Tag Archives: maybe

I Can’t Stop Reading One-Star Yelp Reviews of National Parks

by EldenJenson Posted on August 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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The National Park Service turns 99 years old on Tuesday. To celebrate, the Department of the Interior has waived admission fees for all NPS sites for the day. That’s a pretty sweet deal. You should stop reading this right now, call in sick, and enjoy the great outdoors. National parks are great.

But not everyone agrees. Yelp is filled with one- and two-star reviews of America’s most pristine and majestic natural wonders. And honestly, they’re riveting. What makes a national park a one-star destination varies from one reviewer to the next. Maybe the tacos at the visitor center aren’t up to snuff. Maybe it was cloudy. Maybe the park was too cowardly to cut down some trees for spillover parking lots. Maybe it was President Barack Obama’s fault.

Whatever the case, you can thank these people for leaving the campgrounds a little bit less crowded for the rest of us:

Joshua tree:

The desert is too hot. Esther Lee/Flickr

I looked it up, and it’s true—the bees at Joshua Tree National Park are out of control. In 2000, a group of hikers was attacked by a swarm and one man was stung more than 100 times. They tried to get inside their car to escape, but some of the bees followed them inside the car and continued stinging them. Holy crap, bees! If you were stung 100 times by bees at Joshua Tree, you should give it one star. But maybe it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise that the desert gets hot in the summer. This is like downgrading a restaurant because you went there on a hunger strike.

Death Valley:

Pass. John Fowler/Flickr

Pinnacles:

Some rocks. sfbaywalk/Flickr

Yosemite:

And? Aaron & Carol/Flickr

Lassen volcanic:

Where’s the lava? Roy Scribner/Flickr

Crater Lake:

You could see Fantastic Four for the same price. Glenn Scofield Williams/Flickr

And a bonus two-star review of Crater Lake that’s kidding itself about not being a one-star review:

Olympic:

A big rock with glorified weeds. Esther Lee/Flickr

Do not let the National Park Service tell you how many friends you can have.

Grand Canyon:

Few amenities. Grand Canyon National Park/Flickr

Carlsbad Caverns:

Only go to this cave if you like caves. Greg Heartsfield/Flickr

Petrified Forest:

The trees are all dead! Park Ranger/Flickr

Yellowstone:

Good luck swimming here. A Davis/Flickr

Badlands:

Bad. Jim Bowen/Flickr

Arches:

One star. Max and Dee Bernt/Flickr

Zion:

Skip the tacos. Cyril Fluck/Flickr

Shenandoah:

Pure government overreach. David McSpadden/Flickr

(N.B.: There is an entire visitor center devoted to the mistreatment of former inhabitants.)

Acadia:

Nice try, try a state park. Robbie Shade/Flickr

Hawai’i Volcanoes:

Still no lava. Ed Dunens/Flickr

Haleakala:

This is it? Joe Parks/Flickr

But enough about the sunrise, already. How were the tacos?

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I Can’t Stop Reading One-Star Yelp Reviews of National Parks

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This GoPro Video From Inside An F-18 Fighter Jet Is Absolutely Bonkers

by TommyM18obifynm Posted on May 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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ABC News

GoPro videos are cool. Fighter jets (that aren’t the F-35) are cool. GoPro videos from fighter jets are unsurprisingly cool.

This one was featured on ABC News last year but I only discovered it just now courtesy of Nightline producer Meredith Frost on Twitter. (Follow her.)

You should watch it! Or not. I mean, you don’t have to. It takes all sorts to make a world. Maybe you want to leave a comment asking incredulously “why is this news?” Either way, have a great night!

ABC News Videos | ABC Entertainment News

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This GoPro Video From Inside An F-18 Fighter Jet Is Absolutely Bonkers

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J.K. Rowling Reveals “Elizabeth Warren” Was a Ravenclaw

by FredricAIN Posted on May 11, 2015

Mother Jones

Is Elizabeth Warren actually just an enigmatic adolescent ghost? Maybe! On Monday, Harry Potter author (and greatest living British person) J.K. Rowling dropped a bombshell in response to a question from a Twitter fan:

According Harry Potter Wiki, Moaning Myrtle was a member of Ravenclaw House. Five points for Ravenclaw!

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J.K. Rowling Reveals “Elizabeth Warren” Was a Ravenclaw

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Religous Zealot Would Like to Talk to You For a Minute About the Drought

by TiaJobsonzedf Posted on May 10, 2015

Mother Jones

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As you may know, there is a drought in California. The water? It’s gone! The state? It’s dry! The consequences? Very bad, indeed.

Where did the water go? I have no idea. I’m not a private detective who specializes in missing water.

Why did the water leave? No clue. Maybe it’s climate change or almonds or squirrels or people or agricultural blah blah blah. Maybe the water saw Thelma & Louise and got inspired. Again: If you’re looking for answers, you’re reading the wrong writer. But you know who else has no idea why the drought happened? This idiot.

Conservative journalist Bill Koenig suggested that the drought in California is a result of the state’s support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights: “We’ve got a state that over and over again will go against the word of God, that will continually take positions on marriage and abortion and on a lot of things that are just completely opposed to the scriptures and unfortunately a lot of times when it starts in California it spreads to the rest of the country and even spreads to the rest of the world. So there very likely could be a drought component to this judgment.”

The end-times crowd always does this whenever there is a natural disaster or terror attack or anything. They always finger the same suspect. Gay people. 9/11? Gays. Katrina? Gays. Drought? Gays.

Social conservatives are the guy in the movie theater who keeps whispering to his friends, “I KNOW WHO DID IT.”

Pundit blames California’s catastrophic drought on the gays. http://t.co/Xt101dJfKz

— HuffPost Green (@HuffPostGreen)

The thing is, the lunatic premise that God is punishing California for being less inhospitable to gays than Bill Koenig would like wouldn’t even lead to the conclusion that the drought is the fault of gays and LGBT allies in California. The conclusion it would lead to is: it’s God’s fault.

If someone stole some fruit and the store manager caught them and punished them by murdering their entire family and everyone they’d ever met, the headline would not be, “Millions Dead, Fruit Thief Blamed,” it would be, “Maniac Murders Millions.” The fruit thief wouldn’t even be mentioned until the fifth paragraph.

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Religous Zealot Would Like to Talk to You For a Minute About the Drought

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These 3D-printed bricks could replace your AC — except you, Florida

by ZackEnriquez Posted on February 5, 2015

These 3D-printed bricks could replace your AC — except you, Florida

By on 5 Feb 2015commentsShare

Hey, 3D printing obsessives, still looking for that killer app? Well, look over here! Maybe this killer app could help kill climate change.

Check out these cool 3D-printed bricks (seriously, they’re called Cool Bricks) that act like little air conditioners without the hefty electric bill. The bricks are made of a porous ceramic material that soaks up water like a sponge. When hot, dry air from the outside flows through the bricks, the water evaporates, and cooler, slightly damper air flows through the inside. Build an entire wall out of these puppies, and who knows what would happen! Actually, we know exactly what would happen — they’d help cool your home, and you’d lay off the freakin’ AC for a while.

(Side note: This isn’t a new concept. People have been using water-filled ceramic containers as air conditioners for millennia.)

Perhaps you’re wondering: Don’t air conditioners help dehumidify the air? Well yes, but evaporative cooling does the opposite. In order for the hot air to evaporate the water in the bricks, it has to heat up the water. That requires energy, and as energy leaves the air and enters the water, the air cools off. Voila!

Unfortunately, since evaporative cooling adds moisture to the air, the bricks, made by California-based company Emerging Objects, would only be useful in dry regions, not in humid areas like Florida, where the air is already full of water vapor.

I know what you’re thinking — if you’re in the desert, where are you gonna find water for the bricks to soak up? Good question. I never said these Cool Bricks were perfect. I just said they were cool.

Listen, here’s the bottom line: We’re looking for ways to save the planet, and techies are looking for ways to make 3D printing ubiquitous. Maybe we should all grab coffee sometime.

Source:
These 3D-Printed Bricks Cool Rooms Without Air Conditioning

, Fast Company.

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These 3D-printed bricks could replace your AC — except you, Florida

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“Baby Turtle Eating Strawberry” Is the Most Adorable Thing I Have Ever Seen

by ToddLording Posted on January 18, 2015

Mother Jones

I don’t know if this is real. I don’t know the context. I saw it on Twitter and it appears to be from some fly-by-night viral Vine account. So full disclosure, that could very well be an ambitious USC undergraduate in a turtle costume. Maybe that strawberry was created by Industrial Light & Magic. Having said that, I don’t care. This is so adorable. I’ve never seen anything this adorable. And I’ve seen adorable things! I’ve seen bunnies hold hands and beagles wrestle. This baby turtle puts them all to shame. It makes the porcupine eating a pumpkin video look like Unforgiven. Unforgiven is not adorable! It’s a blood soaked black hole from which cuteness cannot escape. That is how adorable this vine is.

via Lauren Evans.

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“Baby Turtle Eating Strawberry” Is the Most Adorable Thing I Have Ever Seen

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The First Person Jeb Bush Followed on Twitter Was Karl Rove

by Isabelta5 Posted on December 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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Former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush is running for president. (Maybe.) But just how much does he have in common with his brother, George W.? His Twitter page might offer a clue. The first human Jeb followed on Twitter was none other than his brother’s former deputy chief of staff—Fox News analyst Karl Rove. So is the Oracle of Ohio going to be back in the fold come 2016? We can only hold our breath. Or perhaps Jeb just likes Rove’s engaging Twitter personality. (Full disclosure: the first person I followed on Twitter was Chuck Grassley.)

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The First Person Jeb Bush Followed on Twitter Was Karl Rove

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No, Democrats Aren’t a Bunch of Hopeless Wimps

by AleidaXloxni Posted on November 5, 2014

Mother Jones

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Just a quick note about an election meme that’s already driving me crazy: Democrats lost because they’re timid, vacillating milksops who can barely string together a coherent message and are congenitally unwilling to stand up for their own beliefs. No wonder everyone hates them!

Give me a break. Democrats are Democrats, and they act pretty much the same every election cycle. And yet, they won big in 2006, 2008, and 2012. If they’re such gutless milksops, how were those victories possible?

Look: every election cycle features different candidates. Obviously it’s possible that, on average, this year’s crop of Democrats were more milksoppy than usual. But here’s what’s far more likely: 2014 featured a fairly ordinary bunch of candidates, and the party’s leadership was roughly as effective and visionary (or not) as it normally is. Ditto for fundraising and GOTV efforts.

But every election cycle has structural differences. This one featured a bad Senate map for Dems. It was a midterm election. The party leader was a president whose popularity has waned. The economy continues to be listless. Washington is paralyzed by gridlock, which means that Democrats didn’t have many legislative successes to sell. And anyway, a consistent message would have been all but impossible given all the seats they had to defend in conservative states.

Maybe Dems could have done better. Maybe their message this year really was weak and stale. But if your theory of defeat is based on some enduring and egregious flaw that’s inherent in the Democratic Party, you should reconsider. It probably doesn’t explain as much as you think. Structural explanations that take account of varying conditions are almost always better.

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No, Democrats Aren’t a Bunch of Hopeless Wimps

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The Alternate Ending to "Titanic" Proves Once and for All That Rose Is a Monster

by SamaraTillyard Posted on October 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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Titanic is a deeply flawed film. The dialogue is atrocious. The characterizations are thin. The plot ain’t anything we haven’t seen before. Even the visuals—once heralded as revolutionary—look sort of pedestrian now. (Of course, that’s the trouble with being revolutionary. You look like everybody else that comes after you.) Still, I love it. It’s a jaunt. It’s a ride. It’s a song and a grand, immense emotional experience. It’s what Hollywood does best, really.

But for me, the most unforgivable bit of Titanic has always been the end. Refresher: We’re back in the framing device with the old lady and her granddaughter aboard Bill Paxton’s ship. It is revealed that the old lady has had the jewel the entire time and has really only come aboard the treasure hunting ship so that she can throw it off the bow and lay it to rest down with Jack. This is stupid. That jewel is worth a fortune! Throwing it into the ocean is like setting money on fire. Even if you don’t want to live in luxury because of some Titanic-related guilt, you should still sell the jewel and give the proceeds to some worthy cause: charity! Your children’s education! Whatever! Throwing the jewel in the water is an act of selfish self-aggrandizement that puts old lady Rose firmly in the inconsiderate jerk camp. (Youthful Rose has long been a resident.) Homeless people are going hungry because Rose wanted some meaningless moment with the sea.

So, I was eager to watch the newly unearthed “alternate ending.” (It was apparently an extra on a 2005 DVD release of the film but millennials don’t watch DVDs and the internet only now became aware of its existence.) Does she sell the diamond and go to Beverly Hills and have a Pretty Women moment? Maybe she funds some orphanage for Dickensian youth? Maybe she created a scholarship fund in Leonardo DiCaprio’s name and blah blah blah. She does none of those things. Instead, this ending actually makes it worse.

No longer is Rose solely responsible for this little act of wealth destruction, but she makes complicit Bill Paxton, a treasure hunter. Bill Paxton, who has convinced investors to fund his expedition to find this stupid diamond. Bill Paxton, who lives in the world as it exists and not some Technicolor fantasy. In the new ending, Paxton has the chance to stop her from throwing the thing overboard. She puts it in his hand. He holds it. He becomes ensorcelled by the romance and lets her toss it off the boat and into the sea while one of his shocked minions runs around like an extra with his head cut off.

Where does Bill Paxton go from here? After the stone sinks to the ocean floor, he looks to Rose’s granddaughter and hints that maybe they should date, but he’s going to have a rough go of it finding time to wine and dine her once his backers learn about what he’s done and hit him with a bill for many millions of dollars. Titanic 2 is a courtroom drama set around Bill Paxton’s bankruptcy hearing. Bill Paxton’s life is now ruined. Let’s go further. Rose’s granddaughter’s life is also ruined. Her granddaughter and Bill seemed to really be hitting it off at the end and one of the rules of Hollywood movies is that if two people are flirting and hitting it off at the end of a film then the audience can assume that they immediately get married after the credits roll and are happy for the rest of time and laugh together and eat brunch together and sip champagne and feed each other strawberries together and die within minutes of each other decades later in one another’s arms because a life without the other isn’t a life worth living. That future—that destiny, the right of every romance film character—is not in the cards for Rose’s granddaughter if Bill throws that jewel into the sea. Rose sacrifices her granddaughter’s future bliss for some stupid romantic nonsense.

Rose is a monster.

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The Alternate Ending to "Titanic" Proves Once and for All That Rose Is a Monster

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Quote of the Day: Nathan Deal Is Tired of Barack Obama’s Treachery

by ShanelDeLaConda Posted on September 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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From Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, apparently upset that his tax-fighting economic policies aren’t yet producing a paradise on earth:

It’s ironic that in a year in which Republican governors are leading some of the states that are making the most progress, that they almost, without exception, are classified as having a bump in their unemployment rates. Whereas states that are under Democrat governors’ control, they are all showing that their unemployment rate has dropped. And I don’t know how you account for that. Maybe there is some influence here that we don’t know about.

Maybe! It might be that the Obama administration is cooking the books to make Republicans looks bad. Or maybe Democrats in Georgia are deliberately refusing work in order to spike the unemployment numbers. Or—and this is my suspicion—maybe computers have finally acquired human-level intelligence and they don’t like Nathan Deal! If I were a computer, I sure wouldn’t.

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Quote of the Day: Nathan Deal Is Tired of Barack Obama’s Treachery

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