Bloggers are annoying as eff. Even I think that, and I am one.

Last year Jeff Gordon shot a commercial for Pepsi Max in which he "pranked" people by unexpectedly taking them on a fast, wild ride.

Well, a blogger with the Gawker group claimed it was "fake." (Many commenters actually think the first video was fake, to one extent or another.)

So many people are probably taking some satisfaction in Jeff Gordon "pranking" the blogger who claimed the earlier was fake, by now taking him on a high-speed "escape" from pursuing "police."

Below is the first video -- the one claimed as "fake" -- and then a vengeance video that definitely isn't. (?)
more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 AM | Comments (126)
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This, the New York Times understatedly tells us, represents a "substantial" revision of the figure.

The figure was actually lowered below the level analysts expected. They thought it would be lowered to 2.5%.

They say they expect "lackluster" growth throughout this year. And:

It is also well below the so-called breakout speed economists have been hoping to see the economy sustain for more than a quarter or two.

No sh*t really?

Analysts are of course blaming... the weather. Yes, they figure it was all this Global Warming falling over much of the country that is responsible for the economy's failure -- now it its fifth year -- to reach break out speed.

Posted by: Ace at 06:34 AM | Comments (338)
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IT'S FRIDAAAAAAAY!

Yesterday, Ace wrote about Nazis.

So did Jonah Goldberg over at NRO.

Eugene Volokh wrote about that American flag ban at a California high school. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (287)
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Well like Ace I'm just going to rely on my cumulative word average tonight.

25 Signs You're Grown Up

I've always said that if you have more than 3 keys on your keychain, own your own vacuum cleaner, and know all your tax rates, you're deeper down the gullet of the Snake of Aging than you might think. But here are 25 more indicators.

Life At 93

I've endured a few knocks but missed worse. I know how lucky I am, and secretly tap wood, greet the day, and grab a sneaky pleasure from my survival at long odds. The pains and insults are bearable. My conversation may be full of holes and pauses, but I've learned to dispatch a private Apache scout ahead into the next sentence, the one coming up, to see if there are any vacant names or verbs in the landscape up there. If he sends back a warning, I'll pause meaningfully, duh, until something else comes to mind.

..."Most of the people my age is dead. You could look it up" was the way Casey Stengel put it. He was seventy-five at the time, and contemporary social scientists might prefer Casey's line delivered at eighty-five now, for accuracy, but the point remains. We geezers carry about a bulging directory of dead husbands or wives, children, parents, lovers, brothers and sisters, dentists and shrinks, office sidekicks, summer neighbors, classmates, and bosses, all once entirely familiar to us and seen as part of the safe landscape of the day. It's no wonder we're a bit bent.

How To Avoid The Big Screw-Ups In Life: Advice To A 20-Year Old From People Twice His Age

• If you can make a reasonable living doing what you love, DO WHAT YOU LOVE.. You may not get rich, but you'll get to do what you love. Don't quit your day job until doing what you love pays the bills, but don't incur big debt getting a law degree or an MBA if you really want to be an artist.
• It's amazing how easy life is when you're honest with yourself and others. This doesn't mean you should be rude and inconsiderate, but it's better to be upfront when you have to rather than concealing things and letting them grow.
• Set up a safety fund. Yes, I know the savings account interest rates suck right now, but having 3-6 months of expenses in readily accessible cash can save you a lot of hassle. It also allows you to loan money to friends when needed (do this judiciously).
• The biggest disappointments in life are the result of misplaced expectation. Tempering unrealistic expectations of how great something will be can greatly reduce frustration.
• Understand that at 22 you are at your most energetic and most creative, but your labor is valued very little. All the more reason to 1) stand up for yourself and look for the highest bidder and 2) get that degree.

And more at the link.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:45 PM | Comments (809)
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Warning- wide margins. more...

Posted by: CAC at 05:09 PM | Comments (356)
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Maet mentioned this on the ONT a couple nights ago, but this was a very good catch by Prof. Jacobson over at Legal Insurrection, so I wanted to highlight it again. Read the whole thing.

IÂ’m not old enough to remember Tulipomania, but I am old enough to remember the inflation-readjusted real estate crash of the 1980s, the eyeballs-to-price ratios of the 1990′s tech bubble, and the no-money-down no-income-verification mortages of this centuryÂ’s first decade.

...

New paradigm. Hmmm. Where have I heard that recently? (emphasis added)

>>>But as the Polk [Award] judges rightly recognized, Greenwald meets the definition of journalist – joining the long line of reporters who have broken accurate stories after sifting classified documents purloined by whistle-blowers. And he’s still working the Snowden material, as evidenced this morning on The Intercept, the new online magazine bankrolled by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. Greenwald has decided to hang his digital shingle on that site. In a revolutionary era of new journalistic paradigms, who needs the old media?

Journalists should play an important role in exposing bubbles before they get too big.

But what if the journalists are the bubble?

Regarding Ezra Klein specifically, I was always a little curious as to why so many in the media were surprised by the Washington Post's decision to let him go. The numbers never matched up. Many were impressed by WonkBlog's roughly 4 million pageviews per month. Well, okay. But, how much of that traffic was based off the very strong lead in from a major American publication? There's no way for us to tell what percentage of that traffic came from all that marketing and cross-promotion, but I'd bet it's a non-trivial amount.

For the sake of argument, let's say it's zero. Let's say Ezra could pick up his operation and start elsewhere (as he is basically doing). So take that 4 million pageviews a month and move it. Ezra reportedly wanted a staff of more than 30 and an annual budget of $10 million.

So do the math. At $10 RPM (revenue per thousand impressions), which many said was an ambitious goal, his site would only be making $40,000 a month. This is orders of magnitude away from reality, and why Jeff Bezos likely bit his tongue laughing at Ezra's proposal.

How many of these millionaire pet projects are going to continue to be around five or ten years from now? You have to wonder. It's often hard to tell, but traditional publications still need to turn a profit.

Also, open thread.

Posted by: JohnE. at 04:20 PM | Comments (179)
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Just until someone posts some actual content.....

And....one puppy is a theist, one puppy is an atheist. Platinum membership (without ampersands) for all who guess correctly.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:14 PM | Comments (164)
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Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (395)
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I published this (in rawer form) as a response to Seattle Slough, who is not really a troll, but does come here to disagree.

I don't mind that he disagrees. He does get a bit insulting, but it's the Internet-- what do you expect? I'm going to insult him (a bit) in this post.

Internet rules. What can you do.

But having written a response to him, and needing some content, I've decided to pop this out as a post.

We start with his quote, in my usual effed-up manner of quotation:

>>> Let me ask you:
Do you believe the Earth is less than 20,000 years old?
Do you believe in a world-wide flood?
Do you deny the theory of evolution?

If the answer to any of these is "yes" you are a fool. If the answer is "no" you deny the Bible as divine truth.

...

Seattle, being a non-believer myself, I agree with you that these things are not true.

Here is where I depart from you: Calling someone who does believe them a fool.

Was Blaise Pascal a fool? Before you answer, you should look him up on Wikipedia. He was quite brilliant. Incredibly brilliant, actually. Also, a religious Christian zealot (I think he'd agree with that characterization).

Was Isaac Newton a fool? I trust you know enough about him to know he was no fool.

Was William Wilberforce a fool? If you have to Wiki him, do so.

What you are doing is taking your lack of inquisitiveness (which I share) for some explanation as to What It All Means (I don't know that it means much of anything, and I suspect you feel similarly) as your demarcation between "fool" and, I guess, a wise man such as yourself.

There are a lot of brilliant men -- far more brilliant than you could dream -- in history, who not only believed in God (and Jesus), and not only were not "fools," but were in fact smarter than you (or, even myself, ego compels me to say, though it's a somewhat closer call) could ever hope to be.

You are guilty not of atheism (which is not a crime) but the great sin of our age, the great Vanity, that of Tribalism.

You believe that your membership in a tribe makes you superior to others; I think your devotion to a tribe makes you inferior.

You are desperately searching for affirmation of self in trivial proofs. I believe this, I don't believe that; ergo, I'm superior.

You might as well be basing your ego upon your favorite ice cream flavor.

Like you, I am an atheist (or, agnostic/Deist/atheist depending on the day). Like you, I do not believe anything in the Bible, except for some small things like I'm pretty sure a man named Jesus lived and caused a bit of ruckus.

But to me, this is about as much evidence of my superiority over my fellow man as my interest in True Detective.

You are establishing, in your mind, a hierarchy of persons, from wise to fool, based upon your own idiosyncratic What's Hot/What's Not list.

Here is an eye-opener for you: Some people wonder more about the First Mover than you or I do. Some people find scientific explanations implausible or unsatisfying.

This does not make them fools; it makes them of a different personality type than you or I.

Now, you will say they're wrong about what they believe; I'll say I agree with you.

But you are essentially doing the same thing a gay-hater does when he knocks him for being gay. The religious were born with a quixotic nature, a need to look beyond the tangible and mundane.

You and I weren't.

We should no more be "proud" of this than we're proud of our sexualities or our eye color.

The Vanity of our age is to find more and more trivial proofs that we matter. That we count. That we're better.

Politics, religion, racial or gender identity, sexual preference... all of it. We stupidly look at the world with eyes full of greed for proof that We Matter. We're Better. We're Special.

There is more to the world than that, if you look. Even if you don't believe in any god.

Some religious people find meaning, and personal validation, in Jesus. Some others seem to find a great deal too much meaning and personal validation in not believing in Jesus.

Let it go. Let vanity go.

I have a theory, which I frankly have not thought about very hard, but my theory is that Vanity is the handmaiden of all other sins.

For no other sin can be undertaken without causing a revulsion in the conscience except that Vanity -- or as a modernist would term it, ego, the Almighty I -- makes up a complicated and nonsense justification for that sin.

Let it go man. Let it go.

So I guess this makes me an agnostic Deist Buddhist or something.

Who knows. Who cares.

Go with God, or, if you like it better, go without him.

But get over your ego. You'll move faster and lighter without it.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (1035)
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I'ma gonna be lazy again and just say "Hey man, read it."

Meanwhile, Bradley A. Smith argues that Obama and Democrats sicced the IRS on Tea Party groups through public channels. They said this is publicly what they wanted, and my goodness, that's exactly what their subordinates did.

Be fair. I've been writing a lot lately. You have to average the words-per-post out.

Video: Via @niedermeyersdeadhorse (or NDH to you guys), Rep. Trey Gowdy talked about the Lerner case on Fox today.

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (306)
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