Skip to content

{ Category Archives } Rant

lawd amighty, I feel my temperature risin’

The Onion nails it again:

If you want to know why newspapers are not just dying, but dead, dead, dead…

Look no further than this, which is not a headline from the Onion (ht: Atrios) [edit] I said “newspapers”, but after listening to NPR this morning, I realized what meant was “old school media”. And yes, NPR is included in that – they have to suck up to their political, if not corporate, masters. Newspapers, […]

I’ll take the fifth…

Or not, it seems. Another amendment down.

Tagged

Kafka rolls over and gives up

Summary: The government dropped a bomb on a U.S. citizen, who, though a total dick and probably a criminal, may have been engaged only in propaganda, which, though despicable, is generally protected by the First Amendment; it did so without a trial or even an indictment (that we know of), based at least in part […]

Tagged

No longer citizens

Matt Taibbi calls it right: But it seems to me that if you’re broke enough that you’re not paying any income tax, you’ve got nothing but skin in the game. You’ve got it all riding on how well America works. You can’t afford private security: you need to depend on the police. You can’t afford […]

Tagged

Rules of the road, bike version

For those of you uncertain how to behave around bicycles: Don’t pass coming up to a stop.  First, my brakes aren’t as good as yours.  I can’t stop as quickly.  When you pass me and stop, you’re taking away the margin I had given myself for coming to a stop.  Second, you don’t know which […]

New annoying driving trends

Annoying driving trends: People leaving their headlights on bright ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Especially with the LED headlights.  Me flashing my brights at you? That means you’re blinding me. People leaving their foglights on WHENEVER THEY’RE NOT BLINDING ME WITH THEIR BRIGHTS.  Those are bright too.  Especially if you’re in a truck, and behind me. […]

The demise of SSC caused the current financial crisis

The cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider was an idiot thing to do for any number of reasons. First, it still would have been the most powerful accelerator on earth, with the most luminosity. We would have found the Higgs in 1996, instead of not quite yet in 2011. We rarely get measurable quantities like […]

Tagged

Strike this

SFPD sergeant Peter Thoshinsky (helmet #2197) is recorded walking the police line, ordering his officers, “If they do not do what you tell them, strike them.”

Tagged

Happy Bill of Rights day!

220 years. How are we doing? Let’s go check Zuccotti Park, or LA City Hall.   No protesters?  So much for assembly and speech. There’s still religion, unless you’re a Muslim, or an atheist (freedom from religion). Restricted, though a bit less so than it used to be, except here in lovely CA. [*] Just […]

Day 12 of the no internet experience

Still waiting for Charter. And to think, they keep asking to be my phone company. Good thing I don’t depend on them for emergency communication services.

How it goes down

Not even working for Fox can save you: I watched as the LAPD destroyed a pop-up canopy tent that, until that moment, had been serving as Occupy LA’s First Aid and Wellness tent, in which volunteer health professionals gave free medical care to absolutely anyone who requested it. As it happens, my family had personally […]

Tagged

The long slow road to having nothing worth defending

The long slow road.

Tagged

Counting down

Day 7 of no home internet. My fingers were twitching, but I’ve mostly reverted back to mid-80s mode. I’ve read a couple of books, doubled the NYer/week rate, and watched the Netflix that were sitting on the mantle. I think the methadone that is the iPhone 4S has kept me from getting an iPad or […]

Suggestion

If you’re a blog comment spammer, kill yourself. Do it now. Shoot yourself in the face. Ha ha, just kidding. No, I’m not really kidding. Kill yourself. (RIP Bill Hicks)