Category: Meta

Dropped from My Blogroll

No Comments

Matthew Yglesias has been dropped from my blogroll.

He just wrote an article saying that it’s OK that all those people died in Bangladesh, it’s a choice made by “rational actors” to trade safety for jobs:

I think that’s wrong. Bangladesh may or may not need tougher workplace safety rules, but it’s entirely appropriate for Bangladesh to have different—and, indeed, lower—workplace safety standards than the United States.

The reason is that while having a safe job is good, money is also good.

Shades of Larry Summers suggesting that we ship toxic waste to Africa because they need the money.

The workers did not have a choice about safety. They knew that they, and their families, would face starvation if they got fired for not going into an unsafe building. The choice was made by their evil bosses.

This is a constant theme of his writing, and I am no interested in his faux liberal bullsh%$.

While there are people on my blogroll with who I profoundly disagree with because they provide insight into foreign view points.

Retired Maryland Republican hatchet man Joe Steffen, and Russian/Orthodox Christian Nationalist Stanislav Mishin are two such examples on my blogroll.

His view, which can best be described by the phrase, “Even the liberal The New Republic.”

It’s all about self-entitled white guys who never have to wonder about where their next meal is coming from play the Michael Kinsley counter-intuitive idiocy game in an attempt to prove how smart they are.

It’s dull, it’s predictable, it’s bereft of any real insight, and it’s off my regular reading list.

Baghdad Burning is Back

No Comments

Riverbend, who rose to notice as a blogger living in Baghdad (she documented just how corrupt and incompetent the invasion and administration were), has made her first blog post in over 5 years:

Finally, after all is said and done, we shouldn’t forget what this was about – making America safer… And are you safer Americans? If you are, why is it that we hear more and more about attacks on your embassies and diplomats? Why is it that you are constantly warned to not go to this country or that one? Is it better now, ten years down the line? Do you feel safer, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis out of the way (granted half of them were women and children, but children grow up, right?)?

And what happened to Riverbend and my family? I eventually moved from Syria. I moved before the heavy fighting, before it got ugly. That’s how fortunate I was. I moved to another country nearby, stayed almost a year, and then made another move to a third Arab country with the hope that, this time, it’ll stick until… Until when? Even the pessimists aren’t sure anymore. When will things improve? When will be able to live normally? How long will it take?

Nice to know that she is OK.

No Comments

Off to have a birthday date with Sharon.*

We are going to a newly opened kosher middle eastern restaurant, Easta La Vista.

If you are ever there, get the silk soup (Charira), a Moroccan Chick Pea and herb soup.  It is sublime.

No blogging, because I hope to be busy doing other things.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

It’s April First

No Comments

So I guess that I should make a joke.

I considered announcing that, because of gay marriage, my wife and I were getting divorced, but it seemed sort of cliched.

Then I considered reporting a prank in Pisa, Italy, where some mischievous supporters of Beppe Grillo’s party used large Mylar mirrors to create the illusion that the Leaning Tower vertical, thereby setting a prank withing a prank, but I’ve decided that one day, I will go to Italy, and actually do this.

So, no jokes, just news ……… At least as I can best determine.

The difference between reality and The Onion is sometimes quite subtle.

I Have a New Rule for Finance and Fraud

No Comments

The first was coined by Eric Falkenstein:

People who meticulously avoid email should not be trusted, because it is simply too calculating, as if they know they are regularly committing crimes. A phone conversation can always be disavowed, you just say you were talking about last weekend’s bar mitzvah.

The 2nd rule, which I call Saroff’s Rule:

If a financial transaction is complex enough to require that a news organization use a cartoon to explain it, its purpose is to deceive.

Well, now I have another rule, if your business plan requires an extraterritorial location not subject to any national law, it is because the principals involved intend to be lawless:

A company named Blueseed is a year away from offering entrepreneurs an inexpensive place, near Silicon Valley, in which to develop their products.

 “Blueseed will station a ship 12 nautical miles from the coast of San Francisco, in international waters. The location will allow startup entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world to start or grow their company near Silicon Valley, without the need for a U.S. work visa. The ship will be converted into a coworking and co-living space, and will have high-speed Internet access and daily transportation to the mainland via ferry boat. So far, over 1000 entrepreneurs from 60+ countries expressed interest in living on the ship.”

No Civil Rights Act, no Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, no Fair Labor Standards Act, no Securities Exchange Act, no RICO statute, no consumer protection laws, no laws against slavery or indentured servitude, and indeterminate tax jurisdiction.

If you get an offer from these people, run the other way.

H/t Naked Capitalism.

When is Being in a Car Accident Not the Worst Thing to Happen to You All Day?

No Comments

When you are returning from a field trip to CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference), where you have meet attendees who argue that the slaves should never have been emancipated.

I was involved in an accident with a toy Tour bus carrying students from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, who were returning from this field trip.

Light posting for a while.

Posted via mobile.

OK, Google is Going Full Evil

No Comments

The Inevitable Downfall Video (NSFW)

Google is killing its Google Reader RSS Reader:

Google Reader, one of the world’s most popular RSS readers, is shutting down on July 1, 2013, Google announced Wednesday.

 The search giant is pulling the plug on the 7-year old project citing “declining usage.” Google says it is shuttering Reader and deprecating or shutting down a number of other services as part of the company’s “spring cleaning” initiative — one that seeks to help the company focus on the features that need the most use.

Seeing as how this app has been pretty much on autopilot for a while, it’s not like it was sucking up much in the way of resources.

My guess is that Google™ saw it as an alternative to Google+™, they dumped some sharing features from the program a year ago, and this was a large part of the reason to axe the program.

They are terrified of Facebook, and so they push G+.

As an aside, one of the problems with Google+™ is that G+ still sucks.

For example, there is still no way to feed your blog RSS to G+, which you can do in Facebook, Twitter, and even lowly MySpace.  (If someone knows a work around, tell me)

And to go further down the “We Love Evil” path, Google has now banned ad blocking software from its Android Market, the Play Store:

Google has removed all ad blocking apps from Google Play, its online store for Android applications, on the basis that they interfere with other services. Searches for “adblock” and related terms on Wednesday evening no longer returned any references to ad blocking software.

Till Faida, co-founder of Adblock Plus, condemned the decision, calling it a threat to consumer choice. “By unilaterally removing these apps, Google is stepping all over the checks and balances that make the Internet democratic,” he said in a statement, suggesting that Google’s actions threaten Internet freedom in the same way that SOPA and PIPA did.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In its letter to Adblock Plus, Google said the software violates Section 4.4 of the company’s Developer Distribution Agreement.

Section 4.4 states, “You agree that you will not engage in any activity with the Market, including the development or distribution of Products, that interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator.”

Evil. It’s what’s dinner.

On a related note, my guess is that Feedburner will be done away with in the near to medium term, so if you have an email subscription, you would need to change.

I’m looking at alternatives.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

No Comments

Celebrated by having a turkey dinner with my wife’s mom, aunt, and uncle.

We had a good time, and we discovered that Agave nectar is a good substitute for corn syrup in pecan pie.

This its a good thing, because Sharon, Natalie, and Charlie all have various levels of allergies to corn, but everyone can eat this variant.

I have been off my laptop all day, snag I am not turning it on now.

Posted via mobile.

Some Navel Gazing on My Part

No Comments

I’ve been fairly clear on this blog that I think that various actions of Obama renders him unfit to be President.*

I also understand that there are people who make arguments that could be called compelling to vote for him, most notably the Rude Pundit’s, “In the End, Vote for Obama Because F%$# Romney,”† (%$# mine)  because Mitt Romney is unfit to be President as well.

While I was in Ashland, I talked with my dad about this, and explained to him my position, and further explained that, living in Maryland, I had no moral dilemma, because my vote for President had not consequence.

He asked me what I would do if I lived in a battleground state, and I responded, “That way madness lies.”

My was flip, and it was a cop out. 

I simply don’t know what I would do if I lived in Ohio, or Virginia, or Florida,‡ or New Hampshire, or Wisconsin, or Colorado, or Iowa, and any statement that I might make would be self serving and shallow, and ultimately meaningless.

What I’m saying here is that, on this matter, if you think that I’m full of sh%$, then I’m full of shit, and if you think that I have a f%$#ing point, then I have a f%$#ing point. 

There are any number of times where I make an argument that is fact based, and I try my best to supply links to those facts, but this is not one of those times.

I think that I’m right, but opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.

*Normalizing torture by refusing to prosecute, his war on whistle-blowing, his steadfast refusal to prosecute the malefactors of wealth, his assertions of a executive authority that makes Dick Cheney look mild, etc.
†H/t Cthulhu for the catch.
‡OK, I know what I would do if I lived in Florida, I would kill myself.