There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.  – Henry David Thoreau

I blame Critical Mass.

Some people say that the growth of bikelanes over the last few years has sparked the backlash, but it’s hard to argue that those aren’t a net positive.

I commute to work by bike, and have for nearly a decade.  I’ll admit to not stopping at every light, but for the last six years I’ve been fortunate that there aren’t many lights between home and work.

I’ve been noticing lately (because I’ve been trying to pay attention) that when there is interaction w/ a pedestrian, either on the commute or on the weekend, it nearly always ends with them apologizing to me for jaywalking in front of me.  I’m no saint, but this city’s filled with people who aren’t following every law they’re supposed to follow.

I shudder to think of the world we might live in: a world where we mortals have discovered a way to highlight text on a page but haven’t taken the unobvious next step of adjusting that selection.  Thank you, Geniuses of Redmond, for discovering this strange and nearly mystical technology.

I’ll include your other innovations below for posterity, although my puny mind struggles to understand the nonobvious, substantial, and significant nature of these inventions.  In fact, I may go mad from the sudden expansion of my perspective.

Whatever you do, gentle reader, look away before reading about the way they’ve completely redefined the way we ‘annotate’ things:

The Microsoft-created features protected by the patents infringed by the Nook and Nook Color tablet are core to the user experience. For example, the patents we asserted today protect innovations that:

• Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;

• Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

• Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;

• Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and

• Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.

• Unpleasant taste in mouth, dry mouth
• Morning drowsiness
• Dizziness
• Headache
• Symptoms of the common cold

You may still feel drowsy the next day after taking LUNESTA. Do not drive or do other dangerous activities after taking LUNESTA until you feel fully awake.

Possible serious side effects of LUNESTA include:

• Getting out of bed while not being fully awake and doing an activity you do not know you are doing. (To learn more, read the LUNESTA Medication Guide).
• Abnormal thoughts and behavior. Symptoms include more outgoing or aggressive behavior than normal, confusion, agitation, hallucinations, worsening of depression, and suicidal thoughts or actions.
• Memory loss
• Anxiety
• Severe allergic reactions. Symptoms include swelling of the tongue or throat, trouble breathing, and nausea and vomiting. Get emergency medical help if you get these symptoms after taking LUNESTA.

These are not all the side effects of LUNESTA. Ask your healthcare professional for more information.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

• GOP says it’ll block bills until tax cuts extended
• 2 million lose jobless benefits as holidays arrive

I feel like any commentary on my part is redundant….

The true problem is the return of neo-liberal thought and policy that is dominating debate, and the financial and political elites that are using this return to push their own destructive agendas.

He then raised his fist in the air and left the stage.

They’ll get what they deserve, those nose-spiting cheeseheads.

And the best part is that she continues to be wrong in the comments of this story.  Very, very wrong.  Treating savings like it only counts if you have a passbook, not as an economic concept that can be positive or negative… that’s what the average person on the street would do, but it’s no way to lead a technical debate.