“Lie of the year” is 100% true

From Politifact:

Both Republicans and Democrats would no doubt agree that Ryan’s plan for Medicare is a dramatic change of course. But we don’t agree with the ad’s contention that the proposal ends Medicare. Additionally, images in the ad imply that current seniors will have to go back to work to pay for changes to the program. That’s not true either. It’s actually those 54 and younger who will need extra money. With its scenes of seniors going back to work, it seems intended to frighten those who are currently enrolled in Medicare. Finally, the Republicans’ vote was symbolic and didn’t actually change the program. When you add up all those distortions, we find the ad highly misleading.

John Cole responds:

Here’s what is happening:

America turns off the lights, goes to bed, leaving their Mercedes in the driveway. While we sleep, the Republicans sneak into the car, drive it off, and sell it, but they keep the Mercedes hood ornament. They then split the proceeds between their rich buddies, and go out and find a Ford Pinto up on cinderblocks in a field, with the grass growing through the floorboard. They place that in the driveway, cleverly glue the Mercedes ornament onto the front of the Pinto, and sneak off into the night. The next morning, America and Democrats are screaming- “What the hell happened to my car.” Republicans say- “What are you talking about, there is your Mercedes right there, we just modernized it and fixed it up a bit for long-term financial stability,” and point at the Pinto.

Then, the rocket scientists at Politifact drive by to take a non-partisan look at things, see the Mercedes symbol on the front of the car, and tell us all we’re lying about the Republicans stealing our Mercedes.

Evolution

I get it. We’re still evolving. Yuk yuk yuk.

But are we? Evolution happens when the environment stresses an organism, forcing a change in its physiology. What stresses are there on us people? We don’t adapt to fit our environment, we adapt our environment to fit us. We use heaters, we wear clothing, we use lights where it’s dark, we bring water with us where there is none.

..

Update.

Dammit. As usual, I am late to the party.

Progress

Disclosure: The original pepper spray photo is here. I though the image was too dark in comparison to the 1967 photo above it, so I adjusted some of the mid-range and high-range tones using Levels and Brightness & Contrast in Photoshop. It had the effect of making the spray stand out a bit more. If you want an un-‘shopped image, go to the original.

Surprisingly aggressive marketing from Google

I love all things Google. I really do. If only more companies would follow a “don’t be evil” philosophy. So, it was surprising when I encountered a surprisingly aggressive sign-up strategy for Google Offers, Google’s daily-deal email service (the Google version of Groupon).

I was on the NYT site, and saw this in-body ad:

I was curious, so I clicked on it, which led me to here:

I clicked NO (which I circled red so you can see it easier). I already am signed up to too many of those daily deals. I’m not using them and I’ve been going through the process of un-subbing. So, imagine my surprise five minutes later when I check my inbox.

I didn’t sign up for this. I very clearly clicked on the NO button.

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk this off to a bug, but if it’s not a bug, then shame on somebody. Tisk Tisk.