Archive of entries posted on 17th January 2014

Your Program Won’t Fix Poverty

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[High Praise! to According to Hoyt]

Part of the issue with the war on poverty is that it seemed completely reasonable “Give people just enough to lift themselves up out of dire need and they’ll do the rest.”

Only people don’t work like that. No?

Okay, do an experiment with your toddler: offer them a food they like well enough but aren’t crazy about – say eggs – and tell them they can have chocolate cake instead if they clean their room to your satisfaction.

Sure they’ll take the bait SOMETIMES, but most of the time they’ll shrug and have the egg.

Just one tasty snack from a buffet table of pondering on poverty.

Link of the Day: Because The Colored Pencils Told Him To

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[High Praise! to 4of7 of Little Worlds]

2013 Fresh – August. (mostly)

Wherein we discover that 4of7 has, all along, been a mere puppet being controlled by a race of sentient colored pencils.

Or something. I skimmed, so no guarantee on that statement.

Anyway, there is bountiful color and beauty to be had at the link above. If it’s cold and gray where you are, this will make it all better.

That I *do* guarantee.

[Think you have a link that’s IMAO-worthy? Send it to harvolson@gmail.com. If I use your link, you will receive High Praise! (assuming you remember to put your name in the email)]

Wisdom of the Day: Popcorn Candy Christie Explosions Google Tim Wikipedia Snooze To-Do

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Obama Warned Us – Not Working

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I don’t think a system is working when small businesses are gouged and 15,000 Americans are losing coverage every single day; when premiums have doubled and out-of-pocket costs have exploded and they’re poised to do so again. I mean, to be fair, the status quo is working for the insurance industry, but it’s not working for the American people. It’s not working for our federal budget. It needs to change.

BARACK OBAMA, remarks to GOP House Issues Conference, Jan. 29, 2010

“And I promise that, when I’m done changing it, it won’t work for the insurance industry, either.”

Random Thoughts: Downton Abbey, TSA, and Zelda

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According to the TIME quiz, liberals have cats crawling over their messy desks while their kids run around screaming. But they use Chrome.

Community is awesome again. And Jonathan Banks is great.

The intensity of the focus on the NJ thing demonstrates that to the MSM the biggest scandal of all is being a Republican.

It would be refreshing one day to meet someone outraged with the substance of a scandal and not from political disagreement with the subject.

To save money, why don’t we just assume it’s made in China unless labeled otherwise.

Wearing a watch for the first time in years. Taking a bit of retraining to look at my wrist for the time versus the nearest computer screen.

NEW DOWNTON ABBEY: Dowager Countess accidentally makes eye-contact with the scullery maid. Edith depresses the servants with her plainness.

NEW DOWNTON ABBEY: Isis, Carson are scared of the new vacuum cleaner. Robert continues to be wrong about everything.

NEW DOWNTON ABBEY: Inexplicably, people continue to listen to/believe Barrow. Rose wears pants and is banished from Downton.

If TSA sees you have a Leatherman and says, “That’s a knife!” say “That’s not a knife!” and pull out bowie and say “This is a knife!” and they’ll laugh and let you through.

Got a new Zelda game for my 3DS. Time to start smashing pots like a complete sociopath.

When is Nintendo going to catch up with last decade and fully voice a Zelda game?

The absolute worst kind of global warming is the kind that makes it colder.

How about instead of a moving walkway, a moving sitway where you sit and move. I guess that’s just a car.

Salted coffee doesn’t really work.

At one airport security they were yelling at people for taking laptops out, at another for leaving them in. How about signs explaining what you want?

I like the more lax airport security, but not every airport has it and they don’t don’t have signs up explaining exactly what’s expected.

Idea: an app that gets daily updated information telling you what’s expected at the security of each airport.

All this talk of gay propaganda being banned from Russia is just gay propaganda (and thus banned from Russia).

Ringtones

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20140117-081750.jpgNick Robinson is BBC2’s political editor. He’ll appear on issues discussion shows on that UK channel discussing issues (duh).

Well, the other day, he had a miscue when one of his mobile devices started playing a ringtone, Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls, according to The Guardian.

No big deal, right? People forget to put devices on silent all the time. I’ve been in meetings where suddenly some loud song snippet started blaring from someone’s pants. You, too, probably.

So, if it’s not that big of a deal, why am I wasting your time writing about it? Well, it got me to thinking. What might be some ringtones of others in the news media?

Most of us might not be familiar with media reporters or pundits from outside the U.S., but I’m certain Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, Bill O’Reilly, and others could be subject to having some ringtones that might tell us more about them than we want to know.

So, I’d like to know what you think might be the ringtones of some political reports … or of some politicians. Or suggested ringtones for them.

Have at it.