The comments section
I love reading the debates in the comments sections of various articles I peruse on the net. The idiocy that people post can sometimes make me laugh aloud. Here's an example:
"$7.25 is more than an E-1 makes, a solder that has just signed up is making less than $3 an hour. Maybe you should go do some fact checking. The Military doesn't care."
This is from the comments section of an article about low pay at McDonald's and how they just removed a guide to tipping from their human resources website E-1 is the lowest enlisted pay grade in the U.S. military.
An E-1 earns $18,194 on an annual basis. Based on a 40 hour workweek strictly for comparison purposes, that actually comes out to $8.74 per hour. It also doesn't include the fact that unlike that minimum wage worker at McDonald's isn't getting free housing, three free meals a day, free medical care anywhere in the world and retirement benefits. Drawing a comparison between someone working in fast food and a new military recruit is just ridiculous. Even at 50 or 60 hours per week, the military is way ahead of the fast food industry. Of course, there are those little drawbacks like being deployed to Afghanistan, combat and so on.
Then there was the story about how a Colorado baker was found to have illegally discriminated against a same-sex couple by refusing to bake a wedding cake for them. One comment read:
"He should have baked them the cake and put poison on it to solve the problem."
And finally, a comment from a story about the death of Nelson Mandela:
"It is one of the most violent countries on Earth. About 50 people on average are murdered in South-Africa per day, of which at least 20 of them are whites (95+ % black on white murder rate)."
In fact, the murder rate in South Africa in 2011 was roughly 31 per 100,000 population, putting it in the world's top ten (at the #10 spot). It is a violent country. But if you do the math, 16,259 murders thus far this decade, divided by the number of days since Jan 1, 2010, it's more like 12 per day...and I know I'm being pedantic.
But when people say things implying that their statement is an indisputable fact, they need to be held to at least some standard of accuracy. Suggesting a wedding cake be poisoned is beyond ridiculous. I'm not worried someone will follow that suggestion. I'm just fascinated by how the anonymity of writing from behind a computer monitor raised the audacity of people to incredible heights.
The words that spew forth from such people would never be said were they face to face with their audience.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
The first part of the L.A. Times piece on Christopher Dorner and his odyssey of murder was really well-written and very compelling reading. I look forward to the rest of the piece.
Good on the Dodgers for hiring Orel Hershier as part of the broadcasting team.
I find it hard to believe that a new "dollar store" opens in the U.S. every six hours, but that's apparently the case.
Richard is usually thought to mean "brave power". Brian means "high" or "hill" Benjamin means "son of the right hand". Jarvis comes from the French name Gervais. So what in the world does BenJarvus mean?
One way to put yourself in the record books is booting a 64 yard field goal. How long had the record of 63 yards stood in the NFL? Over 43 years.
When the issue of the bankruptcies of the cities is over and handled, the way to prevent it from happening again is to pass legislation mandating that all public sector employee pension funds be fully funded, and insured.
Cable networks are going overboard showing the same movies over and over again. Today SyFy is showing Batman Begins for the 4th time in the past few days, while E! Entertainment is showing There's Something About Mary for the umpteenth time in the last few weeks. AMC can't get enough of Men in Black while FX has a love affair with 2012 and Taken. Can we at least get a little variety, please?
The moron music mogul who is griping that he once owned a Porsche Carrera GT like the one Paul Walker died in, but complained it fishtailed when he got it up around 140 MPH needs to recognize that's too fast for him to be driving period. It ain't the car, dude, that's a driver problem.
I don't feel sorry for Kevin Sorbo because neither of the two upcoming Hercules films are going to allow him to make an appearance (he played Hercules on TV after all). He's working.
When I read about a newlywed couple, both under 23, who wanted to murder someone as a couple and used Craigslist to lure a man to his death, it makes me a little less bothered by the fact I didn't have kids. I wouldn't want them growing up in a world where that kind of thing seems to be on the rise.
There is something seriously wrong with our system of justice, when an innocent man spends 25 years of his life behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, and the prosecutor who withheld critical exculpatory evidence got off with 10 days in jail, a $500 fine and the loss of his law license. Considering the actual murderer killed again because of the prosecutor's misconduct, he should face trial for reckless indifference or criminally negligent homicide and do some hard time.
* * *
December 7th in History:
Of course, December 7th, 2013 is the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Here's the rest of the day's notable events:
43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated.
574 – Emperor Justin II retires due to recurring seizures of insanity. He abdicates the throne in favor of his general Tiberius, proclaiming him Caesar.
1724 – Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest is followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.
1732 – The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London, England.
1776 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranges to enter the American military as a major general.
1787 – Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.
1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
1930 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.
1936 – Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton becomes the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings.
1946 – A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, kills 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.
1949 – Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan.
1962 – Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.
1963 – Instant replay makes its debut during an American Army–Navy football game.
1965 – Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
1971 – Pakistan President Yahya Khan announces the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister.
1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
1975 – Indonesia invades East Timor.
1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
1983 – An Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 collides with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners are taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people.
1987 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.
1988 – Spitak Earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale kills more than 25,000, injures 30,000 and leaves 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000.
1988 – Yasser Arafat recognizes the right of Israel to exist.
1993 – The Long Island Rail Road massacre: Passenger Colin Ferguson murders six people and injures 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York.
1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
1999 – A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sues the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement.
2003 – The Conservative Party of Canada is officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
2005 – Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport.
Famous Folk Born On December 7th:
Richard Warren Sears (how come Sears wasn't R. W. Sears and A. C. Roebuck?)
Willa Cather (did David Mamet and Lindsay Crouse name their daughter Willa after Ms Cather?)
Mason Phelps
Hamilton Fish III (Silver Star and French Croix de Guerre)
Clarence Nash (original voice of Donald Duck and Tom of Tom and Jerry)
Louis Prima
Leigh Brackett
Eli Wallach (amazing man)
Ted Knight (http://www.wavsource.com/snds_2013-12-08_5307627380362148/movies/caddyshack/easy_to_grin.wav)
Noam Chomsky
Ellen Burstyn
Thad Cochran
Harry Chapin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qYU9b5OF8M)
Peter Tomarken (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyjLNt3EMTE)
Susan Isaacs
Bernard C. Parks
Johnny Bench
Gary Morris
Susan Collins
Mary Fallin
Priscilla Barnes
Larry Bird
Jeffrey Wright
Aaron Carter
Yasiel Puig
Movie quotes today come not from 2001's "Pearl Harbor" but from 1965's "In Harm's Way", with an all-star cast that included John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Paula Prentiss, Burgess Meredith, Patrick O'Neal, Carroll O'Connor, Slim Pickens, George Kennedy, Larry Hagman, Christopher George and Hugh O'Brian:
Rear Admiral Rock Torrey: All battles are fought by scared men who'd rather be someplace else.
Commander Egan Powell: Does that include admirals?
Rear Admiral Rock Torrey: Yes.
#2
[the Cassiday is underway, trying to escape the attack on Pearl Harbor]
Lt. Cline: Captain Harding, sir, and the exec!
Commander Rafe Harding USN, Cassiday's CO: [Standing on the bow of a pursuing motor whaleboat, frantically waving his hat up and down] Cassiday! Stop! Let us aboard!
Lt. Tom Agar: How the hell can we stop? It'll take twenty minutes at this speed!
LTJG 'Mac' McConnel: [Making a decision not to stop] Does anyone on this bridge see anything back there?
Bosun's Mate Chief Culpepper, USS Cassiday: Well, if they do, Mr. McConnell, I'll guarantee you they won't see nothin' again.
Lt. Tom Agar: [Laughing] Let 'er rip, Mac!
"$7.25 is more than an E-1 makes, a solder that has just signed up is making less than $3 an hour. Maybe you should go do some fact checking. The Military doesn't care."
This is from the comments section of an article about low pay at McDonald's and how they just removed a guide to tipping from their human resources website E-1 is the lowest enlisted pay grade in the U.S. military.
An E-1 earns $18,194 on an annual basis. Based on a 40 hour workweek strictly for comparison purposes, that actually comes out to $8.74 per hour. It also doesn't include the fact that unlike that minimum wage worker at McDonald's isn't getting free housing, three free meals a day, free medical care anywhere in the world and retirement benefits. Drawing a comparison between someone working in fast food and a new military recruit is just ridiculous. Even at 50 or 60 hours per week, the military is way ahead of the fast food industry. Of course, there are those little drawbacks like being deployed to Afghanistan, combat and so on.
Then there was the story about how a Colorado baker was found to have illegally discriminated against a same-sex couple by refusing to bake a wedding cake for them. One comment read:
"He should have baked them the cake and put poison on it to solve the problem."
And finally, a comment from a story about the death of Nelson Mandela:
"It is one of the most violent countries on Earth. About 50 people on average are murdered in South-Africa per day, of which at least 20 of them are whites (95+ % black on white murder rate)."
In fact, the murder rate in South Africa in 2011 was roughly 31 per 100,000 population, putting it in the world's top ten (at the #10 spot). It is a violent country. But if you do the math, 16,259 murders thus far this decade, divided by the number of days since Jan 1, 2010, it's more like 12 per day...and I know I'm being pedantic.
But when people say things implying that their statement is an indisputable fact, they need to be held to at least some standard of accuracy. Suggesting a wedding cake be poisoned is beyond ridiculous. I'm not worried someone will follow that suggestion. I'm just fascinated by how the anonymity of writing from behind a computer monitor raised the audacity of people to incredible heights.
The words that spew forth from such people would never be said were they face to face with their audience.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
The first part of the L.A. Times piece on Christopher Dorner and his odyssey of murder was really well-written and very compelling reading. I look forward to the rest of the piece.
Good on the Dodgers for hiring Orel Hershier as part of the broadcasting team.
I find it hard to believe that a new "dollar store" opens in the U.S. every six hours, but that's apparently the case.
Richard is usually thought to mean "brave power". Brian means "high" or "hill" Benjamin means "son of the right hand". Jarvis comes from the French name Gervais. So what in the world does BenJarvus mean?
One way to put yourself in the record books is booting a 64 yard field goal. How long had the record of 63 yards stood in the NFL? Over 43 years.
When the issue of the bankruptcies of the cities is over and handled, the way to prevent it from happening again is to pass legislation mandating that all public sector employee pension funds be fully funded, and insured.
Cable networks are going overboard showing the same movies over and over again. Today SyFy is showing Batman Begins for the 4th time in the past few days, while E! Entertainment is showing There's Something About Mary for the umpteenth time in the last few weeks. AMC can't get enough of Men in Black while FX has a love affair with 2012 and Taken. Can we at least get a little variety, please?
The moron music mogul who is griping that he once owned a Porsche Carrera GT like the one Paul Walker died in, but complained it fishtailed when he got it up around 140 MPH needs to recognize that's too fast for him to be driving period. It ain't the car, dude, that's a driver problem.
I don't feel sorry for Kevin Sorbo because neither of the two upcoming Hercules films are going to allow him to make an appearance (he played Hercules on TV after all). He's working.
When I read about a newlywed couple, both under 23, who wanted to murder someone as a couple and used Craigslist to lure a man to his death, it makes me a little less bothered by the fact I didn't have kids. I wouldn't want them growing up in a world where that kind of thing seems to be on the rise.
There is something seriously wrong with our system of justice, when an innocent man spends 25 years of his life behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, and the prosecutor who withheld critical exculpatory evidence got off with 10 days in jail, a $500 fine and the loss of his law license. Considering the actual murderer killed again because of the prosecutor's misconduct, he should face trial for reckless indifference or criminally negligent homicide and do some hard time.
* * *
December 7th in History:
Of course, December 7th, 2013 is the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Here's the rest of the day's notable events:
43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated.
574 – Emperor Justin II retires due to recurring seizures of insanity. He abdicates the throne in favor of his general Tiberius, proclaiming him Caesar.
1724 – Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest is followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.
1732 – The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London, England.
1776 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranges to enter the American military as a major general.
1787 – Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.
1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
1930 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.
1936 – Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton becomes the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings.
1946 – A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, kills 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.
1949 – Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan.
1962 – Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.
1963 – Instant replay makes its debut during an American Army–Navy football game.
1965 – Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
1971 – Pakistan President Yahya Khan announces the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister.
1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
1975 – Indonesia invades East Timor.
1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
1983 – An Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 collides with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners are taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people.
1987 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.
1988 – Spitak Earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale kills more than 25,000, injures 30,000 and leaves 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000.
1988 – Yasser Arafat recognizes the right of Israel to exist.
1993 – The Long Island Rail Road massacre: Passenger Colin Ferguson murders six people and injures 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York.
1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
1999 – A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sues the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement.
2003 – The Conservative Party of Canada is officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
2005 – Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport.
Famous Folk Born On December 7th:
Richard Warren Sears (how come Sears wasn't R. W. Sears and A. C. Roebuck?)
Willa Cather (did David Mamet and Lindsay Crouse name their daughter Willa after Ms Cather?)
Mason Phelps
Hamilton Fish III (Silver Star and French Croix de Guerre)
Clarence Nash (original voice of Donald Duck and Tom of Tom and Jerry)
Louis Prima
Leigh Brackett
Eli Wallach (amazing man)
Ted Knight (http://www.wavsource.com/snds_2013-12-08_5307627380362148/movies/caddyshack/easy_to_grin.wav)
Noam Chomsky
Ellen Burstyn
Thad Cochran
Harry Chapin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qYU9b5OF8M)
Peter Tomarken (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyjLNt3EMTE)
Susan Isaacs
Bernard C. Parks
Johnny Bench
Gary Morris
Susan Collins
Mary Fallin
Priscilla Barnes
Larry Bird
Jeffrey Wright
Aaron Carter
Yasiel Puig
Movie quotes today come not from 2001's "Pearl Harbor" but from 1965's "In Harm's Way", with an all-star cast that included John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Paula Prentiss, Burgess Meredith, Patrick O'Neal, Carroll O'Connor, Slim Pickens, George Kennedy, Larry Hagman, Christopher George and Hugh O'Brian:
Rear Admiral Rock Torrey: All battles are fought by scared men who'd rather be someplace else.
Commander Egan Powell: Does that include admirals?
Rear Admiral Rock Torrey: Yes.
#2
[the Cassiday is underway, trying to escape the attack on Pearl Harbor]
Lt. Cline: Captain Harding, sir, and the exec!
Commander Rafe Harding USN, Cassiday's CO: [Standing on the bow of a pursuing motor whaleboat, frantically waving his hat up and down] Cassiday! Stop! Let us aboard!
Lt. Tom Agar: How the hell can we stop? It'll take twenty minutes at this speed!
LTJG 'Mac' McConnel: [Making a decision not to stop] Does anyone on this bridge see anything back there?
Bosun's Mate Chief Culpepper, USS Cassiday: Well, if they do, Mr. McConnell, I'll guarantee you they won't see nothin' again.
Lt. Tom Agar: [Laughing] Let 'er rip, Mac!
#3
Captain Rockwell Torrey: What is Vicki Marlowe's secret? Commander Egan Powell: Well, it's not what it says in here. Vicki Marlowe's secret is that she's making a half a million bucks a year and she still collects alimony from me, in my present reduced circumstances. Well, anyway... I have the satisfaction of knowing that all of her pictures have been stinkers since I stopped writing them. Rockwell, my boy, never, I repeat never marry a movie actress.
Captain Rockwell Torrey: You married three of them.
Commander Egan Powell: I know. It was like eating peanuts. Once I started, I couldn't stop.
#4
Captain Rockwell Torrey: Get a message off to Pearl. "Have taken two torpedoes." Fill in our position. "Extent of damage unknown. Will advise."
Commander Burke: And break radio silence, sir?
Captain Rockwell Torrey: Burke, don't you think the Japanese know by now where we are?
Captain Rockwell Torrey: You married three of them.
Commander Egan Powell: I know. It was like eating peanuts. Once I started, I couldn't stop.
#4
Captain Rockwell Torrey: Get a message off to Pearl. "Have taken two torpedoes." Fill in our position. "Extent of damage unknown. Will advise."
Commander Burke: And break radio silence, sir?
Captain Rockwell Torrey: Burke, don't you think the Japanese know by now where we are?
posted by me at 8:06 PM
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