They meant to get a picture of Walter Reed Medical Center, but got Walter Reed Middle School instead, and no one noticed the difference? That is emblematic of the last eight years -- a lot of grandiose plans and big talk but complete failure on execution, no follow-through, and poor attention to detail. It's like a bad entry-level performance review.

I had an argument recently with someone who was convinced that the problems facing America are so complex that none of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pastabagel at 12:04 PM on September 5, 2008

onlyconnect: Re: gov'r of Alaska. First of all, Alaska is an incredibly homogeneous state -- overwhelmingly white, mostly male, one-party Republican rule -- and that pushes poll numbers toward the extremes. Thus, her approval ratings have to be taken with a grain of salt; governors like Schweitzer, Napolitano, and Sebelius who maintain very high approval ratings while governing as a minority-party governor are the ones whose high approval ratings are truly remarkable. Also,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 6:42 PM on August 29, 2008

The always great Booman Tribune, on attacking community organizers:

I used to be a community organizer and my old profession came in for some open derision and scorn tonight from both Rudy Guiliani and Sarah Palin. That's okay. I don't mind. I actually kind of welcome being singled out for special abuse. It validates everything I do, and have done, in politics and in poor urban communities. These people hate me and they hate the poor people I helped. I understand. I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by XQUZYPHYR at 7:10 AM on September 4, 2008

Or, you know, maybe someone needs to remind Sarah Palin that Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.
posted to MetaFilter by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:54 AM on September 4, 2008

I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I’m very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they’re made in over-the-top or patronizing ways. Sometimes it’s good to distinguish between the rhetorical devices and the underlying substance. Even people who use manipulative language sometimes have an important point beneath their persuasion techniques (ads against smoking, for example).... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Divine_Wino at 10:27 AM on September 4, 2008

I use todoist. It's a free, ajax powered list that offers projects, tags, priorities, deadlines and reminders (which you can get on email or as a text message). You can also color code everything. I have todoist running as a prism application (so it runs separate from my main Firefox window)

I have 10 projects that cover every aspect of my life. Everytime something comes up, I will set it up as a task under one of these projects. No task is too small. Adding tasks is... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by special-k at 9:55 PM on August 25, 2008 marked best answer

You live in the Quarter. The shotgun you live in dates back to pre-Victorian time. The bar down the street from you dates even further back, to when the French actually had the Quarter, and its popular mythology is that it was owned by the pirate Jen Lafitte, who fought with the Americans against the British in the Battle of New Orleans, on the Chalmette battlefield, just a few miles away.

You head out to do your laundry, which you do in a laundromat on Rampart that was... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Astro Zombie at 10:29 AM on August 31, 2008

The thing about this blog is that it neglects the whole "Obama" phenomenon. How will this affect my taxes?

I know this is supposed to be a website for grownups, but I can see you there. Yeah, you. You know I'm talking to you. I'm on to you, kid. I know your dad walked away from the monitor for a sec to go polish his Ajax or tweak some CSS, and you thought you might get a quick look at some pictures of frogs having sex or something. It's all right, though,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Greg Nog at 10:44 AM on August 26, 2008

Did he really say "Eight is Enough"? I'd be too embarrassed by the possible accidental (?) association with a lame television series.

"Yes, we all know the last eight years have been no love boat, no fantasy island. It has been a time of gunsmoke, not green acres, and left Americans wondering what's happenin. But now is the time to show the world love, American style."
posted to MetaFilter by pracowity at 12:05 AM on August 29, 2008

One last thing. Someone on the McCain team has already anticipated the connection between Moses/Joshua and King/Obama. It's what was driving that weird ad from last month. People recognized the creepy messianic overtones and rightly saw it as a dogwhistle to the evangelical right. The use of Charlton Heston as Moses crossing the Red Sea was meant to inoculate evangelicals against recognizing in Obama the realization of Dr. King's legacy. Irresponsibly, the McCain campaign raised the imagery... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by felix betachat at 12:27 AM on August 29, 2008

I don't even know what "center-right" (much less "conservative") means anymore.

Are these the center-rightists who are for (e.g., PNAC) or against (e.g., paleo-cons like Pat Buchanan) Empire?

For unrestricted capitalism, or wary of desecration of "traditional values" for corporate profit?

Libertarian or Communitarian? Racialist or that strain of Fundamentalist Christianity that hates gays but... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by orthogonality at 11:47 PM on August 27, 2008

Biden is a fantastic choice, and ironically for a lot of the reasons people see as a negative.

In simplest terms, Joe Biden is an enormous asshole. And frankly, I love him for it. He's the type of asshole who's an asshole because he knows, right out of the gate, that he's smarter than you, that he knows more about a subject, and that he actually has the right idea about something. And damn it people it's time to finally try having someone who's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by XQUZYPHYR at 4:03 AM on August 23, 2008

Herzog brings us Jackass for intellectuals.

Now you see I will be flying down this hill to end in the muddy, swirling river. I ride this shopping cart, and it is not meaningless transport. The rich use for consumption, with tomatoes and steak; the poor for production with collections of bottles and cans, and the artist for chaos, with the artist himself inside and these angry unknown rodents. We will see how it happens. Please light us on fire now, so we have the poetry.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 4:35 PM on August 27, 2006

See also, recent news about pipeline fires and sabotage in the region.

At this point, I humbly suggest that all fpp's about conflicts in this region be accompanied by pipeline maps or oil field maps. We all know these conflicts are about energy, but the conflicts are going to be spun in the media and by governments as ethnic conflicts or battles for political (rather than economic) independence solely to agitate the local people to action and to keep the corporate and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pastabagel at 8:36 AM on August 8, 2008

How, exactly, do we all know this? (NB: honest question)
posted by MarshallPoe at 11:54 AM on August 8

Because at this stage in history, all conflicts are over scarce resources. The ascendance of China and India more than doubles the number of people competing for the resources that 15 years ago were consumed primarily by North Americans, Europeans, and the Japanese.

Oil and energy are not the only resources.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pastabagel at 9:39 AM on August 8, 2008

SPEND LESS TIME ON THE INTERNETS!

Seriously, limit yourself to 3 hours a day. Write down all the stuff you want to look up before-hand. That way you won't end up frittering away your time finding out who won best actress in 1944 or if your second-favorite LP from childhood is for sale on eBay. Allow yourself to check your email no more than 5 times a day.

When you can't remember something, DON'T google it. Try to actually remember it. It will be... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by MaddyRex at 10:15 AM on July 31, 2008 marked best answer

I think hipsterdom is particularly interesting because I agree with the author that it's the dead end of Western civ. But he doesn't say anything compelling about the phenomenon at all.

Here's my explanation for hipster self-hatred. All previous countercultures since you could really begin to speak of a counterculture--I would say, since the Romantics--have been fundamentally grounded in an appeal to authenticity. The Romantics prided themselves on their ability to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nasreddin at 8:45 AM on August 1, 2008

aeschenkarnos: "The lesson is, email all relevant data to yourself at some gmail account created for the purpose, or upload it to a website, cross the border, buy a second-hand laptop, download the data, use it, upload your data, wipe the laptop, sell the laptop, cross the border again, and download your data. Don't even take a phone within reach of these monkeys."

I do the following:Whole-disk encryption, such as bit-locker (primarily in the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mystyk at 11:51 PM on July 31, 2008

I relate so much to that Carlos kid. Like him, I was a gifted Latino kid. So gifted that, yes, people often asked me whether I was really Latino.

I am. My parents grew up in a village in Mexico and came to the United States as immigrants. I grew up in a 2-bedroom house that we shared with two other families.

Education meant nothing to my parents. I was sent to school because it was the law. By the time I was in 2nd grade, teachers were telling... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by vacapinta at 4:17 AM on July 24, 2008

Nobody— and I mean NOBODY— should feel guilty getting money/help from their parents IF their parents can afford it and are willing to help.

I left home at 17 years old. Went to college. Never came back from more than a couple of weeks during summers until I was 21. And I've lived on my own sense. Occasionally I would get the nerve up to ask my parents for a couple hundred bucks here and there. But it made me feel like shit. Most often no matter how broke and pathetic I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tkchrist at 6:37 PM on July 25, 2008

I used to do this a lot, but I hardly do it any more. I'm not a neurologist, but I'll share my theory and how I "overcame" this annoying habit.

First, the theory. I think this reaction is like a short circuit that allows you to quickly change the subject of your inner dialog when your inner dialog becomes unpleasant, uncomfortable or mildly painful. I think this reaction is a similar but much milder version of something that a person suffering from PTSD does... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by syzygy at 12:09 AM on July 23, 2008

Their actual coffee is about as good as Denny's.

Eh, as much as I loathe what Starbucks does to perfectly good coffee beans, I can't agree with this.

Denny's coffee tastes like they use bleached ground coffee that's been left to toast on the tarpaper roof of a strip mall for several years before being brewed and filtered in dusty, dirty old straw baskets bought in bulk from thrift stores. It tastes what I could only imagine... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 5:55 PM on July 18, 2008

What's strange is that the comment assumes these people are poor, and also that somehow the culture native to New Orleans is somehow being compromised because a few people relative to a great many have decided to give Frito-Lay or General Mills or Coca Cola free advertising in exchange for a thousand bucks. That might be a little foolhardy, but it's not damaging the culture. New Orleans still has as much, if not more, unique about it than any other city I've been to or lived in in the U.S.,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by TryTheTilapia at 6:21 PM on July 11, 2008

Maybe you'll watch it, and nod that yes, you understand poor people. You've seen it on television.

You can take your own sanctimonious smugness and shove it deep and far up inside your poophole. I am a poor person. You have no freaking clue where I've been, how I've lived and what I've had to do to survive. I don't have a graduate degree. Hell, I never graduated High School. These erroneous indicators of social strata are... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 2:36 PM on July 11, 2008

Blazecock Pileon:

I thought I recalled your name from political discussions in other threads, so out of curiosity, I took the liberty of looking up some of your posts on the subject. One was from a thread about a speech by Obama:

"Not only best of the web, but the best in and about America."

I may be overreaching, but I suspect you're feeling betrayed right now. So, I think, do several other posters on this... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kyrademon at 3:26 PM on July 10, 2008

Taking something that isn't yours? That is theft. Deal with it. Yeah, fine, that's not the highly legalistic definition.

dnab: The problem is that theft is a legal concept, so to say "yeah, that's not the legal definition" sort of short-circuits your argument. Rather than just get into a Monty Python argument ("Is!" "Isn't!" "Is!") maybe I could ask you to hear me out on an additional piece of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Bellman at 1:12 PM on July 3, 2008

I totally combine them everyday. To be honest, CBT is based on buddhism to a certain extent. I find that the meditation helps me see emotions I am avoiding and allows me to correct the dysfunctional thinking that causes me pain. I think good CBT does not rely on positive thinking, but discards the positive/negative analysis for a clear look at the good and bad facets of each part of our lives. Bad CBT tells you that you can get what you want by visualizing it. Not so. Good CBT tells us that life... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Ironmouth at 7:51 AM on January 10, 2008

I'm sorry you're feling poorly. I go through a bunch of stages really, the major one of which is really that it's okay to still love someone, what you're mostly getting used to is not being loved back. That is, it's okay to love someone who doesn't love you and give your feelings time to naturally ease off of their own accord (not just force an "okay I don't love this person anymore" feeling on yourself) you just need to be clear that 1. your love isn't reciprocated 2. feelings are not actions.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by jessamyn at 9:23 AM on June 23, 2008 marked best answer

The problem is, you can find a job you love if you can afford it, and unfortunately some people need to settle for less-than-love. I spend 12 hours a day getting to work, working and getting home from work and it seems like an insurmountable challenge to use the other 4 hours I'm awake to take classes (I'm looking for a different job). I imagine less fortunate people who didn't get to go to college probably work harder and for a longer period of time than I do. I imagine that those... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 1:16 PM on June 26, 2008

One thing you can do, even without any formal training, is to start paying attention to the little building blocks that other people's melodies are built out of. It turns out that there are lots of them — little snippets of melody or rhythm that are reused everywhere.

F'rinstance, hum the first five notes of "Row Row Row Your Boat." Now hum the start of the chorus from the Talking Heads song "Once in a Lifetime" ("Let the da-a-ays go... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by nebulawindphone at 10:15 AM on June 15, 2008

Oh man, I KNEW trees were scary! Things that are scary about them: hundreds of hard brown arms; knotholes; sometimes they are mossy; leaves in the summer and none in the winter; some of them are hollow and some of them are not; is that a nest or is it a human head; photosynthesis demons inside them; squirrel pantries inside them; horrible hidden chairs inside them. Plus the wind is fucking them regular right before our eyes. I'm going to run to my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Powerful Religious Baby at 8:59 PM on June 17, 2008

Yeah, just to be clear, suspension of disbelief basically means, okay, I will accept a crazy premise SO LONG AS everything that proceeds from the premise is believable GIVEN THE PREMISE.

In a movie, the audience will swallow one big fish. This is known as 'the buy'. You are allowed exactly one and it happens in the first act (the first 25-30 minutes). Everything else must proceed logically from that buy, and obey any and all rules which are established by the buy.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by unSane at 9:08 PM on June 17, 2008

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but show a man two fish fucking and he will never ask you for anything ever again.
posted to MetaFilter by optovox at 12:55 PM on June 10, 2008

I wish there was a webpage that just had a menu of issues, and you could click to see the candidates own words & positions on an issue....Here you go.

Also, check out these three previous AskMe threads which have lots of resources:Teach me to be a better informed voter for the next Presidential election.

What are the major issues for the 2008 presidential race, and what are the best links that support your view of those... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ericb at 11:43 AM on June 4, 2008

Those seem like mostly boring choices.

I would have recommended 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press by David Ray Griffin (as well as his other books), The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash by Charles R. Morris, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism by Kevin Phillips, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic by... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ornate insect at 1:39 PM on June 3, 2008

I guess I'll offer a different perspective than that which is available to most people here.

I grew up in the house my grandparents grew up in, and I still own that house and hope that in a few years I'll be able to organize my life in such a way that my son will grow up there too.

Thus, my perspective on "clutter" is somewhat different than that of most people here - I own stuff - a fairly significant amount of stuff - that belonged to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by anastasiav at 9:06 PM on May 28, 2008

Wow. Well, according to the FPP, I don't have adultitis. That's good, right? But according to Faze, I'm a complete loser, since I haven't acquired any wealth, much health or, gee, huh, anything recognizable as a status symbol. I drink; I smoke; I work; I play; I write and paint and don't watch TV. I'm no doubt going to be a terrible burden on the state when I'm in my 80s, should the plans fail and I live that long. In the meantime, I must say I'm pretty happy. I have lots and lots of friends,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mygothlaundry at 8:57 AM on May 27, 2008

wemayfreeze: "It's about time Obama stops dipping into the fray. Wouldn't it be great if his campaign released an official statement saying, "I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it"? When he tries to capitalize on her gaffes he admits that she still has a chance."

Are you kidding? Responding to a statement by calling it "unfortunate and has no place in this campaign" is the weakest, most boilerplate message that an... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DaShiv at 3:33 AM on May 24, 2008

Sociolinguist Deborah Tannen on how native New York conversational patterns differ from the rest of the country and how this creates misunderstanding on both sides (at least, circa 1980).
posted to MetaFilter by LobsterMitten at 7:56 PM on May 20, 2008

There are a number of different things at play here:

1) Derren Brown is an entertainer and illusionist; some of the effects that he attributes to NLP, hypnosis, photoreading, and other outre techniques he really is producing, at least in part, via clever re-workings of traditional mentalist tricks;

2) As he reveals in the excellent bit "The System," a major ingredient to his best filmed performances is that, well,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by darth_tedious at 12:11 AM on May 12, 2008

I don't like a lot of the things that most of the women I've encountered enjoy--I do know a small handful of women my age who like the same geeky, traditionally "boys-club" sorts of activities as I, but for some reason, we just never connect.

This is the line a lot of us have picked up and responded to because it reflects a great tension that affects a lot of women, geek or not. It also doesn't help that "geek" covers a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by melissa may at 5:30 PM on May 3, 2008

Yeh, we've been bouncing some of her ideas and writings back and forth in my research group at University; a few links I've found interesting:

She blogs on Huffington Post.

Her book with Tyagi, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke.

Her new book is interesting as she advocated active debt management driven by realistic budgeting for families, i.e, cheaper houses, etc.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mutant at 3:32 AM on May 1, 2008

It's probably worth noting here that those 2 articles were the only news coverage I could find at time of posting

To be expected, as is the way when the labor reporter is almost gone.
posted to MetaFilter by MiltonRandKalman at 5:23 PM on May 1, 2008

Now in my 40s, I am just as sharp as I was in my 20s. But I went through a foggy period and many people I know are mired in it. Here's my theory: the brain is a "muscle." If you don't give it long, daily workouts, it gets flabby.

When you're a kid, everything is new and your brain is constantly at work just trying to figure out the world. It doesn't feel like work. It's just what happens. Then there's school. I don't think much of the American school system. I... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by grumblebee at 6:13 AM on April 26, 2008

Sometimes kids won't believe the truth anyway. True story. I'm in a taxi with my niece, who is five, and my sister (her mother).

Niece: Were there dinosaurs when you were little?
Me: No the dinosaurs were all gone a long time before that.
N: Before Grandma was little even?
M: Yes, even before Grandma was little.

[Pause as five year-old tries to imagine such a time]

N: What happened to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Bellman at 12:35 PM on April 9, 2008

Coming out to your folks is never easy. My mom still thinks that God The Father is going to throw me into eternal torment for having the feelings that I do. Although one day I asked her if she would personally send me to hell for being who I am, to which she replied, "Of course not. A loving parent would never harm her child like that."

You could almost see the cognitive dissonance dawning across... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Avenger at 11:32 PM on April 13, 2008

"The transparent envy in this thread is just hilarious."


I think this is called displacement. Is it possible to imagine that some of us get pissed off by self absorbed uberconsumers, and actually don't want to be one?
What if I wrote, "drunk drivers piss me off! They roar around drunkenly running people over! It's horrible!"
Would you respond by telling me that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by arcadia at 12:24 PM on April 14, 2008

Curricula are designed so that they can be taught by bad teachers. Because, to be honest, most teachers are pretty bad.

Yes. Yes, thank fucking god yes someone else sees this. Curricula have evolved from "you should probably have seen most of this by the time you graduate" to the McDonald's fry cook training manual.

If you look at the best school systems in the world (Canada, Finland, Singapore) you find they all do... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Skorgu at 9:52 AM on April 10, 2008

I've been outside. It's overrrated.

Traditionally Outside receives extremely high ratings by those who like to see others play it, and these people are in many cases comfortably ensconced Inside themselves. Outside was released many years ago, it was in fact the first massively multiplayer game, and yet it has always managed to avoid the double-edged Retro tag. In its favor, continual user updates have kept Outside current; there are always new things... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by aeschenkarnos at 4:19 PM on March 30, 2008

I look at this article and think "wow, that's really long". Which is not to say it's not good journalism; the parts I read were amazing. How much audience is there for it though?We're a literary magazine. We exist to publish really long articles covering otherwise-ignored topics in great detail, something that's been abandoned by most media outlets. If you want to know about Chiquita running drugs and guns for terrorists, Blairo Maggi's destruction of the Amazon rainforest for the sake... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by waldo at 9:37 AM on April 2, 2008