Apple Maps screw-ups.

Pictures of Applefail.

"Years ago, I knew two kids. One was a tall and wispy twerp whose arrogance exceeded his stratospheric brilliance."

"The other was a squat punk whose beautiful mind spewed quips like switchblades."

By three orders of magnitude, these two were far smarter than the rest of us.

It was on the playground where they struggled. The twerp found that being haughty prompted a vigorous ass kicking. The punk learned that being mouthy got you pantsed in front of the girls. But, over time, the playground changed them. Each kid started to act normally. With that, the rest of us came to respect and even appreciate them. More importantly, their socialization prompted us to consider what they had to say.

Maybe I’m wrong, but perhaps Posner and Scalia (and their snarly stand-ins) should visit a playground.

The writer of that snark is himself a federal judge, I note — with a nudge to a colleague of mine who was chastising me for analyzing the psychology of judges. (How do I know their motives? I don't. I speculate!)

But I'm fascinated to see a judge opine that other judges are guys who failed to get enough bullying when they were kids! Who's exercising the momentous power to say what they law is and inflict their opinion on the rest of us? Abnormal people who could've used a good ass-kicking... a good pantsing in front of the girls.

"The official line — that the slaughter of American officials was some sort of improvised movie review that got a little out of hand..."

"...  is now in the process of modification to something bearing a less patently absurd relationship to what actually happened. That should not make any more forgivable the grotesque damage that the administration has done to the bedrock principle of civilized society: freedom of speech."

Writes Mark Steyn.

"Ann -- We're already figuring out the seating arrangements for the last Dinner with Barack of this campaign."

Text and image from email with the subject line "Where you'll be seated." The closing — in lieu of something like "sincerely" — is "Seriously, what are you waiting for?"

The 25-year-old man who leapt from the zoo monorail into the tiger enclosure...

... had — on his Facebook page — this picture of a tigress licking the head of a tiger cub.

The Daily News calls it a "crazed bid to kill himself."

“He’s amazing and he loves everybody,” said the victim’s sister, who declined to give her name. “I really don’t know what happened.”

The Facebook page is full of sentimental notions about animals and the environment:

An image of foxes with the message, “We have more to fear from other people than from other animals” was also posted Thursday. In other posts he promotes a vegetarian diet.

Another image posted Thursday bears the message, “We need to stop being victims and living out of fear. We need to stop preparing for disaster, instead to anticipate a glorious future.”

UPDATE: The Daily News has now aligned its reporting with what I'm saying above: "Mauled man wanted to be 'one with the tiger' and was not  trying to commit suicide when he invaded Bronx Zoo den."

[David] Villalobos said he even petted the 400-pound beast after it tried to drag him off — and that he broke a leg and ankle when he landed after leaping from the zoo’s monorail on all fours, [Paul Browne, the NYPD’s chief spokesman] said.

“No one should be surprised he landed on all fours considering his passion for cats,” Browne added.

"I'm pretty sure Obama owes Nakoula an apology."

Indeed.

We're barraged by new distractions, so let's catch things that are slipping down the memory hole. It's not just Nakoula. It's Chris Stevens. Our ambassador was murdered, and he was murdered after he was targeted and he was not given security.

Shame on those who disrespected Nakoula's freedom of speech. Their faults are apparent and need to be remembered. But what happened to Chris Stevens? I don't trust that we've learned the whole story. Why wasn't he protected? Was he an inconvenient man? We saw such an effort to create static around his death. Look — riots over here, here, and here! Offensive video on the internet! Man with a "towel" around his face! And hey check out the most important thing that happened all week: Romney said "47%" to some people back in May!

The very fact that we're thinking about Nakoula — and futzing with Romney rhetoric — makes me feel that Chris Stevens got stuffed down the memory hole.

Who wanted that forgetting and why?

"Well, at least one person is getting annoyed by the endless back and forth between Posner and Scalia."

"But that’s just one person. We’ll continue to beat that horse until it’s extra dead."

"Living small in New York becomes an exercise in craftiness, and discovering multiple uses for a surface."

"What others may see as deprivation, Mr. Moore and others have reframed as pride, with Shaker-like design values of simplicity and utility."

But not necessarily Shaker celibacy. In 2009, Kittie Lonsdale, a small-space designer, left behind a 4,500-square-foot home in Dallas and moved herself, her business and her “microsize dog,” a 10-pound Shih Tzu whose raincoats, treats, leads and sleeping box “take up more real estate than anything else,” into a 225-square-foot studio in Tudor City. Ten days a month, her husband joins her from Dallas, the headquarters for his private investment firm.

The linked NYT article is by Jan Hoffman (our favorite NYT writer).

"I was surprised people were as attached to my hair as maybe I was."

John Axford — the Brewers' closer — talking about tweeting about his previously extravagant facial hair.

"The Brewers can't be saved" — wrote the Isthmus sportswriter on August 23d.

Jason Joyce wrote: "Deep into August, the Milwaukee Brewers are 10 games under .500 and 18 games out of first place in the National League Central." Etc. etc.

Meade began dogging him in the comments on August 24th:

I wonder if any St. Louis fans, exactly one year ago today, when the Cardinals were 10 1/2 games from winning a wild card, were writing articles titled "The Cards can't be saved."

The days have passed, and the comments thread over there has grown to 12 comments — all save one from Meade. The only one that isn't, on September 12th, says:

There is of course the fact that they added an extra wildcard this year. Without that where would the Brewers still very slim hopes stand? They'd have been eliminated already.

Which was a reason to maintain more baseball-style hope, not less, but they have to put it in a pessimistic way. (This is Madison, Wisconsin, and you know liberals are pessimists.) The Meade comments continue. The newest one is:

WCGB: 1.5

Six games over .500

L10: 9-1

STRK:W6

At the Pumpkin Man Café...

... you can talk about anything you want.

"Hand dryer in the men's room... It's very posh, but I don’t like it."

"You have to put your wet hands between two blowers, that are motion-activated. It’s a small space, and you need to have the steadiness of a jewel cutter not to touch the sides – and pick up some stranger’s shit spores. It’s almost like playing Operation, and who needs that kind of stress?"

The Dyson Airblade is just one of 8 things about Sam's Club that bug Jeff Kay. (Via Metafilter.)

"I'm going home. I'm going home... Don't worry about me."

"I'll be alright. God bless, and the Texas Rangers, Texas Rangers."

The condemned man's last words.

Gov. Scott Walker on how the Romney campaign should use Paul Ryan.

On the radio today, Charlie Sykes talked about how Paul Ryan would be good at explaining what Romney's 47% percent comment was supposed to say — that there's a "tipping point" in the economy. Sykes also speculates that Romney's campaign people are somehow holding Ryan back. Walker responds (at 10:10 in the audio at the link):

"They not only need to use him out on the trail more effectively, they need to have more of him rub off on Mitt, because I think Mitt thinks that way but he's got to be able to articulate that. I think he's got a compelling message, but he's got to get out an tell it, and I think too many people are restraining him from telling it."

Romney gave 30% of his 2011 income to charity — and declined to take the full charitable deduction they were entitled to.

Paul Caron reviews the Romneys' newly released tax return.

The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.

So Romney voluntarily forked over more money to the federal government than he needed to because he didn't want the percentage to look too bad.

ADDED: Sorry for the typo in the headline. It's 30%, not 40%. He's not that generous.

Kim Jong Style!

"The national pastime of the people is to be oppressed..."

"The new job that everyone wants is stay-at-home mom. This makes sense to me."

"It’s clear that women don’t want to bust through the glass ceiling, or they’d have done it by now. And it’s clear that men are not pulled by kids in nearly the same way women are, because women’s careers tank when they have kids and mens’ careers don’t."

That's Penelope Trunk, noting a new Forbes survey that says 84% of working women want to stay home with kids. Forbes notes that "more than one in three resent their partner for not earning enough to make that dream a reality." Resentment is a bad place to be. I like these 2 items from Trunk's advice:

"Mitt Romney entered the final months of the presidential campaign with a cash balance of just $35 million..."

"... racing to find new large donors and rally low-dollar contributors in August even while he raised tens of millions of dollars for the Republican Party."

Romney's low on cash?! What the hell did he spend it on?

And now he wants more... That seems awfully dependent, as though we have a responsibility to care about him. I'll never convince him to take personal responsibility and care for his own campaign.

"Professor Warren claimed she was a Native American, a person of color. And as you can see, she’s not."

You can see?

"Some grub with POTUS?" — a subject line on email from the Obama campaign.

"Ann -- You, President Obama, a table, chairs, and some grub," it begins.

Grub! What sort of people think how hard and how long to come up with another way to make a chance at eating dinner with Obama enticing and come up with some grub?

"Want to give it a shot?" I'm asked, with a link to a site where I can contribute to the campaign. There follows this picture:



And I'm told "It'll be pretty awesome." Awesome... grub... It's like suddenly, simultaneously, I'm an air-headed teenager...



... and Wooster from "Wagon Train."