Category: Meta

Think of it as Evolution in Action

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In Onondaga, NY, a man died after falling from his motorcycle while not wearing a helmet.

He was protesting against helmet laws at the time of his accident:

Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike’s handlebars and hit his head on the pavement.

The accident happened Saturday afternoon in the town of Onondaga, in central New York near Syracuse.

State troopers tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse that 55-year-old Philip A. Contos of Parish, N.Y., was driving a 1983 Harley Davidson with a group of bikers who were protesting helmet laws by not wearing helmets.

Troopers say Contos hit his brakes and the motorcycle fishtailed. The bike spun out of control, and Contos toppled over the handlebars. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Troopers say Contos would have likely survived if he had been wearing a helmet.

(emphasis mine)

On a meta note, I have decided to add an “irony” tag. This story inspired me.

Thanks to my Reader(s)

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Yes, Google™ Adsense™ has a few bugs

I’d like to thank everyone who reads my blog.

I’ve gotten enough page views, and click throughs, to get some money from Google™ Adsense™.

I’m not sure that I got a whole bunch of click throughs, because, after all, I get ads, supporting Wal-Mart, for Glen Beck, and for speculators, which would not appear to be a good match for my typical reader.

So, if anyone out there knows of a better ad network, I get something like $8/month on about 4000 page views a month, tell me.

In any case, my latest check will go to taking my family out to dinner.

My standard Google™ Adsense™ disclaimers below:

Please note: once again, that I do not vet, nor do I endorse any ad that appears on my site, and I reserve the right to mock both the ads that appear on my site, as well as the advertisers.

Also, please note, this should be in no way construed as an inducement or a request for my reader(s) to click on any ad that they would not otherwise be inclined to investigate further. This would be a violation of the terms of service for Google™ Adsense™. 

Biblical Plagues, We Haz Them!

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So, Passover starts tonight, and so there is a lot of preparation.

Our house is supposed to be Chometz* free, so think of Spring cleaning run by a Jewish woman on the edge of madness.

Well, we get back from an SCA event on Saturday night, ready to start cleaning, and the power was out, and remained out for the next 18 hours.

But, as the saying goes, wait, there’s more.

Marilyn, my mother-in-law, was coming to visit us, and took the bus down the New York City area, only the ticketing agent pointed her to the bus that was headed to Boston.†

So, instead of arriving at 5pm on Sunday, she arrived at 6am today.

You know, I’m not a superstitious person,‡ but I am expecting problems with blood, frogs, and cattle disease at our Seder tonight.

Light posting the next few days, because of the holidays.

*Leavened bread, and related products, which include things like beans if you are a Jew of Eastern European extraction.
†Major props to my brother Daniel, who lives about 40 minutes outside of Boston, who picked up Marilyn and took her to dinner before taking her back to the bus station.
‡Which I guess is a mealy mouthed way of saying that I am a superstitious person under these circumstances.

F%$# No!!!!!

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Well, the good folks at Google™ Adsense™ have done it again.

The put up an ad from right wing lunatic asylum Newsmax, redirecting to a poll asking what the reader thinks about the concept Donald Trump as president.

Somehow or other, I do not think that my blog is fertile ground for the brain damaged hackery that is Newsmax, but to the degree that I get paid (a fraction of a penny) for someone seeing the ad, better my pocket than Joseph Farah’s.

Of course, if they did something better suited to my rantings, I might get a few more click throughs, and hence a bit more filthy capitalist lucre.

In any case, my apology to my reader(s) for your having to see “The Donald” and his hair.

My standard Google™ Adsense™ disclaimers below:

Please note: once again, that I do not vet, nor do I endorse any ad that appears on my site, and I reserve the right to mock both the ads that appear on my site, as well as the advertisers.

Also, please note, this should be in no way construed as an inducement or a request for my reader(s) to click on any ad that they would not otherwise be inclined to investigate further. This would be a violation of the terms of service for Google™ Adsense™.

So The New York Times Has Added a Paywall

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I’m not sure exactly how it works, so I am unsure how the paywall, which limits you to 20 page views a month, would work off a link to this blog, but, at least for now, it works off of Twitter, so I have created a Twitter account, The Sh%$ I Read on the New York Times, and I will link to that tweet, which will allow one to see the article without having to deal with their paywall.

It appears to me that this is in accordance with both the spirit and the letter of their paywall, since I am manually tweeting the articles.

There are a number of alternatives, most notably the NYTClean applet, and while I might use that myself, I’m not going to put that on my link page, I figure that someone might go all TOS on my flabby white ass and finding a human at Google/Blogger in that case is well nigh impossible.

As to how the paywall will work, the Times had a paywall for a number of years for their opinion pieces, and the net result was that they got a lot less buzz, which is probably why Frank Rich and Bob Herbert both decided to leave the paper in the past few weeks.

The problem with the NYT is too fold, first, and uniquely to them, is the fact that they built, and paid cash for a ruinously expensive new office building in Manhattan, and second, and this is not unique to them, Craigslist is completely eating their lunches in the tremendously profitable classified ads section.

Not sure as to the solution, though any solution should involve cutting Tom Friedman’s travel budget.

Why Some Annoying People Are Not on the List…

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Submitted for your approval, Carlos Irwin Estevez

The They Who Must Not Be Named list, of course.

You see, some of the people who appear to be worthless are actually talented.

Charlie Sheen is a really funny guy, as this sketch shows, and I’m not sure if he’s crazy or not, because,  unlike Bill Frist and Charles Krauthammer, I don’t do diagnoses long distance, but it seems to me that even if he is a bit nuts, he is less nuts than he appears.

In any case, this video is hysterically funny, and the butt of Charlie Sheen’s jokes is one Charlie Sheen.

So he has been removed from the list.

No Posting Tonight

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I’m not sick or anything, it’s just that I am up to my elbows in removing a Trojan* from my daughter’s computer, for the 2nd time in a week.

I do not know what she is accessing, but I am looking up her browser history, and trying to find a possible source, in addition to running multiple virus/spyware scans.

The joys of children are without number.

*The computer infection, not the condom.  If it were as condom in her computer, my head would have exploded.

Things That Make Me Sad

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Not only was Michael Steele, AKA the Republican malaprop machine, defeated in his quest for a 2nd term as head of the RNC, but his replacement is former Wisconsin GOP chairman Reince Priebus, whose name is a pain for me to spell.

It’s Morgan Tsvangerai all over again.

I am aware that this sounds shallow, but I don’t see Republicans good for much beyond my taking snarky shots at.