Politics.NET

So my birthday was last Saturday. Mixed in with all the "happy birthday" calls and posts on Facebook was this: That's my insurance company sending me an email to wish me a happy birthday. Maybe something is wrong with me but I found this to be a useless waste of time. My relationship with Liberty Mutual is strictly cash (or in this case, electronic payments from my bank). We are not friends so why the pretense? I got the email and I was hoping they'll include some discount in it. But no, nothing of the sort. Just a happy birthday wish. What am I, 3 years old?

When it comes to public policy, you almost have to have 2 approaches: one for your family and one for the general public. Take sex for example. Most parents probably have "no sex before marriage" as the goal. But when you are talking about public health, you have to be pragmatic and know that you won't get 100% compliance. So what happens to the kids that miss the goal? Unplanned pregnancies, self esteem issues etc Even if you have just 1% failure rate, that's a whole lot of people that you haven't planned for. Take abortion, even pro-choice people know this is a life-altering decision. Sure, as a Christian/Muslim, you may abhor abortion but what about the non-Christians/Muslims in the population? Are you not going to plan for them? If you close all abortion clinics (or make it extremely difficult for them to remain open), maybe that'll force some people to have their rape/incest babies but do you think others won't try risky means to abort the baby? So ...

In 2013, why does Microsoft's Outlook.com have this option? : The only option in that dialog ought to be "No".

The Washington Wizards are a bad team. That's a fact. The numbers bear it out. That's not even news. But what surprised me was a blog by the team's owner Ted Leonsis . Ted writes a blog called Ted's Take where he opines on a lot of things. I don't usually read it but I read what he wrote following the Wizards' loss to the Atlanta Hawks (the 4th loss to that team this season). He wrote: Another Winnable Game We just can’t close out tight games to get a win. That has been the biggest disappointment to me this season so far. We are simply losing too many winnable games.  We lost last night in over time – again – to the Hawks. You can read the rest yourself here .  But what struck me was the fact that Ted actually thinks the Wizards have anything resembling a "winnable game" on their schedule. For the non-sports fan, a "winnable game" is a game where one team is so much better than the other that the conclusion is forgone. For example, B...

When it comes to Costco vs BJ's, I have always thought they were about the same. And since I lived just 5 minutes away from a Costco at my old house, I've had a Costco membership for the past 7 years. But we moved recently , and Costco was no longer a hop, skip and jump away. In fact, it's about a 15 minutes drive away. So we decided to try BJ's after a couple of their coupons arrived in our mailbox. This is my review of the shopping experience at BJ's. Put simply, shopping at BJ's is chaotic, confusing and stress-inducing. Why? Let me list the ways: first you have to present your coupons to the cashier at checkout. Now if you've never shopped at Costco, you might wonder why is that a big deal. The big deal is that Costco doesn't do this! If an item has a coupon, the coupon is automatically applied at checkout. Apart from feeling that company is working with you to save money, that should also speed up the check out process. Especially when you conside...

These days, I think one has to really work hard to fall for phishing schemes that spoof legitimate websites. Especially if you use a good browser. In terms of content, this is one of the best I've seen and even it is exposed at least 2 times before anyone can fall for it: First by Microsoft Hotmail (yes I use hotmail) Second by Google Chrome (you should be using Chrome )

After several months of house hunting , we've finally found a house. However closing isn't for a few weeks from now. Which is great because it gives us more time to find a renter for our current house. But boy, does the process suck! A little known trick when renting or selling your house is that it must be staged for potential renters/buyers. That means all those things that makes your house your house... all the pictures, the paintings, the mementos...they all have to come down. Into boxes. Boxes that you stack up in the basement because there's nowhere else to put them. And that's not the worst of it. You have the daily showing appointments which can come any time * (especially on weekdays). So every morning, the entire house must be in "fighting form" i.e. all beds made well enough to make a drill master happy all towels hidden away in closets all counter tops, sinks and showers wiped clean of water with microfiber cloth all microfiber clothes stow...