Day: June 20, 2006

The Wages of Sin

Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday accepted a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.

The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.

Associated Press
House says yes to $3,300 pay raise
June 14, 2006

A bid to boost the U.S. minimum wage failed Tuesday as Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed back an effort by Democrats to force a vote on the measure.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said last week that he wanted to hold off on debating minimum wage legislation until possibly after the November elections. House Majority Leader John Boehner also said he probably wouldn’t allow the legislation to reach the House floor this week.

Bloomberg News
Bid to boost minimum wage suffers setback
June 20, 2006

Text from Whiskey Bar, who adds his always incisive commentary.

CYA

“The book’s opening anecdote tells of an unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush’s Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president’s attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled ‘Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.’ Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied: ‘All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.’ ”

Dan Froomkin discussing Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine

Aging

People tend to regard the gradual yet irreversible atrophying of their faculties as a bad thing. Is it, though? Sure, it’s tied up with stuff that you don’t want to think too much about. One day, you learn that you can’t hear a sound that is perfectly audible to teen-agers and dogs. (Any significance in that symmetry, by the way? Do we feel diminished as a species because dogs can hear a noise that we can’t?) Soon after that, you realize that you have forgotten how to calculate the area of a triangle, and how many pints there are in a quart. From there, it’s not long until you find that you are unable to stop talking about real estate, which is the first step down an increasingly rocky and overgrown path that leads, almost always—all right, always—to death. What is there to like about any of this?

A lot it seems. Read the whole comment by Louis Menand at The New Yorker

The Rewards of Being Shy

Shy people may be quiet, but there’s a lot going on in their heads. When they encounter a frightening or unfamiliar situation–meeting someone new, for example–a brain region responsible for negative emotions goes into overdrive. But new research indicates that shy people may be more sensitive to all sorts of stimuli, not just frightening ones.

Read more from ScienceNOW.

Best line of Sunday, so far

“You don’t have to run down that last stretch on a white stallion, you know, you could limp in there and say, ‘Thanks for the trophy.'”

Johnny Miller commenting during Phil Mickelson’s crash on 17 and 18 at the U.S. Open.

Odds and ends

  • It’s feels like a swamp here at Casa NewMexiKen this morning. Used to afternoon humidity in the single digits, this morning’s 23% is oppressive.
  • I see Sak’s has re-established its petite department after an ill-considered dropping of it several months ago. No word yet from Neiman’s or Bloomingdale’s, but a small victory nonetheless.
  • Apple is negotiating to sell movies on iTunes for $9.99. There may be a deal by fall.
  • IBM and Georgia Tech have developed a chip that operates at 500 gigahertz (250 times faster than the one on my iMac). One problem, it only gets that speed at 451 degrees below zero. (It’s still much faster than anything common today, even at room temperature.)
  • SoccerSay what you will about soccer, and NewMexiKen has mixed feelings, it is the most photogenic of sports. Soccer

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Update: The humidity dropped to 19% during the time I finished this post (and 9% by noon).

Chet Atkins

… was born on this date in 1924. He died of lung cancer in 2001.

Few guitarists have had more influence on the instrument than Chet Atkins. In Atkins’ case, his influence extends from the country-music realm into rock and roll, as well. As a studio musician, he appeared on records by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and countless country musicians. Atkins’ thumb-and-fingerpicking style influenced George Harrison, Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Eddie Cochran, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, as well as innumerable country pickers. Even the likes of Ted Nugent has credited Atkins with inspiring him to take up the instrument. ”I think he influenced everybody who picked up a guitar,” said Duane Eddy. (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

Check this out

The Washington Post reports on the treasure trove in the vault of the Riggs Bank.

Lincoln CheckThe Lincoln check is among a trove of documents gathered over the decades by Washington’s venerable and now-defunct Riggs Bank — which, along with its antecedents, had customers ranging from Davy Crockett to President George H.W. Bush.

The collection includes letters, notes and checks written by, among others, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Brigham Young and Gen. John Pershing.

Best lines from last Friday, so far

“Father’s Day of course is this Sunday. Or as Monaco’s Prince Albert calls it, ‘The scariest day of the year.'”

“As you may have heard, Prince Albert of Monaco, son of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, has admitted to fathering another child out of wedlock. You heard of Prince Albert in a can. How about Prince Albert in a condom. Why don’t we try that?”

“He’s got a bunch of illegitimate kids and he did it the hard way. Without an NBA franchise.”

Jay Leno

It’s the birthday

… of Olympia Dukakis. She’s 75. Miss Dukakis won the Oscar for best supporting actress for Moonstruck.

… of Danny Aiello. He’s 73. Mr. Aiello was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for Do The Right Thing.

… of John Mahoney. This retired Seattle cop, the father of two psychiatrists, is 66. You know, Frasier’s dad, Martin Crane.

… of Brian Wilson; he’s 64. Perhaps the greatest American composer of popular music of the past 40+ years, Wilson is an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the self-destructive, yet creative genius behind the Beach Boys.

… of Bob Vila. He’s 60, so it’s not just “This Old House” that’s old anymore.

… of John Goodman. Goodman has been nominated for eight Emmys without a victory. He did win a Golden Globe for playing Roseanne’s husband Dan.

… of Nicole Kidman. She’s 39. Nominated for best actress twice, Miss Kidman won the Oscar for The Hours.

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site (North Dakota)

… was established on this date 40 years ago.

Fort Union

A trip to Fort Union takes you back in time to the mid-19th century, the heyday of Fort Union and the fur trade on the Upper Missouri river.

Tour the partially reconstructed fort and walk where many famous folk from several countries and cultures walked, folk such as Kenneth McKenzie, Alexander & Natawista Culbertson, Father Pierre DeSmet, Sitting Bull, Karl Bodmer, and Jim Bridger.

Fort Union Trading Post was the most important fur trading post on the upper Missouri from 1828 to 1867. At this post, the Assiniboine, Crow, Cree, Ojibway, Blackfeet, Hidatsa, and other tribes traded buffalo robes and other furs for trade goods such as beads, guns, blankets, knives, cookware, and cloth.

Today, the reconstructed Fort Union represents a unique era in American history, a brief period when two different civilizations found common ground and mutual benefit through commercial exchange and cultural acceptance.

NPS Photo by Linda Gordon Rokosz

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site