March, 2015 archive
Squirrelly Cat 0
The squirrel seems to understand the concept of “window.” It remains unperturbed, even when the cat tries to bat at it.
“Let’s Make a Deal” 0
“All the World’s a Market . . . All the Men and Women Merely Market Segments” 0
Armando Iannucci tries to understand when politics stopped being about ideas or the general welfare and became all about big business. A bit:
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness must be demonstrated.
(snip)
“Unfortunately he didn’t unload the handgun before the demonstration, [and] it discharged,” TPD Sgt. James Peters said.
The Testing Flailure 0
John Romano comments on the problem with standardized testing in Florida’s schools, but his comments do not apply only to Florida. A snippet:
They want to blame local school districts for the proliferation of tests. They want to blame parents for testing anxiety. They want to blame teachers for bad-mouthing tests.
They want to point fingers everywhere else but the real problem:
The outsized importance of the state’s tests.
Every other problem stems from this obsessive notion that accountability can only be derived by the results of a single test created by some faceless corporate interests.
“Nor Any Drop To Drink” 0
The California experiment–making the desert bloom, as the saying went, by shipping in water from everywhere else–lurches closer to failure.
Three of the largest Bay Area water agencies — the Santa Clara Valley Water District, the East Bay Municipal Utility District and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which runs the Hetch Hetchy system — all are considering water rate hikes of up to 30 percent this year.
The agencies — which serve 5.8 million people, or about 80 percent of the Bay Area’s population — say they need to increase rates because they are selling a lot less water as customers conserve because of the drought.*
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*Catch 22. It’s the best catch there is.
QOTD 0
Zbigniew Brezinski:
Special bonus quote from me:
Daylight savings time is bunk founded on a myth and perpetuated on a fraud.
Where Is “Stupid” a Defense? 0
A. In Florida. Where else?
It enabled the fellow who shot a pregnant lady while playing pretend Wyatt Earp to get off without prosecution.
According to Florida Assistant State Attorney Pete Magrino, in order to rise to the level of a crime in Florida, an unintentional shooting must meet the standard of “culpable negligence.” In his decline-to-charge memo, Magrino describes culpable negligence as “showing reckless disregard for human life.”
Had DeHayes pulled the trigger of his gun intentionally, for example, thinking the firearm was unloaded, and it went off, or had he been drunk or under the influence of drugs when the shooting occurred, that would have been a crime. But, as Magrino’s colleague Chief Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway told 48 Hours’ Crimesider, “If you’re just being careless with a gun and it goes off,* that’s not a crime.”
The moral of the story is, in Florida, stay sober and make it look like an accident.
Follow the link for much, much more.
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*Because you just never know when a gun might decide to fire itself.
Pfui!
No Vaccine for Dumb 0
Science 2.0 republishes an article by Harvard professor Scott O Lilienfeld exploring fads and myths about autism and the treatment thereof. In it, he attempts to understand the increase in diagnoses of autism and offers this explanation:
There is therefore ample reason to doubt that the “autism epidemic” actually reflects a genuine increase in the frequency of the condition. But the dramatic rise in diagnoses has led many people to believe in shadowy causal agents, such as childhood vaccinations.
He goes on to explore how treatment fads and fraud spread. In the light of the recent measles outbreaks because of the actions of anti-vaxxers, the whole article is worth a read.
Court Ruling: Everyone Knows Mexican Food May Be Hot 0
This man’s suit for damages didn’t have a prayer.
Natural-Born Killers 0
This cat shows his true colors in Oakland, Maine.
Its meow sounded odd to her and the animal looked cold and hungry, so she brought out a handful of cat food. When she bent down to put the food beneath the tree, the animal pounced.
“It was all over me, just trying to attack me,” West said.
The cat jumped on her head and clawed her face, leaving scratches on her forehead and right cheek that were visible Friday afternoon.
Terrified, West retreated into her home and called the police.
“I said ‘I’ve got an attack cat here,’ ” she said.
The article goes on to point out that Oakland seems to attract whack-job animals.
News, Ripped from the Ticker 0
Warning: In worse taste than usual.
The Lesson of the Hillary Clinton Email Kerfuffle . . . 0
. . . is very simple and it’s not what you think it is.
It’s this: The political media have no idea how the “whois” coomand works (let alone DNS or the whole damn internet, for that matter).
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Practice random acts of politeness.
(snip)
Witnesses told police that a group of men was randomly firing a gun near the 9900 block of Walnut Street at about 12:30 a.m. Thursday when 36-year-old Ahmed Al-Jumaili was shot.
More guns will no doubt prevent incidents of this nature in the future.
Via C&L.