SubscribeThe New York Times makes Sean Hannity whimper like a little girl
I was driving home from work today and decided to listen to Sean Hannity. I was listening to XM Radio and CNN was on yet another commercial break. I noticed immediately at Hannity was quite upset about something. The tone of his voice was even more shrill then normal. It seems there is a new weekly TV show on Fox News entitled “Hannity’s America”. Alessandra Stanley from the New York Times watched the show and then wrote about it.
Sean Hannity didn’t like the article. Go figure.
When I got home, I read the article. I thought Sean Hannity’s reaction to the article was funny. The actual article was hilarious.
Underneath the flag-waving swagger, Mr. Hannity’s show is riddled with leftist subliminal suggestion and degrading, un-American images of violence and pornography. Last Sunday Mr. Hannity toured the Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada and stood over two prostitutes lolling on a bed in skimpy lingerie, their hands placed between their legs, and asked them if they believed in God.
The Bunny Ranch? You have to hand it to him for finding a way of incorporating prostitutes into his show. Who knew that Hannity’s America included prostitutes.
But it’s the sex and violence that suggest that Mr. Hannity harbors a secret plan to undermine American moral fiber. Despite President Bush’s assertion that the execution of Saddam Hussein was botched and disgraceful, Mr. Hannity repeatedly flashes some of the more gruesome video images of the hanging, pictures so ghoulish and unsettling that they could well be the fare for a snuff film.
First Hannity shows prostitutes rolling around a bed, then he shows the Saddam Hussein snuff film. I think to many Republicans, the crappy cell phone video of Saddam getting killed is a form of pornography. That strikes me as being quite off. Most Republicans worship Ronald Reagan and Reagan was really quite fond of old Saddam Hussein. May he not rest in peace.
Sean Hannity is a tool. He wraps himself in the American flag and dishes out disparaging comments about the patriotism of Americans that hold views different then his own. Americans like me. He does this not because it is what he really believes. No, he does it to make a buck.
Hannity’s fake patriotism has made him millions of dollars. He loves to chastise people like Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, and the Dixie Chicks because of their political views. The thing that separates these people (and others like them) from Sean Hannity is that they have never made a buck off their political views. Like he does. In fact the complete opposite is true. They often lose money because of their political opinions.
Just ask the Dixie Chicks.
John Edwards is a fake
Democrat John Edwards talks a lot about his humble beginnings. He likes to talk about there being two Americas. One that’s rich and one that is not. The above is a aerial photo of John Edward’s home. Guess which America he is in?
His recreation building contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room called “John’s Lounge.” Maybe instead of announcing his candidacy for President from the ninth ward in New Orleans, he should have made it from John’s Lounge. That at least would have been honest.
The guy is a fake. He’s a hypocrite. It’s not even as though he actually built his wealth with the sweat of his own brow. It’s not like he invented something innovative or spectacular. He didn’t build anything. He didn’t create anything. He didn’t even amass his wealth the old fashioned way by being born into it. No, he made his millions being a personal injury trial attorney. Two things had to happen for Edwards to make money. A doctor had to make a mistake and a patient had to suffer because of it.
The Edwards empire was built on the misfortune and misery of others.
Now he wants to use the economic misfortune of others to propel his presidential aspirations. Not that this is new. He used this same tactic the last time he tried to be President.
I don’t think some guy with his own personal squash court has any business lecturing anyone that there are two Americas.
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John Kerry says he won’t run for President in 2008
What a coincidence. I already decided I wouldn’t be voting for him in 2008. Once is one time too many as far as I’m concerned. I voted for him in 2006. It’s not something I am proud of.
What choice did I have? Picking between George W. Bush or John Kerry was a lot like picking between drinking a gallon of spoiled milk or drinking something else nasty and foul. Something just as bad as spoiled rotten milk. Maybe a domestic beer or something else that tastes really bad.
Not only did I vote for John Kerry, I even affixed a John Kerry bumper sticker on the rear bumper of my Hyundai Accent. It remained there for three whole days until somebody removed it while I was shopping at Kmart.
That’s what I get for shopping at Kmart.
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California may make spanking infants and toddlers illegal
Democratic California assemblywoman Sally Lieber wants to make it illegal to spank a child three years old or younger. I’ve got to admit that I didn’t even know it was actually legal to spank such a young child.
I’ve never really understood the fascination some parents have with the practice of spanking their kids. It seems barbaric. It seems to me to enforce the idea into a child’s head that it’s ok to use physical violence against people when they make you mad.
The child does something wrong. The parent gets mad at the child for doing something wrong and takes their anger out on said child by whacking their ass with the palm of their hand or device such as a paddle or a belt. Some might see this as a parent teaching their child discipline.
I see it as a parent hitting their child when they make them mad.
I guess I would think differently about it if we lived in a society where it was ok to hit people when they make you mad. When they do something they aren’t supposed to do. To be honest, nothing would make me happier then being able to legally throttle someone when they piss me off. The thing is, I don’t have that particular privilege. Nobody does. The only person you are allowed to hit when they make you mad is your own child. That’s simply wrong.
I guess my opinion on spanking might be a little different if we as a country didn’t have such a rampant problem with child abuse. Far too Americans physically abuse their children. Do all parents that spank their kids also abuse them? No, of course not. I’m not saying that. I do think there is a definite connection between spanking and child abuse.
Conservatives in California are up in arms with assemblywoman Sally Lieber’s anti-toddler spanking bill. Of course they are.
Not all conservatives are against the idea though. Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he may be receptive to just such a law. Schwarzenegger has said that he and wife Maria Shriver do not believe in spanking. Instead of spanking their four children, they have found it much more effective to threaten to take away their children’s play time instead of whacking them.
Imagine that.
First U.S. civilian aircraft equiped with an anti-missile device
A FedEx MD-10 cargo jet equipped with a Northrop Grumman “Guardian” anti-missile system took off from Los Angeles International Airport on a commercial flight Tuesday. This marks the first time a civilian aircraft has been equipped with anti-missile technology.
I found this extremely interesting. I worked on this type of equipment in the Air Force. The B-52 is equipped with a system that is very similar to this one. It was the AN/ALQ-153 Tail Warning System and it was made by Westinghouse which is now owned by Northrop Grumman. It was an automated pulse Doppler radar system that would constantly scan the environment looking for fast moving objects approaching from below and behind. Just where a shoulder launched infrared missile would be approaching the aircraft.
If a missile was ever detected, the AN/ALQ-153 would sound an alarm and alert the aircrew as to which side of the aircraft the missile was approaching. It would also automatically dispense chaff and/or flares if that option was enabled by the EWO (Electronic Warfare Officier).
Unlike the military system, this civilian version will not dispense chaff or flares. It will emit a laser that is designed to disrupt the missile’s seeker head.
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Wal-Mart pharmacist refuses to dispense morning-after pill
Maybe he’s just a big fan of terminating a pregnancy via abortion and doesn’t want to support the oh so powerful birth control industry. Perhaps he is just an idiot and he has no business being a pharmacist. I’m guessing the truth lies somewhere in between.
Brent Beams, the pharmacist, told The Dispatch that he denied the couple’s request for the contraceptive pills because “I do not believe in ending life, and life begins at conception.”
It doesn’t matter what he believes. The woman who asked for the medication has a legal right to the morning-after pill. She has a right to practice birth control. The pharmacist does not have the right to withhold medication from the woman. The pharmacist needs to do his job or he needs to not be a pharmacist anymore.
Maybe he needs to be “promoted” out of the pharmacy and into the Tire and Lube center. Then again, maybe he doesn’t believe in tires needing tread. He might refuse to replace worn out tires for “ethical” reasons.
Did Peter David buy stolen Steve Ditko original comic book art?
One of my favorite online columns to read is over at Comic Book Resources. It's called One Fan's Opinion and it's written by comic book creator and Image Comics publisher Erik Larsen. For a guy known more for his drawing a big green guy with a fin on his head, Erik Larsen writes a good column. He's also not afraid to share his opinion.
This week's column is about original comic book art. In it he mentions something rather interesting:
I got into a fairly heated debate recently with some folks because a somewhat-celebrated writer had let it be known that he's purchased a couple of "Incredible Hulk" pages that Ditko had drawn back in the early '60s at an auction.
I had informed said-writer that the pages had, in all-likelihood, been stolen and he retorted by saying that, "This wasn't obtained at a convention from a dealer named Shifty who had it stashed under his table. It was part of a major art auction that was held at Sotheby's (or Christie's; one of those big auction houses.) I couldn't have bought it under more public circumstances."
To which I replied that, "So…you're saying it's perfectly legal and ethical to knowingly buy stolen goods as long as there are enough people witnessing the transaction?"
I'm pretty sure that's not how the law works.
From the phrase "somewhat-celebrated writer", I inferred that Erik was referring to comic book writer Peter David. Twenty seconds on Google proved that I was correct. The exchange that Erik referred to in his column can be read here.
What's interesting is that Peter seems to think that since he bought the art at either a Sotheby's or Christie's (strangely he cannot remember which), the art has got to be legit. Someone then posted a news story about how stolen art had in fact been sold at Sotheby's before.
Just because art is purchased for auction at Sotheby's or Christie's doesn't make it anymore legit then if you were to buy it on eBay.
Or at a convention from a dealer named Shifty who had it stashed under his table.
China is running out of wives
China will have 30 million more men than women by the year 2020, making it difficult for them to find wives, according to a national report. The reason? China’s one-child policy. Couples want to have a son to ensure that someone will be around to take care of them in their old age. The abortion of female fetuses is widespread in China.
The problem isn’t going to simply go away.
I’m sure Chinese couples eventually will catch on and realize that a female baby would be preferable to a male baby. Since there would be a lot more men then women, their daughter would be able to pick and choose among prospective mates. She would be in a position to choose a husband with the economic ability to care for her parents when they grow too old to work.
The rich guy always gets the chicks.
Wal-Mart pays for advertisements on The Pirate Bay
This is just too funny:
Wal-Mart has placed banner ads on the Pirate Bay, one of the largest sites indexing pirated music and movies via BitTorrent technology and leading tormentor of the Motion Picture Assn. of America.
I guess it makes sense. Sort of. Go to Pirate Bay and search for BitTorrent of The Simpsons or The Sopranos and you might just see a banner ad for either one of these TV shows on DVD at Wal-Mart.
Bush is thinking of sending more troops to Iraq and Suzanne Somers’ mansion burned down
I was watching CNN this morning when I learned that there is yet again another fire raging forth in Malibu. So far, four mansions have been destroyed, including the home of Suzanne Somers.
Because of the Santa Ana winds and the geographical location of the hills surrounding Malibu, mansions along the beach in Malibu are constantly burning down. It’s not the first time a celebrity’s home was destroyed in Malibu and it wont be the last. I think it’s dumb to build a mansion someplace where so many of them have burned to the ground, but what do I know? It’s not like I was smart enough to invent the Thighmaster.
Watching CNN switch gears to the topic of sending more troops to Iraq made me realize that there is a parallel between the two stories. What does Bush sending more troops to Iraq have to do with Suzanne Somers and her home burning down?
Sending more troops to Iraq at this point would be like Suzanne Somers going out tomorrow and buying fire insurance .
For both, it’s too late. The time to send more troops to Iraq would have been at the time of the invasion. Before anarchy and chaos and upheaval were allowed to take root in Iraq. Before the looting and before the sectarian violence.
Now it’s simply too late.
If Suzanne Somers were ever going to buy fire insurance for her Malibu mansion, the time would have been before the fire destroyed her home. For her to now say that she is thinking of buying fire insurance would be ridiculous.
For George Bush to say now he is thinking of sending more troops to Iraq is equally ridiculous. Now it’s simply too late.
It turns out that it wasn’t food poisioning
It turns out that my bout of ill health over the weekend wasn’t food poisoning. Sheri started to feel sick yesterday and she is now going through the very same thing I was going through on Saturday. Since she didn’t eat any Popeyes chicken, that means I wasn’t suffering from food poisoning. Which is good to know I guess. I would hate to think that I couldn’t eat Popeyes chicken anymore. Granted, I never had it before Friday, but it was mighty fine fried chicken. The coleslaw was especially good. It was much better then the coleslaw at KFC.
I do feel bad that I gave my stomach flu to Sheri. At least she has the comfort of knowing that she was right and I was wrong. She didn’t believe I had food poisoning.
Today is the first day I can drink hot coffee. My esophagus or whatever it’s called was so tore up and tender from puking that I couldn’t drink anything hot. How pathetically sad is that? My ancestors went out west in covered wagons and I couldn’t drink hot coffee.
I ate chicken from Popeyes and got a massive case of food poisoning
Though I have no iron clad proof that Popeyes poisoned me, I now that I don’t normally spend Saturdays being so violently ill. How does one prove food poisoning?
Friday night for the first (and last) time in my life, I had a chicken dinner from Popeyes. A couple pieces a chicken, a biscuit, a little tub of coleslaw, and a little tub of mashed potatoes. It actually tasted pretty good. It was a lot like KFC, but not nearly as greasy.
Not only did I spend yesterday puking my guts out, I had a fever of 102 for most of the day. With the fever, I had the accompanying body ache. I took a shower and almost blacked out. I was really feeling rough. That’s putting it lightly. I felt as though I was going to die.
Sheri thinks I just had the flu. I don’t agree. When I get the regular flu, I don’t throw up. I get extremely congested. That didn’t happen this time. My problem was focused squarely on my stomach. I once watched a segment on 20-20 about food poisoning. A doctor being interviewed talking about how there really wasn’t such a thing as the stomach flu. When people had what is commonly referred to as the stomach flu, it was simply bad food. I really think that is what I had.
I feel a lot better today. I was able to eat this morning and I don’t have a fever anymore. I’ve also changed my mind about dying.
UPDATE: It turns out that it wasn’t food poisoning. My apologies to Popeyes.
Asking Muslims to denounce terrorism is like asking Catholics to denounce pedophilia
Here’s a letter I wrote that was published in the local newspaper, the Herald-Mail. It was in response to a letter written by someone who was calling for all Muslims to denounce terrorism. For some reason, it struck a nerve with me. Here is my letter:
I wanted to weigh in with an opinion on the recent letter written by Jack Myers where he called upon Muslims everywhere to denounce suicide terror attacks. Why stop at only calling on Muslims to denounce terrorism? Should be ask all religious people to denounce terrorism?
Muslims believe in the God of Abraham, along with people of the Jewish and the Christian faith. Should everyone that worships the God of Abraham also denounce terrorism? There are over a billion peace loving people in the world that practice Islam. Only a small percentage of that number recognizes or endorses terrorism as a legitimate method of achieving objectives. It is ridiculous and insulting to lump all Muslims in with the terrorists. The reality is that an overwhelming majority of Muslims don’t condone terrorism or even know a terrorist.
Asking Muslims to denounce terrorism is like asking Catholics to denounce pedophilia. Of course the vast majority of Catholics do not condone or endorse pedophilia. Similarly, the vast majority of Muslims do not condone or endorse terrorism. Don’t allow the actions of a small few lead you to make erroneous judgments about a majority.
I don’t know if we will ever win this war on terror. How do you win a war against a technique? I do know that we will not win it by insulting a billion Muslims that don’t support terrorism. It’s giving credibility to the idiotic notion that all Muslims are blood thirsty terrorists that only have children so they can strap bombs on them and turn them into suicide bombers.
It’s like asking Christians to denounce rattlesnake handling.
The ironic thing about my letter to the paper was the title they gave my letter. It’s as though the editor didn’t even read what I wrote.
He entitled it, “All should denounce terrorism“.
Really? Was I saying that everyone should denounce terrorism? That’s not even close to the point I was making.
The reason Wal-Mart is declaring war on single mothers
Yesterday I posted something about how Wal-Mart is changing the way they schedule their employee’s work schedules. Why is Wal-Mart doing this? Is it really to save money on labor as they are claiming?
No. The reason they’re doing this is to purge their employment rolls of single mothers. An internal Wal-Mart memo leaked last year reveals that approximately half of Wal-Mart employees’ children are either uninsured or rely on state-subsidized programs for health care.
States are finally getting fed up with picking up this tab.
Here in Maryland, lawmakers recently enacted a law aimed squarely at Wal-Mart that would have dealt with this problem. That is until a federal judge stepped in and stopped it from taking effect:
A federal judge in July struck down the so-called Wal-Mart bill, aka the Fair Share bill, passed at the beginning of 2006 over Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s veto. The law would have required large employers in Maryland (Wal-Mart was the only company the law would have applied to) to spend at least 8 percent of its payroll on employee health care or contribute the difference to a state health fund.
One sure fire way to decrease the amount of Wal-Mart employee children that are either uninsured or receiving health insurance from state-subsidized health care programs is to simply get rid of those employees. Employees with the children without health insurance. They cannot just simply fire these employees. No, that would be illegal. Instead, they create a work environment that is all but impossible for single mothers to exist in. Such as forcing them to work “flexible” shifts.
It’s only a matter of time before Wal-Mart is forced to finally trickle down some of it’s massive profits to it’s workers so their workers can provide health care for their children.
Wal-Mart declares war on single mothers
Wal-Mart announced today that December sales at stores open at least one year would rise 1.6% instead of the 1% gain it had initially expected. They also announced that they will soon be moving all of their 1.3 million employees over to a new “flexible” scheduling system.
It will force employees to be flexible with what hours they work.
This means that a single woman working for Wal-Mart who must rely on daycare to watch her children will have a much harder time making those arraignments. They will be forced to find daycare providers that are just as flexible as Wal-Mart is forcing them to be.
This will not only adversely effect single mothers. It will throw a monkey wrench into any working family.
Wal-Mart claims to be making this change to it’s scheduling system to cut labor costs. Something I wouldn’t think would be necessary when you consider how much profit Wal-Mart makes. Whatever happened to the trickle down theory? Wal-Mart rakes in massive profits yet still comes up with new ways of paying less money to the American worker.
That’s not the way it is supposed to work. Sales are up. Higher then they expected. They still find a new way of cutting pay to American workers.
Hellboy Animated: Blood & Iron trailer
The trailer for the second animated Hellboy movie.
CNN insinuates that Senator Barack Obama is a terrorist
This is real classy on the part of CNN. I wonder how many times before the 2008 Presidential elections they and the rest of the mainstream corporate media will make gaffs like this. My guess is take the amount of times they played the Howard Dean yell in Iowa and multiply that by 100.
Barack Obama scares the mainstream corporate media. The enthusiasm, charisma, and excitement this man naturally generates is remarkable. People naturally gravitate towards him. In other words, he is the complete opposite of the mainstream corporate media’s favorite for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
I wonder how long it will be until the mainstream corporate media starts referring to Sen. Barack Obama using his middle name.
The U.S. military death toll in Iraq has now reached 3,000
I remember when the death toll in Iraq reached 1,000. The news made a big deal about it. As though 1,000 dead of a senseless war was a lot worse then 999 dead. This from the same AP article over on Yahoo:
A Pentagon report on Iraq said in December the conflict now is more a struggle between Sunni and Shiite armed groups “fighting for religious, political and economic influence,” with the insurgency and foreign terrorist campaigns “a backdrop.”
Sunni versus Shiite is another way of saying Iraqi versus Iraqi. There is a civil war going on in Iraq and American troops are stuck in the middle of it.
The sad thing about all this is that I don’t think the American people really care. Sure, they might put a non-permanent magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of their SUV, but I think the American public is basically disconnected from this war and it’s effects. We are constantly told that those in the military volunteered to be in the military. In a way, they wanted to go to Iraq, right?
Wrong. Just because somebody joined the U.S. military doesn’t mean they elected to throw their life away in some foreign civil war. Most join the military to learn some job skills or to help pay for college. Some join because they simply cannot find a job with good pay or benefits. Some actually join to defend the United States. Few join because they want to go to some oil rich foreign country and overthrow the government.
U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches 3,000 [Yahoo]
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