The NDP sent out an email Friday telling donors who gave in memory of late party leader Jack Layton that their money had been refunded to their credit cards.
Readers will recall that the NDP initially processed the in memoriam donations through the party’s books, which would make them tax deductible as political contributions.
The money was to go to the Broadbent Institute, a left-wing think tank that, at the time, had yet to incorporate and in law was little more than an idea.
It’s Probably Nothing
According to Bloomberg and The Hill, Frank plans to submit a bill that would remove the votes of the five regional Federal Reserve presidents from the 12-member Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC), which sets interest rates, and replace them with five appointees that would be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
Via Maxed Out Mama, who shares a preview. But read the whole thing – it’s worth signing up for.
Those Moderate Muslims!
Footage of 81 beheadings were found in premises linked to the Sparkhill resident, the prosecution said. The 32-year-old Islamic studies graduate denies the charges.
Not Waiting For The Asteroid
Big Journalism has learned that the Occupy Washington DC movement is working with well-known media members to craft its demands and messaging while these media members report on the movement. Someone has made the emails from the Occupy D.C. email distro public and searchable. The names in the list are a veritable who’s who in media.
The email archive is here.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
“So yesterday we paid the wind turbine operators $4,229,280 ($135 per MWh) to produce their record 31,328 MWh and exported it at an average price of $21 per MWh generating about $650,000 in revenue for a net cost of approximately $3.6 million. We also paid Bruce $931,000 ($65 per MWH) for steaming off (using your comparative drop from same day last year) the 14,325 MWh of nuclear so the net cost to produce the 31,328 MWh from wind fully costed was $4.5 million or $143 per MWh for power we didn’t even use! “
Reader Tips
Frankel
Kill IndyCar
Dan Wheldon is dead. There were far too many cars in the race (34) for a fairly high-banked 1 1/2 mile oval with laps speeds well over 200 MPH (Indianapolis is 2 1/2 miles with low banking).
An accident, indeed a death, waiting to happen. The stands were nowhere near full. Clearly the large field and the $5 million extra if Wheldon won were effectively a pretty desperate attempt to gain attention for, and to save, open-wheel racing in the US. At a time when there are even lots of empty seats at NASCAR Chase events (yes, I watch them too).
IndyCar should now end. F1, especially this year with DRS and KERS, provides superb–and pretty safe–open wheel laps. If Americans are not enamoured of open-wheel give it up. Though why they cannot compete as either builders or drivers (remember Michael Andretti?) in F1, the highest tech, beats me.
Everything You Needed To Know About Student Loan Debt
Hashtag Of The Entitlement Generation
More at Hot Air.
我有一个梦想
Figures.
But Glenn Beck Is The Crazy One
It’s here, people. Obama’s plan is to marshal this “People’s uprising” into a political attack on the engine of capitalism, using the Wall Street he’s in bed with as an attack on the capitalist system, and the “bankers” and traders as the scapegoats.
The outlines of the plan have long been clear, but sadly, those who bothered to look and to express alarm early on were dismissed as fringe cranks and unhelpful “purists” whose outlandish Visigothery would drive away “moderates” and “independents” (who, incidentally, flocked to the GOP in the wake of the TEA Party movement, giving us a 2010 electoral landslide. But we’re to bracket that. Our betters know what’s best, regardless of how many times they prove themselves astoundingly out of touch with the mood of their own base). And now the next stage is beginning: an assault on the “fat cats” and the money men, launched from different angles, with the Occupy Wall Street crowds providing the civil unrest, the social tension, and the optics, making the more outlandish demands (and including the most repugnant fellow-travelers), while Obama serves as the voice of reason and moderation, fashioning his campaign around a populist soft-socialism in which the banks and bankers and money men are required to pay “their fair share” and the “wealth disparity” is addressed — even as the evil Republicans try to “protect the rich.”
Related: Long live spontaneity!
Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
“We’re the country that built the intercontinental railroad,” Obama says. “So how can we now sit back and let China build the best railroads?”
[…]
The transcontinental railroad lost tons of money. The government never covered its costs, and most rail lines that used the tracks went bankrupt or continued to be subsidized by taxpayers.
The Union Pacific and Northern Pacific — all those rail lines we learned about in history class — milked the taxpayer and then went broke.
One line worked. The Great Northern never went bankrupt. It was the railroad that got no subsidies.
O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas
How’s That Hopey-Changey Thing Working Out For Ya?
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Washington Post;
President Obama and his team have decided to turn public anger at Wall Street into a central tenet of their reelection strategy. The move comes as the Occupy Wall Street protests gain momentum across the country and as polls show deep public distrust of the nation’s major financial institutions.
It has been pointed out to me that many protesters are non-white and/or “communists.” Well my answer to that is: “WHO CARES?!” They are against the same evil, corrupted, degenerate capitalist elitists that WE are against! Instead of screaming, “6 million more!” The pro-white movementites should be JOINING this Occupy movement and supporting it!
Beauty.
Reader Tips
From a 1977 appearance on German TV show Rockpalast, here’s American band Little Feat, led by frontman Lowell George, performing a song about a road-weary, law-breaking, substance-abusing long-haul trucker of dubious character who’s still Willin’.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
On the Matter of “Processed” Cheese
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Oh hi folks, it’s me, Vitruvius. I was recently involved in a discussion in which some folks were attempting to distinguish between what they were calling “processed” cheese and other (presumably non-processed) cheese, without defining what they mean by “processed” cheese. As I think that’s a less than optimal approach, I’d like to take a moment to sketch out why that is so; perhaps increasing, in the process, your enjoyment of cheese forever.
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In my new On the Matter of “Processed” Cheese essay, I list in point form something like the key steps and phases involved in producing what we call cheese, and it really is a beautiful thing.
What I’d like each of you who are so inclined to do is to decide, for yourself: at what step or phase does the product we are discussing in the essay become cheese, and at what step does it become “processed” cheese. I’ve put some of my annotations in for the record, but you are free to decide for yourself, of course.
I hope you like the essay; if you do, you’re welcome, if you don’t, I’m sorry to have bothered you.
The Children Are Our Future
And that’s why I’m stocking the moat with crocodiles.
Tremble Before The Power Of The People
Occupy Edmonton, at 12:15 pm.
Asking the tough questions.
Brought to you by the Alberta Teachers’ Union.
Photos courtesy AZiggen, who notes “I suspect most were there for the farmer’s market at city hall.”
Happy Birthday, CWB
“We’ll help you blow out your candles.” Heh.
h/t Larry