Republicans live on CNN - blaming a speech by Pelosi I didn't hear for being too partisan.

Seriously. It strikes me as extremely tone deaf that the House GOP leaders have apparently decided to go with that theme. I'm reminded of when Gingrich got hammered for implying that he was taking a hard line on the budget shutdown because Clinton ignored him during a flight to Israel.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:41 AM on September 29, 2008

This morning, before the bailout package failed, Apple was down by as much as 17% on the analyst downgrades. Besides the reasons mentioned by delmoi, one of the analysts cited Apple's virtual absence in the sub-$1000 market.

Delmoi is right that this is not a "normal" company and this was also not a "normal" day for them.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 12:24 PM on September 29, 2008

Ha ha, Barney Frank's response to the GOP leadership.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 12:50 PM on September 29, 2008

Purely from an optics viewpoint, it's amazing some staffer hasn't dragged McCain out for a basic teeth-whitening treatment.

sorry
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 6:27 PM on September 26, 2008

so, will this be the debate thread?
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 5:57 PM on September 26, 2008

Thanks Whelk. I have had much wine, because I am an elitist.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 6:09 PM on September 26, 2008

I love this and will be thinking about it for a long time; thank you for posting it.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 7:11 PM on September 19, 2008

caddis: Yeah, if you are driving near them it sucks.

Unfortunately, as a pedestrian I have to say that walking near a Critical Mass event sucks too. I'm extremely sympathetic to efforts promoting non-car transportation methods, but from my perspective Critical Mass detracts from the advancement of cyclists' rights.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 6:29 PM on July 29, 2008

lovely; thank you for sharing this!
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 5:46 PM on April 26, 2008

I forgot to add the MeFi wiki page of stored for unique and interesting gift ideas.

By 'Babes in Toyland', I think you mean 'Toys in Babeland'

yes, crap, I was channeling the band! Thanks for the correction, item - my very first semi-Spoonerism.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 10:20 PM on November 27, 2007

lorimer, those toys are lovely but make me a bit nervous, as in...what if they break?
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:19 PM on November 27, 2007

Glass dildos are quite sturdy (think about the strength of a hunk of glass that thick & that rounded).

Excellent, thanks - I think I'd envisioned them as being hollow and thus a tad more delicate.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 9:56 PM on November 28, 2007

My only concern with this is that these girls are receiving proper education on the difference between the protection offered by birth control and condoms. I knew many girls in high school who believed that the only negative consequence of sex was the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 5:48 PM on October 18, 2007

This is great. I always wondered if Dowd/Friedman/Kristof/etc. were pissed that their audience was limited by TimesSelect. I'm hoping the WSJ is the next to go...thanks for the post!
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:36 PM on September 17, 2007

I find the "Goblin" inexplicably endearing. Thanks for the post!
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 9:49 AM on September 14, 2007

In America
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 4:43 AM on September 11, 2007

I'll sidestep the influential-ness (influentiality? languagehat?) debate, and just thank item for posting this - fantastic!
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 8:26 PM on August 26, 2007

And, "How Sassy (Should Have) Changed My Life," which kicks off with this frighteningly accurate paragraph:

"If you subscribed to or even occasionally read Sassy, the teen-girl magazine that existed from 1989 to 1996, then that makes you, approximately, a pro-choice registered Democrat who came of age listening to alternative rock. You grew up on R.E.M., the Smiths, the Cure, Throwing Muses, Sonic Youth, Liz Phair, Hole, Bikini Kill, PJ Harvey, My... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 2:09 PM on July 14, 2007

I wish I still had all my old Sassys.

My parents tossed all my old Sassys during a cleaning spree after I'd left for college. I am still resentful.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 3:19 PM on July 14, 2007

lalex's excerpt describes me, one hundred percent.

Me too, and your user name made me smile because before I morphed into an angst-ridden adolescent, I was a huge fan of Archie Comics.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 3:37 PM on July 14, 2007

Thank you! I going on a road trip in a couple weeks and had not seen this.

So, drmarcj, where should one go in Lexington?
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 10:46 AM on July 4, 2007

Thank you dilettante, I will definitely write those places down!
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 3:39 PM on July 6, 2007

Joecacti: I didn't mean to make an LOLXTIANS post. I put that in about the Morrisons because it's true that their religious beliefs influenced their decision; but in the last essay I linked religion didn't play any part in the mother's decision to bring all hr triplets to term.

What's interesting to me about this that the people in these agonizing situations weren't faced with a typical pro-choice/pro-life situation...they were advised that their decision to carry all... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 6:38 AM on July 2, 2007

Ambrosia Voyeur--You are 26, according to your profile. When you have gone through menopause and still can look back and say you never felt that urge to have a child, your opinion will carry more weight with me.

Huh? She didn't say that, she rejected the implication that giving birth to one's genetic offspring is somehow necessary for an individual to achieve "complete" womanhood. I'm surprised this position is controversial enough to require... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 1:03 AM on July 3, 2007

wtf? Cheap shot, indeed.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 1:06 PM on July 3, 2007

I've just now read the 21-25-29-33 discussion above, and all I can say is I'm hoping it doesn't get me.

Hmmm, really? I actually do want kids one day, but that discussion makes me worry that there's something about the act that will compel me to treat my childfree/childless/infertile friends with the condescension that can only come from achieving the pinnacle of womanhood.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 1:47 PM on July 3, 2007

Chudmonkey, I have to believe you didn't read the details. Besides the "sodomy thing" (which apparently screwed up his internal organs so badly that he required dozens of surgeries), the attackers stomped on his chest, burned him with cigarettes, and poured bleach on him.

It's possible I'm out of touch - I've never been a teenage boy - but if this is par for the course in U.S. high schools these days, I'll join with... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 12:38 AM on July 3, 2007

Chudmonkey, I wasn't trying rank the incident on some kind of scale of notability, I was disagreeing with your characterization of the attack as normal schoolyard hijinks. Since you shared your belief that the victim's post-attack actions made him a "douchebag", I threw in my opinion that testifying before Congress was a decidedly non-douchebaggy thing to do.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 1:37 AM on July 3, 2007

I have to wonder, where do these people come from?

Me too. One of the articles said the attackers were coked out and liquored up, so maybe that's part of it. On the other hand, I think some people are just born with some kind of fucked up brain chemistry that makes them sociopaths with little hope of behavior modification - serial killers who at age 5 enjoyed setting cats on fire, even though they likely weren't socialized to do that. I'd be interested... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 1:45 AM on July 3, 2007

I'm surprised that Puzzability hasn't been linked before!

Heh, I actually searched the archives extensively but was still quivering in fear that I'd posted a double.

I visit their website frequently, but I'm always particularly excited for their occasional NYTimes Op-Ed puzzles - they are truly works of word-art. I take the daily Times crossword for granted, but it makes me realize how difficult it must be to craft clues with... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 9:58 PM on June 26, 2007

Painquale, thank you! I've never seen that site - those look wonderful.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 6:22 AM on June 28, 2007

Pracowity, that is indeed awesome and well-deserved. The U.K. cryptic crosswords are the toughest puzzles for me to solve, although I like to tell myself that my difficulty is partly due to the spelling variations between British and American English.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 10:06 AM on June 28, 2007

There is a Law & Order episode like this also; I always assumed it was based on the Crown Heights Riot.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 3:36 PM on June 21, 2007

Thanks languagehat; your informative "nitpick" is very welcome. I was hoping somebody with superior knowledge of languages would pop up in this thread - it's not a topic I know much about.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 2:26 PM on June 11, 2007

kittens for breakfast, the Wikipedia entry is cracking me up too! Especially the opening:

This article is about Paris Hilton's sex tape. For the French concert film, see One Night in Paris.

Poor Depeche Mode, though.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 1:04 PM on June 8, 2007

The Esquire piece is fantastic. My favorite part, which references his acceptance speech for the Daytime Emmys Lifetime Achievement Award:

...he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Ten seconds of silence." And then he lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:15 AM on June 1, 2007

Greg Nog: It won't surprise me at all if, in a couple thousand years, he's a major figure in several religions.

I liked this, from the comment section of the YouTube video I linked above:

"Jesus, Buddha, and Confucius were all simultaniously reborn in Fred Rogers. And he was so humble that nobody even noticed except the children who really listened to him."
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:23 AM on June 1, 2007

And, if nobody's already posted it, Mister Rogers says goodbye.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 1:04 AM on June 2, 2007

This game is biased towards ornithologists.

Yep, I am embarassed to say that I've never heard of several of the birds in the game.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:07 AM on June 1, 2007

This is interesting stuff, thanks, CameraObscura.

I've frequently seen an additional reason given to explain part of the pay disparity - that women are more averse than men to confidently asserting their value to employers. The idea is that this translates into a pay disparity because men are more aggressive during initial salary negotiations and subsequent discussions of pay raises.

I have no idea if this is an accurate generalization, although... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:44 AM on May 18, 2007

WesternInfidels, my impression of the financial industry is that people get the big pay jumps when they move to a new firm and that subsequent (non-bonus) salary increases occur in smaller increments. It's possible that the disparity between your wife's salary and those of the new hires has to do with the fact that she's been there for 10 years - it'd be interesting to know if the new female hires are paid less than their male counterparts.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 12:45 PM on May 18, 2007

Invisibility Cloak

Shooooot, cue hours of obsessive attempts to locate abandonware version of old NES game Wizards and Warriors. So much for saving time.

Damn you, Gina Trapani!
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:00 PM on May 16, 2007

AutoAdmit has been frequently criticized for failing to moderate sexist and threatening posts. Ciolli's job offer was rescinded despite the fact that he resigned from AutoAdmit shortly after a Washington Post article discussing the site and subsequently claimed that he had no authority over message board moderation. AutoAdmit denizens react here, and Wisconsin law prof Ann Althouse wonders why law firms don't care about free speech. NYU Law student (and occasional AutoAdmit target) Jill... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 2:21 AM on May 9, 2007

My understanding is that the message board was moderated, in the sense that posts were deleted (sometimes by Ciolli) if they were found to violate AutoAdmit policies.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 3:09 AM on May 9, 2007

Ciollo discusses AutoAdmit's moderation policies and his level of control over the threads in the comment section of this post.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 6:41 AM on May 9, 2007

Whoa, just came back to this thread. Is that really Althouse?
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 7:07 AM on May 9, 2007

Now I am curious about Jarrett Cohen. I guess someone could just call the listed number and ask - anyone have a landline with *69?
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 11:24 PM on May 9, 2007

There was a time when This Woman's Work would drive me to tears, but I think watching the incredibly cloying video just now has cured me of that reaction.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 2:19 PM on May 9, 2007

I think the video is charming, but it was indeed posted in the thread from a couple days ago.
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 10:53 PM on May 7, 2007

y kant tori read...i love the 80s!
posted to MetaFilter by lalex at 9:42 PM on May 5, 2007