Friday, October 15, 2004
Archive for October 15, 2004
The battle of the bulge
Kevin Drum has a good summary of the situation regarding the bulge in the President’s back including photos from all three debates.
What is it?
Federal money
For every dollar the federal government spent in the fiscal year that ended two weeks ago:
- 35 cents came from individual income taxes
- 32 cents came from Social Security, Medicare and other retirement taxes
- 8 cents came from corporate income taxes
- 3 cents were generated by taxes on alcohol, tobacco, fuel, telephones, air transportation, etc. (excise taxes)
- 3 cents came from estate taxes, custom duties and government fees (such as $50 for a National Parks Pass)
- and 19 cents were borrowed from our children and grandchildren
Freeway Blogger
From the Freeway Blogger:
“YE-HA” IS NOT A FOREIGN POLICY.
NOT ONE MISTAKE?
NAME ONE THING HE’S DONE RIGHT. JUST ONE.
WHAT WOULD JESUS BOMB?
MARTHA CAPTURED. OSAMA FREE.
1188 AMERICANS HAVE DIED IN IRAQ TO DATE. WHEN WILL YOU KNOW ONE OF THEM?
Ignorance is as ignorance does
From The Week Newsletter:
A California library was chagrined to discover that its new $40,000 mosaic of famous people in history misspells 11 names, including “Eistein,” “Shakespere,” and “Van Gough.” The city of Livermore quickly voted to spend $6,000 to have artist Maria Alquilar fix her mistakes, but she refused, saying that spelling was not important to the spirit of the work. “There seems to be so much hatred within certain people,” she said. “They continuously look for a scapegoat. I guess I am the sacrificial goat.”
No, just ignorant.
In a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle a writer suggeested:
Rather than accept any blame or offer any apology, Alquilar responded that “the people are into humanities and are into (William) Blake’s concept of enlightenment — they are not looking at the words. In their mind, the words register correctly.”
The City Council, having already spent $40,000 on the project, voted to spend $6,000 more — plus expenses — to fly Alquilar back from Florida to fix it.
I think the City Council has available a simple solution to save precious money: Upon completion of the work, issue a check for $6, not $6,000. In my mind, the numbers register correctly.
Bringing Google closer to home
Google now has a desktop search capability that allows you to search your own computer including email messages in Outlook or Outlook Express, web pages and Word, PowerPoint and Excel. It’s a small download and you need Windows XP or 2000.
So far it works wonderfully, and amazingly fast.
The Godfather
Author Mario Puzo was born on this date in 1920. The Writer’s Almanac tells his story:
[Puzo is] best known as the author of the novel The Godfather (1969), which was made into a movie in 1972. People had written novels and made movies about the mafia before, but the mafia characters had always been the villains. Puzo was the first person to write about members of the mafia as the sympathetic main characters of a story. The son of Italian immigrants, he started out trying to write serious literary fiction. He published two novels that barely sold any copies. He fell into debt, trying to support his family as a freelance writer. One Christmas Eve, he had a severe gall bladder attack and took a cab to the hospital. When he got out of the cab, he was in so much pain that he fell into the gutter. Lying there, he said to himself, “Here I am, a published writer, and I am dying like a dog.” He vowed that he would devote the rest of his writing life to becoming rich and famous. The Godfather became the best-selling novel of the 1970s, and many critics credit Puzo with inventing the mafia as a serious literary and cinematic subject. He went on to publish many other books, including The Sicilian (1984) and The Last Don (1996), but he always felt that his best book was the last book he wrote before he became a success - The Fortunate Pilgrim (1964), about an ordinary Italian immigrant family.
Puzo died in 1999.
Speech writing
John Kenneth Galbraith (96 today) once wrote a speech for President Lyndon Johnson. Galbraith was a very prominent economist and not a speech writer, but he worked diligently on the draft and was impressed with what he produced. It was given to LBJ who, out of respect for the economist, told him personally what he thought.
“Ken,” LBJ said. “Writing a speech is a lot like wetting your pants. What feels warm and comforting to you can just seem cold and sticky to everyone else.”
It’s the birthday
… of John Kenneth Galbraith. The famed economist is 96.
… of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The famed historian is 87.
… of Lee Iacocca. The famed auto-maker is 80. Iacocca wrote that the Chevrolet Vega and Dodge Aspen were two cars that never should have been made. NewMexiKen can attest that they were two cars that never should have been purchased (though, in fairness, we did get more than 120,000 miles from the Aspen).
… of Barry McGuire. He’s 69, pretty close to the Eve of Destruction.
… of Penny Marshall. Laverne DeFazio is 62.
… of Jim Palmer. The Hall of Fame pitcher and underwear pitchman is 59. Palmer won World Series games in three decades (1966, 1970 and 1971, 1983).
