Bernie Sanders Warns Republicans that Sarkozy’s Fate Will Soon Be Theirs

Bernie Sanders is spot on. The American middle class won’t take kindly to shouldering the lion’s share of the economic recovery while the ultra rich get richer.

The backlash has already hit Europe. I would not want to be an incumbent when it hits America.

Sen. Sanders has it nailed. The American people don’t like extremism. Since the 2010 elections, Republicans have been pushing fiscal extremism, and the bill is about to come due in 2012. The Republican Party is out of step with what most Americans really want. They want their Social Security and Medicare left the way they are. They want taxes to be raised at least a little bit on those who can afford it the most, and they want the social safety net to be strong and left in place.

via Bernie Sanders Warns Republicans that Sarkozy’s Fate Will Soon Be Theirs.

Bill Graham Presents

Bill Graham. (Photo by Mark Sarfati)

I just read the autobiography Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock And Out and I have to say that Graham led one spectacular life. I was interested in learning about how concert promotion is done, but Graham’s life went far beyond that.

Graham was a Holocaust survivor who was spirited out of Germany to France and then to America. Graham spent time as a youth in an upstate New York orphanage, where he became dejected after repeatedly being passed over for adoption. Some say that drove his need to feel loved, which he worked to do every day of his life. He always gave the extra effort, which made the musicians he worked with very happy but often annoyed the musicians’ managers, who paid for Graham’s largesse.

Graham had an extraordinarily keen business sense, which showed itself early in his life. When he signed up for Army duty in the Korean war, he put this ability to use by selling food from his troop transport ship’s galley to other hungry soldiers. He also ran gambling on the ship. Any time he saw a need, he was angling for a way to fill it and make a profit.
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The Raleigh Rays?

After our fun Sunday spent at the N.C. State baseball game and today’s column by Caldon Tudor about the rising popularity of baseball, I got to thinking of big things. Like, major league things.

Raleigh can’t have its own minor league team, but what if it had its own major league team? What if Raleigh wooed the Tampa Bay Rays here and built a gorgeous baseball stadium overlooking downtown? Wouldn’t that be great?

Update 7:50 PM: Looks like I’m not the only one to think this was a good idea. From this site (date of posting unknown but Google Cache snapped it five days ago):

Is it true the Tampa Bay Rays are moving to Raleigh, NC?

by Baseball Fan
in Tampa Bay Rays

I heard they are moving because of terrible attendance to Raleigh. Also, their farm team is in Durham. The Raleigh Technicians?

Ubuntu 12.04 disappoints

Finally heeding the warnings that my version of Ubuntu was out of date, I upgraded my Thinkpad T42 laptop to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Bad move. It seems the ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 video adapter which has been supported for many years is now no longer supported. My laptop is now infuriatingly slow and there’s apparently no cure except to reinstall an older, less-douchey version of Ubuntu.

Between this and Ubuntu’s dumping of the Gnome desktop I’ve about had enough of Ubuntu’s boneheaded design decisions. Looks like I’ll be taking a look at the latest Fedora. At least it’s a hometown Linux company (i.e. Red Hat).