Miscellaneous: February 2015 Archives
Greg Gutfeld leaving Red Eye. That's like ... Craig Kilborn leaving The Daily Show. 
Dear Internet: Obama is not trying to ban all AR-15 ammo. Most of it would not be banned under the new regulation, because it is only about the bullet, not the cartridge, and there are other types of bullets that are usually used in AR-15 cartridges.
The proposed regulation makes no sense, is probably illegal, and so on. But it also will have virtually no effect on availability of ammo (except in driving up irrational demand).
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has unveiled a new "Framework For Determining Whether Certain Projectiles Are 'Primarily Intended For Sporting Purposes.'" Under that rather bland rubric...
Despite companies like Booking.com hiring developers with Perl skills in their droves, the thriving community is frustrated that there are still claims that the programming language is a legacy code, and that it is dying out.
Maybe the IRS put them with Lois Lerner's missing emails.
A phone company official testifying in Aaron Hernandez's murder trial says several texts exchanged with a co-defendant before the killing are missing from his phone.
“This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “They both stand for the same concept: openness, expression and an absence of gatekeepers telling them what they can do where they can go and what they can think.”
George Orwell, your novel is calling.
But the politically divisive decision is sure to inspire a lawsuit.
It's Walky is an early '00s webcomic that is currently being reposted a day at a time with higher resolution and on a non-shitty/broken website.
Today's particular repost really took me back to those days...
+Rob Malda
February 2015. M, T, W, T, F, S, S. « Jan · 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. Storyline chapters. Select Story, Roomies! (2), College Ho! (12), Moving In (6), Psy-cute-ic (21), Alien Abductions (10) ...
Literally every argument I've seen against Keystone XL is objectively false. It's bizarre that the case against it has any traction at all.
A bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline was the first order of business for the Republican-led Congress this year, and today that bill was vetoed by President Obama. Gwen Ifill gets two views from Jeremy Symons of the Environmental Defense Fund and Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute.
"Thaumatodryinus tuukkaraski"
Turns out Brad Marchand isn't the only pest on the Boston Bruins' roster.A new species of wasp found in East Africa has been named after goaltender Tuukka Rask, Carolyn Y. Johnson of The Boston Globe reports:Rask’s insect namesake, Thaumatodryinus tuukkaraski, was discovered in the Teita Hills of Kenya by a team of entomologists that happened to include an admiring Boston sports fan who has closely followed his home teams despite moving to Africa...
pgsql == frozen ribs.
I have an idea. How about people who attend universities stop trying to tell other people what to think or say? Because if you do try to tell other people what to think or say, you're a bad person.
The mild-mannered Cambridge Classics professor Mary Beard has described how she was left “wanting to cry” after being bombarded by aggressive trolls on twitter for two full days – merely for signing a letter in support of free speech. As we reported earlier
I've been saying this for years: the best way to prevent terrorism is economic opportunity. People in the Middle East who have good jobs, or their own businesses, are going to be much less likely to go off to kill other people, throwing their lives away. I've been saying it since shortly after 9/11.
I don't say this often, but State Department spokesperson +Marie Harf is right, and the conservatives criticizing her are mostly wrong.
That doesn't mean they critics have no point: it's true that some people will engage in violent jihad regardless of economic opportunity. But far, far fewer of them will.
Simply put: a strong economy is one of the best predictors of peace.
We've seen this time and again. After WWI, Germany had a terrible economy, which directly led to WWII. Then we helped fix their economy, and since then, we've seen peace in Western Europe. Same thing with Japan. Almost all of the wars we've seen are in poor, desperate places. And who thinks China will start a war with the U.S., when it has so much to lose?
And speaking of China -- yes, I am going here -- someone else who agrees with Harf and I is the beloved Alex Chiu, who invented immortality. He noted that China couldn't support itself economically once it grew to a certain size, and we need a way of making sure its economic needs can be met. He wrote:
"Teleportation must be invented. If we don't invent teleportation, China will throw nuclear bomb everywhere. Especially now everyone can live forever." http://www.alexchiu.com/spacestation/teleport.htm
Indeed.
The State Department spox phrased it badly (“root causes”), but there’s something to consider here; if we don’t, the war will be endless.
Dear Internet:
If you are hampered by microaggression and other things that other people say that bother you ... realize the fact that this is your problem. This is a big world with billions of people in it, highly interconnected, and most of the people disagree with you about most things, and virtually all of them are not in any way under any obligation to not say things that bother you.
So even if you think they are wrong and should stop ... it's not going to happen. So deal with it. Grow up and realize the world is not ever going to be what you want it to be, unless what you want is actual diversity and pluralism.
And if you need help, let me know: I can help innoculate you, by saying lots of things to bother you.
That's what we really need: herd immunity from views that bother us. A vaccine, in the form of videos of white males saying offensive things. And if someone gets bothered by "microaggression," you can just reply to them, "sounds like somebody needs a booster!"
Dear Internet,
You can't say what is and isn't "true Islam" unless you're expressing your opinion as a Muslim. There's no objectively true Islam that us non-Muslims can claim to know. It's about belief and interpretation, and to non-believers there's literally no such thing as true Islam. Islam is only, to us, what Muslims say it is.
Therefore, when President Obama claims ISIS doesn't represent true Islam, he's admitting he's a Muslim.
QED.
What a bizarre headline. This article from last summer asks, "Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The New Jenny McCarthy?," because he may be publishing a new book about a link between autism and vaccines.
But RFK Jr. has been pushing the idea of this link for a decade now. He -- due to his public prominence -- is, in my view, more culpable for the misinformation about the dangers of vaccines than McCarthy is. He got a lot of people to listen to and believe in these false ideas. Only later did McCarthy come along, building off of the foundation RFK Jr. had laid.
This article mention the fact that RFK Jr. wrote that 2005 article, published in Salon and Rolling Stone, which Salon only retracted many years later, in 2011. And Salon and Rolling Stone are more culpable than McCarthy, too. (Rolling Stone also published the RFK Jr. article that claimed -- based almost entirely on easily proven lies -- that Bush and the Republicans stole Ohio from John Kerry in 2004.)
McCarthy, having no public respect on intellectual or policy matters and not strongly associated with the left, is an easier target. But she's not the most correct one.
RFK Jr., the lawyer and environmental activist, has joined the anti-vaccination movement with a "dangerous" crusade linking vaccines and autism.
I wrote this song for Valentine's Day.
The song title was a battle between me and the producer. He wanted to call it "Love Song" and I kept telling him it's not a love song, man. That's the flipping point. But he insisted and the label demanded it's called "Love Song," but I got him to put the rest in parentheses as a compromise.
I wrote this song for Valentine's Day. The song title was a battle between me and the producer. He wanted to call it "Love Song" and I kept telling him it's ...
I am the 0.01%.
Voting results and ballot return numbers for the February 10, 2015 Special Election. Unofficial Results. Next update: Monday, February 23, 2015 5:00 PM. Number of ballots issued: 18915. Number of ballots counted to date: 5646 -- Approximately 29.85% voter turnout ...
Howard Dean, in questioning how well-educated Scott Walker is, due to the fact that Walker has no college degree, displays his own lack of education.
I especially love this: "I worry about people not knowing much about the world and not knowing much about science." That is, of course, highly ignorant. The world's gotten by just fine with people, including presidents, not knowing much about science. But worse, Walker gave no reason for anyone to think he doesn't know much about science.
And if you think, as many do, that the answer to "do you believe in evolution?" is easy to answer yes or no, and that the only reason to answer No is if you're ignorant or pandering ... you are ignorant.
In fact, it is not reasonable to answer that question with a yes or no. "Evolution," even in this context, can mean a half dozen different things. Micro? Macro? As the process by which all life exists, or merely some? Does it exclude the possibility of God's design? What does the questioner mean?
The only reason I can see to answer yes or no is out of ignorance, or to pander to one group or another. And calling someone out as not well-educated because he answered the question as an intellectual person would ...
Well, no one ever confused Dean with an honest, rational, person.
Dear Internet: if you're going to say vaccination should be mandatory, you must say which vaccinations, and in what context. If you say required vaccinations on the recommended schedule, in order to go to public school, for diseases easily spread through casual contact, that's one thing. But HPV vaccines for public school is another thing, as is mandating measles vaccine for kids who don't go to public school.
Be specific!
Good. Gronk probably thinks his haymakers were worth the price -- on the principle of, "I won't start the fight, but I'll finish it!" -- and he's probably right. But he still deserves a fine, as do Bennett and Hoomanawanui (which I spelled without looking!). And obviously Irvin deserves a bigger fine, having started it.
Baldwin deserved a bigger fine than he got, though. Really, man? You pretend to drop a load on the field in the Super Bowl?
Seattle Seahawks linebacker Bruce Irvin was fined $10,000 for sparking a scuffle at the end of Super Bowl XLIX, one of four players involved in the melee who were fined by the league.
Almost every time I see art by John Romita, Jr. -- especially in a top title like Hulk or Superman -- I just think, "why do they gotta ruin the book with his art?" It's just so, so, bad.
An extra-sized special issue of the world's greatest hero brings in the New Year with a new costume, new powers and new friends and enemies! The epic team of Geoff Johns, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson conclude their first arc with twist after twist that will send Superman onto a new path and force Clark Kent to making a shocking decision! Plus: John Romita Jr. draws Batman!
Go Patriots!
I posted something on the idea of "privilege" recently, and more recently I've seen others pushing the idea, and it struck me: claiming someone has "privilege" is mostly used as the ultimate argumentum ad hominem, and ultimately, it's sexist/racist/etc.ist. It judges views based on who is saying it, and not what is being said.
This is the guy -- King Abdullah of Jordan -- who ordered the execution two Iraqi terrorists today, filming a scene of Star Trek: Voyager in 1996. Yes, really.
King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein (Arabic: عبدالله الثاني بن الحسين) (born 30 January 1962; age 53) is the king of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. An acknowledged fan of Star Trek, King Abdullah (then a prince) appeared as an uncredited extra in the 1996 Star Trek: Voyager episode "Investigations". Voyager executive producer Jeri Taylor commented, "Take away the title and the trappings, and at the core you have a Star Trek fan." (Star Trek Monthly...
Don't mess with Starfleet.
(Do you get the reference?)
Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi militant whose release had been demanded by Islamic State, was hanged according to reports
Amen! Every time I hear this commercial, I think ... none of this would have ever happened if they had started off a Patriots family.
My Inner Southie Monologue: "We started out as a Patriots family. Until my retahded son Brendan met Sarah from Philly, got married, moved to Cincy, and for some ungodly reason decided to like the fricking Bengals. Then my clueless daughter Julie met Emmitt Smith and started liking the Cowboys even though he hasn't played for them since before she was born. For all I know, maybe he's her real father. And after years of eating Roethlis-Burgers, my apparently adopted son Dan became a Steelers fan, proving that mad cow disease has reached the Mid-Atlantic Region. And that’s how my Patriots family became a much smaller family, and I realized that I was just a terrible father all along."
Drew Magary's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season. Email Drew here.
Yes!
This may be no consolation to Seahawks fans, but don't fret over the play call. Despite how it feels, Lynch was not automatic.
Before the interception, my mind slipped back to 2003, in Indianapolis. The Colts were down 38-34 with 40 seconds left with first-and-goal on the Patriots' 2-yard line. And they have a six-foot, 215-pound, bruising, almost unstoppable, running back with flowing dreadlocks and approximately 1300 yards and 12 TDs on the season.
Sound a bit familiar?
The Patriots stopped the Colts and Edgerrin James on four straight rushes. First down: James for 1 yard. Second down: James for no gain. Third down: Manning to Moorehead, incomplete. Fourth down: Willie McGinest takes down James behind the line of scrimmage to give the Patriots the win.
Maybe the Colts would've won if they ran the ball on third down, too. Or maybe not.
Nothing is certain until the end of the game. You can feel like Lynch would've scored, but you don't know it, and I've seen it before go the other way.
Willie McGinest's last play highlighted two significant defensive stands by the Pats in the final quarter.
Dear atheists: if the Patriots had lost a Super Bowl due to a late circus catch again, that would've been proof that God exists, and that he hates the Patriots. Y'all dodged a bullet on that one.
I LOVE THAT DIRTY WATER!
Winning!
From SNL last night, a Richard Sherman impersonation: "Now I'd like to begin this show the way I always do: by verbally assaulting someone who's already lost."
Exactly. Seattle fans: the rest of the country knows that there is a difference between smack-talking during a game, and rubbing somebody's nose in a loss. When Sherman does this, he is a jerk. And by supporting him when he does this, by wearing "You Mad Bro?" t-shirts, you are jerks, too.
Just keeping it real. And I feel the need to get this out now, because if I say it tomorrow, I'm just as bad as Sherman is. :-)
Wow. From the article: _"Politically correct" is a term we use to dismiss ideas that make us uncomfortable"_
That's completely backward. The author, Amanda Taub, gives an example of what she means:
I, personally, think that the name of the Washington Redskins is racist and hurtful to Native Americans, and should be changed. So if someone asks me what I think of the debate about the team, that's what I say. By contrast, Virginia legislator Del Jackson Miller likes the name and wants the team to keep it. But rather than making an argument on the merits of the name, he referred to the entire debate as "political correctness on overdrive." In other words, he's saying, this is a false debate — just another example of "political correctness" — so I don't have to even acknowledge concerns about racism.
That sounds reasonable on its face, but the problem is that when I ask people when the term "Redskins" has ever been used, in the last decade or two, in a racist manner ... they cannot come up with a single example. I've searched for someone against the word "Redskins" to come up with one, and they never do.
Calling the term "racist," with no apparently felt need to back it up, and a refusal to even try ... that is what's used to shut people up. By using the word "racist," she doesn't have to even acknowledge the complete lack of evidence for her position, because, well, you know ... racism!
She even goes on to brush off complaints that the criticism of the Redskins name is "fake." There's only one reasonable way to address that complaint: provide some evidence that the word is actually used, in modern America, in a racist manner. If you do that, then you show that the concern isn't fake. If you can't, and you just keep saying "racist and hurtful! racist and hurtful!," then you are the one shutting down debate.
She says, That's a failure of communication and, arguably, of basic respect.
Yes, it is. She should stop doing that.
I especially love this comment from Taub: Likewise, Chait clearly believes that "microaggressions" aren't important enough to merit his concern, and that "trigger warnings" are a foolish request made by over-sensitive people. But he doesn't spend much time considering why the people who demand them might think they do matter.
I can't speak for Chait, but I know why they think they matter: because it's a way for them to get people to shut up. Again, Taub just has things completely backward here.
Frankly, it seems like she is doing this intentionally. She has to know that the main criticism of political correctness is that it shuts down debate, so either she is just trying to confuse the issue to make it seem like her side is rational by levying the same criticism in the other direction even though it makes no sense to do so, or she is just engaging in satire. The latter seems unlikely.
It's just a term we use to dismiss ideas that make us uncomfortable.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
