Archive for January, 2011

Rick Santorum And The Fertility Clinic Conundrum

Filed in National by on January 24, 2011 3 Comments

Blogger Mike Stark called into Bill Bennett’s radio show when Rick Santorum was hosting and posed the fire in the fertility clinic question.

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Civility Watch

Filed in National by on January 24, 2011 5 Comments

Civility watch is an occasional series to assess our new era of civility in politics.

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Tony Bagels and the Rest of the Mob

Filed in National by on January 23, 2011 13 Comments

Seems that there was a big round-up of suspected Mafiosi the other day. I don’t think these were your Tony Soprano types. These guys were allegedly the real deal. In my childhood neighborhood, the local rackets were run by the Smalldone brothers, Eugene (“Checkers”), Clarence (“Chauncey”, and Clyde (“Flip-Flop”). I met Checkers and Chauncey a […]

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Jason’s 3 Simple Ways to Create Jobs in Delaware & 2 Simple Bonus Ways to Create Jobs in America – Part 2

Filed in National by on January 23, 2011 30 Comments

So here are items #2 & #3 for creating more jobs in Delaware. (Get thee to your fainting couch teabaz.)

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Jason’s 3 Simple Ways to Create Jobs in Delaware & 2 Simple Bonus Ways to Create Jobs in America – Part 1

Filed in National by on January 23, 2011 9 Comments

Ever since Jack Markell’s State of the State Address, I’ve been trying to think of ways the government could leverage its resources to create jobs. The internet was not much help. For example I found teabagger now Senator Marco Rubio’s “23 Simple Ways” to create jobs. 9 of the first 10 simple ideas involve shoving money into the pockets of wealth people and hoping they hire another housekeeper.

That plays well for the misanthropic Florida geezers who he represents, but bitter experience tells us that tax cuts are not the magical job creating unicorn that conservatives still imagine them to be. SO what then?

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Books Will Be Very Rare in Schools in Less Than Ten Years

Filed in National by on January 23, 2011 17 Comments

Not because every school will be like St. E’s with its new IPad lab. And not because all schools will be issuing lap tops to their students (although many will). But when broadband is ubiquitous, and schools stop being concerned about what screens (smart phone, lap top, eReader, desktop) students use to access their lessons […]

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More proof that the internet is the most awesome thing ever!

Filed in National by on January 22, 2011 6 Comments

The Awesome Foundation distributes a series of monthly $1,000 grants to projects and their creators. The money is given upfront in a paper bag full of cash by a group of ten self-organizing “micro-trustees,” who form autonomous chapters around geographic areas or topics of interest. The Foundation provides these grants with no strings attached and claims no ownership over the projects it supports.

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Weekend Open Thread

Filed in National by on January 22, 2011 5 Comments

The weekend edition of your semi-daily open thread.

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Parents who won’t vaccinate their kids should pay MUCH higher insurance premiums

Filed in National by on January 22, 2011 9 Comments

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing links pediatrician Rahul K. Parikh, writing on CNN: Refusing to vaccinate a child is dangerous not just for that child but for entire communities. It’s precisely this point a colleague of mine was considering when he had the idea that parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids should pay substantially […]

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Fun Stuff For A Cold Weekend

Filed in National by on January 22, 2011 15 Comments
Fun Stuff For A Cold Weekend

Two things you’ll have to see to believe.

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** UPDATED** Whoa. Keith Olbermann Announces His Resignation

Filed in National by on January 21, 2011 59 Comments

Keith Olbermann just announced that today was his last show.

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Tatooine

Filed in National by on January 21, 2011 8 Comments

You know, maybe all this 2012 End Times talk was not far off the mark. So yesterday, I seen an article on the Huffington Post about the Earth getting two suns. One of my favorite “childhood” movies was 2010, the little known sequel to the classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In “2010,” the big black […]

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Friday Open Thread

Filed in National by on January 21, 2011 2 Comments

The Friday edition of your semi-daily open thread.

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