I opted out of some software company’s emails a few moments ago. Within seconds I received a confirmation email. It contained this line:
“Please allow 10 business days for this change to take effect.”
How come their computers can send the confirmation in seconds but it takes 10 days to implement the change? They make software, right?
I don’t Twitter despite having an account and, sorry Facebook friends, but I don’t find much value to Facebook either except for what my daughters and daughters-in-law post there.
Old fogey or astute, you decide.
Ford sales off 48% say the news stories today. But that’s not the whole story.
Last month Ford sold 99,400 vehicles.
In February 2008 Ford sold 192,799 vehicles.
In February 2007 Ford sold 211,150 vehicles.
In February 2006 Ford sold 244,021 vehicles.
So a more accurate headline might be, “Ford sales down 60% in three years.” While the biggest drop has been over the past year (made worse by the fact that there was one more day last February), the decline is part of a continuing trend, and that seems to me to be a significant factor. See if you can find mention of it in any of today’s news stories.
Happy Square Root Day! It’s March 3, 2009, or 3/3/09, and three is the square root of nine. These days come around nine times every 100 years — all in a rush at the beginning of the new century, starting with 1/1/01 and 2/2/04, and picking up after today with 4/4/16, 5/5/25, 6/6/36, 7/7/49, 8/8/64 and 9/9/81.
The Numbers Guy has more.
“Every plan we’ve heard from Treasury amounts to the same thing — an attempt to socialize the losses while privatizing the gains.”
A fire destroyed a firehouse in Detroit this morning while the firefighters were on a call putting out a fire.
The Detroit Free Press has the story.
Hey Virginia, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Washington and California, win the Mega Million drawing tonight and get $137 million cash. Win now before taxes go up for lottery and others among life’s winners.
The annuity value is $212 million, but who’d be crazy enough to take an annuity these days? The annuity might be with Citi or Bank of America.
As if animals in zoos aren’t stressed enough, we mess them up in the wild, too.
The only jaguar known to still be living in the wild in this country was euthanized late Monday afternoon after being recaptured and found to have advanced kidney failure, state officials said.
The cat, known as Macho B, age 15 or 16, was euthanized at the Phoenix Zoo a few hours after he had been captured Monday afternoon in Southern Arizona’s oak woodlands. That recapture had occurred 12 days after the state Game and Fish Department had first captured the animal inadvertently in an undisclosed area southwest of Tucson as part of an effort to catch and study mountain lions and bears.
Stress from the original capture could have contributed to the kidney failure, a federal agency spokesman said late Monday. A Game and Fish official would not comment on that possibility until the results of blood tests taken on the animal at the time of the first capture are reviewed.
www.azstarnet.com [emphasis mine]
Interesting info about the sun from Bad Astronomy, including this:
“Technically, the Sun is white. This is easy to show: a piece of paper held up to sunlight appears white, as do snow and clouds. If the Sun were yellow, those would look yellow.”
… was admitted to the Union as the 27th state on March 3rd in 1845.
Do you think this decision should be reconsidered?
Four years ago today I thought then blogger Ralph had written such a great movie review I copied it all. I subsequently saw the film and agreed completely with Ralph.
When a really great movie comes along, one that really grabs you, you think: “With all the dough the big shots in Hollywood spend, why can’t they make a movie like that.” Such is the case with Rabbit Proof Fence.
In what is very arguably the best directing job I’ve ever seen, Phillip Noyce took three young amateur actors and made a film that is starkly believable.
In 1931, three aboriginal children were taken from their home and transported to a boarding school to further the Eugenic policies of the Australian government. They aren’t in the school long when the oldest, Molly, takes her sister and her cousin and says, simply, “C’mon, we’re leaving.” So begins one of the most incredible (yet true) chase scenes on the big screen.
The young actors are incredibly good, and Noyce deserves the highest praise for getting this work out of them. The strength and determination the young women display is incredible. Kenneth Branaugh is actually so good I didn’t realize it was him until the movie was almost over.
The screenplay and cinematography are first rate and quite frankly this is a film everyone should see. I was left with two questions: 1972? Did it really take until 1972 before the Australian government abandoned this hideous policy? and Why can’t Hollywood make a movie about America’s experience with boarding schools?
… was authorized as a national monument on this date in 1933. It became a national park in 1999.
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison’s unique and spectacular landscape was formed slowly by the action of water and rock scouring down through hard Proterozoic crystalline rock. No other canyon in North America combines the narrow opening, sheer walls, and startling depths offered by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
… was established 160 years ago today.
The idea of setting up a separate department to handle domestic matters was put forward on numerous occasions. It wasn’t until March 3, 1849, the last day of the 30th Congress, that a bill was passed to create the Department of the Interior to take charge of the Nation’s internal affairs.
The Interior Department had a wide range of responsibilities entrusted to it: the construction of the national capital’s water system, the colonization of freed slaves in Haiti, exploration of western wilderness, oversight of the District of Columbia jail, regulation of territorial governments, management of hospitals and universities, management of public parks,and the basic responsibilities for Indians, public lands, patents, and pensions. In one way or another all of these had to do with the internal development of the Nation or the welfare of its people.
The first Interior Building, 1852 -1917, was later known as the Patent Office building, and today is home to the Smithsonian Institution’s Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American Art.
Interior manages 507 million acres of surface land, or about one-fifth of the land in the United States, including:
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… became the official national anthem of the United States on this date in 1931. You know what that means? For 155 years is was not the official national anthem. For just 78 years it has been. We could change it. It isn’t etched in granite. |
The first (of four) verses:
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Who wants a national anthem that glorifies war?
And another thing singers, it’s an anthem, not a ballad, not a salsa number, not a rap. It’s an anthem, “a solemn patriotic song officially adopted by a country as an expression of national identity.”
An excerpt from Bronstein at Large:
I get two newspapers delivered at home: The [San Francisco] Chronicle and the New York Times. The Times hits the step somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. The Chronicle gets there before 6. Both papers are in existential trouble despite good work and 300 years of accumulated history between them.
So even in the face of the threats to our survival, there are still at least two different people and two entirely different delivery systems in place to get two newspapers to the same address in the same couple of hours. Really? In what rational world does that make sense? Why is that a good idea for businesses on the brink?
I’ve had the same thought when The New York Times and The Albuquerque Journal were delivered on my street at different times by different people. Why?
But, on the other hand, the banks f***ed up, the automakers f***ed up, Mervyn’s and Circuit City and Bennigan’s aren’t around anymore. Why should we think that newspapers are run by intelligent people? Why should they be different?
“I’ve been joking for some time that the Dow will probably hit rock bottom at about 3600 on or around September 20 of this year. The reason? That’ll be the 10th anniversary of the publication of “Dow 36,000.” Hey, the market has to rock bottom somewhere. No one has any better idea.”
Via Discourse.net, Greg Rutter’s Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something
Just a few not to miss
#27 scroll down to “What’s For Dinner?”
#30
#36 of course
#42 ‘cuz it’s our own Albuquerque TV
#57 The Classic
#89 awesome
Citi closed at $1.20 a share today but you just bought god-knows-how-many shares at $3.25 each.
“We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause]”
Rush Limbaugh
Of course, the Constitution says no such thing. The Declaration of Independence does, but even then Limbaugh didn’t get it right. The rights in the Declaration are unalienable, not “inalienable.” And “freedom” is not mentioned as one of those unalienable rights.
The Huffington Post has the story.
The stories nearer the bottom seemed funnier to me.
Any date on the calendar, any place on the planet, I doubt you could find a nicer day than the last Friday of February was at Dove Mountain near Tucson. Tiger Woods had more than likely flown home the night before after being eliminated from the Accenture Match Play Championship, but he should have stayed and enjoyed the low humidity, slight breeze, clear skies and 80º.
Even without Tiger, the golf was interesting and fun to watch in person. Donna and I managed to see about half of the 18 holes and all but a few of the 16 competitors, some just a few yards away (which meant they weren’t where they wanted to be).
Readers of these pages will know I am not a fan of Phil Mickelson, but we saw him several times throughout the day and he seemed less the automaton than many of the others, even giving five to the kid who reached out as he and Stewart Cink walked between holes. Despite the white belt he was wearing, and his attendance at the vile Arizona State University, I became a fan. And keep your eye on Rory McElroy of Northern Ireland; the 19-year-old surely has game.
The course, just a few months old, was hard to believe. Grass, even the rough, like fine carpet. Simply amazing. (Cameras and cell phones were not allowed on the course.)
I liked being at a golf tournament in Arizona in the winter. Only sporting event I could attend and be below the median age.
And it was Mickelson and Cink that we stood directly behind on the 8th tee. If I could ever once hit a golf ball as well as they each did (probably just routine drives), I would play golf every day for the rest of my life.
In light of the 13 bodies they’ve found on Albuquerque’s Southwest Mesa, Joline Gutierrez Krueger makes a very good point about news coverage and missing persons.
Just about everybody is pointing to this report from Joe Nocera if you want to understand the A.I.G. disaster.
And it’s your disaster now.
For the last decade, Simmons has been heralded as U-M’s oldest living former head coach. He became the Wolverines’ first women’s track and field coach in 1976, although his contributions to women’s sports began 16 years earlier when he and his first wife, Betty, started a girls track club in Ann Arbor called the Michigammes.
It was a pioneering program that enabled women to dream as big as men and provided the catalyst to careers in such challenging fields as law, engineering and medicine.
“Back then, people said it wasn’t ladylike to sweat,” Simmons said. “We just said, ‘Let’s give women an opportunity to compete.’
“We thought, when it comes down to it, life isn’t just about what you do. It’s about what you become.”
Ken (Red) Simmons is 99 — and there are photos showing him working out. A great profile from the Detroit Free Press.