2013 archive
Hitchhiker 4
This cicada green fruit beetle* landed on the wiper arm at a stop light, snuggled down between the wiper arm and the wiper, and hitched a two-mile ride.
__________________
*See the comments.
Robocrap 0
The Sacramento Bee has a nice little article with hints about how to deal with unwanted telemarketers*.
According to it, the best thing to do is to hang up on them, whether they are real or robotic.
Like one of the persons mentioned in the story, we have virtually stopped answering the landline, not even checking the caller ID unless we are expecting a call from a real live human being who we know face-to-face.
________________
*Is there such a thing as a “wanted” telemarketer, other than by the law, that is?
Stray Question 0
How were parents able to rear children successfully before psychologists came along to tell them how?
The Voter Fraud Fraud 0
The state of Florida is poised once again to strike groups who lean Democratic possibly ineligible voters from the rolls.
It worked out so well the last time (emphasis added).
“That was embarrassing,” said elections chief Jerry Holland in Jacksonville’s Duval County. “It has to be a better scrub of names than we had before.”
Election supervisors remain wary of a new removal effort, which the U.S. Supreme Court effectively authorized in June when it struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act.
Genteel Racists 0
At Philly dot com, UPenn Professor John L. Jackson Jr. reacts to the reaction to a recently highly-publicized (because it involved a white member of the Philadelphia Eggles) incident of n-word. A nugget:
That is certainly one version of what racism looks like, and its adherents are still out there. But racism has never worked exclusively that way, not even during chattel slavery and Jim Crow segregation, though society’s institutional commitments to racial inequality have always been nonstop assaults on black bodies and spirits – and on the very humanity of its white beneficiaries.
The genteel racists are everywhere. One needs only to be willing to see them.
Do follow the link and read the rest.
The Cinderella of Modern Crime 0
The cops want to finger the toes.
Altoona police Lt. Jeffrey Pratt tells the Altoona Mirror (http://bit.ly/19BKxNi ), “We have his shoes” . . . .
They are shoer they will catch him.
Cantor’s Cant 0
Jay Bookman reports on Eric Cantor’s claim that the Affordable Care Act will allow the IRS to rifle through your medical records.
The IRS performs two functions in the administration of ObamaCare:
- Use a taxpayer’s income to establish how much subsidy, if any, the taxpayer is entitled to receive to offset the cost of health insurance.
- Collect a $95 tax from those who do not choose to purchase health insurance.That’s it. Period.
Follow the link for details.
Were it not for hate and lies, Republicans would have no platform at all.
Facebook Frolics 3
Don’t believe them likes:
There’s just one problem: the liking was fake, done by a team of low-paid workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, whose boss demanded just $15 per thousand “likes” at his “click farm”. Workers punching the keys might be on a three-shift system, and be paid as little as $120 a year.
George Smith’s term, “the culture of lickspittle,” is an understatement.
By the way, courgette is Brit for zucchini.
Absurdity Today Keeps Pacemaker 0
In all fairness, folks who pay attention to news about such things have long known that computerized medical devices have little or no security features. Most of them were designed with no thought whatsoever of security.
Vast Wasteland 0
If you have not realized how much television is unmitigated unadulterated untreated sewage, spend a bit of time at alt.binaries.teevee.
Driving while Black, You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Dept. 0
Sixty-year-old three-star Chief Douglas Zeigler, head of the NYPD’s Community Affairs Bureau, gets stopped and frisked by two NYPD officers who refused to believe his police identification credentials.
Via Zandar at TWIB.
Post-Racial 0
novaSlim sticks his tongue firmly in his cheek and writes a prescription for ending racism, to be implemented by its targets.
Via Contradict Me.