A political & humor blog also featuring movie & TV drinking games and other humor, funny signs, and ways to make money off the internet.
Latest posts:
Some random thoughts from the State of the Union address
Due to a terrible, terrible miscalculation of movie times, I am now stuck watching the State of the Union address.
I thought this thing was going to be much earlier (primetime on the East Coast), so I went and saw Grandma's Boy. Don't judge me. It was only $1.50.
I am going to drink every time he says "terror" or "freedom" or "evil". That should work. I'm not drinking alone, I am drinking with the Lord. And by the Lord, I mean George W. Bush. He is staring at me right now and it is creepy. I'm talking "Burger King Guy" creepy here. I feel so violated. Stop looking at me, O Lord!
I love it when he pronounces difficult words slowly. Words like "technology".
How boring must it be to be at this thing as a Supreme Court Justice? Everybody else gets to stand and clap and cheer, at least at some point. Even the Democrats just stood up and cheered the fact that Bush's Social Security plan failed to go anywhere. But the poor justices have to sit there like statues. Would anyone notice if any of them died right now?
I wonder if the Republicans and Democrats have one specific person that they take cues from. I'd imagine it would be pretty embarrassing to be the only one from your party to give the President a standing ovation.
The President is drinking a clear liquid. The question is, is it: vodka, gin, or everclear?
Okay, this guy doing the Democratic response is really freaking me out. The guy's left eyebrow is about 3 inches higher than his right eyebrow. Would it have been possible for them to find a guy that looked a little bit less like a used car salesman? I mean seriously, we all know Democrats are better looking than Republicans, there must be someone reasonably attractive and articulate in the party that could be speaking right now. This guy speaks like Al Gore.
It was only a matter of time before people realized that Wikipedia is ripe for PR potential. There were always instances of bias in articles, but as the site's popularity has grown, so has the profile of instances where individuals or groups have edited entries for their own gain.
The article also goes on to describe some other instances where Wikipedia has been exploited, including when someone wrote that Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor "smells of cow dung" and someone else opined that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is "ineffective."
The best thing about those last two quotes: the IP addresses were traced to Congressional offices. I guess instead of passing a note in class, or writing graffiti in the bathroom, our political representatives are now using Wikipedia.
He's certainly been out in front of the cameras a whole lot more recently, as evidenced by his Q & A in Kansas the other day, but if it's all spin it doesn't accomplish much.
Barbara Parsons just wanted a bigger, cheaper house when she moved south of Queen Creek to Pinal County.
For her 42-mile one-way trip to work, she rises at 3:30 a.m. to hit the driveway by 5:30 a.m. at the latest for a "somewhat safe drive." Three hours a day trapped in her car battling one of the worst intersections, where Hunt Highway meets Ellsworth Road, has her considering moving closer to the metro area's core.
"The drive is crazy now," Parsons said. "You need two cups of coffee in the morning out here to be on your toes. It's made me feel I've made the biggest mistake ever in coming out here."
Yes, yes you did Barbara. But that's what you get for moving 42 fucking miles away from where you work. And for taking 2 hours to get ready in the morning as well. What's up with that? When you are waking up, I've only been in bed for a couple of hours and I will stay there for quite some time. Sleep well tonight, Barbara!
Two years ago, there was virtually no backup at Hunt and Ellsworth. Now, it can take 30 minutes to get through the intersection, making the commute to Intel's Chandler campus a 50-minute struggle for Johnson Ranch resident Scott Barnett. Drivers have pelted him with coffee cups, cut in front of him and swerved around him.
First of all, when did we start giving communities names that sound like male strip clubs? Because that's precisely what I think of when I hear the name "Johnson Ranch". Second, how the hell is this guy getting pelted with coffee cups? Is he just sitting there in the road or something? How does this happen? If this is happening to him constantly, perhaps he needs to learn how to drive. Or he should roll up his windows.
This is all making me very glad I will be leaving the Valley very soon. This city is going down the drain. The infrastructure has not kept up with the growth, yet morons continue to move 42 fucking miles away from where they work and magically expect the roads to be clear for them to drive to work every morning. Seeing as we're a long way off from having those hover cars we were promised, there is no solution in sight.
People here place too much value on having a big, new house. There are plenty of places closer to the city. Sure, they might not be as big, and they might not be as new, but isn't it worth it to not be spending an extra 3 hours in your car every day? That's an 12 hour workday (if you're including lunch), but you're only actually getting paid for 8 hours. Well done. You sure did beat the system.
I remember how bad the commute was from where my parents lived, and they lived nowhere near as far away as these people do. Where they live now in Boise, they have about a 15 minute commute and they seem much happier. And at the apartment where I live now in Tempe, I'm less than 15 minutes from every place I've worked. This is the secret to life.
My resolution is to always live close to where I work. I would much rather have a smaller house that perhaps needs a bit of fixing up, than have some giant, new, Mormon-sized house miles away from anywhere. Most of the new houses somewhat closer to the city are huge, so if you want a cheaper new house you have to go far away. So the people who insist on owning a new house are ending up in East Ass Crack, Arizona. I can't say I blame the builders, it makes economic sense for them. And the new houses increase in value faster, but are these people buying for that reason or for a place to live? Right now we have to deal with pissed off people every day as a result of all of this, since people are already angry by the time they get to work.
I don't know if my resolution is realistic, but I'll give it a shot. Of course, it helps that I'm nowhere close to being ready to own property yet. At the very least, I want to live in a place with a halfway decent public transportation system so even if I do have a bit of a commute, I can just sit and read or listen to music while letting someone else do the work.
And to end this on a lighter note, here's a nice Arrested Development quote related to naming a development. I thought it was appropriate.
Michael: What do you think of when you hear the name, "Sudden Valley"? George Michael Bluth: Salad dressing. But I don't really want to eat it. Michael: What about, "Paradise Gardens"? George Michael Bluth: Yeah... I can see myself marinating a chicken in that...
This is one of the best ads I've seen in a while. The ad is for the Honda Civic and is running in the UK. What makes the commercial so great is the fact that all of the sound effects are done by humans. Really great stuff.
So far, this is the only decent thing to come out of Free FM. One of the stations here became Free FM and they rarely play songs. The Edge 103.9 is still the far better choice. They stream online so I recommend checking them out.
So far, the idea is still being tested, but it appears to be working at the MIT power plant.
Bolted onto the exhaust stacks of a brick-and-glass 20-megawatt power plant behind MIT's campus are rows of fat, clear tubes, each with green algae soup simmering inside.
Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant's exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly even in the wan rays of a New England sun. The cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward, but with 40 percent less CO2 (a larger cut than the Kyoto treaty mandates) and another bonus: 86 percent less nitrous oxide.
This isn't the only benefit to using algae.
Berzin calculates that just one 1,000 megawatt power plant using his system could produce more than 40 million gallons of biodiesel and 50 million gallons of ethanol a year. That would require a 2,000-acre "farm" of algae-filled tubes near the power plant. There are nearly 1,000 power plants nationwide with enough space nearby for a few hundred to a few thousand acres to grow algae and make a good profit, he says.
Energy security advocates like the idea because algae can reduce US dependence on foreign oil. "There's a lot of interest in algae right now," says John Sheehan, who helped lead the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) research project into using algae on smokestack emissions until budget cuts ended the program in 1996.
From this article, it sounds like this idea has a lot of potential. Hopefully this research will continue to be funded and we will see more positive results from it in the near future.
Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who recently pled guilty to 3 felony charges and funnelled money to many prominent politicians. I don't see how this is going to help matters much at all.
Okay, so this argument didn't work. I wonder if someone could go with the "God is my copilot" defense.
I'm very glad the judge ruled this way, otherwise it would have given the the Religious Right an argument against abortion. If a fetus counted for a carpool, then who knows how far they would take it.
The list ranges from absurd little facts to great scientific discoveries.
Some of the highlights with a few comments of my own:
11. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed. But how many are actually conceived in an Ikea store?
23. In America it's possible to subpoena a dog. Yes, but he'll only do it pro bono. /rimshot
30. There are an estimated 1,000 people in the UK in a persistent vegetative state. Amazingly, only 241 are members of Parliament.
39. Australians host barbecues at polling stations on general election days. What a fantastic idea. I bet they serve beer there too.
69. First-born children are less creative but more stable, while last-born are more promiscuous, says US research. I am an only child. What does this mean to me?
89. Spanish Flu, the epidemic that killed 50 million people in 1918/9, was known as French Flu in Spain. And it was known as Freedom Flu here in the United States.
Kiefer :: "I hate that ****ing Christmas tree. The tree HAS to come down. I'm smashing it - can I pay for it? Staff :: "I'm absolutely sure you can, sir."
Man, it must be nice to be able to destroy a hotel Christmas tree and get away with it. I'm jealous.
The article says that he concluded his night when he "he stumbled along the halls of the hotel's eighth floor - before eventually finding the door that fitted his key and calling it a night."
Could you imagine hearing someone outside your door, going to see who it is, and seeing freaking Jack Bauer out there? That's pretty scary, but also very cool.
|
12 of 13 missing West Virginia coal miners found dead, not alive
I don't have time for much of a post because I have to get for work, but this is terrible news.
Instead of 12 of the 13 West Virginia coal miners having survived, 12 of the 13 died. I can only imagine what the families must be going through. The video last night of everyone celebrating was great to watch, but now it has all been taken away. What a shock to wake up to this morning.
I haven't yet seen the show since it hasn't aired out here in the West, but I believe this is just a clip from the interview and not the entire thing. I am sure Crooks and Liars will have the full interview shortly.
