Parallels.
Bobby Jindal : Lousiana :: Jerry Kilgore : Virginia It’s a little eerie.
Bubby Boobop and the Grand Duke of Razzmatazz.
Dave Matthews Band, having apparently lost their minds, has announced in an e-mail that their new album will be entitled Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King. The band was done when LeRoi Moore died last year. Maybe this new album will prove me wrong, but I suspect not.
It’s all X to me.
In English, when we want to describe something as incomprehensible, we might say “it’s all Greek to me.” From the always-excellent Strange Maps comes a diagram of what language people use in place of “Greek” depending in their native tongue. Romanians say “it’s all Turkish to me,” while Turks say “it’s all French to me,” [...]
White House finds Bush’s hidden $2.7T deficit.
President Obama has eliminated the stupid accounting tricks by the Bush administration and found the nation to be $2.7 trilliion more in debt over the next decade, Jackie Calmes writes in the New York Times. A Republican trashes the budget and leaves a Democrat to clean up the mess…shades of Jim Gilmore?
Stimulus RSS.
The implementation instructions for the stimulus bill requires all agencies to provide an RSS feed of spending. That’s transparency you can believe in.
RTD calls out House Republicans on gerrymandering.
The RTD editorializes against House Republicans today, using some pretty strong language: The House Privileges and Elections Committee has killed a bill to create a bipartisan redistricting commission. The vote ranks as the most deplorable of the session. [...] What is the principled argument for gerrymandering? There is none. Four Republicans on the committee killed [...]
The widening Republican rift on display in the House.
Two data points: 1. Del. Clarke Hogan unloaded on Del. Bob Marshall earlier this week, calling him “a piece of shit” after Marshall confronted Hogan for his refusal to support his commendation honoring a man who died while saving his son from drowning. Obviously the bill was just a chit—Hogan surely doesn’t actually oppose the [...]
Why we need enhanced lobbyist disclosure.
I’m a proponent of overhauling the lobbyist disclosure statements used in Virginia. Lobbyists—and, more important, legislators—get away with having to provide vanishingly little information about who is seeking to influence legislation, who they’re trying to influence, and how they’re doing it. Del. Sam Nixon’s HB1883 proposes to fix this, though my understanding is that the [...]
Flickr is auto-IDing astronomical objects.
Astronomy photos on Flickr are automatically being analyzed and labelled with constellations, planets, and other objects. The group doing the IDing then has a big corpus of astronomical images, which has got to be valuable. Man, that is so cool. The physical coordinates and the timestamp go a long way towards providing the basic data [...]
Weekly spot on “Weekend Virginia.”
Those interested in hearing a little state politics discussion on the radio, who are in the western half of the state, may enjoy listening to Weekend Virginia on WVTF. Jim Hoeft and I are each guests on each week’s show, which is only three weeks old at this point. It airs on Saturdays at 6:00 [...]
The false hope of vitamin supplements.
In the New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope looks at the (possible) false hope of vitamin supplements. Vitamins are essential—we’d quickly die without them. But it’s looking increasingly likely that vitamin supplements—vitamins in pill form—are significantly less effective than vitamins that occur naturally, in food. Vitamins may be what allow our bodies to avoid the sorts [...]
A new blog you’ll like: 123cantwait.
My old friend—and regular contributor* here—Jon-Phillip Sheridan has started blogging about art, photography, science, and politics on a new blog of his own, 123cantwait. It’s like what I blog about, only with way better photography. * It seems condescending to use the word “commenter” to describe many of those who contribute such thoughtful, lengthy, interesting [...]
Lamarck’s comeback.
Lamarckian evolution might be real. How’s that for mind-blowing? Lamarck hypothesized, basically, that traits developed by a parent are passed down to offspring. If a giraffe stretches its neck to reach leaves high on a tree, its children will have longer necks. That was long ago discarded as goofy and improbable, particularly since there’s no [...]
General Assembly holidays.
Del. Kris Amundson highlights the virtue of the General Assembly being in session on holidays: It’s possible for people to visit. (Though, obviously, it depends on the holiday. Outside of car sales, I’m not sure there’s much happening on President’s Day.) If I’d had the day off, I know I would have gone today.
Columbus discovered Facebook.
All About Explorers helpfully informs its student readers that Balboa dreamed of being an Olympic fencing champion, De Soto dreamed of being an automobile manufacturer, and de Gama’s career was cut short by the development of air and rail freight transit. Blatant lies? Yes. But for a good reason: to teach kids to think critically [...]
Looking back on the Gore presidency.
In the Guardian, T.A. Frank looks back on the Gore presidency that wasn’t: I think I started to dislike Gore when he stirred up a media storm after the Feds broke up the terrorist ring conspiring to fly airplanes into buildings back in 2001. He could have let it pass quietly, as Bill Clinton did [...]
JJ Dinner Capital Correspondents Association videotape.
Missed the JJ Dinner last week Capital Correspondents Association dinner on Wednesday? Not trusting the neutrality of the descriptions thus far? Style Weekly videotaped the speeches so that you can judge for yourself. 02/16 Update: I’m a moron.
“Motion to Compel” in Garrett subpoena
In response to my Motion to Quash, the complainant’s attorney sent back a Motion to Compel yesterday, which is basically their response to my arguments as to why I shouldn’t have to comply with the subpoena. There are two bits about the Motion to Compel that are noteworthy. The first is the claim that bloggers [...]
Japan’s oyoku sound trucks.
Thousands of right-wing activists in Japan, known as uyoku, drive through cities with sound trucks, blaring threats, taunts, and political messages. These are yakuza-related groups of nationalists who believe in an Emperor-based social order, and apparently black, speaker-covered, military-style trucks are the best way to get that message out. The vehicles are a common sight [...]
Sorensen is seeking applicants for three programs.
The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership is accepting applications for their high school, college, and candidate training programs. Their high school and college programs are residential and in the summer, two and four weeks long respectively. Their candidate training program is an intensive four-day program, held just east of Winchester in May. I speak to [...]
About
Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
Recently
Et Cetera
← Back to Home
© Waldo Jaquith. Powered by WordPress using the DePo Skinny Theme.