We Named the Dog “Indiana”
Snakes. Why’d it Have to Be Snakes?
And So it Goes
Joe Bell, 48, was walking cross-country from Oregon to New York to memorialize his gay son, who killed himself after being bullied.
Bell’s journey began April 20 and ended this week on a two-lane road in eastern Colorado, where he was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer whose driver had apparently fallen asleep.
Cleaning on the Day Shift
A couple of months ago, the cleaning staff at our office started working during the day, instead of after hours.
Whatever improvements were supposed to accrue from that have evidently not come to pass because starting next month, they’re going back to the night shift.
What I will miss most about having them around during the day is their impeccable sense of timing in closing the men’s room twice a day for cleaning at the precise moments that I urgently need to use it.
The School of Dysfunctional Parenting
Specializing in ineffective and destructive ways of relating, a vicious spiral in which the faults of the parents are passed on to the children . . .
ObamaCare Winners and Losers
Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.
Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.
Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four. . . .
Covered California spokesman Dana Howard maintained that in public presentations the exchange has always made clear that there will be winners and losers under Obamacare. . . .
“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”
Well, there are fewer limits on what you can promise than on what you can deliver. — Milton Friedman
Newton’s Cradle
Do You Have a ‘Right’ to Health Care?
The general point is that a positive right to health care – no matter how splendid you hold that right to be and no matter how lovely is the provision of that right – requires that its recipients receive at others’ expense the services to which these recipients have a ‘right.’ Someone (or a multitude of someones) must supply those services whose recipients self-righteously insist be supplied as a matter of ‘right.’ This fact is undeniable and inescapable.
Note that – although undeniable and inescapable – this fact does not by itself establish a case against treating health care as a right. But recognizing this reality does reveal certain potentially ugly aspects of all this ‘rights’ talk about health care – namely, to exercise your ‘right’ to health care requires that someone else be forced to serve you. Someone else must not merely refrain from interfering in your life and business. Instead, that someone else must be obliged to exert positive effort to help you – and not because you make it worthwhile for that person to exert that effort on your behalf, but because the government will ultimately execute him or her if he or she refuses to supply you with that to which you have a positive ‘right.’
I’m aware that such positive “rights” strike many people as being evidence of a highly progressive and especially civilized and caring society. They strike me as being quite the opposite: evidence not only of economic ignorance, but of collectivized and mutually destructive predation camouflaged with a pretty mask and falsely scented with absurd oratory.
Gay Divorcee Wants $94,000 a Month
Jane Lynch’s ex wants $94,000 in monthly spousal support — MSN TV News
You’ve gotta be careful what you wish for.
We want to be able to marry our same-sex partners. We want to enjoy the blessings and sacraments of love just like straight people.
O-kay . . . do you also want to pay $94,000 a month to your same-sex partner when things don’t work out?
Back in the pre-gay-marriage era, Jane Lynch could have ended the relationship with a handshake and perhaps a modest gratuity if she felt like it.
People don’t know when they’re well-off. Group A feels put upon in comparison to Group B, wants to be more like Group B, and doesn’t think about having to give up the advantages of NOT being like Group B.
As Bobby Fischer used to say, “To get squares, you’ve got to give squares.” Everything’s a tradeoff.
Interview Tips: You’re a 10 in Everything
One of my least favorite interview questions goes something like this:
On a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on [insert personal attribute here].
This is a bad question because while some quantities – speed, weight, temperature, earthquake magnitude – do have an agreed-upon scale of measurement, personal attributes like, say, leadership, do not.
Person A might give himself a 10 in leadership, while a third party might say, “Oh, I know that guy. He’s a 3.”
You might be tempted to answer like this: “I consider myself a good leader, better than most, but I’m humbled by the challenges of leadership, and I’m always learning something new, so I’ll give myself an 8.”
Absent any information about how that number is going to be used, I’d say that’s a pretty good answer. It’s honest and reflective.
BUT — the question itself is so misguided that I don’t expect someone asking it to use the answer in an intelligent way. I expect the asker of “rate yourself” questions to take the answers at face value, write them down and then do one of two things, maybe both:
- Compare the answers to some meaningless threshold. Ooh, we really need someone who’s at least a 9 in leadership.
- Compare the answers with the answers of other candidates. Candidate A is an 8, Candidate B is an 9 and Candidate C is a 10. Advantage, Candidate C.
Just play it safe and give yourself a 10 on everything.
The only reason I can come up with to give yourself less than a 10 on any attribute is the remote possibility that the interviewer could discount a candidate giving all 10s as being lacking in self-awareness, but no one asking me “rate yourself” questions has ever struck me as being that subtle.
Husband Descending a Staircase
The White Lexus Strikes Again
“I just tried to get into my car in the parking lot and I couldn’t open it. Do you know why?”
“Let me guess. Do you drive a white Lexus SUV?”
“Yes.”
“Because you were trying to get into someone else’s car.”
“How did you know that.” (Answer here.)
See You in HEL
HELSINKI (AP) — Would you board flight 666 to HEL on Friday the 13th?
For superstitious travelers, that might be tempting fate. But Finnair passengers on AY666 to Helsinki — which has the 3 letter designation HEL — don’t seem too bothered. Friday’s flight is almost full.
At the Drive-Thru
“Hi, would you like to try our new [insert product name here]?”
“Do you think I’ll like it?”
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“Then why are you recommending it? Don’t you want me to be happy?”
A (Nearly) Perfect Murder
A Montana woman was charged on Monday with killing her husband of eight days by pushing him off a cliff at Glacier National Park during an argument and after expressing doubts about the marriage, court records show.
Jordan Graham, 22, was charged with second-degree murder in U.S. District Court in Missoula stemming from the July 7 death of her husband, Cody Johnson, 25, of Kalispell. . . .
Graham on July 11 reported to emergency dispatchers at Glacier National Park that she had found her husband’s body below a steep hiking path. It was not immediately clear how far he had fallen.
Graham later admitted to authorities that she had lied about Johnson’s death and that she had shoved him off a cliff during an argument while hiking.
Jordan Graham taking a page from my playbook, in which I postulated years ago that the best way to murder someone and get away with it would be to push them off a cliff, because it would be very hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the fall wasn’t accidental.
Maybe I should have added, although it seems obvious, “unless you confess to the crime.”
On the flip side: Don’t get into an argument with your spouse when you’re standing at the edge of a cliff.
If You Quote Poetry at My Death, I Will Haunt You
If you know me, and you outlive me, and you want to say something on the occasion of my demise, please do not quote a snippet of poetry or other literary material, e.g., “He did not go gently into that good night.” Or: “I think Wordsworth said it best . . .”
Bullshit . . . Wordsworth did not say it best. Wordsworth didn’t know me. You knew me. Go ahead and say something from the heart if you have something. Keep it real.
He was not a good person.
He had the most appalling social skills, which is why he had no close friends.
After his son moved out, he just unraveled like an old sock.
I remember at Jackie O’s funeral, her kids — was it just one kid, or both? I think both — read a poem. A poem! That’s when you really know that your life was not well-lived, when your own children have nothing to say about you.
Don’t you hope to god that your children at least will have some personal remembrance to share after you’re gone?
I remember when we used to go to the park and he pitched baseballs to me.
He spent a year of his life helping me with algebra homework.
He always believed in me.
To anyone tempted to eulogize me with a literary reference, I swear I will rise from the grave — in spirit if not in body, although body will be my preference — and cast a shadow upon your soul.
Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not just surrounded by assholes. — William Gibson
The Aliens Have Landed in Irvine
It’s about one in the afternoon at the Irvine In-N-Out Burger. A guy who looks to be in his early 20s comes in wearing a backward baseball cap, dark sunglasses (which he never removes) and — despite a temperature in the high 80s — a pullover sweater.
To simplify the storytelling, let’s call this guy Alf.
Alf waits in line, places his order, then immediately walks over and stands in front of the pickup counter. The place is packed, and I can tell from looking at the number on my own ticket that there are about 10 more orders ahead of me, and since I ordered before him, there are about 15 more orders ahead of Alf, so there’s no reason for him to be standing at — in fact, leaning on — the pickup counter.
After a few moments, the kid at the pickup counter asks Alf what his number is.
“Eleven,” Alf replies.
“OK, we’re calling numbers in the 90s, so it’s going to be a few more minutes.”
Alf then sits down on a bench to the left of the pickup counter, where he waits patiently until they call order number 6, which happens to be my number, at which time Alf asks the kid at the counter if his order is ready yet. It’s the same kid he talked to before, and the kid knows Alf’s number is 11, so he says, “No, not yet.”
When the alien invasion come to your town, you will know them by the following signs:
- Inappropriate attire, e.g., sweaters in a heat wave, dark glasses indoors, caps on backwards . . . no, scratch that last one. Some Earthlings do that too.
- Ignorance of the most basic social scenarios, like how to order and pick up fast food.
- Inability to count.
Taco Warmer
“Jack in the Box tacos have to be eaten when they’re hot, so when I buy them at the drive-thru, I also buy a bag of french fries, set the fries on top of the tacos and use them as a taco warmer to keep the tacos hot until I get them home and eat them.”
“Do you eat the fries as well?”
“No, I don’t eat the fries. I just use them to keep the tacos warm.”
“The french fries keep the tacos warm?’
“Right.”
“What keeps the french fries warm?”