snowwhitegunGwen Ifill lamented on Twitter that politicians used to respond to tragedies with thoughts and prayers. Of course, we know what happened to that.

Vox says that shutting down Muslim immigration won’t solve Europe’s security problems. I’m inclined to agree, but let’s be honest: Would Vox ever run a piece that came to the opposite conclusion?

New Zealand won’t be changing its flag after all. Previously discussed here.

Cool! Obama’s new education secretary has a charter school background.

How Mitt Romney came to the rescue in Utah! It wasn’t really just Mitt, though he certainly helped.

I really, really, really hope this doesn’t factor heavily into Hillary Clinton’s game plan. I mean, sure, go ahead and make the argument, but I just hope they’re not depending on it. I’m still reeling over her arguing that one of her main attacks against Trump is going to be “America’s standing in the world.” {shudder}

I’ve been predicting, for a little while now, that the GOP’s stranglehold on the House may be in jeopardy. It turns out maybe not in the most optimistic (for them) scenarios, because Democrats are idiots.

I have mixed feelings about limiting the ability of homeowners to rent their house out for short periods, AirBnB style, but I am otherwise pretty sympathetic to the army contractor dude and being able to rent out to students, and pretty hostile to hard caps.

Are our wind energy tax credits coming to an end?

Toronto to Vancouver in three hours sounds kind of cool.

Culture clash in Pocatello, Idaho. How a university’s need for foreign students (and their money) generated community conflict.

The Challenger engineer who tried to sound the alarm has died.

A ruling in New Mexico may mean that they can’t get doctors in Texas.

How The Sims promotes conservative family values.

We think of flying as having been normalized in the west, but it’s still the province of the elite. I remember back before airline deregulation and before Dad got a few raises and we drove halfway across the country to visit family. It’s weird to consider that people still do that.

At Cracked, Michael Hossey gives seven weird and dispiriting ways that companies screw their workers.


Category: Newsroom

About the Author


22 Responses to Linkluster Severus and Leo

  1. greginak says:

    The UK isn’t the best example to use for stating that flying in the province of the elite. They have a very good train system and a long history of using trains. Here in AK flying is super common but of course we are outliers also. I’d bet the percentage of peeps who fly each year is a bit higher in the US although it would vary widely depending on where people live.

    • trumwill says:

      Oh, sure, the UK is not a great example so let’s talk about Alaska as the correct sample.

      🙂

      More seriously, a brief scan of the US turns up nothing. I’d expect the numbers to actually be lower for once-in-the-past-year fliers* and higher for the 2-3 times a year fliers.

      * – Reason being, you can drive to a lot more places in the US than the UK, which is an island. Could be wrong.

      • greginak says:

        Hey now i said we are outliers. No alaskan would ever stand for anything that suggested we were normal, even if it made sense.

        I would think places like florida would have more fliers since many people who live there aren’t from there so they have family other places.

  2. fillyjonk says:

    I will say, as a homeowner who had the house next door to me be a short-term rental to a large group of unrelated 20-somethings for one summer: It can be miserable for the neighbors. The kids who rented the house partied loudly into the night (I had to be at work at 8 in the morning, and yes, I called in multiple noise complaints, but that does NOTHING other than get you the reputation as a complainer). They threw trash around the neighborhood. They tried to blow up my mailbox with firecrackers. They put their “overflow” trash in other people’s rollcarts. And they caused a large rodent problem, which was what ultimately got them evicted.

    And yes, most of the young-adult renters aren’t bad, but I can understand why homeowners in established neighborhoods have distinctly NIMBY feelings about them. Every time one of the houses around me goes up for sale I pray it doesn’t get sold to one of the local slumlords….

    • trumwill says:

      I understand the irritation, and I understand why they set up these regs, but they’re bad for the whole.

      • fillyjonk says:

        but there’s also no recourse for neighbors stuck next to a problem house. I realized that summer that even if I wanted to sell my house (if those idiots continued to live next door), I probably wouldn’t have been able to, not for anything like a price that would have allowed me to get other housing.

        It was an extremely helpless feeling, topped with not-sleeping because of noise.

        One other neighbor talked about taking the owner of the house (who rented it out) to court, but I don’t think there would have been any grounds for that.

  3. aaron david says:

    I have a friend who bought a house in a very expensive city, who is only home 1 out of 3 months at a time (captain in merchant marine) His plans changed as he got married, but he initially bought it because of the posibility of AirBNB allowing him, not really for the money, to make sure his house got looked after to a degree when he was out at sea. Of course, that city hates the very idea of AirBNB, so good thing it worked out in the end.

    Also, as a kid when my dad was working on tenure, he was going to give a paper in Boston, on the other side of the country. He would have flown, but my mom made us drive across, visiting every tiny road side attraction on the way. Six weeks in the back seat of a ’66 mustang, by the end my brother and I had both attempted murder and suicide… Flying is so much better.

  4. Michael Cain says:

    Sounds like Idaho has the same problem that many states are likely to have in the coming years — they have more public higher ed capacity than they are willing to pay for.

    • trumwill says:

      Idaho State is kind of the odd man out. Boise State has that football program, and is located in Boise. The University of Idaho is the state’s flagship and landgrant school. Even Lewis-Clark State has the “small liberal arts school” thing going for it. Idaho State is basically the directional school for Eastern Idaho, and a lot of kids who want to stay near-ish to home will just choose to go to Utah State instead, or just go out to Boise.

      • Peter says:

        Interesting. I would have figured, from the naming convention, that Idaho State was the land grant.

        • trumwill says:

          Yeah, usually State State University is either the land grant or the HBCU. The popularity of the convention, though, meant that schools that were in search of a name would land on it. Texas State and Missouri State used to be Southwest(ern) directionals. ISU was previously University of Idaho – Southern Branch

        • Peter says:

          As far as I can tell, Indiana, Missouri and Texas are similar to Idaho, as in each case [name] State University is a directional. Of course Missouri and Texas are fairly recent name changes.

    • fillyjonk says:

      Sadly, I think most states currently have more public higher ed capacity than they are either willing to or capable of paying for.

      I…..may be on the job market soon. At nearly 50. FML.

      • Michael Cain says:

        I sympathize, deeply. I was on the wrong side of a corporate acquisition right at my 49th birthday and was told my services were no longer required (new HQ was in Philadelphia not Denver, and the CTO already had someone doing the “special projects” generalist things that I did).

        The “pink slip” package was a very thick 9×12″ envelope that included the raw data and statistical work to demonstrate that the lay-offs didn’t unduly affect the protected group — older workers — that I was part of. Also a nice severance package that required me to agree that I wouldn’t benefit financially from any class actions taken by older workers.

        A combination of good luck and good planning left me able to reinvent myself until I was old enough to actually retire.

  5. ScarletNumber says:

    Over There: TrumWill gets called an asshole by a tranny and apologizes. Watch TrumWill backpedal.

    • ScarletNumber says:

      Art Deco and notme are the voices of reason.

      [Reposted because of bad coding and misthreading]

    • trumwill says:

      It’s really quite simple: I posted a link that I shouldn’t have. It was brought to my attention. Not even by Veronica, as I missed her comment, but by a follow-up commenter.

      • ScarletNumber says:

        It is worth pointing out that 16 minutes before this comment, you stated exactly the opposite Over There.

        Also, when Art Deco refers to Veronica as an “emotionally disordered individual” he is being nice. For you to chastise him shows gross obtuseness on your part. Art Deco is a breath of fresh air Over There, even though I disagree with his Supreme Court thoughts 100 percent.

        • trumwill says:

          I realized after I wrote that it wasn’t technically accurate. What happened was I noticed Maribou’s comment and then went up the thread and read Veronica’s.

  6. Kirk says:

    Flying and skiing are both provinces of the elite.

Leave a Reply to Michael Cain Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

If you are interested in subscribing to new post notifications,
please enter your email address on this page.