SomeGuyInDC

I'm now "in my 30's"

2008-02-24T18:00:00.002-05:00

Even though this blog is sort of dead, Some Guy added me as a contributor in 2006, and since then I've had a tradition for myself of assessing my life on the anniversary of my birth. So, while nobody reads this any more, I felt like I'd be missing something if I didn't keep my personal tradition alive. Maybe this will spark Some Guy to bring back Demotivational Fridays???

So I'm 31 now. I don't really know what I expected on this birthday. Of late, the days have been passing, and the time has been passing, and then I look up and a week or a month, or even a year, has passed. Time passes so quickly, and I don't know where it goes.

On one had I'm feeling very accomplished. I started a new job just about six months ago, which put me at the head of the marketing department for a Philadelphia-area architecture and land planning firm. I just recently gave a presentation on marketing at an international conference for my company's industry. In two mortgage payments, the hubby and I will have lived for one year in our home. By the end of this year, if all goes well, I'll be pregnant. It's everything I would have wanted for myself, except with slightly more debt than I'd have liked, and no Master's degree (yet).

On the other hand, I'm feeling almost like I'm having a mid-life crisis (although I hope it's more like a first-third crisis...) I wonder, as I go to work each day, will this be my life for the next thirty years? Where do I go from here, now that I'm where I wanted to be, and I'm only 31? What's next?

So that's where I am at 31 - what's next? What do you do when you've worked hard and accomplished most of your goals? Realistically, I know what you do - you set more goals. But that's the question - where to I want to be next? Maybe by my next birthday I'll have the answer.

This Blog is Boring

2007-05-18T14:41:00.001-05:00

We've got nothing. For weeks now, Some Guy has not been posting. This is not acceptable. Some Guy, we know you have the time to post. So Post already!!! Give us a demotivational friday. A post on how the government hates poor people - there's got to be something there you can write about...

Moving right along

2007-03-09T07:44:00.000-05:00

Nothing to see here. Been too busy at work and getting ready to move to write anything meaningful. Will try to be more amusing in the near future.

Demotivational Friday: Tattoos

2007-03-02T17:11:00.000-05:00

When I first saw this picture here, I thought, in order:

1) Wow, that's hot.
2) How is she going to level up if her experience point bar is only 1/3 full?
3) I hope that's a Photoshopped picture, or if its not, I hope she has very stable employment.

It's not. MC Router is actually a rockin nerdcore singer. People in cool bands can get away with things that the rest of us can't. And sufficiently attractive women can pretty much get away with anything in this country. I'm pretty sure she could just walk into a Best Buy wearing a bikini and drive out undeterred on a forklift with a 63" Flat Screen Plasma HDTV.

I've never understood the need to reify your childhood hobby, favorite animal, or a random Chinese character that probably doesn't mean what you think it means onto your body in odd locations. I've changed so much between age 19 and 29 that I'm essentially an entirely different person. My outlook on life, my faith, my sense of humor, how I talk to people, how I spend my time - so much of me is different. Who knows who I will be when I'm 39 or 49 or 109? So there is literally no symbol or picture that I would indelibly have put on my skin. And even if there was, what good does it do me or anyone else to see my favorite risotto recipe on my tattoed shoulder?

All things considered, I would like to say that I'm not anti-tattoo, they're just not my thing. And I encourage attractive women to continue to get them in conspicuous places.

The Birthday Round-up

2007-02-25T19:13:00.000-05:00

My birthday was this past February 23rd, and keeping with my tradition of posting something to Some Guy's blog on my birthday, here it is... I'm now 30.

Some women freak out at 30 because 30 means not in your 20's any more. Some women freak out at 30 because they're not married yet. Some women freak out at 30 and their ovaries start punching them in the gut reminding them to squeeze out a rug rat.

I thought I'd be different, and that I wouldn't have a Turning 30 Freak-Out. I thought that I was way too logical for that bull, that 30 is just a number, that I'm already happily married, that I wasn't even sure if I wanted children at all and so it wouldn't freak me out if I didn't have children by the age of 30.

And I was on the right track! If you had asked me six months ago if I was okay with turning 30, I WAS! I wasn't just saying I was... I really was! And then... if you asked me five months ago, I said I was okay with turning 30, but I was having doubts. And then... if you asked me at Christmastime if I was okay with turning 30, I was definitely not okay.

It's not the "getting old" thing. In fact, since I work in marketing, it's actually better for me to be 30 instead of 29... Women don't like other women in their 20's, from what I've been told; Women in their 20's are threatening. But being in your 30's... a horse of a different color! And the number was never what creeped me out or made me feel old... just that there was so much I wanted to do, and every year that passes indicates another year less I have to do it... so it's not 30 per se, just the idea of running out of time...

And it's not the unmarried thing, because I am very happily married...

As to the knocking ovaries thing... It's not that I never wanted kids, I was just unsure if I wanted them... not because I wasn't sure if I wanted them per se, but rather because I was unsure if I was unselfish enough to put my career aside to make the sacrifices I knew I would want to make when I became a mother. Children require attention and work... they need to become a top priority in your life. My career and my marriage are my top priorities, and I was unsure if I wanted to add yet another top priority that could push those two out of the way.

I love my career: do I really want to "sidetrack" my advancement to have a child? I just never understood how intelligent, career focused women could justify putting aside their hard-fought and won job advancement...

And I love my lazy Sundays with my husband... do I want to sacrifice sleeping in until 10am on Sundays and watching him play video games while I poke around on the computer? I guess I just never understood why a couple would want to add another responsibility to their lives that would take time away from spending time with just one another...

But then, this past year, so many of our friends have either become pregnant or are trying to become pregnant. My sister has now had her second baby, and my brother in law gave us our first niece on my husband's side, and I love my nieces and nephew more than I ever thought possible. I see our friends and close family members expanding their families, and I understand it now. Seeing that precious little person smile up at you, or call you on the phone and have an unintelligible conversation with you... it's priceless, and I get it now.

But that's not the freak-out...

It is that we are renting, and don't own a house.

My big f@*king freakout is that we don't own a house. How messed up is that?

You can justify buying a house way you want... It's a buyer's market, and so we're wise to buy a house now as opposed to a year ago. Interest rates have held and are holding steady, so it's wise to buy a house now as opposed to later when they may rise. Housing prices are also holding steady, or dropping slightly, because homes are staying on the market for longer periods of time. Buying a home is a wise investment due to the tax breaks of being able to deduct your interest payments.

And while all of those reasons are important, and good, and definitely support our decision to buy a house in general or at some point in the future, that is not the reason we have started looking at houses now. I will be 100% honest with y'all and with myself that the reason we are buying a house is because I'm freaking out about turning 30.

In my defense, we are being wise about it, and have done lots of research about what to expect when house hunting and buying a home. We have used mortgage calculators and renting vs. buying calculators to ensure buying a home makes financial sense for us. We have put an artificial deadline of one year for our house hunting, but we really have no time frame by which we need to buy a house since our lease is month to month now, and the house we rent is really large enough to raise children in if we chose. We researched housing prices and neighborhoods, and have selected the best locations we can afford.

But yeah, we're looking for a house because I need to feel that stability and security... I need to feel accomplished, and that I am an adult. I need to feel like I have something to show for the past decade of hard work, and for some reason that means I need to have a house.

I'm turning 30, and I see my friends having children, and I realize that yes, I want children. The "plan" always was to have children when I turned 32/ 33, and I didn't want to have children until I had a house, and I wanted to live in the house for a year before having children to get used to the responsibility and financial burden of having a house, and that meant that I needed to buy a house when I turned 30 so I could live in it for a year before trying to have children, and then we'd start trying to get pregnant at 31/ 32, and then (depending upon how long it took to get pregnant) and we'd have the baby when I was 32/ 33... If I didn't buy a house this year, it would screw up the plan!

So we're house hunting now, and have put a bid in on a house, and they counter-offered, and then we countered their counter, then they accepted our counter. We close at the end of March, which is scary and exciting all at the same time.

So this is my freak-out. Welcome to my insanity...

Science: Chimps Use Spear

2007-02-23T17:40:00.000-05:00

Well this is just disconcerting:

WASHINGTON — Chimpanzees living on the West African savanna have been observed fashioning spears from sticks and using them to hunt small mammals — the first routine production of deadly weapons observed in animals other than humans.

The chimps were repeatedly seen using their hands and teeth to tear the side branches off long straight sticks and peeling back the bark and sharpening one end of the sticks with their teeth, the researchers report in Thursday's online issue of the journal Current Biology. Then, grasping the weapon in a "power grip," they jabbed into tree-branch hollows where bush babies — small monkey-like mammals — sleep during the day.

After stabbing their prey, they removed the injured or dead animal and ate it.

Lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University in Ames said it reminded her of the shower scene in "Psycho."

The new observations are "stunning," said Craig Stanford, a primatologist and professor of anthropology at USC.

"Really fashioning a weapon to get food — I'd say that's a first for any nonhuman animal."

Fellow researcher Paco Bertolani of Cambridge University in England saw an adolescent female chimp use a spear to stab a bush baby as it slept in a tree hollow, pull it out and eat it.

Pruetz thought it was a fluke, but then saw similar weapon- making herself "over the course of 19 days almost daily," she said.

It was typically females who displayed the behavior.

This is a picture of a "bush baby," the chimp's prey:

So, not only are chumps using tools to hunt, they're remorselessly hunting cute furry things with huge eyes that would make me break down into cooing baby noises if I saw it. This is clear evidence of their superior evolution. The next phases of which are obvious:

Extra bonus points if you recognize that the first pic is from the obscure Sunday morning show Ark II. Also, here are clips from the Simpsons Planet of the Apes, the musical. "Dr. Zaius! Dr. Zaius!"

Demotivational Friday: Science

2007-02-23T07:08:00.000-05:00

Not my best work. But when I saw the picture in an article about how Bush toured an ethanol plant I couldn't stop laughing., and I just knew that I had to use it with a quote from Dr. Strangelove. I also considered some sort of long paranoid rant about fluoride, but it wouldn't fit into the caption.

Note to politicians: You look stupid when you dress in anything but a suit or casual business attire, especially military uniforms or lab attire. Resist the urge to do something cool and different. It'll make you look like an idiot.

Tearing Down the Walls at Work

2007-02-21T07:56:00.000-05:00

The Federal government is all about status. Who you know. What committees you sit on. Your title. And the size of your office. If you're really important (or have just been around for a very long time), you also get a good view from your office, something very coveted in this city of monuments. It's a daily reminder to them that their the boss, and you're the peon. And its a daily reminder to the peons that they need to find a new job. A job where you get an office.

So it was very refreshing to read this:

You know those scenes of the big-city mayor's office you see on television? A supplicant climbs to the top floor of City Hall, appeals to a stony-eyed secretary for a session with Mayor Important, then gets deposited on a stiff sofa for a long, fidgety wait. Finally the massive wooden door swings open, the supplicant crosses a cavernous stateroom and stands meekly before His Honor, who is sitting as serious and confident as a king 10 feet away in his plush high-back behind an acre of a desk. The nervous supplicant clears his throat and begins: " Excuse me, sir. . . "

Well, not in Washington. Not now. Not under Adrian M. Fenty (D). Here's the new reality:

It's lunchtime. Fenty whizzes into his "executive office" carrying Caribbean takeout in a plastic container. This "executive office" is a cubicle. As in, Dilbert.

The cubicle is surrounded by 32 cubicles with 32 government officials and at least 35 BlackBerrys (of which Fenty has three).

(Click on for larger image).

The Mayor of the District of Columbia, the city with more self absorbed ladder climbers then anywhere else, works in an open cube surrounded by everyone he needs to manage.

I think it's bloody brilliant. The more you empathize with your boss and the mission of your organization, the more likely you are to put in the extra hours, to care about the details, to love what you do, and to stay there for the long haul.

If you're a manager of any type, the urge to give yourself additional perks can be overwhelming. Lavish trips, the best hotel rooms, a big office, an extra large bonus, your own secretary, a fancy company car and a private parking spot, whatever. But whatever it is, it really just makes the people who work for you resent you. Meanwhile, the manager who drives a beat up car, parks it with everyone else, and then sits in the same space as everyone else, has a much easier time of telling folks what to do, especially when annual reviews come around. Then he quietly pockets his million dollar salary and goes home to his mansion.

Americans don't hate wealth. We love wealth - everyone secretly dreams of being rich. But we hate status. We think that all of us are created equal, and deserve equal rights and treatment. So even if someone really is our boss and really is more important then us, we like to think we're the same. Keep that in mind the next time you get a promotion.

Monica Bellucci

2007-02-16T19:09:00.000-05:00

A year ago La Femme Nikita posted this picture of Monica Bellucci.

In the past week, this blog has gotten an extra hundred or so hits per day, all from people looking for pictures of Monica Bellucci.

I have no idea who Monica Bellucci is. I think Monica Bellucci was the voice of Kaileena in a Prince of Persia game. I don't know why a half naked Monica Bellucci draws so many people to my blog this week. Did Monica Bellucci new suddenly become popular? Was there some sort of Monica Bellucci tryst I don't know about? Is there a Monica Bellucci lingerie line of cloths? Is there a Monica Bellucci sex movie floating around that people are looking for? Have I mentioned that I recently learned that repeating a phase, such as Monica Bellucci, with common search terms, such as Monica Bellucci sex lingerie tryst, moves your blog up in the Google ranking without actually saying anything offensive to anyone? Monica Bellucci.

Heading North

2007-02-16T18:42:00.000-05:00

This weekend for Sneezy's birthday and next weekend for La Femme Nikita's I'll be in Philly. The weekend of March 10th I'll be in NY for Alex's birthday, and I might be up there again not long after that for my brother's, and then again for Easter. If any of my DC/MD/VA friends (ie, the people who live in the same region that I theoretically do) are looking for me, that's where I'll be. If anyone needs a ride north in exchange for gas in the next few months, I can probably help you. Accounting for my frequent travels and DC rental prices, I think it might be cheaper for me to get an apartment close to 30th Street Station instead of an apartment in Columbia Heights. But then I'd have to live in West Philly.

Demotivational Friday: Recruitment

2007-02-16T08:49:00.000-05:00

Today was a group effort, with every team member contributing a witty remark.

Me:

Sneezy D:

Qui Gonn:

La Femme:

Mike adds that this is nothing to joke about. The military is serious about recruiting suicidal teens. The really scary this is that they're putting them all in the same unit. He saw it in this video:

And just to tie this all into more insanity, do to the increase pressure of war, the military has recently decided to recruit people with felony convictions.

So if you want to kill yourself or other Americans that's fine. But if you're gay then somehow that will cause a morale problem.

Government Snow Day

2007-02-14T17:26:00.000-05:00

If anyone needs to check the status of the government in the Washington, DC area and whether or not it is open due to snow or other inclement weather, check here.

And now for my rant...

So instead of just closing the government, they gave us a two hour delay and liberal leave, allowing people to use vacation time to not come into work today even if they weren't scheduled to do so. This was a pretty dumb move, in my opinion.

First, I'm on a flexible schedule. I can leave and come as I please, as long as I get my work done and spend 8 hours at work each day. But the work doesn't disappear by telling me I can only work six hours today, and it barely effects how late I'm allowed to come in to work anyway.

Second, the government is basically shut down. No one was here when I arrived, and I've maybe seen five people all day, and my building alone employs thousands of workers. The contractors I oversea haven't returned any phone calls, so I assume the rest of the city is shut down as well. So if its shut down, why not just call it shut down? Why force some small percentage of your workforce to come in anyway?

Finally, most government workers have massive amounts of sick time stored up. You can use sick time whenever you want. So liberal leave is pretty meaningless. But most schools are closed and roads are a deathtrap, so you're basically just penalizing 90% of the Federal workforce 8 hours of vacation time for no particular reason. And those of us who work on deadline usually just put in extra hours without getting comp time anyway, so its not as if they would be holding up essential activities if they gave us the day off. I would have just worked at home, where the food is better and my computer is faster.

Having said that, I've often wondered what would happen if we had a nor'easter that shut down non-essential functions of the Federal government for a few months. Social Security checks would still go out. The military and post office serve no matter what. But would anyone notice if Congress stopped passing laws?

On a tangentially related subject, I've decided that DC should stop pressing for the right to vote in Congress. Instead, they should press to be exempt from Federal income taxes like other U.S. territories. I think that given the choice between taxation and representation, most Washingtonians would take the cash.

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

If only I had a girlfriend, I could buy her this. Of course, my sense of humor might explain why I don't have a girlfriend. Oh well.

Hat tip to Neatorama.

News: Dolphins with Lasers

2007-02-13T18:16:00.000-05:00

This is cool. Next up, sharks:

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Dozens of dolphins and sea lions trained to detect and apprehend waterborne attackers could be sent to patrol a military base in Washington state, the Navy said Monday. In a notice published in this week's Federal Register, the Navy said it needs to bolster security at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, on the Puget Sound close to Seattle.

The base is home to submarines, ships and laboratories and is potentially vulnerable to attack by terrorist swimmers and scuba divers, the notice states.

Several options are under consideration, but the preferred plan would be to send as many as 30 California sea lions and Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins from the Navy's Marine Mammal Program, based in San Diego.

I challenge anyone to show me a cooler dolphin related picture.

Apartment Hunting Continued

2007-02-12T18:27:00.000-05:00

So in my attempts to find a new place to live, I've been reminded that housing is all about trade-offs. The closer you are to Metro, the more expensive it is. Having a private bath adds at least $100. Being close to amenities adds another $100 or so. One of the less talked about price differentials are local taxes:

Families earning between $45,000 and $65,000 now begin paying more in Virginia than they do in Maryland.

In Virginia the average tax burden is $2,287, while in Maryland it is $2,194.

As expected, D.C. has the highest personal income tax burden in the country with an average tax of $3,886.

However, all three jurisdictions are above the national average of $1,771.

Right now I'm looking at three main options:

1) Large one bedroom, in a residential neighborhood of Takoma Park, 15 minute walk to Metro, $875 plus utilities.

2) Smallish and sorta run-down three bedroom 2 bath, moderately close to stuff, in Silver Spring, 8 minute walk to Metro, $640 including utilities for my room.

3) Tiny 2 bedroom 1 bath, one top of everything I could need just north of Chinatown, 2 minute walk to metro, $700 plus utilities for my room.

But the tiny apartment is in DC, so the cost of living there jumps by $141 a month, putting it on par with the expense of the one bedroom in Takoma Park. Plus I might have to rent a parking space, which would be a giant hassle.

So the real question is, do I want privacy and space, or do I want convenience and a roommate? Or do I want to give up both of those things and just save money?

Right now I'm leaning towards the one bedroom, simply because it frees me from ever having to go through this horrific experience again until I'm ready to buy a house. But I'm a social person from a big family, so I know I'm going to get lonely. And as a New Yorker, the city life beckons me.

Damn you fickle apartment gods! Why must you torment me!

Friday: Demotivational

2007-02-09T07:40:00.000-05:00

Sorry, no pithy graphic to amuse you today. Work is crazy, and I've been spending every evening trying to find a place to live.

I think that instead of prison time, we should sentence first time offenders to a month of trying to find a good apartment in the D.C. area. It's a soul crushing experience. When I started looking, I wanted to pay about $600 a month, find a moderate sized room in a group house, a few blocks from the Metro, with people my own age and of similar interests. After two weeks and twenty different places, I'm willing to pay $900, have made a list of my possessions that I'm willing to give away so that I can fit into a shoebox sized room, I'm willing to live a mile away from the Metro, and with any roommate that isn't currently threatening me with an axe or other heavy sharp object.

Anywho, if you know of a place I can live, please email me.

Distraction: Hardest Video Game Boss Ever

2007-02-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

Ah, my wasted youth. I wish I could live it again, so that I could waste it on better video games.

Hat tip to Extra Life and Game Diggity.

Government: Contract Rigging

2007-02-08T18:47:00.000-05:00

Well, this just drives me nuts...

Three Army Reserve officers and two civilians were indicted yesterday on federal charges of participating in a wide-ranging bribery and contract-rigging scheme involving millions in Iraq reconstruction funds.

The 25-count indictment handed up by a Trenton, N.J., grand jury expands a probe that has resulted in three guilty pleas. Those indicted yesterday were accused of participating in a scheme to funnel $8.6 million in reconstruction contracts to an American businessman in exchange for cars, $3,200 Breitling watches, plane tickets, $3,000 Toshiba laptop computers, weapons and stolen money. Named in the indictments were Col. Curtis G. Whiteford; Lt. Col. Debra M. Harrison and her husband, William Driver; Lt. Col. Michael B. Wheeler; and Michael Morris.

...

The reconstruction program often distributed funds in cash, handing out blocks of currency known as "bricks," and the indictment described how participants in the scam smuggled the bulk back into the United States.

...

In one case, Harrison and Wheeler smuggled at least $330,000 in stolen authority funds from Iraq to New York using commercial business-class tickets purchased by Bloom, according to the indictment. In a January 2004 e-mail, Stein proudly told Bloom that he and Wheeler had secured another contract for him.

I personally handle millions of dollars worth of government contracts and grants. So when another civil servant is caught doing this sort of thing, I'm filled with disgust, because it reflects poorly on all of us, and it reflects poorly on our country.

But having said that, what the heck was anyone doing in Iraq with bricks of cash? Who in the administration thought that sending billions of dollars in loose currency was somehow a good way to manage the reconstruction?

You don't need to be an accountant to know that its almost impossible to have meaningful internal controls if you're moving around your funds that way. It's far too easy to pay a contractor in cash and then get a kickback, or just report giving the contractor $1,000,000, but only paying him $500,000, and embezzling the rest for yourself. And even if you are an honest civil servant, its far too easy for the contractor to under report on their taxes.

This wasn't just corruption. This was stupidity. If you put a brick of $100 bills on the table in front of an honest person and asked them to use it to rebuild a war torn country, most people would. But the overwhelming temptation would be to take some part of it for themselves. After all, the contractors you're handing the cash to are making ten times what you are for handing them the cash. And they're often far less experienced, and risking their lives far less then you! Now multiply that temptation by 100, and have one of your friends blown up by roadside bombs randomly, and read letters from your family once a week about how much they miss you and are struggling without you. The pressure would be enormous. That’s why intelligent people set up strong internal accounting procedures with regular audits. You don’t need people to be angels. You assume that people are thieves, but hold everyone accountable to honest and verifiable standards.

While the Post essentially just did a Metro beat report on the crime, The Guardian wrote an excellent piece a year ago on the environment it happened in:

"Iraq was awash in cash - in dollar bills. Piles and piles of money," says Frank Willis, a former senior official with the governing Coalition Provisional Authority. "We played football with some of the bricks of $100 bills before delivery. It was a wild-west crazy atmosphere, the likes of which none of us had ever experienced."

The environment created by the coalition positively encouraged corruption. "American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq basically became a free fraud zone," says Alan Grayson, a Florida-based attorney who represents whistleblowers now trying to expose the corruption. "In a free fire zone you can shoot at anybody you want. In a free fraud zone you can steal anything you like. And that was what they did."

There is no ideological position on filling potholes. Either you fill the potholes, or you waste the money on something else. Good government is good government, regardless of party or belief. Whether or not we should have gone to war is a highly charged political question. But rebuilding a country shouldn't have been. And now Iraq has a lot more to deal with then just poor infrastructure.

Suck.

2007-02-05T07:44:00.000-05:00

Joss Whedon will no longer be writing and directing Wonder Woman.

Joss Whedon, who had been developing a big-screen adaptation of DC Comics superhero Wonder Woman for Warner Bros. Pictures and Silver Pictures, parted ways with the studio and production company on the project.

Whedon announced the news Friday on a fansite, chalking it up to creative differences. "I had a take on the film that, well, nobody liked," he wrote on www.whedonesque.com. Studio and agency sources confirmed the development.

The latest setback on "Wonder Woman," which has gone through a long gestation process, underlines the difficulties studios encounter when developing such marquee pop culture titles.

I was really looking forward to Wonder Woman killing vampires. Sigh.

Demotivational Friday: Tragedy

2007-02-02T08:14:00.000-05:00

When I saw this I wanted to burn my retinas out. In case you haven't heard, Daniel Radcliffe is staring as Alan Strang in a production of Equus, a play about a 17 year old boy who has a pathological sexual fascination with horses. Seriously, I can't even make stuff up this crazy.

Free Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens

2007-02-01T18:49:00.000-05:00

So in case you haven't heard, two artists have been arrested for being creative and exercising First Amendment rights, and the mayor of Boston wants to throw the book at them.

A furious Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed yesterday to throw the book at the masterminds behind a guerrilla marketing campaign gone amok that plunged the city into bomb-scare pandemonium and blew nearly $1 million in police overtime and other costs.

As city and state attorneys laid groundwork for criminal charges and lawsuits, cops seized 27-year-old Arlington multimedia artist Peter Berdovsky, who posted film on his Web site boasting that he and friends planted the battery-wired devices, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown. Both were jailed overnight on charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct.

"This is outrageous activity to get publicity for a failing show," said Menino, referring to the battery-operated light-up ads for the Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," which sparked at least nine bomb scares in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville.

Menino promised to sue Turner Broadcasting Co., the Cartoon Network's parent company, and criminally prosecute Berdovsky and anyone else responsible for the devices, and to petition the FCC to pull the network's license.

Attorney General Martha Coakley was put in charge of the case and said the companies behind the promotion would be investigated. She said the felony charge of planting a hoax device could be broad enough to allow prosecution even if the stunt's sponsors did not intend a panic.

Some Guy with a Website (another talented artist) hits the nail on the head:

I have never lived in Boston, and I have never supported a Republican for any elected office. But I would send money to a Republican opponent against Boston Mayor Tom Menino just to get him out of office if he actually dares to do something as cowardly and abusive-of-power as this.

I'm a New Yorker who was working within view of the Twin Towers on 9-11, and I now work within view of the Capitol building. So if anyone has a target on his back, its me. But this sort of security kabuki theatre just drives me nuts.

Overreacting to some artist's stunt doesn't make anyone safer. Like a two-minute hate, it just makes people feel safer, without actually accomplishing anything. If they really wanted to improve homeland security, they could hire additional police, expand the Coast Guard, have more thorough inspection of our ports, and set up better communication between all the various divisions of law enforcement.

They could do something useful. But no - we get streets shut down for half a day while a bomb squad stares at a Mooninite Lite Bright flipping the bird, and insane elected officials who give a billion dollars of free advertising to the media company by making a federal case of a stupid marketing ploy. Brilliant. Maybe next we should shut down the Lebanese restaurant down the block from my apartment. Because that would accomplish just as much in the fight against terrorism.

Looking for a place to live

2007-02-01T07:16:00.000-05:00

I currently live in an old apartment building in Silver Spring, but my roommate is leaving for Baltimore, so I've decided to look for a nicer place to live. If anyone has a room to rent, or knows someone who has a room, or wants to re-post my this info anywhere, please do so.

I'd like to stay in Silver Spring or move back downtown into DC, but I'll consider almost anywhere. My only requirements are that the place must be within reasonable walking distance of the Metro (less than one mile) and it must have a reliable place to park.

I'm a 29 and have a completely reliable civil service job. I can afford a nice place to live, but I expect to get what I pay for. I'm clean and tidy, but otherwise laid back and very respectful of personal space. As an Italian, I also love to cook, and will keep the kitchen well stocked. I have some nice non-IKEA furniture as well which could fully a living room, though I'm flexible about bringing it or not bringing it to my next living arrangement. I'm looking to move some time in March, and I'm flexible as to when.

I'm happy to provide references from my job and my current and previous roommates, and to answer any questions.

If you have or know of a place I could live, please email me. Thanks.

Demotivational Friday: Recession

2007-01-26T08:21:00.000-05:00

Artist Dulce Pinzón took photographs of immigrant workers dressed as superheroes (I'm assuming she asked them to dress this way for the picture, and that an Aquaman uniform is not the company's official dress code. Though if it were, that would be awesome). The series is called "The Real Story of the Superheroes." It is her tribute to the people who work long hours in lousy conditions for little money, much of which they then send home to their families in Mexico.

From Pinzón's website:

The Mexican economy has quietly become dependent on the money sent from workers in the US. Conversely, the US economy has quietly become dependent on the labor of Mexican immigrants. Along with the depth of their sacrifice, it is the quietness of this dependence which makes Mexican immigrant workers a subject of interest.

The principal objective of this series is to pay homage to these brave and determined men and women that somehow manage, without the help of any supernatural power, to withstand extreme conditions of labor in order to help their families and communities survive and prosper.

Hat tip to Boing Boing.

Government: Humorous Laws

2007-01-22T18:48:00.000-05:00

In seven states, a man and woman who live together without being married are committing a sex crime. So literally millions of people living in Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia, or West Virginia, are breaking the law right now. Well, some people in North Dakota want to change it, but its unlikely to occur.

Tracy Potter, a freshman Democrat from Bismarck, is asking the state Legislature to end North Dakota's status as one of seven states that have anti-cohabitation laws on the books. It has rejected three such attempts since 1990.

"Mark Twain expressed a simple view of people's personal relationships with government ... that I think government should adopt. That is, I don't care what you do, as long as you don't scare the horses," Potter said Wednesday during a North Dakota Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his repeal measure.

...

Tom Freier, a spokesman for the North Dakota Family Alliance, said repealing North Dakota's anti-cohabitation law would signal that the state doesn't value marriage and the societal benefits it brings.

"If we look at the research, social science evidence suggests that living together is not a good way to prepare for marriage, or to avoid divorce," Freier said. "Cohabitating is not positive for the family, and poses a special risk for women and children."

So, it would literally take billions of dollars to enforce the law. In fact, recent Census data shows that cohabitation is at an all time high, and is rapidly increasing throughout the U.S. No one really wants to do that, because disrupting up millions of relationships that way would be wildly unpopular. I could just see the campaign commercials now. Vote Democratic: Because we don't hassle you about who you're banging.

For decades now, the predominant metaphor has been that Republicans are the "Daddy" party - strong, serious, concerned about business and the military - and that Democrats are the "Mommy" party - caring, accepting, concerned about education and health care. But in reality, it turns out that Republicans are the aging Grandma party - hysterically concerned about when your wedding and when you're going to give her grandchildren, and yet prudishly unable to have an honest conversation about relationships or sex, because "people just don't talk about those things. And the rest of the family just nods, smiles, makes excuses, and then puts her into a home where they don't have to listen to her ranting on a daily basis.

Now, conservative opponents have a point - all the social science evidence I've seen indicates that on average, children living in married households do better then children in single parent or cohabitating households. But they don't have the courage of their convictions needed to actually enforce a law on the books, or repeal it, because that would require that they admit that its a bigoted and/or unenforceable law.

That sort of cowardice has always bothered me. If you're going to believe something, believe in it, own up to your beliefs, and accept the results of your beliefs. But if you're unwilling to live with the consequences of your beliefs, you're either an idiot, a hypocrite, or both.

Demotivational Friday: Accountability

2007-01-19T19:46:00.000-05:00

I considered the description of, "I didn't do it." But the kid obviously is happy he did it. Ahh, too be young, fearless, and in love with paint.

Funny Commercial

2007-01-16T07:36:00.000-05:00

Enjoy.

Recipe: Arugula Risotto

2007-01-11T08:27:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to cook. I've been lazy about writing down recipes, because I never follow them. I just throw stuff together that I know works well, and rely on my Italian heritage and lots of practice to make it taste good. But now I've reached the point where I can't remember all of the recipe's that I've learned. So I've decided to start posting them.

Keep in mind that I approximate EVERYTHING. So if you're the type of person who follows recipe's to the letter, this is not the blog for you. If something doesn't taste quite right, play around with the ingredients until it does or email me for advice. So, without further adu, I present:

Arugula Risotto

Discovered and thrown together to the best of my ability after reading this article, I stole this from idea from Cafe Panache. It's a really great restaurant by the way, and their rendition of this is better then mine. So stop by if you're in the area.

Serves: 2 (easily doubles or triples to serve more)

Prep time: 30-45 minutes

Ingredients:

3 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of arborio rice
2 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 large portobello mushroom
1 small bunch of arugula
1/3 cup fresh parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Directions:

Dice your onion. Clean the arugula and mushroom. Tear off the arugula leaves and throw away the stems (or save them for another dish). Chop the mushroom into relatively large pieces. Clean and mince the garlic. Grate the parmesan. Set everything aside. Trust me, you don't want to be doing this while minding your risotto pan.

Get two pots or pans.

If the first pan, put all three cups of your chicken stock and warm it under a low heat. If you're lazy, you can skip this step and just make sure the stock is room temperature. If you’re a vegetarian, you can use vegetable stock. Regardless, always use low sodium stock, as pre-salted/seasoned stock tends to ruin the flavor of risotto.

In your second pan, put in the oil and butter under a medium heat. When the butter is completely melted, add the onion. You can use any type of onion you want, though I prefer white. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring slowly but constantly.

Add the rice and the garlic to the oil and butter. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring slowly but constantly until the rice shimmers.

Add the wine to the rice. Again, stirring slowly but blah blah blah. If you don't enjoy stirring, this is not your dish. Once the wine is fully absorbed into rice, you can start ladling in the stock.

The traditional method is to add the stock half a cup at a time, stirring, waiting for it to be absorbed, tasting the rice, and then adding more if stock, plus salt and pepper as needed. But experience has taught me that you can pretty much just add 2 cups of stock, bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat all the way until its just simmering and cover it. Come back and stir the rice every five minutes, and be absolutely sure to add more stock if it's dry but hasn’t finished cooking yet.

While the rice is cooking, bring your first pan, which should have a little chicken stock left in it, to a boil. Throw in your arugula leaves for a few seconds, then remove them and put them in a blender. If you didn't bother to warm your stock, you can just wilt it with some stock or water and then put it in the blender. If you want to get really complex, you can blanch them, i.e., put them in ice water immediately after boiling them to set the color and flavor. But I've found this to be unnecessary. Puree the arugula for about ten seconds, adding additional chicken stock from the pan if needed to blend properly. Set aside until the rice is done.

After about 15-20 minutes, the rice should be done or nearing completion. At this point, you should be checking the rice every couple of minutes for firmness. When your rice is tender (just a bit firmer then normal rice when it’s ready to eat), it’s done. Turn off the heat. Add the arugula slurry and the 1/3 cup grated parmesan. If you're fancy and can taste the difference, you can use fontina cheese instead of or in addition to the parmesan, but I find that its not necessary. Stir until you have a creamy sauce. Add a little more stock if it's too clumpy or dry, add more cheese if there's too much liquid. It's important to do this last, as doing so at any previous stage will basically kill the flavor and color of the arugula and screw up your cheese sauce.

While you're finishing up your rice, use your first pan to sauté your mushroom over a high heat with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. You might have a little stock left over, and if so just set it aside. Since its chopped up, the mushroom shouldn't take more then a few minutes. You can use any type of mushroom you like for this, though my favorite it portobello. If you're lazy, you can just throw it in your rice pot while its cooking, though this will require more stock (since mushrooms are like sponges) and will lead to a different texture mushroom. Alternatively (or in addition) you can sear some chicken, shrimp, scallops, or whatever.

Put the completed green Risotto into two large bowls or plates. Top with the mushrooms. Garnish with a few large strips of shaved parmesan and a little fresh pepper. If you're feeling really hoity toity, you can add a little white truffle oil to the sides.

Serve with the white wine that you opened in the beginning of the recipe. If you don’t want to open a bottle of wine, you can leave it out of the recipe and just use more stock.

Now, all of this seems really complex. But its actually quite simple. Simmer rice in stock. Add cheese. Put stuff on top.

Enjoy.

Worst Novel Ever Published (on Purpose)

2007-01-10T18:23:00.000-05:00

PublishAmerica is a Maryland based book publisher known to screw over authors in a variety of ways. They claim to publish only select, high quality works. But most of their revenue actually comes from authors.

PublishAmerica doesn't provide any free copies of the published work to the author or to book reviewers, forcing the writer to buy hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of their own books (depending upon how stupid they are), which rarely see the shelves of any physical book store. And PublishAmerica doesn't spend any money to market what they publish. So their entire business model is built almost entirely upon devouring the hopes and dreams of unsuspecting writers. Delicious, tasty dreams.

Soul eating aside, a group of writers got together with the explicit purpose of creating an unpublishably bad piece of work and testing whether PublishAmerica would still accept it.

They succeeded:

Richard didn't have as sweet a personality as Andrew but then few men did but he was very well-built. He had the shoulders of a water buffalo and the waist of a ferret. He was reddened by his many sporting activities which he managed to keep up within addition to his busy job as a stock broker, and that reminded Irene of safari hunters and virile construction workers which contracted quite sexily to his suit-and-tie demeanor. Irene was considering coming onto him but he was older than Henry was when he died even though he hadn't died of natural causes but he was dead and Richard would die too someday. . . .

If reading this excerpt of Atlanta Nights didn't destroy your temporal lobe, you can visit its website, or read more about it here or here.

Hat tip to Slashdot.

Divorce: Jan 8 is D-Day

2007-01-08T18:13:00.000-05:00

According to one poll, January 8 is the busiest day of the year for divorce lawyers in Britain.

And top reasons for splitting are affairs, followed by boredom, abuse and lack of sex.

More than 100 leading marriage lawyers and 2,000 wed, divorced or separated people were quizzed for a poll.

It revealed thousands of couples will today start moves to split — often with Christmas the final nail in the coffin.

The biggest tipping point for most was an affair (27 per cent).

Falling out of love was second (22 per cent) followed by men abusing women (16 per cent).

After lack of sex, it was money rows, alcohol or drug abuse, debt and careers or hobbies taking priority.

Leading divorce lawyer James Stewart said: “Extra time together such as over Christmas can force problems already in the relationship to come to a head.

“We’re expecting this to be our busiest day and our busiest week.”

Given how unreliable most polls are and the source, a divorce website, I'm not sure how much stock to put into this. It makes intuitive sense. But the article makes the rookie mistake of confusing some of the symptoms of marital instability (affairs, boredom, lack of sex) with the causes of marital instability (immaturity, abuse, lack of communication, money, empty nest syndrome).

It's also worth mentioning that the U.K. has a lower marriage rate and a higher divorce rate then the U.S., though I don’t think that it would play into the timing of divorces in this case.

Demotivational Friday: Resolutions

2007-01-05T07:54:00.000-05:00

Couldn't decide which angle I like better, so you get both. Hope everyone made it home safe and sound with at least 80% of their body mass still contained within them, and not on a bathroom floor somewhere.

Democrats Sworn in to Power

2007-01-04T08:16:00.000-05:00

Above all else, Democrats need to remember Henke's Law:

Minority Parties are always a little bit libertarian, if only to restrict the power of the majority party; majority Parties are always anti-libertarian, if only because, hey cool, power!

They've got maybe 30 days of real legislating to show the country their ideas. Only the most wildly popular will get past Bush's veto pen (like ethics legislation or the minimum wage increase). Since the rest of their agenda will be DOA, their main goal is to simply run an orderly government, provide strong oversight, and avoid scandal. The Republicans weren't thrown out of office because they believe in smaller government and lower taxes, they were thrown out of office because of rank incompetence. You won't be thrown out for expanding health care or balancing the budget. Just avoid embezzling money and molesting interns, and things should go fine in 2008.

Government closed on Monday AND Tuesday

2006-12-29T14:18:00.000-05:00

For all my fellow government workers who are on vacation but don't bother to check your work email while you're away, we've got an extra day off:

On December 28, by Executive Order of President George W. Bush, all executive departments, independent organizations and other agencies of the Federal government shall be closed on Tuesday, January 2, 2007, as a mark of respect for Gerald R. Ford, the 38th President of the United States.

Employees who are scheduled to take leave on January 2 will not be charged leave for that day.

Just an FYI. More then once I've gone into work just to find out I have the day off because its Flag Appreciation Day or whatnot.

Rest in Peace Gerald Ford

2006-12-27T22:17:00.000-05:00

1996 episode of SNL featuring Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw, announcing the various ways Gerald Ford could die.

Demotivational Friday: PowerPoint

2006-12-22T20:24:00.000-05:00

I'm taking time off to travel and see friends and family for the holidays. So send me your favorite cookie recipes. Blogging will be light until the New Year. Enjoy. Happy everything.

Tis the Season...

2006-12-20T10:55:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I am reassured that there is simple good and joy in the world, and it's usually when I'm at my lowest that I'm reminded of this. I'm a somewhat religious/spiritual person, and so I feel like these moments of beauty are God's message to me. I know that they are there for everyone to enjoy, so they are not personal messages per se, but I believe that these messages are God's way of talking to us. I'm not crazy (or, at least not because of this) and I don't think that God is a physical presence that physically talks to us, but rather sends messages to us, and through those events and images speaks to us.

About two weeks ago, I am walking to the train station from my office, and it is cold and wet and miserable. I'm feeling fairly low, and had a particularly trying day at work that day. I'm thinking that I'm cold and wet and tired and generally grumpy, and that I just stepped in a puddle and now my foot is wet and squishy, and I'm starting to get a blister because my wet foot is sliding in my loafer. And then, I'm walking by the loading zone of a hotel, where there's this big coach bus. And in the destination placard, instead of a city, is the message "Be Happy."

Then last week, I'm on the train traveling from home to work. I usually have a book with me, and I read for the twenty-minute train ride. I usually am not distracted, and I'm reading a particularly good book (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre) and I'm at a fairly exciting part, but this day, I just cannot concentrate. I usually sit on the outside, too, but this day, I'm by the window. And I figure if I can't concentrate, I'll just look out of the window at the city as it passes by. I look up at the sky, because it's fairly overcast, and the sun is making pretty rays as it peeks through the spaces in the clouds. I'm looking at this, and I think that the cloud looks positively green. I polish my glasses, and then look again - sure enough, there's a faint rainbow in the sky as the light from the sun's rays reflects off of the clouds. It's so beautiful, this rainbow, peeking through the break in the almost total cloud cover.

And I know these messages are God's voice, reminding me of Its presence. That It is there, always, even when it seems like It is not.

There is a lot of sadness in the world... Some Guy will tell you that if the cure for all disease was a simple glass of clean water, half of the people in the world wouldn't be able to be cured. That is sad, that so simple a thing is unattainable by so many. And when we think of the sadness and the hunger, the politics and the backbiting, it seems like God is not there...

But we need to remember always that God is there... that through our choices we create situations that are challenging, but God is there, and It speaks to us in very subtle ways, if we just look up from our daily grind.

Be Happy... and happy whatever you celebrate.

Bush Acknowledges Reality (Sorta)

2006-12-20T07:46:00.000-05:00

In an interview with the Post, the President almost admits the obvious...

Bush, who has always said that the United States is headed for victory in Iraq, conceded yesterday what Gates, Powell and most Americans in polls have already concluded. "An interesting construct that General Pace uses is, 'We're not winning, we're not losing,'" Bush said, referring to Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the Joint Chiefs chairman, who was spotted near the Oval Office before the interview. "There's been some very positive developments. . . . [But] obviously the real problem we face is the sectarian violence that needs to be dealt with."

Asked yesterday about his "absolutely, we're winning" comment at an Oct. 25 news conference, the president recast it as a prediction rather than an assessment. "Yes, that was an indication of my belief we're going to win," he said.

OK, so let's say that the Giants have a score of 7, and the Dolphins have a score of 31. The fourth quarter has just started. Would you expect Tom Coughlin to say "We're not winning, we're not losing," and if he did say that, how do you think the fans watching at home would react?

Trite comparisons aside, I believe that all people sin. Not only do we make mistakes, we sometimes willfully do the wrong thing. Committing sins doesn't make you a bad person, it is part of the human condition that defines all of us. True evil is when you know that you've sinned, but you refuse to do penance. Or even worse, you realize what you're doing wrong, but you persist in doing it.

Sophocles put it better then I can in Antigone:

All men make mistakes—that’s not uncommon.
But when they do, they’re no longer foolish
or subject to bad luck if they try to fix
the evil into which they’ve fallen,
once they give up their intransigence.
Men who put their stubbornness on show
invite accusations of stupidity.
Make concessions to the dead—don’t ever stab
a man who’s just been killed. What’s the glory
in killing a dead person one more time?

Sadly, I believe that Bush is much like Creon. (Man, I'm just all about bad similes today). He knows something is wrong, but his entire character is built around his role as the undisputed ruler of the land. He's won every political battle of his life, and he sees that as vindication for every choice he makes. He doesn't see the error of his ways, no matter how many times people tell him.

Demotivational Friday: Awesome

2006-12-15T07:10:00.000-05:00

Qui Gonn Jesse was cool enough to email this to me. Enjoy.

The Cupcake Wars

2006-12-13T07:03:00.000-05:00

Medley has the lowdown on the cupcake wars:

For the past few weeks in the Post, one of the advice columnists has been talking about the issue of snacks for kids in school and other extra-curricular events (see here and here for examples). Some parents are concerned that their kids are being given too many sweet and candies and just too much sugar generally. Especially in cases where they have multiple activities on a given day, or attend siblings activities (and everyone shares in the treats).

Other parents are going crazy because of their deep emotional connection to cupcakes.

"A lot of people are really angry," said Karen Epperson, a George Mason parent. "They think this is really stupid."

Mind you, Epperson said, it's not the kids who are upset. Kids are not the ones who are so devoted to cupcakes.

At the same time they're being booted from classrooms, cupcakes have become the latest hipster chic food. Entire blogs are dedicated to cupcake culture.

And some are going totally nuts.

"I don't have children. But I guarantee that if I did, I'd make them cupcakes for their birthdays," she said. "It's just ingrained in us as the proper thing to do."

So when that cultural norm is threatened by cupcake bans, she argued, people feel compelled to rally to its defense.

"Think about it. Banning cupcakes is almost like an assault on the national identity," Oths said. "It comes at a time when there are fears of terrorism and the immigration brouhaha that they're 'watering down' our traditional American culture -- meaning middle-class white America -- that's slipping out of our grasp."

Medley correctly observes that some parents are clearly overreacting.

"If we can't have cupcakes in gradeschool THEN THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON!"

But having said that, I would like to say that I am strongly pro-cupcake.

Baking with/for my friends or with my little cousins is one of the purest joys in life, especially when its for birthdays. I'm glad that schools have banned candy and soda in schools. But cupcakes? Come on, seriously. If your kid is so rotund that at any moment he might go into diabetic shock, then I'm thinking that his sprinkle consumption at school really isn't the problem.

Maybe you should get up off of your butt, which statistically speaking is probably quite large if your kid has this issue, and start being a parent. Stop buying fast food, learn to cook something that doesn't require the microwave, and go outside with your kid once in a while to play soccer.

Statistics: Now Paranoid White People Must Move to Canada

2006-12-10T16:44:00.000-05:00

Qui Gonn emailed me this link a few days ago. New government numbers (ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz..... I know. Sorry. This is what I do) show that suburban poor now outnumber urban poor for the first time in history.

The poverty rate in large cities (18.8 percent) is still higher than it is in the suburbs (9.4 percent). But the overall number of people living in poverty is higher in the suburbs in part because of population growth.

Most major cities are essentially full, with level or declining population numbers. In the 90's we saw an urban rebirth, with large swaths of major cities extensively gentrified and redeveloped. That had the effect of reducing poverty and density, and raising the cost of living - pulling in single yuppies and working empty nesters, but further driving away families. This pattern is compounded by the decentralized nature of new job creation, which is mostly in the service sector, and driven by the internet and other new technologies. There are almost no factories left. We do not need large concentrations of workers in one place built around transportation hubs. You can be a lawyer, engineer, nurse, or waiter almost anywhere.

Ironically though, I think this is actually going to increase racial and socio-economic tension in this country. Just look at the pattern of suburban growth. Umbrella Corporation Developer buys 20 acres of land. They build two units of housing on each acre. These housing are sold to people who are generally rich, white, and well educated.

They sell these homes for as much as they can, generally $500,000 a piece or more. If the state/county/municipality has an affordable housing requirement of some kind (most do), they also buy one acre of land as far away as possible (so as not to lower real estate prices in the rich area where they're trying to sell luxury homes), and build 40 units of on each acre. These units are generally sold or rented to people who are poorer, minorities, maybe recent immigrants, and much less educated.

So, even though they're both in the burbs, they're seperated far more then they ever were in the city. The most segregated state in the union is heavily suburbanized New Jersey - which is what the rest of America will soon look like.

Cue high pitched "Psycho" string instruments.

Cheney is Preggers

2006-12-06T18:13:00.000-05:00

From the Post:

Mary Cheney, the vice president's openly gay daughter, is pregnant. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, are "ecstatic" about the baby, due in late spring, said a source close to the couple.

It's a baby boom for grandparents Dick and Lynne Cheney: Their older daughter, Elizabeth, went on leave as deputy assistant secretary of state before having her fifth child in July. "The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild," spokesman Lea Anne McBride said last night.

For some time now, most major religions have been preaching that the highest form of love can only be attained in marriage, that sex and child birth outside of marriage debases your soul and the social institutions of marriage and child rearing for everyone, and generate more abortions, higher poverty, and endless mind rotting celebrity gossip news.

So the anti-homosexual agenda of those religions have never made much sense to me. If marriage is good and sex and child birth outside of marriage is bad, then why would you purposefully bar some sizable minority of people from ever getting married? Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage everyone to try and form truly loving and lasting relationships with the end goal being a healthy marriage?

And Dick Cheney, a leader of the party that wants a constitutional ban on gay marriage and constantly belittles single moms and cuts funding for child care is "looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild."

Hypocrisy... overload... brain... exploding from internal contradictions...

It reminds me of an old saying that an activist friend once told me, "Most people in America are pro-life, unless the mother who needs an abortion is raped, her health is at risk, or if its someone they know."

Global Warming to Destroy the Economy?

2006-12-05T00:33:00.000-05:00

There's an old church hymn that we used to sing when I was a kid:

Don't build your house on a sandy land,
Don't build it too near the shore!
Though it might look kinda nice,
You gotta build it twice,
You gotta build your house once more!

You gotta build your house on a rock!
A firm foundation on a solid spot,
Though the storms may come and go,
But the peace of God you will know!

I always assumed that the song was an allusion to Matthew 7:24-29. But I was wrong. It turns out that the Church was giving us excellent real estate advice, because global warming is reshaping the housing market.

"There are horror stories about the frequency and severity of hurricanes increasing," Reactions reported in September. That plus the skyrocketing number and value of properties on the U.S. coastline "has prompted many to question whether it is possible to write catastrophe business profitably."

At all.

"If you feel the price is not right, you pull out," matter-of-factly acknowledges Kurt Karl, head of economic research and consulting with Swiss Re in New York.

Since 1971, "Insured U.S. weather-related losses are growing 10 times faster than premiums and the overall economy," reports Ceres, a coalition whose observations get attention from the big boys in part because they've built a climate-risk network that includes 50 institutional investors managing more than $3 trillion.

In order to get a mortgage, you need to purchase the proper insurance. The bank won't lend you money unless they know that someone is going to pay them if your investment gets knocked over by a hurricane or destroyed by flooding. Without insurance you can't build or buy a home, run a businesses, or even operate government buildings.

50% of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of a coast. And the cost of insuring anything with a high risk of being destroyed by weather is in the process of skyrocketing, because the incidence of destructive weather is increasing, and ocean levels are rising. You can attribute these changes to whatever you want. But the insurance industry is phenomenally good at accurately measuring risk, and we will all be literally paying the cost of that increased risk quite soon.

The question is, how will we respond to this economic incentive?

My guess is that people will naturally migrate towards cheaper inland real estate, and local officials will improve building codes to help withstand disasters.

A large scale cutback of greenhouse gases would be great, but I doubt we'll be increasing CAFE standards any time soon. If Manhattan was projected to be underwater in less then ten years and you gave Americans a choice between building trillion dollar 100 foot flood walls around the city or giving up SUV's, our first response would be, "I know a guy in Jersey who can give us a great deal on concrete."

Amazon.com selling milk

2006-12-01T19:57:00.000-05:00

Someone is selling Tuscan Whole Milk over Amazon.com and shipping it from NY (via standard mail?). The really bizarre thing is that it has over 800 comments:

I'm particularly fond of the customer images of the product:

And its catagorized under "gourmet food." I love the internet.

Random Cars Exploding

2006-11-30T18:03:00.000-05:00

Last night a car exploded less than a mile north of me. No one knows how or why.

SilverSpringSingular beat me to the punch on the witty analysis.

While car fires are not uncommon, non-Pinto cars don't generally explode (except in movies), as they are designed specifically NOT to do that. No one in the neighborhood has claimed the car and the authorities can't determine what caused the car to explode in the first place. All of this is quite mysterious. Is there an Al Qaeda sleeper cell operating in Silver Spring?? (If there is, it is a really lame one.)

Maybe Mythbusters is filming in town?

The Scream

2006-11-29T18:54:00.000-05:00

The same sound effect, known as the Wilhelm Scream, has been used over and over again in movies. For some reason I have a deep fondness for Foley artists, art history, and professional in-jokes. So I love bizarre things like this. Enjoy.

Hat tip to Boingboing.

Holiday Gift Ideas

2006-11-28T19:41:00.000-05:00

So, I have over a dozen close family members and friends that I have to buy gifts for. I've already gone on two outings with some success, but I still have a lot of work to do. So any ideas people may have would be welcome. In case you're wondering who I have to buy for, the answer is EVERYONE. Sisters, brothers, various parental and grand parental units, god children, step-family, friends, etc. Ages 0-87. The only categories I don't have to buy something for are pets or a significant other, unless I meet someone in the next few weeks, and then I'll have to find something romantic too. So if you're reading this and have ideas, please post them in the comments.

One gift that I know I'm buying is this knife set:

I'm not sure who I'm giving it too. But its just too cool not to buy for someone.

Oddly accurate internet test

2006-11-28T18:06:00.000-05:00

Apparently, I have a Philadelphian accent:

I find this hilarious, since I originally had a thick native New York accent, spent years in speech therapy to get rid of an impediment (thus also getting rid of most of the NY accent), was moved to central Jersey for most of grade and high school, and since then I've spent most of the last ten years living in and around the Beltway. I've lived in Philly for a grand total of six months of my entire life, and yet have somehow been infected by their speech patterns. Argh.

Numerous people have observed that I tend to reflect the accent of whomever I'm thinking about or talking to at the moment, a remnant of the speech therapy and years spent as a grassroots organizer, social worker, phone surveyor, etc. So I guess when I'm reading stuff on the internet, I think in a Philly accent. Wierd.

What American accent do you have?

Your Result: Philadelphia

Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard.

You can figure out your accent here.

Hat tip to Pandagon.

Distraction: Humvee vs. School Bus

2006-11-27T16:34:00.000-05:00

And the winner is.... School Bus!

Shortly thereafter AM General announced that the new H4 would be able to mow down childern no matter how they're transported. I can't wait to see the commercial.

VOTE!

2006-11-07T07:42:00.000-05:00

Today is Election Day. If you don't vote, you can't complain. Or more accurately, if you don't vote, I will complain. A lot. Until you ears bleed. So go and vote, because I'm out of Q-Tips.

Noooooooo!!!!!

2006-11-02T19:04:00.000-05:00

From the Washington Post:

Seafood Population Depleted by 2048, Study Finds

The world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, according to a study released today by an international group of ecologists and economists.

The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution, and other environmental factors are wiping out important species across the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease.

Alright everyone - stop eating seafood, having babies, and supporting anti-environmental policies. The future of the Italian people depends on it.

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T19:52:00.000-05:00

Remember to vote next week.

On Star Wars

2006-10-19T05:59:00.000-05:00

When I read this post, I just knew that I had to quote it:

Star Wars is not entertainment. Star Wars is George Lucas masturbating to a picture of Joseph Campbell and conning billions of people into watching the money shot.

....

Episode I in particular is an airless, joyless slog; in the theater you could actually hear people's expectations deflate -- a whooshing groan -- the moment Jar-Jar showed up. After the first weekend of Episode I, people went to the prequel trilogy films for the same reason so many people go to church on Sunday: It's habit, they know when to stand and when to sit, and they want to see how the preacher will screw up the sermon this week. You know what I felt when Episode III was done? Relief. I was done with the Star Wars films. I was free. I'm not the only one.

Well, that perfectly summarizes how I feel as well. With the notable exception of Empire, the Star Wars films were pretty poorly written and unevenly executed.

But I love George's work nonetheless. I love ideas, read The Power of Myth when I was 14, and have started (painfully, slowly) trying to read the Western Classics in the original Greek and Latin. And I actually go to church on a regular basis, and get something out of it. Metaphors and stories, ritual and tradition, the patterns of thought and belief that surround all of us, well, they really do mean something important to me. And apparently, they mean something to millions of movie goers as well, who were more then willing to pony up billions of dollars in order to be part of it.

Either that, or lightsabers are just that cool.

Odd quote for the day:

2006-10-18T17:54:00.000-05:00

From Salon:

In an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, embattled Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has equated the war in Iraq with J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." According to the paper, Santorum said that the United States has avoided terrorist attacks at home over the past five years because the "Eye of Mordor" has been focused on Iraq instead.

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said. "It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."

OK, I'm lost. Are we hobbits, and if so, is America (where the hobbits are at this point in the story) Mount Doom? Does George W. Bush have the Al-Qaeda Ring of Power on a necklace, and the entire Iraq debacle is just a distraction in order for him to buy enough time to destroy it? Is that why he's on "vacation" so often?

Whatever the case, I would like to say that I oppose using the American armed forces in general, and my little brother (a Combat Medic who spent a year fighting near Fallujah) specifically, as fly-paper for Islamic fundamentalists.

Various Distractions

2006-09-28T17:22:00.000-05:00

With work inconveniently being, well, a lot of work, I haven't been blogging. But a meeting this afternoon got cancelled. So here are a bunch of distractions that I've been slowly accumulating for the last few weeks but haven't had the chance to blog.

The world's largest earwig bug has been found in Germany via maps.google.com (hat tip to Boing Boing):

From a technical point of view, I have no idea how this image could have gotten there. I assume a very tiny bug got caught in a satellite camera and died. Or the eugenics crazy Germans are experimenting on creating the uber-man again, and they decided to go with an insect this time.

This is the best political ad that I've ever seen, attacking Representative Brad Miller (NC-13):

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics I actually read on a regular basis, comes a list of the Top 10 Occupations with the Largest Projected Job Growth, 2004-14. Wondering what they might be and if your job is on the list? Well here's a hint: 7 out of 10 suck. Which falls generally within my current economic projection that 70% of Americans have lousy jobs.

Click on for larger image.

Columbia, Maryland local Aaron McGruder has decided that the Boondocks comic strip will most likely not return to the funny pages. He wants to devote more time to the Boondocks show on Cartoon Network instead. For those of us who don't stay up until 2am on weekdays to watch cartoons, this is very bad news.

Here are some pictures of the house I want to buy in Tampa Bay:

That is all for now.

Yaarrr!

2006-09-19T06:03:00.000-05:00

Avast me matees! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day!!! So when you be sailing the high seas of the internets, be sure that all of yer pointless blog posts be in pirate speak. Or I'll run you through like a cannonball through a parakeet!

Arrrrrr. I be bad at this.

Friday

2006-09-08T06:25:00.000-05:00

Well, I think I have to accept the fact that my job and life is just too time consuming for me to blog regularly. I'm going to have to start sleeping less, so that I can write more.

Statistics: Median Income

2006-09-05T19:00:00.000-05:00

Via the Washington Monthly who stole it from the Detroit Free Press who stole it from the Census Bureau, I present to you the most depressing graphic I've seen in weeks, the Percent Change of Real (inflation adjusted) Median Household Income, 1999 - 2005:

The national average was a 6% decrease in income over this six year period, despite the fact that there has been a slight increase of median household income between 2004-2005.

Putting pretty colors into real numbers, median household income in 1999 was $47,671 (adjusted for inflation to 2005 dollars). Median household income in 2005 was $46,326. We've lost ground by $1,345 a year.

Somebody call Rhode Island and figure out what they're doing.

Busy

2006-09-01T09:52:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posting. Been busy this week. Hopefully next week will be less so.

Demotivational Friday: Astronomy

2006-08-25T06:07:00.000-05:00

So as you probably know, Pluto is no longer a planet. This is going to screw up test scores and lesson plans everywhere. I actually think it would be best for teachers to come up with a new acronym to memorize the planets. That way, it this important change will stick in the minds of kids better. I suggest:

My Vasectomy Effects Many Japanese Singles Until November.

Just try forgetting that.

I have to say, I think I’ll miss Pluto. Now that its no longer a planet, who knows what we'll think of whenever someone mentions it?

I love astronomy, but it’s always been more elemental to me then scientific. Knowing the planets is like knowing about the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. They could remove the 27th for not being important enough, and really, it would have almost no impact on any of us. But hey, you shouldn’t mess with the Constitution. I imagine that if I had lived during the time of Copernicus, I would have thought something similar. “Hey Nicolaus, your heliocentric theory of the solar system is amazing. I read De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium cover to cover, and I have to say that your logic is inescapable. By the way, dedicating it Pope Paul III was a brilliantly shrewd move. But seriously, I think we all sort of enjoy thinking of the Earth as the center of the universe, and I don’t think we’re actually going to go to space for another 400 years. So try not to discover anything else for a while so that we can all catch up. Now, I’m off to the barber to get some leeches. Later.”

Distraction: Monks Brawl at Peace Protest

2006-08-21T18:50:00.000-05:00

Sadly, I couldn't find anything on Youtube for this article.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Protesters calling for an end to recent violence in Sri Lanka found themselves brawling with hardline Buddhist monks Thursday, after a rally dubbed a "peace protest" turned unexpectedly violent.

Organizers said there were around 1,000 people in a park in the capital, Colombo, listening to a range of speakers when hardline saffron-robed monks opposed to concessions to Tamil Tiger rebels mounted the stage and erected banners.

Some more moderate Buddhist monks, protesting for peace, were already on the stage when punches were thrown. Soon, monks' robes and fists were flying.

Hat tip to ChuBlogga.

Customer Service is Dead

2006-08-20T10:34:00.000-05:00

As some people close to me may know, I just recently started a new job. And, to help me understand the philosophy on customer service at this new company, I was given a copy of a book called "Raving Fans." Basically, it espouses a customer-oriented philosophy to service (i.e. give them what they want, not what you think they want, or what you want them to have) and the idea of "plus one", which is to say that you deliver what you promise, and then a little more.

Also, y'all know my feelings on "The Devil Wears Prada" and how ultimately I empathized more with the Evil Bosslady than with the protagonist of the story... And one of the lessons I took away from the book/movie was that, when "no" as an answer is not an option, you must find a way to make it (whatever "it" is) happen.

As Some Guy will tell you, women tend to earn less than men, in part because when we are offered a job and given the salary, we don't ask for or negotiate for more. It's interesting, though, that when people do ask for more, often times they get it.

So, taking all of that into consideration, my new approach to getting what I want is first to tell the person exactly what I want to see happen, then to not take no for an answer. Because, I've learned that there is very little you would ask for that cannot be accomplished so long as you speak to the correct person (that is, the person with the authority and power to bend or break the rule).

I've given up trying to negotiate with customer service people, or get angry or frustrated with them. They don't have the power or authority to override policy. So, I explain to them what I want, wait for them to tell me no, tell them again but with different words, have them tell me no again, and then ask to speak with a higher-up. I rinse-lather-repeat until I get my yes. It is frustrating, yes, and time consuming, but this is what They count on - that you'll give up. Because for every one person who pushes through and annoys up the ladder until they get a yes, there are hundreds of people who give up along the line. It's like insurance... paying out to the one or two people who persevere in relation to the hundreds of people paying in but never getting the payout. Most times, there are ways to bend the rules if you ask nicely and continue to ask...

Needless to say, the point of all of this is that when I was trying to buy my beautiful niece a "tricul" (or, a tricycle for those not fluent in "toddler"), I went to Toys R Us to buy it. Now, I'm a good Auntie but not the best Auntie, and I was a little late ordering the present. The party was Saturday, and this was Tuesday, which should have been enough time to buy the present and get it by Friday, provided I paid for overnight shipping. So, I order the tricycle, and then find that it will take three to five days just to process the order, let alone ship it, and that the expected delivery date, even with expedited shipping, is the Monday after the party. So I call customer service, politely explain the problem, and ask if there is something I can do to ensure the bike will ship on Wednesday or Thursday. The woman tells me that she can't guarantee anything, even though the bike is in stock. We go back and forth, and I even speak to a manager, but to no avail. And I can't go into a store and buy it, because this tricycle is an online-only toy... I try to cancel the order, but they can't do that, either. The only thing I can do is to return the toy to a Toys R Us when it comes, but I'm still out the shipping... So they can't guarantee I'll get the toy on time (even though I'm paying to ensure that, and the toy IS in stock) and they can't cancel the order...

This ticks me off, because the toy is in stock! There is no logical reason that it should take so long to process the order.

So I find an even better tricycle at an online toy store called MyToyBox.com, and I call them directly before placing the order. I speak with one of their service reps, and even though it is past the deadline that they can guarantee delivery, he personally places the order and within an hour, I've already received confirmation that the tricycle has shipped.

The kicker? The Toys R Us tricycle ships the next day, and comes in time for the party...

Anyway, the point of the story is that MyToyBox.com rocks, and they were so very polite and went out of their way to "break the rules" so I could get the toy on time. So buy your toys from MyToyBox.com.

Demotivational Friday: Politics

2006-08-18T06:22:00.000-05:00

This bizarreness of this story surprises even me:

A "presidential bust" of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was unveiled Wednesday at New York's Museum of Sex, where sculptor Daniel Edwards hopes it will spark discussion about sex, politics and celebrity.

Edwards, the artist who also created a life-size nude of Britney Spears giving birth on a bear-skin rug, said he wanted to capture Clinton's age and femininity in the sculpture.

Clinton's office had no immediate comment.

Here's the discussion I think this will spark - Daniel Edwards is a media whore. Talk amongst yourselves.

As an aside, for some reason, NPR went with an even more provocative picture of the same bust:

I guess there really is a liberal media.

The quote from the Demotivator, in case you're wondering, is from Herodotus.

Politics: Bush reads Camus?

2006-08-17T06:35:00.000-05:00

Saw this last night on the Daily Show last night and then saw it again online this morning, and it was just too funny to believe:

President Bush, just finishing up a small vacation in Crawford Texas, did what many Americans do on vacation, he took the time to read a book. He dedicated a brief portion of his vacation ito reading a work by one of France's most celebrated authors, Albert Camus, "The Stranger". The President stated that the book made a real impression upon him...

As we all know, the main plot of The Stranger is about an alienated man who kills an Arab without remore. The last paragraph of the book reads:

"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself - so like a brother, really - I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."

Gee, I wonder if empathizes with the main character, who killed for no good reason and then feels isolated and abandoned by God.

Also, Camus is one of my favorite authors, but shouldn't Bush have gotten around to reading him and a few other works on French Algeria at some point before launching a war on an Arab country? Just saying.

I'm back

2006-08-15T18:19:00.000-05:00

After almost a month of figuring out who is going to get a giant pile of government grant money, I’ve come to a very important realization about myself. I’m opposed to handing out government money. I’ve also decided that government isn’t really that great of an idea. If everyone could spontaneously live in perfect anarchistic harmony with each other, or pick a single overlord which we follow unquestionably, that would be really keen.

2006-08-11T03:47:00.000-05:00

Please note: I am not making a political commentary here, but a coworker pointed out how much they look alike and I just needed to see them side by side.

Friday, demotivational

2006-07-21T06:52:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I've been particularly busy at work the last few months, and this weekend I'm leaving town to be sequestered in a hotel for four weeks of grant application reviews so that we can decide who gets a pile of government money. So blogging will be light on my part for a while. I'll be back in mid to late August. Enjoy summer.

Funny Picture

2006-07-20T18:57:00.000-05:00

In order to promote something (I assume the deaths of beach-goers) the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring erected giant inflatable shark balloons on their building. Enjoy.

If the Devil Wears Prada, does She Color-Coordinate her Pitchfork?

2006-07-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

L’homme and I went last weekend to see “The Devil Wears Prada.” The book was a dishy gossipy tale of The Evil Boss, and while I didn’t completely love the book, I was looking forward to the movie – after all, Meryl Streep can take almost any piece of poo and turn it into gold, and I loved the deliciously evil Miranda Priestly. So I was looking forward to seeing this movie. I should have known better; after all, with very few notable exceptions, the movie is never as good as the book.

I also have trouble with willing suspension of disbelief, and it took quite a bit of that to accept that Anne Hathaway was either fat or not beautiful. But, okay. Certainly Anne Hathaway is not “model” thin or “model” pretty, so I’ll move past that.

What I disliked most about the movie adaptation was the (what I felt to be) complete shift of the theme; mainly, the book was a gossipy dish about working for a crappy boss, and the movie focused on the question of the choices women must make to advance in the cutthroat world of business.

Warning: there are spoilers after the jump, but nothing that watching the trailer for the movie doesn’t give away…

There were other reasons why I was not completely pleased with the movie, but they were also reasons why I didn’t like the book: I do not feel that women who pursue careers in the fashion industry are somehow more vapid or less intelligent than women who pursue more “intellectual” pursuits, or that fashion itself is silly or stupid. I disliked that Andy felt morally superior to her coworkers, and even to her bos – that Andy was “better” than her job as a personal assistant, and that it was beneath her to handle her boss’s dry cleaning, to get her boss coffee daily, or even to wrap gifts for the magazine’s clients and VIPs. I did not agree that these demands made Miranda the Devil. Certainly, it makes for a cruddy job, but everyone has to pay their dues at the lowest levels in order to prove their worth and move up the ladder.

Not only did I feel that these tasks assigned to Andy did not make her boss The Devil (in either the book or the movie), I felt many of the tasks asked of Andy were not only reasonable, but actually served a purpose. And, I found Andy to be somewhat unsympathetic due to her “I am better than this” attitude. Yes, being in charge of someone’s dry cleaning is not the most stimulating of tasks, but when you work for a fashion magazine and have no knowledge of haute coture, learning about the materials and how they are cared for can be informative, if Andy had looked at the task as a learning experience instead of indentured servitude. Additionally, some of Miranda’s “impossible tasks” weren’t so impossible, even if Andy’s first reaction was that she could not possibly do what was asked of her. Instead, Andy found often times that, despite the seemingly impossible task, the assignment in fact was quite doable with a little ingenuity. When you know “I couldn’t do it” is not an acceptable answer, you find a way to get it done.

The central question of “The Devil Wears Prada,” for me, was: “Is Miranda Priestly ‘The Devil’?” Were the tasks asked of Andy really indicative of a boss so horrible she was equitable to Satan? My biggest problem with the movie adaptation was the possibility for interpretation that Miranda was The Devil simply because she was cold and unemotional in her pursuit of her career above the interpersonal; that she would put her career-focused self-interests above her friendships and her family, and as a woman, this choice is somehow unfeminine. Miranda was The Devil because she was a woman, making business decisions as a man would, and not caring about the feelings of the people around her the way a woman should.

And thusly, why I disliked the movie: in a plot point developed for the movie and not appearing in the book, Miranda makes a business decision that preserves her job at the expense of her friend/fashion editor’s career advancement outside the magazine. Honestly, should Miranda have voluntarily allowed herself to get pushed out of her job to preserve the feelings and enhance the career of someone else? Would we expect that kind of self-sacrifice of one’s career for one’s professional friendship of, say, Donald Trump or Steve Jobs? But, because Miranda is a woman, she is The Devil because she makes a business decision that preserves her career at the expense of a friendship. Andy, as the protagonist, is set up as making “the right choice” when she sacrifices her career to preserve her relationship with her boyfriend (whereas Movie Miranda loses her husband due to her career focus). Andy is “the hero” for keeping her integrity when she ultimately quits her job upon realizing she herself is on the path to becoming like Miranda and having a powerful career at the expense of friendships.

What this movie highlights for me is the ultimate paradox of being a woman in business: Either you live up to the gender expectations and make sacrifices in your career to have a social and family life, or you choose a career in exchange for your family, friends, and femininity. And even then, we don’t get a fair choice: women who choose the latter are vilified – we are somehow traitors to our gender and objects of pity. We cannot possibly be happy or fulfilled if we do not have a husband or a baby. So while we get the appearance of a choice, we cannot retain our femininity and choose business. Through that sacrifice, businesswomen become bitches and are labeled The Devil. I don’t think you’d ever see, “The Devil wears Armani.” In fact, working for an awful male boss is, “Swimming with Sharks.” A shark is certainly scary, but when a shark attacks a person in the ocean, it does not do so out of malice. Certainly being called a shark is not a compliment, but an evil male boss is compared to one of nature’s most perfect predators, while the evil female boss is compared to ultimate evil.

While there certainly are more options for women today to pursue a career, somehow that promise of the elevator past the glass ceiling is more insidious. Yes, women can have a power-career, but in doing so the perception is that they become cold and hard in the achievement of that goal, that women cannot possibly be happy with that choice of career if it comes at the expense of a husband and children (men in that position, by contrast, are eligible bachelors and must be happy with their power and with their ability to pick and choose from bevies of beautiful women, or at the very least their happiness is not in question).

And this media vilification of career women provides perfect plausible deniability – there is no glass ceiling; women have the choice, but prefer to opt out of the rat race and choose to have a family instead of a career. And movies like “The Devil Wears Prada” train women to choose thusly by portraying the hero as the woman who regains her integrity and her boyfriend by apologizing for the choices that put her career before her relationship.

Demotivational Friday: Stupidity (again)

2006-07-14T06:47:00.000-05:00

The first Stupidity was better. Meh.

The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics

2006-07-11T19:28:00.000-05:00

This post by Matt is just awesome:

As you may know, the Green Lantern Corps is a sort of interstellar peacekeeping force set up by the Guardians of Oa to maintain the peace and defend justice. It recruits members from all sorts of different species and equips them with the most powerful weapon in the universe, the power ring.

The ring is a bit goofy. Basically, it lets its bearer generate streams of green energy that can take on all kinds of shapes. The important point is that, when fully charged what the ring can do is limited only by the stipulation that it create green stuff and by the user's combination of will and imagination. Consequently, the main criterion for becoming a Green Lantern is that you need to be a person capable of "overcoming fear" which allows you to unleash the ring's full capacities. It used to be the case that the rings wouldn't function against yellow objects, but this is now understood to be a consequence of the "Parallax fear anomaly" which, along with all the ring's other limits, can be overcome with sufficient willpower.

Suffice it to say that I think all this makes an okay premise for a comic book. But a lot of people seem to think that American military might is like one of these power rings. They seem to think that, roughly speaking, we can accomplish absolutely anything in the world through the application of sufficient military force. The only thing limiting us is a lack of willpower.

What's more, this theory can't be empirically demonstrated to be wrong. Things that you or I might take as demonstrating the limited utility of military power to accomplish certain kinds of things are, instead, taken as evidence of lack of will.

When reached for comment, prominent conservatives argued, "In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight, let those who worship evil's might, beware my power, Green Lantern's light!" They then invaded Iran.

Article: Economic Gap Growing

2006-07-11T18:13:00.000-05:00

The Post has a good article and graphic about wage growth in the Washington region based on the Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates (a great site to visit before your next interview). The rich are continuing to get richer, and the poor are treading water. So who will be the first up against the wall, come the revolution?

click on picture to enlarge

The answer is... no one.

Roughly 20% of Washingtonians are doing really, really well. They earn around $100,000 or more, and their wage growth is somewhat above inflation. These are lobbyists, engineers, and successful business people. They tend to be highly skilled, highly educated, and in demand.

Roughly 20% of Americans are well off. They earn around $60,000 a year, and have been seeing the strongest wage growth. They have college educations and maybe some specialized training, and have seen a huge increase in demand in the last five years. Government has been expanding rapidly (the most common Government Scale position, GS-12, pays $65,000+ per year), and business have been computerizing and outsourcing their lower level positions. This sucks for the 67% of non-college educated Americans.

But while most of the burden from those workers is being computerized or shipped to India, those computers need skilled workers to run them, mid-level administrators to track them, and managers to get the stuff produced overseas back to America where people actually buy them. So in a perverse way, outsourcing is great for keeping inflation down and good for wage growth, as long as in the middle, and not the bottom, of the barrel.

So there will be no great social or political upheaval, because roughly 40% of the population is doing just fine. And there is enough opportunity and upwards churning from the bottom 60% that they want the current system to basically stay the way it is. The receptionist of today thinks she might be a lawyer tomorrow, even if the chances that she will ever really make it to law school are rare.

Distraction: Buffy

2006-07-10T06:23:00.000-05:00

Here is the original, unaired pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love all things Whedonesque, and was surprised I never saw this before. Good call on his part though, I think the "real" first episode was better. Worth watching though, even if the film quality is low.

Also, here is the French soccer player head butting the Italian player in the World Cup (which I thought was a really random thing - do Frenchmen not know how to punch?) Also, has anyone noticed how small the World Cup is?

Just saying. If Americans cared more about this sport, I'm pretty sure the World Cup would be as big as humanly possible, as long as you could lift it over your head.

Demotivational Friday: Hypocrisy

2006-07-06T23:26:00.000-05:00

I dare you to try and explain this joke to someone without showing them the actual picture.

And if you really want a challenge, try explaining it without apologizing for being pseudo-racist, or prefacing it by saying that "your black friend" emailed it to you.

CIA Closes Unit that Hunts Osama

2006-07-05T05:45:00.000-05:00

WTF?

The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."

Where are we going? And why are we in a handbasket?

NY TImes = Treason?

2006-07-03T06:06:00.000-05:00

Numerous conservative blogs are very angry that the NY Times exposed the Bush administration's secret warrentless banking data survielence program. (So did the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal, but the Bush chooses not to demonize them, as they're not as unpopular with his base).

Here's why all of the "NY Times is treasonous" arguments rings false to me.

President Hillary Clinton.

It's 2009, and President Hillary continues with the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies. The Wall Street Journal does an article on how the government is secretly looking into the bank records of the Carlisle Group and other companies which are suspected of terrorist connections, without a warrant. What do you believe the reactions of the right wing blogs would be? Do you seriously think anyone of them will be attacking the Wall Street Journal? I could tell you that I would be attacking President Clinton for undermining our Constitutional rights.

My guess is that most conservatives don't believe in unitary executive theory, they just love Bush. But everyone remember this moment in history, so that we can throw it in their faces in a couple of years.

Demotivational Friday: Advertising

2006-06-30T06:53:00.000-05:00

Distraction: Spider Man Trailer

2006-06-28T18:50:00.000-05:00

Because I'm a huge dork. Enjoy.

Also, according to the internet, my super hero personality is Spiderman. You can take the test here.

Hat tips to Mike, Prof B., and Andrew Sullivan.

How to write good

2006-06-26T18:04:00.000-05:00

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Be more or less specific.
15. Understatement is always best.
16. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
18. The passive voice is to be avoided.
19. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
21. Who needs rhetorical questions?
22. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

Stolen from here.

This city doesn't work

2006-06-26T09:01:00.000-05:00

Due to wide-spread flooding and electrical problems caused by last night’s rain, half of the Metro system isn't working. Downtown is gridlocked. Cops are everywhere, ineffectually waving their arms about as everyone ignores them. I got to work an hour late, and half of my government office is empty. I shudder to think what would happen if something more surprising then water falling from the sky happened.

[/rant]

Demotivational Friday: Family

2006-06-23T06:48:00.000-05:00

Statistics: The Decline of Rape

2006-06-21T06:09:00.000-05:00

From the Post:

The number of rapes per capita in the United States has plunged by more than 85 percent since the 1970s, and reported rape fell last year even while other violent offenses increased, according to federal crime data.

This seemingly stunning reduction in sexual violence has been so consistent over the past two decades that some experts say they have started to believe it is accurate, even if they cannot fully explain why it is occurring.

I'm pretty familiar with the data collection methods used to measure this. The decline is real, and here's why...

Rape is one of the most un-reported crimes. Victims are far more likely to report a theft, and hospitals are required to report injuries that might be the result of an assault. So we have a pretty accurate count on how many cars have been taken and how many people have been shot, but a less accurate count of how many sexual assaults have happened. Women are most likely to be raped by people they know, rape has a huge stigma attached to it, and proving rape has often been difficult.

But things have changed for the better.

DNA identification technology has gotten much better. Proving guilt in a courtroom has become much easier.

Once convicted, they face increasingly harsh sentences. In the 1950's it was not uncommon for rapists to get short prison sentences, and often just probation. No longer - numerous states have seriously considered chemical castration and the death penalty for rapists. At a minimum you will net you at least 25 years in prison, until you're too old to be much of a threat.

In addition, under new laws if a woman is drunk or otherwise impaired and then claims that it was rape, even after the fact, then its rape. This makes an entire category of "fraternity rapes" or other alcohol induced sexual assaults much easier to prosecute and somewhat less frequent, even though its obviously still a big problem.

There is also a hidden demographic side to this story as well. The baby boom is getting much older. So the proportion of our population that is 16-30 and male (the most "crime prone" sub-group) is in steep decline. Older men commit crimes with far less frequency, so all crime has been declining. This is especially true for rape, which clearly has a biological component as part of the problem.

On the numbers side, and this is a little convoluted, so bear with me: Current rape statistics are underreported. But they have ALWAYS BEEN underreported. So even if the true numbers are much higher, the old numbers should have been much higher as well, so the decline is statistically significant and real, even if the raw numbers aren't. Unless for some reason rape has become further underreported in the last 30 years, and there's no evidence of that. If anything, current measurement techniques are much better then 30 years ago.

And finally, though this is by far the hardest thing to prove, I think there has been a cultural change as well. Women are more empowered then they were thirty years ago. There have been massive, somewhat successful "no means no" campaigns. And I think most men have changed as well. Once, it was thought that if a woman was raped, "she was asking for it" somehow. Now virtually everyone rejects that argument, and rape is widely considered one of the most heinous crimes anyone can commit, as it should be.

So, some good news for a change. I had forgotten what it was like.

Online Hearing Test

2006-06-19T18:16:00.000-05:00

Well, since last week's post about cell phone rings that adults can't hear was so popular, I thought I'd post an online hearing test. Click on each, and see how well you can hear. You're listening for a continuous tone, not the popping of static in your speaker. Higher numbers are usually much more difficult for older people to hear.

11,000 Hz

12,000 Hz

13,000 Hz

14,000 Hz

15,000 Hz

16,000 Hz

17,000 Hz

18,000 Hz

19,000 Hz

20,000 Hz

21,000 Hz

22,000 Hz

23,000 Hz

24,000 Hz

25,000 Hz

I can hear up to 17,000. I can't hear 18,000, but it makes my ears perk with a slight pain. 19,000 and higher is completely inaudible to me, except for the static. Also, some of the higher numbers actually had trouble opening in my browser, so I had to download them and listen to them on Windows Media Player (with the spectral analyzer on, confirming that a sound was indeed being made).

Stolen from Americablog and Ochen.

Pennsylvania invents time machine, inadvertently sets civil rights movement back decades

2006-06-16T06:33:00.000-05:00

A lot of people joke about Pennsylvania being Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in the middle. Not having to bear the full brunt of the joke – I live in the non-Alabama part of the state – I’ve always taken that joke with a grain of salt. Not to mention that there’s some truth to the matter, but these days I’m feeling that truth more than ever.

The state’s House just passed on a bill that would amend PA’s constitution to include a ban on gay marriage, and also prohibits cities, counties and other subdivisions from overturning a mere “state-law”. Passed with flying colors too – 136 pro, 61 against.
Granted, this is just a mere step towards the goal, as it also needs to “pass the General Assembly in each of two successive two-year sessions and then win voter approval in a statewide referendum.” (Kim Lyons, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, June 7, 2006)
I honestly didn’t know what the turnout on a vote like that would be in the Ho(mophobic)use, but seeing that makes me cringe to think what’s going to happen in the Senate.
Let’s look at some of the main points of what’s happening here, though.
1. There are other issues like public transportation funding, property taxes, budget issues, and the appalling minimum wage that are currently being back-burnered.
2. Raising a lot of hype over this issue is clearly covering up that our elected legislators are doing nothing about those other issues.
3. Proponents of the bill speak of the concept of gay marriage ruining the sanctity of the institution, but as of 2004, for every two couples getting married, one was divorcing (the actual figures are 49.7%). This is up more than 3 times of the amount in 1954, when one couple divorced for every 6.25 couples getting hitched (16.06%). (Pennsylvania Dept. of Health, Bureau of Health Statistics and Research)

Pennsylvanians over the past fifty years have shown a growing disregard for the sanctity of marriage. So really what our buddies in the Ho’use are doing are voting to restrain the legal rights of the gay/lesbian community. Hey, why stop there? They shouldn’t be able to vote either, should they? Heck, that’d really help for when the bill would go up for voter approval in a statewide referendum…
While we’re at it, maybe blacks shouldn’t get married either. Or Jews – after all, we don’t even acknowledge the New Testament.

So while real issues like budget, funding needs, and the like go ignored, the Ho’use goes about trying to make some of its citizens very uncomfortable living here. These guys and gals aren’t even doing their job properly, but they want to stick their noses where they don’t belong.
Straight people are already wiping themselves with the “Sanctity of Marriage”, and doing the very thing that the Ho’use is worried will happen if gays are allowed to wed. So, the only conclusions we can draw here are:
1. A large segment of our elected officials are homophobes.
2. More likely, they want to ensure their reelection by “taking a stand” while letting more important stuff go untouched, so they can keep their perks while basically employing the work ethic of Homer Simpson. If they have to throw the gay community under the bus to do it, so be it.

All I can say is, whether or not this bill gets any further, it is a sad day to be a Pennsylvanian.
As a comedian recently said, "Gays should be allowed to be as miserable as the rest of us."

Demotivational Friday: Arrogance (a third time)

2006-06-16T06:24:00.000-05:00

The picture is from Geno's, of course.

I remember when I was a store clerk, I did my best to treat the customers with respect. It wasn't until years later that I learned that respecting customers is actually counter-productive (from the perspective of store clerks, at least). When you're a clerk, your goal is for fewer people to come to your store, not more. If your store sells something necessary enough, it will continue to stay in business, no matter how poorly you treat your customers. Just look at any cell phone company. And even if you drive them out of business, you can just get another crappy job at their competitor or anywhere else. While good jobs are hard to get, lousy jobs are quite abundant in this country. So I'm really not sure why everyone in retail don't treat all customers like garbage.

In fact, immediately after writing my scathing blog entry about Geno's, I desperately wanted an authentic Philly cheese steak. Now, had I the time to take the train from DC to Philly, I would have gone to Pat's across the street instead. But if Pat's line was too long, I would go to Geno's, because I need the cheese steak more then I need to be politically correct. Sad, but true.

And if you think you're so much better then me, just try to not to spend money at Walmart (employs illegal immigrants, allows stores to refuse to sell birth control), McDonald's (sells Grade D meat and other poison), Amazon.com (refuses to let workers unionize, forces unpaid overtime and night shifts), Domino’s Pizza (funds a variety of whacko right wing causes), Clear Channel (monopolizes most radio stations and concert venues, shuts out small bands who refuse to sign ludicrous contracts) and every gas company (price gouging, environmental disasters) for one year. Then call me and tell me how morally superior you are. I dare you.

Anywho, here are my two previous Arrogance Demotivators. It's too bad I couldn't find a picture of Cheney at Geno's, but that's the way things work out sometimes.

Statistics: Vital Records by State

2006-06-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

If you are looking for birth, death, marriage, or divorce statistics by state, you can find them at the CDC National Center for Health Statistics website. You have to click through a couple of times until you navigate to each state's page (ignore the part about "if you want to buy this record, send $ to here,") and then you sometimes have to do a search on that webpage for the specific number you're looking for. The federal government does a really lousy job of compiling these, so if you're looking for a comparative chart of any vital statistics, you usually have to do a lot of digging on their main site here, or just make the chart yourself.

Since most vital records are recorded on the county level, doing cross-tabulations of this data (for instance, if you wanted to know how many white women over the age of 40 get divorced, or any other variable cross-tabbed with some other variable) is often difficult or impossible. Since reliable macro level data isn't fungible, social research into marriage and divorce is often very unreliable.

As an aside, when you do a Google search for any statistic, its usually more efficient to search by typology instead of the name of what you're looking for. So instead of searching for "divorce statistics" or "black test scores" (which usually leads you to 1,000 different articles about those subjects) you should search for "vital statistics" or "standardized test scores by race." If that doesn't work, use an advanced search to limit your searches to web pages that include ".gov" in them. There is usually a federal agency that specifically collects what you're looking for. If that doesn't work, read any recent article on what you're studying. Look for the name of an academic who studies what you care about. Then Google their name on the webpage of wherever they teach, and send them an email asking for help looking for your numbers. They probably have them handy, and 90% of the time they are more then willing to help.

If you can't hear this, you're old.

2006-06-12T18:04:00.000-05:00

Some nerds in England have developed a cell phone ring tone that adults generally can't hear, but kids can. Apparently its becoming popular in schools so that kids can keep their cell phones on in class.

You can listen to it here - I'm 28, and I can hear it fine. But I spent 9 years studying music, so maybe I'm an aberration. Or maybe I'm just young.

English Only in South Philly?

2006-06-12T16:42:00.000-05:00

This is Geno's:

They're a decent cheese steak shack that has been around since 1966. The corner they occupy in South Philly is busy virtually all day and all night, with the line stretching around the corner around lunch, dinner, and 2am when the bar flies get thrown out. Recently, they've put up this sign:

Speaking as the son of an Italian immigrant, I find this kind of bone headed nativism to be all too common among my extended family, and working class white-ethnic immigrants in general. It’s more common among the second and third generation, but I’ve even caught first generation family members making the hackneyed slurs; Why don’t they learn English? They’re taking OUR jobs! Why don’t they go back to [insert unpopular country here]?

I find this whole situation revolting and sad. But besides soft racism and misguided pseudo-patriotism/nationalism, there is a real reason for this sign. Standing in line at Geno’s is a lot like standing in line at the Soup Nazi’s. There are two lines, one for cheese steaks (the long line) and one for drinks, fries, and everything else (the short line). If you’re in the steak line, the procedure is simple. With cash (only) in hand, you state the quantity you want, type of cheese you want, and the presence or absence of fried onions on the steak(s). One Wiz wit, or two provy without, or one American with, etc. If you don’t have cash in hand, or if you hesitate ordering when you get to the front of the line, you will be skipped over or moved back in the line by other impatient patrons, sometimes to the very back of the line, and sometimes physically. Attractive women and seniors get more leeway then others, anyone who looks like a tourist gets less.

The irony, of course, is that when Geno’s was founded, most of South Philly spoke Italian, and it was probably common for patrons to order in either English or their native tongue. I know for a fact that several of the people who work at Geno’s speak Italian, as I’ve joked around with them using my limited vocabulary. Spanish, especially simple every day Spanish, is really not that different. So the sign is clearly more of a statement then an administrative tool.

For the record, I prefer Pat’s across the street. They’re steaks are greasier and more juicy, and when I order “One Extra Wiz With” they give it to you drenched in oily Cheese Whiz, which is exactly how I like it.

Hat tip to Bizzyblog, who has a good roundup of the events around the situation here.

Demotivational Friday: Spite

2006-06-09T06:06:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Missie for emailing me the pic. I'm pretty sure this is the Holland Tunnel, but I'm not 100%. Meh.

Article: Single by Choice?

2006-06-08T18:57:00.000-05:00

I consider myself an armchair sociologist, so I’m always pleased to see moderately well researched articles about family structure. There was one such article in the Globe about never-married individuals...

More than ever before, men and women are living single well into their 30s, 40s, and beyond. It's been estimated that, as early as 2008, a majority of US households will be headed by an unmarried person - a shift that has already taken hold in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and 15 other states. People continue to marry later in life, especially in this state, and some are opting out altogether, posing Couplists a question of their own: "Why bother?"

In 1970, only 7.8 percent of Americans aged 30 to 34 had never married, and 65.4 percent of all men were hitched, as were 59.7 percent of all women. By 2003, the number of never-marrieds aged 30 to 34 had exploded to 27.9 percent. The number of all men who were married had dropped to 55.4 percent, and barely half of all women were wed.

Interesting read, but somewhat misleading. Some of these changes are by no means a recent phenomenon. Many happened (and have persisted) back in the 70's and 80's when the invention of the pill, the passing of no-fault divorce laws, and the rise of women's income/independence radically changed family relationships.

A big part of this shift to "single-ness" is simply the delay in the timing of marriage. If current patterns hold (and they might not) around 90% of Americans over the age of 15 will marry at some point in their lives before they die. But middle class people are waiting until their careers are locked in, almost always after college, and sometimes well into their 30's or 40's.

The real change is that our society has started to accept a basic truth. The old male-dominated household is not the norm. Many marriages based on the old patterns have fallen apart. Some people have forged new, more egalitarian marriages. Some people have chosen not to marry at all. Lots of people are waiting until their financially secure before they marry.

But above all else, there is no longer a strong social pressure to marry. There is no reason to grab and hold onto the person you are currently in a relationship with, because people see the reality that marriage doesn’t always work, and that when it does work, it requires a great deal of effort. This, I think, is a very good thing. Those who choose to marry will have much stronger relationships because they know what they’re getting into. And those who choose not to marry can enjoy their lives alone without feeling ostracized. And our decreasing birth rates will be offset by our high rates of immigration. Everybody wins.

Except, of course, people who are wedded (pun intended) to the 1950's idea of marriage. Those people are screwed.

It's just a number...

2006-06-05T23:16:00.000-05:00

A lot of people are freaking out because today is the sixth day of the sixth month of 2006 (666). Many Christian groups have taken a break from being angy at The Divinci Code to focus their animosity at the remake of The Omen. This make zero sense to me as the entire movie is about how much the devil sucks. They try to kill him. It's not like they find out their son is offspring of Satan and then take him to Chuck-E-Cheese and let him stay up all night in exchange for eternal life and a high ranking position in empire of the kingdom of lies. It's a two hour demon smear campaing, it's about removing satan from your life, it's the sort of thing Christian rock songs are made of.

Interesting fun fact from imbd.com:
"As part of its pre-release publicity campaign, and to point out the significance of 'the three sixes' as The Sign of Satan, the movie was sneak-previewed nationwide in the USA on 6 June 1976. While audiences inside the theatres were being scared witless by the film, theatre employees were out front, busily putting up specially made posters declaring: 'Today is the SIXTH day of the SIXTH month of Nineteen-Seventy-SIX!' Hokey though it was, the gimmick worked quite well, as many a theatre patron literally 'freaked-out' upon seeing those posters as they left the previews."

My point? We're all still here to see the remake! Okay, many people died during the twenty year period between the two movies, and I was born in 1977 so I wasn't there for the first one, but you get what I'm saying.

I don't believe in the devil. If I did (and I used to) I'm SURE he would not come on a day we were expecting him. He's the Devil. He's the biggest jerk in every plane of existance. He'll probally come on December 25th. Nobody would expect that AND he'd ruin Christmas for everbody....(and I was hopeing for an X-box 360)

So don't worry Christian doomsayers, the devil in not coming today and if by some....anti-miricle he does - nothing says eternal bliss like saying "I told you so" from heaven. It's win win for you no matter what happens.

On a completly different topic.....Mortgage demand dips as 30-year rate hits 4-year high of 6.66%

Demotivational Friday: Experience

2006-06-02T06:30:00.000-05:00

Not to nitpick on amputee veterans, but I would have used:

Want this? Call:
1-800-GO-ARM-Y

1-800-GO-ARMY is the actual Army recruitment 800 number, and has an extra "go arm/arm gone" double entendre worked into it.

Also, I realize I've been particularly bitter this week, what with the world being dragged into Hades and all. So here's a picture of a puppy and a kitten sleeping:

Don't say I never did anything for you.

Distraction: Batwoman is a Lesbian

2006-06-01T19:29:00.000-05:00

For decades, comic books have been the primary source of teenage fantasies - robots fighting ninjas, kids who develop super powers during puberty, women who fight crime in revealingly tight spandex, etc. And now they are taking the next logical step:

Years after she first emerged from the Batcave, Batwoman is coming out of the closet. DC Comics is resurrecting the classic comic book character as a lesbian, unveiling the new Batwoman in July as part of an ongoing weekly series that began this year.

The 5-foot-10 superhero comes with flowing red hair, knee-high red boots with spiked heels, and a form-fitting black outfit.

Artist's rendition of new Batwoman.

My preference for the new Batwoman.

Not that this is new or anything. In fact [insert homophobic Robin is gay joke here] for years!

Anywho, good for DC Comics. It makes sense from a marketing standpoint, and with any luck it will drive the Pat Robertsons of the world nuts to see a classic comic book character portrayed in an alternative light.

The folks at Gillette are pervs, thank God!

2006-06-01T11:36:00.000-05:00

The good folks at Gillette have come out with a new razor, and this one is for the ladies. It's the female version of the Mach 3 Turbo which (as you may recall) has a tiny motor and battery which causes it to....move. The Gillette website even goes as far as to comment on the Venus Vibrance's "soothing vibrations." Female razor....soothing vibrations. Seems very well thought out until you realize that they totally didn't need to waste the production cost on the "Moisture Glide Stripes."

Statistics: More Men Amore' Marriage

2006-06-01T06:12:00.000-05:00

USA today has a short article about a very long statistical report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Men are more likely than women to prefer marriage over lifelong singlehood and in many ways are as interested in serious family relationships as women, according to a study that provides the government's first comprehensive glimpse into the male psyche.

...

For example, to the statement "It is better to get married than go through life single," 66% of men agreed, compared with 51% of women.

To the statement "It is more important for a man to spend a lot of time with his family than be successful at his career," 76% of men and 72% of women agreed.

"When asked about their attitudes about marriage and family and divorce, more men agree on the relationship of marriage," says Gladys Martinez, the study's lead author. "The majority agree it is better to get married, and few people agree that divorce is best."

This statistically confirms what I've known anecdotally for a long time: The stereotype about men being swinging bachelors that dread marriage is bunk. It is women who tend to delay or devalue marriage, usually in favor of personal independence, and for middle class women, because they want to establish their career before they "settle."

Keep in mind that 98% of all Americans will marry at least once at some point in their lives. So its not a matter of if men or women will marry, just the timing of their marriages and the likelihood of divorce.

Since its my job to understand stuff like this, I'll be reading through the insanely long report, and I'll blog anything I find particularly interesting

Politics: A Step Too Far

2006-05-31T16:57:00.000-05:00

In counter-point to my own post, I'd like to say that while going for the jugular is good, being a racist homophobic idiot doesn't help.

Welcome to the culture wars of the 13th Congressional District, where Republican Vernon Robinson is trying to unseat Miller, a two-term incumbent from Raleigh.

In a year when Republican congressmen across the country are on the defensive, Robinson promises to turn the tables and make Miller's record and background a focus of the campaign.

...

Robinson thinks he has a powerful issue which he can ride to Congress -- growing concern about the wave of illegal immigration coming into the state. He wants stiff fines against those who hire illegal immigrants and English made the official language in the U.S.

...

Robinson has already run a radio ad that features mariachi band music playing in the background. "If Miller had his way," says the announcer, "America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals."

First, this was an idiotic move. If you're going to say something inflammatory, do it in direct mail. That way, you can control exactly who receives your message. Second, when you're going to make an outrageous claim, try not to be goofy. A party for illegal aliens and homosexuals? That's just makes voters laugh. As an aside, I think I'd like to go to that party. The dancing must be awesome.

Politics: Direct Mail and You

2006-05-31T06:09:00.000-05:00

Brainstorms has posted some of the direct mail pieces that are floating around the CA-50 race to replace disgraced Congressman Duke Cunningham..

This is actually a pretty bad piece of direct mail. Not because its over the top, but because it fails to go far enough.

First, the front-page eye grabber failed to include drug paraphernalia, preferably a crack pipe and heroine needles. You have to look at the overturned car in the background for a few seconds to realize what it is - I would have moved up the text box, make the teenagers heads slightly smaller, and make the car red, and on fire. The teenager in front has a scary look about him, but he would have been better if his hair was dyed a bright color, and if he had several piercings in a variety of places. Since this is a Republican mail piece in an overwhelmingly white district, the teenager in back should be black, preferably with his teeth bared. Subtle race baiting is how Republicans win.

The second page really sucks. I have no idea what's going on in the black and white picture where you see the person's upturned hand. Get rid of it, and move the "Francine Busby's Record" envelope to the left. Make the text of the paragraphs larger, and limit them their size. Shocking headline, supporting sentence, small text italicized news reference. You're not going to convince anyone of anything with 3 sentences, you're just trying to convey a message, "My opponent is dangerous" in powerful emotional terms. Lead with "Praises Child Pornographers" and not the more quixotic "Irresponsible Spending" bit.

The third page is pretty good. But the sentence should be "Who is more dangerous? Teenagers or Francine Busby?" There's a famous anecdote that when Lyndon Johnson was running for Congress he spread a rumor that his opponent was a pig f#@*er. Johnson's campaign manager said, "Lyndon, you know he doesn't do that!" Johnson replied, "I know. I just want to make him deny it."

Now, I would never do anything like this. As a Democrat, I would feature an attractive blonde thirty-something sitting and crying behind prison bars. "This rape victim is in prison because she needs an abortion." Second page headline: "Bob Blackheart would rape victims to prison." Over an unflattering, black and white photo of Republican Bob Blackheart. To the right, a large quote by Bob "I am against abortions in all cases... including rape, incest, and molestation," with the proper newspaper attribution beneath it. The "..." part is usually a thoughtful discussion as to why he opposes abortion in all cases. If you have space, then on the back you can reprint a favorable article trashing Bob's abortion views, as Democrats tend to care slightly more about that stuff.

Republicans are running this country because they've been doing exactly what I describe. They play dirty, and they play for keeps. Democrats reflexively seek the high ground, and try to explain to voters why they are better on the issues. Republican activists believe that we are an abomination unto God that should be cleansed from the earth. Guess who wins?

The DaVinci Code

2006-05-30T18:14:00.000-05:00

Upon closer inspection, I now see what all the fuss is about (Click on picture for larger image).

Stolen and slightly modified from Dueling Analogs.

Distraction: Because I want to give you nightmares.

2006-05-30T06:44:00.000-05:00

Japanese American Idol on LSD.

Stolen from Max.

Demotivational Friday: Irony

2006-05-25T23:01:00.000-05:00

Many thanks to Sneezy D for taking this week's picture and sending it to me, and to Qui Gonn Jesse for coming up with the caption. Sneezy also had the sad but true observation that they could call it Black Rancid Death and people would still eat it.

An additional irony that's layered into the picture that people may not notice is that these advertisements for access to Food Stamps and McDonald's are hung on the side of ANOTHER RESTAURANT.

"Gee Max, how should we advertise our business, and convince people to eat here."

"Maybe we should display an ad for our competitors. Or we could display an ad for how people can get food for free, but not at any restaurant. That'll work."

Statistics: Crime in America

2006-05-25T06:08:00.000-05:00

1 in 136 Americans is currently in prison or jail. That's a lot of people.

At midyear 2005 the Nation’s prisons and jails incarcerated 2,186,230 persons. Prisoners in the custody of the 50 States and the Federal system accounted for two-thirds of the incarcerated population (1,438,701) inmates). The other third were held in local jails (747,529), not including persons in community-based programs.

So says a new report by the Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. The report can be found here, with an abstract, spreadsheets, press release, ASCII file, here.

I'm always a bit torn by debates over criminal justice. The most effective thing a community can do to reduce crime is put more cops on the street and more criminals in jail, usually through harsher laws and law enforcement. This is literally a life and death matter to people. If we can do something to promote safety and prevent death, we should.

On the other hand, we're pretty much condemning anyone you put in jail to a lifetime of poverty and incarceration, due to the problems of recidivism. With a criminal background, few marketable skills, and an unexplainable gap in their resume, criminals almost always repeat their crimes once released from prison. Putting someone into jail for even a year is essentially the same as making them a criminal for life.

But it is undeniable that having such a large incarcerated population speaks to a failure of our society. Education, jobs, mental health care, civil rights, culture - take your pick - there are so many things that just scream out for change that you end up being deafened. And so we are left with the products of our failures, and quibble over whether there should be more prisons or expedited execution procedures.

On War

2006-05-23T18:46:00.000-05:00

Amidst the debate and acrimony concerning the war, I think that everyone is missing a simple truth: Bush sold the war based on some pretty reasonable arguments. A large majority of Americans bought his arguments. Now he continues to recycle many of them in order to keep support for his administration. But whether or not those arguments are correct are pretty immaterial to our current situation.

The administration did an excellent job of defeating the pathetic Iraqi army and capturing Saddam. And the President's approval was in the stratosphere. Now the President is doing a lousy job on security and nation building, and the President is deeply unpopular.

Some have made excellent, principled arguments for the administration and the war. Others have made equally excellent and principled arguments against them. But the fact of the matter is that Americans care about results. The most common argument I heard before the war from people outside the Beltway was simply "He hates us, we hate him. If we can take him out, why shouldn't we?" If Bush hadn't of screwed up the post-war, 65% of the country wouldn't care if Bush said Saddam had (or probably had, or would soon build) WMD. They wouldn't care about the lies, the deception, the Downing Street memo, the huge cost overruns, the corruption, or the general mismanagement. But Bush did screw up the post-war, and isn't doing such a good job on the domestic front either (Katrina, Medicare, the deficit, your choice of social issues), and now people across the political spectrum are finding reasons to hate him.

If Bush wants to be popular again, he must alter events for the better. I hope he does, because as much as I hate him, I love America and want all of us to succeed. If Bush fails to do that, Iraq will continue to be a debacle and he will go down as a failed President. As my brother the combat medic told me on his return from Fallujah, "I supported it - I volunteered - I just didn't realize they were going to screw it up so badly. I hope they find a way to fix it, but I don't see how they can."