Unlikely Words » emdash

Walk Like An Egyptian

emdash — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:00:41 +0000

I know nothing about this video, except that it's awesome.

(Via Unfogged.)

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Apple’s Latest Time Capsule Update Will Erase Your Backups

emdash — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:41:42 +0000

Please, don't let this happen to you. Next time your Software Update tells you there are new updates to install, make sure you uncheck the update to Time Capsule. Otherwise, look what happens when Time Machine next runs:

See that second sentence in the second paragraph? Yeah. What kind of incompetent company quietly releases a software update to its backup product that deletes its customers' backed up data without clear, repeated, and obvious warnings?

I want to punch Steve Jobs in the nuts.

(We now return you to your regularly scheduled Aaron-related awesomeness.)

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Predictable Idiocy

emdash — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:36:19 +0000

Photo by Flickr user caribbSo, because the most recent al-Qaeda dipshit tried to light a firecracker on a plane, we're not forbidden to get up or hold anything on our laps during the last hour of a flight:

“Among other things,” the statement on Air Canada’s Web site read, “during the final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps.”

The suspect in the Friday attempt, identified as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, tried to ignite his incendiary device in the final hour of the flight while the plane was descending into Detroit.

We all recognize that this is beyond stupid, right? We're letting al-Qaeda write our flight security regulations by proxy. Whatever they do, we overreact: shoes, liquids, laps. At some point, will Americans get fed up and stop flying?

God Forbid We Follow The Science!

emdash — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:24:49 +0000

We just might have the stupidest legislature on Earth:

The Democrats’ health care bill would generally require insurers to provide preventive treatment recommended by the expert panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force. But lawmakers in both parties made clear that they wanted doctors to decide when a mammogram is medically necessary and that insurers should be required to cover the cost if the procedure is needed.

“There’s much discussion about whether or not you should get a particular service at a particular age,” Ms. Mikulski said during the floor debate. “We don’t mandate that you get a service. We leave that up to a decision made with the woman and her doctor.”

Republicans, in Ms. Murkowski’s amendment and in a separate amendment by Mr. Vitter, specifically sought to set aside the task force recommendations on mammograms and to bar the federal government from relying on the findings. Mr. Vitter’s amendment was adopted without a vote on Wednesday night.

That's right. By law, we can't follow the guidelines of an independent, scientific, medical commission. God help us.

Dreidel Pinata

emdash — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:00:43 +0000

This is the greatest product I have ever seen.

It's true: "No Hanukkah celebration would be complete without a piñata!" Why, I get all misty remembering those wonderful Hannukah celebrations from my childhood, when the family would gather 'round the menorah, light the candles, eat latkes, and whack a giant papier-mâché dreidel with a stick.

("And even though that piñata only had enough candy in it for one night, the candy lasted for eight whole nights!")

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Terrorists Will Kidnap Your Daughter!

emdash — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:41:24 +0000

Photo by Flickr user ChuckHolton Rep. John Shadegg (R-Moron) makes the case against civilian trials for accused terrorists:

"I saw the mayor of New York said today, 'We're tough. We can do it.' Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist?" Shadegg said.

"How are you going to feel when it's some clerk -- some innocent clerk of the court -- whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the judge's wife? Or the jailer's little brother or little sister? This is political correctness run amok," he continued.

Isn't this actually an argument against ever trying any criminal anywhere in a court? If the very presence of an accused criminal in a city is a threat to its citizens, shouldn't we just do without trials and, like, shoot our criminals into space?

Or maybe it's only super evil terrorists who can, under armed guard in a courtroom, kidnap the mayor's daughter. Honest to God, the Republicans think Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is Magneto.

(I would like to note that I wrote this post before Ezra wrote his.)

Oh, ProJo, You’re Such A Comedian

emdash — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:29:42 +0000

Ha! Ha! See, it's funny because government is bad:

Government agencies will be eyed as more than the sources of speeding tickets and income tax forms this week at a special job fair to be held on the campus of Bryant University.

Those stupid government agencies, always enforcing public safety laws collecting revenue for the purpose of funding public services. Losers.

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Hashtag Hilarity

emdash — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:50:15 +0000

Rhode Island's Knowledge Retention Summit made an interesting decision when they chose a Twitter hashtag.

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Turning Landfills into Parks

Simple Answers to Stupid Questions

emdash — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:00:01 +0000

Today's submission comes from Michael Crowley at The New Republic:

Should the [balloon boy] family be charged for the huge search and rescue effort?

No.

This has been "Simple Answers to Stupid Questions." See you next time!

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Social Security Shenanigans

emdash — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:54:53 +0000

Here's a journalistic structure that drives me completely insane:

1. Reporter states a fact.
2. Reporter quotes someone (wrongly) casting doubt on the fact.
3. Reporter kinda shrugs.
4. My head explodes.

Here's an example from the ProJo's Neil Downing:

The [Social Security Administration] typically hikes benefit amounts each year, based on the increase in the price of goods and services as measured by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer price index.

This time, however, there was no increase in inflation for the year ended Sept. 30, government figures show. Thus, Social Security benefits will not change for 2010.

...

Nicholas Geanacou, 83, of Cranston, a retired rehabilitation counselor, said he had an idea that benefits would remain flat. "I sort of suspected they would pull a fast one," he said.

He brushed aside talk about inflation. The real reason that there will be no rise in benefits, he said, is unemployment. With fewer people working, fewer people are paying Social Security taxes, reducing the balance in the Social Security trust funds, he said.

Now, Mr. Geanacou is simply wrong. SSA is not "pulling a fast one" and they're not holding benefits flat because of unemployment. In fact, I'm not sure the SSA exercises any discretion at all about cost-of-living adjustments, because they are statutory and automatic.

So, why is he quoted? Why is this factually wrong speculation in my newspaper? What purpose does it serve?

Update: Here are some intelligent thoughts on the COLA from Drum and Yglesias.

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Unique Two Bed With Great Character

emdash — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:30:23 +0000

... is perhaps a kinder description than the more accurate "horrifying dank basement for $695/month."

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Single Ladies

emdash — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:37:33 +0000

A truly bad-ass cover, and a truly bad-ass video. I'd never heard of Pomplamoose before, but I am now officially a fan.

(Via kottke, of course.)

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A Bigger House of Representatives?

emdash — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:11:31 +0000

This seems like a pretty good idea to me.

Photo by Flickr user cliff1066

The most populous district in America right now, according to the latest Census data, is Nevada’s 3rd District, where 960,000 people are represented in the House by just one member. All of Montana’s 958,000 people likewise have just one vote in the House. By contrast, 523,000 in Wyoming get the same voting power, as do the 527,000 in one of Rhode Island’s two districts and the 531,000 in the other.

That 400,000-person disparity between top and bottom has generated a federal court challenge that is set to be filed Thursday in Mississippi, charging that the system effectively disenfranchises people in certain states. The lawsuit asks the courts to order the House to fix the problem by increasing its size from 435 seats to at least 932, or perhaps as many as 1,761. That way, the plaintiffs argue, every state can have districts that are close to parity.

“When you look at the data, those are pretty wide disparities,” said Scott Scharpen, a former health care financial consultant from California who has organized the court challenge. “As an American looking at it objectively, how can we continue with a system where certain voters’ voting power is substantially smaller than others’?”

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Chuck Klosterman Reviews The Beatles

emdash — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:41:43 +0000

This may be the best music review I've ever read. A sample:

1967 proved to be a turning point for the Beatles—the overwhelming lack of public interest made touring a fiscal impossibility, subsequently forcing them to focus exclusively on studio recordings. Spearheaded by the increasingly mustachioed Fake Paul, the four Beatles donned comedic Technicolor dreamcoats, consumed 700 sheets of mediocre acid on the roof of the studio, and proceeded to make Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a groundbreaking album no one actually likes. A concept album about finding a halfway decent song for Ringo, Sgt. Pepper has a few satisfactory moments (“Lovely Rita” totally nails the experience of almost having sex with a city employee), but this is only B+ work.

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Tim Wakefield Sure Is Cuddly

emdash — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:31:34 +0000

I should say up front that I'm a huge fan of Timmy so maybe I'm oversensitive, but isn't this kind of a weird thing to say?

In the same way that a child's bedroom isn't the same without a favorite old teddy bear or a beloved, threadbare old blanket, Fenway Park isn't the same without Tim Wakefield.

Threadbare?

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Stimulus and the States

emdash — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:00:46 +0000

Photo by Flickr user Darren Hester

This is almost entirely wrong-headed: the point of stimulus aid to state and local governments isn't to save state and local government jobs. The point is to provide fiscal support so that states, which generally have to balance their budgets, don't make pro-cyclical spending/service cuts or have to enact tax increases during a recession.

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Why Are We Boycotting Whole Foods?

emdash — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:07:40 +0000

Photo by Flickr user JOE M500

I'm honestly confused about why I'm not supposed to shop there. I understand that CEO John Mackey is kind of a libertarian goofball and that he's recently expressed opinions about health care reform that are consistent with his goofball libertarianism.

But: is Whole Foods, as a corporation, lobbying against health care reform? I haven't seen any reporting that this is happening. Are we honestly boycotting Whole Foods in an attempt to change John Mackey's mind? That seems like a pretty unlikely outcome, and a pretty staggeringly disproportional tactic.

Who cares what the guy says in the Wall Street Journal? And why should I base my grocery shopping on it?

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