Hey Miolla, where's that protruding belly? Wed Sep 2 2009
From ab: Just for the record, according to the following criteria, pretty much every person I know is a binge drinker. "Binge drinkers were defined in this study as consuming 80g to 100g of alcohol, which is ten to 12 units of alcohol - the equivalent of a bottle of wine or five pints of beer - in one sitting at least once a month." Five beers in one sitting, isn't that the appetizer? The Pre-party? The warm up when the ladies get ready?
The Deal with Disability Blog written by a 26 year old college grad with cerebral palsy. Stolen from Metafilter. -hendred
Hey, I’m Eva. I’m 26 and a recent college graduate. I like to write, to take Digital photographs, and just chill. But this blog is not about what I like. This blog is about how people treat me. You see, I am physically disabled. Actually “severely” physically disabled. I have Cerebral Palsy, which for me means I can’t walk, speak, or use muscles in traditional ways. I use a power wheelchair to get around and spell out what I want to say on a letterboard.
CNN Contributor's 'Wignut fix' explodes in the comments. The red meat was about a speech to school kids (?), but it isn't long before racism and health care enter the ring. Just skipping down a couple pages and reading at random was entertaining. -hendred
This was put out by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee. I feel like the truth to this is somewhere in the middle. Obviously there are claims that would/should be denied in the course of doing business, but then there seem to be a lot of stories floating around about denying needed care.
Anyway, does anyone know how to get at those numbers? It would be a breakdown of insurance denials by type/sub-type, I think. -hendred
Me: "If we have to keep track of these people, why don't we register every other criminal and prevent them from living near the type of area they committed their crimes?"
Them: "You don't have children. You don't understand. Think of the children."
Me: "But you realize there are lots of crimes that put you on the list that have nothing to do with harming children, right?"
Them: "You don't have children. You don't understand. Think of the children."
Me: *Silence* (Makes mental note to start a dumbass registry and put them on it. No living within 1,000 ft of a school, library, or bookstore.)
The consensus of the commenters seems to be that, for the post-star wars list, Fifth Element should have been included and Starship Troopers should not have. I think the new definition of 'list' should be: a group of things that does/doesn't include a bunch of stuff that it should/shouldn't.
I haven't been paying attention to much of the news lately. Too busy with... uh... life. Anyway, when I heard about this I thought the Obamanator was going to be reading sections of Mein Kampf while kids were force-marched around the school gym. Not so much.
And this week's DTS idiot of the week is.... Brett Curtis, whose kids attend the Pearland Independent School District outside Houston. Congratulations Brett.
One father, Brett Curtis, says he's so upset that he plans to keep his children home from school Tuesday to send the district a message.
"To let the school board know that I expect them to take responsibility for the curriculum and the content of what they are going to be putting into our schools," Curtis says. -hendred, who wishes all Texans were as cool as Ben Spies
John: We're going to set up a table in front of Wal*Mart and ask people to sign a petition to protect traditional marriage. We're going to interview them about why they thing traditional marriage is important, and then we'll tell them that we are trying to ban divorce.
People who supported Prop 8 weren't trying to take rights away from gays, they just wanted to protect traditional marriage. That's why I'm confident that they will support this initiative, even though this time it will be their rights that are diminished. To not support it would be hypocritical.
We're also going to collect signatures in front of "Faces," the largest gay nightclub in Sacramento.
I've mentioned this before, but if you use Outlook, Xobni will make your life a lot easier. The latest version includes a replacement for the awful address auto-complete. It turns it into something resembling gmail's auto-complete. -hendred
From Bean-o two times: With the start of the NFL season upon us, just wanted to provide this link again for anyone who doesn't have this at the top of their favorites list like me. One nice new addition to the site this year: the front page shows a preview of all three maps so you don't have to wait for each one to load separately.
Seriously, his argument seems to be roughly: "I like Medicare and I think everyone else should have it. Plus we pay for lots of stuff we don't need already." He seems to be completely oblivious to the unsustainable costs of Medicare in its current state. But hey, when you're enlightened, what do costs matter?
Other criticisms include his inability to explain (or care about) why insurance premiums have risen, not distinguishing health insurance from health care, and confusing doctors' interests with patients' interests. His best defense is to claim senility. Of course what he is arguing for is different than what Obama and Congress are proposing. The reason for posting this is that, even if you support some form of universal health care, I hope you can recognize this as a poorly argued op ed. -decker
From ab: First of all, yelling out during the Presidential speech is just plain stupid. However, that does not make someone a racist. Anybody who disputes what the President says is not a racist. Get over it.
State Senator Bill Diamond, Democrat of Windham, said he was moved to introduce the bill after a state trooper reported seeing a woman driving through turnpike toll booths during the Fourth of July weekend while watching the “Gilmore Girls’’ on her laptop.
If it was something cool like Dexter, would they still be pissed? -hendred
Where's that 'Delete Account' button?Mon Sep 14 2009
Intuit, makers of Quicken and TurboTax, just bought Mint. I've been using this for a bit and love it. I can't wait to find out what kind of black hole of suck it becomes once it's re-branded as QuickenWeb or something. -hendred
After exploding through a hole and then putting on a move that made one player simply fall down, he runs out of a tackle, throws another player off the field, then shoves another guy away from him before running away from the rest of the defense. Granted, this was the Mistake-by-the-Lakers, but he does get Detroit twice this year plus Cincinnati and some other nameless rabble, so he should do some more of this this season. So even if you hate football (ahem, Brian), I recommend getting to a TV on Sundays this year and watching this guy at least a couple two three times. RB is among the shortest of NFL careers, and he's already in his third year, so this won't last forever. Enjoy it while you can.
Filed under 'learn something new every day' Wed Sep 16 2009
Do you have the right to flip off a cop? PA has a law that outlaws obscene gestures and language. That's not kosher. And now it's down to whether or not PGH cops have a pattern of issuing these citations for protected speech.
"The law is clear that people have the constitutional right to use profanity, especially when it comes to government officials, because that is a form of political speech," Walczak says. "But despite that, we have police officers regularly misapplying the law to punish people who offend them — that's really what it comes down to."
And the money quote:
But Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, says police officers are not out to systematically punish people who mouth off.
Goddamn communists. Filed under Health, cuz, when you gotta go...you gotta go. Inside or out. Otherwise you can get uromysitisis poisoning and die, right?
Unfortunately, if the Obama Administration can't make this simple change, I don't think they have the political will to make any of the harder changes we need.
I think the most painful part is in the middle of the Wired article:
“There is currently indifference to the public Homeland Security Advisory System and, at worst, there is a disturbing lack of public confidence in the system,” the council wrote Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary.
And changing the scale would change that how?
The 19-member panel’s recommendations are not binding. Panel membership ranges from Miami Mayor Manny Diaz to Joe Shirley, president of the Navajo Nation. Some members supported scrapping the color-coded system.
19-member panel? Gragh.
But the group said the public should feel confident in a new three-color rating system because, “for reasons of public credibility,” the scale won’t be politicized and instead the government “should elevate the threat status only when compelled to do so in the interest of public safety and security.”
All the 'confidence' to be had was restored when Cheney left office. It's like they're just randomly putting words together when they say these things. It makes no sense. -hendred, the ignorant commie bastard looking to ruin DTS for good
I haven't tried this out, but there's a new Nintendo emulator written in Javascript. Apparently it works best in Chrome. Found on Metafilter, where they seem to dig it. -hendred
Pics of the Mad Men stars at the Emmys. It's the Superficial, so it's good for a laugh. Mad Men won for Best Drama and writing at the Emmys and last night's episode was tremendous. Talk about hitting on all cylinders. Previous Mad Men complaining. -hendred
Percentage of take home pay you spend on rent/mortgage?Tue Sep 22 2009
I'm defining take home pay as post-taxes but pre-401(k) or other savings. For mortgage, include the whole payment - taxes, insurance, PMI, etc. -hendred
Guy high-fiving people hailing cabs in NYC. The premise is kind of cool/funny, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Click through only if you've got 4 minutes to burn. The best part is guessing how the people will react and then laughing with the people who laugh or smile. -hendred
Pics of the G-20 protesters. I fail to see how smashing the windows at McDonald's accomplishes anything. That's above and beyond how silly protesting the G-20 is in the first place.
I thought I was just getting old but then I realized I would've thought they were dumb when I was 19. -hendred
Almost-official: Alonso going to Ferrari. It's for $27-$36 million/year. It's nice to see everyone I root against on the same team. There seem to be rumors of Kubica going to Renault as well. -hendred
This is your captain speaking. . . Tue Sep 29 2009
From ab: So you're sitting on the plane waiting for the fat guy in front of you to crush you when he plops back his chair and suddenly you hear the Captain speaking . . . and it's THAT guy. Lightning never strikes twice, right?
I still think I'd feel better with him driving. Almost as comfortable as if I was driving.
