Oakland Police Steal Protester's McRib!

First off, I should probably ease your mind a bit: The Oakland police didn't really steal anyone's heat-lamped chunk of slightly-higher-than-dogfood quality pork. That would unforgivable.

What the Oakland police did (aside from befriending adorable kitty-cats) was fire tear gas, flash bang grenades, and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters. During the fray, one filthy hippie--a former Marine named Scott Olsen, who had served two tours of duty in Iraq--was hit in the head with one of these weapons, suffering a fractured skull and brain swelling. He is currently in the hospital in fair condition. Blogger Aaron Bady was there when the fun started, so check out his blog if you'd like to see some pictures of the crazed, out-of-control behavior that set off the confrontation.



Also in McRib-related news, a scientist hired by the Koch brothers has conceded that global warming does, in fact, exist. Of course, you probably already heard that given that the story has received a total of nearly 30 seconds of coverage on cable news. Seriously, how many times can they keep repeating the same story like that.

Anyway, keep in mind that the McRib will only be around for a limited time.

Drugs, Math, and SCIENCE!

From the September issue of Bazooka Magazine:

Since it’s a well-documented anecdotal fact that most welfare recipients are drug dealers who abuse the system so they can buy gold teeth and new rims without having to get a real job, it’s fairly common to hear people (and by “people,” I mean “morons”) suggesting that we could save a lot of tax money if we’d just ignore that pesky Fourth Amendment and drug test people who receive government assistance. If the test comes back positive, we can save money by cutting them off and letting their kids starve. That’ll learn ‘em!

Not surprisingly, Florida--consistent winner of the “State Our Nation Is Most Embarrassed By” award--had instituted just such a policy. The drug testing started earlier this year and the state predicts that the program will cost around $178 million annually. The result? A whopping 2% of the tests have been positive and another 2% didn’t complete the application process “for unspecified reasons” (no doubt they got trapped under a mountain of gold chains and car stereo equipment). According to the Tampa Tribune’s Jenée Desmond-Harris, the state will save somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,800-$60,000 per year on rejected applicants.

Keep in mind that drug testing only shows whether someone has taken drugs in some specified period of time (which varies depending on the drug being tested for). It does not differentiate between someone who took drugs once (possibly weeks before they found themselves in need of government assistance) and habitual users. It also doesn’t reveal whether the person being tested uses alcohol, so those who abuse alcohol (and in all likelihood those who abuse legal drugs that have been prescribed to them by a doctor) will get a pass. Furthermore, testing doesn’t guarantee that a single drug dealer is caught (especially if he follows NWA’s advice that dealers should abstain from the drug in which they trade).

Another problem with drug tests is the fact that they aren’t 100% accurate. According to Dr. Dwight Smith of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Black Hills, South Dakota, 5%-10% of positive drug test results are false positives (positive results even though the test subject has not taken any drugs). The rate of false negatives (negative results when the person being tested has taken drugs) is even higher, at 10%-15%. And those are averages. Tests for specific drugs tend to be more accurate, while those that attempt to test for a broad spectrum of drugs (like the ones Florida is administering) are generally less accurate.

If all the percentages and numbers make it hard to get a clear picture of exactly how pointless Florida’s drug testing program is, you’re in luck, because I have a tortured analogy! Let’s say that I’ve just invented a new electric border fence that periodically scans for people trying to cross it. Even better, it can use cutting edge SCIENCE! to determine whether the person trying to cross it is an illegal immigrant. If so, the fence emits a deadly electric shock. Of course, it does have a few bugs. Here are its performance specs:

• In an average day, the fence scans roughly 2,000 times.
• Of those 2,000 scans, 1720 of them happen when there is nobody trying to cross the fence (at a cost of about $30 a pop).
• 240 times a day there will be illegals crossing the fence, but the scanners will somehow fail to pick them up.
• Each day, 40 illegal immigrants will see the fence and decide to stay in Mexico.
• 37 times a day, the scanners will electrocute an illegal immigrant who is trying to TAKE OUR JOBS!
• Three times a day, the illegal alien detection technology fails and and electrocutes American citizen (probably an adorable child) standing near the fence.

So, at the end of the day, my awesome border fence costs $60,000 to operate, allows 240 illegal immigrants to cross the border unmolested, scares away 40 potential border crossers, fries 37 people with hopes of a better life, and kills 3 innocent children. I’m looking for investors so I can get a prototype ready to sell to Florida. Who wants in?

Update: Since writing this article, I've discovered that one of the companies doing the drug testing in Florida, Solantic, was co-founded by...wait for it...Florida Governor Rick Scott. His holdings in the company were transferred to his wife shortly before he took office. So there's absolutely no conflict of interest here or anything like that.

One More And I'll Shut Up About Comics (for a while)

I’m not sure if DC saved the best for last or if everything just looks better compared to last week’s releases, but I think this week’s releases had the best overall quality so far. Nothing managed to beat out Action Comics for my favorite book of the reboot, but there’s some good stuff here (of course there’s some bad and unremarkable stuff, too).

All-Star Western
I heard good things about Gray and Palmiotti’s recent Johnah Hex series, but never got around to reading it. My understanding is that All-Star Western is basically the same book under a new title, and it looks great. The first story teams Hex up with a 19th Century Dr. Arkham as they try to solve a series of Ripper-style murders in Gotham. The issue’s a little “ancestor cameo”-heavy, but that’s really my only complaint. Hex is written like Hex should be written, Dr. Arkham’s running psychoanalysis of him is entertaining, and the art’s great. It’s pretty stylized, but I love the way the artist brings things into focus by giving more detail to and using a more varied color pallet on the things that are important to the scene. I think I’ll keep reading this one. One question for the peanut gallery: Is the woman in the cloak and cowl in the bar scene (kind of center-right in the background, behind the guy in the red vest) a cameo I’m not getting?

Batman: The Dark Knight
This is in the same category as all the other Bat books in the reboot: solid, but not spectacular. At least story-wise. I’ve got kind of a love/hate thing with the art. The costumed Batman and the cityscapes and other set pieces look great, but most of the actual people suffer from a bad case of what I can only describe as “Liefeld face.” And don’t even get me started on Hulk Two-Face.

Aquaman
Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I really enjoyed the new Aquaman comic. If the first issue is a good indication of where the series is going, it might even become a regular book for me. The thing that makes it work for me is the idea that people of the DCU feel pretty much the same about Aquaman as the DC fans do: that he’s a really lame super-hero who talks to fish. Acknowledging that Aquaman basically sucks right from the beginning might actually allow Johns to write an Aquaman book whose plot isn’t constantly undercut by the fact that it’s about Aquaman.

The Flash
Nothing groundbreaking here, but there’s super science right from the get-go, a good story hook, and I like the art. Buccellato does a great job of conveying a sense of movement, which is pretty important in a comic about the fastest man alive. I know that sounds obvious, but Flash artists and editors don’t always figure that out. I recommend giving this one a shot.

I, Vampire
If you love vampire cliches, this is the book for you! “Unimaginative” seems too generous and “uninspired” suggests a potentiality that does not exist here. So I’m going to go with “awful.” Not “Starfire is a sex doll” awful, just “this is not even remotely a good comic” awful.

Justice League Dark
The “occult JLA” concept could fall into a serious pile of suck very easily, and Peter Milligan is one of the few writers still working for DC that I’d trust to keep that from happening. After a couple of pages of uncertainty, Milligan won me over with three panels. The final (and my favorite of the three): “The local power station threatens to explode when it is imbued with consciousness...and gets bored.” YES! That’s some Doom Patrol level shit there! I was a little worried about John Constantine as a character in a mainstream DCU comic, but his introductory monologue (“He wanted to contact his dead wife. I wanted to pay my rent.”) put those fears...well, if not “at rest,” at least “into a state of sleepiness.” I feel good about this one as long as Milligan’s on board.

Superman
First off, what the hell is wrong with Supes on the cover? His arms and legs look hideously deformed. I’m curious whether the artist used an action figure for a model, because the limbs seem to have that sort of weird toy articulation to them. Once you get inside the book, the art is much better, at least when you can see it. For a comic book artist, George Perez is a very wordy writer. When combined with a few too many panels on some pages, this makes the comic seem a little crowded at times. Aside from the verbiage and clutter, though, it’s not a bad story. I’m especially glad that Perez didn’t immediately throw out everything I loved about the Action Comics reboot version of Supes.

Teen Titans
Ok, I like the fact that the comic starts out by acknowledging that super-powered teenagers would probably be a giant pain in the ass, and that they do it through Kid Flash, who would no doubt be the biggest pain in the ass of the bunch. The rest of the book really just establishes Red Robin as being very Batman-like and introduced Wonder Girl. Nothing wrong with it, and there’s an occasional hint of a Young Justice vibe, so I’ll at least give it until the whole team’s introduced before making a definite decision.

The DC Reboot Continues

New week, new comics. But first, great news: J.T. Krul is off Green Arrow. The reign of terror is over! Even better, he’ll be replaced by Keith Giffen. Looks like the wall of pure hate I’ve been sending out finally paid off.

We’ll start off with the one I missed last week:

Mister Terrific
I’ve always like the Michael Holt incarnation of Mr. Terrific. In addition to being a believable take on a hokey Golden Age character, Holt is a really likable guy. Therefore, seeing him turned into a complete ass in the first issue (even if it is due to some kind of crazy mind-altering something or another) doesn’t really inspire confidence. Also, while I’m a big fan of Holt having access to all kinds of crazy super-science, an extra-dimensional fortress might be just a little much. Still, I’m a big fan of the character, so I’ll give this one a few issues to pick up.

And now for this week’s reads:

Batman
Like most of the Batman books that have come out so far, this has the makings of a good, solid Batman story. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t really look like they’ll be covering any new ground, either. My favorite thing about this book is probably Capullo’s art, which I think fits Gotham very well.

Birds of Prey
The first issue only introduces half the team, the story isn’t great, the art is mediocre, and the costumes are terrible. Not sure if being a Black Canary fan is going to be enough to keep me reading this one, especially if there’s no Barbara Gordon or Huntress. Judging from the cover of issue one, the rest of the team is made up of characters that I’m at best ambivalent about.

Blue Beetle
I’ll admit that, aside from his occasional supporting character appearances in other books, most of my exposure to Blue Beetle was on The Electric Company. When it comes to the DCU, I usually get the Beetle and Booster Gold mixed up. Still, I always thought the character was basically a science guy with lots of gadgets, so the whole mystical alien scarab thing kind of threw me for a loop. In general, I prefer street-level super-heroes like Green Arrow or Batman, but I can appreciate cosmic when it’s REALLY Cosmic (Morrison’s JLA, for instance). The background on the mystical alien scarab thing seems to be right at that “ho-hum cosmic” level that a lot of comics get stuck in, so I’m not sure if I’ll bother reading the second issue of this one.

Catwoman
Since I’d read Laura Hudson’s Comics Alliance article about this one, I thought I knew what to expect and expected bad. Turns out, it was worse. Hudson’s article article focused on the book’s smarmy, fanboyish attempt to make Selina a “sexually empowered woman,” but didn’t point out that even the non-”adult” parts of the book also sucked. Outside of the opening scene and the porn, the bulk of the issue follows the exact same plot as every bad action movie with a female protagonist (which, of course, have their own twisted view of what constitutes a “strong” female character) without the slightest hint of irony.

Nightwing
First off, a tangent inspired by the reference to Dick’s year as Batman: Can we please stop trying to squeeze references to the old DCU into every single reboot comic? Since the heroes in the new timeline are only supposed to have been around for a few years, trying to squeeze every single storyline (or some variation on it) from 70+ years into that time frame is just a little much. Also, it defeats the whole “remove all the continuity baggage that makes the universe inaccessible to new readers” idea that I thought was one of the reasons for the reboot in the first place. As for the comic itself, there’s just enough of a hook that I’ll probably at least follow the first storyline.

Red Hood and the Outlaws
Neither Roy Harper nor Jason Todd finished out the old DCU as likable characters, so it seems like a bad idea to start them off in the new universe with equally unlikable qualities (and in Todd’s case, apparently most of the unlikable background). And then, of course, there’s the whole “Starfire is basically a Real Doll with superpowers” thing that Hudson commented on in the article I linked earlier. Really the only positive thing about this comic is that (as far as we know), Roy hasn’t raped anybody yet. Unless a court determines that Starfire’s apparent inability to distinguish one human from another renders her mentally incompetent to give consent, that is.

Supergirl
The only Supergirl series I’ve read was the one Peter David wrote back in the 90s. In it, Supergirl was an angel who had taken over the resurrected body of a devil worshipping teenager. Or something. The point is, I don’t know much about the Kryptonian version of Supergirl. Maybe if I did, I’d recognize something in the first issue to tell me where the story’s going or what Supergirl continuity/origin is being used. As it is, I just know that Supergirl’s apparently just fallen to earth for the first time and has no idea that her home planet has been blown to millions of tiny chunks (a surprising number of which fell to earth in locations easily accessible to Lex Luthor). I’ll pick up the next issue or two and see if it looks like it’s going anywhere interesting.

Wonder Woman
There’s a chance that this is the first Wonder Woman comic I’ve ever read. It’s not that I don’t like the character, just that I’ve never been inspired to pick up any of the books where she’s the star. The new book might just change that. Judging from the first issue, it looks like the plan is to go full-blown mythic, and I think I trust Azzarello’s to do thatl. Also, Cliff Chiang’s art has kind of a Sandman vibe to it that I really like.

Google Plus Improvement Suggestion: Subscription Circles

One of the big selling points/innovations of Google Plus is its inclusion of circles. These are basically lists that allow you to organize your contacts into custom lists which are used to control who can see a particular post. Circles are great for controlling privacy (you can post pictures of last night’s party to your “Bar Friends” circle and not have to worry about your grandmother seeing them) and for controlling the signal-to-noise ratio of your news feed (people who you don’t know or who post exclusively about what they had for dinner go into the “Don’t Care” circle that you never bother to check), but aren’t very useful for targeting posts to people who you don’t know very well (or at all).

The big problem with circles as they currently exist is that they only work if the user knows what circles his contacts want to be in. This is fairly easy for close friends (Zed goes into the movie and politics circles, but since he doesn’t game, I leave him out of the RPG circle), but much more difficult when it comes to casual acquaintances (I know Ferndando is a gamer, but have no idea if his musical tastes are anything like mine). And then there are the people you don’t know, which is especially problematic if you’re a writer, musician, politician, business owner, or other public or semi-public figure (Is this guy a QAGS fan, someone who likes my political rants in the local alternative rag, or somebody I went to college with and don’t remember?).

From the poster’s perspective, a circle becomes less useful if you’re not sure that you’ve got the right people in it. When it comes to important (at least in your estimation) news, you’re more likely to just ignore circles entirely and post publicly so you don’t miss anyone, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of having circles in the first place. On the reader end of things, getting put in the wrong circle means you’re not getting the content you want and clogs up your news feed with stuff you could care less about. If a poster is consistently posting things you don’t care about (either due to overuse of public posts or having put you in the wrong circle), eventually you’re going to unsubscribe from their feed or stick them in your own “Don’t Care” circle.

Right now, the only way to know who wants to be in a particular circle is to ask them what circles they want to be in. Unfortunately, there’s no really efficient way to do that. If you use private messages, you have to do it for each new contact and send new messages to everyone if you start a new circle. If you use posts, you have to regularly announce the circle so that new followers can opt in. In both cases, you then have to manually add everyone who responds.

There’s an easy fix for this, which I’m sure somebody has already suggested but I’m going to chime in about anyway: give users the option of making circles public and subscribable. Whenever a user decides to follow someone new, give them a list of that person’s public circles and let them select which ones they want to subscribe to. To make it easy for subscribers to add or remove subscriptions later, list every user’s public groups on their profile page along with a link that allows people to subscribe or unsubscribe.

In addition to allowing posters (especially those who use their profiles to promote themselves or their business) to more effectively target their posts, subscription circles would be very useful in allowing readers to organize their feeds. For example, I might to care what my favorite author has to say about writing and what books he’s got coming out, but not give a damn about his favorite sports team. Allowing me to subscribe to his “writing” circle and disregard his “da Bears” circle allows me to cut out the noise without losing the content I want. With a few additional tweaks, opt-in circles could be used to provide a functionality similar to Facebook’s groups or fan pages, which will be important when Google Plus opens up the doors to businesses and other organizations.