Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
British discount airline mulls making their planes’ toilets PAY toilets, assume people have pound coins in their pocket. I assure you, I don’t carry major change in my pockets in US airliners – the metal detectors would go nuts. UK bankers have a fit over cuts in bonuses and whatnot; some say they’ll look for [...]
And reformers can be undone by machines, when they trade their aspirations for power:
…and besides, unlike the wife, I’ve never gotten through his works. Regular readers will note that the tags I put on posts are plentiful and sometimes sound goofy; that may be because it’s conceptual shorthand to me. ‘kubler-ross’, ‘renmin’, or ‘sep_reality’, for example. The first has to deal with posts on death and dying, the [...]
Of course, I’m Mr. Provincial; I’ve only visited three countries in my life; the USA, Canada and China (when we went to get Meredith). And this hit other people far worse; my friend Adam, who lives in a suburb of Amsterdam, has been telling us for a long time about the crushing problem of being [...]
Woodward on upcoming 60 minutes: According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. “It’s getting to the point now where there are eight-, nine-hundred attacks a week. That’s more than 100 a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces,” [...]
Harlan sort of apologizes and more on the Hugo-grope. Senator George Allen in bed with a white hate group. Ooopsie. More answers on the plane crash in Lexington, Kentucky: the FAA said that you can’t short-staff the controller’s tower, but at the same time managers were given orders to cut staffing. Whee. No, I [...]
Cut and run – from George Bush – if you want to get re-elected. ‘Hey, aren’t you a Republican?’ ‘Who, me?’ “Sen. Barack Obama urged Kenyans to take control of their country’s destiny by opposing corruption and ethnic divisions in government during a speech Monday in Nairobi.” Heck, it’s good practice here, too. Various GOP [...]
The Bush Administration now says that the levees in the New Orleans area will not be restored to even pre-Katrina levels; some areas are too rural or poor to bother with. Part of the expense is caused by that darn wetlands reduction that the folks said didn’t happen; with no wetlands to cut the fury [...]
The problem with seeing Bush as a strong, paternalistic leader is that he’s none of those things. Father in this case doesn’t know best, he frequently doesn’t know which way is up and doesn’t give a damn about the kids. The most in the way of terrorism that I’ve seen recently in this country is [...]
The WaPo has an interesting story on where the tests for wastes in New Orleans is at; the biggest contaminants seems to be human waste solids and seawater, followed by oil and oil products and byproducts. The seawater (from ‘Lake’ Ponchartrain and other places) has thoroughly soaked and damaged a lot of stuff; unprotected metals [...]
New news that the Bush administration has decided that actually putting any more money into real efforts into rebuilding Iraq is a lost cause, and they’re not going to do anything more. The sweetheart Big Contracts are already in the past, anyhow, and the pork was passed around. The heck with hearts and minds and [...]
Looks like someone added a few new cards to Katrina: The Gathering. You tell me. U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady (deputy House whip under whoever is running things) was arrested and charged with driving under the influence while in South Dakota, according to a published report.The Texas Republican was pulled over by a state trooper Friday [...]