Dave's shared items
Mark Krikorian is fighting back against Census form race politics and urging you to do the same:
Fully one-quarter of the space on this year’s form is taken up with questions of race and ethnicity, which are clearly illegitimate and none of the government’s business (despite the New York Times’ assurances to the contrary on today’s editorial page). So until we succeed in building the needed wall of separation between race and state, I have a proposal. Question 9 on the census form asks “What is Person 1’s race?” (and so on, for other members of the household). My initial impulse was simply to misidentify my race so as to throw a monkey wrench into the statistics; I had fun doing this on the personal-information form my college required every semester, where I was a Puerto Rican Muslim one semester, and a Samoan Buddhist the next. But lying in this constitutionally mandated process is wrong. Really — don’t do it.
Instead, we should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — “Some other race” — and writing in “American.” It’s a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes. In fact, “American” was the plurality ancestry selection for respondents to the 2000 census in four states and several hundred counties.
So remember: Question 9 — “Some other race” — “American”. Pass it on.
Ditto that!
Scott Johnson at Power Line reminds us of De Crevecoeur’s Letter from an American Farmer:
In Letter III of his Letters From an America Farmer (1782), J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur famously asked: “What then is the American, this new man?” He answered: “He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He has become an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all races are melted into a new race of man, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims.” (More on De Crevecoeur here.)
I’ll add Teddy Roosevelt’s famous passage about hyphenated Americanism:
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all… The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic… There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.
After the spat between Cablevision and Disney invaded the Oscar telecast last Sunday, the fees channels charge cable companies (who then pass them along to you) have come into the spotlight. All Things Digital posted a list from industry analyst SNL Kagan that shows the wholesale prices each channel charges cable companies for their product.
The list is making the rounds as fodder for a la carte cable activists. It makes it very apparent how much of your bill goes to sports programming -- which tends to irritate people who hate sports. Alternatively, you can study the list and count how many stupid makeover shows you are unwillingly paying for.
Keep in mind these are wholesale prices, cable companies obviously mark-up the prices, profit, etc. Meanwhile, it seems that the whole ABC/Cablevision was just a dress rehearsal for the real showdown: Time Warner Cable VS ABC. Look for that to get crazy in August as TWC's deal expires.
Hate Paying for Cable? Here’s Why [All Things Digital]
Giants once roamed the earth, meaning many species of animals that are familiar to us have enormous extinct ancestors. Cracked looks at seven of them, some of which have been previously featured individually at Neatorama. Take a look at Argentavis magnificens.
As if answering the dare to make us feel more inadequate, the world gave us Argentavis magnificens, the largest flying bird in recorded history. These beasts possessed a wingspan between 19- and 26-feet, and a wing area of 75-feet, which you may notice is only slightly smaller than a Lear Jet. In addition to its staggering size and 240-pound weight, the bird is believed to have swallowed prey as large as cattle in one fell swoop.
Link -via Gorilla Mask
Does the milkaholic baby named Lindsay in the latest E*TRADE commercial remind you of a certain celebrity? Lindsay Lohan says it's supposed to be her and is a jab at her own milkaholism, and she's suing the company for $100 million and seeking an injunction to get it off the air. I agree that the baby playing the milkaholic doesn't give a very good performance, but I always assumed it was supposed to be Lindsey Buckingham.
The ad agency says it was actually the name of someone on the account team, who probably should sue her employers for implying that she's a functioning milkaholic.
"Lindsay Lohan sues E-Trade over ad baby" [USAToday]
As the House moves closer to a deal on the 2,000+ page Senate health care bill, this morning's Washington Post offers more clever wordplay from President Obama:
Obama and his health secretary staged a two-pronged attack Monday in a stern letter to health insurance chief executives and a speech in which the president castigated insurance companies 22 times. "How much higher do premiums have to rise," he demanded, "before we do something about it?"
"Do something?" I think state and federal governments have done quite enough to inflate insurance premiums with regulatory mandates, community rating, and interstate barriers to trade. Obamacare’s insurance mandates will raise premiums further. In addition, the Senate bill, by preserving employer-provide health insurance, will do nothing to bend the cost curve down, since employees do not feel the consequences of their health care consumption.
As the Administration continues to attack their insurance industry straw man, I notice that they no longer claim the 2000+ page bill will reduce premiums:
..."Part of the motivating factor here is letting members of Congress know there's a price to pay for failure," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday in an interview. "And for the public, it's important to remind them that there are premium increases of 40 percent for as far as you can see if nothing is done."
This legislation will spur further increases in premiums, which will force much of the middle class to become dependent on federal subsidies.
Requiring health insurance companies to cover someone with a pre-existing condition at no extra charge is like asking car insurance companies to insure against accidents that have already happened at no extra cost. If that passes, anyone who bought health insurance before they get sick would be a fool.
What will that perverted incentive do to insurance rates?
Placebos play a useful role in drug testing: They help scientists determine just how effective a drug is. But a comparison of studies of antidepressants finds that patients find placebos twice as effective today as they did in the 1980s. Researchers aren't entirely sure why this is happening, but they say these findings could complicate medicine.
» E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us
The ongoing debate about whether or not to levy sales tax on online purchases got another talking point yesterday, as Amazon.com reacted to one such law in Colorado by completely dropping all of its affiliates in the state.
The Colorado state legislature had enacted the law, which went into effect last week, as an attempt to earn sales tax from Colorado-based businesses using Amazon to connect with buyers around the world. Unlike other states, Colorado gave merchants two options: Either add the sales tax to their goods or send customers an annual accounting of how much each customer owes the state in sales tax.
However, Amazon decided that the new laws were too burdensome and Byzantine, and so decided — just as they did in North Carolina and Rhode Island — to end their relationship with effected affiliates.
In their letter to affiliates to share the bad news, Amazon writes:
The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to "voluntarily" collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won't take....
There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.
According to reports, the move cuts about 4,200 affiliates from Amazon's roster.
"There are a lot of people who are going to be hurt, and that's a shame," Braunstein said.
Not surprisingly, this has turned into a political hot button in Colorado, with Democrats, who backed the bill accusing Amazon of "corporate bullying," and Republicans telling the Dems "We told you so."
"It's exactly what we said would happen," Republican Assemblyman Mike May said. "They're going to put people out of work. It's a game of chicken with people and their jobs, and they lost."
A similar measure is currently being considered in Virginia, where lawmakers believe they'll generate millions of dollars in annual tax revenue.
Amid all this finger-pointing, where do you think the fault, if any, lies in this situation?
Disney has finally released the first ever official teaser trailer for Tron Legacy. And you had better "Recognize-er" because this new Tron world is astounding. Come on in and check out the new upgraded citizens of Tron City.
Tron Legacy hits theaters December 17th.
Via the Program-Glitch unlocked thanks to the viral Tron hounds over at Flynn Lives.
