging at the News Hounds, I knew that one thing Fox would do with the interview would be to chop it up into sound bites and use it against Obama (for days and weeks, and possibly even years, to come). Lo and behold, it didn’t even wait for the interview to air; it released excerpts on its website and started bashing him in advance.
Fox is continuing with its meme that Obama is taking over the government and to hell with parliamentary procedures.
This screen shot was taken just before 6:00 p.m. ET, when the interview was set to air:
It’s the Obama as Osama thing:
Break Time
2m40.com is a blog based in Paris. It is about a single underpass there that has a clearance of only 7 feet, 8 inches. Several times a month, trucks, their drivers either not seeing or not believing the warning sign, crash into it and 2m40 posts the pictures. The blog is in French but the pictures tell the story.
Pretty funny. Here’s a taste:
(H/t BW.)
Facebook Surpasses Google As #1 U.S. Site
From BusinessWeek: Facebook Surpasses Google in U.S. Hits for First Time.
I post this out of pure snarkiness. Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace in July, 2005 with visions of a Facebook dancing in his head. In the interim, MySpace withered and Facebook exploded, now topping Google in the number of U.S. hits, which is just amazing.
And, floating around in the background are rumors that Murdoch is looking to dump MySpace.
Ha ha ha.
Again, I’m getting some snarky pleasure out of it all; such a colossal failure couldn’t happen to, ahem, a nicer guy.
Tea Partiers Taunt Man With Parkinson’s Disease At Yesterday’s “Code Red” Rally (UPDATED)
Yesterday, at the Sarah Palin-promoted “Code Red” anti-health care Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., a group of pro-health care protesters gathered to voice their support for the legislation. One of them, an older, 60-something man, sat down on the curb. He held a sign saying that he had Parkinson’s disease. Tea Partiers began taunting him, calling him a communist and throwing money at him because in their eyes he was “asking for a hand-out.” Really cruel stuff.
UPDATE: This incident happened at a Columbus, Ohio “Code Red” rally, not in D.C.
Fox Says Democrats are Passing Health Care “Without a Vote”
The meme of the day over at Fox is that Democrats are passing health care “without a vote.” You know, Democrats are Communists; they’re throwing out all the rules and taking over the country. Okay but ah, excuse me for thinking, if they’re passing it without a vote, what’s taking so long?!
604 Pound NJ Woman Striving to Become Heaviest Woman Alive at 1,000 Pounds
A 42-year old New Jersey mom, who currently weighs 604 pounds, is “fantasizing” about eating roughly 12,000 calories per day over the next two years to become the world’s heaviest woman at 1,000 pounds.
Wow. My sense is that this is the only way this poor lady can become something she apparently desperately wants to be: a “celebrity.”
Ever Wonder Why the Irish PM Spends St. Patrick’s Day in Washington?
Ever wonder why the Irish Prime Minister spends the day in Washington, D.C., hobnobbing with the president and giving him a bowl of shamrocks instead of enjoying the festivities at home? If so, here’s how that all got started.
Wachovia Caught Laundering Drug Money in Mexico
Wow, if this doesn’t speak to how corrupt the big boys are, I don’t know what does: Wachovia to Settle Money Laundering Case of $160 Million.
All You Need to Know About the Health Care Bill
Sometimes you can tell a lot about something by looking at who’s for or against it. Here’s all you need to know about the health care bill the Democrats are putting together: The drug industry lobbying group, PhARMA, loves it and has produced an ad supporting it.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone. Got your green on?
