Rant

Any rant

There are 157 posts filed in Rant (this is page 8 of 16).

Tabloidism

Today the News and Observer put this story at the top of its front page. Its a story crowing about how mental hospital director Patsy Christian now won’t be able to hang a portrait of herself in the new Butner mental hospital thanks to an N&O story.

Of the legions of problems our state’s mental health system needing to be solved, this is what the N&O is most proud of? Getting a damn portrait removed? Is that how our fabled fourth branch of government is protecting our interests? Since when did the N&O become the paper equivalent of talk radio?

Is it any wonder that the newspaper business is in trouble?

Taxes out of thin air

Kelly and I finished up our taxes last night. I thought it was pretty sneaky that our tax software asked if we had a refund from last year. Seems the IRS taxes refunds now. I’m all for paying my fair share, but getting taxing on money that I don’t owe? Well, that’s a bit much.

  • Refund = money you don’t owe
  • Paying taxes on money you don’t owe = a legal fallacy worthy of Alberto Gonzales

And some people wonder why others don’t trust their government

Email disclaimers

Email disclaimers: is there anything more ridiculous? By sending me an email with your “legal terms” stuck to the bottom, somehow that makes me bound by law to obey them? Whose law? What jurisdiction?

And another thing: what is your “property” doing in my inbox? You sent me the email: I didn’t ask for it! Even the U.S. Postal Service (and Federal Law) says that if someone mails you something by mistake, you are legally allowed to keep it.
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Yet another reason not to fly U.S. Airways

If you didn’t already think allowing guns on planes was a dumb idea, this ought to convince you.

Bullets have been known to kill people. If such a person happens to be in the cockpit, the plane could crash. Bullets have also been known to depressurize planes. If said bullet pierces the cabin, the plane may not crash but will certainly need an emergency landing. If the bullet simply got lodged somewhere but the shot occured at a critical phase of flight (um, landing, for instance), the distraction could cause the pilots to crash.

A Kevlar-reinforced flight deck door is plenty. Allowing guns on plane is a dumb idea. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The pilot in this case should be terminated.

Daylight No-savings Time?

WRAL Weathercenter’s Nate Johnson posted about daylight savings time, which goes into effect this Sunday. Ah, daylight savings time: one of my favorite whipping boys. If there’s one thing that raises my government-as-nanny hackles, daylight savings time is it.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with conceiving daylight savings time (DST) as a way to save on candles. While candles may have been all the rage in Poor Richard’s day, it may be safe to say that we use energy quite differently nowadays. The energy required to shift one’s biological clock to match clock time is quite expensive, too, but not so easily measured.
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Our odyssey with Honda has come to an end

I’ve been thinking a bit more about our experience today with the Honda dealer’s handling of our broken transmission. Thanks to a tip from a friend who went through the same ordeal a month ago, I did a search on The Google for “flashing D.”

It turns out that failing transmissions in Honda Odysseys are a well-known problem to Honda. It also seems from the comments I’ve read that Honda has gone out of its way to completely paper over the problem.
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in Rant | 366 Words

Raleigh’s Sign Nazis strike … selectively

I figured I’d get the jump on the real estate crowd by putting some for sale signs out on Durant Road in Friday morning rain. I got home that evening and they were gone: probably stolen by the City of Raleigh’s Sign Nazis.

We got another pair from the agent who put our house on MLS. I promptly put them out Friday night. By 8:30 this morning they were also gone.
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