Third quarter last year Volvo sold 41,970 trucks.
Third quarter this year Volvo sold 115 trucks.
Day: October 25, 2008
Best line of the day, so far
“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”
McCain adviser quoted by CNN.com. I’ll leave it to you to figure out who he’s describing.
According to reports
… less than 1,000 people were at the McCain rally here in Albuquerque today.
We’ll let you know how “That One” does this evening.
Also NewMexiKen has heard or read three different reports today about how quickly individuals were able to get in and cast their vote. On a Saturday.
If you can vote early, please do. The United States is, as you may have heard, a representative democracy. That means you need to vote to choose your representatives. Being informed is good, too.
I know that as soon as I get a little more informed about these presidential candidates and make a decision about them I’ll head on over and vote.
(Oh, and Research 2000 says McCain’s lead is down to single digits in South Dakota. South Friggin’ Dakota!)
They never mean it
“If the [Ashley Todd] incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”
John Moody, Executive Vice President of FOX News Thursday evening.
Yeah, and Senator John McCain said he’d commit suicide if the Democrats took control of the senate two years ago, too. These people are full of unintended hyperbole.
(McCain made the remark on October 16, 2006. Original link from NewMexiKen to the source at The Washington Post no longer works, but this one to ABC News does.)
October 25th
Today is the birthday
… of basketball coach Bobby Knight. He’s 68.
… of singer Helen Reddy. “I am woman, hear me roar” is a roaring 67.
… of author Anne Tyler (not to be confused with Ann Taylor). The Pulitzer winner (for Breathing Lessons) is 67.
Early in her career, she decided she did not want to be a public person, so she stopped giving readings and only does occasional interviews in writing. She said, “Any time I talk in public about writing, I end up not able to do any writing. It’s as if some capricious Writing Elf goes into a little sulk whenever I expose him.” Ann Tyler also said, “I want to live other lives. I’ve never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances. It’s lucky I do it on paper. Probably I would be schizophrenic — and six times divorced — if I weren’t writing.”
… of basketball hall-of-famer Dave Cowens. The tenacious Celtic is 60.
… of Nancy Cartwright. The voice of Bart Simpson is 51.
Pablo Picasso was born on this date in 1881.
Charles Edward Coughlin was born on this date in 1891.
One of the first public figures to make effective use of the airwaves, Charles E. Coughlin, was for a time one of the most influential personalities on American radio. At the height of his popularity in the early 1930s, some 30 million listeners tuned in to hear his emotional messages. Many of his speeches were rambling, disorganized, repetitious, and as time went by, they became increasingly full of bigoted rhetoric. But as a champion of the poor, a foe of big business, and a critic of federal indifference in the face of widespread economic distress, he spoke to the hopes and fears of lower-middle class Americans throughout the country. Years later, a supporter remembered the excitement of attending one of his rallies: “When he spoke it was a thrill like Hitler. And the magnetism was uncanny. It was so intoxicating, there’s no use saying what he talked about…”
NewMexiKen once attended a sermon by Fr. Coughlin. I remember it only that I knew who he’d been thirty years earlier and that it had political undertones. The link above has more details about Coughlin’s career. The Talking History Archive has a Coughlin broadcast. Scroll down the page about 40%.
Get out, and stay out
First posted here three years ago today.
What’s the deal with public libraries anyway? Everywhere I’ve ever lived they start herding people out the door with announcements, flashing lights, computers shutting off and dirty looks well before the actual closing time. It happened to me again tonight. They close at 8:00 and at 7:45 they’ve got more rounding up going on than a well-led cattle drive.
NewMexiKen managed a public research facility for ten years. I well remember that some diehards would hang in until the last minute, but I don’t remember having to be rude about it. And I don’t remember my staff or I ever getting agitated if the last stragglers were still pulling together their belongings and filing out at two minutes after quitting time.
Who do these public library staffs work for anyway?
(For the record, I left the library tonight at 7:50, ten minutes before closing. I know what time it was because as I was leaving they made an announcement saying it was ten minutes to closing and you could no longer use your library card.)
Coffee May Protect Against Diabetes
Oct. 25, 2006 — There is more evidence that the American love affair with coffee is helping to reduce the risk of diabetes.
Drinking caffeinated coffee was found to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as 60% in a newly published study that included people at high risk for the disease.
Even those who used to drink coffee but quit were less likely to develop diabetes than those who never drank it.
The new study was published in the November [2006] issue of the journal Diabetes Care.
Best redux line of the day
“A friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a body.”
— From the sidebar at all this is that.
Hypothetical, of course: Do you have a friend who would help you move a body?
[This got four affirmative comments last time it was posted!]
Carlsbad Caverns (New Mexico)
Eight-five years ago today President Calvin Coolidge signed a proclamation creating Carlsbad Cave National Monument and its “extraordinary proportions and… unusual beauty and variety of natural decoration…” It became a national park in 1930.
As you pass through the Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas—filled with prickly pear, chollas, sotols and agaves—you might never guess there are more than 300 known caves beneath the surface. The park contains 113 of these caves, formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating some of the largest caves in North America.
PC says it well
Do I like Obama, personally? I do. Do I think he’s got good policies? Look, I’m like everyone else, I hope so. They sound good. They sound like something I believe in, so I think based on his performance and the way that he has run his campaign, I feel that it is reasonable to feel confident that he is going to take the same discipline and smarts and lack of drama and apply them to the very serious issues today and I think that makes him a good choice for President. Do I think that his candidacy is historic? Sure, that’s exciting too, but what I think it’s really amazing that he exists in the same world that I also inhabit and no other political candidate lives in that world right now. They live in a made-up world that is not reality. I think that that’s why you see Obama surging right now. It’s that the people like the fact that Obama lives in the world that they live in.
Link via Andrew Sullivan.
Ignorance
Sarah Palin:
Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.
Reality:
Now scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein called neurexin is required for these nerve cell connections to form and function correctly.
The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies may lead to advances in understanding autism …
Palin, who McCain claims is an expert on autism, here reveals her ignorance by parroting smart-alecky remarks written for her for small political gain without regard to reality.
This country cannot afford to let ignorance continue to lead our world.
Cindy the Beer Vendor?
Tonight in Colorado, Senator Lindsey Graham, a close friend of the McCains, described Cindy as “a great small businesswoman.” Her “small” business — Hensley & Co., a family-owned Anheuser-Busch distributor that is the third largest among the 800 in the country — had revenues of nearly $200 million last year, according to Yahoo.
Small business? $200 million? These people are so beyond out of touch.
TV Prices Falling
“If you’re in the market for a new flat panel TV, you may be tempted to get ready to pull out your credit card (if you have any credit left). In the next few weeks, LCD and plasma set prices are due to plummet.”
The Bits Blog has more.
50-inch plasma HD TVs under a grand!
Special Saturday
Both presidential candidates are in Albuquerque today. Aren’t we the lucky ones?