Dugg: CIA Exhibits Sexism in Firings

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Apparently the CIA is firing women who have foreign boyfriends or relatives, without applying that same standard to men.

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You Can Trust Telecomm Giants

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Yes, Really! Besides, Comcast couldn't POSSIBLY do anything after thirty days to completely screw you over. Free market!

No wait, I got it. If you didn't catch on within thirty days, you're so dumb that you deserve to be screwed over! Because Comcast couldn't, say, wait until thirty days are up.

It's alright though, the market will regulate itself. It'll do so by cautiously watching Comcast, seeing that they're totally getting away with it, and copy the practice to make sure there's no competition to turn to. Someday, experts and analysts will tell us that a world without the thirty-day arbitration period would be complete anarchy, and telecomm companies (or others) would simply be unable to do business without it.

"But wait," some will say, "There was a time when they did just fine with a fair system." "That was decades ago! Things have changed, such as x y z bullshit factor, and now we're going to bury you as lunatics by the power of the mainstream media."

Okay, seriously though, to be fair, Comcast can't actually do anything illegal to you - US Law says that illegal activity renders contracts null and void. And that's not at all debatable by Comcast lawyers in court (for the few people that get screwed the worst, and attract media attention, such lawyers will be the best money can buy - and maybe the judge will too).

That said, there's still...no, I can't think of anything, there's no way this could possibly be a good thing. Even if it is struck down by the hand of justice, it will probably be just fine in gray areas where consumers could sue previously, and if the thought counts for anything, Comcast just spelled out the depths of their vileness. They're already responsible for so much more.

"Protest Music, How Cute"

Why do people ask "Where have all the protest songs gone?" Were they expecting marijuana and accoustic guitars at Live Earth? Rebellious music hasn't gone anywhere, and it's really not that hard to find. One trip through a modest iTunes library yields...

Ben Folds could easily be mistaken for meaningless pop or flash-in-the-pan emo. But in Fired, he ends the song with an epic, harmonious, satisfying "Mother-fuckers." Delicious!

Bloc Party has some tricky lyrics to break over the heads of evil. They're the successors to Franz Ferdinand's tradition of mega-popular English Indie, and they quote Bertrand Russel.

Bruce Springsteen isn't new, but the man responsible for the police brutality and racial profiling that inspired Bruce's American Skin (41 Shots) is currently the Republican front-runner for President. (What?) Bruce disses the current President too, once calling for his replacement by E-Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons.

Flogging Molly is a classic staple of Irish punk, staggering to a drunken brawl with the status quo. Lambasting the English and highlighting the suffering of the impoverished are common themes in their music.

Like Bruce, Neil Young has been around a while, but he still makes new music. His rush-produced "Living With War" album openly called for impeaching Bush, dissed consumers and continued what he's been doing through "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World" (often mistaken for a patriotic song) and "Ohio."

Around the same time that "Living With War" hit the shelves, Pearl Jam's self-titled protest album contained such mighty tracks as World Wide Suicide. Singing about a morning newspaper where he learned that a friend had died in Iraq, Eddie Vedder sends a powerful message straight into the mainstream.

Eccentric Indie genius Sufjan Stevens has a track from "Come On Feel the Illinoise" with more lyrics in the title than the song - but The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, "I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them ntil they are off our lands!*" really says it all, doesn't it?

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists are gaining popularity in the world of unpopular music, and you won't find a more politically charged band. The music actually sounds good, too. Their latest album, "Living With the Living," has such tracks as The Sons of Cain and Bomb, Repeat, Bomb.

Nerdcore rap isn't something to take too seriously, but Futuristic Sex Robotz do have a volatile Fuck the Police spoof called Fuck the MPAA. It's available online for free, and they drop some wicked bombs on anti-piracy groups. Other parts are bad enough to sound like self-mockery, but bad or good, it's a fair representative of a growing online culture.

Finally, you have Tenacious D's "The Government Totally Sucks." It's secretly a protest against bad protest music, and that makes it brilliant.

*iTunes and Finder both were unable to display the entire name of the song, hilariously. Sufjan Stevens valiantly foils the world of convenience where you can have a song and its title catalogued on a computer in seconds.

Planned Parenthood: Nonsense-free

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"Congressman Mike Pence is introducing an amendment that restricts critical family planning funding. We've seen family planning funding restrictions before -- but this one is different. Rep. Pence's amendment specifically calls out Planned Parenthood and seeks to ban Planned Parenthood health centers nationwide from receiving family planning funding."
-from Planned Parenthood

The name says it all - Planned Parenthood is an organization that works to prevent unwanted pregnancies with sex education and services for uninsured women, most of whom are below the federal poverty line. Regardless of abortion, this organization does more in tangibly benefiting society than it does slugging it out in the courts.

Clearly the objection to PP isn't so much over what it does, but the scandalous nature of its name as acronym. The reference to urination touches many a nerve; a doctor who writes for a local paper noted that in his quest to find a neutral, non-offensive word for urination, male patients told him that "real men don't 'tinkle.'"

Tinkle is offensive.

So obviously an acronym that sounds like pee pee is causing some problems - Planned Parenthood should adjust their name to something like "Family Fundamentals Association" (FFA), or "Educating People About Sex is a Good Idea" (EPASGI), or "Freedom Condoms" (FC).

In lieu of that, you can call your representative in Congress and urge him or her to oppose this ridiculous legislation. And call up Spider Jerusalem to get on the case.

State of the Union Address

We have astronauts drinking in space, senators playing WoW, and "open minded religious thinkers" claiming Harry Potter is in fact the devil - not to be confused with the far more dangerous super devil. Reality check: what the fuck is going on?

After first hearing about this drunk-astronaut-fiasco, I had assumed they were high, due to Charles Gibson's clever headline of "before blasting into space astronauts got blasted" which reminded me of the term "rocketed" (gee, can you see the connection?) which is synonymous with stoned, baked, etc. This immediately excited me, but then I found out they were drunk. I don't really have a problem with this - there isn't much to hit in space, god forbid they fly drunk into another life form - but I'd think it would be much more exciting to go into space high. At least that's what I'd do. Then again that could be why I'm not an astronaut...yet.

Sadly however, this means NASA will most likely instate rules where there have only been "honored traditions" in the past, creating "space laws" for sex, drugs, and well, drugs. At least we've had some experiments with this already, apparently space sex leads directly to middle-aged love triangles with crazy revenge seeking space pioneers. Imagine the possibility of a space trip trip. I bet we could find willing volunteers somewhere.

Senators playing WoW? Not a big deal. Unless of course they raid. Then we may discover segments of "absence of office due to personal reasons," until of course they get more purplz.

As for the people claiming Harry Potter to be satanic? El oh el. There isn't much to say - the internet is a place for expressing your opinions and starting anti-anything that exists cults.

Online cults. Sounds creepy? You betcha. Click here to see a list of more creepy shit on the internet.

Something fitting.

I am a Consumer Whore

Now Serving Apple Pie

A sports radio DJ (Andrew Siciliano) dropped "ESPN.com" not-so-subtly in an interview on his show, envisioning a world where dog-fighting fans could check the latest scores and highlights of the dog-fighting world. Heaven forbid, of course. The legal analyst on the show mentioned that crossing state lines to gamble can get you five years in prison; crossing state lines to fight dogs gets you up to one.

A highlight of the show was when he announced that Jessica Alba was single, then stated his height and zodiac sign. He's a Virgo.

At my gig babysitting, the kids like to watch the Disney channel a lot. One of their favorite shows is "Hannah Montana," starring Miley Cyrus as a southern pop princess who's just a normal girl. She's like a combination of Ashley Simpson and Hillary Duff, but with more apple pie.

Disney recently informed Congress that it would completely eliminate any smoking from its movies. I could handle that, but when CBC DJ Eric Friesen offhandedly commended them for it, I felt miserably betrayed! For a man not just of public radio, but of Canadian public radio, that was disgraceful. I bet he voted for Steven Harper.

I'm still waiting for versions of the Harry Potter novels in internet shorthand, available on the iPhone. For those who find shorthand Shakespeare a bit too heavy. (Hamlet: "lol hi2u horatio :) <3")

Step 1: Acquire many things you don't need or even want
Step 2: Abandon all awareness of mortality*
Step 3: Sell body on street
Step 4: ??
Step 5: Profit

Extra Bonus Game Time! Fill in the blank - what would YOU put in step four?

NO TELEVISIONS WERE HARMED IN THIS RANT AGAINST CONSUMERISM

BET (one channel next to GAC where I live) is now putting out a show based on this website. I'm not the most qualified commentator by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't help feeling that a white-collar lawyer's judgemental witticisms about black people don't deserve much credit, even if she's black herself.

*Not a typo!

Carnivorous Man-Eating Babies

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You know, Iraq doesn't bother me much. Someone once said that familiarity breeds contempt, but if something starts out with contempt it just goes stale and becomes rotten indifference.

(Speaking of rotten, how far has Whole Foods fallen? The FTC accuses them of trying to limit competition and raise prices for consumers, after John Mackey's epic failure.)

But how awful and scary must Iraq be for the people that thought it was a good idea? They must feel betrayed and disoriented. For supporters of the war, it's though the world's been pulled out from under us.

The sad part is, we'll think we've learned something. We'll act wiser, like Iraq was a growth experience. Now we know the difference between "Arab" and "Muslim," and as soon as we get out of Iraq we can lick this Global Warming business and get back to a world where things, and America, are right.

In other news, San Francisco's attempt to create municipal wi-fi is controversial in ways you might not expect. The city is working with Google and Earthlink, but instead of aggravating Comcast and AT&T, they appear to be angering...activists! Proponents of publicly-owned wi-fi have some interesting criticisms of SF's plan, which can be found in this (hilariously biased) Wikipedia article. There's a little bit of irony here.

Ace Deuce

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My slingshot monkey lost his hands in a slingshot accident. "I'm having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day and I'm moving to Australia."

The Ann Arbor Art Fair had what can only be called a politics street. Everybody has a booth now, not just artists - stores have booths in front, bums can harp one-dollar bottled waters (that's like paying eight Washingtons a gallon for water, by the way), sponsors got booths - so why not give a street over to Greyhound and Anti-Circumcision activists.

I had a petition to sign, so I knew where to start looking. Every church had a stall for a street-preacher - the Churches of Mitt Romney, Amnesty International, Communism, certainly Global Warming, and others. Nudists were fortunately keeping their activism to a modest level, while I scanned the booths for a tell-tale "NORML" or leaf image.

I would be initially disappointed, but not before stuffing my pockets with a Calvary CD (apparently targeting Arabic-speaking peoples) and random pamphlet I didn't want, but somehow had. I also signed three Amnesty International petitions and was tempted to ask the Pro-Life booth where I could find a marijuana petition.

I found it finally not in a booth, but with a random guy who coincidentally lived in the same county I did. He helped me out with rules affecting changing dormitory addresses as a registered voter, and I signed his petition (which, apparently, earned him two bucks).

Later in the day, I saw a guy walking down the street with a giant picture of an aborted fetus on his sign, above which read "'CHOICE,'" twice. One of them came when my Neil Young-like employer was discussing politics with a Greco-Indian-English woman who he'd haggled with earlier. The second time, he yelled "That's obscene!" directly at the guy, who walked on by stoically of course.

I'm definitely not moving to Australia.

Fun with Harper's Index

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The ultimate "good guy" prestige class in D&D is the "Harper's Agent;" I've never thought it a coincidence that the name is shared by Harper's Magazine.

Every month, Harper's publishes a page of statistics called the "Harper's Index," from which I draw in writing this tale of Timmy and his family.

Seven-year-old, 175-lb. Timmy will now be in charge of protecting the chocolate ice cream. 85% of President Bush's appointees regulate industries they used to represent as lobbyists. Timmy isn't very good at reading. Four of the five directors of a No Child Left Behind reading program had financial ties to curricula they developed, receiving an average of $727,000 as a result. Timmy learned in school that the Apple Blossom is the official flower of the State of Michigan. Three out of every five states will not be able to sustain their official tree or flower, according to climate projections for 2100. Timmy's mommy drinks bottled water while she feels good about herself driving in a fuel-efficient Toyota. 16,000,000 barrels of oil were used last year to make the containers for bottled water sold in the US. Timmy's big sister tries to conserve water, the world's next big crisis. The water used to make bottled-water containers is twice as much as the water that goes in. Timmy's dad is a soldier in Iraq, drinking one of the 1,400,000 liters of bottled water that are shipped to Iraq each day (on average). Timmy is a non-combatant. Should all non-combatants in Iraq be treated as insurgents? 16% of Marines say yes, and 39% "neither agree nor disagree."

Now we'll get into the mind of a conservative voter: Although 55% claimed to favor amnesty for illegal immigrants, 66% said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate promoting such a plan. Would they vote for me if I cut off my pony tail?

And the mind of a conservative Supreme Court justice: Uncle Thomas uttered a mere 132 words during Supreme Court oral arguments, since February 2006. (The next-fewest word count belongs to Samuel Alito, at 14,404.) Maybe he was too busy trying to get a different kind of oral argument from Anita Hill.

All the information that passed through the internet last year weighed 0.00004 ounces. Not even enough for a bowl.

It's Not Political at All

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CBS and Fox News refuse to show this Trojan ad because it's inappropriate (unlike ads for penis pills which contain the word "erection").

According to this NY Times article, Comcast refused to show the ad during Adult Swim because they deemed it inappropriate for children that might be watching.

CBS' website now has this link: "KnowHIVAIDS.org"

I followed that link, and it didn't take me long to find this: "Always use a condom for vaginal or anal sex, and barrier methods, such as a condom or dental dam, for oral sex."

I'm glad these people are preaching abstinence-only; I wouldn't want them reproducing.

Score

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It's a strange world where statistics can read themselves.

The Man: 0, Lions: 1! This calls for a rousing rendition of 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!

Bridge May Have Terrorists

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Surprise!

So the reason we aren't impeaching Bush isn't because we like him, but because he only has something like a year and a half left. An impeachment would bitterly divide the nation in a long, arduous process that would result in kicking him out right when he would have left anyway, and in the meantime Congress would do nothing else.

But let's not talk about what Congress wouldn't do (because they don't anyway); let's talk about what Bush would. The Capitol Steps have a skit where the four liberal Supreme Court justices sing "Staying Alive." The New Yorker had this article by Jeffrey Toobin on the many successes enjoyed by conservatives on the newly-oriented Supreme Court.

Everyone knows about the partial-birth-abortion ban, where Justice Kennedy called fetuses "infants." Less well-known is the case where "the justices rejected an appeal by a [death row] prisoner who had filed his case before a deadline set by a federal district judge. Because the judge had misread the law and given the prisoner too much time—three extra days—the Court said that the case had to be thrown out."

Toobin points out: "At this moment, the liberals face not only jurisprudential but actuarial peril. Stevens is eighty-seven and Ginsburg seventy-four; Roberts, Thomas, and Alito are in their fifties."

A year and a half is a long time for this busy boy.

Truth, Nuggets, and the American Way

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"I think form this point forward the media should only send nervous young girls to ask questions the American public actually wants an answer to. Even if it is a propoghanda answer, at least it's SOMETHING that gets to these punk ass*s and could perhaps pry nuggets of truth from them."
-comment from LosingFaith

Digg showed me the way to this, while I was listening to "Tommy."

Her daddy gave her magic - I can tell by the way she walks.
Every time she starts to shakin', the dumb begin to talk.
She's got the power to heal you, never fear!
Just a word from her lips, and the deaf begin to hear.

We've got a fabulous idea on our hands.

Boston Tea Party

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Chapter I - Health Benefits of Exploitation

Paying Indians chicken feed to do your job for you isn't just outsourcing your work - it's also outsourcing your misery. Like the reverse of an international happiness vampire, our friends from across the Pacific welcome all of our unpleasant emotions. They don't mind suffering through depression and regret - on the contrary, they welcome the opportunity to improve their station in the world through fair, honest work. They're eager little beavers, ready to contribute to the world's mental health as well as its economy. You're doing them a favor by helping them to fulfill their dreams, and it improves your well-being! Be sure to also look at alternative medicines from India that we've culturally appropriated into health-fads. The more you offend their culture, the more unhappy they'll be, which we now know is the most humane result.

Someday, someone I know is going to discover a portrait of Gandhi spray-painted on his house.

...by disgruntled Indians.

...not me.

Seven Weeks of Baseball and Lying Bastards

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"There's a book out, it's called 'Seven Weeks to Emotional Healing,' and in it he talks about how especially in winter - I've tried this and it really works - it helps to just bring in flowers." Seven Four-Hour Work-Weeks to Emotional Outsourcing, that's my new self-help book.

Dane Cook is still funny, but today, he lost his sanctity. Not only did I see him on an All-Star game commercial plugging TBS/FOX's coverage of the playoffs, he wasn't even attempting to make jokes. No longer is he exempt from the judgement of young adult males, as are Tenacious D, Bob Barker, William Shatner, 300, etc. (For a while at least, you can inquire further at MLB's website.)

"Net competition advocates continuing a free market Internet and opposes a 'socialized-Internet.' Net neutrality advocates activist regulation of broadband prices, terms, and conditions." That's from Net Competition, a website that opposes net neutrality (on the grounds that it's socialist and it would put activists in charge of their internets). This is their list of members.

Chocolate Chips in Your Internets

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"Dude...he's got cookies."
"Is that true?"
"Yeah, we've got cookies."

"...alright, I'm in."
It doesn't take much to make a man sell out. Ask Will Wright, creator of "The Sims." What started in satire ended with an in-game McDonald's ad and enough expansion packs to fill a bookcase. And "weaknesspays" is a SimCity 4 cheat code. Coincidence? I think not.

And look at me. I've plugged three products already (four if you count cookies) in the middle of the independent-expression blogosphere, like baking Chips Ahoy! chocolate chips into your internets. To be fair, one of them completely deserves the love, and the other two I dissed. But if negative publicity is still good publicity, there's going to be a lot of good publicity in this blog. And delicious tea.