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I'm glad to hear that, but also pretty disturbed that the president had signed the bill in the first place without understanding the broader implications.
I found this to be hilarious:
White House Corrects Conference Call Number After Directing Reporters to Sex Line
Anytime a mistake like this is made it's just too funny. I almost spit Dr. Pepper on my keyboard when I read it. I also wonder how my reporters might have stayed on the line for a while....
Replying to crazy old post here, but one of the vendors I have to call regularly at work has an (888) number. If you dial (800) instead, you get a phone sex line. My boss probably wouldn't believe me that I dialed it accidentally, if it hadn't been for the fact he knows I'm not into women.
Not exactly todays news, but it was forwarded to me today:
Owen Brown, UK's oldest metalhead!
UP THE IRONS!
**EDIT: And in related news:
A Capuchin monk, Brother Cesare Bonizzi, is the lead singer in a heavy metal band which has just released its second album.
On top of that is the fact that the Government typically goes out of its way to pay a negotiated price for needed property. When landowners won't sell, eminent domain is declared and the landowners are paid the fair market (and untaxed) value for their property.
But why should the person have to sell? How many eminent domain cases involve kicking someone out of their house, only to have it sold to a developer building a strip mall or a big-box store? That's where eminent domain has been (ab)used most often.
Sure, the person got paid something for the property, but what if it has more personal than monetary value?
If you spent twenty years working to afford the down payment on a house and then spent the next thirty paying it off (oh and in the mean time raised your kids, played with your grandkids, and buried your spouse while living there); would you simply say, "okay, no problem" when the local government shows up and demands that you sell your property so that they can build another Wal-Mart?
Is there some compelling reason why the Shanksville Memorial needs to be so large? Is there some National Security risk in having private property next to it?
Maybe I'm missing some important information on that front.
Investigation into car warranty Robo-calls.
It's about damn time. I've received several of these over the past few months.
...But why should the person have to sell? How many eminent domain cases involve kicking someone out of their house, only to have it sold to a developer building a strip mall or a big-box store? That's where eminent domain has been (ab)used most often...
Not true. Government land acquisition is required by law to remain federal property for perpetuity or revert to the original owners. Government-seized land cannot be commercially or residentially developed.
...Is there some compelling reason why the Shanksville Memorial needs to be so large? Is there some National Security risk in having private property next to it?...
Actually, I wish CNN and all the rest had linked to the NPS website--there's a great explanation and PowerPoint presentation on the memorial. It answers all my questions.
...But why should the person have to sell? How many eminent domain cases involve kicking someone out of their house, only to have it sold to a developer building a strip mall or a big-box store? That's where eminent domain has been (ab)used most often...Not true. Government land acquisition is required by law to remain federal property for perpetuity or revert to the original owners. Government-seized land can not be commercially or residentially developed.
Then why does the Institute For Justice exist? Why do they fight such uses of eminent domain in court battles all over the country?
Maybe we're discussing apples and oranges here. Maybe you are correct in cases of the Federal Government, but state and local governments use eminent domain for the situation I have described above all the time.
Maybe we're discussing apples and oranges here. Maybe you are correct in cases of the Federal Government, but state and local governments use eminent domain for the situation I have described above all the time.
State and local governments presumably have to follow the U.S. Constitution in these matters (since the 14th Amendment basically all but repealed the 9th and 10th Amendments and the SCOTUS all but repealed part of the 5th Amendment in the case I cited above), but government is no longer in the business of looking after the interests of private citizens (we cannot donate enough to their campaign funds, apparently), and only looks after the fat cats that line their pockets...
Eminent domain is noted and very loosely regulated by the U.S. Constitution. I'm not sure calling this an erosion of property rights is the best way to put this, given that this "erosion" has existed, legally, as long as the country has.I wonder why the erosion of property rights doesn't disturb the general public. It almost never comes up in political discourse, but it's happening everywhere.Government seizes 1500 acres of land to build 9/11 memorial in PA
Over 2.3 square miles to build a memorial? That's a pretty big block of granite...
In case you're wondering how big 1500 acres is, it's the exact size of the National Mall in DC.
It has existed since George Washington marched up to the gates of the Family farm and demanded we hand over crop in support of his terrorist band...It has all the legitimacy of a planeload of Terrorists looking for a tradetower.
This says a lot about the news today...
Wow...just, wow. Here I am telling my students exactly why they should not use Wikipedia as a research source, and the media goes and gives me the biggest object lesson I could ever hope for. Time to print out this article.
This says a lot about the news today...Wow...just, wow. Here I am telling my students exactly why they should not use Wikipedia as a research source, and the media goes and gives me the biggest object lesson I could ever hope for. Time to print out this article.
I still think it is a useful "first step" tool, to point you in directions for further research, or for when you are looking for general information, but it is definitely not one-stop shopping for scholarly research. (Edit: Or journalistic research, for that matter.) That said, I remember reading about some study where it was determined to be more accurate than Encyclopedia Brittanica.
It's also great one-stop shopping for settling friendly arguments.
Screams, 'We're down,' recorded in cockpit of crashing plane
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The pilot of a doomed plane that crashed, killing 50 people, said "Jesus Christ" and "We're down," seconds before the plane hurtled from the night sky into a house outside Buffalo, New York, in February.
An investigator walks past the wreckage from a plane crash in Clarence Center, New York, in February.
The last sounds heard in the cockpit were First Officer Rebecca Shaw saying "We're" and then screaming at 10:16 p.m. on February 12, according to a transcript of the cockpit recording.
Seconds earlier, the pilot, Capt. Marvin Renslow, said, "Jesus Christ," as a sound "similar to stick shaker" was heard, the transcript said. Renslow said, "We're down," and a thump was heard before Shaw said, "We're" and screamed.
Sensationalist. There's nothing wrong with the article; and hopefully it will result in helping to push new training and testing for pilots, but there's no reason to tell all of us that the crew screamed before dying. It's tacky and crude.
This says a lot about the news today...Wow...just, wow. Here I am telling my students exactly why they should not use Wikipedia as a research source, and the media goes and gives me the biggest object lesson I could ever hope for. Time to print out this article.
The article in question is a much better lesson in not using news reports as research sources than it is in not using Wikipedia. The point of the article was that Wikipedia's editing system caught the error, but that before that happened a lot of opportunistic journalists decided to forego the part where they verify the source and published a quote without the necessary reliability to back it up. Wikipedia fixed it on its own. The news reports didn't, until the quote's "author" hunted them down and told them about the hoax.
The article in question is a much better lesson in not using news reports as research sources than it is in not using Wikipedia. The point of the article was that Wikipedia's editing system caught the error, but that before that happened a lot of opportunistic journalists decided to forego the part where they verify the source and published a quote without the necessary reliability to back it up. Wikipedia fixed it on its own. The news reports didn't, until the quote's "author" hunted them down and told them about the hoax.This says a lot about the news today...Wow...just, wow. Here I am telling my students exactly why they should not use Wikipedia as a research source, and the media goes and gives me the biggest object lesson I could ever hope for. Time to print out this article.
Yes, but the cause of the new reports getting it wrong was because they were using Wikipedia as the research source.
Yes, but the cause of the new reports getting it wrong was because they were using Wikipedia as the research source.
No, the cause of getting it wrong was using a research source without verifying its accuracy. Second-hand verbal accounts can also be very useful in research, but you can't report them as factual unless you've established veracity. The lesson here is not about Wikipedia; studies have demonstrated that on most topics it is as reliable or more reliable than the Encyclopedia Britannica, and as the article pointed out Wikipedia's own internal editing processes caught the unattributed quote very quickly. The lesson is that you should never use any kind of second-hand material in your research, no matter the source without verifying its accuracy somehow. As second-hand sources of aggregated knowledge go, Wikipedia is probably among the best, actually.
Also, that journalists can be lazy, and that news reports can contain errors.
Journalists as a rule ARE lazy, which is why Public Relations is such a big industry.
Often the same industry. Several media flacks over the past decade have told us that their job is not to report news, not to seek facts, but rather to help people get their message out. Who they help seems to be mostly dependent on who they want to curry favor with and who they share a supermarket with.
I'm not making the second one up. Richard Cohen defended the pardon of Iran-Contra criminals on the grounds that Cap Weinberger shopped at the same Safeway as he did.
Thems good Eatin'!!.
Stir-fried scorpion? No thank you.
Spam Jam is no big deal. Being Hawaii-raised, I can tell you that if the locals ever stopped eating Spam, the company would take an economic hit they'd never recover from. Many mainstream restaurants in Hawaii offer Spam as a meat on their breakfast menus (insert Monty Python skit references here), it gets put into sushi rolls, etc.
I stopped after I realized that I was actually consuming human flesh. You laugh, but I've seen the facts, man. Slow-moving Spam trucks cruising dark streets at night with their headlights off...you ever eat another meat that tastes anything like Spam? No. That's cause it's made from people, man. Spam is people!!!
I've heard her current explanations described as the "Pelosi Crab Walk". I'm not entirely certain, but that may just be an insult to crabs.Pelosi was going for "plausible deniability," but I think she ended up with "deniable plausibility."
But I'm not a wordsmith.
I think the wheels are coming off the dems high rolling wagon. I am totally expecting there is going to be a book called "Knowing all about the torture is my bag baby", written by Nancy "Fibber" Pelosi and another book called "Bush Policy Towards the War on Torture is MY Bag Baby", written by Barrack "Mesiah" Obama.
I think the wheels are coming off the dems high rolling wagon. I am totally expecting there is going to be a book called "Knowing all about the torture is my bag baby", written by Nancy "Fibber" Pelosi and another book called "Bush Policy Towards the War on Torture is MY Bag Baby", written by Barrack "Mesiah" Obama.
What will Dick "Superpatriot" Cheney's book be called?
Cheney's actually pretty pleasant. I saw him once or twice at work, when i used to work on Capitol Hill. He said hello to me. The current VP was somewhat personable, though not exactly a rocket scientist...
I enjoyed reading the transcript of my good friend, former art director, and Downer artist Kyle Hunter's dad speaking to a Senate committee chaired by Joe Biden in the 1970s. It's pretty obvious that Joe was grandstanding and playing to the media like a mofo.
I sort of like him in the way that you've got to kind of like it when a politician says something you know he shouldn't say because it reveals him as human, but I never favored him during the primaries and sometimes the "things he shouldn't say" come off as arrogant or unbelievably stupid. I don't actively dislike Joe Biden, but I do think he is a bit of a doofus.
Cheney, on the other hand, is very much not a doofus, and very much not very likable.
I liked what Jesse Ventura said about him the other day. "Give me Dick Cheney, a waterboard, and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."
Gotta love that Jesse!
What will Dick "Superpatriot" Cheney's book be called?
I think the wheels are coming off the dems high rolling wagon. I am totally expecting there is going to be a book called "Knowing all about the torture is my bag baby", written by Nancy "Fibber" Pelosi and another book called "Bush Policy Towards the War on Torture is MY Bag Baby", written by Barrack "Mesiah" Obama.
"Peace prize? Torturing is my bag baby, yeah!"
I liked what Jesse Ventura said about him the other day. "Give me Dick Cheney, a waterboard, and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."
Gotta love that Jesse!
It's hard for me to take anything Jesse says seriously with all of the 9-11 conspiracy ideas floating around in his head.
It's hard for me to take anything Jesse says seriously with all of the 9-11 conspiracy ideas floating around in his head.I liked what Jesse Ventura said about him the other day. "Give me Dick Cheney, a waterboard, and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."
Gotta love that Jesse!
He seems to say something fairly intelligent about once every five years and then goes back into full stupid mode. It's kind of annoying. I used to feel the same way about Bill Maher over the course of a single episode of Politically Incorrect.
Yeah, he didn't say anything about 9/11 in the interview I saw, and I only heard about his views on the subject later.
I'm not sure I turn to Ventura for ideological purity, and I'm not sure that that sort of talk invalidates everything else that comes out of a person's mouth.
I dunno. Jesse is a weird one.
Yeah, he didn't say anything about 9/11 in the interview I saw, and I only heard about his views on the subject later.
I'm not sure I turn to Ventura for ideological purity, and I'm not sure that that sort of talk invalidates everything else that comes out of a person's mouth.
I dunno. Jesse is a weird one.
As they say, even a broke clock is right twice a day.
Children beaten for witchcraft
I can't believe people do these things :-(
That's the same country where, a while back, they arrested a goat for stealing a car.
That's the same country where, a while back, they arrested a goat for stealing a car.
If someone were capable of that kind of magic, I'd have to say - "Why a goat?"
Athlete refuses to be used as a prop for a photo op, sports media pouts.
[Devil's advocate]Had it been the Bush White House, Harrison would be a hero in the media's eyes...[/Devil's advocate}
That's the same country where, a while back, they arrested a goat for stealing a car.If someone were capable of that kind of magic, I'd have to say - "Why a goat?"
Because they married in a traditional Ceremony and she gets to drive?
Athlete refuses to be used as a prop for a photo op, sports media pouts.[Devil's advocate]Had it been the Bush White House, Harrison would be a hero in the media's eyes...[/Devil's advocate}
Sad but true.