Concerning events in and around Anoka, MN
This is so depressing/infuriating that I actually recommend putting off reading until you have time to decompress afterward. I took it in two chunks.
“This isn’t something you kid about, Brittany,” her mom scolded, snatching the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A minute later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. “Honey, I’m so sorry. We’re too late,” she said tonelessly as Brittany’s knees buckled; 13-year-old Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming.
It looks remarkably like Africa, but it’s not — this is Texas
60 Minutes did a segment on African animals, some on the verge of extinction in their natural habitats, thriving on Texas ranches that offer the opportunity to hunt some of the animals in exchange, I guess, for the economic incentive to protect the rest. Embedding was disabled, but you can watch the video on YouTube.
(via marginal revolution)
Warning: Grenade Splasherz
This from my friend TigErrrrrrrr:
It’s funny how when you buy these 2-packs of Grenade Splasherz @ Von’s Grocery Stores (impulse items next to the GIANT $4.49 each size of Red Bull!!!) they carry this warning across the top label: “Do not aim or throw at anyone’s face.”
Much more fun is what it says across the bottom of the label: “Squeeze’em, Soak ‘em, & Throw ‘em!” :^) YAY !!!!!
headline of the day
dear clusterflock
In what contexts, if any, are sanctity or the idea or possibility of sanctity valuable?
dear clusterflock
Torrent.
tweet of the day
They grow up so fast
protips for arguing
A must read list of intellectually honest and dishonest debate tactics. For example:
Accusation of taking a quote out of context: debater accuses opponent of taking a quote that makes the debater look bad out of context. All quotes are taken out of context—for two reasons: quoting the entire context would take too long and federal copyright law allows “fair use” quotes but not reproduction of the entire text. Taking a quote out of context is only wrong when the lack of the context misrepresents the author’s position. The classic example would be the movie review that says, “This movie is the best best example of a waste of film I have ever seen,” then gets quoted as “This movie is the best…I’ve ever seen.” Any debater who claims a quote misrepresents the author’s position must cite the one or more additional quotes from the same work that supply the missing context and thereby reveal the true meaning of the author, a meaning which is very different from the meaning conveyed by the original quote that they complained about. Furthermore, other unrelated quotes that just prove the speaker is a nice guy are irrelevant. The discussion is about the offending quotes, not whether the speaker is a good guy. The missing context must relate to, and change the meaning of, the statements objected to, not just serve as character witness material about the speaker or writer. Merely pointing out that the quote is not the entire text proves nothing. Indeed, if a search of the rest of the work reveals no additional quotes that show the original quote was misleading, the accusation itself is dishonest.
You know those people you hate getting into arguments with? It’s probably because they, willfully or not, ignore these sorts of distinctions. (via @interdome)
from the comments
I don’t think it’s ever OK to wear your ballcap backwards.
Except when giving head.
Doubt is our product
How climate change denial equates to the tobacco industry.
What he said.
Clint Eastwood: ‘I don’t give a fuck who wants to get married to anybody else’.
The I don’t give a fuck slide show.
What does Google mean by evil?
Aaron Swartz lays it out clearly, it’s about user experience:
Now part of the joke is that Google seems to be using it rather loosely. If you look at their examples of evil deeds, they seem rather mundane compared to cackling supervillains and mass murderers. They specifically name three: only showing relevant ads, not using pop-ups or other annoying gimmicks, and not selling actual search results.
Hardly the stuff of comic books. But what do these three have in common? They’re all instances of refusing to make things worse for your users in order to make more money. Perhaps that still seems like a mundane conception of evil, but I think it gets at something important. Evil isn’t just about doing terrible things — it’s about doing terrible things for bad reasons. The evil villain cackles and brags about how they’re on the side of evil — they explicitly oppose doing good. And this definition of evil is all about that: if you’re working against your own users, you must have crossed the line and joined the other side.
(via everybody)
tweet of the day
quote out of context
We’re being irresponsible to the children out there who might go and get vagina tattoos, expecting to walk normally the next day.
quote out of context
The tension, as I see it, is that if free will is a myth then it’s not clear why we should have an ethical goal of changing people as little as possible.
from the comments
Someone needs to teach these people how to masturbate.
Deadbeat Diary, 4
It’s a slow day on the internet and I guess that means it’s about damn time I write this (previously on Clusterflock).
I’ve actually been trying to write this for a few weeks now but can’t quite capture exactly how it feels. Cheap metaphors didn’t really work and a factual description fell short of what I want to convey. I tried making the investor into a villain…and the realtor and the government and the bank and myself and the builder and…
The truth is I don’t know how to write about what came next.
Our first offer was in. It was made clear to us that our only option was to accept the offer and wait. We were told not to wait for more and at the same time that the bank would probably decline such a low offer. It was about getting in the system. It was about making our intentions clear.
At this point we were still current on our mortgage. Alicia was still working. And getting in the system seemed important. How long could it take for them to decline our offer?
We waited.
The bank requested bank statements, tax returns, paystubs, a hardship letter…
We waited.
Levi was born.
We waited.
Sometime in late November the Realtor told us the investor wanted some concessions. They wanted us to sign a promissory note and bring cash to closing.
No thanks, we said.
The bank would not approve the offer.
It was time to start over.
I realized later the investor had no incentive to sell. As long as we continued making our payment, the investor continued getting a monthly check. Our mistake, perhaps, was trying to do it right – trying to anticipate the moment we wouldn’t be able to afford our payment and take action before it came to that.
We missed our first payment in November.
on attribution and credit
Regardless of context, John Gruber speaks the truth:
Why do we put bylines on stories in the first place? Because writers deserve credit, obviously. But bylines also serve the reader. All work is better when it is signed by its creators. Edward Tufte says:
Agencies, departments, and organizations don’t do things — people do things. People’s names should be on things to foster both accountability and pride.
Mike Lee on Victimhood
This is not going to be a good essay. This is going to be a terrible essay, which you should not read, for two reasons.
It deserves to be read anyway.
the lion’s choice
When is fighting a lion not a matter of life or death?
It’s up to the lion. If he chooses to withdraw, or surrender, and lets me tie him up, then I will not kill him and the fight will end. But, like I said, if it comes down to either me or him, I will have to kill him. But I don’t want to kill the lion, nor am I planning on it. I want to make that clear.
SENNA
A trailer for a documentary about Formula One World Champion Ayrton Senna. Regardless of whether you plan to watch the movie, there are some racing moments here that are electric magic.
Senna is considered by many to be the best driver in Formula One history.
(via @gary_hustwit)
The River Hades “Likes” This
Annals of Americus has a brief and interesting profile on Envoy, a new social media start-up that specializes in reanimating the Facebook profiles of the deceased:
“Two certainties in life exist: You are born and you die,” says Envoy’s Max Doughherty. “We know this is fact, yet when a loved one passes it’s still very distressing. Loss disrupts life. Envoy uses new technologies to assist in these moments, and it starts with a very unlikely source: Facebook.”
According to Dougherty, that very unlikely source is then manipulated by an application that uses social algorithms and “patented language tools” to mimic the speech and online personality of the deceased user, down to the slang he or she used when still alive. And in some cases (see: sad guy dining alone at end of video), the service can continue a relationship beyond death.
The jury is still out on whether it’s all an elaborate hoax, but here’s hoping.
quote out of context
“We deal with these guys all the time, especially the clergy. It’s amazing how many of the clergy are involved in those lies to build that flock up,” said retired SEAL Don Shipley. Shipley also speculated the waterboarding and kitchen details came from the action depicted in “Under Siege.”
in defense of flogging
An amusingly obnoxious essay — in defense of flogging as a counter-argument for America’s ineffective prison system — that actually does a pretty good job of framing the larger problem:
America now has more prisoners, 2.3 million, than any other country in the world. Ever. Our rate of incarceration is roughly seven times that of Canada or any Western European country. Stalin, at the height of the Soviet gulag, had fewer prisoners than America does now (although admittedly the chances of living through American incarceration are quite a bit higher). We deem it necessary to incarcerate more of our people—in rate as well as absolute numbers—than the world’s most draconian authoritarian regimes. Think about that. Despite our “land of the free” motto, we have more prisoners than China, and they have a billion more people than we do.
(via the browser)
