Obviously, you missed this story:
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett are launching a campaign to get other American billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity.
Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in a letter introducing the concept that he couldn't be happier with his decision in 2006 to give 99 percent of his roughly $46 billion fortune to charity.
Patty Stonesifer, former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Gates and Buffett have been campaigning for the past year to get others to donate the bulk of their wealth.
Rich people are going to be magnanimous from now on. Fer serious.
If you give away 99% of $46 billion, that only leaves you with $460 million. That's practically poor!
On my nightstand paper pad there is a diagram of circular arrows going back and forth between the words greed and income inequality.
You should try a chalkboard.
Or an overhead projector, some transparencies, and some markers.
You write Ikea assembly instructions?
Or perhaps the backs of some 8x10 color glossy photographs.
5: I'm pretty sure Eggplant was making a Glenn Beck joke.
</cross-posted to Standblog Blogplate>
9: I don't really watch TV news, unless I'm checking to see if it is a snow day. I'm not a hermit. I know who Glenn Beck is because he says stuff that gets written down in the news, but I've never seen the show.
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You guys should be proud of your footballers. That was an epic game and they were totally robbed by the referee. Even so, coming back to draw from 2-0 down shows serious cojones. They ought to go through in all justice now.
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You should try a chalkboard.
Heebie should totally have a show on TV. She would get a much bigger following than Glenn Beck, because of being always right and her ass.
11: I'm so proud, I'm going to learn the name of one of them.
13: There's a balding US player named Landon Donovan, so just think Donovan McNabb and replace "McNabb" with "McBald" and you're halfway there already.
Plus, I already know people named Donovan. I already know how to spell it.
a) This post is much better if you replace nightstand paper pad with daughter's belly.
b)I think the idea behind the diagram is that in a perfectly egalitarian society there is no incentive to competition, but that once some inequality is introduced, it becomes autocatalytic. The thing is though, there is no universal equilibrium, GINIs don't actually converge to 0 and 1.
because of being always right and her ass.
As opposed to Beck, who is always a right-wing ass.
11: I came in to work just as the USA team scored their second goal. But, as so often happens, laughter had turned to tears by the time I was logging in to my computer.
11: Yeah, a lot of game. Drained just from watching.
15: Donovan Leitch, Donovan Leitch's son Donovan Leitch...
18: Your sys admin makes you use really long passwords?
They ought to go through in all justice now.
OFE has been outsourced to a badly-subtitled Japanese man.
21: No, there was just fussing around with stuff and a moment spent looking at the TV and what not.
Also, as much as we have a sysadmin here, I am he. Which is pretty scary.
24: Have you tried reducing people to tears with harsh password rules?
I keep trying to explain the universe with these loose wires. I suppose it's what you do when you feel powerless and impotent and angry.
It's like Heebie knows me.
Also OP.1 eerily describes my commenting process.
Ha! No, I myself am reduced to tears by not being able to share a simple Excel file.
Also OP.1 eerily describes my commenting process. work process life.
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If someone can assure me this page is just a spam blog and doesn't contain any malware, it'll be my all-time favorite website.
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31: I didn't click through, but .hr is Croatia? Huh.
They call it Hrvatska over there.
Further to 32: oh, duh. From wiki: Republika Hrvatska. But locally it's pronounced "Mumbai".
It's not pwnage if I add a crappy joke.
Or "Chorwacja" as Teraz would say.
At the bottom of the front page of that blog, it mentions "Lasix Urine Sodium" as a search term. I'm trying to imagine what could tie these words together.
"Alberta Online Motorcycle Theory Test With Answers" must be a popular search term as well.
I may be backsliding into adolescent angst myself but I dunno, I find the post to be basically true in a not obvious, or at least not often enough stated, way.
Sometimes I think income inequality is driven almost entirely by individuals' desire to overcome handicaps in the sexual arena. Which sounds pretty stupid now that I've typed it.
42: Just possessing enough self-awareness to realize 38 looks like a joke.
37: Kidney failure. Lasix is used to treat high blood pressure resulting from an inability to secrete sodium in the urine.
BTW, 38 was a straight answer.
The gay answer would be dressage.
Hrvatska
Gotta love a word with two triple consonant combination.
Gotta love a word with two triple consonant combination.
Spike has straightforwardly tastes.
48: Come on, 47's gypsy glyphs aren't even in syzygy.
My last name has two triple-consonant combinations. Does that mean Spike loves me?
It doesn't count if it's only three consonant LETTERS that make up fewer than three consontant phonemes.
Consontrantr is my latchstring.
Presumably confusion between Lasix and LASIK.
I never heard of Lasix either.
I never heard of Lasix either.
If you read the racing form, it is mentioned frequently.
Yes, I'm a moron and was thinking of Lasik.
57: Are biscuits mentioned, too, if you read the racing form?
58: For the record, you had good company.
Maybe they don't require it anymore or maybe not in every state, but when I was going most frequently, they had a mark by every horse taking Lasix.
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David Mitchell weighs in again, this time against the prescriptivists.
...the academy's founder, Martin Estinel, a 71-year-old who claims still to use the word "gay" to mean "happy"...
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51: My last name has a triple AND a quadruple consonant. With 3 and 4 phonemes, respectively. So there. Telemarketers don't like it (rock the casbah, rock the casbah)
My daughter's full name has an rr, ll, ee, and another rr. It's very easy to pronounce, though.
Lasix helps thoroughbreds by reducing the bleeding in the lungs that many suffer from. The first few times the horse uses the drug it is noticeably faster, as you would be if your lungs no longer hurt when you ran. The effect is less noticeable as time goes on. Or so my bookie told me.
The mullahs are running books now?
Mullahs and rednecks. I wish I were near a track that did regular races instead of harness racing.
Why are their lungs bleeding? IANAD but that sounds bad. Overbreeding? Overtraining?
68 - I hear greyhound racing is the hip classy thing now. Or maybe Greyhound racing.
69: I'm guesing too many Filly Blunts.
70: I'd advise caution with dogs. Michael Vick lives in Moby's state now.
Michael Vick is shirtless and drunk?
NMM a José Saramago.
Hey I'm just trying to pass for a local.
Overbreeding
This. In order to qualify as a thoroughbred, the horse must be descended from one of three original stallions. That's some fine inbreeding!
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/25491/a_brief_history_of_thoroughbred_racing.html?cat=11
I assume that's also why their legs are made from toothpicks and rubber cement.
77: Don't tell the creationists, but given that they usually shoot a horse with a broken leg, shouldn't the horses have tougher legs by now?
69/71/72: No, no, no. These are the carefully raised and educated elite horses. They totally took up cloves in prep school.
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My office just got a robocall from the NRA warning us against Hillary Clinton's efforts to get the UN to ban all guns worldwide.
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Well most took up clover; the burnouts started hoofing.
79: "Son, why do your lungs smell like Christmas?"
80: Sounds like they've kicked it into hyper-crazy mode to prove to other Republicans that they've still got it, despite the recent deal with the Dems.
83: So, I can keep my guns? Because I want to cling to them and religion.
84: Yeah, you get to keep 'em, but the UN sends a gay person to live with you as an offset.
85: Score. I've always wanted to get into dressage.
I'll cling to my guns and my shirt will cling to my sweat-moistened, well-defined pectorals. Then everybody will be happy.
Except the Starbucks manager, apparently.
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Since it's on the cover, presumably this is one of the better jokes.
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The other panels all have horse penises.
91: I'm not sure I understand this t-shirt.
92. Error in translation? All your base are belong to us.
In re OP. the Explanation of the Universe's flaw is in the false dichotomy that there are only two possible states of existence. Since men are not angels, even if the hypothetical government were to balance wealth perfectly, our status seeking selves would come up with some other status markers that may be even more egregious than wealth, such as height or skin color. Wouldn't that be fun?
even if the hypothetical government were to balance wealth perfectly, our status seeking selves would come up with some other status markers that may be even more egregious than wealth,
From what I've seen of places where wealth was basically equal, you get lawn care and parking like an asshole as status markers.
Is assholish parking a status marker or dominant behavior? To be able to park like an asshole without challenge, one's status must assuredly be secure.
96: Somebody parked right across my drive way. This has happened before, but this time I was not home. Instead of asking for the car to be moved, my wife had them towed. Now the people who were rudest to me are nicer. I think they assume I had them towed and am therefore mean enough to have status. I still have no idea who owned the car that was towed.
The mistake of assuming one's status entitles one to dominant behavior is practically the defining trait of an asshole.
In the Egalitarian Utopia, we will contend for status, and our weapons will be cultural allusions.
If 40.2 always held true, I would be far more ambitious than I am.
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How do you neutralise Wayne Rooney?
Put an England jersey on him.
0-0? 0-0! Against Algeria!
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I think they assume I had them towed and am therefore mean enough to have status
See! Now try to hump their leg. Pretty soon they will all roll over and expose their neck to you. Of course, your wife as the Alpha female may have some say in the matter.
96: I think assholish parking is an assertion of dominance like sitting with your knees splayed three feet apart on a crowded bus.
I concede that asshole parking is a way to express dominance, not compete for it. There's only like two of my neighbors with humpable legs and they're both very nice.
The other day I kind of parked like an asshole (I was well within the lines but askew). It is my view that my assholishness was forgiven by the universe, because an old grumpy man rolled down his window and yelled at me that he was going to call the cops on me for my parking job and apparently did. (This all took place in a Mickey D's parking lot; the cop just drove past and didn't stop.)
99: From a Guardian liveblog of the game: "Not wishing to indulge in hyperbole of course but is this possibly the worst result since 1066?"
103: That's not asshole parking. You have to double park on a one lane road or block somebody's car or something.
I think people are always going to be doing dominance games (well some are, some just love taking orders and conforming). the important thing is to make them useful.
The current approach of 'make lots of money from sales/promotion' is better than the old way of 'point a stick at someone and take all their stuff'. and playing sports in the spring is better than going out in a war party. but leaves a lot of room for improvement.
which is one reason i like status seeking games like elitist hipsters or 'my lifestyle is more green than yours' or whatever.
i like status seeking games like elitist hipsters or 'my lifestyle is more green than yours' or whatever.
Seeking dominance by changing status markers to those more in your favor is a clever ploy. But how will you get buy in from the others?
Simple: If they don't buy in, they're squares.
108: Yeah, and they can't have any of this warm Smirnoff Ice I've been toting around.
Simple: If they don't buy in, they're squares
I think I see why so many hipsters are skinny and artists are typically referred to as "starving".
Sometimes even not starving artists need to be reminded of their non dominant status.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/thomas-kinkade-dui-drunken-driving-bankruptcy.html
111: So the Painter of Light got lit.
111: The previous article linked in that article is great. And then there is Kinkade's proclivity for "ritual territory marking," as he called it, which allegedly manifested itself in the late 1990s outside the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim."This one's for you, Walt," the artist quipped late one night as he urinated on a Winnie the Pooh figure, said Terry Sheppard, a former vice president for Kinkade's company, in an interview.
111: No front plate? If the cops hit those seriously California's budget would show a surplus. It's one of those "probable cause" excuses.
The England-Algeria outcome is amazing. I was talking to some big-time soccer fans after US-Slovenia, and while trying to figure out the different qualifying scenarios, they were marking that game as an automatic win for England.
Seeking dominance by changing status markers to those more in your favor is a clever ploy. But how will you get buy in from the others?
Not having cool clothes doesn't affect things like access to health care. writing good songs has more benefit for other than driving a large vehicle does. more options for status means the people you are sneering at mostly don't care becuase they have a different metric which indicates that -they- are awesoem.
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When the August Wilson Center was opened, I took one look at the picture and wondered why nobody stopped to say, "That sure looks more like a penis than a cultural center."
I went to a thing tonight and nearly forgot I was having dinner with regular people. People were talking about the center and I only just stopped myself from making the penis observation about 30 seconds before someone at the table mentioned that they worked on the project from site selection to completion.
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Nothing says "cultural center" like a penis.
Actually the urethra is sterile for the most part.
I think you probably also point out that things look like penises more often than anyone else on Unfogged, MH.
124: In fairness, that's the same thing I recall him pointing out looking like a penis previously. But there may other examples eluding my memory.
Where the hell is everybody? Things have come to a pretty pass when a man can't get a bit of Unofged badinage before retiring. Be in your places tomorrow.
I went to a thing tonight and nearly forgot I was having dinner with regular people.
I've tried to make "On the veldt" jokes that fell totally, totally flat.
Maybe I should be rummaging through my neighbor's garbage then.
All the commenters and posters have checked out for their summer eremitic. It's the newest hip thing to do.
I can only speak for myself, but the week long internet outtage at my apartment complex and only a halfway smart phone has essentially killed my ability to comment. Not that I've ever been one for witty bandinage.
D'oh. Can't spell when typing on the tiny keyboard.
Is paren Parenthetical? I know if my Internet access forced me to drop a thetical I would be put out.
137: Yep. Just too lazy to type it all out. A week out I am seriously cranky without my beloved internet.
You should get an iPhone: it will helpfully capitalize "Internet" for you, for some reason.
Where the hell is everybody?
I went to bed at 6:30 with a migraine and just now got up. But! I just got my computer back from the Apple Store this afternoon. They replaced the entire motherboard, which died with just 28 days left on the 3-year AppleCare plan. Yay!
No such luck with my car that gave up the ghost on Wednesday and would cost more to fix than the whole thing is worth. Boo!
Where the hell is everybody?
Coincidental impromptu meetup with jms and Robert Halford, as it happens.
And whiskey. Oh, whiskey.
No front plate? If the cops hit those seriously California's budget would show a surplus. It's one of those "probable cause" excuses.
We had that one taken away at the state level. Can't be used as a primary reason for a stop anymore. Bah.
I sort of miss my halfway smart phone. But the international data charges are insane so I don't use it here. It's not much fun to type on, but at least it can be qwertyish.
I nearly just told my 12 year old that something she'd said belonged on Standpipe's blog. And then I tried to explain the concept of Standpipe's blog to her and got a very blank stare.
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Question for our Boston Commenters I am going to be in Boston for a conference next week. Specifically I will be staying here . Is there anything in that area that I should try and see while I am there or any restaurants that are good? I won't have a car and will be busy during the day, but could get out some in the evenings.
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145: there's a really, really excellent cocktail bar (add another couple of excellents if you are on an expense account) called Drink right down the street. Upstairs from drink is a restaurant called Sportello that's supposed to be quite good, but I've never been. You're also easy walking distance to the ICA, which has an awesome building, a good if small permanent collection, and supposedly a pretty cool show going on right now.
In general, though, Boston is a very small, walkable place, and you could easily walk north-ish over the bridge into downtown, check out the greenway (the parks where the highway used to be pre-big dig, here) and stroll to, at one end, the north end (the italian neighborhood) and at the other, chinatown. Both are full of excellent restaurants, although in the north end I particularly recommend Neptune Oyster.
124, 125: As far as I know, I've mentioned that same building twice and no other penis buildings.
That and the Nebraska Capitol building, which, come on. It's a tower topped with a statue of a guy sowing seeds.
It's a tower topped with a statue of a guy sowing seeds
Maybe so, but at least it's not a statue of a guy seeding sows.
I bet Moby thinks even this looks like a penis (NSFW).
128: I've totally been there. You'd think it would be an intuitive joke!
25: Aw, thanks for remembering...
147: And various instances of symbolism in writing.
You should get an iPhone: it will helpfully capitalize "Internet" for you, for some reason.
Nostalgia for the days when Microsoft Works would put a line under "internet" and then insist you change it to "interment".
128, 151: You have to say "Back in caveman days" instead of "On the veldt."
Note to self, in light of 150: "NSFW" often means "also not safe for big, heavily populated café with plenty of people who have a clear view of your screen".
146: Thanks I will have to look at those places. I didn't realize how close to downtown the hotel was.
Mr. Blandings, I was not around last night because I went for drinks with my partner and a friend. There was an unexpected art auction (for a good cause) there and I bought a painting that features an anise swallowtail butterfly, my favorite in large part because the chrysalises are such an adorable green. I bought it despite suspecting my partner hates it and knowing how much I've disliked living with art she's chosen, not to mention the floral couch I'm lying on now. I'm still not sure I did the right thing in making the purchase. Someday, when we either stop our hopes of adopting or live in a bigger house, I'll get a room for myself and can put the painting there, but that's what I spent today pondering, mostly, when I wasn't at the farmers' market or planting and weeding.
I've been reading the single blind era comments, which is keeping me more involved than current stuff. Tonight I'll go to my brother's girlfriend's roller derby game, then to see a neighbor's cd release performance, then home to be cranky about being forced to be in noisy places so much tonight. So when you don't see me commenting, that's why.
