I am so over vampires

It’s a pity that not everybody agrees with me. Now vampire ridiculousness has infiltrated the world of knitting. I guess I should have known this was coming, what will all the Twilight groups on Ravelry. The sad thing is that I looked through the patterns, and a lot of them are really cute and have nothing to do with vampires! The taint of the Cullens is too strong for me to consider purchasing this, but I might borrow it from the library.

I’m never going to be able to move and/or have children

I really love living in the New York metro area, but it’s so expensive here. I have lived in much cheaper places and loved it (Montreal, how I miss thee!), but this is always going to be my home. I would love to be able to live somewhere else for a while, not only to give my wallet a bit of a break, but also because I like to experience new people and places. The South seems like a worthwhile region to consider, since it’s cheap and I have a lot of relatives there, but it’s stories like this one that make me believe that maybe I’m better off staying here and paying the Northeast Premium.

Why would a middle school arrange the student elections so that only students of certain races can hold office? What student government positions are available to those children who are neither white nor black? How could anybody think that this would be okay? This is why people still find it okay to make jokes about Mississippi.

As somebody on Gawker pointed out, it’s good to see that the school practices what it preaches (scroll down)…

Who is breeding with these people?

For the last time, people (and by people, I mean men), put down the babies before you lunge for foul balls. Thanks.

Any idiot with Microsoft Word and five minutes can make a poster

Except for this one.

Libraries and schools are not an either/or proposition

The Chicago branch of Fox News, that bastion of fair and balanced reporting, posed a question: Are libraries necessary, or a waste of tax money? Obviously, this is a stupid question and I’m surprised that any news organization aspiring to reputability would even pose it, but thankfully Mary A. Dempsey, the Chicago Public Library Commissioner, had a more extensive response.

For Pete’s sake

Silly senators. The Supreme Court justice nomination process generally goes better when the substance of your criticism is about the person being confirmed. Jeez.

Some things should just go without saying

It’s never a good idea to tattoo a toddler, especially if that toddler isn’t even your child.

Wow, I’m really glad that, despite being in sincere pain, David Boreanaz is soldiering on through the tough times that he has experienced since it became common knowledge that he cheated on his wife (there have been rumors about his infidelity forever, but he had to come clean in order to head off an extortion attempt). A lot of guys wouldn’t be able to keep going. They might even miss the cut at Quail Hollow. But David, well, he’s a trooper. He’s not going to let the man (or woman) bring him down! This kind of internal fortitude must be why he was able to so convincingly play first a vampire, then an FBI agent, for all these years.

I had the hugest crush on him in high school, but I’m happy it died a natural death before this happened.

Not the Onion II

I don’t even understand how this is a real headline: Knox Jolie-Pitt Looks Like His Parents

Is the volcanic ash no longer sexy, now that transatlantic flights have resumed? Did the Pirates’ 20 – 0 drubbing at the hands of the Brewers not do it for the folks at The Huffington Post? I’m wracking my brain here for an explanation of this completely obvious headline that looks for all the world like it belongs at The Onion. Possible headline: Biological Child of Famous People Resembles His Parents

What  I find more interesting is that they failed to note that he inherited his Republican grandfather’s political leanings, as evidenced by the pro-NRA gesture he’s making.

You were born in Puerto Rico. Your existence is invalid.

“Y is a fact, [so] your x is invalid,” is only funny when y = something silly and x = your argument. Then we’re talking about the meme most likely to crack me up. Infinitely less hilarious is when y = you were born in Puerto Rico and x = your birth certificate. Then we’re talking about millions of people being utterly screwed.

The problem is that Puerto Rican birth certificates are somehow extra ripe for being spoofed, forged, and otherwise used for nefarious purposes. The US State Department and Department of Homeland Security estimate that around 40% of forged US passports were obtained using birth certificates from Puerto Rico. That’s obviously a very serious and scary thing. The government’s solution, though, seems particularly ham-fisted: they’re simply going to invalidate any Puerto Rican birth certificate issued before July 1, 2010.

From my reading of the article, it seems that a large part of the problem is the way that birth certificates are passed along to and for in Puerto Rican society. From the end of the article:

Only 45,622 children were born in Puerto Rico in 2008, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But more than 860,000 certified copies of birth certificates were issued by the Puerto Rican Office of Vital Statistics the same year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

That is an insane discrepancy between people born and birth certificate copies issued. Over the course of a lifetime, so many people in Puerto Rico request extra copies of their own and their children’s birth certificates, and really have no idea where the extras are now. Of course unscrupulous people are using Puerto Rican birth certificates; well-meaning citizens have made things easy for them by having so many extra copies of real birth certificates floating around. If that doesn’t change, will the goverment’s new measures make any difference in the long run?