Remarksman: Archive

1 tag

Feb 9th

695 notes

2 tags

NYT publishes "infringement is theft" column and... →

The Boston Phoenix’s Cindy Carioli points out that on the same weekend that the New York Times carried a column from Bill Keller decrying piracy as a war on creative people, the Times’s op-ed page pirated an article to which the Phoenix holds the copyright. And of course, the Times is the same corporation that claimed that aggregating its RSS-feed headlines in a mobile app was piracy,...

Feb 9th

3 tags

Watch

Great interview of former Justice John Paul Stevens by Stephen Colbert.

Feb 6th

1 note

3 tags

“The cowardice comes from not wanting to disturb the sacred status of American...”

– Take a hit of Andrew Sullivan on Washington, weed, and hypocrisy. (via cheatsheet)

Feb 3rd

33 notes

5 tags

Dangers of Fracking →

Really clever use of CSS and HTML5 technology in this web site that reveals more information about hydraulic fracturing as you scroll further down the page.

Feb 3rd

1 note

2 tags

Legislators Totally Cool With Required Drug... →

One way to get a politician to withdraw a bill requiring drug-testing for welfare applicants? Just tell him lawmakers also have to get tested, and see how fast he boomerangs. Rep. Jud McMillin, a Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly, took back his drug-testing bill after one of his helpful Democratic colleagues amended it ever so slightly. The Huffington Post says Rep. McMillin,...

Feb 1st

4 tags

Who Needs Pesky Product Safety Regulations? →

A few days ago, Scotts Miracle-Gro (whose brands include Ortho, Scotts, Miracle-Gro, Roundup, Earthgro, Black Magic, Hyponex, Osmocote, Morning Song, Whitney Farms, Supersoil, Bovung, and Country Pride) agreed to plead guilty and pay $4.5 million in fines, for not one but two product safety incidents. The first incident involved selling wild birdseed that was coated with a pesticide that is...

Jan 31st

3 tags

Jan 24th

2 notes

7 tags

Jan 24th

5 tags

Rich People Create Jobs! And five other myths that... →

For decades, America’s economic policies have been based on the notion that catering to corporations and the wealthy is the way to stimulate the economy. Republicans routinely insist that we need to bail them out, lower their taxes, allow them to repatriate hundreds of billions in overseas profits, and free them from annoying government meddling. If we don’t, the “job...

Jan 24th

3 tags

Jan 24th

20,192 notes

2 tags

Quiz: Cop or Soldier? →

I’ve put together a little quiz that may be of interest to Boing Boingers. The idea is to illustrate just how hard it can be distinguish police from military. Which is a problem, given that they have two very different jobs. It is a tough quiz! And, of course, it should not be.

Jan 20th

3 tags

Jan 20th

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Jan 20th

25,195 notes

3 tags

Republican Job Creation →

Shortly after gaining the House of Representatives in 2010 the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, made the welcome claim that the primary goal of the Republican Party was to increase employment. His exact words were: “We’re going to have a relentless focus on ...

Jan 20th

2 tags

Watch

Another fantastic Colbert/Stewart SuperPAC ad about SuperPACs.

Jan 18th

3 tags

Watch

Colbert ad: if corporations are people, then Mitt’s corporate raiding makes him a serial killer Via BoingBoing.

Jan 16th

1 note

2 tags

Woman calls police to report that she was sold... →

47-year-old Suzanne Basham of Springfield, Missouri called police to report that she had paid $40 for crack cocaine that turned out to be sugar, and wanted her dealer arrested. She is now in jail. We are definitely winning the War on Drugs!

Jan 14th

2 tags

Top Five Regrets of the Dying →

Interesting article, a better-formatted version of the original here.

Jan 6th

4 tags

Jan 4th

1 note

1 tag

Friedman (unit) →

The Friedman, or Friedman Unit (F.U.), is a tongue-in-cheek neologism coined by blogger Atrios (Duncan Black) on May 21, 2006. A Friedman is a unit of time equal to six months in the future. The Huffington Post cited it as the “Best New Phrase” of 2006. The term is in reference to a May 16, 2006 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) detailing columnist Thomas...

Jan 3rd

3 tags

The Dumbest Idea in the World: Maximizing... →

Fascinating, bracing article by Steve Denning in Forbes based on Roger L. Martin’s new book, Fixing the Game: Martin says that the trouble began in 1976 when finance professor Michael Jensen and Dean William Meckling of the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester published a seemingly innocuous paper in the Journal of Financial Economics entitled “Theory of the Firm: Managerial...

Jan 3rd

4 tags

Neven Mrgan's tumbl: Murder stats →

mrgan: Crime is fascinating, and murder is the most fascinating crime. Every night, millions of Americans watch fictionalized accounts of the most violent act of all, followed by fictionalized attempts to discover, solve, and punish it. Here are some raw numbers to go with our intuitions and popular… Real life vs. TV — Americans do seem to worry about murder far more than they...

Dec 28th

45 notes

3 tags

Tiny home-built schooner saved Tillamook settlers →

After the only skipper willing to brave their fearsome river bar died, the only way to get wheat and cheese to market was to build their own trading ship — which they did.

Dec 26th

2 tags

A Christmas Message From America’s Rich →

People like Dimon, and Schwarzman, and John Paulson, and all of the rest of them who think the “imbeciles” on the streets are simply full of reasonless class anger, they don’t get it. Nobody hates them for being successful. And not that this needs repeating, but nobody even minds that they are rich. What makes people furious is that they have stopped being citizens. Most of...

Dec 25th

3 tags

Smoke Screening →

As you stand in endless lines this holiday season, here’s a comforting thought: all those security measures accomplish nothing, at enormous cost. That’s the conclusion of Charles C. Mann, who put the T.S.A. to the test with the help of one of America’s top security experts.

Dec 25th

2 tags

Dec 24th

79 notes

4 tags

Dec 16th

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“After reading this in coverage of the latest Republican Presidential Candidate...”

– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16210858

Dec 16th

1 note

3 tags

WaMu Officials Settle FDIC Suit →

Washington Mutual’s implosion in 2008 was the biggest bank collapse in U.S. history—are the executives who ran it getting off easy? The FDIC charged three WaMu executives with gross negligence in a civil lawsuit; however, according to The Wall Street Journal, the FDIC is now willing to settle with them for less than 10 percent of the $900 million it originally sought—less than $75 million. Most...

Dec 15th

2 tags

The cartoon professor →

I have been perplexed for some time why Newt Gingrich is routinely acknowledged even by his bitter enemies within the Republican Party as a “genius,” but the answer turns out is simple: he acts exactly like one of those obnoxious elitist intellectual know-it-alls that the right-wing no-nothings think is the hallmark of an intellectual. He is constantly reminding us of his doctorate...

Dec 15th

2 notes

3 tags

Dec 15th

2 tags

Revealed: huge increase in executive pay for... →

Chief executive pay has roared back after two years of stagnation and decline. America’s top bosses enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40% last year, according to the largest survey of US CEO pay. The dramatic bounceback comes as the latest government figures show wages for the majority of Americans are failing to keep up with inflation. “Wages for everybody else have either been...

Dec 15th

1 tag

"Get It Done": Urging Climate Justice, Youth... →

Youth delegate makes an inspiring speech at the COP 17 “Conference of Polluters”.

Dec 9th

2 notes

3 tags

Nov 27th

4 tags

Congress: pizza is a vegetable when it is fed to... →

After intense lobbying from frozen pizza makers, and the potato and salt industry, Congress is poised to pass a spending bill whose riders establish that pizza is a vegetable and can be served in school cafeterias in substitute for actual vegetables. We’re now facing a policy decision that has replaced science-backed common sense with the assertion that pizza ought to count as a vegetable when...

Nov 18th

11 notes

2 tags

Nov 17th

2 tags

Nov 17th

1 note

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Congressional SOPA hearings: no opponents of the... →

As the House of Representatives opens hearings on SOPA, the worst piece of Internet legislation in American history, it has rejected all submissions and testimony from public interest groups and others who oppose the bill. Irony Alert: The House is holding hearings on sweeping Internet censorship legislation this week — and it’s censoring the opposition! The bill is backed by...

Nov 16th

1 tag

Nov 16th

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Nov 14th

480 notes

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How members of Congress make gigantic bank on... →

Even as the Occupy protesters are being swept out of their campsites, Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes is exposing the very greed and corruption they are protesting The 60 Minutes team did a great segment tonight on insider trading on the stock market. Congress: Trading stock on inside information? A very informative fifteen minutes of video.

Nov 14th

3 tags

Making the Grade: Why the Cheapest Maple Syrup... →

The market for maple syrup offers an odd inversion. The thin, pale fluid labeled Fancy or Grade A Light Amber commands the highest prices. It is the white bread of condiments, an inoffensive accompaniment to more flavorful fare. The robust, thick syrup marked Grade B fairly bursts with maple flavor, but sells at a significant discount. So why does the nominally inferior grade offer decidedly...

Nov 11th

80 notes

3 tags

Nov 10th

3 tags

“What happened in the last few days is something quite shocking to the Eurocrats....”

– Andrew Sullivan on what happens if Greece Leaves the Euro. (via cheatsheet) It really struck me when I was listening to NPR’s initial reporting on this, because their report was essentially “WTF is Papandreou thinking?” Not once was there any mention or hint that maybe, just...

Nov 4th

19 notes

3 tags