Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with evil

Help me get rid of this lingering pimple!

hotdiggitydog — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:55:31 -0800

Help me get rid of this pimple! I've tried everything and it hasn't gone down in the week I've had it. I'm male, if it matters. The pimple showed up on the tip of my nose, I believe, last Saturday. I didn't touch it for a few days until it started hurting a lot, so I made a mistake and tried to pop it. I couldn't. After squeezing it, it got red and swollen and since then I tried not to touch it. For some stupid reason, I decided to put Vaseline on it, hoping it would clog up and I could puncture it. It actually went down after the first night I applied Vaseline on it, by some divine miracle, and after that I've been applying toothpaste religiously every day and night (I've been home all Thanksgiving weekend).

When I woke up today I saw at the very top of the pimple there was a tiny red (well, darker red, since the pimple is all pinkish/red) spot, like there was bleeding/bruising and a white spot in the middle of that, though it might just be toothpaste I couldn't get off. It hasn't developed a white head this entire time. The skin over the pimple seems stretched out, if that makes sense. Also, it doesn't hurt anymore.

The pimple is extremely visible: red, swollen, and right on the tip of my nose. I want to get rid of it by Monday, when I have to go back to work/school. I'd rather not pop it, but if I should for quick results, I'd rather do it today so I have a day for it to heal tomorrow, and so I can possibly cover it up with makeup (I'd need tips on that too).

So what now? Do I pop it? Apply more toothpaste and wait? Also, when the skin around the pimple is looking dry, do I need to apply lotion or something?

Sorry if this post seems a bit jumbled, I just need this thing gone fast.

I want my right-side Gmail labels back

flabdablet — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:30:46 -0800

Are there any Google insiders here who can persuade the Gmail team to reinstate right-side labels? Google broke Gmail for me a couple weeks ago, screwing labels up by (a) hiding most of them by default and making it so you have to Do Stuff to get them all visible again and (b) removing the Right-Side Labels feature from Labs.

There's been a torrent of protest about the loss of the old functionality (e.g: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) but no sign visible to me that Google is moving to reinstate any of it, and no evidence that I can find to back up Google's claim that they're getting more positive feedback about their new label features than negative feedback about breaking right-side labels.

Are there any MeFites with an inside track to the Gmail team, who could gently let them know that suddenly breaking things with no warning is edging dangerously close to Being Evil?

Not really interested in user script workarounds. I just want Gmail to be configurable to work the way it did before, with all labels visible on the right-hand side of the screen, on any browser anywhere.

Resident Evil 5 not starting on PS3, how do i fix it?

manny_calavera — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:20:32 -0800

I installed Resident Evil 5 on my ps3. The game started with the cinematic but after that it just kicks me back to the home screen of the PS. Now the game does'nt even start and it just keeps coming back to the home screen. I have tried other games like Little Big planet and Street Fighter which are not giving any issues. So how do i get this game to work. I have the latest firmware 2.76 installed.

Help me help my browser to go back to completing missing URL endings even though my ISP is jerky

Your Time Machine Sucks — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:39:57 -0800

My ISP's new "feature" of rerouting incomplete URLs to their own custom (awful) search page is hijacking my normal browser behavior of completing URLs with .com. Anything I can do to reassert normalcy? My ISP is T-Online, which like a few other ISPs has started to hijack malformed URLs and send me to an awful "did you mean...?" page, which coincidentally happens to contain advertisements.

Until this started happening a week ago, if I typed "something" into my Safari 3.2.1 (OS X 10.5.x) location field, Safari would complete the URL as "something.com" and go there, but no longer (at least, I was under the impression that this was a Safari thing and not a DNS thing, since Internet Explorer always manifested the re-route-to-a-search-page behavior).

T-Online claims that it is possible to opt out from their new "Navigationshilfe" ("Navigation Help") program, but when I followed their instructions to opt out, nothing changed. Is there a technical solution for this? My router runs dd-wrt so if there is anything I can do there or on my local machine with DNS or hosts settings, that would be ideal.

T-Online's customer support is pretty dumb, so I will consider calling them if there is no workaround, but it is improbable that they will a) know what I'm talking about, b) know if it is possible to turn it off, c) take the correct steps to turn it off, d) not somehow find a way to increase the cost of my plan in the process, so that is definitely a last resort.

Thanks for any advice!

how can i remove my name from spoke.com?

kewlio — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:06:23 -0800

do you know how to get off spoke.com? this site is crazy evil, wtf is my info doing there :-(

Insurance companies are evil. Who knew?

LittleMissCranky — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:56:51 -0800

Has anyone successfully had a cochlear implant covered when the insurance company says that it's excluded? My son needs a cochlear implant. Our insurance (United Healthcare), provided by my husband's employer, says that they won't cover it. There seems to be some evidence that the exclusion is illegal under Title V, but I'm having a hard time finding much support. Any thoughts?

Please don't debate cochlear implantation here. Thank you.

Identify a movie for me

JTKestrel — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:34:54 -0800

Need help identifying a movie I don't remember the name of this movie, only a few sections of the plot: This kid is picked up by this thing that looks like an elf, and they travel through a portal to fight this guy named Evil or something. The kid eventuallly defeats the guy, then this guy comes and takes his friends, saying he has to do battle with Evil alone.

Then the kid wakes up to find his house was on fire, and the parents open up an evil toaster and it blows up.

I have no clue what the name of the movie is, but I can't get it out of my mind. What is it?

Game Cube recommendations similar to Resident Evil 4

snap_dragon — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:17:43 -0800

I have a gamecube but the only game I have enjoyed immensely is Resident Evil 4. Didn't like the other Resident Evil games' controls and such. Any other games for the 'cube that you can recommend that are first person shooter, whether it be horror/sci-fi like Resiident Evil 4 or maybe a crime game? (Kinda over the WW2 games)...Man, I am a cynical gamecuber, ay...thanks for you thoughts and suggestions. I really appreciate it as I try to get as much use out of this cube as I can.

Should water that's been distilled through reverse osmosis taste this nasty?

springbound — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:51:17 -0800

My workplace has a reverse osmosis water filter that produces a beverage tasting nothing short of pure evil. Why might this be? Referring to previous posts about yucko-tasting water, I considered it being the glasses or my mouth or something, but everyone in the place except the boss (who I suspect is in payer's denial) agrees that the filtered water tastes off, and we're all using different glasses (several different types available here) and mouths. I'm not sure how to describe the taste.... drier... much, much harder. It leaves my tongue feeling like it's wearing a fuzzy sweater. Or needs a good shave.

I've drunk similarly filtered water in a different location (at the boss's house, so can probably assume it's the same filter/brand) and it's also tasted evil, so it probably isn't the location. It's not just this particular time, either: we're talking a period of a year here that it's tasted this way.

I don't know how the machine itself works so can't really guess at what could be transpiring inside. Could a criminally neglected filtering system cause this? Inside the section between machine and finished vessel of filtered evilness seems to be a baggie of what Googling reveals must be charcoal, but I haven't dug any deeper into its innards. The baggie looks, well, pretty black -- as charcoal might.

I wanted to poison myself LESS by starting to use the filtered water (they've recently introduced fluoride where I am, and I'm one of THOSE freaks), but fear I'm poisoning myself more imbibing this liquid atrocity. We've all expressed to the boss that we think it tastes like shi-...vermetimbers and we can't believe he prefers it, so you'd think if it was a filter-change it needed that he'd've performed it. So... is this just normal "reverse-osmosised" taste?

If only people were all fruit. Then you'd be able to fondle for freshness.

rileyray3000 — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:59:23 -0800

Is there a single question you can ask that tells you immediately (if not totally conclusively) whether someone is a good person? I've just found that lately my instinct meter for such things is off when I first meet people. It used to be solid. Now...less so. So is there some sort of first impression question you can ask that gives you some sort of real insight into the person you've met is more of a good person or less of one?

WELLS FARGO IS EVIL.

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:24:22 -0800

Wells Fargo just royally screwed me during one of the most difficult financial weeks of my life, putting me in a position where I won't even have food money or enough gas money to get to work -- until next TUESDAY! I'm spitting mad. My questions are twofold: 1) I want to know if there's anything I can do to turn this situation around now or do I have to just wait; 2) My money problems are temporary and I'll be in the red within a year. Is it possible to complain or make a statement about this episode with Wells Fargo that would ever be heard? Should I just bitterly move on and take my business elsewhere, feeling like a victim? 3) Do you have a bank that you recommend doing business with instead -- one that treats customers with actual respect? Here's the sitch... like many people, I've had a bad year and found myself unemployed for a bit (have work now -- things are gradually looking up). Unfortunately, I owed some back taxes and without income I couldn't pay them yet. I talked to the IRS, and they told me they weren't going to levy.... but they lied. Suddenly one day I discovered that they took everything I had in the bank, leaving me not a penny. I had just written a bunch of small checks, and they all bounced -- something I haven't had happen to me since my twenties.

I got most of the check fees reversed and have been working my ass off to earn money to put back into my account so I can move beyond my hard times. I had $200 in my account as of last week and on Friday I went to the bank to deposit a $3000 check. The bank was CRAZY busy when I got there and I only had a half hour to spend... but 25 minutes in, the line hadn't moved and I had to get back to work. I asked a bank employee at a desk if there would be a hold put on a deposit if I put it through the ATM vs. the teller and they assured me if there wasn't a hold on similar checks in the past there would be no reason to worry about that. I've deposited from this company before and there was no hold put on the check then, so I went ahead.

Well, then I went about my life, paying for stuff. When I went to pay my mechanic this morning they said it was declined. I called the bank and they told me the check would be on hold FOR SEVEN DAYS because I'd bounced checks when the IRS did the levy I wasn't expecting. I worked hard to put money in there so I would be in the clear, and now I've bounced five more checks and they told me they couldn't lift the hold, wouldn't lift the hold.

Meanwhile, I hadn't gotten any cash back on the check... and I only have $10 on me. My gas tank had inconveniently just hit empty, as did my refrigerator... I was going to to go the market tonight. I was supposed to drive to visit a dying parent this weekend and now I don't have the gas to do that either. Needless to say, it's really upsetting.

A bit ironic... now I'm bouncing MORE checks, again unexpectedly... because they're punishing me for bouncing checks unexpectedly. I worked hard to get that $3000 check rushed to me and if I'd KNOWN they were going to hold it FOR A WEEK I would've gotten cash back or cashed it at the bank that issued it. I would never have put it through the ATM and then written checks! I'M not STUPID!!!!

I went to my bank and the "manager" there, a young latino girl, didn't want to give me the time of day to help me. She barely looked up from counting checks. I explained that I only went to the ATM because the branch was too busy on Friday. She basically responded "No it wasn't. It was dead." I told her I was there at 3pm and there was a line all the way down the hall. She said, "Well, I was at lunch then but I find that hard to believe. And I can't help you with anything through the ATM. Call customer service." When I told her I did, she just shrugged.

1.) Am I just plain screwed until Tuesday? I really needed to visit my parent and... oh... eat.

2.) Within a year, I will have at least six figures in the bank due to a property sale, and my tax problems will be over. When I do HAVE money, I don't intend to forgive Wells Fargo for how they've treated me when I DIDN'T have money. I definitely want to take my account elsewhere... but is there any way I can do so and also complain or make a statement that anyone would listen to? Would I be wasting my time to try to be heard that this is an unacceptable way to treat people.

3.) Good banks? Know of any?

Thoughts?

What are some novels with evil first-person narrators?

Beardman — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:56:12 -0800

What are some reasonably well-known, preferably famous, examples of novels with evil first-person narrators? All that's coming to mind is Humbert Humbert, but he's too aware of his own nastiness for my purposes. I need novels where the undiluted dastardliness of the first-person narrator affects the entire moral framework of the story, so that you might be forgiven for suspecting that the author actually sides with this monster. Cheers!

Help me find this fictional evil organization logo!

stenseng — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:45:49 -0800

Help me find this logo... Earth, or a stylized globe, clutched in a fist... think SPECTRE, SMERSH, or KAOS, but it's not any of those... Where have I seen this? Subgenius art? Anyone?

Teaching Good & Evil & Critical Thinking to Children Through Literature

Knigel — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:10:45 -0800

Please help me find resources and information about Good and Evil in children's literature. I will be taking an interesting course to discuss this; however, I personally -- for the time being -- do not believe in Good and Evil; therefore, I would like to defend my position or challenge it through the course. I can usually defend the idea well enough amongst adults, yet I am pondering the effects on the minds of children. I am trying to find various resources that would help me see many different sides of these issues. I would like to look at everything from morals/ethics, psychology, philosophy, current scientific understanding versus out-dated Christian morality (I will be heavily critiquing Religious values in favour of non-theist atheism), ethnocentrism + other -centrisms, etc. How can I argue against good and evil while also encouraging pro-social behaviour in children?

Any books, book criticisms, children's books, internet resources, metafilter posts+comments, etc. would really help me e.g., "The Golden Compass" versus "Narnia"

Thank you for helping me refine and challenge my thoughts and understandings of Good+Evil in Children's Literature.

Malevolent Mazel Tov?

bluekrauss — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:06:44 -0800

Must I invite my husband's evil relatives to our son's bar mitzvah? I can only think of 2 people in this world that I truly hate- and they happen to be my husband's aunt and uncle. I actually refer to them in conversation with my husband as Uncle Bastard and his Bitch Wife. This does not insult my husband at all as he agrees with me 100%.

UB is my father-in-law's brother. He used to be an OK guy, apparently, until he married BW, an evil, shallow, materialistic witch. Over the years (they're both around 60 years old) he took on a few of his wife's characteristics. He became more asshole-y at times, though most of the time he was nice to his family, and was on good terms with them.

That all changed about 5 years ago. You see, for the past 30 years or so until then he had been working for my father-in-law. FIL provided him with a good job which included a nice house as a perk. Uncle Bastard isn't a dumb man, but without FIL he certainly couldn't have done as well for himself.

But 5 years ago FIL's company went under. He had no choice but to lay off UB. He provided UB with a very generous severance package, but it wasn't good enough for UB. Instead of realizing how lucky he had been all those years to have a brother that provided him with such a good job, he started demanding more and more money. FIL, being a nice guy and wanting to avoid a squabble, did pony up some more cash, but there was only so much he could give. This still wasn't good enough for UB. Egged on by his Bitch Wife, he harrassed FIL for months, even involving their mother in this mess- he constantly complained to a 95-year-old woman who had recently been put in a nursing home after a debilatating stroke and certainly didn't need the added stress of one son constantly badmouthing the other.

It even got to the point that UB threatened to go to the press and the courts and expose a business deal of FIL's that had skirted a few illegalities. It wasn't anything all that terrible, really, but not something FIL wanted made public.

At that point, FIL gave up trying to make nice with his asshole of a brother (which he had been doing, trying to mend fences even though UB didn't deserve it) and stopped talking to him. So did the rest of the family, who are genuinely nice people. UB and BW stopped coming to family events for a while. Maybe the pressure worked, because UB stopped asking for more money and never again mentioned going to the press.

Well, time heals most wounds, and little by little UB and BW have started ingratiating themselves back into the family. Guess they were lonely. And the family is, as I've said, very nice and little by little they've all "taken them back" and by now UB and BW come to all the family gatherings and talk to everyone like nothing happened. The family knows what they are and no one trusts them or even likes them very much, but they're just too nice to ignore these 2 evil shits anymore.

Everyone except me, that is. I can't forgive them or even bring myself to talk to them (we almost never see eachother anyway except for the odd family wedding, bar mitzvah, etc). I remember how agonized FIL was all those months while those 2 were pulling that shit. He didn't deserve any of that. But even he talks a bit with his bastard of a brother if they see eachother at family events.

My son's bar mitzvah is coming up and I don't want to send these 2 an invitation. I don't want them there, thinking I've forgiven them and that I'm OK with them and what they've done. The thought of having to greet them, kiss-kiss, etc. makes my stomach turn. My husband isn't crazy about them either (though he does say "Hi, how are you" to UB if he sees him) but says we really don't have a choice, that it will be too obvious that they weren't invited and will cause an uncomfortable situation. He even thinks his father, who was the injured party in all this, would feel uncomfortable if they weren't invited. We've actually argued about this, which kills me.

I don't think most of the family will care if they're not there. I certainly don't care if this hurts our relationship with UB and BW as we don't have a relationship anyway. I know some of you will probably say to let it go and invite them, and I'm usually the type of person to do that, but I truly hate these people and don't want them at our special day.

Can I put my foot down on this one?

"Hang on...what am I doing?!"

greytape — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:37:43 -0800

Looking for first-hand accounts of acts of genuine evil. I'm looking for first-hand accounts from people who have done stuff that, at the time or later, is considered to be unspeakably evil. Stuff like abusing children, genocide, mass mutilation/rape. I'm intrigued to know what is going through people's heads as they do these kinds of things.

Suggestions for books, articles, interviews, documentaries are all helpful. Thanks!

Need appletv, have windows :(

NekulturnY — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:29:08 -0800

Appletv for Windows Media Center? I have a media pc in my home office, where I record a lot of television using Windows Media Center. I want to play this in my living room, one story up from the office and about 30 feet further.

Something like AppleTV seems to do the job nicely for Mac owners, but is not compatible obviously with Windows Media Center. I need to record the television, because it's stuff that will not be on pirate bay or any other torrents (it's domestically produced dross that I need to see for professional reasons). So apple tv + torrents are out.

I tried burning a dvd with the recorded stuff, but windows won't let me (file type not supported or something).

So basically: what device will let me browse my tv library in the living room (remotely controlled) and play my recorded stuff on my tv (it's HD ready or full HD, forgot which, but it does have this new connector type). Wireless would be optimal, but I could wire up if needed. Even better would be the ability to upload certain files to the device in the living room (like apple tv, sigh), so as not to be dependent on the wireless connection.

One last thing: I'm aware of myth tv and other dvr options that might be compatible with apple tv, but I'm currently not looking at those. So it's Windows Media Center compatible hardware I'm looking for. Go rabbits, kill, kill!

How to make my own karaoke discs from scratch?

thewhynotgirl — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:09:03 -0800

How do I take a song off a regular cd, add viewable lyrics (and whatever else is necessary) and turn it into a karaoke disc that I can hand to the kj at a karaoke joint? I already have evil lyrics and some other audio software, but I can only find reference to working with songs that are already on a cdg ... no references in my audio programs to exactly how to make one myself. Further info: Evil lyrics will yield me a .kar and help me sync it to the music I'm playing ... but it doesn't explain what a .kar is or what to do with it.

And I want to make my own rather than find or purchase karaoke tracks because I tend to pick nonmainstream songs that are often not found anywhere but on the cd's I bought them on!

Thanks in advance!

Is it time for a credit card?

fogster — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:31:50 -0800

Should I sign up for a credit card right now? If so, from where? I'm an unemployed college student. I'm due to graduate in May, and currently have no job since I'm a full-time student. (I'm looking for "real" jobs for when I graduate.) I'll delve into (much) more detail in a minute, but the basic gist is that people keep telling me I need to get a "real" credit card to build history, but I think now may be a bad time.

I should also disclaim that I'm extremely contemptuous and distrusting of the credit industry. I believe that they, as an industry, have gone out of their way to exploit people with financial problems; I find it repulsive that they're exempt from usury laws; I'm yet to find a credit card company that doesn't engage in one sleazy practice or another. More than anything, though, I have major issues with credit reporting: I never asked to be put in a database with some random third-party group, and I think my financial data is the last thing in the world they have a right to know anything about. I realize that it's very helpful to banks, but that doesn't appease me. Not only is it a (creepy) invasion of my privacy, but I have major issues with them being the definitive word on whether I'm creditworthy or not. (It'd be like if I spontaneously declared that I was the "Job Rating Bureau" and kept files on every person in America, every time they've been disciplined at work, every place they ever worked, for how long, and also reported when people applied for jobs. And then, when someone went to apply for a job, the company would contact me to ask what I thought of them. Oh, and employees could only see my ranking of them once a year. And that's only because Congress forced my hand.)</rant>

So I acknowledge that some of my reluctance is that opening a credit card is "giving in" and playing by their rules. But I also think it just doesn't make sense at this point in my life:

- I have no job. I last had a job this past summer.

- I have about $2,000 to my name. It's in a local credit union, which has also issued me a (Visa-branded) "check card," which works as both a debit card and an ATM. The money just comes out of my checking account. This works very well for me.

- I have around $10,000 in student loans. I consider myself pretty prudent in this regard: they don't officially become payable until I graduate (and then I have the ridiculously long time they allow), but back when I did have a job, I worked on paying down monthly accrued interest and a small amount of principal.

- My 2007 tax return was for about $7,000 in income. (I consider this quite good for a no-skill summer job, but the point is that current debt, technically, outweighs my annual income. Further, I don't even have the job anymore.)

Also, I was turned down for an auto loan a couple years ago. (I had about $13,000 in the bank, and was seeking to buy a car for about that amount, but my mom convinced me I should try for a loan to build credit rating. So I applied for a $4,000 loan and was turned down.)

As I understand it, applying for a credit card and getting turned down would hurt my credit further. I almost signed up for the Costco AmEx card, but this thread got me worried about AmEx's apparent obsession with putting accounts under "financial review" at inopportune times and demanding years of financial data. If your answer is that I should apply for a card now, I'm also soliciting recommendations for a company that doesn't seek to cheat me too badly. I should note that, because I hate spending money I don't have, I expect to pay cards off in full, so I'm actually not too sensitive to interest rates.

I have no military links, so USAA is out. And thanks for reading this far; this came out to be a long one!

Balancing trust with protecting yourself?

WCityMike — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:01:36 -0800

If you believe that people are inherently good, and you approach the world with trust — if you might accurately be described as dewy-eyed and idealistic — if you believe that justice occurs and evil is punished — how do you preserve these elements of your personality (trust, innocence, belief in justice) in light of the urge to protect yourself from hurt and attack (emotional shielding)? How do you handle the problem of evil (i.e., an all-powerful all-good God wouldn't sit by and let atrocities happen) — and the fact that evil does, repeatedly, go unpunished and oft even is rewarded — in light of this worldview that the world is inherently good and can be trusted?

Without baring my soul too deeply, suffice it to say that my emotional shielding has been too strongly in place for too long, and I'd like to start laying a foundation down on the other side of the tracks. It's also not a question of just needing time to heal from the circumstances described in this previous question, as I've recently realized that the shields were up long before that particular event occurred; that worldview evolved as a result of, well, events from adolescence, college, and adulthood.

What fictional evil has great corporate branding?

cowbellemoo — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:09:22 -0800

What fictional evil has great corporate branding? I'm knitting myself sweaters and want to use the merchandising logo of fictional and cinematic dystopian/corrupt/evil corporations or organizations. A few examples I've thought up with a great deal of satisfaction:

Black Mesa from Half Life
Aperture Science from Portal
Umbrella Corp. from Resident Evil
uNorth from Michael Clayton
Three Bees from The Constant Gardner

I'm really interested in a fully-realized brand identity, not just any old evil corporation/organization. Ideally they'd have a nice little logo design and have short names, since it'll look better knit. It takes forever to knit up sweaters, but patterning out different logos keeps me really excited about them. Thanks!

Help me kick out my roommate who hasnt payed deposit.

Charlie Lesoine — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:14:08 -0800

Another evil roommate problem: I share an apartment with my girlfriend and a roommate with a one year lease. Before we moved in in April, my girlfriend and I payed the entire deposit, and we made a verbal agreement with our roommate that she would pay her part the day we moved in. She still hasn't payed us, and now we just want her to move out because we hate her so much. our roommate is totally unreasonable and acts like she doesn't need to pay us. She also claims that she has the right to stay until the 1 year lease is up, if and when she 'decides' to pay us. We have made tenuous agreements for her to leave, first at the end of December and now she says the end of January "she'll try". We just want to know of there is a way we can legally force her to quit the premises because of her failure to pay even seven months after we moved in together. At this point we would much prefer for her to simply leave, rather than paying us back. Can we use something like this? Or is that just for landlords?

Democracy?

zazerr — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:18:27 -0800

I want to understand campaign finance laws. In the US, abroad, and in theory. The more I learn about the current state of the US, the more I'm inclined to believe that money in politics is truly the root of all evil. I'd say that campaign contributions and the 'government industry revolving door' are two of the most serious problems, but perhaps there are even worse problems. In any case, money isn't speech. So what can we do?

How do other countries deal with these issues? If they have (somewhat) successful laws in place, how did they get there? (I ask because it seems naive to think that the very people the status quo helps so much would change it voluntarily.)

I'm sure scholars have tackled this. What are some possible solutions? Publicly financed campaigns, sure, but what else? Has anyone written model legislation for this?

Books, studies, websites, causes you recommend? I've been to Common Cause, but while I agree with a lot of what they support, they seem a bit unfocused.

Why does the sign over the westbound Bruckner Expwy for the Third Ave Bridge give the wrong exit?

nicwolff — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:21:56 -0800

Has NYC put an incorrect sign on the westbound Bruckner Expressway to trick visitors into taking the Triborough Bridge instead of the toll-free Third Avenue Bridge into Manhattan? Let's say you're driving west on the Bruckner Expressway having come from New England somewhere, and your destination is in Manhattan. You've been told that the Third Avenue Bridge is free, whereas the Triborough Bridge will cost you $4.50 and is often backed up at the tolls, so you'd prefer to take the Third Avenue Bridge. So when you see the sign just past the Bruckner drawbridge that reads "Exit 44 - I-87 Deegan Expwy / Third Ave Br / Upstate" you start looking for exit 44.

Sucker! Unfortunately for you, the actual signs for the exit that takes you to the Third Avenue Bridge read "Exit 47 - I-87 North / Major Deegan Expwy / Upstate" - both there and here. They doesn't mention the bridge, and you certainly don't want to go upstate! So you stay on the Bruckner waiting for exit 44 and find yourself seconds later on the Triborough Bridge and out $4.50; if you take the Triboro into Queens you'll eventually come to exit 44 about 4 miles later where the Grand Central Parkway splits off.

WTF NYC?

Welcome to Kitten Killer Ko.

oxford blue — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 06:37:45 -0800

Blackwater. Umbrella Corp. Metafilter Network. Evil company names.

What are some great examples of evil-sounding company names? Names that sound almost cartoon/video game evil-y (Like Umbrella corp.)

Bonus points if they actually exist, and are inherently evil in their name alone. (i.e. not evil by association. Like Microsoft. Har! See, I mocked Microsoft. I'm an individual!)

(Via The Colbert Report, which I've justed started a-watchin'.)