Before you believe something, and definitely before you pass it on, perform these steps:

1.  Type it into Snopes.  Has Barbara already done the research for you and shown it to be inaccurate?  She’s pretty good at that stuff, and it’s her full-time job.

2.  If there are quantifiable elements, punch the figures into a calculator.  Do the numbers check out?

3.  Does the claim violate what are generally accepted as fundamental ways the physical universe works?  If so, ask how much of human knowledge, research, and understanding would have to be overturned.  If it’s “a great deal”, consider whether it’s more likely that the claim is untrue.

4.  Would the claim’s truth or falsehood have any easily-observable effects?  If so, are they happening?  For instance, if people could psychically predict cards, would casinos still be in business?  If any newspaper psychics could foresee the future, how did all of them miss the 9/11 attacks?

5.  Consider if the claim immediately benefits the claimant.  If so, be on your guard.

These are all before you even have to start wondering whether someone’s personal testimony is reliable, whether data was collected rigorously, whether testing procedures were adequate, etc. — even before you worry about whether the people in the story actually exist or not.

Never quite sure what the right and wrong audiences are for breaking news like this, and whether it’s always a good idea to put it up online.  But from what I know of who attends to this site and who doesn’t, I’m putting it here instead of Facebook: My grandfather just died.

Shit.

I’ve changed the canonical domain of this site from “www.mcgees.org” to “mcgees.org”.  I’ve gone back and forth with this a few times, but now that I’m also using the domain as a link shortener — and in that capacity I do strip the “www.” to save four characters — I decided to unify it.

I think I have made sure that everything still works (or, rather, works now), but if you see something broken, please let me know.

I wondered if I could get Google Translate to speak English in foreign accents by using clever enough spelling, the hack to have Google translate a language to itself, and the text-to-speak synthesizers for the various languages.  For example, if I could use French→French translation to get a French accent.

Looks promising!  Follow these links and hit “Listen”:

Ze que ique braune fox jumpd auvere ze laisie dog.

Nâu ise ze taîme faure aulles goude meine tu comme tu du aiduve daire conte ries!

Oui caime tu bairie Saissare, naûtes tu praîzze îmes.

Maî hauvercreft ise foules auvîlzes.

Feel free to post yours here, for any language.

Summary: GOP gets a president sort-of-almost-OK-not-really elected ten years ago.  The president pays back his millionaire supporters by giving them huge tax breaks, using the Ayn Rand logic that by giving them tax cuts, we help the economy and create jobs.  To get it passed, he concedes a date at which they will expire.

Under this president’s policies, the economy all but collapses.  Banks almost fail, and people become unemployed in droves.

New president inherits this mess.  President is of the same party that controls the Senate.  This party thinks, “Hey, maybe the idea that giving millionaires and billionaires money so as to give everyone else necessary money is a bullshit, self-serving, now proven lie!”  So they decide to allow the tax cuts on millionaires to expire as planned.

Twice, with different pay ceilings, the Senate votes with a 53 out of 100 majority to allow this to pass.  A majority.  The minority party says they will delay all other legislation until this is addressed, and uses a maneuver that requires the controlling party to have sixty votes to keep this from happening.

The minority party rails in bewilderment, mocking the idea of allowing the tax cuts to expire as the craziest idea they have ever heard, to “raise taxes” during a recession!  And they have the audacity and sheer wickedness to hold our country and citizens hostage to millionaires and billionaires, and then accuse the people wanting these cuts to expire in the first place of “class warfare”.

I.  Do.  Not.  Have the vocabulary.  To insult these motherfuckers.