2014 archive
A Rum Choice 0
Shaun Mullen tries to figure out who was less competent as Secretary of Defense: Robert McNamara or Donald Rumsfeld. Click to find out who wins.
They are “An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Another gun that just went off all by its lonesome, because inanimate objects animate themselves at the confluence of gun nut and stupid.
Words fail me.
Amateur Hours (and Hours and Hours and Hours) 0
Jordan Weissmann explores NLRB Director Peter Ohr’s reason for ruling that Northwestern University’s football players are employees of the Uni and not amateurs enjoying frolics for fun on fall afternoons. A nugget:
Why not? Because math:
- Players spend 50 to 60 hours a week on football during a training camp before school starts.
- They also dedicate 40 to 50 hours per week on football during the four-month season. “Not only is this more hours than many undisputed full-time employees work at their jobs, it is also many more hours than the players spend on their studies,” Ohr writes. They spend 20 hours per week in class and more doing homework, sure, but they also work on football outside of official practice time. Ohr’s equation also doesn’t seem to take into account the offseason. But, he writes, it “cannot be said” that they “spend only a limited number of hours performing their athletic duties.”
Read the rest, then turn off that college basketball game.
TSA Security Theatre 0
The resident curmudgeon at my local rag is fed up.
(Then, again, she’s usually fed up, as her SOP is that “other persons don’t deserve nice things.” This time, though, she gets one right.)
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Show politeness at the gun show.
Too stupid to touch guns, let alone sell them . . . .
Chris-Crossed 0
Steven M. thinks that Chris Christie may have closed crossed a bridge too far.
Read the rest, where he expands on his point.
In other news, the Rude One sums up the conclusions of the report in three words.
The Duke of Hazardous Has Nothing To Hide 0
Just ask it.
(snip)
The motion states, “Duke intends to cooperate fully in that investigation so that it may receive a fair and unbiased assessment of its actions.”
To do that, Cooney and other attorneys for the utility contend, materials provided to the grand jury should be withheld, temporarily, from the civil proceedings underway in Wake County Superior Court stemming from DENR’s pollution cleanup enforcement actions against the company.
Speaking of Springing . . . 0
Nobody could have predicted that opening a trampoline park could lead to injuries. For example:
She picked up her son and carried him to the car.
“As I was going out the door, another attendant offered me an ice pack. That was the extent of it.”
A pediatric orthopedist at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center confirmed the break and placed the leg in a cast.
“When I told her where it had happened, she said this was the fourth or fifth injury she had seen from there in the past week,” Keck said.
“I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who have said, ‘Oh, my gosh! I know someone else who was hurt there!'”
Read the rest, in which the proprietors argue that trampolines are safer than bowling alleys.
All seriousness aside, only someone who has never seen an episode of AFV could think that this was a good idea.
Next: Game entrepreneur promotes team tag during rush hour on I-95. Thrills!! Excitement!! Waivers of Liability!!
Spring Is Springing 0
I lowered my bicycle from its home near the ceiling of the garage and pumped up its tires yesterday. (I installed a little boat-trailer winch on the wall and ran clothesline through eyelets in the ceiling for a DIY bike lift/stand; the machine has been hanging over my head for the winter.)
A ride soon beckons.