Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Starbucks coffee shops in the Washington, DC area are getting tough:
Chief Executive Howard Schultz is urging workers in Starbucks’ roughly 120 Washington-area shops to write “come together” on customers’ cups on Thursday and Friday, as President Barack Obama and lawmakers return to work and attempt to revive fiscal cliff negotiations that collapsed before the Christmas holiday.
Whether members of Congress actually drink in the message is another matter. While the concentration of Starbucks cafes is high in the vicinity of the White House, it’s relatively low near the U.S. Capitol. Members of the House and Senate enjoy private dining facilities and many of their offices have coffee machines.
Starbucks’ cup campaign aims to send a message to sharply divided politicians and serve as a rallying cry for the public in the days leading up to the January 1 deadline to avert harsh across-the-board government spending reductions and tax increases that could send the United States back into recession.
With all due respect to CEO Schultz, this is a boneheaded move on many levels. I can only conclude, most charitably, that the intent is to offer a message to the public and not to Congress. Apart from the “private dining facilities in the capitol” thing, there is the matter of — come together, how, exactly? And then: Don’t we have a problem, in the first place, due to these past successes they’ve enjoyed in coming together? Why would we want more of that?
“Our political system is not functioning in a way that is representative of what the country needs,” [Schultz] said. “This is the one time where politics should be put aside and what we’re witness to is the exact opposite.”
:
“We are facing such dysfunction, irresponsibility and lack of leadership” less than two years after the debt ceiling crisis, Schultz said.
Yes…exactly. Could it not be argued that the central question to all this is one of, are we better off with money being funneled through the government, or kept out of it? And here is all this discontentment with the way Congress handles money, and let’s face facts here, there is nothing new about this at all.
Well, let’s chalk it up as an advertising gimmick. Schultz had ample opportunity to lower himself into the layer of helpful details, and start exploring how these lawmakers should do their coming-together…so did the comment authors under the article. There’s an awful lot of avoidance there, the details being limited to “do their damn jobs” or some such, and I’m assuming this is representative of many of the opinions around the country as a whole. Stop fighting, Congress! Do your jobs! You’re such a disappointment to us and we hate you…now go out there and steal some more money or something.
I can’t help but wonder at the level of cognitive dissonance we’re seeing on display here, of which Schultz is acting either as slick salesman or visible manifestation. How many of my fellow countrymen are so thoroughly disgusted with the way the public sector handles financial debacles like this, and yet see nothing virtuous in any effort to reduce their involvement and influence in our own financial affairs. How many want coffee in their “come together” cups…but, for some reason, have no interest in tea.
Yeah. Got a feeling that Congress is indeed failing to give us what we want or need…but might be succeeding in giving us what we deserve.
Update: Where I find this to be either conceived by, or prepared for the notice of, morons — and my interest of figuring out which of those it is, is at low tide and receding still further — Mickey Kaus thinks it’s creepy (hat tip to Instapundit).
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I REALLY liked Kaus’es parenthetical aside: “(Schultz could order baristas to write “F–k Krugman” on their cups–now that might have some impact.)”
Yup.
- bpenni | 12/27/2012 @ 12:28If you were a geologist, you’d have to spew a little bit o’nonsense to make me think “That’s a load of nonsense”…but a WHOLE LOT MORE nonsense to make me think “Uh, should geology even be a legitimate science?”
Krugman manages to spew that larger amount, about economics, with each & every column.
- mkfreeberg | 12/27/2012 @ 13:09Prepared by morons/prepared for morons/creepy and cultish aren’t mutually exclusive.
- Rich Fader | 12/27/2012 @ 13:31Had someone written “Come together” on my cuppa, I would probably just add “Right now, over me” underneath. Seems equally effective.
Or maybe they were writing “GOP cave,” since that’s kinda sorta what happened?
- nightfly | 01/02/2013 @ 08:15