dexfarkin

Watching douchebags roam my neighbourhood. I kind of want to kill the hosts because they prance around acting like gourmet chefs. For two hotel chefs and a failed costume designer.

OK, so, I'm currently out of work. This is not entirely a bad thing. For those who have been following this, I've been pretty unhappy at work for the last year or so, and an incident in June pretty much had me looking for another job since that point. In August, I was ready to quit outright, but that option would have hurt me financially. So since then, I've been locked in 'just enough to get by' mode waiting for the hammer to fall. It fell on Wednesday.

The good thing is that patience earned me a respectable severance package, an excellent reference, and full investment and benefits in return for not pursuing the legal action that I very seriously could against the company. So, while unemployment sucks, I got what I wanted out of it. I have savings and investments as well, so I might take a few months to focus on writing before looking for work.

So, in short, out of work and not really unhappy about it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2415889/Boyan-Slat-19-claims-invention-clean-worlds-oceans-just-years.html#ixzz2iYoIx6o8

A 19 year old Dutch student has proposed a brilliant idea of floatin boom and separation platforms to clear plastic from the oceans. Surface pollution is starting to become a massive issue in disrupting the eco-systems of the oceans, and environmental groups have been left without solutions, as a cleanup using conventional ships would create immense emissions and require billions per year to fund. This proposal is self-sustaining and virtually impact free. Just from a look, the engineering looks sound and it is potentially a profit generating solution.

Just wonderful stuff...

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/11/2769631/south-carolina-stand-ground/

You know, it's not going to be long before individual states start getting more stringent travel advisories for tourists who are considering visiting them. Perhaps like the warning on a cigarette package, right across the brochure that says 'Citizens of South Carolina only need to 'feel threatened' to legally shoot you to death. Conduct yourself accordingly.'

While the exchanges are having a tough time on the technology front, I can't tell you how gratifying it is to hear stories from friends who are getting through or at least looking at the options and calculating the savings. There are a couple who are looking at a rate hike, but overwhelmingly I'm hearing about cheaper rates or better coverage for a similar rate.

But what is just killing me right now is the sheer painful joy from friends who have never been able to have insurance. Because of pre-existing conditions, financial burdens or any number of reasons, have never been able to land anything even partially comprehensive. When a 41 year old woman emails you excitedly to say that she's going to finally get the chronic pain in her torso looked at because she can now afford it, it makes you want to fucking cry.

This isn't abstract for me. I can count entirely too many friends and friends of friends who died far too young because their health had to come last in their financial priorities and little issues turned into fatal illness. Maybe this will change a few of those. It's not perfect, it's not optimal, but it's a start to a society being a little less savage.

... but does NJ Gov. Christie look a lot like William Jack Degel from Restaurant Stakeout?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ioc-backs-off-on-russian-anti-gay-law/2013/09/26/38b39266-269c-11e3-9372-92606241ae9c_story.html

Good to know that Jean-Claude Killy hasn't broken his record of whoring for the top dollar. The London Olympics bothered me. The Sochi Olympics disgust me.

But more importantly, and this is the bit the GOP and its media allies simply have not understood — the Cruz strategy would never work in and of itself. It required stronger, braver souls than the GOP currently has to offer. It does, however, throw such a light on these Republicans that it will make it both easier to challenge them in primaries and, more importantly, make it much, much harder for them to cooperate with the Democrats on Obamacare fixes. Win or lose, Cruz and Lee have boxed in both the Democrats and the Republicans into positions that will make it more difficult for them to nuance their way out of.

In short, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have, whether they can muster the support or not in this round, ensured the GOP cannot begin collaborating with the Democrats to fix what the voters want repealed. And you can be sure that they would be working to fix it, despite all their rhetoric otherwise. You can be sure of that because Ted Cruz’s fight has proven just how empty their rhetoric really is. - Erick, Son of Erikson

What I find interesting is that because of the US two-party system and the GOP primary structure, this kind of scorched earth tactic not only is supported by GOP politicians, but is actually essential for them to avoid primaries. Look specifically at the retoric - 'cannot begin collaborating', 'harder for them to cooperate with Democrats', etc. In a way, we're seeing the death of the two party system coming, when one side institutionalizes that under no circumstances can any middle ground be given. This is politics through the viewpoint of a Call of Warfare deathmatch - kill or be killed - no other solution. The GOP is safe in the sense that their win in 2010 allowed them to redistrict on a significant enough scale that the Democrats are looking at needing at least 3-4M more votes to replace them in the House (although that might be coming sooner than later due to the GOP. More later). With the dynamics of the Senate shifting (unlikely the Democratics hold it in 2014), more power is going to fall to the Executive Branch wielding vetoes and passing essential business through executive orders.

The thing is though that not all issues are red meat and life or death. Not all are easily framed with death panels and other false narratives. That being said, by locking in this strategy and reinforcing it in the base, GOP politicians are going to face primaries from deeper and deeper into the crazy that will be effective. There's a point where you can't keep pulling right, even in a gerrymandered district, and expect people to just follow the party designation and ignore what you're saying. If the GOP runs themselves far enough right to generate a wave election for the Democrats, it is almost impossible to see how it continues as a viable party without cleaving off massive areas of support in order to survive.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/richmond-eminent-domain-wall-street-nightmare

Kind of interesting. A northern California city of 105,000 has decided to try and stabilize their existing housing market by forming a partnership to refinance homes with vastly underwater mortagages. the twist is that when all 32 of the financial instituitions holding the mortagages on the 625 houses identified by the city declined to consider any discussions on financial restructuring to a level that represents the true current value, the city put forward a plan to proceed using eminent domain. Under that mechanizism, the city can seize the property and compensate the title holders at their assessed market value. The mortagages would then be refinanced through a third party at that market rate with the home owner.

While it's not a political or legal certainity, as it does stretch the scope of eminent domain a bit (although not by much and there's interesting upheld precident to cite supporting its legality), but one presumes that the main thrust will be a modification of Kelo v. City of New London, where 'The court held that if a legislative body has found that an economic project will create new jobs, increase tax and other city revenues, and revitalize a depressed urban area (even if that area is not blighted), then the project serves a public purpose, which qualifies as a public use.'. By seizing the houses in order to refinance, Richmond can strongly argue that it perserves their tax base, stablizes surrounding property values, and helps revitalize a depressed urban area. Considering that most of the home owners would see reduces up to a third of their existing mortagage payments and taxes through refinancing, it will generate a greater level of financial flexibility. While the city would lose marginally in taxes as the move will temporarily depress property value in the area, the overall perservation of the existing tax base is higher and more stable if the houses were to foreclose normally and (likely) remain empty or be bought remotely as investment properties.

It's a very intriguing concept, and in the face of what can only be described as massive, systemic malfeasance on the part of the real estate financial community, seems like the kind of move that communities are being pushed to consider by the realities of today. Too many communities are being broken by predatory financial practices that have demanded an abstract adherence to law in the face of changing circumstances and the unwillingness to provide any kind of support to the social compact is increasingly requiring solutions that leave them out of it. The move to credit unions, more aggressive actions on the part of local communities to perverse overall stability and high levels of public anger are driving interesting innovations that could be the first marks of a sea-change in financial management to smaller community oriented groups and lower touch but robustly remote digital services.

A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it. - Doc Holliday "Tombstone"

There's been a dustup between John Scalzi's Hugo award for 'Redshirts' and John Ringo's assertation that it represented the urges of the shadowy liberal cabal that controls the voting. Ringo's rant scampers all around the Liberatarian plantation (he asserts at one point that fellow Liberatarians like himself are 'Jacksonian', which presumably means he supports Native genocide and the primacy of Federal powers in the US or he's just enthralled by the big stick and not the history) going crazier and crazier. I wouldn't waste my time on his Facebook rants for anything beyond sick entertainment.

Instead, I direct you to a detailed review of some of the more rapey sides to Ringo's writing, and suggest that Scalzi's feminist advocacy has scored a personal slight against Johnny Ringo's sensibilities - http://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html

In the fairness of full disclosure, I never liked Ringo's writing. It was like Weber if you replaced Weber's strongest technical abilities before he went off the rails a few years ago - secondary characters, atmosphere, deft protrayal of complex battlefields - with a huge honking dose of obnoxious action movie drek and politics. I dimly recall one of his characters raping someone straight and Republican, so that was pretty much that for me.