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.

2008 Bullshit Awards

Multivariate analysis of exit-polls indicate this is a shoe-in to win:

“Collectors actually care about consumers,” said Rozanne Andersen, general counsel of ACA International, the main industry trade group. “They want to teach consumers how to get out of debt. They’re trying to put themselves out of business.”

So the industry is trying to put itself out of business? lol Are the people running the debt collection agencies aware of this? Apparently not, as the next paragraph illustrates:

If so, they are doing a poor job. So many people are in so much debt that the government says bill collecting is one of the fastest-growing businesses. By 2016, employment in it is projected to exceed half a million workers, up 23 percent in a decade.

Instead of making the big loan sharks pay, the US has once again decided to squeeze the middle class yet again. Brilliant strategy.

“Why not set an example of Bear Stearns, the guys who have this record of dog-eat-dog, we’re brass knuckles, we’re tough?” asked William A. Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital in Issaquah, Wash., and co-author with Fred Sheehan of “Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve.” “This is the perfect time to set an example, but they are not interested in setting an example. We are Bailout Nation.”

We are? We bail who out? Not the hardworking people that need it most (unless you work at the Big 3, but that's technically a buyout). You know who's not affected by any of this? The super-rich. I love the false precision here:

“When a yacht is over 328 feet, it’s so big that you lose the intimacy,” says Tork Buckley, editor of The Yacht Report. “On the other hand, you’ve got bragging rights. No question, that’s a very strong part of the motivation.”

Yes, if the yacht is 327 feet, it's extremely intimate (like a twin bed). However, at 329 feet, you lose sight of the bow over the horizon, and so it becomes far less intimate (like a king bed). I am so glad I have 'experts' around to tell me how to judge mega-yachts - I'd feel so lost in my overwhelming debt without such guidance.

So the lesson is: if you are rich or powerful enough, you can make any excuse you want and people will buy it. If you're one of those unfortunate "little people" who have to pay taxes and fend off debt collectors, your excuses fall on deaf ears. Whether its financial markets or the environment, everyone knows there is no reward in leading by example. So people shy away from doing so at every opportunity.

political spin crash lands

If it were anywhere but America, this would be unbelievable. A couple choice juxtapositions.

First, when you read this:

Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, who heads the committee and who has called the situation "one of the worst safety violations" he has ever seen, is scheduled to hold a hearing April 3 to ask why the airline may have allegedly put its passengers in danger.

that's the editor talking, not your brain. Whither journalistic ethics? Whose interest is CNN trying to protect with that phrasing? Its own. The lawyers probably said you have to avoid making a claim, even though saying "put its passengers in danger" is an accurate description, seeing as how the laws are there to minimize the risk, and in this instance Southwest's negligence increased that risk. That's called "the truth" and what the journalists are doing is increasing the distance between you and it.

For those of you for whom English is a first and only language, another word for "risk" is "danger." The business-savvy right-wing media doesn't want to scare you about your potential death due to corporate negligence (it's too busy pushing ethnic stereotypes. 2 black guys, 1 white girl, and no cups in sight. I mean, you don't even have to say 'rape' and the idea of them going necro appears in more than half of white Amerikaz minds).

Anyway, back to the business of manufacturing consent (in this case, apathy toward your mortality, as opposed to that of the self-serving, self-perpetuating military-industrial-congressional complex (which also happens to be heavily invested in journalism). See, the word "risk" sounds like a financial term, it's been depleted of its more visceral connotations by the false fortunes of the stock market, which people already don't understand, so the ambiguity of that word is compounded by the syntactical obfuscation of the preceding sentence fragment.

So if you're a media-savvy CEO being lightly grilled by an incompetent, unethical journalist, take notes:

"We were surprised yesterday to get that notification by the FAA as well. The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported as late as last month the FAA said that it had no safety issues with Southwest Airlines."

You get that? Yesterday, a newspaper, in no way connected to the aviation industry (and now owned by safety guru Rupert Murdoch) reported that "a month ago" (also known as: before these safety violations were made public), the FAA said something noncommittal about Southwest Airlines ... (he said, she said, but the WSJ said it was safe!). So if the planes crash, are families going to seek damages from the WSJ for libel, for creating a false impression of safety? Idiots.

This is the equivalent of George Bush standing at Ground Zero and saying "this site is safe because I read last week in my briefing that the CIA did not consider the WTC at serious risk from terrorists."

Yes, I realize that some people without glazed-over sheep-eyes (unfortunately not enough) might pick up on such bullshit, but if they say anything they'll be labeled liberal commies and they'll give up b/c it's just some paperwork regarding some perfunctory air safety check, and those checks are so burdensome in these hard times, with airlines struggling to find extra losses from which to pay executives' their undeserved bonuses. Really, I know 113 people who'd disagree with such sentiments, if they were alive to share them. All it takes is a small bit of passion, combined with awareness.

It is in no way outrageous to be outraged by Southwest's negligence.