Month: October 2010

Jason Kuznicki asks former pot smokers intending to vote no on Prop 19 to look in the mirror:

I wonder how many people are going to vote against California Prop. 19 next week — while rationalizing that their own marijuana use was merely a youthful experiment. …

You — the guy who smoked a few times in college, or with that one group of friends, or at that one party — you are the average pot smoker. You are not special because you escaped marijuana. You are perfectly typical. That’s what most marijuana use is like. You try it for a while, and then you stop.

O'Donnell first threatened to sue a radio station if they posted a recording of a broadcast online, then retreated. The latest:

O'Donnell press secretary Doug Satchel has also stated clearly, "There is no threat to sue DEL." He did not claim to comment or speak on behalf of campaign manager Matt Moran, who had reportedly made the threat to "crush" the station with lawsuits.

Lila Shapiro profiles haunted house creator Timothy Haskell:

Haskell has spent the last seven years asking New Yorkers to describe their deepest anxieties via Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and on-the-street teams. Each year, he translates the results of his surveys into a haunted house. Past themes have been ghost stories, vampires, and bad dreams. This year, it's superstitions. You won't find witches, ghosts or jack-o-laterns in Haskell's house, but you will find a clown lady giving birth in graphic detail to "the biggest, fattest dude in a diaper" co-directer John Harlacher could find.

Not sure what Freudian phobia that represents, but Nightmare: Superstitions also includes "fear of being trapped (claustrophobia), fear of dolls (pediophobia), and fear of ladders (stepnophobia) — also entomophobia, illyngophobia and sitophobia (insects, dizzyness and eating, respectively)." More phobias here.

A reader, among many, writes:

Your blanket agreement with your reader ("MSNBC rarely invites conservatives on their programs"….) reflects poorly on what I generally perceive as your fairly careful and thoughtful approach to media critique.  First, it entirely overlooks the existence (and popularity) of Morning Joe, which simply has no equivalent on the Fox Propaganda Channel.  But it's your crack on Rachel Maddow that's really out of bounds.  Anyone who has watched her show more than once knows that she routinely invites–nay, begs–conservatives to appear on her show and debate the issues on the merits.  A few have accepted, often to their detriment (see Paul, Rand) when they realize that she is far more than an empty-headed talking head or O'Reilly-style bloviator.  That most of them refuse her invitations may be smart politics on their part–but it's still a choice.  And it's patently unfair to tar Rachel with the same brush you used on Beck, O'Reilly, et al.

Agreed on Maddow not being the equivalent of Hannity, and she is also better than Olbermann on seeking conservative guests with whom to debate (often to their detriment). I used too broad a brush. But the bias is pretty overwhelming nonetheless – and sometimes veers into suffocating smugness.

Via Balk, it appears that 51 percent of Americans would share their home with a ghost for free rent. This makes it sound as if all ghosts are equal. But the fact of the matter is that living with Slimer from Ghostbusters would be a serious inconvenience, whereas Ghost Dad or Casper The Friendly Ghost would be downright pleasant roommates. Sharing a home with a ghost-writer on the other hand …

A reader writes:

Did you know that sleep apnea is a Veterans Administration rated disability? It's a 50 percent disability which is $770/month tax free for a single claimant.

I'm not very fat, but I knew I snored badly. I also suffered from severe fatigue but didn't really know why. When I was getting ready to retire from the military, I had heard from other guys about how sleep apnea was an easy way to get a 50 percent disability rating and the money and benefits that come with it. So I decided to go down to the VA hospital at the DC hospital center to get evaluated. As it turns out, I have moderate levels of sleep apnea.

I was kind of psyched to get the rating because I knew that that extra $770/month was going to be the difference between finding a job I was happy to do or not working at all. But after just a few days with the machine, I was amazed at how much better I felt. The first few nights I woke up the next morning feeling like I just woke up after not sleeping for years. I never felt so refreshed. I still eagerly wear the head gear every night, despite it's unsexiness. (Tony Soprano was talking to Uncle Junior in a doctor's office while Junior was being fitted with the mask. Tony asks Junior how many MiGs he shot down last month!).

Part of me is sometimes a little guilty because I get more VA disability that many guys who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I raised that issue during the Transition Assistance Program class I went to, and the facilitator told us not to worry, since allegedly the government has been planning for our eventual disability since the first day we enlisted, so we are just claiming what is due to us. It is interesting to compare the 50 percent disability that sleep apnea gives people to the disability ratings given to people by things such as deafness, missing digits, limbs or other more traumatic ways of getting into the VA system.

They're police officers in New Haven, where the SWAT team is being used to serve marijuana warrants and investigate underage drinking.

Tim Cavanaugh has an example:

Will anybody point to the failure of [Republican candidate for California governor Meg Whitman's] record-busting campaign splurge and revisit their commitment to getting private money out of politics?