U.K. guest houses, et cetera, can no longer discriminate against the gays: “Muslim or Christian guest house owners who refuse to accept homosexual couples must impose a ‘sleeping together ban’ on all other guests, the Government says.” (Are the English ruining English or what? Why capitalize “government?”) Very good then, and it’s a relief that British accommodation of Islam is not becoming sharia as Hitchens might charge.

Language Log’s ongoing analysis of science journalism finds that its point “is not provision of information, but rather moral uplift and reinforcement of cultural norms.” Categories that should be opposites—fluff and science—have been tragically wed.

Streetsblog, longtime scold of NYC motorists who take more than their share of street space, grants an indulgence to parents that aggressively pilot oversize strollers down the sidewalk, because children are magical. Except when they’re in SUVs. It’s not like super-sized self-interest is the root of all city driving, SUV driving, and evil, so who cares about moral consistency! Now, where can we get us a wheelbarrow?

Because New York foolishly transferred its 9/11 grief to the entire country (for a very un-New York low price), now we have to live with Oklahoma Global War on Terrorism license tags bearing hideous clip art of two glassy buildings that look nothing like the WTC. We’re not fancy WordPerfect clip artists or anything, but the towers were kind of white, OK?

If you want to watch NYT’s historical/hysterical self destruction, head over there now and watch the lamest chatter on the internet get front page space under the bridge disaster lead photo. Comment by P.T. Wiley: “It is too soon to be casting blame about; there will be time enough for that later.” You tell ’em, P.T.! We haven’t heard such original thinking outside of the call-in radio shows that we love so much.

Slate on Obama brashly answering hypothetical questions: “Perhaps the greatest argument for insisting that candidates answer hypothetical questions is that George Bush hates them.”

Some people don’t approve of cursing in technically.us, so we won’t quote, but check out Kreepie Kats today. (The truth is we typed in the lead anyway, but it wasn’t funny without the pink sharpie lettering.)

WSJ, also, loves that Obama answered the hypothetical: “Actually, it’s the best thing we’ve heard yet from the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois.” (Article behind subscription wall, but don’t feel bad—we don’t subscribe to the new New York Post either.) [via Wonkette] { previously }

NYT wants to ruin action sports, whatever those are: “All of which raises the question: In action sports, where there are no widely recognized governing bodies or organized control, who decides what is an acceptable level of risk?” God, who knows, who cares, please go write for Dateline or something. Also, try to finish edits before closing, otherwise you introduce people twice and have a ”NOTES” block in the published copy.

We don’t understand exactly what Mr. “You can’t get a darned loan if you’re rich like me” is ranting about (video), but it has something to do with how the real estate market is going to crash and then we will be able to afford houses, so, yay! And the video proves that injecting sarcastic commentary is the solution to cable news ending our civilization. [via boingboing]

Tired metaphor alert: Charles Dickens and his London poor, Dickensian, Dickensonian—whatever, we are over it! Just letting you know, Daniel. (Love the article tho! Airlines are dumb and pathetic.) By the way everyone, Slate RSS feeds for columns work now, unlike when they first appeared. This is great since Slate has no editorial standards and half of their writers are cretins.

NYT, on Minnesota road spending: “lawmakers have financed a boom in rail construction that, while politically popular, has resulted in expensive transit systems that are not used by a vast majority of American commuters.” This is how it works: people use the system that is federally subsidized the most. In the 20th century it was roads. If anything, the 35W collapse shows that we should reconsider this old road network that has recently had to bear the weight of legions of commuting SUVs. How about we build those train networks that funds have been allocated for and condemn the bridges that are falling apart? Or, pay for all that crap with state gas taxes which is, incredibly, what they’re talking about doing.

The paper’s ed. board chides our useless Democrats: “the spectacle left us wondering what the Democrats—especially their feckless Senate leaders—plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president.” Why did we bother putting these people in office in response to the Bush disaster if they’re too scared to confront that very problem?

Bruni compares Country and Falai’s crazy post-review-circuit price raising to everyone else’s, and those two are guilty as sin. Good thing we went to Country when the original prices were in effect! And it’s always fun to read the comments of the city’s haughty restaurant workers: “To go back after any length of time and check prices is just amateur!” If only they were all professional restaurant suckers.

Another reason it’s annoying that Democrats just authorized the worst presidential administration in history to spy on us more is, as Dahlia Lithwick points out, it makes them big fat hypocrites when it comes to the lovable Alberto Gonzales.

Financial crisis in Second Life: “As panic spreads throughout the user base of the phony baloney video game/virtual porn dungeon, expect to see the John Edwards Second Life campaign headquarters torn apart by a desperate mob…”

Because somebody thought that Germans weren’t yet weird/fetishy/gay enough, they had to make a fun video game for urinals that you control with bodily fluids. Want to copy this awesome idea? Too bad for you—it’s patented! [via boingboing]

Schneier on that weblog that NYT just bought copying his idea: “But while it’s one thing for this kind of thing to happen in my blog, it’s another for it to happen in a mainstream blog on The New York Times website.” Don’t sell yourself short, man! The fake stuff that happens on the paper’s fake blogs is of little note on the real internet. Besides, Freakowhatever was just assimilated and is still a living and breathing weblog. We doubt they’ll be feeding scary terror plots to the world after a few months of NYT patronage.

Keep delivery men happy with big tip is funny, as Gawker points out, because of its insane racial stereotyping. But… a business owner calling a customer to demand that the customer pay his employees more to support their families?—life is crazy! This is the best illustration yet of the paper’s two year old assertion that tipping turns restaurant workers into independent contractors. And, actually, we’d rather not be their managers for dinner, if that were possible?

Bush’s strangely smart thinking on use fees for automobiles doesn’t go beyond congestion pricing for New York, unfortunately. When Democrats proposed a puny 5¢ gas tax to pay for improvements that the automobile infrastructure apparently requires to keep from dramatically collapsing, he tossed them a tired old canard: “Before we raise taxes, which could affect economic growth, I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities.” Someone’s priorities are clear at least.

The paper needs a hero to rescue those home “owners” who signed for overpriced houses they couldn’t afford a few years ago, and now have negative equity. That hero is apparently the rest of us, who are supposed to fund a federal bailout for them to keep “their” homes. It isn’t enough that over-buying house-people practically pay no income tax; now the renters of the country have to pay their dumb mortgages.

We can’t believe Wonkette writes this well at 4:30 on Friday: Federal Reserve Buys Up All the Crap Nobody Wants. Read up! It’s much better than the dumb gay videos you’ve been watching all day.

Science journalism is so bad it’s logically impossible: “The problem, [Gale] said, is that when such data are published, with no asterisk next to them saying they can’t be true, they just ‘reinforce the stereotypes of promiscuous males and chaste females.’” Why publish not true things, even with asterisks? Because everybody loves reinforcing cultural norms.

Jamin Raskin was this close to saving the world: “The case had much of its genesis in an article I wrote for Slate on Oct. 25, 2000, introducing the idea of Internet ’vote-trading’ to avert the catastrophe of a George W. Bush election a few weeks later.” Oh, the irony. It turns out his vote swapping scheme was legal and would have saved us from Florida.

Urban planning prof Lawrence Frank quoted in New York: “The more you drive, the more you weigh.” Forget the cleanse! The new fad diet is not having a car.

Gentrification—it’s not just for racial minorities anymore! A Rising Tide of Gentrification Rocks Dutch Houseboats.

Streetsblog is becoming more of forum and less of a weblog. And to our greater dismay, it’s starting to attract horrible Kossian commenters … the kind whose sentences never begin … or end … and by golly when a dash isn’t enough to advance the liberal cause===you’ve got to break out the terrifying triple equals sign.

Gays too precious to risk in combat (video). “How many soldiers’ lives is the life of one gay man worth? —Seven.”

Like everyone, Daniel Gross hates wall-streeters. They make our salaries look puny and they wear dumb clothes. But unlike everyone, D.G. speaks the language of finance and can translate the shrill cries they emit on days they make less than a thousand dollars: What hedge-fund managers mean when they talk about challenges.

The Bush administration, known for spending its 9/11 political capital like a bunch of drunks, is poised to dilute any remaining value from its favorite related word: U.S. Weighing Terrorist Label for Iran Guards. The paper delves into the possible diplomatic motivations and outcomes of the labelling without bothering to mention whatever flimsy rationale exists for it. Calling people terrorists, it’s just another tool of diplomacy!

Schneier worries about congestion pricing: “There are good reasons for having this system, but I am worried about another wholesale surveillance tool.” We would be too if drove, or we’d be sympathetic to NYC drivers if they weren’t a bunch of freeloading jerks. If you choose to drive here and cheat on your wife, sorry bud, we don’t really care if big brother gives up your itinerary in divorce court.

Proving once and for all that YouTube comments are the worst on the world wide web, the latest note on that congestion pricing video we posted a million years ago is this: “To see Bloomberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger displaying a Nazi symbol on the cover of Time Magazine, google ‘Schwarzenegger nazi symbol.’” Uh, no thanks!

Kind of awesome, kind of annoying: Feds pay $80,000 to couple arrested for wearing Bush protest T-shirts. Is there any way we can speed up this whole presidential election thing, before we are totally bankrupt?

Daily News, the paper that nabbed the city’s most shamelessly self-promotional restaurant blogger (a tough field!) to play its restaurant critic, has some advice for all the cyclists being made dead by cars: “These days, bike riders in Brooklyn’s ‘hipster’ neighborhoods ought to be ever-mindful of the old adage: ‘Look both ways before crossing the street.’” And so on. Because one whole cyclist that was killed there by a car this year was running a red light! Damn kids. They deserve to be crushed by extravagant machines. [via Streetsblog]

Just so everyone knows, the infamous Michael Vick was a classmate of mine at the infamous Virginia Tech. He didn’t graduate or anything, but that doesn’t matter because collegiate sports are so important for student unity and they give alumni a reason to live. Also, to give. To give money to the school so they can cultivate the next sports hero like Michael Vick. Go Hokies!

Remember Mortal Kombat 3? So does The New York Times! They’re especially fascinated with Jax. In their article about video game violence that mentions MK3 while brushing past 2001’s big video game violence case, they have about ten different pictures of (slow, boring to play) Jax. Maybe some unresolved issues with black men? Anyway, the paper totally understands “free speech” and stuff, but still they want to ban some video games for kids because they get to ban cigarettes, car driving, alcohol, and other real world killers, so why not!

Gawker on Vick, by way of Tennessee: “Fetus deathmatches? Extract and dilate the cash from our wallets for season tickets, please.”

What in tarnation? Eighty year old man wearing trash bag patrols a Brooklyn Heights street all night to protect its precious cars. He caught one rascal, but the good-for-nuthin’ police let him go free! [via Streetsblog]

New Jersey still pathetically wants some say in how we charge people for driving around Manhattan, even though they’ll do just fine under the plan as the Hudson-crossing tolls deduct from and almost swallow the charge. But they want to get on the panel and whine about how we don’t want their cars here, which they see as us not wanting them here, which is also true but not the point. They can get to their beloved Tavern on the Green just fine on their un-beloved NJ Transit and one of those west side subways that is red or blue or something. { previously }

MSNBC confuses fake blog with real blog, because they are racists and think Al Sharpton will say anything: “The next time someone trots out the adage about bloggers not being reporters, we’re going to note that reporters aren’t exactly reporters these days either.”

Lighthearted Times travel piece hits home: At a Family Gathering, an Internet Cafe Breaks Out. At our family gathering almost everyone had a laptop (as did we, and an iPhone!). We suckled away at the lake house’s satellite internet via WiFi until the owner, realizing he was racking up charges, pulled the plug. Which was refreshing. F.C., everybody!

Never use Verizon Online’s web form to see if FIOS is available in your New York apartment. For one thing, it isn’t. FIOS is for Queens only, because they are so high-tech there. For another, they will start mailing you sales pitches (on physical pieces of paper) about their intentionally limited DSL service that you don’t want. And if you call them to get off the list, they’ll transfer you to another department and unusually high call volume will usually occur, and they’ll have to hang up on you. And there is no one to email on their contact us page. So take it from us! Don’t try to get FIOS—it’s easier to move to South Korea.