Archive for May, 2011

Preview of Coming Attractions

8
1 year ago
by Logarchism.com in

As you’ve prob­a­bly read in the com­ments over the past few weeks, we’ve been work­ing on a new home for Log­a­rchism. We’re pleased to report that we’re now at the spit-​​and-​​polish phase, clean­ing up after the con­struc­tion crew.

This seems like a good time to give you an idea of what you can expect in our new digs:

  • A spiffy new style. Visual changes, big and small, all tai­lored to make it eas­ier for you to nav­i­gate, explore, and read.
  • Full WYSIWYG com­ment­ing. No more hand-​​coding HTML. You get but­tons to make it easy to add links, for­mat text, and more. And you won’t have to worry about clean­ing up your tags!
  • Spell check­ing in the com­ment writer. So you can tell before you sub­mit it if you spelled it right.
  • Edit your com­ments. You get 30 min­utes to edit to your heart’s con­tent. After that, the con­crete sets.
  • Com­ment mov­ing. If you post in the wrong place, we can now move it. Also handy if a topic starts in the com­ments before we get an arti­cle up on it.

We plan to move later this week. When we do, there may be a brief inter­rup­tion of ser­vice. Hope­fully, any inter­rup­tion will be really, really brief.

You’ll need to sign up at the new loca­tion to sub­mit com­ments, but the process is pain­less. If you use the same email address you are cur­rently using here, your iden­tity will carry over (icons, snowflakes, etc.).

We’re all very excited about the new site and can’t wait to share it with you.

Praise the Lard

91
1 year ago
by filistro in

The biggest, most dan­ger­ous prob­lem cur­rently fac­ing the United States is not the deficit or the debt. It is lard. No, not the sort that gets slathered into appro­pri­a­tions bills. I’m refer­ring to the kind of lard that is packed onto the butts and bel­lies of more than half of all Amer­i­cans. The United States now has one of the high­est obe­sity rates in the world. Mis­sis­sippi is offi­cially the fat­test state, with more than 70% of its pop­u­la­tion either over­weight or obese. And while it may be lead­ing for now, a lot of other states are gain­ing fast.

(more…)

Memorial Day 2011

4
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Today, May 30 2011, is the day offi­cially set aside as Memo­r­ial Day in the United States.

The roots of Memo­r­ial Day lie in the mostly south­ern tra­di­tion of Dec­o­ra­tion Day, a local obser­vance which occurred on many dif­fer­ent dates dur­ing the three years after the end of the Civil War (War Between the States).

For that rea­son, many towns includ­ing: Colum­bus, Mis­sis­sippi; Macon, Geor­gia; Rich­mond, Vir­ginia; Boals­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia; and Car­bon­dale, Illi­nois all claim to be the “birth­place” of Memo­r­ial Day.

As is their wont, the Fed­erales stepped in and in 1966 Pres­i­dent John­son des­ig­nated Water­loo, New York, the birth­place of Memo­r­ial Day. Appar­ently, they made it a reg­u­lar thing there but one sus­pects there was some ulte­rior polit­i­cal motive involved.

Gen­eral John Logan, Com­man­der of the G.A.R.

Gen­eral John Logan, Com­man­der of the Grand Army of the Repub­lic, orig­i­nally declared Memo­r­ial Day in his Gen­eral Order Num­ber 11 dated May 5 1868 and the first obser­vance was May 30 1868. Being a G.A.R. order didn’t help with com­pli­ance in the for­mer Con­fed­er­ate states, and the South did not gen­er­ally observe Memo­r­ial Day until after World War I made it into a gen­eral obser­vance of the dead from all wars.

Now, many Amer­i­cans merely take the day to mark the offi­cial begin­ning of sum­mer or a time when the white shoes may be removed from stor­age and safely worn or maybe just a day that fol­lows the Indi­anapo­lis 500. Let’s not be like that. Let’s take a moment to remem­ber, and honor, our friends and fam­ily who gave their lives for this country.

Talking Heads May 29

8
1 year ago
by Logarchism.com in

Talk show day is upon us again. This week is a mix of Pres­i­den­tial runs, bud­get nego­ti­a­tions, and Memo­r­ial Day. Accord­ing to Politico, here’s the lineup for this week:

Meet the Press (NBC) — Sen­ate Minor­ity Leader Mitch McConnell (R-​​KY) and Sen­a­tor Chuck Schumer (D-​​NY) will dis­cuss the impact of Medicare on last Tuesday’s spe­cial elec­tion in New York, and how Medicare is also fac­tor­ing into ongo­ing bud­get nego­ti­a­tions. (more…)

A Democrat Foreign Legion?

182
1 year ago
by Bart DePalma in

For the first time in Amer­i­can his­tory, the United States gov­ern­ment is recruit­ing for­eign res­i­dents to become United States cit­i­zens. U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices is spend­ing $3.5 mil­lion for a for­eign lan­guage cam­paign to con­vince up to 7.9 mil­lion green card hold­ers to apply for citizenship.

In an era of $1.6 tril­lion deficits, why are we spend­ing any money at all on this effort? Two data points are reveal­ing: (more…)

Political Drama WIth Cheese

32
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

A com­plex polit­i­cal dance is tak­ing place in the state of Wis­con­sin, involv­ing all three branches of the state gov­ern­ment, with active par­tic­i­pa­tion from the peo­ple of the state. The dance has impor­tant impli­ca­tions for the nation, deal­ing as it does with the kind of peo­ple we are,  with the nature of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing, with the ways the peo­ple inter­act with each other and with the insti­tu­tions of government.

On May 26, Dane County Cir­cuit Judge Maryann Sumi struck down Wisconsin’s union-​​busting bill that had been pushed by Repub­li­cans through the state leg­is­la­ture, and signed into law by first-​​term Gov­er­nor Scott Walker. (more…)

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