on March 15, 2010 by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
Rumors have become as much a part of South by Southwest as live music and Lone Star beer.
Every band from MGMT to the Gorillaz to the Black Eyed Peas has been linked to the guest spot at Levi’s/FADER Fort and Perez Hilton had an old Target building painted bright pink for Saturday’s late night party that may or may not feature Snoop Dog.
on by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
“I cannot underscore strongly enough how pissed off the base is over the lack of action.” —-Gabe Gonzalez, Center for Community Change
Last week, immigrant rights groups became the first major progressive constituency to issue a release publicly denouncing the Obama Administration. Blasting the White House for “escalating deportations and detentions” while taking no action toward enacting comprehensive immigration reform, national immigrant rights leaders are escalating a pressure campaign that will feature the largest march of the Obama presidency in Washington DC on March 21. The march comes amidst growing frustration over the President’s failure to advance an issue that galvanized enough Latinos to the polls in 2006 to give Democrats control of the House, and which helped elect Obama president in November 2008.
on by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
Peter Graves has reportedly been found dead in his Los Angeles area home. The actor was 83.
A source told the Los Angeles Times that he apparently died of natural causes.
on by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
Surfeit (noun)
1. excess; an excessive amount.
on by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
If President Barack Obama gets his trillion dollar health care bill passed this week by the Democrats in Congress, parents will be required to pay for their unmarried kids’ health care coverage until the age of 26. And Generation Y and ‘millenials’ will be enticed to continue slacking, without a job, well past college graduation. While ski bums everywhere are cheering the news that the federal government will be forcing parents to pay for their health insurance through age 26, parents are questioning why the federal government is enticing a whole generation to stay unemployed.
America has always been a place where hard work is rewarded regardless of one’s age, family status or educational background. If you have an idea you are committed to and make sacrifices to further the idea, you can be wildly successful in our capitalistic system. In America, you can launch a multi-billion dollar computer company from your garage, you can grow up homeless and make it Harvard and you can create a world-wide social networking movement while still in college. But you can also be a slacker if you have the means to slack. Spending a year skiing, hanging out on the beach and surfing or traveling the world are options for the few lucky ones who have parents wealthy enough to pay for such endeavors.
on March 14, 2010 by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
I’m proud of two letters that were released this week. The first was signed by 40 of the nation’s leading experts in health economics and public finance. This letter should reassure political moderates who worry cost control issues. It says:
The health care reforms passed by the House and Senate — with recent modifications proposed by President Obama — include serious measures that will slow the growth of health care spending. Putting the brakes on health care spending will take multiple measures, and we must start now. Democratic and Republican experts have proposed many different approaches to “bending the cost curve.” The President’s proposal incorporates a long list of measures that will control rising costs and reinforce each other.
on by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
“Nuclear war must be the most carefully avoided topic of general significance in the contemporary world. People are not curious about the details. . . . almost everyone seems to feel adequately informed by reading one book about nuclear war.”
– Paul Brians
on by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
Salman Rushdie, no less, finished his packed public talk at Brown three weeks ago with the observation that Pakistan is the globe’s true nightmare nation — that if Pakistan doesn’t rescue itself from political collapse into extremism, “we’re all fucked.” In this “Year of India” at Brown, we are talking again about the Pakistan question next door — about India’s nuclear-armed neighbor and sibling, on the verge, some say, of meltdown.
Farzana Shaikh is a child of Pakistan who writes about her country now as the daughter of a distressed family. The thread through her pithy analysis, “Making Sense of Pakistan”, is that Pakistan’s problem is not fundamentally with India, much less with the United States and the world, but with itself and Islam.
on by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
Going through airport security recently I was pulled up when the scanners spotted a can of shaving cream in my bag. Out of the queue, unpack bag, find shaving cream among all your other personal hygiene items as people keep a wary eye on you as a possible terrorist.
And I felt like saying – “Hey, I’m an atheist, I’m off to the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, atheists don’t blow up planes or anything else.”
on by Jude Emantsal in Other News, Comments (0)
Rather like the curious case of the dog in the stables that did not bark in Sherlock Holmes’ Silver Blaze case, there was a congressional hearing this past Thursday to which nobody paid any attention. They should have, as it nicely illustrates the difficulties of both doing effective government oversight on private military contractors and implementing actions being taken to try and improve the situation.
The March 11 hearing was held by the Defense Acquisition Reform Panel of the House Armed Services Committee.