Fellow Metblogger Paul from Bangkok has been volunteering in the cleanup efforts in Phuket, Thailand since New Year’s Eve. His accounts are fairly graphic, but they put a little more humanity into what’s going on over there than the 3 minute soundbite on the news. The scope of the disaster is still mind-boggling even after reading such a personal account.
A few highlights of my morning news read and e-mail inbox check.
Hmmm…
I don’t what I’m saying. I’m just saying it seems like there’s an awful lot of bad weather in the last 6 months. Is there some sort of larger pattern going on here? Global warming? End of the world? Water hates us? What gives?
This story is getting a lot of play in the blogosphere today. Very surreal. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to live in that society. I still need to see Team America.
If I’m not mistaken that’s some Trudy’s chips and salsa that our own Bruce Sterling was craving after being away for most of the last few months.
I know I get a craving for the stuff after a couple of weeks away from Austin. I like Trudy’s green salsa. I’m also partial to the green stuff at Guero’s and the borracho sauce at Curra’s. I find the jalapeno ranch and hatch chile sauce at Chuy’s irresistable as well, but I don’t particularly like their salsa.
What are some other local favorite salsas/sauces? What about the chips? I’m sure everyone has an opinion, so have at it.
I know Celine Dion is evil, but I didn’t know that she eats babies! The horror.
Prentiss is hosting Vilse of Weaseltrek this week.
This is the first that I’ve heard of this, but it’s pretty damn funny. I have to admit that I tend to enjoy saying “weasel” myself from time to time. It’s typically used in this context: “Some sales weasel just cold called me in an attempt to sell me some sort of software that I don’t need. I hung up on him.”
Scott Heim, an amazing author and friend, is gearing up for a big year in 2005. The film version of Mysterious Skin, his first novel published almost 10 years ago, is having a good run through the festival circuit after appearing at the Toronto Film Fest and the London Film Fest. It’s getting screenings at Sundance this month as well and has been picked up for U.S. distribution later this year. Scott’s been working on his third novel for quite some time and has this offering on Nerve today.
I’m still trying to research this whole Social Security thing, but everything so far leads me to believe that it’s bunk. Is this really the most pressing issue right now? During my investigations, I’ve become at least marginally knowledgeable about a system I’ve been paying into for almost 20 years. For instance, I didn’t realize that you don’t pay on wages over $85k. I’ve seen a lot of claims that there isn’t really a crisis. The taxes for Social Security were raised in the early 80’s which created a huge trust fund to deal with the impending glut of aging Baby Boomers. The problem isn’t that we didn’t plan, it’s that we’ve run huge deficits because of the war in Iraq and the tax cuts and we’re trying to borrow against Social Security to fund those deficits. I’m all for controlling my own money, but I’m skeptical that I’ll get very many choices or any at all. I’m also skeptical that a system that was set up as a safety net for everyone should become speculative with the potential for losing that safety net for some.
There’s two editorials in the NY Times today. One from Krugman and another general editoral that explain the position against the Bush administration’s plans. Krugman has several other articles over the past year pointing to other countries who’ve tried similar plans to privatizing social security with mixed results and calling out that will have to be paid from the fund for broker/administrative fees if we start using mutual funds or the like. Josh Marshall also had a good post this week. Finally, there’s this cartoon from This Modern World.
Click it and move on:
I was going to stop with two quick links, but something funny happened whilst I was doing so. I was trying to find something on Shrub’s campaign site about the “defense of marriage” or “moral values”, but his campaign site now redirects to the GOP site. Searching through that site, I can’t seem to find a damn thing about it. Hmmmm…could it be that he raised the issue to motivate a particular part of his base and then dropped it upon re-election so as not to alienate another larger portion of the population? If it was so important, why don’t I find it on The Agenda?