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KGB ReportObservations by and for the vaguely disenchanted by Kevin G. Barkes |
ISSN: 1525-898X |
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I, for one, welcome our new canine overlord...
Categories: Dogs, Photo of the day, WTF?
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At the psychiatrist's office: Perhaps this isn't the best place for this painting, especially if your practice contains any paranoids...
Categories: KGB, Observation of the Day, Photo of the day, WTF?
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That was host Craig Ferguson's description of his Late Late Show, and it's fairly accurate.
The above clip is from last year's Labor Day episode, in which Craig's sidekick, a robot skeleton named Geoff Peterson (constructed by Mythbusters engineering whiz Grant Imahara), showed up drunk and responded to the appearance of Secretariat, a recurring gag.
I usually record the show and watch it before going to work. Trust me, starting off with Craig, Geoff and Secretariat better prepares you for the day than watching Today, GMA, or CBS' morning show du jour.
Categories: Craig Ferguson, Late Night TV, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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As Dave Barry would say, You Cannot Make Up This Stuff.
(Colbert Report video: Think Citizens United was a joke? You have no idea...)
"Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,
558 U.S. 08-205 (2010), 558 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 876
(January 21, 2010), was a landmark decision by the United
States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment
prohibits government from placing limits on independent
spending for political purposes by corporations and unions.
The 5–4 decision originated in a dispute over whether the
non-profit corporation Citizens United could air a film
critical of Hillary Clinton, and whether the group could
advertise the film in broadcast ads featuring Clinton's
image, in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign
Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act in
reference to its primary Senate sponsors."
-Wikipedia
By giving corporations First Amendment rights and removing limits on donation size, the Court, in the words of President Obama, "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington- while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates," and "strikes at our democracy itself."
The clip above is simultaneously hilarious, enlightening, and depressing. It's an accurate depiction of how SuperPACs work- although the transfer "ceremony" is optional- and reveals how the Supreme Court gave coporations a blank check.
And, depressingly, it's real. This is what a conservative Supreme Court has done to our election process.
Categories: Campaign Funding, Colbert Report, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Supreme Court, Video, WTF?
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...that which can be blamed on stupidity, but this is stupidity that defies belief.
Snopes.com, an essential tool in countering the flood of urban legends and false information that appears routinely on the net, has apparently been banned by Facebook.
Links to Snopes from within posts are intercepted. Facebook warns the site may be "unsafe" or "spammy."
Really?
Just last month, Facebook flooded users' newsfeeds with graphic porn. It routinely features links to ads and apps harboring underlying malware. And let's not forget the recent Federal Trade Commission order directing Facebook to cease its "unfair and deceptive practices" which routinely violated users' private information. The offenses were such that Facebook will undergo privacy audits for the next 20 years.
True, a Snopes search may trigger a pop-up window featuring an ad. But it's really stretching things to call that common behavior "unsafe" or "spammy."
Perhaps it's seasonal. With all the "War on Christmas" blatherings and phony quasi-religious postings, Snopes probably gets more links from Facebook during December than the rest of the year. Perhaps some internal Facebook spam metric was triggered from the increased activity.
Whatever. Facebook needs to stop interfering with Snopes now.
UPDATE: Whether due to human intervention or an automated triggering mechanism, as of noon EDT 12/12/11, Snopes is no longer being blocked.
Categories: Facebook, Snopes, WTF?
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Recent Mars missions indicate the red planet's atmosphere contains methane gas.
Methane also exists here on Earth, where it's closely tracked as a greenhouse gas that's contributing to climate change. The nice folks at the EPA have a spiffy chart that tracks the sources and quantities of methane released into the atmosphere each year.
If we eliminate human activities from the list, it appears most methane is produced by something called "enteric fermentation in ruminant livestock." (Enteric fermentation is the politically correct definition of burps and farts.)
Which means:
Mars has cows!
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Go to the google.com homepage.
Search for "Do a barrel roll." I'll wait.
TGIF, indeed.
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...North America, that area bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Note we didn't use the word "manufactured" or say The United States of America, so our lawyers say we're covered.
Categories: Corporations, Hypocrisy, WTF?
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Cut spending? Raise taxes? Maybe instead of raising taxes, we just collect them...
Categories: Banking and Credit, Class warfare, Corporate Welfare, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, General Electric, Hypocrisy, Politics, Poster of the day, Taxes, Wealth, WTF?
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Very, very frightening.
(YouTube video: Bohemian Rhapsody, with William Shatner.)
Categories: Music, William Shatner, WTF?, YouTube
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...and some people are still oblivious to the world.
Categories: Americans, Globalization, History, Holidays, Poster of the day, WTF?
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NASA experts calculate the odds of being struck this Friday by the bus-sized, de-orbiting Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite are 3,200 to 1. The odds of being struck -while wearing the KGB Orbital Shield Tin-Foil Hat- are astronomical, if you'll pardon the pun. Why take the chance? Just $9.99.
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The Daily Show remembers 9/13... the day we started forgetting...
Categories: 9/11, ACLU, Al Madrigal, al-Qaeda, Americans, Anderson Cooper, Ann Coulter, Atheism, Brit Hume, Campaign Funding, Christians/Christianity, Church and State, CNN, Conservatives, Daily Show, Democrats, Faith, First Amendment, Fox News, Freedom, Glenn Beck, God, Government, Ground Zero, Homeland Security, Hypocrisy, Islam, Jason Jones, Jerry Falwell, Jon Stewart, Katie Couric, Lies, Media and Advertising, Middle East, Moral Majority, MSNBC, Neal Asbury, News Corporation, New York, Olivia Munn, Painful, Pat Robertson, Politics, Pundits, Radical Islam, Religion, Roger Ailes, Rudy Giuliani, Rupert Murdoch, Samantha Bee, Stupidity, Terrorists, U.S. Constitution, Video, Wahhabists, WTF?, Wyatt Cenac
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Recent late-night political jokes, from Daniel Kurtzman's Political Humor Blog on About.com.
(YouTube video: The Republican debate in 45 seconds.)
The Republican presidential candidates will have a debate at the Reagan
Library. They were going to have it at the George W. Bush Library but
they couldn't fit all eight of them in the bouncy house.
-Conan O'Brien
People are saying that Rick Perry is really tough because he has
executed over 200 people. And that was just while he was on vacation in
Florida.
-Conan O'Brien
The oil industry said if they were allowed to drill more, they could
create over a million new jobs. Of course most of those jobs would be
cleaning oil off ducks.
-Conan O'Brien
To give an idea of how bad the economy is, the NFL had to borrow the
quarter for the coin toss from China. And they want it back.
-Conan O'Brien
In Iowa Sarah Palin ran a half marathon and came in second place. Of
course no one saw her do it, because she refused to tell anyone she was
running.
-Conan O'Brien
Dick Cheney says Hillary Clinton would have made a better president than
Barack Obama. Then he got back in his coffin.
-David Letterman
The Republican debate was on earlier tonight. Side effects may include
nausea, vomiting and sexual dysfunction.
-David Letterman
Michele Bachmann is dropping rapidly in the polls. If she loses three
more points she goes on 'Dancing with the Stars.'
-David Letterman
Homeland Security is saying you may no longer have to remove your shoes
when you fly. Welcome to the golden age of travel. I just hope they
don’t stop wanding my inner thighs.
-David Letterman
During the Republican debate, every time they mentioned Ronald Reagan, I
ate a jelly bean. And now I have type two diabetes.
-Jimmy Kimmel
This is the first debate Rick Perry has participated in since he
announced his candidacy. Perry is a mix between George W. Bush and
Yosemite W. Sam.
-Jimmy Kimmel
Sarah Palin ran an unannounced half marathon in Iowa. Wait, did she run
a half marathon or run half a marathon and quit? Is there anything Sarah
Palin can’t do half of?
-Jimmy Kimmel
The Republican debate got pretty heated. They spent most of their time
arguing over who God called first.
-Jay Leno
Michele Bachmann said that if she is elected president, she would
consider eliminating the Department of Education because "the states
could do a gooder job."
-Jay Leno
Ford is building a new plant that will create 5,000 jobs in India. Or as
Obama put it, "You've got to be kidding me!"
–Jimmy
Fallon
Sunday is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, which means it can only be
another five years before we discover Saddam Hussein’s WMDs.
-Stephen Colbert
Categories: 9/11, About.com, Alaska, Animals, Arizona, AT&T, Barack Obama, Baseball, Benjamin Franklin, Beyonce, Birthdays, Childhood Obesity, Chinese, CIA, Conan O'Brien, Condoleezza Rice, Craig Ferguson, Dancing with the Stars, Daniel Kurtzman, David Letterman, Denny's, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, God, Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security, Hurricanes, Indecision 2012, India, Iowa, Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Joe Biden, John McCain, Labor Day, Late Night TV, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Moammar Gadhafi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, NFL, Political Jokes of the Week, Presidential Debates, Religion, Republicans, Rick Perry, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, Sarah Palin, Sports, Stephen Colbert, T-Mobile, TSA, Unemployment, USPS, WMD, WTF?, Yosemite Sam
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These Blu-Ray modifications must stop.
Categories: Darth Vader, George Lucas, Hello Kitty, Photo of the day, Star Wars, WTF?
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Baltimore House, Pleasant Hills, PA
Categories: Photo of the day, WTF?
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Widespread property rearrangement.
Is it over?
Eyewitness Action Breaking NewsTeam footage of official response.
Categories: Earthquake, Photo of the day, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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(The Daily Show video: The Poor's Free Ride Is Over.)
In which Jon Stewart brilliantly explains how the greedy 50% of the population which controls a whopping 2.5% of the nation's wealth can solve the debt crisis by simply carrying their fair share of the tax burden.
What prompted this? Warren Buffett's op-ed, a thoughtful treatise on the advantages the super-wealthy currently enjoy at the hands of the tax code, or, to put that another way, "class warfare." Yep, Warren Buffett is a socialist.
Categories: Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Bill O'Reilly, Cato Institute, Charts, Chris Edwards, Class warfare, Conservatives, Corporate Jet Class, Corporate Welfare, Daily Show, Democrats, Economy, Fox and Friends, Fox News, Government, Heritage Foundation, Income Inequality, John Boehner, John Cornyn, John Stossel, Jon Bruning, Jon Stewart, Laura Ingraham, Marco Rubio, Michele Bachmann, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Neal Boortz, NPR, Politics, Poverty, Pundits, Republicans, Robert Rector, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy, Stuart Varney, Taxes, Warren Buffett, Wealth, Welfare, WTF?
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"How did Libertarian Ron Paul become the thirteenth floor in a hotel?"-Jon Stewart
(The Daily Show video: "Even when the media does remember Ron Paul, it's only to reassure themselves that there's no need to remember Ron Paul."(04:20))
Categories: Chris Wallace, Daily Show, Gary Busey, Iowa, Jon Huntsman, Jon Stewart, Media and Advertising, Meet the Press, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Mormons, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Video, WTF?
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It started with a friend's post on Facebook of an Onion article entitled "Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone at Neighborhood Bar How Screwed U.S. Economy Really Is," and quickly went downhill from there.
Categories: Facebook, Stupidity, WTF?
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Whoever is demanding stuff like this really needs to stop.
Categories: Comcast, Movies, Who writes this stuff?, WTF?
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No, I mean, really, Spock Is Not Impressed.
Categories: Satire, Snrk, Spock, Star Trek, WTF?
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The 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ("It was a dark and stormy night") was won by Sue Fondrie of Oshkosh, WI. Her grand prize winning entry:
"Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."
Runners-up included:
As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip
anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that
this would be the one man who would understand- who would take her away
from all this- and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud
honking noise, as all the others had.
-Ali Kawashima, Greensboro,
NC
As the young officer studied the oak door, he was reminded of his
girlfriend- for she was also slightly unhinged, occasionally sticky, and
responded well to being stripped and given a light oiling.
-Ian
Fishlock, Harrow, London
As she downed the last Dixie cup of Listerine and let every drop of its
21.6 percent alcohol content hit her like an icy mint anti-cavity
brickbat, Karen squinted at the breasts dangling like two electrocuted
ospreys from the powerline of her heart and, with a despondency born of
a thousand nights spent gaining a decent skill level at internet
mahjong, wondered how she and they had all three sunk so low.
-Anna
Springfield, Raleigh, NC
Some personal favorites from prior years:
Towards the dragon's lair the fellowship marched- a noble human prince,
a fair elf, a surly dwarf, and a disheveled copyright attorney who was
frantically trying to find a way to differentiate this story from "Lord
of the Rings."
-Andrew Manoske, Foster City, CA
The gutters of Manhattan teemed with the brackish slurry indicative of a
significant though not incapacitating snowstorm three days prior, making
it seem that God had tripped over Hoboken and spilled his smog-flavored
slurpie all over the damn place.
-Eric Stoveken, Allentown, PA
She clung to the memory of their love like those tiny bits of used
tissues he always left in his pockets, which mostly ended up in the
dryer lint basket although enough of them welded themselves to her
favorite navy blue, polar fleece pullover, rendering it as permanently
flawed and unappealing as his name tattooed on her butt.
-Pamela
Patchet Hamilton, Beaconsfield, Quebec, Canada
Stamp, stack, stamp, stack, stamp, stack, Rodney was going insane from
the monotony of the job and the cruel irony of being a guest of the New
Hampshire penal system forced to read the words over and over: "Live
Free or Die," "Live Free or Die," "Live Free or Die."
-Denise
Hendsbee Santa Cruz, CA
The notes blatted skyward as the sun rose over the Canada geese,
feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically peddling
unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by Nature's
maxim, "Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work," and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
-Sheila
B. Richter, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1987 Winner)
Dolores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever
skipping across smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but
oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, due
to an overdose of fluoride as a child which caused her to lie forever on
the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely as a
five-hundred-pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center.
-Linda
Vernon, Newark, California (1990 Winner)
A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each
other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices
as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of
angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles, causing her to
reflect once again (as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way
through the panicking crowd) that the annual Running of the Pomeranians
in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea.
-Sera Kirk, Vancouver, British
Columbia (2001 Winner)
As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg
carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet
pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold,
aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil
dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter
seven of the shop manual.
-Dan McKay, Fargo, North Dakota (2005
Winner)
Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and
like the city, their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their
bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist breath through manhole
covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”
-Gordon
Spik, Washington, D.C. (2008 Winner)
For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one
another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous
kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a
giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest
gerbil.
-Molly Ringle, Seattle, Washington (2010 Winner)
Categories: WTF?
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...but what part of "automatic" don't you understand?
Categories: Photo of the day, WTF?
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"13Usually we do not comment on technical and
grammatical errors, because anyone can make such an occasional mistake,
but here the miscues are so egregious and obvious that an average fourth
grader would have avoided most of them. For example, the word
“principals” should have been “principles.” The word “vacatur” is
misspelled. The subject and verb are not in agreement in one of the
sentences, which has a singular subject (“incompetence”) and a plural
verb (“are”). Magistrate Judge Stickney is referred to as “it” instead
of “he” and is called a “magistrate” instead of a “magistrate judge.”
And finally, the sentence containing the word “incompetence” makes no
sense as a matter of standard English prose, so it is not reasonably
possible to understand the thought, if any, that is being conveyed. It
is ironic that the term “incompetence” is used here, because the only
thing that is incompetent is the passage itself.
-U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, No. 10-10325, Samantha Sanches
v. Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, in
which a Texas cheerleader and her mom get pwned by three Federal judges
who describe the suit as "a petty squabble, masquerading as a civil
rights matter, that has no place in federal court or any other court."
Categories: Civil Rights, English grammar, Laws, Lawsuits, Stupidity, Texas, Writing, WTF?
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What part of "universal" don't you understand?
Categories: Computers, Photo of the day, WTF?
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Badgers? We don't need no more steenkin' badgers!
Categories: Animals, Photo of the day, WTF?
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(YouTube video of "Real Time with Bill Maher", 8/7/2009)
Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. Now, a couple of weeks ago, I was asked on CNN if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected President, and I said, "I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country." Well, the station was flooded with emails and the Twits hit the fan. And you could tell these people were really mad because they wrote ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL LETTERS!
Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a "pinhead." Which, a) proves my point and b) is really funny coming from a "doody-face" like him!
Now, before I go about demonstrating how sadly easy it is to prove the dumbness that is dragging us down, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq war, 70% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Six years later, 34% still do.
Or, look at the healthcare debate going on now. At a recent town hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare." Which is kind of like driving cross-country to protest highways.
This country is like a college chick after two Long Island ice teas. We can be talked into anything. Like wars. And we can be talked out of anything. Like healthcare.
We should forget the town halls and replace them with study halls.
Listen to some of these statistics. A majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. Twenty-four percent could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade; two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does.
Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, the way the "Slumdog" kid knew about cricket?
But, not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators. And more than half can't name their congressman. And, among Republican governors, only three got their wife's name right on the first try.
People bitch and moan about taxes and spending. They have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than one percent. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen. And a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Which is an absurd sentence, because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."
Sleep tight, batshit.
Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America, even though a Gallup Poll says 18% of us think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid; they're "interplanetary mavericks."
And I haven't even brought up religion. But, here's one fun fact I'll leave you with: Did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right. Half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament, and cannot figure out which one came first.
I rest my case.
---
When "debating" someone whose source of history and current events is Fox News, I recall Maher's editorial and derive what little solace I can from it. Very little, in fact. As one of the X-Men observed in a comic I read a while ago, "Stinks to be sentient, sometimes, don't it?"
It's like the Coyote getting a few additional seconds of warning that the boulder's going to hit.
Categories: 9/11, Americans, Barack Obama, Bill Maher, Bill O'Reilly, Christians/Christianity, Education, Federal Budget / Spending, Fox News, George W. Bush, Stupidity, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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I'm only going to tell you this once.
If you're one of those people who's bought into this "cloud computing" business, you're an idiot.
"The Cloud" has been around forever. We used to call them distributed systems: a bunch of independent computers connected by a network or networks, which allow programs and data to be stored and/or executed on remote machines. If the remote machines are working, that is, and if the network can reach them.
As computer scientist Leslie Lamport said a few decades ago- yes, this is a very old idea- "A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable."
If you're one of those trendy types who lives in the Cloud- stores all of your photos, contacts, e-mails and critical data there- because you believe it relieves you of the responsibility of backing up and managing it yourself- wake up and smell the metal oxide being scraped off your disk drive platters.
You'll endure periods when you won't be able to get to your stuff, because the provider's website is down or the idiot next door backed his pick-up truck over the Comcast box.
And you will eventually suffer a critical data loss. I recall an ad posted by a storage company about 20 years ago that's still valid today. "There are two types of users in this world: Those who have lost data and those who will lose data."
Distributed computing is a marvelous convenience. It permits me to work for my employer in Chicago from my home in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. Someone in the office on Wacker Drive can dial my four-digit extension, and- thanks to the wonders of the Internet- four hundred miles away, the phone in my basement office rings.
But things can, and do, go wrong. Perhaps I'm a bit more paranoid because it's my livelihood, but I take no chances on data losses or communications failures.
If a call to my office phone rings more than three times, it's simultaneously forwarded to three different numbers: my cell phone, home phone, and the Onstar phone in my car. As long as the phone switch in the Chicago office is working, and I'm in my home, car, or somewhere with my cell, I get the call. The last office call I missed that ended up in voice mail was during the blizzard in February, 2010. And that was a wrong number.
Every e-mail to and from my office account gets automatically copied to a special Gmail account. Business e-mail, along with mail from my personal Gmail, Yahoo, and XO accounts, are downloaded at two-minute intervals to Microsoft Outlook on my local machine here in Pittsburgh. They're also available through the web interface to those respective services as well. If I'm anywhere near a computer or smart phone, I can get to any of my e-mail accounts. And if my business, Gmail, Yahoo or XO accounts should somehow become inaccessible or are deleted, I still have copies of everything locally.
I connect to my workstation in Chicago via GoToMyPC, which is phenomenally reliable. But when the Internet is inaccessible, I still need to work. That's why critical directories on my Chicago workstation are also mirrored on my Pittsburgh machines.
The two computers in my home office are backed up 12 times a day to two different online backup accounts. Local backup software writes changes to external hard drives every 10 minutes or so. Twice a week, I do full image backups to external drives that are identical to the ones in the machines. If the computer drives fail, I pop out the bad unit, pop in the one with the latest image backup, do an incremental restore of stuff that's changed since the last image, and in under an hour or two, it's like nothing happened.
I hear you saying to yourself, "Now this is a responsible professional." (Actually, I hear you saying "Is he a frigging lunatic? Does he have some weird form of OCD or something?" But I'll just pretend I didn't hear you.)
Yes, I'm a bit over the top when it comes to backups and redundancy, but then computers are an integral part of my life. I've been using them every day since 1982 when I fired up my first machine, a 4K Radio Shack Color Computer. My entire professional and personal lives reside on them. Literally. Except for special legal documents like deeds, titles and wills, everything is digital. And yes, I do have scanned copies of the deeds, etc. Just in case.
True, you probably don't need five copies of all of your Gmail messages (Gmail interface, Microsoft Outlook, online backup, incremental disk backup, disk image backup). But you should have at least one.
If you're a Windows user, it's simple. Keep everything under the My Documents folder. Subscribe to an online backup provider like Mozy or Carbonite, or a branded service that comes with your computer, like Dell or HP. Most are free, or relatively low cost. Make the investment.
Most experts recommend keeping both on-site and off-site copies of your data. If that's too anal for you, just go with the on-line route. Having a disk backup of critical data three feet away from your laptop isn't much help when a fire reduces them both to a pool of molten plastic and metal.
Too much trouble? Too much money? Really?
I regard people who don't back up their data with the same contempt as those who let their dogs run loose or never change the oil in their cars.
You can post photos, videos and your current wardrobe, dinner menu and GPS coordinates to Twitter and Facebook, master the intricacies of Mafia Wars and Farmville, but can't take five minutes to go through the simple, step-by-step process of setting up a backup procedure for your data?
And the horse you rode in on, pally.
I'm ashamed to say that when someone calls me with a data loss problem and they admit they haven't backed up since they bought their machine, I'm tempted to tell them they deserve their fate.
Even more infuriating is when someone has gone to the trouble to set up a backup procedure for these cretinous oafs, but it's no longer working because the disk is full or the online account limit was reached. Invariably, at boot up time there's a prominent warning window the user blithely clicks and closes without reading. Betcha they also ignore the "Check Engine Now" lights in their cars, then have the temerity to ask surprised when the mechanic tells them that instead of an engine they now have a solid block of goo-infused, petroleum-encrusted junk metal under the hood.
It's a matter of money and responsibility, pure and simple. The cloud's popular because it allows companies to shift responsibility to someone else, generally at a lower cost. But how much have you saved when you come in one day to find out that you can't get to your programs and data? How much time have you saved when your computer crashes and you spend weeks begging relatives to send you copies of family pictures? How much time and money will it cost you to replace your multi-gigabyte, 3,000-song iTunes library?
I'm a computer professional. I've been in the business 30 years. On six separate occasions, I've had major system failures and data losses that completely wiped out everything I had stored on my machines. I learned quite early that backing up my data is as essential as having auto and homeowners insurance and paying the mortgage and utilities every month. Ignore your responsibilities, and you will pay dearly for your indolence.
It's time you learn that, too.
A Google search for "cloud failures," limited to the last week, returned 379,000 results. Look at a couple of the articles. Recognize any names?
Don't be fooled. If you examine it closely, the Cloud sounds too good to be true.
It is.
Categories: Computers, Facebook, In the news, KGB Opinion, Life, Observation of the Day, Painful, Philosophy, Stupidity, The Cloud, Too good to be true, WTF?
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Yesterday's online edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had a story with this marvelous lead paragraph:
Once you wade through all the prepositional phrases and subordinate clauses, you're able to figure out that the man didn't rob the bank with the help of the bank manager and a passing motorist. Rather, they assisted the police to apprehend the thief.
This 40-word jigsaw of a sentence is almost German in its construction. You have to get to the end of the sentence to find out where you're going. As Mark Twain said in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, "Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.".
Categories: Media and Advertising, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Writing, WTF?
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(Go here if the video does not diplay properly or does not load.)
Categories: Microsoft, Technology, Windows, WTF?
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(Clip via Comedy Central)
"I could not have said a random string of words better."-Stephen Colbert
Categories: Chris Wallace, Colbert Report, Fox News, Sarah Palin, Stephen Colbert, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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...or does this little fella look like Dick Cheney?
Categories: Animals, Dick Cheney, KGB Opinion, Photo of the day, WTF?
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The sign posted above the "continental breakfast" counter at the Travelodge in Williamsburg, VA:
Please do not
put the buttered
bread into the
toaster or the
doughnuts.
Why would I?
And the holes in the doughnuts aren't large enough, anyway.
It's also a sobering thought to realize this sign was posted because some idjits didshove buttered toast and doughnuts into the toaster. We'll give the grammar a pass due to extenuating circumstances.
Categories: WTF?
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When your campaign folk register the domain name for your spiffy website, it's best not to be pennywise but pound foolish.
Republican New York congressional candidate Jane Corwin registered the domain www.janecorwin.com, which contains typical political fund-raising, Democrat-bashing hoohah.
She didn't register www.janecorwin.org.
Go ahead. Click on it. I'll wait.
"Protecting the Status Quo & Taking Your Tax Dollars," indeed.
The phony site is actually an offshoot of www.buffalobeast.com. Not for the easily offended.
Still, one of the best parody sites I've seen.
(Hat tip to Steven Otte.)
Categories: Buffalo Beast, Jane Corwin, Parody, Politics, WTF?
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Sorry : 4/12/2011
You're adopted.
John Steigerwald's Mom
(One of hundreds of readers' comments to John Steigerwald's inane Observer-Reporter column in which the sportswriter stretches the concept of "blaming the victim" to the limits of credulity.)
Categories: John Steigerwald, Observer-Reporter, Quotes of the day, Sports, Stupidity, Who writes this stuff?, Writing, WTF?
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"His remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, an organization that receives millions in taxpayer dollars, does subsidize abortions."
"He's not lying to get out of a commitment like jury duty or to be boastful, he's standing on the Senate floor lying to the American people to get his way."
Categories: Daily Show, Federal Budget / Spending, Jon Kyl, Jon Stewart, Lies, Planned Parenthood, Video, WTF?, Wyatt Cenac
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Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is opposed to levying taxes on Marcellus Shell drilling in the state because oil companies will go elsewhere. Unless the gas itself has turned Tea Party on us, I suspect it's probably going to stay underground in Pennsylvania. If they want our gas, they're going to have to come here to get it.
Of course, the companies have this covered. A friend who owns property with a well says the agreement he signed with the driller calls for any taxes to be deducted from his royalty payments. In other words, the corporation doesn't pay the tax- the little guy does.
Well, at least they're screwing everyone equally.
Categories: Marcellus Shell, Taxes, Tea Party, Tom Corbett, WTF?
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This chart prepared by the Center for American Progress discloses the greed and hypocrisy of the GOP. They slash safety net programs for children, the poor, and the unemployed while supplying obscene tax cuts for the wealthy. Where's the outrage, teabaggers?
(From the Center for American Progress)
Categories: Congress, Conservatives, Deficit, Evil, Government, Healthcare, Hypocrisy, Pledge to America, Politics, Republicans, Taxes, Teabaggers, Tea Party, Things That Make You Wonder, WTF?
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Why is a 3% tax increase on the richest "socialism" but a 14% pay cut on
middle class is "doing your part?"
-RT @gregwatanabe RT
@gwangung (via Andy Hoover and Beau Boughamer)
Categories: Conservatives, Quotes of the day, Taxes, Twitter, WTF?
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"A beard covers a multitude of chins."
(The official KGB photo for 2011.)
Categories: KGB, Photo of the day, Quotes of the day, Snrk, WTF?
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"Now, who can argue with that?"
According to the CBS Los Angeles website, Ms. Branson is a winner of the Frank Shakespeare Award for Outstanding Achievement in Journalism. Frank was Bill's dyslexic brother.
Categories: Blazing Saddles, Grammy Awards, Media and Advertising, Serene Branson, Stupidity, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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FORT WAYNE – Despite garnering far more support in an online poll than the thicket of other suggestions, residents shouldn’t expect Fort Wayne’s new government center to be named after the city’s longest tenured mayor.
Deputy Mayor Beth Malloy said naming 200 E. Berry St. The Harry Baals Government Center was “probably not” going to happen.
“We love Fort Wayne, too,” she said. “We’re not going to make any decisions that look bad.”
The name has received 882 votes on the city’s website, www.feedbackfortwayne.org as of Monday afternoon – more than triple that of its nearest competitor: Eugene Johnson Memorial Center.
Johnson was the properties manager for the Allen County Public Library while it occupied the building. The city’s online poll allows anyone to submit names for the building and then vote on the suggestions.
Baals – pronounced “balls” by the then-mayor but “bales” by his descendents – became the Republican nominee for mayor in 1934 and was elected for three successive terms. He returned to politics in 1951 by winning a fourth term but died in office in May 1954. His accomplishments include elevating the railroads in town and negotiating the contract with the Army to establish Baer Field as an air base.
While Baals was a popular mayor, Malloy noted he had an unfortunate name and some elected officials have said such a name would be an embarrassment to the city.
Regardless, Malloy said the online feedback effort has been a success because it has generated interest in local government and created buzz.
“I’m glad people want to get involved,” she said. “We are having fun with government.”
Frank Suarez, city spokesman, said public voting on the issue will remain open through Friday. When it is closed, Mayor Tom Henry will be given as many as 10 finalists from which to choose the name for the office building. Suarez said Henry will make the selection after talking to division directors and community leaders, but he said the name will come from the list of suggestions made by the public.
The city bought the building, the former Renaissance Square, and is remodeling it to house most city and county departments. The City-County Building would then be the home for the city and county police departments.
(from the Ft. Wayne, Indiana Journal-Gazette)
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What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last reaming.
-Pittsburgh's own
Christina Aguilera, flubbing the lyrics of the national anthem at Super Bowl 45.
You just know someone's going to produce a porno movie with that title...
Categories: Christina Aguilera, National Anthem, Patriotism, Pittsburgh, Snrk, Steelers, Stupidity, Super Bowl, WTF?
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Back in the late 60s and 70s, around the time the term "rip-off" entered the vernacular, Ralph Nader spearheaded the movement that put into place many of the consumer protection laws and policies that still survive today.
One of these was the requirement for "unit pricing"- indicating on the grocery shelf price tag the per unit cost of the packaged item in ounces, pounds, etc.
This was enacted to enable consumers to easily determine the cost of a product, since some manufacturers used deceptive packaging to trick purchasers. That 99-cent sale item, for example, might contain only 28 ounces of a product in a box designed to look identical to the 32 ounce box next to it. Divide the price by the number of ounces, however, and you'd discover the "sale" item actually cost several cents more per ounce.
I believe people either have forgotten about unit pricing or have never learned how to use it. Couple that with the almost universal assumption that the larger the package, the lower the unit cost, and it appears companies are again taking advantage of consumers.
Last night I ran out to buy cat litter. I usually get the largest container I can, since our inside feline apparently has the digestive system characteristics of a zebra-noshing wild cat from the Serengeti. Out of habit, I looked at the unit cost of the big containers positioned at eye level- 2.9 cents per ounce- then glanced down at the smaller containers on the shelves near the floor- 2.3 cents per ounce.
Curious, I looked at a number of other items and was surprised to find that about a third of the time, the unit price of the smaller package of an item was actually cheaper than the "large economy" version.
I suspect this isn't unique to the Pittsburgh market. Companies are taking advantage of shoppers' mathematical illiteracy and lack of shopping skills.
Keep your eyes open the next time you're in the supermarket, and do the comparisons yourself. I think you may be surprised at what you find.
Categories: Cats, Consumerism, Economy, Food, History, Laws, Ralph Nader, Things That Make You Wonder, WTF?
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(via www.ratemyfunnypictures.com)
Categories: Animals, Dogs, Photo of the day, WTF?
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Noted condescending conservative pinhead Bill O'Reilly criticized Jon Stewart of The Daily Show for claiming Fox News calls people Nazis.
Stewart again nails the faux news channel to the wall.
Don't those Fox News people realize The Daily Show has researchers who actually hold on to the tapes?
Categories: Bill O'Reilly, Conservatives, Daily Show, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Goebbels, Hitler, Huffington Post, Hypocrisy, Jon Stewart, Megyn Kelly, Nazis, Richard Socarides, Roger Ailes, Steve Cohen, Video, WTF?
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Jon Stewart's crack Daily Show research staff again exposes the fetid swamp of steaming hypocrisy that is Fox News.
"That's like Charlie Sheen showing up at your intervention to tell you to take it down a notch."
Categories: Bernie Goldberg, Bill O'Reilly, Charlie Sheen, Conservatives, Daily Show, Fox and Friends, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Goebbels, Greta Van Susteren, Gretchen Carlson, Gunther, The News Pigeon, Healthcare, Hitler, Holocaust, Hypocrisy, Jon Stewart, Juan Williams, Karl Rove, Keith Olbermann, Mary Katharine Ham, Megyn Kelly, moveon.org, MSNBC, Nazis, NPR, Progressives, Richard Socarides, Roger Ailes, Sean Hannity, Steve Cohen, Steve Doocy, Tammy Bruce, townhall.com, Video, WTF?
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An Englishman is being shown around a Scottish hospital.
At the end of his visit, he is shown into a ward with a
number of patients who show no obvious signs of injury. He
goes to examine the first man he sees, and the man
proclaims: "Fair fa' yer honest, sonsie face, Great
chieftain e' the puddin' race! Aboon them a' ye tak your
place, painch tripe or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
as lang's my arm." The Englishman, somewhat taken aback,
goes to the next patient, and immediately the patient
launches into: "Some hae meat, and canna eat, And some wad
eat that want it, But we hae meat and we can eat, And sae
the Lord be thankit." This continues with the next patient:
"Wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in
thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi bickering
brattle. I wad be laith to run and chase thee, Wi murdering
prattle!" "Well," the Englishman mutters to his Scottish
colleague, "I see you saved the psychiatric ward for the
last." "Nay, nay," the Scottish doctor corrected him, "this
is the Serious Burns unit."
(via Rampant Scotland
Today's birthday: Robert Burns (January 25 1759 – July 21 1796)
Categories: Robert Burns, Scotland, Who writes this stuff?, WTF?
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...but it does have a charm all its own.
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(via Rafal Sulejman on Facebook)
Categories: Family Feud, Questions for the Ages, Steve Harvey, TV, WTF?, YouTube
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In this clip, Aasif Mandvi of The Daily Show, demonstrates what the show does best: bringing truth- and stupidity- to power.
Categories: Aasif Mandvi, Childhood Obesity, Daily Show, Eric Mar, Government, Happy Meals, Jon Stewart, Laws, McDonalds, Nanny State, San Francisco, Video, WTF?
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Mythbuster Adam Savage proves the "T" in TSA is theater, not security.
Adam uses some NSFW language, but it's more than justified.
Categories: Airport security, Mythbusters, TSA, Video, WTF?, YouTube
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Ok, to be totally honest, I never have bought into the widespread anti-French sentiment that sweeps the US from time to time. I'm not particularly fond of them either, but if it weren't for France, the United States would have never won the Revolutionary War.
That said, the froggy little bastards have gone too far. They're now stealing American intellectual property:
The show is called "Ce soir avec Arthur" (Tonight with Arthur) and shamelessly rips off elements of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Ferguson's show is unique in the late night talk show genre. Copying the generic American talk show is one thing; stealing Ferguson's ineffable format is just plain despicable. They even have the audacity to post their crap on YouTube.
While CBS airs Ferguson's program, the show is owned by Worldwide Pants, David Letterman's production company. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Dave gets medieval on their ass.
-----
"You are an idiot. That was not a copy. It was... an homage."
So instead of calling the lawyers, Ferguson flies Arthur to LA and confronts him personally, with unexpected results. And then dedicates two more segments of the show to his homage buddy.
Categories: Craig Ferguson, David Letterman, French, Late Night TV, WTF?, YouTube
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I received four unsolicited, un-ordered issues of Golf Digest(?!) in the mail last week.
By Grabthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Warvan, I shall be avenged.
Categories: WTF?
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If you should to see this happening at an airport, don't stand mute and permit the seemingly never-ending assault on our rights to continue. Do what I plan to do. While in a location where it would take a few seconds for a TSA agent to reach you, drop your pants, whip off your shirt and undergarments, and scream "I'm an American guaranteed Fourth Amendment Rights by our Constitution, and I'm Opting Out." While this might not be an approach that's equally effective for everyone, believe me: I will be noticed.
I should note that to this point I've never challenged any demands made of me by airport security, regardless of their absurdity and intrinsic worthlessness as effective security measures. I've been questioned, asked to remove items from my baggage, wanded, and body scanned by the generally polite TSA folk without incident.
But what TSA is doing now is reprehensible. These scare tactics of overkill, and the blatant, willful disregard of our basic rights as citizens, are profoundly wrong and should not be tolerated by anyone who considers himself and American.
To quote actor and former National Rifle Association president, the late Charleton Heston:
"Well, the answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people."
"You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely."
"But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey the social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom."
There is something fundamentally wrong in a society that allows people to carry concealed weapons into Starbucks but harasses attractive young women and grandmas in wheelchairs just because they make perfect participants in the theater of the absurd that TSA calls "security."
In the mid to late 90s, the Internal Revenue Service was the object of Congressional hearings when the agency engaged in egregious and reprehensible activities "for the greater good." Congress stopped the IRS' Gestapo-like tactics in short order after they were exposed. It's time for them to do it again. Stop this insult to our rights and our basic dignity. Now.
Write the President. Write your Senator and Congressman. If you or a friend are insulted or assaulted by TSA and/or local police at the airport, do what we Americans do best: bitch, at the top of your lungs, to everyone and anyone in authority. Make a scene. Get as many witnesses as possible. Get as much information as possible and contact the American Civil Liberties Union.
Don't interfere or disrupt normal screening processes. But if TSA decides to make you the star of their little security pageant, by God, make the performance a memorable one.
This is America, folks. Our service men and women are making supreme sacrifices overseas to guarantee our freedom. Let's do our part by defending the Constitution here at home as well.
Categories: 9/11, ACLU, Airport security, Charlton Heston, Civil Rights, Fourth Amendment, Freedom, Government, Hypocrisy, In the news, KGB Opinion, Travel, TSA, U.S. Constitution, WTF?, YouTube
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We need to send a message to Washington. This November, I want everyone who believes in basic human rights to touch themselves in the voting booth. I want to say this to Christine O'Donnell and her followers: you'll take away this penis when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
-Jimmy Kimmel
Categories: Christine O'Donnell, Civil Rights, Conservatives, Indecision 2010, In the news, Jimmy Kimmel, Late Night TV, Masturbation, Quotes of the day, Republicans, Teabaggers, Tea Party, WTF?
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As Debbie Speer points out on the ABC World News Now discussion group, "The New York Post's infamous 'Headless Body In Topless Bar' may have some serious competition with 'Butts Arrested In Boob Murder Case.' Just sayin'"
Categories: Headline of the day, In the news, Media and Advertising, WTF?
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It's time for musical theater patrons to tell producers the relentless downsizing of show orchestras must end.
The Broadway production of "The Phantom of the Opera" has 27 musicians. During its 2006 pass through Pittsburgh, the touring company had only 15 in the pit. The current production has a mere 13; 10, if you exclude the three synthesizer keyboards. There's something fundamentally wrong when the ensemble of the most successful musical in Broadway history is identical in size to The Tonight Show Band.
The show's score no longer soars majestically from the pit. It's now a homogenized emission from the theater's sound system. The diminutive acoustic levels of the emasculated "orchestra" must be augmented with the synthesized output, then processed, equalized, compressed and amplified. The end result is devoid of vibrance and dynamic range. It's like listening to an iPod on steroids.
Producers say they must reduce costs to keep a show going, especially one heavy with physical effects and costumes such as "Phantom." I can deal with a scaled-down chandelier, but eliminating the music from a musical? That makes about as much sense as cutting the overhead for "Romeo and Juliet" by ditching the unstable emo girl for an animatronic replacement with pre-recorded dialogue triggered by an infrared transmitter in Romeo's codpiece.
Roughly $3 of my $70 ticket goes to funding the orchestra. Once you reach those pricing levels, what's another five bucks to maintain the integrity of the work as it was originally performed?
The argument that the average theatergoer can't tell the difference is irrelevant and disingenuous. The average person also can't distinguish between fresh and reconstituted orange juice, but when I go out of my way to visit an orange grove, I don't want to be handed a can of Minute Maid and be told "it's just as good as the real thing."
It's a Broadway musical? I want to hear it the way it was performed on Broadway. The next time a show with an anemic, overly synthesized pit comes to town, I'll just stay at home and listen to the cast album.
Categories: Broadway, KGB Opinion, Music, Phantom of the Opera, WTF?
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August 28, 1963
"I am happy to join with you today, in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
"But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
"In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
"It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
"But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
"We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
"And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
"Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
"I have a dream today.
"I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
"I have a dream today.
"I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
"This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
"This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
"And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
"Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
"Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
"But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
"Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
"Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Categories: Civil Rights, Classic, Daily Show, Freedom, Glenn Beck, History, Hypocrisy, I have a dream..., Jon Stewart, Martin Luther King, Jr., Video, WTF?
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I had a small get-together last weekend, and decided to buy one of those pre-cooked shrimp rings at Giant Eagle. You know, one of those tasteful arrangements of deceased shellfish that resembles a SpongeBob Christmas wreath.
The shrimp were frozen solid and I only had a couple hours to thaw them out. I looked at the package label for direction, and it read:
"Do not thaw at room temperature. Do not thaw in microwave".
Wouldn't it be a bit more helpful to tell me how to thaw it, rather than how not to do it?
If they're going to take that bass-ackwards approach, they should at least try to be a bit more comprehensive. For example:
A quick internet search revealed the recommended method of
defrosting frozen shrimp is to place it in the refrigerator or run it
under cold water. The danger of thawing at room temperature is that as
the surface temperature of the shrimp increases, nasty bacteria can
multiply. Nuking in the microwave would probably kill all the bacteria,
but mess up the shrimp's texture.
As a friend noted, the store's primary concern is not enhancing my shrimp comsumption experience, but rather to prevent the filing of food poisoning and rubbery shrimp-induced lawsuits.
And what is this "run under cold water" business? One assumes they're talking about the cold water tap of the kitchen sink, but it's August here in the northern temperate zone, and while the water temperature is lower than the kitchen's air temperature, it is the same as the temperature in my cellar which is, technically, a room. Which means the cold water is actually room temperature. As the great philosopher Steven Wright noted, "The temperature in any room is room temperature."
Whatever. I thawed them using the not-connected-to-the-water-heater tap of the kitchen sink and placed them on the table, where they were slowly consumed over the course of three hours.
We all survived, an indication of the efficiency and effectiveness of the human digestive and immune systems. Not to mention the secondary antiseptic qualities of vodka-enhanced cocktail sauce.
Tangentially related useless trivia:
For future reference, the
eleven official shrimp sizes are:
At times like this, I really miss George Carlin.
Categories: Consumerism, Food, KGB Family, Lawsuits, Shellfish, Stupidity, Things That Make You Wonder, WTF?
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"Fox (News) tells us the terrible thing about this Kingdom Foundation... it's a very bad guy, but they never mention this fella's name. And they never showed this fella's picture. And they certainly never mentioned the fella they're talking about is part owner- of their company! Did the gang at Fox and Friends genuinely not know the head of the Kingdom Foundation's name and the fact that he is one of their part owners, or were they purposely covering it up because it did not help their fear-driven narrative?"-Jon Stewart
"If they're not as stupid as I believe them to be, they are really ******* evil."
"And if they're not as evil as I think they are, they are stupid."
"We're talking potatoes with mouths."
Categories: Al-Waleed bin Talal, Church and State, Daily Show, Evil, First Amendment, Fox News, Ground Zero, Hypocrisy, Imam Rauf, In the news, Jon Stewart, Kingdom Foundation, News Corporation, Politics, Religion, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Rupert Murdoch, Stupidity, Video, Wahhabists, WTF?
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Sierra plane crash victims died doing what they loved
Screaming in terror?
Categories: Headline of the day, Media and Advertising, WTF?
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(Photo: spaceweather.com)
(from the New York Times)
by Lawrence J. Joseph
Despite warnings that New Orleans was unprepared for a severe hit by a hurricane, America was blindsided by Hurricane Katrina, a once-in-a-lifetime storm that made landfall five years ago this month. We are similarly unready for another potential natural disaster: solar storms, bursts of gas on the sun’s surface that release tremendous energy pulses.
Occasionally, a large solar storm can rain energy down on the earth, overpowering electrical grids. About once a century, a giant pulse can knock out worldwide power systems for months or even years. It’s been 90 years since the last super storm, but scientists say we are on the verge of another period of high solar activity.
This isn’t science fiction. Though less frequent than large hurricanes, significant storms have hit earth several times over the last 150 years, most notably in 1859 and 1921. Those occurred before the development of the modern power grid; recovering from a storm that size today would cost up to $2 trillion a year for several years.
Storms don’t have to be big to do damage. In March 1989 two smaller solar blasts shut down most of the grid in Quebec, leaving millions of customers without power for nine hours. Another storm, in 2003, caused a blackout in Sweden and fried 14 high-voltage transformers in South Africa.
The South African experience was particularly telling — the storm was relatively weak, but by damaging transformers it put parts of the country off-line for months. That’s because high-voltage transformers, which handle enormous amounts of electricity, are the most sensitive part of a grid; a strong electromagnetic pulse can easily fuse their copper wiring, damaging them beyond repair.
Even worse, transformers are hard to replace. They weigh up to 100 tons, so they can’t be easily moved from the factories in Europe and Asia where most of them are made; right now, there’s already a three-year waiting list for new ones.
Without aggressive preparation, we run the risk of a disaster magnitudes greater than Hurricane Katrina. Little or no electricity means little or no telecommunications, refrigeration, clean water or fuel. Basic law enforcement and national security could be compromised.
Fortunately, there are several defenses against solar storms. The most important are grid-level surge suppressors, which are essentially giant versions of the devices we use at home to protect computers. There are some 5,000 vulnerable transformers in North America; at $50,000 for each suppressor, we could protect the grid for about $250 million.
Earlier this year the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow the White House to require utilities to put grid-protection measures in place, then recoup the costs from customers. Unfortunately, the companion bill in the Senate contains no such provision.
It’s not a lost cause, though; lawmakers can still insert the grid-protection language during conference. If they don’t, there could be trouble soon: the next period of heavy solar activity will be in late 2012. Having gone unprepared for one recent natural disaster, we would make a grave mistake not to get ready for the next.
(Remember the power outages from last winter's major storm? Multiply that by a factor of ten. If you need me, I'll be in a fetal position under my desk.)
Categories: Environment, New York Times, Science, Signs of the Apocalypse, Space, Technology, The Future, WTF?
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...without the poster in the background...
Categories: Photo of the day, Snrk, Tattoos, WTF?
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