Category: Wasting your time

  • Here's my impression of Barry Arrington

    I don’t have the time to be anything but a jerk today so I’m going to imitate Barry Arrington of Uncommon Descent, who tried to place the blame for the most recent shootings at a church on atheist writers.

    You see, yesterday, there was an attack on the New York subway. In one of those events generally embarrassing (and oddly redeeming) for humanity, a man was attacked for replying “Happy Hanukkah” when someone wished him “Merry Christmas”. Oddly, the fight was broken up when a Muslim guy rescued the Jewish guy from the Christian guy.

    Now, if I was a giant screaming asshole like Barry A, I’d say something like, “People like Bill O’Reilly who make up the imaginary ‘war on Christmas’ or Ann Coulter and her remarks about Christians being ‘perfected Jews’ should consider themselves responsible for this event. If they didn’t promote their pro-Christmas, pro-Christian agenda, no one would feel the need to attack Jewish people for wishing them a Happy Hanukkah.”

    After all, crazy assholes aren’t responsible for their behavior. It’s the people who write books! They were just following orders (still looking for those “kill Christians” orders in The God Delusion). Just like the Matrix made the DC sniper kid shoot all those people – it was the movie’s fault, not the kid’s. And this bus stop shooting over a girl, if right wingers weren’t constantly pushing a heterosexual agenda, maybe we wouldn’t see people killing over heterosexual sex.

    You see? It’s easy to be a giant asshole. All you have to do is take your ideology, ghoulishly apply it to recent tragedies so as to scapegoat whoever you dislike, and then act surprised when people think you’re a monster. How’d I do?

  • Reason – the most inappropriate magazine title ever

    The stupidest essay ever entitled “The Death of Main Street: Are big chains to blame, or is excessive regulation? ” courtesy of Reason magazine. This stuff rivals creationist drivel for sheer stupidity.

    Briefly, Balko argues small businesses fail because regulations price them out of business, not because of Wal-Mart. The evidence? Old Town Alexandria! Ha!

    Old Town Alexandria is an historic, charming stretch of city just outside of Washington D.C. that features lots of shops, restaurants, parks, cobblestone streets, and a waterfront teeming with American history. George Washington was a regular in Old Town, as was a young Robert E. Lee.

    The Alexandria Times article explained how Old Town Alexandria’s onerous permit process and regulatory system have put a strain on small businesses, especially the small, independent outfits that give Old Town all of its charm. I’m fairly anti-regulation, but even I don’t have too much of a problem with city ordinances that attempt to preserve unique neighborhoods with a distinct vibe or identity, particularly when the aim is to keep the quaint, historical atmosphere of a place like Old Town. These sorts of regulations are about as localized as you can get, in this case covering just a couple dozen or so city blocks.

    For example, if you want to do something as simple as change the lettering on, or repaint the sign outside of your business in Old Town, you need to both apply for and pay $50 to obtain a “ladder permit,” and apply for and pay $55 for a “building permit.”

    It can take more than two weeks to get the proper paperwork, even if all you want to do is replace the “e” on your “Ye Olde Sandwich Shoppe” sign. More significant changes, obviously, require more bureaucratic hassle.

    The question is, should you really need to have to keep lawyer on retainer in order to open a business in Old Town? Is that really the kind of business atmosphere the city’s elected officials want to create? And if Old Town is going to make that a requirement–intentionally or not–what effect is that going to have on the small boutiques, art galleries, and antique stores that make up the very atmosphere the regulations are trying to promote?

    The answer, I think, lies in what’s happened to Old Town over the last decade or so. It’s been Gap-i-fied. The independent spots are closing down, and they’re being replaced by familiar national chains. Old Town now has a Gap, a Chipotle, a Nine West, a Ross, a CVS, a Restoration Hardware, a Banana Republic, and loads of other stores you can find in just about every other part of the country. Parts of it are like a strip mall now, albeit one outfitted in Virginia red brick and quaint colonial architecture.

    People who decry the Wal-Mart-ification and Gap-ificaiton of America need to realize that regulation often does more harm to local businesses than predatory pricing, loss-leader business models, or some other imagined corporate evil.

    I’ve lived in or near Old Town for most of the last 10 years. It’s not at all common to see an independently-owned antique shop or art gallery get boarded over, only to be replaced in ensuing months by a franchise. It’s not difficult to see why. Franchise operators can tap the resources of the parent company, particularly when it comes to accessing legal help with experience navigating through and working with local zoning laws and business regulations.

    I challenge this idiot to find a single business in Old Town that had to move out because of “excess regulation”, and not the fact that property values have skyrocketed there to the point it’s impossible for anyone but the ultra-rich to survive. This guy supposedly has lived there for 10 years and he can’t figure out this simple relationship? Instead he blames signage regulations and historical regulations? And then generalizes observations of Old Town, one of the most uptight, wealthy, and downright rare neighborhoods in the country to small businesses across the country?

    This is off topic for me, but I simply can’t believe these nitwits get to call their magazine “Reason”, when clearly they’re so out of touch they can’t even analyze what’s going on in their own neighborhoods. Either that or the property values have so little effect on their net worth they don’t feel the pinch.

  • Don't Give Your Friends Fees this Holiday Season!

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    This may be obvious to the smart readers of Scienceblogs, but let me state this just for the purpose of explaining the waste that is gift cards. You might think giving cash as a gift is tacky, but the nice thing about cash is that it doesn’t expire, incur fees, or become impossible to combine with other forms of payment. All those disadvantages are present in gift cards, and according to Consumers Union, those hassles resulted in $8 billion in unused gifts. Best Buy is even counting unused gift cards as a source of revenue: “…in its fiscal 2006 annual report, the retailer Best Buy revealed a $43 million gain from gift cards that were unlikely to be used.” This has resulted in a number of states passing laws to put rules on gift cards. And so, on Black Friday, if you can’t find a gift for your loved one and decide to give money, give cash instead of gift cards.

  • What was in Criss Angel's envelope?

    I watched the season finale of phenomenon – the show in which mentalists compete to see who is the next “phenomenon” – and Criss Angel did skeptics everywhere proud with the contents of the envelope.

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  • No Comment Needed!

    The Predatory Lending Association (PLA):

    …is dedicated to extracting maximum profit from the working poor by increasing payday loan fees and debt traps. The working poor is an exciting, fast growing demographic that includes: military personnel, most minorities, and a growing percentage of the middle class.

    Hat Tip: Concurring Opinions.

  • Want to Water During a Water Shortage? Plant New Landscaping!

    The Southeast is having serious water shortages. Just look at Lake Lanier, the main water source for Atlanta.

    Ouch!

    So, what do you do when you live in Palm Beach, FL, there is a water shortage, fines for washing your car or watering your lawn except during specified hours, and serious enforcement efforts in place? The Journal’s Robert Frank tells us:

    …According to the rules, residents who put in “new landscaping” can water three days a week, instead of the usual one, for 30 days after the planting. Once that period ends, homeowners can plant yet again — and resume the thrice-a-week watering. That has led some Palm Beachers to put in new trees, shrubs and turf — often at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars per residence — just so they can run their irrigation systems more frequently.

    One resident, who asked not to be named, said he returned to Palm Beach after the summer and found that he had the only brown lawn on the block. “When I asked everyone how they were watering, they all said ‘new plantings,’ ” he said. “So that’s the loophole. We’re all just ripping out the old lawn and shrubs and putting in new ones.”

    Now, if that doesn’t irritate you, check this out–under Florida’s rules in Palm Beach, if you use a lot of water, you just pay a surcharge. So, guess what the fabulously rich do? Use all the water they want and pay a surchage:

    Consider Nelson Peltz. The investor and food magnate’s oceanfront estate, called Montsorrel, is among the island’s biggest water consumers. His 13.8-acre spread, which combines two properties, used not quite 21 million gallons of water over the past 12 months — or about 57,000 gallons a day on average — at a cost of more than $50,000, according to records obtained from the local water utility. That compares with 54,000 gallons a year for an average single-family residence in Palm Beach, says Ken Rearden, assistant city administrator of West Palm Beach. (West Palm Beach supplies Palm Beach’s water.)

    Yes, an average home uses $54,00 gallons a year. Compare that to some Palm Beach mansion owners:

    WATER GUZZLERS

     
    Some Palm Beach estates use huge amounts of water despite the city’s restrictions. Chart shows gallons consumed in the 12 months ended Oct. 1, 2007.
    OWNER SIZE OF PROPERTY GALLONS USED
    Nelson Peltz
    Investor
    13.8 acres 20,863,216
    Dwight Schar
    Executive chairman, home-builder NVR
    6 acres 12,155,000
    3,253,052*
    William L. Koch
    President, mining concern Oxbow
    7 acres 4,519,416
    695,640**
    James H. Clark
    Netscape co-founder
    5 acres 3,452,020
    Sydell Miller
    Co-founder, Matrix hair-care products
    4 acres 1,032,240
    *second property; **adjoining property he owns
  • Transparency in Propriety Info Databases, or Did the Pizza Place Sell Your Cell Phone Number?

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    Have you ever forgotten to pay a bill and received a call about it on your cell phone? Ever wonder how they got your number? Well, you may have given it to them, but if you didn’t, they probably bought it from a commercial data broker, a company that sells personal information to businesses and law enforcement. Many of these companies exist, the most prominent are Choicepoint, Lexisnexis, Merlin, Tracersinfo, and Experian. They essentially operate search engines with proprietary information, and for a small charge, will sell all sorts of information about you.

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    But how did the data broker get your number? One hears rumors here and there about how they obtain and sell wireless phone numbers. One persistent rumor is that pizza delivery companies sell wireless number to commercial data brokers. Think about it–everyone orders pizza, and in doing so, provides an address and at least a first name.

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    I remember seeing that one of Lexis’ people finder databases advertised having a directory of wireless numbers, and that one source for them was pizza delivery services. But in going to their webpage, I couldn’t find mention of pizza delivery companies anymore. A trip to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine shows what happened with one product–Batchtrace, a popular search tool for debt collectors.

    Back in 2002, Lexis advertised that pizza delivery companies, along with a whole bunch of other businesses, were providing phone numbers and other information to Lexis.

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    But in 2003, Lexis began to pare back some of these disclosures. This coincided with more regulatory and legislative attention on data brokers.

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    And by 2004, Lexis didn’t disclose any of their sources. This is too bad. Without information about the sources of personal information in proprietary databases, they just become back holes, and individuals do not make the connection between providing information at one business, and it being sold to another.

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  • Uncommon Descent breaks my irony meter yet again

    BarryA at Uncommon Descent talks about a startling finding using this tool the blog readability test.

    Thanks to one of our commenters for pointing out this website that calculates the reading level of blogs. Just for fun I inserted UD and it came back “High School,” which means that the general discussion at this blog is at a high school level. I then inserted Pandas Thumb and it came back “Elementary School.”

    Make of this what you will.

    Interesting, when I insert pandasthumb.org I get College/Post Grad. Oh wait, I forgot, the people at UD are morons. They put in Pandasthumb.com, an unregistered domain.

    Now granted, this is a really stupid metric, that doesn’t really say much of anything, but you’d think these geniuses could at least criticize the right website. The only lesson here is never take anything the evolution denialists cdesign proponentsists say at face value.

  • Who's Nuttier: Apple Fans or Ron Paul Fans?

    Kevin Poulsen of Threat Level considers who’s nuttier: Apple fans or Ron Paul fans? Complete with obfuscation, lying, and even fake posts on election sites. (Full disclosure: I am an Apple fan.)

  • Gullible is not in the dictionary

    As either evidence that you can convince idiots of anything to get high, or that police don’t have a sense of humor, check out the Smoking Gun’s coverage of this police bulletin warning of a new drug – Jenkem.

    The hilarious part? The drug is supposedly created by fermenting human sewage in the sun, then inhaling the fumes. Slang terms include: Winnie, Shit, Runners, Fruit from Crack Pipe, Leroy Jenkems, Might, Butthash, and Waste. Ha!

    Now Snopes has the skinny on this supposedly new epidemic which the memo warns is “now a popular drug in American schools.” Yeah, maybe among kids with cruel older brothers. I think it’s largely a hoax on the Collier County Sheriff’s office. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility you could get high on “biogases”, but I suspect someone is having some fun with the cops.

    My question for the readers, what fake drug can you invent to prank the cops with? Or to play a trick on a younger brother?