what the f*ck is wrong with Greece?

Are you serious? LMFAO - the criminals have better transportation than the cops!

I was all /sadface/

Until these gems lifted my spirits!



You better watch out, you'd better not cry, your computer sucks, and he's the reason why. Watch Bill Gates get his face ... pwnd!



Mmmm ... now that's American Psycho!

Nuck Fostradamus!

Yet again, George Carlin proves prescient. I hate the anti-bacterial craze, but not quite as much as I hate these new "anti-viral" bullshit advertisements I'm seeing.

In the immortal rant of good saint George (the video of which has been yanked off YouTube):

Let me tell you a true story about immunization ok. When I was a little boy in New York city in the nineteen-forties, we swam in the Hudson river. And it was filled with raw sewage! OK? We swam in raw sewage, you know, to cool off. And at that time the big fear was polio. Thousands of kids died from polio every year. But you know something? In my neighborhood no one ever got polio. No one! EVER! You know why? Cause WE SWAM IN RAW SEWAGE! It strengthened our immune system, the polio never had a prayer. We were tempered in raw shit!

So personally I never take any precautions against germs. I don't shy away from people who sneeze and cough. I don't wipe off the telephone, I don't cover the toilet seat, and if I drop food on the floor I pick it up and eat it!Even if I'm at side walk cafe! IN CALCUTTA! THE POOR SECTION! ON NEW YEARS MORNING DURING A SOCCER RIOT! And you know something? In spite of all the so called "risky behavior ".... I never get infections. I don't get em. I don't get colds, I don't get flu, I don't get headaches, I don't get upset stomach, And you know why? Cause I got a good strong immune system! And it gets a lot of practice!

... and a Hungarian shall save them -

lost tax revenues!

I've been talking about a simpler tax plan for years - where's my soapbox?! I envision one in which you could just let the government know that "nothing's changed" from previous years (I mean in terms of things like housing, dependents, etc. - you'd just have to fill in a few fields, like income). This is basically how things like TurboTax and the rest of the tax software works, except you're paying for something the government should be providing. Yes, I still have 2.5 children. No, they don't live at home. Yes, our house is paid off.

Oh, and the revenue-enhancing Hungarian is John Szilagyi, who thought it'd be a good idea to force people to list the SSNs of their dependents. I agree: it's a simple and effective deterrent to tax fraud.

Customer Disservice: now on Twitter

Oooh, Bank of America has found a new medium through which it can irritate its customers. At least you can fight back with spam, hate followers, etc.

Speaking of customer service, it seems cell phone technology may be reaching a saturation point. According to this guy, the industry's "salad days" aren't over:

Craig Moffett, an industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, is one of the skeptics. “I don’t think anyone would argue that the salad days of the wireless industry are over,” he said. He added that in terms of subscriber growth in North America, “we’re awfully close to saturation.”

I both agree and disagree. I think the market is very close to saturation, especially in the developed world, where you have individuals with multiple phones. However, I don't think the industry, especially on the service side, will ever stop tossing salad, especially its customers'! BOO-YAH.

Irrationally Predictable: froin laven!

I like Fast Company for short-but-informative articles, this time about a book called "Predictably Irrational." Sounds like a good read.

Here's the funny part (to me) though - if you go to the book's website, you'll notice that there are different covers for different countries. Ok, fair enough, people associate different things with different principles in other cultures, that's all well and good.

Take a look at the Dutch cover. WTF. I couldn't have made that up if I'd tried. I wish I could make shit like that up - my life would be a daily laugh riot.

So the Dutch apparently translated "predictably irrational" with a sexual twist, punning "shortcomings." Yes, because breeding is a predictably irrational Dutch pastime. I mean, does the world really need more Dutchmen?

Holy Carp!

Google Ocean! I'm totally gonna mod Mars to show its glaciers melting and its space colonies relocating to the blue marble; "Not for us, but for our children's sake!"

Patriotism and Efficiency!

I don't understand why this process makes Joe Moser feel proud. Let's review the events:

1) He was shot down on a routine bombing run and subjected to the physical horrors of Buchenwald and the mental horror that 2 Frenchmen had been shot on his account.

2) Despite the "Fog of War", he was able to discover those Frenchmen weren't killed after all, long before the US government even found his lost paperwork.

And this is France we're talking about, where when bureaucrats are given the motivational book "Who Moved My Cheese" (oh my god, there's a video ... with music ... shoot me like a Collaborateur!) immediately take off the next month trying to get to the bottom of the unsolved mystery. Not exactly the model of efficient civil bureaucracy, those French.

3) He wasn't awarded the medal that was rightfully his, one he'd earned by risking his life, until he co-wrote a book and gained some small amount of fame.

So the lesson is that you can make all but the ultimate sacrifice for your country in her time of greatest need, but if you're not even mildly newsworthy, the hell if the government will bother with you. I feel prouder already. Hell yeah, let freedom ring!

UPDATE: It's not just him either, apparently 50 years is something of a standard timeframe for the military to deal with such recognition. So does this mean that we'll find out who orchestrated the JFK assassination in 2013? I sure hope so!

sympathy meter reaches new low!

I didn't see this one coming, but damn is it impressively retarded. I hope she starves to death trying to figure out how to cook at home (or gives up and roasts her head in the oven) - sorry Ben, I have no sympathy for that debt devil.

Q: politician's most-feared WMD ...

A: a logic bomb!

A (part 2): not if you're Sarah Palin!

PediPaws!

SUPERFUN! You know who else should enjoy this product? Circus animals!

fire docs who don't wash their hands

Have them "log" in and out of each procedure by touching a petri dish. That will definitely get the hand-washing numbers up.

your right to privacy exists only at our convenience

How did I miss this? Fuck.

today is a good day

I hate children and love porn, so that makes this a good day to be online.

smells like bi-partisanshit

If the media were actually liberal, they would've just called Limbaugh a "traitor" (like the Right does every time the Left decries the imposition of government on their civil rights):

anything you geezers can do

we can do younger! Oh yes we can! :o)

On a serious note, I am happy for the new meritocracy that the Obama administration represents. A 26-year-old fashion designer and a speechwriter is 26 (or 27, depending on which source you believe). Obama himself is young, especially for a President, and companies around the world are increasingly comfortable with handing over the reigns to ever-younger CEOs.

I'm firmly convinced that a person's decision-making process can be just as sophisticated at 25 as it is at 52 (rare, but possible). Nowadays people in their 30s-40s are savvier than ever, and oftentimes the only thing holding a candidate back is access to information. With the ever-widening scope of databases and technologies to make that raw information useful, the underlying intellectual processes of the decision-maker take front and center - not just "experience." Of course, data is not a substitute for *all* experience, not by a long shot, but much of what used to take corporate drones eons to learn can now be experienced in a small fraction of the time. This trend of younger CEOs is a marker of a larger shift towards trend towards true meritocracies, a change I fully embrace.

business being 'obviously' stupid?

say it ain't so!

"SuperCrunching" at its finest - yes, let's trust regression analysis when the core data and conditions are still input by the business geniuses from above. I always trust statistics - they never lie! (but people do!)

D-town in the hizz-ouse!!

Let's hear it for Detroit homeboy, thugged-out native, Dean James Lipton! He's freakin' 82 years old, but he slammed that bong like a 28-year-old! Kickass. Just goes to show: "real thugs never die!"

james lipton reads k-fed lyrics

a navy of one

Well, now that my weekends will be devoid of deviant activities, I guess it's time to pull an L. Ron and set sail for waters uncharted (and countries that don't extradite). :oP

piracy fail

Johnny Depp is disheartened. I hope they have piracy insurance. lol

male Coke-drinkers beware!

(wherein I demonstrate, succinctly and incontrovertibly, that men who prefer Coke are pansies and Pepsi-swilling chicks should shave their jowls)

A new study suggests that REAL MEN like their mass-produced food products 20% more sugary than women (and that's just to get them to recognize the flavor, so even more must be required to support preferential behavior).

Pepsi is acknowledged to be sweeter than Coke, ergo you are less of a man for drinking Coke than Pepsi. QED.

Next?

same-blog posts

I always wondered what was meant by "same-store sales." Now I know ... and knowing has made me stupider:

Best Buy's same store sales -- an important retail industry metric -- fell 5.3 percent from 2007 for the quarter ending Nov. 29. Same-store sales, which worsened every month in the period, are considered a key indicator of a retailer's health because they measure sales at existing stores rather than newly opened ones.

How about just "established store sales"? Leave it to businessmen to mangle language beyond all relevant meaning.

as it was, shall it ever be

My man, it is always about the timing!

Iraqi reporter pulls a Random Task

Who throws a shoe? I mean, really?

I guess if it's someone from the Middle Eastern country you illegally invaded to pillage oil, then I guess that's not really fighting like a girl ... though it kinda is.

any wonder people mistrust 'free' markets?

Free ... to be as $50bn corrupt or as back-asswardsly bankrupt as the multi-millionaire leaders of the corporations wish their companies to be.

sheeple given driving instruction

No more baa-baa behind the wheel of your ca-a-a-rrr! Otherwise, you'll end up filing some ridiculous claims, like:

“In an attempt to kill a fly I drove into a telephone pole”

"On approach to the traffic lights the car in front suddenly broke."

"The car in front hit the pedestrian but he got up so I hit him again"

"I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment."

"The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention."

"I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way"

"Going to work at 7am this morning I drove out of my drive straight into a bus. The bus was 5 minutes early."

"The accident happened because I had one eye on the lorry in front, one eye on the pedestrian and the other on the car behind."

"I started to slow down but the traffic was more stationary than I thought."

"I pulled into a lay-by with smoke coming from under the hood. I realised the car was on fire so took my dog and smothered it with a blanket."

Q: Could either driver have done anything to avoid the accident? A: Travelled by bus?


The claimant had collided with a cow. The questions and answers on the claim form were - Q: What warning was given by you? A: Horn. Q: What warning was given by the other party? A: Moo.

"I started to turn and it was at this point I noticed a camel and an elephant tethered at the verge. This distraction caused me to lose concentration and hit a bollard."

"I didn't think the speed limit applied after midnight"

"I knew the dog was possessive about the car but I would not have asked her to drive it if I had thought there was any risk."

Q: Do you engage in motorcycling, hunting or any other pastimes of a hazardous nature? A: "I Watch the Lottery Show and listen to Terry Wogan."

"First car stopped suddenly, second car hit first car and a haggis ran into the rear of second car."

"Windscreen broken. Cause unknown. Probably Voodoo."

"A truck backed through my windshield into my wife's face"

"A pedestrian hit me and went under my car"

"I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection a hedge sprang up obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car."

"I was on my way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident."

"An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished."

"I was thrown from the car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows."

"Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have."

"I thought my window was down, but I found it was up when I put my head through it."

"The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him."

"I had been driving for forty years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident."

"As I approached an intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before."

"To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front I struck a pedestrian."

"My car was legally parked as it backed into another vehicle."

"I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat found that I had a fractured skull."

"I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him."

"The pedestrian had no idea which way to run as I ran over him."

"I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounced off the roof of my car."

"The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth."

"The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of the way when I struck the front end."

"The gentleman behind me struck me on the backside. He then went to rest in a bush with just his rear end showing. "

"I had been learning to drive with power steering. I turned the wheel to what I thought was enough and found myself in a different direction going the opposite way."

"I was backing my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before."

"When I saw I could not avoid a collision I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car."

"The accident happened when the right front door of a car came round the corner without giving a signal."

"No one was to blame for the accident but it would never have happened if the other driver had been alert."

"I was unable to stop in time and my car crashed into the other vehicle. The driver and passengers then left immediately for a vacation with injuries."

"The pedestrian ran for the pavement, but I got him."

"I saw her look at me twice. She appeared to be making slow progress when we met on impact."

"The accident occurred when I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering it into the other vehicle."

"I knocked over a man; he admitted it was his fault for he had been knocked down before."

what men are like

Brit pop starlet Lily Allen sums it up pretty well:

"I'm not the type to leap on someone. If I fancy someone I'm quite playgroundy about the whole thing, and just punch them on the arm a bit. It certainly breaks the ice. And you keep punching lower and lower until you've got their dick in your hand and then that's it."

the next retail paradigm

We are fast approaching the day when price differentials between online and real-world shops are insignificant. I wonder what will drive consumer behavior in that paradigm? Location won't matter that much (ignoring the differential in shipping costs, which is not often a deal-breaker anyway), and neither will the store. The only stuff you'll need to go to the store for are (likely):

apparel - you have to try some stuff on, unless we get more consistent sizing across (and even sometimes within) brands

perishable food - some food you can easily order online (canned goods), but fresh produce? methinks not

medicine - well, to fill the initial prescription should require some form of identification rigor that is currently beyond the capabilities of the Internet ... that may change soon, but you'll still have to see a doctor to diagnose what's wrong

immediate needs - convenience and construction stores, for instance. If you run out of washers working on the plumbing, you can't wait for parts to be delivered.

Can you think of anything else?

all in your head

Yeah, after 17 years of liberal media whining, some self-serving callous bureaucrats have decided to take that pansy-ass invention, 'Gulf War Syndrome,' and label it a "real" "illness." Pussies. Go take another bullet for your country!

encroaching on our right to idiocy

It's not enough that an 8-year-old shot killed himself by losing control of an Uzi at a gun show in Massachusetts (those liberal scum!), but you rednecks watch out: them minors know what's up, and they're coming to get you, even if you live in a red state! Mwuahahaha

can I bum a fag?

Sometimes people can actually do surprising things.

But the advice remains that you can never really trust a metals trader! :oP

welcome to the machine!

Partly amusing, partly sad commentary on modern life. We're all become technological 'yes' men (or women, or bi-sexual, trans-gendered, hedonistic squirrel-worshippers).

it finally happened

A major mainstream news organization published an article promoting further research into your mom! Stunning!

low-hanging fruit

I be there are a heck of a lot of 'low-hanging fruit' that the government regulators can harvest nowadays!

the sound of breaking glass

OK, so in some ways the British are not nearly as sophisticated as Americans tend to give them credit. Foreign donation scandals by, essentially, frat buddies who enjoy getting so pissed they're randomly violent? Stiff upper lip indeed - it's swollen after you punched me, my good man! lol

However, in other ways, especially in matters of public debate yes, yes they are. Could you ever imagine that bus ad in the US? Heck, Top Gear simply said "NASCAR sucks!" and they were nearly lynched in the South. Fox News, fair and balanced as it is, would never air a "god" vs. "no-god" debate. So much for presenting two sides of an issue.

whither US innovation?

This is the kind of stuff University research would find hordes of undergrads to help study! Why aren't they?

always de-regulation. always.

That's what Republicans stand for. I am surprised, though, that the multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry wasn't able to get their way on this intellectual property initiative ... must be because they're all pinko commie liberals.

it takes a dunce

to deduce she's fit to be vice-commander in chief:

too short

Not the rapper, but this list full of epic Bush fail.

As I've stated before, I disagree with nearly every major decision made / legislation coercively passed by the administration.

America's top export: hypocrisy

This is stunning in its blatancy.

One result of this standoff is that the United States, despite being one of the primary authors of the U.N.'s Convention on the Rights of Children, which specifies that governments must take appropriate measures to protect children from "all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation," is one of only two nations that have not ratified it. The other is Somalia; 192 nations have ratified it.

Land of the free (to beat your children). I guess us rednecks worry that wife-beating will be outlawed next. If I don't resort to five across the eyes, I don't know how I'd ever convince that fat slut to crap out six more kids. Now, if I hit her too hard and break her three remaining teeth, so she can barely eat for a week, I might get some capital punishment up in harr, and that's no fun.

Go (black and) Blue!

According to my colleague Liz Gershoff of the University of Michigan, a leading expert on corporal punishment of children, the main arguments that have so far prevented us from ratifying it include the ones you would expect—it would undermine American parents' authority as well as U.S. sovereignty—plus a couple of others that you might not have expected: It would not allow 17-year-olds to enlist in the armed forces, and (although the Supreme Court's decision in Roper v. Simmons has made this one moot, at least for now) it would not allow executions of people who committed capital crimes when they were under 18.

All that fancy Ivory talk, bitch, will get the back of your head pulverized by a well-aimed donkey punch. Now stop jawing with that ugly ol' gap-toothed mug of yours and start working them gums on this here "rod."

WARNING: aneurysm-inducing idiocy

Governor Granholm has Canada on the border, and she was even born there - in a foreign country(!) - QED!

You can tell she wishes she'd paid attention to those trade missions instead of who was tasering her extended family, lol.


Watch CBS Videos Online

give that man a Nobel!

Well, if you take a large enough sample, someone's bound to be right, but still, impressive! Especially considering that it took until the latter half of the 20th century for our government to acknowledge that smoking leads to health problems. Ducking fuh.

still a dangerous precedent

Allowing nuclear-armed India to avoid the non-proliferation treaty. I can't say I see how voting the measure down will drive the Indians to ally themselves with Iran - this is the same style of broad, culturally-blind assumptions that have re-created a Vietnam-style quagmire in Iraq.

this just goes to show...

... that you can teach an old, forgetful dog new tricks! Haha, like that? I thought so ... :oP

Sarah Palin + FOX News = Infomercial

funny, I do the same thing when she speaks:



As a giant piece of lying political slime, Blair is STILL more honest and open about the difficulties of the "War on Terror" than just about any US politician. Shameful.

only a fool would revel in Lehman's failure

Count me among those fools!

If you want to have a free market, you have to have consequences to risk as an appropriate deterrent against future malfeasance. God knows you can't trust Bush's slash & burn policy to regulatory oversight, and the worst thing would be to let banks believe any of them are immune. Watch AIG and WaMu for signs of imminent failure (though I really can't understand how AIG could be SO leveraged that its physical assets' value would be outweighed by the positions of just one of its many divisions). Anyway, I haven't been following AIG closely though, so maybe the market is right in its heavy devaluation of the firm. It went from $40/share to around $20/share between May - Sep, and now it's trading at the sub-$4/share level. That's a tad extreme.

The Value of the "Liberal" Media 2

I'll put the headline here just for effect:

Pakistan order to kill US invaders
Key corps commanders of Pakistan's 600,000-strong army issued orders last night to retaliate against "invading" US forces that enter the country to attack militant targets

Well, it's Australian, but it manages to get the information out to a wider audience. With allies like these, who needs are enemies?

The Bible is my Anti-Spore!

Oh for God's sake ... I knew this was coming.

I especially like this attempt at an argument. Stunning. Just because you believe strongly in creationism doesn't mean you *must* defy logic.

But because Will Wright has brainwashed Frank Drake into thinking that life in the universe gave rise to “super humans” on other planets that are better than us. God would never create something better than himself, it is not possible as God is perfect in every way. And once again, I reiterate that man was created in His image.

For starters, equating humans to God is heresy, though through the creator's (of the blog, not "the Creator") tenuous grasp of logic, I don't think he fully understands what he implies. Saying man was created in God's "image" does NOT mean that we are perfect and/or like God in every way. Why? If we were perfect, we'd be God (which we cannot be). So obviously we were made in His image, but not 100% - which leaves room for improvement! With all the sin and strife, I really cannot believe someone thinks that we could not be "improved" upon in some way, such as, perhaps, a higher standard of morals or a stronger conscience.

And just because Dr. Drake has a fantastical vision of "super" sapiens that doesn't conform to someone's creationist ideas does not mean he is challenging God or has somehow been "brainwashed" by ... a game designer? Come on! Drake is an astrophysicist for Christ's sake - he's smarter than that! lol

And for that matter, so are Jesus and God. Actually, I think Armageddon will be retribution upon the truly ignorant, such as those people who claim to be avowed followers of Jesus the Christ, yet who insist upon literal interpretations of the Bible. Have you read the New Testament? IT'S ALMOST ALL METAPHOR! YOUR "SAVIOR" WAS A LIBERAL INTELLECTUAL! lmfao You can read parables about the sower and the seed, the candle under the wicker basket, etc., yet you can't comprehend that God may not have created the Earth in 7 24-hour days? Believing in God or Jesus the Christ does not give one leave to abandon logic.

The Value of the "Liberal" Media 1

Ok, here we go. In defense of a liberal media, which does its part to help Americans (the vast majority of whom don't travel internationally) understand the world of which they are a very powerful part.

An insight into daily life within North Korea. The Reps/right wing/conservatives/neocons would argue that the article is "sympathizing" with an enemy who's part of the "Axis of Evil." That's bullshit. People need to be reminded, apart from all the blithering rhetoric otherwise, that there are real people over there, leading real lives, and it's not like the entire population is one homogenous horde opposed to America.

Besides, militarily it is advantageous to know more about your enemy than less, so all the "liberal" media is doing is giving more information to our future cannon fodder so that they can better understand their enemy - and annihilate him/her! Now THAT'S what I call true patriotism! (Not that ignorance prevents us from efficiently killing dirty towelheads elsewhere.)

Esquire interviews Rupert Murdoch

His bias bleeds through the lines like the blood of the thousands he helped kill in Iraq.

Unfair? Nah. See, he's made an art of distortion, so much so that "facts" and "opinions" are indistinguishable in his worldview. And he's made Fox News a powerful voice for the ignorant, illogical, and ill-informed in the US - instead of going toe-to-toe with "intellectuals," they largely just cut mics and have idiotic shouting matches about trivial topics to create a virtual 'fog of war' in politics and in the favor of the right-wing zealot idiots who now control the country.

You wonder where the Reps get off lying so much and so easily - he opened the door for disinformation. O'Reilly perfectly fair and balanced, that's why Britney's sister is a slut and her parents are unfit, while Sarah Palin's daughter is an inspiration to us all and her mother could (and should!) be Vice President.

This bit of illogic is a gem: he didn't become a US citizen only for business reasons, he just had to be a US citizen to own a network. Hmmm ... that's not a business reason? I don't care if he sees his business life intertwined with (or as) his personal life, or makes no distinctions along those lines, but to pursue a business goal he changed citizenships. Just because he engages in double- or triple-think doesn't mean the rest of us do.

And if it weren't for the investigative reporting of the NY Times, this country would be far worse off. I wish I had the time to compile a list of the breaking, relevant news they've provided over the years. What does Fox News have to its credit? The fact that half its viewers still believe the US found WMDs in Iraq? Are you fucking kidding me? And you'd denigrate the Times?

Makes me want to get rid of my citizenship ...

Moment of ... hypocrisy. Again.

These are becoming almost too numerous to keep track of.



I like Huckabee, but I despise the GOP. I'd never vote for Huckabee. The disconnect between the approval rating of Congress and the individual re-election, district-by-district, of its representatives is another clear and terrifying example of the idiocracy of American sheeple and is the direct result of their biased, hyper-individualism. "My guy's right - it's your guy that's the problem!" Retarded. Where are the concentration internment camps when you need them? "Your IQ must be this high to get out." lol



Another hypocrisy: making "service" your speech-day motto, but having your other preparatory speakers denigrate those who actually do service. And the American sheeple love it!

Republican choice

Of course you have a choice, just so long as it remains our decision whether or not the government will allow you to make that choice! As Orwell put it, "All animals are equal; but some are more equal than others." Palin's family made the choice they're going to deny everyone else, and really, at their core, people have a lot of difficulty with this hypocrisy - except for the evangelical right, who're used to the suspension of logic.

Impalin' earmarks ...

... but for keeping the money. You know what else gets doled out from the general fund? Legislators' compensations.

Bill Maher is my soulmate

And Paul Begala is awsome. "... look at George Bush, he's kind of disgraced me entire gender and ethnicity." I love it.

john.he.is

And that's a fact, yes it is!

as the saying goes ...

"If it's good enough to flush down my toilet, it's good enough for the city of San Antonio!"

They can get this industrious DIY-er to keep the plant smelling like roses!

tree frog

Australasian extinction fail

the next generation of music piracy?

Ushered in by the precedent-setting:
radio tower protection fail

it's about ... character

Namely, the character of the letter 'W'. I loved it at The Shrub's acceptance speech in 2004, the way they projected giant gold 'W's to flank the stage on both sides. The TV clips largely ignored them, but every so often when the camera zoomed out you can see them.

Bush's Victory Speech 2004 | Viral | SPIKE.com

All that propaganda and patriotism, those simplistic, single-color banners ("royal" blue?), barren except for a lone symbol, does remind me of an earlier time, of another "historic" moment. When was it? Where was it ... oh yeah!

Gosh, those were the days ...

And the Reps have the gall to call Obama just "a celebrity?" George's shrubbery hath extended even beyond a mere person, he's taken over an entire letter of the alphabet (and here is the store to prove it!).

vetting a veep

OK, there is obviously a lot of controversy over this Palin selection. One of my favorite micro-debates is on her family's right to privacy (as Obama may point out, Constitutional scholar that he is, there is no right to privacy guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, although maybe it should be included in order to offset the violation of the right to unlawful search and seizure that the government is allowed under the "Patriot" Acts).

Okay, to do what Reps despise and re-focus on the issue. McCain and the Reps are squealing over Palin's privacy, that how she rears her family has nothing to do with her fitness for public office. Ok, fine, but then please explain how the following examples fit:

The campaign says the form included such detailed questions as: Have you been faithful in your marriage? Have you ever paid for sex? Have you ever downloaded pornography? Have you ever used or purchased drugs?

Now, as far as I can tell, those are all questions on a candidate's morals. If it turns out that the candidate did use drugs, like Clinton, The Shrub, and Obama, it's okay to cite Palin's drug use. So if those examples of morals are okay, why not the family unit? If you've been divorced, and the politicians themselves use that as a screen for "fitness", then why can't the American public? And where are your morals displayed anywhere more so than your family unit? You're going to treat your spouse/children a lot closer to the morals you actually practice (by definition) than those you just preach. And that's why the Reps desperately want to present a (n often false) squeaky-clean moral facade that is above question, because the more you question, the more hypocrisy you find.

And don't even get me started on how Stewart pwnd Gingrich over the meaning of the word "decision." Fabulous.


And if you have the appetite for even more Palin hypocrisy ("she was for wasteful pork barrels before she was against them!", "she was for Alaskan independence ... and still probably is!"), have a gander. Brilliant.

what is the opposite of beer goggles?

Whatever you call this drink, lol.

Parkour (free running) = cool. Sport? Not really. Marial art? Hardly. Hardcore? A bit, but not nearly as much as swamp soccer!

the sad thing is

While we're debating global warming, it's already too late... the CO2 we've already admitted will remain in the atmosphere for decades (at least), and our overall emissions are not dropping yet, therefore we are going to continue adding to the cumulative amount of CO2 in the atmosphere for a long while after we notice the effects of global warming. Once you start seeing the effects, it is already bordering on being too late to do anything about the situation.

Batman: The Dark Knight

All the reviews are deservedly positive. I think Heath Ledger will be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but I am skeptical he'd win (even though some people claim it's "not just a comic book movie" it's still a comic book movie!).

I thought Heath Ledger nailed the character of the Joker. I am not sure if it led to his inadvertent (or otherwise) OD on sleeping pills, but I find it difficult to believe that the role would have disturbed him so much. I mean, it is so far detached from a 'real' person that I can't see an actor having anything but gleeful fun with the role, since there are no character boundaries for the Joker's mania. Personally, I would've stayed another 2 1/2 hours in the theatre just watching his anti-social antics.

I was never that impressed with Jack Nicholson's portrayal, nor did I like the more campy screen adaptations of Batman in general. I grew up reading the comics and watching the fantastic animated series on WB that I always viewed Batman as a very dark/tormented character. I mean, the Joker killed how many Robins? I recall one was left to drown in a vat of acid!

OK, but enough reviewers have already fawned over Ledger's performance, and despite reading many of those reviews before seeing the film, I was still impressed. As for the rest of the cast, they were good, but not great. I like Bale as Batman, and he's also able to pull off Bruce Wayne quite convincingly (and all I can say is praise Jesus that Katie Holmes did not reprise her role from Batman Begins - her performance was so void it threatened to envelope part of the film!). Gary Oldman was really good. Aaron Eckhart was good, perhaps as good, maybe a little better, than Bale, but his character had to go through such a transformation ... the stakes were highest for his character, and I think that he fell just a little below what could have made his role as memorable as Ledger's. I think Dent wasn't edgy enough before his transformation, and that hindered the believability of Two-Face. Alternatively, his character could have shown more conflict/confusion post-transformation (I thought he too-readily accepted the Joker's manipulation).

There were also some minor logical/technical gripes, such as:

- how did the Joker escape from Bruce Wayne's benefit?
- how did Dent survive that limo car crash, unscathed to boot, after purposefully unbuckling his seat-belt (after shooting the driver)?
- the chase scene in the tunnel was poorly-shot (as many reviewers have commented).

There were a few other minor things I noticed ... if I remember I'll write them, but for now that's all I got.

Media Reviews

I'm going to start reviewing all the films I watch and books I read, more for the benefit of my own memory than anything else.

failure alert!

Bush fails again. What, did he look into Medvedev's "soul" as well, the fucking retard? Not that his failure matters, since he neither reads the news or listens to anyone but his parroting yes-men lackeys. The "CEO" President couldn't be any more apt in prescribing exactly his idiotic shortcomings.

still a lame excuse

... rationalizing stupidity doesn't make it any less stupid or any less a person's choice. It's the 'everyone else jumped off a bridge' argument, except in this case it's 'everyone else around me appeared to make superficial choices, so I took that to mean I didn't have to think through my own actions ..." SHEEP!

In other news, yay for freedom! haha I wonder if they use the same argument for freedom of speech as they do for the definition of porn: "I'll recognize a breach of your civil liberties when I see one."

the face of tyranny in Zimbabwe

Stunningly brave. I bet the Guardian helped pay for his extrication. Heck, with Zimbabwe's inflation, they probably bought first class tickets for him and his family to Tahiti!

I'm OK to dwive, honesht
In other news, researchers at the University of Michigan claim that the nearly-insignificant difference in crash statistics between two equally stupid systems for the legal drinking age finds that one severely stupid system is only slightly less idiotic than the other.

Stunning amounts of time and money were exerted, and no one mentioned the pink elephant in the room: make the legal drinking age LOWER than the legal driving age, and you'll have less drunk-driving accidents. This proposition appears counter-intuitive only to idiots, which is why the US has not adopted it.

a bad PR day in biofuels
Is there no such thing as bad PR? I would think a "secret" report by the World Bank on the economic damage being caused by biofuels would be considered, um, pretty bad.

Most people are not going to blame the terrible choices of biofuel feedstock which have been made (corn ethanol is bullshit, and clearing virgin rain forest for palm oil is even more putrid bullshit). What will stick in people's minds is the massive spike in food prices attributed (largely) to these ridiculously inefficient or improperly deployed crops.

The only silver lining? At least the report makes Bush look bad! :o)

hire marx four being emfatik!

In a way, the teacher could be implying that maybe the room was such a shithole it deserved an exclamation mark!

I don't think the examiner was being broad-minded enough. Maybe "room" could be taken in the global, socio-economic sense as "room to grow." I mean, on the one hand, some plunderer's are getting rich exploiting and enabling the Chinese regime. On the other, not everyone takes such action lying down.

I would've asked for more clarity from the youth on which stance he was against.

How do you say 'hallelujah' in Martian?

Is it holy water? I'm waiting until the Martian bacteria accept their Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, into their tiny microbial hearts.

a typical day in the office

The threat of "inadvertent" nuclear apocalypse keeps us sharp!

Good to know we haven't backed away too far from the brink!

And the every-pressing question, has Hiroshima become too normal?

idle talk

A good article on the benefits of turning off your car instead of letting it idle.

school-shooting drive-by?

Next one that happens, you know you can blame Obama!

apoplectic

Now this is a word I like! The Dictionary.com definition is more technical, but Merriam-Webster's captures the modern usage very succinctly:

apoplectic

1: of, relating to, or causing stroke
2: affected with, inclined to, or showing symptoms of stroke
3: of a kind to cause or apparently cause stroke (an apoplectic rage); also : greatly excited or angered (was apoplectic over the news)

nerdkore

Ewe ar such a NERD!

In the land of the recently freed from prison

"They hate us for our freedom."

Yes, King Shrub, that and our peace-loving way of life, lol.

Make-mud Ahma - Ajabadah .. babajabadah ... goo-goo, ga-ga

In another conspiracy of non-reporting by devil-worshipping, gay liberal abortionist baby-raping Western capitalist-whore journalists, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad was actually correct when he stated there were no homosexuals in Iran. That is true. They have all fled elsewhere to seek asylum, lol.

taser-on-taser violence

See, after the Virginia Tech shootings, some people thought the only solution was to better arm teachers. I agree. Giving weapons to inadequately trained civilians is, in general, an effective deterrent from deadly violence. In fact, the only solution to most violent confrontations is more violence. It's not like easy access to weaponry can escalate otherwise innocuous situations into a life-or-death struggle, people simply don't behave that way. People are nearly always rational and react in proportion to the affront dealt them.

Take this case for instance. The only clear solution to this horrible display of taser-on-taser violence is more tasers. Imagine if the van had a taser how much easer of a time it would've had defending itself against both men and short-circuiting their violent intents altogether. Why are lawmakers so blind to such obvious, simple, eminently workable solutions? Goddamned left-wing conspirators ... if we left it to the crazy Belgians, we'd all have drowned in our own impotence already.

You know, we always seem to come to an impasse in this country when it comes to guns. I believe we, as Americans, should just stick to the things we know how to do and do well, like teaching people how to drink responsibly.

(and drive even better - I wonder if the two are related?)

why they hate us, part 1 trillion

Hmmm ... a trillion for wanton destruction, and a paltry 1 billion (promised aide feeds no mouths) for helping people eat.

What was that about hearts and minds? Apparently there is no space in the agenda for stomachs. I mean, how could anyone truthfully assert that we have our priorities anywhere but in exactly the right place? It's not like the haves try to instigate the have-nots. However, to be fair, people have actually done the acts depicted, and in the name of Islam. So why do people get so offended by the replaying of facts? These things happened. It is offensive to Muslims to blame all Islam because of the acts of a few, this is true, but this is also known as freedom of speech. We give you the freedom to worship whatever you like, a freedom which many Islamic countries do not have, and you cannot choose your freedoms piecemeal - they come as a set, take them all or leave them all.

secondary intelligence

Very clever indeed - much more clever than using contraceptives. How did the mother not notice her daughter was pregnant? That's kind of a difficult thing to hide, even if you are tubby.

the decider

So first he tells our enemies to bring it on, then he blames the servicemen for his televised premature ejaculation (of 'victory') bullshit media stunt.

This is the behavior of a "war-time" President? Not in living memory ...

This just in!
Iraqis everywhere are bathing in the sweet smell of victory!

Ave Ma-lmfao

I had trouble deciding whether to add this to my YouTube playlist as "comedy" or "music" ... when the wind catches his papal ... whatever that thing is on his shoulders, he looks like a cute little white Nazi eagl- dove, like a peace-loving, non-anti-aircraft firing Hitler youth dove.

canufacturing monsent

This is how we do.

not so crazy after all

Rudy Giuliani was one of the few who defended Barack Obama when he rattled the sabre in Pakistan's direction. Turns out the US military also seems to think that the junior senator from Illinois isn't so crazy after all.

what're role models for?

I'd be willing to bet that she was Karl Rove's!

holy ... living ... g-o-d

NSFW (in some parts of the world only - I love living in Europe!)


Keeley Hazell Nude Photo Shoot - Click here for more amazing videos

a varied agglomeration of schnitzels

St Peter? Nah, I won't be coming up after all ...
Great to know that the namesake of the Zell-Lurie Institute is engaging the great satan! Here's a tip to budding entrepreneurs - don't let morals get in the way of profit, that's bad business.

Yo, what can I get for this bling?
Invest in pwnage! I think classifying pawn shops "financial stocks" is a stretch by anyone's imagination, lol.

Shell-outs to the Sell-outs
Fuck the pittance checks GWB sends. How can people be so stupid as to think those help?

Too high-class for Florida?
Nothing says I fuck my cousin/sister/uncle's goats like having sack hanging from your bumper. How does a gun-store owner claim any moral authority in this? I also love how one of the Republicans had "truck nutz" on his vehicle, lmfao.

50 first shots
See, he just kept forgetting due to the short-term memory loss induced by too many Adam Sandlar movies. If they made 50 repeated, unnecessarily deadly mistakes, shouldn't they at least be forced to apologize 50 times? How unjust that they only had to apologize once! Unfair!

Buying votes, selling souls
I love that we're being patronized by our own government, receiving token amounts of money in order to placate the masses and/or coerce them into frivolous spending. Bang on, that's exactly what we need more of! "Hey, we drove this car into a ditch going 100mph, I say we gun the throttle until we hit 120, that should help immensely!"

won't you be my neighbor?

I is so hongrie.

Karmapa Number 17, come on down!

I can't bear the suspense of Karmapan Idol: is Ugyen Trinley Dorje the 17th reincarnation, or is Trinley Thaye Dorje? I hope that Ugyen does turn out to be a Chinese spy, that'll add a much-needed, tearful dramatic twist to the long-running series!

TiVo-me, baby!
Another, highly unlikely explanation could be that people realized there was a reality beyond the glowing screen, that that reality could be even more interesting than cyclic, predictable programming, and that they didn't need constant, mind-numbing entertainment to fill every dreary moment of their inane lives ... but I doubt that very much.

danrom

What can I say, I won't vote for McCain. I can't help it, I'm just a single-issue voter, and he just doesn't do it for me. Once you go green, there's no going back!

Today, I felt like I was dressed like a bum.

a voiceless instrument

I bring you a voiceless instrument.
I strained to reach a note which was
too high in my heart, and the string broke.
While masters laugh at the snapped cord,
I ask you to take my lute in your hands
and fill its hollowness with your songs.

[from Rabindranath Tagore's The Fugitive]

so what?

[our government released new theme song for data privacy]

And I've had scag
I've had speed
I've jacked up until I bleed
So what, so what
So what, so what you boring little cunt
Well who cares, who cares what you do
Who cares, who cares about you
You, you, you, you

for rizzle?

Seriously, are these the best attacks the right can muster? "Your grandpa was a good-for-nothing, from which it logically follows that you are weak on national security." What a load of boogers.

It's only 6 months until the election, and they're already grasping at straws? This bodes very well for the Democrats, especially if Obama is the nominee.

The kicker - since Obama's mom died of cancer, the Right is barred from making any "yo momma" slams. Doesn't that suck! Time to hire new talking heads.

untruth!

CNN reports a "darker" side to loveable Audrey Tatou.
Wrong - this isn't her first flirtation with the dark(er) side.

hackers target epileptics

That just sounds like an odd list of enemies: eBaum, Scientology, and epileptics. How do they decide who to attack, create random word generators and pick the top 3 coherent results?

turn back the clock

on women's rights! lol

do not pass 'go'

In fact, don't even pass near your local elementary school. That's a great tactic with some gaping holes - I sure hope accidental clicks don't send FBI agents on false alarms (I'm sure there has to be some kind of pattern to the activity). Also, that'd be a really nasty way to mess with someone - send them a virus that clicks on such links repeatedly and have the FBI raid the target's home.

Interesting stuff you find buried in the news sometimes ...

4000 and counting

Nice milestone. I especially like how nearly one-fifth of the fatalities aren't even the result of enemy action. "Bring it on," indeed, Mr. Bush. I guess Clinton was Eisenhower's exception, because this is exactly the type of unfounded, false machismo that most true military men avoid. Paid off nicely for Bush's business associates though, that's for sure.

So if a veteran see others giving George W. Fucknuts the finger, will he feel better? Doubtful ...

it's the environmentalism, stupid

Finally, programs are starting to target consumers' wallets. These are the types of programs that will really make a difference.

apparently it's tradition

I was somewhat taken aback by the popularity of Bjorn Borg apparel abroad, but I didn't know that the premiere brand (which, incidentally, I vehemently dislike) Lacoste was also founded by a tennis champ.