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May 2011

So what happens if the Supreme Court overturns the individual mandate?

Because it’s somewhat likely that the health care challenges reach them during the thick of this campaign season. And there’s also a pretty good chance the Court overturns health care reform. (If anyone gets all certain in front of you that there’s no way in hell this will happen, the proper counterargument is this: there is no precedent for Congress to force people to pay money for something under the commerce clause, and this combined with our activist/conservative Court creates the right environment for them to strike it down. I know, servicey! I try.)

But so what happens if that happens? How many Tea Party voters stay home because they think they’ve won the battle, and no longer care to vote for whatever joke wins the GOP nomination? And what does that do to down-ticket candidates?

And what happens when Barack Obama is a second-term President with no more care for re-election, who no longer has the middle ground option for health care reform available to him, and who subsequently must choose between doing nothing or taking another shot at it, with the only option for such second go being something more Medicare-y. (I know, that started as a question.)

What I’m saying is, we should all hope health care reform gets overturned, preferably in October-surprise style, because there’s a decent chance it forces us to actually socialize medicine, the real way, and helps create the right environment for that to happen.

May 30, 201110 notes
#stoned #yup
“The threads that weave our past into the fabric necessary for the survival of American exceptionalism.” —How Sarah Palin describes the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Go on, read it like fifty times. I think it means we should fashion a coat out of the founding documents, and make the coat bulletproof, and then it will be the most awesome coat in the whole world and it will never go out of style? Something.
May 29, 201110 notes
May 29, 20117 notes
“Serious question: was “SARAH PALIN’S ALASKA” a show about Sarah Palin finding out about Alaska for the first time?” —Jason Linkins (would link but I’m on my iPhone in an alley. That doesn’t sound creepy, does it? It’s not. Just your regular Sunday afternoon on an iPhone in an alley. Anyway, the quotes on HuffPo an you can find it there if that’s important to you.)
May 29, 20113 notes
May 28, 20112 notes
Summer Jams

1) Raphael Saadiq, Get Involved

2) Strawberry

3) Jordan over John Starks, 1996

4) The 101, right now

May 27, 20114 notes
May 27, 20117 notes
May 26, 20113 notes
Old Jews Telling Jokes: the Audiobook just won the 2011 Audie Award for Humor → theaudies.com

This is the award given by the Audio Publishers Association. We beat Jon Stewart, David Sedaris, and the Shit My Dad Says guy. Am I psyched? I am psyched. We produced this thing a year ago, in a recording studio in Brooklyn that this guy ran out of his apartment.

And not to take it TOO FAR or anything, but I’m an award-winning record producer. NBD.

May 25, 201135 notes
#hey ladies
May 20, 20118 notes
The Passive-Aggressive Google Search

One of the more insidious forms of acting out online is the passive-aggressive Google search. Here’s how it works:

  • You want to act out toward a blogger.
  • You assume that this blogger checks their traffic on SiteMeter or Google Analytics, because hey, so do you.
  • Specifically, you assume this blogger checks that little thing that tells you what keywords people type into a search box that results in those people finding your blog. (“eric spiegelman obama smile” — that’s one I get a lot, because of this one video I made once.)
  • So you do a little malicious SEO of your own. You search for terrible things in conjunction with the person’s name. You repeat this a few times so they rise to the top of the SiteMeter or Analytics keyword results. If you’re particularly devious, you phrase the search in the form of a question.
  • “is eric spiegelman a pedophile”
SO HURTFUL. And yes, I’ve done it. Not even Shame Begone can help with how I’ve felt afterwards.
May 20, 201112 notes
#i am not a pedophile
The Unreal Relationship

So, my Craigslist post yesterday was pretty soundly mocked. Perhaps deservedly so. One friend told me it read like a depression survey. Another said the anonymity of it made it seem creepy. Or, to quote him accurately, “stabby.” Yikes! 

Well, okay. The veil is off. Hi! It’s me. Here’s what I’m trying to do.

A lot of us, at some point, have spent a little too much time with someone else’s Facebook photos, or their personal blog, or their Google results. At some point our we go from mere curiosity to knowing just enough about them that it feels like we have a relationship.

But it’s like having a relationship with a mannequin. We spend way more time investing in them than they spend investing in us.

Some of us are content to just feel weird that we do this. Others get a little bit more caught up. Some eventually act out, which is also, btw, a consequence of an imbalanced relationship IRL. In any situation, it’s not healthy for either person involved.

What I’m looking for is a way to interrupt whatever it is that pushes us to into an online infatuation. Because we don’t need this. And since I’m not a scientist of any kind, I feel like the best I can do is collect some stories about it and see what sort of lessons are to be had. An allegorical approach, if you will.

I’ve heard a couple stories already, and they’re both pretty amazing, cautionary tales. If you’d like to participate, please write. ericspiegelman (at) gmail. I’ll respect your anonymity if you want me to. And I won’t stab you.

May 20, 201114 notes
#not gonna stab you
Have you ever been infatuated with someone from the Internet? → newyork.craigslist.org

dntsqzthchrmn (#2,893): Seriously, though, hasn’t EVERYBODY on the internet done this once?

May 19, 201114 notes
May 13, 20113 notes
OP-ED: Google Is Stupid and Evil, But Facebook Is Awesome

bajillionhits:

image

(Taken from full article published earlier at BetaBeat.)

PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA — As a leading tech professional and trusted social media strat guru, I am required to use the Internet almost constantly throughout the course of my day. But I also care deeply about the issue of privacy, and I’ve arrived at a fairly startling revelation that I feel compelled to share with you today:  Google is stupid and evil, but Facebook is awesome.

Both companies are formidable juggernauts who cast long shadows over the digital landscape. And when it comes to searching for stuff and driving traffic to my SEO-enriched “content farm” crops, Google is great. But now they’re trying to play around in the “social networking” sandbox, and have launched a new product called Social Circle that is manifestly evil and threatens our privacy to its very core. So how, exactly, is Google planning to destroy our lives with this new feature?

Man, Facebook is awesome. Sometimes I’ll be poring over family vacation photos of some girl I met at camp this one time when I was fourteen, and I’ll realize that I’ve blown almost an hour just hanging out and consuming content in this fun, casual, not-at-all threatening environment. Facebook is basically the master of Social Networking—that’s why Hollywood made a movie about it called THE Social Network. They should be the only ones, because their intentions are pure and they would never do anything to hurt us.

CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE

Follow A Bajillion Hits on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube.

Am I jealous of Alex Blagg’s hedcut? Yes, yes I am.

May 12, 201141 notes
Re: Cuba

Me: “I just realized we almost died like three times.”

Keith: “The simple fact that you just realized this confirms that we’re the perfect traveling companions.”

May 11, 20114 notes
#blissful ignorance
Play
0:06
May 11, 20115 notes
May 11, 2011
#brushes with death
Play
May 11, 20111 note
San Fernando Valley Baseball

Does anyone know any good stories about baseball in the San Fernando Valley? Specifically, something related to how the Valley has been a hotbed of MLB talent for the past 50 years? Scouts? (Not Sacagawea.) I’m doing some research for work. Need stories.

Here’s what I have so far:

Dwight Evans, Matt Dominguez, Mike Moustakas and Steve Reed all went to Chatsworth. Rick Auerbach, Larry Dierker, Gabe Kapler, Pete LaCock, Kelly Paris, Larry Yount and Robin Yount all went to Taft. Bret Saberhagen went to Cleveland. Damon Buford went to Birmingham. Harry Danning and Fred Haney both went to Poly. Gary Matthews went to San Fernando. Doug Baker, Ryan Braun, Kameron Loe, and Dave Schmidt all went to Granada Hills. Rod Beck, Tom Griffin and Jim Umbarger all went to Grant. Don Drysdale went to Van Nuys. Garrett Anderson, Jack Cassel, John Garland and Termel Sledge all went to Kennedy. Doug DeCinces, John Ennis and Steve Wapnick all went to Monroe. Freddy Sanchez, Jason Chandler, Frank Sullivan, James Mouton and Ralph Botting all went to Burbank. Jim Auten, Chris Dickerson, Tim Foli, Greg Goossen, Brett Hayes, Jack McDowell, Jorge Piedra and Brendan Ryan all went to Notre Dame. Rick Dempsey, Brian Horwitz, Trevor Plouffe and Jeff Suppan all went to Crespi. Gary Matthews, Jr. attended both Granada Hills and Crespi.

May 11, 20111 note
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