CIVILIZATION COSTS MONEY: PAVED ROADS

while there have long been people who don't think that they should have to pay taxes and who believe that there is too much government interference in the life of most americans, i am profoundly frustrated at the way that this sentiment is gaining popularity.

at least in part because of the continued presence of the teabaggers tea party in american political life, i keep reading about (and talking to) people who insist that "the government" meddles too much in their affairs and takes too much of their money.

recently i was talking to someone who had spent the last few years on unemployment, and whose spouse retired early from a federal job, receiving a substantial severance package. also, the federal retiree had always held the insurance for the entire family (they raised several children.) however, despite what seemed to me like several dramatic examples of interaction with the government being the only thing standing between them and total financial ruination, this person vehemently announced to me that the government had "no business" besides national defense, and expressed strong wishes toward a total cessation of all government activity not directly related to national defense.

and it has really gotten me thinking about this whole "no taxes, government bad" approach to policy. while few people actually enjoy paying taxes, rational grownups should be able to see that taxes are not, in fact, the result of a power-mad, bullying government stealing money from defenseless citizens, but actually a reasonable way to pay for things we want and need. markers of civilization, actually, which sounds hyperbolic at first but really isn't.

here's something that taxes pay for:
1. paved roads. i read a horrible article about a 23 year old woman in alabama who ran over a pothole and dislodged a chunk of highway that went through the windshield of the truck behind her and killed the woman in the front seat, who was riding with her husband and their two small children. no one was doing anything wrong; the first driver was cleared of any wrongdoing. she hadn't been speeding, she was driving safely, they road simply hadn't been maintained. the state says they can't afford it. now the first driver is wracked with guilt, and the husband is a widower, a single dad with two small kids. because there wasn't money for highway repairs.

so "tea party patriots," are you ready to volunteer your time for road crews? or should someone set up toll booths all over the place to fund roadwork? (followup question: should that be the government? or a private company collecting money? if a private company, will there be any oversight? how do you propose to supervise this effort without government involvement? does the mention of tolls constitute a "tax" that will get you all worked up?)

to be continued.

lack of context leads to unintentional hilarity

frequently when i'm on the telephone with the nephews' mama, she says funny things. sometimes this is on purpose (she is a pretty funny lady, and we've known each other so long that we have plenty of inside jokes and references that wouldn't mean much to anyone else but that crack us up.)

and i like it when she makes me laugh intentionally, i really do.

sometimes much funnier, though, are the times when what she says is totally reasonable for the circumstances in which she finds herself (and the nephews), but totally hilarious to people (me) without the same context.

let me demonstrate:

"you guys can play baby all you want but you're not going to be in the fridge."

of course, since i'm a good friend, i try to support her parenting by not laughing loudly while she's disciplining the children.

sometimes i fail.

sometimes certain names work better in ad campaigns than others

photographed by the ever-patient captain awesome (who never seems to mind when we're on the way somewhere and then all of the sudden i really want him to take a picture of something), and who comments: "christian cancer...is the worst kind."

dear flu,

great news! you can go now.

never let anyone try to tell you that you won't learn about cartilaginous fish in astronomy class.

tutor nick, on hammerhead sharks: "those guys can calculate distances much better than we can do because the eyes are so much further away."

i have recently had an important revelation about the future.

flying cars are a terrible idea.

i know that they're supposed to represent the awesome inventions that science has in store for us and the triumph of technology and progress...but have you ever really stopped to think about it for a minute?

i did for the first time yesterday, when i was reflecting on how bad lots of people seem to be at driving their normal, non-flying cars. i've started riding my bike just about everywhere recently; i don't really drive much anymore (and when i do it's only a non-flying car) and riding the bus isn't usually much faster than riding my bike. and it costs money. and it doesn't burn calories. and it sometimes involves standing around outside for a long time.

all this time on my bike has given me a lot of chances to interact with drivers. and many of them are awful at driving. it's really helped me to appreciate the car-free parts of the city—i love the greenways and bike paths that make it possible for me to get places without much car traffic.

but it's also made me realize that we are far from ready for flying cars. can you imagine what it would be like? it's bad enough to have to deal with cars in the same plane as you when you're riding a bike—but from now on, when i have a close call with someone i'll remember: at least they didn't have the opportunity to crowd me from above!

science, i own you an apology. i'm sorry for being disappointed in you for all these years for your failure to produce flying cars. i think you really have our best interests at heart. please don't ever make flying cars happen, ever. teleportation devices, on the other hand, are long overdue.

"heartbeats" by the knife, or covered by josé gonzález: both excellent. happy new year!

"heartbeats" the knife


"heartbeats" josé gonzález

i apologize for the inevitable ad for bp's youtube channel where you can watch lots of pr bs about how they're "making it right." do they really think we're that stupid?

free advice for bp: you "make it right" by actually making it right, not by spending millions of dollars on a media blitz in which you talk about making it right. thanks for ruining everyone's ocean.

bonus video because it is really fun and to avoid ending on a cranky note:


"heartbeats" josé gonzález and a lot of bouncy balls in san francisco.

open office has a superior sense of the absurd, or at least a very weird spellcheck matching formula.

while unpacking a box tonight i found a list i started of bizarre open office spellcheck suggestions. at one time in my life i was trying to write papers for school using open office since i didn't have a copy of word. this actually turned out to be rather difficult; classmates couldn't open my attachments, i didn't have powerpoint, formatting was nearly impossible, and there was an exciting "crash for no good reason and don't save any changes" feature.

i hear that open office has gotten a lot more stable and user friendly these days, and i realize that free software has certain tradeoffs and i should be appreciative of what was available to me, but one night i was up really late working hard on a paper and i started to feel like spellcheck was messing with me on purpose.

this was the order in which spellcheck suggested these words. and i feel i should mention that each of these words were completely unrelated to the actual word i'd misspelled (or the term with which the open office dictionary was not acquainted)—like completely unrelated. like none of the same letters, and nothing approaching the same number of letters:

suboptimal (okay, that's a reasonable word at least)
buttermilk (funny because it's random)
electroencephalographic (what?)
parallelepiped (i give up.)

wisdom from b.f.h.

i just received the following text message:

"I've learned the hard way that there is no cure for glitter herpes, all I can do is manage the outbreak."

ordinary conversations between children and their parents become funny when roles are reversed.

walking home tonight, a friend and i passed a book store display. she pointed out the box of mad libs, and then behind us we heard the following exchange:

dad: "ooh! mad libs!"
kid: "you already have those at home."
dad: "but these are on sale!"
kid: "ugh."

belated happy blogday present

so it appears that i missed c.w.a.j.a.?.'s blogday by six days. i'm a negligent blogger, sorry. but don't worry, c.w.a.j.a.?. i got you a present. i'm pretty sure this is the best picture on the internet right now.

i would like to give credit to whomever made this masterpiece of internet caption art, but since there are 250,000 search results for just watering the owl i don't think that's possible. thank you, mysterious internet caption art master. thank you all the same.

and thanks to you, dear reader, for reading and for commenting. this is still fun.

"MOST CAREERS PAY MONEY." (i love xtranormal bike videos!)

"amy and steevo discuss thanksgiving"

oddly poetic spam

it has been a long time since i really paid much attention to my spam folder, but very recently i've taken over a class right before their final (a situation somewhat akin to adopting a 17 1/2 year old) and i wanted to be sure that i didn't miss any messages from students.

so i was scrolling through all the offers for various drugs related to my manhood, and i saw this subject like: "halifax census antiquarian"

it seemed pretty enough to share with you all, but you're on your own if you're searching for v|aagr.a.

sorry.

earworm alert! or: that's really the only way to wish someone the best.

cee lo green, "forget you"


cee lo green, "f*** you"

this song is stuck in my head most of the time these days (both versions, in case you were curious.) i thought i'd share the catchiness with you too. also, as a special bonus:


gwyneth paltrow on glee, "forget you"

what is cyclocross?

i'm so glad you asked. i could tell you about it, but you'd enjoy reading this comic book-style explanation even more. check it out!

because i really like xtranormal movies about cycling

your math joke for today:

via icanhascheezburger, fibonacci pigeons. i'm pretty sure this is the san leandro bart station. they've got a lot of pigeons there, but sometimes there are dead ones stuck inside the anti-pigeon netting and i don't like that at all.

hooray! cyclocross season is here!

"i like your kit"

yesterday was our team cross clinic, and today i definitely feel it. getting skinsuits on friday!

micmacs is a fantastic movie and you should probably see it soon

captain awesome and i went to the movies the other night and thoroughly enjoyed micmacs. its french title is Micmacs à tire-larigot, which according to the internet means "non-stop shenanigans," and that seems like a pretty concise summary of the movie.

it was directed by jean-pierre jeunet, who also directed amelie, and it is similarly whimsical and many lovely colors of brown. (jeunet also directed a very long engagement, which is like amelie, right down to the audrey tautou but very sad; i would not necessarily recommend it to a friend unless that friend was in the mood for a movie that is depressing and beautiful.)

micmacs. check it out.

"and bars of gold, platinum or titanium."

oh, freecycle.

"We are in need of a various items: Used Rice Cooker, PlayStation3 or Roku streamly digital DVD player,tv tuner, wireless router,used laptop who are in good conditions. If anyone has any of those and not in need we will appreciate it. Thanks."

i wish i had written down who said this.

i'm getting rid of lots of paper clutter these days (woo!) and when going through a box just now i found a somewhat cryptic note. i have a dim recollection of someone saying this, but since the date at the top of the note is 8/06 i am not particularly surprised or disappointed that i don't actually remember the exact wording or who said it. something like:

so this supercollider that's going to end the world, this is my kind of disaster! not even bottled water can save you!

this seems like as good a time as any to remind you of the hugely useful site "Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?"

the antidote to those awesome/horrifying big dog/little dog videos

(50X) Autonomously folding a pile of 5 previously-unseen towels


while i know that robotics technology generally boils down to military-related applications, it's kind of cute to see this robot folding laundry.

also, the highest rated comment insults naysayers by quoting murray head's "one night in bangkok," which wikipedia calls "a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek denunciation of the city's moral corruption and comparative glorification of the intellectual purity of chess: e.g., 'the queens we use would not excite you.'" "one night in bangkok" is also notable for being the last show tune to make into the top five most popular american songs. and it is from a musical about a chess match between an american and a soviet chess player. the 80's were really a different time. seriously.


one night in bangkok

the unbearable sadness of freecycle

it is not always hilarious.

"several cat items, including unopened box of arm/hammer kitty litter, a long-term watering system (not auto), and some other items. belonged to my cat but moved out with the ex a while ago. Please take all."

emphasis on the heartbreaking part added by me.

somebody had better pick up this cat stuff soon!

let her in!

a dream comes to fruition. in blog form. check it out.

freecycle is also good for free entertainment

for a long time, this was the funniest freecycle post i've seen. then someone sent the following, which cracked me up for a few weeks:

"Unopened 2.2 pound bag of wasabi: It says "Super Hot" on the package"