Wednesday, June 11, 2014

"The trouble is..."

Father's Day... - Anthropasaurus: "FATHER’S DAY IS COMING UP. I WONDER HOW MANY PEOPLE I CAN MAKE UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN I TELL THEM MY DAD’S DEAD."



Woman Dies in Jail Because She Failed to Pay a Fine--For Her Child's Truancy From School - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "DiNino, 55, of Reading, was found dead in a jail cell Saturday morning, hours after she surrendered to serve a 48-hour sentence. She had racked up $2,000 in fines, fees and court costs since 1999 as the Reading School District tried to keep her children in class, most recently at a vocational high school. Died alone in prison. Over truancy."


Miss Indiana Is Normal | What Would Tyler Durden Do: "Twitter erupted during the Miss USA Pageant with praise from women happy to see Miss Indiana and what they referred to as a normal sized woman. That means unlike her beanpole competitors, she sucked on more than one chili dog outside the Tastee Freez. Fat acceptance advocates think that sporting a gunt is tantamount to goddess empowerment. As a practical matter, it is easier to encourage a fatter standard of normalcy than it is to do Pilates and lay off the cheese cake bites even when cycling. No, not that kind of cycling. The praise for Miss Indiana is refreshing in a day and age where the average American weighs 674.3 pounds and requires motorized wheels to purchase bulk boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats at the store..."

You know what happens to the "average" in a nation of the obese?  That's right, the "average" is fat.  Mss Indiana Mekayla Diehl's body is not 'normal' or 'average' - Los Angeles Times:
I'm sorry, but if you're over 160 at 5'3" and your waistline is bigger than mine...  I'm not saying it's guaranteed that you're overweight, but that's the way the smart people are betting.

The Free Enterprise Director Is Making The Ultimate Star Trek Fan Film: "Fan-made Star Trek projects are 10 Federation credits a dozen. But Robert Burnett isn't just any fan — he's the director of the beloved Trek romantic comedy Free Enterprise, and now he's focusing his talents on a movie chronicling the first Klingon war. Set after Enterprise and before the Original Series, Axanar will be a 90-minute movie about "The Four Years War," as mentioned in the TOS episode "Whom Gods Destroy." The video above is a trailer for the prequel, a short named "Prelude to Axanar," which has already been completed and will debut at this year's San Diego Comic-Con in hopes of generating enough interest to fund the Axanar movie proper."



Broken America.  Kid Twirls a Pencil in Class, N.J. Threatens to Take Him from His Dad and Requires Blood and Urine Testing - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "In April, Ethan Chaplin was twirling his pencil in class when another kid—a bully, according to Chaplin—called out: "He's making gun motions, send him to juvie!"  The 13-year-old was yanked out of school and thereby commenced his 15 minutes of fame as sites like Huffington Post, as well as local cable news stations, took up his cause arguing that a suspension for pencil twirling was zero tolerance run amok...  

Ethan was back in class quickly, but too often these zero tolerance cases have second- and third-order effects. In Ethan's case, long after they thought the incident was resolved, his dad received some very scary paperwork from the state of New Jersey threatening to revoke his custody rights..

"I received a letter from them saying they had found an incident of abuse or neglect regarding Ethan because I refused to take him for psychological evaluation," Michael said. Panicked by the letter, Ethan's parents took him in for the evaluation, where he was required to give blood and urine samples...

Meanwhile, 13-year-olds may be idiots sometimes, but they're not dumb. Remember, the whole incident was triggered by a kid savvy enough to know that raising the specter of even a fake gun is a powerful weapon in the bullying wars."


This would be awesome, and only corporate fuckery prevents it from being so.  This Fan-Made Trailer Would Be The Ultimate Superhero Movie | - BroBible.com:


Libertarians Versus the War Hawks - Reason.com: "Most libertarians believe our attempts to create or support democracy around the world have made us new enemies, and done harm as well as good. We want less military spending...

Some conservatives respond to that by calling us isolationists, but we're not. I want to participate in the world; I just don't want to run it. I'm glad Americans trade with other countries—trade both goods and people. It's great we sell foreigners our music, movies, ideas, etc. And through dealing with them, we also learn from what they do best...

But hawks like Bolton ignore parts of reality, too.  They are quick and correct to point out the danger of Iran going nuclear. They are not as quick to talk about the fact that Iran has a population three times the size of Iraq's—and the Iraq War wasn't as smooth or short as then-Vice President Dick Cheney and others assured us it would be...

If it's realistic to acknowledge that America has dangerous enemies, it's also realistic to acknowledge that going to war is not always worth the loss of money and lives, and that it makes new enemies. War, like most government plans, tends not to work out as well as planners hoped...

Occasionally government acknowledges mistakes in domestic policy—but that doesn't mean it then becomes more efficient. It usually just spends more to try, and fail, to fix the problem. It's the nature of government. Politicians don't face the competitive incentives that force other people to make hard decisions.  Candidate Obama garnered support by criticizing Bush for costing money and lives through a protracted stay in Iraq. But that didn't stop President Obama from putting more money and troops into Afghanistan. In his first term alone, Obama spent about three times as much in Afghanistan as Bush did in two terms. Did we win hearts and minds? I don't think so. The Taliban may still retake the country.  Our military should be used for defense, not to police the world. "


The Importance Of Standing Your Ground: "Do Not Listen To Others’ Characterization Of Your Actions 
(...whatever third party) may claim that you are an asshole, that you are selfish, that you are giving an ultimatum etc. As to the first two things, congrats yes you are. Be selfish and be an asshole—it is your life and if you do not want to tolerate something, then don’t. Same thing with the supposed ultimatum...

Your Ground Is Completely Subjective 
There is no person other than yourself who can decide where to draw the line, and what ground to stand upon...  The point is that your ground is your ground."




This is pretty deep geek stuff, but I laughed.



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