John Oliver on Payday Loans
I had a friend who got trapped in the repeating cycle that payday loans can become. And working in the email industry has exposed me to a lot of bad actors sending tons and tons of spam trying to induce consumers to apply for loans (or more loans). So I knew most of this stuff about payday loans and the companies behind them already. But if you don't already know all about these things, John Oliver's got you covered, with an epic sixteen minute overview from his show Last Week Tonight.
Another Useless Opinion on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby
Everybody else already expressed their opinion better than I could ever express mine, but I will take a quick moment to point out that some of the things Hobby Lobby is objecting against covering are actually medically necessary for some people with certain issues; this has included my wife in recent times. I am glad to work for an employer who hasn't decided to attempt to restrict what I spend my health care coverage on, so that these things were available my wife affordably, who did in fact have a medical need for them.
And let's be clear; it's my health care coverage. It's a form of compensation from my employer, and it's up to me, in coordination with my loved ones, in consultation with our medical professionals, on how we want to spend it. I don't believe it to be appropriate for the employer to have a hand in what they feel is appropriately covered based on moral grounds.
Hobby Lobby's 401k plan invests in companies that make and sell many of the contraceptive devices that they themselves object to. (As well as exporting great amounts of goods from China, where abortions are much less rare than in the US.) I've seen people call this a red herring. I disagree; it matters, and here's why.
We need to start with this reasonable explanation from Jeffrey Brown explains in Forbes that Hobby Lobby's hands are tied in this regard, in that it must comply with US pension law. OK, I'm with him so far on that point.
But then, allow me to call out the addendum added to the end of the article, which he uses to respond to critics. In it, he states:
"The primary objection that I am hearing from readers is not that my analysis of current U.S. retirement plan law is inaccurate, but rather that it is a prima facie case of hypocrisy that Hobby Lobby conformed to the 401(k) laws while challenging the health care law, even though both could be construed as violating the owners’ religious freedom. I might agree with this line of reasoning if it were free to mount legal challenges. But legal challenges are anything but free: a report on Marketplace last year estimates that it takes a minimum of $250,000 – and more often millions of dollars – to take a case to the Supreme Court. Given the high cost, it seems perfectly rational for any person, company or organization – and regardless of the constitutional issue being argued – to choose cases that they believe have the highest chance of winning. I would not be surprised if their legal counsel advised them (correctly, it turns out) that they could win the health insurance case, whereas they might not win a case challenging the fiduciary rules for 401(k) plans. Keep in mind that Supreme Court cases are not debates about the relative merits of various public policy alternatives. Rather, they are argued on constitutional grounds, and thus the details of the law and the details of the case matter enormously. Given the outcome of the case, it is hard to argue that Hobby Lobby made a bad decision about legal strategy. But their unwillingness to mount two expensive legal battles simultaneously rather than focusing on one does not necessarily imply hypocrisy."
His point is made in a reasonable tone of voice, but the logic is twisted. I strongly reject the implication of hypocrisy based solely on the potential cost to Hobby Lobby associated with mounting an additional legal challenge. If this is truly the most important thing to them under their moral convictions, and we know that they are financially secure enough to be able challenge one law, why would they not attempt to challenge the second law? Both laws, through the narrow, moral scope of the lens being applied here, require funds that started out in the accounts of Hobby Lobby, to be transferred to accounts for use to support devices and practices that they object very strongly to.
According to Forbes, Hobby Lobby's revenue was $3.3 billion in 2013. "It's too expensive to challenge" rings hollow in this context. The amount of money they would spend is, relatively speaking, pocket change.
And finally, from further up in Mr. Brown's article, I'd like to highlight this point: "It is individual employees, not the owners of Hobby Lobby, who make the portfolio allocation decisions."
I think that's fair, to be honest. In fact, that's all I wanted with regard to health care coverage, too. Sigh.
And let's be clear; it's my health care coverage. It's a form of compensation from my employer, and it's up to me, in coordination with my loved ones, in consultation with our medical professionals, on how we want to spend it. I don't believe it to be appropriate for the employer to have a hand in what they feel is appropriately covered based on moral grounds.
Hobby Lobby's 401k plan invests in companies that make and sell many of the contraceptive devices that they themselves object to. (As well as exporting great amounts of goods from China, where abortions are much less rare than in the US.) I've seen people call this a red herring. I disagree; it matters, and here's why.
We need to start with this reasonable explanation from Jeffrey Brown explains in Forbes that Hobby Lobby's hands are tied in this regard, in that it must comply with US pension law. OK, I'm with him so far on that point.
But then, allow me to call out the addendum added to the end of the article, which he uses to respond to critics. In it, he states:
"The primary objection that I am hearing from readers is not that my analysis of current U.S. retirement plan law is inaccurate, but rather that it is a prima facie case of hypocrisy that Hobby Lobby conformed to the 401(k) laws while challenging the health care law, even though both could be construed as violating the owners’ religious freedom. I might agree with this line of reasoning if it were free to mount legal challenges. But legal challenges are anything but free: a report on Marketplace last year estimates that it takes a minimum of $250,000 – and more often millions of dollars – to take a case to the Supreme Court. Given the high cost, it seems perfectly rational for any person, company or organization – and regardless of the constitutional issue being argued – to choose cases that they believe have the highest chance of winning. I would not be surprised if their legal counsel advised them (correctly, it turns out) that they could win the health insurance case, whereas they might not win a case challenging the fiduciary rules for 401(k) plans. Keep in mind that Supreme Court cases are not debates about the relative merits of various public policy alternatives. Rather, they are argued on constitutional grounds, and thus the details of the law and the details of the case matter enormously. Given the outcome of the case, it is hard to argue that Hobby Lobby made a bad decision about legal strategy. But their unwillingness to mount two expensive legal battles simultaneously rather than focusing on one does not necessarily imply hypocrisy."
His point is made in a reasonable tone of voice, but the logic is twisted. I strongly reject the implication of hypocrisy based solely on the potential cost to Hobby Lobby associated with mounting an additional legal challenge. If this is truly the most important thing to them under their moral convictions, and we know that they are financially secure enough to be able challenge one law, why would they not attempt to challenge the second law? Both laws, through the narrow, moral scope of the lens being applied here, require funds that started out in the accounts of Hobby Lobby, to be transferred to accounts for use to support devices and practices that they object very strongly to.
According to Forbes, Hobby Lobby's revenue was $3.3 billion in 2013. "It's too expensive to challenge" rings hollow in this context. The amount of money they would spend is, relatively speaking, pocket change.
And finally, from further up in Mr. Brown's article, I'd like to highlight this point: "It is individual employees, not the owners of Hobby Lobby, who make the portfolio allocation decisions."
I think that's fair, to be honest. In fact, that's all I wanted with regard to health care coverage, too. Sigh.
George Will Sucks
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| The cover of Newcity as spotted in Hot Doug's today. |
My favorite part is the bit about George Will.
The article explains: "In his June 6 column in the Washington Post, columnist George Will, a Cubs- and bowtie-loving conservative who heretofore seemed to reflect an older, more genteel brand of right-wing ideology, set off a tempest worthy of Rush Limbaugh when he took on the growing activism on campuses around these issues, most notoriously writing “when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate,” as if being raped was for social strivers like, say, wearing the football hero’s letterman’s jacket."
Kate's response explains why George Will's math is bad, but more importantly, applies some rational thinking to his theory. She explains, "Any emotionally healthy, reasonable person can see there’s very little upside to faking a rape [accusation]. The statistics and a mountain of anecdotal evidence tell us that women who report rape are often met with disbelief and derision; that perpetrators are rarely prosecuted, let alone convicted; that on campuses, the rapists are rarely kicked out and the victims often drop out. What’s the supposed benefit here? The warm embrace of your campus feminist group? You can get that by showing up with cookies and not being an asshole."
Kate Harding is one of Newcity's Lit 50
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| Kate Harding Photo: Joe Mazza/BraveLux |
Fun fact: Some people have a thing about the number 47. Including trumpeter Steve Kenny, who randomly ended up as #47 on a poster of jazz musicians that me and another guy put together back in 1999. I helped to configure the print layout and it was probably my pen that happened to assign him number 47 as we labeled all of the musicians. I had no idea that Steve was previously a fan of the number 47 prior to this. My wife and Steve will now have something to talk about if they ever meet.
A Simple Apache2 Live Proxy
I help my friends at the corner bar set up a website using Google Sites. It works great. It's super easy to update and they have a lot of fun with it. I set up a frame-based redirect to map their domain name onto their Google Sites URL.
It worked fine for many months, but stopped working a short while ago. Why? Because Google started forcing all Google Sites pages to load over SSL -- over https instead of http. Loading them over http without SSL would just redirect you to the https version of a page.
Overall, a good thing. HTTPS Everywhere. I approve.
But, browsers nowadays want to prevent you from getting tricked into loading a site other than the one you've gone to. So if you try to do a frame-based redirect where part of it is https and part of it is not, the https stuff won't load. It'll just sit there blank, empty.
Thus, it broke the bar's website. The frame redirect wouldn't load the Google Site, it just sat there with a big blank screen.
The fix? Implement a quick-and-dirty live proxy on my linux box that will pull through the Google Site pages and display them (without using SSL) directly, as though they're actually hosted on my server. It turned it out to be pretty easy.
I configured the Apache virtualhost to allow *.cgi as a valid file type, an executable file time. I also configured the virtualhost to use index.cgi as the 404 error handler. This means that one simple little CGI will handle both the calls to the top level page and any subpages.
Here's what that index.cgi looks like:
And here's what the Apache configuration options look like for that virtualhost:
It worked fine for many months, but stopped working a short while ago. Why? Because Google started forcing all Google Sites pages to load over SSL -- over https instead of http. Loading them over http without SSL would just redirect you to the https version of a page.
Overall, a good thing. HTTPS Everywhere. I approve.
But, browsers nowadays want to prevent you from getting tricked into loading a site other than the one you've gone to. So if you try to do a frame-based redirect where part of it is https and part of it is not, the https stuff won't load. It'll just sit there blank, empty.
Thus, it broke the bar's website. The frame redirect wouldn't load the Google Site, it just sat there with a big blank screen.
The fix? Implement a quick-and-dirty live proxy on my linux box that will pull through the Google Site pages and display them (without using SSL) directly, as though they're actually hosted on my server. It turned it out to be pretty easy.
I configured the Apache virtualhost to allow *.cgi as a valid file type, an executable file time. I also configured the virtualhost to use index.cgi as the 404 error handler. This means that one simple little CGI will handle both the calls to the top level page and any subpages.
Here's what that index.cgi looks like:
#!/bin/bash
LYNX="/usr/bin/lynx"
cat << EOF
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
EOF
if echo "$REQUEST_URI" | grep -qi "[a-z]"
then
$LYNX -source "https://sites.google.com/$REQUEST_URI"
exit 0;
fi
$LYNX -source "https://sites.google.com/site/rogersparkoasis/"
And here's what the Apache configuration options look like for that virtualhost:
<Directory "/var/www/oasis">
Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .x
</Directory>
ErrorDocument 404 /index.cgi
The proxy could be developed further to pull down and host images, or to rewrite URLs in the HTML output to link to the custom website URL instead of the Google Sites URL, but I think this is good enough for government work.
Lincoln SYNC with MyLincoln Touch
We recently bought a new car. Not just any new car, but a new new car, and a fancy one at that: a 2014 Lincoln MKZ. We love it. The car has the smoothest ride of any car we've driven or ridden in, and I can't believe how much pick up it has given that it's only a 2.0L V4 Turbo. Every time we go for a drive, we literally again think to ourselves, "we really love this car." And it has zero torque steer-- our last car had enough pull to annoy me regularly. Maybe that's just a side effect of moving from FWD to AWD, but regardless, I couldn't be happier.It seems like there's never a great time to buy a car, if you want perfect iPhone integration. Apple's on the cutting edge, only recently announcing CarPlay, with automotive manufacturers rushing to implement it as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, our Lincoln has SYNC with MyLincoln Touch (aka MyFord Touch), a system that allows voice control over seemingly all of the music, GPS and environmental controls. It's worth nothing that Microsoft and Ford had a falling out over the system, and it's likely to be replaced by something else in a couple of years. (Blackberry? QNX? Are you kidding me?)
Reviews from 2012 and prior almost universally pan the SYNC system, something that unfairly haunts Google searches about the technology. Read a little deeper and you'll see that a major update in 2012 addressed just about all prior issues. People who have only had experience with prior, less well-liked revs of the software love to tell you how much they hate it. Or they'll love to tell you how much their cousin hated SYNC in their 2009 Ford Focus and what suckers we are for buying this and we're going to hate it. Because obviously how this works today and how it worked in a 2009 Focus is exactly the same. Thanks, jerk.
Forget about all of that noise. Truth be told, the SYNC with MyLincoln Touch system works quite well and we're happy with it. There's only a couple of things worth noting that I would consider to be limitations.
One, SYNC will read out loud text messages from your phone if you have an Android smartphone, but not if you have an iPhone. I'm not sure what Apple is doing differently here, but I wish they'd address it. I can't imagine it'd be hard to fix in an iOS software update, and I know a lot of people have vehicles with the SYNC functionality. (Oh wait, did this get fixed? Maybe. I will need to investigate.)
Two, programming the navigation system to give you directions is like taking a step back in time a couple of years, if you're used to Google Maps or Apple Maps, with their slick ability to say things as simple as "take me to the nearest Dairy Queen." The SYNC system's ability to understand voice commands is pretty limited, and you basically end up having to spell out house numbers and it usually ends up taking a couple of tries to get it to recognize the street name and city I'm looking for. That's not a deal killer, but it's not super slick, either.
Thankfully, there are more than a couple of ways you can work around it:
- Use your iPhone for turn-by-turn directions instead. Sync the phone up via Bluetooth before you do tell it your destination. Then, after you tell it your destination, the phone will interrupt the music as needed (over Bluetooth) to give you verbal turn-by-turn directions. The car is a little confused; it thinks it's a phone call and will show "Call ended" on the screen after each interruption. This is harmless, however.
- Use SYNC Services to help you set the destination for the car's navigation system. Push the voice button and say "Services." It'll use your Bluetooth-connected phone to connect you to the SYNC Services phone robot. After connected, say "Directions," and the phone robot will walk you through a much simpler and robust location-finding process. After it has found your location for you, it will ask you if you'd like to download the location to the car's GPS. You'll say yes, and it will silence the speaker for a moment, while performing a modem-like download over the phone, sending location information directly into your car's navigation system. This works pretty slick, and it's what I use most of the time. If you've ever had a GM automobile with OnStar, you'll see a lot of similarities here -- you can even connect to a real live human to have them look up a destination for you. (SYNC Services is a hidden gem; it is essentially OnStar for free, using your own cell phone instead of using a dedicated cell phone built into the car. I hope I never have to use the SYNC 911 Assist feature, but I'm glad it's there.)
- Use the "Send to Car" iOS application on your iPhone. Trust me, spend the $3.99 on this app. If you have Ford or Lincoln SYNC, this app performs bridges Apple Maps and your car's navigation system capably. It works like this -- set up your Ford/Lincoln owner account login information in the app once. Then you go to Apple maps, find a destination, and choose "Transit" as the directions mode, inside of Apple Maps. Apple Maps will then ask you to pick which app you want to use for routing to this destination. Choose Send to Car. The Send to Car app will open, and then you push SEND to have it relay your destination into your Ford/Lincoln owner account. How do you get this destination into your car? Easy. Just push the voice button on the steering wheel, and say "Services." As soon as you connect to the Services phone robot will say (paraphrasing), "I see that there is are MapQuest directions waiting for you, would you like to download them now?" You reply with yes, and it will download the directions to your car, and you're all set.
That third option in particular is mighty cool, and I'm sure it's something I'll be using a lot in the near future. And it was hard to find information about it online, so I decided to write it all up here, with hopes that the next person looking for help stumbles across this info here and is able to put it to good use.
HJR-3 is cruel
Gay marriage is already illegal in the State of Indiana. I consider this a flaw and it's near top of the list of concerns that have kept my wife and I from considering a move to the Hoosier State.
What's even worse, is Brian Bosma's attempt to get the state constitution changed to forever define marriage as between a man and a woman. Gay marriage is already illegal, mind you. This is kicking somebody when they're down; a second "screw you" making something that's already illegal double-secret illegal. You'd think the small government types wouldn't waste the time, money and effort to re-illegal-ize something that is already illegal. But it's a salt-the-earth kind of approach; making it so it'll be much harder for reform to grow in the future. It means that supporters of gay marriage will have a much more difficult and more costly fight to attempt to repeal the constitutional amendment in the future.
My wife and I are heterosexual. Our gay friends, some of whom are married, have enriched our lives immensely. I wish for them to have the same opportunity for companionship, cohabitation, and partnership that we enjoy. I wish for them to have the same rights when it comes to taxes, funerals, and hospital visitation. Their marriage does not diminish ours in the least, and I find the arguments to the contrary to be silly. My marriage is between my wife and I; it has nothing to do with your marriage, or what your church thinks of marriage in general or my marriage in particular. From where I stand, that's none of your business and none of your concern.
A ban on gay marriage hurts good people. Peter Monn explains it better than I ever could:
"While I’m reading this article about this person Bosma, who I don’t even know, who’s making decision about MY life, it feels like I’m hundreds and hundreds of miles away and I have no affect on the outcome. Do you know why we kiss before we say goodbye? Because we know that if we’re hospitalized we don’t have visiting rights unless our families allow it. We don’t have funeral rights or financial rights."
He's not trying to deny your marriage. Why are you trying to deny his?
What's even worse, is Brian Bosma's attempt to get the state constitution changed to forever define marriage as between a man and a woman. Gay marriage is already illegal, mind you. This is kicking somebody when they're down; a second "screw you" making something that's already illegal double-secret illegal. You'd think the small government types wouldn't waste the time, money and effort to re-illegal-ize something that is already illegal. But it's a salt-the-earth kind of approach; making it so it'll be much harder for reform to grow in the future. It means that supporters of gay marriage will have a much more difficult and more costly fight to attempt to repeal the constitutional amendment in the future.
My wife and I are heterosexual. Our gay friends, some of whom are married, have enriched our lives immensely. I wish for them to have the same opportunity for companionship, cohabitation, and partnership that we enjoy. I wish for them to have the same rights when it comes to taxes, funerals, and hospital visitation. Their marriage does not diminish ours in the least, and I find the arguments to the contrary to be silly. My marriage is between my wife and I; it has nothing to do with your marriage, or what your church thinks of marriage in general or my marriage in particular. From where I stand, that's none of your business and none of your concern.
A ban on gay marriage hurts good people. Peter Monn explains it better than I ever could:
"While I’m reading this article about this person Bosma, who I don’t even know, who’s making decision about MY life, it feels like I’m hundreds and hundreds of miles away and I have no affect on the outcome. Do you know why we kiss before we say goodbye? Because we know that if we’re hospitalized we don’t have visiting rights unless our families allow it. We don’t have funeral rights or financial rights."
He's not trying to deny your marriage. Why are you trying to deny his?
Most people are bad; but not all
People are bad: Somewhere in Chicago, somebody let this poor little pit bull (now named Willow) come to within inches of starving to death. Then they abandoned her.
Some people are good: Neighborhood rescue Felines & Canines took her in and is nursing her back to health. They set up the Willow Fund where you can donate to her care and to support this wonderful animal rescue.
They nursed her back to good health and she's now in a loving home, romping around. This warms my heart to no end.
People are bad: Somebody used a stolen credit card to donate $8,000 to the Willow Fund. Way to get their hopes up, jerk.
You can follow Willow's progress on the Felines & Canines Facebook page.
Buy The Book of Jezebel
You should probably buy The Book of Jezebel: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things, edited by Jezebel.com founder Anna Holmes, with my wife Kate Harding, Amanda Hess and many others contributing.
It's funny and occasionally mean. But not undeservedly so-- Dick Cheney had it coming.
It has been fun to see that some of the reviewers-- who in theory didn't like the book-- were forced to admit that it and/or its authors are awesome. Even the Daily Caller was forced to admit that readers will be "confronted" with "humor and a high level of intelligence." How awful it must be! They're less sure about the rage, but some people get a little confused by any rage other than their own.
If you're looking for more of an answer to the question, "What's this all about then?" Then you should head on over to the Washington Post for an interview with Kate Harding and Anna Holmes.
It's funny and occasionally mean. But not undeservedly so-- Dick Cheney had it coming.
It has been fun to see that some of the reviewers-- who in theory didn't like the book-- were forced to admit that it and/or its authors are awesome. Even the Daily Caller was forced to admit that readers will be "confronted" with "humor and a high level of intelligence." How awful it must be! They're less sure about the rage, but some people get a little confused by any rage other than their own.
If you're looking for more of an answer to the question, "What's this all about then?" Then you should head on over to the Washington Post for an interview with Kate Harding and Anna Holmes.
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