Centerfield

Friday open thread

It don't cost nothing.

Open Thread: A Big Day

The original plan for today was already pretty big. Today's the Profesora's last day of final grading for her classes. The LAST day before summer. And that was just the planned part!

In Plan A, we WERE going to go out to our great neighborhood restaurant, Shogun, when she got home. But she got a surprise call about an hour before she was due to leave.

Two months ago, we'd placed a big order, and today turned out to be the only day for awhile when they could easily deliver such a big order. So, we put off the great Japanese and had pizza instead, to make time to get things ready.

At 8:30ish, they drove up. I saw the flatbed truck outside. Opening the door and going out, I could see all nine bookcases for us, plus another for somebody else nearby.

We got them from a great Austin specialist, The Bookcase Store. I had been a happy customer since buying their product twice, both in '97 and more recently. We decided on them for the big buy after comparing how my bookcase from '97 had held up vs others we had.

They look both nice and sturdy. I hope to get in some followup bookcase - blogging, with pictures, later. We'll have to try again on the celebration tomorrow.

What's cooking with you guys? Any weekend plans?

Myanmar's Generals Better Watch Out

The generals running Myanmar have been making it hard for aid agencies to help their people. They'd be wise to consider that not allowing aid to reach his people is how Somoza, dictator of Nicaragua, came to fall, and be replaced by the Sandinistas. His fall was specifically due to complete diversion of reconstruction money into his hands, and doing no reconstruction atall.

A little googling showed I'm not the only one thinking in this vein.

Today's Primary Cud-Chewing

Hill seems to be narrowly winning Indiana and have taken a hiding in North Carolina.

I was expecting Obama to do worse in Indiana, because of the "bitter" thing. I WAS expecting Obama to do well in NC because of the coalition between blacks and the high-tech guys like me that've widely gone Obama's way.

Looking ahead at the next round, I think PR will be a tossup between the many with good Clinton memories (yes, Bill was VERY popular there) and those sympathizing with Obama because he partly grew up in ex-colonies like PR. The racial politics is very different there than in the Mexican borderlands, so I don't see so much of that driving things.

UPDATE: Hillary won IN by only two, and Obama won NC by 14. He seems to've done fine off not only Wright, but with the ordinary folk I feared were gone from his coalition from the bitter remark.

Remember, One Virtual Life Lost Is Too Many!

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, of course, is against virtual drunk driving.

Remember, kiddo, no fun allowed!

Some Carefully Wrighted Thoughts

As I see it, the helps Obama. because it's giving him an opportunity to show his character to voters. How many people who heard his first speech think he's untested and callow anymore?

The Wright game annoys me, though, in a way, it'a compliment to Obama. Democracies have always had a habit that annoys me, politics by investigation. Instead of doing all that hard thinking and heavy lifting on issues, you hire a bunch of detectives and see what dirt they can dig up. If nothing turns up about him, you look at his buddies - and this step WILL turn things up. Never mind they aren't on the ballot. Simply associating with somebody extreme is clearly proof of...something.

That's a nonpartisan grumble, by the way - I felt the same way when Molly Ivins dug up even more extreme religious connections to Bush II. Call me old-fashioned, but I think what really matters is issues and the candidate's character.

Red Ken 'Out' And Tory Boris Johnson 'In' In London

Tory Boris Johnson is now Mayor of London, nudging out infamous two-term incumbent Labourite Red Ken. Red Ken implemented one of the first one of the first congestion charging systems, a thing that's gone over well.

Since then, he's lost alot of popularity through corruption, and by failing to get public support behind or even adequately warning the London public about the high cost of the London Olympics, changes to congestion charging, and tax hikes. Other annoyances to some voters include bad policing, playing the Islam card, and, did we mention corruption?

Much whingeing at comments are free, of course.

Friday open thread

What's up?

Is McCain Too Bush-Like to Win?

President Bush is really, really, really, really unpopular. Will McCain be able to distance himself effectively?

For me, the answer's no. To me, he's been unable to separate himself from Bush' mistakes on handling Iraq and the overdone security state.

But, my opinion certainly isn't the only one around. Whaddya you guys think?

Recession? No Recession? Whaddya Think?

Donklephant economic post reminded me I wanted to do another econ post on last quarter's news. The sickly but positive growth makes ME think I was wrong about recession.

It could, of course, continue to get worse. But I've got my doubts - as the Fed chief said, the risk revaluation crisis that was really jamming things seems increasingly resolved, and companies in trouble are now finding capital outside the troubled Wall Street investment banks which had such ugly margins.

At the very beginning of the crisis, I was thinking it couldn't be as bad as the bubble burst and 9/11 coincidence, since not so much was involved in subprimes proper compared to the kind of cash the stock markets lost. Then I came to think that it'd be worse, because the gears were jammed on the workings an entire class of investment, debt.

What do YOU think?