Now Serving The CIA's Dirty Laundry
Apparently the CIA is firing women who have foreign boyfriends or relatives, without applying that same standard to men.
read more | digg story
29 July 2007
You Can Trust Telecomm Giants
Now Serving Hippie Juice
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.
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.
28 July 2007
"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.
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.
27 July 2007
Planned Parenthood: Nonsense-free
Now Serving Trader Joe's Mint Melange Tea
"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.
"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.
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!
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!
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