I'll Do the Driving

Blame China...and Big Agriculture

John Judis has an interesting article discussing some of the real reasons behind the precipitous loss of American manufacturing jobs.  Hint: the problem isn't NAFTA per se.

HT: David Weigel

Friday Random Ten

1. Big Star - "Stroke It Noel"
2. Marvin Gaye - "Let's Get It On"
3. The New Pornographers - "The Slow Descent into Alcoholism"
4. The Pixies - "Break My Body"
5. Jane's Addiction - "Idiot's Rule"
6. Wilco - "I Must Be High"
7. A.C. Newman - "On the Table"
8. Big Star - "Blue Moon"
9. Fountains of Wayne - "Peace and Love"
10. The Verve - "The Drugs Don't Work

Hobbits for Hillary

I find this oddly amusing for some reason:

The Clinton campaign had flown in Sean Astin to shill for Hill. He's most famous for playing Sam, Frodo's erstwhile friend, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

When a major campaign finds it worthwhile to send the narrator from Meerkat Manor to a random county convention in Iowa, its just another sign how badly screwed up the presidential nominating process is.

FSM Bless Alabama

If it didn't exist, we would have to make it up:

"What's the matter with the beer we got? I mean, the beer we got drink pretty good, don't it? I ain't never heard nobody complain about the, uh, beer we have. It drink pretty good, don't it? Budweiser. What's the names of some of them other beers?..."

(This in the context of a debate about whether or not to raise the maximum allowable alcohol content in beer.)  Yes, this guy managed to get elected to the state legislature, and, sadly, he's a Democrat.  Howard, revoke this guy's party membership now!

False Advertising

Pyfdate:

Pyfdate doesn't attempt to be all things to all people: rather, its goal is to make it easy to do 95% if the things that people want to do with dates and times.

What kinds of things does pyfdate not do?
...

• Pyfdate doesn't know anything about timezones
• Pyfdate doesn't know anything about daylight savings time

Let me get this straight.  You want to make it easy to do 95% of time-related programming tasks, but you have no intention of supporting time zones, even though the single most annoying thing about Python's time support is its lack of concrete time zone classes?

Selection Sunday Predictions

Well, let's see how wrong these can be:

#1 North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis, Kansas
#2 Texas, Tennessee, Georgetown, Duke
#3 Wisconsin, Xavier, Stanford, Pittsburgh
#4 Vanderbilt, Clemson, Drake, Louisville
#5 Butler, Washington State, Michigan State, Connecticut
#6 Indiana, Arkansas, Notre Dame, Oklahoma
#7 Marqutte, UNLV, USC, Miami
#8 West Virginia, Gonzaga, Mississippi State, BYU
#9 Kent State, Purdue, St. Mary's, Texas A&M
#10 Temple, Kentucky, St. Joseph's, Baylor
#11 Kansas State, South Alabama, Oregon, Arizona
#12 Villanova, Georgia, Western Kentucky, Davidson
#13 San Diego, Boise State, George Mason, Oral Roberts
#14 Siena, Cornell, Winthrop, Cal State Fullerton
#15 Belmont, Austin Peay, Portland State, Maryland-Baltimore County
#16 American, Texas-Arlington, Mount St. Mary's, Coppin State/Mississippi Valley State

Last Five Out: Arizona State, Virginia Tech, Illinois State, Ohio State, Mississippi

Why Your Flash Website Sucks

What this guy said.

Memo to Matthew Yglesias

New York-style pizza sucks ass.

That said, traditional Chicago-style deep dish is generally overrated.  The stuffed pizzas from Giordano's are money, though.

Pro-Free Market Only When Convienent

A new advocacy group closely tied to Monsanto has started a counteroffensive to stop the proliferation of milk that comes from cows that aren’t treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone.
...
Afact has come together as a growing number of consumers are choosing milk that comes from cows that are not treated with the artificial growth hormone.
...
The marketplace has responded, and now everyone from Whole Foods Market to Wal-Mart Stores sells milk that is labeled as coming from cows not treated with the hormone.
...
So Afact has embarked on a counteroffensive that includes meeting with retailers and pushing efforts by state legislators and state agriculture commissioners to pass laws to ban or restrict labels that indicate milk comes from untreated cows.

Yeah, God-forbid consumers might actually do the rational actor thing and decide they prefer milk without additives, or worse, other upstart companies might see profit opportunities in satisfying such demand.

Link

Friday Random Ten X

1. Dwight Yoakam - "I Got You"
2. The Volebeats - "Don't I Wish"
3. Whiskeytown - "Crazy About You"
4. Cat Power - "Lord Help the Poor & Needy"
5. Depeche Mode - "Barrel of a Gun"
6. The Shins - "Girl Sailor"
7. Depeche Mode - "I Feel Loved"
8. The Pet Shop Boys - "Love Comes Quickly"
9. R.E.M. - "Let Me In"
10. Big Star - "Morpha Too"