Well, I’m going to have to post this. Everyone send Falafel mix to Bill O’Reilly. Find out why on this blog.
This past weekend, I screwed up my sleep schedule somethin’ fierce. Friday night I passed out early like the wuss I am. That led to me waking up at 6:30 on Saturday morning and not being able to fall back asleep. After hitting the market and going to my neice’s 3rd birthday party, I returned home and fell asleep at about 9pm. Unwilling to let my weekend be slept away, I woke myself up at about midnight. I stayed up until 3am, and then slept until 6:30am. You’d think that I’d be awake now, since I usually wake up at 7, but no, I’m dead tired.
Still, at least the Browns won. They took on the Bengals and beat them 34 to 17. I wouldn’t say we looked great out there, but we looked good. I’m almost certain they won simply because I was wearing my vintage Browns stocking hat.
Earlier today, Vladimir Putin said that the current attacks on coalition forces in Iraq are aimed at keeping Bush from being re-elected. I have to agree, at least partially. However, it’s a shame that due to the isolationist nature of most Bush supporters, it’s doubtful that a warning from “a commie” is going to be noted. You think I’m exaggerating… that the cold war has been over long enough that people have moved on from labels like that. Nope! If you try really hard, I’m sure you can conjure up a mental image of a typical “NASCAR Dad” you’ve met. Now imagine what his retort to that Putin comment would be. Now imagine how little effect this will have on his political tendencies. Okay, you’re done. Go have a sandwich.
I just got an e-mail in my blog account from someone at this site: Yes Bush Can! Thinking it must have been sent to me by some kind of blog-scanning software that was obviously calibrated by a moron, I dismissed it. Later I saw the site mentioned elsewhere and I decided to check it out. It turns out these guys are taking a different approach to ousting Bush from office… either that or they’re absolutely insane. What they’ve done is made a tour bus with “Yes Bush Can!” on the side. I recommend you take a look at their “Patriot Pledge” to get an idea of how they operate. Freaking hysterical!
O’Reilly and FOX News have somehow managed to sink lower than previously thought possible with regard to the recent sexual harassment charges. They’ve served the accuser with employment termination papers, and are claiming (and want a judge to rule) that it has nothing to do with retaliation. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Bill, ya big shitbag, I know you think you’re on top of the world, but you’re not exempt from any laws, last I checked. I don’t care if you ARE innocent, you don’t sue an employee who’s accusing another employee of sexual harassment. I think this also says something about FOX News and the GOP’s suppression of women’s voices. This woman was making $93k a year. She was obviously a sane, professional individual. FOX should be eating Bill alive, not blowing him in some boardroom.
Jon Stewart was on CNN’s Crossfire recently, and he valiantly attempted to inform the hosts that they were doing America a great disservice. He had a lot to say about how they’re just perpetuating the same buzzwords and utterly irrelevant “issues” that all the other big guys are covering. Here’s the transcript… scroll down until you see his name popping up.
Next time some chick walks up to you on the street in the middle of the night with a dazed look in her eye and starts taking your clothes off, you’ll know it’s not your intense animal magnetism, but in fact just a bizarre sleep disorder that was recently discovered. A woman in Sydney recently learned she had been leaving her house IN HER SLEEP and seducing strangers into having sex. Incredible!
Good lord am I wired right now. Most of my friends know I gave up caffeine, even though I love coffee. Well I ran out of tea today so I decided to use my french press to make some coffee. I guess I made it pretty strong because I can hardly believe I’m able to type right now.
Even the “green zone” in Baghdad that we hear so much about is being bombed. I can’t imagine we have the upper hand anywhere in Iraq right now. Not that having the upper hand would afford us anything. I also can’t imagine how Bush supporters really believe we’re helping people in Iraq.
If you were a war criminal like Bush or Rumsfeld, and you knew that torture just wasn’t as popular as you’d like, what could you do to ensure that the torture could go on? According to some sources, the Bush administration has found a way to perpetuate the use of torture by “outsourcing” terror suspects to countries like Syria. There they are knowingly submitted to torture tactics, but because the US is not the inflicting the torture, they can’t be held responsible.
I think it’s pretty funny that Bush’s stance on importing drugs from Canada has come back around to bite him in the ass. Due to our current flu shot shortage, his suggestion was to possibly bring in excess flu shots from Canada. Well, guess what? They’re not licensed for sale in the US by the FDA, mostly because he failed to legislate importation because of his stance on the issue. (Which, by the way is totally asenine.)
Here’s a video in the style of Schoolhouse Rock explaining how “emperors and pirates are the same.” It helps to illustrate the fact that we’ve funded terrorists and insurgencies in the past, and how hypocritical our “war on terror” truly is. I suggest you check it out.
A man concerned about abortion in the US did some research and discovered that, under Bush, abortions have actually increased (even though they were on a decline before he took office).
Anyone who views this graph of our budget gap covering the last 12 years and still agrees Bush has done a good job is completely insane. In fact, you can see that during Clinton’s administrations, we were finally getting back on track.
The Bush campaign is getting really desperate. There’s been a great uproar about Kerry’s mentioning of Cheney’s lesbian daughter in the last debate. You can read Kerry’s actual quote in this article, and I can’t grasp what the hell they’re upset about. Both Kerry and Edwards have praised Lynn and Dick for supporting their daughter’s sexual orientation. What makes these critiques of Kerry’s statement seem really ludicrous to me is the fact that Edwards and Cheney talked openly about her in their debate, and truthfully had no visible animosity for one another. In fact, I’d say that during their debate, that was the subject that they stood the closest to one another on.
The Cleveland Indians have let Omar Visquel become a free agent, and don’t seem all that interested in holding on to him. Well, now there’s absolutely nobody on the whole team that I know or like. Omar, you were the solitary reason I went to see Indians games. I understand if you have to go elsewhere, especially if they’re not giving you the respect a kick-ass player like yourself deserves. I’ll have no choice but to laugh and shake my head as we pretend not to notice the future deficiency in infield saves we’re bound to face if you leave.
Last night I watched the final debate, even though each one has been a hilarious facade. It was more of the same, except for Kerry’s heightened attack on Bush. Each time Kerry would come at Bush with something factual, Bush would get this uncomfortable smirk on his face as if everything Kerry says is a lie. When Kerry said GW mentioned he wasn’t concerned about Osama Bin Laden, Bush shot back saying he never said that. There’s video of him saying exactly that. I still remain astounded by the fact that half the nation is buying all the bullshit Bush is feeding them. How can you watch him in action and not see right through him? He’s such a fraud of a human being.
O’Reilly is being accused of some serious sexual harassment, and he’s of course denying it. What married man do you know that’s going to fess up to long-term sexual harassment? The sheer volume of incidents the victim brings to the table has me on her side without question. So, here’s the court papers, posted on TheSmokingGun.com.
There’s a lot of unwarranted drinking games out there these days. Practically every TV show or movie has something associated with it. I’ve never actually participated in anything like that, though. However, for a guy like me, there’s no better show to drink to than Iron Chef. Here’s the rules.
And since there’s not much else I want to write about, here’s a few weird pictures:
World’s Largest Sandwich
Van Gogh Hot Air Balloon
Kid Stuck in Claw Machine
Maxwell House Cans Filled With Peanut Butter??
So dig this. Some bogus voter registration agency, independent of the government (except if they’re really funded by the GOP), has registered a bunch of folks in Las Vegas. Well, that’s great, except that when someone registers as a Democrat with them, they throw it out. I get the feeling that this election is going to be one major pain in the ass. As unfortunate as it may sound, it seems like things are going to turn out much like they did in 2000, except on a larger scale than just Florida.
Channel 3 in Cleveland is running a story about campaign signs and how they’re such a hot issue this time around. Didn’t I just talk about this? In a related story, last night Bot took Kenny’s precious Kerry/Edwards sign out of our yard. That’s fine with me, but I’m sure I’ll be forced to listen to Kenny rant about it for a few minutes before he lets me explain that I know who took it.
This morning some bird shit on my window. It wasn’t your average shit though, it was gooey as hell and probably very fresh. Despite utterly deluging the area with wiper fluid, streaks and stains remain. If you have any information that could lead to the arrest or this dangerous bird, please call John Walsh over at America’s Most Wanted.
Baghdad Burning was updated today.
A federal court has ruled that the Federal Election Commission needs to start monitoring Internet contributions to campaigns. I’m searching for a reason why this infringes upon our rights, but I don’t think it does. I believe there should be some serious restrictions on campaign contributions. In other countries, hardly any money is spent on campaigns, especially compared to the US. What that translates to, I believe, is that people vote based on issues and stances, not on who had the better TV ads, or who was the most insulting to their opponent.
Britney Spears wants to take her new husband’s last name, Federline. I’m wondering what would happen if she did. It sure as hell doesn’t roll off the tongue as nicely as her current moniker. Then again, people are still putting up with Prince after all of his damned name changes. Who knows? I was going to link to the article, but this picture is much better. What an intellectual giant she is.
Anyone that lives in Cleveland knows that I-480 is possibly the worst highway in North America for commuting. In fact, I was just talking about this with some friends last night. If you travel east then west each day, then the sun is blinding you for miles at a time. On top of that, the general behavior of the traffic is frightening, especially first thing in the morning. Everyone will be zooming along at 70, and for no reason whatsoever, traffic comes to a screeching halt. Then, without a bit of explanation, you find yourself accelerating back to 70, scanning the side of the road for an accident, body or police cruiser. Usually it is none of the above, just too many god damned cars on the same road. Well, given it’s reputation as a mecca for accidents, the State Highway Patrol is going to be monitoring a section that had 373 crashes last year. Officials say the most common causes of these accidents are: driving a Pontiac, voting Bush/Cheney, and utter incompetence.
Last night I made a tremendous Pan Bagnet sandwich, with tuna, hard-boiled eggs, kalamata olives, green pepper, red onion, dijon vinagrette and tomatoes. It was fantastic, but it almost made John puke because he doesn’t like olives, vinegar or hard-boiled eggs. I convinced him to try it and he said later that he couldn’t get the taste out of his mouth. Ha ha.
Right now on NPR there’s a seriously conservative jackass who’s extremely full of himself, and people are calling in and just slamming him left and right. Now he’s talking about how he was called a “pro-Israel wacko” and how the people calling him that are obviously anti-semetic. That made me wonder, why is it that you can be pro-Israel, but if you’re pro-Muslim, you’re siding with terrorists?
The leading article on CounterPunch.org is all about the way Bush and Kerry are both wrong on the Iraq situation. I’d quote some statements from it, but you’d better just read it.
Michael Badnarik and the Libertarian Party are trying their best to get on the 3rd Presidential Debate. As fantastic as it would be to have a third party candidate stumping the big guys, I know damn well that Bush couldn’t handle it. And, because he couldn’t handle it, there’s no way he’ll even participate if Badnarik is added. Given the fact that Bush already breached the rules in debate #2, nothing would stop him from moving it to another city, or somehow ensuring Badnarik is not on the debate. This is another story where I hope I’m forced to eat my words. I would love to watch Bush be humiliated by an individual who’s not bound to a grocery list of bullshit.
Having been witness to GW’s bullshit for almost 4 full years now, I must admit there were moments in the last debate where I was stunned with Bush’s well-articulated responses. Stunned not because they were intelligent stances or legitimate ideas, but because he is simply not capable of assembling sentences on that level. Not long after the debate, rumors were circulating that he was wearing a wire. I held off posting anything on here because I couldn’t find a single picture, despite having seen the story multiple times. Well, today I found a wealth of information over at IsBushWired.com, a site devoted strictly to that topic. Not only that, but this BBC article features a highly-compressed, tiny JPG that still appears to clearly show the receiver AND the wire running up his right shoulder. IsBushWired.com also contains accounts from Bush/Cheney campaigners regarding the wire. One thing’s for sure, next time they’ll make sure you can’t see it.
Have you ever read a science article and thought to yourself: “I could have saved all those folks years of pointless research if they had just asked me that question”? Well, if not, here’s your very first chance. Research shows correlation between values and salary preferences of business executives. Yes, what they “discovered” is that executives concerned with ethics and values are more likely to have lower salaries than those executives who downplay values in their decisions. Shocking. Not only did I already assume that, but a lot of my discontent with the absurdly wealthy is based solely on this topic. Hording money while billions of people suffer is evil. Go ahead, call me a socialist.
Researches are finding that there is a good deal of brain activity that we just plain never noticed before, which somewhat debunks the old theory that we only use 10% of our brains. However, they seem mesmerized by the finding that younger brains do not exhibit the same amount of subconcious activity. I can offer a theory to explain that element, but it requires that you temporarily subscribe to the concept of Zen. In many publications on the topic of Zen, it is widely explained that children are born in a state of perpetual Zen. When you’re young, you haven’t “made up your mind” about a lot of things. Your list of preconceived notions is minimal to say the least. I believe that the subconcious activity they’re recognizing is the constant analysis of new information and how it relates to information already gathered. Because I doubt you know any Buddhist monks, probably everyone you know is guilty of this kind of processing. When you lay down to sleep, you’re often mulling over things that happened recently, or in some cases, a long time ago. When you’re a kid, so many things are fresh and new to you that you haven’t come to many conclusions about things. You don’t have all your memories to cross-reference new data with. I see this as an advantage for the Zen mind, or child’s mind, because it allows you to analyze information without bias. In my life, I try to never take a dogmatic stance on something I don’t already completely understand. Complete understanding is also a relative term, but without having a big ego, honest assessment of one’s knowledge on a topic is possible. So if you ever encounter me going off about someone’s inability to accept factual information stricly because of their set of preconceived notions, it’s because I am generally disgusted by that kind of behavior. (A great example of someone whose mind is completely closed for business is George W. Bush.)
Cleveland’s going to crack down on downtown panhandling. Hey, when you’re done with downtown, how about making your way over to the West Blvd. BP station? Either that is the world’s epicenter of vehicular breakdowns, or there’s a lot of panhandlers with the same damned spiel.
Browns, you total screwups. You know how I feel about Bill Cowher and the Steelers walking away with a win, yet you allowed it to happen yesterday. I know now what’s wrong with the Browns: our offensive line. Nothing else prevents us from achieving greatness more than our shitty line. A quadrapalegic child without a wheelchair could successfully blitz and sack Garcia in our current predicament. Alright, enough. Just don’t let it happen again, guys.
This weekend was the second recording installment for the Moon. We managed to finish the drums off, as well as the bass tracks! We’ve set quite a pace for ourselves, but I know once we start recording my guitar tracks it’s going to be a different story. I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised when we finish this album, especially as far as sound is concerned. It already sounds great, and we haven’t EQ’d or mixed anything.
Here’s an odd factoid: every US election since 1936 has coordinated with whoever won in the most recent Washington Redskins game. So, if the Redskins win, the incumbant remains president. This year, you better become a Packers fan, because they’re playing them on October 31st!
I don’t think it’s just my perspective on things… this year’s election is the most heated competition so far in my lifetime. People are finally more committed to a candidate than their favorite local sports team. So much so, that campaign signs and bumper stickers are being “vandalized”. Personally, if you consider your campaign sign being defaced, stolen or shit upon “vandalism”, then I feel you’re a fucking uptight shithead. The sign means nothing. You can still vote for your candidate, and I can guarantee you weren’t changing anyone’s mind based on the combination of your lovely landscaping and your Bush/Cheney sign. Sorry to let you down. Still, anyone who’s ever lived in or driven through the suburbs knows that people have nothing better to do than to get all huffy about their sign being stolen. An Akron man in fact had so little to do, he set up a nightvision security camera in a tree to catch the sign capers. Also, in Medina, Democrats are offering a reward for information about who damaged and/or stole Kerry signs. Come on people… if you really want to change people’s opinions, talk to your friends or go door to door. I find the people who are distraught about their sign being damaged or taken far more childish than those doing the “vandalizing”.
Another completely ineffective method of changing people’s voting preference is to slap your candidate’s bumper sticker on your car. I’m somewhat guilty of this, but my bumper sticker says “We’re in big trouble when our bombs are smarter than our President.” I believe this statement to be true, and it merely rejects the incumbant as opposed to supporting a candidate. Still, we Americans love to one-up eachother in just about every way possible.. so it was only a matter of time before someone made … The Kerry-mobile. (I’ll be outside blowing chunks if you need me.)
Lastly, Superman has died at age 52. Damn that’s young. Sorry, Chris. Christopher Reeve is best known for his part in the joke:
Q: “What’s the opposite of Christopher Reeve?”
A: “Chrisopher Walken”
(Sorry AGAIN, Chris.)
I’m not sure if I told this story on here or not, but when driving my company’s F-150, I dinged ‘er up nice. I was helping someone move, and the driveway was almost too small to accomodate the truck. Still, there was a little curb that I could put the tire on and manage to squeeze through. Well, before I could straighten out, the front tire slipped off the curb, rocking the truck into the house and a downspout cover, which scraped and dented the right rear quarter-panel. Dammit. She’s about to go in for service, so this may be the last time I see my handywork.
All the major news sources are buzzing about the lack of WMD in Iraq. Is this news? Did we not know that over a year ago? I’m listening to the Diane Rehm show, and there are people going back and forth about the rationale for war. There’s a right-leaning centrist consumer type on there attempting to prevent all of us from ruling out a connection between al Qadea and Saddam. Are we experiencing a collective brain lapse? It seems to me that anyone that’s avoided being blinded by FOX News should have known better… but I can’t forget that FOX News is also the most popular source of bullshit… er… news.
Given the current news situation, I’m offering a diversion this Friday. Albeit a very small diversion.
Our top story today… police in Anchorage have uncovered a house containing 200 cats. That’s an estimate of course, but by all accounts it seems to be a conservative one. Reminiscent of the woman whose skin grafted to the couch, investigators had to don gasmasks to explore the grotesque environment.
What do you do when your elephant’s just too damn fat? Why, put her on a treadmill, of course! A treadmill, estimated to cost nearly a quarter of a million bucks, is being constructed for Maggie, a 9,120 pound, 22-year old African elephant. Given that they already take her on walks, why wasn’t the option of simply denying her the huge portions she must’ve become accustomed to proposed? Shit, let her out and I’ll ride her to work and back every day. How ’bout that?
The world’s stinkiest flower is the Titan Arum, which was featured in a Simpsons episode, but maybe not called the same thing. It’s also probably the stinkiest flower, too. It’s native name translates to “corpse flower”. It’s currently on exhibit in Sydney, Australia.
Finally, you better get yo’ silly ass over to SomethingAwful for their Photoshop Phriday. This week the theme is ‘Stupid Products for Stupid People’, and I think it yielded some of the funniest Photoshops yet.
Alright, I gotta get some shit done, so I’m gonna make this snappy.
Not surprisingly, Americans have a negative view of the Muslim world. Who are the folks with the most negative impression? Less-educated white males who are politically conservative. SHOCKING.
If you watched the VP debates, you probably remember Cheney mentioning that anyone who wanted the “facts” about his involvement with Haliburton go to Factcheck.com. Well, it turns out he meant Factcheck.ORG, and whoever owns Factcheck.com had redirected the site to go to George Soros’ site. On his site he had a list of reasons why we must not re-elect George Bush. Fantastic! Oh, and remember when he was commenting about Edwards’ attendance record, and said he never even met him until tonight? Wrong.
If you want to read about how we’re going to have spaceports soon, fine, but I’m posting this link because it has a cool flash animation explaining how SpaceShipOne works.
I think it’s fairly common for women to run water when they use the toilet, for whatever reason. My ex always said that was the only way she could pee, but I knew damn well it was to cover up the noise. In Japan, it’s almost unusual to not run water while using the toilet, if you’re a woman. So, in lieu of wasting incredible amounts of water (from flushing while using the toilet), they’ve invented tiny devices with speakers that play back the sound of water rushing. Innovation at its finest. The best part is that one of them is called “The Sound Princess”!
There’s a new cyber crime out there: wardriving (or more appropriately, drive-by hacking). Little does the journalist know that this has been going on for years already.
