Suicide online

"Crane said she knows of at least one other case in which a South Florida man shot himself in the head in front of an online audience, although she didn't know how much viewers saw. In Britain last year, a man hanged himself while chatting online."
Florida teen commits suicide in front of webcam SFGATE

Whoa. A new fad? Brutal. Makes jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge seem like a stroll in the park.

Hilary as Secretary of State

Would this be a tribute, or payback for that commercial ? Barack: I need my sleep. Hilary, you take those pesky 3 a.m. phone calls!

Bloated Ballot

Court: Sex-offender law unfairly restrictive

Wouldn't it be nice if they quit piling the ballot with initiatives that don't hold legal water?

Welcome to the Moon

"But while the celebrations conjured up images akin to that of the U.S. flag unfurled on the moon by Apollo astronauts, India's flag is most likely scattered over a wide swath of the moon's Shackleton crater after the probe slammed into the surface at more than 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) per hour."

India celebrates planting its flag on moon SFGATE

Ah, new wealth -- always wanting to crash the party.

Government Bailout

Just give us $700 billion. Oh wait, we decided to do something else with it. Well, it sounds a little better than "Plan A," but still looks like a monkey trying to catch a fish flopping around on dry land. A monkey with $700 billion in its pocket?
Paulson: Government won't buy troubled bank assets

Blue / Red

At 05:28 AM 11/8/2008, you wrote:
some revealing cartographic versions of the election's red-blue distribution.

Hey, study that enough, and you might be able to redraw some district boundaries in a way that favors one party or the other !

Some time ago I realized it boiled down to a large difference in the problems encountered by rural or small-town people vs. the people who live in large cities. Different problems encountered every day, different ways of dealing with those problems, and different ways of thinking about the world, based on these encounters.

Gun control -- probably just as many idiots with guns in the country as in the city, but when they fire them off in the country, they're most likely to only injure themselves, their friends, or their family members, whereas in the city, they're going to injure strangers.

Abortion -- rural areas are the baby factories and breadbaskets. In the city, it's ENOUGH PEOPLE ALREADY ! ...and of course, we want to fund abortions for people who can't afford them, because those people will have more problems raising their kids if they can't get abortions. But if you own a farm, you can have 6 wives and 40 kids, and it won't bother your neighbors (or they can shoot at them when they cross the property line!) You can bury the miscarriages in the back yard, but people in the city don't want to see them in the apartment garbage can !

Property rights -- when the next neighbor is 1/2 mile away, who cares? When only wealthy landlords can afford to own rental buildings, of course everybody wants some standards for those buildings and some rights for the tenants, and control over whether someone builds a dynamite factory in the building next door.

Endangered species -- no one in an office cubicle has to worry about their cubicle encroaching on endangered species habitat; those species were driven out years ago ! On the farm, it's, "oh crap, now I'm not going to be able to plow that strip of land, which is going to lose $XX a season."

So the challenge is trying to regionalize the laws -- the current big legal dichotomy is federal / state, but it seems like the dichotomy should instead be federal / county. "States" seem much more artificial than rural / urban boundaries. Maybe there should be a movement towards rural / suburban / urban associations that better define the issues in each area, and work out compromises that are more agreeable, rather than a blanket of laws that don't fit either situation very well.

Jury Duty

Figuring out what kind of schedule I'm going to have, going to work whenever jury duty is not in session?? ...and cancel vacation or no?

Burt's Bees eviscerated

Burt's Bees was bought by a giant consumer products corporation, and the soul has now officially been eviscerated and turned into a marketing facade:

PRODUCT COMMENTS:

I am very annoyed by the course you have taken regarding Burt's Bees Herbal Deodorant, now "Deodorant??!!"

First you bought the company -- then you cut the size of the container in half. Now, I see that the word "herbal" has been dropped from the label. Whoa -- smells completely different, and burns the skin a little more. WTF???!!!!

I am sensitive to various products, and it has taken me a long time to settle on a product I like. That's why I stuck with your herbal deodorant when you doubled the price. Now, you've completely changed the ingredients?! ...and you've done so in an extremely deceptive way -- by making the label very similar, so I thought I was buying the same product, not getting screwed by your crew of ruthless profiteers.

I am going to return this container to the store and demand a refund. Do you still make the same product as before, or have you discontinued it ? I am willing to forgive if you can give me the old product back, otherwise, you are scum in my book.

Bold Mandate?

Heck, all he has to do is restore government agencies to their proper functioning ! ...the EPA, the FDA, FEMA Get rid of the clowns who were sent to destroy all these agencies, and get them functioning properly.

Healthcare is vastly more complicated, but it seems we ought to be able to find some minimal standards for public health, and do it with less money than our current inefficient crisis management.

Texas

Thank heavens we will no longer have a president with an agenda of cutting California down to size. Texas can do better than what we finally dislodged.