Why I Won't Be Flying Virgin
Hugo Martin writes in the LA Times that they'll soon be allowing passengers to yammer on their cellphones in flight.
Will they also be allowing their seatmates to brutally assault them when they just can't take another moment being the captive audience to their inane yammerings?
$4 Million In Roadwork Done For Free By Citizens In Eight Days
When the government didn't have the money it estimated it would take to fix a state park in Hawaii, residents pulled together and fixed it themselves, doing roadwork and making other repairs. Mallory Simon writes at CNN:
Ivan Slack, co-owner of Napali Kayak, said his company relies solely on revenue from kayak tours and needs the state park to be open to operate. The company jumped in and donated resources because it knew that without the repairs, Napali Kayak would be in financial trouble."If the park is not open, it would be extreme for us, to say the least," he said. "Bankruptcy would be imminent. How many years can you be expected to continue operating, owning 15-passenger vans, $2 million in insurance and a staff? For us, it was crucial, and our survival was dependent on it. That park is the key to the sheer survival of the business."
So Slack, other business owners and residents made the decision not to sit on their hands and wait for state money that many expected would never come. Instead, they pulled together machinery and manpower and hit the ground running March 23.
And after only eight days, all of the repairs were done, Pleas said. It was a shockingly quick fix to a problem that may have taken much longer if they waited for state money to funnel in.
"We can wait around for the state or federal government to make this move, or we can go out and do our part," Slack said. "Just like everyone's sitting around waiting for a stimulus check, we were waiting for this but decided we couldn't wait anymore."
via @mpetrie98
Why Balance The Budget When You Can Make Taxpayers Bend Over A Little Further?
Dennis Romero posts at LA Weekly about one legislator's idea of balancing the budget in California:
Tax strip club patrons $10 each time they enter an exotic dancing establishment. Damn. Talk about your cover charge.Assemblyman Das Williams of Oxnard plans to tax you like a gangster taxes drug dealers:
AB 2441, which is moving through the state Assembly as we speak, would levy a $10 fee on each and everyone of you good gentlemen (and the freaky dates who love them) who enter a "sexually oriented business."
...Roger Jon Diamond, an attorney representing SoCal strip clubs, laughed off the bill when we called him last night, saying it wouldn't be approved and that, if it did, it wouldn't pass muster with the courts.
You can't, he argued, tax a business based on content. Wouldn't be constitutional.
Amen.
The Nancy Genovese Case
A number of people sent this to me, but the link, "Mother of 3 Arrested for Taking Pictures of Tourist Attraction at Airport," is from the woman's lawyers' website. Here's Snopes.
It Isn't Just Gwyneth Paltrow Naming Her Kid Potato
There's a political divide in baby-naming and it's not what you'd think. Alan Greenblatt writes on NPR:
Evan, Elizabeth, Rachel, Abigail and John all have something in common. They were born this spring at Fletcher Allen hospital in Burlington, Vt.Around the same time, a group of babies named Paislee, Liberty, Rykan and Scottlynn were all born in and around North Platte, Neb.
Styles of baby names, it seems, are nearly as different in various parts of the country as voting habits. "There is an enormous red state and blue state divide on names," says Laura Wattenberg, founder of BabyNameWizard.com and author of The Baby Name Wizard, which claims to be "the expert guide to baby name style."
But this doesn't play out the way you might expect. More progressive communities, Wattenberg says, tend to favor more old-fashioned names. Parents in more conservative areas come up with names that are more creative or androgynous.
"Sometimes people have a naive expectation that people who are politically conservative on social issues would name their kids in traditional ways, and it doesn't always happen that way," says Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University and author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State.
The reason for more outlandish-sounding names cropping up in conservative quarters is simple, Wattenberg says. Women in red states tend to have their first children earlier than women in blue states. A 23-year-old mom is more likely to come up with something out of the ordinary than one who is 33.
Hugh More
More or less.
Telephone Carcass
Twentieth Century dinosaur:
Face The Hard Facts-Book: Parenting In The Age Of Social Media
Via Kate Coe, here's a lady who isn't her kids' bitch. Reshonda Tate Billingsley writes about her old-school parenting in the new millenium on mybrownbaby.com:
We talked extensively about proper etiquette in the cyber world. So imagine my surprise when I see my bright, intelligent child smiling as she held up a bottle of Vodka with the caption 'Wish I could drink this Vodka.' Before you do-righters chastise me for her having the liquor, she got it out of my husband's bar to take the photo because she thought "it was cute." She knew better but did it anyway and "didn't see anything wrong" because she "wasn't drinking, just posing."She had been warned against acting up on social media countless times but obviously, it wasn't getting through. So I took it to her level, implementing my motto of "Get tore out where you show out." I made her hold up a sign saying, "Since I want to take pics holding liquor, I am obviously NOT ready for social media and will be taking a hiatus until I learn what is and isn't appropriate to post. Bye-Bye " I made her post the picture to Instagram and I put it on my Facebook page as a warning to other parents to monitor their kids.
I never expected that photo or my choice of discipline to go viral. But with over 10,000 shares in just a few hours, that's just what happened. I heard from parents that, to my surprise, had never looked at their child's social media accounts, parents who were too afraid to publicly embarrass their kids, yet were at wit's end on what to do with them, and parents who had never even heard of Instagram, yet found out their child had an account. Ninety-seven percent of the feedback was positive. The other three percent did everything from call me a 'parental bully' to tell me my child would 'commit suicide' to telling me I 'sucked as a parent.' Usually, that kind of stuff bothers me.
But not this time.
When it comes to my kids, I don't play. This is a new age. We have to meet kids where they are. Punish her by taking away her phone? Did that last week. Make her write an essay? She loves writing so that would be a thrill. Ban TV? She loves to read so that's no big deal. Talking? Sure, but my talking obviously wasn't sticking. So, since she showed out on line, she was punished on line. My daughter actually begged for a spanking instead, which she would've taken, gotten over in no time, and not realized the seriousness of her actions. Now, if and when she ever gets back on social media, she'll think long and hard before posting anything crazy.
We didn't do much wrong as kids because my tyrants (uh, parents) let us know that there would be consequences for acting inconsiderately. They didn't let us know by telling us. We just knew. So we were quiet in restaurants, didn't kick the seat backs in a movie or on a plane, and were pretty considerate kids.
Can We Please Be New Jersey With Palm Trees?
From the WSJ, William McGurn lays out the difference between California governor Jerry Brown and New Jersey governor Chris Christie:
In his January 2011 inaugural address, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared it a "time to honestly assess our financial condition and make the tough choices." Plainly the choices weren't tough enough: Mr. Brown has just announced that he faces a state budget deficit of $16 billion--nearly twice the $9.2 billion he predicted in January. In Sacramento Monday, he coupled a new round of spending cuts with a call for some hefty new tax hikes.In his own inaugural address back in January 2010, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also spoke of making tough choices for the people of his state. For his first full budget, Mr. Christie faced a deficit of $10.7 billion--one-third of projected revenues. Not only did Mr. Christie close that deficit without raising taxes, he is now plumping for a 10% across-the-board tax cut.
It's not just looks that make Mr. Brown Laurel to Mr. Christie's Hardy. It's also their political choices.
When the Obama administration's Transportation Department called on California to cough up billions for a high-speed bullet train or lose federal dollars, Mr. Brown went along. In sharp contrast, when the feds delivered a similar ultimatum to Mr. Christie over a proposed commuter rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, he nixed the project, saying his state just couldn't afford it.
I'd happily vote for Christie for President, and I bet a lot of other people would, too. Why the hell isn't he running?
(Oh, and Dr. Michael Eades has agreed to do an intervention on Christie's weight and health. Well, truth be told, only I have asked him, but he did say yes.)
Blogger Makes Copyright Thief Pay
Just great. I write in I See Rude People about how we need to stand up for ourselves against the thieves and bullies of the world -- even the small-scale ones -- and this guy exemplifies what I'm talking about. (I was greatly impressed by his calm -- he sounds like me on six sleeping pills even though he's addressing injustice that would make me boil.)
Here, the vid as AllAmericanBlogger.com's Duane Lester stands up to a copyright thief:
Lester's blog item about this here:
I have been asked why I'm writing this article. Some think it might be an "IN YOUR FACE!" kind of article.It isn't.
It's to demonstrate the importance of standing up for yourself and your rights, regardless. It's to show how to protect your work from those who would steal it.
It's not hard when you are right.
Consult with others, get your ducks in a row and demand respect for your work.
If you don't, who will?
via @palafo
Tasteless Humor Here, Please.
I did ask nicely.
Got Beach Balls?
You can't buy the kind you use if somebody kicks sand in your face, but you can get everything else at up to 30 percent off at Amazon's Get Ready for Summer Sale
Shopping through this link or through Amy's Mall helps support this site (and keeps me eating). Going through any Amazon link I post (or clicking the "powered by Amazon" search on the top left of Amy's Mall) gives me a 6 to 7 percent kickback from your purchases, which I truly appreciate!
And I'd especially appreciate if you'd buy a copy of my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society -- only about $12 with Amazon's discount. Buying it new helps me earn back my advance -- and keep eating. Also, I worked hard on it and people tell me they like it.
Poetry In Motionless
Hello, Beautiful...
TSA: Can't Be Too Careful With Those Wheelchair-Bound Nobel Peace Prize Winners
The losers at the TSA have their meaningless policies -- no ball left ungroped. To them, Henry Kissinger is as guilty as any 90-something grandmother with leukemia or any cerebral palsied tot.
Of course, the truth is probably that many are in these "security" jobs because they failed high school government class -- among others. (Who the fuck doesn't recognize Henry Kissinger?!)
Well, the TSA dipshits at LaGuardia just gave Kissinger the big grope-down, reports CBS/DC:
Kissinger, who was in a wheelchair, was told by a TSA agent that he needed to be searched."He stood with his suit jacket off, and he was wearing suspenders," freelance reporter Matthew Cole told the Post. "They gave him the full pat-down. None of the agents seemed to know who he was." Cole added that Kissinger was given "the full Monty" search.
Kissinger negotiated the Paris Peace Accords which helped bring an end to the Vietnam War.
via @DebWilker
Jersey City Bans Being An Asshole With A Phone
It's a sidewalk, not a side-stop-while-you-text-your-girlfriend, and I will hate you if you make me leap out of the way to avoid you, but..."there ought to be a law!"?
That's what the numbnuts in Jersey City think -- adding to the illegalization of everything, as if that's a way to improve anything more than the state of the city's coffer's. They've banned texting while walking, and you'll get an $85 ticket if a cop has to ignore actual crime to punish you for it.
Election Year Bribery: Couldn't Kick In At A Better Time
Lawrence Rafferty, guest-blogging at Turley, writes about health insurance rebate checks set to go out in August:
I have to admit that I was not aware that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as its detractors call it, mandates that the insurance companies who don't spend at least 80% of premium money on actual medical care expenses, must send rebates to policy holders."But the rebate provision of the law -- the fruits of the so-called "80/20 rule" -- is about to kick in big time, as millions of Americans receive rebate checks or premium reductions from insurance companies who have failed to spend enough on patient care.
This cash could be a true game changer in public attitudes about whether the law actually is beneficial and good public policy. The rebate provision of the law has been known and discussed in health care policy circles for months, but has largely flown below the radar in the political world and for voters--until now." Time
These rebates or premium reductions could not only be a big financial benefit to millions of policy holders, it could also be a big political boost for the Obama Administration in its attempts to convince the public of the many benefits provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Now that I know that the ACA will provide these rebates, just how much money are we talking about? The Time Magazine article linked above quotes a Kaiser Family Foundation study that suggests that big dollars are involved here.
"This analysis looks at the latest estimates provided by insurers to state insurance commissioners.The analysis finds that consumers and businesses are expected to receive an estimated $1.3 billion by this August in rebates from health insurers who spent more on administrative expenses and profits than allowed by the ACA.
The rebates include $541 million in the large employer market, $377 million in the small business market, and $426 million for those buying insurance on their own. Rebates in the group market will generally be provided to employers, and in some cases be passed on to employees as well. Rebates are expected to go to almost one-third (31%) of consumers in the individual market.
Among employers, about one-quarter (28%) of the small group market and 19% of the large group market is projected to receive rebates. The share of consumers in the individual insurance market expected to receive rebates ranges from near zero in several states to as high as 86% in Oklahoma and 92% in Texas. " KFF
TSA: Exploratory Surgery Before Boarding?
It seems they'll be expanding the duties of those unskilled workers they hire to man the TSA checkpoints, increasing their duties to cutting you open to make sure you aren't packin'. Via MSNBC:
Western intelligence agencies believe that al-Qaida doctors have been trained to implant bombs inside the bodies of suicide bombers, Britain's Sunday Times reported.The doctors, thought to have been trained by a man who worked with the top bomb-maker for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have the ability to put explosive compounds in breasts and abdomens of suicide bombers, the newspaper reported without citing its sources.
The lead doctor was thought to have been killed in a drone attack earlier this year and likely worked with the master bomber-maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, according to the newspaper.
...Experts said explosive compounds such as pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) could be surgically implanted in an aspiring suicide bomber, who would them allow the wounds to heal, according to the newspaper. Body scanners in most airports around the world would not be able to detect the device, which could be detonated by injection, the newspaper added.
Oh, and there's this:
The CIA want to track down the group of doctors, the newspaper reported.
So...when we aren't pretending to have security which is actually a jobs program and a way to shovel cash into the pockets of the well connected (in addition to priming us to give up our rights quietly and politely), we have highly trained intelligence officers doing the actually meaningful intelligence work.
Bullying LA Sheriffs Go All Police State on A Photographer
But, whoopsy, seems his camera, attached to his bag, is recording during most of the cops' thuggery. Check out how they make laws up as they go along (like the invented notion that you can't shoot photos of the apparently underage girls the cops appeared to be hitting on):
He's handcuffed and taken to their vehicle while his camera equipment -- $2,500 worth he says -- is left on the sidewalk. More here on all the rights violations that go on, at Miami photog Carlos Miller's site.
Abolish Mandatory Minimums
In a huge travesty, Marissa Alexander has been sentenced to a mandatory minimum 20 years in prison. Roland Martin writes on cnn.com:
If you are the most hardened law-and-order person in the world, even you should have some compassion for Alexander, the Jacksonville, Florida, woman who has been struck by the ridiculous Florida law known as 10-20-life.The law requires anyone convicted of an aggravated assault when a firearm is discharged to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison with no regard to extenuating circumstances.
Alexander says that on August 1, 2010, her husband went into a rage and tried to strangle her after reading some text messages she sent to her ex-husband. She fled the family home, got to the garage and realized she didn't have her keys. Fearing for her life, she says she grabbed a gun and went back into the home to retrieve her keys.
She says her husband threatened to kill her, and to keep him at bay, she fired a warning shot into a wall.Why was she charged, convicted and sentenced? Because State Attorney Angela Corey, the same prosecutor leading the Trayvon Martin case, said the gun was fired near a bedroom where two children were and they could have been injured.
Did the bullet hit the children? No. Did Alexander point the gun at her husband and hit him? No. She simply fired a warning shot, and according to Florida's shameful law, that's enough for a minimum 20-year sentence.
...The 10-20-life policy has no business in the laws of Florida or any other state.
Judges should have the discretion to consider a variety of factors in sentencing, and I have no doubt had this judge been given flexibility, Alexander wouldn't be going to prison for 20 years.These types of injustices are common in our legal system, and it is necessary for everyone with a conscience to stand up and decry these so-called legislative remedies that end up as nightmares.
I blogged about this previously here.
The Bluetooth Will Set You Free
And eat far fewer dollars out of your wallet if you buy it at Amazon through Today's Deals In Electronics
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Tea Hee
And trumpets.
Advice Goddess Radio: Tonight, 7-8pm PT, 10-11pm ET -- Dr. David Barash On Revenge
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.
This week's guest will be evolutionary psychologist Dr. David P. Barash, talking about revenge: why we seem to need it, the different kinds, and when and how to avoid leaping to clobber others.
Barash's book, co-authored with psychiatrist Dr. Judith Eve Lipton, is
Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression, and Take Revenge
Listen at this link or download after the show (click "Play in your default player"). And do call in with questions when the show is live -- 347-326-9761
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/14/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
And don't miss last week's Advice Goddess Radio with Dr. Robert Kurzban. He explains how our mind's makeup makes us prone to hypocrisy and less-than-ideal behavior, and ways we might counteract that. Kurzban is the author of Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind
Listen at this link or download (click "Play in your default player"):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/07/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Join me and all my fascinating guests live every week from 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern, and listen to all my previous shows at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon
We're All Being Followed
"Moviephone wants to track your location."
"Amy Alkon wants Moviephone to go to hell on a reindeer sled."
How To Succeed As My Cable Provider: Don't Be Scummy
After an outage, cable companies and other utility companies force you to ring them up and spend time on the phone to get credit for the time you were screwed out of -- which either gets you screwed out of more time, or gets them to keep the money for the time they didn't give you what you were paying for.
The thing is, when I pay for cable, I pay for more than the day of cable or Internet service I get; I'm also paying for reliability. So, it's wrong for them to simply credit for the time lost -- usually a pittance, even if your monthly bill is pricey.
Consumerist's Chris Morran asks the right question, per a Fast Company piece by Don Peppers: "Should Cable Companies Credit You For Outages You Didn't Complain About?"
Absofuckinglutely.
Why should you have to jump through hoops to get what you're paying for or to not pay for what you didn't get?
Peppers writes:
The trustable thing for Comcast to do in this kind of situation would be to proactively advise customers that they know an outage has occurred, and tell them that the company will be automatically providing a credit on this month's bill. No call necessary on your part, because we know you experienced this outage, and we're watching out for you. Comcast already has all the data needed to make this happen. If it really does want to be on the customer's side, here's a splendid business opportunity to demonstrate it. A proof point, as we used to call it in the advertising world.And just think how customers would react! How would you react if your cable company sent you a message, by phone or email, saying "Sorry! We'll keep trying to do better, but in the meantime we're taking $x off your bill this month because of last night's outage, and thank you for your continued loyalty."
It may sound like a costly initiative for Comcast to voluntarily give a few dollars back to thousands of customers at a time--customer who weren't even asking for the refunds--but the point is that this policy is inevitable. Whether or not Comcast initiates it, sooner or later one or more of its competitors inevitably will, and then Comcast will be forced to follow suit anyway.
If The TSA Can Ignore The Fourth Amendment, The NYPD Can, Too
Perry Chiaramonte writes on FoxNews about the NYPD's "Stop-and-Frisk":
Baltimore native Chris Bilal was walking through his adopted Brooklyn neighborhood when he was stopped by a police officer. The NYPD officer peppered the 24-year-old with questions about where he lived, requested Bilal's ID and rummaged through his bag."I was coming home from the Laundromat and I was stopped by the police officer. Asking me, 'Let me see your ID. 'Where are you from?' 'Do you live around here?'"
The officer then proceeded to rummage through Bilal's bag of freshly cleaned and folded laundry to see if he was carrying anything illegal. The search produced nothing, and the officer sent Bilal on his way.
"They were searching for drugs. The funny thing was that it was a mesh laundry bag. I'm not sure what I could hide," Bilal said.
Bilal, who is African-American, came to New York to follow his dreams of being an artist, but has felt more suspicion than inspiration since arriving a little over a year ago. He is repeatedly stopped on the street, being asked what he's doing, where he's going and even, on occasion, being frisked.
"I feel guilty all the time," said Bilal, an artist and writer. "I feel like I'm being watched and targeted all the time."
Bilal has been affected by the NYPD's policy of Stop, Question and Frisk, in which officers randomly stop a person to determine if they are up to any wrongdoing or possess weapons and contraband items.
...Backers of the policy say it is an effective tool for deterring crime, which has dropped nearly 80 percent since the Giuliani administration enacted Stop, Question and Frisk in the mid-'90s.
It may be as effective as all get-out, but we don't ditch the Constitution because it's expedient. Oh, well, actually we do -- at airports across America every day -- but maybe if more Americans start squeaking, or even speaking, up about our rights being yanked from us, there's some possibility of our not degenerating any further into a police state.
Oh, and P.S. If the searches are random, they're stopping Mitsy Fairchild on Madison and 68th and rummaging through her Birkin. Tell me that that's happened even once.
For Nerds Only
Reading on the right to privacy from Brandeis and Warren. And Dorothy G. Glancy on Brandeis and Warren. (Read Glancy first.)
Princess Leia Hoodie
With integrated hair buns
And don't forget your lightsabers
Questionable Humor
Insert here.
Unfortunately, My Cameraphone Was Inside When The Girl Lifted The Back Of Her Dress And Began To Pull Down Her Thong
She squatted and was pulling down her panties to pee between my car and my neighbor's. Or drop choc. Much worse.
Unfortunately, my cameraphone was unfortunately placed, so here's a little note from a while back that I put on the windshield of somebody who parked really inconsiderately -- rudely taking up two spaces in a neighborhood where parking is beyond scarce.
That'll Show Wall Street!
Occupy L.A. cost Los Angeles (meaning taxpayers) close to $5 million, writes Mark Lacter at LA Observed. He quotes City News Service (via LAist):
City Councilman Mitche Englander thinks that this grim fiscal report should be a warning to his colleagues who were so quick to "approve" of the encampment last October that maybe they should think such endorsements through a little harder. "For every resolution or position the city might take, there's a cost,'' Englander said, citing L.A.'s ongoing fiscal crisis....The Los Angeles mayor and the police chief, Charles Beck, held a near-celebratory news conference at Mr. Villaraigosa's office as crews outside -- including workers in white hazmat suits, in response to what officials said was considerable danger of biological infection -- cleaned up the wreckage across City Hall Park. Hundreds of police officers were stationed near the fences, but there was no sign of demonstrators trying to return. Mr. Villaraigosa said he expected that the cost of the protest -- in cleanup, police overtime and lawn replacement -- could exceed $1 million. "Yes, the answer is we're all going to pay for it in these tough economic times," the mayor said. "Because we were peaceful here, we were able to keep our costs down, especially compared with other cites."
There's a Spanish proverb I learned from Nathaniel Branden: "Take what you need, but pay for it."
I love free speech and respect people for speaking out -- even if I disagree with them. But, the big difference, viewpoints aside, between the two recent protest groups (neither of which I belong to), the Tea Party and the Occupiers, seems to be that the Tea Partiers went home at night, didn't cost the rest of us boatloads of money, and didn't leave human waste in their wake.
