u235

It used to be that "computer games" required a "computer". You know in the classical sense, like one with a keyboard and maybe some sort of pointing device. Something you could pop the hood on and add maybe update your RAM or video card. Basically none of this console shit where you buy a pre-packaged box and play on it until they make you throw it out and buy a new one. Really it was something, because computers were the only things that could really do innovative things like wire-frame graphics and greater than 16 colors.

Eventually the PC became a solid platform for all sorts of new games and types of playing that required more than a 4-way rocker switch or joystick and a big red button. But now...? Game manufacturers have basically written off PC users as a market because it's *expensive* to design and write a real video game.

Ok, I admit, games like the FEAR and Half-Life series basically raised the bar to a level where it's hard to compete. But when games that do stand a chance of making a promising impression come out and then fucking blow it, it makes me want to take a stick to the management that set the priorities. Yeah, I'm talking about you Epic, and yeah I'm talking about Unreal Tournament 3. It's close, so fucking close we can all taste it - all your PC customers that brought your series to a fourth release know you kicked us in favor of the freekin' console release.

Items of Mass Stupidity:

• Remapping the console key from the standard ~ to F10. Why, gods oh why?
• A seriously gimped list of key bindings. Toss weapon? Hot-key phrases? You need to edit the damn ini.
• X and Y scale factors set to different values... because it's too hard for console gamers to push up and down compared to left and right. BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH A PC?
• No linux server release.
• No web admin for servers.
• User files stored in some gods-fosaken directory under "documents and settings"

I dunno, I'm too despondent to add more items, but seriously - none of these things would have taken more than a day of testing. All these things were standard in previous releases, and yeah, any real UT player is used to editing their ini for certain details... but come on - for stuff like toss weapon? What the fuck were they trying to prove?

This is probably more in the "irk" class of woes than in the "rant" class. It has to do with a lack of consistency in how states are ordered in a drop-down list. So why is this a problem for anyone? It's a problem for me because I do most of my shopping online because I detest box stores (well ok, the people *in* the box stores, not the stores themselves... I find an almost-empty store to be a pleasant store).

Since, as I said, I like to shop online I have to enter my mailing address. Unfortunately I live in one of the many states that begins with an "M".

Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Montana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri... the M-states have it all the heck over any other letter (since "A" and "W" are the next runners up with a paltry four). What bothers me is the ordering of the states when they are displayed in a list.

If you're selecting from the 2-letter acronym it makes sense for MA to come first, and ME to come later. If you're looking at the full spelling it should be correct for Maine to be at the top of the list. What makes absolutely no damn sense is to have ME, then MD and then MA. None.

I'm sure there's billions of lines of hand coding to ensure that states are not automatically ordered alphabetically. It would be a damn brilliant idea for everyone to agree on a single implementation depending on the number of letters displayed - or better just *always* sort things alphabetically!

So, Verizon ran a traffic service you could dial with "*1". It was a good service, a really good one. You entered a major route and then the number 1 for north or 2 for south (same with east or west) and they told you if there were any delays, how long, where, if you should be in a particular lane to get by and what caused it. Great service. Awesome service.

Then the state took it over.

The first bit of bleh came when I dialed "*1" and got "HELLO THIS IS LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR SO-n-SO. WELCOME TO ..." It's damn near deafening. Then they tell you to dial 511 instead of *1. That sucks because you have to remember that it's 5, not 4 or 6 or 9. Ok sure, fine, whatever.

Next they basically say "Yep, you're stuck in traffic and you will be for the next hour." No information on where the accident is, how to best get by (if possible), or ... most importantly ... WHY I'm stuck. Yes that last little bit is actually pretty important. I don't feel so bad when it's a 5 car crack-up than if it's just holiday-shopping congestion.

So yeah, way to take a great, free service and suck it up. Just so we can all hear "HELLO THIS IS LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR...."

If you *miss* your exit, just fucking get off at the next one and turn around mmm'k? Ripping over three lanes and slamming on your brakes, bringing a moving lane of traffic to a jacking halt... while you force your way into the the exit ramp is *not* the way to do things right.

You know there's really no damn excuse for not cleaning off the top of your car when there's a foot of snow on it. None.

The best possible ending is when the idiot stops suddenly and gets his windshield covered with snow as it all slops onto his hood.

The worst is when it flies off into someone else's windshield.

In either case the laziness should be criminal, and the person should be fined. Only *after* the cops stop them and make them clean off their car...

Look, I appreciate when people give me a break when I'm trying to merge but honestly there are people with no damn common sense on the road. These are the people with only one person behind them and then a fifty mile open gap. Listen Buddy, I know you feel like you're doing me a favor but if you'd just freekin' gone on by I would have had *plenty* of time to merge. Really, I didn't need you slamming on your brakes to let me in, as I watch the eyes of the guy in the car behind you widen like soup plates as he desperately tries to stop in time.

On the other hand when I'm the person behind the jackass who feels like he needs to let the person on the cross street turn, hey what about me? Because I'm behind you I don't get the same courtesy? What about when I miss the damn light because *you* decided it was ok to stop everyone for the guy who was patiently waiting anyway?

Unless it's an endless stream of cars there really isn't an excuse to stop everyone behind you because you feel like being a Samaritan. The person behind you didn't get a chance offer their opinion, so please, just keep going on your way and give everyone else a break...

That's right they came back after I'd missed their delivery. Not only did they come back, they came back in an hour or so. Amazing, and completely unexpected, although appreciated.

I'd been tracking a package, and mind you their tracking is pretty damn nifty. You can sign up for email updates (to multiple addresses) on a number of conditions, including any change in package location/status at all. I saw that they were on their way to deliver and I dashed home... only to miss the delivery van by 10 minutes.

I called DHL and the lady said "Oh would you like him to return?" I was just speechless. Return? You mean today? Because I missed it? Well heck yeah!

I hardly see DHL, compared to UPS and Fedex, but they have my vote as the best commercial package delivery service. Next time I see their delivery as an option I won't hesitate to select it.

I've had a Visa card with Chase for twenty years. That's a long time to be with any one credit company. Personally I don't like having a huge fanfold of cards. I know plenty of people that do - they have one for Paypal and one for Amazon, one for Ebay and one for Shell, an American Express and maybe a department store or two... who knows? I don't know if many people realize it, but the more cards you hold, the less actual credit you can draw. Thus if you make, lets say 40k per year, and have lets say seven credit cards with a $5000 limit, that means you only have 5k worth of borrowing power (add in rent and other things like car insurance means you actually have less). So when you go to buy that new car chances are you won't get a great rate (not to mention if you want a mortgage).

I know people are fascinated by getting the nth of a percent back here and there but I don't see the value. Oh wow - so Discover gives you 5% back for gas purchases... up to the first $100. Well considering the cost of gas these days is the five bucks really worth it? Actually, if you don't e-pay them, and you extract the cost of postage then you're only getting a whole 8 cents (since a year's worth of postage is $4.92). Eh.

Back to Chase however, some of the highlights of the positive experiences I've had with them includes:

• Calls when they suspect fraudulent activities (hasn't ever happened, but I appreciate their concern)
• A one day replacement of my card when I had to take a flight and had left my card at a mall
• Copies of actual receipts when a transaction was in question
• Excellent customer service - all well spoken, intelligent individuals who were willing and able to help me
• Being amenable to changing my credit limit down (or up) as I liked

My one and only beef with them is that I have called repeatedly to have the extra crappola and advertisements that come with my bill removed. Typically this lasts for about six months and then I start getting the junk in my bill again. I've decided to put up with it because I do appreciate their service and plan on being their customer for a decent long while.

It amuses me when people come up to a cashier and then have to pick and choose amongst their cards... how much on this or that they have left. Sounds like a disaster to me, if you have only one it's much easier to be aware what you've spent and what you owe.

It's one of those times of the year when it becomes a necessity to grocery shop in volume. The supermarket I generally visit seems to hire a better quality of teenager to check and bag my goods. They're also 5% to 7% more expensive than the grocers at the other end of town. Thus, for volume days, I go to the cheaper store. While smaller, and more tightly packed, the kids there are reasonably fast on checkout. The baggers, however, are markedly different.

I usually ask for plastic bags. When I'm done I ball them all up and put the bags into recycling. Seems ok to me. Sure they're less durable but for the 12' walk from the car to the house it's not really a big deal. Well, that is when things are bagged with some sort of logic. There's variants on the theme of bagging, and some of them really make me wonder:

Burgeoning Bagging: Let's see just how MUCH stuff one bag can hold shall we? Chances are it won't...

Military Bagging: Only items of like size and shape can be placed in the same bag. If you only have one item of a size and shape it gets to wallow in the bag alone.

BioHazard Bagging: Meats with meats. Dairy with dairy. Frozen with frozen. (I'm actually ok with this since I prefer to keep the meats in the bag even when I stuff it in the fridge. It keeps leaks from becoming catastrophic.)

Demonstration of Entropy Bagging: This usually happens with the fastest baggers. Anything and everything goes into a bag until it reaches capacity. When you get home you'll need to go through 75% of the bags to find that last strawberry yogurt...

Criminally Insane Bagging: This was what I was a victim of last night. Honest to gods the kid put every single item, regardless of size, shape, color, texture, temperature, into its own separate bag. Loading it into the car I just reached into the cart and grabbed fist fulls of plastic and hoped the right end was up. When I got home the volume of plastic was roughly the dimension of the giant bubble that chased Patrick McGoohan down the beach in the opening scene of 'The Prisoner'.

There is one more type of bagging - and that's the Guilt Complex bagging you get when visiting the natural grocers. "WHAT?!?! you didn't bring handmade, earth-supporting, eco-friendly, hemp and cat-gut, Birkenstock-certified bags of your own? Oh the SHAME! We will grudgingly give you paper ones, but keep in mind we shall glare at you with pure contempt for your wastefulness in the process."

Yeah I don't shop there often, but they are open on Thanksgiving.

I resent having to deal with the 'Great Unwashed Masses' for almost anything. Supermarkets, theaters, malls. I just am not keen to deal with humans when they are not bent on a specific errand. Train stations, bus terminals, airports, not a problem. People rush hither and yon, with the occasional bump and "Oops, Pardon me." The difference is in the dawdling. I can't stand people who stand, oblivious to all the traffic they're causing about them, as they ponder this item or that thought.

I was at Costco which is, to me, a mix of train station and shopping. Most people are there for a specific reason and there isn't a lot of choices to be made. Do you want 50 rolls of Bounty or the generic brand? The price difference is a buck. Really not many people need to think about this. The only clots of humanity are clustered around the sample vendors who are giving away tidbits to taste. Usually those people are located in an area with ample room to support the ravenous hordes.

The exit, however, is a nightmarish hell. People with their carts loaded to the gunnels will actually stand stock still and read their receipt while people pile up behind them. With little or no concern they now need to check the price of this or that item, rather than having paid attention while being checked out.

I see the same idiotic behavior in malls - someone will suddenly stop at random, causing a multi-person pileup behind them. And unlike hubs of transportation, if you bump someone the "Oops, Pardon me" generates virulent hostility rather than a humorous look of understanding.

And people wonder why brick and mortar establishments are going the way of the dinosaur...

Most teenage girls are stressed. Between school, boys, hormones, parents, all the emotions being heaped on them or self-inflicted there's not much of a break. Megan was 13 who, in addition to all the things a new-teen has to cope with, was also ADHD and struggling with depression. She killed herself because the boy she'd falled in love with online turned out to be a cruel joke played on her by a former friend's Mom. One that was even a neighbor.

This Mom said she wanted only to win the girl's confidence to learn about her own daughter, but instead teamed up with a few other people to build a romance and then smash it to pieces. "Josh", the puppet boyfriend, turned on her suddenly - posting mean messages - calling her "fat" and "a slut".

Of course Megan never found out this was all a sham posted by someone she knew. She killed herself instead.

Eventually her parents found out when another girl, a schoolmate, told them about it.

The adults who did this haven't been charged with a crime because it doesn't "fit" within the existing laws.

It doesn't take much to decide if it a crime to drive a thirteen year old to her death after breaking her heart... Not to mention destroying her parents lives. They now plan to divorce. And the Mother who started it? Well she says she doesn't feel all that guilty, since Megan had tried to commit suicide once before.

Gj Lori Drew.

"So this is the kind of management we have to deal with: Nobody is calm, nobody is objective... Everyone is just freekin' Nuts."

-Roger

Do you want to know a sure-fire way to ruin Thanksgiving? Serve up a "new" and "exotic" recipe instead of a "classic". Just about any and all newspapers are carrying guaranteed ways to make your family go "WTF were you thinking?"

Take mashed potatoes for example. Pretty simple stuff really. Get potatoes. Boil potatoes. Add salt, pepper, milk and butter. Voila - done. I promise you adding blue cheese or fresh lavender will probably make most people wrinkle their nose and wonder why you decided to deviate from the traditional.

Thanksgiving is all about tradition really. Making the same, fatty, yummy dishes your great-grandparents made and throwing all health concerns to the four winds. Screw the nouvelle, it's the tried-and-true, Better Homes, Fanny Farmer, Joy of Cooking time of year. Chances are if you decide to substitute wheat-germ for flour and tofu for cheddar you will get a reaction, only probably not a good one. During Thanksgiving you can't get too Americana or too gauche.

Yes, marshmallows are just fine on sweet potatoes, no one cares - Grandma used to make it that way and she'd have smacked you with an iron pan if you dissed her cooking anyway...

I've never understood why traffic lights, the ones that are triggered by pressure or magnetic sensors, need to be programmed to be so fucking retarded. There's no reason in the world that a traffic light needs to be triggered when someone is making a right turn.

I see it all the fucking time. Driving along, the light is green. Way up ahead someone on a cross-street makes a right turn. As I approach the light it turns red for me, because the right-turn triggered the light for the cross street only now there's no one there.

It's fucking simple, just put in a timeout. If the car isn't there after, oh say three seconds, don't trigger the damn light.

It's not even rocket science...

It's funny in a sad way that probably every sick-o on campus (any campus, pick one) is probably trying to get their hands on the Aqua-Dots toy since it was publicized as being coated with a substance that decomposes into the Date-Rape drug

I can understand the need to announce the fact that the toy is harmful in the wrong hands, but wouldn't it have been smarter to just say the content was toxic rather than going into the details? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the demand for this item will skyrocket with freaks.

Of course the toy was never meant to be toxic(although I'm a little perplexed as to why the toy is listed for 4+ years, since just about any kid under 6 will still be shoving stuff into their mouth). Instead some dickhead at the factory in China that manufacturers the product substituted the toxic chemical for the non-toxic substance that had been approved. Why? Well because the actual chemical is four times more expensive.

Deja-news.

Chinese manufacturer substitutes cheap, lethal ingredients for legitimate ones and pockets the leftovers. People (or pets) die. Chinese government shrugs and it's business as usual.

So... who's ready for a little Olympics?

Oh and for those looking? While Ebay and Amazon have yanked it, the "toy" is still available online for around $30.

SOUTHWORTH, Wash. (AP) -- A man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring himself badly in both legs, sheriff's deputies said.

How exactly *do* you come up with the idea to loosen a lug nut with a shotgun? When I first read this I thought the individual had used the shotgun as a lever. But no, he actually shot at the wheel. With a gun.

Honestly I think this was the better possible ending, considering that there was probably a 50% chance he'd have held the gun by the barrel instead of the stock.

**Note** This is not my work, but I'm reproducing this here because of the relevance of the content. I have copied it here as it was forwarded to me, as such I have no ability to credit the original author but to whomever... props.

-u235

The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.

The phenomenon was demonstrated in a series of experiments performed by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, then both of Cornell University. Their results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999.

Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" (as Charles Darwin put it). They hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,

1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.

2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.

3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.

4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

They set out to test these hypotheses on human subjects consisting of Cornell undergraduates who were registered in various psychology courses.

In a series of studies, Kruger and Dunning examined self-assessment of logical reasoning skills, grammatical skills, and humor. After being shown their test scores, the subjects were again asked to estimate their own rank, whereupon the competent group accurately estimated their rank, while the incompetent group still overestimated their own rank. As Dunning and Kruger noted,

“Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd.”

Meanwhile, people with true knowledge tended to underestimate their competence.

A follow-up study suggests that grossly incompetent students improve both their skill level and their ability to estimate their class rank only after extensive tutoring in the skills they had previously lacked.

Daniel Ames and Lara Kammrath extended this work to sensitivity to others, and the subjects' perception of how sensitive they were.

Some more work by Burson Larrick and Joshua Klayman has suggested that the effect is not so obvious and may be due to noise and bias levels.

Dunning and Kruger won the 2000 Ig Nobel prize for their work.

So remember Kiddies! Next time you meet a Prime Example of the DKE don't forget... there's a scientific foundation for your annoyance. Letting others know that there's a DKE around -before- they encounter them is a boon to all! Help your peers and they'll help you.

I find it more than a little odd that a teacher would try and make a school, no actually their school, the target of the gun lobby. It seems that Ms. Katz is demanding the right to carry a semiautomatic on school grounds. Because she's afraid for her life. In 2004 she claims her ex-husband made threats during their divorce. Uh hello? That was almost four years ago... so why do you need a gun now?

It was always my thought that a teacher would put the lives of the children around them first, but I guess in this case Shirley doesn't give a crap. She wants to do her job and she wants to carry a gun in the process. Could she have an accident with the gun? Could she also be the target of someone in the school who wanted to take the gun from her? If her ex-husband did come after her, he would most certainly be carrying one, so that would make two guns in the school. Maybe probability and statistics aren't her thing but Shirl - the very fact that you have a gun with you increases the chances you (or someone around you) will be shot with one, trust me on this. Do you really want to be responsible for the death of a student?

I'm pretty sure most of the kids in her class probably don't give her too much grief, I know I wouldn't. On the other hand would I have my kids in her class?

Hell no.

Does everyone have a "right" to have fun? What if you're not capable of having a certain type of "fun" is it discrimination on the part of the provider? Let's take a hypothetical example of a tour service that offers climbs up Mount Everest. Is it discrimination that the service require that you be physically fit enough to climb? What about a scuba tour? Is it discrimination to require a person be able to swim?

I don't often side with Disney, but in this case they're being sued by people who "can stand but can't walk". These people prefer (note the word "prefer" here) to use a Segway rather than a wheelchair. They're suing Disney for this preference. Disney claims that since Segways can go up to 12 miles an hour that they're too dangerous in an environment filled with toddlers and little kids running amok. For once, I agree with Disney.

To the plaintiffs in this case: Mahala Ault, Dan Wallace, and Stacie Rhea - if you want to go to Disney so damn badly - do what other disabled persons do... use a wheelchair. No one is actually preventing you from visiting and enjoying the theme park. It's fucking greedy and self-centered to force the proprietors to accept the risk of your being able to safely operate your device in a crowded environment. Personally I wouldn't want you behind my children in a line.

Advil is not a snack food.

Are you a Cell-phone Sufferer? Do you grind your teeth as people in the restaurant, museum, or theater yak on obliviously less than two feet away? What about having to squelch the urge to reach in and snatch the phone from the jerk who suddenly realized he was passing his turnoff and yanks the car over three lanes?

The NY Times went over this topic just the other day in an article discussing the merits and implications of devices to squelch cell phone communications. Either handheld or building-wide, the "cure" to the common angst is available for purchase. Letter writers responded with three types of comments: 1) Outrage - "How dare anyone interfere with my ability to use the phone when and where I want to" 2) Approval - "Where do I buy one?" and 3) Wry amusement - "Just shout 'SHADDUP' in their face... it's more satisfying and costs less."

The Times being more politically astute didn't comment on gender or age in terms of who is more annoying in their use of cell phones. But of course none of that applies here...

Women. Honestly I see more women on the phone in their cars, and more men on the phone when walking in public. Women scare me more than men however, since a 90lb woman behind the wheel of a mammoth SUV is far more lethal than a 250lb guy not looking where he's walking. Nothing fucking frightens me more, than seeing some teased, blonde, business-suited bitch gabbing away while peering at herself in the rearview all the while tailgating me on the highway. I just begin my mantra of "SUV Rollver, SUV Rollover" but thus far the affirmation hasn't worked, well as far as I can tell. Everyone knows phones are a major source of distraction leading to accidents, plenty of them fatal for the people who weren't on the phone, but only a few states have gone so far as demanding hands-free operation.

People under the age of 35 and over the age of 20. It seems that a certain etiquette is being established by the newer generation. Perhaps having it drilled into them from an early age, they understand that specific areas such as schools, hospitals, libraries, theaters, and so on are not appropriate for loud conversations. It's the later adopters that seem to have a complete disdain for any sort of restraint.

In response to the rabid woman who went berserk over the idea that she might have the electronic umbilical cut for even an hour... gosh whatever would she have done twenty years ago? Sit there in school next to them? Follow the kids around from class to class in college? Get a grip bitch, your kids can survive being out of communication with you, and even if something does happen chances are a responsible person will manage it just fine. If it's such a freekin issue try home schooling instead.

About cell phone signal silencers, well I don't have an opinion one way or another. I do own and use a cell phone, but I don't think I annoy anyone with it because I like to have my conversations in private. Am I annoyed with other people and their lack of consideration? Often. However I would rather just silence specific offenders than catching bystanders accidentally. Now if they made a targeted device, well... yeah that would be tempting.

I don't like frozen food in general. Well, let me amend that, I think freezing is a fine way to preserve raw ingredients like peas and parsnips. I'll freeze some leftovers, like lasagna, from time to time or maybe leftover soup-stock, but in general I detest (with rare exception) pre-prepared meals and "entrees".

Ugh. "Entree"? Come on, that's just a nice way of saying - here's some almost edible content with the consistency of mushed styrofoam with a double helping of salt, and preservatives. Enjoy.

I do buy a few of these packaged and frozen meals for work expressly for times when I'm too rushed to go out, or am bereft of some tasty leftover from the previous nights dinner. I mentally call these "White-Collar MREs", a last ditch act of desperation to prevent foraging in the vending machine. And while I only buy meals that are preservative free, dairy free and all-natural it invariably comes down to a battle of the carrots.

I suppose carrots are the single most freezer-worthy vegetable. Pile that on top of, cheap, easy to handle and "colorful" there's always more frozen carrots in a meal than I'd ever want to consume. It's almost charming the way they take on the texture consistency of a 'Pink Pearl' eraser, melded with a bland and almost carrot-like taste (actually I think I imagine that last part, because if I were fed some blindfolded I would probably punch the person for trying to pass off silly-putty as food).

On the other hand, if you removed carrots as a fundamental freezer-food building block, what would be left? I imagine a desiccated wasteland of bland rice, dilapidated psudo-meat-like cubes and clots of gummy noodles in some sort of flavor (gravy, sauce, whatever). It would hardly be better or more palatable, and certainly less colorful so I guess, in the end, carrots have their place even if they don't retain their crunch.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government has overcharged Americans by more than $100 million a year in its fee for new passports, according to cost figures uncovered by congressional investigators and analyzed by two senators and The Associated Press.

The two senators said Americans have been quietly gouged since 2002. The report they initiated showed the costs incurred by the State Department and the U.S. Postal Service, for accepting passport applications, were considerably less than the fee charged.

Yow. By how much have Americans been over charged you ask?

The $97 passport fee -- $82 for children under 16 -- dates back to 2005. The GAO studied whether a $30 portion of that fee was justified.

The $30 is intended to cover the cost of clerks examining and accepting passport applications at post offices, State Department passport offices, courthouses, libraries, municipal offices and universities.

The investigators' findings? The government's $30 fee was roughly double the actual cost when imposed in 2002. The Postal Service, which operates 5,382 locations where people can apply for passports, estimated its costs at $13.31 in 2002. The State Department, which operates 14 passport offices, said its costs were $16.20 at that time.

Apparently it's not just commercial big businesses that have profited grandly from the war on terror and the business-friendly administration. Considering how *many* people didn't get their passports on time, or had to pay twice when things were lost or delayed it's a genuine outrage. Also keep in mind that things are going to get worse really soon when a passport will be demanded for all air travelers visiting Canada, Mexico, Central American, South America, the Caribbean or Bermuda.

A little side note to ladies venturing forth on their honeymoon. If you book your tickets well in advance and plan on having your passport updated with your new last name - make certain you book your tickets with the same name. They won't let you on otherwise.

Well here's a big 'Fuck you' to USA Track and Field. They've decided that it's cheating to be listening to music when you run. Truth. So the fallout is that races are expected to ban, and enforce through confiscation, any and all iPods or MP3 players they can find. What's next? Will humming become an offense as well?

"I'm sorry but we're disqualifying you from the race because you were singing material from 'Annie the Musical'"?

True, I might be inclined to agree if the runner next to me started yodelling or doing a medley of Bette Middler songs, but dammit it might just inspire me to run faster just to get the hell away from them.

Still the point is, it's asinine to take away something that isn't a chemical or physical enhancement. Citing "safety" is bullshit. You're in a massive throng of people, more likely to be run over than miss some announcement. Besides there's tons of other noise as well. In addition, any runner without a headset does so by choice. No one is mandating that certain people use or don't use music as a motivational tool... until now.

So again, USA Track and Field, get off your fucking allmighty horses and get a grip instead. Runners aren't all that "aware" of their surroundings when they're in the zone. They're not on a fucking holiday jaunt, they're competing at the limit of their abilities. Focus on doping or physical forms of cheating, not on something as stupid and arbitrary as this, unless your point is to deliberately exclude the "average" runner.

The story in a nutshell: French boy is raped by locals. The Dubai government tells him and his family to shut up about it or they'll throw the boy in prison for being a homosexual. In addition one of the rapists tested positive for AIDS, something they neglected to tell the parents for months. After threatening the family and eventually facing outrage from France itself Dubai is making some mutterings about it being a "crime".

The mother has taken out a website and started a page. Feel free to show your support:
boycottdubai.com

I have to hand it to the Bush administration, they constantly come up with new ways to expand my horizons. In this case it happens to be with a fabulously transparent, imitation press conference. Here's the brief:

Having been lambasted for a pathetic response to Katrina, FEMA wanted to be seen as pro-active with regards to the wildfires in California. So, they decided to host a press conference to discuss how well they were handling the situation. Only having a real press conference was too risky, since real reporters might actually ask real questions. Thus FEMA staged a "fake" press conference where FEMA employees posed as reporters using scripted queries.

Oh the press were there, well they were invited at the last minute... but they were only allowed to listen by calling in on an 800 number and not ask any questions.

The excuse behind this charade was "to get information out as soon as possible".

cha·rade
Pronunciation[shuh-reyd; especially Brit. shuh-rahd]

noun 1. charades, (used with a singular verb) a game in which the players are typically divided into two teams, members of which take turns at acting out in pantomime a word, phrase, title, etc., which the members of their own team must guess.
2. a word or phrase acted out in this game.
3. a blatant pretense or deception, esp. something so full of pretense as to be a travesty.

Of course once this event was exposed for the fully scripted vignette it was, administration officials took the high road and claimed complete ignorance and disgust at the event.

Do you think they would have been as outraged if they hadn't been caught?

Gods how I hate Barbie. That pink plastic is the scourge of any toy store I enter. Lately, however the toy designers at Mattel have stooped to an all time low: "Will that be cash or credit?" the little girl with the deaths-head grin plastered to her face says to her playmate.

Yes there have been plenty of toy cash registers in the past, but this one is especially vile. Built in the loathsome pink, with Barbie money and Barbie credit cards. The kids don't even have to add or subtract to make purchases, they simply "swipe" a barcode or press a button with the item's picture beside it and the digital amount is immediately displayed.

"Yeah Mommie that's what I want to do when I grow up - I want to Shop till I Drop", which, coincidentally happens to be the actual name of the toy.

Fuck Barbie and Fuck Mattel. Want the toy to have some actual value? Then include an option where the toy store can come and repossess the toy after a month or so. "Sorry, that's what really happens when you Shop till you Drop, and you don't have a job." Job-skill toys? No Barbie doesn't have any of that... unless you count the "Let's Look like a Ho" makeup sets.

I guess that's a valid profession for a Barbie girl.

There's hardly much to add to the AP News blurb... so I'll just let them do it for me. Take it away Associated Press!

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Women in several countries have begun sending their panties to Myanmar embassies in a culturally insulting gesture of protest against the recent brutal crackdown there, a campaign supporter said Friday.

"It's an extremely strong message in Burmese and in all Southeast Asian culture," said Liz Hilton, who supports an activist group that launched the "Panties for Peace" drive earlier this week.

The group, Lanna Action for Burma, says the country's superstitious generals, especially junta leader Gen. Than Shwe, also believe that contact with women's underwear saps them of power.

[...]

"You can post, deliver or fling your panties at the closest Burmese Embassy any day from today. Send early, send often!" the Lanna Action for Burma Web site urges.

Robs them of their powers eh? I wonder if you get double damage if you send panties with.... ok even I won't go there.

Who is Michael Heath? No one you should know. Basically he's some religious freak that has taken issue with the fact that King Middle School (also in Maine) can provide contraception for children who have parental permission to see a doctor. The dig is that because this school serves predominantly middle and lower-class kids, the health services is located in the school.

What the Idiot At Large fails to grasp is the "parental" part of all this. Kids cannot just get pills at random, they need permission from their parents first, to even see a doctor. As to why the school is offering contraception, the answer is because they had 17 pregnancies in the school (kids aged 11 to 13) in the previous year.

I fail to grasp why Christian conservatives get so angry when other adults decide what is right for their kids. It never is, or was about what the kids have access to - it's about what other parents can decide. And apparently the concept of being free to choose what can help your kid isn't an "American" ideal to this type of zealot. In their world only their values, including intolerance and bigotry is what is "right" for America.

54% of the school's children qualify for free lunch, meaning that 54% of the school is considered poor. Since clearly these kids are sexually active, and again quite clearly they don't have access to contraception why isn't it a reasonable alternative to offer counseling and medication at the school with parental consent?

These are kids, and if they're having sex they need help to prevent a pregnancy which would be physically and mentally harmful. In addition, according to their current policy a whole 5 kids out of 510 would have qualified for the program anyway.

So what's the big deal?

Remember the hoopla when the muslims in Nigeria set back the global eradication of Polio by refusing to vaccinate their children? As a result of religious stupidity and asinine posturing children died, suffered and the disease spread to many other countries that had almost become Polio-free.

It's one thing to laugh at uneducated and unwashed peoples who live in mud huts and fear the wrath of tribal elders. It's not so funny when it's idiots here at home.

Like who? Like Rachel Magni, "a 35-year-old stay-at-home mother in Newton, Mass." She won't vaccinate her kids because... she's afraid. But clearly she's not too afraid of what it could do to the children of the people around her. It's one thing to take a risk with your own life and your own child, it's quite another to do it to someone else.

What she's doing is lying to the state of Massachusetts by claiming an exemption from vaccinations for "religious reasons" where none exist. "I felt that the risk of the vaccine was worse than the risk of the actual disease". I wish there were a vaccination for your stupidity as well.

Honestly I have no problem at all if people don't want to protect their children from life-threatening diseases, so long as they keep the hell away from everyone else. No vaccine? Fine, then no public school for you. Homeschool your kids. Everyone will be happy.

Excepting of course your children when they do get some horrific disease and ask you "But Mom the other kids aren't getting sick - why is it just me?"

On the other hand, I hear property is pretty cheap in Nigeria...

Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy got pissed when the Boston Herald misquoted him as telling a rape victim to "get over it". He then acted within the rules when he sued and won a libel suit against the paper. Apparently that wasn't enough so he started sending the paper letters, the content of which have landed him at the pointy end of ethical charges. One letter demanded that the publisher deliver a check for $3.26 million - ostensibly to speed the case to closure rather than dealing with the appeals process.

Ok, poor judgement on the part of the Judge but the really big flub came when he told the news how the whole event affected his family.

Murphy choked up as he described how the libel case took a severe toll on him and his family.

After Herald columnist Howie Carr criticized him, a posting in a Herald chat room suggested "maybe my daughters ought to be raped," Murphy recalled. The judge said after that, his 14-year-old daughter began wetting the bed and both of his daughters required therapy.

It's not like his family wasn't stressed enough but he's now told the entire world that his 14-year-old is wetting the bed. Brilliant. Even if her friends and classmates didn't know, they sure know now.

Based on that alone I think this guy needs to take a leave of absence based on an obvious lack of judgement.

It's easy to hate airports. The stench of sweat, jet exhaust, and sickly sweet or desperately salty odors of cheap, awful food. It's more or less the same for the people, tired, wired or otherwise jaded, yapping on phones or giving you a hostile glare for taking the only remaining seat (which, as chance would have it, happened to be next to *them*). The only real comfort is the fact that there's lots of people to watch. And when you get tired or run out of pulp to read at least there's something to gawk at. Lots to gawk at actually.

"No, I don't want you to be working 40 hours a week.."
"But Mom!"

I was privy to this conversation that was going on right behind my head. Mom and her two sons, one clearly in his later teens and one in his earlier looked like direct relatives of the great Ozzy himself. One of the boys sported altogether the worst pair of pants I'd ever seen.

On the previous flight I'd been gifted with a full view of patterned boxers when the baggy-jeans wearing kid behind me bent over to fiddle with his backpack. Full indeed. His pants were a good foot lower than his hips, leading me to wonder just how he'd make it down the isle without getting tangled. However, maybe just because the whole-baggy look is so old I wasn't nearly as piqued as later when I encountered this woman and her progeny.

In this case the pants were low - way low - but insanely tight. True, the kid had no leg muscles to speak of, giving the Parisian models a run for their emaciated aura. But with the "waist" and belt effectively cinching his legs together right below the crotch I had to believe that some mystical force propelled him forward when clearly no normal motion could occur.

Not baggy, but too low to walk? Not tight around the ass but tourniquet-ed about the top of the thighs? Damn but those really are some bad pants...

And by the way," he said, "we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you."

He who? You know, Herr Bush. The concept here being that although the US does not use or condone torture, *somehow* they got critical information from them. Sure...

I find is most especially hard to believe considering the quality of the highly publicized cases thus far. Had our government actually prevented some massive effort we would have heard about it with much flag waving and fanfare. Hell, we've heard about serious plots in Britain and Germany. But here? Uh no.

Yeah go on, like you really need an excuse to do whatever the hell you want anyway. We all knew you were torturing people. Why not just find your balls and state the fact that you don't care if you have to hurt or abuse someone so long as you feel you're doing your job?

At least that would be the honest truth.

I won't buy Vista.

There's lots of good reasons why. Good, solid, valid reasons. And most of all they're *my* reasons. I don't want it, I don't like it and I don't have to have it.

Microsoft of course is pissed about this because I'm not in a minority. Vista, since its launch, has sucked. It's been made fun of, and deservedly so.

So what's an almighty software giant like Microsoft to do?

Simple. Try and use their clout in other markets to force people to change.

What people?... Well gamers.

When I picked up a copy of Halo 2 for the PC I discovered this abusive campaign under the guise of "Games for Windows". In essence it was "either you play this game (which was released a stupid amount of time after the xbox version) on *our* terms or you don't play it at all." Basically a variant of the infantile: "Well either we play with my toys my way - or you can all just go home."

(Note that this is especially amusing since Microsoft has just recently enabled a path to "downgrade" to XP - admitting that yeah, Vista really does blow dead dogs.)

Honestly you think they'd know better. There isn't a more stubborn, truculent, mulish group than PC gamers. Numbers decimated by console offerings, we remain the few, the dedicated, the unyielding. Trying to lead us along by waving bright, shiny objects, such as Bioshock for example, simply isn't enough to make us want to renovate our precious computers with Vista filth.

As bad as it seems, in fact they did me a favor. I'd been torn between trying ET: Quake Wars or Halo 2. Now I didn't have to decide at all...

What else do you call someone that's a terrorist?

Dickhead.

Once again, or so the media exclaimed, silver is the most popular of car colors.

Well whoopie.

It's hard to bash consumers for favoring a "color" that is useful (digression: is silver really a color per se or a lack of color, along the same lines as black and white?). Useful meaning that it does hide the dirt, it's easy to touch up, hard to criticize as 'clashing', relatively cool in summer, etc. But on the other hand it labels the owner as a relative milquetoast.

"Well it was what they had on the lot."
"My last car was silver."
"I couldn't really decide on a color."

Excuses.

I hate it when people don't choose to use their brains to think. It's like "Well, I went to all the trouble to choose a manufacturer, and a dealer, pick out a model and haggle on the price but when it comes to color I'll just accept any old schlock." C'mon, it's your money don't you want something that looks different from all the other cars in the parking lot? So at least you don't have to read the license plate or look for the gum-wrappers on the floor to know its yours?

While there's a limited number of offerings, you'll note that car colors do vary, slowly yes, but they do. Back in the 80's blues and metallic blues were in. Late 80's saw the introduction of green. Maroons were all the rage in the 90s and then lately there's been a resurgence (thanks to the inevitable weirdness of aesthetics given to us by German brands such as Audi and Volkswagen) of grays, oranges and 70's era greens (avocado anyone?). Myself I was taken with the panzer-kampf-tanken-undercoaten color of the Audi TT's - truly a remarkable shade of gray that at once reminded one of the plastic in military models. Yes, it wasn't exactly a color - but unlike generic silver it was unique. It said something.

On one point alone I'll forgive silver-car buyers: insurance. Red and yellow cars are actually more expensive to insure, and silver is harder to track in traffic when they're trying to chase you down for speeding.

But still, couldn't you have chosen green or blue or maybe even beige?

No, no, no, no, no! Don't do it! Just don't do it!

President Bush said Wednesday that a law hastily passed in August to temporarily give the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign terror suspects must be made permanent and expanded.

[...]

"Without these tools, it will be harder to figure out what our enemies are doing to train, recruit and infiltrate operatives into America," he [Bush] said on a visit to the super-secret National Security Agency's headquarters in suburban Fort Meade, Md. "Without these tools, our country will be much more vulnerable to attack."

For the love of all things American, do NOT give Herr Bush a further extension on his attempt to reduce our rights and freedoms! It's yet another blatant power grab from an already overstuffed, dictator who has no respect for our country or the people it contains.

I realized the other day that there's a little-discussed aspect of MP3 players. It's the black-box, anonymity gained by putting a 'generic' face on something that is very revealing.

In the past you could get an idea of what kind of person you were next to by catching a glimpse of the CD titles in their car, on their desk, in their home...etc. But with the advent of all-digital, no-moving-parts music players these accidental insights are all but removed. Now the only revelation comes when someone chooses to share their playlist, and again, it's a choice.

I can remember raising an eyebrow when getting a ride to lunch with someone and seeing the cover of a cassette tape ("they still listen to Queen !?!" or "Whoa, My Sharona?"). There was a sense of peeping into someone's private self, sure they wear a tie Mon-Fri 9am to 5pm but once they get into the car they're howling to Stevie Ray Vaughan or having a moment with Tom Jones. Who knew?

Well for the most part, no one will - at least not by accident. With the enormous improvement in sound quality and portability it's hard, overall, to lament this change. Still there is a certain romance for those days when a show-tune 8-Track in the back seat meant you had a pretty good idea of whom you were dealing with and what to expect.

... Whodat? Why it's Alan Greenspan, one of the few men that can make women swoon just by the size of his... intellect alone. In his new memoir he lays bare the facts, without the comfy trappings of political rhetoric. And while he makes many points with razor-like clarity, I'm particularly fond of this one:

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

You tell it brother.

Truth.

On September first I posted this brief blog:

Let China Solve Iraq

Today I saw this article in the times.... Interesting timing.

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Iraq Through China’s Lens
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 12, 2007

It is hard not to feel that China has spent the last six years training for the Olympics while we’ve spent ourselves into debt on iPods and Al Qaeda.