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Headline Writers Showing Their Bias Again

Media take:

"Google revealed Wednesday how very white and male its workforce is."

Actual data:

Google's workforce is 61% white.

The U.S. population is 63% white.

The real issue: Google's workforce is heavily overrepresented by Asians. If you have difficulty understanding why, pop in on a computer science class at a university near you and observe the racial makeup of the kids taking these classes. That's who Google will have to choose from when interviewing for entry-level positions in the next four years.

It's a Trap

My malicious advice mallard for today:

Take literally at your own risk.

I Will Not Don't Stop Believing

I'm done believing.

Waiters and waitresses, I'm done believing your stories of ---ists leaving unbelievably nasty messages in lieu of tips. I got stiffed from time to time, you will be too. Suck it up and stop making up bullshit stories about ists who hate you, hoping that your prevarication will go viral. Viral prevarications are bad, especially if you are putting yourself out as a victimized member of a disadvantaged group, because fair or not, you taint the whole group when you get busted.

And media, stop reporting on this stuff. It's not news even if it proves true. It's only news when it becomes a story and it's found to be bullshit. And that's not the story you were looking for, was it?

Journey Was Wrong. Stop Believing. Let Go of That Feeling

Waiters and waitresses, I'm done believing your stories of ----ists leaving unbelievably nasty messages in lieu of tips. I got stiffed from time to time, you will be too. Suck it up and stop making up bullshit stories about ists who hate you, hoping that your prevarication will go viral. Viral prevarications are bad, especially if you are putting yourself out as a victimized member of a disadvantaged group, because fair or not, you taint the whole group when you get busted.

And media, stop reporting on this stuff. It's not news even if it proves true. It's only news when it becomes a story and it's found to be bullshit. And that's not the story you were looking for, was it?

Lesbian waitress Dayna Morales claimed someone stiffed her and wrote "I'm sorry but I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and how you live your life." She submitted it to gay advocay forums and became instantly famous.

I because suspicious when I read that the waitress was raking in profits from sympathetic donors and saw her writing embellishments like "It took everything I had to no spit in their food." Yeah, except you bring the food first, THEN they eat it, THEN you give them the bill and THEN, if they stiff you and insult you, you find out about it. No food to spit in.

Sure enough, evidence is in that she made the whole thing up. The family, however, who claim to be pro-gay rights, say they never wrote the hateful message, and they even tipped her 20%, and they have both the bill and the credit card bill to prove it.

Why would she do it? Friends and colleagues say that's just who she is. She tells whoppers to get attention. She sure got a lot of it this time.

Remember How Obama Said No New Taxes Except for "the Rich"? LOL

From my Congressman:

The “final” bill came out yesterday afternoon. Here is a partial list of the tax increases included in this reprehensible and immoral bill:

• A new 3.6% tax on all investment income including capital gains. That means that the capital gains tax rate (including California state tax) will rise to 33.9%. The tax on dividend income will rise from 15% today to 53.7% including California tax. 
• Additional Medicare tax on self employment income and wages.  This removes the current cap on wages subject to this tax and it will effectively move the top income tax rate from 35% to 43.4% within a couple of years. Add in the California tax again and would then be close to a 54% marginal tax rate.  I believe that this is the highest of any major industrialized country. But because spending is so high we would still have $1 trillion dollar annual deficits even after this tax.
• There is a 2.9% tax on all medical “devices”, which basically means everything used in a doctor’s office or hospital. Including gowns, syringes, and the like.  This will increase health care costs for everyone who does not get free government insurance.
• The deduction for Medical expenses is currently limited to those expenses that exceed 7.5% or your income. This will be raised to a threshold of 10% of your income. This means that fewer people will get any tax relief from medical expenses they pay for themselves.
• There are various taxes on anything a person might do to pay for their own medical expenses. Things like Health Savings Accounts, Cafeteria Plans, and Flexible Savings Accounts are ways for people to save their OWN money for their OWN medical care on a pre-tax basis will be limited and taxed. This is all part of the way that President Obama gets to government run health care by making it illegal or costly to pay for your own care so you have to go to the government.
• A 10% tax on tanning services. I call this the “Jersey Shore tax”. This one has to be really upsetting to ‘The Situation’, Snookie, and Pauly D.
• A tax on self-insured health plans. This is another penalty on those who try to pay for their own health care.
• A new tax on pharmaceutical manufacturers. This will raise the price of drugs for everyone who does not get them from the government for free.
• A new tax on “Cadillac” health plans. This is an up to 55% tax on any health insurance that costs over about $800 per month including employee and employer contributions. This tax does not apply if you are a union member or your plan is from AARP or Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. These are major Democratic constituencies and they exempted them. For everyone else, this discourages comprehensive health coverage. Isn’t that what the President says he is trying to achieve? Like most of what the President says, his actions are not even close to his words.
• There is a new tax on all 'for-profit' health insurance companies (except for a few favored ones).  This will also raise the costs of premiums for everyone not getting free care from the government.
• If you don’t buy health insurance (as dictated acceptable by a new federal czar), you will be fined up to 2.5% of your income even if you pay all of your medical expenses yourself. If your company does not provide said health insurance to all employees, the company will be fined up to $2,000 per employee.

March Linklog, fka My Last Post, Written Long Ago

My link log for March. I put some of these up on my Twitter account, too, at http://twitter.com/OCLex.

• Octuplets mom fires free nanny service because they were totally, like, out to get her, man.
• Matt Lauer missed Today Show after bicycle fall. Biking celebrity trifecta in play.
• Lance Arm hospitalized after falls during bicycle race.
• Your next vacation: Iraq?
• Obama to come into O.C. via motorcade
• God smites Bishop Melvin E. Wheatley 27 years after he appoints first gay Methodist pastor
• 2009 NCAA tournament: #10 USC v. #7 Boston College in Minneapolis
• Yosemite's Ahwahnee Hotel fails quake safety standards
• Octuplets mom visits Disneyland then spends $1,000 on cosmetics. Your tax dollars still footing the million bucks in medical bills.
• Boston teenagers: Rihanna brought that shit on herself
• John Walker Lindh's defense attorney is Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Division
• Is Obama the first real ‘Manchurian Candidate’ ?
• Britney Spears: "My pussy was hanging out!" Audience: "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
• 'Facebook for filthy rich' prospers despite bad economy
• PSA: Some of those MMORPG gamers who are blowing you off are actually dead in RL, LOL.
• Remember when the Nasdaq was at 5132?
• Iran says capitalism on verge of collapse; soon, world will embrace Islamic theocracy and poverty
• BCS bowls agree to suck for at least 5 more seasons.
• Kid from Dayton Christian hits 90 ft Buzzer Beater at end of 3rd Quarter. Yes, they won.
• L.T. staying with Chargers 3 more years
• The worst and coldest streaker ever
• March Madness is also vasectomy season
• World Baseball Classic: United States vs. Puerto Rico aka "We got mercy-ruled by our own territory!"
• Single mother of six is on welfare, but manages to save and piss away two grand on a couple of dogs from Cameroon. Surprise! It's a scam.
• Food for thought if the shit really does hit the fan in our economy
• Darwinism just misses bullet hammerer
• Welcome to the Neighborhood Octomom
• Murder suspect attacks and injures judge and earns immediate execution.
• Great news for people who don't want their junk patted down at a ball game.
• Want someone to blame for the economy? Look in the mirror, then your wallet, then back in the mirror.
• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: it's worse than you think.
• Half of America's corporate value is gone. DJIA finishes below 7,000 for first time since '97
• If he's on fire, you don't really have to shoot him.
• Utah wants to ban "looking drunk".
• Fight on, Titans! Screw Stanford!
• WTF, kid?
• Former Miss Ireland will judge a "sexist kilt" contest at Muldoon's in Newport Beach on March 15.
• San Diego man wanted for store robbery arrested after showing up to take examination to become police officer.

Okay, I'm deleting my bad joke. Actually, I do have a post like that, set to post at the end of each year, which I change the date of every year. That way, when I really do kick off, if I'm still a blogger, you all, or both, as the case may be, will know. Don't believe me if I post such a thing on April Fool's Day, however. Life varies, and lately, I've been more consumed by other things, but I'm going to start posting stuff again.

[revised 4/09]

If I haven't posted lately, I'm probably dead or in a coma somewhere. Wish me luck.

[written by Mike, 3/20/2006]

The Parking Cop

So I went to Starbucks for some coffee yesterday for about five minutes and on my way out, I encountered a big fat parking enforcement cop on a Segway, writing out a parking ticket.

So I walked over and asked "Don't you have better things to do than write a parking ticket the second that meter runs out?" He ignored me and continued writing the ticket. I asked why he was ignoring me, and he just ignored me some more. "You know," I added, "the trains ran on time in Nazi Germany, and I'll bet their parking meters were vigorously enforced, too." Finally, he turned toward me. He tore the ticket out of his book and smiled, placing a copy on the windshield, and then walked all the way around the car. When he got to the back, he finally spoke to me.

"Worn tires, too, huh?" He started writing up another ticket. When he put it on the windshield, I asked if that made him feel like a better man. He went around the other side and started writing a ticket for tinted windows. "You're going to have to walk around the car a lot more times than that if you want to lose a few pounds," I added. He started writing even more furiously into the ticket book. Finally, I told him I was going to go back into the store and just wait until he was done writing tickets. I told him to have a nice day. He replied that he would, and that people like me truly do make his day.

I'll bet the poor guy who drives that car with the Obama/Biden sticker and the dozen tickets on his windshield won't feel the same way when he comes out.

Corn Gods, He Wrote.

I once had a dyslexic literature teacher, which was every bit as frustrating for the students as it sounds, but I got back at him by choosing The Origins of Corn Gods as the subject of my term paper. The first outline I turned in looked like this:

• Yum K'aax was a corn god.
• Dagan was a corn god.
• Osiris was a corn god.
• Centeotl was a corn god.
• Lugh was a corn god.

I took great satisfaction knowing that my outline was making him hungry.

I Refuse To Believe This Story

I call this one a fake. According to the Sun:

MECHANIC Chris Donald loves his work — he has sex with CARS. And he admitted last night: “Some men like boobs and bums, but I much prefer curvy bodywork.” Chris, 38, has a recognised psychological condition that makes him physically attracted to motors. He has had sex with more than 30 different models in 20 years — plus two motorboats and a pal’s JETSKI. Chris, who DOES have a girlfriend, confessed: “A nice car for me is a feast for the senses. It’s about smells, feelings and tastes. If I see a gorgeous Mercedes I know I’d love to jump into bed with it.”

This has to be a joke, right?

Freezers

Apparently, there is an unwritten policy at appliance stores that says you don't sell a freezer to any customer who, when asks what size he needs, crouches down into a ball and says "about this big." Armed with this new knowledge, I shall try another store.

I'm Not One To Say I Told You So....

So I'll just shut up and give you the links:

12-28-2006: PEER issues a press release entitled: HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON? PARK SERVICE WON’T SAY — Orders to Cater to Creationists Makes National Park Agnostic on Geology.

12-29-2006: The Huffington Post spreads the scandalous word.

1-10-2007: eSkeptic.com falls for it, too: Creationism in Our National Parks.

1-13-2007 Doonesbury weighs in, ready to believe.

1-14-2007: I call it a bunch of bullshit: National Park Service Defies Alleged Requirement To Conceal Grand Canyon's True Age.

1-16-2007: In the face of evidence that the Park Service actually tells visitors that the canyon is millions of years old, PEER backs off its original story.

1-17-2007: eSkeptic announces Grand Canyon story was a hoax. Fact Checking 101 How Skeptic magazine was Duped by an Environmental Activist Group.

Okay, so I said I told you so.

Do You Know This Tubeman?

Supposedly ... German tourist Melanie Speth spotted this dude on the Tube while visiting London and has launched a worldwide e-mail campaign to find him. Supposedly ... she too his photo with her mobile phone (a rather bold move if you ask me) but was too shy to approach him. So ... being either (i) ugly (hard to tell from her photo in the news story), or (ii) a person who fears embarrassment so much that she won't say hello to a stranger, she didn't get his name or number. Instead, supposedly ... she chooses to humiliate herself by admitted all this to the entire planet and begging them to make up for her lack of courage by identifying the man so she can then know exactly who it is that she is afraid to speak to out of, you know, shyness.

The e-mail reads:

Now I haven't neither his name, nor his e-mail address, because I don't had the trust to speak to him! I have only this one picture! And now I am back in Germany and I can't forget him! That's why I have this crazy idea! ... I hope you send this to as much as possible that I find him! And maybe to mingle with him, if he wants this!' If you know the man, or are him, call Metro on 020 7651 5242.

The details: She was on the Tube from Tower Hill to Westminster at 5.30pm on November 3, 2006. He got off at Embankment.

The likelihood: this is bullshit. I suspect one of these three scenarios: (i) this young woman is getting punked by her friends or her hated rival; (ii) this young man is getting punked by his friends; or (iii) this dude wants free publicity and wants to become an English version of LonelyGirl15. Either way, it's working.

ThatGirlEmily: Confirmed Fake.

I wish I knew what I did to tap into Google, but if you do a google search today for "thatgirlemily," google will lead you first to the fake blog of that name, and second to my post calling it out as a fake. I wasn't the first to discuss it, nor was I the one with the most to say about it, but there I am, sitting at #2 on the google rankings. This coup has translated into a windfall of slightly less than zero dollars for me. Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that CourtTV has admitted that the whole thing is a bullshit fake designed to promote some reality TV show that they are trying to market.

ThatGirlEmily: Total Fake?

Starting yesterday, someone calling herself ThatGirlEmily started a blog. It's already on Fark. Supposedly, it is a blog about a jilted wife getting revenge on her cheating husband.

Read it now and believe it later: this is a marketing thing. I don't know what it is selling, or why she is doing this, but it has to be bullshit. [Hat tip to BoiFromTroy.] And I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Nathan Radlich

An old urban legend about a guy whose mom's remains were stolen by a drug dealer and sold as cocaine is making the email rounds again. This false tale about Nathan Radlich is not widely circulated (google only yields a little more than 100 hits for a search of the name), but it's old and it's bullshit. So, for those certain aunts and acquaintances who read my blog and send me the latest bogus stories, read it now and believe it later, Nathan Radlich's mom was not snorted by angry drug fiends who got their revenge by murdering the burglar/drug dealer and returning half of the ashes along with the bad guy's corpse. Great story, but it never happened.

I Did Not Lie To The Court!

So I am sitting in a seminar, getting my MCLE (Mandatory Continuing Legal Education) credits, in a course that includes 2 hours of special credit in the area of ethics. And the subject of withdrawal from representation comes up.

The speaker is discussing a case in which two lawyers blew off oral argument before the California Supreme Court. Both of the lawyers got busted. One was busted primarily for missing the appearance and not having the courtesy to let the court know he wasn't coming (since he had left the firm that was representing the party to the case), and the other one got busted for skipping the appearance, plus more.

"Aguilar's punishment was more severe because the court caught him in a lie when he tried to explain his way out of the mess. So the moral of this story is, don't make things worse by lying to the court."

Now, I figured that no one in the room had ever met Aguilar, and wouldn't recognize Aguilar if he was standing right in front of them. And I really felt like skipping out on the rest of the seminar. So I stood up, slammed my lecture materials onto the table in front of me and shouted:

"I did NOT lie to the court!"

The entire room turned toward me and dropped their jaws. The speaker stammered for a moment and struggled to find the words to use to address me.

"And I am NOT going to sit here and put up with this outrageous attack on my character! Good day to you all!"

And I walked on down the hall.

[Okay, I didn't actually do this. But I did actually consider it for a moment.]

Urban Legend

Announcer Vin Scully will always be remembered for the call he made of the infamous ground ball from Mookie Wilson to Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series.

"So the winning run is at second base with two out. Three-and-two to Mookie Wilson. . . . A little roller up along first . . . behind the bag . . . it gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight! And the Mets win it!"

Most people don't recall the comment Scully made during the ninth inning of game seven, on October 27, 1986.

"There are babies being born today who will be grown men and women before Boston wins another World Series."

Eighteen years later, on October 27, 2004, the Boston Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0 in game four of the 2004 World Series. And as they did, thousands of babies born on October 27, 1986 celebrated their eighteenth birthday. They had all become grown men and women, with just hours to spare before the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918.