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thebratqueenIt's so nice to have vision again. Or as good a vision as I ever have ;). Today is displeasing me by being warm but until I figure out how to handle that I figured I'd do a round of links. Haven't done this in a while due to the whole difficulty seeing thing. Insert your own joke here about how that doesn't seem to stop some talking heads.
You've probably seen this a thousand times already but Aaron Sorkin writes Obama talking to Jed Bartlett. One of my favorite lines? "I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one."
With that as our lead-in, let's talk about how McCain's crew is asking for special treatment for poor widdle Palin in the VP Debates. This was something I was sadly, cynically, waiting for. Much as there's a delicious thrill at the idea of watching someone so unqualified get their ass handed to them, I suspected the spin on this was going to amount to, essentially, "Mean ol' Biden picking on this sweet, good-natured hockey mom." Because when you don't have any debate skills whatsoever the only way you can win is to make it sound bad that the competition has any at all. See also: every debate Dubya was in where it was made clear well in advance by his own people that it would be amazing if he didn't wander off and start talking about how the podium tasted like chocolate.
Basically what this does is lower everyone's expectations, so when the moron in question shows up to the debate and manages to make it out of there without drooling on themselves everyone goes "Wow, they did way better than we expected!" and it's a successful note rather than "No, seriously, he used Poland as a rebuttal there?"
Now granted that debates can be nothing more than grandstanding talking points that never once get near the questions that have been asked. I'm not arguing that. And yes, Biden does have more experience in the political arena than Palin does since damn near everyone alive has more experience than her. But, yanno, you pays your money and you takes your chances. Don't go from playing a bee in your 3rd grade school play to auditioning on Broadway and bitching that they expect you to know how to act 'n stuff.
And what sucks is that really what should go on here is somebody saying, publically, "Dude, if you can't handle a moderated debate that is an anticipated part of this process then how the FRAK are you going to handle unscripted conversations that will be the day in day out aspect of doing your freaking job?" But they've already laid the groundwork for poor widdle Palin being picked on by the bullies and there we are. SIGH.
Anyhoo...
Plam's House Blend has more on the topic, in case I haven't bored you enough already.
Turns out September 23 is Bisexual Pride Day. I assume you've all gotten me gifts in honor of it.
Lifehacker has a list of various utilities that its readers have voted the best of the best. Some I already have, others I shall be downloading forthwith.
If talking about webcamed coffee pots makes you go "OMGIREMEMBERTHAT!!!" then you may enjoy the internet meme timeline which tracks everything from the coffee pot to LOLcatting. (Server seems to be down as of me typing this but I swear the link's correct) If you're going "...coffee what?" you've officially made me feel old.
Netflix origami. Meaning with the envelopes, not ordering up a thousand cranes that won't give you late fees if you don't return them for at least a month.
Oosah offers a metric buttload of online storage space for filesharing purposes.
I'm not saying the economy's bad. I'm just saying that the BBC has provided tips for how to find money on the street.
More practically, Get Rich Slowly talks about how to handle your worries about the economy in simple, easy, captain dummy speak. There's also this rundown from the folks at Freakonomics.
I want to be surprised that autism can be misdiagnosed based on gender stereotypes but really I'm not.
SendMeHome works as a way to help recover lost items. Wasn't there something like this back in the 70s/80s? Not with the Internet aspect, obviously. But I have this memory of my folks tagging stuff with special metal tags. I'll have to ask them about it.
I love this cartoon like a lot.
An excellent explanation of why healthcare is a feminist issue. For those who, like me, may be saying "And McDonald's is not a health food, what else is new?" consider the following: "Because women are more likely than men to go without needed care. Because nearly twice as many women as men access health care as a dependent -- in other words, they're not covered under their own name. Because low-income women and immigrant women and women of color have a disproportionately difficult time accessing regular care. Because women are more likely to have patchwork-style careers, dropping in and out of the workforce because of family care obligations, which makes dependence on employer-provided health care exceptionally hard."
Related to that, a study shows that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance will lose it under the McCain plan. Something I want to make sure is clear here is that unless you are seriously freaking rich, McCain is not your friend. As a part of my job I listened to a webcast from tax experts who, because of the industry that we're in, are definitely biased towards a McCain election for reasons such as "Obama is going to support unions, and that will cost our industry money." And even these guys were saying "Yeah, under a McCain presidency our taxes and economy are going to be fucked." (Paraphrasing, obviously) And bear in mind this was said before the whole Lehman Brothers/AIG fiasco.
I mention this because there are some out there who say "I vote with my paycheck." and that's certainly valid. But unless your paycheck has a lot of zeroes on the right-hand side of the numbers you are going to get fraked without lube in a McCain economy. (And that's not even getting into the overall debt our country will have. Seriously, the graph these guys showed was "Here's current projections of the debt under Bush, here's projections of the debt under Obama, here's projections of debt under McCain." where, yes, Obama's currently stated economic plans did increase debt but McCain's took that line and sunk it so fast you'd think weights were tied to it. And again, this from folks who are inclined to be biased for McCain. If the information wasn't propriatary to my job I'd so share a copy of it with you.) (ObDisclaimer that all currently stated economic plans will not stay the same once whoever wins gets into office. Point being just this is what the candidates were putting forth as what they thought would be good ideas.)
Recycle Bank pays you to recycle. Which, as the article points out, could be counter to the "reduce" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle." But if you're recycling anyway...
And this one is important enough that it goes outside the cut tag:
You have until September 25th to get your comments in to HHS regarding allowing doctors to refuse to provide birth control. The ACLU has a handy form that you can use with just a few clicks.
You've probably seen this a thousand times already but Aaron Sorkin writes Obama talking to Jed Bartlett. One of my favorite lines? "I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one."
With that as our lead-in, let's talk about how McCain's crew is asking for special treatment for poor widdle Palin in the VP Debates. This was something I was sadly, cynically, waiting for. Much as there's a delicious thrill at the idea of watching someone so unqualified get their ass handed to them, I suspected the spin on this was going to amount to, essentially, "Mean ol' Biden picking on this sweet, good-natured hockey mom." Because when you don't have any debate skills whatsoever the only way you can win is to make it sound bad that the competition has any at all. See also: every debate Dubya was in where it was made clear well in advance by his own people that it would be amazing if he didn't wander off and start talking about how the podium tasted like chocolate.
Basically what this does is lower everyone's expectations, so when the moron in question shows up to the debate and manages to make it out of there without drooling on themselves everyone goes "Wow, they did way better than we expected!" and it's a successful note rather than "No, seriously, he used Poland as a rebuttal there?"
Now granted that debates can be nothing more than grandstanding talking points that never once get near the questions that have been asked. I'm not arguing that. And yes, Biden does have more experience in the political arena than Palin does since damn near everyone alive has more experience than her. But, yanno, you pays your money and you takes your chances. Don't go from playing a bee in your 3rd grade school play to auditioning on Broadway and bitching that they expect you to know how to act 'n stuff.
And what sucks is that really what should go on here is somebody saying, publically, "Dude, if you can't handle a moderated debate that is an anticipated part of this process then how the FRAK are you going to handle unscripted conversations that will be the day in day out aspect of doing your freaking job?" But they've already laid the groundwork for poor widdle Palin being picked on by the bullies and there we are. SIGH.
Anyhoo...
Plam's House Blend has more on the topic, in case I haven't bored you enough already.
Turns out September 23 is Bisexual Pride Day. I assume you've all gotten me gifts in honor of it.
Lifehacker has a list of various utilities that its readers have voted the best of the best. Some I already have, others I shall be downloading forthwith.
If talking about webcamed coffee pots makes you go "OMGIREMEMBERTHAT!!!" then you may enjoy the internet meme timeline which tracks everything from the coffee pot to LOLcatting. (Server seems to be down as of me typing this but I swear the link's correct) If you're going "...coffee what?" you've officially made me feel old.
Netflix origami. Meaning with the envelopes, not ordering up a thousand cranes that won't give you late fees if you don't return them for at least a month.
Oosah offers a metric buttload of online storage space for filesharing purposes.
I'm not saying the economy's bad. I'm just saying that the BBC has provided tips for how to find money on the street.
More practically, Get Rich Slowly talks about how to handle your worries about the economy in simple, easy, captain dummy speak. There's also this rundown from the folks at Freakonomics.
I want to be surprised that autism can be misdiagnosed based on gender stereotypes but really I'm not.
SendMeHome works as a way to help recover lost items. Wasn't there something like this back in the 70s/80s? Not with the Internet aspect, obviously. But I have this memory of my folks tagging stuff with special metal tags. I'll have to ask them about it.
I love this cartoon like a lot.
An excellent explanation of why healthcare is a feminist issue. For those who, like me, may be saying "And McDonald's is not a health food, what else is new?" consider the following: "Because women are more likely than men to go without needed care. Because nearly twice as many women as men access health care as a dependent -- in other words, they're not covered under their own name. Because low-income women and immigrant women and women of color have a disproportionately difficult time accessing regular care. Because women are more likely to have patchwork-style careers, dropping in and out of the workforce because of family care obligations, which makes dependence on employer-provided health care exceptionally hard."
Related to that, a study shows that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance will lose it under the McCain plan. Something I want to make sure is clear here is that unless you are seriously freaking rich, McCain is not your friend. As a part of my job I listened to a webcast from tax experts who, because of the industry that we're in, are definitely biased towards a McCain election for reasons such as "Obama is going to support unions, and that will cost our industry money." And even these guys were saying "Yeah, under a McCain presidency our taxes and economy are going to be fucked." (Paraphrasing, obviously) And bear in mind this was said before the whole Lehman Brothers/AIG fiasco.
I mention this because there are some out there who say "I vote with my paycheck." and that's certainly valid. But unless your paycheck has a lot of zeroes on the right-hand side of the numbers you are going to get fraked without lube in a McCain economy. (And that's not even getting into the overall debt our country will have. Seriously, the graph these guys showed was "Here's current projections of the debt under Bush, here's projections of the debt under Obama, here's projections of debt under McCain." where, yes, Obama's currently stated economic plans did increase debt but McCain's took that line and sunk it so fast you'd think weights were tied to it. And again, this from folks who are inclined to be biased for McCain. If the information wasn't propriatary to my job I'd so share a copy of it with you.) (ObDisclaimer that all currently stated economic plans will not stay the same once whoever wins gets into office. Point being just this is what the candidates were putting forth as what they thought would be good ideas.)
Recycle Bank pays you to recycle. Which, as the article points out, could be counter to the "reduce" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle." But if you're recycling anyway...
And this one is important enough that it goes outside the cut tag:
You have until September 25th to get your comments in to HHS regarding allowing doctors to refuse to provide birth control. The ACLU has a handy form that you can use with just a few clicks.
