Reader Tips

Reader Tips 47 Comments

Harry “The Hipster” Gibson might have looked like a cross between Harpo Marx and an axe murderer, or like a manically delinquent character in one of those 1930’s cautionary tale films about the perils of mari-ju-wanna, but he could sure play a mean piano: here’s a vintage clip of him assaulting the ivories in a performance of Opus 12 Eee. Go, daddy-o!
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47 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. More Controversial NPR Videos to Come:
    “There’s more video where that came from, says James O’Keefe, the muckraking activist behind TheProjectVeritas.org. The controversial video-sting impresario tells Newsmax that he’s prepared to release yet more embarrassing revelations about NPR, but first he wants to gauge NPR’s reaction to the bomb he dropped Tuesday.
    “In an exclusive Newsmax interview, O’Keefe says he’s waiting to see whether NPR comes clean ‘about what is going on’ before he doles out more video.”
    (…)
    “’We’re not done releasing footage,’ O’Keefe told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Tuesday. ‘We have more investigative material that we’re going to release.'”

  2. Betsy Newmark on the proposed ABC network pilot called “Good Christian Bitches”:

    “Insert mandatory comment about what would happen if one substituted “Muslim” for “Christian” in that title.“

    Mandatory, perhaps, but not even slightly overworked. In the West it remains – regrettably – *the* salient point.

  5. EBD
    I look forward to anything further Mr. O’Keefe has to release. He sure has a knack for getting the left to lift their veils.

  7. Harry the Hipster was also the genius behind that minor classic, “Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine?”

  12. Via Theo Spark dot net:
    How many public sector workers does it take to change a lightbulb?
    One. The Designated Light Fixture Renewals Officer.

  13. Shoot, sorry re 1154 – Kate already posted that.
    EBD 1202 – you are incorrect, sorry. The correct answer is two, you have to also include the Light Bulb Czar

  14. RPB
    Burka, niqab, veil….same difference 😉
    Erik
    Coincidentally, there seems to be a run on folks shorting the greenback…go figure.

  15. synchro – we got to get together again soon and hammer a few down (with the rest of the Calgary group)
    Just saying – I want to make the other SDA-ers jealous of the YYC community spirit(s)! Good times.

  18. Erik – based on that report on government debt, why stop at “a few”? I am personally weighing the benefits of a chrystal meth habit against weekly Russian roulette sessions. My one consolation is that there probably won’t be a world left for George Lucas to ruin any more films in.

  24. Black Mamba: “1/6?”
    Oddly enough, those are the odds on the first trigger pull. After 5? pretty much 100%. You gotta love stats … I’ll take door number 3, Monty.

  28. Black Mamba: “you reload each time; anything else is just reckless.”
    Typical dame. You spin it. But stats will show you have a better chance than 1/6 in getting dead on every spin.

  31. National Post, Wednesday, Mar. 9. Letter to the editor from Patty Ducharme, national executive vice-president, Public Service Alliance of Canada.
    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/03/09/todays-letters-public-sector-workers-are-not-the-problem/#more-30711
    PD: “Unionized public workers often hold the key to financial recovery, providing essential services and spending their hard-earned salaries in local communities.”
    This is nonsense, and deplorably ignorant of economics. Spending does not bring recovery. The letter’s argument is another version of Keynes’s ridiculous comment that paying people to dig ditches and then fill them in again would help the economy. It wouldn’t, because it wastes valuable resources.
    There are different types of government employees:
    The members of the police, the military and the justice system are performing necessary work that can’t really be called “productive” although it often prevents destruction. These are the proper functions of government; the question is how to keep salaries in the right range.
    The people who pave the roads, drive the trains, and teach the kids, are performing services that have value to many people. The biggest immediate question is whether their salaries are in the right range. Then there is the issue of whether certain activities could be done better. For example, in a world with the Internet and massive amounts of information available at the click of a mouse, is classroom instruction for students obsolete? Many of these kinds of economic activities should be privatized, although that must be done the right way (i.e., don’t just replace a government monopoly with a private one, don’t give it undeserved privileges like Highway 407, etc.).
    Then there are government employees who do nothing valuable, in which I would include anyone who analyzes the federal or provincial economic situation, and anyone who handles grant disbursements of any kind. They “produce” $0, but take out a big chunk in salary. These kinds of jobs should be eliminated.
    And then there are government employees whose “work” actively hinders the production of goods and services – the regulators, the human rights commissions, and so on. Each of these may be a drain on the economy to the tune of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. These jobs can’t be eliminated fast enough.
    One person on welfare produces goods and services worth $0 and collects, say (to pick a round number) $10,000 a year. But one regulator or activist who is responsible for preventing millions of dollars of economic production and drawing a fat government-union salary is as much a drain on the economy as dozens of people on welfare.
    Of course, the welfare state should be abolished, on moral grounds. But that can wait a few years, because (1) it would not be right to suddenly pull the rug out from people who depend on it, and (2) there are many other priorities that can do a lot more for the economy immediately: streamline the tax system, eliminate business subsidies, deregulate (except possibly for some safety or environmental reasons; and be cautious with the banks), cut all funding to activist groups a.s.a.p., eliminate foreign aid, etc. A productive economy with low unemployment should enable much of the welfare state to disappear through attrition.

  34. Mao Stlong Lepolt.
    Gleetings flom China.
    Here is my nephew, Liberal Iggy’s Bob Rae:
    “*The Chinese are very concerned about stability,” said Liberal MP Bob Rae, who first visited China more than 25 years ago. “They’re very concerned about order. They’re very concerned about a billion people. They’re fearful of the consequences of losing that kind of control. Seems to me we just have to keep on trying to persuade them that liberty is the better way. It’s something we believe in and something we should share with them.”
    http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2291249
    …-
    Here is:
    “1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame?”
    “It’s hard not to look at the nets. Every building is skirted in them. They drape every precipice, steel poles jutting out 20 feet above the sidewalk, loosely tangled like volleyball nets in winter.
    The nets went up in May, after the 11th jumper in less than a year died here. They carried a message: You can throw yourself off any building you like, as long as it isn’t one of these. And they seem to have worked. Since they were installed, the suicide rate has slowed to a trickle.
    My tour guides don’t mention the nets until I do. Not to avoid the topic, I don’t think—the suicides are the reason I am at a Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, a bustling industrial city in southern China—but simply because they are so prevalent. Foxconn, the single largest private employer in mainland China, manufactures many of the products—motherboards, camera components, MP3 players—that make up the world’s $150 billion consumer-electronics industry. Foxconn’s output accounts for nearly 40 percent of that revenue. Altogether, the company employs about a million people, nearly half of whom work at the 20-year-old Shenzhen plant. But until two summers ago, most Americans had never heard of Foxconn.
    That all changed with the suicides. There had been a few since 2007. Then a spate of nine between March and May 2010—all jumpers. There were also suicides at other Foxconn plants in China. Although the company disputes some cases, evidence gathered from news reports and other sources indicates that 17 Foxconn workers have killed themselves in the past half decade. What had seemed to be a series of isolated incidents was becoming an appalling trend. When one jumper left a note explaining that he committed suicide to provide for his family, the program of remuneration for the families of jumpers was canceled. Some saw the Foxconn suicides as a damning consequence of our global hunger for low-cost electronics. Reports from inside the factories warned of “sweatshop” conditions; old allegations of forced overtime burbled back to life. Foxconn and its partners—notably Apple—found themselves defending factory conditions while struggling to explain the deaths. “Suicides in China Prompt Damage Control,” blared The New York Times.
    I seem to be witnessing some of those damage-control efforts on this still-warm fall day as two Foxconn executives—along with a liaison from Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm hired to deal with the post-suicide outcry—lead me through the facility. I have spent much of my career blogging about gadgets on sites like Boing Boing Gadgets and Gizmodo, reviewing and often praising many of the products that were made right here at Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory. I ignored the first Foxconn suicides as sad but statistically inevitable. But as the number of jumpers approached double digits, latent self-reproach began to boil over. Out of a million people, 17 suicides isn’t much—indeed, American college students kill themselves at four times that rate. Still, after years of writing what is (at best) buyers’ guidance and (at worst) marching hymns for an army of consumers, I was burdened by what felt like an outsize provision of guilt—an existential buyer’s remorse for civilization itself. I am here because I want to know: Did my iPhone kill 17 people?
    My hosts are eager to help me answer that question in the negative by pointing out how pleasant life in the factory can be. They are quick with the college analogies: The canteens and mess halls are “like a college food court.” The living quarters, where up to eight workers share rooms about the size of a two-car garage, are “like college dorms.” The avenues and boulevards in the less industrial parts of the campus are “like malls.”
    For all their defensiveness, my guides are not far off the mark.”
    http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1

  36. A gentle reminder that Saturday March 26 is Earth Hour. I suggest you start planning your energy consuming projects now.

  39. “What odds?”
    1/6? (Black Mamba)
    Odds and probability are not the same thing. The term “odds” is used to compare the unfavorable with the favorable possibilities (however you define that). So if you have one bullet and 5 empty chambers, the odds of dying are 1:5. The probability of dying is 1/6. Assuming no mis-fires or other unanticipated events.
    I hate myself when I do this, but I can’t help it. (When my students asked what I did with my evenings, I told them I did recreational algebra. Some of them actually believed me.)
    In any case, why “Russian” does anyone know? Why not “Scandinavian” or even “French” roulette? Or do they have their own fun games?

  40. Looked outside last nite after midnite and saw a thin veil of northern lights. I missed the main show.
    The Sun God awakes.
    No CMEs for 4 yrs and now 2 in less than a month.
    Check out the gr8 pics from Zoltan Kenwell from just west of Edmonton of last nights intense display (and others as well).
    http://spaceweather.com/
    Also a movie of the eruption is available.

  42. 30 billion with a ‘B’?
    only if there is a similar expenditure for the ground troops.
    but that won’t happen since conservatism is all about glamour and glitz and show-and-tell and NOT the arduous expensive hard slogging it takes to knock the bejeezuz out of a military foe.
    3w dot cbc dot ca/news/politics/story/2011/03/10/pol-pbo-page-fighterjet.html
    and guess what,neither is lieberalism and certainly not the ‘new’ democraps.

  43. PET Cemetery Report.
    H/T Liberal Iggy’s Liberal Bob Rae*.
    View the Universe from Liberal IggyRae’s World: left-liberalism.
    >>> Has Liberal Iggy denounced Liberal Rae with a “laudable denunciation”, to borrow Kay’s words?
    …-
    “Rector of Queen’s University celebrates Israeli Apartheid Week, declares Israel guilty of ‘genocide’
    Jonathan Kay March 9, 2011 – 12:18 pm
    Nick Day, the rector of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., has taken it upon himself to declare Israel guilty of “genocide.” He also tells readers that he is a big fan of “Israeli Apartheid Week” (IAW), the anti-semite- and communist-inspired festival of Israel-hatred that has been unanimously denounced by the entire Ontario legislature. In his essay, which he fashions as a rebuke to Michael Ignatieff’s laudable denunciation of IAW, Mr. Day tells readers that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians represents “perhaps the biggest human rights tragedy of my generation.”
    “The biggest human rights tragedy” of his generation — really? I guess his generation must be too young or ignorant to remember the annihilation of 800,000 Rwandans in a single 3-month period in 1994 — or the mass starvation of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans, or the slaughters in Darfur and Congo, or the current carnage in Libya, or any of the other real human-rights tragedies that preening moral fashionistas such as Mr. Day pass over so they can pursue their niche cult of Israel hatred.
    Note that in his article, Mr. Day grandly declares that he was “elected to represent the approximately 20,000 students of Queen’s University.” (He also signs it as “rector.”) I wonder how those same students — not to mention Queen’s alumni and donors — like him using the weight of his office to attack the Jewish state as a blood-stained pariah and a scourge against humanity? Just curious.”
    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/03/09/rector-of-queens-university-celebrates-israeli-apartheid-week-declares-israel-guilty-of-genocide/
    …-
    *Liberal Bob Rae:
    “Bob Rae blasts Harper ‘jihadis’”
    http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/02/24/17396346.html

  44. rita – good to know 🙂
    You’re right, why not Swedish Roulette? Although according to stats from the WHO – not the band, the U.N. thingee – they should probably be calling it Lithuanian Roulette.

  45. Eric, Syncro, I’m game. You can keep me posted. Or you can just turn up at the Red Fox on Friday for the 5:00 trivia game. Or at the Melrose on Saturday afternoon (12:00 – 4:00), although that’s an altogether more serious trivia game and you’ll find me highly distracted.
    Rita, I’m not sure I buy that. I’ll admit that the distinction you’ve drawn is a reasonable and potentially useful one, but it is not common, let alone fundamental. But since you mention it: I have a friend who is an actuary by profession, and once he mentioned that his brother was also an actuary. And I had the presence of mind to say: “You and your brother are both actuaries? What are the odds?”
    Yes, since you ask, I do find it deeply satisfying to be me. Thank you for noticing.

  46. Rita (12:09 pm), the term “Russian Roulette” was apparently coined in a (fictional) short story titled “Russian Roulette” published in 1937 in Collier’s magazine.
    I guess it was just such a good idea that life ended up imitating fiction.

  47. ebt I realize that “odds” is used conversationally to mean different things. I was only commenting, and it’s admittedly picky, that there is a mathematical definition of the term that’s all. When you toss a coin, the odds are even (ahem) that your toss will turn up heads, that is 1:1. The probability of tossing a head is one in two or 50%.
    EBD thanks for the reference.
    Black Mamba, I just can’t think of any similar games of risk affiliated with any other group–be it fictional or not. There is duelling but it’s not the same. And could there be any other group that “roulette” might convincingly be associated with. I’m trying to get my mind around “French roulette” and all I can think of is a buffet on a lazy susan. (Disclaimer: I am part French and am not trying to offend anyone.)

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