Zefrank really nails it on this one, as he usually does. His show is truly a must watch show.

Don’t miss it.

Technorati Tags: zefrank, pork, stevens, senator, hypocrite

From Joystiq:

The group seems to have its heart in the right place — one member talks of witnessing youth violence in DC — but talk calling Rockstar “worse than terrorists” seems a little overblown to us. The group also seems to be under the mistaken impression that games are rated by the FCC and that selling violent games to children is illegal. But hey, who needs facts when you have catchy chants?

I was gonna aks what you thought bout this, but I imagine I already know dat.

Technorati Tags: video games, violence, bully, stupid

The fourth position from which to regard Gawker is abject fear (and probably consequent loathing) from brand owners. Of all Gawker Media’s titles, Consumerist.com has the most fear-provoking potential. This is because Consumerist.com is a brand killer.

“Capitalism is broken. We’ll help you fix it,” reads the closing to the “about us” section of the Consumerist site. Billing itself as a guide “through the delinquencies of retail and service organizations,” Consumerist promises to highlight “the persistent, shameless boners of modern consumerism” along with “the latest hot deals, discounts, and freebies.” But mostly it does the former, and its favorite targets are cellphone companies, fast food joints, airlines, hotels, and computer manufacturers — all capital “B” Big Brands.

On June 13, 2006, Vincent Ferrari made a recording of his tragically hilarious attempt to cancel his America Online (AOL) account. Despite rumors that he went fishing for such a bad example of customer service, Vincent was soon all over the Internet and the televised news. Consumerist smelled blood and has since made AOL its whipping boy. Recently the site got its hands on an AOL customer retention manual. You can imagine how that went.

Where’d you hear those rumors, Abram? Or are you simply starting them?

It’s not unusual to see a hit piece about me since the AOL incident. Lots of pre-pubescent AOL fanboys think it’s the best thing evar on teh internets!!!1!!!!!!1111!! But to see something like this in a “respectable” publication is aggravating to say the least. In fact, the worst part of it is he seems to completely misunderstand the story.

First of all, Consumerist didn’t propel the story as much as Digg did.

Secondly, there were no rumors of any kind about me fishing for bad customer service examples at AOL until some troll who worked at AOL posted a link to a slapped together blog with a post about how I contacted AOL 170 times fishing for a bad experience. The logic of that notwithstanding, how does one attempt to cancel 170 times without setting off a red-flag of some kind?

Apparently Abram Sauer thinks that’s perfectly rational.

In other words, Abram Sauer is spreading an untrue rumor about me under the guise of reporting that a rumor out there exists. In his obvious desire to take on Gawker, he had to take his shots at me too.

Maybe I’ll pay a call to Mr. Sauer and see what gives.

That is, if he has the stones to actually talk to me.

Technorati Tags: aol, consumerist, gawker, interbrand, abram sauer

Foreign Policy Magazine via Dvorak:

By late October, the State Department had allocated $66 million of the $126 million in international assistance to FEMA, which then granted it to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), the nonprofit aid arm of the United Methodist Church. With the funds, UMCOR established Katrina Aid Today, a consortium of nine national aid agencies dedicated to case-management work for Katrina evacuees. But to date, only $13 million has actually been disbursed, and it has been allocated almost exclusively to salaries and training for case workers, not to evacuees.

As for the rest of the funds, some $60 million languished for more than six months in a non-interest-bearing account at the U.S. Treasury. Had the money been placed in Treasury securities, the GAO report notes, their value would have increased by nearly $1 million by the end of February. Instead, inflation meant the funds actually decreased in value as the government stalled.

Read on to see some of what happened to it all… Not exactly encouraging, but the next time you hear about people being neglected, keep this article in mind. Anyone who thinks big government is the answer to any problem is an ass.

Technorati Tags: government, corruption, waste, mismanagement, katrina

One of the best parts of The Apprentice won’t be returning for the LA season:

August 31, 2006 — CAROLYN KEPCHER, Donald Trump’s co-star on “The Apprentice,” has heard him say “You’re fired!” for the last time - because this time he said it to her, sources told The Post.

The icy, 36-year-old blonde - who was running the Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff in Westchester and helping supervise the Trump National in Bedminster, N.J. - was let go earlier this week.

“She became a prima donna,” said one insider. “Being on ‘The Apprentice’ went to her head. She was no longer focused on business. She was giving speeches for $25,000 and doing endorsements.”

Kepcher - who is married and has a son, Connor, 6, and a daughter Cassidy, 4 - had agents at ICM handling book and TV offers, and Westport Entertainment weighing speaking engagements and endorsements. She came out two years ago with a book, “Carolyn 101: Business Lessons from ‘The Apprentice’s’ Straight Shooter.”

Insiders say that when Trump tried to reach her recently, she was off on a trip to make a speech. Another time, while giving a tour of the pro shop at the Briarcliff club, she didn’t seem to know the prices on any of the merchandise.

Ouch… Ivanka is very good, but come on Donald… Carolyn? You let her go? I imagine people are gonna enjoy looking at Ivanka a lot more (I certainly will…) but Carolyn’s complete disassembly of incompetent Apprentice candidates made the show a classic.

I’m not pleased. Anyone else watch the show anymore? What do you think?

Technorati Tags: apprentice, carolyn, fired, bad

It’s finally happened. The switch is complete.

Back in April of 2003, I bought the best computer I had ever owned up until that point. It was an iBook. 12″ screen, G4 processor at 800 Mhz… 512 Megs of RAM. Did everything I wanted to do except for one thing… Connecting to work. Couldn’t do SQL on it. Couldn’t run Frontpage on it. In fact, every objection I ended up having to keeping it as my only computer was related to things it couldn’t do in my Windows work environment. I quickly decided to let it go, and moved on to a Dell Inspiron 300m, and then later on a Dell Inspiron 700m.

As time passed, though, I got more and more nostalgic. I love the Mac OS. Have since OSX. Nothing coming out of Redmond even comes close as far as usability, power, performance, and stability. I kept telling myself that one day, I would get another iBook and not let work dictate my personal computing. I waited patiently.

Then, Apple announced the move to Intel processors with the iMac and the MacBook Pro. Not only did these machines smoke prior performance benchmarks, they were able to do unheard-of things on the Apple platform shortly thereafter. After Apple introduced the Mac Mini, two hackers came up with a way to boot Windows XP on it. Then came the iMac. Then came the Macbook. This was the opening I needed. I would be able to run Windows for work stuff if I needed to, but I would also be able to run my favorite OS.

Then Apple came out with Bootcamp and I was hooked. Dual booting a system. Sounds good to me.

Then came Parallels and the decision was made for me, basically. Parallels virtualized Windows into the Mac OS, but unlike prior solutions, it performed well because of the included virtualization in the Intel chip. Time to start looking for a new machine.

Then came the clincher. The MacBook. A consumer laptop with a ton of power and an Intel chip. I waited a bit… Saw a deal on the Apple refurb store, and jumped on it like someone had a gun to my head. On day one, I was already hooked to the point where I was ready to make the leap, but of course money is always the issue in computing. I happily used my MacBook for weeks, even using it to produce Information Salad, not to mention churning out a few DVD’s and a comic book for the office. I was happy again, and this time I swore I would never get rid of my Mac. My Windows desktop was being used less and less. No biggie. As long as it was running, all was good.

Then, it happened.

Friday night, I had just finished recording the podcast. Slobokan and I were talking about how it was our best episode yet. We were psyched. We both signed off Skype. I decided to do a few things, and I plugged my thumbdrive in. As soon as I plugged it in, the computer hung. No big deal. I restarted. Plugged in my thumbdrive again, and boom. The computer croaked. Finally I decided I would just reboot and deal with it in the morning.

No such luck. Damn thing would not start a third time. It was completely dead. I decided that I would salvage my data off the Windows PC, and make the move. No more Windows desktops for me. I was ready to buy a Mac Mini and just hook it up to what I had. After thinking about it, I realized I would need at least a Mac keyboard to go with the Mini. Then I read the instructions on replacing the RAM. Not exactly a picnic. It was looking less and less attractive.

I checked out the Apple website and found the much faster iMac 17″. I brought it up to Beth when we got to the Apple Store, and she agreed that for the amount of power and expandability, it made much more sense than the Mac Mini. The purchase was made and all was good. Monday I ordered 2 gigs of RAM for it, which I installed yesterday, and all is right with the world. I’m totally happy for numerous reasons, not the least of which is not having to deal with Windows anymore at home (except for Beth’s laptop, but that’s temporary as we’re getting her a MacBook as soon as her warranty ends).

Folks, if you haven’t checked out a Mac lately, just do it. Seriously. It’s come a long way since the last time you probably looked at it, and while it does take a little retraining of your brain to make things make sense, once you do, you’ll realize how intuitive the OS really is. I’m totally thrilled with both of my Macs, and would recommend Apple to anyone looking for a new home computer. Max out the RAM¬ (from a third party, Apple’s RAM is so expensive it’ll make your eyes bleed) and you can run Windows through Parallels if, for whatever reason, you need to.

I’ll never own a Windows PC again. It really is that simple.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac os, osx, imac macbook

• Web 2.0 Colour Palette
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• CNN.com - The new GOP buzzword: Fascism - Aug 30, 2006
  So libs have been slinging the word fascist around to describe the Bush admin and everyone ignores it. Bush uses it to describe fascist terrorists and suddenly it’s news and something to be aware of. How hypocritical can we get?
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• What exactly is a booger?
  In case you didn’t already know. Don’t be snotty; just read it.
  (tags: booger science cool)
• Deal or No Deal? How (Not) to Run Promotions
  Cingular gives e-mail folks the benefit of paying more for something they give everyone for less. Aren’t they awesome?
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• Final Core 2 Duo Mobile benchmarked; eh, it’s ok - Engadget
  Yawn… Not the big leap we heard it was…
  (tags: intel coreduo core2duo chips chip cpu computer processor)
• Stop The ACLU » Blog Archive » The ACLU vs. America — The Numbers Don’t Lie
  While the ACLU isn’t always wrong, it is indeed worthy of note how opposite what they fight for is to what most Americans believe. In some ways they do good work. In others, they’re just another political hack organization looking for their own agenda t
  (tags: aclu)
• Direct Marketing Justifies Its Existence - Consumerist
  Some classic quotes from the DMA about junk mail.
  (tags: directmarketing junkmail stupid funny ironic)
• Amber Mac: To all the G4TechTV fans: Thanks for two great years! My goodbye video
  Yet another actual tech personality leaves the sinking ship that is G4 TechTV.
  (tags: amber ambermcarthur sad callforhelp g4 techtv)
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  Wow. Exhaustive analysis of what went wrong in New Orleans and what the real story was all along. MUST READ.
  (tags: blog history interesting news politics video katrina levee opinion)

Honest Reporting (what a concept, huh?) reports on the latest fabrication to come out of Lebanon; an ambulance hit by a missile that sustained no more damage than a hole in the roof, because, as everyone knows, Israeli missiles don’t destroy anything, they just puncture and rust things.

Technorati Tags: honestreporting, media bias, israel, lebanon

Just like when Bill Richardson claimed he was drafted by the Kansas City A’s, another politician has been caught padding her resume with facts not in evidence:

Oh, City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke. You get a big dose of attention from the NY Times on Wednesday about your run for Major Owen’s Congressional Seat, but then it turns out you never graduated from Oberlin, the way your campaign literature in 2004 and 2005 claimed you did. Clarke was a few credits short of a degree, and her aides said that she had finished them up at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. The problem? Oberlin never got those transcripts. Oops! Yesterday, the Daily News had a statement from Clarke about the incident, where she claimed she thought she had “fulfilled the requirements for a bachelor’s degree,” but then “discovered” that she never actually finished those classes. What? Clarke is 41 - that’s not old and no reason to forget taking a class that would give you a college degree.

Can I ask you folks a question?

Did any of you graduate college? Better yet, did any of you not complete your degree?

Those of you who didn’t complete your degree… Is there any confusion in your mind about whether you did or didn’t?

Honestly, I can’t stand this kind of crap. Yvette Clarke is a damned liar. She got caught lying about her education. You can’t “think” you fulfilled the requirements for your degree. If you did, you’d have this little thing called a diploma. It’s a document commonly hung on walls. If you don’t have one, you didn’t complete the requirements of any degree program.

Done.

Only a complete idiot could be unsure about something like that.

Technorati Tags: college, degree, strange, yvette clarke, hypocrite, weird, liar

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The identity of the blogosphere’s “secret senator” has been revealed.

CNN has confirmed that Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has placed a hold on a bill that would require the government to publish online a database of federal spending.

“He does have a hold on the bill,” Stevens’ spokesperson Aaron Saunders told CNN. “At the time he placed the hold he notified Sen. [Tom] Coburn and his staff and identified several questions we had with the bill. Two weeks ago Sen. Coburn named Stevens as having a hold on the bill, so we don’t consider it a secret.”

Senate tradition allows any senator to keep a piece of legislation from reaching the Senate floor by placing a hold on the bill.

Coburn’s office confirmed that Coburn had revealed Stevens’ hold during a town hall meeting in Oklahoma two weeks ago.

The bill has become a cause célèbre for both liberal and conservative bloggers as they tried to uncover the “secret senator” who had blocked passage of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590). The bill was introduced earlier this year by Sens. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and Coburn, R-Oklahoma.

Transparency? Accountability?

Hmmmm… For a Senator clearly in the pocket of telecoms and who built a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, that might prove to be a problem…

At least we uncovered the bastard. Now we have to get the bill passed.

Technorati Tags: stevens, ted stevens, internet, pork

Uh oh… This ain’t gonna sit well with the higher ups over there…

Apparently, since the publication of this video, the gears have been set into motion and the problems are on their way to being fixed.

It shouldn’t take making a video.

Period.

Technorati Tags: coast guard, youtube, video, lockheed martin

Jason Calacanis:

If you are in the Internet industry and you don’t have time to blog about your product then you should quit. Go home, give up, and find another career. Your competitors are blogging about their products and talking to the market, and there is no way to compete if you don’t engage the discussion. So, by not blogging you basically are giving up and telling the market that you don’t care. That’s the honest truth.

Blog or die!

That’s it. And he’s 100% right.

Technorati Tags: calacanis

From the Telegraph via Tongue Tied:

A devout Christian was banned from flying with the budget airline Easyjet after she asked staff to “stop blaspheming”.

Fiz Thomson, 55, was returning from a trip to Israel where she had been helping war victims, when she heard boarding staff at Stansted airport repeatedly exclaiming “Oh, my God” after a child fell and hurt herself.

She said she politely asked them to stop taking God’s name in vain. She was then approached by a security official and she claims she was called a “racist” for remarking that her complaint would have been taken more seriously had she been Islamic.
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As a result of the altercation on Tuesday, her boarding card was withheld, her luggage was taken off the Edinburgh-bound flight and she was barred from flying with the airline for 24 hours.

The grandmother, from Burntisland, Fife, who worships at the independent Vine Church in Dunfermline, said: “There was absolutely nothing at all that I said to the airport staff which could have been interpreted as racist. “I was very polite and non aggressive, but one of the ladies angrily asked me if I expected everyone to follow my religion and do as I did.

Shame.

She shoulda just started a riot, beheaded a few people, shot some infidels and bombed an embassy. Had she done that, maybe she would’ve had people on her side and trying to figure out the root causes of her actions.

Honestly, folks. Security?

I don’t like that she told the staff not to blaspheme her God. Frankly, my God may not be your God if you even believe in one. That really isn’t the point here. The part I have a problem with, though, is that they called Security over. She’s a 55 year old woman. Can anyone honestly say she’s a security risk of any kind?

Anyway, the airline isn’t talking either. Check out this copout:

According to Easyjet, Mrs Thomson was “ranting at female gate staff of Indian origin” who had had no intention to be blasphemous.

A spokesman said her remarks appeared to be racist and a view was taken that she needed to calm down and would not be allowed to fly.

Appeared to be racist? How do remarks “appear” to be racist? They either are or they aren’t! And if they are, how about repeating these supposedly racist remarks, then? I mean, if they’re that offensive, they’d shed a great deal of light on this story. Let’s hear what she said!

The truth of what happened is probably like this:

1. Kid falls.
2. Staffer says “Oh my God.”
3. Thomson tells her not to be blasphemous.
4. Staffer says, “I wasn’t.”
5. Thomson says she was.
6. Someone sees an argument between a dark-skinned and light skinned woman, and immediately takes the side of the dark-skinned woman.
7. Racism is introduced because it’s fun.
8. Thomson is banned from flight.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Technorati Tags: stupid, racism, pc, political correctness, idiocy

Paul Thurrott is at it again, this time declaring Windows Vista RC-1 (which is basically what this new version everyone is playing with is) is quite amazing. It just works (way to steal a tagline, hack)…

And just like that, Windows Vista rebounds. Years of delays, broken promises, and reduced expectations have dogged the Windows product team, which has been portrayed as hapless, indecisive, and unable to ship products. But the recent release of a surprisingly good Vista pre-Release Candidate 1 (pre-RC1) build, combined with internal information about the expected completion today of the actual Vista RC1 build that will ship in early September, suggests that the doomsayers suddenly have a lot less to talk about.

Given the lackluster quality of Vista’s previous pre-release versions, I wasn’t expecting such a sudden turnaround. But Vista build 5536, which Microsoft shipped late Friday, rights most of the past wrongs and offers major performance, compatibility, and fit-and-finish improvements, along with a heaping helping of bug fixes. Suddenly, I can use the phrase “it just works” in tandem with Vista and not burst into sardonic laughter. It’s real this time. And, I have to say, it was quite unexpected.

You can cut his giddiness with a knife. Honestly, I’ll never understand it. This was a guy who on repeated occasions has panned Vista (don’t believe me? Check out the links from the Mac Daily News article I found it on) and is now suddenly solidly behind it. It just doesn’t ring true. You can’t tell me they fixed everything in one release.

Of course, Thurrott is the same guy who wanted to prove Dell’s high-end workstation was cheaper than Apple’s MacPro, and who consequently configured a cheaper Dell with a cheaper processor and declared victory, only to be utterly smashed by John Gruber, so what he says is probably to be taken with a grain of salt. He’s not exactly a writer of high integrity.

Technorati Tags: thurrott, windows, windows vista

“While we have great respect for Microsoft, we are frankly underwhelmed by the much-hyped Zune device,” Wu said in a research note today. “Microsoft had hinted of an all-new design from the ground up, but from our analysis, it appears that the Zune is essentially a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat that has seen limited success. Moreover, the software is similar to the Windows Mobile OS licensed to its hardware ‘partners’. At this point, we believe this could end up being another classic case of overpromising and underdelivering by Microsoft.”

Holy crap dude. Let’s be realistic. First of all, no one has actually seen the Zune outside of the folks up in Redmond. Basing analysis on… Well… Nothing… Is typical, but is also stupid.

The device isn’t out yet, no one knows anything about it, and the feature set we do know is pure speculation. Can we call a moratorium on calling the thing a failure at least until it hits store shelves?

Technorati Tags: zune, microsoft, silliness

For some reason, CNN chose to have the Vacuous Hole on to discuss the Apple battery recall. Now, I’m not one to pick nits, but couldn’t CNN find ANYONE better? Honestly, Xeni Jardin, except for being one of the “it” broads of the web really has zero technical knowledge or skills, and frankly anyone who dyes their hair, wears that much makeup, and is 34 years old with a lisp who writes about nothing but porn, sex, and evil christian bigots is probably not the person you want to consult on a battery recall story.

In other words, CNN went with face (I guess) instead of knowledge.

Oh well.

Technorati Tags: xeni jardin, xeni, jardin, cnn, vacuous hole

Steve Centanni’s comments upon his release from captivity were, to say the least, odd…

“We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint,” Centanni told FOX News. “Don’t get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn’t know what the hell was going on.”

PC makes me sick. Jeff Jarvis does indeed say it best:

I’d say that given the circumstances, he could have been excused if he’d left off the PC postlude.

And as usual, he’s right.

Technorati Tags: centanni, radical islam, terrorism

• Boing Boing: What OS would Jesus use? Ubuntu Christian edition
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I’ll make no allusions to being difficult to impress, but this impressed the crap outta me:

Technorati Tags: cards, shuffling, cool