GOD BLESS YOU, GERARD

God bless you.

Shock Absorber Bras - an interactive site that lets you compare bouncing breasts.

I CALLED IT

From 2005:

Which brings up the question: What does Earth have that couldn't be created better, faster, and cheaper closer to the aliens' homeworld?

I don't think it would be anything physical. If their technology is sufficiently advanced to create jumpgates, surely it's advanced enough to construct whatever material they want, sub-atomic-particle by sub-atomic-particle.

So if they don't want our stuff, what DO they want?

Our stories.

TV, movies, books, maybe even our blogs.

Now, via Fox:

Pierre Schwob, author and creator of the classical music repository ClassicalArchives.com, suggested that a piece like Bach's "Goldberg Variations," which is built on mathematical patterns, might be particularly accessible to extraterrestrials.

"If anything I would think, yes, any civilization whatsoever would gather that this is extraordinarily beautiful," Schwob said. "But we really don't have any idea what would be appreciated by an alien civilization."
[...]
As for visual art, comic book artist Paul Duffield suggested showing extraterrestrials examples of Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

"The richly three-dimensional, almost photographic representation could be more easily interpretable," he said. "And it's very expressive."

Not our stuff, but the expressions of our minds.

I feel vindicated now.

AMERICA HAS IT COMING

From Dina Temple-Raston at NPR. Remember, this shit-weasel gets paid with your tax dollars:

Experts worry the controversy surrounding an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing right into the hands of radical extremists.
[...]
"It is their sense that by doing this that Americans are going to alienate American Muslims to the point where even relatively moderate Muslims are going to be pushed into joining extremist movements like al-Qaida. They couldn't be happier."

So... if we object to Muslims pissing on the graves of 3000 innocent Americans, we're encouraging terrorism.

Just out of curiosity, Dina, is there ANYTHING Americans can do that DOESN'T encourage terrorism?

Besides cut our own fucking heads off to save the ragheads the bother, I mean.

THE ONE THE CMA OVERLOOKED

Country music is stupid and boring.

However, this one I like, even though it doesn't veer an inch from the standard template upon which every popular country music song is written.

Must be the lyrics.

There's some backstory to this song over at Hot Air, if you're curious, but meanwhile, just enjoy it. It's catchy (in a good way, not in a painfully-stuck-in-your-head "Llama Song" way:

[YouTube direct link]

JOE BIDEN: MEGADOUCHE

I just feel the need to address this:

Biden said tax cuts are better given to people "who are going to go out and spend it. They're going to come in and buy a pizza,

From who? Some asshole who doesn't deserve a tax cut.

they're going to go buy a car,

From who? Some asshole who doesn't deserve a tax cut.

they're going to pay their electric bill,

Who produces the electricity? Some asshole who doesn't deserve a tax cut.

they're going to make a payment to send their kid to school,

Which school? A private one run by some asshole who doesn't deserve a tax cut.

they're going to buy school clothes.

From who? Some asshole who doesn't deserve a tax cut.

They're the people who need the money."

That's right, tax cuts are for people who spend money, not the assholes who earn it.

Go fuck yourself, Joe.

NOT SURE WHY I LIKE THIS ONE

Nothing Kanye West has ever done falls particularly short of annoying, yet - through circumstances beyond my control - I've been forced to listen to his "Golddigger" song in it's entirety on more than one occasion. You know how it is with office radios.

Also, I'm not Jewish. Everything I know about God's chosen people I learned from watching "The Nanny" (Another one of those "beyond my control" things - I'm blaming Beloved Wife this time).

Still, I need neither be a rap afficianado nor a Hebrew to appreciate that this is how the excremental movie "Pay It Forward" should've ended:

[YouTube direct link]

[Hat tip: HuffPo]

FOR THE RECORD

I oppose the slashing of ANY cabbie for ANY reason.

Unless he bitches about his tip.

ZONED OUT

From my Sean Hannity newsletter (emphasis mine):

Dan from Washington D.C. asked, "What is the legal precedent that doesn't allow the construction of a mosque." "This is zoning law, it's done in every city across America, do you know why there's no Wal-Mart in Manhattan," asked Simone, "The city planning board didn't allow them to." It's true there are many who want to politicize this but the truth is, as the families of the 9-11 victims can attest, this is about common sense and a reiteration of why we have zoning laws in the first place. Zoning laws exist to reflect the sentiments of the community and it's clear the community doesn't want this mosque on the Ground Zero site.

No, the purpose of zoning laws is to minimize nuisance lawsuits between people owning adjacent properties by grouping similar land-usages.

Although this local power is not without it's abuses by local petty tyrants and shake-down artists, it does serve a legitimate purpose in protecting property values.

Really, this whole mosque thing is not within the purview of government power to control. It belongs in the sphere of influence controlled by local residents. Their only avenue is persuasion.

Note I didn't say "friendly persuasion".

ON THE JET-BLUE DOUCHEBAG

Apparently, some people consider him a "hero".

I assume some other folks consider him a cancer on society.

Like his fellow JetBlue flight attendants, who had to bust ass all day because he left them short-handed.

Or the poor guy who had to re-pack the emergency escape slide back into the plane.

Or the customers he verbally abused - sure hope none of them had little kiddies along that they had to explain his expletives to.

Look, bad day at work, I get it.

Solution - go into the can, cry, hit something, cuss (quietly), splash some water on your face, take a deep breath, slap on the most sincere smile you can muster, go back out, and do your fucking job.

Then quit at the end of the day. Quietly.

The truth of the matter is that, while front-line customer service jobs are fairly easy to get and don't necessarily pay a lot, they DO require a particular skill set. If you don't possess that skill set, do yourself and the world a favor and find a nice, isolated, janitorial or night-watchman position somewhere.

I was a bank teller for 7 years. I sucked at it, and I hated it. I'm just not a people person. I'm working as a web site manager now. No face-to-face required. I'm blissfully happy.

Blogson Johnny-Oh used to work at Wal-Mart. He's not a people person. Traded up to installing elevators. Blissfully happy.

Blogdaughter Tammi. VERY much a people person. Does a people person job. She's blissfully happy and has never slid down an emergency slide.

Dirty Harry said it best: "A man's got to know his limitations". Steven Slater *did*, but he never admitted them. Then when he failed, he took his failure out on innocent bystanders instead of acting like a man and walking away with dignity.

I hope that stupid fuckstick ends up living and dying in a cardboard box in a gutter somewhere without ever damaging another honest company's reputation for quality customer service.

BOOKMARK THIS

Handiest link ever.

This site lets you to take any YouTube video, and adjust the link so that it starts at a particular point, thus allowing you to skip over the boring introductory parts.

You just need the link and the time you want it to start.

Very handy.

For example, with this video.

Now you won't be wishing you had that first 20 seconds of you life back, like I did.

Oh, and to fix the embed code, just add ;start=20 to the very end of the URL in both places where it appears in the embed code. (NOTE: 20 is an example number. Use the number of seconds into the video where you want it to start)

More discussion over here, but they seem to have mistaken ";" for "&" for some reason when they discuss the code.

IS IT JUST ME?

Every time I hear someone refer to "the N word", I immediately have flashbacks to the grade-school playground, when 6-year-old girls overhearing obscenities would gleefully tattle to one of the adults on playground-watch, e.g. "Bobby just said the S word!"

Really, people, unless you've yet to reach puberty, it's fairly undignified to identify foul language by its first letter.

On the other hand, nothing is more hilarious than when someone tries to use the euphemism, fucks it all up, and ends up saying the word:

CALLER: I can't believe someone like you is on the radio spewing out the "nigger" word, and I hope everybody heard it.

Well, lady, everyone just heard YOU spew it.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

IT'S A TRAP!

Obama had this to say about the Ground Zero mosque:

Speaking to a gathering at the White House Friday evening to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Obama said that he believes "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country."

"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he said. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."

What sickens me about the whole thing is that Obama is technically right. The 1st Amendment applies, they own the property, and zoning laws allow it. They're not doing anything "illegal".

But at the very least, Obama should've kept his mouth shut on the topic and stuck with the "it's a local matter" postion that Gibbs tossed out a couple weeks ago.

If abortion is "above his pay grade", then he could certainly claim with legitimacy that one single building among thousands, in one city among hundreds, in one state among fifty is BELOW his pay grade.

Obama aside, I don't like where this is going. The only legal way to stop the thing is for some group to raise the money to buy the property. But of course, the Muslims aren't willing to sell.

There's a slim hope that no non-Muslim construction crew would agree to build the thing, but I can't imagine job-hungry construction workers showing that much solidarity. Even if they do, there's probably a Muslim construction crew somewhere with the skills to do the work.

Once they start construction, though, someone will burn it down or blow it up, because it's too much of an insult to ignore. Then the MSM (and the President) will use it as an excuse to brand Tea Partiers as domestic terrorists. Even if nobody from the Tea Party was involved, someone, somewhere, associated with the Tea Party - however tangentially - will say something tacitly approving the act on camera, and that will be the endless-loop smear played over and over on every liberal network.

At this point, I just feel nauseated and apprehensive, because I don't see any way out.

BECKER, YOU'RE A MORON

This AP story about a tweet that linked to a "racist" blog... it's all bullshit.

Pompeo, who is running for Kansas' 4th Congressional District, said a staffer, who he declined to identify other than saying it was the campaign's communications director, posted the link to the wrong Google alert on Wednesday before the campaign realized the mistake and removed it an hour later.
[...]
The offending tweet told Pompeo's followers, "Here's a good read," and linked to a blog of retired Gunnery Sgt. Bob Pinkstaff in which he refers to the president as an "evil muslim communist USURPER" and Goyle as a term clearly meant to be dergatory toward people of Indian descent that uses the word turban.

The issue garnered a lot of attention Thursday after Goyle's campaign sent out a press release accusing Pompeo's campaign of making "a conscientious and tactical decision" to find the blog, create a smaller "url" link and post it on their campaign social media.

Goyle's spokesman, Robert Becker, confirmed Pompeo personally apologized and said Goyle accepted the apology. But he also pointed out that it takes a certain technical knowledge to shrink a Web address and post it on Twitter.

"It looks to us like it was intentional," Becker said

Here's the deal. My day job includes working with Google Alerts, URL shorteners, and Twitter. Here's my guess on how it went down for the "staffer".

Boss forwards a automatically-generated Google Alert email, (probably one using the term "Goyle"), which contains numerous headlines & excerpts. Either the Boss said "Tweet this" without saying which story he meant, and the staffer guessed wrong, or the staffer accidentally copied the wrong link from either above or below the target story.

Now for the "certain technical knowledge" part. Get ready, this is SOOO fucking complicated.

1) Copy link from email

2) Click bookmarked link to Bit.ly

3) Paste link into "Shorten" box

4) Click "Shorten"

5) Click the "click to copy" button

6) Write a Twitter post, and paste it in.

So, according to Goyle's scramble-brained technophobe mouthpiece, clicking, copying, and pasting constitute "technical knowledge".

Maybe Goyle should replace him with someone who doesn't habitually describe a mouse as "the scary magical clicky-ball".

And speaking of people who don't know how to do a job correctly, kudos to the cowering, spineless, knock-kneed reporter who wrote: "a term clearly meant to be dergatory toward people of Indian descent that uses the word turban" instead of "turban topper".

Your Nobel Political Correctness Prize is in the mail.

Anyway, my point is that the staffer didn't need to read the whole article in order to point to it in a Tweet.

So Goyle, his staff, and the perpetually-offended left that's currently making a blustery, tear-soaked fuss over this are cordially invited to shove their faux-indignation straight up their collective asses.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: MADLY IN LOVE WITH HER OWN GRASP OF THE BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS

From the Huffington Post:

It's not Palin's positions people respond to -- it's her use of symbols. Mama grizzlies rearing up to protect their young? That's straight out of Jung's "collective unconscious" -- the term Jung used to describe the part of the unconscious mind that, unlike the personal unconscious, is shared by all human beings, made up of archetypes, or, in Jung's words, "universal images that have existed since the remotest times." Unlike personal experiences, these archetypes are inherited, not acquired. They are "inborn forms... of perception and apprehension," the "deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity."

This is the realm Palin is working in -- I'm sure unintentionally -- and it's why she has connected so deeply with a large segment of the public. In fact, her evocation of mama grizzlies has a particularly resonant history in the collective unconscious. According to the Jungian Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism, "The bear has long fascinated mankind, partly because of its habit of hibernation, which may have served as a model of death and rebirth in human societies."

Arianna just discovered the existence of metaphors! Groundbreaking!

Plus... and this may shock you... good story tellers using vivid, pictoral language are better able to engage and win an audience than people who sound like they're reading dry facts out of a physics textbook.

Bravo, Arianna. Welcome to the wisdom that everyone else in the whole fucking world realized before the age of 10.

THE MAN BE GUNNIN TO KILL A BROTHER

David Axelrod complained that New York's fire department has too many white people in it, and wants to see minority firemen.

I'm not saying Axelrod's a racist, but I find it suspicious that he is encouraging colored folk to engage in a line of work that involves a high probability of injury or death.

Personally, I'd rather see them move into a clean, safe, high-paying work environment, like office management. Then again, I value human life regardless of skin color.