|
|
An 85-year-old New Jersey woman who spent decades manning a beer stand at Mets games cried foul when her employer, Aramark, booted her from her profitable stand during the last season at Shea Stadium and replaced her with a younger woman.
A judge tossed Mildred Block’s lawsuit yesterday, however, on the grounds that her replacement – 75-year-old Gloria Smith – indicated the concession company did not discriminate against Block based on her age.
Posted via Posterous
Movie Theater Popcorn
Image Source
Movie theater popcorn is as much an American icon as baseball and apple pie. Like a moth to its flame, movie-goers instinctively load up on hot, buttery popcorn before sitting down to enjoy the show. It’s hard to imagine things being any other way. That being said, movie theater popcorn is without question one of the biggest, most egregious ripoffs around. ABC News reported in July 2008 that a small bucket of movie theater popcorn will run you “around $5.50 — more per ounce than filet mignon.”
As far as I’m concerned, despite its salty buttery deliciousness, movie theather popcorn is indeed the number one waste of money on God’s green earth. The rest of the wastes, btw, are equally ridiculous. Go read.
(via Kris Smith @ croncast)
Posted via Posterous
I’ve seen two out of the four videos and they have nothing to do with the somewhat seductive titles, but if YouTube really wants to keep things safe and family friendly, is this really what they should be featuring?
Again, I’ve seen the Justine and Ray William Johnson vids, and neither are as salacious as the titles, but it just seems kinda weird that YouTube would pull those vids and feature them, titles included, on the front page, particularly when you look at how quick they are to pull content, let flaggers win, and so on.
Oh well.
McCaffrey, whom Gonzalez had accused of raping her on a deserted Inwood street, served nearly four years of a 20-year sentence. The Bronx man, now 33, was exonerated in December after Gonzalez, a mother of two, admitted concocting the tale to gain sympathy from friends.
Although Gonzalez desperately wanted McCaffrey freed, “I don’t think she felt that it was going to go beyond that confession. She just happened to pick a priest who said, ‘Oh, no, no, no . . .’ ”
The priest, the Rev. Zeljko Guberovic of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Union City, made it clear to her that her obligation didn’t end with admitting the lie.
He told her she had to do everything in her power to get McCaffrey out, said sources familiar with the case.
That eventually put her in the cross hairs of Manhattan prosecutors, who charged her with perjury, but Gonzalez never wavered, they said.
“She’s the hero, not me,” Guberovic told The Post.
Some hero.
Posted via Posterous
The Traverse stands out as an impressive overall package with a quiet, spacious cabin that can comfortably seat up to eight adults and leave room for cargo. It provides a pleasant ride, communicative steering, and responsive handling. Our Traverse returned 16 mpg overall, which is respectable for its size. Rear visibility isn’t great, but clever convex side mirrors and an optional rear-view camera help. The GMC Acadia is a twin of the Traverse, but its reliability is below average. Price: $39,920.
Love mine more than I’ve loved any vehicle I’ve ever owned. Highly recommended.
Posted via Posterous
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that Republicans have left their mark on the healthcare bill and should accept that the bill will go forward.
“They’ve had plenty of opportunity to make their voices heard,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning. “Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint.”
God San Francisco; how stupid are you people that you keep electing this idiot?
Posted via Posterous
Al Gore blathers on and on in today’s New York Times. About what? Well Global Warming, of course. This is the same Al Gore who thinks you need to cut greenhouse gas emissions as he jets around the country for speaking arrangements telling you how much you need to sacrifice to save the planet. Bear that in mind as you read this sanctimonious piece of crap he hurled at the wall of the Times today.
I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.
It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.
But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.
Is it supposed to reassure me that scientists, in the face of a major scandal involving data collection, are so stubborn and unwilling to listen that they still believe what the lying data told them? The data wasn’t found to be partly inaccurate.
1. The hockey-stick graph that we’ve all been shown a thousand times simply isn’t based on the data collected. At all. Period.
2. The scientist that ran the facility has said that the data that was in fact collected demonstrated no measurable climate change over the past 15 years. None. While the Goracle would like you to believe that this is merely a slip-up in paper management, the continuing evidence demonstrates that any data disproving global warming was happening and an immediate threat was discarded, destroyed, lost, or “modified” so as to suit the purposes of those whose employ depended on global warming being real.
3. Gore mentions that the e-mails were stolen; as if that makes them not true. The contents of those e-mails are not disputed, and since their release, two people have resigned over them. They’re true, regardless of the method by which they were obtained.
4. The consensus that was built by scientists was built mainly based on the data that we’ve discussed in the prior 2 points.
It is also worth noting that the panel’s scientists — acting in good faith on the best information then available to them — probably underestimated the range of sea-level rise in this century, the speed with which the Arctic ice cap is disappearing and the speed with which some of the large glacial flows in Antarctica and Greenland are melting and racing to the sea.
Note the word “probably.”
Everything else in this piece is spoken with authority, but for some reason, he felt the need to say “probably” here even though he builds on it. Guess he couldn’t set up his point too stridently in case the data was proven wrong again.
Because these and other effects of global warming are distributed globally, they are difficult to identify and interpret in any particular location. For example, January was seen as unusually cold in much of the United States. Yet from a global perspective, it was the second-hottest January since surface temperatures were first measured 130 years ago.
Difficult to identify and interpret in any particular location.
Unless that location is a place that has ice, in which case it’s a breeze. If that ice recedes, we’re doomed. As for the second hottest January… That sounds really bad, right? Except for the fact that half the world is going through the last month of summer in January. I’ve noticed we can’t find that number (I wonder how many 10ths of a degree it was warmer?) anywhere today. Just references to the statement.
Similarly, even though climate deniers have speciously argued for several years that there has been no warming in the last decade, scientists confirmed last month that the last 10 years were the hottest decade since modern records have been kept.
Actually I don’t know anyone who would call themselves a climate denier. For the most part, everyone agrees that there is, indeed, climate.
That notwithstanding, most people arguing the validity of anthropogenic global warming (often abbreviated AGW) have said for years that the climate is cyclical and not linear. The odd thing, however, is that the only person who came forward and said that there has been no appreciable global warming in the past 15 years was Phil Jones, one of the folks at the center of the IPCC scandal.
The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.
When it snows excessively, it’s because of global warming. If, however, it’s the warmest January in decades, it’s also because of global warming. If you have a mild summer, it’s because of global warming, but if you have a hell of a hot brutal summer, that’s because of global warming.
It seems that no matter what the weather conditions (or climate, when taken as an aggregate) are, Al Gore and his ilk have managed to turn it into evidence to prove their point. The problem is that the evidence doesn’t really prove his point any more. Is something happening in our atmosphere? Sure, but the reality is that we don’t know what it is, let alone if human beings are causing it, so maybe the hysteria should be toned down a bit and instead of falsifying data to demonstrate a desired conclusion, we actually try to figure it out.
And it wouldn’t hurt to stop listening to blowhards like Al Gore in the meantime.
Source
One of pop music’s biggest mysteries now has a clue. For almost 40 years, the identity of the mystery man of Carly Simon’s 1972 hit “You’re So Vain” has remained a secret. Until now.
In a newly-recorded version, Simon whispers roughly two and a half minutes into the tune. Play it backwards and you’ll hear the first name of the man: “David.”
Simon, 64, confirms the clue in an interview with Uncut magazine. “I’m just going to tell you this,” she said. “The answer is on the new version of ‘You’re So Vain.’ There’s a little whisper — and it’s the answer to the puzzle.”
With lyrics like “You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht…” the public has long guessed who it could be. Many speculated it was Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson or even Cat Stevens.
The British tab The Sun, however, claims it’s none other than music and movie mogul David Geffen.
David Geffen…
Hadn’t heard that one before…
(Thanks to Lou Young at CBS for the heads up on this one)
Posted via Posterous
John Mayer played guitar with an 11-year-old fan on Sunday, February 21.
The 32-year-old singer, who is famous for his celebrity ex-girlfriends including Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson, showed a generous side at the concert in Philadelphia when he spotted the youngster in the crowd clutching a sign reading, “Can I please play ‘Belief’ with you?”
John pulled 11-year-old Austin out of the audience and performed the song with him to a rapturous round of applause.
John told the crowd at the end, “That’s my man!”, before giving Austin one of his guitars.
Class act. Well done, John.
Posted via Posterous
President Barack Obama scolded Virgina Republican Rep. Eric Cantor for the stack of paper he brought with him to the health summit, calling it the type of political stunt that gets in the way of lawmakers having a serious conversation.
Cantor said he brought a copy of the 2,400-page Senate bill and the 11-page proposal Obama posted online earlier in the week.
Oops.
Posted via Posterous
We tuned in to watch the president’s health care summit at Blair House today — all six-plus hours of it. And we weren’t surprised to hear some factual missteps in the discussion:
- Sen. Lamar Alexander said premiums will go up for “millions” under the Senate bill and president’s plan, while President Barack Obama said families buying the same coverage they have now would pay much less. Both were misleading. The Congressional Budget Office said premiums for those in the group market wouldn’t change significantly, while the average premium for those who buy their own coverage would go up.
- Alexander also said “50 percent of doctors won’t see new [Medicaid] patients.” But a 2008 survey says only 28 percent refuse to take any new Medicaid patients.
- Sen. Harry Reid cited a poll that said 58 percent would be “angry or disappointed” if health care overhaul doesn’t pass. True, but respondents in the poll were also split 43-43 on whether they supported the legislation that is currently being proposed.
- Obama repeated an inflated claim we’ve covered before. He said insured families pay about $1,000 a year in their premiums to cover costs for the uninsured. That’s a disputed figure from an advocacy group. Other researchers put the figure at about $200.
- Sen. Tom Coburn said “the government is responsible for 60 percent” of U.S. health spending. But that dubious figure includes lost tax revenue due to charitable contributions to hospitals and other questionable items. The real figure is about 47 percent.
- Reid said “since 1981 reconciliation has been used 21 times. Most of it has been used by Republicans.” That’s true, but scholars say using it to pass health care legislation would be the most ambitious use to date of this filibuster-avoiding maneuver.
- Rep. Charles Boustany said the main GOP-backed bill would reduce premium costs by “up to about 10 percent.” According to CBO, that’s true for the small group market, which accounts for only 15 percent of premiums. But premiums in the large group market would stay the same or go down by as much as 3 percent.
There you have it. This is why Factcheck.org is indispensable. You don’t need to partake in the spin; just read Factcheck afterward.
If you want deeper analysis of each bullet point, follow the link and read.
Posted via Posterous
If you’re looking for Discount codes and happen to be lucky enough to live in the UK, you won’t do any better than Promotionalcodes.org.uk. They have tons of promotional codes that are updated daily for various e-tailers including Dell, Amazon, Apple, and Tesco.
Oh, and did I mention they’re free?
What more do you need? Go save some money!
“Nobody should be made to feel like a freak or a weirdo,” Weir said, “of course unless you want that.”
During the telecast of Weir’s long program from Pacific Coliseum last week, commentator Alain Goldberg from the French-language RDS network suggested Weir sets a “bad example” for other male skaters because “they’ll think all the boys who skate will end up like him.” Goldberg and fellow commentator Claude Mailhot also said “we should make him pass a gender test.”
Australia’s Channel Nine received complaints from viewers about similar comments.
Both stations have issued apologies. The Quebec council of gays and lesbians has said they aren’t sufficient and plans to file a formal grievance with Canadian broadcast authorities.
Weir said he is not interested in apologies or mea culpas.
“I’m totally for freedom on speech and voicing your opinion, so I can’t, like, have them fired,” said Weir, 25, who finished fifth at the 2006 Olympics and sixth here. “I’ve heard worse in bathrooms about me. It’s not a big issue for me that they said it. I just didn’t want other kids to have that same issue.
“I want them to think before they speak. I want them to think about not only the person they’re talking about but also the other people like that person. I want them to think about the other generations of people that they’re affecting by talking like that. … These two men were not criticizing my skating. It was them criticizing me as a person.”
Wow…
I guess it makes sense, though. Canada is still bitter that their “own the podium” initiative is falling flat on its face faster than Sidney Crosby fell into the net in Sunday’s game, and Australia hasn’t had much to cheer about except for Torah Bright and Lassila winning the only two golds the country has brought home in the entire competition thus far (that’s 2 out of their big total of 3 medals).
Weir’s an easy target. He’s out there, flamboyant, and unapologetic, so I’m not at all impressed with anyone who can find things to insult about him. In the end, he lets his skating do the talking.
Speaking of skating, how many medals did Canada earn on the ice?
1.
In ice-dancing.
And Australia, for all their shit-talking?
0.
Yeah, exactly.
Say what you want about Weir, but he handled his critics with a lot more class than his critics exhibited.
Posted via Posterous
Tilt shift always looks so awesome. Simple effect, amazing results.
Thanks to Deb for pointing this one out.
Let’s face it, if the New York Times or the Washington Post broke the Edwards story no one would be asking if the paper should be in the running for the Pulitzer. It’s only a question because it’s the Enquirer.
For the record, I’m not saying the Enquirer deserves to win. But I am glad it’s in contention. The Enquirer humiliated all those newspapers that consider themselves Pulitzer-worthy – the ones that treated the true-blue liberal Edwards as a serious candidate and a serious political force in the campaign while the “trashy” Enquirer knew better.
Brilliant, yet again.
Posted via Posterous
If this isn’t a textbook example of the media parroting the Democrat talking points, I don’t know what is.
The latest meme going around the media at the direction of their CEO (ie: the White House) is that the Republicans have no plan to reform health care and have not made a plan public. Without skipping a beat, this went from a Democrat talking point to a media sensation as every single sycophantic media douchebag parroted the line, “Where’s your plan?”
Well, guys, if you had bothered to look, you would’ve found it.
Because it’s been linked for an entire week.
Where?
How about the White House’s website?
Now surely you’ve heard of the White House. That’s where your hero, the Great Onetm lives. Surely you know him, also. He’s the one that’s started this campaign of “they don’t have a plan.”
Anyway, here’s how the White House website has appeared for a week.
Don’t believe my screenshot? Fine. Go look for yourself.
I found all that in about 20 seconds of searching. Somehow with all their staffers, MSNBC, CNN, the AP & Reuters missed it.
Of course it’s easy to miss what you don’t want to find.
|
Disclaimer All e-mails sent to Vincent Ferrari or to any address at insignificantthoughts.com are considered for publication regardless of any disclaimers placed in the e-mail. It is automatically assumed that an e-mail sent is for publication purposes. Sending an e-mail with a disclaimer does not bind this site or its owners / moderators to adhere to your request. Thank you for playing!
|
