Free Association

Mr. Galapagos Shark

2006-08-15T22:15:00.000-07:00

sharkbite.jpg
Originally uploaded by .

Went swimming with this guy the other day. He was pretty hungry.

Did you know that geckos bark?

2006-07-13T05:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not kidding. There are a million of them here. Right here. In this house.
They scurry across the walls in the middle of the night when they think we are all asleep. At least they aren't cockroaches.

This one green little guy looked right at me and made this high pitch squeaky noise.

So far, I've learned two things in Hawaii:

1. Geckos bark.
2. Pineapples grow out of the ground.

Why the hell don't they call them pinetomatoes or something else?

Craigs List Craziness

2006-04-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I haven't posted anything since January, not because I don't have anything to say... I'm just really, really lazy.

Anyway, I"m in the process of moving back to San Francisco. I have been scouring Craigs List to find the perfect place. I want a studio for under 1100/month with hard wood floors and big windows. I don't care if people are selling crack on the corner, but I would rather live in a neighborhood where there is a smaller chance that I will get knifed for my sneakers. (Not that anyone would go to the trouble for a pair of size 3 1/2 pink Chuck Taylors).

Anyway, I found this posting, which gave me a chuckle...
I half-way considered it, because of the astronomical rent in the Bay Area.

Reply to: hous-155175541@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-04-27, 10:34AM PDT

Recently remodeled grave, circa 1800's - previous tenant relocated to Colma - remodeled just for you. Cozy and cute, with granite counter tops and period wood detailing. New "skylight" provides ample light and much needed ventilation. No pets, smoking, or section 8. Located on the UC Laurel Heights campus, convenient to mass transportation. Hurry, this won't last long at this price!

California st. at presidio ave. google map yahoo map

no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Hi-Tech Baby Drop Box

2006-01-03T22:42:00.000-08:00

Via Engadget.

Well, file this under truth is stranger than fiction: a Northern Italian town recently christened the "cradle of life" baby drop box in hopes of curbing the 400 or so annual incidents of new born babies being dumped in trash bins, open fields, public toilets...you get the idea. The first or several planned $7,500 cradles is installed in a woman's shelter for single mothers and works as follows: when someone opens the metal flap of the box, an alarm sounds notifying social workers inside. The baby's weight triggers a sensor causing the box to warm-up and then sends a second, time-delayed signal to social workers while simultaneously sending a call to nearby ambulance services. It's no coincidence that the first of these is installed in the town of Padua where for nearly 500 years a lazy Susan-like device would spin unwanted children into the orphanage. Ahh, progress.

Fuck Sony

2005-12-07T04:46:00.000-08:00

Fuck Sony right in the ass.

I've been following this whole root-kit debacle, and every time I hear more about it I feel like breaking something.

If you are reading this, and have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm going to try to explain in Layman-ese...

Ok, here goes:
Sony corporation is basically an evil conglomerate of comic book quality villains hell bent on squeezing every last penny out of its customers-- even if it compromises their customers' privacy, safety or property.

(On a side note, if you know what I'm talking about and are unfortunate enough to have this fucking malware on your PC or Mac, I can help you remove it without nuking your operating system. Shoot me an email: abbiapple@gmail.com)

What is a root-kit and why is it bad?

A root-kit is malware which can cloak system and registry files and even viruses from security software, like Norton and MacAfee. A root-kit usually shows up on a PC via Trojan Horse program (like Sub7). In the case of Sony, when you pop in a CD to rip, a window pops up. This window is something which most computer users are familiar with. It is an End User License agreement. It explains in detail that it will be installing software on your PC to prevent you from making more than three copies, or even listening to your new CD with iTunes. It claims that it will not send information back to Sony, but it has recently been discovered to do just that.
Most people, when they see these little warnings and EULAs, just click accept and don't even think about it. I know I'm guilty of that.

So, if you're not a music pirate you shouldn't be worried, right? Wrong.

This root-kit opens a big, fat, fucking hole for really, really bad things to come right in. All it takes is a malicious 13 year old with a few hours of free time on his hands, and you have a brand new virus undetectable by your security software.

Why is it undetectable? If you give any filename the prefix $SYS$, the file becomes invisible. You can't see it in your directory, and your security software can't see it.

If you have this root-kit on your PC, don't panic, there is a fix. Oh, by the way, DO NOT DOWNLOAD THE "ROOT-KIT REMOVAL" TOOL FROM SONY. It doesn't remove the root-kit at all, the only thing this tool does is make the hidden files visible. If you try to uninstall this software, you might just nuke your operating system.

If you have ripped any Sony CD's lately, you might want to get a Root Kit Revealer. (Find RKR here).

If you use this utility and find a root-kit, email me, or your favorite geek and we will make sure you fix the problem without making your PC explode.

Oh, and by the way, FUCK SONY. FUCK SONY RIGHT IN THE ASS. I WILL NEVER BUY A CD FROM THEM, AND I WILL GO OUT OF MY WAY TO PIRATE THEIR CRAPPY MUSIC, MAKE COPIES AND GIVE THEM AWAY FOR FREE.

FUCK SONY. FUCK SONY RIGHT IN THE ASS.

(For more informative, less inflamatory information on this matter, look here.

rootkit sony bastards

Elmo Gets Some Lov'n

2005-12-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

Watch the video here

Homophobic Hotdog Eater?

2005-12-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

Relax, there's a new hotdog you can eat without compromising your manhood.

Lourdes to carry on the Material Girl legacy?

2005-11-28T20:48:00.000-08:00

Madonna's still top of the charts, but if she retires her daughter could always take over.

Madge says nine-year-old Lourdes is already shaping up in the singing and dancing stakes.

In fact, she thinks both Lourdes and her son Rocco, five, could be destined for the biz.

Talking to Dermot O'Leary on Channel 4's Confessions Of Madonna she said:

"They are both very musical. Lola's very musical, she sings quite well and she's an incredible ballerina."

Find the full article here.

Canadian Prisons Diversify

2005-11-25T12:50:00.000-08:00

Sick of paying $65 per hour for tattoos? Here's a solution: go to Canada and get busted.

Rueters has reported that a prison in Canada has implemented an experimental program where inmates can get tattooed by a fellow inmate in a supervised session for $5/hr ($4.25US). The program is aimed at fighting the spread of disease in prisons through the sharing of makeshift needles.

Prison officials say that the occurrence of Hepatitis B and C is 30% higher than outside prison walls, and the occurrence HIV is 10% higher than in public.

Programs such as these are already successful in the US for mitigating the spread of HIV and Hepatitis. Needle exchange programs in counties declared to be of "high morbidity"-- a term used by groups battling the spread of HIV to identify areas where the transmission rate of HIV is dangerously higher than the national average-- have proven successful in drastically lowering the rate of new HIV transmissions.

Needle exchange programs have been markedly controversial since inception. Critics lambaste needle exchange programs, accusing them of promoting IV drug use, or at the very least making it more socially acceptable.

It may appear to some people that these groups are just dispensing illegal drug paraphernalia, but what is actually happening is that they are giving IV drug users a choice: they no longer need to share needles. The point that the naysayers seem to miss is that junkies are junkies, and they will continue to be junkies until they are ready to quit-- and until then, they will share needles, if they have a limited supply. The sharing of needles is the main issue. The sharing of needles is one of the most common methods of HIV transmission. Needle exchange programs have the right idea. If they can reduce or eliminate the sharing of needles among the IV drug user community, they can dramatically reduce the number of new HIV infections.

heroin addicts drug abuse needle exchange

Bush Pardons Turkey...

2005-11-22T14:22:00.000-08:00

and accepts the turkey's gesture of gratitude.

F'ing Lemmings

2005-11-22T13:57:00.000-08:00

Ok, yes.. the XBox 360 is cool. Just thinking about it gives me a nerd chubby... but I don't think getting one is worth standing in line for hours.

People called in sick and lined up outside of stores to try to get their hands on the XBox360, but if they didn't pre-order, they are S.O.L.

Microsoft, being such a crafty corporate devil, is accused of intentionally causing shortages to increase demand. If that is what they are doing, it's a smart move. It will probably work.

But whatever. It's a cool new toy, but it's not that great. If you don't have HDTV and a kickin' stereo system you probably won't even notice the difference in the improved graphics from the original XBox. There are only 18 games available for the system, which is not backwards compatible with the original XBox-- in other words, your old XBox games won't work on the 360. Lame.

xbox 360

Nic fit causes plane crash...

2005-11-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

Not really, but what if she had gotten the door open?

Sadrine Helene Sellies, 34, is terrified of flying. Many people fear flying, some to a greater degree than others. This woman is terrified of flying, and also has an apparently serious nicotine addiction.

While aboard a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Brisbane, MS. Sellies had an urge to light up that was so severe, she didn't even bother trying to tamper with the smoke detector in the lavatory. She went straight to one of the aircraft's emergency exits and fiddled with it, intent on stepping outside to have a smoke. A flight attendant intervened and escorted the woman back to her seat.

At least she was being considerate of her fellow passengers' right to a smoke free environment.

In a Brisbane Magistrates Court, Sellie's defense attorney entered a plea of guilty to the charge of endangering the safety of an aircraft. Magistrate Gordon Dean imposed no sentence other than a "good behavior" bond of (AUS) 1,000 dollars-- which is basically what she will have to pay if she gets in trouble with the law in the next 12 months.
Magistrate Dean issued a stern warning: "You must understand, if you are on a plane you must behave yourself."

Sellies, who does not speak English said through an interpreter that she had no recollection of the incident, because she had taken sleeping pills with alcohol. She also told the court that she had a history of sleep walking.

If someone had tried that on an American flight, they more than likely would have been locked up for a very, very long time... if they weren't beaten to a bloody pulp by other passengers first.

airplane airplane plane

Wilma

2005-11-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure this bitch owes my second cousin Billy Bob a new trailer and a couple of coon hounds.

wilma

hah.

2005-11-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

My friend sent me this. It made me laugh.

Billboard Ad Removed Amid Controversy

2005-11-11T13:51:00.000-08:00

Let me preface this by clarifying that I am one of the most peace lovin', gun hating, socialist, damn-dirty-hippies you will ever meet. I am as liberal and socially permissive as one person can be without disappearing to some clandestine hippy detention facility in the Balkans. (God bless the patriot act. Please don't arrest me. I had nothing to do with the fecal flinging incident at the White House. I swear.)

But I digress, back to guns: The main issue with this billboard, which displays a successful black rap artist (50 Cent) holding a gun in one hand and a microphone in the other, is that it is pasted on billboards and buildings towering over predominately black neighborhoods in southern Los Angeles. Activists claim that the billboard is showing urban black youth that gun violence is ok, because one of their 'role models' appears to be using one on a daily basis.

My argument is that celebrities are not responsible for gun violence in any community. If a teenager gets his hands on a gun, his parents and teachers are to blame, not Snoop Dog, not 50 Cent, not Dr. Dre, or any one else. His or her environment is to blame.

Why was there no controversy over these billboards?

If anyone is supposed to be a 'role model' it should be the Governor of your state, right?

Is the controversy because most white, middle class people already associate black men with gun violence? Or is it really that the community is already so weary from constant gang shootings, and drug related gun violence that they don't need anything else giving young black men the idea that it is ok to carry and use a hand gun? How much influence does one billboard have anyway?

As far as I know, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold haven't caused an increase in gun violence among white kids. Why is 50 Cent now the gun violence whipping boy in the southern LA black community?
50 Angelina Brad Billboard

I saw a woman die tonight.

2005-11-09T22:21:00.000-08:00

It's late now, almost 2:00 am. I feel sad and heavy, from head to toe.

This evening, as I was driving with a friend to a bar, I saw a woman who had been hit by a van going nearly 60mph. When I came across the accident, the woman was laying alone in the street. Her body was twisted. She had blood coming from her mouth and ears. There was a lot of blood on the street under her head.

The woman appeared to have been attempting to cross in the middle of the street. Her groceries were scattered between where she lay, and where she'd been hit-- a distance of approximately 100 feet.

I held her hand the whole time I was there, waiting for an ambulance. Her pulse was thready, she couldn't breathe and there was nothing I could do about it. That is what saddens me most. I battled with myself throughout the ordeal. Do I attempt to turn her head and clear the blood from her mouth to breathe for her? No. Her neck was most likely broken. I could kill her just by trying to help her. But if I don't, she may die anyway. She needed to be intubated. No one around had the necessary tools to safely get an airway.

People were rubbernecking while the ambulance was trying to get through. I yelled at them and motioned emphatically to move so they could reach her.

I held her hand until the paramedics arrived. When they got there, she'd already been without oxygen for four or five minutes. Her lips were blue. She no longer had a pulse.

I said a little prayer and left the paramedics to their job.

I will never forget her face. I know there was nothing I could do... But I still feel heavy inside... Maybe I should have attempted CPR?

I feel terrible for her family.

I guess I'm writing this now because I can't think of anything else but the accident.
I'm also writing this because I'm hoping that someone will read it, and maybe think about the way they drive... Or the way they live.
Do you drive too fast? Change lanes without signaling? Drive while talking on your cell phone?
Do you try to cross busy streets against the light?
Have you been angry with someone for a long time?
Maybe it's time to call your grandmother and tell her how much you love her.
My life is changed forever. I will savor each and every day I have left in this life.

I will be extra careful while driving. I will make a point to respect everyone I interact with, no matter how irritated I am.
...That person is someone's mother, sister, brother... Father. That person is loved and needed by someone else. I've heard countless stories of near misses, close calls... People who have lost loved ones... Cancer survivors... The things they all say always registered on some level, but not as profoundly as they have this evening. I know now, with every fiber of my being, that life is fragile and precious, that it can be gone in an instant... It is too short for anger, hatred, grudges.

Yes, my life is changed forever.

Arrrrgh!

2005-11-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

I wonder if the guy with the bazooka on one shoulder had a parrot on the other.

Find the CNN article about the pirate attack here.

MAHE, Seychelles (AP) -- The crew of a cruise ship attacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia used a sonic weapon to help ward off the attackers, the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line said Monday.

The device blasts earsplitting noise in a directed beam.

The Seabourn Spirit escaped Saturday's attack also by shifting to high speed and changing course, the cruise line said.

The sonic device, known as a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, is a so-called "non-lethal weapon" developed for the military after the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen as a way to keep operators of small boats from approaching U.S. warships.

Makers of the device compare its shrill tone to that of smoke detectors, only much louder.

The pirates who attacked the Seabourn Spirit grinned as they aimed grenade-launchers and machine guns at the deck and staterooms, some passengers said Monday, recounting the ordeal after safely docking in this Indian Ocean archipelago.

"I tell you, it was a very frightening experience," Charles Supple, of Fiddletown, California, said by phone.
The retired physician and World War II veteran said he started to take a photograph of a pirate craft, and "the man with the bazooka aimed it right at me and I saw a big flash.

"Needless to say, I dropped the camera and dived. The grenade struck two decks above and about four rooms further forward," he said. "I could tell the guy firing the bazooka was smiling."

The Seabourn Spirit had been bound for Kenya when it was attacked by pirates armed with grenade launchers and machine guns on Saturday about 100 miles (160 km) off Somalia's lawless coast.

The gunmen never got close enough to board the cruise ship, but one member of the 161-person crew was injured by shrapnel, according to Seabourn Cruise Line, which is a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.

Relieved holiday-makers praised the ship's captain for foiling the attack, but some said they were lucky to escape with their lives.

A woman survived an explosion in her stateroom simply because she was taking a bath at the time. Others flung themselves to the floor to avoid bullets that were zipping through the ship, Charles Forsdick, of Durban, South Africa, told Associated Press Television News.

Bob Meagher of Sydney, Australia, said he climbed out of bed and went to the door of his cabin shortly before 6 a.m. after hearing a commotion outside.

"I saw a white-hulled boat with men in it waving various things and shooting at the ship -- at that stage it appeared to be rifle fire," he told Australian radio.

"My wife said, 'Look, they're loading a bazooka,' which we later discovered was called an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) launcher."

"There was a flash of flame and then a huge boom -- a terrible boom sound," he said, adding the grenade hit about 10 feet from where they were.

The liner had been at the end of a 16-day voyage from Alexandria, Egypt.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Monday that the attackers might have been terrorists. Others said the attack bore the hallmarks of pirates who have become increasingly active off Somalia, which has no navy and has not had an effective central government since 1991.
pirates

Well, he's more qualified than Miers

2005-10-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

...and a potted plant... or the Tooth Fairy, but as far as fucked up conservative ideology goes, well, he's right on the money.

First things first: Alito was born on April fool's day (1950). I'm still waiting for the punch line.
He did his undergrad at Princeton and got his law degree from Yale, (Which should make Bushie's daddy happy), then he did some career building type things, like a clerkship and a four year stint as a bull-dog federal prosecutor for New Jersey. After that he held some position with the Office of the Solicitor General, (whatever the hell that is) where he worked for four years to help decide what position the Reagan administration would take in cases up for review by the Supreme Court.

He then worked for three years as a deputy assistant attorney general. In 1987, Alito was appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, until he was asked by Bush I. to join the 3rd Circuit.

The publicans dig this guy because he has voted consistently conservative on all the hot-button issues.
People are calling him "Scalito" (Little Scalia) because when asked of his judicial philosophy, he appears to adopt a WWJSD? (what would Justice Scalia do?) approach.

I want to make a bumper sticker that says "Scalia is Scary". But no one would get it, so I won't.
Anyway, this Scalito guy wouldn't mind setting our country back about 50 years as far as women's rights go.

Alito doesn't like abortion much, for any reason. He was the only justice who dissented in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the 3rd circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring women to notify their husbands prior to getting an abortion.

Alito argued that the law should have been upheld, saying that "the Pennsylvania Legislature could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems -- such as economic constraints, future plans or the husbands' previously expressed opposition -- that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion."

Alito seems most comfortable as a dissenter. In nearly every 3rd Circuit case from Casey to Sheridan, a case involving gender discrimination, Alito has always maintained the conservative voice of dissent in the face of his more liberal counterparts.

Needless to say, we liberals aren't happy, but what else did we expect? A harry pitted, saggy breasted, justice with a NOW membership card? Maybe in 50 years or so.
alito

I was just curious...

2005-10-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

My blog is worth $2,822.70.
How much is your blog worth?

It's about damn time

2005-10-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

*sniff "I know when I'm not wanted."

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Harriet Miers took her name out of consideration for the Supreme Court on Thursday amid a brewing showdown over White House documents. But some lawmakers and observers suggest that the impasse was simply the most graceful exit possible for a floundering nominee.

Miers never served as a judge and her critics said her background as an attorney, a former head of the Texas State Bar Association and as a Dallas city council member provided few clues to her judicial philosophy.

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee had asked for documents she had worked on as the White House's top lawyer. The president refused, calling the request "a red line I'm not willing to cross."

In a letter to the president on Thursday, Miers said she was concerned that she would be called upon to testify about her service as White House counsel, which she said would jeopardize the independence of the Executive branch.

"I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and its staff and it is not in the best interest of the country," she wrote.

In a statement issued by the White House, Bush said, "It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House -- disclosures that would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel."

But Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownbeck suggested the line could have been drawn somewhere else to avoid the impasse.

"We were not asking for documents regarding attorney-client privilege -- or privileged communications," he said. We were saying 'show us documents of policy issues discussions,' so we could get some framework of her policy views."

Also, the White House learned from a key Capitol Hill ally Wednesday night that opposition to the nomination was building, CNN's Ed Henry reported.

In a blunt assessment, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, Miers' main advocate in the Senate, told high-level White House aides that the nominee faced stiff opposition from conservatives, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist called White House Chief of Staff Andy Card to tell him that Miers did not have the votes to be confirmed, sources told Henry.

Miers has been under fire since her nomination was announced, with critics arguing that she was being appointed because of her close relationship to the president, rather than her legal credentials or her knowledge of constitutional law.

Some of the harshest criticism came from members of Bush's conservative base who were furious that he did not choose to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the swing seat on the court, with someone who clearly would shift the court to the right.

"When the president announced this nominee, I expressed my tentative support, based on what I was able to discover about her. But I also said I would await the hearings to learn more about her judicial philosophy," said James Dobson, head of the group Focus on the Family. "Based on what we now know about Miss Miers, it appears that we would not have been able to support her candidacy. Thankfully, that difficult evaluation is no longer necessary."

The White House tried to reassure Dobson and other social conservatives, by stressing Miers' evangelical Christian faith, but the effort was unsuccessful.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, suggested in a column in last Friday's Washington Post that the White House press the documents issue as a face-saving way to withdraw the nomination.

"That creates a classic conflict, not of personality, not of competence, not of ideology, but of simple constitutional prerogatives: The Senate cannot confirm her unless it has this information. And the White House cannot allow release of this information lest it jeopardize executive privilege," he wrote.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who said he had recommended that Bush nominate Miers, blamed "the radical right wing of the Republican Party" for killing her nomination.

"Apparently, Ms. Miers did not satisfy those who want to pack the Supreme Court with rigid ideologues," the Nevada Democrat said.

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, said Bush now "should nominate a strict constructionist conservative."

"That's what he is and ran as as president," Lott said. "He said if you elect me, this is the nominee you will get."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New Jersey, urged the president to choose a nominee in the mold of O'Connor instead of someone from what he called the radical right.

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter told CNN that the Miers controversy proves that Bush should appoint someone further to the right, instead of reaching out to Democrats.

"This does show the power of the radical right wing, as Democrats call it -- normal Americans as I call it -- in this country," she said.

Activist Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, echoed those sentiments.

"The president did the right thing in withdrawing her and saving her from further embarrassment. I now hope he'll deliver on his campaign commitment to pick a judge in the mold of [Justices Clarence] Thomas and [Antonin] Scalia."

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted over the weekend found that 50 percent of Americans surveyed said they disapproved of the pick.

Forty percent of respondents said they approved of the choice in the survey, which had a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.

Only 20 percent of respondents said that they thought Miers was one of the most qualified candidates for the court. Forty-nine percent said they thought she was qualified, but that others were more qualified and 22 percent said she was not qualified.

In the survey, 70 percent said that it was a negative that little was known about her views on major issues and 66 percent said her lack of experience was a negative.

(Story here)
harriet miers

Paper Clip Holocaust Project

2005-10-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

What a great way to get a bunch of white southern kids to feel the gravity of the greatest of human tragedies.

A Measure Of Hope: The Whitwell, Tenn., Holocaust Project Has Spread Far Beyond the Classroom
By Dita Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 7, 2001; Page C01

WHITWELL, Tenn. -- It is a most unlikely place to build a Holocaust memorial, much less one that would get the attention of the president, that would become the subject of a book, that would become an international cause.

Yet it is here that a group of eighth-graders and their teachers decided to honor each of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust by collecting 6 million paper clips and turning them into a sculpture.

This is remarkable because, for one thing, Whitwell, a town of 1,600 tucked away in a Tennessee Valley just west of the Smokeys, has no Jews.

In fact, Whitwell does not offer much opportunity to practice racial or religious tolerance of any kind. "Our community is white, Christian and very fundamentalist," says Linda Hooper, principal of the middle

school, which has 425 students, including six blacks, one Hispanic, zero

Asians, zero Catholics, zero Jews.

"During coal-mining days, we were a mixed community," explains the town's unofficial historian, Eulene Hewett Harris. "Now there are only a handful of black families left."

Whitwell is a town of two traffic lights, 10 churches and a collection of fast-food joints sprinkled along the main drag. It was a thriving coal town until 1962, when the last mine closed. Some of the cottages built by

the mining companies still stand, their paint now chipped and their cluttered porches sagging. Trailers have replaced the houses that collapsed from age and neglect during lean economic times.

Only 40 miles up the road is Dayton, where the red-brick Rhea County Courthouse made history during the 1925 Scopes trial, the "monkey trial," in which teacher John T. Scopes was convicted of violating a Tennessee law that made it unlawful "to teach any theory that denies the story of Divine Creation" and to teach Darwinian evolutionary theory instead. Almost eight decades later, most people in this Sequatchie River Valley hold firmly to those beliefs under the watchful eyes of their church leaders.

"Look, we're not that far away from the Ku Klux Klan," founded only 100 miles west, in Pulaski, Tenn., says Hewett Harris. "I mean, in the 1950s they were still active here."

Such is the setting for a memorial not only to remember Holocaust victims but, above all, to sound a warning on what intolerance can wreak. The Whitwell students and teachers had no idea how many lives they were about to touch.

Math and History

The Holocaust project had its genesis in the summer of 1998 when Whitwell Middle's 31-year-old deputy principal and football coach, David Smith, attended a teacher training course in nearby Chattanooga. A seminar on the Holocaust as a teaching tool for tolerance intrigued him because the Holocaust had never been part of the middle school's curriculum and was mentioned only tangentially in the local high school.

He came back and proposed an after-school course that would be voluntary.

Principal Hooper, 59, loved the idea. "We just have to give our children a broader view of the world," she says. "We have to crack the shell of their white cocoon, to enable them to survive in the world out there."

She was nervous about how parents would react, and held a parent-teacher

meeting. But when she asked the assembled adults if they knew anything

about the Holocaust, only a few hands went up, hesitatingly. Hooper,

who has lived in Whitwell most of her life and had taught some of the

parents in elementary school, explained the basics.

Just one parent expressed misgivings: Should young teenagers be shown terrifying photos of naked, emaciated prisoners? Hooper admitted she wasn't sure. "Well," the father asked, "would you let your son take the class?"

Yes, she replied, and the father was on board.

There wasn't a question about who would teach it: Sandra Roberts, 30, the English and social sciences teacher, always a captivating storyteller..

In October 1998, Roberts and Smith held the first session. Fifteen students and almost as many parents showed up. Roberts began by reading aloud -- history books, "The Diary of Anne Frank," Elie Wiesel's "Night" --mostly because many of the students did not have the money to buy the books; 52

percent of Whitwell's students qualify for free lunch.

What gripped the eighth-graders most as the course progressed, was the sheer number of dead. Six million. The Nazis killed 6 million Jews. Can anyone really imagine 6 million of anything? They did calculations: If

6 million adults and children were to lie head to toe, the line would stretch from Washington to San Francisco and back.

One day, Roberts was explaining to the class that there were some good people in 1940s Europe who stood up for the Jews. After the Nazis invaded Norway, many courageous Norwegians expressed solidarity with their Jewish fellow citizens by pinning ordinary paper clips to their lapels.

One girl -- nobody remembers who it was -- said: Let's collect 6 million paper clips and turn them into a sculpture to remember the victims.

The idea caught on, and the students began bringing in paper clips, from home, from aunts and uncles and friends. Smith, as the school's computer expert, set up a Web page asking for donations of clips, one or two, or however many people wanted to send.

A few weeks later, the first letter arrived. One Lisa Sparks from Tyler, Tex., sent a handful. Then a letter landed from Colorado. . . .

By the end of the school year, the group had assembled 100,000 clips.

It occurred to the teachers that collecting 6 million paper clips at that rate would take a lifetime.

Help From Afar

Unexpected help came in late 1999 when two German journalists living in Washington, DC, stumbled across the Whitwell Web site. Peter Schroeder, 59, and Dagmar Schroeder-Hildebrand, 58, had been doing research at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, tracing concentration camp survivors to interview.

Schroeder-Hildebrand was author of "I'm Dying of Hunger," a book abouta camp survivor who devised imaginary dinners to survive; Peter had written "The Good Fortune of Lena Lieba Gitter," about a Viennese Jew who escaped the Nazis and devoted her life to civil rights.

The Whitwell Web site came up during a routine search under "Holocaust." The idea of American children in a conservative Southern town collecting paper clips intrigued the couple. They called the school, interviewed teachers and students by telephone, then wrote several articles for the nine newspapers they work for in Germany and Austria.

Whitwell and the Schroeders were hit with a blizzard of paper clips from the two countries. The couple soon had 46,000, filling several large plastic containers. The thing to do, they decided, was to drive them to Whitwell, 12 hours away.

They received a hero's welcome. The entire school showed up.

None of the eighth-graders had ever met anyone from outside the United States, let alone anyone from Germany, the country of the Holocaust perpetrators. At the end of the four-day visit, the students told their principal, "They are really quite normal."

The Schroeders were so touched they wrote a paperback about Whitwell. "The Paper Clip Project," which has not been translated into English, was published in September 2000, in time for Germany's largest book fair in Frankfurt.

The blizzard of clips became an avalanche.

Whitwell eighth-graders came to Washington in March last year to visit the Holocaust Museum. They went home carrying 24,000 more paper clips collected by the Schroeders. Airport security had trouble understanding why a bunch of teenagers and their teachers were transporting boxes and boxes of paper clips to Tennessee.

Linked to the Past

Just a year later, the Holocaust project has permeated the school. The after-school group is the most favored extracurricular activity -- students must compete in an essay contest for its 20 to 25 places. They've become used to being interviewed by local television and national radio. Foreign countries are no longer mysterious, with hundreds of letters bearing witness to them.

The group's activities have long spilled over from Robert's classroom. Across the hall, the students have created a concentration-camp simulation with paper cutouts of themselves pasted on the wall. Chicken wire stretches across the wall to represent electrified fences. Wire mesh is hung with shoes to represent the millions of shoes the victims left behind when they were marched to death chambers.

And every year now they reenact the "walk" to give students at least an inkling of what people must have felt when jackbooted Nazi guards marched them off to camps. The students are blindfolded, tied together by the wrists, roughly ordered onto a truck and driven to the woods. "I was truly scared," recalls Monica Hammers, a participant in last year's walk. "It made me think, and it made me realize that I have to put myself into other people's shoes."

Meanwhile, the counting goes on. It is daunting. On a late winter day, as the picturesque valley floor shows the first shimmer of soft green, 22 students gather for their Wednesday meeting. All wear the group's polo shirt, emblazoned: "Changing the World, One Clip at a Time." The neat white shirts conform to the school's dress code: solid-colored shirts devoid of large logos, solid-colored pants, knee-length shorts or skirts, worn with a belt. Many of the girls have attached colored paper clips to their collars.

These are no loose-mannered kids -- they reply "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir." Even lunch in the cafeteria is disciplined and relatively quiet. Yet, there is an obvious and warm bond between students and teachers.

The group's first item of business is opening the mail that has accumulated during the past three days. That takes half of the two-to three-hour meeting. A large package has arrived from Germany, two smaller ones from Austria and more than a dozen letters. Laura Jefferies is in charge of the ledger and keeps a neat record of each sender's address, phone number and e-mail address. One group of students responds to the e-mails sent via their Web site, www.Marionschools.org.

Roberts opens the packages, which have been examined in the principal's office to make sure they contain nothing dangerous. "We've had a few negative letters from Holocaust deniers, but we have never received a threat," says the silver-haired Hooper. "But even if we did, we would go on. We cannot live in fear; that would defeat the entire purpose."

The large package, from a German school, contains about 40 letters, with paper clips pasted onto each page. Roberts sighs. "This is a huge amount of work," she says. "There are days when I wished we could just stop it. But it has gotten way beyond us. It's no longer about us. There is no way we could stop this now."

When the students fall behind, it's Roberts who spends hours sorting and filing.

The students crowd around Robert's desk and receive a letter at a time.

They carefully empty all paper clips onto little piles. Drew Shadrick, a strapping tackle on the football team, is the chief counter and stands over a three-foot-high white plastic barrel, about the size of an oil drum.

He counts each clip, drops it into the barrel, keeping track on a legal pad.

Two other barrels, which once contained Coca-Cola syrup and were donated by the corporation, are filled to the rim and sealed with transparent plastic. "It takes five strong guys to move one of those barrels," says Roberts.

Against the wall this day are stacks and stacks of boxes. In early February, an Atlanta synagogue had promised 1 million paper clips, and sure enough, a week later a pickup truck delivered 84 boxes bought from an office supply store. Half are still unopened.

All sorts of clips arrive -- silver-tone, bronze-tone, plastic-coated in all colors, small ones, large ones, round ones, triangular clips and artistic ones fashioned from wood.

Then there are the designs made of paper clips, neatly pasted onto letter paper. If removing the paper clips would destroy the design, the students count the clips, then replace them in the barrel with an equal number purchased by the group. The art is left intact.

Occasionally a check for a few dollars arrives. The money goes toward buying supplies. Both Roberts and Smith won teacher awards last year, and their $3,000 in prize money also went toward supplies, and helping students pay for what has become an annual trip to Washington and the Holocaust Museum.

The students file all letters, all scraps of paper, even the stamps, in large white ring binders. By now, 5,000 to 8,000 letters fill 14 neat binders.

The letters are from 19 countries and 45 states, and include dozens of rainbow pictures, and flowers, peace doves and swastikas crossed out with big red bars -- in the shape of paper clips. There are poems, personal stories.

"Today," one letter reads, "I am sending 71 paper clips to commemorate the 71 Jews who were deported from Bueckeburg."

One man sent five paper clips to commemorate his mother and four siblings murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania in November 1941.

"For my handicapped brother," says another letter. "I'm so glad he didn't live then; the Nazis would have killed him."

"For my grandmother," says another. "I'm so grateful she survived the camp."

"For my son, that he may live in peace," wrote a woman from Germany.

Last year, a letter containing eight paper clips came from President Clinton. Another arrived from Vice President Gore, a native of Tennessee, thanking the students for their "tireless efforts to preserve and promote human rights," but including no clips.

Every month, Smith writes dozens of celebrities, politicians and sports teams, requesting paper clips. He gets many refusals, form letters indicating that the addressee never saw the request. But clips came in from Tom Bosley (of TV's "Happy Days" fame), Henry Winkler (the Fonz), Tom Hanks, Elie Wiesel, Madeleine Albright. Among the football teams that contributed are the Tennessee Titans, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Indianapolis Colts and the Dallas Cowboys.

So many clips in memory of specific Holocaust victims have come in that one thing has become clear: Melting them into a statue would be inconceivable. Each paper clip should represent one victim, the students believe, and so a new idea has been hatched.

They want to get an authentic German railroad car from the 1940s, one that may have actually transported victims to camps. The car would be turned into a museum that would house all the paper clips, as well as display all the letters.

Dagmar and Peter Schroeder plan to travel to Germany next week to find a suitable railroad car and have it transported to Whitwell.

They are determined to find such a car and the necessary funding. Like counting the clips, the task is daunting.

Whitwell's Legacy

Whatever happens, for generations of Whitwell eighth- graders, a paper clip will never again be just a paper clip, but instead carry a message of patience, perseverance, empathy and tolerance.

Roberts, asked what she thought she had accomplished with the project so far, said: "Nobody put it better than Laurie Lynn [a student in last year's class]. She said, 'Now, when I see someone, I think before I speak, I think before I act, and I think before I judge.' "And Roberts adds: "That's all I could ever hope to achieve as a teacher."

She gives this week's assignment: "Tomorrow, I want you all to go and sit next to a person at lunch whom you never talk with, a person that nobody wants to sit with at lunch. I want you to stop one of those people in the hall and say: 'Hi! What'd you do last night?' Now, don't make it obvious --they may know that it's just an assignment. That would hurt."

Drew pipes up: "Well, I've already tried that, but that kid -- that, you know, he just sits there and stares, what can I do?"

"Keep at it -- don't give up," says Roberts.

Class dismissed.

Latest count: 2,108,622 paper clips. 3,891,378 to go.

Paper clips are gratefully accepted by: Whitwell Middle School, Holocaust Project, 1130 Main St., Whitwell, TN 37397

(c) 2001 The Washington Post Company

holocaust

Biff Sniff

2005-10-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

There is something wrong with these guys, but they crack me up. It reminds me of The Far Side, but sicker.
Free, funny cartoons at BifSniff.com!
biff sniff

Unicef Smurfocide

2005-10-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

Oh the ~~humanity~~ smurfanity!

This is going to give me nightmares now.

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, and is to be broadcast on national television next week as a campaign advertisement.

The Unicef advert, which shows the Smurfs' village being bombed
The animation was approved by the family of the Smurfs' late creator, "Peyo".

Belgian television viewers were given a preview of the 25-second film earlier this week, when it was shown on the main evening news. The reactions ranged from approval to shock and, in the case of small children who saw the episode by accident, wailing terror.

Find the article Here.

Find the video Here.

smurf film smurf unicef

My Supreme Court Justice Nomination

2005-10-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

This guy is WAY more qualified than Miers.

He's religious, conservative and has more experience in court than Miers does.
He has way better hair too.

If you're on the run, Dog is gonna get you.
Dog is Duane Lee Chapman, owner of Da Kine Bail Bonds in Honolulu and self-proclaimed "Greatest Bounty Hunter in the World." Six thousand-plus captures over the past two decades have earned this highly intense, charismatic ex-con and born-again Christian such a distinction.

He is the modern-day Billy the Kid -- minus all the weaponry. "Regulators," he'll often bellow to his supporting cast of bounty hunters, which often includes family members and friends, "mount up!"
He's also the king of comebacks -- a modern-day hero who was once a zero after serving time in a Texas prison for first-degree murder. It's a conviction he claims was unfounded and later candidly discusses, for the first time ever, with MidWeek.
"I am what rehabilitation stands for," claims the man who's been profiled on such TV shows as The Learning Channel's Secret World of Bounty Hunters and Court TV's Anatomy of a Crime, and whose Predator's Predator column at www.crime.com receives a bevy of hits on a daily basis. "I did time in prison, and that made my mother and father -- not to mention the public -- very ashamed of me."

And so as part of his penance, he vowed to help make America a safer place for all.
"It's why I hunt men -- fugitives of the law," says Dog, who also spends a good portion of his time tracking bail jumpers, or skips, between Hawaii and Colorado -- where he owns three additional bonding companies. "This is a game of good guy versus bad guy. And I must capture the bad guy!"

harriet miers supreme court nomination

Bush Defrocked?

2005-10-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

God, I hope not. I don't want to see the tiny-little Texas pee-pee under that dress.

Top ten reasons Bush sucks today:
1. Harriet Miers nomination
2. He sold his soul to Karl Rove
3. John Roberts
4. His administration's poor disaster management skills
5. Faith-based politics
6. Iraq
7. The mo-fo still can't say 'nu-cle-ar'.
8. Where the hell is the "new Iraqi Army?"
9. He doesn't get that it doesn't matter if they keep catching the "top Al Qaeda operatives". Those guys are like an ant colony. If their queen dies, they just pick a new one.
10. He's got a worse approval rating than Richard Nixon just before his arse was impeached.

This is from the Frank Rich (New York Times article) Faith-Based President Defrocked (Thanks to Ed Strong)

"The best way to get the news is from objective sources," the president told Brit Hume of Fox News two years ago. "And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."

Thus does the White House compound the sin of substituting propaganda for effective action by falling for the same spin it showers on the public.

Beware of leaders who drink their own Kool-Aid. The most distressing aspect of Mr. Bush's press conference last week was less his lies and half-truths than the abundant evidence that he is as out of touch as Custer was on the way to Little Bighorn.

The president seemed genuinely shocked that anyone could doubt his claim that his friend is the best-qualified candidate for the highest court. Mr. Bush also seemed unaware that it was Republicans who were leading the attack on Ms. Miers.

"The decision as to whether or not there will be a fight is up to the Democrats," he said, confusing his antagonists this time much as he has Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Such naked presidential isolation from reality was a replay of his response to Hurricane Katrina. When your main "objective sources" for news are members of your own staff, you can actually believe that the most pressing tragedy of the storm is the rebuilding of Trent Lott's second home...

...Chances are that the number of Americans who still have faith that the light is at the end of either of these tunnels is identical to the number who believe Harriet Miers is the second coming of Antonin Scalia and that Tom Cruise has found true love.

bush defrocked harriet miers

WTF is Web 2.0 ?

2005-10-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

I've been curious about this web 2.0 thing for a while. The hype surrounding it seems to be slightly reminiscient of they Windows 2000 hype. Windows 2 what? Right. I think I smell a dot.com bubble being blown.

Ok, so really now... wtf is web 2.0? Is this going to be a modern day Stone Soup parable? It sounds like another marketing buzz word. It fits right in between 'think outside the box' and 'mission statement'.

This is what oriellynet.com said about the subject:

1. The Web As Platform
Like many important concepts, Web 2.0 doesn't have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core. You can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core.

They even have this handy dandy visual:

Maybe I'm just daft, but web 2.0 just looks like a repackaged version of the internet that Al Gore invented in the early 80's.

Find out what it really is from the expert

web 2.0

Meet The Fuckers

2005-10-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

Buy the t-shirt here.

Apparently, nail clippers, bombs, guns, lighters and scissors aren't the only things that will get your butt thrown off a plane.
At least they landed first.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Southwest Airlines kicked a woman off one of its flights over a political message on her T-shirt, the airline confirmed Thursday, and published reports say the passenger will sue.

Lorrie Heasley, of Woodland, Wash., was asked to leave her flight from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., Tuesday for wearing a T-shirt with pictures of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a phrase similar to the popular film title "Meet the Fockers."

The CNN story is here.

meet the fuckers southwest

Another Politics Quizz

2005-10-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I'm about to single handedly over-throw the government, and I don't even know it.

You are a
Social Liberal
(71% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(5% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Bennett Stands By Comments

2005-09-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Former Education Secretary William Bennett is catching loads of political poo from Congressional Democrats, the NAACP, the Republicans and even the President, who said the remarks were inappropriate.

Bennett defended his statement and refused to apologize.
"I was putting forward a hypothetical proposition. Put that forward. Examined it. And then said about it that it's morally reprehensible. To recommend abortion of an entire group of people in order to lower your crime rate is morally reprehensible. But this is what happens when you argue that the ends can justify the means," he told CNN.

"I don't think people have the right to be angry, if they look at the whole thing. But if they get a selective part of my comment, I can see why they would be angry. If somebody thought I was advocating that, they ought to be angry. I would be angry."

"But that's not what I advocate."

Asked if he owed people an apology, Bennett replied, "I don't think I do. I think people who misrepresented my view owe me an apology."

Here is the complete transcript:
CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't -- never touches this at all.
BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens?

CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, it would be an enormous amount of revenue.

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

bill bennett; racist; abortion

The Dumbest Thing I've Seen All Day

2005-09-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

Some poor kid in Ontario, California has been kicked out of Ontario Christian School because she has two mommies.
They don't plan on fighting the ruling.

(I wonder if it was acceptable twenty years ago to expel a student for having a multi-racial family.)

Here is the article from The Washington Blade:

A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter.

Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday.

"Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother.

Stob wrote that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship," The Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's edition.

Stob could not be reached for comment by the newspaper. Shay and her parents said they won't fight the ruling.

School administrators learned of the parents' relationship this week after Shay was reprimanded for talking to the crowd during a football game, Tina Clark said.

Clark and her partner have been together 22 years and have two other daughters, ages 9 and 19.

two mommies; expelled; ontario christian school

Fascinating...

2005-09-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

You are73% Libra

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

...apparently, I'm only 73% Libra. I wonder what the other 27% of me is.

Stranger Than Fiction

2005-09-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine being on an airplane with direct TV, and watching as a made-for-tv style drama plays out involving said airplane?
Will the landing gear come down? Will the pilot be able to make a safe crash-landing? Will the stewardess ever bring my farking peanuts?

Find out on the next installment of our two-part series: You May Be About To Die!

All jokes aside, read the news story here.

jet blue

This cracked me up

2005-09-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

I found this joke on the internet, and thought I'd pass it on...
It is a bit sexist, but it's still funny.

Bush vs. Greenhouse Gases

2005-09-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

Global warming? What global warming? The hurricanes are because of God's wrath against the homos!

What does NOAA know? It's not like they're a governmentalistic agency or anything. Aren't they just another liberal wack-job mud-slinging organization? I don't care what they say. Americans should be able to drive their SUV's as much and as long as they want to. There should be no restrictions on factory CO2 emissions! It would be plain un-democratic to impose such restrictions...

"The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere... An implication of these studies is that if the frequency of tropical cyclones remains the same over the coming century, a greenhouse-gas induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms."

Fig. 1. Comparison of simulated hurricane intensities for present-day (thin line) and future (thick line) climate conditions assuming an 80-year build-up of atmospheric CO2 at 1%/yr compounded. The results are aggregated from sets of experiments using nine different global climate model projections and four different versions of a high-resolution hurricane prediction model.

Spam

2005-09-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

I got some great spam today. Here are some of the subject lines:

From Gunzberg: No more penis enlarge ripoffs!

From Fisch: All love enhancers on one portal!

From Glucksman: Penis Growth Extreme!

From Emmanuel: Don't let your dream mate pass you by!

From Gottlieb: She wants a better sex? All you need's here!

...somedays, I really wish I had a penis.

Red States vs. Blue States

2005-09-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

Because I'm feeling particularly chrulish today, and the approval rating of our Dear Leader has sunk to an embarrassing 40%, I thought it appropriate to get my "nanny-nanny-boo-boo" on.

"With the Blue States in hand, the Democrats have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, over 90% of our pineapple and lettuce, 92% of all fresh fruit production, 93% of the artichoke production, 95% of America's export quality wines, 90% of all cheese production, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Amherst, Stanford, Berkeley, CalTech and MIT.

We can live simply but well.

The Red States, on the other hand, now have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care cost spike), 92% of all US mosquitoes, 100% of all tornadoes, 90% of all hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, 100% of all Televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

A high price to pay for controlling the presidency.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually eaten by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% believe that evolution is just a theory, 53% that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 and, most difficult of all to grasp, 61% believe that Bush is a person of moral conviction!"

Original article here.

The other day

2005-09-18T22:49:00.000-07:00

I was minding my own buisiness, multi-tasking, when Grendel the cat came into my room begging loudly for attention. I had just put two lovely slices of shrimp and jalepeno pesto pizza into the oven to reheat.

Grendel meowed loudly until I pet him, then he cuddled up next to my bear, Eddie, and went to sleep. (Yes, I still have a teddy bear. It's a long story.)

I got so distracted by Grendel (and everything else I was doing), my lunch caught on fire.

(I ate it anyway.)
The End.

2005-09-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to combat declining popularity, the Catholic church has ~~ripped off~~ adopted a new advertising campaign. I doubt that it will increase the number of seminary applicants by blockbuster proportions, but I admit, it does make the whole fire and damnation thing a bit more palatable.

Read what the Catholics think here.

I'm Shocked!

2005-09-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

...and I thought I had not a conservative bone in my body.
The questions on this little quiz are pretty funny. I'm not sure that the results are 100% accurate, but they are pretty close.

My Political Profile:

Overall: 10% Conservative, 90% Liberal
Social Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal
Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal
Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal
Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

Yes, I work at Starbucks.

2005-09-16T00:06:00.000-07:00

...and yes I have another blog

(I'll probably post this there too.)

Anyway, this is why it is a bad idea to take a Shitzu (or any dog for that matter) into any food service establishment.

The owner in question didn't bother to clean up the shit(zu). (sorry... couldn't resist)

Somedays, I really hate my customers.

This Man Is Running Our Country

2005-09-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

Conversation With FEMA

God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again

2005-09-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Louisiana National Guard Offers Help By Phone From Iraq

Read more here.

Owen And The Turtle

2005-09-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

This baby hippo befriended a giant, century-old, male turtle when he was stranded by his herd shortly after last year's Tsunami.

Read about it here.

Mischief Steals Kisses (video)

2005-09-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

(press the triangle button to play)

Grendel Has a Drink

2005-09-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

...and a bath

Super Trooper

2005-09-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

Trooper is high in the running for cutest dog ever. He's a great cuddler and an excellent frisbee catcher. (He's not so good at sharing the frisbee once he's got it though). Troop likes going bye-bye, long walks in the park, and sticks.

No Comment. Seriously.

2005-09-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

24/08/2005 22:52 - (SA)

Borrie la Grange

Johannesburg - A 30-year-old man was off to play pool when three women asked him to direct them to a hotel and he claims they raped him in turn after they had had drinks.

The man, from Roodepoort on the West Rand, was walking from his flat to an entertainment centre shortly after 17:00 on Sunday night when three women in a maroon BMW stopped him.

Captain Paula Nothnagel of the police said the women, aged between 20 and 30, asked him how to get to the Savoy Hotel.

"He explained, but they apparently insisted he should go with them to show them the way.

"He got into the car with them," she said.

On arriving at the hotel the women invited him for a drink.

After drinks and a chat, they asked him to show them where the Station Hotel was.

"On the way to the hotel, the driver suddenly changed direction and drove to an open piece of veld near the Durban Roodepoort Deep mine.

Kept gun on him all the time

"One of the women pulled out a gun and held up the man while the other two undressed.

"Then all three of them raped him in turn, with one of them keeping the gun pointed at him," said Nothnagel.

When they had finished, they forced the man back into the car and dropped him off in Main Ridge Road shortly before 02:00. He walked home and contacted the police on Monday.

Nothnagel said detectives from the police unit for family violence, child protection and sexual offences were still trying to trace the women.

From News24.com

Meet Harold

2005-09-03T18:37:00.000-07:00

Harold is the gnarliest thing I have ever seen in my life.

I think he could probably kick my ass if he wanted to. But that's ok. We're friends now. He's my new body guard.

To Dennis the Publican

2005-09-03T11:21:00.000-07:00

First, this is my blog and I will explain what I want.

Yes, they were sent over there for oil, among other reasons.
Not to seize oil, or any of the other ridiculous things you suggested, but to make it easier for the US and UK to access mid east oil. This is an over simplification, and I don't care to elaborate, but here are a few articles illustrating my point:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/irqindx.htm

"Iraq has the world's second largest proven oil reserves. According to oil industry experts, new exploration will probably raise Iraq's reserves to 2-300 billion barrels of high-grade crude, extraordinarily cheap to produce, leading to a gold-rush of profits for international oil firms in the post-Saddam era. The four giant firms located in the US and the UK have been keen to get back into Iraq, from which they were excluded with the nationalization of 1972. They face companies from France, Russia, China, Japan and elsewhere, who already have major concessions. But in the post-war setting, with Washington running the show, the US-UK companies expect eventually to overcome their rivals and gain the most lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars in profits in the coming decades."

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2003/2003companiesiniraq.htm

There are hundreds more, if you need more convincing.

So please refrain from making condescending, opinionateded, close-minded, un-educated and overtly right-wing-biased comments on my blog. Use your own space for that.

Other points:

1. In the history of the United States, every war-time president has been re-elected.
2. THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRUCTION. If you don't remember, that was the justification for invading Iraq in the first place.
3. When they shifted focus to the "human rights atrocities", many organizations, government and NGO called bullshit. What about the thousands of other nations in the world suffering equal or greater government afflicted atrocities? Why aren't we using our military muscle to intervene there?

I call bullshit too.

Genius My Ass

2005-09-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

The official title for the friendly tech folks at Apple is "Genius". I think they should opt for a title which doesn't lead to shattered expectations. How about "Genius in Training", or "Apple Automaton"?

I have been so flippin frustrated for the past few days with my internet connectivity situation and the way Apple handled it I've eaten two pints of BnJ's Karamel Sutra.

First point of annoyance:
They push the "Apple Care Protection Plan" on you, selling peace of mind. I'm getting ready to donate a piece of my own, and it won't be pretty.

Second point of annoyance:
Apple's paranoid proprietary information issues. I guess I would be paranoid too with the Microsoft Monolith looming over every technoligical breakthrough and progressive business practice adopted. I don't want Microsoft to rip off their ideas either, but sweet Jesus Christ!, if I need to get into my system files, I should be able to. (This particular annoyance stems from not being able to transfer music from my ipod to my computer. Eventually, I figured it out. More on this later.)

Anyway, I get home and boot up my new Mac Powerbook G4 with Airport Extreme Card. The thing shows the home network, shows great signal strength, but won't connect to the internet. At this point, I barely know how to turn the Mac on (being so used to tinkering with PC's and all) so I call the "Geniuses at Mac". They very helpfully advise me to powercycle all devices involved. (I had already done this, but I followed directions anyway). Still no connection.

The "Genius" tells me that since I have connected to other wireless networks flawlessly, the Linksys Wireless-B router we use must be defective. I tell him that it's working fine for the desktop (hardwired) and the laptop (wireless), oh and by the way, both of those machines are Windows.

He walked me through the network settings on the Mac. They were all correct. (Now I know how to tinker with Mac network settings... getting a little more comfortable).

He again determines that the issue is with the router.

Anyway, three long, painful and unproductive conversations later, the geniuses were stumped and I was left to fend for myself.

I noticed the Airport was pulling a 169.XX IP from the router. Weird. I set it to manual and entered the 192.XX. I was connected for a hot second. Weird. The settings reverted to 169.XX. I banged my head on the desk.
Anyway, with the help of my best friend Google, I found out that the 169.XX is the default DHCP server setting for Windows. I hate Windows. I'm beginning to hate Macs too.

This is driving me crazy. It works for a minute and then reverts. I've cleared all network locations, created new ones, manually entered IP, Subnet Mask, and DNS info, I've tried the "DHCP with manual address"... nothing is working.

I've reset the router and modem multiple times, I've upgraded firmware, I've changed and re-changed the settings on the stupid router. I'm at my wits end, and Apple can't help.

*pout

Save Wampi

2005-08-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so some jack ass threw this poor cat off an aparment building. The poor little guy survived and has had surgery, which is being paid for by generous anonymous web surfers, and is doing well.

Donate if you can to save Save Wampi

2005-08-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

1,025 Words.

One Thousand and 25 words

2005-08-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

I found this postcard on http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

I wonder how many people stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan feel the same way.

You Pay What We Pay...

2005-07-31T17:16:00.000-07:00

Not a cent more.

I swear, if I hear that one more time I'm going to... [insert empty threat here].
I feel bad for the car company employees. They aren't even special anymore. I wonder if they get a discount over the "employee discount for everyone".

Maybe I'm just watching too much T.V.

In other news: the London bombers aren't even associated with Al Qaeda. Who'da thunk?
Are these losers just bored? They think they've got a cause? Yeah, the war sucks. I think we're suffering enough without intervention from the Jihadist "freedom fighters". Too bad they don't care what I think.

...I was in the hospital for 2 weeks in July. Haven't posted much.

*yawn

Umm.. WTF?

2005-06-10T01:52:00.000-07:00

The ‘publicans have done it again.
It’s fucking ingenious.
Lets find as many accomplished, conservative black women with amazing, tear-jerking stories of overcoming segregation, poverty and racism and put them in powerful positions.
It won’t even matter that their values are so back-assward that they would happily agree to roll back every progressive piece of legislation for the past 100 years that has assisted them in achieving equal rights as an American citizen.
The Dems can filibuster all they want, but if they say no to the monumental nomination of Brown, it becomes a poo-party.
Fucking ingenious.
First with Condoleeza Rice, and now with Janice Brown.

Something is fundamentally wrong when admitted racists are for Janice Brown.

Sweet sugar coated Jesus! Can’t we please just get a woman (of any color) with her head screwed on tight, and not screwed up in some neo-fascist-oligarchic agenda in a position of power? I would settle for Margaret Cho, Hillary Clinton, Oprah or even Madonna.

If it weren’t for prescription pain medication and [adult swim] on Cartoon network, I’d flip out and end up pacing up and down Pennsylvania Avenue wearing nothing but a sandwich board promising Armageddon if we don’t oust all of these fuck-heads from office.

CNN.com - Congress may extend daylight-saving time - Apr 7, 2005

2005-04-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

CNN.com - Congress may extend daylight-saving time - Apr 7, 2005

How dumb is this? Congress may extend daylight savings time?
As far as I know, the sun goes up and down- rather, our planet rotates at whatever speed it feels fit regardless of what the US Congress says.

Do other countries do this? Does this seem silly to anyone else?

Defend Maryland Marriage

2005-03-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

Defend Maryland Marriage

Defend Marriage? Is marriage under attack? WTF?

I'm sitting here, reading this... (struggling to refrain from making disparaging remarks)...website, because I saw someone wearing a button today... anyway. I could hardly function. I seriously don't understand these people.

Defend marriage? Has someone put a gun to their collective head and attacked their marriages?

Okay, I'm rambling. My heart is pounding, I'm biting my lip-- I just can't get over it. What the hell is wrong with these people?

Let's see what they have to say about the offensive on marriage:

James Dobson says:
"Behold, the institution of marriage! It is one of the Creator’s most marvelous and enduring gifts to humankind. This divine plan was revealed to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and then described succinctly in Genesis 2:24, where we read, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (kjv). With those twenty-two words, God announced the ordination of the family, long before He established the two other great human institutions, the church and the government.

Five thousand years of recorded history have come and gone, yet every civilization in the history of the world has been built upon it.1 Despite today’s skeptics, who claim that marriage is an outmoded and narrow-minded Christian concoction, the desire of men and women to “leave” and “cleave” has survived and thrived through times of prosperity, peace, famine, wars, epidemics, and every other possible circumstance and condition. It has been the bedrock of culture in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Australia, and even Antarctica."

Blah blah blah blah... this is why we have SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE! You can argue the Bible all you want. It is completely irrelevant. Oh, by the way Mr. Dobson, Globally, Christians are the minority. He also failed to mention the five thousand years of other kinds of "marriage". What about the Chinese emperors and their concubines? What about the romance era feudal customs?

They accuse the "homosexual agenda" of "twisting the bible to support its devastating lifestyle choices". I think that the homos aren't the only ones doing the twisting. The Christians have a knack for using the Bible as their own personal arsenal to justify bigotry and hatred; arbitrarily picking and choosing verses to prove their own beliefs. Then they go to church and preach "love your brother!". Bullshit. I call bullshit.

You know, it doesn't matter what their arguments are. They can argue sanctity, sexual purity, the role of children in family, spirituality and every other Christian holier-than-thou buzz word to prop up their claims. None of that matters! "Marriage" as we know it, is not pure. There is no sanctity. Let's talk about the role of children in family! How many kids are yanked from dysfunctional hetero families each year? Not only from the drug abusing atheistic heathen families, but from "Christian" - church going families too! People beat the shit out of their kids in the name of Christ, then turn around and regurgitate a bible verse to justify their behavior. "Spare the rod and spoil the child!".
The Christians used many of the same arguments to justify slavery, to keep women from voting, to keep a black guy from marrying a white woman... and so many other backward social constructs that were considered the norm at the time.

Besides... I think it was John Stewart who said "Nothing Brittany Spears can do drunk, with some dude she met the night before in front of an Elvis impersonator is sacred."

You know, if you are against gay marriage. Don't have one.

I have so much more to say about this, but I'm tired now. I'm sure I'll be subjected to the regular barrage of less than friendly comments, but what ever... bring'em on.

If you have one of those stupid ribbons

2005-02-25T09:49:00.000-08:00

(or are a republican) I'm about to piss you off. So you can just leave now.

Anyway, what is up with all the stupid ribbons on everyone’s stupid car?
The thing that gets me about these dumb ribbons is that they are all magnetic!
You don't even have to commit to "Support our troops." Whatever the hell that means.
You aren't standing next to them in their fighting positions. You aren't sending them body armor. YOU AREN'T EVEN TRYING TO BRING THEM HOME!

Ask any kid out in the sandbox what they think of this stupid invasion/occupation and they will tell you a sad story about how they are completely disenchanted by what we pass off as democracy. They will tell you about how they were, at one time patriotic and loyal to their nation. Now, they do what they are told, because that is what they signed up to do. They all are loyal to their service, their families, their battle buddies and even to their country- because they know that she will ultimately transform into the just and democratic land they have been promised all their lives.
They demonstrate this faith in America through their sense of duty. Many of them have wives and children.

All of them have loved ones who fear for their well-being.
They want nothing more than to return to their families, but their sense of duty keeps them out in the sandbox with their Kevlar tightly fastened. Trigger fingers itch with each approaching civilian -man, woman or child- who just may be the last face they see before they are blown to oblivion. Their sense of duty is what makes them show up for formation each day before being sent out on patrol.

Respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage- these Army values, printed on small laminated cards, may be tucked away in a soldier's wallet, next to the picture of her husband, tacked up in a wall locker, or in the trash. Even so, each soldier has internalized each of these values. We hear about it every day, in everything they do, in a war that many of them do not believe in, for a leader who has used them up like toilet paper, each soldier still carries with them their values, worth more than our own values will ever be, because of their sacrifice.

Don’t commend them for “protecting our country”. They all know what they are protecting. If America were ever truly in danger, each soldier, marine, sailor or airman would gladly give their lives to protect her. They all know that America is not in danger now, just as she was not in danger in the sixties.

Terrorism? Ah yes, terrorism. Threaten immanent danger at the hands of terrorists and get America to rally behind any invasion against any sovereign nation. Especially if you can convince everyone that they have “nuke-u-lar” weapons (shhh, don’t mention the billions of dollars of oil at stake).

(By the way, does that mean that we are going to go invade North Korea now? I suppose I’ll save that for another entry.)

So if you truly support our troops, help them to get home.
Your magnet only says to them that you support the reason they are there. It is little more than a limp-wristed slap in the face to them.

KGB in the USA

2005-01-26T11:47:00.000-08:00

CNN.com - Boys arrested for stick figure drawings - Jan 26, 2005

We have achieved new measures of legal retardation.

Is it really necessary to haul off every 9 year old boy who draws a stick figure murder scene, and charge him with a felony?

Should we charge Trey Parker and Matt Stone with a felony every week when they dismember, disembowel, behead or disintegrate Kenny?

What about Bugs Bunny and Daffy? What about Marvin the Martian? He's been threatening to blow up the earth for the past 40 years.

I'm pretty sure that the first amendment covers every 9 year old boy's right to draw a stick figure of the president's head falling off if he wanted to.

Does this happen in other "developed" nations?

It's Official

2005-01-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

I was hoping that the earth would open up and swallow the whitehouse, or maybe the entire cabinet would suffer from a severe case of amnesia, which would effectively render them (obviously) unfit to run our country...

but no. Fucking inauguration day. I'm so depressed. Why do all the good guys get assassinated?

I wonder if I'd make a good Canadian.

In other news, the Christians are all pissed off because they think Spongebob is gay.
They don't want Spongebob and Bob the Builder to preach tolerance to the tune of YMCA. Lord help us if preschoolers are taught to treat people with respect even though they are gay or Muslim.

Fucking Focus on the Family. James Dobson is another one who would benefit from a case of amnesia.

If Jesus loves this guy more than the rest of us, then he can have him all to himself...

Oh, and the Tsunami. What a great opportunity to make a quick buck! Never mind that there are 200,000 people dead and even more displaced. Sickening.

I wish I could find a place where none of this matters.

Anyway...

2005-01-18T19:34:00.000-08:00

I have no faith in humanity. We all think that we are better than everyone else. We would rather step on your face than help your grandmother cross the street. We hide behind group-think and our "religions".

... the other day I was talking with a co-worker. She told me that she is a Jehova's Witness. I realized that she gets the same reaction from people that I get when I tell them about myself.
I wish we could all just step down from our soap-boxes and respect each other.

Whatever.

Go get your kicks from making others feel like shit. Laaard knows I do.
...people with personalized license plates, Bush bumper stickers... etc. I'm too chicken shit to pull up next to them at a traffic light and tell them that I think they are morons.

I'm done caring.
I quit.
No more recycling.
No more eco-friendly products.
No more donations to third world countries.
No more volunteering.
The girl scouts can find some other asshole to eat their thin mints.

Well...

2005-01-02T22:33:00.000-08:00

It's more than a month since my last post and it's a whole new year. I've always hated January. It takes me about six months to get used to dating papers and documents correctly. By the time I get it right, it's a new year already. A few months ago I actually put "1995" on a form I was filling out...

Anyway, I guess I haven't really had much to say about anything for the past month or so.
I was sick with some nasty bronchial thing and didn't feel much like writing...
and then I started working.
I started working with a bunch of juveniles slinging over-priced coffee to overly-zealous and shiny-plastic yuppies.
Well... what can I say? It pays the bills.

In the News Today

2004-11-30T13:50:00.000-08:00

Americans suck at civil disobedience

Bush is attending meetings in Ottawa, and the Canadians are out in full force in protest of his war mongering and shitty foreign policy. There are more people in California than there are in Canada, yet they managed to organize a protest involving more people than actually live in Ottawa.

Italy is pissed at their PM over proposed tax breaks which will only benefit the rich. (Sound familiar?) The Italian protest was so enormous and so well organized that public transportation was effectively shut down. This included more than 100 Alitalia flights.

The citizens of Ukraine are protesting a fixed national election. The "Opposition" has completely blocked parliament buildings, causing all out chaos in the government.
They said that they won't stop until the government admits that the election was fixed.

America used to protest like that. What the hell happened?

Fat = Brain Atrophy?

2004-11-23T11:45:00.000-08:00

Obese women 'lose brain tissue'
Women who are obese throughout their life are more likely to lose brain tissue, researchers have found.
This loss is one of the first indications a person is going to develop dementia.

Carrying extra weight was a risk even if other factors, such as diabetes, were taken into account.

The researchers, from the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Goteborg, Sweden, is published in the journal Neurology.

Nerve cell damage

Whether or not a person is of a healthy weight is determined by their BMI, or body mass index.

Obesity affects every part of the body - no part escapes damage
Dr David Haslam, National Obesity Forum

This is calculated by dividing the square of your height in metres by your weight in kilograms. A BMI of over 25 is classed as overweight, and over 30 as obese.
Just under 300 women aged between 46 and 60 were studied over 24 years.

Every six years, researchers carried out computer tomography (CT) scans to study their brain tissue and calculated their BMI.

The study found that the higher the women's BMI, the greater the chance they would experience brain tissue loss, known as cerebral atrophy.

Being overweight also raised a woman's chances of being affected, the study found.

Almost 50% of the women were found to have lost temporal lobe tissue. The average BMI in that group was higher than that in the unaffected group throughout the study.

The research team say the results are consistent with their previous findings showing that being overweight was a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

Ramifications

Writing in Neurology the researchers, led by Deborah Gustafson, said there were a number of potential mechanisms for overweight and obesity being linked to brain tissue loss.

They pointed to the recognised link between obesity and diseases such as heart disease and stroke.

Dr Gustafson said: "These conditions contribute to an unhealthy vascular system, and therefore to a higher dementia risk.

"Obesity may also increase the secretion of the hormone cortisol, which could lead to atrophy."

She added: "If overweight and obesity contribute not only to diseases of middle age, but also to degenerative diseases of later life, the health ramifications of excess body fat will stress healthcare systems for many years to come.

"Given the myriad of risk factors that preclude cerebrovascular events in the elderly, it appears that obesity is yet another factor that should be actively intervened upon to reduce diseases of advanced ageing, such as cerebral degeneration and dementia."

Dr David Haslam, a Hertfordshire GP and chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: "Obesity is known as a risk factor for vascular diseases, whether that's cardiovascular or cerebrovascular.

"The areas of the brain which this study is talking about are very susceptible to microvascular damage.

"In addition, obesity affects every part of the body - no part escapes damage."

Dr Haslam added the study findings provided more evidence of the need to tackle obesity, to prevent people developing any of the raft of obesity-related disease.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4023575.stm

Published: 2004/11/22 00:03:48 GMT

© BBC MMIV

If only it were just a reality show

2004-11-18T10:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I feel a lot better now that the whole election thing is over.
Actually, no, I don’t. I was hoping that the victor would have won honestly.
For a while, I was actively ignoring claims that votes were counted twice, some votes went uncounted, machines were tampered with… etc. Well, hell. Now even CNN is saying that 2,600 votes were counted twice in Ohio. AP is reporting that in some Ohio districts 4,000 more people voted than were registered.

I’m no statistician, mathematician or genius (unless you ask my mother), but I assumed that most American people were smart enough to realize… but apparently they aren’t. They are either tragically ignorant or way too comfortable with their financial situation to vote for the greater good… or maybe Kerry just sucked so bad, lacked innovation, idea and… fuck it. Americans are stupid. That’s the answer. We are all a bunch of mass-consuming, egocentric, ethnocentric, racist, apathetic, fat-asses. Even a horrible national tragedy didn’t hit close enough to home to make us realize that there are things more important than driving a fucking SUV with personalized license plates.

I give up. I’m going to continue making empty threats to move to Canada until one day I finally hop on a plane and go for good… maybe Mexico instead… or Europe.

In other news: another case of mad cow has surfaced somewhere in the mid-west. Is it going to take an epidemic for people to stop eating meat?

Anyway, while I’m on my soap box, November 25th is “Buy Nothing Day”. Read about it here.

What Now?

2004-11-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I suppose I’m in shock. Actually, I saw it coming, so I can’t really say I’m shocked. Maybe I’ve caught a nasty case of apathy from drinking too much tap water.
How many times can one person lose their faith in humanity? I’m going to start putting notches on my voter’s registration card so I can keep track.

Moral majority? Who assigned that fucking pompous title? That pisses me off. How are they morally superior? Is it because they are against experimenting on human embryos? How do they explain supporting a war-for-the-hell-of-it, where thousands of Iraqi babies (NOT EVEN EMBRYOS ANYMORE!) are being toasted by coalition munitions?

How can they call abortion murder, and then vote for a sadistic fuck who, while sitting in his comfy governor’s chair, set the record for most executions performed ever, under his watch? I wonder if the fucking moral majority has actually read Exodus (a book in their holiest of holy books) the sixth commandment of the perfect ten says “you shall not murder”. It doesn’t say you get to pick and chose who’s worthy to live. It also says somewhere in that book that all sin is the same. God is supposed to be just as pissed at you if you shoot a retarded preschooler in the head for no good reason, as he would be for you lying to your girlfriend about how many chicks you boned.

Someone please explain to me how they are the moral majority. I just don’t get it.

Why is it so important to them to make laws to ensure that I will never be able to marry the one I love, simply because she wasn’t born with a penis? Why is it perfectly acceptable for a man and a woman who don't even know each other’s last names to have Elvis marry them on the way home from the casino, but two men who have been faithful to each other for 20 years have no right to civil marriage?
If I have kids, how am I going to explain this to them?

Why is it more important to make sure that these homos never defile the "sanctity of marriage", than the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who are sick or injured, and just have to fucking suck it up because they can’t get Wal-Mart (or whoever they work for) to give them access to health care?

I am not an expert, being a Sunday school drop-out and all, but what I remember is that Jesus loved everyone! Even the hooker! Jesus loved the hooker, and did his damndest to make sure that the poor lepers and crippled children could be healed.

They call themselves Christians. The literal meaning of the word “Christian” is “Christ-like”.
It just seems wrong to compare oneself to thine own messiah.

I am obviously pro-choice. I am obviously gay. I am obviously not a Bush fan. I obviously use the word "fuck" more than a preacher's daughter on prom night. Am I immoral? I’m not going to sit here and list my morals, but if you ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you that if they needed a few pints of A+ blood, bone marrow, or help moving during a blizzard, that I would be there. I think it’s more important to love your brother than to spend time and energy making sure he will never be your equal.

No, I’m not apathetic. No, I’m not in shock.

I’m in mourning.

(Maybe it’s just PMS, but I have been bawling like Limbaugh going through Oxycontin withdrawals since November 2nd.)

They are always talking about faith. “Faith based initiatives”, “bring back the faith”…
What the fuck do they have faith in? In Dubbya? In God? Do they really think they have the holy fucking rubber stamp of approval?

I had faith once. I had faith in humanity.
Until last week I believed that most people would help a stranger in need, and expect nothing in return. I believed that most people were good… I had faith that people would see what’s wrong with this country and make it right.
We had our chance and we blew it.
We blew it, and now what?

We’ve got a drunken frat boy at the wheel on an icy road and no state trooper in sight.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and crash into a tree.

I don't know about you, but as soon as the bitch slows to 15MPH, I'm going to tuck-and-roll and make a mad dash for the Canadian border.

Ok, For Real.

2004-11-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

I am seriously not going to sleep until this stupid election is over with. I'm drinking too much coffee and having too many stupid political discussions with too many stupid people.

Last night I had an argument with a republican drag queen. Yes. I'm serious. A REPUBLICAN DRAG QUEEN. It wasn't just a costume. The bitch waxed her chest, tucked her junk and everything. It got pretty ugly. After a few drinks and a well articulated argument (by me) that Bush is a caca-poopy head, the argument got personal.

The drag queen "Tanya Hyde", said "bitch, someone lied to you about that hair color". I said "dude (that pissed her off), I can change my hair color, but you couldn't get rid of those forehead wrinkles with a belt sander." (Yes, I know what a belt sander is. Lesbians are supposed to know these things. No, I'm not butch.)
Then she started taking off her earrings. There were boa feathers flying everywhere.
I slid off my bar stool and looked up at her. She was about eight feet tall in her size 14 platform shoes. She looked down at me and laughed. I'm barely 5'3. I think she felt sorry for me, because she just gave me the universal "what-eva" sign, (Hand in my face, palm side up), turned on her size 14 heel and left.

2004-10-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

A recent instant messenger conversation between Bush and North Korean "Great-Leader" Kim Jong Il.
(From Kim Jong Il's livejournal)

Florida Touch Screen Problems

2004-10-27T17:22:00.001-07:00

Make sure you have your sound on:
Click here.

Unreal

2004-10-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

I'm going to end up like one of those nutty conspiracy theorists with an electrified barbed-wire fence and a hairless cat. I'll sit in my basement and mutter to myself about JFK, Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa.
Anyway, this is pretty interesting.
www.freedomunderground.org

Michael Moore.com : Press

2004-10-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

Michael Moore.com : Press

What would happen if all of the 18-30 year old pot-heads, skate-boarders, seventh-year undergrads, Beavises, Buttheads, gainfully-unemployeds and the like got off the couch on November 2nd, put on their cleanest dirty shirts and got their moms to drive them to the polling booth?

I argue that it's possible to vote and make a difference even with a hang-over and wake-and-bake breakfast. (The polls are usually open until 5:00, so you can still sleep 'til noon.)

I think the problem historically is that these people (including myself) are not only slackers, they are also skilled procrastinators.
This means that they usually miss the voter registration deadline.
(Unless they have a driver's license. Then they are all set.)

Personally, I'd rather have my spleen sucked through my navel with a turkey baster than see dubya in the Whitehouse for another term.

I'd move to Canada, but then I'd just be a victim of U.S. foreign policy.

Hopefully we won't have to resort to such drastic measures.

Michael Moore, as bumbling as he is, is really making an impact. He is our generation's Abbie Hoffman. (Sans drugs and expletives.)

Dissent is in again. We wear it like a badge on our bomber jackets and wear out the soles of our Converse, marching to make it loud and clear.
High school kids are trading in their Hilfigger jerseys for "Bushes are for Pissing on" t-shirts.

I know one thing for sure. There are more slackers in this country than there are rich republicans... the only problem is getting them to the polls.

I think Mr. Moore may have found a solution. He’s giving out Ramen noodles and clean underwear. “The sustenance of slackerhood.”

I fell in love with a girl

2004-10-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

Her name is Murphy. She is a nine year old gorgeous blond. Murphy is a golden retriever who dutifully patrols her back yard to protect it from being overrun by rabbits and squirrels. Her vision isn't quite what it used to be, but she can still play hide and seek with her humans.
Murphy has her own toy basket, piled high with stuffed squeaky toys, tennis balls, bits of woven rope and various other doggie delights. Murphy will stand over the basket and methodically select which toy she wants to play with. She'll pick them up, move them around, dig to the bottom of the pile settle on one toy, change her mind, maybe change her mind again before she finally settles on the toy she wants.

Murphy gives the best kisses. Ever.

Meet my two best girls.

(Sorry, they are a little fuzzy. Maybe I'll have better pictures soon.)

Why Orange County?

2004-09-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

"Anonymous said... why'd you have to pick orange county? someone near there you'd like nuked??" Off the top of my head I can't think of anyone in the greater LA area I would like to have nuked. That doesn't mean that there isn't anyone there I would like to have nuked... but there is no sense in wiping out 8 million people just because some idiot down there ruined my day. That's not the point anyway. Let's think like an insane dictator for a moment. Let's say you have a Pinky-and-the-Brain-esque philosophy on politics and life in general. ("What'r we gonna do tonight Brain?" [Naarf!]... "The same thing we do every night, Pinky... Try and take over the world.") Your team of indentured scientists have recently nailed down all of the nuances of ballistics technology, and you are so close to getting your grubby insane mitts on weapons grade plutonium you can taste it. Your nemesis nation frowns upon your building nukes, even if you think it is "for your own protection". If your failing communist nation was stuck between two collapsed communist nations who are on fairly friendly terms with your nemesis... you blame the state of your economy and division of your country on the U.S. imperialist bastards... you would take back your nation and revive Godly communist order, if only they would remove their pig soldiers from the south... Oh, wait! What's this? War with Iraq? Quagmire? hm... does that mean that the imperialist bastards may be too busy to stop me when I roll on over the 38th parallel? Quick! Get Syria on the phone! I NEED PLUTONIUM! "Hello Syria? Are you still pissed at the US? Oh, good. Me too. Hey listen, does that offer for the weapons grade stuff still stand? Perfect. Can you ship me 200 kilos? Oh, you'll over-night it? Great. Syria, you're my best friend."

Okay, so now you have your nukes. But where to send them? You wish you could hit Washington, but that's too far away. Hawaii's close, but that was so December 7th 1941.
hm.. I wonder if we can hit California? San Diego is closer than LA, but LA has so many people! It would really piss them off if I wiped out Hollywood.

So anyway, if I were Kim Jong Il, I would aim for Orange county or LA. But I'm not. Maybe he's got something else up his sleeve. Maybe he's aiming for Colorado Springs?

Rant

2004-09-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

This election is giving me an ulcer. Seriously. I think I'm having physical symptoms. I'm having politics induced hypochondria-- and I need to know where to send my medical bills.

At the rate things are going now, I'm not even sure if I'll have medical coverage next year. I'm certainly not alone in this. Budget cuts in numerous government programs are making millions of people sweat. From the sunken faces of the unemployment lines; the sick and weary old men waiting for hours at the VA clinic to see a doctor; the hundreds of thousands of college students graduating to find that they must compete for jobs at Burger King ; the single mothers and fathers who no longer qualify for WIC and Medicaid; the poorly trained National Guard and reserve unit soldiers sent to the front lines with no armor except for a few sandbags and a plank of plywood, America is adding up the failures. America is beginning to notice.

America is noticing, but there is evidence of fear and exhaustion. We are terrified that we are going to let this vacuous buffoon drive our country over the cliffs of comfort into the rocky gorge of economic crisis and daily terrorist attacks.

We see the road ending. We feel our rights and comforts slipping away, but we are too tired and too lazy to care. As long as we can have our NFL Sunday Tickets, our Kentucky Fried Chicken and our luxury SUVs, we aren’t in any danger. Sure, we all plan on voting. Some of us even plan on voting for the vacuous buffoon. Some of us are afraid to vote for the underdog, regardless of whether he’s the lesser of… well, you know.

Some of us actually buy into the ridiculous spin of the Bushies. Some of us have mature 401Ks, investments in big business, million dollar homes and are more concerned with the fate of our bottom line than with the fate of the bottom of the American barrel— the people who need help, and need it desperately.

Did you know that the fed is going to cut Section 8? Do you know what Section 8 is? If you’ve ever had to apply for food stamps or other types of aid you do. Section 8 is the voucher program that keeps poor people in housing. The fed wants to average the cost of living in urban areas with the cost of living in rural areas and issue vouchers accordingly.

What does this mean? This means that if you are living in New York City, in a 600 square foot studio with your three children, the $1,200 per month the government is giving you for housing (based on the standard cost of living in NYC) is going to drop to the average of the cost of living in NYC and the cost of living in, say, Ontario County (a very rural area). So let’s say the average studio in NYC is $1,400 per month, and the average one bedroom in Ontario County is $400 per month. The feds want to take that sum, ($1,800) divide it by two ($900), and call that the average cost of living for the state of New York. This means that in order for you to make your $1,400 a month rent, you have to come up with $500 per month instead of $200 per month.
This might really suck if you have two jobs, three kids and no spouse. This is not important to the Bushies. They have bigger fish to fry like John Kerry. They have to make a big enough stink about Kerry’s “indecisiveness” and “fake war medals” to cover up the fact that BUSH DESERTED HIS DUTY WITH THE NATIONAL GUARD!

Do you know what they do to the average Joe Blow deserter? They lock his ass away at Leavenworth! The UCMJ is pretty clear about that. Oh, and they aren’t shy about handing out a sentence with hard labor either. But hell, that’s not what’s important.

What’s important is the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed by our troops and “precision guided” weapons. What’s important is the thousand soldiers who have been killed for no good reason.

So we have our oil now. We also have a huge fucking quagmire that involves our friendly little Nations of the Order of the Axis of Evil (yes, I made that up) processing plutonium and sharing it like crayons in kindergarten.
Let’s do some more math. Math is fun. North Korea has fairly advanced ballistics technology. Iran and Syria can make war heads. North Korea, Iran and Syria are best friends… oh, and they hate the USA. It’s pretty obvious that the US military is stretched pretty thin right about now. (I wonder how hard it would be to land a nuke in Orange County?) Anyway, North Korea + Syria + Iran + weapons grade plutonium + ballistics technology = ? Cheaper gas for your SUV? Maybe. Or maybe a hole in southern California the size of Uzbekistan. But what the hell do I know? I’m just a dumb kid.

Update:

2004-09-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

For anyone who was wondering about the whole service pack 2 debacle, it has been resolved, no thanks to HP or Microsoft. (Bastards.)

Microsoft assumes that everyone who uses their software is completely retarded, and won't notice when they enable things like the stupid BITTS and automatic update services after you manually download and install one of their stupid "critical security updates" from their stupid website. ( This is extremely irritating when you have painstakingly sifted through and disabled each and every stupid other unnecessary lame service that doesn't serve any purpose other than to constantly use 75% of your system resources and make more money for Microsoft.)
So, anyway, some stupid update I downloaded (before the whole service pack 2 debacle) enabled the BITTS and auto update service again. (Without my permission.) So my computer was downloading and updating while I slept. I noticed that there was a new update, and didn't really think twice about installing it, until I realized that it was the infamous service pack 2. At that point it was too late, so I just held my fingers and crossed my breath... and hoped that it wouldn't make my computer explode.

...It didn't actually explode, but had there been any combustibles anywhere nearby, they might have. My stupid processor was running hotter than a programmer's coffee pot. Service pack 2 caused my processor to run at full capacity, constantly. The end result was burning plastic and the warping of the metal casing around my hard drive. Now, Apple is kind enough to spend an extra 25 cents on a little plastic sleeve which protects this fragile aluminum from warping when the system runs a little too hot-- Not HP. Your hard drive can warp and melt for all they care, oh, and if you try to call them about it, they want to charge you $40.00 (per incident). (Bastards.) If you already know that the issue is your hard drive, and you want to replace it, they will sell you one for a mere 700.00. (You can find the same one on Ebay for 99.00)

Oh, and, you can't just uninstall service pack 2 either. You can't get rid of it unless you low level format, because NTFS doesn't wipe the root files on a system recovery. Anyway, now I'm out 75 bucks, a few school assignments and 10 gigs of hard drive space. (I had to settle for a smaller and cheaper hard drive.) (Bastards.)

NTFS sucks by the way... if you ask me, I'll tell you why. So I've installed XP pro, on the good ole reliable FAT32, and I'm back in business.

If I were nerd chic enough, I’d wipe Windows all together, run Linux and flip Bill the bird… no point in making empty threats though. I don’t have the spare time, or the balls to give up my familiar environment.

Anyway… hopefully I won’t have to bitch about this ever again.
Have a nice day.

Public Service Announcements:

2004-09-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

So you may have noticed an addition to my blog... yes, there are now ads here. I offer my apologies in advance. I promise that they will never be irritating ads. No Viagra, hair removal, or punch-the-monkey-win-a-prize ads with irritating flashing banners. I have accepted Google's request to allow ads on my blog, but only if they are small text ads for non-profits/public service. By the way, if you click those ads, you help me out...

I've already checked to make sure that there are no ads that will try to run active-x or leave any spyware.

So, you can either click the ads and help me out, or just ignore them and go about your day.
Thanks much,
~A

Microsoft has ruined my day

2004-09-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

If I were on a capsized boat with George Bush and Bill Gates, and I had brought with me two life vests, but George and Bill had neglected to bring any, who would I save?

Well, I'd put one life vest on, and use the other as a pillow.

The pair of them can ruin hell's economy, send hundreds of thousands of imps to the un'imp'loyment line, monopolize ....

fuck. Hard drive crashing again.
More later.

p.s. If you install service pack 2, unwittingly or otherwise, you are either an idiot or a masochist.

Enter the Meatrix

2004-09-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the meatrix is.
You have to see it for yourself.

You take the blue pill: The story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill: You stay in Wonderland. And I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Sunday

2004-09-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

It's so pretty here today. The weather is unseasonably hot for San Francisco (or so I keep hearing). Rainbow flags are flapping jubilantly in the breeze. The sun is shining and people are happy and relaxed.

I'm pissed off.

I've been pissed off like this before, but I have since shamefully crawled into my warm sugar coating and dutifully desensitized myself. Once, I was a precociously passionate and socially aware teenager with a shorn head and a burning anger for everything that is cruel and unjust in our world.

Then one day I woke up and realized that I have nearly grown into exactly what I said I would never be.

I was 13 years old. I had survived my parents' divorce, my father's remarriage to the poster child for the anti-crack campaign, my mother's crippling depression, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer and Zubaz.

I was a worldly little shit. (At least I thought so at the time.)

Beginning in my early childhood, I was taught to treat all living things with respect. I was taught the value of nutrition from fresh fruits and vegetables. I was taught to love everyone, no matter how different they were from me-- that hatred and prejudice were products of fear of the unknown. And most importantly I was taught to "Never touch daddy's herbs".

Yes, I was raised by dirty hippies. Dirty and proud they were.

I was 13 years old. I didn't know the difference between Democrat and Republican. I just knew that Proposition 2 was fucked up, because it said that my best friend Felix wasn't as good as everyone else because he was gay. So Felix and I hopped on the city bus, went to Colfax and Broadway and marched down the street wielding our "NO ON 2" signs like broad swords. I was barely visible in the crowd of six foot drag queens on four inch heels, (I hadn't even grown to five feet tall yet) but I shouted louder than anyone else under five feet tall that day.

The fire department turned their hoses on us. There were wigs, giant eyelashes, heels and feather boas flying everywhere. I was nearly trampled by a herd of stampeding drag queens. Some nice man in leather chaps and matching hood picked me up and carried me out of the range of the fire hoses.

I was still soaked when I got home later that evening after a very soggy ride on the city bus.

Mom was making dinner. She must have heard the squish-squeak of my soaked Converse sneakers as I crossed the living room into the kitchen.
"You were at the Prop 2 protest weren't you?" She was busily stirring a pot of lentil soup with one hand and loading a pan of corn muffins into the oven with the other.
"Yup." I peeled my soaked sweatshirt off of my midsection and tried to get it over my head.
"Don't do that in here, I just mopped."
I went to my room and changed into my pajamas. Mom poked her head in my room just as I was buttoning my top.
"Read this." She tossed a small dog-eared and warped paperback book with a torn cover on my bed.
"Steal This Book?" I raised my eyebrows.
"Yup. It's right up your alley, Dollface."
"Cool."

That was the day that I decided I was going to "stick it (whatever that meant) to the man" (whoever he was).

I was a little overzealous with my involvement in various issues and protests, but that was okay, because I cared about something. I believed in something.

A little more than ten years later I wake up to realize that Aveda, Puma and a degree in journalism are now a bigger part of my life than human rights, humane treatment of animals and our infelicitous 'democracy'.

Sure, I bitch about these things as much as the next self-righteous fashionably liberal asshole with his pageboy cap, hemp backpack and Capri pants.
I bitch as much as I did when I was a pissed off kid.
The difference is that although I am more articulate, I am resigned to the passive acceptance and resignation cultivated by the weight of futility.

Once I believed I could make a difference.

I woke up this morning disgusted with myself. I woke up pissed off. Pissed off like I was when I was 13 and someone tried to convince me that gay people were less than human.
But this time I'm pissed off at the apathetic whale which has swallowed our doe-eyed, corn-fed American masses like minnows. I'm awake in the belly of a whale, pissed off again, soaking wet again, and with little more than a candle to see my way out.

There is a reason that I am pissed off:
On May 24, 2000, King5.com new service in Seattle, WA, broke a story about undercover footage taken at a nearby IBP slaughterhouse. According to their report, “The video shows fallen cows being trampled and dragged, others are tortured with electric prods. One cow has fallen and workers stick an electric prod on its head, then place the prod down its mouth. Still other cows are hung on chains, fully conscious, blinking and kicking. The worker who shot the tape said one cow was already at a station where legs are removed. ‘It would be horrible if someone were to cut off your leg without anesthesia.’”25
According to Steve Cockerham, a USDA inspector at Nebraska slaughterhouses, and former USDA veterinarian Lester Friedlander, some U.S. slaughterhouses routinely skin live cattle, immerse squealing pigs in scalding water, and abuse still-conscious animals in other ways to keep production lines moving quickly. The men stated that the federal law requiring slaughterhouses to kill animals humanely has been increasingly ignored as meat plants grow bigger. Cockerham said that he often saw plant workers cut the feet, ears, and udders off cattle that were conscious on the production line after stun guns failed to work properly. "They were still blinking and moving. It's a sickening thing to see," he said.26
Investigator Gail Eisnitz writes about widespread violations of the Humane Slaughter Act in her 1997 book Slaughterhouse.27 One of many such stories: “It was a plant where squealing hogs were left straddling the restrainer and dangling live by one leg when workers left the stick pit for their half-hour lunch breaks; where stunners were shocking hogs three and four times…where thousands of squealing hogs were immersed in the plant’s scalding tank alive.”
Source: whyvegan.org

This is only a sample of what is happening.

I hope that people would care enough to change their habits after learning of how these creatures are tortured. The sad reality is that our gluttonous and self-serving society values it's comforts over anything else. We justify it with text from the bible. God said it was okay to eat meat. Hell, that's why He made cows to begin with! Or wait... cows chew their cud, isn't that against the rules? What about pigs? I wonder if the guys who wrote Leviticus knew that these animals were going to be tortured in the 20th and 21st centuries. I wonder if the bible needs some updating.

It's wrong to kill a puppy or a kitten, but there is nothing wrong with removing a male calf from its mother, cramming it into a tiny dark pin where its leg muscles atrophy because they are never used so that the veal will be extra tender.
There's nothing wrong with hanging a fully conscious hog by its legs with chains and slowly lowering it into a vat of boiling water to soften the skin.
It's perfectly acceptable to burn the beaks of chicks so that they don't peck other hens to death when they mature. It doesn't matter that most of them starve to death because it hurts too much to eat.
Who cares if ducks and geese are force fed to fatten their livers for pâté?

So yes, I'm pissed off. What am I going to do about it?
What can I do about it, other than refuse to support the various industries involved in animal cruelty?

I'm pissed off because people don't care. I’m pissed off because America can’t be bothered.

Music Liberation Project

2004-09-04T00:03:00.000-07:00

Crazy cool website:

Music Liberation Project

Starving Artist:
Thank you!

BookCrossing - Home - FREE YOUR BOOKS!

2004-09-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

BookCrossing

This site is one of the coolest out there (if you're a big book nerd, that is)

The idea behind the site is this: You take all of your books that you no longer have any use for, and release them into the wild! Someone finds your book, logs onto the website and reports what they think of the book. Try it out! It's fun!

Holy Foggy City, Batman

2004-09-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've been slacking.
Since my last couple of posts, I have relocated to a foggy city by the bay, three-thousand miles away, to the picturesque urban salad called San Francisco.

For the first ten days, I stayed in this charming little hostel (which grew less and less charming as the days went by). Most hostels could very easily be called 'hostiles' instead. You have to have everything constantly under lock and key and it is almost always necessary to sleep with one eye open. This place, however, was great. It is located right on Fisherman's Warf. I stayed in a room that had such an amazing view-- I could see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge from my window.

The place is wonderful, and cheap. It is the cheapest lodging you will find in San Francisco (at $25.00/night). The only problem is that you have to deal with the snoring of the asshole in the bunk next to you. One of the rooms that I was in had 12 people staying in it at once.

Even though it is a bit cramped, it is probably the nicest hostel in San Francisco, and possibly the nicest in the country. They give you a well intended breakfast every morning of bagels and coffee, and dinner is only five dollars.

Read all about it:here

I have found the perfect place! I live with two of the craziest and most eclectic homos I have ever met. One is this insanely talented Brazilian artist, and the other is a sweet and quiet accountant from North Carolina. My room is great. It’s fairly large, and I have my own bathroom! The best part is that I am a stone’s throw from Castro Street.

San Francisco is a great city. I think everyone should visit here at least once. I’m not so sure that I want to live here anymore though. I think that years from now I will be happy that I had the experience, but I will be ready to settle down someplace more reasonable.

Random and Disorganized Mind Spatter

2004-08-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

I wish I could remember more about last night. I had a lot of fun. I know there was sushi, sake, a few Koreans and a guy in a skirt involved…

I think it went something like this:
Charles came home some time last week- wait. Maybe I should back up a bit.

After I met Kate, spent the weekend with her, and subsequent hours upon hours on the phone with her, I decided that I really wanted to see her again. I didn’t want to see her for a day or two. I wanted to spend a good week or two with her. Now, since I am a young vagabond/part-time dirty hippy/full-time student, I don’t happen to have the disposable income required to stay in a hotel room for weeks at a time. So, what do you do if you want to stay some place for weeks at a time, but you don’t have the cash to cover it? Well, there’s always camping.
Since I am only a part time dirty hippy, I decided against camping. Instead, I advertised my house sitting services on www.craigslist.org . (Craigslist is great. You can find anything there. You should check it out.)
This really nice guy (Charles) responded to my ad and told me he would be going out of town for some undefined period of time, some time in August. (I don’t think he could have been vaguer about it if he’d been a politician.)
Anyway, the stars aligned correctly, Charles got his plane ticket, I packed enough undies for a month, and hopped on a bus to Philly (from D.C.)
(I went through the most grueling six hour bus ride, that was supposed to be two hours… but that’s another story.)
So Charles left, Kate and I had a wonderful time just being goofy and spending time together, and then Charles came home.

So back to last night: Charles came home to do some work and ended up needing some emergency help cleaning one of his properties. The new tenants had already moved in and the place is filthy. Charles asked me if I would clean it for him. I have not really done anything productive since I’ve been here, so I agreed to help him out. It was nice to have something important to do with my time. I spent eight hours cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom. How could one person spend eight hours cleaning two rooms? That’s what I have been wondering. The bathtub looked as if a herd of hippies had been camping out in it. I wouldn’t have washed a stray dog in that thing. When I was done, the tub was three shades whiter than when I started.
(oops.. off on a tangent again.)

The point is that I spent an inordinate amount of time scraping some one else’s filth out of an apartment, and I was exhausted and famished by the time I left. Charles and I decided to go have dinner, but first he invited his friend. His friend came over, and we had a few drinks. Well, actually, I only had one but I had a hard time walking down the stairs after that first drink, so it’s probably best that I didn’t have another… until later.

We ended up going to this little sushi place in down town Philly. I got drunk and spoke drunken Korean to them. Charles commented that it was like Wayne’s world. I’m not sure I can remember why. We managed to kill a giant bottle of sake between Charles’s friend and myself. Charles doesn’t really like sake, so he drank a few beers instead. The sushi was good and the sushi chefs were entertaining.

At some point, we went back to Charles’s house, but I don’t remember that part. I only remember being drunk and silly out on the back porch with Charles and his friend. I think I got into an argument over lesbianism, men and who was more qualified to operate whose equipment… but that’s all I’m going to say about that.
At some point Charles changed into a wrap around skirt thing. I don’t remember going to bed, but I guess I did, because that’s where I woke up this morning.

2004-07-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

Little Lillian Rene

Melissa

2004-07-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

My first little sister. We loved and hated each other with as much ferocious intensity as any other pair of sibling girls separated by two years. We were born from the same parents, lived in the same house, ate the same food and managed to turn out to be complete polar opposites. Melissa played with her dollies and wore pink dresses. She gave her Barbie’s haircuts and had tea parties for her stuffed animals. I rode my bike down canal embankments and climbed trees. I refused to shower regularly or wear a shirt. I allowed my hair to be cut only because it kept it out of my face while I was playing tackle football with the boys in the front yard.

She insisted on tagging along with me and asking questions when I would go to my best friend Brian's house to play Super Mario. She always wanted to play, but she could never figure out how to do anything on her own. She would get bored and want us to play house with her, and then she would get mad when we refused. She would often run home crying, feelings hurt and tattle on me for being mean. Maybe I was mean. I was practically her big brother. Big Brothers are supposed to be mean.

We both managed to struggle through our individual and parallel childhoods, survive the tragedies of our teen age years and emerge on our feet. We have both shaken the dust of our years of conflict and rivalry, and allowed that dust to fertilize a close and loving friendship. We talk every day, and I do my best to be a good big sister for her now. I love both of my little sisters more than anything else in this world, and would do anything for either of them.

Melissa has two little ones of her own now, and I worry about and love them just as much as I worry about and love my sisters. She is a good mother. She constantly amazes me with how intuitive and wise she is in the ways of parenthood. If I ever have children of my own, I hope to be a wonderful parent, just like my little sister is.

Independence hall, liberty bells, and Rocky steps

2004-07-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

So here I am in Philadelphia visiting Kate.

She introduced me to her favorite watering holes in the city. The first place we visited was a quaint and hideously decorated lesbian bar staffed by wry and surly lesbians. The pink walls were lined by rails of pink neon lights the same way a drunken drag queen might line her stubbly lips the moment before her number in the local drag show. The décor reminded me of a flowery-frilly dress on a large stubble-chinned, tight-muscled, butch lesbian.
We ordered a drink, and Kate introduced me to “Her Bartender”, Natalie. Natalie quickly pointed out that she pours drinks for other patrons, but that she actually belongs to Kate.
We were at the girl bar for "one hot minute" (according to one witness) before we moved on to Woody's.

Woody’s is the same type of bar, but for boys. Woody’s didn’t have even one strip of pink neon lighting. There was a lot of… well, wood. The booths near the bar were made of wood, the walls were paneled by wood, and all three bars were made of wood. Hard wood. Fags like hard wood. It was dark enough on the inside to not really draw a whole lot of attention to the décor… or maybe I was just drunk by then.
I was astounded to find out that Woody’s has two-step night. I thought that I would never see another line dance after the day I turned my back on Texas. I guess I was wrong. Texas line dancing and two-step has tragically infected the East Coast.
We weren’t really at Woody’s for very long either… we had pressing business to attend to.

We did go back to Woody’s a few nights later, and I met two of the sweetest, handsomest and nicest gay boys that I think I have ever met… and Gary. Gary was nice and handsome, but he was too butch to be sweet. Gary kept telling me that I look like Kirsten Dunst. (Maybe in the dark and after a few cocktails…)
Ryan and David were both gorgeous, with beautiful skin. Ryan has gorgeous blue eyes and a manicure, David has big brown eyes and an earthy school-boy look about him.

Kate needed to do some things at her house, so I tagged along with her. I had the pleasure of meeting her wonderful pup, Murphy (named for Murphy Brown).
Murphy is a nine year old golden retriever who loves belly rubs and her big flat basketball. I think that Murphy is high in the running for best dog in the world. I fell in love with her instantly.

So far, I love Philadelphia. Everything is old and beautiful here. There are stout granite buildings dressed in ivy, old churches and cathedrals adorned with intricate stone carvings and stained glass, beautiful parks and winding tree lined streets. I am in awe of the historical significance of this place. Many of these buildings have been around since the late 1700’s. The fact that they are still standing is just amazing to me.

More news at 11:00

July 21st at 2:58 AM...

2004-07-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

My little sister had a beautiful baby girl. Her name is Lillian Rene. She is seven pounds, eleven ounces and nineteen inches long. She has beautiful blue eyes and dark red hair.
This is her second child. She had her first four years ago on August 6th 2000. My nephew, Bradley is a handful, but I love him dearly. It always makes my day when he feels like talking to me on the phone.

The conversations are never too deep, but that's okay. It always goes something like this: Me: "Hey Bradley! How are you today?" Bradley: "Good. I watch Sponge-Bob and mommy spank my butt for putting my peanut butter in the PlayStation."
Me: "Wow! It sounds like you've had an exciting day!" Bradley: "What's your name?" Me: "I'm your Aunt Audrie, remember, from Texas?" Bradley: "Oh yeah!! Shister! From Texas. I need to go to Chuckie Cheese REAL BAD!" Me: "Well, if you are a good boy, I'll take you next time."
Bradley: "I'm a big brother, I help with diapers, but mom cleans the poop, because poop is nasty." Me: "Yes, poop is nasty." Bradley: "Okay, I love you, bye bye!" Me: "Don't hang up I want to talk to your mo-"
Dial tone.

Kids are great, as long as you can give them back when they start to get bitchy or smell bad.
I love my nephew, and my new neice, and I look forward to watching them grow up into teenagers, get busted for smoking pot, graduate from high school, go to college, get busted for smoking pot, and then someday get a job and support me.

Actually, I look forward to spoiling them rotten and driving my little sister nuts. Big sis knows best, and she best not forget it.

The littlest sis has yet to make much comment, other than to "ooo" and "awww" at the cute little clucking baby noises coming from the other end of the phone. The littlest sis is on the serious track. She's going to be a forensic pathologist. Sounds spooky eh? It is. She wants to work with dead people and their gory remnants. Quite the odd profession for one so committed to her religion and cute, sweet boyfriend. Pictures of new babies, and four year olds will be posted, as soon as they are available.

I've had two beers. Its midnight. I'm tipsy. Goodnight.

Fruitless Tree Bears Fruit... Finally

2004-07-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

About once or twice a month, sometimes twice a week certain political issues arise and I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. Normally I just unleash a diatribe of immature insults in the direction of president@whitehouse.gov (side note: If I disappear soon, it may be because it’s illegal to call the president a baby-killing pig-fucker.)

A few months ago, I stopped writing carefully crafted and thoughtfully edited arguments to support my political opinions in my correspondence with our nation's Village Idiot. I'm not sure what I expected to happen-- actually, I didn't expect anything to happen. Then one day I got some bull-shit form email in response to some issue I had written to the President about. That pissed me off. I was okay with the probability that my comments will simply go unread, and most likely get filtered off into some top-secret email trash bin. I did not, however, want confirmation of that assumption. That was just insulting. So now I just write and call him names. It actually feels pretty good. I would recommend it to anyone who can't afford therapy.

Anyway, I also frequently write to the Senate and Congress. They actually write back! Normally, they just write back to tell me why they vote/believe/support what they do, and why, and then effectively and very politely (in not as many words) tell me to go fuck my liberal and insignificant self. Then they always thank me for my thoughts and opinions. How sweet of them.

So, about a month ago, I wrote to Senator Hutchinson (R-Texas) about some fascist, brainless, irritating drone that Bush was trying to appoint to the federal bench. I expressed my opinions, stated my reasons, and did so as politely and eloquently as I could. This is Senator Hutchinson's thoughtful reply:

Dear Ms. Dugger: Thank you for contacting me regarding the nomination of Leon Holmes. I welcome your thoughts and comments on this issue.

Dr. J. Leon Holmes was nominated on January 29, 2003, by President Bush to serve on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas and confirmed by the Senate on July 6, 2004.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, I have voted to confirm 197 of his 198 nominations that have reached the Senate floor. I am gratified he has seated a number of judges with conservative backgrounds, because none were appointed during the eight years President Clinton was in office. I am particularly pleased when a nominee has a strong religious foundation as well as a deep respect for the rule of law. On the rare occasion when I have opposed a judicial candidate during my time in the Senate, it was because the nominee failed to show the proper judicial temperament or, if questions about judicial philosophy arose, there was no judicial record on which to base a vote of confidence.

I take seriously my responsibility to advise and consent on individuals nominated for lifetime appointments to the bench. Federal judges do not answer to the people after they take office, and when Senators make a mistake, the results can be devastating. When a nominee's views raise a question or concern, and there is no record as a judge to show he or she can set aside personal views, I believe caution is warranted.

I am convinced Dr. Holmes is a gifted man and capable attorney, with a strong career and commitment to his community. His rich spiritual conviction and work ethic are to be commended. However, after meeting personally with Dr. Holmes, reviewing a number of his public writings and statements, and listening to his supporters, I reluctantly decided that he lacks a fundamental commitment to the equality of women in our society. My vote against Dr. Holmes was not in any way related to his views on abortion or his personal religious beliefs. It was based on his body of statements over a 25-year period that led me to conclude he does not possess the judicial temperament necessary for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.

I appreciate hearing from you and hope you will not hesitate to keep in touch on any issue of concern to you. Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
KBH:cfh

Ugh...

2004-07-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

I feel like I got swallowed by a coyote and pooped off a cliff...
I must have caught a cold.

It's Saturday. Morning. The family is still here. I am still relegated to the dungeon- erm, basement. It sounds like they are playing jack hammer bowling in the room directly above where I'm sleeping. This is an issue. Small children wake early in the morning for some reason. I guess they don't know yet that it's way more fun to sleep in past noon on Saturday.

Little kids have germs. They carry them wherever they go. They bring them to your house and infect your weakened and aging immune system. *sniff. Sure, they are cute for a minute. (The kids, not the germs) And then they leave their weird Nickelodeon green slime in puddles on the floor in the bathroom. I think I'd rather step in dog shit. Even with my socks on.

2004-07-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

From aoartworks.com

Three cubic inches...

2004-07-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

It’s so quiet here today. Everyone has gone off on some sight seeing adventure. I'm reveling the opportunity to just sit here and be blank. The problem with being blank is that there isn't much to write about, which is also just fine.

Even in the midst of all of this serenity, certain excitements, questions, worries and pressing issues are still bouncing around between my ears. I suppose I should either acknowledge them, or learn some meditation technique, which will allow me to let them all flutter away.

One thing that's almost constantly on my mind is my tender new love interest. I suppose that's normal, but it makes it difficult to focus on more practical things like making sure I have clean clothes to wear and not leaving dirty dishes in the sink.

When happy feelings for someone fresh, wonderful and new begin to blossom, I become increasingly paranoid that I'll repeat the same mistakes from my last disastrous relationship. I'm informed this is normal, and as a footnote, certain mistakes are very difficult to avoid repeating without a lot of work. The wild card is the person that I am becoming involved with...

I ignored the warning signs last time, and kept the fact that I had observed said warning signs at all to myself. The result was that I ended up in a relationship with an unhappy, unhealthy and self-destructive person. It was like happily agreeing to carry around an anvil on my head. Except that most anvils I know aren't overly judgmental, angry, paranoid, possessive, untrusting and dishonest.

Okay, so maybe I've picked up more baggage in the past year than I have in my entire tragic life. It’s taken a few weeks of introspection, and a few hours of conversation with a trained professional to sort through it all and come out healthier in the end. I have also learned a few key lessons:

1. "I'm not ready to be involved again" means just that.
2. Relationships are juiciest with reciprocity and dry up when there is only one-sided giving.
3. Baggage handling is better left to the professionals at TSA.
4. Its possible to show someone love without giving away the farm.
5. People can't be fixed or healed unless they want to be fixed or healed, and they have to do it themselves.
6. Never eat from a dented can. Oh, wait. That one belongs on another list of lessons learned.

At any rate, I have lots to learn, as we all do. I just want to be healthy and happy.

As far as new love interests go, I think I'm on the right track. I feel good, I'm not ignoring any warning signs, I'm crazy about this girl and she likes me too, just the way I am.

You have to crack a few eggs to save your bacon... or something.

Street Politics in our Nation's Capitol

2004-07-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

A few months ago while living in Austin, I finally conquered my mini-tragedies and made the decision to relocate to Silver Spring, Maryland for the summer. Silver Spring, Maryland is an affluent and sleepy little suburb at the end of the Metro Red Line just outside of Washington, DC. When I first turned the corner and saw the long quiet street decorated by mansion like houses and neatly manicured lawns, my heart sunk. I suspected that I would be surrounded by middle-aged republicans. I suppose I should back up for a moment. Why Silver Spring, Maryland? I didn't toss a dart at a map; I actually came here to spend time with my very close friends. (The thirty-something, disgustingly functional breeders from my previous post.)

What I found when I arrived here was surprising: Bush supporters seem to be few and far between. I have seen only one Bush/Cheney sticker since I've been here, and they had Texas tags. I thought Austin was fairly liberal, but I saw three or four Bush stickers a day while I was there. Maybe that's just because the imbecile is from Texas. Texans are weird about their pride. I think that some of them support Bush just because he's from Texas.

I'm not basing my observations solely on the presence or lacking presence of stickers, but on conversation as well. I have been riding the metro, hanging out in coffee shops, eating in restaurants that range from the local dive that barely passes health inspections, to fancy French joints with more than 3 forks per place setting. In all of these places, I have heard conversations in all of these places. The tone is always the same. Sometimes people sound angry, sometimes they sound weary, but they are all sick of Bush and would be happy to see him gone. I thought that people would be more supportive of him here, in the Nation's Capitol.

I even heard one older man on the subway talking about who he will vote for. He pointed across the isle to a stranger and declared "I'd vote for that guy before I'd vote for Bush."

Maybe its just wishful thinking, or maybe I'm only hearing what I want and filtering the rest out, but I think its refreshing to witness political descent on the streets of Washington, DC. Maybe there is still hope.

Influencing Minors

2004-07-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

...So I have been staying with my thirty-something, perfectly functional, disgustingly healthy breeder friends for the past month or so. In the course of this month, we have had two separate visits, by two separate families; both of which have small children.

I've rapidly learned that my natural speech and behavior are not G rated, that said behavior needs to be drastically modified with a quickness when little eyes and ears are present. This is a fucking pain in the fucking ass. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Shit. That felt good. Its like my mouth and brain have been all constipated all day and the effects of the ex (pletive) -lax have just kicked in. There is a little tongue cramping at first, but after an explosion of dirty language, I feel nice and regular again.

These three little kids who are here are so good! I can hardly believe it. It is so completely disgusting and irritating. They don't have a t.v. at home, so when they are here, they get to watch exactly one hour of t.v. a day. They don't even bitch about it. I took the little four year old to get ice cream after dinner one day, and while we were there deciding which ice cream to sample she informs me: "I'm not allowed to have chocolate, it keeps me up at night." How many four year olds willingly divulge such information to a perfect stranger who has no idea that they aren't supposed to have chocolate!

They are very intelligent too. I asked the eleven year old what she wanted to for dinner. The only reply I got was the obligatory 'tween shrug. I said: "So you're indifferent." She just looked at me. I remembered that sometimes children don't understand the meaning of some words, so I asked. "Do you understand what indifferent means?" She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms at her chest. "Duh! It means I don't care." Touché.

I am never having kids. I can't deal with eleven year olds who match or surpass my wit. It makes me want to stomp my foot and stick my tongue out.