MetaFilter

I finally have a chance to share.

About 10 years ago, my father passed away, and I had spent a grueling week in Myrtle Beach with my 3 kids (I'm second generation Sicilian with an Italian name and we're all light-to-medium-skin-toned Caucasian). Grueling not only because my dad passed but it turned out my dad had a whole other secret family. Wife, three kids, and I never knew. So my brain was spinning.

During the week, my new half-sister... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kinetic at 4:34 AM on August 23, 2013

I had a false positive from The Machine That Goes Bing at LAX a couple of years ago. They cleared a small blast radius while they called in the Superior Officer, who then proceeded to fill out a medium-sized form, stamped it and let me get on the plane with my explosive laptop. What is this privilege I keep hearing about?
posted to MetaFilter by you at 12:41 AM on August 23, 2013

"Too many men are being driven to become government-fearing and time-serving because the Government is being permitted to strike out at those who are fearless enough to think as they please and say what they think. This trend must be halted if we are to keep faith with the Founders of our Nation and pass on to future generations of Americans the great heritage of freedom which they sacrificed so much to leave to us. The choice is clear to me. If we are to pass on that great heritage of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by phaedon at 12:40 AM on August 23, 2013

What, precisely, is the point of all of this crap about detaining him for hours on end without charge (and while insisting that he was not being detained, while simultaneously not allowing him to leave), denying him food or water, and asking him about his career or personal life?

Intimidation.

I say it all the time, and i regularly get reactions from people who aren't close friends along the lines of "Oooook man"... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by emptythought at 12:12 AM on August 23, 2013

Not only are they racially profiling dickholes, they're incompetent racially profiling dickholes.
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 11:49 PM on August 22, 2013

These are the people we're depending on to keep our skies safe, and not only are they engaged in blatant religious/racial profiling, but they are so stupid that when Mukerjee told them he's Hindu, they failed to understand why this was significant.

Once they figured out that he wasn't carrying any weapons or explosives, why the hell couldn't he board the plane? What, precisely, is the point of all of this crap about detaining him for hours on end... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by 1adam12 at 11:37 PM on August 22, 2013

I don't see what's wrong. In a fair and perfectly just society, all votes would be put on the market. He merely was paying what the market demanded
posted to MetaFilter by symbioid at 7:35 AM on August 8, 2013

I'm not sure if the US being “extremely disappointed that the Russian government would take this step” constitutes going "apeshit."
posted to MetaFilter by jonathanhughes at 8:46 PM on August 1, 2013

Yes it's common. People who wear sunglasses at times when people usually don't wear sunglasses (indoors or at night) are often suspected of being either hung over (where the light bothers their eyes) or stoned (where they have bloodshot eyes and don't want to look stoned). Depending on who is talking, this is often just a jokey thing to say to people, not necessarily a "You are on drugs and that is bad!" thing.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jessamyn at 9:03 PM on July 31, 2013

Are you sure it was a serious question? It sounds like he was trying to make a failed joke or flirtation. It would be okay to tell him that what he said bothered you.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by cairdeas at 9:01 PM on July 31, 2013

The most interesting comment (so far):

This happened in Orange County, CA, and it's one of the places I grew up in, so I'd like to provide a bit of history with regards to a very aggressive white culture—one that is actually a white supremacist culture.

Orange County has been a hotbed of white supremacist activity, and has sometimes even been called the capital of it. The existence of skinhead gangs in places like... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by KokuRyu at 8:46 AM on July 30, 2013

Doesn't sound like you over reacted at all. Taking apart a birthday cake before its recipient gets to enjoy it is weird and totally inappropriate in all cases, unless you're a.) under five, b.) developmentally disabled, or c.) a dog.

I'm a big fan of providing and receiving feedback, and unless you yelled or screamed it or used nasty names that you're not repeating here, what you said was perfect. Her husband should have apologized to you.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 9:48 AM on June 8, 2009

No. She was being a twit and her husband was being a twit.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kldickson at 9:44 AM on June 8, 2009

Jeffrey Jones from Amadeus, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Beetlejuice, etc?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by nightwood at 9:36 AM on July 17, 2013

I don't think he's ever played a Dean or Professor, but the rest of the description reminds me of Ray Wise
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jozxyqk at 9:30 AM on July 17, 2013

Paxton Whitehead from Back to School?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by JoeZydeco at 9:28 AM on July 17, 2013

James Rebhorn played a dean in Scent of a Woman.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by seemoreglass at 9:22 AM on July 17, 2013

John Vernon?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by MrMoonPie at 9:18 AM on July 17, 2013

And let me firmly say that this thread needs to not get into any kind of evaluation of her body parts, not even in a ha-ha way. Thank you.
posted to MetaTalk by LobsterMitten at 8:56 PM on July 15, 2013

lalex contacted us about this and I'll just briefly recap what I said in that exchange. That comment had picked up just a few flags, and was posted 5 hours ago. I agree I am not crazy about the use of 'tits' there.

I took it as permissible since it is an expression of the view that her fame originally came from her nude modeling, and it's absurd that people are taking her as a medical authority for treating their kids -- rather than the comment actually making an... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by LobsterMitten at 8:55 PM on July 15, 2013

And yet when it comes to focusing on the former Confederacy, remember that somehow we're the ones being unfair when we say that, hey maybe these guys deserve extra scrutiny when trying to do stuff like pass discriminatory voter laws. After all, we're punishing them for something that happened 150 years ago, why can't we just get over it? Never mind that these laws were found to be discriminatory last year, that doesn't count!

I was one that thought... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:05 PM on July 10, 2013

I wonder if the same zeal would be applied to people threatening to bomb abortion clinics.
posted to MetaFilter by seemoreglass at 1:53 PM on July 8, 2013

Honest to God, if this were happening to me I'd probably come out of it as exactly the person they mistakenly thought I was.
posted to MetaFilter by charred husk at 1:41 PM on July 8, 2013

There's a shit ton to get outraged about here, but let's not lose sight of the repugnance of offering a terrified 18-year-old a plea deal of spending 8 years in prison for something he said on Facebook. One would hope that a jury would have the common sense to release Carter, but according to this disturbing Frontline documentary, 95% of all cases resulting in felony convictions never reach a jury.
posted to MetaFilter by googly at 1:34 PM on July 8, 2013

America, a country so powerful it's afraid of its own shadow.
posted to MetaFilter by MuffinMan at 1:32 PM on July 8, 2013

Companies and card issuers, which include Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, say the cards are cheaper and more efficient than checks — a calculator on Visa’s Web site estimates that a company with 500 workers could save $21,000 a year by switching from checks to payroll cards.

The cards are cheaper than traditional check/direct deposit payroll because they pass the cost of doing business onto the employees. Gross.
posted to MetaFilter by muddgirl at 7:59 AM on July 1, 2013

I had some personal experience with this nonsense a few years back. When I started college, I got a part-time job at a nearby convenience store chain. They paid us through payroll cards, although we could switch to direct deposit at any time. The payroll cards were terrible--you had to take out money an specific ATM's, and they charged you extra fees in addition to the ATM fees. To make it worse, you can only take out so much from an ATM at once. The store ATM only let you take out $200 at once,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Green Winnebago at 12:03 PM on July 1, 2013

You can *say* the cat is declawed, but I wouldn't sign anything that says it is declawed.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by gjc at 8:15 AM on July 4, 2013

I had a Wagon Ho. It didn't pull weeds, but it got us from St. Jo to Oregon before the snows.

ha ha.

Anyhow, one of the skills I picked up as a budding pre-teen was the use of a hoe, mainly working in cotton fields. The typical cotton hoe had been long in service, and was sharpened more like a skinning blade than a hoe--steeper angle, and you could nearly shave with it. If you had whiskers. One task was thinning, the other was scooping out weeds... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mule98J at 10:15 AM on June 24, 2013

I've worked with her before, at the food network.

1.) She's exactly the same on-camera as off, more notably so than any other celebrity I've met or worked with.

2.) And please don't take this as defending her at all, but from watching this unfold and from my brief time around her, I believe she was brought up with the understanding that a good, positive attitude is more important than anything, and thus just assumed that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Navelgazer at 10:12 AM on June 22, 2013

as an extension of her learning about her slave owning ancestors - here she discusses how hard it was on her great+ grandpappy for all the "workers" (slaves) to leave his plantation after the war.

and just in case you skipped over the southern wedding because the n-word stuff is awful enough - a quote :
“I mean, it was really impressive. That restaurant represented a certain era in America…after the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nadawi at 10:12 AM on June 22, 2013

> "We’ll call it after you—the Sambo Burger. You know—Sam, Beau. Sounds great, doesn’t it?’”

...

This is a line from the new season of Arrested Development, right?
posted to MetaFilter by The Card Cheat at 9:59 AM on June 22, 2013

... although, given how wealthy Malibu is, more people using public beaches may end up in a concerted attempt to stop them from being public any more.

Well, since state law has said for decades that all of California's beaches are public, the wealthy of Malibu can go ahead and fuck themselves.
posted to MetaFilter by sideshow at 7:37 PM on June 23, 2013

May look like it to you, roomthreeseventeen, but Congress hasn't declared war since 1941, and the Constitution says that's their job.

Wording aside, I assure you we are at war right now and young men and women are dying in Afghanistan for their country.
posted to MetaFilter by roomthreeseventeen at 11:21 AM on June 17, 2013

Fellows, maybe there just isn't a really good way to have a war.
posted to MetaFilter by Mister_A at 10:15 AM on June 17, 2013

QueerAngel28: “May there never be a draft again. I don't think the country would stand for it...”

We should be forced to fight the wars we engage ourselves in; if we don't like the wars themselves, then there are things we can and should do about that.

May there be a draft – and may there never be a war again.
posted to MetaFilter by koeselitz at 9:52 AM on June 17, 2013

The effect of the draft has a lot of little impacts you don't really think about.

Here's a fun piece of anecdata. If you were a member of Generation X, think back on your male high school teachers. Lots of football coaches and auto shop teachers and whatnot.

You probably had some really terrible ones, right? I know I did. I set of male teachers that were pretty much shunned by the other teachers because of their sheer incompetence and general... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Cool Papa Bell at 9:38 AM on June 17, 2013

That or just make every player an African woman, full stop, just to watch privileged white males whine

Whine haha no we're talking gamers here, they would go full apeshit nuclear
posted to MetaFilter by prize bull octorok at 9:02 AM on June 18, 2013

Sometimes, in order to not be an asshole, you don't get to "maintain an aesthetic". Instead you just have to do the right thing. And in this case, the right thing is a three value colour picker.

You want to make cats ask you what your skin colour is? You get three cats, tone cat (saturation), a tint cat (hue), and a shadow cat (value).

Sigh.
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 6:44 AM on June 18, 2013

[Law and Order BONG BONG]

I wonder how long it took to create that sound effect before it ended up in the show? I'm picturing a smoke- and despair-filled studio at two in the morning, chain-smoking engineers warily eyeing a morning deadline. One of them yells, "Needs more reverb!" and the others faces light up like they've seen God.
posted to MetaFilter by Blazecock Pileon at 8:48 AM on June 18, 2013

I was actually there in the courtroom yesterday at the Supreme Court when they announced this and a few other decisions. I was getting sworn in to be able to practice there. Sandra Day O'Connor was seated a few seats to my right. The person sitting next to me was a prosecutor and she let out a slightly audible (to me) "Yes!" when the decision was read.

It's a shame that this was a murder case. Serious cases often make for very bad law. If this were drug... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by flarbuse at 8:38 AM on June 18, 2013

Or fall to a certain level of poverty. Homelessness, for instance.
posted to MetaFilter by snuffleupagus at 8:12 AM on June 18, 2013

It's pretty sad and shocking that the day-to-day outcome of the way laws are enforced and practiced in this country has become "Don't talk to cops, ever, for any reason, no matter how innocent."

Why do we have cops if we can't trust them to treat us with fairness and decency, if our every interaction must be carefully scripted with (we hope) the correct passwords? I say this as someone who has been glad to see the cops called (when a woman upstairs was being... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by emjaybee at 8:10 AM on June 18, 2013

Why you should never talk to the police, even if you are innocent. (SLYT)

Good constitutional arguments from a lawyer about your rights, with added views from a retired police detective. 48 minutes, but worth it.
posted to MetaFilter by dry white toast at 7:32 AM on June 18, 2013

If an individual is voluntarily talking to the police

This needs to be in 1000 point font with a blink tag. Never talk to the police or similar without a good reason and preferably a lawyer handy.
posted to MetaFilter by Old'n'Busted at 7:21 AM on June 18, 2013

The trouble is is that he already started answering questions and suspiciously fell mum as evidence of his guilt was presented before him. For the 5th amendment to work, you have to invoke it from the get go.

Here's how I would've played it:

Cops: "Good morning, we'd like to ask you some questions regarding the death of Jane Doe"

Renoroc: "I'd like to speak to an attorney and I'm invoking my 5th amendment... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Renoroc at 7:15 AM on June 18, 2013

I thought the wisdom was was "Don't talk to the police"?
But now it's "Don't not talk to the police"?

So apparently you must speak one specific mystical incantation at the right time and utter it in the exact phrasing in order to not have the cops be able to just make shit up about you based on their own agenda?
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 7:10 AM on June 18, 2013

I also want to go on record claiming my fourth amendment right to due process.

You'll be wanting the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments for that.

Anyway, we'll have to update the rules for (not) talking to cops. I guess it now goes something like this:

Ask "Am I free to go?" If yes, then say "I am expressly invoking my Fifth Amendment right to silence. My refusal to answer your... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jedicus at 7:10 AM on June 18, 2013

How is it a right if you have to invoke it? That would seem to explicitly make it a privilege, yeah? And not inalienable, certainly.
posted to MetaFilter by penduluum at 7:07 AM on June 18, 2013

I am invoking my first amendment right to free expression when I say WTF?

JUSTICE ALITO, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE KENNEDY,
concluded that petitioner’s Fifth Amendment claim fails because he did not expressly invoke the privilege in response to the officer’s question.

I will also take this opportunity to state publicly in that I refuse my consent to have soldiers, in time of peace, quartered in my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by three blind mice at 7:02 AM on June 18, 2013