31 July 2010
your american free enterprise system at work . . .
Posted by tomitron at 7/31/2010 09:35:00 AM 0 comments
29 July 2010
desperate people
57 dead this month; 150 this year ---
These tougher enforcement measures have pushed smugglers and illegal immigrants to take their chances on isolated trails through the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona, where they must sometimes walk for three or four days before reaching a road.
Posted by tomitron at 7/29/2010 05:46:00 PM 0 comments
28 July 2010
27 July 2010
denuding spring hill
Posted by tomitron at 7/27/2010 06:53:00 PM 1 comments
sad vegas
So many homes in Las Vegas have been foreclosed upon that banks rarely bother to hang a "For Sale" sign on the front lawn anymore. Instead, visitors identify bank-owned properties by the brown grass and the 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper taped to the front door or the garage.poor kevin and all the other musicians, waiters, bellhops, and everybody else down at the service end of the food chain ---
Posted by tomitron at 7/27/2010 06:03:00 PM 0 comments
the corporate reward system
Posted by tomitron at 7/27/2010 05:33:00 PM 0 comments
26 July 2010
ancient organisms
we get all excited about a 200 year old oak ---- here's a woman that is trying to document in photographs the world's oldest organisms --- what an excellent way to set an itinerary --- i'm not sure i believe the 500,000 yr old siberian actinobacteria, but the 9,000 yr old spruce in sweden or 3,000 yr old llareta in the andes are impressive enough ----
Posted by tomitron at 7/26/2010 06:02:00 PM 0 comments
very sad
Ted Haggard now claims that he has "over-repented" for his encounters with rentboy Mike Jones, that he has no same-sex attraction, and that what occurred between he and Jones was merely "a massage gone awry.""gone awry"? does that mean that the massagee did or did not have a happy ending?
Posted by tomitron at 7/26/2010 05:39:00 PM 0 comments
24 July 2010
fading bigotry
The city of Marietta will host The Marietta Rainbow Festival on Saturday, the first gay pride celebration held in the city.cobb county lost out in hosting events during the 96 olympics because of homophobic bigotry --- anybody else remember gordon wysong and bill byrne?
Posted by tomitron at 7/24/2010 07:44:00 AM 0 comments
unscrewing on-street parking in atlanner
this is long overdue ---shoulda done it this way to begin with:
For the second time in less than a year, the Atlanta City Council has completely changed the city’s parking regulations. Earlier this week, the council voted to create at least four distinct parking zones that would each have unique parking hours and restrictions. With the 10-0 vote the council moved to increase the time limits of metered parking in certain areas and to eliminate overnight parking restrictions in those areas altogether. Sunday enforcement also was eliminated, though Atlanta police still will ticket and tow illegally parked cars.
Posted by tomitron at 7/24/2010 07:37:00 AM 0 comments
23 July 2010
22 July 2010
dead hand of history
A paper by Diego Comin, Erick Gong, and myself was just published in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. We collected crude but informative data on the state of technology in various parts of the world in 1000 BC, 0 AD, and 1500 AD. . . .1500 AD technology is a particularly powerful predictor of per capita income today. 78 percent of the difference in income today between sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe is explained by technology differences that already existed in 1500 AD – even BEFORE the slave trade and colonialism.
Posted by tomitron at 7/22/2010 08:36:00 AM 0 comments
21 July 2010
larue county, kentucky
startled by some of those horse-and-buggy christians (mennonite, amish?) in the oncoming lane --- clop, clop, clop --- no image :(
Posted by tomitron at 7/21/2010 08:56:00 PM 0 comments
20 July 2010
joys of traveling
fox news and a mcpaper for breakfast --- makes me want to go back to bed
Posted by tomitron at 7/20/2010 07:34:00 AM 0 comments
19 July 2010
17 July 2010
220 yr old champagne!
"It tasted fantastic. It was a very sweet champagne, with a tobacco taste and oak," Ekstrom said.that gives another dimension to "vintage" --- like the 1820 canned ham that was opened in 1938 and found to be in more or less perfect condition
Posted by tomitron at 7/17/2010 05:53:00 PM 1 comments
yup
the president, this morning:
... too often, the Republican leadership in the United States Senate chooses to filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress. And that has very real consequences.like expiring unemployment benefits, and the disaster that is for a whole lot of people today
Posted by tomitron at 7/17/2010 10:04:00 AM 0 comments
16 July 2010
big 'un
Posted by tomitron at 7/16/2010 05:26:00 PM 0 comments
chattahoochee
Posted by tomitron at 7/16/2010 04:05:00 PM 0 comments
15 July 2010
the park
a great american elm has been dying for a couple of years and, coincidentally or not, so has a fairly pitiful water oak in the background --- both have been marked for destruction --- sad to see the old-timers go
however, the rudbeckia is/are spectacular
Posted by tomitron at 7/15/2010 09:03:00 PM 0 comments
a cowardly, worthless woman
she's come a long way from her run for fulton co. commission ---
Posted by tomitron at 7/15/2010 05:55:00 PM 0 comments
and then there were ten!
2001 Netherlands
2003 Belgium
2005 Spain
2005 Canada
2006 South Africa
2008 Norway
2009 Sweden
2010 Portugal
2010 Iceland
2010 Argentina
i hope i live long enough to celebrate that in the US of A
Posted by tomitron at 7/15/2010 05:44:00 PM 0 comments
"ice patch archeologcy"
Warming temperatures are melting patches of ice that have been in place for thousands of years in the mountains of the Canadian High Arctic and in turn revealing a treasure trove of ancient hunting tools.and not just prehistoric tools either --- how creepy is "blood falls"????
Posted by tomitron at 7/15/2010 08:07:00 AM 0 comments
14 July 2010
more tea-party crazy
Posted by tomitron at 7/14/2010 06:12:00 PM 0 comments
better late than never i guess
although we may have heard this before, there is once again talk of a "multi-modal" passenger station across forsyth from five points station, near the site of the old union station (1930) --- this might be serious, however: ga. d.o.t. is involved ---
DOT legally can't use its gas tax, its major source of state funding, for rail projects. Yet state leaders said there is a new respect for transit at the agency and new activity. DOT has taken the lead on the terminal project now through its program for public-private partnerships.plus, the report tells us that the station "would allow for bicycle and pedestrian access" --- as if that were a great leap forward rather than just typical dumb gdot
Posted by tomitron at 7/14/2010 05:48:00 PM 0 comments
13 July 2010
antoni!
Posted by tomitron at 7/13/2010 07:15:00 PM 0 comments
post-racial america
this is from last year, but is worth doing again:
"Even it you are not yourself in a position of power, … if you've gotten used to seeing people who look like you in almost every position of authority," he says, "to then have to wake up every day and see a man of color basically running the country … is psychologically debilitating to white folks who all their lives weren't necessarily bigots or racists in any overt sense, but had simply gotten complacent with the way things were. They had internalized these notions of entitlement and superiority. . . .
we've still got a ways to go
"On the one hand it's funny," says Wise. "On the other hand it's really frightening, because people, when they're in that sort of meltdown mode don't make good decisions and do really crazy things." . . . .
"At some point, people will have to say, maybe black folks aren't the crazy ones. Maybe it's not the folks of color who have lost their minds. Maybe it's you."
Posted by tomitron at 7/13/2010 06:18:00 PM 0 comments
11 July 2010
asteroid lutetia
Posted by tomitron at 7/11/2010 10:00:00 PM 0 comments
chimps and bonobos
everybody always makes a big deal of chimpanzees and their penchant for violence and warfare ---- but:
First off, chimps aren't "our closest primate cousin," though you'll need a sharp eye to find any mention of our other, equally intimately related cousin, the bonobo in most of these "news" stories. Like a crazy relative who lives in a shed out back, bonobos tend to get mentioned in passing-if at all-in these sweeping declarations about the ancient primate roots of war. There are plenty of reasons self-respecting journalists might want to avoid talking about bonobos (their penchant for mutual masturbation, their unapologetic homosexuality and incest, a general sense of hippie-like shamelessness pervading bonobo social life), but the biggest inconvenience is the utter absence of any Viking-like behavior ever observed among bonobos. Bonobos never rape or pillage. No war. No murder. No infanticide.
Posted by tomitron at 7/11/2010 04:42:00 PM 0 comments
10 July 2010
everybody but atlanner
On Thursday, Charlotte, Cincinatti, and Fort Worth all received around $25 million to put toward streetcar projects in their respective cities, as part of nearly $300 million in announced transit grants, while much of the remaining funding went towards bus service.poor atlanner---we're getting left behind, thanks in no small measure to the appalling ignorance and shortsightedness of our pathetic excuse for a state legislature
Posted by tomitron at 7/10/2010 09:36:00 AM 2 comments
09 July 2010
miller union
Posted by tomitron at 7/09/2010 09:22:00 PM 0 comments
heat is on
Posted by tomitron at 7/09/2010 09:07:00 AM 0 comments
"an irrational prejudice"
hawaii's republican (surprise!) governor vetoed that state's civil unions law, but that doesn't matter so much now since a federal judge has ruled that the so-called "defense of marriage act" is unconstitutional --- a huge victory for our side --- sooner or later justice will be served:
As an irrational prejudice plainly never constitutes a legitimate government interest, this court must hold that Section 3 of DOMA . . . violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Posted by tomitron at 7/09/2010 09:01:00 AM 0 comments
07 July 2010
seen at margaret's bank
Posted by tomitron at 7/07/2010 06:50:00 PM 0 comments
relentless
Posted by tomitron at 7/07/2010 06:43:00 PM 0 comments
05 July 2010
a different view
went over to robt last night --- from 20 floors up, he has a panoramic view of the entire atlanta skyline from downtown to buckhead --- i forgot my tripod, not that my images would have been any better if i had not forgotten it
Posted by tomitron at 7/05/2010 08:21:00 PM 0 comments
don't pray for me . . . .
The STEP trial established that intercessionary prayer per se was ineffective either positively or negatively as long as the patients don't know about it. However, patients who know that they are being prayed for do measurably worse than the unprayed or ignorant of prayer.does it work the same with atheists?
Posted by tomitron at 7/05/2010 07:20:00 PM 0 comments
04 July 2010
mid-80s, low humidity ---
Posted by tomitron at 7/04/2010 04:42:00 PM 0 comments
sweaty people
50,000, but these were the first --- gebre gebremariam of ethiopia the winner --- they were way out in front of the pack that will pour down peachtree this morning ---
Posted by tomitron at 7/04/2010 10:01:00 AM 0 comments
02 July 2010
atlanner
Posted by tomitron at 7/02/2010 05:45:00 PM 0 comments
01 July 2010
ranking the presidents
A new poll of leading presidential scholars ranks Barack Obama as the 15th best president of the United States, just below Bill Clinton but ahead of Ronald Reagan . . . . [George W.] Bush joins Harding, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, all of whom have consistently ranked as the worst presidents since the poll started, in the bottom five.republican heads are exploding all over the place
Posted by tomitron at 7/01/2010 10:42:00 PM 0 comments
let them eat cake
The House of Representatives approved a bill to reauthorize expired unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless on Thursday, after a similar measure failed for the fourth time in the Senate the previous night due to a Republican filibuster.republicans just don't give a shit
Posted by tomitron at 7/01/2010 10:14:00 PM 0 comments
upcoming
Posted by tomitron at 7/01/2010 04:06:00 PM 0 comments