Cosmetic Biking

In a week when the Republicans decide they don't want to give poor kids health insurance, it's hard to find bigger jerks. Luckily, U.S. Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) is doing double duty by bravely fighting the "Diversion of Funds From Bridges to Nonpriority Items"

At a time when the Nation’s roads and bridges need attention – as demonstrated by the recent collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis – the Federal Government continues to divert large amounts of money to bike paths and other cosmetic projects that could be funded locally.

It's good to know that bike paths - by reducing the number of cars on the road, improving public health through exercise, cutting pollution, breaking our oil addiction, and being generally good for property values and quality of life - are merely cosmetic.

I hope Rep. Ryan gets his tongue caught in a derailleur.

(Via Silent Sports Sounds Off.)

Balanced Dialogue, my ass

You know what pisses me off? OK, a lot of things, but right this moment in particular? When well-meaning people take the concept of Presenting A Balanced Perspective to new levels of stoopid, that's what. Case in point: In my never-ending search for cheap or free activities to take the kid to, I've signed up for a weekly email from GoCityKids, which conveniently assembles local stuff and dumps it in my inbox for my perusal. I'm browsing this weekend's options and I stumble across this little entry:

The Great Global Warming Swindle
To foster a balanced dialogue within the community, the nature center presents a screening of The Great Global Warming Swindle, which offers an alternate viewpoint on global warming to An Inconvenient Truth, which the center showed earlier in the year. The 90-minute film is followed by a discussion. Children must be accompanied. Advance registration is required.

The location of this fine, balanced event? Why, the Westwood Hills Nature Center, of course! Because who has more interest in giving crackpots a bully pulpit than the very places those crackpot ideas will destroy? Gah. From the wording of the entry, it's clear that the Nature Center is showing this in a (misguided) effort to avoid the charge of ... what? Liberal bias, I guess. But this, of course, is absurd. Say the center presented a talk on, oh, the lifecycle of the salmon, for example. Would anyone expect them to offer equal time to a presentation called "The Great Salmon Swindle: They Really Swim Downstream"? OF COURSE NOT. Balanced dialogue means offering people or groups of differing opinions equal say. OPINIONS. Like, in circumstances where multiple valid viewpoints can be expressed. The tastiness of liver, say, or the possibility of a "just war." You can have a debate about these matters because it's possible to be rational and sane and still have differing viewpoints on them. You know what's not like that? GLOBAL WARMING.

Kathy Griffin: Comedic Genius

Along with PZ Myers, I think Kathy Griffin, a self-professed "D-list" celebrity, is actually pretty damn cool. She won an Emmy for her reality show, and then,

In her speech, Griffin said that "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus."

She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-color remark about Christ and proclaim, "This award is my god now!"

Even better, the "off-color remark" was apparently, "Suck it, Jesus." He can't of course, being 2,000 years dead.

(Via Pharyngula.)

How Do You Say "Sorry" in Gaelic?

I'm sorry, but all the I'm-sorrying around the planet is making me retch.

First, Japan issues a mealy-mouthed mea culpa for invading everybody else in Asia (and nobody else accepts the apology), then a bunch of Confederate states start lining up to apologize for slavery, and now we have freaking Denmark - land of Hans Christian Andersen, delectable pastries, bike commuting, and doped-up cyclists - apologizing to Ireland for the Viking invasions a thousand years ago. Gimme a break. Has anyone had it easier since 1000 A.D. than the Irish? They have a beautiful country, the English have been happy to help out with religion and language, the whole potato angle worked out great, their IT-based economy is booming, traditional Irish music like U2 is huge, and don't forget Guinness.

But still, they now get a flat, waterlogged Nordic country to apologize for trying to jump-start the Irish import/export business a few centuries ago? Shameless. It's Ireland that oughta be apologizing to the rest of us for this nonsense.

Nixon in Purgatory

Someday, when my kids are past college, I hope they can read stuff about George W. Bush that's as insane as this stuff on his only competition for the title of Worst President Ever, Richard M. Nixon. A short, punchy gloss in Slate describes

a meandering 11-page memorandum (PDF) that Nixon sent in 1970 to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, urging that White House staffers talk up what a warm human being "RN" was. (As was his habit, in the memo Nixon referred to himself repeatedly in the third person.) Nixon complained that "average voters" regarded RN as "an efficient, crafty, cold, machine." To help correct this common misconception, Nixon cited "warm items" (Page 3) such as "the calls that I make to people when they are sick, even though they no longer mean anything to anybody" (Page 4). "I called some mothers and wives of men that had been killed in Vietnam," he added, helpfully.

Because he was Nixon, he resented somewhat the social imperative that the president be courteous. "[W]e have gone far beyond any previous president … in breaking our backs to be nicey-nice to the Cabinet, staff and the Congress … around Christmastime," Nixon groused (Page 3). "I have treated them like dignified human beings and not like dirt under my feet" (Page 4), he continued. Connoisseurs will recognize this last as a choice illustration of Nixon's rhetorical tendency to render the thing he denies (that he treats subordinates "like dirt under my feat," that he is "a crook," that the press will "have Dick Nixon to kick around") much more vivid than the denial itself ("not," "won't").

Priceless. Nixon's "warm items" are Bush's "smart items," no?

So You Say You Want a Revolution

Well, you know...

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

“I work for a living.”

Strange interaction at the Bulldog last night. I’m outside with some friends for a smoke break. A very out of place dude is nervously pacing and looking around. He’s out of place as he’s wearing business casual clothes – part golf/part suburban sales dork. He’s also wearing a pin that celebrates Mitsubishi’s 25 years in America. I assume he works for one of the local dealerships. He asks to use my cell phone. I let him but say something like, “don’t call in a hit or commit a crime with that.” The fuckknuckle says “I work for a living.” I think you fuck -- we all do. It's 9:14 PM according to my call record, do you think we're here all day drinking on your suburban tax dollar? Then we see his “friend” waving from across the street. The Fuckknuckle Mistsubishi sales dude runs across the street – as the “friend” reaches in his pocket, the Fuckknuckle waves him off. They go behind the Lyndale Animal clinic for what has to be a drug deal. Lay off him he works for a living – he can’t buy drugs at the Mitsubishi dealership. Less than a minute later, he jumps in the pictured truck, which had a driver waiting for him. Now I have what I believe to be a drug dealers number on my cell. Do I forward to the cops? Do I start shopping at the local Mitsubishi dealers to find Fuckknuckle and start asking him about drugs and friendship? Fuck, I hate when I’m suckered by dickheads.

Things That Are Currently Irritating the CRAP Out of Me

1. That commercial for Boniva, the monthly calcium supplement that Sally Field is a spokesperson for. That part where she talks about her "friend" who "has to set aside time once a week" for her calcium supplement, while Sally just has to take Boniva monthly? FUCKING HELL. Are you kidding me? A) Call me crazy, but taking a pill once a week doesn't really seem to me to be such a huge burden, and B) personally, I'd be more likely to remember to take a weekly pill than a monthly one. Either way, it's a goddamn stupid marketing technique.

2. That commercial for 21st Century Insurance, whose campaign is centered around their claim that "we're drivers, just like you." Uh, yeah. And that distinguishes you from other auto insurance companies how, again? What, the good folks at Progressive are limited to skateboards? The Geico Gekko's a bicycle-only lizard? The State Farm people are driving tractors to work? Give me a fucking break.

3. Trans-fats: why do they have to be so damn BAD for you, when they taste so damn GOOD?

This concludes today's episode of Things That Are Currently Bugging the Crap Out of Me. Over and out.

Gadgets Go to Hell

This is getting a lot of play in the geekier corners of the net (Boing Boing, Kottke), but it's worth reading firsthand: a fantastic, Matt-level rant by a former tech-blog editor on the insanity of America's fascination with consumer electronics. It's a great corrective to early-adopteritis. A snippet:

Kept buying shitty phones and broken media devices green and dripping with DRM. You broke the site, clogging up the pipe like retarded salmon, to read the latest announcements of the most trivial jerk-off products, completely ignoring the stories about technology actually making a difference to real human beings, because you wanted a new chromed robot turd to put in your pocket to impress your friends and make you forget for just a few minutes, blood coursing as you tremblingly cut through the blister pack, that your life is utterly void of any lasting purpose...

Stop buying this crap. Just stop it. You don't need it. Wait a year until the reviews come out and the other suckers too addicted to having the very latest and greatest buy it, put up a review, and have moved on to something else. Stop buying broken products and then shrugging your shoulders when it doesn't do what it is supposed to. Stop buying products that serve any other master than you. Use older stuff that works. Make it yourself. Only buy new stuff from companies that have proven themselves good servants of their customers in the past. Complaining online about this stuff helps, but really, just stop buying it...

Get it together: every single one of these consumer electronics companies should be approached as the enemy. They work for us. Hold their feet to the fire when they say their product is going to change even a small part of our lives.

This is bracing stuff - just harsh enough to make happy to not have a cell phone anymore, not so cruel as to keep me from coveting a new MacBook.

Amazon Con?

I ordered some stuff from Amazon on January 13. The total was more than $25, so of course I chose the "Super Saver Shipping" option, which I've used many times in the past. I realized yesterday that I hadn't received the shipment, or seen an email about a delay, so I checked my account and discovered that the expected shipping date is February 18-March 4, 2007, the estimated delivery date February 23-March 12.

Two months for delivery? What the hell is going on with that? Every other time I've used this shipping option, I've received my stuff within a couple weeks - not PDQ, but not s-l-o-w, either. When did Amazon.com demote Super Saver Shipping orders to steerage?