This was a huge year for Android. We watched while Google started to make Android more modular to fight fragmentation, Jelly Bean rose to prominence and KitKat hit the stage, and we showed you it's easier than ever to root your phone, customize it, talk to it with voice commands, and use it to automate your life. Here's a look back.
    
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Readers offer their best tips for Windows 8 applications, disabling personalized Amazon ads on other sites, and unclogging toilets.
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Emergency kits can take many forms: simple first-aid, survival, seasonal needs for your car, or even a full-blown doomsday kit for when times get really bad. Whatever kind of emergency kit you've made, we'd like to see it.
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We all know we should be "saving" money, but many people forget to do something with it when they've saved it. To avoid this problem, finance blog Escaping Dodge suggests thinking of your money like it's an employee: expect it to be working for you, even when you're not looking.
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Off from the Job this Week? Look for Another Patch.com Because Christmas falls right smack-dab in the middle of the work week, many will have the two days before, or, the two days after Christmas as vacation time. Definitely get some chill time in, but this may also be a good time to look for a job. Start ... |
Manassas Child Porn Investigation Nets 2 PotomacLocal.com The suspects were arrested Wednesday after a joint investigation with Manassas Police and the Northern Virginia – District of Columbia Internet Crimes against Children Taskforce. More in a police press release: [Ryan Michael] Hirmer, 19, of 10423 Grant ... and more » |
Consumerist reader Jackie says her one-year-old Seth was so put off by Santa he wouldn’t even make turn his head to look, while big brother Rylan appears to see the benefits of being nice to the big guy.
Every year, kids around the world chirp and buzz and otherwise make delightfully adorable noises about how excited they are to get presents from Santa Claus at Christmas. But the holiday reality of actually meeting the man in red? Well, that’s not always a cause for celebration, as these 27 photos of Consumerist readers’ kids clearly demonstrate. You try meeting a large stranger with a bunch of white stuff on his face and see how you’d feel.
We’d like to thank all our generous readers who sent in photos this year — and if you don’t see yours below, it might just have been too small for the collection so feel free to send it in next year. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all other kinds of warm feelings to you all. Take it away, kids.
Annie, 23 months: “Christmas chaos,” writes mom Mari.
Benji, 1: “We were blindsided because Benji normally loves strangers and regularly approaches and hugs random people,” explains his mom, Karin.
Jack, 4, and his sister, Helena, 1: “Jack is holding Helena’s hand to protect her from the big guy,” says mom Jennifer. “Or he may just be encouraging her to stop crying so they can both get presents.
Ruby, 6 months: “This is Ruby being scared of Santa,” writes mom Lindsey.
Lucas, 3 and Nora, 1: “Can’t really see Nora, but that’s the beauty of it!” says mom Sarah.
Michael, 11 months: “Eleven months old and his first Christmas why would he scream like that?” writes mom Cindy. “It’s not like I’m handing him over to a complete stranger dressed in bright red and with long white whiskers…. oh wait, oops my bad.”
Emily, 11 months, Hannah, 3: “My wife got this a week or so ago while she was shopping,” writes dad Todd. “Sums up our house pretty well.”
Billy Fred, 1 year and one month: “He was perfectly fine while we waited in line but once I put him in Santa’s hands the world had ended,” his mom Becca writes. “They snapped a few pictures and when I picked him up he was completely fine. It was like I never put him down!”
Jackson, 1: “This is his first visit with Santa Claus at a special fundraiser for the Junior League of Portland – I guess he thought we were feeding him to the wolves or something awful – it’s really a shame there’s no audio with the photo….”
Frankie, 3 and Eloise, 1: “We spent about 15 minutes chatting with Santa,” mom Amy explains. “Frankie got a little more brave, but Eloise looked suspicious the whole time. She was not having it. At least she didn’t vomit on him like Frankie did on her gingerbread house.”
Harper, 6 months: “She is 6 months old and absolutely hates Santa Claus,” her mom Brittney writes. “This her second time sitting on his lap and without fail, she screams. Santa doesn’t look like he’s too thrilled about the experience either.”
Ryan Jr., 6 months
Finn, 17 months: “This is as close as he got to sitting in Santa’s lap,” writes his mom Teresa. “We did get some fair photos with him sitting on the armrest though.”
Evelyn, 17 months: “She promised us ‘I no scream at Santa, mommy!’ ” writes her mom Amy. “Well, she clearly lied to us!”
Charlie-Nadine, 3 months: “Gotta love their first Christmas!” her mom says.
Otto, 2, visiting Santa last year: “He was absolutely excited and thrilled – until the very last minute, when he began to freak out and clutched his lollipop for dear life,” his parents Dan and Kalee write. “We just took him to Santa this year, and he’s over the fear, though he still didn’t quite understand why Santa didn’t have the presents he asked for on the spot…”
Hannah, 6, Joseph, 3 and Sarah, 18 months: “Sarah, the little screamer, was 18 months,” explains dad Joe. “She did NOT want to be there.”
Tyler: “Santa. The S in PTSD,” writes Tyler’s dad Mike.
Penelope, 8 months: “She HATED sitting on Santa’s lap,” her dad Benjamin says. “That’s her brother Everett sitting next to her.”
Madison, 2: “No story, just a great fear of the man in red,” her dad Justin explains.
Emma, 10 months and Logan, 23 months: “As soon as we pulled Logan off Santa’s lap she looked at me and said, ‘I Logan Santa fun.’ I asked her, ‘You thought seeing Santa was fun?’ ” her mom Laura says. “‘ Yes!’ she replied. Looks like a fun time, eh?”
Phyla, 1 and a half.
Sophia, 13 months: “She was hyperventilating for a good 10 minutes after this traumatic experience until Grandma could calm her down,” her mom Sarah explains.
Nathan, 2: “He wanted nothing to do with Santa and Mommys’ demon eyes make it that much funnier,” his mom Erica jokes.
Sunshine, 11: “This ‘child’ is not human but I thought it might fit for your photo gallery, especially since, well, everyone loves a Corgi!” his mom Amy writes. “This pic was taken at a fundraiser for the Louisiana SPCA. I’m pretty obsessed with my dog but I am not quite crazy enough to take her to see Santa if it’s not for charity!”
Claire, 6 and Olivia, 2: “This photo is from 2007 at a church Christmas breakfast in Moses Lake, Washington,” dad Nathan writes.
Mason, 1 and Olivia, 3: “They were not fans of Santa this year!” writes mom Kaitlin.
Animal Control officials recovered 55 dogs from a Calvert County home on Friday.
The family says the girl bled profusely after a routine tonsillectomy. She then went into cardiac arrest before being declared brain dead.
The reader says his PetSmart has an arrangement with the local animal shelter that allows the shelter to place its rescued kittehs at the store so as to improve their chances of being adopted.
“Volunteers come twice a day to feed, clean their litter, and play with them,” he explains. “During holidays, when PetSmart is closed, a store employee would come in to feed the fish and a volunteer would also come in for the cats.”
However, he says that PetSmart HQ has decided that no one is to come in between the store closing on Tuesday night and its re-opening on Thursday morning.
Some cat owners have no problem leaving their feline friends alone at home for a day or two, provided there is ample food, water and clean litter. Of course, one could argue that there is a big difference between leaving a cat alone in a house or an apartment, where it’s free to roam about and entertain itself, as opposed to being stuck in a small pet store cage.
We’ve reached out to PetSmart to see what the company’s policy is regarding care of in-store pets on Christmas and the company sent the following statement in reply:
Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of the pets in our care. As with previous years, PetSmart associates make sure that each pet has enough food and water to last 24 hours at closing of the night before a holiday in which the store is closed. If a pet requires attention that cannot wait 24 hours, an associate will come into the store to care for the pet.
We still want to get readers’ opinions on the matter:
It’s pretty common for companies to match their employees’ contributions to eligible nonprofits. If an employee for Large Bank donates $500 to, say, their local food pantry, they can file with their employer to have Large Bank donate an additional, matching $500. That’s generally good PR for companies, a satisfying benefit charitably-minded employees, and helpful to the nonprofits who get the extra cash.
What’s happening here, though, is different. As Bloomberg reports, corporations barred by law from donating directly to PACs are instead having their employees donate, and using matching charitable gifts to motivate those employees to contribute.
Here’s how it works, using Bloomberg’s example of Walmart: Walmart can’t legally give to their PAC, but their employee Manager Bob can.
So at the urging of his employer, Manager Bob gives $100 to the PAC. Walmart, by law, can’t reimburse Manager Bob or give him a bonus for that $100. But they can say, “Because you gave $100 to our PAC, we are donating $200 on your behalf as a matching contribution to this nonprofit.”
For an employee who really wants to maximize his or her charitable giving, that’s not necessarily a bad deal. It’s basically buy-one-get-one-free on donations.
Walmart is far from the only organization to provide matching charitable donations for PAC contributions. According to Bloomberg, Boeing gives a 50% match ($0.50 to charity for every $1 the employee gives to the PAC) and companies like Hewlett-Packard and Coca-Cola match employee contributions 1:1. However, in addition to providing a 2:1 match, Walmart also restricts the nonprofits that it will donate to. They’ve got a grand total of one eligible nonprofit, in fact, and it’s Walmart’s own Associates in Critical Need Trust–a charity run by the company to help its own employees meet their living expenses.
In other words, if a Walmart employee gives to Walmart’s political action group, Walmart will donate money to Walmart’s charity for Walmart employees who don’t make enough money by working at Walmart to pay their bills.
Individual donations to PACs are limited to $5000 per year, so the road to millions comes from very high participation. It appears to be working: according to OpenSecrets, the occupation of every single one of the large individual donors (people who give contributions greater than $200) to Walmart’s PAC is listed as “Wal-Mart Stores Inc,” and Bloomberg reports that hundreds of employees have donated. And we are indeed talking millions; Walmart’s PAC has spent over $3 million on each of the last three election cycles.
PACs give money to support certain candidates during election seasons, and corporate-backed PACs tend to give to candidates who support laws and policies favorable to business interests. Business interests and employee interests, of course, do not always exactly intersect. In an e-mailed statement, five-year Walmart employee Barbara Gertz said:
“Today’s news is further proof that Walmart is determined to spend millions to support politicians who vote to cut food stamps and who oppose increasing the minimum wage, instead of focusing on creating good jobs in our communities. It’s upsetting to hear that Walmart not only exploited the associates in critical need fund to push a political agenda that hurts ordinary Americans, but it also may have done so in violation of federal election laws. This is just the latest example of Walmart acting as though it’s above the law.”
The practice of matching nonprofit donations to political contributions is currently legal and has been since the late 1980s. Former Federal Election Commission chairman Scott Thomas told Bloomberg he opposed it, saying that it is “too close to the line” of the rule that forbids companies from reimbursing employees for political donations. The FEC has revisited the issue several times, and remained split over supporting the policy, but has not moved to forbid it.
Wal-Mart to HP Reap Worker Political Donations Through Charities [Bloomberg]
Whether it’s removing a family from a flight because their 18-month-old is on a “no-fly” list, demanding that a 4-year-old get a pat-down because she hugged her grandmother, patting down an infant, evacuating a terminal because one parent passes a baby to the other without receiving a secondary screening, or screaming at the parents of a child with cerebral palsy, the TSA has shown time and again that it has a masterful touch when dealing with young children. That unique sensibility is definitely on display at the agency’s new site dedicated to educating children about security theater.
TSA Kids is the latest misguided effort from the Dept. of Homeland Security. It pretends to be an educational tool but it borders on self-parody.
The above video, which inexplicably uses cartoon dogs instead of humans, tries to boil down the entire airport security process to three steps — Stop, Screen, Go — but fails to mention the ways in which that process can be prolonged through re-screenings, pat-downs, hand swabs for chemical residues, manual inspections of carry-on bags.
It also provides no explanation to that question kids love to ask in just about any situation: “But why?” Little children are naturally curious (sometimes to a fault) and many will probably want to know why they have to have their backpacks go through the scanner or why mommy and daddy needed to take of their shoes but the kids didn’t (which, honestly, is a good question). The video provides no answers and is just an attempt to catch-phrase the airport screening process.
Then there are the amazing finds on the “Fun Page” — the name of which probably went through 10 different committees and working groups before being finalized.
Because kids love nothing more than coloring in pictures of expensive, outdated screening devices, the TSA provides them with this line drawing of a security checkpoint — complete with trash can and stacks of little bins for your money and keys. And there’s the friendly looking dog! Don’t you just want to pet him? Of course you do… but don’t, because it’ll probably result in that nice mustachioed man taking your dad into a dimly lit room for a few hours of questioning.
Then there’s the always fun Word Search, where kids get to hunt down words like “pipeline,” “port,” “cargo,” and “duty,” while also coloring in a drawing of a TSA agent who appears to be telling you to scram — or maybe directing you off to the side for a secondary screening.
And let’s not forget the color-in TSA badge. Because every kid is pining to be one of those people who just caused the family to miss their flight and now mommy and daddy hate each other and it’s all your fault.
This weekend, two readers sent us very similar “holiday creep” photos from two different kinds of retailers. Secret Consumerist synchronicity? Maybe. Or maybe the week before Christmas is now the universal time to put Valentine’s Day stuff out.
Ben spotted this display of Valentine’s Day-themed pet toys in a Petsmart store on Sunday. “Yes, an entire display,” he writes. “Prominent, and fairly close to the front. Let the dust settle from the holidays first, please?!” They probably have already clearanced out most of the Christmas-themed stuff already: what else is supposed to go in the seasonal displays?
Meanwhile, over at Albertsons in the Pacific Northwest, Mary noticed these Valentine’s Day party gift pags and candy containers. If you like to plan ahead and get your party favors ready six weeks early, you’re in luck.
Earlier this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on mandatory binding arbitration clauses, those fun bits of contractual language that take away your right to sue a company and force you into a resolution process that is heavily weighted in the company’s favor. The hearing was chaired by Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, who earlier this year introduced the proposed Arbitration Fairness Act, and so he obviously has a thing or two to say on the topic.
Sen. Franken has a history of demanding straightforward answers where none appear to be forthcoming, and this latest hearing was no exception.
While a number of expert witnesses spoke to the necessity of a bill that could give consumers back some of the rights stripped away by recent Supreme Court decisions in favor of binding arbitration, one witness near the end of the hearing, a professor from the University of Georgia School of Law, spoke against the legislation.
Starting at around the 1:55 mark in the above video, Franken cites the professor’s own previous statements that certain arbitrators can, by the decisions they make in resolving disputes, develop pro-business reputations with the goal of being used more frequently and earning more fees.
The Senator then asked the professor what he would say to a woman who was unable to have her gender-discrimination case heard in court because of a binding arbitration agreement.
The obviously nervous professor seemed to confound and anger the Senator with his response: “I think what I would say is that, if you believed you were wronged… There are various ways in which that relief can be obtained: through litigation –”
“Whoa whoa whoa, no,” Franken interrupted. “If you have a mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clause, no they can’t! In fact, that’s what this whole hearing is about! You just summed up the entire hearing — She cant’ go to court!”
“I understand, Senator,” replied the prof.
“So why did you say she could go to court?” Franken fired back. “Isn’t that what this is all about? Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last two and a half hours?”
The professor tried to explain that “there are ways under current law that that arbitration clause could be challenged, and we will attempt to see if that clause could be challenged.”
The Senator sought to clarify the question he had posed to the professor:
“I asked you what you what to say to a woman who brought a gender-discrimination suit to an arbitrator — she’s a doctor; no women had been promoted in that practice, and she felt it was gender discrimination — and she goes in and the [arbitrator] in his office has folder after folder with the name of the hospital [on them]. She felt like the guy didn’t hear her.
“I asked you what you’d say to her. First thing you said to her is, ‘Well, I’d go to court.’ You go to court? Well no, you can’t go to court. Then the next thing you said was ‘We’ll go to arbitration’… I told you she went to arbitration, and she felt that this guy, that the fix was in.
“And you yourself said in 2004 that arbitrators do this to get business. They develop reputations as friendly to industry. You said it! This is you; I read you back your own quote.
“What would you tell her? The fix is in, lady… The fix is in, and that’s not our system of justice.”
“I can understand that from her perspective, that result would be disappointing,” answered the professor. “What I’m saying… is that there are instances in which the civil litigation system leaves people disappointed too.”
He then attempted to downplay the impact of arbitration clauses in the credit card market by citing a chart in the recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau study of forced arbitration that found these clauses in only 17% of credit card contracts.
“My question is… what percent do those 17% have of the market?” countered Franken.
“They have a large portion of the market,” responded the professor.
“What percent would you say?” asked the Senator, beginning to sound annoyed. “Don’t you think that’s relevant?”
After more hemming/hawing, it comes out that these 17% of contracts represent a whopping 94-98% of the credit card market.
Apparently tired of hearing from the professor, Franken chastised him for what he seemed to have regarded as disingenuous testimony.
“So you made the point in your testimony that we need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, and then you say that the CFPB report proves the point you’ve been trying to make today, and use as your evidence that only 17% of credit card companies use these mandatory arbitration [clauses], without having the honesty, really, to say that — apples to apples, oranges to oranges — 94 to 98 percent of the market is that way…
“When you talk about empirical evidence, and sound empirical evidence, it has to be done by objective people.”
Again, you can watch the whole hearing above, or you can fast-forward to around 1:55 to see the section described here.
Prince William County community calendar, Dec. 22 to Jan. 4 Washington Post Sunday, Dec. 22. “Operation Urgent Fury: Invasion of Grenada,” photographs and artifacts chronicling the invasion of Grenada. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, National Museum of the Marine Corps, 18900 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Triangle. Free. 877-635-1775. Civil War ... |
