Reviewing reviewme.com
If you haven’t already noticed, I write here, but I do it for fun. Sure I have the standard affiliate advertising in the sidebar, but I can assure you those ads are not paying the mortgage. No, I do this for strictly for kicks. So when the opportunity arises to make a few beans from what I already do for nothing, how can I say no? Enter reviewme.com, which pays bloggers a flat rate for reviewing products and services based on their rankings from a variety of sources like Alexa and Technorati. It works like this: you sign up at reviewme.com, they take a look at your site stats and what kind of niche you fill, then companies sign you up to review them. It’s that simple. The system legitimizes itself by making sure the payer understands there is no guarantee of a positive product review, just an honest one. If we all remember the maxim ‘consider the source’ we’re left with a system no different than traditional publishing where writers are paid to review products all the time. This post is an example of what Review Me is offering, as an introduction to the service they’re paying $25,000 out of their own pocket for reviews of teir own service. At the end of the month I’ll be cut a check (not the full 25 grand, unfortunately) for these words that will be for me, the equivalent of a years worth of affiliate advertising. It’s still not going to cover the mortgage, but it feels pretty good catching a check for a very little bit of work.
If you have a website and feel like a few extra bucks a month couldn’t hurt, check ‘em out at www.reviewme.com
UCLA Student Tasered by Campus Police in Library
This is a pretty graphic video, so you may want to read the back story before taking a look.
link
What blows my mind is you can hear the tasers being used at a few points while the police are demanding the kid ’stand up’. I’m no expert on the subject, but it would seem the use of taser might get in the way of following commands that require coordination and motor skills. Maybe UCLA should provide the operating manual to its officers.
Fair Balanced and WTF?
In case you missed it last week, here’s a clip of FOX News’ very own Stockholm Steve Harrigan taking one for the team on the ol’ water-board.
That’s how your father made me feel
Pre-Election Day Round-Up 2006
It’s that time of the political cycle again kids, bring on the midterms!
If you haven’t made up your mind in the Governor/Lt Governor race as of yet there’s little I can do to help you. You’re either a true-believer/homophobe/xenophobe/racist; or you’re not. If you’re not, congratulations! You’re about to have one the most competent politicians Worcester has ever cultivated as your Lt Governor. Worcesters (potential?) loss is a huge gain for the state of Massachusetts and although I’ll never get sick of Deval Patrick’s oratory skills, Tim is the reason I’ll be showing up to make my mark on Tuesday. Trust me folks, you’re going to love this guy.
Since the big race is all but over, lets take a look at this years ballot questions.
Question 1 - Sale of Wine by Food Stores - YES
Question one gets a big thumbs up from yours truly. Look, I’m a parent and I fully understand all the concern shown for our young people. But I’m also a pretty well worn human being and I know from years of experience there is not a single government body capable of keeping any controlled substance out of the hands of your children if there is a market for said substance. Sorry to break it to you folks, but if you’re worried about your kids drinking and doing drugs, lock them in the basement; you have a better chance of drawing up a successful exit strategy for Iraq than winning that battle. And the idiots saying this will lead to more drunk driving, or just drunkenness in general, need to hit the economics books. Demand always precedes supply, simply adding more booze to the system wont increase the number of consumers or the amount consumed.
So what is question one about then? Simple, profits. If grocery stores are allowed to sell wine existing package stores will either have to diversify their offerings or risk loosing sales. And there is NOTHING established business hate worse than mixing things up. If every package store was run like Marty’s Liquors in Newton I might have some pity for the little guy, I usually do. But in this case they’ve been phoning it in for too long. If your business model requires the government to protect your ability to make a profit, then you don’t deserve my money. Capitalism isn’t a dirty word folks, it’s what makes the wheels turn.
Question 2 - Nomination of Candidates for Public Office - YES
The opposition to question two has one punch-line, “you’ll confuse voters!!!”. If you’ve paid attention to elections, local, state and federal, at anytime over the last 30 years is it really possible to believe voters could be more confused than they are now? No, what question two stands to do is break down our ridiculous obsession with a two party system by allowing you to vote both for a major party as well as for issues that are important to you. For example, you could be a staunch paleocon voting for Kerry Healy because you’ve never voted for anything but the GOP. While your neighbor could be an independent who also happens to be a raging homophobe. Since your neighbors views are most closely aligned with Healy’s, instead of throwing away his/her vote on some obscure Neo-Nazi party your neighbor could vote for Healy on that one issue, both building her much needed base and making her accountable to the percentage of voters who vote for issues, not parties. This is a win-win for the commonwealth, balance doesn’t come from having the legislature represented by one party and the Governor representing another, thats just grid lock. Balance happens when constituents feel they are represented by their elected officials and you can’t be a party guy and a normal human being at the same time.
Question 3 - Family Child Care Providers - NO
Question three stands to break things that are actually working. This question will allow at home day care providers to form a collective bargaining unit; unionize. Thats fine, but why? The reasons given by the pro 3 group are:
* Higher safety standards to protect children;
* More training for child care providers to raise the quality of care ; and
* Measures to reduce turnover and stabilize the child care profession so children get the consistent, quality care they need.
Uh, I use a home based child care provider now and she goes above and beyond on all three of those points. Quite frankly, I don’t need a bargaining unit deciding what’s best for my child, that’s asinine. Small at home providers are providing great care out of pride, today, and the service is invaluable for that reason. I understand there is a need for more low cost child care for low income families and collective bargaining could help in making that care available and affordable. But then the question is raised, why should I be affected by such a system? If there is even a slight possibility that a.) the standards of care will be lowered or b.) cost of child care will be passed along to residents state wide in the form of taxes, then there is no way I can support the measure in good conscience.
There you have it folks. Another election cycle down the tubes, sure there’s more voting to be had but they’re mostly coin tosses from where I sit.
So get out there children, vote early and vote often!
FCC rules against MassPort Wi-fi Ban
The FCC ruled against the Massachusetts Port Authority, or Massport, which ordered airlines in 2005 to unplug their wireless and wireline high-speed Internet services in their lounges and instead use the airport’s fee-based system.
“Today’s decision ensures that the Wi-Fi bands remain free and open to travelers, who can make productive use of their time while waiting to catch their next flight in an airport,” FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said in a statement.
I told you so. (RB, one year ago)
Everyone has something to hide
When you pull papers to run for elected office, one of the things you receive is a quaint little handbook outlining the process in the most basic terms. Future editions of this book should be rewritten so the first line reads, in giant bold text: “DON’T SAY STUPID SHIT!”
Today’s T&G has a summary of last nights City Council discussion concerning Worcester’s pilot surveillance program for city intersections, which is expected to extend into parks and other ‘high crime areas’. The obvious problem with these systems is that no independent study has shown a decrease in crime due to the installation of video surveillance, just displacement. But the larger issue is one of privacy, so it was nice to see Councilor Perotto stand up for common sense.
City councilors enthusiastically embraced the ideas, though Councilor-at-Large Michael C. Perotto expressed some concern about having “Big Brother” playing such an active role. He asked for a legal opinion on the surveillance plans in regards to the civil rights of the public.
What really stood out in the article, and honestly surprised the hell out of me, was soon to be Lt Governor Murray’s take.
But Mayor Timothy P. Murray said the city should be going “100 miles per hour” in implementing the plan. He said if people are not doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to worry about if cameras are set up at intersections or in parks.
Are you kidding me? That must have been Reed Hillman dressed in a Tim Murray costume for Halloween. The ‘nothing to hide’ bit is one of the oldest logical fallacies our little democracy has known. Everyone from Hoover to Scientologists have used this line of thinking and once you start moving down that path it’s almost impossible to double back, as the UK is now well aware with an estimated 4,000,000 cameras in play. That’s about 1 camera for every 15 people, for those of you keeping score at home. The notion that anyone leads such a perfect existence they would welcome the addition of 24/7 surveillance, is asinine on a level that would have Eric Arthur Blair doing Triple Lindys in his grave. Unfortunately it’s a tough argument to crack. Anything that on the surface appears to be a crime deterrent, appeals to the average person and the average person doesn’t ever think of themselves as being a criminal. So let me run through a few of my favorite ways to counter what will soon be a common phrase in all the Worcester bars and coffee shops, which turned up when this very question was asked on the venerable Metafilter earlier this year.
1. So you won’t mind a law requiring all letters to be written on postcards?
2. Because the government gets to define what’s wrong, and they keep changing the definition.
3. Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? (Who watches the watchers?)
4. If you’ve nothing to hide, why don’t you throw all your credit card statements on the Internet?
5. If you’ve nothing to hide, reveal publicly, along with a photo of your 8-year-old daughter, where she goes to school, and what time she walks home. And what her favorite candy is.
And my personal favorite…
6. Mind if I make a video of you fucking your wife then?
The point is, everyone has boundaries. I understand there is no legal expectation of privacy when in a public place. But unfortunately we also live in a city where even public employees have historically taken to the belief that their secrets are worth sealing. If those charged with being my keepers claim a pass on their conduct being public, as servants of the public, where’s the balance? If I can’t pick my nose, or scratch my ass in Elm Park without being mocked by a room full of public employees, then yes I do have something to hide. When the first local politician who stops in front of an elementary school to ask for directions, ends up being fingered as a pederast for personal reasons, he’s got something to hide. Our legal system is not designed to drop us all to the level of the lowest common denominator and mistakes are made in law enforcement all the time, that’s typically ok since we have a reasonable system of checks in place. But video surveillance takes the human element out of detecting crime in progress, often times distorting reality beyond what the average person can identify as being normal behavior. After over two years in prison Claudia Muro found out how hard it is to interpret the otherwise obvious on video, after she was caught on a ‘nanny cam’ violently shaking a 5 month old in her care. You may remember having seen the child’s father, Brett Schwartz, on Good Morning America” in 2003 stating:
“It’s plainly clear of what’s going on,” “There’s nothing taken out of context in that video.”
But there was something lost to context, nobody took the frame rate of the video into account. Experts demonstrated what was captured was an inadvertent trick of the camera, making otherwise normal movements look like violent shaking and after two and a half years she was released. Now, that’s just one story and you probably never saw she was cleared since Nancy Grace doesn’t cover justice being served. But it has to make you wonder; if the opportunity exists to criminalize or even just demonize normal behavior, what’s the expected long-term benefit to society?
