To Steve Safran, who I once berated badly on this blog in a moment of hysterical and uncontrolled anger. Turns out, Steve isn’t really such a bad guy after all. In fact, he’s toned down the rhetoric and even admitted that he needs to provide a more balanced approach. In the meantime, my visits to Lost Remote and my comments to him (and his to me) have been quite civil and enjoyable.

Hell, he even wants to read Blogosfear when it goes on sale!

Anyway, Steve, hopefully you read this…

I’m very sorry for insulting you before. I should’ve tempered what I wrote and taken the advice of a friend of mine: “Stop writing angry, stupid.”

Technorati Tags: Steve Safran, Lost Remote

Proving yet again that criticism over overreaching morality is directly related to whether there’s an R or a D after your name, Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman, two hard core conservative Republicans caught a huge backlash of people who just weren’t happy with their tinkering in the video game industry.

Well, not exactly…

In fact, not at all…

On a day where the two Senators (well one Senator and one who plays one on TV) made the announcement of the bill, there was little shock, outrage, and annoyance from the same people who think that evil Christians are trying to take over the world:

Clinton sprung into action after a controversy earlier this year involving the latest edition of the “Grand Theft Auto” game which could be modified to include graphic sex with a modification called “Hot Coffee” available on the Internet.

“I have developed legislation that will empower parents by making sure their kids cant walk into a store and buy a video game that has graphic, violent and pornographic content,” said Clinton, a possible 2008 presidential candidate.

“Today’s report is yet further proof that we need to make sure parents have the tools and support they need to make informed decisions for their children.”

The legislation would make it a crime for any business to sell or rent a Mature, Adults Only or Ratings pending game to anyone younger than seventeen.

Imagine if a conservative Christian Republican had said such things. How long do you think before the parade of outrage(tm) would be rolling down your street into your front yard?

Whether I’m for or against this bill is not the issue. What is the issue is why the same people who would’ve been screaming from the highest rooftop over this if, let’s say Rick Santorum, had introduced it, are utterly silent now. Must be that whole D and R thing again.

Source

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, Joseph Lieberman, video game, graphic, violent

My good friend Ericka is not pleased after sitting through a sales presentation for a new product. I’ll let her tell you the story. Go show the girl some love. She’s a sweetheart and I keep promising her I’ll send some readers her way.

Ahem.

You’re still here…

I wasn’t going to do it, but I’ve decided to break my cardinal rule. I’m going to reveal the front and back covers for my book. (takes deep breath).

Here they are:

Front:

Back:

Also, I got word today that LuLu has shipped my first self-ordered copy for proofing. I’m thinking it’s the softcover version. I’ll have it for review on Thursday. Once I’ve gone over both books (soft and hard cover), I’ll apply for an ISBN for each, get the UPC stuck on there, and put them up for sale. Then, it’s your turn my loyal readers! (insert gratuitous look and toe-tapping).

Thanks for all your support over the years. Hopefully you’ll enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. My proofreader, someone who I care for and respect immensely (no, not Beth, she hasn’t read it yet; she wants to be a proud wife sitting on the train reading her husband’s book), told me it was great (except for me mixing up two of the characters about a million times).

That’s all folks. Critique the covers if you’re so inclined. I’m curious to know what you think. I flashed them around at work, and the response so far has been pretty good…

This is top drawer stuff. 10 “hacks” for Bloglines, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the best newsreader ever conceived or produced. Why?

1. It’s web-based meaning I can get to my feeds from anywhere.

2. It’s mobile-web based, which means I can catch up with my feeds on my Blackberry, or any other phone or PDA I may be using at any given time.

3. It integrates really tightly with Firefox.

4. It supports podcasting.

5. It has neato skeato features like throwaway e-mail addresses, package tracking, weather, and so on.

It may not be the quickest (only updates feeds once an hour, sometimes more for more popular feeds), but it’s certainly my RSS reader of choice. These hacks definitely are interesting if you’re a heavy-duty Bloglines user.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, podcasting, RSS, Bloglines

Now this is truly fricking cool… Check it out. You throw a term in, and you get some results. You pick the result set that’s most relevant, and your vote is tallied.

It’s that damn cool.

So far, my results have been consistently in favor of MSN, but today Google did really well.

Poor Yahoo!

There’s a reason Google is a verb.

Technorati Tags: MSN, Google, Yahoo!

TAMPA, Fla. - A female teacher pleaded guilty Tuesday to having sex with a 14-year-old student, avoiding prison as part of a plea agreement.

Debra Lafave, 25, whose sensational case made tabloid headlines, will serve three years of house arrest and seven years’ probation. She pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery.

The former Greco Middle School reading teacher apologized during the hearing, saying “I accept full responsibility for my actions.”

The boy told investigators the two had sex in a classroom at the school, located in Temple Terrace near Tampa, in her Riverview town house and once in a vehicle while his 15-year-old cousin drove them around Marion County.

The boy told investigators Lafave told him her marriage was in trouble and that she was aroused by the fact that having sex with him was not allowed. He said he and Lafave, a newlywed at the time, got to know each other on their way back from a class trip to SeaWorld Orlando in May 2004.

Ironic that the kid got to go diving at Seaworld.

Sorry. I couldn’t help it.

Seriously though, when did teachers start looking like this? I think I had one teacher in all my years who would be considered “hot” by any measurable standard, and she wasn’t even one of mine. I had a college adjunct (she wasn’t a professor yet) who was drop-dead gorgeous, but we’re not talking about college…

I don’t know… Maybe my memory is just off. How’s yours?

Source

Technorati Tags: Debra Lafave, Greco Middle School

Cindy Sheehan must think we’re stupid.

Correction.

Cindy Sheehan does think we’re stupid.

Check out this quote from a statement released today:

But in a statement today, Sheehan accused “right-wing” sites of “spreading a false story that nobody bought my book at Camp Casey on Saturday. That is not true, I sold all 100 copies and got writer’s cramp signing them. Photos were taken of me before the people got in line to have me sign the book. We made $2000 for the peace house.”

All 100 copies? Guess even Cindy wasn’t expecting a whole lot in the way of attendance.

Writer’s cramp? From signing 100 books, “Cindy Sheehan, Whiner and Media Tool?”

Raised $2000? That’s an interesting number. That means she made $20 a book. What was she selling them for? $40? I self-published my book and I can tell you that when it goes on sale it’s not going to pull in anywhere near $20 a copy.

Funny. For all this time, the media breathlessly bowed at the altar of Cindy Sheehan, lionizing the raving anti-war lunatic. They report that no one attended her huge event (as evidenced by photos and her own numbers) and now suddenly those same breathless teet-suckers are all part of a right-wing cabal.

You really have to be a certain kind of person to be a leftist anti-war lunatic in this country.

Source

Technorati Tags: Cindy Sheehan, Camp Casey, signing, peace house, leftist, anti-war

The underprivileged rube soldier myth is officially destroyed. USA Today goes a long way here toward not only saying the study is bull, but backing their claims up with actual numbers.

According to a comprehensive study of all enlistees for the years 1998-99 and 2003 that The Heritage Foundation just released, the typical recruit in the all-volunteer force is wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average 18- to 24-year-old citizen is. Indeed, for every two recruits coming from the poorest neighborhoods, there are three recruits coming from the richest neighborhoods.

Yes, rural areas and the South produced more soldiers than their percentage of the population would suggest in 2003. Indeed, four rural states — Montana, Alaska, Wyoming and Maine — rank 1-2-3-4 in proportion of their 18-24 populations enlisted in the military. But this isn’t news.

Enlistees have always come from rural areas. Yet a new study, reported in The Washington Post earlier this month, suggests that higher enlistment rates in rural counties are new, implying a poorer military. They err by drawing conclusions from a non-random sample of a few counties, a statistically cloaked anecdote. The only accurate way to assess military demographics is to consider all recruits.

If, for example, we consider the education of every recruit, 98% joined with high-school diplomas or better. By comparison, 75% of the general population meets that standard. Among all three-digit ZIP code areas in the USA in 2003 (one can study larger areas by isolating just the first three digits of ZIP codes), not one had a higher graduation rate among civilians than among its recruits.

In fact, since the 9/11 attacks, more volunteers have emerged from the middle and upper classes and fewer from the lowest-income groups. In 1999, both the highest fifth of the nation in income and the lowest fifth were slightly underrepresented among military volunteers. Since 2001, enlistments have increased in the top two-fifths of income levels but have decreased among the lowest fifth.

Allegations that recruiters are disproportionately targeting blacks also don’t hold water. First, whites make up 77.4% of the nation’s population and 75.8% of its military volunteers, according to our analysis of Department of Defense data.

Second, we explored the 100 three-digit ZIP code areas with the highest concentration of blacks, which range from 24.1% black up to 68.6%. These areas, which account for 14.6% of the adult population, produced 16.6% of recruits in 1999 and only 14.1% in 2003.

So if people aren’t poor, uneducated, midwestern rubes, then could it mean that they weren’t actually tricked into the military and joined on their own? And the military isn’t disproportonately recruiting blacks? NO! Not our myths! You can’t take our myths!

Not that it matters, though. As with most truth, the myths will still get repeated again and again and again regardless of it’s veracity.

Technorati Tags: USA Today, military, recruiters, Department of Defense, myth

By now, you’ve probably heard this story already:

SAGUENAY, Quebec - A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy died after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten a peanut butter snack, hospital officials said Monday.

Christina Desforges died in a Quebec hospital Wednesday after doctors were unable to treat her allergic reaction to the kiss the previous weekend.

Desforges, who lived in Saguenay, about 155 miles north of Quebec City, was almost immediately given a shot of adrenaline, a standard tool for treating the anaphylactic shock brought on by a peanut allergy, officials said.

Imagine that. She avoids them her whole life and dies kissing her boyfriend who may or may not have realized what he was doing and the danger he was putting her in. So tragic.

I’ve discussed peanut allergies with a lot of people, though, and we’ve all agreed that we’ve known no one in our lives allergic to peanuts. In fact, I didn’t even know people could be allergic to peanuts until my late teens. I always wondered why we didn’t hear about this when we were kids. This article may finally offer a clue:

Peanut allergies have been rising in recent decades. The reason remains unclear but one study found that baby creams or lotions with peanut oil may cause children to develop allergies later in life.

About 1.5 million Americans are severely allergic to even the smallest trace of peanuts and peanut allergies account for 50 to 100 deaths in the United States each year. Canadian figures were not immediately available.

So basically, there are more cases than there used to be, and there may actually be a scientific reason. Sounds like the idea that the reason viruses are more prevalent because of the perpetual use of anti-bacterial products and the weakening of people’s immune systems from lack of exposure to the bacterial that causes viruses.

Fascinating machine, that human body.

Technorati Tags: SAGUENAY, Christina Desforges, allergy

I’ll be the first to admit I was never really a “ladies man.” I wasn’t exactly clumsy and awkward, but I had issues talking to really cute girls and even more issues getting trapped in the dreaded friend zone. This weekend, I figured out exactly why.

Beth and I went to Starbucks, as we’re apt to do on weekends (oftentimes more than once). There’s one girl who works there who I totally crush on, and I admit it openly. She’s totally cute, makes a really good mocha, and even has a nice pair of dirty librarian glasses. Yep, she’s the whole package if you’re me.

So what’s the problem?

Well, for months I’ve been noticing her.

Wait, let me step back here lest I incur the wrath of my female readers.

Before you get all over me for this, Beth and I do it all the time. She has her guys, I have my girls. It’s a mutual arrangement. Now, back to my story…

Yesterday, Beth and I decided to finally buy the Barrista Aroma Solo, a single serving coffee machine that we’ve wanted for awhile. We bought it because it was on sale. So, one of the counter folks went to get it for me, and she decided to ring me up. Alrighty, then, I think. Awesome!

So I stand at the register, and she says hi…

And I barely get out a “hi” in return. The other guy brings out my coffee maker, and she starts ringing it up. Then, I hand her my credit card. She looks at the name on it, looks at me and smiles and says, “I like that name. Vincent Ferrari. Do they call you Vinny or Vincent.”

Mr. Smooth replies, “asfhnj;lvds hajfdlshjlhnuijobn najfshjlkshf Vinny.”

I’m not exaggerating. I have no idea what syllables came out prior to the announcement of my name. Anyway, she continued:

“Okay Vinny… Let me just get you a pen to sign this…”

I’m dead silent, and smiling like a monkey who just discovered that shit flies if you throw it hard enough. She comes back and hands me the pen, and I sign my name. She goes to bag my coffee maker, and of course it’s awkward for her to hold the bag open and put the coffee maker in it, so Mr. Smooth returns and practically snatches the coffee maker out of her hand and puts the coffee maker in the bag she’s holding open.

You think this is bad enough? Well you’re sadly mistaken, my naive readers.

Beth looks at me, puzzled. We were supposed to get the red “to go cup” ornament for our Christmas tree, and of course Mr. Smooth forgot it. So now Beth grabs the ornament and gets some cash for me and heads for the register where the cute girl is ringing her up. I see them talking and the cute girl points at the shelf behind me and Beth looks over and smiles.

As she sits down, she says, “She was just telling me that her and her boyfriend have the other ornament; the cappuccino cup one.”

Now, if you don’t know Beth, she likes doing this to me, particularly with Reese Witherspoon (every time Ryan Phillippe is on screen, she reminds me of how he’s married to her and they have kids, etc).

Starbucks is fun, even for a fumbletongued bastard like me. And that girl is still really cute, boyfriend or not.

Sometimes people come up with creative explanations for lying. Sometimes, they just don’t even bother.

“After being notified of the situation and after researching the matter … I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A’s.”

You came to the conclusion? You’ve been slapping something on your resume for 40 years and you had to research it to know if it was true or not?

Good going Governor Richardson.

Jeez.

Technorati Tags: a’s, richardson, draft, idiot

How the left respects our police. Note the token Nazi reference.

BAKERSFIELD - A local man is speaking out about an ad he placed for his gardening in the Californian, after he got some readers upset readers.

He is simply saying, “It’s not personal, it’s just business.”

But some in the Hispanic community like Lou Gomez the President of the Hispanic Chamber of commerce are calling the ad racist.

“You know, it sounds very racist to me. It just opens up a can of worms,” Gomez said.

The two-inch ad in question was published at the bottom of Wednesday’s home and garden section, and reads: ’having problems communicating with your current gardener?–Talk to us, we’re English speaking.

What’s racist about that? Have you ever tried to speak to a gardener in California? Most of them don’t speak English and most of them don’t even bother to learn because el jefe (the boss) speaks Spanish too. What’s racist about saying I hire people who speak English?

John declined to give his last name and go on camera, but said over the phone that the ad speaks for itself, that he’s simply trying to compete.

Some readers agree while others disagree. Angie White says she’s had communication problems in the past.

“Well, in the same way that you’re able to say you cater, that you advertise that you do speak Spanish, why can’t you advertise to English speaking customers as well,” White said.

But Alicia Gonzalez is upset over the ad.

“It doesn’t directly indicate a race, but I think it’s pretty clear what they are trying to insinuate, so I just think that it’s insensitive,” Gonzalez said.

Though some say communication problems are a real issue, others say pointing the finger at minorities isn’t fair.

Insensitive to what, exactly? Pointing fingers at who, exactly?

All the ad said was that they speak English. It wasn’t accusing anyone of anything, or berating them, or anything else. It simply stated that, unlike 99.98% of their competition in California, this firm hired workers who spoke English.

How horrible. It’s just further proof that even when racism doesn’t exist, it must be created, manufactured, or fostered so people like Lou Gomez will still have jobs.

Technorati Tags: immigration, language, Lou Gomez, racism

A Thanksgiving Prayer, by William S. Burroughs

For John Dillinger
In hope he is still alive
Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1986

Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts

thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison —

thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger —

thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot —

thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes —

thanks for the AMERICAN DREAM to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through —

thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces —

thanks for “Kill a Queer for Christ” stickers —

thanks for laboratory AIDS —

thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs —

thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business —

thanks for a nation of finks — yes, thanks for all the memories… all right, let’s see your arms… you always were a headache and you always were a bore —

thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

That’s how assbags like David Pescovitz noted a day of giving thanks. Got that?

And that’s why you won’t find me reading Boing Boing ever again. If you enjoy putting up with their shit, go right ahead, I’m not going to stop you.

Technorati Tags: William S. Burroughs, assbag, David Pescovitz

Find out.

Technorati Tags: Sex offenders, maps, google

I came across these numbers when I was working on my novel, and I never had a chance to post them. This kind of thing is exactly what I like to put into the category of Media Morons. It just fits:

In the midst of the MSM’s chorus about how two gubernatorial races portend some sort of an upcoming “disaster” for Republicans, the RCP Blog has some interesting statistics for us:

2001 Virginia: Warner (D) 52%, Earley (R) 47%
2005 Virginia: Kaine (D) 52%, Kilgore (R) 46%

2001 New Jersey: McGreevey (D) 56%, Schundler (R) 42%
2005 New Jersey: Corzine (D) 53%, Forrester (R) 44%

Democrat governors were elected in Virginia and New Jersey by the same percentage of the vote in 2001 and 2005. Bush’s approval rating in 2001 was 85 percent. Bush’s approval rating today is 38 percent. He couldn’t win those races for Republicans in 2001, and wasn’t the reason they lost them yesterday.

Notice, by the way, the Media Morons are still talking about the grand Republican losses in this election. Completely setting aside Republican Michael Bloomberg’s massive landslide in New York City (where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5:1), does anyone remember the gloom and doom predictions for the Democratic party in 2004 when they lost so many governorships, lost the majority in the Senate, and solidified the majority in the House?

I don’t remember it at all. The story wasn’t Democrat losses, at that time, it was how American voters were fooled.

You know it’s bad when the best thing you can say about a party is that they won a strongly Democratic state (New Jersey) and a state where the Democrat incumbent was re-elected, and by a mere 6 points.

Wow.

Technorati Tags: Warner, Earley, Kaine, Kilgore, McGreevey, Schundler, Corzine, Forrester, Virginia, New Jersey, Bush, Bloomberg, Elections

Bruising.

A rugby fan who cut out his testicles with wire cutters to mark a Wales victory is at a loss to explain why he did it.

Geoffrey Huish, 31, performed the impromptu self-surgery in February when his beloved Wales beat world champions England.

After performing the deed, Mr Huish put his severed anatomy in a bag and took them to his local social club to show fellow fans.

He collapsed with blood loss and was rushed to hospital but surgeons could not reattach his missing parts.

Technorati Tags: testicles, Wales, Geoffrey Huish

Propaganda delivered worldwide…

DOHA, Qatar–Can Al Jazeera find a home on U.S. cable networks? It’s going to try next spring.

The media company, which operates an Arabic-language news TV channel and Web sites, will open a 24-hour English-language news channel starting in spring 2006 with broadcasting centers in Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington, D.C.

It will also relaunch its English-language Web site, complete with features like Short Message Service (SMS) publishing. The new station and the revamped Web site will be branded Al Jazeera International.

Subjects covered by the station will run the gamut, including talk shows, sports, international news and regional stories. It will also hire correspondents around the globe, opening up to 30 bureaus worldwide.

Currently, Al Jazeera is negotiating with Astro, a Malaysian satellite TV provider, to carry the channel. No potential U.S. carriers have been named.

Anyone in doubt over whether or not the English version will be nothing like the inflammatory Al Qaeda mouthpiece the arabic one is? And does anyone doubt that the left side of the aisle will be orgasming over the prospect of easily attainable anti-everything-in-the-world-except-women-wearing-burqas propaganda? And does anyone doubt that the left will tell you again and again how Al-Jazeerah is telling the truth while on their very same sites calling Fox News a mouthpiece of the Bush Administration?

If you do doubt it, you’re a damned fool.

Technorati Tags: Al Jazeera, Al Qaeda, Fox News

As is the case so often, even the smallest rally (in this case, a rally where photographers outnumbered participants) gets mucho presso:

CRAWFORD, Texas — Cindy Sheehan arrived here last summer as an obscure, grieving mother to protest the war that killed her son. On Friday, with President Bush back at his vacation home for the first time since Sheehan emerged as one of his most visible critics, she returned as a full-blown celebrity.

She promoted her book, “Not One More Mother’s Child,” and was honored at an unveiling of a monument chiseled with the words, “Sheehan’s Stand.” The monument also lists the names of about 25 soldiers killed in Iraq, including her son, Casey.

“I’m here to say that the troops will come home” from Iraq, Sheehan told about 80 activists at the ceremony in a garden outside the Crawford Peace House, a gathering place for war protesters about eight miles from Bush’s property.

“We’re here to say that this war is going to be over, and we’re going to … make sure that this never happens again,” Sheehan said.

Sheehan’s return to Crawford, captured by a bank of network television cameras, was part of an active week outside the president’s home.

80 Activists? That’s worthy of news coverage? Contrast that with the Support the Troops rallies like the ones held in New York last September where 1,500 people showed and not one outlet covered it.

I always wonder how the media comes up with the stories they cover.

Technorati Tags: Cindy Sheehan, Bush, Not One More Mother’s Child, Crawford, Support the Troops