I'm Chris. I work in technology.
I can juggle two oranges with
one hand but not three with two.
I have trouble finding shoes.
Hereunder, whatever I feel like.
G-mail and IM: BoutofContext.
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Our seemingly genteel neighbors to the north, providing a safe haven for conscientious objectors/deserters at least since Vietnam has set a new precedent by ordering Army Specialist Jeremy Hinzman repatriated to the US. He will, presumably, be court-martialed upon return.
My most viable plan for escaping Charlie Rangel’s proposed draft just evaporated.
Today, while maintaining my vacillating figure via yet another fast-food lunch at the nearby mall’s food court, I noticed three of my colleagues creeping from one stand to the next, grabbing a sample-on-a-toothpick or two at each.
I called one out on it, joking in that non-edgy corporate-guy humor about their indecision. He responded “what do you mean? This is our lunch!” before triumphantly scrounging another morsel. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t joking.
PUMA, ”People United Means Action, and more popularly known as Party Unity My Ass, plans to hold a protest in Denver to demand Clinton be put back into the contest…Colorado Women Count/Women Vote has said it will also hold a pro-Clinton parade in Denver on Aug. 26, the second day of the convention when the former first lady is scheduled to speak.”
Announcements like these help fuel speculation that Sen. Clinton’s contemplating a convention floor showdown. That President Clinton speaks of Obama’s readiness in the awkward terms you might use to give a mediocre employee a letter of reference doesn’t help tamp the nervous excitement.
States hiking cigarette taxes are experiencing a backlash anticipated by everyone but state lawmakers - declining local sales. A WSJ op-ed, Cigarette Tax Burnout, cites Maryland’s failure to generate expected revenue, with $2/pack surcharges, earmarked for health-care programs. Decreasing in-state sales (-25%) also hurt local retailers.
New York, home of the $9+ pack has a “75% gap between cigarette sales in the city and cigarette consumption”, per the Tax Foundation, which also published on: cigarette taxes fueling organized crime, disproportionately targeting poor people and over-charging for the negative externalities; not that they’re dwelling on it.
Washington State went so far as slashing their tax on cigars and other non-cigarette smokes, improbably enough, to increase in-state tobacco sales (to help the economy).
Summing up the demand-side of the situation for government’s increased reliance on ’sin taxes,’ WSJ quips: “[I]f Americans don’t start sinning a whole lot more, states and Uncle Sam are going to go broke.”
We, in Ireland, can’t figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States.
On one side, you have a pants wearing lawyer, married to a lawyer who can’t keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer who goes to the wrong church who is married to yet another lawyer who doesn’t even like the country her husband wants to run.
Now…On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate ‘Mc’ terminology married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship.
What in the Lord’s name are you lads thinking over there in the colonies?
[Got this via email forward, but Google suggests it came from Justin Paulette.]
Russia is even bombing Georgia on the Internet.
“Statements from Georgia’s foreign ministry have appeared in a blog hosted on Google, perhaps in an attempt to circumvent attacks.”
Details ran a piece on stigmatization of unmarried men over 35. The graphic nails it: the gamesmanship, the impossibility of any woman ‘winning,’ it even resembles flipping the bird!
One case study, Joe, 39, says: “There is nothing like a group of married people—especially with kids—when you come into their circle with a younger, thin woman. It’s a terrible reaction.”
Joe sounds like a real mensch. A friend caught the wrong end of a Joe-type after college. She, fun-loving and toned at 22, accompanied him, 40ish lawyer, onto a boat with his married friends. The wives shred her with their eyes from the first disingenuous “so what do you do, hon?”
The number of these unattached phalluses has nearly tripled in the twenty-some years it’s taken to raise the girls they now prefer to date. You can speculate on the why, but Carl Weisman, author of So Why Have You Never Been Married?, suggests a possible upside, whatever the cause:
Weisman believes that instead of looking askance at the perennially unmarried man, society should applaud him—even the cad. “The only thing worse than a playboy who refuses to commit is a playboy who gets married.”
Well when you put it like that… I guess, jackasses aside, what’s good for the Cougar is good for the Philanderer.
A study of Microsoft Messenger’s network, presented at WWW 2008 in Beijing, purportedly confirms all humans really are just six degrees from Kevin Bacon, and each other.
Based on 30 billion chat sessions of 180 million users, researchers Eric Horvitz [MS] and Jure Leskovec [Carnegie Mellon] pegged the separation factor at 6.6, summarizing, “this is the first time a planetary-scale social network has been available to validate the well-known ‘six-degrees of separation’ finding.”
Don’t tell the guys at Facebook about this, the “you may know so-and-so” prompts will spiral out of control!
I’m sick. This morning, as I was making out with my bottle of Robitussin, I noticed its claim that it “Makes Coughing More Productive.” This is so American to me: Achieve, achieve, achieve, even when you’re sick. You have not met your coughed-up mucus quota for the day— improve your productivity at once, Johnson!
To make this really American, you should follow-up the illness with an over-sharing, self-help book on the topic: What to Expect When Your Expectorating.
[Update: Google reveals there’s already some hits on that title; naturally.]
The failure of these two giant mortgage lenders would wreak havoc in both the stock market and the housing industry. I would bail out Fannie and Freddie—and by extension all those other investors, but couple whatever guaranteed loans they are given with a corresponding hike in the capital gains tax. This would put the cost of the bailout directly on those who most benefit from it. Thoughts?
Doesn’t seem so direct with respect to those who benefitted. The capital gains tax is a broad sword. Retirees taking disbursements would be hit. Investors in all sectors - not just those in financials - would pay more. Even those who did benefit, arguably, already lost via those massive drops in financial stocks’ values. (Look at Bear Sterns rank and file employees, for example.)
The biggest problem here is you don’t pay capital gains on losses and can use losses to offset tax obligations on profits. Anyone holding financials at a loss may just see tax hikes as incentive to dump losing positions sooner for tax benefits - further (marginally) depressing stocks while not increasing tax receipts.
One theoretical approach would be retroactively spot-taxing previous bonuses big swinging dick Wall Streeters took during the Mortgage boom - but leaving aside that doing so would be unlawful - do you go after all Wall Street folks? Just the big shots? Just the big shots in Mortgages? And what to do about the fact so many of them got significant portions of those bonuses in company stock that has lost most of its value by now?
NYC’s Summer Streets starts this Saturday morning, repeating on the 16th and 23rd. This map shows points of interest and activities.
The event will also emphasize biking, with: free helmets for kids, training on how to ride bikes, organized group rides between Queens/Brooklyn/Bronx <—> Summer Streets sponsored by Transportation Alternatives, and more.
