OK well, I don't think it's a women's room anymore--what with all the snacks, magazines and beverage-filled refrigerator cases. Just a theory. There coulda been a toilet hidden somewhere, I suppose. Maybe the cashier was sitting on it?
:D
thepete.com mirror
Friday, April 30, 2010
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... #Pinkberry
Thanks to @siskita for treating me to Pinkberry! Chocolate and pomegranate with chocolate chips, blueberries and raspberries!
Like I said: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!Why is Apple sicking the police on Gizmodo? I thought we lived in a capitalist society... oh wait, we DO...
By now you've heard of Apple's "4G" iPhone being lost and sold to gadget blog Gizmodo. In the beginning, I was thinking "Good for the lucky guy who found that phone and good for Gizmodo for doing what it takes to get the story!"
This is a capitalist society, right? If we're going to banks and businesses worry more about their bottom line than keeping the system afloat--it's perfectly reasonable to let Gizmodo and some lucky dude get all Cash-ist over this iPhone story, right? Sure, there's a law on the books, but this is about MONEY. Money clearly trumps the law in an insane amount of ways these days.So, naturally, I thought it was pretty lame for Apple to turn around and use the police to go after these guys that are just doing their part as supporters of this corruptionist system we live in today. How unfair of Apple to BUY the police like that.Then it hit me.Apple's huge now. They can afford to effectively "buy" the police or do what ever they want, really. Newsweek's Daniel Lyons claims "it’s a PR disaster" for Apple. But I think it's anything but. Did various monopoly-related court cases against Microsoft ruin their business? Of course not. This single example of Apple being dickish won't harm Apple, either.Too bad, since it provides more evidence that we no longer live in a democracy. We're not going to stop buying Apple products because they are the best. Thus, we have no way to stop them from behaving badly. We can't change the laws because our politicians defend the corporations rights over ours (We The People don't have lobbyists).So, not only can Apple easily survive something like this, but they can effectively order the police to enforce the law when the police, frankly, have better things to do than be dickish on behalf of some megacorporation.I mean, seriously, what does enforcing the law in this case do? Discourage other people from selling smartphone prototypes they find in California bars??And so, I give Apple an EFFYOU from EFFYOU.org. :)Still, damn scary to think how the cops will jump through hoops to protect the property of some giant corp. I had three car stereos stolen and the police did nothing.But Apple loses one phone and the cops SWOOP IN!
IRONY WATCH: George Orwell Plaza: Under Surveillance
MORE IRONY: Google Maps Street View doesn't have Placa De George Orwell. This is as close as it comes: http://goo.gl/K7RZ (link to Google Maps)
RIP Leslie Buck, designer of one of the most iconic cups (and a one of my favorite mugs I've ever owned)...
The Anthora seems to have been here forever, as if bestowed by the gods at the city’s creation. But in fact, it was created by man — one man in particular, a refugee from Nazi Europe named Leslie Buck. (via Leslie Buck, Designer of Iconic Coffee Cup, Dies at 87 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com)
A few years back TheDad was in the MoMA gift shop and found ceramic replicas of this cup. He knew my love of NYCish items and bought one each for my wife and I. When I got them I was so excited because I'd seen the ceramic version online just days earlier. My wife looked at it and didn't get the significance (being a California resident her entire life), but then we started noticing them in movies shot in New York City. Then we moved here. This morning it was my wife that told me about Leslie Buck's passing.
Neat how life works sometimes... and sometimes sad.
RIP Leslie Buck!
I drank out of your cup only yesterday! You will never be forgotten!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
RetroJay ThePal!! Jay TheVlog for March 28, 2009!! Guest-starring @bateatsbat
RetroJay ThePal!! Jay TheVlog for March 28, 2009!! Guest-starring @bateatsbat
Here are all my 12s that I posted on 12seconds.tv back in like the last week of March, 2009, man!! You get my Messages of the Day, my 12seconds.tv challenges, my What I Wanna Know Ises, and everything else I did that week, man! All of my clips from that week in one 11m15s video, man! Ya gotta watch!! YEAH!!
OH YEAH and there’s special guest-star Bateatsbat too!
via jay.thepal.us
Wow. March 28, 2009! Why it seems like just a month ago!
Oh, wait--that was March 28, 2010 was a month ago. ;)
Anyway, check out this great compilation of stuff we shot with Jay last year long before going HD!
Phlogiston, the luminiferous ether, the planet Vulcan and why we don't have to prove God doesn't exist.
"Phlogiston, the luminiferous ether, and the planet Vulcan are theoretical entities that were postulated in order to explain various phenomena. Phlogiston was postulated to explain heat, the luminiferous ether was postulated to explain the propagation of light waves through empty space, and Vulcan was postulated to explain the perturbations in the orbit of Mercury. Science has shown, however, that these phenomena can be explained without invoking these entities. By demonstrating that these entities are not needed to explain anything, science has proven that they do not exist.
God is a theoretical entity that is postulated by theists to explain various phenomena, such as the origin of the universe, the design of the universe, and the origin of living things. Modern science, however, can explain all of these phenomena without postulating the existence of God.1 In the words of Laplace, science has no need of that hypothesis. By demonstrating that God is not needed to explain anything, science has proven that there is no more reason to believe in the existence of God than to believe in the existence of phlogiston, the luminiferous ether, or Vulcan. This may explain why more than 90% of the world’s top scientists disbelieve or doubt the existence of God."
But if Vulcan doesn't exist, where did Spock come from??
Remember, all you religious types out there: all of us atheists are just a test from God. ;)
You may feel the urge to be critical of us, but if you consider that we are just part of God's Plan, you'll see that all you need to do to triumph over us is to stick, doggedly, blindly to your own beliefs and never ever question them.
Ever.
See that? We atheists are harmless. ;P
As 210,000 gallons of oil a day spill into the Gulf too many voices discourage alternative energy development
From an April 29, 2010 article at MSNBC.com:
"As it is now, it's already looking like this could be the worst oil spill since the Valdez," John Hocevar, oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA, told msnbc.com on Thursday.
"It’s quite possible this will end up being worse than the Valdez in terms of environmental impact since it seems like BP will be unable to cap the spill for months. In terms of total quantity of oil released, it seems this will probably fall short of Exxon Valdez. But because of the habitat, the environmental impact will be worse."
"Probably the only thing comparable to this is the Kuwait fires [following the Gulf War in 1991]," Mike Miller, head of Canadian oil well fire-fighting company Safety Boss, told the BBC World Service.
"The Exxon Valdez is going to pale in comparison to this as it goes on."
...
BP's well is spewing about 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the ocean, the Coast Guard estimates.
But if the leak is not capped, millions of gallons of oil could spill into the Gulf of Mexico. The environmental impact could be disastrous if the oil reaches the ecologically fragile U.S. coastline.
Meanwhile, the NYTimes, seems to think risks like this are worth taking because we can be "careful." From an editorial, today, at NYTimes.com:
The Gulf of Mexico accounts for one-third of America’s domestic oil production and one-fourth of its natural gas. There are 90 exploratory rigs working there and about 3,500 oil-producing platforms. Despite all of that activity, the federal Minerals Management Service says there have been no major spills — defined as 1,000 barrels or more — in the last 15 years, a period that includes Hurricane Katrina. In that context, the blowout — while tragic and destructive — can be seen as a freak occurrence.
A "freak occurence" that will cause immense ecological damage to local wildlife, immense economic damage to local businesses that rely on said local wildlife for their own livelihood (aka commercial fishing). And if the oil reaches the beaches, say good-bye to tourism.
Of course, you don't usually think of "ecological disasters" when you think about alternative energy, do you? There are no "solar energy leaks" that could wipe out ecological systems or kill local economies. So, considering the safety and the ease of using alternative energy sources, once developed, why are there so many naysayers still out there? It seems difficulty may be a reason--a reason that seems acceptable to some.
Why else would WashingtonPost.com give voice to a moron like Robert Bryce, who packed an entire book full of excuses as to why green energy is not a direction to go in?
People seem to obsess over immediate difficulties rather than long-term successes. Because the way solar panels are made is not perfect, people have told me that solar is all but a dead end. Mr. Bryce, in that WaPo op-ed, claims that wind farms don't reduce CO2, but he fails to explain why or point out that there are other benefits to wind farms, like lessening our need for oil. He also seems to think that because battery technology isn't flaw-free, we should not bother developing better battery technology.
I remember back around 2003, when the war in Iraq broke, I was in LA, listening to a talk show guy on the radio explain that the war for oil was a good thing. He said something to the effect that "Solar's great, but it can't get us to work tomorrow."
And it still can't. But do you think it might have gotten us to work by now if we'd started sinking millions into it back in 2003?
No wonder we don't go to the moon anymore.
We want solutions now and we don't want to work for them--hell, we don't even want to imagine them.
Responsibility is a tough thing to live up to, kids. But if we don't do it, who will?
Just my ¥2, as always, but are we going to let excuses rule our lives? Or are we going to take a risk or two?
Too cool for us Doctor Who fans: Dalek Victory WWII Propaganda Poster
I do wish it would mention either the word "Dalek" or the name they were called by in the episode (which is escaping me right this mo'). Still, awesome poster!
Promo Poster of the Day: The BBC created this sweet Dalek propaganda poster to promote “Victory of the Daleks” — the third episode of the new season of Doctor Who.
Hi-res PDF available here.
[boingboing.]
Reblogged from tardisadventures on April 21, 2010
![tardisadventures: thetardis: thedailywhat: Promo Poster of the Day: The BBC created this sweet Dalek propaganda poster to promote “Victory of the Daleks” — the third episode of the new season of Doctor Who. Hi-res PDF available here. [boingboing.]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t8dsxGwRuTMvKoGWJvK3_DvH5cvBWoqIZy7AeFmeWCmknyEDXvbGAbnOLl70JrSs-xVqVHBGDGpPSgkTO88zac_RW33wN7ulvPcmBMS3QUt2XWTIVyQsQmK-XmZm7mJYI=s0-d)
I wish they'd make stuff like this for every new episode. Too awesome!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Why following our own rules is so very important...because if you don't, who will? Not the Iraqi PM, anyway!
April 28"America is the symbol of democracy, but then you have the abuses at Abu Ghraib… The American government took tough measures, and we are doing the same, so where is the problem and why this raucousness?Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki responding to revelations of torture at a secret prison. Sounds like he wants to pursue the same tough measures: hold a few low-ranking folks responsible while the leadership remains unscathed.
This is a perfect example of why you don't break your own laws--even if you say "it's just this once!"
Why? Because other folks will use you as an example to follow.
If we torture, others can point a finger at us and say we did it, so why can't they? If we don't torture, we can point a finger at them and actually have a leg to stand on when we tell them to stop.
As it is now, all we can do is shrug.
If something is banned--that means it should NEVER be done. Not when you do it "for a good reason" or when they do it because we did it.
Time to grow up, kids. War is not a game. Real people are dying and suffering and paying the price *every day* because of our failed leadership in the world.
Get off the Sugar and other fake foods--humans evolved to eat organics, not man-made crap
The above media comes from nyc.gov/health via this post on garr.posterous.com. Some of what follows comes from a comment on Garr's post about quiting sugary drinks--but I don't think sugary drinks is enough...
Without changing my exercise habits (WHAT exercise habits??) I lost 20 pounds in a month.
My moods stabilized (I thought I was just a temperamental artist) as did my general health.
What's scary is that even now, seven years later, I still have intense cravings and urges for surgary foods. I will splurge once a month on something like ice cream, but sometimes I'll lose control and gorge. I'm so glad I took that chance because now I know how addicted my body is to this bad stuff.
So, when you see Jay ThePal associated with Mountain Dew, understand that there is NOTHING that is healthy enough to consume EVERY DAY. So, don't do it. And the next time you find yourself taking health advice from a guy made of foam and felt, you should probably be concerned for more than just your physical health ;P
And by the way, I don't think it should be our jobs as individuals to have to watch out for the food we eat. I think it should be a corporation's responsibility to provide healthy foods (especially when the products are marketed as healthy). I don't want anything banned completely--I just want to be able to have real choices, which we really don't have now. Either we eat cheap and unhealthy or we spend extra cash and eat healthy and everything has added salt and sweeteners. Both are very bad for us.
Why should we have to spend more to be healthy? What's the point of corporations if they're only in this for themselves? And don't think for a moment that food companies aren't out to get you--they are. So be on the lookout for bad stuff. They want you fat, stupid and addicted to their product just like the cigarette companies.
The bottom line seems to be the ultimate addiction.
Something funny happened when I took an iPhone pic of myself eating a banana today.
The world got all anamorphic and crap!
What is going on with my iPhone, I do not know!Untitled
Hangin' with ThePete - Out of Mongolia (thanks for the plugs, Dave!) http://ping.fm/EkoWs
via Ping.fm
In the face of hard evidence people stick with what they know (even if the evidence contradicts what they know)
April 20, 2010Convincing the Public to Accept New Medical Guidelines
When it comes to new treatment guidelines for breast cancer, back pain and other maladies, it’s the narrative presentation that matters.
By Christie Aschwanden...
Nieman, director of the Human Performance Lab at Appalachian State University, eventually did recruit the subjects he needed for the study, comparing pain and inflammation in runners who took ibuprofen during the race with those who didn’t, and the results were unequivocal. Ibuprofen failed to reduce muscle pain or soreness, and blood tests revealed that ibuprofen takers actually experienced greater levels of inflammation than those who eschewed the drug. “There is absolutely no reason for runners to be using ibuprofen,” Nieman says.
...
That article is HUGE and I have yet to read it all (can you say nstapaper? I CAN!) but I found it very interesting that folks will ignore facts in favor of what they've been taught (I'm also wondering if Ibuprofin actually works on my headaches or if it's just psychosomatic).
I think we need to teach ourselves to accept new data and adapt accordingly.
AKA: Don't get set in your ways!
What every good conservative knew was going on ALL ALONG! "I've robbed the Rainbow to make you GAY"
I’ve robbed the rainbow to make you gay.
God damn jester!! Why must he make us GAY??
Infographic telling UKers how to eat seasonably as opposed to expecting avocados in winter... or whatever...
The Seasonal Food Calendar Infographic Eating vegetables in season makes sense, because the amount of energy used to get a blueberry from a neighboring state is a tiny fraction of one flown in from Chile. Introducing the Seasonal Food Calendar, a pinwheel infographic that shows what’s in season by month; the outermost ring shows what’s particularly delicious at that time.Click through for the full-size infographic.
(via: fastcompany)
Great infographic, solid wisdom.
Wish we had one o' these for the US. I don't even know if avocados are seasonal. ;(
I mean, I like the idea of shopping locally (which is the same as eating seasonally because you're buying what ever is available/grown locally) but it's tough because there just isn't enough of a demand for it yet. I think I'd have to go out to Brooklyn to get food grown within an hour of the city and it takes me an hour just to get to Brooklyn!
Still, it'd be nice to know what food is grown during what season in the US (or anywhere a person lives) so we can only eat that food and discourage the shipment of foods from far away, which encourages pollution and waste.
We should go to the food, not the other way around.
New Oklahoma law forces abortion seekers to have their faces rubbed in their already difficult choice.
Three cheers for white men in suits who think life is more important than freedom!
In short, if you're a woman who is economically screwed, or if you were raped, and ended up pregnant you have to look at the fetus and get a detailed description of the heart, arms, legs, etc, before you're allowed to get an abortion.
They want you to suffer for making the already hard choice of aborting your baby. They want you to suffer for your choice to not raise it in a state of poverty. If you were raped, they want you to feel extra horrible for ending the resulting pregnancy and lifetime of commitment to a child you had forced on you. Adoption? Is it any less traumatic to put up for adoption a child you've carried for 9 months knowing the state of orphans in this country? Give me a break you ignorant, besuited, white men. There used to be a phrase that true Americans *may* remember: "Live free or die." Here's another one: "Give me liberty or give me death." What do those phrases mean? They mean that we value freedom over our own lives. They mean we're supposed to be willing to die to protect the human rights of others. So the question ultimately comes down to this: which is more deserving human rights--who is more human? The unborn baby or the mother? Screencap source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/us/28abortion.html?th&emc=thTuesday, April 27, 2010
In what I think might be the hippest coffeehouses I've ever written in...
The Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
Check out their Tumblr blog: http://housingworksbookstore.tumblr.com
Got to remember to bring cash next time--they've got a $4.00 minimum on credit cards. Also can't see an outlet anywhere--should brought my extra battery.Beautiful day in NYC today--just gorgeous!
OH MY GOD THE SUN! IT BURNSSS! IT BURNS THE FLESH! AAAAAAAA!
In case you missed it: Jay ThePal appears in a national TV commercial for Mountain Dew!! YEAH!!!
Watch closely in those first few seconds!!
Jay ThePal in a nationwide Mountain Dew TV Commercial, man!! YEAH!!!!
Just watch right at the beginning, man and you’ll see me! But I don’t know what I said.
Watch me unbox the Mountain Dew Dewlabs Kit, man!!
Watch me, Kay ThePal and our friends taste the potential new flavors of Mountain Dew, man!! YEAH!!
OH YEAH, forgot to say THANKS to @KevinPSB00 for the heads-up that he saw me on TV! THANKS, MAN!! YEAAAH!!
AND OF COURSE, I gotta thank the guys at @12seconds, man!! I couldn’ta done it without you guys!!
via jay.thepal.us
This was pretty sweet (no pun intended) but a couple weeks back I found out a bit of Jay's video might get used in a commercial for MD! I signed a waiver (aka I don't get paid :( ) and then emailed it to 'em. Then today, @KevinPSB00 on tells me on Twitter that he say Jay on TV last night!
As Jay always says:
YEAH!!!
AWESOME chart describing the impressive history of Lego!
Oh and Dubai is getting Legoland. Are they already kind of a *real* Legoland...?
Still, neat chart! Fascinating stuff, huh?
80% of Americans polled say they don't trust the USG to do what's right. Wow.
Pulled this article up on my iPhone last week and then forgot to blog about it.
"Only 22 percent of Americans say they trust the government "just about always" or "most of the time," according to the Pew Research Center survey released on Sunday." I'd like to see how businesses fair with this question. Personally, I see absolutely no reason to trust any leader in government or business to do what's right. The emperor has no clothes? Try society. Screencap source : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/19/AR20100419001...
LOVE IT:
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they do not trust the U.S. government to do what is right, expressing the highest level of distrust in Washington in half a century, according to a public opinion survey.""Only 22 percent of Americans say they trust the government "just about always" or "most of the time," according to the Pew Research Center survey released on Sunday." I'd like to see how businesses fair with this question. Personally, I see absolutely no reason to trust any leader in government or business to do what's right. The emperor has no clothes? Try society. Screencap source : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/19/AR20100419001...
Think the new laws the USG is passing to "reform" Wall Street are actually going to reform it? SIGH...
Too big to fail is alive and well, alas. Indeed, several aspects of the legislative proposals sanction and codify the special status conferred on institutions that are seen as systemically important. Instead of reducing the number of behemoth firms assigned this special status, the bills would encourage smaller companies to grow large and dangerous so that they, too, could have a seat at the bailout buffet.
Gretchen Morgenson with a nice bit in the NYT about our toothless financial reform legislation
I hope no one is surprised at this. I've been blogging about corporatism for years and feel that this is just another brick in the wall of a return to a feudalistic society, where everyone works for a feud/corporation or the king/government.
Corporations are parahumans. They have the same rights as us but can't serve jail time and can potentially, very easily, have bottomless bank accounts for lawsuits.
If I had less scruples, I'd incorporate, take out as many loans as I could and then declare bankruptcy before paying any of them back. Why be honest when you can get loans, not pay them back and buy all sorts of cool stuff in the process?
Why it's perfectly reasonable to be a smug atheist (reminds me of why it's reasonable to be a smug Mac person)
Advice for atheists? : Pharyngula
Total ownage. Here is an excerpt. Read the whole thing.
Look, you start an argument, you don’t get to whine at your opponent to be humble about his ideas before you’ve even taken a stab at criticizing them. Show me a reason not to be smug about atheism, and reason, and science, and the superiority of our beliefs over that pile of superstitious dogma you call faith. Don’t simply instruct me to stop regarding atheism as possibly not superior to your cultish apologetics.
Christians also don’t get to play the humility card, anyway. People who believe they have privileged access to mysterious information direct from the brain of a cosmos-spanning super-intelligence, and who believe everyone else is damned to eternal torment, aren’t exactly poster-children for modesty.
And personally, I think it's pretty damn whiny to be one of the "big three" religions and feel the need to bag on us atheists. I mean, really, do you even need to defend yourself from a group as tiny as atheists?? You must have some serious, just-under-the-skin doubts about your faith or why would you feel threatened by a bunch of science nerds?
Lighten up, kids! We atheists aren't going to ban churches!
Hit up the link in the excerpt title for more pro-no-god fun...
USNews.com asks: Should the Food Industry Ban Added Salt and Sugar? (duh)
Saw this the other day, screencapped it but forgot to post it:
YES.
Well, the USG should ban sugar and salt and High Fructose Corn Syrup and other addatives that don't add nutritional value, from being added to any food at all. We can leave it up to each citizen to determine how sweet or salty they want it. Who wants some *corporation* telling us how much salt and sugar (or other artificial crap) to put in our bodies?? On a less dramatic note, back in 2003 I stopped consuming foods with chemicals in them--sugar, HFCS, and any other manmade crap and guess what happened--I lost 20 pounds in a month without changing anything else in my life. No kidding. If the USG cares about our health (since clearly the food industry doesn't) they'll help us all make the same choice and let us determine *on our own* how much sugar and/or salt we want to add. Screencap source: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/heart/articles/2010/04/21/s..."Detain or subpoena the pope for questioning in the child-rape scandal? You must be joking!" (Chris Hitchens)
Detain or subpoena the pope for questioning in the child-rape scandal? You must be joking! All right then, try the only alternative formulation: declare the pope to be above and beyond all local and international laws, and immune when it comes to his personal and institutional responsibility for sheltering criminals. The joke there would be on us.
I often disagree with Hitchens, but he's dead on about this. Funny thing is, I've been saying this very same thing about the office of the president for seven or eight years now. :(
Evolution, it's more than "just a theory" read more about it from http://givemesomethingtoread.com
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Improbability PumpUnlike germ theory, the idea of evolution strikes at the heart of human ego, suggesting that we were not the special object of God’s attention but were made by the same blind and mindless process of natural selection that also built ferns, fish and rabbits. Another answer is ignorance: most Americans are simply unaware of the multifarious evidence that makes evolution more than “just a theory,” and don’t even realize that a scientific theory is far more than idle speculation.
This is why education and *praising intelligence* is so important.
The "theory" of evolution is how we came to be. Denying that is denying the truth.
Which is ironic since many folks say denying the Bible is denying truth. Funny how the Bible and Evolution conflict.
Ahhh well!!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Blocktor Who: Doctor Who Lego (no, not an officially licensed set, sadly!)
I can't work out who the guy in the upper right is supposed to be, but I get everyone else :) And how perfect is it that the Lego Tardis looks a little small? ;)
Saturday, April 24, 2010
My very favorite kind of advertising on the subway...
I was going to switch seats but then realized I wasn't going to get a better view than this.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Live in NYC? Got nothing going on Saturday night? Come see Lisa Rein (& @siskita!) sing at the Duplex!
When: April 24, 2010
Time: 10-11pm
Where: Duplex Theatre, NY City!
Address: 61 Christopher St @ 7th Avenue
NEW YORK CITY!!
Phone: (212) 255-5438
It's very exciting for me to be performing at the awesome Dupex Theatre in the West Village.!
This show is a solid straight hour, and my songs are short! So you'll get all the oldies plus as many as 3 or 4 brand new tunes :-) (I've been busy writing a lot lately.)!
There's also a great piano bar there at the Duplex, and we'll be there until close, so if you absolutely can't make the show (10 sharp! House rules :-) please come by afterwards to have a drink and say hi!
via lisarein.com
Yes, Lisa Rein is actually my sister-in-law (and the woman behind OnLisaReinsRadar.com) and so it follows that @siskita will be performing back up!
Why green shopping and just about ANYTHING we do as individuals WILL NOT save the Earth... (sorry, kids!)
Sure, it's great that we all do our best to reduce our carbon footprint and to generally be less wasteful, buuuut:
On the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, Let’s ... Go Shopping!
Buying green and changing personal behavior won't save the planet.
By Sharon Begley | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Apr 21, 2010...
Shopping for the planet is just one manifestation of how green activism has gone seriously off course as it has spread a gospel of personal change rather than collective action. Of the Nature Conservancy's five recommendations for Earth Day, four—figure out your carbon footprint here, time your shower, go for a walk (!), and find a farmers’ market—involve individual behavior. Only a single suggestion, "speak up on climate change" by letting lawmakers know you support the energy and climate bill that Sens. Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham plan to introduce this week, gets at the only kind of change that has been shown in the 40 years since the first Earth Day to make a difference.
As my colleague Ian Yarett documents in his progress report on the environment, every example of major environmental progress—reducing acid rain, improving air quality, restoring the ozone layer—has been the result of national legislation or a global treaty. We reduced acid rain by restricting industry's sulfur emissions, not by all going out and sprinkling bicarb on sensitive forests and lakes. Leaded gasoline was banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1996, not by everyone choosing to buy cars that run on unleaded. Ozone-chomping CFCs were banned by the 1987 Montreal Protocol, not by everyone deciding to forgo spray cans and air conditioning.
The gases had to be banned, people. All environmental progress has come through national- and international-level regulation—to be blunt, by forcing people and industry to stop doing environmentally bad things and start doing environmentally good things, not by relying on individuals' green good will or even the power of the marketplace.
...
via newsweek.com
There's much more to that article. Hit that newsweek.com link above to read it all.
Food for thought for sure. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that the reporter is right--corporations will use what ever nasty chemicals they want to until there's a law banning them (and the ban better have fines big enough to make it cost prohibitive to break the ban, because they'll do that, too).
Of course, what the reporter doesn't come out and say is that corporations are lazy, amoral entities that don't give a shit about humans or our health.
Once we accept the truth about corporations, regulating them and reducing their rights also becomes a no-brainer. Too bad nobody in government or even pop culture is willing to just come out and speak the truth. Also too bad that both our governmental leaders and our cultural "leaders" are all in cahoots with corporations.
In short, we're kinda screwed.
But hey, you use compact fluorescent bulbs, right? You recycle, right? You use a reusable bag when you shop, right? You drive a hybrid?
That's good because that's about all that we, as individuals, *can* do. The rest is up to the super-entities (corporations) and the governments that regulate them (or don't regulate them, as the case often is).
Bad food cheaper than good food thanks to government farming subsidies make Jack a fat, slow, stupid boy.
Why is it you can buy a double cheeseburger at McDonalds for 99 cents and you can’t even get a head of broccoli for 99 cents? We’ve skewed our food system to the bad calories and it’s not an accident. The reason those calories are cheaper are because those are the ones we are heavily subsidizing. This is directly tied to the kind of agriculture that we are practicing and the farm policies we have. All those snack food calories are the ones that come from the commodity crops, from the wheat, from the corn and from the soybeans. By making those calories really cheap, that is the reason why the biggest predictor of obesity is income level.Michael Pollan (via soupsoup)
This is what happens when corporations construct our federal policy. Health insurance reform was essentially written by the industry just as our food bills are written by the corporations behind the food supply chain. Are corporate interests more important than social good? It appears so. We need leadership that preemptively takes a stand for social interest over corporate profitability.(via jayparkinsonmd : poptech)
I've been wondering for years why healthy food is so much more expensive than unhealthy food. So it's the government that inadvertently encourages this price imbalance.
This just feeds (no pun intended) my theory that government and corporations are working together (perhaps unconsciously) to make us fat, slow and stupid.
Not really a theory, at this point though, is it? More of an axiom.
http://thepete.com/a/cancerruinslives a post about cancer, what it does & why we need to change our thinking
I posted some thoughts about cancer yesterday, but I hope that, if you missed it or skipped it, you'll take some time to read those thoughts today. According to World Health Organization statistics, one in three people in the developed world (that's our world) will get cancer. Yet, we spend hundreds of billions more on fighting terror than we spend on researching cancer. Why is this? I know cancer is depressing but the person at the next desk over, or the person behind you in line at the Starbucks, or the guy in the car next to you stuck in traffic or someone you love could have cancer already. We need to rethink how we think about cancer.
Please check out my post from yesterday. Thanks.
Republicans call out the SEC as wankers--Repubs doing their job? Or just distracting from their own wanking?
[It is] disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation’s economy on the brink of collapse.
Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, with a perhaps understated response to news that dozens of senior SEC staffers were watching porn instead of the financial system.
And after 8 years of BEING big government and big spending and being in the back pocket of big banks and big business you're suddenly caring what the SEC is up to? They were wasting time with Internet porn as a FAVOR TO YOU. That way all your Wall Street cronies could get away with all the crap they've been pulling!
Really, Republicans, you should be thanking them.
Seriously, Republicans, why should we take you guys seriously?
Seriously.
Launch of a new Super Secret Space Plane Begins Militarization of Space--when does it land? Nobody knows!
Air Force Launches Secretive Space Plane; ‘We Don’t Know When It’s Coming Back’
By Jason Paur
April 23, 2010 7:46 am
The Air Force has fended off statements calling the X-37B a space weapon, or a space-based drone to be used for spying or delivering weapons from orbit. In a conference call with reporters, deputy undersecretary for the Air Force for space programs Gary Payton acknowledged much of the current mission is classified. But perhaps the most intriguing answer came when he was asked by a reporter wanting to cover the landing as to when the X-37B would be making its way back to the planet.
“In all honesty, we don’t know when it’s coming back for sure,” Payton said.
via wired.com and thedaytheytriedtokillme.com
Now would be a good time for aliens to show up and put us in our place :( After all, this is the first 100% military vehicle in space.
Well, the first that we know of :)
Hit that wired.com link above for more on this plane and the mystery surrounding it.
McCain insane: "drivers of cars with illegals in it that are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway"
O'REILLY: Now, next week, the governor is going to sign, we believe, a very stringent state law that gives the police in Arizona very, very broad authority to question people. And a lot of people say it's going to be racial profiling. You're going to look for Hispanics, question them, to see if they're here legally or not. And it's just not fair. And you say why?MCCAIN: I say that the federal responsibilities have not been fulfilled. Therefore, the states are acting -- the state of Arizona is acting and doing what they feel they need to do in light of the fact that the federal government is not fulfilling its fundamental responsibility to secure our borders. Our borders must be secure.
O'REILLY: But what about the racial profiling? You know that's going to happen has to happen.
MCCAIN: I hope -- I would be very sorry that if some of that happens. And I regret it, but I also regret the -- really, it's not just the murder of Robert Krantz. It's the people whose homes and property are being violated. It's the drive-by that -- the drivers of cars with illegals in it that are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway. Look, our border is not secured. Our citizens are not safe.
This is an all-time low for McCain.
Wouldn't it have been funny if he had gotten elected and then went off the deep end like this?
OK, so McCain's probably not really insane, but it is obvious he's willing to do anything to stay in office.
Do we have any heroes left at this point?
Well, I mean, aside from fictional ones? (I just watched "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" last night. Reed Richards is cool!)
Blippy.com lets credit card numbers onto the public Internet & reminds me why I'll never use services like it
Credit where due: the NY Times Bits blog already has the full skinny up:
In a phone interview Friday morning, Blippy’s co-founder, Philip Kaplan, said the card numbers in question belonged to four Blippy users. He explained that when people link their credit cards to Blippy, merchants pass along their raw transaction data – including some credit card numbers – and the site scrubs that information to present just the merchant and the dollar amount spent. But several months ago, when Blippy was being publicly tested, that raw transaction data was present in the site’s HTML code, where it was retrieved by Google.
Holy crap. This is crazy. And there are still lots of numbers up on Google with the right search terms. This is insane.
Blippy Exposing Users’ Credit Card Numbers To Internet - The Consumerist
via tumblr.absono.us
Sorry, even without listing my credit card number, exposing every purchase I make to the public Internet is the most absurd thing I've ever heard.
And yes, Blippy didn't mean to do it, but I'm sorry--it's just the dumbest thing in the world to want to do. You might as well hang a list of cool stuff you own on your front door so any passing thieves can have a look at a menu.
Likewise, this is why I'm not active on any location-based sites. It really is kind of stupid to provide such an easy tool to determine when you're not at home and when you are.
See, what I do when I want to let people know about the cool thing I just bought or the cool place I'm visiting is mention it on Twitter. Or take a picture or shoot a video and post it to my stream.
K.I.S.K: Keep It Simple, Kids!
Fortune Magazine rejects cover from cartoonist Chris Ware (prolly b/c it's so truthful)
Nope, they have to reject it just because it makes all corporations, and the financial system itself, look pretty bad. BOO-HOO.
You know, I just don't think Fortune Magazine has enough of a sense of irony to have gone with that cover. Hell, clearly, they can't even take a joke. A blunt, powerful and devistatingly accurate, joke.
My favorite part has to be the "Milton Friedman Paycheck Advance." If you don't know who Friedman is/was, Google him. To some he was a high priest of finance who developed a sort of Bible for the way the entire planet should do money, to others he was a fear mongering money magician who indirectly caused the oppression of millions and the deaths of who knows how many.
found via: newsweek.tumblr.com who got it from dailydesigndiscoveries.com who got it from thestranger.com who got it from comicsbeat.com
Thursday, April 22, 2010
More on Republican Morons & their descent toward oblivion--before the tea parties & Palin, the Dark KRISTOL!
This is a loose follow up to my earlier post on Republican dickweed "no-men". "Loose" because these aren't my comments. But these words are an interesting theory as to when the "no-men" thing really started. Stay tuned after for a quick comment from TheMe.
If Responsible Republicans are in fact approaching extinction, I think we can identify the crucial event that signaled their demise. It was a December 1993 memo by conservative strategist and commentator William Kristol. Kristol’s advice about how Republicans should respond to Bill Clinton’s 1993 health-care effort pushed the GOP away from any cooperation with the other side. His message marks the pivotal moment when Republicans shifted from fundamentally responsible partners in governing the country to uncompromising, hyperpartisan antagonists on all issues.
In his five-page memo, Kristol took aim at Bob Dole and other congressional Republicans who were then working to find a compromise around the shared goals of universal coverage and cost containment. Kristol called for the GOP to “adopt an aggressive and uncompromising counterstrategy designed to delegitimize the proposal.” He argued that a bipartisan deal on health care would be a political victory for Democrats and a defeat for the GOP. “Unqualified political defeat of the Clinton health care proposal,” Kristol wrote, ” … would be a monumental setback for the president, and an incontestable piece of evidence that Democratic welfare-state liberalism remains firmly in retreat.”
Weisberg, on the decline of the Responsible Republican
The only problem I have with these words is that they suggest a sort of "destiny's child" involved in this--as though we could have stopped this all from happening if Bill Kristol hadn't written that memo. The catch is, Kristol was just one of a phalanx of fetal neo-cons waiting to birth a movement that would fuck things up for all of us. Sending a Terminator back to kill Kristol's mom or Kristol himself wouldn't change anything. There's still Rumsfeld and Cheney who had been neo-cons loooong before the term existed (pre-neo-cons?).
Still, it's an interesting pinch of history there and it did really happen.
Damn you #FACEBOOK: To prevent your friends from sharing your info with Facebook partners....................
To prevent your friends from sharing your info with Facebook partners, block Microsoft Docs.com, Pandora, and Yelp apps.This nugget is buried deep within Facebook’s new privacy statement.
The more you know
From me and others: More on Facebook's changes.
Cancer doesn't just take lives it ruins them... (in case this chart: http://goo.gl/nATb isn't enough for you)
OK, so, I haven't blogged too much about my own experiences with cancer--I've never had it, but my step-dad is fighting it right now. First, colorectal cancer and currently lung cancer. You don't want to know how he beat the colorectal cancer.
The point I'm getting to here is that cancer doesn't just kill people it often ruins their lives first.
Take the case of Karla Sandman--her brother-in-law @TeddySandman posted a page on his Ning site about her and how, at 28, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Here's just part of Karla's story:
For those of you who are not familiar with Leukemia it is a blood cancer that originates in the bone marrow or lymphatic tissues. The disease results from an acquired genetic injury to the DNA of a single cell, which becomes abnormal (malignant) and multiplies continuously. The accumulation of malignant cell interferes with the body's production of healthy blood cells. Damage to the bone marrow, by way of displacing the normal bone marrow cells with higher numbers of immature white blood cells, results in a lack of blood platelets, which are important in the blood clotting process. This means people with leukemia may easily become bruised, bleed excessively, or develop pinprick bleeds (petechiae).Damn horrible stuff, too be sure. But this damn horrible stuff goes on all the time. Yet, if you do a search for "cancer" on Twitter (how I stumbled across Karla Sandman's story in the first place) you'll find that nobody really seems to think of cancer as preventable. Sure, loads of folks are certain that "we can find a cure!" but who is pointing a finger at government and asking the damn good question: "Why are you spending hundreds of billions on fighting terror but a tiny tiny tiny fraction fighting cancer?"
White blood cells, which are involved in fighting pathogens, may be suppressed or dysfunctional. This could cause the patient's immune system to be unable to fight off a simple infection or to start attacking other body cells. Because leukemia prevents the immune system from working normally, some patients experience frequent infection, ranging from infected tonsils, sores in the mouth, or diarrhea to life-threatening pneumonia or opportunistic infections. Finally, the red blood cell deficiency leads to anemia, which may cause dyspnea and pallor.
Needless to say this has been devastating to watch her go through such agonizing pain. She dropped in weight to 80lbs, lost her hair, and pronounced almost dead on one occasion. My brother practically slept on the floor in her room at the hospital for almost a year and a half and due to the on going chemo therapy, blood transfusions, and bone marrow transplant it has eaten her body away to almost nothing. Now after at least 15 major surgeries including two shoulder replacements, two hip replacements, and she has now lost all her teeth (top and bottom) so pretty much anything you could imagine that can be wrong with a person is wrong with her. Because of the on going surgeries and one major one coming up it has left my brother in financial ruins.
You think $10 here and $10 there can add up to enough money to do something hundreds of millions over years and years couldn't?
As I said in my April 12, 2010 post including a depressing chart illustrating just how common cancer is (answer: VERY), the USG spends less than $300 million a year on cancer research. Yet no one seems to mind the absurd imbalance in spending between that and terrorism. Terrorists don't come close to 7.4 million deaths cancer causes. So why aren't we fighting a war against cancer?
Think about someone like my step-dad who has to crap in a bag for the rest of his life. Think about Karla Sandman--fighting for her life while still in her 20s--what the fuck is going on here? How do we let this continue to happen? What kind of country are we when we let the spectacle of explosions and imagined "evil" trump the true terror of watching a loved one suffer, seemingly without end?
For the record, I personally know 3 people with cancer, right now. My step-dad, my step-mother-in-law and a family friend. My grand-father died of it, a college friend of mine died of it and another college friend survived it.
If you want to help Karla's family out, please check out Teddy Sandman's Ning page here: http://teddysandman.ning.com/page/karla-sandman-aid
My folks are starting to feel the financial pinch but I haven't talked to them about setting up a way to donate or anything. I'll have to talk to them about that. But whether you can help financially or not, please help all of humanity by no longer thinking about cancer as some random act of god.
It isn't--it's a disease that we can cure, but not without a LOT of money--more money than you or I could afford to give. Raise your voice, blog, Tweet, whatever--speak up about how the government needs to do something to fight cancer--something NOW so the people who are fighting to survive NOW have some kind of HOPE.
Like Mary K. Wilson, the wife behind the Diary of a Brain Tumor Patient's Wife blog, discovered the hard way, insurance isn't going to cure her husband's cancer and insurance may not even pay to keep him alive.
We need a cure. Now.
It's time we started demanding it from the body charged with keeping us safe--our government.
Another great chart via http://infographie.posterous.com how much countries invest in which alt energies
via awesome.good.is
Is it me or does pretty much NO ONE invest in solar?? Doesn't that seem odd to you? I mean, there's this huge fricken nuclear reactor at the center of our solar system churning out energy every second of every day. Shouldn't we be trying to work out how to use some of that energy?
I'm zo confyoozed.
Some interesting takes on Facebook's changes from Continuations.com, tumblr.absono.us and myself...
Facebook and the NetHats off to Mark Zuckerberg and the entire team at Facebook. They are managing that most impressive feat of innovating at scale. They are also incredibly ambitious in what they want to accomplish. The goal seems nothing short of one identity and one graph to “rule them all.” With over 400 million users worldwide and a sign on system that is being widely adopted this ambition doesn’t seem crazy. Especially when you layer on top of this the possibility that soon many of these users might have Facebook currency that could be used by sites to implement 1-click purchasing (and by venues to enable RFID based payments via Facebook presence).
But I see at least one flaw with this plan for domination. I simply don’t believe that there is a single social graph that makes sense. I may very well follow someone’s booksmarks on del.icio.us that I don’t want to have any other relationship with. Or take the group of people that I feel comfortable sharing my foursquare checkins with — these are all people I trust and would enjoy if they showed up right there and then. That group in turn is different from the people I work with on Google docs for various projects which is why I would be nervous about using the Microsoft docs connected to Facebook. Trying to shoe-horn all of these into a single graph is unlikely to work well.
As a little historical aside. There is a bit of a personal irony in the huge noise around the Facebook “Like” button. Yahoo could have had this in 2005 following their acquisition of del.icio.us if they had started to promote it to their users and to content sites!
The social graph/access/privacy concern seems very real: Facebook already has more than 30 different switches in their privacy settings, not counting the application-specific settings that often have sharing and privacy implications.
I have to wonder how many Facebook users really understand what information they’re sharing with whom at present, and the situation is only going to get more complex.
Unless Facebook’s users end up taking the path of least resistance and just start shaping their online behavior to fit the service’s friends/FOF/Networks model (which is certainly a possibility), the overhead of trying to figure out who will see what—and how to modify that when necessary—may be demoralizing enough to push a nontrivial amount of user activity elsewhere.
via tumblr.absono.us
Whitneymcn is spot on and Newsweek brought up a similar point--I've already been pushed elsewhere (or "unplugged" as Newsweek's Tumblrblogger put it).
I've gone through and marked off as much as I can as private (while still allowing status updates to show up) but that's only because I took an active interest in it. It took a lot of effort to find out how to do it. But the thought of them changing things AGAIN pushed me to the point where I hardly ever use the site directly--I only post there via 3rd party services like Ping.fm or Hootsuite. Why invest time and effort learning how and where everything is (privacy settings and everything else) if they're just going to shift everything around AGAIN?
To me, Facebook blew it years ago by being too invasive and (on a more practical level) changing things too dramatically and too often. These two factors (which are linked) made me walk away from 90% of my activity there. I now only go when people comment on things I post there. And if so many friends and family weren't on that site I wouldn't be there.
Facebook isn't a new AOL, as I've heard a few people suggest, it's like America, itself. I'd leave if only everyone I cared about didn't live there. :(
Some interesting takes on Facebook's changes from Continuations.com, tumblr.absono.us and myself...
Facebook and the NetHats off to Mark Zuckerberg and the entire team at Facebook. They are managing that most impressive feat of innovating at scale. They are also incredibly ambitious in what they want to accomplish. The goal seems nothing short of one identity and one graph to “rule them all.” With over 400 million users worldwide and a sign on system that is being widely adopted this ambition doesn’t seem crazy. Especially when you layer on top of this the possibility that soon many of these users might have Facebook currency that could be used by sites to implement 1-click purchasing (and by venues to enable RFID based payments via Facebook presence).
But I see at least one flaw with this plan for domination. I simply don’t believe that there is a single social graph that makes sense. I may very well follow someone’s booksmarks on del.icio.us that I don’t want to have any other relationship with. Or take the group of people that I feel comfortable sharing my foursquare checkins with — these are all people I trust and would enjoy if they showed up right there and then. That group in turn is different from the people I work with on Google docs for various projects which is why I would be nervous about using the Microsoft docs connected to Facebook. Trying to shoe-horn all of these into a single graph is unlikely to work well.
As a little historical aside. There is a bit of a personal irony in the huge noise around the Facebook “Like” button. Yahoo could have had this in 2005 following their acquisition of del.icio.us if they had started to promote it to their users and to content sites!
The social graph/access/privacy concern seems very real: Facebook already has more than 30 different switches in their privacy settings, not counting the application-specific settings that often have sharing and privacy implications.
I have to wonder how many Facebook users really understand what information they’re sharing with whom at present, and the situation is only going to get more complex.
Unless Facebook’s users end up taking the path of least resistance and just start shaping their online behavior to fit the service’s friends/FOF/Networks model (which is certainly a possibility), the overhead of trying to figure out who will see what—and how to modify that when necessary—may be demoralizing enough to push a nontrivial amount of user activity elsewhere.
via tumblr.absono.us
Whitneymcn is spot on and Newsweek brought up a similar point--I've already been pushed elsewhere (or "unplugged" as Newsweek's Tumblrblogger put it).
I've gone through and marked off as much as I can as private (while still allowing status updates to show up) but that's only because I took an active interest in it. It took a lot of effort to find out how to do it. But the thought of them changing things AGAIN pushed me to the point where I hardly ever use the site directly--I only post there via 3rd party services like Ping.fm or Hootsuite. Why invest time and effort learning how and where everything is (privacy settings and everything else) if they're just going to shift everything around AGAIN?
To me, Facebook blew it years ago by being too invasive and (on a more practical level) changing things too dramatically and too often. These two factors (which are linked) made me walk away from 90% of my activity there. I now only go when people comment on things I post there. And if so many friends and family weren't on that site I wouldn't be there.
Facebook isn't a new AOL, as I've heard a few people suggest, it's like America, itself. I'd leave if only everyone I cared about didn't live there. :(
Bank Roulette chart--check it out & see if you have a better idea of what's being risked by dickweeds in suits
It bugs me that people don't understand how our money system works. When rich people play games with our money we ALL lose. When banks need bailouts more money is created and lowers the value of all money that exists. Just because the loan is paid back does not mean the money created for the loan gets destroyed. And don't think for a second banks have all that money laying around because they don't--who puts money in savings accounts anymore? Next to nobody. So where does it come from?
Anyway, watching banks fail is both worrisome and reassuring. First off, banks *should* be allowed to fail if we're sticking with free market rules. Hell, if we're sticking to *physics* banks should be allowed to fail. Because propping them up (as mentioned in the above paragraph with a bailout) means less money (or rather less value) in our own pockets. The problem with a lot of banks failing is that it means the system isn't stable. That means a new system should be built from scratch that IS stable or that the current system needs to be made stable by drastic changes (little changes haven't helped so far).
And just because the Republicans don't like the financial overhaul bill doesn't mean it's a bill that does enough. It just means the Republicans are dickweed "no-men" who won't be happy with anything the Dems want to do.
Really, we need to ban, what I call, "Zero-point money" which allows people to make money via slight of hand and doing things that, at their core, are obviously amoral. Things like selling debts, buying insurance on things you don't own, betting stocks will go down. I don't see a problem with buying stock in a company, but all these other tricks and games are just BS and make it far to easy to lie and defraud people. Ban this shit and you'll solve a lot of the problems facing our economy.
Oh and getting back on some sort of precious metals standard would be good, too. Or do you like a money system that works like a balloon that can infinitely inflate (until it pops)?
Just my ¥2--I'm no economist. Just a guy who reads stuff.
Custom DIY blank Trexi progress shot--still not done but getting there!
Did the base Sharpie work on the bottom head-piece tonight and the top last week. Things have been so hectic. Wish I had the time to just sit down and finish it but I don't. Maybe next week!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Adding this to my wishlist: Genuine Official US Government Surplus Astronaut Space Suit
from mdt:
$7.95!
I am filling out this form TODAY and hoping for the best.
Also, note the penny loafers.
But does it come with a HELMET???
Tea Party rally video from New Left Media will make you wonder what planet they're from.
First, go here to watch the New Left Media produced video at PublicRecord.org: http://goo.gl/aMXx
If you're able to get past the part where ex-SNL "star" Victoria Jackson sings a song about how there is a communist in the White House, let me know, because I had to turn it off there. This was after one woman seemed convinced that Obama is considering a ban on all fishing in the US. "Fishing!" she has to add with a nod.
If you're as perplexed by the things said in the video as I was and have a Digg account, please go here and digg it yourself: http://digg.com/politics/Tea_Partiers_Obama_Is_Considering_Banning_Fishing_in_US
I seriously think we need a social movement in the US that ridicules stupidity. Because either some of these people are the best actors in the world or they are supremely moronic--so moronic, in fact, that I think they should not be given such favorable coverage by anyone. They can say what they want, but the fact that the media fails to challenge them even less than they challenge the government is pretty irresoponsible.
Sidenote #1: there were a few people in that video that seemed to be really bad actors or not really keen on being crazy for the camera--not sure what to make of those folks. Certainly, and sadly, Victoria Jackson had no problem doing it. :(
Sidenote #2: I also think we should avoid using the terminology that further divides us as a people. Instead of embracing the "left/right" language, we should use words like "normal" or "reasonable". The folks behind the above-linked video seem to mean well, but they call themselves "New Left Media" which seems to suggest they believe left media is better than right media. When really, I don't want either side to tell me what the truth is, I'll just take the truth straight, no chaser, thanks!
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