Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 551
MeFi post:
sex in the park
Present day cops are largely those the Army rejected; I'm sure we can look forward to more legal and reasonable enforcement of the criminal law in the years to come
You mean, now that the army doesn't reject anyone?
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 3:57 PM on July 25, 2008
Aren't sex toy bans probably unconstitutional after Lawrence v. Texas?
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 4:10 PM on July 25, 2008
Craig was a bad guy, but that doesn't mean that what was done to him was okay, anyway. The ACLU has argued that the sting against him was unconstitutional.
The whole scuffle over equal / unequal protection seems to me to be missing the point. What's wrong is the combination of the rough way we handle (just about all) criminals (including publicizing everything) and the fact that lots of mostly innocuous, private things are illegal. If we just had one or the other, things... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 5:04 PM on July 25, 2008
I'm the one coherently arguing for logical equality here.
SIGH! You're both coherently arguing for logical equality! You just can't agree about what sorts of differences among offenses and offenders can justify what sort of equal treatment. Come on man!
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 5:23 PM on July 25, 2008
Generally, it's not illegal to -- while in public -- solicit sex. It's illegal to solicit sex with the planned sex to occur in public, because sex in public is illegal. This is at the core of the ACLU's argument that I posted about upthread.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 10:03 PM on July 25, 2008
MeFi post:
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
I forgot the Deepness opener, but I realize it made a big impression on me. The hunt for [spoiler redacted] is such a tragic and wonderful way to open that story, and the opener kicks it off really well.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 8:18 AM on July 25, 2008
Did you have typos in those, because if not, I disagree. Those are twisted and unnatural in their grammatical construction, and I had to read both repeatedly to try and figure out what they meant. Good first lines don't require repeated attempts at understanding.
Well the first sounds like a translation of the Aeneid opener, which would explain why it doesn't sound natural in English. Not sure whose translation.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 4:25 PM on July 25, 2008
MeFi post:
One Toke Over the Line
California now has more than two hundred thousand physician-sanctioned pot users and hundreds of dispensaries
Two hundred thousand!? I am happily surprised to hear this. Could be better, but this goes a long way towards the dream of legalization.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 10:31 AM on July 25, 2008
MeFi post:
NASA Images / Internet Archive
Woot! Political cover for Internet Archive!
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 7:29 PM on July 24, 2008
Wait, why does the internet archive need political cover?
I was kind of kidding, but my idea was that 1) it's a socially very important service but 2) it's usefulness depends on unrestricted copying and republishing of everything. Copying sometimes seems like a threatened activity.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 8:50 AM on July 25, 2008
MeFi post:
Bite me, Larry Summers.
This FPP reports two different studies, which had different results. The results of the Hyde, et al., study, are actually consistent with Summers's famous hypothesis about greater variance in male math abilities. The explanations given are different, but this study doesn't differentiate those explanations.
What about at the very high end of the scale?
"While we did find more boys than girls above the 99th percentile at a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 8:01 AM on July 25, 2008
MeFi post:
Boing Boing Finds 21st Century Trotsky?
By the way, those who liked that rainbow thing, check out my first comment on the VW post. If it's still there.
Nice!
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 2:31 PM on June 30, 2008
I don't understand the appeal of the argument that says, They're a private (personal?) website, they can do what they want.
Of course they can!
If they wanted, they could become a neo-Stalinist mouthpiece tomorrow.
They could! But that would not be a Good Thing.
Similarly, smaller betrayals of their avowed ideals are not a Good Thing.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 7:07 PM on June 30, 2008
ha ha... we are grains of sand, stars in the sky, a multitude and cannot generally be summarized as having one kind of member or another AWESOME
FTFY
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 9:37 AM on July 1, 2008
anil--: I am sorry that I was right.
Um dude I've never felt the need to pile on you before, but this is a bit much. Despite your much-self-vaunted expertise, the only reason you were "right" is because what you said had almost zero predictive content.
You made some on-the-one-hand hedges:
* Either as an editorial decision, or because of some inflexible... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 1:48 PM on July 1, 2008
There are less than a thousand insults in this thread.
(1279 comments total) (331 insults) [add to favorites] [!] 43 users marked this as a favorite
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 3:37 PM on July 2, 2008
Mt. Stross, no one has any obligation whatsoever to get on "your good side"
Mt. Stross? No way around it. The only way to get to the good side is to go straight over the peak. Rough passage this time of year. Above the tree line there's snow and ice to 6 feet deep. No sir. Last guy passed this way died up there.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 10:12 AM on July 3, 2008
yo' mountain momma's so fat you have to take a funicular to get on her good side
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 10:14 AM on July 3, 2008
(felix said forae lol)
did I just fall for some kind of trap?
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 11:58 AM on July 8, 2008
I don't read it that way at all. Dude wasn't upset with modern life until the post got ++unpublished.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 9:22 PM on July 13, 2008
You've upended my most cherished assumptions about how many years there are in a Willennium.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 4:28 PM on July 15, 2008
The mods' comments seem quite appropriate -- even pleasant -- if you read them in the voice of a cartoon villain.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 8:16 AM on July 23, 2008
As a side note; I kinda feel the same way about the "Great post!" or "This is not the best of the web" comments at MeFi. I guess I can see leaving "Great post", but really... the comment threads should be about the topic of the thread.
We do have favorites and flagging, though, which take a lot of this load out of comments. I often use favorites to substitute for "you go girl"-type comments, and I think a lot of people do this.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 5:58 PM on July 23, 2008
They need vacations badly.
Ironically, their poor comportment has been attributed to the fact that they (or at least Cory) are already on vacation.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 7:30 PM on July 23, 2008
Isn't it kind of the opposite?
1. The roads are nearly identical (at the place they diverge) and there's no clear reason to choose one over the other. (Though as for that, the passing there / Had worn them really about the same / And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black.)
2. He wants to travel both, but can't. (Oh, I kept the first for another day! / Yet, knowing... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 12:13 PM on July 24, 2008
prefpara, on the question of the subject's awareness: what stands out to me is the fact that the poem is told from the time of paths diverging (roughly) rather than the time of the future retelling. That suggests to me that the speaker is projecting illusions he'll have in the future, rather than actually in the grip of those illusions.
But I see that it's not an open-and-shut case.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 1:07 PM on July 24, 2008
MeFi post:
Watchmen Trailer is Up. It's not good.
I thought the visual style of the books was a little boring, so I'm not sensitive to complaints that this trailer has somehow betrayed it. Of course, I am ready to believe that the film will betray the comic in other ways.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 3:34 PM on July 17, 2008
MeFi post:
'The Politics of Fear'
Seriously? Crying offense and demanding balance?
Let the fucking Bushies demand that everyone on their side is 'on message,' let them screen the attendees at their political rallies, let them preemptively deploy the word "controversial" to slant the debate. We don't have to be so cowardly that we quail at how some imagined ignoramus understands what's on the cover of our intellectual newsweekly.
The last few years have shown that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 9:15 PM on July 13, 2008
This must be some new use of "obfuscate," to mean, "Make a point I disagree with."
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 6:25 AM on July 14, 2008
everyone--for a good and clever argument on why this cover is so offensive and misses its supposed satirical mark, see here.
Clever? The whole thing centers around the incredible strawman suggestion that David Remnick would object to a cover satirizing McCain. And what is meant by your use of "supposed"? Implying that the cover was not satirical is a ridiculous bad-faith tactic, like Hillary's "he's-not-a-muslim-as-far-as-i-know.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 8:36 AM on July 14, 2008
Would the corporate media be talking about pro-McCain PC-ists who can't take a joke? Or would the New Yorker get Dixie Chicked?
How the other side would react to something similar is not relevant to the correct or liberal response to this cover. The contemporary right-wing political machine is deeply illiberal, and has mastered the technique of quashing criticism by appeals to a twisted political correctness. This is one of the worst things about our... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 11:04 AM on July 14, 2008
grobstein--when you fail to distinguish criticism of satire from calls for censorship
Ornate, you're misunderstanding me. None of my points are specifically about censorship, and I don't even use the word "censorship." Illiberal behavior can stop far short of actual censorship. "Dixie Chicking" is not censorship. Shouting down other voices with trumped-up claims of offense is not censorship. As I noted in my post, the Bushies... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 1:35 PM on July 14, 2008
(I should point out that there's a distinction between going after the cover as "offensive" (as the Obama campaign and some of the linked blogs have done) and going after it as merely unstrategic. I think both criticisms are wrong, but only the former really gets me up in arms, and my comments upthread should be read as applying mostly to the former.)
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 1:40 PM on July 14, 2008
From the Economist's "Democracy in America" blog:
the campaign's reaction makes the story. The New Yorker's circulation is almost entirely concentrated in true-blue coastal enclaves. It might have gotten some play on hard-right chat boards and blogs, but those audiences are a lock for John McCain as surely as Manhattan is a lock for Mr Obama. Now, however, the cover is plastered all over the cable news shows, for the viewing pleasure of millions who would... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 9:07 AM on July 15, 2008
"It's a cartoon…and that's why we've got the First Amendment," Obama said.
And that's why it's great to have surrogates in your campaign who can condemn things as offensive while you play it cool.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 9:38 PM on July 15, 2008
MeFi post:
Exiled
I had no idea they were shut down! Scary! I was never crazy about the paper, but yeesh.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 8:04 AM on July 15, 2008
MeFi post:
Can I has stock quotes?
I think this is a really good story. Not news, perhaps, but informative and right about a lot of things.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 9:56 AM on July 10, 2008
They're different things, soft. Okay, so 4chan was inspired by 2chan, long ago. But "4chan isn't 2chan" isn't a good criticism of 4chan. It's produced some explosions of creative culture, and a big protest movement against an evil group. That seems pretty okay to me.
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 12:42 PM on July 10, 2008
MeFi post:
"Loaded with soul...under control"
Actually, the NYT quotes prices from $0.5m to $1.3m, so PMD was right and you're being unhelpful.
On the broader question of what kind of apartment makes you "rich", buying even a million dollar apartment is a far cry from "has a million dollars to spend on an apartment." Most home purchases are financed by debt. In NYC you may have to put down 10-20% of the price. So it's like having $100-200k to spend on an apartment (saved over we don't know how... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 10:07 AM on July 9, 2008
people are complaining about gentrification while simultaneously arguing that a million dollar apartment doesn't make you rich
I can't find an instance of the same person saying these two things
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 10:20 AM on July 9, 2008
Yes, Manhattan is expensive. That does not mean that rich people living in Manhattan are not rich. It means only that they are rich in an expensive area.
Do you say someone is "rich" based solely on how much money they make, or do you consider the material conditions of their life? Cost of living varies from place to place, and is a driver of salaries in those places. It's very high in Manhattan. So, while Manhattan is full of people who... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 1:05 PM on July 9, 2008
hey: "coming to the nuisance" is not the firm rule you're making it out to be. The law only sometimes recognizes the "coming to the nuisance" defense. Where the late-coming use of land is the "efficient" or proper one, the nuisance will typically not be protected (see a discussion with case-law examples here, under 3.)
You also seem to be getting Del E. Webb wrong, or at least not acknowledging the extent to which it's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 1:19 PM on July 9, 2008
Addendum (didn't preview): yes it's an old doctrine -- it's just one to which there are now gaping exceptions.
(If the Arizona law does what it says it does, it's not very representative.)
posted to MetaFilter by grobstein
at 1:21 PM on July 9, 2008
