Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
If I’ve been quiet again, it’s because my main PC in my office downstairs (where I’m exiled to pending the doc saying I can go up and down stairs again) has been zapped by a nasty virus. It got past my Trend Micro antivirus, and started disconnecting various things on my PC (including the virus [...]
(taken from the teabagger protest in DC this weekend) Lesson #1: Anyone who is not a Republican is not a Marxist. Really. Lesson #2: The last Czar in Russia gave up the throne in 1917, and the Russian Communists took over Russia in 1918; I don’t think you understand that there were no Czars in [...]
I have been listening to enough rants, hate and nonsense in the last year and a half to last me a lifetime or more, and I’ve been more than fed up with it all. But I started realizing that this sort of crud is endemic; uninformed people who choke off their sources of information to [...]
Coming Anarchy also highlights multiple historical places with the same name; Albania, Iberia, Alexandria, various African nations, and Guinea. They don’t have one for Galicia, but they ought to.
From the Coming Anarchy site: projected maps of Europe in the future and the former Yugoslav areas, along with their tag on microstates. Personally, I strongly doubt some of this; France has been doing a thorough stomp of its minority groups (linguistics-wise, especially) for the last 100+ years to Make Everyone Parisian, and the Bosniak [...]
US Air Force missile launch site converted over into a state park site in North Dakota; wanna go visit the silo and play twist-the-key? (Multimedia tour online) The missile site, about three miles north of Cooperstown and about 70 miles northwest of Fargo, is one of a handful of U.S. locations that commemorate the Cold [...]
Like nobody had ever heard of Russians using hookers to lure Western diplomats into compromising positions. Sheesh. The more I hear about the whole Senator Ensign story, the more I think that sex aside, the man should resign his office because he’s a crook and an idiot. Getting your bazillionaire parents to pay off your [...]
While retrieving THE FIXER from one of my off-air VHS tapes, I ran across the real-life story that the movie/novel was based on – see the story of the Beilis Trial in late Tsarist Russia in Wikipedia. Wow.
Due to the demand for coal dropping due to the worldwide recession, Ukrainian coal mines are shutting down or not paying their workers, with a large glut of unsold coal. After the Russian company Gazprom decided to play politics with its natural gas supply to the rest of Europe, the Europeans have been connecting up [...]
…which is the Organization of American States’ irregular meeting of the leadership of the OAS states (34) countries). Interesting news coming out of it, of course. Discussions between Obama and the US delegation on the one side, and some people Bush would never deal with on the other…discussions with the Cubans and Venezuelans and so [...]
Systemic social problems in the Russian Federation are leading to a population decline of large proportions and a general decline in society…. It is not obvious that Russia will be able to recover rapidly from its health katastroika. There is an enormous amount of “negative health momentum” in the Russian situation today: with younger brothers [...]
Ready Kids? Here-we-go! The Watchmen! Baby Huey! Jonny Quest! Tom Terriffic and Mighty Manfred! Hoppety Hooper! Beany and Cecil! Captain Kangaroo! and Mister Moose! Hashimoto the Japanese House Mouse! Mighty Mouse fighting Wolves with Zoot Suits! Heckle and Jeckle! The Beatles! Spinach for Britain with Popeye! The Flintstones having a fag! Three Little Pigs in [...]
Russian factories are idling or out of work due to a crash in Russia; their economy depended on high oil prices to go on forever. The natives are getting restless… ABC is cutting the price on their Oscars Show advertising time. Nobody’s watching. At the same time, movie attendance went up. After going off to [...]
The New York Times took a 48% hit in profits, and is preparing to sell off its baseball / sports holdings, including the Boston Red Sox. Brandeis University is selling off its Rose Art Museum’s holdings to raise cash. Bernie Madoff helped a lot here, if you know what I mean… The crashing economy is [...]