July 2009 Archives

It's a guilty pleasure and a slightly shameful admission: I've been following Sarah Palin's Twitter feed. She certainly is a frequent, enthusiastic and, arguably, effective user of the medium.

Alas, much of her tweets consist of defensive stuff like this:

"Criticism is something easily avoided by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing."Aristotle Don't fear it;it means u make a difference

Now, I am not somebody who loves being criticized myself (laughs bitterly); however, I recognize that sometimes when somebody criticizes you, they may have a point. Maybe there's something I can learn from what somebody is telling me. It may not be what I want to hear, but it may be what I need to hear, in order to do better in the future.

That may have been Aristotle's ultimate point (I'm having trouble locating the original quote in context) but that's not Ms. Sarah's. Criticism just means she should keep on doing whatever she's doing. If people are noticing it, that's good. But she doesn't have to listen to her detractors (though she often answers back to them in her tweets and offline), doesn't have to pause in her tracks, doesn't have to reflect on any mistakes she may have made.

Sarah, "u" may be making a difference, but you, we all, should pause and reflect on whether it's a good one or not.

So a lot of people are grumbling that the economic stimulus package isn't working. And maybe it isn't. The economy is still shedding jobs like a cheap carpet, and my state is circling the drain.

What irritates me is that a lot of the grumbling is on the right. Six months into the new administration, and they are unwilling to give Obama the chance they demanded that the country give Bush... for eight years.

Yet why should they be so unhappy? As the above chart from the July 13 issue of Time magazine shows, they got the thing they're always clamoring for... tax cuts! That's right, so far, something like 60% of the stimulus is tax cuts.

I'm sorry, but are tax cuts only acceptable when a Republican president is in power?

As for why they aren't working... well, it doesn't seem to me like they worked that well over the last decade either. (though recent research suggests cuts can be stimulating)

Do we need a second stimulus bill? I don't know, but it looks to me like the first one hasn't even kicked in yet.

Spam o' the day:

Your Online Banking Account needs to be verified to allow you have access to online banking: So we have issued this final warning message to you

This email is sent from our secure server to verify your Online Banking Account as there have been a multipe error logons and Account failure.

Your access to online banking has been suspended temporarily for security reasons by Bank Of America, N.A

Re-Verify your account now and enjoy the benefits of Bank Of America Online Banking on our secured intranet server:

http://yuvaz.com/kichu/ssl/signon.php

All informations entered must be accurate and correct for your online access to be re-activated.

Note: If this message is in Bulk/Spam is because of your Mail Settings, please select the confirmation message and click "Not Spam."

Bank Of America, N.A

Who is yuvaz.com when they're at home, anyway? And I bet I know what they want to do with my informations...