What's a Wovel, You Wonder?
November 30, 2006 | Products & Opportunites
Brilliant: The Wovel wheeled snow shovel.
Impossible to Write a PC Headline For This
November 30, 2006 | Governance
"Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush."
“Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,” Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”
“Bush supporters had significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry,” the study says.
A nice authoritarian side-effect of trashing the public education system.
One Bank, One Card
November 20, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce
Here's a new video for all you U2 fans: One (4:49).
Spoiler: Corporate execs wearing ties in a typical hotel conference room co-opting the song with celebration lyrics of their merger. Funny. Sick. Unbelievable. Horrible. Capital-C Culture.
What's Up
November 16, 2006 | Life
The reason for so little blogging lately.
The World Standard in Studless Winter Tyres
November 7, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Life | Nature & Environment
Glen said, "The ultimate winter weapon is still the Hakk 2's with studs, but if you don't want to run the studs with the noise and the rolling resistance and everything, then the RSi is what people are talking about." Better than the Hakk 2's? "Without the studs; With the studs, Hakk 2's are what you want." Got it. "This is a good tyre, it's quiet—people say it's really quiet—and it replaces the Nokia Q, which was around for ten years, and people liked that tyre quite a lot." How much? "Let me go work it out." [3 minutes of tyre store being] "$109 mounted and balanced." Okay, sold.
Now I just have to get there at 7:15 some morning to be in the first batch of customers. Otherwise it's an all-day affair.
Axis of '70s Campus Republicans
November 7, 2006 | Governance | People & Society
Like everybody else, I don't know what's going to happen today, but this election has already illuminated one critical truth: The modern GOP -- or, more specifically, the Axis of '70s Campus Republicans now running it -- really is just a criminal enterprise disguised as a political party.
Dirty tricks, large and small, are a sorry fact of life in American politics, but what the Republicans have done over the past few weeks -- the surrealist attack ads, the forged endorsements, the midnight robo calls, the arrest threats, the voter misinformation (did you know your polling station has been moved?) -- is sui generis, at least at the national level.
Keep An Eye On the Situation
November 7, 2006 | Governance | People & Society
CNN: Bonds rally on election bets: Market surges on hopes of fiscal discipline created by Democrat-controlled Congress; dollar mixed.
via Talking Points Memo, who's doing a great job covering the election tampering...
From the GOP handbook of Maryland politics:(1) Recruit homeless men in Philadelphia;
(2) Bus them into Maryland;
(3) Arrange for the Republican governor's wife to greet them upon their arrival;
(4) Outfit them in hats and T-shirts for the governor's re-election campaign;
(5) Have them pass out flyers in heavily Democratic areas that erroneously identify the GOP candidates for governor and U.S. senator as "Democrats."
...and voter intimidation:
Over at TPMMuckraker, Justin has an interview with a poll watcher in Arizona who reports that a trio of men--one with a firearm visible--are harrassing Hispanic voters at a polling station in Tuscon. The poll watcher is a member of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. The group has notified the Department of Justice and the FBI and were told by the feds--get this--to keep an eye on the situation.
Yup, that's how broken it is.
Dear Boloco
November 7, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Life
Quality control in Hanover has GOT to improve. Today: Regular teriaki with chicken. $6.25 They forgot the chicken. Then realized that this is normally $5.25 if memory serves. Last visit: Ordered extra chicken. Got normal amount of chicken.
This is the sort of thing where it's way too much of a hassle to go back and complain for a dollar or two. Plus, with a small staff you can get a rep for complaining and then who knows what happens to the ingredients in your next order.
Recommendation: Give every customer a receipt. Put a sign up saying, "If we don't give you a receipt your next order is free." Print messages on the receipt like, "Was your order perfect? How can we improve? www.boloco.com" etc. Monthly drawing for best feedback, etc.
I realize it's a tough staff to manage (high turnover, low pay, tedious work, food service, lunchtime slams, etc) but at this point three of my last four visits were incorrect meals, and one of them seems like it included an overcharge (two, if you count the missing extra chicken).
So I'll give it another shot in December, but it's been kind of a downer in Sept and Oct.
Election Protection
November 7, 2006 | Governance | People & Society
Real-time tracking the election disruptions.
EIRS or the Election Incident Reporting System is a sophisticated voting incident tracking system that will be an invaluable tool for Election Protection coalition partners and the public on Election Day and beyond. Voting problems reported through the Voter Hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE) by coalition members or by poll watchers involved in the Election Protection program will be entered into the system for analysis during and after Election Day.
Scroll down, click on the map.
Also, Talking Points Memo is keeping tabs on vote disruption stories. Example:
Just in case you're keeping tabs, I wanted to tell you that my wife tried to vote in our precinct in Tampa and was not on the list. After several tries to find out why, she was told that the voter database was "cleaned" and there must have been a mistake. I'm trying to find out who "cleaned" it.
When you hear the media talk about "get out the vote" operations, what you should hear is "shut down the vote" tactics.
I'll say it again, if we really care about free and fair elections, then the first place to start is 1) federal regulations on the number of voting machines per capita, per polling district; and 2) uniform poll hours.
At this point, we're in a pretend democracy, kinda the way "reality TV" is real life.
Vote Freedom
November 6, 2006 | Governance
Here's your election-eve music video. (4:22)
Have You Made Any Meaning Today
November 2, 2006 | Life
Reported at check-in: "I tried to make some meaning from yesterday's meeting...."
