Anonymous wrote:

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Psych Lit wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Shack has officially announced it's closing down. I wanted them to go under for their homophobia and discrimination, not this. I guess we need to start calling ahead now before heading out to any store. We need to seriously reconsider online shopping as well. That would be a nightmare of a trail to follow. There's a new meaning now to "what time are you open 'till?". The clerks don't likely know.

Psychlit:

i was looking at the list of retail stores that are closing or at risk of closing and im thinking that many of them really are out of step with whats desired. radio shack is a good example of that. ive never gone into one of those and come out with a purchase. same with sears and kmart. even the gap..its become a real snore store with not a lot of items that differentiate  from other things being sold elsewhere. there is too much homogenization of products and nothing special about them.

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I went to Circuit City, WalMart, Target and Office Depot all yesterday. I was specifically looking for a docking station with cradle, remote, am/fm, that would charge and play the new and any other mp3 player. Radio Shack was where my queer cash went after all. I just couldn't beat the quality of the product and the deal I got. CC was a joke, neither OD or Target had the combination of variety, quality and value in what I wanted. I was surprised to find RS did. Add that to the unadvertised 50% off and I was very pleased. It's just another sign of fear and panic. If it doesn't stop we are in one fustercluck. On a lighter note, a little progressive thinking and we could turn some of these vacant strip malls and super stores into cement cities and hide our homeless and unemployed from the media and the world. It'll all look good. You'll see. 

Is he really wearing a "top hat" tomorrow?  A one hundred and fifty million dollar inauguration and there are people concerned about his freaking middle name?

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Did you hear that "some are saying" Barack Obama's inauguration will cost "$160 million," which is $100 million more than George W. Bush's last swearing-in? That's the tale the crew at Fox & Friends was telling on January 15. "Why does the thing have to cost so much?" demanded co-host Gretchen Carlson. "I don't get it. George Bush spent $42.3 million and that was just four years ago." She wondered why Obama needed "another $100 million" for his celebration.

The Fox News crew wasn't alone. The Internet and cable news were filled with chatter about the jaw-dropping (and unsubstantiated) number suddenly attached to Obama's swearing-in. But the sloppy reporting and online gossip about the price tag illustrated what happens when journalists don't do their job and online partisans take advantage of that kind of work.

It also highlighted the type of news you can generate when making blatantly false comparisons. In this case, it was the cost of the Obama and Bush inaugurations. The connection was unfair because the Obama figure of $160 million that got repeated in the press included security costs associated with the massive event. But the Bush tab of $42 million left out those enormous costs. Talk about stacking the deck.

The misinformation first arrived in the form of an underreported newspaper article in America, and then one in London. Between them, and thanks to furious transatlantic online linking, the reports gave birth to the story that Obama's inauguration was going to cost nearly four times what the country spent on Bush's bash in 2005 -- that the Obama inauguration would cost almost $120 million more.

With its declarative headline, "Obama's inauguration is most expensive ever at $160 million," the New York Daily News reported:

It will take Barack Obama less than a minute to recite the oath of office -- and when he's done dancing at the inaugural balls Jan. 20, the price tag for his swearing-in festivities could approach $160 million.

Obama's inaugural committee is in the midst of raising roughly $45 million in private funds, exceeding the $42.3 million President Bush spent in 2005. In 1993, Clinton spent $33 million when Democrats returned to the White House for the first time in 12 years.

Talk about red flags: "could approach"? See the extraordinary freedom that kind of loose language allows? Of course, technically speaking, it's true the inauguration spending "could approach" $160 million. It also "could approach" $400 million or $900 million. There's literally no limit to the number that could be inserted into the phrasing, especially when the Daily News provided so little basis for the jumbo figure.

The closest the Daily News came to explaining the $160 million was its noting that the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland had submitted a $75 million request to the federal government to cover inauguration costs, including security and transportation. Bottom line: The Daily News provided no facts -- no evidence -- to support its what-if $160 million price tag for the inauguration, a price tag the newspaper declared as fact in its attention-grabbing headline.

The next day, a January 14 article in the London tabloid, the Daily Mail, also used an inflated figure, but offered zero reporting to back it up. (The Daily Mail piece created a big stir when the Drudge Report linked to it.)

The Daily Mail lead: "Barack Obama's inauguration is set to cost more than £100m [$155 million] making it the most expensive swearing-in ceremony in US history."

The story continued:

The President-elect will take less than a minute to recite the oath of office in front of an estimated two million people in the US capital next week.

But by the time the final dance has been held at one of the many inaugural balls the costs for the day will be a staggering £110m [roughly $162 million].

The cost was revealed as Mr Obama scrambled to answer questions about the nomination of Treasury Secretary pick Timothy Geithner.

"Was revealed"? Who revealed the $162 million figure? The Daily Mail never said. And much like the Daily News, the figures mentioned in the Daily Mail simply did not add up to the final cost the newspaper hyped.

Unfortunately, that didn't matter. At least not to conservative partisans who grabbed onto the Daily Mail story (via Drudge) and announced a blatant hypocrisy existed within the press because, they claimed, four years earlier, reporters and liberal pundits raised questions about the cost of Bush's inauguration, but suddenly were mum about Obama's, even though at $160 million, it was going to cost nearly four times as much as Bush's bash. (Actually, it wasn't just liberals or the press raising questions about the Bush inauguration; a strong majority of Americans wished Bush, during a time of war, had scaled back the glitz for his second swearing-in.)

Online, the inauguration condemnations were swift and fierce. The cost of "Obama's upcoming celebration" was "dwarfing" any previous swearing-in expenses and was climbing into "the $100 millions," claimed right-wing weblog The Jawa Report, which relied on the Daily Mail for its misinformation.

The unsubstantiated $160 million figure was also picked up and repeated on MSNBC, where news anchors spent all of January 14 announcing Obama's inauguration was going to cost "$160 million." The eye-popping dollar figure was accepted as fact, even though nobody in the press could actually explain where that number had come from. Plus, MSNBC suggested the $160 million tab just covered parties and activities, not the larger security costs.

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Here's why using the $160 million number and comparing it with Bush's 2005 costs represented a classic apples-and-oranges assessment: For years, the press routinely referred to the cost of presidential inaugurations by calculating how much money was spent on the swearing-in and the social activities surrounding that. The cost of the inauguration's security was virtually never factored into the final tab, as reported by the press. For instance, here's The Washington Post from January 20, 2005, addressing the Bush bash:

The $40 million does not include the cost of a web of security, including everything from 7,000 troops to volunteer police officers from far away, to some of the most sophisticated detection and protection equipment.

For decades, that represented the norm in terms of calculating inauguration costs: Federal dollars spent on security were not part of the commonly referred-to cost. (The cost of Obama's inauguration, minus the security costs? Approximately $45 million.) What's happening this year: The cost of the Obama inauguration and the cost of the security are being combined by some in order to come up with the much larger tab. Then, that number is being compared with the cost of the Bush inauguration in 2005, minus the money spent on security.

In other words, it's the unsubstantiated Obama cost of $160 million (inauguration + security) compared with the Bush cost of 42 million (inauguration, excluding security). Those are two completely different calculations being compared side-by-side, by Fox & Friends, among others, to support the phony claim that Obama's inauguration is $100 million more expensive than Bush's.

That's why the right-wing site Newsmax.com confidently reported that Obama's swearing-in would cost "nearly four times what George Bush's inauguration cost four years ago." So did Flopping Aces, a shining light of the right-wing blogosphere:

President Barack Obama's inauguration next week is set to be the most expensive ever, predicted to reach over $150m. This dwarfs the $42.3m spent on George Bush's inauguration in 2005 and the $33m spent on Bill Clinton's in 1993.

If portions of the press and the blogosphere want to now suggest that the cost of security should also be factored into the final tab for presidential inaugurations, they need to go back and recalculate the cost for Bush's 2005 swearing-in in order to have an honest comparison. Because with security included, the 2005 inauguration cost a lot more than $42 million -- just as with security factored in, Obama's will also cost a lot more than $45 million. (The final tab, though, likely won't be known for months.)

The question for the press then becomes: How much did the government spend on security for Bush's 2005 inauguration? How much did it cost for the wartime administration's unprecedented move to turn the nation's capital into something akin to an armed fortress, with snipers on rooftops, planes flying overhead, Humvee-mounted anti-aircraft missiles dotting the city, and manholes cemented shut?

Back in January 2005, that figure was impossible to come by. "U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said last week that he was unable to estimate security costs for the inauguration," The Washington Times reported. The cross-town Washington Post also had no luck in 2005 finding out the cost of security: "[Government] spokesmen said they could not provide an estimate of what the inauguration will cost the federal government."

However, buried in a recent New York Times article published one week before the controversy erupted over the cost of Obama's inauguration, the newspaper reported that in 2005, "the federal government and the District of Columbia spent a combined $115.5 million, most of it for security, the swearing-in ceremony, cleanup and for a holiday for federal workers" [emphasis added].

You read that correctly. The federal government spent $115 million dollars for the 2005 inauguration. Keep in mind, that $115 million price tag was separate from the money Bush backers bundled to put on the inauguration festivities. For that, they raised $42 million. So the bottom line for Bush's 2005 inauguration, including the cost of security? That's right, $157 million.

Unless the Obama inauguration tab (including security) ends up costing $630 million, we can safely say it certainly won't cost four times what the Bush bash did in 2005. And unless the Obama inauguration tab (including security) runs to $257 million, we can safely say the event won't cost $100 million more than Bush's, as Fox & Friends claimed.

So, for now, can the press and partisans please stop peddling this malignant myth?

Anonymous wrote:

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Shack has officially announced it's closing down. I wanted them to go under for their homophobia and discrimination, not this. I guess we need to start calling ahead now before heading out to any store. We need to seriously reconsider online shopping as well. That would be a nightmare of a trail to follow. There's a new meaning now to "what time are you open 'till?". The clerks don't likely know.

i was looking at the list of retail stores that are closing or at risk of closing and im thinking that many of them really are out of step with whats desired. radio shack is a good example of that. ive never gone into one of those and come out with a purchase. same with sears and kmart. even the gap..its become a real snore store with not a lot of items that differentiate  from other things being sold elsewhere. there is too much homogenization of products and nothing special about them.

 

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MyCat8it wrote:

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Of course, they can offer private insurance, too. The UK has private insurance plans that if you're well-to-do, you can pay for and get priority medical service when you want it. The National Plan should be for the uninsured and the underinsured. We want to keep people safe and healthy - period.

we have mandatory health ins here in ma. when it first happened i was confused about it because there wasnt much literature on it and i work in ct so they didnt know much either. if you dont have ins you can get it and the price you pay is capped at a reasonable level and based on presumed ability to pay. if you do have it thru work you dont have to do anything. far as i know its working. ct recently tried to emulate that program allowing people to buy into an ins program but they seem to have set the reimbursements too low so there are almost no doctors participating nor hospitals from what i hear. they also have community health centers tho and the co pay is 30 dollars a visit. for some people tho 30 dollars might as well be 3000.

Best Buy is coming close to being the only one left.

I shudder at the thought of Wal-Mart being the only option. Sure, they have the best prices NOW. What will happen when their competition disappears? Will Anti-Trust laws protect us? Will we still have anti-trust laws if there's only one store to shop at?

thats a good question. i wonder about this too. the same thing sorta happened with the airline industry when it was deregulated and the fear was that eventually there would only be one airline but there have been many new startups that have helped keep the costs down. but most of those that have started have failed and i expect that would happen in retail also. then too when as walmart gobbles it will eventually have to deal with higher wages unless of course it figgers a way to get rid of people before they can make more than minimum wage. but if their wages do rise overall they will become vulnerable to startup with even lower wages. imagine that scenario. maybe well all be making 3rd world wages in afew years.

I'm picturing a world full of empty strip malls and huge Super WalMarts down the road. I was never a big Circuit City shopper. I think I bought a television there once about 12 years ago (still have it, actually). I guess it will be just another one of those, "hey, do you remember a store called Circuit City?" stores like Montgomery Ward, Bradlees, Strawbridge & Clothier, Gimbels, etc.

and those are the big box stores. the mom and pops are long gone. sigh

http://www.hulu.com/watch/2319/saturday-night-live-salemart

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Psych Lit wrote:

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That's not only ALOT of people to hit the streets and unemployment lines at once, but it poses disastrous consequences for the retail space and strip centers the stores occupy. What if the employee that's shytouttajob is the primary policyholder of the family group health coverage? How many of those folks can afford to carry COBRA on $1200 a month unemployment check while paying mortgages, rents, utilities, food diapers etc.,? None that I can picture. More sick people without insurance adds up to more bad debt at the hospital level and eventually the bottom line there is the hospital closes.

hopefully some sort of national health care is on the horizon. if for no other reason than its cheaper than people going to the er for things that if caught earlier might have been far less costly. i do think that health care is one of the most important things that should be on obamas agenda. when hilary tried this before most of america still had their health care. thats really changed so maybe the time is right. obama didnt want to involve the ins cos tho so i wonder how that will work out?  could be more unemployment.


What does that mean exactly? It would seem to me, in my limited, narrow-minded view of the situation, that the insurance companies could REALLY benefit by participating in a government funded program.  They are guaranteed reimbursement and timely premium payments.  They can allow the doctors to treat the patients without having to micromanage from a desk.  They can still compete with other insurers, if those insurers are also on the government plan.  

Of course, they can offer private insurance, too.  The UK has private insurance plans that if you're well-to-do, you can pay for and get priority medical service when you want it.  The National Plan should be for the uninsured and the underinsured.  We want to keep people safe and healthy - period.  


 There aren't many community based, private hospitals left that, firstly aren't corporate based with idiots running them but also will accept "self pay" patients. It's unheard of. Also, there isn't a nurse, radiology tech or orderly I've ever met on the "front line" that can manage a hospital budget, organize a disaster drill, prepare a patient meal or even know how or where to find "red bags". Those 23 shycanned managers of the Arizona hospital Owl mentioned will be missed. And now, so too will Circuit City.

yes they will be missed but they will also be the first to go id suspect and those who are left will do three jobs for the price of one.  i wonder if best buy will be far behind. id read before xmas that they were in trouble because of the walmart efffect. when its all over we will prolly all be working for wally world. they have a clinic in some around here providing health care also eye care and hair cutting and a grocery store. then you have the 4 dollar generics from god knows where and its starting to look like sooner or later wallyworld will be like a mini city and the only employer in town.

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Best Buy is coming close to being the only one left. 

I shudder at the thought of Wal-Mart being the only option.  Sure, they have the best prices NOW.  What will happen when their competition disappears?  Will Anti-Trust laws protect us?  Will we still have anti-trust laws if there's only one store to shop at?

I'm picturing a world full of empty strip malls and huge Super WalMarts down the road.  I was never a big Circuit City shopper.  I think I bought a television there once about 12 years ago (still have it, actually).  I guess it will be just another one of those, "hey, do you remember a store called Circuit City?" stores like Montgomery Ward, Bradlees, Strawbridge & Clothier, Gimbels, etc.

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Psych Lit wrote:

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Nightowlhoot3 wrote:

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The only time I can stand to look at Suzy Orman is when they're doing her on MAD TV or SNL.

"You want my jacket, DON'T YOU!"

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she makes a lot of sense and all but im with you here shes like nails on a blackboard. ever see the segment where she gives people permission to buy things? argghhh. and then theres the narrative on how she got to be famous. it all began when she was betrayed by a close friend. she goes on to tell how this all worked out for the best since shes now rich (lets hope she didnt invest with maddog or madof or whatever his name is) but my mind is still stuck on the betrayal and what a human tragedy that was.

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Circuit City to Go Out of Business

Nightowlhoot3 wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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"This book is copyrighted. You may view and download the file, but you may not copy the file or share or forward it to any other person. Offer expires at 11:59 p.m. CT on Thursday, January 15."

So, I forward just the link to the file that may not be shared. But it's all legal.

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LOL. Too funny.

I say it's discrimination against people who don't have printers, is what I say.

If I were to download, and print it out, would it be illegal to take it in and give it to my Mom to read? I guess it would be, wouldn't it.


Not sharing is a bad thing.
Someone oughta tell Suzy that.
No, wait: she'd think it high praise, wouldn't she.
Nevermind.

The only time I can stand to look at Suzy Orman is when they're doing her on MAD TV or SNL.

"You want my jacket, DON'T YOU!"

 

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 i was thinking this was a kindle moment and then wondered how much those things cost so i looked on ebay and holy crap! they are really expensive! you could by a mini and a good flash drive for the same bucks and then half way down the page i saw something that made me go omg! they are auctioning off sarah palins clothes! there on page 7 of the results in between new shrink wrapped kindle and kindle light was this!