A field study released Monday by the University of North Carolina School of Public Health suggests that Iraqi citizens experience sadness and a sense of loss when relatives, spouses, and even friends perish, emotions that have until recently been identified almost exclusively with Westerners.
Admit it. You thought that was a legit study, didn’t you? Nah.
Following up on California’s status as an economic disaster-hole, it begs the question of “why do state budgets matter?” Frankly, the long and short of it is if your state is broke, then by law they’re required to not be broke. The result is higher taxes and cuts. Because most governments are incapable of thinking rationally, they usually start cutting education, police, healthcare, etc. You know, the things people use and actually hired the government to deal with.
When they raise taxes, that lowers demand for services as people have less money, businesses have less funds for payroll and supplies and they cut wages and staff and, voila, you have a deeper recession. Not to mention that states cut contracts with outside vendors, thereby deepening matters more.
Again, I’m going to re-iterate that this governing things isn’t necessarily hard. Mitch Daniels saved money by buying floor mats for heaven’s sake:
[Daniels ended] bottled water for employees of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (annual savings, $35,000). Ending notification of drivers that their licenses are expiring; letting them be responsible for noticing (saving $200,000). Buying rather than renting floor mats for BMV offices (saving $267,000 this year). Initiating the sale of 2,096 surplus state vehicles (so far, $1.95 million in revenue from 1,514 sales). Changing the state lottery’s newsletter from semimonthly and in color to a monthly and black-and-white (annual savings, $21,670).
Note, this was in 2005 after 1 year in office. I’d also mention that I’d go as far as to eliminate newsletters, period. Who reads newsletters!? Get a website!
And, the BMV now reminds people about expiration notices electronically, for practically nothing, via email for Hoosiers enrolled in MyBMV.
States have money to burn and money that can be saved and refunded to taxpayers. They just need to step up and deal with it. Don’t tell me the Feds don’t have a few newsletters that can be chucked.
California’s debt is seen by investors as riskier than Kazakhstan’s, according to Bloomberg News. Five-year credit default swaps tied to California’s debt, which are a key measure of the market’s belief in the likelihood of default, are actually trading at 100 basis points above those of Kazakhstan. In other words, the market believes a developing country of just 15.7 million people is actually less likely to default on its debt than California, which makes up the eighth-largest economy in the world.
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And last week, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, the nation’s second largest bank, warned that California’s $20 billion budget gap could pose a bigger risk than the Greek debt crisis.
During the fat years of the mid-2000s, while most governors went on spending sprees, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was trimming Indiana’s payroll, slowing the state government’s growth, and turning a $800 million deficit into a consistent surplus. Now that times are hard, his fiscal rigor is paying off: the state’s projected budget shortfall for 2011, as a percentage of the budget, is the third-lowest in the country.
I recently received a letter in the mail from Comcast, now known as Xfucutity, or something like that. The letter went something like this:
“Dear Comcast Customer, our records indicate that you do not currently have a digital cable TV box in your home. We are informing you that after March 16, we will be discontinuing our service of our basic digital cable package and homes will now be required to use a digital cable TV box.”
This makes me mad because I hate boxes and remotes. I loathe the fact that they actually call their piece of shit box “a cable TV box”. Seriously?
Because I’m a sentient human being with a desire to eat and live in shelter, I decided nearly 5 years ago that I would not be fleeced by Insight, (now Comcast) in Noblesville because I thought, “what if I move?” Sure enough, I moved. I moved to Fishers, where I still had Insight, but I thought, “what if I move?” Sure enough, I moved. All the while, thinking it silly to pay money for a box I’m likely not going to need for long. So, years ago I went to BestBuy and bought a $400 cable tuner and DVR combo – sorta like a Tivo, but with no subscription fees because I hate monthly fees. With a passion.
I figured that Comcast would charge me $156 a year to “rent” their digital TV box. After 2.5 years, I’d be saving money. Sure enough, I’ve saved $390 over the last 2.5 years because I don’t rent a “box”.
Now, Comcast is forcing me to rent the box. Or, they’ll give me one for free if I want to take their basic local channel package with the locals instead of the basic package I have now which has the standard cable lineup.
But, I don’t want the extra boxes because I don’t want more things to plug in, more things to look at and more remotes laying around. I want 1 remote called “the TV remote”. To watch TV Land should not require the startup of cathode rays, descramblers, LCDs, infrared and radiators. I want to watch Andy Griffith in my living room, not on the Starship Enterprise. Plus, Andy Griffith is 40 freaking years old. People used to watch it with a metal stick in the ground and a screen with two knobs. Somehow, we’ve lost our way.
Do not be surprised if I drop them entirely and stick with just the Internet, which I can still plug into the wall like God intended. And, Andy Griffith streams beautifully from a multitude of sites.
I’m just blown away this evening. First, this guy:
A 72-year old man spent so much time on hold with a state unemployment agency trying to claim his benefits that he racked up a $700 cell phone bill, reports Jeremy Joyola of Eyewitness News 4 in Albuquerque.
OK, first of all we’re not getting the whole story because he probably called a thousand times listening to the recording over and over and over again at 12 noon on a Monday. I know people that do that because they’re evidently incapable of following directions or are afraid to “press 1 for English”. Plus, who makes a phone call on a cell phone and says, “Well, I guess I’d better keep using this.” Do we not know what a “minute” plan equates to?
[A]s many as one and a half million people living in rural areas might not be able to get broadcast television channels as part of their satellite television service because the impasse has blocked the extension of the law allowing satellite companies to carry those signals.
Solution: read a frackin’ book. Then you’ll learn that you shouldn’t stick with a satellite TV carrier that is, evidently, incapable of giving you local service so you can know when the weatherman is wrong. That, or don’t expect to get much of any service when you live in the middle of the inside of a mountain.
When I lived in Salem we never expected cable TV, water and sewage lines or hell, phone service that worked – cellular or wired. Why? Because we lived in the middle of nowhere. If you want to be somebody with something, go live somewhere. That’s what I did and now I get to blog more.
A Florida woman said her love handles saved her life when she was shot entering an Atlantic City bar. Samantha Lynn Frazier said she heard two pops when she walked into Herman’s Place early Saturday. The 35-year-old then felt pain and saw blood on her hand after she grabbed her left side. Atlantic City police said Frazier was an innocent bystander.
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Frazier also told the newspaper that she had been “hollering” that she wanted to lose weight. She now said “I want to be as big as I can if it’s going to stop a bullet.”
Think about that the next time you see a fat cop. Suddenly, we’ve built some real RoboCops out there.
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