An important message from non-celebrities on ObamaCare

A response video to the "people who get paid to pretend to be people get paid to pretend to know something about a real political issue" video.



Genius.

I wonder if there's a way we can try to keep these overpaid actors in the national light, and try to get them to comment further on things they don't understand. Hey, while we're at it, we can ask them how they feel about letting admitted child molesters go free. Whoops, sorry, I mean, just the ONE admitted child molester.

Keep talking, Hollywood.

Every uninformed sentence you utter from the pedestal you bought and erected yourself makes you less and less relevant to the people who are actually informed.

We agree Grandma was innocent, she's getting charged anyway, because that's my job.

Popehat: Handcuffed Grandmothers Should Just Shut Up and Think of the Children

The prosecutor basically says,
"Yeah, we all know she wasn't doing anything bad, but the law says I gotta arrest and charge, so I'm arresting and charging her."

Then the Sheriff basically says,
"Yeah, we all know she wasn't doing anything bad, but drugs are bad, m'kay?"

Let that sink in.

They BOTH AGREE the grandmother had no intent to make drugs.

They BOTH AGREE the grandmother was innocent of the intent.

But by the letter of the law, they must charge this innocent grandmother.


WHO THE FUCK WAS THIS LAW WRITTEN FOR THEN?!


Like I said earlier;

Hey, if you want to win the war on drugs, you've got to break a few eggs. And if you're still not winning, you just need to break more eggs. And if you STILL aren't making any difference, well shit, you better hire some more people to keep breaking eggs until something happens.

Something is going to happen alright.

Two beards

An important note

The Making of Samurai Jack

Samurai Jack is one of my all time favorite shows. I highly recommend you watch a few episodes to see if you are interested in this visually brilliant, yet understated series.

Lament of a Californian

Remember that whole gold rush thing? Land of milk and honey? Wagon trails heading west to prosperity?

Good times.

Obviously it took us a long time to get here, but I was naïvely holding out hope that we would reach the point at which the legislature stops and says; "Ha ha! Boy, we sure fucked over this economy. OK, no more playing, lets fix this state."

With the recent release of a STATE PRODUCED report saying that California's extremely negative business climate caused the state to miss out on 1.5 TRILLION DOLLARS over the past three years, I was hoping that time was approaching.

Apparently not.

AP: Calif. OKs fee to pay for global warming program

Yes, hot on the heels of a report that says California would have no budget crisis and probably have more money to spend frivolously, if only it were nicer to businesses, California institutes a new round of heavy taxes fees on some of the state's largest employers.


Ladies...

Gentlemen...

The state of California has sealed its fate.


California has cut open the goose that lays the golden egg, found nothing, and has begun cutting open all the other animals in search of gold, and burning down the crops in search of another goose.


There can be no recovery here.

There is no fix here.

There is nothing more here.

Only the husk of a once vibrant state, and a few glimmering mirages remain.


It is only a matter of time before the entirety of state of California comes crashing down.



There is only one hope.

One very remote hope.


That The People of California first stand up and vote out every last one of the bastards that did this.

Then The People of California demand that the new legislators overturn every bit of foolish legislation, nullify every challenge to the businesses that drove California to it's highest heights, and redraw every gerrymandered district in the state.

Then The People of California make the California Legislature part time. Remove the perks and the personal prestige. Make the job a civil service again. Texas legislature meets once every OTHER year, and makes pennies compared to our current $100k legislators. And they run in the black.

Once The People of California have done this, they must watch those they've placed in charge like hawks. Scrutinize every action. Question every bill. Root out the tiniest HINT of the poison that brought us so low, and eliminate it.

That's what we'd have to do to bring real change to this state WITHOUT letting it hit rock bottom first.

I keep saying "The People of California", because they are the only ones who can fix this. The legislators will not. They will fiddle while Rome burns, and ride their limousines over the ashes and into another state. Like a virus killing its host and seeking a new one.


But I, a serial optimist, just don't have faith that the majority of Californians will have the stomach to do what needs to be done to break the cycle.

The cycle of success, arrogance, decadence, collapse, stagnate, regroup, rebuild, strengthen, flourish, repeat is a tough one to break.

We see it happen in places like Detroit and Pittsburgh, both are in different stages of the cycle, but I think this will be the first time we see it happen on a state-wide level. Particularly for a state so large.

I do NOT believe a sufficient majority of Californians have the clarity to see what's coming, understand the dire necessity of skipping the bad steps of this cycle, and relentlessly push the difficult action necessary to save the state from collapse, and a long, painful recovery.

At least I know I did my best to divert the state from this path.

At least I know I tried.


I will be sad to see it go.


I don't agree with its politics.
I don't agree with what it does to the rest of the country.
I don't agree with the politicians we send to the highest reaches of government.
I don't agree with the laws it chooses to enact.
I don't agree with who and how it taxes.
I don't agree with what it chooses to spend or borrow money for.


But I will miss it.


Because it has been my home.


You may grow weary of a new dog that refuses to be trained. You may grumble as you pick up after it, and scrub at its stains. You may become embarrassed when it jumps on the leg of a guest. You may strike it with a newspaper as it persists at what it shouldn't. You may yell with frustration after hours of ineffectual instruction. And, yes, you may even wish it weren't yours.

But you will still cry if it gets put down.


But the most darkly humorous thing?

The people the state of California tried the hardest to save, to prop up, to support, to keep from failing...
The people California spent and borrowed and taxed in order to protect...
The poor will suffer the most.


Good fucking luck to all of us. We're going to need it.


I'm getting tired of having to say that.

Census worker nude, bound with duct tape according to witness

AP: Witness: Census worker's hanging body naked, bound

"The only thing he had on was a pair of socks," Weaver said. "And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something.

"And they even had duct tape around his neck. And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder."

Police would not substantiate the witness's report.

Unless this guy was into bondage (they're supposed to be able to tie themselves up) (the things we learn from the David Carradine story), seems like the possibility of suicide is gone.

Is this the beginning of crazy right-wing violence? Or illicit drug makers striking back?

Dunno. But many of the oddities of this story remain.

Site feed set to "Full"

Enjoy :)

A reminder of what happens when you engage in diplomacy with power-hungry dictators

The rest is history.

~intermission~

You Turn The Screws - Cake

A play for the bitter clingers

Today, President Barack Obama signed an executive order proclaiming September 26 National Hunting and Fishing Day.

After he signed he threw down the pen, looked at the nearest camera, and said,
"There. You bitter clingers happy yet? You've got your own day now. So you can stop buying record amounts of guns and ammo!"

fuck you ~ and your blog

Teehee!

Quote of the Barack "Kumbaya" Obama

From Tam on President Obama's attempted Kumbaya Circle at the UN.

It's almost pathetic, the mental picture of this grad-school wunderkind sitting across the poker table from the dons of Moscow and the oligarchs of Beijing, expecting that they will sincerely join him in giving up their ultima ratio politburo, (not to mention thinking that unstable delinquents like North Korea or Iran will cheerfully beat their switchblades into plowshares and join in the chorus of kumbaya.)

We haven't seen naivety like this in the oval office since Carter gave up peanut farming for geopolitics.
~Tam

Coming to an ebay auction near you...

PRE-BAN "Plush" Toilet Paper!

Actually, the environmentalists would probably make sure it was ILLEGAL to transfer "plush" toilet paper, which will no doubt give birth to...

The Plush Toilet Paper Black Market!

But seriously, this is fucking retarded. If the environmentalists had their way, we'd be squatting in ditches, naked.

AP colors gun usage

AP: 4 SWAT team officers shot in raid on NJ shore home

Seems a gun/drug running joint task force took down this piece of trash, and four officers were unfortunately wounded in the firefight. The piece of trash is in custody, two officers were hit in the vest, one in the foot, and one in the head. All are expected to survive.

Good story about the commitment of law enforcement organizations to work together, and the ATF doing its job well.

But please excuse me some nitpicking of the AP's selection of wording.

A gunman opened fire early Thursday on a SWAT team that burst into a home during a drug and gun raid, wounding four officers while spraying bullets from atop a staircase, authorities said.
[snip] The .357 Magnum used to shoot the officers...

Most .357 Magnums are revolvers, and hold 6 shots per cylinder. There is the possibility it was one of the newer "tactical" revolvers that hold 8 shots, or even a Desert Eagle (not impossible for a gun runner) holding 9 shots.

So bad guy shoots between 6 and 9 shots, and AP says he's "spraying bullets."

At 2:25 a.m., the task force consisting of officers from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, New Jersey State Police, the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office and Lakewood police executed a "no-knock" search warrant at the single family split-level home.

So this task force ain't nothing to spit at. This isn't the one episode of Andy Griffith when you see them unlock the shotguns. This is basically federal SWAT. They're armed with fully automatic MP5s, or fully automatic M4s. Military weapons. But...

Police returned fire and shot Gonzalez several times. It was not immediately clear how many shots were fired.

I'm just going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to guess... ALL OF THEM.

The SWAT team from hell breaks down a door and begins ascending a tight staircase, a man appears at the top of the stairs, shoots multiple times, and two officers are noticeably hit. That motherfucker is going to get everything they've got.

The suspect, Jamie Gonzalez, 39, was in critical condition after suffering numerous gunshot wounds as police returned fire, Ford said.

AP calls the 6-9 shots a spray of bullets, and the cacophony of gun fire that must have erupted in that tiny stairway is "not immediately clear."

Yeah, I get that they're trying to sensationalize the story by starting it with "4 SWAT officers shot" instead of "2 SWAT officers wounded," and calling the unloading what was likely a 6-shot revolver "spraying bullets," but this is just another reminder of AP's colorful wording when they should simply be reporting.

Meh. It's not really a big deal, this one just bugged me.

Hanged census worker not really hanged???

UPDATE: From The Plumb Line

Trosper said the initial AP story on the death contains flaws and errors. That means it's possible that the AP's claim, based on an anonymous source, that he had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest could be false. Asked if that were the case, Trosper declined to comment.

Errr... So, is it possible this is a simple suicide that AP got a hold of and blew out of proportion? Well, we ALL know that AP would NEVER run with a story before checking it out just because it fit a preconception of reality to which they adhered. Specifically; right-wing radicals starting a "second civil war." Right? ...? Bueller...? Bueller...?

Original post begins below.

---

Census Hanging Not a Hanging? Apparently the worker's feet were touching the ground, but the official cause of death was asphyxiation... So, what then? The murderers hang the census worker until dead, then they untie the rope, lower the body slightly, retie the rope, and leave? Also, no updates from the cops on exactly how "fed" was "scrawled" across his chest. Cops also said meth labs are very prominent in that area, but the area is far from the worker's census area. Meth heads killing a census worker who happened upon their lab and then hanging the body is much more likely than rural folk doing the same, but if so, why lower the body???

All the delivery of information on this case has been very disjointed and halting. Just adds to the oddness of this case.

My original post on this case

Cost of Ca business regulation: half trillion dollars PER YEAR

San Francisco Chronicle: Costs of California's business regulations: start with $1/2 trillion and keep counting

That's the amount of MONEY THE STATE IS NOT GETTING due to its business tax and regulation choices.

Genius.

Why don't you guys take a long, hard look at that budget shortfall and think about how nice it would be to have had an extra $1.5 TRILLION OVER THE PAST THREE YEARS.

Instead you try to get declining revenues and job loss.

Way to go guys.

Supposedly the Governator has been sitting on this report for two years. Betcha THAT was eating away at his conscious.

When reached for comment, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said,

"Yew mean I could have kept mah campaign promises to Cal-lee-for-knee-uhh AND had money left over to feed to da democrats' pet projects?! Instead I have destroyed our economy, business climate, and millions of jobs, and all I have to show for it is political disgrace and the death of the possibility of a Republican run at the presidency?! AAAAAAUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!"

Lets try to remind ourselves of two things;

The Rahn Curve


The Laffer Curve

There's your problem, right there.

Oakland PD dances in cops' blood to advance gun control agenda???

From an earlier post:

I'm not so cynical as to postulate that [Oakland PD] wish to allow people to continue to believe this felon was able to obtain a fully automatic AK-47 and used it to gun down these officers just because they want to use the deaths of these officers to progress a political agenda of gun control.

Whoops.

Oakland Tribune: Gun-rights group sues for information in police killings
...with Calguns saying the public has a right to know what kind of weapons were used and the city arguing that the information it could hinder an ongoing police investigation...

Calguns maintains that without additional information, it is impossible to tell whether the weapons in question — a semi-automatic pistol and an SKS rifle — had magazines with more than 10 rounds.

"This terrible event, with Lovelle Mixon killing the four officers, was apparently used as a springboard for (the proposed legislation)," said Kevin Thomason, an attorney for Calguns. "If they weren't in fact high-capacity magazines, the public has a right to know this potential law is based on erroneous information."

Never underestimate how low the gun-grabbers will sink to advance their agenda.

Dead Man Walking - David Bowie

Census worker found hanged with "fed" on his chest

AP: Census worker hanged with 'fed' on body
A 51 year old Census worker was found hanged in a remote part of southeast Kentucky with the word "fed" scrawled across his chest.

At first it seems like a simple "rednecks strung up a fed" plot, and a reason to call for more gun control for some reason. But if you think about it for a bit, it's actually an odd story for a few reasons.

I don't know a lot about "rural folk" but I DO know that if there's one thing they're good at, it's being left alone. If I were a census worker, working in a rural area, and I started getting that just-don't-feel-right feeling around any "mountain folk," I'd be beating feet. Because I'd know that 1: they could kill me with a thought, and 2: no one would ever find the body. Why go through the trouble of killing a "fed," and then put them on display like that and guarantee that more feds will come nosing around? It makes much more sense for these people who like to be left alone to simply disappear a census worker than make an example out of one. If the body were discovered hidden in a ravine, it would be a little different, but on display like this? Asking for trouble. And that's not what people who like to be left alone do.

The body was decomposed. Why commit what has been called a political killing, put it in a remote area, and not report it?

All the census worker's gear was nearby. This would imply that whoever did this either drove or rode in the worker's car to get there, then left on foot or by other means. The police had this crime scene for over a week, and they're still investigating this as a possible suicide? If the police had found sufficient fingerprints, skin flakes, eyelashes, or arm hair in the car that didn't belong to the worker, they'd rule out suicide pretty quickly. Also, no departing vehicle tracks or footprints? Sure, things can get messed up in the time it took the worker to decompose, but there would at least be some hint of evidence.

You don't plan to kill a Census worker, because Census workers just show up whenever. And if you decided to kill a "fed" so you could make a statement about your displeasure with the government, I think the only target below a 51 year old census worker is an airline luggage handler.

The mother's odd comments to the press.


But you're not reading this for simple oddities! You came here for some irresponsible speculation!!!


So, without further ado;

The case for suicide:

"I have my own ideas, but I can't say them out loud. Not at this point," [Sparkman's mother] said. "Right now, what I'm doing, I'm just waiting on the FBI to come to some conclusion."

So if someone murdered your son, which is what this initially appears to be, why would you formulate ideas you can't say out loud? On its face, this looks pretty cut-and-dry, and you'd wonder why the mother would go beyond murder, especially so quickly.

Huliq News:

Suicide would have seemed unlikely, if only because Bill Sparkman, who was also a substitute teacher, had also beaten non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He was even profiled in a 2008 TimesTribune.com piece, which described how he entered teaching, first by volunteering at his son's school because of difficulties his son faced in the classroom.

Lymphoma has a pretty high chance of relapse. If he relapsed, why would he take his own life when he may have had a chance to beat it again? Especially when he wanted to help his son as a teacher.

A possible benefit of suicide made to look like murder is the pay out of a life insurance policy. Not sure if he had any life insurance (I imagine it would have been hard to get after the first bout with lymphoma, he would have had to get it before the lymphoma). Private life insurance aside; the census bureau offers life insurance to its workers (not sure about part-time, would ASSume so since most census workers are part-time), and the policy probably has an additional pay-out if the death takes place while on duty (as is the standard for federal employees who aren't behind a desk).

But lets go back to the mother's comments; "I have my own ideas, but I can't say them out loud." If she thought he would commit suicide due to a relapse, tipping her hand early would ruin her son's efforts to help his son and mother.

As I said; irresponsible speculation, but this whole story just doesn't smell right to me.

Testing the racism theory

What's good for the goose...

Break it by using it.

So, we've already established that the Delta Smelt is a protected species, and continues to enjoy more rights to life than farmers in the nation's breadbasket.

We've also established that the Obama Administration won't be shamed into overturning this disgusting abuse of animal protection laws.

So what's next? Do we continue to push and push like we've already done, and hope things change?


I think I've got a more elegant solution.


I take great pleasure in devising ways to get programs, institutions, or practices to commit suicide.


A few examples that I neither condone nor recommend:
A campaign to overuse free materials from a group you disagree with will result in higher operating costs for them.

Getting a group of people to call an 800 number for a group you disagree with will also cost them money.

But those are not as elegant as actually USING the system against itself...

A few examples that are illegal and should not be attempted by anyone:
Hypothetically putting fake plates on your car, and a fake driver in your car to mimic to appearance of the local politician who approved red light cameras, and driving through every red light camera in the city.

Hypothetically calling every dial-a-probable-cause anonymous crime tip line and reporting details of drug activity going on at a local judge's house.

Hypothetically burying illegal drugs on the property of a local judge/politician/police chief/district attorney, with a big house and expensive property, and anonymously reporting the activity to a higher authority. (Asset forfeiture)

Aside from being hilarious, these kinds of activities would bring the abuse of these services right to the doorstep of the people who can eliminate these programs. Even a local mayor can bring more attention to the abuses and misuses of these systems than a "political nobody" could.


Back to the original point; how to get the protection of the delta smelt to commit suicide?

Easy! Help it grow!

Transplant some delta smelt into reservoirs and areas that reservoir pumps feed into all over America, then call the EPA and report the presence of these endangered fish. The delta smelt are rather hardy when it comes to salinity, and would probably live wherever they're put. Put them in enough areas, make them cut off water to enough land, and the problem isn't about pumping any more, it's about the delta smelt. If you get enough people inconvenienced by this fish, there WILL be a solution. Of course, this works with other endangered species too. Toss an American Burying Beetle into every new construction project in a city, and report them too. Cities already play these games devaluing property in order to snatch it up, and use it. What's good for the goose...

Do I hate the delta smelt? No. I hate what people are doing to "save" it. Obviously these people haven't heard of survival of the fittest. If the delta smelt can't survive in an area where the pumps oxygenate the water, maybe some other fish can. If there is another fish that can adapt to that environment, and will make use of the resources in that area. If you don't think pumps pouring water into a lake is a natural occurrence, I recommend you take a closer look at waterfalls.

Species mutate, fail to adapt, and die out every day. The notion that we can have some lasting effect on the natural order of things is ludicrous.

Are we supposed to save every possum born without lungs, armadillo born blind, or fish born without an air bladder? I mean, pumping water to grow plants and feed people is hardly nuking a thriving ecosystem and salting the Earth. Hell, even if we did that, I'll bet something would start growing there within a century anyways.

Of course all logic is thrown out the window once you've had your first conversation with an animal rights activists who is openly a human extinctionist.

Senate votes to save the fish, screw the farmers

Washington Times: Senate rejects measure to turn California water on

Also, Diane Feinstein compared turning on the water for these farmers to Pearl Harbor or something.

A little bit more info on this topic.

I'm just gonna say it...

Barack Obama doesn't care about Hispanic farmers.

Why gunnies win

Because in order for me to oppose an ammo restriction bill, AB962, I had to call the Governator's office.

I've been trying to do so at odd times for three days.

EVERY SINGLE TIME it was busy.

I finally got fed up with it, and just kept hitting redial. It took me about 15 minutes of solid redialing, but I got in, and navigated the menu to oppose AB962.

Just to test, I redialed again for a few more minutes and couldn't get through.

Step 1: Call 916-445-2841
Step 2: Press 1 for English.
Step 3: Press 2 for commenting on a bill on the Governor’s desk
Step 4: Press 2 for AB962
Step 5: Press 2 for Oppose
Step 6: Repeat as necessary (preferably once or twice a day).

When you need to know about politics, you go to the source: Celebrities.

That's right folks; only celebrities have the skills and talent to pretend to understand the complex issues at hand in this complex health care debate.

You don't need to read the bill yourself, or even read the reports of people who have read the bill, celebrities can play politicians, so they understand the facts of this debate.

Because celebrities are also very popular, they get a lot of mail, and understand the will of the public on these critical issues.

In case you failed to notice, two of the actors in this video played doctors primarily, and Will Farrel has decades of experience doing comedy skits that include doctors.

These are professionals. You shouldn't question their knowledge on the topic.

So the next time the some right-wing wacko comes up to you and starts talking about confusing stuff like the bi-partisan congressional budget office estimates for cost, or tries to trick you by reading directly from the bill, or provides videos of the president saying one thing when he recently said something different, just stop them and think;

What would Will Farrel do?




In other news; President Martin Sheen has declared war on Atlantis. When reached for comment, he said the missiles will be firing through the Stargate within the hour. Further questions are to be directed to Will Smith.

Shut up monkey. Just dance for me.

Quote of the you're too stupid to make the right decision

"The American public... just like your teenage kids, aren't acting in a way that they should act," Dr. Chu said. "The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is."
~Steven Chu, Energy Secretary

Gee... "You're too stupid to make the right decision" is definitely the kind of sentiment we want from the people who want to run our health care.

This reminds me of something...

Quote of the Don't. Just don't.

Tough guy in the pickup truck throwing me the dumb-aggressive evil eye for daring to look over at you: Don't. Just don't. I have seen things that would make you scream in a girlish timbre. I can change a nuclear diaper on a Six Flags rollercoaster without getting a fleck on me, and still shoot out the ten ring from twenty yards right afterward, all while half dead or fully drunk. You’re not as tough as you think, zit face.
~Marko

Yep.

BUSH ADMIN "INVESTIGATES" PRIVATE COMPANY CRITICAL OF BUSH POLICIES!

Oh, no, wait, it was the Obama Administration, and no one cares.

Ok, seriously, how many of these do I have to do? How can you read all these posts and think Obama is really an agent of change? I would call him Bush-lite, but he has outdone Bush in so many ways.

Think this is just an isolated thing? Think Obama really is CHANGING things after Bush? Read more of these posts here and think again.

BUSH ARGUES DEFINITION OF WORD WITH THE DICTIONARY!

Oh, no, wait, it was Obama, and seriously, WTF???

STEPHANOPOULOS: I -- I don't think I'm making it up. Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Tax -- "a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what...

If I don't want to pay for auto insurance, I can ride the bus, or move to a state that doesn't require it.

If I don't want to pay high insurance premiums, I can switch to another insurance carrier.

If I don't pay the government, I go to jail.

Choice and competition?

Hope and change?

How about, Taxes and Jail?

AMERICA!

FUCK YEAH!

MSNBC and FOX both arrogant asses

It's good to know that in a time of such divisiveness, we can still come together from both sides of the aisle in condemnation of the arrogance of the media.



They didn't hold the event for you asshats, they held the event for the fundraising of the people who paid to attend.

Only the self-important media could call that polite yet forceful woman a heckler.

Why it pays to know a bit about guns

To know when the gun pointed in your face will actually be able to shoot you.

Looking into the cylinders of a revolver will tell you if it's loaded or not.

Noting the position of the slide of a semi-automatic will tell you if it's in battery or not. (an out-of-battery gun is jammed, and will not fire)

There are other things, like being able to note if a safety is on (red dot means safety is OFF), noting a loaded chamber indicator (not all guns have them), or a dropped hammer on a single-action pistol (they must have the hammer cocked to fire). A few trips to a local range to shoot and familiarize yourself with some common pistols would go a long way.

I'm not saying you should take a guess that the gun in your face is unloaded, or incapable of firing in its current state, but knowledge is power.

OUCH

Found at CTR's place, go and read the short background of the image.

Ideas that expand human consciousness and cognitive ability

We are animals.

We are driven by simple bodily needs; the need to eat, the need to drink, the need to survive, and the need to procreate.

If we were frozen at that state, we would survive no differently than any other animal would.

But we began to make connections in the world we saw around us. We saw causality, we saw objects that could interact, we saw the need to communicate.

We created language.

What were essentially dumb monkeys suddenly had the ability to process objects, interactions, and thoughts.

We haven't stopped thinking and developing our language since then.

Language exponentially expanded the cognitive ability of humans by giving them the ability to process ideas and objects that were not happening or sitting right in front of them.

It is of great importance that deaf mutes be taught language for this reason. They may not be able to speak the language, or hear it, but they need to be able to think it.

What is truly amazing about language is that it is within the processing ability of our brain, but without being taught, the cognitive abilities of that same brain are far below what they could be.

The human brain didn't change. No one had to artificially increase their brainpower to understand and process language. We essentially upgraded our "software." The "hardware" stayed the same.

The human brain had the ability all along. We just had to "invent" the idea.

We didn't need to create tools to give us the ability to process language, we just needed to think about it, and share the idea with others.


All we had to do to create one of the greatest leaps forward in human development was think about it, and share it.


Seems pretty simple, huh?


Let me take this opportunity to remind you that we still only use part of our brains.

So what else are our brains capable of?

What other ideas have we yet to "invent" that will exponentially increase our cognitive ability and expand our consciousness?

What is the idea that will bring us to the next plateau of human evolution?


When we think about the future, we like to think of people flying around on jetpacks, teleporting cross-country, and colonies on other planets.

We think about the future of our technology.

We think about the future of our "hardware."

We don't think about the future of our "software."

We don't think about the future of human consciousness.


What are the limits of our brains?

What are our true capabilities?

What is the next big idea that will give humans the same evolutionary leap forward that language did?


And how do we speed its discovery?



fuckedifIknow... I'm just curious.

I'm gonna go get some tacos.

Maybe Obama should upgrade his bus to a monster truck

He's going to need more clearance to get over all those people under there.

Hot Air: White House throws Carter under the bus on race comments

UPDATE: A possible solution???


Hat tip to Yuri

HEAD REPUBLICAN COMMANDS MEDIA TO INVESTIGATE BUSH'S OPPONENTS!

Oh, no, wait, it was a head democrat commanding the media investigate Obama's opponents, and no one cares.

Think this is just an isolated thing? Think Obama really is CHANGING things after Bush? Read more of these posts here and think again.

Making a work-inspired demotivational poster sucks.

You may laugh, but it's just not funny.


Clicky for large-- ...oh, what's the point...
demotivator Moving Goalposts Because nothing motivates employees like setting a goal, reaching that goal, and being told it's not good enough

Phat Planet - Leftfield

Because I seem to like doing these in threes

B.O.B. - Outkast

If you like it, watch a better quality one here. (embedding disabled)

Little Fluffy Clouds - The Orb

direct link

ZOMG

Proof of intelligent design?

You decide. :)

Bush 2008: "There is no conservative movement"

Methinks he misunderestimated.

Ed Morrissey covered this and other revelations very well, give his article a read.

"Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say," the president said, "but I redefined the Republican Party."

I don’t think there’s any doubt about that last statement. Before Bush’s election, the Republican majorities in Congress had worked themselves into a role of fiscal responsibility and a check on Bill Clinton’s more expansive notions of government. After Bush took office, however, the two branches of government went on a spending spree, and not coincidentally a lobbyist lovefest, that threw out the GOP’s credibility on fiscal responsibility in six short years. Bush and his big-spending policies (and K Street strategy) set the stage for the Democrats to seize control of Congress in the 2006 midterms and a Democratic takeover of the White House last year.

BTW Kanye...

If you think the white president "doesn't care about black people," and you find the black president thinks you're a "jackass," you might consider the possibility that the problems aren't with everyone except you.

Maybe we can use our agreement with the douchebaggery of Kanye West as a point to unite us. Unite democrats and republicans? Blacks and whites? Jews and Palestinians?

We believe in you Kanye.

You can outdo yourself in douchebaggery.

You can bring about peace in our time.

You can do it.


PS: you've got some good songs

An odd thought

So, if Obama (correctly) commented that Kanye West is a "jackass," does that mean he watched the VMAs?

If not, does that mean he asked a staffer to watch the VMA's for him and report the items of interest?

If not either of those, then does that mean the emm tee vee vee emm ayys are a topic of interest enough to be raised in the Obama administration? I mean, I really can't see everyone sitting down to talk about the dire economic straits the country is in, and someone saying "So, d'jya catch the VMAs?" It's even harder to imagine the answer to such a question would be, "No! Hang on with all that unemployment stuff, tell us everything that happened!"

So, how exactly DID Obama come to this information?

Just curious...

Quote of the Sometimes 1+1=0

<Salamander> I just made a Mocha Frosty.
<Salamander> It sucks.
<Salamander> I ruined both my coffee and my frosty.
<Salamander> :|
<ET> ROFL
<Salamander> yuk yuk
<Salamander> It sounded like a good idea.
<ET> sometimes 1+1=0
<Salamander> ayup

Could CNN really be that bad?

Before work, I had a little bit of time to kill and was flipping through the channels. I had a hankering for news (no good cartoons on), and fox news was on some topic I didn't care about, so I checked CNN. I started watching it, and started thinking about how biased I keep hearing CNN is, and how I haven't really sat down and watched CNN for years. Coincidentally enough, they were doing a story on Joe Wilson's outburst and said they would cover if he was telling the truth.

So I thought to myself; "Self, you're rather well informed on this issue, why not watch CNN's coverage with an open mind, and determine for yourself if they're really biased?"

So I watched.

It was a 30 minute segment, and they saved the "Was he telling the truth?" bit for last, probably because they wanted people to watch the entirety of their segment before tuning out (they all do this, and it's partly why I don't watch the news on teevee). They covered Joe's outburst, playing the video over and over, they covered that he apologized to the president and the president accepted, they covered that he was the target of a resolution that would officially record the distaste with his outburst, they covered that Joe Wilson voted for a provision that would give illegals emergency care when Bush was in office (I didn't know that, and thanks for telling me, but don't represent emergency care as the same as health care), they even played the clip of the Georgia Representative saying Joe Wilson's outburst was the activation codeword for the secret racists to don their white hoods and ride through the countryside or something. But they were sure to say that such a notion was only expressed by him, and CNN makes no judgment to whether or not Joe Wilson is a racist. But then they ran a story on how Joe was connected to a group that used to be run by a guy that was a racist. The messenger had been sufficiently shot.

BUT THEN! They got to the meat of the issue; was he telling the truth?

I sat forward in my chair because I knew the answer to this one. I knew the answer because I am informed. I listen to the radio, read news blogs, and am capable of doing a google news search on any topic I wish.

I knew that Joe Wilson had made a statement saying he was sorry for breaking the decorum of the joint session, but said he couldn't control himself because he knew that the house bill would cover illegals because there was no enforcement mechanism. He knew this because he watched the addition of the S.A.V.E. system (a federal program that confirms citizenship which is already in use in several other programs) to the bill be defeated repeatedly. He knew there was wording in the bill that basically said "no illegals," but he also knew that there was no mechanism to check the citizenship of those using the program.
I knew this because I had LISTENED to HIM make this statement.

So here it was; would CNN cover the facts of this matter???


No.

They didn't.


They showed the portion of the bill that said "No illegals," highlighted it, cited it, encouraged we look it up ourselves, then pointed to a "no discrimination" clause of the bill highlighted the clause that said "except where otherwise blocked in this bill," then moved on.

But that's not the worst of it.

During their explanation, they even went so far as to take audio of Joe's statement, the statement where he explains that his issue was with enforcement of the "no illegals" provision, and CUT IT before he talked about the enforcement, which was the core of his argument.

This means that someone at CNN listened to the complete audio of Joe Wilson's statement, then CUT OUT the part where he talked about enforcement, then continued writing the segment as if it never happened.


I was dumbstruck.


I knew they probably wouldn't give the story a fair shake, and I figured they would just parse the words, and carefully formulate their statements to cover their journalistic bases, but actually watching CNN, a multi-million dollar, worldwide news organization, lie by omission to my face, then change topic to the kooky antics of Kanye West, was really something I think everyone should experience.

You can only get so mad when someone else tells you why you should be mad. But to put yourself in the same position and experience the reason yourself, is something entirely different.

CNN purposely lied to me.

They omitted facts they were aware of that were incredibly significant to the story, then presented it as the full story. The only reason they would do this is to get me to think a certain way.

It's incredibly worrisome to me that some people only get their news from CNN.

---

Just for shits and giggles, I did a google news search on Joe Wilson.

Apparently the senate is moving to shore up the gap that CNN refuses to acknowledge exists.

Washington Examiner: On illegal immigrants, White House sides with Joe Wilson, GOP; backs verification system for health benefits

A number of Republicans have advocated the use of the SAVE system to ensure that any newly-created benefits do not go to people who are in this country illegally. In July, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee defeated a Republican proposal to use SAVE for that very purpose. Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee defeated a similar proposal.

And a healthy serving of shoot the messenger.

Oh yeah, and Joe was hopped up on caffeine pills! ... in 2007?

BUSH SUPPORTS EXTENDING PROVISIONS OF THE SINISTER PATRIOT ACT

Oh, no, wait, it was Obama, and no one cares.

Think this is just an isolated thing? Think Obama really is CHANGING things after Bush? Read more of these posts here and think again.

That face

For some similar awesome; click here.

The third thing I agree with Obama about

1. Merit pay for teachers.
2. We can't let illegals "cut in line" toward citizenship.
3. Kanye West is a jackass.

ACORN offers tax advice for underaged prostitution

UPDATE 4: And again, with a splash of murder!

UPDATE 3: Breaking: Senate votes to cut off federal funding for ACORN There's GOTTA be one more video, and if I were they, I'd release the most outrageous one last.

UPDATE 2: THIRD TIME'S A CHARM!

UPDATE 1: Not once, but TWICE! Is this part of the training course or something?!

---

Officials with the controversial community organizing group ACORN were secretly videotaped offering to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents.

Watch the videos and read the transcripts here.

Our tax dollars at work.

Where did I get this story? Was it from CNN? NBC? ABC? Oh, no, it was from Fox, and the internet.

Bigotry

Bigotry is an ugly thing.

It's disgusting that these people are so blatant about it.

No shame at all.

Let me provide some quotes;

Well they figured out what I was gay and started trash-talking me and insulting me and threatening violence to me.

So they asked if I was Muslim and I said yes I am. They asked me to leave. I've never spoken to those people again.

...and was horrified to discover my African heritage. I never told her about it because of my two previous bad experiences I had stopped telling people and decided to lie about it if someone asked. Anyways she was shocked and horrified and never returned my calls after that night.

Well my buddy and I are leaving together and he was telling me that she wanted him to make me leave because I was disabled. I was really caught off guard by it.

Oh, no, wait...

He wasn't gay, or Muslim, or black, or disabled either...

Click here to find out "what" he was.

Special thanks to Joe for the idea. I think it's a winner.

This image is blurry

From One Man's Vote

Obama Admin. making noise it's going to unilaterally pass health care reform

No, really.

Do it.

Pass it without a single Republican.

See what happens.

Sony are fuckwits

UPDATE: It seems as though Pogo has repelled Sony's ham-fisted cease-and-desists, and is posting Bangarang freely. Excellent.

Original post continues below;

---

Pogo makes music using audio clips from movies mixed together. I love this shit. He recently started making videos for his songs, and I find them exceedingly entertaining. His most recent work is Bangarang, which is a mix of music and clips from the Steven Spielberg film Hook.

You can watch it below, and if you care to, do so quickly.



Shortly after posting it he was sent a cease and desist notice from Sony Entertainment.

Hook is apparently their intellectual property, and Sony apparently feels that the reproduction of clips from their film will do harm to their bottom line in some way.

Fair use aside, what the fuck does Sony hope to accomplish by stopping Pogo from posting this video?

Was this 18 year old film poised to set the world afire?

Will people watch this video and think, "You know? I was going to buy Hook at Target for $5, BUT NOW I CAN JUST WATCH THIS VIDEO FOURTY TIMES FOR THE SAME EXPERIENCE! MUHAHAHAHA!"

Will Sony crumble under Pogo's malicious will? (as if Sony needed any help crumbling)

Or maybe...

JUST maybe...

People will watch Pogo's music video, see clips from a movie they haven't seen in years, be reminded of how much they enjoyed it, and be inclined to buy a copy?

Because that's what happened to me...

I don't feel that way anymore, of course.

While Sony's ability to invent the next leap in technology, hobble it, neuter it, encumber it, fail to sell it, and kill it is legendary, I still feel the need to repeat my sentiments.

Continue to go fuck yourselves, Sony.

Even though I know you'll do it whether I ask or not.

---

Bonus Pogo vid.

Alice

Sonic weapons made for Iraq appear at San Diego townhall

East County Magazine: SONIC WEAPONS USED IN IRAQ POSITIONED AT CONGRESSIONAL TOWNHALL MEETINGS IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY

Navy News describes the LRAD as "louder than a jet engine" and helpfully explains that it overwhelms its targets with "sound so loud they hear it inside their heads."

Mike Copass ... tried to interview the Sheriff’s officer who appeared to be in charge of the device, which was mounted on a Rhino all-terrain vehicle. But Magallanez said the official "acted as if he didn’t know what it was."

The militarization of the police takes another big step.

Obama called a liar at his speech

Skip to 1:08

Shouting "YOU LIE!" at the president during a nationally televised speech is very disrespectful.

But disrespect gets you disrespect right back.

Yahtzee reviews Wolfenstein entirely in limerick form

Anyone who watches Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation video game reviews knows that they are primarily presented for entertainment value. Yahtzee felt this week's review was going to be a bit bland, so he decided to spice it up a bit by doing the entire review in limerick form.

Because he's really that awesome.

Bold crashing!

I've been catching the Blackberry Bold crashing more and more often. It'll freeze up, the screen will blank, the LED will be on red and solid, and after a bit, it'll reboot. It does all this silently, so I can't know it's happening unless it's visible when it happens. When I catch it rebooting, I feel like I'm catching a puppy peeing on the carpet. Since it takes only a couple of minutes to reboot, it would be easy to miss. Then again, it does sit in my sight 10 hours every weekday, and I can't think of more than one time it crashed at work. The crashes have only interrupted me twice, and still seem rather infrequent, but it's just annoying somehow to know it might be happening when I'm not looking. I looked up some info on the problem, but I can't think of any commonality between the crashes I was able to see. Though they definitely happen more often when I'm not interacting with the phone. I'm running most recent firmware 4.6.0.167 on AT&T.

Another annoyance is AT&T's constant bobbing and weaving between networks. It seems to adversely affect performance. I can set the blackberry down on the table, completely untouched, and watch it switch from 3 bars on "EDGE" with blackberry support to 1 bar on 3G to 5 bars (lowercase) "edge" with blackberry to 3g <-lower case "G" with a cherry on top. The constant network switching is ridiculous and annoying. Particularly when different services mean different abilities, and I have no interest in memorizing every possible configuration and the data speed, email connectivity, phone MMS, and VM availability for each possibility.

A few more notes; the bedside mode doesn't seem to brighten up on radio communication. Must have been some weirdness. But if you're waiting for the screen to dim under the lamp on your nightstand, you'll be waiting forever. It only dims when the lights are out. The light sensor adjusts the brightness for the ambient light level. So when you're outside, it's bright, when you're inside, it doesn't have to be as bright. Also, there DOES appear to be an icon that should appear relating to the program that is causing the LED to blink. If nothing shows up, it's probably stuck. By the way, the LED getting stuck hasn't happened in quite some time.

Still; the blackberry bold is working out pretty well. Data is available, browsing is versatile on funky websites (though still slow), and the phone (the part of the phone I use the least) hasn't let me down yet. But then; the bold would have to murder my parents and eat my dog to be worse than my previous phone, so maybe I'm a bit more willing to put up with small nagging issues.

Jennifer Connelly

And just because I had to make this smaller to fit within the margins of the blog, and I will not sacrifice the Jennifer Connellyness;



LOOK AT THAT YOU FUCK~!



I'm really fucking drunk right now

Bangarang - Pogo

Spoken like someone who hasn't been to a Ca gunshow in years

UC Davis emergency medicine physician Garen Wintemute will report the results of his observational study of 28 gun shows in California, Nevada, Florida, Arizona and Texas. The study found California's more stringent gun control laws are associated with a lower incidence of anonymous, undocumented gun sales and illegal "straw" purchases. California gun shows also were less likely to sell military-style assault weapons.

Uhhh... No.

Anyone who has even peeked through the fences of a California gun show will see ARs and AKs galore. Ever since the gaps in California's AWB were discovered, and the CaDOJ failed to head us off at the pass (the ineptitude astounds), California gun shows have caught the EBR disease.

As I stated earlier;

A few years ago there was ONE booth selling AR lowers, and a bunch of people standing 8 feet away, expecting a Sheriff to tackle and arrest them if they go too close. Now, EBRs consume around 25% of the firearms offerings at the show. The genie is out of the bottle, and all the threats in the world won't get it back in.

I don't know what California gunshow this guy claims to have attended, but his claim is false.

From Tam

A glimpse at a more aggressive GOP

This health care debate has severely damaged the Democrats.

Amazingly enough, this is completely their fault. They've fumbled every ball lobbed their way, they've missed the unchallenged slam dunk, they've missed the fucking tee-ball of health care, just sitting there, unmoving, waiting to be hit out of the park. I'm not saying it's bad. I don't support any form of government subsidized (much less, RUN) health care, but I just can't help but be amazed at the disjointed messages, the petty infighting, and the sheer ineptitude the entire party has displayed during this process.

Which begs the question...

WHAT THE FUCK HAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BEEN DOING ALL THESE DECADES?!

We're watching these aloof, dignified, cool democrats losing their shit at these town halls. They're alienating the swing voters, the undecideds, and the independents. And why? Simply because someone is challenging them directly. Because regular people are questioning the reasoning of their representatives.

The result is plain to see for everyone with an internet connection. On video after video, from sea to shining sea.

The revulsion.

The anger.

The sheer incredulity.

You can watch all of these things form on the face of your favorite democrat before they blow up and reveal their true colors.

You can almost hear them thinking;
"How DARE these simple people think THEY know better than I!"

Every time they call someone a Nazi, every time they call someone a shill for the insurance companies, every time they call someone astroturf, every time they question someone's intelligence, every time they open their mouths in anger...

We win a little bit more.

So, the winning strategy against the Democrats is to do some research, and simply question their course of action? To refuse to be brushed off, by raising the bill into the air and saying, "No, Senator, YOU'RE wrong. Read page 26 paragraph 4 of the bill."

This is that unattainable, perfect, winning strategy?

Then what the FUCK have the republicans been doing all these years?!

Those who listen to conservative talk radio know exactly what I'm talking about. Hosts take calls from liberals, the liberals raise claims, the hosts raise facts and ask that they be refuted, the liberal changes the subject, the host nails the coffin shut, and hangs up. THIS ISN'T ROCKET SURGERY!

For years conservatives have been screaming at their radio, "Why don't I hear this from the Republican party?!"

I have no answer.

Only speculation based on the Republican party's repeated actions...

The Republicans want to play nice. They want to be polite. They want to reason with people who think they are horns-on-head evil, because they disagree on policy. They want to maintain the republican/democrat civility that was all but gone in the early 90s. They want to be the bigger person by compromising in the hopes that it will spur future accommodation.

They are fighting a gentleman's war against guerrillas.

If the Republicans been fighting Democrats the same way Democrats have been fighting Republicans, all we would see of Democrats is the flustering, angry messes we see on these town hall videos. The Democrats have been able to shout, "racism," "corporate fat-cats," and "party of the rich" to end any fight before it even began. This has made them soft.

The fact that the Conservative citizens have had to take time out of their lives to take the representation of their ideals and principals into their own hands, is a damning indictment of the supposed strength of the Republican Party.

If the Republican party had been keeping up in the political arms race there wouldn't even BE a democratic party any more. Or at least, we'd have JFK democrats instead of the class of democrats we must suffer today.

We would be arguing over the more liberal conservative candidate, and the more conservative conservative candidate.

Instead, we have this debacle, and the GOP to blame.

The GOP needs to get off their asses, get out there, and fight for our votes!

Otherwise a third party will.

Timelapse of Station fire

Looks like it's from the 31st.

Also; the wind is still very mild. There is a small chance of that changing, lets hope it doesn't.