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Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies: Ron Paul's candidacy is a mirror held up in front of the face of America's Democratic Party and its progressive wing, and the image that is reflected is an ugly one; more to the point, it's one they do not want to see because it so violently conflicts with their desired self-perception.

Continued from the article:

"Whatever else one wants to say, it is indisputably true that Ron Paul is the only political figure with any sort of a national platform — certainly the only major presidential candidate in either party — who advocates policy views on issues that liberals and progressives have long flamboyantly claimed are both compelling and crucial. The converse is equally true: the candidate supported by liberals and progressives and for whom most will vote — Barack Obama — advocates views on these issues (indeed, has taken action on these issues) that liberals and progressives have long claimed to find repellent, even evil.

[...]

The parallel reality — the undeniable fact — is that all of these listed heinous views and actions from Barack Obama have been vehemently opposed and condemned by Ron Paul: and among the major GOP candidates, only by Ron Paul. For that reason, Paul's candidacy forces progressives to face the hideous positions and actions of their candidate, of the person they want to empower for another four years. If Paul were not in the race or were not receiving attention, none of these issues would receive any attention because all the other major GOP candidates either agree with Obama on these matters or hold even worse views."

I am looking for images/renderings of a particular kind of office 'layout' - where the design involves lots of: wood, greenery, light, 'interesting' spaces, and perhaps even multi-levels.

We are in the early (very!) stages of planning a new working environment. About twenty years ago I visited the offices/warehouse of a mail-order art supply outfit in the Seattle area (kind of a hippy-influenced place), and had the chance to see their offices (normally not seen by customers). It was an astonishingly beautiful design: everything was done in light wood, there were plants everywhere, and desks/work-spaces were on different levels, a few steps up or down, with the arrangement such that there was quiet/privacy for those who needed it, and openness/communication where appropriate. Your jaw dropped when you entered the space, and as I was taken through it - up, down, around this way and that - to reach the desk of the person I needed to talk to, my single over-riding feeling was "I want to work in a place like this!"

In trying to get a handle on just how they did it, I wrote to them recently asking if it was perhaps possible to see some snapshots, but they did not reply. Googling for generic images of similarly interesting office spaces has not turned up much at all. My immediate problem is to find a way to communicate this 'vision' to the other people working with me here, who know only standard Japanese office design, and who are looking at me like I have been smoking something ...

Can you help me find images of this kind of place?

As a Christmas present, my awesome mom paid for me to get glorious purple highlights done at an excellent salon in my hometown. How do I take care of them and keep them vivid for as long as possible?

This is the first time I've ever had my hair dyed, so I really have no idea what I'm doing. Do I just buy the shampoo and conditioner that say "for color treated hair" on them? I assume I should try not to wash too often (my hair is long enough that I usually only wash it every other day in any case.) Should I wear a hat to protect it from UV radiation? Use special conditioners to keep the bleached/dyed hair from frizzing and tangling? Re-dye it at home every now and again (and if so, with what, and how?)

Worth noting: my natural hair color is very dark brown, so it had to be pretty severely bleached in order for the color to take. Stylists have always told me my hair is very healthy, so presumably the 2/3 of my hair that is non-bleached and non-colored is still fine.

I want to set up a mailing list of sorts, but with text messages instead of emails. What's a system like this called, and how do I do it?

I'm organizing an event and want to send occasional text messages to a (potentially large, maybe in the hundreds) group of volunteers and supporters. Of course, I don't want to send messages to this many folks manually, and I want them to be able to subscribe and unsubscribe at will, without my assistance.

If this were email-based, you'd type your email address into a form or send a message that says "subscribe myemail@address.com" to a robot and you'd start getting emails . To unsubscribe, you'd send a message that says "unsubscribe myemail@address.com" to the robot and you'd stop getting messages. Easy peasy.

Can this sort of thing be done with text messages? What's it called (i.e. what keywords do I search to learn more)? Can it be done inexpensively? How hard is it to set up? Have you done something similar - what were your experiences?

Thanks!

My friend is about to get get some very serious news regarding her health which carries with it a very, very poor prognosis and I am looking for advice on how to help her when she gets this news.

This friend, while in the hospital, was recently diagnosed with a particularly bad type of cancer. Other than the initial visit with the oncologist who gave her the diagnosis in the hospital she has yet to go in for another consult (due to the holidays and the oncologist being out of office). However I work with her primary care doctor and, with my friend's permission, I have spoken to her about the results of the tests they ran in the hospital. Things look very grim. Her primary care doctor told her this news as well but I don't think my friend understands, at least not that she is expressing to me when we have discussed it, what a poor prognosis this type of cancer carries.

Important to note here is that my friend is not looking to me for medical advice, although I do work in a context which makes me more knowledgable about medical issues than the average person. She has not asked me to explain these diagnostic tests and their results to her, although she asked me to accompany her to her oncologist appointment next week because she wants someone there who knows what questions to ask and speaks the language, so to speak.

I am nearly certain she is going to hear from her oncologist, at best, that her cancer is at an advanced stage or, at worse, that it is terminal. I fear it is the latter and not the former. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't experiencing some anxiety over being there with her when she receives this news as I have never before been in a situation like this. Other than going with her, helping her to navigate the medical-ease and holding her hand what can I do for her during this time? I'm just so very sad for her and want to do what I can to be of some comfort to her.

I am looking for a playlist with songs that are best of 2011. I'm thinking along the lines of this Metafilter post but with all the songs in one playlist. Does such a thing exist somewhere?

So far, I can only find one on Spotify. I'd love any other options you could provide.

Thanks and Happy New Year!

It's New Years Eve (or already the first day of the new year, depending on where you are), and you may be looking for something other than the radio to play for a countdown. Head backwards, then, to cruise into the 80s with the Grateful Dead for the closing of Winterland. Or join the Janglers to say goodby to 1993 and hello to 1994 at Peabody's Downunder. You can check out twelve hours of Essential Mixing and relive the transition from 2000 to 2001. Get closer to the present day with some big band and swing into 2010 in style. Say hello to 2011 with B.A.G.S. (Bullman, Ashworth, Guggino, Sipe), spend an hour and a half with Blu Mar Ten or six and a half hours with Mr Scruff. And if you're looking for something new for tonight, try some mixes from Redondo, Montreal Funk Monkeys, and a countdown minimix from DJ Raymix.

I lucked into a half of a side of some beautiful pasture raised, grass fed, organic beef from a local farmer for cheap! The good news is that we ended up getting this killer beef for less than $2 a pound and that it all fits in our chest freezer. The bad news is ... well... I've realized we don't really actually eat all that much beef. What are some interesting things to do with ground beef and potroast?

In my defense, I asked probably a half dozen times how much beef we were looking at (although more out of concern for my freezer space). They told me the hanging weight, but could never really tell me how much of that was bones and guts. The consensus was that a quarter would easily fit in my small chest freezer, so that's what I got. After processing, however, it turns out there was about 30% more beef than even they had anticipated. We are talking about a boatload of beef here. And yes, also I am a child whose mental picture of beef consisted of piles of steaks. Whoops.

When I do buy meat it's generally pork or lamb, and it's usually only once a week. I make an occasional bolognese or meatballs, but don't really know what to do with the (60 pounds!) of ground beef in my freezer. I grew up in the midwest and have had enough hot dish to last the rest of my life. What else is there outside of burgers, taco meat, meatballs, chili, meat sauce?

I also have 5 or 6 of these things called a "7-bone roast". They weigh about 6 pounds apiece. We made a pot roast with one and it was great... but that's a whoooole lotta roast we're staring down over the next several months. What else can I do with it?

And as an aside - how long will this stuff last in my chest freezer?

Additional details: Cooking for 2 adults, one picky 10 year old and a baby; portions are pretty small. I'd consider myself an adventurous scratch cook. I don't love Thai flavors, peppers, or super spicy stuff. We love Japanese and Indian food, but... yeah. I got a half of a lamb last spring and it was fantastic: gyros, pastichio, lamb burgers... I was super sad when the ground lamb was all gone. Help me feel the same way about this beef!

Sinead O'Connor plays a concert in a church in Reykjavík at Iceland Airwaves last October. Icelandic state broadcaster, RÚV, recorded the concert and you can listen to it in full. There is some talking in Icelandic in the beginning, but the concert starts up at around three and a half minutes in. This concert was not long after her online jokes about her lack of companionship making her resort to bananas. She cracks many jokes about that and the fact that she's playing in a church. And she's in brilliant form as a performer and plays for almost two hours. As a bonus, here's not-very-high-quality video of that night's rendition of Nothing Compares to You, which includes a bit about bananas.

Many Kindle reviews noted the sluggish performance of the Silk browser, but you can quickly increase the speed by changing a few settings. In addition to turning off Flash and changing the browser from desktop to mobile view, turning of Silk's touted acceleration feature will all make Silk faster. More »

Can anyone recommend a place where I can scan 35mm slides on my own at a workstation in NYC?

I have some 35mm slides that it's very important to me to scan myself. Can anyone recommend a place in New York City that would allow me to come in and use their Nikon Coolscan 9000 (or 5000) and do the job? Buying a scanner just to do this doesn't make financial sense, but there must be a place that will allow me to come in and do it, no?

Film and literature that depict empathy (or lack of) between adults?

Just saw The High Cost of Living which depicts both empathy and lack of empathy towards a character. I was struck by how the dunderheaded non-empathizer was caught up in his own view & concerns just like I do. I'm hoping that watching empathizers will help me get better at it. The gender roles might be important for me: the target was female & the ones I was watching for cues were men. I'm a cis-gendered straight man. I'm willing to try anything though.

Previously about this between children or adults v. children.

Rabbit Hole is another film recommended in reviews of The High Cost of Living.

US-ian Tax questions: After a long hunt, this year I finally found a job (yay) several time-zones away from my husband and family (boo). The travel, additional housing, etc costs have consumed a lot of my income. Are any of those additional expenses potential write-offs for my taxes?

I tend to be pretty conservative about write-offs so I'd rather steer clear of any write-offs if they are questionable. I'm a W-2 employee, we're not home owners, employer doesn't cover any travel/commuting/relocation expenses. However, I've never been in this position before so I thought it would be worth asking. We have filed separately in the past but are open to filing jointly if that would save us time or money.

Obvious caveat applies, you are not my accountant. Thanks!

Many popular new year resolutions such as "lose 25 lbs" or "run a marathon" are actually goals, not resolutions. If there is a specific achievement it's a goal, but permanent changes to your life are resolutions since you keep doing them every day and not just until a specific achievement is reached. More »

Minecraft was already pretty cool (previously: 1 2 3 4 5 6). Here's something that brings it closer to the real world: "With the Mineways program you can select from a Minecraft world map and render it, or send it to a 3D printer or 3D printing service such as Shapeways." Examples are within the link, and here are other real-life examples using the Mineways program. Here's something equally (if not more-so) impressive, using a somewhat different technique: an entire Minecraft village, rendered and printed in 3D on a Zprinter 650. [via reddit]

How can I translate thousands of files written in an old Macintosh word processing program called WriteNow, into a format that is easily accessible, probably Microsoft Word or RTF? It's a problem. I'm a writer and I used WriteNow exclusively for about 15 years. Now it is unsupported and an orphan. A translator program I used to use, MacLink Plus, no longer works on the current Lion operation system for Macintosh. Here's a link that describes WriteNow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WriteNow

my 2008 kawasaki ninja 250R isn't running right. hoping someone might have an idea as to what's going on with it.

i left around an hour ago to run an errand and decided to take my bike as it's in the mid 60's today which is a bit uncharacteristic here in virginia. i rode a couple of miles and made a brief stop, and realized after getting back on the road that i needed to get gas. i ended up stopping at a gas station i haven't been to before (having ridden maybe 3-4 miles in all at this point). i picked up nozzle for diesel gas, somehow not realizing that there were 2 seperate nozzles. of course since i was pressing the regular unleaded button, it wasn't pumping anything. after picking up the correct nozzle and pressing the regular unleaded button again, it pumped as expected and i filled my bike up. while my bike had ridden fine to that point, it felt very sluggish when i attempted to accelerate after pulling out of the gas station lot. i think i had used very little choke to that point but i engaged it fully at that point and the bike seemed to accelerate okay to about 30-40 mph at which point it just ceased to accelerate and was clearly revving really high, which seemed to suggest to me that it was adequately warmed up. when i disengaged the choke though, the acceleration was again exceedingly sluggish, if existent at all.

the only thing that seemed to have any impact was fully engaging the choke, but again, the bike seemed to be revving much too high as it would if it was already warmed up. if i turned the choke off or it was engaged anything less than completely, the acceleration got very sluggish again.

the real kicker came when i realized that fully engaging the choke and then accelerating, the bike would get up to around 30-35 mph and then seemed to stop accelerating, and when i released or rolled off the thottle at that point, the speedometer would maintain at that speed as if the throttle was still rolled on. everything really just felt wrong about it so i ended up turning back. i haven't ever experienced a stuck throttle prior to this so i'm not sure if the throttle itself should be sticking or if it's just the motor, but again, the throttle felt as though it rolled off fine, but the engine definitely maintained. this only seemed to happen with the choke fully engaged.

the other caveat is that i just returned from a week-long vacation, so the bike had been sitting in the cold on basically a nearly empty tank for the last week. i'm not sure if that's a factor however, as the bike felt perfect prior to filling the tank. is it possible that some residual drops from the diesel nozzle mixed with an entire tank of regular unleaded could have this effect? i definitely didn't pump any diesel fuel into the tank, but the problems started immediately after i refueled, and i'm just really thrown by the fact that the bike was maintaining its speed even after i let off the thottle, and i'm not sure if it was just maintaining or if it was actually technically accelerating, since the bike wouldn't seem to go more than 30-40 mph in the first place.

sorry for the long post; just trying to be as thorough as possible. many, many thanks for any insights.

Shot-by-shot comparison of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" vs. scenes from 30 different adventure films made between 1919-1973

Boulet is a well-known cartoonist and illustrator in France, but I think he's pretty obscure in the English-speaking world. He's been posting a popular blog in comic form since 2004 (in French), but lately he's been going through the backlog and translating his comics into English, posting a new one every few days. He covers daily life, vacations, the work of a cartoonist, comics conventions, and random crap with cute illustrations and self-deprecating humor. Be sure to click the "REACT" or "Comments" link on each entry - he added a bonus comic to most of the entries at translation time. Happy New Year (2006)!

A few more favorites:
Geekette
Pixel quantum physics (with 8-bit Stephen Hawking!)
Parasites - excerpts from his work illustrating a science column for children
Bad kitty

Plus, some things I learned about by reading the translated blog:
Barbapapas, Donkey Skin, Cenovis (culinary uses thereof), Pucca and Shabadabada

Jamel Shabazz has been documenting the 'Urban Life', most famously, 80s Brooklyn, for over 30 years. His work has been featured in the New York Times and a documentary film as well as in a recently expanded and re-relased book. An interview and a few snaps from the book.