GE Profile Series microwave has a magic button, but is it worth the cost? (review) http://t.co/O5z6l4PXjE
— CNET (@CNET) November 9, 2013
11.09.2013
Umm, how many wishes do you get?
Stay awake all over with caffeinated underwear
Women sue: Caffeinated underwear doesn't zap fat | Crave - CNET
The manufacturer says underwear in its Shapewear line has "Novarel Slim yarn technology" that "provides slimming benefits by reducing the appearance of cellulite. Novarel Slim microfibre incorporates microcapsules containing caffeine, retinol, ceramides, and other active principles."
Or, for that matter, anybody at all
You won’t find many NFL players of any race who spent their college days studying Homer.
Also the opacity of its tweets
.@HOBBoston, @TheOfficialMBV reinforced the critically lauded seamlessness of its long-strung discography http://t.co/rfJ75e9nwn
— Boston Globe Music (@GlobeMusic) November 9, 2013
Close only counts in horseshoes (and hand grenades) (and maybe those drone things)
Martin MacNeill, Utah doctor, convicted of murder in death of wife Michele MacNeill - CBS News
"It was an almost perfect murder," Grunander said in his closing argument…
Or maybe it does just grow on trees
Banksy's Nazi Painting Charity Auction Fell Apart - Connor Simpson - The Atlantic Wire
The painting's origin story was so quintessentially Banksy: he reportedly purchased a landscape painting from a Housing Works-run thrift shop, added a nazi to the painting's foreground and signed it. Now it was a Banksy original, worth potentially over half a million dollars.
Picky, picky
Missing the Bad Old Days - NYTimes.com
By far the biggest argument between the House and Senate on the farm bill is about the food stamp program, which the House Republicans want to slash by $39 billion, mainly through new screening programs to guarantee that every single recipient is working, drug-free, needy and in general totally and completely worthy of government assistance. Even if that means inadvertently emptying a lot of deserving cupboards along the way.
This would be in the same bill that includes crop insurance subsidies that make no attempt whatsoever to screen out the undeserving rich. “Some of them are guys who farm in four or five states, in 20 different counties, growing five or six different crops. These are some of the most successful businesses in the country,” said Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group, which recently released a report on the number of billionaires who received farm subsidies since 1995 (about 50).
Hooray! Hooray! Oh oh…
Exuberance reigns in this NYTimes piece about the October jobs report…
Job Growth Eases Fears About Effect of Closing - NYTimes.com
Despite dysfunction in Washington and a 16-day government shutdown, the economy chugged along in October, surprising many analysts as private sector hiring bounced back after a spring slowdown.
…until paragraph 12, when suddenly…
But the unemployment rate, based on a separate survey of households that counted furloughed federal employees as out of work, rose to 7.3 percent in October from 7.2 percent in September.
One mystery buried in Friday’s report was a drop of 720,000 in the size of the labor force, and the ensuing fall in the labor participation rate to 62.8 percent, a 35-year low.
Oops. Good news, but maybe not.
A whole different brew
Right Wing’s Surge in Europe Has the Establishment Rattled - NYTimes.com
In some ways, this is Europe’s Tea Party moment — a grass-roots insurgency fired by resentment against a political class that many Europeans see as out of touch. The main difference, however, is that Europe’s populists want to strengthen, not shrink, government and see the welfare state as an integral part of their national identities.
But can you take tinfoil hats past TSA?
How Airlines Mine Personal Data In-Flight - WSJ.com
On some airlines, flight attendants armed with tablet computers will soon have far more data on fliers at their fingertips, including their allergies, seat preferences and whether the carrier lost both their bags last trip. Airlines' marketing pitches are also becoming more relevant, in part based on customers' online-browsing history, their likes on Facebook and their income.
11.08.2013
Man bites dog
And in other news…
Dad Accused of 'Unfit Parenting' for Not Taking Son to McDonalds | TIME.com
Schiller, a court-appointed psychologist, told the court hearing the divorce case that because he wouldn’t take the boy to McDonald’s, he was “wholly incapable” of taking care of the child and asked the court to intervene…
Really? There's a movie culture?
Good riddance, Blockbuster! - Salon.com
The chain was the embodiment of everything that's wrong with movie culture.
Maybe that's my problem. When I watch movies, culture is the farthest thing from my mind.
If the NSA doesn't know everything already, it just has to wait
Motorola wants to tattoo a mic on your throat | Crave - CNET
If a just-published patent application from Google-owned Motorola Mobility is any indication, the company is actually more interested in devices that you're always touching, like permanently. The patent, filed in 2012, details a wireless microphone that can be tattooed onto the throat.
Just about anything will amuse an astronomer
New asteroid that 'belches out dust' discovered - CNN.com
"Its tail structures change dramatically ... as it belches out dust," Jewitt, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, said in a news release.
A really cool work avoidance tool
Well, make that cold:
Check Out the New Polar Bear Cam | Mother Jones
(And in a depressingly few weeks it'll look just like that outside my kitchen window. Almost.)
Happy Thanksgiving from your Uncle Sam
Cut in Food Stamps Forces Hard Choices on Poor - NYTimes.com
…for millions of poor Americans who rely on food stamps, reductions that began this month present awful choices. One gallon of milk for the kids instead of two. No fresh broccoli for dinner or snacks to take to school. Weeks of grits and margarine for breakfast.
Also, IT guy soon departed
North Carolina traffic alert: Beware women drivers, Obamacare | Technically Incorrect - CNET News
As WTKR-TV reports, the alerts seemed routine enough at first: "A High severity incident has been Added for I-40 Eastbound in Wake County in Raleigh."
But then came the details of the problem: "Vehicle Accident: Women Drivers, Rain, Obama Care."
11.07.2013
Where do you get fried chicken, Bunky?
Alcohol Is Really Pissed Off at Marijuana Right Now - NationalJournal.com
Marijuana has been giving alcohol a bad name.…
[But] "That's like saying we shouldn't talk about relative harms of sushi to fried chicken," said Mason Tvert, who in addition to working at [the Marijuana Policy Project] wrote a book called Marijuana is Safer: So Why are We Driving People to Drink? "It's important that people know the relative harms of all substances, so there's no reason not to talk about the two most popular substances in the world."
Not counting chocolate, that is.
Hacker muscles in on FBI
News from The Associated Press
Among the five people added this week to the FBI's list of "most wanted" cybercriminals is a former San Diego college student who developed an $89 program called "Loverspy" or "Email PI." Sold online from his apartment, the program was advertised as a way to "catch a cheating lover" by sending the person an electronic greeting card that, if opened, would install malicious software to capture emails and instant messages, even spy on someone using the victim's own webcam.
More election commentary
Presidential! Season! Soonish! - NYTimes.com
I personally think it was interesting that Boston picked a new mayor who’s working on his 19th year of sobriety, on the same day that the mayor of Toronto admitted he had smoked crack, “probably in one of my drunken stupors.” Who knew that Toronto would turn out to be more enthusiastic than Boston when it comes to substance abuse?
–Gail Collins
11.06.2013
As we've said before…
1976 -- It is disclosed that RCA, ITT & Western Union have made international telegraph traffic available to US National Security Agency since 1947.
…the shocking thing about the current NSA story is how many people were shocked by it.
Lesson: If you can't build a web site, at least think up a good story about why
Kathleen Sebelius hearing takeaway: More bad news - David Nather - POLITICO.com
The Health and Human Services secretary told the Senate Finance Committee that the Obama administration is on track to fix the sputtering federal enrollment website. Well, maybe not on track exactly — “not where we need to be.”
How about, The Tea Party ate our homework!
Wait, don't tell me…people who live in the dark?
Energy Efficiency by State: A U.S. Map | New Republic
Note the similarity between states that President Obama won (in blue) and the darker-shaded, more energy-efficient states above.
Or bicycle riders!
Yeah, and no fair looking for speeders either
Markey Bill Requires Warrants for Domestic Drones - Defense One
Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., introduced a bill this week that would require law-enforcement agencies to earn a warrant before conducting any surveillance via any unmanned aircraft.
And don't bother complaining—they already know what you think
Senators back NSA bill, target ‘insider threats’ | TheHill
The Senate Intelligence Committee has advanced legislation to reauthorize funding for the National Security Agency and surveillance programs.
The bill includes new funding for technology to combat "insider threats" and leaks of classified information.
Sign us up!
Feingold sees 'exciting potential' for UN combat force | TheHill
President Obama's envoy to central Africa on Wednesday praised the “exciting potential” of a newly created U.N. combat force that could transform peace-keeping missions around the world.
Wait. What?
Seriously, people, let's try to do better here
A Ku Klux Klan leader told The Atlantic Wire that one racist Virginia mom and her 7-year-old son's Halloween costume has ruined the Klan's reputation.
Don't be so mean.
Not a good day for getting stuff done (lazy) but…
…the normally staid and somewhat dull ProPublica nonetheless gets into the hot new Obamacare scare story genre with…
Loyal Obama Supporters, Canceled by Obamacare - ProPublica
“From all of the sob stories I’ve heard and read, ours is the most extreme,” Lee told me in an email last week.
There are a couple of hundred million people with (or without) health insurance affected in one way or another by Obamacare and unless they plan to publish these little anecdotes daily for the next several decades they will never get even remotely near sufficient evidence for concern.
Obamacare is a lousy law, IMO, sabotaged (by both parties) from the git-go (a single-payer program would have avoided all this muddle), but all this "sob story" stuff will get sorted out in time and all that will remain of them will be mere legend.
11.05.2013
From the Onion this might make sense, but the Times?
Strategic Move Exempts Health Law From Broader U.S. Statute - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — The Affordable Care Act is the biggest new health care program in decades, but the Obama administration has ruled that neither the federal insurance exchange nor the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low-income people are “federal health care programs.”
The surprise decision, disclosed last week, exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare.
We does?
On her 100th birthday, we remembers the beautiful, mercurial, phenomenally talented Vivien Leigh | http://t.co/T9Y6YXEDA4
— LIFE (@LIFE) November 5, 2013
Ooops
Herbal Supplements Are Often Not What They Seem - NYTimes.com
DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds.
11.04.2013
A natural for "The Walking Dead"?
News from The Associated Press
The California Endowment, a private foundation that is spending millions to promote President Barack Obama's signature law, recently provided a $500,000 grant to ensure TV writers and producers have information about the Affordable Care Act that can be stitched into plot lines watched by millions.
Yeah, but broad shoulders, right?
1907 -- Chicago institutes the first movie censorship in the US — one of the first films banned is a production of Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
Just playing it safe, is all: "According to a theatrical superstition, called the Scottish curse, speaking the name Macbeth inside a theatre will cause disaster."
Just take a deep breath there, Dude
Joe Biden: Ken Cuccinelli views ‘from another era’ - Katie Glueck - POLITICO.com
”This race has captured the attention of the entire nation,” Biden said. “Not just because it’s a …race in a bellwether state that has become the face of progress in this country. But because it’s the first major race between the forces and faces of the new Republican tea party — a tea party whose social recidivism is only outgunned by its hostility to science and technology and innovation and scholarship.”
[Emphasis mine.]
What floats the Navy's boat
Feds: Navy Secrets Bought With Prostitutes
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Nicknamed "Fat Leonard," the gregarious Malaysian businessman is well known by U.S. Navy commanders in the Pacific, where his company has serviced warships for 25 years.
But prosecutors in court papers say Leonard Francis worked his connections to obtain military secrets by lining up prostitutes, Lady Gaga tickets and other bribes for a U.S. commander, in a scandal reverberating across the Navy.
And you were expecting…?
It is worth considering this language because we know how he would have been treated in the press had he been Arab or Muslim.
Always complaining, those D's
Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright Denied Voter ID Card
Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright (D-TX) was denied a voter ID card thanks to Texas's strict voter ID law.…
Wright said he previously realized earlier in the week that the identification he had to vote, a Texas Christian University faculty ID and a Texas driver's license that expired in 2010, did not meet the criteria of the new voter ID law.
First you give them the vote, then they want to be Speaker of the House.
11.03.2013
Spies! Spies!
The Zuckerberg Files: Getting schooled on Facebook's CEO | Internet & Media - CNET News
When Mark Zuckerberg speaks, everyone listens. Not just because he happens to run the world's largest social network, but also because he has a tendency to let slip some of his personal philosophy on privacy, connection, and sharing at an ever-increasing pace.
That's why scholars at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are listening to and recording everything he says…
[Emphasis mine.]
Well, public statements, so there's a difference. Maybe it's more like stalking than spying. Still.
Anyway, research. Maybe they should call it the National Scholarly Research Agency.
Me too!
Rand Paul on plagiarism charges: If dueling were legal in Kentucky... - POLITICO.com
Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that accusations of plagiarism in his speeches makes him wish dueling were legal in Kentucky.
Would that be awesome or what?
I like my gadgets as much as the next guy (maybe more) but…
…all this rejoicing…
JetBlue and Delta Now Allow Passengers to Gadgets During Takeoff and Landing - ABC News
…about being able to fly without turning your smartphone off is a little bizarre, expecially since…
Passengers can use tablets and smartphones but they must be put in airplane mode before takeoff.
Airplane mode? So all this stuff is about what…Angry Birds?
Or, conversely, people's preferences for attractive politicians might make them sick
Why Attractive Candidates Win - NYTimes.com
As we argue in a new article in the journal Psychological Science, people’s preferences for good-looking politicians may be linked to ancient adaptations for avoiding disease. In fact, the preference for attractive politicians seems to ebb and flow with voters’ concerns about germs.
(Does this mean we need the platinum plan?)
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