I mean, that’s what this holiday is, right? A party for those people that get excited watching the number tick over on their odometers.
But, on the theory that any excuse for a party is a good one, happy new year to one and all. And hang on– 2005 looks like it’s going to be even wilder than 2004. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear, and all that jazz.
Everybody’s already done the $15 million US aid for tsunami aid versus $30-40 million for GWB’s second inauguration (not counting security), and we’re up to $50 million now (as a credit line– oooooo).
Let’s try some different numbers.
Flooz.com went through $51.5 million over three rounds of investment.
Meet The Fockers grossed $46,120,980 over the weekend.
Pets.com raised $35 million privately and $89 million in an IPO.
Furniture.com lost $46.5 million in 1999 alone. They also spent $2.5 million on the domain name.
We spent $50 million on the Columbia blowup. $70 million on the Clinton investigation.
Kozmo.com burned through about $250 million.
Webvan went through $1 Billion (with a B) in financing.
And finally, Wall Street gave nearly $16 Billion to employees this year as Christmas bonuses.
So when the director of UN Aid Relief says we’re stingy, y’know what? He’s right.
And at a time when we’re trying to win hearts and minds in that part of the world– hell, ANY part of the world– we don’t want to appear stingy.
I think the line that might resonate with the religious right is Luke 6:41-42.
Elections in U.S. and Ukraine Equally Bad, says Putin – NEWS – MOSNEWS.COM
Russia has every reason to criticize the United States, President Vladimir Putin said at a Kremlin press conference.
“We’re also not too happy about what’s going on in the United States,” the Russian Information Agency Novosti quoted him as saying. “Do you think that the electoral system in the United States is without problems? Is it necessary to recall how the elections went this time and the previous time?”
The president also noted that OSCE observers described elections in the Ukraine and the United States in practically the same terms.
“They mentioned that not all voters were permitted into the polling stations, some were even intimidated; that candidates did not have equal access to the media,” Putin said.
The comments were made in response to criticism from the West about the struggling status of democracy in Russia.
…I’d like to suggest Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers #47: Creative Couplings, Book 1 by Aaron Rosenberg and some hack.
Yes, there will be a quiz next month.
…before my browser crashes. And rather than add to the 20 draft articles I have, I might as well get these over with:
* Ted Rall notes in a recent cartoon that GWB said Social Security would go bankrupt in ten years without privatization… while running for Congress in 1978. Can any of my savvy blog readers find any attribution to this? Don’t worry, you don’t have to explain how it’s lasted for 16 years longer than anticipated and counting…
Damn, the rest of them are on the laptop and I don’t feel like retyping links. Here’s hoping this lasts…
Michelle Malkin: THE SAN FRAN GUN BAN
You’ve got to hand it to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. They are unrepentant, unabashed, and undeterred gun grabbers–and there ain’t nuthin’ that’s gonna stop ’em from trampling all over the Second Amendment.
You’ve got to hand it to Michelle Malkin. She’s unrepentant, unabashed, and unashamed about writing a book about how interring people of a suspect ethnic background is okay– but taking away their guns is a violation of their rights. The woman who wrote “When our national security is on the line, ‘racial profiling’ � or more precisely, threat profiling based on race, religion or nationality � is justified” sees no threat to life or limb when some maniac is able to easily obtain a gun.
Kee-ripes.
You scored as Neutral Good. A Neutral Good person tries to do the ‘goodest’ thing possible. These people are willing to work with the law to accomplish their goal, but if the law is corrupt they are just as willing to tear it down. To these people, doing what’s right is the most important thing, regardless of rules, customs, or laws.
What is your Alignment? |
Electablog* U.S. Ambassador to Cyberspace
I should begin by explaining that the following is neither a story from The Onion nor a transparent attempt by media consultants to distract us from the Bernie Kerik story – which is one Ford Bronco away from hitting the big time.
Bigger than a Bronco — an Explorer. Via Atrios:
September 16, 2000 NY Daily News:
A homeless woman lying on the ramp of an upper East Side parking garage was crushed to death early yesterday when she was run over by a mammoth sport utility vehicle, police said.
The driver, real estate executive Anthony Bergamo, told investigators he did not see the woman from his driver’s seat.
Bergamo was driving a 5,770-pound Ford Expedition.
Medics pronounced the unidentified woman dead at the scene.
An autopsy determined that she died of crushing injuries to her chest, said a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner.
The death was ruled accidental and Bergamo, 54, who manages the Milford Plaza hotel in Times Square for its owner, real estate magnate Howard Milstein, was not charged.
Who was police commissioner then? Why, Bernard Kerik. And who is Anthony Bergamo? Oh, THAT Anthony Bergamo…
Rescue workers were combing through the World Trade Center rubble around the clock when Mr. Kerik called Anthony Bergamo, a well-connected vice chairman of the Milstein family real estate company and a police buff, and asked for help finding a place for the workers to rest during breaks, the executive said.
The family owned Liberty View, a 28-story yellow brick tower two blocks southwest of the trade center at the corner of West Street and Third Place.
According to the executive, who knows Mr. Bergamo, the vice chairman arranged for Mr. Kerik to have the use of an apartment there. Several apartments in the buildings had been used by rescue workers on breaks, and by Red Cross staff who were treating them, in the months after 9/11, according to a real estate executive.
I remember Loudoun County, VA from 1998, when we had to sue them to get rid of censorware on library computers. Now we have this:
Va. Boy’s Defiant Words Draw Police Response (washingtonpost.com)
When the two plainclothes Loudoun County sheriff’s investigators showed up on her Leesburg doorstep, Pamela Albaugh got nervous. But when they told her why they were there, she got angry: A complaint had been filed alleging that her 11-year old son had made “anti-American and violent” statements in school.
She was aware of an incident at Belmont Ridge Middle School in which her son, Yishai Asido, was assigned to write a letter to U.S. Marines and responded, according to his teacher, by saying, “I wish all Americans were dead and that American soldiers should die.” Yishai and Albaugh deny that the boy wished his countrymen dead.
Albaugh, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, an Israeli citizen who manages a Leesburg moving company, say the investigators’ visit and the school’s response were a paranoid overreaction in a charged post-9/11 environment. But law enforcement officials say the terrorist attacks and the Columbine school shootings require them to consider whether children who make threats might post a danger to their classmates. The case illustrates the balancing act that schools and law enforcement must find between the free speech of minors and community safety.
Albaugh described her son as a rambunctious student who has long opposed armies of any kind. He refused the Veterans Day assignment and told his teacher that the Marines “might as well die, as much as I care.” Whatever was said, the words had been the source of anguished conferences, phone calls and, ultimately, a day of in-school suspension.
Albaugh thought the whole thing was resolved in school until Investigators Robert LeBlanc and Kelly Poland showed up last week. What followed, she said, was two hours of polite but intense and personal questioning.
They asked how she felt about 9/11 and the military. They asked whether she knows any foreigners who have trouble with American policy. They mentioned a German friend who had been staying with the family and asked whether the friend sympathized with the Taliban. They also inquired whether she might be teaching her children “anti-American values,” she said.
They really seem to have a problem with free expression there, don’t they?